living with intensity the 12th european congress of psychology istanbul, turkey 04-08 july 2011 dear colleagues, on behalf of the executive committee of turkish psychological association (tpa) and members of the organizing committee it is our pleasure to introduce the xii th european congress of psychology, which will be held in istanbul, turkey from july 4-8, 2011. the conference will be hosted by tpa, under the auspices of efpa, with the idea of bringing researchers together to exchange scientific knowledge and recent studies from various areas of psychology. the conference committee is currently developing a programme that will be an excellent collection of scientific sessions. there will be paper and poster presentations, keynote speeches and panel discussions. it will be an outstanding forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest findings. as the host of the conference, the beautiful city of istanbul is the largest city of turkey. istanbul is both the cultural and the financial center of turkey, along with being one of the largest cities of europe. located on both sides of the bosphorus, istanbul bridges asia and europe. under the magical atmosphere of istanbul the attendees will have the opportunity to share their views and also come together with colleagues from all across europe. over the years, the european congress of psychology has been a major forum for psychologists, so we hope that you will join us, catch up on all theoretical and methodological advances in psychology and enjoy the beauty of the wonderful and inspiring istanbul. future updates about the congress will be announced from the website, and participants will be informed about the acceptance of papers and posters in the following months. we very much hope you will join us for this exciting psychology congress set in istanbul. prof. dr. canan ergi̇n conference chair prof. dr. gonca soygüt past president of tpa dr. nedret öztan president of tpa visit the website for more information http://www.ecp2011.org/ global psypulse2 dear colleagues, it is both a privilege and a pleasure to invite you to participate in the 11th european congress of psychology (ecp2009) oslo, norway 7 – 10 july 2009 a rapidly changing world – challenges for psychology you will meet interesting colleagues, both among speakers and participants, experience a scientific programme representing a wide spectre of psychological fields, and enjoy the opportunity to join workshops and social events with colleagues from across europe. the congress will be hosted by the norwegian psychological association under the auspices of efpa (the european federation of psychological associations). we are proud to present scholars, influential to the entire world of psychology like philip zimbardo and paul costa. of the multitude of other presentations, we mention only a few: ann phoenix on the interconnectedness of personal experiences and process of social change, nigel nicholson has lessons from evolutionary psychology to modern organizations, and david clark about central issues of modern clinical reality and how to increase public access to psychological treatments. beside a general program, covering a multitude of themes within psychological science, the proverb for the congress, "a rapidly changing world challenges for psychology", is also manifested through five different strands: peace, human rights and psychology contemporary changes and diversities in everyday lives teaching psychology organizational psychology tests and testing the ecp2009 will be held at various venues in downtown oslo, namely the oslo congress centre, radisson sas plaza hotel, clarion hotel and royal christiania. some symposia will also take place at the norwegian nobel institute and the nobel peace centre. the opening ceremony will be held at the brand-new norwegian opera house, right on the oslo fjord, and close to the city centre. an exciting cultural program will be presented. for further information, please visit our web site: www.ecp2009.no. see you in oslo, july 2009! tor levin hofgaard an-magritt aanonsen co-president of the ecp2009 co-president of the ecp2009 looking forward to the future at first anniversary andreea enache beatrice popescu ejop founding editors there is a passage in one of coelho’s books which says: “that which happens once, will happen again for sure…”. we do hope that this would also be true for ejop. we have already made one year of constant publishing to happen and we wish this to be only the beginning of a long success story. looking back on our activity, we can find plenty of reasons to rejoice, but also many occasions to envisage ways to embetter what at first looked like an almost impossible project. 2005 was a prolific year for our small team of editors from bucharest. in february we launched europe’s journal of psychology in the city of contrasts, formerly known in the interwar period as “the little paris”. soon after, in may 2005, ejop was gathering a joyful and enthusiastic team of associate editors from top universities from all over europe, the united states and australia. they seemed to like the association with a young journal, opened to new trends in psychology and to scientific challenges. submissions from international contributors have constantly increased as well as the quality of all materials received. our readership has grown substantially ever since our first issue, and this we think to be the effect of both the scientific quality of the articles and the open-source strategy of ejop. we are indeed proud to be one of the very few providers of free psychology information. started as a pro bono project, ejop is seriously intended by its editors to remain this way. the autumn of 2005 has also brought ejop a solid partnership with efpsa (european federation of students’ associations) and, along with it, a stronger commitment to students (graduate and post graduate) that ejop will offer them a credible and hopefully very soon prestigious publishing platform. impressed by the allure of the journal, they expressed their wish to become ejop’s partners in most of their editorial and scientific projects. they also delegated two of their members as permanent collaborators of ejop. we welcomed their enthusiasm and positive energy and offered them a platform for promoting top quality research. www.ejop.org is one of the newest websites in the virtual space devoted to psychology and european issues, targeted to both psychology students and professionals. from its modest origins in february 2005, ejop has evolved into a popular journal that attracts hundreds of visitors daily. if we are to be so hopeful as always, not very late this year the idea of opening an alternative blog to ejop will become reality. initially torn between anxieties and suspicions about what would be desirable to publish and what would not, we decided for a classic formula: always bring to a round table all difficulties that may arise and never leave the room before all differences are solved. editorial choices are growing more and more difficult with the general increase in submissions and the greater expectations of our readers and collaborators. however, there is a trend that we wish to pursue as much as possible: broaden the room for best-quality research and encourage exquisite syntheses of it. hopefully, the years to come will bring ejop’s readers and editors a lot of interesting projects in the area of psychology and many other positive challenges in connected fields. as life itself is a magic and marvelous project to be accomplished, we are opened to any surprises the future will bring us. february 2006 between east and west ejop editors apart from the great pleasure we find in introducing to you this second issue of ejop, we are also in the position of presenting you with a “new” journal; although the name is still the same, the contents and the new format call for a distinction. we would have never expected ejop to grow so fast and to reach maturity so easily, but its development, as surprising as it may seem, has brought along several changes that were specifically intended to adjust it to its new status. thus, what was initially a student project has now turned into a professional one, even though still supported by undergraduate and graduate students, also embracing a new graphic format and a more adequate structure. we are glad to have as members of our scientific committee highly recognized and internationally valued professors and professionals who are active in a very broad area of psychology specializations. the editorial board is also a sharply enlarged team determined to ensure the observance of quality standards of all published material. with these people supporting it, ejop has now reached its international primary vocation and is able to effectively sustain its goals. we also hope that its radical shift of image will bring it closer to your visual expectations as well. we are very well aware of the fact that an electronic journal is far more complex than the simple posting of some written materials on the net. our experience with ejop since its conception has taught us that it takes much more to make a journal than gathering information and pushing it onto the internet stage for whoever might be interested. this is why we tried to keep a fair balance between its intentions in both contents and form. although we strongly feel editorship is a demanding and fulfilling mission, we cannot suppress our concern about being able to bring this endeavor to excellence. while it is true that we also address a general readership that has a special interest in psychology issues, ejop is mainly targeted at the scientific and highly professional community. and, in order to reach this target, it is primarily expected that it fits its standards. we believe this second issue to be a guarantee in this sense. our experience with ejop (not a very long one indeed, but very intense in exchange) has brought down some of the preconceived ideas that we started with: borders can be overcome and there is an authentic need for communication and willingness to engage in dialogue between members of our professional and scientific communities, and also, most importantly, between east and west, the only gate-keeper being the quality and relevance of the messages transmitted. we take this opportunity to thank our collaborators (members of the scientific committee, associate editors and authors – both published and unpublished) for their support, interest and sometimes even hard work that they invested in ejop, thus helping it to become a professional journal that enjoys an international audience. the complex nature of the work already submitted thrills us and makes us think again about individual differences with a curious and non-critical eye. some of our collaborators suggested us to welcome more practitioners’ issues in ejop, due to the fact that professionals working in applied fields of psychology feel they are not appropriately represented by the purely theoretical approach customary in most scientific journals. others have also suggested considering for publishing critical reviews of already submitted work in a form of an essay. there were also proposals to publish striking interviews with political flavor, of great interest for the large public as well as for the academic circles. we have greeted all these wonderful offers and tried to prioritize them by a few criteria: importance, significance to target, innovation power. launching an invitation to a few of our associate reviewers to write an editorial for ejop came as a pleasant surprise for them and we are glad that starting this issue, the editorial column will host excellent pieces of work from our ae’s. in this way our initial goal, that of providing a virtual arena to all our colleagues passionately in love with psychology, comes even closer to its achievement. their views will be shared, thus giving them the opportunity to express the particularities of their professional and/or academic experience and our readers – the opportunity to become aware of different perspectives these people take on various contemporary issues in psychology and the related fields. this issue stands out in yet another way: it hosts an extensive interview with prof. cary cooper, a person who is already becoming the mentor of ejop and who inspires much of its present actions and intentions of future development. steadily devoted to the goal of being neither too academic, nor too professional, yet reasonably both, we thought it would be convenient (definitely not in terms of time or effort comfort) to give you the chance, also by the means of an interview, to get closer to the practice of psychotherapy in the uk – presenting you the reflections, amendments, warnings and recommendations of a sometimes critical, sometimes skeptical, but always subtle and captivating psychotherapist and editor of ipnosis – yvonne bates. we invite you to benefit as much as possible from the information offered in ejop and we hope that you will find in this second issue all the reasons needed to say that you have found good use for your time reading ejop. microsoft word 11. book review sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 172-174 www.ejop.org sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice: a manual for therapists and trainers edited by: catherine butler, amanda o’donovan, elizabeth shaw routledge, 2010 reviewed by vlad glăveanu ejop editor sex and sexuality are undoubtedly fashionable topics in our post-modern (western) culture. they are ubiquitous in mass-media communication, popular culture, and everyday life conversations. “sex sells”. and yet, it might be that because of this intoxication with sexual stories and images that constantly tell us how sex is and should be we lose our own, personal sense, of what sex and sexuality are or should be for us. not only because sex is such a fundamental part of our human nature, but also because we are faced with this “societal” avalanche of beliefs, norms, recommendations, impositions, and interdictions about sex and sexuality, that these topics tend to and need to occupy a central place in clinical and therapeutic practice. and it is in this context that manuals addressing sex and sexuality are a real necessity for therapists, health professionals and the general public at large. moreover, it is not any kind of reading in this area that “would do”. past accounts of sexuality have largely been dominated by a rigid biological framework that managed to harm rather than help, to damage rather than heal, and to foster stereotypical views rather than to encourage an open and considerate discussion of human sexuality. it is for these reasons that a book like “sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice”, edited by catherine butler, amanda o’donovan, and elizabeth shaw, goes beyond being just a manual for therapists and trainers, and constitutes first and foremost an indispensable invitation to look at sex and sexuality though constructionist lenses, to understand them as “historically, regionally and culturally determined” (p. 1), and therefore as changing, dynamic, and meaningful. sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice 173 this book is, in many regards, a myth-buster. it fights against the myths of “normal sex”, of “perfect sex”, of “sexual polarization” among others and, through this, offers therapists and clinicians the essential tools for thinking about sex and sexuality in ways that both help and respect the needs and experiences of their clients. “sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice” is intended to be a valuable resource for health professionals, therapists, clinicians, students and academics in the context of a rather generalised shortage of training for sexual health, sexual behaviour and gender. trainers and educators will find this manual indispensable. filled with practical activities and advice, case studies and exercises, reading lists and a series of further resources, this can easily be the best introductory text for guiding both teaching and learning on the topic of sex and sexuality. be warned though, it is not a clinical manual about illness and disease or a sex therapy manual. written by experienced clinical psychologists working, teaching and researching in the field of sexual health and human sexuality, this manual is informed by a “reflectivepractitioner” model of learning, one that goes beyond simple transmission of information and encourages self-reflection and personal engagement with the reading. this makes the book particularly accessible and logical in its structure and presentation. each chapter starts with a set of clear aims, and, as a whole, the book promises readers to gain: • “a working knowledge of current thinking and models of sex and sexuality; • an increased awareness of personal values around sex and sexuality; • further knowledge about sexuality and sexual practices that may be different from our own; • an increased confidence and the skills to raise issues of sex and sexuality with clients; • structured exercises and ideas to run training programmes about sex and sexuality with other professionals or students; • access to resources and handouts to share with clients or for training purposes” (p. 2). these objectives are achieved with the help of a well-organised set of six chapter, each addressing highly relevant issues about sex, sexuality and their relevance for therapeutic practice. the first two chapters (“sex: body, behaviour and identity” and “talking about sex”) give a good overview of the essential areas covered by the book and offer therapists and clinicians practical ways of talking and thinking about sexuality. the following four chapters take a closer look at particular and relevant topics such as: health, disability and sex (chapter 3), sexual and gender minorities (chapter 4), sex and sexuality across the lifespan (chapter 5), and culture, sex and europe’s journal of psychology 174 sexuality (chapter 5). all these chapter themes are not only immediately relevant but, all the more, came out of research with clinical psychology trainees about their learning needs when it comes to human sexuality and clinical practice. designed primarily for trainers and therapists, this manual uses a professional tone, promotes at all time an open and positive attitude and constantly invites readers to be self-aware and respectful of differences and diversity. the book is firmly grounded in both classic and recent literature, includes the latest research findings and, above all, aims to unveil hidden assumptions (and their implications) behind our theories of sexuality and even behind the terms we use to talk about sex and sexual behaviour. “sex, sexuality and therapeutic practice” is of interest for a wide audience. focusing on the situation in the uk, it also makes reference to the context of other countries. likewise, the book is relevant for practitioners and trainers from different therapy school, from cognitive behavioural and systemic to psychoanalytical. in the end, all therapists are confronted with questions such as those raised in chapter 2: “what makes it difficult to discuss sex and sexuality from the client’s / therapist’s perspective?”, and, most importantly: “how to start talking about sex?” trainers are also spoiled for choice. this foundation training manual offers first-rate training exercises, offers handouts and questionnaires, discusses the stages and aims of the exercises and even suggests typical answers. all these are accompanied by many other resources: quizzes, case-studies, info-boxes, recommended films or internet pages, etc. in the end, here stands perhaps the great value of this book: the fact that, most of the times, authors don’t “give” information but invite readers to build their own conclusions based on increased awareness about the complexities of human sexuality and through sustained self-reflexivity. this is, after all, the core of the constructionist approach the book advocates for. living with intensity europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 395-398 www.ejop.org happiness, growth, and the life cycle richard a. easterlin edited by h. hinte and k.f. zimmermann oxford university press, 2010 reviewed by vlad glăveanu ejop editor social psychology, lse, st clements, houghton st, london, wc2a 2ae; e-mail: v.p.glaveanu@lse.ac.uk life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment samuel johnson (1776) the human being in pursuit of happiness is an ancient philosophical theme, revealing perhaps a perennial truth about us as individuals, as a species, and also about our societies. consumerism, capitalism, globalisation. terms we use to define the economic order in today’s world, or at least a ‘western model’ of it. where does happiness fit into this money-based equation? can wealth or growth make us happy, or, better said, are they sufficient to make us happy? these are all questions situated at the core of richard easterlin’s concerns and reflected in the volume ‘happiness, growth, and the life cycle’ (oxford university press, 2010; edited by h. hinte and k.f. zimmermann). what is important to know about this book from the start is the fact that it addresses a variety of audiences beyond those purely interested in economic science. its approach reflects a social science perspective and, as such, it is of interest for students of many disciplines, and, significantly for us here, for psychologists at large. easterlin’s work represents an exemplary attempt to integrate economic and social psychological knowledge resulting in the enrichment of both. unsurprisingly, the author is considered a founding father of behavioural economics and the economics of happiness. ‘happiness, growth, and the life cycle’ is a book that summarises key findings in these areas and leaves us not only with answers, but also with some important questions to think about. http://www.ejop.org/ happiness, growth, and the life cycle 396 the extensive research programme presented in the volume, bringing together major publications authored by easterlin, and updating them, was born out of a profound personal interest. trained as an economic historian, the author was intrigued for a long time by the question of whether modern economic growth really does bring about an increase in human happiness, as most economists firmly believed. his prestigious work in this field over the last decades has received increasing attention from the scientific community, manifested in a serious of distinguished awards, among them the iza prize in labor economics (2009). his name became associated with several interesting phenomena, such as the ‘easterlin hypothesis’ or the cohort size hypothesis and, most notably, the ‘easterlin paradox’ or the happiness-income paradox. the paradox and its attempted resolution are explored at length in ‘happiness, growth, and the life cycle’. in essence, this paradox refers to a difference between cross-sectional and time series results with regard to the relationship between income and happiness. a consistent set of findings, reflecting a broad geographical and historical range, point to the fact that people with higher income report, on average, higher levels of happiness. however, this relationship is no longer significant over time. explanations for this contradiction are sought by easterlin and his collaborators in the interplay between subjective variables, such as material aspirations, and objective ones, such as level of income. through these, the author manages to go beyond traditional economic models and enlarge them with psychological and social mechanisms. in fact, the book repeatedly challenges deep seated assumptions and biases, starting with the rather artificial distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ date (e.g. income indicators vs. selfreports of well-being). easterlin’s analyses and interpretations move towards a complex picture where gdp measures alone tell us little about people’s lives and their sense of happiness. as the author agrees, so-called ‘objective’ variables (money, family status, etc.) do no help us predict happiness over the life cycle if we have no information about the psychological processing of ‘objective’ conditions. the book is structured in four main parts, an introduction by the editors, several chapters on ‘growth and happiness’, chapters on ‘life cycle happiness’ and finally an epilogue. the introduction and the second section are fundamental in setting the scene. a single glance over the titles reveals the grand questions of the whole book: ‘does economic growth improve the human lot?’, ‘will raising the incomes of all increase the happiness of all?’, etc. interestingly, these questions guide the interrogation of various datasets in order to ‘test’ the theory and accumulate as much and as varied empirical evidence as possible. for instance, chapter 4 ‘lost in transition’ addresses the relationship between wealth and happiness in the context of post-communist, eastern european countries. the third section, concerned with happiness across the lifespan and the differences between genders and between europe’s journal of psychology 397 generations starts with some intriguing facts: while men and women seem to be, on the whole, equally (un)happy, a closer look at different life stages shows that women start life happier than men, but end it less happy. explanations are found again beyond pure economic reasoning in the satisfaction (and safety) derived from partnerships and family life. perhaps the last chapter (chapter 11) from this section is the most fascinating one, promising from the title rather immodestly to ‘explain happiness’ by building a conceptual framework that would reconcile several important empirical findings presented throughout the book. contrasting rather sharply a psychological view of well-being, the ‘setpoint theory’ and its emphasis on hedonic adaptation, with an economic one, revolving strictly around income and an unshakable trust that ‘more is better’, easterlin paves the way towards a ‘better theory of well-being’. this theory is not a classic compromise although it is in the end situated between the two models and their bottom up / top down approaches. the author’s theoretical construction relates aspirations, adaptations and attainment (life circumstances) with a domains view of happiness and under a dynamic conception of the life cycle. its merits are incontestable and, among them, the capacity to bring happiness back to what people have (in ‘plural’, not only in terms of income), what they would like to have and what they think they had and will have. as such, all through the book, essential links are made between economics and psychology. for one, it becomes clear how both disciplines share a number of similar concerns regarding the constructs they use. the case in point is the highly praised and equally contested notion of well-being or that of happiness. specialists from both fields are interested in issues of reliability (is happiness something that varies from day to day, from minute to minute?), of validity (are people capable to assess their level of happiness? are they truthful when they report it?), of standardisation (are reports comparable? are they biased by strong cultural influences?) and presentation (how are questions and answers formulated? what is the order of their presentation?). overarching is a common interest in ‘relative’ factors, in the perceptions or aspirations of people, in the way things are appreciated rather than just the way they ‘are’. this has been for decades the bread and butter of psychologists and interdisciplinary fields like behavioural economics cannot possibly ignore such differences. however, there are perhaps areas over which economists (like richard easterlin) and psychologists would not see eye to eye. somehow problematic for example is the almost interchangeable use of concepts: happiness, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, affect, etc. in the book. using happiness as a proxy for subjective well-being and evaluating it through measures of overall life satisfaction and satisfaction with finances can certainly be disputed. at any rate, the author makes a strong case for this terminological grouping and employs consistent measures in his numerous studies. on the topic of measures, again, readers familiar happiness, growth, and the life cycle 398 with the methodological intricacies of psychological studies will perhaps look suspiciously at gallup poll style evaluations asking people directly to evaluate their ‘overall’ state as either ‘very happy’, ‘fairly happy’ and ‘not very happy’. on the other hand they would appreciate though the large sample sizes these surveys work with. trade-offs such as these are inbuilt in the way social sciences operate. in any case, it is interesting to note other methods mentioned by the author for evaluating subjective well-being, especially the ‘self-anchoring striving scale’, devised by cantril, in which scales are built by participants themselves. in the end, the book makes extensive use of psychological theories and concepts and, most importantly, makes intelligent use of them in ways that potentially broaden their scope for both economists and psychologists. among them: loss aversion, interdependent preferences / social comparison, habit formation / hedonic adaptation, etc. particularly, easterlin used and tested angus campbell’s conceptual framework of happiness and life domains, which to a large extent constitutes the backbone of his own theory. certainly some might argue that other theories of well-being and also of human motivation in general could have been useful for this discussion. maslow’s theory of needs for instance is not mentioned although the conclusions reached here about how easily or not certain needs (financial, social, etc.) are ‘saturated’ has the potential to clarify previously postulated relations between basic and superior forms of motivation. drawing from such a rich theoretical and empirical background, ‘happiness, growth, and the life cycle’ was bound to reach important conclusions. the core ones are certainly thought-provoking in the wake of the recent global financial crisis: economic growth does not lead, in the long term, to an increase in subjective wellbeing; there is an urgency to redirect our focus from economic goods to other domains that enrich our lives, such as work, health and family; the ‘common bias in individual and governmental decision-making’ towards economic gain needs to be redressed, etc. in light of this, the book offers, ultimately, an important wakeup call of a very practical nature, an invitation for us all to rethink our habits, our preferences, our policies. of course, there is equally a strong sense that more research is needed, that greater conceptual clarity is needed and that psychologists, economists and other social scientists should work more frequently together to unpack the mechanisms that shape and change societal and individual norms and the aspirations of people. this highly informative book, written in a clear language and addressed in the end to both specialist and non-specialist audiences, makes a great contribution towards a dynamic and contextual understanding of human well-being in a moment in our collective history when such understandings are not only necessary but also long overdue. paradigm shift in the therapeutic approach: an overview of solution-focused brief therapy beatrice popescu ba psychology, university of bucharest ma cognitive behavioral therapy, titu maiorescu university, bucharest "future is created and negotiated, and not a slave of the past events in a person’s life, therefore, in spite of past traumatic events, a person can negotiate and implement many useful steps that are likely to lead him/her to a more satisfying life." – insoo kim berg http://www.brief-therapy.org i was from the beginning impressed by this new orientation in psychotherapy: solution focused brief therapy. sfbt land is an unusual destination which remained unknown for many years. in more recent years, it has become a very popular destination, with more and more people reaching there, both therapists and clients. as i immediately learned while browsing specialized electronic journals and attending seminars, the trend was new only in our country, quite recently introduced by young psychotherapists bogdan cezar ion, phd and andreea ion, phd under the supervision of experienced psychotherapist irina holdevici, phd. worldwide and especially in milwaukee, where steve de shazer and insoo kim berg at brief therapy center used this approach since early ’80s, sfbt helped many individuals in crisis and most of them managed to change their lives and make break-through discoveries about their own psychological resources. de shazer and kim berg’s approach originally developed to work in brief marriage and family therapy, has been used since early ’80s in a variety of situations for a variety of problems. solution, exceptions, resources and goals, key-terms in sfbt solution-focused brief therapy is an approach to psychotherapy based on solution-building rather than problem-solving. it takes a major departure from the problem-focused orientation in psychotherapy begun by freud and perpetuated by the most fields of therapy. the deepest roots of sft can be traced back to gregory bateson, milton erickson and ludwig wittgenstein. "it explores current resources and future hopes rather than present problems and past causes " (iveson, 2002). this therapeutic approach may involve from three to twenty sessions. developed at the brief family therapy center, milwaukee, by steve de shazer and insoo kim berg, it originated in an interest in the inconsistencies found in problem behaviour. "from this came the central notion of ‘exceptions’: however serious, fixed or chronic the problem, there are always exceptions and these exceptions contain the seeds of the client’s own solution" (iveson, 2002). sfbt claims that all clients have resources and one of the therapist’s tasks is to help the client to discover them. enabling the client to discover his own resources is a rather difficult task since guidance has to be made with subtlety by asking skilful questions. the founders of the milwaukee team were also interested in determining the goals of therapy so that they and their clients would know when it was time to end. they noticed that the clearer a client was about his or her goals the more likely it was that they were achieved. a strong point of solution-focused approach became finding ways to elicit and describe future goals. an efficient therapy across a wide range of problems since its origins in the early 1980′s, solution-focused brief therapy has proved to be an effective intervention across the whole range of problems. some of the early studies show similar results regardless of the presenting problem. the solution focused brief therapy claims to be efficient with all age groups and problems, including behavioural problems at school, child abuse and family breakdown, homelessness, drug use, relationship problems and the more difficult psychiatric problems. there is no claim being made though that the cure for schizophrenia or any other psychiatric condition has been found, but if a man with schizophrenia wants to get back to work or a woman with depression wants to enjoy life then there is a good chance that these goals will be realized (iveson, 2002). in brief, it is a simple all-purpose approach with a growing evidence base to its claim to efficacy. the therapeutic process "as the practice of solution-focused brief therapy has developed, the ‘problem’ began to play a less important part in the therapeutic process, to the extent that it might not even be known" (iveson, 2002). all attention is given instead to developing a picture of the ‘solution’ and discovering the resources to achieve it. a typical first session involves four areas of exploration. the therapist’s task in the first session are: 1. to find out what the person is hoping to achieve from the meeting or the work together, 2. to find out what the small, everyday details of the person’s life would be like if these hopes were realized, 3. to find out what the person is already doing or has done in the past that might contribute to these hopes being realized, 4. to find out what might be different if the person made one very small step towards realizing these hopes. the first session is always the one that allows exploration of hopes of the person seeking help. complimenting the idea of complimenting is not new. it has been used as a reinforcing means in the past in almost all behaviourally-related approaches. it even works in everyday life; it also works in psychological counselling. complimenting the client is not a superfluous gesture; it pinpoints every little success the client is achieving towards the final goal of therapy. it supports the idea of change and allows the client to receive a positive feedback on what he/she has been achieved so far. miracle question or hypothetical solution this is definitely a highly original idea in psychotherapy. "imagine that tonight while you are sleeping something like a miracle occurs. the miracle is that the difficulties and problems that have brought you to therapy today have somehow been resolved. it isn’t until you wake up, that you are aware that the miracle has happened. what is the first thing that tells you that this miracle has happened? what would you be doing, what would you notice that is different, that tells you that the miracle has occurred?" the miracle question has the role of projecting the client into the future, shortcutting the current maladaptive state. by asking the miracle question at the proper time, the therapist tries to suggest the client the idea that the goal may be closer than he expects and most of all, it is achievable. he motivates the client towards the change, making him curious about the future and what might happen next. it is also a powerful means to encourage creative thinking and opens the client’s appetite to explore the preferred future. scaling as in cognitive behaviour therapy, solution focused approach uses scaling in order to identify what is the actual state at the beginning of the therapy, at the same time monitoring the achieved results during the therapy and at the end of it. on a 0 to 10 scale, where 10 equals the achievement of all goals and zero represents the worst possible scenario, the client is invited to identify his or her current position. using this framework, the client and the therapist will be able to define ultimate objectives and the therapist will know what the client is already doing to achieve them and what the next step might be. "if this doesn’t work, try something else!" the therapeutic schema "do something different" was perfected by steve de shazer in 1978 and is effective when a person complains permanently about other person’s behaviour, he/she has done everything possible to solve the situation but still remains trapped in the vicious circle of the negative interaction sentence that seems to be replicated over and over again. (holdevici, 2000). an intervention message addressed to a teenage girl’s parents (de shazer, 1985) could be formulated in these terms: "starting now and up to our next meeting, each of you should behave differently when you see your daughter watching television instead of doing her task, regardless of how strange or inappropriate you find this behaviour". this therapeutic task is non-specific; it may be transferred to a wide variety of situations. its role is to cut the pattern of behaviours that proved to be ineffective up to the present moment and to create new behaviours who may work due to the element of surprise and novelty. research on the effectiveness of the sfbt there was useful research addressing the needs of clinicians, educators, clients, students, theorists, health organizations. mc keel states that research of solution-focused brief therapy concludes that the model is effective and many techniques of the model accomplish their intended purpose. research suggests that sfbt is an effective treatment for a broad range of client problems. de jong and berg (1998) report sfbt accomplished 70% or better success rates for many clinical problems, including depression, suicidal thoughts, sleep problems, eating disorders, parent-child conflict, marital/relationship problems, sexual problems, sexual abuse, family violence, and self-esteem problems. steve de shazer & isebaert (1997) report a 74% success rate for 250 inpatient clients and a 73.5% success rate for 72 outpatient clients with alcohol problems. a study by eakes, walsh, markowski, cain, & swanson (1997) found sfbt successful in treating five clients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. three research studies have examined whether sfbt is effective in group therapy. these studies conclude that sfbt group therapy successfully addresses couples issues, parenting issues and anger reduction. other research studies have found that sfbt is effective in an occupation therapy setting (cockburn, thomas, & cockburn, 1997), in schools (lafountain, garner, & eliason, 1996; littrell, malia, & vanderwood, 1995), in social work agencies (sudman, 1997), and in prisons (lindforss & magnusson, 1997). an interesting pathway for the future solution focused approach is not an universal remedy, neither it claims to be the perfect "solution" for all types of problems, all the time, at every stage in the human development or suitable to everybody. however, what it really claims is a clear focus on the development of a goal and the pursuit in achieving it. it may be successfully used in psychological counselling or therapy, in life coaching and also as a complementary therapy to psychiatric treatment, providing a set of tools useful in supplementing and enhancing therapeutic work. it appears that its elegant simplicity has seduced practitioners worldwide. in uk are now being made efforts to evaluate sfbt in the national health system. there are also established ma programs in counselling psychology worldwide teaching solution focused way among other therapeutic approaches. beyond its limitations, solution focused approach can be used by therapists of all orientations, provided that they have the ability to integrate the psychotherapeutic approaches, in their dedication of helping the client to create a painless and more productive life. more than a crisis intervention, but highly efficient in crisis situations, sfbt looks like an interesting choice in this fast paced era, more and more restrictive in terms of time resources. for persons not willing to spend lengthy periods of their life in therapy but wishing steady results, it may be an inspired choice. biographical note beatrice popescu, ba in psychology, university of bucharest, ma in cognitive behavioral therapy at “titu maiorescu” university, faculty of psychology, romania. member of "brief therapies, study and promotion of change" section of romanian psychological association, also a member of "romanian association of cbt", she is trained in solution focused brief therapy and attended advanced training in rebt psychological counselling with supervision from albert ellis institute, ny http://www.rebt.org/ and babes bolyai university www.psychology.ro. her eclectic academic interests, passion for essay writing and empathetic abilities together with an early interest in consumer psychology compete in picturing her professional profile. beatrice.popescu@ejop.org references de shazer, s. (1985) keys to solution in brief therapy. new york: norton dejong, p. & berg, i. k. (2001, 2e). interviewing for solutions. pacific grove, ca: brooks/cole. holdevici, i. (2000) brief therapies, ed. ceres, bucharest, 159. ion b.c., ion a. (2004) basis of brief collaborative solution-oriented therapies, bucharest. iveson, c. (2002) solution-focused brief therapy. advances in psychiatric treatment, 8, 149-156 mckeel, j. a. (2000), a selected review of research of solution-focused brief therapy. perkins, j.e. (1999) the solution frame: the genius of solution-focused therapy. todd, t. c., & stanton, m. d. (1983). research on marital and family therapy, handbook of family and marital therapy (pp. 91-115). new york: plenum. interview with dr. ulrich von hecker by alexa ispas our interviewee is dr. ulrich von hecker, phd, researcher and lecturer in social psychology at cardiff university. his research interests are in the area of social cognition, in particular the link between cognition and emotion. dr. von hecker studies how social schemata shape the way we perceive groups and social relations around us and involving us, and how social perception is affected by states of dysphoria and depression. he is also interested in power processes in small groups, and in the way we use language in the attributions of interpersonal events. his most recent project is on the neural correlates of generative reasoning in subclinical depression. ejop: your publications cover a great number of research topics – from memory and mental models, to neural correlates of generative reasoning. how have you managed to stay on top of so many different areas? dr. ulrich von hecker: it is true, i like some diversity among the topics i work on. on the other hand, you will also notice that there are links between those areas. i’ve always been interested in basic processes of memory, perception and more complex thinking. but i find it more interesting to look at these things from particular – and changing – angles. actually, i don’t see myself so much as a “specialist” in a certain field, although of course you do need a certain degree of specialisation to do research nowadays. what i like best in my work is to contribute a question, a certain angle of perspective, a methodology, to a bigger question that i tackle together with my collaborators. which partly explains the diversity of topics, since these colleagues come from very different backgrounds in psychology. research that i find enjoyable is mostly a dialogue, and after my phd – which of course had to be a solitary endeavour – this dialogue has been most inspiring to me. ejop: please tell our readers a bit about your research trajectory, and how you have arrived at your current research interests. dr. ulrich von hecker: i started 1984 in hamburg, working with kurt pawlik as his diploma student. he had, at that time, stimulated a whole new branch of neuropsychological research at hamburg university. i was then interested in aphasia, that is, acquired speech disorder by trauma or stroke, and how this disorder affects the representations of different kinds of information in memory, such as verbal vs. non-verbal. i have since then remained interested in the issue of mental representations and their dynamics. as any view, the representational view is not universally accepted, and i do see its shortcomings, but it has nevertheless stimulated some of the metaphors i’ve been using to formulate my own questions. for example, still in hamburg, and later in berlin working with hubert feger, i became interested in the way we construct mental models of our social environment, that is, in what ways patterns of affiliation and interpersonal sentiment are mentally represented. this way, the social psychological angle came in, leading to my phd thesis. i spent a postdoc with hob crockett, mary lee hummert and susan kemper at the university of kansas at lawrence, investigating how social cliques are mentally represented. later, developing this approach further, i started a still ongoing, intense collaboration with grzegorz sedek from warsaw on the construction of complex mental representations in depressed people. we are still working on this, trying to identify more precisely what the nature of cognitive impairments in depression is. again from this, the more general question has arisen in more recent years at cardiff, how different emotions influence the way in which we think, use our memory, or control our attentional resources. currently, we aim at identifying ways in which depressed people might be better able to control their recurring negative ideation. these projects have been extended recently, collaborating with michael conway from montreal, to asking questions about how emotions themselves are represented as mental states, and how their experience and quality changes over time. ejop: while being a successful researcher, you are also a violin virtuoso. is it easy to combine your research career with your passion for music? dr. ulrich von hecker: i wouldn’t say “virtuoso”, really not. but in fact, i do my best to stay on top of my practising every day. i’m not always successful with this, but i do try. at a basic level, these two domains are equally important to me. i strive for a balance such that, i would say, neither of them is really possible without the other. both define a space in which they are mutually necessary. from the perspective of my work in psychology, practising frees up my mind after intense reading or writing or analysing or lecture preparation. from the perspective of my work as a player, doing research helps me to free myself from being stuck with technical problems. quite often i also have better musical ideas after a good bit of scientific work. ejop: a few years ago, you have made the decision to move from germany to the uk. how has this move influenced your career as a researcher? dr. ulrich von hecker: in 2000, having just finished my “habilitation”, the situation in germany was difficult, regarding the availability of academic positions, and things have still not changed very much since then. the overall amount of funding in higher education, as well as the way how funding was allocated, did not particularly encourage early stages of an academic career. at the time, i was on a fixed-term position at potsdam university for another year, and my choice was to wait and see whether i could get a professorial position within that time, or to apply for a permanent position outside germany. i decided for the latter when i heard that cardiff had advertised a couple of positions in early summer 2000. i already knew some people at cardiff, and i also knew it was an excellent department, so i was quite excited about it. so far, i have not regretted this decision a single moment. i have much more resources available for research now, and i do my research in a more independent way than i had been able to do in germany. the way a british department works, with its flat and (mostly) quick decision routes is something i like as a nice contrast to what i was used to. in general, i feel very well supported by the department, and i have good colleagues to talk to, that’s very important for me. ejop: despite being a social psychologist, much of your current work focuses on depression – a subject traditionally related to clinical psychology. have you had any difficulties in showing the potential of investigating depression from a social psychological perspective? dr. ulrich von hecker: many of the complaints made by people in depressed states indeed refer to problems in social cognition. depressed people are less able to maintain contact and communication with other people, they are often demotivated to join social activities, and they are much less creative in finding good solutions to problematic interpersonal situations. they are less open and have more difficulties in taking someone else’s perspective. we do address the depressives’ problems from their cognitive side, as i’ve explained, but the social nature of these problems is important in the first place, to inform the direction that our cognitive investigation should take. it appears that the interplay between motivational and cognitive anomalities in depression brings about some of the social problems associated with it. so, if we want to understand these more complex social problems, we have to understand some of those more “basic” problems concerning attentional processes, memory and thinking in the first place. ejop: recently, you have received a grant to investigate the neural correlates of generative reasoning in subclinical depression. in what way do you think a neurological investigation of subclinical depression can contribute to an understanding of this phenomenon? dr. ulrich von hecker: from my early work at u hamburg on aphasia i am still familiar with the investigation of neural correlates of cognition. but the advancement since then has been such that i simply have to rely on other people’s experience. in fact, we now have a good team of cognitive and social psychologists, and a physicist with a neuroimaging background as well. the question here still centers around the nature of cognitive deficits in depression. our hypothesis is that this deficit rather selectively affects the spontaneous construction of mental models, that is, the spontaneous application of generative, integrative steps of thinking. and we hope we can identify certain brain regions, especially in the prefrontal and parietal cortex, that are particularly involved in the integration of piecemeal information into larger units and impressions. we expect those areas of the brain to be less activated in depressed people as compared to the non-depressed, once they are working on a task that requires such an on-line integration. this work could be helpful in clarifying existing behavioural data which point in the direction of such a highly selective deficit, but for which there still are alternative explanations. ejop: one of your conference papers is entitled ‘the plasticity of emotions’. what do you mean by this metaphor? dr. ulrich von hecker: in large parts of the traditional literature on emotions, and also in the social cognitive literature on the influence of affect on judgments and impression formation, emotions are seen in a uni-dimensional, rather static way. we feel anger, pride, or sadness, and we feel it for a certain time, that’s the general assumption. i do think that the concept of “emotional episodes” that we go through is a useful one. on the other hand, those episodes are very seldom “pure” in the sense of being of one and the same emotion all the time. rather, what we experience is a mix of emotions that may swiftly change from any point in time to the next. we may feel sadness, but mixed with a bit of anger or guilt, and the salience of those components may shift within the same episode. thus, emotions appear malleable, multifaceted, and dynamic in their time course, as any experiences are dynamic, in general. together with michael conway i’ve started to investigate this complexity, or plasticity, if you want. in particular, we are interested in factors that might determine certain types of shifts within emotional episodes. for example, what makes us change our emotion from mainly sadness to mainly anger? we found that some people are prone to make shifts that allow them to re-interpret their feelings as rather anger than sadness, as soon as they perceive a plausible source for anger in the environment. we think that this might have to do with personality variables, such as masculinity, which would drive a person to experience or rather not experience certain types of emotion. this research is very much at its beginning, but i’m already very excited about it. ejop: how do you think can social psychological research contribute to solving social problems? dr. ulrich von hecker: i believe this contribution will always work in a more or less indirect way. obviously, any research that aims at testing theories is bound to do this under certain limitations from the practical point of view, such as conceptual abstractions, controlled conditions in the laboratory, experimental factors acting in isolation and not in full context, and the like. however let me give two examples of recent social psychological research areas in which i see a more immediate link to existing social problems. first, there is a recent development in research on the attitude-behaviour-link, where one tries to show the effectiveness of so-called “intention implementations”. this has a lot to do with attentional control. people are trained in their abilities to link certain cognitive responses and actions to ideas relating to existing strong attitudes, such as beating desires in drug and alcohol contexts, or fast food avoidance in the context of healthy eating. this type of self-persuasion works by making certain desired behaviours more automatic and more likely to occur. another example is recent research on aggressive behaviour as perceived in the media. whereas ten years ago, not much hard data were available to show an influence here, more recent (and more methodologically refined) approaches have managed to more stringently establish the link between prior consumption of media violence and later violent behaviour in young people. i think, the problem with these two examples – and there are others – still is that social psychologists, at least the academic breed, are generally not prepared enough to present and disseminate their findings to the general public. only by means of a wide discussion of those and other findings within society, and that means: among non-psychologists as well!, can we expect them to have any impact. other sciences, such as molecular genetics, or physics, already do a far better job in this regard. many social psychologists still have a professional attitude that they tend to limit themselves too much to “purely scientific” writing. there should be more of us who, for example, would write articles for the science section of the “times”. i think the way to go here is to be more proactive in striking up public discussion and raising a general awareness of the findings. in doing so, we should not be deterred by the consideration that things might turn out “too complex” to communicate. sorry, no excuse. because indeed, this exactly is our remit. our own horizon has to be broad enough to generate a communicable “read thread” that is understandable to everyone, and that addresses the more practical issues. kurt lewin, leon festinger and others have shown how this may work. ejop: what advice would you give to undergraduate and postgraduate students who would like to pursue an academic career? dr. ulrich von hecker: first of all, be realistic about your professional career, and understand the risks. i still grew up in the more traditional german academic environment where you tended to expect that the route to professorship was automatically paved once your phd supervisor had accepted your project. i had to realise, and we all have to realise that this expectation is no longer warranted. competition is very tough indeed. but of course, as this is true in other professional domains on this planet as well, this point should certainly not deter anyone with a clear determination for the field. having made the above caveats, if someone has a clear aim of being a researcher in psychology, i would recommend a couple of things. first, try to maintain as broad a horizon as you can, despite the ever-increasing specialization in every field. indeed, do not specialize too early, and when you do, try again and again to place things and ideas back into a larger context. try to remain independent and playful in your mind. keep the ability to distance yourself, try to sometimes think about your issues in a way as if they were “not all that serious”, if you know what i mean. try to not only read about our immediate topics, but, at least occasionally, topics in all areas of psychology, and if you can, philosophy, biology and other areas. this will hugely improve your judgmental abilities. it will also facilitate your potential future cooperation with colleagues from those other domains, leading to more, and more original, research opportunities. secondly, try to achieve a good methodological expertise. keep abreast with recent developments in formal modelling, statistics and research design. i think it is tremendously important to realise that there is no clear separation between “method” and “content question”. in all substantial research, both are intertwined, and only a good methodological understanding will give you the flexibility to understand how much that is the case. third, try to be an excellent listener. shouting your opinion towards others is by far less important than understanding theirs. train yourself in adopting the attitude “what if this other standpoint was the correct one, and not mine”. this will help shape your next question, and will improve the quality of your discussions with fellow students and colleagues. and one more thing, perhaps the most important: keep up doing other things, contacts and interests than those related to research and science. this will not only help your inner balance, but – maybe magically? – help you doing better research as well! research 2 europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org emotional intelligence and work performance among executives dr.c.p. khokhar professor, department of psychology, gurukul kangri university, haridwar tulika kush research scholar, department of psychology, gurukul kangri university, haridwar abstract preset study explains the performance of executives on different levels of emotional intelligence and provides a link between emotional intelligence and effective work performance. 20 male executives (out of 200) within the age range of 40 to 55yrs. from bhel (haridwar) and thdc (rishikesh) of uttarakhand state (india) were selected. emotional intelligence scale constructed by dhar, hyde and pethe (2001) constructed and standardized on the indian population and work performance rating scale constructed by prof a. p. singh and prof d. m. pestonje (for the indian population) were used to measure emotional intelligence and work performance of executives. t-tests for independent groups were used to measure the mean difference between groups. the findings of the study revealed that executives having higher emotional intelligence show better quality of work performance as compared to their counterparts. key words emotional intelligence, work performance. emotional intelligence is the capacity of an individual to define his own emotions and to become sensitive to those that he perceives from the environment and the circle of people he is interacting with. it may also be that emotional intelligence is the use of knowledge of these emotions to control situations and create plans and decisions based on the perceived emotions. resources would further add that emotional intelligence is part of our personality that dictates us to become more aware of what triggered a specific reaction, both done by the self and people surrounding the "self". emotional intelligence (ei), often measured as an emotional europe’s journal of psychology 2 intelligence quotient (eq), describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, of others, and of groups. as a relatively new area of psychological research, the definition of ei is constantly changing. goleman (1998, p. 317) defines ei as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” martinez (1997, p. 72) “refers to emotional intelligence as being: an array of non-cognitive skills, capabilities and competencies that influence a person’s ability to cope with environmental demands and pressures” (cited in dulewicz and higgs, 2000, p. 342). mayer and cobb, 2000 explain that emotional intelligence consists of these "four branches of mental ability" that is emotional identification, perception and expression, emotional facilitation of thought, emotional understanding and emotional management. the high ei individual, relative to others, is less apt to engage in problem behaviors, and avoids self-destructive, negative behaviors. the high ei person is more likely to have possessions of sentimental attachment around the home and to have more positive social interactions, particularly if the individual scored highly on emotional management. such individuals may also be more adept at describing motivational goals, aims, and missions. (mayer, salovey, & caruso, 2004, p. 210). emotional intelligence is increasingly relevant to organizational development and developing people, because the eq principles provide a new way to understand and assess people's behaviors, management styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and potential. emotional intelligence is an important consideration in human resources planning, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, management development, customer relations and customer service, and more. goleman’s has given an emotional competence framework model. where emotional competence is a learned capability based on emotional intelligence that results in outstanding performance at work. it leads to and based on emotional intelligence, a certain level of emotional intelligence is necessary to learn emotional competencies. for predicting the performance these competencies were needed to identify and measure. emotional intelligence by itself is probably not a strong predictor of job performance instead it provides a foundation for emotional competencies which are strong predictor of job performance. emotional intelligence and work performance 3 our emotional intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills viz. personal skills and social skills. these skills lead to superior performance in field of work which based on the five elements: self-awareness, motivation, self-regulation, empathy, and adeptness in relationships. our emotional competence shows how much of that potential we have translated into on-the-job capabilities." emotional intelligence may contribute to work performance (as reflected in salary, salary increase, and company rank) by enabling people to nurture positive relationships at work, work effectively in teams, and build social capital. work performance often depends on the support, advice, and other resources provided by others (seibert, kraimer & liden, 2001). emotional intelligence may also contribute to work performance by enabling people to regulate their emotions so as to cope effectively with stress, perform well under pressure, and adjust to organizational change. interpersonal facilitation pertains to interpersonally oriented behaviors that contribute to organizational goal accomplishment (van scotter & motowidlo, 1996, p. 526). emotional intelligence may contribute to the quality of people’s relationships at work because emotions serve communicative and social functions, conveying information about thoughts and intentions, and helping to coordinate social encounters (keltner & haidt, 2001). emotion-related abilities should help people choose the best course of action when navigating social encounters. for example, the ability to decode facial expressions of emotion can help one to evaluate how other people respond to one’s words and actions, yielding important information for adjusting one’s behavior (nowicki & duke, 2001). the ability to use emotions to guide thinking can help one to consider both emotions and technical information when evaluating an interpersonal problem. the ability to manage emotions should help individuals experience and express emotions that contribute to favorable social encounters, in part through emotional contagion (hatfield, cacioppo, & rapson, 1994). despite important exceptions (parrott, 1993), people are usually motivated to seek pleasant feelings and avoid unpleasant emotions. the ability to manage emotions can help people nurture positive affect, avoid being overwhelmed by negative affect, and cope with stress (mayer & salovey, 1997). other emotional abilities, such as perceiving and understanding emotions, also contribute indirectly to the quality of emotional experience by helping people to identify and interpret cues that inform self-regulatory action. therefore emotional intelligence should contribute to positive affect and attitudes at work. europe’s journal of psychology 4 a very recent and excellent review of the ei literature (dulewicz and higgs, 2000) demonstrates clearly that ei impacts on work success. work success was defined in this review as advancement in one’s work organization. methods sample – a sample200 male executives within the age range of 40 to 55yrs, having graduation degree in engineering and master’s degree in management, were selected from bhel (haridwar) and thdc (rishikesh) of uttarakhand state (india) on random basis out of which 20 executives ( 10 with high ei and 10 with low ei executives) were selected. mean and sd of the present study sample were 141.87and 12.26 respectively. one unit of sd above and below the mean value set to categorized the executives high and low in ei that were154.12 and 129.61respectively. tools emotional intelligence scale constructed by dhar, hyde and pethe (2001) is in hindi language based on 10 factors having 34 items with reliability of .88 and validity .93 standardized on indian population. it is used to measure the level of emotional intelligence. the items of the scale are directly related to the concept of emotional intelligence. it includes self-awareness, empathy, self motivation, emotional stability, managing relations, integrity, self-development, value-orientation, commitment and altruistic behavior. performance rating scale was constructed and standardized for indian population by a. p. singh and d. m. pestonjee. scale consists of 14 items to be responded at five point rating scale. reliability of the scale is .99 and the validity of the scale is .84 (n=200). results present study reveals that the level of emotional intelligence in executives relates with work performance. emotional intelligence and work performance 5 table-1 mean and sd of high and low emotionally intelligent groups of executives on different dimensions of work performance. s.no. dimensions of work performance groups of exicutives n mean sd t high ei 10 4.6 .5164 1. quality of work performance low ei 10 3.9 .5677 2.884** high ei 10 4.5 .5271 2. amount of effort expended on job. low ei 10 3.8 .6325 2.689* high ei 10 4.6 .5164 3. speed on the job. low ei 10 3.8 .4217 3.795** high ei 10 4.5 .5271 4. quantity of work. low ei 10 3.7 .4831 3.538** high ei 10 4.6 .5164 5. capacity of work. low ei 10 3.9 .3162 3.656** high ei 10 4.6 .5164 6. care in handling company. low ei 10 3.8 .7888 2.683* high ei 10 4.7 .4831 7. ability to work without supervision. low ei 10 3.7 .6750 3.810** high ei 10 4.8 .4216 8. ability to handle different jobs. low ei 10 3.8 .6325 4.160** high ei 10 4.4 .8433 9. dependability. low ei 10 3.8 .7888 1.643 high ei 10 4.6 .5164 10. ability to get along with others. low ei 10 3.9 .5677 2.884** high ei 10 4.8 .4216 11. attendance and punctuality low ei 10 4.2 .6325 2.496* high ei 10 4.7 .4831 12. planning ability. low ei 10 3.9 .7379 2.868* high ei 10 4.7 .4831 13. initiative on the job. low ei 10 3.8 .6325 3.576** high ei 10 4.9 .3162 14. overall work performance. low ei 10 3.8 .4216 6.601** *p > .05 **p > .01 difference between the mean scores of high and low emotionally intelligence executive groups on all the dimensions of work performance is in favor of high europe’s journal of psychology 6 emotionally intelligence group of executive except for one dimension that is dependability. the ‘t’ values are significant at .01 level for quality of work performance, speed on the job, quantity of work, capacity of work, ability to work without supervision, ability to handle different jobs, ability to get along with others, initiative on the job and overall work performance dimensions of work performance. ‘t’ value of amount of effort expended on job, care in handling company, attendance and punctuality, planning ability dimensions of work performance are significant at .05 level. discussion emotional intelligence can be beneficial in many areas of life; it calls for the acquisition of certain emotional skills. however, the application of its usefulness has been most frequently documented in the professional workplace. organizations not only deal with material but also deal with peoples. the trust and credibility of a manager and the organization he or she is working will reflects its emotional intelligence level. today’s workplace emphasizes on better teamwork, flexibility and services. emotional intelligence uniquely explained individual work performance (simulated) over and beyond the level attributable to general intelligence (iq) (thi lam & kirby, 2002). feist and barron, 1996 concluded that emotional and social competencies were four times more important than iq in determining professional success and prestige. based on the statistical analysis, the observations and inferences drawn are in favor of highly emotionally intelligent executives as their emotional competency is also high which consists of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills, considered as the strong predictors of work performance. emotional competency gives them a realistic confidence to perceive challenges. as a result of this, they constantly grow and improve their quality, quantity, speed and the capacity of work, which can be illustrated from our results. also it is found that the executives having high emotional intelligence show better quality, speed in work, more capacity of doing work as compared to their counter parts who are having low emotional intelligence. study conducted by goleman (1998) and mayer, selovey and caruso (1998) also supports this result. they emphasize that emotional intelligence by itself is probably not a strong predictor of job performance, instead it emotional intelligence and work performance 7 provides foundation for emotional competencies which are strong predictor of job performance. they are more creative and practical towards emotional prompts elicited from the inner self and the immediate environment and try to manipulate the ongoing environment to their advantage by reacting appropriately which enhances their ability to handle different jobs, they take much care in handling company, and also have a better planning ability. as they have developed an accurate and better vision for their task they are less dependable and are able to work properly even without supervision. this finding is supported by stein, s. (2002) in a review article discussed about the eq factor: the sample group scored slightly higher than average on total eq. in order from most to least above the norms, the group scored above average on independence, assertiveness, optimism, self-actualization, and self-regard. emotional maturity and emotional sensitivity is reflected in the behavioral pattern exhibited by the executives while dealing with the inner self and the immediate environment. highly emotional intelligent executives have the ability to recognize different feeling. they have an adequate understanding of their own and others emotional make up to move people in the direction of accomplishing the goals. a cheerful executive communicates a message of confidence and self-respect. it’s the ability to share and accept another person’s feelings which help in having a good inter personal relations and the ability to get along with others. research has shown that the primary cause of failures among executives was their poor inter-personal relations at the workplace. in a research done by snarey and vaillant, (1985) it is found that in determining the success iq had little relation to workplace and personal success. more important was the ability to handle frustration, control emotions and get along with others. research done by (pool and cotton, 2004) also support our results according to him possessing high level of ei permits individuals have a closer understanding of people and their surroundings. highly emotionally intelligent executives are more punctual and take maximum initiatives on the job, they put much amount of efforts to expend their job and have better work performance as compared to their counterparts. results also favor the same and this finding was also supported by len tischler et al (2002) he examined the linking emotional intelligence, spirituality and work place performance and displayed a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and work place success and also by (cooper and sawaf, 1997; gates, 1995; megerian and sosik, 1996; wright and staw, 1999) according to them emotional intelligence has also evoked a keen interest among practitioners because of its wide applicability to a host of work place issues including job satisfaction, absenteeism, organizational europe’s journal of psychology 8 commitment, organizational citizenship emotional intelligence has been identified as one of the important behavioral constructs considered to be a major contributor to performance (goleman, 1995; goleman, 1998; hay group, 2003). executives, in particular, need high eq because they represent the organization to the public, they interact with the highest number of people within and outside the organization and they set the tone for employee morale, says goleman. the success of an individual working within an organization is a function of emotional intelligence. much of this success depends on the abilities of individuals to motivate them and to accomplish tasks by forming teams from a loose network of fellow workers with specific talents and expertise. leaders with empathy are able to understand their employee’s needs and provide them with constructive feedback. it is clear that those organizations that are successful in today’s dynamic business world take a more proactive approach to developing a positive service climate. it follows that excellent service, with positive emotional content, is most likely to be facilitated by employees who are emotionally self aware and who understand others on a more emotional level. positive reinforcement of an emotionally intelligent environment will enable the development of a service oriented climate which is authentic in nature, and therefore more effective. references cooper r. & sawaf a. (1997). executive eq: emotional intelligence in business. london, orion. dulewicz, higgs, m (2000), emotional intelligence, a review and evaluation study, henley management college, henley-on-thames. 'emotional development and emotional intelligence,' by peter salovey, phd, and john mayer, phd (basic books, 1997). 'executive eq: emotional intelligence in leadership and organization,' by robert cooper and ayman sawaf (perigree, 1998). ‘emotional intelligence at work,' by hendrie weisinger, phd (jossey-bass, 1997). emotional intelligence and work performance 9 feist, g. j., & barron, f. (1996, june). emotional intelligence and academic intelligence in career and life success. paper presented at the annual convention of the american psychological society, san francisco, ca. fleishman, e., & harris, e. f. (1962). patterns of leadership behavior related to employee grievances and turnover. personnel psychology, 15, 43-56. gowing, m. (in press). measurement of individual emotional competence. in c. cherniss & d. goleman (eds.), emotional competence in organizations . goleman, d. (1995). emotional intelligence. new york: bantam. goleman, d. (1996). emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than iq goleman, d. (1998). working with emotional intelligence. new york: bantam. goleman, d (1996), emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than iq, bloomsbury publishing, london. goleman, d (1998), working with the emotional intelligence, bantam books, new york, ny. hatfield, e., cacioppo, j.t., & rapson, r.l. (1994). emotional contagion. new york: cambridge university press. keltner, d. & haidt, j. (2001). social functions of emotions. in t.j. mayne and g.a. bonanno (eds.): emotions: current issues and future directions (pp. 192-213). new york: guilford. len tischler, jerry biberman, & robert mckeage (2002). linking emotional intelligence, spirituality and workplace performance: definitions, models and ideas of research. journal of managerial psychology, 17, 203-218 martinez, m.n (1997), "the smarts that count", hr magazine, vol. 42 no.11, pp.72-8. mayer, j. d., caruso, d., & salovey, p. (1998a). the multifactor emotional intelligence scale . unpublished report available from the authors. mayer, j. d., salovey, p., & caruso, d. (1998b). competing models of emotional intelligence. in r. j. sternberg (ed.), handbook of human intelligence (2nd ed., ). new york: cambridge university press. europe’s journal of psychology 10 mayer, j. d., salovey, p., & caruso, d. r. (2000). models of emotional intelligence. in r. j. sternberg (ed.). handbook of intelligence (pp. 396-420). cambridge, england: cambridge university press. mayer, j., salovey, p., caruso, d.r., and sitarenios, g. (2001) "emotional intelligence as a standard intelligence." emotion, 1, 232-242. mayer, j.d. & salovey, p. (1993). the intelligence of emotional intelligence. intelligence, 17, 433-442. mayer, j.d., salovey, p., caruso, d.r. (2004), "emotional intelligence: theory, findings, and implications", psychological inquiry, vol. 15 no.3, pp.197-215. mayer, jd., & cobb (2000), educational policy on emotional intelligence: does it make sense? educational psychology review, 12, 163-183. megerian, l.e., & sosik, j.j (1996). an affair of the heart: emotional intelligence and transformational ledership. the journal of leadership studies, 3(3), 31-48. nowicki, s., jr. & duke, m.p. (2001). nonverbal receptivity: the diagnostic analysis of nonverbal accuracy (danva). in j.a. hall & f.j. bernieri (eds.): interpersonal sensitivity: theory and measurement (pp. 183-198). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. parrott, w.g. (1993). beyond hedonism: motives for inhibiting good moods and for maintaining bad moods. in d.m. wegner & j.w. pennebaker (eds.): handbook of mental control. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. pool, p. and cotton, c. w. (2004). emotional intelligence: improving the odds of leader success, 1-8. seibert, s.e., kraimer, m.l., & liden, r.c. (2001). a social capital theory of career success. academy of management journal, 44, 219-237. snarey, j. r., & vaillant, g. e. (1985). how lowerand working-class youth become middle-class adults: the association between ego defense mechanisms and upward social mobility. child development, 56(4), 899-910. thilam, l., & kirby, s. (2002). is emotional intelligence advantage? the journal of social psychology, 142 (1), 133-145. emotional intelligence and work performance 11 van scotter, j.r. & motowidlo, s.j. (1996). interpersonal facilitation and job dedication as separate facets of contextual performance. journal of applied psychology, 81, 525-531. wright, t.a. & staw, b.m. (1999). affect and favorable work outcomes: two longitudinal tests of the happy-productive worker thesis. journal of organizational behavior, 20, 123. about the authors: c.p.khokhar professor & head department of psychology gurkul kangri university, hardwar, india. presently engaged in teaching and research. published more than 30 research papers and supervised more 20 phd students. completed research projects and written books. area of specialization is health psychology and parenting. email: dr.cpkhokhar@rediffmail.com miss tulika kush masters degree m.a psychology from h.n.b. garhwal university (2004-2006) india. m. phil psychology from barkatullah university, bhopal during the year (2006-2007) completed two research projects titled “mental imaginary of adolescence: study of birth order and gender” (2005-2006) and “study of emotional intelligence, selfefficacy subjective well-being in organizational context” (2006-2007). presently working on emotional intelligence and enrolled as a student of phd in psychology from gurukul kangri university, haridwar. email: tulikakush@yahoo.co.in emotional competence and leadership excellence at johnson & johnson the emotional intelligence and leadership study kathleen cavallo psyd, corporate consulting group www.corpconsultinggroup.com dottie brienza ma abstract a study was conducted on three hundred and fifty-eight managers across the johnson & johnson consumer & personal care group (jjc&pc group) globally to assess if there are specific leadership competencies that distinguish high performers from average performers. participants were randomly selected, then coded for performance rating, potential code, gender, functional group and regional area. more than fourteen hundred employees took part in a one hundred and eighty three question multi-rater survey that measured a variety of competencies associated with leadership performance including those commonly referred to as emotional intelligence. results showed that the highest performing managers have significantly more “emotional competence” than other managers. there was strong inter-rater agreement among supervisors, peers, and subordinates that the competencies of self-confidence, achievement orientation, initiative, leadership, influence and change catalyst differentiate superior performers. the high potential managers received higher scores in the emotional competencies by peers and supervisors, but not by subordinates. some gender difference was found, with supervisors rating females higher in adaptability and service orientation, while peers rated females higher on emotional self-awareness, conscientiousness, developing others, service orientation, and communication. direct reports scored males higher in change catalyst. history late in 1998, a harvard business review article entitled “what makes a leader,” caught the attention of senior management at johnson & johnson’s consumer companies (jjcc). the article, written by daniel goleman, spoke to the importance of emotional intelligence (ei) in leadership success, and cited several studies that demonstrated that ei is often the distinguishing factor between great leaders and average leaders. goleman posits that the foundation of emotional competency is self-awareness, the knowledge of ones own abilities and limitations as well as a solid understanding of factors and situations that evoke emotion in one’s self and others. equipped with this awareness, an individual can better manage his own emotions and behaviors and better understand and relate to other individuals and systems. long committed to leadership education and development, jjcc leadership decided to fund a study that would assess the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership success across the j&j consumer companies. specifically, the project, which involved more than fourteen hundred employees in thirty seven countries, set out to determine if the emotional, social and relational competencies identified by goleman and other ei theorists, did in fact distinguish high performing leaders at jjcc. study design & methodology the study design was centered around a one hundred and eighty three question multirater survey that was a blend of the j&j leadership competency model, the standards of leadership©(sol), and the emotional competence inventory© (eci) that was based on the work of richard boyatzis and daniel goleman. the standards of leadership© contained a traditional set of managerial and leadership competencies, built around the johnson & johnson credo, which embodies the company’s orienting business philosophy towards responsibility, integrity,and ethical behavior. the sol core competencies include, drives business results, promotes innovation, manages complexity, customer focus, develops others, builds partnerships, fosters change, and lives the credo values. the emotional competence inventory© (eci), contains twenty social and emotional competencies organized into four main clusters or behavioral groups namely, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills. three hundred and fifty eight managers were randomly selected from across the j&j consumer & personal care groups. participants were 55% male, 45% female, and regionally distributed as follows; north america 40%; europe 25%; asia, africa-middle east, 20%; and latin america, 15%. participants were required to have a minimum of two years in a management position within j&j, and fluency in english. after selection, regional human resource representatives provided additional participant information including functional area of responsibility, and performance ratings and potential ratings for the previous two performance years. participants were coded by broad functional area, administration, marketing, operations, or research and development. they were also identified as high-performing (hipr) if their rating numbers were in the “exceeds expectations” range, or greater than 4.0 on a five-point scale for performance. performance ratings are determined by a combination of achievement against business objectives, the “what” of performance, as well as behavior on the job, the “how” as measured by the j&j credo and the standards of leadership©. individuals were also coded for potential on a fivepoint scale, and rated as high-potential (hipo), if their rating was at least 4.0, indicating “promotable to the next level or above.” potential ratings are determined by a combination of an individual’s performance rating and potential for taking on added responsibility in the organization. an individual considered to be a “high potential” will typically have a track record of accomplishment over several performance periods and be perceived as ready to move up at least one level in the organization or assume a wider span of control and responsibility at the current job level. both the performance rating and potential code are success indicators within the organization and determine promotion, compensation and position in succession planning schemes. participants were instructed to select a minimum of one supervisor and four additional raters, to complete the web-based survey. raters were asked to rate the leader based on behavioral statements and whether the statements were true for the leader. scores were based on a seven-point likert scale, with one being the lowest rating “slightly agree” to seven being the highest, “strongly agree.” fourteen hundred and fifteen employees completed the survey and data was captured into a database in accordance with coded variables. statistical analysis the data was analyzed to compare the ratings of groups defined by region, gender, function, and performance and potential. gender, potential, and performance, each consisted of only two categories, male and female, average and high potential (hipo), and 4.0 or under, and over 4.0 for the high performers (hipr). the mean ratings for these groups were compared using an independent sample t test. for region and function, which each consisted of four categories, multiple regression procedures were used. for these analyses a set of “dummy” variables was created to represent the four different categories. the dummy variables were then used in the regression analysis to predict the ratings. if the regression results showed a significant regression weight for one or more of the variables, the conclusion would be that the mean ratings for that variable were higher or lower than that of the remaining variables. results ei and high performing leaders (hipr) the study revealed a strong relationship between superior performing (hipr) leaders and emotional competence, supporting theorist’s suggestions that the social, emotional and relational competency set commonly referred to as emotional intelligence, is a distinguishing factor in leadership performance. leaders who received performance ratings of 4.1 or greater on a 5-point scale were rated significantly higher than other participants in all four of the emotional intelligence dimensions of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills by supervisors and subordinates. peers found hipr leaders to be stronger in the self-awareness and self-management clusters. six competencies were found to distinguish hipr’s across all three rater groups, specifically, self-confidence, achievement orientation, initiative, leadership, influence and change catalyst. this finding is consistent with conclusions reached by mcclelland (1998), in a study of leaders in thirty different organizations, that found the most powerful leadership differentiators were self-confidence, achievement drive, developing others, adaptability, influence and leadership. in our study, of the twenty emotional competencies measured, subordinates and supervisors rated hipr leaders stronger in seventeen, and fourteen ei competencies respectively. peers found hipr leaders to be stronger in nine of the twenty emotional competencies. (table 1.) ei and high potential leaders (hipo) supervisors rated high-potential leaders significantly higher on thirteen of the twenty emotional competencies measured, as well as in the self-awareness, self-management, and social skills clusters. peers were less able to distinguish the hipo leaders, rating them differently in six of the twenty competencies measured. with the exception of a slight difference in the area of conscientiousness, subordinates did not rate hipo leaders differently than other participants. (table 2). supervisors’ enhanced ability to recognize high potentials in this study may be understandable given a few factors. supervisors are aware of employee potential status since they are instrumental in determining potential ratings for their direct reports. knowing potential status of the participants while assessing them may have biased survey scores. another possibility is that supervisors, being charged with succession planning responsibility, may look for the demonstration of the competencies they know are predictive of success at higher levels in the organization, while subordinates, in particular, may focus on competencies needed for success in the current role, which may in fact be different. it’s also likely that high potential individuals make an effort to demonstrate reach capabilities to their supervisors in an attempt to influence their opinion regarding their promotability and future potential. ei and gender relative to the many differences found for performance and potential, there were fewer differences found relating to gender, however a few are noteworthy. peer ratings show differences in five emotional competencies, emotional self-awareness, conscientiousness, developing others, service orientation, and communication. in all of these areas, women received the higher ratings. supervisor ratings showed significant differences on two emotional competencies, specifically women were rated higher on both adaptability and service orientation. direct report ratings showed only one significant difference, men were rated higher on the competency, change catalyst. (table 3) research concerning gender difference in leadership performance has found little evidence to suggest that males and females differ in their leadership effectiveness. (landau, 1996; eagly, karau, & makhijani, 1992, 1995; ragins, 1991). in particular, several studies have demonstrated that there is little to no difference in satisfaction levels of subordinates of either male or female leaders (carless, 1998; ragins, 1991; osborn & vicars, 1976). the findings of the current study support this research. however, some studies suggest that the style by which males and females lead has consistently been found to be different. a meta-analysis conducted by eagly & johnson (1990) found females to have better social skills and to be described as “interested in other people.” women leaders as a group, when compared to male leaders as a group, tend to be described as more friendly, pleasant, and socially sensitive (as cited in eagly & johnson, 1990). this finding is consistent with the current study, showing higher scores for females in several of the interpersonal and social competencies measured. prior research on gender difference in emotional intelligence have shown that in terms of total ei men and women do not seem to differ, however there is evidence that women and men may differ on specific competencies. baron (2000) analyzed the scores on over seventy-seven hundred administrations of the emotion quotient inventory (eq-i) and found that while men and women did not differ on the total ei, women did score significantly higher on empathy, interpersonal relationships, and social responsibility, while men scored higher on selfactualization, assertiveness, stress tolerance, impulse control, and adaptability. where baron found that men where more adaptable, the current study found that supervisors found women to be more adaptable. however, consistent with baron’s findings, that females show more empathy and are more skilled in interpersonal relationships, our findings suggest peers find females to have higher levels of self-awareness, be more service oriented, have better communication skills, and be more adept in developing others. however, it must be noted that the research by baron is based on a self-report measure and does not employ a 360-degree methodology as in the current study. the significant difference between self-ratings and the ratings of others is a consistent finding in the literature and thus generalizations may or may not be appropriate. while the current research does not provide a consistent pattern of gender effects across all rater groups the pattern of females being rated significantly higher on several competencies, in particular by peer raters, is interesting. several hypothesis have been put forward to account for gender differences including biological differences, differences is early childhood socialization in same sex playgroups, and the fulfillment of culturally prescribed gender role expectations. the differences in interpersonal processes and motives of males and females may also be related to types of self-schemas (e.g. independent vs. interdependent) that tend to be held by males and females as a group (cross & madson, 1997). one explanation may be that women are more likely to play out their preference for interdependence with a peer group given that peer relationships do not have the power differential and subsequently, the role demands that the subordinate or supervisory role has. women may openly express feelings, demonstrate vulnerability, compromise, and collaborate with peers, while doing so in their supervisory role may seem inappropriate, and in their subordinate role, it may be perceived as by the woman as too risky. ei and regional differences some scattered differences in ratings by region were observed. for example, leaders from asia received lower scores from supervisors compared to other participants, while peers rated the north american leaders significantly higher than other participants. direct reports gave higher ratings to leaders from europe and north american than they did to leaders from the other two regions. the variations found likely reflect cultural differences in rating standards as opposed to a true reflection of performance difference. ei and functional differences although some significant differences were observed across functional areas, the number of participants in each functional category was not sufficient to draw any conclusions. organizational response to the study as a result of the study, the jjcc consumer companies enhanced their selection and performance management practices in several ways: the company’s leadership model, the standards of leadership, was modified to include the distinguishing emotional competencies found to be missing from the model. this is a particularly important step given the fact that the standards of leadership along with the credo form the foundations for selection, assessment and development activities. the enhanced model has been integrated into performance review and succession planning processes, and protocols for selection have been modified to include the appropriate emotional competencies. a new on-line 360° feedback survey has been developed based on the newly enhanced model. the development advantage©, standards of leadership 360° feedback survey with emotional intelligence is available to all employees and helps individuals and groups assess their current level of performance and receive development suggestions for enhancing performance. educational and developmental programs have been developed and launched across the consumer & personal care groups globally, to familiarize employees with the concepts of emotional, social and relational competency, and to share results of the leadership study. these sessions also served as the launch for the newly enhanced leadership model and survey. efforts to build skill in ei throughout the organization are ongoing. board members and their teams have begun assessment and skill-building activities around ei and individuals and groups throughout the organization have initiated programs and processes to enhance the emotional competency of the organization and its members. conclusions & next steps this study supports the position that emotional competence differentiates successful leaders. high performing managers at the johnson & johnson consumer and personal care group were seen to possess significantly higher levels of self-awareness, self-management capability, social skills, and organizational savvy, all considered part of the emotional intelligence domain. research has shown that emotional intelligence, like technical skill, can be developed through a systematic and consistent approach to building competence in personal and social awareness, self-management, and social skill. however, unlike technical skills the pathways in the brain associated with social and emotional competencies are different then those engaged by more cognitive learning. because the foundations of social and emotional competencies are often laid down early in life and reinforced over several years they tend to become synonymous with our self-image and thus need focused attention over time to bring about change(cherniss, goleman, emmerling, cowan, & adler, 1998) the commitment and systematic approach taken at the j&j consumer companies is consistent with the focused approach necessary to build emotionally competent organizations. a strategic cycle of assessment>learning>practice>feedback over time will enable organizational members to build the competencies that can drive personal success and develop high performing leaders for the organization. in closing, it is important to note that the encouragement and support of the executive committee sponsors and human resource vice presidents around the world made it possible to do an important research study in an incredibly dynamic environment like johnson & johnson. we would also like to thank dr. cary cherniss, of the consortium for research on emotional intelligence in organizations (creio) for his encouragement and consult during the project, and dr. richard boyatzis, dr.daniel goleman and hay/mcber for permission to use a research version of the emotional competence inventory© in our research. and finally, we are indebted to the more than fourteen hundred johnson and johnson employees around the world who demonstrated their commitment to personal development and performance excellence by taking part in this study. about the authors kathleen cavallo is an organizational psychologist and managing partner of corporate consulting group, a consulting firm specializing in leadership learning and development. at the time of the study dottie brienza was director of human resources & organization development for the consumer and personal care group at johnson & johnson. for additional information about the study, please contact dr. cavallo at (732) 528-3600 or at http://www.corpconsultinggroup.com or dottie brienza at 908-781-1550. references bar-on, r., (2000). emotional and social intelligence: insights from the emotional quotient inventory. in r. bar-on & j.d.a. parker (eds.), the handbook of emotional intelligence. (363-388). san francisco: jossey-bass. boyatsis, r., goleman, d., & hay/mcber (1999) emotional competence inventory. carless, s. (1998). gender differences in transformational leadership: an examination of superior,leader, and subordinate perspectives. sex roles, 39 (11-12), 887-902. cherniss, c., goleman, d., emmerling, r., cowan, k. & adler, m. (1998). bringing emotional intelligence to the workplace: a technical report issued by the consortium for research on emotional intelligence in organizations. available on-line http://www.eiconsortium.org/research/technical_report.htm cross, s. & madson, l. (1997). models of the self: self-construals and gender. psychological bulletin, 122, 5-37. eagly, a.h. & johnson, b.t. (1990). gender and leadership style: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 108(2), 233-256. eagly, a.h., karau, s.j., & makhijani, m.g. (1995). gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 117(1), 125-145. eagly, a.h., makhijani, m.g. & klonsky, b.g. (1992). gender and the evaluation of leaders: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 111(1), 3-22. goleman, d. (1998). what makes a leader? harvard business review. november-december. goleman, d. (1998). working with emotional intelligence. new york: bantam. landau, j. (1995). the relationship of race and gender to managers’ ratings of promotion potential. journal of organizational behavior, 16 (4), 391-400. mcclelland, d.c. (1998). identifying competencies with behavioral event interviews. psychological science, 9(5), 331-340. osborn, r.n. & vicars, w.m. (1976). sex stereotypes: an artifact in leaders behavior and subordinate satisfaction analysis? academy of management journal, 439-449. ragins, b. (1991). gender effects in subordinate evaluations of leaders: real or artifact? journal of organizational behavior, 12(3), 259-268. microsoft word 12. book review a new species of trouble.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 175-179 www.ejop.org a new species of trouble: explorations in disaster, trauma and community kai erikson w. w. norton & company, 1994 reviewed by korstanje maximiliano university of moron argentina current scholarship is based on the review of books no older than one or two years. no matter the contests or even the importance of the material, this kind of illfashioned dispositions impinge on the advance of science; they don’t allow for a broader re-discovery of other relevant projects which have been ignored for a considerable lapse of time. this is the case of the book authored by kai erikson, lecturer at yale university. his valuable but contradictory work focuses on the exploration of trauma and social pathologies after-disasters. in a moment in which mankind is fraught with natural or made-man disasters, a project of this nature is fundamental in order for readers to understand the convergence of uncertainty with fear. in the introductory section, erikson narrates the case of ojibwa, an indian reservation located nearly to grassy narrows in canada. considering the high prevalence of murders induced by alcohol consumption, he argues a social disaster is gradually emerging in grassy narrow. like a tornado or other natural catastrophe, social fragmentation and excessive alcohol consumption have blurring the bondage the self and the scaffolding of family. in the winter of 1970, erikson witnessed as the wabiggon´s river has been gradually contaminated with mercury. the fact was that people of ojibwa ignored the fact that they were exposed to this poison for more than one decade. the effects of this were not observable on the short-run; clinical symptoms were associated to numbness of the mouth, problems in the brain, and clumsiness in walking, memory loss, impaired visions and finally depression. to be precise, “to make matters worse, the very fear that mercury to europe’s journal of psychology 176 stimulate the real thing. i do not simply mean that apprehension about this or that symptom of mercury poisoning can help provoke its appearance, as is certainly true enough, but that dread itself has among its behavioral by-products the kind of disequilibrium, depression, memory loss and volatility that mercury is known for” (erikson, 1994: 36). this moot point begs an interesting question, “was this poison responsible for the social pathologies linked to alcohol abuses erikson saw at first glance”? undoubtedly, mercury caused havoc in the population of grassy narrows. however, mercury was not the only threat this community faced. white’s colonization pushed natives to change their ancestral customs and form of tribe organization. this progressive disintegration of clans in combination with difficulties to track down and hunt animals made survival problematic for grassy narrows´s natives. typically, one might speculate disasters are linked to natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes or tsunamis; but of course humanitarian disasters are not under-explored by the specialized literature. erikson with certain deep-insight brings into question to what extent our current understanding of a disaster is correct. anyway, things came from worse to worst. the spaniard influenza outbreak that whipped the world from 1918 and 1919 killed a considerable part of the population in this reserve. although a recovery process could be noticed and population climbed from 178 in 1917 to 242 in 1949, the epidemic resulted in a genuine shock for old-shamans who were hand-tied to heal infected people. not only their reputation has been seriously jeopardized but also this represented a serious decline in religious beliefs. the white’s man god embodied in christianity was adopted by natives reinforcing the previous process of education accomplished by canadian authorities from 1870 to 1890. “the canadian government had been charged by a treaty signed in 1873 to provide education to the objibwa people, and it elected to meet that obligation by building residential schools, many of them run by missionaries at some distance from the reserves themselves. whatever their intent, the effect of these schools was to separate children from their families for long stretches of time and to help strip them of their language, their native skills, their religion, and their very identify as indians” (ibid. 45). let us remind readers that for indian people in america the lands play an important role in the configuration of their own cosmology because they are seen as converging with the spirit of the ancestors. lands bring security to dwellers because they are interrelated with the soul of rivers and mountains. whenever persons change homes, they should be sure they will be welcomed. otherwise, bad spirits impinge the families encouraging vicious acts, violence, and other type of a new species of trouble 177 calamities. the involuntarily migration managed by the canadian government towards other reserves resulted in serious pathological problems for aboriginal tribes not only in canada but also in the united states. erikson realized that alienation and white hegemony seem to be key factors that lead these striking narrated stories of poverty, exclusion and self-humiliation in a difficult position, in a real humanitarian disaster. the second chapter, similarly addresses the life of poor haitians in immokalee, a little town situated southward everglades in florida, us. this site is well recognized as a part of the country that attracts many illegal immigrants from the harvests, farmers or chronic migrants who roam from one site to another looking for opportunities of social upward. erikson goes on to admit “in inmokalee and in similar agricultural centers, more than 80 percent of the farmhands are citizens of other countries: the vast majority entered this country illegally, and only a few speak enough english to navigate successfully in this peculiar cultural waters” (ibid: 68). bereft in conditions of misery and continuous necessities, these migrants are discriminated by residents, even compared with animals or with “excrements”. in 22 march 1981, miami herald will refer to these newcomers as “haitian stampede”. despite the fact that haiti was in past one of most prominent and important colonies of this hemisphere, now this country seems to be one of poorest with more than 80% of lands uncultivated, drained or infertile. based on multiple marriages, haitian’s customs notably contrast with american ones. very hard to define, their religion is a mixture of french catholicism, vodun of africa and evangelical protestantism. they often live overcrowded where a family formed by five or more members share a small-sized household of 176 feets and 16 foot-rooms. to cut the long story short, haitian peasants weekly send remittances to their relative in haiti, many of them are sick or living in poverty. the disaster surfaced when fred’s (a company sending money from us soil to the island) was declared in bankruptcy because the embezzlement of funds of one of the owners. erikson collected a number of striking chronicles from peasants who suffered the dead of a relative: father, mother or even child. the guilty owner (fred edenfield) was ultimately condemned by the courts of florida only to thirty months of prison. nonetheless, consequences for haitians for as little money as they were sent were sorrowful. psychologically speaking, affected people started to experience depression, insecurity, pain, sorrow, disorientation. testimonies reported that children were hungry and without clothes at home. an event of this caliber affected the soul of the haitian peasant deeper than anyone could imagine because it involved their relatives and children. the vulnerabilities of these deceived people resulted in a much broader state of insecurity and uncertainty. europe’s journal of psychology 178 the case of east swallow, in colorado, described in third chapter, seems to be pretty different when compared with the previous ones, but the underlying problem remains, the fear of loosing what is of worth for the self. this town was alarmed in 1985 because a gas company found a spill which threatened the population. this spill did not generate any damages on the short term, but further along effects over residents became increasingly dangerous. the intangibility of gas fumes in combination with the rise of continuous fears left residents of east swallow in a full state of crisis. erikson goes on to write in his report “the residents of east swallow who where exposed to the effects of the gasoline spill complain – with considerable justice, one has to assume that the value of their homes has declined precipitously as a result of recent events. in one sense, of course, that is a financial matter and outside the scope of this report: plaintiffs have invested large amount of capital into the dwelling they occupy, and they are understandably concerned about the safety of those investments. for many, maybe most of them, it is not just a matter of loosing a valuable possession; it is a matter of placing life’s saving at risk” (ibid: 116). the two factors that most concerned workers were: 1. a broader exacerbated feeling of uncertainty about the health of family and relatives as well as the safety of their homes. these aspects represented one of main reasons for psychological distress in the population. on the one hand, they dreaded to leave their own households because things could worsen during their absence this means an explosion or a disaster of similar caliber but for on the other hand, they were aware of the serious implication of not to leaving the affected zone: a gradual and inevitable intoxication with gas. 2. the second motive of distress was associated with the possibility of loosing the place they invested so much money and effort in. this phenomenon seems to be well-described in the context of disasters. for example, in moments of crisis many evacuation procedures fail because the personnel come across residents who are reluctant to abandon their homes. the symbolic power of “home” in the construction of our identity is unquestionable but in this case-study things seem to be a bit different. certainly, spills of gas can turn into a more frightful hazard that affects a wide range of social activities and of course workers were in part responsible for those damages; sadness, desperation and panic were some of the feelings erikson noticed during his interviews. one of the relevant aspects that terrified the whole population in this zone was the unpredictability of the next disaster. metaphorically speaking, trapped between the devil and the blue sea workers were in a terrifying situation. in addition, this terrible situation implicitly triggers new relations of support among neighbors. affected a new species of trouble 179 persons looked in their community for the strength enough they have not the chance to locate in their home. erikson assumes that whereas home emotionally represents the place where family lies, neighborhood plays a secondary role in the socialization process. since home did not warrant any kind of ontological security lay-people deposited their trust in the neighborhood as a second option. it is important not to loose sight of the following excerpt that synthesizes the previous argument, “the people of east swallow, then, must face life with not only the layers of emotional insulation represented by home and neighborhood in disrepair but the next outer layer represented by the wider community in disarray as well. to induce or encourage that sense of distrust and suspicion is a terrible thing for one human being to do to another” (ibid: 133). once transcribed in the present review, the most representative parts and narrations can make us speculate that this book juxtaposes a broader micro-sociological view of interviewed persons with structural theories in the research of disaster effects. exploring the trauma with more than scientific objectivity, erikson’s account emphasizes the relationship of the agent with his/her environment (reminding of the classical contributions of e. durkheim regarding the role played by social relations in the suicide). a new species of trouble deserves to be re-discovered in light of contemporary perspectives; a work that not only triggers the discussion about humanitarian disasters but also captivates the human suffering as something else than a spectacle; in summary, a valuable project highly recommendable for anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists concerned with disaster-related issues. nonetheless, one of the aspects that tarnish this brilliant work is related to erikson’s propensity not to conduct his own the field-work. rather, tasks were delegated to assistant researchers. as a psychologist of cabinet, erikson was limiting himself only to hear and analyze the data-set (as he overtly admitted in the book) others collected for him. from our point of view, personal contact and ethnographical reflexivity among researchers and informants are crucial for the commitment of observers with the topic of the research. the findings of this investigation would have been enriched if erikson would have taken a proactive role in data collection. in the end though, this review is primarily intended to call for a‘re-discovery’ of kai erikson’s contribution to the study of psychological aftermaths of catastrophic events. on being a modern therapist: interview with victor yalom this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 8-17, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.295 www.ejop.org on being a modern therapist: interview with victor yalom by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania victor yalom, phd is the founder and president of psychotherapy.net, an online psychotherapy magazine targeted to trainee therapists and practitioners of all psychotherapeutic approaches. victor is also a practicing psychologist, talented couple therapist, and business consultant in san francisco. in his spare time, he expresses his unique vision in cartoons and wonderful abstract landscape paintings. son of one of the most influential existential psychotherapists, irvin yalom, victor talks to europe’s journal of psychology about his current work and the most inspirational figures in the psychotherapy world he has been fortunate enough to meet and interview during his career. address for correspondence: victor yalom, 760 market street, suite 945, san francisco, ca 941 e-mail: vyalom@psychotherapy.net ejop: victor, first of all thank you for offering us an interview. just recently we came across your brainchild, www.psychotherapy.net, a fabulous and inspiring online resource for trainees in the field of psychotherapy and clinicians. how did it feel to embark on such a creative endeavor back in 1996? http://www.psychotherapy.net/ http://sfpsychologist.com/therapycartoons.en.html http://sfpsychologist.com/paintings.en.html http://www.psychotherapy.net/ europe’s journal of psychology 9 victor yalom: i can tell you're a psychologist by the way you start the interview – asking me about my feelings. my wife, who now runs psychotherapy.net with me, has a background in physics and marketing, and she constantly points out that psychotherapists like to talk about their feelings much more than other folks. and of course one can tell that i'm in the same field because i immediately make a process comment rather than responding your question! in fact, i had no awareness when i started that i was embarking on any sort of creative endeavor. i was part of a group of therapists who had been studying for many years with james bugental. he was an existential-humanistic psychologist, and a wonderful teacher, but his real genius was as a psychotherapist. he was 80 years old, and i thought it was important to capture his talent on video, so i managed to recruit a couple of volunteer clients, and ended up producing a video of him doing two sessions of psychotherapy with one of these clients. well one thing led to another, and i ended up producing and distributing other psychotherapy training videos, then launching a website with articles and interviews of well known therapists, drawing cartoons, and more. although the existential-humanistic spirit is still very near and dear to me, in some sense this experience has made me a bit of a behaviorist in the sense that i learned that it is important to do things, as you never know what doors will open up for you if you take an initial action. ejop: you kind of anticipated my next question about your mentors. apart from the special relationship with james bugental, who had a profound impact on your personal and professional life, what other therapists have inspired you or been particularly influential? victor yalom: i have been unusually fortunate in having irvin yalom as my father as well as a professional mentor. fortunately, growing up he had not achieved the stature in the field that he has now, so i just knew him as "dad," but once i entered the profession i have had the opportunity to learn a great deal from him. he taught me most of what i know about group therapy; as a graduate student i was able to observe him leading groups through a one-way mirror, which is how he taught trainees at stanford, and then i actually co-lead a short-term group with him. that was certainly intimidating, as at the time i didn't feel i had a lot to contribute. i have been co-leading a group with a female colleague and friend of mine for 20 years now, and his interpersonal model of http://www.psychotherapy.net/ http://www.psychotherapy.net/video/existential-humanistic-bugental http://www.psychotherapy.net/video/existential-humanistic-bugental on being a modern therapist 10 group therapy has stood the test of time, and although we add our own touches, it's hard to improve on this approach. equally influential to me has been his passionate advocacy for the therapist to be authentic, transparent, and to mine the riches of the here-and-now of therapist-client relationship. additionally i've had the opportunity to learn from the dozens of therapists we've interviewed and/or videotaped at psychotherapy.net – this has been an invaluable fringe benefit for me which i've shamelessly exploited. whether it's been erving polster, the brilliant gestalt therapist, sue johnson of emotionally focused therapy fame, otto kernberg, or zerka moreno, having the chance to spend a few hours or days together has added up to an ongoing lifelong education. i keep learning, and one thing this forces me to do is not get too comfortable with one way of working, one approach or orientation. ejop: we all rejoiced at the publication of irvin yalom’s masterwork “the gift of therapy”, a book that not only inspires, but equips. in his uniquely caring and subtle style, he aims to help young psychotherapists understand their current challenges. is therapy undergoing a paradigm shift nowadays? victor yalom: i recall that thomas kuhn originally used the term "paradigm shift" in his book the structure of scientific revolutions to describe a truly monumental change in thinking, the best example being the change from a geocentric to heliocentric view of our solar system. now that's really a big change, and that phrase has since been so casually bandied about as to become almost meaningless. so i'd definitely say there is no paradigm shift of that magnitude going on. we certainly are moving away from having an allegiance to a father or mother figure – e.g. defining ourselves as freudian, jungian, kleinian, rogerian – but i'm afraid that in many ways that is simply being substituted by becoming card-carrying members of a technical school, whether it be cbt, act, emdr, or some other alphabet soup. i have nothing against any of these approaches – all of them certainly have something to offer – but i just don't believe there is one truth here – and irv certainly subscribes to this viewpoint. although he wrote the now classic text existential psychotherapy, he has always maintained that this is not a school of therapy, but rather one set of lenses which can be very useful. we are professionals with the difficult, but rewarding task of helping others alleviate suffering, and find meaning, satisfaction, and if possible, joy in their lives. one can't europe’s journal of psychology 11 make a one-to-one comparison with other professionals, but we wouldn't think of asking our dentist or our attorney what their orientation is! we want to know if they can help us with our unique problems. now in one sense the recent focus, at least in the u.s., of training students in "evidence-based" approaches, has the laudatory goal of focusing on what works. but i hear too many stories of real deficits with this approach – for example of therapists in some organizations being mandated to using a particular approach even if the clients don't want it! ejop: most practitioners, regardless of therapeutic orientation, see the carefully crafted therapeutic relationship as the most important ingredient in successful therapy. do you think everybody can master the art of creating perfect alliances or is this some sort of a mystical power only few possess? victor yalom: well the research consistently shows that the quality of the therapeutic alliance is extremely important in predicting therapy outcome – more important than orientation or approach – so i do hope that the word is getting out about this. we certainly don't need to strive for perfect alliances, whatever that would look like, but perhaps "good enough" alliances is a suitable goal, akin to good enough mothering. therapists are humans, and humans aren't perfect, so it's fine to make mistakes or stumbles; it's how we manage those that is important. we want to find a way to connect with our clients in an authentic manner, which means we have to find a way to bring who we are into the room. that doesn't mean we share everything about ourselves, or every thought we have – that would be indicative of a psychotic break – but essential aspects of ourselves must intersect with essential aspects of our clients. i think that's a necessary condition for any meaningful relationship; therapy is just a very particular, and unusual type of relationship. so i think most therapists are capable of creating effective working relationships. of course some are better than others, and there are some who are not so skilled, and would probably be better off in other professions. assuming you've created a working relationship, the question becomes: "how can the two of you use that relationship most effectively to further the therapeutic goals"? in some ways the relationship can be healing in and of itself, but the really difficult and tricky part is learning how to use what occurs in the here-and-now of the relationship to help the client learn about their interpersonal world, and to make changes in how they relate to themselves and others. in psychoanalytic approaches this might be done via transference interpretations, but on being a modern therapist 12 this often leaves the therapist too removed from the interaction. so how do you engage authentically with the client while at the same time attending to what's happening between the two of you, and then explore that together in a way that they can really learn something on an intellectual and emotional level, that they can then use that to improve the quality of their life? that's something that i think too few therapists are really taught in their training, and too few really master in the course of their careers. ejop: speaking of training, we know you had the wonderful opportunity to introduce existential and humanistic psychotherapy to chinese therapists. could you share with us few thoughts on working with eastern students? victor yalom: what was most extraordinary about teaching there was the almost frenzied enthusiasm of the participants, who were either students or relatively inexperienced therapists. they were so excited to learn – both about the field, and about themselves. in the training we led a number of experiential exercises, and the participants were very willing to take risks and engage fully. the whole field of psychotherapy is quite new there; needless to say under the communist regime of the past, there wasn't much encouragement for introspection or self-expression. but the society appears to be opening up in many ways. i don't know anything about the situation in rumania, where you are from, but i'm sure you have some similar history. the level of openness and hunger for learning among the chinese therapists was quite invigorating, and i wish i saw more of that with my colleagues in the u.s. although i was too young to experience it directly, it reminds me of the excitement in california during the 1970's in the heyday of the human potential movement. therapists and nontherapists alike were streaming into places like esalen to hang out with fritz perls and carl rogers and others, and there was a sense that a revolution in self-awareness could transform society. now some of this was overblown, and there were certainly excesses…but i think that level of passion is often missing among many therapists i encounter. perhaps that is inevitable as the profession matures, but i hope that's not the case. ejop: here psychoanalysis as an "underground" form of therapy has been practiced also during the communist regime, in a rather clandestine fashion. and yes, the initial enthusiasm of embracing the new profession of psychotherapist in the late '90s reminds europe’s journal of psychology 13 me a lot of the atmosphere you describe. could the level of passion be restored, in your opinion? victor yalom: that's a great question. probably when anything is novel, whether it's sexual attraction with a new partner, or seeing a 3d movie for the first time, there is a certain level of excitement that is hard to maintain. so it may not be realistic to expect therapists to have the same level of passion now as when the field was first being created. but if i ask myself what can be done to increase the aliveness of therapists, then i think one place always to look is how alive the therapy is that they are practicing. for me, that is always essential question: is something happening in the therapy? is the client learning something new? are they having new experiences? is there a sense of discovery? or conversely, are they simply telling you something that they already know about themselves? are they repeating old, tired scripts? because if nothing new is really happening during the therapy hour, then it's not a productive enterprise. so the therapist must always be watching for opportunities to nurture nascent aliveness in the client and in the therapeutic relationship. of course that's easier said than done, but that is the art of psychotherapy. i still recall to this day my first experience as a client when i was in college – which fortunately, was a positive one. i was an introspective teenager, probably excessively so – i had certainly thought a great deal about the difficulties i experiences and filled many journal pages with my woes – and yet i almost invariably came out of each 50 minute hour with some new ways of seeing, experiencing, or understanding myself. i thought that was amazing! how could it possibly be that i could actually learn something new about myself from a therapist who hardly knew me? i wish i could say that i solved all my life problems during my first course of therapy – life is more complex, and not something to be "solved" – but it certainly was an enlivening experience. ejop: you mentioned your first session as a client being an enriching and life-changing encounter. how do you remember your first experience as a therapist? victor yalom: my first year of internship was at a middle school, so i was working with early teens. for years i saved the files of these clients, thinking i might review them someday, but i eventually shredded them…and along with that most of my memories. on being a modern therapist 14 one client i do remember was an african-american youth who had gone through a lot of disruption in his life – i forget the specifics – but what i remember is the long, painful, awkward silences. at least for quite a while i couldn't get him to say much, and this caused a lot of intense anxiety in myself, both in the sessions, and throughout the week in anticipation. but for some reason he kept showing up, so i can only hope he got something out of our meetings. but again, what stands out is my own anxiety about the situation, manifested in my worries: what if he is quiet again next session? how am i doing as a therapist? will he keep showing up? of course i realize now that this level of anxiety is not unusual for a beginning therapist, but it sure wasn't pleasant to go through! another memory that pops up is when i was just starting my private practice. i only had one or two clients – one has to start somewhere – and my first client wasn't till around 5 or 6 pm. i was at home pulling nails from the hardwood floor to get it ready for refinishing, wearing some old work clothes, and realizing that in a few hours i'd dress up in a professional outfit, arrive early to the office with plenty of time to spare, and hope that my client wouldn't somehow know what i had been doing for the day! there certainly wasn't a sense of fluidity or integration between my role as a therapist, and that of a person. it was as if i was putting on a costume and an image and hope that was convincing. twenty some years later of course things are much different, and i don't feel any separation between who i am as a person and who i am as a therapist; i imagine that's the case for most experienced therapists. but it's really hard at the beginning to have that sense of ease, especially if you enter the field with limited life experience, as i did. ejop: so do you think a good therapist should definitely have enough life experience in order to be able to meet his client's various needs… victor yalom: that's a tough one. i do think that the more life experience, the better therapist one can be. so psychotherapy can make a great second career, which is not uncommon in this country. but the fact is that most folks do enter graduate school when they are in their 20s, and like myself end up treating the first patients when they still have a lot to learn about life. and they often start out working with the most challenging populations. maybe that's okay, because those in great distress are less concerned about how old or experienced their therapist is – they are just grateful to get any help – europe’s journal of psychology 15 whereas highly functioning middle age successful adults legitimately do want therapists who have some years under their belt. there's no easy solution to this, other than the basics, which to have lots of good supervision, peer consultation, personal psychotherapy, and hopefully good support in your personal life. but of course the latter is not always available, as we all have our ups and downs. when i was going through a divorce it was at times hard for me to focus on my work, and i'm sure i wasn't as effective at times as i would have liked to be. so i think we just need to recognize that life is challenging, and being a therapist is no inoculation against anxiety or depression, and somehow we have to muddle through that and do the best job we can. and there should be plenty of room to acknowledge and explore our personal issues within our professional training. and inevitably we garner additional useful life experiences as we continue to practice psychotherapy. we enter into relationships, marry, have children, cope with financial responsibilities and the like – this is all incredibly valuable. but i do think that if your entire professional life is seeing clients within the confines of your office, you may not acquire the variety of experiences that make for the optimal therapist. it can be just a bit too much of sitting on the sidelines. i always felt that the ideal therapists are a mentor of sorts, who are engaged in many activities, including accomplishing concrete tasks, working with others, involved in creative ventures, taking risks, etc, and then devote some of their time to counseling others. i know that if i were seeking some help now, i'd want to consult with someone who had really lived a 3-dimensional life. but the reality is that most therapists need to have a fairly full practice to pay their bills, and the skills they acquire in their training are not easily transferable to other money making ventures. so it can be a bit of a challenge. ejop: in this era of confusion created by the rise of alternative and complementary therapies claiming to heal the body, mind and spirit, what would be your best piece of advice for a young peer who is now entering the profession? victor yalom: first, find experienced therapist as mentors, and learn as much as you can from them. if you're in school, connect with professors who really seems to embody the qualities of good therapists, and are eager to share what they know. resist the natural temptation to try to impress them with how clever you are, but instead focus your energy on observing, and asking questions. if you have finished your formal on being a modern therapist 16 training, then find a seasoned therapist or two as a mentor. forget about the old style of supervision or consultation where you "present" your therapy cases by describing them. instead videorecord your sessions, and show these to your mentor or consultation group – or get live supervision via skype. i know this can feel vulnerable, but it's the best way to learn. or do co-therapy with senior therapists, whether with individuals, couples or groups. we are perhaps the only profession that has traditionally learned our craft without working side by side with more experienced professional. imagine dentists learning to work without actually seeing other dentist do fillings, and then being asked to do it them themselves without anyone watching – that would be crazy! of course there are confidentiality concerns, but be creative. watch videos – of course i'm especially enthusiastic with this, since psychotherapy.net is in the business of producing training videos – but this is a fantastic way to learn. if you are a tennis player you want to watch the greats – the way they hit, how they move around the court – and the same is true for master therapists. you can read all the books you want of their theories, but only by watching them can you see how they dance with their clients. secondly, get as much personal therapy as you can afford, and take advantage of the inevitable struggles throughout your life to reenter therapy. this is perhaps the greatest way to learn about the process of therapy – especially if your therapist is someone that is talented, and a good match for you. if the therapy isn't working, find another therapist quickly. and experience other modalities: psychodrama, somatic therapy, group therapy. you can't help but learn immeasurably from these experiences. finally, don't box yourself in with one approach. this is especially important early in your career. almost all the approaches have something to offer, so keep yourself open minded. of course some approaches will resonate more with you than others, but try to learn as much as you can from all your teachers, supervisors, and consultants. go to workshops even if the topic doesn't sound of interest – you may pick up some valuable, unexpected nuggets of wisdom. as we say in english, "there are many ways to skin a cat." why anyone would want to skin a cat i'm not sure…but you get the idea! one more thing…especially important for those in private practice: beware the risks of isolation – it's dangerous for your own mental health, and to your work. doing therapy can be very gratifying, but we are there to meet the needs of our clients, and too much time shut in our office usually doesn't nurture our soul sufficiently. join a consultation group, either run by an experienced practitioner, or else a peer-led group, or both. http://www.psychotherapy.net/blog/title/psychotherapy-training-on-steroids-remote-live-supervision http://www.psychotherapy.net/ europe’s journal of psychology 17 looking back on my earlier career, i didn't avail myself enough of this kind of support, and i regret that. ejop: finally, as we move into the future and time resources become more limited, what do you see happening in the field? could online therapy be a valid option for some clients? victor yalom: well i certainly don't have a crystal ball, so i don't know if my predictions on this are better than anyone else's…but since you asked me, i'll give it a shot. i'm not sure that we are having less time, or that we just find ways to keep ourselves more busy. but certainly there is a small but growing trend towards skype or other video based therapy, and i would indeed expect that to continue. certainly video is much better than telephone based therapy, as it allows you to attend to all the non-verbal elements (e.g. body language, tone of voice) which are so essential to communication. from my limited experience with this, i think it works even better when you have at least had some contact with the client face-to-face before you transition to screen-toscreen, but i don't think that is absolutely essential. i have been recently consulting with a company that will be launching a video and chat based group therapy platform. there are obvious time-saving and other conveniences in using internet based technologies to give and receive therapy, but i do believe you miss something if you are not in the same room with the client. i just read about a study showing that even for scientific collaboration, the scientists who work closer together in terms of physical space produced more successful research papers. computer technology will not eliminate the human desire for in-person contact, and so i don't think that in-person psychotherapy will ever disappear completely. ejop: thank you very much victor, for taking the time to talk to us. living with intensity europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 399-401 www.ejop.org language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals authored by annette m.b. de groot psychology press, taylor and francis group 2011 reviewed by natalia kucirkova the open university, uk the open university, fels/creet, walton hall, milton keynes, mk7 6bj; e-mail: n.kucirkova@open.ac.uk within the current global and multicultural context, a monolingual orientation is no longer tenable in a comprehensive study of psycholinguistics. however, since its foundation in the 1950s, the majority of psycholinguistic research has been carried out in a monolingual framework. it is only in the last 15 years that studies in bilingualism have shown that many psycho-neurobiological factors shaping the acquisition and use of language may be altered and affected by biand multilingualism. in her newly published book, annette m.b.de groot challenges the view of monolingual psycholinguistics. professor of experimental psychology at the university of amsterdam, de groot provides a comprehensive discussion of the psychology of language from both the bilingual and multilingual perspective. despite the book’s title language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals, the book is unable to give equal weighting for material on both phenomena. this is due to the unbalanced volume of studies on bilingual and multilingual psycholinguistics, with the former significantly outweighing the latter. de groot attempts to redress this imbalance by suggesting that multilingualism can be in many respects seen as ‘noisier’ bilingualism (de groot, p.2). therefore, many of the theories and processes described are seen as applicable to both bilingualism and multilingualism and the two terms are used interchangeably throughout the book, as well as in this short review. http://www.ejop.org/ language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals 400 research on bilingualism parallels that of psycholinguistic research, and this orientation is reflected in the book. three main areas of study are covered: language acquisition, language processing and language production. although information for language comprehension and language production appears in two modalities -speech and writingthe study of bilingualism is generally oriented towards spoken rather than written skills of bilinguals. as de groot notes, differences with mainstream psycholinguistics arise from varying classification concepts of bilingualism. there are the so-called balanced bilinguals (those who possess similar degrees of proficiency in both languages but may not have yet reached full competence in both) as opposed to ‘proficient bilinguals’ who have attained a near-native level of proficiency. the age of acquisition further divides bilinguals into ‘early’ or ‘late’ acquirers. the context of acquisition also subclassifies the early bilingual acquirers into simultaneous, consecutive or sequential bilingualism. alternative sub-divisions of bilingualism such as ‘additive’ and ‘subtractive’ bilinguals can be applied according to the status of the two languages in a society, and recent literature proposes still further branches of bilingualism. prior to this publication, a few edited journal volumes had addressed specific aspects of bilingualism (e.g. foreign language vocabulary acquisition), but a need was felt for a comprehensive publication which would clearly identify the diverse models of bilingualism, surfacing at an incredibly rapid rate. de groot’s book is excellent in unifying a wide variety of aspects of bilingualism under appropriate umbrella terms and offering an almost encyclopaedic guide through the important but complex maze of bilingualism research. in each chapter, the reader is provided with a lot of information on the theory, methods and evidence generated by both seminal and the most recent research on individual bilingualism topics. although written at an introductory level, important methodological issues for both mainstream and brain-based approaches to linguistics are included, with links being made to theory as well as suggestions for possible future research. this guided integration of methodology and theory means that little previous knowledge of the field is required. the author skilfully weaves various studies and concepts together, organising the book into eight concise chapters. chapter 1 begins by providing an overview of the subsequent seven chapters and introduces core terminology and various definitions of bilingualism. chapter 2 considers language development in monolingual and bilingual infants. it focuses on phonological and lexical development and touches on the issue of higher europe’s journal of psychology 401 proficiency present in bilinguals who start to learn their second language early on. the concluding discussion on the importance of critical or sensitive period for second language proficiency echoes the ongoing debate in language studies of whether language is innate or learned-an argument which is reflected throughout the entire book. chapter 3 explores in detail late foreign vocabulary learning and compares it to first language words acquisition. here the facilitative role of word meanings is stressed, which, with the help of a range of perspectives on the structure of bilingual lexical representations, explains the different learning rates of various word types. chapters 4 and 5 deal with the issue of simultaneous activation of memory and language systems for spoken and written input: word production and word recognition. chapter 6 is concerned with the way in which language control operates, and investigates the skill to maintain or switch between languages. the executive language control system offers most explanatory power and it is pleasing to see the chapter concludes by discussing simultaneous interpreting, bringing the topic to life. the reader is reminded in chapter 7 of the losses that can occur in both first and second language and focuses on effects of bilingualism on mental processes such as cognition, in particular cognitive control and its relationship with general intelligence. the last chapter provides an insight into the bilingual brain. central to this chapter are the questions: which brain structures are called for in bilingual language processing? is language laterised in bilinguals in a distinct manner to monolinguals? a rather fragmented structure of the chapter reflects the so-far relatively modest knowledge on specific language areas in the bilingual brain, and leaves the reader with a range questions about further research. with the exception of the first and last chapters, each chapter follows a similar format: introduction to the topic, methods and task section, evidence and summary of main findings. this structure gives the book a strong coherent feel. the material is presented at an introductory level which makes the book attractive and useful for anyone who wishes to learn more about the ability to speak two or more languages. the book’s clear information and thorough orientation will appeal especially to language learners, simultaneous or native bilinguals, interpreters or translators. more importantly, the inclusion of a glossary, number of figures and full references means the book fills the long-awaited need for a textbook on biand multilingualism for graduate students, researchers and practitioners in cognitive psychology and linguistics. overall, language and cognition in bilinguals and multilinguals will undoubtedly stimulate creative future research directions in bilingualism. for the many bilinguals among us, it is a valuable resource on both biological and cognitive basis of multi/bilingualism. microsoft word 1. editorial.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp.1-12 www.ejop.org what mindedness is by michael l. anderson department of psychology franklin & marshall college lancaster, pa 17604 and institute for advanced computer studies university of maryland college park, md 20742 recent advances in theoretical cognitive science can be fruitfully characterized as part of the ongoing attempt to come to grips with the very idea of homo sapiens— an entity at once biological and intelligent—and among the more striking developments has been the emergence of a philosophical anthropology that, contra descartes and his thinking thing, instead puts doing at the center of human being.1 this shift to a more “enactive” 2 understanding of human nature is owed proximally to the work of heidegger and merleau-ponty, but also has clear precursors in such figures as william james and hegel—and more specifically marx and marxist interpreters of hegel such as kojève. naturally, darwin must be considered as central as any philosopher, and many of the recent developments also echo the aristotelian sense that being-at-work is the primary way of being anything at all. 1 this shift is described in rich and illuminating detail in anthony chemero radical embodied cognitive science mit press, 2009. see also gallagher, how the body shapes the mind, oxford university press, 2005; wheeler, reconstructing the cognitive world: the next step, mit press, 2005; and my own “embodied cognition: a field guide” artificial intelligence 149(1): 91-130, 2003. 2 the term comes from francisco varela, evan thomson & eleanor rosch the embodied mind: cognitive science and human experience, mit press, 1990. for more recent treatments see evan thompson, mind in life: biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind, harvard university press, 2007 and froese & ziemke, “enactive artificial intelligence: investigating the systemic organization of life and mind”, artificial intelligence 173(3-4): 466-500, 2009. europe’s journal of psychology 2 the ongoing engagement with these ideas and figures has put (back) into play two competing visions of human being and its place in nature: one is a conventionally modern scientific view, quintessentially represented by certain schools of neuroscience, that treats the body primarily as a reactive mechanism whose main purpose is to house and feed (sensations and sustenance to) the brain.3 the other is more influenced by ecology and evolutionary biology, and takes human being to be rooted in and by agency and practical activity. although these two positions in fact suggest fairly complete visions of the nature of human life (not just biological, but ethical, social, emotional and political—something to which the inclusion of marx and aristotle in the list of intellectual forebears already alludes) i would like to focus here just on the competing views of mindedness itself: what it is, where it is, and how it might be possible. as has been indicated already, the central tension concerns the relation of agency and practical activity to mindedness, and it therefore concerns precisely the role of the body in (and for) mind. whereas on the traditional cartesian view the body is understood as the source of afferent stimulus and the target of efferent output—is, therefore, neither more nor less than a set of sensory receptors and physical effectors, peripheral devices playing subordinate roles to the brain-as-cpu (where representation and calculation occur, on this view the central hallmarks of intelligence)—on the enactive view, the body and its activity play not a peripheral, but a central role in the processes of mind. in fact, the activity of an organism in relation to its environment can be considered not just the most salient expression of mindedness (its location, if you will), but also in some sense its constitution. pretending for a moment that mindedness is composed of perception and cognition (it is not; not only does this leave out such important elements of mindedness as emotion—the recently emerged conception of emotion as an embodied cognitive system is an extremely important development in the overall program of cognitive science4—but this distinction between perception and cognition is itself cartesian in 3 as chemero (2009: 177) puts it, “the problem is that neuroscientists tend to ignore the animals attached to the brains they are interested in studying.” 4 for a good introduction to the issue, see antonio damasio, descartes’ error: emotion, reason, and the human brain, avon books, 1994. an excellent recent review is pessoa, “on the what mindedness is 3 origin) will provide an opportunity for drawing these distinctions somewhat more finely. in considering the issue of perception, the cartesian asks first how it is that the features and elements of the outside world can be captured and re-presented inside the organism. note how this simple question, thus framed by the notions of inner and outer, and centrally featuring the idea of representation, points us in the direction of the familiar and intractable anxieties of modern philosophy: how to relate the accessible, inner given to an outer reality—i.e. how to determine truth and representational accuracy5—and likewise how to adjudicate the relation between the well-known, easily accessible self and the social world—i.e. how to determine meaning.6 the assumption is that the end product of perception is an inner world that fully re-produces—that in its elements and their relations is appropriately homologous to—the outer. this approach to perception accords perfectly well with a notion of mind that is contemplative (or, perhaps better, reflective7) in character; such a mind—withdrawn, narcissistic, engaged only in its own productions—needs inner objects to behold, to alter. thus is cognition, on this view, the manipulation of, and the calculation over, such inner objects, a notion which points us in the direction of such harmful abstractions in ethical and social thought as the “rational calculation” of individual and collective utilities. in contrast, the enactive view treats perception first and foremost as an organism’s means for negotiating its environment. this suggests at least two things: first, that perception is a tool of exploration, and second that it is intimately bound up with and primarily fitted to the service of action. perception is not the passive reception of abstract qualities from the environment, but is itself active, often highly selective and goal-directed, designed to mine from the world all and only information of relationship between emotion and cognition”, nature reviews neuroscience 9: 148-158 (february 2008). 5 on these issues see, e.g., hacking, representing and intervening, cambridge university press, 1983; anderson, “cognitive science and epistemic openness” phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, 5(2): 125-154, 2006. 6 on these issues see, e.g., thompson, mind in life: biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind, harvard university press, 2007; sandel, liberalism and the limits of justice, cambridge university press, 1997; o’donovan-anderson, “wittgenstein and rousseau on the context of justification” philosophy and social criticism 22: 75-92, 1996; schmitt, beyond separateness: the social nature of human beings—their autonomy knowledge and power, westview press, 1995; taylor sources of the self: the making of modern identity, harvard university press, 1989; wood, hegel’s ethical thought, cambridge university press, 1990. 7 cf. richard rorty, philosophy and the mirror of nature, princeton university press, 1981. europe’s journal of psychology 4 importance to the current (or ongoing background) purposes of the agent. the primary task of perception, then, is not the construction of inner objects, but the detection of opportunities for action, a notion that recalls the familiar phenomenological claim that the perceptual field is always an action-field, that the perceived world is always known in terms directly related to an agent’s current behavioral options. to put it in terms of affordances, the perceived availability of things to certain interventions: the world is seen as a continuous series of invitations to action.8 as with perception so, too, with cognition. on the enactive view, cognition first emerged from, and is still rooted in, mechanisms to control the behavior, and augment the survival, of particular agents in particular environments. given the realtime demands of rapidly changing circumstances, one would expect systems to develop that, rather than rely strictly on “inner” manipulations of abstract constructions, instead utilize and exploit the various features of the environment to drive decision making. thus, in the simplest sort of case, the frog’s vision system is highly attuned to contrast and motion, and prey-capture is a hard-wired response to the detection of small, dark, moving dots.9 the frog does not represent individual insects; it cannot distinguish between them or recognize one in particular. nor does it model its whole environment and decide which objects are tasty. indeed, the detection of a fly and the eating of that fly are not really separate events; eating is the sign of detection. this illustrates two important principles of the enactive approach to cognition. first, the classification of an object or situation and the response to it are deeply related. to see as is often to act as if, and, more generally, what one is sees is a function of what one does.10 indeed, as we will see in more detail below, it is often untenable to 8 cf. j. j. gibson, the ecological approach to visual perception, houghton mifflin press, 1979. the best recent treatment of affordances and their importance is chemero radical embodied cognitive science mit press, 2009. 9 j. lettvin, h. maturana, w. mcculloch, and w. pitts. (1959) “what the frog’s eye tells the frog’s brain.” proceedings of the institute of radio engineers, 47:1940-1951. see also horace barlow (1999) “feature detectors” the mit encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences: r. a. wilson and f. c. keil, eds., pp. 311-13. 10 the implications of this idea for the concept of representation are developed in anderson & rosenberg, “content and action: the guidance theory of representation”, journal of mind and behavior, 29(1-2): 55-86, 2008. what mindedness is 5 speak of a separation of visual and motor systems; seeing is not a single process, the information from which is neutrally specified and centrally available, but is often highly task-specialized, such that separate, encapsulated systems have evolved to support the distinct visual needs of different classes of action. thus, for instance, the frog has distinct visuomotor systems for orienting itself to its prey, and for capturing it.11 these systems are unified and coherent not due to the production of some shared representation of the world, an integrated motion picture forever showing in the cartesian theatre, but simply in virtue of being in the same body, experiencing and acting on the same environment. second, the organism exploits facts about its environment to turn simple mechanisms to somewhat more sophisticated uses: black dot detection is, in the frog’s environment, fly detection. were the world different, the environment different, or the frog’s tastes more discriminating, the mechanism would not work. put differently: typical behavior-guiding mechanisms are built on—and in some cases out of— environmental features. and, indeed, many human perception-action mechanisms are like this, based on satisficing machinery that is good enough for the usual conditions, but easily foiled by a change in circumstance.12 it is of course open for someone to object that the frog example is misleading—the frog is not thinking, but only reacting; this is not an example of cognition, but merely of instinct. whatever the force of such an argument from within a cartesian world view, it makes little sense as a specific objection to the enactive view. for the frog doesn’t eat indiscriminately; it exhibits very specific and appropriate responses to differential aspects of the environment. it eats bugs and avoids predators. it shrewdly negotiates its environment in accord with its limited set of needs and goals. 11 d. j. ingle “two visual systems in the frog.” science 181: 1053-55, 1973; d. j. ingle “some effects of pretectum lesions on the frog’s detection of stationary objects” behavioural brain research 1: 139-63, 1980; d. j. ingle “organization of visuomotor behaviors in vertebrates” in d.j. ingle, m.a. goodale, and r.j.w. mansfield, eds., analysis of visual behavior, mit press, 1982. 12 famously, face recognition in general is utterly compromised when faces are turned upsidedown; infamously, cross-racial facial recognition can be difficult, apparently because people privilege race-specifying cues over individuating information when recognizing faces crossracially. these are facts that wouldn’t be predicted by a thoroughgoing world-model version of face recognition. bartlett & searcy, “inversion and configuration of faces” cognitive psychology 25: 281-316, 1993; levin, “race as a visual feature: using visual search and perceptual discrimination tasks to understand face categories and the cross-race recognition deficit” journal of experimental psychology: general 129: 559-74, 2000. europe’s journal of psychology 6 for the enactive view this is intelligence—and note the conflation, in the example, of the perceptual, cognitive, and performative elements of the phenomenon in question; this is typical of the enactive approach, but looks sloppy to the cartesian. indeed, given the cartesian notion that the cognitive and perceptual can and should be distinguished, one suspects that were the frog also endowed with a limited vocabulary—along the lines of wittgenstein’s builders, so it said “fly!” when it saw a fly, and “hawk!” just before diving under cover of water to avoid the bird overhead, and perhaps whistled just so when it saw an attractive potential mate—that its intelligence would be more widely recognized and praised.13 herein lies a simple prejudice, which the enactive view does not share. besides which, there is evidence that a significant part of the human visual system is not entirely unlike the frog’s (which is the sort of fact one comes to expect when looking at these matters from an evolutionary perspective; solutions to common adaptive problems are often common across species, and conserved along lines of descent).14 for the human visual system is likewise split into (at least) two separate pathways: a “dorsal stream” (also known as the “where” pathway) that tracks the location, size and shape of objects, and a “ventral stream” (the “what” pathway) that facilitates classifying and identifying objects. the dorsal stream is a specialized perception-action system optimized for calculating and directing motor responses aimed at an object in virtue of its location, orientation, and spatial extent. this system guides such things as reaching and grasping, and the orientation of sense organs for optimal perception and perceptual tracking. thus, the natural way to characterize what one knows in virtue of dorsal stream operation is in terms of ego-centric spatial coordinates: where something is in relation to one’s self, and what might be done to get the self-object relation into a preferred state. one might say that the dorsal stream “sees” objects in an ego-centric action field; the object is thereby 13 cf. ludwig wittgenstein, philosophical investigations, 3ed. prentice hall, 1999, p.3. technically, i am conflating my animals here: rabbits, not frogs, have hawk detectors. 14 “in summary, the modular organization of visuomotor behaviour in representative species of at least one mammalian order, the rodents, appears to resemble that of much simpler vertebrates such as the frog and toad. in both groups of animals, visually elicited orienting movements, visually elicited escape, and visually guided locomotion around barriers are mediated by quite separate pathways from the retina right through to motor nuclei in the brainstem and spinal cord. this striking homology in neural architecture suggests that modularity in visuomotor control is an ancient (and presumably efficient) characteristic of vertebrate brains.” milner & goodale, the visual brain in action, oxford university press, 1995, pp. 18-19. what mindedness is 7 experienced in these terms. like the dorsal stream, the ventral stream is a specialized perception-action system, but in this case optimized for making classifications, generating descriptions, and other more traditionally “cognitive” activities. as is often the case in cognitive science, some of the most striking illustrations of this separation and its importance come from studies of individuals with specific neural deficits. thus, for instance, patient df, who has widespread lesions in the ventral stream caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, although unable to identify objects by sight (she can neither draw nor describe them), can nevertheless reach for these objects with fluent and appropriately sized and oriented grips. similarly, while she is unable to perceive and describe the orientation of a letter-slot, she is easily able to post a letter through it. in contrast, optic ataxics who have dorsal stream lesions are able to see and describe visual scenes without trouble (for instance the objects on a table or the letter-slot in a wall), but are unable to fluently grasp those objects, or post a letter through the slot, despite the apparent clarity of their visual experience.15 the same kind of disconnect between conscious perception and perceptually guided action can be seen for everyone in the case of a clever variation of the “titchener circles” illusion. in this experiment, subjects were presented with poker chips arranged like the discs in the titchener circles diagram, and were told to pick up the center chip on the left if the center chips appeared to be of the same size, and on the right if they appeared to be different. although the choice of chip showed that the participants were subject to the relevant illusion, in reaching for the chip they used a grip perfectly suited its actual and not its perceived size.16 subjective experience to the contrary, it appears that much of our behavior is (still) governed by specialized, even unconscious, visuomotor systems. when it comes to actually acting in the world, we are perhaps more frog-like than we care to admit. 15 for a thorough discussion of these findings see milner & goodale, the visual brain in action, oxford university press, 1995. 16 s. aglioti, m. goodale, & j. f. x. desouza “size contrast illusions deceive the eye but not the hand” current biology 5: 679-85, 1995. a nice discussion of some general implications of the finding is clark, “visual experience and motor action: are the bonds too tight?” philosophical review 110(4), 2001 europe’s journal of psychology 8 figure 1: the titchener circles illusion. the three center circles are the same size. still, one is certainly entitled to doubt whether this dorsally-mediated orientation to the environment can account for the complex tasks routinely faced by the typical parent, who shuttles the children to their various activities at the right time, in the right order, meanwhile figuring out ways to work in laundry, dry cleaning, and grocery shopping. surely he cannot simply let the world unconsciously guide him and expect to accomplish his daily tasks; rather, he must think about, and plan in reference to, the way the world will be. doesn’t this require world modeling, concepts, and representations—cognition as traditionally understood? possibly.17 but whenever in our (pre-)history symbols and representations emerged as a cognitive tool, they did so in a context—in an environment—already dominated by effective solutions to perceptual-behavioral coordination. it seems unlikely that new solutions radically broke with the old. instead, we should ask what existing resources might have been exapted, redeployed, recycled or otherwise adapted to these new purposes.18 from this perspective what emerges as the critical (and fabulously interesting) question is: what are the relations between the lower-level, older, specialized sensory 17 chemero (2009) argues forcefully that the answer is “no”, that dynamic systems theory can account for cognition without recourse to computationalism and its various accoutrement. he could be right. my argument here is that even the best possible case for computationalism in cognition undermines the traditional cartesian paradigm with which it has long been allied. 18 on the dependence of conceptual contents on action and embodiment see anderson & rosenberg, “content and action: the guidance theory of representation”, journal of mind and behavior, 29(1-2): 55-86, 2008; and anderson, “cognitive science and epistemic openness” phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, 5(2): 125-154, 2006. on the general question of the re-use of existing resources for new purposes, see my “on the grounds of x-grounded cognition” in: p. calvo and t. gomila, eds. the elsevier handbook of cognitive science: an embodied approach, pp. 423-35, 2008; and “massive redeployment, exaptation, and the functional integration of cognitive operations” synthese, 159(3): 329-345, 2007. what mindedness is 9 motor systems and the structure, elements, and rules of operation of any more general, highly flexible, symbolic computational system we may possess? my bet, for what it’s worth, is that these are significantly intertwined, with bi-directional feedback and cooperation—that, for instance, some conceptual contents can be traced to specific sensory-motor systems, and some sensory-motor systems have been adapted to utilize some of the resources of (or at least be responsive to) more general conceptual systems.19 whatever representations emerged in such an environment would seem very likely to be themselves action-oriented, built upon faculties that govern our ability to move and act in a dynamic environment. and so the moral remains the same: the first work of cognition is to provide for action; as the organism’s possibilities for action become more sophisticated, so, too, must the structures that support that activity. but the very nature of perception, of cognition— of mindedness—is not fundamentally transformed by this process. so, even when one simply concedes that planning and model-building may be necessary to some kinds of complex cognition, the central point about its fundamental action-orientation stands. and the argument can be made stronger still, because it turns out that a lot of behavior that might seem to require planning can in fact be done without it. consider the well-known example of pengi20, a software agent that successfully plays a video game in which a penguin must (among other things) kill bees by kicking ice cubes at them. since this sometimes means re-arranging the cubes before kicking them, so they better align with the bees, the ability to play this game looks like exhibit a in the case for the necessity of planning systems. but pengi doesn’t do any planning, nor does it construct the detailed models that planning typically requires. instead, it continually decides what to do in the moment based on the way the world looks.21 “pengi constructs no plans and no models of hypothetical future worlds. . . . [i]n place of simulation, pengi uses visualization. pengi looks to see what might happen next. it engages in visual routines which find particular spatial 19 for a discussion see my “neural re-use as a fundamental organizational principle of the brain”. 20 p. e. agre & d. chapman, “pengi: an implementation of a theory of activity.” the proceedings of the sixth national conference on artificial intelligence (aaai-87) 268-272, 1987. 21 thus rodney brooks’ famous slogan: “the world is its own best model”. r. brooks, “elephants don’t play chess” robotics and autonomous systems 6: 3-15, 1990. europe’s journal of psychology 10 configurations that predict courses of events and so suggest actions. for example, when pengi sees that an ice cube adjacent to the penguin is aligned with a bee, and there are no intervening ice cubes, it kicks it. . . . when it sees such an ice cube is only near rather than adjacent to the penguin, it moves the penguin in the direction of the ice cube . . .”22 and when it sees that a cube can be kicked and end up aligned with a bee, it kicks that one. in support of all this, pengi registers aspects of its environment in deictic, indexical-functional terms like the-bee-i-am-chasing and the-projectile-cube that help it to select appropriate actions for the circumstance. that is, entities in the world are individuated in terms of their relations to the agent and its ongoing purposes. as the authors put it: “the participatory nature of deictic representations means that pengi deals with the environment through a constant interaction with it rather than through the construction and manipulation of models.” this returns us to a point we left behind earlier: it isn’t just that perception and cognition are action-oriented, but that they are interactive, exploiting properties of their environment to guide and simplify cognitive tasks. thus, to understand the character of (advanced) cognition one needs to understand not just the basic faculties that support and constrain it, but also the nature of the environment within which an organism exercises those faculties. put somewhat differently, thinking and perceiving are activities of embodied agents in particular circumstances. these processes crucially rely on neural, corporeal, and environmental resources and are thus not easily localized “inside” or “outside” the agent. this is certainly true of pengi, whose complex-looking behaviors are the result of the complexity of the interaction of simple sensorimotor routines with simple world circumstances.23 since this is also true of both human and frog, the massively greater sophistication of human intelligence needs to be explained in a way that does justice both to the enhanced (behavioral, categorical, representational, linguistic) faculties of human brains, and to the richer resources of the human environment (not to mention the structure and 22 agre & chapman, “what are plans for?” robotics and autonomous systems, 6(1-2): 17-34, 1990. 23 on this point see also h.a. simon, the sciences of the artificial, mit press, 1970. simon describes the apparently complex track of an ant on the beach as the result of an interaction between the ant and the nature and features of its environment. what mindedness is 11 behavioral repertoire of the human body).24 for human-level cognition is marked by the use of and interaction with the environment in myriad ways: using a pencil and paper to store intermediate results in long division or large-number multiplication; arranging a hand of cards or scrabble tiles to better see relevant patterns, matches, or potential words; rotating puzzle pieces to better discern their fit; making grocery lists, labels, signs, encyclopedias, and otherwise storing information in the world to be consulted later; and using management structures, and the constraints imposed by individual roles, to accomplish complex tasks like ship navigation or building construction.25 the overall picture that this suggests is of an intelligence that lies less in the individual brain, and more in the dynamic interaction of agents with and within the wider world.26 mindedness emerges as—is—the activity of making the world a home, one that reflects the nature of its occupant. its primary sign is a kind of adaptive integration with one’s environment, including especially the social and cultural worlds that are so important to human cognition. note this is the precise opposite of mind on the cartesian view, which shows itself fully only in disengagement and alienation.27 thus, in my judgment, discovering and detailing the particular physical characteristics and environmental integrations that shape and support the various aspects of mindedness is the central project of cognitive science. what we are (or should be) doing is attempting to understand how the activity of human mindedness emerges from—is related to, shaped by, and influences—the structures and characteristics of human biology and society. this physical grounding project encompasses enterprises ranging from specifying the particular influence of physical or neurological structures on the contents of experience; to modeling the principles 24 in fact, it follows from this approach that the sophistication of the environment increases as a function of the perceptual-behavioral sophistication of the organism. 25 see clark, being there: putting brain, body and world together again, mit press, cambridge, ma, 1996.; and clancey, situated cognition: on human knowledge and computer representations, cambridge university press, 1997. 26 see, e.g., clark & chalmers, “the extended mind”, analysis 58:10-23, 1998; rowlands, body language: representation in action, mit press, 2006. 27 given this emphasis on integration, one might wonder about the “critical distance” from the world which is apparently central to social progress. for proponents of the enactive view, metaphors of distance are automatically suspect, and it is an important challenge for the enactive view, therefore, to articulate the possibility of criticism without alienation; still, it is an illusion to suppose that this capacity is any less mysterious on the cartesian view, which most certainly poses its own challenges to the notion of free will. europe’s journal of psychology 12 guiding the re-use of existing neural, behavioral and environmental resources for new purposes over evolutionary and developmental time; to understanding the simple interactions with the physical environment that aid in calculation, memory, and decision-making (some of which have been mentioned already); to grappling with how we give abstract, linguistic and mathematical symbols concrete meaning, something which involves supporting integrations not just with the physical environment, but also, and perhaps especially, with the social world; all the way to the extremely difficult question of how to understand the very formation, in its social and physical context, of subjectivity and self-hood. enactive cognitive science therefore sits at the junction of biology, psychology, philosophy, and the various humanistic sciences, including anthropology, sociology, and economics, with the hope that a vision of mindedness which insists from the outset at staying at this critical intersection can help to unify—or at least make consistent—the myriad visions of human being expressed in these various fields. about the author: michael l. anderson is assistant professor of cognitive science in the department of psychology at franklin & marshall college, and visiting assistant professor at the institute for advanced computer studies at the university of maryland, college park, where he is also a member of the graduate faculty in the program in neuroscience and cognitive science. dr. anderson is author or co-author of over fifty scholarly and scientific publications in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. his primary areas of research include an account of the evolution of the cortex via exaptation of existing neural circuitry (the "massive redeployment hypothesis"); the role of behavior, and of the brain's motor-control areas, in supporting higher-order cognitive functions; the foundations of intentionality (the connection between objects of thought and things in the world); and the role of selfmonitoring and self-control in maintaining robust real-world agency. e-mail address: michael.anderson@fandm.edu webpage: http://www.agcognition.org microsoft word 4. research organizational commitment.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 32-46 www.ejop.org organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers: a comparative study maría celeste dávila complutense university of madrid juan francisco díaz-morales complutense university of madrid marianna pasquini university of florence marco giannini university of florence abstract recently, it has been demonstrated that attitudes toward an organization impact upon sustained volunteerism. we compared spanish and italian volunteers using the organizational commitment questionnaire (ocq) and then investigated how organizational commitment related to the intention to remain in the organization. confirmatory and multiple-groups confirmatory factor analysis were used to assess factor structure and structural invariance across the two countries. the results showed that a two-factor model of organizational commitment best characterized the ocq structure for both samples. factorial invariance across countries was demonstrated for both factors (involvement and acceptance). when we examined the relations between each invariant factor and the intention to remain, acceptance was the factor that accounted for more variation in the intention to remain. key words: prosocial behavior, cross-cultural studies, volunteerism, attitudes, organizational commitment. organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers 33 introduction volunteerism is a social phenomenon that has been defined as “prosocial action in an organizational context, which is planned and that continues for an extended period” (penner, 2002, see penner, dovidio, piliavin and schroeder, 2005, p. 375). two main questions can be invoked in its study: what factors contribute to the decision to become a volunteer? and, what factors account for the maintenance of volunteerism? the purpose of the present study was to address the second question and to determine how best to promote the retention of volunteers within an organization. a high percentage of people who decide to become volunteers do not maintain their commitment for very long, and drop out of the organization they have joined (dávila, vecina & chacón, 2005; dávila, 2007; mccurley & lynch, 2005). the continuity of volunteers in organizations can be affected by non-controllable factors such as disease, family or labour problems, and death, among others. but in many circumstances, volunteers leave an organization in part because of organizational management issues, for example, low satisfaction with volunteer work conditions and bad personal relationships with work mates. this attrition associated with controllable factors is called dysfunctional turnover (jamison, 2003). from a psychosociological perspective, diverse theoretical models have been developed to explain volunteer retention and to prevent dysfunctional turnover, among other objectives. prediction of volunteer retention presently, the two models that have been most influential in predicting volunteer continuity have been the volunteer process model (omoto & snyder, 1995, 2002) and role identity model of volunteerism (callero, howard, & piliavin, 1987; grube & piliavin, 1996; piliavin & callero, 1991). in the first model, a series of antecedents variables are differentiated (disposition to help, motivations, and social support) that, along with two process variables (satisfaction and organizational integration), account for volunteer permanence. the second model is based on the idea that being a volunteer for a long period of time increases one’s commitment towards the organization, which, in turn, leads to an increase of actions favouring the organization. this leads people to assume the role of volunteer as part of their personal identity, which in turn leads to continuing to perform volunteer behaviors. since this role is assumed, performing behaviors that are coherent with their identity is reinforcing for the individuals. these theoretical models are congruent in many aspects, but the omoto and snyder model concentrates more on intrapersonal europe’s journal of psychology 34 variables, whereas piliavin and associates’ model pays more attention to social roles and social context (penner et al., 2005). since the inception of these models, other theoretical models deriving from them have been developed: davis, hall, and meyer’s (2003), for example. among the most recent models, we highlight the conceptual model of sustained volunteerism (penner, 2002), and the innovative model of hart, atkins, and donnelly (2004) (penner et al., 2005), which attempts to integrate both sociological and psychological approaches to volunteering. from volunteerism research in spain, we highlight the basic model (dávila & chacón, 2004, dávila & chacón, 2007) and the three-stage model of volunteer’s duration of service (chacón, vecina & dávila, 2007) aiming to explain the different factors that predict the duration of service over short or long periods of time. organizational commitment in many theoretical models, organizational commitment predicts volunteers’ permanence. sometimes organizational commitment appears as an independent element, and other times as an element integrated into a broader category with other related concepts, such as job satisfaction. this broader category has been labelled as relationships with the organization (see penner, 2002) or attitudinal variables (see miller, powell & seltzer, 1990). in recent years, organizational commitment has emerged as a central concept in the study of work attitudes and behaviour (e.g., mathieu & zajac, 1990; meyer & allen, 1991), because organizational commitment is related to two very important variables: the intention to leave an organization and actual withdrawal behaviour (see allen & meyer, 1996). porter, steers, mowday & boulian (1974) defined organizational commitment as the strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in an organization. for them, commitment is characterized by three factors: a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a desire to maintain organizational membership. their definition can be interpreted as reflecting affective commitment (mowday, 1998): affective commitment results in situations where the employee or volunteer wants to continue his or her association with the organization (dawley, stephens & stephens, 2005). organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers 35 at the moment, most researchers believe that organizational commitment is a multidimensional attitude (meyer, allen & topolnysky, 1998). lately, the meyer and allen (1991) model has dominated commitment research. these authors distinguish between affective commitment, continuance commitment (which refers to commitment based on the employee’s recognition of the costs associated with leaving the organization) and normative commitment (which refers to commitment based on a sense of obligation to the organization) (allen and meyer, 1996). the majority of organizational commitment studies have focused on remunerated personnel, but few studies have focused on volunteers (dávila & chacón, 2003; dechant, 2001; miller et al., 1990; pearce, 1993, for example). many of theses studies about volunteerism have used the organizational commitment questionnaire (ocq) developed by mowday, steers & porter (1979); however, in recent years the questionnaire developed by meyers and allen (1996) has been employed, for example, in grube and piliavin (2000), dawley et al. (2005), stephens, dawley and stephens (2004), boezeman and ellermers (2007) and van vuuren, de jong and seydel (2008). our research team has been adapting the meyers and allen’s questionnaire to spanish volunteers, but for the moment we have not achieved this. we have encountered several difficulties, for example with regard to normative commitment, the reciprocal nature of a working relationship may be more central to paid employees, as their relationship with the organization is more contractual than for volunteers. regarding continuance commitment, the loss of important material or immaterial benefits and incentives will presumably be less prominent for volunteers and the perceived lack of alternatives is presumably also smaller for volunteers than for paid employees (van vuuren et al., 2008). on the other hand, the results of van vuuren et al. (2008) showed that volunteers had a significantly higher level of affective commitment to the organization than paid employees. for these reasons this study analyses the ocq, that reflects affective commitment and previously we have had good results using it with spanish volunteers. in any case, allen and meyer (1996) found a strong relationship between the ocq and meyers and allen’s affective commitment scale. intention to continue as was previously stated, the construct of organizational commitment has received much attention because it correlates with the intention to leave and actual withdrawal behaviour. in volunteerism, several studies find that organizational commitment is related with the intention to leave or continue with an organization, such as the studies of miller et al. (1990), dávila and chacón (2007) and grube and piliavin (2000). many researchers (for example, fishbein & ajzen, 1975) have provided europe’s journal of psychology 36 evidence that the intention to act is the best predictor of actually carrying out behaviours. in two meta-analyses (randall & wolff, 1994; sheppard, hartwick & warshaw, 1988; see lee, piliavin & call, 1999), researchers found mean correlations of 0.53 and 0.45 between intention and behaviour over a broad range of behaviours. randall & wolff did not find any significant effect for the time in relationship between intention and behaviour. cross-cultural comparisons an important limitation of current studies is that the majority of studies about organizational commitment in volunteerism have been carried out in anglo-saxon countries. relatively few studies about this subject can be found in mediterranean countries, and there are even fewer cross-cultural studies. although these countries share a western culture, there can be different cultural norms and values that affect the organizational attitudes and their relationship with relevant outcomes such as efficiency at work and withdrawal behaviour. cross-cultural comparisons are interesting because they address the question of whether the findings obtained in one country can be generalized to other countries. here, we focus on a comparison between spain and italy. both countries are mediterranean and they are very similar in their standard of living. it would be very useful to have validated instruments to measure several constructs in volunteers in both countries and to analyze in depth the similarities and possible differences. the rationale for our study was to investigate differences between spanish and italian volunteers. to this end, we analyzed a total sample of 408 volunteers from these two countries. we analyzed the factor structure of the ocq in italy and spain, as well as their partial factorial invariance (factor loadings). before we could explore hypotheses about cultural differences in organizational commitment, it was necessary to demonstrate the factorial invariance of the ocq. differences between countries were then tested. when factorial invariance was found, we analyzed the relationship between organizational commitment and intention to remain in the organization over the course of the next year for each country. although the relationship between organizational commitment and intention to leave or to remain has been identified and replicated in multiple studies, we looked for possible differences in magnitude of this relationship among countries. organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers 37 method participants data were collected from volunteers in italy and spain. the combined sample (n= 408) was primarily female (66.91%), and age ranged from 16 to 81 years (m=41.58, sd=17.91). participation was voluntary, unpaid and anonymous. we collected dates only from volunteers that doing assistential activities to reduce the variability of type of volunteer activity. in previous studies we have found significant differences between types of volunteer activity with relation to the prediction of sustained volunteerism (dávila & chacón, 2004; 2007). spanish participants: two hundred twenty-four volunteers affiliated with 23 nongovernmental organizations participated in this study. there were 157 women and 67 men. the mean age was 37.17 years (sd=17.42, range= 16-81). regarding educational level, 12% of participants had completed only primary studies, 31.2% secondary studies, and 53.6% university studies. italian participants: one hundred eighty-four volunteers affiliated with 26 nongovernmental organizations participated in this study. there were 116 women and 68 men. the mean age was 46.53 years (sd= 17.19, range= 19-81). regarding educational level, 32% of participants had completed only primary studies, 44% secondary studies, and 24% university studies. differences between samples: we found that italian volunteers were significantly older than spanish volunteers (f(1,407)=28,473, p<0.01) with a 1 (age) x 2 (italian and spanish volunteers) analysis of variance (anova). we did not find significant differences in the proportion of men (z=-1,750, p>0.05) or women (z=1,555, p>0.05) between the samples. however, we found significant differences between the samples with respect to the proportion of volunteers who attained various levels of education (proportions’ differences in primary (z=-5,263, p<0.01), secondary (z=2,782, p<0.01) and university level (z=-6,434, p<0.01)). in the italian sample, there were proportionally more people with only primary and secondary level attainment, and in the spanish sample, there were more individuals who had graduated from a university. europe’s journal of psychology 38 instruments organizational commitment: the reduced version of the organizational commitment questionnaire (ocq), created by mowday et al. (1979), was adapted by dávila and chacón for the spanish population to address volunteerism (2003). it was adapted for use with italian volunteers by pasquini and gianinni (unpublished research). this questionnaire was designed to measure the degree to which subjects feel committed to an organization. it includes items pertaining to the subject’s perceptions concerning his loyalty toward the organization, his willingness to exert a great deal of effort to achieve organizational goals, and his acceptance of the organizational values (porter et al., 1974). this questionnaire has nine items with a seven-point likert-type response format, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). examples of items are: “i am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that normally expected in order to help this organization be successful”, “i find that my values and the organization’s values are very similar”, and “for me this is the best of all possible organizations for which to work”. the internal consistency reliability (cronbach’s alpha) was 0.87 in the spanish sample and 0.86 in the italian sample. intention to remain: this was measured by a single item. this question asked the volunteers specifically about the probability of their continuing volunteer work within the organization after 1 year on a scale of 1 to 7 (1 meaning no probability, and 7 meaning maximum probability). procedure the conditions of the questionnaire administration were agreed upon with each organization to cause the least possible interference in regular functioning. in some cases, a representative of the organization distributed and collected the questionnaires. in other cases, the representative provided a list of the volunteers’ addresses, so we could send them the questionnaire together with a pre-paid envelope for its return. finally, in other cases, the representative sent the questionnaire by e-mail to the volunteers and they sent it back, either by postal mail, e-mail, or fax to the organization representative or to the researchers. results in order to test factorial structure and factorial invariance across countries, a multiple group confirmatory factor analysis with lisrel methodology (jöreskog & sörbom, 1993) was used. the models were tested using a covariance matrix and each model organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers 39 was estimated using maximum likelihood. model fit was based on several recommended criteria (bentler, 1992): the chi-square test (χ2), the comparative fit index (cfi > 0.90), the non-normed fit index (nnfi > 0.90), the goodness of fit index (gfi > 0.90), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea < 0.10), and the chi-square difference tests (∆χ2). prior to determining if the organizational commitment remains invariant across countries, it was necessary to examine the factor structure of the measure separately in each country. we found that a two-factor baseline model was estimated separately for the italian and spanish samples: the first factor was labeled as “acceptance” and reflected the individual’s acceptance of organization’s goals and values (items 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7); the second factor was named “involvement” because it indexed and individual’s propensity to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization (items 1, 3, 8 and 9). for all models, each item was specified to load on a single factor, the factor loading for each latent construct was fixed to 1, and factors were allowed to correlate. preliminary single group analyses showed a reasonable baseline model for both italian and spanish samples. the two-factor congeneric measurement model provided marginal explanation for the italian sample, χ2 = 67.47, df = 26, rmsea = 0.09, nnfi = 0.93, cfi = 0.95, gfi = 0.92, and marginal explanation for the spanish sample, χ2 = 56.32, df = 26, rmsea = 0.08, nnfi = 0.93, cfi = 0.95, gfi = 0.92. next, a model was estimated simultaneously for the italian and spanish sample to provide a baseline model against which to compare more restrictive models. the first hypothesis tested was that the two-factor structure is invariant across countries (model 1). the results of this analysis showed that a two-factor solution represents a reasonable fit to the data, χ2 = 123.79, df = 52, rmsea = 0.09, nnfi = 0.93, cfi = 0.95. in the subsequent model, all estimable factor loading parameters were constrained as equal across groups as a test of measurement invariance (model 2). since the difference in χ2 was not significant (∆χ2 (7) = 13.9), the hypothesis of an invariant pattern of factor loadings was considered to be tenable. the results of the multigroup analysis to test if the groups have different mean levels of organization commitment constructs showed that the spanish sample endorsed lower levels than did the italian sample for acceptance (m = -0.38; se = 0.14; t-value = -3.37, p < 0.05) and involvement (m = -0.20; se = 0.09; t-value = -2.12, p < 0.05). the means and standard deviations for each factor are presented in table 1. the data were also analyzed with a 2 (invariant factors) x 2 (volunteers’ samples) anova. there were significant differences in involvement (f(1,407)=3.876, p=0.05) europe’s journal of psychology 40 and acceptance (f(1,407)=20.337, p<0.01). in the two cases, italian volunteers reported greater commitment levels. table 1: summary of descriptive statistics for invariant factors involvement acceptance participants m se m se spanish volunteers 4.75 1.10 5.70 1.02 italian volunteers 5.00 1.37 6.15 0.92 to examine the relationships between each invariant factor and intention to remain, we performed two multiple regression analyses, one for each volunteer group. the intention to remain was regressed on the two invariant factors, involvement and acceptance, and educational level and age. these analyses were conducted controlling for age and educational level as potential confounders because we found significant differences between the samples with respect to these variables. in spanish volunteers, involvement and acceptance were significant predictors for the intention to remain. acceptance accounted for 23% of variation in intention to remain, and involvement accounted for an additional 3.1% of variation in intention to remain. in italian volunteers, acceptance was the only significant predictor for intention to remain; it accounted for 25.4% of intention to remain (see table 2). neither age nor educational level were significant predictors for the intention to remain. table 2: summary of multiple regression analyses of intention to remain (n=408) factors β partial f r² spanish volunteers acceptance 0.383 51.116** 0.233 involvement 0.356 30.652** 0.031 italian volunteers acceptance 0.691 63.202** 0.254 note: **p<.01 discussion the purposes of this study were to analyze the factorial invariance of the ocq in samples of spanish and italian volunteers, and to analyze the relationships in each sample between organizational commitment and intention to remain active in the organizational commitment in spanish and italian volunteers 41 organization since these would help to determine how best to promote the retention of volunteers within an organization. first, we discussed the factor structure of our models. a two-factor structure of the oc was obtained for both the spanish and italian samples. “involvement” and “acceptance” were invariant (with respect to factorial form and loadings) across countries. the factor labeled as acceptance reflected the individual’s acceptance of an organization’s goals and values, and the factor named involvement reflected the individual’s propensity to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization. previous analyses examining the factor structure of ocq have resulted in a singlefactor solution and have suggested a single common underlying construct. in those cases where two factors emerged, the eigenvalues associated with the second factor only narrowly exceeded 1, and the percentage of common variance explained by the second factor was much lower than the percentage of variance associated with the first factor (mowday et al., 1979; dávila & chacón, 2003). in volunteerism research, only dávila, chacón & arias (2005) found results that suggested the existence of two discrete factors. the findings obtained in the present study contribute new data about ocq’s factorial structure in volunteers and contribute to the cross-cultural validity of the ocq in volunteerism’s research. in this study, there is evidence suggesting that the ocq does not evaluate a unidimensional attitude in the volunteer population. it is necessary to study the volunteer’s organizational commitment in depth and to analyze differences with remunerated personnel, but it is possible that these differences will be related to a greater relevance of acceptation of the organization’s goals and values to develop organizational commitment in volunteers. in many cases, the volunteering is carried out during leisure time and other personal responsibilities (paid employment, family, etc.) can limit the propensity to exert additional effort on behalf of the organization. second, we discussed the relations between commitment and intention to remain. the findings show that commitment accounted for a reduced percentage of variance of intention to remain in italian and spanish volunteers. it is very probable that other variables, such as job satisfaction or role identity for example, can also to account for the intention to continue. taking these constructs into account could increase the percentage of explained variance in the intention to continue (penner, 2002). also, we must take into account that volunteers’ attitudes do not necessarily imply the corresponding behavioural consequences, for example, laczo and hanisch (1999) suggest that commitment may have less impact on the intentions of volunteers to stay with the organization compared to paid employees (see in van vuuren et al., 2008). another possibility is that the ocq is not able to suitably assess europe’s journal of psychology 42 organizational commitment in volunteers, or that it will be necessary to take additional indicators into account in order to increase the explanatory capacity of this instrument. in this sense, dávila and chacón (2007) were able to account for a 43% of intention to remain variance when they used other indicators. several measurements used by omoto and snyder (1995) to study integration with the organization (specifically, the items that refer to acceptance of the philosophy, goals, and purposes of the organization), were added. it will be interesting to examine if these additional indicators can increase the percentage of explained variance for intention to remain in italian volunteers. another important result is that factor acceptance played a more significant role than factor involvement in the prediction of intention to continue in the volunteers of both countries. for italian volunteers, acceptance was the only significant predictor for the intention to remain. in this sense, if the organizations want to promote sustained volunteerism in italy and spain they must recruit and select volunteers with a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values, or to use management strategies to promote this acceptance through training or supervision, for example. understanding the process through which volunteers become committed to organizations and how that process can be managed would be of considerable benefit for both volunteers and managers. the last outcome to note is the italian volunteers’ higher score on organizational commitment when compared to spanish volunteers. i would argue that this greater commitment is justified by the age of the italian volunteers in the present research, they were older than the spanish sample. life course studies (oesterle, jonson & mortimer, 2004) have shown that the meaning of roles and activities change over the life course. for example, the adoption of new roles can limit the available time and energy for volunteerism in adulthood. parenthood is a role of particular importance in this stage. when children are in nursery education, the parent’s demands are very extensive, and there are fewer opportunities to connect with other people or organizations outside of the family and work contexts. when children grow and become involved with new activities, this promotes the integration of parents into their community (oesterle, jonson & mortimer, 2004). in this way, if we pay attention to the mean age of spanish volunteers (m=37.17 years) and mean age of italian volunteers (m=46.53 years), we can conclude that italian volunteers are less likely to have small children. therefore, it is more probable that they have enough time and energy to engage in and have a greater commitment to other activities, e.g. volunteerism and the context where it takes place: 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(1991). giving blood: the development of an altruistic identity. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. porter, l.w., steers, r.m., mowday, r.t. & boulian, p.v. (1974). organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover among psychiatric technicians. journal of applied psychology, 59 (5), 603-609. stephens, r.d., dawley, d.d. & stephens, d.b. (2004). commitment on the board: a model of volunteer directors’ levels of organizational commitment and self-repeorted performance. journal of managerial issues, 16(4), 483-504. van vuuren, m., de jong, m.d.t. & seydel, e.r. (2008). commitment with or without a stick of paid work: comparison of paid and unpaid workers in a nonprofit organization. european journal of work and organizational psychology, 17(3), 315-326. about the authors: maría celeste dávila ph.d on psychology and lecturer in social psychology department (faculty of politic sciences and sociology. complutense university of madrid. spain). her main research topics are about prosocial behavior. address for correspondence: mcdavila@cps.ucm.es juan francisco díaz-morales ph.d on psychology and lecturer in department of individual differences and work psychology (faculty of psychology. complutense university of madrid. spain). his main research topics are procrastination, temporality, and cronopsychology. marianna pasquini graduate on psychology and collaborator with psychology department (faculty of psychology. university of florence. florence). marco giannini researcher on psychology in psychology department (faculty of psychology. university of florence. florence). his main research topic is about methodology in psychology research. microsoft word the 33rd annual international conference on the psychology of the self .doc dear colleagues, we are honored to host the iapsp annual international conference on the psychology of the self, to be held on october 21-24, 2010 in antalya, turkey. the conference, entitled "self psychology around the world in theory and in practice", represents the first time in 33 years that our international conference of psychoanalytic self psychology is being held outside of north america. antalya is well known for its ancient ruins, sun, sea, food and natural beauty. it is located on the mediterranean coast of anatolia, the heartland of turkey. situated between the continents of asia and europe, anatolia is an area in turkey that has served for many years as a bridge between cultures, religions, science, and the regions of east, and west, across the centuries the works of scientists, philosophers, poets, and thinkers have come from these fabled lands where we will meet. our conference hotel is also unique. it contains its own state of the art conference center as well as many delightful vacation activities, all in a beautiful 5 star setting. my colleagues and i have prepared a wonderful social and scientific program. we look forward to hosting you in antalya next year. sincerely, sibel mercan, md turkey congress venue: cornelia diamond golf resort & spa adress : iskele mevkii / belek / antalya visit the website for more information http://www.iapspconference.org/ research 4 europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org beliefs about mental illness among university students in egypt hani hamed dessoki, md assistant professor of psychiatry and acting head, department of psychiatry at the university of beni suef tamer m.s. hifnawy md lecturer of public health, faculty of medicine beni suef university abstract objective: to detect differences in attitudes towards psychiatric illness, regarding its nature, cause, different ways of therapy, possibility of cure and the effect on the society in two areas from different socioeconomic classes in egypt. method: a survey study using self administered questionnaire, to detect culture differences between students of cairo and beni suef universities “beni suef is one of upper egypt governorates”. all participating students were subjected to familial socioeconomic status scale, beliefs about psychiatric illness in the arab culture scale. results: 69.8% students were females. the majority of cairo university students were from higher socioeconomic classes (average 41% and above average 32.5%). however, the majority of beni suef university students were form low and below average class (13.6%, 49% respectively). cairo university students showed higher positive attitude regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness including the nature of psychiatric illness, psychiatric etiology, psychiatric management, psychiatric cure, and effect on the family than beni suef university students (p<.001). females in both groups showed lower positive attitude on attitudes towards psychiatric illness in the arab culture scale than males (p <.001). conclusion: beliefs about mental illness are highly affected by low socioeconomic status, upbringing way and beliefs in egypt. public education about psychiatric illnesses is highly beneficial for mental and public health professionals. key words: beliefs, mental illness, university students, egypt europe’s journal of psychology 2 introduction worldwide, mental and behavioral disorders are common, affecting more than 25% of all people at some time during their lives. they are also universal, affecting people of all countries and societies, regardless of age, gender and income. the point prevalence of mental illness in the adult population at any given time is about 10%. similarly, around 20% of all patients seen by primary health care providers have one or more mental health disorders [1]. throughout the world, there is an increasing awareness of mental illness as a significant cause of morbidity [2]. the role of the community in the prevention and care of the mentally handicapped has now been widely acknowledged and is regarded as the most appropriate basis for the development of mental health programs. several studies have shown that knowledge of public attitude to mental illness and its treatment is a vitally important prerequisite to the realization of successful community-based programs [3]. the recognition of mental disorder also depends on a careful evaluation of the norms, beliefs and customs within the individual's culture environment. furthermore, community attitude and beliefs play a role in determining help-seeking behavior and successful treatment of the mentally ill. unarguably, ignorance and stigma prevent the mentally ill from seeking appropriate help [4]. the relationship between the culture and the stigma attached to an illness is rather complex. it is probably even more complicated in the developing countries. it appears that different illnesses have different status attached to them. although, some are medicalised and stigmatised, others are not. it has also been suggested that, in most of these societies some supernatural, religious, moralistic, and magical approaches to illness and behaviour exist. this can complicate the issue further [5]. people tend to have strong beliefs about the mentally ill, and many of these concepts are based on prevailing local systems of belief [6]. in egypt as elsewhere, one of the most commonly cited reasons for the under-use of available psychiatric services by the lay-public is the notion of stigma. stigma is frequently blamed for the cultural incompatibility of westernbased mental health programs in certain context, for the continued reliance on traditional healers and the failure of certain non -western countries (and immigrants from the same) to fall in the step with the dominant psychiatric paradigm [7]. beliefs about mental illness 3 researchers have most often assessed stigma associated with mental illness by surveying the public about attitudes toward "mental patients" or "persons with mental illness," terms that likely evoke images of chronic psychopathology. consequently, it is unclear whether evidence of stigma is indicative of prejudice toward all mental illness or only its more severe forms. although some studies have focused on the stigma associated with specific disorders [8]. people's beliefs regarding mental illness should not only be known, but the purpose of their beliefs should be understood. such attitudes and beliefs about mental illness can only be studied within a culture context [9]. there are marked culture variations in the illness behavior of psychiatric patients. illness behavior -as defined by mechanic (1962) describes how symptoms are perceived, evaluated and acted upon. social factors are involved not only in the cognitive schemas of their symptomatology but also in the choice of different alternatives among courses of how to deal with these symptoms, i.e. the meaning and seriousness of psychiatric symptoms are deeply embedded in the patients’ culture assumptions [10]. to date there is no research on public attitudes towards mental illness from beni suef governorate, a culturally distinct part of the country, by having different customs and traditions. this paper is therefore one of the first to report findings related to attitudinal research on mental illness from beni suef governorate. we aimed to detect differences in attitudes towards psychiatric illness, regarding its nature, cause, different ways of therapy, possibility of cure and the effect on the society in a wide range of different culture areas in egypt. also, to detect the effect of socioeconomic status on these beliefs. subjects and methods this study was conducted from february to april 2007 in both cairo and beni suef university, as a survey study of university students to screen for assessing differences in attitudes towards psychiatric illness, regarding its nature, cause, different ways of therapy, possibility of cure and the effect on the society. 750 self administered questionnaire were distributed to all students attending arabic language courses in both faculty arts in cairo and beni suef universities and enrolled in the third and the fourth academic year and they were not subjected to any courses related to psychology throughout their academic years in both faculties. five hundred europe’s journal of psychology 4 questionnaires were distributed in cairo university and 250 questionnaire were distributed in beni suef university. our response rate was 480 (96%) and 243 (97.2%) students from both faculty of arts cairo university and faculty of arts beni suef university respectively. after being informed of their rights as research participant, all students volunteered to complete the research survey in class. all students were subjected to the following: 1short sheet which includes sociodemographic data (age, sex, education, marital status, residence), family history and past history. 2familial sociodeconomic status scale [11]. this scale had been proved to be reliable and valid. it can help the user to determine the socioeconomic level for the egyptian family. it depends mainly on the monthly income per person within the family, father’s occupation and education. the following equation was used: w = 2.259 + x (1.016) + y (0.886) + z (0.622) w= socioeconomic status . x= the monthly income per person within the family. y= father’s occupation. z= father’s education. according to it the socioeconomic status are classified into: very low = (48-72), low = (73-96), below average = (97-120), average = (121-144), above average = (145-168), high = (169-192), very high= (193-216). 3beliefs about psychiatric illness in the arab culture scale [12]. it is a 40-statements scale that includes 5 subscales to which the subject agrees, disagrees or is equivocal. these subscales are the nature of psychiatric illness, possible causes of psychiatric illness, management of psychiatric illness, possibility of cure from psychiatric illness and the effect on the family life. validity of this scale was done by internal consistency estimation by calculating the correlation coefficient between the psychological beliefs total and each one of the subscales and between the subscales themselves. correlation coefficients were 0.46, 0.73, 0.57, 0.65 and 0.55 when measuring the association between the psychological beliefs total and psychiatric illness, etiology, management, cure and effect on family subscales. all of them showed significance level <0.01**. scale reliability was assessed on 100 students from secondary schools and universities, the cronbach’s alpha and interclass correlation coefficient was 0.64 for the psychological beliefs total and 0.68, 0.52, 0.66, 0.66, 0.91 for the psychiatric illness, etiology, management, cure and beliefs about mental illness 5 effect on family subcales respectively and all of them showed significance level <0.01** [12]. these results suggest that our tool is valid and reliable. all scales were applied in arabic language. statistical analysis statistical analysis was done using the statistical package for social sciences (spss ver.15). to summarize the data, the number of observations and percentages were used for qualitative variables, the mean and standard deviation for quantitative variables. chi-square test for comparison of percentages. kruskal-wallis and mann whitney tests as non parametric tests for ordinal data and analysis of variance (anova) for continuous data. the threshold of significance is fixed at the 5% level. results i sociodemographic and clinical data: 1age: the age of students in both groups was 22 24ys. 2gender , family history & past history: beni suef university students (no= 243) cairo university students (no= 480) total (no= 723) p no. 189 316 505 female % 77.8 65.8 69.8 no. 54 164 218 gender male % 22.2 34.2 30.2 .001 no. 12 8 20 +ve f.h % 4.9 1.7 2.8 no. 231 472 703 family history -ve f.h % 95.1 98.3 97.2 .016 no. 7 5 12 +ve p.h % 2.9 1 1.7 no. 236 475 711 past history -ve p.h % 97.1 99 98.3 .118 n.s table 1: distribution of gender , family history & past history in both groups europe’s journal of psychology 6 iipsychometric data: 1familial sociodeconomic status scale: beni suef university students (no= 243) cairo university students (no= 480) total (no= 723) p no. 6 0 6 very low % 2.5 0 0.8 no. 33 32 65 low % 13.6 6.7 9.0 no. 119 95 214 below average % 49.0 19.8 29.6 no. 80 197 277 average % 32.9 41.0 38.3 no. 5 156 161 above average % 2.1 32.5 22.3 <.001 table 2: distribution of familial sociodeconomic status scale in both groups 2beliefs about psychiatric illness in the arab culture scale: beni suef university students (no= 243) cairo university students (no= 480) mean s.d. mean s.d. p psychological beliefs total 53.08 ±8.96 61.04 ±5.86 <.001 psychiatric illness 11.63 ±3.30 14.35 ±2.20 <.001 psychiatric etiology 11.14 ±3.35 14.69 ±2.28 <.001 psychiatric management 9.82 ±1.41 10.31 ±1.41 <.001 psychiatric cure 9.72 ±1.90 10.67 ±1.61 <.001 effect on the family 10.76 ±1.22 11.76 ±1.35 <.001 table 3a: beliefs about psychiatric illness in both groups beliefs about mental illness 7 bcomparison between females and males regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness scale: female (no= 505) male (no= 218) mean s.d. mean s.d. p nature of psychiatric illness 13.30 ±2.83 13.74 ±2.84 .062 n.s causes of psychiatric illness 13.38 ±3.32 13.77 ±3.01 .118 n.s psychiatric management 9.86 ±1.29 10.42 ±1.60 <.001 psychiatric cure 10.21 ±1.63 10.68 ±2.03 .001 effect on the family 10.99 ±1.22 11.17 ±1.70 .086 n.s table 3b: beliefs about psychiatric illness among females and males in both groups ccomparison between those who have and don’t have family history regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness scale: positive f.h (no= 20) negative f.h (no= 703) mean s.d. mean s.d. p nature of psychiatric illness 14.80 ±3.12 13.39 ±2.91 .034 causes of psychiatric illness 14.95 ±3.01 13.46 ±3.17 .038 psychiatric management 11.25 ±2.75 9.99 ±1.36 <.001 psychiatric cure 12.00 ±2.90 10.30 ±1.71 <.001 effect on the family 12.60 ±2.39 11.00 ±1.26 <.001 table 3c: beliefs about psychiatric illness among those who have and don’t have family history in both groups europe’s journal of psychology 8 dcomparison between those who have and don’t have past history regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness in the arab culture scale: positive p.h (no= 12) negative p.h (no= 711) mean s.d. mean s.d. p nature of psychiatric illness 15.25 ±2.45 13.40 ±2.92 .030 causes of psychiatric illness 15.83 ±1.89 13.46 ±3.17 .010 psychiatric management 11.33 ±2.81 10.00 ±1.37 .001 psychiatric cure 13.08 ±2.87 10.31 ±1.72 <.001 effect on the family 13.50 ±2.31 11.00 ±1.26 <.001 table 3d: beliefs about psychiatric illness among those who have and don’t have past history in both groups iiidistribution of responses of both groups on each item of the beliefs about psychiatric illness scale: beliefs about mental illness 9 beni suef university students cairo university students agree % equivocal % disagree % agree % equivocal % disagree % p q1 most dangerous 19.4 58.0 22.6 0.0 38.5 61.5 <.001 q2 dead though alive 20.5 48.6 30.9 4.6 23.1 72.3 <.001 q3 failure in life 16.6 38.5 44.9 0.9 20.9 78.2 <.001 q4 blessed 7.4 49.8 42.8 4.7 57.1 38.2 .111 n.s q5 dullards 21.8 39.5 38.7 0.4 39.2 60.4 <.001 q6 always aggressive 12.8 56.2 32.5 4.6 20.2 75.2 <.001 q7 hears weird voices 9.1 60.1 30.8 1.1 20.0 78.9 <.001 q8 like mentally retarded 9.1 42.4 48.5 1.7 38.3 60 <.001 n a tu re o f p sy c h ia tr ic i ll n e ss q9 visual hallucination 14.8 47.3 37.9 13.9 56.2 29.9 .057 n.s q10 terrestrial affliction 9.5 64.2 26.3 4.3 69.6 26.1 .023 q11 contagious 27.9 35.8 36.3 2.3 78.8 18.9 <.001 q12 being possessed 27.2 54.3 18.5 1.7 62.9 35.4 <.001 q13 night quiver 12.8 48.1 39.1 1.4 69.8 28.8 <.001 q14 decreased religion 30.9 39.9 29.2 3.75 25.0 71.3 <.001 q15 hereditary 5.4 68.7 25.9 4.2 58.5 37.3 .009 q16 substance abuse 20.1 42.4 37.5 5.6 59.6 34.8 <.001 q17 physical illness 6.9 43.6 49.5 3.3 58.8 37.9 <.001 q18 crisis (life events) 13.5 73.3 13.2 3.7 57.1 39.1 <.001 c a u se s o f p sy c h ia tr ic i lln e ss q19 marriage a 4.1 62.2 33.7 1.9 51.2 46.9 .001 table 4: distribution of responses of both groups on each item of the beliefs about psychiatric illness scale europe’s journal of psychology 10 ivcorrelation between familial socioeconomic status scale and beliefs about psychiatric illness scale: psychol ogical beliefs total nature of psychiatri c illness causes of psychiat ric illness psychiatri c managem ent psychiatr ic cure effect on the family r .151 .146 .224 -.083 .017 .113 p <.001 <.001 <.001 .026 .642 n.s .002 familial socioec onomic status scale n 723 723 723 723 723 723 r .872 .923 .102 .642 .002 p <.001 <.001 .006 <.001 <.001 psycholo gical beliefs total n 723 723 723 723 723 r .890 -.144 .444 .404 p <.001 <.001 <.001 <.001 nature of psychiatr ic illness n 723 723 723 723 r -.050 .529 .453 p .178 n.s <.001 <.001 causes of psychiatr ic illness n 723 723 723 r .129 -.152 p .001 <.001 psychiatr ic manage ment n 723 723 r .247 p <.001 psychiatr ic cure n 723 table 5: correlation between familial socioeconomic status scale and beliefs about psychiatric illness scale beliefs about mental illness 11 discussion in both groups females were significantly more than males (77.8%, 65.8% in beni suef university and cairo university respectively). this could be explained by the fact that faculty of art is predominantly attended by females. regarding familial socioeconomic status scale there was high statistical significant difference between both groups (p<.001) (table 2). the majority of beni suef university students were form low and below average class (13.6%, 49% respectively). in contrast the majority of cairo university students were from higher classes (average 41% and above average 32.5%). regarding the family history there was statistical significant difference between both groups (p=.016) (table 1). beni suef university students had higher family history of psychiatric illness (4.9%). in contrast the family history among cairo university students was (1.7%). this could be explained by koppel and mcguffin (1999) [13] who found that there was an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and mental disorders. although there was no statistical significant difference between both groups regarding past psychiatric history, we found that it was higher among beni suef university students (2.9% vs. 1%) (table 1). this could be explained by chincholikar (2006) [14] finding that psychosocial mal adjustments and psychiatric morbidities were more common among those from lower socioeconomic class. cairo university students showed a significantly higher positive attitude regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness (psychological beliefs total, psychiatric illness, psychiatric etiology, psychiatric management, psychiatric cure, and effect on the family) (p<.001) (table 4). this was in line with melissa et al., (2004) [15] who found that the most negative answers (negative attitudes) were given by participants who lived in the provinces (lower socioeconomic status), as compared to those living in athens and the results were statistically significant at the p<0,001 level. also, participants from athens were willing to accept these people in their social circle. this could be explained by the fact that in poorer areas there is lack of specialized treating facilities and hence disorders tend to be untreated, lack of mental health literacy which leads to feelings of shame, and they suffer more from the burden of the psychiatric illness. the females in both groups showed lower positive attitude regarding beliefs about psychiatric illness on all subscales but significantly on psychiatric management, and europe’s journal of psychology 12 psychiatric cure (p <.001, and p= 0.001 respectively) (table 3-b). this was contrary to the finding by bauman et al., (2003) [16] who reported higher rates of positive attitudes by female students compared to male students. our results might be explained by the culture difference where in our culture psychiatric disorders is still stigmatizing problem and such problem is highlighted among females which enhance their negative attitude towards psychiatric illness. women may suffer from the stigma of mental illness in regard to reduced marital opportunities and increased risk of divorce in an existing marriage, should the condition become public. the higher number of men receiving hospital treatment for schizophrenia in morocco suggests the stigma is greater for women, as few women come forward for treatment [17]. the students with positive family history in both groups showed a significantly higher positive attitude on beliefs about psychiatric illness (p<.001 for psychiatric management, psychiatric cure, and effect on the family). also, there was statistical significant difference between both groups (p=.034) for nature of psychiatric illness, and p=.038 for causes of psychiatric illness) (table 3-c). this could be explained by the finding that exposure to mental illness generates a more positive attitude. angermeyer et al., (2004) [18] found that the weaker perceptions of dangerousness corresponded closely with less fear of such people, which in turn was associated with less social distance. familiarity with mental illness expressed a less strong desire for social distance. this is true even among physicians, khoweiled (2005) [19] in his study of gps (over 10 years experience) and house officers (ho) found that the gp group has a more favorable and more decisive view of mentally ill patients than the ho group. he explained his finding by the greater acquired knowledge and experience of the gp group who had a minimum of 10 years practice. this is in line with afana et al. (2000) [20] who showed in their study of the attitude of 166 palestine primary health care professionals that older professionals showed more emotional and tolerant attitude. they attributed their finding to prior experience with mental illness either through personal or professional activities as roth et al. (2000) [21] suggested. however weller &grunes (1988) [22] stated that this is not always the case. the students who have positive past history in both groups showed higher positive attitude on beliefs about psychiatric illness scale than students who don’t have family history. there was high statistical significant difference between both groups (p<.001 for psychiatric cure, effect on the family, and p=.001 for psychiatric management). also, there was statistical significant difference between both groups (p=.030 for nature of psychiatric illness, and p=.010 for causes of psychiatric illness) (table 3-d). this could be explained by vezzoli et al., (2007) [23] who stated that beliefs about mental illness 13 psychiatric patients had more positive attitude towards mental illness (i.e., less fear, more integration and work opportunity). cairo university students showed higher positive attitude on nature of psychiatric illness. there was high statistical significant difference between both groups (p<.001) regarding most dangerous, dead though alive, failure in life, dullards, always aggressive, hears weird voices, and like mentally retarded (table 4). this is contrary to melissa et al., (2004) [15] who reported that participants who lived in athens thought that these patients were violent and dangerous to a greater proportion than those who lived in the provinces (p<0,001). however it seems to be in line with the results reported by moussa and lawendi (2004) [24] where 48% of the respondents (all females) from a low socioeconomic area believed that persons with psychiatric illness are the most dangerous in the society and 52% believed they are always aggressive, which is unfortunately a frequently replicated stereotype of people with mental illness. cairo university students showed higher positive attitude regarding causes of psychiatric illness. there was high statistical significant difference between both groups (p<.001) regarding contagious, being possessed, night quiver, decreased religion, substance abuse, physical illness, crisis (life events), marriage a related problem, and skin disease (table 4). also, there was statistical significant difference between both groups regarding terrestrial affliction, and hereditary (table 4). this was consistent with kabir et al., (2004) [25] found that psychiatric illnesses were caused by drug misuse including alcohol, cannabis, and other street drugs was identified in 34.3% of the responses as a major cause of mental illness, followed by divine wrath/ god's will (19%), and magic/spirit possession (18.0%). also, aghanwa (2004) [26] reported that a majority of subjects attributed the cause of mental illness to substance abuse in rural areas in fiji (p<0,001). cairo university students showed higher positive attitude regarding psychiatric management. there was high statistical significant difference between both groups (p<.001) regarding visiting sheikhs, preparing spirits, reading quraan, natural herbs, ect, medications and psychotherapy (table 4). the above results were in accordance with greenley et al., (1987) [27] who found that psychiatric patients used the available mental health services more in higher social environment. also, judd et al., (2006) [28] reported that psychiatric patients in rural culture used health services less because of their lower availability and accessibility in such culture. cairo university students showed higher positive attitude regarding cure from psychiatric illness as reflected by their responses to the statements: never normal europe’s journal of psychology 14 again, hopeless case, mental hospital is a prison, and symptomatic not cure, p<.001; cured but recurs; p<.022 (table 4). this might be partially explained by the socioeconomic status where the attitude tends to be more negative in the lower the socioeconomic status. this view is substantiated by the findings reported by moussa & lawendi (2004) [24] who conducted their study in a very low socioeconomic area in cairo where even a higher percentage of respondents reported a negative attitude: 64% agreed that the illness is recurrent, 62% viewed mental hospitals as prisons and 52% were of the view that medications are tranquillizing rather than curative. this was consistent with melissa et al., (2004) [15] who found that majority of participants from higher socioeconomic areas stated that psychiatric patient could be cured, get an education and return to normal life (p<0,001). cairo university students showed a significant higher positive attitude regarding effect on the family (p<.001). (tarnishes family’s reputation, burden on family, tarnishes girl’s reputation at marriage, tarnishes male’s reputation at marriage, his death is better, patient should marry a patient, and patient should be isolated by his family) (table 4). this was consistent with aghanwa (2004) [26] who reported that majority of subjects in rural areas in fiji were less willing to marry or employ mentally ill persons. melissa et al., (2004) [15] also reported that the participants of the provinces as compared to those of athens, supported the fact that having a spouse with a mental health disorder could be cause for divorce. there was a highly significant positive correlation between socioeconomic status and psychological beliefs total (p <.001), nature of psychiatric illness (p <.001), causes of psychiatric illness (p <.001), and effect on the family (p= 0.002) (table 5). this means that the higher socioeconomic status the more positive attitude. this confirms dietrich et al., (2005) [29] conclusion that respondents in countries with less developed mental health care systems showed less positive attitude, and more frequently relied on helping sources outside the mental health sector and on traditional “alternative” treatment methods. also, bauman et al., (2003) [16] found that higher rates of positive attitudes were reported by high ses compared to rural/low ses students in australia. there was a significant correlation between psychological beliefs total and nature of psychiatric illness, causes of psychiatric illness, effect on the family (p <.001) and psychiatric management (p=.006) (table 5) with positive correlation between them. this means that the higher total positive attitude the more positive attitude towards beliefs about mental illness 15 illness, etiology, management, cures, and effect on the family. that is to say this tool is highly valid to assess different aspects of beliefs about mental illness. there was a significant positive correlation between nature of psychiatric illness and causes of psychiatric illness, psychiatric management, and effect on the family (p <.001) (table 5). this means that the higher positive attitude towards illness is associated with more positive attitude towards etiology, management, cure, and effect on the family. nguyen and degotardi (2003) [30] claimed that values and beliefs about mental illness influence care-seeking behavior, treatment outcomes, effect of illness and even determine the way psychiatry is practiced. there was a highly significant positive correlation between causes of psychiatric illness and psychiatric cure, and effect on the family (p <.001) (table 5). this means that the higher positive attitude towards etiology of psychiatric illness is associated with more positive attitude towards cure, and effect on the family. link et al., (1999) [31] claimed that majority of respondents reported multicausal explanations combining stressful circumstances with biologic and genetic factors. also, they showed more positive attitude. this explain the more favorable attitude towards psychiatric cure, and effect on the family. there was a highly significant positive correlation between psychiatric management and psychiatric cure, and effect on the family (p <.001) (table 5). this means that the higher positive attitude towards management of psychiatric illness is associated with more positive attitude towards cure, and effect on the family. melissa et al., (2004) [15] stated that the majority of the participants who showed positive attitude believed that patients with a psychiatric disease could be cured. there was a highly significant positive correlation between psychiatric cure and effect on the family (p <.001) (table 5). this means that the higher positive attitude towards psychiatric cure is associated with more positive attitude towards effect on the family. naeem et al., (2006) [32] reported that positive attitudes towards mental illness is highly associated with increased treatability and recovery. this is associated with minimal burden on the family. overall, our findings are important because the more positive attitudes towards psychiatric illness continue to be an important goal for mental and public health professionals. although the generalizability of our findings may be limited by our reliance on student participants, it is likely that college students are in fact both more comfortable with mental illness and more concerned about social desirability than the general population. we are planning to measure attitudes of the general europe’s journal of psychology 16 population towards mental illness. future research should assess stigma associated with a wider variety of predictors and disorders. conclusions and recommendations 1beliefs about mental illness are highly affected by culture difference and socioeconomic status. 2public education about psychiatric illnesses is highly needed. 3a better understanding of mental disorders among the 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(1987), 25, 1113-1128. beliefs about mental illness 19 28judd f, cooper a m, fraser c, davis j. rural suicide—people or place effects?. australian and new zealand journal of psychiatry. 2006, volume 40 issue 3 page 208. 29dietrich, s., matschinger, h. & angermeyer, m. c. the relationship between biogenetic causal explanations and social distance toward people with mental disorders. international journal of social psychiatry, in press 2005. 30nguyen a, and degotardi v. culture and social attitudes towards mental illness in ho chi minh city, vietnam. international mental health cooperation. 2003. 31link bg, phelan jc, bresnahan m, stueve a. public conceptions of mental illness: labels, causes, dangerousness, and social distance. am j public health. 1999, 89 (9):1328-33. 32naeem f, ayub m, javid z. stigma and psychiatric illness. a survey of attitude of medical students and doctors in lahore, pakistan. j ayub med coll abbottabad. 2006,18 (3). about the authors: hani hamed dessoki, md, is assistant professor of psychiatry and acting head, department of psychiatry at the university of beni suef, egypt. his clinical and research interests include panic and anxiety disorders, psychiatric education, biological psychiatry, familial risk for substance abuse, and women's mental health. tamer m.s. hifnawy md, is a lecturer of public health, faculty of medicine beni suif university, one of upper egypt universities. he is an epidemiologist, conducting researches about communicable and non communicable diseases in egypt. he is also a teacher of community medicine for undergraduate and post graduate medical students. e-mail: thifnawy@yahoo.com microsoft word 8. role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 534 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 534-549 www.ejop.org role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation ari sudan tiwari defence institute of psychological research, delhi, india abstract the fragile nature of eyewitness memory makes the witnesses susceptible to various sources of post event information. many factors of individual differences further moderate the impact of misinformation. the experiment reported here attempts to explore the effects of post event information on recognition accuracy of witnessed events, as moderated by the arousal states of energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone and anger/frustration. experiment used those participants who scored high on four arousal states and average on rest of the three arousal states. participants viewed a video clip, depicting a murder, followed by presentation of one week delayed post event information and recognition test for details of the event. results indicated that participants who were misled retained less number of details of the event than did the participants who were given either consistent or no post event information. high scorer energetic arousal and hedonic tone participants retained more details of the event than did the high scorer tense arousal and anger/frustration participants under all the three post event information conditions. however, high tense arousal and anger/frustration participants’ eyewitness retention dropped more sharply when they were given misleading post event information in comparison to the high energetic arousal and hedonic tone participants. thus, results of the study indicated a moderating effect of post event information by the arousal states. keywords: arousal states, eyewitness accuracy, misinformation effect, post event information. people occasionally encounter with some highly emotional events like brutal murder, robbery, sexual molestation, etc. they accordingly register, encode and store these details and reproduce or recognize them when required to do so. the accuracy of recall of witnessed event is the extent to which people reproduce or recognize these europe’s journal of psychology 535 details perfectly. some of the details, which are often required to be reproduced or recognized, are the contents, people, objects, actions and processes of the event. as an organism endures any unexpected sequence of disturbing and heart-rending situation he becomes emotionally so over-charged that he apart from being stunned also undergoes a state of stupefaction. howsoever disturbing such an event might be to a person, he finds it very difficult to testify for legal procedures the exact sequence of happenings at a later point of time. the confusion becomes worse confounded by the addition of further inputs from the media and other sources. several laboratory studies support the view that memory for details of emotionally arousing events is less accurate than memory for details of neutral events (morgan, hazlett, doran, garrett, hoyt, thomas, barnoski, & southwick, 2004; stark, okado, & loftus, 2010; valentine, & mesout, 2009). past researches on eyewitness testimony (e. g., belli, 1989; gupta, & sondhi, 2009; loftus, donders, hoffman, & schooler, 1989; saunders, & macleod, 2002) have repeatedly demonstrated that misleading post event information may negatively impact the accuracy of eyewitness memory of participants. in one of such studies, loftus and loftus (1975) showed their research participants a film of a traffic accident and then two groups of participants were asked slightly different questions. one of the groups was asked: “how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” the other group was asked: “how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” in a one week delayed retention test the participants were asked whether they had seen any broken glass in the film resulting from the accident. although there had not been any, the second group distinctly remembered having seen the broken glass scattered about the road. apparently, the words of the question had cued their expectations. this phenomenon is known as "suggestibility" or "misinformation effect" for which loftus and her co-workers (loftus et al., 1989) have proposed 'memory impairment hypothesis'. this hypothesis states that misleading post event information alters a person's memory for original episode by somehow 'erasing' or 'overwriting' the original memory trace. it asserts that the destructive updating of original memory trace results in systematic and predictable deficits in performance on subsequent tests (see loftus, 2005, for a review of the misinformation effect). the memory impairment hypothesis was challenged by mccloskey and zaragoza (1985) who advanced the 'co-existence hypothesis', which assumes that the original memory trace is unaffected by post event information. the two researchers used an alternate procedure to test eyewitness accuracy, termed as the modified test procedure, in which the misleading information was not included in the option on the test and argued that for a number of reasons (such as demand characteristics) role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 536 subjects might select the misleading item even if they still remembered the original one. an alternative explanation for suggestibility effect, proposed by bowers and bekarian (1984) is known as the 'accessibility hypothesis', which asserts that misleading information decreases the accessibility of the original memory. study with matched encoding and retrieval contexts by bowers and bekarian (1984) extended support to this hypothesis as the magnitude of misleading information was found decreased. lindsay (1990) proposed a different explanation called 'the source misattribution hypothesis'. this hypothesis assumes that the post event information does not actually impair memory for original event; it actually creates confusion about the sources of the two-information. lindsay (1990) found that in the high source discriminability conditions subjects did not report suggested details more often on misled items than they did on control items, while in the low discriminability conditions subjects experienced genuine source monitoring failures when they claimed that they had seen the suggested details in the slides. many factors of individual differences further moderate the impact of misinformation (see gallo, 2006, for a review). in a recent study many personality characteristics were found to interact with cognitive abilities to moderate susceptibility to misinformation (zhu, chen, loftus, lin, he, chen, li, moyzis, lessard, & dong, 2010). the researchers found that low cognitive abilities, being associated with personality characteristics of low fear of negative evaluation, low harm avoidance, high cooperativeness, high reward dependence, and high self-directedness, enhanced susceptibility to the misinformation effect. studies have also been conducted to associate certain cortical activities with misinformation effect (stark, okado, & loftus, 2010). study indicated that since sensory modalities of original and misinformation were different, they produced different brain activation patterns for the two sources of information. h. j. eysenck (1957, 1967) explained the personality dimensions of extraversion-introversion based on differential arousability of cortico-reticular circuit, which includes the cerebral cortex, the thalamus and the ascending reticular activating system. he thought that this system is more readily aroused in introverts than in extraverts, so that introverts are more easily aroused and show higher level of cortical arousal. this differential arousability is believed to influence many observable behaviours and performance of persons holding one of the either personality dimensions on various types of tasks, including eyewitness memory accuracy in different ways. it is argued that emotional arousal causes attentional narrowing, i.e., a decrease in the range of cues an individual can attend to, resulting in a poorer memory for europe’s journal of psychology 537 peripheral aspects of an emotional event. this attentional narrowing results in enhancement of memory for the central facts of the event. although emotion can affect memory (e.g., heuer & reisberg, 1990), not everyone appears to experience emotion to the same intensity. larsen, diener, & cropanzano (1987) examined differences in cognitive processes during exposure to emotionally relevant stimuli accounted by affect intensity of the individuals. they reported that high affect intensity subjects reported more physical sensations and more emotional arousal in response to emotional slides (positive and negative) than they did to the neutral slides. high affect intensity subjects employed more personalizing, generalizing, and empathic cognitions and global and elaborate thinking. these results supported the idea that individuals predisposed to have strong emotional responses also had the tendency to deploy different type of cognitive processes when exposed to emotional stimuli than low affect intensity individuals. larsen, billings, & cutler (1996) examined individual differences in cognitive interpretation of emotional situations in terms of active information generation. they reported that the subjects high in affect intensity generated descriptive information containing significantly more references to emotional arousal, more focus on feelings and more overgeneralization compared to the subjects low in affect intensity. thus, specific cognitive processing could be associated with dispositional affect intensity and that people’s informational style is stable over time and across situations. researches on attention and judgment have shown that discrete emotions lead to enhanced attention to, and accessibility of, motivationally relevant information (williams, mathews, & mcleod, 1996). fearful people have been found to preferentially attend to threat related information (loewenstein, weber, hsee, & welch, 2001; ohman, flykt, & esteves, 2001) and interpret ambiguous situations as threatening (m. w. eysenck, 1997). fearful individuals flaunt enhanced memory for threat related information and poorer memory for threat irrelevant details (wessel & merckelbach, 1998). enhanced memory for threatening stimuli has also been demonstrated in the framework of eyewitness research. the notion of weapon focus has been proposed to illustrate this phenomenon which refers to witnesses’ tendency to attend and remember the weapon used in the event and ignoring other fringe information (e.g., kramer, buckhout, & eugenio, 1990; loftus, loftus, & messo, 1987). thus, it is evident that the dimensions of arousal have differential cognitive implications (matthews, pitcaithly, & mann, 1995; matthews, & westerman, 1994; mayer, salovey, gomberg-kaufman, & blainey, 1991). these cognitive implications have been largely investigated with low and high affect intensity individuals and to have a comprehensive understanding of the process a broader comparison is role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 538 required. arousal, emotion and mood are inter-linked states (matthews, & deary, 1998) and the activation-deactivation adjective checklist developed by thayer (1978) assesses two dimensions of subjective arousal, referred to as energetic arousal and tense arousal. energetic arousal is characterized by the dimensions of vigour and energy on one side, and tiredness and fatigue on the other. tense arousal contrasts tension and nervousness with relaxation and calmness. matthews, jones and chamberlain (1990) added a third dimension of hedonic tone related to the overall pleasantness of mood. anger as a dimension of arousal has also been extensively researched and has been reported as a psychological predictor of chronically elevated blood pressure (spielberger, jacobs, russell, & crane, 1983). psychometric evidences indicate that extraversion is related positively with energetic arousal and hedonic tone, while it is negatively related with tense arousal. an evaluation of researches discussed here steer to believe that a threatening event depicting a violent sequence would be retained differentially by the individuals of different arousal states. therefore, in the present experiment effects of four arousal states (energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone and anger/frustration) and eyewitness retention scores of participants under three types of post event information conditions (consistent, misleading and no information) has been studied. at the outset, it is hypothesised that high tense arousal and anger/frustration participants would be more susceptible to accept misinformation than those high on energetic arousal and hedonic tone. method participants 120 extreme scorers on the hindi adaptation of uwist mood state adjective checklist (mathews, dwivedi, a.p. singh, srivastava, arora, & i. l. singh, 1995), aged 18 to 25 years (m=22 years and 7 months), were used as participants in this experiment. those extreme scorers on each of the four arousal states of the ums were selected on the basis of the statistic of m+.6745σ who scored average on the rest of the three arousal states. thus, high scoring energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone, and anger/frustration participants formed the four groups for the experiment. each of three post event information conditions comprised forty participants who were drawn in equal number from each of the four arousal states described above. thus, each of the four groups was purely represented by high scorer participants on one the four arousal states. it was believed that such a design europe’s journal of psychology 539 could enable to make better comparison of susceptibility to accept misinformation among the arousal states. materials hindi adaptation of uwist mood state adjective checklist (mathews, dwivedi, a.p. singh, srivastava, arora, & i. l. singh, 1995) was used to select high scoring energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone, and anger/frustration participants. the ums consisted of 29 adjectives to be rated on four point scales. there were eight items each for energetic arousal, tense arousal and hedonic tone mood states and five items for anger/frustration mood state. one could obtain maximum score of 32 (with minimum of 8) on energetic arousal, tense arousal and hedonic tone mood state scales and a maximum score of 20 on anger/frustration mood state scale with a minimum of 5. coefficients of internal consistency for the subscales were .87 for energetic arousal, .82 for tense arousal, .89 for hedonic tone, and .79 for anger/frustration. the to-be-witnessed event in the experiment was a video clip of 3 minutes and 15 seconds duration. the event centred around two friends who had met after a long gap. during their conversation they begin quarrelling over some issue. meanwhile, two persons come and one of them shoots one of the two friends. two types of post event information were given through two versions of the narrative. the consistent post event information condition correctly described the event and items given in the test. on the other hand, the narrative of misleading post event information condition employed some misleading cues about the event. there was another group, which was given neither of the two versions of narratives. a retention test comprising 20 items regarding details of the event was constructed. the details which were required to recognize were the contents, people, objects, actions and processes of the event. each test item was in the question form regarding some aspect of the event with three alternatives. one of the alternatives was the correct one, which really appeared in the event and also in the narrative of consistent post event information condition. the other two alternatives were incorrect; one of which was suggestive, as it did not appear in the event but it did find a mention in the narrative of misleading post event information condition. the third alternative appeared neither in the event nor in the misleading narrative. for example, there was an item: “how the two friends met to each other at first time in the event?” three alternatives to it were: (a) by saying ‘namaskar’ (b) by rubbing their shoulders (c) by shaking their hands. this particular part of the event was role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 540 narrated in the consistent post event information condition in these words: “the two friends met in a room by rubbing their shoulders” while, in the misleading post event information condition, it was explained in this way: “the two friends met in a room by shaking their hands.” items of the test were selected in such a way that all relevant details of the event were well covered. difficulty level of the test items was also checked carefully in a preliminary try-out and equal proportion of mild, moderate and high difficulty level items were included in the final test. for scoring, one score was awarded for each correct answer with no credit to the incorrect answer. procedure the reported study was undertaken at the department of psychology, banaras hindu university, varanasi, india which used a video clip depicting an event of murder. the event, as well as the complete experimental procedure, was reviewed by the departmental research committee (drc) which subsequently granted permission to use it as witness event. as per the directions of the drc, participants of the study were a priori informed about emotional content of the event at the time of taking their consent of participation in the study. the experiment was conducted in 3 phases. phase 1: in this phase, participants were exposed to the witnessed event via a video recorded clip, as described above. phase 2: one week later, participants were given either of the two types of post event information, consistent or misleading, through written narratives in such a way that each type of post event information was supplied to one third of the participants. the participants of no post event information condition did not undergo this phase of the study; in other words they received neither consistent nor misleading post event information. participants were instructed that the narrative was a written explanation of that event. phase 3: just after their reading of the narrative, participants' memory about the witnessed event was tested through a recognition test that contained 20 items. the participants in the no post event information condition received this phase without undergoing phase 2. instructions given to the research participants before the retention test was: “last week, a short video film was presented before you. here, some questions are given related to the incidents of that film. each question has europe’s journal of psychology 541 three alternatives in the questionnaire. select one of them on the basis of the actual incidents occurred in the film and mark (√) before the true answer.” thus, they were clearly instructed to report about the details of the original event viewed one week before. experimental design the design of this experiment was a 3 (consistent, misleading and no post event information) × 4 (energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone, and anger / frustration participants) between subjects factorial design with ten participants in each of the 12 experimental conditions. results table 1 shows that misleading post event information resulted in the lowest retention score (m=8.00, sd=3.28) in comparison to consistent (m=15.73, sd=1.70) or no post event information (m=10.23, sd=2.48). the main effect for post event information was significant, f(2,108)=404.66, p<.0001 (table 2). this is also evident that high energetic arousal (m=14.00, sd=2.48) and hedonic tone (m=12.63, sd=3.67) participants retained more event details than the high tense arousal (m=9.00, sd=4.60) and anger/frustration (m=9.63, sd=3.74) participants. there was statistically significant main effect of arousal states, f(3,108)=110.04, p<.0001. table 1: mean eyewitness retention scores and sds of high scorers on different arousal states as a function of post event information arousal states post event information consistent misleading no overall mean sd mean sd mean sd mean sd energetic arousal 17.00 1.15 11.90 1.29 13.10 1.00 14.00 2.48 tense arousal 14.90 1.20 4.50 1.27 7.50 1.18 9.00 4.60 hedonic tone 16.90 1.10 9.80 1.48 11.20 1.32 12.63 3.67 anger/frustration 14.10 1.20 5.70 1.16 9.10 1.60 9.63 3.74 overall 15.73 1.70 8.00 3.28 10.23 2.48 11.31 4.14 table 1 further shows that apart from performing poor with consistent and no post event information, high tense arousal (m=4.50, sd=1.27) and anger/frustration (m=5.70, sd=1.16) participants’ eyewitness retention scores dropped more sharply when they were given misleading post event information in comparison to the high energetic arousal (m=11.90, sd=1.29) and hedonic tone (m=9.80, sd=1.48) role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 542 participants (figure 1). interaction between arousal states and types of post event information was also found significant, f(6,108)=8.90, p<.0001. table 2: summary of anova for eyewitness retention scores source of variance sum of squares df mean square f sig. pei 1271.667 2 635.833 404.655 .000 arousal states 518.692 3 172.897 110.035 .000 pei x arousal states 83.533 6 13.922 8.860 .000 error 169.700 108 1.571 total 17389.000 120 figure 1: mean eyewitness retention scores of high scorers on different arousal states as a function of post event information 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 consistent misleading no post event information m e a n e ye w itn e ss r e te n tio n energetic tense hedonic tone anger/frustration tukey’s h.s.d. post-hoc comparisons of eyewitness accuracy among various levels of post event information (table 3) revealed that the mean retention score of the participants receiving consistent information was significantly greater than that of the participants receiving misleading (p<.000) and no (p<.000) information. however, misled participants obtained significantly lesser eyewitness details than did the participants of no information group (p<.000). comparisons among various levels of arousal states indicated that high energetic arousal participants retained significantly more eyewitness details than high tense arousal (p<.000), hedonic tone (p<.000) and anger/frustration (p<.000) participants. similarly, high hedonic tone participants retained significantly more eyewitness details than did the high anger/frustration participants (p=<.000). high tense arousal participants recognized significantly lesser eyewitness details than did the high hedonic tone participants (p<.000). europe’s journal of psychology 543 table 3: post hoc multiple comparisons (tukey's h. s. d. test) of eyewitness accuracy among various levels of arousal states and post event information i j mean differences (ij) sig. post event information consistent misleading 7.75* .000 no 5.50* .000 misleading no -2.25* .000 arousal states energetic arousal tense arousal 5.03* .000 hedonic tone 1.37* .000 anger/frustration 4.37* .000 tense arousal hedonic tone -3.67* .000 anger/frustration -.67 .173 hedonic tone anger/frustration 3.00* .000 discussion results extend the theory that consistent post event information enhances the traces by the phenomenon of priming. since both the misled and the no information groups did not get supportive information, there was no priming or enhancement of memory traces. the results lend support to memory impairment hypothesis inasmuch as the misleading post event information presumably erases memory of the original event. there is a rewriting of the event as described in the post event information. consistent post event information further strengthens memory of the original event. however, when neither of the two post event information was given, participants' memory was neither erased nor strengthened. as a result the retention of the no post event information group remained unaltered. the effect of post event information on retention extends the theory of misinformation acceptance and deliberation (see belli, 1989 and loftus et al., 1989 for details). results show that the participants receiving no and misleading post event information accessed the original memory equally well. on the occasions when participants did not receive any post event information failed to remember the original item, they guessed the correct alternative on the basis of probability. however, misled participants remembered both the original and misled items and responded with the misled item because they trusted the experimenter's information than they did their own memory. they apparently performed less accurately than did the no post event information participants who never received any post event information and for whom such demand characteristics were not present also. role of arousal states in susceptibility to accept misinformation 544 results of the present experiment show statistically significant effect of participants’ arousal states on their eyewitness memory scores. correlations among uwist mood adjective checklist scores and measures of curran and cattell's (1974) eight state questionnaire (8 sq) have shown that participants high on energetic arousal and hedonic tone were significantly low scorers on the 8 sq scales of anxiety, stress and fatigue while, they were high scorers on extraversion (matthews, 1987). a contrary pattern of correlations was found for the scores on tense arousal. vigour-energy and tiredness-fatigue have been reported as key traits of energetic arousal, while tension-nervousness and relaxation-calmness have been shown to be key traits of tense arousal (thayer, 1978). in a subsequent study, thayer (1989) related energetic arousal to a general appetite or action system, whereas tension has been associated with a preparatory-emergency system, which is particularly sensitive to cognitive appraisals of danger stimuli. here it is important to point out that the witnessed event employed in the present study depicted a violence sequence ending in a murder. the witnessed event in all likelihood resembled to a somewhat threatening stimulus, which presumably triggered a preparatory-emergency situation. the trend of results in the present study extends support to thayer (1989). differing explanations for anxiety related processing and attentional biases have been advanced. processing stage theory of williams, watts, macleod and mathews (1988) suggests that anxiety affects processing and causes highly selective attention with automatic and unconscious encoding. m. w. eysenck's (1992) hyper-vigilance theory argues that trait anxious participants, particularly when high in state anxiety, tend to scan the environment for threat to an excessive degree. when a threat is detected, they tend to 'lock on to' the threat stimulus and their focus of attention is narrowed. wells and matthews (1994) have identified emotional distress with a cognitive-attentional syndrome generated by a 'self-referent executive function'. high trait anxious individual's attentional functioning is characterized by self-focused attention and his processing effort is diverted to worry and ruminative emotionfocused coping. the syndrome includes the activation of strategies for allocation of attention, which prioritises processing of threat-related stimuli and the person monitors the threats congruent with his personal concerns. the processes of focused, narrowed and selective attention discussed in the theories stated above adequately explain the results of the present experiment where the participants with different levels in the traits of anxiety, tension, stress, energy, vigour and fatigue were found to account their differential memory accuracy. participants who scored high on the scale of tense arousal were presumably higher in their traits of anxiety and stress and the event used in the present study further raised their state anxiety, which resulted in extreme level of focussing and narrowing of their attention. europe’s journal of psychology 545 the view of 'weapon focusing' also assumes that while witnessing a violent event attention is focused on the weapon and other details of the event are ignored or overlooked. this phenomenon of weapon focusing becomes prevalent in high trait anxious participants. they attained and encoded such threatening stimuli with their personal concerns, but only on the expense of other details which resulted in their lower eyewitness memory accuracy (hulse, & memon, 2006). on the contrary, high energetic arousal and hedonic tone participants were presumably low on trait anxiety and high in energy. therefore, no such narrowing and focusing of attention occurred in them, which resulted in their better eyewitness memory accuracy. energy has been reported to be associated with enhanced performance on a range of attentionally demanding tasks (mathews & westerman, 1994). energetically aroused participants paid adequate attention to the entire range of stimuli present in the event and therefore, participant's scores on the memory test were significantly higher than that of the high tense aroused and anger/frustration participants. results of the experiment reported here unequivocally support the view that misleading post event information impairs the memory for details of an emotional event and susceptibility to accept the misinformation also varies across the four arousal states of the research participants. however, the study was conducted in the laboratory situation, while eyewitness accounts pertain to the naturalistic settings. the duration of the event was also very little, while in actual scenario the events take considerably longer time. in addition to high scorer participants for the four arousal states, the experimental treatments could also be expanded by selecting low scorer participants for a comprehensive comparison among the four arousal states. in addition to the subjective arousal, measurement of physiological arousal of the participants could be taken to comprehensively decipher the role of arousal in susceptibility to accept misinformation. finally, participants used in this experiment were of a particular age group (early adults) and therefore, any generalization about others becomes difficult. it is suggested that further studies steering clear of these limitations may be planned to better understand the complex nature of eyewitness memory. references belli, r. f. 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(2010). individual differences in false memory from misinformation: personality characteristics and their interactions with cognitive abilities. personality and individual differences, 48, 889-894. about the author: ari sudan tiwari, ph. d., is working as a scientist at defence institute of psychological research, drdo, delhi, india. his areas of interests are eyewitness testimony, emotionmood-arousal and memory, and meta-cognitive processes. he is presently working in the field of group dynamics and leadership, human and organizational cognition, and psycho-physiological impact of sleep deprivation. address for correspondence: ari sudan tiwari, defence institute of psychological research, defence research & development organization, lucknow road, timarpur, delhi-110054 (india). email: arisudantiwari@gmail.com research 5 europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence: an experimental investigation on preadolescents simerpreet ahuja research scholar school of management & social sciences, thapar university santha kumari associate professor school of management & social sciences, thapar university abstract the present study investigated the nature and extent of relationships between prolonged hours of video viewing and emotional intelligence in preadolescents (n=400). the video viewing questionnaire and baron emotional quotient inventory: youth version were used to measure video viewing habits and emotional intelligence scores. the results revealed that the two gender groups differed significantly in the mean scores. in addition to this overall eq, a detailed analysis of each component of the scale was also done. the relationship between emotional intelligence and video viewing was found to be stronger in females as compared to males. the findings are explained in terms of the theories associated with the process of child development such as cultivation hypothesis, alienation hypothesis, and social learning hypothesis. key words: extended video viewing, emotional intelligence, preadolescents, adaptability, and assertiveness. today children are growing up in a technological environment that includes an element of daily visual stimulation which has become an essential part of human experience. almost all new media, including radio, television, computer and internet are considered to have a potential positive and negative influence on children. children have been treated as the most vulnerable agents of media influence. the mass media can be regarded as a socializing agency in addition to the family and education (mcquail, 2000). europe’s journal of psychology 2 the studies have shown that with the onset and advancement of electronic media like satellite, cable tv and the internet, there has been an upsurge in the media consumption of children and adolescents (comstock & scharrer, 2001; groebel, 2001; von feilitzen, 1999). media has a significant presence in most of human environment (gentile & walsh, 2002). media critics have proclaimed that children’s use of these sources may affect their personal lives, family relationships and peer adjustment. this article offers a set of scenarios depicting young media users under a variety of conditions resulting in different kinds of children’s behavioral patterns. video viewing hinders the emotional, social and intellectual development of young children. rubin (1985) argued that tv viewing is often used for companionship or to battle loneliness. consequently, television may have an obvious impact on how people initiate and maintain interpersonal relationship. however, in less than 20 years, a tv could be found in the majority of homes. today, over 90% of the homes have at least two tvs. accordingly, gerbner, gross, morgan, and signorelli (1986) see television as the great common experience. television causes a culture to become homogenized. this effect is known as cultivation effect. due to the high volume use of e-mail, chat rooms, and bulletin boards for interpersonal relationship purposes, considerable interest has focused on this medium. american on-line is said to carry over 13 million e-mail messages daily (lawe, 1997). parks and floyd (1996) report that people are using e-mail and bulletin boards to initiate and develop relationships (stafford, kline, & dommick, 1999). their data suggest that on-line relationships develop in a similar fashion to those formed in face-to-face interaction. in sum, the growing dependence on technology is allowing each individual to become more and more "self-sufficient”. this gained autonomy has allowed the individual to become more isolated and reclusive. the need for social contact, in many cases, is being fulfilled by the media especially television. relationships are not being initiated with "real" people, but with the projected, edited, "spun" images the users share on-line. as shakespeare noted, "all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players" (as you like it. act ii, sc. 7). however, unlike the parts that shakespeare envisioned men and women playing, the computer-aged players may aspire to act-out scripts less representative of our humanity. matsuda (2001) suggests that the mobile platform has significantly lowered the quality of communication because "consumer related communication" and "brief messaging (just to kill time)" have been identified as the main uses of mobile-related communications. the social influence model of technology use points out that "individuals' media perceptions and use are, in part, socially constructed" (schmitz & prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence 3 fulk, 1991). the model proposes that people around the user influence the user's perception of the medium, including its usefulness, and that a user's skills and experience of the communication technology facilitate use of the medium (tanaka, 2001). computer use can strongly influence the degree to which students collaborate with their peers, which in turn may well influence what and how they learn (hawkins, 1984). internet addiction was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, high harm avoidance, low selfdirectedness, low cooperativeness and high self-transcendence (ha, kim, bae, bae,kim, sim, etal, 2007). internet addiction exhibit more impulsivity than controls and have various co morbid psychiatric disorders (cao, su, liu, gao, 2007). low internet users, as compared with high users, reported better relationships with their mothers and fathers (sanders, field, diego, kaplan, 2000). kraut, patterson, lundmark, kiesler, mukopadhyay, and scherlis (1998) reported that heavy use of the internet is related to the experience of loneliness among users. turkle (1996) showed that the use of the internet is likely to result in social isolation. kraut etal (1998) reported that the use of the internet is likely to result in an increase in depression and loneliness. for many of the young people the internet has become ‘their world’ within which different criteria for success can operate. it seems that young people need a ‘safety valve’ from the demands of their parents and schools and the internet has given them this opportunity. they have created their, so-called, ‘own world’ on the internet, a place where they can talk freely (whang & jang, 2002). the effects of media, such as television, video games and movies on family life have also been demonstrated, and these media will effect personal and social development (huston et al., 1992; larson, 1995). watt and white (2000) also postulate that adolescents who tend to socially isolate themselves are at risk of becoming absorbed into the “safe” world of cyberspace, where they can finally interact socially without some of the inhibitors of interacting personally face to face. consequences for the child of extensive viewing may include problems of mood, behavior, and learning, and poor health outcomes (owens, 2004). in an extensive report on children and computers, the alliance for childhood contended that computers could hamper physical, emotional and intellectual development in children (cordes & miller, 2000). larson (1995) found that some people view television as a means to isolate themselves and “tune out the world.” similarly, the internet provides an opportunity for people to engage in online infidelity which detracts from primary relationships (young, 2000). internet use can be highly time consuming and can lead to internet addiction (young, 2004) and limited social interaction with others (i.e., social isolation; sanders, europe’s journal of psychology 4 field, & diego, 2000). the lack of feeling limits intimacy development directly, as intimacy is multifaceted and involves an emotional intimacy component (erikson, 1968). with the prevalence of media and technology in society and the average home, it is predictable that a person that lacks keen awareness of self and self worth would be more likely to borrow self from fictional characters depicted in the media. it may also be that poorly differentiated persons may spend more time with media seeking to learn more socially desirable traits (i.e., more of what others expect) rather than seeking to develop true individual identity. research suggests that people use media to escape from social interactions. television has been called an “invisible family member” that provides a source of companionship (gerbner, gross, morgan, & signorelli, 1986; bryant & bryant, 2001). the longer we live with television, the more invisible it becomes. as the number of people who have never lived without television continues to grow, the medium is increasingly taken for granted as an appliance, a piece of furniture, a storyteller, a member of the family. due to these and many other reasons, excessive video viewing is a serious handicap to the development of young children. preadolescence is a period of development and consolidation of the self, of one’s identity and understanding of the self in relation to social world (coleman and hendry, 1990). relationships with peers, family and society go through distinct changes during this time. the child begins to assert more autonomous control over their decisions, emotions and actions, and start to disengage from parental control. at the same time, the school context involves an intense socialization process during which preadolescents become increasingly aware of the perspectives of classmates, teachers and societal influences (berzonsky & adams, 2003). several studies provide preliminary evidence that video viewing has positive impact on children’s development. the literature in elementary education and in child psychology shows that the age roughly from nine until puberty is the forgotten period of childhood. it is a noman’s land as far as research is concerned. so it’s essential to study this period of development which is considered to be a critical period. the present study is an attempt to analyze the detrimental impact of excessive video viewing on affective development of preadolescents. it is purely an experimental study which adds support to the existing evidences and directions for the future research. it was hypothesized that heavy viewers may perform poor than light viewers on emotional quotient. prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence 5 method design a 2(sex: male, female) x 2(category: light viewing, heavy viewing) anova was carried for all variables studied. participants one thousand and six hundred preadolescents (male = 900; female =700) studying in various schools of punjab participated in this study. a video viewing questionnaire was used to categorize subjects into light and heavy video viewers. those who viewed less than 12 hours per week were categorized as light viewers and more than 20 hours were categorized as heavy viewers. the third category of medium viewers comprised of 13 -19 hours of video viewing. the participants of medium category (n = 1200) were excluded from the study as the main objective of the study was to compare the extreme categories, heavy and light viewers. the remainder of the participants (n = 400) were further tested on emotional quotient. participants ranged in age from 9 to 12 years. socioeconomic status, intelligence and education levels and abnormalities were controlled. the consent of parents was sought for testing children on all measures. the participants were given educational materials as incentives for participation. the heavy viewers (n = 200) and light viewers (n = 200) were tested on all measures individually. measures video viewing questionnaire: a video viewing questionnaire was used to select two categories of subjects, light video viewers and heavy video viewers. it consisted of 21 items to elicit the number of hours children watched television and used computer per week. it also contained items to rule out any kind of congenital disorders such as mental retardation, epilepsy etc. the questionnaire was sent to parents to be filled by them. the light and heavy viewing categories were chosen on the basis of mean (16.2) and sd (7.92) values of 1600 children who were surveyed to study their video viewing habits. half standard deviation above and below the mean were categorized as heavy viewers and light viewers respectively. baron emotional quotient inventory: youth version (baron eq-i: yv): this inventory was developed by reuven bar-on and james d.a. parker (2006). it is an easily administered self report instrument designed to measure emotional intelligence in europe’s journal of psychology 6 young people aged 7-18 years. the baron eq-i: yv consists of 60 items that are distributed across 7 scales namely total emotional intelligence, interpersonal scale, intrapersonal scale, adaptability scale, stress management scale, general mood scale and positive impression scale. the baron eq-i: yv is a 4-point likert type scale. the higher score indicates increased levels of emotional intelligence. results emotional quotient on emotional quotient inventory, heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 90.06(sd=15.81) and 88.52 (sd=13.05) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 99.96 (sd=14.46) for boys and 100.27 (15.61) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing is significant (f (1,396) =55.59, p<.0001), however the effect of sex and interaction effect are not significant. the simple effect analysis reveals that video viewing has significant affect on females (f (1,396) = 32.746, p= 0.001) as compared to males (f (1,396) = 23.246, p<0.001). this shows that females are more affected as compared to males. emotional quotient (intrapersonal scale) in intrapersonal scale, heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 102.45 (sd=10.91) and 100.84 (sd=12.34) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 105.77 (sd=15.37) for boys and 103.70 (17.75) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient (intrapersonal scale) was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing is significant (f (1,396) =4.51, p<.05). however, the effect of sex and interaction effect are not significant. the simple effect analysis reveals that there is significant sex difference in high video viewing category (f (1,396) = 9.669, p<.0001). emotional quotient (interpersonal scale) in interpersonal scale, heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 86.43 (sd=13.30) and 84.06 (sd=14.32) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 92.36 (sd=14.67) for boys and 93.6 (14.40) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient (interpersonal scale) was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing is prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence 7 significant (f (1,396) =29.74, p<.0001), however the effect of sex and interaction effect are not significant. the simple effect analysis reveals that the effect of video viewing is significant for females (f (1,396) =21.65, p<.0001) as compared to males (f (1,396) = 8.74, p<.0001). emotional quotient (stress management scale) the mean and sd of stress management scale scores of heavy and light viewers for both boys and girls were computed. heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 89.55 (sd=10.51) and 88.15 (sd=11.16) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 89.94 (sd=13.46) for boys and 90.79 (12.43) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient (stress management scale) was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing, sex and interaction effect are not significant. the simple effect analysis reveals there is sex difference in high viewing category (f (1,396) =7.867, p<.0001). emotional quotient (adaptability scale) on adaptability scale, heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 99.15 (sd=14.92) and 94.25 (sd=13.86) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 103.15 (sd=13.16) for boys and 101.39 (15.43) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient (adaptability scale) was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing is significant (f (1,396) =15.02, p<.0001). however, the effect of sex and interaction effect are not significant. in simple effect analysis, the effect of video viewing is more on females (f (1,396) =12.339, p<.0001 as compared to males (f (1,396) =3.87, p<.05). the effect of sex is significant in high viewing category (f (1,396) =5.811, p<.05). emotional quotient (general mood scale) in general mood scale, heavy viewers performed poor compared to light viewers. the mean scores for heavy viewers were 90.74 (sd=13.32) and 90.05 (sd=10.55) for boys and girls respectively. and for the light viewers, the mean was 93.61 (sd=11.42) for boys and 94.48 (sd=13.84) for girls. the data of the emotional quotient (general mood scale) was analyzed using 2x2 anova. the main effect of video viewing is significant (f (1,396) =8.718, p<.003), however the effect of sex and interaction effect are not significant. the simple effect analysis reveals the effect of video viewing is more on females (f (1,396) = 6.420, p<.05) as compared to males. europe’s journal of psychology 8 discussion the findings confirmed the proposed hypothesis that heavy viewers may perform poor compared to light viewers on emotional intelligence. in addition to this, sex difference in emotional quotient was also found. the findings of this study can be explained in terms of social learning theory and the cognitive theory (bandura, 1986; bandura, 1994). it states that novel behavior is acquired directly through experience or indirectly by observing such behavior that brings rewards to others through vicarious reinforcement. repeated exposure to media teaches children novel behaviors that become part of their cognitive structure and behavioral repertoire. the cultivation hypothesis (gerbner, gross, morgan, & sigoreilli, 1986; bryant & bryant, 2001) also asserts that heavy television viewing leads to or cultivates perceptions of the world that are consistent with televisions portrayals, and television provides a source of companionship. in sum, the growing dependence on technology is allowing each individual to become more and more "self-sufficient”. this gained autonomy has allowed the individual to become more isolated and reclusive. the need for social contact, in many cases, is being fulfilled by the media especially television. relationships are not being initiated with "real" people, but with the projected, edited, "spun" images the users share on-line (stafford, kline, & dommick, 1999). computer use can strongly influence the degree to which students collaborate with their peers, which in turn may well influence what and how they learn (hawkins, 1984). this is also indicated by low scores on interpersonal scale. media cultivates the meanings of social, personal and cultural contexts. it also assumes that heavy viewers are also less selective in their viewing, engage in habitual viewing and experience a good deal of sameness of the content. the child borrows the self from fictional characters depicted in the media and lacks keen awareness of self and self worth which hampers emotional attachments and primary relationships which explains the plausible cause for low scores of heavy viewers on intrapersonal scale. the child development experts believe that the stimuli children receive and the activities they engage in during the first few years of life are critical not only for their physical well being but also for their social, emotional and cognitive development. vygotsky (1978, 1986) argued that cognitive development did not just happen in the brain of the individual child, but depended on interactions between the child and cultural tools available for mediating knowledge. and in present era media and its components are major source of cultural tools which influence child development. social behavior is controlled by programs or scripts that are acquired in childhood. the young children may also have more difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence 9 and may have a greater tendency to identify with and imitate media characters. children find it difficult to separate televised fantasy from life reality (wright, huston, reitz & piemyat, 1994).this supports the heavy viewers depicting low adaptability scores. the video viewing displaces the child’s imaginary play which has an important developmental function in helping the young child to understand mental states as desires and beliefs as entities that can be reasoned about and used to predict behavior (lillard, 2002). cognitive priming emphasize that watching negative feelings may trigger negative feelings which in turn prime other negative feelings, thoughts, memories and behavioral tendencies. cognitive associative network affect the link between media activated thoughts and actual behavior (jo & berkowitz, 1994). internet addiction was significantly associated with depressive symptoms and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, high harm avoidance, low self-directedness, low cooperativeness and high self-transcendence (ha, kim, bae, bae,kim, sim, etal, 2007). the low scores on general mood scale can be attributed to impact of prolonged video viewing and realed changes. internet addiction exhibit more impulsivity than controls and have various co morbid psychiatric disorders (cao, su, liu, gao, 2007). kraut, patterson, lundmark, kiesler, mukopadhyay, and scherlis (1998) reported that heavy use of the internet is related to the experience of loneliness among users. turkle (1996) showed that the use of the internet is likely to result in social isolation. they have created their, so-called, ‘own world’ on the internet, a place where they can talk freely (whang & jang, 2002). the effects of media, such as television, video games and movies on family life have also been demonstrated, and these media will effect personal and social development (huston et al., 1992; larson, 1995). consequences for the child of extensive viewing may include problems of mood, behavior, and learning, and poor health outcomes (owens, 2004). the above description reason out and support that heavy viewers scored less on emotional intelligence. significant gender differences were also noted in emotional quotient. females report higher scores on emotional intelligence as compared to males (brachett, rivers, shiffman, lerner & salovey, 2006). the results in this study indicate that video viewing has significant effect on girls even though boys also use computers, television. the plausible explanation may be that media portrayals exert stress and anxiety on females to grow up too quickly as there is growing checklist of ideals they have to adhere to. the girls are forced to grow at an unnatural pace in the society that is damaging their emotional well being. sex role stereotypes in the media were europe’s journal of psychology 10 responsible for young women’s negative self concepts. this can be the plausible cause for low intrapersonal scores for females. another reason is that girls view family drama and non aggressive programs which portray traditional roles. females characters are more likely than males characters to be portrayed in traditional stereotypes such as being emotional, romantic, affective, and domestic (thompson & zerbinos, 1995). girls are reported to like violence less, approve of it less, and see it as less realistic, they are more frightened and distressed by media portrayals, respond to it more emotionally and watch it in a more involved and less detached way than boys do ( van evra, 1990). the low interpersonal and general mood scale scores for females can be attributed to the distressing influence of the media portrayals. another possible explanation for any gender differences may lie in the types of programs preferred by boys and girls. boys prefer violent programs and girls prefer nonviolent programs. exposure to video games, computer and television violence can serve as a proximate cause of aggression by influencing cognitive, affective and arousal variables. the desensitizing effect of media exposure is a reduction in empathy, generally defined as sensitivity to other’s pain and suffering (funk, bechtoldt, pasold & baumgadner, 2004). it is also reported that boys are more likely than girls to use media as a tool to increase their energy level and seek stimulation and girls use it for socialization. this can be attributed as the possible cause for male depicting high stress management scores. research reports socialization pressures on girls to express their feelings and on boys to inhibit them. boys are taught to be tough and brave, to mask their feelings, and girls on other hand are socialized to be nurturing. they are taught that anger is the only emotion socially acceptable for them to display and other emotions are stifled. men are more likely than women to be portrayed as work oriented and women are more likely to be portrayed in home. men are also more likely to deal with problems themselves while women are likely to seek help and to help others with their problems. this helps in developing independence and assertiveness in boys. all these evidences may be considered as contributing factors to high adaptability scores of males obtained in this study. research indicates that video viewing inhibits cognitive and motor skills and children with these delays are less able to cope with frustration and defer gratification. valkenburg, cantor, & peeters (2000) found that 7-12 years girls reported resorting to social support, physical intervention and escape more often than boys did, due to which girls may have a greater need for social approval. girls also report more comfort in expressing emotions (joshi & maclean, 1994). inner speech is hypothesized to organize the child’s internal cognitive activities and to regulate the child’s external behavior. the self regulatory skills enable children to inhibit certain prolonged video viewing and emotional intelligence 11 thoughts or actions. the girls are reported to have better inhibitory control as compared to boys. the evidence does confirm that girls show greater emotional expression than boys, they experience emotions more intensely, and they display more frequent expressions of emotions. women are more willing to self disclosure about emotions and they see themselves and others see them, as expressing emotions more often and more intensely than men (brody & hall, 2000; cross & madson, 1997; gross& john, 1998). women’s faces are more spontaneously revealing of their emotions than men’s faces are, and women are more successful in posing expressions of emotion than men are (hall, 1984). due to which females are unable to mask their emotions as males can do. this is revealed in low adaptability and interpersonal scores of females. the results indicate that girls are affected more by media as compared to boys as they understand, express their emotions effectively and assimilate emotional cues more easily. the overall trend of the present findings is an indication that excessive video viewing is detrimental to the emotional growth of children. there are many preadolescents who spend a lot of time in video viewing. the ubiquitous nature of media in our children’s lives and the potential harm from exposure to media messages and images is source of serious concern to parents, educators and policy makers. parents should be encouraged to monitor what their children watch to make sure the 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(2000). computers and the family life: a family development perspective. journal of comparative family studies, 30, 5-26. whang, l. s., & jang, g. y. (2002). a psychological analysis of online game space its users. proceedings of human computer interaction conference (1), korea, 8190. wright, j. c., huston, a. c., reitz, a. l., & piemyat, s. (1994). young children's perceptions of television reality: determinants and developmental differences. developmental psychology, 30, 229 239. young, k. s. (2004). internet addiction: a new clinical phenomenon & its consequences. american behavioral scientist. vol. 48, no. 4, 402-415. young, k. s., griffin-shelley, e., cooper, a., o'mara, j., & buchanan, j. (2000). online infidelity: a new dimension in couple relationships with implications for evaluation and treatment. in a. cooper (ed.), cybersex: the dark side of the force (pp. 59-74). philadelphia: brunner routledge. about the authors: santha kumari. m a and ph.d. in psychology, associate professor of psychology, school of management & social sciences, thapar university, patiala, india area of specialization: cognitive psychology current interests: cognitive and affective development, emotional intelligence, gender differences in cognition, laterality and hemispheric specialization, spatial abilities published research papers in refereed international and indian journals of repute such as perceptual and motor skills, psychologia, psychological studies etc. europe’s journal of psychology 16 completed several sponsored research projects on handedness and spatial ability , sex differences in cognition, hemispheric specialization for motor abilities, masculinity-femininity, and cognitive microgenesis funded by govt. of india simerpreet ahuja m a. in psychology. p.g. diploma in guidance & counseling and pursuing ph.d. in psychology; lecturer in psychology/ research scholar in psychology, school of management & social sciences, thapar university, patiala, india area of specialization: child development & counseling current interests: emotional intelligence, emotional stability, gender differences in affective processes. published research paper in refereed indian journal of repute psychological studies. running head: self standards, humor & well-being europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 1-8 www.ejop.org introductory comments: special issue of ejop (august 2010) on humor research in personality and social psychology nicholas a. kuiper guest editor, special humor i ssue of ejop university of western ontario welcome to this special humor issue of europe’s journal of psychology. this august 2010 ejop issue is devoted to a presentation of contemporary psychological research on humor, with a particular emphasis on work that targets the personality and social aspects of humor, including stress, coping and well-being. this special issue can be placed into a broader context by noting that we are currently enjoying a psychological renaissance in research on humor. each year, an increasing number of scientific articles are being published about the psychological aspects of humor. this is clearly seen in table 1, which provides one rough index of humor publications in psychology over the past thirty years. this was done by searching in psychinfo, using the term “humor,” across a sequence of one-year time periods (beginning in 1980), and then advancing in five year increments. thus, year of peer-reviewed total published publication journals works 1980 25 47 1985 58 97 1990 81 140 1995 88 119 2000 136 218 2005 345 461 2009 377 519 table 1: number of humor publications in psychology 1980-2009 http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 2 starting in 1980, there was a grand total of 47 publications on psychological aspects of humor in all of that year, with 25 of these being in peer-rev iewed journals. moving forward, we begin to see a slow but steady increase in humor research, reaching an overall total of 119 works published in 1995, with the majority of these now in peerrev iewed sources (88). what is truly remarkable is what has happened to this field since 1995. as we enter the new millennium, the total number of published works on humor has almost doubled to 218 for the year 2000. this doubling continues unabated in the next time period sampled (2005), with a total of 461 publications, of which the majority are in peer-rev iewed journals (345). finally, ev idence from the most recent one year period available (2009) indicates that this interest in the psychological investigation of humor still continues at a high rate of enthusiasm, with the total number of published works now above 500, and peer-rev iewed publications forming almost three-quarters of this total (377). given this recent exponential growth in psychological research on humor, it seemed both timely and appropriate to put together a special issue that would showcase some of this work. the goal here was not to offer a comprehensive overv iew of all of the psychological work on humor (for this, see martin, 2007); but rather, to offer a snapshot of several contemporary personality and social psychology approaches to humor. this was done by approaching a number of prominent humor investigators in several different countries (canada, united states, great britain, belgium, norway and lebanon); and then asking them to prov ide a sample of their work that would be suitable for a special ejop issue focusing on personality and social psychological approaches to humor. the responses were extremely gratifying, and ultimately resulted in the production of this special humor issue. the entire list of contributors to this special issue, and the titles of their articles are shown in table 2. europe’s journal of psychology (ejop) august 2010 humor research in personality and social psychology special humor issue editor: nicholas a. kuiper, ph.d. kuiper, nicholas a. introductory comments: special issue of ejop on humor research in personality and social psychology. veselka, liv ia, schermer, julie a., martin, rod a., cherkas, lynn f., spector, tim d. & vernon, tony a. a behavioral genetic study of relationships between humor styles and the six hexaco personality factors. introductory comments: special humor issue of ejop 3 hampes, william, p. the relation between humor and empathy. janes, leslie m. & olson, james m. is it you or is it me? contrasting effects of ridicule targeting other people versus the self. kazarian, shahe s., moghnie, lamia, & martin, rod a. perceived parental warmth and rejection in childhood as predictors of humor styles and subjective happiness. saroglou, vassilis, lacour, christelle & demeure, marie-eve. bad humor, bad marriage: humor styles in divorced and married couples. freeman, gillian p. & ventis, w. larry. does humor benefit health in retirement? exploring humor as a moderator. kuiper, nicholas a., kazarian, shahe s., sine, jessica & bassil, margaret. the impact of humor in north american versus middle east cultures woodzicka, julie a. & ford, thomas e. a framework for thinking about the (not-sofunny) effects of sexist humor. edwards, kim r. & martin, rod a. humor creation ability and mental health: are funny people more psychologically healthy? cann, arnie, stilwell, kelly & taku, kanako. humor styles, positive personality and health. kuiper, nicholas a., kirsh, gillian a., & leite, catherine. reactions to humorous comments and implicit theories of humor styles. beins, bernard c. & o’toole, shawn m. searching for the sense of humor: stereotypes of ourselves and others. svebak, sven. the sense of humor questionnaire: conceptualization and review of 40 years of findings in empirical research. table 2: list of contributors & article titles for special humor i ssue of ejop europe’s journal of psychology 4 even a cursory examination of the titles shown in table 2 indicates the wide range of issues that are currently being investigated by this group of humor researchers. as can be seen from this table, and also as shown separately in table 3 for each article, these topics and issues range from behavioral genetic analyses of humor and personality to the negative effects of certain types of humor on various relationships and societal norms. also of interest are the moderating and mediating effects of humor on stress, coping and health, along with the social and interpersonal effects of humor. these investigators are also busy mapping out humor stereotypes and implicit theories of humor used for self and others. furthermore, the links between sense of humor and other positive personality factors are also being considered, along with work focusing on measures of humor creativ ity. finally, some of the work reported in this special ejop issue addresses developmental factors that link childhood upbringing with certain humor styles; whereas other research reported here considers the cross-cultural similarities and differences in the effects of humor on social and personal relationships. overall, there certainly is a broad range of topics and issues being examined in this special issue ; and this clearly reinforces the notion that we are in the midst of a renaissance of humor knowledge and investigation. in addition to presenting an overv iew of the main issues examined in each of the articles in this special issue, table 3 also prov ides a brief summary of the type of humor considered in each article, and the samples that were employed. as can be seen in table 3, the samples in the various studies come from a wide variety of different countries, and include not only university undergraduate students , invest igators humor sample main issues examined veselka et al. 4 humor styles twins (mz &dz) situate humor styles in affiliative great britain hexaco personality self-enhancing model (6 factors) aggressive self-defeating behavioral genetic analysis of humor styles & personality hampes 4 humor styles undergrads relationships between united states humor style and various components of empathy introductory comments: special humor issue of ejop 5 janes & disparagement undergrads review major theories of olson humor (ridicule canada disparagement humor of self or other) effects of disparagement humor on conformity, fear of failure, and creativ ity differential effects for self versus other ridicule kazarian et al. 4 humor styles undergrads relationships of humor lebanon styles with parental acceptance & rejection explore how humor styles mediate relationships between parental warmth or rejection & happiness saroglou et al. 4 humor styles married & impact of humor styles on (early variants) divorced relationship quality in both earthy humor couples married &divorced couples belgium humor styles predicting divorce beyond attachment indices partner similarity in humor styles & impact on marriage freeman & 4 humor styles retirees over stress-moderating role of ventis the age of 55 humor styles in retirement united states specificity of adaptive versus maladaptive nature of each humor style kuiper, kazarian 4 humor styles undergrads impact of humor styles on et al. canada & others, including cross lebanon cultural differences europe’s journal of psychology 6 woodzicka & sexist humor various samples direct &indirect negative ford (hostile & in review effects of sexist humor benevolent) united states & elsewhere review theories of sexist humor & indicate future research directions edwards & 4 humor styles & undergrads relationships between martin humor creation canada humor styles, humor ability (2 measures) creativ ity & psychological well-being cann et al., 4 humor styles undergrads humor styles as mediators united states of stress-reduction for physical & mental health kuiper, kirsh & 4 humor styles undergrads & impact of humor styles on leite high school others & social relations adolescents canada implicit theories of humor styles for self & others beins & o’toole multidimensional undergrads match between self sense of humor united states reports of humor & (humor production, other measures of attitudes towards sense of humor humor use, coping humor, & humor humor level & appreciation) personality attributions for self &others svebak sense of humor various samples development of shq questionnaire in review and subsequent variants &variants (shq-6) norway & elsewhere review major findings of wide variety of empirical studies using shq table 3: overview of the articles in the special humor issue of ejop introductory comments: special humor issue of ejop 7 but also married and divorced couples, monozygotic (mz) and dizygotic (dz) twins, retirees, adolescents, and community-based participants. this breadth of participant characteristics is impressive, and indicates the extent to which the investigators in this special issue have already begun to consider the application of contemporary humor theory and research to diverse groups and populations. in terms of defining humor, table 3 illustrates that a variety of different approaches are represented in this special issue, with several of the studies examining the four humor styles described by rod martin and his colleagues. these styles include two adaptive forms of humor (self-enhancing and affiliative) and two maladaptive forms (self-defeating and aggressive). this multi-faceted approach to considering sense of humor prov ides for a rigorous examination of not only the potential benefits associated with humor, but also the detrimental effects which may accrue. of further interest are other approaches to the construct of humor, as exemplified by the articles focusing on disparagement humor (ridicule), sexist humor, and humor creativ ity. additional approaches to defining humor are ev ident in the articles examining the sense of humor questionnaire and the multidimensional sense of humor measure. both of these measures further illustrate the complexity of humor, as several different humor facets are identified, including humor production, attitudes towards the use of humor, coping humor, humor appreciation, liking of humorous situations, and meta-message sensitiv ity. when taken together, the various approaches to sense of humor represented in this special issue clearly illustrate two major points. the first is that sense of humor must be respected as a very complex phenomenon that any single humor measure will never successfully encompass. secondly, much more research and theorizing is necessary in terms of clearly articulating the various facets of sense of humor. while measures such as the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) and sense of humor questionnaire (shq) have both prov ided considerable clarification in terms of measuring the various facets of sense of humor, further work is still required. concluding comments as you read through the articles presented in this special humor issue of ejop, i hope you find them to be informative and enlightening, and perhaps spark an interest in research studies that you may now wish to conduct in the humor domain. i t is also important to reiterate once more that this special issue provides a snapshot of several contemporary approaches to humor research with a personality and social psychological flavour, and thus should not be taken as an exhaustive examination of europe’s journal of psychology 8 all the different approaches to the psychological investigation of humor. there are other models and approaches that have not been represented in this special issue, but also warrant full consideration as the field progresses and mature. finally, i would like to thank all of the contributors to this special issue for their assistance, patience, and co-operation throughout the entire editorial process. the contributors were extremely responsive to the various publication deadlines, and as such, made my job as the editor of this special issue just a little bit easier! last, but not least, i would like to offer considerable thanks to the chief editor of ejop, vlad glăveanu, who has fully supported and assisted me with this project from the outset. reference martin, r. a. (2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. new york: academic press. about the author: nicholas a. kuiper has been a professor of psychology for over 32 years at the university of western ontario in london, ontario, canada. his interest in studying the psychology of humor began in the early 1990’s, with a special emphasis on the personality and social psychological aspects of humor. much of his research has focused on indiv idual differences in sense of humor, with implications for stress, coping, psychological well-being, physical health, and other positive and negative emotions. further research has examined humor use in romantic relationships and the potential links between humor use and bullying in middle childhood. address for correspondence: n. kuiper, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca mailto:kuiper@uwo.ca research 3 europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org psychosocial impact of mobile telework: results from an online survey1 hiltraut paridon bgag institut arbeit und gesundheit, dresden, germany marlen hupke institut für arbeitsphysiologie an der universität dortmund, dortmund, germany abstract the present study mainly investigates the psychological strain of mobile workers who use information and communication technology. data was collected via an onlinequestionnaire. more than 200 participants took part. the results show that the ergonomic conditions of mobile workers should be improved. flexibility and decision-making latitude associated with mobile work are evaluated quite positively. constant availability and blurring of boundaries between work and private life is assessed as negative by only one third of the participants. the majority of the respondents receive support from colleagues and experience social interaction. as found in other areas of work, some of the psychological factors may be a risk as well as a resource depending on their extent and duration. this applies, for example, to flexibility and self-organisation. further research is needed to ascertain to which degree such factors are appropriate for health and wellbeing. furthermore, future research should differentiate between different kinds of mobile work, namely whether it is office-based or industrial. key words: mobile telework, psychosocial strain, online survey 1 this communication is based on a literature analysis carried out in the framework of a contract financed by the european commission (tender nr. vt/2007/0117 study contract vc/2008/0002 for the investigation into the impact on occupational safety and health in europe of the increasing use of portable computing and communication devices). the views expressed in this communication are those of bgag and do not necessarily reflect a commission's official position. europe’s journal of psychology 2 introduction working mobile is becoming a necessary part of work for more and more people. it can be defined as work involving operations at several locations and travelling between them (hurme, 2005). in 2002, 28.4% of workers in the european union spent at least part of their work being mobile (sibis, 2002/2003). the need for mobile technological support associated with this development has resulted in the fast development of technical devices enabling workers to access important information when working away from company premises. people using mobile technical devices for their work are referred to as mobile teleworkers (garrett & danziger, 2007) mobile eworkers (gareis, lilischkis & mentrup, 2006), virtual office workers (hill, ferris & märtinson, 2003) or mobile ict-supported (information and communication technology) workers (kohn, 2006). the terminology differs among studies and slight differences may be observed (hill, ferris & märtinson, 2003). whilst studies on mobile telework, for example, often refer to knowledge workers and include a necessary amount of time spent working mobile (generally more than 10 hours, european commission, 2001) mobile ict-supported work refers to a larger range of mobile jobs including workers such as drivers or service engineers and lacks the focus on time limits (kohn, 2006). according to the studies mentioned the terminology will also differ in this article but mainly concentrate on the term of “mobile ict-supported workers”. the proportion of such mobile ict-supported workers among overall eu15 employment grew from 1.5% to 4% in the period 1999 to 2002 (gareis, lilischkis & mentrup, 2006). reasons for this increase can mainly be attributed to globalization. it creates the need to travel between different branches of a company or its customers and work during these times of travel. another reason arising from increasing global competition may be the need to offer services close to the customer which require high amounts of flexibility, availability and mobility. a very important reason is, of course, technical development itself which has enabled workers to be mobile without being totally cut off from communicating with the company. research on the psychosocial risks and resources associated with mobile ictsupported work which include organisational as well as personal factors is scarce and a fuller theoretical or empirical development of the topic has been neglected so far (hislop & axtell, 2007, hill et al., 2001). to complement the limited existing data, research results from the closely related forms of mobile work and home-based telework have to be considered in order to provide a general overview of the topic. home-based telework has been investigated thoroughly and has provided the most results (hill, ferris & märtinson, 2003). accordingly, the following overview shall intro psychosocial impact of mobile telework 3 duce readers to research results pertaining to the most important psychosocial risks and resources of mobile ict-supported work and to other related forms of work that may be applied to ict-supported work. flexibility and autonomy in general, mobile workers have more control over their own actions because only few possibilities exist for direct supervision by the company. a study by hill et al. (1998), for example, found significant positive relations between work in virtual offices and flexibility. mobile workers can choose when to complete tasks, may arrange appointments and take breaks when they want. such autonomy has been found to correlate positively with job satisfaction and the reduction of turnover intent and role stress (gajendran & harrison, 2007). however, such flexibility can not only be assessed as positive. mobile ict-supported workers have to be very flexible in changing work locations within short time periods and face a blurring of boundaries with their private life. much depends on how the working conditions are agreed on between employees and supervisors (european agency for safety and health at work, 2007). when the employee has to be available at all times and can not arrange appointments and working times in accordance with their own preferences, advantages of flexibility can vanish quickly. this forced flexibility can lead to impairments in physical and mental health while freely-chosen flexibility can contribute positively to health (european agency for safety and health at work, 2007). negative effects of work flexibility are also reported by goudswaard and de nanteuil (2000) who found that flexible working strategies lead to a loss of control over working time and to reduced opportunities for recreation. martens et al. (1999) showed that flexible work schedules were positively correlated with health complaints and a general decrease in well-being. although flexibility to arrange working times may be evaluated very positively by some employees it also has to be considered that many people prefer regular working times that ensure they can fulfil their private commitments at fixed times every day (european foundation for the improvement of living conditions, 2007). social support and isolation mobile ict-supported workers often work away from the company premises and from their colleagues and supervisors regardless of whether they are managers, sales representatives or drivers. whilst for home-based teleworkers this implies the advantage of facing less disturbances and distractions from others; for mobile ict europe’s journal of psychology 4 supported workers this advantage is smaller as disturbances arise from other sources when working in trains, airports or in other public places. working away from the company premises means having fewer opportunities to seek support from colleagues and supervisors. social support has been found to serve as a buffer in the relationship between work-related stress and the development of mental and physical disease (karasek & theorell, 1990, dormann & zapf, 1999 ), so a lack of such support might result in a higher susceptibility to illness. mulki et al. (2008) report results from a study amongst salespeople who felt a loss of camaraderie, felt left out of company affairs and felt they had less career support and fewer chances to be involved in major projects at work. these results are confirmed by mann and holdsworth (2003) who found that 67% of home-based teleworkers said they feel lonely at least sometimes. a study on mobile workers also found that these employees report higher feelings of job insecurity (brandt & brandl, 2008). in contrast to these findings the study by gajendran and harrison (2007) found no negative consequences of work away from the company in general and even positive effects on the relationship between the mobile working employee and their supervisor. supervision supervising mobile-working employees differs from the supervision of employees in the office. neither adherence to working time and breaks nor working style can be directly observed. under these conditions trust between the employee and the supervisor is very important (mulki et al., 2008). to create and maintain such a trustful relationship, regular opportunities for communication and exchange should be introduced. according to mulki et al. supervisors should also help mobile working employees to structure their work and prepare them to self-organize tasks. to increase self-organization skills, training might be offered to the mobile-working employees. as the achievements of mobile working employees are difficult to evaluate illegems, verbeke and s’jegers (2001) as well as hörmann (2000) propose the introduction of management through objectives or goals. these goals or objectives should be discussed in regular meetings. supervisors should also give special attention to offering feedback and rewards to their mobile workers as opportunities may be significantly fewer than with office-based workers and give the employee a feeling of not really psychosocial impact of mobile telework 5 belonging to the company or not being appreciated. an imbalance between reward and effort perceived by the employee may be a source of stress and poor mental health (siegrist, 1996). work-life balance according to a study by hill, ferris and märtinson (2003) on different kinds of work settings, work in virtual offices was negatively correlated with work-life balance and personal-family success. this may be explained by the blurring of boundaries between work and family life as these workers are well equipped with mobile computing and communication devices and are therefore permanently on call and able to work; even when at home. as virtual office work partly takes place at home, the lack of physical boundaries between work and private life may also impact negatively on family life. a study by hislop and axtell (2007) showed that the effects of work on family life depend greatly on the kind of mobility the mobile teleworker faces in their job. while low discretion workers such as drivers or service engineers travel smaller distances and remain local, mobile teleworkers with high discretion often travel large distances and have to stay away from home overnight. thus, negative effects on work-life balance have been found for high discretion workers whereas for low discretion workers there were no such effects. brandt and brandl (2008) found in a study among 512 mobile-working and 1,194 company-based employees that mobile workers perceived the incompatibility of work and family as one of the most negative aspects of their work. personal characteristics as mobile ict-supported workers mainly work alone and have to structure and organize their work on their own, the ability to self-organize seems to be a very important requirement when employees are intended to start working mobile. hörmann (2000) also points to the fact that employees have to be well prepared regarding what to expect and well qualified for the demands placed upon them. in addition to personal characteristics, demographic factors such as age or gender may also be risk factors of mobile ict-supported work. although according to haddon and brynin (2005) most workers using mobile ict are men it can be assumed that there is no particular reason why women should be at higher or lower risk when work europe’s journal of psychology 6 ing under such conditions. the reason for this lower mobility is probably attributable to the nature of typically “female” jobs and the fact that responsibility for childcare often still falls to women (burchell et al., 2007). additionally elderly people do not face particularly high risk rates when working in mobile ict-supported jobs. it should be taken into consideration that they are often not so familiar with technical devices and may need more time to become familiar with them (charness, 2006), but at the same time with their experience they are more independent of their colleagues and supervisors and may work more independently (european agency for safety and health at work, 2007). whilst the factors named may be some of the most important arising from mobile ict-supported work there are many more that can be considered as risks or resources of mental and also physical health. some of these factors, such as the ones already mentioned in detail, may be resources at a certain intensity and design but develop into risk factors at other intensity levels. factors that may also play a role are, for example, changes in working time, communication barriers in mobile ict, reduced access to company networks and informal information, and work place insecurity. all of the aforementioned factors can lead to mental and also physical strain. the psychosocial consequences of the named stressors are mostly discussed in the frame of stress theory. if these factors impact on the employees for a long time, consequences such as burnout, cardiovascular diseases (öhlin et al, 2004), psychosomatic disorders or impairment of the immune system (jones & bright, 2001) may result and lead to low productivity, poor motivation and absenteeism. methodology data were collected via an online questionnaire. it included questions regarding: • use of mobile devices (7 questions) • ergonomic aspects (including software ergonomics if special software was used, 18 questions) • physical complaints (7 questions) • psychological stress (23 questions) for the questions about psychological stress the participants were asked to indicate in each case whether, and if so how frequently, the stressor impacts them (from “never” to “always”). additionally they were asked to rate the respective situations. the following responses were possible: • i think it’s good. psychosocial impact of mobile telework 7 • i think it’s neither good nor bad. • i think it’s bad. • i have no opinion. the formulation of the questions and the responses followed the format of the questionnaire “psychological evaluation of working conditions screening for occupants of workplaces (basa)” (richter, g., & schatte, m., 2005). information about the survey and an invitation to take part in it were published in different newsletters and on the website of the german social accident insurance (dguv). average duration to complete the questionnaire was 12.8 minutes. participants 219 people answered the questions. there were participants from all industries, but there were only very few people from some areas such as mining, gas, heating and water. the fields of “trade and administration” as well as “health service” were most strongly represented. the youngest participant was 20 and the oldest 71 years old. the average age was 43.5 years (standard deviation 10.1). the majority of the respondents were between 36 and 50 years old. 22.4% of the participants were women and 75.3% men. the respondents are on the road on average 4.2 days per week and on these days work 4.5 hours with it devices. the respondents have on average approximately 15 telephone calls and 30 emails per day. the number of daily emails and daily telephone calls correlates significantly with .512 (p < .01). results the results will focus on psychological aspects but the other topics of the survey will also be briefly presented. used devices, ergonomic and health aspects almost all respondents work with a laptop (93.2%). similarly a large proportion of respondents use a mobile phone (81.7%). a personal digital assistant (pda) was used by a third and just on 10% used a blackberry. other devices which are used include navigation systems and smartphones. the evaluation of ergonomic aspects related only to situations in which it devices were used. almost 80% of respondents must sometimes adopt an uncomfortable position to use the devices. a mere 18% of respondents always have sufficient leg and foot room to change position. 45% of respondents reported that they can often or always adjust their seats. almost 20% of europe’s journal of psychology 8 respondents never have this possibility. only 20% of respondents said that their chairs always or often had adjustable armrests. over 40% of respondents can never adjust the armrests to a suitable height. there is significant improvement potential with regards to ergonomic conditions. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t eyestrain backache neck ache joint pain poor concentration figure 1: frequency of physical complaints. figure 1 shows the frequency of physical complaints. analyses show that there is no significant difference regarding the frequency of physical complaints dependent on whether the respondents: • use few or many devices • receive few or many emails • conduct few or many telephone calls • are younger or older. almost half of the respondents attribute their complaints to working with mobile it devices. in order to reduce physical complaints stronger counter measures should be adopted. work organisation with regards to work organisation the results show that 77% of respondents can often or always organize working time flexibly. high levels of flexibility are evaluated positively while low levels receive positive evaluations less often. 95% of respondents have sometimes, often or always a high degree of control over their own actions and decisions (figure 2.) 90% and 95% respectively of those who often or always have a high degree of action and decision-making scope think this is good. however, there are also those who never operate with much room for self-determination who also rate this as good. psychosocial impact of mobile telework 9 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t flexible working time high decision latitude figure 2: frequency of how often participants have high flexibility in working time arrangements and high decision-making latitude. the results also show that there are communication barriers. only 12 % of the participants feel that they always get all information that is relevant to their work. about 40 % are sometimes or often well informed. as expected the more that important information was available, the more positive the situation was rated. 55% of mobile workers in this study said they never or only sometimes face blurring of boundaries between work and private life (figure 3). of those who never experience the boundaries blurring 85% rated the situation as positive. of the others about a third rated the situation as bad. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t figure 3: frequency of how often participants experience a blurring of boundaries between work and private life. europe’s journal of psychology 10 60% of mobile workers reported that they always or at least often have to be available (figure 4) . 30 and 20% of people respectively think this is bad. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t figure 4: frequency of how often participants always have to be available. as expected, the more often there are interruptions due to telephone calls, colleagues or superiors, the more this is rated as bad. interruptions due to emails are rated as negative less often. only 26% of respondents can often or always complete tasks without being interrupted. there is no surprise here that the situation is rated positively when tasks can be completed without interruption. social relations at work virtually all participants have possibilities for social interaction and receive social support from colleagues during their work and evaluate these opportunities positively (figure 5). the situation here is also more positively rated when there are opportunities for social contact or when support is regularly received. psychosocial impact of mobile telework 11 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t possibility for social contact support by colleagues figure 5: frequency of how often participants have the possibility for social contact and receive support from colleagues if needed. older mobile teleworkers, that is, older than 45 years, reported significantly less support from colleagues than did younger mobile teleworkers (p < .05). variance analysis shows that those who receive more support from colleagues have significantly less back and joint pain as well as fewer concentration problems (figure 6). they can also complete tasks without interruption more often and generally have better possibilities for social contact. in addition they receive more acknowledgement and fewer contradictory instructions. europe’s journal of psychology 12 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50 4,00 backache* poor concentration* joint pain** flexible working time** contradictory instructions* appreciation** can voice opinions** colleagues help** information for work** knowledge of how things work* social contact** high decision latitude** can end tasks without interruptions* [ 1 = never to 4 = always] colleagues help more colleagues help less figure 6: mean of items with significant differences depending on whether colleagues help often/always or never/sometimes (* = p< .05; ** = p< .01). personal influences and societal conditions mobile telework places special demands on the employee. as mobile teleworkers mostly have to structure their work days and arrange appointments on their own the ability to self-organize is essential (figure 7).this is rated by about two-thirds as good. approximately a third rate this situation as neither good nor bad or bad. psychosocial impact of mobile telework 13 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 never sometimes often always p er c en t figure 7: frequency of how often participants state that the demand to organise work is high. respondents were asked to estimate if their job position is secure. three quarters of them replied that their position is secure. over 20% of respondents believe that this is not the case. variance analysis, which separated people who evaluate their position as secure from those who rate it as unsafe, shows that those with job insecurity have significantly more: • eye complaints, • back pain and • neck problems. and that these people: • have less flexibility in organising their work time, • have less of a say in matters, • receive less information that is important for their work and • have less room to make decisions (significance for information for work p < .05, all others each p < .01). differences as a function of device number and travel days the frequency of psychological stress shows hardly any correlation to the number of devices. variance analysis indicates that people who use three or more devices have their work interrupted more often by telephone calls and emails and that they regularly work on weekdays and bank holidays (each p < .05). those who are on the road for more than three days show significant differences to those who are on the road for up to three days. they are shown in figure 8. the data shows that the situation for those who work a lot mobile is more unfavourable than for those who are less on the road. europe’s journal of psychology 14 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50 4,00 ba ck ac he ** jo in t pa in * ot he r co m pl ai nt s* fle xi bl e w or ki ng tim e* w or k at w ee ke nd s* po ss ib ili ty f or so ci al c on ta ct * ch an gi ng w or k en vi ro nm en t* * al w ay s av ai la bl e* * in fo rm at io n ov er lo ad ** [ 1 = n ev er t o 4 = a lw ay s] up to 3 days away on business more than 3 days away on business figure 8: mean of items with significant differences depending on whether participants are up to three days away on business or more (* = p< .05; ** = p< .01). differences as a function of external and internal influence the respondents were also asked if they feel that mobile it controls them or rather they control it. figure 9 shows that after variance analysis there are significant differences between the two groups. through this comparison it can be seen that those who feel in control have fewer health problems as well as less pressure in terms of appointments and time. they also can allocate their time more flexibly and don’t have to work as often at the weekend. they have a better understanding of how their devices work, have more room for decision making and are less inundated with information. psychosocial impact of mobile telework 15 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 eyestrain* backache** neck ache** poor concentration** joint pain** deadline and time pressure** flexible working time** work at weekends* telephone calls interrupt** colleagues/superior interrupts** contradictory instructions** appreciation* can voice opinions* knowledge of how things work** high decision latitude** high demands to organise work* blurring of work-life boundary* information overload** can end tasks without interruptions** [1 = never to 4 = always] externally-determined self-determined figure 9: mean of items with significant differences depending on whether participants feel externally-determined or self-determined when using mobile devices (* = p< .05; ** = p< .01). discussion the results support many of the existing findings. additionally they provide new aspects which are important for further studies and for prevention work. the results from an ergonomic point of view show clearly that there is a need to improve work equipment. it can be assumed that this will reduce physical complaints. europe’s journal of psychology 16 regarding work organisation the data show that the majority of participants can flexibly organize their work and have a high decision-making latitude. both aspects are evaluated quite positively. other findings also show that flexibility and decisionmaking latitude are generally assessed positively and that they are associated with higher job satisfaction. however, too much flexibility may lead to excessive demands in self organisation and to longer working hours. more research is needed to determine what level of flexibility is appropriate. interaction with tasks and skills has to be considered in this research. the existence of communication barriers that was found in other studies (siegel et al., 1986, sproull & kiesler, 1987, ocker et al.,1996) was also found in this survey. the negative evaluation of this situation is in accordance with existing literature. unexpectedly, availability and blurring of boundaries between work and private life is judged as negative by only one third of the participants. it may be of interest to investigate under which working and private conditions people evaluate availability and blurring more or less positive or negative respectively. regarding social relations at work the survey shows that the majority of participants have possibilities for social interactions and receive support from colleagues. this finding partially contradicts existing research which shows that mobile workers lack social contact and support (mulki et al., 2008, mann & holdsworth, 2003). it must be taken into consideration, however, that the latter findings mostly refer to homebased teleworkers. regarding the relationship between social support and health the study confirms results of other research that found a negative correlation between social support and physical as well as mental complaints (dormann & zapf, 1999). the data show that the demand for self organization is high. therefore, the general recommendation to train self organization skills which can be found in the literature should be put into practice. the correlation between job security and physical and mental complaints should also be investigated further. in accordance with other studies (sverke, hellgren & näswall, 2002, barling & kelloway, 1996) the present data show that people who have an insecure job suffer from more physical and mental complaints. however, the direction of this relationship does not seem to be clear. as expected, the situation is worse for those people who work mobile for more than three days per week than for those who work less mobile. it also appears important that mobile workers have the feeling that they are in control of their devices and not the other way around. those who consider the use of it psychosocial impact of mobile telework 17 devices as self-determined also rate many other aspects more positive. possibly this feeling depends on whether the person feels confident using the device. that means that intensive training can have a positive effect not only on handling the device but also many other aspects. the results of the survey offer starting points for prevention which must be further clarified. for example, can devices and working equipment be significantly improved in ergonomic terms? it also seems important to train self-organisation skills so that this demand does not lead to stress. possibilities for social contact through the appropriate channels, for example, regular work update meetings should be implemented. in addition, work should be organised so that there are times when the employee does not have to be on-call. for a more in-depth assessment of the situation for mobile workers there should be further investigation. additional 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(2002). no security: a meta-analysis and review of job insecurity and its consequences. journal of occupational health psychology, 7, 242 264. about the authors: dr. hiltraut paridon studied psychology at the universities of duisburg and wuppertal in germany. in 2000 she received her phd at the university of tuebingen. she works at the bgag – institute work and health of the german social accident insurance as a researcher and trainer since 2000. marlen hupke studied psychology at the technical university of dresden, germany. from 2006 to 2008 she worked at the bgag – institute work and health of the german social accident insurance as a researcher and trainer. she is currently participating in a phd programm of the ifado leibnitz research centre for working environment and human factors in dortmund, germany and the german social accident insurance. address correspondence to hiltraut paridon, bgag institut arbeit und gesundheit, königsbruecker landstr. 2, 01109 dresden, germany, email: hiltraut.paridon@dguv.de the degree of uncertainty avoidance present in croatian and american undergraduate students; a comparative analysis jennifer l. matic instructor, the american college of management and technology, don frana bulica 6, 20000 dubrovnik, croatia tel: +385 20 433 000, fax: +385 20 433 001 email: jennifer@acmt.hr abstract 25 years ago, culture’s consequences was published. this text, the result of analyzing over 116,000 surveys collected from within ibm, identified 4 cultural dimensions which would go on to become recognized as one of the most important set of cultural dimensions, and which would be replicated and expanded upon on a broad scale (bass, 1990; adler, 1997). culture’s consequences contained information from yugoslavia, information that was later broken down according to the area in which it was collected, resulting in cultural scores for slovenia, croatia, and serbia (hofstede, 1996, 2001). since this original research was conducted in 1971, no further testing of hofstede’s original findings has been carried out in croatia. the research presented in this paper focused on one of hofstede’s four dimensions in particular: uncertainty avoidance. research was carried out which tested the degree of this dimension demonstrated by croatian and american undergraduate students. in contrast to hofstede’s original research, the american sample was found to be higher in uncertainty avoidance than the croatian sample. keywords: uncertainty avoidance, cultural dimensions, croatia, united states introduction although defined in many ways, we can basically say that culture is the learned programming of the mind, which, when studied at the group level, differentiates one group from another (hofstede, 2001). because culture is largely tacit in nature, culture is identified by observing the external manifestations of culture, namely, the values, perceptions, behaviors, and attitudes of the individuals who make up that group (spradley, 1980). thus people from different cultures may have different values, perceive the same situations differently, may act differently in the same situation, and approach life in different ways. although many different cultural dimensions have been identified over the years (bass, 1990; adler, 1997), one of the most significant and arguably the most replicated are hofstede’s four dimensions. as a result of analyzing over 116,000 surveys collected from ibm, hofstede identified four cultural dimensions: power distance the degree that a society accepts inequality in the distribution of power within that society (hofstede, 1980, 2001; hoppe 1990); uncertainty avoidance the degree to which a culture feels comfortable in unstructured or ambiguous situations (hofstede, 1980; hoppe, 1990); individualism/collectivism the degree to which individuals in a culture define themselves as individuals or according to their place in groups (hofstede, 1993); and masculinity/feminism the degree to which a culture demonstrates certain characteristics considered to be masculine (for example, valuing achievement) or feminine (such as valuing relationships (hofstede, 1980, 1993). uncertainty avoidance, the second of hofstede’s dimensions, refers to the degree that people feel uncomfortable or threatened by uncertain situations. a fact of life is that we are moving forward in time, and that we are not able to predict what will happen to ourselves in the future. societies have developed technology, law, and religion as mechanisms to help themselves deal with uncertainty. these concepts are broadly defined. as hofstede says (2001, p.146), “technology includes all human artifacts; law, all formal and informal rules that guide social behavior; religion, all revealed knowledge of the unknown.” when comparing one society to another, is can be said that cultures which are high in uncertainty avoidance (find uncertainty to be uncomfortable) cling more closely to laws and procedures; they value a more ‘black-and-white’ and simplistic view of the world; and often feel that events which affect them are outside of their control (hofstede, 2001). conversely, societies which are low in uncertainty avoidance (do not find uncertainty to be that uncomfortable) are more flexible and pragmatic; see complexity and ‘shades of gray’ in their view of the world around them; and feel a sense of control over their own destinies (hofstede, 2001; hoppe, 1990). hofstede’s research established an uncertainty avoidance (hereafter referred to as ua) score of 88 for yugoslavia and 46 for the united states (out of a mean of 53). this describes yugoslavia (ranked 8th out of 53 countries/regions) as being a society with high ua; conversely the united states (ranked 43rd) had relatively low ua. the original research conducted by hofstede included surveys handed out by ibm to its employees in 1967 and 1971-1973; the one exception to this was in yugoslavia, where surveys were handed out to an independent company which worked closely with ibm (hofstede, 2001; hoppe 1990). this company was based in ljubljana (slovenia), with branch offices in zagreb (croatia) and belgrade (serbia). the overall sample for yugoslavia, collected in 1971 from these three administrative centers, consisted of 248 individuals. after the dissolution of yugoslavia in 1991, hofstede revisited the original yugoslav samples in order obtain cultural dimension scores for three former yugoslav republics: slovenia, croatia, and serbia. the basis for dividing the original sample of 248 was the location of the company branch where the surveys were administered. when the isolated zagreb sample was examined, croatia was identified as having a ua score of 80. both the book chapter that first published the results of this re-analysis (hostede, 1996) as well as the second edition of culture’s consequences, which includes it as well, do not state how the original yugoslav sample of 248 was divided between the three administrative centers; in other words, the size of the croatian sample is not indicated. since the publication of culture’s consequences, many studies have sought to test or expand upon hofstede’s original findings. unfortunately, while many reports included the united states in their sample, few studies included croatia, which makes both validation of hofstede’s power distance score as well as the tracking of shifts in power distance over time, difficult. this researcher was able to locate only two other cross-cultural studies which included croatia: sikavica (1996) and tavakoli, et al. (2003). however, neither re-tested hofstede’s cultural dimension scores. conversely, many studies have sought to replicate or expand upon hofstede’s results for the american sample. the most extensive study (hofstede, 2001) was that undertaken by hoppe (1990) in which hofstede’s four dimensions were retested on a sample of 1500 alumni of the salzburg seminar in salzburg, austria. this sample, which represented the elite of 19 countries, resulted in a ua score of 16 for the united states. methodology according to hofstede (2001), the original ibm surveys contained 3 questions which, when taken together, clearly indicate the level of uncertainty avoidance present in a culture. the first question asks if it is acceptable for employees to break the rules if it is in the best interests of the organization. the logic here is that, in high uncertainty avoidance cultures, individuals will not believe that the rules should ever be broken; conversely, in low uncertainty avoidance cultures, individuals will believe that, given the right situation, it is acceptable for employees to break the rules. the second question asks the respondent to indicate how long, once hired, he or she plans to stay with his or her next employer, with a range of answers ranking from “0-2 years” to “until i retire”. again, we see that high uncertainty avoidance cultures will value the stability of the job, and will tend to avoid the uncertainty involved in changing jobs. conversely, in low uncertainty avoidance cultures, the individual is more open to change and is more likely to change jobs more often. the third question that indicates the level of uncertainty avoidance present in a culture asks how often the respondent is stressed at school or work. stress is a relative state, meaning that two individuals in the same situation may experience different levels of stress. thus societies that experience more stress than others can be said to experience more uncertainty avoidance, as the body’s normal reaction to high levels of stress is to eliminate or minimize the source of that stress. the formula for determining the degree of uncertainty avoidance present in a culture is: ua=300-30(mean “rules”)% “less than five years”40(mean “stress”) administration of the survey in order to obtain samples of croatians and americans, a survey consisting of 33 questions, including the three ua questions mentioned above, was administered to undergraduate students in croatia and the united states. all distributed surveys were in the english language, as the croatian sample consisted of students who were studying at an english-language university and thus were qualified as being fluent in the english language. after elimination of invalid surveys, the resulting croatian sample consisted of 60 individuals, 29 men and 31 women. the american sample consisted of 48 individuals, 25 men and 23 women. results tables 1, 2, and 3 provide the responses for the samples, including subgroups, to the relative questions. table 4 provides ua scores for each sample, including subgroups. according to this, we can see that, as a whole, the croatian and american samples show themselves to be low in uncertainty avoidance, with a ua score of 13.28 for the croatians and 28.26 for the americans. however, the american sample was found to experience more uncertainty avoidance than the croatian sample. the subgroup with the highest ua score was the american women, with a score of 31.16 (compared to 5.78 for the american men); conversely, croatian women seem to experience the least uncertainty avoidance, with a score of –2.08 (compared to 21.90 for the croatian men). discussion the data collected in this study indicates that all groups experience relatively low uncertainty avoidance. the croatian sample shows significantly lower uncertainty avoidance than the sample from 1971 (13.28 now compared to 80 in 1971). however, while the american sample is lower overall (28.26 now compared to 46 in the late 1960s/early 1970s), it is also in line with hoppe’s (1990) research which established as ua score of 16 for the united states. according to the data collected in this study, any connection between gender and uncertainty avoidance appears unlikely. this is because the croatian women were the subgroup with the lowest uncertainty avoidance (-2.08) while the american women were the subgroup with the highest uncertainty avoidance (31.16) americans seem to experience more uncertainty avoidance than croatians. this is in contrast to hofstede’s (2001) original findings, which established a score of 80 for croatia and 46 for the united states. as history is a direct shaper of culture (hofstede, 2001), it is possible that the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001 and the subsequent “war on terror” have increased the level of uncertainty avoidance in the american sample. in comparing the data gathered in this study with the original data gathered by hofstede, one significant area of difference was found, an area that resulted in the overall low ua scores for both samples. this difference has to do with the responses to question 15, which asks how long the respondent intends to stay in with his/her next employer once hired. in determining ua scores for any sample, the percentage that answered “0-2 years” and “2-5 years” are added to each other, and the total percentage is calculated in the formula for determining an ua score. both the croatian and american samples included in this research (see table 2) had a very high percentage that answered either “0-2 years” or “2-5 years”. it is possible that this has less to do with the degree of uncertainty avoidance that they experience, and is perhaps more a reflection of the respondents’ age and the fact that they are not likely to stay in their first position after graduation for more than 5 years. this may be due to either general instability in the job market or simply the wish to build long-term career success by obtaining diverse experience early in their careers. references adler, n. j. (1997). international dimensions of organizational behavior (3rd ed.). cincinnati: south-western college. bass, b. m. (1990). bass and stogdill’s handbook of leadership: theory, research, and managerial applications (3rd ed.). new york: free press. hofstede, g. (1980). motivation, leadership, and organizations: do american theories apply abroad? organizational dynamics, 9 (1), 42-63. hofstede, g. (1993). cultural constraints on management theories. the executive, 7(1), 81-95. hofstede, g. (1996). images of europe: past, present and future. in p. joynt and m. warner (eds.), managing across cultures: issues and perspectives (pp. 147-165), london: thomson. hofstede, g. (2001). culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations. (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. hoppe, m. h. (1990). a comparative study of country elites: international differences in work-related values and learning and their implications for management training and development. unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of north carolina at chapel hill. sikavica, p. (1996) management approaches—similarities and differences between american and croatian managers. tourism hospitality management, 2(1), 157-177. spradley, j. p. (1980). participant observation. orlando, fl: harcourt brace jovanovich. tavakoli, a. a., keenan, j. p., crnjak-karanovic, b. (2003). culture and whistleblowing an empirical study of croatian and united states managers utilizing hofstede’s cultural dimensions. journal of business ethics. 43 (1/2), 49. relationship between scholastic activities and creativity among secondary school students in the state of kuwait dr. majed m. al-ali supervisor of scholastic activities, educational activities dept., ministry of education ardiyah city , p.o: 77, c.n: 92551 state of kuwait phone: 00-( 965) – 9765 – 200 e.mail: majed_alalii@hotmail.com, psychologest@hotmail.com abstract this study was conducted based on the desire of the administration of scholastic activities in the state of kuwait to evaluate the reality of the various fields of creative scholastic activities in the secondary school. the rationale underlying this study is that students’ mental maturity entails teachers with the same level of creativity and inclination to innovation in order to cope with the ever-occurring educational changes. this is important since some school administrations are still unconvinced with the educational and psychological significance of scholastic activities, and consequently they hinder the implementation of activity programs. besides, some teachers and school activity supervisors are not specialists and funds for scholastic activities are sufficient. the aforementioned reasons constituted the desire of the administration of scholastic activities in the state of kuwait to improve the condition of creative school activities and eliminate whatever obstacles their effective application in schools. more specifically, the present study addressed the following question: “do creative scholastic activities perform the desired educational role in the kuwaiti secondary schools?” that is, the study sought to explore the reality of scholastic activities, and diagnose whatever obstacles their application and propose how to eliminate such obstacles, so activities can play their desired educational role. the concept of scholastic activities shaw (1990) found that the concept of scholastic activities refers to any activity performed inside or outside school and relate to the school educational aims. some researchers view scholastic activities as part of the curriculum. others see them equivalent to the curriculum. another team of researchers view them as relevant to education without investigating their relation to the school curriculum. there has been no consensus among researchers as to what the term school activities refers to. the researchers have wondered whether school activities refer to the activities that do not relate to study courses such as scientific and cultural groups, the activities that relate to study courses such as experiments, or the activities organized separately as study courses? likewise, the researchers have used different terms to refer to scholastic activities, e.g., additional classroom activities, the out-of-classroom activities, the non-classroom activities, the accompanying curricular activities. scholastic activities have been given different definitions by different researchers. shahatah (1992) defined them as “practice that affects the students’ mental, kinetic, psychological and social performance. this practice has various fields and satisfies the students’ physical, psychological and social needs. it, therefore, helps with the development of the student’s personality”. johnson (1964) defined them as the activities originated in the students’ spontaneous interests and practiced beyond the school day without retribution. another definition given by al-reshidi (1997) states that scholastic activities mean the programs that address the learner and the mental and physical effort s/he exerts in the activities that suit his/her abilities, inclinations and interests both inside and outside school. this, according to al-reshidi, helps students to enrich their experience and acquire desired skills and attitudes which develop their personalities and satisfy the growth requirements and the requirements of the country’s progress. scholastic activities, according to hamad (1995), constitute an element of the school curriculum represented in mental, kinetic and social aspects, and help with the achievement of the educational aims by considering the learners’ characteristics and their growth requirements and providing them with opportunities for educational, cultural and social practices. shahatah (1993) mentioned that scholastic activities remain part of the philosophy of the modern school since they help with the development of habits, skills, value and thinking techniques that are necessary for the completion of schooling. perhaps the lack of consensus on the concept of scholastic activities is due to the multiplicity of scholastic activities. the definitions of scholastic activities are as varied as the activities themselves. there is the activity that accompanies the subject matter in order to deepen scientific concepts associating behavioral patterns that students are supposed to accomplish after undergoing specific experience(adams) 1984. there is also the activity performed by groups of students in order to promote them in the fields of literature, arts, sports and scientific research. this latter type is more inclusive as to human and material resources and more attractive to the students. this type is the one around which various competitions are held and prizes and appreciation activities are given to enhance talents and make the talented students feel self-confident. amabile (1983) mentioned that different visualizations and educational functions attributed to scholastic activities are therefore the rationale for the lack of one comprehensive definition of scholastic activities. in the present study, scholastic activities are operationally defined as the set of educational practices performed by students inside and outside school based on the nature of the activity. these activities are organized and supervised by both the school administration and specialists in order to help the student to develop comprehensively, i.e., cognitively, socially, physically and morally. school activities aim at getting the students to experience life affairs and exploring their creative potentials. they seek to teach the students the fundamentals of leadership, obedience, cooperation and the spirit of teamwork. the importance of school activities shahatah ( 1992) mentioned that activity means motion and motion involves work and work in turn leads to growth. activity is therefore important for the development of personality. many educational aims are achieved as by-products of performing activities inside and outside schools. thus, good education requires favorable settings for the performance of scholastic activities since they are necessary for growth. the students who participate in scholastic activities positively are characterized with activity, the spirit of leadership, emotional stability, successful social interaction, the ability to make informed decisions, perseverance, satisfaction with life, the ability to promote relationships with others, and potential for creativity. mehrabian (1995). arieti (1976) wrote that non-classroom activities also inculcate in the students positive attitudes like punctuality, disciple, cleanliness, respect for others, and the conversation of public property the importance of scholastic activities are summarized in the following points: 1. providing the students with the experience and skills that are necessary for life. 2. enhancing the students’ talents and abilities. 3. revealing professional inclinations in students, which can help with professional guidance in the future. 4. inculcating the collective spirit in the students and training them on leadership, mutual understanding and collaborative work. 5. training the students on overcoming the problems encountered everywhere. 6. education the students with the ability to cope and respond to different patterns of behavior. the functions of scholastic activities scholastic activities perform the following functions: a. the psychological function activities develop inclinations, talents and the ability to adapt. they constitute a motive for learning and develop self-confidence. b. the social function activities help the students to establish intimate relationships with others and inculcate in them the values of responsibility, cooperation, respect for others’ opinions and conformity with laws. activities involve students in group work, which develops in them social skills and values. these skills and values are developed in the students as they involve in the group work where they collaboratively and enthusiastically plan, set goals and implement ideas. c. the educational function activities provide concrete and direct experiences, and they entail interaction with the components of the activity, which helps with the learning of knowledge and skills and the gratification of the motive to do research. activities strengthen the motive to learn and enhance the students’ scholastic achievement. they encourage the students’ active role in learning, allow for personal experience and help the students to learn many skills and attitudes that can not be learnt from formal education. runco (1991) mentioned that activities strengthen the spirit of research and enthusiasm for work. they also help the students to discover and promote their abilities and inclinations. finally, the activities make possible self-learning, life-long learning and problem solving. d. the achievement function rayan (1985 ) mentioned that scholastic activities concern with the educational experiences included in formal education in order to help the students to develop the different dimensions of personality. research found a significant positive correlation between performing school activities and scholastic achievement. e. the recreational function this function is represented in art programs, school trips, games, celebration and competitions. f. the remedial function scholastic activities help with the remedy of many psychological disorders such as introversion, shyness, speech disorders, etc. g. the economical function this function is represented in the students’ making use of time in doing something useful, encouraging respect for work and raising the level of performance. general aims of scholastic activities researchers concurred on several general aims of scholastic activities, which, if achieved, can affect the outcomes of education, positively. among these general aims are: producing a generation of students who interact with their environment effectively. developing the collective spirit and overcoming egoism. developing desired behaviors, e.g., self-reliance, initiative, innovation, creativity, observation and perseverance. developing the ability to make informed decisions and the sense of responsibility. training the students on political affairs, e.g., applying for student boards, participating in electing student boards and self-judgment. getting used to planning for and implementing group work. enjoying oneself through the gratification and the development of skills, interests and inclinations. professional guidance and respect for manual work. participating in some aspects of school administration and solving some student and administrative problems. it is obvious that these general aims can help achieve: students’ active role in learning. positive citizenship. scholastic activities and their constitutional system of ministry of education in the state of kuwait the ministry of education in the state of kuwait has placed a great emphasis on school activities since the beginning of formal schooling. school activities encompass the cultural, sporting, artistic, social and scientific activities performed in schools. they also encompass the exhibitions and the celebrations that used to be held by schools based on individual initiatives on the part of schools without planning, guidance or evaluation on the part of the ministry. in 1962, the ministry established a school activities department whose purpose is to supervise: social, cultural and artistic school activities. a broadcasting program called “with students”. the programs of the summer clubs. with the quantitative expansion in education, the scholastic activities department was converted into a supervisory, but the content of the actual work remained as it used to be without promotion. al-reshidi (1997 ) asserted that in 1965, the supervisory was converted into an administration. with this change, the concept of school activities has developed and the activities began to concern for the comprehensive development of the students. yet, actual practice remained limited to the achievement of the requirements of the school work. activity supervisors’ remained to concern for activity groups that included the students who had hobbies and inclinations, and the aptitude to group work. thus, the activities remained limited to the students with special talents and inclinations. not all the students were included in the activities. this frustrated the aim of generalizing activities to all the students. sayed (2000) mentioned that the administration of the scholastic activities used to be the responsibility of the assistant vice minister for student affairs till 13/9/1986 when it became the responsibility of the assistant vice minister for social and psychological service. since then, the philosophy of scholastic activities has been determined in that “the individual should acquire his/her experiences through practice and consideration of real problems, and that the experience is the source of knowledge and experience keeps growing with practice opportunities. this philosophy should be considered in the organization of non-classroom activities. the aims of scholastic activities in state of kuwait ahmad (2005 ) mentioned that in november 1987, the scholastic activities follow-up office of the ministry of education in state of kuwait issued a document identifying the following aims of school activities: 1. bringing up learners to believe in religious values and identify the principles of islam and the details of its comprehensive method. 2. deepening belongingness to the country and taking pride in the arabic family, sticking to religious principles, and respecting the principles of international understanding and cooperation. 3. providing the learners with opportunities to practice scientific thinking and developing their abilities of innovation and creativity. 4. enhancing the principles of democracy by providing the learners with the opportunity to express their opinions and attend to others opinions. 5. training learners on collaborative work, planning, identifying responsibilities and behaving in various situations. 6. helping learners to acquire the skills of self-learning and making them aware of the fact that life is a lifelong process. 7. developing positive attitudes towards manual work and workers. 8. providing learners with opportunities to make use of their leisure time. 9. developing mental abilities and environmental skills, which helps mental and physical growth. 10. addressing individual differences and nurturing talents. 11. bringing up learners to sense art and beauty. 12. achieving the psychomotor balance in learners and training them on overcoming various problems. 13. making learners aware of their environment and training them in participating in solving its problems. 14. varying activities in order to achieve the learner’s comprehensive growth within the requirements of the society. 15. helping in diagnosing, preventing and treating learners’ problems. activities are therefore supposed to prepare the learner to life and to interact with the environment. there have been many changes in life in kuwait since 1986. many economical, political and social changes took place, changing life completely. all the components of education also underwent many changes since globalization necessitated that education be restructured to reflect the ever-increasing educational innovations. accordingly, a need arose for aims that can help the student find a place in the world of culture and information networks; aims that make the student interact effectively with such a scientific world with its various components. the dimensions of scholastic activities researchers of scholastic activities in have concurred that the state of kuwait adopts a four-dimension system for activities. that is, activity programs are centered on four dimensions. of these four dimensions, the researchers have agreed on the following three dimensions: the cultural dimension. the social dimension. the artistic dimension. they diverged on the fourth dimension which some researchers named the scientific dimension as abdellah (1990) bashir( 1990) and others named the sporting dimension as galal (1995) if the purpose of organizing activities in dimensions is to put common groups of activities under separate dimensions, then the scholastic activities should be categorized in five groups: the cultural, the social, the artistic, the scientific and the sporting dimensions. 1. the cultural dimension: this dimension includes the programs of the groups whose activities relate to the development of knowledge, experience, awareness, and literary production in an organized framework. examples of these groups are the group of the school press, the group of the library, the group of the activities of the arabic language (handwriting, verse writing, story writing, reading poetry, acting and school broadcasting), and the group of the religious activities (the group of the mosque, and the quran memorization group) 2. the social dimension: this dimension includes the programs of the groups whose activities relate to the development of social skills, values and attitudes. examples of these groups are the group of the friends of the sick people, the group of school trips, the group of cooperation, the group of school exhibitions, and the group of cutting down consumption. 3. the artistic dimension: this dimension includes the programs of the groups whose activities allow the students to practice activities like playing music, singing and drawing. it includes the groups of music, drawing, hand-made products and theatrical work. 4. the scientific dimension: it includes the programs of the groups whose activities address scientific thinking and research. examples of these groups are the science club (this includes various groups), the agriculture group, the scientific projects group, the research group, and audio-visual presentations group. 5. the sporting dimension: this encompasses the groups whose activities address physical skills. of these groups are ball teams (football, basketball and handball), swimming teams and scouts. it is noteworthy that this categorization, though useful for organizational purposes, does not mean that activities are separate in the actual reality. all types of activities serve the same purposes. besides, the same purpose can be fulfilled through more than one activity type. a theatrical performance, for instance, can involve participants the acting group, the electricity group, etc. that the group and the practice of the various groups are different does not mean that the aim is different. all the activities interact whether in aims and/or practices. categorization is useful only for the purposes of planning, implementation, follow-up and organization. an activity achieves the desired aim if given positive elements are secured. these elements or components include the group, the activity supervisor and the organization of the group work: components of scholastic activities 1. ali (2004) asserted that the members of the group: members of a group are the thinking minds that give the activity meaning and structure. members join groups that satisfy their inclinations and personal desires. this makes members work positively as individuals and as members of the group. 2. the activity supervisor: the activity supervisor can be a teacher from the school or a specialist who is delegated to school during the time of the activity. what is most required for a supervisor is that s/he should be convinced of the educational significance of the activity. he should have a strong educational background and he should be specialized in what he supervises in order to direct the students well, detect their potentials and help them develop these potentials. 3. the program of the group activity: this program is determined by both the activity supervisor and the students within the organizational rules established by official administrations since any work in the field of schooling has a given place in the whole educational system. sometimes these rules obstacle the practice of the activity and the successful supervisor is the one who can converse policy makers and persuade them to modify the activity and refine its practice. 4. the organization of work inside the group: this is determined by the supervisor and the group members who all coincide on every detail, e.g., the meeting times and places, and the final product of the activity. they all participate in setting a flexible schedule of the group’s work (ali) 1990. the non-classroom activity groups in kuwaiti public schools majed ( 2000 ) asserted that the factors determining the success of scholastic activity groups include: clearly stated and viable aims. students willing to achieve the desired aim. a specialized supervisor who is convinced of the aim. a good organization that suits the students’ abilities. an educational program that governs the work of the group. a sensible administration that is aware of the educational role of the activity. positive planning of the group work. the levels of planning the activity program. jaber (2002) wrote that scholastic activities are not the responsibility of the activity supervisor alone. rather, they are planned at various levels that interact and complement each other. these levels are as follows: 1. the ministry: planning at this level covers all the educational stages according to educational, economic and artistic considerations. functions performed at this level include the training of activity supervisors, follow-up and evaluation that aims at enhancing the advantages and eliminating the disadvantages. plans generated at this level are continuously adapted and improved based on the actual practice. 2. the school: the school implements the plan developed by the ministry, follows the implementation of the activity, provides the specialized supervisor, eliminates whatever obstacles the activity, and provide the ministry with periodical reports on the activity and the degree to which it meets the desired aims. 3. the supervisor: the supervisor develops the activity general plan, provides the resources needed for the implementation of the activity, implements the defined plan with the students, follow the implementation of the activity by the students, and evaluates the performance of the group from time to time. 4. the students: the students set more defined plans and aims for the activity in the light of the general plan. they identify the specific methods to meet the aims of the activity. they also evaluate their own performance, whereas the supervisor provides them with support and guidance. these four levels of planning are performed in the light of several criteria. some of these criteria are: the desired aim, the nature of the students, the human and material resources, the degree to which the activity is related to the educational aims, the degree to which the activity satisfies the students’ inclinations, the cost of the activity, the timetable, the availability of specialized supervisors, the time allocated to the activity, and awareness among school administrative staff. the method participants the number of the participants in the present study was 977 male and female students from kuwaiti secondary schools. the age average of the participants was 17.3 with a standard deviation of 1.96. materials 1. a questionnaire to survey students’ opinions about creative scholastic activities. it consisted of five questions and eight options for each question. the students were to read the questions and tick the options that reflect their inclinations and interests. besides, the questionnaire included an essay question where the students were to write about the problems that obstacle the implementation of school activities. 2. a questionnaire to survey students’ opinions about the suitable times for the creative scholastic activities. it consisted of 10 items with four options for each. 3. a questionnaire to survey activity supervisors’ opinions about scholastic creative activities. it consisted of 9 questions reflecting the supervisors’ opinions about the various components of school activities such as the aims of school activities, the time allocated to the activity, the funds allocated to the activity, etc. the respondent was to read the question and tick one of four options. procedure once selected, the participants completed the materials after establishing their validity and reliability statistically. a number of activity supervisors, teachers, psychological workers and researchers helped with the administration of the instruments. administration, scoring and feeding the data in spss program took about 2 months. results descriptive statistics the participants were stratified according to the educational zone and the gender. as to the gender, the female students composed 61% of the whole number of the participants while the percentage of the male students was 39%. this is listed in table (1), which shows the distribution of the participants according to the educational zone and the gender. table (1): the distribution of the participants according to educational zone and the gender the responses of the participants (students, activity supervisors and administrative staff) were treated statistically using the spss program. this revealed the following findings concerning the three questionnaires administered in the present study: 1. the responses of the students to the five-question questionnaire: question 1: which creative scholastic activities receive more interest from school administrations? frequencies and percentages were computed to identify the creative school activities that receive more interest from school administrations. this is presented in table (2): table (2): frequencies and percentages of students’ responses about the creative scholastic activities that school administrations emphasize on as shown in the above table, the creative scholastic activity that receive the most emphasis from school administrations is the sporting and scouting activities (36%), followed by the religious activities (25%), the cultural activities (17%), the social activities (13%), the computing (3%), the practical activities (2%), and finally the artistic activities (1%). question 2: which creative scholastic activities are more practiced by the students during this school year? frequencies and percentages were computed to identify the creative scholastic activities that are more practiced by the students during this school year. these results are presented in table (3): table (3): frequencies and percentages of students’ responses about the creative scholastic activities that more practiced by the students it obvious from table (3) that the most practiced creative scholastic activities are the sporting and scouting activities (25%), followed by the cultural activities (24%), the artistic activities (7%), and the computing activities (6%). the practical activities received the least rating (3%). (see table (3) for the other percentages. question 3: what are the factors that affect the students’ selection of creative school activities? to identify the factors that affect the students’ selection of creative school activities, frequencies and percentages were computed. table (4) below presents these results: table (4): frequencies and percentages of students’ responses about the factors that affect their selection of creative scholastic activities as indicated in the above table, 73% of the students attributed their selection of given creative school activities to their inclinations and interests. the factor that has the least influence on the students’ selection of activities proved to be parental recommendation. question 4: how many lessons should be allocated to creative scholastic activities? the identification of the ideal number of periods that should be allocated to creative scholastic activities from the students’ perspective was achieved by computing frequencies and percentages. this is shown in table (5): table (5): frequencies and percentages of students’ responses about the ideal number of periods that should be allocated to creative scholastic activities table (5) shows that the largest number of students (32%) saw that two lessons a week for creative scholastic activities are enough. that the activities be allocated a full day or one period a week was preferred by 27% and 21% respectively. eight percent of the students recommended more than two lessons a week. question 5: what are the effects of performing creative scholastic activities? means and standard deviation were computed to investigate the students’ opinions about the effects of performing creative scholastic activities. this is listed in table (6) below: table (6): means and standard deviations of students’ responses about the effects of performing creative scholastic activities as shown in the above table, the means of agreement to the statements ranged from 52-84 and the standard deviation ranged from 23-26. the statements that received the highest agreement are those relating to training on group work and cooperation, the enhancement of scientific thinking, and the enhancement of loyalty to the country (m = 84, 80, 79 respectively). the means of the statements relating to the negative effects of activities on the family’s budget and the interference with the achievement of assignments were 57 and 52 respectively, which are low compared with the other means. the essay question: what are the problems that obstacle the implementation of scholastic activities? the students’ written responses to the above question revealed the following are the problems that obstacle the implementation of scholastic activities: lack of awareness of the educational value of the activities. using the periods allocated to activities for more academic study. the insufficiency of the time allocated to activities. lack of activities that satisfy students’ inclinations. the inappropriateness of the times allocated to activities. lack of cooperation between parents and activity supervisors. limited material resources and apparatus. the fact that activities are not innovated, which makes them tedious. the inability to include all the group members in the activity. lack of material and spiritual retributions for encouragement. lack of well-prepared settings for activities. 2. the responses of the students to the questionnaire on the suitable times when activities are to be performed: frequencies and percentages were computed to detect the students’ preferences as to the suitable times when activities are to be performed. these results are shown in the following table: table (7): frequencies and percentages of students’ responses about the suitable times when activities are to be performed a look at the above table shows that 50% of the students preferred that the activities be performed during the school day and 20% selected thursday, which is a formal vacation. the percentage of the students who preferred the beginning of the school day for the performance of activities was 16%. besides, the students, in their written responses to the essay question, defined other times for activities: a day at the end of the week and after the school day. 3. the results of the supervisors’ opinions about creative scholastic activities: the items of the questionnaire administered to explore the supervisors’ opinions about creative scholastic activities represented the dimensions of (1) the realization of the desired aims, (2) the time of performing the activity, (3) the number of periods allocated to activities, (4) the selection of the activity supervisor, (5) the funds allocated to activities, (6) students’ interest in the activities, (7) the follow-up on the part of the activity supervisor, (8) the follow-op on part of the school administration, and (9) the method used in distributing the students on the activities: (1) the realization of the desired aims: means of appropriateness were very high in regard to the responses of the supervisors of the cultural, sporting/scouting and artistic (manual product) activities. they were high in regard to the responses of religious, social, scientific and practical activities. the means of appropriateness of the responses of the computing activity supervisors were moderate. (2) the time of performing the activities: the sewing activity proved to have a very high mean of appropriateness. means of appropriateness ranged from very high to average concerning the other artistic activities and the religious, social, scientific and sporting/scouting activities. practical and computing activities were rated as average. (3) the number of lessons allocated to activities: the sewing activity received the highest mean of appropriateness. the other artistic activities and the religious, cultural and practical activities were rated from very high to average. the computing, sporting/scouting and scientific activities were rated as average. the mummification activity was attributed a low mean of appropriateness. (4) the selection of the activity supervisor: the highest level of appropriateness was attributed to the music activity. means of appropriateness were high as to the other artistic activities and the religious, sporting/scouting and computing activities. the scientific, practical, cultural and social activities were rated from high to average. (5) the funds allocated to activities: the music activity was rated high. the other artistic activities were rated average. the ratings were average in regard to the computing, sporting/scouting, religious, scientific, practical, cultural, and social activities. only the bees raising activity was given a low rating. (6) students’ interest in the activities: the activities of football, folk dance and scouting received very high ratings. the other sporting/scouting activities and the computing activities received high ratings. the religious activities were given moderate ratings. the ratings ranged from high to average as to the practical, scientific, cultural, social and artistic activities. (7) the follow-up on the part of the activity supervisor: the activities of scouting and the female guides were given very high ratings, whereas most sporting/scouting and computing activities were given high ratings. the ratings of appropriateness ranged from high to average for all the artistic, practical, cultural and social activities. the football activity, all the religious activities and most scientific activities received average ratings. the mummification activity received a low rating. (8) the follow-op on part of the school administration: scouting and the female guide activities came first. most sporting/scouting and the computing, artistic, practical, and religious activities got high ratings of appropriateness. as to the cultural, social and scientific activities, the appropriateness ratings ranged from high to average. the football activity was attributed an average rating. (9) the method used in distributing the students on the activities: appropriateness ratings for all activities ranged from high to average except the computing activities that received high ratings. the study revealed that the best methods to evaluate the effectiveness of creative scholastic activities from the activity supervisors’ opinions are as follows: 1. through national and international competitions (the supervisors of the computing, cultural, sporting, scouting, practical and scientific activities). 2. students’ participation (the supervisors of the religious and scientific activities). 3. holding exhibitions (the supervisors of the computing, cultural, practical and scientific activities). 4. continuous visits from activity supervisors and activity principals and evaluating the groups’ products (the supervisors of the computing, social, artistic and scientific activities). 5. getting students to carry out projects that can show their skills (the supervisors of the cultural and scientific activities). 6. surveying the opinions of the activity supervisors (the supervisors of the social activities). 7. evaluating activities weekly or monthly (the supervisors of the cultural and scientific activities). 8. giving every student a project to carry out and testing him/her in it (the supervisors of the social, sporting and scouting activities). the study found that the most important problems that obstacle the implementation of scholastic activities as desired by activity supervisors are as follows: 1. the absence of a technical, consultative body to evaluate the outcome of the activities (the supervisors of the computing activity). 2. lack of resources and apparatus that are required for the performance of the activities (the supervisors of the computing, cultural, artistic, scientific and practical activities). 3. lack of awareness and interest among students (the supervisors of the religious, social and scientific activities). 4. lack of interest among the supervision staff (the supervisors of the religious activities). 5. lack of coordination between academic assignments and the activities. 6. the incorrect distribution of students on the activities (the supervisors of social, sporting/scouting, scientific and practical activities). 7. the unsuccessful selection of activity supervisors (the supervisors of the computing activity). 8. lack of funds (the supervisors of the social, sporting/scouting and scientific activities). 9. lack of well-equipped settings (the supervisors of the cultural, social, sporting/scouting, scientific and practical activities). 10. lack of material and spiritual retributions (the supervisors of the social, artistic, scientific and practical activities). 11. the imbalanced distribution of the students on the activities (the supervisors of the computing activity). 12. the insufficiency of the time allocated to the activities (the supervisors of the social, sporting/scouting, scientific and practical activities). 13. lack of family encouragement (the supervisors of the cultural, artistic, scientific and practical activities). 14. lack of specialized supervisors (the supervisors of the cultural, artistic, scientific and practical activities). 15. lack of the understanding of the significance of school activities among students, and some supervisors, parents, and administrative staff (the supervisors of the sporting/scouting, scientific and practical activities). the activity supervisors proposed the following solutions to the above mentioned problems: 1. increasing the interest of school administrations in following activities and raising the awareness of students, teachers and parents (the supervisors of the cultural, artistic, scientific, practical, computing and sporting/scouting activities). 2. providing schools with the required resources and equipment (the supervisors of the cultural, computing, scientific, practical and artistic activities). 3. employing specialized activity supervisors who are convinced with the significance of activities (the supervisors of the computing, scientific, practical and artistic activities). 4. the participation of public welfare and charity institutions in providing retributions to students and supervisors and making parents share some of the cost of the activities (the supervisors of the social and scientific activities). 5. providing well-equipped settings for the implementation of the activities (the supervisors of the computing, cultural, social, scientific and practical activities). 6. coordination among activity supervisors in the selection of students in the various activities (the supervisors of the scientific, practical and sporting/scouting activities). 7. allocating sufficient time for activities (the supervisors of the sporting/scouting and social activities). 8. making membership in activity groups optional, i.e., the students should not be imposed to join given groups (the supervisors of the computing activity). 9. providing suitable retributions (the supervisors of the social, scientific, practical and sporting/scouting activities). 10. increasing the funds allocated to activities (the supervisors of the sporting/scouting activities). the activity supervisors identified the following as obstacles to the solution of the problems they face in the field: the absence of research that identifies the advantages and disadvantages of school activities. lack of innovation in scholastic activities, which makes them tedious. lack of a well-defined plan for scholastic activities in the ministry of education. the limited authority given to school administrations in regard to the supervision of activities. lack of communication between the responsible bodies in the ministry and activity supervisors, which keeps the suffering of the activity supervisors unnoticed. lack of interest in the activities on the part of students since activities do not affect academic success and evaluation. lack of follow-up on the part of school administrations. discussion according to the data obtained from the application of the three questionnaires on students and activity supervisors, the results differed from one questionnaire to another and from a sample to another. as to the five-question questionnaire that was applied on the students, it revealed that the sporting/scouting activities receive the greatest emphasis on the part of school administration compared with the other activities. several interpretations can be given to this finding. first, sporting/scouting activities assimilate a larger number of the students who are prone and motivated to practice the various sporting/scouting games. second, the sense of achievement and triumph the students get when they win makes more students join these activities. wishing to enhance this sense of achievement in the students and to be included among active schools is a third reason why school administrations pay special attention to sporting/scouting activities. fourth, the high popularity of sporting/scouting activities can be due to the fact that the practice of sports is not limited to closed places where intricate rules are to be followed like cultural and artistic activities. fifth, these activities attract the public, which makes them attractive to students. sixth, these activities extend to other countries through the international participation, which gives students useful and amusing experience. the low level of attention the school administrations pay to the scientific, computing and artistic activities can be due to the fact that such activities require expensive equipment and resources that cannot be available to schools, and if they are available they can be primitive. the students’ responses revealed that the most important factor that determines their selection of school activities is personal inclinations. the least important factor was revealed to be parents’ inclinations. this signifies that students’ selection of activities is mainly affected by their personal interests and their conviction with the significance of the activities. this also signifies that students can decide activity affiliations for themselves without the interference of their parents. as to the best time to perform scholastic activities, half of the sample preferred that activities be performed during the school day, so activities can relieve the students from the intensive academic study. the penetration of activities among academic classes helps to keep the students physically and mentally fit for academic study. besides, activities can be related to the study curriculum, which gives activities a role in the curriculum. as to the number of periods that should be allocated to school activities, one third (approx) of the sample saw two lessons a week as sufficient. a smaller portion of the sample preferred that a complete day be allocated to scholastic activities. a further smaller portion of the sample saw that there should be more than two periods a week for activities. the reason for this variation in the students’ preferences as to the number of the lessons to be given to activities is that some schools make good use of the existing times allocated to activities, which makes a number of the students satisfied with the existing time system. some other schools use some of the activity lessons for further academic support and/or revision. that is, they sacrifice activities for the sake of academic study, which gives the students the sense that one lessons a week for activities is not enough. furthermore, some activities require more than two lessons a week like football matches and theatrical performances. as to the effects of performing school activities, the training on group work and cooperation with others, the development of the ability of scientific thinking, and strengthening loyalty to the country received the highest level of agreement. this indicates that the students are aware of significance and positive reflections of activities on the development of the various aspects of personality. based on these results, the researcher noticed that scholastic activities, whether general or creative, have many positive psychological and educational reflections. gibbs (1991) asserted that they develop the different aspects of the learner’s personality, which enables him/her to meet the requirements of his/her environment on one side and the academic achievement on the other side. it is therefore a psychological and educational necessity to place the due emphasis on school activities in all grades. runco (1994) asserted that outcomes of many classroom and non-classroom activities enhance the learners’ psychological well-being and help them acquire many creative skills and behaviors. the scholastic activities constitute a richer context for the detection of learners’ creative potentials than academic study that places the most emphasis on the theoretical aspect. besides, scholastic activities make possible the detection and development of the gifted and creative learners. there should be cooperation and coordination between the ministry of education and the various governmental and non-governmental sectors in the society in order to promote the reality of scholastic activities. gustafson (1991) mentioned that the school alone cannot achieve its creative aims without the cooperation of the institutions and the sectors of the society or without making use of the international experiences in the field of school activities. that representatives from the scholastic activities field attend international workshops and conferences on school activities is of paramount importance for the development of the various aspects of school activities. recommendations in the light of the results of the present study, the following recommendations are offered: developing programs to eliminate the problems that obstacle the implementation of school activities. developing new activity programs in the light of the innovations in the field. researching the problems that obstacle the implementation of scholastic activities and proposing applicable solutions to them. holding periodical meetings, so activity principals from the ministry of education and activity supervisors can meet to discuss and plan for the promotion of school activities. organizing annual exhibitions where products of student activities can be sold for the benefit of the students themselves. getting mass media to participate by spreading awareness of the importance of school activities everywhere in the society. establishing well-equipped places where activities are performed when building new schools. increasing the funds allocated to scholastic activities and finding new funding resources. evaluating and modifying the aims of scholastic activities (the latest formulation of the aims was in 1986) in the light of the innovations in the field. holding workshops to increase awareness of the educational importance of scholastic activities among supervisors and administrative staff. holding workshops to increase awareness of the educational importance of school activities among newly employed supervisors. providing manuals to clarify the nature and importance of school activities and the role they play in the development of the student’s personality. making use of the specialized experiences of the parents who wish to volunteer to support activities, i.e., sewing and making ships. linking the non-classroom activities with the institutions of the society in the form of visits to the institutions, training programs or part-time jobs for students according to the student’ skills and age and in coordination between the institutions and the activity administration in the ministry of education. references abdellah, a. 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(1990). laterality, implicit memory and attention disorder. educational study, 17, 15-32. i changed the stress, stress changed me, you can not separate the stress form life and you can not separate the stress from me, because stress became life and by that stress is influenced all life europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 204-217 www.ejop.org psychology, domination and resistance by stephen reicher university of st. andrews two sides of the human condition in my first year as an undergraduate two things drew me into psychology and made me passionate about the subject. now, over 35 years later, they make me passionate still. the first experience was hearing henri tajfel lecture. in these days of assessments and league tables we often measure a teacher by what is easiest to measure: the provision of good lecture handouts, clear course objectives and aims, clear feedback and so on. what henri had was the capacity to inspire, the ability to make you care about the questions and therefore motivate you to find out the answers. the questions he asked — about group bias, about intergroup hatred, and above all, how can we explain (and perhaps help contain) real life atrocities — derived from his own past as a polish jew in the second world war. and they touched on my past, for my family too are jewish and my father came from poland. the second experience may seem mundane, even trivial, by comparison. but it marked me just as deeply. at about the same time as i was learning about group processes, the student‘s union voted to occupy the university administration buildings in support of a demand for nursery provision. coming from a nice polite middle-class background i wasn‘t sure about occupations and i was a little scared of getting mixed up with those extremists so castigated in the media and whom my parents had warned me about. i was also afraid of how the university might respond (and indeed the university did try, unsuccessfully, to expel several of those involved). but in the end i felt that if i had participated in the debate and the vote, i had to accept the decision and so i spent the next few days and nights in bristol university‘s senate house. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 205 it was the most remarkable few days for me. i had never known so many people debate so seriously and so intensely about something that would give them no personal benefit. the issue may have been a nursery, but the cause was equal access to university for women. and we talked long into the night about how to publicise and spread and win our cause. there was an intellectual intensity i had hoped to find in everyday student discussions – but hadn‘t. there was a sense of principle which i had been led to believe in but generally seen honoured in the breach. there was a sense of warmth and generosity between people that i remember still. yet, when others (such as the university vice-chancellor) spoke of us, it was in terms of a very old pathologising language of ‗the mob‘. we were, he said, the gullible led by the culpable: immature students carried away in the group and exploited by seasoned activists. these two experiences, then, invoke the two sides of group psychology and underline the fact that groups create both the worst of worlds and the best of worlds. on the one hand, groups can dominate, denigrate, dehumanize and even destroy others. on the other hand, groups not only lead to bonds of care and solidarity internally, they also challenge and destroy systems of inequality between groups. indeed, to borrow the old trades union slogan, the power of the powerless lies in their combination. take away the ability to combine and hierarchy (or even tyranny) will always remain secure. to make the same point slightly differently and more generally, psychology — social psychology in particular, group psychology especially — needs to address both domination and resistance, stasis and movement, social reproduction and social change. any approach which emphasizes the one to the exclusion of the other will necessarily be deficient in its ability to explain both. it may be that, over long periods of time, our social worlds seem stable and set and that their inequalities are destined to last. but change — underpinned by collective action — is always possible and should warn us against eternalizing what is generally only a temporary lull. perhaps right now, when seemingly strong states like tunisia and egypt have folded like a pack of cards and who knows how many others will follow in their wake, this point should be easier to make than at other times. but the same might have been said in 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1917, 1968, 1989. yet we seem to have short memories. this point at least tends regularly to be forgotten. this is an argument i have developed with alex haslam, and what follows has arisen out of our joint discussions and our joint work. it is as much alex‘s as my own. psychology, domination and resistance 206 naturalising inequality the tendency to naturalise the social order, thereby to exclude social change and to make resistance futile, is as old as recorded social thought. yet, in different ages, and under different social orders, the form of naturalization changes. we well remember plato‘s division of humanity into men (and only men) of gold, men of silver, and men of bronze, each destined to fill different places in the social order. as plato puts it (or at least, as plato has socrates explain to his pupil adeimantus) only a tiny number of people are born with the intellectual and moral qualities to rule over the brutish mass (plato, 380bc/1993). while vestiges of this sort of idea survive to this day (see, for instance, leon kamin‘s work on justifications of racial inequality and, in particular his magnificent 1993 essay with the irresistible title ‗on the length of black penises and the depth of white racism‘) such blatant elitism is generally out of favour in today‘s more democratic times. we tend to favour explanations which assign certain characteristics to all human beings — characteristics which make us naturally suited to the world as it is and which reduce any alternative to a hopeless fantasy. a combination of the (mis)use of evolutionary theorizing and the reductive use of powerful new technologies such as brain imaging has led to claims that everything from selfishness and exploitation to conflict and aggression are somehow inscribed into the human psyche (e.g. buss, 2005; dawkins, 1976; pinker, 2002). however, if one natural difference between types of people survives, it has to do with gender. men, it seems, are not only ‗naturally‘ more aggressive and exploitative than women, it is natural for men to dominate, exploit, and even rape women (thornhill & palmer, 2001). in part, at least, the growing influence of such naturalizing accounts can be put down to the decline of large scale social psychological studies of human behavior. gradually, as the great field studies of the post-war period produced more and more spectacular evidence of the ways in which context could affect behavior, they raised more and more acute ethical issues about the acceptability of manipulating our social worlds. already, in his ‗boys camp studies‘, muzafer sherif had shown how you can take well-adjusted and decent young boys and turn them to violence and aggression. the sherifs (muzafer and his wife carolyn) famously issued ―a warning to psychologists to consider fully the importance of the background and the context of behavior in a social situation‖ (sherif & sherif, 1969, p. 252). they continued: ―if an outside observer had entered the situation after the conflict began… he could only have concluded on the basis of their behaviour that europe’s journal of psychology 207 these boys (who were the ‗cream of the crop‘ in their communities) were either disturbed, vicious or wicked youngsters‖. (1969, p. 254). in 1961 (we celebrate the half-centenary this year) stanley milgram went on to show how contextual manipulations could have as much impact on adults as on children and could lead ordinary americans to deliver what they believed to be lethal electric shocks to another in a mock learning experiment. in 1971, philip zimbardo went even further and turned californian students into either sadistic guards or else disturbed prisoners in his stanford prison experiment (spe). enough was enough. zimbardo‘s prison was so toxic that the two week study had to be halted after only six days. but more seriously, for the ensuing 40 years, it has been all but impossible to run such powerful studies again (though see reicher & haslam, 2006 and www.bbcprisonstudy.org). indeed, over time, we have not only retreated almost entirely into the laboratory, we have even eliminated interaction from the studies we conduct there (haslam, & mcgarty, 2001). the problem, then, if we cannot set up new and immersive social worlds in order to see how they impact upon people, is that other asocial explanations will prevail. it may be that anyone who sees just how dramatically someone can be turned from passivity to aggressivity by the circumstances they find themselves in (that is, someone who has access to the type of history whereby sherif‘s youngsters were transformed from ‗the cream of the crop‘ to vicious antagonist) will never again be satisfied with static explanations of the phenomena. however, if we cannot see, or if that history is denied to us, then our explanations will likewise become skewed towards stasis. conformity bias in classic social psychology but i am being too kind to my own. the problem isn‘t only that social psychology has been usurped from the outside. it also lies within social psychology itself. for, while the great field studies may have demonstrated the power of context, and hence shown how altered contexts lead to altered behaviours, they also went further (or, at least, they have generally been interpreted as going further). they have been used to argue that context is so powerful that it obliterates the individual, that people cannot resist the circumstances in which they find themselves and that they can only conform. empirically, then, these studies impose particular contextual conditions upon participants. they don‘t address how people create or transform contexts for themselves – and even when they do (so, for instance, in sherif‘s 1954 ‗robber‘s http://www.bbcprisonstudy.org/ psychology, domination and resistance 208 cave boys camp study, the boys wanted to create competition as soon as they learnt of the existence of another group and before competitions were organized by the experimenters) this is generally ignored in the analysis. thus context becomes something external to participants which contains and constrain show they (inter)act. it is not something that emerges out of these interactions themselves. this neglect is underpinned by theoretical approaches which, either by omission or by commission, deny agency to people especially in collective contexts. thus, either a straight line is drawn from context to action as if people will always behave in set ways within a given context or else it is claimed that when people are engaged with others, they lose their capacity for critical judgment, they become thoughtless and they simply go along with whatever is suggested to them. this latter approach is common both to milgram‘s ‗agentic state‘ account of the obedience studies (milgram, 1974) and zimbardo‘s role account of the stanford prison experiment (zimbardo, 2008). the difference is that, in milgram‘s account, these suggestions require a leader to be present whereas in zimbardo‘s account they are generated by the role itself without anyone being needed to spell out how one should act. as moscovici (1976) noted, the conceptual problem with such a monolithic ‗conformity bias‘ approach is that it leaves us with a one-sided social and group psychology. it invokes the power of the group context while at the same time pathologising group psychology. it stresses the power of immersion in groups to make people behave in toxic ways but it doesn‘t stress the power of the group to challenge toxic situations. it dramatizes domination but it downplays resistance. and to realize that all this is a problem, one doesn‘t have to make claims about the nature of the wider society. one can simply look at these classic studies themselves. for even if it is ignored in practice and denied in theory, all of them are dripping with resistance! in the boys camp studies, for instance, the attempts to divide groups of boys and set them up in competition against each other was not always successful. the second study, in 1953, resulted in the two groups getting together and refusing to believe that the other was their antagonist. this study was abandoned and never fully written up. as so often, those who challenge the reality of the experimenter are not used to study how people make their own history. rather they are written out of (the official scientific) history. in milgram‘s studies, the rate of obedience varied from 0% to 100%. so in effect they are studies of disobedience as much as obedience and the question needs to be europe’s journal of psychology 209 less ‗why do people obey‘ than ‗when do people obey‘. these rather obvious points are somewhat obscured by the fact that, even if not entirely obliterated, the focus has been somewhat removed from the disobedient cases. in part this comes from reducing the complexity of the results by focusing on one version (dubbed the ‗standard‘ version for no particularly good reason; russell, 2011) which tends to be cited in textbook accounts and in which the clear majority of people do comply (reicher & haslam, 2011). in part it comes from milgram‘s skills as a film maker and the fact that he only made available film of the compliant trials (millard, 2010). these pictures, by now old and flickering, literally dominate the field. they perpetuate a misleading image of monolithic conformity. they stop us asking us about the ‗when‘ and lead us back to asking only why people obey. and when it comes to the stanford prison experiment, it is hard to know where to start with tales of resistance. the prisoners resisted their roles from the start. at the end of the first day they were united and dominated the guards. until the very end, some prisoners continued to resist even if they had now become isolated. the guards also resisted their roles. as zimbardo himself acknowledges, some actively helped the prisoners, some were firm but fair, only a few were actively malicious. indeed the evidence of mistreatment relates almost exclusively to one individual dubbed ‗john wayne‘ for his aggressive swagger (zimbardo, 1989). so, once more, a balanced account needs certainly to ask about domination. but it also needs to ask about resistance. above all, it needs to ask what determines which predominates and which prevails; haslam & reicher, 2006, 2010). conformity bias in contemporary social psychology these classics, of course, are now (as the term itself suggests) part of our history. even if there has been little challenge to the conceptual account of the studies themselves, in the discipline as a whole such notions as agentic state or role immersion hold little sway. but i use these less for their own importance as exemplars of ‗conformity bias‘ approaches. and, if anything, such approaches have gained increasing sway in recent years. take, for instance, the recent rise of system justification theory (e.g. jost, banaji & nosek, 2004). the notion of system justification is originally taken from henri tajfel‘s work (tajfel, 1981). in tajfel‘s hands, this is but one of several functions of social stereotypes. moreover, his interest (and the focus of his social identity theory) lies precisely in the structural and ideological dynamics which determine precisely when members of subordinated groups will accept an unequal status quo and when they will begin to challenge it (tajfel & turner, 1979). however, once the notion of system justification is inflated into a theory, all balance is lost and psychology, domination and resistance 210 a construct which was meant to help us understand dynamic social processes is used to impede an understanding of such dynamics. the argument becomes lopsided again. the claim is that people have inherent tendencies to buy into their own oppression and that we cannot help but bolster the status quo. sad, perhaps, but that is the way we are built (see reicher, 2004). similar points can be made about social dominance theory (sidanius & pratto, 1999), another approach which has gained great traction over the last decade or so. again, there is nothing problematic about the concept of social dominance in itself. moreover, there is much that is constructive and attractive in the work of sidanius, pratto and others: to start with, they put issues of power and inequality back at the core of social psychology, they point to the role of institutions and states in buttressing inequality, they demonstrate the impact of hierarchical beliefs (sidanius, van laar, levin & sinclair, 2003). but the problem lies in the fact that, in social dominance theory, social dominance (like system justification in system justification theory) is not seen as an ideology, which is articulated by particular groups at particular times and discarded at others (cf. schmitt, branscombe & kappen, 2003). that is, it is not seen as a variable which is to be explained in terms of social processes. it is seen as a constant which serves to exclude social variation. to be less cryptic, social dominance is seen as a stable individual difference, but also a stable group difference (e.g. men are higher in social dominance than women – the ‗iron law of andrancy‘ as they term it) which is underpinned by evolution. thus the theory openly claims that hierarchy, dominance and inequality are an inevitable aspect of the human condition (see, for instance the title of a 1993 chapter by sidanius & pratto: ―the inevitability of oppression and the dynamics of social dominance‖). in this way social dominance provides yet another analysis in that long line going back to plato and beyond which tells us that resistance is futile. as i write this, i am reading at home the autobiography of an indian dalit (‗untouchable‘) woman baby kamble, who grew up in the early part of the twentieth century (kamble, 2008). her book is really more of a sociobiography. it tells of the condition and the fate of one of the most oppressed groups on earth. it tells how the untouchables, the women in particular, were seen and treated as subhuman. they ate the slops of the higher castes who considered even the sound of their voice as polluting. it also tells how they accepted their position and embraced the hindu religion which rejected them. but it also tells of change, of how ‗untouchable‘ became politicized as dalit. it relates how people joined the movement led by dr. ambedkar (a far greater figure than gandhi to these people), how they refused to serve the higher castes in the villages and how they converted europe’s journal of psychology 211 en masse to buddhism. the book is a cry of rage against a system and a religion which lays people low. but even more it is a cry against those ‗untouchables‘ who still try to assimilate to this system and still accept an ideology of hierarchy. kamble‘s book is entitled ‗the prisons we broke‘. the language is echoed in john turner‘s trenchant critique of conservative psychological theory. his immediate target was zimbardo‘s role account of the stanford prison study (turner, 2006), but it applies more generally to the various models i have outlined above. turner argues against theories which imprison us in the present by denying our ability to challenge authority and alter inequality. he calls for us to break our theoretical prisons just as kamble calls on dalits to break their ideological prisons. moreover, the two are linked insofar as psychological theory can (and often has) become a key part of the ideology which seeks to keep people in their place whether by justifying inequality through the attribution of different qualities to different groups of people (gould, 1983; kamin, 1977) or else (as i have stressed here) by ruling out any alternatives to the existing social order (tajfel, 1978). in ‗escaping our theoretical prisons‘ (as turner advocates), we don‘t just gain a deeper understanding of how change can occur, we also gain an understanding of how the status quo is maintained. indeed, the irony is that, by making social reproduction natural and inevitable, we lose sight of all the work at different levels — including the psychological — which goes into ensuring that social systems endure over time. how is it that certain groups legitimate their privileged position? how do they stop subordinate groups coming together to challenge them? in a contemporary world where bankers continue to get bonuses while others (including those of us in the academic sector) lose jobs and services because of the crisis that the bankers caused, these are pertinent questions for us all. to quote the governor of the bank of england, mervyn king, why is the public not angrier than it is? (quoted in ‗should we be more angry about the causes of the financial crisis?‘ the guardian, march 2nd 2011)? in order to answer this question we need what we plainly do not have: a social psychological analysis of the processes of domination. viewed in this way, it is clear that the analysis of resistance and the analysis of domination are not separate orders of enquiry. rather they are two sides of the same coin – or rather, they constitute different outcomes from the same process. domination results from the successful demobilization of challenges to the status quo whereas resistance results from successful mobilization. moreover, demobilization is achieved by getting people to adopt a common categorization with those who are dominant, or at least by stopping seeing themselves and acting as a distinct group with antagonistic interests (see haslam & reicher, 2011). mobilization is achieved psychology, domination and resistance 212 precisely by creating a sense of autonomous selfhood amongst the subordinated in society — what in marxist terms would be termed the group (specifically, class) for itself (für sich; marx & engels, 1848/2002). domination and resistance in the holocaust i started off by referring back to two formative experiences in my time as a psychologist — the holocaust as a site of domination, an occupation as a site of resistance. but as time goes by, i become increasingly aware that as long as we separate out these issues and associate them with different phenomena, we miss the point. the point is that the same phenomena encapsulate both issues. one might well ask how can one study resistance as well as domination in the holocaust? after all, the received wisdom is that the holocaust was possible because people largely went like sheep to the slaughter, and if we occasionally focus on exceptions such as the warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, that is precisely because they are exceptions (mais, 2007-8). but in recent years, this viewpoint has been challenged on several fronts. to start with, warsaw was far from unique. there were armed undergrounds in more than 90 ghettos (gurewitsch, 2007-8) and there were armed uprisings in three of the six nazi extermination camps: auschwitz, treblinka and sobibor (arad, 1987; suhl, 1975; venezia, 2007). what is more, resistance didn‘t only take the form of uprisings (in which a few of the fighters might conceivably survive, but the weaker members of the the ghetto would inevitably be killed). it took other forms such as escape and joining the partisans (epstein, 2008; marrus, 1995). more radically still, it has been argued that even those in the jewish councils who ran the ghettos cannot be assumed to be passive and collaborationist. rather their stance was rooted in a historical experience of oppression and of successfully surviving that oppression by hunkering down, maintaining communal organization and seeking to outlive the oppressor — a strategy known as iberleben (engel, 2007-8). clearly this strategy failed, because nazi exterminationism was something radically new. but it is only in hindsight that we know this. at the time how could anyone believe that the nazis would do something so extreme, so unprecedented and so ridiculous to people who were working hard in ghetto factories for their war effort? (horwitz, 2010). in effect, then, everyone sought to resist the germans but used more of less confrontational strategies as a function of how they understood the nature of their oppressor (einwohner, 2009; tiedens, 1997). so if it is true that jews were led to be slaughtered, they did not generally go as sheep. moreover, it would be dismissive to europe’s journal of psychology 213 say that the resistance failed because most resistors died. once they became aware of their fate, people sought to act in ways that would maintain jewish dignity and empower jewish people in the future. whatever one‘s stance on the state of israel, one should not underestimate the impact of holocaust resistors on the success of subsequent struggles. i have just one more point to make about the holocaust. it was precisely because they were aware of the potential for (and the reality of) resistance, that the nazis went to such lengths to fragment jewish solidarity. in the ghettos they went through countless elaborate charades to convince those left behind that deportations meant transfer to a better life rather than to certain death, a deception that they maintained even as people entered the camps and symbolized by the infamous sign over the gates to auschwitz: ‗arbeit macht frei‘ (gutman, 1971; horwitz, 2010). once people were in the camps and the slaughter could no longer be hidden, other means were used to isolate people from the others whom were tightly packed together. indeed the whole camp system was specifically design to stop people developing bonds of common identity and solidarity — the use of divide and rule, the system of preferments and privileges, the systematic use of humiliation and many other techniques besides (sofsky, 1997; see also haslam & reicher, 2011). passivity did not come naturally, it was actively produced. the holocaust, then, is a site of domination and resistance. we cannot understand it without studying both. nor can we understand either element without understanding the other. unless we know what makes resistance effective we cannot tell what disrupts opposition and maintains the status quo. unless we know what serves to maintain the status quo we cannot know what needs to be disrupted for resistance to flourish. as social psychologists, then, we must not counter the present unbalanced emphasis on domination by an equally unbalanced turn to resistance. we must study the two together. that is a major challenge. it is the challenge that brought me into psychology. it is the challenge which maintains my passion for our discipline. it is a challenge that will keep me busy for many years to come. references arad, y. (1987) belzec, sobibor, treblinka: the operation reinhard death camps. bloomington: indiana university press. psychology, domination and resistance 214 buss, d.m. (2005) the murderer next door. london: penguin. dawkins, r. (1976) the selfish gene. oxford: oxford university press. einwohner, r.l. (2009) the need to know: cultured ignorance and jewish resistance in the ghettos of warsaw, vilna and lodz. sociological quarterly, 60, 407-430. engel. d. (2007-8) resisting in jewish time. in y. mais (ed.) daring to resist: jewish defiance in the holocaust. new york: museum of jewish heritage. epstein, b. (2008) the minsk ghetto 1941-43: jewish resistance and soviet internationalism. berkeley: university of california press. gould, s.j. (1983) the mismeasure of man. new york: norton. gurewitsch, b. (2007-8) to get killed or to kill. in y. mais (ed.) daring to resist: jewish defiance in the holocaust. new york: museum of jewish heritage. gutman, i. (1971) youth movements in the underground and the ghetto revolts. in yad vashem jewish resistance during the holocaust: proceedings of the conference on manifestations of jewish resistance. jerusalem: yad vashem. haslam, s.a. & mcgarty, c. (2001) a 100 years of certitude? social psychology, the experimental method and the management of scientific uncertainty. british journal of social psychology, 40, 1-21. haslam, s. a., & reicher, s. d. (2006). stressing the group: social identity and the unfolding dynamics of responses to stress. journal of applied psychology, 91, 1037-1052. haslam, s. a., & reicher, s. d. (2010). beyond conformity: revisiting classic studies and exploring the dynamics of resistance. in j. jetten & m. j. hornsey (eds.). rebels in groups: dissent, deviance, difference and defiance (pp.324-344). chichester, uk: wileyblackwell. haslam, s. a., & reicher, s. d. (2011). when prisoners take over the prison: a social psychology of resistance. unpublished manuscript: universities of exeter and st. andrews. jost, j.t., banaji, m.r. & nosek, b.a. (2004). a decade of system justification theory: accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious bolstering of the status quo. political psychology, 26, 881-919. europe’s journal of psychology 215 kamble, b. (2008) the prisons we broke. delhi: orient longman. kamin, l. (1977) the science and politics of iq. harmondsworth: penguin. kamin, l. (1993) on the length of black penises and the depth of white racism. in l.j. nicholas (ed.) psychology and oppression. skotaville publishers: johannesberg. mais, y. (2007-8) daring to resist: jewish defiance in the holocaust. new york: museum of jewish heritage. marrus, m.r. (1995) jewish resistance in the holocaust. journal of contemporary history, 30, 83-110. marx, k. & engels, f. (1848/2002) the communist manifesto. london: penguin. milgram, s. (1974) obedience to authority. london: harper collins. millard, k. (2010). stanley milgram’s story machine: experimental psychology, improvisation and the reinvention of the screenplay. paper presented at ―screenwriting: history, theory, praxis‖ conference. copenhagen, 9-11 september pinker, s. (2002) the blank slate. london: penguin. plato (380bc/1993) the republic. oxford: oxford university press. reicher, s.d. (2004) the context of social identity: domination, resistance and change. political psychology, 25, 921-946. reicher, s.d. & haslam, s.a. (2006) rethinking the psychology of tyranny: the bbc prison study. british journal of social psychology, 45, 1-40. reicher, s.d. & haslam, s.a. (2011) after shock? towards a social identity explanation of the milgram ‗obedience‘ studies. british journal of social psychology, 50, 163-169. russell, n. (2011) milgram‘s obedience to authority experiments: orogins and early evolution. british journal of social psychology, 50, 140-162 scmitt, m.t., branscombe, n.r. & kappen, d.m. (2003) attitudes towards group based inequality: social dominance or social identity? british journal of social psychology, 42, 161-186. psychology, domination and resistance 216 sherif, m. & sherif, c.w. (1969) social psychology. new york: harper & row. sidanius, j., van laar, c., levin, s & sinclair, s. (2003) social hierarchy maintenance and assortment into social roles: a social dominance perspective. group processes and intergroup relations, 6, 333-352. sidanius, j. & pratto, f. (1993) the inevitability of oppression and the dynamics of social dominance. in p.m. sniderman, p.e. tetlock & e.g. carmines (eds.) prejudice, politics and the american dilemma. stanford: stanford university press. sidanius, j. & pratto, f. (1999) social dominance. cambridge: cambridge university press. sofsky,w. (1997). the order of terror: the concentration camp. princeton, nj: princeton university press. suhl, y. (1975) they fought back: the story of jewish resistance in nazi europe. new york: shocken books. tajfel, h. (1978) differentiation between social groups. london: academic press. tajfel, h. (1981) social stereotypes and social groups. in j.c. turner & h. giles. intergroup behaviour. oxford: blackwell. tajfel, h. & turner, j. c. (1979). an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. in w. g. austin & s. worchel (eds.), the social psychology of intergroup relations (pp.33-47). monterey, ca: brooks/cole. thornhill, r. & palmer, c.t. (2001) a natural history of rape. boston, ma: mit press. tiedens, l.z. (1997) optimism and revolt of the oppressed: a comparison of two polish jewish ghettos of world war ii. political psychology, 18, 45-69. turner, j.c. (2006) tyranny, freedom and social structure: escaping our theoretical prisons. british journal of social psychology, 45, 41-46. venezia, s. (2007) sonderkommando: dans l’enfer des chambers a gaz. paris : albin michel. zimbardo, p. (1989). quiet rage: the stanford prison study video. stanford ca: stanford university. zimbardo, p. (2008) the lucifer effect. london: rider. europe’s journal of psychology 217 about the author: stephen reicher is currently professor of psychology at the university of st. andrews. he is a fellow of the royal society of edinburgh, an academician of the social sciences, scientific consultant to scientific american mind and a past editor of the british journal of social psychology. stephen's work concerns the relationship between social identity and collective action. within this framework, he has studied such phenomena as crowd behaviour, intergroup hatred, leadership and mobilisation, national identification, and the psychology of tyranny. he has getting on for 200 publications in these and other areas. his latest book, with alex haslam and michael platow is the new psychology of leadership (psychology press 2010). address for correspondence: stephen reicher, school of psychology, university of st. andrews, st. andrews, fife, ky16 9ju. email: sdr@st-andrews.ac.uk living with intensity icapbs 2012 : international conference on applied psychology and behavioral sciences 27-29 june 2012 paris, france the viii international conference on applied psychology and behavioral sciences aims to bring together academic scientists, leading engineers, industry researchers and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all aspects of applied psychology and behavioral sciences, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. icapbs 2012 has teamed up with the international journal of human and social sciences for publishing a special journal issue on advances in applied psychology and behavioral sciences. all submitted papers will have opportunities for consideration for this special journal issue. the selection will be carried out during the review process as well as at the conference presentation stage. submitted papers must not be under consideration by any other journal or publication. the final decision will be made based on peer review reports by the guest editors and the editor-in-chief jointly. important dates paper submission notification of acceptance final paper submission and authors' registration conference dates january 31, 2012 february 29, 2012 march 30, 2012 june 27-29, 2012 visit the website for more information http://www.waset.org/conferences/2012/paris/icapbs/ http://www.waset.org/journals/ijhss/ http://www.waset.org/journals/ijhss/ emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 71-92 www.ejop.org career plateauing and work attitudes: moderating effects of mentoring others with nigerian employees samuel o. salami department of guidance and counselling, kampala international univeristy, uganda abstract this study examined the relation of career plateauing to job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions and the moderating effects of mentoring on the relationships between career plateauing and the three dependent variables. data were collected from 280 government employees in nigeria who were more than 30 years old and came from a wide variety of organizations. results of this study showed that career plateauing was negatively correlated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positively correlated with turnover intentions. hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that mentoring played a significant moderating role on the relationships between career plateauing and job satisfaction and turnover intentions. based on the findings, the implications, limitations of this study and direction for future research are discussed. keywords: mentoring, career plateau, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions. introduction as organizational structures become more horizontal, nowadays career advancement in terms of vertical promotion has become competitive and difficult (jung & talk, 2008). consequently, most employees often reach a career plateau before attaining their career goals. career plateau is not a new phenomenon; however, the issue of concern is the rate at which it is becoming widespread in many organizations (ongori & agolla, 2009). many scholars on organizational careers are of the v iew that career plateau is fast becoming a critical managerial and organization issue http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 72 that needs to be managed properly to avoid employees’ discontent (bucke & mikkelsen, 2006). because of changes in the business environment, restructuring, downsizing and employment equity, career plateauing will likely become one of the most important career issues of the next decade. career plateau is defined as the point in one’s career at which the likelihood of additional hierarchical promotion is very low or impossible (ongori & agolla, 2009). bardwick (1986) identified two types of career plateauing: (a) structural (hierarchical) plateauing and (b) content (job content) plateauing. hierarchical plateauing results when there is little chance of further vertical movement within an organization whereas job content plateauing occurs when indiv iduals are no longer challenged by their job or job responsibilities, and there is overall staleness of the job itself. burke and mikkelsen (2006) distinguished between three types of career plateauing: structural, content and life plateaus. life plateauing refers to an indiv idual’s feeling of being trapped or stuck in their roles outside of work. the focus of the research literature has been on hierarchical plateauing (mccleese, eby, scharlau & hoffman, 2001) while job content and life plateauing have received much less attention (mccleese & eby, 2007). career plateau has been used as antecedent to many undesirable work outcomes such as low satisfaction, high stress, poor performance, withdrawal symptoms, low organizational commitment and increased turnover intention (heilmann, holt & rilov ick, 2008). career plateau has the potential to cause discomfort among the employees because lack of continued upward progression is regarded a yardstick to measure employees’ performance (ongoni & agolla, 2009). however, there is no unanimous agreement in the literature on the negative influence of career plateau on employees’ work attitudes. for example, palmero, roger and tremblay (2001) found no significant difference in terms of general satisfaction between respondents already at a career plateau and those who did not reach this stage. clark (2005) argued that a plateau can be a positive influence upon an employee in the sense that he or she no longer faces uncertainty in the form of changing and/or increased responsibilities. such a position may lead to contentment, security and job comfort. thus far, the literature on the relationship between career plateau and work attitudes includes a variety of contradictory conclusions about the attitudes of those who have attained career plateau and those who have not (xie & long, 2008). however, the empirical study on consequences of the career plateau is scarce generally and particularly in nigeria. hence, this study focused on three possible consequences of career plateau: job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention. given the negative consequences associated with career plateauing such as job dissatisfaction, lack of organization commitment and career plateauing and work attitudes 73 turnover intentions, employers will need to know how to avoid career plateauing among their older workers. research on career plateau has focused on types of career plateau, their measurements, antecedents (armstrong-stassen, 2008) and consequences (tremblay, roger & toulouse, 1995). little empirical research has been reported on the roles of moderators on the relationship between career plateau and work outcomes (ettington, 1998). studying the variables that moderate an indiv idual’s reactions to reaching career plateau (work attitudes) may be a step forward in understanding this process in organizations and in searching for solutions in terms of managing human resources in a more effective way. this study also addressed a neglected issue in the career plateau literature: few studies have examined the moderating role of mentoring (lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; jung & tak, 2008). some authors (ettington, 1998; milliman, 1992; palmero et al., 2001) argued that the reactions to career plateau can be more or less pronounced depending on the types of jobs, organizational contexts, and indiv idual characteristics. prev ious research on moderating variables between career plateau and work attitudes includes job characteristics such as job enrichment potential, variety, autonomy, role ambiguity or participation in decision making. aside from their direct impact on attitudes and behaviours, an interaction between these variables and career plateau is expected to determine employees’ reactions (roger & tremblay, 2009; tremblay & roger, 2004). some studies also investigated the impact of indiv idual factors such as stage of life, career aspiration, career motivation, perceived superv isor support and mentoring (jung & tak, 2008; lentz, 2004; milliman, 1992). indiv iduals react in different ways when they are on a career plateau but some factors are expected to limit a fair number of the negative consequences associated with reaching that stage. this study thus examined the moderating role of mentoring experience on the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes. the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intention). also this study was designed to examine the effects of mentoring on the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes. career plateauing and work attitudes a number of theoretical arguments and related empirical findings reinforce the contention that a direct link exists between career plateauing and work attitudes. career plateauing has both negative effects and positive effects on work attitudes. europe’s journal of psychology 74 circumstances under which negative effects are found for career plateauing are when an employee feels he or she has the talent, skills, experience and initiative to advance beyond the current position but the company or establishment has no available positions or lacks equal confidence in the employee’s ability in order to promote the employee. such situation may lead to stress, frustration, dissatisfaction, intention to leave the organization and absenteeism (jung & tak, 2008). career plateau has been found to be significantly associated with reduced job performance (lentz, 2004), decreased job satisfaction (jung & tak, 2008; lee, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; mccleese & eby, 2006; palmero, roger & tremblay, 2001; xie & long,2008), reduced organizational commitment (jung & tak, 2008; lentz, 2004; mccleese & eby, 2006) and increased turnover intentions (heilmann, holt & rilov ick, 2008; lentz, 2004). despite the dysfunctional effects of career plateauing, there is ev idence to suggest that such negativ ities may lead to optimism from the perspective of employees. for example, some researchers have found that some plateaued employees maintain the same level of productiv ity, do not appear bored and have high satisfaction with their jobs because acquiring new skills places them in a better position for other career opportunities elsewhere (ongori & agolla, 2009). positive effects of career plateauing are found when an employee no longer faces the problems of changing and/or increased responsibilities. such a position may lead to contentment and security. for example, an employee who perceives low needs for career mobility may be afraid of the lifestyle required from someone at a higher level of management or the employee may underestimate the value of promotion regardless of his or her aptitude. employees may be satisfied with their present positions in the organization and as such may prefer to improve the security of their present job and prefer it to the challenge of a higher level. the lifestyle of the community the employees belong to – that is friends, relatives or spouses (in the case of working couples) – may hamper the employees’ aspirations. relatives liv ing in the same area or the career of the spouse could have a significant negative impact on the career mobility of an indiv idual (feldman & weitz, 1988). in addition, career plateaued employees could strive to improve their skills, acquire new qualifications and look for a higher position job outside their current organization. also, career plateaued employees may have higher job performance and job satisfaction when they do not see themselves as plateaued (ettington, 1998). ettington (1998) defined successful career plateauing as effective job performance and high satisfaction despite a low likehood of promotion. she found that objectively plateaued managers were more successful i.e. had higher job performance and higher job satisfaction when they did not see themselves as plateaued. they were more satisfied when they had challenging work but did not career plateauing and work attitudes 75 see themselves as technical or functional specialists. furthermore, maimunah (2008) reported that some employees hope to attain career plateau because they could not cope with constraints and stress that advancement imposes. the period of plateau can also be a highly desirable period of rest and security that prov ides an opportunity to recharge the energy and digest new ideas. some employees believe that a plateau can be healthy for professionals, particularly those who have not attained a breakthrough in their careers (kreuter, 1993). empirical studies rev iewed above showed that the effects of career plateauing on the employees’ work attitudes could be both positive and negative. as such, research on this issue is not concluded and should continue. there is need for further research on the relationship between career plateauing and employees’ work attitudes. this is why the present study becomes warranted. based on the empirical studies rev iewed, it is expected that career plateauing will be negatively related to job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, and positively related to turnover intentions. mentoring and work attitudes the mentoring relationship can be defined as an interpersonal experience between a junior and a senior employee, in which the senior employee (mentor) supports, guides, and orients the junior employee (protégé) through the various tasks, functions and culture within the organization (kram,1985). the benefits of having or being a mentor have received ample attention in research (lankau & scandura, 2002). for example, studies showed that employees who have mentors or who are mentors report more promotions, have higher motivation, earn higher incomes, and score higher on work satisfaction than employees without a mentor or who are nonmentors (ragins, cotton & miller, 2000). other studies revealed that employees with mentoring experience showed higher organizational commitment (allen, eby, proteet, lentz & lima, 2004; lankau & scandura, 2002; lentz, 2004; ragins et al., 2000), decreased intention to turnover (lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009) and increased job performance (lentz,2004; levenson, van der stede & cohen,2006). research on the benefits of the mentoring relationship for mentors has not been as extensive as for mentees (ragins & scandura, 1999). according to fowler (2002), benefits for mentors were professional enhancement, organizational and peer recognition, interpersonal relationship, meaningfulness and fulfillment and productiv ity. other benefits for mentors include: career enhancement, increased intelligence/information, having the mentee as a trusted advisor and feeling of pride (zey, 1991). allen, poteet and burroughs (1997) identified some benefits of mentoring europe’s journal of psychology 76 for mentors which comprise: building support networks, self-satisfaction and satisfaction in seeing others grow and succeed and also general satisfaction in helping others; helping the mentor do his or her job, increasing the mentor’s own learning/knowledge, and increasing the mentor's organizational v isibility; ensuring the passage of knowledge to others and building a competent workforce. ragins and scandura (1999) identified rewarding experience, job performance, loyal base of support, recognition by others and generativ ity as benefits of mentoring for mentors. lev inson (1978) discussed the growth and development that occurred for mentors. recently, allen, evans, ng and dubios (2008) and underhill (2008) conducted meta-analytic studies on the effectiveness of mentoring and found that mentoring had significant favourable effects on behavioural, attitudinal, healthrelated, relational, motivational and career outcomes. burke (1984) and burke and mckeen (1997) were of the v iew that increased self-confidence, personal insight, learning how to deal with people and problems and fulfillment of psychosocial needs were some valuable outcomes. allen, lentz and day (2003) and bozionelos (2004) found that indiv iduals who provided mentoring experience reported a higher current salary, greater rate of promotion, and higher perception of career success. however, some researchers found no significant relationship between mentoring and intentions to turnover (allen et al., 2004) and job performance (van emmerik, 2008). the inconsistencies in the results of studies that investigated the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes make this study warranted. moderating effects of mentoring ettington (1998) indicated that only a small number of studies have been conducted to examine moderators on the relationship between career plateau and outcome variables. some of the studies found that challenging job, perceived support from superv isors and coworkers (chay, aryee & chew, 1995; ettington, 1998; matsani, maimunah & jegak, 2006), emotional intelligence and organizational support (park & yoo, 2005), career motivation (jung & tak, 2008), job characteristics (job autonomy and enrichment; roger & tremblay, 1998) and mentoring others (lentz & allen, 2009) acted as moderators of the relationship between perceived career plateau and outcome variables. in this study, mentoring others was selected as a moderator. mentoring others is likely to play a moderating role in the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes. the moderating effects of mentoring in the plateauing-work attitude link is based on the career and life stage literature especially lev inson’s life cycle theory. lev inson (1978) proposed four eras in the male life cycle: childhood and adolescence, early career plateauing and work attitudes 77 adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. within each era is a period of transition or adjustment that indicates the ending of an era and beginning of the next. in this study, the middle adulthood and mid-life transition were the focal point. mid-life transition can be described as a period of change and reappraisal. i t is a period when one examines one’s contributions to the first half of the journey of life. i t is a period that parallels the concepts of hierarchical and job content plateauing (levinson, 1978). according to levinson (1978), mid-life transition is a time for an employee to become a mentor and pass on a legacy in the form of family, work, or other subjectively valued contributions. the legacy fosters adult development and serves the purpose of enrichment and personal fulfillment (lentz, 2004). reference, stoner and warren (1977) categorized employees into four typologies based on performance and potential promotion. the categorization is also called the life-cycle theory of plateauing. they are first learners or comers, indiv iduals who possess high prospects for future advancement but are currently performing below acceptable standards. they are still learning and are not yet versed in the tasks of the organizations. second, stars who are on the fast track career path, perform well and are self motivated. they possess a high potential for advancement and they are readily picked up by the management to hold important positions for future leadership. third, solid citizens are those who perform very well the bulk of organizational tasks but have little chance for future advancement due to very limited career path in the organization unless they opt for another career path after equipping themselves with other professional qualifications (maimunah,2008). they form the majority in an organization. they are needed in organizations for stability and continuity. i f social citizens are treated passively or are denied access to development or challenging tasks, they will become de-motivated and become plateaued. finally, the deadwoods are indiv iduals who perform below the acceptable standards. these employees have problems for reasons of motivation and personal difficulties. their number is very small in organizations but problems created by deadwoods could jeopardize the overall quality of serv ice in organizations. deadwoods are targets for remedial actions or risk of dismissal. they are also career plateaued. solid citizens and deadwoods are plateaued employees. solid citizens are effective while deadwoods are ineffective. organizations should prevent solid citizens from slipping into the deadwood category. duffy (2000) applied chaos theory to conceptualize plateaued workers in order to reframe dominant issues faced by counsellors and clients. chaos theory has been applied in career counselling organizational studies among career-workers. chaos europe’s journal of psychology 78 theory points to a period of transition in which change occurs in unpredictable, irregular and uncertain ways. the essence of chaos is change and it is not a stable condition or fixed state. i t is a dynamic process that explains the changing relationship between entities in the organization. duffy (2000) described the use of chaos theory by managers in dealing with plateaued employees. according to chaos theory, order can emerge from chaos and a new level of functioning can be achieved. above all, there is need for management to understand and assess employees at each stage of their career and develop appropriate intervention to avoid career plateau. there is need for the mentoring of employees to recognize the type of career plateau employees are experiencing and develop various strategies to minimize it at the infancy stage. rotondo and perrewe (2000) expanded levinson’s life cycle theory and explored mentoring others as a coping response to plateauing; they suggested that mentoring younger employees may help plateaued employees to cognitively manipulate the meaning of being plateaued. result indicated that mentoring others was associated with higher levels of satisfaction, commitment and performance among plateaued employees. mid-life transition can mark a career plateau for many workers but mentoring can be an effective solution and coping mechanism that rev italizes and redirects one’s knowledge and focus (lentz, 2004; rotondo & perrewe, 2000). few studies have examined the moderator effects of mentoring others in plateauing-work attitudes link (lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; jung & tak, 2008). results of these studies have shown that mentoring others was associated with higher work satisfaction, commitment and job performance among plateaued employees. i t is, therefore, expected that mentoring others will interact with career plateauing to predict positive work attitudes among employees. thus, mentoring others will likely mitigate the negative effects of career plateauing, which may lead plateaued employees to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment and reduce turnover intentions compared to employees with low levels of mentoring. hypotheses the following hypotheses were tested, h1: career plateauing will be negatively related to (a) job satisfaction and (b) organizational commitment. h2: career plateauing will be positively related to intentions to turnover. h3: mentoring others will be positively related to (a) job satisfaction, and (b) organizational commitment. career plateauing and work attitudes 79 h4: mentoring others will be negatively related to intentions to turnover. h5: mentoring others will moderate the relationship between career plateauing and (a) job satisfaction, (b) organizational commitment and (c) intentions to turnover such that for respondents having a higher level of mentoring, the relationship between career plateauing and each of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intentions to turnover will be weaker. methods sample and procedure participants consisted of 280 (male = 150, female = 130) civ il servants from one of the states in the middle belt of nigeria. respondents reported experience as a mentor. their mean age was 38.64years (s.d=7.90) with ages ranging from 30 to 54 years. education level of the participants ranged from diploma from university or post secondary school institutions to degree from university. the sample included a wide range of job titles and organizational levels. examples of job positions are: senior nursing officers, principal nursing officers, chief nursing officers, senior education officers, principal education officers, v ice-principals and principals. the organizational levels were staff, middle level management and senior management levels. the participants’ working experience were 30 years and above. six researchers assisted the present author in administering the questionnaire to the respondents during office hours. the purpose of this questionnaire was explained after the consent of the participants was obtained. the respondents were told not to write their names on the questionnaire to guarantee anonymity. they were assured that the information collected would be treated confidentiality. initially, 300 questionnaires were distributed throughout the organizations that participated in the study. however, 280 questionnaires were properly filled and found useable for data analysis giv ing a response rate of 93.3%. the data for this study was collected from the respondents between may and august 2008. measures demographic information was obtained from the participants through a form that requested for their ages in years (ordinal data), gender (nominal data) coded as male = 0, female = 1, job position (interval data) was coded as senior nursing/midwifery officers = 1, principal nursing/ midwifery officers = 2, chief nursing officers = 3, senior education officers = 2, principal education officers = 3, chief education officers= 4, vice-principals = 4, principals= 5. level of education included europe’s journal of psychology 80 diploma = 1, first degree = 2, master’s degree = 3, ph.d degree = 4. participants were asked for how long they have worked in their present job to get their tenure. career plateau. career plateau was measured as a continuous multidimensional construct consisting of job content and hierarchical forms of plateauing. job content plateauing was measured by means of six items from milliman’s (1992) career plateau scale. responses were scored on a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5. responses were scored such that higher scores indicated higher levels of job content plateauing. examples of mentoring items are job content plateauing “i have an opportunity to learn and grow a lot in my current job”; “i expect to be constantly challenged in my job”. milliman (1992) reported an internal consistency of 0.87. in the present study, the cronbach’s coefficient alpha for job content plateau was 0.86. six items from milliman’s (1992) career plateau scale were used to measure hierarchical plateauing. responses were scored on a five point scale ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5. responses were scored such that higher scores indicated higher levels of hierarchical plateauing. hierarchical plateauing “i expect to advance to a higher level in my company in the near future”, “i have reached a point where i do not expect to move much in my company”. milliman (1992) reported an internal consistency of 0.90. the cronbach’s coefficient alpha for the hierarchical scale in the present study was 0.88. mentoring provided. career and psychosocial mentoring were assessed by a modified version of noe’s (1988) mentoring scale constructed by lentz (2004). the items were modified to reflect the mentor’s perspective. participants who ind icated having experience as a mentor were instructed to respond to these items based on their current or most recent mentoring relationship. five items were used to assess career related mentoring. examples of mentoring items are: as a mentor i “help my protégé finish assignment/tasks/projects or meet deadlines that otherwise would be difficult to complete”, “help my protégé meet new colleagues”, “give assignments that give my protégé the opportunity to learn new skills”, “encourage my protege to prepare for advancement”. cronbach’s alpha for these five items was 0.75. ten items were used to assess psychosocial mentoring. the cronbach’s alpha was 0.83. a five-point likert scale was used with responses ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5. higher scores indicated more mentoring provided. noe (1988) reported internal consistency of .89 and .92 for career and psychosocial mentoring respectively. for this study, both career and psychosocial mentoring scales were summed together and used as an unidimensional scale. the cronbach’s alpha for the two scales used in the present study as a unidimensional scale was 0.78. career plateauing and work attitudes 81 job satisfaction. job satisfaction was measured by three-item scale developed by cammann, fichman, jenkins and klesh (1983). this scale adopted a five-point scale with responses that ranged from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5. cronbach’s alpha for this scale in this study was 0.85. higher scores indicated higher job satisfaction. organizational commitment. organizational commitment was measured with the attitude commitment component, consisting of eight items developed by allen and meyer (1996). the scale was scored on a five-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree= 5. in this study, the cronbach’s alpha was 0.84. higher scores indicated higher levels of organizational commitment. turnover intentions. four items developed by lentz (2004) were used to measure turnover intentions i.e. intentions to leave the organization. responses were scored on a five-point scale that ranged from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5. sample items were “i am currently looking for another organization to work for”, “i often think of leaving this organization”. cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.86. higher scores indicated higher intentions to leave the organization. control variables prev ious research has shown that gender, age, job tenure and job position may impact the mentoring relationship (ragin & cotton, 1999) and plateauing (stout, slocum & cron, 1988). therefore gender, age, tenure and job rank or positions were considered as potential control variables. results data analysis correlation analyses were conducted to examine the intercorrelations among all the variables included in the study. hierarchical regression analyses were also conducted to test the moderating effect of mentoring on the relationship between perceived career plateau and the three dependent variables. to control the effects of demographic variables on the dependent variables, age, gender, tenure and job rank position were put into the regression equation at the first step. at the second step, perceived career plateau (job content and hierarchical plateaus) and mentoring were included in the regression equation. finally, at the third step, the cross-product term of perceived career plateau and the moderator were put into the regression equation. europe’s journal of psychology 82 table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among the variables used in this study. table 1: means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among study variables variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. gender 2. age .21* 3. position .20* .24* 4. tenure .12 .40* .25* 5. education .14 .23* .26* .20* 6. j.c.plateau .70 .27* .17 .18 .23* 7. h.plateau .05 .26* .18 .19* .22* .30* 8. mentoring .09 .31* .24* .21* .20* -.22* -.07 9. j.sat .12 .20* .20* .25* .26* -.26* -.25* .19* 10. o.c .18 .22* .28* .30* .19* -.30* -.24* .20* .37* . 11. t.i .10 -.19* .21* -.26* .20* .32* .27* -.21 -.32 -.40* mean 38.64 2.73 13.87 2.56 2.56 3.62 7.83 3.86 3.57 1.85 sd 7.90 1.20 6.45 2.30 .74 .89 .62 .73 .65 .94 note: .j.c. plateau= job content plateau, h.plateau= hierarchical plateau ,j.sat=job satisfaction, o.c.= organizational commitment, s.d.= standard deviations, gender (0=male, 1=female), t.i = turnover intentions, tenure (years served in present job in the organization ). *p<0.05. results on table 1 indicate that job content plateauing was negatively related to job satisfaction (r=-.26, p<.05), and organisational commitment (r=-.30, p<.05). hierarchical plateauing was significantly related to job satisfaction (r=-.25, p<.05) and organisational commitment (r=-.24, p<.05). therefore, hypotheses la-b received support. hypothesis 2 predicted a positive relationship between career plateauing and turnover intentions. job content plateauing was positively related to turnover intentions (r=.32, p<.05). similarly, hierarchical plateauing was positively related to turnover intentions (r=.27, p<.05). therefore, hypothesis 2 also received support. hypothesis 3a-b predicted that mentoring will be positively related to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. results indicated that mentoring was significantly related to job satisfaction (r=.19, p<.05), organisational commitment (r=.20, p<.05) and negatively related turnover intentions (r=-.21, p<.05). therefore, hypotheses 3 and 4 were fully supported. career plateauing and work attitudes 83 table 2: results of hierarchical regression analyses for testing moderating effects of mentoring for job satisfaction and organizational commitment job satisfaction organization commitment variable r² ∆r² ∆f β df r² ∆r² ∆f β df step.1 .06 5.84* 5/275 .13 4.55* 5/275 gender .07 .06 age .17* .16* position .15* .17* tenure .13* .15* education .14* .13* step.2 .32 .22 8.56* 3/272 .37 .24 6.97* 3/272 j.c. plateau -.34* -.25* h. plateau -.28* -.28* mentoring .22* .11 step.3 .35 .03 10.75* 2/270 .38 .01 9.64* 2/270 interactions j.c. plateau x ment. .23* .08 h. plateau x ment. .19* .19 note: j.c. plateau= job content plateau, h. plateau= hierarchical plateau, ment=mentoring. * p< 0.05. hypotheses 5a-c posited significant interactions between mentoring and plateau variables to predict work attitudes. as shown in table 2, the interaction between mentoring and job content plateauing (β=.23. p<.05) and that between mentoring and hierarchical plateauing (β=.19, p<.05) for job satisfaction were significant. the interaction between mentoring and job content plateauing (β=.08, p>.05) and that between hierarchical plateauing and mentoring for organizational commitment (β=.10, p>.05) were not significant. hypotheses 5b did not receive support. table 3: results of hierarchical regression analyses for testing moderating effects of mentoring for turnover intention variable turn over intentions r² ∆r² ∆f β df step.1 .06 5.30* 5/275 gender .05 age .14* position .16* tenure .15* education .17* step.2 .34 .28 9.80* 3/270 j.c. plateau .38* h. plateau .32* mentoring .28* europe’s journal of psychology 84 step.3 .36 .02 10.24* 2/270 j.c.plateau x ment .30* h. plateau x ment .27* note: j.c. plateau =job content plateau, h. plateau= hierarchical plateau, ment= mentoring, *= p< 0.05. finally, as shown in table 3, the interaction between mentoring and job content plateauing (β=.30, p<.05) and that betw een mentoring and hierarchical plateauing (β=.27, p<.05) for turnover intentions were significant. to show the nature of the moderating effects of mentoring, regression lines between each career plateauing and the two dependent variables (job satisfaction and turnover intentions) were drawn at the high and lows levels of mentoring. the relationships between each career plateauing and the two dependent variables were significantly weaker for the high level mentoring group. this indicated that hypotheses 5a&c received support. discussion the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of career plateauing on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions and the moderating effects of mentoring on the relationship between career plateauing and each of the three dependent variables. the results show that career plateau (job content and hierarchical) was negatively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment and was positively related to turnover intentions. mentoring has moderating effects on the relationship between career plateauing and job satisfaction and turnover intentions. negative relationships were found between career plateauing and job satisfaction (jung & tak, 2008; lee, 2004; lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009. mccleese & eby, 2006; xie & long, 2008) and organizational commitment (jung & tak, 2008; lee, 2004; lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; mccleese & eby, 2006). career plateauing was positively related to turnover intentions and this is consistent with the w ork of prev ious researchers who reported similar findings (heilman, holt & rilov ick, 2008; lentz, 2004). one explanation for the findings from this study could be that career plateaued employees became frustrated and they are not motivated to continue to w ork harder. they might have reasoned that the efforts they put into their work in the organization were not rewarded and as such their work may not be interesting to them, which leads to job dissatisfaction. they may not be committed to the cause of the organization as they were before being plateaued and they might be prepared career plateauing and work attitudes 85 to take up jobs with ranks higher than their present ranks any time the opportunity presents itself. results from this study also indicated that mentoring others was significantly and positively related to job satisfaction and organization commitment but negatively related to turnover intentions. these results are in agreement with the work of other researchers who reported similar findings (allen et al., 2004; lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; levenson et al., 2006; ragins et al., 2000). an explanation for these findings is that mentoring others has some benefits such as having higher motivation and self fulfillment for seeing someone guided or coached by us growing. this assists the mentor in developing more positive work attitudes. findings from this study showed that mentoring others play a significant role in moderating the relationship between career plateauing and job satisfaction and turnover intentions. these findings support the work of prev ious researchers who obtained similar results (lentz, 2004; lentz & allen, 2009; rotondo & perrewe, 2000). reasons for these findings could be that the period of career plateauing parallels that of middle adulthood and the mid-life transition when the indiv idual wishes to pass on a legacy in the form of work, family or other subjectively valued contributions. when a plateaued employee is able to pass on his/her contributions to others in the form of mentoring he/she becomes satisfied. this legacy fosters adult development and serves the purpose of enrichment and personal fulfillment. mentoring others is a coping response to plateauing and it contributes to limit the negative consequences associated with career plateauing. that mentoring others did not moderate the relationship between career plateauing and organizational commitment was surprising and contradicted the work of prev ious researchers who found, on the contrary, that mentoring others moderated the relationship between plateauing and organizational commitment (jung &tak, 2008; lentz, 2004). this result means that with mentoring others the negative relationship between career plateauing and organizational commitment still exists. that is, the negative effect of plateauing has not been allev iated by mentoring others. the reason for mentoring others not moderating the negative relationship between career plateauing and organizational commitment could be because the employees had become frustrated, disinterested and dissatisfied with their work. they might also have felt that an organization that has deprived them of promotion or advancement in their work does not deserve being committed to or attached to. as such, the negative relationship between career plateauing and organizational commitment is not affected by mentoring others. europe’s journal of psychology 86 implications of the findings findings from this study have theoretical and practical implications. the theoretical implications are in terms of showing that career plateauing has a negative impact on job satisfaction and organizational commitment and aids turnover intentions and that mentoring others can allev iate the negative impacts of career plateauing on work attitudes. therefore, more research should be conducted on identifying the symptoms of career plateauing and moderating variables to reduce the negative impact of career plateauing on work outcome variables. this study has practical implications for motivating career plateaued employees in the organizations. since career plateauing has a negative impact on work attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment and encourages turnover intention, organizations should reduce the level of career plateauing by transforming or enriching jobs, facilitating lateral or cross-functional moves and providing honest feedback to employees. this will enable the employees to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for them to position themselves for opportunities elsewhere if promotion is blocked in their present organization. because mentoring others helps in allev iating the negative effect of career plateauing on job satisfaction and turnover intentions, organizations should develop formal mentoring programmes to increase indiv iduals’ career motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. employees may report more organizational commitment when the mentor role is sponsored by the organization. organizations should identify causes of career plateauing and develop appropriate interventions to manage it at the infancy stage. in addition, employees should be counselled by counselling psychologists and made aware that in this era of globalization, “career advancement” is being replaced with “career achievement”. also management should prov ide counselling and placement serv ices for those employees who decide to quit the organizations. limitations and future research some limitations of this study should be mentioned. firstly, this study is cross-sectional in nature and as such it is not possible to infer causality. a longitudinal study design in future research would allow cause-and-effect relationship to be established and would allow us to examine changes in the study variables across time. a second limitation is that the present study used government employees because of the prevalence of plateau in government agencies. future research could include employees in the private sectors to confirm the generalizability of the findings in private organizations. this could allow researchers to compare government and career plateauing and work attitudes 87 private sector employees on the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes. a third limitation of this study is that self-report measures were used in obtaining data from the respondents. there could have been some response biases when the respondents were filling the questionnaires. in order to check for these response biases future research could include interv iew information. furthermore, no performance data was collected from respondents. this has limited the information about work outcomes to attitudinal dimensions leaving out behavioural aspects. as such, future research should include work performance data. also, there is need to carry out more research on why indiv iduals would want to engage in a mentor role because mentoring could be seen as a type of organizational citizenship behaviour. furthermore, future research should try to determine the perception of career plateaued employees on the reasons for which they think they have been plateaued. this could allow future researchers to find out employees for whom career plateauing effects had been positive or negative. these effects could be used as moderator variables in the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes. moreover, job autonomy and job enrichment could be used as moderator variables in the investigation of the relationship between career plateauing and work outcomes. conclusion despite these limitations, this study has prov ided evidence that relationships exist between career plateauing and work attitudes and that mentoring others serves as a significant moderator of the relationships. the unique contribution of this study is that it is the first to examine empirically the moderating role of mentoring others in the relationship between career plateauing and work attitudes among civ il servants in nigeria. this study provided evidence 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(1991).the mentor connection: strategic alliances in corporate life, new jersey: transaction publishers. about the author dr samuel o. salami received his phd from the university of i lorin, i lorin, nigeria. he is a senior lecturer in counselling psychology at the department of guidance and counselling, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria but currently on sabbatical leave at the kampala international university, kampala, uganda. his research interest includes mentoring, leadership, employee commitment, job attitudes, career development, organizational conflict resolution and occupational stress. his research has been published in europe’s journal of psychology, european journal of scientific research, career development international journal, journal of workplace learning, women in management review and international journal for the advancement of counselling, social behaviour and personality, the journal of international social research, us-china education review and perspectives in education. address for correspondence: department of guidance and counseling, kampala international university, kampala 256, uganda e-mail: drsosalami2002@yahoo.co.uk moral dilemma discussion revisited – the konstanz method dr. georg lind, phd konstanz university http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral abstract the classical blatt-method of dilemma discussion to foster moral-democratic competencies is discussed and compared with the new konstanz method of dilemma discussion (kmdd). the kmdd is better teachable, easier to be applied and has higher effect sizes. in a democracy, the rule of a king or a dictator has been replaced by the rule of moral principles of human conduct and interaction. therefore, it is highly important that citizens do not only hold high moral and democratic ideals (which, according to the polls, most citizens do) but that they also possess a highly developed ability to apply these ideals in everyday-life, and solve inevitable conflicts through discussion and moral discourse. especially when we are confronted with a conflict situation, we need the competence to make judgments in accordance with our moral principles and act upon them as well as to enter a moral discourse with our opponents rather than use violence and power to solve the conflict (kohlberg, 1964; 1984). indeed, moral and democratic competencies seem to be very important for various fields of behavior: low moral judgment and discourse competencies may be a cause of criminal behavior, may keep people back from acting upon their moral ideals of helping and compassion, and may get into the way of learning (kohlberg, 1984; sprinthall et al., 1994). in experimental studies it was found that people who have learned how to solve conflicts between opposing values and principles can learn better, allow others to help them learn and apply what they have learned in every-day contexts (heidbrink, 1985; lind, 2003). these moral abilities or competencies are not inborn nor can they be instilled through simple lectures but must (and can) be educated (and self-educated) throughout the life-cycle, that is, from early age through childhood, youth and adulthood (cf. lind, 2002). moral and democratic competencies are acquired in various places like family, school, university, workplace and in the public domain through neighborhood activities, political participation and engagement in universal community building. in the early years, children’s learning depends heavily, yet not solely on the assistance of caring and competent educators like parents and teachers. children would not learn if they were not, from the beginning, active learners themselves. later in life children learn more and more through self-monitored activities, which must be encouraged and fostered rather than regarded as disturbing. the best known way to foster moral and democratic competencies is to provide proper learning opportunities in which s/he feels safe to freely express his/her moral ideals and arguments and in which s/he also respects others and their right of opinion. such a learning opportunity is provided by the teaching method of the moral dilemma discussion, first suggested by blatt (1969) and his mentor kohlberg (blatt & kohlberg, 1975), and later improved by lind (2003). the method of moral dilemma discussion is well-founded in the philosophy of education and in psychological and educational research, and its effects have been thoroughly analyzed in well-designed studies (higgins, 1980; leming, 1985; lockwood, 1978; lind, 2002). from the beginning, the dilemma discussion has shown to have a substantial effect size ( r = 0.40); hardly ever were negative effects reported. it has shown to be highly effective in various age-groups, from ten-year-olds to adults. teachers of all subjects can be trained to use this method effectively in their classrooms on various age-levels, starting from grade five upward. critical reviews of three decades of intervention studies using the blatt method (e.g., berkowitz, 1981; berkowitz et al., 1980; lind, 2002; walker, 1983) tell us that dilemma discussion and other methods of moral and democratic teaching work most effectively if two basic conditions are met: first, mutual respect and free moral discourse in the classroom. the teachers must see himor herself as a facilitator not as a master of students’ learning. especially in regard to the moral and democratic domain of learning, the teacher must not use his or her authority to impose his or her aims and pace of learning onto the students but tune into their moral ideals and their pace of development. this tuning-in is supported by a good understanding of the basic processes of teaching and learning. yet, ultimately it must be achieved by engaging in a free discourse with the students in the sense of habermas’ (1983) discourse principles. in a dilemma discussion session, everybody is respected equally and has one vote and one voice regardless of power and status. second, high level of persisting attention. learning takes place most effectively in situations in which the level of attention of all participating students is kept up as high as possible throughout the session. this is achieved best in sessions in which cycles of support and challenge alternate in a certain rhythm. through challenges students get emotional and attentive, eager to solve a problem or to ease bad feelings. yet, challenges must never last for too long or get too strong so that emotions don’t raise too high and prevent learning. over-excitement can be avoided by switching from phases of challenge to phases of support, in which the individual is reassured and his or her emotions can calm down to allow again intellectual activities and reflection to recuperate. yet, the blatt-method left room for improvements. they are much more teacher-directed than one would expect and those who run dilemma discussions frequently report problems with keeping up students’ attention. although the blatt-method of dilemma discussion has generally a very strong impact on students’ moral development, this method has some severe drawbacks: the core rationale of the method, the so-called "+1-convention" has attracted much criticism (cf. berkowitz, 1981; berkowitz et al., 1980). with this the teacher is required to confront students always with arguments one stage above their own. this requirement is not only difficult to meet but also seems to be more in line with classical socialization theory than with the cognitive-development theory by kohlberg and piaget, which recommends that the teachers only stimulates development but does not try to model it. in a series of very thoughtful laboratory experiments, walker (1983) found that counter-arguments are just as effective for enhancing students’ moral judgment scores as "+1"arguments, implying that +1-arguments do not work because they "model" the reasoning of children but by challenging it like counter-arguments do. presenting several dilemmas in only one 45-minutes session seems to be effective, yet this practice leaves little room for the students to understand the nature of the dilemma and to develop a high level of reasoning. therefore it is not surprising, that the effects sizes crumble some time after the end of the dilemma discussion program. to discuss one or even several moral dilemmas within 45-minutes leaves too little room for students’ active reflection and discussion activity. if the students (rather than the teacher) are to produce some number of good and challenging moral arguments, they need more time (i recommend 80 to 90 minutes) to fully understand the moral core of the dilemma and to think of all arguments they are capable of. too many sessions within a short time span don’t make such programs more effective. on the contrary, fewer session spread over a longer period seem to have the same immediate effect and besides a more lasting effect. as the meta-analysis by lind (2002) and also other practical experiences suggest, a good time span for a dilemma discussion is one session every two or three weeks. the role of the teachers should be that of a facilitator rather than a master or moralizer. if the teacher gives reasons "one stage above" the students’ stage of reasoning, the hidden message is that the teachers knows it better and the students must follow the lead of the teacher not only in matters of fact but also in moral matters. this hidden curriculum is certainly not in agreement with moral-democratic education as we understand it. programs to foster moral and democratic competencies must be evaluated as adequately as possible. this means that instruments for measurement are needed which tap the competence aspect of moral behavior rather than attitudinal aspects. kohlberg’s moral judgment interview does this to some degree. yet it does not clearly define what the moral task is and its indexes (stage score, mms) confound the competence and the attitudinal aspects. in the konstanz method of dilemma discussion (kmdd) two major innovations were introduced aiming at a more effective use of dilemmas for moral education and a more valid evaluation methodology (lind, 2003): first, to create an optimal environment for moral and democratic learning, kmdd employs semi-real, ‘educative’ dilemmas as tasks. semi-real dilemmas are dilemmas which do not affect anyone participating in a dilemma discussion, but are on the one hand likely to cause real conflicts between the moral ideals of a person, and on the other hand also cause controversies between the participants, thus triggering real moral emotions. ‘educative’ is a dilemma, if it triggers moral emotions enough to stimulate learning, but not too strongly to prevent learning. the role of those dilemmas then is similar to a vaccination, in which weakened viruses are injected into the body to stimulate its ability to resist the real virus. educative moral dilemmas are not so real that they kill of moral-democratic learning, but real enough that they cause the individual to develop his or her cognitive-affective capacities (lind, 2003; http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ ). furthermore, kmdd has been designed to facilitate free moral deliberation and discourse through several features: a)sufficient time is allowed for the clarification of the dilemma; b)the teacher withholds his/her opinion on the dilemma and even gives up the discussion chair; and c) participants built up solidarity in small group meetings. d)finally, to keep the attention and learning motivation at an optimal level, a dilemma discussion session is kept on an proximal level of learning through alternating phases of support and challenge, which rhythmically change about every ten minutes. special features of the konstanz method are: a)sufficient time at the beginning of the session to bring out and clarify the different perceptions of the presented problem by the participants, b)a dilemma or a phase in which participants rank the arguments of their opponents, and a concluding phase of session evaluation asking the students questions like what have you learned. was it wasted time or would you like to do it again sometime. etc. the kmdd is described in detail in lind (2003) and on this web-site: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ (in german, english, and spanish). second, we devised a new measure of moral judgment competence, the moral judgment test (mjt) which is described in more detail in lind (2004). now the relative effect sizes are r = 0.70 and higher. the absolute effect sizes increased from 6 points per year for the blatt-method as evaluated by the moral judgment test to more than 13 points with the konstanz method. this indicates that the konstanz method of dilemma discussion makes successfully use of the two basic conditions for effective moral and democratic education, mutual respect and high level of attention. moreover, teachers reported that after attending dilemma discussions the students are more motivated to learn. biographical note dr. georg lind is professor of psychology at the university of konstanz , and has been visiting professor at the university of illinois , the universidad the monterrey , mexico , and humboldt university , germany . since thirty years he is involved in research of the development of moral-democratic competencies, and for twenty years he trains teachers and teacher students in moral and democratic education. presently, he advises the colombian government in citizenship education and the reform of teacher training. he edits a much visited web-site on moral and democratic learning: www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral . references berkowitz, m.w. (1981). a critical appraisal of the ‘plus-one’ convention in moral education. phi delta kappan, march 1981, 488-489. berkowitz, m.w., gibbs, j. & broughton, j. (1980). the relation of moral judgment stage disparity to developmental effects of peer dialogues. merrill-palmer quarterly, 26, 341-357. blatt, m. & kohlberg, l. (1975). the effect of classroom moral discussion upon children’s level of moral judgment. journal of moral education, 4, 129-161. habermas, j. (1983). moralbewußtsein und kommunikatives handeln. frankfurt : suhrkamp. heidbrink, h. (1985). moral judgment competence and political learning. in: g. lind, h.a. hartmann & r. wakenhut, eds., moral development and the social environment. studies in the philosophy and psychology of moral judgment and education, pp. 259-271. chicago : precedent publishing inc. higgins, a. 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(2003). moral ist lehrbar. handbuch zur theorie und praxis der moralischen und demokratischen bildung [morality can be taught...]. münchen: oldenbourg. lind, g. (2004). the meaning and measurement of moral judgment competence — a dual aspect theory. to be published in d. fasko & willis, eds., contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives on moral development and education. creskill , nj : hampton press, in press. lockwood, a.l. (1978). the effects of value clarification and moral development curricula on school-age subjects: a critical review of recent research. review of educational research, 48, 325-364. power, c., higgins, a., kohlberg, l. (1989) lawrence kohlberg’s approach to moral education. new york : columbia university press. rest, j.r. (1979). development in judging moral issues. minneapolis , mi : university of minnesota press. sprinthall, n.a., sprinthall, r.c. & oja, s.n. (1994). educational psychology. a developmental approach. sixth edition. new york : mcgraw-hill. walker , l.j. (1983). sources of cognitive conflict for stage transition in moral development. developmental psychology, 19, 103-110. microsoft word 3. personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 419 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 419-442 www.ejop.org personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning micha strack georg-august-universität göttingen, göttingen, germany carsten gennerich evangelische hochschule darmstadt, university of applied science, darmstadt, germany abstract in interpersonal value conflicts ethical principles are employed to justify own actions. however, there is competition among ethical principles. therefore the preference for a specific ethical principle may be merely a function both of personal values and of the value-laden situations in which actions are made. a german sample of 132 participants rated their agreement on ten justifications in seven experimentally constructed situations. the situations varied in their expression of values, organized by the value circle (schwartz, 1992). the justifications assess five ethical principles (deontology, utilitarianism, partiality, hedonism, and intuitionism). variance components of the agreement ratings were separated using glm and plotted in the value circle. preferences for ethical principles depended on both the value content of situations and the responder values. the person x situation interaction was not significant. the results illustrate the difficulties in gaining agreement on arguments among individuals with conflicting values. keywords: values, moral reasoning, person-situation interaction. people endorse different values that they consider to be important. these values can be in conflict with each other and accordingly people decide to give priority to some values over others (schwartz, 1992, 2011). research on people’s reasons for endorsing certain values shows that argumentative support in the sense of cognitive elaboration on sound principles and good causes can foster endorsement of values and increase the likelihood of behavior in accordance with these values (bernard et al., 2003a). however, people do not always have argumentative support for their personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 420 values and are vulnerable to the attack of their values (bernard et al., 2003b). therefore, in situations in which values are under discussion, argumentative support is crucial (e.g., cherry & faedrich, 2002 in business ethics, candee, 1984 in medical ethics). in the philosophical tradition, philosophers conceptualize categories of reasoning which intend to establish a basis for agreement independent of certain value positions, i.e. so called ethical principles (beck, 1989; larmore, 1987). however, ethical principles as patterns of reasoning are rarely addressed by psychological research (cf. cherry & fraedrich, 2002). evidently, individuals justify their actions and value decisions using various methods of ethical reasoning (e.g. maio & olson, 1998). as moral philosophy has systematized possible prototypes of moral reasons on the level of ethical principles, people’s ethical reasoning can also be categorized by these principles. when a person says, “the outcome is best for everyone”, utilitarian reasoning can be identified. a kantianist would prefer to say “it’s our duty to act like this”, where the particularist says “in my particular situation i have to do this”. even the self is perceived as a value base and a moral good in modern western societies (baumeister, 1989). in consequence, hedonistic reasons are perceived as legitimate (“i just like to consume this”) and have been elaborated in moral philosophy (stirner, 1995). therefore, it is possible that all moral or justifying arguments belong to the area of ethical reasoning and can be identified as examples or blends of prototypical ethical principles. however, the question as to what determines the lay person’s choice among ethical principles in reasoning remains open and will be addressed in this study. conceptually, the principles people refer to in the process of ethical reasoning can be related to the individual’s personality, the social situation or both. 1) according to rohan (2000), ethical principles appear in everyday life in the form of individually represented value-laden constructs which he called ideologies. ideologies vary across social groups and personalities. 2) from the perspective of classical social psychology (e.g., asch, 1955; milgram, 1963), the preference for an ethical principle should be determined by the social situation. 3) the third option – the scenario applied in this study – is a blending of influences from both the persons involved and the situation at hand. while only preliminary attempts have been made to address these questions empirically (witte & doll, 1995; gollan & witte, 2008), there exists a good deal of psychological research on value preferences (rokeach, 1973; schwartz, 1992, 2011) and some independent work on the assessment of the usage of ethical principles (fraedrich, & ferrell, 1992; forsyth & nye, 1990; witte & doll, 1995). europe’s journal of psychology 421 personal values values were posited by rokeach (1973) as the primary content of an individual’s identity. according to rokeach, values function as cognitive standards for individual actions. he contends that values are universal but are differentially esteemed. in addressing the structure of values, schwartz and bilsky (1987) hypothesized universal conflicts in the content of values. in 1992, schwartz documented research in 20 countries which led to a bipolar structure of 56 rated values in two orthogonal dimensions of self-transcendence vs. self-enhancement and openness to change vs. conservation. the resulting circle of values represents the relativity of values: incompatible values are plotted far away from one another and similar ones are plotted in close proximity (schwartz, 1992, 2011). the upper part of the value circle expresses self-transcendence and is made up of universalistic values and benevolence, followed clockwise by tradition, conformity and security values (conservation), power and achievement (self-enhancement), hedonistic values, stimulation and selfdirection (openness to change). figure 1: value circle (14-bipolar-short-form; strack, 2004) openness to change 1.0 .8 .6 .4 .2 .0 -.2 -.4 -.6 -.8 -1.0 1.0 .8 .6 .4 .2 .0 -.2 -.4 -.6 -.8 -1.0 control over uncertainty honoring of parents obedient varied life devout successful influential preserving my public image world at peace creativity unity with nature exciting life social justice authority equality tolerance openness politeness choosing own goals daring respect for tradition social order enjoying life humble pleasure honest social power wealth self transcendence conservation self enhancement personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 422 to assess the value preferences of individuals participating in this study, we used a short questionnaire with 14 bipolar rating items (strack, 2004), utilizing the empirical content structure of the schwartz value circle (see figure 1 and appendix 2). situational values just as individuals vary in personality traits, motives or value preferences, real situations differ in certain (mostly unknown) dimensions and can be categorized into various classes. gollan and witte (2008) relate value laden situations to heider’s concept of situational ought (1958). we further assume that the content structure of values that schwartz (1992) found in the variance between individuals can also be applied to the variance between situations. for example, the experiments in early social psychology can be interpreted as powerful demonstrations of value-laden situations: conformity presses (asch, 1955) and compliance demands (milgram, 1963) lead to actions of conformity and obedience. conformity and obedience may be seen as values within the experimental situations. in some later studies, participants were asked directly to express which values might be appropriate in different situations (feather, 1990; heath, 1976). as feather (1990) shows, strong situations may override the effects of individual value differences. action in accordance with situational values, activated by vignettes, usually induce less regret than a mismatch of personal and situation values (second study in lönnqvist et al., 2006). however, as situational values and the approach of interactionism have been given little attention in psychological value research, we will state our hypotheses on personal values and situational values separately. ethical principles as maio and olson (1998) show, lay people normally do not reflect on their values and value-based decision-making in everyday life. however, when people are aware of conflicting values and when argumentative support is demanded by the situation, they are able to justify their position and to relate their values to moral reasons (i.e., maio & olson, 1998; tetlock, 1986). moral philosophy, on the other hand, elaborates possible justifications for such value-laden actions. philosophers claim to have identified all conceivable moral reasons on the level of ethical principles (larmore, 1987). therefore, while we expect that people’s own moral reasons may be less clearly elaborated, these reasons can nevertheless be fully described by the prototypes of ethical principles clarified in moral philosophy. within social psychology, attempts have been made to operationalize these principles. best known is forsyth’s (1980) taxonomy of ethical principles. combining high or europe’s journal of psychology 423 low relativism with high or low idealism, he postulated four types of ideologies: situationism, absolutism, subjectivism and exceptionism. he validated his ethics position questionnaire with individual differences from the domain of moral judgments and attitudes (forsyth & nye, 1990; hadjistavropoulos et al., 2003); for example, machiavellian subjects are more relativistic and less idealistic whereas subjects endorsing an ethic of caring are highly idealistic and non-relativistic (forsyth et al., 1988). it is, however, not easy to relate the resulting categories to the ethical principles elaborated in moral philosophy (strack & gennerich, 2007). more in line with moral philosophy, witte and doll (1995; gollan & witte, 2008) proposed taxonomy of four principles: utilitarianism, deontology, intuitionism and hedonism. the results of their study show that ethical positions depend on the situation (they used vignettes of positive/negative and individual, interpersonal, and social impact situations). although they did not explore values, they additionally found differences between eastand west-german participants. their study encourages research on the influence of personal and situational determinants of ethical principles (see the review in gollan & witte, 2008). based on this research, we distinguish the following five principles: utilitarianism we define with larmore (1987) based on the principle of consequentialism; i.e., a person must choose that action which leads to the optimum positive outcome for all concerned. because this principle aims at the optimum for all, it clearly favors self-transcendent values. on the other hand and with reference to the value dimension of openness to change vs. conservation, it can lead to actions in conflict with tradition, because the criterion of utility is basically ahistorical. deontology subscribes to the classical kantian categorical imperative: “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should be a universal law” (beck, 1989). it should be emphasized that deontology primarily demands that certain actions never be taken, regardless of the consequences (larmore, 1987). therefore deontology might favor conservative actions, as the range of justifiable actions is limited in comparison to the utilitarian principle. fraedrich and colleagues (cherry & fraedrich, 2002; fraedrich & ferrel, 1992) provide some empirical evidence that deontologists are less influenced by negative consequences for themselves in comparison to egoists and utilitarianists, and deontological reasons are preferred under higher risk. as the perception of risks is related to values of conservation (jost et al., 2003), we predict deontology to be related to values of tradition and security. in earlier research, partiality was discussed in practical ethical reasoning but was not yet recognized as a distinct basic principle. it was first introduced as such in moral philosophy by larmore (1987). he defined partiality as being grounded in particular personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 424 istic duties evoked by personal promises and bonds. in everyday life, such bonds are primarily based in family relationships where universalism is restricted. therefore, the principle of partiality should relate to values of security between the poles of conservation and self-enhancement. hedonism as an ethical principle was defined by witte and doll (1995) as being focused on personal consequences; thus, social norms should not be in conflict with the welfare of the individual (parfit, 1984). this ethical orientation toward the self was first and less moderately elaborated by stirner (1995), who based his theory on egoism stating that other people are the objects of personal consummation. “because this is best for me” is an example of a hedonistic justification. because of the founding principle of egoism, this ethical principle relates to self-enhancement values. intuitionism was defined by witte and doll (1995) as the limitation of duty by emotional experience, as exemplified in their intuitionism sample statement, “i simply have to act in this way!” intuitionism is thus based on a person’s subjective sense of morality and represents their inner direction, which riesman (1950) relates to liberalism. therefore, this principle should be primarily related to self direction values. when linking the concept of values with that of ethics, similarities between ethical principles and the semantics of the schwartz (1992) value circle appear. to examine our assumption that ethical reasoning and values are not independent, we hypothesized correlations of value orientation with the ethical principles as follows: hypothesis 1 (personal values hypothesis): ethical reasoning depends on the value preferences of the reasoning subject. individuals with universalistic values were predicted to prefer the utilitarian principle of consequentialism. individuals with traditional values were predicted to prefer the principle of deontology. persons with a value orientation toward security were predicted to prefer the principle of particularity. persons with self-enhancing values were predicted to prefer hedonistic justifications. finally, the intuitionism principle should be preferred by individualist persons with self-direction values (i.e., openness and tolerance, see figure 1). hypothesis 2 (situational values hypothesis): the choice of an ethical principle depends on the values demanded by the situation. the principles of utilitarianism will be activated in situations in which universalistic values motivate self-transcendent actions. reactions to situations honouring traditional values were expected to be justified with deontological ethics. situations which induce security values were expected to activate particularity, and actions based on situational self-enhancing values were expected to be justified with hedonistic reasoning. the choice of intu europe’s journal of psychology 425 itional reasoning is likely in situations promoting self direction. therefore, we expect personal values and situational values to be specifically related to ethical principles. as stated in hypotheses 1 and 2, we expect personal values and situational values pointing to the same content to be functionally equivalent (i.e. work in the same direction). the principle of functional equivalence was initially proposed by g. w. allport (1959) to explain traits as the bases for actions and as the principles for perceiving different situations as equivalent opportunities to express the traits. the functional equivalence of personal and situational factors was elaborated by schmitt and colleagues (schmitt et al., 2003; schmitt & sabbagh, 2004) in the domain of justice research. according to them, personal and situational factors are functionally equivalent if they affect a given outcome similarly and are thus substitutable in their effects. schmitt at al. (2003, 2004) further proposed that functionally equivalent person and situation factors amplify their effects: a synergistic interaction will appear. hypothesis 3 (interaction hypothesis): if hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 both become accepted, then personal value preferences and situational value activation with content equivalence will constrain justifications in a functionally equivalent way. therefore the agreement on ethical principles will additionally depend on a synergetic person x situation interaction. for example, within a situation that generally activates universalistic values (and therefore utilitarian justifications of selftranscendent actions according to hypothesis 2), the personal value preference for universalistic values should effect the preference of utilitarian justifications more (with a higher slope) than was expected by the additive effects of the situation and the person alone. method overview and procedure the hypotheses propose main and interaction effects of personal and situational values which are structured by the values circle. personal values are usually assessed by abstract value statements. to maintain the completeness of the values circle also for the second independent variable, the situations, we decided to transfer this high level of abstraction to the situational values as well. each situation was therefore described in a vignette as an imaginary own action based on the value categories of the schwartz’ values circle. after reading each of the vignettes, the participants were asked to rate the applicability of 10 statements that outline the five ethical personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 426 principles to justify his or her actions given in the vignette. seven vignettes with systematic value content were varied within each subject. participants our intent was to recruit a heterogeneous non-academic sample to maximize variance in personal values and life experiences (ordinary people, so to speak). therefore, we asked students and acquaintances to distribute the questionnaires to people not related to the university. 132 individuals living in germany participated in the study. the return rate of the distributed questionnaires was 66%. the age of participants varied from 16 to 77 years (m = 41, sd = 17); 60% were female and 40% male; 58% lived in the western part of germany, and 42% in the eastern part. twelve percent of participants had a relatively low level of education (9 years), 47% a moderate level (10 years), and 38% a higher level of education (12–13 years). materials value-laden situations. seven vignettes (see appendix) were experimentally constructed to evoke abstract but value-laden situations representing the content structure of the schwartz value circle (figure 1). each vignette presents an abstract social situation in which two values are in conflict (values at opposite sides of the circle), and the actor in the vignette honours one of them. the responder was invited to identify herself or himself with the actor in each situation and respond with her or his personal explanation for the adopted position. although we were aware that participants might find it more difficult to identify with actors in abstract situations, the stories were purposely kept abstract in order to assure that each situation represented a distinct value area and evoked situational demands of comparable “strength”. the situational vignettes seem to contain the same level of abstraction as is common in the assessment of personal values. each participant worked on each of the seven vignettes. the fixed sequence began with the situation representing a universalistic position and continued with positions representing values, in a counterclockwise direction, in the schwartz value circle (see figure 1), ending with a benevolence position (see appendix 1). ethical principles. each of the five ethical principles (deontology, utilitarianism, partiality, hedonism, and intuitionism) was assessed using two statements (see appendix 1). the ten statements were formulated according to the theoretical definitions given above. each statement was rated for agreement on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (rather no, rather would not use) to 5 (rather yes, rather would use). to control the sequence effect of the ten statements, four random sequences were europe’s journal of psychology 427 produced and varied between subjects. the mean of the single items range from m = 2.90 to 3.57 with sd from 1.00 to 1.11. in the raw data, the two-item scales show moderate reliabilities acceptable for the purpose of this study (cronbach’s alpha: deontology α = .67, utilitarism α = .71, partiality α = .60, hedonism α = .53 and intuitionism α = .67). therefore the two statements were averaged for each principle. personal values. the personal value preferences of the participants were assessed by the 14bipole-value questionnaire (strack, 2004; see appendix 2). it was developed from a german sample of 535 respondents to the schwartz value survey. the questionnaire combines 26 of the values given in the appendix in schwartz (1992), supplemented by two new values (“open to the world (cosmopolitan, enjoying variety)”, and “control over uncertainty (to retain control)”) in 14 bipolar items. participants had to decide toward which of two competing values they tended to orient themselves; e.g., they chose between “equality (equal opportunity for all)” and “authority (the right to lead or command)” on a bipolar five point scale. we revealed the circular structure for the participants by factor analysis (pca). the factors (43% item variance declared) nicely resemble the dimensions “conservation vs. openness to change” and “self-transcendence vs. self-enhancement” (see figure 1). the participants completed the 14bipole-value questionnaire before working on the seven vignettes dealing with situational values and ethical principles. results to test the validity of the three hypotheses, we analyzed the variance of the agreement scores. in the experimental 7 × 5 within subject design (seven situations, five ethical principles), the participants’ scores on the two dimensions of the value circle (the personal values) were included as covariates. the covariates were allowed to interact with the experimental factors. each agreement score is therefore expressed by a linear equation with 12 sources of variance (see table 1). the constant source (source 1 in table 1) states that respondents generally agree with the given ethical justifications (overall mean = 3.33 on the five-point scale). the person main effects (sources 2 and 3 in table 1) state that participants, who prefer benevolence values (conservation and self-transcendence), tend to express higher agreement with all given ethical justifications. the full factorial design assures the control over this mere leniency effect. personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 428 table 1: experimental 7 × 5 within-subject design with personal value preference (dimensions: self-transcendence and conservation, see figure 1) as interval predictors on agreement with five ethical justifications in seven situations source η2 df f p 1) constant .97 1, 122 4311.8 < .001 person 2) self-transcendence 3) conservation .08 .02 1, 122 1, 122 10.92 3.19 < .001 .08 4) situation .28 6, 117 8.26 < .001 person x situation 5) self-transcendence 6) conservation .28 .08 6, 117 6, 117 7.71 1.84 < .001 .10 7) ethics .45 4, 119 24.65 < .001 person x ethics 8) self-transcendence 9) conservation .06 .08 4, 119 4, 119 1.91 2.58 .12 .05 10) situation x ethics .45 24, 99 3.41 < .001 person x situation x ethics 11) self-transcendence 12) conservation .16 .16 24, 99 24, 99 0.78 0.80 .75 .73 the situation’s main effect (source 4 in table 1) states that the seven situation vignettes obtain different agreement scores over all the ethical principles (effect scores for situations range from -0.32 to +0.19). the within-cell variance of the situation main effect correlates significantly with the participant’s values (source 5 and 6 in table 1) and can be interpreted as a manipulation check: a situation expressing a certain value area of the value circle should gain more agreement for all its justifications from participants preferring the equivalent personal values. figure 2 illustrates the correlation of the participant’s values with the participant’s situation effect scores. europe’s journal of psychology 429 figure 2: correlation of person’s values with person’s agreement per vignette (part of variance due to person x situation on general agreement: sources 5 and 6 in table 1; n = 132) note: v = vignette situations expressing self-transcendence values got higher overall agreement from subjects with self-transcendent values and therefore are located in the upper part of figure 2 (vignettes 1 and 7, see appendix 1). the vignette in the first position of the questionnaire (1) did not work well – its correlation remains low. maintaining traditions (6) is consistent related to self-transcendence values and conservation. the position dealing with well-defined social situations (5) obtained the strongest agreement from participants with security values. concern for achievement (vignette 4) obtained the strongest agreement from self-enhancement persons. the values of a self-directed life were related more to self-enhancement than to openness to change but are still in the correct quadrant compared to the content structure of the value-circle in figure 1. tolerance and openness (vignette 2) were related to values in the area of self-direction. the correlations depicted in figure 2 are interopenness to change .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 .0 -.1 -.2 -.3 -.4 -.5 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 .0 --.1 -.2 -.3 -.4 -.5 v7: social peace v6: maintaining traditions v5: well-defined social situations v4: power & achievement v3: self directed way of life v2: tolerance & open minded v1 justice & honesty self transcendence conservation self enhancement personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 430 preted as the value content of each situation and are used as numerical weights for the second hypothesis (see below). the main effect of the ethical principles (source 7 in table 1) states that the five ethical principles gain different agreement scores (effect scores range -0.42 to +0.25, with the most agreement for utilitarianism and the least for deontology). the first hypothesis stated that ethical reasoning depends on a participant’s value preferences. figure 3 shows the correlations of the within-cell variance of the agreement with each of the five ethical principles (this within-cell scores can be computed for each subject according to the glm procedure formulas) with the personal values (source 8 and 9 in table 1). figure 3: correlation of person’s values with person’s agreement per ethical principle (part of variance due to person x ethical principles: sources 8 & 9 in table 1; n = 132) openness to change .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 .0 -.1 -.2 -.3 -.4 -.5 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 .0 -.1 -.2 -.3 -.4 -.5 intuitionism partiality hedonism deontology utilitarianism self transcendence conservation self enhancement as hypothesized, respondents with self-serving values prefer hedonistic reasoning, and subjects with traditional values prefer the principle of deontology. subjects promoting universalistic values (self-transcendence) prefer the utilitarian principle of reasoning and intuitionism. only the principle of partiality did not depend on per europe’s journal of psychology 431 sonal values (r < .10). overall, the dependence of ethical reasoning on personal values validates the individual differences hypothesis 1. the second hypothesis stated that the usage of ethical principles should depend on the values promoted by the situation. the experimental situation x ethics interaction in table 1 (source 10) demonstrates the impact in question. to calculate the value content of the actions numerically, their correlational weights from figure 2 were used. figure 4 illustrates the correlation of agreement effect scores for each ethical principle per situation (source 10 in table 1) with the value content of the situation as drawn from figure 2. the exceeded magnitude of the correlations in figure 4 is due to their calculation on the level of situations (n = 7). figure 4: correlation of situations’ values with ethical principle’s usage per situation (part of variance due to situation x ethics, source 10 in table 1; n = 7 situations) at first glance, figure 4 shows the expected equivalencies with the pattern in figure 3. situations promoting self-transcendence values (e.g., vignette 7 of social peace, see figure 2) activated the principle of utilitarianism, and situations demanding selfenhancement values inhibit the principle of utilitarianism. situations expressing beopenness to change .8 .6 .4 .2 .0 -.2 -.4 -.6 -.8 .8 .6 .4 .2 .0 -.2 -.4 -.6 -.8 intuitionism partiality hedonism deontology utilitarianism self transcendence conservation self enhancement personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 432 nevolence or traditional values evoked deontological reasoning. the situational approach renders a clearer result regarding the principle of partiality, which was enhanced by security situations. intuitionalism was used for self-directed actions and hedonistic reasoning was applied in self-enhancement situations. as the three-way interactions of personal values with the situational values’ dependence on ethical principles remain insignificant (source 11 and 12 in table 1: f < 1, p > .70), the hypothesized synergetic interaction of person and situation was not found in this study. person and situation effects remain merely additive. discussion this investigation addressed relations between personal values, situational values and ethical reasoning. we applied schwartz’s value circle (1992) and analyzed the dependencies of preferences for five ethical principles on personal value preferences and on value-laden situations given in experimentally specified vignettes. personal diversity in values was fully combined with experimentally controlled situational values. the within-subject design ensured that an analysis of variance could regress agreement with ethical principles to the value content of situations, the value preference of respondents, and the interaction of both. the correlations illustrated in figure 3 and 4 indicate that ethical principles are substantially determined by both a person’s value orientation and the value content of the situation. the results remain additive, no person x situation interaction emerges. by and large, the first two hypotheses were confirmed. persons striving towards security and tradition preferred the principle of deontology and partiality. persons with value orientations of self-transcendence and openness to change preferred the principle of utilitarianism and intuitionism. persons with hedonistic values preferred hedonistic principles. thus, the examination of personal value systems illustrates the classical conflict between the utilitarian and deontological traditions (cf. weber, 1958). substantial effects of the vignette contents support the second hypothesis. situations promoting universalistic values evoked the principle of consequentialism (utilitarianism). situations activating benevolence values were related to deontological reasoning. situations in which actions were motivated by security tended to be justified with the principle of partiality. in situations emphasizing hedonistic values, hedonistic and intuitional reasoning was preferred. however, comparing figures 3 and 4, some interesting differences between the effects of situational values and personal value preferences emerge, contradicting a europe’s journal of psychology 433 perfect functional equivalence of person and situation. this is especially obvious in the case of the principle of intuitionism. for both the personal and the situational variance sources, the relation to openness to change or self-direction maintains. in respect to personal values, however, the principle of intuitionism is more related to universalistic values, and in respect to situations it is more related to the expression of hedonistic values. the preference of universalists for intuitionism could be explained by the aptitude of people with humanistic values in self-perception and their trust in their own feelings (e.g., tomkins, 1995). the common use of intuitionist reasoning after hedonistic actions may be explained as an acceptance of personal responsibility in the absence of socially justified external causes. considering, furthermore, the additive nature of both sources, intuitionism is most prominent in justifications regarding self-directed hedonistic actions carried out by people with self-direction and universalistic values. we therefore predict that addressees confronted with a single intuitionist explanation might attribute hedonistic dispositions even in the case of a universalistic orientation of the actor. thus, our results can account for the challenges of emotional self-regulation and social regulation in moral arguments. the mere additive nature of our results (no person x situation interaction emerged) facilitates to explain social conflicts due to disagreement on ethical justifications. if people cannot agree on the choice between basic human values, there is little hope for arriving at agreement on controversial issues simply by deliberation and ethical discussion. according to the result of a value dependence of ethical reasoning, it is unlikely that party a, holding values different to party b, will perceive party b’s ethical principles to be convincing. the dependency of ethical reasoning on personal value systems and the resulting problems may be even stronger in real world behavior. in the experimental setting, the participants were forced to comply with a set of situational positions that might conflict with their deeper personal values. the ordered presentation of the situations, however, assures the smooth blending of situational values. when actions are freely chosen, they may be more in line with personal values (bardi & schwartz, 2003). the limitations of our experimentally-designed questionnaire study must also be considered. for a questionnaire study, the participant sample size is rather small and enables the discussion of medium effect sizes. however, for an experimental approach and the effect sizes found in our data, the sample-size is quite appropriate. additionally, the generated heterogeneity of the sample assured the variance in the personal values (see e.g., schwartz & rubel, 2005, in our data self-transcendence could be regressed on age, female sex, and education; traditional values on age and unemployment. the personal values essentially mediated demographic effects on the personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 434 ethical principles (figure 3). the east-west residences of the subjects remain without effects. furthermore, the merely modest reliability of the ethical principles’ measures is suboptimal; therefore, the stability of the length of the vectors in figures 3 and 4 is unclear. they might become more reliable if more than two items were employed to asses each ethical principle (e.g., witte & doll, 1995, used five items per scale). therefore, we primarily interpret the direction of the vectors. additionally, the sampling of the situations should be discussed. limitations emerged in respect to the situational effects in figure 4. because only seven situations were presented, the correlation results in figure 4 are less reliable than the effects of personal values in figure 3. to obtain the same reliability of personal and situational sources, the samples of persons and situations would need to be of equal size. in laboratory studies, even smaller numbers of situations are usually varied (e.g., schmitt et al. 2003, 2004 varied two situations; lönnqvist et al., 2006, varied four). although limited, the number of seven situations seems justifiable by the motivational limitations of the participants under demand. to ensure a sample of situations representative at least in content, we constructed the situation vignettes according the schwartz value circle. we assume that the value circle provides a complete representation of situations in the way that it represents all possible content classes of personal value orientations. for the sake of commensurability, we worded the situational vignettes as closely as possible to the values given in schwartz (1992). by this means, we assured that the vignettes activated values varying systematically across all regions of the value circle. hence, the abstractness of the situations corresponds to the abstractness of personal values. the lack of feature concreteness of the vignette situations can be seen as a typical limitation of a vignette study. their abstractedness was a foreseeable consequence of the value’s operationalization, and it demands an imaginative role making on the side of the participants. figure 2 controlled that the vignettes sufficiently express situational values. the overall results provide evidence that the participants were able to make sense of the abstract situations provided. the fact that the content of the situations represents the whole value circle additionally enables us to identify the acquiescence usually shown by subjects preferring conservation and self-transcendence (benevolence and tradition values). the general linear model (glm) is a suitable method for separating the sources of variance in the approach of interactionism. if the number of situations will be increased, hierarchical linear modeling might be statistically more adequate (raudenbush et al., 2002). europe’s journal of psychology 435 when we relate the results to the discussion of moral principles within moral philosophy, we see that the results support the notion of inherent conflict in the ethical universe. in the second half of the twentieth century, various authors abandoned attempts to construct a unifying system which would integrate different ethical positions (hampshire, 1983; larmore, 1987; nagel, 1979; weber, 1958). this was deemed an irresolvable conflict between the utilitarian and the deontological traditions (e.g., weber, 1958). this challenges universality in basic principles of ethical thinking and could undermine the if-then structure of general ethical decisions. in line with the theoretical analyses of ethical principles, the results suggest that the principles are perceived divergently, following the plurality already accepted for values (schwartz, 1992). however, plurality as an irresolvable coexistence of incompatible perspectives seems to incrementally receive acceptance only in the case of social or interpersonal diversity. the study therefore was restricted to the social situation of justifications in interpersonal value conflicts. future analysis might examine intrapersonal value conflicts, its intrapersonal reasoning (bernard et al., 2003a), and accompanied affects. in this line a bit of incertitude affect came to the fore when our subjects less agreed with all ethic principles applied to specific situations, respectively their imagined value position in situation that did not match their personal values. this on a lower level already interactionistic variance source was used as the manipulation check of the vignettes in figure 2. justification involvement is a function of the person–situation match. conclusions the results confirm the dependence of action justification (i.e. the application of ethical principles) on personal and situational values. orderly conflicts among ethical principles resulted from the plurality of values. conflicts between ethical principles not only create problems for the development of unifying systems in philosophy but they also hinder the function of everyday moral reasoning, deliberation and interpersonal discourse. actions based on ethical reasoning intelligible to addressees with similar value orientations are easy to accept. the same justifications are difficult to agree on for addressees who prefer competing values or who are located in different situations. based on our results, we propose employing the conscious and controlled use of contra-intuitive reasoning in the attempt to resolve social conflicts. the application of ethical principles which usually match the competing values of the other party might evoke better mutual understanding and respect, even if there is no common ground for an agreement on the values themselves. personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 436 references allport, g. w. 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expected to be more humble and to demonstrate an unrealistic romanticism for nature. you bring up the improvement of standards of living and are able to come to agreement on modern technical achievements.” (5) “you get involved in an argument where the other party overemphasizes egalitarianism for and openness towards all and everybody. you took your authority and serve up clear circumstances.” (6) “you get involved in an argument. the other party is willing to accept irresponsible risks while seeking short-term gain. you argue for the conservation of approved traditions.“ (7) “you get involved in an argument because you assert your position for stability and a peaceful society whereas the other party only seeks advantages for themselves. which of the following justifications would you choose?” the statements for justification (ethical principles) to be assessed on a five-point rating scale (1 rather no to 5 rather yes) (deontological) “it is my duty towards society to do so.” “my guidelines are the principles of universal validity” (utilitarian) “it is clear that in the long run it is the best for everyone.” “looking at the overall consequences, this is the better choice for all concerned.” (particular) “i feel personally committed and must take a stand.” “in my situation i’m committed to this behavior.” (intuitional) “intuitively i feel this position is the right one.” “i simply have to act in this way.” (hedonistic) “this is best for me.” “everyone has a right to hold this position.” europe’s journal of psychology 441 appendix 2: the 14bipole-value questionnaire instructions: the following 14 value pairs are not necessarily opposites; they may express complementary tendencies under some circumstances. please indicate your own personal values. rating a value with an answer of „2“ indicates „clearly more important than the other value“, an answer of „1“ indicates „tends to be preferred over the other“ and „0“ indicates equal weight for both values. please make only one mark in each row. equality (equal opportunity for all) 2 1 0 1 2 authority (the right to lead or command) social power (control over others, dominance) 2 1 0 1 2 social justice (correcting injustices, care for the weak) social order (stability of society) 2 1 0 1 2 exciting life (stimulating experiences) wealth (material possessions, money) 2 1 0 1 2 unity with nature (fitting into nature) politeness (courtesy, good manners) 2 1 0 1 2 creativity (uniqueness, imagination) enjoying life (fulfilment of wishes) 2 1 0 1 2 a world at peace (free of war and conflict) broad-minded (tolerant of different ideas and beliefs) 2 1 0 1 2 preserving public image (protecting face) humble (modest, self-effacing) 2 1 0 1 2 influencial (having an impact on people and events) honest (genuine, sincere) 2 1 0 1 2 successful (achieving goals) enjoying life (enjoying food, sex, leisure, etc.) 2 1 0 1 2 devout (holding to religious faith and belief) respect for tradition (preservation of time-honoured customs) 2 1 0 1 2 a varied life (filled with challenge, novelty, and change) daring (seeking adventure, risk) 2 1 0 1 2 obedient (dutiful, meeting obligations) choosing own goals (selecting own purposes) 2 1 0 1 2 honoring of parents and elders (showing respect) openness (cosmopolitan orientation, advocate of diversity) 2 1 0 1 2 control over uncertainty (control over events and their development) personal and situational values predict ethical reasoning 442 about the authors: dr. micha strack (corresponding author) is associate professor at the georg-augustuniversity göttingen, germany. her primary research interests focus on the social psychology of values and applied statistics. address for correspondence: dr. micha strack, georg-elias-müller-institut of psychology, gosslerstrasse 14, 37073 göttingen, germany. e-mail: mstrack@uni-goettigen.de dr. carsten gennerich is a professor at the university of applied science evangelische hochschule darmstadt, germany. he is also involved in the isrev (international seminary for religious education and values). his research interests include the social psychology of values, parish education, and religious education. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 143-163 www.ejop.org predicting the intention to quit smoking: a comparative study among spanish and norwegian students jostein rise norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research, oslo reidar ommundsen department of psychology, university of oslo abstract the purpose of the present study was to explore the role of an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) in predicting intentions to quit smoking among norwegian smoking students (n=211) and spanish students (n=205). as hypothesised, subjective norm predicted quitting intentions more strongly in spain (a collectivistic culture) than in norway (an individualistic culture). group identity predicted quitting intentions more strongly in norway than in spain. consistent with the predictions the predictive role of self-identity and moral norm did not differ between the countries. selfidentity did not predict intention significantly, while this was the case for moral norm. thus the study provided evidence of the moderating role of culture in the tpb, and indications of a stronger conflict between smokers and non-smokers in countries with high level of regulatory anti-smoking measures. keywords: extended tpb, cultural variation, smoking climate. introduction the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) (ajzen, 1991) turns out to be the most popular theory in the prediction of specific behaviours. according to a recent meta-analysis across 185 studies covering a wide range of behavioural domains, the tpb has proved to be successful in accounting for the variance in behavioural intentions http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 144 (39%) and subsequent behavioural performance (27%) (armitage & conner, 2001). the tpb posits that the most proximal determinant of a particular behaviour is the intention to perform the behaviour, which in turn is assumed to be a function of attitudes, i.e. global evaluations of the particular behaviour, subjective norms, i.e. beliefs about whether significant others think the individual should perform the behaviour or not, and perceived behavioural control, i.e. the perception that the behaviour is within one's control. in addition, pbc is assumed to predict behaviour directly to the extent it reflects actual control. the applicability of the tpb in terms of accounting for behavioural intentions across different cultures has generally been met with success in a number of behavioural domains (e.g. bagozzi, wong, abe, bergami et al., 2000; hu & lanese, 1998; lugoe & rise, 1999; godin et al.,1996; hanson, 1997; van hooft, born & van flier, 2006; hagger et al., 2007). indeed, the cross-cultural generalizability of the tpb has been confirmed in studies using structural equation modelling supporting the use of standard measures across cultures (van hoft et al., 2006; hagger et al., 2007). however, the predictive power of extended versions of the tpb model has scarcely been studied in a cross-cultural context (but see hosking et al., 2009). the tpb seems well suited for the study of intention to quit smoking, while being less able to account for actual quitting (moan & rise, 2005; rise, kovac, kraft & moan, 2008). furthermore, the addition of a number of predictors to the tpb has been found to increase the amount of explained variance of quitting intention considerably. for example, in one study (moan & rise, 2005) r2 increased from 36% to 45% by adding a set of additional predictors in the tpb as to restrictions of smoking, this century has experienced an increased willingness on the part of health authorities in western countries to regulate smoking behaviour in various ways, including the running of antismoking campaigns and banning smoking at restaurants. at the time of data collection (2003) norway was characterised by having instituted considerably more bans on smoking and restrictive measures than spain (tobacco control country profiles, 2003). in addition, a new law banning smoking at pubs and restaurants (instituted june 2004) was a heavily discussed public issue at that time. these aspects made the situation surrounding smoking a much more controversial public issue in norway than in spain in 2003, which in turn may affect not only the level of the tpb variables but also the predictive power of the tpb, and the relative importance of the predictors, i.e. smoking climate may act as a moderator. predicting the intention to quit smoking 145 cultural variation in terms of cultural variation, empirical evidence suggests that norway tends to be a more individualistic country than spain as indicated by the placement of the two countries on hofstede’s index of individualism and the hofstede/triandis combined ratings of individualism/collectivism (allik & realo, 2004). furthermore, rodriguez mosquera, manstead, & fischer (2000) argued that spain and other mediterranean societies have been described as ―honour cultures‖ being characterised by having an interdependent self-construal. they observed that spanish students rated collectivistic values like honour, family related values, social recognition, and social connectedness as more important than individualistic values as compared to students from the netherlands. under the assumption that norwegian students share the same individualistic values as students from the netherlands, this finding attests to the idea that norway is a more individualistic county than spain. triandis and coworkers (triandis & gelfand, 1998; triandis & trafimow, 2001) have identified four defining features relating to the differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. first, people in the two types of culture have different construals of the self, others and the interdependence of the two in the sense that the independent self (observed in individualistic cultures) is concerned with selfenhancement, self-assertion and high self-esteem, i.e. people tend to express their unique inner attributes. in contrast, the interdependent self (observed in collectivistic cultures) is mainly concerned with connectedness to others, fitting in, and being a good member of the group. second, people in individualistic cultures tend to perceive themselves as autonomous giving priority to personal goals, while in collectivistic cultures people tend to perceive themselves as interdependent with their group and give priority to collective goals. third, social behaviour is primarily determined by personal states (like attitudes) and less by norms in individualistic cultures while the contrary is true in collectivistic cultures. fourth, relationships are more likely to be governed by cost-benefit calculations in individualistic cultures while communal relationships are more common in collectivistic cultures. thus behaviours of individuals in a collectivistic culture should be more strongly guided by considerations of the reactions of others, subjective norms in the tpb, whereas behaviours of individuals in an individualistic culture should primarily be governed by individual determinants, attitudes and perceived behavioural control in the tpb. there is evidence of this idea. for example, bagozzi, lee, and van loo (2001) found that subjective norms generally were stronger predictors of intentions in a bone marrow context in a collectivistic culture (chinese) than in an individualistic culture (usa) while the reverse was true for attitudes. along similar lines, ybarra and europe’s journal of psychology 146 trafimow (1998) observed that the role of subjective norms depended on whether people activate private or collective self-cognitions, and that subjective norms were a stronger predictor of intentions when the collective self was primed. other studies have indicated that subjective norms tend to be a stronger predictor of intentions in collectivistic than in individualistic countries (bagozzi, wong, abe & bergami, 2000). the tpb and smoking-additional predictors as noted above, people in the two types of culture have different construals of the self, others and the interdependence of the two (markus & kitayama, 1991), and it may thus be relevant to include predictors which pertain to self and identity (see åstrøm & rise, 2001). when it comes to smoking, falomir and invernizzi (1999) found that a measure of smoker identity predicted intention to quit smoking above the tpbcomponents in a sample of spanish adolescents. however, a close inspection of their measure of smoker identity revealed that it was a mixture of identification as a smoker ("to what extent do you feel as a smoker") reflecting an individual level ―me‖identification, and identification with the group of smokers ("to what extent do you identify with the group of smokers"?) which reflect ―we‖-identification at the collective level. according to thoits and virshup (1997) there are two forms of social identity tapping into different and distinct aspects of self-understanding, and they are both based on the idea that people make use of the types of people which it is socially possible to be or available large-scale social categories in order to describe themselves. the idea is that a smoker can be psychologically merged with other smokers in two different ways. first, the theoretical idea deriving from identity theory (stryker, 1980) and role-identity theory (mccall & simmons, 1978) is that people incorporate the meanings, evaluations and expectations associated with a number of relevant individual level identities based on social roles or socio-demographic characteristics or other types of persons which is socially possible to be (see thoits and virshup, 1997), into their self-understanding. this self-identity is transportable to various situations, and people tend to act consistent with the meanings held in the identity standards so as to verify their self-understanding (see stets & burke, 2003; burke, 2004; stryker, 2008). by this account a smoker self-identifies as a smoker ("me as a smoker"), and thus act from the perspective of a shared understanding of what it means to be a smoker. consistent with this idea, self-identity (e.g. ―i am a smoker‖) as a predictor of intentions has been shown to add to the prediction of intentions beyond the components of the tpb in a wide range of behavioural areas (rise, sheeran & hukkelberg, 2010). on the other hand, empirical evidence for the predictive power of self-identity in relation to intentions to quit smoking is sparse. for example, in a study on smoking cessation among students (moan & rise, 2005) selfidentity did not predict intentions to quit smoking above the tpb components. predicting the intention to quit smoking 147 summing up, sociological identity theories posit fairly stable and organised selfconceptions which are strongly patterned by the social structure thus linking the self to the wider social structure (stets & burke, 2004; burke, 2004; stryker, 2008). on the other hand, we-identifications constitute flexible self-conceptions which are created in response to the perceived relationship to the social context in terms of which categories are salient at the moment (see turner, 1994). this suggests that the activation of strong we-identifications should be more sensitive to the social context surrounding the behaviour in question, for example the extent to which the health authorities restrict smokers’ freedom to smoke and the running of anti-smoking campaigns. since the level of activities on the part of the health authorities was considerably higher in norway than in spain at the time of the study, it can be predicted that group identity as a smoker, would predict intentions to a higher extent in norway than in spain, while self-identity deriving from a more stable source of self-understanding, should predict behavioural intentions regardless of type of culture. a third additional predictor of the tpb, which is found to account for variance above the other tpb components in a wide range of behaviours is moral norms conceptualised as personal beliefs about what is right or wrong (see manstead, 2000). its predictive power derives from its self-reinforcing capacity in the sense that the standards and sanctions for behaving reside within the self so that people tend to act in ways which are consistent with one’s values to maintain a sense of selfworth (cialdini & trost, 1998). this suggests that some behaviours are performed to benefit other persons as an expression of one’s internal values without considerations of social (subjective norms) and personal consequences (attitudes) (see schwartz, 1977). by this account, if one is aware that one’s behaviour has negative consequences for others while at the same having difficulty for denying responsibility for this behaviour, then personal norm will predict behaviour. quitting smoking may well constitute a prototypical case of pro-social behaviour in the sense smokers are well aware of and accept the problem with second hand smoke. thus in the context of the tpb it has been shown that smokers take such considerations into account beyond social and instrumental considerations in various smoking deliberations (moan & rise, 2005). consistent with the contention that moral convictions tend to be universal transcending persons and cultures (skitka, bauman & sargi, 2005), we expect moral norms to predict quitting intentions in both countries. europe’s journal of psychology 148 summing up the hypotheses: (i) personal factors (attitudes and perceived control) predict intentions to quit smoking more strongly in norwegian smoking students than in spanish smoking students (ii) subjective norms predict quitting intentions more strongly in norwegian smoking students than spanish smoking students (iii) group identity predicts quitting intentions more strongly in norwegian smoking students than in spanish smoking students (iv) self-identity and moral norms predict quitting intentions in both samples material and methods the present study set out to study intentions to quit smoking among daily smoking university students in the context of the tpb in two different countries, spain and norway. university students were selected since they are easily available for collection of relevant data, they may have been smoking for some years, and may have some experience with quitting smoking (see moan & rise, 2005). a number of studies have applied the tpb when it comes to quitting smoking (see moan, 2005 for a review), and they have shown that the tpb provides a reasonable good explanation of quitting intentions while being less able to account for actual quitting behaviour (see rise et al., 2008). the empirical data of the present study derive from two samples of smoking students at the university of oslo (norway, n=211) and the university of granada (spain, n=205) in which students who smoked at least one cigarette a day were asked to fill a preformed questionnaire dealing with quitting smoking in the context of the tpb. in oslo the respondents were approached in places where it was allowed to smoke. the questionnaire took about 15 minutes to fill in and one respondent declined to answer it. the data collection was performed by psychology students as part of their course in social psychology. the respondents were assured that they would remain anonymous throughout the analyses. in granada daily smoking psychology students were asked to fill in the questionnaire in classes. none of the spanish students declined to fill in the questionnaire. the fact that the context of filling in the questionnaire differed for the two samples, may have affected the absolute level of the variables, while it is unlikely that the relation between variables are influenced to a great extent, since these tend to be more stable. predicting the intention to quit smoking 149 measures intention to quit smoking during the next three months constituted the dependent variable in question. it was assessed with the following three items using the stem: ―during the next three months—― ―i intend to quit smoking‖; ―i plan to quit smoking‖, ―i expect to quit smoking‖ using seven-point probability response scales ranging from (1) very unlikely to (7) very likely. the responses to the three items were summed to produce a composite score of behavioural intentions, and divided by three to maintain the original metric. the internal consistency reliabilities were estimated using cronbach’s alphas amounting to .85 for spanish students and .92 for norwegian students. attitudes were measured using semantic differential scales with the stem ―my quitting smoking during the next three months is---― using nine pair of adjectives on a seven-point bipolar (-3 to +3) scale: bad/good, useless/useful, unfavourable/favourable, wrong/right, stupid/wise, unpleasant/pleasant, unsatisfactory/satisfactory, unnecessary/necessary, punishing/rewarding. the nine items were subjected to principal component analysis with varimax rotation. consistent with previous studies (see rise et al. 2008) two factors emerged accounting for 65.9% of the variance among the items in spain and 60.0% in norway. the five first mentioned items all loaded on the first factor, and the four last items loaded on the second factor. then the responses to the five items: bad/good, useless/useful, unfavourable/favourable, wrong/right, stupid/wise were added into a composite measure of cognitive attitude and divided by five to maintain the original metric. cronbachs’s alphas were calculated to .89 in spain and .77 in norway. the responses to the four items: unpleasant/pleasant, unsatisfactory/satisfactory, unnecessary/necessary, punishing/rewarding were added into a composite measure of affective attitude. cronbach’s alphas were calculated to .79 in spain and .68 in norway. the higher the scores of the two scales, the more positive the attitude towards quitting smoking. in further analyses we made a distinction between two attitudinal components, a cognitive and affective, since this has become common practice in recent tpb research. subjective norm was assessed with a composite sum-score, derived from three items using the stem ―people who are important to me ----―; --think i should quit smoking during the next three months‖; ----want me to quit smoking during the next three months‖; ---believe that quitting smoking is a good thing to do‖. all were measured on seven-point response scales (1) ―completely disagree‖ to (7) ―completely agree‖. cronbach’s alphas were estimated to .82 in spain and .81 in norway. the higher the score, the stronger the perceived social pressure to quit smoking. europe’s journal of psychology 150 perceived behavioural control was assessed with a composite sum-score deriving from the following six items: ―during the next three months i am able to quit smoking if i want to do so‖ (1= very unlikely, 7=very likely); ―during the next three months it is likely that i am able to quit smoking‖ (1= very unlikely, 7=very likely); ―for me to quit smoking during the next three months would be (1) ―very difficult‖—(7) ―very easy‖; ―if i wanted to, i am able to quit smoking during the next three months‖ (1= quite wrong to 7= quite right); ―if you gave it a try during the next three months, how confident would you be to succeed?‖ (1= ―not confident‖ to 7= ―high confidence‖); ―how much control do you believe to have over your quitting smoking the next three months?‖ (1= ―no control‖ to (7) ―complete control‖). a principal component analysis identified only one factor explaining 78.8% of the variance among the items in spain and 71.1% in norway. cronbach’s alphas were .95 in spain and .91 in norway. the higher the score, the stronger the perceived control over quitting smoking. self-identity as a smoker was measured with a composite sum-score derived from the following three items: ―i think of myself as a person who smokes‖; ―i am a good example of a person who smokes‖; ―i primarily think of myself as a non-smoker‖ (reversed) using a seven-point response scale (1= completely disagree to 7= completely agree). cronbach’s alphas were .64 in spain and .70 in norway. the higher the score, the stronger the self-identifications as smokers. group identity was assessed with a composite sum-score deriving from the responses to two items: ―i dislike belonging to the group of smokers‖ and ―i would rather like to belong to the group of non-smokers‖ using a seven-point response scale (1=completely disagree to 7=completely agree). cronbach’s alphas were .64 in norway and .66 in spain. the higher the score, the weaker the self-identifications with the group of smokers. the direct measures of the extended tpb were taken from published studies (moan and rise, 2005; rise et al., 2008). equivalence of measures across countries the measures which were applied in the present study have been developed in countries with a strong flavour of individualism. thus it has been pointed out that it is critical to assess whether the measures convey similar meaning across different cultures, and it has been recommended that the measures should be tested for differences in reliability and structural equivalence (cf. borgeres, van den bergh, and hox, 2001). consistent with this, differences in reliability (cronbach’s alpha) for the predicting the intention to quit smoking 151 two samples were tested for all the scales by means of the program alfatest (hox, 1991). in table 1 it can be seen that there were statistically significant differences in reliability between the norwegian and spanish samples for the measures of intention, pbc, and affective attitudes. on the other hand, the alpha levels for these three measures were high in both samples, and well above the usual requirement of >.70 (nunnally, 1978). finally, as noted in the introduction analyses using structural equation modeling (sem) have confirmed the cross-cultural generalizability thus supporting the structural equivalence of the of the tpb measures (van hooft et al., 2006 and hagger et al., 2007). results descriptive statistics for the spanish and norwegian samples are provided in table 1. table 1 differences in reliability coefficients (cronbach’s alpha) between the scales used in the norwegian and spanish sample. alpha (norway) n alpha (spain) n p-value intent .92 204 .85 204 p= .000 sn .81 209 .82 200 p= .753 aa .68 165 .79 185 p= .011 ca .77 176 .89 188 p= .000 pbc .92 205 .95 202 p= .002 mn .81 208 .85 203 p= .169 grid .64 205 .66 205 p= .891 sid .70 205 .64 198 p= .293 __________________________________________________________________________________________ it can be seen that spanish and norwegian students differed significantly as to the level of three of the tpb measures: affective attitude (aa), subjective norm (sn) and perceived behavioural control (pbc). the spanish students evaluated quitting smoking during the next three months in more positive terms than the norwegian students as far as affective items were concerned (mean levels 2.09 vs. .54, p<.05). the spanish students also perceived the social pressure to quit smoking to be europe’s journal of psychology 152 stronger than the norwegian counterparts (mean levels 5.70 vs. 5.26, p<.05). finally, the spanish students reported significantly lower level of perceived control over quitting smoking the next three months than the norwegian students (mean levels 3.47 vs. 3.95, p<.01). the spanish students also appeared to be significantly younger than the norwegian students (22.1 yrs vs. 23.8 yrs, p<.05). accordingly, they also reported to have been smoking for a significantly shorter period of time (5.9 yrs vs. 7.3, p<.05). otherwise, there were no statistically significant differences between spanish and norwegian students concerning number of cigarettes smoked per day (both 2.7) and number of quit attempts (1.8 vs. 2.3 respectively). thus the respondents of the two samples differed as to age and number of years smoking. however, the two measures did not correlate significantly with intentions, and can thus not affect the relation between the theoretical components and intentions. hence they were not included in the regression analyses. in table 2 it can be seen that for spanish students, the correlations among all the theoretical measures and quitting intentions were statistically significant except for pbc, and that affective attitude (aa) and subjective norm (sn) received correlations close to r=.30 with intentions. table 2 descriptive statistics, and correlations among the various measures. spanish sample. int ca aa sn pbc sid mn grid x 95% ci int ---.18** .25** .25** .10 -.16* .30** .21** 3.10 (2.85-3.35) ca ---.56*** .22** -.07 .08 .05 .17* 2.09 (1.91-2.37) aa sn --- .24** --- -.15* -.07 -.02 .10 .14 .09 .16* .17* 1.33 5.70 (1.12-1.54) (5.50-5.90) pbc --- -.44*** .00 -.04 3.47 (3.23-3.71) sid ----.19* -.15* 4.86 (4.68-5.04) mn -----.49*** 2.77 grid ---3.73 (3.24-4.22) *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 n varied between 179 and 204 predicting the intention to quit smoking 153 in the norwegian sample (table 3) it can be seen that affective attitude (aa) and group identity (grid) had correlations above r=. 40 with quitting intentions, while selfidentity (sid) correlated well above r=.30 with intentions. table 3 descriptive statistics, and correlations among the various measures. norwegian sample. int cat aa sn pbc sid mn grid x 95% ci int ---.27** .47** .18** .24** -.35** .33** .41** 2.89 (2.63-3.15) ca ---.48** .21** .00 -.09 .08 .21** 2.01 (1.82-2.20) aa sn --- .27** --- .01 -.00 -.04 .05 .20** .24** .30** .18* .54 5.27 (.33-.75) (5.05-5.47) pbc ----.38** -.05 .06 3.95 (3.76-4.14) sid ----.15* -.30** 5.16 (4.98-5.34) mn ------ .43*** 3.14 grid --- 3.34 (2.88-3.86) *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001 n varied between 159 and 204 to summarise, the correlations among the predictors and quitting intentions were all in the expected directions. the more positive the attitudes towards quitting smoking, the stronger the perceived social pressure to quit, the stronger the perception of control over quitting, the less one self-identified as a smoker, the more one disliked belonging to the group of smokers, and the higher the conviction that smoking is wrong, the stronger the intention to quit smoking. predicting intentions behavioural intentions were regressed on the components of the extended tpb model hierarchically, separately for each country. the original tpb-components were entered in the first step, while the extension predictors, self-identity (sid), group identity (grid) and moral norm (mn) were included in the second step. europe’s journal of psychology 154 the results of the spanish students are presented in table 4. in step 1 the components of the tpb accounted for 12.2 % (r2 adjusted) of the variance in quitting intentions. both subjective norm (sn) (beta=.25, p<.01) and affective attitude (aa) (beta=.21, p<.01) had significant direct effects, while pbc had a borderline significant effect (beta=.13, p=.07). in the second step adjusted r2 increased significantly to 18.2 % (fchange 5.09 (3, 164), p<.001). noteworthy, subjective norm (sn) retained its significant direct effect (beta=.25, p<.01), which were also the case for affective attitude (beta=.17, p<.05). furthermore, self-identity (sid) received a borderline significant beta weight (-.16, p=.058), while this was not the case for group identity (grid). finally, moral norm (mn) had a significant direct effect (beta=.23, p<.001). table 4. regressing (hierarchically) quitting intentions upon the tpb components, self-identity (sid) and group identity (grid). spanish sample steps r2 beta p-level __________________________________________________________________________________ step 1 12.2 aa .23 p<.05 ca .01 ns sn .24 p<.001 pbc .13 p=.07 step 2 18.2 aa .19 p<.05 ca .02 ns sn .25 p<.01 pbc .08 ns sid -.15 ns grid -.06 ns mn .23 p<.01 note: for further explanation see text the results of the norwegian students are given in table 5. in the first step the tbp predictors accounted for 22.8 % (r2 adjusted) of the variance in behavioural intentions, and affective attitude (aa) (beta=.39, p<.001) and pbc (beta=.15, p<.05) had a statistically significant contribution in the intention formation process. subjective norm (sn) did not predict intentions significantly. in the second step, inclusion of the additional predictors into the model increased the explained predicting the intention to quit smoking 155 variance significantly (from r2 =23.1 to 30.3 %, fchange =6.64 (3, 138) p<.001). affective attitude (aa) (beta=.32, p<.001) and group identity (grid) (.21, p<.05) contributed significantly to the understanding of the intention formation process, while selfidentity (sid) did not contribute significantly (beta=-.11, ns). finally, moral norm (mn) had a borderline significant effect on intentions (beta=.14, p=.078). table 5. regressing (hierarchically) quitting intentions upon the tpb components, self-identity (sid) and group identity (grid). norwegian sample. steps r2 beta p-level __________________________________________________________________________________ step 1 23.1 aa .39 . p<.01 ca .13 ns sn .01 ns pbc .15 p=.05 step 2 30.3 aa .32 p<.001 ca .13 ns sn -.03 ns pbc .13 ns sid -.11 ns grid .21 p<.01 mn .14 p=.078 note: for further explanation see text the differences in predictive power of the predictors on quitting intentions across the two samples were tested by comparing the magnitude of the understandardized regression coefficients as suggested by baron and kenny (1986), in the final step. subjective norm (sn) exhibited a significantly stronger direct effect on intentions in the spanish sample than in the norwegian sample (δ coeff =.33, t=2.66, p<.01), while the direct effect of group identity (grid) was significantly stronger in the norwegian sample than in the spanish sample (δ coeff = -.28, t=-2.18, p<.05). finally, the direct effect of affective attitude (aa) was significantly stronger in the norwegian sample only in the first step (δ coeff =-.27, t =-1.64, p<.05), while there was no significant difference in the second step. otherwise, the predictive power of the predictors did not differ between the two samples. europe’s journal of psychology 156 discussion one major rationale behind the present study is that individuals in individualistic cultures are governed more by personal states, while individuals in collectivistic cultures should be guided more strongly by norms (triandis, 1994). in a tpb context this implies that behavioural intentions should be predictable from attitudes and perceived control in individualistic cultures, while subjective norm should be a stronger predictor in collectivistic than individualistic cultures. in the present study, which is concerned with predicting quitting smoking intentions, we partly found support for these ideas. thus affective attitude was a significantly stronger determinant of quitting intentions in norway (an individualistic country), than in spain (a collectivistic country), in terms of the tpb, but not when the additional predictors were included into the model. secondly, subjective norm was found to be significantly stronger in spain than in norway, in the prediction of intentions to quit smoking. it should be added that we provided a stronger test of the hypothesis of the moderating role of culture by testing whether the magnitude of the regression coefficients differed significantly in the two countries. the differential effect of subjective norm supports the most consistent finding in the literature of cross-cultural studies of the tpb, notably that subjective norm generally constitutes a stronger predictor of behavioural intentions in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic cultures (bagozzi et al., 2001; lee & green, 1991; godin et al., 1996). a parallel support derives from the study by ybarra and trafimow (1998) showing that subjective norm is a stronger predictor than attitudes for intention to use a condom among individuals with a strong collective self, while attitude was stronger among individuals with an individualistic self. along similar lines, marin et al. (1990) have noted that collectivism in hispanic cultures expresses itself in terms of placing high value on smooth relationships and being nice to others, i.e. they are more strongly tuned in to the opinion of important others. the role of normative influences has been confirmed in a recent cross-cultural study on smoking in which societal norms predicted quitting intentions in collectivistic as well as individualistic countries (hosking et al, 2009). this finding may help identifythe conditions under which subjective norms happens to be a predictor of behavioural intentions on a footing similar to the other predictors. reviews of the tpb literature have consistently observed that subjective norm is the weakest predictor of intentions (armitage & conner, 2001), which have led to the somewhat ―ethnocentric‖ conclusion that social influences are less important than personal factors for behavioural predictions. overall, the results tend to support the prevailing predictions concerning the working of the tpb in collectivistic and individualistic countries. predicting the intention to quit smoking 157 a second rationale underlying the present study deriving from social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986, see falomir et al., 2000), is that in a country with a high level of regulatory and restrictive measures against smoking, the conflict between smokers and non-smokers (notably an identity conflict) should be stronger in terms of a threatened identity on the part of the smokers, and in turn ―we-identifications‖ among smokers should be more easily activated than in a context with a lower level of conflict. accordingly, group identity should be a stronger predictor of quitting intentions in norway than in spain due to the higher level of regulatory and restrictive measures against smoking in norway at the time of the study (tobacco control country profiles, 2003). consistent with this reasoning it was observed that the direct effect of group identity on quitting intentions was significantly stronger in norway than in spain. the most likely explanation for the stronger effect of group identity in norway than in spain was that the collective self-conception (―we smokers‖) becomes salient and receives motivational momentum in norway deriving from the identity conflict between smokers and non-smokers. according to social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986), one way to cope with such an identity threat is to leave the group, i.e. quit smoking, provided that the identification with the group of smokers is weak. the direct effects of the two other additional predictors, moral norms and selfidentity, did not differ between the two samples. these results are in lines with the predictions. as noted by identity theorists self-identity is a stable self-conception linking the self to the wider social structure (see burke, 2004), and thus the theory is mainly focusing on confirming existing identities, and less on the situational variability of social identity (see stryker, 2008). this indicates that identity theory has little to say about connectedness to other people and how to fit in with one’s group. a similar reasoning pertains to the power of moral norms in the prediction of intentions in the sense that moral convictions tend to be universal transcending persons and cultures (skitka et al. 2005). these theoretical ideas contrast with the role of ―weidentifications‖ which constitute flexible self-conceptions created in response to the social context in terms of which social categories are salient at the moment (turner, 1994). the role of self-identity in the process of formation of behavioural intentions has been widely explored. typically, self-identity predicts behavioural intentions above the components of the tpb as shown in a recent meta-analysis covering a number of behavioural domains (rise et al., 2009). however, when it comes to quitting smoking the results are mixed. in a study among smoking students, self-identity did not predict quitting intentions above the tpb components (moan & rise, 2005), while it did so in a study on intentions to reduce smoking among adolescents (moan & rise, 2006). in europe’s journal of psychology 158 the present study the role of self-identity did not reach statistical significance (borderline in the spanish sample) attesting to the marginal role in the prediction of intention to quit smoking. one likely explanation for the marginal role of self-identity in this context derives directly from identity theory (burke, 2004) which says that functioning of self-identity rests upon a match between the meanings smokers hold for themselves in terms of being a smoker (i.e. the identity standard) and their perception of self-relevant meanings related to interactive smoking situations. this equilibrium between identity and external situation may be disturbed due to the stigmatization and negative description of smokers which to some extent are shared by smokers themselves (see falomir et al., 2000). in turn this may contribute to low validity of the measures of self-identity and thus lower predictive power. in a manner similar to self-identity, the role of moral norms in the context of the tpb has typically been shown to have an effect on behavioural intentions beyond the tpb components (see manstead, 2000). this is also the case when it comes to the area of quitting intentions (moan & rise, 2005) as well as intentions to reduce smoking (moan & rise, 2006). thus the role of moral norms for quitting intentions in the present study (borderline in the norwegian sample) corroborates these results supporting the notion that quitting smoking is a moral behaviour. to summarise, the present study has provided evidence of the moderating role of culture in the tpb so that the role of subjective norm in the prediction of intentions to quit smoking was significantly stronger among spanish smoking students than norwegian smoking students. nevertheless, this conclusion hinges on the finding that norway is a more individualistic country than spain as measured on the dimension of individualism/collectivism (allik & realo, 2004). secondly, the stronger effect of group identity on quitting intention in norway than in spain indicates that existence of a conflict between smokers and non-smokers moderates this relation. this is consistent with predictions deriving from social identity theory. third, the results support the marginal role of self-identity in the formation of quitting intentions. fourth, the universal role of moral norm in quitting smoking is noteworthy, a finding which should be taken more serious in persuasive anti-smoking campaigns. more generally, the results also attest to the notion that the social context is important to consider in accounting for quitting smoking. noteworthy n this context is the indication of an escalating conflict between smokers and non-smokers in countries with a high level of regulatory measures against smoking, which may be taken greater advantage when promoting quitting smoking. predicting the intention to quit smoking 159 finally, there are a number of limitations to take into account in tpb studies like the present one. however, these limitations would appear to be shared by most of the published tpb studies, and have been extensively reported (cf. moan and rise, 2005). for the present study some issues warrant considerations. for example, we have assumed that ―culture scores‖ apply to individual respondents, which certainly need not be the case. thus the next step would be to explore whether the results are replicated using individual level measures of individualism and collectivism. it would have been advantageous to provide a broader range of items in order to tap into a complex constructs like identity, preferably with a view to convergent and discriminant validity. acknowledgements help in collecting data by brisa reina-marin at the university of granada is gratefully acknowledged. we 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(2001). young adults' intention to eat healthy food: extending the theory of planned behaviour. psychology and health, 16, 223-237. about the authors: jostein rise is director at the norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research and a professor ii in social psychology at the university of oslo. his main research areas are attitudes towards drug issues, attitude-behaviour models in general, and psychological aspects of addiction. address for correspondence: jostein rise, norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research, pobox 565, sentrum, 0105 oslo, norway. e-mail: jr@sirus.no reidar ommundsen is a professor of psychology at the university of oslo where he is mainly teaching and doing research in social and health psychology. in 2009 he and two co-authors published the book being human: social relationships and you. a social psychological analysis which was reviewed in this journal the same year. his current research focus on the attitudes of majority members to proactively integrate ethnic minorities into host society. e-mail: reidar.ommundsen@psykologi.uio.no organizational behavior in a discontinuous world this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 203-205, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.305 www.ejop.org organizational behavior in a discontinuous world managerial and workers perspectives authored by knud s. larsen, kees van der veer, reidar ommundsen and krum krumov rozenberg publishers, 2011 reviewed by maria kakarika euromed managment, france e-mail: maria.kakarika@euromed-management.com organizational behavior in a discontinuous world, by knud s. larsen, kees van der veer, reidar ommundsen & krum krumov, is a detailed analysis of both individual and group behavior at the workplace. the book is based on the premise that “research must be reevaluated in the context of a world where change is rapid, global in nature and discontinuous” (back cover). in documenting the role of ob across years through history and the present, the book reports that we live and work in a fluid world and such a context calls for a deep, change-related understanding of organizational behavior issues. there is no doubt that organizational behavior in a discontinuous world is an interesting book that significantly contributes to the literature because it is aligned with current priorities and trends. first, it offers a balanced international perspective, providing examples from both europe and the united states, and an opportunity for meaningful reflection on the cultural constraints and cross-national differences that organizational behavior research has to consider. the authors acknowledge throughout the book that human behavior varies from culture to culture, as in the case of risk-taking behavior, which may be stronger in american society than in organizational behavior in a discontinuous world 204 african countries, and self-criticism, which may be more prevalent in east-asian societies. in addition, industrial relations and working conditions may vary from country to country. for example, the eight-hour work schedule is not accepted in many parts of the world and “western european countries like netherlands, germany, and united kingdom have a much stronger tradition than the u.s. in developing and using the power of labor unions for the benefit of workers” (p. 171). nevertheless, the authors argue that many organizational behavior theories have been developed primarily in the united states and to a lesser extent in western europe and call for organizational behavior research that is more international in scope and less us-based. in doing so, they carefully contextualize the research findings they present and they offer cross-national studies on various organizational behavior constructs. interestingly, the book also covers studies from scandinavian countries, contrasting them with studies from the us. the last chapter titled „organizational behavior from a cross-cultural perspective‟ truly confirms the authors‟ commitment to maintaining this cross-cultural perspective and encourages the sort of reflection that is most needed. second, organizational behavior in a discontinuous world is part of an increasing focus on the importance of the dark side of organizational behavior, since the authors are concerned that “when workers are manipulated human relations become just another tool for extracting more work and effort, without providing proper compensation or participation in return” (p. 209). for example, they note that participative decision-making may be “a form of exploitation that results in increased work intensity and stress” (p. 40), as employees may be manipulated to take blame and responsibility. further, they raise issues of gender and state that “offering flextime to women may have an unintended consequence by upholding the traditional idea that only women have to balance work and family” (p. 84). in addition, chapter 6 offers a very interesting counter-intuitive discussion about charisma and manipulation that challenges the stereotypes about ego-based charismatic leaders and discusses the benefits of blending humility with individual competence. the above examples reflect what “a cynic might say” (p. 19) and prove the authors‟ commitment on approaching ob with a critical eye. a third way that larsen, van der veer, ommundsen and krumov‟s book contributes to the literature is by treating almost all organizational behavior theories and their methodology with skepticism. for example, the authors criticize maslow‟s theory in terms of empirical validation, herzberg‟s theory on the grounds of methodology, or hofstede‟s work in terms of methodological problems, among others. further, the authors offer a good overview of motivational theories, and approach them with europe’s journal of psychology 205 skepticism suggesting that they are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. of particular note, the authors wonder what is the causal pathway between various organizational behavior variables, such as social norms and individual achievement motivation or productivity and happiness. they further report the measurements of key organizational behavior variables and their pros and cons, proving once again their commitment to approaching organizational behavior with a critical eye. a fourth contribution of this book is its relevance to recent discussions of the market economy during recessions and the financial crisis, as reflected in the book‟s title. the authors must be commended on the way they handle this discussion by offering a modern view of organizational behavior, discussing current priorities and trends, supporting their personal view with several useful examples and highlighting change via recent action research. rightly so, chapter 4 takes a detailed look at worker well being and discusses important issues pertaining to workplace health and safety, such as accidents, noise, toxic substances, and violence in the workplace. however, the important issues of family and work-life balance deserved to be better highlighted, since there are evident challenges for leaders in the era of telecommuting, when work boundaries shift further away, and there is little control over the physical work environment. nevertheless, the modern organizational behavior approach that this book adopts is a significant catalyst for the kind of reflection so deeply needed in the world today; it is a good start to creatively reexamine organizational behavior through the much needed lens of the financial crisis and the current socio-economic context. in terms of writing style, the book is very well-written and several interesting questions capture the reader‟s attention throughout the book. for example, the authors wonder “is the successful manager the same person as the effective manager?” (p. 21), “are most people satisfied with their work?” (p. 31), and “…is it possible to train people in transformational leadership”? (p. 155). to answer such questions, they offer an interesting discussion of research evidence. thankfully, the authors support their arguments with additional meta-analyses, such as meta-analyses on flexible work schedules, satisfaction, justice, trust, leadership, turnover, groups, motivation etc., which further spur the interest of the reader. overall, organizational behavior in a discontinuous world by knud s. larsen, kees van der veer, reidar ommundsen & krum krumov is an intriguing and informative read, which exhaustively covers the most important issues in organizational behavior. the authors systematically examine past and current research, marking the landscape with economic uncertainty and change in unique and inspiring ways. microsoft word 10. contribution violence risk assessment.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 150-171 www.ejop.org applying decision making theory to clinical judgements in violence risk assessment jennifer murray glasgow caledonian university dr. mary e. thomson glasgow caledonian university abstract a considerable proportion of research in the field of violence risk assessment has focused on the accuracy of clinical judgements of offender dangerousness. this has largely been determined through research which compares the accuracy of clinical predictions of offender dangerousness or future violence to mathematical predictions. what has been less researched is the influence of decision making heuristics and biases on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment. the current paper discusses decision making heuristics and biases and applies the theory to clinical judgements in a violence risk assessment context. based on the current review, it is suggested that in order to improve the effectiveness clinical judgements in violence risk assessment, a greater level of empirical research specifically examining the effects of the heuristics and biases in this context must be conducted, with the possibility of incorporating debiasing training into clinical practice. keywords – clinical judgement, heuristics, biases, decision making, violence risk assessment. an individual’s ability to process information is often lower than the high volumes of information available to them (baron & byrne, 1997). in order to contend with this, cognitive strategies are employed which act to decrease the cognitive effort required, while maintaining a relatively effective means of interpreting the high levels of social information available. these strategies, referred to within social psychology as decision making heuristics or ‘cognitive rules of thumb’ (tversky & kahneman, 1974), are inherent in human decision making. while the use of heuristics within day applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 151 to day decision making most certainly can be considered beneficial (e.g., in reducing the volume of complex cognitive processing, thus cognitive effort, required in decision making), their use has repeatedly been shown to lead to errors in judgement (pennington, gillen, & hill, 1999). the current article shall provide an overview of the use of heuristics and their associated biases within decision making. more specifically, it shall discuss the application of decision making theory to the practice of violence risk assessment within a clinical setting. this application is of particular importance given that, currently, only 14% of the 29 clinical psychology training programmes running in britain indicate that any specific training or instruction on decision making biases is incorporated into their programmes* (please see appendix a). the illusory correlation within the violence risk assessment literature, a number of decision making biases have been highlighted as being important to clinical judgement accuracy. elbogen (2002) suggested that clinicians may make illusory correlations when assessing the risk of violence. an illusory correlation exists when a decision is influenced by the perception of a correlation existing between two entities that may not actually be correlated (chapman & chapman, 1967). this has clear implications within risk assessment practice, as no correlation between risk cues has been consistently found to exist (hart, 1998). for example, quinsey and maguire (1986) found that in a sample of experienced forensic clinicians, judgements of dangerousness were based largely on the seriousness of the individual’s offence and the frequency of assaultive behaviour displayed by the individual while in the institution. the researchers compared these perceived risk factors to those actually occurring in cases of recidivism (measured over an 11 year period) and found the actual risk factors that were successful in predicting dangerousness to be: seriousness of offence, history of crime, criminal commitment (rather than civil commitment), young age and the number of previous correctional confinements. thus, the clinicians’ consideration of seriousness of offence and frequency of assaultive behaviour acting as significant cues associated with dangerousness was only half supported, with the latter cue having no relationship to offender behaviour following release. based on their findings, quinsey and maguire (1986) asserted that a ‘dangerous’ individual released from a psychiatric institution tended to be young and male, with a history of property crimes and serious crimes against people. in discussing research, such as that conducted by quinsey and maguire (1986), however, it must be highlighted that a clinical consideration of a patient being ‘dangerous’ may not be a prediction of violent behaviour, but may represent an opinion that the individual is capable of committing serious and significant harm to europe’s journal of psychology 152 others (litwack, 2001). thus, when discussing risk cues in relation to predictions of dangerousness, one must consider the context in which the terms are considered; a murderer may have fewer or no previous offences but this does not make him or her any less dangerous than an individual with many previous offences, in fitting with quinsey and maguire’s (1986) typical profile of a ‘dangerous’ individual who is likely to recidivise. context effects in addition to considering the context of the terminology used, discussed above, when conducting a violence risk assessment one must consider the context in which the assessment is taking place and the reasons for the assessment. borum (2000) illustrated this point by discussing the difference between an assessment made in an emergency room under volatile conditions in comparison to one made as part of an institutionalised risk management procedure. in the case of a volatile setting, such as an emergency room, the clinician will have very little time to decide upon the course of action, and as such will not base his or her decisions upon a comprehensive review of all of the documentation associated with the case. decisions in this type of situation are necessarily made quickly, based on the situational factors. on the other hand, in cases where there is time afforded (such as the decision to discharge an individual from a secure facility), the clinician will base his or her decision choices on a larger amount of information, utilizing the suitable documentation and interview information available to them. borum (2000) highlighted that one of the most significant judgemental errors in violence risk assessment is the failure to properly consider the influence of situational factors. these situational factors are of the utmost importance when considering the level of risk that an individual poses, however, and assessing an individual in a context completely removed from their normal situation may prove hazardous to the assessment. for example, if the individual is known to be prone to behaving violently when under high levels of peer pressure (e.g., from gang members or other peer groups ‘triggering’ this type of behaviour), then the likelihood of the individual behaving violently in this company is higher than if they were not exposed to this type of company. however, the likelihood of the individual experiencing triggers to violent behaviour is often greater out with institutionalised life, and the clinician must therefore take this into account when composing a violence risk assessment in these circumstances. indeed, a specific set of structured professional guidelines are now available to assess the risk of violence based on situational factors (i.e., promoting risk intervention by situational management by johnstone & cooke, 2008), further applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 153 emphasising the importance of the situation on the level of risk posed by an individual. the representativeness heuristic similar implications to those discussed above for the practice of violence risk assessment may exist with the presence of representativeness in clinical decision making, particularly in relation to the illusory correlation. representativeness describes the process by which the probability of an event occurring is evaluated based on the extent to which this event resembles another that is perceived by the individual to be related to the target (tversky & kahneman, 1974). in a clinical setting, representativeness may be more clearly described in terms of an individual judging one case based on its perceived similarity to other cases. this aspect of human decision making is often applied to stereotyping or categorising people into specific groups. for example, in research conducted by tversky and kahneman (1982), participants were given the following scenario: “linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. she majored in philosophy. as a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. please check off the most likely alternative: � linda is a bank teller � linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement” the majority of tversky and kahneman’s (1982) participants chose the latter option, despite the logical probability of the latter option (co-occurrence of two events) being mathematically less likely than the former (single event occurrence). this phenomenon was labelled the conjunctive fallacy (tversky & kahneman, 1983), with the above example illustrating the way in which individuals categorise people into specific groups and make assumptions about others’ beliefs and attitudes based on their own preconceived notions. however, as judgements influenced by representativeness ignore the laws of probability, as demonstrated in the above example, these judgements are not always accurate. selective perception similarly, the way in which individuals perceive events and their environment may be affected by these preconceived notions. individuals are known to not only seek out information that conforms to their own expectations (i.e., selective exposure; europe’s journal of psychology 154 sargent, 2007), but also to attend to and perceive information (environmental or otherwise) in a way that is consistent with their expectations and interests (plous, 1993; salemink, van der hout, & kindt, 2007). this selective perception was famously illustrated by bruner and postman (1949). these researchers presented participants with five playing cards for between 10 milliseconds and one second. one of these cards did not conform to the standardised playing card suits (red heart, red diamond, black spade, and black club), but was instead a ‘black heart’. participants in bruner and postman’s (1949) experiment took over four times as long to recognise this trick card than those belonging to the normal suits, with the majority of the participants displaying a dominance reaction in which the card was perceived to be either a ‘normal’ red heart or black spade, in line with their prior expectations. these findings illustrate that an individual’s prior expectations can strongly influence their perception of an event or object, and therefore their judgements made based on this perception. indeed, plous (1993, pg.17) went as far as to state that “when people have enough experience with a particular situation, they often see what they expect to see.” regarding clinical judgements in violence risk assessment, selective perception may be apparent in a number of ways. for example, through person perception when meeting an offender, or through attending to specific information consistent with the clinician’s preconceived notions and disregarding non-congruent information when assessing the client’s case. in the first example given, clinicians may look for or attend to visual or behavioural cues consistent with their pre-existing schema of an offender. if this was the case, a stereotyped view of the offender would result, possibly influencing the judgements being made about the individual. much like the use of heuristics and biases in human decision making, stereotyping has been discussed as a necessary cognitive process (lippmann, 1922), used to reduce and edit the vast amount of sensory input into something manageable and meaningful to the individual (stewart, powell, & chetwynd, 1979). in addition, stewart et al. (1979) described stereotyping as a process not only used to simplify environmental and social stimuli, but one that also aids the construction of meaning to those stimuli based on attributional expectations. with regards to person perception, taguiri (1969) discussed the process as the way in which an individual knows and thinks about others, and how they consider their characteristics, qualities and inner states in order to infer information about their intentions, attitudes and emotions. once considered a veridical process that was central to social interaction, it is now more commonly considered that not all characteristics can be so easily or accurately inferred as once thought; instead, a relatively small number of traits are considered to be easily inferred through the process of person perception (stewart et al., 1979). it is therefore argued that as there is a relatively large proportion of information applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 155 about another individual that cannot be inferred directly through person perception, the remaining ambiguous information required in order to infer another individuals’ characteristics, attitudes and intentions is completed through the process of stereotyping. however, it is well documented that inferences made about individuals and their intentions are not always correct. for example, while it has been found that reference to ‘satanic’ interests has a strong influence on mock juror’s finding a defendant guilty (pfeifer, 1999), charles and egan (2009) demonstrated that such ‘gothic’ interests that are assumed to be predictive of offending behaviour are actually mediated by personality, and that intrasexual competition and low-agreeableness actually acted as better predictors of offending behaviour. these researchers proposed this finding as evidence to challenge the stereotypical view that individuals with unusual or ‘gothic’ interests are more likely to be dangerous or act in an anti-social manner. thus, should any inference be drawn based on a relatively small number of observable characteristics about an individual who is being assessed for violence risk, some concerns over the accuracy of these inferences may be raised. however, as the use of cognitive shortcuts is an evolved process, and as clinicians are known to rely on intuition to produce these types of judgements on a regular basis, one may argue that this concern is largely redundant. when the latter example given is taken into consideration with the notion of stereotyping, however, valid issues relating to the impact of inferring characteristics based on few observable characteristics may be raised. that is, should clinicians attend to or seek out information that is consistent with their preconceived notions and disregard information not fitting with their hypothesis at the initial stages of assessment (i.e., confirmation bias), they will be less likely to seek information opposing their initial schema of the case and will therefore be more likely to produce a biased, or at least ‘skewed’, assessment. confirmation bias confirmation bias has been observed in numerous domains outwith clinical judgement (ask, rebelius, & granhag, 2008). one such observation, which is of relevance when considering clinical judgement, is the influence of an interrogator on judgements made in interrogative settings. kassin, goldstein, and savitsky (2003) induced either a high or low degree of suspicion of guilt in a mock interrogation study. the authors found that those participants (acting in the role of interrogator) who had been predisposed to an expectation of ‘high guilt’ interrogated their suspect in a manner which implied guilt presumption to a greater extent than their counterparts in the ‘low guilt’ condition (e.g., participants in the ‘high guilt’ group were seen to press suspects harder in to gain a confession of guilt than those in the europe’s journal of psychology 156 ‘low guilt’ group). this example is of particular relevance to clinical judgement, as it highlights the nature of pre-existing assumptions or beliefs on the way in which an authoritative figure may act towards a person under investigation (whether that is under interrogation or under assessment for violence risk). further to this example, ask et al. (2008) investigated investigator perceptions of evidence reliability. the evidence was manipulated to either confirm or disconfirm the suspect of a mock murder case as the perpetrator. of particular interest to the present article’s focus, clinical judgement in violence risk assessment, were the findings relating to the witness evidence. it was found that witness identification evidence was considered to be less reliable when it challenged (disconfirmed) the suspicions against a suspect than when it confirmed them. this is an important parallel to draw against clinical judgement in a violence risk assessment context, as information given by offenders which is of a positive nature (e.g., the assertion that an individual has never used illicit substances) ought to be treated with more suspicion than negative information (e.g., admissions of committing unrecorded offences). it is clear to see that the reliability of this information is not equal across confirmatory and non-confirmatory information (as shown by ask et al., 2008). it is, however, also important to take this into account when assessing the risk of violence posed; as preconceived notions are known to not only influence the information sought and attended to in the first instance, but also the perceived reliability of this information, the clinician will be more likely to conduct a biased risk assessment. one reason, demonstrated by ditto, scepansky, munro, apanovitch, and lockhart (1998), which may help to account for reliance on preconceived notions and subsequent seeking of confirmatory information, is that non-preferred information (i.e., dissonant information) requires more effortful cognitive processing than preferred information (i.e., information consonant with a hypothesis). as such, it is clear to see that as human judgement, particularly in time-constrained environments, relies on cognitive biases, seeking and attending to confirmatory information is yet another evolved way to reduce cognitive effort in judgement and decision making. borum, otto, and golding (1993) proposed corrective measures to decrease the influence of this bias on clinical judgment. the authors suggested that clinicians should seek information that is in opposition to their initial hypotheses during the data gathering stages of case assessment. this process would act to modify the initial impressions of a case if and where necessary. borum et al. (1993) further suggested that this disconfirmatory information should be considered alongside the other data gathered, thus preventing the sole consideration of information that supports the clinician’s original impressions of and hypotheses about a case. applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 157 the availability heuristic similar implications may arise from the use of the availability heuristic (tversky & kahneman, 1973, 1974) when conducting a violence risk assessment. the availability heuristic occurs when an individual unconsciously judges the probability of an event occurring, for example, by the ease with which it can be retrieved from memory. thus, more recently available information is retrieved from memory faster and with greater ease and is therefore perceived as more important, likely or frequent than less easily retrieved information. for example, in cases of high profile murders involving teenagers, great media interest is taken (charles & egan, 2009). in the case of luke mitchell, who was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend, it was widely reported in the press that he had ‘satanic’ interests (hma v luke mitchell, 2004). as pointed out by charles and egan (2009), while the level of evidence to support the causal effect of these kinds of cases is varied, the assumption is not often strongly questioned. with the wide reporting of causal links between satanic interests and high profile murder cases, in combination with the unchallenged nature of these claims, it is fair to say that the causal link, whether true or not, may become engrained into acceptance, and thus a stereotyped view will emerge. as this stereotype is then more readily available as part of an individual’s general schema (i.e., a cognitive shortcut), it is therefore more easy to access from memory and, according to the availability heuristic, will be considered as more likely than less easily conceived alternatives, as illustrated in the aforementioned research by pfeifer (2009). this decision making heuristic is thought to arise from an inability on the part of the individual making judgements to imagine sources of uncertainty or construct relevant hypothetical situations. in relation to violence risk assessment, a number of risk assessment tools have been developed that may help to reduce the effects of availability. for example, the hcr-20 (webster, douglas, eaves, & hart, 1997) and the prism (johnstone & cooke, 2008) encourage the user to develop ‘same-’, ‘best’ and ‘worst-’ case outcome scenarios, and therefore develop suitable risk management plans for each of these hypotheses. thus, with the correct use of these relatively new semi-structured violence risk assessment tools, the biasing influence of the availability heuristic on clinical judgments of violence risk assessment can at worst be reduced and at best be negated. learnability and the hindsight bias of key concern in violence risk assessment from a decision making and judgement point of view is the fact that little to no feedback is provided to clinicians after the event. that is, once the violence risk assessment and follow-ups, where possible, europe’s journal of psychology 158 have been completed, the individuals involved in conducting the violence risk assessment and developing the risk management plan will not be made aware of the success, or indeed failure, of the assessment and interventions suggested. this has a number of implications in terms of judgement accuracy. first, the concept of learnability (bolger & wright, 1994; thomson, onkal, avcioglu, & goodwin, 2004) must be considered. according to this concept, in situations where there is little or no performance feedback, judgment should be expected to be poor, and in the case of expertise, expert judgement should not be expected to be significantly better than that of a lay-person. in the case of clinical assessments of violence risk, improving learnability is a difficult task, as often clinicians have a large workload and are under immense time pressure, and are therefore unable to supplement this poor feedback by, for example, scrutinising other clinician’s reports (which would be beneficial in terms of vicarious retrospective learning). second, the impact of hindsight bias on the judgments made in relation to the violence risk assessment must be considered. hindsight bias (fischhoff & beyth, 1975) describes the phenomenon whereby people are rarely surprised by the outcome of an event, even in cases where the outcomeprediction was extremely unlikely and where the individual was not able to predict the outcome beforehand. thus, individuals are seen to exaggerate post-event what could have been anticipated with foresight pre-event. in addition, individuals are unable to explain why the event was ‘predictable’ afterwards, despite having been unable to predict the outcome beforehand. borum et al. (1993) discussed the implications of hindsight bias affecting forensic assessments. borum et al. (1993) pointed out that hindsight bias is most likely to occur when clinicians are asked to assess the professional practice of a colleague in cases where an outcome (usually a negative outcome) has occurred post-assessment, typically in the instance of malpractice allegations. based on arkes, faust, guilmette, and hart’s (1988) research, which found a reduced influence of hindsight bias in clinicians who had been made to create a list of alternative diagnoses as compared to those who had not, borum et al. (1993) suggested that when assessing cases, the clinician should therefore create a list of possible outcomes that could have occurred in response to their colleague’s actions or interventions, in addition to noting alternative courses of action and their hypothetical possible outcomes. while this would be effective in reducing hindsight bias, this course of action would not necessarily be beneficial in preventing the mistake being investigated from occurring in a wider population than simply the clinicians directly involved. hindsight bias is thought to occur due to the way in which memory is structured. that is, memory is a constructive process and as such, applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 159 memories are not exact copies of the past, but, rather, are ‘constructed’ with logical inferences and associated memories being used to fill in missing details (plous, 1993). it has been noted that hindsight bias appears to reconstruct memory (plous, 1993). that is, with the new information given (i.e., the outcome of the event), individuals incorporate this new information into their past memories, thus changing their recollection of the event in a way that makes more sense to the individual in light of this new information. it is this reconstruction of memories in hindsight that prevents individuals from learning from their past mistakes. arkes et al.’s (1988) and borum et al.’s (1993) suggestions of note taking and creating hypothetical situations and outcomes may, therefore, act to decrease hindsight bias through decreasing the over-reliance of the clinician on memory. as redelmeier (2005) pointed out, however, the possibility of learning from previous errors in a clinical setting is made difficult by the fact that often the errors made are too distal in time and place for the clinician to first, be aware of, and second, to learn from. a further strategy that may act to reduce hindsight bias was suggested by dernevick, falkheim, holmqvist, and sandell (2001). these authors suggested that hindsight bias is brought about through the negative feedback loop that arises in reoffending contexts. that is, as the individuals who are correctly assessed as nonviolent are often not heard of again (i.e., as they do not re-offend, they do not reenter the system for risk assessment) and the individuals who are incorrectly assessed as non-violent but who do re-offend are the ones who are re-assessed for violence, clinicians are not able to adjust their heuristics or learn from their errors. in order to reduce the influence of hindsight bias (and improve risk assessment practice in general), therefore, dernevick et al. (2001) suggested that group assessments involving experienced assessors ought to be conducted, whereby the assessors monitor one another’s assessments would act to increase the validity and decrease bias in assessment. in addition, dernevick et al. (2001) suggested that continuous training of staff, involving detailed feedback from all risk assessments carried out (i.e., outcome feedback to determine if an assessment was accurate or not) would further act to improve risk assessment. in particular, this latter approach would act to reduce hindsight bias. however, these ideals are not entirely practical in the realworld context of clinical practice, in which time is unfortunately a limiting factor to these approaches. confidence tversky and kahneman (1982) further outlined that the extent to which an individual is confident in their predictions or judgements depends largely on the level of representativeness present in their decision making (i.e., the level of closeness of their europe’s journal of psychology 160 judgement to that upon which they are basing their choice). thus confidence can be considered to be high when an individual’s interpretation is a close match to their target, regardless of probability. this effect is maintained even when the individual has been made aware of the limiting factors in their predictions (kahneman & tversky, 1973). this ‘illusion of validity’ is highly applicable to violence risk assessment: as clinicians involved in violence risk assessment are often required to predict the likelihood of an offender committing future crimes, the clinician’s confidence in his or her own decisions must be reasonably high, for both moral and ethical reasons. for example, if a clinician’s confidence in his or her judgement of a specific case is relatively low, it would not then be ethical for them to make recommendations regarding offender treatment within a courtroom setting. mcneil, sanburg, and binder (1998) investigated the effects of confidence on decision accuracy in clinicians working in a psychiatric unit. these authors found that clinicians displayed greater decision making accuracy when they were highly confident and lower accuracy when less confident. they suggested that the use of actuarial tools as a supplement may act to increase clinician confidence in circumstances where confidence in clinical judgement is low, thus improving decision making. further to this, rabinowitz and garelik-wyler (1999) found that while confidence was not significantly related to accuracy in violence prediction, higher levels of confidence existed when predicting non-violent behaviour than when predicting violent behaviour. these authors suggested that with higher confidence in predicting non-violent behaviour, clinicians may engage in greater risk-taking behaviour, in that no preventative measures would be applied. under-using base rate data in addition, with the use of representativeness in decision making, it has been well established that base rate data go largely underused (monahan, 1981). to clarify what is meant by ‘base rates’ in the present context, borum (2000, pg.1275) provided a succinctly defined the term as: “the known prevalence of a specific type of violent behaviour within a given population over a given period of time.” in a classic example, kahneman and tversky (1973) presented participants with a number of fictitious personality descriptions depicting different characters. participants were told that the descriptions were drawn from a sample of 100 professionals, either 70 engineers and 30 lawyers or 70 lawyers and 30 engineers, and were asked the likelihood of the character in the description being either an engineer or a lawyer. based on the numerical information provided, one would logically expect to find a higher response of ‘engineer’ in the former example and a applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 161 higher response of ‘lawyer’ on the latter example. however, the authors found that participants across the two conditions produced the same likelihood of the individual being described as being either a lawyer or an engineer. from these findings the researchers concluded that the judgements made were largely dependent on the descriptive factors within the personality profiles provided rather than on the actual statistical probabilities associated with the categories. in a violence risk assessment context, monahan (1981) indicated that by not consulting base rate information, the accuracy of violence risk assessment is greatly reduced, and asserted that in assessing the level of risk of violence that an individual poses base rates for violence should be a key consideration. it can be seen that acknowledging base rates is of the utmost importance in increasing the accuracy of judgements made and that therefore, with an over-reliance on representativeness, important aspects such as numerical information providing statistical probabilities becomes redundant in judgements made. however, often the events that merit risk assessment in a clinical context are highly individual, providing low base rates for comparison, if these rates are indeed available. borum (2000) therefore suggested that whether base rate information is available or not, it is of great importance to consider the risk assessment as an individualised case, and that the clinician must recognise that, while base rate information can be of use when anchoring a prediction of the likelihood of future violence, there may be some relevant, recurring risk factors in a particular case that are not generally found in the population as a whole. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic in addition to the representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic, discussed earlier, the final ‘classic’ heuristic (cioffi, 1997), anchoring and adjustment, described by tversky and kahneman (1974), shall now be discussed. the anchoring and adjustment heuristic describes the tendency of people to make estimates of an outcome based on an initial value (the anchor) and adjusting from this anchor in order to reach a final judgement. one possible circumstance that an anchor on which a clinician could weight their decision may come about in a violence risk assessment context is during the interpretation and review stages of case assessment. when reviewing and assessing a case, clinicians will typically have access to the previous risk assessment information and evaluations conducted. with the presentation of such information, the assessing clinician may form an anchor based on, for example, previous assertions of low-, medium-, or highrisk of the individual acting violently or through the outcomes of actuarial assessments of risk that may have been conducted. in addition, an anchor can be formed not only when provided to the clinician explicitly; an anchor can also be the product of an europe’s journal of psychology 162 incomplete computation (tversky & kahneman, 1974). with regards to clinical judgment, this has been discussed in terms of forming an anchor based on information that has been gathered in the earlier stages of the evaluation, therefore affording less weight to the ‘newer’ information, leading to insufficient adjustments to the initial impression formed of the case (borum et al., 1993), and also through the personal knowledge and experience held by the clinician through his or her clinical experience acting as a baseline or anchor on which judgments are based (cioffi, 1997). while, of course, the violence risk assessment must include and incorporate information gathered from previous risk assessments and be based on clinical experience and knowledge, it has been shown that typically individuals weight the initial value, the anchor, too highly and therefore are prone to making insufficient judgments away from the anchor value (slovic & lichtenstein, 1971; tversky & kahneman, 1974). thus, the outcome of the judgment will be dependent on this starting point, and it has been shown the magnitude of the estimates or judgments associated with this starting point are biased towards the initial value. one way in which this issue could be resolved is for the clinician to solely use an actuarial tool to assess the risk of violence. these tools were developed in order to remove the clinician’s own ‘subjective’ judgements of the case from the assessment (reeves & rosner, 2009), and instead act to predict the risk of violence based on the statistical weighting of the risk cues measured by the particular tool being used. while the removal of the clinician’s own judgments may certainly reduce, or indeed remove, the risk of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic affecting the outcome of the assessment, actuarial tools have been highly criticised within the literature for being too rigid, based on historical data and therefore not taking into account dynamic variables pertinent to the case either presently or in the future, and that they provide no indication of how best to manage the predicted level of risk (douglas, ogloff, & hart, 2003). thus, while neither method is perfect, it is likely that the method chosen for use would be based solely on the clinician’s preference. attribution effects though not strictly speaking a decision making bias, the influence of attribution on clinical judgements in violence risk assessment must be acknowledged. devernick et al. (2001), again, emphasised the importance of considering context. the researchers highlighted the fact that the majority of research relating to violence risk assessment has been conducted in a controlled, experimental manner, and that applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 163 considerably fewer studies have focused on data collected in a manner representing actual clinical practice (i.e., collected in the field). this is an important distinction to draw, as in the research context the research does not have any direct influence in the process of risk assessment, and as such is objective. in practice, however, the clinician has a real life, direct influence on the assessment procedure. in addition, the assessment made by the practitioner may also be affected by the real world circumstances surrounding a case. for example, devernick et al. (2001) suggested that the clinician may attribute causal relationships when reviewing information about an offender, such as attributing the cause of delinquent behaviour seen in later life to childhood events. as discussed by murray and thomson (2009), attribution effects can be detrimental to the treatment and assessments of offenders; should an internal cause (e.g., a personality trait) be attributed as the cause of an offender’s behaviour, the treatment and overall risk rating will be markedly different than for an offender whose behaviour has been attributed to an external cause (e.g., need for money). for a more detailed discussion on attribution effects on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment see murray and thomson (2009). points of departure while there are some studies specifically investigating the effects of heuristics and biases on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment (e.g., devernick et al., 2001; murray, thomson, cooke & charles, in press; quinsey & cyr, 1986), much work is still required in this area (elbogen, 2002). accordingly, a number of pointed future directions for research in this area shall now be suggested, based on the reviewed literature presented in the current manuscript: • first, as indicated by elbogen (2002), a greater deal of descriptive research is required to investigate what actually occurs in clinical practice. this type of research would provide the best possible platform on which to build experimental research on, thus allowing the experimental research to be applicable to practice, not only theory. • clearly, research which is targeted to investigating the influence of specific heuristics and biases on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment is required. empirical research in this area would allow the field to move on from the mainly theoretical links between these concepts being presented as possible factors in violence risk assessment, as has been presented in the current review and those of the past (e.g., borum, 2000; borum, otto, & golding, 1993). with empirical findings from well designed studies, based on both the theoretical links and on actual practice, not only would more europe’s journal of psychology 164 information become available in the academic literature, but this knowledge could be used to best improve decision making and judgement in clinical judgement, where appropriate. • before embarking upon research into the effects of heuristics and biases on judgements of violence risk assessment, the most appropriate heuristics and biases for investigation must first be identified. the present article has outlined a number of appropriate heuristics and biases for possible investigation. however, based on the current review, the authors suggest that targeted investigation into the following biases is of particular importance: attribution effects; selective perception; confirmation bias; and hindsight bias. these particular biases have been highlighted as particularly important in terms of initial investigation as they are somewhat less theoretically based and as such research into these biases can be most readily based on, and, therefore, applied to clinical practice. this is not, however, to say that research into the remaining heuristics and biases discussed should not be conducted; just that more theoretically based research would be required in these areas before application to practice could be achieved. • with regard to attribution effects on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment, there are already published empirical articles in this area. for example, quinsey and cyr (1986) and murray et al. (in press) found that clinicians and lay people alike rated offender dangerousness (among other traits) differently across internally and externally manipulated crime based vignettes. specifically, offenders depicted in internally manipulated vignettes were considered to be significantly more dangerous than those depicted in the external manipulations. however, while these researchers illustrated that differences exist, their findings do not give information about whether or not this is a positive or a negative effect. that is, do these attribution effects negatively affect judgements of violence risk assessment, or are they beneficial to the process? this is an important next step in this line of research. conclusion from the discussed research it can be seen that the use of heuristics and their associated biases in clinical decision making can indeed be problematic in terms of achieving the greatest accuracy in predicting violent behaviour. however, it has been suggested that by being made aware of their use of biases, clinicians can improve the quality, thus accuracy, of their risk assessments (borum et al., 1993; elbogen, 2002). it is therefore concluded that, in order to improve the effectiveness of violence risk assessments and to improve clinical judgements in this context, it may applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 165 be beneficial in clinical practice to incorporate some form of biases training. however, prior to this it is necessary for a greater level of up to date empirical research examining the effects of the different heuristics and biases discussed in the current paper on clinical judgements of violence risk assessment to be conducted in order to assess both whether the administration of biases training would indeed be beneficial in this context, and also to identify which heuristics and biases may exert influence over the judgements and decisions made in this context. references: arkes, h. r., faust, d., guilmette, t. j., & hart, k. 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(1972). a dimensional analysis of the perceived causes of success and failure. unpublished dissertation. university of california, los angeles. russell, d. (1982). the causal dimension scale: a measure of how individuals perceive causes. journal of personality and social psychology, 42, 1137-1145. salemink, e., van der hout, & kindt, m. (2007). selective attention and threat: quick orienteering versus slow disengagement and two versions of the dot probe test. behaviour and research therapy, 45(3), 607-615. sargent, s. l. (2007). images on selective exposure to computer mediated news stories. computers in human behavior, 23(1), 705-726. slovic, p., & lichtenstein, s. (1971). comparison of bayesian and regression approaches to the study of information processing in judgment. organizational behavior and human performance, 6, 649-744. stewart, r. a., powell, g. e., & chetwynd, s. j. (1979). person perception and stereotyping. westmead: saxon house. tagiuri, r. (1969). person perception. in g. lindzey & e. aronson (eds), the handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., vol. 3, pp.395-449). reading, ma: addison-wesley thomson, m. e., onkal, d., avcioglu, a., & goodwin, p. (2004). aviation risk perception: a comparison between experts and novices. risk analysis, 24(6), 1585-1595. europe’s journal of psychology 170 tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1973). availability: a heuristic for judging frequency and probability. cognitive psychology, 5, 207-232. tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1974). judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. science, 185, 1124-1131. tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1982). judgments of and by representativeness. in d. kahneman, p. slovic & a. tversky (eds), judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases (pp.84-98). cambridge, england: cambridge university press. tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1983). extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment. psychological review, 90, 293-315. webster, c. d., douglas, k. s., eaves, d., & hart, s. d. (1997). hcr-20. assessing the risk of violence. version 2. vancouver, canada: simon fraser university and forensic psychiatric servvices commission of british columbia. weiner, b., frieze, i. h., kukla, a., reed, l., rest, s., & rosenbaum, r. m. (1971). perceiving the causes of success and failure. new york: general learning press. weiner, b. (1985). an attributional theory toward achievement motivation and emotion. psychological review, 92, 548-573. weiner, b. (1985). foreword. in f. forsterling (ed.), attribution theory in clinical psychology (pp.ix-xi). new york: wiley. weiner, b. (1986). an attributional theory of motivation and emotion. new york: springer-verlag. appendix a *data gathered via a simple telephone survey asking: “i understand that you deliver training in clinical psychology. i am currently writing a paper discussing the impact of decision making biases on clinical decision making in violence risk assessment and would like to ask a quick question regarding your course training. do you currently include de-biasing training or any other form of instructions to reduce the likelihood of cognitive biases in your course?” applying decision making theory to clinical judgements 171 about the authors: jennifer murray* jennifer murray is a phd student in the department of psychology, glasgow caledonian university. her thesis investigates the effects of attributional manipulations in clinical judgements of violence risk assessment, at various stages of the violence risk assessment process. the current paper is completed in part-fulfilment of jennifer murray’s phd thesis. *requests for reprints should be addressed to jennifer murray, dept. of psychology, glasgow caledonian university, 70 cowcaddens road, glasgow, g4 0pp, scotland, uk (email: jennifer.murray@gcal.ac.uk) dr. mary e. thomson dr. mary e. thomson is a reader of decision science from the department of psychology, glasgow caledonian university, who has published in various books and journals, including risk analysis, decision support systems, the international journal of forecasting, the european journal of operational research and the journal of behavioral decision making. prevalence, symptomatology, and risk factors for depression among high school students in saudi arabia moataz m. abdel-fattah, phd epidemiology and research unit, department of preventive medicine chief of preventive medicine department al-hada armed forces hospital p.o. box: 1347 taif, kingdom of saudi arabia tel: +966 (2) 7541610 (ext. 2196) fax: +966 (2) 7541238 e-mail: mezo106@yahoo.com, mezo106@hotmail.com abdel-rahman a. asal, md department of psychiatry, al-hada armed forces hospital, taif, saudi arabia   abstract hypothesis: most studies of depressed mood and its correlates in adolescents have been conducted in western countries. the present large scale epidemiological study was designed to assess the prevalence and pattern of depression in a secondary school sample of saudi arabia adolescents. methods: a cross-sectional survey, using the arabic beck’s depression inventory (bdi), by a team consisting of a psychiatrist and psychologist has been conducted. participants: secondary school students (n = 490, 306 males “62.4 %” and 184 females “37.6 %”) of age group from (16 to 20). results: the prevalence of depression according to the beck depression inventory (cbdi) (cut-off point: 19) was 110 (22.4 %) as moderate (19-29), 36 (7.3 %) as severe (30-40), and 18 (3.7%) as very severe (> 40) in this study group, with a clear predominance prevalence of depression in girls than in boys (1.5 times). multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the most significant risk factors involved were: sex, birth order, history of psychiatric illness, history of relative loss, and familial history of chronic diseases. factor analysis revealed that self criticalness, agitation, and loss of energy had the highest scores in the total sample. in the male subgroup, loss of energy, self criticalness, punishment feeling and agitation had the highest score while in the female subgroup, self criticalness, agitation, and crying had the highest scores. conclusion: our findings provide gender differences in the prevalence and presentation of depressive symptoms. the experience of a stressful life events increase the risk of depression. assessment using screening is recommended. the increased risk for the onset of depression in adolescents reinforces the importance of early recognition and intervention. keywords: prevalence, risk factors, adolescents, depression, beck inventory scale, saudi arabia introduction depression has been considered to be the major psychiatric disease of the 20th century.1 the world health organization identified major depression as the fourth leading cause of worldwide disease in 1990.2 recent studies have shown that greater than 20% of adolescents in the general population have emotional problems and one-third of adolescents attending psychiatric clinics suffer from depression.3 numerous outcome studies have documented several negative effects of depression.4-6 major depression often appears for the first time during the teenage years, and early onset depression interferes with a child’s psychological, social, and academic functioning, placing him or her at greater risk for problems such as substance abuse and suicidal behavior.4-5 significant changes in social functioning, the adolescent’s environment, and gender-differentiated social support concerning sexuality. these factors, as well as the experience of a severe life event have been significantly related to the onset of major depression in adolescence.7 despite the host of new literature on depression in adolescence has appeared in the last decade. the magnitude of child and adolescent depression is clearly a major mental health problem.5 there have been several efforts to improve the early detection of depression and to develop programs to prevent and treat it as soon as possible.8 this study was undertaken to find out prevalence and pattern of depression among secondary school students in saudi arabia as well as to clarify the degree to which stressful life events lead to depression. material and methods study design: this study was conducted on two phases implemented at the same time from january to may, 2005 at taif city, saudi arabia: 1) a cross-sectional study for a representative sample of high school students aiming at screening for depression using beck depression inventory scale (bdi). 2) a case-control study aiming at looking for risk factors of depression based on a cut-off level of bdi scale (bdi scale of 19 was chosen as a cut-off point). the research protocol has been approved by research and ethics committee at al-hada armed forces hospital and an informed consent have been obtained from all participants in the study. study area: taif “means encompassing” is a city located at 1700-2500 meters above sea level in the western mountains of saudi arabia (hejaz area) with population of 885474 according to 2000 census.9 sampling: there are 12 secondary schools (7 for males and 5 for females) in taif (public and private). a two-stage stratified sample of 490 students from six out of 12 secondary schools in taif was randomly selected for the study. the sample constituted approximately 15% of the secondary school population of 3267 students in all the secondary schools. in the first sampling stage, all 12 secondary schools were classified into four groups according to sex and socioeconomic level (categorized into male public, female public, male private and female private groups). then, using the appropriate allocation method of sampling, two schools were randomly selected from the first two groups and one school was selected from the private schools (a total of six schools were selected). in the second sampling stage, six classes were selected randomly from each of the selected public schools and three classes from each of the private schools to represent the different grades (one to three). thus, a total of 18 classes were included in the sample. each class was considered to be a cluster, and all students in the selected classes constituted the target group of the present study. sample size: it was determined with the prior knowledge that the lowest prevalence rate of severe depression among this age group is approximately 5%. allowing an error of 2.5% and level of significance (type i error) of 1 %, it was believed that a sample size of 490 was adequate to achieve a high degree of precision in estimating the true prevalence rate of severe depression in the target population. therefore, on computing for 99% confidence limits and with 2.5% error bound, it yielded the required sample size of 486. study tool: the beck depression inventory scale (bdi), arabic version,10 has been used for screening of depression among study population. it is a 21-item self-reported measure, has been one of the most widely used screening instruments for detecting symptoms of depression. it can be administered to assess normal adults, adolescents, and individuals with psychiatric disorders (13 years of age or older).11 it was designed to document a variety of depressive symptoms the individual experienced over the preceding week. responses to the 21 items are made on a 4-point scale, ranging from 0 to 3 (total scores can range from 0 to 63). a self-administrated questionnaire was utilized including information regarding sociodemographic characteristics, history of psychiatric illness, family history of psychiatric illness, chronic diseases, parental or relative loss, as well as history of debates. statistical analysis: data was analyzed using spss 11.0 for windows. bivariate data analysis was performed and the chi square test was used to test for the association between bdi scale and sex. the second step of analysis consisted of a logistic regression, where significant variables from the bivariate analysis, and other important categories (age and paternal marriage) were included in the model as independent variables and where the dependent variable was bdi scale <19 vs. ≥ 19. another multiple regression analysis was applied upon the most significant variables, with total bdi score as the dependent variable to calculate the coefficient of determination (r2). a correlation matrix for all variables of bdi scale was computed. bartlett’s test of sphericity was performed to test the hypothesis that all-off diagonal terms of the matrix are zero. kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy was done. the value of (kmo) should be greater than 0.5 if the sample is adequate. principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation has been performed to assess the factor structure of the scale on the total sample and by sex. results the study included 490 secondary school students (306 males “62.4%” and 184 females “37.6%). their age ranged from 16 to 20 with a mean of 17.3 ± 1.0 years. table 1 presents bdi score according to sex. sex differences were significant with female students having higher scores than males (x2= 18.3, p=0.001). the mean total score for the bdi (n=409) was 15.20± 11.14. according to the cut off scores, 160 students (32.7 %) scored as normal (0-9), 166 (33.9 %) as mild (10-18), 110 (22.4 %) as moderate (19-29), 36 (7.3 %) as severe (30-40), and 18 ( 3.7%) as very severe (> 40). table (1): distribution of the study population (n=490) according to their sex and beck depression inventory (bdi) score bdi score male (n=306) no. % female (n=184) no. % normal (0-9) 118 38.6 42 22.8 mild (10-18) 98 32.0 68 37.0 moderate (19-29) 56 18.3 54 29.3 severe (30-40) 20 6.5 16 8.7 very severe (>40) 14 4.6 4 2.2 range 5-59 0-43 mean±sd 14.19±11.81 16.88±9.73 x2=18.3, p=0.001 table 2 shows bdi individual item mean scores and sds for total sample and by sex. “self criticism” had the highest score in both of the total sample and female subgroup and had one of the highest scores among males. in the total sample, self criticism, agitation, and loss of energy had the highest scores. in the male subgroup, loss of energy, self criticism, punishment feeling and agitation had the highest score while in the female subgroup, self criticism, agitation, and crying had the highest scores. the lowest scores, in the total sample and in both of the male and female subgroups, were for loss of interest in sex, suicidal thoughts or wishes, and self dislike. female students had significantly higher scores than male students for the items sadness, punishment feelings, self criticism, crying, agitation, indecisiveness, loss of energy, changes in sleeping pattern, and concentration difficulty while male students had significantly higher scores than female students for the items loss of interest in sex, and loss of interest. according to the bdi factor analysis for the total sample, the first unrotated factor accounted for 28.9% of the variance, and the second accounted for 6.7% of additional variability. kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure for sampling adequacy was 0.88, a value that considered high and desirable. chi square value of bartlett’s test of sphericity was 2732.2, p<0.0001. when we considered loadings greater than 0.40 (when 2 loadings were similar, the item was considered to be part& both factors; when different, the highest loading was chosen), principal component analysis with varimax rotation suggested that the bdi factors that could be extracted were related to the following item: for factor 1, item 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, and for factor 2, items 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, and 16. based on the items related to factors 1 and 2, cronbach‘s alpha coefficients for the subscales were 0.78 and 0.43, respectively. factor 1 represents the cognitive-affective dimension, while factor 2 represents items more related to a somatic nonspecific dimension. two factors from the factor analysis for the female’ subgroup were extracted (unrotated factors accounted for 23.09 % and 8.97 % of the variance, respectively). principal component analysis with varimax rotation shoed that the factors were related to the following items: for factor 1, items 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, and 21; and for factor 2, items 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, 16, and 18 (cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the subscales were 0.82 and 0.31, respectively). also, two factors for the male’ subgroup were extracted (accounting for 33.24 % and 6.95% of the variance, respectively). principal component analysis with varimax rotation suggested that they were related to the following items: for factor 1, items 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21; and for factor 2, items 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, and 16 (cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the subscales were 0.75 and 0.59, respectively). among examined risk factors for depression, significant factors in bivariate analysis were: sex, birth order, number of brothers7, history of psychiatric illness, history of relative loss, and familial history of chronic diseases table 4. in multivariate analysis females were 1.5 times more likely to have depression than males. first birth order students and those in between birth order (between first and last) were less likely to have depression than last birth order students. students with history of psychiatric illness were 7.5 times more likely to have depression than those without history of psychiatric illness. families with history of chronic diseases were 2.4 times more likely to have students with depression as compared to those without this history. the prevalence of depression was significantly higher among students with a history of loss of relative than among those without history of relative loss. depressed students showed no significant differences from non-depressed students as regards number of brothers. the combined effect of the five most significant variables, i.e. sex, birth order, history of psychiatric illness, history of relative loss, and family history of chronic diseases, was examined by means of multiple regression analysis with bdi score as the dependent variable. they jointly contributed 36.6% of the variance in the total score. discussion many researchers believe that mood disorders in children and adolescents represent one of the most under diagnosed group of illness in psychiatry. this is due to several factors: (1) children and young adolescents are not always able to express how they feel, (2) the symptoms of mood disorders take on different forms in adolescents than in adults, (3) mood disorders are often accompanied by other psychiatric disorders which can mask depressive symptoms, and (4) many physicians tend to think of depression and bipolar disorder as illness of adulthood.12 a recently published longitudinal prospective study found that early-onset depression often persists, recurs, and continues in to adulthood, and indicates that depression in youth may also predict more severe illness in adult life.13 there have been several efforts to improve the early detection of depression and to develop programs to prevent and treat it as soon as possible.14 in the current study, the bdi have been utilized to detect the prevalence of depressive symptomatology and its expression in a no clinical adolescent student sample. although it is not designed for diagnostic purposes, its epidemiologic utility has been evaluated in several studies, which concluded that it is a reliable and valid instrument for detecting depressive disorders in non-clinical populations. several studies support the bdi’s usefulness in measuring and predicting depression in adolescent samples.15-16 the scale’s format is clear; it is simple to administer; and it is easily understood by this population.17 prevalence rates of actual depression are estimated to range from 15 to 25 percent.18 in our study which considered, up to our knowledge, the first study of this kind, in this area and according to the beck cut off scores, about one third of the sample has moderate to severe depression and about 11% has severe to very severe depression. comparable findings have been reported by others; the 1986 study of minnesota high school students revealed that 39 percent suffer from mild to severe depression and nine percent of high school students are severely depressed.19 the lifetime prevalence of major depression in adolescents and young adults (15—24 years of age) in the united states general population has been reported as 20.6% for females and 10.5% for males (kessler et al., 1998).20 cubis (1989) reported that around 20 per cent of young people suffer from depressed mood, with up to 43 per cent reporting feeling sad for at least two weeks in the past year.21 lewinsohn, rohde et al (1998) found that approximately 28% of adolescents will have experienced a major depressive episode by age 19 (35% of young women and 19% of young men).22 another epidemiological study has reported that up to 8.3% of adolescents in the us suffer from depression.5 an nimh-sponsored study of 9 to 17-year-olds have estimated that the prevalence of any depression is more than 6% in a 6-month-period, with 4.9% having major depression.23 also, epidemiological utility and characteristics of the beck depression inventory (bdi) were examined in a sample of 304 non-clinical adolescents in indian schools and revealed that 22.4% of school going girls and 12.8% of school going boys had depression of various grades.24 rutter, (1986a), suggest a variety of explanations for increasing prevalence of depression at adolescence age and that increasing level may be genetically determined and these genes triggered at late childhood or adolescence.25 in accordance with jimerson et al who indicated that single risk factors can rarely be conceived as resulting in depressive outcomes. instead, the biological, psychological, and social systems may be considered within a larger framework for explaining the etiology of depression.26 our findings proved that more than one etiological perspective are associated with depressive outcomes. the sex differences found in bdi scores, pointing to significantly higher scores for female subjects (1.5:1 ratio), are in line with data observed in other studies of adolescents as well as adults.11, 27 community studies showed that, for girls, there is a progressive rise in depressive symptoms from menarche, so that by the mid-teens girls exhibit at least twice the prevalence rate of males.28, 29 the finding that of female students, in contrast to of male students, had scores compatible with depression also agrees with reports of a higher prevalence of depression in women.30-31 also birmaher et al, reviewed the literatures published over the last decade on issues pertaining to early onset depression.5 these authors noted mdd is twice more common in females than in males during their adolescent years. one study reported even more dramatic gender differences for adolescent depression finding that girls were four times more likely to suffer from depression than boys (base rates were 13% and 4%, respectively).32 the cause of this striking rise in the incidence of depressive symptoms in adolescent females is as yet unknown, but hypotheses include the influence of female gonadal hormones, psychological changes that accompany puberty and changes in social roles. the interaction of genetics and environment are strongly implicated in the onset of mdd. 26 in our study it is found that students with history of psychiatric illness were 7.5 times more likely to have depression than those without history of psychiatric illness. kandel et al reported that adolescents with depression are also likely to have a family history of depression.33 there has been a tremendous body of literature that has demonstrated that mood disorders occur more commonly among the relatives of depressed persons than in the general population. in a review of longitudinal data it was estimated that, by the age of 20 years, a child with an affectively ill parent has a 40% chance of experiencing an episode of major depression.8 based on a study of pubertal twins, there is evidence of increased heritability for depression in adolescent girls.34 according to kaslow et al,6 family variables associated with depression are parental psychopathology, divorce, low ses, negative life circumstances including loss, abuse, or neglect, and low levels of social support. in our study, it was found that parental loss among adolescents less significant than the effect of relative (loved one) loss and this may be unique in this kind of cultures and may be due to the predominance of extended families and remarriage. wells et al,35 reported that loss of a parent or loved one is one of the important risk factor for developing depression among adolescents and this finding is in agreement with our finding. in agreement with another study, 19 high school students revealed that serious illness or injury of family member is one of the most common risk factor for developing depression among adolescents. it is reported that siblings play a role in the development of depression, as problematic sibling relationships have been associated with greater depression, and a positive sibling relationship may mediate depression.26 kingdom of saudi arabia (ksa) is on e of the unique countries to study the effect of sibling on depression as most of the families have many siblings so their effect should be handled. the 1986 study of minnesota high school students revealed that trouble with brother or sister is one of the most common risk factor for developing depression among adolescents.19 also, in ksa culture men may have more than one wife so it is important to study the role of remarriage in adolescents. it is found in our study that their effect is minimal and this may be explained on the basis of that most of the adolescents are sharing the social circumstances that lead to dissolve its stigmatizing effect and also and more important that it is well accepted form the religious and culture point of view. conclusively, since many different factors can lead to psychopathology for different individuals and the etiology of a given disorder is perhaps best understood by looking at the interaction or transaction between these multiple variables over time.7 there is general agreement that the clinical features of depression are more similar than different in adolescents and adults, with the exception of a higher frequency of irritable mood in the adolescent presentation. research suggests that women more frequently present with somatic symptoms of depression (i.e. fatigue, appetite and sleep disturbance, and body aches), which has been linked to the onset of major depression in early adolescence.36 negative body image, low self-esteem, and recent stressful events have been highly correlated with depression in samples of high school students.37, 38 compared with depressed boys, depressed girls more frequently exhibit problems with poor self-esteem, worthlessness, guilt feelings, and suicidal ideation.22, 39 low social support has also been correlated with depression in girls.22 in the current study, factor analysis shows different symptom pattern between sexes. in our study total sample, self criticism, agitation, and loss of energy had the highest scores. this finding is in agreement with beck views about depression who associates depression with “low self-esteem, high self-criticism, significant cognitive distortions, and a feeling of lack of control over negative events.5 our findings also are in agreement with bennett and others who stress the importance of negative self-attitude and somatic symptoms in a sample of 328 adolescents with depressive and (or) anxiety disorders.16 also, chartier and ranieri, (1984),40 reported that one-half to two-thirds of depressed adolescents, both inpatients and outpatients, complain of fatigue and lack of energy. similarly, weiner, (1980),41 reported that early adolescents are more apt to exhibit the following triad of symptoms: fatigue, hypochondria, and concentration difficulty. this is accepted form the cultural point of view due to the authoritarian effect of society with its burden on people in general and on adolescent in particular. this authoritarian effect takes different patterns such as religion, family and school (teachers). this also can explain the increase level of punishment feeling and somatizatoin level (loss of energy and agitation) among both sexes that allow less expression of feeling in appropriate way. the increase level of sadness and crying in female group than in male group could be explained by the fact that crying is more accepted among females than males as in males it means weakness of their personalities. this finding also reported in different studies.28 in contrast to others,42 our findings failed to prove an association between lower levels of paternal occupation and maternal education and occupation with elevated depression. our findings, in agreement with another study,19 revealed that change in parents’ financial status is one of the most common risk factor for developing depression among adolescents. conclusively, our results indicate a high rate of depression among high school students. also findings provided gender differences in the prevalence and presentation of depressive symptoms. the findings suggest that the experience of a stressful life events increase the risk of depression. assessment using screening is recommended. the increased risk for the onset of depression in adolescents reinforces the importance of early recognition and intervention. acknowledgments the authors would sincerely like to thank miss randa, psychologist at al-hada armed forces hospital, for her assistance in data collection. thanks are also due to the schoolteachers involved in the study and to dr. shugat barni, consultant of psychiatry, al-hada armed forces hospital, for revising the text. tables table (2): beck depression inventory mean and sd scores according to sex   total sample female students male students p-value   mean sd mean sd mean sd   1.sadness 2.pessimism 3.past failure 4.loss of pleasure 5.guilty feelings 6.punishment feelings 7.self-dislike 8.self-criticism 9.suicidal thoughts or wishes 10.crying 11.agitation 12.loss of interest 13.indecisiveness 14.worthlessness 15.loss of energy 16.changes in sleeping pattern 17.irritability 18.changes in appetite 19.concentration difficulty 20.tirednessor fatigue 21.loss of interest in sex 0.74 0.73 0.52 0.85 0.49 0.91 0.42 1.08 0.38 0.91 1.03 0.53 0.85 0.73 0.98 0.92 0.81 0.77 0.71 0.56 0.28 0.82 1.01 1.00 1.00 0.89 1.21 0.78 1.11 0.80 1.22 1.20 0.87 1.19 0.99 1.15 1.11 1.04 0.96 0.90 0.87 0.73 0.84 0.67 0.48 0.89 0.40 1.05 0.36 1.48 0.35 1.33 1.36 0.39 1.02 0.64 1.14 1.11 0.90 0.87 0.83 0.63 0.14 0.90 0.97 0.99 0.94 0.80 1.27 0.69 1.12 0.76 1.23 1.22 0.75 1.27 0.98 1.21 1.17 1.07 0.97 0.95 0.82 0.58 0.68 0.76 0.55 0.82 0.54 0.83 0.46 0.84 0.41 0.66 0.83 0.62 0.75 0.78 0.88 0.80 0.75 0.71 0.65 0.52 0.36 0.77 1.03 1.00 1.03 0.94 1.17 0.83 1.03 0.82 1.15 1.15 0.92 1.12 0.99 1.10 1.06 1.01 0.95 0.85 0.90 0.79 0.040 0.371 0.447 0.467 0.107 0.047 0.147 0.000 0.442 0.000 0.000 0.005 0.012 0.139 0.016 0.003 0.119 0.079 0.032 0.159 0.001 * p<0.05 between males and females table (3): bdi items factor loadings after varimax rotation for the total sample and according to sex   total sample female students male students   factor 1 factor 2 factor 1 factor 2 factor 1 factor 2 1.sadness 2.pessimism 3.past failure 4.loss of pleasure 5.guilty feelings 6.punishment feelings 7.self-dislike 8.self-criticism 9.suicidal thoughts or wishes 10.crying 11.agitation 12.loss of interest 13.indecisiveness 14.worthlessness 15.loss of energy 16.changes in sleeping pattern 17.irritability 18.changes in appetite 19.concentration difficulty 20.tirednessor fatigue 21.loss of interest in sex 0.484 0.402 0.492 0.450 0.563 0.351 0.531 0.418 0.561 0.507 0.424 0.354 0.492 0.517 0.392 0.395 0.523 0.594 0.393 0.491 0.609 0.465 0.200 0.293 0.488 -0.037 0.397 -0.029 0.611 0.217 0.607 0.607 0.225 0.236 -0.022 0.365 0.535 0.194 0.379 0.336 0.115 -0.198 0.433 0.281 0.534 0.580 0.512 0.380 0.536 0.495 0.591 0.420 0.312 0.316 0.573 0.466 0.331 0.437 0.481 0.635 0.320 0.534 0.628 0.511 0.171 0.274 0.462 -0.034 0.375 -0.046 0.568 0.205 0.632 0.644 0.245 0.214 -0.017 0.392 0.578 0.156 0.435 0.310 0.098 -0.158 0.540 0.556 0.459 0.350 0.621 0.310 0.547 0.388 0.546 0.521 0.470 0.388 0.482 0.724 0.426 0.515 0.535 0.535 0.446 0.412 0.595 0.376 0.239 0.315 0.497 -0.039 0.411 -0.012 0.626 0.221 0.584 0.563 0.208 0.254 -0.025 0.335 0.513 0.223 0.331 0.362 0.135 -0.223 only loadings above 0.40 were considered to contribute significantly to a factor table (4): risk factors for depression according to beck depression inventory (bdi): bivariate analysis characteristic   bdi crude or   95% ci   <19 (n=326) ≥ 19 (n= 164) sex male ® female 216 110 70.6 29.4 90 74 59.8 40.2 1.0 1.62 1.10-2.37* age in years 16-18 ® 19-20 296 30 67.6 57.7 142 22 32.4 42.3 1.0 1.53 0.85-2.75 birth order last ® first in between 8 65 253 33.3 69.6 67.8 16 28 120 66.7 30.1 32.2 1.0 0.22 0.24 0.07-0.61* 0.09-0.61* number of brothers < 5 ® 5-10 >10 58 232 36 55.8 72.0 56.3 46 90 28 44.2 28.0 43.7 1.0 0.99 9.98 0.30-0.79* 0.50-1.93 paternal occupation military ® civilian professional civilian non professional retired 66 54 70 136 63.5 57.4 68.6 71.6 38 40 32 54 36.5 42.6 31.4 28.4 1.0 1.29 0.79 0.69 0.70-2.37 0.43-1.47 0.40-1.18 maternal occupation housewife ® professional non professional 288 28 10 66.4 66.7 71.4 146 14 4 33.6 33.3 28.6 1.0 0.99 0.79 0.48-2.02 0.20-2.79 paternal education illiterate ® read and write primary school secondary high education 74 30 40 92 90 74.0 55.6 64.5 63.0 70.3 26 24 22 54 38 26.0 44.4 35.5 37.0 29.7 1.0 2.28 1.57 1.67 1.20 1.07-4.86 0.75-3.29 0.92-3.04 0.64-2.25 maternal education illiterate ® read and write primary school secondary high education 120 62 48 68 28 68.2 66.0 64.9 68.0 60.4 56 32 26 32 18 31.8 34.0 35.1 32.0 39.1 1.0 1.11 1.16 1.01 1.38 0.63-1.95 0.63-2.14 0.58-1.76 0.67-2.84 paternal-maternal relationship non divorced ® divorced 298 28 66.5 66.7 150 14 33.5 33.3 1.0 0.99 0.51-1.94 paternal marriage not married ® married 250 76 68.3 61.3 116 48 31.7 38.7 1.0 1.36 0.89-2.08 number of marriages one ® two more than two 52 14 10 65.4 50.0 62.5 28 14 6 34.6 50.0 37.5 1.0 1.86 1.11 0.71-4.86 0.32-3.81 parental loss no ® yes 304 22 67.3 57.9 148 16 32.7 42.1 1.0 1.49 0.76-2.93 age at parental loss ≤ 10 years ® > 10 years 13 9 68.4 47.4 6 10 31.6 52.6 1.0 2.41 0.64-9.03 relative loss no ® yes 298 28 68.0 53.8 140 24 32.0 46.2 1.0 1.82 1.02-3.26* psychiatric illness no ® yes 322 4 68.5 20.0 148 16 31.5 80.0 1.0 8.70 2.86-26.48* family history of psychiatric illness no ® yes 298 28 66.2 70.0 152 12 33.8 30.0 1.0 0.84 0.42-1.70 history of family chronic diseases no ® yes 308 18 68.8 42.9 140 24 31.3 57.1 1.0 2.93 1.54-5.58* debates no ® yes 278 48 68.1 58.5 130 34 31.9 41.5 1.0 1.52   0.93-2.46 ® reference category table (5): results of the multiple logistic regression analysis * of factors affecting beck depression inventory scale (bdi) independent variables b standard error (b) p value of (b) or 95%ci sex male® female 0.433 0.211 0.041 1.00 1.54 1.02-2.33 birth order last ® first in between -1.087 -1.095 0.516 0.475 0.036 0.021 1.00 0.34 0.33 0.12-0.93 0.13-0.85 history of psychiatric illness no ® yes 2.009 0.589 0.001 1.00 7.46 2.35-23.65 family history of chronic diseases no ® yes 0.0.856 0.347 0.014 1.00 2.35 1.194.65 relative loss no ® yes 0.620 0.310 0.045 1.00 1.80 1.593.99 *logistic regression model includes terms of age, sex, birth order, number of brothers, paternal marriage, history of psychiatric illness, family history of chronic diseases, and history of relative loss. multiple r=0.605, r2 =0.366, adjusted r2= 0.290, se= 7.65, f=4.77, p=0.004 ® = reference category or: odds ratio ci: confidence intervals references 1. murphy jm, monson rr, olivier dc, et al. affective disorders and mortality: a general population study. arch gen psychiatry 1987; 44:473-480. 2. murray cjl, lopez ad. the global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries and risk factors in 1990, and projected to 2020. cambridge ma: harvard university press, 1996. 3. kovaks m. affective disorders in 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adolescent depression: concepts, treatments, prevention. in p. karoly & j. j. steffen (eds.), adolescent behavior disorders: foundations and contemporary concerns. advances in child behavioral analysis and therapy, 3. lexington, ma: lexington books, 1984; 153-193. 41. weiner ib. psychopathology in adolescence. in j. adelson (ed.), handbook of adolescent psychology. new york: john wiley & sons. 1980; 447-471. 42. friedrich w, reams r, jacobs j. depression and suicidal ideation in early adolescents. journal of youth and adolescence. 1982 11, 403-407. is there a decline in verbal working memory over age? a study with the new standard computerized reading span test maurits van den noort(1), marco haverkort (2,3), peggy bosch (4,5), and kenneth hugdahl (1,5) (1) department of biological and medical psychology, university of bergen, norway (2) department of linguistics, radboud university nijmegen, the netherlands (3) department of linguistics, boston university, the united states (4) department of clinical medicine, section for psychiatry, university of bergen, norway (5) division of psychiatry, haukeland university hospital, bergen, norway corresponding author: maurits van den noort, department of biological and medical psychology, university of bergen, jonas lies vei 91, n-5009 bergen, norway. tel ++47-555-86205; fax ++4755589872; e-mail: maurits.noort@psybp.uib.no biographical statement maurits van den noort, m.a. is a psychologist, who is currently finishing his ph.d. project at the university of bergen, norway. his research interests are in foreign language acquisition, aging, and consciousness. marco haverkort, ph.d. is professor in linguistics at boston university, usa. moreover, he works as a researcher at the radboud university nijmegen, the netherlands. his research interests are in second language research and aging. peggy bosch, m.a. is a psychologist at the university of bergen, norway. her research interests are in schizophrenia, second language research, and consciousness. kenneth hugdahl, ph.d. is professor of biological psychology at the university of bergen, norway. his research interests are in hemispheric asymmetry and speech perception. is there a decline in verbal working memory over age? a study with the new standard computerized reading span test abstract in this study, the new standard computerized version of the reading span test was used to investigate the development of verbal working memory over age. a significant higher reading span and faster reaction times were expected for the young adults compared to the old adults, based on the processing resource theory (just & carpenter, 1992) and the theory of cognitive aging (salthouse, 1994, 1996), and this hypothesis was confirmed. the new methodology made it possible to test whether there was an age-related increase in intrusion errors, which could be expected based on the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (hasher & zacks, 1988). the results showed that older adults made more intrusion errors than young adults thereby confirming the inhibition theory. finally, the analysis of the memory-pattern showed a clear recency-effect for the young-, but not for the old adults. interestingly, this has never been reported in literature before. although more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn, this decline in recency-effect shows that there are larger age-related effects in short term memory span than was expected on the basis of aging theories so far. keywords: reading span test, methodology, working memory, aging introduction numerous studies on age-related decline have focused on cognitive functions. some studies have been driven by the idea that working memory skill is critical in explaining the decline in cognitive performance of older people in comparison with young adults (de beni & palladino, 2004). working memory has been found to require the simultaneous storage and processing of information. it can be divided into the following three subcomponents: 1) the“central executive”, which is assumed to be an attentional-controlling system, is important in skills such as chess playing and is particularly susceptible to the effects of alzheimer’s disease; and two slave systems, namely 2) the “visuospatial sketch pad”, which manipulates visual images and 3) the “phonological loop”, which stores and rehearses speech-based information (baddeley & hitch, 1974; baddeley, 1986, 2000). several span measures were designed to measure working memory capacity. these working memory span tasks are used by researchers in numerous areas of psychology (miyake & shah, 1999). one important contribution was the development of the reading span task by daneman & carpenter (1980). this working memory span task draws simultaneously on storage and computational aspects of working memory. in this task, participants are asked to read series of sentences aloud. meanwhile, they must remember the final word of each sentence in a particular series. sentences are presented on cards; there is one sentence on each card. at the end of a series, a blank card appears. this blank card is the participant’s cue for recall of all sentence-final words of the series in the right order. the number of sentences in a series is gradually increased. the reading span is the maximum number of sentences of which the final words are correctly recalled (daneman & carpenter, 1980). however, one should be careful with the results based on the original reading span task (daneman & carpenter, 1980) and/or versions based on it, since they are often far from perfect (desmette, hupet, schelstraete, & van der linden, 1995). there are problems with the stimulus material, the way of presentation, the determination of the reading span, and the translations of the rst. in the past, a lot of different versions in different languages were developed. some of them were truly improvements of the original daneman and carpenter (1980) version (see also daneman & hannon, 2001; hannon & daneman, 2001). however, all versions changed different things of the original rst, which made direct comparisons between different research groups and different languages almost impossible. recently, a new standard computerized version of the reading span test was developed in different languages (van den noort, bosch, hugdahl, 2005a, in press). the new version meets stricter methodological criteria than the previous versions. there is controlled for the number of syllables of the sentences. in addition, there is controlled for the number of syllables-, the number of letters-, and frequency of the sentence-final words. finally, there is controlled for the number of verbs over the series and semantic relations. it is important to control for this over the five series to further improve the reliability of the test, and to make the five different series better comparable. moreover, in controlling the above mentioned points over three languages; the test was created in such a way that results can be compared between the languages and between research groups. for a more detailed description see van den noort, bosch, haverkort, and hugdahl (submitted). what do we know about the development of short-termand working memory over age? previous neuropsychological research has consistently found that the holding function of short-term memory (its storage aspect) does not decline over age (dobbs & rule, 1989). it seems that aging has little effect on the relatively passive phonological loop (craik, morris, & gick, 1990). age changes in short-term memory must be related to the workings of the control system (the central executive). this is exactly what researchers have found. working memory capacity, which involves the temporal storage and processing of information, is strongly reduced by increasing age (e.g., hultsch & dixon, 1990; kirasic, allen, dobson, & binder, 1996; park et al., 1996; parkin & java, 2000). as a result, age differences in memory span measures are expected by most still existing theories of cognitive aging (e.g., hasher & zacks, 1988; just & carpenter, 1992; mayr & kliegl, 1993; salthouse, 1994, 1996). many aging theories also predict larger age-related effects for working memory span than for short-term memory span. for instance: 1) processing resource theories (e.g., belleville, rouleau, & caza, 1998; craik et al., 1990; dobbs & rule, 1989; just & carpenter, 1992) state that aging depletes the cognitive resources available for processing. the concomitant expectation is that working memory tasks, with their demands on both processing and storage, will yield larger age effects than short-term memory tasks, which require mere storage (bopp & verhaeghen, 2005). 2) the speed theory of cognitive aging (salthouse, 1994, 1996; tisserand, 2003). this theory predicts that age-related slowing of computational processes will cause a decrease in short-term memory span, because items are not encoded sufficient enough. short-term memory spans are also called “simple” working memory tasks since they only tap the storage component of working memory, but not the processing aspect. secondly, the theory of cognitive aging also predicts a decrease on “complex” working memory tasks (like the reading span test) that tap both the storage and processing component of working memory, because items that are stored away in a temporary visual or verbal buffer might have decayed from that buffer by the time they are needed for subsequent processing. statistically controlling for speed has indeed been found to reduce the magnitude of age-related differences in short-term memory and working memory performance (verhaeghen & salthouse, 1997). salthouse (1992), for instance, found a substantial decrease in age-related variance on working memory performance when the variance attributed to cognitive slowing is removed, suggesting that cognitive slowing underlies much of the age-related decline in working memory performance. the speed theory would predict age differences in mere storage tasks (where the limited-time mechanism operates), and larger age differences still in tasks requiring concurrent processing and storage (governed by both the limited-time and simultaneity mechanism). the existence of a simultaneity mechanism would furthermore lead to the prediction that tasks requiring both storage and processing (like in the reading span test) yield larger age differences than simple storage spans (bopp & verhaeghen, 2005). 3) theories focusing on coordinative task requirements (e.g., mayr & kliegl, 1993), predict larger age differences in working memory span than in short-term memory span, because working memory tasks require the coordination of concurrent storage and processing demands, which is a demand absent in short-term memory tasks. coordination theory furthermore predicts that span tasks can be separated into distinct categories, namely, tasks that do and do not require coordination (bopp & verhaeghen, 2005). 4) the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (hasher & zacks, 1988) states that an age-related breakdown in inhibitory control leads to an increase in the number of simultaneously active messages; thereby effectively shrinking the size of short-term memory or working memory. with regard to span measures, hasher and colleagues have suggested that working memory tasks require successful management of previous information; that is, in order to be successful on a span task, it is necessary to effectively inhibit stimuli from previous sets (lustig, may, & hasher, 2001). therefore, the inhibition theory would predict that span tasks with repeated information should yield larger age differences. consequently, forward digit span and letter span should be more age sensitive than word span. in addition, tasks that use similar stimuli for storage and processing (i.e., reading span, listening span, sentence span, and computation span tasks) would be expected to yield larger age differences than tasks that use different stimuli for storage and processing (i.e., operation span tasks) (bopp & verhaeghen, 2005). so far, little is known about the development of the reading span in aging. is there a general decrease in the reading span over age (van den noort, bosch, & hugdahl, 2005b)? previous research on aging, with non-standard versions of the reading span task, has shown that performances on the test are significantly different over age (meguro et al., 2000). moreover, schelstraete and hupet (2002) tested the hypothesis of the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (hasher & zacks, 1988); that the ability to inhibit already processed and actually irrelevant information influences performance in the reading span task. the results supported the idea that the working memory capacity undoubtedly involves some inhibitory control. however, because the participants’ vulnerability to intruding responses is not clearly affected by age, the findings also suggest that some part of the age effects upon the working memory span has to be explained by another factor than a growing inefficiency in inhibitory control. in this study, the new standard computerized version of the reading span test (van den noort et al., submitted) was used to investigate the development of verbal working memory over age. the standard reading span task gives both working memoryand reaction time results and meets stricter methodological criteria than previous versions of the test (friedman & miyake, 2004). four different experimental groups: a student group, a young adult-, a middle-aged-, and an old-aged group participated in the study. a significant higher reading span and faster reaction times were expected for the young adults compared to the old adults, based on the processing resource theory (just & carpenter, 1992) and the theory of cognitive aging (salthouse, 1994, 1996). it was expected that both a decrease in working memory and a general slowing down play a role in aging. the new methodology of the reading span test improved the ability to test whether there was an age-related increase in intrusion errors, which could be expected based on the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (hasher & zacks, 1988). so far, previous research with other tasks than the reading span task has shown an age-related increase in intrusion errors. intrusions are considered as an indirect index of poor updating ability and are supposed to be due to inefficient suppression mechanisms (chiappe, hasher, & siegel, 2000; de beni & palladino, 2004; de beni, palladino, pazzaglia, & cornoldi, 1998). finally, the new methodology created the ability to look at possible recency effects. in line with previous neuropsychological research (craik et al., 1990; dobbs & rule, 1989) recency effects were expected for both the youngand the old participants. method participants sixty participants, divided over four experimental groups, entered the study. all participants were native speakers of dutch and had the same educational level (academic). the first group consisted of 15 university students. there were seven men and eight women and their mean age was 19.7 years (sd = .8). the second group consisted of 15 young adults and their mean age was 25.6 years (sd = 3.4). there were six men and nine women in this group. moreover, 15 middle-aged adults (eight men/seven women) participated in the study and their mean age was 50.7 years (sd = 7.5). finally, 15 old-aged adults participated in the study and their mean age was 74.6 years (sd = 6.1). there were six men and nine women in this group. moreover, only those participants that had no visualand/or hearing problems were selected. finally, none of the 60 participants had serious health problems and were on medication at the time of testing. this is important since medication could induce drowsiness or influence cognitive functioning (de beni & palladino, 2004). materials the standard computerized version of the reading span test was used (van den noort et al., submitted). the reading span test was programmed in e-prime (schneider, eschman, & zuccolotto, 2002) and consists of 100 sentences (five sets of 20). the sentences met stricter methodological criteria than previous versions of the reading span test: 1) the length of the sentences was better controlled for, ranging from 20 to 22 syllables. moreover, the number of syllables, the number of letters, and the frequency of the sentence-final words were controlled for, over the five series (see table 1). previous studies showed that it is easier to remember shorter words than longer words. moreover, it is easier to remember frequent words compared to less frequent words (baddeley, 1999). therefore, it is important to control for this over the five series to further improve the reliability of the test, and to make the five different series better comparable. to determine the frequency of the sentence-final words, the celex lexical database (baayen, piepenbrock, & van rijn, 1993) was used. in addition, the number of verbs over the series was controlled for as a measure of syntactic complexity (on average: 2.3 verbs). moreover, within the sets, the sentences and sentence-final words were controlled for semantic relations as much as possible. three native speakers of dutch independently rated all sentences and sentence-final words for their semantic relations. changes in sentence order were made to control semantic relations within the sets and over the five series of the new reading span test as much as possible. this is necessary since previous research showed that it is easier to remember words that have close semantic relations compared to words that have less close semantic relations (baddeley, 1999). finally, in the new reading span test, the reading span score is determined by the total number of remembered words during the whole test with a maximum score of 100 (van den noort et al., submitted). table 1 overview of the mean number of syllables of the sentences, mean number of syllables-, the mean number of letters-, and the mean frequency of the sentences final words per series of the new reading span test procedure all participants were tested individually. after receiving a verbal general instruction about the experiment, a both verbaland written detailed instruction was given for the computerized reading span test. all participants were seated behind a computer screen. the test started with an instruction on the screen. the instruction emphasized the importance of reading the sentences aloud as fast as possible while reading for content. this time restriction is important, because participants can otherwise read the sentences slower to improve their recall. in that case the reading span task might no longer be a strict working memory test (friedman & miyake, 2004; saito & miyake, 2003). participants were able to ask questions if things were not completely clear after the instruction. this was in particular important for the older participants who felt more secure when they were given this opportunity. then, two exercise trials were conducted to make the participants more familiar with the task. the first exercise trial was an example of a set of two sentences and the second exercise trial was an example of a set of three sentences. the first exercise trial started with a complete sentence that was presented in the middle of the screen. when participants had finished reading the first sentence aloud, the participants pressed the space bar and the sentence disappeared. then, a second sentence appeared automatically in the middle of the screen. when participants had finished reading this second sentence aloud, they pressed the space bar. the second sentence disappeared and the word ‘recall’ appeared immediately in the middle of the screen. at that moment, participants had to recall the last word of each sentence in the set. in this example, they could recall two sentence-final words. the order of recall was during the whole reading span test free. this is important since free recall gives important information of possible primacyand recency effects (baddeley, 1999). after the exercise trials, again participants had the opportunity to ask questions. when all things were clear to the participants, the 100 experimental sentences were presented. the sentences were presented in different set sizes (two, three, four, five or six sentences), in random order, and were read aloud. the participants completed all sentences of the test. the remembered sentence-final words and the reaction time of all sentences were collected. after finishing the reading span test, participants received feedback about the aim of the experiment. the duration of the experiment was 20 minutes. results the reading span scores were analyzed in an age group (students, young adults, middle-aged-, and old-aged) between-subjects manova. as table 1 shows, a significant main effect for age was found, f(3, 56) = 6.66, p < .002. independent t-tests were conducted with a bonferoni (huberty & morris, 1989) adjustment of the alpha level (.05) to examine if the mean reading span score of the younger groups would differ from the mean reading span score of the older groups. significant differences were found for the reading span score between the student group and the middle-aged adult group (t(1, 14) = 2.22, p < .05) and between the student group and the old-aged group (t(1, 14) = 3.17, p < .01). the student group performed better on the reading span test than the middle-agedand the old-aged group. moreover, a significant difference in reading span score was found for the old-aged group compared to the middle-aged group (t(1, 14) = -2.41, p < .04) and between the old-aged group and the young adult group (t(1, 14) = -3.37, p < .01). the old-aged group performed worse on the reading span test than the middle-agedand the young adult group. in addition, the reaction time scores were analyzed in an age group (students, young adults, middle-aged-, and old-aged) between-subjects manova. as table 2 shows, a significant main effect for age was found, f(3, 56) = 42.37, p < .001. to examine if the younger groups had faster reaction times than the older groups, independent t-tests with a bonferoni (huberty & morris, 1989) adjustment of the alpha level (.05) were conducted. in all independent t-tests, the reaction times below and above two standard deviations from the mean were removed. the rationale behind this decision was that, if a participant read a sentence extremely fast or extremely slow in comparison with other sentences, one cannot be sure that this sentence was read in a normal way. significant differences were found in the reaction times on the reading span task between the student group and the middle-aged group (t(1, 14) = -4.92, p < .001) and between the student group and the old-aged group (t(1, 14) = -10.24, p < .001). the students were much faster than the middle-agedand the old-aged participants. moreover, more individual variance was found in the middle-agedand the old-aged group compared to the students. in addition, the old-aged adults were significantly slower than the middle-aged adults (t(1, 14) = 2.75, p < .02) and the young adults (t(1, 14) = 10.22, p < .001) on the reading span test. interestingly, over the whole reading span test, a difference in memory pattern was found for the younger groups compared to the older groups. as figure 1 shows, a significant difference between the younger groups and the older groups was found for the sentence final words, which were in the fourth position (t(1, 14) = -3.11, p < .008), the fifth position (t(1, 9) = -6.46, p < .001), and in the sixth position of the set (t(1, 4) = -8.20, p < .001). in other words; a clear recency effect could be found for the younger groups, but not for the older groups (baddeley, 1999). figure 1. percentage remembered words of the younger groups compared to the older groups divided over the six positions in the set. in addition, an analysis of intrusion errors was carried out. as can be seen in table 3, the results showed that the old-aged adults made significantly more intrusions than the students (t(1, 14) = 2.69, p < .02). this result is in line with previous findings that demonstrated an age-related increase in intrusion errors. no other significant differences in number of intrusions between the students, the young adults, the middle-aged adults, and the old-aged adults were found. in this study, the speed-accuracy score on the reading span test was analyzed. it is possible that on the one hand, young participants are more focused on speed of processing and on the other hand, older participants are more focused on the accuracy of processing. by using a speed-accuracy rate, it is possible to compare the results of the youngand the old group by taking this into account. significant differences between the student group and the middle-aged adult group (t(1, 14) = -5.21, p < .001) and between the student group and the old-aged group (t(1, 14) = -8.27, p < .001) were found, indicating that it is not only the speed of processing that is affected by age, but also the accuracy of processing. moreover, significant differences between the old-aged group and the middle-aged group (t(1, 14) = 3.19, p < .008) and between the old-aged group and the young adult group (t(1, 14) = 8.63, p < .001) were found. discussion in this study, the new standard computerized version of the reading span test (van den noort et al., submitted) was used to investigate the development of verbal working memory over age. a comparison between a student group, a young adult-, a middle-aged-, and an old-aged group was made. a significant higher reading span and faster reaction times for the young adults compared to the old adults were expected, based on the processing resource theory (just & carpenter, 1992) and the theory of cognitive aging (salthouse, 1994, 1996). the results showed a higher reading span score and faster reaction times for the younger adults compared to the older participants, suggesting that both a decrease in verbal working memory and a general slowing down play an important role in aging. however, it is important to note that based on these reading span test results it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions how much of this general slowing down in aging is related to executive functions, independent of memory. with respect to this more research needs to be done. in this study, the speed-accuracy score on the reading span test was analyzed. it is possible that on the one hand, young participants are more focused on speed of processing and on the other hand, older participants are more focused on the accuracy of processing. by using a speed-accuracy rate, it is possible to compare the results of the youngand the old group by taking this into account. still, significant differences between the student group and the middle-aged adult group and between the student group and the old-aged group were found. moreover, significant differences between the old-aged group and the middle-aged group and between the old-aged group and the young adult group were found, indicating that it is not only the speed of processing that is affected by age, but also the accuracy of processing. moreover, the new methodology of the reading span test enabled the possibility to test whether there was an age-related increase in intrusion errors, which could be expected based on the inhibition theory of cognitive aging (hasher & zacks, 1988). the results showed that the student group indeed made significantly fewer intrusions compared to the old-aged group. finally, in line with previous neuropsychological research (craik et al., 1990; dobbs & rule, 1989); recency effects were expected for both the youngand the old participants. the analysis of the memory-pattern, however, showed a clear recency-effect only for the younger-, but not for the older groups. interestingly, this has never been reported in literature before. it seems that aging has more effect on the relatively passive phonological loop that stores and rehearses speech-based information (baddeley & hitch, 1974; baddeley, 1986, 2000), than was previously thought. although more research is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn, this decline in recency-effect shows that there are larger age-related effects in short term memory span than was expected on the basis of aging theories so far. however, there is a restriction within the present study. it would have been better to have larger sample sizes. more data with the computerized reading span test is therefore needed (de beni & palladino, 2004; waters & caplan, 2003). this could give us more reliable data on the development of the reading span and reaction times over the whole age spectrum. in future research, it would be interesting to test if the standard computerized reading span test could be used for clinical purposes. just and carpenter’s work has been extremely successful in explaining aphasic data (macdonald & christiansen, 2002), but could the new reading span test also be used for other clinical areas (van den noort et al., 2005b)? it is crucial to note that in contrast with the original reading span task (daneman & carpenter, 1980), the new standard computerized reading span test gives both reaction timeand memory results. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the max planck institute for psycholinguistics in nijmegen, the netherlands for allowing the use of the celex lexical database. in addition, we would like to thank the reviewer for the helpful comments. references baayen, r. h., piepenbrock, r., & van rijn, h. 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(2003). the reliability and stability of verbal working memory measures. behavior research methods, instruments, and computers, 35, 550-564. running head: self standards, humor & well-being europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 149-173 www.ejop.org the impact of humor in north american versus middle east cultures nicholas a. kuiper university of western ontario shahe s. kazarian american university of beirut jessica sine university of western ontario margaret bassil american university of beirut abstract north american (canadian) and middle east (lebanese) participants rated their reactions to four different humorous comments (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive), presented by others in brief scenarios. consistent with predictions generated from a humor styles model originally formulated in a north american context, all participants responded most negatively to aggressive humorous comments by indicating the saddest mood, the highest ratings of rejection, and the least desire to continue interacting with the person making the comments. only the north american participants showed a distinctive positive reaction to the self-enhancing humorous comments by displaying the happiest mood, the least rejection, and the greatest desire to continue with the interaction. in contrast, the middle east lebanese participants did not differentiate in their responses between self-enhancing, affiliative and self-defeating humorous comments. these findings were considered in light of cultural distinctions in collectivistic versus individualistic self-construals. here, it was suggested that the collectivistic self-construals that characterize lebanese middle east participants may have blurred the self versus other distinctions in the humor styles model, thus leading to significantly less humor differentiation in a lebanese middle east context. the implications of these findings for further cross-cultural work on humor and its impact in social interactions was then considered. keywords: humor, cross-cultural, lebanese, self-construals, social interactions, crosscultural, canadian http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 150 considerable research has now documented the existence of several different humor styles. for example, one humor model proposed by martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003) has suggested that certain humor styles may be quite adaptive for the indiv idual, whereas other styles may be more maladaptive. in this approach, the two adaptive styles are affiliative and self-enhancing humor; whereas the two maladaptive styles are aggressive and self-defeating humor. affiliative humor involves funny, non-hostile jokes, and spontaneous witty banter to amuse others in a respectful way. i t is aimed at others and used in an adaptive manner to facilitate relationships and reduce interpersonal conflict. aggressive humor, on the other hand, is intended to put others down by using sarcasm, teasing and ridicule. as such, the use of this maladaptive style may hurt or alienate others. in contrast, self-enhancing humor is often used as an adaptive coping mechanism, allowing the indiv idual to adopt a humorous outlook on life and maintain a realistic perspective in stressful situations. finally, self-defeating maladaptive humor involves selfdisparagement and allowing oneself to be the „butt‟ of the joke, in order to gain the approval of others. the four humor styles in the martin et al. (2003) humor model are assessed v ia the humor styles questionnaire (hsq). a number of studies now provide evidence for the existence of these four styles across quite diverse cultures, including north american (kuiper, grimshaw, leite & kirsh, 2004: martin et al., 2003), western european (saraglou & scariot, 2002; vernon, martin, schermer & mackie, 2008), eastern (chen & martin, 2007), and middle east societies (kalliny, cruthirds & minor, 2006; kazarian & martin, 2004; 2006; taher, kazarian & martin, 2008). in addition, these research studies has generally supported the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles, as higher levels of adaptive humor (either affiliative or self-enhancing) are usually associated with greater psychological well-being; whereas higher levels of maladaptive (e.g., self-defeating) humor are typically associated with increased depression and lower self-esteem. moreover, these associations with well-being have also shown some degree of cross-cultural consistency, with the same general patterns often emerging in north american, eastern and middle east cultures. much less is known, however, about how the use of these humor styles may impact on another person in a typical social interaction. this issue was explored in the present set of studies by focusing on the responses made by indiv iduals that were the recipients of humorous comments pertaining to each of the four humor styles. in this research, we were interested in determining the extent to which each type of humorous comment (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating) might have either a positive or negative impact on the recipient‟s overall mood cross-cultural humor impact 151 (happy-sad). we were also interested in determining whether the four types of humorous comments might have a differential effect on how much recipients felt accepted or rejected by the person making the comments; and the extent to which they would then want to continue interacting with that person. in addition to these perceptions that pertain more directly to social interactions, we also assessed the degree to which the various types of humorous comments might have a much broader impact on recipients by altering their cognitive appraisals of a stressful event they were dealing with. we examined cognitive appraisals, as prior research has shown that increased coping humor results in much greater flexibility when reassessing one‟s own stressful situations (abel, 2002; kuiper, martin & olinger, 1993; kuiper, mckenzie & belanger, 1995). as such, we were interested in determining whether similar re-appraisal effects might emerge after an indiv idual is exposed to various types of humorous comments made by others. since relatively little cross-cultural research has investigated humor style effects from the perspective of the recipient, our first study offered an initial examination of this issue by using a canadian north american sample. the remaining two studies then tested the extent to which the findings obtained in the first study also emerged in a lebanese society. this middle east culture was selected, as it is quite distinct from the indiv idualistic north american culture that generated the original humor styles model. this cross-cultural issue is important to examine, as recent work by taher et al. (2008) has found that the fit of the humor styles model to a middle east collectiv istic culture (lebanese) was less well-defined than the fit typically found for indiv idualistic cultures (e.g., north american, western european). although all four humor styles were still ev ident in the taher et al., lebanese sample, these styles were less distinct from one another than usual differences noted in north american samples (see also kazarian & martin, 2004; 2006 for similar findings in further lebanese samples). furthermore, these investigators also found that the associations between the four humor styles and various indices of psychological well-being were less pronounced in the lebanese samples, when compared to the same associations in more indiv idualistic cultures. as such, taher et al. (2008) have suggested that these findings are consistent with the proposal that there may be less differentiation among the four humor styles in collectiv istic cultures, as these cultures do not display the same indiv idualistic self-orientation underlying the original development of the humor styles model. these findings further suggest that the differential effects of the various humor styles on others may be less pronounced in collective cultures. this issue was examined in studies 2 and 3, once we complete d our exploration of the potential impact of humor styles in an indiv idualistic north american canadian sample. europe’s journal of psychology 152 study 1: the impact of humorous comments in a north american canadian culture in order to assess the responses to humorous comments made by others, participants were presented with two brief scenarios, each describing a moderately challenging situation faced by the participant. one scenario was academic, in which the participant was described as having done relatively poorly on an examination, and then going to meet with the teaching assistant (ta) to discuss the grade received. during this discussion, the ta responds with a humorous comment (either affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive or self-defeating). participants then rated how much this humorous comment impacted on their own mood (happy-sad), how much it made them feel accepted or rejected by the person making the humorous comment, and how much it made them want to continue interacting with this person. at a broader level, participants also indicated the degree to which the humorous comment made them feel more positive or negative about their own challenging situation (i.e., their low grade). in turn, the second scenario involved meeting with a casual friend to discuss the participant‟s recent breakup with a relatively long-term romantic partner. the causal friend then responds with a humorous comment (again pertaining to one of the four humor styles), followed by the same participant ratings as described above. the humor styles model (martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007) was used to generate predictions for the expected pattern of findings. for the maladaptive humor styles, we hypothesized that the aggressive humor style comments would have the most negative impact on the recipient, resulting in the saddest mood, the highest feelings of rejection, and the lowest desire to continue the interaction. these predictions stem from the deliberately hurtful nature of aggressive humor that is directed towards the recipient (martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007). these characteristics of maladaptive humor would make the recipient want to withdraw from the situation, both emotionally and physically. at a broader level, these detrimental effects could then lead to an enhanced negative cognitive appraisal of the recipient‟s stressful event (i.e., low grades, relationship breakup). in contrast to the above pattern for aggressive humor, we expected both of the adaptive humor comments to produce a significantly happier mood in the recipient, along with increased feelings of acceptance, and a greater desire to continue interacting. for affiliative humor, this pattern would reflect the basic facilitative nature of this humor style, which functions primarily to enhance social relationships (martin, 2007). for the self-enhancing humorous comments, we expected a positive cross-cultural humor impact 153 impact because of the moderately stressful events involved in our two scenarios. if recipients v iew the humorous self-enhancing comments by another person as an illustrative model of how to effectively cope with their own challenging events (low grade/relationship breakup), then recipients may experience much more positive mood and feel much more accepted by either the ta or casual friend. in turn, this modeling effect should greatly increase their desire to continue interacting with this indiv idual, and may also help them cognitively re-appraise their own challenging event to be much more positive. predictions regarding the impact of self-defeating humor on recipients were less clear-cut. on the one hand, the humor styles model proposes that the function of self-defeating humor is to make the indiv idual feel more accepted by other persons they interact with (martin, 2007). in turn, this suggests that the use of self -defeating humor would be v iewed by the recipients in a favorable manner, resulting in the recipients having a happier mood, greater feelings of acceptance, and an increased desire to continue interacting with the indiv idual using self-defeating humor. this could also lead to more positive cognitive appraisals and higher ratings of similarity to the recipient‟s own response in the same type of situation. on the other hand, the explicit demeaning and ingratiating nature of self-defeating humor may result in a negative distancing response by recipients. this distancing reaction would be evident in less positive mood, greater feelings of rejection, and reduced desire to interact with the indiv idual using this adverse humor style. furthermore, this distancing effect may also impact more broadly by making the cognitive reappraisals of the stressful situations (low grade, relationship difficulties) much more negative. method participants a sample of 173 university students (139 females, 34 males) enrolled in introductory psychology courses at a large english-speaking north american (canadian) university participated in this study, in partial fulfillment of course requirements. their mean age was 18.79 (sd = 1.68), with a range from 17 to 33. materials two different stressful ev ent descriptions were used. in the academic scenario, participants read the following: europe’s journal of psychology 154 imagine that you are going to your ta‟s office to get your grade back from an exam you wrote two weeks ago. this is an important course for you, and you studied hard for the exam. you had expected that you would do well, but when you get your exam back, your grade is well below your usual average. you also find out that although you did pass the exam, your grade is below the class average. in the interpersonal scenario the following information was presented: imagine that you are in the university cafeteria having a snack with a casual friend from one of your classes. you see this friend about once a week outside of class and spend some time discussing various personal events. today you tell your casual friend that the person you have been dating for the past year is now seriously considering breaking off the relationship. directly beneath each scenario, each participant was presented with a description of one of four possible humorous comments (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, or self-defeating), made by either the ta (in the academic scenario) or the casual friend (in the interpersonal scenario), in response to the stressful event described in the relevant scenario. the four different types of humorous comments are presented below. affiliative humor response: your ta [casual friend] responds by saying funny things that do not focus on your exam performance [dating relationship problems]. the ta [casual friend] prov ides some spontaneous witty banter and then tells a few non-hostile jokes to amuse you, and help put you at ease. your ta‟s [casual friend‟s] use of this tolerant humor indicates that your ta [casual friend] is appropriately respectful of self and others, and does not take things overly seriously. self-enhancing humor response: your ta [casual friend] responds by saying funny things about a time when they had performed poorly on an exam [had difficulties in a dating relationship]. the ta [casual friend] comments about how they used humor to help maintain a realistic perspective when faced with this upsetting event. your ta‟s [casual friend‟s] use of this coping humor indicates that your ta [casual friend] has a generally humorous, but still realistic outlook on life, and is frequently amused by the incongruities of everyday events. aggressive humor response: your ta [casual friend] responds by saying cross-cultural humor impact 155 funny things about your exam performance [dating relationship problems], but things that are sarcastic and critical of you. the ta [casual friend] prov ides humorous comments that ridicule your performance and ability. your ta‟s [casual friend‟s] use of this putdown humor indicates that your ta [casual friend] often expresses humor without consideration of its potential impact to be hurtful and alienate others. self-defeating humor response: your ta [casual friend] responds by saying funny things about a time when they had performed poorly on an exam [had difficulties in a dating relationship]. the ta [casual friend] comments about how they made several jokes about their own intellectual faults and academic weaknesses [their own deficits in dating skills and interpersonal weaknesses], in order to let others laugh at their expense. your ta‟s [casual friend‟s] use of this self-disparaging humor indicates that your ta [casual friend] often allows themselves to be the “butt” of jokes, and will laugh along when ridiculed by others. immediately beneath the humorous response were several questions that were each rated on a 5-point scale. the first asked how the humorous comment of the other indiv idual (ta or casual friend) made the recipient (i.e., participant) feel in this situation, ranging from happy (1) to sad (5). the next question asked how much this humorous comment would make the recipient feel either accepted (1) or rejected (5). following this, participants then indicated how much they would want to continue interacting with the ta or casual friend that used this type of humor, with responses ranging from (1) “not at all” to (5) “ very much.” finally, cognitive reappraisals of the stressful event being discussed in the scenario (poor exam performance or dating problems) were assessed on a 5 point scale ranging from (1) “much more negative” to (5) “much more positive.” procedure participants were tested in small groups of up to 15. after completing an informed consent form, each participant received a booklet. four booklets were constructed, which corresponded to the four different types of humorous comments (selfenhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive). within a booklet, participants were presented with both scenarios (academic and interpersonal), but for only one of the four types of humorous comments. the presentation order of scenarios was varied across booklets. within each session, participants were randomly assigned to one of the four humorous comment conditions. upon completion of the booklet, europe’s journal of psychology 156 participants received a debriefing form that offered further informatio n regarding the study. results and discussion each rating was analyzed using a 4 x 2 (humorous comments x scenario) analysis of variance (anova). for each analysis, the between-subjects factor was humorous comments (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive); whereas the repeated measures factor was scenario (academic, interpersonal). all significant anova effects were followed up, when required, with t-tests on the appropriate cell means. happy-sad mood. a significant main effect was found for humorous comments, f = 17.42, p < .001, with the means and standard deviations for this north american canadian sample shown in the top row of table 1. as expected, recipients of aggressive humorous comments felt the saddest, compared to any of the remaining humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. in contrast, recipients of self-enhancing humorous comments displayed the happiest mood, compared to indiv iduals receiv ing either aggressive or self-defeating humorous comments, both p‟s < .001. furthermore, these mood ratings for self-enhancing comments were even happier than the same ratings associated with the affiliative humorous comments, p < .05. the affiliative humorous comments, however, did not show any difference in mood, when compared to the self-defeating humorous comments. finally, the anova revealed that the only remaining significant source of variance was a main effect for scenario, f = 4.31, p < .05. here, indiv iduals were less happy overall in the academic than interpersonal scenario (respective means of 3.24 versus 3.05). accepted-rejected. the anova for this measure revealed a significant main effect for humorous comments, f = 29.72, p < .001. as shown in table 1, canadian participants felt the most accepted after the self-enhancing humorous comment and felt the most rejected after the aggressive humorous comment, compared with any of the remaining comments, all p‟s < .001. as was the case for the happy-sad mood rating reported directly above, no significant difference was found between the affiliative and self-defeating humorous comments for these ratings. cross-cultural humor impact 157 _________________________________________________________________________________ table 1: study 1 north american canadian sample means and sds humorous comments _______________________________________________________________ self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive recipients‟ ratings happy –sad mood m 2.61 3.00 3.15 3.79 sd 0.93 0.97 1.01 1.17 accepted-rejected m 2.24 2.94 2.60 3.78 sd 0.85 1.09 0.95 1.02 continue interaction m 3.81 3.03 3.34 1.90 sd 1.05 1.32 1.15 0.99 cognitive re-appraisal m 3.55 3.02 3.05 1.94 sd 0.74 0.76 0.88 0.83 notes. n = 173 all ratings were made on 5 point scales. for happy-sad, higher numbers are sadder; for accept-reject, higher numbers are more rejected; for continue interaction, higher numbers are more desire to interact; for cognitive re-appraisal, higher numbers are much more positive. desire to continue interaction. the anova indicated that only the main effect of humorous comments was significant, f = 31.97, p < .001. as shown in table 1, an aggressive humorous comment significantly decreased the desire to continue the interaction, compared to each remaining type of humorous comment, all p‟s < .001. in contrast, these north american participants felt the greatest desire to continue the interaction after receiv ing a self-enhancing humorous comment, compared to each of the remaining humorous comments, all p‟s < .01. once again, there was no significant difference between the affiliative and self-defeating humorous comments, indicating equivalent desire to continue interacting with the ta or casual friend. cognitive re-appraisals. the significant main effect of scenario, f = 4.95, p < .05, indicated that indiv iduals were generally more positive in their cognitive reeurope’s journal of psychology 158 appraisals of the interpersonal event than the academic event (respective means of 2.96 versus 2.80). more importantly, the anova also revealed a significant main effect for humorous comments, f = 47.44, p < .001. as shown in table 1, north american participants re-appraised their stressful events (poor exam performance and relationship problems) more negatively after the ta or casual friend responded with an aggressive humorous comment, compared to each of the remaining humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. conversely, participants had the most positive cognitive re-appraisals of their stressful events after receiv ing a self-enhancing humorous comment, compared to each of the other humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. finally, there was once again no difference between the affiliative and self defeating humorous comments. in other words, cognitive re-appraisals were equivalent following either of these two types of humorous comments. summary and conclusions. the findings from study 1 prov ided clear initial ev idence that humorous comments can have a pronounced impact on recipients, and that this impact can vary from very positive to quite negative. consistent with predictions generated from the humor styles model (martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007) we found that for both types of situations (academic and interpersonal) aggressive humorous comments have the most detrimental impact on recipients, resulting in the saddest mood, highest feelings of rejection, and the lowest desire to continue interacting. these aggressive humorous comments also had a broad impact on the recipient, as they lead to the most negative cognitiv e appraisals of the recipients‟ stressful events (i.e., low grades and relationship breakups). in further accord with the humor styles model, we found that humorous comments pertaining to both adaptive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) resulted in a much happier mood, greater acceptance, and a greater willingness to continue interacting. these positive effects also extended to include much more positive cognitive appraisals of the stressful situations being discussed. interestingly, all of these effects were significantly more positive for the self-enhancing humorous condition, suggesting that these particular comments prov ided a strong modeling example for recipients to use when dealing with their own stressful circumstances. finally, it should be noted that the findings for the self-defeating humorous comments were less negative than those for aggressive comments, but were also less positive than those for self-enhancing comments. this pattern suggests that the impact of self-defeating humorous comments cannot be considered either highly maladaptive or adaptive, but rather leads to more ambivalent v iews on the part of the recipient. cross-cultural humor impact 159 study 2: the impact of humorous comments in a middle east culture using a north american canadian sample, study 1 findings clearly indicated that various types of humorous comments can have a strong and differential impact on recipients. i t is not yet known, however, whether these humor effects represent cultural universals that are broadly ev ident across different cultures; or rather are culture-bound and specific to the same indiv idualistic culture that originally generated the humor styles model. to address this issue, we conducted a second study using the same procedures as study 1, but using a lebanese group. this sample was selected because of the strong collectiv ist underpinnings that mark this middle east culture (kazarian, 2005; kazarian; in press). in this culture, the self is generally construed as being interdependent, with an emphasis on connectedness with others, group cohesion, harmony, and cooperation (dwairy, achaoui, abouserie & farah, 2006). this collectiv ist focus is in distinct contrast to the independent, unique and autonomous self-construals that generally characterize indiv idualistic societies, such as those found in north america and western europe (markus & kitayama, 1991; singelis, 1994). this distinction in self-construals between indiv idualistic and collective cultures is important, as the conceptual development of the humor styles model derived from self-construals that stressed independence and autonomy, rather than group cohesion and cooperation (taher et al., 2008). thus, in a collective culture, the self versus other focus of the various humor styles (e.g., affiliative is other directed; selfenhancing is self-directed) becomes much more blurred and less distinct than in an indiv idualistic culture. as such, we expected that the lebanese participants in this study would not distinguish as clearly between the humor styles, thus showing less differentiation between the various humorous comments in terms of their effects. such a pattern would support the proposal that certain aspects of the humor styles model are more cultural-bound, as they are sensitive to cultural variations in selfconstruals. the opposing position, of course, is that the pattern of findings for our lebanese participants would be identical to that obtained for the north american canadian sample, thus supporting a cultural universal interpretation. method participants participants were 198 undergraduate students (114 females, 84 males) from the american university of beirut, a private coeducational institution in which english is europe’s journal of psychology 160 the language of instruction. in terms of nationality, 69.7% of the sample w as lebanese, 25.6% were lebanese with dual nationality, and 4.6% were other (e.g., palestinian born in lebanon). the mean age of this sample was 19.30, with a standard deviation of 1.27 years. materials and procedure the same materials used in study 1 w ere also used in this study. a minor change was made to the last sentence for the interpersonal scenario. here, the specific interpersonal stressful event now being discussed was changed from dating concerns to family difficulties, in order to better reflect the central social role of the family in lebanese culture (kazarian, 2005). as such, this sentence now read “today you tell your casual friend that you are having difficulties with your parents who seem very unhappy about your going out with friends and staying late at night.” all the remaining aspects of this study, including materials and procedure, were identical to study 1. thus, each participant read two scenarios (academic and interpersonal), that were each followed by one of the four humorous types of comments. the order of scenarios was again counterbalanced across participants. the questions and rating scales that followed the scenarios were identical to study 1, except for some very minor wording changes to accommodate the different stressful event now being discussed in the interpersonal scenario. all participants completed a consent form prior to receiv ing the materials for this study, and were given a debriefing form at the end of the study. results and discussion a series of 4 x 2 anovas (humorous comments x scenario) were used to analyze the set of dependent measures for this study, with follow -up t-tests on appropriate cell means, when required. happy-sad mood. the anova revealed that main effect for humorous comments was significant, f = 9.35, p < .01. the means and standard deviations for this sole significant effect are shown in the top row of table 2. consistent with the north american canadian sample in study 1, the lebanese participants in this study were saddest after receiv ing aggressive humorous comments, compared to any of the remaining types of humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. in contrast to the north american sample, however, there were no further significant differences in mood between affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating humorous comments. as such, this pattern clearly indicates less differentiation among the humor styles cross-cultural humor impact 161 comments for these lebanese participants, in terms of subsequent impact on mood. in particular, self-enhancing, affiliative and self-defeating humorous comments all resulted in the same level of mood; with all three leading to significantly less sad mood than shown following aggressive humor comments. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ table 2: study 2 lebanese sample (english-speaking) means and sds humorous comments ________________________________________________________ self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive recipients‟ ratings happy –sad mood m 2.88 2.94 2.93 3.61 sd 0.60 0.82 0.63 0.74 accepted-rejected m 2.56 2.88 2.63 3.25 sd 0.52 0.76 0.62 0.92 continue interaction m 3.66 3.01 3.22 2.13 sd 0.79 0.96 0.84 0.87 cognitive reappraisal m 3.37 2.92 3.25 2.37 sd 0.62 0.74 0.54 0.64 notes. n = 198 all ratings were made on 5 point scales. for happy-sad, higher numbers are sadder; for accept-reject, higher numbers are more rejected; for continue interaction, higher numbers are more desire to interact; for cognitive re-appraisal, higher numbers are much more positive. accepted-rejected. the means and standard deviations for this measure are also shown in table 2, with the anova revealing a significant main effect for humorous comments, f = 9.05, p < .01. consistent with the north american sample, the lebanese participants in this study felt the most rejected after the aggressive humorous comment, compared with any of the remaining comments, all p‟s < .01. contrary to the north american sample, however, the lebanese participants did not feel significantly more accepted after self-enhancing comments. instead, all three remaining styles of humorous comments (affiliative, self-enhancing, and selfeurope’s journal of psychology 162 defeating) resulted in equivalent ratings of being accepted-rejected. once again, this pattern points to much less differentiation among these three humor style comments for these middle east participants. desire to continue interaction. the anova indicated that only the main effect of humorous comments was significant, f = 27.05, p < .001. table 2 shows that lebanese participants felt the greatest desire to continue the interaction after receiv ing a self-enhancing humorous comment, compared to either the aggressive or affiliative humorous comments, both p‟s < .01. this finding was very similar to that displayed for the north american sample. however, the comparisons between both self-enhancing and self-defeating humorous comments, and aggressive and selfdefeating humorous comments, were no longer significant for the lebanese participants, highlighting significantly less differentiation among these humor styles for this group. cognitive re-appraisals. humorous comments were the only significant source of variance in this anova, f = 24.10, p < .001. as shown in table 2, lebanese participants re-appraised their stressful events (poor exam performance and family problems) more negatively after an aggressive humorous comment, compared to all three of the remaining humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. this pattern was identical to that displayed by the north american participants in study 1. also congruent with the canadian sample, lebanese participants displayed the most positive cognitive re-appraisals after receiv ing a self-enhancing humorous comment, compared with either affiliative or aggressive humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. in further accord with the north american sample, the current participants also did not display a significant difference in cognitive re-appraisals between an affiliative and self-defeating humorous comment. overall, this pattern indicates that the lebanese sample showed the same degree of differentiation among the humor styles as the north american canadian sample, in terms of impact on cognitive re-appraisals. summary and conclusions. the results for this lebanese sample revealed both similarities and differences, when compared with the north american findings for study 1. in particular, both cultures rated aggressive humorous comments as being the most negative of all, resulting in the saddest mood, the highest feelings of rejection, and the lowest desire to continue interacting. both cultures also showed very similar patterns for the cognitive re-appraisals, with aggressive comments again resulting in the most negative appraisals. overall, these findings suggest that the impact of aggressive humor appears to be universal and broad across these two cultures. cross-cultural humor impact 163 contrary to the north american sample, however, the lebanese participants did not distinguish among self-enhancing, affiliative and self-defeating humorous comments when rating subsequent impact on happy-sad mood, feeling accepted-rejected, or wanting to continue the interaction. this pattern suggests that this middle east culture does not differentiate among these particular humor styles when considering their impact, and is thus consistent with a north american culture-bound interpretation for these specific effects of humorous comments. study 3: a further test of the impact of humorous comments in a middle east lebanese culture thus far, the findings from studies 1 and 2 suggest that some of the obtained effects for the humor style comments appear to be cultural universals, whereas others appear to be culture-bound. however, one possible concern in study 2 is that we used an english-speaking sample of lebanese participants. although the continued administration of all testing materials in english allowed us to closely duplicate the procedures used in study 1, it did not allow us to examine the potential impact of humorous comments that are made and received in the native arabic language. taher et al. (2008) have indicated that it is very important to do so, not only from the theoretical perspective of distinct underlying self-construals (i.e., collective versus indiv idualistic), but also from a measurement perspective. accordingly, our third and final study was conducted entirely in the arabic language, using a further lebanese sample. in this study, we were once again interested in exploring the extent to which the humorous effects documented previously in studies 1 and 2 could be v iewed as being either cultural universals, or being culture-bound to the indiv idualistic north american society that originally developed the humor styles model. in accord with the proposal that collective selfconstruals may be even more germane in this arabic-speaking sample (taher et al., 2008), we thus expected to see, at a minimum, the same level of culture-bound effects in study 3 as observed in study 2. furthermore, it remained possible that these culture-bound effects would extend more broadly to include cognitive appraisals. i f so, this would also highlight the importance of including native language assessments in any research examining cultural similarities or differences. europe’s journal of psychology 164 method participants participants were 243 undergraduate students (120 females, 123 males) from the american university of beirut and the lebanese university, the largest state-run institution in which arabic is the primary language of instruction. in terms of nationality, 77.8% of the sample was lebanese, 13.7% were lebanese with dual nationality, and 8.5% were other. the mean age of this sample was 20.1, with a standard deviation of 3.50 years. materials and procedure the materials and procedure used in study 3 were identical to those used in study 2, except that all of the questionnaires were now presented in arabic, rather than in english. results and discussion a 4 x 2 anova (humorous comments x scenario) was used to analyze each dependent measure in this study, with follow -up t-tests on appropriate cell means, when required. happy-sad mood. the top row of table 3 shows the happy-sad cell means and standard deviations associated with the sole significant main effect of humorous comments, f = 17.38, p < .001. consistent with both the canadian and englishspeaking lebanese samples, the arabic-speaking lebanese participants in this study were also saddest after aggressive humorous comments, compared to each of the other types of humorous comments, all p‟s < .001. in accord with the englishspeaking lebanese sample, the arabic-speaking lebanese participants also did not show any significant differences in happy-sad mood between self-enhancing, affiliative, and self-defeating humorous comments. this pattern was distinct from the canadian group, in which self-enhancing comments resulted in significantly happier ratings than either affiliative or self-defeating humorous comments. as such, these findings highlight a reduced degree of differentiation for both of the lebanese groups. in particular, the lebanese participants, regardless of whether they were english or arabic-speaking, did not distinguish between self-enhancing, affiliative or self-defeating humor. i t was only aggressive humor that showed a distinct impact on sad mood for these participants. cross-cultural humor impact 165 _ ______________________________________________________________________________ table 3: study 3 lebanese sample (arabic-speaking)means and sds humorous comments _________________________________________________________ self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive recipients‟ ratings happy –sad mood m 2.72 2.82 2.82 3.74 sd 0.92 0.85 0.84 0.79 accepted-rejected m 2.78 2.88 2.85 3.71 sd 0.86 0.96 0.86 0.95 continue interaction m 3.72 3.18 3.23 1.92 sd 0.65 0.91 0.85 0.69 cognitive reappraisal m 3.32 3.00 3.95 2.58 sd 0.67 0.69 0.80 0.71 notes. n = 243 all ratings were made on 5 point scales. for happy-sad, higher numbers are sadder; for accept-reject, higher numbers are more rejected; for continue interaction, higher numbers are more desire to interact; for cognitive re-appraisal, higher numbers are much more positive accepted-rejected. the anova revealed a sole significant main effect for humorous comments, f = 12.97, p < .01. consistent with the findings for both prior samples, arabic-speaking lebanese participants also felt the most rejected after the aggressive humorous comment, compared to any of the other humorous comments, all p‟s < .001 (see table 3). consistent with the english-speaking lebanese sample, all three of the remaining types of humorous comments (affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating) resulted in equivalent levels of feeling accepted-rejected. this pattern for both lebanese samples is distinct from the north american canadian sample, in which participants felt significantly more accepted after self-enhancing comments. furthermore, it indicates no differentiation between self-enhancing, affiliative and self-defeating humor effects for all lebanese participants (either english or arabic-speaking). europe’s journal of psychology 166 desire to continue interaction. only the main effect of humorous comments was significant, f = 9.74, p < .01. the cell means and standard deviations for this effect are shown in table 3. consistent with both the canadian and english-speaking lebanese samples, the least desire to continue the interaction w as after an aggressive humorous comment, compared with any of the other humorous comments, all p‟s < .01. distinct from the english-speaking lebanese participants, the participants in this study no longer differentiated between self-enhancing and affiliative humor. in other words, the arabic-speaking lebanese group showed even less differentiation than the english-speaking lebanese group, as the former group did not distinguish between any of the three humor styles (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating) when indicating their desire to continue interacting. cognitive re-appraisals. the anova revealed that there were no significant sources of variance for cognitive re-appraisals. thus, contrary to the significant effects found in both studies 1 and 2 for this measure, the present study found that arabicspeaking lebanese participants did not show any cognitive re-appraisal distinctions across the four types of humorous comments. thus, in marked contrast to the pattern displayed by both the canadian and english-speaking lebanese samples (i.e., more positive re-appraisals after self-enhancing comments and more negative re-appraisals after aggressive comments), the arabic-speaking lebanese sample did not vary their cognitive re-appraisals after different types of humorous comments. this pattern suggests that the arabic-speaking lebanese group did not differentiate among any of the four humor styles, in terms of their subsequent impact on cognitive re-appraisals. summary and conclusions. the findings from this third study both reinforce and extend the conclusions drawn from the prev ious two studies. to begin, the effects of aggressive humorous comments were strikingly consistent across all three samples, suggesting a strong universal component for the impact of these comments. in particular, aggressive humorous comments have a consistent detrimental impact on others, inducing negative mood and rejection, followed by a desire to limit interactions. in contrast, the effects of self-enhancing humorous comments are culture-bound to the north american canadian sample, as neither lebanese group (english or arabic speaking) distinguished these comments from either affiliative or self-defeating comments. furthermore, it also appears that the impact of humorous comments on cognitive re-appraisals is limited to both english-speaking samples, as the arabic speaking lebanese participants did not differentiate between any of the types of humorous comments when providing cognitive re-appraisals. cross-cultural humor impact 167 general discussion the main purpose of the present research was to investigate the extent to which the impact of the four humor styles identified by martin et al. (2003) may be similar or distinct across various cultures. in order to do so, however, we first had to deter mine whether the humorous comments pertaining to each humor style actually did have an effect on recipients. this was necessary, as the majority of research thus far has focused primarily on identifying the existence of the four humor styles across various cultures, and then determining how these humor styles may relate to other personality characteristics and psychological well-being (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006; kuiper, et al., 2004; martin, et al., 2003; martin, 2007; saroglou & scariot, 2002). in contrast, extremely little research has explored the potential impact of using these humor styles on others, particularly from a crosscultural perspective. as such, our first study examined this issue in a north american indiv idualistic culture. the findings from this canadian study provided strong initial support for the impact of humor styles on others, as certain humorous comments did have significant and differential effects on the recipients. consistent with predictions generated from the humor styles model, we found that aggressive humorous comments had a powerful negative effect on recipients, resulting in the saddest mood, the greatest feelings of rejection, and the lowest desire to continue the interaction. these comments also caused the recipients to cognitively re-appraise their own stressful event (i.e., poor exam performance, relationship problems) in an even more negative manner. this pattern of findings is congruent with the humor styles model, since aggressive humor involves ridiculing and alienating other people (martin et al., 2003). as such, it was expected that these aggressive humorous comments would have a harmful personal impact on how an indiv idual feels and reacts to various social interactions (e.g., academic, interpersonal). conversely, and also as predicted, the self-enhancing humorous comments had precisely the opposite impact, resulting in the happiest mood, greatest feelings of acceptance, and the most desire to continue interacting. after receiv ing these humorous comments, recipients also reacted with the most positive change in the cognitive re-appraisals of their own stressful events. as such, these findings from study 1 offer strong initial support for the impact of humor on others, not only for constructs relating directly to social interactions (e.g., one‟s own mood, feeling accepted or rejected, continuing the interaction); but also more broadly for constructs relating to cognitive re-appraisals of ongoing stressful events. europe’s journal of psychology 168 the extensive breadth of these humor effects in study 1 is consistent with the often stated adage that humor can function as a powerful social interaction tool (martin, 2007). although prior work has demonstrated that greater coping humor is linked to more positive cognitive appraisals of one‟s own stressful events (abel, 2002; kuiper et al., 1993; kuiper et al., 1995), the present work prov ides the first demonstration that humor use can also alter the cognitive re-appraisals that are made by others. furthermore, the present work is the first demonstration that these other-referent effects of humor on cognitive re-appraisals can be either positive or negative, depending upon the type of humorous comments being made (i.e., self-enhancing versus aggressive). as such, this pattern prov ides further strong empirical support for the adaptive versus maladaptive distinction in the martin et al. (2003) humor styles model, as well as the pervasive power of humor use in an interpersonal context. i t is of further interest to note that in study 1 neither self-defeating nor affiliative humorous comments had a very strong negative or positive impact on others, when compared to the more pronounced effects of aggressive and self-enhancing humorous comments. although self-defeating humor has clearly documented detrimental effects on the well-being of the user (e.g., kuiper et al., 2004), the present findings indicate that the use of this humor style does not inflict strong negative feelings in others, nor impede social relationships. thus, self-defeating humor use does not appear to be as maladaptive as aggressive humor. in fact, the present findings suggest that the use of self-defeating humor is tolerated to the same extent as the use of affiliative humorous comments, with both of these comments yielding greater acceptance on the part of others than aggressive humor. this pattern of findings suggests that the adaptive versus maladaptive distinctions in the humor styles model may sometimes overlap to a considerable degree, with further refinements of the model being required. following our initial look at the effects of humor within a north american canadian sample, we then directed our attention towards cross-cultural issues in the use of humor and its impact on recipients in a collectiv istic middle east culture. in this regard, study 2 employed an english-speaking lebanese sample; whereas study 3 employed an arabic-speaking lebanese sample. the results from these two studies were then compared and contrasted with the findings from our initial canadian sample, in order to determine which humor use findings may be cultural universals and which may be culture-bound. across the three studies ev idence was obtained for both. cross-cultural humor impact 169 to begin, the use of aggressive humorous comments appears to have culturally universal effects on recipients, as the results for this particular humor style were highly consistent across all three studies. in all cases, recipients of this type of humorous comments showed the most detrimental effects, including the saddest mood, the highest degree of perceived rejection, the least desire to continue the interaction and the most negative change in cognitive re-appraisals for their own stressful events. i t is clear from these findings that using aggressive humorous comments is highly detrimental to recipients, regardless of whether the culture involved is indiv idualistic or collectiv istic; and regardless of whether the use of humor is in the english language or in arabic. other findings, however, point to humor use effects which are much more specific to the north american indiv idualistic culture from which the humor styles model originated. these culture-bound findings relate to the use of self-enhancing humorous comments, which primarily have a positive impact for recipients in a north american culture. when turning to a more collectiv ist culture, these positive effects of using self-enhancing humorous comments dissipate. in study 2, for example, the english-speaking lebanese recipients of self-enhancing humor no longer displayed a happier mood, or perceived a higher degree of acceptance than recipients of either affiliative or self-defeating humorous comments. this same reduced differentiation was also ev ident in the arabic-speaking lebanese sample of study 3. thus, as predicted by taher et al.‟s (2008) notion of more blurred self-other distinctions for collectiv istic cultures, the findings from our studies point to significantly less differentiation among these three humor styles for both english and arabicspeaking lebanese participants, when compared to the north american canadian participants. interestingly, several additional findings indicated that the arabic-speaking sample showed even less differentiation across the humor styles than the english-speaking lebanese group. as one illustration, the arabic-speaking participants did not differentiate between self-enhancing, affiliative, or self-defeating humorous comments, when indicating their desire to continue interacting. furthermore, this group did not distinguish between any of the four humor styles when making cognitive re-appraisals of their own stressful situations (i.e., low grade, poor relationship with parents), suggesting that the breadth of humor effect found earlier is not ev ident in this group. thus, consistent with taher et al. (2008), our pattern of findings clearly indicates that the differential effects of the humor styles on others are even more limited in a collectiv istic group tested in their own native language (in this case, arabic), rather than in english. as such, these language-specific findings europe’s journal of psychology 170 suggest that some degree of caution should be exercised regarding the conclusions drawn from cross-cultural research studies which do not involve native language participation. more generally, the present findings suggest that a great deal of care needs to be exercised when applying the martin et al. (2003) humor styles model to cultures that differ significantly from the north american indiv idualistic culture that originally informed the development of this model. considerable additional research is required to more firmly delineate the boundary conditions that may be associated with the effects of this humor model, when applied cross-culturally. one avenue of research, for example, might investigate the extent to which similar collectiv istic effects for humor might be noted in a chinese culture (chen & martin, 2007). i t would also be important for further research to move beyond the v ignette approach adopted in the present set of studies. although humor findings based upon this procedure can be quite informative (e.g., butzer & kuiper, 2008), it is also important to examine humor effects using other research paradigms, including direct observation techniques (campbell, martin & ward, 2008). this work should also move beyond the university student samples we employed to include more community-based samples (taher et al., 2008). finally, it is also important that future cross-cultural work provides a direct assessment of the underlying self-construals that are thought to interact with the impact of humor. although past work has generally supported the notion that a middle east culture is much more aligned with collectiv istic self-construals (kazarian, 2005), it should be noted that recent crosscultural research stresses the importance of measuring these construals more directly (harb & smith, 2008; kolstad & horpestad, 2009). for now, however, our findings prov ide a starting point for exploring the extent to which these four humor styles may play a differential role in social interactions and interpersonal relationships across various cultures. acknowledgements. we would like to thank yasmine nassif for her involvement in the arabic translation of the scenarios used in this research and may awaida for her assistance in the data gathering process in lebanon. references abel, m. h. (2002). humor, stress, and coping strategies. humor: international journal of humor research, 15, 365-381. cross-cultural humor impact 171 butzer, b., & kuiper, n. a. (2008). humor use in romantic relationships: the effects of relationship satisfaction and pleasant versus conflict situations. journal of psychology: interdisciplinary and applied, 142, 245-260. campbell, l., martin, r.a., & ward, j.r. (2008). an observational study of humor use during a conflict discussion. personal relationships, 15, 41–55. chen, g-h., & martin, r. a. (2007). a comparison of humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between chinese and canadian university students. humor: international journal of humor research, 20, 215-234. dwairy, m., achaoui, m., abouserie, r., & farah, r. (2006). adolescent-family connectedness among arabs: a second cross-regional research study. journal of crosscultural psychology, 37, 248-261. harb, c., & smith, p. (2008). self-construals across cultures: beyond independenceinterdependence. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 39(2), 178-197. kalliny, m., cruthirds, k.w., & minor, m.s. (2006). differences between american, egyptian and lebanese humor styles: implications for international management. international journal of cross cultural management, 6, 121-134. kazarian, s.s. (2005). family functioning, cultural orientation, and psychological wellbeing among university students in lebanon. journal of social psychology, 145, 141-152. kazarian, s. s. (in press). humor in the collectivist arab middle east: the case of lebanon. humor: international journal of humor research. kazarian, s. & martin, r. (2004). humor styles, personality and well-being among lebanese university students. european journal of personality, 18, 209-219. kazarian, s.s., & martin, r.a. (2006). humor styles, culture-related personality, well-being, and family adjustment among armenians in lebanon. humor: international journal of humor research, 19, 405-423. kolstad, a., & horpestad, s. (2009). self-construal in chile and norway: implications for cultural differences in individualism and collectivism. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 40, 275-281. kuiper, n.a., grimshaw, m., leite, c., & kirsh, g. (2004). humor is not always the best medicine: specific components of sense of humor and psychological well-being. europe’s journal of psychology 172 humor: international journal of humor research, 17, 1351-168. kuiper, n. a., martin, r. a., & olinger, l. j. (1993). coping humor, stress, and cognitive appraisals. canadian journal of behavioural science, 25, 81-96. kuiper, n.a., mckenzie, s. d., & belanger, k. a. (1995). cognitive appraisals and individual differences in sense of humor: motivational and affective implications. personality and individual differences, 19, 359-372. markus, h.r. & kitayama, s. (1991). culture and self: implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. psychological review, 98, 224-253. martin, r. a. (2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. new york: academic press. martin, r. a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., & weir, k. (2003). indiv idual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. saroglou, v., & scariot, c. (2002). humor styles questionnaire: personality and educational correlates in belgian high school and college students. european journal of personality, 16, 43-54. singelis, t.m. (1994). the measurement of independent and interdependent selfconstruals. personality and social psychology bulletin, 20, 580-591. taher, d., kazarian, s.s., & martin, r.a. (2008). validation of the arabic humor styles questionnaire in a community sample of lebanese in lebanon. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 39, 552-564. vernon, p.a., martin, r.a., schermer, j.a., & mackie, a. (2008). a behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the big five personality dimensions. personality and individual differences, 44, 116-1125. about the authors: nicholas a. kuiper has been a professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada since 1978. he has just completed a 2nd term as the director of the clinical psychology graduate program at western. over the years he has published numerous research articles on humor, well-being, self-schemata and depression. cross-cultural humor impact 173 address for correspondence: address correspondence to: n. kuiper, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca shahe s. kazarian has been a professor of clinical psychology at the american university of beirut since 2001. his research interests focus on cultural clinical psychology, cultural health psychology, family functioning, and the psychology of humor. jessica sine conducted research on humor and interpersonal perceptions with dr. kuiper as part of her psychology degree at the university of western ontario. margaret bassil completed her ma in psychology at the american university of beirut in june 2008. her research interests involve father-child relationships, humor styles, and psychological well-being. she is currently an instructor at the american university of beirut. mailto:kuiper@uwo.ca microsoft word 10. global psypulse1.doc psychoanalytic perspectives on teaching and learning: getting under the skin to be hosted by the centre for international studies of diversity and participation, canterbury christ church university, from friday 4th to saturday 5th december 2009. we would welcome papers/workshops etc. that consider these issues theoretically and clinically as well as in using research into learning and education in its widest sense. this can include consideration of the kinds of research that are appropriate for illuminating such relationships and processes. areas/relationships that could be explored are: dealing with existing and new knowledge. how to learn and unlearn. is education learning and is learning an education? the role of the intrasubjective and intersubjective in learning. reality and fantasy. play, playfulness and the imagination in learning. education and after-education. the teacher/student relationship. the battle between desire and resistance. the relationship between 'school' and society. learning in adulthood and later life: the 'threat' of dependency. where do we position the blame for low achievement? anxiety and containment when dealing with difficult knowledge. education or learning as a transitional space. love and hate in the learning process. the ambivalence to learn or not to learn. the conference will take place on friday 4th to saturday 5th december 2009. the format will include keynote addresses from biddy youell, mark murphy, tony brown, linden west and celia hunt. there will also be paper presentations, workshops, roundtable discussions and poster presentations. we welcome 2 contributions from both experienced colleagues as well as those who are in the early stages of their careers and will be actively seeking to produce a book based on the conference papers. the organising committee is open to considering a rich diversity of engagement experiences and would therefore welcome creative suggestions from delegates. it is our intention to provide a flexible and supportive environment that will enable delegates to explore the rich yet often under represented insights that psychoanalysis can provide to lifelong learning experiences. local organising committee dr linden west, reader and co-director of the centre for international studies of diversity and participation alan bainbridge, senior lecturer, department of childhood studies, faculty of education. for more information visit the conference website: http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/education/cisdp/conferences/psychoanalytic/confer ence%20details.aspx interview with dr. carol s. kelly by vlad-petre glaveanu carol s. kelly is a professor emeriti in child and adolescent development at california state university northridge. she has been honored for her teaching and mentorship of students including receiving the outstanding teaching award from the university in 1995. she has served at usa representative to fice, a unesco affiliated organization that supports children and adolescents at high risk. in this capacity, she has supported fice romania through presentations at the 1996 international symposia on the convention on the rights of the child and at the 2005 international conference on children and domestic and community violence. in addition she is on the fice romania editorial board. she was presented with the medallion of appreciation for the romania international federation of educative communities. carol has also presented at many international conferences and has published in her field. she serves on the board of the association of child and youth care practitioners where she has been on national committees including national certification of child and youth care professionals. she also serves on their editorial board. carol was a senior consultant at the united nations in vienna for the international year of the family in 1993. she worked at the international level as well as working with hungry to prepare for this special year honoring families. carol was director of a peace expo in 1989 in which over 60 community agencies, internationally know speakers shared with an audience of over five thousand participants including children and adolescents. her work reflects her goal of contributing to a less violent more peaceful world. ejop: what made you embrace your career working with children and youth? dr. carol: caring for and about children is a central part of who i am from childhood until the present. as the oldest of four children, i was involved in caring for my siblings which let to baby sitting. as i matured, i taught sunday school, worked with brownie scouts, taught swimming, and was employed in other educational and recreation programs with children. my passion for learning resulted in beginning my career as a teacher of children and adolescents. as i worked with diverse populations, i increasingly understood the importance of child and adolescent development and counseling and guidance. i was particularly interested in children with challenges having opportunities to develop their potential. i continued my education in this realm. working with a federal government national defense education act program for innovations in education led to an offer to join the faculty at california state university northridge. i was fortunate to be a central committee member to develop the interdisciplinary major in child development (now the department of child and adolescent development). the opportunity to teach and mentor university students in becoming professionals is deeply fulfilling. i view my career as developmental and look forward to the next phase. ejop: what are the main challenges you encountered in working with children and youth and how can a professional overcome them? dr. carol: the need for educating the public, other professionals, legislators, those in the media, and the general public about the importance of children and adolescents being a priority is a major challenge. key to meeting this challenge: formally educating students and professionals to be expert advocates. know how to use literature including research and personal stories to create change. for example, we offer a course in child advocacy. we just offered a high quality conference on child labor that included a powerful documentary followed by a panel of exerts and break out groups focused upon advocacy. lack of resources is a second challenge directly related to the above mentioned challenge. children and adolescents are not a priority. there are inadequate resources allocated to meet their needs. competent professionals who can collaborate with others including parents, legislators, attorneys, and the public is essential. the voices of children and adolescents need to be included. a third challenge is networking effectively and using the media. the media can be a powerful voice for children at the local, area, national, and international levels. other challenges include lack of appropriate education of child and youth care providers, incompetent adults working with children and adolescents, low pay and inadequate benefits. ejop: your mentoring work during the years included launching students’ careers. how would you describe the mentoring process and the role of the mentor in developing a career? dr. carol: for me, mentoring is based upon an authentic caring professional relationship in which a mentor understands the background and goals of the student or alumni and provided support and creates opportunities and resources that enhances professional and personal development. there are clear boundaries, mutual respect, and honesty in the relationship. ejop: how would you illustrate a mentor student relationship and what makes it different from a teacher-student one? dr. carol: two examples illustrate mentor-student relationships i have been honored to have. a young hispanic student was told shat she would never be able to achieve a degree in higher education. when i met her, i saw a very bright, capable, curious and determined young woman who wanted to make a difference in the world. i learned of her dreams and goals and worked with her to acquire a strong academic foundation, to research graduate schools for a “right match”, and to support completion of her applications. she was accepted into the children at-risk master’s degree program at harvard university. she then completed her ph.d. at columbia university and is now a researcher at rand. as she says, “when i tell my family, colleagues, and friends i have had you a mentor for over 15 years, they are shocked”. it has been a very rewarding experience to see her flourish professionally, contribute to important research, and maintain our relationship. an african american woman in a junior seminar was homeless, living in a shelter and raising twins were toddlers. i assisted her securing support needed for academic success including working with our learning disabilities center and our counseling center. she was able to use the support offered by our university and focus upon her career goals. she was able to arrange high quality child care for her twins and eventually secured an apartment through a city housing project. she just completed her b.a. degree, has a position in her field, and plans to continue her education. she came to show me a newsletter from a local housing authority in which she was featured as a success story. this courageous woman is another role model for many which demonstrates one reason that mentoring is so fulfilling. from my perspective, a teacher-student relationship focuses on the specific course goals, content, and evaluation. the teacher has an ethical responsibility to all students to facilitate academic success. the mentor relationship is a broader relationship ha includes career development and the professional and personal development that are a part of success. ejop: what can you tell us about the interdisciplinary program in child development, the program that you coordinated and that became a full-fledged academic department? dr. carol: the interdisciplinary major in child development was created to meet a community need to provide education for those pursuing careers working with children and adolescents, primarily in early childhood education. the major drew from many disciplines including psychology, education, pan african studies, and chicano studies. the focus was and continues to be development being a foundation to enter a range of careers involving children and adolescents. the major continually grew in numbers of graduates, graduates contributing to community programs, and those successfully pursuing a wide range of graduate work. after several attempts, the program was approved to become a department of child and adolescent development with a new curriculum, more of our own courses, and increased faculty. professional development for our faculty, assessment, collaboration across campus, and strong community partners are an on-going process to continue to strengthen our program and professional development of our graduates. ejop: another program you participated in is jumpstart. how would you describe the basis and results of this initiative? dr. carol: jumpstart is a national program that works with university work study students and the most at-risk young children in programs such as head start. there are two primary goals: early literacy and social competencies. while i was responsible for bringing this program to campus and implementing some innovations now adopted by the national program, i am no longer directly involved. ejop: you serve as a united states’ representative for the international federation of educative communities (fice). what can you tell us about this organization? what are the latest programs you are involved in as a fice representative? dr. carol: fice is a unesco affiliated organization with a unique specific focus on children and adolescents at high risk (includes residential care, group homes, and street children).fice has been a very rewarding aspect of my professional career. i have served fice in several ways. i have had the opportunity to make plenary and workshop presentations at the fice congresses held every two years, work in specific countries including romania (work on the u.n. rights of the child, international conference presentation, serve as an editor for the romanian fice journal), networking and providing resource information for fice members in other countries, and serving as a liaison for usa and canadian colleagues. perhaps the most rewarding involvement has been providing opportunities for students with whom i work to work in the fice youth conferences, and to present workshops. ejop: how is it possible to create a link between the activity of ngos, government organizations, and community? dr. carol: links among ngo’s, government organizations, and communities need to be multi-faceted and mulilevel. from my view, positive human relationships, clear mission statements and goals are imperative. understanding that all have contributions to make and that collaboration is essential needs to guide. often personal stories with supporting facts and research are powerful. building upon individuals, groups, organizations with a strength base (we all have strengths), working at the grass roots level, using media effectively, and authentically realizing that we can all benefit from making children and adolescents a priority enhance links. the common denominator needs to be the safety, health, and education of children. ejop: how important is the experience as a volunteer for young professional wanting to work in the field of child and adolescent development? dr. carol: the value of volunteering is dependent upon the motivation and the commitment of the volunteer and the quality of the program and the supervision. certainly, having an experiential understanding of development is very important. i differentiate between volunteer work and supervised fieldwork or internships. both have important contributions to make in professional development. key is a high quality experience is learning to apply theory to practice and have theory guide practice. ejop: what are the qualities that you consider crucial to a person working in the field of education and youth care? ejop: among the qualities one who works with children and youth should have are the following: dr. carol: professional competencies including developmental theory and application of theory to practice, being able to provide and receive constructive criticism well. professional behavior is essential and includes strong communication skills, ethical based behavior, ability to work with diverse cultures, on-going professional development, ability to collaborate, advocacy skills, a commitment to make a positive difference, and ability to use resources well. personal qualities are certainly important and include being self-directed, having a passion for your work/wanting to make a positive difference in the lives of children and adolescents, reflective, and the ability to deal well with stress and taking care of personal issues and situations that impact professional work. ejop: what advice do you have for the students that are interested in building a career in education and school psychology? dr. carol: be clear about what your professional goals are and why. follow your heart, know your passion … where you wan to make a difference. become educated about the career including requirements such as licenses or credentials, and learn where you can gain needed education and requirement. work with one or more mentors. network both formally and informally. professional organizations are excellent sources of current information and provide opportunity to network and develop leadership skills. learn how to identify resources and use resources well. document your achievements. be open to constrictive criticism. learn to read the professional literature and understand the research and what it means in working with children and adolescents. be a risk-taker with thoughtful preparation, learn from mistakes (we all make them), acquire stress management skills that work well for you, take time for your self, family, and friends, have support of family and friends. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 597 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 597-603 www.ejop.org on curiosity and passion for science: interview with emily holmes by vlad glăveanu ejop editor in this interview prof. emily holmes addresses some of the most recent developments in the area of experimental psychopathology. at the core of her interest for this field stands a pervasive preoccupation for unpacking the importance of the imaginary in terms of our mental functioning and, in particular, the relationship between the mental imagery and emotion. prof. holmes explores, in this context, several important issues for academics and practitioners alike, from methodological aspects to the broader concern for making research results directly applicable and disseminating them effectively to different groups and audiences. in this respect much can be learned from prof. holmes‟s career trajectory and, towards the end, she offers students and early career researchers some valuable advice about the importance of curiosity and passion for science in succeeding as a researcher, as a psychologist and, overall, as a successful “academic citizen”. emily a. holmes is a professor in clinical psychology and wellcome trust clinical fellow at the university of oxford’s department of psychiatry. she set up the epact research group with support from the royal society, the esrc, mrc and the john fell oup research fund. emily is a clinical psychologist with a phd in cognitive neuroscience. her overarching research interest is investigating mental imagery and emotion in psychopathology for cognitive therapy. she has published extensively in this field as well as related areas (e.g. processing biases, the role of flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, bipolar and anxiety disorders, etc.). prof. holmes is also the recipient of several prestigious awards such as the bps may davidson award (2007) and spearman medal (2010), and the efpa comenius award (2011). address for correspondence: prof emily holmes, department of psychiatry, oxford university, warneford hospital, oxford, ox3 7jx, uk. email: emily.holmes@psych.ox.ac.uk http://www.ejop.org/ http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/index.htm http://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/ http://royalsociety.org/ http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/esrcinfocentre/index.aspx http://www.mrc.ac.uk/index.htm mailto:emily.holmes@psych.ox.ac.uk on curiosity and passion for science pag e 60 ejop: prof. holmes, you work in the past years had made significant contributions to our understanding of trauma memory, emotion, mental imagery, depression and bipolar disorder, spanning the fields of clinical, cognitive and experimental psychology. what would you say are the common threads within your research and how can insights from different disciplines come together to further our understanding of psychological disorders? prof. holmes: the common thread in my work is a fascination with mental imagery – how we can „see‟ things in our mind‟s eye (or mind‟s ear, nose etc.) in the absence of direct perception. in psychology, we still have so much to find out about mental imagery compared to say verbal thought or verbal memory. so this makes it an exciting frontier to explore. if we saw it like a spider‟s web, we would have lots of different threads leading to different areas to which imagery is relevant, and the spider in the middle of the web is a driver an interest in translational questions i.e. how does mental imagery relate to something we want to know about psychopathology? it might be the relationship between mental imagery and emotion, it might be mental imagery and behaviour and it also might be mental imagery across the different disorders. this means we can pose lots of exciting questions along these imagery threads which explore and bridge different disciplines! i think it‟s very exciting working across disciplines. when we talk about disciplines, we are talking about two different kinds; disciplines within psychology and crossdisciplinary work in the broader sense. making links and collaborations on both levels can be extremely productive and worthwhile. there are lots of different disciplines within psychology which our experimental psychopathology research draws on and speaks to, for example clinical psychology (e.g. cognitive behavioural therapy hackmann, bennett-levy, & holmes, 2011) as well as say social psychology (e.g. prejudice), cognitive psychology (e.g. memory), experimental psychology, individual differences etc. we also work at times with neuroscience methods e.g. fmri brain imaging. in other work we have researched across disciplines from psychology to medicine and also as varied as philosophy (holmes, sandberg, & iyadurai, 2010), law (holmes, 2008) and mathematics. for example, we have recently been working with a mathematical biologist on mood which has opened up some fascinating avenues for future research (bonsall, wallace-hadrill, geddes, goodwin, & holmes, 2011). we enjoy involving artists in discussion about our work and they have even helped us make stimuli (pictet, coughtrey, mathews, & holmes, 2011) ejop: your doctoral work at the university of cambridge, completed in 2005, explored the relationship between mental imagery and emotion. can you please europe’s journal of psychology 599 describe briefly your findings and how you have built up on them in the years that followed? prof. holmes: my work with andrew mathews tested the hypothesis that mental imagery has a special relationship with emotion. we found evidence to support this hypothesis as our work showed that mental imagery has a greater impact on emotion compared to verbal thoughts (for a review see holmes & mathews, 2010). this work has been a driver that has fuelled much of my work since, as we‟ve really tried to put mental imagery at the centre as a focus for mental health treatment targets. we‟ve started to develop treatment programmes of research, taking the link between mental imagery and emotion into bipolar disorder, into unipolar depression and into ptsd and flashbacks. the treatment development work we do is underpinned with a strong interest in cognitive neuroscience. ejop: one of your earlier research projects, at ucl, was related to the role of flashbacks in posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd). research into ptsd has been developing greatly and it constitutes now a very vibrant field with numerous practical implications. what do you think we have learned about ptsd in recent years and what remains to be studied in the near future? prof. holmes: we have excellent treatments for full-blown ptsd and these are now recommended by the uk guidelines for evidence-based treatment (national institute for health and clinical excellence, 2005). in this case, the treatment recommended is trauma-focussed cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt). so once someone has established, full-blown ptsd, those treatments are very good. however, we lack evidence-based treatments to offer people in the immediate aftermath of trauma, for example if there is a bomb or a natural disaster happens, what can we recommend can be done then? so what we‟re focussing our research on is the idea of preventing at a very early stage the build-up of flashbacks (distressing imagery-based memories of the trauma). flashback are the hallmarks of ptsd and we have shown in the lab that we can dampen them down by playing computer games such as tetris (holmes, james, kilford, & deeprose, 2010). ejop: in more recent work you have focused on depression and bipolar disorders. what are your current (and future) research projects? prof. holmes: we‟re trying slowly but surely to look at ways of developing treatment that allows us to capture the rich imagination that people with bipolar disorder have. we need to do work mapping out mental imagery in bipolar disorder (holmes et al., 2011; holmes, geddes, colom, & goodwin, 2008). we‟re also doing research on the on curiosity and passion for science pag e 60 effects of an online computer program, called oxigen (oxford imagery generation), on thinking style and mood in depression within a framework known as “cognitive bias modification”. this builds on our earlier work of looking at the role of imagery of the future in depression (lang, blackwell, hamer, davison, & holmes, in press) and allows us to explore developing internet platforms for treatment delivery. ejop: returning to the issue of interdisciplinarity and cross-fertilisation, ejop is particularly keen to foster dialogues between different subdisciplines within psychology as well as between psychology and related sciences. in your work you have explored the links between experimental and clinical psychology, including psychotherapy. traditionally the field of therapy has been informed by case studies conducted within the therapeutic practice. how are experimental procedures helpful for the work of the modern therapist? prof. holmes: case-studies are still very important and drive our early understanding of the phenomena we see in our clinical practice. we need case-studies, but we can also go further than that. in fact we have recently used case studies to test drive the application of some experimental work done in the lab (blackwell & holmes, 2010). psychology is a science, and in science you can do experiments. experiments are the only way we know that we can test causal hypotheses, e.g. does process x influence outcome y? that‟s exactly what we can do in the lab, and that‟s why i think experimental psychopathology is a driver that can truly modernise and contribute to the development of therapies, alongside and informed by careful clinical work. ejop: asking specifically about cognitive-behavioural therapy (cbt), a field you have been involved in most, what would you say are among the most important empirically-driven innovations in this area? prof. holmes: it‟s difficult to single out a particular one, as there are so many fields that contribute, such as emotion, cognition or memory for example. it‟s using the body of science together in driving therapy that‟s the important thing to consider. ejop: another important point of focus for ejop is the link between theory, research and practice in psychology. your work has successfully bridged the three and demonstrated how laboratory studies can shed light on what happens during the clinical treatment of patients. what are your thoughts on how this link can be further strengthened in psychology (or clinical psychology in particular) and what can be done to increase the applicability of psychological research? europe’s journal of psychology 601 prof. holmes: we need to establish a european training platform for people in experimental psychopathology, to give them a really good experience of both clinical aspects as well as areas like brain-scanning, and then translating that knowledge and those skills back again. what i would really like to see is us all trying to encourage a new generation of researchers to gain experiences that they can effectively translate and bridge between disciplines. it may be from clinical psychology to brain-scanning but it could equally be taking a clinical issue and translating it to law. but what we need to do is help supervise and nurture people‟s talents and interests so they can spread across fields. there should be increased mobility and funding to allow people to bridge those skills and interests, particularly for students and early career researchers as they move into the next stage of their career. for early career stage researchers, making applied links and/or working between disciplines takes a lot of courage because their training can take longer and we should really seek to support and mentor them in this endeavour. ejop: related to the above, psychologists also need to be able to communicate scientific results to broader audiences and everything that has to do with mental health in particular is scrutinised by laypeople and a variety of specialists from different fields. in this process researchers also become publicly accountable for their work. what do you think can be done by (clinical) psychologists to become more successful in disseminating their results? prof. holmes: i think it is important to communicate to the public the results of one‟s science. when we‟ve tried to do that in our lab, what‟s struck me and what‟s been really heartening is the range of responses that come back. sometimes we have questions that come back from patients, but also we might have really interesting questions that come back, for example, from school children who‟ve found descriptions of our studies and have then become interested in them as a science topic. it‟s great to see the interest that‟s been sparked off in them. so i think it‟s really about a spirit of curiosity about science in general; encouraging the next generation of people to do science is the really interesting question about communicating about science, whatever that science may be. within that, i do think that within mental health one has a responsibility to talk about it, to try and destigmatise it. mental health problems will affect one in four people and it‟s very important that we put this information in the public domain positively, and handle it responsibly. i am a fan of open access publishing – as that makes our scientific results available to a broad audience. on curiosity and passion for science pag e 60 on a practical note, if there are particular studies to communicate via the media to a broader audience, one way to help control the coverage is to have a very thoughtful and sensible press release which captures the important points. perhaps in a sensitive field like this, that‟s always a good starting point, so that is carefully thought through and sensitively laid out – though ultimately one clearly cannot control everything that is written about one‟s work. ejop: finally, and going back to another defining characteristic of ejop, we are focused on promoting the work of graduate students and early career researchers, helping them communicate their research and become accustomed to the system of peer-review and academic publishing. you have been extremely successful in both developing a publication record and becoming established in your field of research. your work has been awarded on different occasions by the british psychological society (the may davidson award, the spearman medal) and more recently you received the comenius early career psychologist award from efpa. what would be your advice for young and developing scholars on how to succeed in today‟s academic and professional world and make an impact from early on through their psychological research? prof. holmes: find a topic that you enjoy and niggles on your mind! develop a base of mentors who care about you as a scientist and person as well as the science per se, and try and plan one step ahead. develop a strong relationship with your supervisor but also get their advice and other people‟s advice about how to go to the next step. plan ahead, but have integrity – do things because you really believe in them and you want to do them. i am an optimist – things will work out. develop a good network of peers that can support you. for women in science or people who are in a minority in their particular field in whatever way, mentoring and peer support can be even more important. a good sense of humour is essential. get involved in contributing to your profession from the outside, like teaching and reviewing. it‟s about being an “academic citizen” – not just about focusing on your own narrow niche. and remember it‟s not always a straight line and that having lots of twists and turns is actually pretty interesting for you and your science! references blackwell, s. e., & holmes, e. a. (2010). modifying interpretation and imagination in clinical depression: a single case series using cognitive bias modification. applied cognitive psychology, 24(3), 338-350. doi: 10.1002/acp.1680 europe’s journal of psychology 603 bonsall, m. b., wallace-hadrill, s. m. a., geddes, j. r., goodwin, g. m., & holmes, e. a. (2011). nonlinear time-series approaches in characterizing mood stability and mood instability in bipolar disorder. proceedings of the royal society b: biological sciences. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2011.1246 hackmann, a., bennett-levy, j., & holmes, e. a. (2011). oxford guide to imagery in cognitive therapy. oxford: oxford university press. holmes, e. a. (2008). memory, trauma and stress guidelines on memory and the law: recommendations from the scientific study of human memory. leicester: british psychological society. holmes, e. a., deeprose, c., fairburn, c. g., wallace-hadrill, s. m. a., bonsall, m. b., geddes, j. r., et al. (2011). mood stability versus mood instability in bipolar disorder: a possible role for emotional mental imagery. behaviour research and therapy, 49(10), 707-713. holmes, e. a., geddes, j. r., colom, f., & goodwin, g. m. (2008). mental imagery as an emotional amplifier: application to bipolar disorder. behaviour research and therapy, 46(12), 1251-1258. holmes, e. a., james, e. l., kilford, e. j., & deeprose, c. (2010). key steps in developing a cognitive vaccine against traumatic flashbacks: visuospatial tetris versus verbal pub quiz. plos one, 5(11), e13706. doi: doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0013706 holmes, e. a., & mathews, a. (2010). mental imagery in emotion and emotional disorders. clinical psychology review, 30(3), 349-362. doi: doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2010.01.001 holmes, e. a., sandberg, a., & iyadurai, l. (2010). erasing trauma memories: is this what the science suggests or even what we want to do? [letter to the editor]. british journal of psychiatry online, 190(1), 81a. lang, t. j., blackwell, s. e., hamer, c. j., davison, p., & holmes, e. a. (in press). cognitive bias modification using mental imagery for depression: developing a novel computerized intervention. european journal of personality. national institute for health and clinical excellence. (2005). post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd): the management of ptsd in adults and children in primary and secondary care. london national institute for health and clinical excellence. pictet, a., coughtrey, a. e., mathews, a., & holmes, e. a. (2011). fishing for happiness: the effects of positive imagery on interpretation bias and a behavioral task. behaviour research and therapy. doi: doi 10.1016/j.brat.2011.10.003 microsoft word 6. theoretical contribution psychoanalysis.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 56-81 www.ejop.org hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious constantine sandis oxford brookes university and nyu in london abstract this paper explores alfred hitchcock’s use of freudian psychoanalysis in a number of his films, with particular emphasis on spellbound (1945), psycho (1960), and marnie (1964). i argue that the films (and related primary source material) demonstrate that hitchcock was largely unconvinced of the validity of psychoanalytic theory and practice which he frequently mocked, both on-screen and off. nonetheless, he greatly appreciated the magnetism of the psychoanalytic process and general charm of freud’s conceptual world. it is for this reason that he kept returning to freudian aesthetics throughout his cinematic career. indeed, understanding how hitch came to master this love/hate relationship is the key to understanding when and why the films succeed as well as where and how they fail. the paper ends with an analogy between hitchcock’s attitude to freud and that of ludwig wittgenstein with the further aim of evaluating some of freud’s most significant ideas. keywords: freud, hitchcock, wittgenstein, psychoanalysis, unconscious, dreams, guilt, repression, divided mind, scientific validity. ‘the stupid idiots! as if i don’t know what i’m doing. my technique is serious. i am consciously aware of what i am doing in all my work’ alfred hitchcock (upon being told that the new yorker magazine has described an aspect of psycho as ‘unconscious’) europe’s journal of psychology 57 1. screen test: from couch to celluloid sure, some of the freud stuff is “cheesy”, but it still “pulls”. c.d. strother, reviewer on amazon.com there isn’t a shadow of a doubt that the master of suspense knew a thing or two about psychology. indeed, it is inconceivable that a cinema director with the ability to trick and treat an audience the way hitchcock did could remain a stranger to the human psyche. hitchcock’s grasp of human psychology was chiefly if not entirely intuitive. he did not embrace any specific psychological theory and his knowledge of both the academic discipline and the medical practice it eventually gave rise to (a practice which he often expressed a strong distaste for) was fairly limited. preferring to read both fictional and factual accounts of thefts and murders he often ‘fell in love with’, hitch gained most of his psychological insight by combining his indirect study of criminal lives with the observation of the day to day behavior of those around him and some good old-fashioned introspection. still, as patrick mcgilligan notes in his biography a life in darkness and light , ‘the director wasn’t unfamiliar with freud’s writings, having first browsed them in the 1920s’ and indeed ‘was more than capable of expounding…on symbols…and artefacts’1, freud being ‘a hot topic at cromwell rd’2 while hitch was filming the 39 steps. despite the fact that hitchcock ‘didn’t take the subconscious too seriously, and in his private life studiously avoided doctors of the mind’3, he clearly must have found something valuable in what he read. many of his films including the 39 steps (1935), notorious (1946), vertigo (1958), north by northwest (1959), and the birds (1963) hint at the freudian4, while the central plots of three are explicitly couched in psychoanalytic terms. these are 1945’s spellbound, 1960’s psycho, and 1964’s marnie (from here onwards collectively referred to as the freudian trilogy, which is not to suggest that hitchcock ever conceived of them as such). 1 mcgilligan (2003: 355). 2 ibid: 173. 3 ibid: 355. 4 vertigo is particularly fraught with freudian imagery, the rather ludicrous plot (parodied in mel brooks’ high anxiety) hanging upon a tenuous connection between the protagonist’s acrophobia and repressed guilt. hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 58 so why did hitch return to freud time and time again if he didn’t take his work all that seriously? the answer to the mystery, i suspect, is that he was drawn to freud’s theories because he found them charming rather than theoretically persuasive. part of the appeal that made freud so contagiously popular among literary and artistic circles is the sheer simplicity of his theories. the basic principles of freud’s psychological theory are easy to grasp and one does not need an iota of science or philosophy to make sense of them (if anything such knowledge complicates the task). freud, like nietzsche before him, suspects that we rarely act for the reasons that we think. both theories were to become enormously influential; but whereas nietzsche ultimately characterises all drives as manifestations of the ephemeral (and much misunderstood) will-to-power, freud’s focus on sex and death is more concrete, memorable, and saucy. even the most technical of freud’s terms resemble ordinary figures of speech. it is no accident that a conscious selection of bespoke terms such as ‘defense mechanism’ and ‘repressed guilt’, each carefully tailored (in both the original german and their subsequent translations) to make us feel at home without having opened a single psychology textbook5. this aspect to freud’s psychological insight was the one that hitchcock (a maker of popular films after all) could best relate to. no stranger to freud’s train of thought he understood why, in contrast to the alienating jargon of most scientists and academics, freud’s choice of vocabulary helped to ensure his rise to popularity. witnessing how swiftly psychoanalysis was permeating the arts and predicting that it would maintain a lasting presence in the mind of society at large, hitchcock too wanted a piece of the irrational action. he didn’t quite get there first though. compton bennett’s the seventh veil produced independently for less than £100,000 (compared to spellbound’s estimated $1.7 million) on a rapid shooting schedule beat him by a fraction in the photo finish6.scripted by sydney and muriel box, the film largely consists of a series of flashbacks in which the protagonist francesca cunningham removes seven 5 freud was by no means averse to employing jargon (some of which appears further below) when the context called for it. he always held control of its aesthetic power though, arguably so much so that it caused him to overlook some of its semantic significance. 6 the seventh veil premiered in the uk on the 18th of october 1945 and in the us on christmas day, reaching theatres on the continent throughout the new year. though spellbound had previewed as early as september 1944 (before the seventh veil had even began shooting) it did not premier until october 31 1945, in new york (and was released december 28th in the rest of the us, with openings in europe dispersed throughout the rest of the 40s and into the early 50s). sources: www.tcm.com, www.imdb.com, & www.criterion.com. europe’s journal of psychology 59 memory-veils under hypnotherapy. it was the biggest british box-office success of 1946 and in anticipation of its 2009 dvd release the british film institute announced that it remains the tenth most successful uk hit in terms of box office ticket numbers7, despite the fact that it’s influence remains negligible compared to that of hitch’s freudian trilogy (for reasons that should become clear by the end of this essay). to this day, then, psychoanalysis sells and everyone is buying. as one of the most popular of the psychology textbooks that hitchcock never read puts it: whatever its shortcomings as a scientific theory, the psychoanalytic account of personality remains the most comprehensive, far-reaching, and influential theory of personality ever created. its impact extends well beyond psychology, influencing the social sciences, the humanities, the arts, and society generally…many of its ideas have been absorbed into the mainstream of psychological thinking.8 it is in acknowledgement of this magnetic power, as opposed to any theoretical validity, that attracted hitchcock to freud’s work. put to the test of hitchcock’s silver screen, however, the resulting freudian picture of human personality disappoints: in stark contrast to hitch’s other films, the motivations of the characters are implausible, the explanations of their actions unconvincing. the fault is not in hitchcock’s understanding but with freud’s own theories. hitch is conscious of this and ultimately overcomes it, or so i shall claim. but first some freudian basics. 7 in 1947 the seventh veil won the award for best original screenplay. by contrast spellbound scriptwriters angus macphail and ben hecht did not receive a nomination when in 1946 (the film being a us production) composer miklós rózsa won the film the academy award for best music score. spellbound was also nominated for best actor in supporting role (world-famous russian playwright michael chekhov for his memorable portrayal of dr. burlov), best special effects (largely centered around dali’s famous dream sequence), best black and white cinematography, best director, and best picture (op. cit). 8 atkinson et. al (1985: 511); cf. godfrey-smith (2003:72). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 60 2. doing the unconscious: the divided self like freud, hitchcock diagnosed the discontents that chafe and rankle beneath the decorum of civilization. peter conrad, the hitchcock murders9 nowadays we readily associate over a dozen psychological notions and concepts with freud. a couple i mentioned above, others include wish fulfillment, libido theory, neurosis, hysteria, psychosis, the oedipus complex, the interpretation of jokes, psychic reality, guilt transference, and displacement theory. despite their prima facie diversity these all emerge from a single underlying theory which grounds and unifies them into a coherent whole. at its most general level, freud’s theory of the unconscious states that a large subset of our memories, emotions, fears, impulses, thoughts, and desires are inaccessible to our consciousness, being instead assigned to our so-called subconscious. the term purportedly refers to a blocked part of the mind that cannot be reached through ordinary introspection10. accordingly, its contents are said to reside in our subconscious when we have repressed them, thus forcing them to steer towards our dreams and behavior through poorly lit backstreets. the psychoanalyst’s job, then, is to police the area and provide safe escort for all. without such protection abnormal behavior (which differs from normal behavior only in degree and not in kind) increases to the point of mental illness. psychoanalytic therapy takes various forms including hypnosis, free association, and the interpretation of dreams, all of which play central roles in the freudian trilogy. to understand their explanatory force, however, we need to dig a little deeper into the freudian of personality. freud may have been clumsy to equate the human self with the human mind, but he did so with great precision, dividing it into three conflicting parts: the id, the ego, 9 conrad (2001:xiii). 10 of course freud does not claim that every belief, feeling, memory etc. which we are not currently conscious of resides in the unconscious. there are elements of our psychology (arguably most of them) which although we may not be consciously aware of all the time, we could nonetheless easily turn our consciousness towards should we so choose. freud calls such mental phenomena ‘preconscious’ because they are readily available should we decide to turn our attention to them. unconscious psychological phenomena, by contrast, we cannot recognise by simply turning our consciousness towards them. europe’s journal of psychology 61 and the superego11. the id is chiefly comprised of innate biological drives, instincts, and dispositions, as well as the wishes, feelings, and memories of past experiences that are typically associated with them. by contrast the ego, which we develop as young children, is made up of those mental phenomena relating to whatever environmental considerations constrain the id (freud calls these the ‘reality principle’), for example, the id’s basic hunger drive is constrained by beliefs (in the ego) about what food is available where. finally, the superego contains our internalized representations of social values and morals and our related moral judgments. all of the id is unconscious while most of the ego is conscious. a great deal of the superego and some of the ago are preconscious, though occasionally some of its contents will reside in the unconscious (depending on their relation with the id). freud frequently compared the human mind to an iceberg, of which only a tiny part (representing conscious experience) appears above the surface of the water (possibly representing human perception). below the surface, however, lies a much larger, darker part of the iceberg, representing the unconscious (see fig. 1 below). 11“ich” had been typically translated as “i” and “es” as "it" until the publication of the first volumes of the standard edition of freud in the 1950s whence they became known as "ego" and "id" respectively, cf. dexter (2007: 143ff). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 62 the id is the source of all basic drives and instincts, while the superego is governed by the moral constraints which govern our conscience (and, as we can see in the diagram, freud thought we were conscious of some of these, but not most. finally the ego’s job is to settle the conflict between the superego and the id (that are often at odds with each other), and in so doing provide us with a sense of self. sometimes it resolves conflict in favor of the id, and other times in favor of the ego, but it never satisfies either fully. finally between the conscious and the unconscious mind, freud believed there to be what he called a ‘preconscious’ which includes believes, memories, and desires that we are not currently conscious of but which we can easily be triggered or otherwise brought to our attention without the need for psychoanalysis. symbolically, this might be just below sea-level, easily perceived from above. like freud, hitchcock time and time again presents us with the ordinary and familiar before revealing a twisted picture of what lies beneath (a picture we know is coming but whose precise shape is always novel). we cannot be certain that hitchcock ever came across the iceberg metaphor, but he would have undoubtedly found it inspiring. hitch frequently chose to present us with leading ladies that appear to be cold as ice, only to reveal that once their exterior melts, an abundance of repressed thoughts and desires rises to the surface. a recurring feature in all his work, this technique is elevated to new proportions within the freudian trilogy. consider marnie, for example. her appearance and behavior, in particular towards men, are so chilling that mark rutland (the character played by sean connery) senses that something is wrong underneath. it is as if a mask has been built to fend off any offenders who might potentially want to uncover what lies beneath. in a bid to repress an id that is as dark as marnie’s, the ego and superego build a particularly strong bright shield to cover it. the ego does this by representing marnie as a hard-shelled thief who will not let the feelings of others get in the way, while the superego identifies itself with a man-hating morality, and a general distrust of man’s animal instincts. to elaborate, marnie’s id is formed by basic drives which have somehow been transformed by a traumatic (shame-inducing) experience which can only be recalled through psychoanalysis. this evokes a fear of sex, coupled with a violent disposition towards men (particularly men she might be said to be attracted to, for they represent a greater danger). on a freudian analysis, at the start of she is not conscious of any of these things when the film begins, but only of whatever thoughts and perceptions lie at the tip of her consciousness. marnie believe she is in control of europe’s journal of psychology 63 her actions, taking herself to base these upon the beliefs, perceptions, and moral principles which she is conscious of. in material reality, however, her behavior is governed by the fears, motives, and experiences which lie at the bottom of a deep mental ocean. as the film progresses mark gradually lowers her the sea level until the bedrock is eventually uncovered. we witness a similar process in spellbound: constance peterson’s clinical exterior (ironically) thaws in direct proportion to her successfully recovering memories of snow from john ballantine’s subconscious. her exterior helps the ego and superego to suppress the id but also betrays that something is wrong underneath. it is the job of psychoanalysts to look out for such signs yet they frequently report that fear of being unmasked inevitably leads to a distrust of psychoanalysis. so it is that in spellbound the patient miss carmichael mocks it: this whole thing is ridiculous…psychoanalysis, it blows the pants of me. lying there on the couch like some dreary nitwit telling all. you don’t really expect to get anywhere listening to me babbling about my idiotic childhood, really...i see it’s my subconscious putting up a fight…it doesn’t want be cured…you and your drooling science…i detest you…you and your nickels worth of nothing. ballantine likewise declares that he doesn’t believe in dreams: ‘that freud stuff is a lot of hooey’ and in marnie the leading lady (who turns out to be lead, by her subconscious) implies that psychoanalysis is both primitive and offensive: ‘me jane you freud?’ hitchcock knows that large parts of the audience people like himself – will be sceptical, but also recognizes that a great part of the charm of psychoanalytic theory is that it has constructed itself in such a way that these sorts of objections will only be seen as further confirmation of its validity viz. unconscious resistance to what psychoanalysis would reveal. in the case of marnie and constance this would also explain why it takes a rutland or ballantine (outsiders whose personalities are in no competition with the ids of marnie and peterson) to cure them. but if even an intelligible, well-articulated, denial of the value of psychoanalysis is taken to confirm its truth we may legitimately wonder whether any possible evidence could ever count against it. the philosopher karl popper maintained that nothing could, thereby concluding that psychoanalysis was not a science since all scientific theory must in principle be falsifiable (cf. popper 1963). the extent to which his objection succeeds depends on whether we can conceive of possible evidence hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 64 which the freudian would take to count against psychoanalytic theory12.popper was quick to point out, not having any bona fide scientific credentials does not rob a theory of all possible values. ideologies such as marxism, popper thought, had nonscientific value, and perhaps the same could be said of psychoanalysis. hitch would not have expressed his own reservations in so analytic a fashion, still it would not be wrong to attribute to him the view that while psychoanalytic theory is not much of a science, it nonetheless a world of value. 3. in dreams: spellbound by guilt film should be stronger than reason alfred hitchcock it was arguably a historical accident that triggered hitch’s cinematographic interest in psychoanalysis. in the early 40s, film producer david o. selznick found himself suffering from depression and began seeing a therapist mary romm. within a year he had asked hitchcock to make a film based on this personal experience with psychoanalysis, which had been entirely positive. hitchcock agreed and romm was hired as his ‘psychiatric’ advisor (cf. leff 2002). anecdotal evidence suggests that he ignored her advice in how therapy works, responding on at least one occasion with the words: 'my dear, it's only a movie. don't take it too seriously’. the film in question, spellbound, was based loosely on ‘francis beeding13’s’ novel the house of dr. edwardes (hitchcock’s preferred title for the film, alongside hidden impulse14). there is little doubt that hitch primarily saw it as a vehicle for conveying the charm of psychoanalysis by ‘giving cinematic life to the dreams that help unravel the amnesiac’s identity’15. so much is revealed in his interviews with famous french filmmaker françois truffaut: 12 prior to popper, the logical positivists had argued that an expression or theory was only meaningful if its truth could be verified. for some positivists, this entailed conclusive establishment through experience. others, such as a.j. ayer, understood verification in terms of mere probability. while there are plenty of reasons to reject the verification principle on either understanding (for one it is by its own lights itself meaningless) it is worth questioning the sense in and extent to which certain data might be thought to verify psychoanalytic theory. 13 a pseudonym for john leslie palmer and hilary aldan st george sanders. 14 leff (2002). 15 truffaut (1967: 355). europe’s journal of psychology 65 f.t: i saw spellbound again recently and i must admit that i didn’t care very much for the scenario. a.h.: well, it’s just another manhunt story wrapped up in pseudopsychoanalysis…we tried to use a logical approach to the man’s adventure. […] f.t.: i hope you won’t be offended but i must say i found the picture something of a disappointment. a.h.: not at all. the whole thing’s too complicated, and i found the explanations towards the end very confusing.16 this last point, in conjunction with the reference to pseudo-psychoanalysis confirms that hitchcock was not remotely interested with the scientific details of the explanation. indeed, the film is said to fail because, in spite of everything, the details of explanation remain too complicated. consider the film’s enigmatic dream sequence, designed by salvador dalí17, as a test case since, from a cinematic point of view, the interpretation of dreams was obvious territory for hitch to explore. according to freud, all dreams represent wish fulfillment, being manifestations of hidden, unconscious, fear, conflicts, desires, and impulses. these all strive to express themselves in our sleep, when our conscious defenses are at their weakest. in dreams, freud claims, the unconscious appears in a disguised form. thus every manifest content (what the dream is directly about) is supplemented by a latent content, constituted by the unconscious conflict represented in disguised ways. in dr. burlov’s words: now here’s where dreams come in. they tell you what you are trying to hide, but they tell it to you all mixed up like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit. the problem of the analyst is this: to examine this puzzle, and put the pieces together in the right place and figure out what the devil you are trying to say to yourself. in the case of edwardes (aka john ballantine) the pieces include a gambling house, a large pair of scissors cutting drapes with eyes painted on them in half, a semi-clad 16 ibid (165ff). 17 cf. spoto (1983) and leff (2002) for two examples of the diverse accounts of dalí’s presence, the dream sequences that ended up on the cutting room floor, and the reasons why hitchcock, among others, found them distasteful. hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 66 woman (who, he reports, looks like constance) that is kissing everybody, the proprietor of the casino has a blank face, edwardes playing cards with a man with a beard (he deals him the 7 of clubs, the man then claims he’s got 21 but his cards are blank when he turns them over ), a man in a mask drops a misshapen wheel on a sloping roof, a man with a beard falls, edwardes is chased by wings to the bottom of a hill and then escapes. so described, these pieces give us the dreams manifest content. dr. burlov and constance (who goes to dr. murchinson for help) shift the pieces around until berlov found an interpretation which he takes to represent the dream’s latent content, and ultimately reveal what edwardes’ subconscious was trying to tell him: the gambling house represents green manors and its inmates; the proprietor is the head of the asylum dr. murchison, the bearded man is presumably the real dr. edwardes; the blackjack game (‘21’) and the 7 of clubs ‘represent’ the 21 club which ballantine and edwardes had once been to, the blank cards a sign of edwardes’ denial; the eyes on the curtain represent the guards of the asylum and ballantine’s cutting them is an expression of his wish to escape; the girl kissing everybody is constance who he is in love with, the man behind the mask is the proprietor trying to hide his identity; the wheel represents a revolver and the sloping roof the slope at angel valley; the wings stand for his being chased (by constance who he sees as an angel) but they also refer to gabriel valley, the ski resort where the murder took place, represented in the dream by the bottom of the hill. it is in this latent content that the real meaning of the dream is to be found. even deeper in john ballantine’s lies the explanation for why all these repressed memories and feelings have been blocked from his consciousness: when he was a boy he accidentally killed his brother while sliding down a snowy slope, the repressed memory of this event is re-awakened when he witnesses the murder which murchinson commits on the slopes of the ski resort thus triggering a transfer of guilt from the death of his brother to the death of the real dr. edwardes. the memories are finally unlocked once constance takes john back to the scene of the crime and ballantine is eventually revealed by psychoanalysis to be an imposter suffering from amnesia, tormented by a dark secret in his past. the connection between the latent and blatant ‘meanings’ of the dream are drawn up from facts about the patient’s unusual behavior combined with known facts about his biography such as the fact that ballantine cannot bear to see dark lines on white surfaces (be it the fork lines on the tablecloth, or the pattern on constance’s robe and the duvet in the hotel room), suggesting that ballantine was traumatized by an episode involving lines on a white surface. europe’s journal of psychology 67 this hardly amounts to evidence for the radical dream symbolism that we are subsequently subjected to in the movie (for a detailed criticism of freud’s method of dream interpretation see § 6 below). dr. mary romm was there to advise both hitchcock and dalí on how to make the symbolism as convincing as possible on a theoretical level, however both artists believed (rightly) that visual symbols need not be theoretically valid in order to successfully perform their function which was, effectively, to associate ideas in such a way that they generate the kind of clues which neither give the game away nor leave viewers feeling cheated (the blackjack game is a successful case in point). indeed hitch seems to have been of the opinion that if any symbolism was theoretically plausible at all (which he greatly doubted) it would lack aesthetic pull and take away from the thrill of the picture which relies on emotional impulses rather than rational understanding (a point he explicitly makes in relation to psycho, see § 6 below)18. hitchcock did not want the theory to get in the way of the experience, as it ultimately did. his rightful concern (with both the ramm-infuenced screenplay and dalí’s ideas) was that the sheer complexity of it all, which strips the overarching theory of any cinematic elegance or pull it may have otherwise had. could this be the reason why in the end it is love, not psychotherapy alone, that heals ballantine (cf. brill 2002)?either way, it would explain why his disagreements with dalí and romm (see above, esp. fn. 17) related to aesthetic and not explanatory concerns. when over half the dream-sequence was abandoned, hitchcock was not in the least worried about what the dream’s ‘meaning’ would now be reduced to. to recapitulate, let us return to the film’s opening. it begins with a partial quotation from shakespeare’s julius caesar: the fault…is not in our stars, but in ourselves… the rather general sentiment expressed her is one that freud embraced, still, one does not need to be freudian to agree with it (for one, jung, klein, and jaspers would agree with it too). it is also worth looking at the full original quotation (from act i, scene ii): 18 hitchcock though possibly not dalí would have detested most of what currently goes on under the ‘film-studies’ umbrella, not least psychoanalytic studies of his own work. it is hard to say whether or not commercial interests would have affected his public attitude towards them. hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 68 men at some time are masters of their fates: the fault, dear brutus ,is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. now why should the reference to being underlings (i.e. subordinates) be removed? a possible answer (i have no proof here) is that hitch did so consciously because he rejected this most crucial aspect of freud’s theory, as illustrated by one of his best known passages: in the course of centuries the naive self-love of men has had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science. the first was when they learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness. ..the second blow fell when biological research destroyed man's supposedly privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature. ..but human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on unconsciously in its mind19. some support for the view that hitch was trying to distance himself from the final claim made above may be found in the caption which immediately follows the shakespeare quotation in the film: our story deals with psychoanalysis, the method by which modern science treats the emotional problems of the sane. the analyst seeks only to induce the patient to talk about his hidden problems, to open the locked doors of his mind. once the complexes that have been disturbing the patient are uncovered and interpreted, the illness and confusion disappear…and the devils of unreason are driven from the human soul. on the face of it this has a classic psychoanalytic feel and appears mundane enough to pass us by without further consideration, yet it may well disguise an antifreudian code. for one, the only thing which the analyst seeks to do is, effectively, to pry into the patient’s mind. and let us not forget that in spellbound it is the doctors who are deceived indeed spellbound by the patients. 19 freud (1953-74, vol. xvi: 284-5). europe’s journal of psychology 69 equally striking is the choice of the word ‘sane’ (as opposed to ‘insane’ or at the very least ‘neurotic’). compare this to the following (typical) passage from freud in which he suggests that no human being is fully sane: if you look at the matter from a theoretical point of view and ignore this question of degree you can very well say that we are all ill i.e. neurotic; for the conditions required for symptom-formation are demonstrable also in normal persons20. could it be that that the joke was on freud, selznik, and romm? as we are about to seem hitch’s treatment of both spellbound and marnie would certainly support this reading. either way, spellbound succeeds only partially and despite the complex (and at times implausible) motivations of the characters. by the time he shot his next freudian piece, hitch had learned his lesson. 4. dial p for psycho-analysis i suppose it must have all started when i was in my mother’s arms at the age of six months and she said to me: ‘boo’ and scared the something out of me, you know. alfred hitchcock, in interview21 scripted by joseph stefano (from the novel by robert bloch), psycho is chiefly remembered for its notorious shower scene rather than for any association with psychoanalysis, yet it is the most freudian of all hitchcock’s films. the parallel between lila crane’s exploration of the bates house and our gradual exploration of the various rooms (departments) in bate’s divided mind alone confirms this. hitch’s own assessment of the granddaddy of horror films was that its success was largely due to its implausibility. in conversation with françois truffaut he says: if psycho had been intended as a serious picture, it would have been shown as a clinical case with no mystery or suspense. the material would have been used as the documentation of a case history. we’ve already mentioned that total plausibility and authenticity merely add up to a 20 from introductory lectures on psychoanalysis (1915; reprinted in freud 1953-74). 21 robinson (1960). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 70 documentary. in the mystery and suspense genre, a tongue-in-cheek approach is indispensable.22 in contrast to spellbound, which fails because for all its beautiful cinematography the documentary-like explanation is horrendously complex, psycho is said to succeed because the bate’s motivation is not put forward as a serious hypothesis but, instead, as something humorous, and at best only partially plausible. ‘i am aware that i am equipped with what other people might have called a fiendish sense of humor’23, hitchcock would volunteer when questioned about the final sequence in psycho: you have to remember that psycho is a film made with quite a sense of amusement on my part. to me it‘s a fun picture the process through which we take the audience, you see, it‘s rather like taking them through the haunted house at the fairground, you know. after all it stands to reason that of one were seriously doing the psycho story, it would be a case history. you would never present it in forms of mystery or the juxtaposition of characters, as they were placed in the film. they were all designed in a certain way to create this audience emotion. probably the real psycho story wouldn’t have been emotional at all; it would’ve been terribly clinical.24 in certain obvious ways, the freudian element in psycho is reminiscent of that in spellbound. first of all we have the repressed memory of a traumatic incident causing a transfer of guilt (manifested, on this occasion, as an oedipal complex). this in turn leads to a partial loss of ‘the self’ and a strong sense of identification with the victim (in spellbound ballantine takes on edwardes’ identity; in psycho bates takes that of his mother). psycho gets away with it because it strikes the right balance between simplicity and humour. within film, theory works best when kept relatively simple, even when this is at the expense of certain kinds of authenticity. it was the inability to fully grasp this point that caused the seventh veil and to a lesser degree spellbound25 to suffer from the clinicality hitchcock warns against above. 22 truffaut (1967:202). 23 rebello (1998: 20). 24 gotlieb (2003: 47-8). hitch is here referring to the real-life case of ed gein who kept his dead mother’s room in wisconsin inviolate and untouched, and allegedly used to dress up in her ‘breasts and skins’ in which he murdered about a dozen women (with, apparently, no subsequent memory of having committed any of the crimes). 25 lesser because, like psycho, it is redemmed by humour. europe’s journal of psychology 71 psycho, like so many of hitch’s films, is not to be conceived as a whodunit but, rather, as a macabre way of satisfying the emotional needs of his audience. the real suspense is about what the ‘cinematic suspense’ will next be about. on hitchcock’s view, it doesn’t actually matter what the macguffin is. so long as it is sufficiently important to the characters to motivate the action, the audience doesn’t need to care about it at all (cf. gottlieb 2002: 48). in the master’s own words: i’ve never dealt with whodunits…they’re simply clever puzzles, aren’t they? they’re intellectual rather than emotional, and emotion is the only thing that keeps my audience interested. i prefer suspense rather than surprise something the average man can identify with. the audience can’t identify with detectives; they’re not part of his everyday life.26 still, we might think that the film is not so entirely removed from this genre that there is no question of who did it. we would feel cheated, for example, if all the clues that might enable us to guess were not in place. such was truffaut’s reaction to the original book: i’ve read the novel from which psycho was taken, and one of the things that bothered me is that it cheats. for instance, there are passages like this: “norman sat down beside his mother and they began a conversation.” now, since she doesn’t exist, that’s obviously misleading, whereas the film narration is rigorously worked out to eliminate these discrepancies .27 the film version is more honest and even includes a shot of bates swinging his hips as he climbs up the stairs. it only lasts for a few frames but it is sufficient for an observant viewer to infer the film’s denouement from it. as hitch put it, ‘the basic clue was in the feminine nature of the character altogether’.28 he might have also added bates’ interest in taxidermy. nonetheless, we do remain somewhat cheated by the fact that the voice of bates’ mother is not that of anthony perkins but a ‘spliced and blended’ recording of one 26 rebello (1998: ch. 3). in a 1947 hollywood press conference hitchcock stated: ‘i aim to provide the public with beneficial shocks, civilization has become so protective that we’re no longer able to get our goose bumps instinctively. the only way to remove the numbness and revive our moral equilibrium is to use artificial means to bring about the shock. the best way to achieve that, it seems to me, is through a movie’ cf. truffaut (1967:202). 27 ibid: 268. 28 gottlieb (2003:48). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 72 male and two female voices29. for hitch, however, this is all part of the playfulness which makes the film work: psycho has a very interesting construction and that game with the audience was fascinating. i was directing the viewers. you might say i was playing them, like an organ. 30 gus van sant’s shot-for-shot 1998 duplicate, by contrast, was doomed to fail in this respect from the outset31. 5. marnie: murder most unconscious old pond. frog jumps in. repressed sexual desire, clearly oedipal. david bader, ‘sigmund freud’s the interpretation of dreams in haiku’32 gosh can you imagine anyone resisting sean connery? that ought to tell you how troubled she was. dianne foster, reviewer on amazon.com it took only four years for hitchcock to return to the theme of psychoanalysis in 1964’s marnie, with a ‘final script’ by jay presson allen (the third writer hitch employed to script winston graham’s 1961 novel of the same name)33. the parallels between this last film of the trilogy and the first are striking: a dream ripe for interpretation, an emotional trigger (the color red, which plays a similar role to the dark lines on white surfaces in spellbound), and a neurotic protagonist who is suspicious of psychoanalysis yet comes to be ‘cured’ after being forced to relive a past traumatic experience34. hitch still saw cinematic value in freud. 29 paul jasmin, jeanette nolan, and virginia gregg. 30 truffaut (1967: 269). 31 in this respect the 1983-1990 pre/sequels (which form no part of hitchcock’s oeuvre) fair better. 32 badder (2005). 33 many critics have attacked marnie on purely cinematic grounds, questioning, for example, the painted backgrounds, atmospheric thunderstorms, red suffusions etc. i shall not concern myself with such criticisms here, save to refer readers to the admirable and coherent defense of the expressionist devices of marnie’s realism in wood (2002: chs. 8 & 19). 34 mark rutland and lil mainwarin (mark's sister-in-law) may additionally be viewed as representing, respectively, marnie’s superego and id. lil’s instincts are typically channelled into europe’s journal of psychology 73 the term neurosis, derived from the greek words neuron (nerve) and osis (abnormal condition), was coined by the scottish physician william cullem (1710-1790) to refer to ‘disorders of sense and motion’ whose cause lies in a ‘general affection of the nervous system’. in post-freudian psychology it is typically used to refer to any mental disorder which, while causing anxiety and distress, does not interfere with a person’s ability to reason and function. so conceived, both john ballantine and marnie exhibit clear signs of neurosis, in contrast to norman bates’ psychosis, a more severe pathological condition under which the patient becomes incapable of functioning normally (hence the term psychopath, abbreviated to the pejorative ‘psycho’). according to freud, neurosis is an ineffectual coping strategy/defence mechanism of the ego, caused by repressed memories and emotions and triggered by events which resemble them in some way. ultimately, it results in one or more phobias (uncontrollable and irrational fears) such as vertigo (see fn. 4 above) or the fear of red (which marnie shares with ballantine). the neurosis itself a defence mechanism of which phobias are but one resulting aspect may also take many forms: anxiety, hysteria, obsessive-compulsion disorder, frenzy, pyromania, etc. guilt, too, plays a prominent role: ballantine feels guilty for a murder he didn’t commit (a nice twist on hitchcock’s favourite theme of an innocent man accused), bates both blames his mother for the murders he committed and wants to be her because he cannot reconcile himself with the guilt of having killed her, and marnie represses the guilty memory of having killed the young sailor. in spellbound ballantine’s neurosis involves a fixation on the identity of a person whose death he feels guilty about (though not in the psychotic way in which bates takes on the identity of his mother). marnie’s neurosis, by contrast, manifests itself in a combination of man hatred and kleptomania. the latter is to be analysed in terms of an association she makes between the notion of earning and the painful incident she is trying to repress. she steals from men and sends back the money to her mother (whose past profession lies at the heart of her neurosis) at first sight, marnie appears to have a happy ending: the protagonist is cured by psychoanalysis and in love with mark rutland (despite the deep implausibility of the her consciousness through her love for her horse forio which she puts to death herself. in graham’s novel marnie merely watches as forio is shot by someone else; there is no lil character. instead, mark has a cousin (terry) with whom he competes for marnie’s affections. hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 74 vile form of her breakthrough35). but things are not so simple. as robin wood has pointed out, marnie is not really cured at the end of the film, though she has ‘confronted and to an extent transcended her trauma’36. the clue, wood tells us, lies in her tentative last line ‘oh, mark, i don’t want to go to prison. i’d rather come home with you’. a close comparison between her description of her ‘reclaimed memory’ and the images used to accompany it reveals that she misremembers certain key facts. ‘i hit him with a stick’ we hear her say as we watch her hitting him with a large fire-iron. she also claims that the sailor hit her mother, yet all we see is her mother hitting him: ‘only the spectator has access to the whole truth, while marnie’s account of it is subject to distortions and inaccuracies’.37 this account of marnie’s end shares close parallels with the interpretation of spellbound’s opening favoured above. it would seem that hitchcock has cheated freud for the third time. this is not the work of a man who strongly believes in the curing powers of psychoanalysis. 6. the trouble with freud i have a vague recollection of being scared by a policeman …i think that when i was probably about 4 or 5 years of age being sent with a note at the local police station and being shut in a cell as a punishment for some… mishap or… i think i don’t even know what it was for, i was probably unjustly incarcerated at the time. but you see the psychiatrist will always tell you if you have a fear that is rooted in you and comes from something in your childhood, the moment you can go back to it and release it all is well. it doesn’t apply to me, i’m still scared of policemen. alfred hitchcock in interview38 frequently asked about his obsession with the theme of innocent men accused, hitchcock would volunteer constantly mutating versions of the above most likely apocryphal – story. the great director intuitively understood that the implication of a 35 this is much discussed in the literature on marnie. a good place to start is wood (2002: chs. 8 & 19). 36wood (2002:404). 37 ibid: 401.towards the end of the novel the film is based on, rutland exclaims ‘it’s all nonsense, marnie, all these barriers that you’re putting up. nothing’s in the blood, nothing’s in the upbringing, nothing happened at sangerford that we can’t throw away forever if you want to try, if you’ve got courage and some love. because they’re so much stronger than all these shabby ghosts. if you once find your way through the first thickets, there’s nothing that we can’t do together.’ hitch, by contrast, is less optimistic about the possibility of ridding ourselves from any ghosts of the subconscious. 38 robinson (1960). europe’s journal of psychology 75 traumatic experience lodging a lifelong fear in his subconscious would fascinate and excite his audience. as we have seen, hitch put little faith in the scientific validity of psychoanalytic theory, a stance which accords not only with the views of philosophers such as karl popper (see § 2 above) but with the scientific community at large39. a related set of philosophical objects to the freudian account of human personality has been put forth by ludwig wittgenstein, who accused freud of meaninglessly ascribing judgments, wishes, beliefs, and intentions to subparts of our personality which are not conscious (and function as purely causal mechanisms). upon first reading freud, wittgenstein claimed to have been fascinated by him, to the point of considering himself ‘a disciple’. he soon changed his mind though, becoming increasingly suspicious of freud’s use (or rather misuse) of certain psychological concepts. his overall attitude to freud was not unlike hitchcock’s: he was charmed but ultimately not fooled by it. in a letter to his friend and one-time pupil norman malcolm (written, incidentally, while spellbound was in production), wittgenstein explains: i, too, was greatly impressed when i first read freud. he’s extraordinary. of course he is full of fishy thinking & his charm & the charm of the subject is so great that you may be easily fooled. he always stresses what great forces in the mind, what strong prejudices work against the idea of psychoanalysis. but he never says what an enormous charm that idea has for people, just as it had for freud himself. there may be strong prejudices against uncovering something nasty, but sometimes it is infinitely more attractive than it is repulsive. unless you think very clearly psycho-analysis is a dangerous & foul practice, & it’s done no end of harm &, comparatively, very little good. (if you think i’m an old spinster think again!) all this, of course, doesn’t detract from freud’s scientific achievement. only, extraordinary scientific achievements have a way these days, of being used for the destruction of human beings (i mean their bodies, or their souls, or their intelligence). so hold onto your brains40. what does it mean for an impulse to be unconscious? what might a conscious impulse be like? and what does it mean to say that a memory is unconscious, or worse, that it resides in the unconscious? such are the questions which interest the 39 cf. atkinson et. al (1990:517). 40 december 1945 (reproduced in malcolm 1958: 44-5). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 76 philosopher of psychology, and wittgenstein came to the conclusion that freud’s concepts are empty: they are without meaning. in so doing, he offered a different kind of therapy altogether: a cure from the bewitchment of language, which freud himself seemed to be in great need of. consider the freudian method of dream interpretation appealed to in both spellbound and marnie. this relies on the assumption that dreams have significance or meaning. but what exactly are we ascribing to them here? in ordinary language these terms are multiply ambiguous. the philosopher paul grice (1957) distinguishes between two importantly different senses in which we can use the term ‘meaning’ which may help us to elucidate things a little. he calls meaning understood in the first sense natural meaning, and contrasts it with what he calls non-natural meaning, which in turn divides into speaker meaning and expression meaning (cf. fn. 40 below). claim (a) below uses ‘mean’ in what grice calls a natural sense viz. meaning as indication: (a) ‘those spots on your face mean you have measles’. by contrast claim (b) below uses meaning in a non-natural sense: (b) the french expression ‘vous avez la rougeole’ means ‘you have measles’. the crucial difference is that (a) is true in virtue of causal our natural relations (in the sense in which we say that ‘clouds mean rain’) where are (b) is true in virtue of linguistic and/or semantic conventions41. given that dreams – like clouds and unlike sentences are not linguistic entities, it is sensible to suppose that we can only embed them with natural meaning. at times, freud does just this: a friend who was acquainted with my theory of dreams, and had explained it to his wife, said to me one day: ‘my wife asked me to tell you that she dreamt yesterday that she was having her menses. you will know what that means.’ of course i know: if the young wife dreams that she is having her menses, the menses have stopped. i can well imagine that she 41 accordingly, (b) is a case of expression meaning. had he said that by ‘vous avez la rougeole’ pierre actually means ‘you have chickenpox’ and not ‘you have measles’ it would be a case of speaker meaning, though it is of course possible for speakers to mean the right thing by an expression (indeed we cannot use expressions to simply mean whatever we wish at will cf. wittgenstein, 1953 §510.) europe’s journal of psychology 77 would have liked to enjoy her freedom a little longer, before the discomforts of maternity began. it was a clever way of giving notice of her first pregnancy42. in the above anecdote the dream indicates that the woman was pregnant in the same way that the presence of clouds might indicate that it is going to rain (or the number of rings on the bark of a tree indicate how old the tree is without being semantic representations). so interpreted, its meaning is natural. freud also takes the dream to be an expression of a wish fulfilment: she dreams of having menses because she wishes she could enjoy her freedom a little longer. this too can be understood naturally: the dream merely indicating that she must have such a wish (since we often dream of things we wish for and to dream of menses is to indirectly dream of being free since the one typically entails the other). so far so natural, but freud goes considerably further than this. he says the dream represents a wish as fulfilled43. representation, however, requires symbol and something can only be a symbol if we intend to use it as such (the rings on the tree bark are a sign of how old the tree is but they do not symbolise its age). the dream, then, doesn’t only signify something naturally, for it has now also been turned into a vehicle of intentional communication. so, in addition to his friend’s statement about the dream (which is intended to communicate that his wife was pregnant44) we are told that the dream itself is used to communicate something, namely that its bearer has a certain wish. but this is to turn the dream into a symbol i.e. a pictorial representation, thereby embedding it with non-natural meaning (symbols are semantic entities and thereforefor all intents and purposes – would also count as linguistic entities for grice). there is nothing in principle wrong with the notion of one and the same thing having both natural and non-natural meaning. the words ‘the end’, for example, when they appear at the end of a motion picture are used to convey a certain message to the audience and in this respect have non-natural meaning. but a person completely ignorant of both this convention and the english language could and indeed typically would, having observed a certain number of films (on some views even just one or two), come to infer that when these ‘squiggles’ appear on the wall this 42 the interpretation of dreams (1900: ch. 3, p.38), included in freud (1953-74). 43 ibid. 44 this is why we need to be told that the friend is acquainted with freud’s theory of dreams. the number of such perfectly suited examples in freud are so numerous that it is all-too-tempting to think he must have tailored them to fit his purposes, just as he does his terminology. hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 78 means that the audience members will slowly start to rise from their seats and leave the cinema theatre. in this context the projected letters signify something nonnaturally (i.e. they do not do so by being treated as symbols; though it is true that their predictive use is parasitic upon their symbolic nature the person making the prediction need not know this45). the problem with freud’s move towards non-natural meaning lies elsewhere, namely in the fact that non-natural meaning requires intention and/or community-wide convention46. but who is doing the intending (that is trying to tell us something) here? it cannot be the dreamer for the whole point of the theory is that she is unaware of her own wishes (which are unconscious). freud rejects as worthless those ‘primitive’ answers to this question which either (i) only allow for the intuitive interpretation of dreams by soothsayers and prophets in trance or (ii) postulate a universal dream cipher (such that we might in principle be able to establish general key to the secret language of dreams which we could then transcribe into a dream dictionary for future consultation47). instead, he applies his theory of divided personality (outlined in § 2 above) which ascribes beliefs, aims, desires, goals, purposes, and intentions to the id, ego, and super-ego. in this particular case the id is trying to tell us something that the super-ego wishes to censor48. this conception of the mind, however embodies what has come to be known as the homunculus fallacy49 viz. that fallacy of explaining how a sub-part of a person works in terms that are only applicable to the person as a whole (as if it contained a little man or ‘homunculus’)50. freud does not address this problem, trading instead on the ambiguity of terms like ‘meaning’, ‘value’, ‘importance’ and ‘significance’ (which grice’s conceptual clarification would come to disambiguate). wittgenstein’s criticism of freud is that his fundamental theory relies upon the constant misapplication of psychological predicates. while he recognised the metaphorical power of freud’s views, he did so without falling into the trap of 45 analogously, one might think that the gods ‘mark’ the trees age each year with a new circle. 46 note that i am not here appealing to the details of grice’s particular account (indeed i think these should be rejected for broadly wittgensteinian reasons). 47 op. cit: ch, 2. alas such books ‘of dreams’ remain all too popular. 48 indeed in his early work early work the roles played by the ego and super-ego are more crudely attributed to ‘the censor’. 49 cf. bouveresse (1995:39). 50 we might therefore characterize the homunculus fallacy as a special instance of the mereological (part-whole) fallacy criticized in bennett & hacker (2003:68ff.) europe’s journal of psychology 79 thinking that the metaphors can be cashed out without any theoretical loss51.yet he was also astute enough to notice that a flawed scientific theory may nonetheless constitute not only an aesthetic achievement, but a scientific one too. indeed the history of science is replete with muddled or mistaken theories that nonetheless produced results which would forever change the daily life of humans (newton’s now outdated theories are an obvious case in point).52 likewise, hitch was never one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. his freudian trilogy succeeds only because he is able keep psychoanalytic theory at a distance from where he can mock it yet simultaneously recognise its enormous pull, power, and achievement. it is because of this recognition that the trilogy continues to fascinate us while a film like the seventh veil, for its their cinematic achievement, provokes little to no contemporary debate. we might even go as far as to say that hitchcock’s trilogy than freud’s own works. references atkinson, r.l., atkinson r.c., smith, e.e., beb, d.j., & hilgard, e.r. (1990), (eds.) introduction to psychology, 10th edition (florida: harcourt brace). ayer, a.j. (1936), language, truth, and logic (london: penguin). bader, d.m. (2005), one hundred great books in haiku (london: viking press). beeding, f. (1927), the house of dr. edwardes (london: hodder & stoughton). bernays, e.l. (1928), propaganda (ny: h. liveright). _________ (1945), public relations (ma: bellman publishing company). 51 cf. bennett & hacker (2003:80ff.) for the perils of using metaphors in the philosophy of mind more generally. arto laitinen reminded that the modern tendency towards neuropsychoanalysis attempts to save scientific face through the neurological reduction of the mind. it might thus be criticized for assuming a crude isomorphic form of representationalism (cf. bennett & hacker 2003:111). 52 cf. kuhn 1962. freud’s nephew edward bernays employed flawed psychological theories in politics and public relations with instrumental success (cf. bernays: 1928 & 1945). vance packard would later do the same for marketing (panckard:1957). for a critical assessment of the motivational theories employed see sandis (2010). hitchcock’s conscious use of freud’s unconscious 80 bennet, m. r. and hacker, p.m.s. (2003), philosophical foundations of neuroscience (oxford: blackwell). bloch, r. (1959), psycho (ny: simon & schuster). brill, l. (2002), ‘spellbound: love and psychoanalysis’, essay in criterion collection edition of spellbound, 23 september. bouveresse, j. (1995), wittgenstein reads freud – the myth of the unconscious, tr. c. cosman (princeton nj: princeton university press). conrad, p. (2001), the hitchcock murders (london: faber and faber). dexter, g. (2007), why not catch 21?: the stories behind the titles (london: frances lincoln). freud, s. (1953-74), the complete works the standard edition (24 volumes including introductory lectures on psychoanalysis, the ego and the id, the interpretation of dreams, and the psychopathology of everyday life), ed. by james strachey et al. (london: the hogarth press). godfrey-smith, p. (2003) theory and reality: an introduction to the philosophy of science (chicago university press, 2003 – new edition). gottlieb, s. (2002), framing hitchcock: selected essays from the hitchcock annual (detroit: wayne state university press). _________ (2003) (ed.), alfred hitchcock – interviews (ms: university press of mississipi). grice, h.p. (1957), ‘meaning’, the philosophical review, vol. 66, no. 3. july, pp. 377-388. kuhn, t.s. (1962), the structure of scientific revolutions (chicago: university press). leff, l. (2002), ‘selznik international’s spellbound’, essay in criterion collection edition of spellbound, 23 september. malcom, n. (1967) wittgenstein: a memoir (oxford: oxford university press). mcgilligan, p. (2003), alfred hitchcock: a life in darkness and light (new york & london: regan books). europe’s journal of psychology 81 packard, v. (1957), the hidden persuaders (in: cardinal). popper, k. (1963), conjectures and refutations (london: routledge and kegan paul). rebello, s. (1998) alfred hitchcock and the making of psycho (london: st. martin’s griffin) robinson, r. (1960), ‘an interview with alfred hitchcock’, picture parade, 5 june (bbc). sandis, c. (2010), the things we do and why we do them (basingstoke: palgrave macmillan). spotto, d. (1983), the dark side of genius: the life of alfred hitchcock (london: harper collins). truffaut, f. (1967, 2nd edition 1985) hitchcock (london: simon & schuster). winston, g. (1961), marnie (london: hodder & stoughton). wittgenstein, l. (1953), philosophical investigations, tr. g.e.m. anscombe (oxford: blackwell). wood, r. (2002), hitchcock’s films revisited (new york: columbia university press). about the author: constantine sandis is senior lecturer in philosophy at oxford brookes university & nyu in london, and currently also a visiting fellow at the helsinki collegium for advanced studies. he works in the philosophy of action and its motivation, including the history of its ideas. constantine is the editor of new essays on the explanation of action (palgrave macmillan 2009), co-editor (with timothy o’ connor) of a companion to the philosophy of action (wiley-blackwell 2010), and the things we do and why we do them (palgrave macmillan, 2010). he is currently working on an introduction to the philosophy of action (for wiley-blackwell) and co-editing (with arto laitinen) a book on hegel on action. contact: csandis@brookes.ac.uk; c.sandis@nyu.edu microsoft word 5. conflict resolution research.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp. 41-63 www.ejop.org conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour: the moderating role of trait emotional intelligence samuel o. salami university of ibadan abstract this study investigated the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb) and the moderating role of trait emotional intelligence (ei). participants were 320 public servants (male = 180, female = 140) randomly selected from five states in southwestern nigeria. measures of trait ei, ocb, and conflict resolution strategies were administered to the respondents. multiple regression was used to analyse the data collected. the results indicate that forcing and withdrawing strategies negatively and significantly predicted ocb. confronting, compromising and smoothing strategies significantly predicted ocb. trait ei moderated the relationship between ocb and forcing and withdrawing strategies. it was recommended that counsellors and psychologists should develop programmes to foster emotional intelligence and conflict resolution for both subordinates and superiors in work organisations. keywords: conflict resolution, organisational citizenship behaviour, trait ei, work attitudes, work-related behaviour. introduction over the years, several studies have linked resolution of conflicts in organisational settings with work performance or work indicators (attitudes) (alper, law, & tjosvold, 2000; meyer, 2004; ogungbamila, 2006). the federal government’s implementation of the monetization policy and organisational changes/restructuring engendered a lot of interpersonal conflict between the workers and the management in several organisations in nigeria because the workers’ unions were not given fair hearing in their organisations (adebayo, 2006). however, the attitudes of public service workers europe’s journal of psychology 42 in nigeria following a conflict resolution process have not been adequately investigated by previous researchers (adebayo, 2006). conflict resolution strategies adopted in resolving conflicts between workers and management may influence the workers’ attitude regarding work and the organisation. workers who felt they were not given fair hearing in the resolution of a conflict may develop negative attitude to work or their organisation such as low organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb) (moorman, 1991; podsakoff, mackenzie, paine & bachrach, 2000). this study was focused on the workers in the public service in nigeria because many of the public enterprises have undergone organisational changes and restructuring in order to improve operational efficiency and competitiveness. these organisational changes and restructuring have resulted in the retrenchment of many workers in the public service (adebayo, 2006). the retrenchment had grave psychological consequences for the laid-off workers and the survivors of layoffs who remained on the job. the workers union’s strikes negotiations and protests did stop the government from the retrenchment. the management of most government ministries and firms used a combination of conflict resolution strategies to resolve the conflicts that arose. the consequences of management’s use of uncooperative conflict resolution strategies such as forcing and withdrawing strategies for the survivors of the layoffs have been job insecurity and negative attitude to work and the organisation. the survivors of the layoffs had been reported to have experienced anxiety about losing their jobs, lower morale, decreased loyalty, distrust, negative attitude to work and organisation, reduction in productivity, creativity, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb) (adebayo, 2006; moorman, 1991; podsakoff et al., 2000; sverke, hellgren & naswell, 2006). the survivors of layoffs have perceived their managements and superiors as perpetuating organisational injustice. the more the employees perceived organisational injustice and unfairness as arising from their management’s use of uncooperative and negative conflict resolution strategies in the work place, the more they reciprocated by exhibiting more negative attitudes to work and the organisation such as reduced organisational commitment, trust, loyalty and withholding ocb. all these have subsequently led to further conflicts between the management and the workers (adebayo , 2006). thus, there is need to examine the effects of the different conflict resolution strategies on the work attitudes of the workers. this is because a worker who has experienced work-place frustration or suffered organisational injustice arising from conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 43 the way management-worker conflicts were resolved may engage in counterproductive work activities such as character assassination, spreading negative rumours, sabotaging, turnover, (alper, law & tjosvold,2000; meyer,2004;ogungbamila, 2006) and withholding organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb) (alotaibi, 2001; giap, hackermeier, jiao & wagdarikar, 2005; moorman,1991; podsakoff et al.,2000; zellars tepper & duffy, 2002). for a worker who has experienced work-place frustration or organisational injustice arising from the conflict resolution strategies adopted by management in resolving the management worker conflict, being emotionally competent or intelligent is not only important but a necessary ingredient for positive attitude to work and organisation and a successful career in the organisation. according to meyer & salovey (1997), emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion; ability to access and or generate feeling that facilitate thought, understand emotion and regulate one’s and others’ emotions. abrahim (1999) and carmeli (2003) were of the view that traits ei may enhance helping behaviour and other citizenship behaviours because it enables employees to comprehend their superiors’ and co-workers’ feelings and to respond better than employees with low trait ei. mikolajczak, petrides, luminet and coumans (2007) found that high trait ei people display less of an increase in distress than their low trait ei peers in response to various adverse events or conditions in the workplace. mikolajczak, nelis, hansenne, and quoidbad (2008) reported that trait ei helps in moderating the effects of unfair treatment or organisational injustice on individuals’ ocb on the ground that individuals with high trait ei would have the ability to appraise the situation, their resources, process the emotional information arising from organisational injustice or unfair treatment and select adaptive coping strategies rather than use maladaptive coping strategies to deal with the negative events. through this process, unfairly treated individuals with high trait ei will likely develop high ocb. it is thus expected that trait ei will moderate the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and ocb. the purpose of this study was to examine how much of the organisational citizenship behaviour could be predicted by the five conflict resolution strategies (forcing, smoothing, compromising, confronting and withdrawing) proposed by howart and london (1980) and the moderating role of trait ei in the prediction. europe’s journal of psychology 44 conflict resolution conflict is a social problem in which two or more persons, families, parties, communities, or districts are in disagreement with each other (dzurgba, 2006). interpersonal conflict is a disagreement between two or more persons. organisational conflict is a disagreement between or within groups in an organisation. the groups may be workers, workers’ unions or management. organisational conflict is common in the workplace because people always have divergent views on various issues, interests, ideologies, goals, and aspirations (deutsch, 1990). some negative consequences of conflict can undermine an organisation’s efforts. however, handled correctly, conflict can benefit individuals and organisations by producing stronger, more resilient working relationship, improving creative output and generating innovative solutions (omoluabi, 2001). conflict resolution is a relational approach to handling conflicts. it is a process in which interpersonal communication is used to get the parties to a conflict to reach an amicable and satisfactory point of agreement (albert, 2005; omoluabi, 2001). the five conflict resolution strategies: confronting/collaborating, withdrawing/ avoiding, forcing/competing, smoothing, and compromising, adopted by conflicting parties during conflict resolution are identified depending on the level of the win/lose orientation of the parties involved (meyer, 2004; ogungbamila, 2006). mcshane & von glinow (2001) introduced the dimension of assertivenesscooperativeness and win-win and win-loss orientation along the continuum in describing each of the five conflicts resolution strategies. for example, persons using confronting/collaborating, smoothing and compromising strategies are said to exhibit high cooperativeness and low assertiveness behaviours. also they are said to adopt more win-win orientation and less win-loss orientation attitudes. persons using withdrawing/avoiding and forcing/competing strategies are considered to exhibit high assertiveness and low cooperativeness behaviours. they are also considered to adopt more win-loss orientation than win-win orientation attitudes. the confronting/collaborating strategy is one in which one party shares information and clarifies issues on the point of conflict with the other party so as to reach a solution acceptable to both parties. collaborating strategies ranks high on both assertiveness and cooperativeness, supporting a win-win orientation. they may engender positive work behaviour and attitudes of the parties in conflict (mcshane & von glinow, 2001). the compromising strategy is a give-and-take method of resolving conflict. each party gives up something that the other party wants. it rates conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 45 low on assertiveness and high on cooperativeness. this strategy may result in positive work behaviour and attitudes. the forcing or competitive strategy is one in which one party adopts a competing strategy to force the other party to accept a particular position. the forcing strategy rates very high on assertiveness but is low in its cooperation with others. this strategy reveals a win-lose orientation and may result in negative work behaviour of the party that has to lose. smoothing strategy is one that involves avoiding conflict. the smoothing strategy rates low on assertiveness and high on cooperativeness, de-emphasizes differences and highlights points common to both parties. this strategy may also result in positive work behaviour and attitudes. withdrawal strategy involves the tendency of a party to a conflict to refrain from and ignore the conflict altogether rather than trying to directly resolve it. this strategy has the tendency to engender counterproductive work behaviour (alper et al. 2000; meyer, 2004; ogungbamila, 2006; omoluabi, 2001). organisational citizenship behaviours (ocb) organisational citizenship behaviours (ocb) are those voluntary, above the call of duty behaviours that do not only contribute to company success but are discretionary and not directly or explicitly recognized by formal reward systems (organ, 1988; mcshane & von glinow, 2001). organ (1988) identified five categories of ocb: altruism helping of an individual co-worker on a task; courtesy alerting others in the organisation about changes that may affect their work; conscientious carrying out one’s duties beyond the minimum requirements; sportsmanship refraining from complaining about trivial matters; and civic virtue participating in the governance of the organisation. podsakoff and mackenzie (1994) modified the categorizations, merged altruism and courtesy and termed it “helping”. based on organ’s (1988) five-dimension taxonomy, williams and anderson (1991) proposed a two-dimensional conceptualization of ocb: ocb-1 (behaviours directed toward individuals compromising altruism and courtesy) and ocb-o (behaviours directed toward the organisation: comprising the remaining three-dimension in organ’s (1988) conceptualization). decktop, mangel and cirka (1999) have utilized a unidimension or overall ocb measure in their research. a most recent meta-analysis conducted by hoffman, blair, meriac & woehr, (2007) suggested that the current operationalization of ocb are best viewed as indictors of a general ocb factor, there is likely little to be gained through the used of separate dimensional measures as opposed to an overall composite measure. a similar conclusion was reached by a previous metaanalysis (lepine, erez, & johnson, 2002). europe’s journal of psychology 46 based on the recommendations from the literature on organisational citizenship behaviours, i used organ’s (1988) five categories of ocb as modified by podsakoff & mckenzie (1994) consisting of helping behaviour (altruism and courtesy merged), sportsmanship and civic virtue. when there is a general sense of procedural fairness in the organisation, people are more likely to go out of their way to help others, be courteous, and go an extra mile for customers and colleagues (organ, 1988). procedural fairness means the extent to which organisational decisions are made equitably and with employee input. it is also the extent to which employees are fairly rewarded given their level or training, tenure, responsibility or workload (moorman, 1991). similarly, when conflicts are resolved in the organisation and the parties involved in the conflict are fairly treated, then there could be said to be procedural fairness. procedural fairness occurs when the employees feel that there are policies and rules in place that ensure fair treatment (moorman, 1991). when managers or superiors use unfair procedures employee’s sense of trust is affected. this can in turn have negative consequences on organisational citizenship behaviour (miles, borman, spector & fox, 2002; podsakoff et al.,2000). the consequences of organisational citizenship behaviour have been well documented in the literature. for instance, several researchers have found that ocb resulted in organisational effectiveness, efficiency and group performance (podsakoff et al., 1997) and unit performance (podsakoff & mackenzie, 1994). other consequences of ocb include higher salary and promotion, higher organisational commitment (allen, 2006), lower turnover and intention to leave the organisation and reduced potential for burnout in workers (garma, bove & bratton, 2008). conflict resolution strategies and ocb empirical evidence generally indicated that studies on the antecedents of ocb, particularly conflict resolution styles, are scarce and not well established (podsakoff & mackenzie, 1994; podsakoff, ahearne & mackenzie, 1997). few studies that are related to the constructs investigated in this study are reported here. for example, conflict resolution strategies were found to be significantly related to organisational citizenship behaviour (alotaibi, 2001; giap, hackermeier, jiao & wagdarikar, 2005). ogungbamila (2006) found that the forcing strategy had a direct significant relationship with work frustration while confronting, withdrawing, smoothing and compromising strategies did not. furthermore, montoro-rodriguez and small (2006) conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 47 reported that nurses’ job satisfaction, psychological morale and occupational stress were influenced by conflict resolution strategies. similarly, some studies have linked conflict resolution strategies with work performance or work indicators (alper, law & tjosvold, 2000; meyer, 2004). subordinates who are unfairly treated by their supervisors’ use of forcing and withdrawing conflict resolution strategies are likely to withhold their ocb. based on the above assertions, the following hypotheses were generated: hypothesis 1: forcing conflict resolution strategy will predict organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb). hypothesis 2: withdrawing conflict resolution strategy will predict ocb. subordinates whose supervisors use confronting strategy will likely reciprocate this supportive leadership behaviour by performing more ocbs. hypothesis 3: confronting conflict resolution strategy will predict ocb. when subordinates perceive that their supervisors used compromising strategy they are likely to demonstrate more ocbs. hypothesis 4: compromising conflict resolution strategy will predict ocb. subordinates whose superiors use smoothing strategy in resolving conflict are likely to enact more ocbs hypothesis 5: smoothing conflict resolution strategy will predict ocb. trait ei and ocb emotional intelligence (ei) is a concept proposed to account for the variability in the individual’s ability and propensity to regulate their emotion. ei aims to provide a scientific framework for the idea that individuals differ in the extent to which they attend to, process, and utilize affect-laden information of an intrapersonal (e.g. regulating one’s own emotions) or interpersonal (e.g. regulating others’ emotion) nature (petrides & furnham, 2003). there are two types of emotional intelligence (ei): trait ei and ability ei, which can be distinguished on the measurement method used to operationalize the construct (furnham & petrides, 2003). on the one hand, trait ei (emotional self-efficacy) is operationalised through selfreport questionnaire (furnham & petrides, 2003). it is a constellation of emotional europe’s journal of psychology 48 related self-perceived abilities and dispositions located at the lower levels of personality hierarchies (petrides & furnham, 2001). trait ei is the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth (mayer & salovey, 1997). on the other hand, ability ei (or cognitive-emotional ability) is operationalised through maximum performance tests, that is, tests comprising items that may be answered correctly or incorrectly (mayer & salovey, 1997). ability ei is considerably complicated by the fact that emotional experiences are inherently subjective (furnham & petrides, 2003) and are not amenable to objective scoring criteria. ability ei is defined as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth (mayer & salovey, 1997). at this point, there is a need to point out the distinction between trait ei and ability ei. the former encompasses behavioural dispositions. it encompasses individuals’ perception, processing, regulation and utilization of emotional information (mikolajczak, nelis hansenne & quoidbach, 2008). individuals with high trait ei scores believe they are in touch with their emotions and that they can regulate them in a way that promotes well-being. these individuals should enjoy high level of happiness (furnham & petrides, 2003) and self-perceived abilities. trait ei is measured through self-report, whereas the latter concerns actual abilities and ought to be measured with maximum performance rather than self-report tests (petrides & furnham, 2001). because trait ei relates to behavioural tendencies and self-perceived abilities, its investigation should be conducted primarily within a personality framework. in contrast, ability ei should be studied primarily with respect to psychometric intelligence. trait ei is assessed by means of self-report measures, which have great overlap with other established measures of personality, depression and well-being (davies, stankov & roberts, 1998). ability ei measures assess actual abilities. it is easier to administer self-report measures of trait ei with subjects and it takes less time to administer them. however, ability ei measures are based on maximum performance tests that require the researchers’ responses. laboratory experiments may require participants to complete lengthy and complicated tasks (geher, warner & brown, 2001). conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 49 trait ei may enhance helping behaviour and other citizenship behaviours because it enables employees to comprehend their co-workers’ feelings and to respond better than employees with low trait ei (abraham, 1999). indeed, individual with high trait ei may engage in helping behaviour because being in a good mood is reinforcing and displaying helping behaviour is rewarding (carmeli, 2003). people in good moods are more socially interactive. employees who have positive emotional reactions to their jobs are more likely to be engaged in helpful behaviour. thus, the following hypothesis is suggested: hypothesis 6: trait ei will predict ocb. individuals with high trait ei are likely to have the ability to appraise the situation and their resources, process the emotional information, and choose an adaptive coping strategy by assertively seeking fair treatment from their employers rather than use maladaptive coping strategies that may result in withdrawal of ocbs. moderating effects of trait ei the literature suggests that the negative effects of conflict resolution strategies forcing and withdrawing strategies on work attitudes may be moderated by several variables including trait ei (see for example, carmeli 2003; martins, eddleston & veiga, 2002; mikolajczak, luminet, leroy, & roy, 2007). in this study, trait ei is expected to moderate the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and ocb. unfair treatment arising from superior’s use of forcing or withdrawal/avoidance or uncooperative conflict resolution strategies may have some negative consequences on the extent to which an employee will exhibit ocb. for example, mikolajczak, petrides, luminet and coumans (2007) have repeatedly found that high trait ei people display less of an increase in distress than their low trait ei peers in response to various adverse events or conditions. in applied settings, nurses with high trait ei scores reported lower levels of burnout and somatic complaints than nurses with lower scores (mikolajczak, menil & luminet, 2007; mikolajczak, petrides, luminet & coumans, 2007; mikolajczak, roy, luminet, fillee & de timary, 2007). certain processes might have accounted for the adaptive effects primarily appraisals, automatic processing of emotional information and coping strategies (mikolajczak, nelis, hansenne & quoidbach, 2008). there is evidence that trait ei influences the appraisal of both the situation and one’s resources to face it, and that these appraisals mediate the effect of trait ei on the emotional response to the situation (mikolajczak, menil & luminet, 2007). there is also evidence that trait ei europe’s journal of psychology 50 might influence the choice of coping strategies, that is, the specific behavioural and psychological strategies that people implement in order to deal with negative events. petrides, perez-gonzalez & furnham (2007) have shown that trait ei is positively associated with the use of adaptive coping strategies (e.g. problemfocused coping) and negatively associated with the use of maladaptive coping strategies (e.g. avoidance). however, individuals with high trait ei scores are likely to have the ability to appraise both the situation and their resources, process the emotional information arising from the unfair treatment or organisational injustice and select adaptive coping strategies (e.g. problem-focused coping) by assertively seeking fair treatment from their employers rather than using maladaptive coping strategies (e.g. avoidance and violence) in order to deal with negative events (mikolajczak et al., 2008). through this process, unfairly treated individuals with high trait ei will likely develop high ocb. therefore, it is expected that trait ei will interact with conflict resolution strategies and thereby help to enhance ocb of the workers. there is scarce literature on moderating role on trait ei on the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and ocb. for this reason, we therefore formulate this hypothesis: hypothesis 7: trait ei moderates the relationship between each of the conflict resolution strategies (forcing, withdrawing, confronting, compromising and smoothing) and ocb. the interaction between trait ei and each of the conflict resolution strategies (forcing, withdrawing, confronting, compromising and smoothing) will predict ocb. method participants three hundred and twenty participants responded to the survey. one hundred and eighty (56.25%) were male and 140 (43.75%) female. their ages ranged from 25 to 55 years with a mean age of 32.50 (s.d. = 9.20). the educational qualifications of the participants ranged from primary school certificate to university degree. eighteen (5.6%) had primary school certificate, 84 (26.25%) had secondary school certificate, 104 (32.5%) had nigeria certificate in education (nce)/ordinary national diploma (ond), 79 (24.68%) had b.sc., b.a., b.ed./hnd and 35 (10.93%) had master’s degrees. the participants’ job status varied from low (248), middle (40) to high (32). employees from low, middle and high level of organisation were involved in the study because they were survivors of mass retrenchment exercise and had experienced unfair conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 51 treatment arising from their superior’s use of conflict of resolution strategies supported by an assertive and uncooperative orientation. instruments conflict resolution strategies scale (crss) (howart & london, 1980) was used to measure the perception of the participants to their superior’s typical behaviour when resolving conflicts in the workplace on a 5-point scale (1 = never to 5 = always). the crss is a 25-item inventory with 5 subscales consisting of confronting withdrawing, forcing, smoothing, and compromising respectively. howart & london (1980) obtained the following cronbach’s alpha values for crss subscales: 0.84 (confronting), 0.66 (withdrawing) 0.84 (forcing), 0.73 (smoothing) and 0.64 (compromising) respectively. for this study, the cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients obtained for the crss subscales were 0.80 (confronting), 0.72 (withdrawing), .82 (forcing), .72 (smoothing) and .70 (compromising) respectively. sample items for each subscale of crss are: “he/she brings the problems clearly into the open and carries it out to resolution” (confronting); “he/she gives in a little to get a little” (compromising); “he/she imposes his/her solution” (forcing); “he/she plays down our differences” (smoothing); and “he/she tries not to get involved” (withdrawing). the higher the scores the higher the extent to which the superior usually used the style to resolve conflict. the crss has been used with success by ogungbamila (2006) with nigerian samples. organisational citizenship behaviour (ocb) was measured by means of the ocb measure by podsakoff and mackenzie (1994). it consisted of 3 sections: helping behaviour (7 items), sportsmanship (3 items) and civic virtue (3 items). the workers’ ratings of their superiors’ citizenship behaviours were obtained on a 5-point likert type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. for this study, the cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for helping = .95, civic virtue = .96, and sportsmanship = .88 while that for the whole ocb scale was 0.93. sample item for each subscale of ocb were: help each other if someone falls behind in his/her work (helping). provide constructive suggestions about how colleagues can improve their effectiveness (civic virtue). always focus on what is wrong with our situation, rather than the positive side (sportsmanship, reverse scored). the ocb measure was used as a undimensional scale. trait ei was measured by means of a 16-item emotional scale developed by wong and long (2002) (wleis) and based on the model developed by davies, stankov and roberts (1998) and mayer and salovey (1997). the response format for wleis europe’s journal of psychology 52 was a 5-point likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). the wleis has 4 subscales with 4 items each: self-emotions appraisal (4 items, �=0.90), use of emotions (4 items, �=0.79), regulation of emotions (4 items, �=0.89), others’ emotions appraisal (4 items, �=0.93). sample item for each subscale of wleis are: “i have good understanding of my own emotions” (self-emotions appraisal, sea); “i always know my friends’ emotions from their behaviour” (other’s emotions appraisal, oea), “i would always encourage myself to try my best” (use of emotion, uoe). “i am quite capable of controlling my own emotions” (roe). wleis could be used as a multidimensional or unidimensional scale. a cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of �=0.87 was obtained for wleis when used as a unidimensional scale in this study. procedure participants were randomly selected across all ministries in five states in southwestern nigeria through the help of some assigned personnel. the three questionnaires were distributed to the participants in their work places. the purpose of the study which was given as an academic research exercise designed to know the participants’ ratings of the conflict resolution strategies used by their superiors in their organisations and their perceived ocb was explained to the participants. a section of the questionnaire had background information on the participants’ age, sex, education, job status, and tenure with the organisation. the questionnaires were completed anonymously by the participants in their offices, units or departments and were collected by the assigned personnel for subsequent analysis by the researcher. data were collected from 400 respondents, however, 320 questionnaires were analyzed giving a response rate of 80.0%. the others were either not completely filled in or the participants’ tenure in the organisation was less than 6 months. data analysis control variables were age, sex, education, tenure and job status and were treated as covariates to reduce error variance (aiken & west, 1991). age, sex, education, job status and tenure were treated as control variables because previous researchers have proved that they exert some influence on ocb (salami, 2007, 2008; zellars, tepper & duffy, 2002). the independent variables were the conflict resolution strategies – confronting, compromising, forcing, smoothing, and withdrawing. the moderator variable was trait ei while the dependent variable was ocb. hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data in order to examine the prediction of ocb from the five conflict resolution strategies. in the first step the control variables were entered. at the second step conflict resolution strategies and conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 53 trait ei were entered. step 3 tested the interaction effects between conflict resolution strategies and trait ei. results means, standard deviations, intercorrelations and reliabilities (cronbach’s alpha) for each scale are presented in table 1. all scale reliabilities ranged from .64 to .93. results on table 1 reveal that all the control variables had non-significant relationships with ocb. this results could be attributed to the fact that all the participants were survivors of layoffs who had witnessed their managements’ use of certain negative conflict resolution strategies in handling conflicts in their organisation which had made them to develop negative attitude to work and organisation and reduced their ocb regardless of their age, sex, education, tenure, and job status. significant positive relationships were obtained between ocb and trait ei (r(318)=.36, p<0.05), confronting (r(318)=.33 p<.05), smoothing (r(318)=.35, p<.05), and compromising strategies (r(318)=.28, p<.05). however, ocb had significant negative relationships with withdrawing (r(318)=-.20, p<.05), and forcing strategies (r(318)=-.24, p<.05). table 1: means, s.d. and zero-order correlations of all variables in the study (n = 320) note: reliability coefficients (cronbach’s alpha) of each scale are on the diagonal (in parentheses). s.d. = standard deviation, o.c.b. = organisational citizenship behaviour * = p < .05 (two tailed test) consistent with the hypothesized model, results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that the overall model was significant (r2=.48, ∆r2=.13, f(16,303)=8.75, p<.05). variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 ocb (.93) 2 trait ei .36* (.87) 3 confronting .33* .20* (.84) 4 withdrawing -.20* .12 -.09 (.66) 5 forcing -.24* .12 -.16 .16 (.84) 6 smoothing .35* .19* .26* .17 .18 (.73) 7 compromising .28* .21 .30* .17 .18 .20* (.64) 8 age .07 .03 .08 .18 .15 .07 .15 9 sex .02 .05 .12 .07 .18 .13 .02 .10 10 tenure .12 .15 .08 .14 .15 .17 .05 .21* .07 11 education .14 .18 .05 .13 .12 .06 .12 .20* .03 .16 12 job status .03 .11 .02 .12 .08 .05 .18 .19* .12 .22* .23* means 48.24 50.32 17.40 12.30 0.41 18.20 18.60 32.50 1.50 8.5 2.60 1.60 s.d. 3.40 2.70 5.00 3.45 4.20 1.80 3.42 9.20 0.50 7.50 3.30 6.50 europe’s journal of psychology 54 table 2: hierarchical regression analysis for the prediction of ocb from conflict resolution strategy with trait ei as moderator (n = 320) variable r2 ∆r2 f df β t step 1 0.07 0.07 1.28 (5,314) age .03 0.78 sex .12 1.00 tenure .07 1.30 education .08 0.90 job status .10 1.01 step 2 .35 .28 7.56* (6,308) confronting .20 2.60* withdrawing -.17 -2.00* forcing -.58 -7.80* smoothing .69 5.23* compromising .72 9.82* ei .52 6.25* step 3 .48 .13 8.75* (5,303) confronting x ei .16 1.70 withdrawing x ei .20 2.20* forcing x ei .12 1.96* smoothing x ei .17 1.57 compromising x ei .13 1.10 note: ei = trait ei * p < .05 (2-tailed test) in step 1, control variables (age, sex, education, job status and tenure with the organisation) entered did not make significant contribution (7.0%) to the variance in ocb (∆r2=.07, f(5,324)=1.28,p>.05). in step 2, addition of the five conflict resolution strategies and trait ei made significant contribution (28%) to the variance of ocb (∆r2 = .28, f(6,308)=7.56, p<.05). forcing and withdrawing conflict resolution strategies negatively and significantly predicted ocb (β=-.58, t=-7.80, p<.05 and β = -.17, t =-2.00, p<.05 respectively), thus hypotheses 1 and 2 were supported. these mean that the more the superiors used forcing and withdrawing conflict resolution strategies the less the subordinates exhibited ocb. supporting hypotheses 3, 4 and 5, results showed that confronting (β=.20, t=2.60, p<.05), compromising (β=.72, t = 9.82, p < .05) and smoothing (β = .69, t conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 55 = 5.23, p<.05), conflict resolution strategies significantly predicted ocb. support was also found for hypothesis 6. subordinates with high trait ei developed higher ocb (β = .52, t = 6.25, p < .05). in step 3, the inclusion of the interaction terms between conflict resolution strategies and trait ei accounted for an additional 13.0 percent of the variance in ocb (f(8,303) = 8.75, p < .05). that the predictive value of ei and conflict resolution strategies taken alone are higher than the predictive value of the interaction could be interpreted to mean that ei and conflict resolution strategies made significant contribution to the prediction of ocb whereas only two of the conflict resolution strategies interacted with ei significantly to make a moderate contribution to the prediction of ocb. results further showed that there were significant positive interactions between withdrawing strategy and trait ei, (β =.20, t = 2.20, p < .05) and a positive interaction between forcing strategy and trait ei (β = .12, t = 1.96, p < .05). however, interactions between each of confronting, smoothing, compromising strategy and trait ei were not significant. as shown in fig.1 and 2, withdrawing and forcing resolution strategies had positively associated with ocb when workers had higher trait ei. 60 50 + 40 + 30 20 10 0 -1sd + 1sd low high withdrawing strategy + high ei low ei figure 1: interaction between withdrawing strategy and ei for ocb ocb europe’s journal of psychology 56 60 50 + 40 + 30 20 10 0 -1sd + 1sd low high forcing strategy + high ei low ei figure 2: interaction between forcing strategy and ei for ocb however, forcing and withdrawing resolution strategies were negatively associated with ocb when the workers had low trait ei. therefore hypothesis 7 was accepted. discussion this study examined how much of ocb could be predicted by conflict resolution strategies and the moderating role of trait ei in the prediction. that forcing and withdrawing strategy negatively predicted ocb show that the more the superiors used these two strategies, the less their subordinates developed ocbs. these results are in agreement with the work of alper et al (2000), meyer (2004), alotaibi (2001) and ogungbamila (2006). explanation for these findings is that subordinates in this study felt that they have been robbed of the opportunity to share and exchange information on an issue in conflict, they felt unfairly treated and in exchange they did not develop high ocb. instead they felt aggrieved, frustrated and developed negative attitudes toward their work and organisation resulting in lower ocb. the findings from this study indicate that confronting, compromising, and smoothing strategies significantly predicted ocb. these results are in consonance with previous ocb conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 57 studies (alotaibi, 2001; alper et al. 2000; giap, hackermeier, jiao & wagdarikar, 2005; meyer, 2004; montoro-rodriguez & small, 2006; omoluabi, 2001). an explanation of these results could be that some subordinates in this study felt that they had the opportunity to share and exchange information on the issue in conflict through their union leaders during conflict resolution with their management and they were able to negotiate adequately. this might have assisted them in developing high level of ocb. the results indicate that subordinates with high trait ei developed more ocbs. subordinates who work with the superiors need to possess the necessary trait ei in order to cope with conflict resolution strategies being adopted by their superiors and develop more ocb (abraham, 1999; carmeli, 2003). employees with high trait ei were able to comprehend their superiors and co-workers’ feelings and were able to shift from negative to positive moods by adopting the right coping strategies to deal with stress caused by unfair treatment by superiors. consequently they were able to develop more ocbs. the results indicate that the interaction between ei and forcing resolution strategy significantly predicted ocb. when forcing resolution strategy was used among subordinates who had high trait ei, they were able to appraise their resources and the situation and select adaptive coping strategies to face the challenges of unfair treatment from their superiors. mikolajczak et al. (2007) were of the view that appraisal of the situation and of one’s resources are important in shaping of the subsequent emotional response and that self-efficacy and challenge/threat appraisals could be used to explain the moderating role of trait ei on stress reactivity. consequently, they developed more ocbs. for subordinates who had lower trait ei, under a supervisor who used forcing resolution strategy, the reverse was the case. their ocb reduced significantly. the results showed that the interaction between trait ei and withdrawing resolution strategy significantly predicted ocb. an explanation for this result was that subordinates who had high trait ei under superiors who used withdrawing resolution strategy would be able to select adaptive coping strategies to seek for fair treatment from their employers. consequently, subordinates with high trait ei would be able to enact more ocbs (mikolajczak, petrides, luminet & coumans, 2007). under similar superiors who used withdrawing resolution strategy, subordinates with lower trait ei would be unable to select adaptive coping strategies in dealing with the negative events (mikolajczak et al., 2008; mikolajczak, luminet, fillee & de timary, 2007). hence, their ocbs would significantly decrease. these results are europe’s journal of psychology 58 consistent with research findings that trait ei is a moderator of the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and ocbs (carmeli, 2003; martins, eddleston & veiga, 2002). the interaction between each of confronting, smoothing, compromising strategies and trait ei were not significant in predicting ocb. this is because each of these conflict resolution strategies has a more win/win orientation, include cooperativeness and less assertiveness dimensions. these conflict resolution strategies could predict ocb regardless of the level of ei of the employees. by and large, findings from this study showed that conflict resolution strategies and trait ei predicted ocb. furthermore, trait ei moderated the relationship between forcing and withdrawing conflict resolution strategies and ocb. the present findings have both theoretical and practical implications. previous studies that examined factors affecting work attitudes and behaviours of workers have highlighted the need for superiors/managers to be seen to be just and fair to their subordinates during conflict resolution. although, if the management itself is a party in the conflict, during the conflict some natural processes can occur that make us view the opponent in a negative light. the findings from this study have built on this by demonstrating the importance of trait ei in the resolution of conflicts in organisations in order to elicit the most positive reactions from workers after resolving workplace conflicts and to enhance ocb among them. an important theoretical implication of the findings from this study regarding the efficacy of conflict resolution strategies and trait ei in predicting ocb is that organisational/industrial psychologists should include conflict resolution strategies and trait ei in a model design to enhance the ocb of workers in organisations. given that conflict resolution strategies and trait ei have been implicated in this study in enhancing ocb of workers, practical steps should be taken to train supervisors to adopt the conflict resolution strategies that can ensure information exchange and sharing on issues of conflict in the workplace. another practical implication of the findings from this study is that supervisors should be cautioned on the use of forcing and withdrawal strategies when resolving conflicts with subordinates. similarly union leaders should avoid the use of forcing and withdrawal strategies with resolving conflicts with their organisational management. furthermore, because trait ei predicted ocb and moderated the relationship between conflict resolution strategies and ocb, efforts should be made to enhance the trait ei of the workers through trait ei education and training by counselling/organisational psychologists. conflict resolution strategies and organisational citizenship behaviour 59 this study is not without its limitations, one of which is the self-report measures used in data collection. future studies could, therefore, complement these measurements with other methods such as interview and focus group discussion techniques. another shortcoming is the cross-sectional nature of the study and as such a longitudinal study that would span over one or two years is suggested in future research so that cause-and-effect relationships could be established. lastly, this study used a heterogenous group comprising employees of low, middle, and high ranks (with more in the lower ranks) in the public service. this is a limitation. future studies could involve employees of either low, middle, or high ranks to constitute a more homogeneous sample. in conclusion, this study has demonstrated that conflict resolution strategies predicted ocb and that trait ei moderated the relationship between the conflict resolution strategies and ocb. references abraham, r. 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(2008). impact of job satisfaction and organisational commitment on organisational citizenship behaviour: the moderating role of group cohesiveness. perspectivse in education, 24(1), 41-50. sverke, m., hellgren, j. & naswell, k. (2006). job insecurity: a literature review. retrieved on march 7, 2006 from http://ebib.arbetslivsinstitutet.se/saltsa/2006_01.pdf. wong, c.s. & law, k.s. (2002). the effects of leader and follower trait ei on performance and attitudes. an exploratory study. the leadership quarterly, 13, 243-274. williams,l.j, & anderson,s.e, (1991). job satisfactory and organisational commitment as predictors of organisational citizenship and in-role behaviours. journal of management, 17, 601-617. zellars, k.l., tepper, b.j. & duffy, m.k. (2002). abusive supervision and subordinates’ organisational citizenship behaviour. journal of applied psychology, 87(6), 1068-1076. about the author: dr s.o salami is a doctor of philosophy in counseling psychology. he is currently a senior lecturer at the department of guidance and counseling, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria. he has published several articles in local and international journals. his areas of research interest include application of emotional intelligence and self efficiency, mentoring, career development, psychological well-being, organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational commitment and conflict resolution. e-mail: drsosalami2002@yahoo.co.uk (microsoft word 11. 30th international congress of psychology \226 icp 2012) 30th international congress of psychology – icp 2012 22-27 july 2012 cape town, south africa the international congress of psychology, held every four years under the auspices of the international union of psychological science, is the flagship event in international psychology. the previous 29th icp was held in berlin in july 2008 and attracted some 11,000 abstract submissions and over 10,000 delegates. the 30th international congress of psychology is the first to be held in africa, and is organised by the national research foundation of south africa and the psychological society of south africa, in partnership with key south african universities and national government departments. organised around the theme psychology serving humanity, the congress will highlight how psychology translates its science and practice into the knowledge, skills and tools that are able to underpin the human condition. besides invited addresses and symposia by global leaders in their fields, there will be scintillating state of the science lectures and controversial debates on topics of current interest, and exhibitions by leading publishing houses, technological innovators and international psychology organisations. special activities will include an exciting emerging psychologists' programme, advanced research training seminars for psychologists from the developing world, various pre and post congress satellite conferences and a variety of tours (including famous world heritage sites like robben island and table mountain) and breathtaking wildlife safaris for delegates and accompanying persons. of interest for teachers and students of psychology, psychologists in practice, other health practitioners, social workers, educators, human resource practitioners, marketers of products geared at the wide range of psychologists and anyone interested in a better understanding of the human condition. visit the website for more information http://www.icp2012.com/ microsoft word 12. solidarity, memory and identity interdisciplinary conference solidarity, memory and identity: interdisciplinary conference 20-21 september 2012 gdańsk, poland what is the phenomenon of solidarity in the current world? what is the sense to talk about it with the increase of violence around the globe? what is its role in shaping identities – of cultures, nations, individuals? is it born from memory or from oblivion? questions such as these gave rise to the idea of our interdisciplinary conference. it is going to be devoted to solidarity in all its multiple aspects, in the broadest contexts possible – historical, cultural, artistic, psychological, philosophical. in the age of rapid socio-political changes, with deepening ethic and religious conflicts on one hand, and, on the other hand, a diminishing feeling of identification with the community, there seems to exist a strong necessity for a reflection on the idea of solidarity. it would be difficult to think of a more inspiring place for such a reflection than the city of gdańsk. it was here that in the 1980 “solidarity” was born: a social movement which, in less than a decade, brought about the fall of the communist regime in poland and played an important part in the historic changes in middle-eastern europe. yet we do not want to make polish “solidarity” the dominating theme of the conference or privilege it in any way. on the contrary, we intend to present as fully as possible the broad spectrum of solidarity-related themes. thus, we heartily invite academics from all sides of the world, representing various research fields: anthropology, sociology, philosophy, history, psychology, cultural studies, literary studies, film studies, theater studies, memory studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies. both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers are most welcome. we also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without presenting their papers. we are sure that we will have important reflections and fruitful discussions about solidarity, memory and identity. visit the website for more information http://solidaritymemory.ug.edu.pl/ emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 196-212 www.ejop.org humor creation ability and mental health: are funny people more psychologically healthy? kim r. edwards university of western ontario rod a. martin university of western ontario abstract sense of humor is a multidimensional personality construct. some components may be more relevant to psychological health than others. while there has been a considerable amount of research on humor styles, humor creation ability (hca) has remained relatively understudied in relation to well-being. this study employed two methods of assessing hca (a cartoon captioning task and a task involving the generation of humorous responses to v ignettes depicting everyday frustrating situations) to study associations with mental health variables. in addition to these humor creation performance tasks, 215 participants completed measures of four humor styles (humor styles questionnaire) and psychological well-being (self-esteem, satisfaction with life, optimism, depression, anxiety, and stress). no significant correlations were found between either of the hca tasks and any of the well-being measures. in contrast, humor styles were significantly correlated with well-being variables in ways consistent with previous research. in addition, the frustrating situation humor creation task was positively correlated with all four humor styles. these findings add support to the view that the ability to create humor is less relevant to mental health than are the ways people use humor in their daily lives. implications for humor-based interventions are discussed. key words: humor creation ability, humor styles, well-being, mental health. the notion that a sense of humor is beneficial for mental health has been popularized by clinicians, personality theorists, and researchers for decades. indeed, a considerable amount of research evidence has accumulated, showing positive http://www.ejop.org/ humor creation ability and mental health 197 correlations between various measures of sense of humor and many aspects of psychosocial well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, self esteem). negative correlations have also been found with measures of depression, anxiety, stress, burnout, and so on (for a rev iew of this literature, see martin, 2007). i t is important to recognize, however, that sense of humor is a multifaceted personality construct, and researchers need to identify which aspects or components of this trait are most relevant to mental health. for example, sense of humor can be conceptualized as a habitual behavior pattern (e.g., tendency to tell jokes and amuse others, tendency to laugh frequently), an attitude (enjoyment of humor), a coping strategy (use of humor to cope with stress), an aesthetic response (enjoyment of particular forms of humor), or an ability (ability to create humor). these different components of sense of humor are not all highly correlated with each other (e.g., köhler & ruch, 1996), and some of them may be more relevant to psychological health and well-being than others. this is particularly relevant for clinicians who may be interested in developing humorbased interventions designed to enhance their clients’ psychological health, wellbeing, and quality of life (e.g., mcghee, 1999). research examining associations between different components of sense of humor and well-being could be useful for identifying which aspects of humor should be targeted in these sorts of interventions. should such programs focus, for example, on exposing clients to comedy v ideos and other humorous materials, on teaching them to laugh v igorously even in the absence of humorous stimuli, on training them to improve their humor creation skills, or on encouraging them to seek humor in their daily lives and share it with their friends? i f any of these specific aspects of humor are found to be unrelated to wellbeing variables, this would suggest that there is not likely to be much benefit in including them in humor-based interventions. in most of the correlational research on humor and well-being in recent decades, sense of humor has been measured by means of self-report scales assessing the degree to which indiv iduals tend to engage in a variety of humor-related activ ities in their daily lives. for example, various humor measures used in past research have assessed the degree to which indiv iduals tend to notice and enjoy humor (sense of humor questionnaire; svebak, 1974), laugh frequently in a variety of situations (situational humor response questionnaire; martin & lefcourt, 1984), and use humor to cope with stressful life events (coping humor scale; martin & lefcourt, 1983). in recent years, much of the research on humor and well-being has employed the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003), which assesses four different humor styles, or ways in which people may use humor in their daily lives. this measure distinguishes between two potentially beneficial uses of humor (affiliative europe’s journal of psychology 198 and self-enhancing) and two potentially detrimental uses (aggressive and selfdefeating). a considerable amount of correlational research has prov ided evidence that these humor styles are differentially associated with measures of emotion wellbeing and social adjustment (martin, 2007; martin, et al., 2003). however, one aspect of sense of humor that has received very little research attention in relation to psychological well-being is humor creation ability (hca). hca is an ability-related trait which has to do with how skilled or competent a person is at producing humorous or witty verbal responses that most people would perceive as funny. this is in contrast to most self-report humor measures, which v iew humor as a typical or habitual behavior pattern, assessing how frequently the person tends to enjoy humor, amuse others, laugh, use humor to cope with stress, and so on. as such, hca is most appropriately assessed using maximal performance tests, in a manner similar to tests of intelligence or creativ ity, rather than self-report scales, which are more appropriate for assessing typical performance. in prev ious studies, researchers have measured hca by asking participants to create funny captions for captionless cartoons (e.g., babad, 1974; köhler & ruch, 1996), witty narratives for films (lefcourt & martin, 1986), humorous descriptions of miscellaneous objects (lefcourt & martin, 1986; turner, 1980), or funny presidential campaign slogans (clabby, 1980). funniness ratings of these humorous productions are used as measures of the participants’ humor creation ability. one would expect that indiv iduals with high scores on self-report humor measures, such as the subscales of the hsq, would tend to have a good ability to create humor, resulting in some degree of positive correlation between the two types of measures. nonetheless, these two aspects of sense of humor are not necessarily highly correlated. for example, some people frequently make others laugh by telling memorized jokes or often enjoy laughing at other people’s jokes, without having a high level of ability to create humor themselves. others may be very skilled at creating highly original jokes and witty responses when asked to do so, but may not tend to use humor very much when confronted with stressful life situations or engage in much witty banter in their daily interactions with others. indeed, in past research examining associations between hca and various self-report humor measures, correlations have typically been in the non-significant to moderate range (e.g., köhler & ruch, 1996; lefcourt & martin, 1986). no previous studies have examined correlations between hca and the subscales of the humor styles questionnaire. like other forms of creativ ity, humor creation ability requires divergent thinking, flexibility, and the ability to generate multiple novel ideas in response to a given stimulus (o’quin & derks, 1997). in a review of studies exploring the association humor creation ability and mental health 199 between hca and various tests of general creativ ity, o’quin and derks (1997) found an average correlation of .34. they concluded that, although creativ ity and hca involve similar mental processes, they should be considered distinct abilities . whereas humor productions are typically creative, indiv iduals can be creative without being humorous. how might hca be potentially beneficial for psychological well-being? one can speculate that the ability to think flexibly and adopt multiple perspectives simultaneously, which seems to be important for humor creation, might also be a useful coping skill for reappraising potentially stressful situations as less threatening and overwhelming, resulting in less adverse physiological and emotional consequences (lazarus & folkman, 1984; martin & lefcourt, 1983). this hypothesis assumes that people who are skilled at creating humor do, in fact, use this ability in their everyday lives. i t is possible, however, that an indiv idual who is able to be very funny on a performance test of humor creation does not tend to use humor to cope when faced with an actual stressful situation. in that case, humor creation ability may be only weakly related, or even unrelated, to well-being. past research examining the relationship between hca and psychological wellbeing has been sparse. martin and lefcourt (1983) found support for a stressmoderating role of hca (measured v ia humorous narratives generated in response to a stressful film and funny descriptions of miscellaneous objects), indicating that indiv iduals with higher hca experienced a weaker relationship between stress and mood disturbance than did those with less ability to generate humor. however, this study found no simple direct correlations between hca and well-being measures. clabby (1980) found that hca (measured with several humor-generation tasks) was positively correlated with a measure of personal adjustment (positive outlook on life, flexibility in demeanor, and the capacity to get along well with others). finally, although not directly related to mental health, masten (1986) noted that children who scored higher on measures of humor production (assessed using the cartoon caption task) paid more attention to instructions, displayed greater cooperation, and were considered more cheerful by friends. in view of the very limited and somewhat contradictory findings of past studies, further research in this area seems to be needed. accordingly, the first objective of the present study was to investigate further the possible relationship between hca and various aspects of psychological well-being. we assessed well-being by means of self-report measures of self-esteem, optimism, satisfaction with life, depression, anxiety, and stress. we employed two different performance tasks for assessing hca. the first of these involved asking participants to generate humorous captions for europe’s journal of psychology 200 captionless cartoons, the most widely-used technique in prev ious research on hca. the second measure was developed specifically for this study. in this task, participants were presented with brief descriptions of several potentially frustrating, embarrassing, or upsetting situations that could commonly occur in people’s lives. they were instructed to imagine that they had experienced each situation, and then to create a funny description of the experience that they might later relate to a good friend. for both tasks, the participants’ humor creations were subsequently rated for funniness by several research assistants to obtain mean humor creation ability scores. we speculated that the second task might be especially useful for assessing aspects of humor creation ability that are particularly relevant to coping with stress. we therefore expected that funniness scores from this task would be more strongly associated with measures of psychological well-being than would scores from the cartoon captioning task. we also included the humor styles questionnaire in this study, to compare the correlations between the hca measures and psychological well-being variables with those obtained between humor styles and well-being. past research has generally shown that affiliative and self-enhancing humor tend to be positively correlated with psychosocial well-being, whereas aggressive and self-defeating humor are generally negatively associated with various well-being variables (martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003), and we expected to replicate these patterns in the present study. the second objective of this study was to examine the possible relationships between the four humor styles and the two measures of humor creation ability. because all four of the humor styles are assumed to involve the ability to generate humor and amuse others (albeit for different purposes), we expected that each of the subscales of the hsq would be positively correlated with the two hca measures. method participants the sample was comprised of 215 first-year undergraduate students (92 males, 123 females) enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the university of western ontario. participants were recruited through the department research participant pool and were compensated with partial course credit. the mean age of participants was 18.58 years (sd = 1.99). with regard to ethnicity, 71.6% identified themselves as being of european origin, 14% asian, 4.7% south asian, 3.3% african/caribbean, 0.5% native canadian, and 5.1% other. eighty-one percent of humor creation ability and mental health 201 participants were born in canada and 81.9% indicated that english was their first language. measures demographic questionnaire a brief demographic questionnaire was administered to prov ide general information about participants’ age, gender, ethnicity, country of birth, and first language. cartoon caption task (cct) the cct required participants to generate as many funny captions as possible in response to five captionless cartoons in a period of 10 minutes. the cartoons were selected from the new yorker (2008) cartoon caption contest website. six volunteer student research assistants (two male and four female) coded the funniness of each caption attempt on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no incongruity or attempts to be witty/funny) to 4 (extremely humorous attempts, coupled with creativity, plenty of incongruity and very original humor). the mean rating score, averaged across the 6 raters and all the responses of each participant, was used as the measure of humor creation ability in subsequent analyses (köhler & ruch, 1996). inter-rater reliability (internal consistency) was calculated using the ratings of each of the six raters, averaging across all the responses of each participant, as equivalent to six items on a scale. overall reliability (coefficient alpha) among coders was .79. frustrating situation humor creation task (fshct) the fshct is comprised of short descriptions of five potentially frustrating situations, each accompanied by a line drawing depicting the situation. an example is “after spending the day shopping and running errands, you come out of the busy mall and can’t remember where you parked your car.” participants were instructed to imagine that the frustrating situation had happened to them and then to consider how they would later recount the experience to a friend in as funny a way as possible. they were given 15 minutes to record as many funny statements as they could, pertaining to their feelings, reactions, or description of the situation. these responses were then rated for wittiness by the same six raters who rated the cct. like the cct, the mean wittiness rating on the fshct provides a measure of humor creation ability. inter-rater reliability for the fshct, which was calculated in the same way as for the cct, was .80. humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003). the hsq examines four dimensions corresponding to indiv idual differences in the spontaneous experience and expression of humor in everyday life. self-enhancing europe’s journal of psychology 202 humor (e.g., “i f i am depressed i can usually cheer myself up with humor”) and affiliative humor (e.g., “i laugh and joke a lot with my friends”) are the two adaptive styles. aggressive humor (e.g., “i f i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”) and self-defeating humor (e.g., “i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should”) are the potentially detrimental styles. the hsq consists of 32 items (eight for each scale) rated on a 7-point, likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). past research has demonstrated that the hsq is a reliable and valid measure (e.g., chen & martin, 2007; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). in the present study, internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) for the afill iative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating scales were .81, .84, .73, and .79, respectively. depression, anxiety, stress scales (dass; lov ibond & lovibond, 1995). the dass is a 42-item measure consisting of three self-report scales which measure the negative emotional states of depression (e.g., “i couldn’t seem to experience any positive feelings at all”), anxiety (“i was aware of dryness of my mouth”) and stress (“i found myself getting upset by quite triv ial things”). participants indicate how much a given statement has applied to them over the past week, using a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (did not apply to me at all) to 4 (applied to me very much, or most of the time). prev ious research has demonstrated that the dass has psychometrically acceptable levels of reliability and validity (e.g., lov ibond & lovibond; nieuwenhuijsen, de boer, verbeek, blonk, & van dijk, 2003). the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of depression, anxiety and stress in this study were .94, .89, and .91, respectively. life orientation test – revised (lot-r; scheier & carver, 1985). the lot-r assesses indiv idual differences in optimism. this self-report scale consists of six statements plus four filler items. an example item is, “in uncertain times, i usually expect the best.” respondents indicate the degree to which each statement is consistent with their own feelings on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). a higher total score indicates a greater degree of optimism. prev ious research with the lot-r has demonstrated good reliability and validity (e.g., scheier, carver & bridges, 1994). the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of the lot-r in the current study was .73. rosenberg self-esteem scale (rse; rosenberg, 1965). the rse is a widely used unidimensional measure of global self-esteem that consists of 10 items. participants rate statements describing general feelings of self -worth and self-acceptance on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (strongly disagree). an example item is , “i feel that i have a number of good humor creation ability and mental health 203 qualities.” half the scale items are reverse coded. previous research has demonstrated good reliability and validity (e.g., silbert & tippett, 1965). the internal consistency in this study was .86. satisfaction with life scale (sls; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). the sls includes five statements which assess overall cognitive judgments regarding life satisfaction. participants rate each statement using a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). an example item is, “the conditions of my life are excellent.” the sls has demonstrated good reliability and convergent validity with other well-being measures (diener et al.). the internal consistency in this study was .85. procedure participants were tested in groups of 10 to 20. after completing informed consent, they were given the cct followed by the fshct. a package of self-report questionnaires was then administered to participants in a randomized order. completion of the tasks and measures took approximately one hour, after which participants received a debriefing form describing the purpose of the study. results table 1 presents the means and standard deviations of all the measures used in this study as well as the t-tests of differences between males and females on each of the questionnaires. the only significant gender difference for the humor measures occurred with the aggressive humor subscale of the hsq, on which males obtained significantly higher mean scores than females (t(213) = 3.31, p < .01). interestingly, no differences were found between males and females on the two humor creation tasks, indicating that men and women did not differ in their ability to generate humorous responses. a number of gender differences were also apparent on the mental health variables. in particular, females reported significantly lower optimism and self-esteem (both ps < .05), and significantly higher ratings of anxiety and stress (ps < .01) in comparison to males. because of these gender differences, the subsequent analyses made use of partial correlations, controlling for sex. with regard to our first objective, table 2 displays the pearson partial correlations between the humor measures (cct, fshct, hsq) and psychological well-being measures, controlling for sex. as seen in this table, none of the scores on the two hca tasks were significantly correlated with scores on any of the well-being measures. in europe’s journal of psychology 204 table 1: means and standard deviations for all measures and t-test results comparing males and females on these measures * p < .05, ** p < .01 table 2: partial correlations between mental health variables and scores on the hsq and humor creation tasks (controlling for sex) mental health variables dep. anxiety stress selfesteem optim. sat. w/ life hsq af -.14* -.14* -.19** .05 .03 .10 se -.25*** -.19** -.23*** .27*** .26*** .26*** ag .19** .18** .25*** -.20** -.25*** -.12 sd .14* .15* .13 -.31*** -.16* -.03 cct .08 -.05 .00 -.03 -.03 -.06 fshct .00 -.07 -.09 .08 .08 .12 note. hsq = humor styles questionnaire, af = affiliative humor, se = self-enhancing humor, ag = aggressive humor, sd = self-defeating, cct = cartoon captioning task, fshct = frustrating situation humor creation task, dep. = depression, optim. = optimism, sat. w/ life = satisfaction with life * p < .05, ** p < .01. *** p < .001 total sample males females mean sd mean sd mean sd t-test cartoon caption task 2.04 .33 2.09 0.36 2.01 0.30 ns frustrating situation humor creation task 2.12 .39 2.17 0.44 2.09 0.34 ns affiliative humor 47.62 6.05 48.26 5.90 47.14 6.14 ns self-enhancing humor 38.30 8.43 38.33 8.18 38.27 8.64 ns aggressive humor 31.54 7.92 33.57 7.81 30.03 7.68 3.31** self-defeating humor 28.96 8.64 29.29 8.63 28.72 8.67 ns depression 6.59 7.59 5.89 7.07 7.11 7.94 ns anxiety 7.06 7.22 5.58 5.99 8.16 7.87 -2.63** stress 11.16 8.14 9.18 6.99 12.64 8.64 -3.15** optimism 22.31 4.86 15.13 4.32 13.88 3.89 2.23* self-esteem 14.41 4.11 23.22 5.02 21.63 4.64 2.39* satisfaction with life 25.82 5.52 25.79 5.78 25.84 5.34 ns humor creation ability and mental health 205 contrast, a number of significant correlations were found with the scales of the hsq. in particular, the two adaptive humor styles, self-enhancing (se) and affiliative (af) humor, demonstrated significant negative correlations with depression, anxiety, and stress (partial r range = -.14 to -.25). additionally se humor displayed significant positive correlations with self-esteem, optimism, and satisfaction with life (mean partial r = .26, all ps < .001). both aggressive (ag) and self-defeating (sd) humor, the two potentially detrimental styles, were positively correlated with depression and anxiety (partial r range = .14 to .19, all ps < .05), as well as negatively correlated with self-esteem and optimism (partial r range = -.16 to -.31, all ps < .05). ag was also positively correlated with stress (partial r = .25, p < .001). table 3: correlations between the subscales of the hsq and the cct and fshct note. hsq = humor styles questionnaire, af = affiliative humor, se = self-enhancing humor, ag = aggressive humor, sd = self-defeating humor, cct = cartoon captioning task, fshct = frustrating situation humor creation task * p < .05, *** p < .001 with regard to the second main objective of this study, the results shown in table 3 reveal that the cct was not significantly correlated with any of the subscales of the hsq. however, the fshct was significantly positively correlated with all four humor styles (mean r = .22, range = .16 to .27, ps < .05). as seen in the table, the correlations with the two adaptive humor styles appear to be stronger than those with the two maladaptive humor styles. we therefore conducted two hierarchical regression analyses to determine whether affiliative and self-enhancing humor each added significantly to the prediction of fshct after controlling for aggressive and selfdefeating humor. after entering aggressive and self-defeating humor, affiliative humor remained a significant predictor of fshct scores (f change (1, 211) = 11.92, p = .001, r2 = .05), as did self-enhancing humor (f change (1, 211) = 13.81, p < .001, r2 = .06). in addition, scores on the cct were positively correlated with scores on the fshct (r = .37, p < .001), indicating that the two methods of assessing humor creation ability are moderately correlated. cct hsq af hsq se hsq ag hsq sd cct – .05 .08 .08 .08 fshct .37*** .27*** .28*** .16* .17* europe’s journal of psychology 206 discussion this study had two main objectives. the first of these was to explore the potential links between humor creation ability (hca) and several measures of psychological well-being, including optimism, self-esteem, satisfaction with life, depression, anxiety, and stress. hca was measured using two performance tasks to explore the possibility that the ability to generate humorous comments in response to everyday frustrating situations (measured using the fshct) is more strongly correlated with mental health variables than is the ability to create funny captions for cartoons (measured with the cct). the results indicated that neither the cct nor the fshct was significantly correlated with any of the psychological health measures, suggesting that the ability to create humor (either in response to frustrating situations or in cartoon captions) is not associated with well-being. a possible explanation for this finding is that indiv iduals who have the ability to create humor do not necessarily use this ability in their daily lives in health-enhancing ways (such as in times of stress, interpersonal tension, etc.). i t is also possible that humor creation ability may be correlated with other well-being variables that were not explored in the present study. for example, whereas the present study focused on internalizing problems such as anxiety and depression, it is possible that hca is associated with externalizing behaviors (such as hostility or aggression). in support of this possibility, prev ious research has demonstrated that hca is positively correlated with extraversion (köhler & ruch, 1996; koppel & sechrest, 1970), and other studies have found that extraverted indiv iduals are more likely to have externalizing than internalizing disorders (shiner, 2006). therefore, although persons who are skillful at creating humor may be no more or less psychologically healthy than the average indiv idual (as suggested by the results of this study), when such indiv iduals do experience mental health problems, they may be more prone to externalizing than internalizing ones. future research could explore these hypotheses. given the notion that humor is a multidimensional concept, some humor facets may be related to psychological health and well-being, whereas others, such as humor creation ability, appear unrelated. as martin (2008) noted, different humor dimensions are not all highly correlated with each other, and as a result, researchers must undertake the challenge of identifying which components are relevant for wellbeing. replicating the results of prev ious research (martin et al., 2003), our findings pertaining to the hsq indicate that the hypothesized beneficial humor styles (and particularly self-enhancing humor) correlate negatively with depression, anxiety, and humor creation ability and mental health 207 stress, and positively with self-esteem, optimism, and satisfaction with life. on the other hand, the potentially detrimental humor styles correlated positively with anxiety and depression and negatively with self-esteem and optimism. these findings support the importance of distinguishing between positive and negativ e uses of humor in mental health. psychological health involves not only the presence of adaptive uses of humor, but also the absence of negative or unhealthy styles (martin et al). moreover, taken together with the lack of correlations found with the hca measures, these findings suggest that the ways in which humor creation is used in daily life are more important for well-being than is simply the ability to create humor. the second major objective of this study was to explore the relationships between humor styles and humor creation ability. we expected that indiv iduals with higher scores on each of the humor styles would be better able to create humor which other people find funny. in support of this prediction, humor creation ability, assessed by the fshct, was significantly and positively correlated with all four humor styles. this finding provides further validation for the hsq, indicating that indiv iduals with high scores on each of the four humor styles tend to be skilled at creating humor, regardless of whether they use their humor in beneficial or deleterious ways. moreover, this finding provides additional support for the notion that humor creation ability, by itself, is not necessarily advantageous for mental health. some persons have the ability to be very funny but use their humor in detrimental (e.g., aggressive or self-defeating) rather than beneficial ways (e.g., affiliative or self-enhancing). consequently, the manner in which indiv iduals use humor in their daily lives is more important to mental health than how funny they are able to be. while all four humor styles were positively correlated with the fshct, the associations with the positive humor styles were significantly higher than those with the negative styles. one possible explanation for this finding is that the frustrating situation task taps into the adaptive more than the maladaptive humor styles. when asked to create humorous responses that they would share with a friend during times of stress or frustration, participants may be more likely to produce affiliative (i.e., friendly) and self-enhancing (i.e., coping) styles of humor, rather than aggressive or self-defeating. an alternative possible explanation is that humor creation attempts incorporating aggressive or self-defeating humor are simply not as funny as those responses which involve more beneficial styles of humor, resulting in lower funniness ratings by our raters and consequently weaker correlations. in future research using these hca measures, it would be interesting to code responses according to the four humor styles, to determine whether some styles are used more frequently than others and whether certain styles are considered funnier than others. europe’s journal of psychology 208 in contrast to the findings with the fshct, when humor creation ability was measured using the cct, it did not correlate with any of the four humor styles. a possible explanation for these different results with the two hca measures may be that the creation of humorous cartoon captions , as measured by the cct, is less relevant to the use of humor in everyday social interactions, as measured by the humor styles questionnaire. in contrast, the fshct, which requires participants to generate humor while imagining telling a friend about an everyday frustrating situation, may be more strongly related to the ability to create humor in everyday social interactions, and therefore more strongly correlated with the hsq. in any event, these findings suggest that humor creation ability may not be a unitary construct, and that different methods of assessing it may tap into somewhat different components of this ability. a potential limitation of the fshct as used in this study is that participants were required to write out their responses instead of prov iding them orally. allowing participants to respond orally might have resulted in a greater number of responses and perhaps a more valid assessment of their ability to produce humor in everyday social interactions. this is a question for future research. another important limitation of this study is the use of a correlational methodology, which precludes drawing inferences about the direction of causality among variables. for example, it is unclear whether using more adaptive (and less maladaptive) forms of humor causes enhanced psychological health and wellbeing, or whether having better mental health causes one to use humor in more beneficial ways (and if poorer health causes more maladaptive forms of humor use). further research using experimental designs is needed to determine the direction of causality in the observed relationships between mental health and humor styles. a further consideration is that humor creation ability was assessed in a laboratory setting. i t is unknown whether people with higher scores on the fshct and the cct actually use this ability in their daily lives. one potential method for examining this question in future research would be the use of experiential sampling techniques (larson & csikszentmihalyi, 1983) which would permit participants to record actual instances (and the context) of humor creation as these attempts occur in everyday situations. i t would be interesting to determine whether humor creation measures produce consistent results when collected in both a laboratory and real world setting. another limitation of this study is that the assessment of mental health variables relied exclusively on self-report questionnaires. this type of methodology is often subject to humor creation ability and mental health 209 biases, such as the propensity for a participant to respond in socially desirable w ays. as a result, desirable behaviors may be over-reported and unfavorable behaviors under-reported by those with a high need for approval. future research should consider using peer ratings or physiological indicators of mental health (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance) to supplement self-report data. in summary, the present findings prov ide additional ev idence that the way humor is used is more important for well-being than is the ability to be funny. these findings have important implications for humor-based interventions. for example, our results suggest that such interventions should place less emphasis on training clients in the ability to generate humor, and more emphasis on examining the ways they use it in their daily lives, increasing their use of beneficial humor styles and decreasing their use of detrimental styles. in turn, experimental investigations of such humor-based interventions would be useful for determining the direction of causality in the associations between humor styles and psychological well-being. references babad, e. y. (1974). a multi-method approach to the assessment of humor: a critical look at humor tests. journal of personality, 42, 618-631. chen, g., & martin, r. a. (2007). a comparison of humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between chinese and canadian university students. humor: international journal of humor research, 20, 215-234. clabby, j. f. (1980). the wit: a personality analysis. journal of personality assessment, 44, 307-310. diener, e., emmons, r., larsen, r., & griffin, s. (1985). the satisfaction with life scale. journal of personality assessment, 49, 71-75. köhler, g., & ruch, w. (1996). sources of variance in current sense of humor inventories: how much substance, how much method variance? humor: international journal of humor research, 9, 363-397. koppel, m. a., & sechrest, l. 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(2008). humor and health. in v. raskin (ed.), the primer of humor research (pp. 479-522). berlin: mouton de gruyter. martin, r. a., & lefcourt, h. m. (1983). sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods. journal of personality & social psychology, 45, 1313-1324. martin, r. a., & lefcourt, h. m. (1984). situational humor response questionnaire: quantitative measure of sense of humor. journal of personality & social psychology, 47, 145-155. martin, r. a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., weir, k. (2003). individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. masten, a. s. (1986). humor and competence in school-aged children. child development, 57, 461-473. mcghee, p.e. (1999). health, healing and the amuse system: humor as survival training (3rd ed.). dubuque, iowa: kendall/hunt. nieuwenhuijsen, k., de boer, a. g., verbeek, j. h., blonk, r. w., & van dijk, f. j. (2003). the depression anxiety stress scales (dass): detecting anxiety disorder and depression in humor creation ability and mental health 211 employees absent from work because of mental health problems. occupational and environmental medicine, 60, 77-82. o’quin, k., & derks, p. (1997). humor and creativity: a review of the empirical literature. in m. a. runco (ed.), the creativity handbook (vol. 1, pp. 227-256). cresskill, nj: hampton press. rosenberg, m. (1965). society and the adolescent self-image. princeton, nj: princeton university press. scheier, m., & carver, c. (1985). optimism, coping, and health: assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies. health psychology, 4, 219-247. scheier, m., carver, c., & bridges, m. (1994). distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): a reevaluation of the life orientation test. journal of personality and social psychology, 67, 1063-1078. shiner, r. l. (2006). temperament and personality in childhood. in d. k. mriczek & t. d. little (eds.), handbook of personality development (pp. 213-230). mahway, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. silbert, e., & tippett, j. (1965). self-esteem: clinical assessment and measurement validation. psychological reports, 16, 1017-1071. sveback, s. (1974). revised questionnaire on the sense of humor. scandinavian journal of psychology, 15, 328-331. the new yorker. (2008). cartoon caption contest (previous winners). retrieved november 25, 2008, from http://www.newyorker.com/humor/caption/. turner, r. g. (1980). self-monitoring and humor production. journal of personality, 48, 163172. about the authors: kim r. edwards is currently a ph.d. candidate in clinical psychology at the university of western ontario under the superv ision of rod a. martin. her research interests include humor, health, and positive psychology. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/caption/ europe’s journal of psychology 212 address for correspondence: k. r. edwards, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7 e-mail: kedward7@uwo.ca rod a. martin is a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being. mailto:kedward7@uwo.ca living with intensity europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 198-200 www.ejop.org brain, mind and behaviour: a new perspective on human nature 2nd edition authored by david l. robinson pontoon publications, 2009 reviewed by daljinder virk ejop associate editor crescent road, alverstoke, gosport, hants po12 2dl dallyvirk@googlemail.com brain, mind and behaviour describes new discoveries concerning the relationship between brain-function and individual differences in human personality and intelligence. these new findings along with related theoretical developments provide new insights concerning the greatest mystery of all: human nature and the human mind. the book will be of great interest to those who wish to know more about human nature, especially psychologists and those concerned with the psychological significance of neuroscience. it is an essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate psychology students with a main interest in personality and individual differences and for those psychologists who are professionally concerned with mental health, education, human resource management and areas where knowledge of personality and individual differences is of primary and fundamental importance. brain, mind and behaviour: a new perspective on human nature introduces the reader in chapter one to the fundamentals of what this book aims to convey and sets the scene for the new discoveries which have been made based on existing classic theories in experimental psychology. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 199 any theory which omits reference to the mind is clearly inadequate when considering the human brain or human behaviour. however, it must also be acknowledged that the study of mind does involve some special difficulties precisely because subjective phenomena cannot be ignored. these difficulties are greatly exacerbated since those who study brain and behaviour are inevitably influenced and constrained by concepts that have been adopted in the domain of the more elementary but better established physical sciences. stemming back to experimental psychology roots, it touches upon the issue of how science should accumulate knowledge through the application of objective procedures to ensure that one investigator can always replicate the work of another, and hopefully obtain similar results. however conceptually tied to this is the emphasis on the use of objective procedures which is only linked to material objects and is distinct from mental concepts, ideas or beliefs; and that this is the only objective which is real and one which exists – and that true knowledge is something distinct from the sensations and emotions that people actually experience. the chapter goes onto explore locke’s claims on the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. for the first time, it has been possible to map out in a clear and unambiguous manner the neurological determinants of the major dimensions of personality and to show, after more than two millennia, the validity of the ancient fourfold classification of temperaments. there is support for a definition of intelligence in terms of ‘the availability of information’ and it has been possible to specify in precise terms just how the more fundamental neurological differences can influence different neurological processes meditating the acquisition, retention and utilization of information. it has also been possible to demonstrate how intelligence differences relate to personality or temperament differences and in this way to achieve the first integrated, detailed and comprehensive explanation of the relations between brain, mind and behaviour. to provide the reader with an adequate historical context for the new discoveries discussed in this book, and to show how these new discoveries refine and extend the foundation concepts developed by pavlov and eysenck, chapter two gives consideration to pavlov’s study of brain-behaviour relationships, and to his ideas concerning the causation of temperament differences. chapter three reintroduces pavlov’s conflicting findings concerning the ‘balance of excitation and inhibition’ and how they are reconciled and partly explained in terms brain, mind and behaviour 200 of cerebral and brainstem interaction. several unresolved questions are identified and additional questions arise in the next chapter. chapter four, provides the reader with new insights from the comparison of the theory of brain-function, that can best account for pavlov’s findings concerning temperament, with eysenck’s more recent theory of the manner in which individual differences in cortical arousal determine personality differences. in chapter five the theoretical basis for a new approach to eeg analysis is described. the information provided by this method reveals how functional properties of the brain relate to temperament, personality and intelligence. these relationships are further explored in chapters six, seven, eight and nine; here ideas are presented and the resolution of fundamental theoretical issues leads to the formulation of a new theory of brain, mind and behaviour relationships. the first focus is on explaining pavlov’s findings and then the author goes on to develop and greatly extend the theories of pavlov, eysenck, spearman and cattell. in chapter ten the new theory if further demonstrated by providing the reader with alternative explanations which have been derived from psychological phenomena that most interested freud. although freud’s theory has been heavily criticised and although most of the criticism is valid according to the author, however no satisfactory alternative account has yet been offered to explain the observations on which freud’s theory is based. however in chapter ten such an account is offered with reference to jung, maslow and roger’s ideas. the final chapter deals with the influence of genetic endowment on personality, temperament and intelligence and illustrates how the new theory relates to and explains the results obtained in twin studies. chapter eleven is mainly concerned with what the new theory and related information tell us about the essential nature of human beings. brain, mind and behaviour: a new perspective on human nature is an informative and thoroughly researched book which the author suggests is useful for those who maybe practice psychology both in an occupational and an academic setting. i believe that this is a book for anyone who is interested in the fundamentals of brain, mind and behaviour and especially in how newer discoveries have led to either accepting or rejecting previous classic work in experimental psychology. i would recommend this book to third year undergraduate students who are interested in this area and wish to go further afield. microsoft word 3. research support seeking.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 9-24 www.ejop.org support seeking, caregiving and conflict management: evidence from an observational study with couples marie-france lafontaine university of ottawa claude bélanger university of quebec in montreal mcgill university and douglas hospital research center cynthia gagnon university of quebec in montreal abstract previous studies of couples have shown theoretically predicted links between 1) support seeking/attachment and marital functioning, and 2) caregiving and marital functioning (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). the present study further develops this area of research by investigating the link between conflict management and support seeking in couples, and the relationship between conflict management and caregiving behaviours in couples. eighty couples completed the potential problem checklist (patterson, 1976) and a filmed 15-minute interactive problem-solving task. independent teams of coders rated support seeking/caregiving and conflict management behaviours with the secure base scoring system for adults (crowell et al., 1998) and the global couple interaction coding system (bélanger et al., 1993). it was hypothesized that a partner who asked for and gave support effectively would be less prone to withdraw, dominate, and criticize, and more likely to reinforce and listen to his/her partner and solve problems effectively. it was further hypothesized that men/women with a partner who sought and gave support effectively would be less likely to withdraw, dominate, and criticize, and more likely to reinforce and listen to his/her partner and demonstrate good problem solving skills. the results revealed that men and women who had effective support seeking and caregiving skills demonstrated greater conflict management skills during a discussion about a topic of conflict with their partner. the results further revealed a relationship europe’s journal of psychology 10 between caregiving skills in one partner and conflict management skills in the other partner. this study contributes to the development of an integrative model of marital functioning. keywords – support seeking, caregiving, conflict management, behaviours, observational data introduction john bowlby described love as a dynamic state that incorporates each partner’s individual tendencies for attachment (support seeking) and caregiving (bowlby, 1969/1982). bowlby conceptualized those two dimensions as behavioural systems that evolve in parallel and organize human behaviour to increase the probability of survival and adaptation (mikulincer, 2006). every individual’s global welfare, including romantic, social, and emotional quality of life, depends to some degree on the proper functioning of these innate behavioural systems (hazan & shaver, 1987). this study is designed to advance understanding of behavioural conflict management in couples by examining it though the lens of attachment theory. according to bowlby (1969/1982), the attachment system (support seeking) is activated any time an individual is confronted with a situation that could threaten his/her survival. once activated, the system’s primary strategy is to seek proximity to the attachment figure (bowlby, 1969/1982). if the attachment figure (e.g. parent, partner) responds consistently to the individual’s support seeking needs, he will develop a secure attachment, that is, the belief that he is deserving of love, and confidence in the availability of attachment figures to meet his needs (bartholomew, 1997). the behavioural caregiving system is fundamental to the development of an effective support seeking strategy. attachment theory (bowlby, 1969/1982) suggests that the spousal caregiving system has two major functions: first, to provide a secure base for a partner by providing security when he/she is in distress; and second, to encourage autonomy and exploration when the partner is not in distress (collins, guichard, ford, & j. a. feeney, 2006; mikulincer & shaver, 2007). j. a. feeney (2002) noted that attachment theory offers a good explanation for individual differences in the positive and negative behaviours manifested in the context of an intimate relationship. previous studies have essentially shown a predictable link between the attachment/caregiving systems and romantic functioning (see mikulincer & shaver, 2007 for a review). based on attachment romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 11 theory, the present study therefore seeks to use direct observational measures of behaviour during a dyadic interaction to investigate both support seeking and spousal caregiving in relationship to conflict management. support seeking and conflict management in couples while the link between self-report measures of support seeking (i.e. attachment) and conflict management is well documented, less is known about the relationship between these two variables during couple interactions. authors mikulincer and shaver (2007) have called for further investigation into the conflict management variables that correlate with measures of adult attachment. studies that used selfreport measures found that attachment insecurity in men and/or women was positively related to dominance, avoidance, verbal aggression, coercion, destructive patterns, destructive demand-withdrawal strategies and types of attack, and negatively related to mutuality and compromise (j. a. feeney 1994; j. a. feeney, noller, & callan, 1994; heene, buysse, & van oost 2005; marchand, 2004; marchand, schedler, & wagstaff, 2004; roberts & noller, 1998; senchak & leonard, 1992; shi, 2003). mikulincer and shaver (2007) reported that combined attachment measures (interview/self-report/q-sort) and observational measures of conflict management behaviours have mostly demonstrated that attachment insecurity (attachment to parents, adult attachment) in men and/or women is related to more problems in conflict-management (e.g. withdrawal, stonewalling, contempt) and less positive communication and affect (e.g., babcock, jacobson, gottman, & yerington, 2000; campbell, simpson, boldry, & kashy, 2005; creasey & ladd, 2005; cohn, silver, cowan, cowan, & pearson, 1992; j. a. feeney, 1998; kobak & hazan, 1991; roisman, collins, sroufe, & egeland,, 2005). to our knowledge, only one study (crowell et al., 2002) has investigated the link between support seeking behaviours and communication behaviours during discussions of topics of conflict. crowell and colleagues (2002) found that global positive and negative conflict management behaviours were significantly correlated with support seeking behaviours for both men and women, but do not represent the same construct. while these results provide interesting clues about the links between these two types of behaviours, the use of positive and negative global scores do not provide us with information about the specific behaviours at play. the reliability of the information provided by global positive/negative coding systems has been questioned in the past (markman, 1991; weiss, 1989). accordingly, the current study improves on crowell and colleagues (2002) by exploring the impact of support seeking and caregiving on more specific conflict management dimensions. in europe’s journal of psychology 12 addition, it is important to note that crowell’s research sample consisted of engaged couples in their mid–twenties, most of whom were not cohabitating. as it is conceivable that attachment strategies would change as a relationship became more stable and durable, it would be interesting to examine the links between attachment strategy and conflict resolution in couples engaged in long term relationships. the present study responds to this need by studying care seeking and caregiving behaviours in a sample of older, established couples. caregiving and conflict management in couples effective caregiving plays a major role in determining the quality and stability of conjugal relationships (collins & b. c. feeney, 2000). however, little research has examined the caregiving system relative to the attachment/support seeking system in adult relationships (collins, guichard, ford, & b. c. feeney, 2006). crowell et al. (2002) has investigated the relationship between spousal caregiving and conflict management. they found that positive and negative conflict management behaviours and spousal caregiving behaviours were significantly correlated for both men and women, but reflect two different constructs. partner effect studies have established that marital conflict management skills in one partner may depend on the other partner’s attachment security or insecurity (e.g., collins & read, 1990; j. a. feeney et al., 1994; kobak & hazan, 1991). the methods used to explore support seeking (q-sort, self-report) and conflict management (self-report and observational measure) in these studies vary. the authors of the present study are interested in taking one step further and examining the impact of one partner’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours on the other partner’s conflict management behaviours during conflict resolution. such a systemic perspective may contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of problems in romantic relationships, including problems with conflict management. hypotheses the hypotheses for this study were: (1) participants’ support seeking and caregiving behaviours will negatively predict their withdrawal, dominance, and criticism behaviours, and positively predict their support/validation and problem-solving abilities; (2) participants’ support seeking and caregiving behaviours will negatively romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 13 predict their partner’s withdrawal, dominance, and criticism behaviours, and positively their partner’s support/validation and problem-solving abilities. method participants eighty heterosexual french-canadian couples in quebec participated in the present study. to be eligible to participate, couples had to have cohabitated for a minimum of 5 years. participant couples were randomly selected from a sample of 312 couples that met the eligibility criteria. all participants were married (n = 106) or cohabiting (n = 54). the couples had been living together for an average of 9.67 years (sd = 3.71, range: 5 to 17 years). participants had an average of 1.43 children (sd = 1.07). the mean age for men was 37.28 years (sd = 7.10) with 15.88 years (sd = 3.89) of formal education. the mean age for women was 34.40 years (sd = 6.32) with 15.55 years (sd = 2.92) of formal education. mean annual income for men and women in the sample was $40,635 (sd = 22,825) and $21,033 (sd = 16,154), respectively (in canadian dollars). procedure participants were recruited through newspaper, radio, and television ads. participating couples attended a one-hour testing session. men and women completed the self-report research questionnaires and consent forms independently. each couple also participated in a videotaped discussion about a topic that was a source of conflict in the relationship. the discussion topic was determined from the couple’s responses on the potential problem checklist (patterson, 1976). prior to the discussion, the examiner ensured that both partners were willing to discuss the selected topic. measures the potential problem checklist (patterson, 1976, translated into french by bourgeois, sabourin, & wright, 1990) is a 16-item questionnaire about possible sources of conflict for couples (e.g., family, sexuality, children, finances, etc.). respondents ranked each conflict theme on a 7-point likert scale from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. europe’s journal of psychology 14 the secure base scoring system (sbss) for adults (crowell, pan, gao, treboux, o’connor, & waters, 1998) was developed to assess support seeking and caregiving behaviours in partners during a dyadic interaction. it was designed to assess both partners’ support seeking on four dimensions: (a) directness and clarity of the initial distress signal; (b) maintenance of the signal; (c) approach to the attachment figure; and (d) ability to be comforted. the four support seeking dimensions are coded on a 7point likert scale and yield a 7-point summary scale of attachment. the summary scale is based on a global evaluation of the four support seeking dimensions and is coded with the sbss grid. a high score indicates that the individual expresses his/her distress clearly both initially and throughout the discussion, approaches his/her partner with the clear belief that the partner should and will help, and is comforted by the partner’s efforts to help. the sbss also evaluates four dimensions of caregiving for each partner: (a) interest in the partner’s distress; (b) recognition of the partner’s distress; (c) interpretation of the partner’s distress; and (d) responsiveness to the partner’s distress. the coding is the same as the coding for the four support seeking dimensions. a high score denotes sensitivity to the partner's distress, understanding of the distress, and responsiveness to the distress (crowell et al., 2002). the global couple interaction coding system (gcics; bélanger, dulude, sabourin, & wright, 1993) measures five dimensions of marital interactions: (a) withdrawal (tendency to avoid discussion); (b) dominance (non-symmetrical control of the discussion); (c) criticism/attack/conflict (tendency to criticize, blame, or disparage the partner, including the use of non-verbal hostility, negative mind-reading, threats, and negative escalation); (d) support/validation (ability to list, validate, or reinforce the partner’s statements); and (e) problem solving (ability to recognize a problem and find appropriate solutions). each category is coded on a 4-point continuum from "absent" to "strong". bélanger et al. (1993) have demonstrated satisfactory reliability coefficients (pearson correlations) and validity estimate for this measure. the sbss coding was completed by a psychologist trained by judith crowell and dominique treboux at the university of new york at stony brook, and two trained graduate students in psychology. the gcics coding was completed by two graduate students in psychology supervised by claude bélanger, the author of the gcics coding system. the gcics and the sbss coding are based on the same 15minute interaction. romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 15 results intercoder agreement intercoder reliabilities for the sbss and the gcics coding systems were computed for one third of all discussions, using intraclass correlation. bech and clemmensen (1983) suggested that an intraclass coefficient between .41 and .60 represents moderate agreement, a coefficient between .61 and .80 indicates substantial agreement, and a coefficient over .81 shows near-perfect agreement between coders. in the current study, intraclass correlations generally indicated substantial or near-perfect agreement between the coders. intraclass coefficients for the support seeking summary scale were .82 for men and .78 for women. agreement for the caregiving summary scale was .82 for men and .87 for women. coefficients were calculated for the following gcics dimensions: withdrawal (.61 for men and .64 for women), dominance (.46 for men and .48 for women), criticism (.84 for men and .73 for women), support/validation (.77 for men and .85 for women), and problem solving (.78 for men and .64 for women). support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours standard multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the first hypothesis, which stated that participants’ support seeking and caregiving behaviours would predict their conflict management behaviours. analyses were performed for each of the conflict management behaviours. in order to obtain clearly interpretable results, two preliminary steps were taken. first, support seeking and caregiving behaviours that were not related to conflict management behaviours in the correlation analyses were removed from further analysis. the examination of the links between these two sets of variables show that support seeking and caregiving behaviours were generally significantly correlated with conflict management behaviours for both men and women (see table 1). more specifically, support seeking for men and women was positively correlated with positive conflict management strategies (i.e., support/validation and problem solving), but not significantly related to negative conflict management behaviours (i.e., withdrawal, dominance and criticism), with the exception of women’s tendency to withdraw. caregiving behaviours for both men and women were related to all five conflict management dimensions. second, support seeking and caregiving behaviours that were not significant in preliminary regression analyses were removed, and additional analyses were europe’s journal of psychology 16 conducted with only the significant predictors. the results confirmed that men’s and women’s support seeking and caregiving strategies predict many of their conflict management behaviours. bonferroni correction was applied to avoid type 1 errors. the significance level for all regression analyses was set at p = .002. standardized betas are presented. the results demonstrated that support seeking positively predicted table 1. correlations between support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours male partner support seeking/caregiving female partner support seeking/caregiving conflict management support seeking caregiving support seeking caregiving withdrawal -.23 -.28** -.37*** -.27* dominance -.13 -.35*** -.03 -.27* criticism -.11 -.36*** -.10 -.39*** support/validation .41*** .55*** .38*** .50*** problem solving .39*** .35*** .50*** .52*** all p values are for two-tailed tests. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001 problem solving abilities in men (f(1, 67) = 11.71, p < .001; beta = .39; variance = 15%). in addition, men’s caregiving was significantly positively correlated with support/validation (f(1, 78) = 33.75, p < .0001; beta = .55; variance = 30%), and significantly negatively correlated with dominance (f(1, 78) = 11.11, p < .001; beta = .35; variance = 13%) and criticism (f(1, 78) = 11.44, p < .001; beta = -.36; variance explained = 13%). women’s support seeking proved to be significantly negatively correlated with withdrawal (f(1, 78) = 12.13, p < .001; beta = -.37; variance = 14%). women’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours significantly predicted problem solving (f(2, 66) = 15.71, p < .0001; variance = 32%; beta support seeking = .27, t = 2.23, p < .03; beta caregiving = .37, t = 2.99, p < .004). finally, women’s caregiving behaviours were significantly negatively correlated with criticism (f(1, 67) = 11.94, p < .001; beta = -.39; variance = 15%), and significantly positively correlated with support/validation (f(1, 67) = 22.22, p < .0001; beta = .50; variance = 25%). next, a series of standard multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the second hypothesis, which stated that participants’ support seeking and caregiving behaviours would predict their partners’ conflict management behaviours. as described above, two preliminary steps were taken prior to running the final romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 17 analyses. first, support seeking and caregiving behaviours that were not related to conflict management behaviours in the correlation analyses were removed. correlations between one partner’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours and the other partner’s conflict management behaviours are presented in table 2. interestingly, in most cases, participants' support seeking and caregiving behaviours that were related to their own conflict management behaviours also proved to be related to their partner’s conflict management behaviours. men’s and women’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours were positively related to their partner’s constructive conflict management behaviours (i.e., support/validation and problem solving). men’s and women’s caregiving behaviours were negatively correlated with their partners’ negative conflict management behaviours (withdrawal, dominance and criticism), with the exception of male criticism. men’s support seeking behaviours were correlated with their partner’s dominance and criticism. women’s support seeking behaviours were also correlated with their partner’s negative conflict management behaviours (e.g. male withdrawal). table 2. correlations between participant’s conflict management behaviours and partner’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours male partner’s support seeking/caregiving female partner’s support seeking/caregiving participant’s conflict management support seeking caregiving support seeking caregiving withdrawal .17 -.35*** -.24* -.28* dominance -.24* -.28** -.19 -.26* criticism -.24* -.33** -.08 -.23 support/validation .44*** .48*** .32** .33** problem solving .31** .50*** .26* .44*** all p values are for two-tailed tests. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001 in a second preliminary step, support seeking and caregiving behaviours that were not significant in preliminary regression analyses were removed and additional analyses were conducted with only the significant predictors. the results of these analyses confirmed that only men’s and women’s caregiving behaviours predicted their partners’ conflict management behaviours. bonferroni correction was applied to avoid type 1 errors. the significance level for all regression analyses was set at p = .002. the results revealed that men’s caregiving behaviours were significantly negatively correlated with their partners’ withdrawal (f(1, 78) = 10.98, p < .001; beta = europe’s journal of psychology 18 -.35; variance = 12%) and criticism (f(1, 78) = 9.82, p < .002; beta = -.33; variance = 11%), and significantly positively correlated with their partners’ support/validation (f(1, 78) = 23.08, p < .0001; beta = .48; variance = 23%) and problem solving (f(1, 78) = 25.90, p < .0001; beta = .50; variance = 25%). women’s caregiving significantly predicted their partners’ problem-solving abilities (f(1, 67) = 16.37, p < .0001; beta = .44; variance = 20%). discussion the present study examined the relationship between support seeking/caregiving behaviours in couples and conflict management behaviours in couples. in stable couple relationships, both men’s and women’s support seeking and caregiving behaviours have a significant impact on their own conflict management behaviours. this result is consistent with a secondary result from a 2002 study (crowell et al.) that found that support seeking and caregiving behaviours are related to global communication behaviors in both male and female partners in young couples. the current study looked more closely at conflict management behaviours by exploring more subtle and precise interactions between support seeking/caregiving and conflict management behaviours. the results of the present study reveal that effective support seeking is associated with greater problem solving abilities, possibly as a function of improved problem recognition and greater openness toward the partner. this finding implies that failure of either/both partner(s) to express distress during a discussion of a topic of conflict can decrease both the ability to recognize a problem and the desire to find solutions, making problem solving less likely. seligman’s (1975) theoretical model of learned helplessness may shed some light on these findings. individuals who are ineffective in seeking support may respond with learned helplessness in uncontrollable situations (abramson, seligman, & teasdale, 1978). they are consequently unable to solve a problem when faced with marital difficulties, even if they can find adequate ways to solve problems in other contexts. the present study also found that male and female caregiving behaviours influence some conflict management behaviours. both men and women who were sensitive to their partner's distress, understood the distress, and responded appropriately to the distress were less likely to criticize and more likely to listen to their partner. these patterns are independent of gender. interestingly, some of the results revealed gender differences in attachment and communication quality. this finding replicates previous findings (e.g., heene, buysse, romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 19 & van oost, 2005; paley, cox, burchinal, & payne, 1999; wampler, shi, nelson, & kimball, 2003), albeit with different measurement strategies. in the present study, ineffective support seeking in women predicted less withdrawal during communication with her partner. it has been generally observed that, in couples, men tend to withdraw more than women, whereas women are more likely to complain and criticize (gottman, 1994). withdrawal in the female partner may be viewed as a defensive decision not to seek care in the relationship based on the woman’s belief that she cannot trust her partner. this pattern was not observed in men, for whom withdrawal behaviours may be less attachment-related and more a function of cultural norms. women who provided good support for their partner showed greater problem solving ability. this relationship was not significant for men, which may imply that men’s supportiveness is not essential to problem resolution in the relationship. some men may be good problem solvers in addition to being sensitive and responsive to their partner’s distress. other men may be effective in recognizing and solving problems, but do not demonstrate sensitivity and responsiveness. our results revealed that caregiving in men negatively predicted dominance, a result that was not found for women. the tendency to control discussions is less frequent among men who provide effective support to their partner. another conclusion suggested by the results of this study concerns the impact of men and women’s support seeking/caregiving behaviors on their partner’s conflict management behaviours. although prior studies using other measures have highlighted the importance of examining the relationship between attachment in one partner in a relationship and conflict management in the other partner (collins & read, 1990; j. a. feeney, 1994; kobak & hazan, 1991), no research has discussed the importance of the association between caregiving in one partner and conflict management in the other partner. the results of the present study found that one partner’s caregiving behaviours influenced some of the other partner's conflict management behaviours. this relationship was gender specific. women with supportive partners were less likely to avoid discussion and to criticize their partner. they demonstrated greater skills in listening to their partner, recognizing problems, and seeking appropriate solutions. however, with the exception of more effective problem solving skills, men with supportive partners did not exhibit more constructive conflict management patterns. we can therefore conclude that men’s caregiving had an important impact on women’s conflict management behaviours, but that women’s caregiving had no such effect on men. this difference may reflect the finding that women more than men tend to define themselves by their interpersonal relationships and attach greater meaning to the relationships (wood, rhodes, & whelan, 1989). our findings suggest a qualitative difference in men’s and women’s europe’s journal of psychology 20 investment in the couple relationship. unlike men, women need to feel supported by their partner in order to engage in constructive conflict management. overall, our findings suggest that men’s and women’s conflict management behaviours are more related to their own support seeking/caregiving behaviours than to their partner’s support seeking/caregiving behaviours. this result is congruent with previous studies that used self-report attachment measures (j. a. feeney et al., 1994; simpson, 1990). an individual’s ability to give or receive support is partially determined by the quality of his/her past significant attachment relationships (bowlby, 1973; bowlby, 1969/1982) and, to a lesser extent, determined by current dyadic interactions. this finding could inform couples therapy aimed at improving communication; the understanding on the part of each partner that his/her communication skills depend more on his/her own behaviours and experience than on his/her partner’s behaviours could allow couples to set more realistic expectations for therapy. there are two methodological limitations to this study. first, cross-sectional results do not allow us to draw conclusions about the direction of the relationship between support seeking/caregiving behaviours and conflict management behaviours (i.e. cause vs. effect). further longitudinal research is necessary to determine the impact of support seeking/caregiving behaviours on marital quality variables. second, our results are based on a sample of couples from the general population, and cannot be generalized to clinical populations. acknowledgments section this study was funded by a post-doctoral research fellowship from the fonds quebecois de recherche sur la societé et la culture [quebec fund for research on society and culture] awarded to the first author. the authors acknowledge the contribution of dr. stephane sabourin from laval university for providing access to his database on couples. we also thank dr. judith crowell for her helpful comments. references abramson, l. y., seligman, m. e. p., & teasdale, j. d. 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(2005). predictors of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship: prospective tests of the prototype hypothesis. attachment & human development, 7, 105-121. roberts, n., & noller, p. (1998). the association between adult attachment and couple violence: the role of communication patterns and relationship satisfaction. in j. a. simpson & w. s. rholes (eds.), attachment theory and close relationships (pp. 317-350). new york: guilford press. seligman, m. e. p. (1975). helplessness. san francisco: w. h. freeman. senchak, m., & leonard, k. e. (1992). attachment styles and marital adjustment among newlywed couples. journal of social and personal relationships, 9, 51-64. europe’s journal of psychology 24 shi, l. (2003). the association between adult attachment styles and conflict resolution in romantic relationships. american journal of family therapy, 31, 143-157. simpson, j. a. (1990). influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships. journal of personality and social psychology, 59, 971-980. wampler, k.s., shi, l., nelson, b.s., & kimball, t.g. (2003). the adult attachment interview and observed couple interaction: implication for and intergenerational perspective on couple therapy. family process, 42, 497-515. weiss, r. l. (1989). the circle of voyeurs: observing the observers of marital and family interactions. behavioral assessment, 11, 135-147. wood, w., rhodes, n., & whelan, m. (1989). sex differences in positive well-being: a consideration of emotional style and marital status. psychological bulletin, 106, 249-264. about the authors: dr. marie-france lafontaine is currently an associate professor and director of the couples research lab at the school of psychology at the university of ottawa, canada. her primary research interests include adult attachment, violence in intimate relationships, heterosexual and homosexual couple relationships, and physical health. correspondence should be addressed to dr. lafontaine at university of ottawa, school of psychology, 200 lees, ottawa, ontario, canada k1n 6n5; email: mlafonta@uottawa.ca. dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at the university of quebec in montreal, as well as associate professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university and researcher at the douglas university mental health university institute. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, problem solving behaviours in couples, and anxiety and marital functioning. correspondence should be addressed to dr. bélanger at belanger.claude@uqam.ca. cynthia gagnon is currently a ph.d candidate at the university of quebec in montreal, canada. her primary research interests are couple relationships, eating disorders, and concurrent marital problems and chronic diseases such as diabetes. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 295-322 www.ejop.org how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations during primary school years? eeva-liisa peltokorpi university of helsinki kaarina määttä university of lapland abstract emotional coping is an emotional-based psychological process that contributes to achieving the goal of emotional regulation. as such, the development of emotional coping can be understood as an individual’s inner coping process which consists of various elements. this article describes the development of children’s emotional coping and the teaching methods that enhance it in the school class. a range of interactive learning activities were planned and carried out in the classroom and the measures of emotional coping were created. nine pupils aged between seven and eight who had problems with their emotional coping were selected as the research participants. their development and teaching were observed and the pupils’ self-evaluations were collected during the study year 2006-2007 in interactional classroom situations that involved mathematical problem-solving tasks. the aim of the research was to study 1) how primary school pupils’ emotional coping develops and 2) with what kind of teaching methods their emotional coping could be enhanced. results showed that pupils’ individual emotional coping can be illustrated through various mathematical reasoning and problem-solving tasks in stages. emotional coping skills are important for individuals’ success and wellbeing and the foundation for these skills can be laid already in the early years. keywords: emotional coping, emotional regulation, primary school, emotional intelligence, children. practical experiences in teaching show that, alongside the transmission of information, the school has to focus on achieving goals related to socio-emotional skills and pupils’ comprehensive wellbeing more than before. it seems that http://www.ejop.org/ how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 296 nowadays children have difficulties to get along with their peers and friends (giffordsmith & brownell, 2003; leblanck, sautter, & dore, 2006). in addition, the amount of information transmitted in most schools is enormous and a child’s mind can become exhausted by the flood of information (rowe et al., 2010; zullig et al., 2010). today’s curricula prefer information-oriented studying to subjects that could provide the children with experiences of recognizing and paying attention to their own self and needs. acquiring social skills is nevertheless invaluable for the children’s forthcoming life (cheng & furnham, 2002; woodward & fergusson, 2000). does today’s school emphasize the transmission of information, which seems to be valued the most by the society, at the expense of emotional life (uusikylä, 2005, p. 25)? should we also study the skills of living along with the academic skills at school? this article leans especially on the theories of emotional regulation (brenner & salovey, 1997), boekaerts’ (1996) theory of coping process and the classification of emotional coping developed by eisenberg´s research group (1993). this article studies the development of pupils’ emotional coping and the kind of teaching solutions that can enhance interactional learning situations in the classroom. the aim of this article is to increase our understanding concerning children’s emotional coping and to support teachers’ work on enhancing children’s readiness to handle challenging social situations at school. what is emotional coping? according to matthews et al. (2000), emotional coping is the ability to handle various demands. they define the concept briefly but the definition can be interpreted in several ways. based on their description, emotional coping can be understood as a skill or ability that can be taught. additionally, according to the definition, emotional coping can be interpreted as the ability to handle difficult situations in life. this assumption is supported by brenner and salovey’s (1997) definition of emotional coping. they consider emotional coping as a process in which a child uses previously learned coping skills in difficult problem situations. boekaerts (1996) shares this opinion but emphasizes the strong influence of individuals’ emotions and their assessment to the selection of a particular coping method. boekaerts has developed a model of the coping process to makes the concept of emotional coping operational. according to this model, people use emotions to enhance their wellbeing. for example, in a problematic situation emotions are strongly present when trying to improve one’s situation. this is what happens, for instance, when one tries to control the negative emotional reactions by directing them elsewhere or when one tries to handle the situation by self-control (see also goetz, 2005). europe’s journal of psychology 297 brenner and salovey (1997) consider the concept of emotional regulation as a subconcept for emotional coping. according to the authors, both emotional coping and emotional regulation are processes with which for example difficult problem situations are handled. previously learned strategies are used in both processes in order to manage the situation. individuals store emotional regulation processes they have used in their repertoire, as boekaerts (1996) asserts. this repertoire is an important part of the emotional coping process and from it an individual can activate possible forms of emotional regulation in suitable situations after an emotional coping process has started. eisenberg has studied emotional regulation with a variety of research groups (see spinrad et al. 2006; hanish et al. 2004; eisenberg et al. 2004; eisenberg & spinrad 2004; spinrad et al. 2004) and has noted that the definitions of emotional regulation are clearly connected to boekaerts’s (1996) model of the coping process, which forms the theoretical basis in this article for understanding the phenomenon of emotional coping. according to eisenberg’s research group (2000), emotional coping is a process that consists of conducting, sustaining, confirming, and consolidating inner emotional states. furthermore, it is an emotional-based psychological process that helps to achieve the goal of the process of emotional regulation. one area in this model is the learned systems that comprise of the individual’s repertoire of emotional regulation (see above). for this reason, emotional regulation and coping are seen as firmly interconnected. this was also the rationale for using the model of emotional coping created by eisenberg’s research group (1993) as the basis for the empirical execution of the research (see research method). emotional coping can also be approached from the perspectives of emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. zeidner et al. (2003) consider emotional intelligence as a positive temperament, learned skills, and self-conscious emotional regulation. these factors together form emotional intelligence and show a connection to genetic heredity. the authors (2003) define emotional intelligence as the ability to understand, perceive, regulate, and work the emotions by adjusting them to the self and others. they think that emotional intelligence includes, among other things, control of the mind and empathy. the most famous american researcher of emotional intelligence, goleman (1995) is of the opinion that it consists of self-consciousness, self-control, motivation, empathy, and social skills. emotional coping is fundamentally a process of restoring wellbeing which is affected by a child’s temperament on which individual differences in reacting and coping are based. an individual’s genetic heritage is also connected with the process of emotional coping because the ability to react is seen as being connected with the genotype. therefore, it could also be considered as temperamental reacting (fox, 2003). how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 298 as the previous definitions show, the concept of emotional coping is ambiguous. for instance, zeidner et al. (2003) think that the sub-concepts of emotional intelligence are so broad and non-specific that it is hard to operationalize them in a distinct way. therefore, their intention has been to show that emotional intelligence can be seen as behavior that epitomizes empathy and cognitions. mayer and casey (2000) define emotional intelligence as a resource for efficient processing of emotional information. this processing consists of observations, assimilation, comprehension, and emotional coping. the development of emotional coping zeidner’s research group (2003) has constructed an integrated model for the development of emotional intelligence where emotional coping is considered intertwined with temperament and previously learned skills. they think that a child’s emotional intelligence develops through feedback, modeling, and reinforcement, for example in interaction between a mother and a child. later on when a child gets older, the interactions involve more and more people, such as the child’s friends, teachers, and other adults. based on zeidner’s model, it can be assumed that a child’s emotional coping develops, among other things, in an interaction with social factors such as the parents, friends, and teachers (zeidner et al., 2003). according to the researchers, emotional coping not only includes social skills but is also interconnected with social skills. similarly, other studies (sahlberg & leppilampi, 1994, p. 83; sharan & sahlberg, 2002, p. 402; androjna et al., 2000; krantz et al., 2003; siegel, 2005; krol et al., 2004) have pointed out that the social skills of pupils in all age groups (jordan & le metais, 1997) can be developed with interactional teaching methods. on the other hand, the development of emotional coping is an individual’s inner process that can be dissected by boekaerts’s (1996) model of the coping process. according to the model, an individual builds on emotions and assesses their selection of methods and strategies in a problem or stress situation. according to boekaerts (1996), in a problem situation an individual uses emotions, various behavior-related reasons, and the field of cognitive coping strategies for directing or restoring their wellbeing and turning the current situation into a better one. this process involves an individual’s assessment, intentions, and strategies. boekaerts (1996) writes about two functions of coping defined by other researchers (see lazarus, 1985; goetz, 2005) that are problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. the first one focuses on the problem itself and the latter on emotional regulation trying to regulate the negative emotional reactions for example with alienation or self-control. europe’s journal of psychology 299 based on the model of coping process, boekaerts (1995) has introduced a model of controlled learning process in which a central factor is also represented by assessment functioning as a mechanism for the process of attracting attention and channeling energy. both models, the model of coping processes and the model of the controlled learning process, are about finding a controlled balance. according to boekaerts’s model of the controlled learning process, learning activities such as various problem solving tasks trigger a special kind of activity because the learning activities affect, among other things, pupils’ personal effort and sensitivity (boekaerts, 1995). if a learning activity is considered as positive, the prevailing assessment in that situation will lead to strong learning intentions and to a level of positive experience that activates the functional ways of coping and learning; whereas a prevailing unfavorable assessment results in poor learning intention and a negative experiential level. the latter “path” does not lead to learning (boekaerts, 1995). the classification of emotional coping by eisenberg’s research group (1993) formed a basis for the observation and description of this phenomenon in this research. the classification of eisenberg’s research group consists of three main categories for emotional coping with 13 sub-categories altogether: a. constructive coping: 1) instrumental coping, 2) emotional intervention, 3) instrumental aggression, 4) avoidance, and 5) distraction; b. emotional venting: 6) venting, 7) emotional aggression, 8) cognitive restructuring, and 9) emotional support; c. passive coping: 10) cognitive avoidance, 11) instrumental intervention, 12) instrumental support, 13) denial. to sum up, emotional coping can be understood as emotional intelligence intertwining with temperament and previously learned skills (zeidner, 2003) and as an individual’s inner process where coping is based on emotions and behavior-related reasons (boekarts, 1996) and where coping has both problem-focused and emotionfocused functions. furthermore, eisenberg’s research group (1993) has illustrated even a more detailed definition of emotional coping which is utilized in this research as well. based on the above-mentioned findings about the connection between learning activities and positive emotions, it seemed reasonable to examine how coping processes can be enhanced by various learning activities. therefore, the aim of this article is to answer the following two research questions: 1) how does emotional coping develop in primary school pupils? 2) with what kind of teaching methods can primary school pupils’ emotional coping be enhanced in interactional learning situations in a classroom? how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 300 method design the study was carried out as an action research with first-grade pupils at a primary school. during the research, a range of interactive learning activities were planned and carried out in the classroom, measures of emotional coping were created, and ultimately, nine pupils were selected as research participants. the research material was collected by observing interactive learning situations and through the use of self-assessment forms. self-assessment forms were considered suitable because, school aged children (in finland, children go to school in the year in which they turn seven) achieve the ability to understand themselves as social beings and use this information when controlling their self-regulation. zeidner et al. (2003) stated that among children, aged between six and eight, this can be considered as the conscious development of metacognitive self-regulation that turns from understanding and regulation in the flow of consciousness into awareness of a specific cognitive process. according to saarni (2000), a child is normally capable of self-assessment when starting school which is a prerequisite for the ability to regulate or control the self in relation with others’ presumptions of appropriate behavior. the researchers developed the self-assessment form by themselves. in order to increase the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, the questions in the selfassessment form in this research were designed so that first-graders would find them easy to answer. the self-assessment forms consisted of direct questions (see tomal, 2003, p. 50) with multiple choices and were based on the classification of emotional regulation described earlier (eisenberg, et al., 1993). a scale of facial expressions was used as the multiple choices in the self-assessment form because it is commonly used in young children’s self-assessment forms and text books at school. in this research, the scale of faces was used above two possible answers having either a smiley face (the corners of the mouth facing upwards) or a sad face (the corners of the mouth facing downwards). the former would illustrate the choice “i agree” whereas the latter “i disagree”. it was also explained to the pupils every time they were to answer the questions. the intended function for the pictures was to make pupils’ answering easier because not all of the pupils were able to read in the fall semester of the first grade. despite the careful design of the self-assessment form, the researcher read out all questions to the pupils calmly before the pupils chose the suitable answers. questions were read out again twice, one by one. after reading them out, two rows europe’s journal of psychology 301 were marked on the blackboard above which the choices “i agree” and “i disagree” were written. the previously mentioned facial expressions were drawn above the text in order to illustrate the text. tomal (2003, p. 57-58) notes that one of the most challenging situations in designing a questionnaire is the one when working with young children. then, there is always a possibility that children’s abilities to read and understand vary. young children may find it difficult to understand the scale that is used in the questionnaire. therefore, a practical scale is one with facial expressions because when working with children it is a good strategy to read out the questions and ask children to choose a suitable face that illustrates their answers. for example, children had to answer to the question “i solved the task alone” and select a suitable answer for that statement from the scale of facial expressions. in this research, the self-assessment forms were used for measuring the pupils’ emotional coping and to support not only the researcher’s observations concerning their development but also the selection of the participants for the research (described in greater detail in section on data and evidence). the reliability of the selection was supported by the fact that after several self-assessments, pupils had learned the answering technique. however, this can also be seen as decreasing the reliability because, for example tomal (2003, p. 84) points out that pupils can become “test-intelligent”. being aware of this kind of phenomena, the researchers’ interpretations did not lean solely on the pupils’ self-assessments but also on the background information and observations. nevertheless, the information gathered by self-assessments was valuable and supported the researchers’ interpretations. during the research period, there were 18 learning situations, in which pupils solved math problems and played math games in groups of two or three. the teaching methods used in these learning situations were streaming and reflective tasks. therefore, the question is about interactional teaching methods which in this research meant that the pupils worked in the learning situations in groups of two or three. interactional teaching methods consisted of mathematical problem solving tasks and games. the pupils’ emotional coping was developed within the interactional tasks by a variety of subtasks as well as pairing and group arrangements. the tasks included first-graders’ basic mathematical problems as well as subtasks that required reasoning. streaming refers to the reflective tasks that encouraged the pupils to reasoning and reflection. part of both the tasks and games were selected from the first-grade math teacher editions, text books, and supplementary material. part of the tasks was modeled and made suitable for pupils. some of the tasks were created by the researcher, who also was the teacher of the class. in the mathematical problem how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 302 solving and reasoning tasks for example, pupils had to fill a proper number in a triangle or chart. in addition, tasks were used in this research where pupils had to create certain figures of, for instance, tangram peaces or sticks (a task could be about how many similar figures one could create from the sticks in a picture). in some tasks, pupils had to draw a figure in the last empty box. the game situations in the research followed the traditional course of a game. pupils rolled a dice in turn and solved certain math tasks during the game. sometimes, a player had to wait for one extra-round for their turn. pupils also played a game where they had to insert the number of a dice into the pictures shaped like a heart so that the sum of a number in the heart and in a dice would be ten. pupils always colored the heart they had finished and in the end, the winner was the one with most colored hearts. the vision of change and reflection emotional coping that exemplified six of the categories in the classification of emotional coping by eisenberg’s research group (1993) introduced earlier was found in the observations in this research: instrumental coping, avoidance, venting, emotional aggression, emotional support, and cognitive avoidance. these concepts can be explicated briefly in the following way: instrumental coping manifests itself in practice so that in a problem-solving situation the pupil tries to solve the tasks by working alone and ignoring other pupils. avoidance as constructive coping means that a pupil sits by in a learning situation and does not concentrate on solving the problems. venting in a problem solving situation means literally getting excited by the task, whereas emotional support represents struggling together to solve the problem. emotional aggression refers to sulking and speechlessness. cognitive avoidance as passive coping in a problem situation means that a pupil quits in the middle of a task. this article focuses on these forms of emotional coping in the math lessons. the research was an action research that, according to mills (2007), starts with a vision of change and thus differs from the traditional research paradigm because an action research wants to enhance positive change. therefore, a research situation can never be seen as value neutral. in addition, action researchers direct their action in a moral and socially justified way. action researchers are not satisfied with just reporting their conclusions. the change is based on the researchers’ findings and it prerequisites looking at the action both from inside and outside in order to see what actually happens during the action. when the action aims at a conscious change, a research that is planned to enforce it has to be reflected from several perspectives (mcniff & whitehead, 2005, p. 3; somekh, 2006, p. 6-7.) europe’s journal of psychology 303 reflection is an important part in pursuing change. schmuck (2006) points out that action research teaches a researcher reflective reasoning and understanding to face various situations as well as prepares a researcher to act in a new way. by reflection, a researcher demonstrates their own action, maturation, and values, and considers them through the change (see schmuck 2006, p. 10). the high-level reflectivity and sensibility that belong to a researcher’s role are factors through which the whole process of an action research progresses. researchers can understand themselves in a better way by the interactional, inner reasoning. a researcher’s professional and reasoning nets together mould his or her identity (somekh, 2006, pp. 6-7). proactive action research the research method in this article focuses on the practical research purposes that are also emphasized in american and english approaches to action research. the english pragmatism prefers concepts such as teacher study or classroom study (heikkinen et al., 2006). mcniff and whitehead (2005, p. 4) note that an action research is a practical and systematic form of research that is based on the happenings of everyday life. according to stringer (2004, p. 2-3), action research has a practical base and its results are direct and efficient in its context. schmuck (2006, p. 31) has presented two models for action research. the first model is a proactive action research and the other one is an easily reacting, responsive action research. these models differ from each other in the research cycle at the last phases of research. in the proactive action research, action precedes research; as it did in the research presented in this article. the researcher-teacher worked first with the pupils, observed their reactions to the situation and in the situation, after which the nature of the action as well as the occurring development needs were studied (schmuck, 2006, p. 31). participants one of the main goals for this research was to enhance pupils’ emotional coping to develop into emotional directedness (see eisenberg et al., 1993; blair et al., 2004), when a pupil is able to disentangle his/her emotions in a problem situation by discussing the problem with a class mate, working together, as well as struggling together to solve the problem and accomplishing the tasks. for this reason, it was not adequate for the main goal of the research to select pupils who already were capable of working in an interactional manner. instead, nine pupils (3 girls and 6 boys) from the class (n=21 pupils) who had difficulties in interacting with their class how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 304 mates (based on the self-evaluations and observations) were selected to participate in this research. with this number of pupils, it was possible to carry out the observation required by the research design. the empirical selection was grounded in the idea that the researcher should be selective and should select for example two or three participants who represent the core of the phenomenon and whom the researcher would observe (mcniff & whitehead 2005, p. 63). every student selected in this research got a new name with the first letter representing the level of their emotional coping. this level (see eisenberg et al., 1993) was defined based on the self-evaluations (6 pupils) and observations (3 pupils). six pupils of the nine who participated in the research were selected based on the results from self-assessment form (see research method). the selection was not made immediately based on the first learning situation because the researcher did not trust the pupils’ self-assessment yet (although, pupils should be capable of accurate self-assessment as mentioned previously). from the self-assessment form, the choice “i solved the task alone” was studied because it illustrates instrumental emotional coping that cannot be observed as interactional action in the research. pupils’ final choice was not decided until after several self-assessments in order to guarantee as reliable selection for the group of pupils in the research as possible. three of the nine pupils who participated in this research were selected based on the researcher´s observations that were grounded in the pupils´ background information and her familiarity with the pupils. based on this, the stage of emotional coping was defined as well. at the beginning of the research, the classification of emotional coping was based on eisenberg’s research group’s model introduced previously. the researcher gave the pupils new names derived either from the category or subcategory of emotional coping. pupils presented only four categories of emotional coping because the researcher did not find pupils who would have typified all categories of emotional coping in eisenberg’s model. thus, the pupils were called (the level of the emotional coping in the parentheses): isabelle, ike, irene, ian, ivan (instrumental coping), connor (cognitive avoidance as passive coping,), aaron, aidan (avoidance as constructive coping), eric (emotional aggression). procedure observation when a researcher wants to guarantee the validity of the research method, he/she should use between two and four of the basic methods that are questionnaire, europe’s journal of psychology 305 interviews, observation, and documentation in order to measure every variable during the research; in other words, through triangulation of sources (schmuck 2006, p. 54). in this research, the data was collected with the help of observation and selfevaluation forms. the observation method used in this research was direct observation because it had the advantage of the researcher being able to acquire first-hand information. it enabled the researcher to collect the data in a real-life situation (tomal, 2003, p. 29). the learning situations were observed so that the researcher who was simultaneously the pupils’ teacher wrote down the pupils’ talk as such. according to tomal (2003, p. 30), direct observation is practical because it can be transferred into anecdotal form. when writing down these anecdotal notes in a classroom situation, the key factor is the prompt observation of the important behavior that is relevant to the research. because in the learning situation the researcher was also the teacher in the class, she sometimes had to leave an interesting conversation the pupils had in order to advise other pupils who needed help. the researcher was an attentive participant in the learning situations, because the pupils needed her specifically as their own teacher. schmuck (2006, p. 50) refers to an attentive observer with a concept of observant participation (vigilant, intent participation). still, the researcher tried to control the situation so that she would return to observe the interesting situation as soon as possible. after a lesson, the researcher revised the notes in the observation diary so that they would be clear and easy to analyze later on. the researcher looked through the notes always during the same day they were written down when the researcher still had them fresh in her mind. the data analysis was done by constructing a chart of the observation notes adapting tomal’s (2003, p. 32) anecdotal observation method. in practice, this meant that the pupils’ talk and behavior were documented in the form of a table. the table consisted of four columns: date, pupil’s name, citation from the observation diary, and the researcher’s comments on the observations. this is how the researcher operationalized the concepts of emotional coping. the researcher’s comments were significant for the research because the classification of the emotional coping was made based on these in order to know in which direction and how the emotional coping had to be developed. the column would have comments such as: -wants to do together, -discusses the task with a partner, asks for advice. these observations of the learning situation, the researcher’s precomprehension, and the classification for the emotional coping by eisenberg’s research group (1993), formed the basis for developing the pupils’ emotional coping. how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 306 self-evaluation in this research, a self-evaluation form was created based on the previously mentioned classification by eisenberg’s research group. the tasks that were related to the questions in the evaluation form were designed so that the first-grade pupils would find it easy to answer. according to tomal (2003, p. 50), the main function of the questions is to ask directly in order to acquire information for the later analysis with which the plans of action can be developed. the questions allowed pupils to choose between two answers the most suitable one (i agree or i disagree). tomal (2003, p. 56) says that closed-ended questions, allowing the respondent to choose between a variety of answers, are designed to measure respondent’s opinions, knowledge, or conceptions. two kinds of self-evaluation forms were used in this research. after a mathematical problem-solving situation, the pupils had to answer the following nine questions: 1. i did the tasks together with my friend, 2. i solved the task by myself, 3. i tried to solve the tasks by myself when they seemed difficult, 4. we tried to solve the tasks together when they seemed difficult, 5. i concentrated well on doing the tasks, 6. i found the tasks pleasant, 7. i completed the tasks by myself, 8. we completed the tasks together, 9. i quitted doing the tasks. of these questions, numbers 2, 3, 7, and 5 (a negative answer to the question no 5) were planned to measure the constructive coping; the questions number 1, 4, 8, and 6 emotional venting; and the question number 9 (a negative answer) passive coping. the pupils answered the second selfevaluation form after a game situation. the questions were the following: 1. i did the tasks together with my friend, 2. i solved the task by myself, 3. i concentrated well on doing the tasks, 4. i found the tasks pleasant, 5. after losing a game, i’ll get angry or start to sulk. of these questions, numbers 2 and 3 (negative answer in the question no 3) measured constructive coping, numbers 1 and 4 emotional venting, and number 5 emotional aggression. the learning situations the goal for developing emotional coping in this research was emotional diversion that according to eisenberg et al. (1993, 1422-1423) means that a pupil talks about his/her problem with a friend or a teacher hoping that he/she will get advice. therefore, in this research, emotional diversion relates to such behavior where a pupil could direct his/her emotions in doing together, asking for help from a friend in a problematic situation, trying to solve the problems together, as well as completing the tasks together. europe’s journal of psychology 307 the mathematical problem-solving / reasoning tasks that took place at the beginning of the research in september 2006 (4 learning situations) were based on figures where pupils had to divide the figures into two or four pieces and arrange three figures into various possible combinations. between october and december in 2006, two learning situations took place in which pupils were supposed to do addition tasks within a chart or a triangle, add numbers in a sequence of numbers, split figures equally, and create various animal figures of tangram pieces. three learning situations took place in january 2007, four in february, and one in march. the tasks in these situations were stick tasks (they had to form figures with sticks), tasks that were based on dividing numbers, completing the sequences of figures, and counting the number of cubes in cubic formations. in the fall semester in 2006, we had two mathematical game situations. in the first one, pupils played two different games and in the second situation, the purpose of the game was not to win. two game situations took place in the spring 2007 as well. the purpose of these games was to reach the goal first. in all game situations, pupils used a dice and counters as playing tools. results: how did the emotional coping develop? next, the development of the pupils’ emotional coping is described in the way in which it appeared during the research process. the development of instrumental coping  mathematical problem solving and reasoning tasks the research focused on pupils’ mutual interaction as it forms the basis for the development of emotional coping. the goal of the research process also rested on this interaction: how to find such interactional teaching methods that support and enhance the development of emotional coping. after the first learning situations observed in september, the participants’ emotional coping strongly typified instrumental coping lacking the interaction with others although the tasks were designed in a way that the pupils could be able to solve them together. sahlberg and berry (2003, p. 40-41) name three tasks for interactional learning: firstly, they suggest that all members of the group should find it easy to participate in doing the task in the interactional learning situation. secondly, every how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 308 pupil must have the possibility to talk, and thirdly, to make choices and decisions in the group. the first signs of the development of instrumental coping appeared in the learning situation in october (13 oct 2006: problem-solving/reasoning task) when ike tried to take turns with his partner. this development occurred as he asked his partner: “let’s do this in half [split the task]”. the next time when development in instrumental coping was recognized in a learning situation (14 nov 2006), the pairs and groups shared tangram pieces of which they had to construct figures similar to the given model. ivan’s, connor’s, eric’s, and isabelle’s emotional coping had developed and they asked the other pupils in the group for advice and tried to construct the figures together. the next learning situation in january (16 jan 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task) showed that isabelle’s instrumental coping had developed into a more interactional one. at the beginning of the research, isabelle’s stage of emotional coping was categorized as instrumental coping referring to her way of solving the problemsolving tasks alone in a group situation. in the learning situation in january, isabelle’s emotional coping had changed and was seen as having developed because, in this research, we define development as a progress towards superior forms of coping: interactional emotional support. in the learning situation in january, isabelle discussed the task with her partner in the learning situation and asked the partner for help to solve the problem. although she sometimes did her tasks alone she commented on irene: “look, like this”. ivan’s and aaron’s instrumental coping was to show some development on the 24th of january 2007 (problem-solving/reasoning task) when the boys started working in turns and tried to solve the problem together. the next citation from the observation diary in the 24th of january 2007 illustrates the boys’ action: ivan – aaron:”put there 8 and 0” –takes pencil from aaron’s hand and writes it down as well. – talks to himself: “1 and 7” (writes down) –then, starts doing in turn. ivan – aaron:”what, is it 0-10?” –writes it down after getting an accepting look from aaron. ivan aaron:”no, i think it is 9 and 2” (corrects the partners’ suggestion). the learning situation in february (7 feb 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task) was surprising because six of the pupils (connor, ivan, aaron, irene, and isabelle) did not use instrumental coping. instead, in learning situation they asked for advice to solve the task and worked together with the others. however, irene’s and isabelle’s action europe’s journal of psychology 309 still had some features of instrumental coping. the following citation from the observation diary (13 feb 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task) illustrates the girls’ action in practice: isabelle – irene: “i’ll do that one”. isabelle – irene: “what are you supposed to do here?” –isabelle holds back the handout all the time and fills in the boxes. isabelle – irene: “how do you do this one?”– isabelle does not listen to irene but writes down her own answers, talks to herself, and fills in the handout by herself.  the mathematical games the game situation (21 nov 2006: the goal was to win) did not enhance the pupils’ instrumental coping because only ike, aidan, and eric played together with a partner or with other pupils in the group. in the next game situation on the 30th of november 2006, the situation was already different, because according to the observations, all pupils who participated in the research played the game in a group. in this game situation, the goal was not to win. according to the pupils’ selfevaluations, six pupils told that they played together with someone. the following citation from the observation diary (30 nov 2006) describes the situation: irene’s partner – teacher: “look how much irene has got and i haven’t got any” (laughs). irene – partner: “you have to find number eight”. irene – partner: “what is that fishhook?” (laughs at the number her partner had written down) irene – partner: “it’s your turn” irene – partner: “this game is fun.” irene – partner: “we should find number seven.” irene – partner: “i found it at once.” the third game situation with the goal of winning (10 jan 2007) again showed that the instrumental coping did not appear. the summary of the observations after the game situation indicated that only connor and ian played the game together with a partner or other pupils in the group. although they acted in this way, their action partly represented instrumental coping because they controlled the game in a selfish manner. ian’s and isabelle’s action in the game situation exemplifies the instrumental emotional coping in that situation well (a citation from the teacher’s diary, 10 jan 2007): how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 310 ian – isabelle: “it’s your turn.” – ian shows where isabelle should go. ian – isabelle: “go there.” ian – isabelle: “i didn’t see the number you got. throw the dice again.” ian – isabelle: “now, move it right there.” ian – teacher: “i actually won the whole game because i won three times.” avoiding a problem situation avoidance means that a pupil sits by in a learning situation and does not concentrate on solving the problems. the avoidance of a problematic situation related to the pupils’ constructive emotional coping was observed in the learning situation in december (11 dec 2006: problem-solving/reasoning task). the avoidance was difficult to observe because usually it did not occur clearly in the pupils’ communication or action and therefore, the avoidance of a problem situation was studied with the data collected through the pupils’ self-evaluations. one question in the self-evaluation form (“i concentrated on the task”) asked that directly from the pupils. the summary of the pupils’ self-evaluations from the learning situation in december showed that all the other pupils except isabelle and aidan had been concentrated in the learning situation. based on this perception, it was decided to develop the pupils’ skills to avoid problem situations with a game situation (21 nov 2006, 30 nov 2006, and 10 jan 2007). these skills were developed by mathematical games. in the first game situation in november 2006, the pupils tried to conquer towers by addition tasks that were four in both players’ game board. the one who was able to conquer the towers first was the winner. in the other game situation in november, the pupils played two different games. the first game was the following: how gets to the school first as you can go forward at one time equal amount of steps as is the number in the dice? the one who gets to school first is the winner. the other game involved heart figures; each of which had some number in it. the pupils’ task was to roll the dice and complete the hearts with numbers so that the sum in a heart equaled ten. some of the pupils completed the hearts in turn without competing whereas some of them marked their numbers with different colors and thus, they could find out who won the game. according to the research, the mathematical game situation enhanced the pupils’ emotional coping when the purpose of the game was not to win. the development appeared so that every pair of pupils or a group played the game together. eight of the pupils reported in the self-evaluation form after the game situation in january 2007 (10 jan 2007) that they had concentrated. only aidan thought that he had not concentrated on the game. europe’s journal of psychology 311 venting  the mathematical problem-solving and reasoning tasks the summary of the pupils’ self-evaluations in the learning situation in december 2006 (11 dec 2006: problem-solving/reasoning task) showed that the pupils frequently used venting when disentangling their emotions. in this research, the concept of getting excited by the task referred to venting. however, aaron and aidan were not excited in the learning situation. although in the second learning situation in february (13 feb 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task) the teacher tried to provide the pupils with tasks that would inspire them she did not succeed entirely because according to aidan’s self-evaluation he did not get excited in this learning situation; neither did ian at that time. on the other hand, a citation from the observation diary proves that aidan was enthusiastic in that learning situation (13 feb 2007): aidan – partner: “what are you doing?” (puts the pieces following the partner’s directions) aidan – partner: “look how small” (laughs) aidan – partner: “alright. put a triangle there.” (they work the task adding the figures in the empty boxes in turn) aidan – partner: “i mean here.” aidan – partner: “we have to color these here but it will be alright”. aidan – partner: “something should be left there.” (laughs and taps his partner’s hair with a pen) aidan – partner: “alright, four.” aidan – partner: “there, (laughs) now it’s your turn.” aidan – partner: “put a triangle there.”  the mathematical games in the game situation in november 2006 (30 nov 2006) ike, aidan, irene, and eric used venting according to the observations. one question in the self-evaluation (”i found the task pleasant”) illustrated the pupils’ enthusiasm. the result from the summary of the self-evaluations showed that isabelle, connor, ike, irene, ivan, and eric were excited. after combining the results from the observations and selfevaluations, it seemed that all the others but aaron were excited in the situation. getting excited of the game situation did get better because in the previous game situation (21 nov 2006) only irene, aidan, and eric were enthusiastic about it. how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 312 when the game situation did not aim at winning (30 nov 2006), eric did not get inspired but expressed his boredom in the game situation. it seems that the pupils got easily excited of the things that include competing. especially, when competing in groups, the spurring from other members of the group makes even the slowest pupils try harder and to do their best. competition as a means for education has been explained by it teaching self-control and appropriate attitude to the pupils both in times of failure and success. on the other hand, competition, however, is an opposite of collaboration. competing is risky when the competition gets more and more important. then, the educational perspectives tend to be forgotten and a selfcentered behavior takes over. the pupil-specific development  the development of emotional directedness emotional directedness consists of solving the tasks together, struggling together to solve the tasks, and completing the tasks together. in a game situation, emotional directedness appeared as playing together and playing the game until it ended. next, the development of pupils’ emotional directedness is dissected individually. eric eric’s action with a partner or with other pupils in the group resembled emotional directedness because he worked together with other pupils. struggling together in order to solve the problem did not appear until the end of the research process. the development in emotional directedness showed when eric started finishing the tasks together with his partner or group members in january 2007. ian ian’s emotional coping was similar to emotional directedness at the end of the research process. according to the observations, he did not try to solve the problemsolving tasks until in the third learning situation in february (20 feb 2007: problemsolving/reasoning task). the direction of the development in emotional coping varied because sometimes his emotional coping was instrumental and occasionally it typified emotional directedness. isabelle isabelle’s emotional directedness during the research process appeared together with instrumental coping. some emotional directedness occurred in isabelle’s action in the first learning situation in march 2007 (13 mar 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task) when she solved the problem-solving tasks in the group and completed the europe’s journal of psychology 313 tasks together with the other pupils. however, a clear continuum of emotional directedness did not appear during the research process. irene irene’s emotional coping was not instrumental coping (working alone) any longer at the end of the research but it did not turn into any deeper emotional directedness either because irene did not try to solve the tasks together with others. irene showed some avoidance of a problem situation starting from the learning situation on the 13th of february 2007 (problem-solving/reasoning task) when she did not participate in doing the task. a citation from the observation diary (26 feb 2007) illustrates the situation: irene – isabelle: “it is the same figure. first, an arrow up, then down” (irene sits by isabelle, rolling her pen sometimes and looking at the teacher) irene – isabelle: ”so, put there…” in the last learning situation in february (26 feb 2007: problem-solving/reasoning task), irene did her tasks together with other pupils; which showed some development in emotional coping. ike ike was the first of the pupils in this research whose emotional coping started to develop into emotional directedness. finishing the tasks together with others was not continuous, but ike solved the tasks and struggled together with the others to solve the tasks constantly during january and february. aaron and ivan ivan was a pupil who tended to avoid a problem situation at the beginning of the research by sitting by in the learning situations. he worked alone in the problemsolving and game situations during the whole fall semester. aaron and ivan worked in pairs for the first time in the first learning situation in 2007 (10 jan 2007), which was a game situation. then, according to the observations, the boys’ action did not change in any way because ivan worked alone and aaron sat by. in the next learning situation the boys worked again in pairs and the change started to occur in their actions concerning collaboration and finishing the tasks together. in addition, they started to show progress also by struggling together to solve the tasks. aidan aidan’s emotional coping was categorized as avoidance at the beginning of the research which meant that in a problem-solving situation or game situation he did how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 314 not concentrate on the task but preferred sitting by and watching. aidan’s action depicted cognitive avoidance as well because sometimes he quitted doing the tasks. in february, his cognitive avoidance developed into emotional directedness when he completed the tasks together with other pupils. he also struggled with the others to solve tasks during january and february, if only occasionally. however, he did the tasks together with others regularly in january and february. connor connor’s emotional coping featured partly emotional directedness in the second learning situation in december (14 dec 2006: problem-solving/reasoning task), when he started to solve the tasks together with a partner or other pupils in the group. connor’s cognitive avoidance in a problem-solving situation turned into completing the tasks together. at the end of the research, his emotional coping developed into emotional directedness because he tried to solve the tasks together with a partner or a group. struggling together with others was constant at the end of the research as was solving the tasks together. discussion the study illustrated that the pupils’ emotional coping developed during this action research. however, since there was not any control group, it is not sure whether the learning situations enhanced the development or not. nevertheless, the results show that the development can be seen by means of mathematical problem-solving and reasoning tasks as well as mathematical games described in the previous sections (see research method). the development took place only when the game did not aim at winning. the pupils did the tasks and played games either in pairs or in groups of three. the development of emotional coping was individual and developed in stages. the emotional coping of all the nine pupils developed during the research process and eight pupils’ emotional coping could be classified as emotional directedness at the end of the research process; some achieved emotional directedness earlier than others. would the development in emotional coping have appeared in for example the tasks related to physical education (p.e.) or art as well? at the beginning of the study, the researchers were already aware that during the p.e. lessons the pupils confront interactional problem situations constantly, so those lessons would possibly have been productive learning situations in order to develop the pupils’ emotional coping. however, for a researcher who works both as a researcher and a teacher, observing the learning situations in p.e. lessons would have been impossible because europe’s journal of psychology 315 the learning space is often considerably wider in p.e. lessons than for example the classroom that was used in this research – namely, the learning space for the mathematical learning tasks. the reliability of the research the observation in this research was based on an interpretation of the pupils’ actions. the researcher had her own perception of the pupils’ emotional coping. the pupils knew that their own teacher acted as a researcher and as a teacher in other learning situations. at first the pupils asked the teacher about what she is writing in her note book but little by little they got used it and worked in the learning situations the same way as they did in other lessons. according to tomal (2003, p. 85), a researcher should minimize participants’ awareness of the fact that they participate in a research. therefore, the purpose was to arrange as natural environment as possible for the research in the classroom and the learning situations were like any other math lesson in the weekly timetable. the researcher knew the pupils beforehand which may threaten the reliability of the research. if a researcher is open and honest when reporting the research data, the reliability of a research strengthens. kvale (1996, 241-244) divides validating into professional skills, checking, and asking. professionalism and confidence become salient when the research results reported by a researcher are evaluated. reliability does not only cover the methods used in a research but also a researcher’s honesty. researchers’ criticality is shown at the phase of data analysis when they place their own personal style of doing research and control as the means for interpretation and observation: the truthfulness of observation and interpretation has to be controlled critically. the perception was formed based on the research data. a theory provides an action researcher with an opportunity to link the practical work with a wider context. (schmuck 2006, p. 54; tomal 2003, p. 83.) were the interpretations of pupils’ actions correct and reliable? was the fact that the pupils’ maturing can pose a threat to the reliability of the research taken into consideration because the elementary-school pupils mature at different pace? was the pupils’ emotional coping recognized in this research as it appeared in reality in a learning situation? schmuck (2006, p. 54) thinks that the excellence of an action research is bound to the efficiency of the new practice and rigor of the research data. when wishing to achieve the rigor in research data, a researcher has to create his/her own mixed valid method for producing reliable data that does not contain distortion. how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 316 the threats to the reliability of a research are those factors that affect the reliability of the data negatively. metsämuuronen (2006, p. 200) quotes lincoln and guba (1985, p. 290) when claiming that the reliability of a qualitative research consists of truthfulness, adaptability, stability, and neutrality. according to tomal (2003, p. 83), threats to reliability can be the negative factors of the method used, lack of participants during the research, noticing those pupils who are more motivated or perform better, a researcher’s conscious or unconscious preference with the matters that are significant to the research, and all factors that affect the natural research setting. because the research process took place at a school class in math lessons, the research setting was natural in every learning situation. when a pupil who participated in the research was absent, the learning situation did not take place that day, except for one time (since one of the pupils had been absent because of illness for a long time and so many scheduled learning situations would have been cancelled because of this). thus, self-evaluations were always received from all pupils and we did not have to collect them afterwards. the evaluations of the learning situations always took place at the same time with all pupils in the class. the actual time for carrying out the learning situations varied during the research process. half of the pupils in the class participated in a learning situation in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. this setting could affect the reliability of the research somewhat negatively because the pupils tended to be more active in the morning than in the afternoon. this factor was realized and could have been controlled by making sure that all pupils would have participated in tasks in both times. however, that was not possible in practice. in addition, it was easier for a researcher to observe smaller group and thus she was able to write down notes about the pupils’ emotional coping more carefully which, for its part, increased the reliability of the research. the validity of a qualitative research is often complex; according to kvale (1996, p. 244), the complexity of validating qualitative research does not result from the natural weakness of the qualitative method. instead, it might be based on the particular strength of qualitative research to describe and ask about the complexity of the social reality under research. did the research answer the questions set from the start? after carrying out this research process, the answer was positive; although according to metsämuuronen (2006), the research target in an action research is situation-bound and specific, the sample is limited and thus not representative. action research has been criticized because the results cannot be generalized. the goal setting and method in an action research have also been blamed for being unclearly defined. at the beginning of the research, the aims were decided. however, they had to be europe’s journal of psychology 317 checked in the various phases of the research because an action research demands constant reflection; in this case, after every learning situation. similarly, the researcher analyzed the data in a way that is typical for an action research: in tandem with the research process. concluding remarks the mastery of social skills has got a significance role in the modern school and working life. the researchers have pointed out that those people who are socially skillful manage their work better (coll et al., 2001). developing the emotional coping in a more interactional direction is not only significant for a pupil’s future wellbeing but also in a wider context. emotional directedness is a challenge of the future because the future competences are confronting dissimilarity, working together, and developing networking skills. globalization including the changing professions, multilingual and multi-cultural environments demands the ability to confront dissimilarity and to cooperate. a basic skill is the ability to use these means in an interactional manner. in the prevailing culture of interaction, we have to set goals both for educators and pupils as well. in practice, this means that we are creating a culture that is founded on new structures. these structures and their goals have to be parallel at every level. the traditional interactional culture at school differs too much from the demands and needs of the today’s working life (haapaniemi et al. 2003, p. 39). before a human being can interact with others, a trust has had to be born. on the other hand, also commitment goes hand in hand with trust because when engaging an individual gives something from himself/herself and thus, trusts in others. sharing feelings in a problem situation enables all participant to equally participate. the equal opportunities and togetherness are the foundation pillars of the school. this social and moral task of the school should not be forgotten either in the future. the importance of a school community and tolerance are emphasized in the change as well as, especially, the significance of ethical education. “ethicality” involves for example unselfish actions. this may prerequisite a comprehensive evaluation of all operations at school because, at the end, one teacher working within in one subject is not able to do much in order to achieve these goals. references androjna, e., barr, m. e., & judkins, j. 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[creative school. the vaccine to the pupils, who don’t are happy at school]. in s. karppinen, i. ruokonen, & k. uusikylä (eds.), taidon ja taiteen luova voima. kirjoituksia 9-12 –vuotiaiden lasten taito ja taidekasvatuksesta [the creative force of the skills and arts. writings of skills and arts education in children’s aged 9-12] (pp. 23-31). tampere, finland: tammerpaino ltd. woodward, l. j., & fergusson, d. m. (2000). childhood peer relationship problems and later risks of educational under-achievement and unemployment. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 41(2), 191-201. zeidner, m., matthews, g., roberts, r. d., & maccann, c. (2003). development of emotional intelligence: towards a multi-level investment model. human development 46, 69-96. how does pupils’ emotional coping develop within learning situations 322 zullig, k. j., koopman, t. m., patton, j. m., & ubbes, v. a. (2010). school climate: historical review, instrument development, and school assessment. journal of psychoeducational assessment, 28(2), 139-152. about the authors: phd eeva-liisa peltokorpi is graduated in education from faculty of education, university of lapland, rovaniemi, finland. she works as a lecturer in viikki teacher training school, university of helsinki,. she is interested in researching the experiences and teaching of emotions. e-mail: eeva-liisa.peltokorpi@helsinki.fi phd kaarina määttä, professor of educational psychology, faculty of education, university of lapland and vice-rector, university of lapland. her latest personal research interests have focused on early education and love, attachment and social relationships during human beings’ life-span, and on guidance of doctoral thesis. her next book, which will be published in english in 2011, deals with the pedagogy of supervising doctoral theses from various perspectives. address for correspondence: kaarina määttä, university of lapland, faculty of education, p.o. box 122. 96101 rovaniemi, finland e-mail: kaarina.maatta@ulapland.fi mailto:eeva-liisa.peltokorpi@helsinki.fi mailto:kaarina.maatta@ulapland.fi emotional intelligence and work performance among executives self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 103 europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 93-109 www.ejop.org assessing movement imagery ability: self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests david moreau university of lille 3, france dillard university, usa jérôme clerc, annie mansy-dannay, alain guerrien university of lille 3, france abstract this study was designed to compare the relevance of self-report questionnaires and performance-based tests to assess movement imagery ability in sports. participants included elite and novice athletes, from fencing, judo and wrestling, who completed a self-report, the movement imagery questionnaire – revised (miq-r; hall & martin, 1997), and two performance-based tests, the movement imagery specific test (mist), and the mental rotation test (mrt; vandenberg & kuse, 1978). there was no significant effect of the expertise variable on the miq-r performance, although the results yielded a positive effect of expertise on the mist and on the mrt. besides, results showed no correlations between the miq-r and the mist, or between the miq-r and the mrt. however, we found a correlation between the mist and the mrt. these findings are in line with research dissociating imagery measured by self-reports and spatial ability assessed through performance-based tests, and are discussed in terms of their implication in using self-report questionnaires in experimental psychology in general, and to assess movement imagery ability in sports in particular. keywords: movement imagery ability, visuospatial abilities, performance-based tests, self-report questionnaires, sport performance. background motor imagery can be defined as the result of conscious access to motor representations, normally non-conscious while performing an action (jeannerod, http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 94 1995). thus, motor representations appear to be involved in different processes such as performing or visualizing an action, as well as watching one‟s performance, planning or verbalizing an action, and even observing an object commonly associated with a particular action (see decety, 2002, for a review; jeannerod, 1994, 2001). research on the relationship between motor imagery and sport performance has been rather extensive and productive over the last few decades. the review of these studies has shown an effective enhancement of performance with the use of multiple imagery techniques (driskell, copper, & moran, 1994), consistent with research findings in a motor context (see grèzes & decety, 2001, for a review). also, different perspectives (first or third person) and modalities (mainly visual or kinesthetic), which should not be confused (morris, spittle, & watt, 2005), have been identified. perspectives refer to whether imagery is experienced form inside or outside one‟s body, whereas modalities refer to the perceptual experience. although first-person perspective and kinesthetic imagery, on one hand, and thirdperson perspective and visual imagery, on the other, are commonly associated with one another; recent work showed that third person perspective seems to favor kinesthetic modality (callow & hardy, 2004). furthermore, it has been shown that motor imagery, regardless of perspective or modality, leads to better performance on various motor tasks, and that the combination of motor imagery and physical practice systematically shows an enhancement of motor performance, greater than or at least equal to physical practice alone (feltz & landers, 1983; driskell, copper, & moran, 1994). also, to optimize subsequent improvements, motor imagery characteristics should be close to those of physical execution (roure et al., 1998). following these findings, cognitive psychology experiments and individual differences studies have found that imagery ability could influence motor performance (yaguez et al., 1998), as well as motor accuracy (lorey et al., 2010). in sports, research has shown that athletes could improve their imagery ability with an appropriate training focused on that particular purpose (weinberg, 2008), suggesting that imagery ability, like spatial abilities (lohman & nichols, 1990; leone, taine, & droulez, 1993), is partly genetically determined but also improvable with practice. besides, recent studies have shown a relationship between motor practice and mental rotation processes (jansen, titze, & heil, 2009), and between elite performance in sports and mental rotation ability (moreau, mansy-dannay, clerc, & guerrien, submitted for publication), suggesting that motor practice and spatial abilities development are closely related. self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 95 thereby, experimenters in cognitive psychology, as well as in sport psychology, have worked on developing suitable tools and tests to measure imagery ability related to movements. to that end, isaac, marks and russell (1986) designed the vividness of movement imagery questionnaire (vmiq). thereafter, hall and pongrac (1983) built the movement imagery questionnaire (miq) to assess visual and kinesthetic movement imagery ability. this test is actually a self-report with 18 moves to execute and then visualize. subjects are asked to rate their own performance on the visualization task based upon their own opinion, on a seven-point rating scale, varying from „very easy to see/to feel‟ to „very hard to see/to feel‟. validity and reliability of the miq have been confirmed by hall, pongrac and buckolz (1985), and atienza, balaguer, and garcia-merita (1994). these authors found internal consistency coefficients of respectively .87 and .89 for the visual scale and .91 and .88 for the kinesthetic scale. test-retest coefficients were identical in both studies (.83). from the miq, hall and martin (1997) developed the movement imagery questionnaire-revised (miq-r), which is a shortened version including only eight items (four visual and four kinesthetic items) and suppressing difficult or redundant moves. the purpose was to reduce the testing time in order to favor larger studies. they found a significant correlation between both tests and concluded that the miq-r is a relevant version of the miq (hall & martin, 1997). consequently, this test has been used by many experimenters and coaches in the sport field. furthermore, studies showed that subjects with a good imagery ability assessed by self-reports learn new moves faster than subjects with low imagery ability (goss, hall, buckolz, & fishburne, 1986), and that they are more accurate while executing precise moves (hall, buckolz, & fishburne, 1989), emphasizing the importance of assessing imagery ability among athletes, for instance. however, this kind of test relies completely on participants‟ objectivity and selfperception of their own performance. in fact, the introspective nature of this test raises two experimental problems. firstly, participants might not be willing to divulgate information about their imagery processes, purposely or because it would not meet the researcher‟s expectations. this can be conscious or non-conscious. this is obviously common to all self-report assessments, but it has to be taken into consideration when interpreting results. secondly, and although participants might try to take the test as honestly as they can, there is still a part of mental imagery ability processes being possibly non-conscious (morris, spittle, & watt, 2005), and thus difficult if not impossible to access through self-perception. europe’s journal of psychology 96 moreover, performance-based tests have been popularly used in experimental psychology to measure spatial abilities. in fact, mental imagery and spatial abilities have been assessed through parallel, yet distinguished ways. thus, research on mental imagery traditionally used questionnaire and vividness scales, whereas experimental designs assessing individual differences in spatial ability focused on performance-based tests (hegarty & waller, 2005). factorial studies constantly show no correlation between the former and the latter (richardson, 1977, 1983; kosslyn, brunn, cave, & wallach, 1984; poltrock & agnoli, 1986). however, recent study by burton and fogarty (2003), has found that the relationship between self-report measurements and spatial tests is stimuli-dependent. thus, they reported a relationship between these two types of measures when the items to imagine are similar to those involved in spatial ability tasks. these results are consistent with dean and morris findings (1991) showing that imagery questionnaires based on geometric figures are more likely than traditional self-reports to yield correlations with spatial tasks that contains the same kind of shapes. in fact, traditional self-report questionnaires seem to tap into different processes, favoring the recall of familiar objects or scenes previously stored into long-term memory. research question the aim of the present study is to determine the relevance of self-report questionnaires and performance-based tests for assessing movement imagery ability in sports. on a broader perspective, we will also discussed self-reports questionnaires‟ use in experimental psychology. to this purpose, we worked with athletes from three different sports, well-known for their important training focused on mental repetition: fencing, judo and wrestling. athletes were either elite (at least ranked at the olympics, world championship, and/or european championship) or novices (no significant result in competition). indeed, elite athletes show outstanding motor processes and though working with them seemed quite relevant when assessing motor representations modalities. we compared results from three different tests: a self-report questionnaire, the miq-r, and two performance-based tests, the movement imagery specific test (mist, moreau, mansy-dannay, clerc, & guerrien, under review) and the mental rotation test (mrt, vandenberg & kuse, 1978). method participants sixty participants (mean age = 22.8 years; range: 18-29) volunteered to take part in this study. half of them were elite athletes, who had participated in an international self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 97 championship. they were recruited in several federal sport institutions to which we were granted access. the remaining half was composed of novice athletes, who had practiced their sport for one year or less, and mostly had not participated in any competition. they were recruited in local affiliated clubs. there was no compensation of any kind for participating in the study. the distribution for each of the three sports was as follows: twenty athletes (five elite males, five elite females, five novice males, five novice females). particular precautions were taken to have comparable mean ages between groups (elites mean age = 22.3 years, novices mean age = 23.3 years), since this factor can significantly affect imagery ability. in fact, spatial ability performance has been shown to increase until the age of 18 and drop down radically after 40 (schroeder & salthouse, 2004; kirasic & allen, 1985). besides age, we ensured that athletes were not involved in particular activities related to higher spatial abilities, such as particular jobs (see halpern & collaer, 2005; and hegarty & waller, 2005, for reviews), or videogames playing (boot, kramer, simons, fabiani, & gratton, 2008); and that novice athletes were not elites in any other sport. all athletes were native french speakers. all participants were tested in accordance with local laws and regulations, as well as with american psychological association standards of ethics. to ensure confidentiality, subjects were informed that all data set that could identify them would be replaced by participants‟ codes. materials and procedure we used the french version of the original miq-r (lorant & nicolas, 2004), the mist and the mrt to assess imagery ability. these three tasks, as well as their specific testing and scoring procedures, are detailed below: movement imagery questionnaire-revised (miq-r, hall & martin, 1997) we used the french version of the miq-r, relevant translation of the eight items questionnaire and its directions, which has been found to be both valid and reliable (lorant & nicolas, 2004). there was no time constraint for this test. participants were aware that they could take as long as they needed in order to complete the questionnaire. we asked them to execute a movement, and then imagine it either visually („attempt to see yourself making the movement just performed...‟) or kinesthetically („attempt to feel yourself making the movement just performed…‟). they were asked to rate the quality of the imagined movements on a seven-point scale varying from „very hard to see/to feel‟ (one) to „very easy to see/to feel‟ (seven). we obtained a total score by summing all their responses. therefore, the europe’s journal of psychology 98 maximum score was 56. however, and for further analysis, we also differentiated visual and kinesthetic scores, by summing the respective visual or kinesthetic items. consequently, visual and kinesthetic could range from 4 to 28. movement imagery specific test (mist, moreau, mansy-dannay, clerc, & guerrien, under review) three different versions of the mist exist, presenting different items depending on the sport speciality (fencing, judo or wrestling). each test is based on twenty verbal items, each describing an original situation, and involving production, transformation and retention of spatial patterns specific to each sport. from that situation, a particular answer is expected (see table 1). there never is more than one correct answer per item. we ensured that the situations described were highly meaningful for all athletes, including novices. thus, we wanted to avoid yielding any differences between elites and novices based on their understanding of the task. although cognitive efforts required to solve each problem can be challenging, these items are fairly easy to picture for the purpose of selecting the best and quickest answers. we considered this factor prior to the experiment by working on different versions of the test with competent national coaches from the three sports concerned. therefore, the stimuli are not visual but verbal, because we wanted to avoid any mistakes arising by using visual indefinite pictures to represent athletes in action. having sentences with an international and well-known terminology commonly used by athletes during their acquisition and learning processes avoids any unsettling confusion. no particular instruction was provided concerning the perspective (first or third person) and the modality (visual or kinesthetic) to be used by the participants. furthermore, we tried to optimize the time constraint. for that purpose, we first tested some participants who were not involved in the experiment (pilot study), in order to specify the length of the test. regarding this pilot study, we decided to give three minutes to solve this twenty-item task. we scored the test giving one point for each correct answer and zero point when the answer was blank or wrong. consequently, the maximum possible score was 20. the mist has been standardized, and its validity and reliability have been confirmed in a previous study (moreau, mansy-dannay, clerc, & guerrien, under review). self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 99 table 1: examples of items for each version of the mist. mist fencing starting from an engagement in sixte with my opponent whose left hand is armed. if i am performing a lunge, am i in his/her parry of quarte or sixte? □ quarte □ sixte mist judo i am performing juji-gatame on my opponent‟s right arm. which of my legs is holding his head down? □ right □ left mist wrestling i am performing an ankle lace to my opponent‟s left. which of his ankles is on the top of the other? □ right □ left mental rotation test (mrt, vandenberg & kuse, 1978) we used a printed version of the mrt, including two sets of ten problems each, based on shepard and metzler (1971) stimuli (two different versions of this test exist in the literature, one with 20 and the other with 24 items). we limited the testing time to three minutes for each set of 10 problems, separated by a five-minute break. according to albaret and aubert (1996), we gave two points for two right answers, one point if the athlete answered just half of the item and the answer was correct, and zero point if there was one or two mistake(s).we chose not to collect reaction times, since this variable was not relevant for comparison between different tasks and designs. participants performed each task in a quiet room and were given detailed and standardized instructions about the three tests prior to each session. they took the mental rotation test first, in order to avoid inducing embodied solving strategies by contamination from any of the two other tests. indeed, research has shown that when instructions emphasize on endogenous motor strategies for solving mental rotation involving geometric shapes, premotor and motor cortex activation was found, but not when participants were asked to use exogenous strategies (kosslyn, europe’s journal of psychology 100 thompson, wraga, & alpert, 2001). thus, using body-related items might result in motor cortex activation in a subsequent mental rotation object-based task (wraga, thompson, alpert, & kosslyn, 2003). results we used different statistical tools in order to yield relevant features of the miq-r, the mist and the mrt. we present descriptive statistics, analyses of variance, and finally correlation and regression analyses in this section. descriptive statistics descriptive statistics are displayed in table 2. elite athletes performed better than novices regardless of the task. this is especially visible by comparing performances in the mrt and the mist. high standard deviations in mrt scores for elites and for the whole sample are due to gender differences. table 2: summary of descriptive statistics for elite and novice groups and for the whole sample level elite novice all task mean sd mean sd mean sd mrt 23.7 8.97 11.7 3.44 17.5 8.94 mist 16.2 2.99 7.0 1.83 11.6 5.25 miq-r 50.3 3.68 42.4 6.67 46.4 6.65 a better perspective on mrt, mist and miq-r performances, for each group (elite males, elite females, novice males, novice females), can be inferred from figure 1. self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 101 figure 1: mrt, mist and miq-r performances depending on expertise and gender variables. analyses of variance we specified previous findings by conducting an anova for each test. prior to these statistical analyses, assumptions on normality and on the homogeneity of variances were verified for each sample (kolmogorov-smirnov and levene‟s tests being nonsignificant, in all cases). miq-r. the interaction between expertise and gender variables did not reach significance value (f(1,48)=.24, p=.62). these results contrast with mist and mrt data presented below. mist. elite athletes scored better than novices regardless of gender (f(1,48)=309,03, p<.001, 2=0,87). the difference males–females was significant (f(1,48)=19,88, p<.001, 2=0,29), although it is important to consider the difference between elites and novices as well, since the level by gender interaction was significant (f(1,48)=9,35, p<.05, 2=0,16). thus, elite males (m=18.2; sd=1.70) performed constantly higher than elite females (m=14.3; sd=2.71), regardless of sport (tukey‟s test significant, p<.001). mrt. the mrt showed similar results. the anova yielded a main effect of expertise (f(1,48)=134.54, p<.001, 2=0.74), and a main effect of gender (f(1,48)=77.71, p<.001, 2=0.62). besides, the interaction between expertise and gender revealed a stronger effect of expertise for males than females (f(1,48)=49.36, p<.001, 2=0.51). europe’s journal of psychology 102 correlation matrices and regression analyses we conducted correlation and regression analyses in order to specify the relation between the three tests considered. correlation matrices on the elite group showed non-significant values of r for miq-r and mrt variables (r(30) = .13, n.s.) and for miq-r and mist variables (r(30) = .050, n.s.). when we separated the visual and the kinesthetic components, we still obtained non-significant r values (r(30) = .12, n.s., for miq-r visual/mrt; r(30) = -.005, n.s., for miq-r visual/mist; r(30) = .09, n.s., for miq-r kinesthetic/mrt; and r(30) = .11, n.s., for miq-r kinesthetic/mist). however, the correlation between mrt and mist was significant (r(30) = .79, p < .001). analyses performed on the novice group yielded similar results. correlation matrices on this group showed non-significant values of r for miq-r and mrt variables (r(30) = .11, n.s.) and for miq-r and mist variables (r(30) = -.35, n.s.). even when the visual and the kinesthetic components were processed separately, we noticed nonsignificant r values (r(30) = -.09, n.s., for miq-r visual/mrt; r(30) = -.35, n.s., for miq-r visual/mist; r(30) = -.12, n.s., for miq-r kinesthetic/mrt; and r(30) = -.29, n.s., for miq-r kinesthetic/mist). however, and as for the elite group, the correlation between mrt and mist was significant (r(30) = .48, p < .001). results of the correlation analyses led us to perform multiple regression analyses on the data. a summary of regression analyses for variables predicting miq-r performance is displayed in table 3. neither the mist nor the mrt was a significant predictor of the miq-r performance, regardless of the subgroups considered. these results will be discussed in the next section. table 3: summary of regression analyses for variables predicting miq-r performance variable β se β r2 f p elites mist .050 .189 .002 .07 .79 mrt .129 .187 .017 .47 .49 novices mist -.346 .177 .120 3.81 .06 mrt -.112 .187 .013 .36 .55 self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 103 discussion and conclusion the main aim of this research was to compare the relevance of self-report questionnaires, widely use in sport‟s research, and performance-based tests to assess movement imagery ability in sports. particular results gathered for that purpose provide us with several key-points to answer the issue. first of all, we did not find any correlation between the miq-r and the mrt. in fact, this could be expected since a large body of research has shown that imagery assessed via self-report questionnaires and spatial abilities assessed through performance-based tests are unrelated, as detailed previously in this paper. indeed, our findings add to the growing amount of literature differentiating these abilities in the field of visuospatial cognition. second, we did not observe any correlation between the miq-r and the mist. although this is consistent with the distinction between questionnaires and performance-based tests, it should be noted that the mist items are sport-specific, as opposed to the previously discussed mrt items (geometric shapes). thus, the presentation modalities in the miq-r and in the mist are similar, that is, both tests imply recoding movements or successions of movements from verbal sentences describing a specific situation. one of the differences lies within the response modality, self-report or actual accurate answer, respectively. another distinction is the specificity of the tests. although providing a mist version for every sport or activity might be difficult, assessing movement in elite athletes through the miq-r containing general and sport-unrelated items can only generate rough insights into athletes‟ motor representations, hence not particularly meaningful for coaches and instructors. however, we found a significant correlation between the mist and the mrt (both performance-based tests), the former assessing movement imagery and the latter assessing mental rotation. this means that what is being measured by both tests shares a common variance, implying that they tap into similar processes, at least partly, or that they are influenced by a common factor. thus, both of these tests showed a significant positive effect of expertise level in sport, elite athletes scoring higher, tending to prove that abilities measured through these tests are more important and preeminent for actual motor execution and performance. furthermore, mist results show substantial differences between elite and novice athletes. these differences were expected since the task is highly related to their everyday practice. we also found significant gender differences for elites but not for europe’s journal of psychology 104 novices. these results were found with mrt performance as well, supporting research on spatial ability and mental rotation which favors males in almost any experimental design (see voyer, voyer, & bryden, 1995; and peters et al., 1995, for reviews). however, these differences were not visible in miq-r results. elite athletes seem to be more severe and strict regarding their introspective experience. indeed, they did not outscore novices. this might occur because they actually know what a high level of imagery would „look like‟ or „feel like‟, and so they might consider, for example, “somewhat easy to see/feel” what novices might refer as “very easy to see/feel”. besides, some novices might have no precise idea of what is a clear and relevant mental image, even though they might try to be as objective as possible. consequently, they may judge themselves competent in their own subjective referential, although their mental images may be poor and inefficient. altogether, these results provide further evidence for dissociation between imagery ability traditionally assessed through self-report questionnaires, and spatial ability experimental measurements involving performance-based tests. in fact, assessing imagery ability exclusively through self-reports seem irrelevant to us, for the subjective variable induced via introspection cannot be controlled. however, we do not argue here for rejecting this range of testing tools, but we believe that what is being measured by them is sometimes mistaken. one possible answer to that matter would be to pair them with self-esteem questionnaires, in order to control the introspective parameter in the experimental design. moreover, performance-based tests such as those presented in this paper bring up a few problems as well. thus, they imply a non-direct measure of spatial abilities and imagery ability, through responses being correct or not. cognitive processes involved to perform well in these tasks, as well as strategies used, might vary from one participant to another (just & carpenter, 1985), which has already raised some issues in the visuospatial cognition field. this can be partly controlled by asking participants about which particular strategies they used to perform a task, and compare them with their performance, along with completing such data by neuroimaging techniques. in fact, more research involving imagery and spatial ability is needed to precise the relationship between the former and the latter, and to reveal and define their distinctions and similarities, in order to build a comprehensive model of human spatial abilities and imagery processes. for example, correlations data between various spatial tasks and imagery tests, as well as results from the neurosciences research, should allow a better insight into that particular field. self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 105 in conclusion, spatial abilities can include imagery assessed through 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(1998). a mental route to motor learning: improving trajectorial kinematics through imagery. behavioral brain research, 90(1), 95-106. self-report questionnaires vs. performance-based tests 109 about the authors: david moreau is currently a ph.d. candidate in cognitive psychology at the university of lille 3, working on spatial abilities, mental imagery, and working memory. he is also a fulbright program alumnus, and has been teaching and doing research projects in different universities, in europe and in the us. address for correspondence: david moreau, ea 4072 psitec, university of lille 3, lille, france e-mail: david.moreau@fulbrightmail.org jérôme clerc is a senior lecturer in cognitive psychology at the university of lille 3. annie mansy-dannay is a senior lecturer in cognitive psychology at the university of lille 3 and the university of lille 2. alain guerrien is a professor of cognitive psychology at the university of lille 3. europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp.110-122 www.ejop.org psych-aetiology graph (pag) saoud al mualla institute of art history dubai medical college abstract this paper will introduce the ‘psych-aetiology graph’, pag for short. the concept of pag is devised by the author as a way of conceptualising/formalising/summarising the client’s condition. the term ‘psych-aetiology’ is used to encompass all the bio-psycho-social factors contributing to the client’s presenting condition. also, the graph has no arithmetic value and is not based on any particular measurements or calculations. the target of the pag is the client. its main aim (amongst many) is to educate and give the client an understanding of factors resulting or contributing to their state. it is subjective, whereby the client and the therapist must cooperate in its formation. introduction in order to formalise/conceptualise/summarise a client’s condition, it is necessary to understand the aetiology and factors that operate in it. the main aim of this paper is to come up with a simple, client-centered and collaborative approach to make it easy for the client as well as the therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist to conceptualise and understand how different bio-psycho-social factors resulted in the client’s condition. the paper consists of several sections. firstly, a brief overview of the well-known aetiological models of mental disorders will be highlighted to demonstrate the complexity of the issue and the deficiencies in the models. secondly, an overview of the so-called bio-psycho-social approach along with the precipitating, perpetuating and predisposing factors to the conceptualisation of mental illness will be explained. this should hopefully serve to clarify the multiple factors causing and/or contributing to the client condition. in the third section, the theoretical concept of ‘psychaetiology graph’ (pag) will be explained in further detail, highlighting its potential as psych-aetiology graph (pag) 111 a simple, client-centered and inclusive tool for conceptualisation. there will also be two case studies discussed in this section, each demonstrating the use of the (pag). finally, the potential of the pag, as well as its limitation will be mentioned. the paper then will end with a summary and a conclusion. aetiological models of mental disorders in this section, a review of the main aetiological models in psychological disorders will be highlighted to give the reader an overview of the different schools of thought that attempt to explain the causes of mental disorders. it must be emphasised that no one model is ‘sufficient’ to explain the aetiology of mental disorders, and each model suffers from its own lack of a comprehensive explanation. 1. the neuroscience model the technical advances in brain science have led to what is often called the neuroscience approach. kandel (1998) outlined the key assumptions underlying this approach to aetiology:  all mental processes derive from operations of the brain. thus all behavioural disorders are ultimately disturbance of brain function.  genes, through their product, have important effect on brain function and therefore exert a significant control over behaviour.  social and behavioural effects exert their effects on the brain in part through changes in gene expression. the neuroscience approach seeks to comprehend behaviour by relating them to changes in brain function. the problem with this model is that it is reductionist seeking to understand causation by tracing back to simpler and simpler early stage. it also minimises the psycho-social and cultural influence. 2. the medical model this model has proved useful in medicine. a disease entity is identified in terms of a consistent pattern of symptoms, a characteristic clinical course, and specific biochemical and pathological findings. this narrow kind of medical model has been useful in psychology, though not for all conditions. it is clearly relevant to syndromes with well-defined organic aetiology, for example dementia and to a lesser extent schizophrenia (here social and cultural factors also play a role). europe’s journal of psychology 112 difficulties with the medical model arise, particularly with disorders characterised by abnormalities of conduct and social behaviour (for instance, antisocial personality disorder). like the neuroscience model, it is reductionist in its approach, paying little attention to human uniqueness and individual experience. perhaps that is not surprising, as its approach is based on the medical model which pays more attention to pathology rather than behaviour. 3. the behavioural model this model has its roots in the early work of watson (1920) and skinner (1953). as mentioned above, certain disorders are defined in terms of abnormal behaviour, such as deliberate self-harm, and do not fit into the medical model. in this model, the disorders are explained through factors that determine normal behaviour: drives, reinforcement, social and cultural influence. although the behavioural model does not exclude genetic, physiological, or biochemical factors, it does not place much emphasis on their role. this makes it difficult to explain disorders with high genetic and biological load, examples of which are autism and severe schizophrenia that are categorised as genetic disorders by some scientists (murray et al 1987, jones et al 1991). 4. the developmental model this model places more emphasis on past events in the form of a sequence of experiences leading to the present disorder. this approach has been called the ‘life story’ approach to aetiology. one example of it is freud’s psychoanalysis. the shortcomings of this model are the fact that it is grounded on theoretical assumptions and therefore lacks scientific evidence; and also that it arose from clinical experience and not from work in basic science. moreover, the majority of the work is subjective and based on few case studies. from the above brief review of the four models, it is clear that they all contain valid findings which help in understanding the aetiology of mental illness. however, if taken separately, none of the models adequately explain the aetiology of mental illness. in the author’s point of view, it is extremely confusing to attempt to explain the aetiological and the contributing factors to the clients or their family, as each model is not sufficient by itself in explaining the complex factors operating in the presentation of the client condition. psych-aetiology graph (pag) 113 in the next section, the bio-psycho-social model for conceptualisation and the application of the so-called the three p’s (predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating factors) will be discussed as an inclusive alternative to the aforesaid models for aetiological formulation. the bio-psycho-social model to formulation to overcome the deficiencies of the abovementioned models in 1977, american psychiatrist george engel introduced a major theory in medicine, the bio-psychosocial model (abbreviated "bps"). this model or approach postulates that biological, psychological (which entails thought, emotions, and behaviour) and social factors all play a significant role in human functioning in the context of illness. indeed, health is best understood as a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors rather than in purely biological terms. this is in contrast to the traditional, reductionist models mentioned above. this model has been used in the formulation of client conditions as it is holistic and takes into account all the factors which may play a part in their disorders. a further elaboration which gathers more information in the three domains (i.e. the biopsycho-social) is the application of the so-called three p’s. a single mental disorder usually results from several causes. a useful approach used in the assessment divides the causes into predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating, which in turn could be biological, psychological and social (as will be explained in the next section). 1. predisposing factors: these are factors, many of them operating from early life, that determine a person’s vulnerability to causes acting close to the time of the illness. they include genetic factors and the environment in utero, as well as physical, psychological and social factors in infancy and early childhood. these factors predispose to develop a disorder (such as schizophrenia) and shape human personality. when the aetiology of an individual case is formulated, the predisposing factors are essential to incorporate. 2. precipitating factors: these are events that occur shortly before the onset of a disorder and appear to have induced it. they may be physical, psychological or social. whether they produce a disorder at all, and what kind of disorder at all, depends partly on europe’s journal of psychology 114 constitutional factors in the patient. again these factors are important to include in the formulation of the client’s condition. 3. perpetuating (maintaining) factors: these factors prolong the course of the disorder after it has been provoked. when formulating and managing the individual, it is important to pay attention to these factors. again, these factors could be physical, psychological or social. from the above discussion of the model, it is evident that a large amount of information could be gathered. in addition, the factors have different magnitude depending on the individual and so making each client unique. the complexity of the information is a possible predicament in using this model to conceptualise client condition, as is finding a simple way to communicate the client (and other colleges) the many factors and their impact on the patient’s state. this is where the psychaetiology graph (pag) could have the potential to simplify the formulation (which is its main objective). it also has several other potential uses. in the next section is a detailed explanation of the pag utilisation in clinical settings as well as its possible potentials will be mentioned in the next part of the paper. the psych-aetiology graph (pag) the aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of the ‘psych-aetiology graph’ (pag). it is what the author believes to be a new, useful way (tool) in client/patient/person assessment and management (as will be demonstrated later). the terms psych-aetiology here is used literally and the concepts is used to empower the client to understand the ‘causation’ of their presenting state (e.g. depression, anxiety, personality disorders). formulating or conceptualising a person’s assessment and management in a single, easy-to-use way, is the aim of this paper. theoretically, the author assumes that having the ability to present a client’s assessment in a graphic representation may aid the therapist/health worker to understand and communicate all the relevant information to the client and to other health professionals. the use of pag has only been done by the author and does not have a standardised version. it is the author’s belief that the pag has many possible advantages; however, there has been no study (apart from case series, collected by the authorunpublished) to support the aforementioned claim, thus the pag is considered to be a work in progress. psych-aetiology graph (pag) 115 in the next sections, firstly, the pag will be introduced with all the relevant terms along with a brief description of each term. secondly, outline of important clarifications will be given. . thirdly, two cases will be outlined to demonstrate the pag use. finally, a summary and conclusion will be highlighted. the components of the psych-aetiology graph (terms and definition) figure 1. basic component of the pag the threshold line: this represents the line which separates ‘the functioning state’ and the ‘malfunctioning state’ or the faulty function. crossing the line will result in transition from one state to another. ‘functioning’ here takes a wider meaning and could be labeled as a state of wellbeing. ‘malfunction’ also has a wider meaning which includes emotional, behavioural and cognitive states. a good example is depression (see below fig.2). the position of the line is determined by bio-psychosocial factors, especially some of the hereditary and environmental factors (nature & nurture). resilience axis: the vertical axis on the pag. resilience refers to any positive biopsycho-social resources (e.g. physical fitness + good personality traits + good social network). the definitions according to the oxford dictionary of the word resilience are: a. the ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy. b. the property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed; elasticity. europe’s journal of psychology 116 the time axis: the horizontal line represents time. the time scale will depend on the purpose of the pag. it could be expressed in days or weeks, focusing on a short period of time; or in months or years, focusing on the bigger picture. a hit: again, this includes a negative bio-psycho-social event (e.g. hypothyroidism in depression, negative thinking trait, divorce etc.). ‘a hit’ brings the person closer to the malfunctioning state; or if they already are in the malfunctioning state, it causes them to sink deeper into it. there are ‘minor hits’ (mh) and ‘major hits’ (mh). a ‘mh’ does not cross the threshold whereas a ‘mh’ crosses the threshold line into a malfunctioning state. a lift: this is the opposite of a ‘hit’ and operates in the other direction. it consists of ‘minor lifts’ (ml) and ‘major lifts’ (ml). important consideration regarding the pag 1. the graph is subjectively oriented. the distance of each line, the length of each hit or lift will be unique for each individual. for example, divorce for one client may cause a large drop, whereas for another, it may cause smaller drop or even a lift. 2. the use of a graph should not be deterrent or off putting for a client, as its basic use does not involve any arithmetic skills. saying that, it is possible that a format using numbers could be made. however, this will require extensive research with an emphasis on reliability and validity. in its current format, the objective of the pag is entirely phenomological and subjectively constructed. 3. it is often difficult for a client (and their family) to comprehend how the biopsycho-social factors combine and contribute to the client state (e.g. hypothyroidism precipitating depression, antibiotic perpetuating anxiety or positive family history predisposing to schizophrenia). the pag sums up all the factors collected from the client history and/ or a collateral history, to demonstrate in one ‘snap shoot’ how the case evolved. basically, the pag has the potential to educate and to illuminate all the bio-psycho-social factors interaction in a simple to understand way. 4. therapeutically, once the pag is constructed, the ‘challenge’ is to minimise or remove the hits and maximize or introduce new lifts (e.g. removal of a stressor, starting an antidepressant). perhaps an analogy would be thinking of the pag psych-aetiology graph (pag) 117 as a map, where the ‘bigger picture’ is illustrated. the target then is the zooming at specific area within the map and attempting to look at it in depth. 5. the pag is a collaborative effort. both the patient and the therapist should have an input in its construction. in the next section two cases will be highlighted. they will serve as good examples for the use of pag in summarizing client’s history and formulation. examples of the pag in clinical use 1. depression client a is a 43 years old lady, divorced recently. the client used to work as a receptionist, but currently unemployed. she presented with crying spills, lack of energy and loss of pleasure, all in the past two month. the client gave a history of typical symptoms of major depression. her symptomology started after her divorce (1-mh). she was then barely able to cope until she was fired from her work (2-mh) due to poor attendance and inability to carry on with her duties. subsequently, the client struggled financially and was under severe pressure due to that. the financial situation (3-mh) was the ‘last strew’ leading to a ‘breakdown” in the clients condition and manifesting with severe depression. she tried to cope by drinking alcohol, especially at night because of insomnia. she also started using diazepam (4-mh) which she was able to obtain from a friend. after this the client presented to the clinic. the patient has a strong family history of depression as both her sister and two aunts suffered from depression. physically she is well, apart from the biological symptoms of depression, in her case mainly a weight loss. her childhood was unhappy as she lost her father when she was 13yrs old. academically she did well, but did not enjoy school mainly due to her introverted nature. premorbid personality, the client is a worrier, moody and has difficulty coping with stress. upon attending the clinic, the psychiatrist started the client on antidepressant. after 4 weeks the patient was better (5-ml). the psychiatrist and the client then agreed for her to see a therapist to help the client to come to term with the divorce (6-ml). europe’s journal of psychology 118 the above is a brief history with the positive findings. a full history would have been much longer with more details. this is the author’s reason for coming up with the pag. the figure below demonstrates the use of the pag with the above client. figure 2. pag for depression the figure above demonstrates the use of the pag in depression. it has to be noted that each patient will have their unique pag that depends on the bio-psycho-social factors influencing the client’s life. an example is the above client where: 1-mh = divorce. 2-mh = unemployment. 3-mh = financial struggle (patient now in malfunctioning state, in this case it is depression) 4-mh = substance misuse. 5-ml = treatment with antidepressants. 6-ml = cognitive therapy with focus on coming to terms with the divorce. 2. borderline personality disorder (dsm-iv-tr 2005) here a case of borderline personality disorder will be given. we will draw the graph directly to demonstrate the usefulness of the pag in complex cases. psych-aetiology graph (pag) 119 figure 3. pag for borderline personality disorder here, we expect the client’s baseline to be close to the threshold regarding their mood. typically, the pag shows a zigzag line which suggests a fluctuating mood state due to poor coping skills. for example, in the above figure (fig.3): 1-mh = break up in a relationship. 2-ml = natural return to ‘normality’ due to stress free period. 3-mh = another relationship and another breakup. 4-ml = again natural return due to stress free (relationship free) period. 5-mh = yet another relationship break up, this time the client goes into significant depression as shown by how far the line is in the malfunctioning state of the pag. 6-mh = substance misuse leading to a suicide attempt. 7-ml =patient on psychotropic medication. 8ml = patient undergoing psychotherapy (e.g. cognitive analytical therapyryle et al 2002) as can be seen from these two examples, each condition and each patient will have different pag with different ‘hits’ and ‘lifts’. the number plotted on the pag will depend on a good history and formulation. also, a client’s feedback may help in the construction of an accurate pag. europe’s journal of psychology 120 the pag is not quantitively-centered and there are no measurable units. the number of ‘hits’ and ‘lifts’, as well as the position of the client’s mental state in the malfunctioning area, is subjective. this again emphasises the importance of involving the client in drawing up the pag. one could argue that having the pag with the additional information (i.e. details of the ‘hits’ and ‘lifts’) could have several advantages. in the next section, we will briefly discuss the possible advantages as well as the limitations of the pag. possible advantages and potentials of the pag  simple, but informative: the simplicity of the graph and its ‘common sense’ approach may be an incentive to both the mental health worker and the client.  a tool in psychotherapy: during a therapy session, joint conceptualisation allows the client to contribute, thus building the ‘therapeutic alliance’. moreover, it develops an understanding of how different issues have shaped the client’s presentation.  saving time and energy: having a well-made pag could save time as it summarises and identifies the factors responsible for client presentation and management.  communication: as well as communicating with the client, having a simple form of case summary could, theoretically, help in the referral and supervision processes.  client centered: the pag, if used with the client’s contribution, grants them a sense of empowerment and may subsequently help in certain situations (e.g. assertiveness).  uses in different settings: the pag is a potential tool with possible application in psychotherapy, counseling, assessment and management.  standardisation: if researched further, the pag could be refined and standardised. psych-aetiology graph (pag) 121 limitations of the pag  being a new concept, it has yet to be researched. as it is, it lacks an evidence base to support the possible advantages that have been mentioned.  in the user’s point of view, depending solely on the pag may be too simplistic.  it may perhaps be viewed negatively as reductionist approach by the health worker and/or the client.  the terms used on the pag could be confusing to those who view it. summary & conclusion the paper introduced the ‘psych-aetiology graph’. the pag is a graphic representation of a person’s formulation using bio-psycho-social information. it is simple, practical, and easy to formulate and read; therefore it can potentially be useful in psychotherapy, history presentation, communication, and management. management of a client could be improved by producing a good, inclusive (biopsycho-social) pag. the graph is easy for clients to understand and contribute to, therefore empowering them and as a result, functioning as a therapeutic tool. the simplicity of producing the graph also has a pragmatic component, as it is easy to grasp and could be used by any person once they know how to conceptualise it. as this is a new tool, no research has been conducted using the pag. the pag is a new concept which has the potential to be applicable in therapeutic settings. however, like any effective tool, it needs to be tried, refined and studied before being judged on usefulness and applicability. finally, the author will be interested in any feedback regarding the pag and is open to any constructive criticism and suggestions. references american psychiatric association (apa). dsm-iv-tr. fourth edition text revision. apa publication. europe’s journal of psychology 122 beck at (1967). depression: clinical, experimental and theoretical aspects. harper and row, new york. bibring, edward (1937). contribution to the symposium on the theory of the therapeutic results of psych-analysis. international journal of psych-analysis. 18, 170-189. engel, george l (1977). "the need for a new medical model". science. 196:129–136. freud a (1936). the ego and the mechanisms of defence. hogarths press. london. gelder m, harrison p, cowen p (2006). short oxford textbook of psychiatry. fifth edition. oxford university press. jones p, murray rm. the genetic of schizophrenia is the genetic of neurodevelopment. british journal of psychiatry, 1991; 158:615-23. kandel er (1998). a new intellectual framework for psychiatry. american journal of psychiatry, 155,457-69. murray l and lewis sw (1987). is schizophrenia a neurodevelopment disorder? british medical journal, 295, 681-2. the oxford dictionary (2008). oxford university press. oxford university press. ryle a and kerr (2002). introducing cognitive analytical therapy: principle and practice. john wiley, chichester. skinner bf (1953). science and human behaviour. macmillan, new york, ny. about the author: professor saoud al mualla (mb, bch nui, lrcp&si (ire), md psychiatry (uk), msc (uk), dip, ma (psychotherapy, uk), mrcpsych (uk)) the author is consultant & head of psychiatry, rashid hospital, department of health & medical services (dohms), dubai. he is associate professor at dubai medical college (dmc) and president for mental health affair & psychiatry in the united arab emirates (uae). email: saoud.almualla@gmail.com microsoft word 5. research burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 63-81 www.ejop.org burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being among nurses in turkish hospitals ronald j. burke york university mustafa koyuncu nevsehir university lisa fiksenbaum york university abstract this exploratory study examined the relationship between self-reports of burnout and indicators of work satisfaction and engagement, perceptions of hospital functioning and quality of nursing care, and psychological well-being of nursing staff. data were collected from 224 staff nurses using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 37 percent response rate. three indicators of burnout were considered: emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and lack of personal efficacy. hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for both personal demographic and work situation characteristics, indicated that burnout accounted for significant increments in explained variance on most outcome measures. explanations for the association of burnout with various outcomes are offered along with potentially practical implications. background nurses occupy a central role in the delivery of health care in all countries, though countries may have different health care systems and methods of payment options. unfortunately studies of the work experiences and satisfactions of nurses in several countries indicate that the satisfaction of nurses is modest. many report negative attitudes and diminished psychological and physical well-being, and several would like to leave the profession. (aiken, clarke, sloane & sochalski, 2001) in addition, nursing as a profession is now less attractive for young women and men than it was burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 64 earlier. some countries are now reporting a shortage of nurses, often compounded by the fact that richer nations are luring nurses away from poorer ones. the health care system has also undergone significant change over the past decade. these stem from the greater use of new technologies, off-shoring some services to developing countries, advances in medical knowledge, an aging population, more informed and critical users of the health care system, and efforts by governments to further control health care expenditures. it is not surprising then that considerable research has been undertaken in several countries to understand the work experiences of nurses, particularly as they relate to nurse satisfaction and well-being and patient care. it has concentrated on issues of workload, lack of resources, overtime work, and increases in abuse experienced in the work place by nursing staff as these affect burnout, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, absenteeism and intent to leave the profession. the bulk of nursing research has used a stressor-strain framework and has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the experiences of nurses in their workplaces. recent research has increasingly considered burnout as an important workplace strain found to be associated with adverse psychological and physical health of employees and lower levels of job performance. although burnout was first identified among women and men working in the helping professions, recent studies have considered burnout to be relevant to any profession. burnout is a psychological syndrome that develops in response to chronic work related stressors (maslach, schaufeli & leiter, 2001). maslach and jackson (1981, 1996) defined burnout as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, a cynical attitude towards work, and lack of personal accomplishment. burnout is associated with negative health consequences for individuals, and with diminished work performance in organizations (maslach & leiter, 1997; schaufeli, maslach & marek, 1993). burnout among nurses has received considerable research attention (see poncet, toullic, papazian, kentish-barnes, timsit, pochard, chevret, schlemmer and azoulay, 2007; bakker, leblanc, & schaufeli, 2005; chen & mcmurray, 2001; leiter & maslach, 2009; papadatou, anagnostopoulos & monos, 1994). nursing is as profession that requires investing considerable time and energy in relationships with others seeking treatment and care, often in trying circumstances. burnout is likely to be heightened in these potentially intense and demanding relationships. the nursing environment also has elements likely to increase feelings of burnout including heavy workloads, lack of resources, lack of respect from doctors, and little input into unit decision making. europe’s journal of psychology 65 aiken, clarke, sloane, sochalski and silber (2002), in a large sample of both nurses and patients in he us, found that for each additional patient per nurse levels of patient mortality and levels of nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction increased. greenglass, burke and fiksenbaum (2001) reported that quantitative workload was associated with higher levels of burnout which in turn increased psychological symptoms in the same canadian nursing sample. vahey, aiken sloane, clarke and vargas (2004), in a large sample of both nurses and patients from 40 nursing units in 20 urban hospitals in the us, found that patients cared for on units that nurses described ad having adequate staff, good administrative support for nursing care, and good relations between doctors and nurse, were more than twice as likely as other patients to report high satisfaction with their care, and their nurses reported significantly lower burnout. in addition nurse burnout was associated with lower patient satisfaction. laschinger, finegan, shamian and wilk (2003), in a longitudinal study of canadian nurses, found that nurses feeling empowered in their workplaces (e.g., had access to information, support, resources and opportunity to learn and develop) also indicated significantly lower levels of burnout. finally, bakker, killmer, seigrist and schaufeli (2000) reported that higher levels of nursing burnout were associated with greater effort-reward imbalance. the initial research on antecedents and consequences of burnout began in the late 1970s in the us but now extends to almost every country in the world. in fact burnout has now become a medical diagnosis in some countries (schaufeli, leiter & maslach, 2008) highlighting the significance of the concept. the present exploratory study considers the relationships of measures of nurses’ burnout and a variety of work satisfaction, psychological well-being and perceptions of quality of nursing care among nurses working in turkish hospitals. burnout was measured by the maslach burnout inventory (mbi), the most widely used measure of burnout. burnout is typically seen as a multi-dimensional construct (maslach, leiter & schaufeli, 2009) and the mbi assesses three components. no other research on work experiences of nurses in turkey, to our knowledge, has considered these issues this research then makes two important contributions. first it examines burnout among nurses working in turkish hospitals. no other research on work experiences of nurses in turkey, to our knowledge, has considered these issues. second, it adds novel outcomes measures germane to the nursing context (e.g., .health and safety perceptions, errors and accidents). three categories of outcome variables were included in the study: work outcomes, indicators of psychological well-being, and aspects of hospital functioning. various writers and researchers have examined the relationship of burnout with variables in burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 66 these categories or have reviewed this literature (e.g., burke & richardsen, 2001; leiter & maslach, 2005; schaufeli & buunk, 2003; schaufeli, leiter & maslach, 2008: shirom & melamed, 2005).these reviews support the following conclusions about the relationship of burnout with outcomes in these three categories across a wide variety of occupations. • burnout has been found to be related to negative work attitudes, job dissatisfaction. lower levels of organizational commitment, higher levels of job stress, absenteeism and absence from work, and lower levels of job performance. • burnout has been shown to be related to higher levels of depression, chronic fatigue, psychosomatic symptoms, and a less satisfying home and personal life. • burnout has been found to predict negative reactions to organizational change, being disciplined for or job performance, and lower self-ratings of job performance. building on both previous nursing research and the broader research literature on the consequences of burnout, it was hypothesized that nurses reporting higher levels of burnout would report less favorable work outcomes, less nursing-specific satisfaction, diminished psychological health, and more negative perceptions of hospital functioning. methods procedure this study was carried out in research hospitals in ankara turkey, research sites being randomly selected from the 15 research hospitals in that city. the health ministry sent a cover letter to the chief physicians of these hospitals requesting their cooperation. six hundred questionnaires were administered to staff nurses in the hospitals. measures originally in english were translated into turkish using the back translation method. data were collected in march 2009. two hundred and seventeen nurses anonymously completed the surveys, a 36% response rate. respondents table 1 presents the personal demographic and work situation characteristics of the sample (n=224). there was considerable diversity on each item. the sample ages ranged from under 325 to over 46, with 128 between 26 and 35 (60%). most were married (77%), had children (70%), worked full-time (79%), wanted to work full-time europe’s journal of psychology 67 (99%), were female (88%), worked between 41-45 hours per week (43%), had a high school or vocational college education ( 58 %), did not have supervisory responsibilities (68%), had not changed units in the past year (74%), had five years or less of nursing tenure (59%), five years or less of hospital tenure (57%), and worked in a variety of nursing units. table 1. demographic characteristics of sample age 25 or less 26 – 30 31 – 35 36 – 45 41 – 45 46 or older parental status children childless education high school vocational school bachelor’s degree master’s degree faculty hours worked 40 or less 41 – 45 46 – 50 51 – 55 56 or more changed units past year yes no nursing tenure 5 years or less 6 – 10 years 11 – 15 years 16 – 20 years 21 years or more n 18 76 52 44 17 8 151 64 75 50 70 2 20 39 84 38 9 27 53 151 119 41 14 18 9 % 8.4 35.3 24.4 21.5 8.3 3.9 70.3 29.7 34.6 23.0 32.2 .9 9.2 19.8 42.6 18.3 4.6 13.7 26.0 74.0 59.1 20.4 7.0 9.0 4.5 sex female male marital status married single number of children 1 2 3 or more work status full-time part-time supervisory duties yes no preferred work status full-time part-time hospital tenure 5 years or less 6 – 10 years 11 – 15 years 16 – 20 years 21 years or more n 180 25 168 49 70 76 5 160 54 69 148 197 1 118 49 14 15 9 % 87.8 12.2 77.4 22.6 46.4 50.3 3.3 79.4 20.6 31.8 68.2 99.5 .5 57.6 23.9 6.8 7.3 4.4 burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 68 measures personal and work situation characteristics these were measured by single items (e.g., age, sex, level of education, unit tenure, hospital tenure). burnout three dimensions of burnout were measured by the maslach burnout inventory (maslach, jackson & leiter, 1996). respondents indicated how often they experienced each item on a seven-point scale (0= never, 3= a few times a month, 6= every day). exhaustion was measured by a five-item scale (α=.86). one item was “i feel burned out from my work.” cynicism was assessed by a five-item scale (α=.58). an item was “i have become more cynical about whether my work contributes anything.” efficacy was measured by six items (α=.77). one item was “i have accomplished many worthwhile things in this job.” work outcomes six work outcomes were included. job satisfaction was measured by a five-item scale (α=.79) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). one item was, “all in all, how satisfied would you say you are with your job?” respondents indicated their responses on a four-point likert scale (1-very satisfied, 4=not at all satisfied). absenteeism. nurses indicated first how many days they had been absent from work during the past month, and then how many of these days of absenteeism were due to sickness. intent to quit (α=.76) was measured by two items used previously by burke (1991). an item was, “are you currently looking for a different job in a different organization?” work engagement three dimensions of work engagement were assessed using scales developed by schaufeli et al. (2002) and schaufeli and bakker (2004). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five-point likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 3= neither agree nor disagree, 5= strongly agree). europe’s journal of psychology 69 vigor was measured by six items (α=.82) an item was “at my work, i feel bursting with energy.” dedication was measured by five items (α=.79). one item was “i am proud of the work that i do.” absorption was assessed by six items (α=.85). an item was “i am immersed in my work.” psychological well-being five aspects of psychological well-being were included. positive affect was measured by a ten-item scale (α=.91) developed by watson, clark and tellegen (1988). respondents indicated how often they experienced these items during the past week (e.g., excited, proud, excited) on a five-point likert scale (1=not at all, 5=extreme). negative affect was also measured by a ten-item scale (α=.86) developed by watson, clark and tellegen (1988). respondents indicated how often they experienced these (e.g., irritable, nervous, distressed) on the same frequency scale. psychosomatic symptoms was measured by nineteen items (α=.91) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they had experienced each physical condition (e.g., headaches, having trouble getting to sleep) during the past year. responses were made on a seven-point likert scale (1=never, 4=often). medication use was measured by a five-item scale (α=.75) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they took listed medications (e.g., pain medication, sleeping pills) on a five point scale (1=never, 5=a lot). life satisfaction was assessed by a five-point scale (α=.90) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated their agreement with each item (e.g., in most ways my life is close to ideal) on a seven-point likert agreement scale ( 1=strongly agree, 4=neither agree not disagree, 7=strongly disagree). perceptions of hospital functioning and health care four measures were included here, three assessing perceptions of hospital functioning, one assessing perceptions of patient care quality. health and safety climate nurses indicated their agreement with eight items (α=.64) based on items from zohar and luria (2005) and on an extensive review of the accident and safety climate literature. . an item was, “i feel free to report safety problems where i work.” burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 70 again a five point likert scale anchored by strongly agree (5) and strongly disagree (1) was used. workplace errors and accidents nurses indicated how frequently they observed six hospital incidents (α=..64) on a four-point scale (1=never, 4=frequently). incidents included, “patient received wrong medication or dose,” “patient falls with injuries”). this scale was created by the researchers, hospital support hospital support was assessed by eight items (α=.95) developed by eisenberger, huntington, hutchison and sowa (1986). an item was, “this hospital is willing to help me when i need a special favor.” respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a seven-point likert scale (1= strongly agree, 4= neither agree nor disagree, 7= strongly disagree). patient care nurses indicated on a single item their views on the quality of patient care provided (“in general, how would you describe the quality of nursing care delivered to patients on your unit?” (1=excellent, 4=poor)). this item was created by the researchers. single items have been found to be highly reliable (wanous & hudy, 2001) results inter-correlations among burnout measures only one of the three correlations among the burnout components was statistically significant: exhaustion was positively correlated with cynicism (r-.49, p<.001), exhaustion and efficacy, and cynicism and efficacy, were both correlated .02 ( ns), the sample sizes being 219 and 220 in these analyses. inter-correlations among outcome measures let us now consider the inter-correlations among the outcome measures within each of the three categories. first, inter-correlations among the six work outcomes ranged from a high of .62 to a low of .02 (the three work engagement measures were intercorrelated above .55, consistent t with previous research findings), with a mean correlation of .28. second, inter-correlations among the five measures of psychological well-being ranged from a high of .38 to a low of .04, with mean correlation of .21. third, inter-correlations among the four indicators of hospital functioning ranged fro a high of .30 to a low of .20, with a mean correlation of .18. europe’s journal of psychology 71 thus, with the exception of the inter-correlations among the three work engagement measurers, most correlations were relatively modest in size .in addition, correlations across the three categories were also generally modest in size indicating that the criterion variables were relatively independent. levels of burnout the mean values on the three burnout components were as follows: exhaustion, 3.2 , cynicism, 2.8 , and efficacy, 4.8. thus this nursing sample had relatively low levels of exhaustion and cynicism but higher levels of efficacy. this sample tended to have slightly lower levels of exhaustion, slightly higher levels of cynicism and slightly lower levels of efficacy than other nursing samples. hierarchical regression analysis hierarchical regression analyses were undertaken in which various work outcomes, indicators of psychological well-being and perceptions of hospital functioning were regressed on three blocks of predictors entered in a specified order. the first block of predictors (n=4) consisted of personal demographics (e.g., age, marital status, level of education); the second block (n=4) consisted of work situation characteristics (e.g., job has supervisory duties, hospital tenure, work status, full-time versus parttime); the third block of predictors (n=3) consisted of the burnout components. when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance (p<.05), individual variables within these blocks having significant and independent relationships with the criterion variable (p<.05) were identified. these variables are indicated in the tables that follow along with their respective βs. predictors of burnout the three burnout components were separately regressed on two blocks of predictors: personal demographics and work situation characteristics. the two blocks of predictors accounted for a significant amount and increment in explained variance on exhaustion but no individual item had a significant and independent relationship with levels of exhaustion. neither of the blocks of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance on levels of cynicism. of lack of efficacy. thus neither personal demographics nor work situation characteristics had significant and independent relationships with any of the three burnout measures. burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 72 burnout and work outcomes table 2 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which six work outcomes were regressed separately on the three blocks of predictors: personal demographics, work situation characteristics, and burnout. the following comments are offered in summary. first, burnout components accounted for a significant increment in explained variance in five of the six analyses (not for absenteeism). nurses indicating higher levels of exhaustion also reported less job satisfaction, and lower levels of vigor and absorption (bs=-.32, -.27 and -.18, respectively). nurses indicating higher levels of cynicism also indicated lower levels of job satisfaction, greater intentions to quit, and lower levels of both vigor and dedication (bs=-.20, .24, -.22 and -.24, respectively) finally, nurses indicting higher levels of efficacy also reported higher levels of vigor and absorption (bs=.22 and .20, respectively). table 2: burnout and work outcomes job satisfaction(n=163) r r2 ∆r2 p personal demographics .23 .05 .05 ns work situation burnout exhaustion (-.32) cynicism (-.20) intent to quit (n=163) personal demographics marital status (-.22) work situation burnout cynicism (.24) days absent (n=163) personal demographics work situation burnout engagement vigor (n=165) personal demographics work situation changed units (-.14) burnout exhaustion (-.27) efficacy (.22) .34 .56 .37 .42 .52 .09 .13 .24 .27 .42 .63 .11 .32 .14 .18 .27 .01 .02 .04 .08 .18 .39 .06 .21 .14 .14 .09 .01 .01 .02 .08 .10 .21 ns .001 .001 ns .001 ns ns ns .05 .01 .001 europe’s journal of psychology 73 cynicism (-.22) dedication (n=163) personal demographics work situation work status (.23) burnout efficacy (.33) cynicism (-.24) absorption (n=164) personal demographics work situation unit tenure (-.36) burnout efficacy (.20) exhaustion (-.18) .14 .35 .57 .16 .36 .49 .02 .12 .33 . 02 .13 .24 .02 .10 .21 .02 .11 .11 ns .05 .001 ns .05 .01 workload and psychological well-being table 3 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses involving five indicators of psychological well-being: positive and negative affect, psychosomatic symptoms, medication use and life satisfaction. the following comments are offered in summary. first, burnout measures accounted for a significant increment in explained variance in all five analyses. nurses reporting higher levels of cynicism also indicated more psychosomatic symptoms, more medication use and less life satisfaction (bs=.19, .21 and -.18, respectively); nurses scoring higher on exhaustion also indicated lower levels of positive affect, less life satisfaction, and more psychosomatic symptoms (bs=-.18, .39 and -.33, respectively). finally, nurses indicating higher levels of efficacy also reported more positive affect and less negative affect (bs=.27 and .20, respectively). table 3: burnout and psychological well-being psychological well-being positive affect (n=161) personal demographics work situation burnout efficacy (.27) exhaustion (-.18) r .13 .25 .46 r2 .02 .06 .21 ∆r2 .02 .04 .15 p ns ns .001 burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 74 negative affect (n=160) personal demographics .16 .03 .03 ns work situation burnout efficacy (-.20) psychosomatic symptoms (n=165) personal demographics work situation burnout exhaustion (.39) cynicism (.19) medication use (n=162) personal demographics work situation burnout cynicism (.21) life satisfaction (n=163) personal demographics work situation burnout exhaustion (.33) cynicism (.18) .27 .40 .22 .29 .56 .06 .19 .31 .14 .21 .48 .07 .16 .05 .08 .32 .00 .04 .09 .02 .04 .23 .04 .09 .05 .03 .24 .00 .04 .05 .02 .02 .19 ns .001 ns ns .001 ns ns .05 ns ns .001 workload and perceptions of hospital functioning and patient care table 4 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which four indicators of perceived hospital functioning and quality of patient care were regressed on the three blocks of predictors. the burnout measures accounted for a significant increment in explained variance in all four analyses. nurses scoring higher on cynicism also reported a less favorable health and safety climate, lower levels of hospital support, more hospital incidents of errors and accidents and more negative perceptions of the quality of patient care (bs=-.18, , -.23..26, and -.21, respectively). nurses scoring higher on exhaustion also indicated lower levels of hospital support (b=.-.17). europe’s journal of psychology 75 table 4: burnout, hospital functioning and nursing satisfaction hospital functioning health and safety climate (n=164) personal demographics work situation burnout cynicism (-.18) hospital support (n=162) personal demographics work situation burnout cynicism (-.23) exhaustion (-.17) hospital errors and accidents (n=161) personal demographics work situation burnout cynicism (.26) quality of patient care (n=164) personal demographics work situation burnout cynicism (-.21) r .17 .30 .39 .15 .24 .42 .13 .17 .33 .23 .25 .37 r2 .03 .09 .15 .03 .06 .20 .02 .03 .11 .06 .06 .14 ∆r2 .03 .03 .06 .03 .03 .14 .02 .01 .08 .06 .00 .08 p ns ns .05 ns ns .001 ns ns .001 ns ns .01 discussion this study provided preliminary support for the general hypothesis underlying the research that is, nursing staff indicting higher levels of burnout also reported less favorable work outcomes, poorer psychological well-being, and perceived their hospital functioning at a less support, less safe and providing a lower patient care quality. these findings were generally consistent with previously reported nursing research carried out in north america so these findings were generalized to nurses in turkish hospitals. in addition, the findings were consistent with those found in various occupation, in different countries, and including additional outcome measures. interestingly, the nurses in our sample indicated lower levels of burnout than did nurses in other investigations but the pattern of findings was the same. burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 76 practical implications the notion of burnout has both research and practice relevance. some writers have offered suggestions for reducing levels of burnout in the workplace (e.g., burke & richardsen, 2001; schaufeli & buunk, 2003). researchers have suggested interventions at both individual and organizational levels, and the fit between the two, with most efforts being directed at the individual level. individual level interventions include cognitive behavioral techniques such as stress inoculation, rational emotive approaches, cognitive restructuring. behavioral rehearsal, relaxation techniques, and training programs to reduce reality shock, work-family conflict, and employee passivity and increase coping skills. workplace interventions include work redesign to reduce workload, attempts to increase levels of social support at work, increase levels of employee participation in decision making, and offering career counseling to support employee development.. the results of this study among nurses showed that burnout influenced work attitudes, psychological health, and perceptions of hospital functioning. leiter (2006) observed that relationships with one’s work reflect investments from both individuals and their work environments. he proposed various targets for decreasing levels of burnout by addressing six areas of worklife: workload, control, rewards, community, fairness, and values to increase the fit between individual needs and organizational work experiences.. mismatch between individuals and their workplaces in any of these areas in creases burnout. leiter and maslach (2005) offer guidance on ways of addressing mismatches in these six areas, as well as problem diagnosis and processes for generating solutions and taking action. some examples include the following: • workload –redesign work so it better fits both organizational and individual needs (e.g., more innovative work, focusing on high priority tasks) • control – increasing influence and participation in decision making • rewards – more recognition, more supportive interactions with one’s supervisors. • community – increasing interactions with one’s colleagues, ore use of teams • fairness – strengthen mutual respect, equal treatment of employees, more open and transparent procedures and policies • values – highlight organizational values, articulate these, act in accordance with espoused values, orient new employees to the organization’s values there have been two approaches to reducing burnout in the workplace, one tries to change individual employees while the other tries to change the environment of europe’s journal of psychology 77 organizations (leiter & maslach, 2005).both likely have value, but changing organizational workplaces probably has greater benefits for more employees. some have suggested an ongoing collaborative action research program to target burnout (halbesleben, osburn & mumford, 2006). by identifying a variety of problems and opportunities through surveys and in focus groups, these can be used as the basis for developing and implementing a formal organizational plan. however, they conclude that n order to be successful, organizations need to continuously re-cycle through this process to increase organizational learning and problem solving skills. schaufeli and salanova (2007) discuss how organizational strategies such as personnel assessment and evaluation, job redesign, leadership and training can be used to decrease burnout. employee assessment and evaluation supports the development of a psychological contract that improves the fit of the employee and organization. job redesign both reduces employee health-related risks and increases employee motivation, and leadership builds the emotional climate of the organization increasing motivation. interventions such as wellness audits and workshops that promote employee health and well-being, training and career development to foster support for continuous employee growth, will increase the quality of work. thus reducing demands and increasing resources may have success with nurses in terms of reducing strain and burnout. limitations of the research some limitations of the research should be noted to put the findings into a broader context. the sample of nurses in this study was small (n=224). it was not possible to determine the representativeness of those nurses that participated. all data were collected using self-report questionnaires raising the possibility of response set tendencies. the data were collected at one point in time making it difficult to determine causality. all respondents worked in research hospitals. it is not clear the extent to which our results would generalize to other samples of nurses working in other hospitals in addition, a few of the measures had levels of internal consistency reliability slightly below the generally accepted level of .70. future research directions future research needs to involve a larger and representative sample of nurses drawn from several different hospitals. and including, for example, indicators of psychological well-being as predictors of work outcomes, in addition to using the three mbi scales, would indicate which of these two groups of predictors accounts burnout, work satisfactions and psychological well-being 78 for more variance on work outcomes. our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of burnout would also be increased through the use of longitudinal research designs. in addition, given our increasing understanding of the causes of burnout, an evaluation of workplace interventions targeted at reducing levels of burnout seems warranted (rundall, starkweather & norrish, 1998). references aiken, l. h., clarke, s. p., sloane, d. m., & sochalski, j. 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(1993) professional burnout: recent developments in theory and research. london. taylor & francis. schaufeli, w. b., salanova, m., gonzalez-roma, v., & bakker, a. b. (2002). the measurement of engagement and burnout: a confirmative analytic approach. journal of happiness studies, 3, 71-92. shirom, a., & melamed, s. (2005). does burnout affect physical health? a review of the evidence. in a-s. g. antoniou & c. l. cooper (eds..) research companion to organizational health psychology. cheltenham, uk: edward elgar. pp. 599-622. europe’s journal of psychology 81 vahey, d. c, aiken, l. h., sloane, d. m., clarke, s. p., & vargas, d. (2004). nurse burnout and patient satisfaction. medical care, 42, 1157-1166. wanous, j. p., & hudy, m. (2001). single-item reliability: a replication and extension. organizational research methods, 4, 361-375 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. zohar, d., & luria, g. (2005). a multi-level model of safety climate: cross-level relationships between organizations and group-level climates journal of applied psychology, 90, 616-628. about the authors: ronald j. burke is currently professor of organizational behavior schulich school of business, york university. his research interests include corruption in organizations, occupational health and safety and corporate reputation. e-mail: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca mustafa koyuncu is professor of management, faculty of commerce and tourism education, nevsehir university. his research interests include tourism education, human resource management in the tourism and hospitality sector, and cross cultural research in tourism. lisa fiksenbaum is currently a phd candidate in the department of psychology, york university. her research interests include work and family. strress and health and statistical methods. microsoft word 7. literature review racism.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 82-95 www.ejop. org race psychology between “guilty science” and “innocent politics” vlad glăveanu london school of economics abstract this article will discuss the intricate ways in which, throughout the history of race psychology, the “science of race” depended on and reinforced the “politics of race”. a brief presentation of the main moments in the history of race psychology will be followed by a closer look into the mechanisms through which politics underpins the discoveries of a “guilty” science and science, in its turn, has been used to justify the “innocent” politics of racism and discrimination. finally, a critical outlook on the past and present of race psychology is proposed, one that would simultaneously consider the many facets of this discipline: scientific, political, institutional and ideological. keywords: race psychology, science of race, politics of race, anti-racism usually the question is “who are the racists in psychology?” but this needs to be reversed: who is not racist in psychology? psychology breathes the air of racism. howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994 although racism seems to have existed as a way of life for millennia (rushton, 1995), historians argue that the notion of race originated in the seventeen century, the era in which europeans met the “outside” world (lieberman, 1975). in the centuries that followed, philosophers and biologists, using different theoretical frameworks, most of the times joined efforts in supporting racist practices. in psychology, after its emergence as a separate discipline, racism proved to be perhaps “the most versatile and persistent theory” (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994, p. 9). this article will offer a very broad overview of the interplay between the science and politics of race and racism, with direct reference to psychological research. due to its conciseness, this account is aimed at framing a much greater discussion rather than offering a detailed image of this historical development. considering the above, as well europe’s journal of psychology 84 as the fact that history itself takes a narrative from, it is expected that some of the arguments presented here in brief will not to be unanimously accepted by everyone, many issues still being subject of on-going debate. for this reason it is essential to emphasize the fact that the present material is first and foremost meant to point to the interchange between science and politics in relation to racial psychology and therefore invite all interested readers to explore further this immensely important issue. when conceptualizing race and racial differences, science assumes a position of neutrality and objectivity. positivism works to obscure any ideological construction of race or political agenda (ahmed, 2008). however, research is in itself a social act and there is no such thing as a “view from nowhere” (jovchelovitch, 2007) in the production of knowledge. “the truth surely is that any analysis of the nature of a society’s ills is implicitly ideological. it is not being ideological which is the scientific sin here, but the masquerade of not being ideological” (richards, 1997, p. 277). this state of affaires is especially problematic for the psychological research of race. although racism is definitely not a thing of the past, psychology continues to treat this sensitive issue “as something apart from itself, something the discipline studies, and not what it does” (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994, p. 8). since race is not a biological but a sociocultural category (rose et al., 1984; spears, 1999) the importance it has been given in “scientific” psychology can only be justified by political and ideological reasons. looking especially at blackness in western societies, the first section will highlight some significant moments in the history of race psychology. the long past and short history of race psychology it may be argued that although race psychology as a discipline had been a product of the first half of the twentieth century, its origins can be traced far before. in fact, “remarkable continuities” of race and racism in psychology and connected disciplines reverberate up to the present day (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994). for centuries europe has been dominated by the traditional christian cosmology assuming the unity of ‘mankind’ as descending from noah’s sons (rushton, 1995). this also helped to explain physical differences between europeans, asians and africans. but the biblical story is in fact a myth of degeneration in which ham’s black skinned sons had been cursed for their father’s sin (richards, 1997). race psychology 85 early science disregarded this justification and proposed its own terminology, starting, in 1735, with the concept of race and c. linnaeus’s distinction between four human varieties: white, black, red and yellow (tucker, 1994). the “old” religious ideas soon clashed with “scientific” ones in what came to be known as the monogenism versus polygenism debate (lieberman, 1975; rushton, 1995; gould, 1996). while the first argued for the scriptural unity of mankind, the second, taking shape in the slave-owning america, envisioned a world of different human species. although seemingly different, both hypotheses started from the basic assumption that white people are superior to all others. it was during the second half of the nineteen century that “scientific racism” found its two main pillars in the evolutionary theory and quantification (the birth of statistics; gould, 1996; rushton, 1995). the new approach brought biology to the centre and relied heavily on biological determinism, a reductionist explanation (rose et al., 1984) of human limits (gould, 1996). the discipline that embodied these assumptions was named “eugenics” (greek for “well born”) by f. galton (see larson, 1995) who consequently made the first attempts at quantifying racial psychological differences (richards, 1997). many others perfected his work. among them, h. spencer is famous for his “pragmatic eugenics” which promoted selective breading and the elimination of “unfit” races (tucker, 1994). this “long past” culminated with the emergence of race psychology in the 1890s marked by two articles published in “psychological review”. measuring reaction time and memory on black samples these materials concluded that better performances in “lower” functions compensate for lacks in higher ones, a hypothesis also tested by the renowned cambridge torres strait expedition in 1898 (richards, 1997). another landmark in this history is t.r. garth, the only author who named a book “race psychology” (1931). nevertheless, the vast majority of empirical studies in race psychology have been undertaken between 1910 and 1940 by u.s. psychologists, motivated to solve both “negro education” and immigration issues (richards, 1997). in both cases the ultimate message was identical: certain races have no hope for improvement. much of the history of race psychology revolves around the i.q. debate (see kamin, 1974). three important names shaped the course of this debate in america: h.h. goddard, l.m. terman, and r.m. yerkes. they made i.q. testing popular in the u.s. and turned around binet’s original project of a non-hereditarian intelligence (gould, europe’s journal of psychology 86 1996). the first half of the last century became dominated by the search for a measurable, reified (unique), hereditary and unchangeable intelligence, used to rank people (rose et al., 1984; gould, 1996). parallel with these “developments”, and especially during the 1920s, other authors like w.i. thomas, john dewey and franz boas disputed the race-difference hypothesis arguing that race is an unscientific category and attacking race studies on methodological grounds (richards, 1997). a decade later this line of thought became prominent in america especially due to the rise of nazism. the world-war ii propaganda portrayed nazi germany as totalitarian and racist and this meant that all its opponents had to be anti-racist (lieberman, 1975). in the u.s.a. after the war, this new politics became official with the civil rights act of 1964 and the 1965 voting rights act (sears et al., 2000). would this era be the end of a racist race psychology in the west? unfortunately, the “spirit” of race psychology as a “racist science” is very much alive and just differently clothed in modern times (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994). for example, as recently as 2005, rushton and jensen argued that the 15 to 18 points in i.q. that separate blacks and whites stand their ground as they did when first measured. they consider this difference as largely heritable, and resting in brain size differences. why do these claims tend to “recur every few years with a predictable and depressing regularity” (gould, 1996, p. 27)? to answer this question we have to turn to the intricate relationship between science, politics, ideology and social practice. critically looking into the past of this “long-running saga” (richards, 1997) is the aim of the following two sections. “guilty science”: politically enforced knowledge in most societies science is accepted as the ultimate authority in deciphering and understanding the physical and social reality (zack, 2002). the scientific project in its positivist dimension talks about the absolute objectivity of scientific data and impartiality of the researcher. those involved in race studies over the decades have particularly used this image as a shield protecting them from public scrutiny: “we firmly believe that we have no political, no religious and no social prejudice… we rejoice in numbers and figures for their own sake” (pearson and moul, 1925, cited in tucker, 1994, p. 6). race psychology 87 dissipating the “smoke-screen” hiding the racism (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994) of the pre-history and history of race psychology, it becomes clear that one of its main “engines” is political. science is socially embedded in the sense that it has both social determinants and functions (rose et al., 1984). in the almost special case of psychology, ideology not only guides the interpretation of available data but it also determines the very data a scientist looks for (richards, 1997). initially the political agenda enforcing scientific efforts has been set by colonialism and slavery. this is how, from early beginnings, the myth of african dependency was born and with it the image of blacks as children that need to be protected (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994). science found the child metaphor to be perfect for its social purposes with just one amendment: unlike children, “primitives” are in a state of “arrested development”. the patronisingly paternalistic goals (richards, 1997) of this vision made scientists the best allies of western political leaders throughout the nineteen century. this strange alliance continued and, with the institutional changes and new antiracist laws brought up in the twentieth century, it only became more subtle and, by this, more dangerous. the main purpose of the “scientific” psychology of race became that of justifying social disadvantage. by continually stressing the genetic argument researchers have in fact argued that: “the social disadvantage of black people stems from their biological disadvantage and not vice versa” (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994, p. 7). a main area in which many psychologists were interested in making this point has been education. bringing to the front what was supposed to be an inherited i.q. difference, some argued that no extra-schooling can cover this gap (see eysenck, 1971). it is not hard to observe the social and political stake of such strong claims and the vicious circle they produce: by considering differences as predetermined, funds are cut and in turn this can only lead to further disadvantage for those in need. although the examples of politically enforced science are numerous, one question soon arises: are we dealing with genuine dishonesty, intellectual naivety or unthinking conformity? (richards, 1997). gould’s (1996) work is enlightening in this case. by reanalyzing data sets of seminal studies in the (pre)history of race psychology, he distinguished between those that un-deliberately read data in a prejudiced way (like morton and broca and their craniometry) and those who europe’s journal of psychology 88 consciously fabricated data to fit their position (like the twin studies of cyril burt and goddard’s alteration of photographic evidence). why and how does politics influence science? one way of answering this question is that all knowledge is produced in institutions (young, 1990) and these institutions depend on funding (richards, 1997). maybe the emblematic case in this regard is that of the pioneer fund and the mankind quarterly journal (lane, 1995; sedgwick, 1995). founded by a man who advocated the repatriation of blacks to africa, the pioneer generously gives away more than a half million dollars a year (for a review see tucker, 2002). in concluding: “psychology is instrumental in maintaining the societal status quo by (a) endorsing and reflecting dominant social values, (b) disseminating those values in the persuasive form of so-called value-free scientific statements, and (c) (…) portraying the individual as essentially independent from sociohistorical circumstances” (prilleltensky, 1989, p. 800). the “scientific hell” (tetlock, 1994) opened loose with the collapse of credibility in psychology as a science has been largely determined by the fact that whenever men in power need scientific arguments, there are usually enough psychologists willing to supply them (gould, 1975). “innocent politics”: scientifically enforced policies the relationship between race and politics has been addressed by a growing literature covering various geographical regions: britain (layton-henry and rich, 1986; shamit, 1992), united states (perry, 1996; sears et al., 2000), bahamas (hughes, 1981), south africa (robertson and whitten, 1978) etc. most of these show how the stories told in numbers (cole, 1995) are used to make oppression seem rational and, to a certain extent, unavoidable (tucker, 1994). this type of “innocent” politics relies heavily on bio-psychological research in the sense that: “academic discussions of race have frequently been incorporated into sweeping and draconian social policies which serve white people’s interests” (howitt and owusu-bempah, 1994, p. 3). race psychology 89 as argued in the previous section, “true knowledge” has never been passive and objective but actively involved in social issues. black people from africa or the caribbean, indians, eastern european immigrants and many other categories had to be “dealt with” by the dominating groups. “scientific racism” offered the answers oppressors were looking for: inequalities stem from inherited differences (rose et al., 1984), there is a hierarchy of races (gould, 1996) and social action must be taken to protect genetic “heritage”. the following paragraphs will present supporting examples for this mechanism. the fact that eugenics influenced hitler’s politics was believed by many (see for example weikart, 2004). nazi ideology has found the justifications it needed for acts of euthanasia and genocide in the biological improvement of the human specie. the evolutionary view of survival of the fittest made immoral means (like artificial selection) pale in comparison to the supreme goal. competition and conflict became the natural state, things to be valued by right-wing racists. under these conditions, actions towards a programme of “race hygiene” (howitt and owusubempah, 1994; weingart, 1989) soon followed and hitler’s personal political agenda against certain populations (jews, gypsies etc.) completed the scheme and oriented practical action. in the years preceding world war ii similar “scientific” ideas were helping politicians to deal with “inferior races” on the other side of the atlantic as well. after yerkes persuaded the u.s. army in world war i to test 1.75 million men and discovered an unsatisfactory mental age of 13 (gould, 1996), strict immigration politics became a major concern. psychologists offered their conclusion: there is a decline in intelligence due to the fact that “low-quality” immigrants from each race reach america. everyone’s attention turned towards immigration law and the government took “scientific” evidence seriously reducing yearly quotas for different nations through the 1924 restriction act. nordic blood was supposed to be of the highest quality, followed from a distance by alpine and mediterranean (kamin, 1974). as a consequence, hundreds of thousands were killed by nazi persecution, being denied admission to the unites states. the main problem with the interpretation of i.q. testing was that of assuming that it represented the real level of intelligence and that this level is inherited and basically fixed. even more, i.q. was considered to predict the future of the person (gould, 1996) as well as his/her capacity to learn (eysenck, 1971). for this reason, in the eugenics era, universal education was considered simply a waste of resources (tucker, 1994). racist politics never stopped relying on racist science. in the 1920s for europe’s journal of psychology 90 example, authors like c. cannon found that 89 percent of blacks tested were “morons” and argued that: “a public school system, preparing for life young people of a race, 50 percent of whom never reach a mental age of 10, is a system yet to be perfected” (cited in gould, 1996, p. 261). similar arguments are found also in jensen’s articles, with further indications for blacks to be educated “for the more mechanical tasks to which their genes predisposed them” (in rose et al., 1984, p. 19). unfortunately, in what education is concerned, the ethos of race psychology has not run out to the present day. reforming the psychology of race / racism it is said that those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. it has certainly been the case of psychology where, although the obsession with racial differences contributed nothing to the understanding of cognition (tucker, 1994), it continues to haunt the discipline. as howitt and owusu-bempah (1994) explain, this happens because psychology hardly takes racism seriously. continuing their argument, the two authors show that this problem is so pervasive because “psychology’s racism reflects the complex racist society of which it is part” (idem, p. 1). any serious effort to at least diminish racism must first consider changes in social structure and power relations (lieberman, 1975; spears, 1999). in the past years there has been an increased awareness of this difficulty among psychologists as well as an active search for solutions such as: more rigorous evaluation of counterfactual claims (tetlock, 1994), researchers’ recognition of their preferences (gould, 1996), individual and collective reflexivity and responsibility in the act of teaching and research (ahmed, 2008). the focus on reflexivity is central to a critical (social) psychology of racism / anti-racism (howarth and hook, 2005), an approach interested to reveal exactly how race is socially constructed in scientific research and social practices in ways that perpetuate oppressive power relations (ahmed, 2008). in line with this more recent perspective and the arguments put forward in this article concerning the link between science and politics, i conclude that the history of race psychology has traditionally been presented as disconnected from its institutional, political and ideological functions (see figure 1). race psychology 91 figure 1. a non-critical understanding of race psychology in order to demythologize science as a “truth-making machine” (gould, 1975), we have to recognize the circular relation between science and politics in the history of race / racism / anti-racism psychology and also the specific nature of these connections. more precisely, how scientific knowledge becomes institutionalized and socio-political charged ideologies guide scientific thought (willingham, 1986). as suggested in figure 2, this approach would correspond to a critical outlook on race psychology, past and present. the process of addressing simultaneously race and “racism” as science, politics, institutionalization and ideology is an ongoing one, never fully completed, always in the making (hook and howarth, 2005). the science of race the politics of race the psychology of race institutionalization ideology europe’s journal of psychology 92 figure 2. a critical understanding of race psychology as rose et al. (1984) recommended, scientists should ask themselves two questions: if their theories are true and how are they socially and politically embedded. darwin intuitively perceived this interplay between science and society and, foreseeing the future, said that “if the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin” (cited in gould, 1996, p. 27). from a critical perspective the first question that needs to be asked would be: what if this misery is caused by our science? references ahmed, b. (2008). teaching critical psychology of ‘race’ issues: problems in promoting anti-racist practice. journal of community & applied social psychology, 18, pp. 54–67. cole, k.c. (1995). innumeracy. in r. jacoby and n. glauberman (eds.), the bell curve debate. united states: times books, pp. 73-81. eysenck, h.j. (1971). race, intelligence and education. london: temple smith. garth, t.r. 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(1986). ideology and politics: their status in afro-american social theory. in a. reed (ed.), race, politics and culture: critical essays on the radicalism of the 1960s. new york: greenwood press, pp. 13-27. young, r. (1990). white mythologies: writing history and the west. london: routledge. zack, n. (2002). philosophy of science and race. new york: routledge. about the author: vlad glăveanu has a ba in psychology from the university of bucharest, an msc in social and cultural psychology from the london school of economics and is currently pursuing his doctoral studies at the lse. he is editor of europe’s journal of psychology and had published mainly in the fields of social, organisational and educational psychology. his current research explores creativity from a sociocultural perspective (“paradigms in the study of creativity: introducing the perspective of cultural psychology”, new ideas in psychology, 2009). contact: v.p.glaveanu@lse.ac.uk media representations of youth violence this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 49-73, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.298 www.ejop.org media representations of youth violence in bulgaria stanislava stoyanova south-west university “neofit rilski”, blagoevgrad, bulgaria abstract this paper presents a study of media representations of youth violence. the way by which media presents the young generation is a reflection of and influence on the development of identity by youth and society’s attitude towards youth. no previous studies have been conducted on this topic in bulgaria, but the ones carried out in some other countries (including the usa and australia) revealed an ambiguous image of young people with an important emphasis on violence as a part of youth life. 159 news items concerning young people from september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “telegraph” and “sega” were coded. 21.4% of the news items dedicated to young people dealt with violence. young people as committing an act of violence or as victims of violence were described with some neutral labels indicating their social group membership (gender, ethnic, territorial, etc.) or with some negative labels describing them as criminals. young people violence in these two bulgarian newspapers was associated with sexual issues, medical issues and family issues in more than 30% of the cases, as well as with educational issue in more than 20% of the news items. the image of young people reflected by the bulgarian media was not only a negative one. 4/5 of the news items in the newspapers described young people as successful students, sportsmen, politically engaged, doing cultural activities, prepared for business, etc. adults were advised by the media on how to understand teenagers and how to help young people – having a positive outlook on youth, expressing their love and concern for young people, communicating with them, giving them support (including financial, medical, and educational) by means of the state and different institutions. keywords: youth, violence, victims, media representations, deviant behavior europe’s journal of psychology 50 introduction violence is usually considered a severe form of aggression (moser, 1987). violence means to make a person suffer physically, affectively and morally (defrance, 1992) by means of force or putting to shame (thys, 2003). there are many types of violence domestic violence, criminal violence, interpersonal violence, proactive violence (violence or the threat of violence to affect outcomes and decisions), reactive violence (post-event protesting against unfavourable outcomes) (meadow, 2009), etc. there are also many types of aggression physical aggression, verbal aggression (smorti, menesini, & smith, 2003), direct aggression (action taken against the source of frustration), indirect aggression (action taken against an object or person other than the instigator), suicide (aggression expressed inwardly, not outwardly) (allen, 1972). the main distinction between aggression and violence concerns the use of physical force in violence, while aggression does not include obligatory physical force, and the consequences of violence are more severe than those of aggression. there are different factors influencing aggressive behaviour and violence – individual, social (including situational), and cross-cultural. for example, adolescents with aggressive behaviour are not sincere, are emotional instable, and have a low interest for school (torregrosa, ingles, & garcia-fernandez, 2011). female offenders are more rare than male offenders (olver, stockdale, & wormith, 2009). male violence drops off at the age of 25 (dohrn, 1997). the peer factors for violence are need for acceptance, harassment/lack of respect, gossip, etc. (zimmerman et al., 2004). japanese students (a collectivistic culture) reveal a greater likelihood of bullying, and a lower likelihood of helping a victim, than australians students do an individualistic culture (nesdale & naito, 2005). research findings also reveal some other factors for violence – even the weather. political riots and armed attacks occur more frequently in warm countries (van de vliert, schwartz, huismans, hofstede, & daan, 1999). factors causing aggression and violence are connected and influence together. this research aims to investigate the image of young people in bulgarian newspapers (print and online versions) focusing on violent media representations of youth. social representations are communicated bodies of knowledge that are shared among members of society (mcguire, 1986: 102-103). media create, change and distribute some social representations (moscovici & markova, 2000) that are a powerful influence on the development of youth identity (johnson, 2006). the way by which media presents young generation is a reflection of and influence on the society’s attitude towards this group. no previous studies have been conducted on this topic in bulgaria, but those conducted in some other countries (including the media representations of youth violence 51 usa and australia) revealed an ambiguous image of young people with an important emphasis on violence as a part of youth life (aitken & marchant, 2003; bolzan, 2003). violence in the media and young people through media and video games, violent images are consistently present in children’s lives starting from a very young age. within a typical 1 hour of children’s program, an american child is likely to witness one violent act every 4 min (erwin & morton, 2008). from 1973 to 1993, the level of violence in prime-time programming in usa was about five violent acts per hour. in 1994, there were 15 violent scenes in tv media per hour (“violence and the media”, 1999). by the time the typical american child reaches the age of 18, s/he has seen 200 000 dramatized acts of violence and 40 000 dramatized murders (clinton, 1999b). adolescents and parents agree on the adolescent’s level of media violence exposure (kronenberger et al., 2005), about the amount of violence depicted in media, and the children’s access to it. 73% of american teenagers believed that tv and movies were partly to blame for juvenile crime; 75% believed that internet was partly responsible for crimes; 66% that music was partly responsible for crimes; 56% blamed video game violence for crimes (“violence and the media”, 1999). for youth under-18s, violence is more attractive after watching films with violence (vidal, clemente & espinosa, 2003). greater number of hours spent watching tv contact sports and violent movies is associated with more favourable attitudes towards military service among men and with more favourable attitudes toward interpersonal violence among women (brady, 2007). media violence (violent television and films, video games, and music) increases the immediate and long-term likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviour. longitudinal studies link frequent exposure to violent media in childhood with aggression later in life, including physical assaults and spouse abuse. certain characteristics of viewers (e.g., identification with aggressive characters), social environments (e.g., parental influences), and media content (e.g., attractiveness of the perpetrator) can influence the degree to which media violence affects aggression (anderson et al., 2003). there are also cathartic effects of some violent programs that could assist in the easing of tension (ramirez, 2007). many adolescent boys, especially those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms, use violent video games as a way to release anger. for some teenagers with a learning disability, proficiency at playing violent video games is a source of self-esteem and gives them a more positive standing in their peer groups (erwin & morton, 2008). europe’s journal of psychology 52 viewers of media violence tend to feel less sympathetic toward the victims of violence and enjoy more violence portrayed in the media (fanti, vanman, henrich, & avraamides, 2009). children’s exposure to daily violence by the entertainment industry and media desensitizes children to violence, develops a sense of callousness towards violence (clinton, 1999a; clinton, 1999b), and greater tolerance for aggression (erwin & morton, 2008). the boundary between fantasy and reality violence can become blurred for children (clinton, 1999b). they are likely to imitate what they see on television thus becoming more indifferent and less empathetic about aggression in the real world. media violence demonstrates to young children that aggression is an acceptable option for solving problems (erwin & morton, 2008). media representations of violent youth media provide evidence and interpretative frames for violence (meadow, 2009). through media consumption, males actively construct and maintain impressions of masculinity based on notions of heroism, violence, and “macho” images (kivel & johnson, 2009). media violence is important at the level of constructing identities. concerning representations of young people in newspapers, australian newspapers portray young muslim men as violent and dangerous (mills & keddie, 2010). in october 1993 in the usa, over 500 stories in print media related youth and violence (“children and violence”, 1994). american newspapers highlight teenage violence (aitken & marchant, 2003). the topics of youth violence and its causes have been paid increased attention to in newspapers for a long time period. newspaper reportage about parental use of physical discipline in uk has increased since 1994. discourse about the use of physical discipline by parents has changed over time from a discourse that focuses on its effectiveness to one that emphasizes children’s human rights. the beliefs and attitudes of healthcare professionals and parents about the use of physical discipline may be influenced by media representations (redman & taylor, 2006). the aim of this paper is to study bulgarian media representations of youth violence. there are research findings suggesting that, for the period from 1990 to 1998, bulgarians up to 30 years old were the most aggressive among all age groups (zografova, 2001). 75.5% of young people declared that they have committed violence (kerezova, 2007). these data were collected by means of survey. the hypothesis was that violence among young people would be highlighted in the bulgarian newspapers, as was the case in the usa (aitken & marchant, 2003) and australia (bolzan, 2003), and young people would be presented in media both as media representations of youth violence 53 violent and as victims. this study is focused on a problem that has not been investigated yet. it addresses the role of media in constructing the image of bulgarian youth. method for the purposes of this research, a content analysis of september 2010 issues of two print bulgarian daily newspapers (“sega” and “telegraph”) was carried out. telegraph is among the cheapest and most distributable bulgarian daily newspapers with a wide readership. sega is a daily newspaper focused more on education, politically independent. both have their print and online versions, but only their print articles for the indicated time period were analysed. 159 news items about young people were coded. a content analysis matrix was prepared on the basis of the content analysis matrices and results from several previous studies (anglin, johnson, giesbrecht, & greenfield, 2000; bolzan, 2003; lampman et al., 2002; ward, 2005). this was a matrix made up of several units of analysis from the content matrices in the studies indicated above. our content analysis matrix was created to study media representations of the age group from 13 to 25 years old. several online articles in english about young people were coded by 7 coders from different countries. 81% agreement was found on how the information should be coded whereas 85% agreement was found on which information should be coded (stoyanova et al., 2010). an excerpt of the content matrix used in this study is included in appendix. the topics of law and order, victims, deviant behaviour, alcohol/drug (item 6 in the appendix), and the labels deviants, victims, violent, hooligans, criminals, and youth gangs (item 12 in the appendix) were chosen as indicators of young people’s violence. some units of analyses concerned the salience of the topic of young people violence measured by: number of paragraphs dedicated to this topic, visibility on the pages of the newspapers (which page and number of illustrations), connections with some other topics. finally, other units of analysis dealt with adults’ attitude towards young people. results salience of bulgarian media representations of youth violence the relevance of each topic for the image of young people created and reflected by the media is indicated by its frequency, the length of the articles, their place and format in the newspaper (as means of attracting readers’ attention). europe’s journal of psychology 54 in the total sample of articles, 36 news items were from the september 2010 issues of the newspaper “sega” and123 news items were from the september 2010 issues of the newspaper “telegraph”, the latter reflecting more the problems and image of young people. the readership of “telegraph” is wider than of the one of “sega”. the latter consists mainly of the representatives of some state institutions and cultural elite, while the former consists of various social groups. table 1. percentage of the topics related with young people’s violence in “telegraph” and “sega” topics telegraph” “sega” law and order 26.4% 2.5% deviant behaviour 23.3% 2.5% victims 20.1% 2.5% alcohol/drug use 8.2% 0 youth violence probably has medium frequency of presentation in the newspaper “telegraph” and low frequency in the newspaper “sega” (see table 1). the most frequently presented topic was law and order, then – deviant behaviour, then – victims, and the least frequently presented topic was alcohol/drug use. the topics of law and order, and of victims did not differ significantly in their frequency (mcnemar test=2.382; p=.123), nor did the topics of law and order, and of deviant behaviour (p=.383) or the topics of victims and deviant behaviour (p=.424). the topics of law and order (mcnemar test=27.676; p=.000), deviant behaviour (mcnemar test=19.184; p=.000) and victims (mcnemar test=12.410; p=.000) concerning young people were presented in the selected bulgarian newspapers significantly more than the topic alcohol/drug use. three news items (1.9%) presented the young people’s drug overdose. six news items (3.8%) presented alcohol consumption by young people. in total, 153 paragraphs presented the topic of deviant behaviour; 152 paragraphs presented the topic of law and order; 122 paragraphs presented the topic of victims; 49 paragraphs presented the topic of alcohol/drug use (see table 2). the articles about young people were the longest ones for the topic deviant behaviour, then law and order, –followed by victims, and the shortest topic was alcohol/drug use (2 |30|= .916; p> .05), but the difference in length was not significant. media representations of youth violence 55 table 2. frequency of the different number of paragraphs presenting youth violence in september 2010 issues of both bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” number of paragraphs in one news item deviant behaviour law and order victims alcohol/ drug use 1 paragraph 16 19 12 4 2 paragraphs 6 6 5 0 3 paragraphs 3 5 4 3 4 paragraphs 4 5 7 2 5 paragraphs 3 4 2 1 6 paragraphs 3 3 4 0 7 paragraphs 2 2 1 2 9 paragraphs 1 0 0 1 10 paragraphs 1 0 0 0 15 paragraphs 1 1 0 0 19 paragraphs 1 1 1 0 table 3. frequency of the news items on different pages presenting youth violence in september 2010 issues of both bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” pages law and order deviant behaviour victims alcohol/ drug use first page 1 1 1 1 other pages 25 24 20 6 last page 20 16 15 6 the most visible topic considering its place in the newspapers was law and order, then deviant behaviour, followed by victims, and the least visible topic was alcohol/drug use (2 |6|= .387; p> .05). again this was not a statistically significant trend, similar to the previous findings (see tables 2 and 3). in total, the topic of law and order, and the topic of victims had 22 illustrations each; the topic of deviant behaviour had 21 illustrations; the topic of alcohol/drug use had 6 illustrations (2 |12|= .001; p> .05). the difference in illustrations among the topics was not significant (see table 4). europe’s journal of psychology 56 table 4. frequency of the illustrations presenting youth violence in september 2010 issues of both bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” number of illustrations/photos law and order victims deviant behaviour alcohol/ drug use 0 illustrations 33 25 29 8 1 illustration 8 6 7 4 2 illustrations 2 3 2 1 3 illustrations 2 1 2 0 4 illustrations 1 1 1 0 law and order was among the prevalent topics regarding the image of young people since because it was presented in 28.9% of all news items regarding young people, 58.7% of the articles regarding this theme were long (more than 1 paragraph), 45.7% of the articles were on the most visible pages of the newspapers (front and last pages), and 28.3% of the articles were illustrated. victims was also among the prevalent topics regarding the image of young people, because it was presented in 22.6% of all news items regarding young people, 66.7% of the articles dealing with this theme were long, 44.4% of the articles were on the most visible pages of the newspapers, and 30.6% of the articles were illustrated. deviant behaviour was among the prevalent topics regarding the image of young people as well because it was presented in 25.8% of all news items concerning young people, 61% of the articles regarding this theme were long, 41.5% of the articles were on the most visible pages of the newspapers, and 29.3% of the articles were illustrated. alcohol/drug use on the other hand was not among the most prevalent topics regarding the image of young people, because it was presented in 8.2% of all news items concerning young people,; it is to be noted however69.2% of the articles regarding this theme were long and 53.9% of the articles were on the most visible pages of the newspapers, and 38.5% of the articles were illustrated. bulgarian media representations of youth violence related it mainly to law and order, then relatively equally to victims, and to deviant behaviour, and rarely to alcohol/drug use. media representations of youth violence 57 content of bulgarian media representations of youth violence media representations of youth violence include the most frequent labels associated with young people describing their social roles and personal qualities. young people were described in the newspapers within the above-mentioned topics (see table 5) using mainly neutral labels (86.4% within both law and order, and victims; 84.7% within deviant behaviour; 85.7% within alcohol/drug use) and rarely negative labels (13.6% within both law and order, and victims; 15.3% within deviant behaviour; 14.3% within alcohol/drug use). these newspapers strived for objectivity when representing the youth image that is why they gave a lot of details about the social group of membership of a young criminal or a young victim. the newspapers identified young people mainly by means of their social group membership. table 5 frequency of the labels related to youth violence in september 2010 issues of both bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” labels about young people law and order victims deviant behaviour alcohol/ drug use gender belonging 35 27 29 9 residents 24 17 19 7 ethnic belonging 7 5 8 0 victims 4 4 4 0 criminals 4 1 3 1 hooligans 3 3 3 1 foreigners 2 1 2 0 unemployed 1 0 0 1 citizens 1 0 1 0 poor persons from poor families 0 1 1 1 deviants 0 0 1 1 minorities 0 0 1 0 youth were described as victims of physical assault (12 news items); of incidents like the leaking of gas, electric shock, road accident, falling wall, etc. (8 news items); of rape (7 news items); young victims of murder (4 news items); of cyber harassment (2 europe’s journal of psychology 58 news items); poverty making young people to become a prostitute or a beggar (2 news items). two news items dealt with suicide. 32 news items (20.1%) presented a young people’s crimes. the types of crimes committed by youths were physical assault (9 news items), theft (6 news items), drug use and sale (4 news items), murder (3 news items), rape (3 news items), making illegal sexual movies (2 news items), causing damages to property (2 news items), abduction (1 news item), telephone terrorism (1 news item), and arson (1 news item). media describing society’s attitude toward youth different kinds of attitudes toward youth were expressed by the media. the selected bulgarian newspapers expressed more negative than neutral and positive adults’ attitudes towards young people (see item 9 in appendix) within the topics of alcohol/drug use (2 |4|=12.238; p=.016; 61.6% negative; 23.1% positive; 15.3% neutral), deviant behaviour (2 |4|=56.098; p=.000; 58.6% negative; 29.3% positive; 12.1% neutral), law and order (2 |4|=33.752; p=.000; 50% negative; 34.8% positive; 15.2% neutral), and victims (2 |4|=19.909; p=.001; 44.5% negative; 41.6% positive; 13.9% neutral). the neutral labels used by media described young people’s social membership. the negative attitudes toward youth are expressed in the negative personal qualities attributed by media to young people, and the explicit opinion that young people should be punished for their acts (see table 6). table 6 number of news items expressing different adults’ positions towards young people within the topics of law and order, deviant behaviour, victims and alcohol/drug use adults’ position towards young people law and order victims deviant behaviour alcohol/ drug use adults should punish young people 22 13 22 7 adults’ concern for young people 17 20 15 2 young people need prevention 14 13 16 3 adults contribute to the problems of young people* 8 7 7 2 * dysfunctional homes causing young people to have problems, bad parental behaviour media representations of youth violence 59 some topics connected to media representations of youth violence media described a number of aspects of youth life and related them to violence. the topic of law and order concerning young people was related most frequently to the other topics presenting youth violence as deviant behaviour (for example, young people’s crime 27 news items, or suicide 2 news items), and victims (young people as victims in 22 news items and other victims in 2 news items). some other frequent topics related to law and order were sexual issues, family issues, educational issues, and medical issues (see figure 1). fig. 1. frequency of the topics related to law and order concerning young people in september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” the topic of victims concerning young people was related most frequently to the other topics presenting youth violence (deviant behaviour, for example, young people’s crime 17 news items, or suicide 5 news items; law and order). medical, family, sexual, and educational issues were the other frequent topics related to victims (see figure 2). europe’s journal of psychology 60 fig. 2. frequency of the topics related to victims concerning young people in september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” fig. 3. frequency of the topics related to deviant behaviour concerning young people in september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” media representations of youth violence 61 the topic of deviant behaviour concerning young people was related most frequently to the other topics presenting youth violence as law and order, and victims. some other frequent topics related to deviant behaviour were sexual, family and medical issues (see figure 3). the topic of alcohol/drug use concerning young people was related most frequently to the topics of law and order, deviant behaviour (young people’s crime 9 news items), and victims. some other frequent topics related to alcohol/drug use were business issues (for example, young people looking for work 1 news item, society doesn’t offer many job opportunities for young people 1 news item), sexual, family and medical issues (see figure 4). fig. 4. frequency of the topics related to alcohol/drug use concerning young people in september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “sega” and “telegraph” recommendations by bulgarian newspapers on how to diminish youth violence the bulgarian media gave the following advices to their readers: not to look at young people as criminals (telegraph, 15.09.2010); conceive a strategy for prevention (telegraph, 30.09.2010); constantly show that we are interested in and care for those we love (telegraph, 30.09.2010); justice not to be achieved under europe’s journal of psychology 62 pressure (sega, 01.09.2010); schools obtaining poor educational results should be assisted financially in order to be improved the quality of education (sega, 14.09.2010); people suffering from depression and at risk of suicide should receive some psychological support and medical aid from the doctors and gps (telegraph, 10.09.2010); there is a need for a co-ordinating centre that should co-operate with all institutions, the civil sector, teachers, parents, and pupils (telegraph, 20.09.2010); state exams to exist only at the end of each educational stage, and schools to do the final assessment for the year at the school level (not state level), because the children should not to be burdened unduly (telegraph, 11.09.2010); the government should work out a policy that would create better conditions for bulgarian students' professional achievement (sega, 17.09.2010). the bulgarian media and the sources they quoted gave the following advices to parents: parents should communicate much more with their child, every day they should ask their child how s/he is, if s/he has any problems or troubles (sega, 21.09.2010); personal example is key for any child’s development because children will easily break a rule if this rule is not observed by their parents (sega, 21.09.2010); mothers and fathers should behave as friends in relation to their children (sega, 01.09.2010). the bulgarian media and the sources they quoted gave the following advices to young people: to ask a relative for help or to call a “hot” telephone line (telegraph, 23.09.2010); to be strong, to work energetically, not to be involved in crimes (telegraph, 15.09.2010); to use the financial and organizational benefits given to them by the schools and the state (telegraph, 01.09.2010; telegraph, 04.09.2010). these media advices indicate the need for complex educational, economic, political, and cultural interventions in order to prevent and reduce youth violence. such combined efforts are suggested also by the interconnection between different topics within media news items. discussion summarizing the topics law and order, deviant behaviour, victims, and alcohol/drug use in the total number of 159 news items dedicated to young people that were coded and analysed from the september 2010 issues of the bulgarian newspapers “telegraph” and “sega”, young people violence in media was most frequently associated with sexual issues (32.1%), medical issues (30.8%), family issues (30.2%), and educational issues (24.5%). media representations of youth violence 63 young people violence in media was occasionally associated with business (15.7%), culture (10.1%), driving (7.6%), politics (5.7%), and sport (3.2%). the image of young people reflected by the bulgarian media was not only a negative one. 4/5 of the publications in the newspapers described young people as successful students (6%), sportsmen (25.2%), politically engaged (8.8%), doing cultural activities (12%), prepared for business (18%), etc. youth violence was presented moderately in the two bulgarian newspapers (1/5th of all publications for young people related them to violence). 21.4% of the news items dedicated to young people in the bulgarian newspapers dealt with violence. violence was associated with law and order, deviant behaviour, victims, and alcohol/drug use. alcohol and drug increase the probability of violence (blumstein, 1995; zlatanova, 2005, p. 351). young people as committing an act of violence or as victims of violence were described with some neutral labels indicating their social group membership (gender, ethnic, territorial, etc.) or with some negative labels identifying them as criminals. reported violence concerning young people in these bulgarian media was associated with sexual issues, medical issues and family issues in more than 30% of the cases. young people violence in media was related to educational issue in more than 19% of the news items. children and youth are harmed by exposure to sexually explicit material (kimgodwin, clements, mccuiston, & fox, 2009; kotria, 2007; olver, stockdale, & wormith, 2009), so connection between violence and sexual issues makes more explicit the negative image of youth in media. there are a lot of findings supporting the interconnection between family / educational issues and youth violence. adolescents with aggressive behaviour are more likely to perceive their relationship with their parents as negative (torregrosa, ingles, & garcia-fernandez, 2011). familial context is directly related to school violence (villarreal-gonzález, sánchez-sosa, veiga, & arroyo, 2011). victims have a negative perception of the school and classroom environment (martínez ferrer et al., 2011). this study pointed to a continuing bulgarian trend which is characterized by presenting people up to 30 years old as aggressive (zografova, 2001), as it was the case in the usa (aitken & marchant, 2003) and australia (bolzan, 2003), confirming thus the world trends in which young people are either mentioned as arrested for europe’s journal of psychology 64 crimes (dohrn, 1997; “violence and the media”, 1999), or as victims of a crime (sadowski, 1993). young people are presented quite equally as both victims and criminals. in 1992 in usa, 5% of youth ages 10-17 were arrested for a crime (dohrn, 1997). juveniles accounted for 1/5 of all violent crime arrests in 1997 in usa (“violence and the media”, 1999). about 10% of the children ages 10 to 19 in usa were victims of a violent crime (sadowski, 1993). the crime level in young people however is not higher than the one for adults so the newspaper reporting is skewed. it is obvious that not only young people commit crimes in bulgaria, but they are the focus of an important part of the newspaper reporting. the two selected bulgarian newspapers expressed more negative than neutral and positive adults’ attitudes towards young people within the topic of youth violence, in line with the trend in some other countries as well. young people in australia were also associated with criminal activity, drug and alcohol use. media images presented them as not given a lot of opportunities within society (bolzan, 2003). there are also some limitations of the study. a more detailed and representative image of bulgarian youth could have been revealed if a longer time period of media publications concerning young people was studied, or if other newspapers or indeed other varieties of media such as electronic media were considered. electronic media also influences public opinion about youth nature. in fact, both “sega” and “telegraph” have had their online versions including only part of their printed publications, but more readers’ comments. the selected media expressed the points of view of their contributing authors. there is a research finding suggesting that more aggressive people attribute more aggressiveness to others (zografova, 2001), so there could be a bias in the image of violent youth presented by the media sources. the numerous sources of information used in the news items (in total 36 sources for all new items reflecting the topic of law and order; 33 sources for victims; 30 for deviant behaviour; and 11 sources for alcohol/drug use) mean striving for objectivity on the part of the media and a more authentic image of young people. the impact of the news items dealing with young people’s violence could be significant on the readers, because they confirm an existing stereotype in society and violence is related to multiple aspects of youth life, especially to family life. the stereotype of young people as committing violence is supported by youth since 75.5% of them declared that they had committed violence in bulgaria (kerezova, 2007). media representations of youth violence 65 the selected bulgarian media presented bulgarian adults as concerned with youth crimes and this is also the tendency among citizens in eastern european countries (van de vijver & leung, 2000). adults were portrayed as contributing to the problems of young people in 15% of the news items. adults were advised by the media how to understand teenage children and how to help young people – looking positively to the youth, expressing their love and concern for young people, communicating with them, giving them support (including financial, medical, educational, and institutional one). media tried to help young people and to improve their relationships with parents and institutions. we don’t know from this study if giving advice in the media indeed works and to what extent it prevented violence, so this could be the object of further research. this study reveals that violence is an important part of youth life being represented in bulgarian media with a focus not only on reflecting cases of violence, but also emphasising how to prevent it, and not enough 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[bulgarian aggressiveness in the transitional period]. sofia: professor marin drinov academic publishing house, in bulgarian. about the author assoc. prof. stanislava stoyanova, phd, is a lecturer in psychological measurements and experimental psychology at south-west university "neofit rilski". her scientific interests are in the area of test development and test adaptation, and the study of social-psychological problems. stanislava stoyanova, south-west university “neofit rilski”, bulgaria, 66, ivan mihailov street, 2700 blagoevgrad, bulgaria, avka@swu.bg http://dx.doi.org/10.5093/in2011v20n2a5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272431604268551 europe’s journal of psychology 70 appendix 2.1. newspaper: ________ 2.2. date: ________ 2.3. vol. /issue ………………………….. 3. 1. number of paragraphs …………… 3.2.page/s ………………………………  first page  last page  all other pages 3.3. number of photos/illustrations …………… 6. focus of article (tick as many as appropriate) family issues medical advertising health/diets driving politics culture music, art, etc.) showbiz/ entertainment law and order academy/ education religion business welfare sexual victims deviant behaviour alcohol/drug use employment prevention/ giving advice scientific/ technological sport other not applicable 9. sources’ and this media’s attitude towards young people. code for the whole news item. none/neutral more positive than negative only negative only positive more negative than positive media representations of youth violence 71 12. labels that sources and this media use when referring to young people ethnic belonging .................................. no labels religious belonging .................... citizens gender belonging ............................. deviants victims violent residents unemployed hooligans customers minorities out of control foreigners criminals rebels poor persons/families neighbours youth gangs protesters immigrants insert labels 13. adults’ positions towards young people reflected by the chosen media dysfunctional homes causing young people to have problems schools not preparing students adults were advised how to understand teenage children adults should punish young people society doesn’t offer many job opportunities for young people young people need prevention .................... europe’s journal of psychology 72 14. important themes: indicate the presented themes by x. selected quotations illustrating type of material coded. presence of the theme quotations civic position activities in the society educational difficulties professional realisation young people with disabilities suicide dieting young people as a new political force young people’s crime young people at home young people at school young people looking for work young people in public commercial spaces drug overdose young people as victims alcohol consumption young people having fun young drivers young people facing a harder time than their parents bad parental behaviour adults as contributing to the problems of young people “problem identification” and “how to help” how to help young people other ...................................................................................... 15. media giving advice to: indicate the presented themes by x. selected quotations illustrating type of material coded.  none/not applicable media representations of youth violence 73  parents  young people  the whole society  other ........................................................... quotation: “..............................................” emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 187-197 www.ejop.org spirituality, religion, and health: reflections and issues dilwar hussain thapar university, patiala, punjab abstract the past decade has witnessed substantial growth in the study of religiosity/spirituality and its relationship with various indicators of health. most of these studies found positive relationships between religion, spirituality and health (both mental and physical health). however, various studies in this field are criticized specially for not clearly and operationally defining the constructs religion and spirituality and for their poor design. this paper discuses major issue associated with concepts, norms, and assessments of religiosity and spirituality. finally, various suggestions to surpass these limitations are also addressed. keywords: religion, spirituality, health, assessment, issues. introduction recently there has been a revival of interest in the psychology of religion and spirituality. several empirical studies have explored religious and spiritual variables in relation to mental as well as physical health. this resurgence of interest is illustrated also by birth of various journals dedicated to the religion and spirituality, such as the international journal for the psychology of religion, journal for the scientific study of religion, the journal of psychology and theology, and many others. recently, the american psychological association has established division 36 which is dedicated to the psychology of religion, aiming to promote the scientific study of religion and encourage its incorporation in applied settings. psychology does not attempt to validate the truths of religion or spirituality. it merely attempts to understand and explain how spirituality is manifested in cognitive, affective, behavioral, and interpersonal aspects of individuals, thereby affecting mental and physical health. in his remarkable work on the varieties of religious experiences, james (1902, 1961) has explored mysticism and psychological effects of religious experiences. other http://www.ejop.org/ spirituality, religion, and health 188 prominent psychologists like jung, fromm, allport, maslow, frankl have posited that religion or spirituality must be considered for a holistic understanding of the person (hill et al., 2000). frankl (1964) believed that an innate need of human beings is to find meaning in life and suggested that meaninglessness is a major existential issue that may result into various pathologies. he associated spirituality with finding meaning in life. classifying human needs into basic and higher categories, even maslow (1970) attests that transcendent self-actualization – including appreciation of beauty, truth, and recognition of sacred in life – carries spiritual significance. allport and ross (1967) proposed two factor model of religiosity: intrinsic and extrinsic. the intrinsic aspect of religiosity consists of faiths and values, whereas the extrinsic aspect consists of fulfillment of social needs. carl jung was deeply interested in the spiritual aspects of human beings. in fact he believed that an important task for psychology is the perception and observation of religious and spiritual phenomena (jung, 1968). he further believed that all persons who are concerned with self awareness and personal growth show interest in spirituality (jung, 1969). he suggested that human collective unconscious contains universal religious archetypes. understanding constructs: religion and spirituality the word religion has its root in the latin word “religio” that signifies “a bond between humanity and great-than-human power” (hill et al., 2000, p. 56). historically, the term religion has been portrayed as: (a) a commitment of individuals to a supernatural power, (b) feeling of presence of such power who conceives them, and (c) carrying out ritualistic acts in respect of that power (hill et al., 2000). there is no universally accepted definition of religion, but two important aspects are commonly identified. first, as an institution, religion comprises of particular beliefs about the nature of reality (gorsuch, 1988). secondly, it is concerned with the connectedness of humanity with greater or dynamic powers such as god, spirit, and the like, that inspire reverence and devotion (jung, 1969). the word spirituality on the other hand is derived from the latin root “spiritus” which means „breadth of life‟ (elkins, 1999). the construct spirituality is considered a kind of subjective experience which is complex, multifaceted, and difficult to define precisely (benner, 1991). elkins et al. (1988) formulated a broad and inclusive phenomenologically oriented and humanistically based definition of spirituality and defined it as, “a way of being and experiencing that comes about through awareness of a transcendent dimension and that is characterized by certain identifiable values in regard to self, others, nature, life, and whatever one considers to be the ultimate.” (p. 10). similarly, bensley (1991) has described spirituality as a europe’s journal of psychology 189 subjective belief system that incorporates self awareness and reference to a transcendence dimension, provides meaning and purpose in life, and feelings of connectedness with god or the larger reality. spirituality and religion are considered separate but overlapping constructs. spirituality is generally conceptualized as a broader concept and represents transcendental beliefs and values that may or may not have any relation to religious organization. religiosity, on the other hand, refers to a set of rituals and creeds which are manifested in the context of a religious institution. a person may express spirituality in the religious context but a person‟s religiosity is not always a result of spirituality (genia & shaw, 1991). religious beliefs mainly involve personal commitment to a chosen religious belief system, like the christian, hindu, or islam belief systems. spirituality involves a personal, subjective, and experiential orientation consisting of a transcendent dimension of self and life which may be experienced without the commitment to religious belief systems. trends in the scientific study of religiosity/spirituality and health interest in the psychology of religion experienced sharp rise and fall from the late 19th century to mid 20th century (beit-hallahmi, 1974). many stalwarts and founding fathers of psychology such as william james and stanley hall had shown enormous interest in the psychology of religion and its implications to health and well-being. however, with the rise of psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and pastoral psychology in the 1920s and 1930s, interest in the scientific study of religion declined. the later part of 20th century witnessed a rise in the scientific study of religion and its implications to health and well-being. in a review of 1200 studies from europe, north america, and israel, koenig et al. (2001) found that more than two-third of these studies revealed significant associations between religious activities and improved mental and physical health. weaver, pargament, flannelly & oppenheimer (2006) made a systematic review of 1,100,300 articles published between 1965 and 2000 containing either only religion or spirituality and both religion and spirituality together as key words. they found a statistically significant upward trend across years for the rate of articles dealing with religion and spirituality. they also found a significant downward trend for articles that addressed only religion. they argued that this result could be simply a reflection of change in language and more attention devoted to the construct of spirituality which has become more popular than religion although many still use them interchangeably. they also suggested that this renewed interest in religion and health in the last few decades is due to increased differentiation of the construct spirituality, religion, and health 190 religion from spirituality. spirituality has been used for the subjective and individualized experience of transcendence. on the other hand, religion has become synonymous with the institutionalized expression of belief and practice. positive effects of religiosity/spirituality on health various systematic reviews and meta-analyses demonstrate that religiosity or spirituality are positively associated with various indicators of health. religious involvement correlates with decreased morbidity and mortality (ball, armistead, & austin 2003). studies also suggest that religiousness may correlate with better outcomes after major illnesses and medical procedures (oxman, freeman, & manheimer 1995). the effects of religion on mental health have been more profoundly studied than effects on physical health. studies have demonstrated religiosity to be positively associated with feelings of wellbeing in white american, mexican american (markides, levin, & ray 1987), and african american populations (coke 1992). however, there is also substantial literature that explores the positive impacts of religion or spirituality on physical health. a number of investigators have looked at the effects of religion on depression. prospective studies have also found religious activity to be strongly protective against depression in protestant and catholic offspring who share the same religion as their mother (miller et al. 1997) and weakly protective in female twins (kennedy et al. 1996). cross-sectional studies have yielded significant (koenig et al. 1997) and non-significant (bienenfeld et al. 1997; koenig 1998; musick et al. 1998) associations between different indicators of religiosity and a lower prevalence of depression in various populations. researchers have also reported an inverse correlation between religiosity and suicide (nisbet et al. 2000). a substantial body of literature demonstrates the positive impact of religion/spirituality on perceived quality of life (life satisfaction) (levin et al., 1995, 1996; sawatzky et al., 2005). the links between religion and mental health have been characterized as impressive and religious people report being happier and more satisfied with life than nonreligious people (myers & diener, 1995). koenig et al. (2001) reviewed approximately 100 studies that have been done (published as well as unpublished) and reported that most studies report a positive association between some measure of religiosity and some measure of well-being, happiness, joy, fulfillment, pleasure, contentment, or other related types of experiences. levin and chatters (1998) also concluded that religion appears to constitute a preventative or therapeutic effect on mental health outcomes. europe’s journal of psychology 191 how religiosity/spirituality affects health it is very clear that there is an increasing numbers of studies showing positive correlations between religiosity/spirituality and mental as well as physical health. some mechanisms through which religiosity/spirituality influence health have been identified. some of these mechanisms include: (1) many religious practices (such as meditation and prayer) may elicit a relaxation response and contribute to the reduction in the sympathetic nervous system activities, lowers blood pressure, reduced muscle tension and so on. all these factors contribute to better health (benson, 1996). (2) religion contributes in the reduction of unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol, smoking, drug abuse (strawbridge et al., 2001). (3) frequent religious involvement is also associated with more extensive social support networks and more extensive social support is consistently found to be connected with a variety of positive physical and psychological health outcomes (strawbridge et al., 2001). (4) religion also contributes to a sense of coherence and an experience of life as meaningful as well as to a hopeful outlook on life, all of which are associated with better physical and mental health (antonovsky, 1987). (5) intrinsic religiosity has been associated with higher self-esteem, less anxiety and depression. religiosity has also been found to be a powerful coping mechanism which may well serve as a buffer against the deleterious effects of stress on the body (pargament, 1997). (6) religiosity/spirituality may operate as a coping mechanism. the term religious coping is used to indicate the religious/spiritual beliefs and behaviors that help in the adjustment to the stressful life experiences. people generally take refuge in various positive religious coping strategies such as such as seeking god‟s will through prayer and expressing positive prayer expectancies as a strategy to overcome life‟s strains (ellison, boardman, williams, & jackson, 2001; fry, 2000). major issues in the study of religion/spirituality and health despite growing popularity, the field of religion/spirituality carries many important issues and limitations that need to be resolved. although most studies have shown positive effects, religion and spirituality may adversely affect health. religious groups may directly oppose certain health-care interventions, such as transfusions or contraception, and convince patients that their ailments are due to noncompliance with religious doctrines rather than organic disease (donahue, 1985). religions can spirituality, religion, and health 192 also stigmatize those with certain diseases to the point that they do not seek proper medical care (lichtenstein, 2003; madru, 2003). moreover, as history has shown, religion can be the source of military conflicts, prejudice, violent behaviors, and other social problems. the religious-minded person may ignore or ostracize those who do not belong to their faith/practice. those not belonging to a dominant religion may face obstacles in obtaining resources, experience hardships and stress that may deleteriously affect their health (bywaters et al., 2003; walls & williams, 2004). additionally, perceived religious transgressions can cause emotional and psychological anguish, manifesting as physical discomfort. this “religious” and “spiritual” pain can be difficult to distinguish from purely physical pain (satterly, 2001). the field of study pertaining to religiosity/spirituality carries many issues at conceptual, normative, and measurement levels (moberg, 2002). at the conceptual level, the definition of religion/spirituality is still very fuzzy and implies different things to different people, both in popular parlance as well as in academic world. consequently, the lack of operational definition is limiting the generalization as well as inter-study comparison of research findings. in this regard, mcginn (1993) rightly said that “spirituality is like obscenity; we may not know how to define it, yet we know it when we see it, and the „fickleness‟ of academics‟ inability to provide precise definitions has never prevented people from practicing it” (p. 1). at the normative level, this field lacks the proper norm distinguishing positive from negative spiritual well-being. the norms of spirituality/religion are so diverse across traditions that indicators of spiritual health in one tradition sometimes are negative symptoms in another (moberg, 2002). this diverse norm makes it difficult to form objective criteria of what constitutes religious/spiritual well-being. for example, people from a buddhist culture may think of spiritual well-being in terms of an individualistic focus with meditative aloofness from the society, whereas christian cultures are more oriented towards social service and altruism. at the measurement level, there are many issues that need careful attention from researchers. because of the multidimensional nature of religiosity/spirituality, validity of the measurement remains a major issue to ponder upon. do indicators included in various scales genuinely measures religiosity/spirituality? existing measurement tools have many inherent problems such as including few out of many potential indicators. further, language and indicators used in many measurement tools may alienate various sects. for example, the spiritual well-being scale (ellison, 1983) is one of the most widely used and psychometrically sound tools. yet, it refers to words such as „god‟ which may people identifying as hindus, buddhists, and muslims (or as atheists). but, using universal indicators (or secular measures) has its own limitations, as it may not be able to capture the distinctive features of various sects. some europe’s journal of psychology 193 researchers raised the concern of self-presentation bias in the study of religiosity/spirituality. for example, presser & stinson (1998) demonstrated a significant self-presentation bias in studies of religious attendance and mortality that employ interview methods. in these studies, participants understood church attendance as an indicator of being a good christian and consequently inflated their reports of church attendance. conclusion it is very clear that research in religion/spirituality is at a more exciting phase than ever, as it is increasingly receiving attention from the scientific community. however, the present state of research in this arena is still confronted with many limitations which need careful attention. improvement in the assessment of constructs such as religiosity and spirituality is the need of the hour. one way of doing this is by resorting to emic approach that applies group‟s own criteria should be emphasized rather than only etic approach where researchers impose their own definition to the participants (moberg, 2000). this can be done by developing separate measures for various religious and ideological groups to get meaningful data and also by stating exactly what measures have been used without making claims about measures or dimensions that were not used. it is apparent that using varieties of research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, can provide better insights into constructs such as religiosity and spirituality. further, future studies need to look at the multidimensional aspects of religiosity/spirituality and the interconnected manners by which religiousness and spirituality influence health and well-being (koenig, mccullough & lason, 2001). the role of diverse religious and spiritual types and practices on various aspects of health and well-being should also be looked into. references allport, g., & ross, m. j. 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(1987). religion, aging, and life satisfaction: an eight-year, three-wave longitudinal study. gerontologist, 27, 660-65. maslow, a. h. (1970). religions, values and peak experiences. new york: penguin books. mcginn, b. (1993). the letter and the spirit: spirituality as an academic discipline. christian spirituality bulletin, 1, 1-10. miller, l., warner, v., wickramaratne, p., & weissman, m. (1997). religiosity and depression: ten-year follow-up of depressed mothers and offspring. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 36, 1416-25. moberg, d. o. (2002). assessing and measuring spirituality: confronting dilemmas of universal and particular evaluative criteria. journal of adult development, 9, 47-60. musick, m. a., koenig, ., h. g., hays, j. c., & cohen, h. j. (1998). “religious activity and depression among community-dwelling elderly persons with cancer: the moderating effect of race.” the journals of gerontology: series b, psychological sciences and social sciences, 53, 218-27. myers, d.g., & diener, e., (1995). who is happy? psychological science, 6, 10-19. nisbet, p. a., duberstein, p. r., conwell, y., & seidlitz, l. (2000). the effect of participation in religious activities on suicide versus natural death in adults 50 and older. journal of nervous and mental disease, 188, 543-46. europe’s journal of psychology 197 oxman, t. e., freeman jr. d. h., & manheimer, e. d. (1995). lack of social participation or religious strength and comfort as risk factors for death after cardiac surgery in the elderly. psychosomatic medicine, 57, 5-15. pargament, k. i. (1997). the psychology of religion and coping: theory, research and practice. new york: guilford. presser, s., stinson, l. (1998). data collection mode and social desirability bias in self reported religious attendance. american sociological review, 63, 137-145. satterly, l. (2001). guilt, shame, and religious and spiritual pain. holistic nursing practice, 15, 30–39. sawatzky, r., ratner, p. a., & chiu, l. (2005). a meta-analysis of the relationship between spirituality and quality of life. social indicators research, 72, 153–188. strawbridge, w. j., shema, s., cohen, r., & kaplan, g. (2001). religious attendance increases survival by improving and maintaining good health behaviors, mental health, and social relationships. annals of behavioral medicine, 23, 68-74. walls, p., & williams, r. (2004). accounting for irish catholic ill health in scotland: a qualitative exploration of some links between religion class and health. sociology of health and illness, 26, 527–556. weaver, a. j., pargament, k. i., flannelly, k. j., & oppenheimer, j. e. (2006). trends in the scientific study of religion, spirituality, and health: 1965–2000. journal of religion and health, 45, 208-214. about the author: dr. dilwar hussain specializes in the area of health and clinical psychology. he has published research papers related to refugee trauma, posttraumatic growth, culture and trauma, therapeutic effects of expressive writing in various reputed international journals. he is affiliated assistant professor at the school of management & social sciences, thapar university, patiala, punjab-147004, india. address for correspondence: dilwar hussain, school of management & social sciences, thapar university, patiala, punjab-147004, india. e-mail: dhussain81@gmail.com mailto:dhussain81@gmail.com microsoft word 11. book review.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp.135-138 www.ejop.org being human: relationships and you a social psychological analysis knud s. larsen reidar ommundsen kees van der veer review by vlad glăveanu ejop editor it would be redundant to say that the world we live in is not perfect. our social life is often plagued by prejudice and discrimination, our social contacts frequently end up in some form of aggression, different persons or groups constantly try to persuade us to do things that serve them and may end up being harmful for us. at a larger scale history tends to repeat itself and the atrocities of the past wars, torture, terrorism and genocide, to name just a few of the most damaging describe the society of today as they did in the last centuries. on the other hand we encounter in our daily lives instances of cooperation and altruism, we see some people sacrificing themselves for the good of others and, at a macro level, see how nations try to work together in order to fight worldwide threats like global warming. the social world we live in is definitively a world of contrasts. how can we explain this “diversity”? how to make sense of crime and also of heroism? how do we make sense of ourselves? these are all central questions for the discipline of social psychology. answers for questions like the above and for many other similar interrogations are put forward in the book “being human: relationships and you. a social psychological analysis”. aimed to be a useful resource for students and scholars in social psychology, and more broadly in psychology, this text will certainly be of interest for social scientists in general and for all readers concerned with the intricacies of our social and psychological life. the book emerged from a collaborative effort between a us author, knud larsen (oregon state university), and two european authors, reidar ommundsen (university of oslo) and kess van der veer (vu university europe’s journal of psychology 136 amsterdam). therefore this reading has a rare and valuable feature, that of making links between american and european social psychology, usually acknowledged as two relatively dissimilar directions of theory and practice. without ignoring the specificities, “being human: relationships and you” is an excellent example of how the two lines of thought are actually articulated, of how common issues have preoccupied scientists from both the usa and europe and, most importantly, how sustained dialogue can only enrich our understanding of socio-psychological phenomena. the book has other important advantages as well. it is clearly written, using a professional yet accessible language and therefore easy to read even by a nonspecialist public. it contains a wealth of information in terms of social psychological concepts and theories, studies and practical examples and it excels in reviewing the most recent literature without losing sight of historical landmarks. organised in twelve chapters, the book offers a comprehensive review of major theories and topics of interest within social psychology from its birth at the beginning of the twentieth century and up to the present moment. following a short introduction, the first chapter “the theoretical domain and methods of social psychology” is an essential reading for all those interested to explore the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of social psychology. the second chapter is concerned with the “cultural and social dimensions of the self”, from the emergence of the self and its development to components of self and how each of them is constituted by our social experiences. “attraction and relationships” is the third chapter of the book, covering key issues in attachment theory, interpersonal attraction and romantic love. looking closely at how we think about the social world, the fourth chapter, “social cognition”, reviews an important body of evidence accumulated over decades of research about how we process information and the biases we come to manifest in this process. the next part on “attitude formation and behaviour” explores the convoluted relationship between the attitudes we hold and the way we act or not in agreement with them, one of the oldest interrogations within the field of social psychology. chapter six discusses “the influences of group membership”, from social influences and groupthink to leadership, conflict and cooperation in groups. taking a closer look at processes of social influence, chapter seven pays attention to three key phenomena studied by the discipline: “conformity, compliance and obedience”. as a logical continuation, “persuasion” is examined in chapter eight, starting with the traditional yale model and continuing with more recent evidence on how persuasion is employed in everyday life, in advertising and in the activity of cults. chapter nine, entitled “hostile inter-group behaviour: prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination”, consists of a comprehensive discussion about how the three operate in society, past and present, and how we can fight against prejudice being human: relationships and you 137 through increased cooperation. in chapters ten and eleven two different images are contrasted “aggression” and “altruism and prosocial behaviour” in terms of their mechanisms and consequences for our lives. finally, chapter twelve ends the book with a discussion of “morality” and its three interrelated facets: competition, justice and cooperation. in all chapters, the authors discuss key theoretical perspectives (like learning theory, cultural variations, evolutionary accounts, equity and exchange theories, etc.) and use them to explain a variety of empirical data. almost everything social psychology textbooks traditionally cover and more can be found in “being human: relationships and you”. from the social self to the bystander effect, from obedience experiments to health and stress, the authors found ingenious ways of organising and accommodating such diverse topics and sometimes the contradictory evidence resulting from empirical studies. using concise presentations of studies, without more technical details than necessary, and spicing up the presentation with humour or personal experiences, they manage to convey the message that social psychology is a practical and applied discipline. in order to show how theories or pieces of evidence are useful in the discussion of more than one topic, connections are often made between chapters. furthermore, all chapters end with summaries of two-four pages, an excellent synthesis of all major ideas presented and a precious help for those readers who need to remember what has been already covered. on several occasions what is presented by the end of the discussion are ideas about how we can encourage prosocial behaviours and cooperation, how to reduce prejudice and discourage violence and discrimination. also a constant of the book is the concern with the cultural context of theories and findings. more or less explicitly all chapters include comments about the cultural variability of socio-psychological phenomena without disregarding the commonalities that bring together all members of the human race. as the authors conclude on this issue, “our cultures define the content of our psychology, but our common human condition produces a similar process of acquiring this psychological knowledge or content” (p.35). what is specific about the book “being human: relationships and you”, one of its greatest advantages and the reason why it makes for such a pleasant and captivating reading, is the fact that, at every step, we are reminded of how relevant social psychology is, from explaining minor everyday life events and up to the major changes and movements shaping the existence of our societies and our planet. theories are inspected up until their final consequences. “how is a theoretical position relevant for a better understanding of our life?” and also, the other way around: “how can particular aspects of our lives be theorised and explained?” theory easily slides into practice and vice versa keeping the reader focused and europe’s journal of psychology 138 interested at all times. this is possible mainly because of the excellent use of examples in the book. from exemplary to common instances of social behaviour, from biblical stories to an analysis of historical events, everything can constitute an illustration and invite careful reflection on the part of the reader, demonstrating at the same time how deeply connected social psychology is to other disciplines, from social to biological sciences. as a consequence, through reading the book we frequently get practical advice (for example how should one call for help in emergency situations) and generally become more aware of how to put the information we gain to good use. outside of the general public, scholars and students can also benefit from practicing their critical judgement skills. from the first chapter, dedicated to introducing social psychology as a practice and a science, readers are encouraged to reflect critically upon what we currently know as “social psychological theory” and its underlining (and undeclared) set of assumptions and principles. suggesting that psychology is in fact the history of society (p.26), the authors invite us to consider how ideology can determine what we investigate, how we investigate and how we use the results of our scientific investigations. in the end, the discipline “reflects our specific historical time and what we think, hope and fear” (p.27) and it is by being aware of this that we can come to improve our thinking and methods as social psychologists. in concluding, the book “being human: relationships and you. a social psychological analysis” has a number of merits. due to its style it makes theory and research accessible in a professional manner, always pointing to the fact that social psychology is not “just a science” but deals with issues that constitute the mere substance of our existence as humans. the authors adopt a critical position towards many instances of harmful social manifestations like aggression, the bystander effect, obedience and manipulation, etc., and demonstrate how knowledge of social psychology can make us more conscious of them and, through a social inoculation effect, even make us strong enough to resist them. the deeper message of this book is that of cooperation, the importance of engaging in open dialogue and using our resources to improve our life and the lives of others. deeper knowledge of how this might be possible is probably the most important contribution social psychology has to offer in supporting our efforts for building a better future. microsoft word 8. effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 118-127 www.ejop.org effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness ademola b. owolabi, ph.d. department of psychology, university of ado-ekiti, nigeria abstract it is a fact that mood-state knowledge is of particular relevance for the understanding of consumer behavior. the belief that it may be affected by the content of marketing communication and the context in which these communications appear was the basis upon which this research was conducted. this study is essentially an experimental study where a between-subject design was employed. a total of three hundred and twenty subjects were used in the experiment. unlike some previous advertising research (e.g. kim and biocca, 1997) utilizing existing adverts, specifically design adverts were made for the study. standardized 10 minute film clips were used to induce a negative or positive mood. two scales attitude towards using advertised products and intention to try advertised products were employed to measure advertising effectiveness. the result revealed that subjects in the induced positive mood group have a more positive attitude and greater intention to try advertised products when compared with subjects in the induced negative mood group. this suggests that advertisers should present adverts in a context that elicits happiness’. key words: induced affect; consumer attitude; intention; positive affect; negative affect introduction individuals often try to anticipate each other’s mood prior to interactions and read others moods during encounters. in these ways, mood information is acquired and used informally for social and professional interactions. for example, knowledge of the boss’s mood on a particular day may help an employee anticipate the boss’s reactions to a request for a pay raise. analogously, knowledge of the consumers’ mood state in certain situations may provide marketers and advertisers with a more complete understanding of consumers and their reactions to marketing strategies and adverts. effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness 119 this mood-state knowledge may be particularly relevant for understanding consumer behaviour as affected by the content of marketing communications and adverts and the context in which these communications appear. advertising typically has some positive or negative content that can trigger affective reactions (coulter 1998). early research on mood and persuasion indicated that people who are in a positive mood are more susceptible to persuasion than the average person. for example, janis (1965) had some people read a persuasive message while they ate a snack and drank soda, while others simply read the message without the accompanying treats. greater attitude changes occurred among the “munchers” than among the “food free” group. similar effects were also found among people listening to pleasant music (mcmillan and huang, 2002). good feelings enhance persuasion partly by enhancing positive thinking. in a good mood, people view the world through rose-coloured glasses. they also make faster, more impulsive decisions, they rely less on systematic thinking, but more on heuristic cues (schwarx, 1991; garner, 2004). because unhappy people ruminate more before reacting, they are less easily swayed by weak arguments. thus, it has been suggested that if you cannot make a strong case, it is a smart idea to put your audience in a good mood and hope they will feel good about your message without thinking too much about it (schwarz, 1990). one of the reasons for this, is proposed by the ‘feelings-as-information’ view, that while negative moods signal to people that something is wrong in their environment and that some action is necessary, positive moods have the opposite effect; they signal that everything is fine and no effortful thought is necessary (schawtz, 1990). as a result, people in a positive mood are more persuadable because they are less likely to engage in extensive thinking of the presented arguments than those in a neutral or negative mood. although the ‘feelings-as-information’ view contends that happy people tend to rely on peripheral route processing, an alterative cognitive response explanation – the ‘hedonic contingency view’ – asserts that this is not always the case (wenger and petty, 1994). according to this perspective, happy people will engage in a cognitive task that allow them to remain happy and will avoid those tasks that lower their mood. research investigating this possible effect indicated that a happy mood can indeed lead to greater message elaboration than a neutral or sad mood, when the persuasive message is either uplifting or not mood threatening (mood congruent) (norris, colmon and aleixo, 2003; coulter, 2003; wegner, petty and smith, 1995). thus, europe’s journal of psychology 120 it appears that happy people do not always process information less than neutral or sad people. taken together, the above studies suggest that there is a likelihood that mood has a lot of effect on the way messages are received and processed. therefore the aim of this study is to determine whether being in a positive mood or negative mood affect audience evaluation of advertisement as effective or not effective. materials and methods design a between-subject experimental design was employed to test whether positive or negative affect induced by the film clips had any effect on advertising effectiveness. advertising effectiveness was measured by attitude towards the advertised products scale and intention to buy the advertised products scale. the adverts were embedded into the positive and negative film clips. setting two laboratories in the department of geography and planning science, faculty of the social science, university of ado-ekiti, ekiti state were used for the study, because of their quiet situation which allowed for a carefully controlled environment. subjects the research participants were three hundred and twenty (320) university undergraduates drawn from the faculty of the social science. like most other advertising research studies (e.g. knoch and mccarthy, 2004; fieldling et al, 2006; shenge, 2003; morison et al, 2003) this study was conducted using undergraduate students, but, unlike those studies, the participants were not paid for participating in the research; neither did they receive any credit on any course for their participation. materials the adverstiments. unlike some previous advertising research (e.g., kim and biocca, 1997; knap and hall, 2006; puccinelli, 2006), utilizing existing adverts, specifically designed adverts effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness 121 were used for this study. two undergraduate actors (male and female) recruited through theatre organizations on a university campus served as the presenter of the adverts. before video taping the adverts for each product, the actors memorized the product descriptions. each person presented the two products to eliminate the likely effect of sex of the advert presenter. participants’ mood manipulation a 10-minute film clip was used to induce a negative or positive mood. both the negative clip and the positive clip were extracts from a home video titled “the bastard”. the positive clip was about a family that everything was going on well for; the parents were prospering economically and in other respects, and the children were gaining admission into university. the negative aspect was how a gang of armed robbers came to wipe off the joy of the family by raping the daughter, killing the father and son and leaving the mother and daughter with psychologically traumatised. extracting both positive and negative induced aspects from the same film made it possible to use the same set of actors. the two clips were subjected to a rating by a conference of experts with raters expressing 100 percent rating for the sadness-eliciting clip and 70.5 percent rating for the happiness-eliciting clip. another set of 20 undergraduates also watched and rated the clips on a ten-point scale; a reported feeling of sadness at 9.5 was recorded for the sadness eliciting clip and a happy feeling of 8.0 was recorded for the happiness eliciting clip. these mood-eliciting clips were combined with four types of advert to produce eight adverts and affect types. psychological instruments attitude towards using advertised product was measured using a modified form of belch’s semantic differential scale (1981) measuring attitude towards using advertised products. for reliability, attitude toward using advertised product scale had a standardized coefficient alpha of 0.81, coefficient alpha for part 1 (five-item) split-half alpha of 0.65, coefficient alpha for part 2 (five-item) split-half of 0.68, split-half of 0.74 and overall reliability (spearman-brown) coefficient of 0.85 (shenge, 2003). for validity, there was a least correlated item-total correlation of 0.36 and a highest correlated item-total correlation of 0.61. europe’s journal of psychology 122 intention to try advertised product was measured using a ten-item set of opposite-inmeaning evaluative factor adjectives earlier used by shenge (1996). it measures subjects’ intention to try the advertised product, which in real life advert practice, is also viewed by the advertiser as instrumental for unticipating the audience’s final purchase of the advertised product. for reliability, the intention to try advertised product scale had a standardized coefficient alpha of 0.75, coefficient alpha for part 1 (five-items) split-half coefficient alpha of 0.61 for part 2 (five-items) split-half of 0.57, split-half of 0.62 and overall reliability (spearman-brown) coefficient of 0.77. for validity, there was a least correlated item-total correlation of 0.33 and a highest correlated item-total correlation of 0.48; also, a factor analysis result on intention showed that there was a high degree of agreement among the intention scale items (shenge, 2003). procedure prior to the participants’ admittance to the laboratory, efforts were made to minimize distraction by lowering the window blind. efforts were also made to prevent passers-by from making a noise and distracting the subjects. participants were randomly assigned to the various experimental groups. after the instruction was given participants watched the film clips assigned to them. participants were not told the relevance of the film clips to the adverts. at the end of the exercise, they rated their feelings about the adverts using the questionnaire given to them. the completed questionnaires were collected and participants were debriefed, thanked and politely sent away. results table of mean scores on advertising effectiveness as determined by sex of advert presenter, product type and mood sex of advert presenter product type mood male female masculine feminine positive negative 39.61 40.99 41.16 40.05 44.50 32.05 effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness 123 a summary of 2x2x2 anova table: showing the effect of sex of advert presenter, product type and mood on advertising effectiveness. source ss d f ms f p s. a. p (a) 126.920 1 126.920 1.92 ns product type (b) 333.869 1 333.869 2.05 ns mood (c) 570.249 1 570.249 8.36 .05 a x b 38.934 1 38.984 0.59 ns a x c 36.475 1 36.476 0.55 ns b x c 108.631 1 108.631 1.64 ns error 19020.135 288 66.04 total 612722.00 319 *s a p = sex of advert presenter the results revealed that induced affect had a significant effect on advertising effectiveness (f (1, 318) = 8.36, p< .05). an observation of the mean score shows that participants in the happy mood have a more positive attitude towards the advertised product (x = 44.50) as compared to participants in the sad mood (x 32.05). this finding concurs with schwarz and clore’s (1988) findings that customers will often use their feelings as information and, therefore, make judgment that are congruent with the implications of these feelings. summary and discussion this study experimentally examines the effects of mood on advertising effectiveness. sex of advert presenter and product types were build into the study to control for the possible effect that they may have on the study. positive and negative mood were induced with the use of home video. in measuring advertising effectiveness two criteria were combined: attitude towards advertised product and intention to try advertised product. belch (1981), cacioppo and petty (1974), and schroeder (2006) have found that multiple criteria were more efficacious in measuring of advertising effectiveness than a single criterion. the findings reveals that there is a significant effect of mood on advertising effectiveness, but there are no significant effects of sex of advert presenter and product type on advertising effectiveness wegener & braverman (2004) provided evidence that people who are in a good mood like adverts more and are more capable and willing to process message europe’s journal of psychology 124 information. this means that when people are in good mood they view the world through rose-coloured glasses and evaluate events around them positively (garsper, 2004). various mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. according to the excitation or affect transfer hypothesis (cantor, zillman and bryant 1975, tavassoli, shuitz and fitzsimons 1995), the positive evaluation of the context is transferred to the advert and, as a result, the advert is also positively evaluated. another explanation is the fact that a positive mood enhances advert processing according to the hedonistic contingency theory (e.g. lee and sternthal, 1999). people in a positive mood engage in greater processing of stimulus because they believe that the consequences are going to be favourable. this explanation is similar to that advanced by isen (1984) who stated that knowledge structure (associative networks) associated with good moods are generally more extensive and better integrated than structures that are associated with bad moods (affective priming). aylesworth and mackenzie (1998) provided a different explanation for the same phenomenon. they established that television advert processing is better when people were in a positive mood after seeing a programme. their explanation is that people who are in a bad mood after seeing a programme are still processing the programme centrally while seeing the advert, as a result of which the advert is processed peripherally. people who are in good mood after seeing a programme are less inclined to analyse it further, and, therefore, are more capable of processing the advert centrally. as a result, a media context that is well appreciated may lead to a more positive appreciation of the advert shown in that context and to more elaborate advert processing. the excitation transfer hypothesis and related theories have been confirmed in several other studies (goldberg and gorn, 1987; murry, lastovicka and singh 1992; lynch and stipp, 1999). the finding of this research lends credence to puccineli’s (2006) findings that participants in a good mood react positively to a salesperson who conveys positive feelings and are willing to pay more for the product endorsed by the person, while participants who are in a bad mood react negatively to such a person and are willing to pay less for the product. this finding contradicts some studies that concluded that a positive mood does not lead to positive evaluation of advert, e.g., cantor and venus (1980), derks and avora (1993). in their findings, using the contrast effect of mayers – levy and tybount (1997), they assert that message style that contrasts with the nature of the context may lead to positive advertising effects. effect of consumers mood on advertising effectiveness 125 the study suggested that a positively evaluated environmental context, or a context that evokes a positive mood, leads to a less positive advert evaluation and especially less advert processing. this phenomenon is attributed to the fact that a positive mood reduces the processing of stimulus information. according to the cognitive capacity theory, a positive mood activates an array of information in the memory that limits the recipient’s processing of incoming information (mackie and worth, 1989). it is worth noting that 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(2001) understanding effect of mood through the elaboration like hood and flexible correction models. in. l.l. martin and g. l. clore (eds). theories of mood and cognition: a users guild book (pp.177-210) worth, l. t. and mackie, d. m (1987) cognitive mediation of positive persuasion. social cognitive, 5, 76-94. zillmann, d (1988a) mood management through communication choices. american behavioral scientist, 31 (3), 327-341. zillmann, d (1988b) mood management. using entertainment to full advantage. in l donohew, h. e sypher, and e. t higgins (eds), communication social cognition and affect (147-171). hillsdale, n. j lawrence erilbaum associates. zillmann, d (2000) mood management in the context of selective exposure theory. in m.f roloff (education), communication yearbook 23 (103-23) thousand oaks, ca: sage. about the author: dr a. b owolabi is a lecturer in the department of psychology, university of ado ekiti nigeria. he is an industrial/organizational psychologist with an interest in consumer behavior and psychology of advertising. he has published several articles in this area. all correspondence should be address to; owolabi a. b, department of psychology, university of ado ekiti, nigeria, p. m. b 5363 e-mail: labdem2005@yahoo.ca emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 81-98 www.ejop.org hospital restructuring and downsizing: effects on nursing staff well-being and perceived hospital functioning ronald j. burke york university eddy w. s. ng dalhousie university jacob wolpin independent consultant abstract the health care system, and hospitals, underwent considerable restructuring and downsizing in the early to mid-1900s in several countries as governments cut costs to reduce their budget deficits. studies of the effects of these efforts on nursing staff and hospital functioning in various countries generally reported negative impacts. health care restructuring and hospital downsizing was again being implemented in north america in 2009/2010 as governments struggled to once again reduce deficits at a time of worldwide economic recession. this study examines the relationship of downsizing and restructuring efforts with work and well-being outcomes. data were collected from over 289 nursing staff working in california hospitals in 2009/2010. this research considers the relationship of number of hospital restructuring initiatives reported by nursing staff with indicators of their work satisfaction and psychological well-being and their perceptions of the impact of these initiatives on aspects of hospital performance. nurses reported a relatively large number of restructuring and downsizing initiatives during the preceding year. consistent with findings reported over 15 years ago, nursing staff reporting a greater number of restructuring and downsizing initiatives indicated less favorable work and well-being outcomes and more negative effects on hospital functioning. some suggestions for more successful approaches to cost reductions are offered. keywords: restructuring, downsizing, hospital, nursing staff, well-being. http://www.ejop.org/ hospital restructuring and downsizing 82 in the early to mid-1990s, the health care sector in several countries engaged in restructuring and downsizing in efforts to contain costs (see mckee, aiken rafferty & sochalski, 1998; morey, fine, loree, retzlaff-roberts & tsubakitani, 1992; mullermundt, 1997; saltman & tigueras, 1998; sochalski, aiken & fagin, 1997; tully & saintpierre, 1997; white, 1997). health care is the largest budget item in almost all countries and is projected to increase is size and the population ages. the health care sector, particularly hospitals, became targets for retrenchment. several studies were undertaken in various countries to determine the effects of hospital restructuring and downsizing on nursing staff –the largest group of employees in health care, patient care –again nurses playing a large role in patient contact, and hospital functioning and performance. restructuring and downsizing are different though related concepts. it is possible to restructure without downsizing and downsize without restructuring. in most studies they both take place simultaneously (rondeau & wagar, 2003). restructuring is a planned undertaking in which hospital management rearranges jobs, units and reporting relationships with the goal of reducing costs or increasing efficiency; downsizing involves the reduction of staff to control costs or improve efficiency. the results of some of these studies (see aiken & fagin, l997; aiken, sochalski & anderson, 1996; armstrong-stassen, cameron & horsburgh, 1996; baumann & blythe, 2003; baumann, o’brien-pallas, deber, donner, semogas & silverman, 1995; blythe, baumann & giovannetti, 2001; laschinger, sabiston, finegan & shamian, 2001; woodward, shannon, cunningham, mcintosh, lendrum, rosenblum & brown, 1999) painted a fairly grim picture. health care restructuring and downsizing was associated with diminished job satisfaction, higher levels of burnout, greater psychological distress, heavier workloads, greater attrition among nursing staff, lower levels of hospital upkeep, lower levels of patient care, and little if any cost savings (austin, 2007; shanahan, brownell & roos, 2001; norrish & rundall, 2001). nurses are the largest group of employees in the health care system and play an important hands-on role in the delivery of high quality patient care (aiken, smith & lake, 1994; institute of medicine, 2004).unfortunately, research studies conducted in a number of countries over the past 20 years indicate that nurses are increasingly reporting job dissatisfaction and young women and men are less interested in training to become nursing staff (aiken, clarke, sloane & sochalski, 2001). many countries are now facing shortages of nurses. the nursing profession seems to be in difficulty (weinberg, 2003; gordon, 2005). now, almost two decades later, the health care sector is again the target of restructuring, downsizing and cost cutting as governments attempt to deal with europe’s journal of psychology 83 budget shortfalls. in 2009/2010, government leaders were once again facing budget deficits, partly the result of the worldwide economic downturn, and partly the result of escalating costs. health care costs have not been reduced; in fact they continue to increase at a faster rate than country inflation. some governments have concluded that they are no longer able to continue to fund healthcare at their current levels. as a consequence, efforts are underway once again to restructure and downsize health care deliver and hospitals. will these recent efforts result in the same problems that arose in the 1990s from these efforts? a psychiatrist reportedly once said “insanity is doing the same thing yet expecting a different result.” will hospital restructuring and downsizing efforts now underway once again fall short in realizing their objectives and produce other undesirable consequences? we consider these questions here. the present study examines the relationship of hospital restructuring initiatives in 2009/2010 with a variety of individual and unit/hospital outcomes in a sample of nursing staff working in health care settings (hospitals) undergoing significant restructuring and downsizing. the sample worked in hospitals near los angeles california, a state undergoing dramatic budget cuts in response to the recent worldwide economic recession. state workers in california have lost their jobs, been required to take unpaid days off work, and hiring freezes have been imposed on all government departments. the following general hypotheses were considered. 1. nursing staff indicating fewer restructuring and downsizing initiatives would be more satisfied, more work engaged, less “burned out”, less absent, less likely to intend to quit, report fewer psychosomatic symptoms and less medication use. 2. nursing staff indicating fewer restructuring initiatives would indicate a less negative impact of hospital restructuring and downsizing on hospital functioning, a less negative impact of restructuring and downsizing on hospital impact, and a less negative impact of restructuring and downsizing on their job future security. these outcome variables were included based on their use in previous hospital restructuring and downsizing research (burke, 2004; havlovic, bouthilete & van der wal, 1998; laschinger, sabiston, finegan & shamian, 2001). hospital restructuring and downsizing 84 method procedure data were collected from two sources. first, some data were collected for a hospital located in southern california. the vice-president of nursing and patient care distributed approximately 300 survey questionnaires to the hospital’s staff nurses on behalf of the research team. a $5 starbucks gift cared was offered to the nurse participants. a total of 67 surveys were returned resulting in a response rate of about 22%. second, additional data were collected online using surveymonkey from graduate nursing students. these students had current nursing experience, working either fullor part-time, and were enrolled in a graduate nursing program (a masters degree) at a large public university. a total of 222 nursing staff enrolled in the masters program responded to the on-line survey and each respondent also received a $5 starbucks gift card for their participation. the combined sample (n=289) is best described as a convenience sample. respondents table 1 presents personal demographic and work situation characteristics of the nursing sample (n=289). the sample was primarily female (92%), with spouses/partners (73%), with children (77%), worked full-time (79%), had supervisory duties (59%), had 5 years or more of unit tenure (47%), 10 years of more of hospital and nursing tenure (44% and 59%, respectively), had not changed units in the past year (90%), worked in a variety of nursing units, worked in hospitals having 250 or more beds (74%), worked 35-44 hours per week (66%), had a bachelor’s of nursing degree (50%), and were between 36 and 55 years of age (60%). table 1. demographic characteristics of sample supervisor duties % n unit tenure % n yes 136 59.4 less than 4 years 106 46.3 no 93 40.6 4-5 years 16 7.0 more than 5 years 107 46.7 hospital tenure 3 years or less 59 25.8 nursing tenure 3-5 years 31 13.5 3 years or less 37 16.3 5-10 years 38 13.6 3-5 years 19 8.4 10 years or more 101 44.1 5-10 years 37 16.3 10 years or more 134 59.0 work status full-time 180 78.9 nursing unit part-time 48 21.1 administration 27 11.8 europe’s journal of psychology 85 education 24 10.5 changed units last year emergency 27 11.8 yes 24 10.5 intensive care 39 17.1 no 205 89.5 medical/surgical 21 9.1 neonatal 20 8.6 hospital size obstetrics 21 9.1 400 beds or more 83 36.9 telemetry 20 8.6 251-400 84 37.3 151-250 29 12.9 34 or less 44 19.4 gender male 17 7.5 female 211 92.5 hours worked 34 or less 44 19.4 35-39 73 32.2 40-44 63 27.8 45 or more 47 20.7 age education under 35 52 23.3 rn 65 28.4 36-45 54 24.2 ba-nursing 116 50.7 46-55 79 35.4 ma-nursing 46 20.1 56 and older 38 17.0 phd nursing 2 0.9 parental status marital status children 177 77.0 married/cohabiting 167 72.9 no children 53 23.0 single 62 27.1 measures restructuring initiatives nursing staff were presented with a list of 16 potential restructuring initiatives (see table 2) and asked whether each had been implemented in their hospitals during the preceding year (1=yes, 2=no). respondents indicated that an average of 10.1 restructuring initiatives had been implemented; a canadian nursing sample indicated an average of 9.6 being implemented in the past year (burke & greenglass, 2001) thus considerable restructuring initiatives were being undertaken by their hospitals. work outcomes three work outcomes were included. job satisfaction was measured by a 5-item scale (alpha=.87) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). one item was “all in all, how satisfied would you say you are with your job? (1=very satisfied, 4=not at all satisfied). absenteeism was measured by two items (alpha=.76). “how many days of scheduled work have you missed in the past month?” (1=none, 4=three or more days). intent to quit was measured by a single item. “taking everything into account hospital restructuring and downsizing 86 how likely is it that you will make a genuine effort to find a new job with another employer within the next 12 months?” (1=very likely, 3=not at all likely). work engagement three dimensions of work engagement were included using measures developed by schaufeli and bakker (2003). vigor was assessed by 6 items (alpha=.81) a sample item was “at my work, i feel that i am bursting with energy.” dedication was assessed by 5 items (alpha=.89). one item was “my job inspires me.” finally, absorption was measured by 6 items (alpha=.84). one item was “i get carried away when i’m working.” the reliabilities of these measures was typical of those reported by others (see bakker & leiter, 2010). the three measures of work engagement were significantly and positively inter-correlated, the mean inter-correlation being .54 (p<.001).this value was consistent with most of the inter-correlations previously reported (bakker & leiter, 2010). in keeping with common practice, each work engagement measures was considered separately. burnout three dimensions of burnout were considered, each measured by the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) developed by maslach, jackson and leiter (1996) respondents indicated how often they experienced particular feelings on a 7-point scale (0=never, 6=every day). emotional exhaustion was measured by a 5-item scale (alpha=.91). an item was “i feel emotionally drained from my work”. cynicism was assessed by a 5-item scale (alpha=.88). one item was “i have become more cynical about whether my work contributes anything.” professional efficacy was measured by a 6-item scale (alpha=.82). a sample item was “at my work, i feel confident that i am effective at getting things done.” the three measures of burnout were significantly inter-correlated. exhaustion and cynicism correlated .62 (p<.001) and efficacy was negatively correlated with both cynicism and exhaustion (rs=-.40 and .15, p<.001 and .05, respectively). these values were consistent with most of the previously reported inter-correlations (maslach, jackson & leiter, 1996), and were considered separately here. psychological well-being two aspects of psychological well-being were included. psychosomatic symptoms were measured using a 30-item scale (alpha=.92) developed by derogatis, lipman, rickels, uhlenhuth and covi (1974). respondents indicated on a 4-point scale (1=never, 4=extremely often) how often they experienced particular symptoms during the past three months (e.g., headaches, poor appetite, pain in the lower part of you back, faintness or dizziness). medication use was measured by 5 items (alpha=.62). respondents indicated how often they took each medication (1=never, europe’s journal of psychology 87 5=a lot). items included pain medication, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers such as valium. hospital-based measures three hospital-based measures were included. impact of restructuring on hospital functioning was measured by 7 items (alpha=.94). respondents indicated their agreement with each item indicating their views on the effects of restructuring and budget cuts using a 5 point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 3=neutral, 5=strongly agree). items included “lowered the quality of health care provided to our patients” and “required nursing staff to perform more maintenance/housekeeping duties”. impact on hospital facilities was measured by an 8 item scale (alpha=.92). respondents indicated the extent of changes in their hospital during the past year (1=gotten worse, 3=about the same; 5=improved). items included “level of cleanliness”, and “repairs to hospital buildings”. impact on future job security was measured by 7 items (alpha=.84). respondents indicated their views on the likelihood of particular work events or actions happening to them on a 4 point scale (1=highly unlikely, 4=almost certain. items included layoff, demotion, and change in employment status to part-time. results descriptive statistics table 2 shows the number and percentage of nursing staff reporting that each of the 16 restructuring initiatives (alpha=.82) had been implemented in the past year. the most common were: budget cuts (83%), a hiring freeze (77%), overtime restrictions (74%), not filling job vacancies (64%), and a wage freeze (45%) table 2. restructuring initiatives restructuring initiatives n % staff layoffs 82 33.2 beds closed 83 33.7 units closed 81 32.9 wage freeze 110 44.9 hiring freeze 190 76.9 wage rollback 31 12.6 budget cuts 204 82.6 early retirement incentives 79 32.4 job sharing 50 20.4 switch to part-time 57 23.3 hospital restructuring and downsizing 88 overtime restrictions 181 73.6 shortened work week 29 11.8 shortened work year 21 8.5 not filling job vacancies 156 63.7 staff bumping 42 17.2 discontinuing specialty services 76 31.0 analysis plan hierarchical regression analyses were undertaken with predictor variables entered in particular blocks. the first block of predictors were personal demographics (n=5) which included, age, level of education, and marital status. the second block of predictors included work situation characteristics (n=5) such as supervisory responsibilities, hospital size, and nursing unit tenure. the third block of predictors included the measure of restructuring initiatives, the main variable of interest. when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance on a given outcome measures (p<.05), individual items or measures within such blocks having significant and independent relationships with this outcome were then identified (p<.05). this approach to analysis shows the relationship of the work experiences with a given outcome controlling for the effects of both individual personal demographics and work situation characteristics. restructuring initiatives and work attitudes and behaviors table 3 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which various work outcomes were regressed on the three blocks of predictors. the following comments are offered in summary. table 3. restructuring initiatives and work outcomes work outcomes work engagement r r2 change r2 p vigor (n=-200) personal demographics .18 .03 .03 ns work situation characteristics .23 .05 .02 ns restructuring initiatives (-.16) .27 .08 .03 .05 dedication (n=202) personal demographics .12 .01 .01 ns work situation characteristics .20 .04 .03 ns restructuring initiatives (-.16) .25 .06 .02 .05 absorption (n=197) personal demographics .22 .05 .05 ns work situation characteristics .26 .07 .02 ns restructuring initiatives .27 .07 .00 ns europe’s journal of psychology 89 burnout exhaustion (n=203) personal demographics .28 .08 .08 .01 work situation characteristics .33 .11 .03 ns restructuring initiatives (.22) .39 .15 .04 .01 cynicism (n=202) personal demographics .22 .05 .05 ns work situation characteristics .30 .09 .04 ns restructuring initiatives (.24) .38 .15 .06 .001 efficacy (n=199) personal demographics .10 .01 .01 ns work situation characteristics .26 .07 .06 .05 supervisor duties (.21) restructuring initiatives .28 .08 .01 ns job satisfaction (n=193) personal demographics .l9 .04 .04 ns work situation characteristics .35 .12 .08 .01 supervisor duties (.20) changed units (.176) unit tenure (-.17) restructuring initiatives (-.22) .41 .17 .05 .01 absenteeism (n=196) personal demographics .18 .03 .03 ns work situation characteristics .20 .04 .01 ns restructuring initiatives .20 .04 .00 ns intent to quit (n=202) personal demographics .19 .04 .04 ns work situation characteristics .32 .10 .06 .05 supervisor duties (-.16) restructuring initiatives (.27) .41 .17 .07 .001 work engagement. nursing staff reporting a greater number of restructuring initiatives also indicated lower levels of both vigor and dedication (bs=-.16 and -.16, respectively). number of restructuring initiatives had no relationship with absorption. burnout. nursing staff indicating a greater number of restructuring initiatives also reported higher levels of burnout. thus nurses indicating more restructuring initiatives also reported higher levels of exhaustion and cynicism and lower levels of efficacy (bs=.22, .24 and -.21). job satisfaction. nursing staff reporting a greater number of restructuring initiatives also indicated lower levels of job satisfaction (b=-.22). hospital restructuring and downsizing 90 absenteeism. restructuring initiatives had no relationship with self-reported absenteeism. absenteeism is likely affected by a number of factors, hospital restructuring initiatives being only one of these. intent to quit. nursing staff reporting a larger number of restructuring initiatives also indicated greater intention to quit (b=.27). restructuring initiatives and psychological health table 4 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which two measures of psychological health were separately regressed on the three blocks of predictors. nursing staff reporting a greater number of restructuring initiatives also indicated more psychosomatic symptoms (b=.24). number of restructuring initiatives had no relationship with medication usage. medicine use is likely affected by a number of factors, hospital restructuring being only one of these. table 4. restructuring initiatives and psychological well-being psychological well-being r r2 change r2 p psychosomatic symptoms (n=184) personal demographics .24 .06 .06 ns work situation characteristics .30 .09 .03 ns restructuring initiatives (.24) .37 .14 .05 .01 medication use (n=200) personal demographics .23 .05 .05 ns work situation characteristics .26 .07 .02 ns restructuring initiatives .27 .07 .00 ns restructuring initiatives and hospital-level outcomes table 5 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which three hospitallevel impacts of restructuring were separately regressed on the three blocks of predictors. the following comments are offered in summary. restructuring initiatives accounted for a significant increase in explained variance in all three analyses. nursing staff reporting more restructuring initiatives in the past year also indicated a more negative impact of these on hospital function and effectiveness (b=-.30), lower levels of hospital upkeep (b=-.23), and greater threats to job security (b=.42). europe’s journal of psychology 91 table 5. restructuring initiatives and perceptions of hospital functioning perceptions of hospital functioning r r2 change r2 p hospital upkeep (n=202) personal demographics .14 .02 .02 ns work situation characteristics .28 .08 .06 .05 supervisory duties (-.18) changed units (-.15) hospital size (-.14) restructuring initiatives (-.23) .36 .13 .05 .001 impact on hospital (n=198) personal demographics .34 .12 .12 .001 age (-l23) work situation characteristics .44 .19 .07 .01 supervisor duties (.16) hospital size (.21) restructuring initiatives (.30) .52 .27 .08 .001 threats to security (n=202) personal demographics .13 .02 .02 ns work situation characteristics .25 .06 .04 ns restructuring initiatives (.42) .47 .22 .16 .001 two observations are worth noting. first, restructuring initiatives accounted for a greater increment in explained variance on every outcome measure than did personal demographic factors and work situation characteristics. second, restructuring initiatives were found to predict work outcomes, an indicator of psychological well-being, and nursing staff perceptions of hospital functioning. discussion the results presented here (see tables 3, 4 and 5) were consistent with previously reported findings on health care and hospital restructuring and downsizing in many areas (aiken, sochalski & anderson, 1996; baumann, o’brien-pallas, deber, donner, semogas & silverman, 1999; richard ivey school of business, 1997; shanahan, brownell & roos, 2001; sochalski, aiken & fagin, 1997; woodward, shannon, cunningham, mcintosh, lendrum, rosenblum & brown, 1999). in addition they support conclusions of studies of downsizing carried out in the private sector (burke & nelson, 1998, 1997; cameron, 1994; cameron, freeman & mishra, 1991; cascio, 2002, 1998, 1993; gowing, kraft & quick, 1998; ludy, 2009; noer, 1993; o’neill & lenn, 1995). hospitals undertook a number of initiatives in their restructuring and downsizing efforts (see table 2). nursing staff reporting a greater number of hospital restructuring hospital restructuring and downsizing 92 initiatives were also less job satisfied, less work engaged, more “burned out”, and more likely to intend to quit (table 3). nursing staff indicating a greater number of restructuring and downsizing initiatives also self-reported a greater number of psychosomatic symptoms (see table 4) and nursing staff reporting a greater number of restructuring and cost-cutting initiatives perceived a more negative impact of these on hospital functioning, level of hospital maintenance and upkeep, and threats to future job security (see table 5).thus the results obtained here provided general support for the two comprehensive hypotheses that guided the research. these findings suggest an urgent need for more effective hospital responses to financial restraint pressures they are now facing. fortunately more effective alternatives have been proposed, many of these resulting from the first round of hospital restructurings and downsizings that took place almost 20 years ago. nursing staff working in hospitals that underwent restructuring and downsizing commonly describe the process as unilateral and top-down, little information is provided to them, feelings of insecurity are heightened, and higher levels of workload are commonly reported (baumann, o’brien-pallas, deber, donner, semogas & silverman, 1995; richard ivey school of business, 1997) here are some suggestions supported by the research findings that are likely to address common nursing staff reactions to restructuring and downsizing processes. 1. hospitals must develop a clear purpose of what they would like to accomplish and why (their motives). hospitals must approach this in an open, honest and fully transparent way. 2. hospitals must make a commitment to long term efforts to address their situations; there is no quick fix. 3. hospital and nursing leadership must be visible and available. 4. hospitals must make resources (time and money) available during this period of transition. 5. transition efforts must be undertaken in cooperation with the relevant nursing associations. 6. restructuring efforts must be a collaborative effort in which ownership, responsibility and accountability is widely shared. 7. staff terminations should be undertaken only as a last resort if other initiatives do not produce desired outcomes. instead all staff should be invited to offer suggestions on ways to cut costs and reduce waste 8. data needs to be collected throughout the hospital to determine what is working and what is not working. europe’s journal of psychology 93 9. there is a need to release negative reactions to whatever is being changed – grieving the loss of the past. 10. trust of senior hospital management needs to be re-established and strengthened. 11. there is a need for communication, lots of it, using various media with some repetition. person contactone-to-one, and in work teams is vital. 12. patient care must remain as the paramount goal throughout the transition process. 13. hospital and nursing leadership need to plan for the change initiatives prior to their implementation, plan for the implementation and monitoring of these efforts, and plan for recovery and revitalization efforts following the restructuring initiatives being undertaken. implications research on the success of organizational restructuring, downsizing and cost-cutting carried out in both the private sector and the health care sector has highlighted the generally low levels of success in these efforts, approaches that were dysfunctional and efforts that seemed to work (see ludy, 2009; cascio 2002; cameron, 1994).the present study, conducted almost two decades later, showed the same pattern of results. it is clear that approaching these complex and difficulty transitions in the same ways tried two decades ago will not work well. it appears that relatively little if anything has been learned by hospitals, and the health care system more generally, from the large amount of previous work on hospital restructuring and downsizing. undertaking the same processes will generate the same negative results as this study has shown.. hopefully hospital executives and senior nursing leadership will not make use of approaches that proved to be ineffective effective in the past but instead experiment with other strategies and processes (ludy, 2009) seminars for hospital administrators and nursing managers that address hospital restructuring and downsizing processes appear to be a worthwhile undertaking. there is considerable academic research and writing on this topic, some hospital case studies are available, and there is likely to be considerable knowledge present among any administrators and nursing staff managers that might attend. . research limitations some limitations of the present study should be noted to put the findings into a larger context. first, the sample, while relatively large, was a convenience sample and not hospital restructuring and downsizing 94 necessarily representative of all nursing staff in california. second, all data were collected using self-report questionnaires raising the possibility that nursing responses were a function of common method variance. third, questions of causality cannot be addressed since all data were collected at only one point in time. fourth, many of the work and health outcomes were themselves moderately inter-correlated. future research directions given the likelihood of more widespread healthcare and hospital restructuring and downsizing, this area offers many interesting research possibilities. first, additional studies using larger and more representative samples need to be undertaken to document the potential effects of these efforts on nursing staff, patient care, and hospital functioning. second, greater attentions needs to be paid to understand particular downsizing and restructuring processes and why these were undertaken by specific hospitals. third, longitudinal studies are needed to determine causal relationships between restructuring efforts, both the number of initiatives undertaken and how these are implemented, and relevant outcome measures. fourth, evaluation studies of various approaches to the implementation of restructuring and cost cutting need to be undertaken to sort out which approaches seem to be working and which approaches seem to be falling short. these studies should ideally include independent and objective assessments of relevant outcomes such as staff turnover and absenteeism, quality of patient care, and costs. fifth, research on attempts to make the available research evidence available to practitioners, what works and what works less well, might limit the further use of restructuring and downsizing processes that have been shown to have limited effectiveness. acknowledgements preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by york university, the school of business, dalhousie university and the california state polytechnic university -pomona. we thank our respondents for their participation in the research. references aiken, l. h., & fagin, c. m. 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(1999). the impact of re-engineering and other cost reduction strategies on the staff of a large teaching hospital. medical care, 37, 556-569 about the authors: ronald j. burke is emeritus professor of organizational behavior, schulich school of business, york university in toronto. his current interests include crime and corruption in organizations, health and safety, corporate reputation, and work and health. address for correspondence: prof. ronald burke, schulich school of business, york university, 4700 keele st. toronto, on m3j 1p3, canada e-mail: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca eddy ng is currently associate professor of organizational behavior, school of business, dalhousie university in halifax. his research considers diversity in organizaitns, job anc career experiences of recent university graduates, and business students attitudes towards social responsibility. e-mail: edng@dal.ca jacob wolpin is an independent consultant working in toronto. his current projects involve studying effects of an aging workforce, and efforts to improve human resource management in the public sector. e-mail: jwolpin@schulich.yorku.ca emotional status, perceived control of pain, and pain coping strategies in episodic and chronic cluster headache research reports emotional status, perceived control of pain, and pain coping strategies in episodic and chronic cluster headache dominique valadea, frédéric fontenelleb, caroline roosa, céline rousseau-salvadorbc, anne ducrosa, stéphane rusinek*b [a] emergency headache centre, lariboisiere hospital, paris, france. [b] department of psychology, university of lille nord-de-france, udl3, villeneuve d’ascq, france. [c] service of pediatric hematology and oncology, trousseau hospital, paris, france. abstract cluster headache (ch) is a chronic syndrome characterized by excruciatingly painful attacks occurring with circadian and circannual periodicity. the objectives of the present study were, in ch patients, to determine by principal component analysis the factor structure of two instruments commonly used in clinics to evaluate pain locus of control (cancer locus of control scale–clcs) and coping strategies (coping strategies questionnaire–csq), to examine the relationship between internal pain controllability and emotional distress, and to compare psychosocial distress and coping strategies between two subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch. results indicate, for clcs, a 3-factor structure (internal controllability, medical controllability, religious controllability) noticeably different in ch patients from the structure reported in patients with other painful pathologies and, for csq, a 5-factor structure of csq which did not markedly diverge from the classical structure. perceived internal controllability of pain was strongly correlated with studymeasures of depression (had depression/anhedonia subscale, beck depression inventory). comparison between subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch of emotional status, pain locus of control, perceived social support and coping strategies did not reveal significant differences apart for the reinterpreting pain sensations strategy which was more often used by episodic ch patients. observed tendencies for increased anxiety and perceived social support in patients with episodic ch, and for increased depression and more frequent use of the ignoring pain sensations strategy in patients with chronic ch, warrant confirmation in larger groups of patients. keywords: cluster headache, anxiety, depression, pain locus of control, coping strategies europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 received: 2012-03-14. accepted: 2012-05-27. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: laboratoire psitec, université de lille nord-de-france, udl3, b.p. 06149, 59 653 villeneuve d’ascq cedex, france, email: stephane.rusinek@univ-lille3.fr. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. cluster headache (ch) is a member of the trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias which form a group of primary disorders characterized by unilateral trigeminal distribution pain occurring in association with prominent ipsilateral cranial autonomic features. it is an excruciating syndrome, and probably constitutes the most painful condition known to humans (matharu & goadsby, 2002). the prevalence of ch is estimated to be about 0.01-0.03% (katsarava et al., 2007; manzoni & stovner, 2010), and more men than women are affected (manzoni, 1998; donnet et al., 2007; fischera, marziniak, gralow, & evers, 2008). ch is characterized by a striking circannual and circadian periodicity. its etiology is unknown but physiopathology may involve the trigeminal nociceptive pathways, the autonomic system and the posterior hypothalamic gray matter (lanteri-minet, 2003). attacks occur in series (cluster periods)–from once every other day up to eight times a day–lasting for weeks or months, separated by remission periods usually lasting months or years. in episodic ch, cluster periods of one week to one year are separated by pain-free periods of one month or longer, while in --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ chronic ch the attacks may occur for more than one year without remission or remissions lasting less than one month (headache classification subcommittee of the international headache society, 2004). chronic pain has physical, psychological and social impacts on patients, affecting confidence to cope with pain, accomplish life goals, live a normal lifestyle, and maintain normal social and leisure activities. in order to cope with and adjust to the burden of pain, chronic pain patients develop a range of cognitive, emotional and behavioral strategies, according to pre-existing personality characteristics, some of which (e.g., passive coping and dramatizing/catastrophizing) eventually play a pejorative role in pain-related disability and depression (brown & nicassio, 1987; snow-turek, norris, & tan 1996; arnstein, caudill, mandle, norris, & beasley, 1999; asghari & nicholas, 2001; asghari & nicholas, 2006; koleck, mazaux, rascle, & bruchon-schweitzer, 2006; mongini et al., 2009). as ch has some specificities among chronic painful pathologies, one of the objectives of the present study was to determine in ch patients, by principal component analysis, the factor structure of two instruments widely used in research and clinics to evaluate perceived control of the disease and pain coping strategies (cancer locus of control scale–clcs–and coping strategies questionnaire–csq–, respectively) (rosenstiel & keefe, 1983; pruyn et al., 1988) and to compare results with the factor structures reported for the same instruments in other categories of chronic pain patients. to the best of our knowledge, clcs had not been used in ch patients as yet. since pain patients' attitude towards pain sensations, beside pain intensity, is known to influence psychological outcomes (arnstein et al., 1999; asghari & nicholas, 2001), the relationship between perceived pain control and emotional distress was also examined. finally, hypothesizing that duration and periodicity of pain episodes may affect pain levels and functional outcomes in ch patients, another objective of the study was to compare psychosocial distress and pain coping strategies between subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch. methods study setting – participants this was a cross-sectional, observational study carried out from november 2004 to july 2005 among patients consulting at the emergency headache center (‘centre d'urgences céphalées’–cuc) of lariboisiere hospital in paris. patients who accepted to participate were administered a series of questionnaires exploring emotional status, perceived pain control and social support, pain-related disability and coping. as the survey did not cause any change in disease management, no approval from institutional ethics committee was required. nevertheless, patients signed informed consent to participate prior to any study procedure was performed. the patients seen at the cuc are those who need urgent medical care, i.e., patients who present with an abrupt recent-onset headache or with an acute recurrent attack of headache not relieved by the usual treatments. approximately two thirds of these patients suffer from primary headaches and about 5% from ch (valade, 2005). all patients included in the survey had episodic or chronic ch diagnosed according to the international headache society criteria (headache classification subcommittee of the international headache society, 2004) and had experienced a cluster period within the past three weeks. possible past or concomitant organic or mental diseases were not taken into account for patient recruitment. demographic attributes and history of the disease were recorded at patient inclusion. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 462 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring instruments emotional status was measured with the french version (lépine, godchau, brun, & lemperière, 1985) of the hospital anxiety and depression (had) scale (zigmond & snaith, 1983). this is a 14-point scale which contains seven questions on anxiety symptoms and seven on depressive symptoms. the depression scale was constructed so that it does not contain items relating to symptoms that may be caused by the physical illness and emphasizes anhedonia (inability to feel pleased). the had scale has been in widespread use and is currently recommended by the french national medico-economic evaluation service for use in chronic pain patients (agence nationale d'accréditation et d'evaluation en santé (anaes), 1999). each item is scored from 0 to 3 on the basis of average mood over the last ten days. scores of 8 or over at the anxiety or depression scale were taken as indicative of anxiety or depression, respectively. depression was assessed with the french version (collet & cottraux, 1986) of the short-form (13-item) of the beck depression inventory (bdi) (beck, ward, mendelson, mock, & erbaugh, 1961). this validated abbreviated questionnaire contains only the items that are most strongly correlated with total score at the original questionnaire and with clinical evaluation of depression severity. it retains the original cognition triad described by beck: negative thoughts about oneself, about the external world, and about the future (beck, steer, & carbin, 1988). each item is scored from 0 to 3 on the basis of patient's current mood state. for the study, scores of 4-7 were considered indicative of mild depression, scores of 8-15 of moderate depression, and scores of 16 or greater of severe depression. perceived control was assessed with a french version of the clcs (pruyn et al., 1988; watson, pruyn, greer, & van den borne, 1990) which had previously been used in research in france (cousson-gélie, 1997; koleck, 2000) in patients suffering from a chronic disease or chronic pain, except that “pain” was taken as “the disease”. the french version has been validated (bruchon-schweitzer, 2001). this 17-item questionnaire assesses three different types of cognitions: internal or external estimated locus of control of disease progression; internal or external causative attributions of the origin of the disease; ascription of the disease to god and internal/external control through patient's religion. each item is scored from 0 to 3 according to intensity of patient agreement/disagreement with each statement. a summed score is obtained for each psychological dimension explored by the questionnaire. perceived social support was assessed with the validated french version (rascle et al., 1997) of the 6-item abbreviated social support questionnaire (ssq-6). this questionnaire measures the number of people to whom the patients could turn and on whom they could rely in given sets of circumstances (availability: scores 0-9 persons) and the corresponding satisfaction retrieved from the support given (satisfaction: scores 1-6). different areas of support (emotional, self-esteem, information, practical) are explored. total scores of availability (0-54) and satisfaction (6-36) are obtained by summing individual scores at the corresponding items. coping with pain was assessed by the french version (koleck, 2000; irachabal, 2002) of the csq (rosenstiel & keefe, 1983). this questionnaire is the most widely used measure of behavioral and emotional adjustment to chronic pain. the original version is comprised of 48 individual items. the french version is comprised of only 21 items and does not contain coping self-statements and behavioral coping. for each item of the questionnaire, patients are invited to score (from 0 to 4) the frequency of use of the proposed strategy. the sum of scores is calculated for each coping strategy. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 valade, fontenelle, roos et al. 463 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pain-related disability was assessed by the 6-item headache impact test (hit-6) (bayliss et al., 2003) which is an abbreviated and validated form of the original 54-item questionnaire (bjorner et al., 2003). hit was developed by applying the item response theory and other psychometric techniques to widely used questionnaires of headache impact (ware, bjorner, & kosinski, 2000). headache severity and frequency of headache-related disabling symptoms (limitation in activities, tiredness, being fed up or irritated, difficulty in concentrating) in the past four weeks are scored from 0 to 4. for analysis of study data, a total score >55 (score above which an immediate medical appointment is recommended) was considered to indicate a significant disrupting effect of pain on patient's life. a french version (qualitymetric, inc. and glaxosmithkline group of companies, 2000) has been used in france to measure the impact of migraine on patient physical, social and emotional functioning (vuillaume de diego & lanteri-minet, 2005). statistical analysis factor structure of the clcs was determined in the whole sample of study ch patients by principal component extraction followed by normalized orthogonal varimax rotation to identify clusters of variables (sets of inter-correlated items). which items were strongly associated with the considered factors was determined by the factor loading: items with a factor loading less than .40 were deleted for analysis. internal consistency of each identified factor was measured by cronbach's α coefficient. factor analysis of the csq was determined similarly, except that it was based on an a priori 5-factor (strategy) structure. secondarily, two subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch were compared for a series of variables (anxiety and depression, perceived controllability of the disease, perceived social support, coping with pain) after controlling for a number of factors (age, age at disease onset, age at diagnostic, time before diagnostic, disease duration, perceived level of headache-related disability). relationships between perceived controllability (total score at all items grouped together in the corresponding clcs factor) and depression (scores at the had depression/anhedonia subscale, the had global scale, and the bdi) were determined by correlation analyses. inter-relationships between all depression and anxiety scores were also determined in pairs by computing the relevant correlation coefficients. continuous variables were summarized by the mean and standard deviation (sd). homogeneity of variances was assessed by f tests. data normality was assessed by the kolmogorov-smirnov test. comparison of independent data was performed by student's t tests. linear correlations were assessed by the bravais-pearson correlation coefficient. probability values less than or equal to 0.01 were considered to be statistically significant. all statistical analyses were performed with the statview software version 5. results patient characteristics and main disease features a total of 73 ch patients (64 men, 87.7%) aged between 21 and 80 years (mean age: 40 ± 13 years) participated in the study. of them, 56 had episodic ch (49 men, 87.5%) and 17 had chronic ch (15 men, 88.2%). mean age at symptom onset was 29 ± 13 years. mean disease duration was 11 ± 9 years. mean time between symptom onset and diagnostic was 5 ± 7 years. patient characteristics according to ch type (episodic, chronic) are presented in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 464 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic attributes and main disease features of study patients according to the type (episodic or chronic) of cluster headache all patients n = 73 chronic ch n = 17 episodic ch n = 56patient characteristics 64 (87.7)15 (88.2)49 (87.5)male sex (n, %) age (mean ± sd) ± 1340± 1646± 1238 age at symptom onset (mean ± sd) ± 1329± 1432± 1228 disease durationa (mean ± sd) ± 911± 1114± 910 time to diagnosticb (mean ± sd) ± 75± 75± 75 a: difference between current age and age at symptom onset, b: difference between age at diagnostic and age at symptom onset, ch indicates cluster headache, sd indicates standard deviation factor analysis of the clcs and csq questionnaires in the whole sample of ch patients results of factor analysis of the clcs items are presented in table 2. items with factor loadings >0.4 were retained for analysis except for item 1 (disease due to fate with no personal control) and item 12 (influence of religion on disease progression). two items were deleted because they failed to load consistently on any factor (item 5: influence of spouse and family on disease progression; item 8: influence of environmental pollution). factor analysis yielded three varimax factors (factor 1: 9 items; factor 2: 3 items; factor 3: 3 items) which together explained 51.8% of total variance. relatively elevated cronbach's α coefficients indicate good consistency of the resulting item sets for each factor. table 2 factor analysis of items of the cancer locus of control scale (clcs) in cluster headache patients factor loading clcs items factor 3factor 2factor 1 disease due to fate and no personal control1 ...278-0 personal ability to influence disease progression2 ...6360 disease occurrence was due to lifestyle6 ...7130 disease occurrence is patient's fault9 ...6260 improved personal care can influence the disease10 ...6970 events in patient's history promoted the disease11 ...7330 improving lifestyle might influence the disease13 ...6230 patient's personality may have promoted the disease14 ...5600 disease occurrence was related to personal factors17 ...6980 medical care can influence disease progression4 ..7830. medical advice may help control disease progression15 ..8250. struggling may influence disease progression16 ..6540. pain disease was due to god's will3 .9000.. god can surely influence disease progression7 .9300.. religion may influence disease progression12 .3150.. 0.660.680.75cronbach's α coefficient 11.913.826.1percentage of total variance explained by the factor n = 71 patients (2 patients missing) on the basis of items with high weight in factor 1, this factor can be interpreted as the perceived internal controllability (beliefs about personal and lifestyle influence on disease progression and about internal causes of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 valade, fontenelle, roos et al. 465 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the disease). factor 2 can be interpreted as the perceived medical controllability of pain (beliefs about a possible influence on disease progression with the help of medical care). factor 3 represents beliefs about the influence of religion on disease controllability. results of factor analysis of the csq items are presented in table 3. factor extraction was carried out on the basis of five hypothesized principal components. the model indicated that the five varimax factors contributed to 64.9% of total variance. table 3 factor analysis of items of the coping strategies questionnaire (csq) in cluster headache patients factor loading csq items factor 5factor 4factor 3factor 2factor 1 not paying attention to pain7 .....4200 doing as if pain did not exist8 .....6500 going on as though nothing occurred14 .....7750 engaging into a pleasant activity15 .....7580 ignoring pain17 .....6710 trying to think about something pleasant2 ....7810. thinking about pleasant things in the past10 ....8460. thinking about persons who are pleasant company11 ....8340. thinking about pleasant activities20 ....7620. trying to distance oneself from pain1 ...7390.. trying not to think about pain5 ...5240.. trying not to think that pain concerns the body6 ...8460.. trying to think that pain is outside the body13 ...8960.. doing as though pain was outside the body21 ...7030.. it's terrifying and will never improve3 ..7460... worrying all the time whether it will stop9 ..4950... feeling that pain is no longer bearable16 ..6590... feeling that going on is no longer possible19 ..8700... praying god that it won't last4 .7960.... praying for pain to disappear12 .6600.... relying on faith in god18 .9050.... 0.800.730.810.870.69cronbach's α coefficient 7.58.211.716.720.8percentage of total variance explained by the factor n = 73 patients on account of the five items allocated to factor 1, this factor may be interpreted as indicating attempts to ignore pain (by denying, disregarding or overlooking pain). the four items allocated to factor 2 appear to reflect diverting attention from pain by imagining scenes incompatible with pain (pleasant images or thoughts) or mental activity. the five-item set in factor 3 may be interpreted as reflecting attempts to reinterpret painful sensations (by conceiving and describing the painful sensations differently). the four items grouped in factor 4 and the three items in factor 5 appear to represent tendencies to dramatize pain (catastrophizing thoughts and ideation, by focusing on the negative emotional component of pain) and to rely on god or religion or good luck to cure and end the pain (praying and hoping) for pain adjustment. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 466 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationships between perceived internal controllability of pain and emotional distress, and between the components of emotional distress themselves a positive relationship was observed between perceived internal controllability (as assessed by the summed score of the nine items of clcs factor 1) and emotional distress (as assessed by the scores at the had global scale, the had anxiety and had depression/ anhedonia subscales, and the bdi) in the 73 study patients with either episodic or chronic ch (table 4). although generally weak, the correlation was highly significant, except for the correlation with anxiety alone (which closely neared significance, however: p = 0.0514). thus, it appears that emotional distress increases with increasing level of perceived internal controllability of the disease. table 4 relationships between perceived internal controllability of pain and anxiety alone, depression/anhedonia, depression alone or anxiety and/or depression, and between the components of emotional distress themselves, in cluster headache patients significance99% ci correlation coefficientversus:variable analyzed ns0.229anxietyaperceived internal controllability of pain ;0.494-0.075 0.339depression/anhedoniab = 0.003p;0.5790.045 0.336depressionc = 0.004p;0.5760.041 0.339anxiety and/or depressiond = 0.003p;0.5790.045 0.417depression/anhedoniabanxietya = 0.0002p;0.6360.135 0.375depressionc = 0.001p;0.6060.086 0.829anxiety and/or depressiond < 0.0001p;0.9040.706 0.523depressioncdepression/anhedoniab < 0.0001p;0.7110.266 0.854anxiety and/or depressiond < 0.0001p;0.9180.745 0.536depressioncanxiety and/or depressionc < 0.0001p;0.7200.283 99% ci indicates confidence interval of the correlation coefficient at 99% probability a: as assessed by the score at the had anxiety subscale; b: as assessed by the score at the had depression/anhedonia subscale; c: as assessed by the score at the beck depression inventory (bdi); d: as assessed by the score at the had global scale n = 73 patients examination of individual data revealed that beliefs pertaining to internal causative attributions of the origin of the disease and to internal controllability constitute the greatest part of total clcs score when the summed score at clcs factor 1 is greater than 19 (possible range: 9-36), whereas the relative weight of these beliefs is less important when the factor-1 summed score is less than 12. inter-relationships between all anxiety and depression variables were also significant. highest correlation coefficients were observed for the relationships between had global score and the scores at the had anxiety or had depression/anhedonia subscales (table 4). comparison of the groups of patients with episodic and chronic cluster headache the comparison between patients with episodic and chronic ch was carried out on a subset of 32 patients (30 men and 2 women, 16 patients in each group). mean age was 44 years in both groups and patient groups did not noticeably differentiate by mean age at symptom onset (31 or 32 years), mean age at diagnostic (37 years in both groups), mean time to diagnostic after symptom onset (about 6 years in both groups), and mean disease duration (12 or 13 years). perceived pain-related disability (hit-6) was scored at 66 ± 5.6 for patients with chronic ch and 69 ± 6.2 for patients with episodic ch. most patients were anxious (87% had a score of 8 or higher at the had europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 valade, fontenelle, roos et al. 467 http://www.psychopen.eu/ anxiety subscale), half of them had anhedonia (53% had a score of 8 or higher at the had depression/anhedonia subscale), and two thirds were depressive (63% had a score of 4 or higher at the bdi). there were only modest differences between the groups of patients with episodic or chronic ch with respect to emotional status, with only slightly (but not significantly) higher scores for anxiety in patients with episodic ch and for depression/anhedonia and depression in patients with chronic ch (table 5). table 5 comparison of the groups of patients with episodic or chronic cluster headache statistical significance* patients with chronic ch n = 16 patients with episodic ch n = 16patient attributes emotional status nsanxietya ± 49± 311 nsdepression/anhedoniab ± 58± 47 nsdepression severityc ± 89± 57 perceived locus of control of pain: nsinternal control ± 518± 519 nsmedical control ± 29± 29 nsreligious control ± 37± 26 perceived social support: nsavailability ± 812± 1118 nssatisfaction with support ± 826± 531 coping strategies: nsignoring pain sensations ± 38± 26 nsdistraction ± 37± 38 p = 0.007reinterpreting pain sensations ± 28± 411 nscatastrophizing ± 311± 311 nspraying and hoping ± 36± 36 a: as assessed by the had anxiety subscale; b: as assessed by the had depression/anhedonia subscale; c: as assessed by the beck depression inventory (bdi); *: multiple regression analysis; ch indicates cluster headache there was no substantial difference between the two patient groups with respect to perceived control of the disease. on the other hand, perceived social support and satisfaction with support appeared somewhat higher for patients with episodic ch compared with those with chronic ch, but the between-group differences were not significant. regarding coping with pain, the two groups of patients did not differentiate on the strategies of distraction, catastrophizing, ignoring pain sensations, and praying and hoping. conversely, patients with episodic ch used significantly more frequently the strategy of reinterpreting pain sensations compared with patients with chronic ch (p = 0.007). the type of ch (episodic or chronic) accounted for 21% of the variance of individual data for this strategy. discussion this study determined, in ch patients seen in an emergency headache center, the factor structures of a scale of perceived disease control (clcs) and of a coping questionnaire (csq), and data were used to compare two subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch. factor analysis of clcs identified three components corresponding europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to perceived internal controllability of the disease, medical controllability, and religious controllability, respectively, and these components differ from the three subscales described for the original scale (internal/external controllability of disease progression, internal/external attribution of the origin of the disease, religious controllability). perceived internal controllability was significantly correlated with depression variables (bdi, had depression/anhedonia subscale, had global scale). factor analysis of csq revealed a similar item allocation to that previously described for the french version of the questionnaire, with only minor differences in individual item allocation to the factors. comparison of subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch did not show significant differences in emotional status, perceived locus of control of the disease and perceived social support or coping strategies, except for the strategy of reinterpreting pain sensations which was more frequently used by patients with episodic ch than chronic ch. of the three clcs components identified by factor analysis in ch patients, the nine-item component groups together items relating to both beliefs about personal responsibility in disease progression (through personal efforts and changes in lifestyle) and beliefs about internal attributions of the origin of the disease (lifestyle, patient's history or personality or other personal factors). this component corresponds to two distinct subscales in the original clcs structure. conversely, the second component identified contains three items related to medical support and willingness to control the disease, and may thus be interpreted as reflecting ‘fighting spirit’ (watson et al., 1990). the three items of the second component identified in ch patients are also allocated to two different subscales (internal and external locus of control subscales) in the original clcs structure. finally, the three-item third component (‘religious control’) identified in ch patients matches the corresponding original clcs subscale. different reasons may potentially account for the differences between the factor structure observed in our patient sample and the original clcs subscales. one of them may be the number of questionnaires patients were administered. although the clcs appeared well understandable to patients, some of them seemed to get confused when asked to distinguish between the causes and consequences of the disease and about links with lifestyle. generally speaking, patients appeared to acknowledge either some responsibility in the disease or no responsibility at all. this may explain the observed grouping in a single component of clcs items relating to internal/external locus of control or causative attributions. similarly, responses to items pertaining to pollution and role of close relations were generally dichotomized and were excluded from analysis. association of medical support with definite willingness to fight against the disease may originate, in the particular case of ch patients, in the efficacy of injectable sumatriptan for the control or ajustment of attacks. the clcs factor 1 identified in ch patients contained chiefly items relating to internal control (except item 1–role of fate–which in fact falls on the negative side of the belief). of the nine items of factor 1, five pertain to internal attribution of the origin of the disease, and three to personal efforts required to control disease progression. high perceived internal control over the cause of the illness is associated with an ‘anxious preoccupation’ about the disease (watson et al., 1990) and may ultimately lead to depression. in fact, correlations between factor 1 summed score and measures of depression (had depression/anhedonia subscale, bdi score) were highly significant in ch patients, while the correlation with anxiety (had anxiety subscale) approached significance. moreover, all measures of depression and anxiety were found to be significantly inter-correlated, confirming that anxiety and depression are linked in pain patients. csq factor structure was analyzed on an a priori basis of five cognitive and behavioral pain coping strategies. three main factors (cognitive coping and suppression, helplessness, and diverting attention or praying) were europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 valade, fontenelle, roos et al. 469 http://www.psychopen.eu/ initially reported by the authors of the instrument (rosenstiel & keefe, 1983), but varied numbers of factors (5, 6 or 7 factors) were subsequently identified with the original 48-item version of the questionnaire (swartzman, gwadry, shapiro, & teasell, 1994; riley & robinson, 1997; robinson et al., 1997). the five-factor structure retained for analysis in the present study corresponds to the five-factor structure previously observed for the 21-item french version of the questionnaire (irachabal, 2002). absence of self-statements in the french version does not appear to alter the factor structure of the scale, although negative self-statements were reported to be more predictive of psychosocial functioning than pain beliefs in chronic pain patients (stroud, thorn, jensen, & boothby, 2000). in the present study, factor allocation of two items differed from previous results with the french csq version: item 5 (trying not to think about pain) was allocated to the reinterpretation strategy (instead of ignoring pain sensations) and item 15 (engaging into a pleasant activity) to the ignoring pain sensations strategy (instead of distraction). the other strategies used by ch patients appeared to contain the same items as those noted in the previous french study in patients with other painful pathologies (irachabal, 2002). regarding the comparison of the two subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch, analysis revealed no significant difference in emotional status, perceived controllability of the disease (internal, medical, religious) and perceived social support. the only significant difference between the two types of ch concerned the use of the reinterpreting pain sensations strategy (more frequently used by patients with episodic ch). in contrast to what might have been expected, the absence of difference in perceived controllability indicated a similar degree of helplessness leading to hopelessness between the two groups of patients who also shared similar beliefs about the role of medical attention. nevertheless, some noticeable trends were detectable. anxiety seemed slightly higher in patients with episodic ch, whereas depression seemed slightly higher in those with chronic ch. drawing a parallel with migraine, uncertainty about the possible occurrence of attacks may be hypothesized to generate more anxiety in patients with episodic ch, whereas protracted periods of attacks may cause more depression in patients with chronic ch. patients with episodic ch seemed to benefit more from social support. slightly more patients with chronic ch used the ignoring pain sensations strategy. these differences did not reach significance, however, probably due to the limited size of each patient subset (16 patients per group) and relatively large inter-individual variability. it needs also to be recalled that data differences between groups were analyzed after controlling for disability. nevertheless, although limited in size and number, the differences observed between the two types of ch suggest a more ‘active’ profile for patients with episodic ch (more anxiety, greater reliance on social support, more reinterpretation of pain sensations) and a more ‘passive’ profile for patients with chronic ch (more depression, less social support, more attempts to ignore pain). one possible limitation of the study is that it was conducted among ch patients seen in an emergency headache center, which may have influenced in some way the characteristics of the patient sample. another limitation may be the small number of patients included in the subsets of patients with episodic or chronic ch (a consequence of the need for obtaining well-matched patient subsets with respect to patients' characteristics). furthermore, a single instrument was used for the exploration of coping strategies. in fact, csq only explores cognitive coping strategies but let aside behavioral coping strategies. complementary use of chronic pain coping inventory (jensen, turner, romano, & strom, 1995; hadjistavropoulos, macleod, & asmundson 1999), which is more strongly oriented to functioning and behavioral strategies of coping with pain, would perhaps have contributed to a more distinct differentiation of the respective profiles of episodic and chronic ch patients. however, time constraints forced to limit the number of questionnaires administered to study patients (an average of two hours europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 470 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was required to administer the whole battery of study questionnaires, taking account of resting intervals and time for medical support and for advice and possible referral). on the other hand, a possible strength of the study may be the relatively short duration of data collection (nine months), due to unique recruitment facilities (more than 8 000 patients are seen in the emergency headache center in a year, of whom about 400 are ch patients), which ensures relative 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(1983). the hospital anxiety and depression scale. acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 67, 361-370. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 valade, fontenelle, roos et al. 473 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2009.03.026 http://www.headachetest.com/hit6/pdfs/french.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00002508-199706000-00010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00002508-199703000-00007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(83)90125-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(95)00190-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0304-3959(99)00226-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0304-3959(94)90006-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0035-3787(05)85131-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2982.2004.00820.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1990.66.1.39 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors dominique valade, m. d., ph. d., is a neurologist. he has created “the emergency headache centre of the paris hospital-lariboisière”. he is actually the president of the european headache federation. frédéric fontenelle is a psychologist. he practices cognitive and behavioral therapies. caroline roos, m. d., is a neurologist at the hospital lariboisière in paris. céline rousseau-salvador ph. d., is a psychologist. she practices cognitive and behavioral therapies. anne ducros, m. d., ph.d., is a neurologist in "the emergency headache centre of the lariboisiere hospital" in paris and the pr elect of neurology in the faculty of medecine in montpellier. stéphane rusinek, ph. d., is a professor of psychology at the university of lille (psitec laboratory). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 461–474 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.308 cluster headache 474 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cluster headache methods study setting – participants measuring instruments statistical analysis results patient characteristics and main disease features factor analysis of the clcs and csq questionnaires in the whole sample of ch patients relationships between perceived internal controllability of pain and emotional distress, and between the components of emotional distress themselves comparison of the groups of patients with episodic and chronic cluster headache discussion references about the authors emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 640 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 640-663 www.ejop.org from icon to person: findings from a qualitative study of motherhood in crete sofia triliva department of psychology, university of crete catherine m. brusten phd. patriarchou grigoriou 11 abstract an exploratory study sought to reconcile certain contradictions regarding the role of mothers as presented in the social science literature through probing subjective accounts of mothers in the rapidly changing social milieu of greece. previous research that has focused on motherhood in greek society has highlighted how women who become mothers have been given iconic status. however, modern cretan mothers are increasingly faced with novel challenges. the subjective perceptions of motherhood of cretan women attending a community group which focused on parenting were probed. qualitative analysis was carried out on the written narrative accounts. participants‘ responses corresponded to the following levels of narrative analysis: personal, interpersonal/transgenerational, and societal-ideological. narratives revealed that mothers were experiencing high levels of personal and interpersonal dissonance which impinged upon their identities and challenged them in their roles as mothers. the women‘s narrative accounts underscored the emotional and social importance of having achieved the coveted role of being a mother, the stressful and pressure inducing social context which mandates how the mothering role should be enacted, and dialectics between the personal, intergenerational and social levels of experience. the implications of these findings are discussed with regard to identity and relatedness within the family and how social and professional constructs of mothering lag behind social changes. keywords: motherhood, crete, subjective accounts, qualitative research. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 641 motherhood in greece throughout history the icon of the mother has had a very special place in greek culture. this icon has been shrouded with an almost mystical existence that has positioned mothers as social objects of great respect respect even to the point of pious devotion. as paxson (2004) remarks: ‗motherhood in greece, with its iconic representation in the panayia, or all holy mary, mother of god, is an indisputable, absolute good. motherhood is an idiom of morality, and such idioms, as michael herzfeld notes, benefit from ―the semiotic illusion of invariance‖ (paxson, 2004, p. 14). given the special place that the mother occupies in greek society, it is not surprising that through the years there have been several studies carried out by social scientists on the perceptions of motherhood. in this introduction, we begin by reviewing some of the pivotal scholarly work on mothering and motherhood in greece. vassiliou (1966) conducted a study on family values and parenting using what he described as a large representative sample of athenians (unfortunately, exact numbers of participants were not given in his work). he asked participants to supply descriptors to the word ―mother‖. in analyzing these answers, vassiliou (1966) concluded that motherhood was constructed as a wholly positive experience, with 29% of the participants going so far as to using expressions such as: ‗the virgin mary‘, ‗goddess‘, ‗a sacred figure‘, and ‗the gold blanket that covers and protects us‘. the religious-like sense of devotion and awe associated with motherhood was captured in this early study. vassiliou & vassiliou (1970) summarized their findings as follows: ―mothers are assigned and assume a primary role concerning child-rearing. it is not simply a matter of being assigned this role. they seem to seek it out, and compete with other potential sources of child rearing (fathers, grand-parents, other relatives, teachers, etc.) in order to perform it exclusively. this is quite consistent with the fact that ―mother‖ represents the only totally respectable female social role. outside motherhood, the woman has a negative stereotype, no significant social role and, if married, her role involves mainly ―house activities‖. but once a mother the woman she becomes holy. almost unconditional love and respect are due to her. naturally then ―mothering‖ for her, becomes as all important and inclusive as life itself‖ (p. 443). the second major study on mothering in greece reported in the literature is work published by doumanis in the 1980s. greek society changed greatly between the early vassiliou (1966) study and the doumanis (1983) publications. doumanis, in an attempt to capture the changing cultural milieu, compared greek mothers living in from icon to person 642 the villages of ipeiros and in athens. doumanis‘ research, which spanned approximately 10 years and was completed in three different phases, presents snapshots of two different worlds, that of the village and that of the more ‗modern‘ world of the athens metropolitan area. domanis (1983) concluded that mothers in the traditional social milieu, who lived within a network of mutual support and interdependence, functioned in an unconstrained and unhurried manner in their role. in contrast to women living in an urban environment, the women who were embedded in the traditional milieu were not ridden with ambivalence, uncertainties and intrapersonal conflict. on the other hand, the women who lived and raised their children in the athens metropolitan area strived to prepare their children for a social environment that they themselves had not fully understood, adopted or reflected upon meaningfully. doumanis (1983) surmises that it was inevitable for athenian mothers to feel anxious to the core in their effort to reconcile their own and their children‘s needs. several years after doumanis‘ (1983) study, dragona (1987) published a study on greek women‘s attitudes toward pregnancy, labor, and motherhood. she found that these new mothers often reported an acute sense of responsibility coupled with uncertainty about what to do and how. feelings of anger apparently surfaced when mothers had to cope with the baby‘s persistent crying and their own chronic fatigue and vulnerability. she found that a baby‘s crying seems to create feelings of guilt and inadequacy, with mothers believing that they cannot cope adequately with their maternal role. dragona (1987) concluded that these mothers have few chances to confirm that they are ‗good‘ mothers and that their exposure to much contradictory information from experts and other sources adds to their ambivalence and anxiety. a decade later, katakis (1998) published an influential book on the greek family and its relational evolution through the years. she categorized the greek family as having three forms of identity: the traditional identity, the nuclear identity, and the modern identity. within the framework of the traditional family, it was the destiny of both men and women to become parents. as parents, they had to sacrifice their personal needs and desires for the ‗good‘ of family cohesion and more importantly for the children. in the nuclear family, children were the center of family life and parents had to equip their children with the necessary provisions to become ‗useful‘ social beings, for the honor of their family, their nation, and their religion. the means to achieve this was through education. finally, there is the more modern version of the nuclear-communicative family where the parental couple has a positive relationship, which is a necessary condition in order to share the responsibilities involved in parenting. according to katakis (1984) the factors that contribute europe’s journal of psychology 643 towards this integral relationship include: a relationship which involves mutual caring, where communication channels are open, and where the marital relationship is more than taking care of the children (see pages 189-191 for a more detailed description). katakis (1998) described the nuclear-communicative family as the more modern way of relating, although all three typologies exist simultaneously in the social terrain of the greek family. softas-nall (2008) refers to katakis‘ self-referential conceptual system model and describes this system of beliefs or constructions about family life that is constantly evolving. according to softas-nall (2008), the model can help researchers and family therapists identify, track and deal with the co-existing and at times conflicting constructions that people use to refer to their lives, the lives of significant others or social institutions in general. the existence of multiple beliefs, values, roles, and constructions regarding family life, and more specifically motherhood, is also highlighted by paxson (2004). her anthropological research conducted in the 1990s focused on the paradoxical state of affairs regarding reproduction and motherhood in greece. the question she posed was: why is it the case that a country with a deeply rooted value for bearing and having cohesive families has the lowest birth rates and the highest abortion rates in all of europe? according to paxson‘s (2004) analysis of in-depth interviews with athenian women from varied age groups, being a woman and becoming a mother have traditionally been associated with sacrifice, a social imperative, and a lifetime of service to one‘s family, particularly to one‘s children. this service toward the common, social good or benefit and the nature of a woman‘s performance at this service is rewarded by social validation within the community. after world war ii and the greek civil war the ethic of choice became more prominent for women. however, dilemmas associated with trying to find the balance between the responsibilities and obligations of being a woman in a changing society and the rights to become a mother surfaced. this imposition is fraught with compromises, questions, and ethical speculations. finally, ‗modern women‘ perceive motherhood as a way to achieve personal stability, social balance and equanimity. paxson (2004) details how all three of these ‗ethics of reproduction‘ coexist and create the conflicted ‗nootropia‘ or ‗collective mentality‘ or societal ‗normalizing pressures‘ (paxson 2004, pp. 98-99) that permeates the social milieu of greece. there is a collective mentality that places pressures on mothers to ensure that their children will become responsible cultural heirs and fulfill the destiny envisioned for them by their extended family and society. another decade and a half has passed since paxson‘s research and the whirlwind of social change continues to be part of the greek cultural milieu. from the present from icon to person 644 literature it can be seen that the iconic representation of the holy and goddess-like figure of the mother is well documented – however, more recent studies also highlight increasing personal and interpersonal frustrations and contradictions associated with the mothering role. nevertheless, the over-riding impression that emerged from the literature was that mediterranean mothers were often being ‗pigeonholed‘ into certain broad based categories – and within the framework of these categories, the role of motherhood was frequently characterized as being fixed, stable and homogenous. furthermore, the categories themselves – for example ‗traditional‘ versus ‗modern‘ may not in themselves always enable the researcher to make meaningful distinctions in a society experiencing social change. a major area of concern for us was that the most important voices, relating to mediterranean motherhood those of individual mothers themselves are not currently being heard in the social science literature. to summarize the literature review: the doumanis study compares rural and urban landscapes, dragona‘s (1987) focuses on new mothers and katakis‘ (1998) book focuses on the entity of the family. paxson‘s (2004) text, which reports ‗individual voices‘ adopts an anthropological perspective and is primarily concerned with dilemmas women face when making decisions about whether or not to have children. in contrast to previous work, our research focuses solely on mothering in a specific context that is neither exclusively urban nor rural. this study explores the issue of motherhood as viewed by participants attending an open-ended community group conducted in rethymnon, crete, greece. the social context of the current study rethymnon, crete, is a town of 31,700 people that has a long history dating back to the minoan era and is steeped in tradition. it is also a town that has experienced rapid growth and change over recent decades. many of the current residents have moved to the city from neighbouring villages during the past 30 years, and the expansion of university departments and the development of mass tourism has also had a major impact on the structure and culture of the city. in the 1980s the town of rethymnon was the subject of work carried out by the anthropologist michael herzfeld (herzfeld, 1991). he observed that some of the classic distinctions made by social scientists ceased to hold meaning when conducting research in this region. for example, as herzfeld says: ‗gradually i stopped thinking about village and town as separate entities. each is situated within the other‘s experience; each claims an identity that at once incorporates and europe’s journal of psychology 645 rejects the self image of the other‘ (herzfeld, 1991, p. 24). herzfeld also asked the question about how one negotiates relationships with the past, present and future in a town such as rethymnon. and whilst rethymnon is a special place in which to live, we would argue that the town is by no means unique in this respect. methodology rationale for the study and target group for the purposes of this research, the lykeio ellinidon in rethymnon appeared to be the most suitable environment as an initial research base. it is a nonprofit organization that seeks to sustain greek cultural traditions and also provides psychosocial support for families. the lykeio runs a variety of community education programmes throughout the year. our target group were women who had chosen to attend a nine week open-ended experiential group programme focusing on parenting issues (whilst the programme was open to all, the majority of attendees, over 90%, were female). the group was diverse in nature in that the women were of disparate ages and social and educational backgrounds. however, the group may be considered to be relatively homogeneous in that it was made up of participants who were motivated to attend a parenting workshop. it seems plausible that those who attended the programme may have been more concerned about parenting issues than those who chose not to attend. approximately 20% of the participants had attended parenting groups, ‗sholes goneon‘ or ‗schools for parents‘ but the programmes they attended had not focused on how they personally experience the parenting role. moreover, the programmes that the participants had attended previously were educational and not experiential in nature. data collection was conducted at the outset of the group, prior to the commencement of experiential activities and group discussions. aims of the study to explore the lived experience of cretan mothers from a reflective practice narrative perspective. we adopted a modified version of murray‘s (2000) different levels of narrative analysis and a critical perspective. murray (2000) outlined four levels of narrative analysis within health psychology: the personal, interpersonal, positional, and societal-ideological. murray (2003) emphasizes that such a qualitative approach to the analysis of the lived experiences of people, allows the researcher to capture how people bring order to their stories and make sense of their ever-changing social milieu. murray‘s approach has been previously applied to from icon to person 646 analyzing the narratives of older mothers in england by shelton and johnson (2006). the study sought to elucidate meanings and experiences of motherhood and mothering using narratives as vehicles in exploring their identities, interpersonal relations and socially shared stories, more specifically, :  what are cretan women‘s subjective experiences of motherhood and the parenting role?  what is mothering for these women as they negotiate, attend to and balance their roles in relation to their own experiences of being mothered?  what meanings do they ascribe to mothering?  how do these narrative accounts link to wider social constructions of motherhood in greece? data collection methods a qualitative methodology was adopted, as this was considered appropriate to a study seeking to elucidate meanings and experiences of mothering. the study took the form of an open ended questionnaire format. thirty-two participants provided written narrative accounts (in greek) to six questions designed to tap into individuals‘ personal, interpersonal/intergenerational and societal perspectives on mothering experiences. the objective of the open-ended questions was to encourage participants to provide rich and full descriptions of their experiences of motherhood. such descriptions would enable us to understand the participants‘ perspectives, subjective experiences and representations of mothering. this method was chosen in order to encourage the participants to narrate more crystallized and well thought-out accounts of their experiences of their mothering role and identity. participants provided written informed consent. they were informed about the purpose and the nature of the study. the information provided emphasized that their written narrative accounts was an opportunity for them to tell their ‗story‘ about what was important to them relating to their mothering experiences. participants forty-five sets of questionnaires were given out after one of the ‗community group meetings‘ and thirty-two were returned via mail. the demographic characteristics of the women who completed the protocols were as follows: they ranged in age from 28 through 83 years, modal age range 41-50 years. 28 of the women were married, two were widowed and two were divorced. they varied in educational level with one woman having completed only primary school, one middle school, 12 women high school and 18 women some form of tertiary degree or professional training. all of the women had worked outside the home when they were raising their children. europe’s journal of psychology 647 six of the women had only one child, 19 women had two children, seven women had three children. most participants were born and raised on crete and two had lived in the area for the past 20 years. table 1 presents a more detailed account the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. table 1: demographic characteristics of the participants ages 20-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 1 7 12 8 1 2 1 marital status married divorced widowed 28 2 2 education primary school middle school high school university technical and private training schools 1 1 12 15 3 number of children 1 2 3 6 19 7 research protocol and procedure the questions (as translated into english) were as follows and were administered in the same order to all participants. the following questions were generated using previous international research on the intergenerational transmission of parenting (chen & kaplan, 2001), the experience of motherhood marshall (1991), the ideologies of mothering (arendell, 2000), and murray‘s levels of narrative analysis (2000):  what does motherhood mean to you?  what does society expect from parents? from icon to person 648  what are the differences between a good and bad parent?  it is said that nowadays we don‘t raise our children as we used to. what has changed? what has remained the same?  which of your parents‘ practices would you adopt or have you already adopted in the raising of your children? which of them would you not adopt?  what should parents pass down to their children? responses were given in greek and were translated into english and then back translated to check for linguistic veracity. the analysis of the cretan mothers‘ narratives was carried out in two phases, case and cross-case analyses, in which we employed both open and axial coding. in the case analysis phase each transcript was reviewed as a whole by the two researchers independently. transcripts were initially subjected to thematic analysis using linguistic markers such as feelings, thoughts, attitudes/ perceptions, and actions. responses were coded on an item-byitem basis, and subsequently according to individual protocols as a whole. in the cross case analysis, both researchers working together created meaning clusters based on the categories identified during the first phase and employed axial coding to assemble the data, pulling it together and examining commonalities, differences, and emerging patterns (creswell, 1998). table 2 presents the axial coding scheme. table 2: themes and dimensions of mothering from the cross-case analysis and the axial coding phase theme categories dimensions of motherhood/mothering subjective meaning of motherhood and mothering  identity, all encompassing, empowered socially  rolecaretaker, demanding, involving commitment and diligence, hard work, great responsibility  emotionshappiness, fulfillment, love, stress-anxiety, ambivalence cultural-social past vs. present ideologies on child rearing and the parenting role  past = need to survive, valuesπατρίς / nation, θρησκεία / religion, and οικογένεια /family, respect for values, family honor, descent, ethnic and religious affiliation and paternal authority, homogeneity in beliefs, practices and mores.  present = consumerism, demanding children, divergence in values and practices, difficulties in caring out the mothering role due to differences between parental values and practices and those of schools, peers and other social systems, self-esteem and self-worth of children is important, brining up ‗perfect‘ children (in their academic achievements, useful and contributing to society, and ethical).  convergence with past: familial bonding, love and dedication of women to the mothering role europe’s journal of psychology 649 intergenerational transmission of parenting practices  similarities in how they their parents raised them and how they are raising their children= love, transmission of core social-cultural values and mores, education and achievement as important accomplishment for children  differences= in the past parenting was characterized by autocratic and authoritarian practices, a great deal of pressure, strictness, pressure, and restrictions, adherence of authoritarian ways by the educational system and social systems in general  difficulties in reconciling what was intergenerationally transmitted, do not want to be authoritarian, yet want authority, do not want to adhere to strict and confining practices yet fear for their children‘s well-being. societal expectations of mothers  proper upbringing of children  educate children both socially and with regard to schooling (help children with school work, pay for tutors and extra-curricular activities and lessons)  caring and upbringing should be ‗proper‘ so that children behave according to standards, are useful and productive, and are ethical  to be ―totally present‖ for the upbringing of their children, to give of themselves totally, to be incessantly committed to their role, and ‗without support‘ personal expectations of mothers  ―good mother‖ = is interested, accepts her children as they are, is giving, is selfless in the offering of love  bad mother = indifferent to children‘s needs, overprotective, rejecting, is motivated by selfish motives, is autocratic. the axial coding system led to further analyses and the data were then assigned to three pre-defined categories, applying murray‘s (2000) conceptual structure on the different levels of analysis of narratives: the personal, the interpersonal/ intergenerational, and societal/ ideological. murray (2000) proposes that the positional level is a distinct dimension of analysis and describes this level as the relationship between researcher and participant. being that the methodology was using written narrative accounts this was a level of analysis that was not considered. the personal level includes—affective, cognitive, identity components. this is the phenomenological level of analysis and it attempts to capture how the women organize their perceptions and feelings, and how they construct a sense of who they are as mothers. the interpersonal level of analysis considers the intergenerational/familial and other relational components of mothering. this level of analysis considers how participants describe interactions and interpersonal process shaped their identities. the ideological and societal levels of analysis were integrated from icon to person 650 in the women‘s narratives. their stories reflected a dialectical and dialogical interplay between their narratives, their social world, and their positioning in that world. greek societal ideologies, belief systems, discourses and representation, including the positioning of the subject in her social context, culture, or milieu, were articulated and analyzed at this integrated level. in the protocols provided by the participants, the social status and positioning of the women appeared to be an extension of their collective representations (societalideological) and was most obvious in the women‘s accounts of the ‗demands‘ made by society in general or collective mentality (i.e. nootropia). perhaps the nootropia encompasses the ideological and political positioning of the participants in ways that are difficult to disentangle but that perhaps address the position of the subject within the wider social-economic and political context. the validity and credibility of the analyses were reviewed by peers (three greek, female psychologists, mothers; two greek female psychologists; and four male psychologists, all researchers within an academic department). the findings and interpretations of data were scrutinized as a way to establish credibility a method suggested by lincoln and guba (1985). analysis and discussion our analysis of the transcripts was based on aspects of the three levels of narrative analysis that murray (2000) presents. the accounts provided by the participants would appear to fit quite neatly into three phenomenological dimensions: personal, interpersonal/transgenerational, and the ideological/societal levels. personal dimension the participants‘ narratives of personal experience included feelings, thoughts, associations, and perceptions about mothering, and the meanings attributed to their experiences and the actions they take in every-day life. as predicted by the nature of items employed in the open-ended questionnaire, the frames of reference used by the majority of participants employed a ―psycho – emotional‖ component elaborating on the emotional dynamics of mothering (barlow, 2004). the women in our group described mothering using terms such as: ―everything‖, ―the most important gift bestowed upon women‖ ―being a mother completes / fulfills a women‖, ―unceasing care and responsibility for everything which concerns children,‖ ―love (aghapi), compassion, support, wisdom,‖ and europe’s journal of psychology 651 ―becoming a complete entity / existence. this is the greatest gift i can offer myself, my parents and the society‖. motherhood for the women in our group was presented as an ultimate fulfilment of their destiny as women, socially and perhaps biologically inevitable. this coincides with anthropological research that highlighted how the social representations connected to femininity are completely interchangeable with those connected to motherhood (du boulay, 1986). within the group there was consensus (with all of the participants noting three to four of the following parental behaviors) about what constitutes core parenting norms. these included: demonstrating love and affection, being appropriate attachment models and educators, providing material support, imparting values such as respect, trust and honesty, and bringing up children to be independent individuals who were also ‗decent‘ citizens. the decency values which emphasize character as described by the participants include: honesty, charity, patriotism, responsibility, religious piousness, respect to elders, loyalty to family and dignity. these values have also been emphasized in previous literature (oh, 2010; tamis-lemonda, wang, koutsouvanou & albright, 2002). as one of our participants wrote: it (mothering) stands for great responsibility but concomitantly a source of life. the role of the mother is accompanied with that of the pedadogue/ the nurse’s role/ the friend’s/ the adviser’s and with a feeling that you no longer live just for yourself and you dedicate a great amount of your time to others. through the mothering process, life has meaning, expectations, hopes and creativity (twenty-seven year old, one child, university graduate). further illustrative examples include: it is the most important role of my life. a role that will never change. i shall try to do my best. because of this role, i feel important and significant (forty-two year old, mother of two, high school graduate). i am the mother of three children. my first priority is the care of my children, myself comes second. i do my best to be close to them, to foster their psychological and mental growth, and provide them with the material supplies that are essential to fulfill their needs. all of my thoughts, actions and practices aim at the improvement of my family functioning and the fostering of balance and the mutual respect of family members. (forty-two year old, mother of 3, technical university graduate) from icon to person 652 both of these participants describe the all-encompassing role of mothers and the importance of the role to them. mothering is a priority for these women and their ability to perform well in the role is tied into their sense of significance. [motherhood is..] becoming a whole entity. this is the greatest gift i can offer myself, my parents and society (forty-three year old, mother of three, high school graduate). [motherhood] means constant giving, selfless love at all costs, proper role modelling. when the child grows up, [means] guidance without imposing oneself on the child, and being as discreet as possible. responsibility, because children are the future. even though we experience happiness and bliss, the constant care of the child doesn’t allow us to take care of ourselves (fifty-five year old, mother of three, university graduate). [motherhood is ...] the upbringing of individuals with character, full of love for their fellow citizens, with interests beyond themselves, intellectually developed, with knowledge and the abilities to contribute to the public welfare (eightythree year old, mother of three, middle school education). the three participants quoted above placed more emphasis the caring aspects of mothering. by caring and giving of themselves fully, they contribute to the social good and their status and identities are empowered. in order to contribute in this fashion however, they have to be vigilant and ‗selfless‘. the women‘s responses suggest that their identities are shaped and formed by becoming mothers. their accounts describe how this ‗personal and social identity‘ achievement gives way to positioning them as primarily and ultimately responsible for their children‘s development. this positioning constitutes the women responsible for all that their children do and do not do, and hence they need to monitor, be constantly available, and provide mothering in an intense way so that they and their children pass the success ‗stress tests‘ of social development. by and large, these norms corresponded to ‗traditional mothering scripts‘ (doucet, 2009; levine, 2010). in this case ―scripts‘ of intensive mothering, where a mother is totally devoted to her children, is the sole source of guidance, nurturance, education, and physical and emotional sustenance for them (johnston & swanson, 2007). this all-encompassing role corresponds to what paxson (2004) described as the ‗ethic of service‘, a way of mothering that is synonymous with devotion, self-sacrifice, and sole purpose. service and devotion to their own parents and extended families, communities and religion is what society demands of these women. as paxson (2004) found, within greek europe’s journal of psychology 653 society motherhood is an ontological relationship based on ‗christian aghapi‘ that is transformative, corresponds to a sense of selflessness, and completes a woman‘s identity. oh‘s (2010) commentary highlights the religious underpinnings of this ―sacrificial and selfless love‖ which tend to objectify women as ―symbols of willing and selfless devotion‖ and create ―simplistically idealized renderings of motherhood (pp938-639).‖ through this ultimate fulfillment, women become responsible for the next generations moral future (ruddick, 1989). as the mothers in our sample imply, mothering is a very essential and crucial role that synchronizes and synthesizes a woman‘s personal, social and ideological existence, as paxson (2004) states: ―when, as under the ethic of service, one‘s acts are motivated by external convention rather than inner imperative, everyone suffers thwarted yearnings, affections, and ambitions (pp.98-99).‖ the gap between idealistic cultural expectations of mothering and the complexity of women‘s subjective experiences of mothering adds to women‘s dissatisfaction, ambivalence, and sense of demoralization that is highlighted in the international feminist literature (quinn & luttrell, 2004; tummula-narra, 2009, levine, 2010; oh, 2010; ). the pressure to be a ‗good mother‘ was also emphasized in international literature. feminists have highlighted that the dominant ideology of the ‗good mother‘ positions women as natural caregivers, selflessly committed to their children and role as mothers (nicolson, 1998, forna, 1999, choi, henshaw, baker & tree, 2005). they have argued that this is at odds with women‘s experiences of motherhood and it presents difficulties and conflicts for mothers, perhaps because it is experienced as a subtle form of oppression. the women of our study described their awareness of the societal pressures on women to be ‗good‘ mothers, responsible not only for their own children, but for the nation‘s economical, moral, and overall survival. in summary, the personal level of analysis underscores the all-encompassing nature of the mothering role, the selfless devotion it entails, and the never ending vigilance that it requires if they are to achieve the social status of a ‗good mother‘ as it is dictated by familial and social pressures. interpersonal / transgenerational dimension women expressed the wish to be ‗good‘ mothers as defined by familial expectations. however, these expectations were also seen as unrealistic ‗ideals‘ at odds with the demands and pressures faced by cretan mothers today. the women in our study found the construction of modern mothers‘ identities as fraught with competing pulls, allegiances, and anxiety provoking demands. more specifically, women felt compelled by both familial and intergenerational pressures to embrace from icon to person 654 expectations to be ‗perfect‘ mothers. however, motherhood is also a crucial and significant identity achievement. in the past, mother‘s identities were more proscribed and there was little variance in role models, ideological discourses, and other societal pressures. for example: family members expect that parents’ life should revolve around their children, and children to be the first priority of their parents (fifty-year old, mother of one, bookeeping training). even relatives anticipate perfection from parent. (forty-eight year old, mother of two, university graduate). it means a great deal of responsibility, and no matter how hard i try to bring about the proper and desired result (according to my experiences and the principles of my family of origin), it doesn’t suffice, because the ways and mores according to which we were raised have radically changed. in other words, i realize that my effort isn’t sufficient, and the result is not the expected one in many ways. that is surely upsetting. but when i see other children behaving somehow like my own, i am somehow relieved (sixty-two year old, mother of two, university graduate). the women describe the daunting expectations that come with the role of mother. they experience these intergenerationally transmitted demands as a great pressure and responsibility that they have internalized. the rapidly and constantly changing social context enhances the pressures involved in that what is ‗expected‘ of mothers is very difficult to achieve in that they were raised and have incorporated ideals, values and mores that are difficult to apply and achieve in an ever evolving social context. it is at this intergenerational/ familial level that participants voiced a great deal of dissonance and ambivalence. on the one hand, they wanted to adhere to their family‘s values and ways of being, on the other, they also cited the need to be less authoritarian, conservative, and strict and more communicative with their children than their own parents had been. thus, participants wanted to instill the same values, but in a different way. the women are being asked to try and make a balance between being attentive and constantly giving mothers versus regulating and being persistently and consistently training mothers. there was a striking absence in the narratives of referents to the father‘s role. the women in this study appeared to experience their spouses as part of the family – intergenerational context that applied pressure to be a ‗good mother‘ who adheres to the demands europe’s journal of psychology 655 for vigilance and constant caring. it seems that the demands and cultural requirements of the role do not view mothers or wives as persons who may experience difficulties in coping with and adhering to these demands. the ambivalence, guilt, and difficulties in reconciling ‗perfect mothering‘ demands and highly idealistic expectations of ‗intensive mothering‘ are well documented in the international literature (arendell, 2000; guendouzi, 2006; shelton & johnson, 2006; johnston & swanson, 2007; wethington & kamp dush, 2007). shelton and johnson (2006) attribute ambivalence and dissonance to the complicated nature of mothering experiences. these cumulative, life-long experiences are often contradictory emotionally. this paradoxical nature is described by one of the participants who said/felt/believed that mothering is ‗everything‘ and but also involves ―so many‖ contradictory things: [mothering is].... everything. so many things: endless love, completeness, my life is meaningful,has a future. my life is interesting. yet, sadness, worries and dead ends are present. my disappointment is immense, i feel helpless, with my hands tied down, without being able to help (i feel pain, i feel love). i cannot find the right words to describe what my children offer me. i could say, a priceless fortune, they support me, one joke of theirs can dissolve all the dark clouds that linger over my head. i cannot describe the devotion i feel for my children. whenever i discuss with them, i am calmed down, i’m balanced. i think that these two children are my only achievement” (forty-nine year old, mother of two, high school graduate) (emphasis in the original). the words of the women in our study document how the powerful familial and intergenerational discourses of being a ‗good‘ mother that raises ‗proper‘ children inevitably enter women‘s understandings of themselves, and how the sense of being constantly evaluated by others regulates them. this emphasis is evident by the way the woman above structures her narrative, underlines important words and capitalizes the most emphatic meanings for her. in summary, the intergenerational level of analysis taps into ‗perfect mother‘ or good mothering demands that are derived from the close circle of family and community. these findings coincide with the myth of the ‗perfect mother‘ that feminist scholars (e.g. forna, 1999) have connected to the disparities between the ideologies of mothering and the lived experiences of women (arendell, 2000). since the mothering role is one that fulfills not only interpersonal and personal expectations but also societal roles, conflict and ambivalence was also obvious in the ideological societaldimensions of narrative analysis. from icon to person 656 ideological and societal dimension this level of analysis focuses on greek society‘s ‗collective mentality‘ ‗nootropia‘ or common consciousness that is traceable to cultural history ‗habitus‘ (see, for example, paxson, 2004, p.99). motherhood is a set of social relationships and these relationships go beyond the nuclear and extended family into the wider social and cultural context. this constantly shifting, constructed and reconstructed context of relationships kneads and forms mothering identities, subjectivities and ways of behaving and being (paxson, 2004; softas-nall, 2008). in essence this socially embedded language, ways of being, and social representations pervade the lives of the participants and position them within their particular context. the women in our study linked the cultural and the subjective sense of who they are by voicing their uncertainty in negotiating the dialectic in being the ‗perfect mother‘, and juggling more and more roles and handling an ever increasing number of socially circumscribed demands and regulations on what it means to have successful offspring. in a context which is currently in flux, economically, socially, demographically and even ecologically; the women in our study described how cultural narratives from different points in time co-exist and make their lives and efforts feel disjointed. vosniadou (2009) captures the integration in these levels of analysis in her work on greek women‘s identity by explaining describing how difficult ―the passage from emancipation to autonomy, from certainty to uncertainty, from the politics of identity to a politics of conflicting and contradictory identifications, which the postmodern subject has to go through‖ (p. 40). today, life conditions have changed, yet research indicates that through the processes of enculturation and socialization (seymor, 2010), the strong ideological scripts of mothering and motherhood are still deeply felt and enacted in daily familial interactions and broader societal discourses. on the one hand it is easier for the mother to take care of her children, because she has more commodities at her disposal, and much more help from experts. on the other, she has less available time and communal experiences of what mothering is all about. this creates more anxiety for mothers, because life rhythms are fast and parents are confused between the older authoritarian model and the modern more democratic model. they are stressed and concerned about their behaviour towards their children. this level of stress about the mothering role is something that possibly did not happen in the past, when the struggle for survival may have prevailed over everything else and when gendering practices were learned and enacted automatically and were taken for granted as deeply engrained collective practices. the ‗intensive mothering‘ demands along with contextual encroachments, including a rapidly changing social context, economic pressures, decreased social cohesiveness and support impinge europe’s journal of psychology 657 upon these women‘s subjectivities and identities, a conclusion that is echoed by researchers on mothering who are working in different contexts (tummala-narra, 2009). in the words of the women of the study: “society expects us to raise or teach our children moral and spiritual values. to educate children’s souls so that they can enter society with dignity, self-respect, fighting spirit and become useful for the society” (forty-three year old, mother of two, high school graduate). yet questions were also posed“how does a woman go about doing this?” and, i personally cannot tell who is the good and who is the bad parent, because if you are tolerant, you are considered mistaken. if you are strict, you are mistaken too. (fifty-six year old, mother of two, university graduate). the women write about their awareness of the societal pressures to be ‗good‘ mothers that fuel their aspirations for vigilance and perfection and pose questions about these expectations with regard to their clarity and applicability in a changing context. i am not really sure whether the good parent wants his children to be truly happy with what they are doing or he wants them to behave in a certain way so that they can appear nice and competent in the society (forty-two year old, mother of two, high school graduate). society expects everything from the parents, whereas several messages should be conveyed by schools. education falls short (thirty-eight year old, mother of two, middle school education). society expects every child to be useful, when she or he reaches maturity. not to become a burden for the society, rather a whole and productive personality. parents hold the greatest responsibility for the integration of their child’s personality (forty-nine year old, mother of one, high school graduate). the women expereince the societal demands as daunting, they feel more and more accountable and responsible for their children‘s well-being and behaviour. moreover, they feel unsupported and at loss as to how to go about reconciling the demands of the social context and the impact on their functioning and the psychological well-being of their children. from icon to person 658 society expects us to give everything to our children, although it doesn’t always support us. we certainly need support. even though society trips us up, we do the best that we can without neglecting ourselves, because if we don’t feel good about ourselves, we cannot perform our societal imposed duties as parents (thirty-seven year old, mother of two, technical university graduate). society holds parents responsible for everything, for good or ill. school and society are accountable for very few things” (fifty-seven year old, mother of two, university graduate). society expects that we should bring up perfect, flawless children (fifty-six year old, moher of two, university graduate). in a changing social context, the women expereince the demands for perfection in providing care and support and in raising ‗perfect children‘ difficult to achieve. the economic and social restructuring adds to the demands and erodes the families‘ traditional social capital (ambert, 1994). ....the decline of moral values, the constant questioning and controversy on what is right or wrong and the fact that children are influenced more by their friends and television and that their standards differ from ours, render our role really demanding. our children question us all the time, they sometimes isolate us and our relationship becomes only financial, because they are dependent on us. when they stop being dependent, our point of view probably annoys them. moreover, family structure has changed. nowadays, there are single parent families (which is even harder). the grandmother and the grandfather are no longer respectable individuals, but have become nannies, and their opinion is not considered important. parent’s obligation to raise, to educate their children and support them financially until, they find a job (and nowadays, it is hard to achieve this) remains the same (fifty-five year old, mother of three, university graduate). the societal constructs of mothering appear to position the mothers in our study against idealised images of how perfect mothers should be. the dialectical tensions and criticisms are evident between the ideologies of mothering and the experiences of these women. yet, the dominant cultural discourses of the iconic status of mothers prevail making these women‘s experiences difficult to reconcile. the women describe how their roles as mothers correspond to the varied social representations that have existed in greek society through the years. the focus on achieving these idealized representations of motherhood eclipses wider social explanations and europe’s journal of psychology 659 processes that impact upon the formative experiences of children and families. thus, great responsibilities are placed on parents (predominantly mothers) and the wider social context is not critiqued or in any way held responsible. as such, motherhood is simultaneously the ultimate fulfilment and empowering achievement, a role that is exhausting and demanding, a lifetime of service, a role without a definite script, regulated by societal demands, and a pivotal and constantly evolving aspect of who a woman is and what she wants to be. this is echoed in katakis‘ (1998, see also softas-nall, 2008) work on family life and in paxson‘s (2004) book on the ethics of reproduction in greece. concomitantly, in a rapidly changing social milieu the women noted that there was a lack of support from the wider social context, something that doumanis (1983) had highlighted when referring to athenian women. on the one hand, there is the ideal of the perfect mother who serves her children, her family, her society, and her nation diligently and competently in all spheres of existence without complaints. on the other hand there are the conflicts associated with demands of being a mother in the modern world. conclusion from our study, it would appear that intrapersonal and interpersonal perceptions of cretan motherhood are characterized by higher levels of dissonance and ambivalence than would have been predicted by the iconic representation of mothers as being saintly, highly valued and a perfect and universal role for women. mothers expressed considerable feelings of intrapersonal conflict associated with the need to reconcile the culturally ascribed role of mother within the context of a rapidly changing society. traditional mothering scripts applied over generations were seen as no longer applicable. ‗updated‘ scripts did not appear to be available. it appears that modern cultural and social milieu of the women requires modern social relations and ‗being holy figure‘ in this modern society weighs them down, confines them and impedes their sense of self-efficacy, individual initiative, and in personal worth. it is difficult for these women to establish other ways of gaining authority since both consciously and unconsciously they subscribe to the idea a people and a nation, hellenism—nation, religion and family (πατρίς, θρησκεία, οικογένεια) and they, as women, are responsible through their childbearing and proper rearing to embody, sustain and perpetuate these core values (paxson, 2004; vassiliou & vassiliou, 1970). the women appear to be stuck between the scylla and the charybdis, cultural and intergenerational values that bind and drastic changes that make women feel abandoned with the ‗socializing‘ task and the search for a new more ‗modern‘ personal identity. hence, the over-riding view from icon to person 660 that emerged was that modern cretan women were being expected to perform the role of mother without appropriate guidelines or support structures. vassiliou and vassiliou (1970) describe this as children being ―thrown into mother‘s sole responsibility‖ and ―imprisoned within four walls in the mother-child relationship (prison of love?)‖ (p. 433). the mothers in our study are left feeling torn between demands for the old ways of being, their children‘s demands, their careers, and the pressures of the wider changing society. their narratives of motherhood are heavily tied to and are confounded by the history of their culture and the new constantly evolving social world; hence their subjectivities are linked with uncertainty and they experience a disjointed sense of who they are. these findings coincide with some of the interdisciplinary international literature on mothering (barlow, 2004; doucet, 2009; levine, 2010; oh, 2010; quinn & luttrell, 2004; ruddick, 1989; seymor, 2010; tummalanarra, 2009) on how the ecocultural and historical context shapes mothering, how contradictory feelings and tensions are part of the way women grapple with motherhood and how mothering needs to be understood in the context of multisystemic roles, positioning, and intergenerational relationships. in this qualitative study motherhood was defined from the perspective of the women themselves based on the reality of their daily lives and their views of how the broader societal systems impact on their realities and subjective experiences in a rapidly shifting social context. such methodology is important according to amber (1994) and arendell (2000) if motherhood is to be understood from women‘s own understandings and if research and practice is to become more cross-cultural and attuned to social change. to establish validity of the study the methodology, the findings, and the interpretations were reviewed by peers (in line with the methodological approach adopted by e.g., lincoln & guba, 1985) on one occasion. a more thorough peer review would have strengthened the study further as would a replication using interviews or focus groups. moreover, the findings presented here are descriptive in nature and clearly need further validation. however, it would appear that the research strategy that we have adopted – trying to tap into subjective representations of motherhood in a real world setting has managed to generate ‗different voices‘ from some mediterranean mothers that may have been under-represented in the global scientific literature. this line of research can influence the work of practitioners. in order to have such an impact the role of fathers in the parenting process and also that of women who have not experienced motherhood or are about to become mothers needs to be studied and heard. europe’s journal of psychology 661 references arendell, t. 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(1970). on aspects of child rearing in greece. in e. j. anthony and c. koupernik, (eds.), the child and his family (pp. 429-444).. new york: wiley. vosniadou, t. (2009). from demanding emancipation to negotiating autonomy: conflicting identifications in a changing world. psychotherapy and politics international, 7(1), 40-47. wethington, e., & kamp dush, c. m. (2007). assessment of parenting quality and experiences across the life course. interpersonal relations across the life course advances in life course research, 12, 123-152. about the authors: sofia triliva, assistant professor, department of psychology, university of crete, university campus at gallos, rethymnon, crete 74-100 greece. email: triliva@psy.soc.uoc.gr catherine m. brusten, phd. patriarchou grigoriou 11, rethymnon, 74-100 crete, greece. mailto:triliva@psy.soc.uoc.gr microsoft word 10. book review hope for humanity 565 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 565-568 www.ejop.org hope for humanity authored by malcolm hollick and christine connelly psychology o-books, 2010 reviewed by cherie armour national centre of psychotraumatology, university of southern denmark, odense, denmark; e-mail: carmour@health.sdu.dk hope for humanity is an immensely detailed account which focuses on how trauma, both individually and collectively, affects the human psyche. the authors define trauma early on by stating that trauma is “an experience that is emotionally painful, distressful, or shocking and which may result in lasting mental and physical effects” (p.2). rightly so, the authors state that trauma is so widespread and embedded in our culture that many of us have accepted trauma as the norm. in documenting the role of trauma across thousands of years through prehistory, history and the present the authors report that the first human civilisations lived in the absence of trauma. indeed, the authors state that the evidence pertaining to these early civilisations suggests that they “…maintained [a] largely peaceful, cooperative and egalitarian partnership…” (p. 2). this continued until an era, which steve taylor called the fall. the fall was a major change in human culture which occurred during the 4th millennium bc. this era saw major climate changes and the emergence of dominator cultures which were characterised by warlike, aggressive, competitive and hierarchical traits. these traits combined with famine and poverty created multiple traumas. the authors then go on to discuss the two major reactions to the ‘fall’. first, approximately 2500 years ago there was a rise in major religions which aimed to ease human suffering. then, only 250 years ago, there were movements to increase human rights and end slavery, to name a few. the authors propose that humans can survive the current crises by taking strong collective action, aiming for hope for humanity 566 higher levels of consciousness, and practicing universal compassion and love for all human beings. thus, they suggest ‘hope for humanity’. malcolm hollick and christine connelly divide the book into six parts which conclude with a short epilogue. part i titled ‘understanding trauma’ discusses the nature of trauma, its causes, how humans respond to trauma, the consequences of trauma, collective and generational trauma and how trauma can be healed. throughout part i the authors provide several useful lists detailing potential traumatic events and situations, strategies for coping with traumatic situations, and the symptoms and effects of trauma. the latter is the most notable. it details the symptoms and effects of trauma across developmental, psychological, emotional, behavioural and physical domains and thus illustrates the huge impact that the experience of trauma can have on individuals. the closure to part 1 ask the reader 14 pertinent questions in relation to trauma, for example “why do humans suffer so much from trauma?” and “how can we minimise the creation of fresh trauma?” (p. 53). the authors state that these are the questions posed and considered in the remainder of the book. however, they clearly state that although they will attempt to cover these questions no-one can truly provide all the answers, yet it is still important that these questions are posed. this section really spurs the interest of the reader. part ii titled ‘the human brain and mind’ discusses the evolution of the human brain and mind and how such can be differentiated from those of other animals. the authors discuss how our brains have evolved to make us more vulnerable to trauma. part iii and iv, were titled ‘from the golden age to agricultural civilisation’ and ‘the fall’ respectively. part iii discusses human civilisations from hunter gathers to farmers. the authors conclude this section by stating that “as human culture evolved beyond hunting and gathering to farming and agricultural civilisation, so the pressure of change grew, and the potential for trauma increased” (p. 110). part iv discusses the events of ‘the fall’, its causes and consequences, and the two major reactions to the fall. in the closure to the section the authors bring back the focus of the book by stating that there is still hope for humanity. they state that “prehistory demonstrates clearly that humans are not innately violent, aggressive and selfish. we are not inevitably doomed by our genes to destroy ourselves. there is another side to our nature that is cooperative, peaceful, compassionate and generous; a side that we can foster and bring to the fore once again as we learn to heal our existing wounds and minimise the creation of fresh trauma” (p. 161). europe’s journal of psychology 567 part v takes a detailed look at trauma today. it covers the incidence of trauma at both an individual and societal level spanning the full lifespan. this section of the book, in my opinion, is the jewel in the crown. it seeks to answer several key questions, which deserve to be highlighted in this review, as follows: 1. what is known about the biological mechanisms of trauma? 2. how and where are the memories of traumatic experiences stored? 3. how is trauma transmitted from one generation to the next? 4. how common is trauma today? 5. how does trauma affect the development of the individual? 6. how do the effects of trauma vary with age? 7. what impacts does trauma have on modern society? 8. how is trauma related to the problems we are facing as a civilisation and a species? the authors provide a good introduction to the available material in an attempt to answer the above questions. of particular note, the authors touch on a relatively new area of epigenetics which proposes that trauma or at least how we respond to trauma may be inherited. one complaint related to this section is that i was left wanting more detail. however, i was particularly interested in reading one of the following sections on trauma before and during birth. this particular section felt controversial but the authors presented the material well. to illustrate my point i refer you to the following quote “…it matters whether a baby is conceived in love, tenderness, and out of desire for a child, or in the violence, anger and hatred of a rape. it matters whether a baby is wanted by its mother, or the pregnancy is a disaster for her” (p. 182). other interesting sections, from a scholarly perspective, in this part of the book relate to those covering trauma in infancy, childhood and adolescence. i cannot say these were an enjoyable read; in fact the section, and detailed examples of particular events, on male circumcision and female genital mutilation practices inflicted on young children, was difficult to read. thankfully, the authors point out that these practices have now been banned in many countries and thus are believed to be greatly reduced. however, they also note that unfortunately these practices have, not yet, been completely eradicated. rightly so, the authors report that childhood maltreatment still occurs worldwide stating that it is imperative that governments employ relevant initiatives to decrease the incidence of childhood maltreatment. hope for humanity 568 part iv titled ‘healing into partnership’ details multiple strategies for reducing potentially traumatic events and for developing resilience. once again the authors provide detailed useful lists of such strategies, many of which are thought provoking. the latter sections of part iv discuss healing trauma and working towards a partnership civilisation. overall, i found hollick and connelly’s book hope for humanity to be a fascinating, comprehensive, and informative read. although i had some reservations about certain sections of the book, such as the section on ‘the fall’ and the section on the ‘evolution of the human brain and mind’, i would recommend this book to others. microsoft word 9. a critique of the iq achievement discrepancy model .doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 128-145 www.ejop.org a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model for identifying specific learning disabilities albert f. restori california state university, northridge gary s. katz california state university, northridge howard b. lee california state university, northridge abstract when the united states congress passed the individuals with disabilities education improvement act in 2004 (ideia 2004), local educational agencies (lea) were permitted to use a response-to-intervention (rti) approach for identifying children with possible learning disabilities for special education. furthermore, ideia 2004 no longer required leas to establish an iq-achievement discrepancy for determining a specific learning disability (sld). although federal law no longer mandates the need for an iqachievement discrepancy for determining an sld, most school psychologists continue to employ this approach for the assessment of children at-risk for sld. furthermore, some researchers suggest that although the iq-achievement discrepancy model may not be the best approach for identifying children at-risk for sld, school psychologists should continue to use intelligence tests as part of the assessment process. the current paper (a) provides a brief review of the iq-achievement discrepancy model, (b) reviews concerns of using intelligence tests within a rti framework, and (c) reviews some of the major criticisms regarding the iq-achievement discrepancy model. keywords – learning disabilities, iq discrepancy model, response-to-intervention, school psychology, special education a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 129 in december 2004, the united states congress passed the individuals with disabilities education improvement act (ideia, 2004), which permitted local education agencies to use a response-to-intervention (rti) approach for identifying children with possible learning disabilities for special education. with the passage of ideia 2004, educators were essentially given the choice of using the traditional iq-achievement discrepancy model or rti for identifying students at-risk for a specific learning disability (sld). unfortunately the passage of ideia 2004 has not resolved the debate regarding the best approach for identifying children with sld. on one hand, some notable researchers argue that the iq-achievement discrepancy model affords educators with the most valid approach for preserving the construct sld and identifying those students with “real” learning disabilities (mastropieri & scruggs, 2002; kavale, 2002). on the other hand, many researchers question the validity of the iq-achievement discrepancy model and suggest that an rti approach is an empirically supported approach that is free of many of the criticisms associated with the iq-achievement discrepancy model. although rti has been shown to be a viable approach for the identification of children at-risk for sld, most states and local school districts continue to use the iq-achievement discrepancy model nearly four years after the passage of ideia 2004 and its associated regulations. . the purpose of the current article is to (a) provide a brief review of the discrepancy model, (b) provide a compendium of the issues related to the iq-discrepancy model for school psychology practitioners, and (c) review the issues related to the use of intelligence tests within an rti model. description of the discrepancy model in general, the discrepancy model employed in most states including california requires that the following four criteria are met before determining eligibility for sld: (a) establishing a discrepancy between intellectual/cognitive ability and academic achievement, (b) identifying the existence of a psychological/cognitive processing deficit, (c) determining if the child’s educational needs can or cannot be met without special education and related services, and (d) exclusionary considerations. the first part of this model is to determine if a significant discrepancy between the student’s intellectual ability and academic achievement exists. although there are a number of different methods available to determine if a significant discrepancy exists, the most common method used is to simply look at the standard scores on some measure of intellectual ability and compare them to the standard scores obtained on various measures of academic achievement. if the discrepancy between ability and achievement is equal to or greater than the pre-established criteria set forth by the state (e.g., 1 ½ standard deviations [22 points] in california]), the student has met the first criterion for a sld. once the ability-achievement discrepancy criterion is met, a deficit in some area of psychological processing must be identified in order meet the second part of the sld criteria. areas of psychological processing include, but are not limited to, europe’s journal of psychology 130 auditory processing, visual processing and visual-motor integration. at this point in the assessment process, school psychologists have two approaches for identifying a processing deficit. the first approach used to determine if a child demonstrates a processing deficit is to analyze their performance on the previously administered intelligence test. a review of the technical manuals of a number of intelligence tests (e.g., wechsler intelligence scales for children – 4th edition [wisc-iv]; wechsler, 2003, woodcock-johnson tests of cognitive abilities – 3rd edition [wj-iii cog]; woodcock, mcgrew, & mather, 2001, cognitive abilities scales [cas]; naglieri & das, 1997, kaufman assessment battery for children – 2nd edition [k-abc-ii]; kaufman & kaufman, 2004) report that through analysis of scales, subtests or clusters of subtests, a child’s processing strengths and/or weaknesses can be identified. the second approach for detecting a psychological processing deficit is to administer a battery of tests that purport to measure different areas of psychological processing. if the student obtains a standard score that is significantly below average on any one of those measures (e.g., auditory processing), a psychological processing deficit has been identified. school psychologists for identifying processing deficits and meeting the second part of the sld criteria frequently use both of the previously described approaches. the third part of the sld criteria is to determine if the child has an educational need. the educational need criterion essentially requires that members of the iep team agree that the child’s educational needs will be best served if he or she is deemed eligible to receive special education services. factors considered when making this decision are results of testing provided by the school psychologists and other professionals, efficacy of pre-referral interventions, and the opinions of members of the iep team. at this point in the assessment and identification process, it is unlikely that any member of the iep team would disagree with the need for special education services provided the child meets the first two criteria. the fourth criterion in the sld identification process is exclusionary considerations. that is, the school psychologists and/or iep team must conclude that the presence of a specific learning disability is not due to a sensory disorder, mental retardation (mr), emotional disturbance (ed), economic disadvantage, linguistic diversity, or inadequate instruction. if at any point during the assessment process, one of these variables is thought to contribute to the learning disability, eligibility for special education as a child with sld should not be considered, however, special education eligibility in another category (e.g., mr or ed) may be considered. once the previously describes four criteria are met, the student is eligible for special education services as a child with an sld. interestingly, the education for all handicapped children act (1975; renamed the individual with disabilities education act [idea] in 1990) did not require the assessment of intelligence or psychological processing for determining eligibility of sld. although not mandated in federal law, most educators involved in this type of assessment would agree that the iq-achievement discrepancy and identification of psychological processing strengths and weaknesses are the most a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 131 heavily weighted considerations for identifying sld. although idea never required this type of assessment as part of sld, the iq-achievement discrepancy model was implemented in an arbitrary fashion in the 1977 federal regulations. this was done as a way to operationalize the construct of sld and prevent a de facto prevalence cap of 2% from being enacted automatically (u.s. office of education, 1977). admittedly, the previously described assessment process is not always so clear-cut, however, it demonstrates a common assessment process used daily by thousands of school psychologists and multi-disciplinary teams (mdt) across the united states. issues with the discrepancy model from its inception, the discrepancy model has been problematic for numerous reasons. over the past 30 years dozens of research articles have provided empirical evidence of the problems inherent with the iq-achievement discrepancy model. as previously stated, the forthcoming discussion is meant to provide practitioners with a compendium of the issues related to the iq-achievement discrepancy model and a brief review of the research literature supporting each of the points. first and foremost, use of the discrepancy model has made early identification and intervention of children with suspected slds difficult. for the most part, young children experiencing academic problems in the early elementary grades do not demonstrate the iq-achievement discrepancy necessary to meet eligibility as sld (speece, 2002). as a result, it is not uncommon for these students to continue to fail for an additional two or three years, and often longer, before their achievement is sufficiently low compared to their iq and they are eligible to receive special education services. in fact, special education identification rates indicate that the odds of being classified as sld peaks in the third and fourth grades (lyon, fletcher, fuchs, & chhabra, 2006). this model represents a “wait-to-fail” approach, which results in the loss of valuable instructional time that would likely make a significant difference to a substantial number of the children affected (fletcher, lyon, barnes, stuebing, francis, olson, shaywitz & shaywitz 2002; gresham, 2002; torgeson, alexander, wagner, rashotte, voeller, & conway, 2001). for example, in the area of reading, children at-risk for later reading difficulties can be reliably identified as early as the beginning of first grade (juel, 1988). when these children are not intervened upon early in their academic careers, there is a high probability (>70%) that they will continue to be poor readers into the secondary grades and beyond (fletcher & lyon, 1998). on the other hand, when educators are able to meet the academic achievement needs of children early on, the likelihood of positive, long-term educational outcomes is greatly increased (fletcher et al., 2002; stanovich, 2000). furthermore, the likelihood of negative long-term outcomes such as school dropout, delinquency, and unemployment is significantly reduced (alexander, entwisle, & horsey, 1997; williams & mcgee, 1994). although the ability to provide early europe’s journal of psychology 132 intervention and prevention for all children at risk for school failure alone should justify moving to an rti approach, it is just one of many problems with the iq-achievement discrepancy approach for identifying sld. a second major criticism of the ability-achievement discrepancy model for identifying sld is the inconsistent manner in which practitioners apply this approach. gresham, macmillan and colleagues concluded that over half of the school-identified sld children included in their study did not meet federal or state eligibility criteria (gresham, macmillan, & bocian, 1996; macmillan, gresham & bocian, 1998; macmillan & speece, 1999). that is, many of the children included in this study did not demonstrate a significant discrepancy, had iq scores below 75 (i.e., mild mental retardation [mmr]), or were emotionally disturbed (ed). in addition, gresham, macmillan, and colleagues reported that an unknown number of children who did in fact meet the criteria as sld, were not identified as such. furthermore, a number of researchers have concluded that sld eligibility criteria are not uniformly applied within and across states (bocian, beebe, macmillan, & gresham, 1999; gottlieb, alter, gottlieb, & wishner, 1994; macmillan et al., 1998; peterson & shinn, 2002). although well intentioned, when school personnel select children for special education in such an inconsistent and subjective manner, they negate the very objectivity and precision the iq-achievement discrepancy model proposes to offer. furthermore, it is reasonable to assume that school personnel will continue to identify students for special education based on their perceptions regarding the individual needs of their students. a third criticism of the iq-achievement discrepancy approach is that many students that experience long-term academic achievement problems never receive special education services because of below average intellectual ability (i.e., slow learner). this is a problem that school psychologists working under an iq-achievement discrepancy mandate are all too familiar with. for example, a child with an iq score of 85 and a reading decoding score of 70 is not likely to receive special education services. in this scenario, the student’s iq score is not low enough to warrant special education placement as mr, nor do they demonstrate the necessary discrepancy between ability and achievement to qualify for special education as sld. although few would argue that a child with a reading standard score of 70 demonstrates an urgent need for the type of support available from special education, school psychologists and educators have been hamstrung for nearly 30 years by laws and regulations from helping a child with this all-to-common profile. the result of this scenario is that school psychologists and educators are presented with a serious, ethical dilemma. that is, to qualify a child for special education as sld who does not meet the criteria for such a placement or to not qualify a child for services they would clearly benefit from. as a result, many school psychologists engage in questionable practices in their effort to address the academic achievement needs of such children. this conclusion is consistent with those of a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 133 macmillan, gresham, lopez, and bocian (1996) and gottlieb et al. (1994) who indicated that school personnel tend to base their decisions on an “absolute low achievement” criterion, thereby ignoring the discrepancy component of the law. although use of the iq-achievement discrepancy approach is problematic due to the previously described issues inherent in this approach, perhaps the more troubling part of the iq-achievement equation is the use of intelligence tests for the identification of sld at all. a fourth criticism questions the use of intelligence tests in any manner as part of the sld definition. originally the rationale for including intelligence tests as part of the definition of sld was to determine if a student’s underachievement in a given area of academic achievement was expected or unexpected. this conceptualization can be traced to the isle of wright studies by rutter and yule (1975). these authors identified two types of reading underachievement difficulties that they termed general reading backwardness (grb) and specific reading retardation (srr). grb was defined as reading below the level expected of a child’s chronological age, whereas, srr was defined as reading below the level predicted by a child’s intelligence (i.e., discrepant underachievement). this conceptualization formed the basis for current notions of expected and unexpected underachievement. the concept of unexpected underachievement has been a central premise in the conceptualization of sld. that is, it is reasonable to expect that if a child performs within the average range on some measure of intelligence, that his or her ability in the various areas of academic achievement should also be in the average range. following this logic, it is also reasonable to assume that if a child performs within the average range on some measure of intelligence, but his or her performance in an area of academic achievement is significantly below average, then his or her performance in that area would be unexpected. the latter scenario represents the most fundamental component of the construct of sld. the logic of this, however, is based on the faulty premise that iq and academic achievement are perfectly correlated. in fact, at best, the correlation between measures of cognitive ability and academic achievement rarely exceed .60, thereby accounting for only 36% of shared variance (sattler, 2001). although determining expected or unexpected underachievement was a major reason for including intelligence tests in the identification of sld, it is now clear that establishing the discrepancy between intelligence and achievement is not particularly useful either for assessment or intervention purposes. furthermore, over the past 30 years, the use of intelligence tests has evolved into a realm far beyond its original intent. a fifth major criticism of the iq-achievement discrepancy model is that there is little scientific basis for using this approach (francis, fletcher, & stuebing, 2005; stuebing, fletcher, ledoux, lyon, shaywitz, & shaywitz, 2002). that is, empirical evidence demonstrating the reliability and validity of the iq-achievement discrepancy model for europe’s journal of psychology 134 identifying sld is virtually non-existent (fletcher et al., 2002; stuebing et al., 2002; vellutino, scanlon, & lyon, 2000). on the contrary, a rather substantial body of evidence has concluded that iq-achievement discrepancy models do not accurately identify sld (hoskyn & swanson, 2000; stuebing et al., 2002; vellutino et al., 2000). with respect to the reliability of the iq-achievement discrepancy model, fletcher et al. (2002) concluded that making a decision based on a single test score, at a single point in time, with an instrument that has measurement error is not a reliable or psychometrically sound practice. since a student is generally administered a measure (e.g., iq or achievement test) only once, the repeated measures necessary to establish the reliability (consistency) of their performance cannot be determined. without repeated measures, issues such as examinee characteristics, examiner characteristics, and situational conditions are difficult to account for, making the reliability of the iq-achievement discrepancy models particularly problematic. in discussing the unreliability of the discrepancy approach, shepard (1980) proposed that students be administered at-least four separate combinations of iq and achievement tests in order to derive a reliable estimate of the student’s discrepancy score. however, this procedure would take school psychologists up to 12 hours of testing just on iq and achievement tests, which does not have much practical appeal. with regard to validity, a substantial body of research has concluded that using an iqachievement discrepancy approach does not accurately identify discrepant low achievers from non-discrepant low achievers (fletcher et al., 2002; francis, shaywitz, stuebing, shaywitz, & fletcher, 1996; hoskyn & swanson, 2000; vellutino et al., 2000). this indicates that the discrepancy model is not valid for the purposes of identifying sld. most researchers would agree that discrepant and non-discrepant low-achievers differ to some degree. the central issue is to determine whether or not those differences are meaningful enough to warrant continued research and to influence practice. a consistent theme when reviewing the research literature pertaining to discrepant versus non-discrepant low-achievers is how to distinguish the “real ld” students from the lowachieving students. it appears that we have become so intent on preserving the construct of ld, as arbitrarily operationalized by the discrepancy model that we seem to have forgotten that the more important goal is to help children who are struggling academically. whereas studies comparing iq discrepant and non-discrepant students have demonstrated no meaningful differences between the two groups, studies of students defined as responders and non-responders to interventions using rti procedures have clearly demonstrated differences on key variables among the groups. for example, stage, abbott, jenkins, and berninger (2003), vellutino et al. (2000), and vaughn, linan, thompson, and hickman (2003) all found that non-responders to early intervention differed from responders in both pre-intervention achievement scores and pre-intervention cognitive tasks. moreover, fletcher, coulter, reschly, and vaughn (2004) found through neuroimaging procedures that intervention non-responders tend to have a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 135 deficient left hemispheric activity in areas of the brain that are consistent with the development of reading skills, providing further evidence of the differentiation between responders and non-responders to high quality interventions. previous research also suggests that the discrepancy approach lacks strong evidence for external validity with respect to achievement, behavior, neuro-biological factors, prognosis, and response to intervention (fletcher et al., 2002). iq tests and rti a number of researchers have argued that iq tests should continue to be an integral component of a comprehensive assessment for identifying children with suspected learning disabilities (flanagan, ortiz, alfonso, & dynda, 2006; hale, naglieri, kaufman, & kavale, 2006). more specifically, these researchers posit that children who do not respond to research-based interventions within an rti framework should be given intelligence tests to help school psychologists and other invested professionals identify the cognitive or psychological processes that are adversely impacting the child’s academic performance. with this perspective in mind, we believe that there a number of reasons why iq tests should not necessarily be included as part of the assessment process for children who have not responded to interventions in the initial phases of the rti process. first, as previously stated, the authors and publishers of popular intelligence tests such as the wisc-iv, cas, and w-j iii cog assert that their measures can assist school psychologists and other educators in identifying the cognitive or psychological processes that have lead to a child’s academic underachievement (kaufman & kaufman, 2004; naglieri & das, 1997, 2005; woodcock, mcgrew, & mather, 2001). furthermore, these researchers posit that once these underlying processing strengths and weaknesses are identified, those instructional treatments can be developed to produce positive academic achievement outcomes. the assumption that instructional treatments can be matched to aptitudes or cognitive processes to produce unique and positive academic outcomes is not new. this idea can be traced back to cronbach’s research on aptitude x treatment interactions (ati; cronbach 1957, 1975). the basic logic of atis is that instructional treatments can be matched to aptitudes or modalities (e.g., auditory processing, visual processing). it is believed that if instructional treatments are matched to processing strengths or that if aptitude weaknesses are targeted for remediation, improved academic performance will result. although the idea of matching instructional treatments to aptitudes is intuitively appealing, empirical evidence supporting the existence of atis is spurious and for the most part, nonexistent (ayers & cooley, 1986; cronbach, 1975; gresham, 2002; kavale & forness, 1987). despite the fact that there is a paucity of research supporting the existence of atis, school psychologists continue to focus on cognitive strengths and weaknesses and their europe’s journal of psychology 136 presumed relevance to treatment. we have reached a point in school psychology and education that when we discuss a child’s achievement difficulties, we automatically attribute the child’s difficulties to some “processing deficit” inherent within the child. intelligence tests were originally developed to determine individuals’ overall cognitive ability and used by educators to determine special education eligibility (i.e., expected versus unexpected underachievement). however, school psychologists now regularly use and “interpret” intelligence tests for the purposes of identifying the processing strengths and weaknesses that “cause” a child to perform poorly in some area of academic achievement. developers of popular intelligence tests such as the cas (naglieri & das, 1997), wisc-iv (wechsler, 2003), kabc-ii (kaufman & kaufman, 2004), and the w-j iii cog (mcgrew et al., 2001) actually discourage the use of their overall scores (i.e., full scale iq). instead, they strongly urge the user to use their tests for the purposes of identifying processing strengths and weaknesses. these authors imply that their tests are not necessarily measures of intelligence, but rather measures of processing. ironically, when these tests were validated, they are not validated against other tests purporting to measure similar constructs such as auditory processing or memory, but rather, against other well established tests of intelligence. advocates of intelligence testing argue that the core procedure of a comprehensive evaluation of ld is an objective, norm-referenced assessment of the presence and severity of any cognitive processing strengths and weaknesses (flanagan et al., 2006; hale et al., 2006). however, there is no corpus of evidence to support such a practice to enhance sld identification, control prevalence, translate into more effective instruction, or improve prediction of the outcomes of interventions. absent such evidence, the benefits of intelligence and psychological process testing simply do not outweigh the costs in terms of school personnel time, resources, and student outcomes (gresham & witt, 1997; reschly & wilson, 1995). a second important issue regarding the use of intelligence tests within an rti framework pertains to the manner in which the authors of intelligence tests recommend that we use their measures. as previously stated, the authors and publishers of intelligence tests have assured users that by using their methods of interpretation, their tests can help identify processing strengths and weaknesses. additionally, in doing so test users can create instructional interventions that will help children that are struggling academically to improve their academic performance. methods of interpretation recommended by kaufman and others include ipsative or profile analysis (i.e., subtest analysis) (kaufman, 1994). the two common methods of subtest analysis involve: (a) comparing individual subtest scores to the unique mean subtest score of the child and (b) directly comparing one subtest score to another for the purposes of identifying specific patterns of subtest scores. proponents of subtest analysis posit that subtest scores that are significantly higher or lower than a child’s own average are considered relative and/or cognitive a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 137 strengths and weaknesses. additionally, certain subtest patterns are thought to be unique and indicative of learning and emotional problems. although a thorough review of the subtest analysis literature is beyond the scope of this paper, research on the topic has reached the following conclusions. first, subtests have low reliability and specificity, therefore, making decisions regarding cognitive strengths and weaknesses based on the scores produced from these measures is an unsound practice (macmann & barnett, 1997; watkins, glutting & youngstrom, 2005). second, ipsative subtest scores do not contribute anything to the prediction of academic achievement not already accounted for by the global full scale score (macmann & barnett, 1997; mcdermott, fantuzzo & glutting, 1990). third, ipsative scores cannot be interpreted as if they possess the same psychometric properties as normative scores; therefore, such interpretation is not recommended (mcdermott & glutting, 1997; watkins et al., 2005). fourth, it is not uncommon for children to demonstrate a considerable degree of variation across subtests; thus, using score differences obtained from subtests should not be used to make diagnostic decisions. fifth, not all children from a particular diagnostic category will exhibit the profile thought to be unique to that diagnostic category (watkins et al., 2005). overall, proponents of subtest analysis have not adequately demonstrated that this practice has adequate reliability, diagnostic utility, or treatment validity. despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, many school psychologists continue to use, or rather, misuse intelligence tests in a manner that is inconsistent with these research findings. a third issue regarding the use intelligence testing within an rti framework is the assumption that rti alone will not provide the information necessary to develop appropriate interventions for students who do not respond sufficiently to initial attempts to prevent or remediate their academic and/or behavioral difficulties. proponents of intelligence testing argue that without iq tests and other measures of psychological processing, school psychologists and teachers will not have the necessary information needed for developing interventions for children experiencing academic difficulties (flanagan et al., 2006; hale et al., 2006). specifically, these researchers argue that children who do not respond to research-based interventions within an rti framework should be given intelligence tests to help identify the cognitive/psychological processes that are causing their academic underachievement. although recently a number of these researchers have conceded that the discrepancy approach for identifying sld is flawed beyond repair, they now insist that measures of intelligence and psychological processing complement rti. proponents of rti would argue that whether used within a discrepancy approach or not, measures of intelligence or psychological processing do not add information necessary for developing instructional interventions (fletcher et al., 2004; gresham, 2006; national association of state directors of special education, 2005; reschly & ysseldyke, 2002). in short, most proponents of rti take issue not only with the use of iq tests within an iq-achievement discrepancy approach, but with the use of iq europe’s journal of psychology 138 tests in and of themselves for the purposes of assessing sld. it is precisely because of the failure of measures of intelligence and psychological processing to provide school psychologists and teachers with the information necessary to develop instructional interventions that researchers were compelled to seek and explore alternative approaches for identifying sld. one such approach was rti. within an rti approach, instead of asking, “what kind of processing deficit does the child have?,” we ask, “what kind of problems is the child demonstrating, where and when do they occur, and what can we do about it?” conclusion many researchers and practitioners in school psychology and special education would agree that moving from a classification and/or eligibility-based assessment approach to one that focuses on intervention would be in the best interest of children experiencing academic achievement difficulties (e.g., burns & ysseldyke, 2005; fuchs, mock, morgan, & young, 2003; gresham, 2001, 2002, 2005; kovaleski & prasse, 2004). in light of the numerous problems with the iq-achievement discrepancy model, rti may offer the most viable approach for making this shift. rti has not only garnered the support of many researchers and practitioners across the country, but it has been endorsed by the president’s commission on excellence in special education (pcese, 2001) and the national association of school psychologists (nasp, 2007). rti offers an improved approach to assessment that allows educators to help children they know are struggling and does not include circumventing the problems that many school psychologists and special education teachers must face when using the iqachievement discrepancy approach. further, an rti approach to eligibility determination moves away from using measures that yield minimal benefits with respect to treatment. the rti approach instead focuses on direct measures of student achievement and the instructional environment that produce data that are in the best interest of both the children served and the educators that serve them. the data resulting from the application of rti methods allow school psychologists and teachers to focus on issues related to intervention, rather than issues related to classification and eligibility. although rti is not a perfect system, it is an approach with promising empirical support, which is not the case for the traditional testing-oriented discrepancy model. the authors of this paper have been unable to locate an empirically based rationale for the inclusion of measures of intelligence or psychological processing within a properly conducted rti approach. the time has come for making the paradigm shift that reschly and ysseldyke (2002) spoke of over seven years ago. a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 139 references alexander, k. l., entwisle, d. r., & horsey, c. s. 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(2001). examiner's manual. woodcockjohnson iii tests of cognitive ability. itasca, il: riverside publishing. about the authors: alberto f. restori, ph.d. is an associate professor of school psychology in the department of educational psychology at california state university, northridge. dr. restori received his ph.d. at the university of california at riverside. email address is alberto.restori@csun.edu. postal address: department of educational psychology and counseling, csun, 18111 nordhoff street, northridge, ca 91330-8265. a critique of the iq / achievement discrepancy model 145 gary s. katz is an assistant professor of psychology in the department of psychology at california state university, northridge. dr. katz received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the university of pittsburgh. his email address is gary.katz@csun.edu howard b. lee, ph.d. is a professor of psychology in the department of psychology at california state university, northridge. dr. lee received his doctorate from ucla in psychometrics and measurement. his email address is howard.lee@csun.edu human responses to disasters this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 112-138, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.303 www.ejop.org human responses to disasters: a pilot study on peritraumatic emotional and cognitive processing anna grimm, department of health and prevention, institute of psychology, university of greifswald, germany lynn hulse fire safety engineering group, university of greenwich, uk silke schmidt department of health and prevention, institute of psychology, university of greifswald, germany abstract this research article presents the qualitative development and cross-cultural pilot testing of a new instrument measuring emotional and cognitive processing during disasters. the instrument was developed according to a theoretical framework based on narratives from survivors of different types of disaster across europe. peritraumatic emotions and cognitions were assessed at three different stages of a disaster. the pilot study consisted of 311 participants responding to the questionnaire using scenario versions of disasters as well as 25 survivors working through the questionnaire using their experiences of real disasters. both types of analysis were performed across seven countries. differences in emotions and cognitions during the course of a disaster were displayed. also, gender, the type of scenario participants were allocated to, and professional experience of emergencies led to differences in item response. as there was little difference between survivors‟ and scenario participants‟ responses, the use of a scenario in order to test pilot forms of questionnaires for purposive samples with certain characteristics such as limited sizes or access can be supported. for future research, the instrument should be field tested. it is envisaged it will be beneficial for a cross-cultural understanding of the influence of peritraumatic emotions and cognitions not only on posttraumatic human responses to disasters 113 psychological outcomes but also on related behavioural responses displayed during disasters. keywords: cross-cultural development, disaster research, pilot study, peritraumatic emotion and cognition, risk perception in the last few decades several major disasters have struck europe, for example: floods in poland, 2010, czech republic and germany, 2002; earthquakes in l'aquila, italy, 2009 and marmara, turkey, 1999; plus bombings in london, 2005 and madrid, 2004. of interest is whether people‟s responses to disasters can be generalized or whether they will be unique according to the specific circumstances. that is, will people‟s behaviour during a disaster follow a similar general pattern or will it vary according to surrounding factors such as the people‟s prior knowledge and encounters going into the event, what they think and feel as the event unfolds, the environment in which the event occurs and to which the people belong, or even the type of event itself? there is reason to believe these circumstances surrounding people‟s experiences of disasters may be relevant for their responses to disasters and may even interact with one another. for example, while fires and natural catastrophes such as floods, storms and earthquakes are among the most common disasters in europe (preventionweb, n.d.), public and media attention is mainly drawn to man-made disasters such as terror attacks (grimm, hulse, & schmidt, 2009). therefore it is possible that people‟s perception of the threat or significance posed by disasters may vary according to the type of disaster instead of, or in addition to, their exposure to disasters. regarding people‟s feelings, fear is often the most reported emotion experienced during disasters (e.g. prati, catufi, & pietrantoni, 2012; sotgiu & galati, 2007). however, while the specific characteristics of basic emotions like fear, such as rapid onset, automatic appraisal, certain aspects of antecedent events, etc., are universal (ekman, 1992; ekman & friesen, 1971), recent research suggests that the intensity of emotional responses and cognitive appraisals during disasters differs across cultures. a study examining narratives from european disaster survivors found that not only did the narratives differ significantly across countries in the amount of reported emotional or anxiety words but also in the use of descriptions of cognitive processing (freitag, grimm, & schmidt, 2011). also, culture's influence has been shown on risk perception without it being related to rates of actual exposure to terror attacks or tsunamis (gierlach, belsher, & beutler, 2010) or explained by individual exposure to terror attacks or symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) (steger, frazier, & zacchanini, 2008). europe’s journal of psychology 114 the above research may demonstrate links between several surrounding circumstances, but can one go a step further and draw a link between these factors and people‟s behavioural responses during disasters? several recent research studies focusing on survivor narratives have found hints that human behaviour during disasters (e.g. preparing for evacuation, seeking information about the situation, etc.), as well as the victim‟s surroundings (e.g. being in a familiar place, being with relatives/known persons), can be relevant to not just emotional/cognitive processing during the event but also later posttraumatic stress (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a; prati, catufi, & pietrantoni, 2012; sotgiu & galati, 2007). people‟s post-event responses to disasters, such as posttraumatic stress symptoms, have received relatively greater attention from researchers and some of this work has highlighted the influence of certain surrounding circumstances. for example, several theoretical models and frameworks for the explanation of ptsd have a focus on cognitive processing (brewin & holmes, 2003; ehlers & clark, 2000). in their cognitive model of ptsd, ehlers and clark (2000) distinguish data-driven processing and conceptual processing during the traumatic event. while conceptual processing is described as an analytic and calm view of the situation, data-driven processing refers to a very sensual and emotional experience mainly in accordance with bewilderment. the latter is said to contribute to ptsd symptoms and disorganized memory functions (ehlers & clark, 2000; halligan, michael, clark, & ehlers, 2003). in a meta-analysis, peritraumatic psychological processes were found to be the strongest predictor of ptsd (ozer, best, lipsey, & weiss, 2003) and a growing body of research has demonstrated the influence of peritraumatic distress and dissociation on posttraumatic stress outcome (birmes et al., 2005; brunet et al., 2001; fikretoglu et al., 2006; marmar et al., 1994). taken together, the above literature emphasizes the need to consider the specific circumstances surrounding people‟s experiences of disasters when attempting to understand their responses to disasters – responses both during the event and afterwards. in particular, the research literature suggests directing attention to the circumstances involving how people think and feel during the event. however, in a study where different types of disasters were considered, although periand posttraumatic outcome variables were significantly correlated, the event with the highest retrospectively reported peritraumatic emotional stress and perceived risk was not the one with the highest posttraumatic stress (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011b). thus, there is clearly much still to learn about the influence of specific circumstances on responses to disasters and the nature of the relationships between the circumstances and the responses. the aim of this study was to take a human responses to disasters 115 first step at addressing this issue by developing a new self-report instrument and conducting a cross-cultural pilot study on emotional and cognitive processing during disasters. it should be noted that a few measures of peritraumatic states already exist, e.g. the peritraumatic distress inventory (brunet et al., 2001) and the peritraumatic dissociative experience questionnaire (marmar et al., 1997). however, despite their good reliability and validity and therefore clear value in many cases, it was felt that they would not be appropriate for the purposes of the present study. it was considered important to (i) have a broader array of emotional and cognitive state options in order to allow investigation of the links with peritraumatic behavioural responses and (ii) compare these states across a number of stages throughout the course of the event as disasters often unfold in a dynamic manner and peritraumatic responses may need to be adaptive. furthermore, as this study was part of a wider study seeking to improve public safety by examining aspects of physical structures as well as the human behaviour displayed within them, it was preferential to tailor the instrument to disasters involving evacuation attempts from enclosed settings. finally, as there is reason to believe that culture may impact on human responses to disasters, a simultaneous cross-cultural development of the instrument was conducted. aims the piloting of the questionnaire had several aims: to determine item characteristics to assess difficulties and relevance of items in order to identify questions best representing emotional and cognitive processing during disasters to assess the influence of certain individual and event characteristics for a better understanding of the constructs (content validation) to analyse scale characteristics of anticipated emotional and cognitive responses during disasters plus perceived risk of different types of disasters with explanatory factor analysis (construct validation) method the study described in this paper is part of a larger cross-cultural multi-centre research project called besecu (behaviour, security, culture) with the following centres participating: greifswald, germany; london, uk; barcelona, spain; warsaw, poland; hamburg, germany; prague, czech republic; stockholm, sweden; bologna, europe’s journal of psychology 116 italy and izmir, turkey. the study was approved in all national institutional ethics committees. development the instrument for disaster survivors was developed through two approaches. firstly, theoretical models and empirical data relating to disasters and peritraumatic factors were reviewed. secondly, qualitative (single or group) interviews with 125 european survivors of fires, floods, earthquakes and terror attacks were assessed. these actions led to a theoretical framework about emotional, cognitive and behavioural responses during disasters being created (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a). items for the pilot questionnaire were generated from the theoretical framework. item generation was performed by an expert group consisting of personnel from three countries (czech republic, germany, uk) and took place at an international meeting of the besecu-consortium. the quantity of statements about emotional and cognitive processing in the theoretical framework was considered as an inclusion criteria. the development of the pilot questionnaire was conducted in english. after being finalized, each question was translated and assessed in the national languages of the other participating centres. a manual was designed in order to assist centres during recruitment, the assessment process and data entry, and a data matrix was sent to the centres into which the data could be entered and stored. procedure there are often great challenges in identifying and accessing disaster survivors for research studies, thus it was decided that the pilot study would use scenarios of disasters. this would mean that anyone could take part in the study, regardless of disaster experience and recruitment of real disaster survivors could be mainly reserved for a final field survey. therefore participants were given a description either of a terror attack, a fire, a flood or an earthquake that was based on the survivor narratives from the aforementioned qualitative interviews (s. appendix a). however, each centre did additionally recruit a small sample of real survivors to take part in a cognitive debriefing. in this debriefing, the questionnaire was read out loud in the form of a structured interview and the survivors were invited to comment on the questionnaire‟s structure, understanding and usability. on average, the questionnaire took 45 minutes to be completed and the cognitive debriefing one hour. human responses to disasters 117 measurement the pilot form of the questionnaire consisted of questions about (anticipated) behavioural, emotional and cognitive responses during disasters plus questions about general emergency knowledge, risk perception and socio-demographic data. considering the scope of this paper, only the analysis of two domains – the peritraumatic factors emotional and cognitive processing, consisting of 14 items, and risk perception, consisting of four items – is presented. in order to create a more detailed representation of human responses as a disaster unfolds, the questionnaire was separated into three distinct stages of a disaster: realization (of what is happening), during evacuation and after evacuation, and peritraumatic emotions and cognitions were measured at each stage. risk perception was only assessed once along with general emergency knowledge at the end of the questionnaire. for the pilot study, participants‟ responses were recorded using a five-point likert scale, with 0= not at all, 1= a little, 2= moderately, 3= strongly and 4= very strongly. peritraumatic emotion. when taking a look at peritraumatic responses to disasters, emotions play a key role, especially when considering their traits such as quick onset, automatic appraisal and unbidden occurrence (ekman, 1992). survivors from the aforementioned interviews did not report a great variety of emotional states, mainly peritraumatic detachment, fear and “panic” (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a). other states reported less often were anger, sadness and depression. states assessed in the peritraumatic distress inventory‟s negative emotions scale (brunet et al., 2001), such as guilt and shame or feeling horrified/ helpless were seldom reported by the interviewees and therefore omitted from the piloted instrument. however, an item referring to the concept of controlling one's emotions was assessed in the peritraumatic cognition scale. fear, one of the strongest predictors for psychological distress following a disaster (başoğlu, kiliç, salcioğlu, & livanou, 2004; başoğlu, salcioğlu, livanou, 2002), was assessed using the gradations survivors reported during interviews: nervous, scared, and scared to death. additionally, the peritraumatic feeling of anger was assessed with the items angry and annoyed. as “panic” during disasters has been reported by survivors in current interview studies, albeit with differing quantities of statements (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a; prati, catufi, & pietrantoni, 2012), it was decided to include this item in the questionnaire. although survivors reported experiencing dissociation and depersonalization during the disaster, it was decided not to integrate dissociative symptoms into the stages part of the questionnaire, for two reasons. firstly, recent studies support the finding that peritraumatic distress and dissociation are conceptually different, both europe’s journal of psychology 118 predicting in unique ways ptsd symptoms (birmes et al., 2005; fikretoglu et al., 2006). secondly, dissociation is closely linked with memory disorganization (halligan et al., 2003). therefore it was decided that if dissociation were to be of interest, its investigation would be better served by a separate, single assessment using a measure such as the peritraumatic dissociative experience questionnaire (marmar et al., 1997). leach (1994; 2004) has defined three categories of human responses to disasters: calm; reflexive, almost automatic behaviour; and counterproductive reactions. it was decided that the manner of emotional reaction should also be assessed using the items calm and, as its opposite, excited as both were in accordance with leach's theory and reported by interviewed survivors (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a; leach, 1994; leach, 2004). peritraumatic cognition. cognitive appraisals of peritraumatic emotions as well as of the disaster situation were assessed with the constructs coping strategies, perceived threat and control beliefs. during disasters, participants' thoughts may centre on comprehending the incident and appraising the situation for risk (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a). as a traumatic event can also be classified from an individual perspective as an emotional and cognitively overwhelming situation (ehlers & clark, 2000), victims‟ coping strategies were of interest. as several interviewed survivors reported employing strategies to help deal with the traumatic situation, their statements were reworded in order to generate items. coping strategies presented in the pilot form were controlling the emotions, focusing on surviving and blocking the situation out. however, it must be noted that such strategies were not reported that often. feedback indicated that this was either because emotional, cognitive and behavioural responses seemed to happen automatically (s. domain peritraumatic emotion) or because participants could either not remember applying or did not apply any coping strategies. leach (1994) suggests that a threat perception is, from a survival-psychological view, an appraisal occurring when people face the possible occurrence of a disaster, which is mainly accompanied, at least initially, by the behavioural components inactivity and denial. in the aforementioned interviews, participants reported the perceived risk of danger to life and health. as the influence of perceived life threat is related not only to greater posttraumatic distress (hollifield, hewage, gunawardena, kodituwakku, & weerarathnege, 2008; johannesson et al., 2009; ozer, best, lipsey, & weiss, 2003; sumer, karanci, berument, & gunes, 2005) but also to a possible change in behavioural reactions during disasters (leach, 1994; prati, catufi, & pietrantoni, 2012), it was decided that aspects of threat should be assessed in the pilot form. human responses to disasters 119 perceived threat was assessed as being concerned about one‟s safety; this was in order to reflect both the cognitive and the emotional aspects of the construct. a similar item “i felt afraid for my safety” is part of the peritraumatic distress inventory, appearing in the scale on perceived life threat and bodily arousal (brunet et al., 2001). internal locus of control or personal control beliefs are usually assessed as a stable construct, functioning as a resilience factor to posttraumatic distress after disasters (mellon, papanikolau, & prodromitis, 2009; sumer, karanci, berument, & gunes, 2005). however, perceived control over the traumatic situation as it was happening could be related to posttraumatic outcomes as well, as persons with higher ptsd levels might tend to generalize from the state of having no control during the disaster to an overall trait of having no control over their lives (ehlers & clark, 2000). in the pilot study, the assessment of control beliefs was limited to cognitions during the incident; items were created using internal locus of control and external loci of control derived from interviewee narratives. risk perception. risk perception consists of two domains, general/ objective risk and personal/ subjective risk, which are well established in risk research and have been assessed in studies dealing with the influences and consequences of risk perception after terror attacks and natural hazards in affected geographical areas or nationwide (fischhoff, gonzalez, small, & lerner, 2003; goodwin, wilson, & gaines, 2005; ho et al., 2008; huddy et al., 2002; kellens et al., 2011). huddy et al. (2002) showed that general and personal risk are, although correlated, different dimensions; general risk involves people‟s opinions about the likelihood/ probability of events occurring in the future in a country or area, while personal risk is connected to emotional and behavioural constructs such as anxiety, fear and somatic symptoms or avoidance behaviour (goodwin, wilson, & gaines, 2005; huddy et al., 2002). therefore it was believed that the assessment of personal risk would be possible with the use of disaster scenarios and could reveal something of interest regarding answering tendencies about anticipated cognitive and emotional responses to disasters. it was expected that the construct validity of the questionnaire would be enhanced if personal risk loaded on factors other than just peritraumatic emotional and cognitive responses to a hypothetical disaster scenario. following the approach taken in other studies, it was decided that personal risk would be assessed as concern (goodwin, wilson, & gaines, 2005; huddy et al., 2002; kellens et al., 2011). europe’s journal of psychology 120 participants recruitment was performed by each centre in november 2009. scenario participants were required to be aged between 18 and 60 years. for the cognitive debriefings, participants had to have already experienced one of the following disasters: a flood, a fire, an earthquake, or a terror attack. after giving consent, participants completed a paper/ pencil version of the pilot questionnaire. questionnaire assessment and cognitive debriefings were conducted using experienced psychologists. a total of 336 participants took part in the study; 53 from germany, 20 from the uk, 53 from spain, 50 from sweden, 52 from poland, 54 from the czech republic, 48 from turkey and six from italy. there was an almost even split of females (55.1%) and males (44.9%). mean age was 35.5 years (sd = 13.5). three percent of participants had a migrant background; as this was a small percentage, migrant status was omitted from the analysis. on average, participants had been in education for 16.0 years (sd= 5.9). twenty percent of participants had experience of working as a police officer or firefighter. twenty-five participants had already survived a fire, a flood or an earthquake. these events happened on average ten years (sd= 8.5) ago. participants were divided into the scenarios fire (40%), terror attack (20%), earthquake (20%) and flood (17%). the remaining three percent took part in the cognitive debriefings. statistical analysis questionnaire responses were coded and data checked in a standardized pasw/ excel data matrix by each participating centre. after this, the data matrix and completed questionnaires were sent to the coordinating centre in greifswald for final checking and data analysis. implausible data or values out of range were coded as missing if they could not be verified in the completed questionnaire. if two answers were coded instead of a single answer, two raters decided which one to pick. all statistical analyses were conducted with pasw version 18.0. several tests were applied in order to analyse item and scale characteristics. descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations were calculated. effects of gender, scenario type, disaster experience and emergency work experience were analysed with t-tests and univariate anovas. differences between the three disaster stages were assessed with repeated measures anovas. scale characteristics were analysed with cronbach‟s , item-scale correlations and scale intercorrelations were assessed with bivariate pearson-correlations. the structure of the pilot form was assessed with explanatory factor analysis. regarding item and scale characteristics, human responses to disasters 121 an item was deleted if its substance was diverged, but also if the item-scale correlation was below .30 at all three disaster stages and the scale‟s cronbach's  was enhanced by deleting the item. results cognitive debriefing in general, the questionnaire sections on peritraumatic emotions and cognitions were considered a good fit to the participants‟ disaster experiences. also the structure of the questionnaire, with the repetition of the set of questions about peritraumatic emotions and cognitions at three disaster stages, was found useful in order to illustrate a dynamic experience of peritraumatic states. feedback included suggestions to simplify or reword several items, especially on the coping strategies and control beliefs scales, in order to increase ease of understanding, e.g. remove double negatives in one sentence. also several participants found that items about coping strategies were not always applicable in their given situation. questions rated as unsuitable during the cognitive debriefings were verified again by researchers but only omitted if unsuitability was also indicated by psychometric criteria. a further point raised was that different gradations of fear, such as the items scared and scared to death, were overly similar. thus, as a consequence of participant feedback and psychometric analysis, items were removed. item characteristics in a first step, three items, one from the emotion scale (calm) and two from the control beliefs scale (control self/ others) were deleted due to low item-scale correlations and changes in cronbach's . one further item, being excited, was translated in some countries with a negative connotation and in others with a positive connotation, and was therefore removed by expert consent. gender differences were apparent on 10-30% of items (depending on the stage of the disaster), predominantly on the emotion scale. for about 60% of all items, the type of scenario participants were allocated to resulted in response differences at the first two disaster stages; differences decreased at the after evacuation stage. scenario differences were mainly apparent on the emotion and risk scales. when comparing the realization stage items to the during evacuation and after evacuation stage items, significant differences were found on all items except for the blocking the situation out item. mean item scores decreased significantly across the three stages, except for the being angry item, on which the mean scores increased. results for the characteristics of the remaining items are shown in tables 1, 2 and 3. europe’s journal of psychology 122 table 1: characteristics (after the scale revisions) of items on peritraumatic emotion at the different disasters stages (n=336) scale: peritraumatic emotion stage1): realization stage2): during evacuation stage 3): after evacuation m (sd) gen sce isc m (sd) gen sce isc m (sd) gen sce isc i was annoyed. * 1.38 (1.31)  .52 1.20 (1.22)  .60 1.25 (1.28) .70 i was angry. ** 0.91 (1.19) .60 0.83 (1.11) .64 1.09 (1.30) .71 i was nervous. *** 2.15 (1.34)   .74 1.93 (1.24)   .72 1.60 (1.19)  .65 i was scared. *** 2.37 (1.25)   .80 1.91 (1.30)   .83 1.28 (1.19)   .78 i was panicking. *** 1.29 (1.33)   .79 1.00 (1.26)   .84 0.49 (0.91)  .70 i was scared to death. *** 1.17 (1.38)   .79 1.02 (1.37)  .77 0.48 (0.99)  .66 note: gen = gender, sce = scenario, isc = item scale correlation ( = p< .05; = p< .01; = p< .001) within subject differences between stages: * = p< .05; **= p< .01; ***= p< .001 human responses to disasters 123 table 2: characteristics (after the scale revisions) of items on peritraumatic cognitions at the different disaster stages (n=336) scale: peritraumatic cognition stage1): realization stage2): during evacuation stage 3): after evacuation m (sd) gen sce isc m (sd) gen sce isc m (sd) gen sce isc how concerned were you about your safety? *** 2.54 (1.08)   .63 2.20 (1.12)   .72 1.33 (1.16) .55 the situation was out of control. *** 1.43 (1.31)  .69 .92 (1.12)  .64 .49(.82)  .46 the situation was in the hands of fate. *** 1.16 (1.35)  .57 .75 (1.11)  .57 .57 (1.01)   .47 i tried to control my feelings. ** 2.32 (1.08) .33 2.26 (1.04) .29 2.07 (1.12) .69 i blocked the situation out. 1.25 (1.25) .39 1.25 (1.22)  .53 1.46 (1.27) .54 i focused on surviving.*** 2.61 (1.12) .59 2.29 (1.26) .69 1.56 (1.30) .60 note: gen = gender, sce = scenario, isc = item scale correlation ( = p< .05; = p< .01; = p< .001) within subject differences between stages: * = p< .05; **= p< .01; ***= p< .001 europe’s journal of psychology 124 table 3: characteristics (after the scale revisions) of items on personal risk (n=336) personal risk m (sd) gen sce isc how concerned are you about becoming the victim of a fire? 1.36 (0.97)  .74 how concerned are you about becoming the victim of a terror attack? 1.11 (1.13)  .85 how concerned are you about becoming the victim of a flood? 1.08 (1.11)  .75 how concerned are you about becoming the victim of an earthquake? 0.86 (1.22)  .84 note: gen = gender, sce = scenario, isc = item scale correlation ( = p< .05; = p< .01; = p< .001) influence of experience few differences in item responses were found between the disaster survivors who completed a cognitive debriefing and scenario participants. however, survivors did rate the situation as being out of control at a significantly higher level for the realization and after evacuation stages (t= -2.08; p< .05 and t= -2.36; p< .05, respectively), while scenario participants gave a significantly higher endorsement of the item about blocking the situation out at all disaster stages (t= 2.08; p< .05, t= 2.93; p< .01 and t= 2.78; p< .05, respectively). moreover, the item about controlling one's feelings was rated higher by scenario participants at the during evacuation stage (t= 2.28; p< .05). differences between participants who had experience of working for the emergency services (“emergency workers”) and participants with no emergency work experience (“civilians”) were found particularly at the realization and during evacuation stages. the items about being nervous (t= 2.99; p< .01 and t= 2.33; p< .05, respectively) and the situation being out of control (t= 2.80; p< .01 and t= 3.09; p< .01, respectively) differed significantly at both stages, with civilians scoring higher than emergency workers. also, at the realization stage, civilians reported higher levels of concern about their own safety (t= 3.39; p< .01) and being scared to death (t= 3.00; p< .01), while emergency workers reported significantly higher levels of being annoyed (t= 2.84; p< .01). at the third disaster human responses to disasters 125 stage there were no differences between emergency workers and civilians. however, emergency workers were more concerned about becoming a victim of a fire (t= -3.07; p< .01) and an earthquake than were civilians (t= -2.59; p< .05). scale characteristics the principal component analysis (using varimax) explained altogether 66.6%, 62.3% and 65.3% of variance for the three disaster stages, respectively. the first factor included four items about the emotional states of fear and panic; at the realization and during evacuation stages, the items about concern and focusing on surviving were also included. the second factor included four items about personal risk at all stages. the third factor had two items regarding anger; at the after evacuation stage this factor also included feeling nervous. finally, the fourth factor included the coping strategies items and the fifth factor the two remaining control beliefs items. cronbach's  for the peritraumatic emotion, cognition, and the personal risk scales are shown in table 4 before and after revisions. table 4: scale characteristics: cronbach's  before and after revisions scale peritraumatic emotion peritraumatic cognition personal risk revision before after before after stage 1): realization .66 .83 .57 .50 stage 2): during evacuation .70 .84 .45 .60 stage 3): after evacuation .65 .78 .32 .54 .82 the peritraumatic emotion and cognition and the personal risk scales were all significantly intercorrelated at all disaster stages. scale intercorrelations are shown in table 5. correlations were beneficial in showing that all scales belonged europe’s journal of psychology 126 to a superordinate construct, but the correlations were not high enough to conclude that the scales were measuring the same thing. table 5: scale intercorrelations (after the revisions) for peritraumatic emotions and cognitions and personal risk stage scale scale ii: peritraumatic cognition scale iii: personal risk stage 1) realization scale i: peritraumatic emotion .54*** .15* scale ii: peritraumatic cognition .27*** stage 2) during evacuation scale i: peritraumatic emotion .56*** .19** scale ii: peritraumatic cognition .36*** stage 3) after evacuation scale i: peritraumatic emotion .34*** .23*** scale ii: peritraumatic cognition .25*** * = p< .05; **= p< .01; ***= p< .001 discussion in this study, part of a larger international study of human responses to disasters, a new instrument measuring emotional and cognitive processing during disasters was pilot tested across several european countries. the development of the instrument was based on theoretical models from the fields of trauma-, survival-, and social psychology and a theoretical framework generated from survivor narratives. the process consisted of several steps, from interviews with disaster survivors to item development, design of a pilot questionnaire, plus psychometric and content analysis. pilot testing was performed according to the approach taken by other international research projects and was considered to be a beneficial way of testing psychometric characteristics and usability in order to enhance the questionnaire (petersen, schmidt, power, & bullinger, 2005; winkler, matschinger, & angermayer, 2006). it was found that, overall, the pilot study human responses to disasters 127 produced a satisfactory instrument for assessing the constructs peritraumatic emotions, peritraumatic cognitions including perceived threat, coping strategies and control beliefs, as well as personal risk. in general, the pilot study supported the use of a questionnaire teamed with event scenarios, especially when recruitment of a purposive sample – in this case, survivors of disasters – is challenged by factors such as limited access and small sizes. while the usability and feasibility of the questionnaire appeared to be enhanced after taking on board the results from both sets of participants, it must be noted that an empirical validation of the employed models and theoretical framework was not possible as most participants were answering based on a scenario and not personal experience. when comparing the developed instrument with current standardized measures such as the peritraumatic distress inventory (pdi) (brunet, et al., 2001), differences as well as similarities can be found. the pdi measures reactions to traumatic events with two scales, negative emotions (7 items) and perceived life threat/ bodily arousal (6 items). both measures contain similar items regarding emotions. in the pdi, the concept of anger is represented as anger/ frustration about not being able to do more, while the developed instrument measures being angry/ annoyed in general. in addition, the pdi emphasizes the feelings of fear, helplessness and horror during the event, in accordance with the dsm-iv ptsd criterion a2, while the developed instrument focuses on fear and panic. the items sadness/ grief from the pdi were not assessed in the new instrument as these secondary emotions were mainly reported by interviewed survivors as being experienced after the disaster, not during it. similarly, the pdi items on guilt and shame were not assessed in the new instrument as these were not reported in survivor narratives. it is possible that such items might be more relevant to traumatic events other than major disasters, e.g. interpersonal traumas such as assaults. some differences in the conceptual frameworks of both measures are apparent. an item on controlling emotions was present in both questionnaires; in the pdi it belonged to the negative emotion scale, in the new instrument it was seen as a coping strategy and therefore considered a peritraumatic cognition. conversely, the item “i thought i might die” came under the pdi‟s perceived life threat scale, while a similar item “i was scared to death” came under the peritraumatic emotion scale in the new instrument. furthermore, although perceived life threat was part of both instruments, bodily arousal was not measured in the new one. fikretoglu et al. (2007) found the effect of peritraumatic negative emotions on europe’s journal of psychology 128 dissociation was reduced in police officers, and no longer significant for civilians, when peritraumatic physical and cognitive panic reactions were controlled for. those authors used the pdi in order to asses panic but suggested that future research should instead control for the presence of a panic attack during the traumatic event. therefore, in the current study, all symptoms of a panic attack were assessed using the dsm-iv criteria. however, due to the scope of this article, the results of that assessment are not presented here. several new items were created for coping strategies such as focusing on surviving/ blocking the situation out and external loci of control during the disaster. like all other items, these items were derived from disaster survivors‟ narratives, however recent research has also highlighted a need to investigate cognitive strategies during traumatic situations such as self-regulation of emotions and focusing on the reality of the threat in order to better understand mechanisms of peritraumatic responses (briere, scott, & weathers, 2005; fikretoglu et al., 2006). in summary, the two measures are similar in some respects but are ultimately different, and not just in the choice of items. the pdi aims to assess if several peritraumatic states were present during a traumatic event and how these influence related states such as peritraumatic dissociation and acute stress disorder (asd)/ ptsd symptoms. the new instrument was developed to investigate peritraumatic states as the event unfolded, and so incorporated a repeated measures aspect, and the events of interest were specifically disasters, ones which necessitated an evacuation attempt from an enclosed setting. another aim of the new instrument was to allow the investigation of interactions between peritraumatic emotional and cognitive processing and behavioural responses during a disaster experience. effects of gender were detected when considering higher peritraumatic fear/ concern during disasters. gender effects have also been detected in epidemiological studies on posttraumatic stress reactions after the world trade center terror attacks (silver et al., 2002; schlenger et al., 2002). however, regarding risk perception, no gender effects were detected, which is not in accordance with recent findings (armaş, 2006; huddy et al., 2002). the type of scenario did have significant effects on the answering tendencies. here, it must be noted that all scenarios described a situation of similar risk, from the stage of realization, to the stage where an evacuation was being initiated, through to the stage of a participant reaching a place of complete safety. regarding differences in peritraumatic fear and cognition related to the type of scenario, it should be noted that other recent research studies have found significant human responses to disasters 129 differences in survivors‟ postand peritraumatic stress depending on the type of disaster they had experienced (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011b; shakespeare-finch & armstrong, 2010). one possible explanation regarding the scenario effect on personal risk might be that participants were primed; that is, if a participant was given a scenario describing a terror attack for instance, the scenario itself may have increased salience of terror attacks in the participant‟s mind, which might have then resulted in higher levels of concern of becoming a victim of a terror attack. in future research, the relationship between the type of disaster with its unique characteristics and levels of periand posttraumatic stress should be investigated. the relevance of the stages approach, i.e. assessing cognitions and emotions during different parts of the disaster, was underlined by significant changes in answering tendencies at realization, during evacuation and after evacuation. the authors believe that a dynamic view of peritraumatic responses will help to further investigate adaptive behaviour during disasters but also its influence on posttraumatic stress outcome. overall, item responses did not differ much between real survivors and scenario participants. this underlines the quality of the content validity of the questionnaire, which was undoubtedly enhanced by drawing from detailed survivor narratives. however, prior disaster experience did impact on subjective risk concerning one particular disaster type, fire, although statistical tests revealed a trend just short of being significant. the effect of prior disaster experience on future perceived risk has been shown in several studies for floods, landslides and terror attacks (kellens et al., 2011; ho et al., 2008; fischhoff, gonzalez, small, & lerner, 2003), therefore it is possible that the small number of real disaster survivors in the current sample, and the time that had passed since the incidents (10 years on average), might have produced this non-significant result (see also helweg-larsen, 1999). experience of a different kind, professional emergency experience, had a significant effect on certain answers. differences between civilians and emergency workers were found at the realization and during evacuation stages on relevant items such as being scared to death, being nervous, being concerned about one's safety and thinking that the situation was out of control, which is in accordance with other studies (brunet et al., 2001; fikretoglu et al., 2007). regarding the scale structure, it was demonstrated that items were grouped along the factors of emotional and cognitive processing during disasters and europe’s journal of psychology 130 personal risk. however, it must be noted that, especially for the stages during the disaster, a strict isolation of peritraumatic emotions and cognitions might not be possible, which might be related to the characteristics of basic emotions (ekman, 1992). the scenario group‟s answers about peritraumatic emotions and cognitions might have been confounded with the actual concern those people had about becoming a victim of a disaster and, to a lesser extent, related to the disaster scenario itself. relationships between the peritraumatic emotions/ cognitions and personal risk scales were detected via significant positive correlations. however, although the construct of threat during the event was, considering the wording of the items, somewhat connected to the construct of personal risk, the items did load on different factors. thus, this finding supports the idea that the scales measure different constructs. limitations although scenario assessment worked in achieving improved usability and feasibility of the instrument, it was not without its challenges. for example, this approach relied on participants being able to put themselves „in the shoes‟ of a real disaster survivor and being able to embellish on the information given in the scenario description. answers about emotional and cognitive disaster experiences would have been drawn from layperson beliefs. as alexander (2007) showed, there are still many misconceptions about human responses to disasters, such as the frequency of occurrence of mass panic, so the results of the pilot form based on scenario participants may have been influenced by underlying misleading constructs. however, this was addressed by undertaking cognitive debriefings with real survivors and taking their results into account along with those of the scenario participants together with psychometric analysis. in addition, it must be considered that, in order to have a realistic illustration of disasters, the scenarios were based on previous interviews with 125 disaster survivors. furthermore, the same researchers were engaged in those interviews and the pilot development of the new instrument. it must be noted that neither the number of cognitive debriefings per centre nor the number of interviews per disaster type and country that the final scales were based on should be considered representative and were rather affected by the incidence rates of disasters across europe. therefore a systematic bias in item response due to the disasters experienced across countries might have occurred. also, a self-selection bias might have been present; survivors with disorganized and incomplete memories or heightened emotional states due to severe human responses to disasters 131 traumatic stress might have avoided taking part in the interviews and cognitive debriefings and so the results on emotions and cognitions might only pertain to survivors with less of a posttraumatic stress outcome (grimm, hulse, preiss, & schmidt, 2011a). as discussed earlier, there were very few significant differences in answers between real survivors and scenario participants and this could also be a function of the low number of real disaster survivors in the sample. a further limitation concerning the validation of the instrument is that current posttraumatic stress symptoms (deriving from any specific traumatic life event) were not assessed in the sample. according to ehlers and clark's (2000) cognitive model of ptsd, individuals with higher current levels of ptsd use several dysfunctional behavioural and cognitive strategies, which assist in maintaining ptsd symptoms. therefore it could be assumed that if any of the scenario participants had current ptsd symptoms then they may have tended to anticipate their responses to a disaster scenario to be more passive and stressed. however, while this validation of the instrument is of course necessary it will be more reliably assessed in a study where disaster exposure is controlled for. finally, the items on emotional and cognitive states were designed for the disaster types fire, flood, earthquake and terror attack, and where an evacuation was attempted from an enclosed setting; generalizing to other disasters cannot be supported at this point. although development and assessment was performed in seven european countries, cross-cultural validity is not a given yet. another aim for future research can be to empirically identify differences in emotions and cognitions (freitag, grimm, & schmidt, 2011) as well as in perceived risk of disasters across europe and compare these to differences indicated in literature (gierlach, belsher, & beutler, 2010; shiloh, guvenc, & onkal, 2007; steger, frazier, & zacchanini, 2008). conclusion in summary, this article presented the cross-cultural development and pilot testing of a new instrument measuring emotions and cognitions during disasters as well as personal risk. the pilot testing was based on psychometric criteria including participants' responses to different types of disaster scenarios and cognitive debriefings involving real disaster survivors. the procedure enhanced the constructs and gave information as to how items could be reformulated for better understanding and usability. also, pitfalls in cross-cultural research, such as translation problems concerning the connotation of emotion words, were brought to light. overall, 20% of the initial items were reduced and three scales – europe’s journal of psychology 132 peritraumatic emotion, with its facets fear and anger, as well as peritraumatic cognition and personal risk – resulted from the pilot study. also, the findings highlighted the relevance of investigating emotions and cognitions during different stages of a disaster. future research should investigate further the influence of peritraumatic emotions and cognitions during the distinct stages of disasters as this will likely be beneficial for the understanding of posttraumatic psychological outcomes, as well as for the understanding of behavioural responses displayed during disasters. also beneficial would be further studies on cross-cultural differences in the displayed intensity of such emotions and cognitions as fear, anger, perceived threat, coping strategies and individual control beliefs. acknowledgements the paper was written by anna grimm, lynn hulse and silke schmidt on behalf of the besecu-group. the project besecu (contract 218324) is funded under the european union framework 7 security initiative. the authors acknowledge the co-operation of their project partners: ernst-moritz-arndt university greifswald, department of health and prevention, germany (project co-ordinator); 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(2008). terrorism in two cultures: stress and growth following september 11 and the madrid bombings. journal of loss and trauma, 13, 511–527. doi:10.1080/15325020802173660 sumer, n., karanci, a. n., berument, s. k., & gunes, h. (2005). personal resources, coping self-efficacy, and quake exposure as predictors of psychological distress following the 1999 earthquake in turkey. journal of traumatic stress, 18(4), 331– 342. doi:10.1002/jts.20032 winkler, i., matschinger, h., & angermayer, m. c. (2006). the whoqol-old. a questionnaire for intercultural measuring of quality of life in the elderly. psychotherapie, psychosomatik, medizinische psychologie, 56, 63–69. doi:10.1055/s-2005-915334 about the authors anna grimm is a psychologist and phd student at the department of health and prevention at the university of greifswald. her main research interest is behavioural, emotional and cognitive responses of survivors of disasters. a second focus is on public risk perception of disasters. robert-blum-straße 13, 17487 greifswald, germany. e-mail: gesundheit.praevention@uni-greifswald.de dr. lynn hulse is a psychologist with the fire safety engineering group at the university of greenwich. her research interests include how civilians and emergency services personnel respond (i.e. their emotions, cognitions, and behaviours) to emergencies, and how this information may be of use to professionals involved in improving safety and the design of structures. prof. dr. silke schmidt is a psychologist and head of the department of health and prevention at the university of greifswald. one of the areas of research is cross-cultural assessment of mental and physical health as well as quality of life. a second focus is on psychological preventions. http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/jrlp.141.1.91-108 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15325020802173660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.20032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-2005-915334 europe’s journal of psychology 138 appendix a: one example of a scenario described at the beginning of the pilot form simulation scenario: terror attack please imagine you are involved in the following situation: you are travelling in an underground train through london. it‟s approximately 8.30 a.m. and you are on your way to work. the train is just departing from the platform. all of a sudden you sense a big bang. first, you don‟t know what is going on, but you‟re immediately scared. you feel that you hurt your head during the blast. your train is stopping in the middle of the tunnel. there‟s a power outage, so there‟s no light in your carriage anymore. people start getting nervous and panicking, and everybody tries to find out what is happening. there‟s no information given via loudspeakers, and no staff around to help people in the train. the doors are closed, so you and the other travellers are trapped. after approximately 10 minutes some people start breaking the door open and start evacuating from the carriage. you follow the other people through the tunnel back to the station. there‟s hardly any space between the train and the walls of the tunnel, so it‟s difficult for all of you to move forward. on your way out emergency services arrive and escort you out. the evacuation takes about 30 minutes. microsoft word 5. research retirement context.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 47-64 www.ejop.org retirement context and psychological factors as predictors of well-being among retired teachers samuel o. salami department of guidance and counselling, kampala international university abstract this study investigated the relationship of retirement context and psychological factors with well-being using data on 284 retired married men and women (aged 52-75 years). measures of retirement context, psychological factors and well-being were used to obtain data from the retirees. findings show that retirement status, job challenges, financial situation, physical health, activity level, and social support separately predicted psychological well-being. however, there were no significant effects of marital quality and social status on psychological well-being. results also revealed that preretirement expectations, self efficacy, perceived stress, and optimism separately predicted psychological well-being. interaction effects of retirement status and job challenges with gender predicted life satisfaction but not depressive symptoms. the results indicate the importance of examining the contextual and psychological factors in understanding the relationship between retirement status and psychological well-being. keywords: retirement context, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, teachers, self – efficacy introduction retirement has been viewed as one of the later life status transitions although our knowledge of its psychological consequences is fragmentary (kim & moen, 2002). it is an objective development and social-psychological transformation that is related to physical and psychological well-being (moen, 2001).retirement may promote a sense of well-being of workers moving out of demanding and /or stressful career jobs. on the other hand, it may lead to diminished well-being for individuals who lose their occupational attachments, social networks and identities (kim & moen, 2002). europe’s journal of psychology 48 with respect to psychological consequences of retirement, empirical evidence is inconsistent. for instance, some researchers have found significant negative relationship between retirement and life satisfaction or morale (kim & moen, 2002; taylor, goldberg, shore & lipka, 2008) and positive association with psychological distress (kim &moen, 2002; okatahi, 2007; onyewotu, 2005; salami &oduntan, 2001). other researchers found no negative psychological effects such as psychological distress associated with retirement (gall, evans & howard, 1997; ross & drentea, 1988). some have reported mixed findings. for example, gall, evans and howard (1997) found no relationship between retirement and life satisfaction while a positive effect of retirement on health or reduced stress level was found by midanik, soghikian, ramson and tekawa (1995). although increasing research attention has been focused on predisposing factors of psychological well-being in retirement, there are inconsistencies in the results obtained. there are several contending explanations, in view of existing literature, on the factors affecting the psychological well-being of retirees that required further research (kim &moen, (2002). also many earlier studies focused almost exclusively on men’s retirement with little investigation of women’s experiences. recent increases in women’s workforce participation along with increased longevity and decreased retirement age point to the need to consider retirement as a couple phenomenon. therefore, there is need to examine various resources and contexts surrounding retirement in order to understand the dynamics of retirement transition and its relationship with psychological well-being. the purpose of this study was to investigate relationships of psychological factors (retirement expectations, selfefficacy, perceived stress, and optimism) and retirement context (resources and circumstances around retirement) on the psychological well-being of retired teachers. theoretical framework this study was based on two theoretical frameworks (the role theory and the continuity theory) to understand the effects of some social-psychological factors on the psychological well-being of retired teachers. role theory (george, 1993) provides one of the commonest explanations of adjustment to retirement (moen, 2001). the main argument of role theory is that loss of work as in retirement results in decline in life satisfaction and increase in depressive symptoms. from the role theory, perspective men and women who retire from their career jobs are susceptible to role loss, which can lead to psychological distress (kim & moen, 2002). the role theory postulates that employment is central to one’s identity; loss of this important work well-being among retired teachers 49 role, and /or the environmental loss accompanying retirement, produces decline in morale or life satisfaction and increase in depressive symptoms. another perspective of the role theory is that retirement from the demands of one’s primary career job may be a major life-course role exit that serves to reduce role strain and overload, thereby enhancing psychological well-being (kim & moen, 2002). the role-strain reduction theoretical perspective indicates that circumstances around employment, retirement and the transition from one to the other should be considered (kim& moen, 2002; vandewater, ostrove, & stewart, 1997) when examining the well-being of retirees. continuity theory (richardson & kilty, 1991) states that people tend to maintain earlier lifestyle patterns, self-esteem, and values even as they exit their primary career jobs. retirement, therefore need not lead to maladjustment and distress. george and maddox (1977) found a great stability in life satisfaction among older men over a five year period. retirement context retirement brings about changes in couples’ financial situation. research findings have shown that lack of financial resources correlates negatively with the ease of adjustment in terms of postretirement satisfaction and well-being (ardelt, 1997; gallo, bradley, siegel & henkens, 2005). it is assumed that the couple’s ability to maintain their pre-retirement life style is important to their retirement adjustment process. since the financial situation of retirees tends to be low in nigeria, it is expected that financial decline after retirement will constitute problems in relation to retirement adjustment. it is, therefore, hypothesized that financial situation will predict the psychological well-being among retired teachers (h1a). the better the financial situation of retirees the better will be their psychological well-being. poor health status of retirees may disrupt adjustment to retirement because poor health condition of one of the marriage partners may restrict them from taking up new activities and hinder adjustment to retirement (van solinge & henkens, 2005). health status was found to be significantly correlated with life satisfaction (ardelt, 1997; kim & moen, 2002) and depressive symptoms of retirees (kim & moen, 2002). a poor health condition of one of the retired partners means demanding care responsibilities which may place additional strains on the relationship and subsequently hinder retirement adjustment. therefore, it is proposed that physical health will predict the psychological well-being among retired teachers (h1b). the europe’s journal of psychology 50 better the health status of the retirees, the greater their psychological well-being. greater involvement in leisure activities prior to retirement facilitates adjustment to retirement (van solinge & henkens, 2005). previous researches have shown that level of activity and leisure activities were significantly related to depression (okatahi, 2007) and life satisfaction (lee & lin, 2009; van solinge & henkens, 2005). it is expected that a greater involvement in leisure activities will facilitate adjustment to retirement. therefore, it is proposed that: activity level will predict psychological wellbeing among retired teachers (h1c). the higher the activity level of retirees the better their psychological well-being. marital quality is an important resource in the process of adjustment to retirement or psychological well-being. research findings have shown that marital quality was significantly related to life satisfaction and depression (kim & moen, 2002) and adjustment to retirement (van solinge & henkens, 2005). it is found by myers and booth (1998) that couples with less satisfying marriages may be less well positioned to weather retirement adjustment. therefore, it is proposed that: marital quality will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h1d). the better the marital quality of retirees, the better their psychological well-being. social support can be considered as the type and frequency of social contacts. it is also the degree to which a person perceives that certain types of support (e.g. emotional, tangible assistance) are available. both types of social support have been directly linked to life satisfaction and retirement satisfaction (ardelt, 1997; aquino, russell, cutrona & altmaier, 1996; taylor, goldberg, shore & lipka, 2008). it is expected that the more the retirees’ social networks the easier adjustment to retirement will be. therefore, it was hypothesized that: social support will predict the psychological well-being among retired teachers (hie). the higher the social support available to retirees the better their psychological well-being. social status is determined by one’s occupational prestige. it is an aspect of wellbeing due to the feeling of being superior to others in the view of relevant others and oneself (van solinge & henkens, 2005). after retirement, social status is reduced since occupational prestige is also reduced. ardelt (1997) found significant relationship between social status and life satisfaction of retirees however; van solinge and henkens (2005) did not find significant effects of social status on adjusting to retirement. therefore, it is hypothesized that: social status will predict psychological well-being of retired teachers (hif). the higher the social status among retired teachers before retirement, the poorer their psychological well-being. well-being among retired teachers 51 circumstances around retirement have effects on retirees’ psychological well-being. unanticipated and involuntary retirement have negative effects on retirees’ wellbeing (marshall, clarke & ballantyne, 2001; van solinge & henkens, 2005). people who were forced to retire may have adjustment problems at retirement. therefore, it is hypothesized that retirement status will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h1g). teachers who had voluntary retirement will have better psychological well-being. individuals who have job challenges will feel less positive about leaving their jobs (taylor & shore, 1995). researches have shown that people who had more job challenges had negative adjustment or poor psychological wellbeing and depressive symptoms (van solinge & henkens, 2005). therefore, it is hypothesized that job challenges will predict psychological well-being of retired teachers (h1h). the higher the job challenges among retired teachers, the poorer their psychological well-being. gender is another contextual factor in retirees’ psychological well-being. difficult work histories, employment opportunities and general life experiences may cause women to adjust to retirement differently than men do. there is evidence that women have more negative attitudes toward retirement than men do, and retirement is more disruptive and more likely to be linked with greater depression and loneliness for women than it is for men (kim & moen, 2002). because there are genderbased differences in work commitment caused by the fact that women’s primary role was in the home, retired women are expected to have fewer adjustment problems (slevin &wingrove, 1995). therefore, it is hypothesized that: gender will moderate relationship between retirement status and psychological well-being in favour of women such that the relationship will be stronger for female retirees than for female retirees than for male retirees (h2). gender will moderate the relationship between job challenges and psychological well-being among retired teachers such that the relationship will be stronger for female retirees than for male retirees (h3). gender will moderate the relationship between pre-retirement expectations and psychological well-being among retired teachers such that the relationship will be stronger for the female retirees than for male retirees (h4). psychological factors pre-retirement expectations are important determinants of retirement decisions and play major roles in how retirement and adjustment process unfolds (gall & evans, 2000). research evidence have indicated that expected outcomes of retirement such as financial , health, social status , leisure time activity, and social contacts have significant influence on psychological well-being/adjustment of retirees (gall & europe’s journal of psychology 52 evans, 2000;taylor, goldberg, shore & lipka, 2008;van solinge & henkens, 2005). therefore, it is hypothesized that pre-retirement expectations will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h5a).the higher the pre-retirement expectations of retired teachers the better their psychological well-being. selfefficacy is the belief that one can effectively perform a given task in a given situation (bandura, 1982). since retirement is a new experience, self-efficacy will likely be associated with ease of adjustment. research has shown that self-efficacy was significantly correlated with retirement adjustment (van solinge & henkens, 2005). therefore, it is hypothesized that self-efficacy will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h5b).the higher the self-efficacy among retired teachers the better their psychological well-being. stress is physical or psychological demand to which an individual responds. okatahi (2007) found that a major stress precipitated a severe depression in retirees. therefore, it is hypothesized that stress will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h5c). the higher the stress levels among retired teachers the poorer their psychological well-being. optimism is a generalized tendency to expect positive outcomes (scheier & carver, 1993). given the pervasive impact of expectations on retirement adjustment, it is expected that optimism will have a significant relationship with psychological well-being of retirees. optimism has significant relationship with psychological well-being of retirees. (taylor et al. 2008). therefore, it is hypothesized that stress will predict psychological well-being among retired teachers (h5d). the higher the level of optimism among retired teachers, the better their psychological well-being. method participants the participants for the study consist of 284 retired teachers 176 men (61.97%) and 108 women (38.8%) from the kwara state, nigeria. the average age of the sample was 63.50 years (sd=5.32) with a range from 52 to 75 years. all participants volunteered for the study and all were assured that their responses were confidential. fifty one (17.96%) retired teachers had teachers’ grade 11 certificate, 170 (59.86%) had nigeria certificate in education, n.c.e., 43(15.14%) had degrees while 20 (7.04%) had postgraduate diploma in education (pgde). well-being among retired teachers 53 measures financial situation. financial situation is measured by a single variable. “what is your financial situation presently?” response to the question ranges from 0-100 on which 0 represents completely inadequate and 100 represents more than adequate. social status. this was measured by means of a composite of the following two items: (a) highest education ranging from 1= (primary six certificates) to 7= (doctor of philosophy degree, ph.d) on a 7-point scale; (b) longest held occupation (1=labourer, messenger, skilled or unskilled; 2=clerks, sales or secretarial, housewife; 3=small business owner, supervisor, teacher; 4=executive in a company with 50 or more employees; 5=professional workers; 6=lecturer). the scores of the two items (highest education and longest held occupation) were averaged after the first items were transformed into a score from 1to 5 (ardelt, 1997). physical health. this variable was derived from the respondents’ self-evaluation and reports of health condition. respondents rated their health status on a two-item scale ranging from 0(very serious health problems) to 10 (very good health) (kim & moen, 2002). examples of items for physical health are: “what is your general state of health?” (answer categories ranged from 0 (very serious health problems to 10 (very good health)”. “has your health changed since retirement?” answer categories ranged from 1(yes, much worse) to 10 (yes, much better). marital quality. marital quality was assessed using the sum of two items of marital satisfaction and marital –conflict frequency. marital satisfaction was assessed using the response to the single question “taking all things together, how satisfied are you with your marriage?” on a five point scale ranging from completely satisfied (5), to not at all satisfied (1). marital conflict was assessed from answer to the question, “how often would you say the two of you typically have serious disagreements or conflict?” on a five point scale ranging from more than once a week (5) to never (1). higher scores indicate higher marital quality. the two measures of marital quality are significantly and negatively correlated with each other (r=-.36 p<.05). retirement status. information on the nature of retirement or circumstance around retirement was derived from 4items on a five point scale ranging from 1=completely agree to 5= completely disagree. examples of items are: “i was reluctant to retire”; “my decision to retire was and voluntary”. europe’s journal of psychology 54 job challenges. information on job challenge was derived from 3 items on a five point scale ranging from 1=completely agree to 5=completely disagree that assess whether work was boring, routine for the retiree before retirement. examples of items for job challenge are: “the work i was doing was not very challenging”; “the work i am doing has become more boring and routine”. the cronbach’s alpha for this scale for the present study was .75. social support. social support was assessed by the social provisions scale (sps) by cutrona & russell (1987). it measures six relational provisions as obtained from the retired teachers’ social relationships. the respondents indicate their degree of agreement (1) or disagreement (0) if they feel the statements are true of their current relationships with friends, family members, colleagues, previous school organization and community members. the six provisions according to cutrona and rusell (1987) are: attachment, reliable alliance, guidance, advice or information, opportunity for nurturance, reassurance of worth and social integration. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the six sub-scales for this study ranged from .61 to .76. activity level. level of activity was assessed from the respondents’ answer to the question, “on which of the following activity do you spend your free time? (16 categories). answers to 1 question concerning leisure activities of retirees range from 0 to12. retirement expectations. retirement expectations scale was a five item scale based on the work of taylor and shore (1995) and van solinge & henkens (2005) that used a five –point linkert scale ranging from 1=strongly agree to 5 =strongly agree. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale in this study was .83. self–efficacy. self-efficacy was measured using generalised self-efficacy scale (gses,schwarzer & jerusalem, 1995).gses is a 10-item scale that assessed selfefficacy based on personality disposition. it is measured on a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1=not at all true to 4= exactly true. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of gses range from .75 to .90 for this study. perceived stress. cohen’s perceived stress scale-10 (pss-10; cohen, kamarck & marmelstein, 1983) was used to assess the degree to which each participant perceives his or her experience and environment to be stressful. the pss-10 is a short, 10-item likert –type self-report scale. for this study the cronbach’s alpha coefficient obtained for pss-10 was .82. well-being among retired teachers 55 optimism/pessimism. the life orientation test-revised (lot-r, scheier, carver & bridges, 1994) was used to assess optimism/ pessimism. the lot-r is a 10-item scale with 4 filler items and six scale items. the respondents responded on a 4-point scale with end-points of strongly agree (4), and strongly disagree (1). higher scores indicate more optimism and more pessimism respectively). in this study, the following cronbach’s alpha coefficients were found: .66, and .77 for optimism and pessimism respectively. demographic characteristics. data on demographic characteristics of the respondents were collected via a demographic questionnaire. characteristics addressed by the questionnaire were age, gender, higher academic qualifications, teaching experience, job ranks, and marital status. depressive symptoms. the centre for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d; radloff, 1977) was used in this study to collect data on depression. ces-d is 20item brief self-report scale which assesses depressive symptoms experienced by the sample during the past week. participants responded to the 20 items on a four-point likert –type scale. higher scores indicate greater reported symptoms of depression. for this study, the cronbach’s alpha coefficient was found to be .86. life satisfaction. the life satisfaction index-version (dsi-a) developed by neugarten, havighurst and tobin (1961) was used to measure life satisfaction. lsi-a is a 20-item questionnaire that provided an accumulation score acknowledged as a valid index of quality of life. it used the likert five –point scales ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. for this study the cronbach’s alpha found was.90. procedure the study adopted a survey research design in which questionnaires were used to obtain data information from the respondents. five research assistants were trained for the purpose of the study. during the study, the researcher and the research assistants went round the local government areas in kwara state during the administration of the questionnaires. the questionnaires were administered through the cooperation of some officials of the retired teachers’ unions. europe’s journal of psychology 56 results data analysis the data collected were analysed using series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses. the independent variables were contextual factors (circumstances around retirement; retirement status job challenges, resources and socio-economic status) and psychological factors (pre-retirement expectations, self-efficacy, stress and optimism).the dependent variables were life satisfaction and some officials of the retired teacher’s unions. correlation analyses table 1 represents the descriptive statistics for the variables under study as well as the bivariate correlations between contextual and psychological variables and psychological wellbeing of retired teachers. table 1: intercorrelation matrix of contextual and psychological variables and psychological well-being of retired teachers variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 fs 1.00 2 al -.07 1.00 3 ph .05 .18 1.00 4 mq -.06 .32* .05 1.00 5 ssp .28* .21* .18 .34* 1.00 6 rs .35* .24* .03 .18 .17 1.00 7 jc .02 .14 .10 .04 .18 .05 1.00 8 re xp. .25* .07 .04 -.01 .23* .12 .15 1.00 9 sep .03 .22* .19* .08 .16 .02 .18 .03 1.00 10 stress .06 -.14 .19* .09 .03 .05 -.13 .07 -.12 1.00 11optimism .04 .19* .18 .18 .16 .17 .06 .05 .27* -.15 1.00 12 age .13 -.19* .20* .07 .01 .13 .18 .04 .18 .08 .05 1.00 13 gender .03 .18 .01 .14 .02 .07 .05 .08 .06 .13 .11 .02 1.00 14 ls .34* .23* .12 .16 .35* .19* .18 .14 .25* -.20* .21* .08 -.03 1.00 15 ces-d -.28* -.19* -.23* -.12 -.21* -.20* -.17 -.19* -.20* .23* -.30* .13 .11 -.17 1.00 16 ses .19* .05 .16 .15 .08 .03 .04 .12 .10 .06 .14 .01 .07 .18 .19* 1.00 mean 66.8 4 2.31 2.25 7.84 6.40 3.25 2.60 16.5 0 32.2 4 13.5 6 8.40 63.5 0 3.56 8.30 3.38 s.d 3.50 0.94 0.60 2.40 3.23 2.60 1.82 .97 3.10 2.70 2.62 5.32 .45 5.21 5.60 note: n=284, ls=life satisfaction, retirement exp= retirement expectations, ces= center for epidemiologic studies depression scale, ss=social status, fs=financial situation, al=activity level, ph=physical health mq=marital quality, ssp=social support, rs=retirement status, jc=job challenges, rexp=retirement expectations, sef=self-efficacy, s.d= * standard deviation, *p<.05 (2-tailed test). well-being among retired teachers 57 the bivariate correlations on table 1 showed that financial situation, activity level, social support, retirement status (involuntary retirement), self-efficacy, stress and optimism had significant correlations with life satisfaction with correlations ranging from r=.19 to r=.35 p<.05, except marital quality, physical health, job challenge, retirement expectations, age and gender. all the independent (predictor) variables had significant negative correlations with depressive symptoms (r=-.19 p<.05 to r=.28, p<.05) except job challenge, age and gender. all the predictors correlated with each other with correlations ranging from r=.01 to r=.35 p<.05. regression analyses the results in step 1 on tables 2 and 3 show that age and gender did not predict psychological well-being among retired teachers. the results in step 2 on tables 2 and 3 indicate that contextual variables made significant contribution to the prediction of psychological well-being, life satisfaction (∆r²=.26, f(12,272)=15.74,p<.05); and depressive symptoms (∆r²=.27,f(12,272)11.87,p<.05). results on tables 2 and 3 indicate that retirement status (involuntary retirement), job challenges, financial situation, physical health, activity level and social support significantly predicted psychological well-being (life satisfaction and depressive symptoms). therefore, hypotheses h1a, h1b, h1c, h1e, h1g, and h1h were supported. these results suggest that retirement status (voluntary retirement), adequate financial situation, adequate physical health , high activity level and high social support are related to high life satisfaction and low depressive symptoms. high job challenges had significant effect on lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms among retired teachers. however, no significant effects of marital quality and social status on life satisfaction and depressive symptoms were found. hence, hypotheses h1d and h1f were rejected. these results suggest that social status and marital quality had no tangible effects on life satisfaction and depressive symptoms among retired teachers. table 2: hierarchical regression analyses for testing moderating effects of gender for life satisfaction variable life satisfaction r² ∆r² f β df step 1 .08 1.52 2,282 age .02 gender .01 step 2 .34 .26 15.74* 12,272 contextual variables rs .33* europe’s journal of psychology 58 jc -.36* financial situation .20* physical health .23* activity level .19* marital quality .10 social support .43* s.s .14 rs x gender .26* jc x gender .29* step 3 .54 .20 17.63* 17,262 psychological variables .36* pre .43* self-efficacy .-.35* stress .46* lot-opt .16* note: n=284, rs=retirement status, jc=job challenge, ss=social status, pre =pre-retirement expectations, lot-opt=life orientation test-optimism, *=p<.05(2-tailed test). results in step 3 on table 2 and 3 indicate that psychological variables provided additional contribution to the prediction of psychological well-being life-satisfaction, (∆r²=.20, f(17,262) =17.63, p<.05) depressive symptoms (∆r²=.17, f(17,262)=14.56,p<.05). results on tables 2 and 3 further revealed that pre-retirement expectations, selfefficacy, perceived stress and optimism separately predicted life satisfaction and depressive symptoms of retired teachers. therefore, hypotheses h5a, h5a, h5c and h5d were supported. these results indicate that higher pre-retirement expectations, self-efficacy, and optimism are related to higher life satisfaction and lower depressive symptoms. also higher stress has negative effect on life satisfaction but positive effect on depressive symptoms among retired teachers. table 3: hierarchical regression analysis for testing moderating effects of gender on depressive symptoms variable r² ∆r² f β df step 1 .08 1.56 2,282 age .08 gender .02 step 2 .35 .27 11.87* 12,272 contextual variables rs -.28* jc -.21* financial situation -.25* physical health -.57* well-being among retired teachers 59 activity level -.48* marital quality -.08 social support -.35* s.s -.10 rs x gender .14 jc x gender .09 step 3 .52 .17 14.56* 17,262 psychological variables pre -.33* self-efficacy -.38* stress .32* lot-opt -.38* pre x gender .18 note: n=284, rs=retirement status, jc=jo b challenge, ss=social status, pre =pre-retirement expectations, lot-opt=life orientation test-optimism, *=p<.05(2-tailed test) moderator effects of gender results on tables 2 and 3 in step 2 indicated that there were significant interaction effects of retirement status (involuntary retirement) x gender (beta=.26, p<.05) and job challenges gender (beta=.29, t=3.34, p<.05) to predict life satisfaction but not depressive symptoms. therefore, hypotheses h2 and h3 were partially supported. however, pre-retirement expectations x gender interaction did not predict life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. therefore, hypothesis h4 was not supported. discussion the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between retirement context, psychological variables and psychological well-being. the moderator effects of gender on the retirement expectations –psychological well-being linkage were also investigated. results from this study indicate that retirement context predicted psychological well-being. this is consistent with the findings of previous researchers who reported that retirement context such as retirement status (involuntary retirement), job challenges, financial situation, physical health and social support predicted psychological well-being (ardelt, 1997; bradley, siegel & kasl, 2000; gall & evans, 2000; henkens, 1999; kim & moen, 2002; taylor, golberg, shore & lipka, 2008). however, the results contradicted the findings of van solinge and henkens (2005) and gall and evans, (2000) who reported that financial situation, health, leisure activities, network, social status and job challenges had no significant effects on adjustment to retirement. europe’s journal of psychology 60 these findings were because resources such as financial, personal, and social support served as mechanisms for explaining the link between retirement status and psychological well-being. the link is mediated by the changes in the resources which in turn predict changes in psychological well-being. adjustment to retirement or psychological well-being in postretirement is influenced by the context in which the retirement transition occurs. the context is shaped by the resources available to the retirees and the circumstances in which retirement takes place. given the context, individuals may experience retirement transition differently and therefore different psychological well-being. results from this study indicate that psychological variables (pre-retirement expectations, self-efficacy, perceived stress and optimism) predicted psychological well-being. these findings corroborate the work of previous researchers (gall & evans, 2000; van solinge & henkens, 2005; taylor & cook, 1995; taylor et al, 2008) who found that pre-retirement expectations and self-efficacy were determinants of adjustment to retirement. these findings are attributed to the fact that retirement is not simply a state but a complex process embedded in some prior psychological resources. for example, retirees having higher self –efficacy, positive pre-retirement expectations and lower stress had higher life satisfaction and decreased depressive symptoms. the converse is also true. therefore, variations in adjustment to retirement may stem from psychological factors that determine an individual’s expectations of and responses to changes in retirement life. that gender interacts with retirement status and job challenges to predict psychological well-being agree with the work of previous researchers who found strong gender differences with regard to adjustment to retirement (schwarzer & schulz, 2002; kim & moen, 2002; van solinge & henkens, 2005). these findings could be because women had different work histories, employment opportunities, and general life experiences which might make them to adjust to retirement differently than men do. secondly, gender-based differences in work commitment, caused by the fact that women’s primary role was in the home, are believed to result in fewer adjustment problems among women (slevin & wingrove, 1995). in line with this reasoning, female retirees adjusted more easily than male retirees (van solinge & henkens, 2002). implications of findings findings from this study have implications for career, leisure and retirement counselling practice and assessment. an important implication is that the contextual and psychological factors examined in this study should be part of the investigation well-being among retired teachers 61 of those managing the mental and psychological well-being of retired teachers and others in retirement. assessment of these factors will assist counsellors, psychologists and mental health practitioners to manage the retirees with depression better. pre-retirement expectations should be targeted in pre-retirement counselling. providing education about life-style changes in retirement could assist retirees to come up with realistic retirement expectations. helping retirees to build social relationships could be part of the pre-retirement counselling programmes especially for the retirees who expect health problems in retirement. retirees who expect problems in retirement could also be educated on the positive impact of retirement. cognitivebehavioural therapeutic intervention techniques would help retirees who consistently anticipate the negative while overlooking the positive aspects of retirement. postretirement counselling programmes that will involve leisure time activities (participation in community works) and vocational issues (developing skills for survival and self employment) should be designed to improve transition to retirement and enhance adjustment to life transition. the counselling programmes should also monitor changes in lifestyles and help retirees to re-evaluate their values and goals to be congruent with current experience of retirement. with early postretirement interventions, adjustment problems in retirement could be prevented thereby paving way for improved life satisfaction and decreased depressive symptoms. while considering the results from this study, it is important to note some limitations. first there is no information on the pre-retirement well-being of the teachers which can be seen as an important factor in adjustment to retirement. second, this study is cross-sectional in nature; 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(1997). predicting women’s well-being in midlife: the importance of personality development and social role involvements. journal of personality and social psychology, 72, 1147-1160. about the author: dr samuel o.salami received his ph.d from the university of ilorin, ilorin nigeria. he is a senior lecturer in counselling psychology at the department of guidance and counseling, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria but currently on sabbatical leave in the kampala international university, kampala, uganda. his research interests include mentoring, leadership, employee commitment, job attitudes, career development, organizational conflict resolution and occupational stress. his research has been published in the europe’s journal of psychology, european journal of scientific research, career development international journal, journal of workplace learning, women in management review and international journal for the advancement of counselling. address for correspondance: drsosalami2002@yahoo.co.uk adjusting to the future florina stefanie pr and programme development director acssn paideia association specialists tried to define who exactly young people are. in a world of globalisation, we can easily realise that such a question is hard to answer. the lack of such definition, while confusing the issue between perspectives, has led to different approaches to youth based on young people as a generation, an object of public policy or as an age group. globalisation, a process whereby the whole world is becoming integrated into a homogenous community, is a phenomenon, which, due to its ever growing pace and dimensions, has become a topic of vigorous discussion in the recent years. dramatic changes in the ways of social communication, the progress in the development of information technology and the resulting change in people’s lifestyles, present us with a different world, much more dynamic than the one we were used to several years ago. these new circumstances require every individual to find their own interpretation of the changes around them. therefore, the primary goal of modern education should be to help young people to form an awareness of the dynamic surrounding world and allow them to determine their place in their local community, as well as the global society. globalization and the it revolution are transforming the economic environment. new ideas have gained widespread attention and companies have been forced to restructure and become more innovative in order to stay competitive. as every local and international community adjusts itself to meet the needs of the time and function adequately in a global context, the process of globalisation also affects the education system. the human capital is developed through high quality education systems, with tertiary and secondary education providing the advanced skills that command a premium in today’s marketplace most, if not all, developed countries emphasize higher education to ensure their young people are prepared for survival in the knowledge-based society. the challenge to developing countries is not only to catch up, but also to set up and institutionalize a system of educational planning and implementation that will produce the skilled labor and knowledge workers required by them today and in the future. the success of developing countries and national enterprises will depend on effective gathering and utilization of knowledge. with the view of the dynamic future society, we should also expect a more dynamic education system, which could adjust itself to the rapidly changing world and stay open to different approaches and ways of teaching. with the growing possibilities of global communication, new alternative ways of teaching will be available before long. non-formal education has an increasing role in the development of new cultures, new mentalities and accommodating the competencies to a changing environment. therefore, national formal education systems area is enlarging its barriers to different providers such private institutes or ngos. meanwhile, the creation of a global education system, as well as the process of globalisation itself, presents the society with numerous problems, which can overshadow the benefits. there is a need for the education authorities to reorient their policies to make the curriculum more innovative. thus, young people will have to learn the art of acquiring more knowledge on their own and will have to be stimulated to do things in different ways, becoming proactive rather than reactive, willing to take risks and learn from mistakes. to strengthen life-long learning habits, subjects like communication, learning and thinking skills will have to be incorporated into the teaching and learning process. undoubtedly, in the era of globalisation, the educational organisations aim to “facilitate international academic mobility”. there is a risk, however, of only one-way mobility westwards, leaving other parts of the world (together with their unique cultures) behind to cope with numerous economic and social problems. if this were to happen, education would become the tool for further exacerbating the destructive aspects of globalisation rather than helping to overcome problems and share the benefits. further weakening of the developing countries, increasing the inequality in the world, damaging and neglecting cultures – these are some of the rather extreme (but possible) effects of adopting an inappropriate education model for the globalizing society. the education should treat each unique culture and society with due respect, realising that global education is not only learning about the west, but also studying different cultures of the world, using different approaches, ways of teaching and different media. the era of globalisation is the time when cross-cultural communication and understanding becomes increasingly important in our lives. the modern education should prepare young people for communicating their ideas, overcoming problems, understanding and being understood by the rest of the world. although this vision is rather idealistic, i believe equality and tolerance in the world can be achieved by gradually adjusting the education means to the changing needs of the dynamic global society. work experiences, satisfactions and well-being this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 95-111, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.300 www.ejop.org work experiences, satisfactions and psychological well-being among women managers and professionals in turkey ronald j. burke schulich school of business, york university, toronto, canada mustafa koyuncu nevsehir university, nevsehir, turkey jacob wolpin independent consultant, toronto, canada abstract although qualified women are still underrepresented at ranks of senior management in all countries, considerable progress has been made in identifying work experiences associated with career success and advancement. the present study examines the relationship of four work experiences and work satisfactions and indicators of psychological well-being in a sample of managerial and professional women working in istanbul turkey. data were collected from 143 women using anonymously completed questionnaires. work experiences included support and encouragement, feeling accepted in the organization, opportunities for training and development, and work and family integration .access to these four work experiences were positively and significantly correlated though the sample generally indicated low exposure to them. hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for personal demographics and work situation characteristics, indicated that these work experiences had significant relationships with both work and well-being outcomes. work-family integration had the strongest and most consistent relationships with these outcomes. keywords: women’s career advancement, work experiences, turkey europe’s journal of psychology 96 women continue to enter the workforce and pursue managerial and professional careers in almost all countries (davidson & burke, 2004, 2011) in addition, women now outnumber men in universities in several countries (davidson & burke, 2011). women are also achieving training and development and increasing years of work experience necessary for career advancement. yet women seem to get stuck in middle management with few achieving senior management positions (powell, 2011). this results in what has been termed a “glass ceiling (barreto, ryan, & schmitt, 2009; morrison, white, & van velsor, 1987, 1992), a “glass cliff” which gives women precarious positions in which it is hard to be successful (ryan, haslam, hersby, kulich, & wilsonkovacs, 2009), a “concrete wall” keeping women in functions unlikely to lead to senior levels, or on “sticky floors”. we are beginning to understand work and career experiences that have had positive effects on women’s career development (morrison, 1992; morrison, white, &van velsor, 1987, 1992;). morrison, white, and van velsor (1987) identified six factors that contributed to women’s career success in a three year study of top females executives in the us. these were: help from above, a track record of achievements, a desire to succeed, an ability to manage subordinates, a willingness to take career risks, and an ability to be tough, decisive and demanding. factors connected with not achieving expected levels of progress were: an inability to adapt, wanting too much for themselves and for other women, and .performance problems. it seemed that women had to have more assets and fewer liabilities than men to succeed. morrison and her colleagues (1992) also studied the work experiences of women who had advanced to senior management. four work experiences emerged as important: being accepted by their organizations, receiving support and encouragement, having training and development opportunities, and being offered challenging work and visible assignments. these very successful women reported having more constraints and less support than when they held lower-level positions resulting in both exhaustion and still feeling stuck. morrison (1992) observed, however, that for women, challenge typically exceeds levels of organizational support and recognition resulting in exhaustion and greater intentions to quit. mckeen and burke (1991), in a study of 792 canadian women business school graduates now in managerial and professional jobs, examined the role of various work experiences in their career progress. in one sub-sample, women who participated in a greater number of education, training and developmental activities indicated greater work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 97 job and career satisfaction, more job involvement and were more optimistic about their future career prospects. women who were more satisfied with these experiences also reported all of the above as well as less intent to quit. mckeen and burke reported, in a different sub-sample, relationships between career experiences and career satisfaction and career prospects. four of these work experiences represented forms of organizational support: support and encouragement by one’s organization, feeling accepted, training and development opportunities, and an absence of conflict and tension from overload and ambiguity from being a woman. women reporting more positive work experiences in these areas also reported greater job and career satisfaction, job involvement and career optimsm and lower intention to quit. burke (2002) also reviewed the role of developmental job experiences and developmental relationships in women’s career development. there is also evidence that offering women alternative work arrangements at particular times (e.g., child birth, caring for an aging parent) is associated with greater job and career satisfaction (lee, engler, & wright, 2002). in addition, organizational culture values more supportive of women generally (sexual harassment policies, fair treatment, due process, individual respect) m have been shown to predict their levels of job satisfaction and intent to stay (burke, 2002). why do managerial and professional women need particular work experiences to develop successful careers? catalyst (1998) has identified a long list of powerful barriers to women’s career advancement. these include: negative assumptions in executive ranks about women, their abilities, and their commitment to careers; perceptions that women do not fit the corporate culture; lack of career planning and the range of job experiences to fill the future needs of the organization; failure to make managers accountable for developing and advancing women; lack of mentoring and exclusion form informal career networks; and discrimination and sexual harassment, among others (see burke & nelson, 2002, for others). burke, koyuncu, and fiksenbaum (2008a), in a study of 215 female managers and professionals working in a large turkish bank, reported that women indicating greater perceptions of organizational bias favouring men reported less job satisfaction, lower levels of work engagement and more job stress; these perceptions were not related to turnover intention. perceptions of organizational bias were also related to exhaustion but not self-reported psychosomatic symptoms. women with more education interestingly reported higher levels of perceived organizational bias. europe’s journal of psychology 98 burke, koyuncu, and fiksenbaum (2006), examined the relationship of organizational practices designed to support women’s career advancement and their work satisfaction and psychological health,. data were collected form 186 managerial and professional women working in a large turkish bank with offices in several cities. five work experiences were considered: perceptions of equal treatment, support, the use of male standards, barriers facing women in their organization, and family responsibilities. women reporting more supportive organizational experiences and practices were also more work engaged, career satisfied and indicated higher levels of psychological health. women in management in turkey research interest in women in management in turkey is slowly emerging. two related streams of writing have relevance to the status of women in management and women in the workforce in turkey. one stream reviews the status of women in turkey in various sectors such as students pursuing university education, women in the professions, women holding management and professional jobs, women in the public sector and women in entrepreneurship (kabasakal, aycan, & karakas, 2004; kabasakal, aycan, karakas, & maden, 2011). these authors show that more women than men are now entering turkish universities, but women still avoid traditional masculine fields such as engineering, technology and business management; women are increasingly entering the work force and managerial jobs but remain mostly at lower organizational levels, women fare better in professions such as teaching and health services; there is government legislation supporting gender equality but it is not clear the extent to which this legislation is monitored, women tend to fare better in the public sector than in the private sector; and very few turkish private sector organizations develop initiatives to support the recruitment, development and advancement of women. a second stream compares the status of women in management in turkey with the percentages of women in these positions in other countries. the united nations development programme (2008) examined these percentages in thirteen counties and found that turkey ranked last. these data suggest that while women face challenges in pursuing managerial and professional careers in all counties, these challenges are likely greater in turkey. burke and his colleagues have also undertaken studies in turkey in which they compared males and females working in the same profession (professors, managers work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 99 and professionals working in the tourism and hospitality sector, manufacturing managers (burke, koyuncu, & fiksenbaum, 2008b; koyuncu, burke, & fiksenbaum, 2006a, 2006b). in these studies. males and females were found to differ significantly on several personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., males were older, more likely married, earned more income, were at higher organizational levels) but males and females were found to be generally similar on a range of work and wellbeing outcomes. (e.g., job satisfaction, career satisfaction, intent to quit, dimensions of work engagement). objectives of the research this study, building on previous research carried out in other countries, examines the relationship of various work experiences reported by women in managerial and professional jobs in turkey and their job and career satisfactions and psychological wellbeing. four work experiences were considered: support and encouragement, feeling accepted by colleagues and the organization, opportunities for training and development, and workfamily integration. three general hypotheses were examined in this research. 1. the four work experiences would be positively and significantly correlated. 2. female managers and professionals reporting higher levels of these four work experiences would report higher levels of work satisfaction. 3. female managers and professionals reporting higher levels of these four work experiences would report higher levels of psychological well-being. method procedure four organizations located in istanbul turkey were contacted, the purpose of the study explained, and access to women holding full time managerial and professional jobs was requested. data were collected using anonymously completed questionnaires. the four institutions were: the istanbul chamber of commerce (icc),, the istanbul commodity exchange (ice), the foreign economic relations board (ferb) and the economic development foundation (edf). each of these organizations has a board of directors made up mainly of men and they provide services to the business community. europe’s journal of psychology 100 all respondents held jobs offering opportunities for promotion and were at various organizational levels (e. g., executive, director, managers, auditors, inspectors, content experts, and consultants. respondents in the first two organizations (icc, ice received hard copies of the questionnaire, respondents in the other two organizations (ferb, edf) received the questionnaire electronically. data were collected in september through november 2011.a total of 210 females were invited to participate and 143 did so, a response rate of 68 percent. most respondents were employed with the icc(79%). respondents table 1 presents demographic characteristics of the sample (n=143). most were between 31 and 40 years of age (49%), about half were married (50%), about half had children (51%), had a bachelor’s degree (53%), worked 40 hours per week (68%), earned between us$15,000 and us$21,999 per week (43%), were in lower management (36%), had supervisory duties (78%), worked in the public sector (92%), had been working for their organization 5 years of less (32%) and in their present jobs between 3 to 5 years (32%), had 6 to 10 subordinates (24%), and worked in organizations over 100 people (78%), these respondents working for the same large organization. table 1. demographic characteristics of the sample age n % marital status n % 30 or younger 40 28,0 married 72 50,3 31 – 40 70 48,9 single 71 49,7 41 – 50 28 19,6 51 or older 5 3,5 education n % high school 24 16,8 parental status n % bachelors 76 53,1 have children 73 51,1 masters 43 30,1 no children 70 48,9 income n % work hours n % $ 15.000 or less 21 14,7 39 or less 5 3,5 $ 15.000 $ 21.999 62 43,4 40 97 67,8 $ 22.000 $ 28.999 32 22,4 41 – 50 39 27,3 $ 29.000 or more 28 19,6 51 or more 2 1,4 work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 101 table 1 (cont.). demographic characteristics of the sample organizational tenure n % organizational level n % 5 years or less 46 32,2 non-management 32 22,4 6 – 10 34 23,7 lower management 52 36,4 11 – 15 34 23,8 middle management 47 32,9 16 – 20 12 8,4 senior management 12 8,4 21 or more 17 11,9 supervisory duties n % job tenure n % yes 111 77,6 1 – 2 years 44 30,8 no 32 22,4 3 – 5 46 32,1 6 – 10 23 16,1 sector n % 11 – 20 23 16,1 private 11 7,7 21 or more 7 4,9 public 132 92,3 organization size n % number of subordinates n % 100 or less 31 21.7 0 32 22,4 101 or more 112 78.3 1 – 5 20 14,0 6 – 10 34 23,7 11 – 15 14 9,8 16 – 20 14 9,8 21 – 25 14 9,8 26 or more 15 10,5 measures personal demographics (e.g., age, gender, education, marital and parental status) were measured by single items. work situation characteristics were also measured by single items (sector, organizational level, organizational and job tenure, organizational size). work experiences. four work experiences were included. these were taken from a longer scale developed and used by burke, koyuncu, and fiksenbaum (2006) in an earlier study of work experiences of managerial and professional women working in europe’s journal of psychology 102 banks in turkey. respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five point likert scale (5= strongly agree, 3=neither agree nor disagree.1=strongly disagree). support and encouragement was measured by four items (=.60). one item was “i have received a high level of support and encouragement in my career aspirations.” acceptance was assessed by four items (=.60). an item was “i do not feel accepted as a full-fledged member by the senior management in my organization” (reversed). training and development opportunities was measured by three items (=.61). one item was “i am encouraged to attend training and educational programs offered within the company.” work-family integration was assessed by two items (=.56). an item was “i often feel conflict between my work role and my family or other personal commitments” (reversed). work outcomes. four work outcomes were included: job satisfaction was measured by six items (=.93) developed by kofodimos (1993). one item was “i feel challenged by my work.” career satisfaction was assessed by three items (=.70) developed by greenhaus, parasuraman, and wormley (1990). an item was “i am satisfied with the success i have had in my career”.. career progress was also measured by a three item scale (=.52) developed by greenhaus, parasuraman, and wormley (1990). one item was “i have very good prospects for promotion in this organization.” intent to quit was measured by two items(=.76) used previously by burke (1991). an item was “ are you currently looking for a different job in a different organization? (yes/no). psychological well-being. two aspects of psychological health were included. stress was measured by a 9 item scale (=.80) developed by spence and robbins (1992). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on the work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 103 same 5 point likert scale. a sample item was “i am under a great deal of stress at work.” emotional exhaustion was assessed by a 9 item scale (=.91) developed by maslach, jackson, and leiter (1996) one item was “i feel emotionally drained from my work.” results descriptive statistics four of the six inter-correlations between the four work experiences were positive and significantly different from zero (p<.05 or greater): support and encouragement and acceptance, r=.46; support and encouragement and training and development opportunities (r-.34), support and encouragement and work-family integration (r=.24), and acceptance and work-family integration (r=.36). training and development opportunities were uncorrelated with acceptance and work family integration (rs=-.02 and .04, respectively). the mean inter-correlation among these four work experience measures was .24, (p<.01, n=139). the means on the four work experiences were: support and encouragement, 3.2; acceptance, 2.5, training and development, 3.0, and work-family integration, 2.8, with an average mean value of 2.9 (3-neither agree nor disagree) indicating a relatively low presence of these four work experiences. person demographics, work situation characteristics and work experiences correlations were computed between thirteen personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., age, marital status, income, organizational level, number of subordinates) and the four work experiences. only four of the resulting 52 correlations (8%) were significantly different from zero (p<.05) thus, in this sample personal and work situation characteristics were generally independent of perceptions of the four work experiences. older managerial and professional women, those having longer organizational tenure, and those working in the private sector reported more training and development opportunities (rs=.18, .21 and .20, respectively); and managerial and professional women at higher organizational levels indicted more support and encouragement (r-.19). europe’s journal of psychology 104 hierarchical regression analyses hierarchical regression analyses were undertaken in which the various work and wellbeing outcomes were separately regressed on three blocks of predictors. the first block of predictors included four personal demographic characteristics: age, marital status, parental status, level of education. the second block of predictors included four work situation characteristics: organizational level, supervisory duties, organizational tenure, and job tenure. the third block of predictors included the four work experience measures (acceptance, support and encouragement, training and development opportunities, work and family integration). when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment n explained variance with a given outcome measure (p<.05), individual items or measures within these blocks having significant and independent relationships with this outcome were then determined (p<.05). this approach controls for the relationship of both personal demographics and work situation characteristics with a given outcome before considering the relationship of the predictors of interest, in this case the measures of work and family interference. table 2 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which the four work outcomes were separately regressed on the three blocks of predictors (personal demographics, work situation characteristics, work experiences). the following comments are offered in summary. work experiences accounted for a significant increment in explained variance in all four analyses. managerial and professional women reporting more training and development opportunities reported higher levels of job satisfaction (b=.19); managerial and professional women reporting more support and encouragement indicated more career satisfaction (b=.20); managerial and professional women reporting higher levels of support and encouragement, and of acceptance, and work-family integration, also indicated more satisfaction (optimism) about future career prospects (bs=.30, .22 and .19, respectively); and managerial and professional women reporting greater work-family integration also indicated less intent to quit (b=-.22). work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 105 table 2. work experiences and work outcomes work outcomes r r2 r2 p job satisfaction (n=137) personal demographics .20 .04 .04 ns work situation characteristics .31 .10 .06 ns work experiences .41 .17 .07 .05 training (.19) career satisfaction (n=136) personal demographics .22 .05 .05 ns work situation characteristics .42 .18 .13 .001 job tenure (-.29) supervisory duties (.31) work experiences .53 .28 .10 .01 support (.20) career prospects (n= 137) personal demographics .20 .04 .04 ns work situation characteristics .28 .08 .04 ns work experiences .50 .25 .17 .001 acceptance (.22) work-family integration (.19) support (.30) intent to quit (n=138) personal demographics .24 .06 .06 ns work situation characteristics .26 .07 .01 ns work experiences .40 .16 .09 .05 work family integration (-.22) table 3 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which two indicators of psychological well-being were separately regressed on the three blocks of predictors. the following comments are offered in summary. work experiences accounted for a significant increment in explained variance in the two analyses. managerial and professional women reporting greater work-family integration and higher levels of europe’s journal of psychology 106 support and encouragement also indicated lower levels of exhaustion (bs=-.40 and -.28, respectively). managerial and professional women reporting higher levels of work family integration also reported lower levels of stress (b=.-.51). table 3. work experiences and psychological well-being psychological well-being r r2 r2 p exhaustion (n=132) personal demographics .16 .03 .03 ns work situation characteristics .35 .12 .09 .05 supervisory duties (.44) work experiences .62 .38 .26 .001 work-family integration (-.40) support (-.28) stress (n=132) personal demographics .22 .05 .05 ns work situation characteristics .31 .10 .05 ns work experiences .60 .36 .26 .001 work-family integration (-.51) four more general observations are worth noting. first, personal demographic factors and work situation characteristics were generally independent of perceptions of the four work experiences. second, work experiences accounted for significant increments in explained variance in all analyses that were undertaken suggesting that these work experiences mattered to women (tables 2 and 3). third, support and encouragement and work-family integration were the strongest predictors of the various work outcomes (table 2). fourth, work-and family integration emerged as the strongest predictor of psychological well-being (see table 3). discussion these data produced considerable support for the two general hypotheses underlying this study (see tables 2 and 3). in each of the six analyses undertaken, managerial and professional women indicating work experiences more supportive of themselves and work experiences, satisfactions and well-being 107 their career aspirations reported more positive work and psychological well-being outcomes. work and family integration emerged as the most common significant predictor but each of the four work experiences had significant relationships with one or more of the outcome measures. these results were consistent with earlier observations and research findings highlighting the important role of the work environment as a factor in the satisfaction and psychological health of women in managerial and professional jobs (see burke, 2002, for a review). the findings extend an examination of these work experiences to a sample of managerial and professional women in turkey, not previously done before to our knowledge. practical implications there is considerable room for application given the relatively low exposure of respondents in our study to all four work experiences. it has been noted that few turkish organizations have undertaken such initiatives (aycan, 2004; kabasakal, aycan, karakas, & maden, 2011). examples of best practice are offered in catalyst (1998). obstacles in the way of qualified women’s advancement are identified. organizations first need to identify why supporting women’s career advancement and who inside the organization will spearhead the necessary system changes. then organizations need to obtain information that will serve as a baseline to determine progress. this includes the current climate in the organization, barriers faced by qualified women in their career advancement, what is currently working well, and what are other leading edge organizations doing to attract, retain and advance qualified women. finally organizations need to develop action plans, pilot these in small experiments, than imp them throughout the organization. limitations of the research as with most research, this study has some limitations. first, all data were collected using self report surveys raising the possibility of response set biases. second, all data were collected at one point in time making it impossible to consider cause and effect relationships. third, some of the measures had levels of internal consistency reliability below the generally accepted standard of .70. fourth, the sample contained a majority of respondents working in the public sector. in addition, this sample may not be reflective of all women working in the public sector. fifth, other work europe’s journal of psychology 108 experiences (e.g. mentoring and networking) may also be relevant to women’s career satisfaction and advancement and they were not included here. future research directions several promising research directions suggest themselves. first a qualitative study using interviews and focus groups of turkish managerial and professional women might identify other work experiences that have developmental value. second, it seems important to assess the career aspirations of these managerial women in future research. work experiences are more likely to be salient for woman desirous of upward mobility. third, undertaking the research in private sector organizations seems appropriate. finally, given the relatively low exposure of our sample to all four work experiences, selecting organizations that have introduced initiatives to support the advancement of women would be illuminating. acknowledgement preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by york university and nevsehir university. nihat alayaglu, istanbul ticaret university, assisted in data collection. we thank the four organizations that participated in the data collection and our respondents. references aycan, z. 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(2008). human development report 20072008. new york: oxford university press. about the authors ronald j. burke is currently professor of organizational studies, schulich school of business, york university. his research interests in clued human resource practices and organizational performance, and women in management ronald j. burke, w363, schulich school of business, york university, 4700 keele street, toronto ontario m3j 1p3, canada, e-mail: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca mustafa koyuncu is currently associated professor in the school of tourism and hospitality, nevsehir university in turkey. his research interests include management development in the tourism and hospitality sector, and hospitality management education more generally. jacob wolpin is an independent consultant in toronto. his research interests include understanding an aging workforce and organizational restructuring and downsizing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5801_15 mailto:rburke@schulich.yorku.ca running head: sense of humor styles and perception of stress 213 europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 213-235 www.ejop.org humor styles, positive personality and health arnie cann university of north carolina charlotte charlotte, north carolina, usa kelly stilwell university of north carolina charlotte charlotte, north carolina, usa kanako taku oakland university rochester, michigan, usa abstract the research examines the relationship of sense of humor differences and positive personality qualities with perceptions of stress and well-being. positive and negative styles of self-directed humor were assumed to have opposing relationships with perceived stress, but the relationships were predicted to be mediated through positive personality qualities. university students provided data at two points in time separated by 8 weeks. data from time 1 was used to verify the mediation of the relationship of sense of humor with perceived stress through the positive personality qualities. a more extensive theoretical model, using longitudinal data, was tested using the sense of humor measures from time 1 and positive personality qualities at time 2 to predict perceived stress and well-being at time 2. the results from the two analyses support the proposed mediator model in which the potential health benefits of a positive humor style and the potential damage to health associated with a negative humor style are mediated through the positive personality qualities. thus, it would appear that good humor uses can support maintaining a stable positive personality style, which has positive associations with both psychological and physical well-being. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 214 keywords: sense of humor, positive personality, psychological well-being, physical wellbeing a good sense of humor has long been imagined to be a personal quality that can moderate the impact of stressors in one‟s life (lefcourt & martin, 1986; lefcourt, 2001). a sense of humor, it has been suggested, can help a person engage in positive reframing, and creative reinterpretation of events to limit or dispel the negative affect associated with stressors (e. g. abel, 2002; abel & maxwell, 2002; kuiper & olinger, 1998; nezu, nezu, & blissett, 1988). support also comes from research indicating that a good sense of humor has been associated with higher levels of cheerfulness (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003) and positive affect (celso, ebener, & burkhead, 2003) and lower levels of negative affect and depression (anderson & arnoult, 1989; overholser, 1992). however, the results hav e not been consistent in confirming these positive relationships (see martin 2007 for a recent overv iew). in quite a number of cases there has been little or no relationship found between the assessments of sense of humor and indicators of psychological health (e. g., kuiper, & borowicz-sibenik, 2005; kuiper & martin, 1998a; 1998b; porterfield, 1987). a similar body of research exists when looking at the potential relationship between humor, sense of humor, and physical health indicators. studies have found exposure to humor had positive physiological effects (e.g. berk et al., 1989; berk, & tan, 2009; lefcourt, davidson-katz, & kueneman, 1990). however, other investigations report no relationship (e. g., harrison et al., 2000; kerkkanen, kuiper, & martin, 2004; njus, nitschke, & bryant, 1996). in research on health symptom reporting, there also are examples of supportive findings (e.g., carroll & shmidt, 1992; ruch & kohler, 1999) and findings that fail to confirm a relationship (labott & martin, r. b., 1987; porterfield, 1987). in fact, in a recent rev iew of the literature (martin, 2001; 2004) the overall pattern of results did not support a reliable relationship between humor variables and physical health related indicators. virtually all of the research cited above looking at sense of humor and health, even in instances where multiple measures of sense of humor were used in a study, focused on sense of humor as if it is exclusively a positive, adaptive quality. although other less positive forms of humor, involv ing sarcasm, ridicule, teasing and other forms of disparagement have long been recognized as common (janes & olson, 2000; zillman, 1983), the available measures of sense of humor have not adequately captured these styles of humor. recent dev elopments in the assessment of sense of humor (martin et al, 2003), reflecting an appreciation for the positive or adaptive uses of humor and the less adaptive or negative uses, have provided an opportunity humor, personality and health 215 to clarify the potential relationships between sense of humor and psychological and physical health. the humor styles questionnaire (hsq: martin et al., 2003) prov ides a more comprehensive assessment of the multiple styles of humor that have been observed. the hsq identifies four humor styles, including styles that could exacerbate stress rather than reduce it. the affiliative humor style, characterized by entertaining and supporting others through humor is most like the prev ious measures of sense of humor that focused on the positive uses of humor. an aggressive humor style reflects indiv iduals‟ use of humor to tease or demean others, in order to gain some status for oneself. a tendency to use this style of humor can be damaging to interpersonal relationships (cann, zapata, & davis, 2009; in press). of most importance to understanding the potential role of humor styles in limiting the negative impact of stressors are the two humor styles that are self-directed rather than focused on others. self-enhancing humor is closely related to the notion of coping humor (martin, 1996; martin et al, 2003), and is characterized by uses of humor to maintain a positive outlook on life and to cope with stressors by finding new perspectives for interpreting them. self-defeating humor, on the other hand, involves ridicule or demeaning of the self in an effort to gain favor with others, a style that has been found to be associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression (martin et al., 2003) and has the potential to lower rather than raise one‟s positive affect. in a number of recent investigations, these two self-directed humor styles have demonstrated opposing relationships with health related outcome variables. kuiper, grimshaw, leite, and kirsh (2004) looked at a number of well-being indicators and found a low self-enhancing style was associated with lowered well-being. in addition, they reported that a high self-enhancing style was positively related to multiple self-competencies associated with better coping. the self-defeating style, on the other hand, was positively related to reported depression and anxiety and negatively associated with the self-competencies. hugelshofer, kwon, reff, & olson (2006) found the same pattern looking at the two styles relationships with levels of depression, and chen and martin (2007) reported a similar pattern when looking at mental health based on self reported symptoms. cann and etzel (2008) looked at ratings of perceived stressors in one‟s life and found self-enhancing humor was negatively related, and self-defeating was positively related to both evaluations of past stressors and anticipated future stressors. clearly the two self-directed styles of humor are not both adaptive, greater tendencies to use a self-defeating humor style appears to be associated with poorer adjustment and lower well-being. although there was also ev idence of a positive relationship between affiliative humor style and well-being in some of these studies, in both chen and martin (2007) and cann and etzel (2008), when the four humor styles were entered together in a regression europe’s journal of psychology 216 model, only the self-directed styles were reliably related to the well-being outcome measures. taken together, these studies prov ide considerable support for the importance of assessing sense of humor as a multidimensional variable, with elements that can be either positive or negative factors in predicting health and well-being and in influencing other experiences. although additional research will be necessary, this more comprehensive conceptualization of sense of humor may lead to a more consistent pattern of findings in relationships between humor uses and health outcomes. however, even if the pattern does become clearer, the question remains as to how these humor styles actually influence psychological and physical healt h. one possibility is that effective use of humor, for example higher uses of self enhancing and lower uses of self-defeating humor, may operate through their impact on more global differences in the tendency to experience positive or negative affect. the humor styles have been shown to be related to measures of typical positive and negative affect (kuiper et al., 2004), and to more enduring qualities like optimism, cheerfulness and bad mood (martin et al., 2003), and sociotropy (frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008). cann and etzel (2008) found the humor styles explained a significant amount of the variability in three separate qualities associated with positive personality (optimism, hope, and happiness), with the two self-directed styles consistently significant as indiv idual predictors. the literature on the relationship between stable differences in affectiv ity and health is generally more consistent than the findings to date for the role of sense of humor as a predictor of health. chronic negative affect has been shown to be related to poorer health experiences (friedman & booth-kewley, 1987), and recent levels of negative affect (kuiper & harris, 2009) were a better predictor of physical health than were the humor styles based on the hsq. the presence of positive affect as a stable state also has been found to be associated with positive health experiences. positive emotional styles were associated with better immune response (cohen, doyle, turner, alper, & skoner, 2003; cohen, alper, doyle, treanor, & turner, 2006). consistently higher levels of positive affect also are associated with greater psychological resilience (cohn, frederickson, brown, mikels, & conway, 2009), fewer illness symptoms reported (pettit, kline, gencoz, gencoz, & joiner, 2001), and better health in general (pressman & cohen, 2005). people who are high on positive personality qualities tend to report experiencing more consistent and higher levels of positive affect and lower levels of negative affect. these positive personality qualities also are associated with more positive approaches to coping in stressful situations and better overall health. research supports the health benefits of greater optimism (carver, scheier, & miller, 2009), higher levels of hope as a stable trait humor, personality and health 217 (richman, kubzansky, maselko, kawachi, choo, & bauer, 2005), and stable differences in happiness (siahpush, spittal, & singh, 2008; veenhoven, 2008). in general, these positive personality qualities have been more reliable predictors of health and effective coping than have measures of sense of humor. however, these qualities, positive personality styles and humor styles, may be linked since maintaining a consistent positive outlook would seem to require behaviors that support that state. effective use of humor may be one way that people with more positive personality qualities maintain their positive outlooks. in a recent study (cann & etzel, 2008), initial ev idence was found to support a mediator model in which the role of humor styles in explaining perceptions of stress was mediated through a composite of positive personality styles (optimism, hope, and happiness). the current research seeks to extend those findings in two ways. first, the mediator model will be examined by considering each positive personality quality as a separate mediator rather than the composite based on all three qualities. secondly, a hypothesized model will be tested to see if the results of the mediator analyses are validated using longitudinal data and if the reported perceived stress does translate into different levels of self-reported psychological and physical health. to better capture the assumed role of the humor styles, a longitudinal model will be tested, using humor styles at time 1 but positive personality, and perceived stress at time 2. a checklist of actual stressors experienced during the interval will prov ide an additional validation of perceived stress as a reflection of actual life events. method participants participants were enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses at a university in the southeastern united states and they received credit toward a course requirement by participating in research opportunities. at time 1, 299 participants (58 men and 241 women) completed the on-line questionnaires. all participants were at least 18 years of age (m = 20.86, sd = 5.67), and the vast majority classified themselves as caucasian (223, 45 black, 16 asian, 9 hispanic, 6 other). at time 2, 174 participants (30 men and 144 women) completed the questionnaires. the mean age of this group was 20.92 years (sd = 5.95) and the vast majority were caucasian (137, 22 black, 8 asian, 4 hispanic, 3 other). those who completed both sets of measures (n = 174) were compared to those who only completed the measures at time 1 (n = 125) on the demographic variables (age, gender, ethnic group) and on all measures europe’s journal of psychology 218 collected at time 1. there were no statistically reliable differences on any of these variables. measures humor styles questionnaire (hsq). the humor styles questionnaire (martinet al., 2003) assesses indiv idual differences in four styles of humor use. two styles are primarily other-directed; with aggressive humor involv ing humor that attacks or demeans others and affiliative humor characterized by efforts to build relationships through humor. the other two styles are self-directed; with self-defeating humor characterized by humor that demeans the self in efforts to build relationships and self-enhancing humor designed to protect or amuse oneself with humor. eight items assess each humor styles, with responses prov ided on a scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) and scores reported as means on that scale. this questionnaire, including each of the four styles of humor measured, has been shown in prev ious work to have construct validity and to have good internal reliability (alphas ranging from .77 to .81) (martin et al., 2003). positive personality measures the life orientation test-revised (lot-r). the life orientation test-revised is a 10item questionnaire designed to assess generalized dispositional optimism. i t consists of 6 relevant items and 4 non-relevant items that are rated from 0 (i disagree a lot) to 4 (i agree a lot) (scheier, carver, & bridges, 1994). this questionnaire measures an indiv idual‟s degree of optimism with scores reported as the mean rating of the 6 relevant items. the lot-r has been shown to have good internal reliability (alpha = .83; scheier et al., 1994). the hope scale (hope). the hope scale is a 12-item questionnaire that includes 8 relevant items and 4 non-relevant items (snyder et al., 1991). the hope measures two dimensions of trait-based hope: agency (the strong belief that one will meet their goals) and pathways (the belief that one will find the path to reach their goals). a single hope score, based on combining these two dimensions of hope, will be used to characterize dispositional differences in global hope. responses to items are on a 4-point scale (definitely false – 1 to 4 definitely true) and scores are reported as means on that scale. the full scale has shown acceptable internal reliability (alphas > .74; snyder et al., 1991). oxford happiness questionnaire-short form (ohq-sf). the short form of the oxford happiness questionnaire (hills & argyle, 2002) is an 8-item questionnaire designed to capture stable differences in personal happiness and a sense of well being. humor, personality and health 219 responses are prov ided on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) and scores are reported as the mean rating of the 8 items. the full 20 item ohq scale has excellent internal reliability (alpha = .91) and the short form correlates strongly with the full scale (r = .90). internal reliability for the hhq-sf was good in the current sample (alpha = .82). assessment of actual and perceived stressors inventory of college students’ recent life experiences (icsrle). the inventory of college students‟ recent life experiences (kohn, lafreniere, & gurevich, 1990) is a 37-item questionnaire that presents a list of common events that have been shown to be potential stressors in college students‟ lives. a factor analysis of the scale produced a 37 item version that contain 7 factors: developmental challenge, time pressure, academic alienation, romantic problems, assorted annoyances, social mistreatment, and friendship problems. a subsequent confirmatory factor analysis has confirmed these 7 domains (osman, barrios, longnecker, & osman, 1994). for each event, the responses range from 1 (not at all part of my life) to 4 (very much part of my life) and overall scores are presented as the mean rating. participants rated the events based on their experiences in the past month. the internal reliability of this inventory was found to be good (alpha = .89; ko hn, et al., 1990 and alpha = .92; osman et al., 1994). perceived stress scale (pss). the perceived stress scale is a 14-item questionnaire that prov ides a global assessment of the level of stress people perceive to be present in their lives recently (cohen, kamarck, & mermelstein, 1983). responses to indiv idual items range from 0 (never) to 4 (very often) and the sum of the 14 items is used as the measure of stress, so scores can vary from 0 to 56. in a current study, participants reported on the perceived stressors over the past month. internal consistency has been good in prev ious examinations (alphas > .84; cohen et al., 1983). assessment of psychological and physical health the short-form-36 health survey has been used extensively in health research (sf36; ware, snow, kosinski, & gandek, 1993) and it includes 36 items that measure eight dimensions of health. these dimensions reflect two general domains general physical health and general psychological health. general physical health includes the dimensions physical functioning, role limitations due to physical health problems, bodily pain, and general health perceptions. general psychological health includes europe’s journal of psychology 220 the dimensions social functioning, mental health, role limitations due to emotional problems, and v itality (energy or fatigue) (ware et al., 1993). for most of the items, the instructions ask that the respondent focus on the past 4 weeks, although some items refer to a typical day. the internal reliability coefficients have been reported by many studies for this survey (for rev iew see ware et al., 1993). in rev iew of these studies, it was found that the internal reliability coefficients median exceeded .80 for all scales except for the social functioning scale which was .76 (ware et al., 1993). recent examinations of the scale on large samples using factor analysis and sem have confirmed the two main domains and eight dimensions (anagnostopoulos, niakas, & tountas, 2009). all of the sf36 scores are transformed to 0 to 100 scales, with higher scores indicating better physical or psychological health. procedure the measures were completed using an on-line survey system. available studies are listed on a web site, and students seeking research opportunities choose from the list. this study was described as a two-part study on how people's personality and interaction style were related to how they interpret events and react to those events. part 1 of the study was available for the first two weeks of the semester. when participants decided to participate, they were directed to the web survey where they first v iewed an informed consent statement. after agreeing to continue, they completed a series of demographic questions (age, sex, race, marital status) followed by the measures, presented in random order for each participant. at time 1 the measures included the hsq, lot-r, hope, ohq-sf, and the pss. eight weeks after the first phase was ended, email messages were sent to the participants inv iting them to complete part two. at time 2 participants completed the lot-r, hope, ohq-sf, and the pss, along with the sf36 and the icsrle. results time 1 the descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlations among variables for all measures collected at time 1 are in table 1. the purpose of the time 1 analyses was to demonstrate the mediator roles played by the three positive personality qualities in helping to understand the relationship between humor styles and perceived stress in one‟s life. using a bootstrapping technique, and an spss macro program that allows for the examination of multiple potential mediators (preacher & hayes, 2008), the analyses prov ide a replication and extension of the findings reported by cann humor, personality and health 221 and etzel (2008) using a more powerful and sensitive statistical strategy. these analyses allow for separate assessments of each positive personality quality as a mediator and a comparison of the mediation effects between the three qualities. in cann and etzel (2008) only the two self directed humor styles were found to be reliable predictors of perceived stress, and a multiple regression on the current data (predicting pss from the four hsq scores) confirmed this finding, so only the two self directed styles were examined in separate mediation analyses. table 1 descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlations for all measures collected at time 1 (n =299). measure mean (sd) hsqaff hsqagg hsqse hsqsd hope ohs-sf lot-r pss hsqaff 5.62 (0.93) .73 hsqagg 3.34 (0.99) .16* .74 hsqse 4.53 (1.16) .46* .05 .87 hsqsd 3.17 (1.14) .06 .27* .06 .84 hope 3.16 (0.40) .19* -.14 .35* -.24* .82 ohs-sf 4.45 (0.83) .22* -.08 .41* -.25* .51* .78 lot-r 2.55 (0.78) .14 -.20* .45* -.30* .46* .57* .82 pss 24.86 (7.68) -.19* .12 -.35* .30* -.49* -.61* -.53* .85 note: values on the diagonal are internal reliabilities (cronbach alphas). the humor style scores (hsq) represent the affiliative (aff), aggressive (agg), self enhancing (se) and self defeating (sd) styles, and are on 7-point scales from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (7). hope scores are on a 4-point scale from definitely false (1) to definitely true (4). happiness scores (ohs-sf) are on a 6-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). optimism (lot-r) scores are on a 5-point scale from i disagree a lot (0) to i agree a lot (4), and higher scores indicate greater optimism. the perceived stress scale (pss) scores are the sum of 14 items rated on a 5-point scale from never (0) to very often (4), so scores can range from 0 to 56. higher score indicate greater perceived stress. * p<.01 the bootstrapping analyses use 5000 re-samples to generate the coefficients and the bias corrected 95% confidence intervals (preacher & hayes, 2008). for the selfenhancing humor style, the desirable prerequisite conditions for potential mediation were present. self-enhancing humor style was a significant predictor of perceived stress, and of each positive personality quality, and each positive personality quality was also a significant predictor of perceived stress when controlling for self enhancing humor (p‟s all < .001). the indirect effects evaluating mediation are europe’s journal of psychology 222 shown in table 2. the results for total show the change (direct path versus mediated path) in the regression coefficient for self-enhancing humor due to the mediation, and it indicates that self-enhancing humor is significantly mediated through the three positive personality qualities. the regression coefficient for self -enhancing humor (b = -0.185) was no longer significant (p = .58) after the mediators were included. the results for the positive personality qualities indicate that all three were indiv idually significant as mediators. in comparing the relative strengths of the mediation effects, the specific effects of ohs-sf were greater than those for hope, but no other differences among the mediators were statistically reliable. thus, while the positive personality qualities in general mediate the relationship between self enhancing humor and perceived stress, it also is the case that each quality alone operates as a reliable mediator. table 2 mediation results for self-enhancing humor styles. bias corrected 95% cis coefficient se lower upper total -2.101* .286 -2.685 -1.558 ohs-sf -0.998* .199 -1.431 -0.643 lot-r -0.651* .178 -1.027 -0.325 hope -0.452* .141 -0.773 -0.215 ohs-sf – lot-r -0.347 .281 -0.932 0.192 ohs-sf – hope -0.545* .249 -1.050 -0.070 lot-r – hope -0.199 .225 -0.659 0.225 *p<.05 for the self-defeating humor style, the desirable prerequisite conditions for potential mediation also were ev ident. self-defeating humor style was a significant predictor of perceived stress, and of each positive personality quality, and each positive personality quality was also a significant predictor of perceived stress when controlling for self-defeating humor style (p‟s all < .001). table 3 contains the results evaluating the indirect effects for assessing potential mediation. the results for total show the change in the coefficient for self-defeating humor due to the mediation through all three positive personality qualities and it indicates a significant mediation relationship. in this case, although the coefficient for self-defeating humor was significantly reduced due to the mediation, there was still a significant relationship for self-defeating humor and perceived stress (b = 0.651, p = .04), suggesting only partial mediation. once again the results for the positive personality qualities indicated that humor, personality and health 223 all three were indiv idually significant as mediators. there were no reliable differences in the indirect effects when comparing the indiv idual mediators. consistent with the results for self-enhancing humor, the positive personality qualities in general mediate the relationship between self-defeating humor and perceived stress, and each quality alone operates as a reliable mediator. table 3 mediation results for self-defeating humor styles. bias corrected 95% cis coefficient se lower upper total 1.344* .272 0.831 1.898 ohs-sf 0.626* .175 0.831 1.898 lot-r 0.420* .135 0.199 0.738 hope 0.298* .121 0.114 0.586 ohs-sf – lot-r 0.206 .211 -0.184 0.650 ohs-sf – hope 0.327 .205 -0.077 0.729 lot-r – hope 0.122 .172 -0.212 0.474 *p<.05 time 2 the sem analysis involves a longitudinal approach looking at the humor style scores from time 1 as they relate to both the positive personality measures and the perceived stress scores at time 2 (see table 4 for descriptive statistics and correlations). table 4 descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlations for humor styles, positive personality, and perceived stress measures used at time 2 (n = 174). measure mean (sd) hsqaff hsqagg hsqse hsqsd hope ohs-sf lot-r pss hsqaff t1 5.61 (0.91) .70 hsqagg t1 3.34 (0.92) .23* .70 hsqse t1 4.62 (1.14) .45* .10 .88 hsqsd t1 3.27 (1.05) -.02 .35* .12 .81 hope t2 3.11 (0.45) .19 -.10 .35* -.19 .84 ohs-sf t2 4.36 (0.85) .18 -.08 .37* -.24* .62* .79 lot-r t2 2.51 (0.83) .10 -.24* .37* -.25* .55* .70* .86 europe’s journal of psychology 224 pss t2 25.28 (7.43) -.14 .10 -.29* .24* -.59* -.61* -.62* .85 note: values on the diagonal are internal reliabilities (cronbach alphas). the humor style scores (hsq: from time 1) represent the affiliative (aff), aggressive (agg), self enhancing (se) and self defeating (sd) styles, and are on 7-point scales from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (7). hope scores are on a 4-point scale from definitely false (1) to definitely true (4). happiness scores (ohs-sf) are on a 6-point scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6). optimism (lot-r) scores are on a 5-point scale from i disagree a lot (0) to i agree a lot (4), and higher scores indicate greater optimism. the perceived stress scale (pss) scores are the sum of 14 items rated on a 5-point scale from never (0) to very often (4), so scores can range from 0 to 56. higher score indicate greater perceived stress. * p<.01 in addition, participants completed the icsrle to prov ide information about the actual stressors experienced during the past month. the icsrle and the pss for time 2 were strongly correlated (r = .60, p>001), indicating that the pss scale does capture the effects of actual events experienced. the model also includes separate assessments of both psychological and physical well being (see table 5 for descriptive statistics for the icsrle and well-being measures). table 5 psychological and physical health indicators and stressors reported at time 2 measure mean sd icrles total 2.11 0.43 developmental challenges 2.35 0.56 time pressure 2.43 0.62 academic alienation 2.16 0.81 romantic problems 2.02 0.72 social mistreatment 1.86 0.62 assorted annoyances 1.67 0.49 friendship problems 1.80 0.67 general psychological health 68.90 16.27 social functioning 78.16 23.30 emotional role limitations 76.68 22.79 vitality 55.93 16.79 mental health 64.83 16.79 general physical health 82.02 15.07 physical role limitations 86.57 20.15 bodily pain 80.75 20.01 humor, personality and health 225 physical functioning 90.29 16.58 physical health 70.46 19.28 note: icsrle scores indicate the presence of stressors (1-not at all to 4-very much). health scores, from the sf36 are on a 0 to 100 scale, with higher scores indicating better health. based on the findings from the prev ious work (cann & etzel, 2008) and the results from time 1 mediation analyses, a model was developed and tested using structural equation modeling by amos (arbuckle, 1994-1999). the model was estimated with maximum-likelihood estimation and included the following seven latent variables: self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles assessed at time1, positive personality at time 2 that was explained by three observed variables (optimis m, happiness, and hope), perceived stress at time 2, stressful experiences assessed at time 2, and two health outcomes (physical and psychological) at time 2. specifically, as shown in figure 1, with the mediation through positive personality qualities, two self-directed humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating) assessed at t1 predicted perceived stress at time 2, which in turn predicted health outcome (physical and psychological health) at time 2 in the model. the overall model fit was assessed using the following indices. as the cfi and tli values of greater than .95 and the rmsea value of .06 or less indicates an -.813** -.276** self-enhancing humor style self-defeating humor style positive personality perceived stress physical health psychological health stressful experiences (csrles) .534** -.388** .138 -.075 .307** -.371** -.210* -.720** figure 1. hypothesized model of two self-directed humor styles leading to perceived stress mediating by positive personality. p < .05*, p < .001** europe’s journal of psychology 226 acceptable fit (e.g., hu & bentler, 1999), the current model was shown to be satisfactory (χ2(1162) = 2107.53, p < .01, cfi = .957, tli = .952, rmsea = .069). the model assumed the covariance among the predictors (r = .108, n.s., between selfenhancing humor style and self-defeating humor style; r = -.245, p < .01, between self-enhancing humor style and stressful experience; and r = .431, p < .01 between self-defeating humor style and stressful experience). the standardized regression weights showed that the positive personality composite mediated the relationships between self-enhancing/self-defeating humor styles and perceived stress, and that the perceived stress coupled with the stressful experiences predicted the health outcomes. not surprisingly, the strength of the relationship between perceived stress and psychological well-being was much stronger that the relationship with physical health. given that the paths from two humor styles leading to perceived stress were not significant (.138 for self-enhancing humor style to perceived stress; -.075 for selfdefeating humor style to perceived stress), the mediating role of positive personality qualities in the longitudinal process of humor style predicting the perceived stress was supported. discussion is a good sense of humor related to more positive reported levels of health? the research to date has prov ided mixed results for both reports of psychological well being and for physical health. the current results suggest that a more complex approach to the question may be needed to more clearly identify the role that sense of humor might play. first, the results add to the growing literature that supports the essential importance of a multidimensional approach to sense of humor as a personal quality. although a number of sense of humor measures had acknowledged that there are multiple ways in which a sense of humor might be expressed by an indiv idual (e.g. svebek, 1996; thorson & powell, 1993), little systematic attention had been paid to measuring the tendencies to engage in the potentially negative forms of humor. the humor styles questionnaire (martin et al., 2003) corrects this deficiency, capturing both positive and negative uses of humor, and identifying humor styles that may be dysfunctional in some circumstances. in considering the role of sense of humor in an indiv idual‟s attempts to deal with life‟s stressors, the distinctions prov ided by the hsq are critical. humor styles that are selfdirected are much more important in understanding how people respond to potential stressors than are those humor styles that tend to be focused on others. furthermore, self-directed humor that demeans the self actually is positively related to the levels of stress experienced, and therefore, negatively related to self -reported humor, personality and health 227 health. only the self-enhancing humor style appears to buffer the effects of stressors in the way many researchers have speculated sense of humor should operate. sense of humor measures that do not account for these important differences in how humor is used are likely to lead to inconsistent results. the question that needs to be asked is not whether a good sense of humor is related to greater well being, but rather, does the person‟s style of using humor facilitate or inhibit the potential to deal effectively with stressors through humor. not all styles of humor are relevant to this question, and not all styles of humor are likely to yield positive relationships with well being. for those who rely heavily on a self-demeaning humor style to express their sense of humor, their sense of humor predicts lower, not higher, well being. our results, and other recent findings (cann & etzel, 2008; chen & martin, 2007) also suggest that other-directed humor styles are of little importance in understanding the relationship between sense of humor and health outcomes, especially after controlling for variance explained by the self-directed styles. the other-directed uses of humor are still potentially important to consider as personal qualities, but their relevance likely will be greater when the uses of humor are directed toward interpersonal, rather than intrapersonal, goals. for example, in a recent study looking at relationship satisfaction in dating couples (cann, zapata, & davis, 2009; in press), the two other-directed humor styles explained much more variance than the self-directed styles. once again, however, the additional distinction between positive and negative uses of humor was critical, since affiliative and aggress styles had opposing relationships with the couples‟ satisfaction. what is clear from this emerging body of research is that humor styles, as expressions of a sense of humor, cannot be looked at as uniformly positive. the „dark side‟ of humor uses must be appreciated since it can potentially be as disruptive a factor as positive uses of humor can be constructive. as much as a „good‟ sense of humor, represented by the positive uses of humor, may allow for more effective handling of stressors, better well being and more positive relationships, so too can the negative styles of humor lead to increases in perceived stress, lowered well being, and disruption of relationships. the second contribution of the current results is prov iding a model that offers the potential for refining our understanding of the actual processes through which effective and ineffective styles of humor may be relevant to psychological and physical well being. the proposed mediator model assumes that the positive role that sense of humor can play in promoting well being can best be understood by considering humor styles as supporting the more global and stable positive personality qualities of an indiv idual. using humor effectively, through higher levels of europe’s journal of psychology 228 self-enhancing humor and lower levels of self-demeaning humor, can help to maintain a more positive personal style, characterized by higher positive affectiv ity and by qualities like optimism, happiness, and hope. thus, it was shown that these three different positive personality qualities each served as a mediator of the relationship between humor styles and perceptions of stress. in most of the mediator analyses, the direct relationship between humor styles and perceived stress was negligible after introducing the positive personality qualities. the mediation was apparent for both the positive humor style and the negative humor style. only when sense of humor contributes to maintaining these positive personality qualities will it be relevant to more positive health, and its relationship is more indirect than direct. the current findings replicate, but also extend findings reported by cann and etzel (2008). while they were able to show that a composite measure of positive personality mediated the relationship of humor styles with perceived stress, our analyses indicate that each separate positive personality quality operates as a potential mediator. in addition, our results were able to demonstrate that the mediator relationship was further supported within a model that incorporated longitudinal data, assessed both perceived stressors and stressors actually experienced, and included psychological and physical well-being outcomes. humor styles assessed eight weeks earlier were still mediated by current levels of positive personality. in addition, the longitudinal approach supported the utility of the perceived stress measure as an indicator of actual stressors exposed to over time. the checklist of stressors experienced during the interval between the two assessments was highly correlated with the reported levels of perceived stress. although both actual stressors experienced, based on the checklist, and perceived stress were reliably related to the health self-reports, the relationships were stronger for the perceived stress, supporting the notion that the indiv idual‟s construal of the stressful experience is critical in understanding the impact the experience has on well being. also, not surprisingly, the perceived stressors were more strongly related to self-reported psychological health than to reported physical health. how a person frames or interprets events may not be able to alter as easily actual pain or levels of physical functioning, but it could more easily influence how you psychologically adjust to your condition. in summary, the proposed model indicates that sense of humor can be a useful social quality in facilitating well being, but that its role may be primarily as a style of thinking and behaving that promotes and supports a more general positive personality style. using self-directed humor effectively can help to maintain higher levels of positive personality traits, which are associated with stable tendencies to humor, personality and health 229 see the world more positively. people who evidence stable higher levels of optimism, hope, and happiness, supported by a good sense of humor, tend to perceive their lives as less stressful, and therefore report more positive levels of both physical and psychological health. future research should consider how differences in humor styles might play a role in the more global processes connecting stable differences in underlying self v iews to social and psychological outcomes. in the current examination of humor styles, the focus has been on how the humor styles relate to the perceptions of life stressors. in this role, the importance of humor styles appears to be mediated through stable positive personality qualities. however, a number of recent studies also have found that humor styles can be mediators of relationships between underlying self-concept indicators and both social and psychological outcomes. for example, the affiliative humor style served as a mediator between the attachment style of anxiety and relationship satisfaction (cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008). other recent studies have found that humor styles mediate some relationships between positive and negative self-evaluation standards and both social self-esteem and depression (kuiper & mchale, 2009), and between maladaptive self-schemas and depression (dozois, martin, & bieling, 2008). thus, it would appear that humor 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(1983). disparagement humor. in p. e. mcghee, & j. h. goldstein (eds.), handbook of humor research (vol. 1, pp. 85-108.). new york: springer. about the authors: arnie cann is a professor in the psychology department and in the interdisciplinary health psychology doctoral program at the university of north carolina charlotte. his two main research programs focus on humor and its implications for successful relationships and health, and on posttraumatic growth processes. address for correspondence: prof. arnie cann, department of psychology, university of north carolina at charlotte 9201 university city blvd charlotte, nc 28223 e-mail: acann@uncc.edu kelly stilwell conducted humor, positive personality and health research with dr. cann while completing her psychology degree at the university of north carolina at charlotte. she is currently pursuing further graduate studies in counseling at gordonconwell theological seminary in charlotte, nc. ms. stilwell‟s research interests focus on humor, resiliency and psychological health. kanako taku is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at oakland university, michigan. her research interests focus on how people may or may not change psychologically after stressful life events, specifically centering on the construct of posttraumatic growth. her studies have included the areas of clinical, cross-cultural, and statistical psychology. mailto:acann@uncc.edu living with intensity 780 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 780-784 www.ejop.org we’ve got issues: children and parents in the age of medication authored by judith warner penguin group, 2010 reviewed by elin weiss university college dublin, belfield, dublin 4, ireland e-mail: elinweiss@hotmail.com judith warner’s we’ve got issues: children and parents in the age of medication started out as a book aimed at criticizing the overmedication of children that did not really suffer from mental health issues but were instead more or less silenced by their parents into submission. after interviewing parents of children suffering from mental health problems, warner completely changed her mind and wrote we’ve got issues which helps defend parent’s choices of medicating their children. warner states that the aim of we’ve got issues is to set the record straight when it comes to what life is like for parents and children who are confronting mental health issues. secondly, it aims to discuss current scientific understandings of mental disorders. in short, warner does what she aims to do. she represents these parents through her many interviews and discussions with them. she also incorporates information about mental health issues and treatments from leading and well known researchers. warner states that most children on medication have severe mental health issues and therefore need to be on medication. she also states that parents are not looking for an easy way out or for perfection. instead, they are concerned with the child’s everyday basic functioning. warner is critical of media influences in regards to the discussions of ‘overmedication’ of children and the stigma that parents and children face. instead, warner argues that many children are not being diagnosed and that many children who should be on medication are not. the view that mental illness in children is not real and the fact that mental illness is often romanticized leads to bad health http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 781 service, warner argues. warner also claims that ‘freudian hegemony of american psychiatry’ (p. 38) has led to beliefs that mental illness in children is not real. this hegemony has further led to diagnostic limitations in previous editions of the dsm. especially in regards to psychology, warner discusses how genes and environment have come to impact mental health discussions concerning children and how these can bring about new evidence and lessen the stigma and belief in children’s mental health as highly dependent on parenting skills. warner also discusses the concept of assortative mating and its possible impact on the prevalence of mental health disorders in children. warner argues that media is exaggerating the prevalence of children on medication. warner also states that more children are being diagnosed due to higher visibility compared to earlier generations and due to greater emphasis on diagnosis and more attention being given to children’s mental health issues. chapter one, untitled on affluent parents and neurotic kids, of we’ve got issues introduces the topic and warner discusses how she came to write a book that was the complete opposite of what she set out to do. she expected overwhelming evidence and heartbreaking statistics showing how young children in america were being overmedicated by lazy parents who strove for perfection and success. instead she discusses how participant interactions and interviews changed her attitude toward parents and psychiatrists treatment of children suffering from mental health issues. chapter two, titled seeing is believing, includes a discussion concerning the belief that more and more children are suffering from mental health disorders such as adhd. here warner refutes that claim and presents both statistical and theoretical explanations to demonstrate how the increases of mental illness in children stem from a greater acceptance of mental health issues of children. warner therefore claims that the acceptance of ‘seeing’ these children is behind the higher numbers of children that are on medication, in comparison to previous generations. warner means that they were always there, they simply were not ‘seen’ before. chapter three, an epidemic of supposition, is a continuation of the topic discussed in chapter two and partially contains a historical account of psychiatry that discusses statistical evidence as well as theories concerning why mental illnesses in children are more noticeable now than in previous generations. in this chapter warner mentions theories such as associative mating. chapter four is titled aren’t they all on medications? and is again concerned with the notion of more and more children being put on medication. it also discusses the we’ve got issues 782 public’s concern that children are being ‘overdiagnosed’ and ‘drugged’. in this chapter, however, warner expands the topic by providing parents points of views on the emotional difficulties of making the choice to medicate a child. warner also speaks of the stigma many parents that have children with mental health issues face as they make this decision. chapter five, who, exactly, is having issues? brings a sociocultural aspect to the discussion. warner includes arguments that encompass social class, and briefly, race. warner argues that there is evidence showing that middle and upper class children are more likely to be diagnosed as mentally ill, and to receive medication. in this chapter warner examines why that is. chapter six, b-a-d children, worse parents (and even worse doctors), deals with perceptions (often stereotypical and exaggerated) of children, parents, and psychiatrists. in this chapter warner asks: ‘so why do so many people persist in believing the overdrugged and overdiagnosed child story line?’ (p. 117). in answering that question, warner discusses media headlines and perceptions of parents, children, and psychiatrists. chapter seven, stuck in the cuckoo’s nest, continues discussing stereotypical arguments of children, parents, and psychiatrists but focuses more heavily on perceptions of psychiatrists and the field of psychiatry. it speaks about views of parents as easily medicating children and as psychiatrists as being money hungry. warner discusses a brief history of psychiatry and connects the unpopularity of psychiatrists (with among other things) to the belief that medication is preventing eccentric geniuses from fulfilling their potential. chapter eight, titled ritalin nation?, deals primarily with academic references and statistical findings that are ambiguous or have been used in non-professional ways. it also discusses societal demands and social insecurity, american culture, and parenting. these factors are presented as making children narcissistic, unhappy, immature, and anxious. warner claims however that such traits are far from actual mental illness and cannot be compared to the severe traits in children who suffer from mental illness. chapter nine is titled the stories we tell, and is concerned with the stories we tell children about mental illness and the effects it can have on children. small comments and jokes can have major impact on children with mental illness. again, warner speaks about stigma and how such stigma can prevent parents, most often fathers, from seeking professional help for their children. europe’s journal of psychology 783 chapter ten, a “better time than ever”, refers to the progress that has been made in regards to children’s mental health issues, such as better treatment and more reliable diagnosis (usually for those who can afford to avail of it). chapter ten also discusses progress in research and future possibilities for children that suffer from mental health issues. the final chapter, chapter eleven, titled moving forward, discusses future possibilities in care and treatment of children. warner is very critical of the american health system and discusses changes that could be made to the system in order to ensure that children with mental health problems receive better treatment and care by professionals. she also discusses the role of insurance companies in keeping children from receiving the best possible care. overall, we’ve got issues, is an interesting and thoughtful book that is very readable. warner presents an informed discussion on children’s mental health issues and provides arguments from both sides. warner discusses both bad practice and good practice in the book. she is also critical of psychiatrists that have received payments from pharmaceutical companies, but recognizes that this is not typical for all, or even most, psychiatrists. warner also encompasses race and social status into her book and is critical of the financial costs of receiving treatment for a child that is suffering from mental health issues. warner impresses with her use of parents interviews and quotations and she appears to fairly represent the parent’s struggles and concerns. her many interviews and discussions with neuropsychologists, psychiatrists, paediatricians, other journalists, professors, and anthropologists strongly contribute to the intelligent discussions she presents. ideally, what warner could have extended upon is the discussion concerning race and stigma of treating or labelling a child as mentally ill. it would have been interesting to hear a few more parents speak about such issues. it would also be interesting to hear warner’s view on how treatment between boys and girls potentially differ. questions i asked myself while reading the book were: ‘are boys more likely to be ‘overdiagnosed’ when it comes to illnesses such as adhd?’, and ‘is there any evidence to suggest that girls and boys are diagnosed according to gender role stereotypes?’, such as girls being introverted and more likely to be depressed, or boys being more unruly and more likely to suffer from inattention? this book is not aimed as psychologists or psychiatrists as such but would be a valuable read for many within those fields. warner provides a brief history of we’ve got issues 784 psychiatry and how it has come to be perceived with such little faith. her interviews with parents are eye opening and at times left me shaken and upset. this book would probably be a valuable read for students looking for real life examples of how mental illness in children can manifest. it would also be informative to read for psychiatrists and future psychiatrists who intend to work with children. the book provides a perspective of how parents perceive medication, treatment, and doctors that would be of interest to professionals in the field. it also discusses current trends within psychiatry and is a brief and easy update of the progress in the field of psychiatry. microsoft word 11. icap 2010.doc icap 2010 will be the first international association of applied psychology (iaap) congress to be held in the southern hemisphere and the australian psychological society (aps) is delighted to be hosting this prestigious, global event. the congress will provide an opportunity for the international and national applied psychology community to come together and share ideas, knowledge and recent research at the melbourne convention and exhibition centre – australia’s premier conference venue. the congress is expected to attract over 3,000 delegates from around the world. congress venue melbourne convention and exhibition centre melbourne convention and exhibition centre – 1 convention centre place, south wharf, victoria 3006; www.mcec.com.au scientific program a rich scientific program will be presented encompassing the global breadth and depth of applied psychology through symposia, papers, debates, electronic and short presentations, and an extensive range of workshops. the program will feature eminent keynote speakers and invited symposia organisers who are at the cutting edge of discovery in their fields. the congress will cover a broad range of applied 147 psychology including topics such as: clinical, health, forensic, counseling and community psychology, cross-cultural and indigenous psychology, educational and developmental psychology, applied gerontology, organisational psychology, psychological assessment and testing, statistical methods, economic and political psychology, environmental and traffi c psychology, sports psychology, applied cognitive psychology and clinical neuropsychology, psychological treatments, models of care, future developments in psychological services, consumers, other health professionals, ethics, and social issues. the scientific program will consist of: • state-of-the-art talks covering key areas of applied psychology • invited keynote addresses by international experts • invited symposia on specific topics of interest • divisional presidential addresses and divisional invited address • submitted symposia by groups of researchers • open papers and brief oral presentations organised according to common themes • panel discussions with experts • electronic posters • themed programs • innovative audiovisual presentations • full day and half day workshops key dates call for symposia, panel discussions, individual oral papers, brief oral presentations & electronic posters: closes 11 january 2010 authors notified of acceptance: end of february 2010 early bird registration deadline: march 201 visit the website for more congress information www.icap2010.com emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 125-147 www.ejop.org the role of perfectionism in psychological health: a study of adolescents in pakistan farva mansoor butt offenbach am main, germany abstract this study investigated the effects of perfectionism on psychological health and explored the adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism in the eastern culture of pakistan. demographic data were also analyzed. participants were 323 university students (144 males & 179 females), who completed the frost multidimensional perfectionism scale (frost, marten, lahart & rosenblate, 1990), the perceived stress scale (cohen, kamarck & mermelstein, 1983), the psychological well-being measure (ryff, 1989) and the hospital anxiety and depression scale (zigmond & snaith, 1983). results indicate that overall perfectionism has a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and non-significant negative relationship with psychological wellbeing. three dimensions of perfectionism, personal standards (ps), parental expectations (pe) and organization (og), have a significant positive relationship with psychological well-being, similarly other three dimensions – concern over mistake (cm), parental criticism (pc) and doubt about actions (da) – have a strong positive relationship with psychological distress. results of independent sample t-tests indicate that there is a significant difference between high and low overall perfectionism groups on stress, depression, anxiety, psychological distress and two sub-scales of psychological well-being environmental mastery and purpose in life. moreover, individuals having high scores on cm, pc and da also have high scores on depression, stress, anxiety and psychological distress as compared to low scorers on the same scales, whereas high scored ps, pe and og groups showed high level of psychological well-being, environmental mastery and purpose in life. finally, analyses of demographic data indicate that only age has a significant effect on da and age by gender interaction has a significant effect on pe. potential implications for educational and counseling purposes are discussed. keywords: perfectionism, psychological well-being, psychological distress, psychological health, depression, anxiety, and stress. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 126 background perfectionism throughout the past decade, there has been a growing interest among psychologists in perfectionism theory. some researchers describe it as a desire to achieve idealistic goals without failing (brouwers & wiggum, 1993; slade, newton, butler & murphy, 1991), which provides driving energy towards goal attainment (roedell, 1984). however, according to others, it can be neurotic as individuals feel dissatisfaction after the accomplishment of goals because perfectionist individuals set higher standards than their abilities (hamachek, 1978). in conclusion, perfectionism is considered as a multidimensional personality trait comprising both positive and negative aspects (flett & hewitt, 1991). perfectionism and psychological distress perfectionism is more often considered as a maladaptive trait rather than an adaptive one (blatt, 1995). several previous studies have supported this claim e. g., it was found, in a japanese student population, that perfectionism was a significant predictor of depression and psychosomatic symptoms (katsunori & koji, 2002). moreover, maladaptive perfectionism was found among medically gifted students (enns, cox, sareen & freeman, 2001). in addition, perfectionism has a positive association with psychological distress in terms of anger and somatic health, whereas it has a negative correlation with positive affects (saboonchi & lundh., 2003). furthermore, kawamura, hunt, frost and di bartolo (2001) described a strong independent association of perfectionism with anxiety and depression. perfectionism has also been shown to have an interactive role in predicting psychological distress, e.g. depression and suicide ideation (chang, 2002). a correlation analyses indicated statistically significant positive associations between specific mood state scores and various dimensions of perfectionism (stirling & kerr, 2006). a combination of highattachment anxiety and high-maladaptive perfectionism is associated with depression (wei, mallinckrodt, russell, & abraham, 2004). perfectionist thoughts contribute to levels of psychological distress (flett, madorsky, hewitt & heise, 2004). an ample amount of previous research indicates that perfectionism has a strong positive association with three dimensions of psychological distress: stress (brien & page, 1994; hewitt & dyck, 2005), depression ( chang & sanna 2001; enns & cox , 1999; joiner & schmidt 1995; blatt, 1995; lynd-stevenson & hearne, 1999; minarik & the role of perfectionism in psychological health 127 ahrens, 1996; scott, 2007), and anxiety (alden, bieling, & wallace, 1994; antony, purdon, huta, & swinson, 1998). hall, kerr & matthews (1998) found from their study of 119 student athletes that overall perfectionism was a significant predictor of cognitive anxiety and concern over mistake, doubt about actions and personal standards were consistent predictor of cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety. it was found from a sample of 87 professionals that positive perfectionism showed associations with higher academic achievement, higher achievement motivation, positive personality factors, and more use of functional forms of coping, while negative perfectionism showed associations with negative affect, depression, anxiety, stress, negative personality factors, and more use of dysfunctional coping strategies( mor, day, flett & hewitt, 1995). perfectionism and psychological well-being there are only a few studies regarding the association between perfectionism and psychological well-being. for example, robert (1996) found that adaptive perfectionists had lower levels of procrastination than non-perfectionists and perfectionism was a significant predictor of achievement motivation. moreover, as the level of perfectionism increases the level of depression decreases and that of self-esteem increases (denise, michael & robert, 2000). a study of 261 college students investigated the relationship among parenting experiences, adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. results suggested that adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism had a different relationship with depression as maladaptive perfectionism mediates the relationship between harsh parenting and depression proneness and perfectionist parenting leads to adaptive perfectionism and has an inverse relationship with depression proneness (enns, cox & clara., 2002). it was found from study of 123 tenththrough twelfth-grade students that students' personal standards were significant predictors of academic achievement and achievement motivation moreover as personal standards increased, the levels of self-esteem also increased and depression decreased (accordino, accordino & slaney, 2000). dimensions of perfectionism previous empirical researches have provided contradictory results about the positive and negative dimensions of perfectionism. for example, the study of children suggests that dimensions of perfectionism may be relevant variables in, and differential predictors of, maladjustment and distress as self-oriented perfectionism interacted with social stress to predict anxiety, whereas, self-oriented perfectionism interacted with achievement stress and with social stress to predict depression europe’s journal of psychology 128 (hewitt, caelian, flett, sherry, collins & flynn, 2002). according to koivula, hassmén and fallby (2002), the relation between self-esteem and perfectionism differs depending on which dimensions of self-esteem and perfectionism are considered. athletes with a high self-esteem based on a respect and love for themselves had more positive patterns of perfectionism, whereas athletes who have a self-esteem that is dependent on competence aspects showed a more negative type of perfectionism. furthermore, negative dimensions of perfectionism were related to higher levels of cognitive anxiety and lower levels of self-confidence. in a clinical study of social phobic patients high scores on two perfectionism dimensions concern over mistakes and doubts about actions were associated with increased social anxiety, trait anxiety, and general psychopathology (juster et al., 1995). stoeber and rambow (2007), revealed from a study of adolescent school students that negative reactions to imperfection were related to fear of failure, somatic complaints, and depressive reactions whereas striving for perfection was related to hope of success, motivation for school, and school achievement. in addition, striving for perfection showed a negative correlation with depressive symptoms and was associated with adaptive traits. two dimensions of perfectionism pure personal standards and maladaptive evaluative concerns have different associations with psychological distress and positive affect. doubts about actions has a close association with anxiety (frost et al., 1993), concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, and parental criticism were associated depression and negative affect (frost et al., 1990; minarik & ahrens, 1996), whereas pressure from others to be perfect has a correlation with stress, increased depression and negative affect (cheng, 2001; dunkley, zuroff, & blankstein, 2003). in a sample of australian university students, doubts about actions showed a positive association with psychological distress, e.g. stress, depression, anxiety and negative affect (robert & teresa, 2002). in addition, maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism have a positive relation with depression (blatt, 1995; hewitt & flett., 1991; murray & brian, 1999), stress (chang, watkin & banks., 2004) and have a negative association with self-esteem (kenneth., jeffrey & robert, 1998). a pure personal standard has a significant negative correlation with psychopathology, and a positive correlation with well-being. in contrast, maladaptive evaluative concerns was positively related to psychopathology and negatively related to well-being (dibartolo, yen li & frost, 2008). some previous findings indicate that adaptive dimensions of perfectionism have a positive association with personal control, resourcefulness, self-esteem, and adaptive learning strategies (flett, hewitt, blankstein, & dynin, 1994; flett, hewitt, blankstein, & o’brien, 1991). the role of perfectionism in psychological health 129 demographic variables and perfectionism previous demographic evidence suggested that dimensions of perfectionism were different between ethnicities (castro & rice, 2001; hanswijck de jonge, & waller, 2003). some studies also showed gender and age differences (blenkiron, edwards, & lynch, 1999; iketani et al, 2002), although ample amount of previous research indicated that gender did not have a significant effect on perfectionism (anshel & eom, 2002; gotwals, dunn & wayment, 2003; saboonchi & lundh, 2003). rationale of present study the present research was conducted to redefine the trait conceptually and explore whether it is adaptive or maladaptive in an eastern culture. it explored the role of perfectionism and its dimensions in mental health in terms of psychological wellbeing and psychological distress. a student sample was used for this research because the university is an important place to study the correlates of perfectionism as it presents both a challenging and stressful environment. hypotheses: 1. there are significant relationships among perfectionism, psychological wellbeing and psychological distress. 2. perfectionism has a significant positive relationship with psychological distress compared to psychological well-being. 3. there are significant effects of perfectionism and dimensions of perfectionism on sub-scales of psychological well-being and psychological distress. 4. there are age and gender effects on overall perfectionism and dimensions of perfectionism, psychological well-being and psychological distress. methods participants the sample included 323 students (144 males and 179 females), from gc university, lahore and kc university, lahore, pakistan. the age of participants ranged from 16 to 30 with a mean of 19.40 years and a standard deviation of 2.63 years, and 48% were from intermediate classes and 52% were from masters classes. all of the participants indicated pakistani nationality, they were unmarried and muslim by religion. of the total sample, 66.3% were belonged to single family system and 33.7% were from joint family system. social status breakdown was as follow: lower (19%), middle (63%), and upper (18%). europe’s journal of psychology 130 measures frost multidimensional perfectionism scale (frost, marten, lahart & rosenblate, 1990) was used to assess the overall perfectionism and the dimensions of perfectionism. this scale consists of 35 items recording answers on a five-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the scale measures overall perfectionism and six independent dimensions of perfectionism. the subscales are: concern over mistakes (cm), with nine items; personal standards (ps) with seven items; parental expectations (pe) with five items; parental criticism (pc) with four items; doubts about actions (da) again with four items; and organization (org) comprising six items. psychometric properties indicated that mps is a highly reliable and valid measure as reported internal consistency (reliability) is .90 (parker & adkins, 1995), and criterion-related validity has been tested through correlations between mps subscales and measures of psychological symptoms (frost et al., 1993, 1990). concurrent validity was provided by frost et al. with the use of the hf-mps (hewitt & flett, 1991) and the burns perfectionism scale (burns, 1980). organization subscale was omitted to calculate the overall perfectionism score because this scale scores are not required to obtain the total perfectionism score. for the present sample coefficient alpha was .78 for overall perfectionism, whereas for dimensions of perfectionism coefficient alpha ranged between .70-.83. the perceived stress scale (cohen, kamarck & mermelstein, 1983) is a widely used measure to assess the amount of stress in one’s life rather than in response to a specific stressor. there are three versions of the scale, with 4-items, 10-items, or 14items. the 10-item version has maximum reliability (cronbach’s alpha, .78) as tested by cohen and williamson (1988) and also convergent validity with other assessments of stress (cohen et al, 1983), so pss-10 was used for the present research to evaluate stress. ratings are based on a five-point scale ranging from never (0) to very often (5) and positively-phrased items 4, 5, 7, and 8, are coded in reverse. for the present sample coefficient alpha was .72. the psychological well-being measure (ryff, 1989) was used to measure psychological well-being. it consists of 18 items, three for each of the six distinct subscales. responses are recorded on a six point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). the dimensions of well-being are: self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth, having cronbach alpha measures of .82, .86, .77, .79, .73 and .84 respectively as reported by ryff and keyes (1995). for the present sample alpha coefficient ranged between .73-.84 for sub-scales of psychological well-being scale. for the total psychological well-being scale the alpha value was .80. the role of perfectionism in psychological health 131 the hospital anxiety and depression scale (zigmond & snaith, 1983), was used to assess levels of anxiety and depression. it comprises statements which rate experiences over the past week. the 14 statements are relevant to either generalized anxiety (7 statements) or depression (7 statements). even-numbered questions relate to depression and odd-numbered questions relate to anxiety. responses are scored on a scale from 3 to 0. the two subscales, anxiety and depression have been found to be independent measures. many studies confirmed that it is also a valid measure for community samples as reported by snaith (2003). it is considered to have a good factor structure, homogeneity, inter correlations and internal consistency as the reported cronbach alpha for anxiety was .80 and for depression .76 (mykletun, stordal & dahl, 2001). for the present sample coefficient alphas were .73 for both sub-scales. procedure the questionnaires were administered in classroom settings at both universities. ethical permission was obtained from both universities before data collection. all participants in the study participated voluntarily. the researcher visited each class prior to class time and informed the students about the purpose of study. participants filled out first the subject consent form then completed some demographic variables e.g., age, gender, education, marital status, income level and family status, and after that the five questionnaires for measuring perfectionism, psychological wellbeing, stress, depression and anxiety. the task took approximately 40 min. due to incomplete responses 23 questionnaires were excluded from the analysis through list wise deletion and overall response rate was 99%. results pearson product moment correlations were computed between the main variables to explore their relationship. results in table 1 indicate that overall perfectionism has a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and all its subscales. moreover, overall perfectionism also shows a non-significant negative relationship with psychological well-being and its three subscales (autonomy, self-acceptance and positive relations with others) and a significant positive relationship with its other three subscales (environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth). concern over mistakes shows a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and with all its subscales. it has a non-significant negative relationship with psychological well-being in terms of significant negative relationship with (environmental mastery), insignificant negative relationship with (autonomy, self europe’s journal of psychology 132 acceptance, and positive relations with others) and non-significant positive relationship with (purpose in life and personal growth. personal standards indicate a non-significant negative relationship with psychological distress and all its subscales. moreover it also shows a significant positive relationship with psychological well-being and with its three sub scales (environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth). it also indicates a positive relationship with other three subscales of psychological well-being (autonomy, self-acceptance, positive relations with others) but this relationship was not significant. parental expectations shows a very weak negative relationship with psychological distress and with all its subscales whereas it indicates a significant positive relationship with psychological well-being and its two sub scale (environmental mastery and purpose in life) and non-significant positive relationship with (autonomy, selfacceptance, positive relations with others and personal growth). parental criticism has a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and all its subscales and a non-significant negative relationship with psychological well-being in terms of significant negative relationship with (autonomy and selfacceptance) and a non-significant positive relationship with (environmental mastery, purpose in life, positive relations with others and with personal growth). similarly doubts about actions also have a significant positive relationship with psychological distress and with all its subscales and a significant negative relationship with psychological well-being and all with its subscales. organization indicates a non significant negative relationship with psychological distress and all its subscales. moreover it also indicates a significant positive relationship with psychological well-being and all its subscales table 1: pearson correlations for all variables included in this study (n=322) cm ps pe pc da og op depression .17** -.06 -.04 .20** .24** -.09 .17** anxiety .19** -.02 -.01 .19** .36** -.00 .23** stress .19** -.06 -.06 .12** .18** -.02 .15** psychological distress .23** -.04 -.02 .20** .32** -.03 .25** autonomy -,01 .03 .10 -.11* -.08 .11* -.06 environmental mastery -.13* .29** .15** .04 -.09 .32** .22** purpose in life .01 .28** .23** .05 -.01 .13** .16** the role of perfectionism in psychological health 133 self-acceptance -.09 .08 .10 -.16** -.05 .18** -.05 positive relations with others -.03 .01 .01 .05 -.09 .11* -.01 personal growth .06 .20** .09 .03 -.05 .20** .14** psychological well-being -.01 .25** .20** -.07 -.01 .30** -.09 cm = concern over mistakes; ps = personal standards; pe = parental expectations; pc = parental criticism; da = doubts about actions; og = organization; op = overall perfectionism, * p < .05. **p < .01 seven separate sets of independent sample t-test were computed to ascertain the effects of dimensions of perfectionism on the subscales of psychological well-being and psychological distress. table 2: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (53-92) and high (93-170) overall perfectionism groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =169) op high (n =154) op measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.56 2.72 10.60 2.75 .12 environmental mastery 13.83 2.37 12.95 2.43 3.24* purpose in life 11.67 1.70 11.16 1.85 2.54** self-acceptance 10.82 2.41 10.64 2.49 .63 positive relations with others 11.31 1.81 11.40 1.83 .44 personal growth 11.73 1.92 11.97 2.00 1.09 psychological well-being 68.57 7.24 70.12 7.53 1.86 stress 18.06 5.74 19.38 5.00 2.18*** depression 6.04 3.61 6.85 3.91 1.91*** anxiety 8.81 3.95 9.83 3.44 2.44** psychological distress 32.92 10.29 36.06 9.40 2.85* df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05 table 2 indicates significant differences between high and low overall perfectionism groups on psychological distress and its all sub scales (depression, stress and anxiety) as well as on two subscales of psychological well-being (environmental mastery and purpose in life). results also shows non-significant differences between high and low overall perfectionism groups on psychological well-being and its four subscales (autonomy, self-acceptance, positive relations with others and personal growth). results indicated a significant difference in psychological distress, stress, depression and anxiety scores for low(11-25) and high (26-44) concern over mistakes groups, low (4-12) and high (13-20) doubts about actions groups, and low (4-10) and high (11-57) parental criticism groups whereas high and low groups of these three dimension did europe’s journal of psychology 134 not show significant differences on psychological well-being and any subscale of psychological well-being (see table 3, 4 & 5). table 3: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (11-25) and high (26-44) concern over mistakes groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =157) cm high (n =165) cm measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.84 2.74 10.33 2.71 1.64 environmental mastery 13.16 2.57 13.57 2.28 1.50 purpose in life 11.42 1.86 11.39 1.73 .16 self-acceptance 10.86 2.54 10.61 2.36 .91 positive relations with others 11.37 1.83 11.34 1.82 .16 personal growth 11.89 2.03 11.80 1.91 .45 psychological well-being 69.62 7.88 69.01 6.94 .73 stress 18.10 5.55 19.26 5.27 1.92*** anxiety 8.78 3.92 9.79 3.51 2.43** depression 5.95 3.48 6.87 4.00 2.13* psychological distress 32.86 10.10 35.92 9.66 2.78* df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05 table4: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (4-12) and high (13-20) doubts about actions groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =182) da high (n =140) da measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.68 2.60 10.45 2.89 .77 environmental mastery 13.33 2.39 13.41 2.50 .29 purpose in life 11.41 1.85 11.39 1.73 .08 self-acceptance 10.88 2.24 10.55 2.69 1.20 positive relations with others 11.23 1.78 11.53 1.85 1.47 personal growth 11.74 1.99 11.97 1.92 1.04 psychological well-being 69.26 7.13 69.38 7.77 .14 stress 18.02 5.51 19.56 5.23 2.54** anxiety 8.39 3.61 10.47 3.59 5.15** depression 5.80 3.64 7.23 3.81 3.41* psychological distress 32.21 9.70 37.26 9.64 4.65* df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. the role of perfectionism in psychological health 135 table 5: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (4-10) and high (11-57) parental criticism groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =184) pc high (n =138) pc measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.74 2.79 10.36 2.64 1.21 environmental mastery 13.36 2.48 13.37 2.37 .04 purpose in life 11.30 1.88 11.54 1.67 1.18 self-acceptance 10.92 2.23 10.49 2.69 1.56 positive relations with others 11.33 1.82 11.39 1.82 .30 personal growth 11.83 1.87 11.86 2.09 .11 psychological well-being 69.51 7.01 69.04 7.92 .56 stress 18.18 5.39 19.37 5.44 1.95*** anxiety 8.87 3.63 9.86 3.87 2.37** depression 5.67 3.48 7.44 3.92 4.29* psychological distress 32.72 9.71 36.69 9.92 3.59* df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. table 6, 7 & 8 indicate that individuals having high level of personal standard also have high scores on psychological well-being and its two subscales (environmental mastery and purpose in life). similarly, high scored parental expectations group also has high scores on psychological well-being and its three subscales (environmental mastery, purpose in life and self-acceptance), whereas high and low scored organization groups indicate significant differences on psychological well-being (environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth). furthermore, high and low scored groups on these three dimensions of perfectionism did not show any significant differences on psychological distress and its all subscales and any other scales of psychological well-being. table 6: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (13-25) and high (26-37) personal standards groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =190) ps high (n =133) ps measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.50 2.70 10.69 2.77 .63 environmental mastery 12.90 2.37 14.03 2.38 4.21* purpose in life 11.16 1.84 11.75 1.68 2.95* self-acceptance 10.59 2.53 10.94 2.71 1.27 positive relations with others 11.33 1.72 11.39 1.95 .29 personal growth 11.69 1.97 12.06 1.94 1.68 psychological well-being 68.22 7.31 70.86 7.30 3.17* stress 18.90 5.35 18.39 5.55 .83 europe’s journal of psychology 136 anxiety 9.25 3.89 9.36 3.54 .27 depression 6.40 3.50 6.47 4.15 .17 psychological distress 34.55 9.69 34.23 10.41 .28 df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. table 7: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (6-20) and high (21-25) parental expectations groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =177) pe high (n =145) pe measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.46 2.72 10.72 2.75 .83 environmental mastery 13.09 2.31 13.71 2.54 2.26*** purpose in life 11.06 1.85 11.83 1.64 3.90** self-acceptance 10.50 2.45 11.02 2.42 1.91*** positive relations with others 11.36 1.82 11.35 1.81 .03 personal growth 11.69 1.97 12.03 1.94 1.53 psychological well-being 68.22 7.38 70.64 7.24 2.93* stress 18.66 5.64 18.72 5.19 .09 anxiety 9.21 3.90 9.40 3.56 .43 depression 6.55 3.79 6.28 3.77 .63 psychological distress 34.43 10.26 34.40 9.66 .02 df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. table 8: mean, standard deviation and t-values of low (13-25) and high (26-30) organization groups on subscales of psychological well-being and distress low (n =190) org high (n =132) org measures m sd m sd t autonomy 10.44 2.75 10.78 2.70 1.11 environmental mastery 12.82 2.40 14.17 2.26 5.07* purpose in life 11.36 1.80 11.46 1.79 .45 self-acceptance 10.49 2.44 11.09 2.42 2.15*** positive relations with others 11.30 1.80 11.43 1.85 .63 personal growth 11.60 2.05 12.20 1.78 2.73** psychological well-being 68.03 7.29 71.16 7.20 3.79* stress 18.41 5.46 19.09 5.39 1.11 anxiety 9.11 3.81 9.56 3.64 1.06 depression 6.76 3.80 5.93 3.70 1.94 psychological distress 34.29 10.12 34.60 9.81 .27 df = 321. *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. the role of perfectionism in psychological health 137 multivariate analyses of variances were conducted to determine age and gender differences in perfectionism, psychological well-being and psychological distress. the results, reported in table 9, reveal that gender did not have a significant effect on any dimension of perfectionism, overall perfectionism, psychological well-being and psychological distress. age and gender by age interaction also did not have significant effect on any dimension of perfectionism, overall perfectionism, psychological well-being and psychological distress. it was found though that age only has a significant effect on doubt about actions, f (3, 323) = 6.21, p < .05 and the age by gender interaction has a significant effect on parental expectations, f (3, 323) = 0.67, p < .05. table 9: f-ratios for difference scores on all main dependent variables in gender by age groups dependent variables gender age gender by age concern over mistakes .06 1.53 .04 personal standards 2.27 .56 .12 parental expectations 4.55 .30 .67*** parental criticism .00 1.01 .00 doubts about actions .57 .00 .45 organization 2.46 6.21** 1.41 overall perfectionism .32 .17 .00 psy well-being 2.20 .22 .52 psy distress 1.97 .04 2.65 df =(3, 323). *p < .001. **p < .01. ***p < .05. discussion the present study examined the role of perfectionism in mental health. there were two basic objectives of the study: to explore the adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism in eastern culture of pakistan and to examined the effects of perfectionism on mental health in terms of psychological well-being and psychological distress. regarding first objective of present research the results indicate that overall perfectionism has a clear association with mental health reflected in significant positive relationships with psychological distress and non-significant negative relationships with psychological well-being. these results confirm some previous findings that overall perfectionism has a positive association with measures of psychological distress (frost & marten, 1990; frost et al., 1990; frost et al., 1993) and europe’s journal of psychology 138 negative relationships with positive psychological constructs e.g. achievement motivation, self-esteem (frost & henderson, 1991). the sub dimensions concern over mistake, parental criticism and doubt about actions have a positive relationship with the maladaptive personality construct e.g. psychological distress, depression, stress and anxiety and showed non-significant negative relationship with psychological well-being and its some subscales. this is in line with previous findings that concern over mistakes and doubts about actions have a close relationship with psychopathology (frost et al., 1990; yoshihisa & yasukszu, 1999), concern over mistakes has a strong association with trait anger (sinclair, czech, joyner & munkasy, 2006) and ample amount of research indicated a positive relationship between maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism and psychological distress (aldea & rice, 2006; chang & rand, 2000; connor., et al., 2002; frost et al., 1990: hewitt & flett, 1991; hewitt, flett, & ediger, 1996; wyatt & gilbert, 1998). personal standards, parental expectations and organization have a significant positive relationship with the adaptive personality construct e.g. psychological wellbeing, and show a negative relationship with psychological distress. this is again in line with previous findings that high personal standards and organization are associated with adaptive traits (flett et al, 1995) and both these dimensions have a negative correlation with psychological distress (lynd-stevenson & hearne, 1999). these findings highlight the fact that overall perfectionism and its three dimensions of concern over mistake, parental criticism and doubt about actions are negative and other three dimensions e.g. personal standards, parental expectations and organization are positive in a pakistani context. regarding the effects of overall perfectionism and sub-dimensions of perfectionism on psychological well-being and psychological distress, results revealed that overall perfectionism has a significant effect on two subscales of psychological well-being environmental mastery and purpose in life, as individuals having low scores on overall perfectionism have high scores on environmental mastery and purpose in life. moreover, results also showed that high level of overall perfectionism also indicates high level of psychological distress, stress, depression and anxiety. personal standard has a significant effect on psychological well-being and two subscales of psychological well-being: environmental mastery and purpose in life, as individuals with high scores on personal standards showed high scores on environmental mastery and purpose in life and psychological well-being. similarly, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ericwebportal/home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pagelabel=ericsearchresult&_urltype=action&newsearch=true&ericextsearch_searchtype_0=au&ericextsearch_searchvalue_0=%22aldea+mirela+a.%22 the role of perfectionism in psychological health 139 individuals having high scores on parental expectations also showed high scores on environmental mastery, purpose in life, self-acceptance and psychological wellbeing whereas there is a significant difference in mean of high and low organization groups on environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth and psychological well-being. furthermore high and low scored groups of personal standards, parental expectations and organization did not indicate significant differences on depression, stress and anxiety and psychological distress. the results also revealed that individuals having low scores on concern over mistakes, doubts about actions and parental criticism showed lower scores on stress, depression, anxiety and psychological distress whereas high and low scored groups of these three dimensions did not shows any significant differences on psychological wellbeing and any subscale of psychological well-being. thus, these three dimensions of perfectionism seem unhealthy or maladaptive. these results support the notion that overall perfectionism is an unhealthy personality trait and it has negative effect on the mental health of pakistani university students. these results also indicate that personal standards, parental expectations and organization have a positive effect on the mental health of pakistani university students whereas other three dimensions of perfectionism concern over mistake, doubt about actions and parental criticism have negative effect on their mental health. in line with previous findings (parker & adkins, 1995; 1996; robert & teresa, 2002, sinclair, czech, joyner & munkasy, 2006), the present study confirms that gender did not have a significant effect on any dimension of perfectionism or overall perfectionism. age has a significant effect only on doubt about actions and age by gender interaction has a significant effect just on the parental expectations dimension of perfectionism. limitations and suggestions present research has certain limitations as well. first of all the present sample consists of university student from only two universities of pakistan, so generalization of these results is difficult. larger samples from more universities of pakistan should be used for further research. furthermore, different types of samples can be used in order to obtain a broader picture of the relationships between these variables. secondly, these results are based on self-report measures alone, which might have biased the results as self-report measures have some limitations e.g. unreliable answers of respondents, negative affectivity bias, and extreme response style. in light of this, other methods of data collection can be used in further research. finally, this is cross sectional research whereas traits like perfectionism, psychological well-being and psychological distress should also be studied longitudinally. europe’s journal of psychology 140 conclusion it is concluded that perfectionism has a negative role for the mental health of pakistani university students because overall perfectionism has strong positive relationship with psychological distress rather than psychological well-being. it only has three adaptive dimensions personal standards, parental expectations and organization as these dimensions have a strong positive association with psychological well-being and higher scores on these dimensions are associated with high scores on some subscales of psychological well-being. similarly, it has three maladaptive dimensions concern over mistakes, parental criticism and doubts about actions since these dimensions have a strong positive correlation with psychological distress and individuals having high scores on these dimensions also show high scores on subscales of psychological distress e.g. stress depression and anxiety. the cultural factor might be important in these findings and needs further exploration for consistency with results in other eastern cultures. these results could be very helpful for the development of a theory of perfectionism and for clinical and counseling purposes. in this regard, overall perfectionism and its three maladaptive dimensions can be addressed in clinical interventions and the counseling of students having psychological distress could focus on these issues. finally, it is hoped that the conclusions of the present article will facilitate a clearer understanding of the relationship between perfectionism and psychological health in the eastern culture of pakistan. references accordino, b.d., accordino, p.m., & slaney, b.r. 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well-being, adaptation of scales, perfectionism and psychological distress. her work has been published in pakistan journal of social and clinical psychology. address for correspondence: farva mansoor, gothe strasse 86, 63067, offenbach, germany e-mail: farva_malik@hotmail.com mailto:farva_malik@hotmail.com interview with yvonne bates by beatrice popescu and andreea enache our interviewee is yvonne bates, a humanistic counsellor/ therapist with the alexander group. she co-authored with richard house and published “ethically challenged professions: enabling innovation and diversity in psychotherapy and counselling”, an anthology assembling 30 essays, most of them by prominent international figures in the field, which both challenge a number of psychotherapy and counselling’s most inhibiting, taken-for-granted assumptions, and offer cutting-edge visions and examples of the form and substance of an ethically mature, post-professionalized therapy practice. she is active in the politics of psychotherapy and counselling in the uk, being committed to the development of an inclusive and collaborative therapeutic community. yvonne is keen to challenge the myth of the therapist as expert and to encourage theorists, practitioners and policy makers to work in genuine partnership with clients to radically revise therapy in light of the challenges put forward by those clients. yvonne is also co-editor of ipnosis , a journal for freethinking practitioners ( www.ipnosis.com ), which is the first to offer a dedicated section for clients’ views and which has enjoyed tremendous popularity since its launch back in 2001. ejop: yvonne, first of all we would want to thank you for offering us an interview. before jumping to the controversial issues of psychotherapy politics, we would like to know where did your love for psychotherapy/counselling stem from? yvonne bates: thank you for asking me – fame at last! i had enjoyed a successful career in it, but had become frustrated at the meaninglessness of it all, and wanted to do something completely different. i was interested in sport psychology and started a part-time counselling course whilst doing my psychology degree, but in so doing i became fascinated by humanistic therapy and basically got side-tracked. ejop: almost all professionals developing a successful career in one field or another have been influenced in their growth by someone they took as a model. did you have any mentors? yvonne bates: i don’t think there is anyone whom i have considered a “mentor”. i think i have been influenced by particular books and particular individuals along the way; irvin yalom’s “existential psychotherapy” probably touched me both personally and professionally as much as any other book, even though i don’t consider myself existential in orientation. on reflection, i’m probably lucky that i don’t see anyone as a great mentor, because it suggests that my therapy education has been conducted by facilitators who have resisted the urge to be a “guru”, and have instead encouraged me to find my own voice – the hallmark of person-centeredness! in recent years, i must say i have been most influenced by client writers such as anna sands, rosie alexander, marie hellewell and natalie simpson, who have raised such brave and powerful critiques of therapy and really forced me to re-evaluate everything i took for granted about the intrinsic goodness of the endeavour. their work is the most important in the field, i think. ejop: what are the main critiques your clients have expressed toward therapy, its principles and practices, and how do you usually approach them? yvonne bates: both clients in my own practice and client writers such as those i mentioned have raised so many questions about the nature of therapy that it is impossible to do justice to them here. but they include issues such as the dependency that clients can feel towards their therapist – is it sufficiently understood? are clients sufficiently warned about its possibility at the outset of therapy? do therapists do enough to discourage it? is it right that some therapists encourage it? the same questions also apply to transference, of course (even where the therapist is not psychodynamic in orientation). clients are asking what evidence there is to support the basic assumption made by therapists that catharsis is beneficial – they argue that there are times when it can be quite destructive. they ask if anyone really understands in what circumstances and for which clients certain emotions should be elicited, and what can be done to repair damage when things “go wrong”. another common area of concern raised by clients is whether the unusual nature of the therapeutic relationship and discourse can distort the client’s reality, and cause him to lose a sense of normality. clients’ world views certainly are shaken up and completely deconstructed sometimes, and client writers are concerned that in many cases, this can actually be detrimental to mental health rather than restorative. indeed, another issue is that therapy may be pathologising – the client’s role is to be inadequate, and this may actually create a concomitant belief or behaviour pattern of inadequacy. these are just one or two of many, many examples. i am currently editing a book for palgrave macmillan, entitled ” shouldn’t i be feeling better by now: client views of therapy ” which is due to be published later this year, and which assembles a number of wonderfully insightful, thorough and challenging critiques from clients all over the western world. as for how i usually approach these issues, i have modified my own way of working to try to reduce the dangers that are being described. for example, in the past i might have encouraged a client to express her anger, with utter and devout conviction that it would be in her best interests to do so. now, i am much more reticent about such things. funnily enough, so many clients these days are “therapy literate” that they will say, for example, “i suppose i should be getting this anger out so i can move on”, and i might now challenge it, saying something like “the therapy world does assume that it would be beneficial, but we don’t know that do we? do you feel, instinctively, that it will help to do that?” one could call it an increase in “metatherapy” – that is, an ongoing discussion with the client, sometimes in much detail, about how we should construct the next part of the therapy, before we actually go ahead and do the coalface work itself, if that makes sense. the solution to some of these issues, though, goes beyond just modifying my practice in such ways. i find that nowadays, i constantly ask myself whether practice as a therapist is and/or can be consistent with my personal morality and ethics. since i am still practising, the answer to date speaks for itself, but this is an ongoing process for me, and without wishing to sound too self-congratulatory, i believe it is a healthy self-examination with which all therapists should engage. ejop: we know you are trained in person-centred therapy, but gradually came to embrace other views too, and currently you successfully practice an integrative and collaborative approach. could you please explain to our readers what this approach implies? yvonne bates: well, frankly i’m not sure whether my approach, when i really analyse it, is really anything other than a person-centred approach. i try to follow the client in how the relationship is constructed, and what kind of input i offer. i try to learn about different theories and approaches, but not so that i can apply them to a particular client in a particular situation, but rather so that, within a person-centred philosophy, i can offer an educated view of what they might comprise to a client who wishes to know such things. i believe it is my duty to know as much as i can about the world of psychotherapeutic theories, psychology in general, sociology, philosophy, politics and anything else that might be relevant to personal growth. but i think with such education must come a healthy questioning/scepticism of all such theories, so that i don’t become too evangelical or directive about any of them. ejop: you have already engaged in several break-through projects. how did your life change since you launched ipnosis which is quite an audacious and innovative journal? yvonne bates: ipnosis has certainly been a wonderful addition to my life. it brings me into contact with all sorts of people involved in the therapy world, and in particular with client writers, whose wisdom has influenced me beyond measure, as i mentioned above. it also gives me the opportunity to poke fun at the therapy world, for instance, through caring carol the cartoon counsellor. this is a wonderful way of venting my frustrations and anger at some of the worst excesses of my frequently arrogant and self-indulgent profession! ejop: you present ipnosis as a freethinking practitioners’ journal. what sets ipnosis apart in the vast field of psychotherapy periodicals? yvonne bates: we want the reader to engage with ipnosis not just intellectually, but emotionally, too. if she feels angry at one moment, tearful the next, thoughtful the next, then finds herself laughing, and, if she is a therapist, feels her professional world has been rattled and shaken a little, then ipnosis has reached its goal. because ipnosis is not affiliated to any professional body, it is only bought by people – it is not simply received as a result of being a member of something. it therefore has a fairly small but highly motivated, highly engaged readership, and tends to attract really powerful and challenging perspectives from writers. it is therefore a huge learning resource, and really forces the reader to question everything and to “think outside the box”. nothing is sacred! ejop: considering that academic debate also involves criticizing other professionals’ views, has it become difficult to publish critical studies in britain ? are the academics and well-established professionals in the field of therapy sensitive to critics? yvonne bates: my personal view is that they are extremely sensitive to criticism, and that we are in danger of allowing academia to have a stranglehold over the entire therapeutic discourse. academia invents its own rules about how arguments can be put forward, and then uses those rules to reject arguments that come from outside it. so there is a stultifying nepotism about the academic world’s approach to therapy which, i feel, does not sit at all comfortably with humanistic principles. in fact one might argue that there is an inherent paradox in the very notion of academic humanism in its current form. this is something we try to challenge rigorously in ipnosis . we are committed to publishing work irrespective of its academic status. we believe that this inclusivity is essential to the wellbeing of the field. ejop: in her article “psychotherapy: philosophy, not medicine”, judy tame argues that “any mentally sharp person with empathy, people with skills plus a little skill training and, above all, a degree from the university of life” can do counselling and that most of the practitioners worldwide pretend doing therapy while they actually perform consultancy work. how would you formulate the difference between counselling and therapy? yvonne bates: i don’t profess to know the difference, nor indeed whether there is any difference, between counselling and psychotherapy. there are so many discussions that i’ve had on therapyand philosophy-related subjects that become meaningless when the discussers realise that it just boils down to our individual interpretations of semantics. and i think the counselling vs. psychotherapy issue is definitely one of those – everyone has their own definition of each term, so the answer is different for every person. ejop: the dsm is viewed by some of the therapists worldwide (even by some of your romanian colleagues) as a rather hazardous tool, “guilty” for labelling the client and reducing his/her suffering to a category. in your practice, do you use classic diagnostic methods? yvonne bates: i share the unease you have described about such diagnostic tools. i try to meet every person as a person, and build a relationship with them. i certainly do not ascribe diagnostic labels about their behaviour or personality; if anything, i work to challenge labels which they may use about themselves. ejop: in recent years some training schools recognizing the narrowness of specific therapies have moved to delivering a more integrative training, looking to offer a more flexible and comprehensive therapy training. how do you think this will affect the future of psychotherapy training? yvonne bates: there is of course a value in educating ourselves about the different theories as i discussed above. however i also accept the argument that there is a danger of becoming “a jack of all trades, and a master of none”. the key word in your question is “flexibility”. a good training programme should be flexible enough to support students as they follow their own path. for some students, this might mean quite a narrow specialisation, and for others, a more eclectic approach. both have their place, i think. ejop: in the process of accreditation, a trainee therapist is required to perform a minimum hours of supervised therapy before getting the accreditation. it is quite difficult for inexperienced students to get the clients they need with whom they can practice what they have learned if they are not involved in a charity or voluntary organisation. did you come across this issue as a trainee or trainer? yvonne bates: oh yes, i have come across it a lot as a course facilitator. it’s a far from perfect situation. many students in the uk get placements with general practitioners/primary health care establishments. this has become quite a political issue, as there is an argument that too many primary health care practices exploit this to provide counselling services at little or no cost to themselves, and to “dump” a time-consuming patient on someone else rather than listen to him themselves. it can also be seen as endangering the welfare of the patients by assigning them to counsellors/therapists who are still learning the trade, and who are perhaps more likely to make mistakes. ejop: do you see any solution to this problem that appears to be much of a dead end, at least at first look? yvonne bates: well, for the healthcare providers the solution is simple – more government funding! but for the trainees looking for placements, there’s no easy answer. i sometimes wonder why students cannot be clients for their classmates (in reality, i mean, not role playing). i appreciate that this is not without its problems, but it is a controlled, contained and self-perpetuating environment, and it does mean students will spend more time in the client role, which is the best way to learn, by and large. ejop: we know you encourage clients to express their own views during the therapeutic process, you were one of the people who actually pioneered the idea; ipnosis even has a section especially dedicated to client’s opinions. is this part of the so-called re-ensoulling of the therapy and wh at is its immediate impact on the therapeutic process? yvonne bates: whilst it is very flattering to be credited with pioneering this idea, i must say that good therapists have been encouraging client feedback since before i was even born! i think the main need for pioneering work is where clients raise concerns about the very nature or taken-for-granted assumptions of therapy, at a political level. clients who have been brave enough to put such concerns in books and articles, or in media discussions, tend to have been met with very defensive attitudes by therapy writers and representatives of professional bodies. they are sometimes just ignored. sometimes they are deconstructed and inappropriately psychoanalysed. it is easy to say that clients don’t really understand the reasons why therapists behave in certain ways because of a lack of theoretical knowledge, and also to say that they are playing out transferential issues with their therapist or the therapy community as a whole. these are convenient ways to avoid facing the very real and very cogent issues that they bring. in getting to know the client authors of shouldn’t i be feeling better by now (see above), i have been consistently impressed with their considered and constructive reasoning, powerful arguments and indeed their understanding of therapeutic theories (many of them have taught themselves as much, if not more, than the average therapist). we must start by respecting these voices, and further, to recognise our own defensiveness and respond to the feedback as a precious gift. ejop: the therapy field in uk is now going through a reconstruction phase. do you think there will be immediate benefits of this reform? who will benefit from this process, the therapist or the client? yvonne bates: if by this you mean the move towards statutory regulation, then i think the only people who are likely to benefit are people in positions of power within the professional bodies. i certainly don’t think statutory regulation would benefit clients – quite the opposite. i have written at length about the different reasons for this (see for example, my chapter “still whingeing” in the aforementioned book “ethically challenged professions” (pccs books)). however, i also doubt whether statutory regulation will ever come about anyway. there are so many diverse opinions and internecine wrangles within and between the professional bodies that sufficient consensus seems unlikely. and despite what some of our larger professional bodies would have us believe, the government does not seem terribly interested in pushing such legislation through – the initiative seems to be coming from within those professional bodies. ejop: what are the advantages and disadvantages of being an independent practitioner? yvonne bates: at the risk of sounding like a politician, i’d first like to answer a slightly different question, which is, “what are the advantages and disadvantages of being an independent person?” independence and dependence are concepts which i strive to balance in my life. independence has come to be seen as something of a holy grail in our culture. if someone is described as “independent”, this is seen as a compliment, whereas if someone is described as “dependent” this is seen as an insult. in reality, i feel the two should be value-free, and both accepted as part and parcel of what it means to be human. it is a personal struggle for me to allow myself to be more dependent upon others, as i have been encouraged throughout my life to be independent, and am only now coming to understand the limitations of this. humans are social animals, and i subscribe to the view that the over-emphasis on independence is undermining our ability to cooperate, sustain community and care for each other. i would therefore apply the same answer to the question of being an independent practitioner – i must also accept my limitations as an individual and allow myself to also be dependent upon support, compromise and sharing in my practice. ejop: w hat do you see happening in therapy as we move into the 21st century? yvonne bates: if i allow myself to be optimistic, then i would see most of therapy as evolving into a social skill that everyone develops, thereby taking much of it out of the professional arena. there will always be a place for some sort of clinical psychological practice for people whose needs are unusual. but for the mainstream, i believe that the consumerist, individualist society that leaves people feeling alone, empty and stressed cannot continue for much longer before there is a backlash. we need to learn to listen to each other again, prioritise friendships, family and concern for others generally, and encourage empathy, genuineness and non-judgemental regard in everyday life. the fact that such skills are commodified and professionalized to the extent that they are is astounding, and i feel angry that society is thereby being robbed of something as fundamental to its survival as water and oxygen. to put it another way, i sometimes see a lot of therapy as people trying to squeeze more and more resilience out of themselves to survive in the cold world around them, and that we can only do so much of this before we are forced to collectively come together to change that world into a better, more loving one where we can all flourish. yvonne bates, march 2005. living with intensity 16th european conference on personality 10-14 july 2012 trieste, italy dear colleagues, on behalf of organizing and scientific committees, we are honored and pleased to announce you that the 16th european conference on personality (ecp16) will be held in trieste (italy), from tuesday 10th to saturday 14th july, 2012. the conference, organized by the european association of personality psychology (eapp) and the department of psychology “g. kanizsa”, university of trieste, will host colleagues from different countries all around the world. as you might already know, eapp conferences promote contemporary research findings and exchange of ideas among different fields related to personality psychology. in line with these aims, ecp16 scientific program will include contributions on distinctive personality issues as personality development, personality and social psychology, personality and work, methodological issues in personality assessment, personality and culture, personality and politics, as well as behavioral genetics, personality and neuroscience, personality and cognitive processes, and more. ecp16 will host six leading scholars as keynote speakers and organize symposia and papers in a series of five parallel sessions; three sessions will be fully dedicated to poster presentations. lastly, during ecp16, a life time achievement award and, for the first time, an early career award will be conferred to two distinguished european personality psychologists. eapp conferences are among the most important venues to present and hear about current personality research. furthermore, trieste offers a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere to meet leading experts as well as emerging and young students in personality psychology. we look forward to meeting you in trieste! lisa di blas and andrea carnaghi visit the website for more information http://www.theoffice.it/ecp16 http://www.theoffice.it/ecp16 parent–adolescent communication and delinquency this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 74-94, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.299 www.ejop.org parent – adolescent communication and delinquency: a comparative study in kolkata, india tanusree moitra university of calcutta, kolkata, india indrani mukherjee university of calcutta, kolkata, india abstract the present study assessed the impact of one of the dimension of parenting practices, parent-adolescent communication, on the development of delinquent behavior. the data was collected from 200 adolescents (100 delinquents and 100 non-delinquents) aged 11-18 years. results suggested a significant difference between delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents in terms of their perception of satisfactory parental communication. further analyses revealed that both mother‟s and father‟s separate communication as well as their interaction effect was linked to the development of delinquent behavior. it was further noted that a satisfactory mother-adolescent communication was much more important compared to the father-adolescent communication in the present context. furthermore, age of the adolescent was also related to delinquency and it was observed that early adolescence was a richer breeding ground of delinquency, although a satisfactory parental communication was crucial throughout the adolescent period to serve as a protective factor against delinquency. the theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. keywords: mother-adolescent communication; father-adolescent communication; age; delinquency; kolkata; india parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 75 introduction there is considerable evidence to suggest that the family plays an important role in the development of adolescent delinquent behavior. family serves as an effective agent of socialization. from the very first day of a child‟s life the process of socialization begins, and parents are the primary source of this process. the period of adolescence is that phase of life when strong parent-child attachment is essential for both the normal development of adolescents, both biological and psychological, but it can also be a period that is disruptive for family socialization (granic, dishion, hollenstein, & patterson, 2002; steinberg, 1988). studies have shown that, if the bond with the parent is weakened, the probability of risk behavior increases. on the other hand, if this emotional bond is strengthened, the probability of a problem type of behavior decreases (hirschi, 1969). furthermore, parental bonding strongly decreases adolescent involvement in delinquency (cernkovich & giordano, 1987; hirschi, 1969; warr, 1993). indeed, warm, loving and responsive parenting contributes to strengthen parentadolescent bonds and reduces the likelihood of delinquent involvement (smith & krohn, 1995). the stronger this attachment bond, the more likely the adolescent is to take it into account when he or she contemplates a criminal act (hirschi, 1969). hirschi (1969) suggests that low levels of emotional attachment to parents predict involvement in delinquency regardless of race/ ethnicity, class or peers delinquency. therefore a great deal of research has emphasized the importance of children‟s attachment with parental figures in decreasing the likelihood of delinquency (bachman, 1970; bandura & walters, 1959; glueck & glueck, 1962; gold, 1963; hirschi, 1969). communication is a significant facet of parent adolescent attachment. for example, if parent adolescent communication is indifferent or negative, children are likely to encounter greater difficulties when growing up. it is through this process of communication that a child develops his or her patterns of cognition, knowledge, attitude toward the external world. it has been assumed that a child learns to regulate his or her emotions through specific cognitions, which in turn are developed on the basis of healthy parent child interactions (garnefski, rieffe, jellesma, terwogt, & kraaij, 2007). studies on parent adolescent communication reported that parental communication has a strong relationship to the well-being of the adolescent (greenberg, siegel, & leitch, 1983), and the lack of closeness with parents (kandel & davies, 1982; parker, tupling, & brown, 1979) or a lower level of parental influence (chrispin, 1998) correlates with a higher degree of behavioral problems in adolescents. europe’s journal of psychology 76 in past decades numerous researches have consistently demonstrated that parent adolescent communication is positively related to the adolescents‟ academic achievement (masselam, marcus, & stunkard, 1990), self-esteem (brage & meredith, 1994; demo, small, & savin-williams, 1987; enger et al., 1994) and mental health (collins, newman, & mckenry, 1995; hanson, 1986), as well as inversely related to adolescent loneliness and depression (brage & meredith, 1994), drug and alcohol use, and other deviant behaviors (barnes, farrell, & banerjee, 1994; hawley, shear, stark, & goodman, 1984; johnson, su, gerstein, shin, & hoffman, 1995; kafka & london, 1991; miller, king, shain, & naylor, 1992). also it has been observed that family communication between parents and adolescents, especially in socioeconomically disadvantaged families, play a significant role in the development of various kinds of psychosocial adjustment among adolescents and young adults (rueter & koerner, 2008). research on adolescents at risk of mental health or conduct problems, has identified healthy parent-child communication as a protective factor, whereas negative communication between parents and children act as a risk factor for various psychosocial adjustments in the case of adolescents (liu, 2003; musitu ochoa, estevez lopez, & emler, 2007). open parent child communication has been linked with low levels of adolescent risk behavior and high psychosocial adjustment (guilamo-ramos, jaccard, dittus & bouris, 2006; kotchick, dorsey, miller, & forehand, 1999; yu et al., 2006). it is also reported that a positive parent child communication leads to less sexual risk–taking behaviors. clark & shields (1997) found that adolescents who lack open parental communication are more prone towards serious delinquency. so, overall an open communication between parent and adolescent may serve as a protective factor for children against the development of depression and anxiety and engagement in antisocial activities (barnes & olson, 1985). in addition, open communication between parent and adolescent is positively related with the development of the adolescent‟s moral reasoning, academic achievement and self-esteem (hartos & power, 2000; holstein, 1972; stanley, 1978). johnson & lobitz (1974) have demonstrated that those parents who engage in high rates of negative interactions with their children increase the deviant behavior of their children. as such, the desirable benefits of open and clear parent adolescent communication are generally endorsed in the existing research literature. however, communication is a complex, dynamic and reciprocal process (jaccard, dodge, & dittus, 2002), so to understand the process of communication from the perspective of both mother and father is essential, but only few studies have explored the gender of the parent as a parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 77 construct that might contribute to our understandings of how the parental attachment affects adolescent delinquency. hoeve et al., (2009) found that studies generally focus on one parent or both parents without differentiating the gender of the parent. although mothers usually spend more time taking care of their children, it is important to consider parenting effects of both mother and father because apart from quantity of the time father and mother spend with their children, there are indications that parental involvement is also qualitatively different (videon, 2005). for example, fathers more often tend to give instrumental care whereas mothers provide more emotional care (youniss & smollar, 1985). therefore it may be desirable to examine data from both parents‟ perception of open and clear communication with their children. but no data are available to differentiate maternal and paternal communication with children and the development of delinquency (xiao, li, & stanton, 2011). research was conducted for instance on mothers‟ and fathers‟ communication in relation to adolescents‟ psychological health, e.g. depression (liu, 2003) but not regarding delinquency. also there are no studies that discuss the relationship between mother and father communication with their children in the development of delinquency in an indian context. so, in the present study an attempt has been made to understand the relationship between mother/ father – adolescent communication and delinquency in india. more specifically, the research question addressed in this study is: are there any differences between maternal and paternal communication with their adolescent child (as perceived by the adolescent) and how do they relate to the development of delinquent behavior? method sample the data has been collected from two groups of adolescents living in the city of kolkata, india. kolkata is the commercial capital of eastern india, located on the east bank of the hooghly river. at present the population of the city is 4.4 million (office of the registrar general and census commissioner, 2011). the first group consisted of 100 delinquent boys, residents of a correction home located in the city of kolkata. the age range for this group was 11 to 18 (m = 15.52 years; sd = 1.62). the second group used in the research consisted of 100 regular school adolescents who lived with their parents and had no history of delinquency and no police record. the age range for this group was again11 to 18 (m = 16.13 years; sd = 1.93). the demographic characteristics of the participants are presented in table1. europe’s journal of psychology 78 table 1 demographic description of the sample demographic variables delinquent non-delinquent 1. education no school 32 00 elementary school 41 18 middle school 25 72 high school 02 10 2. father‟s education no school 32 00 elementary school 56 24 middle school 00 45 high school 12 31 3. mother‟s education no school 69 18 elementary school 31 42 middle school 00 33 high school 00 09 4. mother‟s employment status working 73 22 non-working 27 78 5. average no. of sibling 02 01 6. average family income 4820 inr/per month app. £ 75/ per month 6500 inr/per month app. £ 100/ per month 7. substance abuse yes 94 03 no 06 97 measures independent variable. perception of communication satisfaction questionnaire (pcs; hecht, 1978) is a 19 item questionnaire, used to measure perceived satisfaction and dissatisfaction with parental communication as expressed by children. participants are asked to use a 7-point agree-to-disagree scale to rate the degree to which each item parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 79 describes their communication with their parents. a score of 7 indicates „most satisfactory communication‟ and score of 1 indicates „least satisfactory communication‟. the response to each item is categorized into „high‟ or „low‟ by median split, which is 57. higher score represents greater satisfaction – and presumably a stronger attachment. a modified and adapted version of hecht‟s original inventory has been used (prof. i. mukherjee, dept. of applied psychology, university of calcutta, india). first, the original perception of communication satisfaction scale by hecht was translated into bengali language (local language spoken in kolkata, india). two separate forms were prepared one for mother‟s pcs and another to measure father‟s pcs score. second, these two scales were administered to 100 male school adolescents living with both parents. in order to determine the reliability of the modified version cronbach‟s alpha was computed. the coefficient was .84 for communication with mother and .78 for communication with father scale. item-total correlations were computed for all the 19 items. most of the items were significant at .05 level and a few of them significant at a .01 level. dependent variable. behavior deviance scale was developed by chauhan & aurora (1989), it is a 30-item scale designed to understand the extent of delinquent behavior present in the case of adolescents. officially recorded delinquency has traditionally been the most common measure. however, official delinquency has the potential disadvantage that it may be a measure not only of delinquency but also of the behavior of police and court personnel (lerman, 1968). therefore, a standardized scale has been used along with the official delinquency measure. this measure is completed by two other persons (for each juvenile) who know the participant very well. in this study, it was completed by two other delinquents who were residing in the same correction home and who knew the respondent closely. items were arranged in a 5point scale, from very high 5; high 4; moderate 3; low 2; and very low 1. the final score in this case is the average of the total scores given by both the juveniles. high score indicate lower deviance. examples of the items: “to steal”, “to be disloyal”, “to form company with bad people” etc. the cronbach‟s alpha reliability score was .79 and the validity of the scale was .88. europe’s journal of psychology 80 procedure the study was divided into two phase. in the first phase, before visiting the correction home, a written proposal was given to the magistrate of the juvenile justice board, kolkata, west bengal, india, explaining the purpose of the study. after getting the permission from the magistrate, the superintendent of the correction home was contacted by the first author concerning the purpose of the study and seeking his permission to visit the home. after obtaining permission a tentative time schedule was developed in discussion with the staff of the home. both measures (i.e. perception of communication satisfaction and behavior deviance scale) were administered directly to delinquent participants using the interview method under close supervision by the staff of the home. the interview session for each participant lasted for two days for approximately half-an-hour daily. in order to comply with apa‟s ethical guidelines, the interview was conducted only with those participants who gave their consent and also the name of the participants were not disclosed. as the instructions for completion of these two measures were in english, both scales were adapted to the local spoken language of the participants (bengali). the reliability and validity of the adapted scale has been provided in the description of the measures above. in the second phase of the study, the first author contacted school administrators concerning the purpose of the study. only the perception of communication satisfaction was directly administered to the non-delinquent participants in the school environment by the first author and under close supervision by teachers. in order to maintain the parity with the other group of the total sample, instructions were provided in the bengali language to this group as well. consent was taken from each of the students before initiating the procedure. after collecting the data, token gifts (worth 50 inr or £0.75) were provided to each of the participants. results the statistical software spss version 17.0 was used to carry out the analysis. firstly means, standard deviations and t-tests were calculated for both maternal and paternal perceived communication and the t-test result proved to be significant. the result is shown in table 2 below. parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 81 table 2 mean, standard deviation and t-test of delinquent (n= 100) and nondelinquent (n= 100) sample mean standard deviation t-test mother‟s pcs delinquent 45.44 8.83 9.62** non-delinquent 61.86 6.3 father‟s pcs delinquent 46.21 7.52 7.61** non-delinquent 56.97 9.4 no. of siblings delinquent 3 3.32 2.93** non-delinquent 2 2.51 family income delinquent 4820 394.08 23.84** non-delinquent 6500 584.33 *p < .05; **p < .01 from the mean score of both the groups, it was clear that there is a discrepancy between them in terms of their perception of how satisfactory are the parental communication. the mean score for the non-delinquent group was higher by comparison to the delinquent group – the former‟s experiencing better pcs than the latter. the t-test was significant at a .01 level which led the researchers to believe that the perception of communication with parents was much better in the non-delinquent group as compared to the delinquent group. the table also provided the t-test value for the delinquent and non-delinquent sample on some of the demographic variables, such as number of offspring and family income, and the t-test values are again significant in nature. a three-way anova (table 3) was conducted on the scores obtained from the delinquent sample only, with perception of maternal communication, paternal communication and age as the independent variables, and delinquency (as measured by behavior deviance scale) as the dependent variable. europe’s journal of psychology 82 table 3 three – way anova analyses: maternal communication by paternal communication by age as factors and delinquency as the dependent variable – delinquent sample. source f – value sig. factor pcs (m) 5.11* 0.027 pcs (f) 4.29* 0.03 age 3.73* 0.05 interaction terms pcs(m) * age 0.47 0.496 pcs(f) * age 0.17 0.89 pcs(m) * pcs(f) 3.38* 0.05 *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01 a significant main effect was found for all the factors, i.e. perception of maternal communication, f (1, 93) = 5.11, p < 0.027; perception of paternal communication, f (1, 93) = 4.29, p < 0.03; age of the adolescent, f (1, 93) = 3.73, p < 0.05. this indicates that all three factors had an impact on the development of delinquent behavior among the adolescents from our group. no significant interaction effects were found between mother communication age and father communication age of the adolescent. therefore, it can be inferred that a satisfactory parental communication is crucial throughout the adolescence period. a significant interaction effect was found between mother adolescent and father adolescent communication, f (1, 93) = 3.38, p < 0.05. this indicates that a particular level (low/high) of one independent variables (father‟s pcs) is associated with a particular level of the other independent variable‟s (mother‟s pcs) impact on delinquency, i.e. they both, in conjunction, raise or lower the magnitude of the dependent variable (the bds score). a graphical representation indicates the interaction effect clearly. figure 1 depicts that when both pcs from mother and father was poor, behavior deviation scores were the highest. when both were high it was lowest. the combination of poor score from one parent and good score from another parent produces intermediate bds scores. parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 83 figure 1 line graph representing the interaction effect between maternal and paternal communication from the mean score, shown in table 4 it can be observed that adolescents who declare a satisfactory communication with their mother have a lower delinquency score and those who experience unsatisfactory communication has higher delinquency scores. the situation is similar for father – adolescent communication. with respect to age, it was found that early adolescents (11-14yrs) had higher delinquency scores compared to late adolescents (15 – 18yrs). table 4 descriptive statistics of the factors (maternal communication, paternal communication and age) – delinquent sample maternal communication paternal communication age low (n = 84) high (n = 16) low (n = 87) high (n = 13) (11 – 14) (15 – 18) mean 34.8 29.5 35.13 26.30 31.29 24.25 sd 4.23 3.77 3.91 5.24 2.12 2.58 since the interaction effect between mother communication – father communication was significant in nature, individual t-tests were carried out between various combinations of maternal and paternal communication in order to understand which parenting combination is contributing most to the development of delinquency and which is the least contributing combination. here as well in all the four conditions, the perception of communication satisfaction was the independent variable and behavior europe’s journal of psychology 84 deviance score was the dependent variable. table 5 represents the t-test values along with the levene‟s test of homogeneity of variance (as the group size was very unequal). table 5 t-test representing the differences among various combinations of maternal and paternal communication – delinquent sample source t-test levene‟s test poor communication (m) * poor communication (f) 5.82** .695 good communication (m) * poor communication (f) 2.44* .611 poor communication (m) * good communication (f) 3.39* .657 good communication (m) * good communication (f) 1.95* .406 note: m – mother; f – father. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; pcs – independent variable, bds – dependent variable. all levene‟s test values were non-significant in nature, indicating that the assumption of equality of variance has been met. it was observed from the t-tests, that adolescents indicating poor communication with both parents had the highest rate of delinquency; whereas adolescents indicating good communication with both the parents had the lowest rate of delinquency. discussion the purpose of this study was to assess how perception of satisfactory maternal and paternal communication is separately, as well in combination, related to adolescent problem behaviors, such as delinquency. first of all a comparative analysis was conducted between delinquent and non-delinquent adolescents regarding their perception of satisfactory communication with their parents. a significant difference between the two groups of adolescents concerning parental communication was observed. both mother and father (perception of) satisfactory communication is poor in delinquent adolescents as compared to their counterparts. these findings are consistent with those of earlier studies conducted by barnes et al., (1994), johnson et al., (1995), clark and shields (1997), liu (2003), musitu ochoa et al. (2007). from the parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 85 sample characteristics it can be observed that the parents of delinquent adolescents are less educated, their number of offspring and as a result there is a higher economic strain in delinquent families as compared to families with non-delinquent adolescents. all these in turn hamper a healthy parent adolescent communication, as parents are not able to spend quality time with their children (rueter & koerner, 2008). according to conger and his colleagues (conger et al., 1992; conger, conger, & elder, 1993; conger, ge, elder, lorenz, & simons, 1994) economic hardship (often tied to parents‟ education level, number of dependents, etc.) is related to a lack of parent-adolescent bond and, in turn, strongly associated with developmental and adjustment problems in the case of adolescents. in the next phase of the study, mother‟s and father‟s separate communication patterns with the delinquent adolescent were studied as well as how they are linked to delinquency. adolescents‟ perception of satisfactory maternal as well as paternal communication was analyzed separately and suggested a significant relationship with delinquency. therefore it can be said that both mother‟s and father‟s perceived satisfactory communication exerts a strong influence on delinquent behavior in the case of adolescents and therefore can also act as a protective factor against delinquency. these findings add to previous research conducted by xiao et al., 2011 (as data were not available in the mentioned study to distinguish between maternal and paternal communication). from the present study it can be further concluded that both parents‟ communication had an interaction effect, which is significant in nature, indicating that if the adolescent receives satisfactory communication from at least one of the parents, then that may result in low levels of delinquency. delinquent behavior is least found when the adolescent perceives satisfactory communication from both the parents. this finding is in line with a study conducted by barnes and olson (1985), in which they found that healthy communication may indicate an overall better relationship between parents and adolescents, which may serve as a protective factor for children against the development of depression and anxiety and engagement in antisocial activities. therefore it can be said that perception of satisfactory communication from both parents is essential, but if the adolescent is having a satisfactory communication level with at least one of the parents, then that can compensate the lack or poor communication with the other parent (compared to the condition where both parents have a poor communication with their children). age was also found to have a significant effect on delinquency. the magnitude of mean score further suggested that delinquency rates are higher in early adolescence europe’s journal of psychology 86 (11 14 years) as compared to late adolescence (15 18 years). when children enter adolescence other people such as peers and romantic partners become more important than parents. it is during this phase when their transition into adulthood begins and they feel independent from their parents and also, due to this sudden „freedom‟ from the stricter rules of childhood, they may get involved in deviant behavior. the present finding is consistent with previous research. there is substantial evidence that the early period of adolescence is associated with problem behaviors such as early sexual activity, delinquency, bullying, truancy, disruptive behavior and violent behavior (caspi, lynam, moffitt, & silva, 1993; cota-robles, neiss, & rowe, 2002; flannery, rowe, & gulley, 1993; graber, lewinsohn, seeley, & brooks-gunn, 1997; haynie, 2003; kaltialaheino, marttunen, rantanen, & rimpela, 2003; obeidallah, brennan, brooks-gunn, & earls, 2004). according to jessor (1984), early adolescence is a period of rapid change, when adolescents are struggling to deal with issues such as identity development, peer group membership, pubertal development and changing social roles. coupled with the earlier mentioned reasons, there seem to be an increased proneness to engage in risky behavior during this stage. therefore, the findings of the present study hold true in a non-western country as well. the interaction effect of age with maternal communication as well as paternal communication was non-significant in nature, indicating that a healthy parent adolescent communication is not only important in the early phase of adolescence, but it is crucial in late adolescence as well (hoeve, dubas, gerris, laan, & smeenk, 2011). finally, individual t-tests were carried out in order to analyze more specifically which combination of parent-adolescent communication is linked to the highest rate of delinquency. these analyses revealed that perception of poor maternal as well as paternal communication is highly linked to delinquency, whereas perception of good maternal and paternal communication is linked to the lowest levels of delinquency. also it was observed that perception of satisfactory mother adolescent communication is more important than father-adolescent communication. this finding is contrary to some previous studies (jacob & johnson, 1997). this rather unexpected finding can be explained on the basis of cultural background of the adolescents in this study. one of the central features of indian family is the centrality of family, where interdependence is very high and each and every family member depends on others. in an indian context the father is usually the bread earner of the family and the mother takes care of the children, she is the first love object in their life and children also depend on their mother for fulfillment of various needs and wishes. in fact this bond continues even in parent–adolescent communication and delinquency 87 adulthood, when the children take the consent of their parents for every major decision. in the absence of this mutual love, the child gets diverted toward delinquency. therefore, good maternal communication and poor paternal communication may trouble the adolescent, but not up to an alarming state due to their mother‟s support, care and love. it seems to act as a buffer against deviant behaviors such as delinquency. in contrast, poor maternal good paternal communication is not an equally protective buffer. so, a healthy mother-adolescent (boy) communication appears to be a stronger more protective factor against delinquency. some important limitations of this study should be noted. first, the sample only included bengali families from an eastern metropolitan city in india. as india is a diverse country, where every region has its own unique culture, the findings of this study may not be generalized to other part of the country. second, this study was conducted only on male adolescents not female adolescents because of the unavailability of female delinquents in the police official records. therefore, future research should be undertaken to extend this research on different sample. third, this study only investigated parent – adolescent interaction and adolescent delinquent behavior and did not examine any other mediating factors, such as communication with siblings or grandparents. moreover, it considered perceived communication rather than observing actual communication processes between parents and adolescents. despite these limitations, the biggest strength of this study is represented by the exploration of perceptions of satisfactory communication with both parent‟s. the current study also contributed to the paucity of research especially in an indian context. furthermore, it focused on the segment of uneducated and poverty stricken mass, who are generally unable to avail wealth and opportunities for holistic growth of their off-spring. it is suggested here that wholesome parent child relationships can be a real antidote against delinquency. also both parents should be equally encouraged to enhance their communication skill with their son in order to develop a positive interpersonal/ social support system within the family. as this help the adolescent to develop a more mature and responsible attitude towards society. hence various awareness programs should be implemented nationwide focused on family-life education. school, community leaders, agencies and organizations are in an ideal position to assist parents not only in improving their communication skills, but also in augmenting their marital and family strengths. europe’s journal of psychology 88 acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the superintendent, mr. supratim sinha (dhrubashram – state government observation and special home) and the respective staff of the institution. they would also like to thank the board members of the juvenile justice board, kolkata, india for giving them permission to visit the 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(1985). adolescent relations with mothers, fathers and friends. chicago: university of chicago press. about the authors tanusree moitra, m.a. (research fellow), doctoral fellow in the department of applied psychology, university of calcutta, india. her major interest is to understand the causes of juvenile delinquency in india. she completed are undergraduate in psychology at delhi university, india. after that she did her master‟s in applied psychology at the university of calcutta. she also completed a certificate course in psychology at northeastern university, boston. usa. currently pursuing her doctoral research from university of calcutta with a national fellowship for her work from the bureau of police research & development, ministry of home affairs, govt. of india on oct‟2009. email: tanusree_moitra@yahoo.co.in indrani mukherjee, ph.d., professor in the department of applied psychology, university of calcutta, india. her major research interests relate to women and adolescentrelated social issues in india. she gained her undergraduate, master‟s and ph.d from the university of calcutta and currently she is been teaching at the university along with being involved in research. email: cal1kol@yahoo.co.in http://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2006.34.10.1297 mailto:tanusree_moitra@yahoo.co.in mailto:cal1kol@yahoo.co.in microsoft word 1st global conference the value of work.doc 1st global conference the value of work friday 5th november – sunday 7th november 2010 prague, czech republic this conference aims to bring together people from a wide range of disciplines, professions and vocations to focus on a fundamental aspect of human life: work. work has pervasive influence on human life. where we live, how we live, how we learn and see the world is strongly shaped by the work we do. since the industrial revolution some of the expected benefits of the implementation of technology, and contemporary management have not been realised. while working hours are generally not what they were in the industrial revolution, actual working hours for many people have not decreased in the last 10-15 years. this is because many people work more than their formally specified hours in order to meet their job requirements. a common feature of contemporary management is an ongoing expectation of ‘doing more with less’. this means many people are working at an increased pace of work, and or are working longer. the shift from more coercive and authoritarian to management to ‘self policing’ where workers individually and collectively internalise responsibility for their work can lead workers to be overly preoccupied with work. work concerns may play on peoples minds 24/7. work may also have detrimental effects on family, our social and national culture, and global cultures. this conference seeks to gain understanding of the nature work and the specific nature of its impacts. it is also seeks perspectives and understanding that break from the logic of how work is often done. in particular what are the possibilities of work that contributes to human flourishing? papers, workshops and presentations are invited on any of the following themes: 1. understanding work 2. the evolution of work 3. harmful work 4. flourishing work 5. regaining fair and valuable work 6. portrayals of work 7. exemplary workers the steering group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by friday 28th may 2010. if an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by friday 24th september 2010. for further details about the conference please visit: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/the-value-of-work/call-forpapers/ emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 99-111 www.ejop.org effect of perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity on fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria owolabi ademola benjamin university of ado-ekiti, nigeria babalola sunday samson university of ibadan, nigeria abstract this paper examines the effect of perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity on fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria. a total of 170 participants were used for the study. they were selected from five branches of commercial banks in ado-ekiti, ekiti state, nigeria. perceived inequality was measured using the perceived inequality in work scale (corey and keyes, 1998), while perceived job insecurity was measured using the job insecurity scale (ashford et al., 1980). fraudulent intent was measured using a self developed scale. results reveal that perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity have a significant effect on employee fraudulent intent. keywords: job insecurity, inequality, fraudulent intention, bank employees, behaviour. introduction there are several types of behaviour that employees engage in that are detrimental to the organisation. these behaviours have been given several names ranging from antisocial, dysfunctional to counterproductive behaviours. these are behaviours that bring or are intended to bring harm to an organisation, its employees, or stakeholders. they may include such acts as arson, blackmail, bribery, sabotage, theft, interpersonal violence and fraud (giacalone and greenberg 1997). spector (1997) has presented a model of antisocial behaviours in which frustration is the center piece. he argued that when an employee is frustrated and dissatisfied with the job the tendency for antisocial behaviour increases. http://www.ejop.org/ fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria 100 antisocial behaviours in organisations has been given several names leading to many related constructs such as workplace aggression, revenge, organization retaliatory behaviour, counterproductive work behaviour, deviance, incivility, bullying and abuse etc. important to note, the literature on this topic has revealed that not all such behaviours are counterproductive or dysfunctional. counterproductive work behaviour counterproductive work behaviour has been defined as any behaviour that violates organisational norms in a way that is harmful to either the organisation itself, to the members of the organisation, or to both (robinson & bennett, 1995). some of these behaviours include theft (hollinger and clark, 1983; wimbush and dalton, 1997), absenteeism (johns, 1997), and various forms of aggression (folger and baron, 1996; greenberg and alge, 1998;). robinson and bennett (1995) have developed a taxonomy of deviant workplace behaviour categorising interpersonal deviance and organisational deviance. from their point of view, organisational deviance includes a) forms of production deviance which are behaviours that violate organisational norms regarding the minimal quantity and quality of work to be accomplished and b) property deviance, which is defined as instances when employees acquire or damage the tangible property or assets of the work organisation without authorization and other behaviours such as stealing from the company and/or sabotaging equipment. interpersonal deviance includes acts of political deviance, which are behaviours defined as social interaction that puts other individuals at a personal or political disadvantage. according to rotundo and sackett (2002), there are three categories of job behaviours that contribute to overall job performance and these include task, citizenship and counterproductive behaviours. of all these job behaviours, counterproductive behaviour has received the least attention perceived inequality one of the variables that has the tendency to increase employee‟s antisocial behaviour is the perception of inequality. equity theory (adams, 1965) focuses on people‟s feelings of how fairly they have been treated in comparison with the treatment received by others. it is based on the belief that people evaluate their relationships at work the same way they evaluate buying and selling such that the value of goods must be equal to what is paid for them. europe’s journal of psychology 101 most exchanges involve a number of inputs and outputs. according to equity theory, people place weight on these various inputs and outputs according to how they perceive their importance. when the ratio of someone‟s total outcome to total input equals the perceived ratio of other people‟s total outcomes to total inputs there is equity. when there is an unequal comparison of ratio, the person experiences a sense of inequality. this perception may be an antecedent attitudinal variable for committing fraud within the organisation (greenberg and alge, 1998). the perception of workplace discrimination or perceived inequality can be accounted for by two factors: first is the actual existence of inequality driving perception and second, the employee‟s awareness of his/her right and sensitivity to unfair treatment. reskin (2000) argued that workplace discrimination or perceived inequality can be explain by social cognition theory. social cognition theory asserts that individuals have the tendency to automatically and unconsciously classify others into two groups in-group and out-group – and that based on this categorisation individual tends to make judgments about fairness or and the treatment they receive. deitch et al. (2003) found that perception of inequality has significant personal and organisational consequences on workers‟ behaviour. pavalko, mossakowski and hamilton (2003) reported in their united states study of sex discrimination at work that perceived inequality predicted both emotional and physical well-being of workers. in an article entitled “retaliation in the workplace: the role of distributive, procedural and international justice”, skarlicki and floger (1997) investigated the relationship between organisational justice and retaliation behaviour. they discovered that when employees perceived inequality in workplace they tended to engage in retaliation behaviour. this is consistent with what equity theory suggests may lead to fraud intent. hollinger and clark (1983) also discovered that when employees felt exploited by the organisation, they were more likely to engage in acts against the organisation, such as theft, as a mechanism to correct the perception of injustice. similarly, greenberg and scott (1996) reported that employee theft was a reaction to underpayment inequity. perceived job insecurity another variable that may lead to counterproductive work behaviour such as fraud is the perception of job insecurity. perceived job insecurity is the perception of employees about how secure their job is; this perception may or may not reflect the fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria 102 actual level of job security. job insecurity is an employee's perception that his or her job is uncertain and may come to an end sooner than expected. from what has been theorised and inferred, it is understandable that job insecurity is highly threatening to employees given the prospect of losing the positive material, social, and psychological benefits associated with employment (de witte, 1999). the notion that job insecurity may produce negative individual-level effects is well established in this period of economic meltdown when downsizing is occurring at an alarming rate. job insecurity among today's employees is not surprising given the competition that businesses endure and the intense pressures to remain profitable. one of the common means of reducing variable costs for organisations is via layoffs (nixon, hitt, lee, & jeong, 2004). each year millions of nigeria workers are terminated by their employers to reduce costs (bureau of labor statistics, 2006). this would be of little concern to firms except that „surviving‟ employees usually react negatively to perceptions of job insecurity. this is particularly true in professional or managerial positions where strategic decision making has a great influence on organisational performance (hitt, bierman, shimizu, & kochhar, 2001). human beings are naturally afraid of what tomorrow holds for them. the belief that the current job may not be available tomorrow creates the impression that each employee must prepare for the raining day to come. research into job insecurity has offered consistent evidence across firms, industries, and countries that job insecurity is associated with negative employee attitudes and behaviours, and negative health outcomes (sverke, hellgren, & naswall, 2002). an attempt to secure tomorrow as a result of perceived job insecurity may be to engage in fraudulent activities, especially when employees also perceived unfair treatment from the organisation. fraudulent intent fraudulent practice is a behaviour that impacts negatively on the stability of an organisation but is highly rewarding for the individuals that perpetrate it. the financial training centre (1990) defined fraud as the general manipulation or retention of information with criminal intent to deprive another party or parties of bonafide privileged, rights, or materials possessing. the nature of fraudulent activities in the banking industry may appear a bit peculiar because of the nature of business operations in these institutions. this is especially so for banking organisations and other financial institutions. because their business centres on money transaction, bank workers appear to have a high proneness to fraudulent activities. europe’s journal of psychology 103 the types of fraud that are common to financial institution include sales fraud this happens when there is an absence of credit control in an organisation giving rise to collusion between a customer and a staff member. it also includes the failure to raise dispatch documentation, thereby allowing goods out of the premises without authorisation, raising false credit notes or generating a reduction in customers‟ debt, as well as illegal access to cash receipts leading to teeming and laden. secondly, purchase fraud occurs as a result of improper control measure on authority for payment leading to false charge from suppliers with the connivance of an employee of the organisation, submission of false invoicing and representation of supporting document. other types of fraud include cheque payment fraud, which occurs when there are lapses in the control and security systems revolving around authorization and forgery. cash payment fraud takes place mainly in the form of presenting fake supporting documents. stock fraud occurs when there is an inadequate internal control system set in place and custody producers in the area of stock records. finally, fixed assets fraud involves manipulation of records to conceal theft, premature scrapping of sales at below market value, converting of company assets for private purposes. the types of fraud described above are not peculiar to banks alone, but extend to other organisations outside the financial sub-sector. fraud could be a group affair as well as an individual act. when a group of people agrees to perpetrate fraud, different causal factors for involvement might be identified leading to different levels of involvement. yet one person usually initiates the moved. depending on the nature of constraint, others are likely to be co-opted to remove obstacles and also benefit from the eventual outcome. it can be presumed that if it were possible for the initiator and master minder to successfully execute fraud without hindrance from others, the individual might go ahead and do it alone. it thus would become an individual affair. with the frightening distress fever that is going through the banking sector as a result of unwholesome behaviour of some bankers, increase in fraud committed through a.t.m. cards in conjunction with bankers and the impact that these may have on the economy, there is a pressing need to investigate factors that may make bank workers prone to fraud. fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria 104 methods participants a total of 170 participants were selected from five banks for the study, comprising 91 males (53.5%) and 79 female (46.5% of the subjects). out of the toal numbers, 88 participants were single (51.7%), while 77 (45.3%) were married. five (2.9%) of the subjects were windows/widowers. 107 (62%) of the participants were christians, 57 (33.5%) were muslims while only 6 (3.5%) belonged to other religions. in term of education qualification, 32 (12.9%) had a qualification lower than b.sc while 148 (87.1%) were graduates (including ican, acca, mba. m.sc). measures perceived inequality was measured using the perceived inequality in work (piwork) scale developed by corey and keyes (1998). this is a six item scale assessing core areas in the perception of individual workers about inequality at the workplace. the scale included items such as „i feel cheated about the chances i have had to work on good jobs‟ „i feel that others respect the work i do at my job‟ „most people have more rewarding jobs than i do‟. the norm for the scale was constructed by considering the mean of the six items in the scale. the alpha value was of .78. an alpha coefficient of .65 was obtained for the revalidation of the scale on nigerian population. job security was measured using the job insecurity scale developed by ashford et al (1980) based on the work of greenhalgh and rosenblatt (1984). the scale is divided into two subscales which include: 1. threat: this subscale is intended to capture the individual‟s perceived total job treat. it consists of ten items relating to future possibility of job loss, retirement and re-employment. the threat subscale includes items such as „i may lose my job and be moved to a lower level in the organisation‟, „my service may no longer be needed and i might be laid off‟, „i may lose my job and get fired‟; 2. perceived powerlessness: this second subscale of job insecurity refers to employee‟s perceived powerlessness. it is a three item scale: „i have power in this organisation to control events that affect my job‟, „in this organisation i can prevent negative things coming out of from my work situation‟, „i understand this organisation well enough to be able to control thing that affect me‟. europe’s journal of psychology 105 an alpha coefficient of .75 was reported by ashford et al (1980) and the reliability was confirmed in a study conducted by revert and yielded a standardised alpha of .71; finally, an alpha of .78 was obtained by owolabi (2003) in a study using the nigeria population. fraudulent intent was measured using a self developed scale. it is a 25 item scale with a likert response ranging between „strongly disagree‟ and „strongly agree‟. the scale includes items such as „i am desperate to achieve my goal‟, „if provoked, i will break the law‟, „stealing organisation property is a means of compensating for injustice‟. strongly disagree was scored 1 while strongly agree was scored 5; a higher score reflect greater fraudulent intentions. an alpha of.72 and split half reliability coefficient of .70 were reported for the scale. procedure five banks were randomly selected from among the banks in ado-ekiti, ekiti state nigeria. the banks will be refered to here as a, b, c, d, and e to avoid identification. the three scales were combined to form a single questionnaire which was distributed through the bank secretaries after establishing a rapport. out of 200 distributed questionnaires, only 170 were properly filled and fit for data analysis. due to the busy schedule of bankers it took a total of two weeks for the questionnaires to be totally retrieved back for data analysis. results data analyses were done using two statistical methods. first, analyses of variance were computed to test the effect of the two variables on fraudulent intent. secondly, a t-test was computed to test for sex differences on both the independent and dependent variables. the mean scores were also computed to show the direction of the result. table 1: mean scores for perceived inequality, perceived insecurity and fraudulent intent along banks variable bank a bank b bank c bank d bank e perceived inequality 16.05 12 13.8 17.30 18.88 perceived insecurity 14.2 9.06 14.6 16.20 20.14 fraudulent intent 12.48 8.46 12.01 15.6 16.8 fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria 106 table 2: an anova showing the effect of perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity on fraudulent intent of bank employees variable ss df ms f p pi (a) 314.7 1 314.7 2.53 >.05 ji (b) 2741.7 1 2741.7 22.02 >.01 a x b 510.3 1 510.3 6.10 >.05 errol 20168.23 164 124.49 total 26365.18 168 key: pi = perceived inequality; ji = job insecurity from table 2 we can conclude that there is a significant main effect of perceived inequality on fraudulent intent (f 1,168 = 2.53 p > .05) i.e. when employees perceive that they are not fairly treated the tendency to engage in fraudulent acts is high. it also revealed that perception of job insecurity has a significant main effect on fraudulent intent (f 1,168 = 22.02 p > .01). this means that the feeling that one‟s job is threatened is a factor that can lead people to fraudulent act. finally, the results show the perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity have an interaction effect on fraudulent intent (f 1,168 = 6.10 p > .05). also, looking at the means in table 1, the bank with the highest mean score for perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity (bank e) also has the highest mean score for fraudulent intent. the bank with the least mean score for perceived insecurity (bank b) also has the least mean score for fraudulent intent. table 3: mean scores of perceived inequality, perceived insecurity and fraudulent intent classified by gender gender inequality insecurity fraud intent total n male 64.5 67.4 52.6 56.53 91 female 60.6 65.5 68.7 41.6 79 table 4: differences in perceived inequality, perceived job insecurity and fraudulent intent by gender sex n x sd df t p perceived inequality male 91 64.5 11.66 178 1.76 >.05 female 79 60.6 13.19 perceived insecurity male 91 67.4 10.8 178 1.40 >.05 female 79 65.5 9.12 fraudulent intent male 91 36.7 6.88 178 1.10 >.05 female 79 32 5.92 europe’s journal of psychology 107 from table 4 presenting the results of independent t-tests, it becomes clear that there is no significant effect of gender on perceived inequality, perceived job insecurity and fraudulent intent of bank workers. table 5: differences in fraudulent intent by age and tenure source n x st df t p fraudulent intent old 56 42.68 4.62 168 4.36 >.05 young 114 52.04 7.64 long tenure 68 41.20 3.68 168 1.84 <.05 short tenure 102 40.51 3.12 from the table 5 it can be observed that there is a significant effect of age on fraudulent intent t(168) = 4.36 p> .05); the mean score revealed that young employees (ages between 18 and 30) have greater fraudulent intent than older employees (ages between 31 and 60). the result also revealed that there is no significant effect of tenure on fraudulent intent. discussion this study investigated the effect of perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity on fraudulent intent of bank employees. as it was hypothesised, when employee perceived that they are not fairly treated and also perceived that their job is not secured, the tendency to commit fraud increases. employees generally have feelings and psychological needs which they expect the employer to help fulfilled. when they perceived that those needs are under treat or they feel that the organisation may not help in fulfilling these needs, it may results in employee directing their attention towards the fulfilment of such needs from other means including illegal ones. perceived inequality, for example may create feelings of rejection, feelings of worthlessness, feelings of not been valued. these feelings may reduce employee‟s commitment to the goals and aspirations of the organisation, thereby increasing the tendency to engage in fraudulent acts. this result is convergent with that from the haris and benson (1998) study in which they examined the problems surrounding home thefts. in a survey research of six nursing homes, they found that factors like job dissatisfaction, perceived inequality and negative attitudes towards patients were increasing theft. also hollinger and clark (1993) examined the contribution of organisational support to fraudulent intent fraudulent intent of bank employees in nigeria 108 in a survey of about 5000 people employed in three business sectors; they reported that when employees felt exploited by the organizations, they were more likely to engage in acts against the organisation such as theft as a mechanism to correct perceptions of injustice. according to goulder (1960), the norm of reciprocity obligates people to respond positively to favourable treatment and respond negatively to treatments that are not favourable. roussan (1989) added that many employees believe that they and their organisation have a reciprocal obligation that exceeds formal responsibilities by both parties. this is reflects the belief that the „psychological contract‟ between employee and firm will be respected. however, just as employees will reciprocate perceived fair exchange so they will also reciprocate unfair exchange. it has been argued by folger and baron (1996) that if organisational decisions and managerial action are deemed unfair or unjust, the affected employees experience feelings of anger and resentment. this can elicit a desire for retribution and the dissatisfied employee experiences a need to punish those blamed for or perceived as the problem. one of the ways an employee might choice as a reaction to unjust treatment is, as we have argued here, by engaging in fraud. work is central to human existence: it provides both social economic and psychological benefits. any feeling or perception that suggests that employees‟ opportunity to work and satisfying those needs is threatened may not be received with calm resignation. it is on the basis of this that individuals who negotiate for jobs make haste to ascertain that its security is guaranteed. if there is a psychological feelings that the job is not secure, employees would likely make up for the expected lost. job loss connotes withdrawal of income. unemployment rate is very high in nigeria to the extent that there are graduates of five years who are still unemployed. losing one‟s job definitely means staying unemployed for several months or years except if you are buoyant enough to start a business of your own. with this on the mind of an employee, job loss may mean staying unemployed for years. an employee whose job is under threat might want to increase savings for the period of unemployment; one of the easiest means of increasing savings for the raining day that is easily available to employees may be fraud. our results also revealed that age has a significant effect on fraudulent intent, with older employees showing lesser intention to commit fraud. this might be as a result of the fact that employees who are older believe that they have put in substantial number of years and feel the need not to lose their effort. it could also be that the number of years spent in the organisation might have increase the level of europe’s journal of psychology 109 commitment of this set of employees. the young employees who are still full of a sense of adventure believe that they can take the risk and whatever happens there is still a long future ahead of them. obviously, both perceived inequality and perceived job insecurity yield insights into the dynamics of counterproductive work behaviours, especially organisational theft or fraudulent activities. it is therefore imperative for managers of organisations to pay critical attention to perceived inequality of treatment by workers and their sense of job insecurity so as to reduce the rate of counterproductive work behaviours, especially in the form of fraudulent activities within the organisation. limitations of the study this study should be considered in light of several important limitations. first, the study would have benefited from the inclusion of other variables that may have significant effects on fraudulent intent. the two independent variables examined are not the only factors which may account for fraudulent intention. second, the present sample was not representative of bankers in nigeria, participants were only those who were willing to participate (convenience sampling). third, the setting is in one state out of the thirty-six states in nigeria and this limits the possibilities of generalising from the data. a fourth limitation is the reliance on self report measures which are vulnerable to social desirability effects and finally it is the intention to commit fraud that was measured and not actual fraud; intention may not totally predict behaviour. references adams, j.s. 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(1995). a typology of deviant workplace behaviors: a multidimensional scaling study. academy of management journal, 38(2), 555-572 rousseau, s and parks p (1963) organization equity perception, employee job satisfaction and departmental absent and turnover rates. organizational europe’s journal of psychology 111 behaviour and human performance, 24, 29-40. rotundo, m., & sackett, p. r. (2002). the relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: a policy capturing approach. journal of applied psychology, 87(1), 66-80. skarlicki, d.p and folger, r. (1997) retaliation in the workplace: the role of distributive, procedural and interactional justice. journal of applied psychology, 82, 434-443 sullivian,v (1998). management and motivation. penguin books london. sverke, m., hellgren, j. and näswall, k. (2002). no security: a meta-analysis and review of job insecurity and its consequences. journal of occupational health psychology, 7, 242-264 wimbush, j. c. and dalton, d. r. (1997). base rate for employee theft: convergence of multiple methods. journal of applied psychology, 82(5), 756-763 about the authors: owolabi ademola benjamin, phd, is an industrial organizational psychologist and a lecturer in department of psychology, university of ado ekiti, nigeria. his research interest is majorly in the area of organizational effectiveness and consumer behavior with special interest in advertising. he has published several articles in these areas both locally and internationally. he has also presented papers at international conferences bothering on the above mention area of psychology. he is a member of the america psychological association. address for correspondence: owolabi ademola benjamin, department of psychology, university of ado ekiti, ekiti state, 5363, nigeria e-mail: labdem2005@yahoo.ca babalola sunday samson phd is a senior lecturer in the department of psychology, university of ibadan. as an industrial organizational psychologist, his major area of interest is work attitude. he has published several articles in this area both locally and internationally. he has also presented papers at international conferences on work attitude. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 664 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 664-685 www.ejop.org relation between human resource development climate and employee engagement: results from india richa chaudhary santosh rangnekar mukesh barua department of management studies, indian institute of technology abstract in a recent analysis (july 29, 2010) hewitt associates have reported a steady decline in the global employee engagement levels. according to the report this is the largest drop in the engagement levels that has been observed in the past 15 years. this clearly highlights the need for some concrete mechanism to improve the engagement levels of the employees in organizations. in response to the dire need for organizations to increase engagement levels of employees, the importance of the human resource development (hrd) climate cannot be overlooked. the purpose of this study is to explore the impact of hrd climate on employee engagement in select business organizations in indian. an attempt is made to closely examine the interrelationship between factors of hrd climate and employee engagement. the study was conducted on 85 business executives from both private and public sector manufacturing and service firms in india. data was analyzed using correlation and regression analysis. the results of the study revealed that the general climate dimension of hrd climate was the most significant predictor of employee engagement followed by the hrd mechanism dimension. thus, by studying hrd climate and employee engagement together, this paper makes a significant contribution to the existing dearth of academic literature on employee engagement and hrd climate in an indian context. keywords: hrd, hrd climate, employee engagement, vigor, dedication. in the new economy human capital is the foundation for value creation (becker et al., 2001). the human capital perspective considers human competencies as one of the most important resources available to the organizations. various models of hrd http://www.ejop.org/ human resource development climate and employee engagement 665 have been proposed which specify various practices which can help organizations gain a competitive advantage through the accumulation of human capital (degeus, 1997; mccracken and wallace, 1997). according to these models, investment in hrd by organizations and individuals is crucial to build and retain that resource in the future. so, organizations seek to develop employee competencies through sophisticated human resource development strategies (losey, 1999; spangenberg, schroder, & duvenge, 1999). employee engagement has emerged as one way for organizations to measure their investment in human capital; it is a further alternative to measuring employee commitment to the organization and as a way of creating a more effective workplace (echols, 2005). in the current economic climate, the employees‟ psychological connection with their work is certainly a key to compete effectively. the organizations are in need of employees who are engaged with their work (bakker & leiter, 2010). there is substantial amount of research evidence to demonstrate the importance of engagement for bottom line outcomes such as job performance (bakker & bal, 2010; halbesleben & wheeler, 2008), client satisfaction (salanova, agut, & peiro, 2005), and financial returns (xanthopoulou, bakker, demerouti, & schaufeli, 2009b). with the increasing importance of the employee engagement being highlighted, researchers are now increasingly focusing on what exactly causes employee engagement and how can it be enhanced. however, it is disappointing to see that little research has been undertaken in this direction; identifying the antecedents of employee engagement needs to attract considerably more attention. employee engagement employee engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. rather than a momentary and specific state, engagement refers to a more persistent and pervasive affectivecognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behavior. vigor is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one‟s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties. dedication refers to being strongly involved in one's work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. absorption, is characterized by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one‟s work, whereby time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work (schaufeli et al., 2002). human resource development, climate and employee engagement 666 the chartered institute of personnel and development (cipd)annual survey report (2006) defines engagement in terms of three dimensions of employee engagement: emotional engagement – being very involved emotionally in one‟s work; cognitive engagement – focusing very hard whilst at work; and physical engagement – being willing to „go the extra mile‟ for your employer. engagement has been shown to be a unique concept which is positively related to, but is reported to be distinct from, other organizational constructs like organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior (robinson et al.,2004), job involvement (may et al., 2004; hallberg & schaufeli, 2006; saks,2006), workaholism (schaufeli et al.,2002). some studies have reported job characteristics, perceived organizational support, organizational justice, rewards and recognitions (saks, 2006) various job (halbesleben, 2010) and personal resources (self efficacy, optimism etc) (xanthopoulou et al., 2007) as the antecedents of employee engagement. these studies have focused on the various isolated elements of work environment or the personal resources. however, it could be interesting to see how the overall development climate in the organizations influences the employee engagement. the present study attempts to address this interesting issue and the shortage of research on the antecedents of engagement by exploring the relationship between hrd climate and employee engagement on an indian sample. hrd climate in order to be successful in a dynamic and competitive business environment, organizations need to continuously anticipate, innovate and adapt. only by ensuring the dynamism and growth of its employees can any organization successfully cope with the changes. in such a fast changing technology-oriented world, knowledge is the only source of competitive advantage, and this is embodied in the company‟s employees. in this context, human resource development has a central role to play in promoting and supporting the development of a learning environment to create and nurture knowledge. hrd efforts are directed towards the release of the human potential in individuals, groups and organizations through learning experiences that result from planned and organized training, education and development activities. the term hrd was first introduced in 1969 by leonard nadler. he defined hrd as those learning experiences which are organized for a specific time and designed to bring about the possibility of behavioral change. all the hrd activities of an organization are directed towards the development and human resource development climate and employee engagement 667 improvement in the performance of the human resource. for the effective implementation of hrd functions a general supportive climate is required. it is the hrd culture which facilitates effective implementation of hr systems so the development and management of a congenial hrd climate is a must (krishnaveni, 2008). the hrd climate of an organization plays an important role in ensuring the competency, motivation and development of its employees (patel, 2005). hrd climate results in the development of both employee competence and commitment (rao, 1999). hrd climate was found to correlate positively with organizational effectiveness and productivity (jain, singhal and singh, 1997). in a study conducted by rohmetra in 1998, job satisfaction was positively associated with hrd climate. a positive relationship was reported between hrd climate and job satisfaction, attitude and role efficacy (kumar and patnaik, 2002). also krishnaveni and ramkumar (2006) in their study titled “impact of developmental climate on individual‟s behavior in organizations” which reported hrd climate to be associated positively with the level of role satisfaction of individuals in the organization. purang in her paper titled “hrd climate: comparative analysis of public, private and multinational organizations” reported hrd climate perception of employees in private and multinational organizations to be significantly better in comparison to public sector organizations (purang, 2006). no significant difference in the perception of hrd climate was found between the knowledge workers in an engineering institute and a public sector organization (rodrigues, 2005). the existence of favorable hrd climate was reported in a study on private sector undertaking in india (venkateswaran, 1997). also famina (2009) in a research on south asian public sector organization, kerala state financing enterprise, concluded the overall hrd climate level to be satisfactory. however, in a study on hrd climate in a medical hospital in j&k the hrd climate was reported to be significantly poor (mufeed, 2006). the hrd climate survey developed by t. v. rao and e. abraham has conceptualized hrd climate under three dimensions of a) general climate, b) octapac culture and c) implementation of hrd mechanisms. the general climate deals with the importance given to human resources development in general by the top management and line managers. the octapac items deal with the extent to which openness, confrontation, trust, autonomy, proactivity, authenticity and collaboration are valued and promoted in the organization. openness is there when employees feel free to discuss their ideas, activities and feelings with each other. confrontation is bringing out problems and issues in the open with a view to solving them rather than hiding them for fear of hurting or getting hurt. trust is taking people at their face value and believing what they say. autonomy is giving freedom to let human resource development, climate and employee engagement 668 people work independently with responsibility. proactivity is encouraging employees to take the initiative and associated risks. authenticity is the tendency on the part of people to do what they say. collaboration is to accept interdependencies, to be helpful to each other and work as teams. the hrd mechanisms measure the extent to which hrd mechanisms are implemented seriously. these mechanisms include performance appraisal, potential appraisal, career planning, performance rewards, feedback and counseling, training, employee welfare for quality work-life and job rotation (rao & abraham 1986). employee engagement and hrd climate the theoretical base of the study draws on the job-demand–resource (jd–r) model (demerouti, bakker, nachreiner, & schaufeli, 2001; salanova et al., 2005; schaufeli & bakker, 2004). according to this model the work environment can be categorized into job demands and job resources which relate differently to well being and attitudinal outcomes (bakker et al., 2003, 2005; demerouti et al., 2001; hakanen et al., 2006; llorens et al., 2006; salanova et al., 2005; schaufeli & bakker, 2004; bakker & demerouti 2007). a large number of studies have shown job resources like autonomy, social support, supervisory coaching, performance feedback, participation in decision making and opportunities for learning, training, professional development, to relate positively with employee engagement (hakanen, bakker, & schaufeli, 2006; saks, 2006; xanthopoulou et al., 2007, bakker et al., 2003; demerouti et al., 2001). for instance, in a study on finnish teachers, job resources such as job control, supervisory support and good organizational climate were reported to be positively associated with work engagement (hakanen, bakker, schaufeli, 2006). in addition, bakker, hakanen, demerouti & xanthopoulou (2007) in a study among finnish school teachers reported that supervisory support, positive appreciation, collaborative organizational climate, and innovative problem solving correlated positively with engagement. robinson, perryman & hayday (2004) reported that the employees who have a personal development plan and who receive annual formal performance appraisal have significantly higher engagement levels than those who do not. lau & may (1998) suggested that companies with a higher quality of work environment (e.g., opportunity for career growth, a culture of support and openness) tend to have higher profits and business success compared to companies with a poor quality of work environment. studies have also demonstrated the importance of a climate of trust for positive workplace behaviours and attitudes (dirks & ferrin, 2002). from the above evidence it can be concluded that a favourable hrd climate no doubt is an important organizational resource which can have a human resource development climate and employee engagement 669 significant impact on the engagement level of employees. thus, building on jd-r model we argue that when employees perceive that their organization provides a climate conducive for their growth and development (which is one of their psychological needs) they are more likely to respond by investing time and energy and by being psychologically involved in the work (bakker & bal, 2010). thus the work environment has the potential to influence employee engagement levels. the study has three main objectives: 1). to study the employee engagement level of employees in a number of business organizations. 2). to examine the hrd climate existing in the business organizations understudy. 3). to study the impact of hrd climate and its dimensions on employee engagement. the three objectives are exploratory in nature and we advance one hypothesis with regard to objective 3 based on the theoretical framework of jd-r model and the above literature review: hrd climate will relate positively to employee engagement. method participants the target population of the present study was comprised of middle and senior level business executives from select business organizations in india. a total of 85 employees from both public and private sector manufacturing and service organizations of india participated in the study. a total of 100 employees from different organizations were approached out of which 87 responded to the questionnaire. two of the questionnaires were not found suitable due to incomplete information and hence were removed, resulting in 85 usable responses. the information was collected during nov 2010 jan 2011. the questionnaires were given to the employees taking into consideration their availability and interest to respond the questionnaire. some of the responses were collected through online questionnaire and email. average age and average experience of the sample were found to be 31.88 yrs and 6.59 yrs respectively. the sample consisted of 67 males (78.82%) and 18 females (21.17%) aged between 21yrs to 50 years (mean=31.88, s.d=7.68). education levels of sample varied: undergraduates 42 (49.41%) to postgraduates 43 (50.58%). the work experience profile of the sample was: less than 5 years (55.29%), between 5years 10years (20%) and above 10 years (24.7%). human resource development, climate and employee engagement 670 measures employee engagement (ee) was measured using the utrecht work engagement scale (uwes) developed by schaufeli et al. (2002). the scale consists of three subscales; absorption (six items, e.g., “i am immersed in my work”, “when i am working, i forget everything else around me”), vigor (six items, e.g., “at my job i feel strong and vigorous”, “when i get up in the morning, i feel like going to work”), and dedication (five items, e.g., “my job inspires me”, “i am enthusiastic about my job”). for the present study cronbach alpha value for the scale was found to be .80 which is well above the acceptable level of .70. all the 17 items were rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 =strongly agree). since the factor analysis did not result in a clear factor structure, a composite work engagement score was used for regression analysis. this is consistent with the recommendations of schaufeli et al. (2006) where the total score on uwes was recommended as the indicator of engagement for all practical purpose. hrd climate was measured using the 38 items hrd climate survey instrument by rao and abraham (1986). the authors have categorized the scale items under the three dimensions of a) general climate (sample items: “the top management believes that human resources are an extremely important resource and that they have to be treated more humanly”, “the top management is willing to invest a considerable part of their time and other resources to ensure the development of employees”), b) octapace culture (sample items: “people in this organization are helpful to each other”, “people trust each other in this organization”) and c) hrd mechanisms (sample items: “employees are sponsored for training programmes on the basis of genuine training needs”, “performance appraisal reports in our organization are based on objective assessment and adequate information and not on favoritism”) as defined earlier for the ease of interpretation without losing the explanatory power. the hrd climate questionnaire uses a five-point scale (almost always true, mostly true, sometimes true, rarely true and not at all true), average scores of 3 and around indicate a moderate tendency on that dimension existing in the organization. scores around 4 indicate a fairly good degree of that dimension existing in the organization. in order to make interpretations easy the mean scores can be converted into percentage scores using the formula percentage score = (mean score-1) x 25. this assumes that a score of 1 represents 0 per cent, 2 represents 25 per cent, 3 represents 50 per cent, 4 represents 75 per cent and 5 represents 100 per cent. thus, percentage scores indicate the degree to which the particular dimension exists in that company out of the ideal 100. in the present study the reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be .88. human resource development climate and employee engagement 671 results employee engagement the average score of employee engagement was found to be 3.69 (see table1), which indicates the existence of a considerable (above average) level of engagement for the employees in the organizations under study. however there is substantial scope for improvement. this may be because of the low scores on the vigor and absorption dimensions. out of the three dimensions, dedication was found to have the highest average mean score of 3.85, followed by vigor with average mean score of 3.66 (see table1). if we go for the item-wise analysis of means “i find the work that i do full of meaning and purpose” scored highest (3.94) and “when i am working, i forget everything else around me” scored the lowest with the average mean score of 3.36 which clearly highlights the high dedication level of executives in relation to their work. also, these are the items which contributed to the highest score on the dedication dimension and to lowest score on the absorption dimension. variable mean scores employee engagement 3.69 vigor 3.65 dedication 3.85 absorption 3.6 table1: employee engagement hrd climate the average mean score of the hrd climate was found to be 3.61 (65.25%) for the organizations under study which is at the moderate level (above average), leaving huge scope for improvement. variable mean scores hrd climate 3.61 general hrd climate 3.6 octapac culture 3.5 hrd mechanism 3.73 table 2: hrd climate human resource development, climate and employee engagement 672 of the three dimensions of hrd climate, the mean average score of “the successful implementation of hrd mechanisms” (3.73) was found to be highest followed by general hrd climate with mean average score of 3.60 (see table 2). thus, hrd mechanisms dimension is more prevalent than the other two. out of the three dimensions of hrd climate, octapac culture was found to have the lowest average mean score of 3.48 (62%). again if we look at the item-wise analysis of the 38 items of the hrd climate questionnaire, “the top management believes that human resources are an extremely important resource and that they have to be treated more humanly” was found to have the highest average mean score of 4.01 and “employees in this organization are very informal and do not hesitate to discuss their personal problems with their supervisors” scored the lowest with the average mean score of 3.28. relationship between hrd climate and employee engagement correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationship between engagement level and hrd climate in the organizations. table 3 shows that a significant and positive correlation exists between these two variables (r=.669, p<.01). therefore, it makes it clear that higher scores on developmental climate of the organization are associated with higher employee engagement score. also from the table 3 it can be seen that hrd climate correlates positively with all the three dimensions of employee engagement. hrd climate correlates most highly with the vigor dimension of engagement (r=.626, p<.01), followed by absorption (r=.591, p<.01) from table 3 it can also be noticed that out of the three dimensions of hrd climate, general climate dimension correlated most highly with employee engagement (r=.659, p<.01), suggesting that the top management and line manager‟s commitment to development of human resources have the highest potential to influence employee engagement followed by successful implementation of hrd mechanisms (r=.613, p<.01). human resource development climate and employee engagement 673 variables mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1.general climate 46.84 6.53 (.768) 2.octapace culture 38.35 5.83 .566** (.712) 3.hrd mechanisms 52.29 6.26 .706** .661** (.715) 4. hrd climate 137.49 16.29 .876** .840** .905** (.881) 5.vigor 21.92 3.51 .628** .473** .532** .626** (.534) 6.dedication 19.25 2.82 .497** .301** .533** .512** .544** (.537) 7.absorption 21.62 3.51 .571** .430** .539** .591** .722** .580** (.560) 8.employee engagement 62.81 8.57 .659** .472** .613** .669** .891** .790** .901** (.80) note: **correlation is significant at .01 level (2-tailed), values in the parenthesis represent the reliability values. table 3: mean standard deviation and intercorrelations of study variables impact of hrd climate on employee engagement from the correlation analysis it was clear that hrd climate relates positively to employee engagement. now, in order to know how much variance in engagement is explained by hrd climate dimensions a stepwise regression analysis was performed. in the stepwise regression model the order of entry of predictor variables is based solely on statistical criteria. as the authors were unsure about the relative predictive power of the independent variables, stepwise regression analysis was found to be the most appropriate statistical technique (ho, 2006). here, statistical regression was accomplished using the backward deletion method, where the equation starts out with all the independent variables entered in the model. each variable is then evaluated one at a time, in terms of its contribution to the regression equation. those variables that do not contribute significantly are deleted (ho, 2006). it can be seen from the table 4 below that 45.9% of the variation in employee engagement is explained by all the three dimensions together i.e. general climate, octapac culture and hrd mechanism with f value=24.79, p<.01. since the standardized beta coefficient in case of octapac culture was found to be insignificant (see table 4), as a part of the procedure it was removed from the regression equation in the second step so as obtain a more parsimonious model. human resource development, climate and employee engagement 674 dependent variable independent variable r square adjusted r square f-value standardized beta value step1: work engagement general climate 0.479 0.459 24.79 .443** octapac culture .041 hrd mechanism .273* step2: work engagement general climate .451** hrd mechanism 0.478 0.465 37.51 .295* note: **pvalue is significant at .01level, *pvalue is significant at .05level table 4: stepwise regression analysis with employee engagement as dependent variable and dimensions of hrd climate as independent variables in the second step, after excluding the octapac culture from the regression equation, the predictive ability of the model increased and the adjusted r square value augmented from .459 to .465 in the second step i.e., general climate and hrd mechanisms together explain 46.5% of the variation in employee engagement with f value=37.51, p<.01. thus it can be concluded that hrd climate is a significant predictor of employee engagement and general climate and successful implementation of hrd mechanisms are the most significant dimensions of hrd climate influencing engagement level of employees. discussion thus it is the lack of energy, mental resilience at work, willingness to put extra efforts in one‟s work, persistence in the face of difficulties and low concentration level of employees in their work which is contributing to the lower engagement level of employees. this might be because vigor and dedication are considered to be the core dimensions of engagement which are just opposites of exhaustion and cynicism, the two core dimensions of burnout (green, walkey and taylor, 1991; maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996; schaufeli & enzmann, 1998). in contrast to it, the concept of absorption is more similar to the concept of flow (csikszentmihalyi, 1990) which according to salanova et al. (2003) is an outcome of engagement and not its component. though there is wide agreement on the two core dimensions of engagement – energy and involvement/identification, both of which are present in the utrecht work engagement scale (uwes; schaufeli & bakker, 2010; schaufeli et al., 2002) – more research is needed to determine if absorption is a core dimension of employee engagement or just an outcome of it (bakker et al., 2010). these findings are in congruence with the findings of mauno et al. (2007) where health care workers were reported to experience less absorption than vigor and dedication. this study also reported that the group of professional workers experienced dedication human resource development climate and employee engagement 675 more often than the group of non professionals which provides support for our findings as the target population here is comprised of managers in select business organizations in india. the fact that the octapace culture dimension of hrd climate had the lowest score implies a certain lack of openness, collaboration, trust, autonomy, authenticity, proactivity, authenticity, confrontation and experimentation in the organizations under study. however this is in contrast to the findings of a hrd climate study on 18 indian manufacturing companies where the octapac culture dimension was found to have the highest mean score (3.51) followed by hrd mechanism (3.49) and general hrd climate (3.48) i.e. the octapac culture dimension was found to be more prevalent than general hrd climate and hrd mechanisms. also the total hrd climate score was reported to be 3.49 for indian manufacturing organizations (srimannarayan, 2009). this difference in the scores hrd climate and its dimensions could be due to the difference in the nature of industries as the present study also included service organizations in addition to the manufacturing firms. the findings of the study are similar to the findings of mishra & bhardwaj (2002) where moderate (62%) hrd climate was reported in a research on private sector managers. also srimannarayan in a study on hrd climate in 42 organizations which included manufacturing, service and organizations from it sector in india reported moderate level of hrd climate (59.61%). in this study octapac culture was reported to have a greater mean scores than the other two dimensions (srimannarayan, 2008). in the present study the hrd climate was found to correlate positively with employee engagement. also, it explained 44.1% of the variation in the engagement level of employees. this could be due to the fact that job resources act a source of internal motivation resulting in the satisfaction of an employee‟s basic needs such as the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (deci & ryan, 1985; ryan & frederick, 1997; van den broeck, vansteenkiste, de witte, & lens, 2008). a favorable hrd climate will foster the learning, growth and development of the employees. a work environment where there is adequate support and commitment of the top management towards the development of the employees and where various hrd mechanisms like performance appraisal, potential appraisal, career development, welfare measures etc. are fairly and successfully implemented will enhance the willingness to dedicate efforts and abilities to achieve work goals (meijman & mulder, 1998). this will ultimately result in an increase in employee engagement levels. to improve the engagement level of employees, an atmosphere of trust and openness should be created where they can freely discuss their problems and ideas with their colleagues and superiors and come out with innovative ways of solving various problems facing the organization. also providing employees with a platform where human resource development, climate and employee engagement 676 their weakness and strengths can be identified and appropriate actions taken to enhance their strength and overcome their weakness through proper training and development programs will help having employees more engaged with their work. performance appraisal and feedback fosters learning and helps to improve performance. taking care of the career development of employees and providing them with adequate support makes employees realize that the organization is concerned with their growth and development which according to social exchange theory will result in a greater engagement level on their part. this is because the employees feel obliged to respond in kind and repay the organization through their engagement level (saks, 2006). the findings of the study are in congruence with many research studies where various job resources i.e. physical, psychological, social and organizational aspects of the job like supervisory support, autonomy, feedback and social climate etc. were reported to relate positively with employee engagement (bakker & demerouti, 2007; hakanen, bakker & schaufeli, 2006; xanthopoulou et al., 2007; bakker et al., 2003; demerouti et al., 2001, friedman, 1991; kremer-hayon & kurtz, 1985). also saks (2006) reported perceived organizational and supervisory support to be significant antecedents of employee engagement. schaufeli and salanova (2007) suggested that one of the keys for keeping employees engaged is to develop them continually throughout their careers which clearly highlights the importance of a developmental climate for the building an engaged workforce. also gruman & saks (2010) highlighted the importance of fairness and justice in implementation of performance appraisal process in enhancing the engagement level of employees. this study also reported successful and fair implementation of hrd mechanism to be a significant predictor of employee engagement. the results of the study are supported as well by the findings of a study on ngos in south india where hrd climate was found to correlate positively with employee engagement and it also predicted it significantly with 31% determination. managerial implications the study was conducted to analyze the impact of human resource development climate on employee engagement. the findings of the study provide support for the assumed hypothesis that hrd climate will correlate positively and will significantly predict employee engagement. thus in order to improve the engagement level of the employees, hr departments should attempt to improve the hrd climate of their organizations specially the support from top management and line managers and through fair and successful implementation of the hrd mechanisms like career human resource development climate and employee engagement 677 planning, performance appraisal, training, job rotation and potential appraisal as these two dimensions of hrd climate were found to most significantly predict employee engagement as shown by the stepwise regression analysis. fair performance appraisal and feedback should be provided to the employees fostering learning and growth of employees. appreciating good performance helps boost up the confidence of employees and enhances their motivational level resulting in them giving their heart and soul to work resulting in enhanced engagement levels. since the hrd climate was found to be moderately favorable there is need to improve the hrd climate in the organizations under study. the octapac culture dimension of hrd climate was found to score the lowest implying the need to create a culture of openness, trust, collaboration, autonomy, confrontation. this is shown in a study on school teachers and principals where increase trust in the principal resulted in improved performance, increased identification with school and enhanced engagement (chughtai & buckle, 2009). this highlights the importance trust can play in improving the engagement level and ultimately the business performance. thus a climate promoting trust and openness should be developed. when analyzing item-wise responses, the statement “employees in this organization are very informal and do not hesitate to discuss their personal problems with their supervisors” was found to have the lowest mean score (3.28) which clearly has an implication for the managers to improve the communication with the employees and increase their openness so that they can discuss their problems freely with their supervisors without any hesitation or fear. also the score on the statement “employees are encouraged to experiment with new methods and try out creative ideas” was found to be low which clearly suggests the need to give more autonomy and freedom to the employees so that they can experiment with their creative ideas which will ultimately result in innovations and better performance of the firm. limitations and scope for future research like all other research studies this study is also not free of limitations. first, all the measures were based on self-reports thus causing a concern for common method bias (i.e., bias resulting from shared variance in the measurement that is attributed to the instrumentation rather than to the association between the constructs). also the present study included only cross-sectional information on the relationships between human resource development climate and engagement. longitudinal and experimental studies should be undertaken in this direction to establish the cause and effect relationship between the studies variables. the present study analyzed human resource development, climate and employee engagement 678 the impact of hrd climate on employee engagement though there are many other variables which may influence the engagement level of employees. using more variables can also reveal certain interaction effects and the capacity of one variable to moderate the effect of others. also the study did not control for the effects of demographic variables which can have their role in influencing engagement among workers. so future studies should focus on the role of demographic variables as well. the study considered the impact of only organizational level variables on employee engagement although in the literature personal factors are also found to be significant predictors of various job attitudes and behaviors. thus a research can be made to study the impact of both the personal, job related variables and the various demographic variables on employee engagement. also the nature of industries can be varied and sample size increased to improve the generalization of the results. the present investigation only considered the unidirectional relationship between the study variables. however, recent researches have reported the reciprocal relationships between job resources and employee engagement (eg. xanthopoulou et al., 2009a). future studies should attempt to test the dynamics of the relationship between hrd climate, and employee engagement in an indian context and beyond. again the mechanism underlying the relationship between climate and engagement is not clear, which should be addressed by future research. thus the scope is wide open for future studies to explore several of the issues which remain unaddressed here. conclusion the study was carried to examine the impact of hrd climate and its various dimensions on engagement level of employees. the results of the study showed that both hrd climate and employee engagement in the organizations under study were at a moderate level. the correlation analysis of the study variables revealed that hrd climate and all its dimensions were positively and significantly correlated with employee engagement. of the three dimensions of hrd climate, general hrd climate and hrd mechanisms were found to be most significant variables in terms of their impact on engagement as revealed by the stepwise regression analysis. though these two dimensions are significant in terms of their impact on employee engagement, octapac culture‟s impact was found be insignificant. the overall impact of hrd climate was significant on engagement level of employees. it accounted for 44.1% of the variation in engagement. this study represents a pioneer effort to study the impact of human resource development climate on the engagement level of employees. thus this study makes a significant contribution to human resource development climate and employee engagement 679 the scarce literature available on employee engagement and human resource development climate in an indian context. references: bakker, a. b., & bal, m. 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(2009b). work engagement and financial returns: a diary study on the role of job and personal resources. journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 82, 183–200. human resource development climate and employee engagement 685 about the authors: richa chaudhary, mba (hr & finance) ms. richa chaudhary is currently pursuing ph.d. from department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee. she has done her mba from up technical university. she has work experience in teaching and industry. she has received the best paper award in a recently held conference at iitm gwalior, india. chaudhary has presented papers at many national and international conferences and has attended various workshops on statistical tools and techniques. address for correspondence: richa chaudhary, research scholar, department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee, uttarakhand247-667. email address: richa.chaudhary18@gmail.com dr. santosh rangnekar, ph.d., m.b.a.(hrm), ll.b.(hons), pgdpm&ir. dr. santosh rangnekar is working as associate professor at indian institute of technology, roorkee. he has 25 yrs of work experience in both industry and academics. under his supervision 4 candidates have been awarded doctorate degree and currently 8 candidates are pursuing phd. dr. mukesh barua is working as assistant professor at indian institute of technology, roorkee. he is a mechanical engineer by profession. he obtained his ph.d. from indian institute of technology, madras. he has more than 15 yrs of work experience in academics. he has attended many national and international conferences and has published several papers in national and international journals. he has organized a large number of workshops on statistical tools and techniques. he is currently guiding four phd students. microsoft word 4. adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 443 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 443-457 www.ejop.org in search for objective measures of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder using the quantified behavior test plus hanna edebol lars helldin karlstad university nu health care ebba holmberg stig-arne gustafsson nu health care nu health care torsten norlander karlstad university abstract clinical assessment tools for adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) such as rating scales, interviews and behavior observations are often based on subjective judgments which enhance the risk of overlooking or misinterpreting symptoms. in search for objective measures of adult adhd, the present study investigated levels of sensitivity and specificity for the quantified behavior test plus, qbtest-plus, in adult patients (n = 19) awaiting clinical assessment for adhd. qbtest-plus report objective measures of adhd core symptoms using an infrared motion tracking system and a continuous performance test. the measures were collected and evaluated previous to clinical assessment and compared regarding the diagnosis of adhd. sensitivity for detecting adhd with qbtestplus was 83 % and specificity was 57 %. the results, possibly affected by confounding factors, suggest further examination of calibrated and objective measure for the qbtestplus with regard to adhd in adults. keywords: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, objective measures, clinical assessment, adults, the quantified behavior test plus. adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 444 introduction the neurobiological developmental disorder attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) occurs in about 2.5 percent of the adult population (simon, czobor, bálint, meszaros, & bitter, 2009) and includes core symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention as described in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders iv, dsm-iv (american psychiatric association, 2000). past occurrence, current severity and the levels of malfunctioning that the symptoms impose on the patients´ everyday life are critical aspects of the diagnostic assessment (american psychiatric association, 2000). assessment tools such as rating scales, clinical interviews and behavior observations are often based on subjective perception, second-hand information and the enhanced risk of overlooking or misinterpreting symptoms of adult adhd which is reflected in unclear validity and weak inter-rater reliability (gordon, barkley, & lovett, 2006). there are few scientifically verified methodologies developed specifically for adults with adhd but instead, the examiner will decide as to which neuropsychological tests to perform and how to interpret the results from the perspective of adhd in adulthood and its differential diagnoses. except for cognitive tests, objective and experimental measures of behavior symptoms may be performed. however, the few tests available for this purpose (gordon, et al., 2006) have not been standardized satisfactorily for adults. initially, the same neuropsychological procedures performed in childhood was adopted for adhd in adulthood but over the years, a better understanding of developmental aspects as reflected in ceiling effects and low predictive values of psychometric tests have been supporting age-dependent and performance-based testing of the disorder. also, diagnostic assessment of adhd in adulthood is oftentimes complicated by comorbid psychiatric disorders, non-specific core diagnostic characteristics of adhd and the prevalent diagnostic criterias that are developed with regard to symptom manifestations during childhood (kaplan & stevens, 2002). studies of clinic-referred adults with adhd report enhanced risks of developing lifelong comorbid psychopathology including for example mood, substance abuse, antisocial, conduct and eating disorders of which some are likely to be secondary to adhdfailure and frustration, which altogether makes objective assessment a complex and critical part of the clinical evaluation of adhd in adulthood (barkley, fischer, smallish, & fletcher, 2002; davidson, 2008; mcgough et al., 2005; murphy, barkley, & bush, 2002) europe’s journal of psychology 445 the continuous performance paradigm objective measures of adhd-core symptoms have been conducted with primary reference to children with the disorder, and less so with regard to the symptom manifestation in adults. using for example continuous performance tests (cpt) of cognitive core symptoms, e.g., inattention and impulsivity, children (grodzinsky & barkley, 1999; teicher, ito, glod, & barber, 1996) and adults (ossman & mulligan, 2003; weyandt, mitzlaff, & thomas, 2002) with adhd tend to display higher rates of errors related to cognitive deficits, i.e., omission and commission errors, relative to clinical (downey, stetson, pomerleau, & giordani, 1997; seidman, biederman, faraone, weber, & ouellette, 1997) and normative controls (murphy, barkley, & bush, 2001; nigg et al., 2005). cpt measures also provide effective treatment monitoring of stimulants (epstein et al., 2006; konrad, gunther, hanisch, & herpertz-dahlman, 2004) and other treatment strategies (klingberg, forssberg, & westerberg, 2002). however, a ceiling effect for adult subjects with adhd has been suggested and especially when symptoms are less severe (koelega, 1993), and there is a general lack of specificity with regard to clinical controls and cognitive symptom domains of adult adhd (epstein, johnson, varia, & conners, 2001). objective measures of hyperactivity for the motor domain of the disorder, i.e., hyperactivity, portable electronic activity monitors so called actigraphs and motion tracking systems (mts) have been applied for detection of adhd symptomathology in natural and laboratory settings of children, adolescents and to some extent also adults (brocki, tillman, & bohlin, 2010; halperin, matier, bedi, sharma, & newcorn, 1992; halperin, newcorn, matier, sharma, mckay, & schwartz, 1993; porrino, rapoport, behar, sceery, ismond, & bunney, 1983). successful monitoring of stimulant treatment effects (vogt & williams, 2011; taborikraft, sørensen, dalsgaard, kærgaard, & thomsen, 2007), and associations between striatal dopamine markers and motor hyperactivity in male adolescents with adhd has been reported (jucaite, fernell, halldin, forssberg, & farde, 2005). motor-signs in children with adhd include 25-30 % higher activity levels, less complex but more linear movement patterns and especially during academic and laboratory-based tasks of attention as compared to healthy controls (losier, mcgrath, & klein, 1996; teicher, et al., 1996). epidemiological findings of combined cognitive and motor symptoms in boys (brocki et al., 2010) were positively correlated with age, suggesting that adhd symptoms exists and varies along a continuum in the normal population. however, hyperactivity reflected in motor-activity is assumed to diminish with increased age (brocki et al., 2010; wilens, biederman, & spencer, 2002) but only three studies of objective measures of motor activity in adults with adhd exist adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 446 (boonstra, et al., 2007; lis, baer, stein-en-nosse, gallhofer, sammer, & kirsch, 2010; tuisku, et al., 2003), and they indicate measurable signs of increased motor activity in adult adhd as compared to healthy participants. age-relevant symptoms of hyperactivity are stipulated as diagnostic criteria in dsm-iv (american psychiatric association, 2004) and many adult subjects report fidgeting their feats and fingers several times a day (murphy & barkley, 1996). combined measures of cognitive and motor domains in adult adhd recently, both cognitive and behavior domains of adult adhd were measured using the quantified behavior test plus, qbtest-plus (lis et al., 2010). the test combines simultaneous objective measures of motor activity using infrared motion tracking systems and measures of attention and impulsivity using cpt measures. core symptoms of adhd were objectively measured in 20 adult subjects and separated from matched and healthy controls. measures of hyperactivity were significant in the adhd group using parameters such as distance, time active, area and micro-events. hyperactivity offered higher separation than the cognitive parameters operationalized as omission and commission errors. the study suggests that hyperactivity was the core symptom that best separated adhd from healthy controls and especially when measured in distance, i. e., the number of centimeters the subject has moved during the test. in the present study, we use these findings as a benchmark for assessment of the objective adhd-measures, focusing on both motor and cognitive domains in attempts to optimize separation from adhd and non-adhd clinical subjects. we applied the combined measurement technique in a naturalistic sample of adult clinic-referred psychiatric patients in order to assess differential validity, i.e., sensitivity and specificity, for the quantified behavior test plus with regard to adult adhd. aim of the study the aim of the study is to investigate levels of sensitivity and specificity for the qbtestplus with regard to adhd in nineteen clinic-referred adult patients awaiting clinical assessment of adhd. quantities of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention are expected to be high in adults receiving a diagnosis of adhd so that the core symptom triad will be sufficient for identifying a majority of the subjects with adhd and separating them from a majority of the non-adhd subjects. europe’s journal of psychology 447 method participants this study included 19 participants, 10 women and 9 men, who underwent clinical assessment for adhd at the psychiatric clinic in the nu-health care. the participants mean age was 31.7 (sd = 9.3, range = 20 to 54). one person had not begun high school but a majority had completed (n = 6) or made parts of it (n = 9) and some (n = 3) had studied at post-graduate levels. nine were singles, six either married or sharing household with a partner, three had a relationship and one person was divorced. a majority were unemployed, on sick-leave or carried sickness pension (n = 14) and the remaining part had fullor part-time work (n = 1), arranged daytime activities (n = 1), studied (n = 1), were on parents leave (n = 1) or retired (n = 1). the mean body mass index was 26.2 (sd = 5.2, range = 18 to 35), and eleven persons regularly smoked tobacco while eight did not smoke at all. participants were out-patients whose mean age for initial psychiatric contact was 20.2 (sd = 10.9, n =12) and ten persons had undertaken psychiatric hospitalization one or more times starting at the mean age of 27.1 (sd = 9.9 range = 14 to 48). the mean of the latest global assessment of functioning, gaf (luborsky, 1962), which is a commonly used, qualitatively assessed and global measure of adult social, occupational, and psychological functioning ranging from 0 (severe dysfunction) to 100 (perfect function) regarding both the level of symptom severity, which was 49.9 (sd = 6.9, range = 40 to 60) and the level of adaptive functioning, which was 48.2 (sd = 8.8, range = 35 to 60) for participants of the present study, which indicate both serious symptoms and dysfunctions. previous to clinical assessment of adhd, all but two participants had at least one psychiatric diagnose and some (n = 8) had two. a total of seven participants had relapsing episodes of depression or dysthymia, five had various anxiety disorders or mixed states of anxiety and depression, three had a bipolar disorder, three had a substance abuse disorder, two had a personality disorders, one had an adaptive disorder and another participant had a diagnose of acute stress reaction at the time of the assessment. none had undergone clinical assessments for adhd in childhood and a majority (n = 14) had no family or relative with adhd. regarding medical treatment, 14 participants generally used it but during the day of the study, participants used none (n = 8), one (n = 4), two (n = 5) or three and more (n = 2) medical treatments. the following medical treatments were used by participants: antidepressants (n = 12), anxiolytics (n = 5), and neuroleptics (n = 3). the mean time from smoking or chewing tobacco at the first minute of the qbtest-plus (see the instruments section) was 23.8 adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 448 minutes (n = 11, sd = 14.7). statistical analyses (independent samples t-test, 5 % level) did not reveal any significant differences between men and women with regard to age, bmi, education, age at first contact with psychiatry, gaf-symptom, gaf-function, or asrs (see the instrument section). design the current study evaluated levels of sensitivity and specificity for the qbtest-plus with regard to adhd using objective measures of adhd core symptoms. the independent variable was the clinical assessment regarding the diagnosis of adhd. the dependent variable was the results of the qbtest-plus, which was collected and analyzed prior to the clinical assessment. clinical assessments were made by trained clinicians in the nu-health care and typically included observations, childhood anamnesis, self-report symptom scales, information from relatives, psychological or occupational-therapeutic tests and sometimes additional batteries of well-chosen psychological tests performed by specialists in neuropsychiatry. the psychiatric center asserted the dsm-iv (american psychiatric association, 2000) for diagnostic considerations. dsm-iv includes three subtypes of adhd that was categorized into one dichotomous variable of no (not adhd) or yes (adhd is established) and compared with the outcome of qbtest-plus; “probably not adhd”, “possibly adhd, further assessment is needed” or “probably adhd”. instruments qbtest-plus. this instrument (knagenhjelm & ulberstad, 2010) combines a continuous performance test (cpt) installed as a software program on a pc with measures of attention and impulsivity and an activity test with measures of motor-activity during 20 minutes. while performing the cpt-test on the computer, movements of the participant are recorded using an infrared camera following a reflective marker attached to a head-band. the cpt-test involves rapid presentations of figures with various shapes (square or circle) and colors (red or blue) and the participant are instructed to press a handheld button when a stimuli subsequently repeats itself (a target) and not to press the button when the stimulus varies relative to the previous one (a non-target). the stimuli are presented at a pace of one per two seconds, each one visible for 200 milliseconds, and the total number of stimuli is 600, presented with a 25 % target probability. qbtest-plus aims to provide objective information regarding core-symptoms of adhd; hyperactivity on basis of motor-activity measured with the camera, and inattention and impulsivity on basis of the cpt-test. in this study, hyperactivity has europe’s journal of psychology 449 been operationalized with the parameter called "distance", i.e., the length of the path describing the movement of the headband reflector during the test. inattention is operationalized on basis of omission errors (no response is registered and the stimulus was a target) and impulsivity with commission errors (a response is registered and the stimulus was a non-target). cut-off levels (q-score 1.3) of coreitems are based on 149 male and 118 female (n = 267) healthy controls from thirteen to fifty-five years of age and is set at the 90th percentile of the distribution (knagenhjelm et al., 2010). for means and standard deviations of the present study see table 1. table 1: the results of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention using qbtest-plus qbtest-plus core item m sd min max hyperactivity 5.86 4.47 2.00 16.80 impulsivity 3.30 8.29 0.00 37.10 inattention 14.04 13.81 0.00 54.00 the results of hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention using qbtest-plus. means (m), standard deviations (sd), minimum (min), and maximum (max) scores of the qbtestplus core items; hyperactivity (distance), impulsivity (commission errors), and inattention (omission errors). procedure nurses informed patients awaiting clinical assessment about the purpose and procedure of the study and the interested patients were registered for participation. when arriving at the psychiatric centre, the participant was met by a researcher and the written informed consent obtained. instructions for the qbtest-plus were given both verbally and by means of the standardized video presenting procedures of the test (knagenhjelm, et al, 2010). participants performed a one minute pre-test to ensure instructions had been understood correctly. after qbtest-plus was performed, the participant answered questions about demographics and current medication. the psychiatric record and the status of the assessment were unknown throughout the process of experimental testing and assessment. results would not intervene with clinical assessment. methods and results of the clinical assessments, the gaf, medical treatment, psychiatric anamnesis and clinical diagnosis were collected. the study procedures were examined and approved by the regional ethical review board of uppsala, sweden (2008/110/2). adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 450 analysis of data objective core items from qbtest; hyperactivity measured in distance, impulsivity measured with commission errors and inattention measured with omission errors, were divided into either "no” or "yes” relative to the predetermined cut-off level indicating moderately atypical behavior (q-score > 1.3) (knagenhjelm et al., 2010). core items were combined into a total judgment of either "probably not adhd” (all three no), "possibly adhd, further assessment is needed” (one or two yes) or "probably adhd” (all three yes) which were compared with the independent variable of "no” or "yes” regarding the clinical diagnosis of adhd. results sensitivity for detecting adhd was 83 % and specificity was 57 %. comparisons between clinical assessments and the qbtest-plus indicated 74 % accuracy including ten true positive and four true negative cases, as well as three false positive and two false negative cases. the positive predictive value was 77 % and the negative predictive value was 66 %. discussion the present study investigated levels of sensitivity and specificity for qbtest-plus regarding adhd in 19 adult patients awaiting clinical assessment for adhd. sensitivity for detecting adhd was 83 % and the specificity was 57 % when compared to the clinical assessment. as expected, objective measures of the core symptom triad were sufficient for identifying a majority of the subjects with adhd. as expected, the core symptoms were also sufficient for extracting a majority of the subjects without adhd. however, the level of specificity was just a little better than chance and the present study therefore tentatively suggest that the test is unsuitable for disconfirming a diagnosis of adhd. the test performance may be triggered by other reasons than adhd. all participants qualified for an adhd-assessment but had substantial psychiatric disorders with adhd-core symptoms per se, which may influence levels of sensitivity in clinical samples. one asset of the objective behavioural measures is that core symptoms are recorded and presented regardless of the hypothetical reasons. but in order to interpret and apply the measures during diagnostic assessment for example; clinicians will be able to consider other clinical data and use qbtest-plus according to the complementary intents of the test. europe’s journal of psychology 451 psychiatric comorbidity is common for adults undertaking clinical screens and assessment for adhd (kaplan, et al., 2002). a majority of the clinically recruited participants of the current study had comorbid psychiatric disorders which hypothetically influences the levels of sensitivity and specificity. the qbtest-plus are not intended to disentangle multifaceted comorbidity but rather to measure and quantify adult adhd as one of other integrated facets of a clinical procedure. having a blind design of the current study did not allow preparations based on the clinical records. prospective studies would preferably have as much of diagnostically pure groups as possible in order to investigate levels of sensitivity and specificity with regard to adhd in adult participants. using rather small samples, epstein et al (2001) compared adult participants with adhd (n = 25), participants with anxiety symptomatology (n = 15), and healthy participants (n = 30) by means of conners´ cpt (conners, 1992; conners, 1995). significantly higher rates of commission errors were found for the adhd versus both other groups but non-significant rates of commission errors for participants with anxiety versus the healthy participants. other studies of continuous performance tests and adult adhd have found similar results for commission errors (cohen and shapiro, 2007), omission errors (johnson, epstein, waid, latham, voronin, & anton, 2001), and response speed (himelstein & halperin, 2000; johnson, et al., 2001), but the samples were rather small. seidman and colleagues (1998) reported differences between healthy controls, adults with adhd and adults with schizophrenia by means of omission and commission errors. adults with adhd made fewer errors than clinical controls but more errors than normative controls. for most part, cpt studies of adults with adhd are limited by the fact that small sample sizes and assorted cpt paradigms are applied for testing which limits the statistical power to detect effect sizes. in general, results from previous cpt studies suggest that measures of adhd core symptoms may hold significant discriminative value when comparing groups with adhd and healthy controls but that psychiatric comorbidity may seriously limit the discriminative power. discriminative power of combined cpt and mts measures was investigated by lis and collegues (2010) who reported most discriminative power for objective measures of motor activity for participants with adhd and healthy controls. today there are no golden standards available for assessing test-statistics of the qbtest-plus. in order to assess data from participants, the current study utilized cutoff scores based on the 90th percentile of the normative dataset (see the instruments section) and previous studies of predictive measures of adhd core symptoms in children and adults (brocki et al., 2010; lis et al., 2010). other alternatives for identifying cut-off scores, such as roc-curve analysis were not helpful. a calibrated adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder 452 and composite measure based on continuous scores for the whole adhd core symptom spectra would perhaps facilitate the objective of qbtest-plus with regard to adult patients. limitations the present study had some limitations. the participants had comorbid psychiatric disorders with joint symptoms vis-à-vis adhd. among others this included bipolar, anxiety, mood and personality disorders. twelve participants used one or more psychotropic medications and the current study did not make apparent whether the sample was representative for clinic-referred adults suspected to have adhd in general. the results may therefore be regarded tentatively. hopefully, future studies will be able to investigate psychometric properties of the test thoroughly. conclusions the present study reported 83 % sensitivity and 57 % specificity for the qbtest-plus with regard to adult adhd. the results, possibly affected by confounding factors, may be regarded tentatively and suggest further examination of calibrated and objective measures from the test. future research may investigate behavioral measures with regard to adult clinical and healthy controls, as well as 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(2002). attention deficits/ hyperactivity disorder across the lifespan. annual review of medicine, 53, 113-131. about the authors: hanna edebol completed her studies in psychology at the department of psychology, at karlstad university in 2008. she joined the phd program in 2008 and her studies involve objective measures of adult adhd. address for correspondence: hanna edebol, department of psychology, karlstad university, se651 88 karlstad, sweden. email: hanna.edebol@kau.se europe’s journal of psychology 457 lars helldin completed his medical degree in 1989, and became a specialist in psychiatry in 1995. in 2009 he received his phd in clinical psychology at the department of psychology, karlstad university. he works as hospital chief executive officer and has many years of experience from clinical practice. his research concerns treatment of patients with schizophrenia spectrum syndromes and the importance of remission. he is involved in the clinical long-term investigation of psychosis in sweden (clips) at the psychiatric department at the nu health care in sweden. lars has published several articles in major international journals and is the author of books in the field of psychiatry and psychology. ebba holmberg completed her medical degree in 1980 and became specialist in psychiatry in 1985. she works as chief psychiatrist at the psychiatric clinic in stromstad, at the nu health care in sweden. stig-arne gustafsson completed his medical degree in 1992 and became specialist in psychiatry in 1997. he works as chief psychiatrist at the neuropsychiatric clinic in uddevalla, at the nu health care in sweden. torsten norlander completed his studies in teaching in 1986. in 1997 he received his phd degree in psychology, at the department of psychology, university of gothenburg. since 2004 he is professor in psychology at the department of psychology, karlstad university. his research has been concerned with alcohol and the creative process, clinical psychology such as the clinical long-term investigation of psychosis in sweden (clips), senso-motoric therapy and objective measures of adhd, sports psychology, stress, pain and flotationrest therapy, as well as performance and recruitment of soldiers in the swedish armed forces at the swedish defence college. torsten has many years of experience from teaching and tutoring and he is the author of several articles in major international journals. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 323-336 www.ejop.org memory for emotional events: the accuracy of central and peripheral details tiziana lanciano university of bari antonietta curci university of bari abstract the emotional intensity of an event is a significant predictor for vividness of event memory. nevertheless, during the last few decades, there has been some confusion in literature as to whether emotional events are poorly or well retained. it is important to consider that not all details of emotional events are equally remembered: memory for the central details seems to be relatively good, whereas memory for peripheral details appears to be relatively poor. the aim of the present study was to investigate the accuracy of central vs. peripheral details of an emotional event in a natural but controlled context: the emotional event is a simulated life event, the central and peripheral details of the emotional event were controlled. indeed previous research work was simply based on the induction of an emotional state in an experimental context and subsequent assessment of a performance memory task. results showed that, following an emotional event, individuals provided a vivid and accurate recollection not only of the central gist of the event, but also of the context and peripheral details. implications for literature on emotional autobiographical memories were discussed. keywords: emotional memories, emotional details, memory accuracy. the relationship between memory and emotions is very complex and largely still unknown. a high memory performance for emotionally arousing events has been demonstrated (deffenbacher, 1983; deffenbacher, bornstein, penrod, & mcgorty, 2004). a number of studies have indicated that the emotional intensity of an event is a significant predictor for how vividly the event is recalled (e.g. reisberg & heuer, http://www.ejop.org/ memory for emotional events 324 2004; rubin & kozin, 1984; talarico, bernsten, & rubin, 2009). what these studies have shown us is that emotional events are remembered with great richness of details, although no information has been provided on the accuracy of these remembered details. indeed, during the last few decades, there has been some confusion in literature as to whether emotional events are poorly or well retained. whereas laboratory research has shown mixed results concerning memory for emotional events (christianson, 1984; heuer & reisberg, 1990; deffenbacher, 1983; loftus & burns, 1982), research on real-world events has usually demonstrated that details of emotional events are relatively well retained in memory (bohannon, 1988; brown & kulik, 1977; rubin & kozin, 1984). for a clear investigation of the link between memory and emotion, it is important to consider that not all details of emotional events are remembered equally well. more specifically, it is thought that memory for the gist (central details) of an emotional event is well retained, whereas memory for irrelevant information (peripheral details) is poorly recalled (see, for overviews, christianson, 1992; heuer & reisberg, 1992). some studies have found that, whereas memory for peripheral details seems to be diminished by high levels of arousal, memory for central details (emotion-related and plot-relevant details) appears to be facilitated (e.g., burke, heuer, & reisberg, 1992; christianson & loftus, 1991; christianson, loftus, hoffman, & loftus, 1991; see christianson, 1992, for a review). the idea that high arousal and negative affect enhance recall of central aspects of events has been supported in several research fields: autobiographical memory (berntsen, 2002; christianson & loftus, 1990; strube & neubauer, 1988; wessel & merckelbach, 1994), eyewitness memory (steblay, 1992; yuille & cutshall, 1986), event memory (christianson & loftus, 1991; reisberg & heuer, 2004), episodic memory (kensinger & corkin, 2003; mackay et al., 2004), animal learning (easterbrook, 1959) and perception (o¨hman, flykt, & esteves, 2001). however, a number of laboratory studies on episodic memory have recently shown that also contextual and peripheral information are enhanced for emotional stimuli, such as colour (kensinger & corkin, 2003; mackay et al., 2004), spatial location (mackay & ahmetzanov, 2005), or temporal context (d’argembeau & van der linden, 2005). what exactly are “central” or “peripheral” details? where is the boundary between the center of an event and its periphery? burke heuer, and reisberg (1992) proposed the categorization of to-be-remembered material in four categories of information. the first two are commonly considered as central details and contain a) details pertaining to the gist or plot of the emotional event and b) the materials visually central to the event. the second two categories are designed to categorize what have been considered peripheral details and include c) details that are attached to the visually central materials and d) details from the background and the context of the event. an alternative to burke and colleagues’ categorization europe’s journal of psychology 325 (burke, heuer, & reisberg, 1992) was proposed by christianson and loftus (1991). according to the authors, central characters could be identified in terms of their centrality to the subject’s attention, rather than relevance to the plot. in this definition, “central” details would be those details associated with material central to attention, independent of whether they are also associated with material central to the event’s plot (christianson & loftus, 1991). for the purpose of the present study, we considered the christianson and loftus’s categorization: the centrality of details refers to the centrality for the subject’s attention, rather than to the relevance to the plot. a common explanation of the link between emotion and the type of remembered details is based on the attentional narrowing hypothesis (christianson, 1992), according to which physiological arousal results in attention being directed towards central rather than peripheral characteristics of the situation. consequently, memory for central details would be relatively good, whereas memory for peripheral information would be impaired. there is empirical evidence to support christianson's attentional narrowing hypothesis. field studies examining the memory of witnesses for robberies (christianson & hübinette, 1993), or that of college students for emotional events (christianson & loftus, 1990; wessel & merckelbach, 1994) suggest that central information is, indeed, better remembered than peripheral information. however, a limit of this attentional narrowing hypothesis concerns the ecological validity of the procedures employed to assess emotional memory. a general criticism of laboratory studies on emotion and memory is that they are too far removed from real life and that generalising experimental data to emotional life events (e.g. trauma) is not acceptable (e.g. terr, 1994; yuille & tollestrup, 1992). in other words, this implies that emotional memory can only be examined in field studies. however, on the other hand, field studies may suffer from problems such as retrospective bias due to post-encoding categorisation of central and peripheral information (christianson & loftus, 1990; wessel & merckelbach, 1994). in sum, field studies on emotional memory may suffer from retrospective and report biases, whereas experimental studies may not be generalized to real-life situations. because these problems can be circumvented in controlled experiments, it seems worthwhile to find approaches that increase the ecological validity of laboratory studies on emotion and memory. overview and hypotheses as can be seen from the aforementioned, empirical research concerning the accuracy of emotional memory details has reached controversial and debatable results. the aim of the present study was to investigate the accuracy of remembered central and peripheral details of an emotional event; more specifically we memory for emotional events 326 considered memory for the gist of the event itself as memory for the central information, and memory for the surrounding context as memory for peripheral details (brown & kulik, 1997). the strength of the present study is to explore the accuracy of emotional memory details in a natural but controlled context, whereas previous reserch work has mainly focused on the induction of an emotional state in an experimental setting and, then on the assessment of a performance memory tasks (reisberg & huer, 1992; christianson, 1992). the novelty of this research is the attempt to overcome, at the same time, the limit of the experimental studies by choosing an emotional life event and the limit of the field studies by adopting a controlled procedure -. indeed, in the present study, the emotional event is a real-life emotional event simulated with the help of an accomplice, and central details of the emotional event and peripheral details of the context of the event were controlled. the main characteristics of this study were the following: a) it concerned a negative emotional event that had been simulated with the help of an accomplice; b) participants’ memories for both central and peripheral details were collected (burke, heuer, & reisberg, 1992; christianson & loftus, 1991; reisberg & heuer, 1992); c) participants’ memories for the emotional event were assessed in both a free and probed recall procedure (bohannon, 1988; bohannon & symons, 1992; brown & kulik, 1977), and d) participants’ memories for the emotional event were assessed both immediately after the event (time 1), and a 5-month delay (time 2) (christianson, 1984; levonian, 1967). participants were expected to remember not only the gist of the emotional event (central details) but also the contextual details (peripheral details) (brown and kulik, 1977; d’argembeau & van der linden, 2005; kensinger & corkin, 2003; mackay & ahmetzanov, 2005; mackay et al., 2004). both central and peripheral details would be subject to the effect of time (heuer and reisberg, 1992). in line with the emotional memory studies, peripheral details were expected to be better stored through probed recall than free recall, since individuals remember more accurately contextual details when they are asked to do this (bohannon & symons, 1992; nachson & zelig, 2003). method design the present study used a 2x2 repeated-measure design with retention interval (time 1 vs. time 2) and type of details (central vs. peripheral details) as within subjects europe’s journal of psychology 327 factors. dependent variables were accuracy of remembered details score in the free recall task, and accuracy of remembered details score in the probed recall task. participants the sample was composed of 95 undergraduate students from the university of bari, italy (93,7% women). mage= 19.32 (sd = 1.21). measures and procedure students were recruited during a psychology class and requested to write a diary and answer several questions for seven days as soon as an emotional event (positive or negative) had happened in their life in the days following the delivery of the diary (cover story). immediately after this delivery, a state of emotional stress and alarm was simulated in the class: an accomplice suddenly came into the room, shouting nonsensically and moving around the class for a few minutes provoking panic among the students. as soon as he went out, all students agreed to write in their diaries about this negative event. this situation was planned in order to have a standard stimulus event to which all students might have responded. the event has been chosen on the basis of features of displeasure, surprise, personal importance, and negative emotional intensity, as so as a real life event. in order to check the accuracy of peripheral details, many details of the context were controlled: the position of the teacher and her assistants, their clothing, the position of particular objects in the classroom, and a specific sound. the questionnaire used for the present study was composed of several sections: 1) free recall of the event, 2) probed recall for central details, 3) probed recall for peripheral details, 4) emotional feeling state, 5) novelty, 6) importance. free recall. following the simulated emotional event, participants were requested to write a diary for seven days about it. the written accounts were submitted to a content analysis in order to estimate the occurrence frequency of remembered central vs. peripheral details. the content analysis entailed independent coding of narratives by two different judges (95% of inter-judge agreement). details referring to the protagonist of the event were considered as central: a) his physical characteristics, b) his clothing, c) what he did, and d) what he said. the proportion given by the number of remembered central details divided by the number of total remembered details was considered in data analysis as the accuracy for central details score in the free recall task scale, ranging from 0 to 1. memory for emotional events 328 details referring to the context were considered as peripheral: a) date (day, month, year), b) day of week, c) time of day, d) position of other people, e) other people’s clothing, f) weather outside, g) a particular smell or sound, and h) the position of a particular object (i.e., chair) in the room. the proportion given by the number of remembered peripheral details divided by the number of remembered total details was considered in data analysis as the accuracy for peripheral details score in the free recall task scale, ranging from 0 to 1. probed recall for central details. two questions assessed the recall of central details. participants were asked the following questions about: a) who the protagonist of the event was, and b) how he dressed. for item a), the value 2 was assigned if participants answered something like “a crazy/strange man”, a value 1 if respondents answered “a man”, and a value 0 if respondents did not provide an answer, or if the answer was totally incorrect. for item b) the value 4 was assigned if participants provided an exact description of the protagonist’s clothing, i. e. “brown leather jacket, purple scarf, red hat and jeans”; the value 3 was assigned if participants provided at least three of these details; the value 2 was assigned if they provided at least two details; the value 1 was assigned if they provided at least one detail; the value 0 if they did not provide an answer, or if the answer was totally incorrect. item scores of this section were added up to get the accuracy for central details score in the probed recall task scale, ranging from 0 to 6. probed recall task for peripheral details. eight questions assessed recall of the peripheral details. participants were asked the following questions about: a) date (day, month, year), b) day of week, c) time of day, d) position of other people, e) other people’s clothing, f) weather outside, g) a particular smell or sound, and h) the position of a particular object (i.e., chair) in the room. for items a), b), and c) the value 2 was assigned if respondents provided a totally accurate answer, 1 if they provided a partially accurate answer, and 0 if they did not provide an answer or if the answer was totally incorrect. for items d), e), f), g), and h) the value of 1 was assigned if participants provided an accurate detail, and the value 0 if they provided inaccurate details, or if they did not provide any answer. only context details whose accuracy could be checked were considered. it follows that personal details (i.e., one’s own clothing or own feeling and emotions) were not considered for the analyses. item scores of this section were added up to get the accuracy for peripheral details score in the probed recall task scale, ranging from 0 to 11. emotional feeling state. participants rated the extent to which they felt displeasure/pleasure on a scale ranging from 0 (displeasure) to 6 (pleasure). europe’s journal of psychology 329 additionally, participants rated the extent of emotional intensity of the event on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much). novelty. participants rated the extent to which the event was expected on a scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much). importance. participants rated on three scales ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much): a) the importance of the event, b) its personal consequences, and c) its consequences for other people’s lives. item scores of this section were added up to get the importance scale ranging from 0 to 30 (cronbach’s alpha = .81). when participants handed back the diary, they were debriefed. after five months the delay concerned the accessibility to the sample , participants were contacted and instructed to answer again some questions concerning the emotional event. participants were asked to fill in only the sections concerning the free recall and the probed recall for central and peripheral details. results descriptive analyses descriptive analyses showed that participants evaluated the event as very unpleasant (range 0-6; m = .33, sd = .63), emotionally intense (range 0-10; m = 8.65, sd = 1.60), unexpected (range 0-10; m = .03, sd = .23), and important (range 0-30; m = 24.55, sd = 6.62). additionally, individuals remembered peripheral details with accuracy, even if better in the probed recall task than in the free recall task (respectively, range 0-1; m = .34, sd = .17; range 0-11 m = 9.66, sd = .96). anova on the accuracy of remembered details score in the free recall task a 2*2 repeated-measure anova was run on the accuracy of remembered details score in the free recall task scale, with the retention interval (time 1 vs. time 2) and type of details (central vs. peripheral) as within subjects factors (see figure 1). a significant main effect of type of details was found to be significant (f1,94 = 50.92, p < .001) in that central details were more accurately remembered than peripheral details. neither the main effect of retention interval (f1,94= 1.66, p = n.s) nor the interaction effect of retention interval by type of details (f1,94= 1.26; p = n.s.) were found to be significant. memory for emotional events 330 figure 1: anova retention interval by type of details on the accuracy of remembered details score in the free recall task. 0,00 0,10 0,20 0,30 0,40 0,50 0,60 0,70 0,80 0,90 1,00 time 1 time 2 d e ta il s a c c u ra c y f re e r e c a ll central peripheral anova on accuracy of remembered details score in the probed recall task a 2*2 repeated-measure anova was run on the accuracy of remembered details score in the probed recall task, with the retention interval (time 1 vs. time 2) and type of details (central vs. peripheral) as within subjects factors. a significant main effect of retention interval was found to be significant (f1,94= 322.13, p < .001), in that the accuracy of remembered details declined over time (see figure 2). a significant main effect of type of details was also found to be significant (f1,94= 852.16, p < .001), with peripheral details more accurately remembered than central details (see figure 2). finally, a significant interaction effect of retention interval by type of details was found on the number of remembered details (f1,93= 150.06, p < .001) since memory decline was found to be more evident on the average amount of recalled peripheral details, compared to central details (see figure 2). figure 2: anova retention interval by type of details on the accuracy of remembered details score in the probed recall task. 0,00 1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00 5,00 6,00 time 1 time 2 d e ta il s a c c u ra c y p ro b e d r e c a ll central peripheral europe’s journal of psychology 331 discussion although the distinction between central and peripheral details of an emotional event is not clear yet, it is thought that memory for central details is well retained, whereas memory for peripheral details is relatively poorly recalled (christianson, 1992; heuer & reisberg, 1992). the aim of the present study was to answer the problem of accuracy of emotional memories, by investigating the accuracy of the remembered central and peripheral details. the strength of this study was to investigate the emotional memory phenomenon in a natural but controlled setting, where the event is an emotional life event, and central details/peripheral details were controlled. the novelty of this study was the attempt to overcome at the same time the limit of experimental studies – by choosing a negative life event–and the limit of field studies–by checking and manipulated the central and peripheral details. participants evaluated the event as unpleasant, important, and unexpected, and they experienced high level of emotional intensity. the present results showed and confirmed that, following an emotional event, people were able to remember not only the gist of the event, but also the contextual and peripheral details (brown and kulik, 1977; d’argembeau & van der linden, 2005; kensinger & corkin, 2003; mackay & ahmetzanov, 2005; mackay et al., 2004). concerning the accuracy of remembered details, the present findings need to be interpreted on the basis of the memory task adopted. indeed, the recollection from the free recall task showed that people remembered more accurately the gist of the event rather than peripheral details (christianson, 1992; heuer & reisberg, 1992); on the contrary, the recollection from probed recall task showed that peripheral details were better remembered than central details. there is a possible explanation for this result. emotional memory studies showed that individuals provided more peripheral details when they were asked to remember these in a probed recall task rather than in a free recall task (bohannon & symons, 1992; nachson & zelig, 2003). indeed, when people are asked to describe an emotional event, generally they narrow their attention on some central perceptual details of an event, leaving out peripheral information (reisberg & heuer, 1992). additionally, several contextual details were controlled in order to guarantee their accuracy, therefore in the probed recall task, participants were asked to remember this type of information. on the other hand, in their free recalls, participants were free to write about the event and generally mentioned personal details whose accuracy was impossible to establish. these details were not considered in the analyses. memory for emotional events 332 additionally, the present results showed that both central and peripheral details declined over time, even if central details declined more slowly. this effect finds confirmation in several studies on emotional memory. taking into consideration the role of attention, the role of retention interval, and the type of remembered details, heuer and reisberg (1992) suggested that emotion leads to a narrowing of attention on some central perceptual details of an event, and this attentional focus seems to slowly decline over time. this study tried to contribute to research work on emotional memories. first of all, the main strength of the research is that it applied a procedure which preserved both the ecological validity of the field studies and the controlled setting of the experimental studies. a general criticism of laboratory studies on emotion and memory is that they are too far removed from real life and that generalising experimental data to emotional life events is not justified (e.g. terr, 1988; yuille & tollestrup, 1992). in other words, this position implies that emotional memory can only be examined in field studies. however, this type of study may suffer from problems such as retrospective bias or circularity due to post-encoding categorisation of central and peripheral information (christianson & loftus, 1990; wessel & merckelbach, 1994). in the present study, the emotional event is a real-life emotional event simulated with the help of an accomplice, and central details of the emotional event and peripheral details of the context of the event were controlled. second, the present study showed that, after an emotional event, also peripheral and contextual details may be stored, and that memory of these details is influenced by the memory task adopted. the present findings also have precious implications for the literature on flashbulb memories (fbms; brown & kulik, 1997). indeed, the distinction between central and peripheral details reflects a key aspect for research on fbms. they represent a special type of emotional autobiographical memories: the personal circumstances under which a person first learned about an unexpected, emotionally-arousing, and important event are encoded and stored in memory in a different way to the memory of the event itself (event memory, em; brown & kulik, 1977). traditional fbms studies investigated them in terms of memories of contextual and peripheral details, whereas ems may be considered as memories for central details. although the central–peripheral distinction is not clear-cut (as said before), it seems that em is more closely associated with the central, emotionally arousing event (christianson, 1992), than with the circumstances in which participants learned about it. the present findings – above all concerning the probed recall task supported the general idea of fbm “accuracy superiority” over em (bohannon & symons, 1992), and contradicted the idea for which central details of emotional events are more accurately preserved than their peripheral ones (burke, heuer, & reisberg, 1992; christianson, 1992; heuer & reisberg, 1990). in other europe’s journal of psychology 333 words, following an emotional event, individuals provided a vivid and accurate recollection not only of the central gist of the event but also of the context and peripheral details, especially if they were forced to remember this type of details. the present study showed also the key role of the procedures employed to assess memory accuracy. it investigated the influence of the methodological procedures on the type of remembered details for which it seemed to be easier and more frequent that individuals provided more peripheral details (such as fbm details) when they were asked to remember these in a probed recall task rather than in a free recall task (bohannon & symons, 1992; 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(1988). remember that exam? in m. m. gruneberg, j. s. morris, & r. n. sykes (eds.), practical aspects of memory: current research and issues. vol. 1: memory in everyday life (pp. 247-252). new york: wiley. talarico, m.j., berntsen, d., & rubin, d.c. (2009). positive emotions enhance recall of peripheral details. cognition and emotion, 23, 380-398. terr, l.c. (1988). what happens to early memories of trauma? a study of twenty children under age five at the time of documented traumatic events. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 27, 96-104. wessel, i. and merckelbach, h. (1994). characteristics of traumatic memories in normal subjects. behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 22, 315-324. yuille, j. c., & cutshall, j. l. (1986). a case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. journal of applied psychology, 71, 291-301. about the authors: tiziana lanciano phd is a research fellow at the interdepartmental centre of psychology of health, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, mental rumination, emotional intelligence, and latent-variable analysis. address for correspondence: tiziana lanciano, university of bari “a. moro”, department of psychology, piazza umberto i, 1, 70100 bari (italy). e-mail address: t.lanciano@psico.uniba.it antonietta curci phd is an associate professor at the department of psychology, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence, forensic psychology, and multivariate data analysis. from mythology to psychology an essay on the archaic psychology in greek myths vlad petre glaveanu university of bucharest myths are “the archetypal model of all creations, no matter of the plan which they relate to: biological, psychological, spiritual. the main function of the myth is that of establishing exemplar models in all the important human actions”. mircea eliade greek mythology doesn’t resume to the period of antiquity. it can be found in other epochs (renaissance and classicism), other contexts (history and art) and other discourses (scientific and philosophical). the key to understand this “spiritual longevity” lies in myths. as a concept, the myth has known over 500 definitions in about 25 centuries (topor, 2000); its etymology leads us to (of course) a greek word, mithos, which means “a fabulous story”. the myth “reveals something that has already been completely manifested, and this manifestation is at the same time creative and exemplar, because it is the support for a structure of the real as well as a human behavior” (eliade, 1998, p.10-11). throughout history there has been developed an authentic hermeneutics of myths, because they are an eternal “source of inspiration” (auregan, palayret, 1998, p.9). the explanation, in aristotle’s opinion, is very simple: “the one who loves myths, loves, to a certain degree, wisdom” (vladutescu, 1984, p.7). mythpsychology, a new dynamic branch of modern psychology the enormous contribution of ancient greeks to the progress of philosophy, natural sciences and arts, can’t be contested. unfortunately, the role they played in the history of psychology is mentioned only briefly. very often philosophers are quoted (pythagoras, socrates, plato), as well as aristotle’s theory about the soul: “de anima” being seen as “the first systematic book of psychological analysis” (manzat, 2003, p.12). in spite all this, the most important greek “producer of psychology” has been avoided: mythology. greek myths are a vast domain of research for disciplines such as: history, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, occultism (astrology), art (literature, painting, sculpture, music); the strongest bond is settled between mythology and religion, with its magical or ritual practices (sommer, 1969). therefore, we can understand better the diversity of dimensions ancient greek myths have: literary (the expedition of the argonauts) historic (the trojan war) esoteric (the orphic mysteries) initiatory (the voyage of ulysses) moral (daedal and icar) psychological (the story of oedipus) philosophic (the legend of cosmogony) social (the ages of humanity) as we can observe, the psychological “ingredient” of myths can’t be ignored; it is ever present as an essential part. between myth and psychology the bounds are numerous and thigh and this lead to the development of a psychology of myths (mythpsychology). the psychological interpretation finds in myths an extraordinary material, the perfect occasion to separate the setting from the object, the details from the essence, or, in psychoanalytic language, the hidden from the noticeable. what may be confusing is the multitude of significations seen in myths by different psychologists (topor, 2000): expression of the archetypes (jung), form of language (levi-strauss), cultural reality (w. wundt) etc. extremely interesting is the initiative of paul diel (1966, p.40) to associate every important divinity with a feature: “the spirit is zeus; the harmony of needs: apollo; the intuitive inspiration: pallas athena; the act of forcing back: hades etc. the impulse of evolving (as essential need) is represented by the hero; the inner conflict is represented by the fight against the monsters of degradation”. this point of view agrees with that of the psychologists rudica and costea (2003, p.8): “all great mythological creations describe, at the level of common psychological sense, the entire dramaturgy of our inner life”. as a synthesis of all this opinions, we can observe that there are, from a psychological point of view, three levels at which we can understand every myth: at the first level, the formal one, the narration in itself is important, as a succession of events that leads to a specific end. the second and third levels, much more valuable for psychology, have as a fundament the act of interpretation. “the myth as evidence” is related strictly to its “creator” (in this context, a community or nation). instead, “the myth as truth” goes beyond the geographical, cultural and historical borders. we are talking, of course, about the psychological truth, the universal signification, the one that reveals something about the human been in itself. such an analysis is frequent in psychology, being related to “great names” like sigmund freud, who believed in the universality (afterwards contested) of the famous oedipus complex (sillamy, 2000). in the present essay we will focus on the second level of interpretation, less noticed, but, as we want to demonstrate, very useful. at a general level, the myth offers us the chance to investigate the conception ancient communities had about the human soul. in other words, this essay is dedicated to the attempt of reconstructing the psychological knowledge of ancient greeks from their mythology. we must clarify that the psychology of myths doesn’t resume to greco-roman mythology but also myths of other cultures: mesopotamian, egyptian, celtic, hebrew, chinese, germans, thracian, dacian, indian, etc. the pantheon of ancient psychology the psychology we’re talking about in this section isn’t a “didactic” one and has a poor (if not an absent) systematization. it is, instead, dynamic, complex, and, surprisingly, real. “as in the case of all polytheist religions, the greek myths talk about the origin of the world and of humans, as well as the actions of gods and heroes” (naudin, cuq, 2001, p.20). the legend of cosmogony is, often, a story about “the birth” of psychological and behavioral manifestations. “the night gave birth to moros (the collapse), then hypnos (the sleep) and oneiroi (the dreams), as well as a multitude of evil gods: the vengeance, the fraud, the haste, the oldness, the argue, from which appeared: the trouble, the forgetfulness, the hunger, the disease, the fight, the murder, the war, the slaughter, the dissension, the lie and words with double meaning, the injustice and the oath. in the service of olympian gods there were: the hours (representing the idea of order and regularity), moira (faith), nemesis (the reward for injustice), the caryatides (the idea of elegance), the muses (the idea of art), iris, hebe (youth) and ganymede (the beautiful servant of gods)” (stan, rus, 1991, p.112-113). some sources also mention momos, “the god that stands for jokes and irony” (cordoneanu, 1998, p.192). even the main ages find a correspondent in the being of certain gods: hermes is the eternal child, smart and creative, “the heroes are associated with the rituals of spiritual initiation of the adolescents” (eliade, 1992, p.282). hebe is the youth, married with heracles (“victories are almost always related to youth”, mitru, 1996, vol. ii, p.62), zeus symbolizes the maturity as an age associated with power, equilibrium and ability to lead, cronos represents the end of our evolution, oldness, the god of death and time. from the start we can’t ignore the determinist vision of ancient greeks concerning psychical manifestations (a conception which derivates from their general belief in universal order and predestination). the psychic, along with the body, is under the influence of natural laws. craving for universal harmony (won by defeating the giant tifon with the help of hermes – intelligence), ancient greeks valued equilibrium and psychological normality. to oppose these is a crime leading to some sort of punishment. prometheus, the prototype of genius and of an unthinkable braveness, was severely punished by the gods. insanity, as a mind disorder, knows a large area of representations. about its origin, in the majority of cases, the ancient greeks invoked the fault (personal, that of a member of the family or the ancestors – nowadays the idea of “bad” hereditary baggage ) of offending the gods by egoism, negligence or injustice. for the error committed intentionally the term used is hybris (for example, ixion), and for the unintentional fault, the term is hamartia (the typical example here is that of oedipus). the divinities from greek myths associated with mental illness or disorder are, as a result, extremely numerous, related to the emotions of the mad person and the reason of his/her misery: hekate, infernal goddess of the night. represented as having three heads (symbol of the impossibility to escape your own fears); she waits for travelers at crossroads, “pushing them to despair and death” (hamann, 2004, p.148). she corresponds to the unconscious fears of every person. erinies, the greek name for furies. “from the antiquity, they started to be identified with conscience. brought “inside” the mind, they symbolize the remorse, the feeling of guilt, the self-destruction of the person that feels it is impossible to be forgiven” (chevalier, 1994, vol. ii, p.21). the correspondence with the eumenides reveals a complex psychological dynamics. “this evolution is related with that of the conscience, which first forbids and after that punishes. the erinies can transform into eumenides, favorable divinities, when reason brings the morbid conscience to a better appreciation of human acts” (chevalier, 1994, vol. ii, p.21). the gorgons, three monstrous sisters that inspired fear; they were synonymous with the ugliness of the soul, symbol of degradation. “euryale represents sexual perversity, stheno – social perversity, medusa symbolizes the spiritual need to evolve turned into arrogant stagnation” (chevalier, 1994, vol. ii, p.105). the harpies are similar to the erinies as signification and consequences, but they have a more general meaning. “the harpies symbolize bad habits – the obsessions generated by craving and also the remorse; the wind that carries them is generated by the spirit” (chevalier, 1994, vol. ii, p. 120). hydra, the legendary snake with nine heads, continues the analogy with the lust that devours the soul, taking it one step further: “everything that gets in touch with depravity or comes from it ruins or is ruined” (chevalier, 1999, vol. ii, p.129). the bacchants or menades, servants of dionysus, have, because of their rituals, a complex symbolism, being in direct connection with hysteria, drunkenness, perversity. the nymphs remind us of “a superstition referring to the madness generated by any form that raises from water; the feeling of both attraction and terror” (elit, 1964, p.178). ancient people have noticed the dual nature of humans, expressed in the myth of the dioscures. “pollux (the soul) can’t live his terrestrial experiences without castor (the body)” (ciuperca, 1998, p.18). as to the existence of conscience and unconscious in our being, the ancient greeks not only have guessed it, but they also created some suggestive metaphors concerning it: passing to the world of hades, the fight between perseu and medusa, tezeu and the minotaur, the centaurs as union of contrasts. “apollo’s victory upon python is the triumph of reason upon instinct, the conscience upon the unconscious” (chevalier, 1994, vol. iii, p.144). but, even best represented in greek mythology, are the antagonism and complementarities between rational and emotional, by “couples of contraries” like: athena – ares, athena – poseidon, apollo – dionysus. in this context, we can clearly notice the greek preference for reason, order, logos. therefore, “athena is the worst enemy of ares, which she defeats in the famous battle of the gods” (eliade, 1992, p.277), and so wisdom defeats anger and brute force (the mother of the goddess, metis, is “prudence” in itself). in the same way, athena wins the capital-city from poseidon, god of the irrational, sudden and violent gestures, monstrous phantasms. the symbolic gesture of domesticating the horse offered by poseidon to the athenians signifies the reshaping, with the help of the intellect, of what is natural and unrefined. the capacity of thinking to help us adapt and evolve is best represented by the image of the caduceus (belonging to hermes, a god associated with intelligence, agility, wisdom): the two snakes are the alchemic symbol of the union of contrasts, conciliation and creative synthesis. zeus married “metis, whose name means idea. from this union athena was born, growing in zeus’s head, from where she jumped into the world” (hamann, 2004, p.296). this is the way ancient greeks connected instinctively the process of thinking with the head and, implicitly, the brain. humorists, in exchange, view it as the capacity of the cognitive labor, the genesis of an idea (athena), to generate head-aches (for zeus, her father, or, in other words, the “author”). in conclusion, athena “symbolizes, most of all, psychological creation, the synthesis, the socialized intelligence” (virel, 1965, p.104). therefore, the words of horatius, the poet, remained famous: “tu nihil invita dices faciesve minerva” – “nothing will you be able to say or do without the help of minerva (athena)” (mitru, 1996). about the “pair” apollo – dionysus (thought by nietzsche in relation to the philosophy of culture) we can think of as “the harmony of reason” versus “the experience of ecstasy”. dionysus, god of drunkenness and mystic, “symbolizes the surpass of inhibitions, repressions” (chevalier, 1994, p.449). but the opposition between reason and emotion isn’t always seen as a conflict. the symbol of perfection, the hermaphrodite, the one that integrates the masculine and the feminine, is, as its name demonstrates, the son of the intellect (hermes) and affectivity (aphrodite). more than this, the respect for and importance of aphrodite, goddess of love, in greek mythology is obvious. “the sexual act is the specific domain of aphrodite, which she inspires and protects” (eliade, 1992, p.280). “her opposite” is artemis, a virgin goddess. “greeks have seen in her eternal virginity the indifference towards love. in the tragedy of euripides (hippolyt), artemis herself states her hate for aphrodite” (eliade, 1992, p.280). the goddess is, like all feelings, primordial, feared by gods, capable even to give life (galateea). she wins the apple of discord because love comes first before power (hera) and wisdom (athena). the eternal lover of the goddess is ares (whose cohort is formed by: enyo – the destruction, eris – the dispute, deimos – terror and phobos – fear). inspiring metaphor of the ancient: the union between aphrodite (feminine and spiritual side) and ares (the masculine and carnal side) generated harmonia (joining of contrasts) and eros (passion). about eros (cupid for romans), the myths say that “his arrows are of two kinds: ones made of gold, soaked in honey, others made of lead, soaked in poison” (cotrobescu, 1999, p.86). love is joy and also soreness, just as the affective processes are characterized by polarity and mobility. “the ancient artists presented eros riding a lion. this way they showed that feelings can tame any being regardless of how cruel it is” (mitru, 1996, vol. i, p.179). in the end, we must mention the appreciation of ancient greeks for creation, talent and art. the legend says that “zeus united with mnemosyne, goddess of memory, generated the nine muses” (cordoneanu, 1998, p.195), metaphor of creation by inspired use of gained experience. in any case, music is an atribut of the gods, proof to that being the lire of apollo (solar god, protector of the muses), pan’s pipe and the sublime music of orpheus, that calmed down even infernal forces – a symbol of revealing the products of our unconscious with the help of art. as a fundament of creation stands the fantasy (associated with pegasus) and the act of defeating all doubts, falsity and lies (the symbolic fight between pegasus and belerofon against chimera). but originality isn’t an exclusive divine feature. “thetis, the primary, fertile force, became the wife of a mortal (peleu), and this symbolizes the fact that the creative potential can’t be put to use without the help of human intelligence” (hamann, 2004, p.149). from antiquity to modern psychology the majority of psychological ideas ancient greeks had (now “taken” from their mythology) are not lost, but found (as we demonstrated), maybe in a different form, in modern scientific psychology. even more, this psychological approach to mythology has often proved to be more than “literature”, but a valid, useful investigation, capable to generate new concepts and theories. because of the well-known anthropomorphism of the greek gods, it was possible to create famous typologies, such as “the character in eight planetary types” (jues, 2003, p.52), basset on a number of four oppositions (mars – venus, earth – mercury, jupiter – saturn, sun – moon). mythology isn’t dead. ” gnothi se auton, or, in a latin more familiar form, noscere te ipsum: know yourself. the old dictum written at the entrance of the delphi temple seems more present than ever” (cotrobescu, 1999, p.678). myths offer us the way to reach the essence, a way to eternity, to the self. even the origin of the word psychology leads us to a myth: psyche and her lover, eros. “this allegory has a meaning. psyche, in the greek language means soul. but the soul rises only through love, eros, and ends up in olympus, the place of eternal happiness” (mitru, 1996, p.179). the psychic is characterized by feeling, life and torment. so, psychology represents, from the mythological point of view, more than just science or knowledge. psychology is the study of the human soul in search of love. references auregan, p., palayret, g. 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(1984), filosofia in grecia veche, editura albatros, bucuresti. microsoft word 8. chora theoretical contrib.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp.96-109 www.ejop.org chôra: creation and pathology an inquiry into the origins of illness and human response nicoletta isar institute of art history university of copehangen abstract plato’s dialogue the timaeus describes not only the making of the cosmos (order), but also the condition of what is not order, neither for the human body nor for the universe. what is disorder in cosmogonic terms it is disease for the human body. timaeus applies to the concept chôra in discussing the origins of disease as a state of imbalance and shaking, because the cosmogonic chôra is replicated in the human body, more exactly, in the liver. but the liver is also the organ of divination, the gift given to man to have access to some hidden truth. this article attempts to sketch out the relation between the chôra and illness, looking for an answer to the question of what light might shed the relationship between chôra and illness on human creativity. a specific human typology, subject to disturbances taking place in the chôra, is examined: the poet, the diviner and the melancholy artist, manifested as channels of some exceptional inspiration. they are “mantic subjects” because they acquire vision of divination not with reason, but in a state of inspiration, through divine madness (manía) and possession, as in a dream. these subjects turn illness into creativity by facing the drives of chôra. socrates. one, two, three; but where, my dear timaeus, is the fourth of those who were yesterday my guests and are to be my entertainers to-day? timaeus. he has been taken ill, socrates; for he would not willingly have been absent from this gathering. (tim. 17a) that many of plato’s texts, in particular the timaeus, were treated by the later generations as important medical texts should be of no surprise. timaeus includes a chôra: creation and pathology 97 most elaborate account of physiology, as well as of aetiology1 of disease influenced by greek medical theory. but plato’s aetiology and his vision of human pathology exceed by far the field of medical science. it reaches out to the abstract thinking of the socratic paradoxes, which are at the foundation of plato’s conception of creation, connecting mental and physical health. the limited space of this article will only allow me to sketch out the pathological aspects implicit in his paradigm of creation. with the assistance of the chôra, i will look into the timaeus from the perspective of illness, as plato himself makes a point about the absent person in the dialogue due to his illness. the question of the absent fourth person in the dialogue might be a strong indication that plato is putting the accent on the notion of absence of space, which is true, but the person is absent due to his illness, and this also explains why timaeus will turn to illness in the third discourse of the dialogue. it must be stressed from the beginning that plato’s dialogue timaeus is about the creation of the universe and the creation of man, both fashioned according to the principle of likeness with the demiurge. in the dramatic process of transition from the intelligible and invisible world to the visible cosmos (the orderly universe) the concept chôra is instrumental. chôra is the nurse, the matrix (ekmageion), the womb and the receptacle in which creation takes place. she is a third kind of reality (tríton génos), a space-in-the-making, and in-between, because she partakes both of the intelligible, and the phenomenal bodies visiting her in the process of creation. let us describe this cosmological process and the principle that governs it as it will have high relevance for my further research. before the universe comes to be generated out of the four main elements (fire, water, earth, air), the traces of these elements are set apart form each other in different regions. the crucial detail in the cosmic drama is that the phenomenal bodies visiting the chôra are in constant and complex motion. this movement derives from the difference of the powers (dynamis) manifested within the chôra, which shakes her and, in turn, she shakes them, as in the description: “the nurse of becoming, being liquefied and ignified are receiving also the forms of earth and of air, and submitting to all the other affections which accompany these, exhibits every variety of appearance; but owing to being filled with potencies that are neither similar nor balanced, in no part of herself is she equally balanced, but sways unevenly in every part, and is herself shaken by these forms and shakes them in turn 1 aetiology is the study of the causes of diseases or pathologies. pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of organs, tissues, cells and bodily fluids. europe’s journal of psychology 98 as she is moved” (52d-52e). in their passage through chôra, the phenomenal bodies leave their traces behind, and this is instrumental in disclosing the absconded chôra. however, the chôra appears only episodically to sight, only the moments when these bodies collide with her. she appears only in the traces since only the things that move are visible things and leave their traces in the visible. one could therefore speak of the chôra only in movement, as the moving trace of the chôra. but at the same time, it is fair to say that the trace of the chôra is an impermanent trace. such picture of the chôra precedes the cosmic order, but this does not necessarily mean that there is disorder in chôra. rather, there is a different principle at work. let us try to identify now this principle since the same principle will be at work in the human body. to describe the movements inside chôra, how the elements (shapes, characters, forces, traces), still in a primordial state, move and liquefy or ignify chôra, plato uses the metaphor of “the sieve.” thus he writes: “the forms, as they are moved, fly continually in various directions and are dissipated; just as the particles that are shaken and winnowed by the sieves and other instruments used for the cleansing of corn fall in one place if they are solid and heavy, but fly off elsewhere if they are spongy and light (52e-53a). with the sieve one can separate heavy and thick parts of corn from the scarce and light, but as we will see in a moment, the primordial elements take quite a specific turn in their motion: “her motion, like an instrument which causes shaking, was separating farthest from one another the dissimilar, and pushing most closely together the similar; wherefore also these kinds occupied different places even before that the universe was organised and generated out of them” (53a). this description shows how movement inside chôra can’t be defined properly as chaotic in the sense of ultimate disorder; rather, in chôra a metaphysical order of some other kind is reigning. the primordial elements get closer or further following the principle of similarity. they tend to get closer to those more similar, and to get further from the different in a continuous movement. the origins of disease but as it comes out later, in the dialogue, timaeus inquires not only into the making of the cosmos, that is, order (from gk. kosmos "orderly arrangement" cf. homeric kosmeo), but also into the condition of what is not order, neither for the human body, nor for the universe before it becomes the orderly universe. what is disorder in cosmogonic terms it is disease for the human body, which is itself shaped according to the principle of likeness with the god archetype. timaeus applies once more to chôra: creation and pathology 99 the concept chôra in discussing the origins of disease. he describes disease as a reversion to that state of imbalance and shaking when, before the arrival of the god creator, the chôra was filled with the traces of fire, air, water, and earth – the four primary bodies of which the human body (like the cosmos) is composed: “when, contrary to nature, there occurs either an excess or a deficiency of these elements or a change in the chôra from the proper to an other, then the body loses its selfsameness, and there results disorders (stáseis) and diseases (nósous)” (tim. 82a). the disease is the reverse of order and sameness; it is the unlimitedness (apeiron) and the dissembling. the disease is the effect of disorder between body and soul caused by “the very passionate state” of the soul which “shakes the whole body from within and fills it with maladies” (88a). let us now come close to the passage in the timaeus, where the chôra is, according to sallis, “replicated” within the human body (sallis 1999, p. 122). chôra is replicated in its visual appearance, as well as in its symptoms, in the liver: “to guard against this (i.e. images and phantasms) god devised and constructed the form of the liver and placed it in that part’s abode; and he fashioned it dense and smooth (lampros) and bright and sweet, yet containing bitterness, that the power of thoughts that proceed from nous move in the liver as in a mirror that receives impressions and provide visible images, should frighten this part of the soul” (tim. 71b). the liver receives images from the faculty of understanding diánoia (tim. 71c), making by contraction the surface of the liver wrinkled and rough, exhibiting thus bilious colours. the liver was possibly introduced into that region by god to be an instrument or intermediary of the highest part of the soul (tim. 71f.), whereby the latter could show visions and terrify or appease tò epithumetikón (the motion of desire) (onians 1954, pp. 87-88). it is why a subsidiary organ is provided, the ekmageion, described as a napkin or a wiping cloth laid besides a mirror, whose primary function is precisely to keep the liver bright and clean (tim. 72 c). in so far as the disease is disorder and dissembling, the body therapy should consist of restoring the symmetry and balance between soul and body. as timaeus puts it: “the one means of salvation is this – neither to exercise the soul without the body nor the body without the soul, so that they may be evenly matched and sound health.” restoration of health could technically be achieved by cultivating music and philosophy “as both deserve to be called truly fair and good” (tim. 88c). the imitation consists basically of such curative drive, which “never, if possible, allows the body to be at rest but keeps it moving, and by continually producing internal vibrations” (tim. 88e) to restore the likeness with the model. only by such continuous movement would man be able to get in tune with the prototype and reflect it. europe’s journal of psychology 100 vision in the liver – a mirror image one must stress that the chief quality of this chôra receptacle described above (the liver) is that to reflect like a mirror. the liver is smooth, shining (lampros), sweet, and bitter. with respect to the body, we may call the physiological process of its cleansing by the term choral technique (manolescu 2001, p. 56). the process imitates the nurse, the cosmic chôra in its primordial cosmogonic process of moulding, which is said to “begin by making it even and as smooth as possible before they execute the work” (tim. 50e). but the accessibility of this kind of imagemirror refection in the liver is problematic, just like the image of the cosmic chôra. as plato has already emphasized when describing the making of the cosmos, the chôra could only be grasped with great difficulty through a bastard thinking (logismo noth�) and vision – in derrida’s words – “alternating between the logic of exclusion and that of participation” (derrida 1995, p. 89). to look at the chôra was as if "we look at it as in a dream" (tim. 52b). one dreams of the chôra, and in the dream one fails to distinguish the three kinds of being, because this is the symptomatology of the dream. dreaming is, according to socrates, mistaking an image for its original (rep. 476c). the dream confounds, but it also discloses that of which one dreams, so that the dream space of chôra is a mere image of chôra, a reflection, not the “chôra itself.” the chôra is, according to john sallis, anything but a mere mirror in which perpetual being would be reflected and the cosmos fabricated (sallis 1999, p. 122). as i will show in a moment, this cosmic symptomatology of the chôra applies to the humans as well, because they are shaped according to the same principle: the likeness with the archetype/macrocosmos, which they both reflect. the reflection of the archetype in the body is the vision in the liver described above. this image might be, either a reflection of the selfsameness (order) with the archetype, or one of disorder and dissimilarity, which is the sign of sickness. this vision is man’s share of truth, according to plato. according to the philosopher, man could in some degree lay hold on truth, but on some condition. to have access to some truth, he says, “god gave unto man’s foolishness the gift of divination.” the shining (lampros) surface of the liver is able to reflect thoughts because the soul in the liver area is capable of divination. but vision of divination is achieved not with reason, but with another faculty: “no man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration” (tim. 71e). the person having access to such vision, due to his personal affection or disease is called mántis, a diviner. his vision we may call mantic vision. the diviners (mánteis) have the chôra: creation and pathology 101 experience of inspired divinations (enthéois manteíais), and the prophets (prophetes) are the interpreters (upokritaí) of these visions (tim. 71e-72b). it is interesting to note that the ancient babylonians considered the liver – though not the human organ, but of a sacrificial sheep (amutu) – to be the “mirror of heaven,” and to be apt for divination. babylonian hepatoscopy (the examination of the visceral surface of the liver) was the highest form of the diviner's art, which divided the surface into various zones (fig. 1). it was believed that, by magic sympathy, the state of the organ showed the state of mind of the god, who at the moment of sacrifice was believed to have identified himself with the victim (onians 1954, p. 60). etruscan divination by the liver, followed by the romans, has some affinities to the babylonian culture. the overwhelming number of bronze mirrors found in the etruscan culture could not only be explained by a rise of demand of cosmetic objects. their circular shape, the polished mirror surface, as well as, in many cases, the iconography explicitly related to divination, and decorating the surface opposite to the reflecting part of the mirror, make them most interesting cases of choral technique. one example stands out: the bronze mirror from vatican city, museo gregoriano etrusco, showing calchas, the priest of apollo, mentioned in homer’s iliad – an elderly haruspex2 examining the liver of a sacrificed sheep (fig. 2). the etruscan inscription reads his name xalxas (chalchas), and the caption: a winged soothsayer incised on a bronze mirror reads omens from an animal's liver. the mythical greek soothsayer chalchas is represented with the attribute of wings, stressing his function of go-between earthly and transcendental reality. his posture, one foot on the rock upwards, and the other one touching the earth, suggests his interstitial placement in the chôra, the in-between space where divination takes place performed by the haruspex, who is able to establish contact between the two worlds. 2 haruspex (plural haruspices) was a soothsayer or diviner who practiced a special form of divination called haruspicy. haruspicy was the interpretation of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep, therefore this kind of divination was called also hepatoscopy. europe’s journal of psychology 102 holy seers (mánteis): divine madness (manía) and melancholy the diviners belong to the great family of the holy seers, thought in the ancient greek world to have been endowed with mantic inspiration, a state of divine madness or possession. pythias was one of these seers (mánteis) raving (manikoí) in madness (manía), and able to communicate with the divine. in a state of mantic fig. 1 piacenza bronze liver used for divination in hepatoscopy (piacenza museo civico) fig. 2 etruscan bronze mirror of chalchas the seer reading a liver (vatican: gregorian museum, rome, cat # 12240) chôra: creation and pathology 103 inspiration, these human agents were “beside themselves” (ekstatikoí), but “full of god” (entheoi), that is, “enthusiastic.” but it was only in such state of being that were they able to say things impossible otherwise to utter in a normal state, having thus access to some truth (tim. 71e).) for plato the poet is the recipient of higher inspiration. “there is … an ancient saying – constantly repeated by ourselves and endorsed by every one else – that whenever the poet is seated on the muse’s tripod, he is not in his senses, but resembles a fountain, which gives free discourse to the upward rush of water” (laws 719c. plato was aware of the power of the poet, therefore he was to be banished from the perfect city. plato dedicated the dialogue ion to poetic inspiration, and treated the subject in such dialogues as the apology, the menon, and the phaedrus. the origin of the concept of poetic madness could be traced back to old greek music and the pythagoreans (koller 1954, pp. 126ff, 148ff). but for the pythagoreans, possession (manía) was a sickness to cure, not necessarily a divine gift to cultivate. purification (katharsis) of the soul through the incantatory power of music was thought to be the cure of such illness. divine inspiration was perceived also as a gift given to the melancholic subjects. this idea pervades the history of culture since antiquity up to the renaissance philosophy of ficino de vita triplici, and later to be found in robert burton’s anatomy of melancholy. one particular aspect related to the physiology of disease is most relevant for our research, namely, the humour which was associated with melancholy. a brief etymological note on the greek word chólos might be instructive. this term, usually translated as “wrath,” and synonymous to anger and madness, is also connected to another form of the un-homeric cholé, which means “bile,” causing melancholic disturbances. the surplus of black bile made one dispose to frenzy and divine inspiration achieved in music and poetry, according to plato. in the dialogue phaedrus socrates states, “...in fact frenzy, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings.”3 among the inspired artists, michelangelo stands out with his theme of the melancholy genius possessed by divine inspiration and emotional instability. in one of his drawings, suggestively entitled il sogno (around 1533), preserved in the collection of the courtauld institute of art, michelangelo seems to combine the platonic notion of divine furor with the aristotelian definition of melancholy. gifts and vices are depicted in a cloud around the central figure (fig. 3). most importantly, the melancholy vision is a dream vision. like the dream space of the chôra from the 3 plato, phaedrus and letters vii and viii (trans. by walter hamilton), london: penguin books, 1973, p. 46. europe’s journal of psychology 104 timaeus, the vision of the melancholy stands outside the diurnal logic of reason, in the sleep of the night. michelangelo was indebted in his vision to marcilio ficino (himself inspired by plato), for whom melancholy had two natures, described in de vita triplici as, the one a medical pathology in which the humour just sits there, the other a spiritual nirvana in which the humour fiercely burns. fig. 3 michelangelo il sogno – drawing around 1511 (collection of the courtauld institute of art) chôra and the semiotized being – a “subject on trial”4 i tried to sketch out so far the relation between the chôra and illness as it comes out from plato’s texts, according to the access to some truth given to man through divination and inspiration. a specific human typology, subject to disturbances and vibrations (seismous) taking place in the chôra, came out in the process. i have identified the poet, the diviner and the melancholy artist, manifested as channels of some exceptional inspiration. their response appeared to be a discourse beyond logic, and cognition: the prophetic discourse, and the poetic discourse (furor poeticus) characteristic of the poet and the melancholy artist. i will now search for 4 this is allusion to kristeva’s theory of the subject, with its emphasis on the sujet-en-procès (subject-in process/on trial). chôra: creation and pathology 105 an answer to the question of what light this relationship between the chôra and illness might shed on human creativity, and if we could think of creation as a symptom of defence against illness. for this, i must turn to kristeva. i will try to briefly inquire first into what is the relation between the semiotic, the symbolic, and chôra in the signifying process that constitutes language, as presented by kristeva in revolution in poetic language; then i will consider the possible relation between illness and the abject, the concept presented by kristeva in her powers of horror, finally to ask the question: can the negativity of chôra, which has been analyzed by kristeva as comparable to the negative forces of abjection, find some association with creation and genius in the aetiology of disease discussed in this article? according to kristeva, the semiotic and the symbolic are two inseparable modalities in the signifying process of language because the subject is always both semiotic and symbolic. such is the psychoanalytic sujet en process (subject in process/in trial) – a subject interminably in process/on trial between the semiotic and symbolic. kristeva borrows the term chôra from plato’s timaeus to define the original ground of signification. for kristeva, “the semiotic chora” (kristeva 1984, p. 36) precedes the ego thinking, that is, it exists before meaning exists. but chôra is the necessary ground; it is a pulsational force of bodily drives per se, essential to the functioning of sign and signification (taussig 1993, p. 36). chôra is “a nonexpressive totality formed by the drives and their stases in a motility” (kristeva 1984: p. 25). the “drives,” which are energy, move through the body of the subject, and they are “always already in a semiotic process” (kristeva 1984, p. 36). the “drives" are ambiguous, simultaneously assimilating and destructive. kristeva is indebted at this point to freudian and lacanian notions of the unconscious, the drives and primary processes that articulate the fragmented substance, not yet constituted as the body of the subject (kristeva 1964, pp. 17, 22-25, 30). neither sign nor signifier, neither model nor copy, chôra is a process analogous to vocal or kinetic rhythm, which is constantly to be restored (kristeva 1984, p. 26). in short, chôra is a space of instability and duplicity, uncertainty and hesitation, and this dualism of the chôra, represented as a tetrad or a double helix, makes the semiotized body a place of permanent scission.5 in her powers of horror: an essay on abjection (1982) kristeva makes use of the theory of the subject in process and introduces the term “abjection” to define the chaotic, unformed maternal womb, which gives rise to language, the process through which the separation of the subject from object is made. the genesis of the subject occurs in the two phases of the thetic (the mirror 5 my emphasis. for kristeva, the scission in the psyche between life and death, meaning and nonmeaning is a symptom of melancholy, best expressed in holbein’s dead christ. europe’s journal of psychology 106 stage and castration.), where the thetic (the rupture and/or boundary) is the irruption of the symbolic, the break with the semiotic. thus, the genesis of the subject occurs as a violent rupture and/or boundary with the unconscious or the semiotic chôra. the poet “is” the subject in process/on trial (en process). he dwells with this rupture, at this boundary. he is comparable, according to kristeva, to a scapegoat. therefore, in dennis king kennan’s view, the genesis of the subject is “a scene of sacrifice” (question of sacrifice, p. 33). this “event” of sacrifice, the poetic revolution (which kristeva clearly distinguishes from art as a mere cultural form of human activity) is the interval/ the passage from semiotic violence to symbolic order. let us return one last time to our human subjects under scrutiny in this paper and look at them from this perspective. the poet, the inspired mántis, and the melancholy artist, they are all facing the negativity process of the chôra in which drives are manifested, facing simultaneously the semiotic (unconscious), as well as the symbolic.6 in this dramatic process, creation emerges as a process of transformation of the semiotic into the symbolic, which is always a process of becoming – a process, the process of creation. fighting against illness, the mantic subjects confront permanently the chôra, turning into an asset what is a lacuna7 in the body, converting illness into creativity. the body of these mánteis is a “semiotized” body, which lives in a permanent “state of scission,” to use kristeva’s syntagm; they are sujets en procès, subjects on trial, as it were. the space of creation and mantic inspiration has some kinship to the platonic metaxý (the interval), where the daímôn8 dwells, or a revelation of some kind always occurs. this space of dream and imagination is a phantasm, a mirror image, a reflection; therefore it must be assiduously polished according to the choral technique (vitray-meyerovitch 1978, pp. 38-39). paraphrasing derrida, we can also say that these human subjects belong to the genus of those who have no place (derrida 1995, p. 108), because their discourse takes place in the chôra, which is the place of no place, the space of absence by excellence. illness and absence – evoked in the epigraphê of the platonic dialogue, as well as of this article – are hopefully coming now to some logical association. 6 kristeva calls this process of charges and stases a negativity. chora is the place where the subject is both generated and negated – a fundamental lack. 7 lacuna is a gap or a missing part, an absence of some kind. in our case it refers to the state of illness. 8 in plato’s words from symposium: “a great daímôn, for the whole of the daimonic is between (metaxy) god and mortal”. chôra: creation and pathology 107 conclusion finally: last words on the act of creation as pharmakon, an “event” of sacrifice and a therapy. the therapy suggested by plato for the restoration of symmetry and balance between soul and body is an imitation of the nurse chôra. this consists of never allowing the body to rest but moving it with a seismic movement, continually producing internal vibrations (tim. 88e), coming thus close to the likeness of the archetype. this therapy is an ongoing process in which man should constantly imitate “the nurse of the universe” (tim. 88d), the cosmic chôra. kristeva’s view of art as the means, by which “the flow of jouissance” infiltrates the symbolic order (kristeva 1984, p. 79), is most instructive. if creation is, like its human subject, on trial, basically consisting in constantly confronting the choraic motility of the semiotic violent chôra, then creation is that flow of jouissance that is not only therapeutic, but which could epiphanically and episodically reflect the archetype. one may ask oneself whether this artist found under his work, possessed by it, not possessing it,9 is the kind of artist of whom jung thinks as the sole mediator by which the existence of archetypes could be demonstrated? as jung puts it: “…this is the secret of creation. the process of creation, as much as we can grasp it, consists in the unconscious animation of the archetype, in shaping and polishing it until one achieves the perfect work.”10 chôra was certainly one of those archetypes with cosmic vocation, revealed and animated in the process of human creation and imagination, but only obliquely, as a reflection in a mirror, as a dream, like the cosmic chôra itself. but chôra was both the paradigm of creation, and the space of human creation itself, because she was both embedded within the confines of the cosmos, as well as of the human body. 9 jung distinguishes between the work of art, which derives entirely from the intention of the artist. in this activity, the poet is one with the process of creation; he is the process of creation itself. on the other hand, says jung, there is a specie of work of art, which is imposed to the artist, in which the artist is possessed by it, his consciousness is empty in the presence of such phenomenon, he has the perception that he is under the work, or aside it, “like a person who find himself to be in the sphere of attraction of a foreign person.” (c. g. jung, “la psychologie analytique dans ses rapports avec l’oeuvre poétique,” essais de psychologie analytique, paris, 1951, pp. 127-128) see also, anca oroveanu, the european theory of art and psychoanalysis (in romanian), editura meridiane, 2000, esp. pp. 219-243 10 ibidem, p. 145. europe’s journal of 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(1962), pp. 175-187. onians, r. b.: the origins of european thought. about the body, the mind, the soul, the world time, and fate, cambridge university press 1954. oroveanu, anca: the european theory of art and psychoanalysis (in romanian), bucurest: editura meridiane, 2000, esp. pp. 219-243. chôra: creation and pathology 109 plato: timaeus, in plato: timaeus, critias, cleitophon, menexenus, epistles tr. r. g. bury, loeb classical library no. 234 (january 1, 1929), harvard university press. sallis, john: chorology: on beginning in plato’s timaeus, indianapolis: indiana university press, 1999. taussig, michael: mimesis and alterity: mimesis and alterity. a particular history of the senses, new york: routledge 1993. tigerstedt e. n.: ”furor poeticus: poetic inspiration in greek literature before democritus and plato,” in journal of the history of ideas, vol. 31, nr. 2. (apr.-jun., 1970), pp. 163-178. vitray-meyerovitch, eva de.: anthologie du soufisme, paris : sindbad 1978. about the author: nicoletta isar is associate professor at the institute of art history, department of arts and cultural studies at copenhagen university. visual anthropology is both, her area of research, and of teaching, which combines visual arts, anthropology, and ritual performances, as well as elements of psychology. her current research project is comparative chorography a performative paradigm of creation and imagination a comparative study in the history of mentalities and visuality, concerned with the paradigmatic dimension of image and imagination, and creativity. e-mail: isar@hum.ku.dk microsoft word 4. research developmental dyslexics.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 44-62 www.ejop.org developmental dyslexics and unimpaired children’s reading and memory for words in a transparent orthography natasza dominika nalesnik institute of psychiatry university of london bahman baluch middlesex university abstract word reading and short-term memory performance of forty two developmental dyslexics (mean age 10.1 years, sd = .7) and thirty three unimpaired reading age matched (mean age of 8.5, sd = .5) and thirty six unimpaired chronological age matched children (mean age of 10.6, sd = .7) was investigated in transparent polish orthography. fifty of the children were instructed that they were expected to recall the list of (12 high frequency mainly concrete) words after reading them aloud (condition a), whilst others had no such instructions (condition b). word reading was tested by recording the time taken to read aloud the list of words in seconds and by taking into account errors in pronunciation. overall, word reading was significantly slower for developmental dyslexics compared to reading age (ra) and chronological age (ca) controls. however, developmental dyslexics’ recall of words was comparable to ca and significantly superior to ra both in conditions a and b of the experiment. the implications of these results in relation to the impact of spelling transparency on memory performance of impaired and unimpaired readers are discussed. keywords: spelling transparency; polish; developmental dyslexia; word reading; memory background there has been considerable research examining the significance of phonological processing in the development of reading and spelling (e.g., ehri, 1999; frith, 1980) developmental dyslexia (e.g., goswami & bryant, 1990; snowling, 1980; swan & goswami, 1997) and memory processes (e.g., baddeley, 1986; baddeley, 1990). more recently however, there is a growing interest in examining the extent to which europe’s journal of psychology 45 the manner in which a particular orthography represents phonology of the spoken language has its unique effect on the development of reading and spelling (rack, hulme, snowling & wightman, 1994), developmental dyslexia (goulandris, 2003) and memory processes (baluch & danaye-tousie, 2006a). the aim of the present study is to examine word reading and short-term recall of words in polish which insofar as grapheme-phoneme conversions are concerned has a transparent orthography (reid, 2005). grapheme phoneme conversion is a process by which the reader transforms words graphemes (letters) to the corresponding phonemes (sounds) using linguistic rules of the language. the outcome should be arrival at the word’s correct pronunciation. there has been little systematic research on the development of reading and spelling in polish, and none has been reported on short-term memory for dyslexics and unimpaired readers. phonological processing and development of reading the role of phonology as a mediating factor in children’s development of reading has found considerable support in the developmental literature (e.g., rack, hulme, snowling & wightman, 1994; sprenger-charolles, siegel, béchennec & serniclaes, 2003). according to the most influential developmental models (ehri, 1999; ehri & snowling, 2004; frith 1980) reading and spelling develops through distinct stages from logographic (or pre-alphabetic) to alphabetic, leading to the establishment of an orthographic lexicon. in this respect the alphabetic phase is seen as an important stepping stone in transition to the orthographic stage. this is the stage in which beginner readers learn the connections between letters (graphemes) and corresponding phonemes and use the grapheme-phoneme correspondence as a process in word reading/recognition (ehri, 1999). further support of the role that phonological processing may play in the development of reading comes from studies on phonological awareness tasks, the ability to manipulate and show an understanding of any phonological unit within a word, be it phoneme, rime, or syllable (adams, 1990; brady & shankweiler, 1991; goswami & bryant, 1990; wagner & torgesen, 1987). research has generally shown that children, who show good performance on such tasks both at pre and post literacy level, demonstrate greater reading skills than those who show poorer performance. a further test of the role of phonological processing in reading has been on reading performance of children classed as developmental dyslexics (goswami & bryant, 1990; snowling, 1980; swan & goswami, 1997). dyslexic children are slower and make more errors compared to unimpaired readers in reading words and non-words aloud (jackson & coltheart, 2001) and show greater difficulty in tasks involving phonological awareness (brady & shankweiler, 1991; goswami & bryant, 1990; wagner & torgesen, 1987). the general consensus is that perhaps these differences demonstrate difficulties in phonological developmental dyslexics 46 processing and/or problems associated with transition at the alphabetic stage of reading (e.g., frith, 1980). orthographic transparency and development of reading there is now a growing body of research examining the impact of orthographic transparency on the development of reading (see goulandris, 2003). orthographies differ in the extent to which phonological information may be extracted from the print via grapheme-to-phoneme conversions (see frost, katz & bentin, 1987). it has been argued that in the case of scripts like serbo-croatian, in principle a simple grapheme-to-phoneme conversion without lexical involvement should enable correct generation of a word’s pronunciation. english spelling represents a position somewhere in the middle of transparency-opaqueness continuum. this is because of the presence of words with irregular spellings (frost et al., 1987). according to coltheart’s (1978) influential dual route model and the more recent cascade model (coltheart, cutris, atkins & haller, 1993) english words that conform to spelling sound rules may be read via grapheme-phoneme conversions and those that are exceptions to the rules (irregular) are read via the direct lexical route. it has been suggested that beginner readers of english may find it particularly difficult to encode exception words using the grapheme-phoneme strategy and may rely on alternative lexical strategy for recognition of exception words (barron 1986). at the far extreme of opaqueness, however, there are scripts such as vowel free hebrew in which there is a greater need for a direct lexical route in generation of a correct pronunciation because pointers representing the vowels /a, e, i, o/ and /u/ are usually omitted. in view of differences between orthographies with regard to transparency it has been argued that if the development of reading relies on efficiency of phonological generation from print, it would be easier to read in a transparent orthography as this may facilitate recognition of words using graphemephoneme conversions. if so, there may be a lower prevalence rate of reading impairment for transparent writing systems (de gelder & vroomen, 1991; nikolopoulos & goulandris, 2000; snowling, 2004). cross-language comparisons have shown that children reading transparent orthographies such as greek (porpodas, pantelis, & hantziou, 1990) and italian (cossu, gugliotta, & marshall, 1995) perform more accurately in reading words and non-words compared to children reading in english (frith, wimmer, & landerl, 1998). moreover, bilingual english and hebrew beginner readers were found to read more accurately when hebrew is vowelized than unvowelized, or when reading regular compared to irregular english words (geva & siegel, 2000). there is also evidence that both spelling and word recognition in terms of oral reading is easier in europe’s journal of psychology 47 transparent orthographies such as turkish than in deep orthographies such as english (oney, peter, & katz,1997; raman, baluch & sneddon, 1996). baluch and danaye tousie (2006a) examined the impact of transparency of a word spelling on reading in persian which is transcribed by two kinds of spellings namely; words spelled with vowels (letters) transcribed as a fixed part of the spelling (transparent) and words spelled with vowels (diacritics) omitted (opaque). the results showed that dyslexic persian children perform worse (slower reading and more errors) compared to both unimpaired reading and chronological age controls. according to castles and coltheart (1993) and manis, seidenberg, doi, mcbridechang and peterson (1996), more specific information regarding reading behaviour of dyslexic readers may be gained by providing two groups of unimpaired “controls” in the study. comparison of reading performance of developmental dyslexics with unimpaired readers of the same age (ca) may show how delayed a reader may be in reaching a normal phase of reading. however, the comparison of developmental dyslexics with unimpaired readers of the same reading age (ra) may demonstrate the extent of deviance from patterns of reading which do not correspond to any of the normal reading stages. the findings from persian thus suggest that dyslexics have indeed greater difficulty with phonological processing compared to ra controls and the effect is true even for transparent words. furthermore, it is important to note that baluch and danaye-tousie’s study had used mainly high frequency words in their experiment. thus the finding that even with high frequency words there is slower reading and more errors for dyslexics is of interest particularly in relation to the impact of spelling transparency and the development of reading. the findings from persian, however, are not surprising and have also been reported in relation to reading english, which like persian has a mixture of regular (transparent) and exception (opaque) spellings (e.g., olson, wise, conners, rack, & fulker, 1989). the question is whether a similar pattern may also be observed in an orthography like polish in which the relationship between graphemes and phonemes are entirely consistent? alternatively, one may argue that perhaps the latter significant deficits in phonological processing is evident only in scripts like persian and english with mixture of opaque and transparent spellings. the little reported research on reading in transparent orthographies other than polish is not entirely conclusive. for example, evidence from regular dutch suggests that dyslexic children perform similar to their reading-age controls but worse than their chronological-age controls on reading tasks (messbauer & de jong, 2004). however, in hindi which is also a transparent orthography, gupta (2004) reported that dyslexics were worse in reading accuracy compared to both ra and ca controls. developmental dyslexics 48 phonological processing and working memory phonological processing is also argued to play an important role in working memory (baddeley, 1990; just & carpenter, 1992). working memory is argued to comprise of a central executive which functions as a control mechanism, and two temporary storage systems: verbal and visuo-spatial. the verbal sub-system plays a particularly important role in temporary storage of phonologically coded information. the efficient functioning of the system in relation to reading and comprehension is argued to depend on fast and error free retrieval of phonological information generated from print (baddeley, 1990; de jong, 1998; just & carpenter, 1992). children classed as poor readers or dyslexic may have particular problems with memory processing for at least two reasons: a) difficulties in encoding words due to poor grapheme-phoneme processes when reading words and b) difficulties due to the taxing of the limited capacity attention system due to a slower processing strategy (attention demanding). hence there is growing evidence that dyslexics show poor performance on general verbal span tasks as well as tasks requiring visual spatial processing (smith-spark & fisk, 2007). orthographic transparency and working memory there has been little research on orthographic transparency and working memory. baluch and danaye tousie were amongst the first to examine this subject amongst both adults (baluch & danaye-tousie, 2006b) and children (baluch & danaye-tousie, 2006a). in relation to data on children, it was found that contrary to word reading performance dyslexics recall of words, in particular transparent words, was comparable to ca control and significantly better than ra control. similar results were also reported by swanson (1993) in which dyslexic children performed better on memory tasks compared to their reading age controls. according to baluch and danaye-tousie (2006a) the following could account for the above pattern of results: firstly, it could be the case that the words used in the study are mainly high frequency and dyslexics may rely on a more superior orthographic memory to compensate for their poorer phonological skills (funnell & davison, 1989). mcdougall and donohoe (2002) also reported that the difference in short-term memory is minimal with high frequency words for poor and good readers but greater with low frequency words. a second explanation could be in view of the maturity of dyslexics who are 2 years older than ra control. it is possible that dyslexics take more “strategic” advantage of instructions to recall words after naming aloud hence their better performance. rack et al., (1992) also argued that dyslexic readers who are older than the reading age matched control may have additional skills and strategies to bring to bear on reading tasks. in this respect, the additional skills by europe’s journal of psychology 49 more mature dyslexic readers may have been more useful when dealing with transparent words that are less taxing at the grapheme-to-phoneme conversions. research questions the first aim of the present study is to compare reading performance of developmental dyslexics in polish with unimpaired reading age (ra) and chronological age (ca) controls. the materials to be used for reading will be high frequency and mainly concrete words (comparable to the study by baluch and danaye tousie 2006a) study). furthermore, the age of participants will be as close as possible to the latter study. if developmental dyslexics in polish show greater difficulty in reading compared to both ra and ca, this further supports a view in which both in persian and in transparent polish there are significant deficits due to phonological processing as a result of being dyslexic. if, however, developmental dyslexics perform comparable to the reading-age controls but worse than the chronologicalage controls, this may suggest that perhaps reading in an entirely transparent orthography is a factor affecting the magnitude of differences between groups. a second aim of the present study is to examine recall of mainly high frequency words in polish by dyslexics, ra and ca controls with regard to high frequency words and under two experimental conditions. condition a in which readers are explicitly told that they are expected to recall words and condition b in which there are no such instructions. if in an entirely transparent polish orthography dyslexics show a similar pattern to that of persian dyslexics; this is further confirmation that insofar as high frequency words are concerned dyslexics do not show a memory deficit for such words. however, equally important interest is in relation to presence and absence of instruction about recall of words. if dyslexics are strategically better able to take advantage of prior instructions to recall words one would expect a significant group by condition interaction. polish orthography polish is an inflectional orthography, which belongs to the western group of north slavic languages, other members of this language group are the slovak and czech (reid, 2005). polish is written in the roman script tailored to the phonological system of language by combining letters into digraphs. the alphabet consists of 35 letters in which 23 of these letters are considered as basic letters, nine with diacritics and three that only occur in foreign borrowings (reid, 2005). a feature of the polish orthography is its high consistency of letter-sound correspondence, but rather low sound-letter mapping. therefore, whereas reading should not present problems, developmental dyslexics 50 spelling may do. these features of the polish orthography resemble that of german and portuguese languages (reid, 2005). schooling is based on a phonic approach i.e., the introduction of letter sound correspondence in consonants and vowels, e.g., 'c' like 'cat' ( 'k' like in 'kot'). at a later stage word analysis and blending skills are being introduced with diacritics and digraphs being introduced last. also reading syllable by syllable is encouraged as an intermediate step to whole-word recognition. children are expected to be able to read the whole alphabet in conjunction with words and to be competent in reading by the end of the first schooling year (brzezińska & ziółkowska, 1987). methods participants a total of 111 polish children took part in the present study. forty two of the children (28 male and 14 female) mean age 10.1 years (sd = .7) were classed as developmental dyslexic. the process of being diagnosed as developmental dyslexic in poland is that children are being referred by the school pedagogues to a pedagogical clinic were they are being required to attend a special psychological clinic for a two day assessment using reading, maths, motor skills and iq test (raven’s coloured matrices test, raven, court, & raven, 1977). the prevalence of dyslexia is reported to be 9-10% of children (bogdanowicz, 2006). according to information from the school pedagogies to the first author dyslexic participants were selected for the present study who were matched with unimpaired controls (see below) on parents education and economic status and there was no difference in their iq (all children taking part in the present study scored about or above 75 percentile). none of the dyslexic or unimpaired children showed any emotional or neurological problems. thirty three children (17 male and 16 female) were matched on reading age (ra) according to the information provided by their teachers with mean age 8.5 years (sd = .5). thirty six children (20 male and 16 female) made up the chronological age (ca) control with mean age of 10.6 years (sd = .7). materials seven ‘initial education’ teachers were asked to come up with a list of thirty two one syllable, mainly concrete words, which came up frequently in grades 1 and 2 polish textbooks. of which twenty four were randomly chosen for the present study. none of the words had any apparent inter-semantic relationship. half of the words were used in the practice trial and another half in the actual experiment. all words were europe’s journal of psychology 51 printed in 16 font size, 12 each on an a4 card (see appendix for the words used in the experiment). procedure the study was conducted in four primary schools in cracov and rzeszow. approval to conduct the study on school premises was obtained from the head teacher and the whole procedure was overlooked by the school pedagogue. all parents gave written consent for their children to participate in the study. participants were assigned to either of two conditions: in condition a both for practice and the experimental trial children were asked to read the list of words as ‘quickly as possible’ and were informed beforehand that they would be required to recall as many words as possible in a follow up test. in condition b children were only informed to read the list of 12 words as quickly as possible and no mention was made at this stage about recall of words. in both conditions reading the words was followed by a distracter task of making a simple addition of a 2 by 2 digit figure for no longer than 20 seconds. this was immediately followed by recalling as many words as possible in 60 seconds. the reason for using a distracter task is that it has been shown that recent words on a list of words are better recalled in short-term memory test in view of different strategies adopted by the participants (baddeley & hitch, 1993). thus by using a distracter task, which was also employed in baluch & danaye-tousie’s (2006a) study, it is hoped that the recency effect is minimized. each participant was tested individually and the session lasted no longer than15 minutes. a tape recorder was used to record the session and for detecting errors of reading aloud at a later stage. a stop watch was used to measure the time taken for reading aloud. errors in reading were predominantly mispronunciations. results the mean time taken to read the list of words (in seconds), the number of errors in reading, and the number of correctly recalled words with their corresponding standard deviations (sd) are represented in table 1. table 2 represents the inter correlations between the main variables in the present study, namely number of words recalled, age of participants, time taken to read the words and number of errors. developmental dyslexics 52 table 1: mean, standard deviations for each measure and experimental condition dyslexic reading age chronological age control control ____________________________________________________________________________ (n = 17) (n = 17) (n = 16) condition m sd m sd m sd a time taken to read (sec) 15.41 6.73 13.23 3.86 9.31 2.98 number of errors in reading 1.41 1.69 .52 .71 .31 .6 number of words recalled 2.47 1.46 1.52 1 2.93 .85 (n = 25) (n = 16) (n = 20) b time taken to read (sec) 14.72 4.21 12.81 4 11.91 4.63 number of errors in reading .88 1.01 .43 0.62 0 0 number of words recalled 1.8 1 1.12 .95 1.85 .98 _____________________________________________________________________________ a 3 group (dyslexic, ra, ca) by 2 condition (a, b) factorial anova was conducted separately on 2 of the main measures taken from the present study for the time to read words and for the number of words recalled. as the sd for errors in reading for the ca group was zero an independent group’s t-test was conducted for only the dyslexic group and the ra control. time to read words analysis of the data on the time taken to read the list of words showed a significant main effect for group with f (2, 105) = 24.16, mse = 17.35, p < .0001. post–hoc comparisons of the means using fisher’s lsd showed significant differences between dyslexics and ca, p < .0001, se = .94), (cohen’s d = 1.6) and between dyslexics and ra, p < .04, se = .96 (cohen’s d = .43) and between ra and ca, p < .0001, se = 1 (cohen’s d =-1.4). there was however, no significant main effects for condition with f (1, 105) = 1.28, mse = 17.35, p < .2 or an interaction f (2, 105) = 1.97, mse = 17.35, p < .8 europe’s journal of psychology 53 errors in reading wordsindependent groups t-test showed that for condition a there was a significant difference between dyslexics and ra matched on the number of errors made in naming words with dyslexics making more errors t (32) = 1.97, p < .05, se = .44 96 (cohen’s d = .43). for condition b independent groups t-test showed no significant difference with t (39) = 1.56, p < .12, se = .28. number of words recalledanalysis of the data on the number of words correctly recalled showed a significant main effect for group with f (2, 105) = 9.41, mse = 1.12, p < .0001. post–hoc comparisons of the means using fisher’s lsd showed significant differences between dyslexics and ra, p < .003, se = .24, (cohen’s d = .67) and between ca and ra, p < .0001, se = 0.25, (cohen’s d = .97) but not between dyslexics and ca p < .27, (se = .24). there was also a significant main effect for condition with f (1, 105) = 12.54, mse = 1.12, p < .001 but no significant interaction effect f (2, 105) = .91, mse = 1.12, p < .4. table 2: inter-correlations between the variables in the present study measure 1 2 3 4 age - -.17 .31* -.25* number of errors - -.12 .41* words recalled - -.1 time to read words *p < 0.01 correlations between variables as noted in table 2 overall older readers have significantly better recall and are faster in reading words. discussion the first aim of the present study was to compare reading performance of developmental dyslexics in transparent polish orthography with unimpaired ra and ca controls. the results showed that similar to studies on scripts with a mixture of opaque and transparent spellings such as persian, dyslexics are significantly slower than the two unimpaired groups in the time taken to read words. this result suggests that reading in an entirely transparent script per se is not a significant factor affecting the magnitude of differences between dyslexics and the two unimpaired controls as compared to scripts with a more opaque relationship. a second aim of the present study was to examine short-term recall of words by dyslexics, ra and ca controls. the results showed that developmental dyslexics have developmental dyslexics 54 a superior memory compared to ra and comparable to ca group in both conditions of the experiment namely; with prior instructions to expect recall and with no prior instructions. this finding is in line with baluch & danaye-tousie’s (2006a) and thus suggests a greater memory superiority for dyslexics compared to ra even when participants were not informed of a follow up recall of words. furthermore, the analysis of correlations showed that there is no overall relationship between time to read words and recall, rather age of participants was found to be a significant factor both affecting time to read words and number of words recalled. in what follows each aspect of the above finding is further elaborated. reading time and errors generally it is expected that developmental dyslexics show poorer performance in word reading and number of errors compared with unimpaired readers (e.g., snowling, 1980; swan & goswami, 1997). however, previous research has also shown that the magnitude of differences may differ according to orthographic transparency (goswami, ziegler, dalton, & schneider, 2001). the magnitude of differences in performance on phonological tasks between dyslexics and unimpaired readers for a shallow orthography like german or greek was reported to be less than the difference between dyslexic and unimpaired readers for a deep orthography such as english (goulandris, 2003). olson, wise, conners, rack, & fulker, (1989) reported that both in the time taken to read and number of errors made, dyslexic english readers could have a poorer performance compared to an ra group of readers. however, when baluch and danaye tousie (2006a) compared naming performance for high frequency opaque and transparent words it was found that although dyslexics have greater difficulties in reading and make more errors with opaque spellings, there are nevertheless significant differences in performance between dyslexics and ra in reading transparent words. thus the question was raised as to whether a similar result will be obtained in a entirely transparent writing system with regard to high frequency words? in the present study polish developmental dyslexics read slower than the ra group in both conditions of the study. thus insofar as reading time is concerned it seems that even in a transparent orthography the time to read a word is significantly slower for dyslexics readers compared to ra control. using the argument put forward by castles and coltheart (1993), manis et al., (1996) if developmental dyslexics differ from unimpaired readers of the same reading age this may demonstrate the extent of deviance from patterns of reading which do not correspond to any of the normal reading stages. this finding has now been demonstrated not only with persian words (baluch & danaye–tousie 2006a) and english (olson et al., 1989) but also with europe’s journal of psychology 55 transparent polish. in line with the present finding is a recent chapter by reid (2005) in which she has concluded that the prevalence of developmental dyslexia is as high as in languages with more opaque spelling sound correspondences and that reading rates and errors are significantly higher for polish dyslexics than unimpaired controls. however, important to note that when considering the number of errors made by polish dyslexics in the present study it was noted that more errors were made under the condition that they were told to expect recall compared to when they there were no such instructions. it is possible to argue that his might be due to dyslexics deficits in relation to their attention system (e.g., shallice & burgess 1993). the extra burden to expect recall of words at a later stage may have contributed to dyslexics’ greater number of errors under condition a of the experiment. number of words recalled it has been argued that dyslexics’ difficulty in phonological processing may be a factor affecting working memory (baddeley, 1990; just & carpenter, 1992). the reason could be at least two-fold: a) difficulties in encoding words due to poor grapheme-phoneme processes and b) difficulties due to the taxing of the limited capacity attention system due to generally slower processing strategy. a question pursued in the present study is whether memory performance of dyslexics is also affected by spelling transparency. previously, baluch and danaye-tousie (2006a) reported that contrary to word reading performance, dyslexics’ recall of words, in particular transparent words, was comparable to ca control and significantly better than ra control. however, in the latter research participants were specifically instructed to expect recall of words at a later stage. it was thus not clear whether it was the impact of expecting recall of words that helped with greater memory performance of older dyslexic readers or a general superiority of short-term memory. the present findings showed that in the transparent polish orthography developmental dyslexics have indeed a superior memory compared to that of ra control and their performance is comparable to ca group under both conditions of the experiment. this finding has some support in the literature. d’angiullli, siegel and serra (2001) reported that although there are differences in phonological tasks between bilingual and monolingual english and italian children as a function of level of skill and spelling transparency, the differences were minimal with regards to working memory. furthermore, ellis, mcdougall and monk (1996) reported that dyslexic reading comprehension was superior to that of the reading age controls and precocious readers and their listening comprehension was better than that of the other three groups. considering that comprehension relies on efficient developmental dyslexics 56 processing of working memory perhaps one may argue that the results of ellis et al., (1996) are further support that dyslexics’ memory performance shows no more deficit than a matched age group of unimpaired readers. however, bearing in mind that the present findings on polish were based on recall of lists of mainly high frequency words, it may be concluded that insofar as high frequency category of words are concerned there is no difference in memory performance between developmental dyslexics and their age matched unimpaired controls. perhaps this is because dyslexics are faster in visual processing (ellis et al., 1996) and may use their orthographic knowledge to compensate for lack of efficient phonological processing. task demands in the present study it was found that the inclusion of a condition in which participants specifically expect a memory recall did have a significant main effect on all participants’ performance. there was however no group by condition interaction. the literature on task demands affecting dyslexic’s performance is not entirely consistent. shallice and burgess (1993) argued that dyslexics had significantly greater problems than the control group when first encountered with a reading task because task demands are still novel for the participant. nicolson and fawcett (2000) on the other hand have argued that although dyslexic children are poorer at memory tasks this was not due to their misunderstanding of the instructions. a further possibility was raised by rack et al., (1992) in which they argued that dyslexics may have superior memory compared to ra because such readers are two years older and more cognitively advanced in responding to task demands and may bring additional skills to the reading task in response to task demands. hence, in a memory test dyslexics perform better than ra control due to their age advantage (swanson, 1993). in the present study, whilst there were significant relationships between age and recall, there was no indication that one particular group benefited more than another group i.e. lack of significant interaction between participants and conditions. thus there is no indication that dyslexic or older readers benefited more than younger ones because they took more advantage of prior instructions when reading the lists of words. implications of the results the findings of the present study on polish further reinforces a universal account (goulandris, 2003) that developmental dyslexics are indeed slower than ra and ca unimpaired readers even in a very transparent orthography. however, regarding europe’s journal of psychology 57 short term memory performance dyslexic readers are comparable to ca and superior to ra. this suggests that deficits in reading by dyslexics is more related to lower levels of information processing than higher level memory processes. such findings have important implications for teaching and intervention strategies for developmental dyslexics in different orthographies. references adams, m, j. 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(1993). supervisory control of action and thought selection. in a. baddeley & l. weiskrantz (eds.), attention: selection, awareness, and control. a tribute to donald broadbent (pp. 171-187). oxford, uk: oxford university press. smithspark , j. h., & fisk, j. e. (2007). working memory functioning in developmental dyslexia. memory, 15 (1), 34-56 europe’s journal of psychology 61 snowling, m. j. (1980). the development of grapheme-phoneme correspondence in normal and dyslexic readers. journal of experimental child psychology, 29, 294305. snowling, m. j. (2004). language skills and learning to read. the psychologist, 17, 438-41. sprenger-charolles, l., siegel, l. s., bechennec, d. & serniclaes, w. (2003). development of phonological and orthographic processing in reading aloud, in silent reading, and in spelling: a four-year longitudinal study journal of\ experimental child psychology 84 (3), 194-217. swan, d., & goswami, u. (1997). picture naming deficits in developmental dyslexia: the phonological representations hypothesis. brain & language, 56, 334–53. swanson, h. l. (1993). working memory in learning disability subgroups. journal of experimental child psychology, 56, 87–114. wagner, r. k., & torgesen, j. k. (1987). the nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. psychological bulletin, 101, 192-212. about the authors: natasza dominika nalesnik, bsc is currently a postgraduate student in mental health at the institute of psychiatry, university of london. she is a native speaker of polish and has experience of teaching in polish schools. email: natasza_n@yahoo.co.uk bahman baluch, ma, phd, cpsychol, afbpss, csci reader in experimental psychology and author of over 60 refereed publications, conference presentations and book chapters. his research interests include cognitive processes of reading, psychological aspects of infertility and organ donation. school of health and social sciences middlesex university the burroughs london nw4 4bt tel: +44 (0)20 8411 5375 email: bahman1@mdx.ac.uk developmental dyslexics 62 appendix experimental words in their polish spelling and meaning polish spelling meaning frak tail-coat wstyd shame krzyk scream stok slope las wood tłuszcz grease wódz leader rytm rhythm trop trace wzór pattern grzyb mushroom wąŝ snake microsoft word 1. editorial.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 1-6 www.ejop.org the message of the medium: distributing academic knowledge in the digital age by alex gillespie department of psychology, university of stirling technology supporting the production of academic knowledge has come a long way and europe’s journal of psychology is at the forefront of a new phase in the dissemination and discussion of knowledge. before the advent of writing, knowledge was spread by word of mouth often through poems to aid memory. writing was obviously a breakthrough, but it has taken millennia to refine. unwieldy scrolls became books with pages allowing easy access to each part of the text. the printing press, which made the reproduction of information easy and cheap, was obviously a major breakthrough. but many micro-inventions were required for this medium to mature. introducing spaces between words greatly increased readability, as did paragraph breaks. page numbers, chapters, chapter titles, and indexes improved accessibility (chartier, 1995). journal articles developed their own conventions of titles, abstracts, keywords, and predictable organisation. the technologies of the age of print are not only found within printed books and journal articles. institutions grew up around printed material supporting the creation, distribution, archiving, and searching of the material. in libraries across the world, books were catalogued and shelved, journal articles were abstracted, keywords parsed, and massive index systems compiled. although the age of print can be characterised as a collection of relatively mundane technologies, the impact of the increased accessibility of knowledge was far from mundane. the circulation of perfectly reproduced books and articles widely and relatively cheaply was central to the renaissance (burke, 2000). without standardised and widely disseminated narratives and images of nationhood it is questionable whether national identities would have become as potent as they are (anderson, 1993). and the endless reproduction of a few dozen characters into a huge number of words and an infinite realm of meaning has been argued to provide the message of the medium 2 a basis for the regimentation and mass production mentality which characterised modernism (ong, 1982). the age of print has ended. we have crossed the threshold into the digital age. in the past few decades our relationship to information has changed fundamentally. the book, the page, the index, and even the library are anachronistic relics of a previous era. during the twentieth century many predictions were made about the future. it was thought that communities would be established on the moon, factories would produce so much that people could work less, and vehicles would be replaced by personal aircraft powered by nuclear generators no bigger than a microwave oven. but these were dreams of a more mechanical age. future historians, i suspect, will look back on our era and see, above all else, the digitisation of information. the digital age is, like the age of print, basically a collection of relatively mundane technologies. computers, network hardware, network software, hyperlinks, embedded multimedia, social networking media, online forums, and security systems are all central. but perhaps the most important single technology is the search engine (battelle, 2006). aggregation of digital information would be relatively useless if it was still catalogued in the same way as the libraries of the twentieth century. indeed, yahoo! began by trying to produce an index of the world wide web, but the index became far too unwieldy to navigate. introducing word search was important, but organising the output of a search of several billion items in rank order of quality was the real breakthrough. the simple insight that the quality of a web page can be inferred from the number of websites linking to that web page is the mundane idea on which google was built. in the not too distant future it will seem quaint that journal articles and books within the digital realm are essentially scanned paper copies, which is to say, they duplicate the paper ‘originals.’ digitised documents, complete with pages and page numbers, are transitional. once academic publishing embraces the digital medium we can expect reviewers’ comments to appear alongside the target article, discussion boards attached to articles, and new forms of metrics based on reading, commenting, rating, and linking data. it would be overly simplistic to characterise the digital age as the digitization of that which was previously printed. we are not dealing with a new distribution channel, which can be incorporated into existing infrastructure. digitisation is a paradigm shift, which will make many of the previous innovations redundant, and which will open europe’s journal of psychology 3 up possibilities that we cannot yet imagine. mcluhan (1964) argued that one cannot separate the medium from the message. each medium, whether spoken, written, or digital, has its own logic which unfolds in a world of practice creating new and unforeseen affordances and constraints. what a medium enables and constrains is the message of the medium. the printing of what was previously written did not simply make communication more efficient, it transformed information, society, and the way people think and act. the key question is: what is the message of the digital medium? the message of the digital medium is that the cost of reproducing information has become negligible. this most fundamental aspect of the digital revolution is not a mundane technology, it is an inherent aspect of the medium – it cannot be put aside or ignored, it is the logic of digitisation itself. with centralised storage, and local access points combined with powerful search, the entirety of the world’s digitised knowledge and cultural output is, in principle, accessible to everyone. if knowledge is power, then this surely has the potential to be a quantum leap forward in human empowerment. the printing presses made knowledge more accessible. digitisation has the potential to take this accessibility to its limit. given the social and psychological consequences of the printing press it is surely an understatement to say that the coming decades and centuries, in which the logic of the digital age unfolds, will be exciting. the digital revolution has the potential to revolutionise academia. but as with any revolution, there are winners and losers, and thus a complex power struggle is unfolding (lessig, 2004). the fact is that we are now, collectively, expending resources on limiting the accessibility of academic outputs. most academic articles are stored in archives, which require expensive subscriptions to access. downloaded articles often include technology which causes them to expire after a set amount of time and/or prevents their further circulation beyond the original receiver. the present system, by trying to inhibit circulation and duplication, is going against the message of the medium. the present phase of the digital revolution in academia is based on restricting access to knowledge. in the present system, tax payers pay for research twice. usually they provide the funding for research in the first place, and then they provide the funds for institutions to buy access to that same research. and despite paying for researchers to both create and access research, these tax payers do not have access to this research. restricting access to research means that the public do not have access to information which might help them to make decisions about health, technology, social, legal, or other issues. second, it means that when this public goes the message of the medium 4 to university, they often don’t have access to many of the key articles and books they are meant to be studying. third, it means that many researchers are either denied access to research by the limitations of departmental budgets or spend a lot of time logging into password protected archives. moreover, it means that the public and academics in developing countries, which are being supported by large development grants, are denied the knowledge resources which would be invaluable in enabling their own development. how we have arrived at the present system is understandable. in the age of print, publishing houses unwittingly based their income on the physicality of printed material. by controlling the means of printing, they were able to levy their entirely justifiable fee with the sale of each production. but now the means of production have become ubiquitous, and thus artificial mechanisms have had to be introduced to protect the publishers’ income through restricting access. but the unintended consequence of protecting publishers’ income, in this particular way, is to fight an uphill battle to neuter the core message of the digital revolution. whoever produces, proofreads, compiles, organises, and hosts online media should receive financial payment. but there are many ways in which this payment can be provided. currently we are applying zero-sum economics to what has become a non-zero-sum resource (whitworth & friedman, 2009). we need to update our economic model to ensure that the message of the digital medium is given full expression. some have suggested that the funders of academic research should pay for the digital production and online open access hosting of the resultant information, thus ensuring the broadest possible impact of the research. gadd, oppenheim and probets (2003) suggest that universities should re-assert ownership over academic outputs and host these outputs themselves. for universities to host online peer reviewed open access archives of the research conducted within the university would arguably cost less than the cost of the library’s current subscription to journals. if all universities did this it would, over time, make the majority of the world’s academic knowledge free to everyone as a collective resource. it is impossible to know how the dissemination of academic knowledge will change in the coming years, but we can be certain that it will change. maybe the future is here, in journals such as europe’s journal of psychology (ispas, 2006). one salient aspect of the digital revolution in academia is an explosion of online open access journals. the directory of open access journals, as of may 2010, lists 5023 open access journals. each of these journals is free, with full text access, and quality controlled. unfortunately, psychology has poor representation. there are 363 europe’s journal of psychology 5 journals in medicine and 340 journals in education, but only 117 journals in psychology. nevertheless, examining these 117 journals in more detail provides us with important clues as to the future of academic publishing: 91 of the 117 open access psychology journals are published outside of north america, and the majority are not in english. clearly there are tectonic shifts occurring. thompson isi, which hosts the main established database of natural and social science journals records few open access journals and explicitly prefers journals which publish in english. are we witnessing the emergence of an alternative academic realm, which is outside the hegemony of the established journals? these new open access online journals, which encourage circulation and duplication, are an expression of the message of the digital age. the future rise of these open access journals will be inversely proportional to the extent to which the established journals are exclusionary based on cost, content, or language. we are living in revolutionary times. the digitisation of knowledge, now means that it is often more expensive to stop the distribution of knowledge than to allow it. in the past, increases in the accessibility of knowledge have had profound social and psychological effects. what the new phase of accessibility made possible in the digital age will lead to is unknown. but what is certain is that the foundations of the future of academic knowledge dissemination are being built not just now, but in online, free access, peer reviewed journals like europe’s journal of psychology. references: anderson, b. (1993). imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso. battelle, j. (2006). the search: how google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture. new york: portfolio. burke, p. (2000). a social history of knowledge: from gutenberg to diderot. cambridge: polity. gadd, e., oppenheim, c., & probets, s. (2003). romeo studies 1: the impact of copyright ownership on academic author self. journal of documentation, 59(3), 243 277. ispas, d. (2006). academic publishing: the future is here. europe’s’ journal of psychology, may 22nd, 2006. the message of the medium 6 lessig, l. (2004). free culture: the nature and future of creativity. new york: penguin books. mcluhan, m. (1964). understanding media: the extensions of man. london: ark. ong, w. j. (1982). orality & literacy: the technologizing of the word. london: routledge. roger chartier, 1995. forms and meanings: texts, performances, and audiences from codex to computer. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. whitworth, b., & friedman, r. (2009). reinventing academic publishing online. part i: rigor, relevance and practice. first monday [online], 14, 8. about the author: alex gillespie is a lecturer in social psychology at the university of stirling. his main theoretical interest stems from the early american pragmatist philosophers and psychologists, such as peirce, dewey, james and mead. his empirical research concerns dialogue, intersubjectivity, and the dynamics of trust. he has published a monograph entitled becoming other: from social interaction to self-reflection and co-edited a volume entitled trust & distrust: sociocultural perspectives. email address for correspondence: alex.gillespie@stir.ac.uk i changed the stress, stress changed me, you can not separate the stress form life and you can not separate the stress from me, because stress became life and by that stress is influenced all life 569 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 569-596 www.ejop.org moral competence and the democratic way of living by georg lind university of konstanz introduction two moral abilities are particularly important for living together in a democracy: firstly the ability of all citizens to judge and to act in accordance with their own moral principles; secondly, the ability to solve conflicts by means of fear-free discussions instead of the use of violence and the exercise of power. as research shows, both basic abilities, which are often summed up under the overall concept of moral competence, are essential for a democratic way of life and the functioning of democratic institutions. they are important for many things, e.g., for helping people in distress (not just readiness to help), for making quick decisions, learning effectively, for tolerating ambiguity, and for rejecting violence as a means of social change. research also shows that the school promotes moral competence less effectively and less sustainably than is needed and seems possible today. in this editorial, i attempt to give a broad overview on the research on moral competence and its application in education and educational policy-making in the past thirty years, in which i have been personally involved. it is not a comprehensive handbook article, which remains to be written. why moral competence? socrates: but if this be affirmed, then the desire of good is common to all, and one man is no better than another in that respect? menon: true. socrates: and if one man is not better than another in desiring good, he must be better in the power of attaining it? menon: exactly. socrates: then according to your definition virtue would appear to be the power of attaining good. 1 1 platon: menon (source: project gutenberg) http://www.ejop.org/ moral competence and the democratic way of living 570 surely, moral ideals and orientations are indispensible for moral-democratic behavior and for a democratic civil society. without them we would have no idea how we wish to take right decisions, to live together or to be governed. ideally they provide a basis for the solution of conflicts between needs and between opinions by means of rational reflection and free discourse, instead of the use of violence or the exercise of power. the indian-american economist and philosopher armatya senn (2010) speaks of democracy through discussion. also for the american educator dewey (1964), democracy is more than a form of government and more than the sum total of actually existing democratic institutions; it is a life form. yet, we need not to be concerned about ideals and orientations. as world-wide studies have repeatedly shown, there is an overall consensus in all classes of society, countries and cultures on basic moral values such as social justice, respect, cooperation, non-violence and democracy2. some scholars even believe that these moral ideals are, at least in their core, genetically determined3. accordingly a ―transmission‖ of moral and democratic values is unnecessary (and, i assume, not agreeable with our democratic principles). what is rather lacking and seems necessary is the fostering of ―the power of attaining good‖, as socrates, the great greek philosopher, said more than two thousand years ago, that is, our ability to apply our moral ideals in everyday life. if this competence is missing, our moral ideals can turn into ethical absolutism, and, eventually, into morally motivated violence4. in most of us, this ability is weakly developed. this ability involves, above all, the ability to make judgments in accordance with our own moral principles and to solve conflicts non-violently through discussion, even when we deal with important issues, and when we face strong opposition and our fundamental moral principles are at stake5. we need this ability in order ―to participate in social, civic and working life. to be able to deal with people coming from different social and cultural backgrounds. to be able to cope in a constructive way with conflicts. to have a knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to be active as a citizen. to participate as much as possible in civic live at local, regional, national, european and global level.‖ (‗youth in action‘-programs of the european union)6 2 lind (1986); sen (1999); schwarz & bardi (2001); mcfaul (2004). 3 bauer (2008); de waal (2009); moll et al. (2002). 4 ishida (2006). bandura (1991, s. 74). 5 habermas (1983); kohlberg (1987); karl-otto apel (1990); nussbaum (2006); sen (2010). 6 http://www.youthpass.eu/en/youthpass/for/youth-initiatives/learn/information/kcsocial/ (19.8.11) europe’s journal of psychology 571 although research on moral competence is still relatively new, we already know a good deal about it and its significance for democratic life7. certain relationships have been confirmed in numerous studies, as we show below. when this competence is less developed the citizens concerned are at a disadvantage in regard to participation in democratic decision-taking or are even completely excluded. democracy itself also suffers from a lack of this competence among its citizens; it also suffers under an unequal distribution of the competence, as this leads to some citizens winning more influence than others over the process of political decision-taking. in a democracy the constitution guarantees every citizen a say in the political process. and a civil society can only function properly if every citizen actually makes use of his/her voice in the proceedings and is in a position to hear the opinions of others8. what is moral competence? recently, the concept of ―competence‖ has become very popular and debated, especially through international school tests like ―pisa‖. the concept has been taken up in educational policy. ―with the new educational plans (of 2004) a fundamental paradigm shift in the binding specifications for teaching at our schools will take place. whereas the educational plans of earlier generations primarily determined what was to be taught, the new plans allege that school should stipulate the competencies that children and youths must acquire.‖9 however, in much of the literature the concept of competence is not clearly, if at all, defined. often a variety of assumptions are made on the origin, development, promotion and relevance of ―competencies‖ without saying what is actually meant by them10. as a result of this lack of clarity there is controversy among scientists on the concept of competence11; and many practitioners have strong reservations against it, doubting that the replacement of the concept of subject knowledge (fachwissen) through the concept of competence will improve the quality of the school system. experts like hans-peter klein, the biology educationist and chairman 7 an annotated list of publications can be found in the internet: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/agmoral 8 piaget (1973); nussbaum (2006); sen (2010); roth (2010); lind et al. (2010): nowak & lind (2009). 9 http://www.bildung-staerkt-menschen.de/schule_2004/bildungsplan_kurz (15.8.2011) 10 see, inter alia, the observations of the kmk (conference of education ministers) (2005) on the educational standards of the conference of education ministers and the 260-page-long survey on the ―promotion of social, moral and democratic competencies‖ (becker, 2008). 11 klein (2010). http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral moral competence and the democratic way of living 572 of the society bildung und wissen (education and knowledge) fears even a decline in the level of education12. this problem also applies to the concept of moral and democratic education. there is a great deal of cloudiness as to what it means and to how its effects can be measured13. competencies are more than conscious subject knowledge, which can be verbalized. they include also tacit knowledge, which we characterize in everyday life as emotional knowledge, gut feeling or emotional intelligence14. when we make important decisions we ultimately decide in accordance with our feelings, particularly when taking the decision is an urgent matter and we have little time available for reflection and the collection of information. even when we have time we still listen first to our inner voice before making our choice. our feelings enable us to make quick and sometimes even better decisions on both technical and moral questions than if we took the time for careful reflection15. however, conscious reasoning and subject knowledge are also important for democratic life. reason is not just the wagging tail of emotions, as some psychologists seem to believe16. we depend on them for at least two reasons. first, we need them when our feelings fail us, for example when they suggest contradictory decisions (i.e. when we are in a dilemma), when they are ambiguous or when we are about to do something which brings our moral sense into play. in the shape of (self-)critical thinking it prevents us from doing or saying everything that occurs to us spontaneously or what we are ordered to do by others17. second, reason and conscious reflection have the important task to shape and educate our feelings so that our feelings allow us to make the right decisions when we need them, especially when we are under pressure to decide quickly18. a sportsman, for example a javelin thrower, can train his emotional reactions so perfectly that he intuitively makes the right decision when he throws the javelin. at this moment reflection would tend to disturb him. but he would have no chance to throw well, if 12 lind (2004b; 2004c; 2011c). 13 a few authors touch on the question of how moral-democratic competence can be defined and validly measured (tiedemann, 2011). but most authors do not even mention this problem (see, e.g., becker, 2008; kmk, 2009) 14 goleman (1996). in schools both competencies are mostly again reduced to conscious conceptual knowledge, which has to be acquired, just as practice often only means theory of practice and not practice itself. 15 gigerenzer (2008). 16 haidt (2001). 17 achtziger et al. (2010). 18 lind (1989a). even undesired emotional reactions such as prejudice can disappear when the feelings responsible for them are given the opportunity to develop further. (wasel, 1996). europe’s journal of psychology 573 he and his trainer had not continuously reflected on ways of improving his throwing technique by means of suitable exercises. the situation is similar in the moral sphere. we also make moral decisions mostly in accordance with our feelings19. moral feelings allow us to decide quickly and to act resolutely. but here too feelings can be deceptive or place us on the horns of a dilemma, so that conscious moral thinking is called for in order to correct moral gut feelings. conscious, professionally schooled thinking is also necessary in order to train our moral feelings. just as the javelin thrower needs an elaborate training program in order to be able to rely in the decisive moment on his feelings about his movements, so must we also develop and shape our moral feelings so that we can rely on them when we have to make quick decisions. just as the development of sporting skills requires a trainer and other professional helpers, so too the development of moraldemocratic competencies (virtues in the socratic sense) needs the help of competent helpers, that is, of parents, good friends and, above all, teachers. as research has shown, biological age alone has just as little effect as genetic disposition20. opportunities must be provided for the assumption of responsibility and also guided reflection, in order to develop these competencies21. moral-democratic competence is indispensible for mastering life in a democratic society and, to cope with the tasks and problems we encounter in our personal surroundings (family, friends, neighbors, etc.), professions and public life. we can never know precisely which tasks life in general and the private lives of each and every one of us will bring. therefore, subject knowledge alone cannot achieve to do this, not only because it quickly becomes obsolete in our day and age, but, above all, because our decisions and our well-being in everyday life depend not only on concepts and theories, but also on our moral feelings. two moral-democratic core competencies are particularly important: firstly the moral capacity of all citizens to judge and act in accordance with their own moral principles22 and, secondly, the moral capacity to solve conflicts by means of fearfree dialogues instead of by violence or the exercise of power23. ―the moral solution of conflicts of action excludes the manifest employment of force as well as ‗cheap‘ compromises; it can be understood as a continuation of communicative action – 19 moll et al., (2002); haidt (2003); prehn et al. (2008). 20 lind (2002); rest & thoma (1985). 21 lind (2000; 2002); schillinger (2006); lupu (2009); saeidi (2010). 22 ―the capacity to make decisions and judgments which are moral (i.e., based on internal principles) and to act in accordance with such judgments" (kohlberg, 1964, p. 425) 23 habermas (1983); apel (1990); lind (1987; 2006b; 2011c; sen (2010). moral competence and the democratic way of living 574 that is action oriented to reaching understanding – with discursive means‖24. in order to overcome violence and war, the dalai lama states, we need ―a century of dialogue‖25. on the measurement of moral judgmental and discourse competence if we want to test any assumption about the nature of moral competence or about the efficacy of certain teaching methods, we need to be able to measure it. otherwise, all our assumptions are solely unproven beliefs and the effects of moral education are uncertain. this is easier said than done. a person‘s moral competence is obviously more difficult to measure than his or her knowledge of moral norms and duties. we can rather easily find out which moral rules schoolchildren know or don‘t know. but it is much more difficult (and sometimes even impossible) to grasp directly their ability to behave in a moral way. on the one hand, many competencies – such as for example the ability to take on responsibility – elude detection, as they only manifest themselves in real situations later in life. only when one is really responsible for something is it possible to show how capable one is of bearing this responsibility. or the competence can only be revealed in forms of behavior which can only be observed in serious situations, but these cannot, for ethical and practical reasons, be subjected to testing and control. it is true that in the past experiments have been carried out to test the ability of students to resist the temptation to violate a rule or to break a law26. but such experiments are controversial for ethical reasons (they involved immoral tasks as deception themselves) as well as for scientific reasons, as in these experiments one does not measure the participants‘ moral functioning but the conformity of isolated acts to external standards.27 an even greater problem, however, is perhaps that the measurement of competencies requires a precise knowledge of their nature, which we do not have in many areas, and experimental diagnostic techniques whose development calls for creativity, time and money28. attempts to ignore these preconditions and, 24 habermas (1983), p. 74. 25 focus, 13.4.2011, http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/seattle-dalai-lama-will-jahrhundert-desdialogs_aid_294793.html. (12.9.11) 26 hartshorne & may (1928). 27 pittel & mendelsohn (1966). see also the insightful reflection by some of the most prominent experimenters in this field, namely hartshorne and may (1928): ―it is not the quality of the isolated act which distinguishes the good man from the bad, but the quality of the man as an organized and socially functioning self" (p. 413 – the very last sentence of the book). 28 the development and validation of the moral judgment test (mjt), which is dealt with below, took several years, as at the same time the nature and development of moral behavior was europe’s journal of psychology 575 instead, to come to grips with the competencies by means of subjective personal assessments and indirect indicators can lead to serious misjudgments and wrong measures in educational policy even when the collection of such data is ―backed up‖ by test statistics29. because of these difficulties, the measurement of moral and discourse competence has only been thematized in science during the last few decades. until a few years ago there were no instruments for the measurement of competencies in these areas. one had to be satisfied instead with the assessments of experts and teachers. but this was not a satisfactory solution as the criteria for these assessments remain obscure. psychological research has provided numerous proofs that such assessments are strongly influenced by the ―overall impression‖ of the test subjects or the belief in certain theories. another approach was to measure moral competence by the behavior of people in accordance with external standards. this however, only measured norm conformity and not the ability of people to judge and act in conformity with their own moral principles30. the earliest scientific endeavors to find an adequate way of measuring moral competence, for example those undertaken by jean piaget and lawrence kohlberg, were based on interviews which were assessed by researchers on the basis of carefully chosen coding instructions. these assessments are often very elaborate and time-consuming and still not free of distortion in favor of the theories of the scientists involved31. in order to provide a valid instrument for research and program evaluation, 35 years ago we, a group of researchers at the university of konstanz, developed the first objective test for the measurement of moral-democratic competence, the moral judgment test (mjt; lind, 1978). the mjt can be objectively evaluated. completion and evaluation require only little time, so it is also well-suited for testing the effectiveness of teaching methods. we have also developed a convenient online version which has been frequently used. it is time-saving and inexpensive and hence suitable for self-evaluation of lessons by teachers, especially as it only involves a small amount of additional work. in the meantime the mjt has been translated into almost 40 languages and is used world-wide in research and efficacy studies32. subject to further research and consequently a new experimental measurement method had to be developed. (lind, 1978; 1982; 2002; 2004b; 2008c; weiß & zierer, 2010). 29 linn (2000); amrein & berliner (2002); jahnke & meyerhöfer (2006); lind (2004c; 2011c). 30 pittel & mendelsohn (1966). 31 lind (1989b). 32 lind (1978; 2008c). moral competence and the democratic way of living 576 the mjt is not a test in the customary sense. it is a multivariate behavior experiment in the form of a questionnaire. whereas in the customary tests an attempt is made to minimize individual features (so-called structural characteristics) by treating them as ―measurement errors‖ and thus failing to take them into account, in experimental questionnaires it is precisely the structural differences in individual behavior which are of central importance33. in the mjt the participants have to evaluate the decision of the protagonists in dilemma stories and the arguments for and against their decisions (on a nine-point scale ranging from ―i reject this completely‖ to ―i entirely agree‖). but the evaluation of their moral judgmental competence does not depend on ―right‖ or ―wrong‖ answers, or on the evaluation of the individual arguments. what counts is the overall answer pattern of the participant. because of the special construction of the mjt it is possible to judge how strongly the subject based his assessments on the moral quality of the arguments presented and how strongly he took other aspects of the arguments into account, for example, how far the arguments corresponded to his own opinion on the case. we know from numerous studies that most people are guided in the assessment of arguments by ―opinion conformity‖ (i.e. agree to all arguments which coincide with their own opinion and reject those which contradict their own opinion) and in controversial discussions are scarcely capable of judging arguments according to their moral quality. for democracy as discussion, i.e. for the solution of conflicts by means of peaceful, nonviolent discourse, it is indispensable that people are in a position to weigh up the arguments of opponents from a moral point of view instead of rejecting them lock, stock and barrel. the mjt stands in contrast to approaches which attempt to assess moral competence by enquiring about attitudes and values, i.e. indirectly, and with other approaches in which action alternatives are given in dilemma situations, between which the subject has to choose. in the first case no valid measurement is possible, as what is measured is not a competence. the second approach is problematic in terms of the ethical aspects of research, as the researcher applies his own subjective standards on morality in the assessment of the test answers but does not measure whether the subject has been guided by his own moral standards. in his comprehensive study of the literature on the efficacy of teaching in philosophy and ethics, the ethics educationalist markus tiedemann comes consequently to the conclusion ―that it has hitherto not been possible to assess ethical powers of judgments in an empirically satisfactory way‖34. however, he excludes the mjt 33 lind (1982; 2008a). 34 tiedemann (2011). europe’s journal of psychology 577 explicitly from this verdict, as he had only learned about it after the completion of his study, and in fact regards it as an adequate approach35. the significance of moral democratic competence for life in schools and civil society as many studies have shown, moral democratic competence plays a key role in the building and maintenance of civil society: it seems that the development of this competence plays an important part in cooperative, pro-social behavior and in the ability to deal with conflict and to make decisions36. it helps to prevent criminality37, drug consumption38 and the use of violence39. according to the present state of research it can be expected that the promotion of moral competence among students (and teachers) is also directly beneficial for school learning40 and for the social climate in class and in the school community41. it strengthens the ability to have one‘s voice heard and to listen to others42. people with high levels of moral competence also show a stronger commitment to democracy and freedom43. these relationships are not only proved by high correlations. there are also experimental indications of causal mechanisms44. strengthening moral competence as a task of the school the co-author of the american constitution and later president of the usa thomas jefferson (1940) saw the success of the project of a democratic society as being closely linked with the quality of its educational system. according to jefferson a high quality education for every citizen is the best means of preventing democracy from atrophying and being replaced by an authoritarian regime. the german conference of ministers of education (kultusministerkonferenz, 2008) described ―education for democracy‖ as a central task for schools and the education of 35 oral communication by prof. markus tiedemann, freie universität berlin, 28.5.2011. 36 mansbart (2001); prehn et al. (2008). 37 hemmerling et al. (2009); hemmerling (in press). 38 lenz (2006); lind (2011c). 39 seitz (1991); lind (2002). 40 heidbrink (2010). 41 lind (2002; 2009a). 42 lind (2008a). 43 haan et al. (1968); gross (1997); lind et al. (2010). 44 further references on the studies cited here can be found in the internet: http://www.unikonstanz.de/ag-moral/mut/mjt-references.htm http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/mut/mjt-references.htm http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/mut/mjt-references.htm moral competence and the democratic way of living 578 youth45. strengthening moral democratic competence, in particular, is regarded as a task of the schools. in answer to a question of the spd parliamentary group, for example, the minister for culture, youth and sport of the state of badenwurttemberg said: ―the promotion of moral and democratic competencies is an essential element of the educational reform and hence of the educational plan for 2004, which, in its introduction, formulates central questions on the fields ―living in communities‖ and ―learning democracy‖ which are binding… teaching promotes the readiness to accept responsibility and the ability of students to make moral and political judgments. democratic education mediates the competence to act, thereby preparing students for participation in social and political life. the students learn to take on responsibility for themselves and others in social relationships. living together they develop the readiness to respect the rights of others and to understand the rules necessary to this end. they learn to respect other opinions and attitudes‖46. of course parents, the media, friends and other instances can and should also make their contributions. but only the school provides the opportunity to promote this competence effectively and sustainably among all citizens (inclusion). the school is the only institution which is in a position to reach all children and young people and to win them for democracy‖ (blk-project demokratie lernen und leben / project of the federal and state commission learning and living democracy). charles darwin (1966) already pointed to the school as the most important place for the promotion of moral competence. (as far as we know he was the first person to use the concept). whether and how far the school contributes or can contribute to the promotion of moral competence is, however, a controversial question. often it is not even asked at all. although many new teaching methods have found their way into teaching, some authors deny that the school can have any promotional effect on moral judgmental and discourse competence47. as we know from many studies, it is a fact that the measurable progress in moral judgmental and discourse competence is 45 kmk (2009). 46 mkjs (2004). see also: oberschulamt freiburg (o.j.): ―demokratie lernen und leben – ein chancenreicher auftrag des bildungsplans‖. http://www.rp.badenwuerttemberg.de/servlet/pb/show/1234251/rpf-ref77-chancenreicher%20auftrag_demokratie.pdf (consulted on 14.8.2011) 47 uhl (1986); schläfli et al. (1985). europe’s journal of psychology 579 much smaller and less sustainable than it could be48. students seldom have the opportunity to accept responsibility for their actions and to experience a democratic, respectful discussion on controversial topics49. in this respect there is a substantial need in our schools (and not only there) to catch up50. as we have seen, we do not need to mediate any values51 to people – most if not all people have basic moral values. we must, however, help them to apply these values in daily life and to develop the skill they need, i.e. moral competence. in the past the teaching of democracy (political and civic education studies) and ethics was mostly restricted to the mediation of conceptual knowledge, i.e. to declarative knowledge of laws, theories and institutions. this education limited to verbal knowledge of democratic ideals is not sufficient, as we have been warned by gustav radbruch, a philosopher of law who has substantially and sustainably influenced our modern legal system. according to radbruch the school must make it possible for students to experience democracy – not only democracy as a form of government with its institutions but also, and above all, democracy as a form of life and as discussion. enabling students to experience self-determination and moral-democratic ways of dealing with others in an atmosphere free of compulsion and fear is one of the core tasks of education in and for democracy. in the teaching of politics and ethics attempts have, therefore, been made in recent years to overcome the restriction of the curricula in these subjects to the learning of the knowledge in books. procedural action knowledge – which was previously ignored – and the emotional affective side of moral democratic behavior are being increasingly emphasized. in this context there are two very different approaches to making democracy experiencable, namely in relation to democracy as a governmental form and to 48 lind (2002; 2009a; 2009b). 49 in kmdd lessons i regularly ask students whether they have discussed important problems with others (parents, teachers, friends etc.) in the way we had just discussed them, but i usually receive only few positive answers. a teacher who was present at a lesson at first expressed doubts about the answers of the student but after a pause for thought she admitted that the discussions normally took a completely different course. 50 lind (2006b). 51 the concept of ―value‖ is ambiguous. it not only means moral basic values or moral principles, as is the case here, but also a variety of attitudes and opinions which are clearly private or culture-specific in nature and which are protected by the democratic basic law of freedom of opinion and conscience from state interference. this distinction is very important and must also be respected by schools. we must guard against mediating basic values to people who already possess them, and private and cultural values in areas over which the state has no rights. moral competence and the democratic way of living 580 democracy as a life form. in regard to the understanding of democracy as a form of government (separation of powers, elections, parliamentarism, majority decisiontaking, etc.) the school can only succeed in promoting democratic attitudes and abilities if it itself adopts (at least in part) the governmental forms valid in society. it is only through democratic school assemblies and the participation of students in decisions at school, it is argued, that children can experience what democracy is and experience this form of government in a convincing way. the great difficulty with this approach lies in the fact that in a formally democratic school the children can learn democracy as a form of government but not always as a form of life. this is the case, above all, because the transfer of a democratic governmental form assumes such a high degree of moral competence among all the participants (students, teachers, school administrators, legislators and voters) that it often meets with resistance. this can be illustrated by the fate of the smv (schülermitverantwortung / school council) and the still very limited dissemination of ―democratic schools‖52. the smv‘s, which the occupying powers had introduced into the then west zone after the second world war, and the majority of the supporters of the ―democratic school‖ movement were guided by the idea that students would learn democracy if they experience certain forms of political participation in school affairs. another prominent example of this idea in germany is the nationwide model project ―demokratie lernen und leben‖ (learning and living democracy, 2002-2006) financed by the bund-länder kommission (federal government/federal states commission for educational planning), which aimed at the mediation of democratic values. by creating opportunities for students to participate in lessons and school life ―the readiness of young people to take an active part in civil society‖ was to be promoted53. the evaluation of this project by the german institute for international educational research (dipf)54 revealed an increase in the readiness to participate and more positive attitudes towards democracy among the participants. the possibility that such projects also promote competence cannot be excluded. but no efficacy studies exist to demonstrate this. one of the few approaches whose efficacy has been empirically evaluated by means of intervention studies is the just community approach of lawrence kohlberg 52 huang (2009); backhaus & knorre (2008). 53 my emphasis; gl. 54 unfortunately it is no longer available in the internet. http://blkdemokratie.de/programm/externe-evaluation.html. other links to this study (http://193.175.239.23/ows-bin/owa/r.einzeldok?doknr=36040) are also no longer valid (consulted on 17.8.2011) europe’s journal of psychology 581 and his colleagues55. in spite of the great efforts undertaken and the large degree of acceptance by the students and teachers this approach proved to have had little effect on the promotion of moral judgmental competence. ―the studies we have examined which linked moral development to social studies and history seem to have brought about scarcely any real change in the moral judgmental competence‖, writes ann higgins, one of the leading scholars in this field56. in their large-scale just community project in new york power, higgins and kohlberg found only a very weak effect after a year57. the slight increase in test scores (9.50 mmspoints) is all the more disappointing as control students from traditional schools with no just community revealed a higher increase in the same period (15.25)58. in the just community project carried out at three german schools, the des project59, a very clear growth in judgmental competence was established after a period of about 2.5 years60. the project also revealed a reduction in dysfunctional behavior. but even when effects were recognized they could not be clearly attributed to the democratization of the school, as dilemma discussions were also carried out at the same time in all of these projects. as we know how effective dilemma discussions are, the possibility cannot be excluded that these led to the increase in test values and not so much the just community program. this sobering realization has led me to rethink fundamentally the previous approaches to moral-democratic education. in view of the ineffectiveness of many of these approaches i have become convinced that democracy as a life form can be achieved more quickly and effectively in schools and society if one takes the individual as the starting point and undertakes fitting means to promote moral competence directly. according to everything we know, fundamental trust in democracy as a life form arises in young people (and adults): a) when they deal respectfully with each other and can practice and experience a discursive, non-violent solution of problems; b) when they experience themselves as enjoying equal rights and see that their opinion counts just as much as anyone else‘s and that power and status do not decide on access to information. 55 power et al. (1989); oser & althof (1994); lind (2002; 2009); 56 higgins (1980), p. 106. 57 "the results indicated a modest developmental change only in the two democratic high schools with teaching staffs explicitly committed to the just community approach" (power et al., 1989, s. 297). 58 power et al. (1989), p. 279. 59 lind & raschert (1986); oser & althof (1994); lind (2002). 60 lind (2002), p. 180. moral competence and the democratic way of living 582 being able to experience these things is a question of the opportunity offered to young people and of their individual ability to grasp and use this opportunity. it is, therefore, very important for the effectiveness of teaching that the opportunities provided for moral-democratic learning are well adjusted to the individual abilities. precisely this is achieved by the konstanz method of dilemma discussion, which we developed over the past twenty years. the promotion of moral competence with the konstanz method of dilemma discussion (kmdd)® the main aim of the kmdd is the promotion of moral-democratic competence. put simply this means the furtherance of the ability to stand up for one‘s own point of view and of the capacity to listen to others when important issues are at stake, important to oneself or to another person. this also means the ability to look for and to maintain communication with others when strong moral feelings are involved on both sides. this competence is fundamental for the individual ability to solve problems and conflicts under pressure, to make decisions, to learn from experience and, above all, to cooperate with other people and to be a productive member of civil society (see below). as research has shown, the existing degree of this competence differs from person to person. in most people it is only weakly developed. they find it very difficult to engage in a dialogue with others when their counterpart expresses a different opinion or presents himself as an opponent61. this competence does not develop simply as a result of biological maturation and growing older, or under pressure from the social milieu, but evidently only when certain learning opportunities are given or society (in the shape of its educational institutions) provides such learning opportunities, either intentionally or by chance62. it is not only difficult to measure competencies but also to further them in a purposeful manner, as their promotion cannot be restricted to the transmission of subject knowledge but must involve applying this knowledge and taking on responsibility for the validity of this knowledge, as well as feelings and real experience. competencies can only be acquired by active doing (dewey). as with competence in general the difficulty in mediating moral competence consists in developing suitable tasks and exercise types which encourage students to act in a moral-democratic way. a further problem with moral-democratic educational aims is that the teaching methods (the active doing of the teacher) must be in keeping 61 keasey (1974); habermas (1983); lind (2002). 62 rest & thomas (1985); lind (2000; 2002); schillinger (2006); lupu (2009); saeidi (2011). europe’s journal of psychology 583 with these aims. self-determination cannot be taught with compulsory methods63. the ability to behave in accordance with inner moral principles cannot be tested by external standards. the active doing of learners should not be prevented by excessive activity on the part of the teacher. the kmdd has similarities with vaccination against virus infections. just as in the case of vaccination, when the organism is confronted with real but weakened viruses in order to stimulate its ability to survive an actual virus attack, so too in the kmdd the students are confronted for learning purposes with the task of entering into a moral discourse on a moral dilemma with different-minded students and of giving arguments to convince them of their own opinion on the dilemma. alternating phases of support and challenge during a 90-minute kmdd session ensure that the moral feelings of the participants evoked by the controversy are kept within an optimal range. to this end special ―educative‖ dilemmas have been constructed for kmdd sessions which are highly realistic in form and deal with controversial topics, but have fictive persons as their protagonists. kmdd sessions have only two rules: firstly, the participants can say everything they wish (except for making value judgments on others); secondly, the participants call upon one another to make contributions, i.e. there is no discussion leader or moderator. violations of the first rule very rarely occur, but they are more frequent in the case of the second rule. in my year-long experience with various age groups, school types and cultures, i have found that it is sufficient, when violations occur, to remind the participants in a friendly way of the rule in order to guarantee its observation. this experience strengthens the assumption that the rules of the kmdd do in fact correspond to the moral feelings of most, if not of all people. the participants make the experience that all the students and also all the teachers are subject to the authority of rules instead of the power of certain persons, in accordance with the moral ideal of the ―equal dignity‖64 of all people, and that they do this freely and gladly without their being any need for punishment or reward. participants also report that in kmdd sessions they have learned to esteem people with other opinions as important and useful sources of inspiration for their own development, and not merely to tolerate them. the kmdd method can be traced back to the work of blatt and kohlberg65. this method became popular in germany as a result of the school project demokratie 63 portele (1978) fittingly calls this the ―you ought-to-want-to paradox‖. 64 juul (1997). 65 see reinhardt, s. (1980); lind & lind (1984), lind (1987; 1989a; 1993); lind & raschert (1987). moral competence and the democratic way of living 584 und erziehung in der schule (des / democracy and education in schools) carried out in north rhine-westphalia (from 1985 to 1991), which i had initiated and led (together with jürgen raschert)66. the kohlberg method turned out to be more effective than all the hitherto known teaching methods. its effectiveness seemed to me, however, to be capable of improvement67. on the basis of the experience made with the des project i have further developed the blatt-kohlberg method and have considerably increased its efficacy over the last twenty years. in this way the konstanz method of dilemma discussion (kmdd)® was born, which is described in more detail below. the kmdd is based on the insight that an effective, sustainable and, for society, functional promotion of moral competence can only succeed68 when: a. moral learning is made possible through the positive experience of equal dignity, i.e. of genuine freedom of speech and respect and is not (overtly or covertly) prevented by teaching methods which run counter to the learning goals (the compatibility of aims and means)69, b. feelings and emotions are competently and responsibly integrated into the learning process by the teacher (the professionality principle), c. students and teachers have the opportunity to receive objective, intelligible and undistorted feedback on their learning gains (the self-evaluation principle), d. all students are furthered and inequality of opportunity for civic participation is compensated for (the inclusion principle). the kmdd is one of the few educational methods whose efficacy has been scientifically tested by means of intervention studies with before-and-after investigations and comparative analyses. it has been shown that the moraldemocratic competence of people can be very effectively promoted with the kmdd method: even after only a few kmdd lessons the recorded effect size is far higher than the customary effect sizes (r > 0.5 bzw. d > 1.20)70. in addition, numerous 66 lind, g. & raschert, j. (1987). lind, g. (1993; 2004a; 2008a). oser, f. & althof, w. (1994). 67 lind (1994; 2002; 2009a). 68 for an introduction see: lind, g. (2009). ―moral ist lehrbar – handbuch zur theorie und praxis moralischer und demokratischer bildung.‖ münchen: oldenbourg (2. edn.) 69 the phenomenon of the ―hidden curriculum‖ referred to by jackson (1967). 70 the effect sizes are far greater than the values of other methods. a value of r = 0.3 is regarded by some as a threshold. on the conception and evaluation of the kmdd see http://www.unikonstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd-references.htm europe’s journal of psychology 585 reports of participants are available in the internet which give an impression of the acceptance and confirmed effectiveness of the kmdd71. the kmdd is well received by the participants not only because students usually enjoy discussing and because these sessions bring variety into everyday life at school. the students are also very much impressed by the good discussion culture. ―we could really argue about something without it immediately becoming personal and causing aggression, as it usually does‖ was the judgment of a ten-year-old girl. many participants judge their experience with kmdd lessons in a similar way. a number of media reports and video documentations on the kmdd exist72. the kmdd has the following characteristics: it can be employed in all subjects and also in interdisciplinary teaching; its efficacy is continuously self-evaluated with anonymous before-and-after tests through the itse program73. itse stands for improvement of teaching through self-evaluation. itse is an integral part of the kmdd and of the training to become a kmdd teacher. this assessment serves to assure both the quality of the teachers‘ work and the further development of the method. the anonymity of the data collection prevents the ―inevitable corruption‖ of person-related evaluations74. composite anonymous data serve as the basis for the evaluation and further development of the kmdd; clinical supervision by colleagues is also an integral part of the kmdd and of the training to become a kmdd teacher. it is an important element in internal further education in schools and of quality assurance and it serves as a ―window‖ to the outside world (other teaching staff, society), thus opening up the project to the society outside; the core of the examination and certification of kmdd teachers is the assessment of a ―best practice video‖ by two experts. here the candidate can demonstrate that he has a sovereign command of the method. the examination by means of a video is comparatively valid for the profession and fair. it is largely independent of indispositions resulting from examinations of the candidate, his class and the examiner, and can be tested by third persons in the event of objections. this part of the test can be repeated. there is no graded marking. in addition, a learning portfolio with brief reports on lessons, efficacy studies and reflections on one‘s own training is required. 71 http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd_rueckmeldung_teilnehmer.htm 72 http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd_rueckmeldung_medien.htm 73 http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/evaluation/itse_home.htm 74 ―campbell‘s law‖; see campbell (1978); amrein & berliner (2002); nichols & berliner (2006); lind (2004c; 2011c). moral competence and the democratic way of living 586 it can often be observed that teachers who use the kmdd change their entire behavior in their teaching. it seems that the kmdd ―rubs off‖. this is a thoroughly desirable effect of the kmdd. the kmdd can be used in all school types (from grade three onwards) and also in other non-school educational institutions, at home and abroad75. conclusion democracy is a high moral ideal of most people worldwide. regardless of culture, religion, age, social class, gender etc., most if not all people have high moral ideals and principles. but we also know that these are not sufficient in view of the complexity of everyday life for people to make decisions which accord with these ideals in every situation. to this end we have to develop a special ability which we have characterized here as moral competence. as the research shows, this competence can scarcely develop of its own accord, but requires encouragement by the institutions of society – parents, siblings, friends, media etc. and especially by the schools. the konstanz method of dilemma discussion provides schools with a method with which they can promote moral-democratic competence very effectively and which can be easily integrated into the curriculum of all subjects. in order to be effective, however, this method requires a thorough training in its use76. 75 non-school educational institutions in which the kmdd has hitherto be employed: in the german armed forces (bergmann, 2007), in prisons (hemmerling, in press), in university didactics at the university of konstanz, in medical training (medical school of monterrey/mexiko, universidad de sao paulo/brazil, universidad de chile), at an interdisciplinary level in the universidad de monterrey/mexico, in the training of ethics teachers at the university of poznan/poland, at the universities of applied sciences for social work in berlin and zurich and at the university of applied sciences: special needs education in zurich. 76 a detailed presentation of the theory and implementation of the kmdd can be found, inter alia, in my book ―moral ist lehrbar‖76 and on the following website: http://www.unikonstanz.de/ag-moral/. an account is also given there of the similarities and differences between the kmdd and other methods of moral and democratic education, such as the kohlberg method, role-playing, debating clubs, etc. http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ europe’s journal of psychology 587 references77 achtziger, a., jaudas, a., & keil, a. 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(2008). soziale, moralische und demokratische kompetenzen fördern. ein überblick über schulische förderkonzepte. weinheim: beltz. bell, j. & müller, th., eds. (2011). wissen, was wirkt. kritik evidenzbasierter pädagogik. wiesbaden: verlag für sozialwissenschaften. bergmann, r. (2007). interview mit brigadegeneral bergmann über die „konstanzer methode der dilemmadiskussion – ein neuer ansatz. kompass. herausgegeben vom katholischen militärbischof für die deutsche bundeswehr, ausgabe 05/07, pp. 8 11. darwin, ch. (1966). die abstammung des menschen. translated by heinrich schmidtjena. (original title, the descent of man. 2. edn, 1871). stuttgart: kröner verlag. dewey, j. (1964). demokratie und erziehung. eine einleitung in die philosophische pädagogik. braunschweig: georg westermann verlag (original 1915). 77 all the articles marked ‗*‘ can be downloaded from: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ the password sometimes needed to open files is ―kohlberg‖. http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18/ http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ moral competence and the democratic way of living 588 gigerenzer, g. (2008). bauchentscheidungen. die intelligenz des unbewussten und die macht der intuition. münchen: goldmann. goleman, d. (1996). emotionale intelligenz. münchen: goldmann. gross, m.l. (1997). ethics and activism: the theory and practice of political morality. cambridge, ma cambridge university press. haan, n., smith, m.b. & block, j.h. (1968). moral reasoning of young adults: political-social behavior, family background, and personality correlates. journal of personality and social psychology, 10, 183-201. habermas, j. (1983). moralbewusstsein und kommunikatives handeln. frankfurt: suhrkamp. (english publication in 1989: moral consciousness and communicative action.) haidt, j. (2001). the emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. psychological review 108, 4, 814-834. haidt, j. (2003). the moral emotions. in: r. j. davidson, k. r. scherer, & h. h. goldsmith, eds., handbook of affective sciences. oxford: oxford university press, pp. 852-870. hartshorne, h. & may, m. a. (1928). studies in the nature of character. vol. i: studies in deceit. new york: macmillan. heidbrink, h. (2010). moral judgment competence and political learning. in: lind, g., hartmann, h.a. & wakenhut, r., ed., moral judgments and social education. new brunswik, nj: transaction publisher, pp. 259 271. hemmerling, k. (in press). fostering moral competences of prisoners as a new approach to social rehabilitation an intervention study. unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of konstanz, department of psychology. hemmerling, k., scharlipp, m., & lind, g. (2009). die konstanzer methode der dilemmadiskussion für die bildungsarbeit mit risikogruppen. in: k. mayer & h. schildknecht, eds., handbuch dissozialität, delinquenz und kriminalität — grundlagen und methoden der professionellen arbeit mit menschen mit abweichendem verhalten. zurich: schulthess juristische medien. higgins, a. (1980). research and measurement issues in moral education interventions. in: r. mosher, ed., moral education. a first generation of research and development, pp. europe’s journal of psychology 589 92-107. new york: praeger. huang, v. (2009). laying the foundations for democratic behavior – a comparison of three different approaches to democratic education. scientific paper in pedagogical studies, university of konstanz, department of psychology. http://kops.ub.unikonstanz.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-123672 (2.7.2011) ishida, c. (2006). how do scores of dit and mjt differ? a critical assessment of the use of alternative moral development scales in studies of business ethics. journal of business ethics, 67, 1, 63-74. jackson, p. w. (1967). life in the classroom. new york: holt, rienhard & winston. jahnke, th. & meyerhöfer, w., eds. (2006). pisa & co – kritik eines programms. verlag franzbecker. hildesheim 2006. jefferson, t. (1940). letters (arranged by w. whitman). eau claire, wi: e. m. hale. juul, j. (1997). das kompetente kind. auf dem weg zu einer neuen wertgrundlage für die ganze familie. reinbek: rowohlt. keasey, c.b. (1974). the influence of opinion-agreement and qualitative supportive reasoning in the evaluation of moral judgments. journal of personality and social psychology, 30, 477-482. klein, h. p. (2010). die neue kompetenzorientierung: exzellenz oder nivellierung? zeitschrift für didaktik der biowissenschaften, 1, 15 26. kohlberg, l. (1964). development of moral character and moral ideology. in m.l. hoffman & l.w. hoffman, eds., review of child development research, vol. i, 381-431. new york: russel sage foundation. kohlberg, l. (1987). moralische entwicklung und demokratische erziehung. in: g. lind & j. raschert, eds., moralische urteilsfähigkeit. eine auseinandersetzung mit lawrence kohlberg über moral, erziehung und demokratie, pp. 25-43. weinheim: beltz. kohlberg, l. (1995). die psychologie der moralentwicklung. frankfurt: suhrkamp. koszinoffski, r. (2006). überprüfung der pädagogisch-didaktischen lehrkompetenz von lehrpersonen bezüglich der konstanzer methode der dilemma-diskussion. diploma thesis, department of psychology, university of konstanz. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-123672 http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-123672 moral competence and the democratic way of living 590 kmk kultusministerkonferenz (2008). bildungsstandards der kultusministerkonferenz. erläuterungen zu konzeption und entwicklung. bonn. www.kmk.org/schul/bildungsstandards/argumentationspapier308kmk.pdf kmk kultusministerkonferenz (2009). stärkung der demokratieerziehung. beschluss der kultusministerkonferenz vom 06.03.2009. http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2009/2009_03_06staerkung_demokratieerziehung.pdf landtag baden-württemberg (2004). anfrage „förderung moralischer und demokratischer kompetenzen an den schulen― vom 16.2.2004: drucksache 13 / 2921. lenz, b. (2006). moralische urteilsfähigkeit als eine determinante für drogenkonsum bei jugendlichen. unpublished master thesis, department of psychology, university of konstanz. lind, g. (1978). wie misst man moralisches urteil? probleme und alternative möglichkeiten der messung eines komplexen konstrukts. in: g. portele, ed., sozialisation und moral. weinheim: beltz, pp. 171-201.* lind, g. (1982). experimental questionnaires: a new approach to personality research. in a. kossakowski & k. obuchowski, eds., progress in psychology of personality. amsterdam: north-holland, pp. 132-144.* lind, g. (1986). cultural differences in moral judgment competence? a study of west and east european university students. behavior science research, 21 (4), 208-255.* lind, g. (1987). moral competence and education in democratic society. in g. zecha & p. weingartner, eds, conscience: an interdisciplinary approach. dordrecht: reidel, pp. 91-122.* lind, g. (1989a). die entwicklung moralischer gefühle durch vernunft und dialog. in: g. lind & g. pollitt-gerlach, eds., moral in ‚unmoralischer’ zeit. zu einer partnerschaftlichen ethik in erziehung und gesellschaft. heidelberg: asanger, pp. 7-32.* lind, g. (1989b). essay review: ‗the measurement of moral judgment‘ by anne colby, lawrence kohlberg. human development, 32, 388-397.* lind, g. (1994). ausgangslage, ziele und ansatzpunkte des des-projektes in nordrheinwestfalen. qualität von schule, heft 4, wiesbaden: hessisches institut für bildungsplanung und schulentwicklung, pp. 45-45. http://www.kmk.org/schul/bildungsstandards/argumentationspapier308kmk.pdf http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2009/2009_03_06-staerkung_demokratieerziehung.pdf http://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2009/2009_03_06-staerkung_demokratieerziehung.pdf europe’s journal of psychology 591 lind, g. (1993). moralerziehung als demokratische bildung. politisches lernen 2/1993, pp. 20-26.* lind, g. (2000). the importance of responsibility-taking opportunities for self-sustaining moral development. journal of research in education 10, 1, 9-15. lind, g. (2002). ist moral lehrbar? ergebnisse der modernen moralpsychologischen forschung. berlin: logos-verlag. lind, g. (2004a). unterstützung und herausforderung: die konstanzer methode der dilemmadiskussion. in: landesinstitut für schule, ed., erziehungskultur und soziales lernen. soest: lsw, pp. 82-108. lind, g. (2004b). evaluating civic competences: toward good assessment practice. contribution to the ibe/gtz -seminar ―determining good practice in learning to live together‖, 9.-11. december 2003, in the international bureau of education (ibe), geneva, switzerland.* lind, g. (2004c). jenseits von pisa — für eine neue evaluationskultur. in: institut für schulentwicklung ph schwäbisch gmünd, ed., standards, evaluation und neue methoden. reaktionen auf die pisa-studie. baltmannsweiler: schneider verlag hohengehren, pp. 1 7. lind, g. (2006a). das dilemma liegt im auge des betrachters. zur behandlung bioethischer fragen im biologie-unterricht mit der konstanzer methode der dilemmadiskussion. praxis der naturwissenschaften. biologie in der schule, januar, 1/55, 2006, pp. 10 16.* lind, g. (2006b). perspektive „moralisches und demokratisches lernen―. in: a. fritz, r. klupsch-stahlmann & g. ricken, eds., handbuch kindheit und schule. neue kindheit, neues lernen, neuer unterricht. weinheim: beltz, pp. 296-309.* lind, g. (2006c). teilhabe an der argumentationsgemeinschaft als ziel der bildung: die konstanzer methode der dilemmadiskussion. in: e. grundler & r. vogt, eds., argumentieren in schule und hochschule. interdisziplinäre studien. tübingen: stauffenburg, pp. 167-175.* lind, g. (2008a). teaching students to speak up and to listen to others: cultivating moral democratic competencies. in: d. e. lund & p. r. carr, eds., doing democracy and social justice in education: political literacy for all students, pp. 319-335. new york: peter lang publishing.* moral competence and the democratic way of living 592 lind, g. (2008b). konstanzer methode der dilemma-diskussion als methodischer beitrag zur werteerziehung. in: bayrisches staatsministerium für unterricht und kultus, ed., werte machen stark. praxishandbuch zur werteerziehung, pp. 45-53. augsburg: brigg verlag.* lind, g. (2008c). the meaning and measurement of moral judgment competence revisited a dual-aspect model. in: d. fasko & w. willis, eds., contemporary philosophical and psychological perspectives on moral development and education, pp. 185 220. cresskill. nj: hampton press. lind, g. (2009a). moral ist lehrbar. handbuch zur theorie und praxis moralischer und demokratischer bildung. munich: oldenbourg. second expanded edition. lind, g. (2009b). favorable learning environments for moral development – a multiple intervention study with nearly 3.000 students in a higher education context. paper presented at the annual meeting of aera in san diego, april 13 17, 2009. lind, g. (2010). die förderung moralisch-demokratischer kompetenzen mit der konstanzer methode der dilemma-diskussion. in: b. latzko & t. malti, eds., moralentwicklung und -erziehung in kindheit und adoleszenz, pp. 285-302. munich: juventa-verlag.* lind, g. (2011a). moralerziehung. in: kiel, e. & zierer, k., eds: basiswissen unterrichtsgestaltung. baltmannsweiler: schneider verlag hohengehren, pp. 51 62. * lind, g. (2011b). selbst ist die schule! fremdversus selbstevaluation. grundschule 4/2011, 24 26.* lind, g. (2011c). verbesserung des unterrichts durch selbstevaluation. ein plädoyer für unverzerrte evidenz. in: j. bellmann & t. müller, eds: wissen, was wirkt. kritik evidenzbasierter pädagogik. wiesbaden: vs-verlag für sozialwissenschaften.* lind, g. (2011d). gewalt als die niedrigste ebene der konfliktlösung, ethics in progress quarterly, 1(1). [2nd edition] http://ethicsinprogress.org/?page_id=135 lind, g. & lind, o. (1984). demokratie und moralische urteilskompetenz. vierteljahresschrift für sicherheit und frieden 2, pp. 2-7.* lind, g. & raschert, j., eds. (1987). moralische urteilsfähigkeit eine auseinandersetzung mit lawrence kohlberg über moral, erziehung und demokratie. weinheim: beltz (with contributions by l. kohlberg, a. higgins, g. lind, g. nunner-winkler, f. oser). http://ethicsinprogress.org/?page_id=135 europe’s journal of psychology 593 lind, g., sandberger, j.-u. & bargel, t. (2010). moral competence and democratic personality. in g. lind, h.a. hartmann & r. wakenhut, eds., moral judgment and social education. new brunswik, nj: transaction publisher, s. 55-77. (2nd edn.) linn (2000). assessments and accountability. educational researcher, 29, no. 2, pp. 4–16. lupu, i. (2009). moral, lernumwelt und religiosität. die entwicklung moralischer urteilsfähigkeit bei studierenden in rumänien in abhängigkeit von verantwortungsübernahme und religiosität. unpublished dissertation, department of psychology, university of konstanz. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-95865. mansbart, f.-j. (2001). motivationale einflüsse der moralischen urteilsfähigkeit auf die bildung von vorsätzen. unpublished diploma thesis, department of psychology, university of konstanz. mcfaul, m. (2004). democracy promotion as a world value. the washington quarterly, 28, 1, 147-163. mkjs – ministerium für kultus, jugend und sport baden-württemberg (2004). förderung moralischer und demokratischer kompetenzen an den schulen. drucksache 13 / 2921; 13. wahlperiode 16. 02. 2004. moll, j., de oliveira-souza1, r., eslinger, p. j., bramati1, i. e., mourão-mirandal, j., andreiuolo, p. a., & pessoa, l. (2002). the neural correlates of moral sensitivity: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of basic and moral emotions. the journal of neuroscience, 22(7), 2730-2736. nichols, s. l. & berliner, d. (2006). collateral damage: how high-stakes testing corrupts schools. cambridge, ma: harvard education press. nowak, e. & lind, g. (2009). mis-educative martial law – the fate of free discourse and the moral judgment competence of polish university students from 1977 to 1983. in: m. zirk-sadowski, b. wojciechowski, & m. golecki, hg., between complexity and chaos. torun, poland: adam marszalek publisher, pp. 129-152. nussbaum, m. c. (2006). frontiers of justice. disability, nationality, species membership. cambridge, ma: the belknap press of harvard university. oser, f. & althof, w. (1994). moralische selbstbestimmung. modelle der entwicklung und erziehung im wertebereich. stuttgart: klett-cotta (2nd edn.) piaget, j. (1973). das moralische urteil beim kinde. frankfurt: suhrkamp (original 1932). http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/handle/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-95865 moral competence and the democratic way of living 594 pittel, s. m. & mendelsohn, g. a. (1966). measurement of moral values: a review and critique. psychological bulletin, 66, 22-35. portele, g. (1978). „du sollst das wollen!― zum paradox der sozialisation. in: g. portele, ed., sozialisation und moral.weinheim: beltz, pp. 147-168. power, f.c., higgins, c. & kohlberg, l. (1989). lawrence kohlberg’s approach to moral education. new york: columbia university press. prehn, k., wartenburger,i., mériau, k., scheibe, c., goodenough, o.r., villringer, a., van der meer, e., & heekeren, h.r. (2008). influence of individual differences in moral judgment competence on neural correlates of socio-normative judgments. social cognitive and affective neurosience. 3(1), 33-46. radbruch, g. (1987). rechtsphilosophie, gesamtausgabe, band 13. ed. arthur kaufmann. heidelberg: c. f. müller. reinhardt, s. (1980). moralisches urteil im politischen unterricht. gegenwartskunde, 29(4), 449-460. rest, j. r. & thoma, s. j. (1985). relation of moral judgment development to formal education. developmental psychology, 21, 709-714. roth, h. (1981). moralische mündigkeit als ziel der erziehung. in l. mauermann & e. weber, eds., der erziehungsauftrag der schule. beiträge zur theorie und praxis moralischer erziehung unter besonderer berücksichtigung der wertorientierung im unterricht. donauwörth: auer. roth, r. (2010). bürgermacht: eine streitschrift für mehr partizipation. hamburg: edition köperstiftung. saeidi-parvaneh, s. (2011). moral, bildung und religion im iran – zur bedeutung universitärer bildung für die entwicklung moralischer urteilsund diskursfähigkeit in einem religiös geprägten land. dissertation, department of psychology univeersity of konstanz. http://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2011/13107/ schillinger, marcia (2006). learning environments and moral development: how university education fosters moral judgment competence in brazil and two germanspeaking countries. aachen: shaker-verlag. schläfli, a., rest, j. r. & thoma, s. j. (1985). does moral education improve moral judghttp://kops.ub.uni-konstanz.de/volltexte/2011/13107/ europe’s journal of psychology 595 ment? a meta-analysis of intervention studies using the defining issues test. review of educational research, 55, 319-352. schwartz, s.h. & bardi a. (2001). value hierarchies across cultures. journal of cross-cultural psychology, vol. 32, 268-290. seitz, c. (1991). demokratiefähigkeit und moralisches urteilen bei schülern – ein vergleich von einheimischen und aussiedlerkindern. unpublished diploma thesis department of psychology, university of konstanz. sen, a. k. (1999). democracy as a universal value. journal of democracy, 10 (3), 3 17. sen, a. k. (2010). die idee der gerechtigkeit. munich: beck verlag. tiedemann, m. (2011). philosophiedidaktik und empirische bildungsforschung. möglichkeiten und grenzen. münster: lit verlag. treichel, d., 2003: moralische entwicklung. interview with prof. dr. georg lind, university of konstanz. dvd, ca. 2 hrs; order from: tomcom gmbh, heuridweg 14, 88131 lindau. loan: uni-bibliothek konstanz; signatur 6/ psy247/l46b. uhl, s. (1986). die mittel der moralerziehung und ihre wirksamkeit. bad heilbrunn: klinkhardt. waal, f. de (2009). primates and philosophers: how morality evolved. edited by stephen macedo & josiah ober. princton, nj: princeton university press. wasel, w. (1997). wir können auch anders: willentliche kontrolle stereotypen denkens. university of konstanz, department of psychology, unpublished dissertation. weiß, s. & zierer, k. (2010). der mut (moralisches-urteil-test). in: k. zierer, ed., kompendium „schulische werteerziehung―. baltmannsweiler schneider verlag hohengehren, pp. 238-246. zierer, k. (2008). und die moral von der geschicht – moralerziehung durch dilemmadiskussionen in der grundschule. erziehung und unterricht, 2008, heft 3 / 4, 285-293. internet-addresses ―promotion of moral and democratic competence‖: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/agmoral/ the use of the kmdd in various subjects and disciplines: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ moral competence and the democratic way of living 596 http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd-references_teaching_subjects.htm literature on the kmdd: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmddreferences.htm about the author dr. georg lind, born 1947, is professor of psychology, has developed the moral judgment test (mjt) for measuring moral competence and moral orientations simultaneously, and the konstanz method of dilemma-discussion (kmdd) ®. from 1972 to 2010, he taught and did research at the university of konstanz, germany. during that time he was also guest professor at the humboldt university berlin, the university of illinois at chicago, and the universidad de monterrey, mexico. he is now retired but is still active in research and teaching, giving lectures and workshops in many countries. his main area of research was and still is moral and democratic development and education. his website informs about his publications and research interests: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd-references_teaching_subjects.htm http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd-references.htm http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/moral/kmdd-references.htm http://www.uni-konstanz.de/ag-moral/ neuroticism, ego defence mechanisms and valoric types: a correlative study carolina stanescu university of santiago de compostella paul morosanu university of bucharest abstract the present study has as main object the investigation of the relationship between neuroticism, ego defense mechanisms and valoric types, on a sample of 39 participants selected from the general population. in order to serve this purpose we started from the main psychoanalythic theories about defense mechanisms and neurotism, and we made the concepts that we used functional based on the psychological instruments used and the psychological thories underlying them: bond´s “defense styles questionnaire” for defense mechanisms; allport-vernon scale for the values as part of the personality and a composite testing instrument made up of neurotism items from eysenck personality inventory and cattell´s 16 personality factors. a significant number of our hypothesis has confirmed after performing the statistical data processing. on the one hand, we the authors of this investigation consider our results per se and this fact is going to be presented widely in the “discussion” section and, on the other hand, we see our results also as starting points for further investigation in the area. introduction our starting theoretical point is the freudian theory about defense mechanisms, and especially the theory developed by anna freud. according to the second topic of the psychic of sigmund freud, the ego confronts itself with the demands of reality, of the self and of the superego as well as it can. but when the anxiety generated by the conflicts between these demands becomes overwhelming, the ego has to defend itself by the unconscious blockage of impulses or by distorting them into an acceptable less threatening form. so, for this investigation we defined defense mechanisms (the central concept) as the ways in which this blockage or distortion happens. the second main concept is the neuroticism, defined by us according to eysenck and cattell delimitations: an exagerated emotional responseand lack of emotional stability, mainly. finally, the third main concept with which we operate here is the “personal moral values”: the author making the delimitation of the six types is spranger in his book “types of men”: theoretic, economic, esthetic, social, political and religious, mentioning that each individual integrates from all the six types, in different proportions. from our own point of view, the defense mechanisms are the mechanisms making the mediation between two logics, the one on the consciousness and the one of the unconsciousness; this leads to an equilibrium, but a non-authentic one and a precarious one. because of the cualitative differences between the two logics, raises the necesity of mechanisms which build themselves as comon language for both of them, more maladaptive as they built themselves on a basis of higher neuroticism. at the foundation of employing defense mechanisms (as ontogenethic developments) lays the subjective selfevaluation of the incapacity of direct confrontation and resolution of the intrapsychological conflict “here and now”. the personal values could be seen as ego defense mechanisms in front of the superego, by acceeding to the norms of the superego, by accepting, promoting and defending them on the basis of previous acceptance of them. the purpose of the defense mechanisms (“common” ones as well as personal values as defense mechanisms, too) would be the avoidance of the anxiety generated by an intrapsychic conflict already present, but through defenses it is not approached directly. the fear could be a relevant aspect which determines the avoidance of the direct confrontation with the conflict, and at a higher neuroticism, greater fear, with shadows brought by neuroticism itself (as anxiety, instability, etc.). objectives and hypotheses we intended to investigate, at a more general level, how does the relation defense mechanisms, neuroticism and moral values shapes itself; whether there is any significant relationship between defense mechanisms and neuroticism and; whethere we can find a significant statistical correlation between defense mechanisms and valoric types. as more specific hypothesis, we have depicted the following: whether there could be realized a clasification of defenses following the neuroticism criteria; where we can find a significante correlation between maladaptive action, image distortion, self sacrifice on the one hand and neuroticism on the other; whether there is a significant statistical correlation between neuroticism and adaptive style; whether there is a significant correlation between neuroticism and the proportion of global employment of defense mechanisms and finally; whether there is a significant correlation between defensive factors and valoric types. method participants we have made a pseudo-aleatory selection of the participants sample from the general population, with ages ranging from 19 to 66 years old. after the primary evaluation of the results and their screening in the study remained 39 participants, with ages ranging from 19 to 66, medium and upper academic instructional background, 22 women and 15 men. materials in order to test the participants we have used the following evaluation instruments: “the defense style questionnaire” created by m. bond in 1983. this instrument was designed for testing the defense mechanisms as thir existence is accepted nowadays by the majority of the psycodynamic oriented specialists. the test has 88 items; after its validation and a factorial analysis resulted four factors which make up separate defensive styles and each one of them containing a number of subordinate defenses. the first factor is called maladaptive action and contains six defenses: withdrawal, activism, passive aggression, projection, regresion and inhibition. the second factor is image distortion containing: splitting, idealization, pseudoaltruism, depreciative omnipotence. the third factor – self sacrifice, with reaction formation and pseudoaltruism. and the fourth factor, called adaptive style contains humour, suppression and sublimation as underlying defense mechanisms. for evaluating the moral values we applied the allport-vernon questionnaire, depicting six valoric types: theoretic, economic, esthetic, social, political and religious. in order to investigate the neuroticism we applied a composite instrument that we the authrs constructed, containing the neuroticism factor from epi (“eysenck personality inventory”) and the “c” factor from “16 personality factors”. the items of the two factors were interpolated non-aleatory. because the score rating sistems were different (neuroticism from epi – two choices answer and “c” – three choices answer), we have chosen the three choices answer which meant to convert the answer alternatives for the neuroticism (epi) in answers three alternatives type. the answers evaluation was made based only on one system, the final score being calculated by totaling all the answers. procedure the participants were tested with the testing instruments gathered into an instrumental kit. they received, for each test applied, a specific briefing containing the instructions about answering the questions/ items, the main purpose being to minimaze the error caused by a lack of understanding of the instructions about solving the tests. the answers were to be given on specific forms attached to the questionnaires. results after the statistical processing resulted significant correlations between: neuroticism and the forst three factors dsq, between neuroticism and some specific defense mechanisms, between specific personal value types and dsq factors (and specific defenses) and between neuroticism and the proportion of global employment of defensive styles. for the neuroticism variable we obtained an average score of 41.5 and for the dsq factors – maladaptive action, image distortion, self sacrifice and adaptive style the means are: 42.3, 39.1, 49.9 and 62.2. by applying a pearson correlation test between neuroticism and each defensive style resulted the following significant correlations r(36)=.46, p‹0.01 (neuroticism – maladaptive action); r(36)=.34, p‹0.05 (neuroticism – image distortion); r(36)=.35, p‹0.05 (neuroticism – self sacrifice). we obtained a non-significant correlation between neuroticism and adaptive style. the neuroticism had also positive correlations with several defense mechanisms not included in one of the four factors; so, neuroticism registered a positive and significant statistical correlation with the activism (m=18.6) (r(36)=.48, p < 0.01), with the somatization (m=7.4) (r(36)=.45, p < 0.01), with the withdrawal (m=15.6) (r(36)=.51, p < 0.01), with help-rejecting-complaining (m=11.4) (r(36)=.41, p < 0.01), with isolation (m=16.3) (r(36)=.43, p < 0.01), with regression (m=8.64) (r(36)=.37, p < 0.05), with the splitting (m=9.07) (r(36)=.40, p < 0.05), with the idealization pseudoaltrism (m=7.71) (r(36)=.40, p < 0.05), with the undoing (m=13.6) (r(36)=.35, p < 0.05), with the task orientation (m=11.2) (r(36)=.32, p < 0.05); we registered a negative correlation with the lie (m=41.3) (r(36)=-.37, p < 0.05). concerning the personal values and the defense mechanisms employed, there were registered significant correlations, positive as well as negative between thoretic type (m=31.5) and passive aggression (m=18.3) r(34)=.34, p<0.05; and humor (m=17.5) r(34)=.38, p < 0.05; and suppression (m=10.1) r(34)=.39, p < 0.05; and help-rejecting-complaining (m=11.4) r(34)=.34, p < 0.05; and task orientation (m=11.2) r(34)=.57, p < 0.05; and anticipation (m=12.1) r(34)=.36, p < 0.05. the economic type has positive correlations with projection (m=27.8) r(34)=.57, p<0.01 and with splitting (m=9.07) r(34)=.45, p<0.01. between the social dominant valoric type (m=26.8) and regression (m=8.6) we have registered a positive correlation of r(34)=.43, p<0.01. this valoric type registeres also a positive correltaion with the somatization (m=7.4) at the r(34)=.33, p<0.05; with the withdrawal (m=15.6) at an r(34)=.34, p<0.05 and; with the inhibition (m=18.1) at r(34)=.39, p<0.05. the social type registers negative correlations with sublimation (m=6.5) at r(34)=-.35, p<0.05 and with suppression at r(34)=-.48, p<0.01. the results of the pearsons correlation test for the religious type (m=36.1) and two defense mechanisms were significant, as follows: a negative correlation with the suppression, at an r(34)=-.44, p<0.01 and a positive correlation with the undoing at an r(34)=.39, p<0.05. applying the spearman correlation test we obtained a significant statistical correlation between the esthetic type (m=30.2) and denial r(34)=-.57, p <0.01. the political valoric type (m=28.6) correlates with regression at an r(34)=-.33, p <0.05 and with help-rejecting-complaining at an r(34)=-.39, p<0.05. by correlating the four dsq factors with valoric types, resulted the following significant correlations: factor iv – adaptive style has a positive correlation with the theoretic type at an r(34)=.45, p <0.01 and a negative one with the religious type at r(34)=-.40, p<0.05; the factor iii – self sacrifice has a negative correlation with the esthetic type at the r(34)=-.37, p<0.05. the degree of global employment of defense mechanisms has a positive correlation with neuroticism at r(36)=.50, p<0.01 and with the esthetic type has a negative correlation of r(34)=-.33, p<0.05. discussion the hypothesis concerning the possibility of realizing a clasification of the defense mechanisms on the neuroticism criteria verified, as we obtained, significant correlations between the first three defensive factors and neuroticism: this means that maladaptive action, image distortion and self sacrifice could be considered as neurotic defenses (the most specific for neuroticism being the maladaptive action) and the adaptive style, as non-neurotic defense style. neuroticism could be characterized by impulsivity and negative emotionality; from here could come the precipitation and the “acceptance” of defenses which only on the spot and apparently seem eficient, but on the long run, they do not solve the conflict, but only hide it from the conscience, make it last longer. so for us the neuroticism could better be characterized by exagerate and intense and wrongly orientated efforts to face the problems as in “making them dissapear”. the intensity of these efforts being too high, the splitting emotional-cognitive-actional takes place and these is what leads to “an inconsciente failure behavior”. as an answer to the open hypothesis we have launched about the existence of significant correlations between specific defense mechanisms and neuroticism, we could consider as defense mechanisms strongly neurotical are acting out, somatization, withdrawal, help-rejecting-complaining, isolation. neurotical defense mechanisms are: regression, splitting, idealization pseudoaltruism, undoing and task orientation. the global employment of defense mechanisms correlated positively strongly (.01) with neuroticism, which could mean that the individuals who adapt to the situation do not develop neuroticism and neither neurotical defense mechanisms. on the other hand, neuroticism and defense mechanisms share their evolution in the onthogenesis. the lack of negative correlations between defense mechanisms and neuroticism reflects the features of defense mechanisms when comparing them to coping mechanisms; so, as characteristiscs of the defenses we could mention the rigid and constrainable, under the pleasure of the past, bringing the psychological modification of the present reality, the wrong orietnation of the experiences and reactions, the denial of the logic, a magical way of thinking, the focus on anxiety and not on solving the problem, obtaining benefits by subterfuges. considering the hypothesis concerning the possible correlations defense mechanisms – personal values, we have obtained a number of positive and negative, significant correlations. here we are going to mention the more significant and interesting ones, as we consider them from the point of view of the objectives of this investigation. so, the self sacrifice factor correlates negatively significantly with the esthetic value type. the person uses the defense echanisms pf this factor when wanting to be socially desirable, the image resulting being the one of benefactor or martyr. the adaptive style registers a strong positive correlation with the theoretical value type; the theoretical type uses mainly superior defense mechanisms, like humour and suppression, which have a strong theoretical support. the same defense style registers a negative correlation with the religious valoric type; this relation could answer the hypothesis according to which the valoric types per se could be non-experiential taking-overs of moral ideals socially cultivated and there is no generation of superior adaptations. concerning the correlations of valoric types with separate defense mechanisms, an interesting one should be the one between the theoretic type and humour: humour, unlike joy, generated a positive affective inner experience, but with changed object; that is why it is possible to make good cheer of a negative situation as it is posibile to have fun in a positive situation, but in the first case interferes a dissonance between the situational stimulus (generating anxiety) and the experience lived by employing the humour (a positive one). the dissonance is sustained in the first place by the “running away from the affect”. the humour, as an intelectual activity above all (as manipulation and game of classes and categories of knowledge) is employed much more easier by the theoretical type on his way of solving dead-end situations. the esthetical type registers one negative significant correlation with the denial defense. being confronted, due to the nature of his experience, with esthetic values, this valoric type will have a discriminative and solving capacity bigger than, for example, the one of the thoretical type. this means that he will accept easier his emotional experience and so he will have less conflicts to deny. the religious type has positive correlation with undoing and a negative one with suppression. in the case of the first correlation mentioned, the regret of the error, of the non-observance of the religious norms must be compensated: the sins must be compensated by good deeds with the function of undoing the sin. in the case of the second correlation, the negative one with suppression, accepting the religious values means the confrontation with many ill-fated realities makes the religious type more prone to confront with his conflicts, of recognizing his own mistakes by the means of accpeting the divine ubiquitousness. for the social type we will mention its positive correlation with the regression as defense mechanism: the social type, being dominantly emotional, when not receiving the others (exterior) gratification, resorts to regression, as he doesn´t has the saving theoretical background of the theoretic and/or religious type, not the strength of the political type, nor the “emotional non-investment” of the economic type in dealing with emotional conflicts. th economic valoric type registers significant possitive correlations with the splitting defense and the projection one. this valoric type is dominated by the utilitarian and practical aspects and these aspects get in conflict with non-practical but very real needs; in this case he gives up satisfying them, but this doesn´t mean that they dissapear, and this is what leads to conflict which generates the internal splitting. in the second case and connected with what we have mentioned here above, the subject is not willing to invest his resources into satisfying these non-practical and useless needs, he keeps them not away from conscience and the conflicts that these unsatisfied needs generate are projected on the exterior. concerning the global use of defense mechanisms, this has a negative significant correlation with the esthetic valoric type, which could be explained by the fact that the values of the esthetic type are abstract ones, but, unlike the ones of the thoretic type, these values offer also an emotional satisfaction; that is why they generate fewer and weaker emotional conflicts which would require the development of defenses. selective references allport, g. w. (1991), the structure and development of personality, edp, bucharest ionescu, s., jacquet m.-m., lothe, c. (2002), defense mechanisms – theory and clinical aspects, polirom, iasi newton, h. m. (1971), the contribution of gordon allport to the psychology of religion, journal of the american scientific affiliation, 23, 99-104, http://www.asa.org taylor, j. g., parker, j. d. a., bagby, r. m. (2003), relationships between alexithymia and related constructs, http://kubnw5.kub.nl/web/fsw/psychologie/emotions2003/2/h10.pdf tucker-ladd, c. e. (2003), psychological self-help: http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/ http://web.uccs.edu/hmizuno/default.htm social representations between greeks and jordanians: a comparative study khaleel al-said vassilios makrakis pella calogiannakis nelly kostoulas-makrakis theodora de baz abstract the present paper refers to a comparative study of social representations (srs) for a sample of 1207 greek and jordanians primary school pupils (653 from rethymnon city of greece and 554 from zarka city of jordan). the data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire. conceptually, three directions of images or social representations were formulated; positive, neutral and negative. the results clearly show that the direction of images for both samples was moved towards neutral srs, as depicted by the quantity of statements. the study also revealed that the main source of information about their social representations to each other was the school for the jordanian pupils and television for the greek pupils. keywords: arab, greek, social representations (srs), media, education background the concept of social representations (srs) has been advanced in france in the ‘60s by moscovici, who has defined srs as a multifaceted concept focusing on systems of values, ideas, images and practices that have a two-fold function: 1) establishing an order which will enable individuals to orient themselves and 2) facilitating communication among members of a community through a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world (moscovici, 1961). in this sense, the concept of “social representations” refers to interpretations we all use in everyday life, in groups, in the media and in public debates to give a meaning to reality (moscovici, 1984). in other words, srs are models that enable us to frame social reality and that every sr associates a meaning with an image. this implies that they are widely communicated and are shared to a greater or lesser extent among various socio-cultural groups (farr & moscovici, 1984). srs may also be considered similar to schemas (fiske & taylor, 1991), but their societal origin gives them more importance. srs can be transformed through interaction and communication and can have a symbolic, a logical and a dynamic nature (moscovici, 1984b). the symbolic nature of srs emerges in the process of social interaction and communication, while the logical one is related to the rationality of science (moscovici, 1984a). they may be seen irrational and illogical (huguet & latané, 1996). the dynamic nature of srs concerns with evolving, transforming… and not only communicating and interacting in making new representations (purkhardt, 1991). srs are thus referring more to social and cultural entities, rather than being considered as mere symbolic personal productions. picture 1: a selected page about arabs from the greek textbook for the primary school an important research dimension for the study of srs concerns the sources that contribute to their formation and consolidation in people’s minds. previous research shows that media and family do play an important role in developing and shaping people’s srs. peterson et al., (2006) found that the cartoon narrative was found to be a useful medium for informing the development and diffusion of health-enhancing social representations that shape the potential for health-related behavior change. in a study by donlon, ashman & levy (2005), all participants showed a correspondence between greater television exposure and more negative images of aging. in general, the study of young learners’ social representations becomes an important research issue as it can reveal knowledge which may have particular implications for the school curriculum and teaching methods. the rationality behind the present comparative study partly exposed in this paper lies in that the two participating countries represent two different socio-cultural systems, although they are situated in the eastern mediterranean region, and both countries are exposed to significant geopolitical influences. it should thus be interested to investigate the images that these two groups hold to each other and draw their implications to education. picture 2: a selected page about greek from the jordan textbook for the primary school methodology data collection the research data for this study is elicited from a sample of 1067 primary school pupils in the area of rethymnon crete, greece and the area of zarka, in jordan. both samples are representative in terms of the characteristics ascribed to their populations and can be comparable due to that there are no big differences in terms of their size (653 from rethymnon and 554 from zarka). the data have been collected by using an open-ended questionnaire. two versions of the questionnaire were produced; one in the greek language and the other in the arabic language. the content validity, for both versions, has been assessed before using the questionnaire for data collection. the questionnaire was thus piloted by a number of experts in both countries. their comments helped build the final version of the instrument. data analysis, results and implications the statistical package for the social sciences (spss version 14.0) was used to analyse the data. frequency distribution, cross tabulation and 2 analyses were performed. the results of the open question that addressed pupils’ srs or images for the “other” were subjected to processes of coding, categorization; analysis and interpretation (see kostoulas-makrakis, 2005; 2006). for the purpose of interpretation, three directions of srs were formulated: positive, neutral and negative. we considered a positive direction when images expressed through words or phrases were neither negative nor positive to the groups of study. positive statements were considered those who gave higher status to the group and negative statements when they were considered as lowering the status of the group. it has to be born in mind that positive directions if not interpreted properly might have negative connotations. table 1: the direction of images among greek and jordanian pupils table 1 shows the direction of images/social representations among greek and jordanian pupils. it is clearly shown that the respondents’ social representations are directed towards the neutral scale (82% for greeks and 66% for jordanians). the trend towards neutrality might indicate a transition towards a positive direction that is less stereotypical, provided that certain measures are taken. this result is in contrast with international research (e.g., kostoulas-makrakis, 2005; karić, 2002; prince el hassan bin talal, 2000; suleiman, 1999) which shows that the arab world, arabs and muslims have been ascribed to dangerous misunderstanding and stereotypical perceptions, especially after the 9/11th incident. in general, westerners tend to view arabs and muslims as underdeveloped, backward people and on the other hand arabs/muslims tend to have negative feelings towards the west by way of response. there is also a popular western assumption that islam is referred to whatever is irrational, extreme and violent in this world (taji-farouki, 2000) and the presence of muslims is identified as an expression of extreme “otherness” (moreras, 2002). table 2: the sources of information about greek among jordanian pupils and vice versa the results in table 2 show that for the jordanian primary school pupils the school (69%) figures as the main source of information regarding their images or srs, while for the greek primary school pupils, television (49%) was indicated as the most used source of information. research on school textbooks and the media seems to be critical in that it may reveal whether cross-cultural understanding and inter-religious relationships are depicted in their content. in general, the school and television have been the most reported sources for the respondents’ srs and the strongest (p< 0.001) statistically significant difference between the two groups was found in the school domain as a source of information about the respondents’ srs. a statistical significant difference at the p some of the measures that might turn the respondents’ neutral srs into positive are the following. first, strengthening inter-cultural dialogue at individual and global level is critical (gupta and govindarajan, 2004; erez and gati, 2004). to bridge the gap between the arab and european world, it is important to establish a close cooperation between the arab and european mass delivery media such as television, radio, publishing houses, academia, cultural centers, school textbooks, as well as student and youth associations and tourism. based on our knowledge, some form of this cooperation has been already established, but it should be sustained and fortified with more in-depth and mutual cooperation. the necessity of establishing school camps and clubs hosted in both jordan and greece especially in summer might contribute significantly towards cross-cultural understanding. second, there is need to develop curricula and content that ensures the positive portayal of other cultural groups, especially those represented in the host society. this is especially important for subjects such as literature, social studies, geography, and history. along with content, the adoption and development of teaching strategies that encourage children to focus on topics and issues concerning diversity and culturally diverse groups in their school assignments should also be considered. it is also crucial to provide opportunities for students to understand the causes and effects of all forms of stereotyping, racial discrimination, its relevance to society, and to the students' everyday life. third, the school and families should play a higher role in developing cross-cultural friendships and encourage children to choose friends based on their integrity rather than on cultural or religious background. indeed, it seems critical to encourage children to be associated with other cultural groups in the school and the community, especially through parents’ encouragement and involvement. this is very important, because the family as a socializing institution did not play any significant role among the greek and jordanian pupils that participated in this study. families should also encourage their children to take part in holidays and events celebrated by other cultural groups both at school and in the community. they should also encourage their children to read multicultural books and books that promote cross-cultural understanding. finally, it is worth pointing out that in certain cases besides negative stereotypes, positive stereotypes might also be harmful. so, this issue should be brought both at school, the family and the media as well. in this context, it is critical to develop children’s skills to assess critically the transferring of social stereotyping through mass media, especially textbooks and television. also, more in-depth studies are needed to develop cross-cultural understanding through an examination of students’ own attitudes, values and beliefs, and the attitudes, values and beliefs of others towards them. acknowledgments the financial support provided by the greek state scholarship foundation (iky) to khaleel al-said is highly acknowledged. thanks for the reviewers’ comments. references donlon, m., ori ashman, o., & levy, b. 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(1996). the children were beginning to construct a revised image of india: student teachers becoming global teachers. in steiner (ed.) developing the global teacher. theory and practice in initial teacher education. chester: trentham books ltd. microsoft word 7. psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 502 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 502-533 www.ejop.org psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel – a qualitative assessment of conflicts and reconciliations esther hess and horia pitariu department of psychology, ubb university, cluj abstract the ultra-orthodox jewish community in israel is highly homogeneous and is virtually isolated from the surrounding secular society. nevertheless, in recent years some openness to psychotherapy has emerged. in this paper the first author, herself a member of the ultra-orthodox community and a psychotherapist, presents a series of analyses and discussions of the major issues raised by therapy amongst members of this community. this study had two main objectives: a) a qualitative assessment of possible conflicts between the subjects strong religious convictions and the essence of psychotherapy; some conflicts were indeed detected which were followed by individual modes of reconciliation, b) an attempt to discover whether the psychotherapy had an impact on the level of observance of the jewish commandments and customs; some indications for a lessening of such observance were found. this study, being the first of its kind, could provide a basis for studying the effects of psychotherapy on subjects belonging to isolated communities. key words: psychotherapy, orthodox jews, religious convictions, homogeneous societies the ultra-orthodox jewish community in israel is probably familiar to only a few readers. ultra-orthodox jews have an unwavering belief in god. they believe that everything is ordained from above, that everything that happens is for the good, eventually; they believe in reward and punishment, in the power of prayer, in observing the commandments and in clear lines of personal philosophy. continuing and extensive study of the torah (the oral and the written law) is a supreme value and is regarded as the primary source of knowledge. life in this community is based on observance of the jewish religious commandments and customs. children are strictly educated in accordance with the jewish traditions, and separation between europe’s journal of psychology 503 the sexes is rigidly enforced in all educational and community frameworks. the community has its own separate institutions and is largely isolated from the outside world. the only source of news and information is the ultra-orthodox press: television, movies and theater are not permitted. the internet is used only for business and is forbidden to children. it should be noted that the ultra-orthodox communities in israel are far more closed than their counterparts in europe or the usa. the writer of this article is herself a member of this community and consequently faces a serious dilemma: on the one hand, she is expected to adhere to their absolute, unbending rules and norms of behavior and on the other hand, her professional status as a psychotherapist allows her a certain amount of distance and neutrality in her observations. this combination creates a unique personal and professional perspective for her research on her patients’ experiences in psychotherapy. for members of this community, the exposure to psychotherapy is a breakthrough into the open world that enables and even encourages cognitive pluralism. this encounter creates major difficulties during the therapy. literature review the encounter between psychoanalysis and religion has been studied from several different viewpoints. irvine (2003) and walker, gorsuch, & tan, (2004) have examined research conducted by psychotherapists on the use of their religious experience. coltart (1992, p. 244) writes of psychoanalytical therapy amongst religious christians, raising the power of conscience that, she avers, underlies every religion, and the difficulty in conducting psychoanalysis with religious catholics: “roman catholics who have been brought up from the cradle in the faith ascribe this, to an extent quite properly, to the thoroughness of early indoctrination; it is a well-recognized fact among analysts that to analyse even a long lapsed catholic presents one with a certain harsh and unrelenting set of problems connected with the tyranny of the conscience. but the oddity of this self-observable fact – that the conscience may have twists and powers that seem inexplicable in terms of conscious awareness and recall of early life – also occurs frequently in people from non-religious backgrounds”. spero (1981), case (1997), and sieve (1999) have written about countertransference with religious subjects; marx and spray (1972), weisbord (1982,) houts & graham (1986), and giglio (1993) have written about the effect of differences in religious perceptions between therapists and subjects; and erlanger (1988), cohen (1994), greenberg (2001), irvine (2003) and novis deutch (2010) have written about psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 504 the way in which religious therapists handle the conflict of values between the religious and the professional worlds. writers such as spero, (1980, 1996) and arnovich (2003) have dealt with conceptual and philosophical aspects that entail compatibility in principle, or with essential contradictions (amsel, 1969; rotenberg, 1990-2005; rosenheim, 2003, 2004, 2008; novis deutsch, 2010). hoffman (2007) also related to issues that concern the observant therapist and his or her personal coping in this complex encounter. additional studies have been conducted in other domains such as philosophy (buber, 1962, 1976; levinas, 1982, 2007) and education (rosenak, 2003, 2005). those who have written on the encounters between psychoanalysis and judaism fall into three main groups: 1. psychoanalysts working with religious jews. these researchers attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the ultra-orthodox mentality in order to create a better connection with their patients and to open up the possibility of therapy (bilu and witztum, 1994; witztum and greenberg, 2002). 2. religious clinicians who work with the ultra-orthodox population and encounter the continuing tensions between the ultra-orthodox lifestyle and the more open and permissive thinking of psychotherapy. these tensions manifest themselves in several areas: the need to observe the multiple laws and requirements of orthodox judaism in everyday life, the question of what is permitted and what is forbidden according to jewish law, closedness compared to openness, the requirement to study torah as opposed to the study of general subjects, acquiring a profession and sex-related topics such as pre-marital sex, homosexuality and masturbation, all of which are prohibited by jewish law. 3. rabbis who guide the orthodox jewish public and who handle questions asked by the therapist or the subject on topics where a conflict arises between issues raised in the therapy and jewish law. the best-known of these was the late rabbi moshe feinstein in the united states, whose authority as an adjudicator on matters pertaining to jewish law was recognized throughout the jewish world. his responses to questions regarding psychotherapy (among other issues) were published in his eight-volume work known in hebrew as “iggerot moshe” (freely translated, “letters from moshe”, 1973). in recent years, several therapeutic trends have been developed with the goal of creating a conceptual – philosophic integration between psychodynamic understanding and judaism (rotenberg, 1997, 2001, 2004; caspi, 2002; ginzburg, europe’s journal of psychology 505 2004 a, b). in addition, adahan (1997, 2002, 2005) and twersky (1997, 1999) have developed a cognitive-therapeutic approach to issues in judaism. till now, however, no research has been conducted that focuses on the place of the patient in the encounter between these two weltanschauungs – judaism and psychotherapy. the research presented in this paper is original and unique in that it is conducted from a dual perspective: from within, from a personal starting point, from a place of belonging, and from without, from a psychological-anthropological viewpoint and through the professional therapeutic work. qualitative research as einstein said, not everything that is important can be calculated. and thus, the realm of psychotherapy that deals with the delicate matters of the soul demands special and sensitive measurement. since psychotherapy is derived from the world of medicine, one would expect to find a wide range of studies in this field. however, very few studies have been carried out on the therapeutic process – a fact which in itself is worthy of further investigation. sheffler (1989, 1994) writes that empirical research is problematic when pertaining to the soul. the credo in psychotherapy is that the individual is unique. creswell (1998) has defined qualitative research as follows: “qualitative research is an inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem. the research builds a complex, holistic picture, analyzes words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting” (p. 15). qualitative research talks “with” people and not “about” them. the researcher is connected to and involved with the experiences of his or her subjects. the uniqueness of qualitative research lies in the relationship between the researcher in the social sciences, and the objects of his/her research. in this type of research, the relationship is not one of subject and object, but rather a subject-subject relationship (sciarra, 1999). sabar ben yehoshua (2002) believes that qualitative research offers the best means of understanding human activities and providing interpretations for social phenomena and emotional processes, since it allows the researcher to observe what occurs in the “black box” of the human mind. she believes that the researcher’s task is to examine the ideas from a standpoint of perceptive interpretation, “from the outside in”, and also to view the topic “from the inside out”, based on the researcher’s own deep understanding of the method. it is true that the observation is also subjective, but this is the nature and uniqueness of qualitative research, of which buber (1962, pp. 10-11) said: "everything the philosopher finds in a person of the first generations or a modern person, in males psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 506 and in females, in indians and in the chinese, in fools and in geniuses, he will develop around what he discovers within himself through observing himself, and only then will he understand philosophical anthropology" (freely translated from hebrew). research methods the research methods employed in this paper may be described as phenomenological, ethnographic and narrative. as noted, the research was conducted from a position of close familiarity with the population studied. when a study deals with the culture to which the researcher himself belongs, there is a deliberate attempt to see everyday events in a new light. the researcher strives ‘to make the familiar foreign’ or to use the familiar in order to understand, while simultaneously distancing himself or herself from his/her normal level of understanding and familiarity. in phenomenological research, concepts and categories are drawn from the subjects’ own idiosyncratic interpretations of reality. these concepts and categories are then studied on the basis of the subjects’ own narratives, as documented by the researcher (selman, 1980). the phenomenological analysis in this paper is based on bion’s concepts in the areas of object relations and early development. bion used the phenomenology of the analytic hour as his starting point, highlighting the two principles of the emergence of truth and mental growth. the mind grows through exposure to truth. for bion, the emotional experience is the foundation for both mental development and truth. he provides a language and the tools to help the therapist reflect, outside the analytic hour, on what has occurred during the treatment. bion’s work also has a spiritual element which brings him closer to a religious viewpoint (see bion, 1959, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1992). ethnographic research deals with the description and study of a culture, based on observation of a social group with a shared culture. the culture includes the concrete symbols that people use to express themselves, as well as the meaning afforded the symbols. each cultural group has its own intra-cultural codes and language. ethnographic research is conducted, as noted, within the community studied, with the dimension of inward observation and the interpretations of the research subjects. this is followed by the outside interpretation (shkedi, 2003). europe’s journal of psychology 507 geerz (1990) defines ethnographic research as complex observed behaviors that have both concrete and symbolic significance. members of the community carry a very intricate and detailed internal “map” of the socio-economic and other parameters used to assess behavior within their group, but they are often totally unaware of these criteria or else they are only aware in a very vague and ambiguous manner. accordingly, one of the main goals of ethnography is to bring out topics which are hidden or self-explanatory to the subjects, and to make these topics overt and explicit. narrative research the data used in this study were taken from summaries of the psychotherapeutic sessions written by the researcher in her personal logbooks. these logbooks were aimed to provide a close record of the work done in each session and were not originally intended as a basis for research. in such situations the research is carried out on a current phenomenon in a real environment (walker, 1993, and yin, 1994), and the researcher has little control over the events. the content is unstructured and not based on previously constructed questionnaires or interviews (carter, 1993, in shkedi, 2002, pp. 47-48). the material also reflects the author's dual viewpoint: his or her personal position as a member of the religious ultra-orthodox community, and his/her professional position as an “external” participatory therapist and witness. the research objective the general aim here was to study the encounter between psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy and ultra-orthodox observant jews, based on the clinical work and focusing on the subjects’ experiences within the process. the research questions were in this case: 1. do the similarities and the differences between psychoanalysis and judaism create conflicts for which compromise and mediation can be found? 2. how does each patient’s individual inner world affect his or her ability to cope with religion-related conflicts during the therapeutic process? 3. does psychodynamic psychotherapy for a religiously observant person undermine their faith and lead to a reduced commitment to observing an orthodox way of life? or does it simply hasten processes that would have occurred in any case? psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 508 the research subjects the research sample was selected from the logbooks written by the first author over a period of ten years. special attention was paid to the following criteria: all the subjects were from a homogeneous population representing the research population. all were ultra-orthodox jews who regard themselves as members of that community and accept its philosophical, religious and belief values. all were adults and adolescents who could express themselves verbally. the participants 1. chavazelet. a married female aged 32, mother of five children and working in the field of education. she was the youngest child in a family of many children whose parents were overburdened and unable to offer her any guidance in coping with everyday problems. she married at the age of 17 and had a series of miscarriages when she was not yet mentally or physically ready for them, as she was still a child herself. chavazelet sought therapy with this author about a year after her fourth pregnancy, when she was depressed and her self-image was low. she had a tendency towards isolation and self-restraint. 2. yael. an unmarried female aged 28, studying and working in education while living at home with her parents in an extremely orthodox family. yael is the oldest child in the family. her parents are very extreme and meticulous in their observance of the religious commandments, demanding the maximum of their children. yael strived towards perfectionism, trying constantly to satisfy her parents and her teachers. in the framework of her higher studies she suffered a crisis manifested as withdrawal and avoidance, with a heightened depressive mood. she sought therapy with this author after three attempts at cognitive behavioral therapy. 3. assaf. an 18-year-old student at a yeshiva (college for religious studies), who lived at home with his parents. he grew up as a second child in a family where the parents found it hard to set limits and he therefore had difficulties with accepting authority. unable to function in a regular study framework, he had outbursts of anger when he encountered refusal or opposition. he approached the author at his own volition, on the recommendation of his last place of study from which he was expelled. in this case the yeshiva (orthodox school) recommended the author, as she was ultra-orthodox herself and thus considered trustworthy. europe’s journal of psychology 509 4. keren. unmarried female, aged 20, living at home with her parents. worked as a secretary and studied in a higher education framework. keren was the youngest of three children, an introverted, rather demanding and never-satisfied young woman with few friends. she came for therapy at her parents' initiative and on the recommendation of her school psychologist, who suggested a dynamically oriented therapy. table 1: the hours and sessions comprising the study no. of hours of therapy analysed in the current research no. of hours of therapy no. of years of therapy no. of sessions per week subject's name 100 400 5 2 1 chavazelet 80 280 3.5 2 2. yael 45 45 1.4 1 3. assaf 100 400 8 1 4. keren the research process the research process consisted of three stages. in the first stage, the material from the logbooks was arranged into chronological units. the preliminary classification was conducted according to the chronological development of each participant (huberman & miles, 1994). it should be noted, however, that this classification follows the personal development of each subject during the psychotherapeutic process rather than a particular time frame. in the second stage, the texts and the narratives were classified according to key topics. these topics, in turn, were organized into five “super-categories”: 1. therapy and halacha (jewish religious law, customs and traditions). this “supercategory” includes the largest number of narratives and many of the key issues that arose during the therapy. 2. religion and knowledge, including self-knowledge 3. drives and impulses 4. the therapist as an authority 5. guilt as an emotion in the third stage, the material was analysed along two primary axes – a longitudinal and a latitudinal axis. psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 510 1. the longitudinal axis: the analysis of the material on this axis relates to the personal development of each subject during the different stages of therapy (beginning, middle and advanced – see below). the focus here is on the development of personality during the therapy and the influence of this development on issues related to belief and halacha. this analysis was conducted within the framework of category 1 – the category of therapy and halacha, and was based on analytical psychodynamic observation, object relations theory and the work of bion (1959, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1992). the classification follows the patient’s chronological and personal development through three main stages of therapy: a. the beginning stage – at this time, belief and doubt exist simultaneously but are still being explored. the patient expresses fear of change, and fears and questions about the therapy process. b. the middle stage – during this stage, the patient is familiar with and trusts the therapist. the logbooks for this period show freer expression and a sharper description of the conflicts. c. the advanced stage – at this stage the therapy progresses to a stage of insight and an attempt to integrate these insights with life experiences. this stage continues until the termination of therapy. this section of the research is based on top-down observation, moving from conceptualization and theory to field data (shkedi, 2003). 2. the latitudinal axis: the analysis of the material on this axis explores the topics covered under categories 2-5 (above). each of these categories contains various sub-categories from the narratives. the in-depth topic analysis was carried out by comparing several research subjects simultaneously, while each one was at the identical chronological-developmental stage of his/her therapy (see stages a, b and c above). this section of the research is based on bottom-up observation, moving from field data towards conceptualization and theory (shkedi, 2003). europe’s journal of psychology 511 figure 1: the number of therapeutic sessions relative to each stage of the therapy results the research findings were organized according to the categories listed above (see also a summary in table 2). category 1: therapy and halacha. questions which arose around the therapeutic experience enabled space for wider thought in this category, while simultaneously coming into conflict with the demands of an ultra-orthodox way of life. this topic recurred in almost every session, because there is no area of life which remains unaffected by the religious laws and requirements. one example of this type of conflict is the question of whether to go for therapy at all. does this not contradict belief in god, who is omnipotent? does going for therapy mean that one’s own religious belief is not strong enough? is one allowed to talk about “forbidden topics” such as attraction towards another person? category 2: religion versus knowledge, including self-knowledge. this category included the patients’ own narratives: is one allowed to know, is there value in knowing, or does knowledge contradict belief. an example of the effect of exposure to knowledge is shown in the response of one of the subjects during a discussion on the forthcoming elections in israel. when she was asked “who will you vote for?” her spontaneous answer was “whoever the rabbi tells us to vote for”. she was shocked by her listeners’ reactions. she suddenly learned that one can make one’s own choices, and decide for oneself for whom to vote. there are now two voices in the dialogue – the voice of the new knowledge and the voice of the halacha. this creates a painful situation for the subject. psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 512 category 3: drives and impulses. examples of drives and impulses include anger and aggression, self-fulfilment, nurturing and emphasizing femininity and the sexual drive. the freedom of thought and speech afforded by therapy conflicts with the restrictions and prohibitions laid down by religious law. subjects showed varying levels of openness in this category, but in all cases there was a great deal of anxiety regarding speaking about, or even thinking about, “forbidden topics”. table 2: analytical categories category 5: guilt as an emotion category 4: the therapist as authority category 3: drives category 2: religion or knowledge category 1: therapy and halacha (jewish religious law, customs and traditions) emotion accompanying all thoughts or actions that are not compatible with the demands of judaism the therapist vs. authority figures such as rabbis and teachers drives and impulses that must be restrained according to judaism knowing and opening up contradict the unchanging laws of judaism rules and halacha vs. pluralism significance “i said things that were forbidden, had forbidden thoughts, certain drives and impulses arose in me” “how can i trust the therapist who studied outside the orthodox religious framework? he/she is not god” therapy encourages free expression; judaism demands restraints to all creative expression knowledge that observing the commandments demands forgoing certain experiences and pleasures in life “is one allowed to be angry at one’s parents while in therapy?” examples from the narrative category 4: the therapist as an authority: in the transference process, the therapist is positioned between divine authority and human authority. the attitude towards the therapist ranges from fear to admiration and to contempt. in the orthodox jewish community, the attitude to authority – of god, of the rabbis, of educators and of one’s parents – is one of acceptance and unquestioning obedience. this attitude is inculcated from an early age and is not open to discussion. since the therapist is not a rabbinic figure or spiritual guide, the patient may wonder to what extent he can europe’s journal of psychology 513 trust him or her. in many cases, the therapist's authority is regarded with appreciation and respect, but at the same time there are deep reservations about the professional aspects of his/her work that does not always comply with religious law. category 5: guilt as an emotion. guilt about being in therapy, about changing one’s view of life and about changing one’s attitude to the observance of religious law developed as a result of the therapeutic experience. going to therapy can be interpreted as a lack of sufficient faith and religious belief and ensuing feelings of guilt. it is as if the patient is saying “if my faith were stronger, i wouldn’t need therapy, so i feel guilty of lack of faith”. an additional element is guilt about the cost of therapy; the patient may feel that this money should be spent on his family or on charity rather than “wasted” on therapy. longitudinal analysis as mentioned earlier, the longitudinal analysis covers category 1 therapy and halacha. this category clearly presents the sharp conflict between religious law and human desires. the subjects' methods of coping vary with their personalities; their ability to cope depends on the intensity of the super-ego and the parental, educational or other internalizations it embraces. the material indicated diversity in the ability to cope with the conflicts between the closed and the open worlds, between personal desires and fantasies on the one hand and the restrictions of religious law on the other. in this category, coping mechanisms are dependent on three main variables a) the subject's age; b) personal background, the inner world – that of internalization; and c) the length of therapy. a) age: the older subjects manifested a more developed, demanding and binding super-ego. the world of value internalization may be richer due to age, as well as to the accumulation of personal and community life experiences that afford a picture of a “syntonic super ego”. these subjects contrast with the two younger subjects, for whom the boundaries were not rigid, or for whom ignoring or bypassing the boundaries was an easier way of coping than direct confrontation. the fear of being found out was still discernable; the patient’s conscience is awakened, and at the same time the therapist is an accomplice to secrecy of the “crime”. b) personal background: subtle differences in the inner world and the world of internalization were evident, as well as in the subjects' education and upbringing. statements indicating the intensity of the subjects' super-ego were voiced. the subjects responded to the external parental voices, viz-a-viz the religious laws, religious decisions and community norms as well as the internalized parental voice. psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 514 the super ego was rigid; the “syntonic super ego” echoed clearly in discourse; the ego lacked dissonance; the ability to think and observe did not exist and was not even conceivable. c) length of therapy (between the third and the fifth year): the lengthier treatments revealed more daring, open narratives and a greater ability for free expression despite the religious laws. narratives indicated greater freedom of thought and flexibility, as well as attempts to organize the relationship between the therapy and religious law (compared to the first stages of therapy). this was not yet real integration but the ability to differentiate and to see several aspects simultaneously. two examples can illustrate this type of differentiation: the use of language that was permitted in therapy but would not be acceptable in the patient’s external world, and the “permission” to have fantasies or even to fulfill (some of) these fantasies, with meticulous assurances from the therapist that absolute discretion would be maintained. there was a concrete learning of the existence of conflict; dissonance in the ego was generated, and consequently there was a manifestation of the suffering created by this conflict. three methods of coping with the conflict were observed: fixation / remaining in the conflict, compromise and mediation. 1. fixation / remaining in the conflict was found at the start of the therapy, when the subjects protected themselves from change. it also indicated that the therapeutic process would be more complicated. 2. compromise was possible at an advanced stage of the therapy, after some softening of the super ego had taken place (freud, 1923). this was a nonintegrative type of coping. it was the simultaneous holding of two perceptions – understanding and attention to the needs of the patient’s inner world, while maintaining the other side, the religious law or the authority figures who represented it. this process may be considered in a positive light as the development of some flexibility, but it could also be regarded as giving up on the dimension of depth by “flattening” the conflict. 3. mediation means creating a kind of “bypass”, in situations where the patient sees no possibility of combining and integrating the gaps between orthodox judaism and the needs of the self. the therapeutic process creates an unbearable dissonance in the ego, and in self-defence the patient turns to a type of coping characterized by ignoring or bypassing the prohibitions while at the same time taking care of his or her own inner needs. europe’s journal of psychology 515 another possibility is that the super ego had never developed and had no significant presence. it is also possible for the super ego to become an ally of the ego, by finding moral justification for fulfilling one’s personal needs (ericson, 1968). latitudinal analysis category 2: religion or knowledge sub-categories mapped from super-category 2 – religion or knowledge – are presented below in table 3. table 3: categories for religion or knowledge beginning stage of therapy middle stage of therapy advanced stage of therapy knowledge exposes an unbearable truth knowledge as exposing truth that arouses guilt knowledge becomes a significant factor knowledge causes patient to violate prohibitions knowledge that causes subject to violate a prohibition yearning to know that which it is forbidden to know knowledge as disloyalty to the rabbinic figure knowledge as disloyalty to parents knowledge as disloyalty to parents an ultra-orthodox jewish way of life demands behavior according to an unequivocal ruling. most areas of life preclude independent thought and decisions based on emotion and personal desires. these conflicts, between knowledge and tradition, are a micro-pattern of debate over two approaches – psychoanalysis and judaism. in ultra-orthodox judaism no question is raised without an answer. within the therapeutic process, however, additional truths are revealed. the therapeutic spaces create new ways of looking; therapy leads to situations of ambiguity. subjects who are used to receiving and obeying clear instructions, and are not comfortable with such ambiguity, will consciously and unconsciously do everything they can to reach clear guidelines. in our psychotherapeutic processes, the subjects learned to open independent channels of thought and to see additional truths. this process of exposure to psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 516 “knowledge” appears in the records of the treatment. in the first stages of therapy, when the subjects encountered an opinion different to that of orthodox judaism, one of two reactions was observed: either objection and protest, or disregard and a return to existing patterns. the subjects found themselves facing two truths simultaneously, and deliberating how to deal with the practical part. in orthodox jewish life every effort is made to avoid states of doubt and uncertainty. consequently these states arouse disquiet and a desire to return to the familiar homeostasis. as the subjects progressed in their therapy, their ability to live simultaneously “in two worlds” increased. there was an inner dialectic, and thus coping with the conflicts became more bearable. however, no clear acceptance of this dualism was apparent. the integration was generated gradually, creating a type of inner dialogue. the ability to think in a more independent manner and to dare to discuss these matters in the therapeutic framework emerged slowly. religion and knowledge still remained two different voices. category 3: drives and impulses sub-categories mapped from super-category 3 – drives and impulses – are presented below in table 4. table 4: categories for drives and impulses beginning stage of therapy middle stage of therapy advanced stage of therapy drive to be feminine sexual drive not realizable expressing forbidden wishes drive for personal expression ambiguity and curiosity regarding sex sexual drive not realizable ambiguity and curiosity regarding sex jewish religious law demands that people conquer and control their drives and impulses. the law does not deny them; on the contrary, they are recognized and permitted under certain circumstances, but they may only be expressed in a guided or controlled way. anger, for example, is recognized as essential, but people are warned against allowing their anger to cause harm and are expected to control europe’s journal of psychology 517 their anger at all times. ultra-orthodox religious education in general educates to restraint in all spheres of life. in addition, the orthodox jewish approach restricts every liberal creative impulse; people are required to control their impulses and to re-direct them according to what is permitted by religious law. in the ultra-orthodox religious community, every contact with the other sex is for marriage purposes only. sexual relations are forbidden prior to marriage, and boys and girls are strictly separated in all educational frameworks from a very young age. there is no contact between males and females till marriage, and even then weddings are arranged. masturbation is prohibited for males. the subjects made use of the therapeutic framework in order to clarify issues in the realm of drives and impulses, femininity and sensuality in general. the content of the discussions varied from a naïve encounter with the unknown and the unfamiliar to intentional rebellious behavior. the pattern throughout was one of examining and clarifying the norms while becoming more aware of the differences. in addition, there was repeated questioning of whether something is prohibited or permitted. for these purposes, therapy became a place which allowed open conversation and attempts to understand the complexity of combining one’s personal needs with jewish orthodox life. two major aspects were considered: the orthodox community versus the outside world, and the intra-community observance – i versus my environment. these two variables indicate the feeling of difference. the internal struggle is over the need to belong by maintaining observance of the religious laws, in contrast to the need for personal fulfillment and attention to individual needs. in our study, the feeling of difference was accompanied by harsh feelings of anger, frustration, jealousy and yearning. in the latitudinal observations, differences in the subjects' personalities could be noticed, since each of them was at their own individual therapeutic and personal level of development. subjects faced issues ranging from questions of conscience, stemming from the super ego’s response to the impulses, to the inability to cope with the conflict. this inability, in turn, arose because the subject was incapable of taking responsibility for his or her own needs, and transferred the responsibility onto the therapist in the process of projective identification. we found that the younger subjects set their hearts' desires above religious law. this brought contentment that was connected to the non-observance of the commandments – objecting to and transgressing the laws, while sharing the secret with the therapist, and making sure that their parents and their surroundings would psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 518 not find out. similarly, there were expressions of rebellion, lack of agreement, and lack of commitment to the requirements to conform to the religious law and the environment. there was also an attempt to bend the framework towards personal needs, expressed in phrases such as "me first", "can't act according to the religious law", "doesn’t suit me" (subject no. 4). such statements and rebellious expressions from the younger subjects can also be seen as characteristic of adolescence. furthermore, questions arose regarding the presence of the super-ego. half of the subjects appeared to use the mechanism of repression and ignoring or disregarding laws and customs, and the internalizations of the super ego. changes were observed amongst all the subjects at advanced stages of therapy. the framework, the intimacy and the space that opened up enabled them to talk about feelings, fantasies and the fulfillment of these fantasies. containment and the processing of the conflicts (bion, 1963), resulted in a greater sense of calm and a lowering of resistance. hence, the therapeutic settings helped to realize the ability to verbalize issues, while providing an accepting rather than a critical framework. all these features enabled the subjects to find ways of coping with the complex encounters throughout the therapy. category 4: the therapist as an authority sub-categories mapped from super-category 4 – the therapist as an authority – are presented below in table 5. table 5: categories for the therapist as an authority beginning stage of therapy middle stage of therapy advanced stage of therapy permission to be in therapy questioning existing authority who actually can help? difficulty accepting therapist as help confusion between authorities positive emotion causes disquiet therapeutic connection perceived as threatening europe’s journal of psychology 519 the question of authority in therapy was always present. figures familiar to the subject such as the rabbi, educator or parental figure were projected onto the therapist during the sessions. confusion was created in the value and place of the therapeutic figure in the familiar hierarchy. the therapist was not a parent or a rabbi. so how should one relate to her? what should one say to her? to what extent should one believe in or rely on her? there was some confusion over the issue of "otherness". the fact that the therapist belongs to the same community created uncertainty and confusion. for if you are ultra-orthodox why are you different? if you are different, you are not really ultra-orthodox. and if not, who are you for me? the process of transference makes the parallel and the comparison between the therapist and the parent very complex. the narrative notes that in addition to the existing confusion about authority, there is also the presence of god – a given at all times for orthodox jews. next in the hierarchy is the rabbi, whose opinion is binding, followed by the community and its special norms, and then the parents. the attitudes towards the figure of the therapist range from glorification to negation, from idealization to devaluation. spero (1996) states that such figures, god and the rabbinic authority, are projected in the transference process onto the religiously observant therapist; he/she must realize this and cope with this projection. in spero’s opinion, the unconscious and unspoken demand is for the therapist to be a rabbi, arbiter and guide. the narratives indicate that there is confusion among the parental figures and the question of "who holds the authority" was repeated constantly. on the longitudinal axis, it seems that this question was prominent at the start of the therapy, when testing, deliberation and confusion, often followed by resistance, were still part of the process. at a later stage, diverse transference feelings such as identification with the therapist, jealousy, competition, envy of the therapist’s professional status and anxiety about the trust placed in her added to the existing confusion regarding the therapist’s authority. on the latitudinal axis, the issue of authority was affected by components such as age, family status, personality type and the place in therapy. on this latitudinal cross section, differences between the various subjects were also observed regarding their ability and readiness to accept the therapeutic authority. the adults tended, at the start of therapy, to trust the therapist. with its progress, transference and identification, the feelings of jealousy and competition became more prominent. as the process advanced, subjects began to question the therapist's authority more. adolescents, on the other hand, protested against the parents and every other authority, but tended to accept the therapist as an authority and as a partner to their situation and secrets. psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 520 category 5: guilt as an emotion sub-categories mapped from super-category 5 – guilt as emotion – are presented below in table 6. table 6: categories for guilt as emotion beginning stage of therapy middle stage of therapy advanced stage of therapy guilt for being in therapy consciousness and insight convey guilt fantasies and heart's desires together with guilt therapy arouses guilt about disloyalty softening in the personality arouses guilt guilt about freedom in speech admitting an error or a sin and regretting it is one of the signs of repentance that may lead a person to renew the covenant with his creator. in “the laws of repentance” (ch. 1) by maimonides (b. 1138, d. 1204) we read: “if a person has infringed one of these, whether deliberately or unintentionally, when he repents he is required to confess this to the holy one blessed be he”. a person who has undergone a process of repentance recognizes his sin, admits it and commits himself not to repeat such a sin in the future. according to the talmud, such a person will be held in high regard due to the magnitude of the process of repentance (tractate brachot, p. 34). the arousal of the feeling of guilt is a sign of responsibility and of recognizing one’s errors. according to melanie klein, guilt arises because of aggressive drives. in addition, the reparation of what has been damaged in fantasy, and the wish for such reparation, arise from a feeling of concern and responsibility towards those one loves (klein, 1937). the arousal of the feeling of guilt is also a type of self-punishment, a type of atonement for what is felt to be a sin (freud, 1907). this feeling is very commonly seen in the ultra-orthodox psychotherapy clinic. it may be expressed as a sense of anxiety, together with the desire for absolution and change. guilt is perceived as a lever for repentance and is thus a type of logical solution to conflict. based on our findings, we can assume that therapy may lead to a sense of transgression, but it may also lead to knowledge, insight and understanding. there is a change in the perception of the world, in thought and in observation. in the therapeutic process the subject has received "permission" to contemplate and europe’s journal of psychology 521 question. all this, however, exists only in the inner world, and not at the concrete level. questions and contemplation, insights, thoughts and fantasies (even when not carried out), are regarded as a sign of spiritual decline and create a feeling of guilt. summary of the semi-quantitative findings a summary of findings is presented in table 7 and graphically, for each participant, in figures 2-5. table 7: the research findings objective patient beginning therapy middle therapy advanced therapy treatment compliance 1. chavazelet + + 2. yael + ++ 3. assaf + + + 4. keren + + ++ attitude to and impact of religious values and laws 1. chavazelet ++ + + 2. yael ++ + 3. assaf - 4. keren + - overall progress 1. chavazelet + + ++ 2. yael + + ++ 3. assaf + + 4. keren + + ++ ++ marked improvement or strengthening; + slight to moderate improvement or strengthening; + no apparent change; slight religious compliance; marked moderate religious compliance figure 2: chavatzelet. the response scale used: 2=++, 1=+, 0=+-, -1=-, -2= -2 -1 0 1 2 treatment compliance attitude to religious values overall progress beginning therapy middle therapy advanced therapy psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 522 figure 3: yael. see legend to figure 2 -2 -1 0 1 2 treatment compliance attitude to religious values overall progress beginning therapy middle therapy advanced therapy figure 4: assaf. see legend to figure 2 -2 -1 0 1 2 treatment compliance attitude to religious values overall progress beginning therapy middle therapy advanced therapy figure 5: keren. see legend to figure 2 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 treatment compliance attitude to religious values overall progress beginning therapy middle therapy advanced therapy europe’s journal of psychology 523 the findings presented in table 7 and figures 2-5, shown here in a semi-quantitative manner, indicate a correlation between the process and progress in therapy and a move towards a decline in religious perception and adherence. this observation is in line with the common assertion that opening of the spaces for thought and observation leads to a softening of the super ego, which in turn is an accelerating factor in the decline in religious observance. it might be concluded, from the sample of this study, that similar findings could occur in the exposure to openness within the therapeutic process in cases where patients belong to a closed community or group and follow a religion that requires close adherence to rules and restrictions. one may well assume that openness, knowledge, understanding, insight and expanding the inner world may lead to a decline in spiritual faith. discussion an endless journey between space and boundaries, between the possible and the impossible, and between the prohibited and the permitted occurs in human development. there is a fundamental conflict between judaism and psychoanalysis: judaism requires maintaining the traditions and religious laws, while psychoanalysis regards a person as an entity entitled to freedom of thought and action. in orthodox judaism, questions or doubts are resolved by the decision of a rabbi or by referring to earlier decisions made by scholars of halacha. life habits are based on boundaries. the possibilities are limited to the domain of what is permitted according to religious law and accepted according to tradition and norms. thought is limited to the familiar world of concepts. the religiously observant person has a god who is central to his or her being. in the words of king david, "i have set the lord always before me" (psalms 16, p. 8). psychotherapy does not normally regard god as a central element in therapy. an ultra-orthodox subject, however, always enters therapy together with him and he is a continual presence there. several authors have addressed this issue. kristeva (2004) compares the transference to the therapist to the attitude to god. she sees the subject’s relation to the therapist as to an “omnipotent parent”. in her view, love of the object becomes the love of god, and this love is transferred to the therapist. caspi (2002) is very critical of the classic psychoanalytic orientation, in which all issues of sexuality, aggression, selfishness, and childishness are gladly accepted, but there is no room to speak about god or to regard him as a presence in the therapy. it should be noted, however, that there are indeed additional presences in the therapy room besides the subject, the therapist and the transference projected onto psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 524 him. ogden (1989) developed the concept "the analytical third" meaning an entity, an essence created in the encounter between two people. this concept will help to understand the presence of the "third" within the therapeutic session where both therapist and subject are religiously observant. the halacha, rabbinical authority and the norms of the community are all present as concrete value entities of considerable impact. levinas (1982, p. 14) uses the term “the third" (“le tiers”) to describe this situation. "when there are two there are three". he explains that the address of the one to the "other" is the third. one type of presence addressed is god. levinas (2002) explains that where there is morality in “the meeting with the friend”, there the fear of god will also be present. in his view, morality and religion are interwoven, and morality is the essence of religion. the ‘fear of man’ and moral behavior towards others – these elements constitute the fear of god. the fear of god begins with the ‘fear’ or respect for the other, which is in itself evidence of the presence of god. levinas’ views are ethical rather than religious. he believes that every individual human being is for the other and takes responsibility for the other. when considering the concept of “the third” in the thinking of levinas and ogden, we need to add the concept of the "first" and to differentiate between the "third" and the "first". for ultra-orthodox jews, divine authority is supreme and binding at all times, preempting any interpersonal relations and certainly also a therapeutic session. the authority of god takes priority over any human and interpersonal contact and should be regarded as “the first”. in addition to this divine "first", always present according to the jewish perception, there is also the "third". these are the voices of the halacha, of rabbinical authority and also the authority of one’s parents and teachers – human authorities in the religious hierarchy. all these “presences” burden the therapeutic process and restrict the space and freedom. the constant presence of the "third", which is more concrete, is also the constant and significant presence of the super ego and of internalization. from the above, we can understand the uniqueness and the special sensitivities of psychoanalytical therapy in the ultra-orthodox jewish community. in these therapies, there is a permanent divine presence in addition to the two people who are in the room. additional presences are found in every therapeutic session, both in the subject's inner world and in that of the therapist. the research findings show that: 1. the subjects deal with the conflicts through fixation (remaining in the conflict), compromise or mediation. as the therapy progresses, there is an attempt at and a movement towards integration. 2. there are two poles of internalization of the super ego, ranging from rigidity to disregard for the laws of religious observance. younger patients tend to europe’s journal of psychology 525 rebellion and disregard and to the destruction of the norms in order to develop an identity. adult subjects take responsibility and suffer from pangs of the super ego. softening is observed as the therapeutic process progresses. 3. emotions and deeds of a contradictory character do indeed occur. clearly, psychotherapy encourages and enables their manifestation. it is reasonable to assume that thoughts, fantasies and attempts at fulfillment existed previously in the person’s inner world. the therapeutic framework enables abreaction, processing and insights. it is worth noting that thoughts, desires and ambitions are aroused in some subjects as a form of disregard or disobedience in relation to the halacha and as a decline in spirituality, which does not have to be real but a subjective feeling. a reduction in the observance of the religious laws may be noted, with the psychotherapy functioning as a catalyst due to its enabling effects. there is no proof that it was a unique factor however. the limitations of an ultra-orthodox way of life obviously create boundaries that limit the therapeutic space, the freedom of thought, the closeness and the discussion that are at the heart of psychotherapy. limiting the space only to permitted domains excludes the areas of “no man’s land” those areas that cannot be opened and discussed. instead of freedom and a broad spectrum of recollection, imagination, speech, thought and permission to be, the space of both the subject and the therapist becomes narrow and rigid. this is certainly true of the potential space between them, the place where creativity and development are feasible (winnicott, 1971). furthermore, the diminution of space and the reservations about touching the possibilities and opening new worlds reduce the dimension of depth in thought and insight, replacing it with technical and practical involvement that gives a feeling of flattening or of two dimensions (melzer, 1978). victor frankel (1985) writes that in the psychoanalytic approach, the unconscious is viewed as motivated solely by drives and impulses. in frankel’s view, however, each person has a ‘spiritual unconscious’ which includes drives and impulses as well as spiritual elements. rosenberg (2004: 230) believes that within the awareness of human freedom, there is inner evidence of the wars and the conflicts that occur within us. there is an awareness of the existence of dilemmas, hesitations and uncertainties and also of a tragic sense of oppression which is linked to the decisions that we make at critical junctures in our lives. in jewish tradition this psychological situation is described as “the battle of the impulses” (free translation of the hebrew term “milhemet ha-yetzer”). psychotherapy of ultra-orthodox jews in israel 526 there is no exact scientific way to examine whether such intra-emotional processes would occur anyway. a central variable here appears to be the power of the super ego. when the super ego does not exist or is pale and weak, a decline in religion and religious observance is anticipated. in our study the practical act of abandoning religion following psychotherapeutic treatment is not observed. a clear finding is that the therapy simultaneously contains the emotional struggles and “causes” them, thereby accelerating the complex processes which the subject experiences. rotenberg (2001) mentions doubt vs. certainty, i.e., two directions simultaneously, enforcement and desire. an example of this is a child who wishes to study. if he is forced to cease studying the natural desire will come of itself. this is the paradoxical theory and method of treatment developed by erikson (1996) and watzlawick et al. (1974), whose concept is that forcing a strict, fundamental solution leads to spontaneous action. here, too, when we ask whether psychotherapy causes a decline in religious observance, the way in which the question is posed is significant. such a decline may be a reaction to the feeling of decisiveness, but from the paradoxical perspective, affording freedom to think, do and choose may actually prevent or modify the decline. this material shows that a decline in religious observance (“spiritual decline”) during the psychotherapeutic process is a topic that can be debated endlessly. spiritual decline is a subjective concept. doubts, questions, deliberations, thoughts and insights – all these may be contained by the personality and be experienced as enriching, pluralistic and enabling the holding of different viewpoints simultaneously. however, these same processes may also be experienced as subjective feelings of uncertainty, restlessness or a disturbance in homeostasis and consequently as a decline in spirituality. the concept of “spiritual decline” may be interpreted differently by each subject and depends on his or her personal feelings. as a result of environmental and community pressure and due to personal conflicts that arise in the subjects, there is a need for emotional balance, which the therapy tries to meet. continuing in therapy provides an anchor and a sense of stability. eshel (2003) writes that for a subject to be able to project – to rid himself or herself of the unbearable parts, to rest and be processed – there should be someone who is ready to devote himself/herself to starting this process – a process that can occur only in the connection with and through the soul of the other. it would be interesting to continue studying what happens to the subject’s self in the therapeutic process. this study does not explore issues such as the subject’s jealousy of the therapist when both are members of the same reference group; or the transference process and its implications for the therapist's place and for the europe’s journal of psychology 527 patient’s life, when both therapist and subject belong to the same reference group; and other facets of this topic. this research has been, and continues to be, a journey of sharing and visiting the personal clinical space of the researcher, within the context of a closed orthodox jewish community. it portrays the meeting of ideas which takes place in the therapy room between an orthodox therapist and an orthodox patient, in a situation where the patient is exposed to knowledge and conflicts and the therapist is a witness to a complex internal struggle while also being a partner to this struggle from a human, containing, professional and religious standpoint. note: this article was written in the framework of the phd thesis of the first author, at the ubb cluj, romania, under mentoring by the late prof. horia pitariu. since the untimely passing of prof. pitariu, the research presented here is being completed under the supervision of professor i. dafinoiu at the alexandru ioan coza university, iasi. this paper describes a new research approach which prof. pitariu worked on during his lifetime. this article is dedicated to his memory. references adahan, m. 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(1994). case study research (2nd edition). thousand oaks: sage. the book of psalms babylonian talmud – tractate brachot europe’s journal of psychology 533 about the authors: esther hess is a psychotherapist, a lecturer at the jerusalem college in bayit vegan and an instructor in the child and youth program at the bar ilan university. she herself belongs to the ultra-orthodox jewish community in israel, and is rather exceptional there in that most of its members do not normally acquire a university-level academic education. a graduate of the program of psychoanalytic psychotherapy for advanced psychotherapists run by the israel psychoanalytic institute, she maintains a private psychotherapy practice in bnei brak, israel, a town with a large ultra-orthodox population. she researches the subject of therapy within this group, lectures in various frameworks and has published several articles on the subject. address for correspondence: esther hess, 14 elisha st. bnei brak, israel 51523s email: ehess@netvision.net.il prof. horia pitariu was a lecturer and head of the department of psychology, ubb university, cluj, romania for many years. his areas of interest included industrial and organizational psychology, human resources assessment and management, experimental psychology and statistical methods in psychology. romanian and international psychology suffered a heavy loss with his untimely demise. is there a european identity? kathinka dittrich van weringh chair of the european cultural foundation http://www.eurocult.org/ the concept of identity – beyond its primary meaning of individual identity which is psychologically so important even in times of post-modern deconstruction of the individual – signals a sense of belonging. the question is: to whom or to what do we feel to belong, want to belong? to social, cultural, economical, political groups or communities? to our families, friends, kindred spirits? to a certain gender? to a belief, ideology? to specific memories and experiences? to certain topics and activities? to a borough, a city, a region, a nation, to europe ? to…? we all know that it is even more complicated: do we need to speak about identities beyond the individual? hasn’t history shown how dangerous collective identities can be? the construction of the nation states in the 19 th century has “used” culture, education and the military service for the nation building process, and already then wise men have warned their compatriots, mostly without being heard. so did franz grillparzer, a civil servant of the multinational hapsburg empire, and a great poet, whose prophetic words “from individuality to nationalism to bestiality” have been remembered in the midst of the 20 th century, when nazi terror almost made an end to europe and its cultures however, we also need to acknowledge, that “identity” in the sense of belonging to a protective, enriching community is a meaningful notion for many and by no means only for the desperate, the poor, the “exploited”, though they are often a “privileged” target group of populist politicians and ideologists. no doubt: “communitarian movements” appeal to many, that have become disillusioned by an ultra-liberal concept of democracies and markets. no doubt that the collective spirit of strong communities is offering “heimat”, and no doubt that nation states are still the dominant framework of reference and belonging for a vast majority. the issue of identity and identities is complex enough. we do not understand it fully yet. and, on top of it, we are increasingly confronted with the concept of “dual identities”, “hybrid identities” and a european “identity”. the fact that the question of an imaginary or real european identity arises at all shows that post war societies in europe have changed dramatically and with increasing speed after the fall of the wall in 1989, to use a symbol for the beginning of the end of the cold war and the beginning of the beginning of a reunited europe, that, at the same time is confronted with new technological and economical challenges on a global scale. the changes occur at varying degrees dependent on the varying political, economical, social, and cultural backgrounds in different member states. “late” nations or only recently liberated nations find themselves in a community (or project themselves into a soon to come community) with “old” nations, and “old” nations are questioned by immigration and the multicultural challenge. established codes of behaviour that formed a social glue have undergone erosion. in the late fifties for example a protestant in germany was expected to also marry a protestant, and behave accordingly. or, on a less decisive, but culturally formative level: if you belonged to a social group that expected its members to love opera, you could not admit, that you also enjoyed detective stories, or, even worse, the yellow press, let alone the upcoming discos – certainly not as a woman. and, back to politics: there was a clear and “helpful” enemy and all the images which were useful for constructing “western” identity: communism. all these and many other classical points of references of identities are gone. in addition: with more or less open borders in today’s europe the concept of a nation state, enhanced in the 19 th century, does not carry any more (if it ever did!) or, paradoxically, is being re-invented as the last resort of symbolic “independence”. europe shares many tragic memories of the missioners of the concept: one territory, one history, one people, and one language. nowadays many (hi)stories are told in many languages by heterogeneous peoples. many beliefs are adhered to in churches, synagogues, mosques all over europe. nation states were and are eager to join the european union, which creates again an extremely colourful and diverse unity of differences under one roof. but: try to define what is lithuanian, rumanian, german…? is there one german culture? are there not many cultures in germany ? also in the geo-political sense many people have patchwork identities. just one example: the internationally well known writer sándor márai was born in 1900 in kaschau, in the austrian/hungarian empire. after 1918 this town became czechoslovakian, with all the consequences for its citizens. later it mutated into the hungarian kassa, then fell back to czechoslovakia and is now kosice in slovakia. let us face it: people always had – conscious or not many, and sometimes conflicting “identities”. is there, in addition, such a “thing” like a european “identity”? can one develop a sense of belonging to what sceptics define solely as an economic free market zone and for some as an emerging security zone? indeed, that increases the confusion, allows for sunday speeches and camouflage, yet this question also bears the weight of politically existential choices. we have learned to define the values of constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and human rights as the most advanced lesson from our tragic and glorious past. europe, the eu, is the unprecedented attempt to unify nation states without levelling differences. the eu, born over decades out of the need and will to peacefully negotiate differences, out of solidarity and mutual respect, even if imperfect and constantly “in the making”, offers a model of political order which was never seen before. doesn’t such an experiment “in vivo” need a sense of belonging, emotional bonds? “constitutional patriotism” (jurgen habermas) may not be enough. does europe need to be more than a soulless entity”? the european union came into being by peacefully overcoming centuries of wars and conflicts. this fact and the equally peaceful recent 2004 enlargement with two more members to join in 2007, rumania and bulgaria, shows: the european union is a success, also in terms of political culture. admitted, other sceptics say, but the post war history is forgotten by the young generation, and the post 89 euphoria has been succeeded by economic expectations. and do not forget: how can there be an emotional sense of belonging to europe as a whole, which is embracing so many different cultures, languages, historical memories, artistic expressions? isn’t europe still mentally divided between the “west” and the “east”? hasn’t the enlargement created new intra – european borders on its eastern frontier, separating kindred spirits within age old cultural spaces? i agree that there is some truth in these arguments. however, many dreams have become reality, and many adhere to a ” transnational dream with a potential of success… created by the wisdom of age”, as an outsider, the american author jeremy rifkin defines the european union in his recent book ” the european dream”? where else in the world do we find a similar ” soft power”, one that prefers negotiations to wars, accepts self-obliging european institutions and treaties – the most important being the european constitution, based on basic rights in their very specific european implementation, one that promotes and protects its cultural diversity through the principle of subsidiarity and other measures? – as an insider, the bulgarian sociologist and philosopher tzvetan todorov explains in his booklet “le nouveau désordre mondial” that appeared in paris in 2003. yet are the european institutions strong enough and what about their democratic legitimacy? can people feel a sense of belonging to distant bureaucracies; do they understand european decision making processes that are mostly steered by governments and their national agendas? these critics have a point. but: the european parliament, elected by the people of europe, is gaining legal power, and it is emancipating in making use of it. on october 27 last year, it dared for the first time in its history to refuse a new commission to be presented by its new president, whose choice is clearly limited by the proposals imposed by member governments. is europe ‘s integration a cultural project? the eu member states agreed to introduce a cultural component into the binding european treaty of maastricht in 1991; they consequently allowed a smallfar too smalleuropean budget for culture and education; they have decided not to let culture and the arts fall prey to international market forces in the wto negotiations (which means that there is still a fixed book price, or a reduced vat on cultural goods – measures that are unfortunately not yet introduced in central and eastern europe); they are beginning to realise that the creative cultural and artistic potential of europe is not only vital for social cohesion but is also a crucial element for europe `s competitiveness in our globalised world; it dawns on them that the official european neighbourhood policy and the emerging european foreign policy need a stronger cultural component. no question: the cultural and artistic diversity is europe ‘s unique strength, and its real capital. far too romantic, opponents argue, it is all a matter of efficiency, of cost and benefit calculations. all that people want are jobs, a decent life and money. yes, i would argue, there seems to be little space for solidarity; yes, the european institutions who provide structural compensation for this lack still enjoy limited recognition; yes, there is hardly an european public space where joys and fears can be shared; yes, citizens in western europe show far too little curiosity and understanding for the complex transformation process that is going on in central and eastern europe; yes, there is ever less public money for culture and the arts and for international cultural co-operation on all levels; yes, we are all more rooted in our local, regional and national environments; yes, we all want jobs, a decent life and money. but: we also long to share a common good: peace, freedom, justice, political, social, economical and cultural solidarity. this shared belief was decisive when people and peoples peacefully abolished dictatorships in all parts of europe, right wing ones, such as in spain, portugal and greece, soviet left wing ones as in central and eastern europe. masses demonstrated everywhere against the irak war two years ago with special passion in spain, poland, the united kingdom, countries where the governments were all for the war. people of all ages and backgrounds defended democratic elections in ukraine last november, despite ice and snow. all this shows: europe is being built on shared values. in addition: many achievements, for which the founding fathers of the european union fought with their heart’s blood and which have an effect on every day life are nowadays simply taken for granted. bulgarian wine, polish geese, dutch butter, hungarian paprika, cheese from france, to start with the most banal items are no longer seen as “foreign”. to travel from munich to paris without french money and without a passport, or, much more complicated, to travel, let us say to latvia or rumania without a passport and a visa, or, for a rumanian to fly to madrid, to study where you like, to work where you wish, all this is not experienced as a sensation any longer, despite the fact that there are still official and unofficial obstacles, financial ones included. individually and collectively we are all on the move in europe crossing physical and mental borders. the traditional rather rigid concept of identity has become less static, more open, more comprehensive and much more demanding on our capacity to judge, to evaluate, to choose, to acknowledge our many identities, to accept that identity building is a process, consisting of many and not only predetermined elements, to become aware that we already share and live this europe of ours, this unfinished (maybe unfinishable) cultural project. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 716 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 716-738 www.ejop.org islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience among muslim adolescent students in india narayanan annalakshmi mohammed abeer department of psychology, bharathiar university abstract the present study attempts to examine the effect of muslim religiosity personality on resilience. the sample for the study consisted of 200 adolescent muslim students, from kerala, india. both males and females were included in the study. the age of the sample ranged from 15 to 18 years of age. the muslim religiosity-personality inventory (mrpi) (krauss and hamzah, 2009), that purports to assess islamic religiosity in terms of islamic worldview and religious personality, was used in the study. resilience was assessed using the bharathiar university resilience scale (burs) (annalakshmi, 2009). comparison of criterion groups on their scores on the scale using anova revealed that the high and low resilient are distinguished from one another on their religious personality but not on islamic worldview: the highly resilient were higher on islamic rituals (religious practice and ritual behaviour indicative of the manifestation of one‟s religious worldview) and on mu‟amalat (religiously guided behaviours towards one‟s family, fellow human beings and the rest of creation including animals and the natural environment). the findings of the present study suggest that cognitive components alone are not adequate to forge relationship between religion and resilience. they clearly indicate that knowledge alone does not make a significant difference in resilience until it manifests in behaviour. religiosity is both belief/knowledge and action, and in this present study the resilient participants are those able to actually put their beliefs/knowledge into practice. keywords: islamic worldview, religious personality, resilience, adolescent. interest in the potential value of religious aspects of faith and spirituality with reference to those suffering from a variety of acute and chronic illnesses due to stress or life events is growing (pardini et al., 2000). the present study examines the possible http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 717 relation between muslim religiosity and personality, and psychological resilience among a muslim community in kerala, india. human beings constantly try to adapt to both internal and external changes in their environment. the various internal and external changes demand modification of behaviour that will enable the individual to adapt and achieve the most, and this individual capacity is termed resilience (werner, 1971). the term describes the coping ability of an individual to bounce back in the face of adversity, stress and catastrophe. resilience refers to successful adaptation despite risk and adversity (masten, 1994). circumstances demanding resilience may include biological abnormalities or environmental obstacles which may be chronic and consistent or severe and infrequent. to be resilient, a person must draw upon all of his/her biological, psychological, and environmental resources to thrive, mature, and increase competence to overcome adversities. in this context religiosity and religious personality assume greater significance. resilience the term resilience, having its roots in latin, means „to jump or leap back‟. resilience signifies the ability to bounce back from or withstand major or multiple stresses in life. essentially, resilience is the capacity to thrive despite adversity, and to overcome the odds. garmezy, the founder of the contemporary research on resilience, suggests that the term resilience as used in psychology has emerged out of the experience of studying the attributes of competence and its development in school children, especially focusing on children who despite impoverished backgrounds manifest competence. the study team of garmezy termed the root of their adaptation as resilience, not as a simile for competence, but as an extension of their competencies despite their early background of very high stress experience (rolf, 1999). the pursuit of garmezy, to study the students at risk due to parental mental illness and other risk factors including poverty and stressful life experience, resulted in the longitudinal project competence which is still continued by his colleagues (cichetti, 1984; 1990; masten and braswell, 1991). a longitudinal study of resilience had been undertaken by werner in 1955 and it extended for a period of forty years observing entire birth of cohorts in the hawaiian island of kauai. of the total 698 infants observed in the investigation, many were exposed to reproductive and environmental risk factors such as premature birth coupled with an unstable household and a mentally ill mother. such infants experienced more problems with delinquency, mental and physical health and family stability than children exposed to fewer such risk factors. however, it was islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 718 amazing to find that one third of all high-risk children displayed resilience and developed into caring, competent and confident adults despite their problematic development histories (werner, 1971; 2005). werner and her colleagues attributed the resilience exhibited by the subjects to a number of protective factors present in their lives which helped to balance out risk factors at critical periods in their development. such protective factors include a strong bond with a nonparent caretaker, such as an aunt, babysitter, or teacher, and involvement in a church or community group like the ymca. resilience is a set of protective factors that modify, ameliorate, or alter a person‟s response to some environmental hazard that predisposes one to a maladaptive outcome (rutter, 1987). resilience is maintaining adaptive functioning in spite of serious risk hazards (rutter, 1990). resilience connotes the processes or patterns of positive adaptation and development in the context of significant threats to an individual‟s life or function (masten and wright, 2009). resilience does not require anything rare or extraordinary. it just requires that basic human adaptive systems are operating normally. children and older human beings have impressive capacity for resilience when basic protections are working: when they have the protection of parents looking out for them or the emotional security of close relationships with others, human or spiritual; when the human brain is functioning normally for learning, problem-solving, and trouble-shooting; when they have opportunities to experience the hopes and rewards of doing something that changes what is happening; and when their environment supports these systems (masten, 2009). resilience is a multiphasic complex phenomenon. for instance, resilience has been identified with the presence of seven protectors including duration taken to get back to normalcy after a setback, reaction to negative events, response to risk factors (specifically disadvantaged environment) in life, perception of effect of past negative events, defining „problems‟, hope/confidence in coping with future and openness to experience and flexibility (annalakshmi, 2008; 2009). resilience is understood as a multifactorial (i.e. having many variables or factors which influence the process and development of resilience) and multidimensional construct (occurring in different environments and at different levels for each individual) (daniel & wassell, 2002). religion/spirituality is considered as a protective factor for life stressors (cotton et al., 2006) and is also protective against negative health outcomes (cotton et al., 2006). europe’s journal of psychology 719 mental illness is viewed as a result of some kind of separation from the divine or even possession by evil in some societies (javed, 2007). religious attendance is found to have a vital influence on efficacy of treatment for mental disorders among variety of other factors (nicholson, richard, bobak, 2009). these findings suggest the existence of a link between resilience and religiosity. religiosity, muslim religiosity and personality defining religion is problematic. weber (1963) suggested that an investigator should proceed with the study and formulate definitions afterwards. he regarded religion to be a patterning of social relationships around beliefs in supernatural powers and thus creating ethical consequences. religion is a belief in spiritual beings purporting to explain life and death (tylor, 1871). it is a belief about „the unseen‟, with such attendant feelings as fear, wonder, reverence, gratitude, and love, and such institutions as prayer, worship, and sacrifice (ross, 1901). religious beliefs, defined by their reference to the supernatural, would characterize a particular kind of charisma which functioned to legitimate power by associating governance with teleological meanings (parson, 1937). durkheim suggested that religion connotes the obligatory beliefs connected with clearly defined practices related to the beliefs' objects (dobbelaere & lauwers 1973). the set of beliefs constituting religion differ from one religion to another in terms of concrete individual and group behaviour of the followers. the islam distinguishes itself from other religions in more than one ways as claimed by its followers (daniel et al., 2001). the word islam means complete submission to the will of almighty god. islam is a unique religion deriving its name from an arabic word that connotes an overall outlook on life and concept of worship, while the other religions are named after the founders of or the geographical locale of the followers of the specific religions. the quran, the scripture of islam, consistently addresses all human beings, "o mankind!" furthermore, the almighty god is never addressed as the god of a particular people or nation. since the very beginning of the mission of prophet muhammad, his followers came from a wide spectrum of individuals including african slaves, byzantine romans, jewish rabbi, and the persians. religious truth is regarded as eternal and unchanging and mankind as constituting a universal brotherhood. submission to the will of god, and worshipping him alone without intermediaries, has always been the only religion acceptable to god as propagated by islam. according to islam, everything a human being does with the pure intention of pleasing god is an act of worship. islam has a unique, all encompassing concept of worship. the mission of prophet muhammad encompassed not only spiritual and religious teachings, but also included guidance for such things as social reform, islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 720 economics, politics, warfare and family life. islam's view of both the nature of the human being and the purpose of life are extremely positive. religious practices to be adhered by followers of sunny islam have been well formulated by competent religious authorities of islam. the practices essential to sunni islam include shahadah, salah, zakat, sawm, and hajj. the shahadah, the basic statement of belief or tenet of islam, states: "i testify that there is none worthy of worship except god and i testify that muhammad is the messenger of god." muslims reiterate the shahadah in prayer, and non-muslims wishing to convert to islam are required to recite the creed. the salah, the ritual prayer, must be executed five times a day. it is intended to focus the mind on god, and is seen as a personal communication with him that expresses gratitude and worship. the zakat, the almsgiving, refers to the practice of giving based on one‟s wealth. every muslim who can afford it should spend a fixed portion of his/her wealth to help the poor or needy, and also to assist the spread of islam. the sawm, the fasting during the month of ramadan, and the hajj, the pilgrimage during the islamic month of dhu in the city of mecca, are among the essential practices prescribed for every sunni muslim. in addition to these principles of islam, a code of conduct of islam to lead day-to-day life is also prescribed quoting halal, the right and haram, the wrong forms. the concept of ego and superego along with consciousness and sub-consciousness are embedded in such coding of life (javed, 2007). the development of ego or self is governed by the pillars of islam and the superego is strengthened by the acceptance of behaviour in accordance with the social norms of the society (javed, 2007). stress is viewed in islam as resulting from the will of god, or as a calling for patience in his believers. this perspective helps counter guilt, anxiety and anger. islam encourages appealing to god as a way to relieve stress, and recommends submission to god‟s will in suffering and sickness. religious beliefs might affect individuals‟ human nature, motivation, personality development, the self, the unconscious, psychological adjustment and the society (smither and khorsandi, 2009). religious faith and spirituality are associated with more optimistic life orientation, greater perceived social support and higher resilience in stress and lower levels of anxiety (pardini et al., 2000). islam is believed to be efficacious in upwardly transforming human beings in any time or place and an effort has been made, for instance, to effect changes in the way of life to contain socially precarious behaviours of muslim youth in malaysia (krauss et al., 2005). the effort has resulted in formulating the islamic religiosity model europe’s journal of psychology 721 based on thematic analysis of ideal type scholars representing the faith and psychometric analysis of inventory purporting to assess the constructs. according to this model, religiosity involves two main constructs, namely, islamic worldview and religious personality. the islamic worldview reflects the islamic tawhidic paradigm: doctrine of divine unity/oneness of god. it represents two primary sources of islamic religious law, belief and practice within (sunni) islam. it includes islamic creed, aqidah, the details what a muslim should know, believe and inwardly understand about god and religion as prescribed by the qur’an, and the sunnah, the way of the prophet muhammad. it also has a reference to arkan al-iman, the islamic pillars of faith including the belief in god, angels, messengers and prophets of god, books of revelation, the day of judgment, and the divine decree. all these represent aqidah, the foundation of the islamic creed. thus the tawhidic worldview of islam is a metaphysical view that places god at the nucleus, and holds him as the ultimate reality, making the inevitable result for everything in creation return to him. the islamic worldview defines god as the creator and law-giver and considers worship and service in his way as the very object of life (al-attas, 2001). islamic religious personality represents the manifestation of one‟s religious worldview in amalan saleh, the righteous works. it relates to particular ways in which an individual expresses his/her traits or adapts to diverse situations in the world. it refers to the manifested aspects of a personal identity, life definition and worldview. it includes behaviours, motivations, attitudes and emotions. the construct also includes personal manifestation of islamic teachings and commands, and special ibadat or formal ritual worship that reflects one‟s direct relationship with god. further, items relating to daily mu’amalat, or religiously-guided behaviours towards one‟s family, fellow human beings and the rest of creation, i.e., animals, the natural environment, etc., are also included in this construct. a key aspect of the religious personality construct is akhlaq islamiyyah, or the islamic notion of refined character that underpins a religious personality. akhlaq islamiyyah is the manifestation of the tawhidic worldview in one‟s everyday actions, which presupposes a way of life that requires al-dunya, constant and ongoing consciousness of the present, earthly world and al-akhira, constant and ongoing consciousness of the life-to-come. religiosity and resilience religiosity as committing to the beliefs and practice advocated by religious sects define and determine the style of life of the follower. resilience is nurtured by certain islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 722 beliefs and behaviour and it is likely that religiosity and resilience considerably overlap as revealed in a few studies. a study that examined the relation between general religious faith, spirituality, and mental health outcomes from substance abuse using a large sample found that recovering individuals reported higher level of religious faith and religious affiliation, and that they chose to be spiritual (pardini et al.,2000). further, higher levels of religious faith and spirituality were found associated with a more optimistic life orientation, greater perceived social support, higher resilience to stress, and lower anxiety. holocaust survivors have been recognized to be prototypes of resilience. bernard kempler (2001) has narrated his experiences of living through the darkness of the soul, world war ii. he was born in poland in 1936, and as a jewish boy, was confronted with relentless, life threatening hatred and hostility from the age of three to nine. kempler explains how his child ego, whose proper task was to grasp the rudiments of the immediate physical and emotional environment, had to cope with forces beyond his understanding that were determined to hurt and kill him and his family. he survived years of homeless wandering and hiding, most of the time under a false identity and dressed as a girl, survived ghettos and concentration camps, escaped through barbed wire, and hid in crawl spaces in burning buildings. a protective factor contributing to his resilience etching out of his narration can be identified as spiritual protection. a devout catholic woman who stayed with kempler for a good part of the six years had taught him in the period to pray, especially to virgin mary, to say the rosary every day, and to go to church. they spent much time in the quiet and darkness of churches because they felt relatively safe there. kempler learned that the solution to his problem of being hunted as a jewish was to believe in virgin mary, to pray to her and ask for her protection. this magical, spiritual sense of safety protected him from the everyday terrors that were all around him. kempler attributes the protection he felt to a numinous image with whom he formed a personal relationship rather than religious belief. religion or spirituality is important to adolescence as protective factor against a host of negative outcomes (cotton et al., 2006). the protective effects of religiosity in general on maladjustment among maltreated and non-maltreated children were studied using a large sample from low-income families and ages between 6–12 years (kim, 2008). the findings indicate that child religiosity may largely contribute to stresscoping process among maltreated and non-maltreated children from low-income families. europe’s journal of psychology 723 religiosity and healing a few studies have shown that belief in divine intervention in illness or healing is related to religious belief (andrew, 2005). extensive review of literature suggests that religiosity contributes to both mental and physical health outcomes (larson, 1986). a review of research papers over a two century period concludes that a positive relationship exists between religiosity such as church attendance and physiological/mental health status such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and strokes, colitis and enteritis, general morbidity, and cancer of the uterus and cervix (levin and schuller, 1987). a study examined the prevalence and correlates of prayer specifically addressed to health concerns using a random sample of midwesterners in usa. it was found that one third of the respondents regarded prayer as efficacious for maintaining and restoring health when used along with conventional biomedical care (trier and shupe, 1991). benson (1996) argued that humans are “wired for god”. affirmation of beliefs, particularly in a “higher power,” can change one‟s health status. however, he had also believed that the specific religious meditative practices themselves have varying effect on relaxation response. the relationship between religiosity and psychosocial distress among persons in christian, charismatic, „new age‟, „metaphysical‟ healing groups, and a comparison group of medical patients was examined in a survey. the survey lent partial support to the hypothesis that religiosity is an independent predictor of positive mental health. however, the relationships have been found to vary by type of healing group, by psychosocial distress indicator used, and by type of religious belief (glik, 2007). mohammed (2008) investigated the viewpoints of islam in treating disabilities and identified that both physical medicine and spiritual medicine could cure or prevent the occurrence of disability. religiosity and self-esteem the findings a study of the contribution of religious personality, as the manifestation of one‟s religious belief, on interethnic behaviour are interesting. religious personality is conceived to comprise three major factors: pro-social behaviour, ritual behaviour and anti-social behaviour. while religious practice is categorized into high, medium, low and not-practicing. it was hypothesized that religious personality of the youth may influence interethnic behaviour by enhancing mutual understanding and respect. a very large sample of randomly selected schools in selangor, malaysia was islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 724 used in this study. the findings indicated that religious personality traits of pro-social behaviour and ritual behaviour had significant effects on inter-ethnic tolerant behaviour, and also the higher the pro-social behaviour, the more positive were the tolerant behaviour of the subjects on inter-ethnic issues (idris et al., 2008). the relationship between parental religious socialization practices and self-esteem in late life has been investigated in a nationwide survey of older adults in us. it was found that older african americans were more likely to report that their parents encouraged them to become involved in religion when they were growing up. those whose parents encouraged them to become involved in religion attended church more often and engaged in private prayers in later life. older adults who attended church often and pray frequently were more committed to their faith and had a stronger sense of self-worth (krause and ellison, 2007). the role of self–religiosity, and father‟s religious attitude in shaping the moral behaviour of youth from religious and nonreligious schools were studied on a large sample of malay adolescent students in malaysia. the study focused on religiosity in general and was not confined to any particular religion. multiple regression analysis of self-religiosity, father‟s religious attitude, and type of school to the moral behaviour showed that self-religiosity was the only predictor of moral behaviour of youth. significant correlations were also found between self-religiosity and moral behaviour, self-religiosity and father‟s religious attitude. youth from a religious school exhibited more moral behaviour and they and their fathers were more religious as compared to the youth from nonreligious school. religious education was found to play a positive role in the moral behaviour of youth (shah, 2004). presuming that islamic religious constraints on sexuality may control the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, a study attempted to test the hypothesis that muslims have lower hiv prevalence than non-muslims among 38 sub-saharan african countries, the percentage of muslims within countries negatively predicted hiv prevalence. a survey of published journal articles containing data on hiv prevalence and religious affiliation showed that six of seven such studies indicated a negative relationship between hiv prevalence and being muslim. studies on the relationship between risk factors for hiv prevalence and observance of islamic sexual codes (e.g., extramarital affairs) showed mixed findings (gray, 2004). another study assessed the relation between religious involvement and multiple indices of competence on a large sample of eighth and ninth grade indonesian muslim adolescents. spirituality and religiosity were assessed using both parent and adolescent reports. social competence and adjustment were assessed using europe’s journal of psychology 725 multiple measures and data sources. structural equation modelling analyses revealed that parent and adolescent reports of religiosity and spirituality yielded a single religious involvement latent variable that was related to a number of other factors like peer group status, academic achievement, emotional regulation, prosocial behaviour, antisocial/problem behaviour, internalizing behaviour, and selfesteem. the consistency of relations between religious involvement and competence may be in part attributable to the collectivist context of religion in west java, indonesia, within which people exhibit strong beliefs in islam and where religion permeates daily life (doran, 2008). a study on the influence of islam on leisure behaviour revealed that islam influenced leisure behaviour through the emphasis on strong family ties and on family oriented leisure among muslims; the need to teach and supervise children and to pass traditional moral values to subsequent generations; the requirement of modesty in dress, speech and everyday behaviour as well as the restrictions on mixed – gender interactions, dating, food, and alcohol (monica & jennifer, 2006). religiosity, personality and resilience in a broader perspective, religiosity refers to the numerous aspects of the doctrines of religion relating to activity, dedication, and beliefs. the various studies discussed above have focused on such tangible religious acts as practicing certain rituals, revering certain symbols, or accepting certain religious beliefs and have related them to the physical and mental health of the followers. one of the taxonomical studies of religiosity has confirmed the validity of a classification of religious behaviour in terms of cognitive, conative, and affective domains. classifying the basic dimensions of human behaviour with reference to two forms of their manifestations, each has resulted in six identifiable factors accounting for religiosity (cornwall, et al, 1986). these factors include „cognition‟ manifesting in traditional orthodoxy and in particularistic orthodoxy, „affect‟ manifesting in palpable and tangible aspects of religion, and „behaviour‟ manifesting in religious behaviour and religious participation. the spirituality and religiosity of indonesian muslim adolescents were examined in a longitudinal study. the study focused on the relations of spirituality and religiosity and maladjustment. the investigators assessed spirituality, religiosity and maladjustment of a group of eighth and ninth grade indonesian muslim adolescents at two different time periods. the students and parents rated aspects of spirituality, religiosity, and maladjustment. the teachers rated students' maladjustment. the findings showed that adjustment of the students at the end period was positively related to spirituality islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 726 and religiosity. in the panel model, support for prediction of outcomes from spirituality and religiosity was found for loneliness and socially appropriate behaviour. there was some evidence in the models that certain aspects of maladjustment including self-esteem and social competence, and to a marginal degree, parentrated internalising problems and teacher-rated prosociality predicted spirituality and religiosity longitudinally (sallquist et al., 2010). it seems likely that religiosity involves certain essential components of all aspects of a human behaviour and conduct conducive to maintaining peace and tranquility among the followers. it contributes to a major segment of one‟s life style. it covers both covert and overt aspects of behaviour. essentially, religiosity seems to harness components of the life style that account for coping with the environmental challenges. literature on resilience highlights the successful survival and thriving coping style present among individuals. such coping also involves commitment to specific religious doctrines which manifests in behaviour. it is a moot question to ask, whether the cognitive, conative, and affective aspects of religiosity aid or hamper resilience. the researches done on religiosity have focused on mental and physical health aspects and aspects relating to mental health. there is a dearth of studies focusing exclusively on cognitive and behavioural components of particular religious advocacy and their impact on resilience. the present investigation is specifically undertaken to investigate the relationship between the worldview and the personality aspects uniquely advocated in islam followed by sunni muslims. the choice of the particular religiosity studied herein is due to the fact that it has been founded on well articulated model based on theoretical analysis and psychometric analysis. method objectives the present study attempts to examine the relationship between muslim religiosity and psychological resilience among adolescents belonging to muslim community in india. the specific objectives of the present study are:  to examine the relationship between islamic world-view and psychological resilience among adolescents belonging to muslim community.  to examine the relationship between religious personality and psychological resilience among adolescents belonging to muslim community. europe’s journal of psychology 727 participants the purposive sample selected for this investigation included 200 adolescent students in the age group 15 to 18 years belonging to sunni muslim community, studying in higher secondary class in a government higher secondary school in kerala, india. the sample was confined to students from humanities and commerce streams. there were 80 males and 120 females. the students included in the sample belong to suburban middle socioeconomic background. the study was conducted in ethical compliance with the internal review board at the bharathiar university, coimbatore, india. informed consent was obtained from the participants orally before collecting the data using the questionnaires after briefing them about the objective of the study. instruments bharathiar university resilience scale (burs) (form a). the burs (form a) (annalakshmi, 2009) consists of 30 likert type items. the scale is used to measure seven domains of resilience including duration for getting back to normalcy, reaction to negative events, response to risk factors (specifically disadvantaged environment) in life, perception of effect of past negative events, defining problems, hope/confidence in coping with future and openness to experience and flexibility. all the thirty items in the scale are in the form of personal statements, for example, „i can recover from bad mood quickly and easily after facing any sad event‟, „i don‟t venture on any project where i had failed earlier‟, etc. the participant is asked to indicate the extent to which each statement is appropriate in describing him/her by using a five-point scale, with response option „1‟ indicating that the statement is not at all appropriate in describing him/her and option „5‟ indicating that the statement is most appropriate in describing him/her. the responses of the participant for all the thirty statements in the scale are summed up to yield a single score on the scale representing the level of psychological resilience of the individual. the maximum score possible of a subject on the scale is 150 and the minimum score possible on the scale is 30. the scale has adequate reliability. the cronbach alpha for the scale was found to be 0.82. the scale has adequate concurrent validity. the scale had significant positive correlation with friborg resilience scale, 0.349* and with bells adjustment scale 0.382 *. muslim religiosity personality inventory (mrpi). the muslim religiosity-personality inventory (mrpi) (krauss and hamzah, 2009) was used to this study to measure islamic religiosity of adolescent students. the inventory consists of 56 items. every item is in the form of personal statements. the participant is asked to rate the degree islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 728 to which he/she agrees or disagrees with the particular statement using a five point rating scale. the inventory consists of two subscales, namely islamic worldview and religious personality. the islamic worldview subscale consists of 23 items and two subdimensions, worldly (14 items) and spiritual (9items). the religious personality consists of 33 items and two sub-dimensions, ritual (18 items) and religiously guided behaviours towards one‟s family, fellow human beings and the mu‟amalat, the rest of creation, i.e., animals, and the natural environment (15 items). the scores of each of the sub-scales are calculated by summing up the scores of the individual items constituting the sub-scale. an item analysis was carried out for both of the scales, islamic worldview and religious personality, on the sample chosen for the present study. the item analysis of the islamic worldview scale revealed that three out of the 23 items in the original scale had poor correlation with the total score on the scale. hence these three items, viz., item 6, item 8 and item 11 were removed and only a „20-item‟ scale of islamic worldview was used for further analysis. the cronbach alpha for the islamic worldview scale was found to be 0.50. all the 33 items of the religious personality scale significantly correlated with the total score on the scale. the cronbach alpha for the religious personality scale was found to be 0.88. design in order to examine the relationship between islamic worldview and religious personality and resilience null hypotheses of no relation between the variables were formulated and tested in this investigation. criterion groups representing high and low resilience were formed based on the median of the distribution of scores of the subjects on burs. median score of the distribution of scores of the subjects on resilience scale was 110. subjects with scores equal to the median and lesser than the median were grouped to form the low group on resilience, and those with scores greater than that of the median were grouped to form the high group on resilience. there were 104 subjects in the low group on resilience and the mean and sd of their scores on resilience scale were 97.29 and 9.85 respectively. the high group on resilience consisted of 96 individuals and the mean and sd of their scores on resilience were 120.38 and 7.97 respectively. europe’s journal of psychology 729 results correlation analysis was carried out to understand the relationship between islamic worldview and religious personality as a whole, and also between the sub-scales of each. the results are presented below in table 1. table 1. correlation between scales of muslim religiosity-personality inventory (mrpi) and their sub-scales variables pearson‟s correlation sig. (2-tailed) islamic worldview and religious personality 0.167* 0.02 worldly subscale and spiritual subscale 0.281** 0.00 ritual and mu’amalat 0.599** 0.00 as may be seen in the table 1, the islamic worldview and religious personality significantly positively correlated with each other. further, the subscales of islamic worldview, viz., worldly and spiritual correlated significantly with each other. similarly, the subscales of religious personality, viz., ritual and mu’amalat correlated significantly with each other. table 2 given below presents the mean and sd of scores of the subjects in low resilience group and high resilience group on various sub-scales of islamic religiosity. table 2. means and sd of the scores obtained by the criterion groups on resilience on the scales and subscales of muslim religiosity-personality inventory variables high group on resilience low group on resilience islamic worldview 75.33 (7.17) 74.01 (8.37) religious personality 128.72 (15.07) 122.55 (16.67) worldly 51.60 ( 6.25) 49.96 (7.24) spiritual 23.73 (2.25) 24.05 (2.49) variables high group on resilience low group on resilience ritual 65.48 (9.90) 61.47 (11.06) mu‟amalat 63.24 (6.73) 61.08 (7.73) an analysis of variance revealed that the high group on resilience did not significantly differ from the low group on resilience on islamic worldview, f (1, 198) = islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 730 1.43, p = .23. the high group on resilience had significantly higher score on religious personality than the low group on resilience, f (1, 198) = 7.50, p = .007. the high group on resilience did not significantly differ with regard to their scores on worldly than did the low group on resilience, f (1,198) = 2.93, p = .089. the high group on resilience did not also significantly differ on spiritual than did the low group on resilience, f (1,198) = 0.90, p = .34. the high group on resilience had significantly higher scores on rituals than did the low group on resilience, f (1,198) = 7.24, p = .008. similarly, the high group on resilience had significantly higher scores on mu‟amalat than did the low group on resilience, f (1,198) = 4.42, p = .037. table 3 presents the 13 items of religious personality scale that were significantly positively correlated with resilience. table 3. correlation between each item on religious personality (rp) scale and resilience item no. in rp scale items in rp scale pearson‟s correlation sig. (2-tailed) rp1 i make sure all my family members are following the teachings (sunnah) of rasulullah .210** 0.003 rp2 i try to understand the meaning of qur‟anic words/verses .212** 0.003 rp3 i make effort to have ablution (wudhu’) at all times .180* 0.011 rp4 i make an ongoing effort to increase the frequency of my non-obligatory (nafil) prayers .250** 0.000 item no. in rp scale items in rp scale pearson‟s correlation sig. (2-tailed) rp6 i make efforts to deepen my understanding of islamic law .266** 0.000 rp7 i like to take advantage of opportunities to understand islam with my family .141* 0.047 rp8 i invite others to perform obligatory prayer (salat) .161* 0.022 rp13 i set aside money every year for charity .196** 0.005 rp20 i worry if i cannot pay debt on time .297** 0.000 rp27 i use public buses, walkways, etc. with care/respect .174* 0.014 rp28 i feel happy when someone says something good about one of my friends .164* 0.020 rp32 i like to help the poor without anyone knowing .142* 0.044 rp33 i work hard to achieve my goals in the specified time .248** 0.000 ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed), * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). europe’s journal of psychology 731 discussion the present investigation examined the relationship between islamic world view and religious personality, and resilience among adolescence students belonging to muslim faith. findings show that religious personality differentiated the high and less resilient. religious personality had a significant and positive relationship with resilience. both the aspects of religious personality included in the study, namely rituals and mu‟amalat were higher among the highly resilient compared to their less resilient counterparts. islamic worldview, however, did not differentiate the high and the less resilient. both the aspects of islamic worldview studied herein, namely worldly and spiritual, were not found to differentiate the high resilient from the less resilient. the highly resilient and the less resilient did not differ in islamic worldview: they had similar level of belief/understanding of the congruence of islam with worldly life and level of belief/understanding of god‟s relations with creation and the other. the construct of islamic world view is not related to resilience. level of understanding of key theological tenets of islamic belief including god, angels, messengers and prophets of god, books of revelation, the day of judgment, and the divine decree, which represent the foundation of the islamic, did not have any effect on resilience. level of belief in understanding of the congruence of islam with worldly life and level of belief or understanding of god‟s relations with creation and other spiritual realities did not differentiate the resilient and less resilient. islamic worldview is a knowledge/belief construct. resilience is realized through action, in the same way as religious personality which is also an-action oriented construct. the adolescent students studied scored low on worldview, in general. worldview reflects certain key elements of islamic aqeedah which is the foundational belief as put forth by the majority school of sunni islam known as ahl sunnah wal jamaat. hence the fact that the present sample scored low on it provides interesting understanding of the population studied in terms of their knowledge and how that knowledge is reflected in their worldview. the high resilient were higher on religious personality. further, both the aspects of religious personality measured in this study were high among the highly resilient compared to the less resilient: the highly resilient were higher on islamic rituals (religious practice and ritual behaviour indicative of the manifestation of one‟s religious worldview) and on mu‟amalat (religiously guided behaviours towards one‟s family, fellow human beings and the rest of creation including animals and the natural environment). islamic worldview, religious personality and resilience 732 the results imply that the practices shahadah and salah, may contribute to resilience. the shahadah, indelible faith in god and regarding muhammad as the messenger of god may be analogous to the magical belief that had stood up for kempler (2001), the holocaust survivor, during his childhood. the salah may serve as a personal communication with him. further the expression of gratitude in worship may have a bearing on resilience (annalakshmi and lijo, 2010). the islamic personality (krauss and hamzah, 2009) represents the manifestation of one‟s religious worldview or the particular ways that a person expresses his/her traits or adapts to diverse situations in the world. it includes behaviours, motivations, attitudes and emotions that aim to assess personal manifestation of islamic teachings and commands. it includes following rituals and mu‟amalat. islamic rituals are highly related to resilience. it is supporting the view that religious attendance is associated with better self-rated health (nicholson, richard, and bobak, 2009). this reflects ritual worship or one‟s direct relationship with god (krauss et al., 2006). the islamic rituals include actions toward god and actions toward fellow human beings (family development foundation, 2002). the muslim rituals include special namazes, fasting, etc. mu‟amalat that prescribes actions toward non-human beings (animals, the environment, etc.) and oneself (family development foundation, 2002) is also found to be related to resilience in the sample. the items that strongly correlated with resilience were: making sure all in his/her family members are following the teachings (sunnah) of rasulullah, trying to understand the meaning of qur‟anic words/verses, making an ongoing effort to increase the frequency of non-obligatory (nafil) prayers, making effort to deepen his/her understanding of islamic law, setting aside money every year for charity, worry if he/she is unable to pay debt on time, and working hard to achieve my goals in the specified time. making effort to have ablution (wudhu’) at all times, showing preference to take advantage of opportunities to understand islam with my family, inviting others to perform obligatory prayer (salat), using public buses, walkways, etc. with care/respect, feeling happy when someone says something good about one of my friends and showing preference to help the poor without anyone knowing are also the religious personality aspects that appear to be related to resilience. the findings clearly suggest that the declared prosocial behaviour measured by the religious personality scale is related to resilience. islamic worldview on the other europe’s journal of psychology 733 hand implies knowledge about religion. it can be inferred that knowledge alone does not make a significant difference in resilience until it becomes manifested in behaviour. according to islam, the very purpose of knowledge is that it should ultimately result in explicit benefit to the practitioner and those around him/her. hence true religiosity must essentially include knowledge and the manifestation of the knowledge in terms of behaviour. the study shows the relationship between how one lives his/her life according to the tenets of islam, and how that might contribute to the ability to persevere and thrive during difficult times. people are resilient through their actions. religiosity is both belief/knowledge and action, but in the present study the resilient ones are those that are able to actually put their beliefs/knowledge into practice. the findings of the present study suggest that cognitive components alone are not adequate to forge relationship between religion and resilience. however, the personality involving cognitive, conative and affective components may contribute to forming relationship between religion and resilience. it seems likely that the knowledge and understanding of islam, emotional commitment to its tenets, and inculcating the rituals and practices in behaviour in a sustained manner provide an assurance to the religious person about possibility of being insured against the effects of adversities confronting him or her and proving an eternal hope of salvation. this likelihood has been suggested in the story of kempler (2001). it is possible that variables related to self, i.e., the way individuals with higher religiosity view themselves, mediates relationship between islamic worldview and religious personality, and ability to overcome adversity. this may be explored in future research which will provide better insight into how self might mediate relationship between knowledge of islam and manifestation of the knowledge as behaviour. the study was conducted on a homogenous sample of adolescent students belonging to sunni muslim community in kerala, india. however, the findings could be generalized to other muslim community in kerala. studies on muslim adolescents living in muslim countries could be carried out to see if there are any cultural differences. though the worldview is more of a cognitive scale as opposed to the personality scale which is more on the affective domain one would expect them to be correlated. the findings in this study appear to show a disconnection between these two aspects which needs to be studied further using qualitative approaches. the generalization of the findings of this 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(1963). the sociology of religion. transl. e.fischoff. boston: beacon. werner, e.e (1971). the children of kauai: a longitudinal study from the prenatal period to age ten. honolulu: university hawaii press. werner, e. e. (2005). what can we learn about resilience from large-scale longitudinal studies? in s. goldstein & r. b. brooks (eds.), handbook of resilience in children (pp. 91106). new york: kluwer academic/plenum. about the authors: dr. narayanan annalakshmi holds phd in psychology (bharathiar university) and a diploma in statistics (indian statistical institute). her doctoral research titled „efficacy of integral psychotherapy among adolescent students and adult cancer patients‟ furthered the principles and practice of integral yoga of sri aurobindo and the mother. the work also advanced the ancient indian thought concerned with a unique style of life that emphasizes the need to be oriented to the probabilistic nature of the course of life. she served defense research & development organization, government of india as scientist before joining the faculty of the bharathiar university where she is currently serving as reader in psychology. she has guided research for mphil and phd in psychology, presented several research papers in national and international conferences, published several articles, and authored chapters in books. she has sustained research interest in resilience studies. she has been recipient of a number of awards for her contributions. she has delivered invited lectures and participated in conferences aboard (us, uk, canada, denmark, etc). address for correspondence: dr. n. annalakshmi, door no.16/71, srinivasan illam, kundrakudi adigalar street, t.k.rangabashyam nagar, bharathiar university post, coimbatore-641046, india. e-mail: narayanan.annalakshmi@buc.edu.in; annalakshmi.narayanan@gmail.com mohammed abeer, k.c. completed an m.sc. in applied psychology at bharathiar university. has taught psychology in school to high school students and has also worked as a counselor for a brief period before joining the department of psychology, bharathiar university as a doctoral research scholar. had worked as research fellow for a period of two years in a major research project titled „fostering academic resilience among students from low socioeconomic background in india‟ directed by dr. annalakshmi as the principal investigator and funded by university grants commission, new delhi, india. is presently pursuing ph.d. in psychology and is working on building academic resilience among muslim adolescent students. microsoft word 2. interview health research on the current agenda of school psychology.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 13-19 www.ejop.org health research on the current agenda of school psychology: interview with prof. bonnie nastasi by vlad glăveanu ejop editor health research, principally with a focus on student mental health and well-being, is a rising field in school psychology. the importance of the topic needs no explanation and yet, at the same time, there are both possibilities and challenges school psychologists face when engaging with this particular type of research, especially when studying cultural differences. one of the leading experts in this emerging field is prof. bonnie nastasi who kindly accepted to answer our questions about the present state and the future of mental health research within school psychology. bonnie kaul nastasi, ph.d., is an associate professor in the department of psychology in the school of science and engineering at tulane university, new orleans, louisiana, usa. professor nastasi received her ph.d. in school psychology in 1986 from kent state university, ohio, usa. professor nastasi’s research focuses on the development and evaluation of culturally appropriate assessment and intervention approaches designed to promote mental health and reduce health risks such as stis/hiv, both within the us and internationally. she has worked in sri lanka since 1995 on development of school-based programs to promote children’s and adolescent’s psychological well-being, and is currently directing a multi-country study to examine the psychological well-being of children and adolescents, with research partners in 12 countries. she has worked in india for the past 7 years as one of the principal investigators of an interdisciplinary public health research project, focused on prevention of hiv/stis among married men and women living in the slums of mumbai. professor nastasi has published extensively, with over 60 journal articles and chapters, and three books. her most recent book, school-based mental health services: creating comprehensive and culturally specific programs, was published by the american psychological association (apa) in 2004. professor nastasi is currently the president-elect for division 16 (school psychology) of the american psychological association. europe’s journal of psychology 14 ejop: dr. nastasi, your extensive work over the past decades constitutes a significant contribution to both health psychology and school psychology and emphasizes the links between the two, reminding us of the importance of health issues, especially mental health, for school psychologists. how would you comment on the evolution and current state of health research and risk prevention within school psychology? bonnie nastasi: health research and risk prevention in school psychology is an emerging field, but of course builds on a large body of existing research within medical and public health fields. at least within the academic community, school psychology researchers are increasingly cognizant of the importance of health and mental health in understanding and fostering children’s functioning in schools. i see the field as moving toward a broader focus consistent with emerging integrated theories in psychology that emphasize the links among biological, psychological, social and cultural factors (i.e., biopsychosocial) and the importance of the ecology to child development and functioning. moreover, the field of psychology has been influenced by the ‘positive psychology’ movement which can serve to broaden the traditional deficit orientation to one focused on risk prevention and promotion of well-being. one of the other influences at an applied level is the increasing concern for impact of disasters and crises that children experience, and the need for enhancing children’s resilience. another influence, particularly within the us, is the increasing concern about nutrition and obesity and the need for more prevention oriented health programming. of course research that involves school psychology is critical to addressing such issues. i expect that such concerns will continue to influence our research in school psychology, so that we can contribute to efforts to understand the social and behavioral aspects of health and illness and to develop programming to foster healthy development. ejop: how is the concern for the mental health and well-being of students reflected today in schools and the work of school psychologists? what is done and what should be done in the future, in the us and worldwide? bonnie nastasi: there is growing interest and focus at the practice level of school psychology regarding physical and mental health, although this is still an emerging area in the field. i attribute that to three factors. one is the gap between theoryresearch and practice, so that advances in theory and research generated in universities are not necessarily influencing practice in schools. second, particularly in the us, is the strong focus on academic achievement in the education community, to the detriment of health and mental health. third is the traditional deficit orientation in psychology and restricted focus on treatment for those with identifiable (diagnosable) disorders, to the detriment of risk prevention and health health research on the current agenda of school psychology 15 promotion efforts. despite the challenges, there is an increasing recognition of the links among health, mental health, and academic achievement and need for more integrated theories such as biopsychosocial, which i expect will lead to increased efforts to better understand these links and to promote the overall well-being of students in schools. unfortunately, mental health efforts in schools are insufficient to meet the demand for services due to the insufficiency of funding, providers, and training programs. this of course limits the attention to prevention and health promotion, as the restricted services must be provided to those most in need. with few exceptions, this is a problem in all countries. where mental health services exist, there is frequently lack of coordination among different providers within the school and between school and community. the solution is complex. of course, more mental health professionals would be helpful, but this also requires increased funding and has policy implications at national, regional, and local levels. this also has implications for training programs, especially in countries where school psychology is limited. at a practice level, expanding the focus of school psychological services becomes critical, which means broader theoretical model as i noted in my earlier response and ensuring that school psychologists are equipped with skills in consultation, prevention and mental health promotion, program development and evaluation research, and systemic change. one of the challenges for training programs is that many school psychologists still operate in a traditional manner, restricting relevant practicum experiences. overcoming this challenge may require that faculty work directly with students in local schools to help institute changes in the local system. more fully addressing the mental health needs of students, particularly with a focus on promoting well-being, will require that school psychologists collectively and individually become effective leaders and advocates for change at global, national and local levels. ejop: you talked at length in your published work about school-based mental health services, at the same time highlighting the necessity of developing culture-specific programs for both prevention and intervention. which are the steps to be to taken in order to develop such programs? what challenges do we face on the way? bonnie nastasi: developing culture-specific programs requires that we conduct formative research to examine individual, cultural, and contextual factors that are related to children’s psychological well-being, prior to selection, adapting or developing appropriate school-based mental health programs. with colleagues, rachel moore and kris varjas, we have developed a model for program europe’s journal of psychology 16 development, the participatory culture-specific intervention model (pcsim1), which involves a series of steps and procedures necessary for system entry, forming partnerships, learning the local culture, conducting formative research that informs a local model of practice, and conducting both formative and summative evaluation to inform contextual adaptations, examine program success, and promote sustainability. of course, a critical component of the model is partnership / participation, which requires identifying and involving representatives of key stakeholders (those with vested interests or resources) in the pcsim process. the model is designed to promote acceptability and cultural validity of interventions, which in turn can help to ensure program integrity and effectiveness. a primary challenge is time. the process is systematic and multi-phase. however, the time is well invested as you are more likely to develop a program that meets the specific needs of the context (school/community), and stakeholders are likely to be more invested in the project and are more likely to sustain the efforts. of course, doing this work requires that school psychologists have relevant skills in consultation, facilitating group process, and program development and evaluation research. using an approach like pcsim is not a quick fix, thus school psychologists need to be prepared to help schools address the immediate or short-term problems while developing long-term programming. ultimately, the proof lies in documenting program effectiveness in the specific setting. ejop: this leads us to the broad topic of culture and the social environment in general and cultural differences in particular. this interest became more and more prominent in mental health studies. how is the ‘ecological approach’ reflected today in school psychology? bonnie nastasi: the ecological approach does seem to be well accepted in the field of school psychology as a model for research and practice. within the us, i see this as the current predominant model, although other theoretical approaches are still prevalent and may influence specific aspects of practice. the ecological approach also is consistent with the movement toward integrated theoretical models (e.g., biopsychsocial) at least within american psychology, which attempt to bring together existing theories in order to address the complexity of human behavior and change. the ecological approach is reflected in the recognition of the critical role of culture and social environment both in research and practice, the efforts to involve parents and families in more meaningful ways in children’s education and mental health promotion, and the recognition of the importance of 1 nastasi, b.k., moore, r. b., & varjas, k. m. (2004). school-based mental health services: creating comprehensive and culturally specific programs. washington, dc: american psychological association. health research on the current agenda of school psychology 17 community. i view the ecological approach in school psychology as an indicator of the more general recognition of the importance of interdisciplinary research in fields related to human functioning, particularly education and public health. certainly, work in risk prevention and health promotion in general has become increasingly interdisciplinary in both research and practice arenas. i see school psychology as moving in that direction, although that does require some reframing by the thinkers in our field. the challenge is to move outside of our specific theoretical and topicspecific interests and be willing to work with researchers and practitioners who are likely to challenge our theoretical perspectives. ejop: the ‘ecological approach’ is also associated with research designs that favor qualitative methods or mixed-methods. you have often employed qualitative methods in the study of socio-cultural settings. what would be the advantages and the challenges of using such an approach? bonnie nastasi: at this point, i consider myself to be a mixed methodologist. especially when conducting research with intervention and change as the ultimate goals, it is hard for me to conceive of research without a mixed method approach. in brief, qualitative research has much to contribute to more traditional quantitative designs that have dominated psychology, and the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods provides optimal methods for developing culturally and contextually relevant understandings and practices. for example, mixed methods research is critical to the pcsim i described earlier. in particular, qualitative methods can help us to understand cultural meaning and variations in constructs across individuals and groups and to expand our theoretical understandings beyond the existing theories which are primarily based on western notions of human behavior. qualitative methods also can help us to understand the contextual variables relevant to human behavior, consistent with an ecological model. finally, qualitative methods can help us to document and understand the process of intervention implementation in order to both explain outcomes and inform replications or adaptations. mixed methods combine these benefits with those of more traditional quantitative methods, which help us to develop aggregate depictions of behavior, predict behavior, and generalize to populations. the primary challenge of qualitative and mixed methods is the lack of training among psychologists and particularly school psychologists. conducting qualitative and mixed methods research requires specific skills in data collection, analysis, and inference in order to ensure appropriate quality of findings. the other challenge is the time consuming nature of such work. based on my own experiences, the additional resources are well justified by the benefits that accrue. europe’s journal of psychology 18 ejop: much of your research has taken place in sri-lanka and other asian countries. what lessons have you learned from working in a different cultural setting? how easy or difficult it is to “enter” a different culture and to “understand” it, avoiding westerncentric interpretations? bonnie nastasi: probably the most important lesson from my work in asia (particularly sri lanka and india) is to question my assumed understanding of cultures within my own country and community. i think we make assumptions about others based on our own worldview, and it is easy to impose our own views and misinterpret others based on our own experiences. i have come to appreciate both the diversity and the commonality of human experience from my work in other cultures. my work in asia has increased my appreciation of an ecological perspective—to understand the importance of culture and context as it influences human behavior and cognition. in one-to-one interactions, this appreciation is reflected in an effort to truly understand the perspective of others, to learn about their life experiences historically and currently, to be more cautious in my judgments of others, and to learn from others in order to enhance my own understanding and well-being. this work has definitely made me more humble! the humility is in part a function of the challenges in entering and living within a culture that is unfamiliar to me. with practice, the process of entry can become easier but involves time and patience and a willingness to experience failures and learn from others. it is, of course, critical to be aware of one’s ethnocentric perspective and to monitor that in interacting with others. most importantly, one must be willing to broaden that perspective to encompass the experiences and views relevant to other individuals and cultures. this takes motivation, effort and practice, but for me has been life enhancing. ejop: you are at the moment coordinating an international research project concerned with developing culture-specific conceptualizations and interventions for increasing students’ well-being. can you tell us a bit more about this project, its aims and methods? bonnie nastasi: the project, initiated as a joint venture by international school psychology association (ispa) and the society for the study of school psychology (sssp; us-based), is designed to explore the culture-specific conceptualizations of psychological well-being (i.e., mental health) and mechanisms for promoting wellbeing from the perspectives of school-age children and adolescents, their parents and teachers, school administrators, and school physical or mental health providers. each country-based research partner collects data within their own community/country context. the goal is to analyze the data to identify common and unique aspects of psychological well-being based on cultural conceptions. we health research on the current agenda of school psychology 19 expect to have participation from about 12 countries. currently, the project is in data collection and analysis phases with some variations across countries. the ultimate goal is to develop culture-specific interventions to promote psychological well-being in participating contexts. anyone interested in the project can contact me at bnastasi@tulane.edu. ejop: finally, what would be your advice for our readers who are now pursuing a career in school psychology and are interested in enhancing the mental health and therefore the well-being of students? what can be done at the micro-level of each school, of each classroom? bonnie nastasi: first and foremost, study school psychology from a broad theoretical and methodological perspective, so that you are prepared to work across disciplines, understand the complexity of human behavior from an integrated theoretical perspective, and make use of mixed methods research to inform your practice. perhaps most importantly, in the age of ‘evidence-based practice’, it is important that you critically examine the ‘evidence’ underlying the practices. do not assume that programs identified by others as effective in some context or with a certain population are necessarily going to be effective, or even appropriate, for your specific site. be a critical consumer with regard to the cultural and contextual relevance of the available evidence, and learn to combine the best available evidence with appropriate strategies for adapting those to ensure effectiveness in your target context. at the classroom level, school psychologists can serve as consultants or collaborators with teachers in instituting interventions to promote psychological well-being of all children, and to identify and provide appropriate interventions for those who need more intensive services. microsoft word 5. theoretical contribution creativity.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 45-55 www.ejop.org creativity and cognition satya sundar sethy indira gandhi national open university abstract this paper seeks to argue that creativity is not limited to only innovations and new discoveries. it encompasses other dominant and significant aspects of human intervention in the form of cognitions which are highlighted in our discussion. further, it argues that there are two sorts of creativity: historical creativity and psychological creativity. psychological creativity differs logically and ontologically from historical creativity. the differences are elucidated in detail. the paper further analyzes how all cognitions can be treated as creative acts. it also argues “re-cognition” can be considered a creative act. while suggesting that all cognition is a creative act, it supports davidson’s arguments about “anomalous monism” and buddhists’ theory of “impermanence” which enunciates nothing is permanent in this world and, hence, everything is in a state of constant flux. keywords: p-creative; h-creative; anomalous monism; impermanence; cognition creativity is the most valued feature and prominent act of the human mind. human creative power is responsible for the emergence of human socio-cultural and intellectual accomplishments. it is the creative feature which distinguished humans from non-human, animals and machines, in short, being from non-being. rene descartes, as a philosopher, stated that creativity is a phenomenon that falls outside the scope of the mechanistic framework. he restricted mechanistic explanations to the domain of the physical and tried to account for the creative acts by positioning a principle1 that is radically different in nature from the physical one. here, the problem that interests me is whether creativity is all about the scientific 1 the principle states that creativity does not arise in a mechanical way. it is always occurring in a unique way. in the mechanistic framework, things happen as a result of repetition and uniformity. but creativity as a phenomenon occurs not in a repeated but rather in a different and unique way. europe’s journal of psychology 46 understanding of the principles. in other words, can a scientific understanding of the principles account for creativity? the expression ‘creativity’ had an aura of mystery till today for all prodigious thinkers across different disciplines. considering it from a closer perspective, it is stated that creativity is limited to mental activity. the prospectus of defining ‘creativity’ as a mental activity comprises two different aspects. first, it is the mind responsible for creativity devoid of bodily act; second, creativity helps to bring new products in a socio-cultural setting. in this regard, karl popper considered that ‘creativity’ absorbs the above two aspects and can be interpreted in two different directions. one, it is to be judged in the context of new discoveries and inventions, and second, it is to be considered after evaluation of new ideas. now let us have a clear understanding of ‘what is creativity’ in our discussion in this paper. creativity: a scientific understanding a basic question probably comes in everyone’s mind, i.e. under what conditions can one say that a human act is creative. an act is creative when found in product form. since it is a product it possesses some objective features and these features are publicly available for critical assessment and scrutiny. the objective features are differentiated from subjective and inter-subjective appreciation. if these objective features2 are not found in other products and the product is different from others already existing in the same domain, then the new product is a creative one. there are two aspects always involved by an act. one is represented by the ‘process(es)’ which lead to the product and the other is the ‘product’ which resulted from the process(es). by processes here i mean the internal psychological processes of a creative agent and by product i understand a new idea or concept, or an object. since processes are psychological and hence not accessible to others, it is impossible to determine whether an act is creative or not on the basis of the internal processes involved in the act. in this case, even if an agent claims to perceive the processes involved in creative endeavour on the basis of his/her introspection, that account need not necessarily be true, and therefore valid.3 thus, to determine whether an act is creative we depend on the product. 2 the objective features of creativity are: novelty, uniqueness, etc. see for example boden and csikszentmihalyi. 3 nevertheless, the processes of creativity are interpretable and henceforth understandable. this is transparent when we ask what specific internal processes were responsible for the production of a creative act. creativity and cognition 47 now it is important to analyse the characteristics of a creative product that allow it to be judged as creative. it has been observed that ‘novelty’ is the most prominent feature to judge a creative act. in this case, the product did not come into existence before the act was performed. this states that, if there are no methods or rules that would determine the production of the creative product before performance of the creative act in question, then it implies that at least some features of the creative product could not be predicted. we could come to know of these features only after the object is produced. hence, creativity is essentially unpredictable. but, at the same time, the dominant feature of a creative act is, it must abide some specific rules and laws. this is so because it needs to abide by rules and laws. if it were not then, in many cases, the existence or emergence of some of the features of the creative product could not be explained. nevertheless, “the apparent unpredictability of creativity seems to outlaw any systematic explanation”.4 a creative product is also judged to have the quality of “uniqueness”. it certainly has unique features that were absent prior to the product. such a unique product can serve as a model for the production of similar objects in the same domain or it may be used as a standard for judging the creativity exhibited by other products. hence, this product can stand as exemplary for other products. in this context, it may be stated that creativity has something to do with solving difficult problems that defy old rules and old views. the most striking and considered feature of the creative product is its appropriateness to the demands of the circumstances of its production. the significance of this point is that, even if the product is novel, and its properties cannot be predicted and explained before its production, we could not consider the product is a creative one unless its product is appropriate to the demand and has relevance in the context. another important feature for a creative product is to be valuable. value-judgment is a parameter to evaluate the creative product. hence, the creative product is not only appropriate and relevant to the circumstances of its production but also it is certainly valuable in its nature. here it is important to mention that the evaluation of 4 boden, m., 1996, p. 75 europe’s journal of psychology 48 a creative product in a domain is done by community experts. so value judgments are said to be inter-subjective and culture relative to some extent.5 considering all these objective features of creativity it is asserted that “creativity is a confluence of three factors: a domain, which consists of a set of rules and practices; an individual, who makes a novel variation in the contents of the domain; and a field, which consists of experts who act as gate keepers to the domain and decide which novel variation is worth adding to it”6. in reference to these three factors and their relation to the objective features of creativity: novelty, uniqueness, relevance and value, it is stated that there are three dimensions of creativity7. these are: psychological, social, and objective. these three dimensions may be treated as three meanings of creativity. a creative product is psychological if it is new to the creative agent. this is exclusively personal for the agent. a creative product is social if the object strikes as new to the concerned community of experts. in this case, the creative product is identified by a particular community. thus, a social creative product is not psychological because it does not restrain to only an individual. a creative product is objective if the product did not exist in the domain before its production and it was not possible to bring the product into existence by following the available rules and practices prevalent in the domain. it seems it is absurd to define ‘creativity’ always in the above three ways. a creative product is not always objective in its nature. the objectiveness of a creative product is rare to see because it is confined to the domain of discovery and innovation. thus, it is not always expectable. in case of the social aspect of creative products, it is defective for the reason that it abides principles subject to scrutiny and evaluation. since it is inter-subjective, it differs from society to society and therefore is not always apprehended. what remains is the psychological nature of the creative product. it doesn’t have the drawbacks of social and objective dimensions of creativity. at the same time, it can’t be observed and therefore measured since it is contained in the mind of the person. thus, creativity in psychological perspective is always emergent. boden divided the above analysis into two categories. she claims there are two senses of creativity, psychological and historical, and they are symbolized respectively as “p-creative” and “h-creative”. to explain, a valuable idea is ‘p 5 ibid, p. 77 6 csikszentmihalyi, m., 1996, p. 205 7 boden, m, 1996, p. 76 creativity and cognition 49 creative’ if the person in whose mind it arises that could not have had it before, it doesn’t matter how many times other people have already had the same idea. in contrast, a product is h-creative if it never existed before8. in this view it is not possible to have a “theory that explains all and only h-creative ideas”9. but an explanation of p-creative ideas is possible in principle. p-creative vs. h-creative one way of understating “p-creativity” would be to conceive of new ideas as a result of the permutation and combination of old ideas. in this case, there may be situations where entirely unexpected new ideas emerge and, we cannot claim in any way that those ideas are not creative. importantly to note, it is not to be assumed that the permutation and combination of ideas are generated through random processes, rather it is to be believed that they are rule governed processes. in this regard, boden suggests about the novelty of the combination of ideas that if the combination did not occur before is not sufficient for it to qualify as creative. hence, any new ideas qualifying as novel would not be treated as creative. thus, she expresses that “a creative idea is one that did not and could not has occurred before”10. boden further enunciates that a creative idea is one that could not have been produced by the same system of generative rules earlier to its production. thus, the production of a genuinely original idea suggests that it is new and unique to the system and derived from the generative systems which can only be accessible to creative thinkers. to explain, the generative system is not a product of random thinking by a creative agent but it is a response to a few constraints on earlier familiar ideas of that same system. this is so because the constraints help a creative agent to come up with a specific system of generative rules that produces a creative idea. hence, the product will be considered as ‘creativity’. ‘creative thinking’ is often characterized as ‘divergent thinking’ as well as ‘convergent thinking’. according to boden, “divergent thinking involves unusual association of ideas, changing perspectives, and novel approaches to problems in contrast to convergent thinking which involves linear logical steps”11. 8 ibid, p. 76 9 ibid, p. 77 10 ibid, p. 76 11 in mihaly csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p. 206 europe’s journal of psychology 50 from the above discussion it can be concluded that creativity is bringing into being of something which did not exist before, either as a product, or a process, or in the form of even an idea or a concept. thus, creative product is one which it can be said: • invent something which has never existed before • invent something which exists elsewhere but you are not aware of • invent a new process for doing something • develop a new way of looking at something • bringing a new idea into existence • change the way someone else looks at something we as human beings are proud to consider ourselves as rational animals in god’s creation. this suffices to claim that we have a rational attitude, reasonified belief, and, in addition to these, creative thinking ability. it implies that we are creative animals. we constantly change the ideas which we hold or possess about the worldly affairs. since our perceptions are changing constantly in relation to worldly affairs we are being creative day by day. creativity, in this sense, does not necessarily imply that something is acclaimed as invention or discovery. it is to be judged as something new to the individual, i.e. the way that (s)he observes the worldly affairs differently. to perceive the worldly affairs differently then in the past we need to have different cognitions in respect to each state of affairs. from this emerges a possibility for claiming that creativity is an element of cognition. the creative act is produced when we cognise objects, or facts, or ideas of the worldly affairs differently. here the term ‘differently’ is understood ‘not same as we cognise the object in the past’. this implies that our cognition towards an object or a concept is changing constantly in the course of time. a question soon arises: what is cognition and how it is to be interpreted in the context of our discussion. to restrict ourselves to the domain of creativity, cognition is defined as a product with at least three elements or components. these are: the “cognisor” who has the power to cognise, the “cognised” (object or concept), and the “processes” through which a cognisor is able to cognise the object. to elucidate it further, it may be noted that often we cognise the object as it is in relation to our earlier cognition of that object. here, a significant point comes up about how cognition becomes possible. to put it in simple, how an individual can cognise the object as he(s) has cognised it before when everything is changing in creativity and cognition 51 this world? no things remain constant in this phenomenal world. everything is in a state of constant flux. question remains further: can ‘re-cognition’ be consider a creative act? how can it be judged as a creative act? the responses to the above queries are comprised in the following passages exploring davidson’s analysis on “anomalous monism” and buddhist’s theory of “impermanence”. anomalous monism according to davidson’s view, the concept ‘anomalous monism’ is also known as ‘token physicalism’. it states that there is no mental substance, but there are irreducibly mental ways of grouping physical states and events12. this intricacy would be clarified with an example. “x perceives that it is raining.” how can individuals claim that a continuous process of dropping water from sky is an existing phenomenon of ‘raining’? in other words, if it is admitted that each single drop of water from the sky is observed one after another (one-by-one) and while observing the consequent drop of water the preceding drop of water is vanishing from our mind as supported by the argument ‘nothing in permanent is this world’, then how it is possible for an individual to claim that “it is raining”? how to claim that it is raining as an objective phenomenon when the observation of preceding drops vanishes from the mind by the time of the next drop? logically speaking, how is it possible for an individual to cognise all the drops of water w1, w2, w3, …wx and claim that it is raining? again, is it possible that one cognises a drop of water that imprints in his/her mind and never vanishes even after his/her next experience of the succeeding drops of water? further, at a more general lever, how can we deny that we identify the same object that we had encountered in the past? how are we recognising the object after one decade or more although nothing is permanent in this world? attempting to answer all these queries, davidson expresses that each perception is a single occurrence in a particular brain, and is fully specifiable in neurological terms once the details are known13. but this rule can’t apply to a belief system. the reason is that beliefs are linked to a single believer. the same belief may not be found in the case of other believers. thus, ‘belief’ won’t be treated as an objective phenomenon as cognition is. 12 quine, 1993, p. 72 13 ibid, p. 71 europe’s journal of psychology 52 in this context, quine expressed that perceptions are neural realities and these don’t fade out into irreality altogether14. he further argues that we can’t rule out the mental capabilities for grouping a lot of physical perceptions of drops of water as claiming for rain, but certainly each drop of rain water is different from others. hence, each drop of water is a separate and unique cognition for an individual. to cognise each drop of water as separate leads to the creative act. this is so because we need different mechanisms to cognise a raindrop from its preceding one. while cognising a drop of water we need a separate cognition from its preceding one. as this sort of cognition is uniquely confined within an individual we judge this product as p-creative. davidson’s analysis of ‘anomalous monism’ does not ontologically differ from buddhist’s theory of impermanence. to find out on which grounds both theories are equal and identical the present discussion highlights the buddhists theory of impermanence. buddhist’s theory of impermanence one of the central teachings of buddha is the doctrine of universal change and impermanence. everything in the world is changing and therefore is impermanent. there is nothing that endures and abides eternally. birth, growth, and decay (start, processes, and ends) are all pervading features of existence15. thus change and impermanence are the basic traits of all existence. here a question arises, i.e. if impermanence is the fundamental characteristic of existence then how can we claim that permanent entities exist called substances? a response to this query is by clarifying the whole complexity that is involved in recognising an object that has been perceived in the past. “x recognised a substance as table that he had perceived ten years back”. this possibility arises because of the fact that we use the same term “table” to describe it different times. but the reality is that x perceived the table in the past in good conditions that every new table is expected to be, and his present cognition of that table takes other forms: it looks worn, the varnish has faded, the wood has become weak, and the surface is warped. thus, it is emanated that change is an obvious phenomenon. it 14 ibid, p. 71 15 this passage has borrowed from puligandla, r., 1997, p. 50 creativity and cognition 53 refutes the two extreme considerations. these are ‘eternalism’ and ‘annihilationism’16. from the above passages it is asserted that all existing things in the phenomenal world are non-eternal. everything in this world is merely a conglomeration of perishable qualities. thus, it is assumed that everything has a beginning, existence, and extinction. whatever is born will also be destroyed and whatever may be destroyed cannot be thought to be permanent. hence, everything is momentary. it means things are not only impermanent in their nature but also exist for a certain time. to accord with this view, buddhists argues that “only that thing can produce effect which has existence and whatever cannot produce effect has no existence”17. further, anything can produce only one effect. at one moment (time) a thing produces only one effect and at the next moment another effect is observed. hence, the former one ceased to exist. this is so because one thing can produce only one effect at one moment. for example, a seed cannot develop in the same way in any two moments. when the seed is in the bag, it will not sprout as a plant. it sprouts as a plant when it is sown in the earth. this plant again grows from moment to moment (time to time). in the process of its development no two moments are similar or identical. in a similar way, it may be stated that no individual (person) can remain identical in two moments. in this regard, buddhists endorse the following views18: i. whatever appears to be eternal and permanent is also perishable. ii. whatever appears to be great has also its decline. iii. where there is union there is also separation. iv. where there is birth there is also death. from the above discussions, it is emanated that davidson’s view on anomalous monism and buddhist’s theory of impermanence are very close to each other. both claim that nothing is permanent in the phenomenal world. hence, everything is transitory and therefore worldly affairs are found in the state of constant flux. they argue that objects appear to us in a fraction of moment, yet we cognise the objects. we also re-cognise the objects we had cognised earlier. although 16 the expression ‘eternalism’ states that everything in this world is eternal and exists timelessly or permanently whereas the expression ‘annihilationism’ refuses existence to the substances. see, visuddhi magga, ch.xvii, translations, pp. 194-201 17 chatterjee, s.g. and datta, d.m., 1960 18 ibid europe’s journal of psychology 54 everything is changing in every moment, the arising and perishing of phases or the recurrence of moments is so fast that we could not mark the changes. as a result, we cognise and identify the object as it is. according to buddhism, an entity is reproduced through a replication of its states. each moment comprises a certain state of entities. thus, a complete entity is the result of an imaginative reconstruction over a series of states. the sequence of replications is linked together in the mind through the rapid succession of similar moments. this gives the continuity of experience and the appearance of persistence19. in this regard, satkari mookerjee writes that the arrow in its flight is not one but many arrows successively appearing in the horizon, which give rise to the illusion of a persistent entity owing to the continuity of similar entities”20. thus, we cognise an object because of its succession of phases in every moment. this implies that cognition and even re-cognition become a creative act. conclusion with the above arguments we may conclude that each cognition is a creative act; it may be of p-creative or h-creative sorts. p-creativity is limited to an individual or an agent whereas h-creativity is an innovation or a discovery that is widely accepted as a unique product. thus each creative product involves a cognition produced by the rational agent. each cognition is a unique in relation to an object or a concept. this is so because everything is changing in this world constantly and hence, the cognisor and the cognised objects/concepts are also changing. therefore, cognising an object/concept implies dissimilarity to prior cognition. hence, all cognitions are a creative act and these are of p-creative sorts. references boden, m. (1996). (eds.) dimensions of creativity, cambridge: the mit press. brown, j.w. (1999). microgenesis and buddhism: the concept of momentariness, philosophy east and west, 49(3) chatterjee, s.g. & datta, d.m. (1960). an introduction to indian philosophy, calcutta: university calcutta press. csikszentmihalyi, m. (1996). creativity, new york: harper collins publication. descartes, r. (1985) “discourse on method”, philosophical writings of descartes, edited by j. cottingham, et al., cambridge: cambridge univ. press. 19 brown, j.w., 1999, p. 262 20 mookerjee, s., 1935 creativity and cognition 55 mookerjee, s. (1935). the buddhist philosophy of universal flux: an exposition of the philosophy of critical realism as expounded by the school of dignaga, culcutta: university of calcutta press. puligandla, r. (1997). fundamentals of indian philosophy, new delhi: d.k.printworld(p) ltd. quine, w.v. (1993). pursuit of truth, london: harvard university press. about the author: dr. satya sundar sethy, working as an assistant professor in staff training and research institute of distance education (stride), indira gandhi national open university (ignou), india, has published six articles in international referred journals and four articles in national referred journals. besides these publications, the author has presented papers in both international and national conferences and seminars and written seven units/chapters for graduate students in philosophy. among the main research interests: philosophy of language, analytical philosophy, contemporary western philosophy, logic, theories and forms of learning, icts in education. contact: satyasundar20012001@gmail.com living with intensity bps division of clinical psychology annual conference 1-2 december 2011 birmingham, uk the conference will take place at the holiday inn hotel, birmingham city centre on thursday 1 and friday 2 december 2011. five keynote speakers professor max birchwood, birmingham early intervention centre professor christopher eccleston, university of bath "evidence-based chronic pain management" dr carol d. goodheart, president american psychological association 2010, "psychology practice in health care: design for tomorrow" professor allison harvey, university of california "a transdiagnostic perspective on sleep in psychological disorders" professor barbara wilson obe, "neuropsychological rehabilitation: where did we start? what do we do? where are we going?" invited symposiums sleep; the best bridge between hope and despair is a good night's sleep professor colin espie, university of glasgow dr alice gregory, goldsmith's college, university of london professor kevin morgan, sleep research centre, loughborough university discussant: professor allison harvey, university of california neuropsychology symposium professor nick alderman, st andrew's healthcare professor jonathan evans, university of glasgow 3rd speaker tbc discussant: professor barbara wilson obe visit the website for more information http://www.dcpconference.co.uk/ criminal attitudes this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 18-31, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.296 www.ejop.org criminal attitudes, recidivistic behaviour, and the mediating role of associations with criminal friends: an empirical investigation within a prison sample of violent offenders daniel boduszek university of ulster, uk philip hyland university of ulster, uk jacek pedziszczak polish prison service, poland krzysztof kielkiewicz all hallows college, ireland abstract previous studies suggested a significant interaction between criminal attitudes, associations with criminal friends, and criminal behaviour. the purpose of the current investigation was to provide the possible mediating role of associations with criminal friends between criminal attitudes, and criminal behaviour. based on a sample of 133 violent offenders, the proposed mediation model tested was found to be a good fit of the observed data, with each of the respective fit indices exceeding the criteria for a good fitting model. thus results suggest that the presence and influence of criminal friends has a significant mediating effect on the interaction between criminal attitudes and recidivistic behaviour. further implications in relation to research and theory are discussed. keywords: criminal behaviour, recidivism, anti-social friends, social learning theory, criminal attitudes criminal attitudes 19 learning theories, particularly social learning theories which have had the most impact on criminology (akers, krohn, lanze-kaduce, & radosevich, 1979), believe that criminality is a function of individual socialization, how individuals have been influenced by their experiences or relationships with family, peer groups, teachers, church, authority figures, and other agents of socialization. the social learning theory is associated with the classical work of bandura (1969) who formulated the principles of “stimulus control”, outlined the stages of modelling (bandura, 1989) and pioneered the field of “vicarious learning” (bandura & walters, 1963). the evidence suggests that most offences are committed in groups (kaiser, 1997; reiss & farrington, 1991;). according to social learning theory the influence of antisocial peers is central to understanding the development of criminal behaviour and predicting criminal acts (see conway & mccord, 2002; mills, kroner & forth, 2002). agnew (1991) reported that one of the most consistent findings with antisocial populations is the relationship between antisocial peers and antisocial behavior. these findings are consistent within criminological psychology (warr, 1993), child psychology (monahan, steinberg, & cauffman, 2009), and adult psychology literature (gendreau, little, & goggin, 1996). however, research about the influence of antisocial peers on adult offenders has received relatively little attention when compared with research involving children and adolescents. in order to understand and develop explanatory models of criminal behaviour, social learning theorists have placed great emphasis on internal cognitive processes such as memory and cognition (attitudes, beliefs, thinking styles etc.) which is a focus previously indicated by bandura (1969). differential association theory (sutherland, 1947; sutherland & cressey, 1978; sutherland, cressey & luckenbill, 1992) attempts to explain crime in terms of learning and, in particular, social learning. it is proposed that through associations with other people who hold favourable attitudes towards crime, individuals adopt these attitudes and learn how to commit acts of criminality. factors crucial in this process include with whom the individual associates, the length, frequency, and personal meaningfulness of such associations, and how early in the individual’s development such associations were formed. akers (1977) proposed a social learning theory of deviance that integrates differential association theory and the principles of skinnerian behaviourism. according to akers’ (1985) differential reinforcement theory, people are first indoctrinated into deviant behaviour through the process of differential association with deviant peers. then, as a consequence of differential reinforcement, they learn how to reap the rewards and avoid the penalties of criminal behaviour by reference to the actual or anticipated consequences of such behaviours. this theory tends to fit well into europe’s journal of psychology 20 criminology because it explains the decision making process involved in developing the motivation, attitudes, and techniques necessary to commit crime (akers et al., 1979). thus, learning theories posit that individuals learn to engage in crime through exposure to, and adoption of, attitudes that are favourable to breaking the law (akers, 1985; sutherland et al., 1992). central to this perspective is the idea that individuals who have friends who are delinquent are more likely to become delinquent themselves. these theoretical explanations have been widely regarded as one of the strongest correlates of delinquency (agnew, 1991; thornberry, lizotte, krohn, farnworth, & jang, 1994; warr, 1993, 2002, 2005; warr & stafford, 1991). a meta-analysis conducted by gendreau, little, & goggin (1996) examined a broad range of predictors related to adult recidivism. predictors of recidivism were placed into one of seventeen categories (e.g., criminal history, age, race, companions/associates, personal distress, substance abuse, etc.). the most significant predictors of adult recidivism to emerge were association with criminal peers, criminal attitudes, and adult criminal history. these findings suggest that criminal attitudes and criminal associates are closely tied both theoretically and empirically. according to holsinger (1999) criminal behaviour can be better understood by looking at criminal versus non-criminal populations. simply put, people who have been socialised in a pro-social environment and have internalised pro-social attitudes toward crime are likely to be deterred from participating in criminal behaviour whereas individuals who have been socialised in an anti-social environment and have internalised antisocial attitudes toward crime are more likely to become involved with crime. holsinger’s (1999) findings suggest that individuals who held or experienced more persistent favourable attitudes, feelings, or thoughts toward crime, through their associations with criminal friends, committed more crimes than those individuals who possessed pro-social attitudes. support for this study was provided by bäckström and björklund (2008) who compared swedish criminal and non-criminal samples on all four subscales of the measure of criminal attitudes and associates (violence, entitlement, antisocial intent, associates; mills & kroner, 1999) and found large mean differences between the two groups on each of the subscales. the finding that those within the criminal sample were found to possess substantially higher levels of criminal attitudes and anti-social associates as compared to the general population sample has been called into question given the much larger proportion of females in the general sample. however such strongly significant differences were still evident when the male criminal offenders were criminal attitudes 21 compared to the males in the general sample. simourd (1997, 1999) and losel (2003) provided further support with findings that indicated that through interactions with group influences, delinquent adolescents develop attitudes, values, and self-related cognitions that encourage criminal behaviour. mills and colleagues (2002) also reported that norms and influence from criminal friends interact with criminal attitudes, and when coupled, the relationship to criminality is particular strong. additionally, rhodes (1979) found that people who enter prison with low levels of antisocial thoughts and attitudes develop more deviant attitudes with the passage of time. this increase in antisocial attitudes is likely due to the association with criminal peers within the prison environment. within social and criminological psychology, criminal attitudes have been a mainstay in the prediction of antisocial behaviour (stevenson, hall, & innes, 2003) however to date researchers have not considered the potential mediating role of criminal friends in the prediction of recidivistic behaviour. additionally, previous research investigating criminal attitudes, criminal friends and recidivism has never considered a polish prison sample. therefore, in line with previous studies which suggest a significant interaction between criminal attitudes, associations with criminal friends, and criminal behaviour, this study aims to investigate the possible mediating role of associations with criminal friends between criminal attitudes, and criminal behaviour using a polish recidivistic violent prison sample. in this study, the direct impact of the four components of criminal attitudes (attitudes towards violence, sense of entitlement, antisocial intent, and attitudes toward criminal associates) as outlined by mills and kroner (1999) on association with criminal friends is investigated, along with the direct impact of association with criminal friends on criminal behaviour. however, the main focus of the study is placed on indirect effects between the four components of criminal attitudes on criminal behaviour via association with criminal friends. it is hypothesised that association between criminal attitudes and criminal behaviour is activated in the presence of criminal others. this hypothesis has never been tested within the path modelling framework using a polish prison sample. method participants and procedure one hundred and thirty three (n = 133) male violent offenders incarcerated in nowogard high security prison for recidivists participated in this study. the participants ranged in age from 20 to 66 (m = 33.85, sd = 9.38). ethical approval for europe’s journal of psychology 22 the study was granted by the polish prison service. a brief description of the study was provided to each participant along with the questionnaire. participants were informed about the nature of the study and were requested to complete the questionnaire. respondents were assured about the confidentiality of their participation, and informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time. participants completed the questionnaires in prison in their living units. the participation was voluntary without any form of reward. after completing the questionnaire, prisoners were asked to return it to the prison educational coordinator into sealed envelopes. the translation of the measure of criminal attitudes and associates from english to polish was performed by a team of polish and english speaking researchers. first, principal researcher translated the measures into polish. polish version was then sent to polish prison service (pps) for their approval, and appropriate member of pps translated polish versions back into english. both translations of measures, together with the original english versions, were then submitted to 3 experts who indicated appropriate changes. measures the measure of criminal attitudes and associates (mcaa; mills & kroner, 1999) is a twopart self-report measure of criminal attitudes and associates. part a is a measure intended to quantify criminal associations. respondents are asked to recall the four adults with they spend most of their free time with (0%-25%, 25%-50%, 50%-75%, 75%100%). the respondent then answers four questions in relation to the degree of the criminal involvement of their associates: (a) “has this person ever committed a crime?” (b) “does this person have a criminal record?” (c) “has this person ever been to jail?” and (d) “has this person tried to involve you in a crime?” part a of the mcaa was used to calculate two measures of criminal associates. the first, “number of criminal friends,” was calculated by adding up the number of friends to which the participant had answered “yes” to any of the questions of criminal involvement. this meant the participant could indicate zero to four criminal associates. the second measure is the “criminal friend index.” this measure is calculated by assigning a number of one to four to the percentage of time options available for each identified associate. that number is then multiplied by the number of yes responses to the four questions of criminal involvement. each of the resulting products is added together to produce the criminal friend index. overall scores for the criminal friend index (cfi) therefore range from 0 to 64, with higher scores reflecting an increased involvement with criminal associates. criminal attitudes 23 part b is a 46-item assessment of attitudes consisting of four sub-scales: attitudes toward violence (12 items), sense of entitlement (12 items), criminal intent (12 items), and attitudes toward criminal associates (10 items). sample statements included: “it’s understandable to hit someone who insults you” (violence); “people are right to take what is owed to them, even if they have to steal it” (entitlement); “for a good reason, i would commit a crime” (antisocial intent); “i know several people who have committed crimes” (criminal associates). participants respond to a dichotomous choice of agree/disagree. each endorsement of an antisocial statement (or rejection of a pro-social one) receives 1 point, whereas each rejection of an antisocial statement (or acceptance of a pro-social one) yields 0 points. for each sub-scale, scores are added up so that higher scores are reflective of increasingly antisocial attitudes. additionally, criminal behaviour was measured by level of recidivism. this was measured based on the frequency of incarcerations (how many times have you been in prison?). results descriptive statistics including means (m) and standard deviations (sd) for associations with criminal friends, recidivism, and the four subscales of criminal attitudes (attitudes toward violence, sense of entitlement, antisocial intent, attitudes toward criminal associates), are presented in table 1 together with cronbach’s alpha reliability scores. table 1. descriptive statistics and reliability of measures included in current study (n = 133 scale m sd range possible range cronbach’s alpha () level of recidivism 4.19 3.08 1-9 n/a n/a criminal friends 17.44 13.45 4-64 0-64 n/a violence 7.74 3.06 1-12 0-12 .80 entitlement 7.62 2.54 2-12 0-12 .69 criminal intent 7.92 2.59 0-12 0-12 .71 attitudes towards associates 6.89 2.18 0-10 0-10 .68 europe’s journal of psychology 24 the relationships between criminal attitudes, recidivism, and associations with criminal friends were investigated using pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (see table 2). preliminary analyses were performed to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity and homoscedasticity. all correlation were significant ranging from r = .17, p < .05 to r = .74, p < .001. table 2. correlations among all continuous variables (note. statistical significance: *p< .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001) variables r cf v e ci level of recidivism (r) -- criminal friends (cf) .42*** -- violence (v) .34*** .41*** -- entitlement (e) .26** .43*** .74*** -- criminal intent (ci) .18* .26** .51*** .51*** -- attitudes towards associates .17* .45*** .37*** .28*** .45*** the model shown in figure 1 was tested using mplus version 6 (muthén & muthén, 2010) as a path model. figure 1. conceptual path model of recidivistic behaviour. note: v = attitudes towards violence, e = entitlement, i = criminal intent, a = attitudes towards criminal associates, cf = associations with criminal friends, rec = criminal behaviour (recidivism) criminal attitudes 25 table 3. standardized and unstandardized regression paths and r2 (with standard errors) for the specified path model (note. statistical significance: ** p < .01; *** p < .001). variables  b se direct influence violence ==> criminal friends .11 .46 .41 entitlement ==> criminal friends .30*** 1.59 .52 intent ==> criminal friends -.11 -.55 .45 associates ==> criminal friends .37*** 2.29 .49 criminal friends ==> recidivism .42*** .10 .02 indirect influence violence ==> recidivism via criminal friends .04 .04 .04 entitlement ==> recidivism via criminal friends .13** .15 .06 intent ==> recidivism via criminal friends -.05 -.05 .04 associates ==> recidivism via criminal friends .15*** .22 .06 r2 = .31, p < .001 (criminal friend index); r2 = .17, p < .05 (recidivism) table 3 presents both absolute and comparative fit indices for each model. the chisquare (2) statistic investigates the difference between the empirical model and the actual model. ideally there should be no statistically significant difference between the empirical and the actual model to indicate a good fitting model. the comparative fit index (cfi; bentler, 1990) and the incremental fit index (ifi; bollen, 1989) are measures of how much better the model fits the data compared to one where no relationships exit. for these indices, values above .90 indicate a good fit (bentler, 1990; hu & bentler, 1999). in addition, two more absolute indices are presented; the root mean-square residual (rmsr) and the root mean-square error of approximation (rmsea). these indices measure the average difference between the null and alternate models per element of the variance covariance matrix and, thus, give relatively different information from the other indices. ideally, these indices should be less than .05 however values of less than .08 also suggest adequate fit (bentler, 1990; hu & bentler, 1999). findings suggest that the overall fit of the specified model (figure 1) provided a good fit of the data. all indices show significant fit with 2 = 6.04, df = 4, p = .20; rmsea = .06 (90%ci = .00 .15); srmr = .04; cfi = .96; and tli = .92. table 3 reports the standardized and unstandardized direct and indirect regression paths. as can be seen, sense of entitlement ( = .30, p < .001) and attitudes towards criminal associates ( = .37, p < .001) have a positive, moderate and statistically significant effect on associations with criminal friends. furthermore, europe’s journal of psychology 26 statistical analysis also reported a direct moderate-to-strong impact of associations with criminal friends on criminal behaviour ( = .42, p < .001). in relation to the indirect effect of the four components of criminal attitudes on criminal behaviour, current findings suggest that there is a weak, positive, indirect impact of entitlement and attitudes towards criminal associates on criminal behaviour through associations with criminal friends. discussion the primary objective of this research project was to further elucidate the relationship between criminal attitudes, criminal friends, and criminal behaviour using a sample of polish prisoners. these three variables have long been viewed as important by social psychologists and criminologists in understanding criminal or antisocial behaviours. although much empirical research has examined the predictive role of criminal attitudes and associations with criminal friends on criminal behaviour, no research to this point has examined the possible mediating role that associations with criminal friends’ have on the relationship between criminal attitudes and criminal behaviour. the current study sought to redress this deficiency in the existing social psychological and criminological research by empirically investigating this hypothesised relationship within a sample of polish recidivistic male prisoners who were all incarcerated for violent offences. the proposed mediation model tested was found to be an excellent fit of the observed data, with each of the respective fit indices exceeding the criteria for a good fitting model, with the exception of the rmsea value which was found to be just slightly above the 0.05 cut-off point for a good fitting model, and within the range of a moderate fitting model. the model was found to explain 31% of variance in associations with criminal friends, and 17% of variance in criminal behaviour. analyses revealed that sense of entitlement and attitudes toward criminal associates had a statistically significant relationship with the hypothesised mediating variable of associations with criminal friends. both of these relationships were positive and in the moderate range. associations with criminal friends were also found to be a statistically significant predictor of criminal behaviour, and this relationship was positive, and moderate-to-strong. such finding is not unique and is largely consistent with previously reported research data using american, canadian and swedish offender and non-offender sample. however, it adds to the multicultural criminological literature by showing that the same psychological pattern occurs in a polish offender population. criminal attitudes 27 in terms of the main research question, the current findings provide the first empirical support for the proposed mediating role of associations with criminal friends between criminal attitudes and criminal behaviour. the effects of two components of criminal attitudes (sense of entitlement and attitudes toward criminal associates) on criminal behaviour were found to be mediated by the role of associations with criminal friends. the mediating effects, although weak ( = 0.13 for sense of entitlement, and  = 0.15 for attitudes towards criminal associates), were statistically significant and have important theoretical implications. this finding suggests that although an individual can acquire criminal-typical attitudes and beliefs and have such attitudes be both available and accessible within the cognitive structure, their mere presence or accessibility alone is insufficient to predict or give rise to criminal behaviour. association with criminal friends appears necessary to give rise to criminal behaviours which are a behavioural manifestation of these underlying criminal attitudes. this finding is theoretically congruent with sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory which explains the development of criminal behaviour as a result of a variety of association with other individuals who possess criminal attitudes and engage in criminal behaviours and the learning theories of criminality or delinquency (akers, 1985; akers et al., 1979) which describe the central role played by criminal associates in an individual’s learning of how to commit criminal acts. however, the current research is the first empirical attempt to suggest that the relationship between how criminals think about their antisocial friends (attitudes toward criminal associates) and how they behave in a criminal context is mediated (or sometimes activated) by the presence of criminal friends. attitudes toward criminal others measure a unique aspect of criminal associations. measuring the level of identification and acceptance of criminal associates (attitudes) is viewed as important in reflecting the influence that criminal associates may have on the individual. this domain of attitudes has been previously shown to be relevant to recidivism and offence-based criteria by simourd, (1997, 1999). additionally, sense of entitlement and further recidivistic behaviour is mediated by criminal friends. this suggests that the cognition that “tells” criminals they have a right to do whatever they want is activated in the presence of criminal associates. this study is not without limitations. the project was conducted in a retrospective manner thus making it impossible to determine whether or not the criminal attitudes reported by the participants in the study were present at the time they committed their crimes, or at least present to the same level of intensity. as per the findings of rhodes (1979) it is known that individuals can enter a prison environment with low levels of criminal attitudes and, due to the social environment of the prison, such individuals can acquire and develop more deviant criminal attitudes. future studies europe’s journal of psychology 28 should seek to employ a prospective research designs or, within the confines of a correlational design, data should be gathered prior to or immediately upon an individual’s incarceration in a prison. such research designs would however have been premature given that no research has even been undertaken to investigate whether the role of associations with criminal friends serves as a mediating factor between criminal attitudes and criminal behaviour. now that there is empirical evidence suggesting such a relationship future studies should consider more rigorous methodological designs. a second limitation that should be considered is that the sample comprised only male, recidivistic prisoners, and it is unknown whether or not the findings of the current study could be generalised to the wider criminal population. despite the study’s limitations, the observed findings have potentially important implications. our findings make a significant contribution to the criminological and social psychological literature by offering the first empirical evidence of the mediating role of criminal friends for the relationship between criminal attitudes (sense of entitlement and attitudes toward criminal associates) and recidivistic behaviour. these findings may expound upon the scientific communities understanding of the factors involved in the development of criminal recidivistic behaviour and possible targets of intervention to reduce levels of criminality. it is suggested that the intervention of criminal others may significantly stimulate the presence of criminal cognitive structure (criminal attitudes) in the decision making process which is reflected in criminal behaviour. moreover, this project is the first one that translated the mcaa into polish and applied it to a polish recidivistic violent prison sample. references agnew, r. 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(2005). making delinquent friends: adult supervision and children’s affiliations. criminology, 43(1), 77–106. doi:/10.1111/j.0011-1348.2005.00003.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017417 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1143811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0093854897024001004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0093854899026001005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1994.tb01146.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1993.tb01120.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0011-1348.2005.00003.x criminal attitudes 31 warr, m., & stafford, m. (1991). the influence of delinquent peers: what they think or what they do? criminology, 29(4), 851–866. doi:/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1991.tb01090.x about the authors daniel boduszek is a researcher in criminal psychology with a special interest in application of advanced statistical analysis and methodology to the field of criminal/social psychology. he is also the editor-in-chief and the founder of the journal of criminal psychology. (e-mail: d.boduszek@interia.eu) philip hyland is a researcher in counselling/clinical psychology, cognitive behavioural therapy, and abnormal psychology. he is also the co-founder and the associate editor of the journal of criminal psychology. jacek pedziszczak is an educational officer in nowogard high security prison, poland. his main area of interest includes recidivism and prisonization. krzysztof kielkiewicz is a research assistant and phd student in all hallows college, republic of ireland. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1991.tb01090.x mailto:d.boduszek@interia.eu police officers over career stages: satisfaction and well being (1) ronald j. burke york university alaug mikkelsen stavanger university college abstract this study compared work experiences, work satisfactions and psychological well-being of police officers in constable jobs across five career stages using age cutoffs. these stages were: 32 years of age or younger, 33 to 37, 38-42, 43-47 and 48 years or older. data were collected from 466 police officers in norway using anonymously completed questionnaires. the five career stage groups differed on personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., shift schedule, police tenure) related to age. constables in early career stages reported more favourable work outcomes, greater social support, less exhaustion and cynicism, fewer subjective health complaints and better over-all health. there were also many areas where the career stage groups were similar (e.g., job demands, job satisfaction). the findings suggest the importance of particularly responding to the needs of constables in later career stages. introduction hall (1986a) has written that a major deficiency in the literature on organizational careers centers on the career maintenance or midcareer stage. what happens to an individual who has successfully explored options and made an initial occupational choice, entered an organization, been tested and has not settled down and become established in a career field? hall (1986a) and bardwick (1986) identified the following themes in the midcareer experience; perceived constriction of career opportunity, a slower growing (or even declining) organization, ambiguity and uncertainty about one’s future career role, midcareer change experienced as disjunctive and individualized, greater awareness of changes in the work role, the person or an awareness of lack of change, among others. although the specific ages used to define the various career stages vary, researchers have used age to establish career stages. brooks and seers (1991) considered five career stages (18-21, 22-27, 28-32, 33-40, 41 and older) whereas reilly and orsak (1991) considered four career stages (30 or under, 31-38, 35-44, 45 and older). the age ranges used in the present study fit the typical cutoffs observed by morrow and mcelroy (1987). there is also increasing evidence that individuals pass through a series of psychosocial stages as they develop. fagan and ayers (1982), in a interview study of 23 police officers having a mean age of 33.9, found they passed through a series of psychosocial stages. they observed that officers tended to split into two groups – an active (usually promoted) group and a resigned group – in their early 30s. there is also research support for the notion that not only do different factors increase or decrease in importance across various career stages, but the importance of various factors in predicting particular work outcomes also varies across career stages (gould & hawkins, 1978; isabella, 1988; jans, 1989; hurrell, mclaney & murphy, 1990; cohen, 1991; brooks & sears 1991; lynn, cao & horn, 1996). bedeian, pizzolatto, long and griffeth (1991) review the writing on career stages. career stage models build on three central assumptions: individuals progress through distinct career stages, each having unique and distinct developmental tasks; each stage is characterized by different work attitudes and behaviours; and individuals in the same career stage tend to behave and respond in similar ways. three operationalizations of career stages have been used: age ranges organizational tenure and job tenure. unfortunately there is still little consensus on the actual ages/years that one should use to create the stages. it is also critical to select dependent variables that would be relevant to career stage theory (slocum & cron, 1985). it is also not clear the extent to which findings obtained in one occupation will generalize to the same career stages in another occupation. cooper (1982) described ways in which police officers’ beliefs and feelings differ over the course of a career. how did police officers go from being newcomers to veterans? some officers held positive views about policing throughout their careers; many did not, becoming jaded and cynical. the reality for most falls somewhere in between these two extremes; the situation of never-promoted constables can be particularly problematic however. he gathered questionnaire and qualitative interview data from sixty police officers working in a large canadian regional police force. the sample was deliberately diverse. officers were assigned to six career stages: less than 1 year, 1-2 years, 3-7 years, 9 or more years as a constable, sergeants and staff sergeants in patrol and traffic, and sergeants and staff sergeants in cid. the first stage (first year) involved “breaking in”; reality shock at this time took many forms. officers at this stage learned from more experienced constables. early views on promotion criteria were developed but these were coloured by uncertainty. the second stage involved “settling in”. as officers got more experience, their views on promotion criteria changed, giving more weight to political factors. conflicts about their role also increased. the third stage, “making out”, showed greater interest in promotion by constables. considerable effort was made to decipher the promotion decision-making process; visibility became a more important factor. the costs or toll of police work also increased at this stage. officers who were promoted and those who were passed over now began to view their careers differently. those continually passed over became resigned; while still performing their duties, non-career areas rose in importance. and as they got older (45 to 50), it was more difficult to actually do the job. some became bitter, blaming the system for failing to see their merits. those who were promoted (sergeant level) faced other challenges as they now helped to develop more junior constables. over time, constables became hardened, less willing to trust others (particularly the public) and more willing to give and receive support from other officers. family problems increased over time. job demands and stresses also increased, some demands stimulating and others debilitating. mcginnis (1985a) reported the findings of a career development study conducted in a medium-sized canadian police force. for most people, the notion of a career embodies upward mobility and advancement. the organization is the context, having both constraints and opportunities, in which careers unfold. police forces may also have some unique career development issues. first, they have a steeply graded hierarchy with about 75% of officers in constable rank. promotions are now slower with a 15 year constable more common. second, forces have little turnover; job security is high, transferability of skills is low and transfer across forces is low. third, new recruits are better educated than previously and they have higher expectations of promotions more rapidly. mcginnis collected questionnaire data from 253 officers as well as conducting interviews with 140 officers. he assigned respondents to one of ten career stages: from (1) constables, 1-5 years, to (10) senior officers. constables were placed into four groups: 1-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-15 years, and 16 or more years. several sergeant groups were also considered. these were based on police tenure (length of service), rank, and type of assignment. lower ranked constables were more highly educated. higher ranked officers were generally more satisfied with work, supervisors, pay, promotion and co-workers. those in lower stages were also less motivated. constables having 10-15 years experience indicated the lowest career satisfaction. constables were dissatisfied with career planning opportunities, performance appraisal and promotion policies. mcginnis (1985b), in the same study of canadian police officers, reported that about half his respondents aspired to senior officer rank leading him to conclude that there will be great frustration and disappointment since few will achieve this goal. no one wanted to spend a career as a patrol constable – the backbone of a police force. patrol work has low status. policies and practices of personnel assignment and promotions downgrade the status of patrol and patrol constables. uniformed patrol constables are the largest group in a police force. he reported additional findings from interviews conducted with members of his larger questionnaire sample. some major career issues were identified: favouritism, unable to plan a career or get desired assignments, lots of competition for others. lower ranks (tenure and career stage) used less of their abilities; this was particularly low in the year 1-5 and 11-15 year groups, the latter being the lowest of the constables. police personnel were oriented towards promotion. the probability of obtaining another career move was lowest in constables with 11-15 years experience. this group was also low in numbers expecting promotion. promotions were becoming less common and more career constables will result, so the job satisfaction of these officers became more important. the extent to which accomplishments were appreciated was lowest in 10-15 year constables among the three constable groups. mcginnis then divided his sample into: patrol constables, 1-5 years, patrol constables 6-10 years and 11-15 years, patrol constables 16 years and longer, and constables in administration. constables with 11-15 years tenure were least satisfied; constables in administration were also dissatisfied. the present research compares a variety of work experiences, satisfactions and health outcomes among a large sample of norwegian police officers of constable rank across five age-based career stages. it replicates these earlier studies in another country using more current data. method respondents table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the police sample (n = 451). most respondents were married (78%), had children (70%), worked in urban areas (73%), worked in large departments (100 or more, 39%) worked between 36-39 hours per week (89%), worked 5 or less hours of overtime per week (74%), held fairly short police tenure (10 years or less, 48%) and were born in 1970 or before (65%). table 1 demographic characteristics of sample procedure data were collected from 766 police officers in 2003 using anonymously completed questionnaires, resulting in a a sixty two percent response rate. questionnaires were mailed by the police union and returned to an independent research institute. some measures were translated from english to norwegian for this study while other measures had already been translated into norwegian (e.g., maslach burnout inventory). only police officers at constable rank were identified and included in this analysis of career stage differences. measures career stages men and women serving in police constable jobs were divided into five career stages using age cut-offs that formed adequately sized groups. these groups are shown in table 2. the youngest group was the largest (n = 154, 35%), with each increasingly older career stage group becoming progressively smaller. table 2 career stages of constables personal demographic and work situation characteristics a number of personal demographic and work situation characteristics (e.g., age, marital status, organization size, police tenure) were measured by single items typical of those used by others. work demands a number of work demands were measured by scales from the copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire (copsoc) developed by kristensen and borg (2001). quantitative demands was measured by a seven item scale (α = .83). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five point scale (5 = always, 3 = sometimes, 1 = never/hardly ever). a sample item was “do you have to work very fast?” cognitive demands was assessed by an eight item scale (α = .82). one item was “does your work require you to make difficult decisions?” emotional demands was measured by a three item scale (α = 80). an item was “does your work put you in emotionally disturbing situations?” demands for hiding emotions was assessed by two items (α = .59). one item was “does your work require that you hide your feelings?” sensorial demands was measured by a five item scale (α = .58). an item was “does your work require a great deal of concentration?” responsibility was assessed by a three item scale (α = .58). one item was “could it injure other people if you make mistakes in your work?” role clarity was measured by a four item scale (α = .76) anchored by (5) to a large extent, (3) somewhat, and (1) to a very small extent. one item was “do you know exactly which areas are your responsibility?” role conflict was assessed by a four item scale (α – .71). an item was “are contradictory demands placed on you at workk? leadership quality was measured by an eight item scale (α = .94). a sample item was “to what extent would you say that your immediate superiors appreciate the staff and show consideration for the individual?” access to information was measured by two items (α = .79). one item was: do you receive all the information you need to do your work well?” feedback was measured by two items (α = ), part of copsoq. an item was “how often do you talk with your supervisor”. work and family work family conflict was measured by a five item scale (α = .83) developed by torgen, stenlund, ahlberg and marklund (2001). an item was “my work has a negative impact on my family”. spouse/partner concerns was also measured by a five item scale (α = .78) developed by torgen, et al (2001). an item was “my spouse/partner worries that my job is affecting my health”. work outcomes five work outcomes were included, all from the copsoq (kristensen & borg, 2001). job satisfaction was measured by seven items (α = .75). respondents indicated how satisfied they were with each item on a four-point scale: (4) very satisfied, (1) highly unsatisfied. one item was “how satisfied are you with your usual take home pay? organizational commitment was measured by four items (α = .58). an item was “do you enjoy telling others about your place of work?” responses were made on a five-point scale (5, to a large extent, 1 = to a very small extent) development was assessed by seven items (α = .76). an item was “do you have the possibility of learning new things through your work?” freedom was measured by four items (α = .77). one item was “can you decide when to take a break at work?”. meaning was measured by five items (α = .79). one item was “do you feel that the work you do is important?” influence was measured by ten items (α = .80). an item was “do you have a large degree of influence concerning your work?” social resources three coping and social resources were considered. social support was measured by a four item scale (α = .79) from the copsoq (kristensen & borg, 2001). an item was “how often do you get help and support from your colleagues?” responses were made on a five-point scale (5 = to a large extent, 1 = to a very small extent). social relations was assessed by a two item scale (α = .58) developed by kristensen and borg (2001). an item was “is it possible for you to talk to your colleagues while you are working?” responses were made on a five point extent scale. sense of community was measured by three items (α = .84). an item was “do you feel part of a community at work?” psychological well-being burnout three components of burnout were measured by the maslach burnout inventory – general survey (mbi-gs) developed by schaufeli, leiter, maslach and jackson (1996). exhaustion was measured by five items (α = .86). one item was “i feel emotionally drained from my work?” cynicism was also measured by five items (α = .78). “i have become less enthusiastic about my work”. professional efficacy was measured by six items (α = .80). “at my work, i feel confident that i am effective at getting things done”. respondents indicated how frequently they experienced each item on seven point frequency scale (0 = never, 6 = always). psychological health five measures of psychological health were included. subjective health complaints was measured by a 29 item scale (α = .89) developed by eriksson, ihlebaek & ursin (1999). respondents indicated how frequently they experienced each complaint or symptom (e.g., headache, lower back pain dizziness) during the past month. medication use was measured by a five item scale (α = .39). respondents indicated how frequently they had taken each medication (e.g., sleeping pills, pain killers) during the past year. post traumatic stress symptoms (ptss) was measured by a ten item scale (α = .92) developed by knudsen, weisaeth, lerdal, wahl, rustoen and hanestad (2002). respondents indicated how often they experienced each symptom (e.g., depression, irritability) on a seven point scale (1=never, 7=very often). anxiety was measured by seven items (α = .83) developed by zigmond and snaith (1983). one item was “worrying thoughts go through my mind”. responses were made on a four-point frequency scale (1 = only occasionally, 4 = a great deal of the time). depression was assessed by six items (α = .82) also developed by zigmond and snaith (1983). an item was “i feel cheerful” (reverse scored). responses were made on the same four point frequency scale used for anxiety. bjelland, dahl, haug and neckelmann (2002) present more recent evidence of the validity of both the anxiety and depression scales. suicidal ideation suicidal ideation was assessed by a four item measure (α = .84) developed by paykel, myers, lindenthal and tanner (1974) and used later by others (see tyssen, vaglum, gronvold & ekeberg, 2001) the items were: (1) have you ever felt that life was not worth living? (2) have you ever wished you were dead?” (3) “have you ever thought of taking your own life even if you would not really do it?” (4) “have you ever reached the point where you seriously considered taking your life, or perhaps made plans how you would go about doing it?” a fifth item then asked, “have you tried to take your own life in the past year?” (yes/no). this question was not used in the analysis since so few police officers had attempted suicide (n = 1 male). physical health respondents described their levels of physical health absenteeism and life style behaviours on eight single item measures. “generally how is your health?” “have you taken any sick leave during the past six months?” “if yes, how many sick days have you taken?” “how would you rate the level of your physical fitness?” lifestyle behaviours “do you take part in regular physical exercise (over 30 minutes per day)?” “do you smoke?” “how many alcoholic drinks have you had in the past 14 days?” “how often do you drink alcoholic beverages?” results demographic characteristics table 3 shows the comparisons of the five career stage groups on a number of demographic characteristics using one-way anova; when the overall f-value was statistically significant (p the following comments are offered in summary. there were no career stage differences on marital status, urban vs. rural location, size of force, hours worked per week and overtime hours worked. almost all of the other groups’ differences were expected. there were more women in the first than last career stage reflecting the recent entrance of women into police work. respondents in later career stages had more children reflecting their greater age. respondents in early career stages were more highly educated reflecting the greater emphasis now being placed on formal education. respondents in later career stages were older, and had longer police tenure reflecting their greater ages. finally, respondents in later career stages were less likely to work continuous shifts reflecting their greater seniority. table 3 demographic characteristics over career stages* job demands the five career stage groups were generally similar on a number of measures of job demands. however, police officers in early career stages indicated greater sensorial demands, greater responsibility, and received more feedback than one or more of the later career stage groups. table 4 job demands over career stages* work outcomes the five career stage groups were similar on influence, freedom, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. police officers in early career indicated greater development opportunities and greater meaning (see table 5). table 5 work outcomes over career stages* work and family police officers in early stages indicated more work-family conflict than did officers in later career stages; the career stage groups did not differ on levels of spouse concerns (see table 5). social resources officers in early career stages indicated higher levels of both social support and social relations than did officers in later career stages (see table 6). the five groups indicated similar levels of sense of community. table 6 social resources over career stages* psychological well-being there were substantial career stage differences on measures of psychological well-being (see table 7). police officers in early career stages indicated lower levels of emotional exhaustion, less cynicism, fewer health complaints, less medication use, and lower levels of depression than did officers in alter career stage groups. the career stage groups were similar on professional efficacy, anxiety, suicidal ideation (low in general) and posttraumatic stress symptoms. table 7 psychological well-being over career stages* physical health and lifestyle behaviours police officers in early career rated their overall health higher and had taken fewer sick days than officers had in later career stages (see table 8). the two groups were similar on whether they had taken sick days, level of self-reported physical fitness and whether they exercised regularly. officers in early career were less likely to be smokers and to drink alcohol less frequently. amount of alcohol consumption was similar across the career stage groups. table 8 physical health and lifestyle behavior over career stages* discussion this research compared the work experiences, satisfactions and psychological well-being of police constables in five career stages. the stages, based on constable age, were similar to those used by others (morrow & mcelroy, 1987). previous research (cooper, 1982; mcginnis, 1985a, 1985b) has indicated that constables in later career stages (e.g., older and with longer police tenure) are less satisfied with their work and careers. these issues were examined in a different country (norway) and more recently (2003) making it possible to replicate the earlier research. the career stage groups (table 3) were found to differ on personal demographic and work situation characteristics related with age (e.g., number of children, police tenure) but were similar in other ways (size of force, hours worked, extra hours worked). while the career stage groups were generally similar on job demands (see table 4), the four significant career stage effects showed constables in early career reporting higher reported higher levels of sensorial, responsibility and feedback – all likely associated with more positive reactions. and while the five career stage groups were generally similar or work outcomes (see table 5), the differences that emerged on development and meaning favored those constables in early career. likewise, constables in early career indicated more support (see table 6), a finding also reported by cooper (1982). these factors were also associated with more positive attitudinal responses (see table 7) such as lower levels of exhaustion and cynicism among early career stage constables and perhaps account for the lower levels of depression and subjective health complaints and ptss among early career stage constables as well. finally, early career stage officers were less likely to be smokers and described their overall physical health more positively than did later career stage constables reflecting their younger years. taken together these findings suggest that constables in later career stages experience a less satisfying work experience, as others have also found (burke, 1989; cannizzo & liu, 1995). there are suggestions of initiatives that organizations might undertake to support this valued human resource (hall, 1986b; hall & mirvis, 1985). mcginnis (1985b) sees dealing with the plateaued constable with many years of service as the biggest concern for canadian police forces. cooper (1982) suggests three areas of intervention to help officers more successfully navigate these career stages. 1. recruitment and training. providing applicants a more realistic picture of the job through talking with police officers, reading more realistic accounts of police work or viewing videos of police officers talking about their jobs or working would be helpful. also, using more realistic training exercises and cases in recruit training is advised. 2. feedback and supervision. more contact with managers and more feedback of work performance, realizing that this requires extra effort since supervisors do not have readily available opportunities to observe constable job performance. 3. promotion and assignment information. forces can use peer information in decision-making and provide passed over constables with information as to what they need to do to improve their changes of future promotions. senior police managers need to deal with expectations of promotion among police officers. officers are socialized to seek and expect promotions. no police officer expects to be a career constable but some will. it is important to share the numbers in a realistic way with force members. police officers need to consider various practices for coping with the plateaued constable: police forces and police senior managers need to understand the mentality of the plateaued constable. it is important to keep constables growing, challenged, and feeling valued and respected by the force, to keep them from becoming dissatisfied, alienated, cynical and deadwood. common practices to address this problem include: negative sanctions for low performance. performance appraisal – provide feedback to control expectations retraining – for the force or outside of it symbolic rewards – recognizing contributions external therapy – for alcohol problems also, some non-traditional practices are possible. these would include: lateral transfers within the force – this deals with content plateauing. moving to a flatter organizational structure – the use of team policing. these approaches have been found to increase decision-making scope. teaching people about the career plateau. include material on career development in police training careers. career counselling provide career support and guidance to police officers at all career stages. footnotes 1 preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by the rogaland institute, norway and the school of business, york university. we acknowledge the support of the police union in conducting the study and collecting the data. lisa fiksenbaum assisted with data analysis. references bardwick, j.m., (1986) the plateauing trap. new york: bantam. bedeian, a.g., pizzolatto, a.b., long, r.g. & griffith, r.w. 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(1983) the hospital anxiety and depression scale. acta psychiatry scandinavia, 67, 361-370. living with intensity the 15th european conference on developmental psychology bergen, norway 23-27 august 2011 welcome to the 15th european conference in developmental psychology in bergen august 23 27 2011! the conference aims at presenting an overview of current european research on human development in all its varieties. as organisers of the 15th conference in bergen, norway, we would like to offer our hospitality to participants from europe and all other continents. the congress will feature a number of high calibre keynote lectures by internationally renowned scientists. a varied social and touristic programme will be offered to participants and their accompanying persons. the abstract submission and registration start at www.ecdp2011.com on january 2 2011. we look forward to seeing you in bergen in 2011! on behalf of the organising committee, professor bente wold visit the website for more information www.ecdp2011.com http://www.ecdp2011.com/%22kplink:/14272/%22 http://www.ecdp2011.com/%22kplink:/14272/%22 affective reactions to difference and their impact on discrimination and self-disclosure at work: a social identity perspective theoretical contributions affective reactions to difference and their impact on discrimination and self-disclosure at work: a social identity perspective maria kakarika*a [a] euromed management, marseille, france. abstract based on social identity theory and related concepts, the present paper argues that a negative affective state is caused by dissimilarity at the workplace, which in turn influences discrimination and self-disclosure. based on a review of the literature, it develops propositions about the positive effects of surfaceand deep-level dissimilarity on this affective state and perceived interpersonal discrimination at work, as well as on the decision to self-disclose personal information to peers. self-disclosure is further linked to perceptions of discrimination in two opposing ways. an individual’s perceived degree of difference from others on demographic and underlying characteristics serve as moderators of the proposed relationships, strengthening the effects of actual dissimilarity on feelings. the paper concludes by examining implications and contributions of the proposed theoretical framework to the diversity literature. keywords: discrimination, affect, dissimilarity, self-disclosure, social identity europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 received: 2012-03-29. accepted: 2012-06-11. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: maria.kakarika@euromed-management.com. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. as workforces are becoming increasingly diverse and employees work side by side with dissimilar peers, issues of diversity, discrimination and self-disclosure at work have captured the attention of organizational researchers (e.g., collins & miller, 1994; dipboye & collela, 2005; tsui & gutek, 1999). these scholars used social identity theory (sit; tajfel and turner, 1979) as their main explanatory theory, based on the idea that individual differences result in social categorizations into and out of groups that influence team member interactions (e.g., tsui et al., 1992). this social categorization (turner, hogg, oakes, reicher, &wetherell, 1987), in turn, is consistently shown to result in intergoup discrimination (bourhis, sachdev, & gagnon, 1994; diehl, 1990) with important organizational and personal effects (e.g., sanchez & brock, 1996), and is further related to an important employee decision – the decision to self-disclose personal information to peers. we know little, however, about affect as an intervening variable between dissimilarity, perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. this omission is unexpected for two reasons. first, affect plays a key role in social identity theory (tajfel and turner, 1979), the main theory for explaining such phenomena. according to this theory, dissimilarity appears to be a situation that causes a specific affective state, since different characteristics shape an individual’s identity and are associated with the need to psychologically belong or feel close to social groups, in order to enhance self-esteem (tajfel, 1982; turner, 1982). according to smith (1993), prejudice is a "social emotion experienced with respect to one’s social identity as a group member, with an out-group as target" (p. 304). thus, sit assumes that an affective state is caused by individual differences and has an impact on judgment --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and behavior. in spite of the importance of this assumption, however, we have a narrow understanding of the precise role of affect as an outcome of dissimilarity and a key intervening state between dissimilarity and perceived discrimination, as well as between dissimilarity and self-disclosure. second, research has shown that affect plays an important role in judgments and decisions (schwarz, bless and bohner, 1991), serving as information, and that discrimination experiences at work are shaped by feelings (sechrist, swim, and mark, 2003). however, past research has not extensively tied this literature to perceived discrimination and mostly focused on cognitions and prejudices at the workplace (e.g. dovidio & gaertner, 2000; frazer & wiersma, 2001; trentham & larwood, 1998). moreover, despite studies indicating the importance of identity on perceptions of discrimination and self-disclosure, research and theorizing as to why this effect occurs has focused on increased sensitization to inequalities (sellers & shelton, 2003), which implies an affective component. thus, the full affective experiences of the targets of discrimination or the affective variables influencing perceptions of discrimination and decisions to self-disclose at work need to be better understood. the present paper attempts to address some the above theoretical gaps based on a review of relevant studies and contributes to the literature in the following ways. first, it furthers previous research on employee dissimilarity by integrating it with the literature on affect and proposes that an exact affective state is caused by dissimilarity. in doing so, it encourages researchers to precisely examine the way in which people feel when being different. second, it examines this affective state as an important intervening variable between dissimilarity and two important outcomes – discrimination and self-disclosure, and shows how dissimilarity first causes feelings before having an effect on perceptions and decisions. in other words, it argues that this affective state is an important psychological variable that influences perceptions of discrimination and self-disclosure. third, the current paper further proposes a relationship between self-disclosure and subtle discrimination at work. fourth, it examines perceived dissimilarity as a moderator of the proposed relationships. in these ways, the article aims to enhance our understanding of the impact of employee difference on individual feelings, and two important outcomes: perceptions of discrimination and decisions to self-disclose personal information. the theoretical model that addresses the above issues was created based on a review of previous studies and is presented in figure 1. the rest of the paper is structured as follows. it starts with the reasons why affect is important and relevant to dissimilarity, discrimination and self-disclosure. it then explains the first two stages of the model, and uses sit and related concepts to analyze why actual dissimilarity may cause affect and develop propositions. the third stage of the model examines the outcomes of this affective state. next, moderating effects of the relationships are proposed. finally, it outlines its contributions and offers exciting directions for future research. the importance and relevance of affect although affect is a major area in organizational behavior with several similarities and possible conceptual links to diversity, discrimination, and self-disclosure, most research has considered these topics separately. this paper, however, adopts a different view and outlines three basic points that explain why affect is important and relevant to this research. first, as suggested by ashkanasy, härtel, & daus (2002), diversity and affect are two mutually interdependent topics that need to be theoretically and empirically integrated. diversity can be seen as an antecedent of affect, and discrimination and self-disclosure as outcomes of affect, responding to calls for research on the causes and consequences of true affective experiences in work settings (weiss and cropanzano, 1996). further, according europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 kakarika 493 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. intervening and interacting mechanisms translating actual surfaceand deep-level employee dissimilarity into perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. to barsade and colleagues (2003), there is a new research paradigm in organizational behavior, which examines feelings not only as personal experiences, but also as experiences that are socially shaped. affect can thus be an important variable socially influenced by individual differences in a work team context, resulting in perceptions of discrimination at the workplace and influencing employee self-disclosure. a second point that explains why affect is relevant to diversity, discrimination and self-disclosure refers to social identity and its related self-categorization theory (turner et al., 1987), employed to explain diversity and discrimination experiences. this framework suggests that people engage in social comparisons in terms of significant characteristics, in order to enhance their self-esteem; they categorize themselves in terms of a group membership, and this results in in-group bias and perceived discrimination (kobrynowicz & branscombe, 1997; operario & fiske, 2001). this approach, however, also implies an affective component (tajfel, 1981; see also ellemers, kortekaas, & ouwerkerk, 1999). the social identity was first defined by tajfel (1972: 292) as “the individual's knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of this group membership”. therefore, diversity may be linked to the feeling of positive emotions as a consequence of belonging to the in-group (e.g., pride) and negative emotions towards the out-group. these negative emotions may also lead to perceptions of discrimination and influence employee self-disclosure. thus, affect becomes a variable with special relevance to diversity, discrimination and self-disclosure research that needs to be explicitly considered. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 affective reactions to difference 494 http://www.psychopen.eu/ third, little empirical research is available on the above ideas, which further demonstrates the importance of incorporating affect into diversity and discrimination. with the exception of some diversity studies that examined negative emotions, such as anger and frustration, as a proxy of the negative team process of relational conflict (jehn et al., 1999; pelled, 1996; pelled et al., 1999), the link between diversity and employee feelings has been severely under-explored. in addition, there has been limited progress in understanding the role of affect in discrimination and prejudice (see mackie, devos, & smith, 2000; mackie & smith, 2002; sechrist, swim, and mark, 2003), and these few research efforts have focused mostly on the perspective of the stigmatizer (e.g., fichten, robillard, tagalakis, & amsel, 1991). this paper therefore aims to fill in the above-described gaps by theorizing directly on affect and showing that it constitutes a basic assumption in the extensive employee diversity and discrimination literatures that needs to be explicitly studied. including such a variable appears necessary for researchers investigating diversity, discrimination and self-disclosure phenomena and thus future attention into this direction is encouraged. theory and propositions before turning to the theoretical arguments and the propositions, this paper first defines and clarifies several terms. dissimilarity is defined as the degree to which an employee differs from other team members on various characteristics (jackson, stone, & alvarez, 1993). surface-level dissimilarity refers to differences in terms of demographic attributes, such as race or gender, which are immediately observable as physical characteristics (price, harrison, gavin, & florey, 2002), as well as other surface-level characteristics such as education. differences, however, may also exist in terms of underlying characteristics, and deep-level dissimilarity refers to these differences in attributes such as beliefs or values (price et al., 2002). the term affective state includes a range of feeling states i.e., both moods and emotions (frijda, 1993). this paper also focuses on the more frequent from of interpersonal discrimination, which involves nonverbal behaviors such as avoidance of eye contact, lack of warmth, fewer expressions of friendliness etc. (hebl et al., 2002; king, shapiro, hebl, singletary, & turner, 2006). self-disclosure is defined as the “act of revealing personal information about oneself to another” (collins & miller, 1994; p. 457). this personal information includes deep-level attributes such a sexual orientation or political ideology (see derlega, metts, petronio, & margulis, 1993; ludwig, franco, & malloy, 1986). another clarification needed refers to the rationale of the present paper, which focuses on perceived discrimination defined as an individual's perception that selective or differential treatment is occurring because of the individual's membership to a social group (cardo, 1994). in addition, this paper theorizes at the individual and not the team-level, in order to gain a deeper understanding of an individual’s experience of being different from others and allow for more insights. the remainder of this paper outlines specific propositions with respect to the role of affect in relation to employee dissimilarity, perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. affect as a consequence of dissimilarity the current article adopts a social psychological perspective (cf williams and o’reilly, 1998), and builds its arguments on the similarity attraction paradigm (byrne, 1971), social identity theory (sit) (tajfel and turner, 1986), and self-categorization theory (turner et al., 1987). specifically, one of the first basic concepts that europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 kakarika 495 http://www.psychopen.eu/ explained diversity experiences in teams is similarity-attraction (byrne, 1971; kanter, 1977; pfeffer, 1983; ziller, 1972). this paradigm suggests that individuals are attracted to similar others, thus viewing them favorably, and preferring to spend time with them (ancona & caldwell, 1992; o'reilly et al., 1989; smith et al., 1994), leading to difficulties in interaction within diverse work teams. being attracted to similar others, both demographically and psychologically, can produce positive feelings for similar and negative feelings for dissimilar others. therefore, affect appears an important mechanism based on the similarity-attraction perspective (byrne, 1971) and a key outcome of dissimilarity at work. going beyond the similarity-attraction paradigm, social identity theory (tajfel and turner, 1979) and self-categorization (turner et al., 1987) offer richer explanations of individual behavior in diverse contexts, examining one’s need to psychologically identify with a social group. as discussed above, social identity is defined by emotionally significant categorizations based on difference criteria and at different levels of aggregation (hogg & terry, 2001; turner et al., 1987). these differences create the classification of others as in-group/similar or out-group/dissimilar (brewer, 1979; brewer & brown, 1998; tajfel & turner, 1986). for example, the in-group of a woman is comprised of other women, while her out-group is comprised of men. the links with similar peers become part of the psychological self and are used to fulfill the following basic human needs: belonging to a group, simplifying reality, deriving a positive social identity and enhancing self-esteem (tajfel & turner, 1986; wagner, lampen, & syllwasschy, 1986; brockner, 1988). identifying with the in-group implies that the group membership is linked to an individual’s self-concept, either cognitively (e.g., internalizing cultural values), emotionally (e.g., pride in membership), or both. being different on both surfaceand deep-level characteristics may disrupt this process, as employees do not fulfill the above-mentioned psychological needs. this may result in negative feelings such as hostility towards the out-group (allport, 1954) or a general negative affective state. dissimilarity then appears to be an emotional situation that interferes with identity motives and that is eventually likely to produce negative affect. hence, based on social identity, self-categorization and similarity-attraction arguments, this paper proposes a negative relationship between actual dissimilarity and negative affect. proposition 1a: higher levels of actual surface-level dissimilarity are associated with more negative affect. proposition 1b: higher levels of actual deep-level dissimilarity are associated with more negative affect. affect as mediator: links to discrimination and self-disclosure this paper further examines the above-described affective state as an important mediating variable between dissimilarity and two employee responses. in particular, it suggests that dissimilarity influences affect, which in turn energizes perceptions of subtle discrimination and shapes self-disclosure. more specifically, perceptions of subtle discrimination may also be a result of social identity and similarity attraction (byrne, 1971) dynamics. as discussed above, perceived similarities create interpersonal attraction and positive affect towards similar others, which in turn may lead to positively biased judgments and evaluations of the in-group. on the other hand, homophily biasi (mcpherson & smith-lovin, 1987) and negative affect towards dissimilar others suggest prejudices towards the out-group and the likelihood of increased perceived discrimination. social identity theory further explains prejudice and stereotype, since categorizations and identities result in in-group favoritism and out-group discrimination (diehl, 1990; tajfel, 1982). for example, older employees may favor peers in the same age range and discriminate against younger peers, and vice versa. the negative affective state caused by employee dissimilarity may additionally increase the biased comparisons documented in previous europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 affective reactions to difference 496 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research (ashforth & mael, 1989; kramer, 1991) and hence increase perceptions of discrimination at work. in other words, employees will be more likely to perceive that they are treated unfavorably because of dissimilarity in a social characteristic, and its resulting negative feelings and low self-esteem. moreover, much research indicates that emotions are connected with rationality and reasoning (ashforth & humphrey, 1995; damasio, 1994) and influence the processes through which information is processed — by becoming a basis for inferring reactions (e.g., forgas, 1995, 2000; isen, 2002). accordingly, affect serves as a piece of information (clore, schwarz, & conway, 1993; martin & stoner, 1996) and individuals examine their feelings when they make judgments. research has further suggested that individuals who experience more negative affect tend to perceive their environment less favorably (e.g., bower, 1991; garcia-marques, mackie, claypool, & garcia-marques, 2004). employees that experience negative affect caused by surfaceor deep-level dissimilarity are therefore more likely to perceive and evaluate their peers and work environment less favorably, and perceive themselves as targets of interpersonal discrimination. this negative affectively charged situation may also translate into perceptions of discrimination, in a subconscious effort to avoid cognitive dissonance or as a simple manifestation of the resulting negative feelings. employees who experience negative affect caused by dissimilarity may also be more sensitive and likely to think that negative events at work are not a result of their own actions and attribute them to discrimination. in support of these ideas, sechrist, swim, and mark, (2003) found that negative mood was associated with more perceived discrimination. hence, this paper proposes that dissimilar employees who experience negative affect because of dissimilarity may themselves become the holders of prejudice and perceive more interpersonal discrimination from their peers. proposition 2a: negative affect mediates the positive impact of actual (surfaceand deep-level) dissimilarity on perceived interpersonal discrimination. in addition, this paper proposes that the negative affect caused by employee dissimilarity influences the amount and level of self-disclosure one may engage in at work. the latter is an emotionally charged topic, since employees often are uncomfortable to openly discuss a few personal issues at work, mainly because of uncertainty about reactions or fear of rejection (roloff and johnson, 2001). the negative affective state caused by dissimilarity may further strengthen these fears, because employees will perceive their environment and peers less favorably (e.g., bower, 1991; garcia-marques, mackie, claypool, & garcia-marques, 2004) and hesitate to disclose their identities. they may also examine their feelings when they consider revealing their personal information (clore, schwarz, & conway, 1993; martin & stoner, 1996) and decide not to self-disclose, consistent with their negative feelings. for instance, being a token homosexual may create negative feelings and hesitation to disclose this particular identity. empirical support for these ideas comes from phillips, rothbard, and dumas (2004), who found that even among employees who preferred integrating their work and personal lives, those who were in demographically diverse work groups were less likely to self-disclose to their peers. furthermore, based on sit, dissimilar employees who do not maintain a positive self-concept, they will be more reluctant to disclose their personal information, consistent with their derived negative social identity. since social identity derives from membership to an emotionally significant group and dissimilarity contributes to self-esteem negatively, the resulting negative affect may encourage employees to try to disassociate themselves psychologically from their social category (ashforth & mael, 1989; pratt, 1998) and thus avoid disclosing their identity. on the other hand, employees who are similar to their peers, experience more positive affect and avoid feelings of loneliness, may be more comfortable to disclose non-observable or deep-level personal information. similarity may also be associated with a sense of protection or perceived peer support, which may further help self-disclosure. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 kakarika 497 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, this paper proposes that the negative affect that employees may experience when working in a diverse team shapes the willingness to disclose their identities, consistent with their derived negative social identity. proposition 2b: negative affect mediates the negative impact of actual (surfaceand deep-level) dissimilarity on self-disclosure. the impact of self-disclosure on perceived discrimination another interesting question that awaits research is weather revealing one’s identity leads to lower or heightened perceived interpersonal discrimination at the workplace. this paper attempts to tackle this question by developing two contrasting propositions. first, this article proposes that self-disclosure may lead to lower perceived discrimination. based on psychological studies about the benefits of self-disclosure in other contexts (e.g., d'augelli & hershberger, 1993; ellis & riggle, 1996; garnets & kimmel, 1993), this paper argues that disclosing one’s identity at the workplace may increase confidence and feelings of acceptance and reduce negative thoughts. for instance, disclosing one’s political ideology at work may increase confidence. in particular, classic studies of self-disclosure show that sharing personal information increases positive feelings and enhances interpersonal relationships (for a review see collins & miller, 1994), making people feel closer to each other (jourard & lasakow, 1958; jourard, 1959; worthy, gary & kahn, 1969). there is also evidence suggesting that self-disclosure increases liking for both the discloser and the recipient of information (collins & miller, 1994), as well as evidence showing that the disclosure of personal information reduces bias against out-groups (brewer & miller, 1984; ensari & miller, 2001, 2002; urban & miller, 1998; miller, 2002). based on this evidence, employees who reveal their social identities may like their co-workers more, relate to them in a more open way and perceive less discrimination. in addition, employees who reveal their identity to the rest of their peers may create a situation where their peers are constrained by a kind of social/peer control, which may ‘force’ them to be more careful. for example, avoiding someone who is different may be more intense when only rumors exist, rather than when the whole work team knows about this difference and scrutinizes acts of subtle discrimination. interestingly, empirical studies have shown that self-disclosure may represent an attempt to exercise control over the way in which another person learns of one’s identity when such revelation is inevitable, to frame that information in a positive way or the desire of exercising some degree of control over others’ perceptions (e.g., davies, 1992; miall, 1989; schneider & conrad, 1980). as a consequence, revealing individuals’ membership in a work groupmay lead to fewer reports of perceived interpersonal discrimination. therefore, this paper proposes the following: proposition 3a: higher levels of self-disclosure are associated with lower perceived interpersonal discrimination. nevertheless, the opposite effect may also result from disclosing an identity and increased perceived discrimination becomes another potential outcome. research has shown that attributing negative situations to discrimination or labeling negative incidents as prejudice is self-protective (crocker et al., 1991; crocker & major, 1989). a field study by hebl, foster, mannix, and dovidio (2002) found that job applicants perceived employer negativity and over-assumed that employers would not be interested in hiring them if they knew that they were gay. self-disclosure at work may thus contribute to misperceptions or produce self-fulfilling perceptions, such as perceived interpersonal discrimination, because employees that disclose personal information may be more vigilant about potential signs of bias. for example, revealing one’s sexual orientation may make the employee more vigilant about discrimination from peers. in addition, research has shown that disclosing personal information may actually increase the sense europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 affective reactions to difference 498 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of diversity and social distance in demographically diverse groups (phillips et al., 2006), because it may reveal deep-level characteristics that coincide with surface-level diversity (harrison, price, & bell, 1998; price et al., 2002). in other words, such disclosure of information may actually underline differences instead of similarities, thus further widening the social distance between group members (phillips et al., 2006). the result of this increased social distance may be more actual discrimination at the workplace. for instance, revealing one’s belonging to a stigmatized group, such as the group of homosexuals, may increase social distance and actual discrimination towards the discloser. accordingly, actual discrimination will inevitably be linked to reports of higher perceived discrimination. hence, this paper develops the following contrasting proposition: proposition 3b: higher levels of self-disclosure are associated with higher perceived interpersonal discrimination. moderating effects of perceived dissimilarity the current paper further proposes a moderating role for perceived dissimilarity in the relationship between actual dissimilarity and affect. past research has shown that an individual may subjectively experience diversity differently, because he psychologically belongs to numerous social groups, based on categories that are more or less meaningful and important to his identity (simon & hamilton, 1994; simon, pantaleo, & mummendey, 1995). this is operationalized by perceived dissimilarity, a subjective measure where employees rate how different they think they are from the rest of their peers, in terms of various characteristics (price et al., 2002). therefore, perceived dissimilarity provides a critical check on the social category salience and the strength of self-categorization (turner et al., 1987; brewer, 1979; price et al., 2002). as smith (1993) argues, when a social self-categorization becomes salient, individuals feel specific emotions as group members: “we should rather consider that when group membership is salient, the group functions as a part of the self, and therefore that situations appraised as self-relevant trigger emotions just as they always do” (smith, 1993, p. 303). hence, perceptions of dissimilarity on a specific characteristic indicate that this characteristic is used to determine the out-group, resulting in more competition and subsequent negative affect towards it (wagner et al., 1986). accordingly, the categories in which employees subjectively think they belong become very important and influence the effects of the categories in which they objectively fall. therefore, even though there are multiple social identities that can influence affect at work, this paper proposes that the category with the strongest impact on affect will depend on perceived dissimilarity. proposition 4: perceived (surfaceand deep-level) dissimilarity moderates the relationship between actual (surfaceand deep-level) dissimilarity and negative affect: the relationship is stronger when perceived dissimilarity is higher rather than lower. the above propositions represent an intervening theory of dissimilarity, affect, discrimination, and self-disclosure at the workplace. conclusions and research implications the main rationale of this paper has three parts. first, social identity theory has been used to explain diversity, discrimination and self-disclosure. second, affect is relevant to these topics, because sit assumes that an affective factor is central in social categorizations. third, affect may thus mediate the relationship between dissimilarity and perceived discrimination, as well as the relationship between dissimilarity and self-disclosure at the workplace. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 kakarika 499 http://www.psychopen.eu/ following this logic, the present article highlights a fascinating area for theoretical and empirical exploration and contributes to the literature in the following ways. first, the proposed framework has implications for future research on diverse work teams an area that has produced inconsistent results in the field. since diverse teams have been mainly researched under the sit, which implies that an affective state is caused by dissimilarity, incorporating affect in future research studies may help us better understand the way employees feel when they work in diverse teams. another contribution of the present paper involves understanding the impact of dissimilarity and affect on discrimination and self-disclosure at work. the model makes a first step towards this direction by proposing that affect may act as an important mediator, responding to calls for research on incorporations of affect as an intervening construct in diversity research (ashkanasy et al., 2002). since feelings precede behavior and influence judgments, examining affect as a mediator may offer insights on the way in which employees experience diversity and perceive discrimination or decide to disclose personal information to their peers. hence, this paper stimulates reflection and cross-topic research and calls for including affect in future investigations of these topics. second, the current paper offers two contrasting propositions for the relationship between self-disclosure and discrimination, thus encouraging research that addresses this link. in doing so, it highlights the importance of this relationship, and urges scholars to empirically answer the following interesting research question: does self-disclosure lead to higher or lower perceived discrimination at work? systematic empirical research on the whole model in different contexts is another interesting avenue for future studies, using several validated scales of past research, and employing a longitudinal design. for example, depending on the context that elicits affect, the outcomes of the model may change: an organizational culture that values diversity, for instance, may increase willingness for self-disclosure, despite the negative affect caused by dissimilarity. themodel may also be changed and studied at the team level, in order to examine how group diversity influences group affect/climate and actual group bias/discrimination. results from such research can also be used to offer valuable insights to managers. moreover, even though individuals may have multiple identities, the effect of different characteristics or multiple identities simultaneously has been under-explored. future studies may hence examine possible interactions of being the same on some dimensions/identities and being unique on others, e.g., same race but different gender, and their effects on perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. interaction effects between surfaceand deep-level characteristics is another interesting avenue for future research, for example being different in gender but similar in sexual orientation, e.g., a man and a woman who are both homosexual. researchers conducting future studies may also want to consider whether surface or deep-level dissimilarity at work results in a stronger affective state and subsequent perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. perceived discrimination may also be studied by comparing perceptions that are accurate versus those that are inaccurate, thus examining in a deeper way the mis-interpretations or misperceptions of discrimination. investigating these complex patterns at the workplace may prove beneficial. however, it should be clarified that the above discussion cannot be considered as complete, since the aim of this paper is to tackle one part of the potential links of dissimilarity, affect, perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. the effects of dissimilarity are complex and its impact may also be positive for employee perceptions and behavior, by resulting in positive affect, based on the need for distinctiveness. positive affect may also mediate the relationship between self-disclosure and perceived interpersonal discrimination. thus, this paper avoids simple conclusions and argues that dissimilarity does influence self-disclosure and perceived discrimination indirectly, through its europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 affective reactions to difference 500 http://www.psychopen.eu/ impact on negative affect. accordingly, careful examination of both the negative and positive affect caused by dissimilarity may extend the literature by shedding light to potential affective ambivalence or curvilinear effects of dissimilarity, influencing reactions and perceptions in complex ways. taken together, closer ties between affect, dissimilarity and discrimination research may help explain the full experience of the way employees feel and react to being different, and fully understand the phenomena of perceived discrimination and self-disclosure. notes i) homophily bias refers to the tendency to polarize and bond with similar others. references allport, g. w. 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(1972). homogeneity and heterogeneity of group membership. in c. g. mcclintock (ed.), experimental social psychology (pp. 385-411). new york: holt, rinebart and winston. about the author maria kakarika is an assistant professor of leadership and organizational behavior at euromed management school. she has a phd in management (ie business school), a msc in industrial relations and personnel management (london school of economics), and a bsc in economics and business administration (aristotle university of thessaloniki). she was also a visiting scholar at arizona state university. her research interests include issues of team diversity and relational demography, affective reactions to the workplace, peer feedback in multicultural teams, and global leadership competences. prior to her doctoral studies, she worked in the banking industry and filled positions in hr training and development. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 492–506 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.342 affective reactions to difference 506 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1018782226876 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2393472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.4.894 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1986.tb00697.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0027990 http://www.psychopen.eu/ affective reactions to difference the importance and relevance of affect theory and propositions affect as a consequence of dissimilarity affect as mediator: links to discrimination and self-disclosure the impact of self-disclosure on perceived discrimination moderating effects of perceived dissimilarity conclusions and research implications notes references about the author multi-rater or 360-degree emotional intelligence assessment benjamin r. palmer organisational psychology research unit, centre for neuropsychology swinburne university of technology con stough organisational psychology research unit, centre for neuropsychology swinburne university of technology email: bpalmer@swin.edu.au abstract in this paper we discuss the potential utility of multi-rater or 360-degree measured ei over self-reported and ability measured ei. we then discuss the development of a workplace 360 measure of emotional intelligence designed specifically for development purposes. several research studies testing workplace samples are presented which examine the internal consistency reliability of the rater forms of the 360 instrument; compare the means and standard deviations of selfand other-rated ei; and the relationship between how people rate themselves on the instrument and how they rate others. the research findings demonstrate the utility of multi-rater 360-degree ei assessment instruments, which is discussed specifically in terms of leadership development. the psychometric properties of the 360-degree swinburne university emotional intelligence test multi-rater or 360-degree assessment instruments are very popular development tools amongst organisational psychologists and managerial consultants, particularly as a medium for enhancing leaders knowledge of how others perceive their performance and/or behaviour at work (sala, 2003). such assessment instruments typically comprise behaviourally based declarative statements (as items) and likert-type response scales that are systematically scored by a set of so-called “raters”. raters can include the subject themselves (or “self-ratings”), and manager(s), peers and direct reports ratings thus the term 360-degree. besides typical psychometric research studies on the reliability, and factor structure of multi-rater assessment instruments, research in this area has also focused on the level of congruence between raters scores (atwater & yammarino, 1992; church, 1997; johnstone & ferstl, 1999); interrater reliability (greguras & robie, 1998); the comparative predictive validity of different rater groups (i.e., self-scores vs peer-rated scores; sala & dwight, 2002); and the efficacy of multi-factor feedback on performance and/or behavioural improvement (church, 2000; sala, 2003). collectively this research has demonstrated that multi-rater assessment instruments can provide superior performance data, promote participant self-awareness, and facilitate behavioural change. indeed multi-rater assessment instruments are widely utilised for these reasons amongst the corporate sector, with market research suggesting that all fortune 500 companies have used multi-rater assessments in some form (london & smither, 1995). equally as popular of late is the construct of emotional intelligence (ei; salovey & mayer, 1990) and associated assessment and development methodologies. indeed when the harvard business review published an article on this topic in 1998 (what makes a leader?; goleman, 1998a), it quickly became the reviews most requested reprint for the last 40 years (goleman, 2001). ei refers to abilities to do with emotions including (but not limited to), the ability to perceive, understand, utilise and manage one’s own and others emotions (mayer & salovey, 1997). the rise in popularity of ei and its application as a medium for managerial development similarly stems from a growing body of research that has demonstrated that ei underlies or predicts effective leadership (barling, slater & kelloway, 2000; caruso, mayer & salovey, in press; palmer, gardner & stough, 2003); and associated popular literature that suggests that ei can be developed and that doing so may lead to enhanced interpersonal skills and leadership performance (goleman, 1998; 2002). research in this area has also seen the development of 360-degree multi-rater ei assessment scales that have been designed specifically as developmental tools (e.g., bar-on eq-360, www.mhs.com; emotional competency inventory, eci, boyatzis, goleman, & rhee, (2000). multi-rater measures of ei may prove to be one of the most valuable methods of measuring leaders ei in the workplace. critics of the multi-rater method for measuring ei have argued that multi-rater measures may never provide a “true” index of one’s actual ei ability (mayer et al., 2000). mayer et al. (2000), have argued that self-ratings (in a multi-rater paradigm) are filtered through the individuals self-concept and as such provide an indication of their beliefs about their ei, (or perceived ei), rather than their actual capacity. similarly, mayer et al. (2000) have also argued that ratings from others (in a multi-rater paradigm, e.g., peers, managers and/or direct reports) simply reflect different rater groups’ perceptions of the subjects ei as opposed to their actual ei ability. indeed research with multi-rater assessment instruments has shown that different rater groups often report different (and sometimes incongruent) perceptions of subjects’ performance and/or behaviour at work (becton & schraeder, 2004). however, as noted by london and smither (1995), “…in the socially constructed world in which employees work, others’ judgements about them (no matter how biased they may be) constitute an important reality”, which in the case of multi-rater ei assessment results, may not reflect one’s actual ei ability, but rather the extent to which the subject demonstrates emotionally intelligent behaviour in the workplace. the question that remains unanswered here is what is more important in terms of leadership effectiveness and/or success and the prediction thereof, the leaders actual ei ability, or the extent to which they demonstrate emotionally intelligent behaviour at work? in the context of using an ei assessment for leadership development purposes, it is conceivable that a leader may have high levels of ei and achieve high scores on an ability-based assessment of ei yet either; (a) not be effectively using their ei at work for whatever reason; (b) choose not to act in an emotionally intelligent way with the people they work with; or (c) indeed choose to use their ei in a manipulative and interpersonally maladaptive fashion. in this context the ability assessment results may show high ei and little insight is provided to both the practitioner and subject into their leadership effectiveness from an ei standpoint. in contrast, if a multi-rater assessment instrument was utilised and the same leader was provided ratings of their ei from the people they work with (e.g., direct reports, peers, managers) it is hard to imagine the person achieving high scores from others. in this latter case it is logical to anticipate that the leader who has high ei but does not demonstrate emotionally intelligent behaviours at work, will be rated as low in ei by others and much more valuable insight may be provided to both the practitioner and leader in the context of 360-degree feedback and development. in this sense it could be argued that multi-rater measures of ei may be as valuable if not more valuable than ability based measure as a means of providing the basis of development. despite this potential utility and the advent of multi-rater ei assessment scales very little has been published on the psychometric properties and developmental utility of them. this paper describes a multi-rater ei assessment scale developed at swinburne university, namely, the genos 360 ei assessment scale or genos-360; palmer & stough, 2001). some preliminary psychometric analyses of the genos 360 are presented and the findings are discussed in terms of the potential utility of the instrument and other 360-ei assessment instruments in leadership development programs. the genos-360 assesses five definitive facets of the ei construct determined via a large factor analytic study that involved six of the predominant scales of ei available at the time including: (1) the mayer, salovey, caruso emotional intelligence test (msceit; mayer, salovey & caruso, 1999); (2) the bar-on emotional quotient inventory (bar-on, 1997); (3) the trait meta-mood scale (salovey et al., 1995); (4) the twenty-item toronto alexithymia scale-ii (tas-20; bagby, taylor & parker, 1994); (5) the scale by schutte et al (1998); and finally, (6) the scale by tett et al., (1997). from this study (palmer et al., 2001) five common or definitive facets of the ei construct were determined including; (1) emotional recognition and expression, the ability to perceive and express one’s own emotions ; (2) understanding emotions external, the ability to perceive and understand the emotions of others and those inherent in workplace environments (e.g., staff meetings, board rooms etc) ; (3) emotions direct cognitio, the extent to which emotions and emotional information are incorporated into reasoning and decision making ; (4) emotional management, the ability to manage both positive and negative moods and emotions within oneself and others ; and (5) emotional control, the ability to effectively control strong emotional states experienced at work such as anger, stress, anxiety and frustration . these five common dimensions represent our empirically-based model of emotional intelligence which we designed the genos-360 to assess. the genos-360 comprises both self-report and 360-degree rating forms that ask people to rate the extent to which the subject demonstrates emotionally intelligent behaviour at work according to the five facets of ei previous mentioned. the test itself comprises 64 declarative statements and a five-point rating scale and takes around 12-15 minutes to complete. there are a balanced number of positively and negatively phrased items that help determine inconsistent response patterns and illogical responding. in summary, the test provides insight into cross-situational consistencies in emotionally intelligent behaviour in the workplace and hence one’s underlying level of ei. in this paper we report the internal consistency of the rater forms of the genos-360 instrument using a relatively large self-other rater sample comprising managers direct reports and peers and the relationship between how people rate themselves (on the self-rating form) and how they rate others (on the rater forms). we do not report on the congruency between self-ratings and ratings from others, that is, the relationship between how people perceive themselves and how others rate them on the genos-360. research has consistently demonstrated a general lack of congruence between self-ratings and ratings made by others, although direct reports, peers and manager ratings have been shown to moderately correlate at times (e.g., r=.35; sala & dwight, 2002). a general consensus amongst the multi-rater literature is that different rater groups typically observe different facets of the ratees’ behaviour and that this is reflected in the typical differences found between rater groups (borman, 1974). indeed according to contingency theories of leadership, effective leaders typically adjust their behaviour and leadership style according to the situation and/or individual they are leading (becton & schraeder, 2004). in contrast a question we argue is more relevant to ei multi-rater measures is: to what extent does one’s own ei (or perceived ei) influence the way you rate other peoples ei? if there were moderate to high relationships between how people rate their own ei and other peoples’ ei, this may have broader practical ramifications for the use of the instrument. such a find may suggest that you need high perceived and/or actual ei to rate other peoples’ ei and therefore raters would need to be carefully chosen. alternatively if little relationship existed between how people rate themselves and others this may indicate that you do not need ei to rate someone else’s ei on the instrument. method participants the sample comprised 54 subjects (42 males and 12 females ranging in age from 30 to 55 years; sd = 6.2 years), and 406 raters comprising 54 managers, 194 peers and 157 direct reports. on average each subject had approximately seven raters, one manager, three direct reports and 3 peers. the subjects were senior level australian managers from a broad range of industries across both private and public sector organisations within the state of victoria. the annual salaries of the subjects ranged from a low of $69,000.00 to a high of $300,000.00 (m = $160,000; sd = $57,779). means and standard deviations the means, standard deviations, and internal consistency reliability (coefficient alpha α) for each of the dimensions of the test pertaining to the sample are presented in table 1. for comparative purposes, table 2 shows the means, standard deviations, and internal consistency reliability (coefficient alpha α) for each of the dimensions of the self-test (self-genos) pertaining to a second normative population sample. table 1 means, standard deviations, and reliability coefficients for the genos-360 scale # items mean standard deviation a total ei 64 224.53 22.91 .94 emotional recognition & expression 11 39.91 5.53 .79 understanding of emotions external 20 74.86 9.41 .93 emotions direct cognition 12 31.57 6.63 .79 emotional management 12 43.61 6.12 .85 emotional control 9 34.56 4.47 .80 as shown in table 1, full-scale reliability is high as is the reliability for each of the sub-scales with the rater sample. table 2 means, standard deviations, and reliability coefficients for the normative population sample on the self-genos scale # items mean standard deviation a total ei 64 225.37 20.14 .91 emotional recognition & expression 11 38.70 5.34 .78 understanding of emotions external 20 76.54 7.78 .86 emotions direct cognition 12 35.19 6.14 .81 emotional management 12 42.24 5.69 .81 emotional control 9 32.71 4.66 .80 as shown in table 1, full-scale reliability is high as is the reliability for each of the sub-scales for the normative population sample on the self-genos. the general sample consists of 1522 individuals (984 females, 487 males, 51 did not nominate their sex), the ages of individuals who completed the self-genos ranged from 18 – 72 (mean: 40.43, sd: 10.39). of the people who supplied their level of education (n~450): 10% had completed their high school certificate, 31% had completed a tertiary certificate, 30% had completed an undergraduate degree, and 29% had completed a postgraduate degree. as can be seen by comparing and contrasting table 1 and 2 the means, standard deviations and internal consistency reliability of the rater sample and normative population sample are relatively comparative indicating some consistency between how people rate themselves and how raters rate subjects ei. 360-degree rating congruence table 3 details the rating congruence between 360 degree and self-ratings of 171 people having undertaken the genos-360. this analysis was undertaken to assess for instance if somebody has low self-reported understanding of emotions (ue) of others, is that person more likely to rate others low on this dimension and visa versa. this analysis was undertaken for every one of the five dimensions of the genos-360, ie if i was low in emotional control, would i then be likely to rate others low on emotional control? table 3 intercorrelations between emotional intelligence self and 360 degree ratings self rated emotional intelligence raters emotional intelligence ere ue edc em ec ere 0.404** 0.332 0.194* 0.057 -.009 ue 0.298** 0.356** 0.227** 0.136 0.118 edc 0.184* -0.028 0.045 -0.151* -0.153* em 0.135 0.145 0.064 0.177* 0.198** ec -0.058 0.018 -0.123 0.238** 0.280** note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 ere = emotional recognition and expression; eu = understanding emotions external; edc = emotions direct cognition; em = emotional management; ec = emotional control. based on the random sample of 171 people taken from the genos database a small effect is evident, accounting for not more than about 0-16% of the variance (relationship). to summarize: self report ere correlates at 0.40 with ratings of others ere (16%) self report ue correlates at 0.36 with ratings of ue (13%) self report edc correlates at 0.05 with ratings of ue (.25%) self report em correlates at 0.18 with ratings of em (2.0%) self report ec correlates at 0.28 with ratings of ec (7.8%) the highest correlation between how someone rates themselves and how they rate other people was found between the variables that you would expect, emotional recognition and expression (ere) and understanding emotions (ue). despite this, there seems to be no systematic pattern related to ones own ei self-ratings and their ratings of others. conclusion the findings presented in this study show that ei can be reliably rated by others and that the means and standard deviations of a rater sample are similar to those of a self-rating sample. the findings also show that little relationship exists between how people rate themselves and how they rate others. thus people with self-rated low ei can typically rate others as high or visa versa. this finding suggests that one does not need insight into ei or indeed perhaps actual ei in order to provide a valid perception of how they perceive someone else’s emotionally intelligent behaviour in the workplace. while this data provides some initial insight into the how people rate other peoples emotionally intelligent behaviours in the workplace many questions remain unanswered and need to be further addressed. these questions include; what is the relationship between self and other ratings; are higher levels of congruence between self and other ratings associated with various management and leadership outcomes (such as performance and leadership effectiveness as has been shown in other multi-rater research); what are better predictors of leadership effectiveness and performance, that is, self-rated, direct-report rated, peer-rated or management rated ei; and when compared with self-ratings only, can ratings from others enhance self-awareness and behavioural change and/or emotional development as has been previously shown in research (e.g., church, 2000). research with multi-rater assessment instruments has shown that (a) self-ratings are typically poor predictors of performance (church, 2000; harris & schaubroech, 1988; sala & dwight, 2002); (b) self-ratings are typically positively biased (church, 1997; podsakoff & organ, 1986; sala, 2003); and (c) that ratings from others can serve an important role in providing insights into the extent to which others perceive certain behaviours and/or levels of performance associated with a leader (sala, 2002). at the outset we argued that multi-rater or 360 degree measures of ei may play an important role in providing development practitioners and the leaders they work with, with additional insight into the extent to which others perceive them to be displaying emotionally intelligent behaviours in the workplace. an important next step in this area will be to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach over and above simply self-rated insight in ei leadership development programs. references atwater, l.e., & yammarino, f.j. 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(1998b). working with emotional intelligence . bloomsbury publishing, london. goleman, d. (2001). emotional intelligence: issues in paradigm building. in c. cherniss and d.goleman (eds). the emotionally intelligence workplace. new york : jossey-bass. johnstone, j.w. & ferstl, k.l. (1999). the effects of inter-rater and self other agreement on performance improvement following upward feedback. personnel psychology, 52, 217-303. london, m., & smither, j.w. (1995). can multi-source feedback change perceptions of goal accomplishment, self-evaluations, and performance-related outcomes? personnel psychology, 48, 803-839. mayer, j., caruso, d.r., & salovey, p. (2000). selecting a measure of emotional intelligence: the case for ability scales. in r. bar-on & j.d.a., parker, (eds). the handbook of emotional intelligence. (pp.320-342) san francisco : jossey-bass inc. mayer, j. & salovey, p. (1997). what is emotional intelligence? in p. salovey & d. sluyter (eds.). emotional development and emotional intelligence: implications for educators. (pp3-31). new york : basicbooks, inc. mayer, j.d., salovey, p., & caruso, d. (1999). instruction manual for the msceit: mayer salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test, multi-health systems, toronto. palmer, b.r., gardner, l., & stough, c. (2003). measuring emotional intelligence in the workplace with the swinburne university emotional intelligence test. published in the proceedings of the first international conference on contemporary management (iccm): emotional intelligence in organisations, sep. 2003 palmer, b., & stough, c. (2001). workplace sueit: swinburne university emotional intelligence test – descriptive report , organisational psychology research unit, swinburne university, au sala, f. (2003). executive blind spots: discrepancies between selfand other-ratings. consulting psychology journal: practice and research, 55, 222-229. sala, f. & dwight, s.a. (2002). predicting executive performance with multi-rater surveys: whom you ask makes a difference. consulting psychology journal: practice and research, 54, 166-172. salovey, p. & mayer, j.d. (1990). emotional intelligence. imagination, cognition and personality, 9, 185-211. salovey, p., mayer, j.d., goldman, s.l., turvey, c., & palfai, t.p. (1995). emotional attention, clarity, and repair: exploring emotional intelligence using the trait meta-mood scale. in j.w. pennebaker (ed.), emotion, disclosure and health (pp.125-154). washington, d.c. : american psychological association. schutte, n.s., malouff, j.m., hall, l.e., haggerty, d.j., cooper, j.t., golden, c.j., dornheim, l. (1998). development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. personality and individual differences, 25, 167-177. tett, r., wang, a., thomas, m., griebler, j., & linkovich, t. (april 4, 1997). testing a model of emotional intelligence . paper presented at the 1997 annual convention of the southeastern psychological association, atlanta, ga. microsoft word 11. 15th world congress of psychophysiology.doc dear colleagues and friends, on behalf of the international organization of psychophysiology, the hungarian community of neuroscientists extend their warm invitation and welcome you to the 15th world congress of psychophysiology the olympics of the brain iop2010 to be held in budapest, hungary, august 30 – september 4, 2010. the hungarian academy of sciences has a deeply rooted tradition in the advancement of scientific knowledge in general, and in neuroscientific psychophysiology in particular. in fact, the exponential ascent of knowledge about the brain – body – behavior – environment interrelationships, officially represented by the international organization of psychophysiology, is at the heart of hungarian scientific endeavors. eminent hungarian neuroscientists, since the 1950’s have inspired psychophysiologists around the world. among others, we can mention jános szentágothai with his discoveries on neuronal interconnections, endre grastyán, who established the functional role of hippocampal theta rhythm in motivation and learning, györgy ádám, a pioneer of visceroception and györgy karmos who investigated intracortical evoked potential correlates of learning and perception in animal models. stemming from the origins mentioned above, and taking psychophysiology in its broader sense, behavioral neuroscience is widely cultivated at various universities in hungary at the medical schools and psychology departments in budapest, pécs, szeged and debrecen. following the high standards set by the international organization of psychophysiology, the program of this 15th world congress of psychophysiology will be composed of invited keynote presentations, symposia and poster sessions on the most advanced findings on all aspects, branches and areas of psychophysiology as a leading neuroscience (see main topics of the world congress). all accepted abstracts will be published in the international journal of psychophysiology which will be distributed to all registered delegates at the world congress site in budapest. 147 without any doubt, budapest is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is deserving the title, “pearl of the danube.” a highly rewarding scientific program and an exciting and memorable social experience amidst the splendid grandeur of budapest is awaiting for you. it is within this spirit that on behalf of the international organization of psychophysiology, associated with the united nations (new york), the world congress committee and the local organizing committee (hungary) are deeply honored and moved to welcome the international communicy and all of you to the 15th world congress of psychophysiology – the olympics of the brain – iop2010 in budapest, hungary. professor márk molnár chairman, world congress committee chairman, local organizing committee (hungary) deadline for submission of abstracts: april 16, 2010 visit the website for more information http://www.world-psychophysiology.org/iop2010/index.htm emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 279-294 www.ejop.org improvement of working memory performance by training is not transferable lucie corbin université de bourgogne valérie camos université de bourgogne and institut universitaire de france abstract working memory (wm) usually refers to a cognitive system devoted to the simultaneous maintenance and processing of information which plays a crucial role in high-level cognition. recently, barrouillet and collaborators showed the importance of controlling the time course of cognitive activities to assess wm capacities. therefore, they developed a new paradigm to systematically explore the functioning of wm that involved simple but time-constrained activities as processing component. in comparison with traditional tasks, these computer-paced span tasks provide a more accurate evaluation of wm capacities and turned out to be the most predictive of complex cognitive achievements. the present study was the first attempt to evaluate the improvement of working memory resulting from training by repetition of this type of span tasks. participants were trained during twelve sessions with a span task in which the duration of the concurrent activity was varied to ease the implementation of an attentional refreshing mechanism. the transfer effects were evaluated with a similar span task with a different type of material to be memorized. results showed a significant effect of training, but no transfer effect: trained participants did not outperform a control group, and their performance in the second task did not differ from the first task. thus, we suggested that the improvement in recall performance does not rely on an increased efficiency of a domain-general process (i.e., refreshing), but on the discovery and use of more efficient encoding strategies. key words: working memory, training, transfer, computer-paced span tasks http://www.ejop.org/ improvement of working memory performance by training 280 working memory (wm) is a capacity limited system devoted to the simultaneous maintenance and processing of information. wm is involved in a wide range of complex cognitive activities, such as reasoning, problem solving, planning, and learning (baddeley & hitch, 1974; barrouillet, 1996; conway, kane, bunting, hambrick, wilhelm, & engle, 2005; daneman & carpenter, 1980). because wm capacity is a major determinant in achieving complex cognitive activities, researches on training of wm received recently a growing interest. within the literature about wm training, two streams of research could be distinguished according to their focus on domain-general or domain-specific components of the wm system. on the one hand, in several studies, wm is enhanced through the repetition of mental activities, and this training improves performance in other cognitive tasks such as cognitive control, fluid intelligence, or reasoning (chein & morrison, 2010; jaeggi, buschkuehl, jonides, & perrig, 2008; klingberg et al., 2005; persson & reuter-lorenz, 2008). on the other hand, other studies are interested by the improvement in wm performance through training based on encoding strategies (bailey, dunlosky, & kane, 2008; caretti, borella, & de beni, 2007; mcnamara & scott, 2001; turley-ames & whitfield, 2003). the present study aimed at filling the gap between these two streams and evaluated the impact of domain-general mechanism and encoding strategies in the improvement of wm resulting from training by repetition. moreover, because wm capacities are related to performance in complex cognitive activities, traditional wm span tasks included as concurrent activities tasks that are thought to require a high level of executive control (e.g., problem solving, reading comprehension, reasoning, mental calculation). however, recent studies have shown that very simple but time-constrained activities (e.g., reading or judging the parity of digits or the location of squares) could have an equally detrimental effect on recall as complex activities (barrouillet & camos, 2001; barrouillet, bernardin, & camos, 2004). therefore, barrouillet and collaborators have developed a new paradigm to systematically explore the functioning of wm using wm span tasks that were not selfpaced, as traditional tasks, but computer-paced (barrouillet et al., 2004; barrouillet, bernardin, portrat, & camos, 2007; camos, lagner, barrouillet, 2009; vergauwe, barrouillet and camos, 2010). moreover, it was been demonstrated that these new computer-paced span tasks provide a more accurate evaluation of wm capacities than the more classical span task and are better predictor of cognitive achievement (barrouillet, camos, morlaix, & suchaut, 2008; lépine, bernardin, & barrouillet, 2005). the assumption is that the temporal constraints of this type of task reduce the use of possible strategies for coping with the specific demands of the dual-task paradigm. thus, the present study was also the first attempt to evaluate training effects with such span tasks. europe’s journal of psychology 281 within the domain-general stream of research, wm performance was improved through the repetition of either a wm span task (e.g., reading span task, operation span task or n-back task) or an immediate serial recall task (e.g., letter or digit span tasks). moreover, the positive effect of such training could transfer to other cognitive tasks such as general fluid intelligence, cognitive control, reasoning or reading comprehension (chein & morrison, 2010; jaeggi et al., 2008; klingberg et al., 2005; verhaeghen, cerella & basak, 2004). to account for transfer effects, these studies targeted domain-general processes that support complex cognition. for example, verhaeghen, cerella and basak (2004) proposed that wm training increases recall performance by expanding the capacity of the focus of attention. recently, transfer to multiple and disparate measures of complex cognition (e.g., reading comprehension, verbal or spatial reasoning) was taken as evidence by chein and morrison (2010) that training has an impact on a domain-general mechanism, probably by improving cognitive control (see also klingberg et al., 2005). more especially, they suggested that the coordination of information maintenance in the face of additional processing demands would be enhanced. this suggestion echoes what we describe in the time-based resource-sharing (tbrs) model as the main mechanism responsible for performance in wm complex span tasks (barrouillet & camos, 2007; barrouillet et al., 2004, 2007). in the tbrs model, attention is a limited resource, which is continuously switched between maintenance and processing to permit the maintenance of memory traces in face of concurrent processing in complex span tasks. when attention is required by some processing steps, memory traces fade away, because of a time-based decay. as a consequence, increasing the duration during which attention could be dedicated to maintenance, i.e., switched away from processing, should result in better recall performance. for example, we asked young adults to maintain letters while judging either the location of a digit (up or down) on a screen or its parity. as expected and for both tasks, recall performance decreased when the proportion of time during which attention could be dedicated to maintenance was reduced (barrouillet et al., 2007, exp. 3). thus, this refreshing of the memory traces could be the locus of the change induces by training. however, other studies showed that recall performance in span tasks are dependent on encoding strategies. individual differences in strategy use can account for some of the performance variance in complex span tasks (bailey, et al., 2008). indeed, wm spans were higher when individual reported using effective strategy (e.g., sentence generation, imagery) than less effective ones. in another study focused also on individual differences, engle, cantor and carullo (1992) found that resource allocation at encoding correlated with wm spans. high-span adults devoted more time at encoding the target words when recall was required than when it was not. improvement of working memory performance by training 282 participants are then able to adapt strategically their encoding of the memory items. when trained to use encoding strategy like mental images, old and young adults improved memorization of words compared to a control group without any training (caretti et al., 2007). similarly but only through instructions to use an encoding strategy (chaining) on a immediate recall task, young adults improved recall performance in this task, but also in a wm span task for which the memory items were similar (mc namara & scott, 2001). the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of training through repetition of the new computer-paced wm span task. according to the first stream of research, improvement in recall performance could result from a more efficient refreshing of the memory traces. however, in accordance with the work on encoding strategies, this improvement could also result from changes in encoding strategy, at least partially. to train participants, we used the parity judgment span task, i.e., a computer-paced wm span task in which letters have to be maintained while judging the parity of digits. to ensure that improvement in wm performance relies on domain-general maintenance mechanism, participants have to read aloud the digits, which impedes subvocal rehearsal. moreover, the rates of presentation of the digits to be processed varied, either 800, 1200 or 1500 ms per digit. this increase in duration would ease the switching of attention from processing to maintenance and the implementation of refreshing. as already reported in the literature, recall performance should increase across the training sessions. however, if this improvement relies on an increasing efficiency of the refreshing, performance on a similar wm span task should benefit from this training. on the contrary, if the improvement in recall performance depends even partially on discovery and use of efficient encoding strategy, this effect being material-specific should disappear for a second wm task in which a different type of material (numbers instead of letters) had to be maintained. to evaluate the transfer effect, a second wm span task, the location judgment span task, was presented to the same participants (i.e., experimental group) and to a control group who had no prior training. in this span task, numbers were maintained while the location (up or down) of letters was judged. the overall structure of this second task was similar to the task used in the training phase, with three different durations for the presentation of letters and participants reading aloud the letters to impede subvocal rehearsal. to reduce both potential representation-based interference between the material to maintain and the one to process and practice effect on the processing component, different judgment tasks were inserted in the two wm span tasks. if the improvement in wm performance relies on the increased efficiency of the refreshing, the experimental group should outperform the control group. however, if the improvement observed in the training phase depends on encoding strategy, the recall performance of the europe’s journal of psychology 283 two groups should not differed, and both groups should benefit from the repetitions of the second wm span task. finally, we evaluated long-term impact of training by asking the experimental group to perform one more time the parity judgment span task one month after their last training session. method participants eight adults1 (6 females; mean age = 30; 5 years; sd = 5;3 years) participated as volunteers. four of them were assigned to the experimental group (3 females; mean age = 30;9 years; sd = 6;5 years) and the four other were assigned to the control group (3 females; mean age = 30;0 years; sd = 4;9 years), as such the two groups were broadly matched in age and sex. material and procedure two complex span tasks were used. the parity judgment task was presented to the experimental group to evaluate practice effects. the location judgment task was administrated to both the experimental and control groups for accessing transfer effects. the parity judgment span task participants of the experimental group performed the parity judgment span task in which they had to memorize series of eight consonants while judging the parity of digits. four digits were sequentially presented after each consonant. these digits were randomly selected from 1 to 9, except 5 to have as many even as odd digits. the immediate repetition of the same digit was avoided. the digits were presented at three different rates: 800 ms per digit in the fast rate, 1200 and 1600 ms for the medium and the slow rates, respectively. the consonants of the memory lists were randomly selected among all consonants in the alphabet except w, which is trisyllabic in french. no consonant was repeated among a list. the size of the lists exceeded the size of the sequences classically presented in working memory span tasks. in a pre-test with lists of six consonants, our participants reached more than 90% of correct recall (mean = 94%; sd =1.3%). because such a high rate of recall would not allow for much improvement, we choose to present longer lists. 1 the two authors and 6 volunteers from the department participated. in the results, no difference appeared between the authors and the other participants. improvement of working memory performance by training 284 the course of events for each trial was as follows: the temporal condition was announced in the middle of the screen (e.g., ―fast rate: 800ms‖). next, a ready signal (an asterisk) centered on the screen for 1000 ms was followed by the first consonant presented for 1000 ms. this letter was immediately followed by the first digit to be processed. each of the four digits was presented for 800 ms, 1200 ms, or 1600 ms for the fast, medium, or slow rate, respectively. when the fourth digit was presented, the next consonant appeared, and so on. at the end of the trial, the word rappel [recall] was displayed on screen (figure 1). participants were asked to read aloud each letter and each digit, to judge the parity of each digit as fast as possible without sacrificing accuracy by pressing either a left or a right key for odd or even, respectively, and to write down the remembered letters in correct order at the recall signal. they recalled the letters by filling out frames containing the appropriate number of boxes. they had to leave a blank box if they do not remember a letter. five series were created for each temporal condition, and the 15 trials were randomly presented. recall performance was computed as percentage of letters correctly recalled in the correct position. response time and accuracy during the parity judgment task were also recorded. for the whole experiment, participants were tested 13 times with this parity judgment span task. they first performed 12 sessions, once a day, over a period of 15 consecutive days and were then tested one more time, one month after their last training session, for the post-test session. figure 1: schematic depiction of the wm span tasks the location judgment span task the experimental and control groups performed the location judgment span task which had the same structure as the parity judgment span task (figure 1). in this task, participants had to memorize series of eight numbers while judging the location of consonants presented. each number was followed by a series of four consonants sequentially displayed on the screen at three different rates of presentation (800, 1200 and 1600 ms per letter of the fast, medium, and slow rates, respectively). these consonants were randomly selected from all the consonants of the alphabet except europe’s journal of psychology 285 w, and immediate repetition of the same letter was avoided. the consonants were centered and randomly presented on one of two possible locations 15 mm apart either in the upper or the lower part of the screen. participants judged the location of each consonant by pressing either a left or a right key for lower and upper location, respectively. the numbers to be remembered were randomly selected among a set of 19 possible numbers. because numbers in the first decade are irregular in french and made of one or two words, we choose to use the regular second and third decade (from 21 to 39), in which the length of number words is constant. the repetitions of numbers among a list were avoided. participants were asked to read aloud each number and each letter, to judge the location of each letter as fast as possible without sacrificing accuracy, and to write down the remembered numbers in correct order by filling out frames containing the appropriate number of boxes. a box was left blank if a number could not be remembered. five series were created for each temporal condition, and the 15 trials were randomly presented. recall performance was computed as percentage of numbers correctly recalled in the correct position. response time and accuracy during the location judgment task were also recorded. participants were tested with this procedure six times once a day over a period of eight consecutive days. results we first accessed the training effects on the experimental group, which performed 12 times the parity judgment span task. then, we analyzed the transfer effects by comparing the performance in the location judgment span task of the experimental group to the control group, and by comparing the performance of the experimental group in the two span tasks. finally, we evaluated long-term effects of training in the experimental group. training effects participants paid sufficient attention to the parity judgment task during the experimental sessions, because all of them achieved at least 80% correct responses on the parity judgment task in all the sessions. the percentage of errors (3%) and the response time (554 ms) did not differ across the training sessions, f(11,33) = 1.29, p > .10, 2 p = .30, and f(11,33) = 1.36, p > .10, 2 p = .31, respectively. participants committed slightly more errors in the fast rate (6%) than in the two other rates (2%), f(1,3) = 21.34, p < .05, 2 p = .88, although this difference failed to reach significance in response time, f(1,3) = 6.57, p = .08, 2 p = .69. improvement of working memory performance by training 286 a 12 (session 1 to 12) x 3 (rates: fast, medium, or slow) analysis of variance (anova) was performed on the mean percentage of recall. recall performance increased across the sessions from 45% for the first session to 95% for the last session, f(11,33) = 31.04, p < .0001, 2 p = .91. this increase of recall performance was very strong especially at the beginning of training because the performance reached 91% in only six sessions, f(5,15) = 21.92, p < .0001, 2 p = .88. from the seventh session, this increase of recall performance slowed down towards a plateau, and the effect of the training sessions became non significant, f(5,15) = 1.1, p > .10, 2 p = .26, (figure 2). increasing the duration available to process the digits resulted in significantly higher spans (75%, 85% vs. 89% for fast, medium, and slow rates, respectively), f(2,6) = 18.75, p < .01, 2 p = .86. however, this effect was mainly due to the significant difference between the fast rate and the other two rates, f(1,3) = 26.64, p < .05, 2 p = .90, whereas the medium and the slow rates did not differ, f(1,3) = 2.93, p > .10, 2 p = .49. the interaction between the sessions and the rates of presentation was not significant f < 1. furthermore, the curve of mean recall performance according to sessions showed a significant logarithmic fit typical for learning curves, f(1,10) = 19.80, p < .005, whose equation is y = 48.85 + 47.19 x log10(x) and r2 = .66. this logarithmic trend was also confirmed for each rate (r2 = .78, p < .001, r2 = .62, p < .005, and r2 = .52, p < .01, for fast, medium, and slow rates, respectively). moreover, the learning curve was steeper for the fast rate; the slope of the logarithmic fit decreasing for the medium and the slow rates (55, 45, and 42 for fast, medium, and slow rates, respectively). figure 2: mean percentage of recall according to the training sessions and the rates. the plain line represents the logarithmic fit 0 20 40 60 80 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 post testtraining session m e a n p e r c e n ta g e o f r e c a ll fast medium slow europe’s journal of psychology 287 transfer effects the percentage of errors (5%) and the response time (517 ms) for the location judgment task did not differ between the groups (experimental vs. control), fs < 1. participants made slightly more errors and were faster in the fast rate (9% and 477 ms) than in the two others (4% and 536 ms), f(1,6) = 9.37, p < .05, 2 p = .61 and f(1,7) = 14.73, p < .01, 2 p = .68, respectively. whereas the response time and the percentage of errors significantly decreased across sessions, f(5,30) = 12.55, p < .0001, 2 p = .68, and f(5,30) = 4.13, p < .01, 2 p = .41, respectively. however, none of these effects interacted with the groups, ps > .29. to compare the performance of the two groups, a 2 (groups: experimental vs. control) x 6 (session 1 to 6) x 3 (rates: fast, medium, or slow) anova was performed on the mean percentage of recall. as for the parity judgment span task, recall significantly increased across sessions, f(5,30) = 12.0, p < .0001, 2 p = 0.67, and with the increasing duration to process the location, f(2,12) = 27.68, p < .0001, 2 p = 0.82,. however, the recall performance of the control group that did not benefit from any training on a complex span task did not differ from the experimental group, f < 1. moreover, neither the effect of the training session nor the effect of the rate of presentation varied across the groups, as none of the interactions was significant, ps >.10 (figure 3). finally, the curve of mean recall performance according to training sessions showed a significant logarithmic fit in each group, f(1,4) = 46.97, r2 = .92, p < .005 for the experimental group and f(1,4) = 31.80, r2 = .86, p < .005 for the control group, and their equations are very similar, y = 44.87 + 35.78 x log10(x) and y = 43.09 + 36.68 x log10(x), respectively. figure 3: mean percentage of recall according to the training sessions, the rates and the groups (e-: experimental group and c-: control group) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 training session m ea n p er ce n ta g e o f re ca ll e-fast e-medium e-slow c-fast c-medium c-slow improvement of working memory performance by training 288 to evaluate the potential transfer effect between the two complex span tasks, we compared the recall performance of the experimental group on the first six sessions of the parity judgment span task with the six sessions of the location judgment span task. a 2 (tasks: parity vs. location) x 6 (session 1 to 6) x 3 (rates: fast, medium, or slow) anova was performed on the mean percentage of recall. as already mentioned, recall performance significantly increased across the sessions, f(5,15) = 20.46, p < .0001, 2 p = 0.87, and with the increasing rates of presentation, f(2,6) = 20.86, p < .0001, 2 p = 0.87. more interestingly, the recall performance of the experimental group did not differ between the parity judgment span task and the location judgment span task, f(1,3) = 1.45, p > .10, 2 p = 0.32. finally, none of the interactions was significant, ps >.10 (figure 4). figure 4: mean percentage of recall of the experimental group according to the training sessions and the tasks 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 m e a n p e r c e n ta g e o f r e c a ll training session parity long-term effects for this last session of the parity judgment span task, the mean error rate (3%) and the mean response time (558 ms) did not differ from the mean error rate and the mean response time of the twelve training sessions, fs < 1. mean recall performance for this session was slightly higher but not significantly different from the mean recall performance of the last training session of this task (97% vs. 95%), f < 1 (figure 2). to test this difference, we applied a logarithm transformation to the data from the 12 training sessions and then performed a linear regression which allowed to compute the predicted values for this post-test, i.e., thirteenth session. recall performance observed at post-test fell into the expected 95% confidence interval [94% to 138%] on average, as well as for each rate ([94%, 140%], [94%, 139%], and [93%, 140%] for europe’s journal of psychology 289 the fast, medium, and slow rates, respectively). although this last session was performed one month after the end of training, recall performance remained unchanged. discussion the aim of this study was to evaluate whether the increasing efficiency of a domaingeneral mechanism, namely refreshing, or the use of encoding strategy could account for improvement of wm span tasks through training by repetition. it was also the first try to use the new computer-paced wm span tasks in a training study and to evaluate if performance in such time-constrained tasks could be improved. although this study was mainly exploratory and on a small sample of participants, it gave some interesting insights on the potential sources of training effects. indeed, after being trained with a computer-paced wm span task for which their performance increased up to 100% correct recall, young adults did not show any difference with a control group in another wm span task that involved a different type of memoranda. moreover, the increase of recall performance through repetition was similar for the two wm span tasks. this lack of transfer between two tasks of the same structure contrasts with previous findings in which transfer was observed between tasks that greatly differed, and for which a change in attention control was put forward as explanation of such a effect (chien & morrison, 2010; klingberg et al., 2005). however, the current findings perfectly fit with the assumption that the repetition of the wm span task allows participants to discover more efficient encoding strategies. the informal verbal report at the end of the experiment confirmed that participants used specific encoding strategies. they reported using sentence generation for the parity judgment task (each letter primed a word they used to create sentences), and various strategies all necessitating long-term memory knowledge for the parity judgment span task (mostly based on idiosyncratic meaning of some numbers). across the training sessions, participants became more and more efficient in using these strategies. because encoding strategies are material dependent, no transfer is possible between two tasks that did not share the same type of memoranda. as a consequence, the presentation of a new wm span task implies to discover a new strategy adapted to the type of items to maintain. our findings were consistent with this interpretation because (1) the performance for the first session of the second wm span task was not better that for the first session of the first wm span task, and (2) the repetition of the second wm span task showed a similar increase of performance as for the first wm span task. improvement of working memory performance by training 290 two main reasons could have favored the fact that wm span was improved through encoding strategies in the present study. first, because the aim was to contrast two sources of improvement, we created a situation that constrained strongly participants. the wm span task we used was computer paced, thus leaving little possibilities to develop strategies to deal with the dual task, like postponing the processing of incoming information. we impeded the use of subvocal rehearsal, which is probably the most commonly used mechanism to maintain verbal information. we presented long lists of items, beyond average span of young adults. the second reason is that our participants were high span individuals as shown in the pre-test. as a consequence, they have most probably efficient control of attention (engle, kane, & tuholski, 1999), which reduced possibilities to increase this capacity any further. moreover, they are also more akin to rely on efficient encoding strategies. indeed, whereas individual with low span use mainly on rehearsal, individuals with a high span use elaborative encoding strategies such as semantic elaboration, chaining or imagery (dunlosky & kane, 2007; mac namara & scott, 2001; turley-ames & whitfield, 2003). it has generally been claimed in the literature that in a wm span task where the presentation rate is controlled by the experimenter, the high attentional demand of the task prevents or at least reduces the use of coding and maintenance strategies that are often employed for short term memory tasks, yielding a more pure measure of individuals’ wm capacity (e.g., dunlosky & kane, 2007; engle, cantor, & carullo, 1992; lépine et al., 2005). however, our results contrast with this assumption because they suggested that, wm performance is not strategy free, even with a computerpaced span task. although the temporal constraints of this type of tasks reduce the use of possible strategies, they do not completely impede them. these results strengthen those previously found in the literature on wm training, which have shown that training based on mnemonic strategies can improve wm performance (carretti et al., 2007; mcnamara & scott, 2001). moreover, in the literature, the claim that the strategy does not influence wm task performance is primarily supported by the fact that the processing task occurs too quickly, and the participants have no time to develop any strategy. however, our results showed that even in the fast rate condition, participants improved their performance with training. therefore, the present study suggests that, even under strong time-constraints, participants are able to develop alternative strategies for coping with the specific demands of the dualtask paradigm. however, we also showed that the implementation of mnemonics strategies seems to be time-dependent: the more participants have time to perform the processing task and the more they could implement strategies and improve their performance. europe’s journal of psychology 291 this question of the effect of practice on computer-paced wm span task also has a methodological interest. indeed, wm span tasks are central research tools in all areas of psychology. thus, in many research areas researchers are often led to do several measures of memory capacities on the same participants (for example in preand post-test). however, our study emphasizes the fact that we must be very careful when we want to test several times the wm capacities since any repetition of the same task leads to a significant change in recall performance and implementation of strategies. moreover, even after one month, effects of training are still manifest. results of other studies also point in the same direction. for example, klein and fiss (1999) found that scores on a self-paced operation span task markedly increased from the first to the second administration of the test, indicating a practice effect even over 3 months. barrouillet and camos (2001, exp. 1) also found a strong learning effect in their control group which perform the same computer-paced, the ―baba‖ span task, two times with a delay of 3 weeks between. so, to test several times the wm capacities the method which consists in leaving a long interval of time between the first and the second session is not a good technique to avoid practice bias. however, according to our results on the transfer effect, it is possible to neutralize the effects of learning (increased performance through the implementation of alternative strategies) by changing the material to be memorized in the task. finally, this study provided interesting preliminary results on the training and transfer effects in our new computer-paced span task, and gave the first cornerstone for further investigations. for example, these results should be replicated on a larger and more heterogeneous sample. it would also be interesting to further explore this effect of training and transfer with other computer-paced span tasks which involve other types of items to be memorized (in verbal or spatial domain) and other types of processing task. in the present study we investigated the transfer effects between two similar wm span tasks (« near transfer »). therefore, it would be interesting to investigate the transferability of the benefits of a computer-paced wm span task training in other more general cognitive tasks such as fluid intelligence tasks (« far transfer »). to conclude, the present study did not discard the possibility that a domain-general mechanism, like refreshing the memory traces, could be trained, and thus explaining the transfer effects on different cognitive tasks. however and contrary to previous works on encoding strategies that used either training of strategies or instructions, this study showed that even a mere repetition of a time-constrained wm span task allowed participants to discover more efficient ways to encode the memoranda. improvement of working memory performance by training 292 acknowledgement we thank warmly the volunteers for their 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(2004). a working memory workout: how to expand the focus of serial attention from one to four items in 10 hours or less. journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, & cognition, 30, 1322-1337. vergauwe, e., barrouillet, p. & camos, v. (2010). verbal and visuo-spatial working memory: a case for domain-general time-based resource sharing. psychological science, 21, 384-390. about the authors: lucie corbin is currently post-doctorate at the université de bourgogne, member of the laboratoire d'etude de l'apprentissage et du développement (lead – cnrs) address for correspondence: lucie corbin, université de bourgogne lead – cnrs, pôle aafe esplanade erasme b.p. 26513 21065 dijon cedex france email: lucie.corbin@u-bourgogne.fr valérie camos is professor in cognitive development psychology at the université de fribourg (switzerland) email: valerie.camos@unifr.ch microsoft word 4. research explorative studies.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 25-44 www.ejop.org qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies lara tagliapietra psychoterapist tatiana alina trifan university of padua laura raineri university of padua adriana lis (coord.) university of padua abstract this article is aimed to present a new approach to clinical research and also to clinical work based on grounded theory and on the software developed from it, atlas.ti. it includes two practical applications of this software, one is the analysis of a clinical interview and the other the assessment of nine interviews taken with the five minutes speech sample belonging to five couples of parents. as it is presented below, each analysis was performed as a circular process, starting from the data, grouping them into categories, creating codes and then returning to the data in order to sustain them and to establish relations between them. in our view, this is a new and interesting way of approaching clinical data which gives the clinician the possibility of developing a deeper understanding of the patient/client without loosing himelf/herself in the theories of the psychological orientation the psychotherapist belongs to. keywords – grounded theory, five minutes speech sample, clinical psychology, atlas.ti, qualitative research, clinical psychology europe’s journal of psychology 26 strass and corbin, 1990, p. 191 introduction “every human being is building a model of the world based on a combination of genetically determined factors and the personal experience. a “model” comprises all the experiences, all the generalizations corresponding to the experiences and all the rules that govern the generalizations. [...] there are not two identical models of the world.” (gordon, d., 1992). the person we have in front of us is narrating herself and is representing what is said to her based on her own experience. generally we try to organize all the types of input we receive (sensorial, perceptive, cognitive, etc.) in such a manner that they acquire a significance for us in order to be able to use them later. in other words, each of us has a subjective representation of reality based on which we process and filter the inputs that arrive to us form this reality. the way in which a person perceives and makes representations (symbolizes) of the stimuli is related to this subjective process of selecting information from the environment (material, social, etc.). this is a process that selects the data that corresponds to or confirms our needs and our experiences, more or less pleasant, and at the same time blocks the entrance in the consciousness of the information perceived as threatening for the self. this universal inclination, to appropriate ourselves of the world based on subjective schemes, is revealed through language. the way in which we speak and mostly the way in which we organize our speech (how we speak) is a lent that reveals our unique point of view, of which we are not always aware (wittgenstein, 1953). “we are not trying to generalize but rather to specify. we specify the conditions in which our phenomena exist, the actions/interactions that they concern and the associated results and their consequences. this means that our theoretical formulations are applied to these situations or circumstances and not to others. when we change the conditions, then the theoretical formulation should also change in order to adjust itself to the new conditions. the goal of a grounded theory should be always kept in mind.” qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 27 in light of the previous assertions it is obvious that we cannot reduce the person to the symptom, because every person perceives and lives a certain discomfort differently, based on his/her own experiences and resources. it is a common idea among psychologists that is more important not what a person says, but how she says it (reich, 1958; jefferson, 1973). for example, if for a person the expression “feeling bad” may mean a physical sufferance, for another may mean sadness, for another depression, etc. the discomfort, actually, is symbolized differently, depending on the person that experiences it. for this, when one speaks about clinical report, it is worth analyzing also the way in which the patient/client organizes his speech. if we are not able to catch the true significance the patient gives to his/her discomfort, to listen to him/her without preconceived ideas, then we will engage ourselves for sure in a deaf dialogue without any real benefit for both sides. in order to reach such an objective, in the pshychoterapeutical environment we can avail our self of the ideas confirmed by grounded theory. following such a thinking logic actually is possible to stress some key-words or codes of the patient’s speech and later to establish cause-effect relations between them. the relations that emerge in this way will help us understand how the patient perceives his discomfort, how he lives it and how he relates it with his personal history. in other words, it helps us create a mental map of the discomfort perceived by the person. this is a scheme useful for the psychotherapist in order to create an adequate image of the person, to make intervention hypothesis and which takes into account not only what the patient says, but “how he says it”. often it is not the event that generates the trauma, but the significant that we assign to it. this is why what for a person has the subjective significant of a big trauma, for another is just an easy surpassable event. grounded theory within scientific research there is always a strong debate between those that prefer quantitative methods and those who prefer qualitative ones. the first ones are those that have built the standards in experimental research and in researches performed on a large number of subjects and which use sampling europe’s journal of psychology 28 criteria and statistical analysis techniques. on the other side, the qualitative method uses procedures of qualitative nature both at the level of collecting the data as well as the level of analyzing them. the gathering data procedures include: interviews, group discussions, observations, journals; while the analysis procedures include coding, categorizations and systematic confrontation between the categories and their dimensions. such research is often defined as an explorative one, opposite to “classical” scientific research aiming to confirm / disconfirm initial hypothesis. among the qualitative methods used in the scientific research we can list: focus group, speech analysis, conversation analysis, grounded theory and phenomenological interpretative analysis. one of the frequently used and recognized methods in the academic environment is the method called grounded theory. this method was developed inside the sociological environment from the collaboration between glaser and strauss which have “discovered” it during a study on the awareness of death (glaser e strauss, 1967). in their work these authors have emphasized how, in the past, research was performed in an environment artificially separated from the daily clinical practice and how such artificiality depended on the separation between the data collection phase and the data analysis phase. glaser and strauss have proved that sociological and psychological theories can base themselves on qualitative data and that such data should not be seen just as a support to the quantitative data. the connection between qualitative and quantitative methods can be understood in different ways: from some points of view, these methods are alternative and opposed, while from other points of view these are compatible and even complementary (mantovani, 2003). glaser and strauss intended to create a method which would allow them to go from data to theory, so that theory would emerge from the data in the purest intuitive way. the theories should emerge during research and should be read within the data they were grounded in. the methodology suggested by grounded theory allows a wider and more accurate data collection and also coding in categories which, differently from the traditional content analysis, are neither predefined nor mutually exclusive. the categories are identified through a coding process which in the initial phases of the research is mostly descriptive; with the advancement of the research, which emerges little by little from the qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 29 data, the researcher produces codes from categories based on the data and on the context, categories which are not “borrowed” from the pre-existing theories of the research environment. what seems like a “discovery” is in reality the result of the researcher’s activity of mutual influence between the data and the conceptualization emerging little by little, the data collecting and the analysis not being separate, but interconnected. the relationship between theory and data cannot be solved in the favour of one or the other. a characteristic element of grounded theory is, actually, the “circular” conception of the research process. such circularity leads the researcher reflecting continuously on the research process and on the single phases in the light of all the others. the data analysis happens mainly through a process defined as “coding” which consists in individualizing a significance or a conceptual category inside the complex of data which is closer to the subject’s own words. confronting the various conceptual categories, one is able to extract a more general significance starting from the established categories and which can be a base for explaining the examined phenomena. such process should happen through a circular path and not an inductive one. little by little, through the coding, new hypothesis are formulated. it appears clearly how, in this process, the interpretative act of the researcher becomes explicit. the researcher, working rigorously and systematically, codes and translates into categories the words of the subjects. atlas-ti atlas-ti is a software for qualitative analysis developed in germany by thomas muhr in the mid-90’s. this program is based to certain extent on grounded theory because of the flexibility of its operational modalities and the capacity to generate theories through the interaction between the researcher and the data. the program offers instruments for visualising the characteristics and the relations between the data without loosing the complex direction and meanings of the research. moreover, it facilitates an intuitive and creative approach to the data, assuring in the same time a certain systematisation of the research. europe’s journal of psychology 30 atlas was programmed to facilitate the development of a theoretical model firmly founded on the text, meaning that it produces scientific knowledge putting in interaction the researcher’s analysis categories with the significances constructed by the subjects during their speech. the network structure of the program recalls the usage of interconnection which is based on grounded theory. this is a very versatile program which allows you to make progresses in your research while advancing on different paths according to the research objectives established from time to time by the researcher. it allows the researcher to follow a path closed to that of the “pencil and paper” method, but with the advantage of making all the operations very fast and systematic and also allows an immediate interface for the data visualization. the operations one needs to perform in order to work with atlas are: the creation of hermeneutic units, coding the material, analysis of the relations between the codes and the visualization of the conceptual maps. once the coding is performed, atlas facilitates the formal organization of the data which make easier the operations of synthesising the results. it is also easy to recuperate the quotations from the text and to compare them. with the help of graphic outputs and the creation of networks one can easily organize and visualize the data according to the research goals, or, for the analysis, to create mental maps in order to illustrate theoretical development. muhr resumes the logic of atlas in his so-called vise principle: visualization, integration, serendipity and exploration. the program allows actually to visualize the property of the objects and their relations (visualization), to not lose sight of the global significance of the texts while working on specific levels (integration) and to maintain an intuitive and innovative approach of the texts (serendipity and exploration). possible practical applications analysis of a clinical interview in these pages we are going to present the analysis of a clinical interview done with the help of the atlas-ti software. all the codes have been extracted from the speech of the patient and correspond to the exact words pronounced by the patient, while the relations qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 31 between the codes were created taking into consideration the order in which they appeared throughout the interview. in the quoted example we can find as the central nucleus of the patient’s discomfort in the depressive cycle: iniziativa rinuncia/rifiuto – delusione – sentimenti depressivi initiative – renunciation/refuse – disappointment – depressive feelings such central nucleus is composed of more specific components which represent the “false believes” of the patient and which condition the way in which s/he observes and relates with the surrounding environment. in the analyzed interview, actually, the speech of the patient is organized around the expression of the following needs and affective states: * the need to have someone beside (usually associated with their own beliefs), connected with * the fear of being abandoned and with * the fear of not being disappointed, which generate * distrust of others (associated with ruminations); this distrust leads to * the tendency to distance oneself from other people when one thinks he/she is being judged, which generates the * relating difficulties and, implicitly, fuels the * panic generated by being abandoned without explanation. together with the * feeling of discomfort in interacting with the others, these lead to the isolation, as part of the depressive cycle (beck’s depression triad includes isolation as attitude that fuels the collapse into depression). iniziativa innitiave rinuncia/rifiuto renunciation/refuse delusione disappointment sentimenti depressivi depressive feelings europe’s journal of psychology 32 beck’s triad (depressionisolationsocial refusalincreasing depression) can be presented in this case as a mix of feelings such as disappointment, dysphoria, anger and discomfort. the analysis of how the patient organizes his/her speech helps us formulate diagnostic hypothesis about his/her sufferance without losing sight of the subjective significance s/he gives to such a pain. every discomfort, actually, although called the same, as, for example, depression, can have a completely different significant in the context of different personalities. an analysis performed in this way allows us to capture the situations that are “causing” the depressive feeling inside the patient, and, at the same time, reveals the mental schemes on which these feelings arise. the first graphic makes a resume of the mental map of the depressive disorder of the patient. qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 33 graphic 1: mental map of the patient’s discomfort is associated with is part of is cause of is cause of is part of is part of is associated with is associated with is part of is part of is part of is cause of is part of is cause of is cause of is associated with is associated with is associated with is associated with is associated with is part of is cause of is part of is cause of is part of is part of bisogno di avere qualcuno accanto cicolo tentativa-regettazione-delusione disaggio delusione difficolta' relazionali diffidenza degli altri disaggiodisforia disorganizzazione causata dall'abbandono famiglia poco supportiva figlia vista come appoggio della famiglia isolamento(cicolo depressivo) panico generata dall'essere abbandonata senza spiegazioni paura di essere abbandonata paura di non essere delusa problemi famigliari rabbia scarsa sintonizzazione fra lo stile genitoriale e i bisogni della figlia sentimento di disaggio nell'interagire tendenza di allontanarsi dalle persone quando pensa di essere giudicata tendenza di sminuire i problemi da parte dei genitori(madre) autoilusioni rimuginazioni europe’s journal of psychology 34 analysis of the five minutes speech interviews through atlas-ti introduction in the field of text analysis, atlas.ti appears as an extremely useful and versatile software created especially with the goal of making easier the qualitative investigation of the contents that constitute the research object. especially, the program, exactly for the network model on which it is based, facilitates the organization of the data and the synthesis of the results based on the guidelines established by the researcher. goal assessing 9 five minutes speech interviews belonging to 5 couples of parents (in one of these couples the father was deceased) through the atlas-ti software. sample description: family child’s gender marital situation age mother work mother child’s age n° sons f f married 37 civil servant 6 years 2 c1 m married 43 collaboration 4 years 3 c2 f married 38 agriculture 5 years 1 month 2 m f married 35 nurse 4 years 1 month 2 d m widow 45 house wife 4 years 7 moths 1 the reading of the interviews with the help of this software makes immediately visible the distribution of the variables, coded with the help of the five minutes speech, for the 5 couples of parents analysed, as represented in table 1. table 1 ------------------------------------------------------------- primary docs codes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 totals -------------------------------------------------------------- initial negative phr 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 35 neutral initial phra 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 4 positive initial phr 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 3 positive adjective 1 3 1 0 3 1 3 4 0 16 criticism 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 details referring to 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 insatisfaction 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 5 negative relation 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 neutral relation 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 5 positive relation 2 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 0 7 sacrifice 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 statements of attitu 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 ------------------------------------------------------------- totals 5 5 7 8 5 4 6 6 3 49 for example, the first subject is distinguishing himself by: a positive initial phrase a positive adjective positive relations statements of attitude. this type of coding makes the subject fell into the macro-category defined as “low expressed emotion”. the same reading can be done for the other 9 subjects. the next step was that of creating outputs that allowed us an immediate reading of the expressions (codes) in order to make the difference between high expressed emotion and low expressed emotion, like in the examples that follow. the various codes presented in table 2 indicate the position of the phrase inside the text: for example, the phrase “our relationship is a good one” was said by the first subject (p1) in the second sentence of the speech (1:2). table 2: subject 1: p 1: mamma-f p 1: 1:1 (4:4) codes: [frase iniziale positive – initial positive phrase] è molto… è simpatico – she is very … she is funny p 1: 1:2 (11:11) europe’s journal of psychology 36 codes: [relazione positive – positive account] il nostro rapporto è buono – our relationship is a good one p 1: 1:3 (13:13) codes: [aggettivo positive – positive adjective] è una brava bambina – she is a good girl p 1: 1:5 (25:27) codes: [relazione positive – positive relationship] poi insieme facciamo tutto ma con tutti – then we do everything but with all the others e due perché siamo sempre insieme cioè li portiamo a nuoto, cioè sono sempre con me i bambini non li lascio quasi mai in giro – and because we are always together meaning that we take them to swim, meaning the children are always with me, i never let the children by themselves p 1: 1:6 (13:13) codes: [statements of attitude] io le voglio tanto bene – i love my children a lot low expressed emotion subject 3: c1 mamma p 3: 3:1 (3:3) codes: [frase iniziale neutral – initial neutral phrase] dunque non è che stiamo molto insieme perché io lavoro e poi anche quando sono a casa va beh ci sono i lavori e cucino e stiro, magari ci sono le cose di casa sicche stiamo poco, cioè anche se stiamo insieme lui guarda la televisione e io faccio altre cose, so, is not like we spend so much time together because i work and even when i’m at home, well, there are a lot of things and a cook and iron, maybe there are things to do in the house and this is why we spend so little time together, meaning that even when we are together he watches tv and i’m doing other things p 3: 3:2 (3:3) codes: [criticismo criticism] qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 37 è terribile – he is terrible p 3:3:3 (3:3) codes: [criticismo criticism] è schizzato – he is agitated p 3: 3:4 (3:3) codes: [aggettivo positive – positive adjective] mi sembra che sia un bambino intelligente, anche troppo – it seems to me that he is a very intelligent child, even too much p 3: 3:5 (3:3) codes: [relazione negative – negative relationship] non ho tanta pazienza io con lui, non ne ho proprio, esplodo, urlo, esagero – i do not have much patience with him, i do not have any patience at all, i explode, scream, exagerate p 3: 3:6 (3:3) codes: [insoddisfazione – insatisfaction] ecco non vedo l’ora che cresca così dopo spero che si arrangi, beh lui è nato… è nato per sbaglio nel senso che non lo volevamo, e allora ogni tanto mi capita di dire e di pensare che se non ci fosse forse sarebbe meglio – look, i just want him to grow up and like this he can take care of himself, well he was born... but he was born by mistake meaning that we didn’t want him, and every now and then happens to me to say and think that it would have been better without him p 3: 3:7 (3:3) codes: [relazione negative – negative relationship] poi io avevo lavato e lui per dispetto andava sopra – then after cleaning the floor, he walk on disrespectfully table 3 reproduces, through graphs, the “quotations” or better said the expressions with which the mothers belonging to the two macro-categories, “high expressed emotion” and “low expressed emotion”, have described high expressed emotion europe’s journal of psychology 38 their child. at the same time, for each mother the presence and the quality of variables coded by the “five” interview (initial phrase; relation; adjectives; etc.) is visible. given the small sample used for the study, only one mother enters the macro-category “high expressed emotion”. the first graphic shows that, when speaking about her own child, this mother tends to use mostly negative descriptions. actually, throughout the discourse, feelings of insatisfaction and devaluating representations prevail and these interweave with difficult relationships. this is the case of an unwanted child, born in an adult couple that has older children. the qualitative analysis of the text shows clearly the difficulties the mother has in understanding the behaviour of her own child, described as “terrible”, “agitated”, a child that, “if one doesn’t give him what he asks, goes out of his mind”, therefore with a low tolerance to frustration. the experienced discomfort is so powerful that this mother is induced to think that “it would have been better without him”. these are very aggressive thoughts that can urge feelings of guilt. this type of narration in its complexity reveals the severe difficulties present in the relationship between this mother and her son. this is a high risk situation, which may be helped through interventions oriented toward the sustainment both of the mother in her parenting role and of the child in his development. the analysis of the organization of the speech points out the incoherencies in the mother’s description of her child. she starts speaking neutrally about him, (*neutral account), continues with severe devaluations (*criticism), and arrives at employing a positive adjective which is cancelled by an ulterior devaluation. this extreme variability in the way of narrating about her son emphasizes the fragility and the lake of stability of the maternal representation. in her speech, the negative aspects actually prevail. the interview ends with other devaluations both of the relationship with her son and of her maternal experience. this type of assessment is in agreement with the assertions of the literature in the field that states that patients living in “high ee” environments are at a higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders (humbeeck, audenhove, hert, pieters e storms, 2002) comparatively with patients coming from a “low ee” environment. qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 39 the second graphic shows the expressions used by the mothers belonging to the “low expressed emotion” category. when confronted with the previous graphic, one can see the diversity with which these mothers tend to describe their own child. there are missing, actually, in their sentences, the negative and devaluating terms, while the positive adjectives prevail, as: “brave”, “attentive”, “really good girl” and the kind accounts. as for the previous narration, the resulting familiar environment is a serene one, with a major reciprocity in the mother–son dyad and with an adequate emotional atmosphere. we’ve granted a special attention to the family in which the father is missing, represented with the help of atlas.ti in the third graphic. the mother relates her relationship with her own child using exclusively neutral terms, lacking that special warmth that is specific to the mother–son relation. this mother–son couple seems frozen in the experience of mourning the father’s death. the emotions seem isolated as a defence and the words are cleared from any recall to feelings, maybe because these are too painful to bear. the only emotion that is allowed to exist is a depressive one and refers exactly to the mourning, as it emerges from the mother’s words: “yes, before i saw him happier, saying the truth, this when his father lived. silence. something is missing, and it’s normal, it is not as it used to be and i am aware of it, i do not know myself what to do, sometimes a friend of his comes and they play together and he cares about him, he has the same age as v., and in those moments i see him a bit happier. yes, he is ok while with me, but something is missing, yes.” if we analyse “how” this mother narrates about her child, the poverty of her style drags our attention. comparatively with other mothers she uses both few words and few evaluations of her relationship with her son. even more, her evaluations are lacking affectivity. she starts her speech using initially a neutral phrase and finishes it with another neutral one. europe’s journal of psychology 40 table 3 graphic 1: high expressed emotion cf:mamma castelanhigh critical frase iniziale neutra aggettivo positivo criticismo insoddisfazione relazione negativa [3:2][3] è terribile -------------------è terribile [3:3][3] è schizzato -------------------è schizzato [3:4][3] mi sembra che sia un bambino i.. -------------------mi sembra che sia un bambino intelligente, anche troppo [3:5][3] non ho tanta pazienza io con l.. -------------------non ho tanta pazienza io con lui, non ne ho proprio, esplodo, urlo, esagero [3:6][3] ecco non vedo l’ora che cresca.. ------------------- ecco non vedo l’ora che cresca così dopo spero che si arrangi, beh lui è nato… è nato per sbaglio nel senso che non lo volevamo, e allora ogni tanto mi capita di dire e di pensare che se non ci fosse forse sarebbe meglio [3:7][3] poi io avevo lavato e lui per .. ------------------- poi io avevo lavato e lui per dispetto andava sopra, [3:8][3] dunque non è che stiamo molto .. -------------------dunque non è che stiamo molto insieme qualitative approach to clinical psychology. explorative studies 41 graphic 2: low expressed emotion aggettivo positivo relazione positiva 2 [5:2][3] è troppo brava -------------------è troppo brava [5:3][3] adesso magari coloriamo faccia.. -------------------adesso magari coloriamo facciamo quelle cose li [5:4][3] è gentile -------------------è gentile [5:5][3] è buona -------------------è buona [5:6][3] allora io di parole non è che .. -------------------allora io di parole non è che sono una gran parlante, comunque per me io e lei il rapporto tra noi penso che è un po’ poco, nel senso a causa del lavoro, degli impegni del lavoro, non la vivo come dovrei viverla. frase iniziale neutrafrase iniziale positiva statements of attitude [1:1][4] è molto… è simpatica -------------------è molto… è simpatica [1:2][11] il nostro rapporto è buono -------------------il nostro rapporto è buono [1:3][13] è una brava bambina -------------------è una brava bambina [1:5][25] poi insieme facciamo tutto ma .. -------------------poi insieme facciamo tutto ma con tutti e due perché siamo sempre insieme cioè li portiamo a nuoto, cioè sono sempre con me i bambini non li lascio quasi mai in giro [1:6][13] io le voglio tanto bene -------------------io le voglio tanto bene [7:1][3] margherita è una bambina molto.. -------------------margherita è una bambina molto solare, molto aperta e comunicativa,[7:2][3] è molto attenta -------------------è molto attenta [7:3][3] molto curiosa -------------------molto curiosa [7:4][3] ama molto gli animali, ha una .. -------------------ama molto gli animali, ha una passione per i cavalli [7:5][3] e poi con me lei è intanto mol.. -------------------e poi con me lei è intanto molto attenta alle espressioni, agli atteggiamenti che abbiamo, e capisce se non è il momento di fare le birichinate o di essere un po’ così [7:6][3] è molto coccola, le piace tant.. -------------------è molto coccola, le piace tanto fare le coccole e ogni tanto “facciamoci le coccole” e viene qui ti abbraccia, ti bacia tutto, ecco, relazione neutra [9:1][3] silenzio. bo. delle volte un p.. -------------------silenzio. bo. delle volte un po’ chiuso, delle volte mi confida qualcosa. [9:2][3] il nostro rapporto è un bel ra.. -------------------il nostro rapporto è un bel rapporto, nel senso che io sono sensibile anche io e quindi si, forse lo vizio un po’ troppo e tutto quello che mi chiede glielo prendo e, non so dire di no ecco. [9:3][3] si chiacchieriamo, magari gli .. -------------------si chiacchieriamo, magari gli racconto una favola così, gli leggo un libro piuttosto che.. si gioco poco e dopo mi stanco ecco. europe’s journal of psychology 42 graphic 3: cf:mamma_delon frase iniziale neutrarelazione neutra [9:1][3] silenzio. bo. delle volte un p.. -------------------silenzio. bo. delle volte un po’ chiuso, delle volte mi confida qualcosa. [9:2][3] il nostro rapporto è un bel ra.. -------------------il nostro rapporto è un bel rapporto, nel senso che io sono sensibile anche io e quindi si, forse lo vizio un po’ troppo e tutto quello che mi chiede glielo prendo e, non so dire di no ecco. [9:3][3] si chiacchieriamo, magari gli .. -------------------si chiacchieriamo, magari gli racconto una favola così, gli leggo un libro piuttosto che.. si gioco poco e dopo mi stanco ecco. romantic support seeking, caregiving, and conflict management behaviours 43 conclusions and possible follow-ups as one can see, this software helped us to build a coherent representation of the key-elements that emerged from our analysis. the same process can be performed on the fathers’ interviews and then compare them with the mothers’ fives, or, by taking into consideration other variables, such as the age of the parents, the presence of siblings, etc. and this program can be also used for other goals related to the parental representation, if we stay centred just on this instrument (five). these techniques can be used not only for the analysis of this particular instrument we have chosen for the current presentation, but also for many other instruments that require a rather qualitative approach. references mantovani, g., spagnolli, a. (2003): metodi qualitativi in psicologia. bologna, il mulino van humbeeck, g., van audenhove ch., pieters, g., de hert, m. storms, g. (2002). expressed emotion: a review of assessment instruments. clinical psychology review, 22 glaser, b. d. (1978). advances in the methodology of grounded theory: theoretical sensitivity. mill valley, california: sociology press. glaser, b., & strauss, a. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. new york: aldine de gruyter. gordon, d. (1992), metafore terapeutiche, astrolabio, roma strauss, anselm/ corbin, juliet (1990): basics of qualitative research. grounded theory procedures and techniques. (sage publ., part i), newbury park., page 191 about the authors: lara tagliapietra she is a psychotherapist specialized in child’s psychology. over the years she had multiple collaborations both with public and with private entities on psychological europe’s journal of psychology 44 assessment and support. she also teaches psychodiagnosis and psycholinguistic classes. from children’s assessment to adolescents’ emotional education, she had shown a keen interest in finding new approaches that will improve her pasychotherapeutical work. laura raineri she has a ba on psychological sciences of the personality and interpersonal relationships (2006) and a specialization in clinical psychology – psychodynamic approach (2008). presently she is finishing her apprenticeship at the university of padua, italy, faculty of psychology, participating at the sessions of the s.a.p. sessions (psychological assistance for students), to the selma freiberg laboratory and to various research projects and from september she will attend the mara selvini palazzoli school of systemic psychotherapy. during the years she has attended various training courses on psychodiagnostic instruments (wisc, wais, ort, rorschach exner, tat, cat, etc.) and has also participated to conferences and seminars regarding children and family assessment. she had also made developments on the cat assessment and currently is working with processing instruments (atlas.ti, spad.t), trying to improve the clinical assessment through qualitative instruments. tatiana alina trifan she has a ba on psychology (2005) at the university of bucharest, romania, faculty of psychology and educational sciences, a ma in cognitive-behavioural therapies at the titu maiorescu university (2007), faculty of psychology and a predoctorat (2nd level master) in clinical psychotherapy and psychodiagnosis (psychodynamic approach) (2008) at the university of padua, italy. she has performed researches both in the clinical and in the organizational field, with traditional psychodianostic instruments as well as with modern ones, showing a keen interest in the complementarity between qualitative and the quantitative approach. she has various training courses on psychodiagnostic instruments (wisc, wais, rorschach exner, ort, tat, cat, etc.) and during her work within the field of drug addiction she had developed an instrument that combines both the qualitative aspects and the quantitative ones. from january till june 2010 she has obtained a free-research grant on the assessment and support for the people diagnosed with psychosomatic disorders. instructional clarity: the effect of bilingualism and instructor’s preparation rasool kord noghabi bu-ali sina university, hamedan iran rnoghabi@basu.ac.ir elzbieta b. slawinski university of calgary, alberta, canada acknowledgment authors are very grateful to ms. ivy huynh for her contribution as a coder of lectures. introduction teacher’s talk is an expected and extensive routine of classroom life. many aspects of instructional clarity as a preparation to the lecture were addressed already by many authors (e.g., gliessman, pugh, brown, archer, and snyder, 1989; metclaf, 1992; hiller, 1971; rogien, 1995; rosenshine and furst, 1971). in spite instructional clarity having waned from research studies in recent years, it is still alive with respect to bilingual instructions and their outcomes. the work is going in the american and world universities with respect to the training of bilingual’s teacher and it contact with students. bilingualism can affect the instructor clarity, because knowledge of english among bilinguals is usually not the same as that of the monolingual (english) instructors (e.g, best, mcroberts, and goodal, 2001; snow, 1993; strange, yamada, kubo, trent, and niski, 2001). in order to provide students with correctly spoken english phonemes bilinguals have to retrieve important information from their auditory cortex and integrate them in their cognitive areas (e.g. slawinski, 1999; slawinski and macneil, 1994). the age at which english is learned by bilinguals and intensity of immersion into english are vital contributing factors to perception, articulation, and an understanding of english speech (e.g. slawinski, 1999, slawinski and wiigs, 1999). speakers of more than one language are switching their languages (codes) during communication. code switching has been viewed as a strategy to compensate for insufficient language proficiency (heredia and altariba, 2001). sidhu and slawinski (2004) as well xie and slawinski (2005) indicate that proficient (competent) bilinguals demonstrate knowledge for the linguistic principles that allow grammatical words’ strings and prohibit ungrammatical words’ sequences for code switching. student must process as many as 25 to 30 phonetic segments per second (the average conversation rate of 125 to 180 words per minute occurs among speakers). thus, phonemes spoken by bilingual instructors who also conserve an intonation contour of the native language could be misunderstood by students (e.g.,archibald, 1998; snow, 1993). there is no one-to-one correspondence between the speech sounds distinguished in a language and their acoustical properties. in spite of this, listeners are able to assign specific labels (e.g., the phoneme names of sounds) to different acoustical values on a continuum of speech sounds. as such, the perception of speech sounds is described as being categorical in nature and includes a phoneme boundary between categories of speech sounds (liberman, harris, hoffman, & griffith, 1957). however, the fact that different languages have different phoneme boundaries leads to questions about how the categorization of phonemes is affected by an individual’s fluency in more than one language (e.g., flege 1988; slawinski and wiigs 1999). phonological representation of bilingual speakers led to development of two major hypotheses 1. bilingual speakers may adopt intermediate articulation (production) and perceptual values as a type of compromise between the phonemic boundaries of their first language and second language (e.g., flege and eefting, 1987b). 2. bilingual individuals develop two separate phonetic systems (e.g, flege, 1988). to date, research on the production of similar sounds to native speakers by bilingual participants has suggested that differences in phoneme in the two languages may change as a function of proficiency (e,g.; flege and eefting, 1987a; sidhu and slawinski, 2005). however, there is some uncertainty as to the direction of this change. when rosenshine and furst (1971) reviewed the studies of process-product variables, they found that the teacher’s clarity became a very important characteristic of a teacher. hiller (1971) reported that knowledge of subject matter could affect a teacher’s clarity and especially her/his usage of vagueness terms. it was stated that the vagueness terms are an internal stimuli condition principally determined by a performer’s instant command of knowledge, by his/her motivation to communicate, and by his/her own evaluation of imperfect success. in the model of conceptual vagueness, he hypothesized that there exists interrelationships among vagueness terms, knowledge, emotion, and intended style of expression. hiller (1968) divided vagueness terms into eight categories of impreciseness that were followed by smith and cotton (1980) (see appendix a): 1. ambiguous designation 2. approximation; 3.“bluffing”and recovery; 4. error admission; 5. indeterminate quantification; 6. multiplicity; 7. possibility; 8. probability. the teacher’s clarity can be quantified objectively by low-inference descriptors. several researchers (e.g., hiller, fisher, and kaess, 1969; hines, cruickshank, and kennedy, 1985; land 1981; land, 1987; smith, 1977; smith, 1985a; smith, 1985b; smith, 1987; smith and bramblett, 1981; smith and cotton, 1980; smith and land, 1980; smith and land, 1981) have reported low-inference descriptors, associated with teacher’s behaviors. in these studies, two low-inference descriptors of the teacher’s clarity such as a usage of vagueness terms and utterances that included “ah, uh & um” are described. based on observations of teachers in natural classroom settings, the teacher averaged from two to five vagueness terms per minute of her/his talk (smith and land, 1981). mean of 2.18 vagueness terms per minute of teacher talk with 40 percent of the teachers averaging between 2.5 and 4.0 such terms per minute was reported (smith, 1977). another low-inference variable is the use by speakers sounds “uh” “ah” & “um”. these sounds were labeled verbal fluency (hiller, fisher, and kaess, 1969). a significant positive correlation between teacher’s verbal fluency and student’s achievement was reported. for example, the usage of utterance “uh” had a significant effect on the student’s achievement and perception (land, 1981). however, smith in his studies reported a lack of significant correlation between an occurrence of the teacher’s “uhs” and student’s achievement. it was shown that student perception of the teacher’s clarity mediates strongly. the effect of the teacher’s clarity on student satisfaction (path coefficient = 0.51, p< 0.001), and the effect of teacher's clarity on a student's achievement (path coefficient = 0.13), as well as the percent of variance in student perception and achievement can be accounted for by various teacher clarity variables, as well as the percent of variance in achievement (land, 1987). however, the percent of variance accounted for by clarity was greater for perception than for achievement. therefore the purpose of this research was to determine the effects of: 1. bilingualism on two low-inference behaviors of instructor clarity (vagueness terms and utterance of “ah”, “uh” & “um”), 2. bilingualism on student perception of the presentation. 3.preparation level on two low-inference behavior of instructor clarity (vagueness terms and utterance of “ah”, “uh” & “um”) 4. preparation level of instructor on student perception of the instructional clarity. method participants twenty senior undergraduate female students ranging in age from 20 to 40 years with a median age of 22.5 years from the department of psychology at the university of calgary participated in the first experiment (first phase of the study:10 bilingual and 10 monolingual). participants in the first experiment were randomly assigned to one of two groups, high-preparation and low-preparation (n = 10). a preparation of teachers led to the experiment 2. experiment 2: each group included 5 bilinguals and 5 monolinguals. in the third experiment (second phase of the study) 80 junior undergraduate students (more than 91% female) from the psychology department participated. participants in the third experiment were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: bilingual teacher and high-preparation; bilingual teacher and low-preparation; monolingual teacher and high-preparation; monolingual teacher and low-preparation (n = 20 participants per each group). all students reported very good hearing and a lack of any neurological problems. procedure each participant in the experiment had an opportunity to familiarize with the same lecture’s topic by a maximum of 45 minutes. after a week the lecture was presented by them to no existing students and their lecturing performance was recorded using sony electret condenser microphone (ecm-270), “revox” tape-recorder (b710 mkii), and anechoic chamber (iac). in the experiment 2 participants were using the same procedure as in the experiment 1. the high-preparation group had 10 minutes to review the lecture plus 5 minutes to study the outline of lecture before the lecturing. time for the low-preparation group was 2 minutes to review the lecture and 1 minute to study its outline. participants in both treatments were allowed to look at the lecture’s outline as they were teaching. in the third experiment the 20 tape-recorded lectures were transcribed and analyzed by two independent coders against hiller’s vagueness term dictionary (hiller, 1968) and the vagueness terms checklist. percentage of agreement (reliability) between two coders was checked on the total number of identification made in quantifying two variables (vagueness terms, utterances of “ah, uh and um”). the reliability for vagueness terms was .864 and for utterances of “ah, uh and um” was .962. two levels of bilingualism (experiment 1) and two levels of the preparation (experiment 2) composed four experimental groups. one lecture from each group was selected for a use in the third experiment. criterion for a lecture’s selection was as a closest value of a lecturer to the mean value of vagueness terms used by members of a particular group. in the experiment 3, the selected lectures (two levels of bilingualism and two levels of the preparation) were presented to junior undergraduate students. they composed four experimental groups. after the listening to tapes, participants in all groups of this experiment rated the lecture on an 11-item lecture response form (appendix b). statistics in the first phase of the study, there were two independent variables: bilingualism (bilingual and monolingual) and preparation (high versus low). two 2 * 2 analysis of variance were performed on the measures of vagueness terms and utterances of ah, uh & um. in the second phase of the study a randomized, post-test design was used. the first phase of the study served as a choice of speakers. evaluation of the first phase was based on a number of vagueness terms and utterances of “au, uh & um” used by lecturers. the second phase of this study was designed to evaluate by students these speakers as potential teachers. thus, the second phase was evaluating student’s perception. results a 2 * 2 analysis of variance was performed on the measures of vagueness terms, utterances of ah, uh & um, and the lesson evaluation scores. the means and standard deviations of these scores are shown in table 1. the results of the analysis of the ratio of vagueness terms to total of words indicated that the main effect due to bilingualism was significant f (1,16) = 3.778; p< 0.07. however, the main effects due to preparation level and the interaction between bilingualism and preparation were not significant. similar results were obtained for the ratio of vagueness terms to total of time. the main effect due to bilingualism was significant f (1,16) = 5.181; p< 0.03. however, the main effect due to preparation level was not significant. in addition, the interaction between bilingualism and preparation was not significant. there were no significant results for ratio of utterances of ah, uh & um to total of words. however, for ratio of utterances of ah, uh & um to total of time, the main effect due to bilingualism f (1,16) = 3.888; p< 0.066 and the interaction between bilingualism and preparation f (1,16) = 3.549; p< 0.078 were close to significant. the ratio of utterances of ah, uh & um to total of time for monolingual lecturers in the high-preparation group was higher than that for the monolingual lecturers in the low-preparation group, however, for bilingual lecturers in the high-preparation group was lower than that for bilingual lecturers in the low-preparation group. the results of the analysis of the lecture evaluation scores are presented in table 2. these scores resulted from totaling the scores for all 11 items of lecture evaluation. the main effect due to preparation level was significant in favor of the high-preparation group, f (1, 76) = 8.437, p < .005. the main effect due to bilingualism and also interaction between bilingualism and preparation were not significant. cohen (1981) noted that pooling individual item ratings to obtain an overall rating gives only a crude estimate of student evaluation of lecture’s effectiveness. therefore, each of 11 items of lecture evaluation was treated as a dependent variable and 2*2 analysis of variance was conducted. the bilingualism variable was significant in favor of monolingual lecturers for items such as “d” (coherent), “h” (speech easy to understand) and “j” (very clear lesson). the preparation level variable was significant for lecturers in high preparation group for list’s items such as “b” (decisive), “c” (explains fully), “e” (well prepared), “f” (confident), “g” (well organized) and “k” (clear and understandable explanation). bilingualism nor preparation were significant for items “a” (precise) and “i” (speech soothing). only item “h” (speech easy to understand) indicated a significant interaction between bilingualism and preparation level. there was no significant relationship between student ratings and gender as well as between student ratings and studying in the first or second year. discussion the results of the study indicate a significant relationship between bilingualism and use of vagueness terms and utterances of ah, uh & um in a lecture. interestingly, these relations were in favor of bilingual lecturers. therefore, the monolingual lecturers used vagueness terms and utterances of ah, uh & um more often than bilingual lecturers. knowledge of language can affect tusage of vagueness terms. the present study selected the instructor’s preparation as another independent variable that can affect the usage of vagueness terms. the result of this research about effect of preparation level on vagueness supported hiller (1971). the findings of studies about teacher’s preparation till now have not been consistent (hiller 1971, hiller & ultman, 1973, smith and bramblett, 1981). in order to show effect of preparation in the present study maybe 10 minutes for preparation after one week has not been enough long for participants in the high-preparation group. participants, who were allowed to look at the outline of lecture might attenuate treatment effects. the results of the present study suggest that junior undergraduate students are able to distinguish between well prepared and not well prepared teachers. the similar finding reported by smith (1985 a), smith (1985b), and land (1981), that student’s perceived clarity may be as important as actual teacher clarity. another observation in this study is that the bilingual students in this “laboratory setting” used a lower mean frequency of vagueness terms (1.96 per min in high-preparation and 2.94 per min in low-preparation group) than mean frequencies reported in research conducted in natural settings. such research (e.g., smith and land, 1981) indicated means of three to five vagueness terms per minute. however, the monolingual students used the same number of vagueness terms in natural settings (4.18 per min for monolingual lecturers in high-preparation and 3.71 per min in low-preparation group). a suggestion resulting from results of this study is that teacher trainers and teacher evaluators should focus on teacher behaviors that can be quantified objectively. examples of these behaviors should be considered, especially for monolingual students, such as the usage of vagueness terms or utterances of ah, uh & um (smith, 1985). references archibald, j. 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(1993). bilingualism and second language acquisition. 392-408. in psycholinguistics 2nd edition j. b. gleason, n. b. ratner, (eds.) harcourt brace college publishers, orlando. fl, 435-475. strange, w. c. e., yamada, a. r., kubo, r., trent, s. a., & nishi, k. (2001). effects of consonantal context on perceptual assimilation of ae vowel by japanese listener. journal of acoustical society of america, 109 (4), 1691-1704 the relation between humor and empathy europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 34-45 www.ejop.org the relation between humor styles and empathy william p. hampes black hawk college moline, illinois abstract the humor styles questionnaire and interpersonal reactivity index were given to 103 (28 men, 75 women) undergraduates in a community college in the midwestern united states. as predicted, significant positive correlations were found between affiliative humor and empathic concern (r = .23, p < .05) and between self-enhancing humor and perspective-taking empathy (r = .28, p < .01). also, as predicted, there were significant negative correlations between self-enhancing humor and personal distress (r = -.34, p < .001), and between aggressive humor and perspective-taking empathy (r = -.40, p < .001), empathic concern (r = -.29, p < .01) and personal distress (r = -.20, p < .05). predictions involving self-defeating humor and empathy were not supported. the differences in the correlations for affiliative humor and those of self-enhancing humor were examined in terms of the greater importance of perspective-taking and stress reduction in self-enhancing humor versus affiliative humor, which is more involved with social relationships. the implications for future research were discussed. keywords: humor styles; perspective-taking empathy; empathic concern; personal distress. a number of research studies have indicated that both humor and empathy are associated with satisfying and healthy interpersonal relationships. empathy is a key component of emotional intelligence, which is associated with satisfying interpersonal relationships (salovey & mayer, 1990; salovey, mayer & caruso, 2002). empathy is also associated with the ability to form friendships (izard, fine, schultz, mostow, ackerman, & younstrom, 2001). it has been found that participants who were accurate in their understanding of their spouses‟ nonthreatening thoughts and feelings felt closer to their partners than those who were not (simpson, orina, & ickes, 2003) and men‟s empathic responding was positively correlated with their feelings of http://www.ejop.org/ humor styles and empathy 35 intimacy for their partners and women‟s intimacy was positively correlated with their partners‟ empathic responding (mitchell, castellini, herrington, joseph, doss, & snyder, 2008). humor has been associated with social competence (levine & zigler, 1976; masten, 1986; pelligrini, masten, garmezy & ferrarese, 1987), intimacy (mutthaya, 1987; hampes, 1992, 1994), trust (hampes, 1999), and satisfying marriages (ziv, 1988; rust & goldstein, 1989; ziv & gadish, 1989; lauer, lauer, & kerr, 1990). this would suggest a possible connection between humor and empathy. rogers (1980) defined empathy as the ability to understand and experience the thoughts and feelings of another individual. to successfully use and appreciate humor involves a person‟s ability to shift mentally to different perspectives (apter, 1982; wyer & collins, 1992), which could be helpful in understanding and experiencing the thoughts and feelings of another person. it could also be conducive to reducing the stress that inevitably occurs in a close relationship. kuiper, martin, & olinger (1993) and kuiper, mckenzie, & belanger (1995) found that those high in humor were more likely than those low in humor to perceive potentially threatening events in a positive manner. other studies have found humor to be a factor in reducing stress (martin & lefcourt, 1983; lefcourt & martin, 1986; nezu, nezu, & blissett, 1988; fry, 1995; newman & stone, 1996; abel, 1998). individuals who use humor to reduce stress in their relationships should find it easier to focus on another person‟s thoughts and feelings and thus be more empathic. hampes (2001) directly investigated the relationship between humor and empathy and found a positive correlation between the coping humor scale, situational humor response questionnaire, and multidimensional sense of humor scale and empathic concern, the extent to which a person feels warmth, compassion, and concern towards others who are having negative experiences (davis, 1980). however, this study was limited in several respects. first of all, each of the humor tests was a single measure instrument that did not separate humor into maladaptive and adaptive styles. martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray & weir (2003) found four different styles of humor: two adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating). the relationship between adaptive styles of humor and empathy could be completely different than the relationship between maladaptive styles of humor and empathy. secondly, davis (1980) pointed out that empathy is more than just empathic concern. it can also involve being able to take the perspective of other individuals (perspective-taking empathy), the ability to use one‟s imagination to transpose oneself into the actions and feelings of fictitious characters in plays, movies, books, and television shows (fantasy empathy), or europe’s journal of psychology 36 becoming distressed when sensing another person‟s anxiety or negative feelings (personal distress). the relationship between humor and empathy can be quite different depending on which of the four distinct types of empathy (empathic concern, perspective-taking empathy, fantasy empathy, personal distress) that is being studied. davis (1983) has developed the interpersonal reactivity index to measure each one of these four types of empathy as separate constructs. martin and dutrizac (2004) studied the relationship between the four styles of humor (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, self-defeating) and empathy. they found that self-enhancing humor was positively correlated with the receiving and giving of empathic responses and aggressive humor was negatively correlated with the giving and receiving of empathic responses. however, this study was limited by the use of a single, global measure of empathy. therefore, the purpose of the present study is to determine the relationship between the four styles of humor (martin, et al., 2003) and three types of empathy (davis, 1980). fantasy empathy was not included in this study for a number of reasons. first of all, the research literature does not appear to support a hypothesis concerning the relationship between humor styles and fantasy empathy. secondly, fantasy empathy doesn‟t involve the reciprocal interaction between live human beings. thirdly, it‟s been pointed out (baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004; spreng, mckinnon, mar, & levine, 2009) that some items on the fantasy subscale of the interpersonal reactivity index (davis, 1983), the only scale which measures fantasy empathy, reflect imagination rather than empathy (e.g. “i daydream and fantasize , with some regularity, about things that might happen to me”). according to martin et al., (2003) affiliative humor is an interpersonal form of humor that involves the use of humor (telling jokes, saying funny things, or witty banter, for example) to put others at ease, amuse others, and to improve relationships. selfenhancing humor “involves a generally humorous outlook on life, a tendency to be frequently amused by the incongruities of life, and to maintain a humorous perspective even in the face of stress or of adversity” (martin, et al., 2003, p. 53). both affiliative and self-enhancing humor are positively correlated with intimacy, extraversion and openness to experience (martin, et al., 2003; saraglou & scariot, 2002) and both empathic concern and perspective-taking empathy are associated with sensitivity to others and positive interpersonal functioning (davis, 1983). therefore, the first hypothesis was that affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with empathic concern and perspective-taking empathy, since self-enhancing humor, affiliative humor, empathic concern and perspective-taking empathy are all associated with positive interpersonal humor styles and empathy 37 relationships. also, since those high in affiliative and self-enhancing humor tend to be high in intimacy, extraversion, and openness to experience and low in anxiety (martin et al., 2003; saraglou & scariot, 2002) the second hypothesis was that these two styles of humor would be negatively correlated with personal distress, the type of empathy where individuals would be so upset by another person‟s anxiety and negative feelings that they would psychologically distance themselves from that person. aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor to attack or put down other people, and thus involves sarcasm, teasing, ridicule, derision, hostility, or disparagement humor. those high in this style of humor tend to be high in hostility and low in agreeableness (martin, et al., 2003; saraglou & scariot, 2002). the third hypothesis is that there would be a negative correlation between aggressive humor and empathic concern, perspective-taking, and personal distress, since these individuals‟ hostile orientation towards others would seem to preclude empathy for others. self-defeating humor “involves excessively self-disparaging humor, attempts to amuse others by doing or saying funny things at one‟s expense as a means of ingratiating oneself or gaining approval, allowing oneself to be the „butt‟ of others‟ humor, and laughing along with others when being ridiculed or disparaged” (martin, et al., 2003, p. 54). those high in this style of humor tend to be high in shyness (hampes, 2006), loneliness (martin & dutrizac, 2004; hampes, 2005), anxious attachment (kazarian & martin, 2004) and anxiety (martin, et al., 2003) and low in intimacy and the satisfaction they get from social support (martin, et al., 2003). since these individuals tend to have poor interpersonal relationships, the fourth hypothesis was that there would be a negative correlation between self-defeating humor and empathic concern and perspective-taking, which are associated with positive interpersonal functioning (davis, 1983). since those high in self-defeating humor tend to be high in anxiety, the fifth hypothesis was that self-defeating humor would be positively correlated with personal distress. method participants the participants were students (28 men and 75 women) at a community college in the midwestern united states. these students ranged in age from 18 to 56 years (m = 24.1, sd = 8.1). students in five psychology classes were asked to participate, and those who volunteered were included in the sample. europe’s journal of psychology 38 materials the humor styles questionnaire has four scales, each of which has eight items. each item has seven response options in a likert-type format, anchored by 1 = totally disagree and 7 = totally agree. the convergent validity for the affiliative humor scale was indicated by significant positive correlations with scores on the miller social intimacy scale and extraversion on the neo pi-r. discriminant validity for the selfenhancing humor scale was estimated by a significant negative correlation with scores on neuroticism on the neo pi-r, and convergent validity was estimated with significant positive correlations with the coping humor scale and the humor coping subscale of the coping orientation to problems experienced scale. convergent validity for the aggressive humor scale was supported by a significant positive correlation with scores on the cook-medley hostility scale. discriminant validity for the self-defeating humor scale was based on significant negative correlations with ratings on the rosenberg self-esteem scale and on the index of self-esteem (martin, et al., 2003). the cronbach alphas for the current sample were .73, (affiliative humor), .73 (self-enhancing humor), .68 (aggressive humor) and .75 (self-defeating humor). the interpersonal reactivity index consists of four scales, each scale containing seven items, each item involving five response options presented in a likert-type format and anchored by “does not describe me well” (1) and “describes me well” (5). the empathic concern scale assesses the extent to which a person has feelings of concern, warmth, and compassion for people undergoing negative experiences. the perspective-taking scale measures the degree to which a person can adopt and understand the psychological point of view of another person. the personal distress scale determines a person‟s tendency to have feelings of personal anxiety and discomfort in tense interpersonal situations, including situations where others are in distress. the validity for the three scales was established through significant correlations with the hogan empathy scale and the mehrabian and epstein emotional empathy scale (davis, 1983). the cronbach alphas for the current sample were, .84 (perspective-taking), .78 (empathic concern) and .81 (personal distress). results pearson product-moment correlations were calculated between scores on the interpersonal reactivity index and the humor styles questionnaire. table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for the humor styles and empathy measures in this study, and table 2 presents the correlations between the four humor styles and those three empathy measures. humor styles and empathy 39 table 1 means and standard deviations for the interpersonal reactivity index and humor styles questionnaire means standard deviations perspectivetaking 18.87 5.33 empathy empathic concern 21.96 4.61 personal distress 11.41 5.63 affiliative humor 46.45 6.55 self-enhancing humor 37.27 7.40 aggressive humor 27.67 7.67 self-defeating humor 26.83 8.38 table 2 correlations between the interpersonal reactivity index and humor styles questionnaire perspective-taking empathic personal empathy concern distress affiliative -.001 .23* -.06 humor ci (.95) -.201 to.199 .03 to.43 -.26 to .16 self-enhancing .28** .18 -.34*** humor ci (.95) .08 to .48 .02 to .38 -.54 to -.14 aggressive .40*** -.29** -.20* humor ci (.95) -.60 to -.20 -.49 to -.09 -.40 to .00 self-defeating .02 .16 .07 humor ci (.95) -.18 to .22 -.04 to .36 -.13 to .27 * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001. affiliative humor and empathic concern (r = .23, p < .05) and self-enhancing humor and perspective-taking empathy (r = .28, p < .01) were significantly and positively correlated, partially supporting the first hypothesis. self-enhancing humor was significantly and negatively correlated with personal distress (r = -.34, p < .001), partially supporting the second hypothesis. the third hypothesis was supported by europe’s journal of psychology 40 the significant and negative correlations between aggressive humor and perspective-taking empathy (r = -.40, p < .001), empathic concern (r = -.29, p < .01), and personal distress (r = -.20, p < .05). the fourth and fifth hypotheses involving selfdefeating humor and empathic concern, perspective-taking, and personal distress were not supported. discussion according to martin, et al., (2003) conceptually one of the qualities that separates affiliative humor from self-enhancing humor is the ability of those high in the latter to use humor as a way to change one‟s perspective. by using self-enhancing humor to change one‟s perspective when threatened a person can better reduce stress in these situations. self-enhancing humor was developed to measure the use of humor to reduce stress and therefore it has higher positive correlations with measures of the use of humor in stressful situations than does affiliative humor (martin et al, 2003). this is consistent with the present findings that self-enhancing humor had a significant. positive correlation with perspective-taking empathy and a negative correlation with personal distress whereas affiliative humor did not. on the other hand affiliative humor is positively correlated with measures of coping humor (martin et al, 2003). in that respect it is surprising that affiliative humor is not also significantly negatively correlated with personal distress. after all, low levels of personal distress would seem to be compatible with high levels of empathic concern, since personal distress would seemingly hinder the empathic concern with which affiliative humor is positively correlated. in this respect it is interesting that a factor analytic study done by cliffordson (2001) found that empathic concern was more central to a single general empathic dimension than personal distress. baron-cohen and wheelright (2004) and spreng et al. (2009) have pointed out that the personal distress scale largely measures discomfort, anxiety, and fear of losing control in threatening situations in general, rather than simply being distressed in interpersonal situations. in fact, some of the items on the personal distress subscale (“in emergency situations, i feel apprehensive and ill at ease”, “being in a tense emotional situation scares me”) don‟t mention other people at all. this is important because someone could act quite differently in stressful situations that involve other people‟s distress than those that don‟t. one way of teasing out these differences would be to use a controlled study in which participants of varying levels of affiliative humor were exposed to a situation that involved another person who was in distress to see if there would be significant humor styles and empathy 41 differences in empathic concern between those high and those low in affiliative humor in that situation. martin et al‟s (2003) characterization of affiliative humor as an adaptive interpersonal style of humor and self-enhancing humor as an adaptive intrapersonal style of humor is consistent with the difference in the correlations between affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor with empathic concern. those who are more interpersonally oriented are seemingly more likely to show concern, warmth, and compassions for others than those who are more intrapersonally oriented. that the correlation between affiliative humor and empathic concern was stronger than between self-enhancing humor and empathic concern is also consistent with davis (1983), who found that of the two types of empathy, empathic concern is a more “emotional” measure of empathy and perspective-taking empathy the more “cognitive” type of empathy. therefore, the interpersonal affiliative humor would seemingly be more strongly related to the “emotional” empathic concern than would self-enhancing humor, just as the more intrapersonal self-enhancing humor seemingly would be more strongly related to the “cognitive” perspective-taking empathy than would affiliative humor. empathy enables a person to experience the psychological pain of the target of aggressive humor, making that person less likely to use aggressive humor in order to avoid the experience of pain for both individuals. therefore, those who use aggressive humor would tend to be low in empathy. this is supported by the significant negative correlations between aggressive humor and three of the types of empathy. this would suggest that those who use aggressive humor not only don‟t want to help someone who‟s feeling badly, but have difficulty experiencing both emotionally and cognitively the person‟s negative feelings. the especially strong correlation between aggressive humor and perspective-taking empathy is particularly interesting in this respect. it‟s hard to imagine how someone who has trouble understanding another person‟s perspective would feel sympathy or distress at another person‟s plight, something consistent with the negative correlations between aggressive humor and empathic concern and personal distress. those who use aggressive humor on a regular basis may set up a vicious cycle in which the targets of this style of humor withdraw from those who use it, which makes it even harder for those who use aggressive humor to get closer to other people, which in turn makes it harder for them to develop empathy. the positive correlations, albeit nonsignificant correlations, between self-defeating humor and the three types of empathy seem to indicate that there are other europe’s journal of psychology 42 reasons why these individuals have such difficulties with intimacy and close relationships besides lack of empathy. individuals high in self-defeating humor tend to be low in self-esteem (martin, et al., 2003) as well as high in anxiety (martin, et al., 2003) and shyness (hampes, 2006). these characteristics, more than the lack of empathy, may be responsible for their poor interpersonal relationships (martin, et al., 2003; kazarian and martin, 2004, martin & dutrizac, 2004; hampes, 2005). more needs to be done to study the causal relationship between the styles of humor and types of empathy. the significant correlations found in this study between particular styles of humor and particular types of empathy do not reveal whether the style of humor causes the type of empathy, the type of empathy causes the style of humor, or a third variable causes both. a study could be done to investigate whether changing particular types of empathy would affect particular styles of humor, or to see whether changing styles of humor would affect the different types of empathy. in future studies it would also be interesting to investigate the relationship between the different styles of humor and the types of empathy, on the one hand, and cognitive variables such as wisdom and interpersonal variables such as generativity, on the other, to see if these variables would be differentially correlated with the different humor styles and different types of empathy. for example, it could be studied whether those high in affiliative humor and empathic concern are also high in generativity, which involves providing for the welfare of others, or whether those high in self-enhancing humor and perspective-taking empathy are also high in wisdom. references abel, m.h. 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(2009). the toronto empathy questionnaire: scale development and initial validation of a factor-analytic solution to multiple empathy measures. journal of personality assessment, 9, 62-71. wyer, r.s. & collins, j.e. (1992). a theory of humor elicitation. psychological review, 99, 663-688. ziv, a. (1988). humor‟s role in married life. humor: international journal of humor research, 1, 223-229. ziv, a. & gadish, o. (1989). humor and marital satisfaction. journal of social psychology, 129, 759-768. about the author: william hampes has been a professor of psychology for over 30 years. currently he is in the department of social, behavioral and educational studies at black hawk college. he has published a number of papers in the area of humor and personality, including the relationship between humor and such variables as extraversion, intimacy, generativity, trust, empathy, loneliness and shyness. address for correspondence: william hampes, department of social, behavioral, and educational studies, black hawk college, 6600 34th avenue, moline, illinois 61265 (email: hampesw@bhc.edu; fax: 1-309-796-5976). mailto:hampesw@bhc.edu microsoft word attachment 2 second announcement of the 7th itc conference call for papers.doc 1 the 7th conference of the international test commission july 19-21, 2010 (july 18, 2010 pre-conference workshops) hong kong submission: http://www.itc2010hk.com theme: challenges and opportunities in testing and assessment in a globalized economy sub-themes � developments in psychometrics and test theory for international testing � indigenous, second language, and cross national test development � geotrends in testing: making use of technology advances in test administration and data management � issues of policy, ethics, professionalism and training in multinational testing � test security and privacy concerns when testing internationally state-of the-art lecture john hattie (university of auckland, new zealand) global testing, global opportunities, global challenges, and a global future for assessment robert roe (university of maastricht, the netherlands) testing for travelers: past and future keynote address fanny m. cheung (the chinese university of hong kong, hong kong sar, china) from indigenous to cross-cultural personality assessment: the usefulness of the combined emic-etic approach david foster (kryterion, usa) international high-stakes online testing: best practices for test security and data privacy thomas oakland (university of florida, usa) ethical and other professional issues: what to do when working in the absence of local standards neal schmitt (michigan state university, usa) validation support for selection procedures fons van de vijver (tilburg university, the netherlands) recent developments in international testing important dates call for papers and symposia: 1 january, 2009 closing deadline for proposals: 1 december, 2009 notification to authors: 15 february, 2010 early bird registration: 1 april, 2010 2 workshop presenters and topics avi allalouf (national institute for testing and evaluation, israel) establishing the itc guidelines on quality control in scoring, analysis and reporting of test scores david bartram (shl, uk) applying irt models to personality assessment barbara byrne (university of ottawa, canada) testing basic structural equation models: overview and hands-on application using the eqs approach wai chan (chinese university of hong kong) introduction to structural equation modeling kurt geisinger (buros center on testing & university of nebraska, usa) evaluating test quality as users and writing manuals as authors: two sides of a coin ronald hambleton (university of massachusetts, usa) item response theory: introduction to concepts, models, parameter estimation and fit, and several applications kwok leung (city university of hong kong) methods and designs for enhancing cross-cultural invariance bruno zumbo (university of british columbia, canada) psychometric methods for investigating differential item functioning (dif) and test bias: concepts, methods and applications other information international test commission (itc) website http://www.intestcom.org department of psychology, the chinese university of hong kong (cuhk) website http://www.psy.cuhk.edu.hk organizing committee email: itc2010@psy.cuhk.edu.hk the 7th itc conference is a satellite meeting of the 27th international congress of applied psychology, 11-16 july 2010, melbourne, australia http://www.icap2010.com emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 604 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 604-623 www.ejop.org emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health rakesh pandey prachi saxena akanksha dubey department of psychology, banaras hindu university abstract alexithymia, characterized by difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and a deficit in the cognitive modulation of emotions, has been linked with health related problems. indirect empirical evidences suggest the possibility that alexithymia may potentially also relate with emotion regulation difficulties. however, the exact nature of the relationship between the two constructs has not been fully explored. the relationship between the two constructs may reflect the overlap of the content domains or dependence of one (e.g., emotion regulation difficulties) on the other (e.g., alexithymia). given the link between the two constructs, it is also likely that alexithymics‟ health related difficulties may result from their impaired ability to regulate emotions. the present study tested the above theoretical propositions on 27 alexithymic and 26 nonalexithymic participants who were assessed on self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties and general mental health. the findings revealed that compared to non-alexithymics, the alexithymics showed greater emotion regulation difficulties and such affective difficulties differentiated the two groups with a very high accuracy. further, the observation of two orthogonal components (emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia) with a minimum overlap suggests that these constructs represent two independent domains of behavior. findings also revealed that alexithymics reported more health related problems as compared to non-alexithymics and the health problems of alexithymics are likely to be an outcome of their emotion regulation difficulties (indicated by a non-significant health difference after controlling for emotion regulation difficulties). the findings imply that alexithymia is associated with emotion regulation difficulties and such difficulties largely contribute to health related problems. keywords: alexithymia, emotion regulation difficulties, emotion regulation, mental health. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 605 alexithymia is a personality construct characterized by the difficulty in identifying and describing one‟s own feelings and emotions. it is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct encompassing the following four dimensions: (i) difficulty in identifying and describing feelings, (ii) difficulty in distinguishing between feelings and bodily sensations, (iii) impaired symbolic activity as evidenced by paucity of fantasy and other imaginative activity, and (iv) externally oriented thinking i.e., a preference for focusing on external events rather than inner experiences (taylor, 1994, 1984). alexithymia as a trait is associated with a deficit in cognitive modulation of emotions (taylor, 1994) and therefore, is likely to be associated with emotion regulation difficulties. researchers have theorized that alexithymia reflects a deficit in the cognitive processing and regulation of emotions, and that the disorders with which alexithymia is most strongly associated can be conceptualized as “disorders of emotion regulation” (taylor, 1994; taylor, bagby, & parker, 1997). however, efforts to empirically validate such theoretical speculations are scant. moreover, the few empirical studies that aimed at exploring the alexithymia–emotion regulation link have utilized different conceptual/operational definition of emotion regulation. for instance, a study examined the correlations between alexithymia and the recognition and regulation of emotions in a sample of healthy subjects and the findings revealed that objectively assessed emotion recognition correlated negatively with external thinking and positively with the importance of emotional introspection (kessler, kammerer, hoffmann, & traue, 2010). further, this study demonstrated that expressive suppression correlated with difficulty in identifying and describing feelings, a core feature of alexithymia. in a recent study (connelly & denney, 2007) it was noted that those with high levels of the alexithymic trait appeared to manifest chronically elevated subjective negative affect relative to autonomic activity regardless of the level of environmental demands. the empirical observations that alexithymic individuals have greater propensity towards negative emotions and show a tendency to suppress emotional expression indirectly support the possibility that alexithymic individuals may have emotion regulation difficulties. a number of other indirect empirical evidences also support the possibility of emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia. several studies have reported that alexithymia is associated positively with maladaptive styles of emotion regulation (such as bingeing on food or drinking alcohol) and negatively with adaptive behaviors, such as thinking about and trying to understand distressing feelings or talking to a caring person (bekendam 1997; parker, taylor, & bagby, 1998). findings demonstrating the association of alexithymia with insecure attachment styles (schaffer, 1993; scheidt & emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 606 waller, 1999) also provide indirect evidence for the link between alexithymia and less effective emotion regulating skills. the body of research exploring emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia, although promising, shows that more work is needed to expand our understanding of the relationships between the two constructs. this becomes a much-needed undertaking in the light of the reported variations in the conceptualization of emotion regulation. some studies considered reduced emotion recognition capacity as an index of difficulty in emotion regulation (e.g., kessler et al., 2010) while others considered the tendency to experience negative emotions (in response to one‟s own emotional reactions an indicator of a lack of emotional acceptance) as emotion regulation difficulty (cole, michel, & teti., 1994; greenberg & paivio, 1998; hayes, strosahl, & wilson, 1999). researchers have sometimes defined emotion regulation as control of emotional experience and expression (garner & spears, 2001) and in other places as the capacity to experience and differentiate a full range of emotions (cole et al., 1994; gross & munoz, 1995). similarly, the ability to accept and value emotional responses has also been considered to be a kind of emotion regulation by some researchers (cole et al., 1994). these variations in the conceptualization of emotion regulation suggest its multidimensional nature. further, most of the attempts to explore emotion regulation difficulties focused on one or two components of the multidimensional construct of emotion regulation. thus, to uncover the nature of the relationship between emotion regulation and alexithymia we need to explore how and to what extent the various components of emotion regulation correlate with various dimensions of alexithymia using a psychometrically sound and comprehensive measure. keeping this in view, the current study adopts a multidimensional conceptual model of emotion regulation (as proposed by gratz and roemer, 2004). according to this model emotion regulation consists of four dimensions: (a) awareness and understanding of emotions, (b) acceptance of emotions, (c) ability to control impulsive behaviours and behave in accordance with desired goals when experiencing negative emotions, (d) ability to use situationally appropriate emotion regulation strategies, flexibly to modulate emotional responses as desired in order to meet individual goals and situational demands. it is also evident from the preceding review that alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties may not only potentially relate with each other but some minimal overlap between the constructs is also possible. for instance, it is evident from the above discussion of the conceptual models of alexithymia and emotion regulation that „awareness and understanding of emotions is an important component of both alexithymia and emotion regulation. such observation suggests the theoretical possibility of similarity (overlap) in the content of the two constructs. however, apart europe’s journal of psychology 607 from the abovementioned component, other components of emotion regulation (e.g., ability to control impulsive behaviour, ability to use appropriate emotion regulation strategies) appear to be distinct from alexithymia and thus it is likely that the two constructs might be largely independent and/or represent different constructs. these theoretical propositions, however, must be put to empirical test so that the nature of the relationship between the two constructs is revealed. in other words, there is a need to examine and empirically address such theoretical possibilities as: i) alexithymia is characterized by various types of emotion regulation difficulties but these difficulties themselves are not the defining components of alexithymia, ii) alexithymia is associated with emotion regulation difficulties and some types of emotion regulation difficulties (e.g., lack of awareness and/or understanding of emotions) may in fact represents some component or dimension of alexithymia. the potential relationship (or overlap) between alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties is further supported indirectly by the observations that both constructs have shown a similar pattern of association with mental and physical health related problems such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, depression, sleep disorder (bauermann, parker, & taylor, 2008; byrne & ditto, 2005; honkalampi et al., 2010; jula, salminen & saarijarvi, 1999). for instance, although alexithymia was initially linked with various psychosomatic disorders (taylor, 1994), latter it was found to be associated with a variety of other types of mental health problems such as depression (honkalampi et al., 2010), anxiety disorders (devine, stewart, & watt, 1999), insomnia and sleep related problems (bauermann, parker, & taylor, 2002; bauermann et al., 2008). for example, in a study the depressive symptom severity was found to be strongly associated with alexithymia particularly with two of its dimensions – difficulty in identifying feelings and difficulty in describing feelings (bamonti et al., 2010). similarly, higher prevalence of alexithymia in patients with anxiety and related disorders has also been reported. for instance, devine and colleagues (devine, et al., 1999) observed that individuals who experience frequent anxiety and greatly fear their anxiety symptoms report the greatest difficulties identifying and describing emotional states (an alexithymic-like difficulty). similarly, parker and colleagues (parker, taylor, bagby, & acklin, 1993) observed that a majority of patients with panic disorder had alexithymia and alexithymic individuals report less ego strength and significantly higher levels of anxiety and somatic complaints. emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 608 similarly, there are abundant research evidences that relate emotion regulation difficulties with a variety of health related problems such as depression (gross & munoz, 1995), anxiety disorders (mennin, mclaughlin, & flanagan, 2009), post traumatic stress disorder (mcdermott, tull, gratz, daughters, & lejuez, 2009), and panic disorder (tull & roemer, 2007) etc. some researchers (e.g., campbell-sills & barlow, brown & hofmann 2006), have argued that individuals with anxiety and mood disorders make counterproductive attempts to regulate acute affective episodes that lead to the exacerbation and persistence of unwanted emotion (i.e., ineffective emotion regulation). similarly, mcdermott and colleagues (2009) supported the central role of difficulties in emotion regulation in the prediction of ptsd within a crack/cocaine dependent population. studies also report that patients with panic attack disorder show reduced emotional clarity and difficulty to distinguish between bodily sensations and emotional states, resulting in internal states being perceived as ambiguous and unpredictable (tull & roemer, 2007). difficulties in emotion regulation have also been associated with various personality disorders (gratz, tull, & gunderson, 2008) and binge eating (whiteside et al., 2007). from the above review it is evident that alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties may potentially correlate with each other and it is likely that some of the observed relationship may be because of the similarity (overlap) in the content of both these constructs. however, empirical tests of such speculation have yet to be conducted. furthermore, the review also indicates that despite the encouraging research evidence that emotion regulation difficulties correlate with alexithymia and both of these constructs are related with health related problems, the potential mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties in explaining the alexithymia health relationship has not yet been properly explored. given the relationship of emotion regulation difficulties with both alexithymia and mental health problems, it can be hypothesized that the mental health problems of alexithymics may be caused by their difficulties in regulating emotions. in other words, the alexithymia-health relationship may be considered to be mediated by emotion regulation difficulties. however, again, such theoretical speculations need to be empirically tested. taking into consideration the gaps in the evidence, the present study makes an attempt to examine how far alexithymia may be characterized by emotion regulation difficulties and to what extent such emotional difficulties may account for the widely reported health related problems in alexithymics. to explore the role of emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia, alexithymic and non-alexithymic individuals were compared on a comprehensive measure of emotion regulation difficulties and discriminant function analysis was conducted to explore the level of accuracy with which emotion regulation difficulties can differentiate between them. europe’s journal of psychology 609 apart from this, an effort was also made to address the issue of potential overlap betweem the two constructs (alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties) using the factor analytic approach. to address this issue we conducted a factor analysis on the inter-correlation matrix obtained by combining the dimensions of alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties. our assumption is that, if both the constructs are orthogonal (no-overlap), then the analysis should yield two factors: one composed of dimensions of alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties respectively. contrary to this, if there is overlap then some dimensions of both constructs will cluster together to form a factor. further, to test the hypothesis that the mental health problems of alexithymics may be caused by their difficulties in regulating emotions, the differences in mental health problems of alexithymic and nonalexithymic participants were examined and compared before and after controlling the variance attributable to emotion regulation difficulties. the findings of the study thus aim to develop insight into the affective dynamics of health and to uncover the nature of the relationship between alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties. method participants initially 104 students (64 males and 40 females) in the age range of 18 to 27 years (mean age =21.19, sd= 2.51 years) were assessed on a measure of alexithymia and using quartile split the 25% low scorers (non-alexithymic) and the 25% high scorers (alexithymic) were finally selected for the present study. in the alexithymic group there were 27 participants (16 male & 11 female) whereas 26 participants (16 male & 10 female) were placed in the non-alexithymic group. the mean alexithymia score of alexithymic group was 62.70 (sd =3.58) and that of non-alexithymic group was 35.12 (sd = 5.89). the two groups differed significantly in terms of alexithymia scores (t(51) = 20.68, p<.001). the age range of alexithymic participants was 18 to 26 years (mean age = 21.15 years, sd = 2.16 years) and that of non-alexithymics was 18 to 26 years (mean age = 22 years, sd = 2.71 years). none of the participants reported any present or prior history of medical or psychiatric illness in an interview conducted before the administration of the tools for the present study. measures the hindi version of 20 item toronto alexithymia scale (tas-20-h; pandey, mandal, taylor, & parker, 1996) was used to assess the level of alexithymia of the participants. the tas-20-h assesses three dimensions of alexithymia: (a) difficulty in identifying emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 610 feelings and distinguishing them from bodily sensations, (b) difficulty in describing feelings to others, and (c) externally oriented thinking. respondents use a 5-point likert scale (from (1) „strongly disagree‟ to (5) „strongly agree‟) to rate themselves on statements describing alexithymic traits. the negatively keyed items are scored in reverse order. higher score on this scale indicates higher levels of alexithymia. emotion regulation difficulties were assessed using a hindi adaptation of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale (ders; gratz & roemer, 2004). the ders is a 36 item measure that assesses difficulties in regulating emotions across six domains: (a) non-acceptance of negative emotions; (b) difficulties in engaging in goaldirected behaviours when experiencing negative emotions; (c) difficulties in controlling impulsive behaviour; (d) lack of emotional awareness; (e) limited access to emotion regulation strategies; (f) lack of emotional clarity. participants were asked to indicate how often the items apply to themselves, with responses ranging from 1 to 5, where 1 is „almost never‟ (0-10%); 2 is „sometimes‟ (11-35%); 3 is „about half the time‟ (36-65%); 4 is „most of the time‟ (66-90%); and 5 is „almost always‟ (91-100%). the negatively keyed items are reverse scored and thus, the higher score indicates greater difficulties in regulating emotions. the hindi version of the ders was developed using the typical method of translation and back-translation. the initial psychometric evaluation of the hindi version of ders (the ders-h) revealed that the scale is psychometrically sound and reliable (pandey, saxena, gupta, & dubey, 2010). the reliability of the ders-h was found to be .90 and most of the subscales demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency (alpha = .80 or higher). one subscale (lack of emotional awareness), however, showed a relatively lower level of reliability (alpha = .606). the 28 item version of the general health questionnaire (ghq-28; goldberg & hillier, 1979) was used to assess four dimensions of mental health, namely somatic complains, anxiety & insomnia, depression and social dysfunction. each item in this questionnaire was followed by four response alternatives with score credit ranging from 1 to 4. the response alternatives have been arranged in such a way that higher score on the scale indicate better health. for the present study, a hindi version of the ghq-28 was developed following the cross-cultural methodology (translation – back translation) of establishing transliteral equivalence. procedure the participants of the present study were contacted either individually or in small groups consisting of 3 to 4 persons. before the administration of the questionnaires europe’s journal of psychology 611 the participants were briefed about the purpose of the study and their task. they were also informed about the approximate time required to complete the questionnaires. after obtaining the consent of the participants, the aforementioned questionnaires were administered as per the standard instructions of each questionnaire. the questionnaire/scales were filled by the participants in the presence of either the second or the third author. all participants were requested to ensure that they have responded to each item of every questionnaire/scale. results in order to examine how and to what extent the emotion regulation difficulties are associated with alexithymia, alexithymic and non-alexithymic individuals were compared on various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties using one way anova. here it is important to mention that rather than using manova, multiple univariate anovas were conducted because of the exploratory nature of the study. the obtained results (including mean and sd of scores on various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties) are presented in table 1. table 1. comparison of alexithymic and non-alexithymic participants on various dimensions of difficulties in regulating emotions non-alexithymic (n=26) alexithymic (n=27) dimensions of ders mean sd mean sd f –ratio non-acceptance of emotional responses 11.65 3.57 17.25 3.59 32.40** difficulties engaging in goal directed behavior 14.00 4.51 17.07 4.15 6.66* impulse control difficulties 11.73 5.40 16.77 5.56 11.20** lack of emotional awareness 14.34 4.27 15.44 3.59 1.03 limited access to emotion regulation strategies 15.76 5.42 20.40 6.03 29.89** lack of emotional clarity 7.00 1.67 13.37 3.85 60.61** ders total 74.50 15.51 104.30 18.79 39.41** it is evident from the table that as compared to non-alexithymics, alexithymic participants scored significantly higher on all the dimensions of ders-h except one dimension lack of emotional awareness. although a statistically significant difference was not observed on this dimension of ders-h, the observation of mean scores suggest that alexithymic individuals tend to have a greater lack of emotional awareness as compared to their non-alexithymic counterparts. one reason for the observed non-significant differences on this dimension of emotion regulation emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 612 difficulty may be the poor reliability of this subscale of the ders-h (alpha = .606; pandey et al., 2010). overall, the findings suggest that various types of emotion regulation difficulties characterize alexithymic individuals. in other words, alexithymic and non-alexithymic individuals may be differentiated on the basis of their profile of emotion regulation difficulties. however, this analysis does not tell how accurately the alexithymic individuals may be differentiated from their non alexithymic counterparts on the basis of their emotion regulation difficulties. thus, to address this objective, a discriminant function analysis was performed using various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties as predictor and the alexithymic/non-alexithymic groups as categorical criterion. since only two groups are involved, the analysis yielded only one discriminant function that was found to be statistically significant (wilk‟s lambda = 0.407, p<0.001). the classification results (table 2) revealed that based on the scores on various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties, 88.9% alexithymics were accurately classified as alexithymics and only 11.1% were misclassified as non-alexithymics. however, the classification accuracy for non-alexithymics (92.3%) was relatively higher than alexithymics and the misclassification rate was also lower (7.7%). table 2. classification results of discriminant function analysis using various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties as predictors original group membership predicted group membership non-alexithymics alexithymics n percentage n percentage non-alexithymics 24 92.30 2 7.70 alexithymics 3 11.10 24 88.90 the perusal of the discriminant function structure matrix (table 3) revealed that three dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties, namely lack of emotional clarity, non acceptance of emotional responses, and limited access to emotion regulation strategies, were relatively more important than others in differentiating alexithymics from non-alexithymics inasmuch as these dimensions load high on the discriminant function. the step-wise discriminant function analysis, however, revealed that only lack of emotional clarity (standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients =.784) and non-acceptance of emotional responses (standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients =.415) contributed most in differentiating alexithymic and non-alexithymics individuals with almost similar accuracy level as achieved by taking all dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties into account. europe’s journal of psychology 613 table 3. the discriminant function structure matrix dimensions of ders-h function-1 lack of emotional clarity .90 non acceptance of emotional responses .66 limited access to emotion regulation strategies .63 impulse control difficulties .39 difficulties engaging in goal directed behaviour .30 lack of emotional awareness .12 the classification matrix obtained for the stepwise discriminant function analysis has been presented in table 4 which reveals that 85.2% of alexithymic and 96.2% of nonalexithymic participants were accurately classified as alexithymic and nonalexithymic, respectively. furthermore, the classification accuracy obtained on the basis of only the abovementioned two dimensions of the ders-h was approximately similar to that obtained using all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties. table 4. classification results of stepwise discriminant function analysis original group membership predicted group membership non-alexithymics alexithymics n percentage n percentage non-alexithymics 25 96.20 1 3.80 alexithymics 4 14.80 23 85.20 the findings of the previously mentioned analyses suggest that as compared to nonalexithymics, the alexithymics showed grater emotion regulation difficulties, specifically lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses. moreover, the various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties differentiated between alexithymics and non-alexithymics with about 90% accuracy but two dimensions lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses contributed most to this classification accuracy. these observations imply that alexithymia is characterized by various types of emotion regulation difficulties; the lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses are the core emotion regulation difficulties associated with alexithymia. the aforesaid findings, although suggesting that alexithymia is associated with emotion regulation difficulties, do not tell whether this association is because of the overlap of these constructs or not. to address the issue a factor analysis (principal emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 614 component analysis) was conducted on the inter-correlation matrix obtained by pooling the various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia together. the principal component analysis was carried out on the whole sample of 104 participants from which the alexithymic and non-alexithymic participants were screened. thus, the sample size was adequate for factor analysis as for each variable the number of participants was more than 10 (kass & tinsley,1979). the principal component analysis yielded two components with eigenvalues greater that one and jointly explained 66.34% of the total variance (44.118% by the first component and 20.222% by the second). the scree plot also indicated that only two components reach significance and thus these two components were rotated using varimax rotation. the cut-off loading .60 was used for interpreting the factors as the sample size was small. the rotated component matrix is presented in table 5. table 5. rotated factor structure matrix obtained by factor analyzing the various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia factor 1 factor 2 limited access to emotion regulation strategies .88 impulse control difficulties .85 non acceptance of emotional responses .84 difficulty in identifying feelings .73 lack of emotional clarity .72 difficulty engaging in goal directed behavior .70 externally oriented thinking .71 lack of emotional awareness .68 difficulty in describing feelings .61 it is evident from table 5 that all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties loaded the first factor except lack of emotional awareness that loaded the second factor. similarly, all the dimensions of alexithymia loaded the second factor except difficulty in identifying feelings that loaded the first factor. the first factor, thus, may be labelled as emotion regulation difficulties that also include one dimension of alexithymia (difficulty in identifying feelings). similarly, the second factor may be labelled as alexithymia. however, this factor also included lack of emotional awareness that has been originally measured as a dimension of emotion regulation difficulties. this pattern of cross loading of one dimension of each construct on both the factors suggests only minimal overlap between the constructs inasmuch as most of the other dimensions of each construct loaded separate factors. the findings, thus, imply that emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia are largely independent constructs with minimal content overlap. europe’s journal of psychology 615 to test the hypothesis that the poor mental health of alexithymic individuals may be caused by their difficulties in regulating emotions, the alexithymic and nonalexithymic individuals were compared on various dimensions of mental health with and without controlling the effect of various types of emotion regulation difficulties. the data was analyzed using one way analysis of co-variance (ancova) design with mental health as dependent measure and various dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties as covariate. in one analysis all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties were entered as covariates while in the other only those two dimensions were used as covariates that emerged as best predictor for differentiating alexithymics from non-alexithymics. however, before controlling the covariance of emotion regulation difficulties one way anova was conducted using various dimensions of mental health as dependent measure to ensure that alexithymic individuals reported significantly more mental health related problems as compared to non-alexithymics. the obtained results are presented in table 6. table 6. the comparison of mental health of alexithymics and non-alexithymics before and after controlling the variance attributable to emotion regulation difficulties before controlling the covariance of emotion regulation difficulties after controlling the covariance of lack of emotional awareness and non-acceptance of emotional responses after controlling the covariance of all dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties dimensions of health nonalexithymic alexithymia f nonalexithymic alexithymia f nonalexithymic alexithymia f mean mean mean mean mean mean somatic complaints 24.46 19.63 20.09** 23.40 20.64 2.88 23.24 20.81 2.15 anxiety & insomnia 25.19 19.44 27.19** 22.60 21.93 0.22 22.60 21.59 0.20 social dysfunction 20.27 18.26 6.684* 19.25 19.23 0.00 19.15 19.33 .024 depression 25.38 20.67 16.45** 23.96 22.03 1.26 24.08 21.92 1.70 total score on ghq-28 95.30 78.00 30.46* 89.23 82.84 1.48 89.06 84.02 1.33 the findings revealed that there were significant differences between alexithymic and non-alexithymic individuals on all dimensions of mental health before controlling for the contribution of difficulties in emotion regulation. the alexithymic individuals scored significantly lower than non-alexithymics on measures of mental health. since low score on various dimensions of the ghq-28 indicate greater severity/frequency of symptoms, the observed pattern of mean difference implies that alexithymic individuals (as compared to non-alexithymics) reported more somatic complaints, depressive symptoms and symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, and social dysfunction. however, after controlling for the contribution of emotion regulation difficulties, the emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 616 difference between alexithymic and non-alexithymic individuals became statistically non-significant on all the dimension of mental health. furthermore, the difference in mental health between alexithymic and non-alexithymic disappeared not only after controlling the effect of all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties but also after controlling the effect of only those two dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties that were found as being the best discriminator of alexithymics and nonalexithymics. the findings, thus, imply that emotion regulation difficulties, especially the lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses, mediate the effect of alexithymia on certain dimensions of mental health, namely depression, anxiety and insomnia, somatic complaints, and social dysfunction. in other words, the findings imply that the poor mental health observed in alexithymic individuals may be largely due to their difficulties in regulating emotions. discussion the findings of the present study suggest that alexithymia is associated with greater emotion regulation difficulties and a minimum overlap between these constructs was observed. these findings propose that alexithymia is an independent construct and its relationship with emotion regulation may reflect the interdependent nature of these constructs. further, the findings of the present study add to the existing literature by demonstrating that the elevated mental health problems in alexithymic individuals may be because of their emotion regulation difficulties as indicated by a non-significant difference between alexithymics and non-alexithymics in terms of mental health after statistically controlling the effect of emotion regulation difficulties. the earlier theoretical proposition that alexithymia may be considered as a disorder of emotion regulation (taylor, 1994; taylor, bagby, & parker, 1997) is empirically supported by the present observation that alexithymics showed a variety of emotion regulation difficulties such as non-acceptance of emotional responses, lack of emotional clarity, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behaviour, impulse control difficulties, and limited access to emotion regulation strategies. the observation that these emotion regulation difficulties can differentiate between alexithymic individuals and non-alexithymics with around 90% accuracy and that lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses (the two specific components of emotion regulation difficulties) contribute most to the observed discrimination accuracy provides further support to the above speculation. the finding that certain specific emotion regulation difficulties such as lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses are relatively more prominent in europe’s journal of psychology 617 alexithymic individuals also expands our understanding of the nature of emotional deregulation in alexithymia. the finding that alexithymia is associated with (or characterized by) emotion regulation difficulties suggests several possibilities about the nature of the relationship of these constructs. this relationship may indicate that the two constructs overlap with each other and thus have very similar content or behavioural domain. apart from overlapping relationship (i.e. similarity of defining behavioural domain/content), the observed association of alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties may reflect interdependence of the construct. in other words, the one construct may be dependent on or caused by the other construct and its subdomains. for instance, the interdependence hypothesis may suggest that alexithymia leads to emotion regulation difficulties. the reported theoretical coherence between the constructs of alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties lends support to the overlap hypothesis but the findings of the factor analysis that all the dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties and that of alexithymia loaded separate factors (with one exception) questions the sustenance of this hypothesis. one dimension of emotion regulation difficulties (lack of emotional awareness) loaded other dimensions of alexithymia and one dimension of alexithymia (difficulty in identifying feelings) loaded other dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties. the review of item content of these dimensions reveals substantial similarity and thus may be considered to reflect the same underlying deficit in understanding of emotions. this similarity of content and underlying process of difficulty in identifying feelings (a dimension of alexithymia) and lack of emotional awareness (a dimension of emotion regulation difficulties) may be a probable reason behind the interchange (cross-loading) of these dimensions in the factor analysis. taking these dimensions as substitute of each other the orthogonality and factorial purity of the observed two factors (factor 1: emotion regulation difficulties; factor 2: alexithymia) seems less questionable. thus, alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties may be considered orthogonal (non-overlapping) constructs. however, the similarity of content of the abovementioned dimensions of the two constructs does suggest that difficulty in emotional understanding (reflected by either the difficulty in identifying feelings or lack of emotional awareness) forms a common substance for both the constructs and may be a region of overlap. to sum up, the findings of the factor analysis do not completely rule out the possibility of overlap between alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties but definitely suggest that both constructs are largely independent and there is only a minimum overlap between them. emotion regulation difficulties in alexithymia and mental health 618 based on our own findings and the earlier observations we can speculate that the observed association between alexithymia and emotion regulating difficulties may be more an indicator of interdependence rather than content overlap. more specifically, we assume that the type of cognitive/emotional deficits associated with alexithymia may lead to various types of emotion regulation difficulties. the alexithymics‟ difficulty in cognitive modulation of emotional responses (pandey, 1995), difficulty in identifying and describing emotions (taylor, 1994; taylor, 1984) coupled with poor emotional differentiation ability, may contribute to their poor emotion regulation ability (lane & schwartz, 1987). it has been noted that individuals with poorly differentiated emotional experiences were found to be less able to regulate emotion as compared to those who have highly differentiated emotional experiences (barrett, gross, christensen, & benvenuto, 2001) and that adaptive emotion regulation involves awareness and understanding of emotions and the capacity for monitoring and evaluating emotional experiences (lane & schwartz, 1987). it is well documented that alexithymic individuals are lacking when it comes to understanding and awareness of emotions (taylor, 1994; taylor, 1984) and thus, the observed emotional regulation difficulties in alexithymic individuals appears to be theoretically congruent with a conceptualization of emotion regulation difficulties in terms of lack of emotional awareness and differentiation (gratz & roemer, 2004). another signficant contribution of the current study is that it provides some preliminary evidence to the theoretical speculation that emotion regulation difficulties associated with alexithymia may be a factor that enhances the risk of developing mental health problems among alexithymic individuals. the findings of the present study revealed that, when compared to non-alexithymics, alexithymic individuals reported significantly greater symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, somatic complaints and showed more social dysfunction. however, this difference in the self-reported mental health status of alexithymics and non-alexithymics became statistically non-significant when the contribution of emotion regulation difficulties in general and lack of emotional clarity and non-acceptance of emotional responses in particular were statistically controlled for. this observation supports the speculation that emotion regulation difficulty acts as a mediating factor in the observed relationship between alexithymia and mental health problems. despite the partial overlap between alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties, the findings of the present study do indicate the possibility that the a variety of other emotion regulation difficulties associated with alexithymia (particularly the nonoverlapping components of emotion regulation difficulties) may potentially contribute to elevated mental health problems (such as depression, anxiety, somatic complaints etc.) among alexithymic individuals. a number of earlier observations and theoretical propositions suggest that emotion regulation difficulties are at the europe’s journal of psychology 619 core of mental health problems (gross & munoz, 1995). in a recent meta analytic review, aldao and colleagues (aldao, nolen-hoeksema, & schweizer, 2010) have noted that various types of psychopathology and mental health problems can be viewed as an outcome of emotion regulation difficulties. they further reported that mental disorders like anxiety and depression were more consistently associated with emotion regulation difficulties. similarly, some researchers have theorized that difficulties in emotion regulation may also lead to poor interpersonal relationship (gross & munoz, 1995) which in turn may result in social dysfunction and other mental health problems. going over the major observations of the present study it can be concluded that alexithymia is characterized by a variety of emotion regulation difficulties and these emotional difficulties associated with alexithymia contribute to mental health related problems. furthermore, the findings also suggest that, except for the deficit in emotional understanding, the constructs of alexithymia and emotion regulation difficulties represent a different set of affective difficulties and should be considered orthogonal constructs with minimal overlap. however, the observed overlap between one dimension of each construct suggests the possibility that emotion regulation difficulty may be a broader construct representing a spectrum of emotion related difficulties and alexithymia (or its some component like difficulty in identifying emotions) may be a specific point on this spectrum. such speculation, however, needs further empirical verifications before drawing any conclusion inasmuch as the findings of our factor analysis requires further cross-validation. though the findings of the study are encouraging and have important implications for practicing clinical and health psychologists, it would be premature to make any recommendations and generalization because the findings are based on a small sample taken from a very specific population of students. as the health related issues and problems of students and young adults as well as their way and capacity to handle emotions may be very different from that of other age groups and population, it would be difficult to generalize these findings to other populations. 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(2007). emotion regulation difficulties associated with the experience of uncued panic attacks: evidence of experiential avoidance, emotional nonacceptance, and decreased emotional clarity. behavior therapy, 38(4), 378-391. whiteside, u., chen, e., neighbors, c., hunter, d., lo, t., & larimer, m. (2007).difficulties regulating emotions: do binge eaters have fewer strategies to modulate and tolerate negative affect? eating behaviors, 8(2), 162–169. about the authors: dr. rakesh pandey is presently professor at the department of psychology, banaras hindu university, india. his current research is focused on exploring the link of emotion and health and includes such topics as alexithymia, emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and emotion related difficulties and deficits in health and well-being. he is also working on an ongoing ugc funded project on hemispheric asymmetry in depression. address for correspondence: rakesh pandey, professor, department of psychology, banaras hindu university, varanasi-221005, india email: rpan_in@yahoo.com rpandeybhu@gmail.com prachi saxena is currently perusing her ph.d. research in department of psychology, banaras hindu university. her work is centered on role of emotional deficits in substance abuse – mental illness relationship. e-mail: prachisaxena.bhu@gmail.com akanksha dubey is a ph.d. student in the department of psychology, banaras hindu university. currently, she is perusing her ph.d. on the role of emotion processing in mental health. e-mail: akanksha.dubey31@gmail.com mailto:rpan_in@yahoo.com mailto:rpandeybhu@gmail.com mailto:prachisaxena.bhu@gmail.com mailto:akanksha.dubey31@gmail.com a mind for structure: exploring the roots of intelligent systems by ken richardson published by brown walker press reviewed by ejop editorial team the nature of mind, its origins, evolution, and working principles, is an area besieged by psychologists, cognitive scientists, biologists, anthropologists, mathematicians, comp-uter modellers, and even physicists. yet it remains full of uncertainties, theoretically fragmented, and often contro-versial. convincing or generally agreed descriptions of even basic, everyday, processes of perception and cognition are still not available. critics warn of overly simple notions of biological adaptation prominent in the area, and of mental functions as simple comp-utational processes. arguments have been increasing that these functions need to be treated in the wider context of the evolution of complex systems, generally, from the origins of life onwards. this, in turn, means the adoption of new conceptual foundations in the area: a step that, the history of science reminds us, has often been crucial to progress in other fields. this book is an attempt to offer foundations for understanding the evolution and nature of cognitive functions. it argues that what has been missing is a full appreciation of the complexity of environmental change; how it furnishes important dynamic structure; and how the increasing complexity, and associated abstraction, of that structure, has driven the evolution of complex systems, especially of cognitive functions. the book shows how recent dynamic systems theory is leading to a better appreciation of environmental structure and how the origins of life itself are based on such structure. the book then goes on to illustrate evolving capacities for the abstraction of structure in genetic and epigenetic systems; in cell signalling and developmental systems; and in perceptual and cognitive systems, reaching a new potency in human socio-cognitive abilities. the idea has many implications for research and theory on the human mind; for the goals and purposes of science itself in such dynamic fields; and for the nature of interventions in many practical domains. a mind for structure table of contents preface a mind for structure chapter 1. the need for structure chapter 2. natural structure chapter 3. life from structure chapter 4. structural biology chapter 5. developmental structures chapter 6. an eye for structure chapter 7. a brain for structure chapter 8. cognitive structures chapter 9. higher cognition chapter 10. intercognitive structures index available in bookshops and from the publishers www.brownwalker.com also from www.amazon.com and www.bn.com (barnes and noble). available in paperback and ebook form. isbn 159942 – 407 – x microsoft word 12. global bulgaria.doc the south-east european regional conference of psychology 2009 southeastern europe looking ahead: paradigms, schools, needs and achievements of psychology in the region bulgaria, sofia, 30 october – 1 november 2009 host-organization: the bulgarian psychological society (bps) with the support of the international association of applied psychology the international association of cross-cultural psychology the international union of psychological science the european federation of psychologists’ associations the european health psychology society the regional conference of psychology – 2009 (seercp2009) “southeastern europe looking ahead: paradigms, schools, needs and achievements of psychology in the region” will allow us to demonstrate the achievements and enhance the capacitybuilding collaboration of the psychologists in the region and the world. seercp2009 will help psychologists representing the countries in the region to share and increase their professional knowledge of what is going on in their countries, to learn about the paradigms, schools, needs and achievements of psychologists across the region and other parts of the world. 2 conference program includes: 2 plenary sessions with keynote addresses and brief country reports 8 symposia with paper and poster presentation sessions in the following areas: clinical and counseling psychology – with a focus on positive psychology in psychotherapy and mental health research and practices adolescents’ health psychology with a focus on understanding health behavior, lyfestyles and needs of young people in see region school and educational psychology – with a focus on prevention of bullying in schools, youth and family problems organizational psychology – with a focus on developing human capital and organizational effectiveness applied social psychology – with a focus on mass media, crime and civil society research psychological assessment – with a focus on test standards and professional training of test administrators disasters management with a focus on crisis intervention models and the need of professional network development applied psychology as a profession – with a focus on teaching psychology, professional and ethical standards of psychologists, europsy and national certification of psychologists, capacity development of psychologists’ associations and practices, psychology and public issues. for more information visit the conference website: http://rcp2009.wordpress.com/ the role of organisational innovation in corporations how to enable the establishment of competitive small and medium-sized enterprises in ceec helgo zuecker professor of intercultural management, unesco chair – university of bucharest biographical note after receiving the german university entrance qualification, helgo zuecker finished a seven years study of moving art with a dutch diploma, including a pedagogical qualification. between 1988 and 1995, he did seven years of pedagogical work in rotterdam (netherlands) and kassel (germany). from 1997, he studied business sciences, finishing for the first diploma in 2001 (bachelor equivalent) and for the second diploma (master equivalent) in 2003. during the studies, he worked for different chairs and for a german journal of business ethics. in 2003 he founded the institute of development “eupraxia consult” and since 2005 he is working on his phd thesis. contact details: moselweg 3 34131 kassel (germany) telephon: +49 561 3161316 e-mail: helgo.zuecker@eupraxia.de abstract the article stresses the question of organisational innovations in the field of sme in ceec. for the analysis, examples of characteristic phenomena are chosen which mirror the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats of ceec in transition economies. besides various economic images, three fields will be presented in which the eu exercises little direct influence. these three fields cover 1) education, 2) science and research, and 3) sme. they are seen to be essential terrain for initiating national and corporate competitive advantages. education is the basis of future human resources; science and research open potential sources of development for new products and service. a national culture of sme-carried economy can be seen as an effective structure to implement such innovation. necessary conditions are seen in helpful political framework programmes which build up economic structures contributing to national wealth by creating smes, by the corporate support of individual initiatives of collaborators and by effective corporate competence creating organisational team structures. in conclusion the department-unesco chair master course of intercultural management in bucharest is presented as an adequate tool to initiate as well as to form young people in a way that prepares them to recognize and to support necessary change impulses in social and corporate organisations. introduction an innovative organisational design – stimulated by change – stresses the immemorial duality of transformation and conservation. the design of an organisation has to be open for new impulses, just as innovations have to take into account the positive aspects of routine. the main objective of change will be on the one hand the acceptance to create an area of tension in which organisational embedded innovations can be generated and on the other hand, to identify which competence of action is needed to realise these innovations. economists as well as practitioners are rather familiar with the term “change”. its performance is therefore closely tied up with the ability to fulfill both practical and theoretical requirements. while scientists aim at long ranged and rather objective results, practitioners are directed to quick-acting efficiency and profit. to meet this twofold claim a specific approach is required. in science we find a tendency to reduce the field of research in order to present clear-cut results. as these results are based on specific theoretical presumptions, the subsequent discussion tends to limit itself to the pros and cons of these presumptions. in contrast people working in business are waiting for practical solutions rather than honourable scientific depth. but unbridled capitalism would also not be suitable. here too we can see the need for balanced exposure in economic questioning. to hook up with czarniawska-joerges [2000; 360], for successful advancement in any theoretical field, we require the reinforcement of creativity and experimentation which have to be consolidated by reflection and analysis. beside an interdisciplinary approach to the sciences of business, organisation, culture, and psychology, the two above mentioned opposite poles within the economic field (practitioners and scientists) will be treated. the aim of this article is to offer a relevant conceptual perspective for the development of the economies within the ceec. we will look at the present economic situation of the ceec and at their interests and apprehensions as well as at actual economic cases to illustrate chances and threats. with the help of this analysis, the field of change takes shape. methods of resolve are drafted before presenting basic elements of the master course of intercultural management of the department-unesco chair in bucharest. even though we are using the term ceec as an all-embracing entity within europe, we should not ignore the existence of the “latin chasm” lying between western (poland, czech, hungary, …) and eastern (romania, ukraine, …) christianity [panther, 1998]. methodology for this article a pragmatic-intuitive approach has been chosen that focuses on hermeneutics. various phenomena of economic argument, opinion, and published fact will be presented. through sensible design, the phenomena will be transformed into relevant symptoms. the idea of “sensemaking in organisation” generates more emphasis on values and it “clarifies what is important in elapsed experience, which finally gives some sense of what that elapsed experience means” [weick, 1995; 28]. with the help of hermeneutics new perspectives for economy, education, as well as science and research will be highlighted. in the context of this article several current economic cases within the ceec will be outlined by review research. the examples are chosen to prepare the later line of argument that will be substantiated by results of theoretical research. this approach can also be called a hermeneutical view on today’s economical problems in ceec. the theoretical frame is based on theory of the learning organisation, as represented by argyris and schoen [1978], senge [1990] and by others. when talking about change, the terms innovation and routine come into play. the former is a term that is a part and parcel of economic theory, whereas the latter receives a rather inferior but not irrelevant position within economic thinking. for a long time the organisation of enterprises was seen as a black-box, a terra incognita for the economists [beschorner, 2002; 75]. later organisations were described as closed systems, evolving production, transformation and finally a product or service [katz & kahn, 1983; 98 et seq.]. in certain streams of business science, organisations are seen as open systems. the idea behind this perception is that organisations can not be closed because they “are affected by their environments, and, in turn, affect their environments. the open model reflects the dynamic interaction of the organization system within various aspects or systems in the external environment.” [banner, 1995; 77 et seq.] table 1: the nature of an open system (banner 1995, p. 78) the interplay of ceec and eu status quo the situation of the ceec can not be understood without looking at the process of their integration into the eu. below we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of integration for the eu 25 and for the candidate countries. “the fall of the berlin wall on 9 november 1989 marked the disintegration of the entire communist bloc in the east.” for approximately the last 15 years, the ceec have been going through a turbulent time of change. after the successful revolution, a thorough upheaval of the political, economic and social systems began and every single member of east european civil society was challenged to adapt to the new way of life. the transition from planned to market economy was a challenge for which no models or theoretical concepts existed [dauderstädt, 2002a]. the ceec had on the one hand to fight against high inflation as well as high unemployment rates and on the other hand against growing social expenses arising out of the process of transition (costs of increasing unemployment, inflation rate and growing insecurity). comparing the national data of each country the development of the ceec can not be characterised as being enormously homogeneous. some of these countries have been more, others less, successful in the attempt to overcome political, economic and social problems. these differences lead us to question if the former countries are “per se” more talented in handling the requirements of market economy than the latter? the cause for this phenomenon can be seen, for instance, in the differing geographic distances to the eu as well as in cultural and infrastructural factors. the radical change was followed by a more massive decline in industrial production than was generally expected. during the “transformation recession”, the overall industrial production of the visegrád states went down surprisingly by 30 % compared to 1985 [habuda et al., 1996]. already in the time of the comecon, the economy suffered a notorious weakness of innovation. these problems were rooted in the economic structure of the comecon with its predominance of heavy industries, such as iron, steel and mechanical engineering after world war ii [kurz & wittke, 1998]. another cause of economic difficulties is to be seen in the process of globalisation which elevates the pressure of competition for everyone, promotes technical innovation and permanent change to gain advantages over competitors. thinking of ceec, this situation brings to mind the fairy tale of ”the hare and the hedgehog” where the slower and later starting hedgehog wins solely because of a ruse. “the driving force behind the fifth eu enlargement has been the desire to ensure peace, stability and economic prosperity in a re-unified europe.” to reassure these aims, the eu promoted and demanded the candidate states to accept the so called “acquis communautaire” to adjust the juridical systems to make exchange easier. to this document the criteria of copenhagen were added [dauderstädt; 2002b]. in the copenhagen presidency conclusions it is asserted that: “membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and, protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the union.” two years later, the supplementary madrid “criterion” mentioned also “the adjustment of their administrative structures” as something helpful, but not conditional for the accession. in the context of the difficult process of adaptation the candidates czech republic, estonia, hungary, poland and slovenia asked for additional transitional arrangements. for the negotiations, the acquit had been divided into thirty operational chapters. at the end of the negotiations, no arrangements were made for the chapters of science / research, education / training, and sme by the eu and the ceec [mayhew, 2000; 21]. it is to be anticipated that similar problems will be discussed with the “helsinki”-candidates. these three chapters cover three areas with hardly any community regulations. since then the three fields were closed for the entire “helsinki” group. even though, the eu supports sme intensively. the three fields are of essential importance to the competitiveness of national economies. maybe the ceec left them aside in order to stay independent of external influences. maybe they were sacrificed like pawns to triumph in the other twenty-five chapters, or they did not see the relevance of fighting for them. later on we will come back to the three vital points mentioned in these chapters. development of economic indicators and economic sectors in the ceec besides political stability, the people of the ceec were looking forward to enter the eu because they expected increasing wealth and a higher standard of living comparable to that of western europe. in the meantime normative systems and ownership structures have largely adapted to the patterns of market economy. but the national wealth has not increased much. too high are the social costs of the transition process. in the year 1999, only three countries-poland, slovenia, and slovakia achieved the gdp (gross domestic product) of 1989 [dauderstädt, 2000]. see the following table: table 2: results of transition (own translation) source: ebrd, transition report 1999 in this context mainly the first two columns are of interest. the approach towards the eu brought several advantages for the ceec. there are compensation payments from brussels and higher direct investments with the consequence of higher productivity due to modernised machinery, better infrastructure and other elements. the possibility of access to the huge eu market opens big chances to the eastern economies. especially the countries near the borders of the old eu members are profiting. one example will be given to illustrate how these chances can be used. near the german border the polish state bestows tax incentives and subsidies to a special economic zone which is called walbrzych. the wages of industrial workers (250-350 €) represent only 10-15 % of german wages. since 1997 the zone of walbrzych attracted 1, 2 billion € and provided 14.000 new jobs. in part, a funding of 50% of investment costs is possible. the director of the electrolux factory has no illusions: “for the next 10 or 15 years, our jobs are safeguarded. then they will possibly be dislocated to the ukraine.” (own translation) steel industry an important economic sector of ceec is the steel industry. western producers are also dislocating production to the east because of the low wages. another reason for the outsourcing of activities of energy-intensive heavy industries is the strict control of the high environmental standards in western europe, or for instance the energy tax in germany. at the moment, the ceec are profiting compared with far east production places from the shorter distance to western europe. in the calculations of steel industry, the costs of transport are a weightily factor. r. baan, the europe chief of mittal, noted that the transport of steel from poland to france costs at least 30 € per ton. he argued that these costs give matter of importance enough to keep adhering to the modernised factories in western europe [gassmann, 2006; 7]. textile industry the ceec are profiting from rationalisation processes in western europe. for example, in germany already in 1995, 60 % of all distributed textile goods were given into commission abroad. in this year nearly 4 billion euros were paid for the production of clothing abroad [kurz & wittke]. up to the present time, many of these clothes still come from the ceec because of low wages and short distances of transport but this advantage is brought in danger by the economic activities of china. the following table shows the development of (shares in) textile and machinery exports in china and the eu. even though both are growing the rate of increase is not at all the same. the dominance of china will grow much quicker than the one of the eu and this will weaken especially the competitive capability of the supplying industries of the ceec. table 3: world market share of china and eec: www.euroeiiw.de source: http://www.wiwi.uni-wuppertal.de/fileadmin/welfens/daten/skripte/ws05_06/globalisierfin05.pdf; 28.3.06; 14:00 branches of software provider a future market for ceec will be the sector of software development. following an interview with chairman and ceo h. kagermann, the world’s third-largest independent software provider, sap ag wants to relocate jobs from india to china and ceec because of too high personal costs. [gribnitz & klusmann] depending of adequate competencies and low enough wages the best locations will be chosen by sap. the moment that the combination of financial advantages will be noticeable displaced the production will move to another place – like in the example that was given from walbrzych in poland. result and consequences recapitulating all these examples we can say that beside economic chances there are many threatening consequences of the mixture of globalisation and transition. for all countries in the world and even more for the ceec the question is arising, how to meet the growing insecurity without loosing the courage and initiative. in this article this question is taken as the most essential question, because the lack of capital resources can be compensated only by a mixture of creative, initiative, and innovative cooperation in a healthy corporate climate. this will enable enterprises to cope successfully with the stress of competition. this question can be answered in the three fields that were excluded in the above mentioned transitional arrangements between the eu and the ceec. in the field of education everything should be done to transmit the varied experiences to the pupils. this includes beside cognitive in particular also artistic and manual capacities. pupils should be seen as individuals who deserve respect and who are asking nothing else from their teachers than cultural techniques in order to act later in a creative way. teachers should be endued with windows of opportunities as well as competences to respond to the present development needs of the children. instead of fulfilling administrative planning’s teachers should get the freedom to offer in the context of a specific self determined school profile. in the field of sme a twofold perspective of acting is eligible. thenceforward the government has understood the importance of sme for the national wealth and competitiveness, initial support for founders of new business could be offered on one side, and an adequate juridical and fiscal frame should be designed on the other side. in the field of science and research is the task to create competences within and after the studies in the university, to counter brain drain by building up a climate of research, and to work out specific cultural and economic solutions to the defiance of the globalisation and transition. within the scope of globalisation the enterprises in the eu are already since decades busy to save efficiency by all forms of rationalisation. originally fixed to the home market the responsible managers are more and more following purely appreciations of economic values. in this context the drift of labour-intensive work to cheaper countries outside the eu and brain-drain from for example ceec into the eu is getting stronger. a similar development is to observe since a long time in the environment of the usa and of japan. huge production places developed at the boarders of these industrial countries to fulfil their need of cheap labour. we cannot expect teachers in underfinanced educational systems to be able to transmit adequate knowledge and skills to the younger generation. attractive scholarships causes brain drain, depriving intellectual resources from the poorer countries. how can poor countries develop when the high qualified man power is leaving? there would be the possibility to ameliorate the conditions inside the country, giving incentives to stay and to help the country to recover. in spite of the little floating money the government could invest more in fields that can generate the base of future wealth on the long run. at the same time new laws should support people to create and develop sme. the example of germany illustrates the importance of governmental support for sme. in germany but also in the eu as a whole, big programs were started to support sme. other examples are known from development countries. for instant deals the grameen bank in bangladesh in credits without asking any security at all. the starting point was the belief that even the poorest woman is able to help herself to get away from poverty. their force to take initiative for the next individual step lends them creditworthiness at the bank. the director and founder of the bank, m. yunus believes that granting the women creditworthiness means to bestow them with human dignity. in both cases we hear about people who decided to take over entrepreneurial initiative and responsibility. for the competitiveness of a country, entrepreneurs like them are invaluable. the quantity of initiate young people can be influenced by the quality and the educational aims of a country. innovation innovative corporate design the corporate design becomes manifest in the organizational structure of an enterprise. in the english language as in others the term organisations has a double meaning. on the one hand the term means the process of organising or its result, the “being-organised” of social activity, on the other hand it can refer to a system of organisational activity. as argued convincingly by franz [2000], “organisations are social organism constituted by their people or members and groups of people on the one hand, and by formal and informal purposes, structures, rules and values on the other hand … organisations are the distinctively structured and regulated form of purposeful interaction of individuals and groups.” in this context ortmann et al. see the recursive nature of human activity: through our activity, we generate those structures which then enhance or restrict us in our further acting [1997; 315]. the more this recursive process becomes alive and flexible, the more will it be innovative. an innovation is composed of one or more invention(s) and its / their implementation. the method of realizing innovations, in other words of learning how to manage change, is nowadays covered by the term ”change management”. managing change means the suites of changes in a systematically planned and managed fashion. as a consequence of change the design of an enterprise will change. in this article the design is understood as the perceivable part of the corporate culture. in the 1980s, the concept of organisational culture attained increasing importance in western industrial countries. the main causes are to be seen in: changing orientation of values, increasing national and international competitiveness, the threat of japanese corporations, rational and technocratic difficulties, limited strategies of change a limited concept of management [rosenstiel, 1993]. a specific and auspicious aspect of organisation can be seen in the concept of learning organisation. in the late seventies of the last century argyris, the author of “organizational learning”, was attacked by renowned scientists like tom burns and geoffrey vickers who felt irritated by the idea of organisational learning. it took time until the nineties that this concept was generally accepted [argyris & schoen, 1999/2002]. argyris worked out a theory of action, distinguishing a theory-in-use and an espoused theory. the former describe what is implicit in our acting, the latter how we get across to someone what we do, or what we would like others to think we do. “when someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances, the answer he usually gives is his espoused theory of action for that situation. this is the theory of action to which he gives allegiance, and which, upon request, he communicates to others. however, the theory that actually governs his actions is this theory-in-use.” [argyris & schoen, 1974] many conflicts can be understood knowing action theory and adapting it to reality. but to win the personal mastery to work in a positive way is a long way. to acquire personal mastery, it needs time and guidance, e.g. by a coach. the concept of learning organisations became very popular through senge’s famous book “the fifth discipline” where he presented the five principles of learning organisations. he called them systems think, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning. the learning organisation is described as an organisation “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.” [senge, 1990, 11] theoretical basis what are innovations in economy? the easiest answer would be: new products or services. the economic science defined that an idea alone can not be an innovation. an idea that has been adapted to the technical possibilities is called an invention. placing this successfully on the market the invention becomes an innovation. in theoretical and practical market economy, the term “innovation” is closely associated to the austrian economist j. schumpeter and is generally seen as an indispensable element to develop efficient corporate performance. in the theory of economic development, schumpeter stressed the role of the innovator who carries out five types of new combinations: the introduction of new goods, the introduction of a new method of production, the opening of a new market, the opening of a new source of supply, or the reorganization of any industry [schumpeter, 1934]. the step from an invention to an innovation demands a lot of money – and the success is never guaranteed. to implement an innovation on the market is a costly experiment. even when the innovation is generally accepted, there is no guarantee of profit. with a successful innovation, enterprises have to multiply the production. this means to ask for more money and with this the risks and costs rise. one says that enterprises that did not go through this phase of development grew too quickly. very different is the situation for enterprises that are big enough to finance the implementation and that can afford higher output figures. with their financial dominance they are potentially able to enforce a new standard. the moment the standard is set and the innovation is protected by patents against imitators, high profits are presumable. in this case we talk of “pioneer profit”. all it has to do is to keep imitators as long as possible out of the market. every new concurrent diminishes his profit. “one of sony’s best known and most successful innovations is the cassette walkman. launched in 1979, this innovation defined a new product category, set industry standards, and quickly became the dominant design for personal audio devices worldwide. even during the rise of the higher-fidelity digital compact disc (cd), the cassette tape walkman was still successful because it addressed a new market, and was marketed as a complement to the cd – portable, durable, and able to record. thus, the innovation opened up crucial new markets for both sony and its competitors, and the design was soon imitated by legions of followers.” [ratazzi, 2004] the early followers of innovations have to pay a lot to get the right to use the patent; even though, they have good chances of realising a reasonable return on investments (roi). in general it is considered that the later an enterprise is entering a new market, the lower is the profit. in specific cases it can be nevertheless the best strategy to enter late into a market. but when e.g. an enterprise invests in obsolete machinery or technique the chance to receive a positive roi is very small. application the cee economies need capital to invest, and an adequate infrastructure and the enterprises have to replace obsolete production equipment. in the case of a deficiency of capital and the necessity of investment the entrepreneur has no other option than to take up a loan. the banks will award a loan under conditions depending on the risks. one can say: the higher the own capital the lower the rates and the lower the own capital the higher the rates. the external financing creates a strong dependency on the financier who can influence the corporate strategy. even if the amortisation of the debts is successful, the enterprise will be tempted to put the focus more on adaptation to the market than on inner organisational innovative impulses. the implementation can be successfully carried out with help of a lot of promotion for the needs of the consumers – or, much cheaper, the innovation responds to the real demand inside and outside the firm. such an option asks little money but demands initiative and work to form an organisational design. if this work is well introduced and implemented, the cost will be manageable and the process of improvement will be above-average. in fact, at least for sme this option is often the only one, as banks often don’t award a sufficient loan or only with very high rates. enterprises can not exist without a corporate strategy [steinmann & schreyögg, 2002; 155], neither can they exist without a corporate culture. the organisational design is the conscious part of the corporate culture. for the development of the enterprise it is of relevance by whom the design was coined. bought-in models of organisation have to be implemented. the enterprise has to make, one could also say, the enterprise has to find, ways to find a sense in the model. otherwise it stays undigested and reduces the dynamics of the enterprise. especially for sme, it is possible to work on the inner ability to improve innovations and adaptations on the market without firms loosing their own profile. an innovationconveyingculture will develop innovation based on the specific constellation of a firm. because of this, the firm will win a unique selling proposition that can help the firm not only to survive but also to make profits. an organisation that is able to be innovative internally and externally out of their on the bases of their own personal capacity is constantly working on a transformation rooted in culture” [gerstlberger & zücker, 2004; 114 et seq.]. the weight given to innovations doesn’t imply that the influence of routines on the performance plays important part. there are critical authors [houllebecq, 2004] and scientists who call attention to routines as being very important as well. in an article, osterloh and grand discuss the theory of structuration by a. giddens. they emphasise the roles of so far inconsistent appendages without neutralising them. one of the examples they give is the organisational dilemma of innovation and routine [2000; 355]. education is a base for the development of human qualifications. science and research are indispensable for technical and organisational innovation which again is the base for competitiveness. in the social market economy of germany, sme are the most effective members of the national economy: they provide new jobs, generate and implement innovations, and cultivate flexible and dynamic organisations. the importance of an innovative culture is uncontested in the market economy. the significance of sme emerges when we glance at the sme situation in germany. the german ministry of education and research expressed in a paper on a support programme that smes are playing a key role in the german innovation system. 70 % of employment is offered by sme (within the eu in total 60 %) that generate 49 % of the gross value added. international competition has intensified over the past years and customers have become more demanding with the result that dynamic abilities such as high innovation potential, creativity, flexible response to the changing desires of clients, and up-to-date scientifically-founded technological competence are deciding about the success of an enterprise on the market. the strength of sme is located in their unburocratic forms of organisation, short distance informational exchange, flat hierarchies, good customer contact, and high motivation. innovative smes stimulate traditional markets or they strike new paths. change management(cm) cm is the often used term for change in the field of economy. in 2004 wimmer criticized that the idea of cm would not open new gates for consultants as long as a clear conceptualisation is missing [2004; 38]. cm reminds us with few exceptions of big toolboxes. besides the practical tools there are however already many conceptual bases worked out. cm works with the difference between the status quo and what is potentially possible. many definitions are given for cm, for example: initiation, measuring and control of a fundamental change process, or: cm is the management of the planned organisational change. a specific variant of change is based on participation, teamwork being the fundamental source of energy for the change process. cm is about the change of basic settings and there especially the change of the consuetudinary behaviour of the collaborators. therefore they should be involved in the process. it is them who are deeply involved and who have to create a strong organisation to survive in a turbulent environment. and “the more turbulent the environment, the more likely it is that more diverse organisation will have the resources to cope with unpredicted events” [schein, 2004, 401]. in fact, a fundamental aim of cm is to constitute a diversity of culture in groups, or even in whole organisations. cm is touching the spheres of e.g. learning organisations, organisational development; management of crises and of innovations, cip (continuous improvement process), concepts of reorganisation and strategic management. for economic organisations the most essential issue is not to follow management fashion trends but to choose for one management style that corresponds to the profile of the enterprise [stevens, 2001]. there are two reasons why cm is indispensable: 1) the permanence of change (heraclitus described change as ever-present and all-encompassing. 2) the adaptation to transformatory processes in the environment. in times of change, sound knowledge is rarer than in times of routine. the use of habitual instruments of management like power and money are limited in such times and individual initiative has its day. in this context new opportunities emerge for dynamic countries with people who are initiative. active acceptance of the cm process by the management, shown for example in mutual trust between the ceo and collaborators, coupled with highly developed communication skills provide for success in the changing project. in a learning organisation, the activation of human resources leads towards permanent change by offering self-determination to the collaborators in the context of team-work situations. the rate of failure is high (around 75%) – schreyögg assumes that the cause is on one hand due to the character of change which has to be considered as a real art and on the other hand the resistance to change. he argues that this phenomenon has to be understood as an emotional barrier [2000; 26]. resistance is coming up in form of pronouncing what can not be accepted by the speaker. the essential question concerning organisational resistance consists in the ability to handle voice (in the sense of: to dare to speak honestly) in an integrating and enhancing way [zücker, 2001] and to overcome thereby resistance [schrage, 2005]. resistances are often the consequence of not knowing, and this causes fear. open communication can help overcome fear. then, instead of producing fear, members of an enterprise could learn to see change as a chance for a better future. if this is to be achieved the organisation – but also the whole nation – has to learn to enter the process of permanent change. neither the integration of the collaborators in the development-process nor commonly found objectives of the organisation necessarily means higher efficiency. but an essential advantage is to be seen in the improved acceptance of a common objective [erez et al., 1985]. we described already how normative measures to support smes can help to build up a strong national economy. we also mentioned that the transformation of the system of education can help. the third aspect of science and research will be deepened by giving one example of how change can be implemented. department-unesco chair bucharest the unesco follows the ideal of a peaceful community of people, which acknowledges and appreciates worldwide diversity. on the 2nd november 2001 the unesco universal declaration on cultural diversity was unanimously adopted by the general conference of unesco in paris, france [stenou, 2002]. the ideal of diversity encourages searching for an intercultural communication and cooperation across national boundaries. for several years now the university of bucharest is enriched by a department-unesco chair which is part of an international network of unesco chairs. after years of an inter-religious and intercultural master, a master course of intercultural management was established last year. behind the didactical concept of the courses, individual learning as well as lifelong learning is situated. these fundamental elements of learning are also advanced in the eu. in the beginning of the master-course “intercultural management” the following question emerged: what capacities and competencies are needed to open new economic perspectives for ceec on the long run? the conceptualisation of the master-course was based of this analyse. in the master course economic basics and intercultural knowledge and competences are communicated. a happenstance was the integration of the master course into the department-unesco chair in bucharest. for an intercultural master course, the circumstance that the director of the department-unesco chair is at the same time the coordinator of this unitwin network of unesco chairs has an additional impact. through this network international experiences can be implicated into the curriculum and the participants and alumni can profit from connections to many countries around the world. the aim of the department-unesco chair in bucharest is to act in the context of countries of transition by communicating democratic and participatory norms of attitude and by offering chances to experience them, for example, by being involved into the building-up of a consulting center. with practical impacts like building-up a consulting centre or other practical initiatives the participants are pushed forward to play an active role in the society and to take responsibility. they are chiefly encouraged to act instead of waiting for an attractive offer of work. during their studies they are trained to be able to act with an intercultural awareness in the fields of administrative institutions and economy and within the civil society. for the master of intercultural management in bucharest, the curriculum is focused on economic, communicative and ethical subjects. within this bias, an essential course is working on competences. the concept is apportioned in four parts. in the first part, individual training in view of the working environment is the main subject which is called in the theory of learning organisation “personal mastery”. an essential point is characterised by the question: what are the interests of the individual within the organisation? furthermore the participants have to work on existing ideas about a personal project. at the end of the master study, this project has to be realised – in the best cases it forms a basis for the future working area. in the second block concentrates on the organisational aspect of enterprises and the first ideas are pushed further (business-plan and setup of a network). here are two questions of importance: what are the forms, rules, habits, and myths that lend profile to an enterprise in the eyes of the external world? what needs have to be satisfied by the enterprise? block three stresses an appropriate sense of managing change in organisations: the incremental change within teams and its effect on the whole enterprise. the projects have to produce first effects on the environment. in the last block the implementation and reflection of the whole process plays the main role. a final presentation with a little “viva-voce” will finish the course. in all three blocks the attention is put on the development of competence. the competences are operationalised into three competences (professional, methodological and social competence) plus one (competence of acting, including decision-making and responsibility). table 4: sensemaking, learning and organisational change – a model [huzzard, 2004; 358] the figure: sensemaking gives an idea about how the master course as well as the change process in organisations takes places. the process in the field of individual interests and organisational requirements –in a wider sense the demands of the environment – needs a rhythmical movement between micropolitical sensemaking and superordinated sensegiving by power and politics. as the frequency of this rhythm depends on the specific constellation of personal, it is comprehensible that there is no passepartout model for particularly sustainable organisational change. one can wonder whether sustainable change in organisations is possible and particularly desirable. in the context of the course of “intercultural management” and also in a world coined by globalisation, we have to take into account the increasing intercultural meetings. is “the clash of civilizations becoming a reality? are we unchangeable bounded to cumulating cultural conflicts? are there any alternatives offered in science and political life? in 2001 the unesco defined cultural diversity as “a value which recognises that differences in human societies are parts of systems and relationships.” [stenou, 2002, 13] in the first article it is explicitly said that “diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up mankind”, they emphasise: “furthermore, cultural diversity as a value expresses and implies other, even more fundamental, values.” these even as non-negotiable called values are seen as creativity, dignity and community. “and without these values, no vision of development can be sustainable.” [stenou, 2002, 6] summary with this conceptual perspective, we hope to offer a relevant impulse to the development of the ceec economies. different contemporary vents have been chosen to design a map of orientation and different concepts of action have been presented. because of the small capital stock, we stressed that enterprises in ceec could profit from the generation of flexible and dynamic corporate cultures by processes of change. on the one hand, learning organisation allows change with little additional financial investments; on the other hand it requires a lot of initiative and the taking over of responsibility by the collaborators. with the description of the master course “intercultural management” 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(2001): die organisation von zustimmung und widerspruch als unternehmensethisches problem im hinblick auf die organisationsentwicklung. kassel internet http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/i23007.htm, 3.4.06; 0:30 http://www.interculturel.org/_enindex.html, 23.04.06; 21:00 http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/e50017.htm, 31.3.06; 13:45 http://www.wiwi.uni-wuppertal.de/fileadmin/welfens/daten/skripte/ws05_06/globalisierfin05.pdf, 28.3.06; 14:00 www.euroeiiw.de http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/i23007.htm, 3.4.06; 0:30 ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/fp7/docs/com2005_0443en01.pdf, 21.4.06; 11:30 http://www.db-thueringen.de/servlets/derivateservlet/derivate-6222/cuntz.pdf, 2.4.06; 10:00 http://www.grameen-info.org/, 21.4.06; 19:00 http://www.heute.de/zdfheute/inhalt/31/0,3672,2303807,00.html, 21.4.06; 11:50 http://www.lpb.bwue.de/aktuell/bis/3_97/bis973e.htm, 6.3.06; 13:00 microsoft word 1. editorial.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp.1-5 www.ejop.org kicking the can of stigma down the road by tony foster, m.ed., l.p.c.i center director, amarillo mental health consumers as i strolled through the vestibule of memories past, i witnessed the unfolding of hell’s fire. the caterwauling of the desperate and disarmed provided the shadowy overcast as a young man of stealthy step and demoniacal eyes lay hold of a 45 caliber pistol, and with superior marksmanship, picked off the pristine, one by one. what bedeviled such a man that he could, without compassion or bereft of charity, take aim at his own, and with calculated thievery, deprive a man/woman of his last breath? these acts of macabre have disquieted many souls who unwelcome the idea of an untidy universe. in trying to explain, “the carousal of the disorderly” some say that the collegiate genocide of seung-hui cho was the bloodlust reveling of a madman unhinged from reality. blistered across the front page of the san antonio express news, a young female named otty sanchez cannibalized her 3 ½ week old child. so hideous was the crime that the respondent police officers and collateral emergency personnel had to receive aftercare and trauma counseling. the news article implied psychosis and possible untreated schizophrenia as the culprit of the unthinkable. such helter-skelter has become the media’s primetime fodder with the leitmotif being those with a psychiatric history are the major perpetrators of violent crime. the propaganda machine fires off daily reports characterizing the mentally ill as a motley crew of impulsives who cannot control their primitive urges. the number of opinion-spun news sources is legion, and furor seems to supersede facts. such demagoguing has led the majority of americans to believe the a priori assumption that mental illness and violence are inextricably linked. are the media’s assertions apodictic? does the sensationalism that is often dealt out to the mentally ill pass the scientific litmus test? kicking the can of stigma down the road 2 in an attempt to resuscitate the victims of primetime smothering one must breathe in the oxygen of scientific research as a counterbalance. a fit measure of mental illness and violence would be forcible rape. nobody, foolishly doubts, that rape is a violent act. in fact, judith rabkin, of john hopkins university investigated similar concerns. in a breakthrough study, rabkin, wanted to uncover the antecedents that led a person to commit rape (rabkin, 1979). her idea was to administer a psychosocial history of each rapist in the continental united states. she, later, studied historical triggers, psychiatric intervention, protean ethnicities, and socio-economic status in an effort to compartmentalize the demographics into a rapist’s profile. for our purposes, only 5% of the rapists had a psychiatric history (rabkin, 1979). the former percentage is more compelling when you couple it with the fact that 25% of americans suffered from a diagnosable mental illness in 1978 (commission on mental health, 1978). roughly, 25% of the population had a potential diagnosis, but they were only causing 5% of the problem. admittedly, rabkin’s study is old, but newer research such as diana scully’s study of convicted rapists yielded similar and slightly higher results. among the sample of convicted rapists she studied, 26% had a history of psychiatric outpatient and inpatient visits (scully, 1994). donning are scientific caps leads us to believe that since the mentally ill comprise 26.2% of the population, it hardly seems noteworthy to mention they are causing 26% of the epidemic (nimh, 2009). that is within the norm of any subgroup. now let’s statistically flip the script. seventy four to 95% of those examined did not have a diagnosis and committed forcible rape. this is unnerving to many because the media has taught us that psychopathology is implicated in most violent encounters. some may find it more savory to swallow a mouthful of tacks than admit to the fact that a person without a diagnosis could do such a thing. most experts concede that rapists are your “adolescents next door”; they are family members, and can be those highly esteemed in the community bartering their way through the courts (scully, 1994). despite research, the media locomotive hijacks internet threads and other mediums of information delivery, clenching their fists at those hell-bent personalities whom they say need to be locked up. it’s time for mental health advocates to assist others in taking a moral pulse and discovering what palpitations of deceit exist. in 1998, monhan et al. released the well-known macarthur foundation study that graced the front page of time news and several other periodicals. consistent with the scientific method, monahan and his colleagues culled a stratified random sample of 500 people in the pittsburgh municipality. inpatients who had been released due to remission of symptomology were compared to the random sample of 500 citizens in europe’s journal of psychology 3 pittsburgh for levels of community violence (monahan et al., 1998). the risk assessment tool included 10-week interviews with family members, friends, collaterals, and an in-depth perusing of police records. hits, aggressive posturing, and criminal acts were some of the measures included in the tally (monahan et al., 1998). perhaps, a re-tread for some, but elucidating to others, the results of the macarthur foundation study found no statistically significant difference in levels of violence between mental health patients, recently released from the hospital, and those living in the same community. there was, however, a significant difference in those mentally ill who abused substances and those undiagnosed who abused substances (monahan et al., 1998). apparently, alcohol and back alley drugs affect the cerebral inhibitor of the brain, which reigns in violent behavior. those who have a mental illness are more susceptible to this unfettered neurochemical reaction, and levels of aggression are higher. nevertheless, substance abuse alone is a more reliable corollary of knee-jerk brutality than mental illness (monahan et al., 1998). a moderate number of studies focus on individuals convicted of homicide. in the british journal of psychiatry, shaw et. al., 2006, conducted a survey of 1,594 convicted murderers incarcerated in england and wales. among the 1,594 felons, 34% had a history of mental illness and 5% had chronic schizophrenia (much higher percentages). other prison studies yield similarities. the methodological flaw of prison studies is the sampling pool they draw from ceases to be random and stratified for generalization purposes. this cherry picking of homicide-only felons gives us a reliable cohort measurement, but in no way can it be extrapolated to the global population of the mentally ill. the criminal justice system is not the only domain where those with schizophrenia, depression, and bi-polar disorder reside. in addition, many studies rely on pearson’s product-moment correlation to determine a relationship between mental health and violence; however, causation can never be ascertained. the direction of causation and other confounding variables make scientific certainty elusive. new research from duke university highlights the victimization of the mentally ill. people with bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression are 2 ½ times more likely to be raped, mugged, and physically assailed (hiday et al., 1999). choe et. al., 2008 reviewed 10 studies of violent victimization and discovered that 35 % of those in the meta-analysis were mentally ill and recipients of such mayhem. the odds of being killed by a stranger with psychosis is roughly, 1 in 10,000,000 (szmukler, 2000). kicking the can of stigma down the road 4 despite empirical research, the stereotypes persist in the guise of legitimate news. according to the president’s new freedom commission on mental health, 61% of americans believe those with schizophrenia are likely to be dangerous (nfc, 2003). sixty four percent of co-workers do not want someone with schizophrenia in close proximity to them (pescosolido, et al., 1999). television dramas portray the mentally ill as “caricatures that are out of their tree” and prone to spontaneous violence 75% of the time (3 ½ times the average rate) (shain and phillips 1991). why have people not disavowed themselves from the obvious disingenuousness? is the smelling salt of truth too hard to breathe in? kicking the can of stigma further down the road will not help. advocacy agencies should be involved in literature, commercials, and other venues of information delivery that obliterate such thinking and shade those affected by mental illness in a more favorable hue. most of us who have mental illness are not saying that we are incapable of violence. we just implore the media to employ responsible journalism and spread the margarine of culpability across the board evenly. violence is a pandemic that affects us all. yet there will be some that are satisfied with the divide of the deranged. references: choe, j.y. teplin l.a., & abram k.l. (2008). perpetration of violence, violent victimization, and severe mental illness: balancing public health concerns. psychiatric services, feb 2008; 59: 153 -164. hiday, v.a., swartz, m.s., swanson, j.w., (1999). criminal victimization of persons with severe mental illness. psychiatric services, 50, 62–68. monahan, j., steadman, h., mulvey, e., robbins, p., appelbaum, p., grisso, t., roth, l., & silver, e. (1998). violence by people discharged from acute psychiatric inpatient facilities and by others in the same neighborhoods. archives of general psychiatry, 55, 393-401. national institute of mental health (2009). statistics. retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/statistics/index.shtml new freedom commission on mental health, (2003). achieving the promise: transforming mental health care in america. final report. dhhs pub. no. sma-03-3832. rockville, md europe’s journal of psychology 5 pescosolido, b.a., monahan, j. link, b.g. stueve, a., & kikuzawa, s. (1999). the public’s view of the competence, dangerousness, and need for legal coercion of persons with mental health problems. american journal of public health, 89, 1339-1345. peters, j.t. & wooley g. (1978). presidential commission on mental health report. santa barbara, ca: university of california. rabkin, g.j. (1979). the epidemiology of forcible rape. american journal of orthopsychiatry, 49(4), 634-646. scully. d. (1994). understanding sexual violence: a study of convicted rapists. new york: harper collins. shain, r.e., & phillips, j. (1991). the stigma of mental illness: labeling and stereotyping in the news. in: wilkins, l., and patterson, p., eds. risky business: communicating issues of science, risk, and public policy. new york, ny: greenwood press. pp. 61-74. shaw j, hunt im, flynn s, meehan j, robinson j, bickley h, parsons r, mccann k, burns j, amos t, kapur n, appleby l. (2006). rates of mental disorder in people convicted of homicide. national clinical survey. the british journal of psychiatry, 2006 feb,188:143-7. szmukler, g. (2000). “homicide enquiries: what sense do they make?” psychiatric bulletin 24: pp.6-10 about the author: tony foster secured his ba in psychology, and two years later, received his m.ed. in counseling from sul ross state university. he is currently assistant director of amarillo mental health consumers, a peer-driven center, based on the substrate that recovery from mental illness is possible. his responsibilities include advocacy, individual counseling, wellness programming, peer-led groups, and instructing psychology classes. tony is also a licensed professional counselor intern working towards full licensure in 2010. his research interests include psychopathology, theories of personality, statistical analysis and elements of social psychology. e-mail address: amhcamarillo@gmail.com the war hotel: psychological dynamics in violent conflict, by arlene audergon, whurr publishersjohn wiley, 2005 http://www.warhotel.com/ by gina clayton and mike fitter biographical notes gina clayton (gina@amidatrust.com) is a human rights lawyer who has recently published a textbook immigration and asylum law (oxford university press, 2004). she has also trained as a feldenkrais practitioner. mike fitter (mike@amidatrust.com) is a chartered psychologist who works as an organisation development consultant in the public sector. he has a particular interest in conflict facilitation and mediation. book review arlene audergon’s new book, ‘the war hotel’, is for anyone with an interest in conflict and the human psyche. the war hotel is addressed not only to people who are directly affected by or working with conflict, but also to those of us who are armchair watchers of the tv news, concerned, but unsure of our relationship to the scenes we see. the author’s thesis is that those who make war – politicians and military leaders – understand how human psychology can be used to support war. and those who turn away and close their hearts and minds to war as it erupts and continues are as much participants in the unfolding drama as are those who become swept up in it. the consequent purpose of the book is an examination of this psychology to generate awareness of our part in the creation of war, so that we may be able to use our selves and our psyches differently. the book runs through many subjects in a wide-ranging, cross-disciplinary account of human relationships to conflict. arlene audergon discusses the way in which we consent to and even generate war through for instance, a misplaced view of what will bring or constitute justice, through our need to be right, and the blinkered view that privilege gives us. the second part of the book is based on the idea that the many manipulations which make us accept conflict are terror tactics, as they work on the production of fear to bring us to do that which we otherwise would not do. the terror tactics she discusses include desensitisation, demonising, targeting leaders, disinformation, the breaking of culture, chaos and crackdown. this reversal of the usual use of the phrase ‘terror tactics’, by applying it to powerful engines of the state rather than marginalised groups, works well at an important level to which this whole book is addressed – destabilising the conventional order of power. by going into our helplessness she undermines it – thereby demonstrating the method she advocates – and concludes with ghandi ‘whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it’. the later stages of the book show how our high ideals, our religious feelings and even our love for each other can all be used to support and even initiate war. another skilful reversal comes in the title of part four ‘altered states of war’. ‘altered states’ are often thought of as sublime, sometimes as an aspect of illness. here however they are the states of mind that people may enter before and during warfare. we seek the transcendent and may find it in the fierce loyalty and comradeship of war, and the sublime inspiration of a cause to be fought and even die for. the inspiration that things could be different builds towards the latter part of the book, where the author reveals the dynamics of ‘hot spots’ – those moments of awkwardness or charge, which we tend to gloss over or avoid, but which she shows contain the potential for revelation and provide a window into transformation and healing. there is nothing neutral about this book. it is an impassioned case for engagement with the totality of human experience in order to bring about transformation of the dynamics of conflict. the author draws on her own considerable experience of work in conflict and post-conflict situations, particularly in the balkans. the many examples given from this work are a major strength of the book, offering as they do compelling evidence of fresh possibilities which may emerge in the most dire and apparently intractable situations. we benefit greatly by reading these stories, as arlene audergon’s lucid understanding of experience gives us a very fresh and direct account combined with clear-hearted insight. they give a real groundedness to the optimism which lifts the reader, and convinced us at least that awareness can make a difference in the world. the core message that pervades the book is that it is vital to have awareness of psychological dynamics. there are those in positions of power who do understand how to influence people by speaking directly to their deepest hopes and fears, and who will do this for the purpose of creating war in pursuit of their own interests. it therefore requires those of us who wish to promote peace to have at least equal awareness of those very dynamics, and engage actively, helping to bring awareness into the conflicted system. else we leave the field of influence empty and open to those with malign purposes, and thus are implicated bystanders. book description human nature is the fuel of violent conflict. the war hotel looks at how we get aroused and how we get silenced into violent conflict. we are pulled apart in the name of justice and loyalty. past trauma is triggered into a replay. out of love and longing to step beyond the ordinary world, we sacrifice ourselves and others. dehumanizing the enemy, disinformation, torture, stirring fear in order to crack down – these terror tactics, too, are based in psychology. the manipulation of psychological dynamics to create violent conflict is distressing. but, if our emotions and behaviour are the fuel, then our awareness can impact world events. there is something truly hopeful here. awareness makes a difference. (examples draw particularly from the author’s work in the balkans. other examples include nazi germany, rwanda, the israeli-palestinian conflict, communism and its fall in europe, south africa, the treatment of native americans and african americans in the usa, vietnam and the ‘war on terror’) arlene audergon the author arlene audergon phd is a psychotherapist and conflict resolution facilitator. she teaches process oriented psychology in the uk and intern-ationally, and her work has brought her to croatia, kosovo, slovakia, poland, germany, south africa, india, the uk, and the usa. in a long-term post-war project in croatia, supported by unhcr, she co-facilitated forums on reconciliation and community building. arlene is co-founder of cfor, an organization for community forums on preventive and post-conflict issues, diversity and democracy building. she lives in london, where she also works in theatre. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 164-186 www.ejop.org womb envy and western society: on the devaluation of nurturing in psychotherapy and society diana semmelhack larry ende midwestern university psychotherapist karen farrell midwestern university julieanne pojas midwestern university abstract our purposes in part i of the essay are: 1) to suggest that womb envy has been a significant element in the formation of our culture (in the context of the traditions of judaism, roman catholicism, and islam), and 2) to make more evident the presence and the significance of the devaluation of nurturing in our society, in part by linking this devaluation of nurturing to its history in the phenomenon of womb envy. in part ii, we look at how the devaluation of nurturing is manifested in the practice of psychodynamic therapy. the devaluation of nurturance is thus viewed in a context where the writers have intimate knowledge and experience. we find that a downplaying of the significance of nurturing in our society results in a general lack of empathy and sensitivity, and a deemphasis on relational competence, as well as an overall devaluing of women. an emphasis on profit and production moves relational concerns into the background. in the context of psychotherapy, we suggest, our society‟s emphasis on hierarchy and authority interferes with nurturing as a therapeutic factor. we also discuss various attempts that writers have made to support the role of nurturing in psychotherapy. keywords: womb envy, western society, devaluing nurturing, social contexts and nurturing. http://www.ejop.org/ womb envy and western society 165 introduction we would like to begin with a poem by emily dickinson tell all the truth but tell it slant— success in circuit lies too bright for our infirm delight the truth's superb surprise as lightning to the children eased with explanation kind the truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind— in order to tell the truth, emily dickinson had 'to tell it slant.' she was, after all, a freespirited woman living in a puritanical 19th century new england community. telling it slant is also familiar to depth psychology. this psychology, too, has to dazzle gradually. deep psychological truth does not come directly, but emerges in bits and pieces, through gradual processing, emotional and intellectual. after over a hundred years, for example, psychoanalysis is still struggling to tell the truth about the existence of the unconscious (brenner, 1974). in many ways, it continues to struggle trying to receive a welcome ear. writing about our culture‟s devaluation of nurturing, we also face a communication dilemma. for the tendency to devalue nurturing is so familiar to us in our world that some people may not notice it at all, let alone appreciate its significance. we attempt to address this problem by linking this attitude towards nurturing with aspects of its history in the phenomenon of womb envy, where the social dynamics of the devaluation of nurturing were both far more overt and more clearly destructive than they are today. as mentioned below, this use of history is also intended to link the devaluation of nurturing to a far off context in order to remove it from what is familiar so that it can be seen in a new light. first, we provide background on the topic of womb envy. then we examine it in the context of jewish, roman catholic, and islamic tradition. after that, we discuss womb envy as an example of a general devaluation of nurturing in contemporary society. in the latter part of the essay we attempt to bring the subject closer to home (for us therapists and others) by examining the issue of the devaluing of nurturing in the specific context of psychotherapy today, psychotherapy being—it would seem—a kind of nurturing. for our training as therapists, our identities as therapists, our roles as therapists, and our clients‟ lives all are a part of this same culture we are europe’s journal of psychology 166 examining. part ii is based in part on the provocative question, what does it mean to be a therapist in a culture that tends to devalue nurturing? we suggest that psychotherapy forms an alliance with the devaluation of nurturing even as it runs counter to it. (we will focus in particular on psychodynamic therapy, since it has an important and evocative relationship with the issue of psychological nurturing.) when we say that our culture “tends to” devalue nurturing, we wish to suggest that we are describing variable tendencies, and not absolutes. there is a significant part of the society that does appreciate nurturing. in fact, one might say there is an ambivalence in our culture about the value of nurturing. on the one hand, mothers, young children, and the family are deeply valued, not only by their loved ones, but by the culture. on the other hand, however, this appreciation is in part a rhetorical one which exists side by side with the lack of power, prestige, and income linked with activities of nurturing in a society that tends to emphasize not nurturing but the production and consumption of material goods. (the nurturing part of the culture helps to ease the stress and pain created by the realities of capitalism.) it is difficult to see womb envy clearly because we are part of the culture that devalues nurturing (miller, 2003). we cannot wholly stand outside this tendency to devalue nurturing. the concepts, tools, and experiences that we use to understand the devaluing of nurturing have been shaped by the culture that tends to devalue nurturing. therefore, we must 'tell it slant' both because our culture has difficulty hearing us, and because we ourselves have difficulty seeing clearly a phenomenon of which we are a part. finally, as psychoanalysis has shown, it is rather useless trying to convey a deep psychic reality by means of making intellectual statements. with regard to womb envy, perhaps the best one can do is to try to elicit an interest in examining the phenomenon. to approach the devaluing of nurturing, therefore, we will use a device that addresses the topic indirectly. this device is history. by presenting familiar events in a far off context, history helps us to see these events in a new way (as in the „alienation technique‟ of brechtian theater). we will look at womb envy in the context of some of its ideological origins; specifically, in the context of the three inter-related religions which form part of the base of our culture, judaism, roman catholicism, and islam. finally, we would like to note that we are examining certain historical trends; many people have experiences and interpretations of these religions which are very different from what might be suggested by the historical descriptions presented here. womb envy and western society 167 part i introduction to womb envy various prominent writers have highlighted the importance of studying womb envy, or the male envy of the female reproductive capacity. these include bruno bettelheim, eric fromm, ralph greenson, karen horney, edith jacobson, melanie klein, margaret meade and john ross (bettelheim, 1954, 1962; fromm, 1943; greenson, 1968; horney, 1926; jacobson, 1950; klein, 1975; meade, 1949; ross, 1975, 1977). horney (1926) stirred up interest in the discussion of womb envy in the 1920's. this was part of her incisive critique of male bias in psychoanalysis. edith jacobson (1950) called a good deal of attention to the phenomenon in a once well-known 1950's essay. melanie klein (1975) also addressed this issue. she suggested that the male infant's envy of the soothing breast later translates into an envy of his mother's childbearing capacity. yet the phenomenon of womb envy appears to remain mostly unconscious. it is not a topic easily digested by our culture. the idea that men envy the ability to bear children is hard to grasp in a culture that on the whole devalues nurturing, in a culture which, despite efforts to the contrary, tends to defend against the appreciation of nurturing (chodorow, 1978; jaffe, 1968). evidence for the existence of womb envy comes from many contexts. ross (1975, 1977, p. 334) supports the idea based on his observation of young males as they discover that they will not be able to have babies like their mothers. young male children hold their mothers in awe. their mothers are the powerful and soothing centers of the universe. their mothers give them strength and joy. wanting to be like mother, male children at a young age will often nurse toy babies. they talk about wanting to have babies. when they come to realize that they cannot have a baby, ross believes, they face the problematic reality that they are, “destined to be shortchanged” (1977, p. 334). observations of womb envy have emerged from many sources. analysts have become convinced of the fundamental importance of womb envy after seeing it emerge over and again in their analysis of adult males (bettelheim, 1954). anthropological studies show many cultural practices designed to compensate men in fantasy because they cannot bear children in reality. the island of menstruating men, for example, explores a tribal ritual in which males cut their penises every month as a symbol of fertility (hogbin, 1970). bettelheim's (1954, pp. 33-37) studies of children institutionalized for psychological reasons provide stark examples of womb europe’s journal of psychology 168 envy. further, kittay (1995) states that in her discussions of the phenomenon in classes she teaches invariably males will say that they have experienced womb envy. the prodigious attention that writers have given to the concept of womb envy is ignored by the mainstream psychological literature (daly, 1978). it is as if the writings had never been written. this neglect is not a conscious one. rather, it is a deeply rooted cultural resistance, an unconscious resistance. taking seriously the concept of womb envy upsets basic assumptions of our culture. it questions the hierarchy, challenging the devaluing of childbirth and nurturing. it calls attention to how our society devalues unique strengths of the female gender, the gender this culture quietly seeks to represent as inferior. clearly, we have a blind spot. there is a widespread defense against the idea that womb envy exists. kittay (1983, 1984) applied to womb envy melanie klein's interpretation of the defenses against envy. our discussion will highlight four defenses against womb envy discussed by kittay (1995, pp. 143-148): 1) the appropriation defense occurs when a man internalizes the desired object (procreative abilities) such that it becomes his possession. this is evidenced in rituals such as the re-birth of baptism in which birth is appropriated into a maledominated viewpoint (cuttay, 1962). 2) the devaluation of the object defense involves the devaluation of childbirth or particular aspects of the female physiology. this is suggested by a religious view that menstruating women are unclean (ranke-heinemann, 1990). 3) an attempt to draw envy towards men while stirring it up in women is a defense evidenced in the exclusion of women from the important rite of circumcision in judaism (baile, 1984). 4) finally, the stifling of feelings of love concurrent with an intensifying of hate defense is manifested by men's declared hatred of or indifference toward infants, nursing mothers, or pregnant women (el saadawi, 1982). the historical emergence of womb envy we believe that the religious traditions of islam, roman catholicism, and judaism contain a sad and tragic subtext that tends to go unnoticed. research suggests that these traditions harbor a deep male envy of a woman's ability to bear children. the religions appear to express this envy in their basic beliefs and practices (daly 1973). this envy, it seems, is part of a tendency to devalue nurturing that characterizes our culture. eisler (1987), stone (1976) and others believed that prehistory was dominated by goddess worshipping societies in which the childbearing ability of women was held in great esteem. according to these authors, it was believed that all things flowed womb envy and western society 169 from the female deity's divine womb. the authors thought that a deep awe of childbearing was fundamental to goddess worship in these societies. contemporary archeologists have challenged the myth of a generally matriarchal, goddess worshipping prehistoric world. the evidence available to us regarding gender relations and prehistory is somewhat sketchy and ambiguous (eller, 2000). hodder (2004) and his team suggest that female figurines and other evidence of the reverence of feminine deities suggest the symbolic importance of women in the neolithic society, but not purely matriarchy. this reverence of goddesses may likely have stemmed from women‟s capacity to give birth (daly, 1973). leacock (1975) purports that female inferiority is not a universal condition. earlier hunter-gatherer or foraging societies described a generally equal relationship between men and women. in such societies women procure about 80% of the sustenance. the person who procures something for the society also distributes it and therefore it was largely women in these societies who determined band society movements including camp locations. the religions discussed in this paper, however, are clearly patriarchal. they advocate for a male god who created human beings. this god created the world to serve males, who are created in his image. in genesis, the first book of the bible, woman is born from the body of man. one interpretation of this story is that the fall from eden represents the demise of hunter-gatherer life (zeran, 2004). daly (1973, 1978) suggests that eve coming from adam‟s rib, in a strange reversal, portrays women's role in childbirth as unimportant. as will be seen further on, men seem to appropriate the important role in procreation for themselves. the male role is exalted, while the female one is denigrated or denied. in exaggerated fashion, the religious traditions under study symbolically reverse the reality of procreation. this reversal, moreover, is often accompanied by defensiveness and contempt with regard to women's role in childbirth. for example, the defiling of menstruating women (discussed later) not only reverses what may have been a divine status of female fertility, but often has an intensely derogatory connotation which suggests defensiveness and contempt. there is a strong sense of male grandiosity, grandiosity being often characteristic of defenses. the religious traditions studied thus appear to echo the womb envy overtly portrayed in the rituals of so-called primitive cultures (bettelheim, 1954; hogbin, 1970; mead, 1949). it has long been proposed that the religions under study have tended to facilitate the domination and control of women (daly, 1978). while explicitly focused, perhaps, on this domination and control, implicitly these traditions appear also to act europe’s journal of psychology 170 as defenses against the male envy of women's ability to bear children. men seem to have envied the fact that the "inferior" sex, placed on earth to serve them, has the exclusive ability to bring forth life (stevens, 2005). the religions in question encouraged men to have a grandiose self-image. this grandiose self-image appears to have been threatened by women's ability to procreate. the grandiose image both generates anxiety for men and is used in the attempt to fend off anxiety. western religions cultivated male control over women's reproductive abilities in order to maintain the male line of descent (eisler, 1987; stevens, 2005). the intense focus on maintaining the male bloodline may suggest an appropriation defense against womb envy. we will now briefly describe apparent defenses against womb envy as represented in the three individual religions studied. in judaism, the torah lays down as law the male line of descent (baile, 1984). the torah's law establishes extensive male control over female sexuality (plaskow, 1990). women are placed under the control of their fathers until they are married, and then under the control of their husbands. through the symbolism of circumcision, jewish tradition associates the health of the penis with the basic covenant with god (plaskow, 1990). the covenant is a pact of males who have been circumcised (a procedure that protects the penis from infection). the fact that this basic ritual of faith of necessity excludes women has been interpreted by some as an (unconscious) attempt on the part of men to stir up envy in others while drawing envy toward themselves (plaskow, 1990). ancient jewish traditions held that childbirth resulted from a man planting his seed in a woman. the rabbinical and biblical literature frequently refer to this belief. while rabbinical and biblical literature give the prominent role in childbirth to men, however, this literature, strangely, is preoccupied with discussing the exclusively female processes of reproduction, menstruation, and childbirth (wegner, 1991). the penis is linked in a pact with god because the male seed creates the child; the womb is described in the scriptures as merely the property of the male god, who appropriates the woman‟s role in childbirth. in the scriptures, god controls female fertility by working "in the womb to form human life" (carmody, 1987, p. 188). the imagery that describes this process is striking. in the story of abraham's betrayal of sarah (gen. 20:1-18), god first closes and later opens the wombs of the house of abimelech. in sam. 1:1-20, god, who had mysteriously closed hannah's womb, reopens it and gives her a child. trible (1978) summarized biblical passages with respect to the womb: "god conceives in the womb, god brings forth from the womb envy and western society 171 womb, god receives out of the womb; and god carries from the womb to gray hairs” (p. 38). ancient judaism appears to have devalued childbearing as well as the related process of menstruation (baile, 1984). since biblical times, new mothers, as well as menstruants, have been viewed as a source of defilement (lev. 2:19). even today, in orthodox circles, jewish law defines new mothers and menstruating women as niddah—those who are ostracized (baile, 1984). moreover, the impurity of the new mother lasts longer if the baby is a girl. the ostracizing of new mothers and menstruating women suggests the devaluation of the object defense. it paves the way for the appropriation of childbearing by men. in ancient roman catholic symbolism, the male-centered ritual of re-birth through baptism powerfully displaces the birth by the mother. while birth involves coming into the tainted natural world, the superior re-birth of baptism means coming into the family of god the father. a male-oriented ritual performed only by bishops, priests, and deacons, baptism holds the key to eternal life. the imagery of baptism, according to ruether (1983), "…combines male womb envy with womb negation" (p. 144). the re-birth of baptism by male priests overcomes the carnal gestation and birth of human mothers who, according to doctrine, have passed on sin and death to their offspring. catholic symbolism portrays the newly baptized child as emerging from the spiritual womb purified. the child is then said to be, "fed on milk from the breasts of christ" (ruether, 1988, p. 246). roman catholicism, like judaism, appears to place great emphasis on male control over the childbearing process. this is stressed through the vehemence attached to the restrictions on abortion and birth control (farrell, 1991). intense hostility has at times been directed at women who would attempt to control their own procreative powers. catholic women have been taught that the worst of sins is to deflect the male seed from its intended course in her womb (ruether, 1983). this has often been treated as more sinful than rape, since rape does not interfere with the high purposes of the seed. there has often been a severe insistence against a catholic woman being a decision-maker concerning the destiny of her body. to procreate and submit to the will of god has been seen as the catholic woman's basic religious duty. the roman catholic attitude towards procreation suggests the appropriation defense against womb envy, as well as the stifling of feelings of love combined with the intensifying of hate. europe’s journal of psychology 172 ancient islamic tradition, like that of judaism and roman catholicism, seems to depend on the male domination and control over women and defenses against womb envy, such as the appropriation defense. again, the baby is created by the male god in the woman's womb. the child is said to be conceived based on male sperm alone. women are seen as receptacles for the males' creative act (el saadawi, 1980; engineer, 1992). they are containers for the male sperm. islamic tradition, too, represents new mothers and menstruates as unclean. they are restricted from performing cultic duties, praying, and reading the koran (hjarpe, 1983, p. 16). according to the koran (n.d.), new mothers and menstruates are, "a pollution. separate yourselves therefore from women and approach them not, until they be cleansed" (sura: 223). in islamic tradition, a girl's first menstruation signals a key step in the beginnings of male control over her body, which can act as an appropriation defense. the adolescent girl's freedom of movement is usually completely curtailed when she begins to menstruate (el saadawi, 1980). most conservative muslim families consider the menstruating girl a threat to family honor. she must preserve her virginity at all costs. her family's honor, it has been said, hinges on her sexual purity. young women who do not preserve their virginity, according to el saadawi (1980), are likely to be punished with physical or moral death. the contemporary devaluation of nurturing as psychoanalysis teaches us, human beings have an awesome power to forget. we have forgotten that an historical tendency to devalue nurturing became part of the foundation for today's social hierarchies. our solid defenses numb us to this forgetfulness. womb envy, part of an historical devaluing of nurturing, appears to have helped establish a male-dominated, authoritarian society which tends to devalue nurturing (eisler, 1987). in recent decades, a good deal of feminist psychoanalytic scholarship (e.g., dinnerstein (1976), benjamin (1988), and chodorow (1978), to name a few writers drawn on here) has critiqued this devaluation of nurturing. it has been noted that in the development of our society the values associated with masculinity, such as achievement in the workplace and self-reliance, have been honored, while those associated with femininity, such as nurturing and emotional connection, have been relatively devalued. we live in a society where, as chodorow (1989) states, “social and psychological oppression… is perpetuated in the structure of personality” (p. 65). unlike women, men “do not define themselves in relationship and have come to womb envy and western society 173 suppress relational capacities and repress relational needs. this prepares them to participate in the affect-denying world of alienated work…” (chodorow, 1978, p. 207).” the patriarchal gender values constructed long ago by men, partially in revulsion against women, are now represented as if they are simply natural characteristics of men and women. patriarchal culture depends not only on narrowing women‟s options for how they can work, get paid, support themselves, and behave. it also depends on policing the world of truth and correctness. it depends on absolute right and wrong, good and bad. it is obsessed with ranking and hierarchy. behaviors, even human beings, are ranked as admirable or despicable. just as little boys push away emotional connectedness in adopting their cultural identities, authoritarian culture pushes tender emotions to the side. especially in males, but in females too, a certain numbness develops. a cold and lonely isolation, it often seems, comes to be experienced as normal. in such a culture, people at times can be deeply compassionate, but apart from certain limited situations (e.g., upon hearing of natural disasters) they may just forget this part of themselves. they (especially men) often tend to forget the existence of their deep and tender feelings, fearing that they might be seen as weak and vulnerable. strict social and political limitations have been placed on how empathy is supposed to be employed. layton (2009) writes, “in the current era, empathy seems to have been dominantly re-defined as something we accord only to people who are most like us…”(p.10). the devaluation of nurturing is related to our society‟s valorizing of profit, production, and competitiveness, and not stressing, for example, the traditionally feminine concern with relationships and the relational. we are part of this culture that devalues nurturing. its hierarchies have been carved into the depths of our being. as benjamin (1988, pp. 7-8) suggests, even when we are committed to equality the structure of our underlying social and psychological world may continue to perpetuate domination. to discover evidence for the devaluing of nurturing, therefore, we might inquire into ourselves. we therapists may find it by inquiring into our therapeutic practice, where patriarchy and authoritarianism, we will suggest, continue implicitly to interfere with the act of nurturance. part ii psychotherapy and nurturing even today, it appears, psychotherapy, which can be considered a practice of nurturing, frequently has its effectiveness dampened through an unconscious europe’s journal of psychology 174 reliance on patriarchal, authoritarian discourse, a discourse that devalues nurturing. psychotherapy both supports and opposes hierarchical authority. psychoanalysis until recent decades represented itself as a “science,” where science was experienced as a maledominated discourse alleged to reveal “the absolute truth.” it has been said that freud‟s (1959) development of psychoanalysis reflected the authoritarian culture of his time (brenner, 1974; stevens, 2005). not only was psychoanalysis a “scientific” discourse, but it was based on a male model of human development. psychoanalysis was a rational, authoritative, intellectual discourse in which nurturing was not understood to play a role. moreover, the framework of analysis, where the patient merely free associates, while the analyst interprets the truth, is a fundamentally hierarchical framework. the analyst relies on theory; the patient merely on her emotions. miller and stiver (1997) support the idea that the relationship between therapist and client remains a hierarchical one: “we are proposing that cultures built on dominantsubordinate relationships…have created a non-mutual model that permeates all relationships. we all have developed within this framework and it tends to determine the nature of even our most intimate relationships (p.50).” what is more, a hierarchical relationship can continue because it is in the (typically unconscious) interest of those with power to avoid calling attention to its existence. once power is made explicit, only then can it be seen as objectionable (miller, 2003). in his book therapeutic communication, wachtel (1993, pp. 70-73) has suggested that analysts often unintentionally present interpretations to patients in ways that come across as subtly dominating, condescending, or accusatory. these forms of communication, which would likely be rejected by analysts when made conscious, are often unconsciously passed on from training analysts to analytic candidates, and then finally to patients (or “clients”). wachtel demonstrates how subtleties in the wording of therapist interpretations frequently result in their being received by clients as demeaning. empathy, it often seems, may characterize the general presentation of a therapist‟s speech, providing a nurturing presence, while subtle intonations, connotations, or word choices in the background suggest underlying attitudes of dismissal, superiority, or skepticism which interfere with the therapist‟s ability to in fact empathize. indeed, authoritarian dynamics in therapy may often be observable exclusively in the counter-transference, or in manifestations of the client‟s unconscious. power dynamics, tending to resist visibility, often can be discovered only through the investigation of nuance, if they can be discovered at all (by the participating womb envy and western society 175 parties). it may be that a client can vaguely discern a dismissal only through his feeling sense of a sudden lack of resonance on the therapist‟s part whenever the client makes certain kinds of statements. such a dynamic can be highly coercive since it can produce its effects without being noticed. therapists at times silently rely on theory to legitimize their combating or dismissing a client‟s behavior that upsets them. many works in non-psychological fields have shown that subtle power dynamics, naturalized and hidden within language, can infiltrate our consciousness on a constant basis without being noticed (barthes, 1972, 1974; foucault, 1990). therapists can note the frequency of authoritative dynamics in psychotherapy through close listening to the subtle signs of power in one‟s own language, as well as in one‟s colleagues‟ statements about cases. in speaking amongst each other, we therapists at times make statements about clients with surprisingly insensitive or demeaning implications, perhaps based on the rationale that we are “getting off our chest” reactions to client behaviors we find highly annoying. unless these reactions are analyzed, however, “getting them off our chest” only perpetuates them, as well as what may be their deep intellectual and emotional concomitants. it seems likely that even after decades of theoretical awareness about the dynamics of hierarchy in therapy, subtle hierarchical dynamics continue to take place there. winnicott (1971, pp. 38-52), for example, called attention to them forty years ago. there are, of course, other reasons why therapists at times continue to rely on hierarchical, authoritative discourse in therapy. to begin with, the therapist‟s authority may be necessary to engender respect for the therapist‟s knowledge, expertise, and character. this authority helps the client to suspend his critical faculties (for periods of time) in order to be receptive towards the therapy. the therapist‟s status as expert, combined with the client‟s position of vulnerability (being the one whose intimate problems are addressed, who lacks the expertise, etc…,) creates a sense of hierarchy which seems unavoidable. for some therapists authority is a way of guarding against nurturing and the feelings associated with it because they can be seen as a threat to the legitimacy of authority. then too both the positive transference and the transference of early parental figures onto the therapist make hierarchical dynamics seem impossible to avoid. finally, most clients seem to want or even need the therapist to function in an authoritative way, though they likely have little awareness of what an alternative might be, or how one might go about implementing it. the dynamics of patriarchy and authority in therapy can create obstacles in the way of empathy, in the way of nurturing, and thus in the way of effective therapy. a therapist‟s leaning in the direction of the authoritative runs the risk of obstructing the europe’s journal of psychology 176 empathic connection necessary for healing to occur. an authoritative framework can make a client continually feel--consciously or unconsciously—like he is at any moment about to be judged. this can increase the client‟s anxiety and reliance on defenses, making the process of therapy less likely to be effective. an authoritative, hierarchical framework for therapy can also, whether explicitly or implicitly, coerce the client into merely accepting the therapist‟s views. this may reduce the therapist‟s ability to empathize with the client‟s experience, as well as discourage the client from arriving at conclusions in the way that she needs them. an authoritative orientation can reduce the therapist‟s receptivity because authority depends on the adherence to certain established ideas. a hierarchical therapy tends to involve a therapist who, again explicitly or implicitly, takes charge and “knows the answers.” this can discourage creativity and initiative on the part of the client, stifling an emerging, unfolding process of growth before it has a chance to even take root. just as the role of the priest (enacting womb envy) may have usurped the procreative power of women, the role of the authoritative therapist, who believes that he has the answers, can usurp the (pro)creative power of the client. winnicott (1971), believing creativity central to the process of therapy, was concerned about a therapist‟s knowing interpretations—that they would steal the client‟s creativity, which he needs for psychological growth (p. 57). psychotherapy, however, not only relies on authoritative, patriarchal discourse, but has provided us with ways to counter this discourse. in creating psychoanalysis, freud brought about a profession based less on the application of authoritative methods than on the analyst‟s empathic immersion in the psychological world of the patient. the creation of psychoanalysis was rooted not only in freud‟s desire to find a cure for hysteria, but in his unusual capacity for empathy. paradoxically, while freud‟s wish to give psychoanalysis the supposed certainty of science lent an authoritarian aura to the practice, its scientific basis contributed to the procedure of making lengthy, nonjudgmental explorations of the patient‟s own self-directed thought processes, a deep practice of empathy based on respect for the thoughts of the patient. one can see both this deep empathy (traditionally a feminine discourse) and this stern „objective‟ authority (traditionally a masculine discourse) in freud‟s (1912) striking comment that “[the analyst] must turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ towards the transmitting unconscious of the patient (p.115).” it was also scientific objectivity which led freud to insist on avoiding influencing patients. this encouraged practitioners to treat psychoanalysis as a non-intrusive method which did not make suggestions, but only presented “the truth.” thus the patient, not the analyst—that is, the authority-to a large degree determined the direction and the content of the sessions. despite the fact that freud played the role of authority, there was a strong mutual and collaborative aspect to psychoanalysis from the start. womb envy and western society 177 although his influence was somewhat limited due to his personal and professional split with freud, sandor ferenczi early in the history of psychoanalysis developed views which departed from authoritarian, patriarchal aspects of the practice. ferenczi placed much emphasis in analysis on relationships--both the role of relationships in the development of emotional problems (for example, in the causation of trauma) and the role of the relationship between the analyst and the patient (aron & harris, 1993; ferenczi, 1932). ferenczi believed that analysts need a more nurturing relationship with patients--less detached and authoritarian, more caring and collaborative. although freud believed that the relationship between the analyst and the patient during the positive transference plays a key role in the success of the treatment, freud saw psychoanalysis as a practice based on the pursuit of truth, not the development of a relationship. since freud, psychoanalysis has increasingly focused on relationships and the relational, which has resulted in 1) a tendency to see analysis as involving perspectives developed by the analyst and the patient, and not simply the analyst‟s views, and 2) new viewpoints on the causes of, the nature of, and the means of treating patients‟ emotional disturbances. this has involved a greater appreciation of the role of nurturing in psychological growth, both the mother‟s nurturing of her child, and the therapist‟s nurturing of her client. ferenczi was the analyst of balint, and balint took further some of ferenczi‟s concerns. for example, patients said to be seeking in the analytic relationship “to gratify primitive sexual and aggressive wishes” (wishes more linked with inner “drives” than with object relationships) balint (1952) described as seeking love that they had been deprived of early on (“primary love”). balint was one of the british object relations theorists, analysts who saw humans as fundamentally seeking to connect with “objects,” not to reduce tension or gratify drives as freud had thought. this view broke from one of freud‟s most basic premises. while psychoanalysis from the beginning was somewhat relational, since after all it was rooted in a form of empathy for the feelings of a person in need, its relational foundation became more prominent, explicit, and pervasive in the work of the british object relations theorists. a leading one of these theorists, w.r.d. fairbairn, did much to address the needs and concerns of women, which earlier theorists had tended to neglect. like the other object relations theorists, fairbairn based his work on melanie klein‟s perspective that infants from the start are fundamentally interactive beings. radically departing from freud‟s views, fairbairn (1952) emphasized that human motivation is based not on the seeking of pleasure, but on the traditionally feminine concern of connection with others. while freud thought the analytic cure resulted from the patient‟s insight, fairbairn (1994, p.79) thought that it came from the europe’s journal of psychology 178 patient‟s new capacity for object relations. this new capacity, fairbairn believed, is brought about in the context of the analyst‟s relationship with the patient. fairbairn (1952, pp. 34-42) conceived of the developmental process in a way that countered the male bias in the tendencies of existing developmental schemes. he proposed that development moves from “infantile dependence” to “mature dependence.” fairbairn saw infantile dependence as an oral, incorporative, taking (rather than giving) state wherein the subject does not differentiate the caregiver from herself. mature dependence fairbairn considered a more cooperative, give and take state in which the caregiver is differentiated from the one cared for. the distinction between infantile dependence and mature dependence creates an alternative to the idea that the goal of development is autonomy or independence. fairbairn thus questioned the widespread male-oriented assumption that independence is a possible (and desirable) goal of human development. this assumption is deeply rooted both in psychological theory and in the human psyche. fairbairn‟s challenge of this assumption contributed to the feminist view that the assumption helps to cover up male dependence on the relational world. in the early decades of the 20th century, anticipating later developments, karen horney wrote an incisive critique of penis envy, responding to freud‟s conception of female development. addressing freud‟s conception, horney (1923) asserted that “the conclusion so far drawn from the investigations—amounting as it does to an assertion that one half of the human race is discontented with the sex assigned to it and can overcome this discontent only in favorable circumstances—is decidedly unsatisfying, not only to feminine narcissism but also to biological science (p.38).” horney‟s view of penis envy revealed the male bias in freud‟s developmental theory and showed how this theory functioned to legitimize male domination. in recent decades, a number of psychoanalytic feminists have found object relations theory useful for rethinking the psychosocial development of gender. object relations theory helped to shift theorists‟ concerns to the periods of development earlier than the oedipus complex, changing the focus from the father‟s relationship to the child to the mother‟s. the relationship between the child and his objects now became a central concern. theory came to stress the basic importance of the mother‟s nurturance and attachment to the child, hugely neglected in freud‟s generally non-relational developmental framework. in this way there came to be studies of the role of the environment in child development (a significant focus of the object relations theorist d. w. winnicott). following the example of such earlier thinkers as horney (1923) and clara thompson (1953), and relying on object relations theory, psychoanalytic feminists explored the roles of womb envy and western society 179 culture and society in the construction of gender differences. both chodorow (1978) and dinnerstein (1976) believed that since in our culture the young boy lacks the direct and concrete identification with a same sexed parent that the young girl has with her mother, the boy develops less of a sense of connection to others (the opposite of the girl‟s relational focus). jessica benjamin (1988) considered the psychosocial dynamics of male domination. she critiqued the psychic structure of “doer” and “done-to” that underlies domination, taking into account “how domination is anchored in the hearts of the dominated (p. 5).” questioning how and to what extent autonomy can be a desirable character trait, psychoanalytic feminists also stressed the need (for both sexes) for such traditionally feminine traits as empathy, compassion, and emotional connection. the works of these feminists have influenced authoritarian and patriarchal trends both in terms of the directions of research and in terms of the values and models that therapists bring to psychotherapy. considering another source of relational psychoanalytic studies, greenberg and mitchell (1983) used the word “relational” to refer to an underlying framework shared by british object relations theory, self-psychology, and interpersonal psychoanalysis (an american school of psychoanalysis stressing interpersonal interaction). this framework has come to be called “relational psychoanalysis.” mitchell has been considered one of its most eloquent proponents. in one sense, the word “relational” simply suggests an emphasis on relationships. in relational psychoanalysis, as in fairbairn‟s theory, change occurs not through the development of insight, but through changes in relationships. this can include any relationship in the patient‟s life, but especially, at least initially, his relationship with the analyst. thus there is an emphasis on working with “real” relationships, along with the patient‟s relationship with internal (or imagined) objects. working with the real, present day relationships of the patient, her relationship with the analyst, as well as with the patient‟s intrapsychic relationships, the analyst may consider the patient in many contexts. relational psychoanalysis depends on a critique of freud‟s (1927) belief that an analyst can be neutral and objective, and thus serve as a “blank slate” onto which the patient projects his unconscious fantasies. relational psychoanalysts have pointed out that when the analyst remains detached and tries to reveal nothing, this itself is a way of presenting himself, which may, for example, make him come across as uncaring, if not inhuman. there is no way for the analyst to be objective. moreover, by putting aside the objective, detached posture, the analyst becomes both 1) more inclined to become (usefully) caught up in the patient‟s projective identifications (a complex process in which the patient‟s projections are experienced by the analyst in ways that can reveal the patient‟s unconscious europe’s journal of psychology 180 thought), and, 2) more able to help foster an experience for the patient that redoes (or “corrects”) the effects of bad parenting. by discarding the belief that she can be “objective,” the analyst becomes more responsible for how she chooses to act with the patient and for the effects of those actions. the analyst thus comes to see her role not as one who discovers the truth, but rather as one who constructs a perspective. there is a reduction in her authority. analyst and patient come to interact on more equal terms. due to the challenge of authority in recent psychoanalytic theory, irwin hoffman (2003), a relational theorist, believes that the analyst‟s authority today can only be seen as an ironic authority (emphasis ours). this is in part because the analyst faces in analysis the challenge of “personal participation in the interaction in a spirit of mutuality, the kind of participation that exposes the analyst‟s fallibility, vulnerability, and even exploitativeness (p. 4).” as therapists we become highly trained at seeming empathic, when in reality of necessity our flaws and unseemly reactions are a substantial part of the therapy. the ever gentle, empathic stance of the therapist is always, to a degree, a reaction formation. as with the client, it may be that for the therapist as well some of the most important thoughts occur not in direct response to the therapy (at the manifest level), but in the latent content of the therapist‟s thoughts, which can only be unraveled gradually and indirectly. psychotherapy has a long and increasing history of cultivating the practice of nurturing. yet psychotherapy, we believe, remains based on a contradiction: it both supports and opposes authoritative, patriarchal discourse. its clinical methods, which stress empathy, often seem to come into contradiction with its social dynamics, which can stress the authoritative. empathy is contrary to authority since while empathy is based on receptivity towards the other‟s perspective, authority seeks, however subtly, however implicitly, however indirectly, to coerce or persuade the other into accepting one‟s own. no matter how one responds to the question of authority in psychotherapy--and this will depend on individual clients and circumstances--it is not possible, given our complicity with authority, to simply be “for” or “against” it. one cannot maintain what hoffman (2003) refers to as “the neatness of the dichotomy (p.4)” ( between nurturing and authority). perhaps at times one can manage a synthesis which includes important elements of the two. one might attempt to retain from authority in some way the importance of the therapist‟s expertise, while seeking to do away with the therapist‟s mystique and any encouragement of a client‟s attitude of compliance. one might cultivate a gradual process of moving in a collaborative direction, rigorously upholding the premise that knowledge and expertise do not womb envy and western society 181 imply the superiority of “knowing better.” this may include explicitly teaching clients ways of interpreting their own unconscious. mitchell (1997) believes that one might transform the traditional concept of authority by denying that the therapist has access to “the truth” about the patient, and helping her instead to become “the author of her own story (p.8).” clearly, one needs patience and creativity to respond to the issue of patriarchy and authority in therapy. one needs to admit that we do not have the answers--though we badly need them. it is a task of psychotherapy, therefore, to continue to conduct, bit by bit, an inquiry into the subtle dynamics of authority and patriarchy in our deep clinical worlds. we need to make explicit the social dynamics of this allegedly private space. in recent years, many writers have discussed the necessity of collaboration for psychotherapy. we need to learn more, however, about the subtle forces that block such collaboration. for these hierarchical dynamics are part of a long history, which is mainly unconscious--the history of the societies that tend to devalue nurturing. we would like, finally, to invoke a metaphor to portray a scenario in psychotherapy, a scenario which reminds us of the story of penelope‟s loom, to borrow mitchell‟s (1988) borrowed metaphor (ch.10), where the shroud so arduously woven all day long (through the work of nurturing) is promptly unwoven at night (through the dynamics of authority). conclusion we hope that our examination of womb envy has raised some questions about the nature of power in our society and where its authority has come from. we hope, firstly, to have shown that womb envy played a significant role in the historical traditions of judaism, roman catholicism, and islam. we also hope to have shown that the defenses against womb envy, for example, the appropriation defense, can lead to insensitivity or even contempt towards women, and a consequent disdain for nurturing. 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(1971). playing and reality. london, uk: tavistock publications. about the authors: dr. diana semmelhack is a clinical psychologist working with clients with severe mental illness in long term care facilities in illinois. she is an associate professor of behavioral medicine at midwestern university and a nationally certified group psychotherapist. she is a published researcher in the area of the use of tavistock style processing groups with institutionalized individuals with severe mental illness. she has published her work in the international journal of psychosocial rehabilitation and the journal for specialists in group work. address for correspondence: diana semmelhack, psy.d., licensed clinical psychologist, department of behavioral medicine, midwestern university, 555 31st, downers grove, illinois 60515. phone: 630-515-6244. fax: 630-515-7655. email:dsemme@midwestern.edu larry ende is a clinician specializing in the treatment of severely mentally ill adults. he also has his ph.d. in literature from suny buffalo. his research interests include exploring the efficacy of psychodynamic modalities of treatment with severely mentally ill individuals. he has published in the international journal of psychosocial rehabilitation. dr. karen farrell is a licensed clinical psychologist and a full professor at midwestern university. she serves as director of training in the department of clinical psychology. she has been in private practice in chicago for over twenty-five years and a teacher of clinical psychology graduate students. julieanne pojas is a doctoral candidate in the clinical psychology program at midwestern university in downers grove, illinois. she currently works under dr. diana semmelhack treating clients with severe mental illness. her research interests primarily focus on the impact of culture and ethnicity on mental health attitudes. living with intensity 778 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 778-779 www.ejop.org doing bayesian data analysis: a tutorial with r and bugs authored by john k. kruschke academic press / elsevier, 2011 reviewed by john barry city university, northampton square ec1v 0hb, london, united kingdom e-mail: john.barry.1@city.ac.uk bayesian reasoning is a blessed relief to those who have always struggled with the idea that the probability of heads coming up in a supposedly fair coin flip is always 50%, even after a long series of coin flips has come up tails each time. according to bayes, if a coin keeps coming up tails we should adjust our prior belief that the probability is 50% in the light of the posterior belief that the coin appears to be biased towards tails. john kruschke’s book is a 600 page development of this bayesian theme. the 23 chapters cover the basics of parameters, probability, baye’s rule, the r and bugs statistical programmes, the fundamentals applied to inferring a binomial proportion, and how all of this is applied to the generalized linear model. kruschke has the rare ability amongst statistical textbook authors of writing very engagingly about knotty topics. for those who want to do what the title of the book suggests – learning to do bayesian data analysis by learning programs languages r and bugs – this book must be ideal. one aspect of the book that might appeal to some readers is the prospect of learning to use the statistical package r. r has the big advantage over spss, stata etc of not costing the user any money, but has the disadvantage of requiring the user to learn a programming language. i’m a programming newbie but was willing to take up the challenge of learning r with kruschke’s book. after downloading r i spent about an hour trying out the basic exercises in chapter 2; my success was limited, and my advice to spss fans who are newbs to programming is: if you are getting kruschke’s book, also download ‘r for sas and spss users’ by bob http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 779 muenchen http://rforsasandspssusers.com or if you just outright insist on a ‘point and click’ version of r then try out r commander, which is a way of making r look more like spss http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/misc/rcmdr/ after my struggles to learn r, i chickened out of trying out bugs, but no doubt readers who are more determined will have greater success than i did. kruschke suggests that of the 23 chapters, the most important are: chapter 4 on bayes’ rule; chapter 7 on markov chain and monte carlomethods; chapter 9 on hierarchical models; chapter 14 on the generalized linear model. other recommended sections are those on how to learn r and bugs, reporting a bayesian data analysis, and chapter 13 on power analysis. although written very clearly throughout, the reason for the inclusion of some of the material isn’t always made clear. for example, while reading some interesting information on probability density, i found myself wondering how this information fitted into the overall aim of the book. also, although i found his point of view interesting, i wasn’t convinced by the krusche’s arguments in chapter 11 that mainstream statistical methods based on the null hypothesis significance testing (‘nhst’) have had their day. for example, his illustration of the superiority of bayesian probability over nhst by claiming that most researchers of the nhst mould would treat the probability of a nail landing on its point or base as being equal to that for a coin landing on its head or tail isn’t a particularly persuasive argument. in conclusion, this book appears to do what it says on the cover, and is recommended to those who want to learn to do bayesian analysis using r and bugs. however, readers who are mainly interested in learning about bayesian methods, or aren’t keen on learning programming languages, might find – like i did – some parts of this book somewhat too long and complex http://rforsasandspssusers.com/ http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/misc/rcmdr/ emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 8-16 www.ejop.org on the study of culture and mind: interview with prof. michael cole by vlad glăveanu ejop editor culture and mind represent, in themselves, perhaps the two most complicated phenomena to ever be studied. their massive complexity has posed, for centuries, great challenges to researchers from a variety of fields. it is therefore all the more difficult to understand the interconnection between the two. and yet, as professor michael cole and, more broadly, cultural psychologists would argue: there is no way of making sense of one if we disregard the other. culture and mind constitute each other through action and communication and it is their intricate relationship that holds the key to understanding human nature and human society. professor cole, one of the pioneers of cultural psychology, discusses in this interview the theoretical and methodological difficulties that have shaped his work for several decades, a work accompanied at times by great frustrations but also remarkable rewards. for it is in studying culture and mind, rather than culture or mind, that we can come not only to appreciate development but find ways to actively and efficiently support it. michael cole is professor of communication and psychology at university of california san diego; member of the laboratory of comparative human cognition (lchc). his work focuses on the elaboration of a mediational theory of mind. he has conducted cross-cultural research on cognitive development, especially as it relates to the role of literacy and schooling. his recent research has been devoted to a longitudinal study of individual and organizational change within educational activities specially designed for afterschool hours. according to cole's methodology, mind is created and must be studied in communication. his published work is extensive; among the titles: ‘cultural psychology: a once and future discipline’; ‘the cultural context of learning and thinking’ (edited with j. gay, j.a. glick and d.w. sharp); ‘l.s. vygotsky, mind in society: the development of higher processes’ (edited with v. john-steiner, s. scribner and e. souberman). in 2010 professor cole was awarded the american psychological association award for outstanding contribution to the application of psychological research to education. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 9 � address for correspondence: prof. mike cole, department of communication, 0506 university of california, san diego, la jolla, california 92093 e-mail: mcole@ucsd.edu ejop: professor cole, your work in psychology spans over almost half a century and constitutes a landmark for specialists in various branches of the discipline, from educational and developmental to social and cultural psychology. you have made essential contributions to our understanding of the human mind, its development and intrinsic relation to culture. what would you say are the main themes that have been central to your work, covering topics as varied as intelligence and cognitive development, literacy and schooling, culture, activity theory, methodological issues and many more? what would be the „guiding principles‟ that shaped your theoretical and empirical investigations? michael cole: thank you for your flattering evaluation of the significance of my work (there is no accounting for taste, but it‟s nice to think that yours is excellent!). my central professional interest has been focused on the role of culture in constituting human nature. trained as an experimental learning theorist, in the american behaviorist tradition, my introduction to the study of cultural variations took place within the context of 1960‟s of an applied project – to figure out why rural liberian children from social groups living in subsistence agricultural circumstances with no tradition of literacy experienced severe difficulties in mastering elementary school curricula modeled on the practices of the industrialized world. consequently, it is perfectly natural that my work would focus on the role of educational processes in psychological development. once one enters that domain, question of psychological testing, iq, literacy, etc. cannot be avoided. i chose to meet them straight on, as best i could. this work, initially begun more or less at “the psychological level” initially focused on questions of methodology, in particular the logical problems of inferring lack of competence from lack of performance when psychological tests and educational practices developed in the euro-american tradition were used as standards of evaluation in alien cultural surroundings. the methods used were an insult to the logic of experimental science i had learned in graduate school. but the effort to supersede these problems did not appear resolvable remaining at the level of methods. there was no sufficiently comprehensive theory available to account for all that i was witnessing. consequently, i was pushed into a protracted period of exploring anthropological, sociological, and linguistic methods and their on the study of culture and mind 10 � attendant theories. i emerged from this experience convinced that inter-disciplinary collaboration and the building of a synthetic methodology was essential to allow progress on understanding the role of culture in development. literacy, testing, education, all became specific examples of historically constituted cultural practices that needed to be understood. serendipitous events took me to moscow early in my career, leading eventually to my appropriation of the ideas of l.s. vygotsky and his students, in combination with anglo-american social science approaches to culturally organized activities, as a foundation for pursuing the general problematic of culture‟s role in the constitution of mind. over time, interdisciplinarity, formulation of cultural-historical approach to mental life (which required adoption of a “genetic” approach that includes phylogeny, cultural-history, ontogeny, and microgenesis), and a serious commitment to the need to develop theory in close relationship to cultural practices, became guiding principles of my work. ejop: what are the projects you are working on at the moment and how are they continuous (or not) with your past interests? michael cole: i continue to work on the same problematics, but the form that my work takes has changed. i became convinced after two decades of cross-cultural work that despite their obvious attractions, cross-cultural psychological research was a quagmire of methodological problems that had to be addressed. they could not, in my case, be addressed in a cultural setting and social circumstances such as those i encountered in liberia and rural mexico. i would never learn enough about the local culture and its language to learn what i thought had to be learned in order to go more deeply into such issues as the role of literacy in mental life or the conditions that optimize the developmental potential of education. in the early 1980‟s we began to shift markedly from the “ethnographic psychology and experimental anthropology” approach that my colleagues and i used up to that time. armed with our own amalgamation of russian and anglo-american ideas about cultural mediation and activity, we began to use our ability to create settings that embodied the principles of our theoretical approach (using the acronym, chat, or cultural historical activity theory) as a means of testing and expanding the theory by evaluating its effectiveness in practice. (it did not take us long to realize that the “applications” in practice were a rich source of evidence for how to improve the theory!). europe’s journal of psychology 11 � ejop: your work has greatly helped the „rediscovery‟ and shaped the development of cultural or socio-cultural psychology especially in its russian cultural-historical sources. there have been now several decades since cultural psychological theories and methods became more and more central for the „neighboring‟ fields of cognitive, social, developmental and educational psychology. how would you assess the evolution of cultural psychology and its future perspectives? what have cultural psychologists „learned‟ and what is yet to be „learned‟? michael cole: the “rediscovery” of cultural psychology was promoted by several scholars at about the same time that international psychology was celebrating the centenary of experimental psychology in the late 1970‟s and 1980‟s. these included douglas price-williams, steven toulmin, richard shweder and others. clearly, the field has broadened enormously over the past few decades. by my reading, experimental social psychology has become the dominant strain in this movement. while there is a great deal to learn from this work, in many ways it seems to be re-living the arguments of “cultural style” that roiled cross-cultural psychology in the 1960‟s and 1970‟s. with the advent of various priming procedures, this line of work appears to be re-tracing the path we once traced into the ways in which experimental settings and procedures elicit the use of various cultural-schemas or frames reveal enormous heterogeneity with the broad categories of cultural-style theories; this heterogeneity appears most attributable to psychological effects at the level of cultural practices as a more promising point of entry. there are clear affinities of this view to the work of french sociocultural theorists such as perret-claremont, social representation theory of moscovici and his followers, the cultural semiotic theories of the group at (zittoun et al.). there are clear affinities as well to discursive psychology and all forms of socio-cultural theory prevalent in europe in different “flavors.” chat as i understand it, emphasizes the mutual constitution of thought, feeling, and action in the interplay of activities and their systems of cultural mediation as they develop across phylogeny, cultural-history, ontogeny and microgenesis. this perspective has recently been called “bio-cultural co-constructionism”. i like that “brand.” it‟s catchy. but i personally value the kind of “genetic analysis” practiced by followers of vygotsky; it is seen very clearly in luria‟s work on restoration of brain functions, where all relevant genetic domains are simultaneously brought to bear on the problem at hand. as noted above, the “flavor” of chat that we practice is something of a hybrid. while in later years we came to value the work of a.n. leontiev, we came to the on the study of culture and mind 12 � concept of activity from the perspective of cognitive ethnographers, anthropologists who sought to study cultural variations in subtle ways within local cultural conceptual frameworks. we were strongly influenced by the work of micro-ethnographers, ethnomethodologists, and various kinds of discourse analysis. oddly, we came to appreciate the issue of cultural mediation in seeking to understand literacy as a form of cultural practice, a term that bears a strong relationship in english to an activity. we differ from a number of our chat colleagues in a manner that rests on the issue of cultural progress. we have consistently argued that all stage theories of development, be they from psychologists such as piaget, vygotsky, and luria, or from social theorists such as spencer or marx fail to account for the enormous variability within stages that, in our view, is an essential source of change, whether historical or psychological. moreover, they read the forms of complexity that they value and depend upon as a universal yardstick of “levels of thinking.” like steven j. gould, we think of cultural evolution more as a motely bush than a stately branching tree. we also fear greatly that homo sapien bio-cultural nature, in particular, the necessity of living in a cultural medium (the very condition celebrated in iq scores) may make it impossible for us to survive in the ecosystem that our cultural achievements are bringing us. ejop: as you also mentioned earlier, present times have witnessed an increased interest in vygotsky‟s foundational work and the work of his collaborators. this has been helped by the series of translations of and commentaries based on materials written by vygotsky, leontiev, luria, etc. you yourself had the great opportunity of getting acquainted with cultural-historical theory as a young academic from working directly with luria. at the same time, as more psychologists (and not only) are discovering these sources several „tensions‟ within the original work come to the forefront, most notably between what is considered to be vygotsky‟s emphasis on mediation and leontiev‟s focus on activity. how do you see these „tensions‟ and „dichotomies‟ (between symbolic and material, mediation and activity, etc.) if you even consider them as such? where do you think current debates are leading and what should we focus on from the rich legacy of soviet psychology? michael cole: i have found it most reasonable to focus on the broad complementarity of vygotsky‟s and leontiev‟s work. both understood that mediators and activities are mutually constituted. vygotsky did not, so far as i can tell, use the term activity, in a manner designed to satisfy the subtleties of german philosophy. he used in various ways in various local rhetorical contexts in a variety of more or less common sense ways. he implied the importance of activity by designating different kinds of activities (play, learning, work – the “outside” complements to piagetian europe’s journal of psychology 13 � stages). but he did not insist on activity as the unit of psychological analysis. focusing on the relation between language and thought, he famously proposed word meaning as the requisite unit of analysis – of verbal thinking. leontiev lived through the times that vygotsky saw coming. so did luria and a small, but stellar, group of co-workers and their students. his adaptations to the times evoke ire among some for its ideological “user friendliness” to stalinism. heidegger was “user friendly” to fascism. we came to find leontiev‟s work especially useful when we began doing implementation studies as a test bed for theorizing development, in our case, the development of the ability to read. oddly, since we were initially attracted to leontiev because of our own research into context/situation/activity, we came to understand that he, himself, did very little empirical research that advanced his own theory. however, others did carry out such research, in the domain of preschool play, for example, and this work allowed us to maintain a connection with leontiev‟s thinking even if we were not hooked into his grand, marxist, synthesis. we didn‟t much like its historical progressivism or its embodiment in soviet society. with respect to tensions around the ideal/material dichotomy: i really like the idea of artifacts as blends of the material and ideal, accumulated from joint, mediated, activity for eons of lifetimes. i stumbled upon the idea of the “ur” fusion of ideal and material in artifacts while teaching a course on mind and communication, and was delighted to find that very similar formulations had been worked out by bona fide philosophers such as ilyenkov in the ussr and wartofsky in the usa (both, neatly, drew heavily on marx!). to get into detail on this matter would not be useful here. there are some discussions of these issues on the lchc web page. ejop: your work also dealt with several important methodological aspects of psychology as a discipline, many of them prompted by your original dissatisfaction with more „mainstream‟ methods and approaches, including methodologies specific for cross-cultural psychology. some time ago you came to discuss the need for a „cultural-genetic methodology‟. what are the essential aspects of this kind of methodology and how is it put in practice? michael cole: this question goes to the heart of my current work. in 1981 we created our first model system, influenced in important ways be leontiev, luria, and vygotsky. as a result of that work we were able to obtain support to study the implementation of a theoretically organized teaching/learning activity that was part of a “microsocial world” or “idioculture” with its own norms, values, rituals, and all the ingredients of an activity system or cultural practice. on the study of culture and mind 14 � since that time we have been studying learning and development of children and college students engaging each other in the multiple activities that constituted what we called “the fifth dimension.” our goal was to implement an activity system that would allow us to study cultural-historical genesis (change in the 5th dimension), ontogenesis, and micro-genesis all in the same place. i called it a “meso” genetic method, playing on the fact that we were picking a period of time that spanned years but which a single person could experience over its whole history. most important, we adopted the ethnographic method of fixing our interpretations of significant events at different levels of analysis in frequent fieldnotes written by different participants as well as tape recordings of pivotal meetings and narratives of people‟s involvements from their own point of view. while the 5th dimension continues to exist in a plethora of culturally useful forms, we have moved our own research on to an analysis of the process of activity formation. this work, which takes place as part of a 5th dimension-like activity in a federally subsidize housing project, has been combining actor network theory, social representation theory, chat, and our locally famous distributed cognition approach pioneered by edwin hutchins to account not only for the formation of new black boxes (in our case, multi-media, educationally relevant, imaginative world building) and the subsequent changes that occur in the activity when it migrates to new sociocultural ecologies. this work also affords me the ability to follow luria‟s path by engaging in a “romantic” science of human development. we continue to use all of the theoretical material tools at our disposal to guide the design of activities we create and study. but we also involve ourselves in the everyday lives of the children, youth, and adults who frequent the center where our activities take place. in this enterprise, distinctions between clinical and experimental, basic and applied, theoretical and empirical science disappear. we are enabled to develop ourselves by participating in the development of others, with all sides being free to decide for themselves “which way is up.” ejop: a great part of your work has dealt with interventions, particularly working with children and youth to optimize learning and cognitive development. this resonates greatly with some of the initial aims of the russian scholars and their interest in studying the „zone of proximal development‟ for very practical and applied purposes. based on examples from your work, what are the main steps to be followed in intervention programs such as the 5th dimension? what is the basic „design‟ and how successful are educational interventions of „cultural-historical inspiration‟? europe’s journal of psychology 15 � michael cole: i view a 5th dimension or a system constructed on similar principles as a “zone of proximal development.” that is a design feature. you cannot make development happen. you can arrange for it to happen. your ability to design the conditions that encourage such development has long been recognized as the central criterion of the validity of one‟s theory. since each such activity is in fact coconstituted with its cultural ecology, the only thing one can be sure of in such work is that one will have ample opportunities to go back to improving theory in a manner that incorporates so-called “contextual effects” into the activity in question. just as there is not text without its “con-text” there is no activity with its con-activities. no end of theoretical repair work is entailed by recognition of this basic fact. ejop: is chat a branch of cultural psychology and is cultural psychology a branch of general psychology like abnormal psychology or developmental psychology? michael cole: in principle, the answer is no. chat is in fact a meta-psychological intellectual enterprise. it had its beginnings in psychology, perhaps, but it has already become used in a variety of other identifiable disciplines and different branches on the tree of cultural psychology. it is now common, for example, to see vygotsky cited in articles form experimental social psychology, anthropology, sociology, literature, and so on. i see no point in claiming that everyone else is a player in one‟s own game. people will treat the work we do as “applied psychology” or “community psychology” or service learning, or any number of other pigeon holes that suit their world view. as hard as it is, the interdisciplinary road, the road that requires synthesis across historically separate discourses is the only road to more comprehensive understanding that i can see. having experienced the incoherence that can come with interdisciplinarity, i am not a romantic on this score. my one strategy, which plays into my romantic streak, for solving the problems of interdisciplinary incoherence is to choose problems for analysis that cry out for contributions from many academic disciplines, problems that can be found in an accessible location near a university. the real world problems that are the pre-text for working together become the real conditions for creating a new text, allowing access to the problem of culture and development in a productive manner. ejop: finally, i would like to ask you to end with some thoughts for our readers. many of them are graduate students or young academics or researchers, at the beginning of their career. from the perspective of a scientist with decades of experience in the academia and in diverse fields of research, what would be your advice for those just on the study of culture and mind 16 � getting started on the journey towards a better understanding of human beings and their socio-cultural contexts? michael cole: the current generation faces huge obstacles to making a living in academia. runaway neo-liberal capitalism (even with a red star as its emblem) is commodifying everything in sight. my advice is to seek to ply your trade in an interdisciplinary, problem-based line of work. if you can do this as an academic, great. but the academia of today is far from the rarified academic of story books and popular culture films. it is very difficult for my younger colleagues to find the circumstances for both teaching and doing research that is community based and meant to last a long time. various hybrid organization are arising to bring about the kinds of interdisciplinary research i have been advocating. this is happening in my university through creation of programs that combine social sciences and medicine, arts and science education, technology and education across the board, and more. i warmly recommend the autobiography of alexander luria as a model of how a theorist who espouses the beliefs summarized above can continue to do his/her work under a huge range of circumstances. and luria‟s circumstances were a good deal more threatening (and varied!) than any one of us is likely to encounter. all the world was a laboratory for luria. and so it is. living with intensity international conference on education and educational psychology 19-20 october 2011 istanbul, turkey the international conference on education and educational psychology (iceepsy) 2011 will be held in istanbul, turkey 19 22 october 2011. plans have already begun to insure the iceepsy 2011 conference continues to build on the successes from previous iceepsy conferences and research efforts and seeks to expand even further the international focus on excellence in education and educational psychology efforts with participants from all major international academic and professional settings. the conference aims to provide opportunity for academicians, practitioners, student researchers, and professionals from education and educational psychology with crossdisciplinary interests and from varied educational/professional fields to share and learn from each other. the format of the conference is designed to provide unique opportunities to bring together cross-disciplinary research interests, effective educational and therapeutic practices and noted interventions within a setting designed to enrich dialogue and review of exceptional pedagogy, research, and practice. the iceepsy 2011 also aims to promote and recognize international experts and effective practices in education and educational psychology from varied disciplines. during iceepsy 2010 colleagues and professionals from more than 30 different countries participated in last year's conference. all abstracts from the conference were published by iceepsy (issn number 1986-3020) and a full text of papers was provided by elsevier in the iceepsy 2010 proceedings. the iceepsy 2011 scientific committee and board of reviewers have already made plans to expand the conference offerings for 2011 and will provide added features including preconference training sessions, workshops, poster presentations, and special interest group (sig) symposiums. the iceepsy is aimed to include researchers, academicians, teachers, trainers, parents, and leaders from nongovernmental organizations throughout the world. special consideration will also be given to student researchers and doctoral candidates to encourage their participation. visit the website for more information http://www.iceepsy.org/ microsoft word 8. literature review attribution.docx europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 96-104 www.ejop.org an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment jennifer murray mary e. thomson glasgow caledonian university abstract the current article presents an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment, with a focus on the theory’s application to clinical judgments of violence risk assessment. while attribution theory has been applied to many diverse fields of human behavior, a comparatively limited level of research and discussion has been raised regarding its application to the very relevant and practical study of clinical decision making (elbogen, 2002). the current article argues that is not only important for practicing clinicians to understand the way in which their client attributes causality to their behaviour in order to improve upon the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions, but also emphasizes the importance of recognizing and understanding the way in which the clinician attributes causality to the clients behaviour, and how this may affect the development of suitable therapeutic interventions and risk management plans. through better understanding the effects of attribution on clinical judgments of violence risk assessment, it is argued that improvements to the effectiveness of clinical judgments in violence risk assessment may be possible. keywords: attribution, clinical judgment, violence risk assessment. the study of attribution within a clinical decision making setting is both relevant and practical. elbogen (2002) highlights the issue of relevance in researching a process that is so often described as flawed (i.e., clinical judgment), and suggests that only through further understanding the process, can improvements in researching and practicing the process be accomplished. the present article therefore aims to discuss the relevance and importance of researching the effects of attribution in clinical decision making. of key interest within the present article is the effects of attribution on the formation of judgments and decision making in violence risk an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment 97 assessment. attribution has received great attention within psychological research since its introduction by heider (1958), having been applied to a large and varied number of areas. for example, research relating to attribution has been applied to such diverse areas as: motivations in education, personality, organizational and clinical psychology (weiner, 1985 in forsterling, 1988). heider (1958) proposed that all individuals act as ‘naïve scientists’ when navigating their environments, both physically and socially, and that they therefore act not only to interpret the physical aspects of their environment, but also the underlying causal properties. based on this interpretation, heider (1958) referred to individuals as causal analysts. with regards to person perception in causal analysis, the perceivers manifestation of the object’s (the ‘target’ of the perceivers attention) personality and psychological processes are largely based on observed behavior, but may also be ascertained through sources such as communication with social sources out with the object of perception. it is from this information that a perceptual construction of an individual is created. it must also be noted, however, that the perceiver’s own mindset (i.e., the way in which the central processes within the brain interact with the external information presented) acts to determine the way in which the raw material gathered is organized, thus interpreted, by the perceiver. in accordance with heider’s (1958) theory of interpersonal relations, it can therefore be considered that an individual can infer the characteristics of a person through their perception of that person. perceptions may be obscure in nature (e.g., an individual can infer another’s dissatisfaction but not know how they came to obtain this knowledge) or may be based on more obvious factors (e.g., ascertaining that an individual is displeased based on direct verbal communication to this effect). with this in mind, one must be aware of the dangers of inferring a meaning behind another’s actions prematurely. for example, in a risk assessment context, since perception is argued to be a selective process (plous, 1993), the clinician must be careful not to seek information in line with their initial hypothesis/diagnosis (i.e., confirmatory bias), thus selectively perceiving what they had expected to find. heider (1958) further discussed the constancy phenomenon in social perception. the constancy phenomenon describes the expectation of constancy in a perceived object in terms of size, shape, and so on. in the case of person perception this can be applied to aspects such as mood and personality, despite the effects of changing conditions. hammond (1955) previously discussed the effects of constancy on person perception in relation to the diagnostic procedures associated with clinical europe’s journal of psychology 98 judgment. hammond (1955) asserted that while anger when displayed by another is an observable state, often an individual cannot communicate the reasoning behind how they arrived at this judgment. this is highly relevant in terms of transparency in the clinical judgment process. while the clinician aims to discover the motivations behind patient, client or offender behaviour, several observable behaviours may be apparent in addition to the more subtle internal cues to behavior, as discussed earlier. heider (1958) suggests that in these ‘observer-object’ circumstances, the perception of the object and the key observed features remain relatively constant. furthermore, the impressions formed of another person are said to be based largely on dispositional characteristics, i.e., those that are perceived to be largely consistent in nature. thus, an individual’s behavior may be judged based on a characteristic that is perceived by the observer to be consistent, regardless of inconsistencies in behaviour or circumstances. it is this perceived consistency that aids the clinician in the assessment of risk and prediction of future behaviour. in line with heider’s (1958) theory, the direct impressions formed of another person remain relatively constant over time, despite the level of accuracy/inaccuracy associated with this impression, thus aiding the judgments made relating to predictions of future behaviour. in order to assess the extent to which constancy may affect clinical judgment, the way in which individuals attribute underlying causation to an individual’s behaviour must be understood. in general, theories of attribution differentiate between causal factors, both internal and external to an individual’s behavior (forsterling, 1988). that is, where an internal attribution is applied to behavior, the individual is considered to be in control or responsible for the outcome. where an external attribution is applied, a situational or environmental factor out with the individual’s control is considered to be responsible for the outcome. for example, if, in a criminal-behaviour context, an internal attribution is applied to an individual, mr. x, who has committed a theft, one may attribute the cause as something relating to or reflecting mr. x’s personality, thus a ‘thrill-seeking’ or ‘bad person’ view of mr. x may result. if, however, an external attribution is applied, mr. x may be seen to be in great need of that which he stole, thus he acted out of environmental necessity, and it was therefore his situation that drove him to behave in the way that he did. in 1967, harold kelley systematically developed attribution theory, drawing upon the work of heider (1958) and jones and davis (1965). kelley (1967) proposed that individuals explain behavior in terms of the person (something about the person caused the behaviour), the entity (a constant of the situation was the cause of the behaviour), or the time (something relating to a specific occasion caused the an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment 99 behaviour). it can be seen that the person in this model can be tied to the originally proposed internal attribution of behaviour, and that the entity and time can be related to the originally proposed external attribution of behaviour. in addition, kelley (1967) proposed the concept of consistency in judgments of causality, i.e., is an individual’s behaviour and/or aspect of the situation consistently present. according to this concept, the way in which we attribute causality to an individual’s actions (i.e., was a behavior caused by the person, the entity, or the time) will depend on the perceived consistency of the action/situation, in addition to the distinctiveness of the behavior across other situations and stimuli and the similarity of the action to usual response or social norm. weiner, frieze, kukla, reed, rest and rosenbaum (1971) furthered this concept, discussing stable (constant, unchanging) and variable (changeable over time and situations) causes to behavior, with rosenbaum (1972) expanding this concept by discussing the importance of differing intentional versus unintentional behaviours. to illustrate this concept in terms of criminal behaviour, relating back to the previous example of mr. x, the observer will not only consider whether the theft behavior was caused by factors internal or external to mr. x, as discussed previously, but, in the case of external causality, according to kelley (1967), will also consider whether there is a constant in the environment (the entity) causing the behavior or if there was a specific trigger on that particular occasion (the time) that has caused the behavior. prior to finalizing their judgment, the observer will then, in accordance with weiner et al. (1971) and rosenbaum (1972), consider whether mr. x’s actions were stable or changeable and whether they were intentional or unintentional. these causal dimensions are not static, but instead are changeable in meaning across different situations and across different individuals’ perceptions of the properties of the cause. forsterling (1988) illustrated this with the example of failure attributed to moods. he suggested that if a failure is attributed to poor mood, and the mood is believed to be an enduring trait, the individual’s response to this will be similar to that triggered by other stable failure attributions, common with enduring internal attributions of causality. if, however, the poor mood is considered to be a temporary state, the individual’s response will be similar to that brought about by external attributions. it can therefore be seen that while attributions of causality and the proposed causal dimensions certainly have empirical evidence to support their existence, their definitions and the perceived properties contributing to their formation are changeable from person to person. while there are only a relatively small number of studies explicitly investigating the effects of attribution on the process of violence risk assessment, research of this europe’s journal of psychology 100 nature would appear to be of great importance within clinical practice. in 1988, forsterling presented an application of attribution theory to clinical psychology. this application centred around issues relating to the use of psychotherapy and behavioural modification within clinical psychology. the author proposed that in diagnostic and theoretical interventions, a clinician may benefit through applying attributional analysis. that is, through identifying the way in which an individual client ascribes meaning to their behaviours or emotional status, a clinician can then develop tailored therapeutic interventions which address not only the individual’s needs but that also appeals to their specific belief system, ultimately improving the success of the treatment. however, attribution is not only applicable to the therapeutic aspects of clinical settings, but can also be applied to the judgments and decisions made by clinicians. just as it is important for the clinician to identify their clients’ perceptions of causality, it would also be of great benefit for the clinician to be aware of their own decision making biases. chen, froehle and morran (1997) have shown that trainee counselors who are made aware of their use of biases through training sessions designed to instruct in attribution processes and practice empathetic perspective display significantly lower dispositional bias (i.e., blamed the cause of the presenting problems less on internal factors) than those not receiving the training. in light of the link between the apparent benefits of applying attribution theory within clinical practice, and the evidence to suggest that attributional errors can be effectively reduced in a diagnostic setting, albeit not strictly clinical in nature, a background to attribution within a clinical judgment setting shall now be discussed. plous (1993) discussed the impact of attribution on the treatment recommendations made by psychotherapists, suggesting that where a clinician attributes the cause of client behavior to be due to situational factors or due to the clients own disposition, treatment recommendations may differ. plous (1993) suggested that when a clinician ascribes situational (external) causality, that greater effort is made to alter a client’s circumstances. however, where a client’s disposition (internal) is judged to be the cause of behaviour, greater effort is placed on altering aspects of the client. while this in itself may not appear to be necessarily of negative consequence, plous and zimbardo (1986) reported low levels of reliability in causal explanations across various types of therapy orientations, demonstrating clear implications for client treatment. that is, depending on the orientation of their therapist, the root of a client’s problems or behaviours may be considered to be internally or externally based, and so the type of treatment that they would receive would not be equally driven across different types of therapy. an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment 101 in discussing the internal versus external perceptions of behavioural cause, there are clear implications for the field of violence risk assessment pertaining to offender behaviour. that is, in order for effective treatment planning and risk management to occur, the causal factors driving the individual’s problem(s) must be identified. if these factors are identified as internal, or controllable, a different reaction to the individual may be evoked than if the factors were seen as external. weiner’s (1986) attribution-emotion-action theory proposed that where a negative experience is attributed to internal factors, negative emotions, such as blame, will ensue. however, when these negative experiences are attributed to factors external to the individual, more sympathetic affective responses will ensue. in addition, the way in which cause is attributed can effect expectations for future decision making and behavior accuracy. curtis (1994) conducted research investigating the inter-professional role conflict experienced in a healthcare setting. participants were asked to report the perceived causes (attributions) for failure (where the individual had compromised on a decision) and success (where the individual had supported their argument) in terms of their perceived best professional judgment. as could be predicted, success was attributed to internal, stable factors and failure was attributed to external, uncontrollable factors. curtis (1994) found that attributing cause to external, uncontrollable factors was strongly related to future expectations of failure. once again, clear implications for violence risk assessment can be drawn in terms of offender management, from both the perspective of the clinician and the offender. in relation to the former, should the clinician ascribe an internal cause to the offender’s negative life experience or behavior, weiner’s (1986) attribution-emotionaction theory would suggest that the clinician would experience blame-type emotions towards the offender, which may in turn affect the judgments made about the offender’s behavior. if, in line with curtis’ (1994) findings, this internal causality is deemed to be an enduring, stable feature of the offender, the treatment options and risk management plan suggested may be different from those recommended had the behavior been attributed to an external, unstable cause. this may, of course, be suited to the particular treatment/risk management plan being developed; for instance, in cases involving psychopathy this could be a very important determination of treatment/risk management requirements. however, should internal/external causality be prematurely or incorrectly placed, this would have clear and perhaps serious implications for the treatment of the offender. as mentioned, the attribution of causality may not only have implications for clinical judgment in a violence risk assessment context, but also for offender judgment. should the offender ascribe an external cause to their negative life experience or behavior, weiner’s (1986) attribution-emotion-action theory would suggest that the europe’s journal of psychology 102 offender will develop emotions to cope with their situation, such as sympathy and pity for their own circumstances; emotions protecting the individual from selfblaming. if, in line with curtis’ (1994) findings, this external causality is deemed to be an enduring, stable feature of the offender, the offender may come to expect failure in terms of repeating unwanted behaviours that they perceive to be out with their control. this in turn may lead to a sustained, or indeed increased, incidence of undesirable behaviour, with the offender over time accepting and explaining their negative actions in terms of an external influence driving them or causing them to act in such a way, effectively removing blame from their person. this mirrored conception of internal/external causal attribution between the clinician and the offender falls in line with jones and nisbett’s (1972) work on actor-observer differences in causal explanations for behaviour. that is, the tendency for actors (the offender, in this case) to attribute the cause of their actions to situational factors, external to them, while observers (in this case the clinician) to attribute cause to the same action to stable, internal factors. while the key focus of the present review has been on the effects of attribution on clinical judgments in violence risk assessment, it is fully recognized that judgments and decision making in this field is almost certainly affected by other decision making heuristics and biases not discussed. it would, however, be impossible to address properly all of the possible biases and interactions therein which may affect clinical decision making within the scope of this article. based on the theoretical arguments and links presented in the current article, it can be concluded that a greater level of empirical research investigating the effects of causal attributions on clinical judgment is required in order to not only expand on current decision making knowledge in this context, but also to inform and improve the practice of clinical decision making in violence risk assessment. references chen, m., froehle, t., & morran, k. (1997). deconstructing dispositional bias in clinical inference: two interventions. journal of counseling and development, 76, 74-81. curtis, k. a. (1994). attributional analysis of interprofessional role conflict. social science & medicine, 39(2), 255-263. elbogen, e. b. (2002). the process of violence risk assessment: a review of descriptive research. aggression and violent behaviour, 7, 591-604. an application of attribution theory to clinical judgment 103 forsterling, f. (1988). attribution theory in clinical psychology. new york: wiley. hammond, k. r. (1955). probabilistic functioning and the clinical method. psychological review, 62, 255-262. heider, f. (1958). the psychology of interpersonal relations. new york: wiley. jones, e. e., & davis, k. e. (1965). from acts to dispositions: the attribution process in person perception. in l. berkowitz (ed.), advances in experimental psychology (vol.2, pp.219-266). new york: academic press. jones, e. e., & nisbett, r. e. (1972). the actor and the observer: divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. in e. e. jones, d. e. kanhouse, h. h. kelley, r. e. nisbett, s. valins, & b. weiner (eds.), attribution: perceiving the causes of behavior (pp.79-94). morristown, nj: general learning press. kelley, h. h. (1967). attribution theory in social psychology. in d. levine (ed.), nebraska symposium on motivation (pp.192-238). lincoln: university of nebraska press. plous, s. (1993). the psychology of judgment and decision making. new york: mcgrawhill. plous, s., & zimbardo, p. g. (1986). attributional biases among clinicians: a comparison of psychoanalysts and behavior therapists. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 54, 568-570. rosenbaum, r. m. (1972). a dimensional analysis of the perceived causes of success and failure. unpublished dissertation. university of california, los angeles. weiner, b., frieze, i. h., kukla, a., reed, l., rest, s., & rosenbaum, r. m. (1971). perceiving the causes of success and failure. new york: general learning press. weiner, b. (1985). foreword. in f. forsterling (ed.), attribution theory in clinical psychology (pp.ix-xi). new york: wiley. weiner, b. (1986). an attributional theory of motivation and emotion. new york: springerverlag. europe’s journal of psychology 104 about the authors: jennifer murray jennifer murray is currently a phd student in the division of psychology, glasgow caledonian university. her thesis is investigating the effects of attribution on clinical judgments of violence risk assessment, at various stages of the violence risk assessment process. *requests for reprints should be addressed to jennifer murray, department of psychology, glasgow caledonian university, 70 cowcaddens road, glasgow, g4 0pp, scotland, uk (e-mail: jennifer.murray@gcal.ac.uk; tel: 0141 552 7990). mary e. thomson dr mary e thomson is a reader of decision science from the division of psychology, glasgow caledonian university who has published in various books and journals, including risk analysis, decision support systems, the international journal of forecasting, the european journal of operational research and the journal of behavioral decision making. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 218-220 www.ejop.org the study of personality in organizations: interv iew with gian vittorio caprara by miruna andreescu and daniela vercellino aspse, bucharest snspa, bucharest in this interv iew professor gian vittorio caprara shares with us some of his thoughts about personality psychology and organizational psychology, emerging out of a long experience of working in both fields. many important questions have been raised in these areas where there is a long-lasting concern with how personality should be understood and „measured‟. professor caprara addresses this and other pressing issues for theorists and practitioners alike in the present interv iew. gian vittorio caprara holds degrees in political science and a specialization degree in psychology. he is professor of psychology at università degli studi di roma "la sapienza" where he also served as chair of the department and dean. he held visiting professor appointments at stanford, ucla, uci, university of michigan and santiago university. he is a member of several international scientific associations and has been president of the european association of personality. professor caprara is author and co-author of more than 450 scientif ic publications, including several volumes. his research interests are focused on primarily on the topics of personality and social psychology. address for correspondence: dipartimento di psicologia, ‘‘sapienza’’ universita` di roma, via dei marsi 78, 00185 rome, italy e-mail: gianvittorio.caprara@uniroma1.it interviewer: you first graduated political science and three years later, you graduated psychology at the same university. how did you become interested in the scientific study of personality? prof. caprara: when i started to study psychology i was interested in understanding the person, what makes a person unique, what distinguishes a person from the other ones; i wanted to prov ide a meaning to the life of the others. i was interested in understanding what makes people happy, how can we offer people the possibility http://www.ejop.org/ the study of personality in organizations to make the best of themselves. my interest in psychology has always been a political interest, an ideological interest: the more i study psychology, the more i think we should acknowledge the diversities and we should try to compensate the inequalities. our goal as psychologists is to understand how our people can develop, which are the conditions that allow all people to express the best of themselves. psychology can help us understand the causes of diversities, it can help us moderate, attenuate the ones that are due to nature; it can help us avoid the expansion of these diversities and the injustice that could follow. i have always been interested in politics, i graduated political science and for the last fifteen years i did research in the field. for many years, i was a militant in the left party. when i left ibm, i joined the communist party, which i left too, eventually. after ibm, i realized communism was a disillusion, i expected too much from it. the kind of communism that we have seen and experienced is not desirable anymore. the question is whether democracy can be the best form of government. democracy offers most people the possibility to express themselves, to participate, to be responsible of how the government works. the world we live in is very complicated, with tremendous disparities, but still one has to try to understand, to make sense of things, to search for better ways to manage the problems, managing the society. i ‟m very much convinced that psychologists can contribute in making a world more just. interviewer: between 1968 and 1973 you worked in human resources at ibm. what was your greatest challenge there, as a psychologist? what did you like most about your experience in that company? prof. caprara: ibm for me was a very interesting experience, i learned a lot. ibm offered me many opportunities, it was the good face of capitalism. i say that because ibm is an organization w ith many defects and v irtues of capitalism: in there i learned to work, i learned the importance of competencies, the importance of organization. i was responsible of developing all the measurement, all the testing and training. i have always been more inv olved in managing processes other than managing people. ibm offered me many opportunities, i was exposed to many experiences. i was very young at the time, i was hired right after i finished my military serv ice – at that time it was a compulsory draft in i taly. ibm let me go to school, so i could complete my graduation, my phd program. after that i got another leave because i received a scholarship in canada and when i returned, ibm offered me a managerial position. finally, i left ibm to go to work in univ ersities, but they kept me as a consultant for many years. interviewer: in the last years, organizational psychology headed to the intense study of personality. what do you think will be the hot topics of tomorrow? 219 europe’s journal of psychology 220 prof. caprara: identification and actualization of potentials, elaboration for innovation and justice to offer people the feeling that they are respected and treated fairly! interviewer: research has found personality to be related to important organizational outcomes such as positive job attitudes and behaviors and job performance. this means that organizations should use personality tests to select their future employees. however a common criticism is that job applicants can easily fake their answers to personality scales. what are your thoughts on this issue? prof. caprara: you need a good test! first, you need a good theory of personality functioning, comprehensive theory. then, you need good measures. but the theory determines the validity of the measures. i t is the theory that drives the measures, that allows you to understand whether people fake or not, whether their responses to tests are reliable or not. i am strongly convinced of the primacy of the theory! and that is unusual because people have some kind of fetishism for testing. i trust in what people report, i ‟m not so concerned about social desirability. for instance, two months ago i was inv ited to identify potentials in an advertising company, among very young people with an excellent cv. the tests were absolutely average, the people responded average, so there was no concern about faking. in many situations, the best choice is the right choice – what do you think it‟s true. i f the test is correct, the people do not know what is going on, ultimately they do not know what you expect from them. of course, there are certain tests that are difficult – for instance, it is difficult to assess efficacy in selection because if i ask you “are you capable to do so?”, of course you say ”yes!”. but if i ask you whether you like or not a certain kind of movie, what is the right answer? there is no right answer! interviewer: the differences between scientists and practitioners are a common theme in organizational psychology. how can we bridge this gap between science and practice? prof. caprara: scientists should make an effort to make themselves easier to understand. practitioners should be more diligent, less lazy. both should be less arrogant! we should educate the client to be more exigent, to be more severe. the companies buy an instrument because there is a good salesman. the clients don‟t question many things, because they don‟t understand why we use tests, what is validity, what is reliability, what makes a test better than the other. we should defend our instruments, our ideas, by prov iding ev idence, research, documentation! emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 15-31 www.ejop.org availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood as risk factors for criminal offending among prison inmates in nigeria abeeb olufemi salaam department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, united kingdom abstract the current study recruited participants from among the prison inmates in nigeria to determine the relative impacts of availability and use of weapons in their respective communities prior to incarceration as risk factors for criminal offending. eight hundred and twenty one participants made up of those awaiting trial and convicts, ranging in age from 16 to 65 years (m= 30.4, sd= 7.6) were recruited through opportunistic (non probability) sampling across ten medium and maximum security prisons in nigeria to participate in the study. adopting the quantitative analysis, the computed outcomes predict the effects of weapon availability as potential risk factors to criminal offending among this group. the implications of the findings for crime reduction policy in targeting offenders who are at risk of committing criminal offences due to weapon availability are emphasised. keywords: risk factors, firearms, weapon availability, prison inmates, nigeria background the impact of breaking the law and the subsequent arrest and incarceration of criminals may spawn negative psychological consequences in offenders, who must rapidly come to terms with the shock of prison life and deal with the burden of knowing that their families may be suffering both emotional and financial losses because of them (hagan & dinovitzer, 1999). given the effects of incarceration on the offender and everyone around them, it appears necessary to explore motivating factors to criminal offending in order to tackle or address the causes of crime than to opt for punishing offenders through incarceration. of these motivating variables, the risk factors model is increasingly v isible and popular. risk factors model assumes that http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 16 there are multiple, and often overlapping, risk factors in an indiv idual‟s background that interact with one another and consequently increases an indiv idual‟s vulnerability or propensity to engage in negative behaviour in the absence of protective factors. in other words, risk factors are those characteristics, variables, or hazards that, if present for a given indiv idual, make it more likely that this indiv idual, rather than someone selected from the general population, will develop problem behaviour (mrazek & haggerty, 1994). one of the most reliable risk factors to criminal offending obtainable in offender researches is availability and use of weapon in the neighbourhood (kleck & hogan, 1999; turner, simons, berkowitz, & frodi, 1977; wells & horney, 2002). i t has long been argued that weaponry and firearms could give indiv iduals who are vulnerable to inflicting injury on others the courage to attempt aggressive acts that they would otherwise be afraid to attempt. in particular, a weapon may be especially important in facilitating attacks by armed robbers or other v iolent offenders against their v ictims. psychologists have also argued that the sight of weapons could stimulate aggression through classical conditioning processes resulting from the learned associations involv ing aggressive acts and weapon use (for a review, see turner, simons, berkowitz, & frodi, 1977). indeed, the presence of aggressive environmental cues such as weapons can increase the accessibility of hostile, aggressive thoughts and lead to more aggressive behaviour (for a rev iew, see brennan & moore, 2009). given the facilitative part played by weapon as an important stimulus for dominance and aggression, it is unsurprising that armed robbers and other v iolent offenders are more likely to carry weapons and firearms to perpetrate their v iolent acts. while it is appreciated that the use of weapons and firearms by v iolent offenders is a global phenomenon (for a rev iew, see brennan & moore, 2009; igbo, 2001; kleck & hogan, 1999; turner, simons, berkowitz, & frodi, 1977; wells & horney, 2002), the sources of firearms, such as rifles, pistols, and other dangerous, locally made weapons used by v iolent offenders, in nigeria has raised many of the usual questions among the general public. however, it can be speculated that the country‟s problems with small arms and weaponry can be dated back to the 196770 civ il war, during which the southeast made a failed attempt to secede. during this period, most able bodied men enlistedeither voluntarily or by conscription into the armed forces as fighting soldiers, especially on the rebel biafran side. those enlisted into the armed forces included the unemployed and underemployed, school leavers, and drop-outs, as well as some members of the criminal population. these new recruits learned how to use rifles, machine guns, and other firearms against their opponents. at the end of the hostilities, it appears that many defeated and demobilised soldiers did not surrender their weapons to the federal authorities. some availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 17 of these weapons were even abandoned at the war fronts, while others were either buried underground or carefully concealed in bushes to make them easily retrievable should the need arise. such a need could be for criminal purposes, as in the case of armed robbery. there is also the possibility that some serv ing policemen and military officers who returned to the barracks at the end of the war might have given out their officially assigned weapons to persons with a criminal intent in exchange for cash (igbo, 2001). the implication of all this is that there is a possibility that indiv iduals with access to weapons may be tempted to resort to criminality. besides the civ il war risk phenomenon, it can be contemplated that cross border smuggling as a result of the civ il wars in neighbouring countries like sierra leone and liberia may have led to the proliferation of arms and weaponry into nigeria. this is facilitated by huge cross-border smuggling and mercenary activ ities (from chad and niger, for example) and the country‟s long, porous borders that are poorly policed due to the inadequate resources and the lack of capacity of the security agencies (ginifer & ismail, 2005). the three most notorious border posts for the illicit smuggling of small arms and weaponry into the country, as reported by ginifer and ismail, are the idi-i roko and seme (in the south-western states of lagos and ogun), warri (in delta state), and the border posts in the adamawa, borno and yobe states in the north-east. although various potential sources from which offenders in the country could obtain weapons have been highlighted above, there is little or no empirical ev idence on the sources of the weapons used by offenders in nigeria, nor have there been many studies examining the probable contributions of weapon availability in the neighbourhood as potential risk factors for criminal offending in the country. in response to this, the current study recruited participants from among the prison inmates in order to determine the relative significance of the use of firearms to criminal offending among this group. the patterns of relationships between the use of firearms and the criminal history of the participants were also explored. i t is hoped that the findings from the current study will have the potential to inform the crime reduction policy in nigeria, by prov iding an indication of the form and size of the problem under investigation, in addition to policing strategies aimed at stemming the supply and use of weaponry to perpetrate criminal/v iolent offending. ethical considerations the research received a favourable ethical opinion from the university of surrey ethics and quality committee. permission to access prisoners was obtained from the comptroller general of prisons in nigeria. the comptroller instructed the assistant europe’s journal of psychology 18 comptroller of prisons (administration) to write an approval letter for the researcher to be able to v isit prisons across the following states for the purpose of data collection: kano, oyo, edo, delta, abia, lagos, and the federal capital territory in abuja (see table 1 & figure 1). to ensure the confidentiality and informed consent of the participants, prison inmates recruited for the study were told –  not to put their names or any of the pages of the questionnaire or put any marks that might identify them  that their participation in the research was voluntary  that the return of a completed questionnaire constituted informed consent to participate in the study, and  that the respondents should not discuss their responses with other inmates during the questionnaire administration session. methodology research population and sampling procedures at the time of collecting the data that inform the findings of the present study, there were 227 prisons across the country (including maximum and medium security, satellites prisons and 11 farm centres) holding approximately 46,000 inmates, comprising those awaiting trial, convicts, detainees and condemned prisoners. of these prisons, the maximum security ones take into custody all classes of prisoner, including condemned convicts, lifers, and those on long term sentences. the medium security prisons also take into custody both convicts and remand inmates, but mostly inmates on short term sentences. the satellite prisons, on the other hand, are intermediate prison camps set up in areas where the courts are far from the main prisons. they serve the purpose of prov iding remand centres especially for those whose cases are going to courts within the areas. when convicted, they could be easily moved to appropriate convict prisons at which to serve their jail terms. on the last note, the farm centres are agricultural prison camps that have been set up solely to train inmates in agricultural based vocations. the rationale behind this is to equip the inmates with the agricultural based skills they will have to depend upon after completing their jail term. of these prisons, the researcher was only allowed by the prison authorities to recruit participants from among the convicts and those awaiting trial in nine medium and one maximum security prisons (see table 1 & figure 1), that represent participants across the tribes, religions, and geo-political div ides in nigeria. availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 19 however, it should be highlighted that it has alw ays been the tradition in nigerian prisons to select leaders among the inmates who liaise between the prison authorities and the other inmates. the leadership of each cell is selected by the prison warder. in the north of the country, the leadership of the cell is called seriki, while they are mostly addressed as provost in the eastern and south western parts of nigeria. the serikis/provosts are well recognised and respected among the inmates, and normally serve as intermediaries between the prison authorities and the rest of the inmates with regard to the grievances and other issues relating to the general welfare of the prison inmates. the instructions that the serikis/ provosts give to their fellow inmates are generally followed by other inmates, who see the seriki/provost as a superior inmate. because of their influence, the researcher ensured that he established good rapport with the serikis/provosts in order to facilitate the recruitment of the participants (inmates) for the study from a larger group (prison inmates) through an opportunistic sampling technique. the system of opportunistic sampling (i.e., non-probability technique) is justified in this type of research because the often-chaotic nature of booking facilities does not lend itself to systematic random sampling (for a rev iew, see bennet, 1998; wish & gropper, 1990). originally in the ten prisons v isited for the administration of questionnaire, 979 inmates were approached and 821 respondents were considered for the analysis. questionnaires were discarded when they were largely incomplete, illegible, or contained similar answer sets for all responses. the responses from the few female inmates were also discarded as they contributed a tiny number to the overall sample. the following are the breakdown of the prisons v isited and the patterns of the response from the respondents: table 1: response rates from each prison v isited prisons visited & sample percentage no administered valid response percentage of response rate kuje prison abuja (11.7%) 103 96 93.2% central prison kano (10.5%) 99 86 86.9% goran dutse prison kano (11.0%) 119 90 75.6% agodi prison ibadan (16.9%) 145 139 95.9% oko prison benin (08.2%) 82 67 81.7% central prison benin (09.4%) 90 77 85.6% europe’s journal of psychology 20 umuahia prison (08.7%) 90 71 78.9% aba prison (06.8%) 70 56 80% ikoyi prison (09.4%) 95 77 81.1% kirikiri maximum prison (07.6%) 86 62 72.1% total (100%) 979 821 83.9% figure 1: map of nigeria note: data were collected from prisons across kano, lagos, oyo, lagos, abia and edo states, including federal capital territory, abuja. measures a self report standardised scale was used to elicit a response from the participants. while it appreciated that the use of self report is vulnerable to manipulation and self presentation biases in the offender samples, due to the common belief that availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 21 offenders are „cons‟ who should not be trusted and would not hesitate to lie or manipulate their responses to psychological measures, ev idence exists that self report questionnaires can be an accurate and robust instrument of data collection from the offender population (kroner & loza, 2001; mills, loza, & kroner, 2003). what is important is that the questions or items on the self report questionnaire should be relevant to the characteristics being measured. having ensured this, the self report scale used to elicit a response from the participants in the current study covered a range of topics, including personal demographic characteristics, criminal history, and weapon availability and use prior to incarceration.  personal demographic characteristics: to ensure that the researcher has recruited a wide variety of prison inmates, the participants were asked to state their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, highest educational achievement, occupation and marital status before arrest.  the criminal history scale: this is a standardised scale developed by the researcher to measure the respondents‟ prev ious contact with criminal justice system. i t contains questions on the arrest history, prison status, reason for admission, and the conviction history of the respondents. a cumulative index of the criminal history scale was constructed with a cronbach alpha of 0.70.  measure of weapon availability and use: the respondents were asked to respond to a number of questions about firearms/weapon availability and their perception of crime. they were asked to indicate: (a) whether they had ever been injured by a gunshot in the past; (b) whether they had shot at someone or attacked anyone with a weapon in the past; (c) whether they had carried a gun with them whilst committing a crime, or had ever used a gun to commit a crime; (d) whether it was important to have a gun in their neighbourhood; and (e), if so, what was the reason for this. the participants were also asked to list any other weapons that they had used in the past while committing a crime. the weapon availability and use measure adopted in the current study also demonstrated good coefficient reliability, with a cronbach alpha of 0.82. analytic strategies statistical package for social sciences (spss) was used for data analysis. a combination of univariate (frequency counts and odds ratio), bivariate (chi square statistics), and multivariate (logistic regression) analyses was employed to make statistical decisions from the data collected from the participants. in particular, the univariate (frequency counts) analysis was used to determine the demographic europe’s journal of psychology 22 characteristics and level of the participants‟ accessibility to and use of weapon and firearms before the present incarceration. the odds ratio statistics was used to determine the risk estimate of weapon availability and use by the prison inmates. the difference between weapon accessibility and use among different categories of prev ious offences and prison status of the participants was determined by chi square statistics. the extent to which weapon accessibility could contribute to criminal offending among the participants was also established by logistic regression analysis. results demographic characteristics the 821 participants comprised: 33.0% igbo, 22.4% yoruba, 19.2% hausa, 8.3% edo, 1.5% fulani, and 1.2 % urohobo tribe. other minority tribes made up the rest (13.6%). the age range of the participants was between 16 and 65 years, with a mean age of 30.34 (s.d. =7.6). christians (60%) and muslims (38.9%) dominated the religious faiths of the participants. there are also a few traditionalists (0.4%), and 0.7% did not declare their religious faith. prior to their confinement, more than half (52.4%) were married, (45.9 %) single, and (1.7 %) divorced. over half 65% of the sample had obtained a secondary education or less, with 28.9% having received a diploma or university degree, and a small proportion of 3.9% having an arabic education. arabic education describes a process of sending children and wards to mallams (teachers) to study quran, hadith and other branches of i slamic knowledge. regarding the family background of the participants, more than half were from a polygamous background (59.8%), while the remaining 40.2% were from monogamous families. criminal history of the participants the descriptive analysis of criminal history of the participants from self report indicates that the majority of the participants had a history of a prev ious arrest (73 %), and 27% were first-time offenders. with regards to the current prison status of the participants, almost two third were awaiting trail (62.6%), and the remaining 37.4 % were convicted. their durations of admission into the prison varied, with more than half of the participants having been in custody for up to three years (48.2%). others had been in custody between four and ten years or more. various reasons were given for being in custody. prominent among them were armed robbery (39 .7%), burglary and theft (17.3%), drug related offences (17.2%), assault (9.3%), availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 23 manslaughter (5.8%), fraud (419), conspiracy to defraud (4.0%), and other miscellaneous offences (6.7%). although it would have been appropriate to focus on offenders who had engaged in interpersonal crime or solely gun crime in order to obtain more precise results, the practical reality is that it was not feasible to group the participants according to their offences during the data collection due to the logistic problem associated with prison rules in the country. nevertheless, the response of participants who admitted to having engaged in interpersonal v iolence among the inmates was used to make predictions that inform the findings of the present study. firearms availabil ity, possession and use out of the participants, 49.7% admitted to the accessibility of firearms in their neighbourhood; and a third (34.8%) admitted that they had access to a gun, and other weapons. various reasons were given for using firearms in their neighbourhood: protection and self defence, or for hunting or game expeditions. out of the 34.8% of the participants who admitted having access to a gun, 24.4% confessed that they had shot at someone. similarly, 25.7% of them admitted to gun possession w hile committing crime. of this particular, 25.7%, 9.6% were presently arrested for armed robbery or v iolent offences (see table 2). these responses were given for why the participants had firearms when committing the particular crime (i.e. in case they needed it, they always carry a firearm, etc.) table 2: firearms availability, possession and use firearms variables frequency percentage accessibility to firearms easy accessibility 408 49.7 not easy 413 50.3 personal access to a gun yes 286 34.8 no 535 65.2 previous shot at someone yes 200 24.4 no 621 75.6 gun possession while committing crime yes 211 25.7 no 610 74.3 europe’s journal of psychology 24 list of different guns used in the past: 5 loaded pump, ak47, barreta pistol, buzita, dummy gun, gpmg, k2 rifle, pump 8, kulizo, locally made pistol, mark4, revolver, scorpion, sub-machine gun. list of other weapons used in the past: arrow, axe, broken bottle, catapult, cattle horn, hammers, iron rod, jack knife, stick, sword, plank, dagger, utc axe. almost a fifth of all the participants (18.1%) confessed to having been previously shot by someone. they were probed further about who shot them, and table 3 summarises their varied responses. table 3: history of gunshot injury who shot them? frequency percentage to extort forced confession by police 37 24.5 by victims of armed robbery operation 19 12.6 special anti robbery squad (sars) 16 10.6 community vigilante 15 09.3 odua peoples congress (opc) 14 09.2 prison anti riot squad 13 08.6 armed robbers 13 08.6 secret cult clashes 11 07.3 during the biafra war 07 04.6 port harcourt militants 06 03.9 unknown hunter 02 01.3 the following summarise the categories of prev ious convicted offences within participants with history of gun shot injury. property and v iolent offenders were the most likely group to be shot and this is statistically significant (chi square 65.9 p<.0001) table 5: prev ious conviction by history of gun shot injury offence categories history of gun shot injury yes no violent offences 79 (10.0%) 192(24.3%) property offences 39(4.9%) 76(9.6%) substance related offences 05(0.6%) 84(10.6%) miscellaneous offences 14(1.8%) 144(18.2%) first offender 14(1.8%) 144(18.2%) availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 25 chi square analysis was also employed to determine the differences between categories of prev ious convicted offences within participants who confirmed availability of firearms in their neighbourhood (see table 6). table 6: categories of prev ious convicted offences within participants who confirmed availability of firearms in their neighbourhood offence categories availability of firearms in the neighbourhood x2 df p yes no violent offences 118 153 8.1 1 0.00* non violent offences 199 163 note: *p<0.050 there was significant difference between categories of previous convicted offences and availability of firearms in the neighbourhood. note: violent offences include armed robbery, murder, assault, manslaughter, weapons possession, cultism, etc non violent offences include property (e.g., theft, housebreaking, economic crimes (419), conspiracy to steal); substance related (e.g., drug dealing or possession, alcohol offences) and miscellaneous offences (e.g., traffic violation, wandering, gambling, trespassing, breaking curfew). using an odds ratio to determine the risk estimate of weapon availability and use by the prison inmates, there were statistically significant effects of availability of and accessibility to firearms to criminal offending among the participants (see table 7). table 7: risk estimate of accessibility to firearms and criminal offending variables 95 % confidence interval odds ratio value lower upper p history of gun shot injury (reference: availability of firearms in the neighbourhood) 1.70 1.18 2.44 .004* availability of firearms in the neighbourhood (reference: previous arrest history) 1.58 1.16 2.15 .004* history of gun shot injury (reference: access to a gun) 2.21 1.55 3.17 .000* previous shot at someone (reference: access to a gun) 11.07 7.11 17.24 .000* notes:* indicates statistically significant effect at the 0.05 level europe’s journal of psychology 26 logistic regression analysis where criminal offending index was the dependent variable, the regression model (adjusted r2 = 0.338, f1, 379 = 3.511, p<0.05) was predicted by weapon availability (t =2.444, p< 0.015, β = 0.124) which indicates that accessibility to weapon could motivate offending among the participants. discussion of major findings the current study focussed on the role of weapon availability as potential risk factor in criminal offending among prison inmates in nigeria. the participants were recruited from ten prisons across five states in nigeria, including the federal capital territory, abuja. the respondents represent various ethnic groups (e.g. igbo, yoruba, hausa, fulani, urohobo, and edo) with different religious affiliations (i.e., christianity, islam and african traditional religion). the majority of the participants are also awaiting trial, which suggests that they have pending cases to be determined in the law courts, and most of the participants have been in custody for between three and ten years. the current research findings replicate the findings of adesanya et al. (1997) on prison inmates‟ conditions in nigeria. adesanya and colleagues findings indicates that approximately 65 per cent of the nigerian inmates are awaiting trial, most for up to ten years. the descriptive analysis of the firearms availability, possession and use by the participants suggest that almost half of them (49.7%) admitted to the accessibility of firearms in their neighbourhood; and a third (34.8%) admitted that they had access to a gun, and other weapons. although the majority of the participants who admitted to gun possession or the availability of firearms in their neighbourhood justified them under the pretence that an increased fear of personal harm and consequent need for protection was the major motivating factor, the reality is that it may be difficult to obtain information on the sources of past weapons used by the participants, since revealing such information may pose a risk that these sources may be blocked by the law enforcement agents subsequently. nevertheless, the presence of small arms proliferates in nigeria cannot be ruled out, as it appears very easy to purchase locally-made guns and other weapons (igbo, 2001; john, mohammed, pinto & nkanta, 2007). there is also a possibility that criminals may seize weapons belonging to the police when they attack the latter, as this sometimes occur in nigeria. availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 27 a small proportion of those who admitted to having access to a gun have a history of gun shot injuries. the reasons given for previous gunshot injuries vary, but two major facts can be deduced from the responses. firstly, some admitted that they were shot by the police to force a confession during interrogation. while the police authority in nigeria consistently denies the existence and use of lethal arms and torture to extract statements from suspects, ev idence abounds from the records of suspects and prison inmates of the extensive use of lethal firearms against suspects, beating and kicking, and the unnecessary use of restraints, such as handcuffs and leg chains (etanibi & chukwuma, 2000). in research conducted by etanibi and chukwuma (2000) on police community v iolence in nigeria, the findings revealed that 81%, 73.2% and 77.5% of the inmate respondents, respectively, reported having been beaten up by the police, threatened with weapons and tortured in police cells. further, 39.7% reported having been burnt with hot objects, 33.3% receiv ing electric shocks and 50.8% being pierced by needles or sharp objects. the other major reason for a prev ious gunshot injury reported by the participants in the current study was that they were v ictims of the o‟odua people‟s congress (opc) and community v igilante groups. this may also be true because the members of these groups have cashed in on the growing sense of disenfranchisement among the nigerian population in the face of the soaring armed robbery rate and ineffective policing (akinyele, 2001; guichaoua, 2006). although the use of ethnic militia, like opc and v igilante groups, to enforce law and order has no basis in the nigerian judicial system and constitution, their operations are only an attempt to complement the police efforts to combat crime, but they inadvertently undermine the effectiveness of the police. the available ev idence shows that members of the opc, among other v igilante groups in nigeria, are involved in extra-judicial killings, torture, unlawful detention and serious abuses of the rights of alleged criminals (akinyele, 2001; guichaoua, 2006; human rights watch, 2003). to further complement the unlawful activ ities of these v igilante organisations, some powerful politicians and top government officials are known to have hijacked some of these organisations and used them to threaten, intimidate and even kill their political opponents (international crisis africa report, 2007). i t is also interesting to note that few respondents admitted that they had been shot during an armed robbery by their v ictims. this may be allowed as a last resort for self defence by wealthy indiv iduals with a license to hold firearms in nigeria. but the other reasons mentioned for a prev ious gunshot injury, such as “an unknown hunter”, “shot by armed robbers”, “during the secret cult clashes”, “during the biafra war”, etc., need to be treated with caution, since the respondents may not be being completely honest in this regard. as mentioned earlier, most of them are awaiting europe’s journal of psychology 28 trail, and an admittance to firearms possession and use may implicate them and further compound their case in the law court. nevertheless, the computed outcomes from the odds ratio and regression analyses predicted that the availability of firearms in the neighbourhood are a potential risk factor and predictor of criminal offending among the participants who were detained or convicted for violent and property offences. this finding can be interpreted from the perspectiv es of weapon availability or possession could induce a psychological inclination to attack or the psychological strength in offenders to exert control over their victims by using the threat of harm or actual harm. this position is supported by wells and horney (2002) with regard to gun possession; more than any other weapon, guns increase the possibility of attack because they empower offenders or their users to inflict damage from a distance, without endangering themselves. as a last word, it should be acknowledged that the present study suffers from some limitations that must be addressed in future work. firstly, the participants selected for the present study were male prison inmates. although it is possible that male participants can be more easily approached, because the researcher who distributed the questionnaire was of the same sex, the domination of the male sample may limit the extent to which we can make an inference about weapon accessibility and use among female prison inmates. i t would therefore be better if the future studies recruited an adequate number of female participants in order for such findings to be replicated to the entire prison population of nigeria. similarly, it would have been better if the participants recruited for the present study were mainly those arrested and detained for interpersonal crime or veterans of the 196770 civ il war but, as noted earlier, the pragmatic reality of the circumstances during the data collection process does not allow this because the researcher w as constrained to comply with certain regulations in order not to jeopardise his security and that of inmates who participated in the study. i t would therefore be better if the future studies recruited a greater depth of subsamples among these groups for the better replication of the findings. the uncorroborated self report method of data collection and the extent to which the respondents underreported or over reported their involvement in various activ ities and behaviours may as well not be truly determined. although the researcher assured confidentiality of the participants‟ response, the research topic is sensitive and the admissions of the participants to prev ious weapon use are potentially compromising. in this sense, social desirability factors cannot be ruled out, as participants may want to conceal certain information in order to prevent themselves from being implicated. all of the appropriate caveats notwithstanding, the findings of the current study have contributed to research knowledge that will be relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in the criminal justice system in nigeria to have a basic availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 29 understanding of the impact of weapon availability and use in the neighbourhood as probable risk factors to criminal offending among prison inmates in the country. concluding thoughts the findings of the current study have established the relative contributions of weapon availability as a potential risk factor to criminal offending among prison inmates in nigeria. to mediate the effects of weapon availability as a risk factor for criminal offending, there needs to be a stringent law and enforcement of the law controlling weapon (firearms) possession and use in the country. while it is appreciated that some local dangerous weapons, such as machetes, cutlasses, and axes, may be difficult to control because of their proliferation in the country, in addition to the fact that firearms are mostly obtained through various means such as theft from armouries and seizures from security officials during robberies, the government should intensify its efforts in tracking the license, possession, and use of small arms, which are largely concentrated in the hands of armed groups, criminal gangs, and elites. any law enforcement agents, be they serv ing or retired, who lend out firearms to offenders for them to perpetrate criminal activ ities should be adequately sanctioned according to the law. the law guarding or protecting unlawful firearms possession and collaboration to posses should make no exception for anyone, if crime induced by weapon availability has to be reduced in the country. i t may as well be mentioned that a clearly conceived welfare policy should be put in place by the nigerian government for demobilised soldiers, militia men, as well as disadvantaged populations. this must be the central feature of crime control policy necessitated by risk of weapon availability. without this, the prospect of ensuring crime free society aimed at promoting the safety of everyone in the community in a meaningful and sustainable fashion will remain an illusion. references adesanya, a., ohaeri, j.u., ogunlesi, a.o., adamson, t.a., & odejide, o.a. (1997). psychoactive substance abuse among inmates of a nigeria prison population. drug and alcohol dependence, 47, 39-44. akinyele, r.t. (2001). ethnic militancy and national stability in nigeria. a case study of the o‟odua people‟s congress. african affairs, 100, 623-640. bennet, t. (1998). drugs and crime: the results of research on drug testing andinterviewing arrestees. home office research and statistics report 183. europe’s journal of psychology 30 brennan, i .r. & moore, s.c. (2009). weapons and violence: a review of theory and research. aggression and violent behaviour, 14, 215-225. etanibi, a.e.o., & chukwuma, i .c. (2000). police community violence in nigeria. centre for law enforcement education, lagos, nigeria. ginifer, j., & ismail, o. (2005). armed violence and poverty in nigeria. mini case study for armed violence and poverty initiative. centre for international cooperation and security, university of bradford. guichaoua, y. (2007). who joins ethnic militias? a survey of the oodua people’s congress in south-western nigeria. crise working paper no 44, department of international development, university of oxford. hagan, j., & dinovitzer, r. (1999). collateral consequence of imprisonment for children, communities, and prisoners. crime & justice, 26, 121-162. igbo, e.u.m. (2001). nigeria‟s armed robbery problem. in rwomire, a. social problem in africa: new visions. greenwood publishing group, pp 173189. international crisis africa report (2007). nigeria’s election: avoiding a political crisis. africa report no123, 28 march 2007. john, i . a., mohammed, a.z., pinto, a.d., & nkanta, c.a. (2007). gun violence in nigeria: a focus on ethno-religious conflict in kano. journal of public health policy, 28, 420-431. kleck, g. & hogan, m. (1999). national case control study of homicide offending and gun ownership. social problems, 46 (2), 275-293. kroner, d., & loza, w. (2001). ev idence for the efficacy of self-report in predicting violent and nonviolent criminal recidivism. journal of interpersonal violence, 16, 168– 177. mills, j.f., loza, w., & kroner, d.g. (2003). predictive validity despite social desirability: ev idence for the robustness of self report among offenders. criminal behaviour and mental health, 13 (2), 140-150. mrazek, p.j., & haggerty, r.j. (1994). reducing risks for mental disorders: frontiers for preventative intervention research. washington, dc: national academy press. turner, c. w., simons, l.s., berkowitz, l., & frodi, a. (1977). the stimulating and inhibiting effects of weapons on aggressive behaviour. aggressive behaviour, 3, 355-378. availability and use of weapons in the neighbourhood 31 wells, w. & horney, j. (2002). weapon effects and indiv idual intent to do harm: influences on the escalation of violence. criminology, 40 (2), 265–296. wish, e.d. & gropper, b.a. (1990). drug testing by the criminal justice system: methods, research and applications. in m. tonry and j.q. wilson, drugs and crime: london: the university of chicago press. about the author abeeb olufemi salaam (phd.) is a graduating commonwealth scholar in the department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, united kingdom. he studied for a phd on the exploration of the risk factors to substance misuse in the trajectory of criminal offending at the same university. address for correspondence: abeeb olufemi salaam, department of psychology, faculty of arts and human sciences, ad building, university of surrey, guildford, surrey, gu2 7xh, uk e mail: femisalaam@gmail.com; moolikah@yahoo.com mailto:femisalaam@gmail.com mailto:moolikah@yahoo.com living with intensity 11th international conference on social representations 25-28 june 2012 évora, portugal we are pleased to announce the first call for proposals to the 11th international conference on social representations (cirs) to be held in évora, portugal, between the 25th and the 28th of june 2012, under the theme "social representations in changing societies". all interested authors are invited to submit proposals for symposia, oral presentations or posters, under the following thematic axes: 1.theoretical and methodological issues 2. problems arising from globalization 3. economic, social, political and cultural crises 4. intergroup relations: from communities, to regions, to societies 5. problems in specific areas of health, education, environment and justice 6. inter-generational relations 7. collective and social memory 8. media, communication, discourse, advertising 9. stigmatization and discrimination 10. science, technology and new social practices the deadline for proposals submission is the 31 january, 2012. until the 30 march 2012 authors will be informed about the acceptance or nonacceptance of their proposals. visit the website for more information http://www.cirs2012.uevora.pt/index%20ing.html http://www.allconferences.com/conferences/2011/20110327205916/%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20http:/solidaritymemory.ug.edu.pl http://www.allconferences.com/conferences/2011/20110228050937/%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20http:/www.icp2012.com http://www.allconferences.com/conferences/2011/20110228050937/%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20http:/www.icp2012.com microsoft word 10. book review.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp.146-149 www.ejop.org metacognitive therapy. the cbt distinctive features series by peter fisher and adrian wells routledge taylor and francis group reviewed by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor in metacognitive therapy, the authors described the theoretical and practical features of mct highlighting the distinctive features of this approach versus other forms of cbt. although both approaches deal with cognition, they provide different accounts of how cognition maintains disorder and they focus on different aspects of thinking. metacognitive therapy is based on the principle that worry and rumination are universal processes leading to emotional disorder. these processes are linked to erroneous beliefs about thinking and unhelpful self-regulation strategies. metacognitive therapy. the cbd distinctive features, series edited by windy dryden, is an introduction to the theoretical foundations and therapeutic principles of metacognitive therapy. divided into two sections, theory and practice, the authors explore how metacognitive therapy can allow people to escape from repetitive thinking patterns that often lead to prolonged psychological distress. the book is clearly written in a technical yet accessible style, easy to follow and an instrumental resource for practitioners of all therapeutic approaches. book description the distinctive theoretical features of mct. in part 1, the authors explore in 15 keypoints the theoretical features of mct. key terms such as metacognition, the cognitive attentional syndrome, metacognitive metacognitive therapy 147 beliefs, metacognitive modes, detached mindfulness, executive control and attentional flexibility, are treated in separate subchapters using a variety of well documented examples and starting from the limitations of cbt, rebt or other therapeutic approaches. the authors reformulated the abc analysis into a new paradigm: amc analysis. in wells’s mct, the activating event “a” is specifically reassigned as a cognition or emotion which leads to the activation of metacognitive beliefs, “b”, and the cas (cognitive attentional syndrome) which gives rise to emotional consequences, “c”. in this schema, the negative beliefs or thoughts “b” are moderated / caused by “m”. a key difference between mct and cbt, behavior therapy and rebt is the lack of focus on the content of thoughts and beliefs. in cbt the therapist is concerned with the content of automatic thoughts and invites the patient to reality test this content. in mct, disorder is viewed as a function not of cognitive content but of processes such as perseverative thinking, atentional focus and internal control strategies that are counterproductive. the authors are particularly interested in sharing their view on the metacognitive models of few disorders, such as depression or ocd and illustrate a couple of interesting case studies in order to support the mct aproach. there are similarities between this approach to depression and cognitive-behavioral approaches. traditional cbt would formulate the problem in terms of content of negative automatic thoughts and focus on challenging the validity of thoughts centering on the “cognitive triad” (negative about oneself, the world and the future). in contrast mct does not concern itself with the content and does not reality-test them. these thoughts are viewed as a trigger for rumination and it focused on changing the process of continued thinking rather than any specific content of thinking. metacognitive and cas consequences: emotional trigger (internal) europe’s journal of psychology 148 many of the theoretical books on therapies have a common point: the utility range of the approach they introduce to the specialists. in this case, the authors are firm in their belief that mct is a universal therapy, giving rise to a universal or transdiagnostic treatment approach. mct is considered to be based on a more strictlydefined set of variables and beliefs than cbt and all disorders can be explained with a reference to a small set of concepts. the distinctive practical features of mct. in part 2, the authors offer the reader all the practical tools which enable him to master the practical aspects of this approach. from assessment of metacognition, case formulation in mct, to modifying negative and positive metacognitive beliefs and explaining the concept of detached mindfulness or meta-emotions, this section presents crisp yet complex examples of case formulations in few disorders, such as gad, ocd, ptsd. the concept of detached mindfulness is not new. the english word 'mindfulness' names a technique for profoundly changing our relationship to our thoughts and feelings and the perspective one gains from practicing that technique. it names a temporary state that is potentially accessible to any human being and a set of permanent traits that may grow in a person who practices mindfulness. mindfulness in action is the endeavor to observe what occurs, with a special focus on the contents of inner experience, without evaluating, judging, or participating. mindfulness practice allows anyone who enters into it to discover the sheer untruth of this idea "the attentional stance we are calling mindfulness has been described by nyanaponika thera as 'the heart of buddhist meditation. it is central to all the buddha's teachings and to all the buddhist traditions, from the many currents and streams of zen. in mct, detached mindfulness refers to how individuals respond to mental events: worries, intrusive images, negative thoughts and memories, it involves discontinuation of any further cognitive or coping response to thoughts. two techniques are available to initiate this method: free association task and tiger task. in free association task patients are asked to apply the strategy of passively noticing their negative thoughts, worries, intrusions and feelings while in tiger task, patients are asked to bring an image of a tiger to mind and watch the image without attempting to influence the image. in mct detached mindfulness in used in conjunction with rumination postponement to facilitate low levels of perseverative thinking, metacognitive therapy 149 attempting to modify maladaptive attentional strategies and dysfunctional coping behaviors. targeting meta-emotions. the concept of meta-emotion, not new to the reader, refers to humans' ability to have emotions about emotions much like they can have thoughts about thoughts (i.e., meta-cognition). we can be ashamed of a temper tantrum, enjoy a moment of bittersweet melancholy, and so on. meta-emotion and related concepts such as meta-mood and need for affect have been successfully applied across a variety of research topics, including personality, child development, clinical psychology, attitude research, and media psychology. however, despite the apparent success of the concept, definitions and operationalizations of metaemotion are rather heterogeneous and are not sufficiently integrated with general emotion theory. the mct therapist is very careful in using meta-emotions. a depressed patient could be asked what happened to the emotions, whether they continue for ever or they fluctuate, whether the patient has experienced an emotion that lasted for ever. the answer will be clearly not and by not engaging with the emotion, the patient will see that the emotions fade and are replaced by other emotional states. the practical section of the book is ending with the description of a ptsd case study that integrates all the mct techniques in a state-of-the art presentation. conclusion in this book, the authors have described beautifully both the theoretical and practical aspects of metacognitive therapy, choosing to compare this approach with other forms of cbt. starting from limitations of cbt, they developed a wellstructured form of therapy around the key concepts of metacognition and metaemotions. this book is a valuable resource for students and therapists who want to master this approach or choose to refine their practice using the tools and discoveries that mct has to offer. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 110-124 www.ejop.org multitasking in work-related situations and its relevance for occupational health and safety: effects on performance, subjective strain and physiological parameters hiltraut m. paridon & marlen kaufmann the institute for work and health of the german social accident insurance, dresden, germany abstract in the area of occupational health and safety multitasking becomes more and more important. studies have shown that multitasking leads to a decrease in performance. however, studies often try to identify underlying mental mechanisms. multitasking and its consequences for occupational health and safety are rarely considered. in this study, the effects of multitasking were investigated using two work-related scenarios. changes were assessed in relation to three areas: performance values, subjective strain and physiological parameters. data was also analyzed with respect to possible gender and age differences. due to a focus on people of working age, the participants were aged between 21 and 60 years old. multitasking led to reduced performance and increased levels of subjective strain. changes in physiological parameters appear to be dependent on the type of task. there were no gender and virtually no age differences regarding the single-task compared to the multitasking condition. overall, the data suggests that multitasking in the workplace should be minimized, at least for certain tasks, in order to prevent mistakes and potential accidents as well as mental strain. further research should be carried out to investigate the long-term effects of multitasking on performance and health. keywords: multi-tasking, occupational health and safety, work-related scenarios, gender differences, age differences. introduction multitasking is considered to be a constitutive characteristic of modern work (freude & ullsperger, 2010). for the area of occupational health and safety multitasking http://www.ejop.org/ multitasking in work-related situations 111 might be relevant for several reasons: to what kind of mental strain, mistakes or even accidents might multitasking lead? can women multitask better and therefore experience less strain? does the ability for multitasking decrease with increasing age? up to now there seems to be a lack of studies within the area of occupational health and safety especially regarding the effects of multitasking on mental strain. according to the international standard iso10075 “mental strain” is defined as the immediate effect of mental stress within the individual. usually effects are described on a physiological, an emotional (subjective) and a behavioral level. the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of multitasking on these three levels of mental strain. to this end, two different work-related settings were used. differences in gender and age were also tested with a focus on people of working age, that is, between the ages of 20 and 60. the objective is to find out whether multitasking should be considered to a greater extent in the area of occupational health and safety. if negative effects regarding mental strain are observed prevention facilities should be discussed. investigating the effects of simultaneously performing two tasks has often been carried out as part of basic research within the area of attention research. this has shown that performance generally decreases when two tasks are carried out concurrently: the reaction time to a second stimulus is significantly longer when it is presented (very) quickly after the first stimulus (koch, 2008). “dual-task interference” is the term used to describe such interference when it occurs. the consequences of such performance decrements for the area of occupational health and safety have rather been neglected until recently. basic research is rather interested in the causes of this interference. it is assumed that there is a bottleneck between perceptual and motor processing (pashler, 1994). the exact location of this bottleneck has not yet been conclusively determined. it is likely that both input processes (perceptual encoding) and output-related processes (reaction selection and initiation) are affected (koch, 2008). studies have shown that the delay which results from performing tasks simultaneously can be reduced through practice (van selst & jolicoeur, 1997, van selst, ruthruff & johnston, 1999). however, as a rule, even after intensive training a delay effect remains. the strength of the practicing effect is dependent on the type of task and on the participants themselves. other than basic research on the causes of dual-task interference, according to kiefer et al. (2006) there have been relatively few systematic studies of work-related multitasking situations and its effect on occupational health and safety. one of the few everyday situations which has been studied more often and is relevant for the working population is the situation of driving and simultaneously talking on the phone (cf. mccartt, hellinga & braitman, 2006) or carrying out another kind of task (cf. kiefer et al., 2006). in a study by strayer and johnston (2001) for example, participants took europe’s journal of psychology 112 part in a simulated driving task in which at the same time, a telephone conversation was conducted. during the telephone call mistakes increased and reaction times were considerably longer. in a second study participants either had to repeat words that were read out to them or they had to think up their own words regarding a certain rule. here it could be seen that driving performance suffered significantly during the task of generating new words but not for the task of repeating words. the studies described above show that multitasking may have huge effects regarding road safety. another study which used a rather work-related scenario was done by ophir, nass and wagner (2009). they studied “media multitaskers”, that is, people that use more than one medium at the same time. participants were selected based on whether they were heavy media multitaskers or light media multitaskers. participants were tested for their “cognitive control”, that is, how well they could actively attend to certain elements while filtering out unimportant elements. it was shown that heavy media multitaskers (hmms) were worse at filtering out irrelevant stimuli than light media multitaskers (lmms). in a further experiment, it was shown that hmms performed worse on task switching than lmms. this suggests that lmms are better able to focus their attention on particular information even if they are distracted by other things. it is not yet clear whether the poor performance of hmms is a result of multitasking or whether people who generally have difficulties concentrating on one thing are inclined towards media multitasking. if it is proven that poor performance is a result of multitasking then this means that, in the future, people will be even less able to concentrate on what is important. the studies described above concentrated on performance changes, but psychophysiological changes during multitasking have also sometimes been considered. some data is available in relation to driving tasks. for example, haigney, taylor and westerman (2000) found in a simulator study that speed was significantly lower during a cell phone call, whereas heart rate increased. there were no differences in heart rate between handheld and hands-free phones. dey et al. (2006) investigated the effects of music on driving behavior during simulated driving. as the participants were driving they listened to upbeat music, relaxing music or no music at all. in addition to performance measures the authors also measured heart rate. it was shown that compared to the control condition, music led to a significant increase in heart rate. this was true for both the relaxing music as well as the upbeat music. reaction time also increased under the music condition and significantly so with the relaxing music. other studies using psycho-physiological parameters, like eventrelated brain potentials tried to find out the underlying mechanisms of multi-task processing and were not interested in mental strain from an occupational health perspective (see kramer & parasuraman, 2007). multitasking in work-related situations 113 possible gender and age differences might be useful to know from an occupational health and safety perspective regarding an adequate job design in order to protect employees from mistakes and mental strain. up to now, there has been no conclusive evidence for gender differences in multitasking. it is possible that gender differences manifest themselves depending on the type of task. in a study by saucier, bowman and elias (2003), participants performed a navigation task on a two-dimensional matrix with symbols. participants were either given landmark-based or euclidean-based instructions for navigation within the matrix. they had to simultaneously perform an articulatory task (naming days of the week) or a visuospatial task (tapping a pattern on the table). the ability of men and women to navigate under the four conditions was compared. this showed that the best performance was achieved when the women were given landmark-based instruction with a simultaneous visuo-spatial task. the worst performance was also shown in the women but this time with euclidean-based instruction and a simultaneous articulatory task. studies on age differences generally show that performance during multitasking deteriorates with age. the degree of impairment depends on the type of task. for example, impairment in automatic processes is less than in tasks with difficult motor components (riby, perfect & stollery, 2004). however, many studies on the effects of age only compare two groups; one group with predominantly 20-30 year olds and the other group with mainly over-70 year olds (e.g. voelcker-rehage & alberts, 2007, priest, salamon & hollman, 2008). but even studies which compare more than two age groups show deterioration with age. crossley and hiscock (1992) studied three age groups in a tapping task where the participants had to alternatively push one of two reaction buttons as fast as possible. the participants were aged 20-40, 41-65 and 66-90 years old. in the second task they had to read silently, speak or follow a maze with their eyes. each of the extra tasks had two difficulty levels. as expected, the tapping rate worsened when two tasks had to be carried out simultaneously, particularly for the higher difficulty level. for all three of the extra tasks, there was a drop in tapping performance with age. the authors came to the conclusion that it is harder for older people to allocate attention to different tasks. crook, west and larrabee (1993) also reported impairment in dual tasks in older people. they studied five age groups ranging from 18 to 85 in a driving task. the second task was a memory task. a comparison of the youngest group (18-39) with the oldest group (70-85) showed a significant impairment in performance in both driving and remembering. the authors came to the conclusion that the ability to perform tasks simultaneously deteriorates by 5-12% for every decade of life. however, this deterioration does not always manifest itself in the middle years between 40 and 60, but rather appears to depend on the type of performance. on average, working population is aged beween 20 and 60 years. so, europe’s journal of psychology 114 these age goups should be considered when effects of multitasking on occupational health and safety are studied. on the whole it can be stated, that multitasking generally leads to a deterioration in performance which can only be partially compensated for with practice. the degree of impairment is, however, dependent on the type of task. age differences manifest themselves from a relatively high age of around 70 years old and gender differences were hardly investigated. the effects of multitasking regarding occupational health and safety have been rather neglected until recently. if there were negative effects on mental strain prevention strategies should be focused. method in order to investigate the effects of multitasking, two tasks were used. these were a driving simulation and a task similar to that found in an office environment. procedure the lane-change-task (lct, mattes, 2003) was used for the driving task. this involves a driving simulation done on a pc with a three-lane road where participants must change lanes when prompted by road signs (figure 1). participants could practice the lct before the actual task for as long as it took to master the controls. then the participants had to drive once for three minutes without additional tasks and then once for three minutes with additional tasks. the participants had to simultaneously drive and perform the following tasks consecutively: dial a number on a cell phone, pull a tissue out of its packet, pull an exact amount of change out of a coin-purse, and read out directions. multitasking in work-related situations 115 figure 1: simulated road with three lanes. according to the sign, the driver has to change to the center lane. in the office task, participants were shown a word on the screen and they had to decide if the word had zero, one or two spelling mistakes (figure 2). the participants were allowed to have ten practice trials. participants then had to do two consecutive blocks of words consisting of 70 words each. in one of the blocks, the participants had to perform a secondary task. they listened to a text being read to them through headphones. they were instructed to listen carefully to the text as they would be asked questions about it at the end of the block. the participant’s heart rate was recorded during the task. subjective experience was determined with the help of a scale from “relaxed” to “stressed” after each of the task blocks. the sequence of the tasks and the blocks within a task were counterbalanced across participants. europe’s journal of psychology 116 figure 2: screen with a word and reaction panel. apparatus and materials for both tasks, a regular consumer pc with a 17” lcd monitor was used. additionally, a steering wheel was used for the lct (see mattes, 2003 for detailed description). the following materials were used for the secondary tasks of the lct: a cell phone, a coin purse, a pack of tissues, and a short set of printed directions which were to be read out. in the office task, a schuhfried reaction panel with different colored reaction buttons was used. stereo headphones (sony, mdr-cd 780) were used for the listening task. the text was about a shopping situation and lasted 70 seconds. questions were asked about this text. preliminary investigation had shown that on average, 7 of the 9 questions could be answered correctly when someone listened to the text only. heart rate was recorded using a chest monitor (physiologger from med-natic). subjective mental stress was quantified on a simple sliding scale ranging from “relaxed” to “stressed”. a corresponding numeric value ranging from 0 to 10 could be read off the back of the scale. data analysis the performance measure in the lct was middle lane deviation and this was calculated for both the block with additional tasks and the block without. the simulated width of a lane was 3.85m. the performance measures for the office task were mean reaction time for the correct reaction as well as the total number of correct, incorrect and missed reactions; these were calculated for both blocks. in addition, the number of correct answers to the questions about the spoken text was calculated. heart rate was recorded for the entire duration of the test. a marker was multitasking in work-related situations 117 used to indicate the start and end of a block. mean heart rate was determined for each of the blocks. across all participants, the differences between the conditions “without” and “with” additional task were tested using paired t-tests. gender and age differences were examined by calculating the differences between the conditions “with” and “without” additional task for each of the dependent variables. this allowed, for example, the difference [lane deviation with additional task minus lane deviation without additional task] to be determined. the subtraction method ensured that absolute differences between the groups were not tested rather that only effects resulting from the dual-task versus single-task were compared. differences then underwent variance analysis. participants 32 female and 32 male participants aged between 21 and 60 years took part in the study (mean age 39.8 yrs). they had different occupations like scientists, technical assistants or cleaners. there were 4 age groups (21-30 yrs, 31-40 yrs, 41-50 yrs and 51-60 yrs). therefore, each age group consisted of 4 male and 4 female participants. results lane change task performance and subjective strain lane deviation increased significantly from 0.76m without additional task to 1.2m with additional task (t(63) = -7.4, p<.001). subjective strain also increased significantly on a 10-point scale from 2.9 to 4.8 (t(63) =-8.8, p<.001). figure 3 shows the mean values with standard error for the conditions. europe’s journal of psychology 118 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 5,5 6,0 without secondary task with secondary task m e a n v a lu e lane deviation in m subjective strain figure 3: mean lane deviation and mean subjective strain for the two conditions of the lct with standard error of mean. physiological data heart rate differed significantly between the conditions. it increased from 80.5 beats per minute without secondary task to 86.1 beats per minute with secondary task. (t(51) = -3.9, p<.001). group differences anovas of the differences between the conditions revealed no significant gender or age effects (for all variables p > .05). office task performance the number of correct, incorrect and missed reactions did not change between the two conditions in the spelling task. the respective means for the condition without secondary task versus the condition with secondary task were: 55.5 versus 55.3 correct reactions, 12.23 versus 12.34 incorrect reactions, and 2.42 versus 2.31 missed reactions. the reaction time for reacting correctly also remained constant. for the single task it was 2.645 ms and with secondary task it was 2.666 ms. however, only 2.27 of the 9 questions asked about the listening text were answered correctly. in a preliminary study with another sample, which consisted mainly of technical engineers only the text was given. here the number of correct answers was 6.98 (n = 40). the difference is significant (t(102) = 13.55, p<.001, figure 4). multitasking in work-related situations 119 subjective strain subjective strain increased significantly on a 10-point scale from 3.4 without secondary task to 4.3 with secondary task (t(63) =-5,6, p<.001. figure 4 shows the mean values with standard error for the two conditions. 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 5,5 6,0 6,5 7,0 7,5 8,0 without secondary task with secondary task m e a n v a lu e no. of correct answers subjective strain figure 4: average number of correct answers about the auditory text and subjective strain for the two conditions of the office task with standard error of mean (the number of correct answers are from different samples, see text). physiological data heart rate did not differ between the conditions. it was 82.54 beats per minute without secondary task and 82.24 beats per minute with secondary task. group differences anovas of the differences between the conditions revealed no gender effect and only one significant age effect in which the number of correct reactions differed (f(3,60) = 2.8, p < .05). post hoc tests (lsd) revealed that the 41-50 year olds differed significantly from the 31-40 year olds and the 51-60 year olds. the 41-50 year olds had fewer correct reactions in the condition with secondary task compared to the condition without, whereas the performance of the other age groups remained virtually constant. discussion and conclusion the aim of the present study was to find out whether there should be paid more attention to multitasking in the area of occupational health and safety. therefore, by europe’s journal of psychology 120 means of two work-related tasks it was investigated how performance, subjective strain and physiological measures change during multitasking. the participants had to perform two tasks with and without additional tasks. in addition to changes in the aforementioned three areas, gender and age differences were also tested. it was shown that the multitasking condition in the driving task resulted in poorer driving performance as well as increased subjective strain. in addition, a significant increase in heart rate was seen which is also associated with increased stress. there were no gender or age differences between the conditions. in the office task, there was a significant deterioration in performance of the additional tasks as well as an increase in experienced strain. the physiological values did not change. there were no gender differences and no age differences other than for one value. on the whole, the results show that multitasking in work-related situations leads to mistakes and to mental strain and is therefore of great importance for occupational health and safety. however, the exact effects are dependent on the actual task itself. for example, increased heart rate only occurred during the driving task and not during the office task. it seems likely that contrary to instructions, participants ignored the secondary task, that is, they did not listen to the text. this explains the poor performance in answering questions about the text. this means that, for the participants, the dual-task condition actually presented itself quasi as a single-task condition. this explains why there was no increase in heart rate during the entire task. only when answering the questions did participants become aware that they had not been listening. this resulted in the increase in subjective strain which occurred afterwards. an interesting finding of the study is that there were no gender differences. up to now there has been almost no data concerning the question of gender differences. the finding shows that it cannot be categorically assumed that men and women differ in their ability to multitask. this can, of course, depend on the type of task and should be further investigated. if there were gender differences dependent on the type of task this should be considered in job design in order to prevent persons from strain. the lack of any age differences in the age group studied (20-60 yrs) is also interesting. previous findings have shown age effects for multitasking. generally speaking, however, a drop in performance is only seen in people aged from around 70 years old. looking at people of normal working age there are no clear changes as a result of age. in this experiment, an age difference in multitasking could only be seen in one of the performance measures. post hoc tests showed that the effect was multitasking in work-related situations 121 not in the oldest group but rather in the group aged 41-50. this confirms the finding of west and larrabee (1993), that there is some variability in the middle years. the degree to which age differences are dependent on the type of task could also be investigated in further studies. multitasking in work-related situations, and presumably in real workplaces, can lead to mistakes and mental strain. not only could this result in possible business losses, but it also has important implications for occupational health and safety. in real-world working conditions, these mistakes might not only result in reduced performance but also cause accidents and corresponding health consequences. strain caused by continuous multitasking could also have a negative impact on the health of those involved. multitasking also has possible long term consequences as suggested in the study of ophir, nass and wagner (2009): if the ability to concentrate diminishes as a result of multitasking, this can lead to an even higher level of error rate in performance. on the other hand, basic research such as that done by van selst, ruthruff and johnston (1999) has shown that multitasking can be practiced. it would be interesting to investigate whether sustained multitasking of real-world-like tasks has more of a negative effect in the long term or whether it results in practice effects. presumably this depends on the type of task. if a task can be automated and therefore needs less attention after some exercise, it can be carried out simultaneously with another task. realistically speaking it is probably impossible to completely eliminate multitasking from the workplace and so it makes sense to look closely at the situations in which multitasking is particularly critical. two questions should be considered when deciding if multitasking should be prevented: 1. can the task be automated? 2. what are the possible consequences of mistakes? if the tasks cannot be automated, mistakes as well as mental strain will probably increase. if the consequences can be (fatal) accidents, multitasking might be dangerous. one example for such dangerous multitasking is cell phone usage while driving. as a consequence, companies should discuss the mentioned two questions for different types of tasks and define when multitasking has to be suppressed. it is also important to investigate how much multitasking can be reduced through measures either at the organizational or at the individual level. a study by lehle, steinhauser and hübner (2009) is of particular interest in relation to this last point. they had participants perform reaction tasks either in parallel or in serial, and raised the subjectively experienced level of effort. although the reaction times and the error rate during the parallel tasks were higher than during the serial tasks, the participants experienced more effort under the serial condition than under the parallel condition. europe’s journal of psychology 122 performance and subjective strain, therefore, were not connected in this study. it is possible that the reason for this was that participants were under the illusion that they were faster when doing tasks in parallel even though this was not actually the case. the result suggests that simply asking people to do less multitasking will not have any effect. as long as people subjectively perceive multitasking as less stressful than performing tasks consecutively, they most likely will not change their behavior. however, whether this finding can be replicated in real-world-like situations should be further verified. anyhow, multitasking for critical tasks as described above should be prevented by a corresponding work organisation, e.g. to define certain hours in which e-mails are not read or answered. an appropriate corporate culture might also help, i.e. that multitasking is not appreciated as outstanding performance. of course one limitations of this study is, that it did not examine real word situations, but only related scenarios. one problem with real work situations are the real dangers the participants would be exposed to. therefore, simulation studies are a possible research method. furthermore subjective strain as well as physiological parameters could be examined by using more complex data collection. however, on the whole, the present study verified that multitasking is of great relevance for occupational health and safety and should be analyzed more detailed than it has been done until now. this might help to reduce mental strain as well as mistakes and possible accident. references crossley, m. & hiscock, m. 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(2003). the lane-change-task as a tool for driver distraction evaluation. in h. strasser, k. kluth, h. rausch & h. bubb (eds.). quality of work and products in enterprises of the future (pp. 57-60). stuttgart: ergonomia verlag. mccartt, a. t., hellinga, l. a. & braitman, k. a. (2006). cell phones and driving: review of research. traffic injury prevention, 7, 89-106. pashler, h. (1994). dual-task interference in simple tasks: data and theory. psychological bulletin, 116, 220-244. ophir, e., nass, c. & wagner, a. d. (2009). cognitive control in media multitaskers. proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 106, 15583-15587. priest, a. w., salamon, k. b. & hollman, j. h. (2008). age-related differences in dual task walking: a cross sectional study. journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, 14, 29. riby, l. m., perfect, t. j. & stollery, b. t. (2004). the effects of age and task domain on dual task performance: a meta-analysis. european journal of cognitive psychology, 16, 863-891. saucier, d., bowman, m. & elias, l. (2003). sex differences in the effect of articulatory or spatial dual-task interference during navigation. brain and cognition, 53, 346-350. strayer, d. l. & johnston, w. a. (2001). driven to distraction: dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular telephone. psychological science, 12, 462-466. europe’s journal of psychology 124 van selst, m. & jolicoeur, p. (1997). decision and response. cogntive psychology, 33, 266307. van selst, m., ruthruff, e. & johnston, j. c. (1999). can practice eliminate the psychological refractory period effect? journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 25, 1268-1283. voelcker-rehage, c. & alberts, j. l. (2007). effect of motor practice on dual-tasl performance in older adults. the journals of gerontology series b: psychological sciences and social sciences, 62, 141-148. about the authors: dr. hiltraut paridon studied psychology at the universities of duisburg and wuppertal in germany. in 2000 she received her phd at the university of tuebingen. she works at the iag – institute work and health of the german social accident insurance as a researcher and trainer since 2000. address for correspondence: hiltraut paridon, institut für arbeit und gesundheit, königsbrücker landstrasse 2, 01109 dresden, germany e-mail: hiltraut.paridon@dguv.de marlen kaufmann studied psychology at the technical university of dresden, germany. from 2007 to 2009 she worked at the iag – institute work and health of the german social accident insurance as a researcher and trainer. she is currently participating in a phd programm of the german social accident insurance. mailto:hiltraut.paridon@dguv.de living with intensity europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 201-203 www.ejop.org living confidently with hiv: a self-help book for people living with hiv authored by liz shaw, erasmo tacconelli, robert watson, and claudia herbert blue stallion publications, 2009 reviewed by daljinder virk ejop associate editor crescent road, alverstoke, gosport, hants po12 2dl e-mail: dallyvirk@googlemail.com living confidently with hiv: a self-help book for people living with hiv has been written by a team of clinical psychologists who have extensive experience in working with patients who have been diagnosed with and are coming to terms with their diagnosis of being hiv positive. consultant clinical psychologist liz shaw focuses on improving the lives of people with hiv and provides them with positive ways of coping and this certainly resonates throughout the entire book. erasmo tacconelli, a chartered clinical psychologist, ensures that his patients feel empowered in coping with stigma and discrimination; this too is resonated throughout the book. robert watson is a chartered clinical psychologist whose clinical techniques stem from cognitive behavioural therapy, systemic therapy and cognitive-analytic therapy. his focus is very similar to that of erasmo but also ensures those who are affected have a good quality of life. finally, dr claudia herbert, a chartered consultant clinical psychologist, specialises in trauma psychology. claudia herbert ensures that she can help people adjust to their hiv diagnosis and live their lives well, confidently and enriched despite or possibly because of their chronic condition. the format of the book is very easy to read and follow. it begins with a brief introduction to the book followed by the aims of the book which are clear, concise and met throughout. it then follows with a section titled how to use this book, primarily about self-help, the advantages and disadvantages of self-help, and what different approaches are presented further. the book is then split into three parts: http://www.ejop.org/ living confidently with hiv 202 part a: entitled living confidently with hiv is made up of 6 chapters. chapter 1: being diagnosed hiv positive aims to explain the health improvements in hiv as a result of the new drug treatments and how they impact on people; the ideas that have been put forward aim to provide a basis upon which the rest of this book will refer to. the key point in this chapter is that the more you understand your condition the more in control you will feel in your life. chapter 2: health, stress and lifestyles focuses on the lifestyle that is adopted having been diagnosed and how important this is to living with hiv. the chapter goes on to explain how we as individuals understand stress and the user is provided with ideas on how to manage stress when it arises and how it can affect his/her quality of life. chapter 3: negotiating hiv treatment, healthcare & social care attempts to help the reader think about their network and how best to use it for the benefit of the personal health. it focuses on the individual’s relationship with important members of the network. chapter 4: hiv disclosure and challenging stigma offers an overview of some key issues in relation to helping the individual to accept his/her diagnosis and some directions to help the individual think about disclosure, as it can be a challenge to manage the task of disclosure to people outside the care network, especially loved ones, family and friends. chapter 5: sexual relationships and hiv provides information to help hiv positive people in their sexual lives. it is written for both sexes and different cultures and should be useful regardless of the type of sexual relationship the individual engages in. it outlines ways hiv can affect sexual functioning and relationships and discusses issues related to safer sex. chapter 6: child and family hiv; hiv can affect anyone and over the past ten years there has been an increase in the numbers of hiv infected children. as people are living longer on medication, it is not just adults who are hiv positive, but also babies, children and adolescents. this chapter offers an overview of the key issues in relation to pregnancy, children and family life for people negotiating life with hiv. part b: emotion-focused strategies is split into 3 chapters. chapter 7: understanding hiv-associated emotions. this chapter explains the nature of emotions and outlines the importance and usefulness of emotions; it also explains common emotions associated with hiv infection. europe’s journal of psychology 203 chapter 8: when emotions are difficult highlights some of the times when hiv can become quite difficult to deal with. this chapter focuses on areas of emotional invalidation, secondary emotions, recreational drugs, self-harm and suicide. the work of american psychiatrist marsha linehan is acknowledged. chapter 9: mindfulness and hiv – covers the skill of mindfulness. this skill can help with difficult emotions in its own right. mindfulness is a novel approach to emotional acceptance. its origin can be traced back to as early as the first millennium b.c., to buddha. it is now being widely used by psychologists. part c: problem-focused strategies is split into 3 chapters. chapter 10: anxiety and depression strategies focuses on anxiety and depression, as they are the most common psychological problems in the general population. although the authors touch upon this in chapter 2, it is important to stress that these factors are especially common for people with hiv and because and as such require extra attention and care. the chapter helps to recognise these states and provides helpful strategies for dealing with them. chapter 11: problem solving and hiv introduces the reader to problem-solving as a strategy. it explains how this concept can be integrated into everyday tasks to help overcome everyday stressors and obstacles. it highlights the importance of having good problem solving techniques to be able to cope with life’s ups and downs. chapter 12: visualising the future helps the reader come to terms with their prognosis or chances of living well with hiv infection, since these are better than they have ever been. the importance of ensuring a good quality of life is also stressed. this book is a fantastic self-help guide to take the individual through their journey of living confidently with hiv positive, from the initial diagnosis, through to prognosis. living confidently with hiv: a self-help book for people living with hiv is a book which can be used not only as a self-help guide for those who are living with the diagnosis of being hiv positive but also by those who care for such individuals. it is a guide that can be used as a reference tool with its rich advice and no-nonsense approach. it is easy to read and follow and it is very informative. the authors have done a thorough job in ensuring that all the information contained in the book is upto-date and relevant too. microsoft word 12. ispa 2010.doc 32nd ispa conference dublin 2010 20th 24th july, the university of dublin, trinity college, ireland school psychology making life better for all children the purpose of the conference is to provide opportunities for school psychologists, educators and other interested parties to meet, interact and exchange professional information. the scientific committee hopes to maintain this dialogue between practitioners and academics. we particularly encourage submission from practitioners. submissions might include narrative reflections on the work of a school psychologist and analyses of this work, perhaps including linkages to evidence and research findings. six sub themes have been identified: � academic achievement � biopsychosocial health � diversity and inclusion � pro-social behaviour � working together � professional issues. please note that the first deadline for submissions is 18th dec 2009. the final deadline for submissions is 23rd april 2010. for more information please visit the conference website: http://www.ispaweb.org/conferences/ireland2010.aspx emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 32-55 www.ejop.org posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip: an analysis of event-related and demographic factors ibrahim abu nada (1) smadar celestin-westreich (1) wim van den broeck (1) leon-patrice celestin (2) (1) department of clinical and lifespan psychology, faculty of psychology and educational sciences vrije universiteit brussels (vub), belgium (2) department of psychiatry, hospital simone veil abstract objective: this study investigates the impact of ongoing traumatic events on palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress according to event-related and demographic factors. method: a sample of 368 palestinian adolescents (49.2% males, mean age 17.03) was drawn from different areas of the gaza strip. students were investigated on exposure to traumatic events and posttraumatic stress symptoms (ptss) and disorder (ptsd). results: the mean number of traumatic events experienced by the adolescents was 9.9 (sd = 3.20). boys were significantly more exposed than girls, as were adolescents living in villages compared to those living in gaza city or refugee camps. adolescents mainly and pervasively experienced objective, non-personal material exposure (such as witnessing bombardments) (85% to 96%) and media exposure (95%). up to 17% of the adolescents experienced direct, physical exposure (7% personal injury), exposure through injury and death of relatives. in this context, two fifths of the adolescents experienced mild, two fifths moderate and one fifth severe ptss. remarkably, adolescents did not differ significantly in ptss despite exposure differences across gender, place of residency and family income. conclusion: near half of the investigated adolescents living in the gaza strip experience moderate to severe levels of posttraumatic stress, for around one fifth this amounts to a probable posttraumatic stress disorder. these findings urge toward providing psychological support programs to palestinian adolescents to enhance current wellbeing and limit further developmental risks. furthermore, the findings suggest the need to investigate the role of appraisal and http://www.ejop.org/ posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 33 coping to understand the pathways through which differences in trauma exposure lead to similar posttraumatic stress outcomes. keywords: posttraumatic stress, traumatic events, adolescents, demographic, gaza strip, palestinian introduction since the outbreak of the al-aqsa intifada in late september 2000, palestinian youth have been extensively exposed to traumatic events. these have ranged from witnessing bombardment of homes, schools and streets, through hearing about the killing of friends and relatives, to being personally injured. such ongoing exposure raises questions about the psychological effects it exerts on adolescents. exposure to traumatic events is known to increase the risks of both short-term and long-term mental health problems (saigh, 1991; thabet, abed, and vostanis, 1999). youngsters liv ing in conditions of war and military v iolence have been described as growing up too soon and taking premature political responsibilities (boothby, upton, sultan, 1992). they are also known to be at high risk of developing posttraumatic stress symptoms or disorder (ptss/ptsd) (dyregrov, gjestad, and raundalen, 2002). in the past years, research about psychological outcomes after traumatic events has increased. however, relatively few studies specifically examine how adolescents‟ continuing exposure to trauma impacts on their wellbeing. also, research conducted so far has remained inconclusive as regards the range and the intensity of these outcomes according to event-related and demographic determinants. this study examines the prevalence of posttraumatic stress in palestinian adolescents liv ing in the gaza strip. i t also investigates to what extent these youth‟s stress reactions vary according to event-related and demographic factors. to this effect, we shall first briefly discuss the state of the literature regarding adolescents‟ ptss after exposure to traumatic events and potential determinants in this context. posttraumatic stress in the face of chronic exposure to trauma: from theory to empirical ev idence briefly circumscribed, posttraumatic stress consists of typical reactions that arise after experiencing „severe‟ traumatic event(s) or situation(s). they mainly include intrusive re-experiencing of the event(s), hyper arousal, and avoidance and numbness symptoms. the persistence hereof for more than a month will amount to a posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) as described by the dsm-iv diagnostic criteria europe’s journal of psychology 34 (american psychiatric association, 2004; also see instruments). from a more dynamic bio-psycho-social approach as conceptualized in the face©-model (facilitating adjustment of cognition and emotion), posttraumatic stress amounts to a series of cognitive and emotional adaptations reflecting the exposed indiv idual‟s attempts to deal with overwhelming stressor(s). posttraumatic stress is thus conceived as the more or less durable disruption, following traumatic experiences, of the adjustment between cognitive control and emotion regulation processes, with the first being bypassed (e.g. as regards executive functioning, memory and attention processes) by an intensified reactiv ity and modified biochemistry of the latter (e.g. as regards autonomous reactions, neurotransmitter functioning and neuronal connections) (celestin-westreich and celestin, 2010). overall, the ev idence-base has demonstrated dose-response effects to this regard, namely, higher exposure levels trigger higher posttraumatic stress levels. however, while some events or situations will be overwhelmingly traumatic to most indiv iduals, important variability also exists as to which experiences are traumatic to whom, to what extent and under which circumstances (braun-lewensohn, celestin-westreich, celestin, verleye, verté, and ponjaert-kristoffersen, 2009a; celestin-westreich and celestin, 2010; kalantari and vostanis, 2010; powers, halpern, ferenschak, gillihan, and foa, 2010). from the above-cited face© perspective, this happens as a function of the balance of personal, relational and environmental risk factors and resources for a given indiv idual at a given time as well as throughout the life span. for adolescents, posttraumatic stress proves crucial to their developmental pathways. adolescence indeed tends to imply both sources of resilience and vulnerability toward ptss/d. on the one hand, youngsters‟ brains are still developing which may facilitate resiliency through neuroplasticity, especially when supported by proper prevention and intervention strategies. on the other hand, particularly from middle adolescence on, strong stressors may precipitate preexisting difficulties and/or (genetical) predispositions toward diverse forms of psychopathology. posttraumatic stress may therefore interfere in multifinal ways with middle to late adolescents‟ developmental tasks of distancing from parents and family, experimenting with diverse roles and identities in society and engaging toward adult functioning, the more so in societies where such roles are taken up relatively early in life. for example, trauma exposure may provoke procrastination in some adolescents while aggravating acting out in others. hence, posttraumatic stress reactions during adolescence are never negligible (e.g. cummings, davies and campbell, 2000; finkelhor, 1995; powers et al., 2010; qouta, punamaki, montgomery, and el sarraj, 2007). posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 35 despite these insights, the ev idence-base concerning adolescents‟ pathways when confronted with continual exposure to sociopolitical disputes remains limited to date. in the first place, there is a clear need for empirical data as to which aspects of this exposure are determinant and under which circumstances. overall prevalence of posttraumatic stress in palestinian youth in recent years, a number of studies have started to assess the levels of ptss or ptsd among palestinian youth given their widespread exposure to trauma. indeed, between september 2000 and november 2005, over 26000 palest inians under the age of 18 years, representing about 7.5% of the child and adolescent population, were injured in the context of the al-aqsa intifada. approximately 12% of the injured youngsters are now suffering from a permanent disability (pcbs, 2006). overall, ptss levels seem to range from 10% to 70% among the youth from the gaza strip (thabet et al., 1999; qouta, punamaki, and el sarraj, 2003). in a study on 1000 school-aged palestinian children, 54.7% reported experiencing at least one intense traumatic event in their lifetime and 34% were diagnosed as having full ptsd (khamis, 2000). in child populations from relatively comparable contexts, levels of ptss ranged from 22 to 25% among israeli and 27% among lebanese children, through 48% among cambodian refugee children and 52% among bosnian youth (kinzie, sack, angell, manson, and rath, 1986; smith, perrin, yule, and rabe 2001). i raqi children whose shelter was destroyed by shelling showed the highest posttraumatic stress levels (7888%) (dyregrov et al., 2002). the few studies specifically pertaining to palestinian adolescents (aged 11 to 19 years) suggest that 11 to 16% suffer from low to mild, 33% to 49% from moderate and 33 to 54% severe levels of ptss/d (e.g. qouta et al., 2003). given these data, closer investigation is required to understand the wide range of posttraumatic stress reactions among palestinian youth. for one, „posttraumatic stress‟ levels tend to be diversely circumscribed across and even within studies, including either posttraumatic stress symptoms (ptss), disorder (ptsd, as defined by dsm criteria) or both. in short, there is a need to distinguish between ptss and ptsd when reporting palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress levels. furthermore, to date these levels have mainly been investigated as a function of the degree of exposure. the broader trauma literature suggests that ptss outcomes may also vary according to types of exposure, personal and other demographic factors (such as gender, age, and place of residency and fami ly characteristics), as discussed hereafter. europe’s journal of psychology 36 the role of levels of exposure regarding levels of exposure, the dose–response effects expected from the general trauma literature tend to be found in most studies on palestinian youth. for example, when examining palestinian children‟s (aged 9 to 16 years) responses to varying intensities of socio-political v iolence during the past six years, mean ptss rates evolved from 40% after the end of the first intifada in the peace period, through 10% during the peace process and up again to 39% during the current intifada. ptss peaked to 70% during recent shelling of the gaza strip (thabet et al., 1999; thabet, and vostanis, 2000; thabet, al gamal, vand vostanis, 2006; thabet, abu tawahina, el sarraj, and vostanis, 2007). when comparing palestinian and israeli-palestinian children‟s reactions to exposure to traumatic events, over one third of the former displayed severe to very severe ptss compared to one fifth of the latter (tamar and solomon, 2005). furthermore, some evidence also suggests a decrease in ptss when the exposure subsides. this was the case, for example, with school-aged israeli children whose ptss dropped from 22% to 12% in one year when scud missile attacks ceased after the gulf war (schwarzwald, weisenberg, waysman, and solomon, 1993). ptss also decreased in a 30-month follow-up among displaced israeli preschool children (laor, wolmer, mayes, gershon, weizman, and cohen, 1997). however, such trends are not necessarily linear. for example, ptss was first found to increase among iraqi children during the 13 months after their shelter had been bombed, to fall significantly only after two years (dyregrov, and raundalen, 1993). in short, exposure levels and more specifically dose-response effects warrant attention when attempting to understand posttraumatic stress responses in youth. still, the current literature limits drawing conclusions about the persistency versus attenuation of symptoms because the types of trauma, length of follow -up, children‟s gender and age widely differ across studies. especially regarding the latter, it should be noted that only few published studies appear to specifically pertain to palestinian adolescents. the role of types of exposure types of exposure merit further analysis giv en an increasing ev idence-base on trauma resulting from military v iolence and socio-political adversities. more specifically, exposure in this context can be sub-typed into objective, subjective and media exposure (braun-lewensohn et al., 2009a). objective exposure consists of observable facts that cannot be controlled by the indiv idual. i t can be further subtyped in direct, physical exposure and indirect exposure (through witnessing and relationship with a v ictim). subjective exposure refers to the indiv idual‟s experience of the events (immediate appraisal), regardless of their objective characteristics. posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 37 media exposure merits separate attention given its mix of both objective and subjective characteristics. indeed, while watching the media implies some extent of objective exposure (namely watching real images of shelling, shooting and so forth), it is also partly controlled by the indiv idual‟s choice to consult the media. in the palestinian context, shifts in types of exposure may apply between the first (1987) and the second (2000) al aqsa intifada. during the first intifada, objective exposure appeared predominant in both its indirect-relational and direct-physical components, as ev idenced by the frequency of tear gas attacks (93%), breaking into homes (90%), beatings of family members or self (70% to 62%) and being personally injured (37%) (abu-hein, qouta, thabet, and el-sarraj, 1993). research closer to the current study period suggests a shift toward the predominance of media and indirect, relational objective exposure. for instance, across studies, events cited by two-thirds to more than 90% of palestinian children include seeing v ictims of v iolence on telev ision, witnessing funerals, shootings, bombardments and shelling and injured or dead persons. a smaller proportion of youngsters report being shot by bullets (12.9%) (qouta et al., 2003; thabet, abed, and vostanis, 2001). adolescents‟ objective exposure to higher levels of physical traumatizing events has been, understandably, found to elicit more adverse psychological reactions, including higher rates of ptsd, functional impairments, anxiety and substance abuse. research however also has shown that media and indirect objective exposure also strongly contribute to youth‟s ptss (braun-lewensohn et al., 2009a, 2009b; dyregrov et al., 2002; punamaki, komproe, qouta, elmasri and de jong, 2005; thabet & vostanis, 2000). taken together, these findings suggest that types of exposure may require attention when attempting to understand adolescents‟ psychologica l responses to ongoing trauma. the role of gender regarding gender, girls generally appear to be more vulnerable toward ptss than boys (dyregrov et al., 2002; braun-lewensohn et al., 2009; orla, 2003; orlee, boyle, and yule,2000). although this tendency also comes forward in the palestinian context (e.g. punamaki,and puhakka, 1997; qouta et al., 2003, qouta, punamaki, and el saraaj. 2004; thabet et al., 2001), its extent remains equivocal, with some studies suggesting no gender differences or even higher levels of posttraumatic stress in males, as in punamaki et al.‟ (2005) study on peritraumatic reactions. age may play a role in these mixed findings, since gender differences appear prevalent in studies focusing on the broad childhood period, as opposed to punamaki et al‟s findings among 16 to 60 year olds. the extent of gender effects may also be trauma specific (e.g., natural disasters versus societal trauma) (punamaki et al., 2005; saigh, europe’s journal of psychology 38 1991; thabet, abu-nada, shivram, millingen, and vostanis, 2009). thus, posttraumatic gender effects specifically among palestinian adolescents merit further clarification. the role of the current age cohort the extent and type of age effects in youth‟s responses to chronic trauma exposure have remained equivocal too. while some studies have not found any age effects in such contexts (saigh, 1991), according to others, both younger and older children appeared to be more vulnerable than their counterparts (e.g. qouta et al., 2003). a child's age, therefore, may not be a risk factor in and of itself; rather, in each growth and developmental stage children and adolescents deal with both resiliencies and vulnerabilities (berman, 2001; braun-lewensohn et al., 2009; celestin-westreich and celestin, 2010; finkelhor, 1995; punamaki, 2002). notably, the current cohort of palestinian adolescents is characterized by having lived more than two thirds of their youth under ongoing traumatic events, having been around 10 years old when the current al-aqsa intifada erupted in 2000. this implies a pronounced degree of vulnerabilities experienced throughout their childhood that may contribute toward elevated ptss levels. the role of other demographics in an attempt to further differentiate influencing demographic factors, mainly place of residency has been considered through its simultaneous link with levels of exposure and environmental specificities. the palestinian area of residency is mainly subdiv ided into gaza city and refugee camps (both situated far away from the borders) and v illages (close to the borders). compared to those liv ing in the v illages, youth from gaza cities or refugee camps are less likely to be exposed to physical incursions or artillery bombardments, but more to aircraft bombardments on homes, governmental buildings and streets (pcbs, 2006). the effect of place of residency on youngsters‟ ptss has nonetheless yielded unclear findings to date. thus, in one study palestinian children liv ing close to israeli settlements were found to show acute levels of posttraumatic stress to an important extent (55%) (quota et al., 2005), while other research found children meeting the criteria of ptsd to come mainly from urban areas (thabet et al., 2001). furthermore, the literature ev idences that adolescents in war zones can be affected through various other demographic influences, such as a lack of basic health needs, loss of family members, disruption of social networking and displacements. few studies have examined the relationship between such demographical characteristics and the level of ptss among adolescents in the palestinian society (qouta, punamaki, and el sarraj, 1997; thabet, abed, and vostanis, 2002). posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 39 in short, environmental and family demographic characteristics still need to be more extensively addressed when investigating palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic responses. implications for current research as comes forward from the current state of the literature, many aspects of adolescents‟ stress reactions to a chronic context of exposure to socio-political v iolence warrant further investigation. to this effect, the following research questions and hypotheses were addressed in the present study. i t appeared relevant to first investigate levels and types of exposure, along with possible demographic variations hereof. given the current ev idence-base, we expected a majority of the palestinian adolescents to have been exposed to more than one objective traumatic event. given that the demographic and environmental characteristics of the palestinian society have remained relatively understudied, possible differences in exposure according to place of residency and family demographics were to be explored. our primary research goal then pertained to identifying the levels of posttraumatic stress specifically for palestinian adolescents, with the expectation of these being higher than those in non-exposed populations. finally, we set out to identify demographic factors that may affect these adolescents‟ ptss. we hypothesized that girls would demonstrate higher levels of ptss than boys, as would adolescents in higher exposed places of residency. also, we hypothesized palestinian adolescents‟ ptss to be inversely correlated to family and environmental resources (the lower the resources, the higher the ptss). method participants and context this study comprised a sample of 368 palestinian adolescents (11th grade; m = 17.3 years; 49.2% male) liv ing in the gaza strip, which is approximately 50 kilometers long and 5 to 12 kilometers wide. the gaza strip spans a narrow zone of land along the mediterranean sea, between israel and egypt. the total population is one and a half million with a population density of 2.150 people per kilometer. among these, 808.000 persons are registered refugees, over 55% of who live in eight refugee camps scattered across the gaza strip. other inhabitants live in v illages and cities of the gaza strip. the united nations for relief and work agency (unrwa) provides education for 159.892 pupils, as well as health and relief serv ices to refugees liv ing inside and outside the camps (thabet et al. 2006). among the participants studied, 60% were refugee adolescents liv ing in jabalia refugee camp, which with a europe’s journal of psychology 40 population of approximately 120.000, lacks basic infrastructure. approximately one fifth (21%) of the adolescents were from bet-hanon v illage, which is situated in a remote part of the gaza strip (close to the israeli borders) and has around 45.000 inhabitants. the remaining adolescents (19%) were from al-remal city, which is a relatively more prosperous urbanized neighborhood of approximately 30.000 inhabitants. instruments participants completed a standardized battery that included the following questionnaires aimed at examining the initial hypotheses. „demographic & socio-economic inventory‟ demographics were assessed by using a self-designed inventory that included questions regarding gender, place of residency, family size, family income, maternal and paternal education and occupation. gaza traumatic event checklist (gtec) the gtec was used to assess participants‟ exposure to traumatic events over the last six months. i t consists of 20 traumatic events that commonly occur during the ongoing political and military v iolence in the gaza strip. the initial version was developed by the research department of the gaza community mental health program (gcmhp) and has been used in prev ious studies on palestinian children (thabet et al. 1999, 2002). i tems require dichotomous answers, yielding a range of total trauma scores from 0 to 20. this checklist has shown satisfactory split half reliability (r = 0.776) and internal consistency (cronbach‟s alpha = 0.749), thabet et al. 2002; 2009). the davidson trauma scale (dts) the dts is a self-rated scale, comprising 17 items designed to measure posttraumatic stress reactions in youngsters aged 6 to 18 years. tailored closely to the symptom definitions of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edition (dsm-iv), these pertain to intrusive re-experiencing (dsm-iv criteria b), avoidance and numbness (dsm-iv criteria c) and hyper arousal reactions (dsm-iv criteria d) (american psychiatric association, 1994). before application, adolescents must meet dsm-iv criteria a and e, namely experiencing or witnessing an extremely traumatic event. rating is ordinal (from „never‟ (0), through „sometimes‟ (1) to „often‟ (2)). posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 41 participants were given a “probable current ptsd diagnosis” if they responded with „often‟ to at least one of the four „trauma re-experiencing‟ items, along with at least three of the seven „avoidance of stimuli associated with trauma‟ items and at least two of the six „increased arousal‟ items. the dts theoretical sum score range lies between 0 and 34. in our sample, this range was further grouped into „none or doubtful‟ (score 0-8), „mild‟ (score 9-16), „moderate‟ (17-24) or „severe‟ (25 and above). the dts has been translated into arabic by professional bilingual translators. i t shows satisfactory reliability with a split half r of 0.74 and internal consistency cronbach‟s alpha of 0.75 (thabet et al. 2002, thabet et al. 2009). the reliability in our sample also shows satisfactory with a split-half r of 0.605 and cronbach‟s alpha of 0.709. procedure the ethical procedures applicable to this study were followed. as required by the palestinian ministry of high education, the research proposal and questionnaires were submitted before the start of the study. after receiv ing their approval to proceed, permission to enter the schools was gathered from the principals. students completed the self-report questionnaires during regular class hours in the first trimester of the academic year 2006-2007. students were introduced to the study purpose and assured of the confidentiality of all data. the participants were informed that the researcher was interested in their experience of ongoing traumatic events, that participation was voluntary and anonymous, and that they were free to withdraw their participation for any reason and at any time during the questionnaire procedure. completion time ranged from around 35 to 45 minutes. as indicated, data were gathered from secondary schools located in the area of jabalia refugee camp, bet-hanon v illage and al-remal city. a multistage random sample design was used to reach the potential study sample, in three main phases. first, cluster random selection was applied to include all the governmental secondary schools in the above cited areas. second, stratified cluster selection was applied on classes in which the students had been given a participation inv itation (450 adolescents). third, among those who obtained parental consent and agreed to participate, adolescents were randomly selected by choosing those sitting on the right side of the classroom desk. thus, a representative sample of 368 palestinian adolescents was drawn from a total of 4551 students, distributed over 115 classes (11th grade) from 13 governmental secondary schools. to avoid any dramatic changes in the political situation in gaza that might have affected the adolescents‟ responses, all data were gathered within a time frame of europe’s journal of psychology 42 two consecutive weeks. the response rate was considered to be satisfactory, with 98% of the inv ited adolescents agreeing to participate in the study. data analysis analyses were computed using the statistical software spss v ersion 13.0. the data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential analysis. the present analyses assessed several predictors (i.e., level of exposure to traumatic events and demographic factors) for the outcome variable „posttraumatic stress reactions‟. the inferential analyses included use of independent sample t-tests and one-way anova. results demographics: descriptive consistent with the palestinian demography, participating adolescents were from „large‟ families with 72% comprising nine family members or more. the vast majority of these families are characterized by low socio-economic levels (educational and employment), with 57.6% of fathers and 69% of mothers having completed low education (secondary school or less) in contrast to 21.5% of fathers and 13.9% of mothers having completed higher education (university graduation to postgraduate). over one third of the adolescents‟ fathers were unemployed, while approximately one fourth worked as civ il employees and the remainder as laborers. approximately, four fifths of their mothers were house wives, slightly less than one fifth employees and the remainder laborers. due to high levels of unemployment, 42% of the adolescents‟ families earn less than 100 euro's a month. table 1 prov ides a complete overv iew of the sample‟s family demographics. posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 43 table 1. percentage and frequencies of demographic characteristics (n= 368) % demographic characteristics gender 49.2 male 50.8 female place of residency 18.5 city 21.2 village 60.3 refugee camp family size 0.8 small (4 and less) 27.4 medium (5-8 members) 71.7 large (9 or more) income 41.8 < 100 euro 32.1 101 300 euro 16.8 301 600 euro 9.2 > 600 euro paternal education 57.6 low (< secondary school) 20.9 medium (secondary school to entered university) 21.5 high (university (post)graduation) maternal education 69.0 low (< secondary school) 17.1 medium (secondary school to entered university) 13.9 high (university (post)graduation) paternal job 38.6 unemployed 17.1 worker 5.2 handcraft 27.2 employee 3.0 farmer 5.2 merchant 3.8 other maternal job 92.9 house wife 3.3 worker 3.8 employee 0.0 other europe’s journal of psychology 44 levels and types of exposure to traumatic events this study first set out to examine the adolescents' levels and types of exposure to traumatic events. the mean number of traumatic events that any particular adolescent experienced was 9.9 (sd = 3.20). table 2 furthermore shows that the vast majority of the adolescents were exposed to objective indirect traumatic events (implying no personal physical harm and not directly pertaining to their family) as well as media exposure. a smaller, yet sizeable proportion of adolescents were exposed to direct physical harm, through relationship with a v ictim, or material harm to personal belongings. table 2: types of traumatic events experienced by adolescents (n = 368) total girls boys gaza traumatic event checklist % n % n % n 95.9% 353 47.8% 176 48.1% 177 1. hearing of sonic boom and artillery fire 95.4% 351 48.1% 177 47.3% 174 2. watching the pictures of injured persons and killed on the television 94.3% 347 48.4% 178 45.9% 169 3. watching homes explosions on television 90.8% 334 44.6% 164 46.2% 170 hearing about an incursion to your land, town, homes or other 85.3% 314 40.5% 149 44.8% 165 4. witnessing the bombardment of government buildings 75.5% 278 32.9% 121 42.7% 157 5. witnessing targeted assassinations 72.3% 266 35.9% 132 36.4% 134 6. witnessing an invasion to your land, town, homes or other 62.8% 231 23.1% 85 39.7% 146 7. hearing about the killing of a friend 48.6% 179 25.3% 93 23.4% 86 8. witnessing bombardment of other people homes 38.6% 142 12.5% 46 26.1% 96 9. witnessing a friend being injured 38.6% 142 18.2% 67 20.4% 75 10. witnessing the demolishing of your friends home 35.1% 129 20.7% 76 14.4% 53 12. witnessing the invasion to your neighbor homes 33.2% 122 14.7% 54 18.5% 68 13. witnessing the killing of a close relative 28.3% 104 12.8% 47 15.5% 57 14. witnessing your land being destroyed 26.4% 97 9.5% 35 16.8% 62 15. witnessing a friend being killed 17.1% 63 10.1% 37 7.1% 26 16. witnessing the shelling of your home 17.1% 63 8.7% 32 8.4% 31 17. hearing about the killing of a close family member 16.0% 59 9.0% 33 7.1% 26 18. witnessing the killing of a close family member 12.0% 44 6.5% 24 5.4% 20 19. witnessing the bulldozing of your own home 6.8% 25 1.9% 7 4.9% 18 20. being personally injured, shot by bullets note: the numbers and percentages of adolescents endorsing an item are given by row. respondents can endorse as many items as relevant on the gtec. posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 45 variations in exposure according to demographics furthermore, possible variations in exposure to trauma according to gender, environmental and family demographics were assessed. as shown in figure 1, gender differences emerged with boys reporting more intense exposure to traumatic events than girls (respectively, m = 10.5, sd = 2.9 and m = 9.2, sd = 3.3) (t = 3.93, df= .366, p= 0.000, d = .41). figure 1: exposure to traumatic events according to gender note: exposure is classified in mild (<4 events), moderate (5-10 events) and severe (>11 events) (thabet et al., 2001, 2008) the number of traumatic events experienced by adolescents also differed significantly across places of residency (figure 2). more specifically, adolescents liv ing in v illages were more exposed (m = 11.1, sd = 3.0) than those liv ing in the refugee camps (m = 10.1, sd = 3.2) or the city (m = 8.1, sd = 2.5) (f = 17.84 (2, 365), mse= 9.40, p = 0.000). finally, only family income was significantly associated with the degree of exposure to traumatic events. thus, we observed a negative linear trend between level of family income and number of traumatic events (r = -.16; p = 0.002). europe’s journal of psychology 46 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 mild moderate severe 4,4% 80,9% 14,7% 1,3% 42,3% 56,4% 3,6% 52,3% 44,1% city village camp figure 2: exposure to traumatic events according to place of residency note: exposure is classified in mild (<4 events), moderate (5-10 events) and severe (>11 events) (thabet et al., 2001, 2008) levels of posttraumatic stress the primary goal was to assess adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress levels. our results indicate that only less than one-tenth (9.8%) of the adolescents showed no ptss, whereas the majority showed mild to moderate (40.5% and 44,3% respectively) and 5.4% severe ptss. taken together, this corresponds to 17.1% of the participants displaying symptoms amounting to a probable ptsd according to dsm-iv diagnostic criteria. as shown in table 3, a majority of the adolescents (50% to 84%) reported sometimes or always suffering from re-experiencing, avoiding, or arousal symptoms related to their exposure to traumatic events. only the ability to recall experiences and to project goals along the life span reportedly remained intact for most participants. posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 47 table 3. palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress symptoms (n = 368) always sometimes never davidson trauma scale (dts) % n % n % n 34.0 125 50.2 185 15.8 58 1. have you had painful images memories or thoughts of the event? 29.1 107 38.6 142 32.3 119 2. have you had distressing dreams of the event? 45.2 166 32.2 118 22.6 83 3. have you felt as though the event was re-occurring? 52.7 194 29.6 109 17.7 65 4. have you been upset by something which remind you of the event? 43.8 161 30.7 113 25.5 94 5. have you been avoiding thoughts or feelings about the event? 39.4 145 34.0 125 26.6 98 6. have you been avoiding doing things or going into situations which remind you about the event? 6.3 23 9.5 35 84.2 310 7. have you found yourself unable to recall important parts of the event? 37.2 137 26.1 96 36.7 135 8. have you had difficulty enjoying things? 19.3 71 28.8 106 51.9 191 9. have you felt distant or cut off from other people? 17.9 66 38.3 141 43.8 161 10. have you been unable to have sad or loving feeling? 16.8 62 31.0 114 52.2 192 11. have you found it hard to imagine along life span fulfilling your goals? 38.6 142 31.5 116 29.9 110 12. have you had trouble falling asleep or staying a sleep? 25.5 94 37.5 138 37.0 136 13. have you been irritable or had outbursts of anger? 24.5 90 43.4 160 32.1 118 14. have you had difficulty concentrating? 35.1 129 43.7 161 21.2 78 have you felt on edge, been easily distracted, or had to stay on guard? 34.5 127 34.0 125 31.5 116 15. have you been jumpy or easily startled? 15.2 56 38.3 141 46.5 171 have you been physically upset by reminders of the event? note: the numbers and percentages of adolescents endorsing an item as „never‟, „sometimes‟ or „always‟are given by row. differences in posttraumatic stress according to personal and demographic factors finally, we aimed to analyze whether ptss levels varied according to personal and demographic factors. regarding gender, no significant differences in ptss were found between boys (m = 16.3, sd = 5.3) and girls (m = 15.8, sd = 5.6) (t = 862; df = 366, p = 0.39). similarly, adolescents showed no significant differences in ptss levels across places of residency (with m = 15.9, sd = 5.0 for city, m = 16.6, sd = 6.0 for v illage and m = 15.9, sd = 5.4 for camp residents (f = 532, (2, 365), p = .588). moreover, our findings showed no significant relationship between ptss and the other inv estigated europe’s journal of psychology 48 demographic factors, i.e. respectively family size (f = .656, (2, 365), p = .519), family income (f = 1.839, (2, 365), p = .140), paternal education (f = 2.527, (3, 364), p = .057), paternal occupation (f = .488, (6, 361), p = .817), maternal education (f = 1.236, (3, 364), p = 297) or maternal occupation (f = .411, (2, 365), p = .664). discussion this study set out to examine palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress and possible situational and demographical determinants hereof. to do so, the levels and types of exposure, along with variations across personal, environmental and family demographics needed to be explored first, as discussed hereafter. levels and types of exposure on average, the investigated 17-year old palestinian adolescents had experienced around ten traumatic events during their lifetime. these findings are consistent with prev ious research showing that palestinian youth have experienced significant exposure to socio-political v iolence (macksoud, aber, and cohen, 1996; punamaki, qouta, and el sarraj, 1997; quota et al., 2005; thabet et al., 2001). according to the classification of exposure levels convened by a consensus meeting of palestinian mental health professionals, this corresponds to a mean level of moderate-to-severe exposure (thabet et al., 2001,2008). the vast majority of the investigated adolescents were exposed to objective yet indirect traumatic events (no personal physical or family harm) and media exposure, consistent with the expectation of a shift in type of exposure in this age cohort. the high levels of media exposure may furthermore indicate a lack of leisure activ ities for adolescents (thabet et al., 2001). variations in levels of exposure according to demographics primarily, adolescents‟ gender and place of residency determined levels of exposure to trauma, with boys and those liv ing in the v illages experiencing more traumatic events. these findings appear consistent with other research (qouta, punamaki, and el sarraj, 1995; punamaki et al., 2005). regarding gender, this difference in exposure may result from palestinian girls being culturally more sheltered (kept inside the homes) and less likely to participate in political activ ities compared to boys. as indicated before, the higher exposure for adolescents liv ing in v illages seems to result from the political implications of their geographical location. these findings may also posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 49 suggest cohort influences, as they are consistent with the more recent research suggesting higher levels of exposure for children liv ing in the rural area compared to earlier findings showing no relation hereof with place of residency (qouta el al., 1995). not surprisingly, low income families disposing of lesser resources were also at risk for higher levels of exposure to traumatic events, consistently with findings, for example, among low income families in lebanon (macksoud, 1996). whether the absence of significant relationships of levels of exposure with the other family demographics is robust or dependent on the overall levels of exposure remains to be further investigated. levels of posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents our main goal was to assess the levels of posttraumatic stress among the palestinian adolescents. as expected, these appeared to be high, amounting to around one fifth of the adolescents displaying probable ptsd and a vast majority of them suffering from substantive re-experiencing, avoiding, and arousal symptoms. given these adolescents‟ high levels of trauma exposure, these findings appear consistent at first sight with the current literature base concerning dose-response effects. considering that their exposure included high levels of indirect objective events and the mixed-type media exposure, the findings especially concur with research showing that these types also exert adverse effects in settings of prolonged indiv idually and collectively experienced sociopolitical v iolence. by themselves, these findings warrant the development of prevention and intervention programs geared at informing youth about ptsd and its implications and helping them deal with it (braun-lewensohn et al., 2009a; celestin-westreich & celestin, 2010; elbedour, anthony, ghannam, janine and abu hien, 2007; powers et al., 2010; quota et al., 2007; thabet et al., 2007). posttraumatic stress symptoms according to gender the absence of significant gender differences in ptss in our sample, despite boys‟ significant higher trauma exposure, in turn, appears to contrast with the general literature-based expectations. at closer analysis, it may result from a compensation effect, with boys‟ higher exposure contributing to higher ptss, thus leveling out girls‟ typically higher ptss levels. together with the earlier discussed equivocal outcomes to this regard in the palestinian context, our results may also suggest the need to take into account the contextual factors when considering gender effects. for example, a further explanation may lie in the combination with the age cohort, whereby dose-response effects possibly attain a ceiling after chronic exposure and thus level out stress responses between boys and girls. europe’s journal of psychology 50 posttraumatic stress symptoms according to demographic factors the investigated adolescents furthermore did not differ significantly in ptss levels across place of residency, despite v illage residents being more exposed than refugee camp and city residents. these findings are consistent with some studies conducted on palestinian children, which document more severe ptss among children who are liv ing in the more exposed areas such as those close to i sraeli settlements, but not with others that document more ptss in the urban areas or in refugee camps (elbedour., 2007; qouta et al., 2004; thabet et al., 2002, 2009). adolescents‟ ptss-levels were not affected either by the negative link between family income and exposure levels. the absence of linkages with any of the other investigated demographics (such as family size, parental education and occupation) remains consistent in the first place with the absence of any differences in levels of exposure to this regard. taken together from the aforementioned risk-resiliency face model‟s perspective of youth‟s cognitive-emotional adjustments to trauma exposure, ceiling effects in the dose-response principle may provide a first explanation for a fading out of ptssdifferences among adolescents having experienced prolonged indiv idual and collective exposure throughout childhood, even when coming from variously exposed residency and family income backgrounds. stated differently, although not mutually exclusively, mediating dynamics such as adolescents‟ primary attribution and coping processes, may lead to equifinal ptss outcomes across circumstances through different cognitive and emotional pathways, as ev idenced in developmental psychopathology and recent research specific to chronic trauma exposure (braun-lewensohn et al., 2009a, braun-lewensohn et al., 2009b, celestinwestreich and celestin, 2010; cummings et al., 2000; elbedour et al., 2007; powers et al., 2010; qouta et al., 2007). ev idently, such assumptions need to be tested in further research. study limitations and future direction several limitations apply to the present study. first of all, the data were not gathered from multiple data sources (e.g., teachers, parents, peers), but were based only on adolescents‟ own evaluations. the multi-informant method would contribute to achiev ing a more complete evaluation of these youths‟ functioning. also, it should be noted that no palestinian control group was available since the whole palestinian population is affected by the ongoing al-aqsa intifada. particularly, this study utilized a cross-sectional design and, thus, it is difficult to infer any cause-effect relationships. posttraumatic stress among palestinian adolescents in the gaza strip 51 finally, since only 11th grade or 17-year old adolescents were investigated, different outcomes may apply to younger or older adolescents. conclusion this study analyzed the impact of ongoing traumatic sociopolitical events on palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress reactions (ptss and ptsd) according to event-related and demographic factors. the investigated 11th grade adolescents experienced a mean number of around 10 traumatic events throughout their lifespan, with boys being significantly more exposed than girls, as were those liv ing in v illages compared to gaza city or refugee camp residents. adolescents mainly and pervasively reported objective, nonpersonal material and media exposure. around one -fifth also experienced direct, physical exposure and exposure through injury and death of relatives. in this context of intense continual exposure, more than half of the investigated adolescents liv ing in the gaza strip reported moderate to high levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms, for one fifth among them this amounted to a probable posttraumatic stress disorder. remarkably, these ptss levels were not primarily linked to their differences in exposure levels according to gender, place of residency and family income. from a research perspective, these findings suggest two major pathways for enhancing comprehension of middle to late palestinian adolescents‟ posttraumatic stress reactions. first, it may be that the dose-response principle attains a ceilingeffect when adolescents attempt to adapt to lifelong exposure. second, primary attributions and coping strategies may moderate adolescents‟ cognitive-emotional dynamics, leading to similar posttraumatic stress responses despite different levels and types of exposure. from a practice perspective, these findings underscore the pervasive need for prevention and intervention programs to help palestinian adolescents deal with the substantive challenges of growing 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(2002). emotional problems in palestinian children liv ing in a war zone: a cross-sectional study. the lancet, 359, 1801-1804. thabet, a., abu tawahina, a., el sarraj, e., & vostanis, p. (2007). exposure to war trauma and ptsd among parents and children in the gaza strip. european child & adolescent psychiatry, 653, 211-220. thabet, a., abu-nada, i ., shivram, e., millingen, e., & vostanis, p. (2009). parenting support and posttraumatic stress disorder on children of a war zone. international journal of social psychiatry, 3, 226-237. about the authors: ibrahim abu-nada, holds a masters degree in mental health. he has contributed in published articles in international journals. he is currently undergoing doctoral training in the department of clinical and lifespan psychology at the vrije universiteit brussels (vub) address for correspondence: ibrahim abu-nada, department of clinical and lifespan psychology, vrije universiteit brussels (vub), pleinlaan 2,1050 brussels, belgium. e-mail: ibrahim.abunada@vub.ac.be prof. dr. smadar celestin-westreich, phd., is an associate professor of psychology at the vrije universiteit brussels. she also directs the multi-site face©-program for youth and their families. she has (co-)authored several textbooks and journal publications amongst others on posttraumatic stress and coping. e-mail: smadar.westreich@vub.ac.be website: http://www.faceprogram.com prof. dr. wim van den broeck, phd., is an associate professor of psychology at the vrije universiteit brussels. his research interests and publications pertain to methodology, reading development and learning disabilities. dr. leon-patrice celestin, psychiatrist, received his m.d. at the university of brussels (ulb) and is currently hospital practitioner in paris, france. he also directs the face©-program‟s sections on posttraumatic stress, bipolar disorders, adhd and addictions through the lifespan; on which he has co-authored book (chapters) and journal publications. mailto:ibrahim.abunada@vub.ac.be mailto:smadar.westreich@vub.ac.be http://www.faceprogram.com/ microsoft word 5. maslach burnout inventory.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 52-70 www.ejop.org factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) in greek midwives michael galanakis phd, msc, organizational psychologist, panteion university of political and social sciences martha moraitou phd, midwife, adjunct lecturer, department of midwifery, alexandreio technological educational institute of thessaloniki filia j. garivaldis, morg, organizational psychologist, doctoral psychology student, monash university, australia anastasios stalikas phd, psychologist, psychology professor, panteion university of political and social sciences abstract burnout is a variable that continues to sustain international research interest. the most widely adopted tool measuring the burnout syndrome is the maslach burnout inventory (mbi). the present study attempted to examine the psychometric properties and factorial structure of the mbi amongst a sample of 536 professional health specialists in greece. the results indicated satisfactory reliability through internal consistency for all three dimensions. however, a factor analysis did not produce conclusive evidence of a tripartite construct, but rather the predominance of a single primary factor (emotional exhaustion), and a secondary factor (depersonalization). the results confirm previous findings advocating the uni-factorial or bi-factorial nature of the construct. keywords – burnout, maslach, mbi, factorial structure, psychometric properties, midwives. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 53 scientific interest in the study of the burnout syndrome has evolved in recent years (anagnostopoulos & papadatou, 1992), and has become a growing phenomenon in the workplace context (ahola & hakanen, 2007; borritz et al., 2005; gonzalez-rom, schaufeli, bakker, & lloret, 2002; laschinger & leiter, 2006; leiter, 2005; maslach, 1993; pines & keinan, 2005). the first reference ever made to the term burnout was in 1974, when freudenberger observed a series of symptoms of exhaustion in the context of the workplace. since then, pines and maslach (1978) describe burnout as a syndrome of somatic and psychological exhaustion with multiple classifications. burnout manifests as a subjective feeling of dysphoria, impacting on physical and emotional aspects of one’s wellbeing, and leading to a reduction of behavioural activity and motivation, and the debilitation of one’s efforts to perform (maslach & jackson, 1982). moreover, burnout results from the inability to stabilize internal and/or external needs, and as a consequence inhibits the allocation of energy resources effectively (maslach & leiter, 2005). burnout may also result from a situation where minimal rewards are bestowed for a goal in which a large investment was made (rupert & morgan, 2005; schaufeli & baker, 2004). in two empirical studies, maslach and pines (1977, 1978) documented the symptom of somatic and psychological exhaustion, accompanied by a lack of sleep and headaches, amongst a sample of nurses. these symptoms were found to precipitate cynicism between colleagues, negativity towards patients, withdrawal from social contact within the workplace environment, and performance at bare minimum standards. finally, nurses who were found to exhibit this sequence of symptoms reported disappointment and dissatisfaction across many domains, including disappointment with themselves. research on burnout began to unfold through clinical studies, allowing the construct to become recognized, at least in the health sector (anagnostopoulos & papadatou, 1992; ahola & hakanen, 2007; montgomery, panagopoulou, & benos, 2006; vahey et al., 2004). moreover, burnout has been associated with negative workplace behaviours such as increases in sick leave, premature retirement (resignation), alcohol abuse, increases in smoking and coffee consumption, familial, social, and economic problems, workplace accidents, interruptions in the provision of quality of service, low morale, and frequent job changes (bakker et al., 2000; chatzimihaloglou, moraitou & emmanouil, 2005; demerouti et al., 2001; ierodiakonou & iakovides, 1997; leiter, 2005; leiter et al., 2007). due to its gradual onset (kiuru et al., 2008; leiter & maslach, 2005; montgomery, panagopoulou & benos, 2006;), burnout results from the accumulation of stress that exhausts individuals to the point where their energy resources are insufficient for their attempts to survive the pressure of a situation (galanakis, stalikas, kallia, karagianni & karela, 2009; ierodiakonou & iakovides, europe’s journal of psychology 54 1997; rupert & kent, 2007, papadatou & anagnostopoulos, 1999; schaufeli et al., 2002; shirom, 2002; truchot & deregard, 2001). as such, burnout has been observed primarily within occupations that involve communication with others, and the selling of services (ahola & hakanen, 2007; montgomery, panagopoulou, & benos, 2006; papathanasiou, 2007; rupert & kent, 2007; vahey et al., 2004). the plenitude of research on the phenomenon of burnout renders the need for its measurement and diagnosis as imperative, especially if one considers the adverse outcomes that it generates. consequently, burnout has been operationalized internationally based on maslach’s theoretical framework (maslach & jackson, 1981; 1986). this framework recognises a single syndrome defined by three components; (1) emotional exhaustion, which manifests when individuals are unable to psychologically give of themselves to the degree expected of them, and are therefore behaviourally inapt at investing in effort towards performing, (2) depersonalization, which involves withdrawal, and the distancing of oneself from colleagues and clients resorting to impersonal relationships and remote contact, (3) the feeling of reduced personal accomplishment, which results from negative selfevaluations, and involves a decrease of productivity and the resignation of any effort to perform. this factor is also related to feelings of unhappiness and overall job dissatisfaction (maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996). in order to assess burnout, maslach and jackson (1981) developed the maslach burnout inventory (mbi), which consists of 22 items that load onto the three factor structure mentioned above: emotional exhaustion (ee; nine items), depersonalization (dp; five items), and personal accomplishment (pa; eight items). the results of this inventory consist of three separate scores, one for each factor. a combination of high scores on ee and dp, and a low score on pa, correspond to a high level of burnout. the mbi is the most widely used instrument internationally, as it has been translated into several languages. the most recent version of the instrument is the mbi-educator’s survey (mbi-es; maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996), which has received verification for its psychometric properties and factor structure across a large sample of us teaching professionals. a recent study by kokkinos (2006) attempted to assess burnout across a sample of 771 educators in cyprus, utilizing a greek translation of the mbi-es (mbi-es; maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996). the study conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and found support for the three factor structure of burnout. in addition, satisfactory psychometric properties for the greek translation of the scale were obtained, indicating that the mbi-es is a reliable and valid measure of burnout across the greek teaching profession. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 55 despite the wide recognition and application of maslach’s framework, burnout’s dimensionality has been questioned on several occasions, proposed by some as having a four factor structure (iwanicki & schwab, 1981), and by others as comprising of five factors (densten, 2001). densten (2001) asserts that burnout is comprised of two ee factors, psychological and somatic strain, two pa factors, self and others’ views to achieve, and a single dp factor. the differences observed regarding the dimensional structure of burnout may be attributed to the various occupations that are assessed. for instance, maslach and jackson’s (1981; 1986) three factor structure is supported by teachers’ samples (kokkinos, 2006), whereas densten’s (2001) results were observed from a sample of australian law enforcement managers. similarly, an examination of the framework across health professionals may yield different results again. research in the nursing industry, for instance, has drawn attention to the pronounced pressure and demanding environment of intensive care divisions within hospitals. this context is said to contribute to the psychological burden experienced by its employees (ahola & hakanen, 2007; montgomery, panagopoulou & benos, 2006; ouzouni, 1999; vahey et al., 2004). in greece, researchers have focussed on burnout amongst nurses (adali & lemonidou, 2001; anagnostopoulos & papadatou, 1992;.melissa, avramika, & laloumi, 2003; mpellali, 1998; papathanasiou, 2007; ziogou, et al, 1998), but are yet to draw their attention to the specific category of obstetrics. midwives may be equally or more susceptible to burnout due to their responsibilities in both nursing and obstetrics, as well as having to cope with the additional demands of crisis management and other emergency situations within the delivery room and the intensive care units (chatzimihaloglou, moraitou, & stalikas, 2003). studies in england (sandall, 1998), denmark (engelbrecht, 2006), and the netherlands (bakker, groenewegen, jabaaij, meijer, sixma & de veer, 1996) have supported the claim that midwives experience severe degrees of emotional exhaustion that is related to their work. as such, the aim of the current research is to examine the factorial structure and psychometric properties of the greek version of the maslach burnout inventory in relation to the results of the usa and cyprus analogous studies. europe’s journal of psychology 56 method participants the sample used in the present study consists of 536 greek midwives/obstetricians. of these, 97.6% are females, and 2.4% are males. fifty five and a half percent (55.5%) of participants live and work in the major cities, namely athens and thessaloniki, whereas the remainder 44.5% are from rural areas of greece. the mean age of participants is 37.85 years (sd = 8.91), and the number of years of professional midwifery experience is 13 (sd = 9). tools data collection involved the use of the latest version of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) (maslach et al., 1996). the greek version of this scale was used as derived from a direct translation of the original (kokkinos, 2006). the mbi consists of 22 items distributed across the 3 dimensions of maslach’s (1978, 1981, 1986) theoretical framework discussed above; (a) emotional exhaustion (ee; nine items), (b) depersonalization (dp; five items), and (c) the feeling of personal accomplishment (eight items). the frequency of burnout symptoms is rated on a seven point likert scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘always’. in application, and whilst measuring a single construct, the mbi produces three separate scores, one for each of the three subscales. for the purposes of diagnosis, burnout is experienced when at least 2 of the 3 dimensions yield high scores. this scale has been primarily used in the assessment of burnout amongst various professions (kokkinos, 2000, 2006, schaufeli & janczur, 1994), across many countries, and has yielded satisfactory convergent validity. procedure the mbi was administered to midwives/obstetricians during a professional conference in 2006. this conference attracted health professionals from all geographical locations of greece. each participant received the mbi during the conference, and voluntarily completed it in a group setting. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 57 results psychometric properties of the scale the raw data was compiled, and analysed using the statistical package spss v.14. an analysis of the scale’s psychometric properties, including reliability (cronbachs α), and factor analysis were conducted. furthermore, the results were examined as a function of gender, age, and professional midwifery experience. the results are presented in light of the psychometric properties of maslach et al.’s (1996) original us sample, and the recent study conducted by kokkinos (2006) using a sample of cypriot teachers. table 1. displays the raw data (means and standard deviations) of the results of each of the three subscales of the mbi, against the results of the original us teacher sample (maslach et al., 1996), and the cypriot sample of teaching professionals (kokkinos, 2006). table 1. means and standard deviation for the greek, us and cypriot samples, across each of the three dimensions of the mbi sample greek (n = 536) m (sd) cypriot (n = 771) m (sd) us (n = 4163) m (sd) emotional exhaustion (ee) 30.84 (11.09) 27.37 (10.91) 21.25 (11.01) depersonalization (dp) 9.64 (5.17) 4.42 (4.23) 11.00 (6.19) personal accomplishment (pa) 41.43 (6.43) 38.13 (6.94) 33.54 (6.89) as can be seen from the table above, the greek sample of the current study has received higher scores of ee. in other words, the greeks experience more stress and overexertion, although they feel rewarded and satisfied with the outcomes of their efforts. with regard to the depersonalization score, however, the greek sample scored a little less than the us sample, but almost double the cypriot sample. table 2. below displays the intercorrelations for the mbi subscales for each of the three samples, greek, cypriot and the us. europe’s journal of psychology 58 table 2. internal consistency coefficients across all three samples, and pearson’s r correlations between each of the factors of the mbi for greek midwives dimension 1.emotional exhaustion (ee) 2.depersonalization (dp) 3.personal accomplishment (pa) cronbach’s α greek sample (n = 536) 0.85 0.74 0.73 cronbach’s α cypriot sample (n = 771) 0.85 0.63 0.79 cronbach’s α us sample (n = 4163) 0.90 0.79 0.71 1. ee 0.49** -0.30** 2. dp -0.34** 3. pa ** p < 0.01 reliability analyses revealed a cronbach’s α exceeding 0.7 for all three dimensions, indicating acceptable internal consistency (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). these values are similar to the internal consistency values of the original us results. in particular, the ee scale yields stronger internal consistency values across all three samples. the pearson’s correlations in table 2 present significant positive relationships between emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and significant negative relationships between pa and ee, and between pa and dp. these results are in line with the psychometric properties of the original mbi (maslach et al., 1996), and the values yielded by the cypriot sample. therefore, the results indicate that the dimensions converge on the same construct. differences between groups to examine differences in age and professional experience we conducted 2 oneway anovas. to examine age differences, the sample was classified into 4 age groups; a) 21-30 (n=155), b) 31-40 (n=177), c) 41-50 (n=153), and d) 51-60 (n=48). employing the scheffe post hoc test, statistically significant differences between the first (group a) and the last (group d) age groups across dimensions dp (p = 0.005) and pa (p = 0.007) were found. in addition, statistically significant differences were found between group c and group d for the scale of ee (p < 0.05), and between group a and group b for the scale of dp (p < 0.05). overall, it appears that younger participants in this sample reported greater depersonalization, and less personal accomplishment than older participants. the results of the anova are displayed in tables 3, 4 & 5. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 59 table 3. means and standard deviations of the 4 age categories in the three subscales of mbi n mean std. deviation std. error age emotional exhaustion 21-30 155 31,168 10,437 0,838 31-40 177 29,751 10,370 0,779 41-50 153 32,817 12,251 0,990 51-60 48 27,667 11,011 1,589 total 533 30,856 11,098 0,481 depersonalization 21-30 155 10,787 5,500 0,442 31-40 177 9,096 4,819 0,362 41-50 153 9,719 5,212 0,421 51-60 48 7,729 4,504 0,650 total 533 9,644 5,177 0,224 personal accomplishment 21-30 155 40,342 6,129 0,492 31-40 177 41,955 5,996 0,451 41-50 153 41,065 6,628 0,536 51-60 48 44,021 7,547 1,089 total 533 41,417 6,437 0,279 table 4. anova: mean differences in emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment between the 4 age categories of the sample (1=21-30, 2=3140, 3=41-50, 4=51-60) sum of squares df mean square f sig. partial eta squared emotional exhaustion between groups 1307.633 3 435.878 3.591 0.014 0.020 within groups 64214.243 529 121.388 total 65521.876 532 depersonalization between groups 432.535 3 144.178 5.516 0.001 0.030 within groups 13827.736 529 26.139 total 14260.270 532 personal accomplishment between groups 574.693 3 191.564 4.721 0.003 0.026 within groups 21466.841 529 40.580 total 22041.535 532 europe’s journal of psychology 60 table 5. post hoc analysis of the mean differences of age categories in the three subscales of mbi using the scheffe coefficient dependent variable (i) age (j) age mean difference (ij) std. error sig. emotional exhaustion 21-30 31-40 1,416 1,212 0,714 41-50 -1,649 1,256 0,632 51-60 3,501 1,820 0,297 31-40 21-30 -1,416 1,212 0,714 41-50 -3,066 1,216 0,097 51-60 2,085 1,793 0,717 41-50 21-30 1,649 1,256 0,632 31-40 3,066 1,216 0,097 51-60 5,150 1,823 0,047* 51-60 21-30 -3,501 1,820 0,297 31-40 -2,085 1,793 0,717 41-50 -5,150 1,823 0,047* depersonalization 21-30 31-40 1,691 0,562 0,030* 41-50 1,068 0,583 0,340 51-60 3,058 0,845 0,005** 31-40 21-30 -1,691 0,562 0,030 41-50 -0,623 0,564 0,749 51-60 1,367 0,832 0,441 41-50 21-30 -1,068 0,583 0,340 31-40 0,623 0,564 0,749 51-60 1,990 0,846 0,138 51-60 21-30 -3,058 0,845 0,005** 31-40 -1,367 0,832 0,441 41-50 -1,990 0,846 0,138 personal accomplishment 21-30 31-40 -1,613 0,701 0,153 41-50 -0,723 0,726 0,803 51-60 -3,679 1,052 0,007* 31-40 21-30 1,613 0,701 0,153 41-50 0,889 0,703 0,660 51-60 -2,066 1,037 0,266 41-50 21-30 0,723 0,726 0,803 31-40 -0,889 0,703 0,660 51-60 -2,955 1,054 0,050* 51-60 21-30 3,679 1,052 0,007* 31-40 2,066 1,037 0,266 41-50 2,955 1,054 0,050* * the mean difference is significant at the .05 level. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 61 finally, participants were classified into two groups, which were created according to years of professional experience; a) under or equal to 10 years (n = 245), and b) over 10 years (n = 289). similarly to the us and cypriot samples, no statistically significant differences in burnout were found between the two groups (tables 6, 7). due to the predominance of female participants in our sample (97.6%), analyses concerning differences in burnout across gender were not conducted. table 6. means and standard deviations of the 2 tenure categories in the three subscales of mbi tenure n mean std. deviation std. error emotional exhaustion 1-10 years 237 29,890 10,182 0,661 11+ years 287 31,704 11,737 0,693 total 524 30,884 11,088 0,484 depersonalization 1-10 years 237 9,890 5,107 0,332 11+ years 287 9,404 5,207 0,307 total 524 9,624 5,163 0,226 personal accomplishment 1-10 years 237 41,266 6,019 0,391 11+ years 287 41,575 6,715 0,396 total 524 41,435 6,405 0,280 table 7. mean differences in the 3 subscales of mbi between the 2 tenure groups of the sample sum of squares df mean square f sig. emotional exhaustion between groups 426,925 1 426,925 3,489 0,062 within groups 63868,973 522 122,354 total 64295,899 523 depersonalization between groups 30,674 1 30,674 1,151 0,284 within groups 13910,263 522 26,648 total 13940,937 523 personal accomplishment between groups 12,401 1 12,401 0,302 0,583 within groups 21446,393 522 41,085 total 21458,794 523 europe’s journal of psychology 62 212019181716151413121110987654321 component number 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 e ig e n v a lu e scree plot figure 1. screeplot of principal components in mbi exploratory factor analysis to examine the factorial structure of the mbi for the greek sample of midwives/obstetricians, a principal components analysis (pca) and varimax rotation was conducted. the results illustrated the presence of 4 main components with an eigenvalue greater than 1.0, explaining 55.95 per cent of the variance. however, a scree plot (figure 1) inspection indicated 3 main components that explain 51.03 per cent of the variance. both cypriot and us samples revealed a similar structure. the three components, and factor loadings, are displayed in table 8. table 8. factor loadings for the three factor structure with varimax rotation item number factor factor loadings ee dp pa 2 εε 0.708 20 εε 0.700 13 εε 0.689 8 εε 0.680 0.475 6 εε 0.661 3 εε 0.653 0.420 16 εε 0.507 1 εε 0.468 14 εε 0.424 11 dp 0.602 5 dp 0.590 10 dp 0.531 0.464 factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 63 15 dp 0.471 0.451 21 pa 0.492 9 pa -0.411 0.559 19 pa -0.440 0.443 17 pa -0.463 0.488 12 pa -0.623 18 pa -0.638 7 pa 0.529 4 pa 0.492 note: only factor loadings > 0.40 are shown the factor loadings presented in table 8 above show a considerable divergence from the results of the cyprus sample, where almost all items load onto the first component (ee) of the burnout structure proposed by maslach et al., (1996). with the exception of items 4, 7, and 14, which load onto the second component (dp dimension), the remaining items (3,8,9,10,17 and 19) equally load onto both the first and second components. finally, the third component of the mbi consists of only one factor loading: that of item 15. the results of the factor analysis of burnout as it is experienced in greece indicate a single or dual factor composition, predominantly associated with emotional exhaustion. the assertion that burnout consists of 2 factors, whereby emotional exhaustion encompasses the component of depersonalization is supported by the research of densten (2001). discussion the present study attempted to examine the psychometric properties and the factor structure of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) amongst greek health professionals, against the data of two other samples (kokkinos, 2006; maslach et al., 1996). according to the results, this scale exhibited satisfactory reliability coefficients for all three dimensions of maslach’s burnout framework, in congruence with the results of the us and cypriot teacher samples. specifically, the dimension of emotional exhaustion (ee) yielded the strongest internal consistency as predicted by the original test manual, and in replication of other similar studies, despite that the current sample consisted of midwives as opposed to teaching professionals assessed previously (kokkinos, 2006; maslach et al., 1996; schaufeli & janczur, 1994). the results substantiate past evidence that the greek translation of the mbi is a reliable tool in assessing burnout across greek samples. europe’s journal of psychology 64 in consideration of validity, intercorrelations between the three dimensions indicated statistically significant relationships in the expected directions. emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are positively and strongly related to each other, although negatively related to personal accomplishment. once again, these results replicate those of past studies conducted in other countries (schaufeli & janczur, 1994), and which also single out emotional exhaustion as a key characteristic of burnout. the results of our factor analysis demonstrated support for densten’s (2001) twodimensional structure of burnout, despite maslach’s assertion that ee and pa continue to be separate substructures of the construct. several previous studies have yielded similar effects, in that burnout is made up of two components, or even a single key component (lee & ashforth, 1996, leiter, 1993). for instance, leiter and maslach (1988) claimed that burnout is characterised primarily by emotional exhaustion, in which feelings of depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment arise as a consequence of ee. likewise, the results of the present study revealed that ee is a core symptom of burnout, closely intertwined with the dimensions of dp and pa as indicated by the strong convergent validity between subscales. however, differences between age groups reveal a lack of support for the developmental onset of burnout, since younger participants exhibited greater degrees of psychological distance with others (dp), and greater feelings of personal inadequacy in relation to their contribution at work (pa), in contrast to their older peers. on average, the experience of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment within the greek sample was more intense compared to the analogous cypriot and us samples. in fact, a comparison of the mean scores of both the ee and pa subscales across all three samples suggests that as emotional exhaustion increases, so do feelings of achievement and accomplishment. of course, the presumption that ee predicts pa requires empirical confirmation. in any case, differences in the results between the three samples may be attributed to differences between the corresponding workplace environments, as well as characteristics of each profession. the incorporation of a broader range of occupations in future greek studies may assist in providing more generalizable results for the greek population. in addition, future studies may wish to examine the influences of additional variables on the experience of burnout, such as one’s freedom in selecting their workplace environment, and possibly the differences that urban vs rural employment location has in the manifestation of burnout. factorial structure and psychometric properties of the maslach burnout inventory (mbi) 65 it appears, in conclusion, that the greek translation of the mbi is a tool that can be applied with confidence as a reliable and valid measure of burnout amongst greek professionals. however, the fact that in this context it reveals a two-dimensional structure, as opposed to three-dimensional, raises questions surrounding its diagnostic capabilities, and warrants further examination of its factorial structure across a greater variety of professions, and larger sample of participants. in addition, confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) and an assessment of the validity of the experiential model of burnout could provide important insight into additional facets of this construct. in any case, the mbi continues to offer diagnostic, and possibly preventative, insight into the emotional, interpersonal, and regulatory aspects of one’s professional well-being, in hope that burnout may be avoided. references adali, e. & lemonidou c. 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(1998). occupational distress in phychiatric nursing staff. nursing, 1, 62-70. i changed the stress, stress changed me, you can not separate the stress form life and you can not separate the stress from me, because stress became life and by that stress is influenced all life europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp.1-7 www.ejop.org etic and emic in contemporary psychological ethics by michael j. stevens i llinois state university globalization can be characterized as a process of worldwide integration through the movement of goods and capital, expansion of democratic institutions and human rights, access to information, and migration of large numbers of people. psychology, too, has become more globalized in form and scope and in its standards for competent and ethical practice, as psychologists operate in ever more diverse and rapidly changing environments (stevens & gielen, 2007). differences in countries’ ecological systems and cultural worldv iews pose challenges for globalization and the globalizing of psychology, with increasing interconnectedness opposed by a movement favoring localization. how might the seemingly contradictory forces of globalization and localization (universalism vs. particularism) manifest with regard to implementation of the universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists (ad hoc joint committee, 2008)? the universal declaration was conceived in 2002 as common moral framework that would inspire and guide psychologists worldwide toward the highest ethical ideals in their professional activ ities. the objectives of the universal declaration are to prov ide general principles that function as a template in the development and rev ision of national ethics codes, as a standard that the global psychology community can use in evaluating the moral relevance of ethics codes, and as a basis for psychologists to resolve allegations of ethical impropriety. the international union of psychological science (iupsys) and international association of applied psychology (iaap) established and charged an ad hoc committee with the responsibility of developing a set of universal ethical principles for psychologists. the committee included authorities on psychological ethics from canada, china, colombia, finland, germany, i ran, new zealand, singapore, united states, and zimbabwe. in constructing he universal declaration, the committee http://www.ejop.org/ etic and emic in contemporary psychological ethics 2 plumbed historical documents from eastern and western civ ilizations in order to identify the moral foundation of ethical principles, rev iewed widely accepted protections of human rights (e.g., the u.n. declaration of human rights) to ascertain their underlying moral imperatives, examined ethics codes in diverse disciplines to deduce their shared principles, compared national ethics codes in psychology, and consulted, discussed, and moderated focus groups to refine the content and wording of multiple drafts. the universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists was approved by the iupsys and iaap in 2008 (ad hoc joint committee, 2008). the four principles that comprise the universal declaration are grounded in shared human values, written in generic language, and avoid the prescription of specific standards of conduct as these are to be established by each country’s code of psychological ethics. the principles of the universal declaration include: i . respect for the dignity of persons and peoples ii. competent caring for the well-being of persons and peoples iii . integrity iv. professional and scientific responsibilities to society there is broad consensus that the discipline of psychology is situated in culture, history, philosophy, politics, and religion, and hence must be understood from an ecological perspective (stevens & gielen, 2007). likewise, ethics codes in psychology emerge from a complex interaction of micro and macro events and forces, ultimately reflecting the values and traditions of the normative systems in which they are constituted (stevens, 2008). and yet, psychologists have painstakingly crafted and recently adopted a set of universal guidelines for the ethical practice of scientific and applied psychology. the juxtaposition of the universal declaration with a perspectival framework for understanding psychology as a situated discipline raises at least two important issues regarding national ethics codes in psychology and the professional conduct of psychologists in their local milieu: 1. is it possible for a country’s psychological ethics code to mirror universal principles while at the same time embracing local norms; conversely, to what extent are universal principles and local norms irreconcilable? 2. what variables predict whether psychologists from culturally diverse countries accept, reject, or respond ambivalently to universal ethical principles as they engage in professional activ ities locally? europe’s journal of psychology 3 an informal approach to establishing the cultural sensitiv ity and cross-cultural applicability of the universal declaration would be to estimate the position of each ethical principle along the continuum of geert hofstede’s (2001) b ipolar dimensions of culture. hofstede proposed that cultures vary along five value dimensions: indiv idualism-collectiv ism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinityfemininity, and time orientation (short-term vs. long-term). such an informal analysis follows. the values associated with principle i on respect for the dignity and worth of persons and peoples urge that, “all communities and cultures adhere to moral values that respect and protect their members both as indiv idual persons and as collective peoples.” this aspiration is more likely to be realized in cultures that are neither indiv idualistic nor collectiv istic, but rather mixed on this dimension. principle ii on the competent caring for the well-being of persons and peoples is described thusly: “competent caring… involves maximizing benefits, minimizing potential harm, and offsetting or correcting harm.” these goals seem compatible with cultures that are more feminine and have a longer time orientation. the values undergirding principle iii on integrity hold that, “integrity is based on honesty, and on truthful, open and accurate communications… complete openness and disclosure of information must be balanced with other ethical considerations…” these values align with cultures that tend toward lower power distance and greater femininity. the value-statements linked to principle iv on professional and scientific responsibilities to society assert that, “as a science and profession, it [psychology] has responsibilities to society. these responsibilities include…encouraging the development of social structures and policies that benefit all persons and peoples.” this statement comports with cultures inclined toward collectiv ism, high power distance, and a long-term perspective. the above informal analysis suggest that, although it may be possible for national ethics codes in psychology to be written in such a way as to balance the ethical principles of the universal declaration with local norms, such a balance will be a challenge to achieve. i t is worth noting that the exercise of placing each universal ethical principle along hofstede’s (2001) dimensions of culture yields fairly consistent outcomes when other typologies of culture are substituted, including alan fiske’s (1992) forms of social reality, harry triandis’ (1994) cultural syndromes, and fons trompennars’ dimensions of culture (trompenaars & hampden-turner, 1998). furthermore, the upshot of this informal analysis raises the prospect that psychologists operating in certain countries may encounter ethical-cultural dilemmas in carrying out their professional activ ities depending on the degree to which the ethical principles of the universal declaration conform to cultural norms. how are the sources of ethical compliance in v ivo? etic and emic in contemporary psychological ethics 4 ronald ingelhart and wayne baker (2000) have orchestrated the world values survey, which measures the attitudes, beliefs, and values of representative samples from 65 countries that account for 75% of the world’s population. two bipolar dimensions were extracted from the survey, namely authority and values. authority represents a continuum ranging from traditional (i.e., absolutism) to secular/rational (i.e., relativ ism), whereas values runs the gamut from surv ival (i.e., distrust) to self expression (i.e., trust). these dimensions can be crossed to locate countries in a four celled matrix that has been used to argue that cultural heritage leaves an enduring imprint that moderates the pathways which countries take in response to modernization (both marx and weber were right!). ingelhart and baker’s (2000) typology created by crossing authority with values can also serve as a basis from which to generate predictions about the responses of psychologists, who are fulfilling professional roles at the local level, to exhortations to adopt universal ethical principles. specifically, acceptance of universal ethics as an aspirational guideline for situated professional practice would seem more likely in countries that are characterized as secular/rational in authority and self-expressive in values (i.e., relativ istic and trusting); psychologists from the nations of oceania and western europe may experience little or no ethical-cultural conflict in operating within the framework of the universal declaration (e.g., germany, new zealand). rejection of universal ethics appears more probable in countries that are more traditional in authority and surv ival-oriented in values (i.e., absolutist and distrustful); psychologists from african and south-asian nations, may find overwhelming normative contradictions in the ethical ideals advocated by the universal declaration (e.g., nigeria, pakistan). ambivalence toward the application of universal ethics in professional practice should be confined to countries located in the two remaining quadrants of the four-fold typology, that is, secular/rational in authority and surv ival-oriented in values (i.e., relativ istic and distrustful) or traditional in authority and self-expressive in values (i.e., absolutist and trusting); psychologists from eastern europe and latin america may experience uncertainty in how to reconcile the equally persuasive yet competing demands presented by the universal declaration and local normative systems (e.g., russia, argentina). interestingly, psychologists in china and the united states would be expected to feel ambivalently, but for different reasons (china = secular/rational in authority x surv ivaloriented in values; usa = traditional in authority x self-expressive in values). for example, although respect for the indiv idual is more strongly worded in the current iteration of china’s code of ethics for counseling and clinical practice (chinese psychological society, 2007), it reminds psychologists of their ethical duties to advance social harmony and v iolate confidentiality when mandated by federal europe’s journal of psychology 5 law. how might chinese psychologists respond to the dissonance triggered by the balance between person and society promulgated by the universal declaration versus the confucian v irtues and communist doctrine mirrored in the chinese code? application of ingelhart and baker’s (2000) typology to the task of predicting acceptance, rejection, or ambivalence toward the universal declaration by psychologists practicing in different national and cultural milieus prov ides a platform through which to understand how the forces of globalization and localization may facilitate or temper current trends in psychological ethics. other approaches offer attractive theoretical structures with which to examine convergent and divergent cross-national responses to the local implementation of universal ethics. these include fathali moghaddam’s social reducton theory (moghaddam & harré, 1996), which explains resistance to rapid institutional change in terms of entrenched normative systems that inform locally valid customs, and michael harris bond’s social axioms, which represent culture-level beliefs and expectations that act as recipes for daily liv ing. bond et al. (2004) have identified two social axioms, which like ingelhart and baker’s dimensions can be transformed into a four-fold typology: dynamic externality, linked to collectiv ism, conservatism, hierarchy, and low national development, and societal cynicism, representing a pervasive mistrust of social systems. while rapid globalization has weakened national boundaries and diversified populations, local normative systems persist, at times growing stronger in the face of perceived threats to cherished values and customs (bond et al., 2004; ingelhart & baker, 2000; moghaddam & harré, 1996). although the universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists (ad hoc joint committee, 2008) is neither a worldwide code of ethics nor a global code of conduct, its principles reflect values that to varying degrees may be impossible to incorporate into a particular country’s psychological ethics code. with psychologists increasingly employed as scientists, practitioners, instructors, and consultants across cultures and countries (stevens & gielen, 2007), the universal declaration can inspire and guide efforts to ensure that such diverse activ ities are responsive to the ecological conditions in which they occur. notwithstanding the inclusiveness with which the universal declaration was constructed and the subsequent design of a culturally sensitive model for applying it to the development or modification of national ethics codes (see gauthier, pettifor, & ferrero, 2010), only future research, perhaps along the lines presented in this editorial, will determine its broad suitability and probability of being implemented in the practice of psychology. the universal declaration can be said to rest on a tenet of omniculturalism (moghaddam, 2009), wherein indiv iduals ideally acquire a primary identity based on shared meanings and practices as well as secondary identities etic and emic in contemporary psychological ethics 6 composed of narrower in-group worldv iews, with clashes between identities resolved by prevailing universal values. history is replete with the short-sightedness of such thinking. references: ad hoc joint committee. (2008). universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists. retrieved from http://www.am.org/iupsys/ethics/univdecl2008.html bond, m. h., leung, k., au, a., tong, k.-k., de carrasquel, s., murakami, f., …lewis, j. r. (2004). culture-level dimensions of social axioms and their correlates across 41 countries. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 35, 548-570. doi:10.1177/0022022104268388 chinese psychological society. (2007). code of ethics for counseling and clinical practice. retrieved from http://www.am.org/iupsys/ethics/ethic-com-natl-list.html hofstede, g. (2001). culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. fiske, a. p. (1992). the four elements of sociality: framework for a unified theory of social relations. psychological review, 99, 689-723. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.99.4.689 gauthier, j., pettifor, j., & ferrero, a. (2010). the universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists: a culture-sensitive model for creating and reviewing a code of ethics. ethics and behavior, 20(3&4), 1-18. ingelhart, r., & baker, w. e. (2000). modernization, cultural change and the persistance of traditional values. american sociological review, 65, 19-51. doi:10.2307/2657288 moghaddam, f. m. (2009). commentary. omniculturalism: policy solutions to fundamentalism in the era of fractured globalization. culture and psychology, 15, 337347. doi:10.1177/1354067x09337867 moghaddam, f. m., & harré, r. (1996). psychological limits to political revolutions: an application of social reducton theory. in e. hasselberg, l. martienssen, & f. radtke (eds.), der dialogbegriff am ende des 20 jahrhunderts [the concept of dialogue at the end of the 20th century] (pp. 230-240). berlin: hegel institute. stevens, m. j. (2008). professional ethics in multicultural and international context. in u. p. gielen, j. g. draguns, & j. m. fish (eds.), principles of multicultural counseling and therapy (pp. 135-166). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022104268388 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2657288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354067x09337867 europe’s journal of psychology 7 stevens, m. j., & gielen, u. p. (eds.). (2007). toward a global psychology: theory, research, interventions, and pedagogy. mahwah, nj: erlbaum. triandis, h. c. (1994). culture and social behavior. new york: mcgraw-hill. trompenaars, f., & hampden-turner, c. (1998). riding the waves of culture: understanding diversity in global business (2nd ed.). new york: mcgraw-hill. about the author: michael j. stevens is a professor of psychology at i llinois state university, where he directed the master’s program in counseling psychology and was named outstanding university researcher. he also is an honorary professor at the lucian blaga university of sibiu in romania, where he received a doctor honoris causa. in 1995 dr. stevens was awarded a fulbright grant to teach the first graduating class of romanian psychologists since psychology education had been banned by the ceausescu regime. dr. stevens has served as president of the apa’s div ision of international psychology and director-at-large of the international council of psychologists. he is a fellow of the apa. his interest in international psychology has led to the handbook of international psychology (2004), toward a global psychology: theory, research, intervention, and pedagogy (2007), teaching psychology around the world: vol. 2. (2009), psychology: iupsys global resource (2005-2009), and the oxford international handbook of psychological ethics (in press). he writes and presents on as well as teaches psychological ethics. address for correspondence: michael j. stevens, department of psychology, i llinois state university, campus box 4620, normal, il 61790-4620, usa e-mail: mjsteven@ilstu.edu mailto:mjsteven@ilstu.edu effects of group cultural differences on task peformance and socialization behaviours simonas audickas vytautas magnus university, lithuania charles davis edgewood college, usa magda szczepańska university of lodz, poland abstract drawing on hofstede’s theory and research, this study examined the hypothesis that differences in cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity will influence the level of task performance and socialization. swedes (individualists) and greeks (collectivists) were assigned to two separate groups. in the first phase of the experiment the two groups were homogenous – consisting of 3 participants from each of the cultures (3 swedes, 3 greeks). their task was to put together a 54 piece puzzle. both homogenous groups were timed and observed separately. the next step was to bring in two heterogeneous (ethnically mixed) groups. for this purpose the size of each homogeneous group was increased to 6 participants by assigning one american, canadian and german representative. their task was to put together a larger, 300 piece puzzle within a certain time frame of 25 minutes. individual and group responses were measured using a fine-grained checklist. the hypotheses were: 1) homogenous individualistic group would finish the task faster than the homogenous collectivistic group. 2) heterogeneous individualistic group will finish the task faster than heterogeneous collectivistic group. 3) collectivists will be more socially interactive than individualists. in this research hypotheses 1 and 3 were supported, whereas hypothesis 2 was not. the implications for future research are that individualism/collectivism and homogeneity/heterogeneity of a group may have an influence on group dynamics as it relates to task performance. introduction according to hofstede’s (1980) monumental study of more than 60,000 ibm workers, consisting of various ethnicities, he extracted four cultural dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism and masculinity. many people have done extensive research and written several articles about these four cultural dimensions, which have paved the way for culturally sensitive approaches in various fields including business, education, and health care. moreover, through understanding the implications of these cultural dimensions, many organizations (domestic and international) have become more effective in communication, productivity, and competitiveness. the primary cultural dimension that we directed our attention towards was that of individualism/collectivism. we chose this cultural dimension in light of their differences of task performance and socialization behaviours. in a general sense, individualism refers to a culture’s tendency to be competitive and focused more on “individual success” versus group success. as it relates to task performance and socialization behaviours, individualists are considered to be task-oriented, thus primarily focused on completing the task with a competitive edge. socialization behaviours for individualists are exemplified in their emphasis on identifying distinctions and complementary skills, to maintain autonomy and independence in group-based working relationships that they view as temporary and self-serving (lincoln, hanada, and mcbride, 1986). in other words, it can be deductively reasoned that individualists are less socially interactive in a group setting as compared to collectivists. conversely, collectivism is generally group orientated, particularly in-group orientated. moreover, collectivists are known to be self-sacrificing toward in–group members and thus more focused on group success versus individual success. another fundamental aspect of collectivism is the extent to which they value interdependence and affiliation in long-term relationships (breer and locke, 1965). according to triandis, “people in collectivist cultures pay more attention to context (emotional expressions, touching, distance between bodies, body orientation, level of voice, and eye-contact). we used this cultural profile to speculate that collectivists are more prone to socialization behaviours (e.g. more socializing, looking at each other, and laughing), which we hypothesized to render collectivists to be less task oriented. to put this in perspective, the research undertaken should be focused primarily on three theoretical dimensions: homogeneity vs. heterogeneity; high-low contact; and highlow context. the role that homogeneity versus heterogeneity plays in group socialization and task performance are of key importance to our research. according to john j. sosik and dong i. jung, their conception of “functional heterogeneity” is as follows: “…represents group members’ perceptions about the diversity of various functional experiences and skills of other group members.” those perceptions are important given the increased diversity (cox et al., 1991) and delegation of decision-making tasks (campion, medsker, and higgs, 1993) in organizations, because a wide range of skills, competencies, and knowledge are required for such initiatives. it has been argued that functional heterogeneity among individualists is more exaggerated than collectivists. individualists see such perceived diversity in group members as a way of bringing to the group unique qualities and multiple perspectives on problem solving (eisenhardt and tabrizi, 1995). collectivists, on the other hand, emphasize shared values, similarities, and commonness among group members; hence, it can be deduced that they prefer homogeneous groups than heterogeneous groups. the results of john j. sosik and dong i. jung’s research confirmed that there were higher levels of functional heterogeneity among individualists than collectivists. it was also concluded that individualists encouraged group members to focus on the task rather than on social and interpersonal relations. we used this research to hypothesize that collectivists will perform to a lesser degree than the individualists, especially in a heterogeneous group, consisting of 3 greeks defined as collectivists (hofstede, 1980) and 3 persons from cultures defined as individualistic (german, american, canadian). furthermore, we hypothesized that because the collectivists are more socially oriented it will take them longer to finish the task. high-low contact is another cultural variable that is a distinguishing factor among individualists and collectivists, especially as it relates to geographic location. high contact cultures are usually located in countries that are closer to the equator and have warmer climates (triandis, 1994). as was aluded to earlier, high contact cultures, i.e. collectivists, have a general tendency to be more expressive of emotions, touching, and close social distance (hall, 1996). these aspects of high contact cultures coincide with collectivist’s tendency to prefer homogenous (in-group) work and high levels of socialization. conversely, low-contact cultures, i.e. individualists, are generally located in cooler climates and exemplify several opposing behaviours of collectivists: less emotionally expressive, more social distance, and generally more socially interactive. as a result of these cultural variables for low-contact cultures, we concluded that individualists would be more task oriented and less social; thus rendering them more effective in the respective task. high-low context, in many ways, is closely related to high-low contact. the only difference between them is that high-low context relates to the message that is being conveyed through verbalization or non-verbalization (paralinguistics and body language). high-context cultures are ones in which the meaning of a message is understood implicitly (e.g. generally misinterpreted by people outside of the in-group). low-context cultures differ in that the message is conveyed explicitly; hence the meaning is much clearer. in conclusion, we derived three main hypotheses that we believe can be directly related to the three cultural variables (homogeneity/heterogeneity, high-low contact, and high-low context) to a significant degree: 1) the homogenous swedish group will complete the task faster because they are an individualistic culture (i.e., task oriented); whereas the homogenous greek group will take more time to finish the task in that they are collectivistic (i.e., less task oriented and more social). 2) the heterogeneous individualistic group will finish the task faster than heterogeneous collectivistic group 3) the heterogeneous greek group will be more socially interactive versus the swedish group, which will be less socially interactive. method participants our experiment consisted of 12 students of various ethnicities at växjö university. there were 3 swedes, 3 greeks, 2 americans, 2 canadians and 2 germans. the mean age was 23.7 (sd=5.99). the mean gender demographic was 67% male and 33% female. there were 9 persons from individualistic cultures and 3 persons from collectivistic cultures (hofstede, 1980). each participant volunteered and was randomly assigned to two groups. each group consisted of 6 participants. materials/apparatus the two main instruments for our experiment were two jigsaw puzzles (54 and 300 pieces, respectively) and a video recorder, which we used to record each session. the puzzles were located in the middle of the table and were not accessible until we began timing. the video recorder was situated in the corner of the room to make it possible to view each participant. we also made observations from an adjacent room with a two-way mirror to ensure that we would interpret the recordings accurately. design the independent variables were the culture (individualistic or collectivistic) and the type of group (homogenous vs. heterogeneous), whereas the dependent variables were the behaviours (social referencing, touching, looking, silence, smiling, and content of verbalization)*. social referencing= initiating, responding/initiating, and response; touching= touching the puzzle and passing the pieces among the group; silence= absence of verbal socialization; smiling= smiling or laughing; content of verbalization= task verbalization or social verbalization. our checklist measured the frequency and duration of these various social behaviours. for instance, touching (as defined below) is measured through how many a time a participant comes into contact with a piece of puzzle. conversely, silence is measured in regards to duration (e.g. how long they were silent). there were two sets of groups: homogenous and heterogeneous. homogeneity refers to person(s) from the same culture compared to heterogeneity, referring to person(s) from different cultures. for the two homogenous groups there were 3 swedes and 3 greeks. each were separately given the task of completing a 54 piece puzzle in 5 minutes, specifically used as a baseline to measure the difference in task performance. the two heterogeneous groups were comprised of 3 swedes and 3 non-swedes (1 german, 1 canadian, and 1 american). the other heterogeneous group consisted of 3 greeks and 3 non-greeks (1german, 1 canadian, and 1 american). it is important to note that the swedish heterogeneous group, at least theoretically, is heterogeneous than greek. according to hofstede, swedes, canadians, germans, and americans are all individualistic cultures, however, it’s important to mention, that individualism and collectivism is a continuous dimension and its level in every country varies. consequently, we felt it necessary to define homogeneity and heterogeneity in these terms. each heterogeneous group was given 25 minutes to complete as much of the puzzle as possible (neither group finished). we measured the difference by counting how many of the pieces of the puzzle were connected. the checklist was created to measure specific task and social behaviours. using this checklist, we began by taking 2-minute segments as a reliability test to measure whether we were observing a corresponding phenomenon. the agreement among our group was over 90%, at which point we decided to observe three six minute segments of recording for each heterogeneous group. for another reliability test, we observed one six-minute segment that had already been observed by one of our group members. procedure the instructions given to each participant was generally the same for both the homogenous and heterogeneous group. the only instruction that differed between the groups were as follows: the homogenous group were allowed to speak in their native language; the heterogeneous group were asked to speak only in english. after entering the room each participant was asked to not begin touching the puzzle until timing begins and to stay behind the table, so that we could record and observe them. we also told them how much time they were being given to accomplish the task: 5 minutes for homogenous group and 25 minutes for heterogeneous group. the time given depended on the complexity of the task. when the time was complete we entered the room and told them to leave all the pieces of the puzzle in their exact location. results according to our first hypothesis, we conjectured that the homogenous swedish group would finish the task faster than the homogenous greek group. the results show that there was a difference in task performance: swedes (54 puzzle in 4,58 min), greeks (54 puzzle in 5,36 min), which results in a 38 second difference. we used this comparison as the baseline for our research in regards to individualismcollectivism task performance. to test for the differences and similarities between the heterogeneous groups we performed pearson’s correlation (table 1) to see whether there is relationship between the variables that are significant for our study, and to test significant cultural differences between swedes and greeks, we performed the independent sample t-test (table 2). table 1: pearson's correlation * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). we have chosen to state the correlation between two types of verbalization and other variables. according to our hypotheses, we speculated that social verbalization would detract from participants’ task performance. as our results have shown there was a general phenomenon of social verbalization among all participants (n=12). in the table of correlations we concluded that people look at each other when they are verbalizing about the task r=.645, p we should mention that we did not find any significant differences between the non-groups (non-swedes and non-greeks). they were tested on the same variables but did not show statistically significant differences and in this part we are not going to mention their results. table 2: show significant differences between swedes and greeks. significant differences between swedes and greeks are represented with a star (*). each respective variable differs at various levels of significance. we say that a small number of degrees of freedom led us to consider the significant level of 0,1. in respect to what we found about individuals working in heterogeneous groups, greek people are more socially verbal in comparison to swedes t(4)= -2,186, p as we further hypothesized, the collectivist group (greek) would be more socially verbal than the individualist group (swedes). we anticipated that the collectivists’ extent of social verbalization would hamper their task performance. the final results contradicted what we expected to find, i.e. less task performance for collectivist’s due to socialization. instead we found that although the collectivist group was more socially interactive this it did not negatively affect their task performance. the heterogeneous swedish group put together 105 pieces, while the greek heterogeneous group put together 128 pieces within the 25 minutes. discussion our first hypothesis was merely a baseline, which was in agreement with hofstede and hall’s research about individualism/collectivism, and how it relates to task performance. third hypothesis was confirmed, again in agreement with their conception of socialization between individualist and collectivist cultures. however, the second hypothesis: heterogeneous individualistic group will finish the task faster than heterogeneous collectivistic was not supported. the results were that the heterogeneous greek group completed more pieces of the puzzle than the heterogeneous swedish group. as was substantiated in the baseline, we anticipated that the heterogeneous greek group would have a lower level of task performance than the heterogeneous swedish group. our statistics showed that the greeks were more socially interactive than the swedes (t-test), which we erroneously reasoned would cause them to complete less of the task. an interpretation of this could be that the greeks fostered a more effective social climate, i.e. more laughing, smiling, initiating conversation, and other social verbalizations. it might be also a consequence of greeks’ motivation to achieve, as a group, the best possible results within the time limit. moreover, this social climate also may have been the catalyst for group cooperation, which was observed in the frequency of passing pieces of the puzzle among the other group members. conversely, the heterogeneous swedish group was less socially interactive (t-test) and seemingly more focused on the task. the lower levels of social interaction were also confirmed in the duration of silence for the swedes. in regards to social climate, the heterogeneous swedish group seemed to be more stressed and less cooperative. some of the behaviours observed were frequently touching the face (perhaps a sign of anxiety/nervousness), using profane language, and more individual work. another aspect that is important to consider, which was discussed in the introduction, is that of homogeneity/heterogeneity. according to the research that we cited, individualistic cultures prefer working with heterogeneous groups more so than collectivist cultures. the problem that we encountered was that the heterogeneous swedish group was not necessarily heterogeneous, i.e. the three other cultures were individualistic, respectively. in this way, we were not able to accurately measure how swede’s would potentially work within a true heterogeneous group as was possible with the greeks. it is important to mention that there is a wide range of individualists and collectivists. it is fallacious to think that the myriad of cultures can be categorized into two cultural dimensions, individualism and collectivism. the individualist’s that we observed were from sweden, germany, canada, and america. although this group shares the same cultural dimension of individualism, it does not account for their differences: language, culture, history, politics, etc. the collectivist group performance should also be explained in light of the variation of collectivist dimension. most of the articles that we used for our research often compared the two extremes of the individualism/collectivism continuum: united states versus japan or korea. it is inconceivable to think that there are no differences between japan or korea and greece. as was mentioned earlier, this cultural dimension does not account for each country’s language, culture, history, politics, etc. individualism/collectivism is more appropriately understood in terms of a continuum than two separate categories. in other words, for both individualist and collectivist cultures one should not be surprised to find aspects of this cultural dimension in the differing culture, (e.g. swedes have a tendency to collectivism; greeks have a tendency to individualism). the impact that globalisation has had on the world and the ability to travel across the globe renders modern cultures to inevitably adopt values, norms, and such from different cultures. hence, one will be able to witness aspects of individualism/collectivism either through mainstream or subculture. the results of our experiment are in many ways task dependent. it was not until after the experiment that we realized that depending on the type of task, (e.g. individual oriented or group oriented) that it would favour one group over the other. this is one explanation why the greek heterogeneous group was more effective than the swedish heterogeneous group. according to the theories that we used to formulate our hypotheses, individualists prefer individual oriented work (but do not mind working in groups, especially heterogeneous ones) compared to collectivists’ preference for group-oriented work (especially the more in collectivist cultures such as japan, korea, etc). however, the results may also suggest that cultural diversity in a group contributes to its’ more efficient work. group size is another factor that inhibited our research from yielding significant results. that is not to say that the group size was not optimal (ideally, group size should be between 5-8 persons depending on the task). at the same time, it is hard to generalize the results for each group. thus we used higher levels of significance to show similarities and/or differences. furthermore, we had to use a fine-grained checklist to be as accurate as possible. along the same line of thought, we concluded that in order to have accurate results that the experiment should be replicated at least twice. we were under two restraints in regards to replication: time and participants. the problem was the coordination of these two variables, especially at the end of the semester. the implications for our research relate to the way culture influences task performance among heterogeneous groups. it also opposes the inductive reasoning that talking inhibits task performance. we found that verbalizing and task performance can occur simultaneously and does not have a negative affect on the task performance. on the contrary, it is likely to create a more conducive work environment that generates more productivity. in a broad sense, this is a good example of how diversity can be a positive influence in the work environment, (e.g. globalisation and out-sourcing). further research could invert the experiment and observe how collectivist cultures task performance and socialization behaviours are demonstrated in an individualistic task. it will also be interesting to have a homogeneous collectivist group versus a homogeneous individualistic group (theoretically homogenous), which was the case for our experiment. references albert, d. r., (2004). latino/anglo-american differences in attributions to situations involving touch and silence. international journal of intercultural relations,28, 253 – 280. breer, p. e., & locke, e. a. (1965). task experience: a source of attitudes. homewood, il:dorsey press. campion, a. m., medsker, j. g., & higgs, a. c. (1993). relations between work group characteristics and effectiveness: implications for designing effective work groups. personnel psychology, 46, 823-850. cox, t.h., lobel, s.a.& mcleod, p.l., (1991). effects of ethnic group cultural differences on cooperative and competitive behaviour on group task. academy of management journal, 34, 827 – 847. eisenhardt, k. m., & tabrizi, b. n. (1995). accelerating adaptive processes: product innovation in the global computer industry. administrative science quarterly, 40, 84-110. hall, e. t. (1988). the hidden dimensions of time and space in today’s world. in f.poyatos (ed), cross-cultural perspectives in nonverbal communication (pp. 145-152).goettingen, germany: hogrefe and huber. hofstede, g. (1991). cultures and organizations: software of the mind. london: mcgraw hill. lincoln, j. r., hanada, m., & mcbride, k. (1986). organizational structures in japanese and u.s. manufacturing. administrative science quarterly, 31, 338-364. triandis, h. c., (1994). culture and social behavior. london: mcgraw – hill inc. microsoft word 4. cbct research.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp. 31-40 www.ejop.org the efficacy of cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy (cbct) on marital adjustment of ptsd–diagnosed combat veterans khodabakhsh ahmady gholamreza karami sima noohi arastoo mokhtari hamide gholampour ali-akbar rahimi behavioral sciences research center, baquiatallah university of medical sciences abstract background: impaired marital adjustment has been introduced as one major complication of ptsd. there are controversial results about the role of cognitive behavioral couple's therapy (cbct) on improvement of marital adjustment of ptsd veterans; the efficacy of cbct on marital adjustment improvement is questioned in some studies and also there are no similar researches about the affect of cbct on marital adjustment, conducted among middle eastern ptsd veterans. these factors motivated us to perform and evaluate our cbct protocol among iranian combat veterans. methods: we enrolled 60 ptsd veterans with low degrees of marital adjustment. they were randomly distributed into intervention and control groups. both groups have been evaluated for marital adjustment by means of enrich scale before and after intervention and the results were analyzed by manova test. results: the analysis was based on difference of t2 and t1 (t2-t1) where the mean of t2-t1 was -2.63 for control group and 44.9 for intervention group, sum of squares 69552.7, f=95.4 and sig.�000.1. conclusion: this shows that the prevalence of marital maladjustment is high among ptsd veterans (43%) and the efficacy of cbct was significant both for veterans themselves and their spouses. introduction post traumatic stress disorder is one of the major psychiatric disorders among combat veterans. various studies have shown that 9% to 24% of war veterans suffer from ptsd. ptsd by itself has potentially symptoms that may deteriorate the quality europe’s journal of psychology 32 of life among veterans and their family members including their partners or spouses. apart from ptsd common symptoms, there are some complications that play a major role in their lifestyle and family life. one of the most common manifestations of ptsd is impaired marital adjustment and chronic marital distress. in studies of solomon, the relationship between ptsd and marital intimacy among war veterans has been highlighted (solomon et al., 2008). in a study that was performed among male american soldiers who returned from a military deployment to iraq and afghanistan and their female spouses or partners, the impact of individual trauma symptoms on relationship satisfaction has been studied. their results suggest that individual trauma symptoms negatively impact relationship satisfactions in military couples in which the husbands has been exposed to war trauma (goff et al., 2007). in a research 179 couples who were seeking relationship therapy at a veterans’ affairs clinic in usa have been studied. domestic violence rates were much higher in combat related ptsd group than the control group (sherman et al., 2006). one of our previous studies explained that sexual dysfunction as a component of marital maladjustment is significantly associated with ptsd (ahmadi et al., 2006). it can be realized that marital satisfaction as well as relationship intimacy and practice of violence in relationships are major co morbidities in ptsd patients. on the other hand the role of cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) appears now to be quite important in management of marital maladjustment of ptsd patients. one of its widely used modalities is cognitive behavioral couple's therapy (cbct). cognitive behavioral couple's therapy refers to cognitive therapy sessions that focus on the patient and his/her partner and their inter-personal relationship helping them to solve their problems; in the same time it supplies the couple with behavioral strategies which can help them to come up with their possible future complexes. in other words, the main goal of this method is not only problem solving but instructing the couple how they can confront new problems. different aspects of cbct such as education about ptsd, communication training, anger control and problem solving can improve the marital relationship of veterans and their partners (details of our cbct protocol is discussed in methods). in one study couples in which the husband was diagnosed with ptsd secondary to vietnam combat experiences were subject to cbct. after the completion of treatment, veterans reported substantial improvement in their ptsd symptoms. although their female partners reported improved relationship satisfaction, the veterans' degree of satisfaction was unchanged across the treatment (monson et al., 2004). in another study the role of cbct was compared between a group of ptsd patients with co morbid substance use disorder (sud) and isolated substance use disorder. efficacy of cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy 33 the study revealed that after completion of cbct, the ptsd group had improved relationship satisfaction and reduction in drinking and male to female violence (rotunda et al., 2008). there are also studies which had been performed among us service members who returned from afghanistan that illustrate the role of integrative behavioral couple's therapy (ibct) in conflict reduction and intimacy improvement of combat veterans (erbes et al., 2008). as mentioned previously, cognitive behavioral couple's therapy is a modality of treatment for relationship and marital satisfaction of ptsd veterans. there is little evidence about the efficacy of this method (cbct) in middle eastern combat veterans. on the other hand the efficacy of cbct is still controversial in improvement of veterans' relationship satisfaction. as mentioned earlier in monsen's study which was conducted among american soldiers in vietnam, the cbct method may improve the ptsd symptoms in veterans without any effects on veteran's marital satisfaction. also it is not enough clear if the method can affect both the veteran and his spouse equally. these factors besides the interest in studying our own cbct protocol motivated us to study both the prevalence of marital maladjustment in ptsd veterans and the efficacy of cbct in improving relationship satisfaction among iranian ptsd veterans. materials and methods the study was performed as a randomized clinical trial (rct) and in the same time descriptive. we intended to realize the prevalence of marital dissatisfaction among ptsd veterans in the descriptive component and the efficacy of cbct was studied in a randomized clinical trial study. for our study we enrolled all combat veterans of iraq – iran war who had documented history of ptsd and had been admitted to tehran's two major veterans’ affairs clinics, baqiyatallah and sadr hospitals, between 2007 and 2008. the inclusion criteria were: a) being a documented veteran with post traumatic stress disorder and b) having been married at least for 3 years. we excluded veterans with spinal cord injuries or any other injuries that let them prone to sexual dysfunction. opium addict individuals were also excluded from the study. a number of 100 veterans with diagnosed ptsd and their spouses were subject to enrich marital adjustment test (olson 1993; fowlers 1993), where 60 couples europe’s journal of psychology 34 gained scores below 175 which means not having optimum marital satisfaction. these 60 couples were the sample group across the clinical trial. the couples were randomly distributed in 2 groups; intervention has been performed by means of 16 to 18 sessions of cbct in a 6 month period. the cbct protocol consists of five levels and the main goals of the method is achieved at the end of 5th level. first level (3 sessions) goes to orientation and general evaluation of the patient and his partner. on the second level (2 sessions) education of the couple is the main idea; in this phase the couple learns about ptsd and its complications, helping them to know their expectations. the third level refers to communication training and is performed in 3 sessions. the partners learn how to express their feelings and ideas. the forth level (2 sessions) focuses on anger control and helps the couple to use anger in a positive manner. the last but not the least level is associated with problem solving abilities and needs 6 to 8 weeks in order to supply the couple with strategies and techniques of confronting new possible problems. partners try to practice the techniques between the sessions and talk about their outcomes. the assessment of the extent of marital dissatisfaction was performed using enrich scale (olson 1993; fowlers 1993). this consists of 115 questions about different aspects of marital adjustment and includes conventionality, marital satisfaction and its subgroups. marital satisfaction has 10 different parameters including personality issues, marital communication, conflict resolution, financial management, sexual relationship, leisure activities, parenting, friends, equalitarian role and religious orientation. we tried to work on all components of marital satisfaction but as the main idea of study implies, marital communication, conflict resolution ability, personality issues and sexual relationships were highlighted across the study. in fact we intended to evaluate these very fine inter personal issues during the study and also to assess our main goal of conflict resolution. in other words, financial management for example was not so important for us during our cbct sessions as conflict resolution was because the couple's chief complaints were not the financial management but their inter-personal conflicts. the validity index for this questionnaire was 0.85-0.95 which is an acceptable level of validity (fowlers, 1989). in order for assessing the severity of ptsd, ptsd check list (pcl) was applied. the pcl-90-r is arranged according to dsm-sv-tr criteria for ptsd (american psychiatric association, 2005) and includes 17 sections, where the severity of symptoms can be validated in each of these 17 aspects. kronbach's alpha is 0.87 for this questionnaire. the veterans in both groups have been assessed for marital satisfaction and ptsd before and after taking the cbct protocol. manova test has been performed for post-test and pre-test differences to evaluate the efficacy of intervention. all data were analyzed using spss. efficacy of cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy 35 results our results are reported in three major sections. demographic statistics come first. then the prevalence of marital dissatisfaction would be reported as the outcome of the descriptive component of our study and finally the results of our intervention will be discussed. concerning demographic data (table 1), 60 couples were studied, and the mean age of veterans was (41.4 ± 4.2) years. the minimum age was 34 and the maximum age was 54 years old. the average years of being married was 17.5 ± 5.9 years. the mean age of veterans' spouses was 36.5 ± 5.4, where the minimum and maximum were 29 and 51 respectively. the mean duration of attending the warfront was 35.7 months and the mean ptsd score of veterans according to ptsd check list was 27 with the minimum of 15 and maximum score of 46. table 1. demographic data minimum maximum mean standard deviation veteran’s age ( years) 34 54 41.4 4.2 spouse’s age ( years) 29 51 36.5 5.4 marriage duration (years) 3 36 17.5 5.9 warfront attendance(months) 2 120 35.7 25.7 ptsd severity (ptsd index) 15 46 27 9.8 about the general prevalence of marital dissatisfaction among ptsd veterans, the results indicate that of all 100 ptsd diagnosed veterans, 11 had severe marital dissatisfaction, 32 veterans had moderate marital dissatisfaction and 55 veterans reported to be relatively satisfied with their marital relationships. only 2 veterans had optimum marital satisfaction where none of the veterans enjoyed superior marital satisfaction (table 2). this illustrates that about 43% of ptsd veterans are absolutely dissatisfied with their marital relationship and 55% percent have borderline marital satisfaction. ���� europe’s journal of psychology 36 table 2. marital adjustment among veterans and their spouses1 � degree of marital satisfaction veterans spouses sum severe dissatisfaction 11 11 22 not satisfied 32 34 66 borderline satisfaction 55 51 106 optimum satisfaction 2 4 6 superior satisfaction 0 0 0 sum 100 100 200 table 3. scores of different components of enrich marital scale among veterans2 maladjustment rank type of adjustment mean score 1 mutual communication 11.62 2 conflict resolution 12.17 3 financial management 12.88 4 parenting 13 5 personality issues 13.18 6 family and friends 13.43 7 sexual relationship 13.48 8 leisure activities 14.02 9 religiosity 15.10 table 4. showing no statistically significant difference between the two groups regarding demographic data variable groups mean s.d. t-score sig. veteran’s age (years) control intervention 43.93 42.50 5.6 4.2 1.19 0.24 spouse’s age (years) control intervention 38.50 37.94 6.4 6.1 0.36 0.72 marriage duration (years) control intervention 17.27 17.25 6.8 5.1 0.01 0.99 warfront attendance(months) control intervention 27.8 35.7 17.5 20.1 1.25 0.21 1 of all 100 veterans and their spouses, 60 veterans and their partners were entered into the study following their low scores in enrich test. the table refers to the general prevalence and degree of marital dissatisfaction among war veterans. 2 the scores refer to pre-test conditions. it is shown that the mutual communication and conflict resolution are the most problematic components of marital adjustment among the veterans. efficacy of cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy 37 considering the outcome of a 6-month course of cognitive behavioral couple's therapy on 30 veterans and their spouses and comparing them to the control group shows that cbct is significantly useful for the improvement of marital satisfaction among ptsd veterans. the cbct course improved all 9 aspects of marital satisfaction with significance values of p<0.0001 among veterans and their spouses but improvements were equal both in veterans and their partners and there were no significant difference (p=0.23) the difference of post-test and pre-test (post-test minus pre-test) of mean marital satisfaction scores was the basis of our analysis. the mean difference of t2-t1 was (-2.63) in control group where the mean difference of t2-t1 was 44.9 in intervention group. the sum of squares was 69552.7 with d (f) =95.4 and p<0.0001 (table 5, 6). the results indicate that the efficacy of cbct on marital satisfaction of ptsd patients is significant. considering the factor of sex on degree of marital satisfaction improvement after taking the cbct course reveals that there is no significant difference between veterans and their spouses from this point of view (p=0.23) (table 7). the study also illustrates the efficacy of cbct on different components of marital satisfaction; the p value was <0.0001 for personality issues, mutual communication, conflict resolution, financial issues, leisure activities and also sexual relationship. table5. mean of (t2-t1) in control and intervention groups groups mean of t2-t1 st. dev. of t2-t1 control -2.63 8.4 intervention 44.9 38.2 table 6. (manova) efficacy of cbct on marital satisfaction (total score) variable sum of squares mean of squares df f sig. cbct efficacy on marital satisfaction scores 69552.7 69552.7 1 95.4 �000.1 table 7. considering the factor of sex (veterans vs. spouses) the results are not significant variable sum of squares mean of squares df f sig. group(intervention vs. control) 70228.4 70228.4 1 96.3 ���000.1 sex (veterans vs. their partners) 1038.4 1038.4 1 1.42 0.23 europe’s journal of psychology 38 discussion living with a patient who is suffering from ptsd could be challenging for each of his family members especially his spouse. re-experiencing the trauma, emotional numbing, impaired interpersonal, familial and social performance are some of their common symptoms (american psychiatric association, 2005). some studies even emphasize the severity of ptsd symptoms in military-associated ptsd compared with ptsd due to other etiologies (naifeh et al., 2008). veteran’s spouse is the first individual who confronts these debilitating symptoms of ptsd. on the other hand the practice of interpersonal violence which is common among ptsd veterans can lead to ptsd and physical stress in spouses as some studies imply (woods et al., 2008;dejonghe et al., 2008). the rate of marital maladjustment is high among ptsd veterans according to our results which are similar to those of previous studies: 43% of veterans with ptsd are absolutely dissatisfied with their marital life and 55% have borderline satisfaction. marital maladjustment is so serious that according to some studies marriage breakdown is inevitable among ptsd patients (gruden, 2000). among nine aspects of marital adjustment including personality issues, mutual communication, conflict resolution, parenting, sexual relationship, leisure activities, family/ friends and religiosity, mutual communication were the most problematic issues where veterans gained the lowest scores. (table 3) this aspect of marital adjustment is related to mutual understanding, verbal and non verbal communication and generally evaluates the individual’s perception of his marital life. our previous studies among general population, also indicates that mutual communication is the most problematic axis of marital maladjustment; this reveals the fact that there is no significant difference between veterans and general population from this point of view. the present study also pointed out that there is a relationship between ptsd severity and the degree of marital maladjustment. the more severe the ptsd is the greater dissatisfaction could be generated consequently. it can be assumed that, a vicious cycle would appear in this regard. improving marital satisfaction may result in discontinuation of the vicious cycle and prevent the deterioration of ptsd. therefore studies recommend couple therapy as efficacy of cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy 39 one of the most efficient modalities of treatment for ptsd patients (monson, 2004). the cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy is a simple and relatively inexpensive method and can be performed in all age groups, cultural and educational levels. the goal of cbct is to instruct the couple how to manage and handle their present and future problems. this method can affect all components of marital adjustment positively as mentioned previously in our results. on the other hand, in contrast to our presumptions, the cbct was not significantly effective on improving ptsd symptoms. maybe we need to consider a long term follow up in order to judge about improvement of ptsd symptoms. nevertheless, it seems that we need more studies in the future to expertise about the association of cbct and ptsd symptoms. in conclusion, we recommend a routine evaluation of marital adjustment status in all ptsd diagnosed veterans and their spouses or partners. finally, cognitive behavioral couple’s therapy should be considered as a component of ptsd management in all patients. references ahmadi k, fathi ashtiani a, zareir a, arabnia a, amiri m (2006). sexual dysfunction and marital adjustment in veterans with ptsd .arch med sci 2006;2, 4:280-285. american psychiatric association, dsm iv, draft criteria, copy right 1993 .by the american psychiatric association (2005); washington dc p. k. 8-9. dejonghe es, bogat ga, levendosky aa, eye a (2008).ptsd symptoms among men and women survivors of intimate partner violence: the role of risk and protective factors. j postgrad med. 2008 oct-dec;54(4):294-300. erbes cr, polusny ma, macdermid s, compton js (2008) .couple therapy with combat veterans and their partners. j clin psychol. 2008 aug; 64(8):972-83 fowlers bj, olson dh, enrich marital inventory (1989). a discriminate validity and cross validation assessment. j marital fam ther 1989; 15:65-79. fowlers bj, olson dh (1993). enrich marital satisfaction scale: a brief research hand clinical tools. j fam psycho 1993; 7:176-85. goff bs, crow jr, reisbig am, hamilton s (2007). the impact of individual trauma symptoms of deployed soldiers on relationship satisfaction j fam psychol, 2007 sep, 21(3):344-53. europe’s journal of psychology 40 gruden v, gruden v (2000). j libido and ptsd. coll .antropol 2000; 24:253-6. monson cm, schnurr pp, stevens sp, gutgrie ka (2004) .cognitivebehavioral couples treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: initial findings. j trauma stress, 2004 aug; 17(4):341-4. naifeh ja, north tc, davis jl, reyes g, logan ca, elhai jd(2008) .clinical profile differences between ptsd-diagnosed military veterans and crime victims. journal of trauma dissociation 2008; 9(3):321-34. olson dh, olson a (1993). enrich canada inc. j fam ministry 1993; 11:28-53. rotunda rj, ofarrell tj, murphy m, babey sh (2008). behavioral couples therapy for comorbid substance use disorders and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder among male veterans: an initial evaluation. .addict behav, 2008 jan; 33(1): 180-7. epub 2007 jun 9. sherman md, sautter f, jackson mh, lyons ja, han x (2006). domestic violence in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder who seek couples therapy. j marital fam ther., 2006 oct, 32(4):479-90. solomon z, dekel r, zerach g (2008). the relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms clusters and marital intimacy among war veterans. j fam psychol, 2008 oct; 22(5):659-66. woods sj, hall rj, campbell jc, angott dm (2008). physical health and post traumatic stress symptoms in women experiencing intimate partner violence. j midwifery women’s health. 2008 nov-dec; 53(6):538-46. about the authors: dr. khodabakhsh ahmadi is associate professor at the baquiatallah university of medical sciences in tehran and he has been working on ptsd, sexual dysfunction and marital satisfaction since eleven years ago having plenty of international publications in his field. e-mail: brc_baquiatallah@yahoo.com gholamreza karami (md), sima noohi (md), arastoo mokhtari (md), hamide gholampour (bs), and ali-akbar rahimi (ms) are the academic staff of behavioral research center of baquiatallah university. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 71-93 www.ejop.org perceived parental warmth and rejection in childhood as predictors of humor styles and subjective happiness shahe s. kazarian american university of beirut lamia moghnie university of michigan rod a. martin university of western ontario abstract this research examined maternal and paternal warmth (acceptance) and rejection (hostility and aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection), as remembered by young adults, in relation to humor styles and subjective happiness. a total of 283 lebanese college students completed the arabic versions of the adult parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire for mother and father, the humor styles questionnaire, and the subjective happiness scale. as predicted, parental warmth correlated positively and parental overall rejection and specific rejection scores correlated negatively with subjective happiness ratings. parental warmth tended to correlate positively with use of adaptive humor styles, and negatively with use of maladaptive humor styles, while parental rejection tended to correlate positively with use of maladaptive humor styles and negatively with use of adaptive humor styles. in addition, self-enhancing humor mediated the relationships between parental warmth and rejection and subjective happiness. overall, the findings are consistent with the view that parental warmth and rejection might contribute to the development of particular styles of humor, which in turn may contribute to later happiness and well-being. keywords – humor styles, parental acceptance/rejection, subjective happiness. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 72 parental acceptance and rejection theory (partheory) is a pancultural socialization theory that focuses on the warmth and rejection dimensions of parenting and their consequences on the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional development of children and personality functioning of adults in different cultures and populations (khaleque, rohner, riaz, laukkala & sadeque, 2007; rohner, khaleque & cournoyer, 2009). warm and accepting parents tend to show physical and verbal love and affection toward their children, thus inducing in them feelings of being loved and accepted. rejecting parents, on the other hand, tend to dislike, disapprove of, or resent their children, thus invoking in them feelings of rejection or being unloved and unwanted. the perceived parental acceptance/rejection questionnaire (parq; rohner & khaleque, 2005a; rohner, saavedra & granum, 1978a), which comes in three versions (child, adult, and parent), is the most widely used measure of parental warmth and rejection. i t assesses three forms of rejection: (1) hostility and aggression, (2) indifference and neglect, and (3) undifferentiated rejection, which refers to the belief that one is not cared about or loved by parents, even in the absence of clear parental behaviors of neglect or aggression. part personality subtheory the personality subtheory of partheory attempts to identify and predict the consequences of perceived parental acceptance and rejection on the behavioral and personality dispositions of children and their personality functioning in adulthood (rohner et al, 2009), as measured by the personality adjustment questionnaire (paq; rohner & khaleque, 2005b; rohner, saavedra, & granum, 1978b). the paq measures seven personality traits or dispositions that collectively reflect psychological maladjustment: hostility/aggression; dependence; negative self-esteem; negative self-adequacy; emotional unresponsiveness; emotional instability; and negative worldv iew. studies that have examined the relation between parental acceptance and rejection and psychological adjustment among children and adults have invariably found that rejected indiv iduals, regardless of their gender, culture, race, or socioeconomic status, show more negative personality traits and overall psychological maladjustment than do accepted children (rohner & khaleque, 2002; rohner, 2004, 2005; rohner et al., 2009). similarly, cross-cultural and intracultural studies have provided evidence of worldwide correlations between parental rejection and other mental health problems including anxiety and insecurity, depression, borderline personality disorder, substance use, and behavioral problems such as conduct disorder and delinquency (rohner & britner, 2002; rohner et al., 2009). perceived parental warmth and rejection 73 partheory personality subtheory: expansion and extension researchers in this topic area have focused particularly on the universality of the association between parental rejection and specific forms of psychological maladjustment, and on the implications of this association for the enhancement of the welfare of humanity in the global v illage (rohner, 2004). nevertheless, the main assumption of the theory (parental rejection has negative effects on psychological adjustment and personality functioning of both children and adults) continues to stimulate confirmation of the postulate in different countries, particularly the culturally rich but politically volatile arab middle east. thus far, several studies in the region of the arab middle east have supported the association between parental warmth and psychological adjustment: bahraini youth (al-falaij, nd), students in the kingdom of saudi arabia (aljasir, 2006; alzahrani, 2009; zidan, nd), jordanian adolescents (dwairy, 2010), egyptian and yemeni children (asker, 1996), egyptian college students (salama, 1986), qatari children (khaliefa, 2004), and married adults in kuwait (parmar, ibrahim, & rohner, 2008). nevertheless, prev ious research on the consequences of the parental “acceptancerejection syndrome” has been in the main focused on the constellation of the seven personality dispositions as assessed by the paq. the advent of positive psychology which has widened the scope of psychology to the science of happiness and positive indiv idual traits (seligman, 2000), and the recent resurgence of interest in sense of humor as a personality variable (martin, 2007) have allowed exploration of parenting behaviors in relation to positive personality dispositions and somatic, psychological, and social outcomes beyond the “magnificent seven” on which partheory’s personality subtheory has been grounded. as such, in the present study, the consequences of parental warmth on sense of humor are examined. consideration of humor styles in the context of the universalist “acceptancerejection syndrome” is particularly relevant in v iew of the paucity of research on the developmental trajectories of humorous personality traits ge nerally (martin; vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008), and the absence of any study on the association of parental warmth and rejection with humor styles. additionally, the recent reformulation of sense of humor as a personality disposition with both adaptive and maladaptive dimensions prov ides a conceptual framework for exploring the differential socialization of humor styles and evaluation of their beneficial and detrimental effects on subjective happiness, in a similar way to those studies that have related humor styles to physical, psychological, and social well-being (kuiper & harris, 2009; martin, 2001, 2007). europe’s journal of psychology 74 the present study in the present study, the assumption of partheory that parental warmth and rejection in childhood are associated with subjective well-being in adulthood was tested in the lebanese context, using a measure of subjective happiness to assess well-being. to our knowledge the consequences of parental acceptance-rejection, as conceptualized by partheory, on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral function of young lebanese adults is not known. i t was important to demonstrate empirically that predictions from the partheory apply to young adults in lebanese culture. two previous studies in the arab middle east have used the adult parq to examine maternal acceptance in egypt and maternal and paternal acceptance in kuwait in relation to adult psychological adjustment but not subjective happiness (parmar et al., 2008; salama, 1986). a second aim of the study was to use the arabic humor styles questionnaire to explore the relation between parental warmth and rejection and two potentially adaptive (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two potentially maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating) humor styles (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). to our knowledge, humor styles have not been examined before in relation to the “parental acceptance-rejection syndrome.” such a study extends the constellation of the personality dispositions measured by the paq that have been universally associated with parenting (rohner & khaleque, 2002) to the sense of humor domain. affiliative humor involves the use of humor to enhance one’s relationships with others by saying funny things, telling jokes, and engaging in spontaneous witty banter to amuse others, to facilitate relationships, and to reduce interpersonal tensions. self-enhancing humor involves the use of humor to regulate emotions and cope with stress through a humorous outlook on life, frequently being amused by the incongruities of life, and maintaining a humorous perspective even in the face of stress or adversity. aggressive humor involves the use of humor to enhance the self at the expense of others, by means of sarcasm, teasing, ridicule, derision, “put-down” humor, or disparagement humor. self-defeating humor involves the use of humor to enhance relationships at the expense of the self by means of excessively self-disparaging humor, amusing others by doing or saying funny things at one’s own expense as a way of ingratiating oneself to others or gaining approval, and using humor as a form of defensive denial or avoidance. a considerable amount of research has demonstrated that these four humor styles are differentially related to particular aspects of psychosocial health and well-being (see martin, 2007 for a rev iew of this research). in particular, self-enhancing humor perceived parental warmth and rejection 75 tends to be associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety and higher self esteem and general emotional well-being. affiliative humor, while somewhat more weakly positively correlated with emotional well-being, tends to be particularly associated with satisfactory interpersonal relationships. aggressive humor, although generally unrelated to emotional well-being, tends to be negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction. finally, self-defeating humor has been found to correlate positively with depression and anxiety, and negatively with self-esteem and emotional well-being in north american (martin et al., 2003), european (saroglou & scariot, 2002), and chinese samples (chen & martin, 2007). however, in past research with middle east samples, self-defeating humor has generally been found to be unrelated to measures of emotional well-being (kazarian & martin, 2004; kazarian & martin, 2006; taher, kazarian, & martin, 2008), suggesting that this selfdisparaging and ingratiating form of humor may not be as clearly detrimental to well-being in the middle eastern cultural context as it appears to be in some other cultures. based on this past research, we expected that in this arabic-speaking sample, affiliative and self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with subjective happiness whereas self-defeating and aggressive humor would be unrelated to this variable. such a finding would provide further support to the distinction between beneficial and detrimental humor styles. furthermore, and consistent with the expanded partheory’s personality subtheory, we expected a link between parental warmth and rejection in childhood and adult use of adaptive and maladaptive humor. more specifically, we hypothesized that remembered parental warmth and acceptance in childhood would correlate positively with affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and negatively with aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. similarly, we expected overall parental rejection and the specific forms of rejection to correlate negatively with adaptive humor styles and positively with maladaptive humor styles. such findings would provide support for the v iew that parental interactions during childhood may have a lasting effect on personality development (in this case, humor styles). the third and final aim of this study was to examine the potential mediating effect of humor styles on the relation between recalled parental warmth and rejection in childhood and subjective happiness in young adulthood. we hypothesized that adaptive and maladaptive humor styles may be one pathway by which early experiences of parental warmth and rejection may lead to increased or decreased happiness. for example, indiv iduals who experience greater parental warmth during childhood may be more likely to develop affiliative and self-enhancing styles of humor during the course of development, which in turn might contribute to higher levels of subjective happiness later in life. on the other hand, indiv iduals who europe’s journal of psychology 76 experience greater parental rejection during childhood may be less likely to develop adaptive styles of humor, which in turn might contribute to lower levels of subjective happiness. method participants a total of 283 lebanese university students (62.5% female) participated in the study. the majority of the participants were from the lebanese university (n = 193), a staterun institution of higher learning, and the remainder from the american university of beirut, a private educational setting. the mean age was 20.8 years (sd = 3.34, range = 17 to 44). reported marital status was 89.6% single, 7.9% married, and 2.5% other. measures arabic adult parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire for mother and father (parq). the arabic adult parq for mother and father (rohner & khaleque, 2005a; rohner et al., 1978a) are two self-report measures of adults’ perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance and rejection when they were about seven to 12 years of age. the mother and father versions, each comprising 60 items, differ only in which parent they refer to. each measure prov ides an overall rating and scores on four parental behavioral domains: warmth (20 items; e.g., “said nice things about me), hostility/aggression (15 items; e.g., “ridiculed and made fun of me”), indifference/neglect (15 items; e.g., “paid no attention when i asked for help”), and undifferentiated rejection (10 items; e.g., “did not really love me”). respondents rate separately their mothers’ and fathers’ warmth and rejection using a 4-point likert scale (4 = almost always true, 1 = almost never true), higher scores reflecting higher overall rejection, hostility/aggression, indifference/neglect, undifferentiated rejection, and warmth. overall adult parq rejection scores range from 60-240, with scores below the midpoint of 150 indicating recollections of more acceptance than rejection in childhood, and scores above the midpoint indicating more recalled rejection than acceptance. the mother and father versions of the parq have been validated cross-culturally with robust reliability and validity findings including internal consistencies exceeding .70 for the overall scores and the four domains (khaleque & rohner, 2002; rohner & couroyer, 1994). similarly, the arabic parq has shown appropriate internal consistencies (parmar et al., 2008; salama, 1986). in the present study, the internal consistencies (cronbach alphas) of the arabic adult parq ratings of mother were .74 for overall ratings, .90 for warmth, .87 for hostility, .83 for perceived parental warmth and rejection 77 indifference/neglect, and .77 for undifferentiated rejection, while those of father were .78 for overall ratings, .93 for warmth, .92 for hostility, .83 for indifference/neglect, and .84 for undifferentiated rejection. arabic humor styles questionnaire (hsq). the arabic hsq (martin et al., 2003 ; taher et al., 2008) is a 32-item measure comprising four 8-item scales assessing different styles of humor: affiliative (e.g., “i laugh and joke a lot with my friends”); selfenhancing (e.g., “my humorous outlook on life keeps me from getting overly upset or depressed about things”); aggressive (e.g., “i f someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it”); and self-defeating humor (e.g., “i often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders, or faults”). respondents indicate the degree to which they agree with each item using a 7-point likert scale. martin et al. (2003) reported internal consistencies for the four scales in the range of .77 to .81. in the present study, the internal consistencies of the arabic hsq were .66 for affiliative, .74 for self enhancing, .59 for aggressive and .69 for self defeating humor, findings comparable to those reported by taher et al. the arabic subjective happiness scale (shs). the shs (lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999) is a 4-item global measure of the degree to which one is a happy or an unhappy person. respondents are asked to respond to the items on a scale of 1 (not a very happy person) to 7 (very happy person), higher scores reflecting higher subjective happiness. lyubomirsky and lepper reported internal consistencies ranging from .79 to .94 for the original version of the shs, and swami (2008) reported an internal consistency of .93 for a malay version. for the present study, the original version of the shs was translated into arabic by a professional translator, and the arabic version was then translated back to english by another professional translator, independent of the first translator. the two english versions were then compared and differences reconciled. care was taken to ensure equivalence rather than literacy in translation. in the present study, the internal consistency of the arabic shs was .75. procedure participants completed the measures in group testing sessions. all measures were administered in the arabic language. the three measures were administered to participants in randomized order to control for potential order effects. europe’s journal of psychology 78 results descriptive statistics and gender differences the means and standard deviations for all the measures for the total sample and for females and males separately are presented in table 1. the mean overall rejection table 1: means and standard deviations of all the measures for the total sample (n=283), females (n=177), and males (n=101), and significance of t-tests comparing means for males and females. total females males t-test m sd m sd m sd p humor styles affiliative 41.7 8.48 42.0 8.154 40.7 9.06 ns self-enhancing 35.8 9.36 35.6 9.49 36.3 9.15 ns aggressive 24.3 8.30 23.3 7.86 26.0 8.68 .009 self-defeating 21.7 8.54 20.5 8.15 23.7 8.76 .003 ratings of mothers warmth 68.4 10.18 69.0 9.64 67.1 11.08 ns hostility/aggression 27.8 7.52 27.3 7.88 28.4 6.94 ns indifference/neglect 23.1 6.26 22.6 6.04 24.0 6.62 ns undifferentiated rejection 17.8 4.81 17.9 5.06 17.6 4.47 ns overall rejection 96.0 23.77 94.4 24.70 98.6 22.26 ns ratings of fathers warmth 65.2 12.09 67.1 11.03 62.0 13.20 .001 hostility/aggression 27.0 9.54 24.6 8.55 31.3 9.87 .001 indifference/neglect 27.8 7.57 26.1 6.82 30.7 8.09 .001 undifferentiated rejection 17.9 5.74 16.8 5.23 19.9 6.13 .001 overall rejection 107.4 30.86 100.5 27.42 120.1 33.41 .001 subjective happiness 4.7 1.17 4.7 1.18 4.9 1.17 ns perceived parental warmth and rejection 79 ratings of lebanese college youth of their mothers and fathers were below the midpoint of 150. these findings are similar to those reported by parmar et al. (2008) for kuwaiti adults, and suggest that as a group lebanese college youth remembered their mothers and fathers in childhood as substantially warm, lov ing and accepting. as can be seen in table 1, lebanese males and females were comparable in their ratings of their mothers on warmth and the specific forms of rejection. males, however, rated their fathers significantly lower on warmth (t(261)=3.32, p < .001), and higher on overall rejection (t(260)=5.13, p < .001) and the specific forms of rejection (hostility/aggression (t(261)=5.70, p < .001), indifference/neglect (t(261)=4.91, p < .001), and undifferentiated rejection (t(261)=4.38, p < .001)) than did their female counterparts. this pattern of sex differences is similar to that reported by dwairy (2010) but at odds with findings reported by others (cournoyer, sethi, & cordero, 2005; kim & rohner, 2003). while no firm conclusions can be drawn about possible sex differences in responses to the mother and father versions of the parq, our findings may be unique in reflecting the sex-specific lebanese cultural image of the “strict father and benevolent mother” (kim & rohner). with regard to subjective happiness, the mean score of 4.7 for this sample was similar to means reported for us and russian college students (lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999), and suggests that lebanese youth in this group construed themselves as having a generally happy disposition. subjective happiness scores did not differ between males and females, a finding which is also consistent with prev ious research (lyubomirsky & lepper; swami, 2007). with regard to humor styles, mean scores were highest for affiliative humor followed by self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor, findings that are comparable to those reported by taher et al. (2008). with regard to sex differences, males and females reported comparable use of affiliative and self-enhancing humor, but males reported significantly more use of aggressive (t(270) = 2.62, p < .009) and self-defeating humor (t(270) = 2.98, p < .003) than did females. these gender differences are consistent with those found previously in north american and lebanese samples (kazarian & martin, 2004; martin et al., 2003). perceived parental acceptance/rejection and subjective happiness table 2 shows the correlations between parq parental acceptance-rejection scores and the measures of humor styles and subjective happiness. as postulated, higher scores on maternal and paternal overall rejection and specific rejection ratings were significantly associated with lower reports of subjective happiness. on the other europe’s journal of psychology 80 hand, as expected, maternal and paternal warmth were significantly associated with higher reports of subjective happiness. taken together, the findings with subjective happiness support the partheory postulate that parental acceptance and rejection are likely predictors of emotional consequences in adulthood. humor styles and subjective happiness as can be seen in table 2, affiliative and self-enhancing humor, but not aggressive and self-defeating humor, were significantly associated with higher reports of subjective happiness. the lack of association between self-defeating humor and well-being is consistent with prev ious research in middle east samples (kazarian & martin, 2004; kazarian & martin, 2006; taher, kazarian, & martin, 2008). the differential correlation of adaptive and maladaptive humor styles with subjective happiness supports the conceptual distinction between beneficial and non-beneficial humor styles, as postulated by martin et al. (2003). table 2: inter-correlations of arabic humor styles questionnaire, subjective happiness, and parq ratings of mother and father affiliative self enhancing aggressive selfdefeating subjective happiness subjective happiness 23** .37** -.04 .01 - ratings of mothers warmth .18** .30** -.14* -.16** .21** hostility/aggression -.04 -.18** .21** .17** -.19** indifference/neglect -.14* -.15** .20** .17** -.22** undiff. rejection -.12* -.19** .20** .14* -.17** overall rejection -.14* -.25** .21** .19** -.24** ratings of fathers warmth .17** .27** -.10 -.19** .25** hostility/aggression -.12* -.15* .14* .26** -.25** indifference/neglect -.12 -.15* .14* .25** -.24** undiff. rejection -.11 -.17** .11 .25** -.25** overall rejection -.15* -.22** .14* .26** -.28** note: parq = parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire. * p < .05 ** p < .01 perceived parental warmth and rejection 81 perceived parental acceptance/rejection and humor styles table 2 also reveals that, as postulated, higher scores on maternal and paternal overall rejection and specific rejection were associated with lower reports of affiliative and self-enhancing humor and higher reports of aggressive and selfdefeating humor. also, scores of maternal and paternal warmth were associated with higher reports of affiliative and self-enhancing humor and lower reports of aggressive and self-defeating humor. taken together, these findings prov ide support for the hypothesis that maternal and paternal warmth during childhood is associated with the development of increased use of adaptive humor styles and decreased use of maladaptive humor styles later in life. mediating effects of humor styles finally, mediation analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis that humor styles mediate the relationships between parental acceptance/rejection and subjective happiness. these analyses were conducted using spss by means of the bootstrap sampling method developed by preacher and hayes (2008) for testing the significance of multiple mediators simultaneously. this procedure allows for examination of both the direct effect of the predictor variable on the criterion variable, as well as the indirect effect through the pathway of each of the mediator variables, controlling for all the other mediators. using sampling with replacement, a large number of samples (1000 in the present study) are drawn from the data set, and path coefficients are calculated for each sample. the mean direct and indirect effects and their confidence intervals (cis) are then calculated using the estimates from these bootstrap samples. these cis allow the researcher to determine whether each of the effects is significantly different from zero at a given level of confidence. in this study, four multiple mediation analyses were conducted separately for maternal and paternal warmth and overall maternal and paternal rejection as the predictor variables and subjective happiness as the criterion variable. in each analysis, only affiliative and self-enhancing humor were examined simultaneously as potential mediators, because these two humor styles were the only ones that had significant simple correlations with the overall rejection, warmth, and subjective happiness scores. in order to compare the results across analyses and variables, all variables used in these analyses were standardized (m = 0, sd = 1.0). path coefficients can therefore be interpreted in a manner similar to correlation coefficients. europe’s journal of psychology 82 the results of the mediation analysis for maternal warmth are presented in figure 1. a significant mediating effect was found for self-enhancing (p < .01), but not for affiliative humor. higher scores on maternal warmth were associated with higher selfenhancing humor (a = .32, p < .001), which in turn predicted higher happiness scores (b = .30, p < .001). the direct effect of maternal warmth on subjective happiness was not significant (c´ = .11, ns), indicating that self-enhancing humor fully mediates this relationship. figure 1: mediating effects of humor styles questionnaire scales on relationship between maternal warmth and subjective happiness. note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 figure 2 shows the results of the mediation analysis for paternal warmth. once again, a significant mediating effect was found for self-enhancing (p < .01), but not for affiliative humor. higher scores on paternal warmth were associated with higher self enhancing humor (a = .25, p < .001), which in turn predicted higher happiness scores (b = .33, p < .001). in addition to the indirect effect of paternal warmth on subjective happiness through self-enhancing humor, a direct effect was also found (c´ = .17, p < .01), indicating that self-enhancing humor only partially mediates this relationship. maternal warmth subjective happiness affiliative humor (ns) selfenhancing humor ** .19 ** .32 *** .30 *** .11 .11 perceived parental warmth and rejection 83 figure 2: mediating effects of humor styles questionnaire scales on relationship between paternal warmth and subjective happiness. note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 the results of the mediation analysis for overall maternal rejection are presented in figure 3. again, a significant mediating effect was found only for self-enhancing (p < .01) humor. higher scores on overall maternal rejection were associated with lower self-enhancing humor (a = -.25, p < .001), which in turn predicted higher happiness scores (b = .29, p < .001). in addition to this indirect effect, a direct effect was also found (c´ = -.15, p < .05), indicating that self-enhancing humor only partially mediates this relationship. figure 3: mediating effects of humor styles questionnaire scales on relationship between overall maternal rejection and subjective happiness. note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 overall maternal rejection subjectiv e happiness affiliative humor (ns) selfenhancing humor ** -.14 * -.25 *** .29 *** .10 -.15 * paternal warmth subjective happiness affiliative humor (ns) selfenhancing humor ** .13 * .25 *** .33 *** .08 .17 ** europe’s journal of psychology 84 finally, figure 4 shows the results of the analysis for overall paternal rejection. a significant mediating effect was again found only for self-enhancing humor (p < .01). higher scores on overall paternal rejection predicted lower self-enhancing humor (a = -.20, p < .01), which in turn predicted higher subjective well-being scores (b = .33, p < .001). the direct effect of paternal rejection on subjective happiness was also significant (c´ = -.22, p < .001), indicating that self-enhancing humor only partially mediates this relationship. discussion this study represents the first application of the arabic adult parq for mother and father and arabic shs in lebanon and the first use of the arabic hsq in the context of partheory. while partheory and its personality subtheory have been focused mainly on measuring and predicting the negative consequences of parental rejection, the present study drew stimulus from positive psychology and the humor styles framework to extend the application of partheory to the domains of humor styles and subjective happiness. the psychometric properties of the three arabic measures used for these purposes were all comparable if not better than those prev iously reported. figure 4: mediating effects of humor styles questionnaire scales on relationship between overall paternal rejection and subjective happiness. note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001 overall paternal rejection subjective happiness affiliative humor (ns) selfenhancing humor ** -.12 * -.20 ** .33 *** .07 -.22 *** perceived parental warmth and rejection 85 parental acceptance/rejection and subjective happiness partheory assumes that parental acceptance/rejection in childhood has major consequences on the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional adjustment of children and for the personality functioning of adults. the finding of significant correlations between maternal and paternal warmth and rejection and subjective happiness in the present study not only supports the partheory assumption of an association between remembered parenting in childhood and adult functioning but also highlights the positive effect that parental acceptance might have on life-span happiness. humor styles and subjective happiness martin and colleagues (2003) posit that humor styles are distinguished on the basis of their adaptive and maladaptive functions, affiliative and self-enhancing humor being v iewed as potentially beneficial to psychosocial well-being and aggressive and self-defeating humor as potentially detrimental. the finding of significant positive correlations between both of the adaptive humor styles and subjective happiness in the present study is consistent with prev ious studies on humor styles and psychological well-being (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004; kazarian & martin, 2006; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher et al., 2008). the lack of correlation between self-defeating humor and subjective happiness is also consistent with prev ious research in the middle east (kazarian & martin, 2004; 2006; taher et al., 2008), although it is inconsistent with the finding of negative correlations between this humor style and well-being variables in other cultures (chen & martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002). these results support the assumption of differential associations of the four humor styles with different well being variables as postulated by martin et al. (2003). they also add further support to the v iew that the so-called self-defeating humor style may not be as detrimental to well-being among middle eastern cultures. perhaps a tendency to use humor to disparage oneself, deny one’s true feelings, and make others laugh at one’s own expense is not v iewed as negatively in this culture as in some other cultures. parental acceptance/rejection and humor styles a main purpose of the present study was to explore the relation between perceived parental acceptance and rejection in childhood and use of adaptive and maladaptive humor in adulthood. prev ious research on humor styles has tended to focus particularly on their association with physical and psychological well-being europe’s journal of psychology 86 and interpersonal relationships. the present study moves this research in the direction of exploring potential childhood origins of these humor styles and particularly the potential contribution of early parenting. overall, we found that recalled maternal and paternal acceptance were significantly positively correlated with both adaptive humor styles and negatively correlated with the maladaptive humor styles. in addition, overall maternal and paternal rejection correlated positively with the detrimental humor styles and negatively with the beneficial styles. although many of these associations were relatively weak, the strongest correlations were found with self-enhancing humor (in relation to both parental warmth and overall rejection) and with self-defeating humor (particularly in relation to paternal rejection). these findings suggest a possible link between early experiences of parental warmth and rejection and later use of adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. the findings also support predictions from the partheory’s personality subtheory and extend the subtheory beyond the seven personality disposition domains assessed by the paq. martin (2007) suggested two possible models of parental influence on humor development: the modeling/reinforcement hypothesis and the stress and coping model. the modeling/reinforcement hypothesis assumes that children develop a good sense of humor in the context of a warm and positive family environment in which the parents prov ide a role model for humor by laughing and joking frequently and positively reinforce the child’s attempts at humor initiation. in contrast, the stress and coping hypothesis suggests that children develop a sense of humor in the context of a cold, rejecting, and uncongenial family environment, in which they learn to use humor to cope with stress and anxiety, relieve interpersonal tension among family members, distract otherwise punitive parents by amusing them, and gain attention and approval from otherwise unsupportive family members. these two models might account for various aspects of our finding of differential associations between parental warmth and rejection and the four humor styles. in particular, the modeling/reinforcement hypothesis might explain the positive association between parental warmth and self-enhancing and (to a somewhat lesser extent) affiliative humor. parents who relate to their children in a warm and accepting manner may model and reinforce these positive styles of humor which are then adopted by their children. in contrast, parents who relate to their children in a rejecting, indifferent, or hostile manner likely fail to model and reinforce healthy uses of humor, resulting in a lower likelihood of their children developing selfenhancing and affiliative humor styles. a similar process might account for the positive correlations between parental rejection and aggressive humor, with rejecting parents perhaps modeling and reinforcing aggressive types of humor such as sarcasm and aggressive teasing. on the other hand, the stress and coping model perceived parental warmth and rejection 87 might account for the positive associations between overall rejection (particularly paternal) and self-defeating humor. children who experience these forms of parental rejection may adopt the self-defeating humor style as a method of coping by attempting to make others (including parents) laugh at their own expense, and thereby gain some degree of approval and acceptance in an otherwise uncongenial family environment. these rather speculative hypotheses certainly merit further investigation. humor styles as mediators of parenting and subjective happiness finally, our results also prov ided some support for the hypothesis that humor styles might mediate the association between early parental acceptance or rejection and later subjective happiness in adulthood. in particular, we found that self-enhancing humor consistently mediated the relationships between both maternal and paternal warmth and rejection and adult subjective happiness. indiv iduals who recalled higher levels of maternal and paternal warmth reported engaging in more self enhancing humor, which in turn predicted higher levels of subjectiv e happiness. in contrast, those who recalled higher levels of maternal and paternal rejection reported engaging in lower levels of self-enhancing humor, which in turn was associated with lower levels of subjective happiness. since self-enhancing humor involves the use of humor to cope with stress, regulate negative emotions, and enhance positive emotions, it is not surprising that this style seems to be particularly important as a mediator in the prediction of happiness. as noted in the prev ious section, indiv iduals may develop particular styles of humor during childhood in the context of parental warmth and rejection, and these styles of humor may in turn contribute to their level of happiness and other aspects of well-being later in life. these mediator findings are consistent with other recent research reporting similar mediating effects of humor styles on well-being. dozois, martin, and bieling (2009) found that three of the four humor styles mediated the relationships between several early maladaptive schemas (which are assumed to develop in the context of parent-child relationships) and depression in early adulthood. similarly, kuiper and mchale (2009) found that affiliative and self-defeating humor mediated the relationship between positive and negativ e self-evaluative standards (based on a self-schema model of emotion) and measures of psychological well-being, including depression and social self-esteem. taken together, these studies suggest that positive and negative humor styles may play an important role in the link between the indiv idual’s core self concept, developing in the context of early parenting experiences, and later well-being. indiv iduals who experience warm and accepting parenting and develop more positive self-standards and adaptive self-schemas may europe’s journal of psychology 88 consequently develop more beneficial and less detrimental humor styles, which in turn may further enhance social relationships, increasing self-esteem and general well-being. in contrast, early experiences of more rejecting parenting and development of more self-critical and maladaptive core schemas may lead to development of more detrimental and less adaptive humor styles, which in turn result in less positive relationships, increased depression, and lower happiness, self -esteem, and well-being. overall, then, these findings contribute to a growing body of ev idence suggesting that humor styles may be one pathway by which early parenting experiences and self-concept development may influence later wellbeing. conclusions, limitations and future research directions to summarize our key findings, maternal and paternal warmth and rejection were differentially associated with use of adaptive and maladaptive humor styles and subjective happiness, and the association between maternal and paternal warmth and rejection and subjective happiness was mediated by self-enhancing humor. important limitations of this study are the cross-sectional correlational design and the use of retrospective measures of parent-child relationships. participants’ recollections of parental warmth and rejection could have been biased by their current levels of happiness, resulting in significant correlations between these variables despite no actual causal connection. similarly, rather than humor styles influencing subjective happiness, it is possible that higher levels of subjective happiness cause people to engage in more positive and less negative styles of humor. these possible alternative explanations also apply to the results of our mediator analyses. given the crosssectional nature of our study, we cannot rule out that, for example, happiness levels or humor styles influence parental warmth or rejection, or that a third variable is responsible for determining both parental behavior and humor styles. future research using a longitudinal design might be useful in disentangling some of these relationships. while the stress and coping and modeling/reinforcement formulations are possible explanations for the use of humor styles in the context of congenial and non-congenial parental environments, other potential antecedents and mediators need future consideration with child, parent, and non-student adult populations and measures supplementary to the self-report methodology used in the present study. perceived parental warmth and rejection 89 references al-falaij, a. a. 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(1986). perceived parental acceptance-rejection and personality dispositions among college students in egypt. egyptian journal of mental health, 27, 145163. saroglou, v., & scariot, c. (2002). humor styles questionnaire: personality and educational correlates in belgian high school and college students. european journal of psychology, 16, 43-54. seligman, m.e.p. (2000). positive psychology: an introduction. american psychologist, 55, 5-14. swami, v. (2008). translation and validation of the malay subjective happiness scale. social indicator research, 88, 347-353. taher, d., kazarian, s. s., & martin, r. a. (2008). validation of the arabic humor styles questionnaire in a community sample of lebanese in lebanon. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 39, 552-564. vernon, p. a., martin, r. a., schermer, j. a., & mackie, a. 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(nd). students’ perception of parental acceptance/rejection, and its relation to students’ achievement motivation at al-jouf teachers college. the educational journal. retrieved july 6, 2009, from http://pubcouncil. kuniv.kw.joe/english. acknowledgments we thank professor ronald p. rohner for making the arabic version of the parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire available for our use. perceived parental warmth and rejection 93 about the authors: shahe s. kazarian has been a professor of clinical psychology at the american university of beirut since 2001. his research interests focus on cultural clinical psychology, cultural health psychology, family functioning, and the psychology of humor. address for correspondence: shahe s. kazarian, department of social and behavioral sciences, american university of beirut, 3 dag hammarskjold plaza, 8th floor, nyc, ny 10017 e-mail: sk29@aub.edu.lb lamia moghnie completed her master’s degree in psychology at the american university of beirut in august 2009. she also completed a master’s degree in social science at the university of chicago in 2006. she is currently a phd student in social work and anthropology at the university of michigan and her research interests focus on the study of trauma as an object of diagnosis that (re)defines grief, loss and suffering in lebanon. rod a. martin has been a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario since 1984. his research interests focus on the psychology of humor, particularly the role of humor in mental health and interpersonal relationships. he is on the editorial board of humor: international journal of humor research. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe‟s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 192-208 www.ejop.org gender differences in polish citizen‟s attitudes towards immigration to the uk anna kuwik bahman baluch middlesex university abstract the present study examined gender differences in attitudes towards immigration of polish citizens to the uk. participants: 60 men (mean age =26.21, sd=2.51) and 60 women (mean age=26.15, sd=3.73) participated in the investigation. a 30 item questionnaire was administered to the participants and subjected to the principle component analysis. factor analysis showed 3 strong factors which were labeled as “domestic preference”, “lifestyle patterns” and “social participation”. the results of statistical analysis showed that polish women have more preference for the polish lifestyle than polish men. however, results of regression analysis showed that as well as gender other significant predictors affecting attitudes towards living in the uk are the length of stay and level of education. implications of the findings are discussed. keywords: polish migrants, immigration, gender differences, social participation, domestic preference, lifestyle patterns. there has been extensive research on ethnicity, identity and immigration (see e.g. phinney, horenczyk, & vedder, 2001). however, in view of recent expansion of the european union (eu) the subject of immigration within the eu, and in particular polish citizens interest in living in the uk is a subject of growing research (see billson & fluehrlobban, 2005; kay & miles, 1992). what do recent polish immigrants think about living or settling in the uk? are there any specific factors such as gender, age, length of stay in the uk, level of education and language competency that may affect attitudes of polish immigrants towards staying in the uk or returning to poland? these are the issues explored in the present research. http://www.ejop.org/ gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 193 background polish immigration dates back over half a century with the immigration of 150,000 polish soldiers and displaced persons to the united kingdom where polish government-in-exile was quartering after the second world war (sword, 1996). following this period it was the fall of communism in poland which allowed polish citizens to travel to the western european countries through visa/entry schemes and, more recently, the accession of poland to the european union that opened up a new wave of immigration (grabowska-lusińska & okólski, 2008). statistics suggest that almost 30 percent of polish migrants were working in the uk before poland officially entered the european union in 2004 (garapich, 2007). the general profile of polish immigrants suggests that the uk attracts mainly young and well-educated poles. almost 60 percent of polish immigrants are male. indeed the proportion of females migrating from poland to the uk is lower compared to the proportion of female migrants from other european countries (central statistics office, 2008; fihel & kaczmarczyk, 2009; kaczmarczyk & okólski, 2008). gender and immigration gender relations in poland are strongly related to the patriarchal culture and the catholic church‟s influence on understanding of female and male roles in the society. in the context of those two streams, polish society expects women to be first and foremost good mothers and wives who should demonstrate rather passive attitudes in following their individual goals (coyle, 2007; platek, 2004, zajicek & calasanti, 1998; wejnert & djumabaeva, 2005). siara (2009) conducted research on polish immigrants‟ perceptions of gender relations in the uk. according to the results, the general tendency amongst males is to express negative attitudes towards interethnic relationships between polish females and males of different nationalities, religions or races. polish men tend to perceive polish women in the uk as being too liberal in terms of actively expressing their sexual needs, and criticize them for being interested in financial aspects of getting into relationships with foreigners (siara, 2009). at the same time, polish men declare their readiness to get involved in serious relationships with polish females staying in poland. as the answer to men‟s accusations, polish females argue against the patriarchal perception of gender roles and underline the limited choice of polish men in the uk, categorizing them into four types: the frail students, the tracksuits, the manual workers, and the skaters smoking marihuana (siara, 2009). a minority of male respondents and many females call together for gender equality and liberation from subordinate gender roles. in another study, polish immigrants were asked for their response to having their child europe‟s journal of psychology 194 get into a relationship with someone of a different skin colour, to investigate the need for ethnic homogeneity (eade, drinkwater, & garapich, 2006). half of the respondents declared they would not have a problem with this kind of relationship, however 38 percent were more reluctant to accept this kind of situation and 12 percent were not sure. outcomes regarding differences in responses depending on sex were not included in the source. coyle (2007) underlines in her work that there exists a strong need for securing gender equality amongst the polish female population in the eu and poland due to the high levels of discrimination they face in the labour market. in view of the constraints that the polish society, culture and gender roles exert, it would be expected that there is a significant difference in attitudes of men and women towards immigration to the uk. thus the following research was conducted to identify potential gender differences in attitudes towards staying in the uk and other variables that could also impact attitudes namely length of stay, marital status, language competency and level of education (duvander, 2001; norton & toohey, 2001; wiking, johansson, & sundquist, 2004). research questions the main aim of the present study is to compare polish men‟s and women‟s attitudes towards immigration in the uk. the materials used for characterizing attitudes of both selected groups will mainly concentrate on aspects of everyday life with a strong emphasis on lifestyle pattern, social participation and domestic conditions. knowledge of general attitudes towards living in the uk enable one to understand the social position of polish men and women in the immigrant population and their interactions. method participants a total of 120 polish immigrants took part in the present study. sixty of the randomly selected adults (30 male and 30 female) mean age 27.35 years (sd = 2.23) were classified as staying in london for a minimum period of 1.5 years, and longer. the sixty respondents were matched on the length of stay in the united kingdom with another group consisting equally of sixty polish immigrants (30 male and 30 female) mean age 25.01 years (sd = 3.53) who have been living in london for less than 1.5 years. kępińska (2006) reports that 77 per cent of polish migrants in 2005 and 66 per cent of polish migrants in 2006 stayed in the united kingdom for a short period gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 195 between two and eleven months suggesting that the polish migration is based rather on short-term immigration to the united kingdom. materials the research tool, the attitude questionnaire, which was used to investigate the research problem, was developed by the first author. questionnaire items were written in english as the language skills appeared to be an important factor affecting the access to available networks and the expectation was that all participants are reasonably fluent in english (ryan, sales, & tilki, 2009; salaff & greve, 2004). items were responded to on a scale from strongly agree, agree, disagree to strongly disagree. in order to establish reliability and validity of the questionnaire principal components analysis followed by cronbach‟s alpha, were conducted on the completed questionnaire (see stage 1). procedure the study was conducted within the polish communities in london and polish organizations (polish psychologists club and polish professionals in london). approval to conduct the study was obtained from the head representatives of the above mentioned institutions. each participant received a sheet providing information about the subject of the research and instructions on how to participate in the research. the information sheet included a paragraph about the voluntary nature of their participation and the statement that the research proposal was approved by the universities ethics committee. a consent letter, as well as an information sheet, was presented to all the participants before completing the questionnaire. each participant was approached individually for their participation and each session lasted no longer than 20 minutes. stage 1developing and validating an attitudes towards immigration to the uk for polish citizens scale principle components analysis was conducted on the collected data and a three– factor solution was identified with eigenvalues greater than one. the first factor with eingenvalue = 5.30, accounted for 17 % of the variance and consisted of 13 items, the second factor with eingenvalue = 3.42, accounted for 11% of the variance and consisted of 8 items, the third factor with eingenvalue = 2.41, accounted for 8 % of the variance and consisted of 8 items (see table 1). europe‟s journal of psychology 196 domestic preference loading lifestyle patterns loading social participation loading i would rather have a serious illness dealt with in poland than in the uk. 0.76 i think that conditions in the uk hospitals are better than in poland. -0.63 i eat outside the home more often in the uk than when i was in poland. 0.70 i think that standards of accommodation are better in poland than in the uk. 0.73 i often buy drugs in pharmacies based in the uk. 0.58 i spend more money on my own enjoyment in the uk than while i was living in poland. 0.61 i would feel safer having members of my family treated by polish medical staff. 0.71 if i had to take a blood test i would rather do it in poland than in the uk. 0.56 i go to church more often in poland than when i am in the uk. -0.53 i would prefer to buy a house in poland rather than in the uk. 0.67 i prefer to have british social benefits than polish. -0.56 i do not find any significant differences in standards of medical treatment between polish and british health care systems. 0.46 i would like my children to attend british schools and have an english education. -0.67 my closest friends in the uk are usually polish. 0.51 since having been in the uk i feel that health care here is not as good as i previously believed. 0.41 i would like to spend my retirement in poland rather than in the uk. 0.63 i buy more items only for myself while i am in the uk than when i am in poland. -0.49 i am more financially secure in the uk than in poland. 0.38 i would like to have british citizenship in the future. -0.60 i spend more time out of my home in the uk than when i was living in poland. -0.41 i feel that i am a more social person in the uk than i am in poland. 0.31 if the cost of private health care is the same in poland as in the uk, i would rather choose british health care. -0.58 i sometimes feel i am discriminated against in the uk for being polish. 0.36 i was more involved in a sporting activity while i was in poland than i am in the uk. 0.31 i have more friends in poland than in the uk. 0.51 i feel that communication with polish people is more 0.49 gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 197 intimate and pleasant for me than with other nationalities living in the uk. i watch more polish tv than uk programmes. 0.48 i would feel uncomfortable describing my ailments in english to a uk doctor. 0.45 table 1. questionnaire items for the 3 factors with the corresponding factor loadings factor 1 was labeled as “domestic preference”. an example of the item “i would prefer to buy a house in poland rather than in the uk”. the higher the score on this factor the stronger preference for british domestic standards (cronbach‟s alpha .854). factor 2 was labeled as “lifestyle patterns”. an example of the item “my closest friends in the uk are usually polish”. the higher the score on this factor the more polish immigrants underline their attachment to polish lifestyle conditions (cronbach‟s alpha .653). factor 3 was labeled as “social participation”. an example of the item “i eat outside the home more often in the uk than when i was in poland”. the higher the score on this factor the more intensive engagement in social life while staying in poland (cronbach‟s alpha .597) (see table 1 for a complete list of items in each section of the questionnaire). it must be noted that the questionnaire was constructed as such that some statements had a positive statement towards aspects of british immigration e.g. “i would like to have british citizenship in the future” and some had a positive statement to living in poland e.g. “i would like to spend my retirement in poland rather than in the uk”. because the same rating scale ranging from strongly agree, agree, disagree to strongly disagree was used through out the questionnaire it was necessary to reverse items for each factor as appropriate. for this reason in factor 1 a higher score indicates british preferences, but for factors 2 and 3, a higher score indicates polish preferences. stage 2 results the mean ratings, together with corresponding standard deviations according to variables in the present study, are shown in tables 2.1 to 2.5. europe‟s journal of psychology 198 variables lifestyle patterns mean sd domestic preference mean sd social participation mean sd gender female male 2.72 .25 2.50 .40 2.20 .51 2.18 .37 2.43 .32 2.23 .27 table 2.1. mean and corresponding standard deviations for the 3 factors and in relation to gender in the present study. as can be seen table 2.1, polish female immigrants demonstrated the preference of polish lifestyle and they maintain a more socially active role in poland. in contrast polish males are more interested in the british way of living and have more preference for engagement into social life while living in the uk. a 2 gender by 3 factors (lifestyle patterns, domestic preference and social participation) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the data. gender differences showed a significant effect for lifestyle with f (1, 118) = 13.32, mse = 0.116, p < .00001 and for social participation with f (1, 118) = 12.76, mse = 1.17, p < 0.001. however there was no significant main effect for domestic preference with f (1, 118) = .02, mse = 0.201, p = 0.86. variables lifestyle patterns mean sd domestic preference mean sd social participation mean sd marital status single married informal 2.60 .36 2.51 .35 2.65 .35 2.21 .45 2.26 .50 2.15 .41 2.34 .34 2.33 .36 2.32 .28 table 2.2. mean and corresponding standard deviations for the 3 factors and in relation to marital status in the present study. as can be seen table 2.2, polish lifestyle patterns, as well as domestic preference, are most desired by immigrants in informal relationships. married couples are more interested in british domestic standards than those who are single or in informal relationships. a 3 marital status by 3 factors (lifestyle patterns, domestic preference and social participation) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the data. gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 199 marital status showed no significant main effect for lifestyle with f (2, 117) = 0.9 mse = 0.12, p = 0.46, social participation with f (2, 117) = 0.08, mse = 0.1, p = 0.9 and for domestic preference with f (2, 117) = .4, mse = 0.2, p = 0.66. variables lifestyle patterns mean sd domestic preference mean sd social participation mean sd length of stay in the uk > 1.5 years < 1.5 years 2.45 .36 2.77 .26 2.49 .35 1.89 .29 2.35 .34 2.31 .29 table 2.3. mean and corresponding standard deviations for the 3 factors and in relation to length of stay in the uk in the present study. as can be seen in table 2.3, immigrants living in the uk for a period shorter than one and a half years‟ stay are more attached to polish lifestyle patterns than those who have been living in the uk for a longer period. the latter seem to appreciate more british domestic conditions. at the same time those living longer in the uk seemed to have engaged more in social activities in poland than immigrants with a shorter period of stay. a 2 length of stay by 3 factors (lifestyle patterns, domestic preference and social participation) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the data. length of stay showed a significant effect for lifestyle with f (1, 118) = 30.45, mse = 0.103, p < .00001 and for domestic preference with f (1, 118) = 98.9, mse = 1.102, p < 0.0001. however there was no significant main effect for social participation with f (1, 118) = .109, mse = 0.28, p = 0.59. variables lifestyle patterns mean sd domestic preference mean sd social participation mean sd language competency certificated undocumented 2.59 .38 2.62 .33 2.30 .48 2.10 .39 2.39 .36 2.28 .26 table 2.4. mean and corresponding standard deviations to the 3 factors and in relation to language competency in the present study. europe‟s journal of psychology 200 as can be seen in table 2.4, immigrants with undocumented language competency demonstrate similar attitudes to those who have been staying less than one and a half years in the uk. a 2 language competency by 3 factors (lifestyle patterns, domestic preference and social participation) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the data. language competency showed a significant effect for social participation with f (1, 118) = 3.75, mse = 0.09, p < .05 and for domestic preference with f (1, 118) = 5.99, mse = 0.191, p < 0.01. however there was no significant main effect for lifestyle with f (1, 118) = .203, mse = 0.026, p = 0.65. variables lifestyle patterns mean sd domestic preference mean sd social participation mean sd level of education secondary university 2.42 .33 2.67 .34 2.22 .43 2.18 .45 2.29 .27 2.34 .33 table 2.5. mean and corresponding standard deviations for the 3 factors and in relation to level of education in the present study. as can be seen in table 2.5, immigrants with a university education seem to be more interested in polish lifestyle and british domestic standards than those who graduated from secondary schools. a 2 level of education by 3 factors (lifestyle patterns, social participation and domestic preference) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the data. level of education showed a significant effect for lifestyle with f (1, 118) = 11.3, mse = 0.118, p < .000, however there were no main effects and for social participation with f (1, 118) = .51, mse = 0.052, p = 0.47 and domestic preference with f (1, 118) = 0.202, mse = 0.041, p = 0.65. correlational analysis using pearson‟s correlation coefficient analysis between age and “domestic preference”, “lifestyle patterns”, and “social participation” showed a significant negative correlation with lifestyle r = -0.26, p < 0.004 implying that older participants gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 201 prefer more the uk lifestyle patterns and significant positive correlation with domestic preference with r = 0.21, p < 0.019 implying older participants have more domestic preference to living in the uk. standard multiple regression analyses to identify which of the variables studied above is the strongest predictor to attitudes towards immigration to the uk, three standard multiple regression analyses were conducted on the data using the 3 factors namely; lifestyle patterns, domestic preference and social participation as the dependent variables. gender, marital status, age, education, length of stay in the uk and language competency were considered as the independent variables. domestic preferencethe results of standard multiple regression with domestic preference as the dependent variable showed an overall r = 0.684, r square = 0.43, p < 0.00001. f (6, 113) = 16.55, p < 0.001. with other variables held constant, the length of stay is the most significant variable affecting domestic preferences with beta coefficient showing -0.598 significant at p < 0.001 respectively (see table 3.1). the longer the polish immigrants stay in the uk the more their preference for polish domestic standards change into preference for british living conditions. variable un-standardised beta coefficients standardised beta coefficients t value p value gender .011 .012 .167 .867 age -.005 -.037 -.500 .618 length of stay in the uk -.598 -.673 -8.742 .000 marital status -.019 -.059 -.824 .411 level of education .006 .006 .073 .942 language competency .070 .079 1.021 .310 table 3.1. results of standard multiple regression for domestic preference as the dependent variable in relation to gender, age, length of stay in the uk, marital status, level of education and language competency. lifestylethe results of standard multiple regression with lifestyle as the dependent variable showed an overall r = 0.598, r square = 0.32, p < 0.00001. f (6, 113) = 10.48, p < 0.0001. with other variables held constant, gender, length of stay and education being the most significant variables affecting lifestyle with beta coefficient showing europe‟s journal of psychology 202 0.202, 0.265, and 0.192 significant at p < 0.001 respectively (see table 3.2). the longer the person is in the uk the more they appreciate the british lifestyle. polish women are more interested in their national lifestyle, while men demonstrate preference for the british lifestyle. based on education, secondary school graduates choose more the british lifestyle, whilst university graduates are more attached to the polish style. variable un-standardised beta coefficients standardised beta coefficients t value p value gender .202 .283 3.638 .000 age -.013 -.111 -1.363 .175 length of stay in the uk .265 .372 4.402 .000 martial status -.006 -.024 -.310 .757 level of education .192 .231 2.681 .008 language competency -.062 -.087 -1.022 .309 table 3.2. results of standard multiple regression for lifestyle pattern as the dependent variable in relation to gender, age, length of stay in the uk, marital status, level of education and language competency. social participationthe results of standard multiple regression with social participation as the dependent variable showed an overall r = 0.351, r square = 0.07, p < 0.00001. f (6, 113) = 2.63, p < 0.20. with other variables held constant, gender is the most significant variable affecting social participation with beta coefficient showing 0.197 significant at p < 0.001 respectively (see table 3.3). polish women are less socially active in the uk than polish men. variable un-standardised beta coefficients standardised beta coefficients t value p value gender .197 .311 3.416 .001 age .001 .011 .119 .905 length of stay in the uk -.008 -.013 -.132 .895 marital status -.015 -.068 -.742 .459 level of education -.024 -.033 -.326 .745 language competency .089 .140 1.413 .160 table 3.3. results of standard multiple regression for social participation as the dependent variable in relation to gender, age, length of stay in the uk, marital status, level of education and language competency. gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 203 discussion the main aim of the present research was to identify whether there are gender differences in attitudes towards immigration to the uk. it was argued that the polish society, culture and gender roles may have a significant impact on how polish men and women may consider immigration to the uk. furthermore, it was considered as an important aspect of the study to examine the impact of other variables namely; gender, marital status, age, education, length of stay in the uk and language competency in the investigation into the attitudes towards immigration to the uk. in the absence of a standardised attitude questionnaire the first stage of the study was to develop and examine for validity and reliability of an attitude questionnaire. from the principal components analysis three factors emerged labeled as domestic preference, lifestyle pattern and social participation. in stage 2 of the study the key independent variables were subjected to statistical analysis in relation to the 3 components of the questionnaire. the main findings are as follows: men are more positive about british lifestyle and they tend to be more socially active than females. in contrast, polish women are more socially active back in their home country, being more positive about the polish style of living. preferences for domestic patterns are not dependent on gender, but on the length of stay. education and length of stay in the uk are other factors which influence polish immigrants‟ attitudes towards staying in the uk. a noticeable aspect of the present study is that overall the participants are in the younger age bracket, with an average age of twenty six, which indicates that the results are more specific to this population of polish citizens. considering that seventy two percent of the general polish population in the uk is represented by the individuals aged between twenty and twenty nine (central statistics office, 2008), it seems that most of the polish migrants decide to come back to poland before their thirties, which may indicate that their migration has rather a temporary status. however, the number of polish migrants staying abroad for a period longer than two months increased from one million at the end of 2004 to over two million in 2007 (central statistics office, 2008), which suggest that the post-accession migrants to the uk have started transforming the outflows trends (galasińska & kozłowska, 2009). even if the average representatives of polish population are currently in their twenties, in ten years time the average age bracket may be changed. additionally, several studies (drinkwater, 2008; eade et al., 2006) suggest that polish women think about their migration in the context of becoming independent and moving away from the parental home. it might be argued then that the female immigrants perceive migration as the beginning of their adult life and manifest a positive europe‟s journal of psychology 204 attitude towards coming back to their homeland. this assumption corresponds well with the further outcomes, which suggest that the male migrants manifest a tendency to increase their participation in social life when they stay abroad longer than one and a half years, whereas the female migrants tend to limit their participation in social life (drinkwater, 2008). those results seem to confirm that the female migrants are more concerned with returning back to poland, whereas polish men‟s attitude towards staying in the united kingdom seems to be more unsteady. additionally, some differences have been found on gender analyses of network strategies between polish women and men. females are more likely to perceive their networks in terms of childcare arrangements, whereas men form their networks rather through work and leisure time (ryan et al., 2009). those outcomes confirm that men entered a new environment more effortlessly than women, therefore they tend to stay more socially active in the uk and become more familiar with its lifestyle standards. focusing on polish migrants, garapich (2008) emphasises that access to the labour market is a crucial step towards stimulating social mobility and successful integration into the uk society. however, polish migrants search for an element of continuity between their life before migration and the current situation they are in, mostly by maintaining a commitment to polish food and lifestyle (rabikowska & burell, 2009) and close ties with family and friends back in poland (ryan, sales, tilki, & siara, 2009). furthermore, the results of the research suggest that education influences the attitude to lifestyle, as the polish migrants with university degrees manifest stronger attachment to the polish lifestyle than those who finished their education with secondary school diplomas. the results of kaczmarczyk‟s (2008) in-depth survey suggest that polish university graduates in the uk have never searched for employment in poland. this implies that men and women perceive working in the uk as a good opportunity to begin their professional careers. however, since polish citizens often find it difficult to reach the british labour market, they start to perceive working in their native country as more accessible (kupiszewski, 2004). on the other hand, it might be argued that the polish migrants who completed the secondary education are aware that the british labour market gives them a range of semiroutine and routine job opportunities, therefore their attachment to polish lifestyle is lower as they seem to perceive their migration status as a chance for a better life. analysis of the research sample recognizes polish women in the uk as being better educated than men, which confirms their stronger interest in polish lifestyle and social life. however, in general, the longer the polish immigrants live in the uk the more they change their preferences towards british lifestyle. the cut off point of 1.5 years, as was implemented in the present study, was also seen as a significant factor in gender differences in attitudes towards immigration 205 change of attitudes (kępińska, 2006). in the context of gender relations, it seems that polish women in the uk are more pro-polish orientated than men. implications and limitations of the findings the present findings have implications for research on the extent of impact that cultural and social norms may have on the immigration of men and women. in particular its relationship with domestic preferences, lifestyle pattern and social participation. indeed one important finding is the significant gender differences in attitudes towards immigration by polish nationals with greater interest of women to return to poland and men to stay in their newly adopted country. whether similar results may be found amongst other eastern european countries that recently joined the eu (such as hungary) could be the subject of follow up research. the noticeable limitation of the study is its reliance on a quantitative measure in assessing attitudes. while examining the statistical differences in responses given to attitude questionnaires is of interest, equally important are the reasons given for such responses. it would be an ideal complementary follow up study to engage in research of a qualitative methodology to explore the reasons for polish men and women for wanting to remain in the uk or to return to poland. references: billson, j. m., & fluehr – lobban, c. (2005). female well – being: toward a global theory of social change. london: zed books. central statistics office (2008). informacja o rozmiarach i kierunkach emigracji z polski w latach 2004 – 2007. warszawa: główny urząd statystyczny gus. retrieved from the web july10,2009. http://www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/publ_informacja_o_rozmiarach_i_kierunk_emig ra_z_polski_w_latach_2004_2007.pdf coyle, a. (2007). the changing status of polish women‟s migration and work in the „new‟ europe. journal of women‟s studies, 14 (1), 37-50. drinkwater, s. 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(2009). the material worlds of recent polish migrants: tran nationalism, food, shops and home. in k. burrell (ed.), polish migration to the uk in the “new” european union after 2004 (pp. 211-238). surrey: ashgate. ryan, l., sales, r., & tilki, m. (2009). recent polish migrants in london: accessing and participating in social networks across borders. in k. burrell (ed.), polish migration to the uk in the “new” european union after 2004 (pp. 149-166). surrey: ashgate. ryan, l., sales, r., tilki, m., & siara, b. (2009). family strategies and transnational migration: recent polish migrants in london. journal ethnic and migration studies, 35(1), 61-77. salaff, j., & greve, a. (2004). can woman‟s social networks migrate?. women‟s studies international forum, 27 (2), 149-162. siara, b. (2009). uk poles and the negotiation of gender and ethnic identity in cyberspace. in k. burrell (ed.), polish migration to the uk in the “new” european union after 2004 (pp. 167-187). surrey: ashgate. sword, k. (1996). identity in flux the polish community in britain. london: school of slavonic and east european studies at university of london. wejnert, b., & djumabaeva, a. (2005). from patriarchy to egalitarianism: parenting roles in democratizing poland and kyrgyzstan. marriage & family review, 36 (3 & 4), 147-171. http://lerc.educ.ubc.ca/fac/norton/tq%20%282001%29%20-%20norton%20&%20toohey%20-%20changing%20perspectives%20on%20good%20language%20learners.pdf europe‟s journal of psychology 208 wiking, e., johansson, s. e., & sundquist, j. (2004). ethnicity, acculturation, and self reported health. a population based study among immigrants from poland, turkey, and iran in sweden. j epidemiol community health, 58(7), 574–582. zajicek, a., m., & calasanti, t. m. (1998). patriarchal struggles and state practices. a feminist, political-economic view. gender & society, 12 (5), 505-527. about the authors: anna kuwik, recent graduate of ma in psychology and msc in applied psychology. the first degree accomplished at maria curie-skłodowska in poland. additionally completed a supplementary specialisation in social communication psychology. graduated from middlesex university with a degree in applied psychology. the final research project related to her research interests including psychological aspects of immigration, the humanistic approach to psychology and health promotion. e-mail: aniakxk@o2.pl bahman baluch, ma, phd, cpsychol, afbpss, csci reader in experimental psychology and author of over 60 refereed publications, conference presentations and book chapters. his research interests include cognitive processes of reading, psychological aspects of infertility and organ donation. address for correspondance: bahman baluch, school of health and social sciences, middlesex university, the burroughs, london nw4 4bt e-mail: bahman1@mdx.ac.uk mailto:bahman1@mdx.ac.uk microsoft word 2. interview purser.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp.3-11 www.ejop.org creativity as social: the progress of a promising idea. interview with dr. ronald purser by vlad gl�veanu, ejop editor for centuries we have been used to attributing creativity to the individual, traditionally the lone genius and, later on, to each and every individual taken separately. however, in previous decades more and more voices argued for a social conceptualization of creativity, one that would recognize the collaborative efforts that make creativity possible. among these voices is that of dr. ronald purser who advocated for the study of social creativity especially in organizational contexts and who has generously offered to answer some of our questions on this topic. ronald purser is professor of management in the college of business at san francisco state university, and an adjunct faculty member and benedictine university, fielding institute, and colorado technical university. he is past division chair for the organization development and change division of the academy of management and has been an active consultant and researcher in both the private and public sector. he has published over sixty refereed journal articles and book chapters on high performance work systems, design of new product development organizations, environmental management, social creativity, and participative strategic planning. in addition, dr. purser is co-author and co-editor of five books including 24/7: time and temporality in the network society (stanford university press, 2007) ,the search conference: a powerful method for planning organizational change and community action (jossey-bass, 1996), social creativity, volumes 1 & 2 (hampton press, 2000), and the self-managing organization (the free press, 1998). his book, the self managing organization, was selected as one of the top ten management books for 1998 by the management general mega-website. his research has been featured in such places as fortune, the washington post, and training magazines. his guest editorial article, "shallow versus deep organization development and environmental sustainability" appeared in the journal of organizational change europe’s journal of psychology 4 management won the 1995 best paper literati club awards for excellence. his new book, creativity in organizations, will be published by sage publishing in 2009. ejop: since the ‘80s there has been an increased interest in the social dimension of creativity synchronized with a consistent criticism of the ‘lone genius myth’. you and dr. montuori have consistently engaged in deconstructing this myth. how would you appreciate the progress of social creativity as a field over these last decades? ronald purser: our article “deconstructing the lone genius myth,” appeared in the journal of humanistic psychology in 1995. shortly after it was published in that journal, a number of scholars were quite critical of our call for a social understanding of creativity. some responded with accusations that we were minimizing the role of individual—which is not at all what we were saying. we simply were trying to show how western culture, since the early 17th century was progressively emulating and propagating a cultural myth of creativity. creativity was mythologized as coming from the gifted and lone genius, who rebelled against the masses, often depicted as somewhat deranged or odd, and having emerged without having any need for social interactions, hard work, or discipline study of their field. unfortunately, our critique fell on deaf ears until perhaps the early 90’s. then we begin to see a growing recognition that innovation in the private sector requires greater degrees of collaboration. you begin to see a lot of talk about cross-disciplinary and crossfunctional teams, and then, robert reich publishes a seminal article in the harvard business review called “entrepreneurship reconsidered: the team as hero.” in 2000, we published a two volume edited series called, social creativity (hampton press). at that time we looked around and found a handful of people who were thinking along the same lines as us, and we published those books to try to shift the field more in this direction. many of our colleagues at this time--like teresa amabile (now at harvard), keith sawyer, mihaly cszentmihalyi, james olgivy, and richard woodman were in simpatico with us—and we were happy to see their contributions. in the last five years, i have seen a dramatic shift to really focusing on the importance of social creativity. in the management literature, we now see articles explicitly examining team creativity, the role of team processes, and so on. also, since the mid-90’s, we saw a surge of interest in such concepts as improvisation, emergence and lots of writings on the jazz ensemble as a metaphor. these all seemed to be pointing to a new perspective on creativity that was based much more on a social and an interactionist view. keith sawyer’s recent books, such as group genius, along with others like warren bennis’ organizing genius—helped to creativity as social: the progress of a promising idea 5 get these ideas out into society. it is probably no coincidence that the growing interest in sustainability, the “greening of business,” has been happening in parallel to the recognition that creativity actually occurs within a context, and that context actually has a major influence on whether creativity can be sustained over time. the industrial paradigm grew out of the modernist view that organizations were simply machines, based on an economic model of human behaviour. we see now that such a view is not sustainable, given its horrific impact on the natural environment. in this sense, the modernist paradigm of creativity has also run its course. the creativity of lone geniuses working alone in isolation simply is not sustainable in a network society and in an environment that is increasingly interdependent. ejop: one of your main interests has been applying social creativity to the field of organisations. after co-editing the second volume of ‘social creativity’ in 2000, looking especially at organisational settings, you are about to publish a new book, ‘creativity in organisations’. which would you say are the main changes in this field over the past 9 years? ronald purser: i think much of what i said above tracks some of this, but there are other factors at works as well. one, is that we are rapidly shifting to a creative economy. a lot has been written on this, so i won’t go into it, but essentially there are massive and fundamental structural changes happening in the global economy. many jobs that we never thought could be outsourced—like those in engineering and software development—are now rapidly being lost to countries like india, russia and eastern european countries. we have already lost manufacturing, and it is not coming back—no matter how many bail-outs are given out by washington. i think a lot of senior managers are waking up to the fact that true competitive advantage will be the ability to create and innovate. that requires a whole new mindset, as daniel pink might say. the skills and competencies for the 21st century appear similar to those of a good jazz ensemble player. such abilities as the ability to collaborate, cooperate—yet also take initiative, risk and lead; to be able to listen, work with conflict and differences, and display empathy. the ability to be provocative, bold and original—yet being cognizant of the context and schooled in the discipline of one’s field. all these competencies are essential to improvisation and social creativity. also, the role of paradox is now becoming much more mainstream. the whole notion of working with paradox used to seem extremely academic and tucked away in obscure academic journals and overlooked books. but if we are to really understand the nature of creativity in organizational or social settings—we also need europe’s journal of psychology 6 to think differently—we need to learn how to embrace paradoxical ideas. if you go back even to the early work on creativity by frank barron—who did groundbreaking work at uc berkeley’s institute of personality assessment research in the late 1950’s and 1960’s—you will find eminently creative persons were found to be a bundle of contradictions. the creative person was described in paradoxical terms—open, yet closed; flexible but also stubborn; complex, but also valued elegant simplicity; sicker mentally, yet also more sane than the average person. now we see that creative organizations also appear as being able to manage polarities effectively. this is also pointing to the emergence of a new logic, perhaps a higher level of cognitive complexity. albert low calls it a “logic of ambiguity,” edgar morin refers to as “complex thinking,” and roger martin uses the term “integrative thinking.” that the united states elected president obama perhaps signals that the shift to postmodern forms of leadership is now legitimate. we see here an executive capacity that recognizes the complexities and ambiguities of systemic issues, and can tolerate tensions rather than try to deny or negate them. ejop: there has always been a debate on whether individuals are more creative than groups or not. from both your theoretical position and practical experience as a consultant and researcher, what would be your answer in this debate? ronald purser: yes and no. you see, the very posing of your question in these terms reveals a classical logic at work, and “either/or” way of perceiving situations that would like you to pick sides...are either individuals or groups more creative? the reason i answered yes and no is that it all depends on the context. if you are conducting a laboratory study of idea generation, we all know that individuals working alone as compared to “brainstorming” groups—will outperform groups. we have no way of knowing how good those ideas really are of course, or whether they would have real value or utility. most creativity researchers seem to agree that creativity is not merely having a bright idea—but also a very good idea, one that can have a significant impact on society—and that usually translates as having utility or value. now for the artist, that may be shock value. we all know that creative ideas are not necessarily welcomed with open arms. the point i am trying to make is we have to be somewhat careful when we ask a question of this sort. i am sure we all know of some individuals who may consider themselves as creative because they are never short on ideas, but they never have actually implemented their ideas or turned them into real products that have value. while i believe every human being has the potential to actualize their innate creativity, i don’t equate that with the view that all individuals are equally creative. creativity as social: the progress of a promising idea 7 we know from the work done on eminently creative individuals that the key personality traits, personal characteristics and dispositions—the profile of the creative person—is very different than the average population. so there is no denying the fact that some individuals are much more creative as compared to the normal population. the problem is when we make widespread cultural assumptions that creativity then must only be reserved for these few, unusual, and perhaps elite individuals—the lone geniuses. when that assumption is operating, we don’t expect to see creativity in groups, nor do we bother to study it at that level. in fact, the attitude is that groups (or teams) just get in the way of the genius. we know, however, that there are many examples of groups, teams, or partnerships that have been exceptionally creative. in fact, creativity in this case is the product of such social interactions. this is why we see so much interest in studying examples from the performance arts—such as jazz ensembles, improvisational theatre groups, movie productions, and so on. on the other hand, we have all been in groups that were antithetical to creativity. boring and useless meetings, committees that go nowhere, or even product development teams that simply don’t amount to anything. we need a methodological and epistemological perspective that can help us to see that creativity is not restricted to atomistic individuals, nor is it merely sociological. for example, let’s say that a bright person is tested using all the sophisticated assessment techniques for measuring “giftedness” and creativity, similar to what was used at uc, berkeley’s ipar. let’s imagine that this exceptionally creative individual is dropped into a company whose corporate culture is conservative, risk-averse, and punitive of employees who make mistakes. group meetings are facilitated poorly, dissent is not tolerated, and authoritarian leadership is in full force. in such a cultural context, it is highly unlikely we are going to see much creative fireworks from our individual bright person. and certainly groups in this company will not even register on the creativity map. now let’s say we take an average person, who doesn’t score as exceptional on the same battery of creativity assessments—and we drop this individual into an organization that is buzzing with freewheeling groups, empowered to experiment, play and test out new ideas and products. suddenly this average person seems to feel and think more creatively. and this person does so, not alone, but with other individuals in a group that is synergistic and generative. in addition, this freewheeling group also feels supported by the larger cultural context. i would venture to say, that in such a hypothetically creative group, individuality is valued as much as team cohesion. that is, what we would see is an unequivocal respect for individuality and idiosyncratic self-expression—at the same time—a loyalty and commitment to enriching the group as a whole. this is very different than the europe’s journal of psychology 8 simplistic conceptions of teams and team work that has been prevalent in companies over the last several decades. if we subscribe to the view that individuals are more creative than groups, then we should expect that by assembling an “all star” team of exceptionally creative individuals—that we should expect to produce a “supra-creative team”. but this is not necessarily the case when the product of a group is dependent on emergent properties. in other words, creativity in groups is not a simple additive function. forming a team with exceptional all stars is no guarantee that the group as a whole will be creative. it is not just the individual talents of team members that accounts for group creativity, but the quality of interactions among them. david harrington noticed this in his study of how the personal computer was created, in what he termed value-enhancing interactions. when it comes to group creativity, emergent properties becomes a critical variable. so when you ask, is it either individuals or groups... you also have to ask what sort of groups? groups that suppress dissent and conflict? groups that cannot effectively manage the polarities or tensions between individualism and collectivism, individuality and group cohesion? if you mean these sort of static groups, then i would place my bets on individuals. if you mean dynamic groups that can manage these polarities, i would say both—because dynamic groups often create products that individuals alone never would have created (like the songs of lennon and mccartney, or steve jobs and steve wozniak’s apple computer, or the miles davis group that produced the album, kind of blue)—in this case, the group wins out. moreover, individuals that have been part of such dynamic group experiences then later venture out on their own, resulting in a second wave of creative production. it is as if these dynamic groups spawn individuals to even greater heights of creative performance. ejop: considering the notion of ‘methodological reductionism’ you and dr. montuori have used, how should researchers interested in social creativity design their studies to avoid falling in this trap? ronald purser: i think it comes down to trying to capture the interdependencies within the context of the study. essentially it means a frame of reference that can account for multidimensionality of complementary relations, opposing tendencies, dualities or polarities. rather than trying to measure or capture one side of a polarity—which amounts to a form of reductionism—the research should try to observe, describe and measure emergent properties, or mutual reinforcing creativity as social: the progress of a promising idea 9 interactions between variables—rather than just the variables isolated from their context. this presents challenges, of course, as traditional analytical tools won’t work. basically, you have to ask, how can i study the behaviour of the whole, rather than simply the behaviour of the parts. ejop: you also have a profound interest in issues related to time and temporality in today’s world. in fact, your most recent co-edited book which stanford university published, “24/7: time and temporality in the network society” addresses these issues. how are creativity processes taking place in the ‘24/7’ society? ronald purser: this is a very interesting question. certainly it is obvious that the internet revolution, cell phones and information communication technologies have created a networked society, where space and time have radically been transformed. the whole movement towards social networking and web 2.0 has, for example, made it possible for grass roots movements to explode. even obama’s political campaign depended on this capacity of the web to organize at the local level. information technologies are making it easy for people to self-organize into groups and networks, which are not confined or limited by traditional organizational hierarchies and authoritarian leadership. we now see teenagers developing applications for the apple iphone and becoming wealthy overnight. in some ways, the conditions for social creativity are easier to foster. on the other hand, we have counter-forces at work, large corporate conglomerates that would like to control what is now a free public commons—into a commercial space owned and operated by private interests. the legal structure—such as the current heavy-handed copyright laws, were based on protecting the individual creator--are also being wielded to disenfranchise ordinary people (in many cases teenagers) from sharing and mixing ideas to reproduce something new. i think social networking exposes what actually has been happening throughout history—but which we have tended to ignore. we have romanticized and glorified the single individual creator, and pretended that such individuals created from a blank slate, immune to social and historical influences. social networking is like a technological peep hole into the creative process—except that it takes place over the web—at least initially. more importantly, social networking thrives on collaboration and sharing—the same sort of processes that we see occurring in creative groups. just look at such recent companies as google, youtube, wikipedia, facebook, twitter, and the old hat ebay; they all depend on the idea that the community adds value. the network society is not just a technological change but also a shift in zeitgeist. it is almost as if an isolated “lone genius” type of creativity is misplaced in social networks—appearing as aberrant and presumptuous. europe’s journal of psychology 10 ejop: continuing on the topic of time, one that has been largely discussed in relation to theories of organisational change, would you see the idea of time (maybe the notion of ‘flow time’) introduced in creativity theories and if so how? ronald purser: i think the idea of “flow time” is already is beginning to emerge. albert low, a thinker that i really admire, has a concept which he calls “dynamic unity,” which , to me, is equivalent to “flow time.” think of a musical composition, perhaps a symphonic piece. why do we enjoy and marvel at beethoven’s fifth symphony? a musical composition or even an improvised jazz tune are expressions of dynamic unity. unity is not static, it’s dynamic. when we experience dynamic unity through great music, or some other artistic performance, something in us resonates—art in this sense has a healing function. we seek unity—but it can never be attained once and for all in some sort of static state outside of time and space. instead, dynamic unity is a lived experience. in zen buddhism, we would say it is coming to awakening-that ordinary mind is the way. this may sound a little too spiritual for some people, but flow-time could be understood as a human drive for integration—or being fully at one with our experience. but here is the crux—that oneness is dynamic—and full of contradictions. it is absorptive and fully accommodating of the entire context—all seeming opposites harmonize—yielding this sense of flow which, on a temporal level, is a timeless quality. of course, our colleague mihaly csikszentmihalyi was a pioneer in this area way before us. ejop: finally, a question of great interest for everyone, from researchers and managers to lay people: how can we cultivate the benefits of social creativity in our daily life? ronald purser: i like your use of the word “cultivate” because that is what it is about. i like using the analogy of a garden or ecosystem—social creativity is really about developing and sustaining a healthy ecosystem. how do we do that? we have to cultivate our garden—in this case, our social networks, communities, and the environments we live and work in on a daily basis. we also need to tend to our own internal garden—our own psyche—which is also a network of selves. even good old freud saw that that human psyche was not a unity—although i disagree with much of his theories. given that creative individuals have a greater capacity for absorbing and utilizing contradictory energies and tendencies, we could view this as an enhancement of conscious awareness. a step in this direction is to stop viewing the human being as a simple unity—as a single and unchanging self. accepting and being open to the inner complexity of one’s own psyche allows for greater creativity as social: the progress of a promising idea 11 openness. and greater openness allows for more complexity. once we are more comfortable with the notion that we are a multiplicity of selves—we can cultivate our awareness of these selves. in other words, we can strengthen our capacity for conscious awareness by learning to separate or dis-identify with the various parts of ourselves. this is the process of cultivation of our inner garden. we become the “master gardener,” rather than identifying with any particular plant, flower, tree or weed. once we make this step, the whole notion of personal identity becomes open to further questioning. we begin to see that our sense of individuality is dynamic and relational in nature—that the stories we tell about who we are as individuals is not the whole truth. we also see that personal identity is contingent on our history, our changing contexts, and our actions. when we see that is true for ourselves, we also see that it is true for others as well. creativity, as the late frank barron pointed out, is very much aligned with psychological freedom and health. our quest may be for a sense of psychological freedom, but that freedom always will be found within the context of a social and natural environment. it is similar to the practice of zen. the student of zen may be seeking enlightenment, but awakening will only be found in the here and now, in one’s everyday life. this raises the question of moral creativity. i don’t think we can sustain conceptions or forms of creativity that ignore social and environmental contexts. take an obvious example—nuclear warheads. was the work of the scientists on the manhattan project creative? the products of these scientists was the atom bomb, designed to obliterate life as we know it on this planet. it is ironic that the government agency at the time in the united states—the office of strategic services (now known as the cia)—funded research to identify the most creative scientists for the manhattan project and other cold war military projects. this is an extreme example, but we have many more “normal” cases that call into question our collective judgments of creative products. the point i am trying to make is that social creativity goes hand in hand with the concept of sustainability. as prof. montuori has recently suggested, we can no longer sustain a modernist view of creativity that ignores social and environmental contexts. we have done so since the industrial revolution and now we have the climate change crisis and global warming—among other global problems. so, to come back to your question, we have to think and act in ways that sustains our own creativity, and also use our creativity in ways that sustains our social and natural environment. i can’t tell you what it would like for you—that is a process everyone has to discover and work out themselves. interview with paul e. spector by alexandra ilie our interviewee is paul e. spector, phd in i/o psychology, university of south florida (usf), professor of i/o psychology and director of the i/o graduate program. his research interests include the impact of jobs on the behavior and well-being of employees, including counterproductive behavior, job satisfaction, job stress, and withdrawal behavior. professor spector published in many journals in the field, including journal of applied psychology, journal of management, journal of organizational behavior (job), journal of occupational and organizational psychology (joop), and psychological bulletin. he has written books on both methodology (research design and sas programming) and content, including an i/o psychology textbook (industrial and organizational psychology: research and practice). professor spector’s most active interests now are counterproductive behavior at work and cross-cultural job stress. alexandra ilie: you are a scholar who has focused a large part of his academic work on the organizational stress field. we all know there are many definitions and models of job stress which have been proposed by researchers over time. what is your own framework of organizational stress? paul e. spector: i consider emotional reaction to be a required element in the stress process. working conditions are stressful when they result in a negative emotional response. this allows for a distinction between something that is stressful versus something that just requires effort. doing a lot of work or doing something difficult isn’t in and of itself stressful. it only becomes stressful when it elicits negative emotions, perhaps because the person becomes frustrated at having more to do than can be done, or anxious about not being capable of performing adequately. alexandra ilie: the moderator models of occupational stress provided information on the impact of many moderator variables such as: social support, hardiness, optimism, negative affectivity, locus of control, and so forth, on the stressor-strain relationship. what variable do you consider would most buffer the relationship between the two and what are the mechanisms which could explain that? paul e. spector: i’ve spent a lot of time studying control, so obviously i think that is very important. it is a critical element in the demand-control model, but this model has been difficult to support empirically. i think it is because of methodological limitations in how research has tried to test it, including studies we’ve done. such studies measure broad categories of chronic stressors and general control. to be effective though, control has to be over the specific stressor, and so much more episodic methods need to be used to give the idea a good test. social support is also important, although this may well depend on matching the type of stressor to the type of support. although she was looking at coping, one of my doctoral students, liuqin yang, has done research showing stressors may differ in how they can best be dealt with. alexandra ilie: although researchers have largely addressed at the theoretical level the importance of applying the transactional paradigm of stress, empirical research has been achieved so far using a moderator framework. what methodological issues do you think should be improved so that the dynamic nature of job stress might be satisfactorily captured? paul e. spector: our studies have tended to focus on chronic conditions, asking people how often or how much of certain stressors and strains have been experienced. this assumes that the effects of stressors on strains is cumulative over time, which is not necessarily true in all cases. what has been neglected are more episodic methods that might look at the impact of specific events on strains. experience sampling methods might be used to look at specific events. another method that has been used in only a handful of studies is the keenan and newton stress incident record. the idea is to collect stressful incidents from people and then content analyze them. one of the things this line of research has suggested is that the stressors researchers study are not necessarily the ones that employees find most stressful. for example, this line of research has shown that interpersonal conflict is one of the most frequent incidents people report, yet there have been very few studies of conflict as a stressor. alexandra ilie: what are the differences between individualist and collectivist countries regarding the work locus of control (the belief that one has control at work) – well-being relationship? paul e. spector: there are very large differences between individualist and collectivist countries in their work locus of control. individualists believe they have far more control at work than collectivists. what is interesting in our work, is that the relationship between work locus of control and job satisfaction is universal—those who are more internal tend to be more satisfied, and relations with other measures of well-being held in most countries. this suggests to me that the relative level of control belief is important. if you tend to believe you have more control that most people in your country, you will likely have better well-being than the average person. alexandra ilie: the concept of “control beliefs” has expanded and includes primary control, secondary control and socio-instrumental control beliefs. in which cultural context each type of control belief has a positive impact on worker’s well-being and what could be the explanations? paul e. spector: there’s been very little research using these new control beliefs—we developed scales that were used in only one study. primary control is like locus of control, so we found that it relates to well-being across many different countries/cultures. secondary control concerns controlling one’s response to the environment rather than the environment itself. we found that it related to job satisfaction in china and the u.s. however, for work anxiety, it related only in the u.s. and not in china. socioinstrumental control concerns controlling the world through social relationships, and we found little relationship with well-being. of course, this is a single study that looked at a limited number of countries, and measures of well-being. we need to do more work with these constructs/measures before firm conclusions can be drawn. alexandra ilie: in recent years there has been an increasing tendency towards job insecurity and working longer hours in the organizational environment. what impact would have those factors on employee’s well-being, work-life quality and workplace productivity? paul e. spector: we’ve done some work on the connection between working hours and work/family conflict. we find, as might be expected, that working long hours has a detrimental effect on work/family conflict and can be a source of stress, at least in western society. surprisingly though, work hours has shown relatively little relationship with strains. going back to question 1, this might be due in part because it isn’t the amount you work, but rather your emotional response to it that matters. if you love your job and enjoy the work, there might be no impact on strain even if you work many hours. on the other hand, if you hate the work, even a few hours per day is too much. i would assume job insecurity would have effects first on anxiety, and then on behavior, but we haven’t done research on it. alexandra ilie: absenteeism has been a largely researched topic because represents an indicator of a healthy organization. academic work is now moving towards studying a phenomenon which causes a greater productivity loss than absenteeism and that is – presenteeism (this notion describes employees who are overworking and not performing as well as they could due to stress, burn-out, sickness and injury arising from an excessive pressure in the workplace). what strategies could be addressed by organizations in order to reduce this form of counterproductive behavior at work? paul e. spector: this is an interesting idea, and one that is very relevant to the u.s. as organizations go through almost mindless downsizing, leaving survivors to work excessive numbers of hours. employees can quickly become demoralized, fatigued and frustrated, leading to all forms of counterproductive work behavior and inefficiency. organizations need to be realistic in their expectations about how much individuals can do before they begin to show signs of stress. this can involve much more careful planning before downsizing to be sure that critical work is reallocated to individuals in a reasonable way, and that priorities are set so that less important functions can be eliminated if there’s no one to do them. organizations can also provide additional training to help employees be more efficient if efficiency is a problem. alexandra ilie: nowadays many organizations increasingly tend to use virtual teams, telecommuting, and electronic brainstorming and so forth because these things open up new opportunities that are moving beyond time and space constraints. what kind of stressors do you think would arise from working in such organizational settings and what skills do people need in order to cope better with this “teleenvironment”? paul e. spector: two things come to mind. first, some individuals might feel socially isolated if they work alone in a remote location. second, these technologies require both communication (e.g., writing), and technical skills (computers). some people have a difficult time communicating through technology, so these skills might need enhancement. alexandra ilie: in your opinion what are the most important stressors which employees would be confronted with at work in this millennium? paul e. spector: this depends to a large extent by the country/culture. in the u.s. and western countries, research suggests that the most important stressors are interpersonal conflict, excessive workload, and lack of control. lack of control tends not to be an issue in collectivist countries. alexandra ilie: do you think there is a relationship between the economic development of a country and the preoccupation of organizations operating in that country for employee’s wellbeing? paul e. spector: research suggests that well-being is better in developed countries. i suspect that in such countries organizations and people have the resources to pay attention to well-being. in very poor countries organizations and people may be entirely focused on subsistence and are less concerned with well-being. alexandra ilie: stress is a phenomenon which causes negative consequences on people’s well-being. what proactive educational means could be implemented so that today’s children – tomorrow’s employees might develop early stress management skills? paul e. spector: it is certainly possible to provide stress management skills to children in school. in the u.s. schools are like many workplaces with excessive workloads for both students and teachers. in this environment, some attention to stress management might provide skills that would transfer to the job. alexandra ilie: what is sas programming and how is helpful to students’ and social researchers’ work? paul e. spector: for social researchers, sas is perhaps the most flexible tool available for data analysis. not only does it have built-in statistical procedures to do most of the analyses conducted in social science, it also is a complete programming language. the language feature allows flexibility in manipulating data, including the ability to conduct analyses that aren’t part of the built-in procedures. alexandra ilie: hans selye once said that being under stress was synonymous with being alive. could there be positive aspects of stress in people’s lives? paul e. spector: it is impossible to completely avoid stress, and without some of it, i imagine life would be pretty boring. stress can motivate us in positive directions to improve ourselves and the world. it also can be a signal to us that something is wrong and needs to be either fixed or avoided. paul spector, august 2005 i would like to express my gratitude towards professor paul e. spector for his kindness of affording ejop an interview. a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 150–162 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.337 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 quality of life: definition and measurement paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejop's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf formation conditions of corporate social responsibility in organizational culture māra vidnere riga teacher training and educational management academy email: mvidnere@navigator.lv jānis strautmanis banking institution of higher education email: janis.strautmanis@ba.lv abstract corporate social responsibility is societal expectation of corporate behavior: behaviors that are felt by the stakeholders to be socially or morally required. value orientation of the managers is extremely important in shaping their perception of the importance for the enterprise to focus attention and act according to its social responsibility. there is a further expression of social responsibility relating to the values that managers might observe. this area is normally known as business ethics, referred to as the role of the individual in the organization. under the current economical and globalization conditions, companies in latvia have to be aware of the importance of the enterprises’ social responsibility in the formation of a successful long term development, efficient working environment and company’s publicity. it is crucial for enterprises in latvia to incorporate the principles of social responsibility in company mottos, in their values, organizational culture and planning. this study investigates the relationship between organizational values and sensitivity to corporate social responsibility among current employees and business students. using a questionnaire on value orientation, survey data was collected from a sample of 618 employees in enterprises and banks, 100 clerks of public sector and 125 first year business students. the results of the study show some groups of employees that are remarkably different in relation to their social responsibility. informal education that is provided by employers is an important way and efficient means how to make the ideas of social responsibility understandable and acceptable among the employees. however, given the objective differences among the employees, usage of the same study methods and forms in all organizations is impossible. therefore, in order to ensure the quality and efficiency of studies, it is necessary to learn the individual qualities and differences of the employees. keywords: values orientation, corporate social responsibility, honesty, business ethic introduction social responsibility of the company provides for long term economical benefit of enterprises. therefore, instead of ensuring maximum profit to the company, social responsibility ensures optimum profit. (post, frederick, lawrence, 1996, siccone, 1998, pearce, robinson, 2000). social responsibility of the company is a tool that is used to reach the goal – the company becomes a good and valuable member of the society and evidences partiality. (robbins, 2000, mullins, 2001, mcintosh, thomas, leipziger, gill, 2003). the working document of the european commission green paper (“promoting a european framework for corporate social responsibility – green paper”) says that implementation of the declared continuous european development strategy is impossible without facilitation of the social responsibility of the company. (green paper, 2001) along with the responsibility for the economical development, protection of the environment and welfare of the society, the document highlights the responsibility of employers for the implementation of the principles of life long education. (green paper, 2001, p. 10) the issue of the research includes the statement that social responsibility is an expression and part of the cultural organization. the orientation of the cultural organization is determined by the value orientation dominating in the organization. orientation to human relationship, quality and personal development are especially crucial for the organization. the research resulted in elaboration of statistically grounded scales that show social responsibility and organizational culture describing value orientations. differences in the orientation of the values in question are the indicator that allows conclusions about the level of social responsibility and enables analyses of the development. the object – organizational culture – and subject – social responsibility of the research were defined in the course of preparing the research. the goal of the research was to define the views of the employees and future managers working in enterprises, banks and state budget institutions on value orientations important in their companies. the task of the research was to find answers to the following questions: 1. to find statistically important value orientations that determines organizational culture. 2. to find statistically important factors that determine differences among value orientations shaping organizational culture in different companies. 3. to find statistically important differences among different analytical groups in terms of the significance of value orientation. methodology the basis of the research is employees of the small and medium size enterprises that represent the following activities: financial mediating; wholesale and retail; hotels and restaurants; real estate, lease and other kinds of commercial activities. the number of population in latvia in 2004 was n=235,3 thousand people. (labor force indicators in 2004, 2005) respondents to the survey (n=618) are different levels of managers, experts, employees, service and sales personnel. the research does not include unskilled workers and people holding low position. in order to obtain data for comparison, additional survey was carried among : 100 employees from state budget institutions (state and municipality management, state revenue service, the bank of latvia, educational institutions) 125 first year bachelor degree students from business college – future employees of enterprises. the total of the respondents of the value orientation survey was 843. description of the method: to obtain data basis through survey over a definite period of time so that the data basis can be processed by statistic data processing and analyses software statistic 6 statsoft co. survey contained: 1) value orientation survey, elaborated within the european partner states grant cooperation project wacra, in english, adjusted in latvian. (garleja, vidnere, 2001); 2) business ethics development test (уткин, 1998), adjusted in latvian. the task of the respondent was, by using likert scale method, to evaluate 91 statements –indicators given in the value orientation questionnaire that describe organizational phenomena, tendencies, principles and other criteria. levels: 7 – extremely important; 6 –very important; 5, 4, 3 – important (by growing significance); 2 – of little importance; 1 – of very little importance. in order to better explain the results, additional variables were invented: gender (1 – male; 2 – female); age (1 – under 30; 2 – 30 – 44 years of age; 3 – 45+years of age ); type of the company (1 – enterprise; 2 – bank; 3 – state institution, 4 – business school student); education (1 – secondary; 2 – unaccomplished higher; 3 – higher); region (1 – capital city riga,; 2 – elsewhere in latvia). results by means of cluster analyses, questions of the questionnaire were consolidated in nine groups/scales that conform to different value orientations that describe organizational cultures. the number of questions in each value orientation group varied from six to thirteen. mutual conformity of the questions and correspondence to the respective group was tested by cronbach α (alpha) test. nine value orientation scales have been discovered: (see table 1): 1. orientation to organizational success and development. 2. orientation to internal communication /or/ organizational functionality. 3. orientation to employees’ involvement. 4. orientation to life long education or personal development. 5. orientation to decrease in personal integrity in favor of the staff. 6. orientation to professionalism. 7. orientation to quality. 8. orientation to democratic and friendly management. 9. orientation to human relationship. “analysis of variance” resulted in finding out significant organizational culture determining factors that facilitate the differences among value orientations: the gender and company type. (table 1 and table 2) feature gender is the most important one (f=5,805, p=0,0000). its impact is statistically important in 7 out of 9 value orientation scales. exception – orientation to group values and orientation to quality. the existence of the difference between the genders is a generally known phenomenon, and this research has given it one more empirical proof. according to the ideas expressed in carol gilligan’s morality of care and responsibility, females are more care, assistance, social relations and responsibility oriented while justice and abstract principles grounded ethics is typical of males. scale 4 presents the greatest value orientation importance evaluation difference between males and females – orientation to personal development, including availability of education; scale 3 – orientation to the involvement of employees and horizontal organizational structure. similar tendency was observed regarding the question about evaluation of the importance of justice as esthetical category. the research confirmed the statistical importance of the gender feature in the different evaluation: female respondents evaluated justice as esthetically important category by 9% higher than male respondents. (the theoretical thesis has been confirmed by well known in our society initiators of social responsibility programs in contemporary latvia – b. rubesa (latvija statoil ltd.), l.bemhena (spilva ltd.), a. vīksna (applied information service ltd.), s. ēlerte (newspaper diena), i. blūma (hansabank) to a lesser extent, however statistically significantly, value orientation differences in the research are determined by the factorial feature company type (f=2,209, p=0,0003). that is, belonging of the respondent to an analytical group: enterprise, bank, state institution or business school student determines the differences in value orientations. company type – statistically important differences were found in orientation to friendly management and human relationship (scales 8 and 9). when we compare the average indicators of the value orientation evaluation, we can conclude that friendly management has received the highest evaluation. this points out to the tendency of high evaluation to psychological comfort, non-exacting manager and pleasant working conditions. (average score=6,26 points out of 7.) the aforementioned management might be efficient in the case of high involvement of employees in decision making and if the organization has precise delegation of duties, rights and responsibilities. in this respect, the research into value orientations presents a contradiction: low evaluation of orientation to organizational functionality and orientation to the involvement of employees. (respectively, 3,4 and 3,24 points out of 7.) phenomena that contribute to the pride of belonging to the organization and employees’ loyalty – orientation to the type of organizational success that possesses a row of external features – facilities of the building and premises, presence of international contacts and export production – enjoy high evaluation. employees in such kind of company are proud of their success, they have sense of commonality and security because the enterprise has precise distribution of work assignments and career opportunities. high evaluation was also granted to orientation to quality, orientation to competitive production and services that can be implemented if the company possesses extensive knowledge about the market, it has sufficient resources, high motivation among the employees and high management requirements. orientation to quality claims responsibility of the employees for their clients, therefore it has to be viewed as one of the value orientations that facilitates social responsibility of the company. it has to be concluded that participants to the research have given low evaluation to the importance of education in the context of personal development: orientation to extending knowledge as a condition for the development of professional competence and personal development has scored 3,71 points out of 7. in order to find out different analytical groups, 3 factorial features were compared –gender, company type and regions. as shown by the results of the triple interfactorial interaction test (between categoral effects variance) in table 4, the biggest number of differences appears in the group males who work in enterprises outside the capital city. this group shows differences in nearly two thirds of the scales. during the course of comparing characteristics of the group males who work in enterprises outside the capital city with the other groups, it has to be concluded that the aforementioned group has insignificant age differences, however it differs greatly in terms of the level of education. 39% of the respondents have secondary education (including 125 first year students; apart from these – among the employees – 30% have secondary education). this indicator is significantly higher for the group males who work in enterprises outside the capital city – 68%. consequently, although disperse analysis evaluated the factorial feature education as statistically insignificant – f=1,150, p=0,2969 (see. table 2.15 on page 98), the determinator of the severe value orientation differences in the group males who work in enterprises outside the capital city is the lowest level of education. discussion the result of the research is the tools developed for evaluating organizational culture describing value orientations – value orientation survey. the questionnaire was taken from warca (the world association for case method research and application) research in english, and its latvian version was included in the research. in the second section of the research – elaboration and testing of the tool – cluster analyses helped to develop appropriate organizational culture describing value orientation scales; they were updated, analyzed for the contents and tested by statistical methods. this resulted in elaboration and test of a value orientation analyses tool that will be possible to use in the future research. results of the research gave answers to all questions. first, 9 value orientations were found. they help to describe organizational culture and formation conditions of corporal social responsibility. the value orientations can be grouped by their impact on the corporate social responsibility in the company: high degree of improving csr: human relationship; involvement; personal development; orientation to quality; professionalism. lower degree of improving csr: friendly management; organizational success; functionality of organization; group values. in the future, through the application of the aforementioned value orientations, it would be possible and beneficial to continue the research into the consolidation of the principles of corporate social responsibility in organizations. second, the factors that determine the differences among the value orientations that form the organizational culture, were specified. during the course of the research, important factors that have impact on the differences within the organizational culture shaping value orientations, were discovered. they are: the gender and type of the company – enterprise, bank, state institution or business school student. third, the research showed that in respect to the significance of value orientations, we distinguish statistically important differences among the different analytical groups. males, who work in companies located outside the capital city, significantly differ from all other analytical groups. the main cause of the great number in the differences is the comparatively low level of education in this group. the above circumstances are a potential threat to the personal development, social equality and integration into the society of the analytical group “males employed in enterprises outside the capital city”. the growing differences might facilitate the social nihilism of the people in the above group. consequently, the organization, its management and the society as a whole might face increasing difficulties to motivate these people about the usefulness and necessity of higher esthetical standards and social responsibility principles of the company. the aforementioned group should enjoy enhanced attention of the organizers of adult life long education, and employers among them. life long learning is an important condition for the facilitation of the entire concept of corporate social responsibility. it includes the course of business ethics, moral reasoning at universities and company organized training. references garleja, r., vidnere, m. psiholoģijas un sociālās uzvedības aspekti ekonomikā. – riga: raka, 2000. p. 264 hughes, r., ginnett, r., curphy, g. leadership: enhancing the lessons of experience. – singapore: mcgraw-hill book co, 1999, p.674 knowles, r., mclean, g. (ed.) psychological foundations of moral education and character development: an integrated theory of moral development. – lanham: university press of america, 1986. p. 364 mcintosh, m., thomas, r., leipziger, d., gill, c. living corporate citizenship: strategic routes to socially responsible business. – harlow: prentice hall financial times, 2003. p. 297 mullins, l. management and organisational behavior, 6th ed. – new york : financial times/prentice hall, 2001 pearce, ii j., robinson, jr. r. strategic management: formulation, implementation, and control. – singapore: irwin mcgraw-hill, 2000. p. 468 post j., frederick w., lawrence a. etc. business and society: corporate strategy, public policy, ethics. (s.1.): mcgraw-hill, inc, 1996, p. 708 robbins, s. managing today! 2nd ed. – harlow: prentice hall, 2000, p. 651 siccone, p. corporate social responsibility// corporate communications for executives/ed. m. goodman. – albany: state university of new york press, 1998, p. 329 уткин, э. этика бизнеса. – москва: зерцало, 1998, 254 с. biographical notes dr. habil. psych., dr. oec., professor māra vidnere riga teacher training and educational management academy imantas 7. līnija 1, riga (latvia) lv-1083 tel.: + 371 7808010, fax: +371 7 808 034 email: mvidnere@navigator.lv jānis strautmanis, lecturer banking institution of higher education k. valdemāra 1b, riga (latvia) lv-1819 tel.: +371 7322605, fax: +371 7320620 email: janis.strautmanis@ba.lv electronic publishing: the future is here dan ispas assistant editor – europe’s journal of psychology doctoral associate – industrial/organizational psychology university of south florida e-mail: dispas@mail.usf.edu so, you’ve completed your research, you’ve written up your article and now you’re ready to submit it to a peer review journal. you send your manuscript to the editor of the journal, the editor forwards your manuscript for review to other scientists in your field, and, based on the feedback from reviewers, he/she decides whether your work will be published or not. this was a reminder of the peer review process, in case you forgot how it goes. here comes the problem (just one of many): because of limited journal space, most manuscripts are rejected. and here comes the solution: electronic publishing! although the internet has been around for a while, electronic publishing in the so-called “soft sciences” is still in its infancy. authors are still reluctant to publish their research in on-line journals. glass (2000) cites a study by brand (1999) that found that hard scientists use as their primary source of information the pre-prints archive available at xxx.lanl.gov while the soft scientist still rely on traditional paper journals. although we are now seven years after brand’s study, i don’t think the situation has changed much. in psychology, it seems that old habits die hard (see the case of the null hypothesis testing). there are numerous advantages of electronic publishing (see glass, 1994), some of these are: for the author it means shorter publication time (in the case of traditional journals it usually takes more than one year to see your article in print), it also means more readers (which could lead to more citations) and more feedback; for the readers it mainly means free access to research (glass, 1999). and free access means a lot when you try to do research in a less developed country. europe’s journal of psychology is encouraging readers and researchers to submit their manuscripts to electronic journals, and why not start with us? it’s time to take advantage of the internet and use it for more than just data collection. references: glass, g. (1994). papyrophiles vs cybernauts: the future of scholarly publication. retrieved may 10, 2006, from http://glass.ed.asu.edu/gene/papers/papvcyb.html glass, g. (1999). not for sale: scholarly communications in modern society. retrieved may 10, 2006, from http://glass.ed.asu.edu/gene/papers/epub.html glass, g. (2000). anonymous ftp: can we risk it? dare we publish pre-prints? retrieved may 10, 2006, from http://glass.ed.asu.edu/gene/papers/aera2000/ may 2006 14. european network for social and emotional competence in children conference european network for social and emotional competence in children 29 june 2011 to 3 july 2011 manchester, united kingdom social and emotional education across the world: celebrating diversity in theory, research and practice the university of manchester is delighted to host the 3rd biennial conference of the european network for social and emotional competence in children (ensec). ensec is a collaborative network for european researchers and practitioners working in the area of social and emotional competence in children and young people. the theme of the 2011 conference is ‘social and emotional education across the world: celebrating diversity in theory, research and practice’. there are three conference sub-themes: (1) international perspectives exploring the diversity of approaches to social and emotional education from countries around the world. (2) diversity and innovation in thinking research that supports new ideas or theories relating to social and emotional education. (3) practical application presentations that inform policy and practice. we are keen to attract researchers and practitioners from around the world to ensec 2011. it will be an excellent opportunity for discussion, debate, networking and sharing ideas. as a venue, the university of manchester offers state of the art facilities and is located in one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in europe. this website contains all of the relevant information about the conference. at the top of the page you will find links to the call for papers, registration, accommodation, conference themes and keynotes, the social programme and information about the venue. there will be regular updates over the coming months so please bookmark this page and come back soon! visit the website for more information http://www.ensec2011.info/ensec_2011/welcome.html emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 686-696 www.ejop.org when the sunny side is down: re-mapping the relationship between direction and valence adele pacini university of east anglia philip barnard mrc cognition and brain sciences unit abstract lakoff & johnson (1999) argue that the understanding of positive or negative concepts is structured around our sensorimotor experience whereby “happy is up” and “sad is down”. consistent with this, meier and robinson (2004) found that positive evaluations of words gave faster responses to spatial probes in an upper region of space compared to lower regions of space, and vice versa for negative evaluations. however, “she blew her top” or “he dropped his grudge” are both common metaphors despite reversing the basic mapping. using meier and robinson‟s (2004) paradigm, we generated “negativeup” and “positive-down” phrases. results showed a probe position x valence interaction in the opposite direction to that found by meier and robinson (2004). this suggests the relationship between direction and valence is not necessarily a single mapping, as envisaged by lakoff & johnson (1999). keywords: embodied cognition, conceptual metaphor theory, spatial attention. the debate over the role of bodily states in emotion experience has a long and distinguished history (lange & james, 1922; zajonc & markus, 1984). while it is difficult to imagine the experience of emotion without associated bodily changes, the exact role of bodily states in the processing of emotion concepts remains unclear. this issue has gained momentum in recent years in part due to the emergence of theories of embodied cognition (barsalou, 1999; lakoff & johnson, 1999; varela, thompson, & rosch, 1993). these theories suggest that cognitive representations of body state information are activated to support higher cognitive processes, including language and conceptual processing. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 687 these ideas from embodied cognition align well with converging evidence for the role of bodily feedback in the processing of emotional material (for a review see niedenthal, barsalou, winkielman, krauth-gruber, & ric, 2005). findings include the impact of head movements on word recall (wheeler & petty, 2001), body postures on affect (riskind & gotay, 1982), and facial contractions on humour ratings (strack, martin, & stepper, 1988). the common factor in these paradigms is the manipulation of online proprioceptive information, and its effect on affective evaluations. in one of the clearest examples, (strack, et al., 1988) asked participants to either hold a pen between their teeth (contracting the muscles used for smiling), between their lips (inhibiting the same muscles), or in their non-dominant hand (control condition). participants who held the pen between their teeth subsequently rated cartoons as significantly funnier than those in the other conditions. this effect occurred without participants interpreting the poses in terms of smiling or frowning, and only on affective rather than cognitive evaluations of funniness (i.e. subjective versus objective ratings of amusement). this finding suggests that activating a particular body state influences affective processing. however, theories of embodied cognition further suggest that a simulation process is used in perceptual, somatovisceral, introspective and motoric brain regions to support higher cognitive processes, including language, thought and decision making (e.g. damasio, everitt, & bishop, 1996; although see dunn, dalgleish, & lawrence, 2006 for a critique). with regard to emotion concepts, lakoff and johnson‟s (1999, 1980) conceptual metaphor theory claims that because emotion concepts like love or hate have no external referent, they are understood through richer, more experience-based domains. the basic premise is that these concepts are understood through sensorimotor systems by analogical extension, or “primary metaphor”. for example the primary metaphor happy is up is based on the sensorimotor experience of an upright posture when happy, as opposed to a slumped one when unhappy. this experience structures our conceptualisation of happiness, and manifests in phrases like “she‟s on top of the world” or “he was over the moon”. crucially, lakoff and johnson (1999) propose that understanding the notion of happiness requires accessing the sensorimotor experience of “up”. for abstract concepts in general, it is necessary to activate the relevant primary metaphor in order to comprehend the concepts. evidence in support of this particular relationship between direction and valence was found in a study by meier and robinson (2004). they firstly showed that the evaluation of positive words was faster when they were presented in the upper half when the sunny side is down 688 of a computer screen, and negative words evaluated faster in the lower half. in order to discount the idea that this was due to varying both valence and spatial location, a subsequent experiment demonstrated that evaluation of a positive word presented in the centre of the screen resulted in faster responses to spatial probes in an upper region of space compared to lower regions of space, and vice versa for negative evaluations (see also pecher, van dantzig, boot, zanolie, & huber, 2010) the conclusion is that positive evaluations are associated with upper regions of visual space because evaluations are made on the basis of primary metaphors. this idea in itself is not overly contentious, rather more so is lakoff & johnson‟s (1999) further claim that knowledge about abstract concepts is tied directly to the body so that abstract notions are understood directly though motor schemas. from this perspective, attending to the upper region of visual space in this paradigm would be a necessary consequence of a positive evaluation. this explanation successfully accounts for the fact that a range of positive words can be associated with an upper region of space, and negative words with a lower region of space. however, the conceptual structure for positive and negative meanings is richer than simply an experiential state of up or down. to account for this, lakoff and johnson (1999) suggest that conceptual knowledge also contains more complex metaphors that are comprised of combinations of primary metaphors. although a complex metaphor may not have an independent experiential basis, it is still tied to sensorimotor experience through the primary metaphors. for example, the metaphor happiness is a fluid in a container does not have an obvious sensorimotor experience attached to it. however, the primary metaphor happy is up can be analogically extended from simply “up‟ to liquid in a container going up. this results in expressions like “we were full of joy” or “he was overflowing with happiness”. these kinds of explanations are better able to account for both the richness of our emotion concepts, and to maintain a primary sensorimotor experience underpinning them. while plenty of examples can be called upon to illustrate these connections, our use of language and valenced forms of meaning is even more intricate when other examples are brought into play. one problem with regard to the happy is up metaphor is that associations between direction and affect are not always so clear cut as up-positive and down-negative. the phrase “their affection was deeply rooted” is positive but suggests depth, phrases like “she blew her top” or “he hit the roof” both imply some link between “up” on a vertical dimension (top/roof) but allied with negative rather positive affect. indeed, kövecses (1986) argued for the use of a container metaphor for anger – anger is a rising fluid in a container, which accounts for a range of expressions used to capture anger, for example “he europe’s journal of psychology 689 exploded with rage”. a second problem involves instances of ambiguity, as when “taking the moral high ground” can be good or bad depending on personal perspective. these examples highlight the intricacies in metaphorical expressions, in their relatedness to a primary metaphor, and of the processing of valence in context. the key empirical issue investigated in the current study is the effect of processing „exception‟ phrases that describe a relationship between direction and valence, in the opposite direction to that proposed by lakoff and johnson‟s (1999) primary metaphors. these exception phrases raise an important empirical issue. if affective evaluations reactivate sensori-motor states, and thus prime spatial regions then conflict should arise with such exception phrases. a negative evaluation of “he hit the roof” should prime lower space but this would be in opposition to potential priming of upper space from the physical location of a roof. on the one hand, primary metaphors are based on regularities between the physical world and abstract concepts. thus it could be expected that the physical description will prevail over abstract valence. on the other hand, if the task is to evaluate valence, lakoff and johnson suggest this is necessarily connected to direction. either the two influences will cancel out or one must prevail over the other. with this in mind, exception phrases were selected on the basis of ratings of their directional content and valence. thus, the present experiment was designed to determine which outcome holds when exception phrases are used in meier and robinsons‟ (2004) paradigm. method participants twenty-three participants from the cognition and brain sciences unit‟s volunteer panel completed ratings of phrases for use in the main study (11 females; m = 33.19 years, sd = 11.14) and twenty-eight others (18 females; m = 42.12 years, sd = 15.14) completed the meier and robinson (2004) paradigm. all participants were native english speakers, were between 18 and 65 years of age, and reported no diagnosis of dyslexia in response to a screening question. participants received an honorarium of £5 (approximately u.s $8 or 6 euros) per hour for their participation in the project. the study was approved by the local research ethics committee. when the sunny side is down 690 materials fifty-seven phrases were initially generated which were considered plausible candidates for associating negative valence with up or positive valence with down (30 positive down and 27 negative up). phrases were rated for both direction and valence on nine point analogue rating scales. lakoff and johnson (1999) make a distinction between concrete and abstract concepts, suggesting that only the latter activate primary, sensorimotor metaphors. for this reason, the direction rating scale was specifically designed to distinguish between physical, concrete direction and abstract, metaphorical direction. those phrases that described a physical movement of up or down were considered to have stronger directionality, and were therefore rated as “explicit” with respect to direction. those phrases that described a physical movement on an abstract level were considered to have weaker directionality and were therefore rated as “implicit” with respect to direction. an example of a phrase with physical, explicit direction would be “his dive was competition perfect” (rated as explicit downward) a phrase with abstract, implicit direction would be “she hit the roof” (rated as implicit upward). these phrases were given as part of the verbal instructions to participants to ensure they understood the rating scale and the task requirements. all participants were instructed not to rate the direction on how it made them feel, for example positive phrases making the participant feel “up”, but on the direction stated in the phrase. the rating scale was ranged from 1 = explicit upwards to 9 = explicit downwards, with 5 = neutral. participants used the numeric key pad to respond according to the rating scale. all participants were asked to rate for direction first, to avoid the confound of valence influencing ratings of direction. participants were not told about the valence ratings, or given the valence rating scale until they had completed the direction ratings. for the valence ratings the scale was 1 = extremely positive, 9 = extremely negative and 5 = neutral. phrases were presented visually on a 17 inch computer screen, in courier new font black type (18pt), participants gave their responses on a standard computer keyboard. they were also given a laminated a4 paper version of each rating scale for reference. from the candidate materials, 40 test phrases were selected. twenty phrases were selected with ratings in the upper range for positive valence (1 – 4.5) coupled with ratings indicating downward direction. since lakoff & johnson (1999) argue that only abstract meanings invoke simulations, we excluded any statement rated as having fully concrete meanings as indexed by a rating of 9. hence, for the “positivedown” phrases the direction ratings were in the range 5.5-8. these selection criteria were mirrored for our negative up phrases. for the negative phrases the valence europe’s journal of psychology 691 ratings had a range of 5.5 – 9. for direction, they excluded the most concrete rating for upward direction (1), with “up” ratings all between 2 – 4.5. the ranges for both exclude any material at or around the midpoint of the full range for both valence and direction. for the negative phrases, the main types of negative meaning used the anger metaphor “she blew her top”, or through the level of a negative concept increasing “his debts were rising”. for the positive phrases the main types of positive meaning were created through a negative concept decreasing “the patient‟s fever subsided” or through the concept of positive depth “they had a deep rooted loyalty to her”. phrases were matched for number of words in each phrase (positive: m = 5.10, sd = 1.02; negative: m = 4.95, sd = 1.15). the 20 exception negative statements selected for the main experimental trials (e.g. “pollution levels were spiralling”) clearly differed from the twenty positive ones (e.g. “the patient‟s fever subsided”) on valence t(19) = 14.74, p < .001, d = 5.42 (positive: m = 3.15, sd = 0.68; negative: m = 7.05, sd = 0.77) and direction t(19) = 23.12, p <.001, d = 7.33 (positive: m = 6.86, sd = 0.64; negative: m = 3.05, sd = 0.33) ratings. for the practice trials, direction was again associated with valence, but to less strict criteria, given the limited number of phrases that could be designed with an abstract direction component. design and procedure a 2 (valence: positive, negative) x 2 (probe position: top, bottom) repeated measures design was employed. the procedure followed meier and robinson (2004), study 3. each phrase appeared in the centre of a computer screen. participants were asked to judge each in terms of positive or negative meaning. judgements were verbal, recorded by the experimenter, and synchronized with pressing the space bar. a letter probe (p or q) was then presented in the top or bottom half of the screen with no intervening interval. the timed response was for pressing the equivalent letter on the keyboard. the average time to evaluate the positive phrases was 1975 ms (sd = 218ms), the average time to evaluate negative phrases was 1939 ms (sd = 270ms), this difference was not significant t(19) = -0.50, p = 0.62. twenty practice trials were followed by two blocks of forty trials, with each phrase being probed in one position in one block and the alternate position in the other. phrase order was randomized for each participant with probe location and block order counterbalanced. when the sunny side is down 692 results following meier and robinson (2004), the dependent variable was reaction time (rt) to the probes. inaccurate trials were discarded and rts 2.5 sd above/below the grand mean replaced by the 2.5 sd value. on average 4.13 (sd = .67) data points were replaced per participant. the data are presented in figure 1. there was no main effect of valence f(1,27) = 0.11, mse = 2145.607 p = .741. the main effect of probe position was significant f(1,27) = 6.73, mse = 1125.00 p = 0.015 η² = .87, whereby cues in the upper half of the screen were responded to 16 ms faster than those in the lower half of the screen. finally, the probe position x valence interaction was significant f(1,27) = 6.29, mse =1252.75 p = 0.02 η² = .86. paired t-tests showed no difference in rts to top and bottom probes following positive phrases t(27) = -.04, p = .97. however, for the negative phrases, participants were 33ms faster to respond to a subsequent probe in the upper half of the screen than in the lower half, t(27) = 3.44, p = .002, d = .66. paired t-tests were also carried out on each probe location, there was no difference between positive and negative phrases with regard to subsequent response times to probes in the upper half of the screen t(27) = 1.32, p = 0.20, however, there was a trend for slower response times to probes in the lower half of the screen following negative phrases compared to positive phrases t(27) = 1.71, p = 0.09. figure 1: interaction between probe position (top/bottom) and valence for exception phrases. error bars show standard error of the difference. valence evaluation negative positive r t (m s e c ) 600 650 700 750 top bottom europe’s journal of psychology 693 discussion using phrases rated for directional and valenced meaning, the results indicate that no single mapping is necessarily invoked between direction and affect. the overall interaction reported here between valence and regions of space is in the opposite direction to that found for isolated words by meier and robinson (2004) with the same task requirements for valence evaluation and responding. while the present results are essentially a mirror image of those of meier and robinson (2004), it is notable that both sets of data are asymmetric, with effects most marked for negative stimuli. this asymmetry may provide important clues as to the boundary conditions for particular patterns of outcome. the absence of a difference in priming attention to upper and lower regions of space with positive phrases, contrasts with some other related findings from psycholinguistics. for example, stanfield & zwaan (2001) presented participants with phrases that suggested either a vertical or a horizontal orientation for an object, they found that verification of that object in a subsequent picture was faster when the orientation implied in the phrase was congruent with the orientation of the object in the picture. however, in the current study, direction was only relevant to the extent that it was associated with valence. this raises the issue of exactly how the directional descriptions in our phrases were related to valenced interpretations. although the positive and negative phrases were matched on our key design variables, there were nonetheless differences between them in terms of the states they described. notably, some of the negative phrases made use of the anger metaphor, whereas positive phrases tended to rely either on the lowering of a negative component, or on the positive semantics associated with depth. where the anger metaphor was used, it could be argued that reversal of the direction x valence interaction is broadly consistent with lakoff and johnson‟s (1999) theoretical account. although the evaluation of negative valence may not have activated a downwards simulation, faster reaction times to probes in the top location could still be consistent with upwards simulation as part of the processing of anger metaphor phrases. that is, where the experiential state described in the phrase is compatible with the valence of the underlying metaphor, then any such priming would override the expected priming from valence evaluation alone. consider the anger is a rising fluid in a container metaphor. while this does not appear to have a direct relationship to a sensorimotor metaphor, a connection could arise based on the primary experiences when the sunny side is down 694 of anger resulting in a raised body temperature, or “heat” and the upwards physical actions associated with anger. thus “up” is connected both to physical temperature and bodily actions. the same argument would apply for phrases like “he blew his top” and “she was boiling over with rage”. where the association between the sensorimotor experiences of “up” and negativity already exist, it is plausible that the other negative phrases activated the same underlying metaphors via a more schematic process rather than a trial by trial basis. a second potential contributor to the valence asymmetry is processing conflict. this may have arisen with those positive phrases involving a negative concept decreasing. where the task is to evaluate valence, presentation of “crime levels were lowering” may have activated initial negative associations from “crime” that are incongruent with the overall meaning of the phrase when later combined with “were lowering”. there is evidence that incongruencies such as these can give rise to inhibitory effects. using negated phrases, kaup, yaxley, madden, zwaan, and lüdtke, (2006) reported evidence that when participants are presented with “the eagle was not in the sky”, the shape of the eagle was still simulated even when it did not map on to a real world instance. they concluded that the eagle would be simulated in the earlier stages of processing, but then inhibited when the real world inferences were drawn from the phrase. our positive exception phrases could well have initially activated the simulation of direction physically present in the phrase, only to have this subsequently inhibited during the process of evaluating valence. for the negative phrases, where the valence and direction in the metaphor were consistent, this overruled the activation of direction based on simple valence. this, in addition to the absence of an underlying metaphor for the positive phrases, suggests two possible reasons why the mapping was not reversed on positive phrases. the potential complexity in processing these phrases, points to an overlap with embodied approaches to narrative text comprehension (for a review see gibbs, 2006). for instance, macwhinney (1998) proposes that people create meaningful construals by incrementally using their embodied experiences to “soft assemble” meaning, rather than activating pre-existing conceptual representations. however, further research would be needed to clarify the conditionality of primary metaphor activation, in particular, the impact of contextual factors and the role of incremental processing and suppression of sensorimotor simulations. nonetheless, the current study points to both the complexity inherent in the structure of emotion concepts in general, and specifically, to considerable plasticity in the mapping between direction and affect. europe’s journal of psychology 695 acknowledgement this research was funded by the uk medical research council under project code mc_us_a060_0022 (philip j. barnard) references barsalou, l. w. 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(1980). metaphors we live by. chicago: university of chicago press. lakoff, g., & johnson, m. (1999). philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. chicago: university of chicago press. lange, c. g., & james, w. (1922). the emotions: williams & wilkins company. macwhinney, b. (1998) the emergence of language from embodiment. in b. macwhinney (ed.), the emergence of language (pp. 213-56). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. meier, b. p., & robinson, m. d. (2004). why the sunny side is up. associations between affect and vertical position. psychological science, 15(4), 243-247. niedenthal, p., barsalou, l., winkielman, p., krauth-gruber, s., & ric, f. (2005). embodiment in attitudes, social perception, and emotion. personality and social when the sunny side is down 696 psychology review, 9(3), 184-201. pecher, d., van dantzig, s., boot, i., zanolie, k., & huber, d. e. 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(2001). the effects of stereotype activation on behavior: a review of possible mechanisms. psychological bulletin, 127(6), 797-826. zajonc, r., & markus, h. (1984). affect and cognition: the hard interface. in c. izard, j. kagan & r. zajonc (eds.), emotions, cognition, and behavior (pp. 73–102). cambridge, england: cambridge university press. about the authors: adele pacini is a trainee clinical psychologist at the university of east anglia. the current study was completed during her phd studies on embodied cognition and the processing of self related meaning, at the mrc cognition and brain sciences unit (cbsu) in cambridge, uk. address for correspondence: a. m. pacini, department of clinical, psychology, elizabeth fry building, university of east anglia, nr4 7tj. email: a.pacini@uea.ac.uk philip barnard philip barnard was a programme leader at the mrc cognition and brain sciences unit in cambridge (cbsu). he retired from full time research in 2011 but is still a visiting scientist in the emotion group at the cbsu and also acts as a research advisor to wayne mcgregor | random dance. mailto:a.pacini@uea.ac.uk microsoft word 6. research rumination.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 65-84 www.ejop.org why do some people ruminate more or less than others? the role of emotional intelligence ability tiziana lanciano university of bari antonietta curci university of bari edvige zatton university of bari abstract emotional intelligence (ei) has been defined as an ability to evaluate, perceive and express emotions, use emotions to facilitate thought, analyse and understand emotions, and manage and regulate emotions. the emotional elaboration ability is considered a crucial skill for ei, because of its role on the individual well-being. individuals differ in adopting more or less successful emotion elaboration strategies. among the many strategies, mental rumination is conceptualized as being characterized by persistent thoughts which intrude into the consciousness in a repetitive way. as a consequence, individual differences in mental rumination may be related to differences in ei abilities. the aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between mental rumination and ei abilities. more specifically, study 1 (n = 150) investigated this association with respect to the emotional valence of an emotionally inducing event (positive vs. negative). study 2 (n = 88) explored the impact of ei on the mental rumination processes both immediately after an emotional event and over time. results, jointly considered, supported the idea that people with a higher level of managing emotions ability had reduced frequency of mental rumination, independent of the valence of the emotional event and retention delay. keywords: mental rumination, intrusive thoughts, emotional elaboration, emotional processing, emotional intelligence europe’s journal of psychology 66 emotional intelligence (ei) is a relatively new domain of psychological investigation, having recently met considerable attention and interest. the concept of ei was first proposed by salovey and mayer (1990) who defined it as a set of abilities dealing with emotions and the processing of emotional information. theoretical and empirical research has led to the development of several models of ei, providing different frameworks for conceptualising and measuring ei. these models can be grouped into three main theoretical approaches: a) mixed models that conceptualised ei as both personality traits and abilities related to emotional and social knowledge (e.g., bar-on, 1997); b) competence models which include a large set of socio-emotional competencies, defined as learned capabilities (e.g., goleman, 2001); c) models of ei as cognitive-emotional ability (mayer & salovey, 1997). mayer and salovey (1990, p. 189) formally described ei as the cognitive-emotional ability “to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action”. this definition was later reviewed and ei was conceptualized in four distinct abilities, the so-called branches of the model (mayer & salovey, 1997). the first branch perceiving emotions is the ability to recognize emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artefacts. it also includes the ability to identify one’s own emotions. perceiving emotions may represent the most basic aspect of ei, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible. the second branch using emotions is the ability to use emotions in order to facilitate several cognitive activities, such as thinking, memory, and problem solving. the third branch of ei – understanding emotions is the ability to comprehend emotional language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions (e.g. knowing the transition from one emotion to another). furthermore, it includes the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time. the fourth branch managing emotions consists of the ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others, in order to decrease negative ones and maintain positive ones. the four branches form a hierarchy, with emotional perception at the bottom and management of emotions at the top. studies on ei have shown that these human capacities involve emotional information processing (austin, 2005; salovey et al., 1995). emotional processing ability refers to “a process whereby emotional disturbances are absorbed, and decline to the extent that other experiences and behaviour can proceed without disruption” (rachman, 1980, p. 51). although the elaboration of emotional information is a universal phenomenon and occurs in everyday life, it always takes place in specific contexts of the individual’s life. individuals differ in their ability to elaborate emotions, by choosing more or less successful and adaptive processes (mayer & salovey, 1997; why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 67 salovey & mayer, 1990). mental rumination is generally considered as an emotion elaboration strategy aimed to cognitively integrate or resolve the emotional experiences (horowitz, 1997; janoff-bulman, 1992). it is characterized by intrusive, repetitive, unwanted thoughts, and images that interrupt ongoing activities and are difficult to control (rachman, 1981). the literature on the rumination phenomenon agrees on the disruptive effect and intrusiveness of persistent rumination with respect to ordinary life activities. intrusive and ruminative thoughts may be positive or negative, they may appear in a number of ways images, impulses, verbal thoughts or recurring memories and they can be aversive and disturbing when the individual is performing other everyday activities (rachman & hodgson, 1980). a question regarding the rumination phenomenon which remains open is: why is it that following an emotional event, there are people who have more (or less) ruminative thoughts than others? individual differences in frequency of ruminative thoughts have traditionally been addresses to the emotional impact of the triggering experience. however, the emotional impact alone is not able to sufficiently explain these differences (lanciano, bianco, curci, & cozzoli poli, 2009; luminet, zech, rimé, & wagner, 2000; rimé, finkenauer, luminet, zech, & philippot, 1998). given this, differences in mental rumination could be related to differences in emotional elaboration ability. in turns, these differences in emotional processing may be correlated to differences in ei abilities. indeed, according to some studies (ramos, fernandez-berrocal, & extremera, 2007), successful processing of intrusive and ruminative thoughts depends, in part, on the level of perceived emotional intelligence. additionally, perceived emotional intelligence contributes to reduced tendencies towards maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as ruminative responses (rude & mccarthy, 2003; salovey et al., 1995). overview and aim of the studies the two current studies have mainly focused on mental rumination as a strategy to elaborate and manage an emotional experience. additionally, the two studies aimed to determine whether, and to what extent, individual differences in mental rumination could be related to different levels of ei ability. both present studies are based on salovey and mayer’s ei model (1990), focused on emotion-related abilities which can be assessed through performance-based tests. the most recently developed ability measure of ei is the mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test (msceit; mayer, salovey, & caruso, 2002), which measures the four core emotional abilities, i.e. perceiving emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions, and managing emotions. moreover, in the present studies, europe’s journal of psychology 68 mental rumination is considered as the long-term persistence of unwanted thoughts, experienced by individuals in the hours, days, and years following the emotional experience (rimé, 1995). all ei branches of the mayer, salovey and caruso’s model (2002) perceiving, using, understanding, managing were expected to be negatively associated with the frequency of ruminative thoughts. more specifically, managing emotions was expected to have the highest negative correlation with mental rumination. indeed this ability would help people to better process and elaborate the emotionally arousing information, enabling a greater recovery and decline in intrusive thoughts (gohm, baumann, & sniezek, 2001; ramos et al.,2007; salovey et al. 1995). in study 1, following an emotional experience (positive vs. negative), intrusive and ruminative thoughts were expected to be elicited. the frequency of these ruminative thoughts was expected to be lower for individuals with high levels of ei, more specifically with higher levels of the managing emotions ability (ramos et al., 2007). in the present study, mental rumination has been conceptualized as a troubling process when individuals are performing other everyday activities. according to this point of view, both positive and negative ruminative thoughts could be disturbing and need to be reduced (rachman & hodgson, 1980). as a consequence, higher levels of ei abilities were expected to correspond to fewer intrusive thoughts (both positive and negative). study 2 was designed to investigate the role of ei on mental rumination immediately following a negative emotional experience, and after a long time. people try to avoid disturbing ruminative thoughts over time. as a consequence, the frequency of ruminative thoughts was expected to be reduced for individuals with high levels of ei abilities, not only immediately after the event but also over time (ramos et al., 2007). study 1 method design study 1 adopted a one-way factor design with the emotional valence of the event (positive vs. negative) as a between-subjects factor. dependent variables were measures of ei branches, emotion feeling states following an emotional experience, and mental rumination. why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 69 participants the sample was composed of 150 undergraduate students from the university of bari, italy (79.3% women; m age = 21.07; sd = 4.24), randomly assigned to one out of the two emotional valence of the event conditions (50.7% negative condition). measures emotional intelligence test. measures of ei used in the present study corresponded to the italian version of the original msceit (curci & d’amico, 2010; d’amico & curci, 2010; mayer salovey caruso emotional intelligence test; mayer et al., 2002). the test measures individuals’ performance on tasks and ability to solve emotional problems. it provides a total emotional intelligence score as well as four branch (sub-scale) scores: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotion. each branch comprised scores of two sections described in more detail below. the four branches can also be conceptually distinguished in terms of experiential (perception, facilitation) or strategic (understanding, management) aspects. consensus scoring1 is the preferred method for assessing ei abilities as it provides a solution to the problem of determining what constitutes a correct answer (mayer et al., 2002). the consensus approach is based on what the majority of the respondents regard as correct and has been shown to be more effective than the target method (i.e. what target identifies as expressed or felt). participants’ scores reflect the degree of fit between their responses and those of the norm for this sample. perceiving emotions. two sections a (face) and e (images) measure emotion in four faces, three landscapes, and three abstract pictures. in the faces task the participant reports on the emotional content of each face rating the degree of happiness, fear, surprise, disgust and excitement on a five-point scale (1 = “no emotion”; 5 = “extreme amount of emotion”). on the landscape task, participants’ reactions to the pictures are rated in terms of happiness, fear, anger, disgust. the three abstract tasks are rated on sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust on a similar five-point scale (1 = “no emotion”; 5 = “extreme amount of emotion”). using emotions. section b (facilitation) assesses participants’ knowledge of how different moods can be effective for certain kinds of problem solving. a choice of three options is provided on a five-point scale. section f (sensation) involves comparing how different emotions can be related to other sensations, on a fivepoint scale (1 = “not alike”; 5 = “very much alike”). 1 consensus scoring was computed based on the us normative sample, since the validation of the scoring system of the italian version of msceit is presently in progress (curci & d’amico, 2010; d’amico & curci, 2010). europe’s journal of psychology 70 understanding emotions. section g (blends) measures a person’s ability to label emotions and group emotional terms together. using a multi choice format participants try to match a set of emotions to another single emotion. section c (changes) assesses knowledge of how emotions combine and change. managing emotions. section h (social management) is concerned with emotions in relationships. participants are asked to evaluate the effectiveness of different actions in achieving a specified outcome that involves other people. section d (emotion management) is concerned with emotion management in the individual and other people. five different scenarios are presented which describe a person with a goal of changing or maintaining a feeling. each of a list of four different actions is evaluated in terms of effectiveness. emotional feeling states. participants were asked to rate, on an 11-point scale (0 = “not all”; 10 = “very much”), the level of emotional intensity felt immediately after the chosen emotional event. in addition, twelve 7-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 6= “very much”), assessed the degree to which participants felt basic emotions: a) interest, b) joy, c) surprise, d) sadness, e) anger, f) disgust, g) fear, h) shame, i) guilt, l) happiness, m) anxiety, and n) contempt (differential emotion scale, des; izard, dougherty, bloxom, & kotsch, 1974). scores on item b) and l) of the emotional feeling state section were averaged to get the positive emotions index (cronbach’s alpha = .97). additionally, scores on items d), e), f), g), h), i), m), and n) of the emotional feeling state section were averaged to get the negative emotions index (cronbach’s alpha = .90). rumination. mental rumination was assessed by retrospective self-report measures, since the study focused on the rumination considered as an emotion elaboration strategy following an emotional experience. participants were asked to assess, on two 6-point scales (0 = “never”; 5 = “very often”): a) how often they had thought about the past emotional event, and b) how often images, thoughts or memories of the event had tended to spontaneously come back to their consciousness. these items were the same used by rimé and colleagues in their studies (1991; rimé, noel & philippot, 1991). item scores of this section were averaged to get the index of mental rumination ranging from 0 to 5 (cronbach’s alpha = .91). procedure students were recruited during a psychology class and requested to individually fill in the italian version of msceit (curci & d’amico, 2010; d’amico & curci, 2010; mayer et al., 2002). immediately after, participants were randomly assigned to one of two why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 71 emotional valence conditions: in the positive event condition participants were asked to read a list of 20 positive events and to choose one of them occurring within the last three months; participants in the negative event condition were asked to read a list of 20 negative events and to choose one of them occurring within the last three months. then, each participant filled in a questionnaire concerning the emotions felt following the selected emotional event, and the consequent ruminative processes. results descriptive analyses of ei measures table 1 presents the basic statistics for the four ei branches. the results are comparable to most recently published data (kafetsios, 2004; mayer et al., 2002). table 1: zero-order correlation coefficients among ei branches (study 1) perceiving using understanding managing perceiving 99.35 (10.79) using .32 96.21 (13.40) understanding .17 .22 88.91 (10.85) managing .22 .32 .32 83.17 (9.22) note: ms and sds are provided in diagonal. all reported correlations were significant for p < .01. the effect of emotional valence of the event a t-test was run on the measures of emotional feeling states (emotional intensity, surprise, negative emotions, and positive emotions) and rumination with the emotional valence of the event (positive vs. negative) as the between subject factor. compared to the positive event condition, negative experiences were evaluated as more emotionally intense, and gave rise to a higher level of negative emotions. additionally, in the positive event condition, participants seemed to feel more positive emotions. no significant differences were found for valence in the ratings of surprise and the frequency of ruminative thoughts (see table 2). europe’s journal of psychology 72 table 2: effects of the emotional valence of the event on the measures of emotion feeling states and rumination (study 1) m negative (sd) m positive (sd) t-test (df) emotional intensity 7.16 (2.27) 4.23 (3.44) 6.16* surprise 2.87 (1.65) 3.39 (1.80) -1.85 negative emotions 3.2 (1.11) .77 (.88) 14.96* positive emotions .44 (.97) 4.78 (1.49) -21.17* mental rumination 3.84 (1.01) 3.54 (1.05) 1.78 note: * p < .001, df = 148 correlation analyses the correlations between ei branches and rumination for the positive and negative event conditions are presented in table 3. generally, rumination had consistent negative correlations with perceiving, understanding, and managing emotion abilities. for the negative emotional condition, the managing emotions ability appeared to be negatively associated with the frequency of ruminative thoughts. on the other hand, for the positive emotional condition, results showed a significant negative correlation between the frequency of ruminative thoughts and the skills of understanding and managing emotions. this indicates that the higher the levels of these ei abilities, the less people tend to ruminate about their emotional experiences. table 3: zero-order correlation coefficients between ei branches and rumination for the emotional valence of the event (study 1) mental rumination negative event condition positive event condition total sample perceiving .22 .18 .20* using .09 .12 .012 understanding .14 .27* .21** managing .57** .72** .66** note: ** p < .001; * p <.05 why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 73 regression analyses two stepwise multiple regression analyses were run as a stronger test of association between rumination and ei branch abilities, by taking into account the role of the emotional valence of the event (table 4). for both regressions, the dependent variable was the index of rumination. the independent variables of the first block were the ei branch scores; in the second block the ratings of emotional intensity of the event were included; in the third block the ratings of surprise; in the last block the indices of negative and positive emotions. the present results showed that rumination following negative emotional events appeared to be positively predicted by the ratings of emotional intensity and negatively predicted by the ability of managing emotions. for the positive event condition, the only significant predictor of rumination was the managing skill. to sum up, the evaluation of emotional intensity given by participants to their negative emotional experience seemed to enhance their consequent mental rumination; on the other hand, the ability to manage emotions would decrease the frequency of ruminative thoughts for both negative and positive emotional events. table 4: multiple regressions of ei branches on rumination (study 1) mental rumination negative event positive event r2 = .35**, (f2,75 = 21.04, p < .001) β r2 = .51**, (f1,73 = 78.19, p < .001) β 1st block perceiving -.15 .02 using 1.13 .06 understanding .06 -.08 managing -.60** -.72** 2nd block emotional intensity .20* .06 3rd block surprise -.04 .15 4th block negative emotions .01 .06 positive emotions .03 -.01 note: * p < .05; ** p < .001 europe’s journal of psychology 74 discussion study 1 investigated the process of mental rumination following an emotional experience (negative or positive). a major strength of study 1 is the fact that it considers the effect of the valence of the emotional experience on the relationship between rumination and ei. results showed that, compared to positive events, negative experiences were evaluated as more emotionally intense, and gave rise to a higher level of negative emotions. no significant differences between the positive and the negative emotional events were found for the frequency of ruminative thoughts. these results are in line with rimé et al.’s studies (1991), showing that more than 95% of their participants spontaneously ruminated about their emotional experiences. consistently, in neither of the two studies reported in rimé et al. (1991) were significant differences found between positive and negative experiences. nevertheless, the main aim of the present study was to investigate the association between mental rumination and ei abilities. more specifically, the ability to manage emotions was expected to have a significant role in reducing mental rumination. people able to elaborate emotional information were more able to manage emotional incoming information, obtaining a greater recovery from their experience, and a decline in the associated intrusive thoughts (gohm, baumann, & sniezek, 2001; ramos et al., 2007; salovey et al, 1995). generally, the current findings theoretically and empirically supported the link between mental rumination and the managing emotions ability. results showed that mental rumination appeared to be negatively influenced by the ability to manage personal and others’ emotions. these results may be understood by considering that mental rumination is conceptualized as intrusive thoughts which may be positive or negative, on the basis of the emotional valence of the triggering experience. as a consequence, independent of the emotional content of these thoughts, people try to suppress them to avoid further rumination (erskine, kvavilashvili, & kornbrot, 2007). it follows that people able to accurately manage and regulate emotions (ei ability) appeared to have less intrusive thoughts. why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 75 study 2 method design study 2 used a repeated-measure design with the retention interval (few hours vs. five months after the event; i.e., time 1 vs. time 2) as a within-subjects factor. dependent variables were measures of ei branches, emotional feeling states, and rumination. participants the sample was composed of 88 undergraduate students from the university of bari, italy (93.2% women; mage = 19.31; sd = 1.20). measures and procedures measures of ei branches, emotional feeling state (emotional intensity, surprise, negative emotions, and positive emotions), and rumination were the same used in the study 1. concerning the ratings of rumination, two measures were collected, respectively at time 1 and time 2. the diary. students were recruited during a psychology seminar and requested to individually fill in the italian version of the msceit (curci & d’amico, 2010; d’amico & curci, 2010; mayer et al., 2002) in a laboratory room. one week after this task, during a psychology class, all participants were requested to keep a diary for seven days as soon as an emotional event had happened in their life in the days following the delivery of the diary. immediately after these instructions, a state of emotional stress and alarm was induced in the class: an accomplice suddenly came into the room, shouting nonsensically and moving around the class for a few minutes provoking panic among the students. as soon as he went out, the majority of the students (98% of the original sample) agreed to write about this event in their diaries. this situation was planned in order to have a standard (negative) stimulus event to which all students were asked to respond. in the days following the event, before going to bed, participants described the event and answered the same set of questions proposed in study 1 (rumination assessed at time 1). when participants handed back their diary, they were fully debriefed. after five months, participants were contacted and instructed to answer europe’s journal of psychology 76 again some questions concerning the emotional event, such as the frequency of ruminative thoughts (rumination assessed at time 2)2. results descriptive analyses descriptive analyses on the measures of emotional feeling state, and rumination supported the efficacy of the manipulation of the emotional event: participants evaluated the event as emotionally intense and surprising. additionally, they reported high levels of negative emotions and a high frequency of ruminative thoughts and images following the event (figure 1). concerning the effect of retention interval on the frequency of mental rumination, results showed a significant decrease of ruminative thoughts over time (mrumination_time1 = 2.81, sd =.78; mrumination_time2 = 1.28, sd = .68; t = 15.85, p < .001). table 5 presents the basic statistics for the four ei branches. the perceiving emotions ability appeared to positively correlate with the abilities of using and managing emotions; moreover the understanding emotions ability seemed to be positively correlated with the managing emotions ability. table 5: zero-order correlation coefficients among ei branches (study 2) perceiving using understanding managing perceiving 99.12 (10.21) using .32* 97.98 (13.42) understanding .16 -.03 89.73 (7.90) managing .33* .16 .20* 82.70 (7.12) note: ms and sds are provided in diagonal; * p < .01. 2 the measure of rumination at time 1 refers to the ratings collected at the first day of the event (and of the diary); the measure of rumination at time 2 refers to the ratings collected after five months. why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 77 figure 1: scores of emotional feeling states, and rumination (study 2) 0,00 1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00 5,00 6,00 7,00 emotional intensity surprise negative emotions positive emotions rumination (m = 5.18; sd = .98) (m = 4.22; sd = 1.75) (m = 1.37; sd = 1.03) (m = .01; sd = .08) (m = 2.81; sd = .78) m e a n correlation analyses table 6 shows the correlations between ei branch scores and rumination assessed at both time 1 and time 2. results revealed that rumination immediately following the event appeared to negatively correlate with the ability of perceiving, understanding, and managing emotions. in addition, rumination assessed at time 2 seemed to be negatively associated with the ability of using and managing emotions. table 6: zero-order correlation coefficients between ei branches and rumination assessed at time 1 and time 2 (study 2) mental rumination time 1 time 2 perceiving .41** .71 using .18 .22* understanding .23* .20 managing .80** .30** note: * p <.05; ** p < .001 regression analyses two multiple hierarchical regression analyses were conducted as a stronger test of association between ei branch abilities and rumination assessed both at time 1 and time 2 (table 7). for both regressions, the independent variables of the first block were the ei branch scores; in the second block the ratings of emotional intensity of the event were included; in the third block the ratings of surprise; in the last block the indices of negative and positive emotions. the dependent variables were rumination at time 1 and rumination at time 2, respectively. europe’s journal of psychology 78 concerning rumination at time 1, results showed that ruminative thoughts were negatively predicted by the ability to manage and perceive emotions, and positively predicted by the ratings of importance and emotional intensity of the event. in contrast, for rumination assessed at time 2, findings supported the significant role of the emotional management ability, and the level of intensity of positive emotions felt after the event. table 7: multiple regressions of ei branches on rumination (study 2) mental rumination time 1 time 2 r2 = .68**, (f3,87 = 63.06, p < .001) β r2 =.12* , (f2,86 = 6.71, p < .01) β 1st block perceiving -.17* -.08 using -.04 -.16 understanding -.06 -.13 managing -.76** -.30* 2nd block emotional intensity .18* -.15 3rd block surprise -.02 -.19 4th block negative emotions .06 .18 positive emotions -.05 .21* note: * p < .05; ** p < .001 discussion study 2 aimed to test the association between ei ability and rumination following a negative emotional event. the major strength of this study was that it investigated mental rumination in a controlled context, since the triggering emotional event was simulated with the help of an accomplice. additionally, the present study aimed to investigate if ei ability influences the ruminative processes not only immediately after the event, but also over time. why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 79 first, results supported the efficacy of the experimental manipulation of the emotional event: following the (simulated) event, people evaluated their experience as emotionally intense, reported high levels of negative emotions, and developed ruminative thoughts and images. the frequency of mental rumination appeared to decline over time. concerning the main aim of the present study, as for study 1, the current results supported a consistent association between the ei abilities and the frequency of mental rumination: higher skills of perceiving and managing emotions seemed to be associated with a decrease of ruminative thoughts, immediately after a negative emotional experience. people experience a variety of emotional events throughout their life, and use different strategies to manage these situations. mental rumination is an emotional elaboration strategy which might persist for hours, days, and months following the triggering emotional event (rimé et al., 1992). as a consequence, the role of the ei abilities becomes crucial not only immediately after the emotional event, but also over time, when individuals are asked to deal with the long-term effects of the emotional experience. general discussion ei was defined as an ability to evaluate, perceive and express emotions, use emotions to facilitate thought, analyse and understand emotions, and manage and regulate emotions (mayer & salovey, 1997). strategies of emotional elaboration are thought to strongly interact with ei abilities because of their great role for the individual well-being and social relationships. people differ in adopting more or less adaptive emotion elaboration strategies, on the basis of the contextual demands and personal goals. among the several strategies people use, mental rumination is generally considered a strategy characterized by intrusive, repetitive, unwanted thoughts, and images that interrupt ongoing activities, and are difficult to control (rachman, 1981). one of the most recent controversies about the rumination phenomenon is related to individual differences on rumination. the emotional impact of the eliciting event is not sufficient to explain these differences (lanciano, et al., 2009; luminet et al., 2000; rimé et al., 1998). a possible factor accounting for these differences could be different emotion elaboration strategies, which, in turn, are strictly related to the ei abilities. as a consequence, individual differences on the frequency of ruminative thoughts may be associated to different levels of ei skills. there is growing evidence that people with high levels of ei abilities process and assimilate more appropriately the emotions experienced, dealing better with emotional issues, for example, using europe’s journal of psychology 80 more adaptive responses such as reducing ruminative processes (fernandezberrocal & ramos, 2002; ramos et al., 2007). the two current studies aimed to theoretically and empirically investigate this link between the mental rumination and the ei abilities. more specifically, study 1 explored if this relationship varied as a function of the emotional valence of the event (positive vs. negative), and study 2 aimed to investigate the role of ei on the mental rumination not only immediately after the event, but also over time. results from both studies, jointly considered, supported the association between mental rumination and managing emotion ability: people with a higher level of emotion elaboration ability had a reduced frequency of mental rumination, independent of the valence of the emotional inducing event (negative vs. positive), or the retention interval (immediately and after a long time). taken together, the findings showed that people reporting a high ability of managing emotions might process and assimilate more appropriately the emotions they experienced, such as by reducing or eliminating ruminative thoughts (fernandez-berrocal & ramos, 2002). a noteworthy aspect of this research work is the exploration of the role of emotion valence in the relationship between rumination and ei. mental rumination is characterized by intrusive thoughts which may be positive or negative on the basis of the valence of the emotional experience. people try to avoid both these disturbing thoughts, and, as a consequence following an emotional event – people who are emotionally intelligent are also able to deal with these thoughts, by managing them. the current studies also took advantage of the existence of msceit as an ability-measure of emotional intelligence, rarely adopted in similar correlational studies (bastian, burns, & nettelbeck, 2005; gohm, corser, & dalsky, 2005; kafetsios, 2004). the present findings give an important theoretical contribution to the literature on the elaboration of emotional information, and, also, to ei literature. they show that, in order to better and more clearly understand emotional elaboration strategies, it is worth investigating individual differences on these strategies (i.e. individual differences on mental rumination). these differences could be related to different levels of ei abilities which individuals use to elaborate and process incoming emotional information. as a consequence, if a link between ei and emotion elaboration is supposed, improving and developing ei abilities – through training may be a valuable tool which people could use to better deal with one’s own and other’s emotions (tugade & fredrickson, 2002; 2007). additionally, further studies why do some people ruminate more or less than others? 81 focused on the investigation of individual differences on emotion elaboration strategies should consider the key role of ei. despite these interesting findings, the present research has several limitations. first, as with all work concerning complex and multifarious phenomena, an important limit concerns the causal inferences that can be made on the basis of the correlational studies. indeed, some other factors might be hypothesized to influence both mental rumination and ei, by mediating on the link between them, such as the individual coping style (campbell & ntobedzi, 2007) or the ruminative response style (nolenhoeksema, 1991). second, an investigation with a sample prevalently composed by female undergraduate students might raise some doubts on the generalisation of results, and on the ecological validity of the research. further studies might consider also these other individual features and investigate the influence of the relationship between mental rumination and ei on the individual’s psychological well-being. in addition a more representative sample may be involved in further research, to allow researchers to get a broader generalization of their results. references austin, e.j. 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(2002). positive emotions and emotional intelligence. in l. feldman barrett & p. salovey (eds.), the wisdom of feelings, (pp. 319-340). guilford: new york. about the authors tiziana lanciano is a research fellow in the department of psychology at the university of bari, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, mental rumination, emotional intelligence, and latent-variable analysis. address for correspondence: t.lanciano@psico.uniba.it antonietta curci is an associate professor in the department of psychology at the university of bari, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence, forensic psychology, and multivariate data analysis. edvige zatton is a psychology graduated at the university of bari, italy. her current research interests are the psychological well-being in the child and in the adult, and the evaluation of interventions for psychological and education support in the schools. second anniversary mihaela chraif vlad glaveanu ejop editors “the difficult things of this world must once have been easy; the great things of this world must once have been small. set about difficult things while they are still easy; do great things while they are still small. the sage never affects to do anything great, and therefore he is able to achieve his great results.” (the sayings of lao-tzu, lionel giles translation [1905], miscellaneous sayings and precepts) it is still alive in our memory the first schedule and the first plan to develop a scientific journal. from a dream, a desire became reality in the virtual space of the net-communication: europe’s journal of psychology! as studentspublishing we faced many hurdles during the time but providing good image, improving the sections of our journal with conference presentations, european events, pictures and enlarging our collaboration with associate editors, renowned psychologists from many countries we gain our credibility and respect in publishing! one important point that made us develop and provide better quality information was the united spirit of the team. we worked and still work as one entity, cooperating and we can say that the key of our success, that we are very proud of, is the communication and understanding. our readership has grown substantially and also their positive feedbacks! since our first issue the positive feedbacks were a moral support for our team to continue the scientific work and not to give up. we are indeed proud to be one of the very few providers of free psychological information. started as a pro bono project, ejop is seriously intended by its editors to remain this way and also open for any other cooperation. we wanted for ejop to be a meeting place, a space where knowledge can be shared. the key words: proficiency and openness. it is often for people to consider the project they are involved in as a baby they have seen growing and helped develop and “raise”. for all of us forming the editorial team, ejop is much more than a journal and preparing each number is much more than a task. it is at the same time a joy and a commitment. and these two years that we are celebrating now mean more than simply another anniversary. developmental psychologists link the two-years-age with the progress of self-awareness and self-consciousness. this may be a metaphor but it clearly represents the way we perceive our work up to this point. after two years of existence, europe’s journal of psychology starts to construct an obvious identity, to become aware of its role for both students and professionals in the field of psychology. for the years to come we wish what every two-years-old would: to grow further. for us, this means publishing high quality materials from students and professionals from europe and worldwide, promoting the journal and receiving suggestions about how we can improve our work. we thank everyone who helped our team, the members of the scientific committee, every author and, most of all, express our gratitude for our readers, which ultimately represent the reason for continuing this project in the years to come. happy birthday ejop! bringing down the wall andreea enache ejop editor i had great difficulty in starting this article and convening with myself on its due content; and i can say that i have not yet come to a satisfying answer. the dilemma was mainly between whether i should bore you with or try to raise your interests in our frustrations, for, as you can easily imagine, such a pursuit as the one of making up a scientific psychological journal intended for the whole european research area cannot stem up but from some great disappointment; or, i could focus on the positive side of our attempt: that of rejecting the victim’s position and creating a space that will provide us with the external instruments for building up a community of people dedicated to scientific psychology and its best practices. maybe it is not only by chance that such a courageous initiative (that some would probably label as naïve) comes from a group of students and, even paradoxically (at least at first sight), from eastern europe. i personally cannot say if this will bring about your contempt or respect, your rejection or interest. what i can say is that we want this journal to be a starting point for communication and collaboration between students and professionals activating or interested in scientific psychology in europe , and we see in this project a very good chance for developing and participating in a process that has already started: that of creating and enforcing the european research area. the basic idea of our project is that attachment to quality and performance is built up in time and requires special efforts from both mentors and disciples. this is why we address students as well as professionals in our attempt to promote quality, interest in scientific research, communication and collaboration as basic principles of a successful career on both individual and social levels. however, this project cannot attain its aims without the active participation of those to whom it is addressed and for whom it has been especially conceived. practicing psychology at a high level of professionalism is not an easy task especially given the current social and economic context of eastern europe. the fact that the idea of such a project was born in one of its countries says a lot about the need for communication and exchange, both professional and cultural, between eastern and western europe. in many ways, the wall is still up. we definitely do not presume that a project such a scientific psychological journal bringing together european students and professionals will make the job of putting it down. but we assume that our efforts and your participation will make a difference in what psychology will be in europe and in what europe will be in psychologists in the years to come. the personality profile of the drug addict review of recent drug consumption data in romania and other central and eastern european countries ruxandra rascanu phd, university of bucharest personality traits as predisposing factors to addiction, or the appetite for drug. drug addiction may be considered as a result of the intersection between product, drug and environmental factors, educational factors and those factors configuring the intimate structure of personality. among environmental factors, the most accepted are social and economic deprivations: parent’s unemployment, poverty, limited material conditions, disorganized families by divorce or abandonment, single parent families. living conditions in disorganized communities, excessive mobility from a community to an other, most of all though, 1-2 decades of accessibility to drugs and alcohol, group affiliation to drug users, family antecedents of alcoholism, painful traumatic events: separations, death of a close person, etc. renowned authors list among educational factors: excessively severe discipline in family or exaggerated tolerance, permissive attitude of parents versus drug consumption. other factors are also considered: emotional deprivation, a severe family environment or a violent one, use of educational methods with oscillating notes and disagreements between parents. most of the time those methods fail to offer a space of personal value and coherent normativity and family environment’s dominant note is the lack of communication or the deficit in communication between parents and children. family, by existent intrinsic dysfunctions and inadequate educational methods offered to the children, may represent a serious risk factor influencing the debut of drug consumption. however, not all the individuals confronted with these environmental and educational factors become addicted. this happens mostly due to the fact that psychologically, the factor mediating the way in which those conditions are both perceived and reflected is the global personality structure. it is well-known fact that there are persons more fragile in terms of personality structures, while others have features that protect and help them to deter drug consumption. there are studies highlighting a correlation between behavior disorders including hyperactivity and later life drug consumption. in fact, starting with childhood, this fact draws attention towards a particular type of personality structure, more difficult, special, that, in the case of a lack of guidance, may turn into a disharmonic personality. drug consumption in this particular case is a result of the impulsive behavior generated by this particular personality type. self image is also a factor playing an important role in the debut and maintenance of drug consumption. an unfavorable self image, either unstructured, characterized by lack of self-confidence and inferiority complex, may generate a rebellious attitude, or, on the contrary, an attitude of withdrawal and retractility, social isolation and excessive timidity. addiction experts accept the idea that rebellious attitude and drugs are on the same side of the barricade, since drug consumption itself is socially disapproved, more than that, it is incriminated and legally punished. at the other extreme, sometimes timidity does not offer the opportunity of normal relationship accomplishments, generating maximum of discomfort. if the person discovers that there are substances able to cause a state of wellbeing, spontaneity and lack of inhibition, the path towards the consumption decision may be extremely short. anxiety is an other personality trait considered predisposing factor to drug consumption. anxiety, as a fear without object, is translated into the subject’s life trough unequal, out of scale reactions to events, inadequacy and elements of stress. there are cases when anxious persons may use depressant substances of central nervous systems (that induce a state of relaxation) in order to escape this state of acute and grave psychological suffering. children whom nothing was ever refused, who get everything they demand, unconditionally, risk to develop hedonistic personality structures, because they develop a view of life as a continuous path of pleasurable events and nothing that could drive them to pleasure must be missed. as a "positive attitude" towards everything generating and meaning pleasure, hedonism is becoming a risk factor for drug consumption. an educational environment showing tolerance to drugs may lead to building a set of norms and values that accept drug consumption as a normal behavior. these "positive attitudes" towards drugs are predisposing for sure to drug addiction and dependency. personality, in its dynamics towards reaching maturity, follows a complicated and difficult path during some particular periods in life. adolescence is a time characterized by multiple physiological and psychological transformations. at a certain point during this time the adolescents may become vulnerable, under multiple aspects. adolescents are a risk population concerning drug consumption. most of debuts take place especially during this time, the personality being immature, the system of values is not built yet, and temptation to try and experiment new things is still present. naturally, one may ask himself/herself whether these personality types specific to drug dependency enter effectively under the psychopathological umbrella or are just normal personalities, with a certain degree of psychological fragility. antoine and maurice porot (1999) state that drug users may be classified into the following categories: psychotics and pre-psychotics, psychopaths, immature personalities and personalities who adjusted themselves to the group pressure. the personality structure of a real drug addict is of pathological nature for the first two categories, drugs playing an important role in decompensation of these fragile personalities. those belonging the last categories above mentioned are not pathological personalities; they are usually teenagers and immature youngsters having predisposing personality traits, who live in a high risk environment favorable to drug consumption. behaviour alterations induced by drug consumption in the personality structure drug use leads very often to the so-called "deficiency syndrome". this is characterized by the following elements: deficit of activity: is especially characterized by the effort to get the drug, justifying its inertia by pseudo-philosophical and anti-social reasoning. it is frequently common in opiacea user; deficit in intellective-operational area: slow ideation, troubles of attention and memory; deficit of disposition and affectivity. it is rather interesting that only the drug remains invested with affectivity. this state reminds us of the affective indifference of hebephrenic and also favors the depressive states, especially during the time of un-habituation, fact that leads many times to relapses (re-appearance of addictive behavior, dependency). concerning especially opiacea consumption, there is the danger of installing a rapid and constant deficitary syndrome. in the case of hallucinogenic drugs, there is a risk of prolonged delusion syndromes, similar to schizophrenic pattern. in cannabis consumption, the syndrome of lack of motivation appears, while in the use of amphetamines paranoid delusional reactions are common. in the case of excessive dose usage, confusional or oneroid-confusional states are common. in the case of prolonged use of drugs, we may notice an inhibition of psychological development, due to the fact that the drug-dependent person is "organizing" his/her own life around the drug obtaining process and stops being interested in other life experiences and his/her acquisitions are decreasing substantially. implicitly, one may notice a delay of psychological development, and in case the dependency occurs at a younger age, the consequences are of psycho-somatic nature. following the development of dependency state and while material means are decreasing, a grave deterioration of moral judgment takes place: theft, robbery, injurious talking, menacing, battering being all considered by the drug addict as normal life behavior. drug addiction emphasizes deviant behavior and the idea of incapacity, failure, by the feedback mechanism. if initially the drug managed to create the sensation of dealing with problems by ignoring them, after an active period of drug consumption, this appears as a necessity, even with specific phenomenon more and more acute, and the person begins to augment substance doses hoping he/she will manage to distance himself/herself from them. after few cycles of this type: existence of x problem, drug consumption as an ignoring mechanism, the idea of incapacity of solving due to the lack of abilities, the feeling of inefficiency in personal life as a consequence of the life-style common to drug-addicts, self-confidence is heavily lowered, self-image is deteriorating, is even destructuring in the case it used to exist as a strong structure. considering all the above mentioned facts, we may notice that all the alterations produced by drug dependency at personality level are profound and visible and they can even affect the personality core when dependency has been installed for a while. this fact highly recommends the use of psychotherapy as a sine qua non intervention of restructuring and optimizing of personality and constructing a new lifestyle with elements of emotional and social balance. evaluation report for 2003 drug related criminal behavior dynamic, assessed between 2001-2003, has known a significant rise from 670 offences in 2001, to 1291 recorded in 2002 and to 1462 in 2003. in percentage, year 2003 is characterized by a rise of 13, 2% of the number of criminal offences versus 2002 and a rise of 118% versus 2001. regarding the environment where the criminal behavior has taken place, urban environment takes the first place (90.4%), confirming that urban communities favor drug distribution, especially big cites. there are though two districts in the rural environment where the number of criminal offences is bigger than the number recorded in the urban environment: satu mare (16 in rural environment versus 11 in urban environment), sibiu (18 versus 17) and suceava (15 versus 9). romania, criminal behavior is mainly expressed related to the possession of small drug quantities for private consumption and selling-buying operations specific to the small street traffic. following analysis of the dynamics of investigated persons by the age of participants’ criterion, has been noticed a constant tendency of decrease between 2001-2003: category of persons above 30 years old have is increasing in 2002 (36%), followed by a relative stabilisation in 2002 (33.5%); persons investigated, of age between 21 and 29 years old, is the main category (49,1% in 2001, 43,9% in 2002 and 46,3% in 2003); tendency of stabilization of young person’s age (18-20 years old) involved in committing this type of criminal offences is completed by its flattening tendency (20,7% in 2001, 13,7% in 2002 and 13,6% in 2003); percentage of minors legally responsible, investigated in similar causes, remains relatively constant in the last three years (6, 1% in 2001, 6% in 2002 and 6, 3% in 2003). during 20012003, offences related to traffic and use of drugs, considering sex criterion, have been done mostly by men (average percentage is 79.2%), women’s implication being active only during 2002 (24.4%). considering education level criterion, it has been noticed that among investigated persons, gymnasium graduates represent the category the most involved in the field of criminal behaviour related to drugs, while high school graduates hold a second position. the analysis provides an increase in the number of university graduates (5, 2% in 2001, 9% in 2002 and 8, 5% in 2003). during the mentioned period, in the field of drug related criminal behaviour has been noticed a rather large implication of unemployed persons, the number of those persons reached in 2003 the top percentage of 64.8%. the fact that the largest part of this category is represented by young people (75.2% in 2001 and 66.8 in 2003) is even more concerning. regarding the ethnic element in drug related activities, people belonging to roma community are the most interested in this illegal activity, in terms of consistent amounts of money involved (in 2001: 68 roma community members investigated – 9.4%; in 2002: 112 – 7.8%; in 2003: 186 – 12.5%). regarding the way of charging the condemned minors, the importance of criminal offences convinced judges to apply penalties, mostly concerning the freedom-depriving ones. (6 in 2001, 18 in 2002 and 15 in 2003). cannabis is widely spread in europe, especially among young people. there are studies showing that 46.2% of youngsters (14-15 years old) in european union have tried cannabis and 28.9% have used cannabis during a period of their lives. more than 10% of young people have used cannabis during last year in france (19.8%), in spain (15%), in great britain (13.4%), in denmark (12.2%) and netherlands (12.2%). the least affected countries are austria, greece, luxemburg, portugal and sweden. a particularity of drug use in central and eastern europe is the socio-economic situation of these countries, the differentiate development and strengthening of the state of law. regarding cannabis consumption, surveys conducted in schools show a prevalence of consumption around the age of 16, 16% on average, starting from 1% in romania to 34% in czech republic. even since the mid of last decade, the problem of opiacea use and especially heroin use have generated concerns in the majority of these countries. even though the data provided by international agencies are rather scarce, a general tendency of stabilizing the drug consumption in czech republic, hungary, slovak republic, slovenia and possibly bulgaria may be estimated, along with an increase in estonia, lithuania, poland and romania (especially heroin consumption). cocaine consumption is under the western europe level, but an increase can be noticed in albania, croatia, lithuania and poland. in slovenia and czech republic the consumption has been stabilized, while in hungary a decrease has been noticed. recent data show that amphetamine type stimulants, especially ecstasy, are now used in experimental and recreational use, under the name of "club drugs", with an increased rate of prevalence of consumption at the average age of 16, for example 6% in lithuania and 4% in czech republic, lithuania and slovenia. the current situation is alarming if we consider studies done by some nongovernmental organizations or other romanian or foreign institutions (unicef, unaids, oms, etc.), that estimate a number of 34000-40000 drug users of injectable drugs in bucharest only, and the assistance services (4 in bucharest) are left, paradoxically, most of the time, without patients. due to a lack of unitary and coordinated actions by institutions in-charge, a distorted social representation regarding drug users was created. this lead to unjustifiable exclusion actions by society and a loss of confidence drug users experience towards these assistance services. at the same time, media – print press, televizion, have substantially contributed to creating a negative image of the consumer, described exclusively by criminal behavior attached to this pathological state or by morbid themes, responsible for high tv ratings. under these circumstances, civil society’s reaction that becomes more and more actively involved in the assistance of drug users is justifiable. there is worth mentioning especially the involvement of the persons directly affected, despite the financial and bureaucratic difficulties of developing private alternatives in this field. therefore, in oradea the "trust" foundation has created a day centre for the assistance of drug users, while "romanian blue cross" association has developed two therapeutic communities for drug and alcohol users in vurpar and sura mica, in sibiu district. other important objectives in assuring quality services in the treatment of drug use is the professional training of specialists (psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, medical nurses, social workers etc.) and the development of a curriculum for them. biographical note ruxandra rascanu, phd, clinical psychologist with more than 30 years experience, professor of "introduction in psychoanalysis" course and "psychology and psychopathology of addiction" course at faculty of psychology and education sciences at university of bucharest, teacher of clinical psycho-diagnosis, differential psychology, projective techniques, communication psychology, involved in research projects in studying drug addiction in youth and teenagers, participated at international conferences on drug addiction. selective references romanian anti-drug association: “methadone, between dream and realityâ€�, bucharest, 2002. 21 st century: “the drugâ€�, romanian cultural foundation, 21 st century, bucharest, 2005. “diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disordersâ€�, 4 th edition, apa, washington, dsm iv tr. escaude, claude: â€�passions des droguesâ€�, collection hypotheses, ed. eves, arcanes, 2002, pag. 21-28, 33-42; 49-88, 114-140, 167-175. miller, r, rollnick, s.: “motivational interviewingâ€� (second edition), preparing people for change, the guilford press, n.y. 2002. mitrofan, iolanda, vasile, diana: “family therapiesâ€�, bucharest, sper printing house, alma mater collection, 2001. potschka – lang, constantze: “constellationes familiales: guerir le transgenerationelâ€�, le souffle d’or, 2001. prelipceanu, d., voicu, v: “abuse and dependency of psycho-active drugsâ€�, ed. info-medica, bucharest, 2004. rascanu, ruxandra: “psychology and psychopathology in drug addictionâ€�, bucharest, “ars docendiâ€� printing house, 2002. rascanu, ruxandra: “alcohol and drugs: virtues and traps for young peopleâ€�, university of bucharest printing house, bucharest, 2004. does dominance within the couple influence the choice of a dominant leadership? mrd. anemarie moise university of bucharest people have often spoken about the importance and the role of the family, as “the foundation cell of the society”. to every man, the family represents an unmistakable universe, to which the birth, the growth, the creation and the development are closely linked personality. it also represents the environment within the human being learns how to articulate sounds, how to codify the first symbols of life. it is almost obvious that the way in which the individual will relate in the couple will attract satisfactions or dissatisfactions at the work place. in the past, the wide range of psychological processes (especially emotional ones) taking place at an individual level were ignored in the study of organizational behavior. the work place was seen like a rational implication, and some feelings that the individual manifested were not considered being able to explain facts at the work place. all these conclusions were divided in several researches and that were underling the importance of individual’s feelings in the explanation of the negative consequences within the company that he represented. one of the most important aspects in the study of organizational behaviour is the process of leadership. why? because in the organisational activity, leadership, it is considered to be determinative, strategic factor in the process of structuring, functioning and efficiency of the institutions. this dynamic process of organization must be understood as involving the capacity of the leadership to integrate and coordinate all the resources to obtain the desired results. one point of interest had in view was represented by identification the link between the way in which the individual related in the couple and the way in which the individual related with the work mates. therefore, the next born question was the following: will the individual who manifests authority in the couple manifest authority at work too, or will he have a participative leadership style? it is well known that leaders have certain common features. it has been shown that many features are not correlated with the idea that people become leaders or with the efficiency of being leaders. however, the researches show that also there are some features associated with the leader status like intelligence, energy, self-confidence, motivation to rule, emotional stability, honesty and integrity, need of fulfilment. this is the definition of herb kelleher from s.w. in many cases, it is difficult to determine whether the features make a leader or the occasion to be a leader produces the features for this role. for example do dominant individuals tend to become leaders, or do employers become dominant after having played successfully the role of a leader? the distinction is important. if the first variant is true, it should be desirable to look for dominant persons and put them in ruling roles. if the second variant is true, this strategy will not be the best. even if we know that intelligence, dominance, height are associated with one efficient leadership, we have a few marks concerning what intelligent, dominant or high people do in order to manage to influence other people. a first aspect noted in the investigation of the link between the dominance in the couple and the dominance in the work place was that the participative style is more important many choices than the others styles among leaders. this creates favourable attitudes, an interpersonal climate based on trust and respect and thus efficiency will rich significant levels. as to repartition on sexes between the authoritarian leadership style and the participative leadership style, researchers say that females tend to be more participative than men because they have better social abilities away, which give them the possibility to rule successfully the process of giving something in order to win something else. in the research about dominance in the couple, one first significant result has been that the number of females who are dominant in couple increasing and this underlines the fact that the role of the female in our society has grow and she can compare with the man on the same positions. she is able not only to express her point of view but also to impose it within the couple. the changes in the couple dominance have led to an effect represented by a compromise between the two parts of the couple, to a division of attributions, to a symbiosis between the public and the private life, valorised by men and women alike. it has also been found that the greater number of years spent together the dominance slightly is, which underlines the fact that couples mature together. in addition, they get to be preoccupied much more by living together in better conditions than by the division of states and roles. after a period of intense researches, the conclusion about the relationship between the couple dominance and the authoritarian style of leadership has been that this correlates positively. this means that if the individual is dominant in the conjugal relationship, he will try to install himself on the same position at the work place. the discovered explanation, has been that the persons manifesting authority in the couple will tend to translate the majority of the characteristics of the couple behaviour at the work place too. and this refers to influence, power and dominance. therefore, a person having the ability to influence the behaviour and the feelings of his partner will manifest the same abilities as far as his subordinates are concerned. even more, the individual who is dominant in couple will tend to behave and to have the same expectations from his’ subordinates as he has from his couple partner. he is used to taking decisions, to influencing, to dominating, he knows that in a couple this aspects give him satisfactions, and therefore he thinks that if he uses them at work he will get the same satisfactions. he also considers that as his influence on his partner changes opinions and attitudes, it will do the same in the case of his subordinates. we mustn’t understand the authority in the couple or in the organizational environment as a negative aspect, we have to understand that in certain conditions we have to operate with these in order to get a greater efficiency. the determination of this relationship brings a new solution to the improvement of the activity of human resources departments. so, knowing the level of dominance of an individual in the couple, we can determine the way in which he will get performances or not at the place where he or she is going to work, because if it is a place in which people tend to have a submissive behaviour, without decisional capacity, then a style of leadership based on authority in which although the subordinates are consulted the decision will be taken only at the top of the hierarchy. on the other hand, if we have a work place in which everyone wants to express his point of view and all the members of the group participate in the decisional process, the leader has to treat his employees with interest and respect, has to be sensitive to the necessities and feelings and has to be receptive to their ideas and suggestions. in this case, a leadership style based on authority will born conflicts. during the process of selection and recruitment of a leader, during the process of determination of his potential in a leadership position in many cases we can use a questionnaire of dominance in the couple to determine the way in which he will behave in the role of a leader. mentoring – a valuable method of practical intervention in need of theoretical grounding assistant prof. dr. valeria negovan university of bucharest abstract the present study aims to give a general overview of the information on mentoring that already exists in the specialized literature. the aim of this necessary synthesis is to emphasize the acute need for its systematic research from a more subtle psychological perspective, one from which the psychology of learning should not miss. the theoretical perspective from which we treat this issue is suggested by a classical definition of mentoring (which can be found in many other definitions) that states that mentoring is “a protected relationship in which experimentation, exchange and learning can occur and skills, knowledge and insight can be developed” (mumford, 2002, p.215). our central argument is that the difficulties one encounters when trying to discover the efficiency of natural mentoring on the level of programmatic mentoring are due to the fact that research on mentoring to date has overlooked the contribution that the psychology of learning can bring to the shaping of this concept. keywords: mentor, mentoring, mentoring program, no-training intervention, long life learning introduction a series of reports that monitor the mentoring phenomena suggest that, at present, “mentoring as one non-training intervention has grown rapidly in the last twenty years. from teacher education to aerospace, from financial firms to community foundations, mentoring relationships are wide spread, and have a variety of purposes.” (hull, 2000, p.2). this situation is meant to stimulate the in depth and more subtle approach of its research through methods and instruments specific to psychological knowledge. specialists in different social sciences, receptive to the vast offer of mentoring programs draw attention on a phenomenon that is specific to the personal and community development programs, and that is that these programs are first of all put into practice and only afterwards understood and explained: “many development methods have been taken up because they became available for the first time and their proponents extolled their virtues” (mumford, 2002, p.208). this practice may have unwanted consequences as far as the quality and efficiency of programs is concerned and in the end can limit the good intentions that these programs started off with. a specialist in mentoring issues notes that “to create and implement a successful mentoring program, one must understand the true definition of mentoring, its critical elements, and its role within the overall performance system” (hull, 2000, p.5) which means a solid scientific research, theoretical grounding and practice planning. it seems that the most frequently used theoretical frameworks that approach the mentoring process are the ones offered by the psychology of individual differences, by counseling, psychotherapy, management, organizational development and training technology. the summaries that already exist in the specialized literature point out a somehow eclectic approach to mentoring, that can be explained by the absence of a holistic conceptual-methodological framework, of an integrating perspective on the phenomenon as a whole (with causes, conditions, mechanisms, resources and consequences). this dynamic and holistic perspective on mentoring can be offered by the comprehensive theory of learning, in the same way in which the mentoring practice points out, unequivocally, the main assumptions and principles of the learning activity. the dynamics of two concepts that have become popular: mentor and mentoring as all the bibliographical sources that refer to mentoring state, the significance of the concept of “mentor” (and the practice associated to it) are connected to the legendary mentor, friend of odysseus, whom the latter put in charge of his son, telemachus, during the time he could not honor his educational-formative responsibilities, as he was fighting in the war of troy. yet, we must not forget to widen the semantic meaning of the term by involving a superior entity in the “guidance” relationship established between odysseus, mentor and telemachus, under the face of mentor being often mentioned the goddess athena herself. the old meaning of the term “mentor” was modified in the modern age when by “mentor” one understood the person – model (expert) for an apprentice, novice or beginner in a profession. clutterbuck (2001) states that nowadays “the mentor’s name – with a lower-case “m” – has passed into our language as a shorthand term for wise and trusted counselor and teacher”. the meanings of the word “mentor” have changed even more during the last decades: in the 1960′s stodgill defined a mentor as an ‘ambitious authority figure’ while in the 1970′s levinson described a mentor as a ‘transitional figure in a man’s life’. in the web definitions of the concept of “mentor” we find terms that make reference to 1. the roles of the mentor: teacher, counselor; guide, advisor, friend, expert in the community, model; 2. his/her concrete attributions and responsibilities (what does the mentor do): provides guidance and recommendations, shares experience, knowledge and wisdom, serves as role model, assists in a training, has a general support role, offers one to one encouragement/advice/befriending, has a positive influence, help; 3. the pole of the communication relationship in which the mentor is involved (to whom does he/she offer what he/she has to offer): to a junior person, to parents of children with similar limb differences, to the younger generation, to the student in reaching his or her educational goals, on youth, for an individual, to an inexperienced individual, to students; 4. the content of the communication – and, we also appreciate, of the learning they promote (on what): for courses of action and behavior, about a particular occupation or about the workplace in general, to become aware of career opportunities, work ethics, and the importance of positive self-esteem; 5. the features, qualities a mentor must have (how he/she should be in order to be a mentor and not something else): has knowledge and familiarity in any field of work or study, he/she is an experienced colleague, having grown up with many of the same issues and concerns, is willing to act as a teacher with children and give advice in a specific area of interest, is prepared to help a colleague or fellow student, is trusted, older, experienced, expert. a general definition of the term “mentor” must include the idea of 1.experienced/trained person, 2.willing to communicate and to share to some less experienced people, 3. some of their accumulated experience, 4. using less formal methods than the ones formal/institutionalized training uses, 5.in the context of interpersonal relationships that limit the negative effects of the public communication threatened by the danger of the lack of personalization, as didactic communication tends to be at present. as it is stated in most of the bibliographical sources focused on the concept of mentor, “in recent years, especially in the management and human resources literature, mentor, which is a noun, has become a verb as well and – with or without “ing” as an appendage – now refers to the patterned behaviors or process whereby one person acts as mentor to another. (…) it will surprise some, but not others, to learn that there are consultants whose practices centre on advising the rest of us regarding the mysteries of mentoring.” (nickols, 2002). the web definitions of the term “mentoring” present it as “the process in which…” as “a component of the partnership movement between schools, employers, and the community” or as ”an opportunity for individuals to have a positive influence on youth”. just as the meaning of the concept of “mentor” has changed with time, the meaning of the concept of “mentoring” has also changed: “in the 1980′s the view of the mentoring process was very much of “managerial tutelage” but this view has become inappropriate as organizations become flatter and individuals become more self-reliant. in her book transformational mentoring, hay (1995) describes mentoring as a “developmental alliance”; a relationship between equals in which someone is helped to develop” (apud http://www.edu.salford.ac.uk/scd/documents/docs/mentoringonlinepapers.rtf). we notice that, in general, the definitions of mentoring comprise descriptive terms that make reference to learning: “to help and support people to manage their own learning in order to maximize their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance, and become the person they want to be.” (parsloe, 1992); “a mentor is that person who achieves a one to one developmental relationship with a learner; and one whom the learner identifies as having enabled personal growth to take place” (bennetts, 1994); “mentoring is an age-old method of supporting development which we find in business, education, and all areas of life, with adults and with youth (…) mentoring can occur any time during a career, but especially when someone seeks to learn from someone else who has experience in the topic for learning.” http://www.mentoringgroup.com/html/mentor_41.htm/); mentoring is “an instructional strategy in which students select (…) an adult from the local community (…) students maintain ongoing contact with their mentors, preferably over several years, using them as resource people with whom they share and discuss fine arts concepts and skills and their application in the real world.” (www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/dan11_12/apf.htm); mentoring is “a form of teaching that includes walking alongside the person you are teaching and inviting him or her to learn from your example” (www.imb.org/cpm/glossary.htm); mentoring is “educational and professional development support provided by experienced colleagues.” (www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/lt_glossary.htm); “mentoring as a learning and development tool includes: sharing experience, offering encouragement, insight through reflection and mutual learning (http://www.edu.salford.ac.uk/scd/documents/docs/mentoringonlinepaper.rtf). even the unprecedented growth of the request for mentoring assistance is explained by phenomena included in the complex activity that is learning: “the fast-paced, competitive, and global nature of information flow, changes in business and other professional transactions, and new models for decision making all require that we all be actively and continually learning. that list suggests that the goal is for everyone to be learning and working with a mentor. this conception of career-long learning means that people in pre-employment education and training, new employees in orientation and training (what i call induction), experienced employees, middle managers, and executives should all have mentors.” (mason, 2005, p.1) an observation from the specialized literature that must not be neglected in order to understand correctly the educational aspects of mentoring is the one regarding its characteristic of being “learner centered”: “mentoring is a process in which (…) the mentor is able to support and help the mentees to develop their knowledge, skills, thinking and behaviors and thus problem solving and performance in a current role as well as longer term career development planning. the primary focus for a mentor is on the person, less so the mentee’s specific tasks, though help in these will always be welcomed” (mason, 2005, p.1) and in a more subtle manner: “the mentoring process should be viewed as a two-way exchange of information, tapping into both individuals’ abilities to learn. in companies moving towards self-directed and cross-functional teams, mentoring should be employed for a greater variety of individuals, and linked to performance-based competencies” (van slyke, van slyke, 1998) social settings and mentoring models even though mentoring was approached in relationship with: the career development, management/leadership, study skills, teaching and learning, after the year 2000, the concept of mentoring is more and more explicitly analyzed related to areas such as: 1. support for education; 2. support with day-to-day living; 3. support in the workplace. mentoring is practiced in many settings: it is most common in business, but also in a medical setting, in educational settings, especially with “at risk” students and in programs such as “big brothers and big sister”, very popular in many countries with a long tradition in the efficient administration of the community resources destined for helping the others (e.g. the united states). in the community, schools, faith-based community, businesses, it includes tutoring, career exploration, life skills development, game playing and going to sports, entertainment or cultural events, life skills development, job shadowing – with small differences according to the specific of the social setting. nowadays the concept of mentoring is almost part of the common language: mozilla firefox shows 54 million locations as search results of the terms of „mentor” and „mentoring”. we enumerate, as information, a few, identified on september, 10, 2005: mentor: expanding the world of quality mentoring. (an organization that promotes, advocates and is a resource for mentors and mentoring initiatives nationwide); national mentoring center homepage (p/pv publishes new look at school-based mentoring); the mentoring group mentoring ideas; tips for mentees: people keep telling you to “manage” your mentoring); peer resources – starting and maintaining mentoring (starting, maintaining and evaluating a mentor program in business, education, and community, including matching mentors, examples of best practices); the european mentoring & coaching council); mentoring (a mentor has knowledge and experience in an area and shares it with the person); the international mentoring association home page (resources, support & guidance for mentoring in every setting & age level); mentor.org etc. the mentor american organization (a generous and fertile initiative for efficiently understanding, explaining and administrating the resources of mentoring), states as its mission: “to lead the national movement to connect america’s young people with caring adult mentors. fulfilling such an important mission requires leaders of creativity, enthusiasm and integrity: men and women with vision, energy and commitment.” (http://www.mentoring.org/about_us/). as it is stated in the presentation page, mentor “focuses on three essential strategies designed to help bridge the mentoring gap”: 1. to build and support critical infrastructure at the state level – expressed through establishing the mentoring partnerships network; 2. to create and sustain a national mentoring institute as a forum of some mentoring experts that would design and offer to the market a series of specialized instruments and services, including guides for conceiving and implementing some efficient programs. mentor has organized a “research corner”, where the latest research on mentoring theory, practice and programs is presented. the one responsible for this “research corner” (and actually the one who created it) is jean rhodes, ph.d., professor of psychology at the university of massachusetts in boston and a researcher associated at the harvard graduate school of education. this restless researcher in the field of mentoring keeps track of the researches made in the united states and elsewhere and makes a pertinent analysis of their methodological and practical value. the researches mentioned by the cited author point out the most common fields in which mentoring is put into practice: school/education; work/organizations; daily life in general. as examples of school-based mentoring programs that are applied in school and in general, there are mentioned programs such as big brothers big sisters; program for elementary students; program for children and adolescents in foster care; mentoring immigrant youth; caring relationships in after-school settings; mentoring children of prisoners; group mentoring for youth, mentoring and race; “mentors for at-risk adolescents; mentoring economically disadvantaged students. the results of these programs make the author state that: “the school-based setting provides an invaluable infrastructure and school staff possess insights into youth’s lives that can simplify the process of forming and monitoring relationships (…) school-based mentoring is a promising response to the infrastructure problems facing community-based programs.” (rhodes, 2006, c., p.6). a program initiated at the university of delaware (“mentor program matches college students with kids” conducted by jongyeun lee and bonnie cramond, 1997) pointed out the fact that “participation in a school-based mentoring program led to improvements in students’ self efficacy, aspirations and ideas of what they could be – their possible selves. kids get help from trained tutors and mentors; college students contribute to schools and the community in a meaningful way” (lee, cramond, 1997). also, the mentoring programs during some work activities proved out to be very efficient for young people. for instance “cornell youth apprenticeship demonstration project” – which emphasizes opportunities for youth to learn at work, begins in students’ junior year of high school and involves workplace teaching, advising and mentoring. students are provided with course credit and formal certification on completion. “new york city mentoring program” – the new york city mentoring program matches groups of at least 15 or more employee-volunteers from an organization with students at a specific high school. through the program, employees serve as one-to-one mentors to public high school students. since 1983, the new york city mentoring program has trained thousands of mentor volunteers and provided technical assistance to many businesses, organizations and government agencies in how to provide mentoring. also, the work-based mentoring programs that had as a purpose to provide low-income students with job skills training, exposure to the world of work and access to labor market opportunities proved out to be very efficient. (rhodes, 2006, b, p.1). another direction in the development of mentoring interventions among young people is the tendency, noticed by the same researcher of mentoring programs, that: “some of the youth groups of yesterday are being “repackaged” as the group mentoring programs of today. “(rhodes, 2006, e, p.1). in group mentoring, one or more caring adults meet with the youth in small, time-limited groups on a regular basis. another framework of the educational field in which mentoring is successfully practiced in many countries is that of higher education (see: h.t. frierson, 1997, mentoring and diversity in higher education, vol.1, greenwich, connecticut: jai press inc.; h. fullerton, 1996, 1998 „facets of mentoring in higher education” seda publications, birmingham, england). the programs put into practice in this field of activity show that the role of the mentor is extremely complex: model, acculturator, sponsor, supporter, and educator. as a model – he/she inspires, demonstrates; as an acculturator – he/she helps others to integrate in a culture; as a sponsor – he/she opens doors, introduces the mentee to appropriate professionals, uses his/her resources in order to help the one who is being protected; as a supporter – he/she stands beside the mentee, offers opportunities, acts as a catalyst; as an educator – encourages reflection and putting theory into practice, creates opportunities so that his/her protégée attains his/her learning goals. (seda paper). a project put into practice at the universities of cambridge and chelmsford by the student support services, entitled “employer mentoring scheme” pointed out the positive effects the relationship has on the mentors. “this anglia ruskin university scheme matches second year students with employees from local companies. the employees act as ‘business mentors’ providing a career related voice of experience for the student. the scheme is designed to assist students in improving their employability through developing workplace skills and business awareness“ from the great number of personal declarations that the program coordinators show as proof of its efficiency and popularity, we select a mentee and a mentor’s statement, which we appreciate as being relevant for the effect of mentoring on higher education: “i am not a 1st class degree student and therefore it is important for me to show additional skills along with intellectual ability. i am very pleased that i took part in the scheme, it gave me confidence, improved my cv and provided me with a contact that was willing to discuss how she managed to get where she is today. i felt as though she would answer all of my questions, however minor or silly they seemed. this scheme helped to lift my motivation levels and maintain my determination to succeed”.(student, law, mentee) and “becoming a mentor made me reflect on my own personal abilities as well as gaining the knowledge that i helped someone else through a tricky period of life. it reminded me of my better qualities and made me revisit mistakes and development opportunities that i have previously encountered and look at them in a new way. this helped me to better understand them and helped my own development and improved my approach to work. i really hope that the guidance that i have provided for my mentee will be beneficial. even in the last few meetings i have seen a positive improvement in my mentee’s attitude and approach to working life, leading me to believe that the process has been worthwhile” (anet online community, 2005) one of the most important observations when monitoring the efficiency of mentoring in the school and university environment is that young people need and want mentoring for a variety of reasons. this observation can generate deep reflections on the consequences of not satisfying these needs and desires. in the field of work, organizations and management, in which mentoring has the most coherent tradition, one can notice profound movements of re-conceptualizations and renewal: “companies are increasingly relying on formal mentoring to tie in with their continuous learning and development initiatives.” (gibbons, 2005). this led to the development of a set of methodological instruments that would ensure a more scientific character for the interventions: how to prepare as a mentor, how to conduct mentoring sessions and how to maintain the relationship through the different stages of the training, as “a well-placed and well-defined mentoring program can meet these challenges and transform an organization into a “learning community” (murray, 1999). amongst the most recent objectives of mentoring, within the community and organizations as well, proves to be “mentoring for diversity” – “it shows how mentoring can be used as a proactive part of equal opportunity policy, as well as demonstrating how diversity is of interest to companies wishing to ensure that they have an innovative and diverse workforce.” (gibbons, 2005). a new setting in which mentoring is practiced is the electronic environment: “it appears that online mentoring offers important opportunities that are not afforded by exclusively face-to-face mentoring, while presenting several practical and ethical challenges.” (rhodes, 2006, d) the specialized literature mentions as a major advantage of the online programs the fact that they allow the implication of a great diversity of mentors, as far as category is concerned (e.g., corporate executives, busy parents, adults who travel a lot or are physically disabled) and mentees (incarcerated, in residential treatment facilities, rural) who would not otherwise participate. but “although the vast majority of the information about online mentoring (in news articles, on web sites, etc.) focuses on the positive aspects, this strategy does pose some key challenges. online communication is considered by some to be a “cold” or “emotionally spare” medium that cannot support close relationships. indeed, because it does not permit for voice tone or nonverbal forms of communication (e.g., smiles, pauses, body language), there appear to be missed opportunities for forging closer ties”. ((rhodes, 2006, d). the specialized literature acknowledges the existence of two mentoring models, an american and a european one, each one with its specific traits (the american one centered on the idea of “sponsorship” and the european one on that of “development” (hamilton, 1993; clutterbuck 2001). the american model involves a hierarchical relationship between mentor and disciple/apprentice, in which the mentor is the „ambitious authority figure” and “the mentee is the ‘protégé’ (stodgill) while the european one defines mentoring as “off-line help by one person to another in making significant transitions in knowledge, work or thinking” (clutterbuck, megginson, 1995). colin mason, director of learning and teaching development, university of st. andrews, describes in a material titled “briefing session for mentors and mentees. mentoring theory and practice”, the following models of mentoring: peer mentoring (equal friends model) – that implies informal arrangements between colleagues; senior colleague model (mentee chooses mentor) – claims a few “mentor characteristics: experience in role or discipline; interest in career development; networking skills” and it is often coordinated by an independent person who may also check on progress of the relationship; “skills/interests/styles matching models – these relationships are initially established by attempting to match against particular criteria e.g. learning styles coupled to an understanding of the drawbacks and advantages of alike or not alike matching)”; arranged marriages model – line manager (head of school) assigns mentors to mentees, based on personal judgments of ‘goodness of fit’ – with get out clauses; matching agency schemes – maintenance of a pool or list of willing mentors and mentees are assigned almost randomly. there are great difficulties of stability e.g. mentor moving on (not confined to this model!); single gender schemes – these have predominantly occurred in female-female schemes thus avoiding the criticism of power imbalances arising through cross-gender matching; internal/external organization models – these models are typified by cross-institutional schemes for senior managers or executives. this removes the politics (to some extent!) and can be combined with matching for styles etc. (mason, 2005, p. 9). conclusions – directions in the development of research in mentoring process the specialized literature mentions as mentoring problems that were discussed but from which one can still expect a series of theoretical contributions: defining mentoring and differentiating it from good managing, coaching, training and supervising; identifying the characteristic skills and attitudes of successful mentors; identifying those critical components of a successful mentoring relationship; evaluating the costs as well as benefits, to individuals and institutions, of establishing a mentoring program; the ways of organizing a mentoring session; the stages of the mentoring process; the ways of evaluating the quality and efficiency of the program (mason, 2005, p. 8 – adapted from ‘everyone needs a mentor’, by david clutterbuck – ipd)(http://www.mentoring.org/mentors/about_mentoring/mentors_role.php). however, the following still need to be researched: the psychological process of mentoring, the difference between natural mentoring and formal mentoring programs, between the psychological profile of an informal mentor and the one of a formal mentor, the causes of the fact that not all those who are experts in a field of activity can also become good mentors for the apprentices or disciples in that field, the bonds that develop between mentors and youth, what each group brings to the process and what they get out of it, how programs are structured and the importance of training mentors because “an informal, unofficial, voluntary, mutually-agreeable, and self-selected interaction between two people has become a program – an institutionalized stratagem for trying to force what probably can only come about naturally”. (nickols, 2002). we appreciate that a more subtle psychological approach of the mentoring process could offer precious suggestions for finding solutions to a serious threat of our times (and maybe of the future, also): the loneliness and lack of orientation of the individual on the sinuous path of personal development. the lack of existential models as well as the great diversity of models (moral, ideological, professional, existential), sometimes claimed in the name of the individual’s right to self-determination, leaves fundamental needs of the individual, such as the need to belong and the safety need, unsatisfied, and this leads to a pronounced level of frustration. if this dangerous phenomenon takes place on the level of groups of young people who aspire to personal fulfillment through work and organizational and social commitment, the consequences of a higher level of frustration are even more serious. the mentor, as an existential model, specially trained in this direction, can be a solution validated by a long socio-cultural experience. but we appreciate that only under the circumstances in which the mentor’s training is made on the principles of human learning and with the purpose of applying them, can he go beyond the status of an existential model and honor that of a … true mentor. we learn how to be or not to be a “mentor”, to look or not to look for mentors, while mentoring actually means “living”, not “teaching” the mentoring relationship. still, “living” the guidance does not mean denying the principles of teaching but “melting” them in the substance of real life. the immediate practical implications of this perspective on mentoring consist of its defining, especially with the purpose of conceiving and implementing a mentoring program, under the aspect of: 1. the field of psycho-social development of the disciples upon which the mentors will act (professional, socio-affective, behavioral etc); 2. the learning tasks through which the mentors will promote the mentees’ development; 3. the type of the relationship (relationship within which the partners can try new ways of working and relating); 4. the mentees’ abilities, availabilities, capacity and experience of learning; 5. the methods that are going to be used in order to support and guide the mentees through the necessary life transitions which are part of their learning; biographical note valeria negovan, phd, assistant professor at the university of bucharest, faculty of psychology and educational sciences, psychology department, professor of educational psychology, learning psychology and career psychology (master) courses. dr. negovan is member of the psychologists’ association in romania, the international council of psychologists, usa, the international school psychology association, denmark, the international federation of educational communities – ifec – romania and the editorial staff of “protecţia socială a copilului – revistă de pedagogie şi asistenţă socială” (“child’s social protection – pedagogy and social assistance magazine”) published by the international federation of educational communities – ifec – romania. her scientific research activity focuses on research areas such as: learning strategies and learning style, the role of values in career development, academic learning. references bennetts, c. (1994), “mentors, mirrors and reflective practitioners; an inquiry into informal mentor/learner relationships”, m.ed dissertation, the university of sheffield, accesat 11 sept.2005, la adresa http://www.edu.salford.ac.uk/scd/documents/docs/mentoringonlinepaper.rtf. clutterbuck, d. (2001), everyone needs a mentor – fostering talent at work, london, cipd clutterbuck, d., megginson, d (1995), mentoring in action – a practical guide for managers, kogan page frierson, h.t.,jr., (ed.) (1997), mentoring and diversity in higher education. stamford, ct: jai press fullerton, h, ed (1998), “’who’s minding the managers?” in facets of mentoring in higher education 2, seda paper 103, seda, birmingham, uk. pp 35 – 43 gibbons, a. (2005) “articles for pin 328 & pin 227 mentorship apel / mentorship journal articles ( www.andrewgibbons.co.uk) hamilton, r. (1993), “mentoring”, the industrial society, london hull, h. (2000), “mentoring” in b. hoffman (ed.), encyclopedia of educational technology, retrieved, january 3, 2006, from http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/mentoring/start.htm lee, j., b. cramond, (1999), “the positive effects of mentoring economically disadvantaged students.” professional school counseling 2, 3: 172-178. mason, c., (2005), “briefing session for mentors and mentees. mentoring – theory and practice” accesat la 10.sept, 2005 la adresa http://www.mentoringgroup.com/html/mentor_41.htm / mumford, a. (1993), how managers can develop managers. aldershot: gower mumford, a. (2002), “choosing a development method”, in pearn, m. (ed)(2002), individual differences and development in organizations, wiley handbooks in the psychology of management in oranizations, john wiley & sons, ltd, england murray, m. (1999), “performance improvement with mentoring”, in stolovitch, h. d, keeps, e. j. (eds.), handbook of human performance technology: 2nd ed. (545-563). san francisco: jossey-bass/pfeiffer. nickols, f., (2002), “mentor, mentors and mentoring”, distance consulting, accesat la 11 septembrie, 2005 la adresa http://home.att.net/nichols/articles.htm parsloe, e. (1992), coaching, mentoring and assisting, london: kogan page rhodes, jean, (2006, b) “work based mentoring” in research corner, mentor, http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/research_corner/work_based_mentoring.php rhodes, jean, (2006, c) “school based mentoring” in research corner, mentor, http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/research_corner/school_based_mentoring.php rhodes, jean, (2006, d) “online mentoring” in research corner, mentor, mentor.org…http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/research_corner/online_mentoring.php rhodes, jean, (2006, e) “group mentoring” in research corner, mentor, mentor.org…http://www.mentoring.org/program_staff/research_corner/group_mentoring.php van slyke, e., van slyke, b. (1998, february), “mentoring: a results-oriented approach”, hr focus, 75(2), pp.14-15. *** anet online community (2005), “student support services (cambridge) – careers (mentoring), anglia ruskin university ‘employer mentoring scheme”, http://web.apu.ac.uk/stu_services/camb/stumentor1.phtml *** “mentor program matches college students with kids”, university of delaware update, a university community newspaper, (1997), vol.16, no.39, http://www.udel.edu/pr/update/97/39/mentor.html work motivation patterns underlying workaholism components ronald j. burke york university stig berge matthiesen university of bergen summary this study examined motivation patterns associated with workaholism components (work involvement, feeling driven to work, joy in work) identified by spence and robbins (1992). data were collected from 211 norwegian journalists using anonymous self-report questionnaires. two motivation patterns were considered: intrinsic and extrinsic. journalists scoring higher on intrinsic motivations reported greater work involvement and greater work enjoyment; journalists scoring higher on extrinsic motivations reported lower work enjoyment. the motivation patterns were independent of levels of feeling driven to work because of internal needs. although workaholism in organizations has received considerable attention in the popular press, researchers have focused on it only over the past decade (see burke, 2000a, and mcmillan, o’driscoll & burke, 2003 for reviews). only two measures of workaholism have been developed and used by small numbers of researchers (robinson, 1998; spence & robbins, 1992). several theories have been proposed to explain the development and maintenance of workaholism (e.g., mcmillan, o’driscoll, marsh & brady, 2001), but little research has been undertaken to examine the validity of any of them. the present study contributes to our understanding of workaholism by examining work motivation patterns relationships underlying both workaholism components and workaholism types. spence and robbins (1992), based on an extensive literature review, distilled three workaholism components and developed reliable measures of each. these components were work involvement, feeling driven to work because of inner needs not external demands, and work enjoyment. it was predicted that (1) journalists scoring higher on intrinsic motivation would also report higher levels of work involvement and work enjoyment and lower levels of feeling driven to work because of inner pressures, and journalists scoring higher on extrinsic motivation would report higher levels of feeling driven to work because of inner pressures and lower levels of work enjoyment (srivastava, locke & bartol, 2001). method respondents data were collected from 211 journalists working in the city of bergen norway. two thirds of the sample were male (67%), most were married (70.4%), worked in permanent jobs (89.4%), were under 40 years of age (65.1%), worked between 31 and 40 hours per week (55.0%), had relatively low levels of job and organizational tenure (42.1% had 4 years or less organizational tenure and 46.2% had 2 years or less job tenure) and most had no supervisory responsibilities (74%). procedure four hundred and eighty-two questionnaires were mailed to potential respondents by the journalists union and returned to a university address. data were collected from 211 journalists using anonymously completed questionnaires, representing a forty-four percent response rate. measures originally appearing in english (e.g., motivation patterns) were translated into norwegian by members of the research team; other measures (e.g., spence and robbins’ workaholism components) had already been translated into norwegian from english and been used in previous research projects. measures workaholism components spence and robbins (1992) derive three workaholism components on the basis of an extensive literature review: work involvement, feeling driven to work and work enjoyment. their measures were used in this study. work involvement ( α = .67) had eight items (e.g., “i get bored and restless on vacations when i haven’t anything productive to do”). feeling driven to work ( α = .80) had seven items (e.g., “i often feel that there’s something inside me that drives me to work hard”). joy in work ( α = .88) had seven items (e.g., “my job is more like fun than work”). motivation patterns two work motivation patterns were considered. respondents indicated on a five-point scale (1 = of little importance, 5 = very important) how important each item would be in their ideal job. intrinsic motivation was measured by 3 items (α = .68). one item was “imagination and creativity”. extrinsic motivation was also measured by 3 items (α = .71). one item was “money” these items were taken from the qps nordic scale (lindstrom, dallner, elo, gemberale, knardahl, skogstad & orkede, 1997). results and discussion predictors of workaholism components a model was developed to predict scores on the three workaholism components containing three blocks of predictor variables. the first block consisted of personal demographic characteristics (n=5) such as age, gender and level of education. the second block consisted of work situation characteristics (n=5) such as tenure as a journalist and size of work unit. the third block of predictors consisted of the work motivation patterns (n=2). table 1 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which each of the three workaholism components was separately regressed on the three blocks of predictors. when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance on workaholism components, individual measures within such blocks having independent and significant relationships with a workaholism component (p the following comments are offered in summary. first, only one block of predictors (work motivation patterns) accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on work involvement. journalists scoring higher on intrinsic motivation indicated greater work involvement (β=.22). second, two blocks of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance on feeling driven (personal demographics and work motivation patterns). men indicated higher levels of feeling driven than did women (β = -.21). third, two blocks of predictors accounted for significant increments in explained variance on work enjoyment (work situation characteristics and work motivation patterns). journalists reporting higher incomes also indicated more work enjoyment (β = .28). in addition, journalists indicating higher levels of intrinsic work motivation and journalists indicating lower levels of extrinsic work motivation indicated more work enjoyment (βs = .36 and -.15 respectively). fourth, the three blocks of predictors accounted for only moderate levels of explained variance on the three workaholism components, no r2 exceeding .20. the most interesting finding was the significant positive relationship of intrinsic work motivation with two of the three workaholism components (work involvement and work enjoyment) and the significant negative relationship of extrinsic work motivation with one (work enjoyment). journalists scoring higher on these two workaholism components were motivated by challenge, growth and use of their skill is a mastery-oriented way. other studies have shown that employees scoring higher on work enjoyment also report more positive work and career outcomes (burke, 2001). none of the work motivations were related to levels of feeling driven however the workaholism component likely to be associated with adverse psychological health outcomes (burke, 2000b). limitations a few limitations of the study should be noted to help put the findings in context. first, all data were collected using self-report questionnaires raising the possibility of response set tendencies. second, the data were collected at one point in time ruling out an examination of causality. third, the data were collected from norwegian journalists. it is not clear the extent to which our findings generalize to respondents from other countries or respondents working in other occupations. footnotes 1 preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by the school of business, york university and the department of psychology, university of bergen. lisa fiksenbaum assisted with data analysis; louise coutu prepared the manuscript. references burke, r. j. (2000b). workaholism in organizations: psychological and physical well-being consequences. stress medicine, 16, 11-16. burke, r. j. (2000a). workaholism in organizations: concepts, results and future directions. international journal of management reviews, 2, 1-16. burke, r. j. (2001). workaholism components, job satisfaction and career progress. journal of applied social psychology., 30, 637-645. lindstrom, k., dallner, m., elo, a. l., gamberale, f., knardahl, s., skogstad, a. & orhade, e. (1997). review of psychological and social factors at work and suggestions for the general nordic questionnaire (qps nordic). copenhagen: nordic council of ministers. mcmillan, l. h. w., o’driscoll, m. p., marsh, n. v. & brady, e. c. (2001). understanding workaholism: data synthesis, theoretical critique and future design strategies. international journal of stress management, 8 (2), 69-91. mcmillan, l. h. w., o’driscoll, m. p. & burke, r. j. (2003). workaholism: a review of theory, research and new directions. in c. l. cooper & i. t. robertson (eds.), international review of industrial and organizational psychology, new york: john wiley, pp. 167-190. robinson, b. e. (1998). chained to the desk: a guidebook for workaholics, their partners and children and the clinicians who treat them. new york: nyu press. spence, j. t. & robbins, a. s. (1992). workaholism: definition, measurement, and preliminary results. journal of personality assessment, 58, 160-178. srivastava, a., locke, e. a., & bartol, k. m. (2001). money and subjective well-being: it’s not the money, it’s the motives. journal of personality and social psychology, 80, 959-971. biographical notes ronald j. burke, phd, university of michigan, is currently professor of organizational behavior, schulich school of business, york university in toronto canada. burke was the founding editor of the canadian journal of administrative sciences and has sat on the editorial boards of approximately 20 journals. his research interests include workand health, gender issues in organizations, human resource management practices and organizational effectiveness and career development processes in organizations. he has particpated in numerous executive development sessions and consults on human resource issues to both private and public sector organizations. contact: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca stig mattheisen, phd, is professor of psychology in the department of psychological sciences, university of bergen. his research interests include bullying in the workplace, work stress and strain, and leadership in organizations. contact: stig.matthiesen@psysp.uib.no microsoft word 12. global psypulse3.doc the 2010 international conference on behavioral, cognitive and psychological sciences (bcps 2010) february 26-28, 2010, singapore the 2010 international conference on behavioral, cognitive and psychological sciences (bcps 2010) will be held in singapore during february 26-28, 2010. the conference is an international forum for the presentation of technological advances and research results in the fields of behavioral, cognitive and psychological sciences. the conference will bring together leading researchers, engineers and scientists in the domain of interest from around the world. this conference provides opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and application experiences face to face, to establish business or research relations and to find global partners for future collaboration. all full paper submissions will be peer reviewed and evaluated based on originality, technical and/or research content/depth, correctness, relevance to conference, contributions, and readability. the full paper submissions will be chosen based on technical merit, interest, applicability, and how well they fit a coherent and balanced technical program. the accepted full papers will be published in the bcps 2010 proceeding. prospective authors are kindly invited to submit full text papers including results, tables, figures and references. full text papers (.pdf) will be accepted only by online submission system, and .pdf and .doc will be accepted by e-mail: bcps@vip.163.com. the sdce 2010 will be held in nanyang executive centre (nec) which is located inside nanyang technological university (ntu) for more information visit the conference website: http://www.iacsit.org/bcps/index.htm the archetypal female in mythology and religion: the anima and the mother dr. joan relke honorary associate studies in religion school of classics, history, and religion university of new england abstract carl jung observed that myths and religions across cultures contain common themes and entities: for example, images of the mother, father, wife, husband, lover, fool, devil, shadow, hero, saviour, and many others. the stories woven from these beings, as gods, goddesses, semi-mortals, heroes, and demons, constitute the myths and religious stories of humankind. carl jung postulated that these myths about such archetypal entities constitute the ‘dreams’ of cultures, and that the stories and archetypes originate in the dreams and fantasies of individuals. this study explores, in two parts, two of these archetypal entities: the anima and the mother, and how they manifest as goddesses in the myths of various cultures and sometimes combine with each other. part one describes the two archetypes, their characteristics and manifestations, and how they can be divided into three categories or realms: goddesses of the underworld, the earth, and the sky or celestial realm. it details the difference between the anima in male consciousness and the animus in female consciousness. using a personal dream example and jungian theory, it then demonstrates that the anima in dreams and mythology can be relevant to women as well as men. focusing on the anima, it then explores the underworld – the myths and entities of this shadowy realm as an expression of the unconscious mind of the individual and whole cultures. part two extends the exploration to the animas and mothers of the earth and sky, and how in these realms, the mother excels. while this exploration focuses mainly on the primary sources from jung, world mythology, and personal experiences and intuitions, it also draws on the work of post-jungian thinkers such as james hillman, ginette paris, marion woodman, and michael vannoy adams. keywords: carl jung, archetypes, anima, animus, mythology, goddesses part one the anima and animus, and the anima and the mother in the underworld like many people i have talked to, my first encounter with carl jung was through his autobiography, memories, dreams, reflections (jung, 1977). this is the best introduction to jung that comes to mind, as the copious volume of his writing is daunting to a beginner. also, without some sort of gentle introduction to his ideas, his writing can seem impenetrable, for no matter where you start, knowledge is presumed and terms which the reader has not had time to digest are used with casual frequency. from memories, dreams, reflections, it was only a small step to the introductory reader titled the portable jung, edited by joseph campbell (1971), a well-known mythologist with jungian leanings. this gem of a book contains many of jung’s significant essays, translated from the german and taken from the bollingen series. i continue to recommend this text to people interested in jung, but who find his collected works formidable. i think it is important to read jung’s own words, even though in translation, rather than rely on interpretations by jungians and others. until one is familiar with jung and has formed one’s own understanding of his ideas, it is possible to be confused or led astray by interpretations of his work. once you have jung’s ideas ‘under your belt’, it is then possible to enter a fruitful dialogue with other interpreters. until then, it difficult reach any critical or appreciative evaluation of secondary writings. besides, contrary to what many say, most of jung’s work is very readable and clear, although copious. myths are the dreams of cultures. like dreams, they are open to interpretation and can have personal meaning or convey archetypal truths about human nature. they can be investigated for their meaning in the culture that ‘dreams’ them, or they can be reinterpreted to illuminate life’s meanings as they unfold in subsequent and other cultures. for example, shakespeare used the underlying themes of the conflicts within the greek character of orestes to tell the story and struggles of hamlet, another mythical man living many centuries later. as ginette paris says, “myths have no dogma” (paris, 1990/2003, pp.41-41). jung discovered that archetypal elements in myths often have parallels in many cultures, and similar myths and entities can be identified pan-culturally. often these elements take similar shapes, and appear in myths and religions as deities or spiritual entities, recognisable as fathers, mothers, demons, special children, fearsome destroyers, creators, wives, lovers, heroes, and husbands. jung called these representations manifestations of primordial archetypes, active within the mind of each individual human being and active in the wider culture. thus he postulated that, although each individual and each culture differ in many ways, underlying these differences is a unity of ideas and forms. this unity he called the collective unconscious, because we share it collectively and it operates unconsciously within individuals and cultures. this study explores two of these archetypes – the anima and mother – and how these two very different female energies manifest and interact in various mythologies. sometimes their qualities co-exist in the same mythological being; at other times, an entity is clearly one or the other. usually the mythological beings manifested by these female archetypes take one of three forms: a goddess of the underworld, an earth goddess, or a celestial/sky goddess. again, sometimes a specific goddess will display qualities of more than one realm, and behave differently depending on which aspect is explored in any given myth. this discussion is in two parts. part one begins with an explanation of the jungian concept of the anima. the anima in jungian theory is the unconscious image of ‘woman’ in the mind of men. however, i explain how this concept can also be relevant to women. from there, the discussion moves on to female divinities, both anima and mother, explaining the nature of both. part 1 then explores underworld animas and their relationships with the mother archetype. part 2 explores the animas and mothers of the earth and sky, with an emphasis on the mothers. both parts use examples from world mythology and religion, and draw heavily on material from the work of carl jung. anima and animus anyone familiar with jung’s ideas, particularly regarding the archetypes and the collective unconscious, will have some understanding of these main female archetypes, the anima and the mother. their counterparts in the collective unconscious are the animus and the father archetypes. to understand the anima, the image of woman present in the male unconscious, it is necessary to understand the animus – the image of man in the female unconscious, according to jungian theory. when i first read jung’s ideas on the anima and animus, i felt very uncomfortable about the animus, and i thought that jung was not particularly clear about it. he said that the animus was the unconscious male counterpart to a woman’s conscious feminine personality, and is projected onto living men, such as “tenors, artists, movie-stars, athletic champions, etc.” (jung, 1951, p.197). the animus in dreams seems to be an indistinct creature, often appearing “as a painter or has some kind of projection apparatus, or is a cinema-operator or owner of a picture-gallery” (jung, 1951, p.197). the anima, however, which is the similar counterpart in men, but is female, seems always to have a far more exalted projection, manifesting as goddesses, female demons, and powerful mythological women, such as eve and aphrodite, as well as the more prosaic projections onto wives and lovers. as well, she is an active protagonist in dreams and fantasies, not a passive pointer, like the animus. not being particularly captivated by movie stars and projectionists, i wondered about the veracity of the animus and also how the animus would have been projected before the era of film. was this just a sexist, essentialist understanding of the female psyche, which, in jung’s time and world, had to be the opposite of the male psyche simply by definition? in jung’s view, men and women are essentially different and opposite, and this exclusivity is an inexorable part of their makeup, resulting in definable femininity and masculinity in healthy women and men (see esp. jung, 1938, pp.209-210; 1959). jung had a particular loathing for what he regarded as masculine women, that is, intellectual, independent, trouser clad women (1) with university degrees. his emotionally charged criticisms of animus-dominated or ‘animus-ridden’ intellectual women and women who take up ‘masculine’ professions, and his belief that “a man should live as a man and a woman as a woman” (jung, 1927, p.118) betray a deep sexism and essentialism, if not misogyny, as he reserves his most vehement criticisms for ‘unfeminine’ women (see esp. jung, 1927; jung, 1938, pp.158-159, 208-209). he also appears not to be particularly interested in the animus. in his treatment of mythology, it features far less than the anima. this may be a reflection of mythology, itself. with the exception perhaps of hermes, the male figures in mythology and religion, such as apollo, jesus christ, zeus, re, and hercules, to mention a few, seem to be projections of the father or hero archetype rather than the animus. it seems obvious from art history and mythology that animas are everywhere: aphrodite, hathor, inanna, athena, artemis, durga, parvati, astarte, dakinis – the list seems infinite. male artists painted and sculpted the female form in profusion, and it is still common practice for art schools to employ female models more frequently than male models. all the odalisques, nymphs, and semi-clad women in the history of art attest to the importance of the anima in male projections. when men are the subject, with few exceptions, such as michelangelo’s david, they are usually portraits, not representations of something essentially masculine, and even in the case of david, we are looking at a purportedly historical character as well as the hero archetype. when female images are firstly portraits, they are often elevated to near divinity, as in the mona lisa or vermeer’s girl with a pearl earring. the existence of the anima in the male unconscious is easily attested in mythology and the history of art, both largely the product of male writers and artists. with the anima such an obvious psychological reality in men, one would think that women, if they have as jung says, a male counterpart in their unconscious, would project male images in the creation of artistic images. but now that women are free to make ‘serious’ art, the images that appear are rarely male. instead, a multitude of female images have been born. in the area of religion, goddess worship is increasing in popularity, and the ‘reclamation’ of ancient goddesses fills library shelves. male animus images do not seem to come out of the creative projections of women as one would expect, according to jungian theory. no projectionists or gallery directors have been elevated beyond the level of celebrity to the level of divinity. even male movie stars rarely achieve the level of immortality enjoyed by the marilyn monroes of hollywood, and no cinderella male could ever surpass princess diana, who was worshipped like a goddess after her death. the animus and the anima just do not seem to be equal complements in the spiritual and psychological lives of men and women. the animus may exist, but it is something qualitatively different from the anima. in jung’s own words, “anima means soul” (jung, 1954a, p.26). “it is something that lives of itself, that makes us live; it is a life behind consciousness that cannot be completely integrated with it, but from which, on the contrary, consciousness arises” (jung, 1954a, p.27). the anima is “the chaotic urge to life”, but it is also wisdom of “a hidden purpose which seems to reflect a superior knowledge of life’s laws” (jung, 1954a, pp.30-31). jung does not say this about the animus. the animus is a passive pointer, not the spark of life, and to deny women an anima means to deny them a soul. jung, however, does admit, albeit briefly and with very little elaboration, that women also have an anima, or an anima-like archetype. this he calls the kore, and when it manifests in men it is the anima; when it is observed in women it is the “supraordinate personality” (jung, 1951, p.183). in jung’s words, “the ‘supraordinate personality’ is the total man [sic], that is, man as he really is, not as he appears to himself” (jung, 1951, p.187). it is “the ‘self,’ thus making a sharp distinction between the ego, which…extends only as far as the conscious mind, and the whole of the personality, which includes the unconscious as well as the conscious component” (jung, 1951, p.187). jung is using the word ‘man’ here in its inclusive sense, that is to mean ‘humanity’ or ‘human kind’, so obviously, the “supraordinate personality” is also woman as she really is, the whole personality, not just the ego, and it manifests as the kore, or an anima-like archetype, which takes the same forms as the anima in mythology and religion. so the soul of a woman is the kore, or anima, not the animus, the counterpart of the male anima. no wonder women’s creativity and religious expression have exploded into a plethora of female images. it seems that jung recognised, although he gives little time to it, that the anima in women does not function entirely like the anima in men, that is, as a complement or balance to the conscious nature. he implies that in men, the anima functions on both personal and archetypal levels. on the personal level, it is projected onto wives and lovers and functions as a balance to the masculine ego. in women, it functions more on the archetypal than personal level. it is a soul force, and hence finds expression in artistic and mythological projections. james hillman also postulates that the anima is relevant to women as well as men, but on both the archetypal and personal levels. archetypal anima projections such as maya, shakti, and sophia cannot “be contained by the notion of contrasexuality…[and bear] upon the psyche of women too” (hillman, 1985, pp.53-55). he observes that, on the personal level, “[w]omen have little girls in their dreams, and whores; they too are lured by mysterious and unknown women” (hillman, 1985, p.57). he also suggests that the animus may be associated with ego-consciousness, while the anima, as jung says, is something from which consciousness arises (hillman, 1985, pp.89-91). therefore, i think we have to consider that the anima, although she may differ qualitatively when experienced by men or women, is that force of soul or psyche within both men and women which prompts and pushes the individual towards psychic and spiritual maturity, towards individuation – a mediator in the development of a consciousness much wider than the ego (hillman, 1985, pp.89-91). if the anima is the “chaotic urge to life” and a force beyond the controlling ego, then it is not surprising that both in the individual psyche and world mythology, she manifests as an inconsistent creature. jung characterises her character as “bipolar”. she can: appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old; now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore. besides this ambivalence, the anima also has ‘occult’ connections with ‘mysteries,’ with the world of darkness in general, and for that reason she often has a religious tinge. (jung, 1951, p.199) the french would call her a ‘femme fatal’, and, on the personal level, in the dreams of men i have talked to, she can be cruelly provocative, taunting, seductive, and terrifying on the one hand, and gentle, solicitous, and wise on the other. her mutable, untamable nature makes her a fascinating mythological creature, displaying opposing, compelling tendencies, often fatal to the other mythological beings she entices. the anima “has affinities with animals, which symbolize her characteristics. [in both myths and dreams] she can appear as a snake or a tiger or a bird” (jung, 1951, p.200). roughly, animas can be from the underworld (snake), the earth (tiger), or the sky (bird), but often they can combine multiple animal attributes and cross the arbitrary boundaries between realms. in dreams, animals are often assumed to represent our ‘animal’ or ‘lower’ nature, that is our instincts for reproduction, territory, power, and survival. but in mythology and religion, animals frequently represent divine forces, and according to hillman, to “look at them from an underworld perspective [as in dreams] means to regard them as carriers of soul, perhaps totem carriers…there to help us see in the dark” (hillman, 1979, pp.147-148). the combination of human and non-human attributes displayed by the anima and mother archetypes in their goddess manifestations connects them to both the natural world and the unconscious depths of the human psyche. the archetype is so far removed from the conscious mind that it cannot be totally expressed or projected in human form. the non-human part is expressed in objective, abstract symbols (jung, 1951, p.187), appearing as attributes of anthropomorphic divinities (jung, 1951, p.188). the mother archetype tends to manifest more frequently in the realms of earth and sky, especially the earth: mother earth as gaia, tiamat, kali, cybele, and demeter, for example. however, sky goddesses can also be mothers, as in the case of isis and to some extent, inanna/ishtar. the mother also displays animal associations and has a dual nature. as the ‘loving’ mother, she displays nurturing, wisdom, fertility, growth, and rebirth (jung, 1954b, p.82). on the other hand, she is the ‘terrible’ mother (jung, 1954b, p.82), devouring her children, poisoning, burning, suffocating, and drowning. she can be seen at work in the benign fertility of spring or the devastation of drought and flood. having outlined these two archetypes and having established good reasons for the relevance of the anima to both men and women, let us now explore their many manifestations, drawing from jung’s own writings as well as other sources. the following discusses the animas of the underworld, their relationship with the mother archetype, the nature of the mother archetype on her own, and her relationship with the underworld. the underworld the anima, or soul, appears as a young girl, maiden, a dancer, a nymph or nixie. a nixie is a water sprite whose fishtail connects her to her “superhuman nature” (jung, 1951, p.184), and she inhabits the watery underworld of lakes, oceans, rivers, and ponds. we all recognize the nixie image in the mermaid – both a young girl or maiden with a fishtail, connecting her to the realm of the supernatural or spiritual. in german literature, the lorelei are nixies who sit on rocks beside the rhine river and lure men to their deaths: the water-sprites were apt to appear to men, though frequently to men’s undoing. the nixie women were supposed to be dazzlingly beautiful. they loved to sit in the sun on the river bank and comb their long golden hair. they sometimes fell in love with handsome young men whom they dragged down to the bottom of the water and who where never seen again. some who had seen them, or heard their melodious songs, lost their wits. they were, by and large, cruel spirits who delighted in doing harm to men. (guirand, 1968, p.279) these water-sprites conform to the classic anima model in men. but what if such a creature were to appear to a woman, in dreams or fantasies? what would she mean if she weren’t a temptress, using sexuality to drag one into the depths of the unconscious to the destruction of the conscious will and ego and into the wider world of the ‘self’(2)? i would like to relate a personal story, which might help explain one role of the nixie anima figure in a woman’s unconscious. situation: i have enrolled in a master’s program in religious studies and my first unit is christian theology. i know nothing about theology; in fact, i have to look the word up in a dictionary. unsurprisingly, i do not do well on my first assignment and am in a state of indecision about whether to drop out of the program, which i had struggled very hard to get into. that night i have a dream: i am underwater. i see a creature swimming towards me. i can tell that it is female from its face. it has a human head and a sea-creature’s body. it doesn’t have a fish-tail, but instead its body tapers to a single point. on one side, it has long flowing hair; on the other a single fin. its body is polished gold. it glides through the water, at first towards me, then past me. it doesn’t look at me, but straight ahead, purposefully, as though it knows precisely where it is going but is not in a hurry. i know the creature is there for me, to show me something. when i wake up, i know exactly what i have to do. i drop out of the program. (see photo of “sedna”) already under water, ‘at sea’, as it were, i was not pulled further into unconsciousness, but allowed to let go of conscious ego concerns and enable unconscious elements to guide my journey, although no goal was in sight – an act of soul or self rather than of ego. in hillman’s terms, she helped me to “see in the dark”. ultimately i completed a phd in studies in religion, but by a more circuitous route. on a less personal, more collective level, the creature in this dream becomes a recognised mythological figure from the north american inuit tradition. some months after the dream, a canadian friend came to visit for a week. orland had worked with inuit people in northern canada and he talked about inuit myths and religion, as well as the high status of women in inuit cultures. the story he related about sedna is one of many sedna myths i have since encountered, but i will recount his here: sedna was a young, unmarried inuit woman whose father decided it was time for her to marry. he arranged for a number of suitable young men to sleep with her. the traditional arrangement stipulated that sedna would choose her husband from among them after she had slept with each in turn. however, sedna did not want to get married. her father insisted, but she remained obstinate. her father then took his disobedient, shameful daughter out to sea in a boat, where he threw her overboard. sedna tried to climb back into the boat, desperately clutching the side. her father cut off her fingers on one hand with his hunting knife, and sedna and her severed fingers sank into the sea. her fingers became the mammals that the inuit feed on: seal, walrus, whale, and polar bear. sedna took up a new life at the bottom of the sea and was mistress of the sea mammals. she established an underwater throne as ruler of the sea, and placed a vicious dog at the entrance to her abode to ward off all intruders. her hair became matted, and she became ferocious in appearance. only the inuit shaman can approach her, but even he must plead and bargain. during lean times when the animals are scarce, the people approach the shaman, petitioning him to visit sedna and plead for the return of the sea creatures. the shaman enters a trance, and, in this altered state, approaches the entrance to sedna’s underwater throne. cautious, but undaunted by her monstrous appearance, he knows her bounty and bargains with her for the return of the sea creatures. he soothes her by combing her wild, matted hair. in order for the creatures to return, he must promise that his people will no longer break taboos. for only the breaking of taboos causes the animals to disappear, and only a vow not to break them again can make them reappear. the shaman returns to his people with the agreement he has made. in jungian terms, sedna is an anima projection, being a maiden with human and sea-creature attributes, a nixie. “the maiden’s helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice” (jung, 1951, p.184) – in this case, mutilated and subsequently drowned by her father (3). however, as a ferocious guardian of the sea, sedna is also a projection of the mother archetype, for she has power over life and has attributes that transcend the vulnerable, sometimes provocative sexuality of the anima. in her transformation from young maiden to ferocious crone, sedna has assumed a “primitive or animal expression of face” (jung, 1951, p.185), characteristic of the great mother. the manifestation of the mother archetype is both creative and destructive, both nurturing and terrifying, for she gives life and takes it away. kali is probably the most familiar example of the dual nature of the mother archetype. hindus worship her as the universal mother of all beings; while simultaneously giving birth to all humanity, she devours her own children and wears a bloody belt of severed heads around her waist and a necklace of severed arms. like sedna, she is both formidable and the source of life. demeter and gaia are also other familiar manifestations of the mother archetype, each formidable and potentially wrathful, with her own relationship to the underworld. demeter, mother of persephone, is at once the great mother of all, and at the same time, inflicts devastation and drought in retaliation for the capture of her daughter and her imprisonment in the underworld. she is not the provocative or maidenly anima – that belongs to persephone, the classic, vulnerable form of the anima, who is abducted and ‘devoured’ by the underworld. demeter, while her daughter’s protector, is also a savage force of destruction, much like kali. gaia, or ge, the early earth goddess of the greeks, described as “the deep-breasted earth”, is the first being to emanate from chaos, which was “vast and dark” (guirand, 1968, p.87), like the unconscious. gaia, an earth goddess, has underworld attributes as she originates from it, and like demeter and kali, is full of savage destruction as well as creativity. when her son/lover uranus grew horrified at the monstrous children they had created, he imprisoned them in the depths of the earth. gaia, true to her great mother archetypal nature, first mourned, but then grew angry, and with the help of her youngest child, cronus, conspired to castrate her husband uranus during the sexual act. uranus’ genitals were thrown into the sea, and from the foamy sperm arose the classic anima, aphrodite (hesiod, theogony, lines 188-201, pp. 15-16). even aphrodite, goddess of love and life, has underworld connections – the “chaotic urge to life” arising from the sea of the unconscious, home of the sexual instinct. from these myths and jung’s observations, the great mother is both savage and protective, having an intimate relationship to the underworld. there is nothing coy or sexual about her; although she unabashedly gives birth to all creatures, including anima figures, from the depths of her body, she then destroys those who defy her. as an all-powerful female, it is not surprising that she should be a threat to the increasingly patriarchal nature of society at the time of the early state-based societies, built on wars, power struggles, and territorial disputes. the development of male-ruled societies required the destruction or disempowerment of the great mothers (d. relke, 1999, pp.11-22). while gaia, like sumer’s ninhursaga, gradually declined in power and became relegated to lesser duties concerning births, marriages, and sometimes prophecy, sumer’s sea-goddess and mother of humanity, tiamat, was utterly destroyed (dalley, 1989). in fierce protection of her progeny, she rebelled against her husband, apsu, when he planned to destroy them for making too much noise. her rebellion brought down the wrath of all the gods, and marduk was chosen to defeat her in battle, as she was perceived as the demon of chaos. this archetypal masculine hero rent her in two during the archetypal power struggle of civilization over such demons (consciousness over unconsciousness; intellect over instinct). he turned tiamat’s severed body into earth and sky, took over rulership of earth, and recreated humanity ruled by an all-male divine council, excluding even the great goddesses inanna and ninhursaga. tiamat is often imagined as a huge serpent. of the typical animal motifs – the snake, the tiger, or the bird – the snake or serpent is the most complex and ambiguous of all. like the fish or archetypal sea creature, snakes inhabit a non-human underworld – dark, murky, and fraught with unknown, liminal forces. jung provides an example of the anima expressing itself in a dream in the form of a snake. he does not say whether this dream belongs to a man or woman: a female snake comports herself tenderly and insinuatingly, speaking with a human voice (jung, 1951, p.201). the account does not include what the snake says, but a talking snake is a familiar mythological image, most recognisable in genesis 3: 1-4 (holy bible). in this myth, the serpent speaks to eve. what it says contradicts god’s threat that she will die if she eats from the tree in the middle of the garden. the serpent says instead, that if she eats from this tree, she will not die, but her eyes will be opened, and she will be like god, knowing good and evil. the snake confers upon humanity, in this case via a woman, supernatural knowledge – knowledge forbidden by the god of genesis, but not necessarily by the gods in contemporaneous cultures at the time this myth was written. like the contemporary dream recounted by jung above, supernaturally endowed snakes in mythology are associated with women, that is, the anima and mother archetypes. medieval art works often depict eve as a snake with a human female head, conflating the subtle serpent of genesis with eve, the mother of all living. female knowledge is often described as intuitive and non-rational. through women, the chaotic impulse of life is expressed, and for cultures that elevate the rational above the non-rational, this kind of knowledge threatens personal and social order, hence the curse upon both the snake and the supernaturally endowed woman, eve, and all women who descend from her. in the earliest greek civilisation, one method of contact with the supernatural for divination and healing purposes was through the pythian oracle at delphi, possibly the site for contact with ge (parke & wormell, 1956, pp.6-8). the priestess who functioned as the oracle was the embodiment of a python – a snake in contact with the supernatural underworld. it was believed that, in the oracular cave, the priestess, called the pythia, in her incarnation as the python, sat on a small stool over a fissure in the earth. from the dark depths of this fissure rose fumes, which the pythia inhaled. inhalation of this breath from the underworld put the pythia into a trance, during which she answered questions in poetic or cryptic form. these sayings were interpreted by priestesses in charge of the oracle. the origin of the pythia is pre-indo-european, neolithic, a period in which women are thought to have been powerful and goddesses prominent. when the patriarchal indo-european civilisation of ancient greece adopted the pythia, it became “the simple mouthpiece of the god apollo”, who served the will of zeus (dillon, 2002, p.99). apollo descended from mt. olympus, “slew a she-dragon”, and named the site “pytho” (morford & lenardon, 2003, pp.230-231), taking over the pythia. he vanquished the non-rational female approach to the supernatural, and replaced it with the apollonian intellectual, analytical, conscious approach, which ginette paris contrasts with the instinctive, subterranean energies of dionysus (paris, 1990/2003, pp.22-24) and aphrodite (paris, 1986, pp.25-32). like marduk, apollo vanquished the great demon serpent, symbol of the unconscious forces of chaos, and brought order to the world – an example of the archetypal battle underlying so many mythologies and cultures (fontenrose, 1959, pp.1-3). the pythia remained female, but the spirit she mediated was male – apollo. the interpreters of the pythia’s sayings translated the messages according to the perceived wishes of the petitioners and took payment for their services. under apollo, often the pythia became a political tool to be manipulated into the desired answers to questions concerning rulership and war (dillon, 2002, pp.98-99), important concerns of the male-ruled culture. what better anima figure could be found than the pythia, the embodiment of a snake who mediates the dream-like contents of the murky unconscious mind, drawing up non-rational knowledge from the depths of the psyche, to be interpreted and applied by the conscious ego? the pagan anima, and its “chaotic urge to life”, “with a superior knowledge of life’s laws” (jung, 1954a, pp.30-31) was anathema to the hebrew mythmakers, trying to differentiate their rational culture and their monotheistic transcendent god from the female-saturated pagan world of oracles, trances, and supernatural, forbidden knowledge. in the early christian writings of origen, the pythia is thought to receive the pagan god, apollo, through her “private parts”, and is morally contrasted with the purity of the act of the virgin’s birth of her son, jesus, which also brought supernatural knowledge and healing into the world: when the prophetic spirit of apollo, pure from any body of earth, secretly enters through the private parts the person of her who is called the priestess, as she is seated at the mouth of the pythian cave! whereas regarding jesus and his power we have no such notion; for the body which was born of the virgin was composed of human material, and capable of receiving human wounds and death. (origen, bk.iii ch.xxv) in genesis, eve and the serpent communed, as did the pythia with the python, but they were cursed for their illicit knowledge and behaviour. although illicit sex is not explicitly mentioned in the genesis account, origen’s comment strongly implies it to the point of bestiality, as apollo enters the pythia in the form of his python spirit – like a snake entering a vagina. perhaps in the greek and roman world, hebrews, and subsequently christians, were forbidden from consulting the pythia or other oracles popular at that time, and the genesis myth warned of god’s wrath should they disobey. the book of enoch warns at least three times against women who have been taught “enchantments” and “mysteries” and have subsequently committed evil (1 enoch 7:1, 8:3, 16:13). the pythia and eve, like the ‘sedna’ of my dream, represent the use of non-rational, sub-conscious knowledge outside the individual’s control – an act of soul, or self, rather than ego. in addition to fearsome and ambivalent chthonic non-human creatures, according to jung, the anima can be sister, wife, mother, and daughter, often with an incest motif (jung, 1939a, p.285). in the ancient world, this ambivalent relationship with a male counterpart is best expressed by isis of ancient egypt. she is both the sister and wife of the god osiris. their son, horus, is the ruling god on the throne, but in the afterlife, becomes osiris. therefore, isis is simultaneously mother, wife, and sister to this archetype of male divine and temporal rulership (4). like her hebrew counterpart, eve, isis also obtains forbidden knowledge through a snake. according to egyptian myth, the highest god, re, who is also a ruling god, maintains his absolute power over the gods and humanity through the concealment of his name. to know a name in ancient egypt meant to obtain control. words had magical power, and to utter a spell brought the same result as acting out the directions of the spell. for example, to feed a soul in the afterlife, the priest had only to recite the spell associated with food in the afterlife. to have control over a deity, one only had to recite its name. re’s name is unknown. isis, desiring control over the highest god, contrives to obtain his name. she causes a venomous snake to bite the god. like the pythia, isis is a healer, in this case a healer of snake bites, and only she can reverse its deadly poison. re begs her to remove the spell, but she refuses unless he tells her his name. ultimately, he has to reveal it in order to survive (anthes, 1961, p.77). he lives, but isis has control over him and uses it to mediate between humanity and the highest god. in comparison to the techniques of the pythia and eve, this may be a somewhat different way of obtaining supernatural power and knowledge, but still a snake is the medium for obtaining such knowledge, in conjunction with the female power of healing. conclusion for jung, the underworld was the realm of the unconscious – home of the instincts, the non-rational, the supernatural. when the ego or conscious mind enters the unconscious, it relinquishes control and becomes subject to the non-rational forces of life. the anima figures, in particular, personify these non-rational forces as the “chaotic urge to life”, and appear in dreams and fantasies as seductive and inspirational female figures, such as goddesses and the archetypal females of art and literature. in individuals, anima figures can appear in both men and women as guiding or maddening forces, always urging the individual into the unknown and opening one up to supernatural, perhaps forbidden knowledge. as the mother, the female archetype becomes the powerful, elemental creator and destroyer of life. the mother both gives birth to and takes back each individual life. she is the vernal spring and the harvest as well as the blasted landscape, ravaged by drought, fire, or flood. in myths she is often destroyed, as humanity fears her all-encompassing power, her desire to never relinquish her children and to keep them infantile forever. part two on the earth and sky female archetypes explores both the anima and the mother in these realms, but focuses more on the mother, as the enthralling force that jung believed we must all escape in order to become fully human. footnotes 1 “but the worst sight – oh – is the women in trousers parading the decks! i often wondered if they knew how mercilessly ugly they looked.” (jung, 1939b, p.521) 2 ‘self’ with a capital ‘s’ is used throughout in contradistinction to the smaller ‘self’ or ego. it signifies the wider psyche of an individual, which includes the ego and the unconscious. 3 i found, and still find, the juxtaposition of this myth with the supposed high social position of inuit women disturbing and contradictory. 4 for general information on egyptian mythology see, for example rosalie david (1980; 1982), erik hornung (1983), stephen quirke (1992), barbara watterson (1984), angela thomas (1986), and george hart (1986; 1990). references anthes, r. (1961). mythology in ancient egypt. in s. n. kramer (ed.), mythologies of the ancient world (pp. 15-92). new york: anchor books. book of enoch. http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/. accessed 15 sept. 2006. campbell, j. (ed.). (1971). the portable jung. new york: penguin books. dalley, s. (1989). the epic of creation [enuma elish] (s. dalley, trans.). in myths from mesopotamia (pp. 228-277). oxford: oxford university press. david, r. (1980). cult of the sun: myth and magic in ancient egypt london: j.m. dent & sons. david, r. (1982). the ancient egyptians: religious beliefs and practices. london and new york: routledge. dillon, m. (2002). girls and women in classical greek religion. london and new york: routledge. fontenrose, j. (1959). python: a study of delphic myth and its origins. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. guirand, f. (ed.). (1968). new larousse encyclopedia of mythology (new ed.). london: the hamlyn publishing group limited. hart, g. (1986). a dictionary of egyptian gods and goddesses. london: routledge and kegan paul. hart, g. (1990). egyptian myths. austin: university of texas press. hesiod. theogony; works and days; shield. (a. n. athanassakis, trans. 2nd ed. 2004). baltimore and london: the johns hopkins university press. hillman, j. (1979). the dream and the underworld. new york: harper & row. hillman, j. (1985). anima: an anatomy of a personified notion. dallas: spring publications, inc. holy bible. new revised standard version 1998 ed. london: harpercollinspublishers. hornung, e. (1983). conceptions of god in ancient egypt. london: routledge and kegan paul. jung, c. g. (1927). woman in europe (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), civilization in transition (vol. 10 (1964), pp. 113-133). london: routledge & kegan paul. jung, c. g. (1938). the relations between the ego and the unconscious (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), two essays on analytical psychology (3rd ed., vol. 7, pp. 123-304). princeton, n.j.: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1939a). conscious, unconscious, and individuation (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 275-289). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1939b). the dreamlike world of india (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), civilization in transition (vol. 10 (1964), pp. 515-524). london: routledge & kegan paul. jung, c. g. (1951). the psychological aspects of the kore (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 182-203). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1954a). archetypes of the collective unconscious (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 3-41). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1954b). psychological aspects of the mother archetype (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 75-100). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1959). the syzygy: anima and animus (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), aion: researches into the phenomenology of the self (2nd ed., vol. 9(ii) (1959), pp. 11-22). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1977). memories, dreams, reflections (r. a. c. winston, trans.). glasgow: collins. morford, m. p. o., & lenardon, r. j. (2003). classical mythology (7th ed.). oxford: oxford university press. origen. contra celsus. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen163.html. accessed october 2006. paris, g. (1986). pagan meditations: the worlds of aphrodite, artemis, and hestia. putnam, connecticut: spring publications, inc. paris, g. (1990/2003). pagan grace: dionysos, hermes, and goddess memory in daily life. putnam, connecticut: spring publications, inc. parke, h. w., & wormell, d. e. w. (1956). the delphic oracle, vol. 1: the history. oxford: basil blackwell. quirke, s. (1992). ancient egyptian religion. london: british museum press. relke, d. m. a. (1999). greenwor(l)ds. calgary: university of calgary press. thomas, a. p. (1986). egyptian gods and myths. aylesbury, bucks, u.k.: shire. watterson, b. (1984). the gods of ancient egypt. london: b.t. batsford. recommendations for esp research this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe‟s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 32-48, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.297 www.ejop.org an empirical evaluation of a set of recommendations for extrasensory perception experimental research josé m pérez-navarro university of greenwich, london, uk xana martínez guerra university of greenwich, london, uk abstract one of the main criticisms of extrasensory perception (esp) research is the lack of replication of positive results across laboratories. in this paper we report a study (n=100) where we tested a set of practices recommended by researchers in the area in order to develop a robust 'recipe' for esp experimental research. in an experimental condition that included these practices we observed a 30% rate of correct guesses (z=0.82, p=0.21, one-tailed) compared to a 22% rate observed in a control condition (z=-0.49, p=0.31, one-tailed). it is discussed how results obtained so far, with free-response protocols, are not strong enough to fully satisfy mainstream science. keywords: ganzfeld, sensory attenuation, esp, parapsychology whether the human being can communicate through a mechanism that does not rely on the use of the classical senses has long been a source of intense debate. claims and anecdotal reports of spontaneous cases keep getting attention in our 'modern' society. science has approached the question in several ways. since j. b. rhine conducted his first experimental studies on extrasensory perception (esp) at duke university in the 1920s (rhine, 1934a, 1934b), over 300 other esp studies have been conducted, using diverse methodologies, mainly in the english-speaking world and northern europe. the degree of success of these studies in support of the esp hypothesis has varied widely, as did the criticisms raised. most critics point to the fact recommendations for esp research 33 that researchers so far have not been able to outline an experimental protocol to replicate the phenomenon consistently across laboratories (hyman, 2010, milton & wiseman, 2001). researchers in the area, in contrast, argue that although 'total' replicability may not have been achieved, there have been more significant studies than expected by chance (bem, palmer, & broughton, 2001; storm & ertel, 2001, 2002; storm, tressoldi, & di risio, 2010a, 2010b). critics also show concern that a file-drawer problem may exist in the field. in any area of science, successful studies that report significant results are more likely to be published than non-significant studies. this can make a null effect look significant in a meta-analysis. researchers in the area of parapsychology were among the first to become sensitive to this problem and in 1975 the parapsychological association (pa) adopted a policy against withholding of non-significant results. nowadays the main peer-review journals in the area maintain a strict policy of no discrimination among significant and non-significant studies. rosenthal (1979) suggested a method, known as the file-safe file-drawer analysis, for estimating how resistant a finding is to the filedrawer problem. honorton (1985) used this technique in the first meta-analysis conducted on a ganzfeld dataset. this author reported that 423 non-significant studies would have been needed to cancel out the significance of the ganzfeld database. the most recent meta-analysis (storm, tressoldi, & di risio, 2010a) included 59 free-response esp studies conducted from 1992 to 2008. the authors calculated that the number of non-significant, unpublished studies needed to bring this database to chance level was 293. it is quite unlikely that such a high number of non-significant, unpublished studies exists given how time and resource consuming this type of experiment is (a single ganzfeld session may take as long as one hour, not to mention questionnaire scoring, data analysis, etc.) and also given the pa‟s and specialised journals' policy against selective reporting. several studies have been conducted in search of neurological signals concomitant to esp. in 1979, rao and feola conducted an early review of the literature on the relationship between esp and the brain's electroencephalographic (eeg) activity. these researchers concluded that eeg alpha levels and esp are associated and that, therefore, non-effortful or relaxed attention may be conducive to esp. mcdonough, don, and warren (2002) detected gamma activity in association to esp in a forced-choice task in a replication of a previous study on event-related brain potentials (don, mcdonough, & warren, 1998). more recently, researchers have used eeg along with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) techniques to study correlations between the brain activities of pairs of participants placed in separate rooms. in a recent literature review, charman (2006) identified 11 studies in which europe’s journal of psychology 34 eeg analyses found evident changes in the receiver's brain activity in response to sensory stimulation of the sender. however, there are also studies that did not find evidence for this effect. may, spottiswoode and james (1994) conducted an experiment to detect event-related desynchronization resulting from an esp stimulus. however, after 70 trials contributed by three subjects, these researchers found no evidence of response to the esp stimulus. moulton and kosslyn (2008), using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri), failed to find any neurological response to esp stimuli in a study that he refers to as the strongest evidence so far against esp. throughout the years, researchers have explored a range of procedures in an effort to achieve unequivocal evidence of esp. participant selection seems to be one of the favourite practices. meta-analyses of previous studies (e.g. bem & honorton, 1994; broughton, kanthamani, & khilji, 1989; honorton & schechter, 1987; storm & ertel, 2001, 2002; storm, tressoldi, and di risio, 2010a) have identified a series of factors that appear to influence success. some of these factors may be superficial. for example, extraversion may relate merely to the ability to be at ease in the testing situation, while practice of mental disciplines may reflect a general interest in inner experiences and introspection. other factors such as subjective paranormal experiences and high scores on the feeling and perception poles of the myers-briggs type indicator may be more central if an esp process exists in humans. the possible effect of many of these variables can be understood in relation to the noise reduction model (honorton, 1977, 1978). in the noise reduction model, esp is conceptualised as a weak signal that is frequently masked by internal somatic and external sensory „noise‟. reducing the signal-to-noise ratio should therefore help detect any psi signal, and this can be achieved by reducing internal and external stimulation. in relation to this, one of the conditions most commonly believed to be desirable in esp experiments is relaxation as a means of enhancing the signal-tonoise ratio by reducing somatic and cognitive noise. the experimental evidence, however, is not as clear as can be expected from the theory. several researchers report a positive association between the participants‟ performance and their degree of relaxation (braud & braud, 1973; sargent, 1982; or stanford & mayer, 1974). braud (1977) found a curvilinear relationship between these two variables and argued that there seems to be an optimum level of arousal for successful performance in this type of experiment. however, other authors have failed to find a significant association between these two variables (george, 1982; morris & morrell, 1985; musso & granero, 1982). recommendations for esp research 35 based on the noise reduction model, honorton and harper (1974) recommend the use of a sensory attenuation technique, the ganzfeld. the ganzfeld technique is nowadays the experimental procedure most commonly used to test the existence of esp. the ganzfeld is a sensory isolation technique originally used for the study of perception by gestalt psychologists (e. g. avant, 1965). ganzfeld experiments commonly involve two participants (one in the role of a telepathic sender and the other of a receiver) located in separate rooms. the receiver is placed in a sensory attenuation environment, while the sender is shown a target stimulus such as a picture, postcard or video clip that has been randomly selected from a large pool of possible targets. the sender is asked to “silently communicate” this target to the receiver. at the same time, the receiver reports spontaneous mental images, feelings, and subjective impressions that come into his or her mind. then, a randomly ordered target set containing the actual target and three decoy targets are shown to the receiver, who is asked to rate the degree to which each matches the thoughts, feelings, and images he or she experienced during the response period. using the direct-hit measure of scoring, the receiver scores a hit if he or she chooses the actual target and a miss if he or she selects a decoy. by chance alone, receivers should select the actual target 25% of the time. a statistically significant deviation above this baseline is taken to indicate a communication anomaly. meta-analyses of ganzfeld studies show a small but highly significant effect of information transfer between a sender and a receiver (bem & honorton, 1994; bem, palmer, & broughton, 2001; storm & ertel, 2001, 2002). furthermore, some studies suggest that the ganzfeld may be more conducive than non-ganzfeld conditions. in a recent paper, storm, tressoldi, and di risio (2010a) report a meta-analysis on three types of study: those that used the standard ganzfeld technique, studies that used non-ganzfeld noise reduction techniques (such as meditation, relaxation, or hypnosis), and other non-ganzfeld, no noise reduction studies. the authors report that the mean effect size value of the ganzfeld database (mean es=0.14, 95% ci: 0.07, 0.02; stouffer's z=5.48, p=2.13x10-8) was significantly higher than the mean effect size of the non-ganzfeld no noise reduction (mean es=-0.029, 95% ci: -0.07, 0.01; stouffer's z=-2.29, p=0.98) but not significantly higher than non-ganzfeld, noise reduction database (mean es=0.11, 95% ci: 0.01, 0.21; stouffer's z=3.35, p=2.08x10-4). they also found that those studies that selected participants (believers in the paranormal, meditators, etc.) showed higher hit rates than studies with unselected participants, but only in the ganzfeld condition. in a reply, hyman (2010) criticises the methodology of the authors and accuses them of making a largely heterogeneous database appear homogeneous. hyman remarks, once more, that evidence in this kind of research has not reached yet a level of consistency to meet scientific criteria. europe’s journal of psychology 36 storm, tressoldi, and di risio (2010b) claim that hyman presents a one-sided account and argue that they followed the standard statistical procedure to find out and deal with outliers in the database. characteristics of the information that participants of esp tests are required to retrieve also seems to play a role in the outcome of the experiment. bem and honorton (1994) report significantly higher scores for trials where video clips were used instead of art prints. other studies that have used multisensory targets also returned successful results. in one of the maimonides dream studies (krippner, ullman, & honorton, 1971) the researchers used an experimental design in which the participant „experienced‟ a multisensory target. the researchers used an elaborate random number system to choose a word from hall and van de castle's (1966) manual, content analysis. this was then matched with an art print, and a multisensory experience was designed around it. although these authors report highly successful results, no control condition was used in this study. in a previous ganzfeld study (pérez-navarro, lawrence, & hume, 2009) we compared our participants' performance using objects and pictures as targets. we observed significantly higher scores for those trials in which objects were used. some other ideas and strategies in order to improve laboratory esp results can also be found in the literature. regarding the social aspects of the experiment, for example, holding an informal chat with participants prior to the testing session in order to relax or motivate them, etc. is among the most recurrent practices in the literature (see dalton, 1997, for a review). from a series of visits to different laboratories, delanoy (1997) points out four broad categories of practices that esp researchers tended to adopt, as follows: 1) procedures concerned with laboratory design, 2) orientation towards participants, 3) participants-experimenters interaction, and 4) experimenter orientation and preparation. delanoy reports that, in general, a comfortable and reassuring environment that, at the time, conveys an image of professionalism was desired by the researchers at the laboratories visited. the creation of a comfortable sitting area where participants would be welcomed prior to the experiment was another important practice pointed out by the researchers. delanoy also notices that participant-oriented behaviours, such as waiting for their arrival, not leaving them unattended, offering them refreshments, and other courtesies would make participants feel valued and could help to decrease anxiety or any worries towards the experiment. a good participant-experimenter interaction was also viewed as an important factor that contributed to experimental success. parker (2000) recommends feeding the receiver‟s on-going mentation back to the sender. this could contribute to experimental success by providing the sender real recommendations for esp research 37 feedback on his task and/or by diminishing external distractions. parker reports one non-auditory monitored study and four monitored ones, showing a substantial difference in hit rates (20% for the non-auditory monitored study vs. 40% average for the monitored ones). nevertheless, these results cannot be conclusive, as there was only one non-auditory monitored study. there could also be a vast amount of knowledge, inspired from informal practice or discussion, not quite suitable for formal publication, latent in the research community. in a previous study (pérez-navarro, 2005) i contacted a large number of active researchers and academics in the area, through conventional post or email, to invite them to put forward their views on potential means of improving experimental esp results. a considerable set of viable strategies was collected. mainly, these referred to psychological management and preparation of participants, experimental design, data treatment, targets, ecological validity, and instrumental measures. although this work did not draw a „recipe‟ for experimental success per se, it provided a starting point for further systematic research. in the present study we compare two experimental conditions. in one (experimental condition a) we integrated a set of practices recommended by these researchers, and in the other (experimental condition b) we followed a similar protocol that did not include these practices. we hypothesised that the hit rate in both experimental conditions would be significantly higher than expected by chance. we also expected that the integration of the researcher's advice in experimental condition a would result in a significantly higher hit rate than that achieved in experimental condition b. when the implementation of an item of recommendation could be quantified, a correlation was calculated between the degree to which each such practice was adopted in the session and the experimental outcome. all items of recommendation were hypothesised to contribute positively to the participants' performance. all hypotheses were one-tailed and alpha levels were kept at 0.01 due to multiplicity of contrasts planned for this study. method design in this study we used a between-subjects design. participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental condition that integrated a set of practices recommended by researchers in the area (experimental condition a) or to an experimental condition that did not include any of these practices (experimental condition b). where feasible, the association between a recommended practice and the participants‟ esp scores was quantified and explored in a correlation europe’s journal of psychology 38 analysis. the session outcome (dependent variable) was defined using direct hits. the participant was asked to indicate which of the four pictures resembled the most his/her experience during the period of sensory attenuation. if the participant pointed at the stimulus that the sender was trying to communicate, one hit was counted. otherwise, the trial was coded as a miss. participants a sample of 100 volunteers was recruited through advertisement of the study at the university of greenwich campus. the study was advertised as an esp study, though no further information about the characteristics of the experiment was provided at this stage apart from its estimated duration. participants were enrolled in a variety of courses, though most of them were psychology students. individuals were scheduled for the session and encouraged to come along with a friend or relative so that one could act as receiver and the other as sender. thirty-three participants were males and sixty-seven females, with ages ranging from 18 to 45. the mean age of participants was 21.6 with a standard deviation of 5.3 years. measures, apparatus, and materials a thirty-minute white noise soundtrack was created with the software cooledit. this was played to the receiver, via headphones, through a pc. visual attenuation was achieved by projecting a red lamp on a pair of translucent acetate eye covers from approximately 40 cms from the individual‟s face. a wireless radio transmitter system set at the receiver‟s room fed back the receiver‟s report to the sender in the modified experimental condition. the system received the input through the pc and transmitted it to the sender‟s headset. also a random number generator (rng) was used to randomise target selection, experimental condition, and order of presentation of the series of stimuli to the receiver after the session. the same rng was used in both experimental conditions. target stimuli: two pools of stimuli were used in this study: pictures (experimental condition b) and objects (experimental condition a). forty photographs were selected from a larger pool by the experimenter so that they contained elements and themes that could be interesting and attention-catching to the participants. these pictures were randomly organised into ten sets of four pictures each. each set was kept in an envelope. pictures were labelled on the back with the set number (a number from 1 to 10) and a letter (from a to d) for later random selection. the ten envelopes were labelled each with the set number they contained. in experimental condition a we used forty objects organized randomly into ten sets of four from the recommendations for esp research 39 most successful in previous studies. they consisted of small toys, souvenirs, and daily utensils. each set was kept in a small box labelled with the set number. each object within each set was labelled with a letter from a to d for later random selection. the sets (pictures and objects) were originally arranged to make sure that no member in a set resembled any other from the same set. we took into account class (e. g. two toys should not be in the same set), colour brightness, shape, etc. procedure when individuals approached the experimenter with an interest in taking part in the study, they were scheduled for an esp test. on their arrival to the laboratory, they were randomly assigned to either experimental condition a or b. experimental condition a included the characteristics outlined below, which were not included in experimental condition b. targets: we used multisensory targets (objects) instead of pictures. we selected the more successful sets of objects from our previous studies according to the number of participants who had achieved a 'hit' compared to the number of times the set had been used. pre-experiment informal chat: on the arrival of our participants we spent between 10 and 20 minutes in an informal chat in order to establish a rapport and reduce any anxieties by clarifying any questions they could have about the experiment. above all we tried to be welcoming and friendly. relaxation techniques: we included 15 minutes of guided relaxation exercises based on jacobson's (1962) progressive relaxation technique prior to the sensory attenuation. feedback to the sender: we provided the sender with feedback of the on-going receiver‟s report, through a radio transmitter, during the sensory attenuation. we took into account the number of times the receiver spoke to describe his/her mental imagery or subjective impressions during the sensory attenuation. personalised setting: if participants were not completely happy with the experimental setting we allowed them to make slight changes until they felt comfortable. some of the most frequent concerned the lighting, volume of the white noise, and position of the chair. we quantified this variable through the number of changes requested by the participant. europe’s journal of psychology 40 sender-receiver pairings: when possible, we used males as receivers and females as senders (dalton, 1994). the four possible pairings were dummy coded for analysis according to this author, being male (receiver) and female (sender) coded as 4, female (receiver) and male (sender) as 3, female-female as 2, and male-male as 1. post-session review: after the sensory attenuation, prior to judging, we took time with the participants to review their report, allowing them to make changes and/or extend their comments. the number of amendments and/or additions each participant made were counted. time of the session: we avoided running the sessions around 18.50 ± 4hs (local sidereal time), as recommended by the researchers. this recommendation was based on a series of studies published by spottiswoode (1997). two experimenters were involved in the study: the first author of this article (experimenter a) and a co-experimenter (experimenter b). at the time of the session, experimenter a accompanied the receiver to the laboratory while experimenter b gave the instructions to the sender in a distant room. experimenter b then opened an envelope containing a randomly generated code for set and target selection, and gave the corresponding stimulus to the sender. at the same time, experimenter a, in the laboratory, gave the instructions to the receiver in a standard manner, set up the pc and radio transmitter and started the session. experimenter a remained in a room next to the receiver‟s room listening to the individual‟s report through headphones and writing down his/her comments. in 30 minutes from the beginning of the session, experimenter b let experimenter a know the set number (but not the target number a, b, c, or d) that contained the target stimulus via sms. experimenter a ignored this until the period of sensory attenuation was completed. at the end of the sensory attenuation, in the optimised protocol, the experimenter reviewed the individual‟s report adding any further clarifications and comments from the participant. then, experimenter a displayed on a table (in randomised order) a duplicate of the set of stimuli previously revealed by experimenter b to contain the target. the individual was then asked to examine these four choices, named a, b, c and d, and indicate which one resembled most closely his/her mental imagery and subjective experience during the sensory attenuation. at this time, experimenter a was only aware of the set of stimuli that contained the target, but kept blind to which of these choices was the right one. it was a requirement of the protocol, at this point, that the experimenter would not help the individual in his decision in any way. nobody was allowed to enter the laboratory until the participant‟s response had been registered. finally, when the judging process had been completed, experimenter a accompanied the receiver to the sender's room to find out the identity of the target. recommendations for esp research 41 results target selection was tested for equiprobability of target, set number, and order of presentation of the target in the judging sequence. the distribution of targets for the 50 sessions in the experimental condition a proved to be random for the four target alternatives (i.e. a, b, c, d; 2=1.20, p=0.75) and set number (1 to 4; 2=4.4, p=0.88). in experimental condition b, target alternatives as well as set numbers appeared also to be randomly distributed (2=1.52, p=0.67 and 2=3.6, p=0.93, respectively). the position of the target stimulus and decoys in the judging sequence was also random (2=2.32, p=0.51 and 2=1.04, p=0.79, for the experimental conditions a and b respectively), ruling out the possibility that participants could have chosen the right stimulus due to position preferences. overall, participants were more successful under the experimental condition that integrated the researchers' recommendations (15 direct hits, 30%, z=0.82, p=0.21) than under the one that did not (11 direct hits, 22%, z=-0.49, p=0.31). although this difference did not reach statistical significance (z=0.92, p=0.18), it was in the expected direction. the power of this analysis, for an expected effect size of approximately 0.15 (as suggested from previous meta-analyses), would be 0.07 with an alpha level of 0.01 and the sample size used in this study. the percentage of participants who pointed at the target stimulus as either their first or second choice was not significantly different from chance expectation (50%) in either of the experimental conditions (64% in experimental condition a and 48% in experimental condition b) using an alpha level of 0.01 (z=1.97, p=0.02 and z=-0.28, p=0.61, respectively). the difference between the two experimental conditions in this analysis was not significant either (z=1.61, p=0.05). in this case the power of the analysis was 0.21. fifty-six percent of the total sample chose the target stimulus as either their first or second choice. this difference is not significantly different from chance expectation either (z=1.20, p=0.11). among the measures that could be quantified in the modified condition only the degree of success of the target stimulus in previous studies correlated significantly with the session outcome at an alpha level of 0.01 (rxy=0.39, p=0.004). two other variables: feedback to the sender and post-session review showed correlation indices in the expected direction with p-values below 0.05 (rxy=0.36, p=0.01 and rxy=0.32, p=0.02, respectively). variables male-female pairing and personalised setting showed small, non-significant coefficients (rxy=0.11, p=0.44 and rxy=0.10, p=0.47, respectively) (see table 1). europe’s journal of psychology 42 table 1: pearson's correlation coefficients between participants‟ performance and the degree to which the measures were present in the optimised protocol. measure correlation coefficient p-value male-female pairings 0.11 p=0.44 feedback to sender 0.36 p=0.01 target previous success 0.39 p=0.004 personalised setting 0.10 p=0.47 post-session review 0.32 p=0.02 in a multiple lineal regression analysis only the variable post-session review contributed to the prediction of performance by participants in this condition with a significant coefficient of 0.15 (p=0.006). the r coefficient was also significant (r=0.58, p=0.002). the adjusted squared r was 0.26. the form of the equation is shown below. so = 0.003mf + 0.06sf + 3.98ts + 0.01ps + 0.15pr + 2.31 in the equation, so means session outcome and mf, sf, ts, ps, and pr male-female pairing, sender feedback, target success in previous studies, personalised settings, and post-session review, respectively. discussion the ganzfeld has been the result of long efforts towards the development of an experimental protocol to replicate systematically the phenomenology claimed in spontaneous case reports. however, studies that have used this technique in their design do not seem to have produced results strong enough to convince the scientific community. in this study we designed and tested a new protocol based on a series of recommendations given by active researchers in the area. although the difference between this experimental protocol and a control condition was observed in the hypothesised direction, it did not reach statistical significance at alpha=0.01. nevertheless, the percentage of correct guesses obtained with the integration of the researchers recommendations in the experimental protocol (30%) is comparable to the ones previously reported in meta-analytic work (32.2% reported by bem & recommendations for esp research 43 honorton, 1994; 31% by bem et al., 2001; 31.6% by storm & ertel, 2001; and 32.2% by storm et al., 2010a). an average hit rate of 32% would correspond to an effect size of 0.14 that, according to cohen (1992), would be classified as a 'small' effect. the integration of the researchers‟ recommendations in our experimental protocol has not produced any clear results. therefore, we must be either far from understanding the underlying mechanisms of esp that would help us to unfold a fully visible version of the phenomenon in the laboratory or we must be simply dealing with a very weak or non-existent effect. a regression analysis conducted with five recommended practices reveals that the degree to which the participant was allowed to review and extend his/her report after the sensory attenuation was the only item that contributed significantly to the relative success of the improved protocol. however, it was not an aim of this study to evaluate the efficacy of these practices individually, which would have required a different type of design. instead, we tried to estimate the global gain of adopting these recommendations through the comparison of the two experimental conditions. thus, other pieces of advice like holding an informal chat prior to the experiment, target type (pictures vs. objects), including relaxation techniques, or mode of data analysis (direct hits vs. z-scores) were not included in the regression analysis due that they could not be quantified for being all present in the improved experimental condition. it must also be noticed that, despite the fact that participant pre-selection on the basis of personality traits (e. g. extraversion, openness, paranormal believer, etc.) was one of the most recommended items in our 2005 survey, we did not select participants for this study mainly because the individuals were to be assigned randomly to the experimental conditions. the multiple regression coefficient r was significant at an alpha level of 0.01. despite the fact that this can be genuinely interpreted as evidence for esp even if the individual correlations or the percentage of hits are not significant, this is not different from what is reported in the literature. our concern is that, up to date, ganzfeldbased protocols have not taken us too far because, at best, we just keep accumulating slightly significant or at-chance results. even if we assumed that metaanalysis has proven esp, there would still be a problem of visibility, which seems to be nowadays the main obstacle for research in this area in terms of financial support, interdisciplinary co-operation, and effective dissemination and acceptance of findings. we encourage researchers to keep exploring alternative features of the experimental protocol in order to achieve consistently strong results in the laboratory, for example, using more ecologically valid designs like remote viewing studies or europe’s journal of psychology 44 dream studies, using neurological indicators, or studying selected populations like artists or emotionally bonded subjects. acknowledgment we would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the fundacao bial (grant 159/08), which has enabled us to conduct this study. references avant, l. l. 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(1997). apparent association between effect size in free response anomalous cognition experiments and local sidereal time. journal of scientific exploration, 11(2), 109–122. stanford, r. g., & mayer, b. (1974). relaxation as a psi-conducive state: a replication and exploration of parameters. journal of the american society for psychical research, 68(2), 182–191. storm, l., & ertel, s. (2001). does psi exist? comments on milton & wiseman‟s (1999) meta-analysis of ganzfeld research. psychological bulletin, 127, 424–433. doi:/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.424 storm, l., & ertel, s. (2002). the ganzfeld debate continued: a response to milton and wiseman (2001). the journal of parapsychology, 66, 73–82. storm, l., tressoldi, p. e., & di risio, l. (2010a). meta-analysis of free-response studies, 1992-2008: assessing the noise reduction model in parapsychology. psychological bulletin, 136(4), 471–485. doi:10.1037/a0019457 storm, l., tressoldi, p. e., & di risio, l. (2010b). a meta-analysis with nothing to hide: reply to hyman (2010). psychological bulletin, 136(4), 491–494. doi:10.1037/a0019840 about the authors josé m pérez-navarro phd is working as a researcher at the school of heath in the university of greenwich, london, uk, where he has previously worked as a senior lecturer. his areas of interest are the psychology of exceptional human experiences, paranormal belief, and the scientific evaluation of paranormal claims. he is currently working on the development of an experimental protocol for successful esp testing. address for correspondence: dr. josé m pérez-navarro, department of psychology and counselling, school of health and social care, university of greenwich, avery hill road, london, se9 2ug, united kingdom. email: jm.pereznavarro@gre.ac.uk http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.3.638 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019457 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019840 europe’s journal of psychology 48 xana martínez guerra has worked as a research assistant at the school of health in the university of greenwich. her areas of interest are paranormal belief and the psychology of exceptional human experiences. address for correspondence: xana martínez guerra, department of psychology and counselling, school of health and social care, university of greenwich, avery hill road, london, se9 2ug, united kingdom. email: mgxana@yahoo.es literature review europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org the value of the transpersonal in psychotherapy and in everyday life edmond cigale phd candidate, rushmore university abstract a general outline of transpersonal psychology is presented and the definition of the transpersonal itself is suggested. the differences between the transpersonal, paranormal or extrapersonal are considered and both the benefits and dangers of transpersonal experiences are discussed. finally, the value of the transpersonal in daily life is addressed. keywords: transpersonal psychology, archetype, higher self, extrapersonal, perception, cognition transpersonal psychology: an overview the position of transpersonal psychology is interesting. on one hand, it is a culmination or, better yet, an inevitable result, of the development of mechanical behaviorist and psychoanalytic psychology. these have both been dominant psychological forces for more than one hundred years and while they are both quite valid from certain points of view, human nature is arguably much more complicated than these schools suggest. transpersonal psychology provides an answer to the need for more precise and flexible psychology as it embraces states of awareness that are well beyond the scope of even the keenest intellect. transpersonal psychology is a silent call for deeper understanding of higher, so-called mystical and spiritual, experiences such as have been known to mankind in both the east and west (india, china, japan, native america, egypt etc...) for thousands of years. we live in the world of thoughts or, as modern cognitive psychology states, we base our perception of the world on mental representations (kellogg, 2007). as hard sciences like physics (greene 2004) and neurobiology (dispenza 2007) advance the understanding of the worlds within and without, so it seems does the descriptive europe’s journal of psychology 2 science (lutus 2003) of psychology. when even hard sciences like quantum mechanics affirm that the observer influences the outcome of scientific experiments, it is rather shortsighted to deny the role which that exact observer plays in the perception of ourselves and the world we live in. sigmund freud, an interesting man, developed a medical model of our psyche, and his psychoanalytical theory has been the predominant model for understanding human self for decades. while freudian psychoanalytical psychologists were losing the war against the unconscious in the mid twentieth century, other research investigations in the late 1960s were setting the foundation for transpersonal psychology. stanislaw grof built on his discoveries on the therapeutic value of lsd (grof 1979) and authored many other important works, and thus became one of the pioneers of transpersonal psychology. another pioneer, who is also known as the father of transpersonal psychology, is roberto assagioli. as early as 1934, assagioli published the article in which he introduced a completely new term into psychology: the higher self. the higher self presented a sharp distinction between the freudian unconscious and the transpersonal, a daring idea for that time. not all archetypes are (pre)personal nor are they all transpersonal: in reality there exists not only a difference but an actual antagonism between these two conceptions of 'archetypes' and from this confusion between them arise various debatable consequences, debatable at the theoretical level and liable to be harmful in therapy. (assagioli 1967, p.8) abraham maslow is another thought leader who has had a significant influence on the development of transpersonal psychology. maslow’s research on the peak experiences (maslow 1962) is of great importance for all psychologists, for it shows that these profound experiences come from well beyond what psychoanalysts are able to analyze. maslow’s focus on self-actualization is of great interest for me and my humanistic psychotherapy practice. peak experiences bestow upon the person 'a deep sense of selfhood', as dr. rowan so neatly put it (rowan 2005, p.44), and they offer the power to, and often do, turn the tide of the process of psychotherapy. i have witnessed it many times in my psychotherapy practice. one of my clients shared an experience that by any criteria very easily comes under the category of peak experiences: the value of the transpersonal 3 “i was just waking up in the early morning and was about to think of the issues i have with my partner and was yet again just about to give in to the worries when a deep sense of complete self confidence started to grow in my chest, near the heart. i felt as though my whole chest is burning with this firm and yet loving inner sense of wholeness and completeness. is that sense me? yes, it is me, it has always been, i have just managed to cover it up with my worries...” this particular client had a difficult road to travel up to this point in the therapy, but after that experience everything was much easier as we had firmer ground to build on. maslow describes the peak experiences quite interestingly: “all peak experiences may be fruitfully understood as completion-of-the-act... or as gestalt psychologists' closure, or on the paradigm of the reichian type of complete orgasm, or as total discharge, catharsis, culmination, climax, consummation, emptying or finishing.”(maslow 1968, p.111) this is rather eloquently put and is very close to what my client experienced. the experience was indeed the culmination of her efforts and a natural outcome of her opening up to deeper and greater authenticity in her life. she has already successfully faced her fears, self-manifested doubts, and made a huge step forward in expressing real emotions. she started pursuing her own authentic goals-as opposed to the goals set by her education, parents, partner, social position and so on. she began to believe in her dreams. her self-awareness and assertiveness has grown quite a bit, and in social situations and relationships, her presence has become more powerful, more peaceful. authority figures in her life have started to notice her, hear her. no doubt, the aforementioned experience was bound to happen. certain other peak experiences (rowan 2005, p.44; maslow, 1954, p.216) are of course not so dissimilar from any transpersonal experience that the wise men of old in most ancient cultures would have recognized as self-realization, enlightenment, illumination of awareness, encounter with the spirit, samadhi, satori, nirvana etc... i have witnessed other people attain these transpersonal states of consciousness on many occasions. satori state of consciousness happens when a person becomes aware of his own true nature, and this inherent true nature always turns out to be what has always been. dr. amit goswami, a theoretical nuclear physicist with an obvious inclination to the transpersonal, defines satori in the controversial movie europe’s journal of psychology 4 what the bleep do we know (2004) as "observer becoming aware of himself, as the observer". there are many methods and paths that lead to such experiences, and one modern path is enlightenment intensive (ei)-in my opinion, a brilliant integration of ancient zen buddhist mental contemplation and modern focused communication. explore the subject in noyes' 1998 writings. on one of my enlightenment intensives a person, right after experiencing satori, shared this: “false ego is an illusion, it simply does not exist. and that who i am is infinite and eternal. there is no difference between you and me. your ego, too, is an illusion; all of this is just an illusion. i am.” (cigale 1998, an unpublished script) such experiences are the transpersonal proper, as we see in rowan (2005, p. 76 ). let me share one of my own experiences: “i was not focusing on anything in particular; i only noticed a bug there in the grass that was emitting some sound. at that moment, everything just seemed to stop. my perception ceased to function. it was as though someone switched off the movie projector that was projecting images on the screen of my consciousness. everything just stopped being-and then i knew. i knew that the sound the bug was producing; it was the song of love. i knew that there are really no differences between that bug and me, that there is only one truth, one existence. that existence is living through that bug and through me as well. there were no points of reference whatsoever, only love and the awareness. no god up there in heaven, no poor and insignificant humans down below on earth-it was just me. "my" heart was completely fulfilled, tears flowed without any control, "i" could not utter a single word. i only knew i "was." (cigale, 1996, unpublished script). that was an experience of the causal transpersonal level, also called samadhi. the word samadhi is a sanskrit word meaning 'one with' (sama) 'the lord' or 'the absolute' (adhi). there are various levels of samadhi, of course. ancient texts differ in the descriptions of these levels. ramana maharshi (1975), a great spiritual master, has outlined three: sabikalpa, nribikalpa and sahaja nirbikalpa samadhi. this level of our existence is described in numerous ways: formlessness, void, i and the father are one, my me is god (rowan, 2005, p. 76) and is not as unreachable as it may seem. the value of the transpersonal 5 it is this level of my existence that colors the meaning of life for me. it rejuvenates my wonder and respect for life. it is this knowledge or state of being that i rely on when nothing else seems to soothe me. high winds, stormy weather, or dry summers-it does not matter really. all relative sensory input cannot compete with the strength of being nor with the power of knowing. andrew neher (1980) thoroughly examines the wide range of spiritual experiences in his work and does not dismiss the notion of such experiences. quite the opposite : "thus, mystical experience can be more than temporary respite from the cares and worries of our everyday lives. sometimes, in revealing a whole new order of things, it profoundly transforms a life." (neher 1980, p. 130). in this light, it is interesting to observe how the understanding of human nature has improved since the freudian era. psychoanalysis interpreted such mystical experiences as a regression into primary narcissism and infantile helplessness and even interpreted religion itself as an obsessive-compulsive neurosis of humanity (freud 1924). some psychoanalysts went even further than freud and described states attained by buddhist meditation as self-induced catatonia (alexander 1931). such notions are really intriguing, seen from a modern perspective. the psychoanalytic interpretation is especially questionable when we consider that one of the leading buddhists in the world, his holiness the dalai lama, is a perfectly normally functioning individual to say the least, and was awarded the nobel price for peace in 1989. and so transpersonal psychology acknowledges, regardless of various religious connotations, most of the authentic experiences acknowledged by all major spiritual traditions on earth as genuinely spiritual or transpersonal. the same cannot be said for psychiatry where certain transpersonal states of awareness are diagnosed as pathological. in actuality, certain experiences are so far beyond the reach of the psychiatric and freudian psychoanalytic approaches that they simply cannot be understood or dealt with properly without the help of transpersonal theory and without a firm grasp of transpersonal experiences. i came across one such situation a few years ago. my old friend's rather unfortunate tendency for sharing such experiences, when refraining from it would be wiser, played a crucial role in it. i have known my friend − let’s call him steven − since childhood, and he, was committed to a mental institution years ago due to the problems his lsd flashbacks caused in his daily life. he took lsd only once or twice europe’s journal of psychology 6 and, according to the local psychiatrist, it was enough to push him out of the ‘normal’ human behavior framework. he had an appointment at the institution when he was getting better and while he was talking about the progress, he said: “oh i healed my sister-in-law at a distance; her ear was infected. i was using reiki. she is fine now.” that was, it seems, too much for the good doctor and so steven was put under some powerful antipsychotic drugs for three days in order to realign his perception of reality to the narrowed lens of the psychiatrist and his scientific grounding in psychiatry. months later steven and i talked about this and had a good laugh when i said that if i had shared my own reiki experiences with the doctor, he would no doubt have committed me for life. the subject of reiki is well beyond the scope of our theme, but let us take a glimpse at it nevertheless. while the usage of energy work like reiki for therapeutic goals may even today be frowned upon by academia, many independent scientific researches with interesting results have been conducted over the years. the work done by drs. robert becker, john zimmerman, and james l. oschman (oschman, 2000) has shown that reiki not only has positive and measurable effects on the human body but also that it can be successfully used as a complementary method for medical remedies. obviously, certain experiences may be well beyond the reach of the mechanical and speculative psychology, which sometimes are-from a psychoanalytical point of view-rather pathological in nature. certain states of consciousness and consequent actions are quite impossible to comprehend without profound insights into the innate nature of these levels of existence. an excellent example of this is vamsidasa babaji, a truly great indian saint who was, recognized and acknowledged by most advanced scholars of his time. he was so extraordinary that in any western culture, he would certainly have been committed or incarcerated for life (see bhakti vikasa swami,1996). whatever can be said in praise of higher education and intellectual might, i would venture that mental speculation hard at work without transpersonal experiences can contribute very little to descriptive sciences like psychology. one such speculation is the extraordinary belief of some psychoanalysts that god (the transpersonal proper) and the unconscious are the same thing: the value of the transpersonal 7 “the aim of the buddhists is often described as the attainment of absolute consciousness. from the point of view of modern psychology as influenced by freud and jung, the mystic appears to be exploring the depths of the unconscious, while yet remaining wholly conscious. timelessness, which is know on the mystical journey and in the sudden experiences of depth and meaning common to many, is one of the characteristics freud discovered in the unconscious. another characteristic, the co-presence of opposites, parallels the paradoxes in which mystics very generally express their thoughts. for these reasons, among others, it may be proposed that the god of the christian mystics and the unconscious of (depth) psychology are substantially similar concepts. (bomford 2002, p.340) dr. rowan's comment on these thoughts is strong, as he points out that such statement can hardly be taken seriously (rowan 2005, p.296). i am inclined, however, to share his observation that 'it is very easy to make obvious mistakes in this difficult area' (p. 296). from my experiences as a kriya yoga teacher and an enlightenment intensive master, it really is difficult, if not impossible, to discern the personal (which would include freud's unconscious) and the transpersonal. the only real and just authority, in my honest opinion, on such experiences should be the person who is having them. we have seen, thus far, that certain experiences are quite distinct from the psychoanalytical freudian inventions; but in reality, not all spiritual experiences are transpersonal, for they may be paranormal or extrapersonal in essence. paranormal and extrapersonal vs. transpersonal parapsychological researchers − joseph banks rhine, gardner murphy, charles tart, arthur hastings, russell targ, to name only a few − have gone a long way in the precise scientific work that suggests the existence of telepathy, remote viewing, psychic diagnosis and healing, poltergeists and psychokinesis. and yet, alyce and elmer green drew a distinction between the paranormal or extrapersonal and the transpersonal. this distinction suggests that in the transpersonal one can find a definite scent of the divine, whereas the extrapersonal is material or subtly material in essence (table 1. adopted from rowan 2005, p.8). europe’s journal of psychology 8 in my previous work (cigale 1996, ch.4) i drew a similar line between the absolute consciousness or pure spiritual experiences (transpersonal) and the side effects (extrapersonal) of these elevated states of awareness, or 'plastic roses' as i call them. in my experience, extrapersonal abilities can be very useful and quite pragmatically employed in everyday life, especially in psychotherapy (esp for example). but these abilities yield no real and deep self-knowledge nor are they of any firmly loving support when the inner skies are starting to turn gray. quite the opposite, actually – in such high pressure situations, they can become a serious hindrance to progress. most humanistic psychotherapists have had various intense situations during sessions. differing severely from impersonal and clinical psychotherapy, humanistic approaches with their soft, human touch tend to elicit deep and profound emotions from clients. i have witnessed such situations on many occasions. in most of them, my esp abilities, empathy, and all intellectual speed are worth less than a dime. only deep and clear awareness of the true transpersonal nature of us both, client and me, does get us through the stormy seas of past trauma, abuse and compromises. the transpersonal experiences proper (they cannot really be called abilities), on the other hand, do offer inner strength, complete self reliance and a bottomless source of motivation. i find the words of charles berner (the originator of enlightenment extrapersonal transpersonal spoon-bending working with crystals clairvoyance clairaudience telepathy esp – extra sensory perception (radin 2006) radiesthesia fire-walking obes mind over matter bloodless skin-piercing energy healing work lucid dreaming (lebarge 1991) higher self deep self (starhawk 1989) inner teacher transpersonal self (withmore 2004) high archetypes (jung) the soul (hillman 1975) the supersonsciousness (withmore 2004) guidance self (whitmont 1969) the self transfigured self (heron 1988) the value of the transpersonal 9 intensive) on the integration of the transpersonal experience (he calls it enlightenment, self-realization or satori) into everyday life, brilliant: “you could just be happy with the fact that you at least now know who you are and can live your life from who you actually are instead of from a fake beingness or personality; that you can now take any growth technique or spiritual practice and make excellent progress with it because of this conscious, direct knowledge of yourself; that you can now know where you are coming from in life.” (berner 2005, p.201) conscious, direct knowledge of one's true, absolute self-as opposed to relative selves or masks; in ancient greek, persona signifies the mask that actors wore on stage-is what makes the transpersonal so different from extrapersonal or paranormal experiences. benefits of transpersonal experiences can be profound. i must admit that in my case, i have not really lived nor authentically perceived the world prior to experiencing the true transpersonal self. for me, the satori experience was a definite wake-up moment. it was as though i was viewing my hands for the first time, tasted sounds around me afresh, and knew the meaning of being awake clearly and deeply. it is important to note that transpersonal is not a synonym for spiritual. spiritual too is quite vague a word, a very general one at best. as we have seen so far, the transpersonal is not personal (as delineated in the mainstream psychology), it is not prepersonal (if we use jung's terms), and not even paranormal or extrapersonal (as outlined above). however, it is also distinct from ‘spritual’. ‘spiritual’ is very broada word which can and does signify most of the experiences we do not really want to accept as genuinely transpersonal. if we did that, we would risk the misinterpretation of quite mundane insights for the transpersonal ones. dr. rowan makes this quite clear when he says that the transpersonal (the causal level) is the source of all mystical experiences (rowan 2005, p.272). put in plain words, we may feel very elevated and profoundly touched when singing in a church. we may think we are dalai lama-like when we experience the power of non-violence for the first time. we might even think we are standing right next to the god when extrasensory perception reveals itself as a precognitive dream. however, with all due respect to these experiences, they are not transpersonal. the transpersonal has nothing to do with anything in the sphere of human personal or extra personal experience. the transpersonal just is-an abstract potential, beyond words, thoughts, and deeds. it is the source. europe’s journal of psychology 10 transpersonal is also not the same as ‘religious’. moreover, a religion and the transpersonal stand on quite the opposite banks of the river of life. while religion has more to do with the vast masses and organized spreading of religious teachings, the transpersonal is very close up and personal. transpersonal experiences are intimate insights into the absolute reality that may or may not be expressed within the framework and terminology of any existing religious doctrine. i concur with dr. rowan when he says: “in other words, the transpersonal is a realm of personal discovery, not something which one joins” (rowan 2005, p.10). i would suggest this is what the transpersonal really conveys: integration and harmony of inner and outer psychological forces, by making one become what one really is, has been and always will be. it is in this direction, i believe, that we should seek the precise definition of the transpersonal. the dangers of the transpersonal experiences the difference between the spiritual and the transpersonal has already been established above, but it is nevertheless worth mentioning the dangers of the socalled spiritual path. fukuyama and sevig (1999) presented these dangers as the 'negative expressions of spirituality'. let us take sunlight, for example. it is of critical importance for life on earth, but when used in certain conditions, it can become very harmful. we may say that the same light in the form of laser-light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-is a negative expression of the sunlight. i have seen most of these negative expressions in my private practice. instead of facing and resolving personal issues, it seems so much easier to be “spiritual” (note the quotes). but the personal issues that are causing anguish and pain in daily life cannot be simply by-passed or effectively ignored. how could they? it is interesting how often this one fact is overlooked: the same issues in everyday life present very real obstacles in one’s spiritual progress as well. spirituality, as anything else, can indeed be defensive as well as transformative, as rowan puts it (rowan 2005, p.205). i have yet to meet a person that has unresolved issues in daily life and who is, at the same time, genuinely spiritually advanced. weinhold and hendricks (1993) share these words: “as one of my clients put it: 'as soon as my ex-husband started meditating and doing the course in miracles, he stopped sending his child support payments.'” (p. 80). the value of the transpersonal 11 we can see how easy it is to delude oneself about realized level of selfdevelopment, and we really don't want to believe that the more advanced one is, the easier it gets. dr. rowan has outlined the dangers that many unaware transpersonal seekers fall prey to: delusion and ego inflation, privation and pride, contempt for the world, fixation and fanaticism, presumption, to name only a few (rowan 2005, p.272). it is at this stage of development, at wilber's causal level, where really subtle dangers present themselves. i have experienced some of them myself. and what seems to be that danger? transpersonal experiences have unique tendencies to pull the practitioner out of the world, as it were, by virtue of being in such stark contrast to the ordinary day-to-day life experiences: the sense of complete freedom, deep sense of wholeness, pure love, peace, joy and happiness, oneness, omnipresence, utter lack of any kind of reference unlike anything experienced in the daily affairs. these experiences can be so profound that a single second spent in such a transpersonal state can result in a strong detachment from everything material or non-transpersonal. i have been down this road a few times so far, and it is never pretty. i can remember the first few days after my first transpersonal experience: i was just sitting there in the living room with a blank stare, completely disinterested in anything happening at home. i am fortunate that my father was quite flexible and just left me be; it was what i needed, no doubt. i needed some time to get the normal perception going again. it was as though i had just awakened from a lifetime of watching an ongoing play on stage, realizing that the play i always took for real was, in fact, only a drama, an on stage choreography. of course, the same happened in my social life. i was withdrawn, seemingly detached, and disinterested in daily affairs. all of this made my life quite difficult at the time. instead of facing life and especially others at their true value, i floated a few feet above the ground, avoiding the real issues i had in life. it was not pretty, yet it was unavoidable for me at that stage. it is my experience that only sincere and persistent work on grounding and bringing these transpersonal insights into the everyday experience can bring balance back into one's life. practices such as diligently fulfilling one's duties in family life and the social arena, and following and realizing desires and dreams in personal and intimate life can enable a person to reach the important and balanced state: a life 'with the head near god and with the legs on the ground' as yogananda (1946), a well known kriya yoga master puts it. europe’s journal of psychology 12 the transpersonal and its value in daily life what is the pragmatic value of the transpersonal? let’s first examine the stages or levels of the transpersonal as per modern transpersonal theory. dr. rowan dedicated the whole second chapter to the basic map, as he named it (rowan 2005, p.55-88, examine it if interested). the transpersonal is divided into two levels by authors: subtle and causal (wilber 2000), transpersonal 1 or soul and transpersonal 2 or spirit (rowan 2005) and transcendent and unity (wade 1996). it is the subtle (the soul or the transcendent) level that is quite readily utilized in our daily life, in my experience. according to dr. rowan and other aforementioned authors, it is at this level that we can find divine symbolism and transpersonal archetypes. all divine figures can be found at this level, all forms of god humanity prays to. it has been called the higher self in the past, a step deeper from the authentic state-in rowan''s map called the centaur-on which humanistic psychotherapies work. in the authentic state, a person works on bringing about his genuine feelings, dreams, and inner goals by relaying on his own personal strength; whereas, at the subtle level, the same and much more can be accomplished by giving up the exquisite yet limited personal power by the virtue of surrendering to the transpersonal self. the subtle level is the transpersonal proper from which a great deal of support and guidance can be drawn. a quiet and sincere prayer is an excellent example. it is important to note, in my opinion, that this state or level is not out of our reach in our daily awareness. it is not a state from without, but rather from deep within. thetahealing™ (stibal 2007) is another such example. in thetahealing™, the transpersonal through the doors of theta brainwaves is utilized. it is one of the methods that employ this level of our existence for advancement in everyday life. from theta state, with conscious connection to the transpersonal, esp can be easily and quite pragmatically used; beliefs and emotion can be removed and replaced in an instant. vianna stibal's diagnosis was terminal bone cancer-she had a tumor in her right femur). she tried to heal her leg using various complementary methods, to no avail. she was desperate but determined to find a way out. eventually, she cured her cancer by lowering her brainwaves to theta and contacting the causal transpersonal level of existence. the healing was instantaneous. her words: the value of the transpersonal 13 “…i thought to myself, ‘it can’t be that easy!” i stopped just before the door to my office and went out of my space from my crown chakra and prayed to the creator. i then commanded the healing on myself, and it worked! my right leg, which had shrunken three inches shorter then my left leg, returned instantly to its normal size. the pain was removed, and my leg was healed. i was so incredibly excited about my healing that throughout the day i compulsively tested the strength in my newly healed leg, curious to see if the pain would return…” (stibal 2007, p. 4.) stibal’s experience is a testimonial to the power of self to transform internal and external circumstances and realities. another successful practitioner of the theta state and the transpersonal, is sally. she was diagnosed with malignant melanoma arising from the back of her head. using the theta technique, vianna removed the brain lesions in the first session. subsequent mri’s have shown the lesions gone. in another session, vianna cleansed her blood ‘and a special test from the john wayne cancer institute has verified that there are no melanoma cells in my blood’, sally says (stibal 2007, p.37). the causal transpersonal level can obviously be employed for medical treatments, with surprising results. it literally transforms people’s lives. conclusion transpersonal psychology offers a great many valid insights into human nature, essentially because it is not confined by the intellect. while transpersonal experiences can and do bring profound changes into the life of a practitioner and their benefits are well documented, the transpersonal itself is not without dangers. a balanced life is needed; a precise balance between personal and transpersonal forces in human existence. surfing solely on the superficial waves of material existence can be, and usually is, a rather dry event, and diving intensely and too deeply into the transpersonal ocean tends to produce high waves on the surface.extrapersonal abilities and even transpersonal experiences can certainly be of great assistance in everyday life; if and when a controlled and deliberate effort is made to solicit them. as much as our intellect craves for distinctions and labels, i still maintain that it is far better to experience the transpersonal itself than to limit our perception of it with dry europe’s journal of psychology 14 definitions. after all, how can we relevantly portray something that is well beyond our very words and thoughts? references aleksander, f. 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(2000) integral psychology, boston: shambhala yogananda paramhansa (1946) autobiography of a yogi, free press europe’s journal of psychology 16 about the author: born in 1972, married, living in slovenia eu, traveling to usa each year, psychologist by profession, humanistic psychotherapist since 1996, currently developing new psychotherapy, an integration of cognitive, humanistic and transpersonal psychology. email: edmond.cigale@gmail.com academic advisor: dr. pamela brill improvements to the ethical review process this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 1-7, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.294 www.ejop.org improvements to the ethical review process are good news for psychologists and health researchers in europe, especially in the uk john barry institute for women‟s health, university college london amid the doom and gloom surrounding the european union‟s (eu) economic situation, one stream of activity gives cause for optimism: health research. not only have recent changes made life much easier for health psychologists, but also the uk government wants to streamline all health research in the uk to make it more cost effective, if not profitable (secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, 2011). these improvements have been applauded by the research community. indeed these improvements might even make the uk the country of choice for healthrelated research in the eu, something that would have been unthinkable six or seven years ago. some of the changes i outline below are specific to the uk, and i would be interested to hear from psychologists in other parts of europe regarding any recent changes to the ethical review process there. the benefits of taking the time to conduct good research should be obvious to anybody interested in the wellbeing of human kind. indeed patients should feel reassured if their doctor is actively involved in cutting-edge research aimed at improving their condition. equally obvious is the degree to which psychologists appreciate the importance of ethics in research – the lessons learned from famous studies by milgram and zimbardo et al. are drummed into the mind of every psychologist from the earliest stages of education in psychology. all psychologists in the eu are now obliged to follow a code of ethics based on the guidelines described in the declaration of helsinki (world medical association, 2008), itself based on the nuremberg code (1949). in the uk this code of ethics is described by the british psychological society (bps, 2009) and broadly similar guidelines (respect for participants, competence of the psychologist, responsibilities of the psychologist, and integrity) apply across the eu, for example, the european federation of europe’s journal of psychology 2 psychologists‟ associations (2005) meta-code of ethics. the psychologist is at all times bound by ethical guidelines. these codes not only protect the research participant, but also protect the researcher and their institution by helping them to conduct work that is ethically sound and thus not inviting disrepute or legal liability issues. because of heterogeneity of interpretation of guidelines the researcher is well advised to seek the opinion of their local research ethics committee (rec). the bps also offer guidance on ethics and ethical approval on their website (bps, 2011). for psychologists in general, ethical review is best handled by institutional (departmental or university-wide) (recs, but for health psychologists working with hospital patients there has been an additional step in the research process the hospital rec. (allmark and tod (2009) provide a good outline of the hospital rec process in the uk). permission to do psychological research in a hospital context requires approval from the hospital rec and the university rec. although the rec system is based upon principles (nuremberg code, 1949) designed to prevent the recurrence of travesties of the kind seen in concentration camps in world war ii, hospital recs – especially in the uk have earned a reputation for causing long and unreasonable delays to everyday research studies, and for treating psychology studies with a mix of scepticism and confusion. six years ago i wrote an editorial for the ejop outlining the history of problems with health research in the uk (barry, 2006). my own experiences up until that point with hospital recs had been typically abysmal; unnecessary delays caused by a national health service (nhs) research ethics committee had very nearly prevented the completion of my msc health psychology dissertation and the same thing looked like happening to my phd. i was by no means alone in my problems with the recs; the discontent of years of dissatisfaction from health professionals of all kinds was coming to a head at this time, and shortly before my editorial was published, a report came out (department of health, 2005) that outlined new guidelines that would soon come into force, altering the face of health research in the uk and across the eu. in my previous editorial on this subject i could only hope that the department of health guidelines would have a positive impact, and i am delighted to say that the present editorial is largely a fortunate story of improvements to the rec system in the uk. as far as changes across the eu are concerned, one major improvement for health psychologists was removing the problem of the rec making judgements regarding the scientific merit and statistical credibility of a study. previous to this an rec might, for example, review an interview-based study and delays of several months might ensue while the rec – not used to dealing with psychological studies struggled with improvements to the ethical review process 3 the idea that a low-risk qualitative study need not be treated in the same way as, say, a randomized controlled trial (rct) of a new type of medication. the university recs – who will probably understand the methodology of the study much better than the hospital rec – have generally made their approval entirely contingent on the hospital rec‟s approval, a bit like a dentist waiting for the opinion of a chiropodist before a tooth can be pulled. researchers of all kinds have argued that the ethics committee should stick to making judgements on ethics not science, but the standard response has always been that it is unethical to ask patients to participate in a study that is scientifically flawed. today however researchers seek experts in relevant fields to review their study prior to rec review, and pass on these external reviews to the rec. in some cases an rec may commission an external scientific or statistical review of its own, as long as this does not cause delay to the review process. another bonus for researchers in the eu has been the adoption of a 60-day time limit in which the rec must come to a decision on a study. this „60-day clock‟ starts and stops at various points until the review is complete. the limit is measured in calendar days i.e. includes weekends, holidays etc. it starts at the time the rec receives the application, stops when the rec sends further correspondence to the researcher, restarts when the researchers reply, and so on. even if the rec commissions its own external review or seek other advice, the clock will continue to run. at present the vast majority of studies are not approved on first application and need to submit amendments of various kinds (e.g. changes to the wording of the patient information sheet) before research can begin. as an additional measure to keep the process timely, recs are required to give at least a provisional opinion to the researchers within ten days of the rec meeting. although national research ethics service (nres) have a complaints procedure, in practice there are no very strong incentives for an rec to keep to time limits because there are no penalties as such for exceeding time limits. in addition to the changes that are common across the eu, hospital ethical review in the uk has undergone other improvements. one major improvement for psychologists is that since sept 2011, nhs rec approval for low risk, uncontroversial questionnaire studies is now quicker and requires much less paperwork than before. the review process has been streamlined for questionnaire studies recruiting nhs patients or staff provided that (a) the topic is not considered highly sensitive and (b) disclosure (accidental or otherwise) would not have serious consequences (nres, 2012a). questionnaire research of this kind will be „fast tracked‟ via the proportionate review service (prs; nres, 2012b). proportionate review has already europe’s journal of psychology 4 been successfully adopted by us and canadian recs. because nres now recognises that many psychological studies carry minimal risk, prs has become a major benefit to health psychologists. the prs route requires less paperwork that a full review, and nres is planning to reduce the paperwork burden even further. prs is much faster than the traditional full review time, taking an average of 13.2 calendar days for a decision to be given, roughly three times faster than the time usually taken (~35 days). on the down side, it should be noted that the rec‟s decision may be the recommendation of a full review of the study, or even outright rejection of the study. a study might be rejected because it does not meet the criteria for review by prs, and it is important that researchers check the qualifying criteria before submission (see nres, 2012b). the new policy regarding questionnaire studies suggests that nres have begun to recognise a fact that many people will consider common sense; just because for every study there is inevitably a risk of causing distress to a participant, it should not mean that theoretical potential for distress ought to be an obstacle to the study taking place. research evidence supports the common sense view; a systematic review found that even in psychiatric patients – by definition a vulnerable group – less than 10% experienced distress (e.g. anxiety, depression, embarrassment, regret) due to interview or questionnaire assessments of their mental state (jorm, kelly, & morgan, 2007). in most cases the distress was of short duration, and more often the participants felt positively about having taken part in research. more good news for uk researchers further improvements are coming. one persistent problem facing recs has been the heterogeneity of decision making across the 81 recs in the uk. to take a real example, one uk rec has a policy of forbidding chief investigators from recruiting participants, while another has a policy of insisting that chief investigators must recruit participants. two steps being taken should reduce this type of inconsistency. firstly, predefined „template approval‟ of elements of a study that are common across studies will ensure that certain aspects of research should always be viewed in the same way by all recs. secondly, „shared ethical debate‟ is a new process by which recs discuss and reflect on examples of each other‟s decision making. another planned improvement is the promotion of „programme approval‟ which will give general approval for a set of studies within a defined research programme. the template approval and programme approval routes are being trialled by nres under the guidance of the health research agency (hra) and the results of this will be published in april 2012. the setting up of the hra is very good news for anyone interested in health research in the uk. however the hra is part of the nhs and, unlike the 2005 eu directive, will improvements to the ethical review process 5 not have a europe-wide effect. my advice is that health psychologists and other health professionals press for the implementation of the hra‟s spirit of change in all countries in europe. this is important because what happens in medical ethics usually „trickles down‟ into how ethical review is implemented in the social sciences. health psychologists need to be aware that research involving nhs patients, staff, premises or equipment requires approval from another body – the research and development (r&d) department. this is a unit that is entirely separate from the recs, and their approval for nhs-related research is needed even in cases where rec approval is not. although the r&ds are generally only concerned about the financial costs that a study might incur to the hospital, occasionally r&d departments can cause delays, even where a study incurs no cost to the hospital. although the rec system has been improved in the past few years, any changes to r&d are generally more relevant to medical research than psychological research. a review by the academy of medical sciences (ams, 2011) of the state of health research regulation in the uk concluded that there was lots of ways research approval could be streamlined in both recs and r&d. since dec. 2011 the improvements suggested by the ams have been overseen by the hra. it is interesting to note that the improvements in recent years mostly involve reducing the degree of influence of recs on research activities. prior to 2005/06 the uk had become an unattractive place to do health-related research largely because of the over-zealous application of ethical principles, and the research industry often took its business elsewhere. today, the main obstacles to conducting health psychology research in the nhs have been fixed. however recs – whether hospital or university – still may vary enormously in how facilitatory or obstructive they are towards research. this heterogeneity can be the result of idiosyncrasies of the rec members in the decision making process. in the same way that the police should not use the law to settle personal grudges, rec members should not use ethical guidelines – or rather the over-interpretation of ethical guidelines as a way to create obstacles to legitimate research projects. in other words, all recs should be very much guided by the second part of the nres mission statement “to facilitate and promote ethical research that is of potential benefit to participants, science and society” (nres, 2012c). to borrow from a comment by a well-respected psychologist: it‟s generally acceptable to ask someone „how are you feeling today?‟, but if this question is asked as part of a psychological research study then it might take many hours of paperwork, protracted meetings, and many weeks of waiting before a university ethics committee will allow the question to be asked. in the busy world of university life researchers simply don‟t have time to struggle with unreasonable delays, and if a europe’s journal of psychology 6 massive organisation like the nhs can change for the better then maybe it‟s time for university recs to change too, for example, by initiating shared ethical debate and other strategies to reduce heterogeneity in decision making. nres costs uk taxpayers £10 million per year, and if this money is spent on facilitating research that will benefit patients, add to scientific knowledge, and make the uk a place that welcomes top quality research programs, then this is money well spent. i hope that universities in the uk and europe take note of the significance of the improvements to the nhs rec system and make similar sensible changes. references academy of medical sciences. (2011). a new pathway for the regulation and governance of health research. retrieved from http://www.acmedsci.ac.uk/index.php?pid=99&puid=209 allmark, p., & tod, a. (2009). a practical guide to obtaining research ethics approval in the uk. nursing standard, 24, 35–39. barry, j. a. (2006). the rise of ethics fundamentalism in the uk: a warning to europe [editorial]. europe’s journal of psychology, 2. retrieved from http://www.ejop.org/archives/2006/02/the-rise-of-ethics-fundamentalism-in-the-uk-awarning-to-europe.html british psychological society. (2009). code of ethics and conduct. retrieved from http://www.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/code_of_ethics_and_conduct. pdf british psychological society. (2011). ethics & standards. retrieved from http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/ethics-standards/ethics-standards department of health. (2005). report of the ad hoc advisory group on the operation of nhs research ethics committees. retrieved from http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetroot/04/11/24/17/04112417.pdf european federation of psychologists‟ associations. (2005). meta-code of ethics. retrieved from http://www.efpa.eu/ethics improvements to the ethical review process 7 jorm, a. f., kelly, c. m., & morgan, a. j. (2007). participant distress in psychiatric research: a systematic review. psychological medicine, 37, 917–926. doi:10.1017/s0033291706009779 national research ethics service. (2012a). no material ethical issues tool. retrieved january 12, 2012, from http://www.nres.npsa.nhs.uk/easysiteweb/gatewaylink.aspx?alid=59908 national research ethics service.(2012b). proportionate review. retrieved january 12, 2012, from http://www.nres.npsa.nhs.uk/applications/proportionate-review/ national research ethics service. (2012c). welcome to the national research ethics service. retrieved january 12, 2012, from http://www.nres.nhs.uk/ nuremberg code. (1949). trials of war criminals before the nuremberg military tribunals under control council law no. 10, vol. 2, pp 181-182. washington, d.c.: u.s. government printing office. retrieved from http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/nuremberg.html secretary of state for business, innovation and skills. (2011). innovation and research strategy for growth. retrieved from http://www.bis.gov.uk/innovatingforgrowth world medical association. (2008). declaration of helsinki ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. retrieved from http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/ about the author john barry, dr., is a research co-ordinator for health studies (ifwh, university college london), lecturer in research methods (ifwh, university college london) and behavioural medicine (dept of psychology, city university, london). john has authored several papers in health psychology, mainly on psychological and biological aspects of polycystic ovary syndrome. microsoft word 7. research mentoring and work attitudes among nurses.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 102-126 www.ejop.org mentoring and work attitudes among nurses: the moderator roles of gender and social support dr. samuel o. salami department of guidance and counselling kampala international university abstract this study examined the relationships of mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring with work attitudes of nurses and the moderating roles of gender and social support in the relationships. questionnaires were used to collect data on mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring, social support (from friends, family, professional association members, co-workers and supervisors) work attitudes, (job involvement, job satisfaction, organizational commitment) and demographic factors from 470 nurses (males =230, females = 240) from five states in southwestern nigeria. data analysis included regressing work attitudes on mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring, social support and gender. results revealed that mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support predicted work attitudes and social support moderated the relationships but gender did not. the relationships were stronger for nurses who scored high on social support than for nurses who scored low on social support. the implication of the findings is that mentoring programmes should be developed by counselling and personnel psychologists for work organizations and these should be complemented with social support from family members, friends, and co-workers, professional association members and supervisors to improve the nurses’ work attitudes. keywords: mentoring, job involvement, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, nurses, nigeria. europe’s journal of psychology 103 introduction several researchers have investigated the characteristics of the work group and organization, the protégé and the protégé/mentor dyad that affect psychosocial mentoring among health-care professionals (allen & finkelstein, 2003; koberg et al., 1998; salami, 2008a). however, few studies have examined the effects of mentoring on work attitudes of nurses. with increased professional stressors such as failing economy, corporate re-engineering, right-sizing /downsizing, retrenchments, increased caseloads, managed care, and subsequent burnout, nurses are likely to feel more overwhelmed and less secure in the workplace. empirical evidence showed that there is a lack of job satisfaction, work motivation, and organizational commitment, high incidence of job stress and turnover among nurses in general and nigeria in particular (adeyemo, 2006; chang, hancock; johnson, daly & jackson, 2005; salami, 2002; salami & olomitutu, 2002). several strategies have been considered to combat these stressors such as formal mentoring programmes that have had particular success in other professions (bedini, 2003; thomas & lankau, 2009). a range of benefits of mentoring for the mentor, mentee and the organization have been identified by researchers (bedini, 2003; greene & puetzer, 2002; kilcher & sketris, 2003). mentors’ benefits include enhanced self-fulfillment, increased job satisfaction and feeling of value, satisfaction from sharing of their knowledge, and experience and from having a trainee succeed and eventually become a colleague; increased learning, personal growth, and leadership skills. the mentees’ benefits of mentoring include increased competence, increased confidence and a sense of security, decreased stress, expanded networks (galbraith & maslinostrowski, 2000), leadership development and insight in times of uncertainty. other benefits are increased job satisfaction, elevated promotions and pay (allen, eby, poteet, lentz & lima, 2004; tenenbaum, crosby& gliner, 2001), organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviour (bedini, 2003; huang, 2004). the organisation’s benefits include improved quality of work, improved productivity, increased ability to recruit, decreased attrition, increased commitment to the organization and development of partnership and leaders. however, some negative mentoring experiences have been identified. these include: difficulties of diversified mentoring relationships when the mentor and the protégé have different values or attitudes (eby, mcmanus, simon & rusell, 2000), unrealistic expectations about the mentors’ power to affect outcomes within an organization and mismatched expectations when the mentor and the protégé come from different backgrounds (tenenbaum, crosby & gliner, 2001). although mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 104 mentoring has received considerable research attention in u.s.a and europe, it is not so in developing countries (salami, 2008a). the findings of most research on mentoring conducted in western societies may not be directly applied to developing countries because of their different economic and socio-cultural considerations. one would expect different effects of mentoring on work attitudes in developing countries because some financial constraints and social – cultural factors would pose challenges to the viability of using oneon-one mentoring models to support the workers. employers may not sponsor formal mentoring programmes in their workplace due to financial constraints, retrenchment and general unemployment in the society. individual workers may have to engage in informal mentoring activites and seek social support from family, friends, co-workers, professional association members and supervisors in their workplace. for example, the high unemployment rate in nigeria which stood at 11.0% in 2007 (national bureau of statistics, 2007) could affect the attitudes of employees and employers to mentoring (salami, 2008a). figures for 2008 and 2009 may not be markedly different. considering socio-cultural perspectives, most nigerians may not want to disclose personal, social and career development problems to people outside the family circles for fear of stigmatization or victimization (salami, 1998, 2008b). to do that may be seen as a sign of weakness (salami, 1998). instead, most nigerians would prefer relying on extended family members and friends’ social support to solve their social, career and personal problems. the nigerian society is more collectivistic than individualistic and as such the workers are likely to seek more social support from family and friends on issues of personal, social and career importance. they may seek support from significant others such as respected co-workers, professional association members and supervisors on matters having to do with career development (salami, 2008b). the fact that there are financial constraints is high unemployment and jobs are difficult to get, has an influence on workers behaviours. those who are employed will want to remain on their jobs and as such they will seek social support from family members, friends and significant others when it comes to personal, social and career problems. the social support from multiple sources is likely to influence mentoring positively (a supportive relationship) to influence work attitudes of workers. also masculinity is highly emphasized in the society and the workplace in nigeria than femininity. lower numbers of women are educated and also participate in labour force and occupy higher status positions than men. there is occupational stereotyping (salami 2008b) and gender–role stereotyping (salami, 1998). when it europe’s journal of psychology 105 comes to mentoring men and women are likely to have different mentoring experiences in same-gender and cross-gender mentoring. therefore, gender may likely influence mentoring experiences which will in turn have impact on work attitudes of nigerian workers. the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among mentoring, mentees’ satisfaction and work attitudes and the extent to which gender and social support moderate the links. overview of literature mentoring galbraith (2001) defined mentoring as a process by which persons of superior rank, special achievements, and prestige instruct, counsel, guide and facilitate the intellectual and/or career development of persons identified as protégés. there are two types of mentoring relationships – formal and informal. informal relationships develop by mutual identification whereby mentors choose protégés whom they view as younger versions of themselves and protégés select mentors whom they view as role models (ragins, cotton & miller, 2000). informal mentoring relationship usually focused on protégés’ long-term career goals and are voluntary, unstructured and often sparked by mutual attraction and often last between three to six years (kram, 1985). formal mentoring relationships usually develop through the assignment of members to the relationship by the work organization (ragins et al., 2000). formal mentoring relationships often last between six months and one year, and the mode, frequency and location of contact may be sporadic or specified in a relationship contract signed by both parties (ragins et al., 2000). formal mentors are often contracted to focus on protégés’ short-term career goals. in this study, informal mentoring was investigated because there are no formal mentoring programmes for nurses in nigeria (salami, 2008a). since there is paucity of research on mentoring and work attitudes and non-existence of formal mentoring but existence of informal mentoring in most work organizations in nigeria (salami, 2008a), an investigation of this type among nurses is warranted. mentoring and work attitudes job satisfaction is defined as the positive emotional response to a job situation resulting from attaining what the employee wants and values from the job. mentoring has been found to be significantly related to job satisfaction by researchers (caine, 2008; bedini, 2003; scandura & williams, 2004; wasserstein, mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 106 quistberg & shea, 2007). however, ecklind (1998) did not find significant correlation between mentoring and job satisfaction among critical care nurses. organizational commitment is defined as the individual’s attachment to and identification with the employing organisation’s goals and values (mowday, steers & porter, 1979). some studies have found significant relationship between formal or informal mentoring and organizational commitment or intention to leave the organization (lankau & scandura, 2002; ragins, cotton & miller, 2000; scandura & williams, 2004; thomas & lankau, 2009). however, louis, posner and powell (1983) found no significant relationship between being mentored and intention to stay with the organization. job involvement is the degree to which an individual is involved in a particular job and actively participates in it. job involvement depends on the degree to which the job is perceived to meet one’s salient needs be they intrinsic or extrinsic. koberg, boss and goodman (1998) found that mentoring was a significant predictor of job involvement among hospital nurses. satisfaction with mentoring experience and work attitudes mentoring experiences fall along a continuum ranging from highly satisfying, marginally satisfying to dissatisfying or dysfunctional or harmful at the extreme (eby, mccanus, simon & russell, 2000; ragins et al., 2000). chao, walz and gardner (1992) and ragins et al., (2000) found that protégés who reported highly satisfying informal or formal mentoring experience demonstrated greater job satisfaction, organizational commitment and satisfaction with opportunities for promotion. direct and moderator effects of social support social support is the extent to which individuals feel that provisions of social relationships are available to them. the social relationships may be in the form of provision of emotional, informational or tangible (material) support from family members, supervisors, peers/coworkers, subordinates and friends outside of work (allen & finkelstein, 2003). empirical studies indicated that social support was positively correlated with work attitudes (allen & finkelstein, 2003; higgins & thomas, 2001; kram, 1985). it is expected that the higher the social support the higher the work-related outcomes. in addition to the direct effect of social support on work attitudes, it is possible that it interacts with mentoring relationships to influence work attitudes. for instance, effective use of social support resources can pave the way for effective mentoring relationships. some empirical studies support this type of moderating relationships. europe’s journal of psychology 107 for example, some researchers examined the effects of mentoring relationship combined with other supportive relationships and concluded that it is the composition of one’s entire constellation of developers that accounts for the better career outcomes (job performance) (higgins & thomas,2001; seibert, kraimer, & liden, 2001; van emmerik, 2004, 2008). the underlying mechanism may be that mentoring especially flourishes under favourable team or multiple support conditions. in this study, the multiple social support comprises support from family, friends and significant others (co-workers, professional associations members, and supervisors). the logic underlying the selection of social support as a moderator of the mentoring – work attitudes relationship is based on some sociocultural factors. the nigerian society is more collectivistic than individualistic as such it is appropriate for a worker to seek social support from family, friends and significant others on some personal, social and career issues (salami, 2008b). the support from family and friends will take care of social and personal problems while that from significant others will likely take care of the career development problems of the workers. also because the nigerian society is cautious about disclosing personal, social and career information to people outside the family, it is usual for workers to seek social support from family members and friends on matters of personal, social and even career concerns. even when the workers want to make use of mentors, they will have to consult with family members and friends for approval first (salami, 2008a). the combined social support from these multiple sources will likely reinforce whatever mentoring relationship the workers might have in influencing their work attitudes. therefore, it was expected that the relationship between mentoring or satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes will be stronger for participants with high social support than those with lower social support. the current financial constraints, high unemployment rate and workplace staff shortages may challenge the use of one-on-one mentoring models for workers in nigeria. these may have some influence on the behaviours and attitudes of the workers and the employers towards mentoring. those who are employed will want to remain on their jobs and as such they will seek social support from family, friends and significant others on matters dealing with personal, social and career development problems. due to financial constraints, employers may not sponsor formal mentoring programmes. individual may have to rely on informal mentoring and social support from family members, friends and significant others, such as co-workers, professional association members and supervisors. social support from multiple sources are likely to influence positively any mentoring relationships the workers have, which will in turn influence their work attitudes positively. mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 108 to the knowledge of the present author, no study has examined the moderator role of social support in the relationship between mentoring or satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes. social support is also expected to serve as a buffer against the exacerbation of response to stress from marginally satisfying or unsatisfying dysfunctional harmful mentoring experience. it is proposed that social support will moderate the relationships between level of mentoring or satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes. therefore, for nurses scoring high on social support, the relationships between mentoring and work attitudes will be stronger than for nurses scoring low on social support. direct and moderator effects of gender empirical evidence has shown that gender has significant correlation with job satisfaction and organisational commitment (carmeli, 2003) but not job involvement. on the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between mentoring or satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes, some researchers found that gender moderated the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes (scandura & williams, 2001), others did not (ragins et al., 2000). the logic behind selecting gender as a moderator of the mentoringwork attitudes relationship is based on some socio cultural factors. in the nigerian society, more emphasis is placed on masculinity than femininity. there are lower numbers of women who receive education, participate in labour force and occupy senior positions than men. there is also occupational stereotyping (salami, 2008b) and gender-role stereotyping (salami, 1998). as regards mentoring, empirical evidence showed that differences exist between the mentoring experiences of males and females especially from same –gender and cross-gender mentoring (chandler & kram, 2010; fowler, gudmundsson & o’gorman, 2007). same-gender mentoring has fewer problems compared with cross-gender mentoring (e.g. female protégé and malementor pair) which is fraught with more difficulties such as fear of sexual harassment, unproductive closeness, different expectations or miscommunication due to gender perception (chandler & kram,2010). also some individual and organizational factors may inhibit the prospering of mentoring relationships for women (kalmer & rasheed, 2006). for example, women’s career patterns often have interruptions and few advancement opportunities resulting from discrimination and segregation all of which impair the establishment of mentoring relationship. career interruptions related to family or care taking roles impede the formation of mentoring relationships according to traditional mentoring model. women may therefore, not expect much benefit from mentoring relationship compared with men. furthermore, women often divide, their time between work and family compared with men who devote more time to their europe’s journal of psychology 109 professional lives. in nigeria, the society expects the women to take care of the home (children, the aged, and the husband) and to lay less emphasis on their careers. in contrast, the men are expected to be breadwinners of their families and as such they need to lay more emphasis on their careers (salami, 2007). on average, studies in organizations show that women have more extensive networks of social support than men, but that men’s networks include more high-status, influential individuals (van emmerik, baugh & euwema;2005). as a result, men are more likely to receive career benefits from network of social support than are women. in nigeria, the society frowns at women engaging in certain relationships such as cross-gender mentoring. therefore, men are likely to be more motivated than women to establish mentoring relationship that will help improve their work outcomes. some circumstances in the mentoring process limit the formation of mentoring relationship among women (dreher & cox, 1996; fowler, gudmundsson & o’gorman, 2007). for example, there is a greater likelihood in cross-gender mentoring relationships for anxiety to develop regarding intimacy and physical attraction. also, in addition to the prospect of actual intimacy and romantic involvement, there is potential for public-image problems associated with crossgender mentoring. relationships that do not involve romantic attachment may be perceived as such by others, thus leading to negative consequences for both mentor and protégé (dreher & cox, 1996). furthermore, because of gender-role stereotypes, men may underreport their mentoring relationship and functions provided by their mentors to maintain self-perception and social perception of career independence and status. on the basis of the factors discussed, one may expect that gender may moderate the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes. given that individual, socio-cultural and organizational factors and crossgender difficulties inhibit the prospering of mentoring relationship for women, it is likely that the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes will be stronger for men than for women. statement of the problem given the paucity of empirical studies relating mentoring to work attitudes of healthcare professionals and the inconsistencies in some empirical findings on the link between mentoring and work attitudes, there is need to examine the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes of nurses. against this background, this study assessed the relationships among mentoring, expressed mentees’ satisfaction and work attitudes of the nurses. the study further examined the extent to which social support and gender moderate the ascertained relationship. information to be derived from the findings of this study will help counselling and organizational mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 110 psychologists in developing mentoring programmes designed to assist the nurses in developing appropriate work attitudes. hypotheses based on the reviewed literature, the following hypotheses were tested: h1 gender will significantly predict work attitudes. h2 mentoring will significantly predict work attitudes. h3 satisfaction with mentoring experience will significantly predict work attitudes. h4 social support will significantly predict work attitudes. h5 social support will moderate the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes; and between satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes, such that for nurses scoring high on social support, the relationships between mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes will be stronger than for nurses scoring low on social support. h6 gender will moderate the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes and between satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes, such that for male nurses, the relationships between mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and work attitude will be stronger than for female nurses. methods research design this study adopted a survey research design in which questionnaires were used to collect data from the respondents in examining the relationship between mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring, social support and work attitudes. participants four hundred and seventy nurses (males = 230, 48.94%, females = 240, 51.06%) randomly selected from twenty five public hospitals from five states in southwest nigeria participated in this study. these hospitals were chosen because they had similar conditions of service, facilities, equipment and personnel. one hundred nurses were randomly selected from each of the five states involved in this study. twenty nurses were selected from each hospital by simple random sampling using dip hand into hat method. of the 500 questionnaires distributed, 30 were not properly filled and were discarded and were not used for the data analysis. four hundred and seventy were thus used for analysis. the nurses’ ages ranged from 21 to europe’s journal of psychology 111 54 years with a mean age of 36.56 years (s.d. = 7.80). the participants had required professional nursing and midwifery certificates for practising as recognized by the nursing and midwifery council in nigeria. the participants’ working experience ranged from 2 to 25 years. their job ranks ranged from nursing or midwifery officers to chief nursing officers or assistant director of nursing services. measures demographic information was obtained from the participants through a form that requested the nurses’ age in years (interval data); gender (nominal data) was coded as male = 0, female = 1; job rank (interval data was coded as nursing/midwifery officers = 1, senior nursing/midwifery officers = 2, principal nursing/midwifery officers = 3, chief nursing officers = 4, assistant directors of nursing = 5 and job tenure in years (ordinal data) was coded as two to five years = 1, six to ten years = 2, 11-20 years = 3, 21-25 years and above = 5. the nurses gave the actual number of years they have spent in their present jobs. organizational commitment was assessed by the organizational commitment questionnaire (ocq) by mowday et al (1979): ocq describes the individual’s identification with and involvement with the particular organization. it is a 15-item scale constructed on a 5-point likert scale that ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. higher scores indicated higher levels of organizational commitment. cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.85 was found for ocq in this study. job satisfaction was measured by means of the modified version of job satisfaction scale (jss) by bayfield and rothe (1951) as used by judge, locke, durham and kluger (1998). it is an 18-item scale constructed on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree. higher scores represent higher job satisfaction. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this scale was found to be 0.87 in this study. job involvement was measured by means of job involvement scale (jis) by lodahl and kejner (1965). six items were selected from the 20-item job involvement scale jis by lodahl and kejner (1965) for this study. the six items used in this study were the same as the lodahl and kejner’s (1965) six-item scale. the six-item scale was used to measure job involvement in order to keep the overall instrument as concise as possible jis was constructed on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. higher scores reflected higher job involvement. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of jis was found to be 0.82 in this study. mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 112 level of mentoring experience assessed as the extent to which the protégés believed or perceived the mentors provided career development and psychosocial functions to them was measured by means of a modified version of the 15-item mentoring scale (ms) by scandura and viator (1994). the ms was constructed on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, higher scores representing higher level of mentoring experience. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.93 was obtained for the mentoring scale. adequate validity has been reported for this widely used measure by scandura and viator (1994) who carried out a factor analysis on the mentoring scale employing a varimax orthogonal rotation and identified three mentoring functions: career development, social support and role modeling. the present author also carried out a factor analysis on the viator (1994) and identified the same three mentoring functions. i used the mentoring scale as a unidimensional scale that gave a single score because scandura and viator (1994) wrote that it could be used as a unidimensional scale. also, i used the scale to obtain a single score for the analysis in this study. a protégé’s satisfaction with mentoring experience was measured by a four-item scale labeled satisfaction with mentoring experience adapted from “satisfaction with mentoring scale” by ragins, cotton and miller (2000). the scale used a fivepoint likert response format (1=strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). higher values represent greater satisfaction with the mentoring experience. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.83 (ragins et al., 2000). for this study, the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.82. social support was measured using a modified version of multidimensional scale of perceived social support developed by zimet, dahlem, zimet and farley (1988). it measured the degree to which the respondents felt satisfied with available social support and sources of their support. it is a 12-item likert-type scale which is scored on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the items on the scale are loaded into factor groups relating to the sources of the social support namely family (fam), friends (fri), or significant others (so) (co-workers, professional association members and supervisors). high scores indicate high level of satisfaction with social support while low scores indicate low level of satisfactory social support. for this study, the cronbach’s alpha coefficient for this scale was 0.74. according to zimet et al. (1988), the social support scale could be used as both multidimensional as well as unidimensional scale. in this study, the social support scale was used as a unidimensional scale to give a total picture of the available europe’s journal of psychology 113 social support the respondents felt satisfied with. the three sources of social support are relevant to the economic and socio-cultural situations in nigeria where there is collectivism and workers have to seek social support from family members, friends and significant others in matters of personal, social and career concerns. control variables i controlled for some variables that have been theoretically and empirically linked to mentoring and job attitudes by previous researchers. these were age, job rank, years of experience on the job in the organization, and gender (dreher & cox, 1996; ragins, cotton & miller, 2000). procedure the present author and six research assistants with the help of some hospital personnel administered the four questionnaires to the participants after obtaining the consents of the nurses and the hospital authorities involved in this study. the hospital personnel assisted in the administration of the questionnaires in the wards of the hospitals involved in this study. the participants were told that the researcher had come to collect information on how the productivity and work attitudes of the nurses could be improved. they were assured that the information collected will be treated with confidentiality data analysis this study employed hierarchical multiple regression techniques in analyzing the data obtained. data were checked for missing data and outliers and none were found. neither was there heteroscedasticity. before the hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted with the use of spss version 10, the data were centered to minimize multicollinearity by subtracting the sample mean for the major variable scales from each individual’s score for the scales. to plot the significant interaction terms, regression lines between work attitudes (job involvement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment) as criterion and mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring as predictors were drawn at the high and low levels of mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring. using the procedure recommended by aiken and west (1991), the high and low subgroups were formed by using scores that fell one standard deviation above or below the mean of mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring respectively. mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 114 results table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of all the variables in the study and the correlation matrix. table 1: means, standard deviations and interco relation matrix of all variables in the study variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. level of mentoring 1.00 2 satisfaction with mentoring .18 1.00 3 social support .17 .21* 1.00 4. organizational commitment .30* .23* .15 1.00 5. job involvement .25* .21* .22* .20* 1.00 6. job satisfaction .20* .27* .19* .17 .23* 1.00 7. gender .13 .15 .09 .11 .12 .15 1.00 8. age .18 .17 .10 .14 .15 .07 .09 1.00 9. job experience .19* .13 .07 .16 .09 .12 .15 .23* 1.00 10. job status .18 .12 .17 .21* .10 .16 .12 .20* .20* 1.00 mean 4.15 3.82 3.19 4.23 4.58 4.41 36.56 7.80 1.70 s.d. 6.30 1.80 2.50 5.20 3.50 6.30 7.80 4.70 2.20 note: n = 470, s.d. = standard deviation, a= nominal data so no mean report (male=0, female =1), * = p < 0.05 (2-tailed test). table 2: hierarchical multiple regression analysis of the prediction of job involvement from mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support variable entered r2 ∆r2 f ∆f df βeta t step 1 0.06 1.55 1.35 1,465 gender 0.07 0.70 age 0.13 1.50 job experience 0.05 0.63 job status 0.12 1.40 step 2 0.24 0.18 6.30* 5.80* 1,463 mentoring 0.32* 3.40* step 3 0.38 0.14 8.56* 6.70* 1,462 satisfaction with mentoring 0.42* 4.70* step 4 0.47 0.09 9.43* 5.00* 1,461 social support 0.25* 4.20* step 5 0.58 0.11 7.60* 5.30* 4,457 interaction terms mentoring x ss .23* 3.40* satisfaction with mentoring x ss .21* 2.55* mentoring x gender .06 1.60 satisfaction with mentoring x gender .05 1.40 note: n = 470, ss = social support, * = p < 0.05 (2-tailed tests). europe’s journal of psychology 115 the mean level of mentoring received by the nurses was 4.16 (s.d=6.30) and was above average of 3.0 (the minimum was 1.0, maximum was 5.0). the participants received most of the mentoring from friends, relations, former colleges and supervisors in their present work place. the mean value for satisfaction with mentoring was 3.82 (s.d=1.80) which was above average of 3.0 (minimum was 1.0, maximum was 5.0). results on table 1 revealed that there were linear correlations between level of mentoring and each of the work attitudes – job involvement (r = .25, p< 0.05), job satisfaction (r = .20, p< 0.05), and organizational commitment (r = .30, p< 0.05). similarly, satisfaction with mentoring experience was linearly correlated with organizational commitment (r=.23, p<.05), job involvement (r=.21, p<.05), and job satisfaction (r=.27, p<.05). social support also had linear correlations with job involvement (r=.22, p<.05) and job satisfaction (r =.19, p<.05) but not with organizational commitment. while job status had linear correlation with organisational commitment (r=.21, p<.05), gender had very low correlations with any of the work attitudes. table 2 presents the results of hierarchical regressions for the prediction of job involvement from mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support. as hypothesized in h1, gender did not predict work attitudes (see tables 2, 3, and 4) in step 1. table 3: hierarchical multiple regression analysis of the prediction of job satisfaction from mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support variable entered r2 ∆r2 f ∆f df βeta t step 1 0.07 1.80 1.20 4,465 gender 0.02 0.06 age 0.09 0.52 job experience 0.08 0.73 job status 0.12 1.67 step 2 0.27 0.20 9.80* 7.30* 1,463 mentoring 0.34* 3.80* step 3 0.34 0.07 12.48* 7.80* 1,462 satisfaction with mentoring 0.48* 5.60* step 4 0.42 0.08 10.52* 4.40* 1,461 social support 0.28* 3.70* step 5 0.52 0.10 8.36* 4.30* 4,457 interaction terms mentoring x ss 0.20* 2.80* mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 116 satisfaction with mentoring x ss .22* 3.14* mentoring x gender .08 1.10 satisfaction with mentoring x gender .03 0.07 note: n = 470, ss = social support, * = p < 0.05 (2-tailed tests). table 4: hierarchical multiple regression analysis of the prediction of organisational commitment from mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support variable entered r2 ∆r2 f ∆f df βeta t step 1 0.08 1.60 1.43 4,465 gender 0.05 0.45 age 0.07 0.56 job experience 0.06 1.10 job status 0.13 1.45 step 2 0.30 0.22 10.50* 9.70* 1,463 mentoring 0.54* 6.02* step 3 0.28 0.06 9.40* 6.43* 1,462 satisfaction with mentoring 0.33* 4.85* step 4 0.30 0.02 2.10* 1.30 1,461 social support 0.14 1.30 step 5 0.40 0.10 6.40* 3.82* 4,457 interaction terms mentoring x ss .25* 2.70* satisfaction with mentoring x ss .30* 3.45* mentoring x gender .05 0.06 satisfaction with mentoring x gender .06 0.03 note: n = 470, ss = social support, * = p < 0.05 (2-tailed tests). on tables 2, 3, and 4, addition of mentoring in step 2 of the regressions, as hypothesized in h2 made separate contributions to the prediction of job involvement (∆r2 = 0.18, beta = 0.32, p<.05), job satisfaction (∆r2 = 0.20, beta = 0.34, p<.05) and organisational commitment (∆r2 = 0.22, , beta = 0.54, p<.05) among the nurses. when satisfaction with mentoring was entered in step 3, as proposed in h3, it similarly predicted job involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment of the nurses. addition of social support in step 4 in tables 2 , 3, and 4, as hypothesized in h4, made separate contribution to the prediction of job involvement (∆r2 = 0.09, beta = 0.25, p<.05) and job satisfaction (∆r2 = 0.08, beta = 0.28, p<.05) but not organisational commitment. in summary, the results showed that, for the most part, the independent variables were linear predictors and are mildly associated with work attitudes among the nurses. the moderating effects of social support and gender, as hypothesized in h5 and h6 were tested in step 5. in step 5 of tables 2, 3, and 4, addition of the cross-product interaction terms to the regression equation, (mentoring x social support, satisfaction europe’s journal of psychology 117 with mentoring x social support, mentoring x gender, and satisfaction with mentoring x gender) made substantial contributions to the prediction of job involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. when beta values were examined, mentoring x social support made substantial contribution to the prediction of job involvement (beta = 0.23, p<.05), job satisfaction (beta = 0.20, p<.05), and organisational commitment (beta = 0.25, p<.05). similarly, satisfaction with mentoring x social support substantially contributed to the prediction of job involvement (beta = 0.21, p<.05), job satisfaction (beta = 0.22, p<.05), and organisational commitment (beta = 0.30, p<.05). however, mentoring x gender and satisfaction with mentoring x gender interactions did not make any meaningful contribution to the prediction of work attitudes. the plots of the interactions: mentoring x social support, and satisfaction with mentoring x social support are presented in figures 1a & b, 2a & b and 3a & b. these indicate that the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes on the one hand and between satisfaction with mentoring and work attitude on the other hand are stronger among nurses who have higher social support than those with lower social support. figure 1: plots of interactions between mentoring and social support (ss) and between satisfaction with mentoring and social support (ss) on nurses’ job involvement (ji). mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 118 figure 2: plots of interactions between mentoring and social support (ss) and between satisfaction with mentoring and social support (ss) on nurses’ job satisfaction (js) figure 3: plots of interactions between mentoring and social support (ss) and between satisfaction with mentoring and social support (ss) on nurses’ organizational commitment (oc) discussion this study examined the extent to which the independent variables (gender, level of mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support) jointly and individually predict work attitudes among the nurses. also the study investigated the extent to which social support and gender moderate the relationship between level of mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and work attitude of the nurses. the results of this study revealed that all the independent variables-except gender, predicted work attitudes of the nurses. gender failed to predict the work attitudes europe’s journal of psychology 119 (job involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment). these results contradict the findings of carmeli (2003) who found significant relationships between gender and work attitudes. however, these results were in line with the work of ragins et al. (2000) who found no significant relationship between gender and work attitudes. mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring separately predicted all the work attitudes (job involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment) of the nurses as it has in many previous studies (bedini, 2003; caine, 2008; chansrichauwla, 2006; koberg et al., 1998; lankau and scandura, 2002; ragins et al., 2000; scandura & williams, 2004; wasserstein et al., 2007). mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring were positively related to job and career attitudes. these results demonstrated that the level of mentoring relationships and satisfaction with mentoring provided opportunities for the mentored nurses to acquire and display job-related knowledge, skills and abilities resulting in more job involvement, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. that social support predicted job involvement and job satisfaction but not organisational commitment support the findings of previous researchers (allen & finkelstein, 2003; higgins & thomas, 2001; kram, 1985) who found that social support predicted job and career outcomes. social support did not predict organisational commitment thus contradicting the work of the cited authors. that social support predicted job involvement and job satisfaction was because it served as a protective factor or buffer against responses to stressors arising from work. for instance, social support may compensate for loss of social relationships at work and heavy workload. social support moderated the relationships between mentoring and work attitudes on the one hand and between satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes on the other. these results supported the work of previous researchers who argued that effective use of social support paves the way for effective mentoring relationship (allen & finkelstein, 2003; higgins and thomas, 2001; siebert et al., 2001; van emmerik, 2004, 2008). these authors were of the view that mentoring combined with other supportive relationships were associated with better work outcomes. van emmerik (2008) argued that mentoring flourishes under favourable team or multiple support conditions. these results can be attributed to the fact that the nurses perceived that with the level of mentoring they had, the degree of satisfaction they had with mentoring and the stressful situation in which they work, they felt that they needed more social support from individuals in or outside the work organization in order to improve their work attitudes. mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 120 another explanation for the findings from this study can be based on some sociocultural factors. for example, the nigerian society is more collectivistic than individualistic and as such, the workers are likely to seek more social support from family and friends on issues of personal, social and career importance (salami 1998; 2008b). also because the nigerian society is cautious about disclosing personal and social information to people outside the family it is appropriate for the workers to seek social support from family and friends on matters of personal, social and even career concerns (salami, 1998). they may also seek support from significant others such as co-workers, professional association members, and supervisors on matters dealing with career development. also the fact that there are financial constraints, high unemployment and jobs are difficult to get, might have influence on employers and workers’ behaviours and attitudes towards mentoring. those who are employed will want to remain on their jobs and as such they will seek social support from family members, friends and significant others when it comes to personal, social and career problems. the social support from these multiple sources is likely to have influenced positively the mentoring relationships the workers had which in turn might have influenced their work attitudes positively. finally, the results of the present study showed that gender did not moderate the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes as well as between satisfaction with mentoring and work attitudes. these results corroborate the findings of ragins et al. (2000), but contradicted that of scandura and williams (2001), chandler & kram (2010), fowler et al. (2007) and kamler & rasheed (2006). these results are because no matter the gender of the nurses, they all benefited from mentoring and had some satisfaction with the mentoring relationships and these invariably substantially influenced their work attitudes. these findings are surprising in view of some sociocultural factors such as emphasis on masculinity, cross -gender mentoring difficulties, gender-role stereotyping, occupational stereotyping, individual and organizational factors that inhibit prospering of mentoring relationship for the women. it is very likely that the multiple sources of social support might have influenced the nurses’ mentoring positively regardless of their gender which in turn, influenced their work attitudes positively. implications of the findings the results of this study demonstrated that some work attitudes (job involvement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment) were predicted by the level of mentoring, satisfaction with mentoring and social support indicated by the nurses. a europe’s journal of psychology 121 nurse with higher level of mentoring and higher satisfaction with mentoring and social support developed higher job involvement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. the implication of these findings is that formal or informal mentoring should be encouraged among the nurses and that mentoring programmes that would facilitate satisfaction with mentoring should be designed. work organization managements should be enlightened about the benefits to be derived from mentoring programmes by both individuals and organizations. therefore, mentoring programmes should be developed by counselling and personnel psychologists for work organizations including hospitals, clinics and other health-care establishments. the results from this study revealed that social support moderated the relationship between mentoring and work attitudes on the one hand and satisfaction with mentoring experience and work attitudes on the other. the implication of these findings is that, based on the economic constraints, high unemployment, sociocultural factorscollectivism, occupational stereotyping, emphasis on masculinity and the tendency for the nigerian society to frown at certain relationships (crossgender mentoring) which might inhibit mentoring relationships, social support from family members, friends and co-workers could complement whatever may be the levels of mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring experience had by the nurses in order to develop more positive work attitudes. some employees may not be aware that their career or psychosocial development needs can be satisfied by means other than traditional mentoring. the results of the present study can be used by career counselling practitioners to help demonstrate the viability of connecting with an array of individuals, both in and outside the organizational setting, to improve positively the mentoring relationship and work attitudes and outcomes of the nurses. because current financial constraints , unemployment and other sociocultural factors in nigeria, pose challenges to the viability of using one-onone mentoring models to assist workers, it is suggested that a system of group mentoring (team or multiple mentoring) combined with social support from family, friends and significant others is put in place to help nurses and other workers to gain confidence, competence, positive work attitudes and improved job performance. limitations and future studies a limitation of this study is worth noting. this study is cross-sectional in nature and as such one can not disentangle cause-and-effect relationship. future researchers could conduct longitudinal studies in order to be able to make cause-and-effect conclusion. another limitation is social desirability effect. it is worth mentoring that it is possible that a social desirability effect/response bias could be present in the results mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 122 of this study. this could arise from some socio-cultural practices in which the nigerian society does not always look favourably on certain relationships. this could have influenced the responses given in the questionnaires. future research could consider investigating the impact of social desirability on participants’ responses on other self report measures. despite this limitation, this study had demonstrated the relationships of mentoring and satisfaction with mentoring with work attitudes of nurses in nigeria and the moderating role of social support on the relationships. the contribution of this study is that it has been able to conduct a cross-cultural replication of western findings in a developing country. it has also shown that there is need to combine social support from multiple sources such as family, friends, co-workers and supervisors with mentoring because of some economic and socio-cultural factors that may inhibit effective mentoring relationship. references adeyemo, d.a. 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(2004). mentoring and transformation leadership: the role of supervisory career mentoring. journal of vocational behaviour, 65,448-468. mentoring and work attitudes among nurses 126 tenenbaum, h.r., crosby, f.j. & gliner, m.d. (2001). mentoring relationship in graduate school. journal of vocational behaviour, 59, 326-341. thomas, c.h. & lankau, m. j. (2009). preventing burnout: the effects of lmx and mentoring on socialization, role stress and burnout. human resource management, 48(3), 417-432. van emmerik, i.j.h.(2004). the more you can get the better: mentoring constellations and intrinsic career success. career development international, 9(6), 578-594. van emmerik, i.j.h.(2008). it is not only mentoring: the combined influences of individual level and team –level support on job performance, career development international, 13(7), 575-593. van emmerik, h.; baugh, s.g. & euwema, m.c. (2005). who wants to be a mentor? an examination of attitudinal, instrumental, and social motivational components. career development international, 10(4), 310-324. wasserstein, a.g., quistberg, d.a. & shea, j.a. (2007). mentoring at the university of pennsylvania. results of a faculty survey. journal of general internal medicine, 22 (2), 210-214. zimet g.d., dahlem, n.w., zimet, s.g., & farley, g.k. (1988). the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. journal of personality assessment. 52(1), 30-41. about the author: dr samuel o.salami received his ph.d from the university of ilorin, ilorin nigeria. he is a senior lecturer in counselling psychology at the department of guidance and counseling, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria but currently on sabbatical leave in the kampala international university, kampala, uganda. his research interests include mentoring, leadership, employee commitment, job attitudes, career development, organizational conflict resolution and occupational stress. his research has been published in the europe’s journal of psychology, european journal of scientific research, career development international journal, journal of workplace learning, women in management review and international journal for the advancement of counselling. e-mail address: drsosalami2002@yahoo.co.uk microsoft word 7. volunteering research.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp. 82-95 www.ejop.org age and motives for volunteering: further evidence maría celeste dávila complutense university of madrid juan francisco díaz-morales complutense university of madrid abstract this work has explored the socioemotional selectivity theory (cartensen, 1995) with the purpose of evaluating how people selectively optimize their activities involving social investments as they increase in age, investing more in self-relevant and emotionally meaningful goals. specifically, the purpose of this study was to test hypotheses derived from the socioemotional selectivity theory regarding the effects of age on motives for volunteering. the volunteer functions inventory (clary et al., 1998) was completed by 214 volunteers affiliated with different organizations. results indicated that, as age increases, career, understanding and making friends volunteer motivations decrease, while social and values volunteer motivations increase. possible implications for volunteer management in organizations are analyzed. keywords: motivations, age, volunteerism, socioemotional selectivity theory. in recent years, psychosociological studies about volunteerism have increased, and several theoretical models to explain volunteerism have been developed (see for example, omoto & snyder, 1995, 2002; callero, howard, & piliavin, 1987; grube & piliavin, 1996; piliavin & callero, 1991). the motivation to volunteer is a factor in some theoretical models, and it is considered important for understanding participation in volunteer services (black & di nitto, 1994; clary & snyder, 1991; omoto & snyder, 1990; and penner & finkelstein, 1998). presently, the functional theory of motivation to volunteer is the most important approach to understanding motivation to volunteer. clary and snyder (1991) designed this theory to explain the different types of motives that can determine participation in volunteer services. this approach holds that different individuals may participate in the same volunteer work for very age and motives for volunteering: further evidence 83 different reasons, and volunteering can satisfy different motives for the same individual at different times. based on this theory, clary and snyder (1999) identified six primary motives: protective (to reduce negative feelings), values (to express or act on important values), social (to strengthen social relationships), understanding (to learn about the world), career (to gain career-related experience) and enhancement (to enhance self-esteem). okun and schultz (2003) included a new motivation not described by clary and snyder: “making friends”. whereas social motive show the desire to sustain existing friendships as a motive for volunteering, the making friends motive shows the desire to make new friends. age differences in motivation to volunteer have thus far rarely been analyzed (black & jirovic, 1999; okun & schultz, 2003). a review of some studies showed that in some cases there were similarities between younger and older volunteers (e.g, black & jirovic, 1999; clary & snyder, 1999; marriot seniors volunteerism study, 1991), while other studies have found that younger volunteers give more importance to career motives (black & kovacs, 1999; clary & snyder, 1999; okun, barr & herzog, 1998; okun & schultz, 2003) and to protective motives for volunteering (black & kovacs, 1999; ferrari, loftus & pesek, 1999). however, older volunteers give more importance to social motives (greenslade & white, 2005; okun, barr & herzog, 1998; okun & schultz, 2003; zeweigenhaft, armstrong, quintis & ridick, 1996). according to funes (1999), the life stage of a person affects the articulation of all such variables with respect to one’s predisposition and decision to act. the accumulation of experiences with the passing of time and changes in perceived social conditions across life stages contribute to these age effects. life course studies (e.g., elder, johnson & crosnoe, 2003) indicate that the meaning of roles and activities changes across life stages. oesterle, kirpatrick and mortimer (2004) indicated that determinants of volunteerism are life-stage-specific; for example, they found that involvement in full-time work and family reduces rather than promotes volunteerism during young adulthood. additionally, marriage and income were found to be unrelated to volunteering during the early adult years, although they promote volunteering in adult samples overall. omoto, snyder and martino (2000) found that younger adults engage in volunteer services to fulfil motivational agendas related to interpersonal relationship considerations, whereas older adults seek to fulfil motivational agendas related to service and community obligation concerns. volunteering is an activity that can be performed over a wide span of the life course, but its meaning may change predictably with changes in roles and agendas over a person’s lifetime (omoto, snyder & martino, 2000). europe’s journal of psychology 84 according to the theory of socioemotional selectivity (see cartensen, 1995), people become more selective with their social investments as perceived time left to live becomes more limited. through selective optimization, the activities least important are neglected on behalf of those activities with more subjective meaning; people invest more in self-relevant and emotionally meaningful goals. past studies have found that chronological age is inextricably and negatively associated with perceived amount of time left in life, and the prioritization of goals is different across life stages (see, for example, carstensen, isaacowitz & charles, 1999; fung, carstensen & lutz, 1999). fung, cartensen and lang (2001) have showed that the salience of social goals related to knowledge seeking decreases across adulthood, whereas the salience of social goals related to emotional gratification increases with age. also, as people age, they have a greater preference for familiar as opposed to new social partners. volunteerism is recognized as an important source of sociability, satisfaction, and self-validation over the life course (hendicks & curtler, 2004), and people volunteer for different reasons and motives, depending of their life stage or their perceived time left to live. in connection with the theory of socioemotional selectivity, career and understanding motives will be associated with knowledge seeking. enhancement (focus promoting positive affect) and protective (focus reducing negative affect) motives will be associated with emotional gratification. with regard to values motive, acting on deeply held beliefs can contribute to obtain a sense of purpose for their lives and it can enhance emotional gratification. the aim of this study was similar to that of okun and schultz’s study: to test hypotheses regarding relations between age and motives for volunteering derived from socioemotional selectivity theory. the present study tries to contribute new evidence by studying a spanish volunteer sample and carrying out some additional analyses, such as controlling the effect of length of service. given that the strength of the motives of volunteers change over the years spent in an organization, it’s important a control for length of volunteer service (clary & snyder, 1991). according to the socioemotional selectivity theory, the hypotheses to test are: (1) career and understanding motives will be lower among older volunteers than among younger volunteers, (2) enhancement and protective motives will be higher among older volunteers than among younger volunteers, (3) older volunteers will have lower making friends motivation (desire to make friends) and higher social motivation (desire to sustain existing friendships) than younger volunteers, and (4) older volunteers will have higher values motivation than younger volunteers. age and motives for volunteering: further evidence 85 method sample two hundred fourteen volunteers affiliated with 23 non-governmental organizations participated in this study. the mean age was 37.52 years (sd= 17.51), and 67.8% of the participants were women. with regard to education levels, 12.6% of participants had completed only primary studies, 31.8% secondary studies, and 55.1% university studies. the sample was split into six different age groups: 16-25 (n= 78), 26-35 (n=40), 36-45 (n=26), 46-55 (n=31), 56-65 (n=19) and more than 66 years (n=20). instruments motivations for volunteering. a spanish adaptation (dávila & chacón, 2003) of the volunteer functions inventory (vfi) created by clary et al. (1998) was used. the questionnaire is composed of 30 items with a seven-point likert-scale response format, ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 7 (extremely important). the scores for each of the six motivation scales identified by clary et al. (protective, values, social, understanding, career and enhancement) were formed by averaging the responses to the five items that assessed each motive, with the exception of enhancement motive; its score was formed by averaging the responses to only four items. in the present study, we have used okun and schultz’s (2003) procedure to calculate the score of making friends. whereas items on the social scale assess the desire to sustain existing friendships as a motive for volunteering, the remaining enhancement item (“volunteering is a way to make new friends”) assesses motivation to make new friends. reliability (cronbach’s alphas) for the six scales ranged from 0.91 (career) to 0.61 (values). length of service. the volunteers were asked about the number of months they had spent in the organization. procedure the conditions of questionnaire administration were agreed upon previously with each organization to reduce interference with regular functioning; in the majority of cases, a representative of the organization distributed and collected the questionnaires. results to check hypothesis we carried out different types of analysis. first, we conducted descriptive analyses of the motivations using age group. second, we carried out a 1 europe’s journal of psychology 86 way manova with age as between-subjects factor (6 levels) and scores on the 7 motives for volunteering scales as the vector of dependent variables. to control length of service we carried out a mancova with it as a covariate. third, we calculated correlations and multiple regression analyses for motivations and age. descriptive analyses of motivations with age group the means and standard deviations for each motivation and age group are presented in table 1. the most important motivations across all age groups are understanding and values. up to 35 years old, understanding is the most important motivation for volunteering, but, after this age, the most important motivating factor is expressing or acting on values. all age groups also consider the protective and career motivations as less important to volunteering. from 26 years old onward, the career motivation is the least important. the relative importance of the remaining motivations changes for each age group. up to 45 years of age, making new friends is more important than social and enhancement motivations, but, from this age, making friends is the least important of these three motivations. in figure 1, the variations of motivations by age group are showed. age and motives for volunteering: further evidence 87 manova and mancova in order to check if there were significant differences in motivation across age groups, we carried out a manova. there were significant differences for the following motivations: making friends (f(5, 209)= 3.19; p<0.01); values (f(5, 209)= 3.24, p<0.01); career (f(5, 209)= 17.42, p<0,01); social (f(5, 209)= 2.52, p<0.05) and understanding (f(5, 209)= 3.87, p<0.01). post-hoc multiple comparisons (bonferroni test, p<0,05) indicated that younger volunteers (group 1, 16-25 years) gave more importance (m= 4.90) to making friends than older volunteers (group 6, +66 years, m= 3.23). additionally, older volunteers (group 6, +66 years) gave more importance (m= 6.52) to the values motive than younger volunteers (group 2, 26-35 years, m=5.59). younger volunteers gave more importance (group 1, 16-25 years, m=3.81; group 2, 26-35 years, m=2.80) to the career motive than older volunteers (group 3, 36-45 years, m=1.52; and group 6, +66 years, m=1.40). when compared only with group 1: group 2, 16-25 years, m=2.80; group 4, 46-55 years, m=1.93, and group 5, 56-65 years, m=1.37. about understanding, younger volunteers (group 1, 16-25 years, m=5.89) gave more importance to this motive than older volunteers (group 6, +66 years, m=5.04). post-hoc multiple comparisons did not indicate significant differences among age groups for social motive. when we carried out a mancova using length of service as a covariate, we found that this variable had a significant effect on social motive (f(5,209)=11,28; p<0.01), but the effects of age did not change significantly. the relationship between length of service and social motive did not affect the relationship between age and motivations. europe’s journal of psychology 88 correlations and multiple regression analyses across motivations and age age had a significant and negative relationship with the making-friends motivation (r=-0.248, p<0.01), career motivation (r=-0.532, p<0.01), and understanding motivation (r=-0.265, p<0.01). however, age was significantly and directly related to the values motivation (r=0.218; p<0.01). to study the relationships between age and motivation in depth, we performed multiple regression analyses, controlling statistically for the other motives. each motive was regressed separately on the other six motives scores and age. age was a significant predictor of four of the seven motives scores (see table 2). age accounted for 2% of the variation in the protective motive, 2.1% of the variation in the values motive, 28.6% of the variation in the career motive, and 9.4% of the variation in the understanding motive. age was a significant inverse predictor of the understanding and career motivations. age was a significant positive predictor of the protective and values motivations. discussion in the present study, we have tested hypotheses derived from the socioemotional selectivity theory regarding age differences in motives for volunteering. in general, our findings are consistent with our predictions, with some exceptions. with respect to our first hypothesis, that career and understanding motives will be lower among older than younger volunteers, a revision of the descriptive statistics of the motivations by age group shows that the understanding motive is very important throughout the life course, but it progressively loses importance with age. with regard to the career motivation, all age groups consider it to be the least important age and motives for volunteering: further evidence 89 motivation, but, starting at 26 years of age, its absolute importance is reduced even more. the results of an manova show that volunteers between 16-35 years old give significantly more importance to the career motive than other volunteers, and this age group gives significantly more importance to the understanding motive than oldest volunteers. last, the correlations analyses show that age has a significant and negative relationship with the understanding and career motives. when we statistically control for other motives for volunteering in multiple regression analyses, we find that these relationships remain and that age has an important role in predicting the career and understanding motives, especially career. these findings are consistent with the results of okun, barr and herzog (1998) and ferrari, loftus and pesek (1999), for example, and with the idea that, as people age, they invest less time and energy in acquiring new learning or career-related experiences. with regard to the second hypothesis, that enhancement and protective motives will be higher among older than younger volunteers, the results are not conclusive. descriptive analyses show that the protective motive has little importance across all age groups, and the enhancement motive has a relatively intermediate importance for all age groups. when we statistically control for other motives for volunteering, we find that the age is a significant predictor only of the protective motive. with age, people control their internal self-regulation of emotions better. for this reason, it is not clear whether older people use volunteering as a strategy to meet their needs for emotional gratification because volunteering represents an external emotion regulation strategy (okun & shultz, 2003). for our third hypothesis, that older volunteers will have lower making friend motivation and higher social motivation than younger volunteers, the descriptive analyses show that making friends motive has an intermediate importance for all age groups. from approximately 16-45 years old, making friends is the third most important motivation, but, from 45 years old onward, this motivation lost importance. the results of an manova are consistent with these data: making friends is more important to younger volunteers. we also find that age has a significant and inverse relationship with the importance of making friends, but, when we control for the effect of other motives, age is not a significant predictor of the motive to make friends. the social motive is of relatively intermediate importance in all age groups, but its importance increases starting from 46 years of age. in this case, the pattern of change is inverse compared to the motive to make friends. the rest of our results do not support the relationship between age and the social motive. these results are in line with the findings of zeweigenhaft, armstrong, quintis and ridick (1996); okun, barr and herzog (1998) and greenslade and white (2005). according to europe’s journal of psychology 90 socioemotional selectivity theory, during youth and early adulthood (when time is usually perceived as expansive), people give more priority to meeting social goals that imply an expansion of their social horizons; that is, goals aimed at optimizing the future are prioritized. however, during adulthood and old age (when time is usually perceived as limited), emotionally meaningful goals become relatively more important, and people become more selective about their investment in social activities and relationships. with regard to our fourth hypothesis, that older volunteers will have higher values motivation than younger volunteers, we find that the values motive is one of the most important motivations for volunteering across all age groups, but its importance is greatest from 36 years old onward. we also found significant differences in the importance of this motive between younger volunteers (26-35 years) and the oldest volunteers. supporting our previous results, there is a positive and significant correlation between age and the values motive that continues even when we control for other motives for volunteering. when time is perceived as limited, emotionally meaningful goals become more important. lang and carstensen (2002) distinguish between two subtypes of emotionally meaningful goals, one related to the regulation of emotions and one related to generativity goals, such as becoming a “keeper of the meaning” or “taking responsibility for future generations”. this second subtype of goals has been found to be most prominent in later adulthood. in this sense, some studies have found stronger prosocial orientations among older adults than young adults. mcadams et al. (2000) (see lang & carstensen, 2002) suggested that a strong commitment to generativity goals later in life may reflect a desire for “symbolic immortality”. theses results are also consistent with chacón and vecina’s (1999) findings. they found that older volunteers consider the values motive significantly more important when initiating volunteering. in general, our results are consistent with okun and schultz’s (2003) findings, even after controlling the length of service’s effect on motives. although it is possible to find some discrepancies with specific results (in some correlations, for example), the most important differences can be found with regard to the making friends and values motives. in previous study, age was positively related to the making friends motive, and its relation was nonlinear, but, in the present study, the relationship was negative. the values motive was unrelated to age in previous study, but, in the age and motives for volunteering: further evidence 91 present study, there was a positive relation. these differences between studies could be due to several factors: type of organization where people are doing their volunteer service, type of task developed, etc. the principal differences may also be due to several limitations in our study and/or cultural differences. okun and schultz’s study used anglo-saxon volunteers, while the present study used volunteers from spain. with regard to limitations, first, the studied sample was not representative of the population of volunteers in spain, and the size of the age groups was not balanced; furthermore, the number of people was limited in some groups. the disparities among the number of participants in each age group may have adversely affected the power associated with the post-hoc pair-wise test. second, the present study is cross-sectional; it is necessary to also conduct longitudinal studies where the evolution of sociohistoric context and its effect on volunteer motivations can be analyzed. more information about the dynamics of change in motivations through time is also necessary (perry & imperial, 2001). third, we did not examine some factors that are key to testing the socioemotional selectivity theory, for example participants’ health status (poorer health is associated with perceived amount of time left in life) or future time perspective (cartensen et al, 1999). forth, the individuals may not be aware of their underlying motives for volunteering. finally, how social desirability can affect reported motives is another factor that we need to control for in the future. these results have clear practical implications. being aware of motivational agendas can be useful when designing recruitment tailored to the profile of the volunteers a group wants to attract, matching the message to the motivation of the recipients (omoto, snyder & martino, 2000). but the most striking finding of the present study is that within all six age groups, the two motives that were rated as most important were value and understanding. thus, regardless of age, if one were going to develop persuasive messages for volunteering, it seems that the emphasis would be on themes such as “volunteering is a great way to express your concern for others and to learn about the world around you”. based upon the results of the present study, it does not appear to be the case that persuasive appeals to potential volunteers of different ages would need to vary in the themes that were emphasized. on the other hand, in order to design persuasive message it is important to consider other peculiarities of each age group. for example, fung and carstensen (2003) europe’s journal of psychology 92 showed that older adults prefer and remember better persuasive messages with an emotionally meaningful appeal. to end, this study has showed that the volunteerism can be an activity that permits to satisfy very different motives over the life course. the motivations of people can change with the passing of time, but the volunteerism can fit theses changes. references black, b. & dinitto, d. 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(1991). giving blood: the development of an altruisticiidentity. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. warburton, j., ferry, d.j., rosenman, l.s. & shapiro, m. (2001). differences between older volunteers and nonvolunteers. research on aging, 23(5), 586-605. zeweigenhaft, r.l., armstrong, j., quintis, f. & ridick, a. (1996). the motivations and effectiveness of hospital volunteers. journal of social psychology, 136, 25-34. about the authors: maría celeste dávila is ph.d on psychology and lecturer in social psychology department (faculty of politic sciences and sociology. complutense university of madrid. spain). her main research topic is prosocial behavior. e-mail: mcdavila@cps.ucm.es juan francisco díaz-morales is ph.d on psychology and lecturer in department of individual differences and work psychology (faculty of psychology. complutense university of madrid. spain). his main research topics are procrastination, temporality, and cronopsychology. microsoft word 7. research students' well-being.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 85-104 www.ejop.org dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement: validation of a students’ psychosocial well being inventory valeria negovan university of bucharest, faculty of psychology and educational sciences abstract this paper presents findings from a validation study of a measurement instrument for the dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being. researches to date suggest many separate but related dimensions of psychosocial well-being. in the current study, psychosocial well-being is considered to have four dimensions: subjective well-being related to every day’s events, subjective well-being related to faculty events, psychological well-being and social well-being. diener’s (1985) and seligman’s (2002) models of subjective well-being and ryff’s (1995) and keyes’ (1998) models of psychological and social well-being served as the conceptual basis for the development of this instrument. the sample for the validation study consisted of 449 university students at the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest, romania. participants completed seven self-report questionnaires that related to the individual’s positive functioning in personal life and in society, including the psychosocial well being inventory (pswbi). the validation study consisted of establishing the psychometric properties, factorial structure of the construct, and convergent and divergent validity of the instrument. results show that pswbi is a valid instrument, performing at least as well as popular measures of overall well-being but also specifying its dimensions. keywords: psychosocial well-being, subjective well-being, psychological well-being, social well-being, university student. conceptual framework life in the university environment presents many social emotional challenges that can impact on students’ well-being. dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 86 universities should assume their responsibility not only for the students’ formal education, but also for their development in all its forms and especially in what quality of life and well-being are concerned. university students do not make efforts only to obtain good grades at the university, but also to live a good life. it is important to know that university students are constantly facing the risk of poor academic achievement or impaired social functioning in the context of their developmental and of broader social changes, of financial and accommodation problems, and also due to the specific demands of the academia (misra & mckean, 2000; ross, cleland, macleod, 2006; verger, et al. 2009). but it’s also important to know how much satisfaction, happiness and other characteristics of good life students are experiencing in the university environment. to know that the university students are not satisfied, are not feel good about themselves and their social world, has the same importance as knowing that they are stressed or at risk (haynes, 2002; cicognani et al., 2008; sheu hung-bin et al., 2009). the study of well-being has been divided into two streams of research, respectively: the hedonic approach and the eudaimonic approach. the hedonic approach conceptualizes and defines well-being in terms of happiness and of the presence of pleasure and absence of pain and is reflected in the stream of research on subjective well-being (bradburn, 1969; diener, 1984; diener et al., 1984). the eudaimonic approach equates well-being with human potential that, when realized, results in a person’s optimal functioning in life (diener, 1985; ryan & deci, 2001b) and is reflected in the stream of research on psychological (ryff, 1989) and social (keyes, 1998) well-being. one goal of researchers who studied well-being was to define the key features of the well-being construct (kozma et al., 1991; kafka & kozma, 2002) and one issue that they have analyzed was the number of dimensions or components that are needed to characterize people’s positive evaluations of their lives. contemporary literature seems to agree with the idea that well-being is a multidimensional construct encompassing up to three dimensions: subjective, psychological and social; these dimensions are in fact differentiating three forms or levels of overall well-being. each of these dimensions is described as multidimensional as well. however, when it comes to the sub-facets of the three principal components of overall well-being, researchers are still engaged in challenging debates. in a valuable review of the literature on subjective well-being, diener, lucas, and osihi (2005) refer to subjective well-being “as a person’s cognitive and affective europe’s journal of psychology 87 evaluations of his or her life” (p.63). despite the lack of agreement about the number of dimensions contained by subjective well-being, two main components are generally recognized: a cognitive (satisfaction) and an affective (pleasant affect, and low levels of unpleasant affect) component (bradburn, 1969; andrews and withey, 1976; diener, 1984; diener et al., 1985). other theorists proposed additional conceptual models for understanding subjective well-being. martin e. p. seligman (2000) has distinguished between feelings of meaning, pleasure (including happy emotions), and engagement (interest and “flow”) and approached subjective well-being in terms of happiness, identifying the following substructure of happiness: “1. pleasure (or positive emotion); 2. engagement; 3. meaning” (seligman, parks, steen, 2005, p.275). in csikszentmihalyi’s model, subjective wellbeing depends on being involved in interesting activities. interesting activities are those in which there is an optimal balance between challenge and skill (csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1990). many psychologists who conducted empirical research on well-being based on the eudaimonic approach of the good life, argued that living well is not simply a matter of experiencing more pleasure than pain; instead, it involves a striving for perfection and realization of one's true potential (ryff, 1989). ryff and singer (2005) affirmed that subjective well-being is a fallible indicator of wellness that was not designed to define the basic structure of psychological well-being. ryff (1989) proposed the concept of psychological well-being as a multidimensional construct that consists of six distinct facets: a) positive attitude toward oneself (selfacceptance); b) satisfying relationships with others (positive relationships with others); c) independence and self-determination (autonomy); d) sense of mastery and competence (environmental mastery); e) sense of goal directedness in life (purpose in life); f) feeling of personal continued development (personal growth). a more socially-oriented definition of well-being has been proposed by keyes (1998). in his opinion social well-being captures individuals’ appraisals of their own circumstances and functioning in society. social well-being is considered an important component of overall well-being, in addition to the emotional and psychological types of well-being (keyes, 2003). keyes’ (1998) multidimensional model of social well-being consists of five dimensions that indicate whether and to what extent individuals are functioning well in their social world: a) social integration (individuals’ appraisal of the quality of their own relation with society and community); b) social contribution (the feeling of being a vital member of the society, with something important to offer to the world); c) social acceptance (trusting others, and having favourable opinions about human nature); d) social dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 88 actualization (the evaluation of a society’s potential to improve); e) social coherence (the perception of that the social word is well-organized). the term psychosocial well-being is used nowadays in the literature to refer to a wide range of issues including, but not limited to, mental, emotional, social, physical, economic, cultural, and spiritual health and, consequently, it has been defined in numerous ways. it is agreed that a model of psychosocial well-being should include and reflect the interconnectedness of the various aspects of overall well-being (linley, et al., 2009). the multidimensionality of the well-being construct posed many methodological problems when researchers attempted to measure it. subjective well-being is most commonly measured by asking people a single question, such as “how satisfied are you with your life as a whole (these days or past month)?”. such question elicits a global evaluation of one’s life (andrews and whithey, 1976). in contrast to single question measures, multi-item measures of subjective well-being were developed with the purposes to achieving greater reliability. life satisfaction scales or affect scales are such multi-items measures of subjective well-being (diener et al., 1985; kozma and stones, 1980; pavrot and diener, 1993). multi-item measures have also been developed for psychological and social well-being. for example, ryff (1989) created the scales of psychological wellbeing and keyes (1998) created the social well-being scale. theses scales include different number of items measuring (on a 5/7-point likert scale, from 1 = strongly disagree to 5/7 = strongly agree) the dimensions of well-being. these multi-item measures of well-being allowed researchers to examine the factor structure of different forms of overall well-being. according to kozma et al. (1991), it is important to establish the construct validity of a measure by examining the extent to which the presumed components emerge in studies based on factor analysis. as stated in the literature “…the results obtained from earlier factor-analytic studies (ryff, 1989; ryff and keyes, 1995) are marred by methodological problems. particular problems include: low internal consistency and test-retest reliability of some scale used for assessing well-being as a multidimensional construct” (kozma et al., 1991, p.7). the current study based on the above mentioned theoretical assumptions and on an integration of diener’s (1985), seligman’s (2002), ryff’s (1995) and keyes’ (1998) models of wellbeing, the psychosocial well-being inventory (pswbi) was developed. its aim is to europe’s journal of psychology 89 evaluate psychosocial well-being as a multidimensional construct that includes subjective, psychological and social components (dimensions) as related but distinct aspects of individuals’ positive psychological functioning in their environment. the study reported here describes the validation of this new instrument. the first aim of this study is to therefore establish the psychometric properties of this new instrument. the second aim of the study is to clarify the relationship between the pswbi and other measures of well-being such as the satisfaction with life scale/lsi, subjective happiness scale /sh, subjective vitality scale /sv, and personal growth initiative scale/pgi. this paper reports only the findings from the validation study (n=449), with necessary references to the pilot study (n=150) conducted before this validation study. specifically, the content, construct, criterion, convergent and divergent validity of the pswbi will be examined along with its reliability. method participants participants in the pilot and validation studies were recruited from the first, second and third years of study from the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest, romania. the studies were based on convenience sampling but the samples were reasonably representative for the university students’ population from which they were drawn. participants in the validation study were 449 students (155 males and 294 females), ages ranging from 18 to 40 years (m = 23.47, sd = 5.68), studying at the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest, romania. procedure data collection for the validation study took place throughout the end of first semester of academic years 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. students enrolled in the educational psychology course were asked if they were willing to participate in the study, and a battery of surveys was distributed to those who volunteered. the purpose of the questionnaires was explained and completed questionnaires were handed in directly to the researcher. dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 90 measures as part of the validation of the psychosocial well-being inventory, adjacent to this instrument, habitually measures of individuals’ perception of well functioning in personal life and in social world were included. the instruments administered to all participants were self-report, paper and pencil questionnaires and were translated into romanian and then translated back into english with small language adaptations. responses to all scales were rated on a likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. item scores were summed to obtain total scale score. reliability and validity evidence has been evaluated for each of these instruments. therefore, in order to evaluate various aspects of students’ psychological and social functioning and to compare measures with the pswbi, the following instruments were used: satisfaction with life scale (diener, emmons, larsen & griffin, 1985) was used to assess satisfaction with students’ life as a whole. the scale consists of five items (example: “i am satisfied with my life”). self-esteem (rosenberg) scale (rosenberg, 1965) consisting of ten items (5 are reverse scored) was used for measurement of students’ positive evaluation of themselves (example: “on the whole, i am satisfied with myself”). subjective happiness scale (lyubomirsky and lepper, 1999) is a four-item scale of global subjective happiness. two items ask respondents to characterize themselves using both absolute ratings and ratings relative to peers, whereas the other two items offer brief descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals (example: “in general, i consider myself: from to “not a very happy” to “very happy person”). subjective vitality scale (for individual differences version) (ryan and frederick, 1997) with six items, was used for measurement of subjective vitality (that refers to the state of feeling alive and alert, and having energy and is considered an aspect of eudaimonic well-being as being vital and energetic is part of what it means to be fully functioning and psychologically well) (ryan & deci, 2001) (example of items: “i feel alive and vital”). personal growth initiative scale (robitschek, 1998) was used for evaluation of the student's active and intentional involvement in changing and developing as a person. it was previously established (robitschek & kashubeck, 1999; whittaker & robitschek, 2001) that the pgis is strongly positively related to psychological well europe’s journal of psychology 91 being and negatively related to psychological distress. the pgis consists of nine items (example: “i know how to change specific things that i want to change in my life”). the attitudes toward self scale (ats) (carver et al., 1988) was used to evaluate students’ vulnerabilities to depression. ats was designed to measure three potential self-regulatory vulnerabilities to depression: a) the holding of overly high standards, b) the tendency to be self-critical in case of failure, and c) the tendency to generalize from a single failure to the broader sense of self-worth. consistently, only generalization was uniquely related to depression (carver, 1998, carver et al. 1999) (example of item for 1) high standards “compared to other people, i expect a lot from myself”; 2) self-criticism “i get unhappy with anything less than what i expected of myself”; 3) generalization from a single failure to the broader sense of self-worth “if i notice one fault of mine, it makes me think about my other faults”). psychosocial well-being inventory was elaborated and developed based on diener’s (1984), seligman (2002, 2005), ryff’s (1989, 2005) and keyes (1998, 2003, 2005) models of subjective, psychological and social well-being. participants were asked to rate how frequently during the past month they experienced three symptoms of subjective well-being related to everyday events (satisfaction, happiness and interest), three symptoms of subjective well-being related to the faculty life (satisfaction, happiness and interest related to the faculty), six symptoms of psychological well-being (those identified by ryffs’s model), and five symptoms of social well-being (those identified by keyes’s model). pswbi’ items were generated from a review of the subjective, psychological and social well-being literature. according to keyes’ procedure (2003) applied in his interesting study (flourishing. positive psychology and the life well-lived), only a single item (deemed most representative of construct) for each component of each of three dimensions of well-being was formulated. twenty items were selected and then tested in the pilot study (2007/2008, academic year). before the completion of the instrument, a qualitative study (with focus groups) was conducted in order to capture participants’ understanding of the items. the 20 items were then submitted to a principal components analysis, which confirmed the four factor component structure of the questionnaire. reliability analysis (in the pilot study) of the four factors using the leave-one-out procedure suggested that the scales would be improved by discarding three items. the remaining 17 items yielded acceptable to excellent internal consistency ranging from .63 to .89. these 17 items became part of the pswbi as used in the present validation study to measure students’ dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 92 psychosocial well-being. items are summed for subscale scores and subscales are summed to obtain a total pswbi score. higher scores indicate higher psychosocial well-being. assumptions of adequate sample size, missing values, normality, linearity, outliers, singularity and multi-collinearity were assessed prior to analysis to determine the data's suitability for factor analysis. literature specified that skewness and kurtosis values of 2.3 or below are not problematic for confirmatory factor analyses and other types of structural equation models (tabachnik & fidell, 2007). absolute skewness and kurtosis values for the pswbi items were all below 2. several multivariate outliers were detected. comparative analyses with and without outliers was made and the final decision was to keep them since they did not really influence the covariance matrix. results descriptive results the descriptive analyses of the scores obtained for the scales are reported in table 1. the descriptive results of the pilot study were similar. table 1. internal consistency (cronbach alpha reliability), means and standard deviation for each pswbi scale and for other measures scale no. of items alpha reliability mean sd subjective well being related to everyday events 3 .724 3.86 .692 subjective well being related to the faculty events 3 .786 3.49 .799 psychological well-being 8 .843 3.80 .726 social well-being 3 .808 2.32 .971 psychosocial well-being 17 .880 3.38 .600 satisfaction with life 5 .842 3.25 .817 self-esteem (rosenberg) 10 .890 3.95 .698 subjective happiness 4 .821 3.37 .543 subjective vitality 6 .651 3.55 .834 personal growth initiative 9 .879 3.73 .643 vulnerability to depression 7 .604 3.23 .641 europe’s journal of psychology 93 principal component analysis to examine whether the four underlying components of the pswbi were perceived by the respondents as distinctive constructs, data have been subjected to an exploratory principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation. a kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) analysis supported factorability, r = .88 and bartlett's test indicated a breach of sphericity, x2 = 3035.049, df = 136, p = < .001. however, factor analysis is robust to breaches of sphericity especially when the sample size is large (tabachnik & fidell, 2007). a cattell scree plot and kaiser's criterion identified a four-factor solution that explained 61.31% of variance in scores. principal component analysis generally supported the hypothesised four-factor structure of the pswbi, with psychological well-being (factor 1), subjective well-being related to everyday events (factor 2), social well-being (factor 3), and subjective wellbeing related to faculty events (factor 4). tabel 2. psychosocial well-being‘s components and items loading in each factor factors no. of items, loading variance explained factor 1 psychological well-being 8 items, loading from .42 to .60 36.780% of variance factor 2 subjective well-being related to everyday event 3 items loading from .42 to 0.80 9.522 % of variance factor 3 social well-being 3 items loading, from .62 to 0.77 8.534% of variance factor 4 subjective well-being related to the faculty events 3 items loading, from .69 to .80 6.483 % of variance cumulative variance explained: 61.31%. factor analysis has been carried out by using principal component analysis for each subscale. results show that each item of each scale is satisfactorily explained by one factor (explaining from 45.78% of variances – swbfe to 63,32% pwb). consequently, the following four subscales of pswbi can be described: dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 94 psychological well being scale (pwb) (8 items) reflects the six dimensions of psychological well-being identified by ryff (1989) respectively a) self-acceptance; b) positive relationships with other people) c) autonomy; d) environmental mastery; e) purpose in life; f) personal growth and two of the five items of social well-being identified by keyes (1998): 1. social integration (“i am indeed part of a certain social group”) and 2. social contribution (“i can contribute with something significant to the life of the society”). subjective well-being related to everyday events scale (swbede) measures students’ evaluations of their satisfaction with life, happiness and interest in general (3 items). social well-being scale (sowb) contains three items reflecting the three out of five dimensions of social well-being identified by keyes (1998): a) social acceptance; b) social actualization; c) social coherence. subjective well-being related to the faculty events scale (swbfe) measures students’ evaluations of their satisfaction with life, happiness and interest for the university (3 items). reliability analysis the four subscales yielded acceptable to excellent internal consistency. cronbach's alpha for the overall pswbi scale and the pswbi subscales were ranged from .72 to .88 (table 1). as indicated in table 1, the highest alpha reliability was for the scale of psychological well-being (.84) and the lowest reliability for the subjective well-being related to everyday events scale (.72). correlation analysis in order to check the construct validity of the pswbi, correlations between scales were determined. according to the multidimensional model of well-being, the correlation of each scale should be positive. as we can see in table 3, the pearson coefficients ranged from low (.31) to moderate (.64) indicating the fact that pswbi scales measure different but related constructs. psychological well-being scale was more highly correlated with subjective well-being related to everyday events than with the subjective well-being related to the faculty events. europe’s journal of psychology 95 table 3. inter-scale correlation for the pswbi scale subjective well being related to everyday events subjective well-being related to the faculty events psychologi cal wellbeing social well being subjective well being related to everyday events 1 .411 .642 .386 subjective well-being related to the faculty events .411 1 .399 .312 psychological well-being .642 .399 1 .510 social well-being .386 .312 .510 1 correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). n= 449 in order to assess the construct and the criterion validity of the pswbi, measures that comprise similar subscales were included in this study: satisfaction with life scale/lsi, subjective happiness scale /sh, subjective vitality scale /sv, and personal growth initiative scale/pgi. subscales of the pswbi (subjective well-being related to everyday events/swbede, subjective well-being related to the faculty events/swbfe. psychological well-being and social well-being) and the lsi, sh, sv, and pgi were submitted to bivariate correlational analysis. table 4. correlation coefficients for pswbi and the ls, se, sh, sv, and pgi subjective well being related to every day' events subjective well-being related to the faculty events psychological well being social well being pswb satisfaction with life .585 .276 .535 .371 .571 subjective happiness .468 .219 .433 .206 .416 self-esteem (rosenberg) .527 .233 .551 .196 .470 subjective .590 .315 .565 .317 .568 dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 96 vitality personal growth initiative .489 .300 .600 .299 .532 correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). n= 449 as table 4 shows, all subscales of pswbi and the other measures were significantly correlated at p = <.001. the pearson coefficients ranged from low (.23) to moderate (.60) indicating the fact that pswbi scales shared a moderate positive relationship with the positive functioning in life scales. however, there were discrepancies in correlations of the same domain. for example, the subjective well-being related to everyday events scale was more highly correlated with the ls, se, sh, sv, and pgi than the subjective well-being related to faculty events and psychological wellbeing more highly than social well being. psychosocial well-being scale was more highly correlated with ls, sv and pgi than with sh scales. this suggests that the scales are measuring a similar general construct but they discriminate optimally between domains. the attitudes toward self scale (ats) was used for divergent validity analysis of pswbi. two of his scales (indicating the vulnerability to depression) had a negative correlation with pswbi scales as expected. table 5. correlation coefficients for pswbi and the scales of vulnerabilities to depression subjective well being related to everyday events subjective wellbeing related to the faculty events psychological well-being social well being pswb self-criticism (ats) -.255 -.005 ns -.260 -.150 -.210 generalization from a single failure to the broader sense of self-worth (ats) -.176 .007 ns -.166 -.076 ns -.127 vulnerabilities to -.249 .009 ns -.248 -.127 -.194 europe’s journal of psychology 97 depression correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). n= 449 the results in table 5 show that the pearson’ coefficients are small but negative that suggests that the pswbi measures an opposite construct compared to the ats (vulnerabilities to depression scale). to examine whether the scales used for evaluating students’ perceptions of their functioning in life were perceived by the respondents as distinctive constructs, the data for all these scales (including the scores of the four components of pswbi) were subjected to another principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation. tabel 6. perceptions of functioning in life‘s components and variance explained by each of the three factors scale factor 1 40,91 % of variance explained factor 2 14,22% of variance explained factor 3 9,05% of variance explained subjective well-being related to everyday events .676 subjective well-being related to faculty events .655 psychological well-being .657 social well-being .737 satisfaction with life .558 self-esteem (rosenberg) .669 subjective happiness .629 subjective vitality .787 high standard .784 self criticism .867 generalization .846 cumulative variance explained: 64,42% principal component analysis yielded three-factor structure of these measures, with positive evaluation’s scales (factor 1), well-being scales (factor 2), and vulnerability to depression subscales (factor 3). dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 98 factor 1 comprises (as is shown in table 6) satisfaction with life, self-esteem, subjective happiness, subjective vitality, and high standard. factor 2 comprises the dimensions of psychosocial well-being and factor 3, the scores of vulnerabilities to depression (self criticism and generalization from a single failure to the broader sense of selfworth). correlations between factors are ranged from .65 to .68. these results confirm that pswbi scales are measuring a distinct construct from the constructs measured by the other scales. discussion this study had two objectives. the first objective was to establish the psychometric proprieties of pswbi and the second was the clarification of the relationship between the pswbi and other measures of well-being such as the satisfaction with life scale/lsi, subjective happiness scale /sh, subjective vitality scale /sv, and personal growth initiative scale/pgi. the pswbi was expected to have acceptable psychometric properties, content, criterion, convergent and divergent validity. the pswbi demonstrated a good reliability using cronbach's alpha for the overall pswbi scale and for the four pswbi’s subscales. the internal consistency of the pswbi’ total and subscales’ scores was good (all alphas were above .70). this indicates that the pswbi is a reliable measure for students’ well-being. it was predicted that the pswbi would demonstrate construct validity in the factor analysis. performing factor analytic procedures on the 17 items of the pswbi has produced a four-factor solution with scale-specific items loading their respective factors. the four factors (subjective well-being related to every day’s event/swbede, subjective well-being related to the faculty events/swbfe. psychological well-being and social well-being) were extracted and accounted for a significant proportion of variance with adequate goodness-of-fit for the model obtained. the pswbi demonstrated good convergent and divergent validity when assessed against satisfaction with life scale/lsi, subjective happiness scale /sh, subjective vitality scale /sv, personal growth initiative scale/pgi, and the attitudes toward self scale (ats). the pswbi showed acceptable correlations with satisfaction with life scale/lsi, subjective happiness/sh, subjective vitality/sv, and personal growth initiative scale/pgi indicating that the pswbi measurement of well-being is in alignment with that of these previously validated scales. the attitudes toward self europe’s journal of psychology 99 scale (ats) scale was used for divergent validity analysis and had a negative correlation as expected. correlations between the subscales of the pswbi and the other scales showed a moderate relationship between the constructs, supporting the conclusion that the pswbi is a valid measure of well-being in that it can be used to predict scores about a separate and yet related construct. these results support previous evidence that well-being is best conceived as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes aspects of both the hedonic and eudaimonic conceptions of well-being (diener, 1984, 2005; ryff, 1989; keyes, 1998, 2003, 2005). studies analysing diverse set of wellness indicators generally reported two factors (one reflecting happiness and another reflecting meaningfulness and personal meaning). these two factors were themselves moderately correlated (king and napa, 1998). these findings indicate that the hedonic and eudaimonic approaches to good life are distinct but complementary. in the eudaimonic approach, meaningfulness and personal meaning were approached more frequent as far as the individual’s self is concerned. the results from present factorial analysis of the scores referring to students’ psychosocial well-being pointed out that social experience is added to the personal meaning of the individual, especially in collectivistic cultures (hall, 1966; trimbitas et al., 2007; ciochina, faria, 2009). as shown, students’ perceptions of their social integration and of their social contribution support their psychological well-being and not their social well-being as in keyes’ model of social well-being. these appear to be in line with other findings (linley, et al., 2009; roysamb, 2006; kwan, et al., 1997). considering the results of the present study, some weak points (limitations) of this study should be kept in mind before generalizing. one possible limit comes from investigating subjects belonging to a single category of students (psychology students). second, participants did not complete the questionnaire in a controlled environment and not all participants completed the questionnaire in the same context. further to this, considering the large age range of students, differences may have been present in regards to their life experience. the results of this study are limited to its particular context given that students' subjective well-being may be affected by several factors related to faculty dimensions themselves, including learning environments, curriculum, and teaching methods. further, the stability of the pswbi is unclear as no test-retest analysis was performed. a major drawback of this research is given by the recognized limitations of self-report scales, which rely exclusively on people’s cognitive labels of their emotions. future research should seek to tap alternative sources of information beyond self-report. it is strongly suggested that more research be conducted in this area to gain a comprehensive understanding of the students’ well being. the pswbi should be submitted to further dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 100 statistical analysis in order to establish it as a stable measure of students’ psychosocial well-being. the main practical implication of the validation of the pswbi is the fact that it will provide a special-designed measure for the dimensions of well-being among romanian university students. the instrument supports the idea that the level of wellbeing cannot be measured using only one score; rather, a profile composed of at least four separate scores is required to provide more comprehensive information about 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(2009). a social cognitive perspective on well-being in educational and work settings: cross-cultural considerations. international journal for educational and vocational guidance, 9, 45–60. tabachnick, b.g., fidell, l.s. (2007). using multivariate statistics. (5th ed.) boston: pearson education. trimbitas, o., yang lin, clark, d. (2007). arta de a cere scuze in cultura romaneasca: use of apology in ethnic romanian culture. human communication. a publication of the pacific and asian communication association, 10 (4), pp. 421 – 436. verger, p., combes, j – b., kovess-masfety, v., choquet, m., guagliardo, v., rouillon, f., peretti-wattel, p. (2009). psychological distress in first year university students: socioeconomic and academic stressors, mastery and social support in young men and women. social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 44 (8), 643 – 650. dimensions of students’ psychosocial well-being and their measurement 104 whittaker, a. e., & robitschek, c. (2001). multidimensional family functioning as predictors of personal growth initiative. journal of counseling psychology, 48, 420-427. about the author: dr. valeria negovan is a senior lecturer at the university of bucharest, the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, psychology department, teaching courses of educational psychology, learning psychology (undergraduate level), career psychology, advanced educational psychology and crisis management in schools (m.sc. level). her scientific research activity focuses on research areas such as learning strategies, autonomy and self-regulation, adaptation and coping strategies in academic environment, the role of values in career development, university students’ well-being. address for correspondence: negovan_v@yahoo.com book review europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org living with intensity understanding the sensitivity, excitability, and emotional development of gifted children, adolescents, and adults editors susan daniels michael piechowski review by vlad glăveanu ejop editor living as a gifted person, from childhood and youth to late adulthood. living with gifted persons: children, adolescents, adults. in both cases, living with intensity. the book edited by susan daniels and michael piechowski takes on the huge challenge of making as all aware of how it is to actually live with intensity, to live with and near giftedness. it is a challenge because of the numerous preconceived and/or misconceived ideas about giftedness, development, and normality maintained by both science and common sense for decades. at the heart of these prejudices stand a group of correlated assumptions: that pain, anxiety and disintegration are always negative, that these could only harm creativity and therefore that any person experiencing these inner states is sure to be pathological rather than creative. “living with intensity”, a book edited in 2009 by great potential press, brings together a number of authors that use the conception of kazimierz dabrowski in their theoretical and empirical studies of giftedness. consequently, they all embrace a vision of giftedness that emphasizes the importance of emotions, of personal growth, of overexcitabilities and developmental potential over the entire lifespan. the book offers all readers a comprehensive insight into dabrowski’s theory and its important applications for understanding and cultivating talent and creative potential regardless of age, sex, education, social position; a valuable guide for all interested europe’s journal of psychology 2 in or “touched” by giftedness, from gifted persons themselves, to parents and teachers, counsellors and psychologists, creativity researchers, social workers, everyone working in fields that promote and depend on the creative energy of the gifted: education, business, science and art to name just a few. the book is divided into four parts. the first gives a general overview of “kazimierz dabrowski, overexcitability, giftedness, and developmental potential”, discussing in two chapters essential notions such as overexcitability and sensitivity (chapter 1) as well as dabrowski’s levels of development (chapter 2). the second part turns to practical aspects in the study of giftedness, “understanding intensity: practical applications for parents, teachers, and counselors”. here different authors address developmental topics, from young gifted children (chapter 3) to gifted adolescents (chapter 4) and consider carefully important aspects in the life of the gifted, such as the role of stress (chapter 5) and perfectionism (chapter 9). a considerable number of chapter are dedicated to the delicate problem of distinguishing between giftedness and pathology by calling our attention to instances of missed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and dual diagnosis (chapter 6), counselling work with the gifted (chapter 7) and, in this context, the importance of family dynamics (chapter 8). the third part continues this developmental perspective, “still gifted after all these years – lifespan intensity and gifted adults”, bringing to the front the advantages and challenges of lifespan intensity (chapter 10), the work of annemarie roeper and its relevance (chapter 11), ideas on the process of counselling gifted adults (chapter 12) and outlining in the end what dabrowski’s legacy could bring to gifted adults (chapter 13). finally, part four is dedicated to “current research and future directions” with a dual focus, on research and assessment of the theory (chapter 14) and on possible future applications (chapter 15). the book ends with two useful questionnaires for the assessment of overexcitability, the oeq short from and the revised oeq (or oeq-rev). one essential merit of “living with intensity” is its clear and well-documented account of dabrowski’s conception, from the notion of overexcitability, an indispensable tool for understanding the mental and behavioural dynamics of gifted individuals, to the bigger framework, the theory of positive disintegration. kazimierz dabrowski (1902-1980), a polish psychiatrist and psychologist, has focused, in an age of behaviourism followed by cognitivism, on the significance of emotional development, of self-reflection and conflict for a person’s psychological growth. his theory of positive disintegration, of great value for giftedness studies, could seem for many paradoxical: psychological suffering stimulates self-development, positive disintegration opens the way to a higher-level re-integration and therefore needs to be cherished and not eliminated or “treated”. especially the first two chapters of the living with intensity 3 book describe in a comprehensive way dabrowski’s notions of developmental potential, multilevelness, overexcitability (oe), and developmental stages, all central for understanding giftedness. for dabrowski the developmental potential is not reduced to talent and abilities, but requires also the manifestation of overexcitabilities and the “third factor” of self-directed emotional growth. all five types of oe (psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational and emotional) and levels of development (primary integration, unilevel disintegration, spontaneous multilevel disintegration, organised multilevel disintegration and secondary integration) are thoroughly described and constantly referred to across the book, along with rich illustrations and detailed applications. perhaps the central argument of the book is that gifted children, adolescents and adults and, more generally, giftedness, are often misunderstood. since oe manifest themselves early in life, as authentic temperamental dispositions, they make the gifted child live much more intensively each experience, to feel more, to think more, to move more, to imagine more. for most parents and teachers gifted children may be hard to live with and hard to educate. they are ahead of their age and ahead of their peers, sometimes even ahead of the adults around them. as daniels and piechowski note: “their excitement is viewed as excessive, their high energy as hyperactivity, their persistence as nagging, their questioning as undermining authority, their imagination as not paying attention, their passion as being disruptive, their strong emotions and sensitivity as immaturity, their creativity and self-directedness as oppositional. they stand out from the norm. but then, what is normal?” (p.4). adopting a life sciences approach to normality rather than a statistical one (normal is optimal and not “average”), the authors of “living with intensity” urge parents, teachers and clinicians to change the “lenses” with which we see “normality”, “pain”, “overexcitability”. oes need to be cherished, nurtured and above all managed (regulated or adjusted; altered or adapted according to circumstance; varied in their expression) and not limited, eliminated or pathologized (frequently as adhd in children, and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression at later stages). a distinctive quality of this book is its balanced presentation of theory, empirical illustrations and useful recommendations, for example the practical advice for parents and teachers on how to modulate oes without fighting against them. lists of “strategies” offered for each type of oe describe inventive ways of nurturing the child’s intense experience of the world. as an illustration, those children showing europe’s journal of psychology 4 psychomotor overexcitability should be encouraged to use their energy instead of “standing still”: they could stand up when they read if they want to or be allowed to play silently when they listen in a group. solutions are always at hand when adults care to preserve and cultivate their children’s “gifts”. second, the book offers a much needed lifespan vision of giftedness, including excellent descriptions of how creativity is experienced in young, middle and late adulthood. a special chapter is of course dedicated to adolescence, a crucial milestone in the development of each individual, and an even more difficult and decisive period in the life of gifted persons. thirdly, the last part of the book should be of special interest for researchers and practitioners since it includes a review of the main studies that have until now tested dabrowski’s assertions, meta-analyses of researches concerning the levels of development and overexcitabilites. the presentation of items used in research, typical answers and their significance as well as the two questionnaires included in the appendices can help interested readers in making their own assessments. summing up, “living with intensity” is both a pleasant and instructive reading. it undoubtedly succeeds in its declared aim of making “highly complex material accessible without diluting its essential concepts” (p.265). using a language that is easy to follow and being filled with illustrations and practical suggestions, this book is essential for all parents, teachers and counsellors “dealing” with giftedness and intensity. the message it advocates, that of listening to gifted children and adults, respecting and understanding them, is an imperative in today’s world both scarred by a series of misconceptions about the creative self and in desperate need of creativity. dabrowski’s deeper message is also one of hope in our human potential and our capacity to grow and create, strengthening the belief that “it is never too late to be what you might have been”. personality traits and feeling of loneliness in unemployed youths brijesh kumar upadhayay departement of psychology, gurukul kangri university, hardwar, uttranchal, india c.p. khokhar departement of psychology, gurukul kangri university, hardwar, uttranchal, india abstract unemployment has been a recurring social problem throughout the century and bringing a mental health problem. in addition to feelings of excitement and anticipation, there may also be the feelings of loneliness. loneliness is an important personality variable. aim of the present investigation is to know the effect of personality traits on the perception of perceived loneliness in unemployed youths. the sample consists of 200 subjects within the age group of 26-32 yrs of age drawn from district haridwar, clear demarcations were observed in the groups of different levels of personality traits on perceived loneliness introduction unemployment is a reality for many young people. you may be skilled, qualified, willing to work, ready for work and desperately wanting a job, but for many young people this does not guarantee you will get work, because in many places there just are not enough jobs around for everyone. it can make you feel low, bored, frustrated, sick that effect your lifestyle. you might feel low or upset, example you might feel like a failure or there is something wrong with you. unemployment doesn’t fit with your career dreams and ambitions. you are “knocked back” for the fiftieth job. you feel your life is wasting away. your mates can go out and have a good time while you sit home and get bored out of your brain! you might start to wonder whether it is worth trying anymore. studies show a link between unemployment and feeling suicidal. this can include other forms of hurting yourself like self-punishment or abuse. some studies show a link between unemployment and mental illness or diagnosed mental disorder. these can be things like insomnia (not being able to sleep), anxiety, clinical depression. increased drug, tobacco and alcohol use – there is a link between unemployment and drug, tobacco and alcohol use. especially smoking and alcohol. several people use drugs, tobacco or alcohol as a way of coping. these can harm your health and hook you into a lifestyle that makes it harder to keep motivated about life. according to jahoda: ” employment makes the following categories of experience inevitable : it imposes a time structure on the waking day; it compels contacts and shared experiences with others outside the nuclear family; it demonstrates that there are goals and purposes which are beyond the scope of an individual but require a collectivity; it imposes status and social identity through the division of labour in modern employment; it enforces activity…” growth and change during unemployment produces a variety of feelings in youths. in addition to feelings of excitement and anticipation, there may also be feelings of loneliness. loneliness is not necessarily being alone. we may be alone for long periods without feeling at all lonely. on the other hand we may feel lonely in a familiar setting without really understanding why. personality characteristic is to recognize that loneliness is something that can be changed. it is also important to know that loneliness is a common experience. according to a recent national survey, one quarter of all adults experience painful loneliness at least every few weeks, and the incidence among adolescents and unemployed youths is even higher. loneliness is neither a permanent state nor “bad” in itself. instead it should be viewed more accurately as a signal or indicator of important needs that are going unmet. some of the personality dispositions directly related to loneliness include shyness, introversion, and self-consciousness (e.g. jones et al. 1985a), whereas attachment quality (hecht & baum 1984), likeability (moore & schultz 1983), communication competence (spitzberg & canary 1985), self-disclosure and interpersonal competence (jones, 1985; sarason, sarason, hacker, & basham 1985) are inversely related. researchers have also reported inverse correlations between loneliness and social risk-taking (moore & schultz 1983; sermat 1978). another common concomitant of loneliness is low self-esteem with several studies indicating substantial co-variation between measures of these two constructs (jones, freemon & goswick 1981; russell et al. 1980). as would be expected, low self-esteem is more strongly related to chronic than to transitory or situational loneliness (jones, et al. 1985a; wilbert & rupert 1986). not surprisingly then, the personality dimensions most closely related to loneliness are those pertaining to confidence and skill in initiating and developing relationships with others (jones, et al. 1985a). also, longitudinal studies have demonstrated that the personality correlates of loneliness often precede feelings of loneliness (e.g., jones & moore 1987; shaver et al. 1985). given the variety of personality factors related to loneliness and the common finding that many of these variables are related to one another, the question arises as to which aspects of personality are most predictive of loneliness. two independent studies (jones et al. 1985a; wittenberg & reis 1986) reported that deficits in two composite variables appear to account for the unique connections between personality and loneliness: (a) relational competence or initiation skills (e.g. low shyness); and (b) enhancement skills or communality (e.g. trust). loneliness refers to an individual’s subjective perception that he/she lacks close interpersonal relationships. an individual is lonely if he or she desires close interpersonal relationships but is unable to establish them. according to peplau and perlman(1982), “loneliness is the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person’s network of social relations is deficient in some way”. there are three approaches which describe loneliness. the first approach emphasizes inherent human needs for intimacy. the second emphasizes people’s perception and evaluation of their social relation and the third approach to loneliness identifies insufficient social reinforcement as the main deficiency experienced by lonely people. several personality factors have been linked to loneliness. lonely people tend to be more introverted and shy, more self conscious, and less assertive (jones, briggs and smith, 1986). the main objective of the present investigation is to find out the effect of five personality traits that is activity and passivity, enthusiastic & non enthusiastic, assertive & submissive, suspicious and trusting, depressive & non depressive, emotional instability and emotional instability on perceived loneliness of unemployed youths. methodology tools: 1 dimensional personality inventory (dpi), by bhargava, m.(1981). 2 perceived loneliness scale (pls), by jha, p.k.(1971). sampling: a sample of 200 unemployed youths within the age range 26 to 32 years, non-technical graduates belonging to middle socioeconomic status are selected from haridwar districts. subjects having the score +1 s.d. above the mean and -1 s.d. below the mean are selected as high or low respectively on personality dimensions. their corresponding scores on loneliness are taken as dependent measures. results and discussion table 1 indicate significance of difference between two levels of personality traits on loneliness. trait mean on loneliness sd sed t p activity 102.8 27.7 13.72 .189 n.s passivity 100.2 12.8 enthusiastic 93.4 6.5 5.61 3.46 < .01 non enthusiastic 112.8 10.73 assertive 90 2.83 2.6 3.0 < .01 submissive 97.8 5.12 suspicious 114.6 12.2 7.09 3.35 < .01 trusting 90.8 10.13 depressive 111.6 15.47 7.0 2.63 < .01 non depressive 93.2 2.39 emotional stability 2.73 87.4 7.70 9.44 < .01 emotional instability 113.2 12.2 significant at .05(1.97, 199) significant at .01(2.60, 199) significance of differences between means on loneliness of unemployed youths on the dimension of enthusiasm, assertiveness, suspiciousness, depression, emotional stability are established. the non-enthusiastic, submissive, suspicious, depressive personality and emotional unstable unemployed have scored significantly higher on the measures of loneliness. enthusiastic unemployed youths feel less lonely than the non enthusiastic unemployed youths. enthusiastic are more hopeful than non enthusiastic about their future. enthusiastic unemployed are more optimistic about the settlement of their job. no doubt loneliness is related to situational aspect of unemployed but the personality traits like assertiveness/submissiveness governs the felling of loneliness in unemployed. study of hansson, robert o. briggs, stephen r. rule, bonnie l., 1990 supports the results of present investigation. present inquiry also agrees with the above hansson, et 1990 study that fully unemployed youths feel helplessness, hopelessness, worthlessness, depressed, unwanted, unloved, suicidal ideas, feeling of inferiority than the fully employed. frictionally unemployed youths have more depressive feelings than seasonally unemployed youths that gradually inculcate the feelings of loneliness. present inquiry agrees with the creed and peter, 1999 study that unemployed youth have feeling of inferiority and lack of confidence. the loneliness is an indirect product of inferiority, lack of confidence, non-enthusiasm, submissive and suspiciousness. unemployed youth with negative personality traits like submissiveness, suspiciousness, depression and emotional instability are more susptable to loneliness. it develops a cyclic stage weaker the trait higher the feeling of loneliness leading to unemployment. although one study by joshi, purushottam de grace, gaston rene, 1985 that duration of unemployment would impact on an individual’s self esteem, depression, loneliness and affective communication found no significant difference. it is to be investigated further with a suitable design. unemployment leads to social and economic crises that hinder the self esteem and identify of self. such individual has no further help form other to get out of the hell of unemployment. finally it leads him to loneliness (peplau and perlman, 1982). earlier study by jones, carpenter and quitana, 1985 is congruent with the present investigation that lonely people often have low self esteem and in some cases, have poor social skills. 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(1986), “loneliness, social skills, and social perception”, personality and social psychology bulletin, 12, 121-130. microsoft word 13. global assessment.doc the 10th european conference on psychological assessment ghent, belgium 16 19 september, 2009 under the auspices of the european association of psychological assessment (eapa) supported by testpracticum, faculty of psychology and educational sciences, ghent university, belgium welcome address more than 18 years now the european association of psychological assessment offers an academic platform to discuss about the challenges of and the new insights in the field of psychological assessment, and to improve its quality. psychological assessment plays a key role in psychology and its many applications. the process of constructing assessment instruments is a scientific enterprise that works with and contributes to the discovery of scientifically based psychological insights. moreover, psychological assessment is essential for the application of psychology. it is only after adequate assessment that psychologists can give well-founded advise or start well-founded intervention. the field of psychological assessment can be best described by unity in diversity. on the one hand, it is a very diverse field because of the wide variety of forms of behavioral and mental functioning and of the wide variety of contexts in which psychology is applied. on the other hand, the field is characterized by a set of shared theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches that are used to construct instruments, to integrate information, and to justify interpretations. 2 scholars and academically interested practitioners from all branches of the diverse field psychological assessment are invited to participate at the 10th biennial european conference of psychological assessment in order to share new insights and debate about the challenges of the field. for its 10th anniversary, special attention will be devoted to the assessment of emotions and emotional competences from the perspective of emotion psychology, one of the fastest growing fields in psychology. prof. dr. johnny fontaine for more information visit the conference website: http://www.ecpa10.ugent.be/ editorial europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org checkmate organizational stress by ana moise, phd lecturer in psychology, ani i changed stress, stress changed me, you can not separate stress form life and you can not separate stress from me, because stress became life and by that stress has influenced all life. but what is stress? i don’t know…. stress represents one important problem not only from an individual perspective, but also from an organizational point of view. last decades have known many stress researches but the nature of stress is still an open question. and because stress is everywhere and, as i said before, stress become life, the idea of this editorial is how we can ‘befriend’ stress and how can we turn it from a foe to an ally… in my previous work i have talked about stress from the perspective of eustress (positive stress) reactions versus distress (negative stress) reactions and this distinction will be the starting point here because it is particularly useful for both explaining the phenomenon of stress and for designing strategies that would optimize our stress reaction. the literature in the field is underlining the complexity of stress which can not be reduced to one single factor or dimension, but represents a conglomerate of relationships and connections between aspects and valences. did you ever think about stress as a game? have you ever thought of chess as a stress factor? carried by our imagination in the middle of a chess game we will discover a battlefield between the black and white chessmen. it is important to realize though that this fight is very organized and very dynamic as any chess player can testify. when playing with the white set for example, we have first to understand the strategy of the game and to be sharp and clever enough to anticipate all the moves of your opponent, as this is the only way of winning. for capturing and explaining the complexity of stress i therefore proposed utilizing the model of the “chess game”. the reason why i have chosen this “game” europe’s journal of psychology 2 metaphor is because i consider that both games and complex psychological phenomena such as stress share the use of processes and rules. chess is the most complex game and stress is an equally intricate phenomenon so the first connection between chess and stress is based on the “complexity” criteria. in this way a new model of stress took shape, one that is based on a very creative approach considering every chess piece as representing one dimension of stress. the model proves to be useful not only in capturing the dual character of the stress reactions (positive / negative just as the there is a white and black chess-set), but also in representing the multidimensionality of stress reactions using the chessmen: the queen is associated with the adaptive stress reaction, the king represents the motivational stress reaction, the horse symbolizes the action stress reaction, the bishop the affective stress reaction, the tower represents the cognitive-architectural stress reaction and the pawns are all specific mediators and moderator factors for stress. the chess metaphor interpretation facilitates a multi-stage analysis. each level of the game has a “diagnostic” and “prognostic” value for both the person and the organization. one primary analysis after the first “moves” of the game already allows us to make estimations about how we can raise eustress and reduce distress. a secondary analysis, made at a more advanced stage of the game, will offer further solutions about how we could attenuate the negative effects of stress or how we could use the positive effects of stress. this metaphor also offers us the possibility of thinking about the “end” of the game. a chess game can result in tree situations: a) win; b) lost; c) drawn game. the model is both structural, looking at each component of the stress processes, and dynamic, since it pays special attention to each step of the game for surprising the specificity of every particular stress reaction. if the game metaphor opens for us a new standpoint of understanding stress in a more comprehensive way, let’s turn now to the applicative perspective and briefly comment on two programs for transforming stress into a “friend”. the first program is focused on changing the social representation of stress. without doubt, nowadays the phenomenon of stress has a clearly negative social representation and it is very easy to make it the “guilty on duty” for almost everything. the premise underlining the strategy of this program is that of working with small groups and introducing their members to the notion of eustress, offering arguments for the existence of “positive stress” and asking each participant to find examples for sustaining this new representation of stress. generally speaking the beginning is always difficult, especially when working with such a controversial concept. but little can be gained in this world without hands-on work so that by the end of the program the participants will be familiarized with some advantages of stress. in implementing such programs i was able to capture also the dynamic stages of checkmate organizational stress 3 building new representations of stress. first stage, named “crash”, is the stage in which the role of the moderator of the program is essential, because his/her input and examples are the first to challenge the negative representation of stress. the second stage of the program can be called „haggle” because is represents the moment in which the participants begin to operate with the positive representation of stress. they have to find out examples from their own life experience in which stress acted as a positive element. this moment of the program is very important because now participants get used to the new notion, everyone is bringing his/her own contribution and by the end of this stage from the interaction between all members new and sometimes “hybrid” representations of stress emerge. the last stage of the program named “rise” is characterized by the rising of the new representation of stress and each participant becoming at least aware of the positive effects stress can have. at this stage, after considering stress also as a social representation, positive and negative, it is important to return to the chess game metaphor and to “learn” some efficient stress reactions because only in this way we can be successful in managing actual stress. so in a working group each participant will have, during several meetings, to consider different roles, from the black king to the white queen, and different scenarios, all of them built around situations and factors producing distress in organizations. the utility of the program goes in this case beyond thinking through and learning “healthier” stress reaction, but can also be used in teambuilding and for enhancing personal and organizational efficiency. the “therapeutic” character of the program is based on the fact that it can be designed to include both people who are suffering because of stress and persons that would like to avoid such situations than to be confrunted with them later on. this editorial aims to stimulate reflection about personal strategies used to face stress and also encourage the active search for better distress-reduction strategies. it is also my hope that this will be the beginning of more in-depth explorations of eustress / distress and my strong believe that anyone interested in analyzing stress as a “chess game” (and paying attention to types of “important” or “typical” games) will discover many strategies not only for managing stress but maybe even life problems at a more general level. another reason why we should investigate as many games as possible is to be able to reveal the social influences on the process and by this build more comprehensive intervention programs. after all, stress is a life problem and we have to be able to live with it inside and around us, but without stress we wouldn’t be able to describe the society today. we have to keep playing the game of stress and finish with a checkmate and not just a drawn europe’s journal of psychology 4 game. it is important to be ready at anytime for starting a new game. only practicing we’ll have the power and knowledge for moving on successfully. about the author: ana moise has obtained her phd in psychology, her ma in organizational and economic psychology and ba in psychology from the university of bucharest. she is currently a lecturer in psychology at the national information academy, romania, teaching courses on the psychology of personality, differential psychology, and motivation techniques. she is also an instructor in applied psychology. her research interests include the psychology of stress, organizational psychology and social and personality psychology. microsoft word 6. manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 487 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 487-501 www.ejop.org effects of manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program on situational intrinsic motivation among people with intellectual disability amanallah soltani faculty of educational studies, university putra malaysia samsilah roslan faculty of educational studies, university putra malaysia maria chong abdullah faculty of educational studies, university putra malaysia chang cheong jan faculty of human ecology, university putra malaysia abstract optimal challenge refers to the balance between the challenge level of an activity and the skill level of an individual involved in the activity. a number of intrinsic motivation theories assume that optimal challenge is an influential facilitator of intrinsic motivation. some researchers attempted to prove this assumption among people without any disability, using problem solving strategies or computer game playing activities. this study was aimed at determining its effectiveness among people with mild or moderate intellectual disability, using a music intervention program with three conditions. the results of one way repeated measure anova and subsequent comparisons in pairs revealed that the high level of situational intrinsic motivation in the first condition of the intervention program where optimal challenges were provided for the first time significantly decreased to a low level in the second condition, where no optimal challenges were provided. it significantly increased again to a high level in the third condition, where optimal challenges were provided for the second time. the findings confirmed the importance of optimal challenge in promoting situational intrinsic motivation, as mentioned by intrinsic motivation theories, among people with intellectual manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 488 disability in a music intervention program. for implementing guidelines, some practical implications are mentioned. keywords: optimal challenge, situational intrinsic motivation, intellectual disability, music intervention program. optimal challenge or, in other words, challenge-skill balance refers to the stability between challenge of an activity and the skill level of an individual involved in the activity. it has been mentioned that optimal challenge is an influential facilitator in promoting intrinsic motivation. in any activity, people are more intrinsically motivated when they are optimally challenged. tasks which are too easy or too difficult are unable to promote intrinsic motivation. only tasks that are well within the persons’ ability and optimally challenge them could improve intrinsic motivation. optimal challenge is a concept at the heart of three well-known intrinsic motivation theories, namely self-determination theory, harter’s model of effectance motivation, and theory of flow experience. based on self-determination theory (ryan & deci, 2000), intrinsic motivation could be enhanced by a feeling of optimal challenge and competence. in any activity, people feel competent and more self-determined if their skill’s level is balanced with the level of challenges. further, mastery goal orientation, autonomy supportive environment and informative feedback are also important (mandigo & holt, 2000). according to harter’s (1978) model of effectance motivation, optimal challenge is a key concept in promoting effectance motivation. effectance motivation, a form of intrinsic motivation, refers to the intrinsic pleasure an individual feels from attempting and mastering challenging tasks (white, 1959). finally, based on the theory of flow experience (csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1990) optimal challenge or challenge-skill balance is an important facilitator of flow. flow experience, associated with forms of intrinsic motivation, is an internal state defined as a condition whereby a person is intensively involved in an activity to the point that he or she becomes unaware of the time spent and the place that he/she is in. to support intrinsic motivation theories, some researchers have empirically examined the effect of optimal challenge on intrinsic motivation by measuring the amount of time that the participants are involved in the activity during a free choice interval. for instance, danner and lonky (1981) divided ninety 4-10 year old children into three groups, based on their cognitive ability levels. the subjects were introduced to three classification tasks which varied in the level of difficulty and then left alone with the tasks. the results showed that children preferred to spend more time on tasks that europe’s journal of psychology 489 were one step ahead of their cognitive ability level. mandigo and holt (2006) also examined the effect of optimal challenge on situational intrinsic motivation in twenty-seven elementary students between the ages of 7-9 years during a physical education class. participating in semi-structured interviews to describe their experience of the activities, all the participants reported more time spent on the optimally challenging activities. in addition, liu and santhanam (2007) conducted a study with 110 business students who participated in online game playing. they also found that when the challenge intensity of the game is moderate, participants played more games for a longer time, but when it is high, participants paid no attention to the game. furthermore, sit, lam, and mckeniz (2010), observed 60 primary school children during a free choice interval of electronic game playing. during the game, the children had free access to select interactive or sedentary versions of electronic game playing. in addition, during the interactive games they had the free choice to adjust the intensity or challenge of the activity based on their skills’ level. the results showed that children spent more than half of their available time participating in interactive game playing, especially when there were opportunities to modify the level of intensity for the tasks. to examine the impact of optimal challenge on experiencing flow, as a form of situational intrinsic motivation, rheinberg and vollmeyer (2003), and sackett (2008) conducted experimental studies where the difficulty level of computer game was manipulated to determine its effect on experiencing a state of flow. the studies showed that participants demonstrated significantly higher levels of flow experience in conditions during which the levels of task difficulty were moderate in comparison with conditions during which the level of task difficulty was either easy or too difficult. as well, keller and bless (2008), conducted an experimental design to test for the causal impact of skill challenge balance on flow experience. the task was a computer game that had different playing modes. the expanded condition was designed to keep challenge at a very low level so that participants were over-skilled for the game. the adaptive condition was designed to create a balance between skill and challenge by automatically adapting the level of difficulty of the game to the individual participants’ skill level, thereby making it very challenging. the researchers found that participants in the adaptive condition were more likely to experience flow. the approach of keller and bless (2008) in manipulating the level of optimal challenge is superior to previous studies as the participants’ individual skilllevel was taken into account, rather than assuming that all participants had approximately the same skills level. it was a situation with real challenge-skill balance in which the challenge level of the activity was balanced with the skill level of the participants individually. manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 490 the studies mentioned above have empirically confirmed the importance of optimal challenge on situational intrinsic motivation using problem solving activities, physical activities, or computer game playing among people without any disability. however, no study was found to support the influential effect of optimal challenge on situational intrinsic motivation among people with intellectual disability. people with intellectual disability (id) usually suffer from a variety of physical, cognitive, and learning problems which negatively affect their functional ability (taylor, richards, & brady, 2005). the low functional abilities of people with id are usually reflected in their failures, especially when they are involved in some physical, social, or cognitive mastery situations. experiencing repeated failures in such situations may lead them to feel anxious in new mastery situations (herter, 1978; zigler and bennete-gate, 1999). a strategy that these people may use to avoid the feeling of anxiety is to escape from mastery situations by being involved in situations that have no challenging outcome (zigler and bennett-gate, 1999). such situations exist in some vocational training centers and sheltered workshops, where the intellectually disabled participate in routine activities such as sealing envelops, packing, sorting and folding pamphlets. these activities are usually repeated daily and throughout the whole work schedule. although being involved in such continuous routine activity might prevent people with id from feeling anxiety, due to lack of optimal challenge, it might also undermine their intrinsic motivation. the current study was aimed at examining the importance of optimal challenge on situational intrinsic motivation in an individualized music intervention program among people with id. some practical implications have been provided for those who plan to facilitate intrinsic motivation among people with id using special programs such as a music intervention program. method participants thirty participants were randomly selected from a population of 120 adolescents and young adults with mild to moderate id in two vocational training centers and one sheltered workshop of the wisma harapan organization in malaysia. the participants were 20 males and 10 females aged 15-25. all the participants grew up in their family and communities, attended special primary schools, and had no behavioral problems, paralysis, or deafness. they were always involved in routine europe’s journal of psychology 491 activities such as sealing envelops, packing, sorting and folding pamphlets through the whole day from 8 am to 4 pm under the supervision of three teachers. the parents or guardians of the participants signed the informed consent and gave permission for the research project. in addition, a written consent was obtained from the manager of the organization. research design in this study, a one-group within-subject experimental design or, in other words, a one group repeated-measure experimental design, was used to manage the sample size, handle individual teaching process, and remove variance caused by individual differences. to conduct the within-subject experimental design, an individualized music intervention program with three conditions was carried out during a three months period. music intervention program used in the study due to individual differences in the potential ability of people with id (taylor, richards and brady, 2005), a continuum of melodies with variety in challenge levels, from very simple to more complex, was used to provide appropriate musical tasks for each participant, based on his/her skills level. the musical tasks were presented to the participants during the music intervention program, using appropriate musical instruments and special teaching strategies. with respect to the restricted abilities and limitations of people with intellectual disability (taylor et al., 2005), the special teaching strategies used in the music intervention program were: (a) musical task analysis in which the tasks to be taught were broken down into smaller and sequential units, (b) stating the lesson’s goals clearly and providing appropriate feedbacks, (c) repeating materials, skills and concepts several times, (d) speaking in short simple sentences without talking down, (e) performing one musical task rather than multiple tasks, (f) adapting the amount of time allocated for completing a task, and (g) using auditory rote learning or teaching music by ear instead of notation. with respect to the limitations of the intellectually disabled in their sensory-motor coordination (taylor et al., 2005), it was necessary to provide a standard and attractive musical instrument with simple physical nature and beautiful sounds. thus, a xylophone which has these characteristics was selected as the instrument used in the music intervention program. in addition, due to their cognitive, memory and attention problems, the intellectual disabled might be unable to follow the beats manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 492 correctly (beats are some regular pulsations or equal units of time in a rhythmic pattern). thus, an auto accompaniment system was used to help the participant to follow the beats. auto accompaniment is a system, a sort of sound mirror, which is able to produce music in the same style as a person playing his or her own instrument. a small quiet room with appropriate facilities in wisma harapan organization center in malaysia was selected as the experimental room. while all the thirty participants continued to perform their daily activities in the center, they were also invited to the experimental room in person to be involved in a half an hour individualized session twice a week. so each participant had 30 individualized sessions conducted during the three different conditions of the music program. the first condition of the experiment conducted in the first ten sessions of the program was named as “providing optimal challenge for the first time”. musical tasks were taught to each participant individually by selecting the first simple melody in the continuum of musical tasks. when the participant mastered the first task, the second but more difficult task was taught. this process continued until each participant could improve or master the tasks based on his/her ability. due to their individual differences, the number of tasks mastered by the participants differed. the second condition of the experiment, introduced during the following ten sessions of the program was labeled as “providing no optimal challenge”. here the participants were not taught to master any new musical tasks. instead, they were free to experiment with the tasks that they had already mastered during the first condition, or perform innovative tasks, or do nothing at all. this condition was called “providing no optimal challenge”, because the experimenter did not provide any new activities with higher level of difficulty to the participants from the continuum of musical tasks. in other words, no optimal challenges were provided in this second condition. the third condition of the experiment, imposed during the subsequent ten sessions of the program, was called “providing optimal challenge for the second time”. this means that each participant continued to master new musical tasks in the continuum from where he/she stopped in condition one. for example, if one participant had mastered the first three musical tasks during the first condition, now he/she was taught to master new progressive musical tasks higher than the third task. this was known as “providing optimal challenge for the second time” because, for the second time, each participant, based on his/her ability, was involved in some europe’s journal of psychology 493 unlimited progressive musical tasks which increasingly provided enough challenge as his/her functional ability improved through practice. the effect of the intervening variables such as feedback, goal orientation, and autonomy (mandigo & holt, 2009) were controlled in all three conditions of the experiment. to control the effect of goal orientation, the strategies introduced by ames (1992) were used. these strategies were (a) provide self-referenced improvement based on personal goals, (b) reduce opportunity for normative comparison of ability, (c) evaluate participants individually and privately, based on progress and effort, (d) allow flexible time for improvement and maximum time for practice, and (e) encourage participants to be involved in decision making in an authority structure. to control the effect of autonomy, the suggestions by reeve (2002) were used, namely (a) minimizing any external reward or punishment, (b) providing opportunity for making choice or conveying a sense of choice, and (c) acknowledging participants’ positive and negative feelings about their behaviors. positive informational feedback about a performer’s competence and his/her personal goals was given in all the conditions of the music intervention program. in addition, the direction of musical melodic or rhythmic pattern in a predictable order also provided clear goals for the participants. measures as many people with id have difficulty with literary skills and with expressing their internal state appropriately, observational strategies, in which the participant’s behaviors are observed during activities, were considered to be the best strategy to assess their intrinsic motivation aspects. thus, a behavioral measure of intrinsic motivation was used to measure the level of situational intrinsic motivation (sim) in the three conditions of the experiment. it is a measure of intrinsic motivation based on the amount of time the participant spends on the activity without any external rewards or pressure (guay, vallerand and blanchard, 2000). as per this measure, the experimenter declares that the experiment is formally over and presents an excuse to leave the participant alone for a limited period of time (eight minutes). during this period, the behavior of the subject is videotaped secretly. the seconds that the participant spends on the experimental tasks are calculated as his/her level of sim. statistical analysis exploratory data analysis was used to find outliers and determine the normal score distributions in all three conditions of the experiment. descriptive data analysis was manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 494 applied to reveal maximum, minimum, mean, and standard deviations of sim scores in each condition of the experiment. finally, one way repeated measure anova and subsequent comparisons in pairs (field, 2009), as inferential data analysis, were conducted to determine the overall significant differences between the means of sim scores across three conditions of the experiment and the significant differences between the means of sim scores in each pair of conditions. results the results of exploratory data analysis revealed that there were no outliers among the sim scores in the three conditions of the experiment and the distribution of the scores could be considered normal in all three conditions. the results of descriptive data analysis, one way repeated measure data analysis, and the comparisons in pairs (field, 2009) are presented in tables 1-3. table 1: maximum, minimum, mean, and standard deviation of sim scores in the three conditions of the experiment variable minimum maximum mean s.d. sim 1 64.00 480.00 328.97 137.33 sim 2 50.00 151.00 86.33 23.4 sim 3 75.00 480.00 321.87 109.25 as table 1 shows, the mean of sim scores in condition one was 328.97 and its standard deviation was 137.33, which indicates a high level of sim in this condition, where the participants were provided optimal challenge for the first time. the sim mean scores in condition two, where no optimal challenge were provided, decreased to a low level of 86.33, with a standard deviation of 23.4. however, in condition three, where the participants were provided optimal challenge for the second time, the sim mean scores increased to a higher level of 321.87, with a standard deviation of 109.25. although the results of descriptive data analysis revealed that the levels of situational intrinsic motivation were different in the three conditions of the experiment, they could not determine whether the differences were significant or not. thus, it was essential to conduct a one way repeated measure anova. however, before that, as in any parametric test, it was necessary to check the assumptions of repeated measure anova used for situational intrinsic motivation. europe’s journal of psychology 495 the scale measurement of sim scores was ratio, the sample was randomly selected from the population. the exploratory data analysis of sim scores revealed that the distribution of these scores follow a normal distribution. therefore, the first three assumptions of repeated measure anova were met. however, the results of mauchly’s test statistic of sim scores showed that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, x2 (4) = 26.895, p < .05. it means there was no homogeneity of covariance in sim scores between pairs of conditions. thus, it was essential to apply a correction to compensate for the violation of the sphericity assumption. looking at the results of mauchly’s test of sphericity, it was observed that the degree of sphericity using green house-geisser correction was .606. since this value was less than .75, based on leech, barrett, and morgan (2007), greenhouse-geisser correction was selected as the best choice for adjusting df and reporting f value in repeated measure anova. thus, repeated measure anova of sim scores in which the f-value was calculated based on both assuming sphericity and greenhousegessier correction was conducted. the results are presented in table 2. table 2: repeated measure anova of sim scores source df mean square f sig partial eta squared condition sphericity assumed 2 464766 99.460 .000 .77 greenhouse-gessier 1.819 766335 99.460 .000 .77 error sphericity assumed 87 4672.89 greenhouse-gessier 52.764 7704.961 as seen in table 2, with greenhouse-gessier correction to overcome sphericity violation, the results of repeated measure anova indicated that there was an overall significant difference with large effect size (cohen, 1988) in the sim scores across the three conditions of the experiment, f (1.82, 52.76) = 99.460, p < .001 eta2 =. 77. this means the intellectually disabled participants showed significantly different levels of situational intrinsic motivation over time across the three conditions of the experiment. however, these results could not determine which pair of conditions has significant differences. thus, following repeated measure anova, comparisons in pairs were carried out. however, for comparison of the conditions in pairs, the manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 496 bonferroni correction (where the alpha level is divided by the number of comparisons, and ensuring that the cumulative type i error is below .05) was applied to control the error rate in the experiment. the results of this segment of inferential data analysis are presented in table 3. table 3: the results of comparisons in pairs of conditions mean difference std.error sig r condition 1 vs condition 2 242.633 25.014 .000 .87 condition 2 vs condition 3 -235.533 19.928 .000 .91 condition 1 vs condition 3 7.100 14.277 1.000 .09 as can be seen in table 3, a significant difference with large effect size (cohen, 1988) was found among the means of sim scores between conditions one and two, p < 016, r = .87. the results indicated that the high level of sim in condition one, where the participant provided optimal challenges for the first time, significantly decreased to a low level in condition two, where no optimal challenges were provided. in comparing between conditions two and three, a significant difference with large effect size (cohen, 1988) was found between the mean of sim scores p < .016, r = .91. the results indicated that low level of sim in condition two, where the participants were not provided with optimal challenge, significantly increased to a high level in condition three, where the participants were provided with optimal challenge for the second time. there was no significant difference between the means of sim scores between condition one and condition three, p > .008. in addition, the effect size was .09 which, based on cohen (1988) is a small effect size. the results indicated that the participants demonstrated high and statistically same level of sim both in condition europe’s journal of psychology 497 one, where optimal challenge was provided for the first time, and in condition three, where optimal challenges were provided for the second time. discussion it is evident from this analysis that the levels of sim significantly changed across the three conditions of the experiment. while participants showed a high and statistically undifferentiated level of sim in conditions one and three, where optimal challenge was provided, they demonstrated a significantly lower level of sim in condition two, where there was no optimal challenge. these findings highlight the importance of optimal challenge in promoting intrinsic motivation, as proposed by most well known intrinsic motivation theories, including self-determination theory (ryan and deci, 2000). these findings are also similar to previous research, which emphasized the positive effect of optimal challenge on intrinsic motivation, by measuring the amount of time people spend being engaged in the activity (sit et al, 2010; liu et al, 2007; mandigo and holt, 2006; danner and lonky, 1981). however, unlike the research which confirmed the positive effect of optimal challenge on sim among people without any disability, the findings of the current study showed this effectiveness for people with id. the findings of the current study have some important practical implications for those who plan to facilitate situational intrinsic motivation among people with id using special programs such as a music intervention program. in such programs, it is necessary to provide successful activities with a balance between challenge of the activity and the skill level of the participant. this means that, unlike people without disability who are able to promote their intrinsic motivation by looking for new challenges (ryan & deci, 2000), people with id need situations with challenge-skill balance in order to be intrinsically motivated. however, to provide challenge-skill balance for these participants, there are some prerequisite criteria to be met. the first one is preparing a set of tasks with unlimited challenge levels, which include from very simple to more complex tasks. by using such tasks, appropriate levels of challenge are provided for the participants as their skill levels improve through practice. it was revealed that activities such as sealing envelops, packing, sorting, and folding pamphlets, found in some vocational training centers and sheltered workshops for people with id, do not provide appropriate challenge for the participants to facilitate intrinsic motivation. the latter is present in a situation with a real challenge-skill balance. a situation with real challenge-skill balance is where the challenge level is balanced for each participant individually based on his/her level of skill. this criterion is particularly necessary for people with id who present a variety manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 498 of individual differences (taylor et al, 2005). a situation where the same level of challenge is provided for all participants with different skill levels as in group activities cannot provide a real challenge-skill balance. consequently it might not be able to facilitate intrinsic motivation among the intellectually disabled. conclusion this is the first study, which empirically investigates the potential effect of manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program on sim among the intellectually disabled. from these findings, it could be concluded that optimal challenge is an influential factor in promoting intrinsic motivation as proposed by past and present theories of intrinsic motivation. acknowledgment the authors would like to thank mr kamaraj, manager, selangor and federal territory association for the mentally handicapped for the support and facilitation during the experiment and data collection. references ames, c. 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(2009). putting theory into practice: enhancing motivation through optimal strategies. physical and health education academic journal, 1(1). reeve, j. (2002). self-determination theory applied to educational setting. in handbook of self-determination research (pp. 183-203): rochester,ny: university of rochester press. rheinberg, f., & vollmeyer, r. (2003). flow experience in a computer game under experimentally varied conditions. zeitscherift fur psychologie, 211, 161-170. ryan, r., & deci, e. l. (2000). self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. american psychologist, 55, 68-78. sackett, a. l. (2008). promoting flow: an investigation of the effect of various task condition on flow. state university of new york. sit, h. p., lam, w. k., & mckeniz, t. l. (2010). direct observation of children’s preferences and activity levels during interactive and on-line electronic games. journal of physical activity and health, 7, 484-489. manipulating optimal challenge in a music intervention program 500 taylor, richards, s. b., & brady, m. p. (2005). mental retardation: historical perspective, current practice and future directions. boston: pearson allyn and bacon. white, r. w. (1959). motivation reconsidered: the concept of competence. psychological review, 66(5), 297-333. zigler, e., & bennett-gates, d. (1999). personality development in individuals with mental retardation: the press syndicate of the university of cambridge. about the authors: amanallah soltani is a phd student in the field of educational psychology in faculty of educational studies, university putra malaysia. his bachelor degree is speech therapy and his master degree is education of intellectually disabled children from allame tabatabai university, iran. he has involved in a number of research projects, especially those related to people with intellectual disability. assoc. prof. dr. samsilah roslan received her first degree in islamic studies (syariah) from el-azhar university, cairo and diploma of education from international islamic university malaysia (uiam). she joined the faculty of educational studies in upm as a tutor in 1997. she pursued her master study in upm in the field of educational psychology and was upgraded to a ph.d degree in 2001. dr. samsilah has been actively involved in numerous research projects, especially those related to education for children with special needs, including gifted children and children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and autism. findings from her studies has been presented in conferences and published in local and international journals. dr. samsilah is currently a lecturer at the faculty of educational studies, upm. address for correspondence: samsilah roslan, research management centre, tower ii upm-mtdc technology centre, universiti putra malaysia 43400 upm serdang, selangor, malaysia email: samsilah@educ.upm.edu.my dr. maria chong abdullah completed his high school at ave maria convent secondary school, ipoh. she holds a doctoral degree in educational psychology from university putra malaysia (upm). she has an experience as a secondary school teacher for 14 years, as a lecturer in teacher training institute for 9 years, and as a lecturer in the faculty of educational studies, upm, since year 2000. her field of expertise is educational psychology. she also has been teaching courses such as educational psychology, special education, child and adolescence psychology, educational research at europe’s journal of psychology 501 bachelor level, and courses such as classroom interaction, problem solving in education, and principles of educational psychology at master level. besides teaching, she has also been involved in activities such as writing, and paper presentations at conferences at national and international levels. she has been involved also in voluntary activities in the areas of psychology and gifted children at national level dr chan cheong jan holds a doctor of literature in musicology from osala university, specialising in ethnomusicology and music education. dr chan is currently a senior lecturer at the music department, faculty of human ecology, university putra malaysia. his research interest includes the documentation of folk music in borneo island and the transmission of folk music in the urban areas in the peninsula malaysia. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 17-39 www.ejop.org job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs as determinants of burnout among physical education teachers andré brouwers welko tomic huibrecht boluijt the open university, heerlen, the netherlands abstract the aim of the present study, which involved 311 physical education (pe) teachers in dutch schools, was to examine the relationships between job demands, job control, social support and perceived self-efficacy on the one hand and teacher burnout on the other. based on karasek’s demands-control-support model (1990), it was expected that perceived stringent job demands in combination with perceived lack of control on the job and perceived lack of social support from colleagues, principals and managers could so affect teachers’ health that they were likely to suffer from enhanced levels of burnout. our study partly confirmed results based on the karasek model. it was also expected that the number of domain-determined self-efficacy beliefs concerning the influence teachers had on job demands would affect their level of burnout. however, this supposition was not supported. perceived job control was found to have a moderating effect on the relationship between perceived job demands on the one hand and the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization dimensions of burnout on the other. colleague support had a moderating effect on the relationship between job demands and the personal accomplishment dimension of burnout, whereas managerial support had a moderating effect on self-efficacy beliefs concerning teachers’ influence on job demands and personal accomplishment. the study further revealed that pe teachers run a greater risk of falling victim to burnout as they grow older. implications for future studies are discussed. keywords: burnout, p.e. teachers, self-efficacy, job demands-control-support model. http://www.ejop.org/ job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs 18 burnout has been identified as one particular type of chronic response to the cumulative, long-term negative impact of work stresses (blase, 1982). in a general sense there is agreement that burnout is a multi-dimensional construct. these dimensions are inter-related, but at the same time they are independent entities. maslach and jackson (1986) state that burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment which can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity. individuals who are burned out appear to lack emotional resources and suffer a high degree of depersonalization. they are unable to list more than a scant few personal accomplishments. one specific category of human service professionals who appear to be vulnerable to burnout are teachers. in 1998, 38% of the 4800 employees who were declared unfit for work in the netherlands were teachers (magnée, 2000). figures published by the dutch industrial insurance administration office show that psychological complaints together with complaints concerning the loco-motor apparatus are the main causes for full or partial disablement (smulders, 1995). these findings are in line with research showing that a significant number of teachers consider leaving their job and feel fed up with their work (berkhout, zijl & van praag, 1998; friedman & farber, 1992). american and british studies reveal that many teachers quit their jobs (farber, 1991; merseth, 1992), or, if they do not, experience much stress (borg, 1990). however, there has been little research into burnout among secondary school teachers who teach the same subject (homogeneous groups of teachers). indeed, the opposite is true: teacher burnout is examined among heterogeneous groups of teachers, irrespective of the subject they teach. an exception to this rule is the study carried out by hodge, jupp and taylor (1994) on burnout among music and mathematics teachers. another example is a study on physical strain among physical education (p. e.) teachers (de vries, beune, simons and thijsen, 2000). unfortunately, it is doubtful whether the method they used in their study can reveal the exact determinants of burnout among teachers of specific school subjects. when attempting to explain burnout, it is plausible that workload and amount of control are variables that differ considerably from one group of subject teachers to the next. the activities students are engaged in during their lessons, the way they interact, the way the teacher supervises and coaches the students, the time the teacher spends on preparing lessons and marking papers, and the way the classroom is organized all differ considerably from subject to subject. in order to be able to express sound opinions on a specific category of teachers, we think burnout studies involving teachers in general should be complemented by studies involving teachers who all teach the same subject. in addition, we also europe’s journal of psychology 19 intend to compare the various groups of subject teachers with one another with respect to burnout. the current study was conducted among physical education (pe) teachers. burnout is a phenomenon of dramatic importance in education in general, and pe teachers are also at risk for burnout prematurely. rakovac and heimer (2008) studied 479 pe teachers and found that 62.8% reported health disturbances. some complaints were related to mental health factors. pe teachers without health impairments reported being satisfied with their work conditions, interpersonal relationships, students’ behavior, relationships with supervisors and rewards (rakovac & heimer, 2008). pe teachers have received little attention in the burnout literature. after consulting databanks such as psycinfo, eric, and current contents, we found just a few studies examining determinants of burnout among pe teachers systematically. psychological, social and bureaucratic factors correlated significantly with burnout (smith & leng, 2003). exactly the same association with burnout was reported with regard to the average class size of special education students (fejgin, talmor, & erlich, 2005), and job satisfaction (koustelios & tsigilis, 2005). with regard to job demand control model factors, lee (2004) found that role ambiguity, work overload and role conflict were positively associated with one burnout dimension, i.e. emotional exhaustion, whereas peer support was positively associated with the personal accomplishment dimension. unlike lee (2004), fejgin, talmor, and erlich (2005) found that pe teachers’ personal resources and workload did not significantly correlate with burnout (fejgin, ephraty, & ben-sira, 1995). looking at the present knowledge of determinants of burnout among pe teachers and some conflicting results regarding this issue, it is very important to further investigate how pe teachers experience their work. in comparison with teachers of other subjects, some striking differences are the skills that students have to be taught and the way lessons are organized. in pe lessons, for example, students are trained to optimize their physical ability, to cooperate with others when performing physical activities, and to control their emotions in competition situations. a pe teacher has to cope with students who may be boisterous, noisy, and intractable. the teacher’s voice is a very important instrument. sometimes he or she has to be lenient and approachable and at other times very strict, e.g. to avoid risk and undesirable physical contact. at the end of the day, the teacher may be physically and mentally exhausted. pe teachers teach their lessons in a gym or on the sports field. although they do not have to mark papers, they do have to mark the students’ achievements. the main problem is the pe teacher’s position on the school team: pe job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs 20 lessons do not contribute to the students’ academic achievements, which are considered to be of primary importance for their future careers. pe teachers may become frustrated by having their lessons systematically undervalued by colleagues, principals, and parents. social support, workload, and control a number of studies have found that perceived lack of social support from colleagues, i.e. a lack of friendship and assistance, may be an important element in teacher burnout (brownell & pajares, 1997; burke, greenglass, & schwarzer, 1996; burke, shearer, & deszca, 1984; dignam & west, 1988; punch & tuettemann, 1990; ross, altmaier, & russell, 1989; schwab, jackson, & schuler, 1984). social support from colleagues and principals helps prevent emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a perceived lack of personal accomplishment. a statement like “some stressors from the workplace may never be overcome by individual efforts…” shows the importance of social support in this respect (glass & mcknight, 1996). the level of support can be assessed by measuring the discrepancy between a person's need for emotional support and the amount and intensity of the supportive interactions that someone actually experiences (van sonderen, 1991). studies on the subject show that a perceived lack of social support is more important than support that is actually received, in that its negative effects override the positive ones (bacharach, bainberger, & mitchell, 1990; brissie, hoover-dempsey, & bassler, 1988; burke & greenglass, 1989a, 1993; burke et al., 1996; jackson et al., 1986; kuzsman & schnall, 1987; russell et al., 1987; travers & cooper, 1993; zabel & zabel, 1982). in the present study we examined workload, level of job control, and social support as determinants of burnout among pe teachers. these variables, which are presented in the karasek (1990) model, turned out to be important explanatory factors for the degree of burnout. studies on this subject showed that the more serious the degree of burnout was among teachers, the more taxing their tasks were (job demands), the less job control they experienced, and the less support they seemed to get from colleagues and principals. concurring with karasek’s model, these studies also revealed that job demands showed a stronger correlation with burnout when job control was reduced. therefore, it was hypothesized that job control as well as support from colleagues and school leaders moderate the relationship between job demand and burnout. europe’s journal of psychology 21 self-efficacy bandura (1997, p. 3) defines self-efficacy as “…the beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments”. the courses of action over which a person can exercise control are manifold; they may be concerned not only with actions, but with motivation, thought, and emotions as well. the consequences are also numerous and involve someone’s ability to cope with misfortunes or to become aware of thought patterns that obstruct or stimulate intended actions. self-efficacy is also related to stress (bandura, 1997; vrugt, 1997) and the feelings of depression (kanfer & zeiss, 1983; kavanagh, 1992) that someone experiences when dealing with taxing environmental demands. self-efficacy beliefs are domain and task specific (bandura, 1997; tschannen-moran & woolfolk hoy, 2002; woodruff & cashman, 1993). the present study also examined the relationship between self-efficacy and burnout. the variable “self-efficacy beliefs” can be viewed as an important addition to the karasek model in studies on burnout. whereas job demands, job control, and social support are job-related characteristics as perceived by the respondent himself, selfefficacy beliefs may reveal how effectively a teacher copes with these job characteristics. as job demands in particular play an important role in explaining teacher burnout, the self-efficacy beliefs in our study have been specified according to the job demands domain, i.e., self-efficacy beliefs influencing the teacher’s perceived job demands. this specification led us to our first assumption: self-efficacy beliefs in the job-demands domain will explain part of the variance in burnout among teachers that is not explained by the job demands-control-support variables. our second assumption was that the specified self-efficacy beliefs about influencing job demands will show stronger associations with burnout the more support teachers get from the school management. therefore, it was hypothesized that self-efficacy beliefs in the job-demands domain moderates the relationship between job demand and burnout. pe teachers who feel they have the support of the school management will be more inclined to try to improve their work situation by raising objections to job demands they dislike. however, it is to be expected that only those teachers who strongly believe that they are able to influence their job demands will approach the school management on this subject. teachers who doubt their capabilities in this respect will probably not find it easy to take their troubles to the school management, even though the school management would provide them with support. therefore, it was job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs 22 hypothesized that school management support moderates the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs in the job-demands domain and burnout. method participants the participants of the present study were pe teachers employed in general secondary education in the netherlands. the total number of pe teachers was 4594, 3262 (71%) of them male and 1332 (29%) of them female (centrale financiën instellingen, 2007). by kind permission of the association of physical education teachers, we obtained a random sample of 500 pe teachers who were employed in general secondary schools. in order to match the male/female distribution in the population, for a random sample of 500 pe teachers approximately 355 males and 145 females are required. therefore, to prepare a list of 500 teachers, every ninth male and female teacher was selected. all teachers were eligible for the study. in order to try and raise the response rate, we followed suggestions made by green and hutchinson (1996): we provided respondents with postage-paid envelopes, sent the questionnaires directly to the respondents, told the respondents to contact us at any time if necessary, and kept the questionnaire fairly short. as we approached 500 teachers and had 311 responses, the response rate was 62%, which babbie (1995) finds adequate for surveys and which is also in accordance with the findings of asch, jedrziewski, and christakis (1997). a total of 311 completed questionnaires were returned. the sample consisted of 94 female (30.2%) and 217 male teachers (69.8%). the average age of the teachers was 41.19 years (sd = 11.05), ranging from 21 to 63 years old. the mean number of years that the subjects had taught gym was 18.85 (sd = 11.29), ranging from 1 to 39. the mean number of weekly hours spent teaching gym was 20.26 (sd = 7.05). there was no significant difference between the 311 respondents and the total population of pe teachers on the variable age: t(469) = 1.33, p = > .05. the same result applied to gender: χ²(1) = .04, p = >.05. in order to try and raise the response rate, we followed suggestions made by green and hutchinson (1996): we provided respondents with postage-paid envelopes, sent the questionnaires directly to the respondents, told the respondents to contact us at any time if necessary, and kept the questionnaire fairly short. europe’s journal of psychology 23 as we approached 500 teachers and had 311 responses, the response rate was 62%, which babbie (1995) finds adequate for surveys and which is also in accordance with the findings of asch, jedrziewski, and christakis (1997). measures burnout. the dutch version of the maslach burnout inventory for teachers (mbi-nl-ed; schaufeli & van horn, 1995) was used to assess the pe teachers’ burnout level. the instrument consists of twenty items, and is divided into three sub-scales: (1) emotional exhaustion (ee; 8 items), (2) depersonalization (dp; 5 items) and (3) personal accomplishment (pa; 7 items). teachers could assign a score ranging from “never” to “always” on a 7-point scale. it is assumed that teachers suffer from burnout when their scores on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are high, and their scores on personal accomplishment are low. examples of items indicating emotional exhaustion are: “at the end of the working day i feel empty” and “i feel tired when i get up in the morning, facing a new working day again”. the maximum score is 48. examples of depersonalization items are: “i have the feeling that i treat some students in an impersonal way” and “i don't really care what will become of my students”. the maximum score is 30. examples of items indicating personal accomplishment: are "when i have finished my instruction, i look back on it full of satisfaction" and "i have the feeling i achieve many things of great value in this job". the maximum score is 42. the three-factor structure of the dutch version of the maslach burnout inventory for teachers was investigated with confirmatory factor analysis (schaufeli, daamen, & van mierlo, 1994). job demands. job demands were measured on six items derived from a dutch questionnaire on organizational stress (vragenlijst organisatiestress-doetinchem, vos-d; bergers, marcelissen & de wolff, 1986). the items were adapted to the teaching profession. teachers could assign a score ranging from “seldom” to “very often” on a 5-point likert scale. examples of items are: “i have times when i (1) think that the total amount of work is too great, (2) feel that i have to work extra hard, and (3) feel i have onerous responsibilities in addition to teaching”. the maximum score is 30. in a study on organizational characteristics, work characteristics, and relationships with psychological work reactions in a dutch nursing sample, tummers, et al. (2006) found a cronbach’s alpha of .83 (n = 379). control. control was measured on six items derived from the maastricht autonomy questionnaire (maq); de jonge, landeweerd & van breukelen, 1994), an instrument for measuring autonomy or control in work situations. the items were adapted to the job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs 24 teaching profession. our respondents could assign a score ranging from “very little” to “very much” on a 5-point likert scale. examples of items are: “i think that my job gives me the opportunity (1) to determine my working objectives myself, (2) to determine the teaching activities myself, (3) to personally determine which activities i will perform”. the maximum score is 30. in a dutch study on the relationships between job characteristics and psychological well-being, de jonge, et al. (2001) used this scale and found a cronbach’s alpha of .81 (n = 261). colleague and school management support. colleague and school management support were measured using items taken from the emotional support subscale of the social support list – discrepancies (ssl–d; van sonderen, 1991). we used six items to measure colleague support and the same six items for school management support. these items measure the extent to which teachers feel a discrepancy between their need for supportive interactions with colleagues and school managers on the one hand and the amount and intensity of supportive interaction actually offered to them on the other. the items were measured on a 4-point scale with a response format ranging from 1 to 4: “this never happens; this doesn’t happen often enough; this happens fairly often; this happens too much.” since none of the participants in the present study chose the category “this happens fairly often; this happens too much” on any item of this scale, it was not necessary to test curvilinear relationships with other measured variables. the maximum score is 24. in a dutch study of the relationship between social support and well-being, van sonderen and ormel (1997) used this scale and found a cronbach’s alpha of .90 (n = 304). self-efficacy related to influencing job demands. we measured self-efficacy beliefs related to teachers’ influence on job demands with an instrument developed especially for this study, consisting of six items. the same formulations for measuring job demands were used, with teachers being asked to rate the extent to which they feel able to influence particular demands. the items were scored on a 6-point scale running from “totally disagree” to “completely agree”. high scores on the items are indicative of strong self-efficacy beliefs. examples of items are: “i am able to influence my work in such a way that i can (1) decrease the expected work pace, (2) reduce the instances when i have to work extra hard, (3) avoid having to take on too many responsibilities besides teaching”. the maximum score is 30. procedure the questionnaires were mailed to the home addresses of randomly selected pe teachers. in the accompanying letter, we explained the purpose of the study and asked the teachers to participate by filling out the self-report questionnaires and europe’s journal of psychology 25 sending them back anonymously and individually in postage-paid envelopes. to ensure a high response rate, the teachers were sent a written reminder asking them to return the completed forms anonymously in the postage-paid envelopes. we also used telephone reminders, since according to asch et al. (1997), telephone reminders are associated with higher response rates. results in order to be able to determine whether the five variables predicting burnout -i.e. job demands, job control, colleague support, school management support, and selfefficacy beliefs about influencing job demandsreflect five factors, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis using the amos 6.1 computer program. a five-factor model was formulated in which the items that were supposed to measure the same variable (i.e., job demands) were loaded on one factor. to decide whether the fivefactor model fit the data, the comparative fit index (cfi) was used, as research findings show that it is relatively independent of the sample size taken at random (bentler, 1990). when the value of cfi turned out to be higher than bentler and bonett’s (1980) recommended criterion of .90, we assumed that the model could not be significantly improved. the results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the five-factor model fit the data quite well (null model: 2(435) = 4404.40; five-factor model: 2(395) = 713.35, cfi = .92). table 1 shows the standardized regression coefficients of the five-factor model that can be interpreted as factor loadings. the lowest value of the standardized regression coefficients was .43, which implies that the items loaded well on the factors in question. after scaling, the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations were computed (see table 2). reliability analysis resulted in cronbach’s alphas of .91 for emotional exhaustion, .74 for depersonalization, .83 for personal accomplishment, .80 for job demands, .81 for control, .88 for colleague support, .92 for school management support, and .79 for self-efficacy beliefs about influencing job demands. the results of the reliability analysis show that only cronbach's alpha of the depersonalization subscale does not meet nunnally and bernstein’s (1994) criterion of .80 (1978); the other scales are quite reliable. job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs table 1. results of confirmatory factor analysis of the items of the independent variables. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- factors item no. item 1 2 3 4 5 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- job demands i have times when i 7. think the total amount of work is too great. .80 - - - - 1. find the expected work pace too fast. .72 - - - - 2. feel i have to work extra hard. .69 - - - - 3. have to work on various tasks simultaneously. .62 - - - - 14. feel i have onerous responsibilities in addition to teaching. .58 - - - - 4. would like more moments when i could take it easy. .47 - - - - autonomy / control i think that my job gives me the opportunity to 3. determine my working objectives myself. - .78 - - - 11. determine teaching activities myself. - .70 - - - 4. determine the sequence of duties myself. - .69 - - - 10. personally determine which activities i will perform. - .62 - - - 1. choose my own way of working. - .67 - - - 5. assess the quality of the results myself. - .43 - - - colleague support this never happens; this doesn’t happen often enough; this happens fairly often; this happens too much; my colleagues 5. encourage me. - - .82 - - 3. give me a push in the right direction. - - .79 - - 1. support me. - - .75 - - 2. revive me or cheer me up. - - .71 - - 6. help me clarify my problems. - - .70 - - 4. give me good advice. - - .70 - - school management support this never happens; this doesn’t happen often enough; this happens fairly often; this happens too much; the school management 26 europe’s journal of psychology 27 11. encourages me. - - - .85 - 9. gives me a push in the right direction - - - .85 - 10. gives me good advice. - - - .83 - 8. revives me or cheers me up. - - - .80 - 7. supports me. - - - .77 - 12. helps me clarify my problems. - - - .77 - self-efficacy beliefs about influencing job demands i am able to influence my work in such a way that i can 1. reduce the expected work pace. - - - - .71 2. reduce the instances when i have to work extra hard. - - - - .69 4. build in moments during which i can take it easy. - - - - .63 7. avoid having too much work to do. - - - - .61 14. avoid taking on too many responsibilities besides teaching. - - - - .53 3. avoid being compelled to work on various tasks simultaneously. - - - - .53 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- table 2. means and standard deviations of the variables and correlations between the variables. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. sex - - - 2. age 43.18 11.05 -.27** - 3. years of teaching gym 20.26 7.05 -.21** -.13* - 4. job demands 2.84 .74 .03 .20** -.09 - 5. control 3.46 .67 .00 -.14* .11* -.25** - 6. colleague support 2.57 .50 -.09 -.02 -.01 -.19** .05 - 7. school management support 2.16 .52 -.08 -.05 -.02 -.25** .08 .42** - 8. self-efficacy about influencing job demands 2.78 .64 -.14* -.06 .06 -.48** .42** .18** .23** - 9. emotional exhaustion 16.96 9.22 .08 .24** -.07 .64** -.31** -.37** -.32** -.42** - 10. depersonalization 6.25 4.14 -.07 .15** .02 .36** -.16** -.35** -.21** -.22** .58** - 11. personal accomplishment 27.96 5.80 -.06 -.15** .05 -.14* .25** .17** .11 .22** -.39** -.49** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ note: * < .05; ** < .01. job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs the correlation analyses (see table 2) showed that the older pe teachers are, the higher they score on job demands (r = .20, p < .01) and the lower on job control; r = .14, p < .05). the stronger the self-efficacy beliefs reported by the pe teachers about influencing job demands, (1) the lower the extent of perceived job demands (r = .48, p < .01), (2) the more opportunities they felt they had to control their work (r = .42, p < .01), and (3) the more support they got from their colleagues and school managers (r = .18, p < .01; r = .23, p < .01, respectively). the more job demands pe teachers experienced, the more likely they were to report (1) having fewer opportunities to control their work (r = -.25, p < .01), and (2) having less support from their colleagues as well as from their school managers (r = -.19, p < .01; r = -.25, p < .01, respectively). hierarchical regression analyses were carried out in order to investigate to what extent job demands, job control, colleague and managerial support and selfefficacy beliefs, as well as the product variables job demands x control, job demands x colleague support, job demands x school management support, job demands x self-efficacy beliefs, and self-efficacy beliefs x school management support, would explain their burnout level. in order to obtain beta-coefficients that were comparable with each other, we centered the variables job demands, job control, colleague and managerial support, and self-efficacy beliefs prior to the regression analyses. furthermore, the variables gender, age, and the number of years of teaching experience were statistically controlled for. with each burnout dimension as a dependent variable, these control variables were added to the regression equation in step 1, followed by job demands, job control, colleague and managerial support and self-efficacy beliefs in step 2 and the product variables in step 3. 28 job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs table 3. results of hierarchical regression analysis for the predicting variables of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- emotional exhaustion depersonalization personal accomplishment ------------------- ---------------- ----------------------- predicting variable b beta ∆r2 b beta ∆r2 b beta ∆r2 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- step 1 .08** .03 .04* sex .20 .08* -.15 -.08 -.14 -.08 age .00 .12** .00 .04 -.01 -.14* years of teaching gymnastics .00 .00 .00 .03 .00 .00 step 2 .44** .21** .08** job demands .77 .49** .30 .27** .00 .02 control -.23 -.13** .00 -.05 .21 .17** colleague support -.45 -.20** -.43 -.26** .18 .11 school management support -.15 -.08 .00 -.03 .00 .03 self-efficacy about influencing workload .00 -.04 .00 .01 .14 .11 step 3 .02 .04* .03 job demands x control -.22 -.10* -.24 -.16** .00 -.03 job demands x colleague support -.14 -.05 -.21 -.10 .30 .14* job demands x school management support .00 -.01 .00 .05 -.11 -.07 job demands x self-efficacy influence job demands .00 -.02 .00 -.04 .11 .07 self-efficacy influence job demands x school management support -.18 -.07 -.11 -.06 .29 .16* f-total for the equation 25.37** 8.15** 3.90** --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- note. * p < .05; ** p < .01. europe’s journal of psychology 29 job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs emotional exhaustion the results of the hierarchical regression analyses (table 3) revealed that both age and gender showed a significant and positive correlation with the burnout dimension emotional exhaustion ( = .12, p < .01). of the variables added in step 2, only job demands ( = .49, p < .01), job control ( = -.13, p < .01) and colleague support ( = -.20, p < .01) were significantly related to emotional exhaustion. of all the product variables that were incorporated in step 3 of the regression equation, only job demands x job control appeared to be significantly related to emotional exhaustion ( = -.10, p < .05). this means that the correlation between job demands and emotional exhaustion was lower the more teachers felt they could determine the way they worked (job control). depersonalization the variance in the depersonalization dimension of burnout was only significantly explained by job demands ( = .27, p < .01), colleague support ( = -.26, p < .01) and the product variable job demands x control ( = -.16, p < .01). high levels of depersonalization were related to higher incidences of job demands and higher levels of perceived lack of social support. the correlation between job demands and depersonalization was also shown to be stronger the more teachers felt they could determine the way they worked. personal accomplishment only age ( = -.14, p < .05), job control ( = .17, p < .01) and the product variables job demands x colleague support ( = .14, p < .05) and self-efficacy beliefs x school management support ( = .16, p < .05) were significantly related to the personal accomplishment dimension of burnout. personal accomplishment was higher the more teachers felt they could determine the way they worked. the teachers’ scores on personal accomplishment were also higher the younger they were. as for interactions, job control showed itself to be a moderator for the relationship between job demands on the one hand and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization on the other; colleague support was a moderator in the correlation between job demands and personal accomplishment, whereas school management support was a moderator in the correlation between self-efficacy beliefs about influencing the job and personal accomplishment. the total variance that could be explained by the predicting variables used in step 1, 2 and 3 was 54% for emotional exhaustion, 28% for depersonalization and 15% for personal accomplishment. 30 europe’s journal of psychology 31 discussion our study, which examined burnout among pe teachers, showed that each of the components of the karasek jdcs-model -job demands, job control, and colleague supportexplained a rather significant part of the variance on at least two burnout dimensions. especially noticeable was the variance on the variable job demands and the dimension of emotional exhaustion (table 3 shows that .49 x .49 = 24% of the variance was explained). furthermore, it is rather striking that job demands showed no significant correlation with personal accomplishment. the reason might be found in the fact that job demands had a direct influence on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and might have had an indirect influence through emotional exhaustion on personal accomplishment. we found support for this supposition in lee and ashforth (1993). the results also showed that the predicting variables explained a relatively high percentage of the variance on emotional exhaustion and a relatively low percentage for personal accomplishment. obviously, personal accomplishment is a concept relatively unrelated to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, as perceived by walkey and green (1992). as research suggests that personal accomplishment diminishes first when burnout develops, further research could focus on factors that are connected with this concept. according to van dierendonck, schaufeli, and buunk (2001), it is only when personal accomplishment has declined that depersonalization and emotional exhaustion develop. regression analysis also showed (table 3) that school management support and selfefficacy beliefs, although significantly related to two dimensions of burnout (table 2), did not explain any additional part of the variance on the burnout dimensions unless they interacted with either job demands, job control, or colleague support. the reason might be the location in which pe teachers give lessons, where they have less frequent social contact with colleagues and managers, which they consequently value more and consider more important. moreover, important issues that arise in explaining the onset of burnout, e.g. classroom discipline and lack of academic achievement (brouwers & tomic, 1999; martin, 1997), are of an entirely different nature when it comes to p. e. lessons. future studies could examine whether selfefficacy beliefs in domains different from job demands will explain part of the variance in pe teachers’ burnout. school management support and self-efficacy beliefs with respect to job demands, however, appeared to interact in the relationship with personal accomplishment. job demands, job control, social support and self-efficacy beliefs 32 the importance of control as a moderator in the relationship between job demands and emotional exhaustion and between job demands and depersonalization was confirmed, whereas it was found not to be important in the relationship between job demands and personal accomplishment. table 3 also showed that colleague support is only an important moderator in the relationship between job demands and personal accomplishment and not in the relationship between job demands and emotional exhaustion or depersonalization. the importance of school management support as a moderator in the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs about influencing job demands and the dimensions of burnout was affirmed for personal accomplishment only, and not for depersonalization and emotional exhaustion (in other words our hypothesis was confirmed for personal accomplishment only). our results reveal that the p. e. teacher’s age may be of some importance in explaining burnout. it may be that as they grow older, pe teachers suffer more physical complaints than other teachers. these complaints might have negative consequences for their emotional wellbeing and their ideas about personal competence. feelings of loss, e.g. the idea of having lost youthful agility and suppleness, might be at the basis of these negative selfevaluations. a potential limitation of our correlation design is that the causation of our findings could run in the opposite direction. therefore, we must look at its practical implications in a more careful and nuanced way. a possible intervention aimed at prevention of burnout, could be a mindfulness-based stress reduction (mbsr) training program, supplemented with cognitive elements aimed to help teachers reflect on strategies to cope with the demands of life and work. studies have shown that the mbsr-program can help to diminish psychosomatic symptoms among a broad spectrum of people working in a number of different occupations (chang et al., 2004; shapiro, astin, bishop, & cordova, 2005). in a pilot study napoli (2004) showed that teachers who followed the mbsr-program improved in their abilities to deal with conflict and anxiety, whereby they were less prone to experience a chronic stress level, eventually resulting in burnout. originally, the mbsr-program was an eightweek training course consisting of two and a half hour sessions that focus on learning how to relax attentively (kabat-zinn, 1990). later, the program was supplemented with cognitive techniques to suit patients suffering from depression (teasdale, segal, & williams, 1995). since job demands may have a significant impact on feelings of psychological well-being, it is important to extend the mbsr-program with cognitive elements which take issues regarding work load and the coping with this specific kind of stressors into account. such a program could be a meaningful part of the europe’s journal of psychology 33 curriculum for student teachers as well as a module intended to promote the professional development of pe teachers. our study is probably one of the first to examine burnout among a specific category of subject teachers. as stressors relating to burnout seem to differ from profession to profession, it is not too far-fetched to assume that stressors within one wide-ranging professional group such as teachers might differ from one subject to the next. examining specific categories of subject teachers may not only reveal relationships between stressors and burnout, but also offer insight into remedies that could provide specific help in relieving the consequences of burnout. furthermore, examining specific categories of subject teachers may make it possible to compare the working conditions of the various categories of teachers: is it indeed true that some categories of teachers are assigned more and heavier tasks than teachers in other categories? reliable findings in this regard could prevent overburdening of teachers, which often leads to negative stress reactions and burnout. this is what burnout research should in fact be all about: helping to create healthy work environments for professionals that enable them to perform their duties in peak condition, without falling victim to avoidable diseases. prevention is the magic word and will help save millions in social welfare payments and promote personal wellbeing for thousands. references asch, d. a., jedrziewski, m. k., & christakis, n. a. 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(1982). factors in burnout among teachers of exceptional children. exceptional child, 49, 261-263. about the authors: andré brouwers is currently at the open university of the netherlands, department of psychology. he has published widely in the field of occupational and organizational psychology, in particular on burnout. his current work centers on coaching and mindfulness research. address for correspondence: andré brouwers, department of psychology, the open university, p.o. box 2960, nl-6401 dl heerlen, the netherlands e-mail: andre.brouwers@ou.nl welko tomic is currently at the open university of the netherlands, department of psychology. he has published extensively on issues related to teacher behavior, transfer, and burnout. his current work focuses on creativity research, existential fulfillment, work engagement and psychosocial disorders. e-mail: welko.tomic@ou.nl huibrecht boluijt is a former physical education teacher with a master degree in psychology. currently, he is a health psychologist and owner of a psychological centre. mailto:welko.tomic@ou.nl microsoft word 3rd international conference children and youth in changing societies .doc 2 to 4 december 2010 thessaloniki, greece the past twenty years have witnessed an increased academic interest in issues related to children and young people. as a result, childhood and youth studies has emerged as a new field of interdisciplinary research in social sciences. whereas childhood and adolescence have been extremely popular topics in psychological research in the past, today these topics attract researchers from a wide range of scientific fields, including sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists, lawyers and legal theorists, who present a variety of theoretical approaches and research findings. the focus of this new field of studies is on the re-conceptualization of childhood and youth, as well as on the deeper understanding of the life experiences of children and young people in contemporary societies that are characterized by significant economic, political, social and cultural changes. therefore, in an era of social change and globalization it is imperative for scientists to examine how the lives of young people are both developed and transformed. the conference “children and youth in changing societies”, which is organized by the psychological association of northern greece in collaboration with the school of psychology at aristotle university of thessaloniki, has as an aim to incorporate all current debates on childhood and youth, and contribute to the development of an interdisciplinary research field, where insights, perspectives and methods from a variety of academic disciplines are truly integrated. the conference topics refer to all processes and transformations experienced by children and young people, including developmental, social, cultural, lifestyle, entertainment, family, and schoolto-work transitions, as well as their implications for physical and mental health. the conference welcomes individual papers, symposia, round tables and workshops (a) from researchers in a wide range of academic disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, education, anthropology, ethnology, cultural geographies, economics, criminology, law, history, media studies, gender studies, medicine, literature, and cultural studies, (b) from childhood and youth policy makers, and (c) from professionals working with children and young people, such as psychologists, youth workers, educationalists etc. the chair of the organizing committee vassiliki deliyanni-kouimtzis professor of psychology visit the website for more information http://www.psy.auth.gr/childrenandyouth2010/ europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp. 64-81 www.ejop.org expression of aggressive tendencies in the drawings of children and youth who survived the northern pakistan earthquake zainab fotowwat zadeh bahria university sonia mairaj malik bahria university abstract the study focused on the presence of aggressive tendencies in the drawings of children who survived the northern pakistan earthquake. the data was collected one year after the earthquake from sahara children academy (mallot tehsil) and surbuland (camp school set up by the army at district bagh). the sample consisted of 75 children (44 boys and 31 girls) age range from 5 to 15 years with a mean age of 8 years. the human figure drawing as projective test (koppitz, 1969) was used. the drawings were analyzed utilizing a list of emotional indicators for aggression. the list, consisting of 24 indicators, was drawn from the literature on assessment of human figure drawings (gilbert, 1980). the results indicated the presence of aggressive tendencies among these children with straight lines as the most frequently occurring indicator among both genders. chi square analysis was conducted to compare males and females for the frequency of occurrence of emotional indicators in drawings. findings reflect significant differences in frequency of occurrence of aggression related indicators between genders with calculated x2 =4.37, p<.05. however, there was no significant difference observed with reference to the content of emotional indicators for boys and girls. introduction natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and storms may produce psychological trauma which has profound effects on the intrapsychic, interpersonal, emotional, social, intellectual and neurological development of children and youth. the effects of these traumatic events on the psyche of the child depend on his age, expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 65 developmental stage, family and cultural milieu. most of the children will be able to cope over time with the help of parents and other caring adults. however, some children may be at risk of extreme reactions. the severity of children reactions will depend on their specific risk factors. these include exposure to the actual event, personal injury or loss of a loved one, dislocation from their house or community, level of parental support, the level of physical destruction, and preexisting risks, such a previous traumatic experiences and mental illness (hussain, 2005). elementary school children and adolescents may show symptoms like irritability, aggressiveness, clinginess, nightmares, school avoidance, poor concentration, and withdrawal from activities and friendships, sleeping and eating disturbances, agitation, increase conflicts, physical complaints and delinquent behavior (lazarus, jimerson and brock, 2002). trauma can be connected with anger in many ways. after experiencing trauma people often feel that the situation was unfair or unjust. the individual cannot comprehend why the event has happened and why it has happened to him. this thought can result in intense anger. although anger is a natural and healthy emotion, intense feeling of anger and aggressive behavior can cause learning and relational problems (gardner 1971, parson 1994). aggression can be studied in many ways. one of the ways employed to measure aggressive responses is through the human figure drawing test. lowenfeld (1947) has claimed that children exaggerate the size of drawings for topics which are important to them. a number of studies have been conducted to assess sex differences on different variables. aggression is the most popular field in this respect. elaenor maccody and carol jackelin (cited in zafran & zawitz, 1997) observed obvious differences in aggressive behavior, with males showing more aggression than females. on human figure drawings at all age levels, there appear to be some drawing items which are more masculine or feminine and which occur more often in the human figure drawings of boys or girls respectively. masculine items include profile drawing, ear and knee while feminine items include, hair, pupils, eyebrows, two lips and clothing ( koptiz, 1969). naumburg’s (1958) discussion of the famous study of the children of terezin, shows how art is used to overcome the catastrophic stressor of a concentration camp. it stresses the importance of being able to use non-verbal communication to express emotions. many clinicians use a projective drawing task as it is an "ice breaker" and an easy way to engage kids. drawings of children were studied after the 9/11 attack and it was found that children were expressing heightened states of fear by drawing europe’s journal of psychology 66 airplanes crashing into buildings. perhaps the friendliest of all psychological tools, drawing and story making tasks are especially suitable when dealing with children. they talk while they draw and express their feelings through this simple task, with or without colors. the basic assumption is that the child projects things onto the drawings that by this come to talk about him. moreover, children try to make sense of the event by discussing their pictures and try to correct the event by drawing patriotic symbols (myers, 2002). machover (1949) was among the first clinicians to be interested in the human figure drawings as a projective instrument, focusing on how the drawings reflected the anxieties, impulses, self-esteem, and personality of the test taker. many studies have been conducted using the human figure drawings in the diagnosis of psychoses, symptoms of anxiety, depression and schizophrenia (deslauriers & halpern, 1947, baldwin 1964, arieti, 1974). dileo, (1973) after using the human figure drawing effectively in many researches came to various conclusions:  drawing by well adjusted children are ‘strikingly similar’, and those drawings done by the emotionally disturbed children are ‘strikingly different’ from the well adjusted children’s drawings and from each other, ‘as each child is disturbed in his own special way’.  as a projective test he enumerates a number of signs on the human figure drawing test that can be indicators of feelings and personality traits. this test also is an indicator of security and insecurity for example insecure children can draw small figures. maladjusted children tend to omit arms, hidden hands are considered as an expression of guilt. this test was also used by him as an indicator of aggressive tendencies which are shown by the exaggerated size of hands. in case the exaggerated size of hands is portrayed in the self figure the drawing indicates aggression towards another. but when the same drawing of exaggerated drawing is portrayed in the figure of parents it indicates aggression incurred by the patient from the environment. he also concludes that an explicit manifestation of genitals in the human figure drawings is and indicator of behavior disorders, aggression and phobias.  he claimed that drawings of the family can be an aid to assess the emotional life of the child. this is especially true for children who are going through the latency period i.e. younger children ranging from age 6 to 10 years who are not willing or able to give verbal expression to their emotional conflicts, thus becoming imperative to ask them to draw a family figure. the indicators of the family relationship for example, omission of a family member, omission of self, expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 67 relative position, similarly relative size, role in the family interaction and isolation all these become a valuable aid in the interpretation of the child’s psychopathology. moreover, daum (1983) explored the level of association between a feature in a drawing and a behavioral or personality trait. in this study the human figure drawings of 200 aggressive or withdrawn male delinquents were evaluated and compared with both undifferentiated delinquents and non delinquents with the expectation that the former groups would show a higher incidence of those features which have been associated with these respective traits. significant differences were found for 6 of the 16 features, and predictive power was substantially increased by using all the features as indicators of their respective traits. glazer (1999) describes art as having an inherent therapeutic value, constituting the symbolic speech of suppressed feelings. stronach-buschel (1990) explains that art therapy is described as a method of non-verbal communication, for example a child drawing a picture to express his or her emotions. furthermore, the human figure drawing test is also used in the educational and clinical settings. one of the most attractive features of this projective measure is the near universality of drawing. it is easy to administer with reasonable standardization in a wide variety of age and cultural groups. the fact the response is not mediated by language suggests that the technique may be less subjective to cultural and age limits than many other projective techniques. it can be administered individually or in a group condition. it can be administered in a brief period of time. the purpose of the test is well cloaked from all but the most sophisticated subjects. thus it is not easy for the subjects to create a desired impression (lindzey, 1961). sundberg (1959) used a survey to determine which tests were mostly used by the psychologists in their clinical work and found that human figure drawing test ranked two after rorscach among all the 62 projective and objective diagnostic tests reported in the survey. however the human figure drawing test utilization in a clinical context has dropped to fifth from second and the terms "objective test" and "projective test" have recently come under criticism in the journal of personality assessment (klopfer, taulbee, 1976). there remain some controversy regarding the utility and validity of projective testing which is based on freud's concept of projecting one's own personality europe’s journal of psychology 68 attributes onto a neutral stimulus. however, many practitioners continue to rely on projective testing. human figure drawings have become a popular mode of child assessment, along with numerous systems for interpretation of the drawings, due to time economy, ease of administration, and the clinical information provided, and are widely used cross-culturally to evaluate personality by anthropologists and social psychologists (dennis, 1966, gardiner, 1969, gonzales, 1982). considering the fact that there is dearth of all kinds of psychological tests in pakistan, the human figure drawing test was especially chosen as the interpretation norms for this test have been already established in pakistan (hasan & ahmad, 1990). utilizing koppitz’s (1969) method, the test was found to be highly valid as a measure of emotional indicators (ei) when correlated with the ratings of the teachers on the kopptiz questionnaire for the measurement of emotional problems. the study also indicated that the cut off point is three emotional indicators (per drawing, out of 30 emotional indicators) in pakistan instead of a point of two emotional indicators in the advanced countries. the findings of the study also showed a cluster of frequent and rare emotional indicators for the pakistani culture. furthermore, in a study conducted by bano, irshad & ahmad (2004) on the afghan refugee children human figure drawing test (hfd) was used to tap aggression as an emotional indicator reflected in the drawings. the findings of the study indicated the frequency of occurrence for specific indicators related to aggression among refugee children; differences between males and females were also reported. moreover, a list of emotional indicators containing 24 aggression indicators was utilized in this study for analyzing the drawings, this list was drawn from the literature on drawings analysis (gilbert, 1980), and the exact same list was used in the present study for scoring and analyzing the drawings. marsee (2008) conducted a study to explore the association between exposure to hurricane katrina and reactive aggression via post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) symptoms and poorly regulated emotions. in this research 166 adolescents (61% female, 63% caucasian) recruited from high schools of gulf coast of mississippi participated in the study. the present study explores the psychological after effects of the earthquake that shook the northern region of pakistan. the earthquake of 8th october 2005 in the northern regions of pakistan left 2.8 million homeless, more than 80,000 dead, and expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 69 an equal number injured. it destroyed 0.2 million houses (akhtar, anwar, khan., noshab, sadiq, bashir, and sarwar, 2006). the study aims at scientifically analyzing the presence of aggressive tendencies in the drawings of the children who survived the northern pakistan earthquake. furthermore, it focuses on a theoretical model illustrating a potential pathway to reactive aggression through exposure to a traumatic event. in light of the current literature it was assumed that the drawings of children and youth effected by the northern pakistan earthquake will exhibit aggressive tendencies. method participants the sample consists of 75 children (44 boys and 31 girls) age range from 5 to 15 years. the students were studying at the sahara children academy (mallot tehsil) and surbuland (camp school set up by the army at district bagh). materials the material included the human figure drawing test (koppitz 1969); a list of 24 aggression indicators utilized by bano, irshad & ahmad (2004) was used in the present study (this list was drawn from the literature for analyzing by gilbert, 1980). human figure drawing test as a projective test was used in the present study as the use of language is at its minimum and simple instructions are given by the examiner during the test administration, therefore it is easier to translate them into urdu or any other regional language of pakistan without changing the spirit of the real test. list of emotional indicators (gilbert, 1980) sr.# aggression indicators 1 weapons, knives and gun 2 long arms extended from body and overlong 3 long arms 4 claw fingers 5 hands emphasized 6 long fingers 7 eyes emphasized 8 angular body europe’s journal of psychology 70 9 arms out with fists clenched 10 few curves, many sharp edges 11 figure clothed with toes exposed 12 heavy shading 13 large same sex figure 14 middle of page drawing 15 more than five fingers 16 pressure 17 shoulders squared 18 straight lines 19 strokes away from subject 20 teeth well-defined 21 large figure shifted to left 22 chin enlarged 23 spear fingers 24 hands powerful procedure the students were met after a year of the earthquake and were approached in their classrooms. this time frame was chosen as frequently a person’s reactions to trauma initially meet the criteria for acute stress disorder in the immediate aftermath of the trauma (this lasts for a minimum of two days and a maximum of 4 weeks). symptoms for ptsd usually begin within the first three months after the trauma; there may be a delay of months or even years before symptoms appears, complete recovery occurs within three 3 months in approximately half of the cases, however, many may have persistent symptoms longer than 12 months after the trauma (dsm iv tr, 2000). it was therefore the best time to acknowledge that survivors can be involved with the disaster aftermath even after a year and identify individuals who were not given any formal diagnosis during the required period but may manifest behavioral problems or vulnerability to emotional issues in future. initial rapport was built with them. the students were provided with 81/2 x 11 inch white paper sheets and the standard instructions for the hfd as given by koppitz (1969) were communicated to them, instruction given as follows: “on this piece of paper i would like you to draw a whole person. it can be any kind of a person you expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 71 want to draw, just make sure that it is a whole person and not a stick figure or a cartoon figure”. it was ensured that they understood it and drew a whole person. the drawings were then analyzed for the presence of emotional indicators of aggression as given by gilbert (1980). the data received was then sorted by gender and age along with the frequency of the aggression indicators. percentages were calculated for both genders separately as well as by summing up the entire data to find out the occurrence of emotional indicators irrespective of gender differences. results the results shown in table 1 and 2 indicate the presence of aggression indicators in these drawings and verify the association of reactive aggression indicators in the drawings with the history of trauma. the data reports 16.37 % of children drew figures with straight lines (see fig 01), 7.5 % drew claw fingers and reflected pressure (see fig 02). long arms (see fig 03) were drawn by 7.1 % while 6.63 % drew clothed figure with toes exposed. 5% drew teeth which were well-defined (see fig 04). 4.86% emphasized eyes (indicator for aggressive and assault behavior) while 4 % had drawn spear fingers, squared shoulders and long arms extended from body and overlong. none of the drawings revealed weapons, knives and guns. table 1. showing percentage of aggressive emotional indicators in females sr.# aggression indicators response frequency percentage 1 weapons, knives and gun 0 0 2 long arms extended from body and overlong 4 4.1 3 long arms 10 10.2 4 claw fingers 5 5.1 5 hands emphasized 5 5.1 6 long fingers 1 1 7 eyes emphasized 6 6.1 8 angular body 5 5.1 9 arms out with fists clenched 2 2 10 few curves, many sharp edges 8 8.16 11 figure clothed with toes exposed 9 9.2 12 heavy shading 0 0 13 large same sex figure 1 1 14 middle of page drawing 5 5.1 europe’s journal of psychology 72 15 more than five fingers 2 2 16 pressure 3 3 17 shoulders squared 1 1 18 straight lines 15 15.3 19 strokes away from subject 0 0 20 teeth well-defined 8 8.16 21 large figure shifted to left 0 0 22 chin enlarged 2 2 23 spear fingers 3 3 24 hands powerful 3 3 table 2. showing percentage of aggressive emotional indicators in males sr.# aggression indicators response frequency percentages 1 weapons, knives and gun 0 0 2 long arms extended from body and overlong 5 4 3 long arms 6 4.7 4 claw fingers 12 9.4 5 hands emphasized 2 1.56 6 long fingers 2 1.56 7 eyes emphasized 5 4 8 angular body 9 7 9 arms out with fists clenched 1 0.78 10 few curves, many sharp edges 4 3 11 figure clothed with toes exposed 6 4.7 12 heavy shading 7 5.5 13 large same sex figure 2 1.56 14 middle of page drawing 2 1.56 15 more than five fingers 2 1.56 16 pressure 14 11 17 shoulders squared 9 7 18 straight lines 22 17 19 strokes away from subject 2 1.56 20 teeth well-defined 4 3 21 large figure shifted to left 1 0.78 22 chin enlarged 5 4 23 spear fingers 6 4.7 24 hands powerful 0 0 expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 73 there is a variety of responses among males and females with 17% and 15% responses respectively revealing a straight line. the males reported more pressure at 11% while 3% of females drew pressure. around 9.4% males drew claw fingers as compared to 5% females. angular body and shoulders squared (see fig 05) were drawn by 7 % boys while 5.5 % shaded the drawing heavily (see fig 06) while no drawing among the females was shaded heavily. europe’s journal of psychology 74 among the female students 10% drew long arms and 9% drew figures that were clothed with toes exposed. 8.16% drew few curves with a figure having many sharp edges and well-defined teeth (see fig 07) while 3 % of males drew it respectively. 6% emphasized eyes while 5% drew claw fingers, emphasized hands and drew the figure in the middle of the page. the results generally reveal the frequency of four indicators per drawing. the cut off point is three for emotional indicators (per drawing) in pakistan as suggested in study conducted by hasan & ahmad (1990) utilizing the koppitz (1969) method, the same cut off point was used here to interpret the drawings for emotional indicators. the results shown in table no 3 clarifies that significant differences were observed for the frequency of occurrence of emotional indicators for aggression between genders. chi square analysis was conducted to compare males and females for the frequency of occurrence of emotional indicators, findings reflect significant difference in frequency of occurrence of indicators related to aggression between both the genders with calculated x2 =4.37, p<.05. however, there was no significant difference observed with the reference to the content of emotional indicators between boys and girls. expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 75 table 3: showing difference in the chi square values for frequency of occurrence of emotional indicators for aggression in both the genders emotional indicators for aggression x2 n df level of significance all 24 indicators 4.37 75 1 p<.05 table 4: showing frequency of emotional indicators for aggression in each drawing1 emotional indicators for aggression drawings with one or no indicators drawings with two indicators drawings with three indicators drawings with four or more indicators total boys 09 07 12 16 44 girls 02 07 10 12 31 total 11 14 22 28 75 drawings classified as showing low aggressive tendencies showing average aggressive tendencies showing high aggressive tendencies showing very high aggressive tendencies the results shown in table no 4 indicate that out of 75 drawings 11 drawings show one or no emotional indicator for aggression per drawing (classified as drawings showing low aggressive tendencies), 14 drawings show two emotional indicators for aggression per drawing (classified as drawings showing average aggressive tendencies), 22 drawings show at least three emotional indicators for aggression per drawing (classified as drawings showing high aggressive tendencies) and 28 drawings show four or more than four emotional indicators for per drawing (classified as drawings showing very high aggressive tendencies). therefore, on the basis of the results shown in table no 4 it may be concluded that out of 75 children 50 children could be diagnosed as showing aggressive tendencies through their drawings. 1 classification is based on the cut off point identified for emotional indicators and norms established for hfd test in pakistan by hasan & ahmad (1990) utilizing koppitz (1969) europe’s journal of psychology 76 discussion the results displayed in table 1 and 2 indicate the presence of aggressive tendencies among these children with straight lines as the most frequently occurring indicator among both genders. the presence of aggressive indicators in these drawings thus verifies the association of reactive aggression indicators in the drawings of children with the history of trauma. the impact of environment and natural disasters is clearly seen among these children as their drawings revealed their anger. emotional indicators, long arms, powerful hands as well as teeth, occurred significantly more often on the hfds of the aggressive children than on the drawings of the shy children. these three items seem to reflect aggressiveness and acting out behavior (koppitz, 1969). furthermore, machover (1949) also found emotional indicators of power hand, hands overlong and extended, heavy pressure, among children who have aggressive tendencies. hammer (1963) found teeth well defined as an emotional indicator among children having aggressive tendencies. moreover, presence of teeth might indicate not only oral aggression but also sadistic tendencies teeth seem to be a valid indicator for measurement of aggression by human figure drawing. teeth occurred most often on the records of the overtly aggressive children, it may also be concluded that teeth are sign of aggressiveness and not only of oral aggression (kopitz , 1969). the findings of the present research reconfirms the presence of similar emotional indicator related to aggression (e.g. pressure, teeth, long arms or arms extended, claw fingers) in the drawings of pakistani youth with the history of trauma which gives the clue for aggressive tendencies in these children. this confirms that these indicators have good interpretive value and are valid emotional indicators for measurement of aggressive tendencies on human figure drawings test for pakistani children as well. however, it is interesting to note here that “straight line” as an emotional indicator has more interpretive value for measurement of aggressive tendencies in the drawings of pakistani children with the history of trauma. the results clearly indicate the importance of hfd as a tool in assessing for signs of aggression and other behavioral symptoms. these drawings exhibit controlled, uncontrollable, repressed, passive anger, which can further be taken in account when helping these children. when males and females were compared for the frequency of occurrence of aggressive emotional indicators they seem to significantly differ as indicated in table expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 77 no 3, with high frequency of males associated with most of the emotional indicators for aggression. thus it becomes evident that there is a significant difference observed in drawing of both the genders with regard to expression of aggression. this may be because the cultural norms and values with relevance to expression of aggression for both the genders differ in pakistan (hasan & ahmad, 1990). the results shown in table no 4 indicates that out of 75 drawings 11 drawings show one low aggressive tendencies (with one or no emotional indicators for aggression per drawing ), 14 drawings show average aggressive tendencies (with two emotional indicators for aggression per drawing), 22 drawings show high aggressive tendencies (with three emotional indicators for aggression per drawing) and 28 drawings show very high aggressive tendencies (with four or more than four emotional indicators for aggression per drawing). thus in the light of the findings it may be concluded that out of 75 children 50 children could be diagnosed as showing considerable aggressive tendencies through their drawings. the findings confirm the expectation about occurrence of large number of emotional indicators related to aggression in the drawings of children with the history of trauma. these research findings have implications for post disaster mental health services. traditionally researchers focus on the internalized problems such as anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress disorder symptoms. very little attention is paid to post disaster externalized problems such as aggression. specific types of aggression responses, particularly those that involve poorly regulated emotion (i.e. reactive aggression), have been found to be associated with history of trauma (marsee, 2008) and thus may be especially common following a traumatic event such as an earthquake. marsee (2008) proposed a theoretical model illustrating a potential pathway to reactive aggression through exposure to traumatic event. the findings of the current study support the association between exposure to traumatic event and presence of aggression indicators in the drawings of children with the history of trauma. however, the association between exposure to trauma and reactive aggressive behavior via poorly regulated emotions couldn’t be confirmed by findings of the present study as data about the actual levels of aggressive behavior of children could not obtained through, parents, teachers or observation, due to language barrier, lack or time and resources. therefore, this is one limitation of this study and in future this information could be added to validate the children trauma through other means as well. this study was also limited on participants, number of participants could be increased in future study so that the difference between the content of aggressive indicators may also be studied with the reference to both the genders and this would be another very interesting area to explore. europe’s journal of psychology 78 finally on the basis of the findings of the present study it can be safely concluded that drawing is an powerful tool to measure aggressive tendencies in youth who have difficulty expressing their feelings in words, or may have problems expressing themselves either due to language barriers or due to any other inhibitions related to cultural norms for both the genders. furthermore, once aggressive tendencies are screened out in children though frequency of occurrence of emotional indicators for aggression in drawings, the same technique may be used as a therapeutic tool for catharsis and providing an outlet for the children in stress or with a history of trauma. drawing could also be used as a medium of choice by children to express and regulated their emotion (e.g anger). brenkman (1999) found that art therapy is becoming a popular tool to work with children. the findings of this study do not only support the use of the human figure drawing test as diagnostic tool for identifying aggressive tendencies in pakistani children with the history of trauma, but suggests that the test may also act as a preventive measure, helping to screen out aggressive tendencies through aggression indicators in drawings and by this to provide timely support to highly vulnerable youth with history of trauma. references akhtar, s., anwar, t., khan, n.a., noshab, f., sadiq, m., bashir, s. and sarwar, n. (2006), pakistan 2005 earthquake: an assessment of impoverishment risks, (crprid research team) centre for research on poverty reduction and income distribution, www.crprid.org. american psychiatric association,(2000). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fourth edition, text revision. 1000 wilson boulevard. arlington, v a. arieti, s., (1974). interpretations of schizophrenia. basic books, inc., new york. baldwin, i. t. the head body ratio in human figure drawings of schizophrenic and normal adults. j. proj, tech. & pers. asses., 28:393-396. bano, m., irshad, e., ahmed, r. (2004), emotional indicators of aggression in human figure drawing of afghan refugee children, pakistan journal of psychology, june 2004, 35, 5165. expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 79 brenkman, j. 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(1969), psychological evaluation of children’s human figure drawings, grune & stratton, n.y. lazarus.p.j.,jimerson, s.r., brock, s.e. (2002). natural disaster. in s.e. brock, p.j lazarus, & s. r jimerson (eds), best practices in school crisis prevention and intervention (pp. 435450). bethesda, md: national association of school psychologists. lindzey, g., (1961). projective techniques and cross cultural research. appleton century crofts, inc. new york. lowenfield, v., (1947). creative and mental growth, in fax, t. j and thomas g.v (1990) children’s drawings of an anxiety eliciting topic. effects on the size of the drawing. british journal of clinical psychology, 29, 71-78. machover, k., (1949). personality projection in the drawing of the human figure. c.c. thomas. springfield, iii marsee, m . a., (2008), reactive aggression and posttruamatic stress in adolescents affected by hurricane katrina. journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology, v37 n7 p 519-529 , july. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/defualt.html myers, b. (2002). helping children cope with disaster. washington, dc: national institute of mental health association. naumberg, m. (1958). art therapy : its scope and function in the clinical application of projective drawings. new york: gurne and stratton as cited by jacobs. parson, e. i, (1994). post-traumatic stress and coping in an inner city child: traumatogenic witnessing of inter-parental violence and murder. psychoanalytic study of the child, so. stronach-buschel, b. (1990). art therapy for children: post-traumatic stress disorder in children. american journal of art therapy, 29, 48-52. sundberg , n.d., (1976). the practice of psychological testing in clinical services in the united states. in the clinical psychologists. (eds) b. lubin & e.e. levitt. aldine publishing co. schage, 155-162. zafran, a., & zawitz, d. (1997). gender & sex roles. www. about com. expression of aggressive tendencies in drawings 81 about the authors: dr. zainab f. zadeh is currently the director of the institute of professional psychology at bahria university, karachi campus, pakistan. she obtained her doctorate from bahria university in the year 2004. she has published articles in the areas of marriage systems in pakistan and their socio-economic dynamics, adolescents and self concepts, qualitative studies with delusional and psychotic patients. her published articles also include topics like emotional intelligence, stress at work and gender differences along with analysis of play therapy sessions. she is a member of apa and apt. she also holds a diploma in humanistic counselling from the london school of counselling. e-mail: zainfz@yahoo.com sonia mairaj malik is currently a lecturer at the institute of professional psychology at bahria university, karachi campus, pakistan. she completed her masters in clinical psychology and is a phd candidate at the institute. she teaches at both graduate and postgraduate levels. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 148-169 www.ejop.org an experimental study of the psychological impact of a mindfulnessbased stress reduction program on highly sensitive persons ilse soons andré brouwers welko tomic the open university, heerlen, the netherlands abstract background. the mindfulness based stress reduction (mbsr) program has been provided in a variety of settings, and for a variety of individuals. over two decades of research show that its effectiveness has been made plausible. however, the effects of mbsr interventions on highly sensitive persons (hsps) have not been examined to date. aim. this study investigated the effects of participation in a mbsr program on symptoms of stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance, emotional empathy, personal growth, and selftranscendence in hsps. sample. forty-seven participants, 34 females (72%), enrolled in an eight-week mbsr program. method. participants were matched on sensitivity scores, the amount of experience in relaxation exercise, gender, age and level of education. subsequently, they were randomly assigned to an experimental group (first trained group), and a control group (second trained group). the mbsr program, an intensive training in mindfulness meditation, consisted of eight sessions of two and a half hours each. results. findings showed that immediately after the eight-week program, as well as four weeks later, the participating hsps suffered less from stress and appeared to have less social anxiety, whereas their scores for mindfulness, emotional empathy, personal growth initiative, self-acceptance and self-transcendence were significantly higher. effect sizes ranged from medium (0.63) to very large (2.52). these effects persisted at 4weeks follow-up and even improved significantly for stress, social anxiety and selfacceptance. conclusion. the mbsr program has the capacity to help hsps to deal with stress and social anxiety, as well as to develop their assumed greater capabilities for empathy, personal growth, and self-transcendence. mbsr could offer a meaningful supplement to therapies for hsps. keywords: emotional empathy, highly sensitive persons, mbsr program, personal growth initiative, sensitivity, self-acceptance, self-transcendence, social anxiety, stress. http://www.ejop.org/ mindfulness-based stress reduction program 149 introduction the current study examined the psychological impact of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program (mbsr) on highly sensitive persons (hsps). highly sensitive persons have the ability to perceive low-intensity stimuli that originates from the environment, the body, or self-cognition. they tend to process and respond to lower thresholds of information and to better detect subtle differences in the environment (liss, timmele, baxley & killingworth, 2005, p. 1430). moreover, the hsp is more aware of emotional sensations associated with stimuli of low intensity. this trait might manifest itself in the observation of behavior that is both emotional and subtle in nature. in addition, the hsp is characterized by the presence of spontaneous cognitive activity in the form of thoughts and/or images that have no connection with the physical environment of the individual (rothbart & evans, 2007). based on an extensive search in databases such as psycinfo, pubmed, worldcat, medline and eric, it was observed that the mbsr program has not yet been examined for effectiveness among hsps. nevertheless, it may be expected that the mbsr program will be meaningful for hsps. first, highly sensitive individuals, compared with non-hsps, suffer frequently from stress and anxiety in social and crowded situations (aron, 1996). second, they have a lower level of self-acceptance as well as negative attitudes and resistance towards crowded and/or social situations (liss et al., 2005; benham, 2006; hofmann & bitran, 2007; aron, 1996). the mbsr program has been shown to be effective in reducing the above-mentioned problems (miller, fletcher, & kabat-zinn, 1995; shapiro, schwartz, & bonner, 1998; chang, palesh, caldwell, glasgow, abramson, luskin, gill, burke, & koopman, 2004; shapiro, astin, bishop, & cordova, 2005, kabat-zinn, massion, kristeller, peterson, fletcher, pbert, lenderking & santorelli, 1992, carson & langer, 2006, thompson & waltz, 2007). mbsr is an eight-week training program that consists of eight sessions of two and a half hours each. it is an intensive training in mindfulness meditation. participants commit themselves to spend at least 45 minutes daily, six days a week, conducting mbsr exercises during the training period. the mbsr program aims to teach participants to be primarily oriented to the experience of the present moment with everything what presents itself mentally with mild, non-judgmental and open attention (kabat-zinn, 1990). they are encouraged to allow and observe unpleasant thoughts and feelings, without judging and fighting them. in a few studies of people suffering from induced psychosis due to stressful factors, chadwick et al. (2005) and abba, chadwick and stevenson (2008) found that participants in the mbsr program learned to accept voices, thoughts and images instead of resisting them. since hsps europe’s journal of psychology 150 also wrestle with cognitive stimuli such as intense inner dialogues and images, it can be expected that they will also be better able to accept continued stimulation and themselves after participating in the mbsr training program. research shows that the mbsr program was effective in reducing several criteria relevant to hsp such as stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance and empathy. the current study experimentally examined the mbsr program among hsps on the above criteria, among other things. stress. stress refers to the strains that people encounter throughout life. numerous studies found that participants experienced less stress after completing the mbsr program (e.g., schapiro et al., 1998, chang et al. 2004, shapiro et al., 2005). since hsps, as compared to their counterparts, often evaluate the same situation as more stressful and report more stress (benham, 2006; aron, 1996), it is important to test the effectiveness of the mbsr program among hsps. anxiety. anxiety is a mental and physiological state characterized by cognitive, physical, emotional and behavioral components (seligman, walker, & rosenhan, 2001). social anxiety is a specific form, characterized by an intense and persistent fear of social situations or performance. a number of studies conducted in both clinical and non-clinical groups showed that participating in the mbsr program leads to anxiety reduction (e.g., miller et al., 1995, shapiro et al., 1998, kabat-zinn et al., 1992). because hsps have a higher sensitivity for (social) anxiety (hofmann & bitran, 2007; aron, 1996), it is expected that they could benefit from the mbsr program. self-acceptance. self-acceptance refers to the ability to accept the natural limitations of life, one’s own possibilities and impossibilities, the self, and one’s potentialities and intrinsic limitations. according to loonstra, brouwers, and tomic, 2007, the latter refers to limitations that are not imposed by others but stem from one’s own nature. for example, being left alone is not an intrinsic limitation, but rather a limitation imposed by others (buber, 1970). however, feeling alone and having difficulties with being alone are intrinsic limitations (loonstra, brouwers & tomic, 2007, 2009). hsps often feel as though they fail in their duties (aron, aron, & davies, 2005; aron, 1996). this particular feeling has a negative influence on the extent to which they accept themselves. after all, it is conceivable that it is more difficult for a hsp to stay on his/her feet in environments overloaded with stimuli. for instance, others are not adversely affected by loud music or swarms of people, whereas hsps experience these as excessively stimulating and stressful (schütte, marks, wenning, & griefahn (2007). since the mbsr program is aimed at learning to mindfulness-based stress reduction program 151 adequately cope with a variety of stimuli (abba et al., 2008), it is likely that selfacceptance will increase among hsps after participation in the training. in a study published by abba et al. (2008), participants in a mbsr program reported a higher degree of self-acceptance after training. empathy. empathy refers to the ability to imagine other persons’ thoughts, feelings and emotions, conceptualized as empathy (lesh, 1970). nearly a decade before mbsr was applied, a survey among social workers demonstrated that mindfulness meditation has a positive effect on empathy. the results of shapiro et al. (1998), who investigated the effects of mbsr among medical students, point in the same direction. hsps have the ability to observe subtle stimuli of an emotional nature. other persons who observe this particular ability turn to them for support and take them into their confidence (van den beuken, 2006; aron, 1996; rothbart & evans, 2007). since hsps, compared to their counterparts, seem to have a higher level of empathic ability, the question remains whether participating in a mbsr program will contribute to further development of that ability. in addition to stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance and empathy, the present study examined whether participation in a mbsr program reinforces the intention to personal growth among hsps. robitschek (1998) described the intention to personal growth as a meta-cognitive construct with a facilitating effect on the “intentional engagement in growth-enhancing cognitions and behaviors in all areas of life" (p. 184). although the intention to personal growth has not yet been examined among mbsr program participants, it is plausible that the program will reinforce this intention. for example, in a study of college students, chappell hudgins (2006) found that stress management training resulted in an increased intention to personal growth. finally, higher scores on the criterion of self-transcendence are expected after participation in the mbsr program. through this ability, the individual is able to make intentional contacts with the world beyond the self, which imposes ultimate meaning on life. one who transcends the self recognizes the otherness of the reality beyond the self, searches for respectful relationships with it, derives life-meaning from these relationships and feels responsible for them, feels as though he/she is part of a larger whole, distinguishes interests that surpass self-interests and is able to see the self in perspective of the outer reality (loonstra et al., 2007; reed, 1991). additionally, mindfulness meditation affects relational frameworks such as me versus you, now versus then, and here versus there. as a result of this form of meditation, participants increasingly consider their self as context and the relationship between europe’s journal of psychology 152 the self and the other is experienced differently (hayes, jason, luoma, et al., 2006; mchugh, barnes-holmes, & barnes-holmes, 2004). the aforementioned perspectives are also the basic principles of acceptance and commitment therapy, and mindfulness meditation forms an important part of this therapy (hayes, jason, luoma, et al., 2006). it can be expected that participation in the mbsr program will increase the degree of self-transcendence in hsps. method research design two groups of hsps were compared: an experimental group, labeled as the firsttrained group, and a control group (a waiting list group) labeled as the secondtrained group. the mbsr program was administered to the first trained group between the pre-test (o1a) and the first post-test (o2a) (see table 1). four weeks later, this group participated in a second post-test (o3). the second-trained group was administered the mbsr program after the first trained group completed the first post-test (o2a). to function as a control group, two tests were administered to the second-trained group prior to the mbsr program (o1b and o2b), and at the same time, the first trained group completed the coinciding tests (o1a and o2a). similar to the first trained group, two post-tests were administered to the second-trained group: directly after the mbsr program was administered (o4) and four weeks later (o5). the same instruments were applied (o1-o5). the period of time between o1a and o2a was equal to o2b and o4, namely eight weeks. table 1: experimental design _________________________________________________________________ measurements -------------------------------------------------------------- condition t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- first-trained group o1a x o2a 4 weeks o3 second-trained group o1b o2b o4 4 weeks o5 __________________________________________________________________ note. t: moment of measurement; o: observation; x: mbsr program of 8 weeks mindfulness-based stress reduction program 153 participants forty-seven hsps participated in the mbsr program, 13 males (28%) and 34 females (72%). their age ranged from 18 to 75 years, with an average of 39.23 years (sd=15.40). their education varied from average (34%) to high (66%). none of the participants had a low educational level. all participants were born and live in belgium. the participants scored relatively high on the three dimensions of sensitivity, which were used to decide whether they satisfied the criteria of hsp’s. moreover, the variances of their sensitivity scores were relatively low, which indicates that they were rather homogeneous in this regard. in comparison with two studies of non-hsps (n=258 and n=700, respectively; evans and rothbart, 2007), the mean scores of our sample were significantly higher on the neutral perceptual sensitivity subscale (t(303) = 10.81, p < .001; t(745) = 23.08, p < .001), the affective perceptual sensitivity subscale (t(303) = 7.93, p < .001; t(745) = 21.52, p < .001), as well as the associative sensitivity subscale (t(303) = 5.66, p < .001; t(745) = 22.92, p < .001). in addition, the mean scores on the sensitivity scales in our study (6.09 (sd=.35), 6.06 (sd=.42), 5.83 (sd=.43), respectively) were more than one standard deviation above the mean scores in two evans and rothbart’s (2007) studies (4.96 (sd=.70) & 3.98 (sd=.62); 5.02 (sd=.88) & 3.40 (sd=.84); 5.16 (sd=.79) & 3.36 (sd=.73). if our participants were indeed hsp´s, it was expected that their sensitivity scores were significantly more homogeneous than in the evans and rothbart (2007) studies. none of the participants in the latter studies were hsp´s. to evaluate this hypothesis, bartlett´s test of equality of the variances was used. results revealed that the variances in our sample were significantly lower on the neutral perceptual sensitivity subscale (χ2=7.94, p<.01; χ2=5.98, p<.05), the affective perceptual sensitivity subscale (χ2=8.95, p<.005; χ2=8.50, p<.005), as well as the associative sensitivity subscale (χ2=6.24, p<.05; χ2=5.19, p<.05). the participants in the current study were matched on sensitivity scores, the amount of experience with relaxation exercises, gender, age and education. subsequently, they were randomly divided into two groups. the matching variables are shown in table 2. there was no difference between the first trained group and the secondtrained group in gender (χ2 = .06, p = .81), age [t(45) = -. 07, p = .95], education [t(45) = -.50, p = .62], degree of sensitivity [t(45) = -. 99, p = .33] or relaxation experience (χ2 = .17, p = .68). a signed, informed consent form was obtained from each participant before data collection. the study was approved by the ethics committee of the research institute. europe’s journal of psychology 154 table 2: matching variables, participants in the mbsr program (n = 47). ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ experience neutral affective relaxation perceptual perceptual associative group gender age education exercise sensitivity sensitivity sensitivity ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ m v m sd low average high no yes m sd m sd m sd -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- experimental 7 17 39.08 17.08 0 9 15 16 8 6.02 0.28 6.05 0.42 5.81 0.39 control 6 17 39.39 13.81 0 7 16 14 9 6.17 0.40 6.08 0.43 5.85 0.48 n 13 34 39.23 15.40 0 16 31 30 17 6.09 0.35 6.06 0.42 5.83 0.43 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ measuring instruments sensitivity. sensitivity was measured by the orienting sensitivity dimension of the dutch version of the abbreviated adult temperament questionnaire (rothbart, ahadi & evans, 2000; hartman, 2000). orienting sensitivity refers to the ability to be aware of a neutral or emotionally low-intensity stimulus from the environment, one’s own body, or one’s cognition. it is measured with three subscales, each consisting of 5 items: neutral perceptual sensitivity, affective perceptual sensitivity and associative sensitivity. neutral perceptual sensitivity measures the extent to which an individual is aware of low-intensity stimuli from the external environment or body. an example of an item is "hardly visible visual details rarely attract my attention." affective perceptual sensitivity measures the extent to which one is aware of emotional sensations associated with low intensity stimuli. an example of an item is "when i listen to the music, i usually notice subtle emotional aspects in the music." associative sensitivity measures the extent to which individuals experience spontaneously-occurring cognitive activity that is not a direct result of stimuli from the environment. an example item is "sometimes i have different thoughts and images in my head that have little connection with each other." the items are scored on a 7point likert scale, ranging from 1 (not applicable) to 7 (fully applicable). in two studies of non-hsps (n=258 and n=700, respectively) evans and rothbart (2007) found internal consistency coefficients of .81 and .68 for the neutral perceptual sensitivity subscale, .90 and .79 for the affective perceptual sensitivity subscale, and .85 and .66 for the associative sensitivity subscale. stress. stress was measured with the perceived stress scale (pss) (cohen, kamarck, & mermelstein, 1983). the pss measures the perceived amount of stress experienced mindfulness-based stress reduction program 155 one month prior to administration. this scale consists of 14 items, each scored on a 5point likert scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (very often). in studies by cohen et al. (1983) and koopman, gore-felton, marouf, et al. (2000), averages ranged between 23.18 and 25.00. internal consistency coefficients varied from .84 to .86; the test-retest reliability was .85. an example of an item is "how often did you become upset because something unexpected happened in the past month?" social anxiety. social anxiety was measured using the social anxiety scale (sas; willems, tuender-de haan and defares, 1973). the sas measures dispositional social anxiety and consists of 24 items that refer to four social situations, namely social interaction situations in which a person strikes, assessment situations, new and unexpected situations and informal contact situations. the items are scored on a 5point likert scale ranging from 0 (absolutely not) to 4 (absolutely so). kienhorst, de wilde, van den bout and diekstra (1990) found internal consistency coefficients between .86 and .88. an example of an item is "i am little concerned about what people think of me." self-acceptance. self-acceptance was measured with the self-acceptance subscale of the existential fulfillment scale (efs; loonstra et al., 2007). the subscale measures the extent to which a person accepts his/her capacity, including the limitations inherent to life in general. the 5 items are scored on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not applicable to me at all) to 4 (fully applicable). loonstra, brouwers and tomić (2009) reported an internal consistency reliability of .78 for the subscale. an example of an item is "i often feel that i should prove myself." emotional empathy. emotional empathy was measured with the emotional empathy scale (caruso & mayer, 1998). this scale measures the ability to imagine oneself experiencing others’ feelings and emotions and consists of 30 items scored on a 5point likert scale, ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). caruso and mayer (1998) report an internal consistency reliability of .78. an example of an item is "it touches me when i see someone in distress." personal growth initiative. personal growth initiative was measured by the personal growth initiative scale (pgis; robitschek, 1998, 1999). this scale measures the extent to which a person is actively and knowingly involved in his or her change and growth process, and consists of 9 items scored on a 6-point likert scale, ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). robitschek (2003) found internal consistency coefficients varying from .78 to .88. an example of an item is "i am aware of the stage of life i am in." europe’s journal of psychology 156 self-transcendence. self-transcendence was measured with the self-transcendence subscale of the existential fulfillment scale (efs; loonstra et al., 2007). the selftranscendence subscale measures the extent to which one recognizes that he/she differs from others and differs from the reality outside the self and is in search of respect and meaningful relationships, and takes responsibility. the 5 items are scored on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not applicable to me) to 4 (fully applicable). loonstra et al. (2009) found an internal consistency coefficient of .86 for this subscale. an example of an item is "i think my life has a greater meaning that goes beyond my personal interests." procedure physicians and paramedics attached to a medical center recruited the participants. after permission for cooperation from the person who was in charge of the center, a personal talk was organized with each doctor and paramedic. they were informed about hsps, including indicators of high sensitivity. the following criteria described by evans and rothbart (2007) were used as indicators: (1) recurring complaints of sensory discomfort, which was experienced as an unpleasant affect resulting from the sensory qualities of stimulation, for example from sensory sensitivity awareness of slight, low intensity stimulation from multiple modalities; (2) awareness of slight, low intensity stimulation arising from within the body and the environment; (3) awareness of emotional valence associated with low intensity stimuli; and (4) reactive cognitive content that is not related to standard associations with the environment. doctors and paramedics were asked to examine their patient files and identify patients matching on high sensitivity characteristics and indicators to participate in the current study during a consult or a telephone call. they were asked to provide only the names and additional information of patients with a minimum (approximately) 18 years of age, who showed no signs of serious psycho-pathological disorders and who were interested in participation. based on patient contacts, the researchers confirmed that doctors and paramedics were able to recruit and select the participants eligible for the study. a letter with information about the research aim was sent to all participants provided by the recruiters. in addition, they were told that participation is voluntary, and the procedure was explained. participants also received a questionnaire with a stamped return envelope. they were asked to return the completed questionnaire within seven days. the questionnaire contained the orienting sensitivity factor of the adult temperament questionnaire. in addition, there were items about age, gender, education, and experience with relaxation exercises. after matching, each mindfulness-based stress reduction program 157 participant was notified of the time and place for an individual interview for admission to the study and the mbsr training period. during the intake interviews, organized prior to the mbsr program, participants were invited to speak about themselves and their expectations for the training. in a personal admission interview preceding the mbsr program, participants were told that they were expected to spend at least 45 minutes a day, six days a week, doing one or more of the exercises. one week prior to the start of the mbsr training, the participants were interviewed. the mbsr program the mbsr program consisted of eight weekly sessions of 2.5 hours each (kabat-zinn, 1990), during which the participants did the following exercises: (1) the body scan, meant to get them to pay systematic attention to the whole body and simultaneously perceive sensations in various parts of the body; (2) yoga exercises involving stretching and striking poses to increase awareness of the muscular system; (3) sitting meditation, during which the participant’s attention is drawn to the breath, physical sensations, thoughts and emotions. after the first, third and fifth session, the participants were also given a compact disc with the body scan, yoga, and sitting meditation exercises. the first author conducted the mbsr training. she had previously taken an mbsr trainer program and practiced the mbsr exercises daily. results table 3: mean scores, standard deviations, and anova results (n = 47) variable condition o1 m (sd) o2 m (sd) o3 m (sd) o4 m (sd) o5 m (sd) comparison between first-trained and second-not-yettrained at post-test 1 anova f df p cohen's d comparison between the two trained groups at post-test 1 anova f df p comparison between the two trained groups at post-test 2 anova f df p stress ftg stg 33.29(5.55) 32.91(5.34) 24.96(3.16) 33.00(4.29) 23.46(3.72) 25.22(3.83) 23.48(3.04) 94.11 1,45 <.001 -1.84 .14 1,45 .72 .01 1,45 .93 social anxiety ftg stg 79.92(2.77) 79.78(2.22) 71.08(4.13) 79.70(2.14) 68.58(5.67) 72.48(3.99) 69.52(4.90) 86.89 1,45 <.001 -2.52 1.68 1,45 .20 .40 1,45 . 53 self acceptance ftg stg 2.79(1.35) 2.04(1.43) 4.67(1.63) 2.30(1.61) 5.37(2.10) 4.61(2.17) 5.87(2.10) 33.54 1,45 <.001 1.25 .16 1,45 .69 1.82 1,45 .18 emotional empathy ftg stg 133.12(3.46) 132.17(2.23) 133.67(4.02) 132.09(2.31) 133.87(3.79) 133.70(2.51) 134.39(2.50) 21.25 1,45 <.001 0.68 2.35 1,45 .13 .50 1,45 .49 personal growth initiative ftg stg 34.21(1.22) 34.78(1.31) 35.29(1.52) 34.83(1.75) 35.50(1.53) 35.83(1.40) 36.22(1.35) 10.25 1,45 <.01 0.79 .14 1,45 .71 1.04 1,45 .31 self transcendence ftg stg 16.38(1.64) 15.91(1.65) 17.33(1.34) 16.00(1.68) 17.50(1.22) 17.52(1.59) 17.78(1.35) 14.04 1,45 <.001 0.63 1.93 1,45 .17 3.14 1,45 .08 mindfulness ftg stg 3.98(.25) 3.94(.21) 4.59(.26) 3.94(.19) 4.71(.22) 4.47(.19) 4.60(.16) 157.19 1,45 <.001 2.40 2.59 1,45 .12 3.26 1,45 .08 note: ftg = first-trained group stg = second-trained group o1a & o1b = pre-test of first-trained and first pre-test of second-trained groups, respectively o2a & o2b = first post-test of first-trained and second pre-test of second-trained groups, respectively o3 = second post-test of first-trained group o4 = first post-test of second-trained group o5 = second post-test of second-trained group training effects on the first post-test table 3 shows the mean scores and standard deviations of the instruments applied during each of the test moments. the pre-tests are labeled as o1 for the first trained group and o1 and o2 for the second-trained group. the post-tests are labeled as o2 and o3 for the first-trained group and o4 and o5 for the second-trained group. to determine whether the first trained group (ftg) differed from the second-trained group on the first post-test, anovas were performed. it was expected that the scores on the second test (o2) would differ significantly by group, controlling for scores on the first test (o1). anovas of the mean scores at o2 (dependent variable), the mean scores at o2 (covariate) and condition (ftg or stg) as a fixed factor revealed significant differences on the following variables: stress (f = 94.11, p < .001), social anxiety (f = 86.89, p < .001), self-acceptance (f = 33.54, p <. 001), emotional empathy (f = 21.25, p < .001), personal growth initiative (f = 10.25, p < .01), and selftranscendence (f = 14.04, p < .001). cohen's d was calculated to determine the magnitude of the differences found between the pre-test and the first post-test (cohen, 1977). as table 3 shows, these effects range from medium to very large. the effects on the variables for stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance and personal growth initiative were very large (d values of -1.84, -2.52, 1.25 and 0.79, respectively). emotional empathy and self-transcendence reached a medium effect (d = 0.68 and 0.63, respectively). durability of the effects to determine the durability of the effects after a four-week lapse, t-tests were performed on the first-trained group’s scores on the two post-tests. the means were not expected to differ significantly, or only in such a way that the differences could be interpreted as an increased effect on the relevant variable. in line with the expectations, the means of the following variables of the first-trained group on the first post-test (o2) did not differ significantly from those on the second post-test (o3): emotional empathy (t = -1.55, p = .14); personal growth initiative (t = -1.55, p = .14); and self-transcendence (t = -1.70, p = .10). likewise, the results for the following variables also appeared to be in line with expectations, as the means on the second post-test (03) showed an improvement over those on the first post-test (02): stress (t = 3.67, p < .001); social anxiety (t = 5.19, p < .001); and self-acceptance (t = -3.82, p < .001). stress and social anxiety scores were significantly lower, whereas self-acceptance scores were significantly higher on the second post-test compared to the first post-test. four weeks after the training europe’s journal of psychology 160 program, participants experienced even less stress and social anxiety and even more self-acceptance. the same analyses were performed on the scores for both post-tests taken by the second-trained group. in line with expectations, the mean score of the variable selftranscendence of the second-trained group on the first post-test (04) did not differ significantly from that on the second post-test (05) (t = -2.02, p = .06). likewise, the results for the following variables were also in line with expectations, as the mean scores on the second post-test (05) once again improved over those on the first posttest (04): stress (t = 4.73, p < .001); social anxiety (t = 5.77, p < .001); self-acceptance (t = -5.52, p < .001), emotional empathy (t = -5.97, p < .001), and personal growth initiative (t = -3.76, p < .001). comparison of effects between the two trained groups the mbsr program was administered to the experimental group (first-trained group) first and later to the control group (second-trained group). as the training program and procedure were identical for both groups, we expected the training effects to be the same across groups. to determine whether the effects of the program were identical for the groups, the researchers computed repeated measures anovas with the means of scores on the first and second post-tests, respectively (dependent variables), the pre-tests (covariates), and condition (fixed factor). as table 3 shows, there were no significant differences (stress: f = .14, p = .72 and f = .01, p = .93, respectively; social anxiety: f = 1.68, p = .20 and f = .40, p = .53, respectively; selfacceptance: f = .16, p = .69 and f = 1.82, p = .18, respectively; emotional empathy f = 2.35, p = .13 and f = .50, p = .49, respectively; personal growth initiative: f = .14, p = .71 and f = 1.04, p = .31, respectively; and self-transcendence: f = 1.93, p = .17 and f = 3.14, p = .08, respectively). discussion and conclusion the current study examined the psychological impact of the mbsr program on hsps with respect to stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance, emotional empathy, personal growth initiative, and self-transcendence. the study produced several important findings. it was expected that the scores of the first trained group on the second test would differ significantly from the scores of the second-trained group, controlling for the scores on the first test. results revealed significant differences on the variables stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance, emotional empathy, personal growth, and self mindfulness-based stress reduction program 161 transcendence. the effect sizes ranged from medium to very large. the effects on the variables stress, social anxiety, self-acceptance and personal growth were very large. emotional empathy and self-transcendence reached medium effects. in addition, outcomes were evaluated over time. the durability of the effects after a four-week lapse was determined, and the results showed no decreases. in contrast, effects improved on several variables, i.e., scores for stress and social anxiety reduced further, and scores for self-acceptance increased. such gains over time were quite obvious. participants committed themselves to spend at least 45 minutes daily, six days a week, conducting mbsr exercises during the training period. it is quite likely that they continued performing the exercises after that period. carmody and bear (2008) found empirical support for a central tenet of mindfulness-based treatment approaches, i.e., that the amount of time spent on daily practice of a formal mindfulness meditation practice, such as a body scan or sitting meditation, increases self-reported mindfulness, which in turn leads to improved psychological functioning. however, the increased effects found four weeks later could also be interpreted as sleeper effects, which occur sometime after training has been implemented (hovland & weiss, 1951; gonella, hojat, & veloski, 2005). the finding that stress and anxiety diminished considerably corresponds with the results of studies by miller, fletcher, and kabat-zinn (1995); shapiro, schwartz, and bonner (1998); chang et al. (2004); shapiro, astin, bishop, and cordova (2005); and kabat-zinn, massion, kristeller, peterson, fletcher, pbert, linderking and santorelli (1992). this suggests that hsps may benefit from the mbsr program. one crucial question is: which mechanisms are responsible for the effects of the mbsr program? after all, the program consists of a number of components and elements (such as the body scan, sitting meditation, yoga positions, and other exercises), each of which may contribute to the improvements (williams, kolar, reger, & pearson, 2001; reibel, greeson, brainard, & rosenzweig, 2001). besides these formal exercises, a number of therapeutic group intervention factors may play a role, such as receiving support from the trainer and group members and being able to express one’s emotions during the group sessions held after the various parts of the program. the question remains: to what extent do these elements play a role in inducing the training effects found? a study involving psoriasis patients (kabatzinn, wheeler, light, & cropley, 1998) showed that, in addition to the therapeutic factors, the practice of mindfulness in itself can lead to beneficial effects. in this study, the participants played audio cassettes with recorded mindfulness instructions while receiving treatment in a light-booth. although the intervention was void of any social support, it appeared as though the practice of mindfulness was in itself europe’s journal of psychology 162 effective. nevertheless, the psychological impact of the mbsr program requires further investigation (arch, 2006), for example, an examination of a single part of the program, such as the body scan (ditto, eclache, & goldman, 2006; cropley, ussher, & charitou, 2007). this study not only involved an experimental group (the first-trained group) but also a control group (the second-trained group). a comparison of the effects of the mbsr program on the two trained groups revealed no significant differences. these findings suggest that the effects of the mbsr program are not accidental but require the implementation of a training protocol that can be applied by various trainers. the results of this study must be considered in light of a number of limitations. first, a substantial number of the participants were highly educated; therefore, the effects cannot be generalized to the entire population of hsps. it is possible that highly educated persons will derive greater benefits from the mbsr program than those with less education. highly educated people may feel more daily stress, for example, because of their greater ability to intellectualize (carlson, ursuliak, goodey, angen, & speca, 2001). second, the participants in the mbsr program were selected by physicians, whose opinions about their patients concerning sensitivity indicators were used as a starting point. in order to select the participants, no additional objective information was used. on the other hand, after selection their sensitivity level was measured. the participants’ mean scores proved to be significantly higher than the highest mean scores in evans and rothbart’s (2007) studies on other groups. and what's more, the means on the three sensitivity subscales were more than one standard deviation above those found in the aforementioned studies, while the variances on these variables were fairly low. these findings strongly indicate that the participants had a relative high sensitivity level and were fairly homogeneous on that point. moreover, participants were divided at random into the two groups after they were matched on sensitivity, gender, age, and education level. third, the effect criteria were measured by questionnaires only. in other words, no objective measures were used, such as blood pressure, heart rhythm variability, or other tests to determine the level of stress or relaxation. future studies on the effectiveness of the mbsr program should avoid this omission. fourth, the final post-test took place four weeks after the mbsr program had ended. no data were available on the longterm effects after three, six, or twelve months. this study showed that both stress and anxiety levels were higher four weeks after the program had ended than immediately after the program. the question remains: how high might the scores have been after a longer period of time? further study is required to determine the durability effects of the mbsr program. mindfulness-based stress reduction program 163 the findings suggest that it may be helpful for hsp’s to learn mindfulness meditation. if future studies also reveal positive effects of mbsr-training in hsp’s, it may be important to find ways to inform hsp’s about these possibilities. but as long as there is not much evidence about the efficacy of mbsr-training in hsp’s, it is not recommended to implement it widely in advance. in conclusion, the findings support the primary hypothesis that training hsps in mbsr can increase levels of self-acceptance, emotional empathy, personal growth, and self-transcendence and can reduce levels of stress and social anxiety. these results are worthwhile, and they persisted for 2 months after treatment. we, therefore, conclude that the mbsr program could offer a meaningful supplement to therapies aimed at hsps. the program merits further study as a potential mental health promotion instrument. references abba, n., chadwick, p., & stevenson, c. 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(2000). mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces over general autobiographical memory in formerly depressed patients. journal of abnormal psychology, 109(1), 150-155. about the authors: andré brouwers is currently at the open university of the netherlands, department of psychology. he has published widely in the field of occupational and organizational psychology, in particular on burnout. his current work centers on coaching and mindfulness research. address for correspondence: andré brouwers, faculty of social sciences, netherlands open university, p.o. box 2960, nl-6401 dl heerlen, the netherlands e-mail: andre.brouwers@ou.nl ilse soons is working as a student coach and educational consultant in antwerp, belgium. her primary interest is directed to the fields of education, communication and mindfulness. e-mail: ilsesoons@hotmail.com welko tomic is currently at the open university of the netherlands, department of psychology. he has published extensively on issues related to teacher behavior, transfer, and burnout. his current work focuses on existential fulfillment, work engagement and psychosocial disorders. e-mail: welko.tomic@ou.nl http://www.springerlink.com/content/104937/?p=78c675bc2d9a4283a5df94839440776b&pi=0 mailto:andre.brouwers@ou.nl emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 112-142 www.ejop.org the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression martha moraitou department of midwivery, alexandreio τει thessaloniki michalis galanakis panteio university of political and social sciences anastasios stalikas panteio university of political and social sciences filia joanne garivaldis school of psychology and psychiatry, monash university abstract positive emotions have been implicated in the development of coping resources and resilience for psychological health across various significant life events. childbirth is often an event that incites positive emotions in a woman, and it may be that such emotions have an immobilizing effect on the onset of post natal depressive symptoms. in efforts to examine the influence of positive emotions on women during their transition into motherhood, the present study assessed 195 women across two stages: before and after childbirth. the aim of the study was to examine the variety of positive emotions that arise from childbirth, the relationship of positive emotions that arise from childbirth to maternity and other demographic variables and the relation between positive emotions that arise from childbirth and depressive post natal symptoms. results revealed a significant manifestation of specific positive emotions such as joyfulness, pride, and interest after childbirth. participants between the ages of 30 and 34 experienced a greater variety and intensity of positive emotions before and after. in turn, a negative relationship was found between the experience of positive emotion intensity and post natal depressive symptomatology. factors such as education level, whether the birth was planned or not, and environmental and partner support were found to relate significantly to the manifestation of positive emotions. keywords: childbirth, positive emotions, post natal depression. http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 113 in 1998, the american researcher barbara fredrickson developed the “broaden-andbuild model of positive emotions”, which offers the first complete account of the functional role of positive emotion. the fundamental preposition of the model is that the manifestation of certain emotions (namely joy, interest, contentment, pride and love) ultimately facilitate cognitive, emotional, psychological, and physiological growth, and build individuals‟ personal resources. in addition, it asserts that positive emotions enhance attention, cognitive functioning, emotional stability, and resilience from aggravating and threatening circumstances, broadening one‟s „thought-action repertoire' (fredrickson, 1998; fredrickson & branigan, 2001, 2005). operationally, positive emotions enable the use of alternative means of conceptualising, conveying, and managing daily problems and challenges. the “broaden-and-build model of positive emotions” (fredrickson, 1998, 2000) states that positive emotions play an adaptive role different to that of negative emotions. specifically, fredrickson (1998) differentiates the applicability of positive emotions with that of negative emotions, in that they are relevant to environments perceived as safe rather than threatening, and lead to deeper contemplations or the broadening of attention necessary for personal development. as such, when positive emotions are experienced one‟s thought and action repertoire grow, increasing the variability of ideas, solutions, and behaviours. creativity, flexibility, openness and an action orientation are enhanced and become functional in secure and nonthreatening environments (fredrickson & branigan, 2001; 2005). although the manifestation of any positive emotion is transient, the results of the broadening effect instil resources that are durable and can be transferred to other relevant situations threatening or not, contributing to a general feeling of well-being and resilience (tugade & fredrickson, 2002). in fact, the incremental and spiral effect of broadening means that the activation of positive emotions begets additional positive emotions which in turn lead to the building of additional personal resources. moreover, positive emotions defer or „undo‟ the adverse physiological effects of negative emotions, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure resulting from fear or anger (fredrickson, et al., 2000; fredrickson & levenson, 1998). folkman and moskowitz (2000) demonstrated that positive emotions experienced after negative emotional arousal leads to a faster recovery of cardiovascular activity. this effect overrides initial presumptions of a replacement effect of emotion, whereby the broadening and building effect of positive emotion predominates (fredrickson, mancuso, branigan, & tugade, 2000). the adverse consequences of stressful life events are relieved by positive emotions by way of their impact on physiological changes in parasympathetic cardiac control. however, the undoing effect of the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 114 positive emotions on cognitive and behavioural narrowing is unclear (fredrickson, mancuso, branigan, & tugade, 2000). it may be that positive emotions under stress (galanakis et al, 2010), i.e. not only within safe and non-threatening environments, enable individuals to gather strength and capability to draw upon their resources, as well as reduce adverse physiological arousal. as evident, the model proposed by fredrickson (1998) offers a sound explanation for the adaptive effects of positive emotions on general human functioning both in stressful and non-stressful circumstances differentially, and enables practitioners in fields such as organizational, clinical/health, and counselling psychology to extend on their current research and practice into additional realms. pregnancy, labour and delivery have received much interest from professionals throughout time, and are life events that may benefit from further research into positive emotions, especially where post natal depression is concerned. positive emotions and post natal depression post natal depression is a term used to describe a heterogeneous group of depressive symptoms that arise during the first four weeks after childbirth (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, dsm-iv, american psychiatric association, 1994; evins, theofrastous, & galvin, 2000). the presence of such symptoms is especially concerning due to the social role demanded of the new mother during this important time in her life along with the biological, hormonal and physiological changes that take place at the same time (o‟ hara, stuart, gorman, & wenzel, 2000). post natal depression was identified initially by pitt (1968) in a london hospital. pitt observed that 10% of new mothers within a maternity ward presented with depression without prior symptoms, i.e. during their pregnancy. following pitt‟s research came that of dalton (1971) who referred to a 34% prevalence rate of mild or temporary depression lasting for a period of six weeks maximum after labour. in subsequent research, the frequency of the condition varies between 10% to 53% of new mothers (drago-carabotta, panagopoulos, laganara, maggino & alessi, 1997; hobfoll, ritter, lavin, hulsizer, & cameron, 1995; kitamura, shima, sugawara, & toda, 1996; moraitou, 2002). in most studies these rates are obtained using the beck depression inventory (bdi; beck, ward, & medelson, 1961) and the edinburgh postnatal depression scale (epds; cox, holden, & sagovsky, 1980), with satisfactory congruent validity (moraitou & galanakis, 2006). it has been found that depression in general is found more often in western cultures rather than eastern ones, while even europe’s journal of psychology 115 though the same might be expected for post natal depression, no recent study has provided scientific data towards that direction (bloomfield & williams, 2001). our line of argument with regards to the relation between depressive symptoms and the experience of positive emotions is developed based on the notion of the broad thought-action repertoire and the development of interpersonal resources purported by fredrickson (fredrickson, 1998). when individuals experience a positive emotion the spread or broadening of this emotion is enabled, making it possible for individuals to produce new ideas, alternative solutions to problems, as well as a variety of responses. in this way new cognitive and emotional resources are accumulated for the purposes of adaptive functioning, and coping under conditions of context specific stress such as childbirth. this increase in available resources produces a positive self image, self-confidence, and a feeling of selfefficacy (moraitou & stalikas, 2004). in addition, the continuous upward spiral effect between positive emotions and broadening leads to greater intentions for a holistic feeling of psychological and spiritual well-being and resilience, whilst simultaneously suspending adverse consequences of negative emotions, and possibly depressive symptoms, in defence. an essential pre-requisite for fredrickson‟s broaden-and-build model is a secure and safe environment, for without this positive emotions cannot endure (moraitou, charizopoulou, skiada, & sourila, 2003). likewise, a pre-requisite for a smooth delivery of a child is the same feeling of security, comfort, and acceptance (moraitou, bouroutzoglou, chatzimichaloglou, & kallia, 2003). childbearing is considered a unique experience in a woman‟s life, and despite the stress of the moment, it is regarded by most as a positive one (melissa-chalikopoulou, 1996). a range of demographic variables that are directly related to labour have been found to determine the degree of post natal depression experienced by new mothers. for instance, the risk of manifestation amongst first time primiparous mothers is approximately double that of mothers who have had multiple births (harris, deaty, harris, leew, & wilson, 1996; moraitou, chatzitheodorou, markou, galanakis, 2009, moraitou, & lykeridou, 2007, moraitou, & stalikas, 2004). the reason for this is that post partum depression is mainly a psychological condition regarding the mother‟s agony of performing a new role successfully. women who have already given birth in the past know that they can handle this new role and therefore are not as easily affected by the psychological factors that lead to post partum depression. in addition, the ease (o‟hara, 1985; 1986) and type of delivery (i.e. natural or caesarean; cox, connor, and kentell, 1982) have been previously implicated in the development of depressive symptoms after child birth. in particular the more the the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 116 implications and problems during delivery the more the possibility of the new mother to experience high post partum depression levels. other maternal variables whose precipitating roles have been found controversial include a planned/unplanned pregnancy (warner et. al., 1996), and the gender of the newborn (moraitou & stalikas, 2004). demographic variables external to the pregnancy may also contribute to post natal depression, and therefore be subject to moderation by the experience of positive emotions. for instance, a low family income, and living in remote urban areas, which both may be cause for a limited amount of communal support available, determine greater degrees of depressive symptoms amongst new mothers (hobfoll et. al., 1995). low socio-economic status, due to economic hardship or unemployment, is a cause for arduous life experiences, that coupled with pregnancy, exacerbate the manifestation of depression (kitamura shima, sugawara &toda 1996). in recent years it is observed that interest in the study of positive emotions is increasing systematically. however, no previous research study has examined positive emotions amongst first time mothers, and in particular with relation to their pregnancy and delivery experience, let alone the extent to which they can safeguard a woman from the depressive symptoms that often proceed child birth. in fact, fredrickson (1998) highlights that positive emotions are a separate cluster to other types of emotions, and are usually neglected in research. for this reason, the present study attempts to offer a starting point in which research on pregnancy and childbirth can begin to incorporate both the positive as well as the negative emotional implications. as such, the present research functions as an epidemiological study, tapping into the various demographic variables that may determine the experience of positive emotions amongst soon to be, and new mothers. the specific aims of the study are to examine:  positive emotions that arise from childbirth,  the relation of positive emotions that arise from childbirth to maternity and other demographic variables,  the relation between positive emotions that arise from childbirth and depressive post natal symptoms. therefore, the present study hypothesises that first time mothers will experience more intense positive emotions after giving birth compared to their own baseline before giving birth, based on the fact that they are on a safe environment and that giving birth is a positive emotions provoking experience. furthermore, the experience of positive emotions will be linked to the experience of less depressive symptoms. additionally, maternal factors such as the number of previous births, the planning of europe’s journal of psychology 117 the pregnancy, the newborn‟s gender and the type of birth will determine the degree to which positive emotions are experienced before and after childbirth (moraitou & galanakis, 2006). finally, other factors such as mother‟s education, occupation, monthly income, chronic health problems and psychopathology, partner support, and environmental support will also determine the extent to which positive emotions are experienced before and after child birth. method participants the present study used a sample of 195 women, from all areas of greece, who were assessed both before (35th week) and after giving birth (1st week).the mean age of the sample is 29.27 years (sd = 4.79). of the 195 participants, 4.10% are primary school graduates, 46.70% are secondary school graduates, 41.00% have completed undergraduate university studies, whilst 8.20% have completed postgraduate university studies. with regard to professional occupation (before giving birth), 17.70% occupy themselves with domestic duties, 7.80% are unemployed, 16.70% are self-employed, 3.60% are students, 21.90% work in the public service, and 32.30% work in the private sector. in terms of income, the majority of participants (64.50%) claimed a monthly income of €1350. 64.10% of the sample were first time mothers, whilst 27.70% were bearing their second, and 7.70% their third child. in addition, 38.90% of the sample declared that their pregnancy was planned, although 61.10% declared that their pregnancy was unplanned. with regard to chronic health problems only 7.60% of participants indicated ailments such as diabetes, hypothyroidism, hypertension, and allergies. on the other hand, 10.10% indicated to occasionally experience psychopathological symptoms such as distress, grief, discontentment, and emotional confusion. we estimated support from the partner and from family and friends based on the results of 2 single items ranging from 1= zero support to 5 = maximum support. we categorised participants based on their answers to those who received little support (m<2), those who received medium support (m=2.01-3.99) and those who received much support (m>4). 85.90% of the sample claimed to receive an adequate to a lot of support from their partner during pregnancy, and 88.00% from their environment the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 118 (friends and family). of the participants, 62.90% had a natural delivery , and 35.10% with a caesarean section. in terms of the gender of the newborn, 56.50% of participants gave birth to a boy, whereas 43.50% gave birth to a girl. materials data was collected using the expanded version of the positive and negative affect scale (panas-x; watson & clark, 1984) and the beck depression inventory (beck, ward, & medelson, 1961). further demographic data was collected, such as age, education level, occupation, monthly family income, whether the pregnancy was planned or unplanned, any chronic ailments, psychological complication during pregnancy, the degree of support from the partner and the environment, the type of birth, and the newborn‟s gender. panas – x: this scale is the expanded version of the original panas scale, used to assess positive and negative affect. the scale has also been published in the greek language, and consists of 60 adjectives that refer to emotions (positive and negative). participants are required to rate each adjective on a 5 point likert scale in relation to the degree to which they have felt each emotion within the past 2 weeks (1 = very slightly or not at all, to 5 = extremely). the responses are scored along a positive affect scale and a negative affect scale, and yield two results per participant (pa and na). cronback‟s alpha coefficients indicate that the scale has satisfactory internal consistency, with α =0.77 for the pa scale, and α=0.83 for the na scale. beck depression inventory (bdi): to examine depression one of the most renowned depression inventory was used (evins, theofrastous & galvin, 2000; hobfol, ritter, lavin, hulsizer, & cameron, 1995; kitamura, skima, sugawara, & toda, 1996, moraitou, 2002). the bdi consists of 21 statements that refer to mood, pessimism, the feeling of failure, weight loss, guilt, and sleeplessness, to name a few. within a clinical sample the scale‟s internal consistency ranges between 0.48 and 0.86, whereas in non-clinical samples reliability coefficients range between 0.60 and 0.90 (beck, steer, & garbin, 1988). the version used in the present study is a greek translation, standardised by donia and demertzi (1983), and adjusted by anagnostopoulou (2002). the greek version yields satisfactory internal consistency, α =0,84. the statement pertaining to weight loss (statement 19) was removed in the present study due to the nature of the sample and the physiological fluctuation of weight after childbirth (stalikas, triliva, & roussi, 2002). europe’s journal of psychology 119 procedure the call for participation was announced directly to the participants by the researchers and women who volunteered were included in the research design. questionnaires were completed by the participants at two separate time periods. at time 1 women were in their 35th week of pregnancy, when it was evident and recognizable by the social environment, and labour was approaching. at time 2 women were in their 1st week after giving birth, and were at an early stage of having just experienced labour and motherhood as important life stages. the reason for selecting these particular time frames was decided upon the literature review. in particular pitt (1968) suggests that post partum depression symptoms will manifest in about two weeks time from delivery and even though post partum can last up to 6 months after delivery if a woman does not manifest depression symptoms up until the second week it is highly improbable to experience this psychological condition. moraitou (2002) suggests that the 35th week of pregnancy is the time frame right before delivery in which we can be sure that the woman has fully realised that she is going to give birth, plus this time is right before the delivery so we can examine the influence or presence of pre-existing psychopathology that will probably have a psychological effect after delivery. results descriptive statistics the statistical package for the social sciences (spss, v. 14) was used to analyse the results. initially the distribution of scores on the bdi and the panas were calculated, and means and standard deviations are presented in table 3 and 4. table 3. descriptive statistics of the scores on the panas before and after childbirth and the bdi. n mean standard deviation positive affect time 1 174 80.19 15.19 time 2 172 84.04 16.97 negative affect time 1 177 60.96 18.33 time 2 170 61.14 19.32 post natal depression (bdi) 190 10.59 08.42 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 120 it is evident from table 3 that there is a slight increase in positive affect from time 1 to time 2, i.e. before and after childbirth. table 5 presents the positive emotions/adjectives with the greatest increase between the two times of testing. table 4. distribution of scores on the beck depression inventory. frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent no depression 107 54,0 56,3 56,3 some depressive symptoms 57 28,8 30,0 86,3 moderate depressive symptoms 17 8,6 8,9 95,3 severe depressive symptoms 9 4,5 4,7 100,0 total 190 96,0 100,0 missing 8 4,0 total 198 100,0 the table above indicates that the majority of women in the sample expressed no signs of depression (56.3%), whilst approximately a third indicated some depressive symptoms (30.0%). fewer were the women that expressed the presence of moderate or severe symptoms (13.6%). table 5. differences in the mean level of affect experienced across each positive emotion during pregnancy (time 1) and after childbirth (time 2). n mean standard deviation cheerful during pregnancy 191 3.51 0.99 after childbirth 190 3.67 1.08 difference 0.16 0.08 surprised during pregnancy 187 2.21 1.09 after childbirth 187 2.58 1.32 difference 0.37 0.23 strong during pregnancy 190 3.78 1.02 after childbirth 187 3.91 1.13 difference 0.13 0.10 europe’s journal of psychology 121 relaxed during pregnancy 191 3.08 1.06 after childbirth 189 2.86 1.15 difference -0.22 0.09 delighted during pregnancy 187 3.58 1.19 after childbirth 188 3.94 1.15 difference 0.36 -0.04 inspired during pregnancy 187 3.15 1.13 after childbirth 190 3.37 1.38 difference 0.22 0.25 fearless during pregnancy 189 2.42 1.08 after childbirth 188 2.48 1.16 difference 0.06 0.08 calm during pregnancy 191 3.26 0.95 after childbirth 189 3.22 1.10 difference -0.04 0.14 amazed during pregnancy 185 2.19 1.09 after childbirth 185 2.54 1.29 difference 0.35 0.19 happy during pregnancy 185 4.12 0.90 after childbirth 187 4.20 1.07 difference 0.08 0.17 alert during pregnancy 188 2.93 1.11 after childbirth 188 3.19 1.08 difference 0.26 -0.02 daring during pregnancy 189 2.78 1.11 after childbirth 188 2.95 1.15 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 122 difference 0.17 0.03 active during pregnancy 189 3.25 0.98 after childbirth 189 2.98 0.99 difference -0.27 0.01 joyful during pregnancy 189 3,98 0.97 after childbirth 189 4.14 1.10 difference 0.16 0.12 proud during pregnancy 190 3.89 1.24 after childbirth 188 4.26 1.16 difference 0.37 -0.07 lively during pregnancy 188 3.25 0.99 after childbirth 187 3.24 1.14 difference -0.01 0.15 at ease during pregnancy 188 3.07 1.09 after childbirth 188 3.19 1.04 difference 0.12 -0.05 enthusiastic during pregnancy 188 3.65 1.04 after childbirth 188 3.76 1.16 difference 0.11 0.12 determined during pregnancy 188 3.85 1.06 after childbirth 187 4.02 1.04 difference 0.17 -0.02 interested during pregnancy 191 3.55 1.12 after childbirth 188 3.99 1.02 difference 0.44 -0.09 confident during pregnancy 189 3.64 1.04 europe’s journal of psychology 123 after childbirth 185 3.76 1.09 difference 0.12 0.04 energised during pregnancy 189 3.25 0.99 after childbirth 188 3.19 0.97 difference -0.06 -0.02 concentrati ng during pregnancy 189 3.16 0.95 after childbirth 188 3.20 1.06 difference 0.04 0.10 the positive emotions displayed in the table above reveal that participants felt the greatest increase in joyfulness, pride, and interest after childbirth. in fact, these three positive adjectives play an especially important role in fredrickson‟s model of positive emotions. furthermore, there are positive emotions that decreased, even slightly, after childbirth, such as calmness and energy. inferential statistics with maternal and demographic factors a series of anovas were conducted to reveal differences in the experience of positive emotions amongst demographic groups before and after giving birth. table 6. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across three age groups. age n mean standard deviation 18-29yrs during pregnancy 98 78.45 15.58 after childbirth 101 84.28 16.60 30-34yrs during pregnancy 61 83.80 13.32 after childbirth 57 83.87 17.78 35+ yrs during pregnancy 14 78.57 17.27 after childbirth 13 81.53 17.36 total during pregnancy 173 80.35 15.09 after childbirth 171 83.94 16.97 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 124 the table above reveals the greatest change in mean scores of positive emotions to occur within the youngest age group (18-29yrs). in addition, women between the ages of 30 and 34 yrs display elevated mean scores of positive emotions compared to their younger and older counterparts. these differences are analysed and presented in table 7 below. table 7. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across three age groups. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy*age between groups 1122.08 2 561,04 2.50 0.08 within groups 38081.40 170 224.00 total 39203.49 172 positive emotions after childbirth*age between groups 87.37 2 43.68 0.15 0.86 within groups 168 290.97 total 170 the results of table 7 show that age differences for the experience of positive emotions both before and after childbirth are not significant. table 8. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across four level of education received. education received n mean standard deviation primary level during pregnancy 8 65.12 21.80 after childbirth 8 83.37 26.34 secondary level during pregnancy 79 78.13 14.73 after childbirth 79 81.74 17.97 undergraduate level during pregnancy 73 82.12 14.68 after childbirth 72 84.95 15.56 postgraduate level during pregnancy 14 90.35 04.68 after childbirth 13 93.38 05.90 europe’s journal of psychology 125 total during pregnancy 174 80.19 15.19 after childbirth 172 84.04 16.97 table 8 above illustrates the greatest changes in mean scores of positive emotions of before and after labour within the group with the lowest level of education received (primary level). in contrast, participants who have received a postgraduate level of education appear to experience higher means of positive emotions and less deviation from these both before and after giving birth, compared to their less educated counterparts. these differences are analysed and presented in table 9 below. table 9. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across four levels of education received. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* education received between groups 3867.90 3 1289.30 6.07 .00 within groups 170 212.23 total 173 positive emotions after childbirth* education received between groups 1614.86 3 538.28 1.89 .13 within groups 168 283.81 total 171 the anova results reveal a significant difference in the experience of positive emotions as a function of the level of education received by the participants during their pregnancy. specifically, this difference has a positive direction as higher levels of positive emotion are consistently experienced by those with higher education. it is interesting to see that these differences are not significant after the event of child birth. the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 126 table 10. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across six categories of participant occupation. occupation n mean standard deviation domestic during pregnancy 32 72.06 16.61 after childbirth 31 83.51 16.19 unemployed during pregnancy 13 74.69 18.15 after childbirth 12 73.25 22.63 self-employed during pregnancy 30 81.76 11.58 after childbirth 27 82.18 14.74 student during pregnancy 6 68.33 21.63 after childbirth 6 78.83 21.70 private sector during pregnancy 36 84.66 10.58 after childbirth 38 87.42 14.68 public sector during pregnancy 54 84.20 14.53 after childbirth 56 86.12 17.58 total during pregnancy 171 80.32 15.12 after childbirth 170 84.14 16.99 with regard to the table above it appears that participants working in either the public or private sector have higher mean scores of positive emotions before and after labour. these differences are analysed and presented in table 11 below. table 11. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across six categories of participant occupation. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* between groups 5013.20 5 1002.64 4.88 0.00 within groups 33862.10 165 205.22 europe’s journal of psychology 127 occupation total 38875.31 170 positive emotions after childbirth* occupation between groups 2337.03 5 467.40 1.64 0.15 within groups 46498.28 164 283.52 total 48835.32 169 once again, anova results reveal a significant difference in the experience of positive emotions as a function of the occupation of participants during their pregnancy, i.e. before giving labour, and a lack of significance after child birth. table 12. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across six categories of participants‟ monthly family income. monthly family income n mean standard deviation 0-450 € during pregnancy 1 51.00 after childbirth 1 55.00 450-900 € during pregnancy 15 75.86 14.08 after childbirth 15 75.93 23.63 900-1350 € during pregnancy 25 82.88 15.11 after childbirth 23 90.13 14.64 1350 – 1800 € during pregnancy 15 78.33 16.01 after childbirth 16 84.93 15.84 1800 – 2250 € during pregnancy 47 76.97 14.75 after childbirth 49 85.59 15.26 2250+ € during pregnancy 70 83.21 15.01 after childbirth 68 82.88 16.79 total during pregnancy 173 80.22 15.23 after childbirth 172 84.04 16.97 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 128 an additional demographic factor studied in the present research is the participant‟s monthly family income. as expected, participants with a lower income display lower mean scores of positive emotions both before and after giving birth. table 13 presents the anova results for this variable. table 13. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth across six categories of participants‟ monthly family income. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* monthly income between groups 2489.73 5 497.94 2.22 0.05** within groups 37430.47 167 224.13 37430.4 7 total 39920.20 172 39920.2 0 positive emotions after childbirth* monthly income between groups 2904.25 5 580.85 2.07 0.07 within groups 46391.37 166 279.46 total 49295.62 171 anova results show a significant difference in the experience of positive emotions as a function of participants‟ monthly family income during pregnancy, i.e. before giving birth. participants with a low monthly income (0-450€) experienced positive emotions with an average score of 51.00 on the panas-x when their higher income counterparts experienced an average minimum score of 75. table 14. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of rank from previous births. rank of birth n mean standard deviation first during pregnancy 109 79.44 15.19 after childbirth 111 82.37 18.37 second during pregnancy 52 82.11 14.49 after childbirth 48 88.89 12.18 third during pregnancy 13 78.76 18.31 after childbirth 12 79.25 17.43 europe’s journal of psychology 129 fifth during pregnancy after childbirth 1 94.00 total during pregnancy 174 80.19 15.19 after childbirth 172 84.04 16.97 table 15. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of rank from previous births. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* rank of birth between groups 278.76 2 139.38 .60 .55 within groups 39668.58 171 231.98 total 39947.35 173 positive emotions after childbirth* rank of birth between groups 1812.79 3 604.26 2.13 .09 within groups 47482.83 168 282.63 total 49295.62 171 although it was expected that primiparous mothers would experience more intense positive emotions compared to those who have given birth previously, based on the fact that it is their first time and emotions tend to be more intense when something is experienced for the first time, the results do not support this hypothesis. it appears rather that positive emotions arise irrespective of the number of times that child birth has occurred. table 16. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of whether the pregnancy was planned or unplanned. planning of pregnancy n mean standard deviation planned during pregnancy 66 85.98 13.32 after childbirth 62 89.46 16.29 unplanned during pregnancy 108 76.65 15.23 after childbirth 110 80.99 16.65 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 130 total during pregnancy 174 80.19 15.19 after childbirth 172 84.04 16.97 table 17. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of whether the pregnancy was planned or unplanned. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* planning between groups 3564.04 1 3564.04 16.84 .000*** within groups 36383.30 172 211.53 total 39947.35 173 positive emotions after childbirth* planning between groups 2849.20 1 2849.20 10.42 .001*** within groups 46446.42 170 273.21 total 49295.62 171 it appears that the experience of positive emotions differs significantly between the two groups; planned and unplanned pregnancy (p<0.001). the women in the present study who had planned their pregnancy had increased positive emotions manifest compared to their counterparts who had an unplanned pregnancy. table 18. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of partner support. partner support n mean standard deviation no support during pregnancy 8 62.87 22.95 after childbirth 8 69.87 23.93 little support during pregnancy 7 59.71 14.22 after childbirth 7 69.57 22.88 moderate support during pregnancy 11 71.90 22.07 after childbirth 12 76.66 22.31 strong support during 42 76.85 12.89 europe’s journal of psychology 131 pregnancy after childbirth 41 80.24 16.11 very strong support during pregnancy 104 85.62 10.93 after childbirth 102 88.89 13.60 total during pregnancy 172 80.49 15.01 after childbirth 170 84.25 16.92 glancing through the table above it is obvious that the mean scores for positive emotions measured by the panas-x differ between participants, who receive no support (m>2) from their partner and those who receive very strong support (m>4) (in addition, the standard deviations between these two groups differ, in that participants who receive no support have a greater spread of scores. the anova results below confirm the difference evident above as significant. table 19. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of partner support. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* partner support between groups 9610.26 4 2402.56 13.87 .000*** within groups 28916.73 167 173.15 total 38526.99 171 positive emotions after childbirth* partner support between groups 6707.49 4 1676.87 6.63 .000*** within groups 41700.63 165 252.73 total 48408.12 169 one of the strongest determining variables for the experience of positive emotions during and after pregnancy appears to be the degree of partner support. the results of the anova displayed in table 19 show that there is a significant difference between groups both before and after childbirth. post hoc tests showed that participants experienced less positive emotions when they received little or no partner support. as support increases, so do feelings of joy, pride, and interest of the new mother. however, the lack of partner support is not only linked to lower positive emotions but also an increase in negative emotions. the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 132 table 20. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of environmental support. environmental support n mean standard deviation no support during pregnancy 2 62.00 2.82 after childbirth 2 55.50 2.12 little support during pregnancy 5 72.00 18.00 after childbirth 5 90.60 15.04 moderate support during pregnancy 16 69.18 14.69 after childbirth 15 80.73 17.16 strong support during pregnancy 35 76.20 14.97 after childbirth 35 80.02 15.88 very strong support during pregnancy 113 84.00 13.70 after childbirth 113 86.25 16.81 total during pregnancy 171 80.40 15.01 after childbirth 170 84.25 16.92 table 21. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of environmental support. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* environment support between groups 5123.30 4 1280.82 6.40 .000*** within groups 33192.03 166 199.95 total 38315.34 170 positive emotions after childbirth* environment support between groups 3118.96 4 779.74 2.84 .026* within groups 45289.16 165 274.48 total 48408.12 169 europe’s journal of psychology 133 it appears that as with partner support, support from the environment has a statistically significant impact on the experience of positive emotions. compared to those with no support, participants with support from the environment experienced a greater degree of positive emotions, but only when this support was very strong. moderate support does not differ statistically (significantly) from no support with regard to positive emotions. an additional maternal factor examined against the experience of positive emotions is the type of birth, natural versus caesarean. the results revealed a lack of statistical significance between the two groups. table 22. descriptive statistics of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of the newborn‟s gender. gender of newborn n mean standard deviation boy during pregnancy 99 77.91 16.49 after childbirth 98 82.30 18.60 girl during pregnancy 74 83.09 12.83 after childbirth 73 86.26 14.42 total during pregnancy 173 80.13 15.21 after childbirth 171 83.99 17.01 table 23. analysis of variance of the degree of positive emotions during pregnancy and after childbirth as a function of the newborn‟s gender. sum of squares df mean square f sig. positive emotions during pregnancy* gender of newborn between groups 1134.25 1 1134.25 5.01 .026* within groups 38695.69 171 226.29 total 39829.94 172 positive emotions after childbirth* gender of newborn between groups 654.12 1 654.12 2.27 .133 within groups 48560.87 169 287.34 total 49214.99 170 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 134 examining the role of the newborn‟s gender on positive emotions, an anova analysis revealed that women who gave birth for the first time to a girl had more positive emotions than those who gave birth to a boy. this significant difference appeared with regard to positive emotions only during pregnancy. the existence of mild chronic health ailments, such as allergies, does not cause differences in the experience of positive emotions amongst participants who were pregnant as shown by anova analyses. severe chronic ailments, however, negatively impact women who have given birth, although insignificantly. similarly, after having given birth, participants who experienced depressive symptoms had a greater difference in means of positive emotions compared to those without any depressive symptoms. in general, it appears from the results presented above that the experience of positive emotions varies not only before and after childbirth, but also in accordance with various factors such as educational background, type of occupation, whether the pregnancy was planned or not, the gender of the newborn, and the degree of support provided by the partner and the wider environment. inferential statistics for positive emotions and depression the results of the study showed differences between the degrees of experienced positive emotions (low, moderate, high) and the varying levels of depression, according to the panas-x and the bdi. the low positive emotions group comprised of low average ratings of positive emotion, i.e. 1-2 (not at all or very slightly). the moderate positive emotion group comprised of moderate ratings, i.e. 3 (moderately), and the high positive emotion group comprised of high ratings of positive emotions experienced, i.e. 4-5 (very often and extremely). the means were statistically analysed to uncover significant differences. the following tables, table 24, 25, 26, and 27, display the results. table 24. means and standard deviations of bdi scores across the three groups of low, moderate, and high positive emotions (pe) experienced during pregnancy. n mean standard deviation standard error low degree of pe experienced 25 20.72 13.95 2.79 moderate degree of pe experienced 93 9.40 5.67 0.58 europe’s journal of psychology 135 high degree of pe experienced 52 8.50 6.70 0.92 total 170 10.79 8.71 0.66 table 25. analysis of variance of mean scores of depression (bdi) against the level of positive emotions experienced during pregnancy. sum of squares df mean square f sig. depression*positiv e emotions during pregnancy between groups 2915.28 2 1457.64 24.50 .000*** within groups 9932.51 167 59.47 total 12847.79 169 table 26. means and standard deviations of bdi scores across the three groups of low, moderate, and high positive emotions (pe) experienced after giving birth. n mean standard deviation standard error low degree of pe experienced 24 26.08 12.78 2.61 moderate degree of pe experienced 70 10.10 4.45 0.53 high degree of pe experienced 74 6.77 3.55 0.41 total 168 10.91 8.78 0.67 table 27. analysis of variance of mean scores of depression (bdi) against the level of positive emotions experienced after giving birth. sum of squares df mean square f sig. depression*positiv e emotions after giving birth between groups 6839.60 2 3419.80 93.24 .000*** within groups 6051.22 165 36.67 total 12890.83 167 the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 136 the results in the tables above indicate that women who had experienced high degrees of positive emotions had also experienced lower scores of depression on the bdi, compared to participants with moderate and low levels of positive emotions. these results apply to both before and after giving birth. discussion the present study attempted to examine the development of positive emotions in alignment with fredrickson‟s positive emotions theory, and the extent to which these protect women against post natal depressive symptoms after giving birth. the theory states that life experiences and events lead to the development of positive emotions, and in this case, the positive emotions aroused after childbirth were joyfulness, pride, and interest. although ordinarily these feelings may be acute and context specific, the results of their activation involve the long term broadening of other abilities such as resilience, subjective well-being, and resource building (tugade &fredrickson, 2004). in addition, the adverse consequences of negative emotions are inhibited by resource building and the frequent experience of positive emotions (fredrickson, et al., 2000; fredrickson & levenson, 1998). the results of the present study confirmed the first hypothesis and revealed that new mothers experience more intense positive emotions after childbirth compared to their baseline before giving birth. this result was represented by a 4 point increase in mean scores, according to the panas-x. the specific emotions that increased the most after childbirth were joyfulness, pride, and interest. these three emotions have been documented as the most indicative of resource building by fredrickson‟s “broaden-and-build model of positive emotions” (1998). certain positive emotions remained undifferentiated before and after childbirth, such as liveliness, fearlessness, and concentration. this persistence of scores before and after could be explained by the event-specific repercussions of the transition to motherhood, where the experience of novelty and stress of the event of labour remain constant for different reasons before and after. irrespective of age and type of birth, the majority of the new mothers in the present study experienced a boost of positive emotions 1 week post partum. (as such, joyfulness, pride and interest manifested regardless of whether it was a primiparous birth or not. however, the expectancy of a female child yielded significantly stronger positive emotions than did the expectancy of a male child. this result could be due to birth related goals of the mother, which may include a longing for a little girl. for europe’s journal of psychology 137 instance, it has been found that increased expectations surrounding the health of the newborn child decrease the presence of depressive symptoms post partum (salmela-aro, nurmi, saisto, & halmesmaki, 2001). gender related goals of the mother before giving birth may be studied further to accurately account for the outcome found in the present study. similarly, the level of education of the mother was found to impact significantly on the experience of positive emotions. as the level of education increases, the variety of positive emotions experienced also increases. it may be the case that education determines the quality of the woman‟s assessment of her pregnancy and childbirth experience, and the overall transition into motherhood. educated women may be more independent and also more informed and prepared regarding their new role in comparison to women with lower education. in addition, education level may account for differences in positive emotions across monthly family income, and vice versa. women with a higher income and who experienced more intense emotions, may incidentally have a higher education level. working women experienced significantly more positive emotions during pregnancy than women who were unemployed, or students. potentially, a professional life, whether in the public or private sector contributes to an overall sense of self-efficacy, and in turn leads to overall life satisfaction and the frequent experience of positive emotions as a result (lyubomirsky, king, & diener, 2005). similarly, employment may account for increases in family monthly income, and therefore increases in positive emotions. women with a low family income may consider the addition of the newborn child into the family as a further demand on financial capabilities. furthermore, the present research showed that women who had a planned pregnancy as opposed to those that were unexpected, experience a greater degree of positive emotions both before and after giving birth. planning usually involves a degree of preparation and a greater anticipation of the child. in addition, this anticipation may contribute to the increase in coping abilities and resources towards caring for the child once born. in other words, the conscious planning of the pregnancy may represent a couple‟s readiness for a child, and an acceptance of the anxiousness and at the same time eagerness that accompanies. on a different note, as expected previous health and psychological problems were found to have a negative impact on the experience of positive emotions. in terms of post natal depression, the results showed that women who experienced positive emotions during pregnancy and after giving birth also experienced lower degrees of post natal depression in comparison to their less positive counterparts. the hypothesis the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 138 of the study is supported, and contributes to evidence of the resource building effect of positive emotions, in alignment with fredrickson‟s model (1998), which minimizes the prevalence of negative or depressive symptoms. alternatively, the support provided by the partner is a significant contributor to the positive emotions felt throughout the transition into motherhood. little partner support is inadequate, and does not shield the woman against negative and depressive emotions during this important time in her life. similarly, support from the greater environment is linked to the experience of positive emotions during pregnancy, but not significantly after childbirth. as a whole, the results of the present study indicate the importance of giving birth towards the experience of resources building and positive emotions. specifically, joyfulness, pride, and interest manifest most commonly, and especially when; the woman obtains support from her partner and the environment, has planned her pregnancy, is educated, and has a professional life which affords a high monthly income. although age has not been found to statistically contribute to differences in positive emotions amongst the sample, it may be the case that the age category of 18 to 29 years assessed in the present study fails to capture differences within this range, which could be substantial considering the degree of mental, emotional and physical growth that occurs during this period in a woman‟s life. furthermore, the differences found between education and occupation mentioned above may be directly influenced by differences in age between 18 and 29 years. as far as the limitations of the study and future research directions are concerned we propose the following. first post partum depression is a variable often confused with baby blues, underactive thyroid and post partum psychosis. it was a risk in our study to examine postpartum depression during the first week after giving birth as these symptoms may be the results of baby blues syndrome or underactive thyroid. therefore it will be useful in future research designs to clearly differentiate between post partum depression and baby blues or underactive thyroid symptoms. for that to happen a time three measurement of postpartum depression symptoms will be needed at a time approximately three weeks after delivery. furthermore, the present research was limited to the experience of positive emotions amongst women and their transition into parenthood, across various demographic and contextual variables that have never before been combined. much research is necessary to determine the dynamic links between these variables, and their interaction in terms of their effects on positive emotion manifestation. additionally, it is of interest to europe’s journal of psychology 139 assess potential positive emotions experienced by the partner, or other parent during this significant life event. results may contribute to knowledge concerning the quality of the relationship between couples, and the impact that each give to the other in terms of coping and adjustment throughout their transition into parenthood. finally, although personality factors have been studied previously with regard to post natal depression and childbirth, it may be that personality differences moderate the degree to which positive emotions safeguard against post natal depressive symptoms. references beck, a.t. & steer, r.a. 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(1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scale. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. the relation of positive emotions to post partum depression 142 about the authors: moraitou martha phd, midwive, associate professor, department of midwivery, alexandreio technological institute of thessaloniki address for correspondence: moraitou martham, αlexander technological educational institution of thessaloniki, 541 01 thessaloniki, greece e-mail: marmor@midw.teithe.gr galanakis michael phd, organizational psychologist panteion university of social and political sciences email: galanakismichael@hotmail.com garivaldis j. filia morg, organizational psychologist, doctoral psychology student monash university, australia email: filia.garivaldis@monash.edu stalikas anastasios phd, clinical psychologist, psychology professor, panteion university of social and political sciences email: anstal@panteion.gr emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 209-226 www.ejop.org massive modularity? the relationship between context-relevance, information encapsulation and functional specialization george varvatsoulias acorn independent college, london, uk abstract in this article, i discuss the debate between domain-specificity and content-generality in regard to the human mind. my main objective is to argue that the human mind can both be understood as a content-dependent machinery, as well as a general-purpose system that encapsulates information and manifests it accordingly. in evolutionary psychology a strong case is made for the mind‟s domain-specific architecture but assumptions of domain-general importance could also be taken into account. in evolutionary terms, it is argued that the mind is composed of content-dependent and specialized functions that have evolved in order to help humans deal with adaptive problems. the mind‟s evolved functionality of domain-specific systems has helped humans not only to survive but also to be creative in their relationships to others and the environment. however, advocates of behaviourist models and learning theories have proposed that the mind is a content-independent device which encapsulates information of a general nature. in this paper, domain specificity will be explained in terms of functional specialization, and content-generality in terms of informational encapsulation. my main aim will be to argue that both assumptions can be viewed in context-relevance to each other. keywords: evolutionary psychology, domain-specificity, functional specialization, general-purpose system, informational encapsulation, innate automaticity, integrative modularity. introduction human behaviour consists of distinguished mental abilities that relate to complex neural activities (cosmides & tooby, 1992; 1994). abilities, such as mathematical skillfulness, cooperation with others, cheater-detection, navigation in environment, http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 210 all depend on cognitive structures of specific circuitry (gelman, 2000). cognitive structures are domain-specific, modular in function, and refer to the informationprocessing machinery of the human mind (khalidi, 2001; cosmides & tooby, 2008). charles darwin (1859) and william james (1890) were among the first theorists who anticipated the domain-specific explanation of the human mind and its importance for the understanding of human behaviour. domain-specificity is not the only field of explanation for the human mind. it has been suggested that domain-generality could also be viewed as significant (quartz, 2002). domain-generality understands the mind as general-purpose cognitive system composed of content-independent functions. these functions are modular in nature and feature the structure of the mind with specialized abilities (karmiloff-smith, 1992; fodor, 2000). the case for domain-generality concentrates mainly on behaviourist accounts, such as the issue of learning, and how that is acquired from human cognition (karmiloff-smith, 1992). in contrast, domain-specificity explains human behaviour not as an outcome of learning processes but as an outset of specialized cognitive functions. specialization is context-dependent and dedicated to a content of multi-modular organization (samuels, 2006). learning, according to the domain-specificity argument, is not an issue of stimuli coming from the environment, but the outcome of functionally organized modules. these modules are contentcentral and especially designed for skills and knowledge acquisition (barrett & kurzban, 2006; machery, 2007). the tug-of-war between the two approaches relates to the interpretation of information and how this is processed by the mind. by information what is explained here is the content of individuals‟ knowledge, as well as their beliefs, assumptions, fictions, rules, norms, skills, etc. information is seen in the form of mental representations which depict the material realization of it in the mind. mental representations become public productions concerned with guided behaviours that are transmitted between individuals. public productions can be explained as public representations, and include speech, gestures, writing, postures, and etc. observation and imitation, although they cannot be assumed to be public representations, can still be included here, for they transmit information (sperber, 2007). this article will discuss the debate between evolutionary psychology and learning theories in regard to the mind. is the mind a multi-modular system in terms of structure, or structure-free elements? is the mind a modular system which explains that adaptive problems can be resolved by the use of a specialized cognitive structure, by the use of general-purpose cognitive machinery, or both? massive modularity? 211 presentation of the debate: issues of informational encapsulation and functional specialization the domain-specificity/domain-generality debate as to the mind‟s cognitive architecture originally refers to the epistemological framework of two different approaches: 1. the aspect of informational encapsulation (fodor, 2000), which refers to the enclosure of the mind’s cognitive structures in a massive modularity system. 2. the aspect of content-dependent sets of computational processes expressed by outputs referred to as particular domains that are functionally specialized in the mind (tooby et al., 2005; stenning & van lambalgen, 2007). both accounts consider the mind as modular in function; however they approach modularity from different starting-points. on the one hand, modularity is understood in terms of causality and functionality, independently processing information across all modules of the mental system; on the other, it is seen as specialized and closely associated to the differing information-processing abilities of each module (okasha, 2003). these two accounts diverge from one another, because: 1. the one regards modularity as an outset of independent functions carried through by every single module. 2. the other explains modularity from an evolutionary point of view, where modules are explained as content-focused, in order for adaptive problems to be identified and resolved (coltheart, 1999). the domain-specificity argument for the human mind: the case for a content-focus assumption and its relation to informational encapsulation according to a metaphor (horgan, 1995), the mind could compare to a swiss army knife crammed with functionally specialized tools. the mind forms a system of information-processing devices designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems (cosmides & tooby, 1997b; sweller, 2006). it consists of species-typical adaptations presented in a biological system of incomparable heterogeneity, known as „the brain‟ (richerson & boyd, 1999; cosmides & tooby, 2001). in cognitive science, brain and mind refer to understandings of physical properties and executive functions (oatley, 1985; cosmides & tooby, 1999). the brain is considered as a system of minicomputers dedicated to generate functionally europe’s journal of psychology 212 integrated behaviours (cosmides & tooby, 1997b; portillo & gleiser, 2009). the mind was designed by natural selection to be composed of domain-specific mechanisms relevant to the physical organization of the brain (jerison, 1985; cosmides & tooby, 2001). domain-specific mechanisms are evolved adaptations of complicated cognitive architecture explaining the problems hunter-gatherers were facing in our evolutionary past (cosmides & tooby, 1994; kanazawa, 2004). evolutionary psychology considers the brain‟s neural circuitry a valuable tool in outlining the modular function of the mind (cosmides & tooby, 1999; bereczkei, 2000). the mind‟s composition of a large number of multi-purpose specializations explains that they can distinctively: 1. deal with an information-processing adaptive problem; 2. present neural circuitry equipped with functional particularity as to the specific nature of a problem; 3. apply evolved solutions via specialized machinery engineered to win over an adaptive problem; 4. integrate knowledge on problem-relevant aspects, in accordance to the evolved design of the mind‟s specific functions (cosmides & tooby, 1999; kennair, 2002). the human mind is composed of a large number of domain-specific adaptations because natural selection is a theory of function (jerison, 1985; cosmides & tooby, 1994). for solutions to be applied to adaptive problems, cognitive functions of the mind have been selected for. adaptive problems and cognitive functions are contingent on each other (cosmides & tooby, 1994; macpherson, 2002). natural selection forms content-rich cognitive mechanisms able to provide solutions to evolutionarily posed domain problems (symons, 1992). content-specific functions of the human mind infer content-dependent problem-solving. that means that problem-solving strategies require specific cognitive preconditions (antecedents) to be in place, in order true or false reasoning concomitants (consequents) to be met (cosmides, 1989; becker, 1991; cosmides & tooby, 1992). an example explaining the domain-specificity of the human mind is the wason‟s selection task which asks participants to find how the conditional rule of the premise if p then q could be violated (wason, 1966). participants are presented with four cards and asked which two they should pick to see whether the rule is violated (cosmides, 1989; evans & newstead, 1995). what participants are actually asked is to falsify the if p then q rule by choosing the cards if p then not-q (wason & johnsonlaird, 1972). if p then not-q choice is the logically correct answer, for the selection of massive modularity? 213 the p card unravels a non-q value on the other side, and vice versa (cosmides, 1989; griggs, 1995). social contract versions of this task explain that human mind includes inferential functions at detecting cheaters (stone et al., 2002); a social contract version of this task could be: if you mow the lawn i will pay you a fiver (eysenck & keane, 2003). this is because human mind recognizes the reciprocal nature of social exchange by possessing specialized reasoning dedicated to the detection of cheaters (trivers, 1971; cosmides, 1985). laursen and hartup (2002) as well as cosmides and tooby (2005) argued that people look for the adaptively right answer in a social contract environment to detect potential rule-breakers. social exchange interactions are conditional upon benefits and costs, provided that costs are less than the net benefits gained (axelrod & hamilton, 1981; cosmides, 1989). social exchange is another form of reciprocal altruism (trivers, 1971; axelrod, 1984), which refers to evolutionarily recurring relationships of human interaction (cosmides & tooby, 2005; teboul & cole, 2005). the wason selection task explains evolutionarily recurring relationships in social contract terms regarding conditional rules that have been breached (cosmides, 1989; wagner-egger, 2007). the logic of this task means that the more explicit an adaptive problem, the more vividly specified and improved would be the selection of a mental mechanism to solve it (williams, 1966). the mind solves adaptive problems via a number of special-purpose capacities, designed to confront challenges (chomsky, 1980); an assumption which was also suggested by darwin (1859). the mind‟s design of specific cognitive elements explains for evolutionary psychology the functional organization of specialized features towards problemidentification, decision-making, and problem-solving. that means that skills and knowledge acquisition depend on the informational content of the articulation process in order for relevant solutions to be suggested. however, if this is the case, what about content of information which is: a) cognitively impenetrable such as auditory or visual illusions; b) difficult to be articulated such as related or not to reality; c) varied in ways of being processed by the mind as to the context of their constituent parts or d) consists of inputs that have not been fully distinguished by the cognitive system, in order for relative outputs to be produced. from an informational encapsulation point of view it can be suggested that information cannot be processed because of lack, or limited europe’s journal of psychology 214 availability, of mental representations produced in the mind (sperber, 2001; muis et al., 2006). the domain-general argument for the human mind: the case for a domainindependent assumption and its relation to content-specificity informational encapsulation assumes that the mind is a massively modular system subject to a massive functionality organisation (fodor, 2000). according to this thesis, only peripheral systems, such as vision, are modular, whilst anything else is nonmodular, such as cognitive systems (fodor, 1983). encapsulation processes have access to only limited information, excluded from being pertinent to other outputs produced elsewhere in the organism. cognitive systems are encapsulated in an allinclusive operation of outputs that are autonomous and totally unrelated to other mental systems (sperber, 2007). informational encapsulation is subject to: 1. the massive modularity view of input systems; 2. the massive functionality organisation of the mind‟s cognitive systems; 3. general, and not central, cognitive outputs (sperber, 2001). to understand the above, it is argued by fodor (1983) that stimuli operate: 1. as transducers, which convert and process signals; 2. as input systems, which, in a massively modular way, produce inferences relevant to the sources inputs are admitted to; 3. in association to general-purpose cognitive systems, both in terms of reasoning and external appearance. informational encapsulation stands in contrast to domain specificity. it argues that the evolution of human behaviour can be explained in terms of a mind located in a domain-general system of content-independent structure (cosmides & tooby, 1994; carruthers & chamberlain, 2000). a content-independent structure has been proposed by learning theories that see the mind as a general-purpose machine useful for fitness-maximizing (cosmides & tooby, 1987; samuels, 2006). their main assumption is that the mind is a content-free system offering solutions to any fitness challenge (cosmides & tooby, 1994; veenman et al., 1997). the human mind as a general-purpose computer traces its origin to the ideas of the „blank slate‟ (locke, 1690; watson, 1925) and the standard social science model (degler, 1991; tooby & cosmides, 1992). the human mind‟s content-generality derives from the environment and the social world. social processes take place in massive modularity? 215 particular milieus without necessarily being subject to individual transactions (cosmides & tooby, 1994; kaufmann & clément, 2007). researchers describe domain-generality as learning, imitation, rationalization, induction, intelligence (cosmides & tooby, 1999; saffran & thiessen, 2007). the social world, according to this account, is the external factor and an individual‟s psychological and physical fitness depend on it (cosmides & tooby, 1994; kaufmann & clément, 2007). according to understanding, the social world is alternatively viewed as „culture‟ assumed to be maximizing an individual‟s fitness by: 1. being socially learnt and passed on from generation to generation; 2. forming the learning process of one‟s adult life, for every human mental activity is primarily content-independent; 3. being represented via intra-group similarities (berger, 1966; cosmides & tooby, 1994). the general-purpose assumption asserts that, whether an adaptive problem has already been or hasn‟t been encountered, it is possible for a solution to be suggested (cosmides & tooby, 1992; gratch & chien, 1996). however, in the eea (environment of evolutionary adaptedness), when our ancestors were confronted with adaptive problems, they were making use of evolved cognitive mechanisms (cosmides & tooby, 1994; evans & zarate, 2000). the use of such mechanisms over evolutionary time assisted them in a consistent way to face different situations (cosmides & tooby, 1987; anderson, 1990). cooperative interactions, such as helping others, or competitive strategies do refer to information processing of conditionals, regulated by cognitive designs to evoke specialized and content-focused functions (cosmides & tooby, 1997a; wagner-egger, 2007). one such cognitive design is language: to be acquired there is the need for evolutionarily recurrent mental activity which should be domain-sensitive (cosmides & tooby, 1987; storey et al., 1997). if the opposite is true, it means that communication expectations cannot be met, because they lack functionally distinguished mental architecture promoting the learning of a language (chomsky, 1980). the general-purpose machinery of the mind predicts that any activity performed is dependent on functions of experience and familiarity which promote fitnessmaximization. fitness-maximization is the outcome of content-independent experiences, whether these relate to evolutionary adaptations or not (buller & hardcastle, 2000; cosmides & tooby, 2008). content-general computation is the europe’s journal of psychology 216 case for such an assumption of the human mind, without the need for functional specialization to be involved (tooby & cosmides, 1992; duchaine et al., 2001). however, if the mind is content-free and independent of any specialized cognitive activity, what about complicated structures, such as face recognition (bruce & young, 1986)? face recognition ability is explained as composed of distinguished specialized structures of content-specific functions in the brain which distinctively recognize a face, facial features, or the id of an individual (boyer & barrett, 2005; eysenck & keane, 2005). if the content-free assumption about the human mind is true, then the rest of our biology should also be that way, such as having one sense organ instead of five (gallistel, 2000). the example from face recognition supports not only the domain-specificity argument but the informational encapsulation view as well. physiologically speaking, the term „encapsulation‟ can be found in many instances: for example, we say ‘encapsulation of tendons in membranous sheaths’. face recognition is dependent on a number of neuron cells which encapsulate information for face recognition through the right middle fusiform gyrus. membranous sheaths can be found in many parts of the human body including the brain. tendons are enclosed in membranes; however, tendons and membranes are not operating in the same way. a tendon functions in association to an inelastic tissue connecting a muscle with its bony attachment; whereas a membranous sheath is the covering sheet operating as an outer layer that protects the tendon. although face recognition is the outcome, it may also be the informational encapsulation of a number of different cognitive processes. for instance, not all parts, such as face features or the name of the individual, are located in the same brain areas. face features and name recognition are found in the parahippocampal, lingual, and peri-calcarine areas, meaning that cognitive abilities do not operate on their own. they operate in association to other brain locations referred to a number of different neural processes. interestingly enough, cognitive abilities can be found encapsulated in many content-specific neural structures aiming at producing differentiated cognitive operations. domain-specificity can therefore be viewed as the content-dependent capability of the mind, however independent of the interaction resulting when information is processed through a number of different outputs (gallistel, 1999). having a cognitive system specialized for the a or b domain does not mean that such cognitive system could not stand available or “co-opted” for “evolutionarily novel activities” (boyer & massive modularity? 217 barrett, 2005: 99); i.e. for activities outside the remit of an already contentdependent structure, activities of an encapsulation-informed template. discussion: context-relevance approaches between informational encapsulation and functional specialization the human mind is not a general-purpose fitness-maximizing computer. it is especially designed for cognitive functions contingent upon domain-specific structures so that adaptive challenges could be faced. such challenges cannot be statistically systematic in terms of fitness. this is because processes of action on fitness cannot be carefully assessed due to a different representation of genes over succeeding generations. on the other hand, the human mind may consist of content-independent domains as well. such domains may present a functional modular system of a general-purpose applicability, such as detecting cheaters not only in interrelationships but also in abstract social endeavours (veenman et al., 1997). as an evolutionary psychologist, though i regard the mind as functionally specialized, i nevertheless consider that such a thesis is one-sided. i would think that what fodor conceives of as informational encapsulation can be related to the issue of functional specialization, so that convergence and not divergence is the case. we know that the precedence of modularity impacts to the generation of information-integrated systems. information-integrated systems employ independent functions of cognitive architecture in order for elements of behaviour and action to become manifest. this is an important thesis for both functional specialization and informational encapsulation, because „behaviour‟ and „action‟ are functionally dependent on human cognition. therefore, domain-specificity and domaingenerality are issues of context-relevance to each other. context-relevance is the point of convergence between functional specialization and informational encapsulation, for it refers to the aspect of innate automaticity. the aspect of innate automaticity explains that information can both be subject to a specific content as well as to modular functions of general-purpose nature. innate automaticity can also be understood in terms of an internal working process in the mind, where sensory information is processed as an input resulting in particular representations (outputs). representations are demonstrated via templates of content-specific behaviours. context-relevance between domain-specificity and domain-generality explains the mind‟s cognitive architecture in terms of integrative modularity. by that i mean that innate functions and external processes are dependent on one another. they are dependent not only in the form of devices that europe’s journal of psychology 218 process specialized informational content, but also in devices of a contentindependent structure. the latter refers to the comprehension of the information received which is independent of the content that information „needs‟ in order to be processed. an example to understand the above could be computers that are regarded as entities of general-purpose machinery. computers need hardware and software for their operating systems, programs, accessories, etc. next to such general-purpose machinery a number of distinctively characterized sub-mechanisms composed of smaller functional units are attached, all of which assist the operation of the entire system. for, what could be the use of a general-purpose machinery without the need for smaller functional entities, so that the system could be up-and-running? none! all distinct functional units, or modules, depend on the general-purpose machinery, and vice versa. modularity of the mind is both domain-specific and domain-general: human cognition is indeed a domain-general system; nevertheless, it is distinctively divided into units-modules of a special content without which the mind wouldn’t be able to properly function. all units-modules are massive in their composition, consisting of even much greater sub-units and modules. such composition pinpoints to the massive modularity argument, for it implies: 1. an „oceanic structure‟, as to the constituents of the mind‟s modular functionality; 2. components that operate independently to the content of each other. in such an explanation, massive modularity underlines that both informational encapsulation and functional specialization belong to the same evolved cognitive architecture. such evolved cognitive architecture was selected for, in order for adaptive problems to be effectively confronted (barrett, 2008). the current understanding about modularity, by evolutionary psychology, is approached in terms of information-processing. however, evolutionary psychology needs to re-examine its domain-specificity assumptions, by explaining massive modularity as both functionally specialized and information-encapsulated. the human mind is composed of domain-specific and domain-general cognitive features designed to deal with the structural content of evolutionarily recurrent situations. that means that the mind by being equipped with a vast number of cognitive mechanisms context-relevant to each other is able to apply solutions that can both be content-dependent and content-independent. the human mind is a domain-specific system composed of species-typical adaptations which refer to: massive modularity? 219 1. our mental architecture, which is presented with a design that tackles and solves target problems (such as resolving conflicts); 2. the ability to process information that is functionally specific, in order for everyday requisites to be attended (such as satisfying nutritional needs); 3. natural selection, as the designer of domain-specific mechanisms, consisting of a variety of cognitive specializations, both context and content-oriented (such as helping con-specifics in a time of need). from an evolutionary psychology perspective, the context-relevance argument in regard to the mind as a general-purpose computational system suggests that: 1. the more significant an adaptive problem, the more vividly natural selection had designed cognitive mechanisms to quintessentially deal with it, such as avoiding predators, or caring for family members. 2. regulation of action, in a content-dependent manner, is equally important to the general-purpose use of knowledge acquisition. the use of particular knowledge is effective only if the regulation of action is subject to the knowledge gained; such as someone knowing how to face cheaters. 3. human cognition could be both a by-product of imitating the social world, and a domain-specific structure with distinct capabilities. either way, a solution to a problem such as comprehending costs and benefits in social contract settings is subject to familiarity issues in a given environment. conclusion evolutionary psychology explains domain-specific mechanisms of the human mind that have evolved to solve adaptive problems. these mechanisms are specialized cognitive activities functionally integrated to face challenges posed in relevant niches. their functional specialization has been selected for to capacitate and guide human behaviour against everyday difficulties. in contrast to that, domain-general and content-independent assumptions regard the human mind as a cognitive derivative of experiences and socialization, focused on fitness-maximization. the basic hypothesis for such a consideration is that the mind is content-free of any domain-specific mechanism. the main assumption behind context-generality lies with the aspect of informational encapsulation. informational encapsulation is interpreted as the function of outputs autonomously operating, and totally disassociated from other mental systems. although both approaches claim to be divergent, i have shown in this paper that a fruitful convergence between both could also be the case. such convergence can be understood in terms of context-relevance between informational encapsulation europe’s journal of psychology 220 and functional specialization. both ideas refer to issues of information processing, whether in terms of a mind as general-purpose device or as content-dependent machinery. in this paper i have argued that the mind can be explained both as a general-purpose and content-dependent computer, for it refers to actions and behaviours of specific and general content. context-relevance between both considerations explains also aspects of innate automaticity and integrative modularity. inputs and their resulting outputs demonstrate generallyprocessed information, as well as information being processed by individual parts of human cognition. evolutionary psychology, in its interpretation of the mind, needs to consider the context-relevance assumption as valid, in order for a common framework between information encapsulation and functional specialization to be introduced. evolutionary psychology, by considering the latter, expands informational encapsulation and functional specialization towards an integrative evolutionary approach to the human mind. such approach could explain the human mind as an operating system of context-relevant circuitry based on a content-relevant generalpurpose machinery. references anderson, j. r. 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(1972). psychology of reasoning: structure and content. london: batsford. williams, g. c. (1966). adaptation and natural selection. princeton: princeton university press. about the author: dr george varvatsoulias was born in xanthi-greece. he studied theology, and psychology; he earned a masters in practical theology, a masters in psychology of religion, and a phd in psychology of religion. he is a chartered scientist registered with the science council in britain. he publishes extensively in the area of psychology of religion and evolutionary psychology. his main academic interests include psychology of religion, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary psychology of religion, philosophy of religion, and interdisciplinary approaches between patristic texts and psychology. he is the head of the psychology and religious studies departments at an independent school in west london, where he is also lecturer of psychology, religious studies, and english language & literature. address for correspondance: george varvatsoulias, 39-47 high street, southall ub1 3hf, london, uk e-mail to: psycrel@varvatsouliasgeorgios.com mailto:psycrel@varvatsouliasgeorgios.com emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 337-358 www.ejop.org evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood (stim) in the case of bipolar disorder maria j. gutierrez south essex partnership nhs trust john sorensen north staff. comb. healthcare nhs trust emily tomlinson newham psychological therapy service abstract this study’s aims were to evaluate the effects of sorensen’s therapy of instability in mood (sorensen, 2005; sorensen, done & rhodes, 2007), an intervention based on a short relapse-prevention program for clients suffering from bipolar disorder (bd), delivered within a clinical setting, by an assistant psychologist with limited training in cbt. the experimental treatment consisted of four individual sessions in addition to treatment as usual. twelve clients with diagnoses of bd participated. outcomes were measured across four domains: symptom severity, perceived hopelessness, perceived control over symptoms and level of insight. measures of client satisfaction were also collected. statistical analysis of the data revealed significant improvements to depression and perceived control levels at both one and three month follow-ups. in addition, clients reported significantly lower levels of hopelessness at three months follow-up. the study also considered the clinical significance of the research findings with the jacobson-truax (jacobson & truax, 1991) method. a substantial number of clients attained clinically significant changes with regards to depression, hopelessness and perceived control at one and three months follow-ups. recovery rates at three months were 50%, 41.6% and 25% respectively. neither statistically nor clinically significant changes were found with regards to mania or insight at either one or three month follow-ups. all clients reported high levels of satisfaction. keywords: cognitive-behavioural therapy, psycho-education, brief intervention relapse prevention, bipolar disorder, clinical significance analysis and single case design. http://www.ejop.org/ evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 338 introduction bipolar disorder (bd) is a recurrent condition characterised by extreme changes in mood and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. annual prevalence rates in the year 2004 have been reported to be between 1.3% and 2% in the uk (regeer et al., 2004). subsyndromal symptoms, mainly depression and significant psychosocial deficits such as poor work adjustment are often reported (post et al., 2003). bd seldom occurs in the absence of other mental health problems and has been associated (more than any other psychiatric disorder) with heightened suicidality (miklowitz & johnson, 2006; newman, 2005): one in four people diagnosed with bd attempt suicide (dalton, cate-carter, mundo, parikn & kennedy, 2003). indeed suicidal ideation is frequent and around 15% of bd patients commit suicide (mcintyre et al., 2008). the burden of suffering is not restricted to the patient, but also impacts on the family. almost 60% of bd sufferers divorce or separate and most clients tend to have significant long term disability and impaired occupational and social functioning (michalak, yatham & lam, 2005; michalak, yatham, maxwell, hale & lam, 2007; simon, ludman, unutzer, operskalski & bauer, 2008). the economic costs resulting from bd are considerable and estimated to have cost the uk £2 billion in 2001 (das gupta & guest, 2002). the main treatment modality has been pharmacotherapy; however, despite its efficacy in treating the acute phase of the illness, many patients experience multiple relapses. further, the positive results obtained in clinical trials of medication have not been replicated in clinical practice and the medical approach working in isolation has significant limitations at both symptomatic and functional levels, as illustrated by the lack of long-term effectiveness and non-adherence (greenhouse, meyer & johnson, 2000; huxley, 2002; keck, mcelroy, strakowski, bourne & west, 1997; kessler et al., 1997; nilson, 1999). in a longitudinal study gitlin, swendsen, heller and hammen (1995) found a relapse risk of 37% after one year and 73% after five or more years for patients on continual mood-stabilizing medication. medical intervention alone therefore has been unable to meet the wider needs of patients with bd and as a result, an increased interest in the benefits of adjunctive psychosocial approaches emerged. cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt), psychoeducational interventions (pe), family therapy and interpersonal and social rhythm therapy (ipsrt) have been found to be valuable when combined with pharmacotherapy in the treatment of bd in randomised control trials (rcts) (colom, europe’s journal of psychology 339 vieta, martinez-aran et al., 2003; lam et al., 2000; lam et al., 2003; scott, garland & morhead, 2001). evidence suggests that, at least for a subgroup of clients, better outcomes are achieved when psychosocial interventions are added to pharmacotherapy (ibid). however, the clinical reality for most users of the national health service is that despite all the years of research, the treatment for this illness is, still predominantly pharmacological. several reasons can be considered to account for this. for a start, the resources available in research are different from those in the mental health service and the benefits observed in the ‘laboratory’ setting are often not transmitted to real life clinical practice. except for a few psychosocial interventions (cochran, 1984; perry, tarrier, morris, mccarthy & limb, 1999) the majority of approaches are delivered by highly skilled clinicians with many years of experience (lam et al., 2003; miklowitz et al., 2000; scott et al., 2006) and even where manuals are available detailing the steps of an intervention, this tends to be insufficient. the complexity of the approach normally requires the provision of supervision and training, usually delivered through training centres to ensure that the clinician becomes a competent practitioner in the delivery of a particular approach. many approaches are delivered over long periods of time, often between 20 and 30 sessions over a minimum of six months (lam, jones, hayward & bright, 1999; miklowitz et al., 2000). providing these long term interventions within community mental health teams and psychology services is a challenge when considering that most already struggle with long waiting lists and limited staff resources. the reality is that most people with bd do not receive any form of therapy for the reasons stated above and those who have in the past, are often participants in research programs and only do so after many years of having received a diagnosis of bd. there is no doubt, that psychological interventions for bd need to be effective, but to be applicable to clinical practice they also need to match the resources available in today’s health care system. some authors advocate the use of brief interventions that can be delivered by less skilled or less experienced professionals in shorter periods of time and indeed the value of shorter interventions (4 to 12 sessions) has been shown in some rcts. cochran (1984) was among the first to demonstrate that 6 sessions of a cbt programme whose main aim was to increase compliance with medication was a very cost effective intervention. later perry and colleagues (1999) also promoted a short intervention based exclusively on relapse prevention. more recently, sorensen developed an intervention based on a short relapseprevention program named the sorensen therapy for instability in mood (stim) (sorensen, 2005; sorensen, done & rhodes, 2007). a major advantage of this brief evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 340 intervention is that it is designed to be delivered by staff with very little training in cbt. these are important factors that make this intervention easily applied and delivered to clients with bd, and therefore of special interest for pressured and often under resourced nhs psychology services. there has been only one study (sorensen et al. 2007), which evaluated the feasibility of this program with 13 bd clients. the results were positive and promising, however the intervention was delivered by an experienced psychologist, and therefore the claim that it can be administered by less experienced clinicians has yet to be confirmed. the study reported here aimed to evaluate the effects and acceptability of stim (sorensen, 2005) when it is delivered as an adjunct to pharmacotherapy to patients suffering from bd by staff with limited training in cbt (such as assistant psychologists) and within a clinical setting. the sorensen therapy for instability in mood (stim) stim consists of four individual sessions of a relapse prevention programme, delivered in most cases over four consecutive weeks by an assistant psychologist. sessions last for 50 minutes. session one helps the client develop a better understanding of bd in general terms and in relation to their personal experience of it. the stress-vulnerability framework, developed by zubin and spring (1977) is described in order to differentiate between what may cause an initial episode of bd and factors which influence the likelihood of future relapse into an illness episode. the aims of sessions two and three are to increase the client’s awareness of early signs, symptoms and triggers for both depressive and manic episodes and the identification of an individual symptom profile as well as discussing coping strategies. in session four, the illness management strategies agreed in previous sessions are integrated and applied to the client’s work and social related activities. each client is given a handbook to complete during the therapy sessions summarising the main aspects of the therapy and is encouraged to continue using them after termination of the therapy. method inclusion/exclusion criteria clients were included in the study if they were aged 18 years or older, fulfilled diagnosis of bd i or bd ii according to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv)(apa, 2000) or the international statistical classification of europe’s journal of psychology 341 diseases and related health problems (icd-10)(who,1990), were able to give informed consent and were fluent in english. clients were excluded if they had a primary substance abuse disorder, were suffering from an organic brain syndrome or were receiving psychological treatment. clients were also excluded if they were considered to be in an acute state for mania, hypomania or mixed state as defined by bech-rafaelsen mania scale ≥ 15 (bech, rafaelsen, kramp & bolwig, 1978) and the beck depression inventory second edition ≥ 50 (beck, steer, & brown, 1996). the criteria for exclusion of clients in an acute state for mania was similar to that used in other research studies, where the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions was evaluated (lam et al., 2000; lam et al., 2003; lam, hayward, watkins, wright & sham, 2005), but the criteria for acute depression differed from that employed in previous research (bdi >29) . it was decided that the commonly used cut off for depression (bdi> 29) was too low (ibid) and that if applied it would exclude a considerable proportion of clients with bd living in the community, who were reasonably stable. it was also felt that there is a need for treatments for bd clients presenting with significant subsyndromal symptoms and this had not been addressed by previous research. the final sample consisted of 12 clients. except for one client (8.3%), the entire sample were taking medication (91.6%, n = 11). of those on medication, 83.3% (n = 10) were on mood stabilising medication, 75% (n = 9) on antidepressants and 50% (n = 6) received both. their medication was not changed during the treatment intervention phase, but the study did not have the resources to control for changes in medication during the follow up phase. equally, no measures were taken of the amount of professional contact that clients may have received from their local mental health team during the study. outcome measures the variables expected to be influenced by the intervention included symptoms of mania and depression; level of hopelessness; level of insight and degree of control over internal states. a measure of the level of satisfaction with the intervention was also employed. on entering the study participants completed a 45-minute semi-structured interview, which included information about their demographic characteristics, current and past psychiatric history and current treatments. measures were collected by et and mjg and were compiled during the pre-treatment baseline period, three times over five weeks and an average score was then computed. the same measures were repeated at the end of session 1, mid treatment (after session 2), at the end of treatment (after session 4) and at one and three months follow-up. evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 342 the following measures were employed: the beck depression inventory second edition (bdi-ii) (beck, et al., 1996), the bech-rafaelsen mania scale (brmrs) (bech et al., 1978), the beck hopelessness scale (bhs) (beck, weissman, lester & trexler, 1974), the insight scale (birchwood, smith, drury, & healy, 1994), the perceived control over internal states (pallant, 2000) and the client satisfaction questionnaire (csq-8) (larsen, attkisson, hargreaves & nguyen, 1979). all the outcome measures above, are well validated and widely used in the research literature, where cbt interventions, for the management of bd have been employed (scott et al., 2001; lam et al., 2005; sorensen et al., 2007). intervention in addition to treatment as usual (tau), clients in the study received an active intervention based on relapse-prevention (stim) (sorensen, 2005). tau included any medication that the psychiatrist treating an individual client considered appropriate, dosages being adjusted as necessary. as part of the standard treatment individuals could receive support from members of the multidisciplinary community team such as nurses, social workers or support workers. no other form of psychological therapy was considered during the study period. the intervention was delivered by an assistant psychologist (et), who received weekly supervision. she had a bsc (hons) in psychology and had completed a 20 week course in basic counselling skills. as an undergraduate she gained experience as a health care assistant/senior support worker with various client groups in disparate settings working for the nhs, private health care organisations and charities. the ap received around eight hours of training from mjg on the relapse prevention model proposed by sorensen and the rationale for it. treatment integrity was ensured with the use of audio tapes and supervision. clients were asked to give their consent to the audio tape of one session, chosen prior to the therapy commencing, audio tapes were then analysed by the first author with the use of a rating scale specifically designed to measure whether the components of the session being evaluated had been implemented as expected. data analysis a statistical analysis of the mean differences between pre treatment and one month follow up and pre-treatment and three months follow up was performed with the paired-samples t-test, provided that the assumption of normality was met or with its non-parametric equivalent, the wilcoxon signed-rank test where it was not. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/182/2/123#ref2#ref2 europe’s journal of psychology 343 many researchers have advocated adding ‘clinical significance’ as a criterion for evaluating psychotherapy (kazdin, 1982; kendall, 1984; wolf, 1978). however the majority of published studies rely exclusively on group means and statistical significance tests in evaluating treatment effects. there are two limitations with relying exclusively on group means. firstly, it ignores individual variability (barlow, 1981; garfield, 1981; hugdahl & ost, 1981) and for clinician’s in routine practice, there is an interest in determining how each individual has responded to the treatment. secondly, it has been accepted that changes can be statistically significant without being clinically meaningful (kazdin & wilson, 1978). jacobsen and colleagues developed, over a number of years, a method for defining clinical significance in psychotherapy (jacobson, follette & revenstorf, 1984; jacobson, follette & revenstorf, 1986; jacobson & revenstorf, 1988; jacobson & truax, 1991). the method which is generally referred to as the jacobsen-traux (jt) method established a two-fold criteria. first they proposed the use of a reliable change index (rc) to determine if a change is reliable and not due to measurement error. this rc can be calculated with the formulae below. if the rc obtained for each client is greater or lesser than + / 1.96 (depending on whether the instruments are positive or negative) then one can conclude with a 95% probability (p < .05) that the change is reliable and not the result of an unreliable measuring instrument. diffs xx rc 12 1x client’s pre-test score 2x client’s post-test score  2 2 ediff ss  diffs standard error of difference between two tests rxxsse  11 1s sd of the normal (functional) population rxx internal consistency of the measure secondly, the client’s score at post-treatment has to fall within the normal population range, rather than within the dysfunctional population range for a clinical significant change to occur. jt suggested using either cut-off ‘a’, ‘b’ or ‘c’ to separate the functional from the dysfunctional populations. jt recommends using criterion ‘c’ if norms for both the functional and dysfunctional populations are available. if norms are not available criterion ‘a’ and ‘b’ has to be used instead. a detailed explanation of these three cut-off points and the equations used to calculate them is provided below. evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 344 criterion a: clinically significant change is achieved when the client’s level of functioning at post-test falls outside the range of the dysfunctional population. the range is defined ´as extending two standard deviations beyond (in the direction of functionality) the mean of the dysfunctional population’ (jacobson et al., 1984, p. 340). 1ma  + 12s 1m  mean dysfunctional 1s  sd dysfunctional this equation applies to positive instruments (higher scores indicative of functionality) when dealing with negative instruments (higher scores indicative of dysfunctional) the equation should be converted to: 1ma  12s criterion b: based on this criterion clinically significant change is achieved when the client’s level of functioning at post-test falls within the range of the functional population, ‘where range is defined as extending two standard deviations below the mean of the normal population’ (jacobson et al., 1984, p. 340). 0mb  02s 0m mean functional 0s sd functional this equation applies to positive instruments, when dealing with negative instruments the equation should be converted to: 0mb  + 02s criterion c: this criterion applies when the client’s post-test score is more likely to have been drawn from the functional population rather than the dysfunctional group. 10 0110 ss msms c    0m + 0s mean and sd of the functional population  11 sm mean and sd of the dysfunctional population criterion ‘a’ is the most stringent criterion, criterion b is more lenient and criterion ‘c’ falls in between. a visual representation of these three cut-off points has been presented in figure 1 below. europe’s journal of psychology 345 functional dysfunctional population population m0 = mean dysfunctional population m1 = mean functional population figure 1. visual representation of jacobson-truax (jt) cut-off points for a hypothetical subject. the jt method allows for further classifying clients into categorical ratings for clinical improvement into recovered, improved, unchanged or deteriorated according to whether or not the client has met the above criteria. the clinical significance of the change experience by each client was analysed only for the measures where a statistically significant effect has been found. the data used in the calculations is provided in table 1. table 1. data used to determine the rci(s) and cut off points for the bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss. bdi-ii bhs pcoiss rxx 0.93 (beck et al., 1996) 0.92 (beck & steer, 1988) 0.90 (pallant, 2000) sd 7.57 (dozois et al., 1998) 3.09 (greene, 1981) 12 (pallant, 2000) 0m 9.11 (dozois et al., 1998) 4.45 (greene, 1981) 60.6 (pallant, 2000) 0s 7.57 (dozois et al., 1998) 3.09 (greene, 1981) 12 (pallant, 2000) 1m 22.45 (beck et al., 1996) 9.98 (beck et al., 1990) 1s 12.75 (beck et al., 1996) 5.42 (beck et al., 1990) b c a m0 m1 4 5 0 0 a evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 346 results a one way repeated-measures anova was conducted to compare scores on the bdi-ii, bmrs, bhs, insight scale and pcoiss across the three baselines points (b1, b2 and b3) to investigate the stability of the measure prior to the intervention. for all outcome measures there was a non significant effect across time, which led to conclude that the assumption of independence of observation and stability of the behaviour has been met. the results have been illustrated in the table 2 below. table 2. results of analysis across all baseline measures for all outcome measures. outcome measures wilks’ lambda f sig bdi-ii 0.743 f (2, 10) = 1.727 0.227 bmrs 0.875 f (2, 10) = 0.712 0.514 bhs 0.872 f (2, 10) = 0.737 0.503 insight scale 0.823 f (2, 10) = 1.075 0.378 pcoiss 0.924 f (2, 10) = 0.413 0.673 analysis of statistical significance statistically significant results were found for depression and perceived control over internal states scores between baseline and one month follow up and also between baseline and three months follow-up. for hopelessness scores significant differences with large effect sizes were found between baseline and three months follow-up, but not between baseline and one month follow up. for mania and for level of insight scores no significant differences were obtained at any stage. table 3 and table 4 below present the results of this analysis. table 3. results of statistical analysis between baseline and 1 month follow-up. outcome measures baseline mean (sd) median 1 month fu mean (sd) median t/z sig (2-tailed) bdi-ii 21.86 (12.83) 19.83 12.92 (14.03) 9.00 z=-2.492 0.013* bmrs 4.25 (2.76) 3.5 4.67 (2.77) 4.50 t =0.535 0.603 bhs 9.5 (5.61) 9.83 6.83 (6.96) 4 t = 1.58o 0.143 insight 10.06 (1.54) 10.33 10.08 (2.06) 10.50 z = -0.178 0.858 pcoiss 41.22 (12.40) 40.66 59.75 (15.63) 58 t =4.44 0.001* * p < 0.05 europe’s journal of psychology 347 table 4. results of statistical analysis between baseline and 3 months follow-up. outcome measures baseline mean (sd) median 3 month fu mean (sd) median t/z sig (2-tailed) bdi-ii 21.86 (12.83) 19.83 10.42 (7.24) 10.00 t=2. 7.82 0.018* bmrs 4.25 (2.76) 3.5 3.92 (3.47) 3.0 t= 0.263 0.797 bhs 9.5 (5.61) 9.83 5.08 (5.31) 2.50 t= 2.708 0.020* insight 10.06 (1.54) 10.33 10.33 (1.77) 10.50 z=-1.024 0.306 pcoiss 41.22 (12.40) 40.66 59.25 (14.91) 60 t= -3.66 0.004*  p < 0.05 reliable change as stated above the reliable change index (rc) was calculated for the bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss. a summary is presented in table 5 below with clients’ scores on the bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss having to show a minimum change of 5.53, 2.41 and 10.50 points respectively in order to demonstrate either reliable improvement or reliable deterioration depending in what direction the change is. the percentages and frequencies of clients achieving reliable change are shown in table 5. it should be noted that not all the individuals achieving significant change at end of therapy or maintained their gains at one and three months follow-up. in order to identify what change each client experienced at each stage, subjects were allocated a number from 1 to 12, shown in brackets in table 5. for instance, with regards to subject number 5’s bdi-ii scores, he did not achieve a significant change at the end of therapy, changed significantly between pre treatment and one month follow up, but did not maintain the gains at three months follow-up. table 5. percentages and frequencies of clients achieving a reliable change on the bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss across all data collection points (the numbers in brackets identify the participants). reliable change (rc) end therapy n (participants) % 1 month fu n (participants) % 3 month fu n (particpants) % bdi-ii significant change desired direction significant change opposite direction not significant change 7(1,2,6,7,9,10,11) 0 5 (3,4,5,8,12) 58.3 0 41.7 7(1,2,5,6,9,10,11) 0 5 (3,4,7,,8,12) 58.3 0 41.7 8(1,2,4,6,7,9,10,11) 1(8) 3 (3,5,12)) 66.7 8.3 25 bhs significant change desired direction: 7 (1,2,5,6,7,10,11) 58.3 5 (1,5,6, 10,11) 41.7 7 (1,4,5,6,9,10,11) 58.3 evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 348 significant change opposite direction not sig. change 1 (9) 4 (3,4,8,12) 8.3 33.3 3(2,4,7) 4 (3,8,9,12) 25 33.3 1 (8) 4 (2,3,7,12) 8.3 33.3 pcoiss significant change desired direction: significant change opposite direction not sig. change 6 (1,2,5,9,10,11) 0 6 (3,4,6,7,8,12) 50 0 50 7(1,2,5,9,10,11,12) 0 5 (3,4,6,7,8) 58.3 0 41.7 8(1,2,5,6,7,9,10,11) 0 4 (3,4,8,12) 66.7 0 33.3 return to normal levels of functioning the second condition of the jt method stipulates that a reliable change will be considered clinically significant only if the client’s score at post-test (either at the end of therapy, one or three months follow-up) falls within the normal population range rather than in the dysfunctional population range. given the availability of norms for both the functional and dysfunctional populations for the bdi-ii and the bhs scale, criterion ‘c’ has been employed. for the pcoiss only norms for the functional population were available, and therefore cut off ‘b’ was used. clients’ scores at post-treatment would have to fall below 14.07 for the bdi-ii, below 3.28 for the bhs and above 36.6 for the pcoiss for the change to be considered clinically significant. the distributions of scores for the relevant outcome measures for both functional and dysfunctional populations are summarised in table 6. table 6. functional and dysfunctional populations according to the cut-offs for bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss. range scores jt cut-off functional range dysfunctional range bdi-ii 0-63 14.07 0-14.07 > 14.07 bhs 0-20 3.28 0 -3.28 > 3.28 pcoiss 0-90 36.6 36.6 -90 < 36.6 the number of clients returning to normal levels of functioning, regardless of whether or not the change experienced was reliable, is presented in table 7 below. there are some instances when this criteria is not applicable, which happens when the client’s score at baseline was already within the functional range. this means that no matter how much their scores change in the desirable direction, their change can never be clinically significant according to the jt method. this is one of the limitations of this europe’s journal of psychology 349 method. one way of addressing this would have been to ensure that at baseline all clients’ scores were within the dysfunctional range. this would, however, have the disadvantage of excluding clients for treatment, who are dysfunctional in one of the other key areas of interest. table 7. percentage and frequencies of clients showing a return to normative levels of functioning on the bdi-ii, bhs and pcoiss across all data collection points. end therapy post test 1 month fu post test 3 month fu n % n % n % bdi-ii criteria achieved criteria not achieved criteria not applicable 5 (1,2,6,10,11) 3 (4,7,9) 4 (3,5,8,12) 41.6 25 33.3 5 (1,2,6,10,11) 3 (4,7,9) 4 (3,5,8,12) 41.6 25 33.3 6 (1,2,6,9,10,11) 2(4,7) 4 (3,5,8,12) 50 16.6 33.3 bhs criteria achieved criteria not achieved criteria not applicable 5 (2,5,6,10,11) 6 (1,3,4,7,8,9) 1 (12) 41.7 50 8.33 5 (1,5,6,8,10,12) 6 (2,,3,4,7,9,11) 1 (12) 41.7 50 8.33 6(1,2,5,6,10,11,12) 5(3,4,7,8,9) 1(12) 50 41.7 8.33 pcoiss criteria achieved criteria not achieved criteria not applicable 2 (9,11) 2 (4,7) 8(1,2,3,5,6,8,10,12) 16.6 16.6 66.6 3 (7.,9,11) 1 (4) 8(1,2,3,5,6,8,10,12) 25 8.33 66.6 3 (7, 9,11) 1 (4) 8(1,2,3,5,6,8,10,12) 25 8.33 66.6 clinical significance change and categorical ratings the results of jt’s double fold criteria and the respective categorical rating for each individual at the end of therapy, one month follow-up and three months follow-up has been summarised in table 8. table 8. percentage and frequencies of jt’s categorical ratings of clinical improvement across phases for the bdi-ii, bhs, pcoiss across all data collection points. therapy stage recovered n % improved n % unchanged n % deteriorated n % bdi-ii end of therapy 5 (1,2,6,10,11) 41.6 2 (7,9) 16.6 5 (3,4,5,8,12) 41.6 0 0 1 month fu 5 (1,2,6,10,11) 41.6 2 (9,5) 16.6 5 (3,4,7,8,12) 41.6 0 0 3 month fu 6 (1,2,6,9,10,11) 50 2 (4,7) 16.6 3 (3,5,12) 25 1 (8) 8.33 evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 350 bhs end of therapy 4 (2,5,,6,10) 33.3 3 (1,7,11) 25 4 (3,4,8,12) 33.3 1 (9) 8.33 1 month fu 4 (1,5,6,10) 33.3 1 (11) 8.3 4 (3,8,9,12) 33.3 3 (2,4,7) 25 3 month fu 5 (1,5,6,10,11) 41.7 2 (4,9) 16.6 3 (2,7,12) 25 2 (3,8) 16.6 pcoiss end of therapy 2 (9,11) 16.6 4 (1,2,5,10) 33.3 6 (3,4,6,7,8,12) 50 0 0 1 month fu 2 (9,11) 16.6 5 (1,2,5,10,12) 41.6 5 (3,4,6,7,8) 41.6 0 0 3 month fu 3 (7,9,11) 25 5 (1,2,5,6,10) 41.6 4 (3,4,8,12) 33.3 0 0 summary of results the effects of this intervention were measured on depression, mania, hopelessness, insight and perceived control of internal states. as indicated in table 9 below, a statistically significant difference for depression and perceived control over internal states scores has been found between baseline and both one and three months follow up. with regards to the hopelessness scores, the difference between baseline and one month follow up was not significant, but this changed when comparing the hopelessness scores between baseline and three months follow up. no significant differences were found for mania or for level of insight. table 9. results of statistical analysis depression mania hopelessness insight perceived control baseline and 1 month fu significant large effect not significant not significant not significant significant large effect baseline and 3 month fu significant large effect not significant significant large effect not significant significant large effect the application of the jt method provides information regarding individual variability and allows individuals to be classified into categorical ratings for clinical improvement. discussions regarding the change experienced by each client after treatment are outside the scope of this article. table 10 provides a summary of the percentages of clients in each category. it should be noted that a considerable percentage of clients were found to be recovered and improved at one month follow up with regards to depression (41.6% and 16.6% respectively), hopelessness (33.3% and 8.3%) and perceived control (16.6% and 41.6%) and these figures were maintained at three months follow up. these results are consistent with those obtained in the statistical analysis. clients’ scores for mania were unchanged and this europe’s journal of psychology 351 confirms the lack of any statistical significance effects. the jt method was not applicable to the insight scale. table10. summary of the percentages of clients in each jt categorical rating for each outcome measure fu bdi-ii bmrs bhs pcoiss r e c o v e re d im p ro v e d u n c h a n g e d d e te rio ra te d r e c o v e re d im p ro v e d u n c h a n g e d d e te rio ra te d r e c o v e re d im p ro v e d u n c h a n g e d d e te rio ra te d r e c o v e re d im p ro v e d u n c h a n g e d d e te rio ra te d 1 m 41.6 16.6 41.6 0 0 0 100 0 33.3 8.3 33.3 25 16.6 41.6 41.6 0 3 m 50 16.6 25 8.3 0 0 100 0 41.6 16.6 25 16.6 25 41.6 33.3 0 discussion this study adds to the weight of evidence that short psychological interventions based on cbt principles have beneficial effects for clients with bd. the results of both the statistical analysis and the application of the jt method indicated that a significant reduction in depressive symptoms and an increase in perceived control over internal states have been observed following the intervention between baseline and one month follow up and between baseline and three months follow-up. significant differences in scores were also found between baseline and three months follow-up for hopelessness scores. as expected, treatment effects were not consistent across measures for the sample as a group or with regards to each individual client. it appears that clients with mild levels of mania do not benefit from this intervention in terms of reducing their manic symptoms, despite every client receiving all the planned components of the intervention. this however is not an unusual finding; manic symptoms have shown not to respond to other similar interventions (ball et al., 2006; scott et al., 2001; scott et al., 2006; lam et al., 2005). when clients were individually analysed, according to jt’s methodology, a substantial proportion of clients were considered not only to have improved, but also to have recovered after the treatment intervention with regards to depression, perceived control over internal states and hopelessness. a major goal of this study was to ascertain the feasibility and acceptability of this intervention when applied by a non-expert therapist and the evidence suggests that this four week program for bd evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 352 clients is not only feasible but acceptable. the acceptability of the program has been demonstrated by the very low drop-out rates, the high level of attendance at sessions (no clients drop-out after completing session 1) and the clients’ compliance with the requirements of the intervention. treatment acceptability was measured through the self-report satisfaction questionnaire (csq-8) that clients completed at the end of treatment; scores for all 12 clients fell within the ‘high’ satisfaction range (27-32). however, the interpretability of these results is questionable given that the anonymity was not ensured and the questionnaire was administered by the therapist delivering the intervention. it is not possible to accord a causal role to the treatment intervention for these results, however, stability of the behaviour over five weeks at baseline, the immediacy of change following the intervention as well as the large magnitude of change observed, contribute to the argument that the treatment was responsible for the change. unfortunately, the study did not control for changes in medication or frequency of psychiatric outpatient appointments. the main limitations of this study, which were partially dictated by practical issues relating to the research funding available and time constraints for completion of this project, were the lack of statistical power and that clinician delivering the intervention also participated in the scoring of instruments. this is the second study aimed at examining the effects of stim and the results are consistent with those from sorensen and colleagues (2007) study in which 13 bd clients were offered the same intervention by a highly trained clinician. outcomes were collected with regards to level of hopelessness, level of perceived control over internal states and satisfaction levels with the same instruments employed in this study. depression, mania and insight were not measured and therefore cannot be compared. the follow-up period in the sorensen and colleagues study was five weeks as opposed to one and three months in the present study. the only difference between these two studies refers to levels of hopelessness, both studies found a significant effect on bhs, but whereas sorensen and colleagues (2007) observed a significant difference between baseline and one week post treatment and at five weeks follow up, this result was not replicated in this study. the present study found no significant differences at one month follow-up, but the differences between baseline and three months were statistically significant. both studies identified a statistically significant difference for perceived control between baseline and each follow-up point (one and five weeks for sorensen, one and three months for the current study). in considering what may account for the differences between these two studies, one should refer to the different levels of expertise of the clinician and to random variation in small samples. europe’s journal of psychology 353 the main implication of this study is that the positive results obtained on depression, hopelessness and perceived control, coupled with the fact that this is a very short intervention requiring little training on the part of the clinician, together with the high levels of acceptability from clients, provide enough support for this type of treatment to be provided to a larger population. the present study should be replicated with larger samples and appropriate controls. it will be important to include longer follow up periods to determine whether or not the results are maintained over a longer course. in order to be able to compare this intervention to those more complex and widely researched, one needs to include a survival analysis. the primary measure against which the efficacy of an intervention in bd is measured is time to first relapse and whether the 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(1978). social validity: the case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. journal of applied behaviour analysis, 11, 203-214. world health organisation (who) (1990). the international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems, 10th revision. zubin, j. & spring, b. (1977). vulnerability: a new view of schizophrenia. journal of abnormal psychology, 86(2), 103-26. evaluating sorensen’s therapy for instability in mood 358 about the authors: dr maria jose gutierrez-ros is a consultant clinical psychologist and was appointed head of adult community psychology in south essex nhs trust in june 2005. as well as having responsibility for coordinating the provision of secondary psychological services across south essex, she continues through her clinical practice to provide therapeutic interventions to clients with complex and severe mental health problems. her special area of interest and research is in the treatment of people with bipolar disorder and has published previously in this area. address for correspondence: dr maria j. gutierrez-ros, south essex nhs trust, the adult community psychology service, resource community centre, basildon mental health unit, basildon hospital, nethermayne basildon essex ss16 5nl e-mail: maria-jose.gutierrez@sept.nhs.uk dr john sorensen is a consultant clinical psychologist in secondary care psychological services and has experience in the delivery of therapy to adults with a wide range of mental health problems. he routinely conducts research evaluations of his own treatment packages and has published in books and peer reviewed journals on topics ranging from ‘relapse prevention in severe mental illness to ‘emotional intelligence in nhs management’. he also teaches on a wide range of subjects to doctor of clinical psychology students at three separate universities and regularly provides workshops to psychiatrists and mental health nurses in the uk and abroad’. e-mail: sj4cc@yahoo.co.uk in 2006 ms tomlinson completed an undergraduate degree in psychology with physical and mental health (bsc hons) at the university of reading. she assisted on the research submitted whilst being employed as an assistant psychologist for south essex nhs foundation trust. she is now working as an assistant psychologist in a specialist psychotherapy service for east london nhs foundation trust and has continued an interest in research through assisting on two studies; exploring narrative therapies for black minority ethnic groups and a ‘what works for whom’ outcome predictor study. she is also contributing to a personality disorder health economics audit. e-mail: emilytomlinson@hotmail.co.uk mailto:maria-jose.gutierrez@sept.nhs.uk mailto:sj4cc@yahoo.co.uk mailto:emilytomlinson@hotmail.co.uk (microsoft word 5. british indian adults\222 perceptions of physical appearance ideals) 458 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 458-486 www.ejop.org ‘i think a fair girl would have better marriage prospects than a dark one’: british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals savita bakhshi london metropolitan university anna baker london metropolitan university abstract the aim of the present study was to investigate british indian men and women’s perceptions of indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes. eight semistructured interviews with men and women were conducted, and the data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. four themes emerged from the data: 1) cultural similarities and differences in physical appearance, 2) gender differences in pressure experienced, 3) improving physical appearance for marriage, and 4) factors influencing appearance pressures. the findings indicated that participants perceived few cultural similarities in the indian and western standards for physical appearance. internalisation of indian body ideals (including fair skin and slimness) were linked to finding a suitable partner for marriage for women, and this pressure was largely perceived to be influenced by maternal encouragement and the media. the results indicate that gender is influential in determining the physical, psychological and social implications of attempting to conform to the cultural physical appearance ideals and related attributes. keywords: appearance ideals; british indian; marriage; qualitative; skin colour body image has been described as a combination of a person’s perceptions and feelings about his/her body and their general physical appearance (cash & henry, 1995). it can be thought of as an individual’s body size estimation and an evaluation of their body attractiveness as compared to the appearance ideals accepted in a culture. research acknowledges that culture plays a significant role in forming europe’s journal of psychology 459 appearance ideals, and that these vary for men and women across societies and cultures (fallon, 1990; grogan, 2006). these ideals are generally perceived as a criterion for evaluating personal standards for attractiveness, and may be reinforced through processes such as social comparison and internalisation (strahan, wilson, cressman & buote, 2006; gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). such messages may be so pervasive that they take precedence over emotional, social, cultural, spiritual and physical health and well-being (paquette & raine, 2004). cultural ideals and differences the ideal male and female body shapes and sizes have changed significantly over the last century (wiseman, gray, mosimann & ahrens, 1992). western cultures present the ideal female body as thin and slender, whereas the ideal male body is portrayed as having well-developed muscles on the chest, arms and shoulders, with a slim waist and hips (grogan, 1999; ogden, 2010). in contrast, many non-western cultures have been shown to devalue such ideals, as larger body sizes and shapes are considered more attractive (nasser, 1988, 1997). for example, although body weight, shape and size is important to men and women of non-western backgrounds, the need to conform to the western ideals of thinness for women and muscularity for men may not be as strong as in the west (wardle, bindra, fairclough & westcombe, 1993; reddy & crowther, 2007). detailed explanations of how cultures construct and change body ideals for men and women can be found in nasser (1997) and grogan (1999). warren, gleaves, cepeda-benito, del carmen fernandez and rodriguez-ruiz (2005) proposed that non-western cultures provide people with larger, more realistic and attainable physical ideals, protecting people from developing a negative body image. in india, for example, the prevalence of eating disturbances are rarely reported, perhaps due to the traditional indian culture which does not encourage thinness as a symbol of feminine beauty (dasgupta, 1998; malhotra & rogers, 2000; furnham & adam-saib, 2001). furthermore, non-western cultures place less value on physical appearance as a defining feature of a woman’s worth, her role in society, and as an indicator of success (bush, williams, lean & anderson, 2001). this is in contrast to the west where women’s appearance is viewed as important feature for competitiveness, achievement and professional success (stice, 1994; mckinley, 1999; cheney, 2010). thus, non-western men and women may not internalise such information because they have an affiliation with a culture that does not support such values and ideals (wood-barcalow, tylka & augustus-horvath, 2010). british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 460 however, other research has shown that some non-western cultures may not be protecting people from developing body weight and shape concerns. grabe and hyde (2006) investigated body dissatisfaction levels among women of different ethnic groups and found that various non-white groups are showing similar rates of body dissatisfaction compared to whites. the study found that asians are also likely to conform to the thin western ideal due to processes such as acculturation and integration (i.e. ‘the extent to which individuals have maintained their culture of origin or adapted to the larger society’, farver, bhadha & narang, 2002, p.12) into the dominant western culture, which may be in conflict with the ideals of their native country (dasgupta, 1998; ball & kenardy, 2002; cheney, 2010). other research (predominately examining american samples) has found that asian women report similar levels of eating disturbances, slightly more weight and diet concerns, and greater dietary restraint compared to whites (wildes, emery & lehman, 2007; cummins & lehman, 2007). thus, asian groups are also susceptible to body image concerns just like white groups (kennedy, templeton, gandhi & gorzalka, 2004). nevertheless, non-western groups have also shown an acceptance for their bodies for the way they are (bush et al., 2001; wood-barcalow et al., 2010), suggesting that although ethnicity is an important influence on body image, differences across and within groups are likely to occur. a preference for fair skin? body image should not be perceived as a whole entity, as it includes different facets such as hair, skin, weight, shape, structure, etc. in non-western cultures, other appearance-related features may be considered as equally significant in defining a person’s appearance and ideals, than simply their body weight, shape and size (swami et al., 2008b; callister, galtry & didham, 2011). for example, a preference for fair skin has been found in various studies, as it has been found to be commonly associated with beauty (sahay & piran, 1997; badruddoja, 2005; jha & adelman, 2009), physical attractiveness (frisby, 2006), as well as health and fertility (swami, furnham & joshi, 2008a). historically, the aryan invasion and british colonisation of south asian countries led to an increasing preference for lighter skin and the introduction of western notions of beauty. in india, fair skin is considered as an indicator of belonging to a higher caste, social standing and hierarchy in society, which may also lead to a preference for fair skin (badruddoja, 2005; chadha, 2005). furthermore, light skin may be linked to wealth and education, whereas those with dark skin may be perceived as low-income workers (swami et al., 2008b; callister et al., 2011). europe’s journal of psychology 461 the social learning theory (bandura, 1977) proposes that learning occurs by observing others and being positively or negatively reinforced for a particular belief or behaviour. the preference for fair skin in india is largely reinforced by models and bollywood (the hindi-language film industry based in mumbai, india) celebrities who advertise various products, as they are perceive to represent indian physical appearance ideals people are expected to adhere to (guha ray, 2010). such celebrities are important influences on indian men and women as beliefs and behaviours surrounding physical appearance are conveyed indirectly through modelling, and/or directly through instruction, and verbal comments which provide reinforcement for people that these behaviours are acceptable. this type of learning also gives an individual confirmation that physical appearance (and fair skin, in particular) is a valued trait in society, and is associated with other attributes, such as attractiveness and success (mckinley, 1999; ogden, 2010). women have traditionally been the focus for these products, and are indeed encouraged and expected to take various steps to achieve this ideal, with the aid of a growing market of fairness creams, skin whitening and lightening products in india and across asia, if required. in india alone, this market is estimated at around $432m (guha ray, 2010). a popular example is the fair & lovely brand that promises ‘gorepan se kahin zyada, saaf gorapan’ or ‘more than just fairness, clear fairness’ (“fair & lovely”, 2011). together, these products encourage women to conform to the light-skinned ideal. as a result, indian women may aim to achieve the ‘ivory skin model’ a term coined by badruddoja (2005) which aims to take into account the indian requirement for a fair skin tone, along with the western ideal of olive or slightly tanned skin considered attractive. women, regardless of culture, are more likely to perceive a greater number of, as well as more negative messages about appearance, compared to men (gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). women are aware that they will be judged on their physical appearance and related attributes, rather than how they feel or what they can do (sahay & piran, 1997; mckinley, 1999). it may also be possible that indian women are more sensitive to messages about social norms than men, and that this is perceived as a greater amount of pressure. however, it is likely that indian men, like men living in other cultures, also perceive various pressures to conform to a certain physical ideal, as shown by past research (adams, turner & bucks, 2005). a recent growth of skin lightening products for men indicates that perhaps fair skin has also become a preference for many indian men (chadha, 2005; guha ray, 2010). popular male celebrities endorse products such as ‘fair & lovely max fairness for men’ and ‘fair and handsome’, which promise benefits such as improved physical appearance, confidence and self-esteem (chadha, 2005; “fair and handsome”, 2011). these british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 462 findings indicate that the need to conform to indian physical appearance ideals has an important influence on the physical and psychological health of indian men and women. such products are marketed in such a way that people internalise the belief that fair skin will lead to increased marriage prospects, job prospects, social status and control (timmons, 2007; li, min, belk, kimura & bahl, 2008). research looking at other ethnic groups has also shown that attractiveness leads to success; that is, more attractive individuals are more likely to experience certain advantages and successes in life than less attractive individuals (gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). thus, indian men and women may perceive that fair skin opens doors to a variety of different areas, which dark skin may not (chadha, 2005). does fair skin improve marriage prospects? some studies have found fair skin is idealised in indian cultures because it may increase a person’s chances of finding a suitable bride or groom, especially if the marriage is to be arranged (pettit, 2008). this is important as marriage is considered critical for lifelong economic security within indian cultures, even for employed women (saran & eames, 1980; dasgupta, 1998). sahay and piran (1997) suggested that: ‘in many indian languages, the words fair and beautiful are often used synonymously, and there is often a preference for a female with light complexion in marriage, if other considerations are equal’ (p. 162). past research has shown that even second generation south asian women living in western cultures, show a desire to be lighter in skin color and believe that fair skin is considered more beautiful than dark skin because it is linked to marriage prospects (sahay & piran, 1997; pettit, 2008). indian men are also likely to state a preference for fair skin in their potential partners, regardless of their own skin tone (jha & adelman, 2009). past research has shown that men face far less pressure than women to have fair skin (jha & adelman, 2009). darker skin tone in men may be compensated by assets such as having a well paid job, overall economic security and a good personality, whereas women are likely to be evaluated solely on their outward physical appearance (jha & adelman, 2009). thus, women with a dark or very dark skin tone may be viewed as an undesirable potential bride (chadha, 2005; frisby, 2006; jha & adelman, 2009). as a result, indian women may take steps to limit sun exposure to avoid tanning their skin, even if it means risking potential health benefits such as vitamin d from sunlight (pettit, 2008; callister et al., 2011). europe’s journal of psychology 463 past research has shown that people are concerned with how they look to themselves and to others (fallon, 1990), and any aspect of appearance can cause concern. satisfaction with one’s physical characteristics may be influenced by the social comparison process (festinger, 1954), whereby people compare themselves to others (i.e. those similar in age, ethnicity, etc), and use them as a reference point to evaluate aspects of their own appearance such as fairness. the reality is that despite the internalisation of the fair-skinned ideal and attempts obtain this ideal by many indian men and women, such ideals may be an unrealistic standard that many people can not achieve. over time, internalisation of and attempts to obtain such ideas may develop into an obsession, interfering with an individual’s everyday activities. this condition – known as body dysmorphic disorder – may occur in individuals whose current appearance may be perceived as normal by others (see phillips, 2009, for a review). thus, by presenting such largely unrealistic standards of beauty and attractiveness, these ideals negatively influence individuals’ body image, as physical and psychological insecurities may arise in indian men and women when the expected results are not achieved (badruddoja, 2005; li et al., 2008). it is, therefore, important to investigate the patterns that are presently occurring, and the perceived reasons for any physical and psychological insecurities that arise in british indian men and women. the present study it is important to investigate british indian men and women’s perceptions of indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes as although quantitative research in south asian cultures living in the uk is growing, there are fewer qualitative studies in comparison. furthermore, research looking at how south asian groups living in the uk experience exposure to various appearance ideals is understudied and needs further attention. we can not assume, however, that all the south asian countries and cultures are homogenous in terms of their perceptions about physical appearance (furnham & adam-saib, 2001; wildes et al., 2007; cummins & lehman, 2007). thus, the present study will only examine the perceptions of the indian culture, and will aim to highlight further similarities and differences within this group where possible. british indians have had the opportunity to view and experience both the western and indian cultures, and are, therefore, in a unique position to provide insights into the ways in which the two cultures are similar and different, and how these cultures have evolved over time. this is useful in understanding the pressures young indian men and women may experience in terms of physical appearance, as these may be applicable to the indian population around the world. a detailed discussion of the british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 464 similarities and differences between various groups are beyond the scope of this paper, but it is anticipated that these will be examined in future articles. the aim of the present study was to investigate british indian men and women’s perceptions of indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes. based on the literature cited earlier, it is likely that body weight, shape and size will be an important aspect for indian men and women, although the pressure to conform to the cultural ideals may not be as important compared to the west. it is also likely that participants will indicate a preference for fair skin in both men and women, but this attribute may be more favourable in women due to the reasons discussed earlier. as past research has shown, there is generally less pressure on men than women across different cultures to conform to ideals, and this is likely to be reiterated in the present study. methodology participants eight participants of indian origin were recruited for this study, out of which four were male and four were female. participants’ age ranged from 22 to 48 years (m= 30.25, sd= 10.29), and the length of time they had lived in the uk varied from 22 to 32 years (m= 26.25, sd= 4.367). two of the participants (1 male and 1 female) had previously lived in india, whereas the other six (3 male and 3 female) visit the country regularly, and so would be able to provide perspectives from both the indian and western cultures. when asked about their marital status, six participants (4 male and 2 female) revealed that they were single and two were married (1 male and 1 female). two participants were educated up to school level, two had undergraduate university degrees, whereas the remaining participants were working towards obtaining postgraduate qualifications. further information about the participants was not provided. as the data were analysed manually using the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa, smith & osborne, 2008), a sample size of eight participants was deemed sufficient (smith & osborne, 2008). this is because the aim of ipa is to explore the perceptions of a particular group in detail, which may not necessarily be statistically representative of a wider population (yardley, 2008). (further details about ipa are presented under the data analysis section). all participants were recruited via a snowball sampling method, as current participants were asked to identify other appropriate individuals. the implications of recruiting participants using this method are discussed later in the paper. europe’s journal of psychology 465 design in-depth semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted using openended questions, in order to explore how different factors may influence pressures to conform to appearance ideals. interviews were identified as a suitable method for the present study as they enable individuals to focalise the theoretical and conceptual factors and processes that may determine their attitudes and behaviours towards conforming to appearance ideals. furthermore, they allow participants to provide a fuller, richer account than would be possible with quantitative methods that are often accompanied by predefined response categories. participants are not forced to think in a particular way, and the accounts obtained have the potential to provide unexpected insights into factors, not previously considered relevant by the researchers. this is because interviews provide access to the participants’ own concepts, language and natural style of discourse, which ensures rich and enlightening data. the semi-structured approach is also flexible and allows one to modify the order of the questions depending on what is relevant and important to the participant. furthermore, participants from a variety of different backgrounds can be questioned about the same issues, but in a greater level of detail compared to questionnaires. materials the interview schedule was based on a review of the relevant literature and earlier findings obtained as part of the first author’s phd thesis. however, the questions were not designed to be too specific as it was anticipated that participants would add their unique perspectives and should not feel constrained when responding. the interview schedule included questions such as ‘in what ways do you think culture influences appearance in indians?’ and ‘can you think of any differences that exist between the indian and western cultures in terms of a man and woman’s appearance?’ a small pilot was carried out to ensure the questions were short and easily understandable, especially for those participants whose first language may not have been english. any unnecessary, difficult or ambiguous questions were discarded or re-worded as appropriate. the initial interview schedule was adjusted and further questions were added to ensure in-depth conversations and flexibility of questions (i.e. the opportunity to ask additional questions depending on the responses). procedure the university ethics committee approved this study prior to contacting participants. british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 466 potential participants were identified by the first author, and further participants were recruited via a snowball sampling method, as those already interviewed were asked to identify further appropriate individuals. the first author conducted all the interviews and ensured that all participants were aware of the ethical standards for conducting research with humans. all participants were asked for their written consent prior to the interviews, and were reassured of their anonymity and confidentiality as a participant. permission to tape record the interviews was also obtained for transcription and analysis purposes. the interviews were carried out at the university or at the participant’s home. all interviews were conducted in english to ensure all participants were asked similar questions. participants were encouraged to talk freely about the questions asked and about any other issues they felt were important. they were given opportunities to ask questions during the study, and were debriefed at the end. interview lengths varied from 30 to 55 minutes. the transcripts were anonymised and pseudonyms were used so that the participants could not be identified by their responses. data analysis ipa was used to analyse the data, where the researcher attempts to understand the experiences of participants and how the participants themselves make sense of their experiences. this qualitative research method aims to ‘explore personal experience and is concerned with an individual’s personal perception or account of an object or event, as opposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event itself (smith & osborne, 2008, p. 53). ipa was chosen for this study as semi-structured interviews allow participants to provide a rich account of their experiences, which means that any similarities and differences between the participants’ responses can be highlighted. ipa was chosen over other qualitative research methods (such as thematic analysis) because ‘ipa is a suitable approach when one is trying to find out how individuals are perceiving the particular situation they are facing, how they are making sense of their personal and social world…there is no attempt to test a predetermined hypothesis of the researcher; rather, the aim is to explore, flexibly and in detail, an area of concern.’ (smith & osborne, 2008, p. 55). the two researchers (i.e. the authors of this article) individually read through all the transcripts several times to ensure familiarity with the data. the first step in the analysis was to go through a transcript and write down initial thoughts in the left hand side column and emerging theme titles or key words in the right hand side column. then, these themes were clustered together and a coding sheet was then constructed europe’s journal of psychology 467 containing all possible themes and sub-themes for the first interview. some initial themes were dropped from the coding sheet at this point, if they were not rich in evidence, and/or did not fit into a main theme. references to original material were recorded under each theme, including page and line numbers, to ensure easy access to the example. still working individually at this point, the researchers repeated this process for the remaining transcripts. individual interpretations were considered and evaluated in two ways. first, the researchers compared their independent readings in order to triangulate their perspectives to ensure that: 1) the analysis was not confined to one particular viewpoint, and 2) to reach an agreement for the themes and sub-themes for the sample. the discussions involved comparisons of coding themes, highlighting important examples, adding and dropping themes and sub-themes, identifying any potential instances that had not been captured and/or anticipated by either of the researchers, and highlighting any clarifications that would increase the consistency and validity of the analysis (yardley, 2008). with continuous reference to the transcripts, connections between the individual lists of themes were made, and a master list of themes was constructed for the sample. the themes and subthemes were adjusted accordingly based on the analyses and throughout the write-up process. an additional researcher (a white british female unrelated to the study) also reviewed the data to confirm the relevancy of the themes derived by the two researchers. this additional process also promotes greater transparency in interpretations so that these were not confined to the first author’s preconceptions, expectations and experiences of the indian culture. results and discussion four themes emerged from the data: 1) cultural similarities and differences in physical appearance, 2) gender differences in pressure experienced, 3) improving physical appearance for marriage, and 4) factors influencing appearance pressures. cultural similarities and differences in physical appearance all of the participants viewed culture as a major influence on appearance ideals. they perceived various similarities and differences between the western and indian cultures and how these influence body image and general appearance standards. both male and female participants highlighted important differences between the two cultures in terms of the type and level of importance they place on different aspects of appearance, as highlighted by the following quotes: british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 468 there (india), weight isn’t a problem, i don’t think. there’s no, there’s not this need to kind of look thin or anything like that. (female, 25 years, single) the culture in india doesn’t in itself have so much to do with appearance and body. it has more to do with poise and grace, maybe the way you dress and the way you speak. here, i think the culture is a lot more physical, it’s much more to do with the body, its appearance and its use. (male, 44 years, married) these quotes indicate that body representation was perceived differently in the two cultures; in india the body is viewed as more functional (i.e. what it can do), compared with the west where a greater emphasis is placed on outward physical appearance (i.e. how you look). this supports previous findings that showed different cultures place different values on appearance (nasser, 1988, 1997). the latter quote also suggests that physical appearance is important for indians, although the focus, and more specifically, the need to conform to the western ideals of thinness for women and muscularity for men, may not be as strong as in the west (wardle et al., 1993; reddy & crowther, 2007). instead, the focus is on looking and feeling healthy, rather than being a particular body weight, shape or size (nasser, 1988, 1997). participants explained how indians may be more accepting of larger figures for women as they traditionally signify attributes such as affluence level and good physical health. for example: in india, i think… its okay to be slightly chubby there, because it’s a sign that you’re quite affluent and you can afford to buy food and that you’re healthy…you’re allowed to be more bigger in india than you are here! (female, 25 years, single) this quote supports past research as it indicates that whereas thinness is considered desirable in women living in the west, larger figures are considered attractive in many other cultures (nasser, 1988). for example, nasser (1988) suggested that for an indian punjabi to greet you with a saying of you “look fat and fresh today” is regarded as a compliment. this can be linked to the evolutionary perspective, as larger shapes in such cultures are considered symbolic of fertility and womanhood, as well as other indicators such as longevity and affluence level. the above quote also indicates that british indian men and women perceived that women living in india were still holding onto their traditional beliefs as they focused on looking and europe’s journal of psychology 469 feeling physically healthy rather than conforming to the thin western ideal for women. this supports the findings of warren et al. (2005) who proposed that people in nonwestern cultures may not idealise an ultrathin and unrealistic figure, but instead provide people with larger, more realistic and attainable physical ideals. they also proposed that non-western groups may not internalise ultrathin messages because they are affiliated with a culture that does not encourage such appearance ideals (reddy & crowther, 2007). thus, although appearance is important in both cultures, the focus on appearance is different, perhaps due to the availability and accessibility of resources. some participants believed that people in the subcontinent may not always have the resources to change their appearance as people can do in the west. a female participant suggested that people in india were better able to handle natural changes in appearance compared to the west: i don’t think people in this country especially are used to ageing…that’s why they’re resorting to all these anti-ageing creams and plastic surgery…you know, one white hair and we freak out, but in india you know, i think its okay…they’re more accepting. (female, 25 years, single) this quote shows some cultural differences exist in the extent to which people are able to, and feel the need to change their appearance in the two cultures. this may be because perhaps indians experience different pressures to conform to certain ideals, compared to those in the west (timmons, 2007). these results are consistent with past research that also found indian men and women may be better at dealing with natural changes that occur with age (bush et al., 2001). furthermore, these differences may exist because the western world has more options to change one’s appearance if needed (i.e. with the use of cosmetic surgery). indians on limited incomes and those living in rural areas with little or no western influence may view change in appearance as something natural that can not and should not be altered (crisp, 2002). gender differences in pressure experienced all the participants felt that both men and women experience some pressure to conform to desirable cultural standards of appearance. they stated that the sources and levels of concern may vary depending on factors such as identification with a particular culture and parental influence in indians (hill & bhatti, 1995; dasgupta, 1998). these results are consistent with past studies that also found a similar pattern of results in different ethnic groups (cash & pruzinsky, 2004; jones, vigfusdottir & lee, british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 470 2004). the following quote was in response to a question asking about the level of appearance-related pressure experienced by men and women: i think they’re about the same, i mean you know, it’s…different ways, but the amount of pressure is about the same. (male, 22 years, single) it was interesting that throughout conversations about appearance-related pressures, participants naturally focused on the pressures that concern women in both cultures. the male participants frequently discussed the pressures on women, despite being aware of the pressures that exist for men as well. all eight participants, acknowledged that women were more likely to experience pressure to conform to societal and cultural ideals, compared to men (strahan et al., 2006): i think they have more pressure to look prettier, whereas guys can just be, its not as expected, they’re not as expected to be as groomed as girls are. (female, 26 years, single) it may also be that women are generally more sensitive to messages about social norms than men, and that this is perceived as a greater amount of pressure, as in the present study (gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). other studies have found that men are becoming increasingly aware of the cultural norms and ideals they are expected to conform to (adams et al., 2005). the participants generally felt that it was only recently that men (of all cultures) were feeling the pressure to conform to an ideal, although they have always been aware of these ideals: i mean for guys you know…it’s only in recent times maybe, where the whole physique thing has become more important… there’s a whole new awareness of grooming, and grooming products...i think the pressures on women are slightly different, the looking good has always been there. (male, 44 years, married) these findings indicate that although indian men and women face pressure to conform to the ideals, women are exposed to a much more consistent and persuasive message about how they need to look to be accepted in society, compared to men (strahan et al., 2006). over half of the participants in the present sample suggested that the pressure men and women face may be age-related, and so the expectations to look physically attractive may change as one gets older (tiggemann, 2004). they suggested that the pressure may decrease over time because people have less perceived and actual control over their physical appearance (grogan & richards, 2002): europe’s journal of psychology 471 i think in their mid 20s, boys start to realise that you know ageing is something that will happen! you know, they can’t avoid it and i think they’ll try anything, to live their younger years again…i think the age thing becomes this thing that they can’t control. (female, 25 years, single) the above quote indicates that some men may find it difficult to handle natural changes in their appearance, as perceived by women. this notion was echoed by a male participant, who explained how age-related changes had affected his thoughts and expectations about his ideal appearance, as illustrated by the following quote: in my teens and twenties, i wanted to be perfect. but now that i’m in my mid-thirties, you begin to sort of care less about these things. and certainly when you’re in your forties and then fifties, the older you grow, the less you care about these things and you think okay, don’t worry about it. (male, 32 years, single) these quotes indicate that men are concerned with their appearance, but this concern is not always made explicit, as it is not expected from them (grogan & richards, 2002; ricciardelli, mccabe & ridge, 2006). similar to women, men also have a personal view of themselves (i.e. how they see themselves), as well as a social view of the self (i.e. how they think others see them), which may lead to appearance concerns if there is a discrepancy between these two views. interestingly, there were many instances during the discussions where the interaction between gender and ethnicity was not considered, but were perceived as two separate entities. this indicated that participants perceived that there were some pressures that all men and women face regardless of cultural affiliation, whereas there are others that are more prevalent in some cultures. improving physical appearance for marriage an important and reoccurring theme that cropped up during the interviews was the issue of conforming to certain physical appearance ideals in order to find a suitable partner for marriage. the notion of what is meant by ‘beauty’ was discussed to a great extent by some of the participants. they gave various definitions of what they thought beauty was, based on their personal experiences and their perceptions of how the indian culture defines it. participants’ definitions of beauty and physical appearance were generally similar to those cited by timmons (2007): “the definition of beauty in the western world is linked to anti-aging…in asia, it’s all about being two british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 472 shades lighter.” female participants commonly associated beauty with skin colour; they perceived that a fair woman would be considered more beautiful than a woman with a darker skin tone (sahay & piran, 1997; badruddoja, 2005; jha & adelman, 2009): there’s so much emphasis on looks in india, especially about being fair. if you’re dark, then…you’re put in the ugly group automatically…they don’t go out in the sunlight during the day, they always go out at night and you know…especially if they’re not married, they really have to, they look after themselves you know. (female, 25 years, single) the notion of having fair skin was linked to implications for finding a suitable partner for marriage, particularly if the marriage was to be arranged through social contacts (pettit, 2008). it was implied that women with fairer skin tones would have better chances of getting married and seen as more desirable than those with darker tones, as illustrated by the following quote: i think a fair girl would have better marriage prospects than a dark one…when my mum was going through marriage proposals... they’d send my aunt away in case the guys prefer her…she’s taller, slimmer and fairer. (female, 25 years, single) thus, participants’ thoughts and expectations of how a woman should look may be influenced by the experiences of those around them. that is, if a woman is tall, slim and fair, then her chances of finding a suitable match are perceived to increase, as she is considered more desirable than a woman with darker skin (fallon, 1990; sahay & piran, 1997). as discussed in the introduction of this article, sahay and piran (1997) suggested that: ‘in many indian languages, the words fair and beautiful are often used synonymously, and there is often a preference for a female with light complexion in marriage, if other considerations are equal’ (p. 162). around half of the participants in the present study were in agreement with this idea as they believed that light skin is perceived as more attractive than dark skin in the indian cultures, as well as other asian cultures (li et al., 2008). these findings are also almost identical to the responses of south asian women living in new zealand, as found by pettit (2008): “if you’re fair it’s really...a plus point, particularly in arranged marriages where looks is what they focus on [in] the girl… i could guarantee if you talk to young second generation immigrants from the sub-continent, like females, they would mention the pressure of being fair” (pettit, 2008, p. 146) europe’s journal of psychology 473 as fair skin was perceived to increase one’s likelihood of an arranged marriage, this suggests that some aspects of physical appearance are more important than others in indian cultures. both male and female participants felt that the aim for indian women was to look more physically attractive, which predominately includes having fair skin, followed by an acceptable body weight, shape and size. as the participants suggested in the first theme, it may be that many indian women do not focus on body weight, shape and size as much as skin tone, because they do not need to; they may be naturally conforming to the western ideals for women. therefore, they may focus on improving other aspects of their physical appearance, such as attempting to make their skin lighter. this preference may be a result of advertising by indian celebrities, who provide reinforcement for people that fair skin is a valued trait in society, and is associated with other attributes, such as attractiveness and success (mckinley, 1999; chadha, 2005; guha ray, 2010; ogden, 2010): i think for women in india, there’s definitely this whole factor of looking like the stars. outside the metropolitan cites, i just don’t think this is an issue. but, where there’s a lot of advertising, where there’s access to the media, there’s a very strong move right now over there for youngsters to look like their role models. (male, 44 years, married) indeed, a fast growing market of skin whitening and lightening products in india encourage women to use these products, leading to physical and psychological insecurities in unmarried indian women (badruddoja, 2005; li et al., 2008). interestingly, the men in the present study did not talk at lengths about similar products that are available to indian men. it may be that these participants did not feel the need to conform to the expectations like indian women do, because darker skin colour in men can be compensated by other features not related to physical appearance (jha & adelman, 2009). factors influencing appearance pressures although a lot of pressure to conform to the indian physical appearance ideals was perceived to come directly from wider cultural beliefs about how men and women should look, some participants felt that the pressure experienced was also influenced by other factors. the female participants, in particular, acknowledged that in south asian cultures, daughters are more likely to experience appearance pressure from their parents than sons (badruddoja, 2005): british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 474 it’s this pre-conceived conception of that’s how you’re meant to be...they expect you to be tall and slim and fair. (female, 26 years, single) as illustrated in the above quotation, participants believed that parents may be encouraging their daughters to conform to indian cultural appearance ideals of being fair skinned, and the western ideal of slimness. the focus on daughters may be because beauty is considered more important when defining women than men. when a man is dark skinned, this can be compensated by other attributes such as having a well paid job and a good personality, whereas women may be defined solely by their outward physical appearance (badruddoja, 2005; pettit, 2008). for instance: there’s so much pressure on girls full stop…the guy can be like whatever. (female, 26 years, single) notably, it was often mothers who were perceived as influencing their daughter’s appearance more than their fathers (thelen & cormier, 1995; mccabe & ricciardelli, 2001), as illustrated by the following quote: i don’t think dads’ have much of an influence, i think it’s more of the female side of the family. asian mum’s have a thing about you know being slim. (female, 26 years, single) one explanation for this pattern may be that daughters generally spend more time with their mothers than with their fathers, and so they may learn about cultural conventions through verbal instruction or comments and/or social learning. past studies conducted with adolescent girls have shown that parents can be an important source of information about societal and cultural body ideals (nowak, 1998; crisp, 2002; gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). in this case, mothers may teach their daughters about how they need to look in order to find a suitable partner for marriage within their community. participants in the present study also felt that mothers expected their daughters to conform to their societal physical ideals, so that their chances of finding an appropriate partner would increase (jayakar, 1994; mumford & choudry, 2000; mujtaba & furnham, 2001). this expectation might add pressure on a daughter to conform to the indian ideals of physical attractiveness, as encouraged by their mothers. nevertheless, one female participant also noted that despite this pressure, mothers can also provide positive feedback and encouragement, as illustrated by the following quote: europe’s journal of psychology 475 if i say ‘oh my god i’ve put on weight’, mum says ‘you haven’t, you look fine, you look beautiful as you are’. (female, 25 years, single) there was a debate amongst the participants whether this pressure for women would remain after marriage. the male participants felt that this pressure would decrease considerably after marriage as the goal of finding a suitable partner would be achieved, as illustrated by the following quotes: marriage is the only hurdle…prior to marriage, girls go out of their way to look really good…after marriage, both parties can ease down, because they’re married, they’ve achieved what they set out to do. (male, 32 years, single) i think that definitely happens in asians everywhere; they tend to forget about their appearance after they’re married. (male, 23 years, single) these quotations indicate that the need to conform to appearance ideals for women is only prevalent pre-marriage, and that marriage is a goal indian men and women aspire towards. as perceived by the male participants in the present study, women may not experience the same level of appearance-related pressure after marriage, as they have now found their spouse, with whom they are expected to be for the rest of their life (saran & eames, 1980; dasgupta, 1998). this easing of pressure may also be linked to other aspects of life, including career development and children, which perhaps affect women more than men post-marriage (grogan, 1999; tiggemann, 2004). more important priorities may take preference over conforming to the societal ideals of physical appearance after marriage. for instance, one male participant said: once you get to a certain age, it doesn’t really matter what you look like…you can see a lot of couples that lose their looks after they get married…it’s harder to look the same once you’re married because there are other pressures. (male, 22 years, single) two other male participants felt that it was unfair that indian women no longer have to conform to the ideals after marriage, whereas the expectation remains for men: i think that’s highly unfair as men tend to stay in shape, but women tend to get out of shape. (male, 23 years, single) british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 476 the four female participants contradicted this argument as they suggested that women were still expected to conform to certain ideals as they get older, despite going through various experiences (i.e. pregnancy and childbirth) that have a significant impact on their physical appearance. they believed that these ideals change with age, but gender differences in the pressure experienced to look physically attractive still existed even after marriage: when they get married, there’s this whole emphasis that the woman has to be like this flower, delicate, elegant and beautiful and, so i think there’s more pressure on them to look nice all the time. it doesn’t matter if the husband you know puts on 10 stones…but the woman, she has to look presentable in the public eye. (female, 25 years, single) this quote suggests that even after marriage, women are expected to conform to societal standards of appearance, whereas men may not face such pressures to the same extent (badruddoja, 2005). these findings support past research as strahan et al. (2006) found that both sexes felt that women were more likely to experience pressure to conform to societal and cultural ideals, compared to men, perhaps because women realise that they likely to be evaluated on their outward physical appearance. women, in particular, may also have more realistic expectations about how they can look as they age (grogan, 1999). studies conducted with african american, latino american and european american participants support these findings (gillen & lefkowitz, 2009), indicating that there is generally less pressure on men than women across different cultures to conform to physical ideals. together, these findings indicate that gender can potentially influence appearancerelated pressures experienced to conform to the ideals. general discussion conclusions and implications the aim of the present study was to investigate british indian men and women’s perceptions of indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes. it was anticipated that indian men and women would consider body weight, shape and size as important aspects of appearance, but the pressure to conform to the cultural ideals would not be as powerful compared to the west. it was also likely that both male and female participants would prefer fair skin, and that there would be generally less pressure on men than women to conform to such ideals as shown by past research. europe’s journal of psychology 477 the analysis indicated that british indian men and women living in the uk were aware of the indian physical appearance ideals that exist for men and women, and that they were perceived to be applicable to the indian population living outside of india as well. the focus of conversations suggested that people living in india were perceived to be holding onto their traditional beliefs as they focused on looking and feeling physically healthy more than conforming to the appearance ideals (although slimness in women was still considered important). an exception to these perceptions was that all of the female participants spoke about how beauty is associated with skin colour. they perceived that indian women, in particular, are expected to have (or make attempts to have) fair skin, so that their chances of finding a suitable partner for marriage would increase, especially if their marriage is likely to be arranged (jayakar, 1994; mumford & choudry, 2000). interestingly, the majority of the responses focused on the pressures faced by indian women, and only a small percentage concentrated on indian men. despite acknowledging that indian men also face some pressures to conform to the cultural ideals, the general consensus amongst participants was that regardless of culture, women are more likely to perceive more negative messages about appearance, compared to men (gillen & lefkowitz, 2009). the participants believed that the cultural ideal for men is more flexible, and that the ideal man may fit into a variety of other categories and still be viewed as attractive (strahan et al., 2006). these messages were perceived to be reinforced and promoted mainly by mothers and the media, through processes such as social learning, social comparison and internalisation (strahan et al., 2006), and linked with finding a suitable partner for marriage (badruddoja, 2005; jha & adelman, 2009). these findings have various physical, psychological and social implications for indian men and women. many people are aware that skin lightening and whitening creams often contain bleaching and/or burning agents, which can lead to physical skin damage, yet they continue to use these products in their attempts to conform to a lighter skin tone ideal (timmons, 2007). furthermore, in taking steps to limit sun exposure to avoid tanning their skin, indian men and women may be risking potential health benefits such as vitamin d and other nutrients from natural sunlight (pettit, 2008; see callister et al., 2011, for an overview of the health implications of not obtaining sufficient natural levels of sunlight). failure to achieve such ideals over time may also have a significant impact on an individual’s self-esteem and confidence levels, as well as encouraging the development of conditions such as body dysmorphic disorder (phillips, 2009), which british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 478 may be exaggerated by processes such as social comparison and feedback from others. if one product does not show immediate results as advertised, then an individual may move onto trying a different product due to the choice of products available all promising better results than others. this may result in a cycle of experimentation, and possibly, frustration when the fair ideal is still not achieved. all this is likely to have a significant impact on an individual’s skin condition, their overall self-worth, as well as their financial circumstances. such ideals may be unrealistic for many women regardless of cultural affiliation, as summed up by sahay and piran (1997) in this statement: ‘the tall, thin, white-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde western ideal of the beauty myth is unattainable for most women of any race or ethnic background’ (p. 169). despite being aware of these issues, people may continue to take steps to achieve an impossible standard that do not reflect the average population of that culture. this may be due to the perception that such ideals are linked to a variety of other attributes, including: improved job prospects, social status, success and control (timmons, 2007; li et al., 2008; gillen & lefkowitz, 2009), which will continue to be important areas for people in all cultures. these perceptions, in turn, will have wider social implications for british indian adults’ of which ideals they should aim to achieve. the perception of indian females having to conform to both the indian ideal of fair skin and the western ideal of slimness may lead to greater feelings of anxiety, and, in turn, negative body image, especially when one or both of these ideals are not achieved. increasing awareness of this beauty myth may help to reduce the appearance-related pressure to conform to societal and cultural expectations, for women regardless of cultural affiliation. strengths and limitations it is important to consider the strengths and shortcomings of the present study, as these will have implications for future research in this area. the present research investigated two relatively understudied groups, british indian men and women for their perceptions of indian physical appearance ideals and related attributes. an important aspect of the present study is that it considered the perceptions of both indian men and women, which is important because men are often overlooked in research involving physical appearance as they are often difficult to recruit. examining the perceptions of people belonging to non-western cultures of origin will add to our understanding of how cultural values and ideals influence aspects of, and body image as a whole. an advantage of using semi-structured interviews was that participants were able to freely discuss topics that were meaningful and culturally significant to them. for europe’s journal of psychology 479 example, although the preliminary interview schedule did not contain any references to marriage-related pressure, this topic naturally arose in the conversations. participants also spoke about their personal experiences from both western and indian perspectives which led to rich, insightful and natural data. the flexibility of the approach allowed the researcher to follow the route the participants deemed as important to them. thus, gathering qualitative data using semi-structured interviews is beneficial for the investigation of appearance ideals in different cultures. we must be aware of the fact that although the indian culture was discussed as a complete entity in the present study, regional differences in appearance ideals are likely to exist. for instance, fair skin may be more valued in some regions within india than others, particularly where resources to obtain fairer skin are available and accessible. this preference will have implications for the perceived pressure to conform to such ideals, and the level of influence from related sources. noticeably, the ancestors of the participants in the present study originated from northern (i.e. punjab) and western (i.e. gujarat) regions of india, where on average, skin tends to be lighter compared to other regions such as in the south (badruddoja, 2005). thus, a preference for fair skin may be a common norm within these participants’ societies, hence the conformity in responses. however, this is not to say that one region will experience more or less pressure than another on a particular attribute; skin tone is purely one example, and it is likely that there are many more bodyrelated ideals a native of a region is expected to adhere to. future studies should ask participants to define specific regional appearance ideals that they are familiar with, which will help to further contextualise the responses obtained here. there are also other areas worthy of discussion. firstly, we must consider that recruiting participants using a snowball sample may have restricted the range of perspectives discussed in the interviews. friends and families often share similar attitudes and beliefs this may have influenced the level of similarity in their responses to the questions. future studies on similar topics should aim to recruit participants using a variety of more randomised methods, so that a wider range of perceptions can be obtained and a larger picture of the patterns occurring within british indians living in the uk can be developed. nevertheless, most of the responses obtained in the present study were consistent with past research in this area, indicating that the most important areas related to indian physical appearance ideals were covered in the interviews. furthermore, participants provided insights from both the western and asian cultures, as two of the participants had previously lived in india, whereas six visit the country regularly. as the participants had experienced both cultures, they were able to provide richer, detailed accounts, and how the processes were similar and different in the two cultures. british indian adults’ perceptions of physical appearance ideals 480 secondly, we must be aware of the terms and concepts used by the participants in the present study. for example, the terms ‘west’ and ‘western’ were used to describe the british culture, although geographically, these terms can have various connotations. thus, future studies could ask participants to specify the meanings of these terms when used by themselves and/or the interviewer. the third point to consider is that additional demographic information about the participants would have enabled the authors to explore the responses of the participants even further. for example, aspects such as acculturation levels, ethnic identity, reason for immigration (where relevant), as well as others are important factors that may have the potential to influence the extent to which an individual feels he/she should attempt to conform to the appearance ideals (ball & kenardy, 2002; farver et al., 2002). it is anticipated that detailed supplementary information about participants will be obtained in future studies. and lastly, we must also remember that the responses obtained in the present study are simply perceptions of british indians of what features the indian appearance ideals may include. at least three of the participants had not visited india recently, and so may have obtained information about the culture through various forms of media and/or social contacts. considering india’s rapid social, cultural and economic growth, an investigation into the extent to which participants’ perceptions were representative of actual customs in india itself was beyond the scope of the present study. further investigation into this area may involve conducting similar interviews with those residing in india to investigate the extent of similarity in perceptions and responses. detailed investigations of the interactions between various intrapersonal and interpersonal variables may also determine how cultural ideals of physical appearance develop over time. overall conclusions notwithstanding these issues, this qualitative study has provided an important insight into the appearance-related pressures faced by young indians today as perceived by british indian men and women. factors such as gender, maternal encouragement and the media were perceived as important influences on the pressure experienced to conform to the cultural ideals of indian physical appearance, which seem to be perceived as somewhat different to the western ideals of thinness for women and muscularity for men. internalisation of these ideals has implications for the physical and psychological health of indian women, and to a lesser extent indian men, as discussed in this article. future research should aim to build upon the findings of the present study by addressing the limitations as discussed earlier. through both europe’s journal of psychology 481 qualitative and quantitative studies, we will be able to learn more about how different south asian groups living in the uk experience exposure to various appearance ideals. acknowledgements we would like to thank the participants who gave up their time to contribute to this study. we are also very grateful to dr debbie smith for her kind help with the data analysis. references adams, g., turner, h., & bucks, r. 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(2008). demonstrating validity in qualitative psychology. in j.a. smith (ed.), qualitative psychology: a practical guide to methods (2nd ed., pp. 235-251). london: sage. about the authors: dr. savita bakhshi previously worked as a research fellow at the school of psychology, london metropolitan university. her primary research interests include the relationships between body image, food, health, exercise and the media in different ethnic groups. dr. anna baker is a principal lecturer in health psychology, and course leader msc health psychology at the school of psychology, london metropolitan university. her primary research interests include: obesity treatment and management, cancer risk in ethnic minorities, diabetes, psychosocial predictors of dietary behaviour, and developing behaviour change interventions. address for correspondence: dr anna baker, school of psychology, faculty of life sciences, london metropolitan university, calcutta house, old castle street, london e1 7nt, uk. email: a.baker@londonmet.ac.uk europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp.123-134 www.ejop.org role of the fuzzy system in psychological research govind singh kushwaha pant university of technology & agriculture sanjay kumar pant university of technology & agriculture abstract a new analytical method for psychological research is being proposed. the advantages of evaluation with fuzzy statistical analysis include: (i) the evaluation process becomes robust and consistent by reducing the degree of subjectivity of the evaluator; (ii) the selfpotentiality is highlighted by indicating individual distinctions and (iii) it provides the evaluators with an encouraging, stimulating, self-reliant guide that emphasizes individual characteristics. the empirical results demonstrate that the new approach is efficient and more realistic than the traditional method. to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the new method, the results are presented in comparison to those obtained with the help of the traditional method. twelve subjects were involved in this study and sinha’s comprehensive anxiety test (scat) and approval motive scale were employed. fuzzy and traditional approaches are discussed in the end. keywords: fuzzy logic, anxiety, motivation, defuzzification, fuzzyfication of variables introduction sports contain both a psychological and social dimension. it means that sports are psycho-social activity full of tension, anxiety, fear and stress. man’s interest in sports is found in all societies of the world. most of the nations share a common attention in sports competitions, especially at certain times during olympic games, where people from all nations focus their attention on that drama of competition. but the quality of participation of the athletes and sportsmen is determined by their psychological factors in this modern era of competition. europe’s journal of psychology 124 anxiety plays an important role in sports. the degree of perceived anxiety is an important variable to be considered in the performance of an individual. several researches have shown that anxiety is present in all of us, including players, in varying degrees. but in the field of sports, certain situations produce more anxiety than others (frost, 1971; singer, 1972; butt, c. 1976; singh, 1992). motivation explores the capacity of work of an individual. he willingly takes and confronts challenges which may look undefeatable in absence of strong motivation. mental excitements generated by the situational factors tend to favor a behavior that most likely is the result of an effort matching the situational demand. motivation is instrumental in ignoring negative factors that hinder performance (weinberg, 1979). on the other hand it promotes emotions and explores positive avenues resulting in successful performance. the motivated person is most likely to defend his personal pride and self-image which leads to greater confidence and motivation as well (roberts, 1980; cratty, 1989). motivation is closely related to arousal, attention, anxiety, and reinforcement. for example, a person needs to be motivated enough to pay attention while learning; anxiety can decrease our motivation to learn. receiving a reward or feedback for an action usually increases the likelihood that the action will be repeated (singer, 1977; alderman, 1980; roberts, 1985). weiner points out that behavioral theories tended to focus on extrinsic motivation (i.e., rewards) while cognitive theories deal with intrinsic motivation (weiner, 1990). according to hull's drive reduction theory, learning reduces drives and therefore motivation is essential for learning. the degree of the learning achieved can be manipulated by the strength of the drive and its underlying motivation.(hull, 1943) in tolman's theory of purposive behaviorism, primary drives create internal states (i.e., wants or needs) that serve as secondary drives and represent intrinsic motivation (tolman,1932/1967). in cognitive theory, motivation serves to create intentions and goal-seeking acts (ames & ames, 1989). one well-developed area of research highly relevant to learning is achievement motivation (atkinson & raynor, 1974; weiner, 1990). motivation to achieve is a function of the individual's desire for success, the expectancy of success, and the incentives provided. studies show that in general people prefer tasks of intermediate difficulty. in addition, students with a high need to achieve, obtain better grades in courses which they perceive as highly relevant to their career goals (alderman & wood, 1976). on the other hand, according to role of the fuzzy system in psychological research 125 rogers, all individuals have a drive to self-actualize and this motivates learning (rogers, 1967). malone (1981) presented a theoretical framework for intrinsic motivation in the context of designing computer games for instruction. malone argues that intrinsic motivation is created by three qualities: challenge, fantasy, and curiosity. challenge depends upon activities that involve uncertain outcome due to variable levels, hidden information or randomness. fantasy should depend upon skills required for the instruction. curiosity can be aroused when learners believe their knowledge structures are incomplete, inconsistent, or un-parsimonious. according to malone, intrinsically motivating activities provide learners with a broad range of challenges, concrete feedback, and clear criteria for performance. in everyday discussion, the use of imprecise and vague terms like “it is a cold day” or “you are very good” or “the tall guy over there” are usually heard. the words such as cold, very good, and tall have no clear boundaries. each individual has their own interpretations of the meaning (lazim, m. a., abdullah, w.s.w., & abu osman m. t. 2004). thus, for some people, good in examination implies a total mark above 70 percent while for others, it may be 55 percent. kantardzic (2003) tossed a slightly different example of vague phenomena in the real world. rain is a common natural phenomenon that is difficult to describe precisely since it can rain with varying intensity, anywhere from a light shower to heavy downpour. since the word rain does not adequately or precisely describe the wide variations in the amount and intensity of any rain event, rain is considered a vague phenomena. very often, the concepts in the human brain for perceiving, recognising, and categorising natural phenomena are also vague and imprecise. the boundaries of these concepts are not clearly defined. therefore, the judging and reasoning that emerge from them also become vague. in struggling to find a way of expressing succinctly the idea of vagueness in life zadeh (1965) proposed the idea of fuzzy sets. fuzzy logic is an extension of boolean logic which allows intermediate values between true and false. as in boolean logic a true statement is expressed by the value “1” and a false statement by the value “0”. however, unlike in probability theory, the value must not be interpreted as a confidence level but rather as a membership function (mf). therefore, every statement is “true” to a certain degree and “false” to another. an interesting property of these mfs is that, because they vary between zero and one, they can be manipulated like probabilities; even though they are interpreted (zétényi, 1988). europe’s journal of psychology 126 psychology is not only a field in which profound applications of fuzzy logic are anticipated, but is also very important for the development of fuzzy set theory itself (zétényi,1988). the interest of psychologist in fuzzy logic has visibly been growing since mid-1980s (smithson, m. 1982; averkin, a.n. & tarasov, v.b, 1987; hesketh, t., pryor, r.& hesketh, b. 1988). earlier few models of personality traits were developed that included, introverted, extroverted, open, sensitive, realistic, selfish, hostile and fuzzy logic based adaptive model of emotions (el-nasr, m.s., yen, j, & loerger, t. r. 2000) objective the objective of this investigation is two-fold: (a) to examine association of anxiety level and motivational level of players with the help of fuzzy logic technique. (d) to examine the comparison between fuzzy logic technique and conventional psychometric test. methodology subjects: the participants were 12 players of basketball, volleyball and football, all from g. b. pant university of agriculture & technology, pantnagar. the average age of subjects ranges from 17 to 25 years. research instrument: a. sinha’s comprehensive anxiety test (scat) developed by sinha & sinha (1985) to assess anxiety level of participants. b. approval motive scale (ams) developed by tripathi & tripathi (1980) to assess motivation level of participants procedure: liaison with the players occurred one week prior to testing. during this period, a verbal consent of the players was received later, a written consent explaining the aims of the research was given to provide information and gain signature from the participants. the players completed the anxiety and motivation scale within one hour. role of the fuzzy system in psychological research 127 every member will be attached to a set of numerical value between 0 and 1 called membership grade in the fuzzy set. in the above model anxiety and motivation are treated as the state fuzzy variable. fuzzyfication of variables lie under the trade off between precision in renewed decision and computation time. each of the system states that fuzzy variables are decomposed into a reasonable number of fuzzy regions (cox, 1992). each region should overlap somewhat between 10% and 50% with its neighbors. the two system input state variables were fuzzified anxiety and motivation. (oden, 1979) rule base: 1. if anxiety is very low then motivation is moderate. 2. if anxiety is low then motivation is moderate. 3. if anxiety is low then motivation is high. 4. if anxiety is moderate then motivation is high. europe’s journal of psychology 128 5. if anxiety is moderate then motivation is moderate. 6. if anxiety is moderate then motivation is low. 7. if anxiety is high then motivation is moderate. 8. if anxiety is high then motivation is high. 9. if anxiety is very high then motivation is moderate. inference: the truth value for the premise of each rule is computed, and applied on the conclusion part of each rule. this results in one fuzzy subset to be assigned to each output variable for each rule. usually min or product are used as inference rule. in min inferencing, the output membership function is clipped off at a height corresponding to the rule premise’s computed degree of truth (weight of the rule, α). in product inferencing, the output membership function is scaled by the rule premise’s computed degree of truth. composition: all of the fuzzy subsets assigned to each output variables are combined together to form a single fuzzy subset for each output variable. usually max or sum are used for composition. in max composition, the combined output fuzzy subset is constructed by taking point wise maximum over all of the fuzzy subsets assigned to variable by the inference rule. in sum composition, the combined output fuzzy subset is constructed by taking the point wise sum over all of the fuzzy subsets assigned to the output variable by the inference rule. defuzzification: sometimes it is useful to just examine the fuzzy subsets that are the result of the composition process, but more often; this fuzzy value needs to be converted to a crisp value. this is what the defuzzification sub process does. two of the common techniques for defuzzification are the centroid and the maximum method. in the centroid method, the crisp value of the output variable is computed by finding the variable value of the centre of gravity of the membership function for the fuzzy value. in the maximum method, one of the variable values at which the fuzzy subset has its maximum truth value is chosen as the crisp value for the output variable. in the present study, product method is used for inferencing, sum method is used for composition and centroid method is used for defuzzification. role of the fuzzy system in psychological research 129 table 1. membership grade and firing strength of the rules s.n o x μvl (x) μl (x) μm (x) μh (x) μvh (x) α1 α2 α3 α4 α5 α6 α7 α8 α9 1 13 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2 22 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3 23 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4 27 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 5 29 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 6 30 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8 7 31 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 8 32 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 9 33 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 10 34 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 11 37 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12 40 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 sample mathematical calculation: europe’s journal of psychology 130 same calculation is done for other inputs with different output fuzzy sets and following results are obtained. result and discussion nearly all psychological study and its use of questionnaires are very common to study human behavior. in this process the biasness of the subject can never be ignored during answering the questions of any kind of questionnaire. that’s why the data obtained by questionnaire are imprecise as “raw” data includes hidden uncertainties. fuzzy logic has been recognized as an effective tool to deal with the uncertainty involved in the data. the result obtained by fuzzy method and raw score of motivation obtained by without fuzzy (conventional) are shown in the following table: fig. 3: comparison of the level of motivation by conventional and fuzzy method role of the fuzzy system in psychological research 131 table: 4: t-test of motivation estimated by without fuzzy method (conventional) and motivation estimated by fuzzy method group n mean s.d t-value motivation estimated by without fuzzy method (conventional) 12 43.00 3.837 0.69786 motivation estimated by fuzzy method 12 43.48 1.661 the above analysis reveals that fuzzy system produce rational outcomes. the fuzzy systems predict the motivational level of players with the help of anxiety of players (table 2) without using a psychological motivation scale. this is a unique feature of fuzzy logic. the output obtained by fuzzy method and non fuzzy method (conventional) is shown in (table 3) and their respective graph (fig 3) is indicate more or less by similar outcome of motivation estimated by without fuzzy method (conventional) and fuzzy method. the result of t-test are shown in (table 4) the tvalue was 0.69786 which is not significant at < 0.05 level. this shows that there was no significant difference between the motivation estimated without fuzzy method and motivation estimated by fuzzy method. but standard deviation gives some important information regarding the uncertainty in data. motivation estimated by fuzzy method, standard deviation shows less variance in data as compared to motivation estimated by the without fuzzy method. psychological parameter motivation estimated by the without fuzzy method and fuzzy method revealed some variations because of some hidden uncertainties in raw data of subjects. the unique feature of the fuzzy method in the present paper is that it controls the uncertainty in data collected (smithson, m. 1982; 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(1965). fuzzy set, information and control. 8: 338–353. zétényi,t (1988). fuzzy sets in psychology, amsterdam, north-holland. about the authors: govind singh kushwaha, ph.d. is assistant professor of psychology at g.b. pant university of technology & agriculture, pantnagar, india. presently engaged in teaching and research. area of specialization is fuzzy set and psychology. sanjay kumar, ph.d. is assistant professor of mathematics at g.b. pant university of technology & agriculture, pantnagar, india. presently engaged in teaching and research. area of specialization is fuzzy set and neural network. corresponding author: dr. govind singh kushwaha, department of social sciences & humanities, g.b. pant university of technology & agriculture, pantnagar, 263145, u s nagar, email: drgovindsingh@hotmail.com research 1 europe’s journal of psychology 1/2009 www.ejop.org humor styles and negative affect as predictors of different components of physical health nicholas a. kuiper & andrea l. harris the university of western ontario london, ontario, canada abstract the extent to which humor and negative affect each predict different components of physical health was examined by having 105 participants complete measures of four distinct humor styles, negative affect, and three indices of physical health. an increased number of physical symptoms and more negative attitudes about illness were associated with higher levels of negative affect, but were unrelated to the humor styles. conversely, three of the humor styles significantly predicted coping strategies for physical ailments and complaints, whereas negative affect did not. adaptive selfenhancing humor was associated with facilitative coping strategies such as changing perspective, planning, and the effective use of humor. maladaptive aggressive humor was linked to a more dysfunctional coping pattern that included greater denial and a reduction in the ability to change perspective. these findings reinforce the need to consider more complex models of humor that explicitly address the effects of both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles across a broad range of physical health measures while also considering effects that may be attributable to other highly-relevant attributes, such as negative affect. key words: humor, negative affect, physical symptoms, health attitudes, coping. it has often been suggested that a greater sense of humor can contribute significantly to well-being. in terms of physical health it has been proposed that increased humor and laughter can enhance immune functioning, increase tolerance of pain, and reduce cardiovascular risk (martin, 2007). consistent with these proposals, it has been found that a greater sense of humor is associated with increased immune functioning and a reduction in physical illness symptoms (carroll & schmidt, 1992). other studies, however, have failed to support this proposed europe’s journal of psychology 2 facilitative effect of humor. in particular, those with a greater sense of humor do not always display fewer physical illness symptoms (mcclelland & cheriff, 1997), a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease (kerkkanen, kuiper, & martin, 2004), or show higher levels of immunity (martin & dobbin, 1988). this conflicting evidence has lead several researchers to conclude that further work in this domain needs to incorporate several refinements (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; kuiper & nicholl, 2004; martin, 2001; martin, 2007). first, it has been recommended that research should include contemporary models of humor that explicitly differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (e.g., selfenhancing vs. self-defeating humor). second, it has been suggested that the inclusion of a much broader range of physical health measures (including attitudes about health and coping with physical health concerns), would help clarify how sense of humor may play a role in enhancing physical health. finally, it has been proposed that further individual difference characteristics that are already known to be highly relevant to physical health issues, such as negative affect (watson, clarke & tellegen, 1988), should also be included in any research studies. as described below, these three refinements provide the conceptual framework for the present investigation of humor and physical health. distinguishing adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. past research examining the relationship between humor and physical health has generally assumed that sense of humor is a positive attribute, and thus could only serve to facilitate (but never harm) well-being. in contrast to this notion, contemporary research has clearly documented the existence of both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (martin, 2007). the two adaptive styles are selfenhancing and affiliative humor; whereas the two maladaptive styles are selfdefeating and aggressive humor. self-enhancing humor involves a generally humorous outlook on life, even in the face of adversity. these individuals use humor to effectively cope with emotional regulation of stress, but do so in a manner that does not harm self or others. affiliative humor involves using wit and benign humor to amuse others, and facilitate social and interpersonal relationships. in contrast, those high in self-defeating humor amuse others by making themselves “the butt of the joke”, which involves ridiculing themselves to gain approval from others. finally, aggressive humor involves sarcasm, ridicule, and teasing; and is specifically intended to put down and insult others. these four humor styles are assessed via the humor styles questionnaire (hsq: martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray & weir, 2003), with a number of studies now providing strong converging evidence for the existence of humor styles and negative affect 3 these four distinct styles across diverse groups and cultures (chen & martin, 2007; kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007). of special interest is that these adaptive and maladaptive humor styles show quite different relationships with psychological well-being. a number of studies have now demonstrated that higher levels of adaptive humor (self-enhancing, affiliative) are related to greater psychological well-being, as characterized by less depression, less anxiety and higher self-esteem (chen & martin, 2007; kuiper et al., 2004; kuiper & mchale, in press). in contrast, higher levels of the maladaptive style of self-defeating humor have typically been associated with exactly the opposite pattern of wellbeing, namely, increased depression, greater anxiety and reduced self-esteem. these distinctions has rarely been considered when examining sense of humor and physical health domains. as such, one goal of the present study was to explore the extent to which each of the adaptive and maladaptive humor styles may potentially relate, in a differential manner, to the physical health constructs described below. considering a broader range of physical health measures. many of the studies examining relationships between humor and physical health have focused on the traditional research areas of physical symptom reporting, immunity levels, or tolerance for pain (martin, 2001). in contrast, kuiper and nicholl (2004) examined not only physical health symptoms, but also attitudes towards a variety of physical health issues. of particular interest was that higher liking of humor (one facet of a positive sense of humor) was associated with a significant reduction in fear of death, bodily preoccupation and worry about illness; but was completely unrelated to the number of physical symptoms reported. in contrast, coping humor (another positive facet of sense of humor) showed quite a different pattern, as it was completely unrelated to fear of death, but was associated with fewer physical symptoms. in light of this differential pattern, the present study assessed several components of physical health, including physical symptoms, attitudes about physical health issues, and coping strategies for dealing with a variety of common physical health ailments and complaints (e.g., sore throat). physical health and the important role of negative affect. although some studies have demonstrated a significant relationship between sense of humor and physical health, this research has rarely considered the extent to which these effects are actually specific to humor (kuiper & nicholl, 2004; martin, 2001). it may be the case that other potentially relevant individual difference variables europe’s journal of psychology 4 (typically not measured in these studies) may actually account for the observed relationships. as one illustration, korotkov and hannah (1994) found that the negative relationship between coping humor and physical symptom reporting was no longer present, once neuroticism levels were taken into account. this result is quite consistent with more general research findings showing that greater negative affect, which is a primary component of neuroticism, is associated with increased illness, disease, and physical symptom reporting (mayne, 1999; petrie, moss-morris, grey & shaw, 2004). these findings are extremely robust, and thus reinforce the need to also include a measure of negative affect in any research that attempts to ascertain the specific impact of humor on physical health. in further accord with this suggestion, past humor research has also shown that individuals with higher levels of self-defeating humor display significantly greater negative affect; whereas much lower levels of negative affect are associated with the two adaptive humor styles of self-enhancing and affiliative humor (kuiper et al., 2004). the present study using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) to assess both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (self-enhancing, affiliative vs. self-defeating, aggressive), one goal of this study was to explore any potential relationships between the various humor styles and different aspects of physical health. in response to previous suggestions to consider a much broader array of physical health domains, the present study examined three different aspects of physical health. first, the pennebaker inventory of limbic languidness (pill: pennebaker, 1982) was used to assess the number of physical health symptoms reported. second, the illness attitude survey (ias: kellner, abbott, winslow & pathak, 1987) was used to assess participants’ attitudes about several physical health issues, including worry about illness, bodily preoccupation, fear of death, disease phobia, and hypochondrical beliefs. third, the health symptoms coping scale (hscs) was used to determine how individuals would cope with several common physical ailments and complaints, such as a bad headache or sore throat. here, participants indicated how much they would use coping strategies such as changing perspective, planning, denial, selfblame, and humor when dealing with physical health symptoms. if sense of humor does play a role in physical health, then the adaptive and maladaptive humor styles may show quite different relationships with the physical health measures. for example, given that those with high levels of self-enhancing humor generally display a more accepting and positive orientation towards their life experiences (martin, 2007), it may be that these individuals also show the most humor styles and negative affect 5 facilitative health-related attitudes, along with fewer physical symptoms. such a pattern would be congruent with prior demonstrations of the use of self-enhancing humor to effectively engage in the regulation of personal stress (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007). in contrast, those with higher levels of self-defeating humor may show the most detrimental attitudes about physical health (e.g., greater worry about illness, higher bodily preoccupation and hypochondrical beliefs), coupled with an increased number of physical symptoms. this pattern would be consistent with the greater level of neuroticism displayed by these individuals (martin et al., 2003). in terms of coping with common physical health ailments and complaints, greater self-enhancing humor may be associated with an increased ability to change perspective, the greater use of humor to deal with these symptoms, and more effective planning. such a pattern would be consistent with past findings showing that coping humor (which is closely related to self-enhancing humor) is associated with a greater ability to change one’s perspective when faced with stressful events, more approach coping, more planning in problem solving, and more positive appraisals about these events (abel, 2002; cann & etzel, 2008; erickson & feldstein, 2007; kuiper, martin & olinger, 1993; kuiper, mckenzie & belanger, 1995). finally, the last main goal of this study was to consider how negative affect may bear on any relationships between the humor styles and physical health. to begin, we expected that higher levels of negative affect would be associated with greater physical symptom reporting and more negative illness attitudes (e.g., greater worry about illness, increased disease phobia); as this type of relationship has been welldocumented in previous research (mayne, 1999; petrie et al., 2004). of further interest was the extent to which the humor styles would still predict physical health, even after negative affect levels have been taken into account. this issue was examined by performing a series of regression analyses in which negative affect was entered as the first predictor, followed by the four humor styles as the second block of predictors. the criterion variables were, in turn, each of the physical health measures (i.e., number of physical symptoms, illness attitudes and coping strategies for physical health symptoms). as described earlier, prior work has strongly linked negative affect to certain physical health measures (i.e., number of physical symptoms and illness attitudes), with the potential role of humor in these two areas of health being much more equivocal. as such, negative affect may play the primary role in predicting number of physical symptoms and illness attitudes. for coping strategies, however, the relative contribution of humor versus negative affect may be reversed, as considerable prior research has highlighted the extent to which self-enhancing humor can also be europe’s journal of psychology 6 thought of as a coping technique for dealing with the regulation of stressful events (cann & etzel, 2008; martin, 2007). as such, this specific humor style may be the primary predictor of coping strategies used for physical ailments and complaints. method participants a total of 105 undergraduate psychology students (76 females and 29 males) participated in partial fulfillment of course requirements. their mean age was 18.93, and ranged from 17 to 34. measures humor styles questionnaire (hsq: martin et al., 2003). the hsq is a 32 item self-report measure of four distinct humor styles. the two adaptive styles are self-enhancing humor (“my humorous outlook on life keeps me from getting overly upset or depressed about things.”) and affiliative humor (“i enjoy making people laugh.”). the two maladaptive styles are self-defeating humor (“i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should.”) and aggressive humor (“if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down.”). there are eight items for each humor style subscale, with participants rating items on a 7-point scale ranging from (1) “totally disagree” to (7) “totally agree”. psychometrically sound levels of validity and reliability have been demonstrated for the hsq in prior research (e.g., chen & martin, 2007; kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007). pennebaker inventory of limbic languidness (pill: pennebaker, 1982). the pill consists of 54 items that measure how frequently an individual experiences a wide variety of common physical symptoms, such as “nausea,” “toothaches,” “eyes water,” “sore muscles,” “leg cramps,” “back pain,” and “dizziness.” participants indicate on a 5-point scale how frequently they have experienced each symptom over the past year. response options range from (1) “never or almost never” to (5) “more than once a week.” the pill has acceptable levels of both reliability and validity (gijsbergs van wijk & kolk, 1996; pennebaker, 1982). illness attitudes scale (ias: kellner et al., 1987). the ias is a broad-based self-report measure that assesses a number of different fears, beliefs and attitudes about physical health, including illness, disease, death, humor styles and negative affect 7 bodily focus, effects of symptoms, health habits and treatment experiences. the ias contains nine subscales, each with three items. example items for each subscale are as follows: worry about illness (wi) “are you worried that you will get a serious illness in the future?”, concern about pain (cp) “if you have a pain, do you worry that it may be caused by a serious illness?”, health habits (hh) “do you avoid habits that may be harmful to you, such as smoking?”, hypochondrical beliefs (hb) “do you believe that you have a physical disease, but the doctors have not diagnosed it correctly?”, fear of death (fd) “does the thought of death scare you?”, diseases phobia (dp) “are you afraid that you may have heart disease?”, bodily preoccupation (bp) “when you notice a sensation in your body, do you find it difficult to think of something else?”, effects of symptoms (es) “do your bodily symptoms stop you from concentrating on what you are doing?”, and treatment experiences (te) “how many times have you seen a medical doctor over the past year?” responses to the first eight subscales are measured on a 5-point scale, ranging from (1) “never” to (5) “always”. the last subscale (treatment experiences) assesses the frequency of use of health care during the past year, with response options being: (1) “never”, (2) “once”, (3) “2 to 3 times”, (4) “4 to 5 times”, and (5) “6 or more times”. as described by kellner et al. (1987) several studies support the construct validity of the ias, with factor analytic work indicating the nine subscales are distinct. reliability of each subscale is also acceptable. health symptoms coping scale (hscs). the hscs was constructed specifically for the present study and assesses how individuals cope with common physical symptoms, such as a bad headache, an infected cut, a sore throat with fever, or back pain. this measure uses the 13 coping strategies specified in the brief cope scale (carver, 1997). these strategies include: planning (think hard about what steps to take to deal with the situation), humor (make fun of the situation), acceptance (learn to live with the situation), denial (refuse to belief the situation has happened), self-blame (blame myself for what has happened), change in perspective (view this situation from a different perspective), appraisal challenge (view this situation as a positive challenge), and behavioral disengagement (give up the attempt to deal with the situation). participants were asked to imagine that they were experiencing a given physical symptom (e.g., you have a sore throat with a fever that has lasted all day), and then indicate the degree to which each coping strategy would be typical of their own response. this was done on a 5-point scale with (1) being “extremely unlike me” and (5) being “extremely like me.” a score was calculated for each of the 13 coping strategies by averaging across the symptoms sampled by the hscs. acceptable psychometric properties for the brief cope scale are reported by carver (1997). europe’s journal of psychology 8 positive and negative affect scale (panas: watson et al., 1988). the panas is a self-report measure of an individual’s level of both negative and positive affect. the present study focused only on the negative affect subscale, however, which consists of 10 negative emotional adjectives, such as “upset,” “irritable,” and “distressed”. participants indicated the extent to which each adjective described them over the past week, using a 5-point scale that ranged from (1) “very slightly or not at all” to (5) “extremely”. reliability and validity for the panas are both quite acceptable (gijsbergs van wijk & kolk, 1996; watson et al., 1988). procedure participants were tested in groups of up to 10 in small seminar rooms at the university. after completing informed consent forms, each participant was given a booklet of measures to complete. the measures in each booklet were in different orders. completion of the booklet took approximately 30 to 40 minutes, after which participants received a debriefing form explaining the purpose of the study. results the means, standard deviations, and ranges for all of the measures are shown in table 1 (see appendix 1). regression analyses were conducted to determine the degree of predictability afforded by the humor styles, after taking negative affect into account. negative affect was always entered as the first predictor, followed by the four humor styles (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating and aggressive) as the second predictor block. in turn, each of the physical health measures served as the criterion variable. physical symptoms (pill). when considering the number of physical symptoms experienced in the last year, the first predictor of negative affect was significant, r2 = .11, f (1, 103) = 12.05, p < .001, indicating that, as expected, higher levels of negative affect predicted significantly more physical symptoms (r = .32, p < .01). however, when the four humor styles were next entered into the equation, the incremental r2 change of .04 was not significant, f-change (4, 99) = 1.16, ns. this indicates that none of the four humor styles added significantly to the prediction of physical symptoms, above and beyond the significant prediction already afforded by negative affect. furthermore, even when considering the simple correlations, none of the four humor styles were significantly associated with the number of physical humor styles and negative affect 9 symptoms reported (simple r’s ranged from .02 to .18, ns). illness attitudes and health habits (ias). for all eight of the attitude scales, the regression analyses revealed that negative affect was the only significant predictor, with the subsequent entry of the four humor styles failing to produce any significant increase in predictability. in particular, the eight ias scales displaying this pattern were: disease phobia r2 = .22, f (1, 103) = 29.79, p < .001, incremental change in r2 for humor = .02, f-change (4, 99) < 1, ns; bodily preoccupation r2 = .20, f (1, 103) = 25.94, p < .001, incremental change in r2 for humor = .05, f-change (4, 99) = 1.63, ns; concern about pain r2 = .16, f (1, 103) = 19.81, p < .001, incremental change in r2 for humor = .04, f-change (4, 99) = 1.09, ns; worry about illness r2 = .11, f (1, 103) = 12.15, p < .001, incremental change in r2 for humor = .03, f-change (4, 99) < 1, ns; effects of symptoms r2 = .11, f (1, 103) = 12.23, p < .001, incremental change in r2 for humor = .01, f-change (4,99) < 1, ns; fear of death r2 = .08, f (1, 103) = 8.38, p < .01, incremental change in r2 for humor = .06, f-change (4, 99) = 1.90, ns; treatment experiences r2 = .07, f (1, 103) = 8.17, p < .01, incremental change in r2 for humor = .02, f-change (4, 99) < 1, ns; and hypochondrical beliefs r2 = .07, f (1, 103) = 7.44, p < .01, incremental change in r2 for humor = .08, f-change (4, 99) <1, ns. finally, when considering the one remaining ias scale of health habits, the regression analysis indicated that neither negative affect nor humor styles were significant predictors (all f and f-change values < 1.25, ns). thus, in accord with predictions, individuals with higher levels of negative affect also showed greater disease phobia (simple r = .47, p < .001); increased bodily preoccupation (r = .45, p < .001); more concern about pain (r = .40, p < .001); greater worry about illness (r = .33, p < .01); greater impact of symptoms (r = .33, p < .01); increased fear of death (r = .27, p < .01); more treatment experiences (r = .27, p < .01); and more hypochondrical beliefs (r = .26, p < .01). in contrast, neither of the two maladaptive humor styles of self-defeating and aggressive humor showed any significant correlations with any of the ias measures (r’s ranged from -.02 to .19, ns). for the adaptive humor styles, higher self-enhancing humor was associated with reduced concern about pain (simple r = -.21, p < .05); and higher affiliative humor was linked to a significant reduction in hypochondrical beliefs (simple r = -.20, p < .05). it is important to note, however, that both of these humor effects were no longer significant, once negative affect was taken into account, via the regression analyses reported above. health symptoms coping scale (hscs). the regression analyses revealed that negative affect was a significant predictor for only one coping strategy, namely, europe’s journal of psychology 10 self-blame, r2 = .10, f (1, 103) = 11.13, p < .001. this analysis further indicated that the four humor styles did not add significantly to the prediction of self-blame, incremental change in r2 for humor = .06, f-change (4, 99) = 1.99, ns. thus, in terms of coping with common physical ailments, those with greater negative affect attributed more blame to themselves (r = .31, p < .01). when considering simple correlations, higher self-defeating humor significantly predicted greater self-blame (r = .23, p < .05). this humor effect, however, was no longer significant when negative affect was considered first in the regression analysis. the regression analyses also revealed that the humor styles played a significant role in predicting several of the remaining coping strategies, even after first considering any potential effects of negative affect. for example, when predicting humor use, negative affect (entered as the first predictor) was not significant, r2 = .01, f (1,103) = 1.15, ns. however, the subsequent entry of humor styles produced a significant increase in r2 of .20, f-change (4, 99) = 6.26, p < .001. this resulted in a significant overall regression model, r2 = .21, f (5, 99) = 5.28, p < .001, in which those with greater self-enhancing humor used more humor in coping with their physical ailments and complaints (r = .42, p < .001). at a simple correlation level, those with higher levels of affiliative humor also used more humor to cope with their physical ailments (r = .24, p < .05), but this humor effect was no longer significant in the regression analysis. furthermore, neither of the maladaptive humor styles (selfdefeating or aggressive) were significantly associated with humor use (r’s < .16, ns); thus highlighting the positive self-enhancing focus of this particular coping strategy. for the planning coping strategy, negative affect was again a non-significant predictor, r2 = .02, f (1,103) = 2.46, ns. however, the subsequent entry of humor styles resulted in a significant increase in predictability, r2 change = .08, f-change (4, 99) = 2.50, p < .05; with the final overall regression model being significant, r2 = .11 f (5, 99) = 2.48, p < .05. here, those displaying greater self-enhancing humor employed more planning when coping with their physical ailments and concerns (r = .28, p < .01). negative affect also failed to predict change in perspective as a coping strategy, r2 = .002, f (1,103) < 1, ns; whereas the subsequent inclusion of humor styles resulted in a significant increase in r2 of .14, f-change (4, 99) = 3.92, p < .01. in the overall regression model, higher levels of both self-enhancing and affiliative humor, along with lower levels of aggressive humor, were found to be significant predictors of the greater use of change of perspective as a coping strategy, r2 = .14, f (5, 99) = 3.20, p < .01. humor styles and negative affect 11 the use of denial as a coping strategy was not predicted by negative affect, r2 = .006, f (1,103) < 1, ns; but was significantly predicted by humor styles, r2 change = .13, f-change (4, 99) = 3.70, p < .001. in this overall regression model, both greater aggressive humor and reduced affiliative humor predicted the increased use of denial to cope with physical symptoms, r2 = .21 f (5, 99) = 3.11, p < .025. finally, the regression analyses revealed that several of the coping strategies for dealing with physical health ailments and complaints were not significantly predicted by either negative affect or the four humor styles. these strategies were: self-distraction, venting, behavioural disengagement, appraisals of challenge or threat, active coping, acceptance, and positive reframing. discussion the aim of this study was to provide an examination of potential relationships between humor and physical health while also taking into account the impact of negative affect. this examination incorporated three major refinements that have not typically been addressed in prior work. first, we explicitly acknowledged that humor is a multi-faceted construct that includes both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing and affiliative vs. self-defeating and aggressive). this approach contrasts with previous work that has generally assumed that humor is only a positive attribute; and thus can only serve to facilitate physical health. as such, our approach allows for an examination of both the facilitative and detrimental effects of various humor styles on physical health. second, we broadened the range of physical health indices that were examined. thus, in addition to considering the number of physical symptoms reported, we also assessed attitudes about physical illness and health, along with the typical strategies used to cope with physical health ailments. third, we also considered the potential impact of negative affect on physical health, as considerable prior research has shown strong and consistent links between greater negative affect and poorer physical health (mayne, 1999; petrie et al., 2004). number of physical symptoms reported the prediction that higher levels of negative affect would be associated with a greater number of physical symptoms was clearly supported. this finding is in accord with mayne’s (1999) general conclusion that individuals characterized by higher negative affect have a much greater propensity towards physical health-related concerns. our results also very clearly indicated that none of the four humor styles europe’s journal of psychology 12 were significantly associated with physical symptoms. thus, it was not the case that greater adaptive humor was associated with a reduction in physical symptoms, or that greater maladaptive humor was associated with an increase in physical symptoms. as such, these findings are consistent with prior work demonstrating that sense of humor is not linked to physical symptoms (mcclelland & cheriff, 1997). even when one employs a more fine-grained approach to separately consider adaptive and maladaptive styles of humor, there is still very little evidence to support the proposal that sense of humor is related to number of physical symptoms. illness attitudes in strong support of the negative affect hypothesis (mayne, 1999: petrie et al., 2004), we found that higher levels of negative affect predicted significantly greater worry about illness, more concern about pain, greater impact of symptoms, more hypochondrical beliefs, increased bodily preoccupation, greater disease phobia, more treatment experiences, and finally, increased fear of death. as such, these results are consistent with previous research showing similar patterns of associations between greater negative affect and more detrimental attitudes and beliefs about physical health (mayne, 1999; petrie et al., 2004). in contrast to these very robust findings for negative affect, our results revealed very little support for the notion that the humor styles relate to attitudes about illness and physical health. at the simple correlational level, higher levels of self-enhancing humor were associated with less concern about pain, and higher levels of affiliative humor were associated with fewer hypochondrical beliefs. although this pattern is consistent with the proposal that greater adaptive humor may mitigate negative attitudes and beliefs about physical health issues, it is important to note that these effects were no longer evident once negative affect levels were taken into account, via the regression analyses. as such, this pattern clearly highlights the importance of considering other relevant individual difference variables, such as negative affect, when attempting to ascertain the specific role of humor measures. furthermore, both of the maladaptive humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) also failed to show any significant relationships with any of the illness attitude measures. when taken together, this pattern strongly suggests that the four humor styles, as assessed in this study, have little to do with attitudes about illness and physical health. coping with physical ailments and complaints our findings showed that negative affect was generally unrelated to the coping strategies used by individuals to deal with a variety of common physical ailments and complaints. while greater negative affect is strongly associated with more humor styles and negative affect 13 negative illness attitudes and a greater number of physical symptoms, negative affect has little to do with how individuals cope with physical ailments such as a bad headache or sore throat (the lone exception was an ascription of greater selfblame). these distinctions clearly support the importance of sampling from a broad range of physical health indices when examining the potential impact of any individual difference variables on physical health. this conclusion is further supported by the pattern of findings obtained for the humor styles, which was essentially opposite to that displayed for negative affect. in particular, humor styles showed the most pronounced effects when considering coping strategies for physical health ailments and complaints, but failed to show any effects for either illness attitudes or number of symptoms reported. consistent with expectations, the most prominent humor style associated with the coping strategies for physical ailments and complaints was self-enhancing humor. this style incorporates strong elements of coping humor (martin et al., 2003), and in the present study was predictive of several facilitative strategies for dealing with physical ailments, such as the greater use of humor, changing perspectives, and greater planning. the facilitative coping effects for this adaptive humor style are generally congruent with past work showing that individuals high in coping humor are more likely to see stressful situations from a more positive perspective, inject more humor into the situation, engage in more effective planning and active coping; and thus experience less stress and anxiety (abel, 2002; cann & etzel, 2008; erikson & feldstein, 2007; kuiper et al., 1995). the coping findings also offered empirical support for the idea that maladaptive humor styles can sometimes function in a manner that is detrimental to physical health. as one illustration, the regression analyses revealed that even after accounting for negative affect levels, higher levels of aggressive humor predicted both greater denial and a reduced ability to change perspective, when dealing with physical symptoms. the dysfunctional coping pattern for this maladaptive humor style is clearly distinct from the facilitative pattern displayed for the adaptive styles, such as self-enhancing humor. as such, this distinction reinforces the importance of considering both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles when exploring the impact of sense of humor on coping in physical health domains. conclusions, limitations and future research directions several general conclusions can be drawn from this research. first, it appears important to use multiple measures of physical health across several different europe’s journal of psychology 14 domains in order to provide an appropriate test of the proposed effects of any individual difference construct. in the present study this was evident for both negative affect and humor, as each displayed it own unique patterns of relationships across the various physical health domains. negative affect was the best predictor of illness attitudes and number of physical symptoms, whereas humor styles were the best predictors of coping strategies. second, when examining proposed humor effects, it is also important to consider the impact of other highly relevant individual difference variables, such as negative affect. in the present study this was particularly evident for self-enhancing humor, as the relationship of this adaptive humor style with several coping strategies remained significant, ever after taking negative affect into account. finally, it is important to consider maladaptive as well as adaptive humor styles, as quite different patterns can emerge with respect to physical health indices. in the present study this was primarily evident for the coping strategies, with higher levels of adaptive humor being associated with more facilitative strategies, such as change of perspective and planning; whereas higher levels of maladaptive humor styles predicted more detrimental strategies, such as denial. although the present findings are informative, there are a number of limitations that point to future research directions. one consideration is that the present study relied exclusively on self-report measures. although these measures are generally reliable and valid, it would still be quite useful to expand the range of physical health measures to also include assessments of actual physical health, such as blood pressure, body mass index, or cholesterol levels (e.g., kerkkanen et al., 2004). a further concern is that the cross-sectional nature of the present study precludes the establishment of any causal relationships between the different variables of interest. thus, while several relationships between humor styles and coping strategies have been demonstrated, causality among these relationships is unknown. as such, future research might use longitudinal designs that permit a clearer articulation of directionality when examining the use of humor to deal with physical ailments. this work might also use experimental designs that can serve as an analogue to physical complaints (e.g., a cold stressor test). such designs would allow for pre-selection of individuals high and low on the various humor styles of interest. finally, it is important to note that while the present study focused on both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles, there are still other aspects of sense of humor that may be worth further consideration. as one specific example, kuiper and nicholl (2004) also examined the relationship between sense of humor and illness attitudes, but focused on an individual’s ability to recognize humor in various life situations and their liking of humor. in general contrast to the present study, they found a number humor styles and negative affect 15 of significant relationships between these particular aspects of sense of humor and illness attitudes. thus, when taken together with the present results, these finding clearly highlight the complex nature of sense of humor, and further caution against any portrayals of sense of humor as a singular positive construct that only functions to enhance well-being. references abel, m. h. (2002). humor, stress, and coping strategies. humor: international journal of humor research, 15, 365-381. cann, a., & etzel, k.c. (2008). remembering and anticipating stressors: positive personality mediates the relationship with sense of humor. humor: international journal of humor research, 21, 157-178. carroll, j., & schmidt, j. (1992). correlation between humorous coping style and health. psychological reports, 70, 402. carver, c. s. (1997). you want to measure coping but your protocol’s too long: consider the brief cope. international journal of behavioral medicine, 4, 92-100. chen, g-h., & martin, r.a. (2007). a comparison of humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between chinese and canadian university students. humor; international journal of humor research, 20, 215-234. erickson, s., & feldstein, s. 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(2001). humor, laughter, and physical health: methodological issues and research findings. psychological bulletin, 127, 504-519. martin, r.a. (2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. new york: academic press. martin, r.a., & dobbin, j.p. (1988). sense of humor, hassles and immunoglobin a: evidence for a stress-moderating effect of humor. international journal of psychiatry in medicine, 18, 93-105. martin, r.a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., & weir, k. (2003). individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. mayne, t. j. (1999). negative affect and health: the importance of being earnest. cognition and emotion, 13, 601-635. mcclelland, d., & cheriff, a. (1997). the immunoenhancing effects of humor on secretory iga and resistance to respiratory infections. psychology and health, 12, 329 humor styles and negative affect 17 344. pennebaker, j. (1982). the psychology of physical symptoms, new york: springer verlag. petrie, k. j., moss-morris, r., grey, c. & shaw, m. (2004). the relationship of negative affect and perceived sensitivity to symptom reporting following vaccination. british journal of health psychology, 2, 101-111. watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063 – 1070. about the authors: nicholas kuiper has been a professor for over 30 years in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario. he is currently the director of the clinical psychology phd graduate program at western. over the years he has published many papers on humor, well-being, depression, self-schemata, and negative affect. andrea harris conducted humor and negative affect research with dr. kuiper while completing her psychology degree at the university of western ontario. she is currently pursuing further graduate studies in clinical psychology at ryerson university in toronto, canada. ms. harris' research interests focus on humor and depression. address correspondence to: n. kuiper, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 (e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca; fax: 1-519-850-2554). europe’s journal of psychology 18 appendix 1. table 1 means, standard deviations and ranges for all measures measures and subscales mean sd range a) panas negative affect scale 2.18 .62 1.00 4.20 b) humor styles questionnaire (hsq) affiliative humor 6.05 .86 1.50 – 7.00 self-enhancing humor 4.87 .92 1.75 – 6.88 aggressive humor 3.75 .93 1.88 – 5.75 self-defeating humor 3.65 1.13 1.63 – 6.50 c) pennebaker inventory of limbic languidness (pill) symptom frequency 2.27 .45 1.35– 3.44 d) illness attitude scale (ias) worry about illness 3.32 .86 1.33 – 5.00 concern about pain 2.81 .81 1.00 – 4.67 health habits 3.14 .67 1.00 – 4.67 hypochondrical beliefs 1.53 .65 1.00 – 4.33 fear of death 2.64 1.03 1.00 – 5.00 diseases phobia 1.94 1.03 1.00 – 5.00 bodily preoccupation 2.40 .86 1.00 – 4.67 effects of symptoms 4.87 .82 1.00 – 4.67 treatment experiences 2.69 .79 1.00 – 5.00 e) health symptoms coping scale (hscs) humor 3.26 .91 1.00 – 5.00 appraisal challenge 2.61 .66 1.00 – 4.00 appraisal threat 3.59 .82 1.50 – 5.00 active coping 4.07 .74 2.00 – 5.00 planning 3.12 .79 1.00 – 5.00 positive reframing 2.62 .89 1.00 – 4.50 acceptance 3.04 .89 1.00 – 5.00 self-distraction 2.70 .67 1.00 – 5.00 denial 1.87 .71 1.00 – 4.50 venting 2.96 1.00 1.00 – 5.00 behavioural disengagement 1.78 .68 1.00 – 3.00 self-blame 2.07 1.03 1.00 – 5.00 perspective 2.41 .98 1.00 – 5.00 emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 170-191 www.ejop.org women‘s subjective experiences of food and eating on the island of the ‗mediterranean diet‘ sofia triliva university of crete abstract the purpose of this research was to explore and develop an understanding of cretan women‘s subjective experiences regarding food and eating behaviors. on average, 43 community group participants provided reflective written feedback after eleven consecutive meetings. the participants ranged in age from 20 to 85 years. the group engaged in experiential activities and critical reflection with the aim of construction and generation of meanings regarding women‘s subjective experiences of food, eating, nutrition and body image. the women expressed worry and confusion concerning what the ‗right‘ foods are, and balancing ‗tradition‘ with new and conflicting ‗lifestyles‘. younger women were more concerned with diet and body image, middle age participants with preparing ‗appropriate‘ foods for their families, and older participants with the changing practices in traditional cuisine. this study offers a conceptual understanding of how a sample of women living within a culture considered privileged to possess ‗a medically sanctioned‘ diet, subjectively experience food and eating. keywords: food, women, (in)security, subject experiences, mediterranean diet introduction since the late 1960s, a great deal of nutritional research has been conducted on the island of crete. the cretan diet has been the subject of study (longitudinal and cross-cultural) for decades now, and the changes in eating habits have been documented systematically (aravanis, corcodilas, dontas, lekos, & keys, 1970; keys, 1997; keys, et al., 1966). it is from those longitudinal studies that the ―mediterranean diet‖ phenomenon has come about, as has the study and interest in the consumption of olives and olive oil (‗the elixir of life‘). a team of researchers in http://www.ejop.org/ women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 171 irakleio have documented the changes that have taken place in the cretan diet and health (kafatos & mamalakis, 1993; mamalakis et al., 2006; mamalakis, kafatos, manios, anagnostopoulou, & apostolaki, 2000). their research has documented that greek children have been found to be the heaviest amongst their european counterparts, their fat intake has increased, and that the cardiovascular health of adults has declined among other findings (mamalakis, et al., 2006; mamalakis et al., 2000). the research of the keys‘ and kafatos‘ teams has a nutrition-medical focus. unfortunately there are no studies for the greek population which focus on the psychological components of eating, how people process and ‗digest‘ the ‗proper nutrition‘ information that is often provided by both media and the scientific discourses. traditionally, in the international social science literature issues of food and eating are relegated mostly to problems and difficulties in eating behavior and self-image. the models used in understanding the underlying reasons of feeding difficulties are mostly interpersonal in nature (attie & brooks-gunn, 1992; bruch, 1994; minuchin, 1978). researchers have also developed models that represent the complex interplay of several variables, including biological (wethington, 2005), psychological (bisogni, et al., 2007; bisogni, jastran, shen, & devine, 2005; blake, et al., 2009; devine, 2005; devine, brunson, jastran, & bisogni, 2006; jastran, bisogni, sobal, blake, & devine, 2009), and sociocultural (counihan, 1999; murcott, 1997). the impact of media and images on eating behavior and eating disorders have also been emphasized (richins, 1991; striegel-moore, silberstein, & rodin, 1986; williamson, 1990). more specifically, issues of gender, body image and eating behavior have been studied and reviewed at length and across cultures (jastran, et al., 2009). a life course framework has been applied in studying women‘s perceptions of how they change their food practices and preferences through time, due to social and lifestyle changes (bisogni, et al., 2007; devine, 2005; edstrom & devine, 2001; wethington, 2005). the question of why people eat as they do has been addressed from multiple perspectives such as identity (including ethnic), gender, employment status (bisogni, connors, devine, & sobal, 2002; bisogni et al., 2007; bisogni, et al., 2005; devine, sobal, bisogni, & connors, 1999; montepare, 2007). other studies focus on food preparation, family roles and time constraints which influence people‘s eating habits and behaviors (blake et al., 2009; devine, connors, sobal, & bisogni, 2003; devine et al., 2006; murcott, 1997). hence, studies in the social sciences have traditionally dealt both with problems in eating and feeding behavior, and therapeutic interventions put forth to alleviate europe’s journal of psychology 172 such problems and many normative dimensions of eating and feeding one‘s family. more recently, there has been a focus in the counselling psychology and women‘s studies literature on the social construction of eating patterns, body consciousness and body image concerns (choate, 2005; hesse-biber, 2007; hesse-biber, leavy, quinn & zoino, 2006; montepare, 2007; piran, 2010; piran & cormier, 2005; tindall, robinson, & kagan 2010). the social science literature does allow one to surmise that interpersonal processes shape a person‘s self-image and body image, and concomitantly, the person‘s self-image, body image and representations prompt particular eating behaviors (counihan, 1999). it is difficult to generalize the findings and conclusions of this large body of research to crete because there has been such long-standing ‗scientific‘ acclaim for the ‗cretan diet‘ and its health benefits. the ‗mediterranean diet‘ has been a consistent part of the food practices of the cretan population and a stable ‗diet recommendation‘ of the medical establishment. the island‘s population has not felt ‗pressured‘ to change their food choices due to the medical discourses and recommendations on what is right and good to eat. yet, the biologically based studies of the cretan population cited above point to major changes in the biological markers which are the interface between food and health (kafatos & mamalakis 1993; mamalakis, et al., 2006; mamalakis, et al., 2000). community culture has been changing steadily on crete and the traditional long-standing patterns of thought and behavior regarding food that were once transmitted intergenerationally through child-rearing, ceremonies, religious rituals and the structure of community institutions have been broadened to include the impact of the media, telecommunications, globalization and immigration (kruobrysanakis, 2006). many questions as to how these changes have impacted human subjectivity with regard to food and eating behavior have remained unanswered. one‘s perceptions, experiences and interpretations of the world result from processing the social relationships and power differentials in which he or she is embedded (ellis & flaherty, 1992). according to bell (2002) subjectivity includes a person‘s experiences, perceptions and sensations as they are determined by semiotic (including linguistic) distinctions that are habitual to the person (p. 202). he states, ―subjectivity can mean the ‗subjective realm‘—the realm of all the perception-events and semiotic events (including utterances) to which the personal pronouns ‗i‘ and ‗we‘ are or could be applied‖ (p.203). subjectivity relates to the participants‘ perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, feelings and strategies related to food, nutrition and diet. in this inquiry, women‘s ‗subjectivity‘ has more of a focus on how women‘s food practices are bound up in tier sense of self, such as ‗who am i‘ and how that is constituted by the norms and discourses embedded in their social environment. this implies the women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 173 adoption of a theoretical framework which acknowledges that food is culturally defined and acquires great significance in all cultural settings because it involves the body and is, in essence, an expression of embodiment. the cretan population provides the researcher with a unique opportunity to study how in the face of stable medical discourses regarding nutrition people change their traditional food orientations, practices, and perceptions. in order to explore and document cretan women‘s subjectivity regarding food, diet, nutrition and the prevailing discourses on food, a community group that functions as a discussion and reflection forum on social issues in the municipality of rethymno discussed food, eating behavior and experiences of food insecurity. this paper will present how cretan women experience food and will focus on the dynamics of food, subjectivity and (in)security within this particular community and the implications of this to counselling psychology. methods research questions and their significance from the review of the literature cited above it is obvious that food has been studied extensively on crete but not from the perspective of people‘s perceptions, feelings, habits and practices. although, there is evidence of change in eating habits and health outcomes, the question of how crete‘s inhabitants deal socially and emotionally with both change and all the divergent information about food, nutrition, and diet has remained unaddressed. this study posed the following questions as a path to addressing these issues: • how do cretan women describe their relationship to food, nutrition, and eating behavior? • what are the connections and relationships between food and (in)security? • what is the impact of cretan women‘s habits, thoughts, practices and emotional reactions on how they experience their bodies? this mode of inquiry is considered important given the call in the counselling psychology literature to focus on inner subjective experience (hansen, 2005; hansen, 2010; rudes & guterman, 2007) as a means to intervene effectively and bring about change. europe’s journal of psychology 174 context for the past 25 years or so, the lyceum for women in the town of rethymno has been running an ‗educational group‖ as part of their wider program which aims to uphold greek traditions and culture and to bolster the institution that is the bedrock of greek cultural existence, the family. the ―lyceum for women‖ is a non-profit organization that is considered a learning environment in the greater rethymno prefecture. the learning environment ―lyceum‖ has evolved from the belief that knowledge and culture are inextricably intertwined, that knowledge is created through the interaction of people in a relational community, and that learning by doing will bring about personal and communal change. until recently, the group was psycho-educational in nature and consisted of lecture presentations in areas such as child development and parenting. the programming for the family currently entails an experiential and reflective format, with a focus on the family, its members as individuals and as members of the wider social and communal system. the theme for the lyceum group last year was food and subjectivity. it is important to note that several ―food scares‖ coincided with the timing of the group. there were concerns about: avian flu (media warnings led to a very large drop in the consumption of poultry products and villagers who had raised their own chickens were by law forced to change their practices), trans-fats and ‗fat‘, and the safety of beef consumption (i.e. mad cow and hoof and mouth diseases). participants and format of participation as many as 65 people attended the open group community meetings with an average of 43 people on a regular basis. the participants were women and ranged in age from 20 to 85 years. the educational levels of the participants varied, as most participants had a high school education and at least one-third had completed university degrees. all of the participants prepared food at home on a daily basis. they were all people who live in rethymno, of greek heritage, who voluntarily participated in the research and who gave written informed consent. table 1 presents the themes, format, and issues for discussion, and experiential activities that constituted the agenda of the group. as shown in table 1, the group discussions and activities were based on open-ended questions that attempted to enrich the unfolding process and to help the participants reflect upon their experiences, emotional and bodily reactions, and on communal aspects of their being with regard to food and eating. the group facilitator led the discussion which lasted for two hours each meeting. women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 175 table 1: program themes and experiential activities for the 11-week community reflective practice intervention theme 1: what is my relationship to food, eating, diet, and nutrition? theme 2: how is food the object and the intersection between our body, our health, our mind and our behavior? activity: food and my body image, my representations (collage, photos, drawings, and narratives) theme 3: our diet: is it nutritional or (and) does it make us sick? activity: bring in articles and published information regarding health and diet. discuss: how the media coverage of illness, diet, and eating behavior affects me? theme 4: how do social factors impact upon my eating behavior and practices? activity: write down all the ways in which these controversies are embedded in your experience of your body: do all the controversies around food affect by behavior? how? let us role-play! theme 5: my childhood memories about food and eating: how do they affect my behavior, emotions, and self-body-concept? activity telling stories around the dinner table. let us dramatize them. theme 6: how is our consciousness constructed around body-image and eating behavior? activity: intergenerational impact upon my body, let me draw it! theme 7: what are the-interpersonal foundations of body-image, body dysphoria, and eating behavior? activity drama and the greek chorus. theme 8: sharing stories from our dinner table: what understandings do we derive from them? activity: a collective account of the media and the dinner table. theme 9: food, tradition and our cultural heritage: how do these stories affect me and my eating behavior? activity: old but not forgotten recipes: let us share our creations. theme 10: food, tradition and our cultural heritage: how do these stories affect me and my eating behavior? activity: the cretan diet, traditions, research findings in press, how do i consume and reproduce these readings and understandings? let us make a collage! theme 11: food and (in)security some conclusions what are our conclusions regarding food, our body and our sense of (in)security? experiential activities and a reflective practice approach to communal dialogues was applied as a method of helping the group participants process and think critically about their experiences in a way that builds insight and awareness so that group participants increase their choices in the actions they take (heron, 1996; europe’s journal of psychology 176 jaques, 1991; kolb, 1984). in these activities, the construction and generation of meanings and understandings comes about through dialogue and critical reflection, processes which are relational in nature (heron, 1996; postle, 1993; silberman, 2007). learning and transformation are made possible by: (a) commitment to goals the participants have been involved in setting, (b) participation is appreciated and valued, and (c) a supportive community context (heron, 1996; jaques, 1991; kagan, tindall, & robinson, 2010; kolb, 1984; postle, 1993; silberman, 2007). these critical dialogues had the goal of developing ‗shared understandings‘ of how food, nutrition, and eating behavior impact this community groups‘ subjectivities. the group coordinator was not an outsider to the group and she applied a non-authority stance in discussing and processing the themes and experiential activities. her role was that of a resource person and facilitator and less of a ‗psychologist‘ who had privileged information to share. it is important to note that in counselling psychology eating disorder intervention literature there has been a focus on community participatory approaches (becker, stice, shaw, & woda, 2009; becker, smith, & ciao 2006; levitt, 2004; choate & schwitzer, 2009; piran, 2010; wilson, et al.,2010; yager & o‘dea, 2008). these authors call for empowerment counselling that includes education, media literacy, activism, transforming the social environment, engagement in critical dialogues and analysis of dissonance and systemic changes. these community counselling and prevention authors advise that eating behavior (including eating problems) do not develop in a vacuum but in a community environment that nourishes them, and hence, the processes of change have to be applied in the community context. this type of change can take place when community strengths are built upon, networks of connections are fostered, researcher-community member partnerships are forged and when co-learning and capacity building are encouraged (becker, et al., 2009; choate, 2005; choate & schwitzer, 2009; kagan, et al., 2010). method and approach to the analysis. at the end of each session the participants summarized what remained with them of the process and the activities. an open ended questionnaire was given to them at the end of each session. they were given 15 minutes to answer as fully as possible the three questions and to provide the following demographic information, including: age, gender, educational background, marital status, family members living at home, and how often meals are cooked at home. the participants were assured that their answers would remain anonymous. women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 177 the questionnaire consisted of the following three questions:  how is the topic discussed in the group today connected to you and your experiences of food, eating, and nutrition?  how is the topic discussed in the group today connected to your feelings and how you experience your body?  what made the experiential activity we completed today meaningful for you? these questions were addressed in an open-ended essay format and each participant completed approximately a half page of written narrative feedback. a total number of 452 reflective statements were collected and analyzed. a twophase process of feedback analysis was implemented after all eleven group sessions were completed. in the first phase of analysis, the written feedback was read by the researcher and an independent psychologist in order to glean the overriding themes that emerged from each session. the two psychologists participated separately at first in the analysis of emerging themes and then jointly in five 2-hour meetings where they both converged to ensure satisfaction with the classifications of the data. the data analysis involved reflecting on the responses, reading the transcripts, active construction of interpretations of the women‘s experiences, questioning of how these interpretations came about and outlining the dynamic relations between the realities the participants voiced and the psychological knowledge of what these accounts refer to (bott, 2010). data analysis followed an interpretive phenomenological analysis approach (smith & osborn, 2008) and included the following procedures: 1) classification of the data on worksheets according to the age, marital status and the number of prepared meals at home per week, 2) detailed thematic analysis of the reflective statements that the participants‘ completed for each session by the two psychologists until no new categories can be found per session, and 3) detailed verification of emerging themes by age, marital status, family members living at home and number of meals prepared at home. there was only one participant who was divorced, three who were not married and two who were widowed; hence this dimension could not be studied in detail. the number of family members living at home and the meals cooked at home per week did not reveal any clear patterns. the age dimension did reveal clear differences in how the women described their perceptions, feelings, and lived experiences of food. the age groups differences were verified and agreed upon by both psychologists and there were no negative cases related to age. in the second phase of analysis the participants‘ responses were studied, coded and clustered by the researcher and the independent psychologist in order to reach a consensus as to how subjectivity is impacted upon by the food discourses that have permeated the community. moreover, the two psychologists analyzed and clustered europe’s journal of psychology 178 the emerging themes that touch upon the role of emotions and how these feelings are embodied. the participants‘ written narratives were first read by the researcher who made a list of all references to feelings such as worry, fear, being scared, insecure, secure, safe, unsafe, anxiety, and embodiment (bodily-felt sense). from this analysis the thematic categories that emerged were: food-emotional reactions; food-eating behavior; and food-embodiment. the written narratives were then coded by the independent psychologist whose task was to cross-check the original written narratives and the categories that emerged in order to verify the connections narrated by the participants between food, eating behavior, nutritional knowledge/ information, (in)security and embodiment. results this first phase of analysis revealed that there were differences in focus regarding food, diet, nutrition and worry and (in)security according to the age groups of the participants. the participants who belonged to the age group from 20 to 35 (approximately 8 women each session) focused more on worry and concern regarding body image, diet, and maintaining an ‗appealing‘ body size. food for this age group is viewed as a ‗πειρασμός‘ (temptation)–that is something that is tempting and that places one in an awkward position of having to deal with temptation. the participants belonging to the age group from 35 to 50 (approximately 20 women each session) focused primarily on fears or confusion about proper nutrition, media messages, and preparing nutritious food for their families. this sub-group also mentioned the decline in the frequency of family meals and traditional norms for eating. food for this group of participants is a word imbued with conflict—one participant stated—―there is a tug of war that goes on in my house regarding food, what should we be eating, what the kids want, what is good for us, what are the ‗bad‘ foods—it is too much.‖ the participants who were in the 50 to 85-years-old age range (approximately 10 women each session) focused mostly on diet and nutrition that is medically related, for example, eating the ‗right foods‘ for medical problems such as high cholesterol. participants from this age group also underscored their worries and ambivalence about the social and cultural changes that have contributed to the demise of local cuisine, eating traditions, and to the respect toward the collective rhythms that greek orthodox religion dictates in eating, fasting, and preparing food. they also women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 179 viewed food as something ‗sacred‘ that should not be wasted and that people should feel grateful for having enough to eat. in summary, this phase of the analysis revealed that cretan women of varying ages are concerned about food, eating and their bodies but in different ways. the international literature has brought forth numerous contradictions of concerning women‘s experiences and concerns and eating behavior across the lifespan (johnston, reilly & kremer, 2004)). the results from this analysis highlight the complexity of the relationship between age, eating behavior and concern about one‘s body. all age groups voiced concern and insecurity regarding eating and their bodies, however, with age changing priorities amplify social awareness and a concern for healthiness in diet and how one eats and controls their eating. the second phase of analysis consisted of a more ‗in-depth‘ analysis in order to delineate how the participants connected the food topic discussed during each session to emotional subjectivity, and from the participants‘ perspectives what interplay of factors contribute to food (in)security and how this is embodied. the feedback of the group participants revealed the following categories: foodemotional reactions, food-eating behavior, and food-embodiment. in the food –emotional reactions outcomes the participants narrated the following: • ―diet is the scary word; it is associated with ‗experts‘, ―do‘s and don‘ts‖, control of food intake, ―bad and good foods‖, and with a thin body image.‖ • ―more than anything we fear fat today, getting fat, eating fats, and fear of looking bad because fat is bad.‖ • ―because we worry about fat, we feel guilty about eating certain foods.‖ • ―food can be bad for our health, food can be fattening, and food is always on our mind when we diet, when we overeat, and when we eat the wrong things. all these things make me worry, feel guilty and stressed about food.‖ • ―i often feel ambivalent about food…questions that come to mind are: is it good for me, can i afford the calories, is it easy to prepare, will the kids eat this or will my efforts go to waste?‖ the mothers of children and adolescents regarded food as a subject of concern because they felt it had significant implications for their children‘s health: key aspects of this were their perceived need to ―encourage children to eat fresh fruit and vegetables,‖ concerns about children consuming ―fast food‖ and the risk of them growing up ―overweight‖ or having high cholesterol. other mothers focused on the stress of cooking carefully prepared and traditional home cooked meals on a daily basis. as a group they stressed the confusion that exists and is engendered europe’s journal of psychology 180 within them in all the media messages and older and persistent cultural dispositions about food. they mentioned the personal turmoil in making the right choices each day and the interpersonal tensions in ―getting children to eat the right things.‖ the women who worked and had no help from their extended families expressed more anxiety and pressure due to time constraints. different aspects of these women‘s psychosocial identities (i.e. cretan, mother, woman who works out of the home, woman who is in charge of cooking) are impacted upon their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions about food and eating (bisogni, et al., 2002). along similar lines in the food and eating behavior outcomes, there was a focus on what is the ‗right‘ knowledge and information and how difficult it is to act according to all the discourses that prevail. one participant wrote: ―now that there is a plethora of foods available, we do not know what to eat.‖ there was also an emphasis on the communal/ interpersonal aspects of eating: ―yes, what we eat is important, but how we eat is also important, that is sitting around the table to enjoy our food, otherwise it will come out of our nose.‖ and, more poignantly, ―these days we consume food, information, even each other, consumption is a way of being and relating today.‖ once again parents mentioned the impact of media: ―the table where our family gathers to share food is now a place where the television blares in the background, it influences us more than our conversations. the reporters‘ messages on what is right and wrong to eat affect our every bite.‖ the participants emphasized the impact of socially imposed change in their ways of relating to food and to each other, something that is highlighted in the international literature (bisogni, et al., 2002; bisogni, et al. 2007; devine, 2005). the food -embodiment outcomes were a bit more difficult to decipher yet they were very telling. one participant wrote, ―our bodies have become war zones; we are constantly dieting and fighting fat.‖ another participant analyzed embodiment in the following fashion, ―we use to wish ‗good digestion‘ (καλή χώνεψη) and ‗good appetite‘ (καλή όρεξη) to each other in my family of origin, in my home today the last thing we think about is digestion, we often forget that how our body processes food is important. how we feel about the food we eat is related to how well we digest it, if we fear or do not find it appetizing… how can digestion go well?‖ others mentioned the following in their feedback:  ―i am the type of woman who wants to rebel against the prevailing images in the media about women‘s bodies, yet when i look into the mirror i view my body through the lens of those images.‖ women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 181  ―i have caught myself saying to my children, ‗that will make you sick, that causes cancer,‘ what does this do to them?‖  ―too many food scares are spoiling our appetites, as are diets and obsession with body image.‖  ―a lot of talk in the media today makes the food we swallow get stuck in our throats….that is i often do not eat with an appetite, i am often ambivalent about what is on my plate.‖  ―each day i experience a great deal of stress around food—the anxiety of making choices, the fatigue of all the preparation, a horrible knot in my stomach that is the result of knowing what religious or local traditions dictate on the one hand and what i am doing on the other… no wonder digestion is a problem for me.‖ in summary, the voices of this group of cretan women describe their relationship to food and eating as complicated and fraught with ambiguities and insecurities. moreover, they highlight how their thoughts and emotional reactions impact upon their bodies, sense of control, and experiences of eating. they state emphatically that eating should be a pleasurable personal and interpersonal endeavor and that in today‘s pressure-filled and media-constructed world it no longer is. the media and other social discourses appear to be disempowering according to the women of this study. embodiment was perceived and underscored differently for the three age groups. the younger participants expressed more worry and concern about body-image, body size, and fear of fat. this younger sub-group of participants appeared to have succumbed to more recent sociocultural pressures about body image, having internalized the ‗thin-ideal‘ which prevails in the media. the 35 to 50 year olds seemed to be more focused on the confusion that divergent scientific information about nutritious, healthy, and both diet permitted and ‗safe‘ created for them. several people from this age group also mentioned being forced to eat all their food when they were young and being overfed sometimes by their mothers or grandmothers. they interpreted these behaviors as having to do with the ‗occupation syndrome‘—the wwii and its aftermath years where many families did not have enough to eat and where most families had very little choice as to what was available to eat. this according to the participants created an ‗obsession‘ with food, a constant worry if their family/ children are eating enough to grow and be healthy. for the older participants, embodiment was linked to medically related illness and diet and also to the ‗occupation syndrome.‘ many of the people from this older group remembered craving certain foods, feeling deprived of them, and having eaten too much of other foods, and thus, disliking them now. these europe’s journal of psychology 182 experiences have perhaps led this sub-group of participants not to endorse the currently prevailing societal beliefs about thinness, suggesting that sociocultural norms, practices, and pressures, can be assimilated or internalized into one‘s sense of self and subjectivity to varying degrees. in this instance, it appears that it is not that these women feel that they are active agents or fully self-determined in not internalizing these new pressures. the pressing presence of past traditions and experiences and the not-forgotten historical events, cultural eating habits and the ‗scientifically privileged‘ cretan diet appear to be in an internal and bodily felt tugof-war with the new discourses and sociocultural eating habits. the older participants focused more on the constant change in food production, preparation and eating habits. one mentioned, ―during the war years the common problem was finding food, now our minds, bodies, and souls suffer by not thinking of the needy, buying too much, consuming too much and obsessing too much about what to eat!‖ others of this older age group focused on the cretan diet, celebrations, changes in food production and how there is ―loss of local traditions.‖ they mentioned that there is a ―paradox in that the mediterranean diet is no longer being consumed in its birth place.‖ the fact that people do not produce their own foods and may not even prepare them was also pointed out by this age group. the loss of cooking traditions, hospitality and sharing were also apparent in their written narratives. the demise of traditions such as fasting (not eating meat, its derivatives and fish) on wednesdays and fridays and other religious occasions that were part of the greek orthodox fasting protocol was also highlighted by this age group. one participant wrote: ―up until recently mostly everybody followed the fasting rituals, this was good for our health, it was a way to avoid cholesterol and to become disciplined about eating, but very few people do that today.‖ viewing food as sacred and not something to be wasted was also part of these ‗traditions‘. discussion and conclusion the participants in this reflective research endeavor were most willing to talk, process, and narrate in written format their concerns, understandings, memories, worries, and confusion concerning diet, nutrition, and media and scientific messages centering on food. the results of the narrative reflective feedback analysis indicate that there was a different emphasis on concerns and worries about food according to age cohort groups with the younger group attendees being aware that their concerns center mostly on body-image, fatty foods consumption, and diet, the middle age group focusing on worries about their children‘s health and diet, and the older age group focusing on health issues and the loss of traditional food habits and women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 183 rituals and the ‗sacredness of‘ food eating and sharing. these findings coincide with the ‗life course perspective‘ a framework for understanding how food choices, preferences, and patterns in eating are associated ‗temporal, social, and historical‘ trajectories (bisogni, et al., 2002; bisogni, et al., 2005; devine, 2005; devine, jastran, et al., 2006; johnston, reilly, & kremer, 2004; wethington, 2005). traditionally, women on crete had developed their eating habits, food preferences, and sense of identity by being acculturated into the social rules and ethos of their particular cretan culture. the geography of the island, the climate, the greek orthodox religious practices, the settlement history of the island all influence the food production, preparation, cuisine and the embodiment of this particular culture by the island‘s inhabitants. the food choices were traditionally what was locally grown and available and hence sanctioned as ‗proper‘ to eat. ―cretan diet and cuisine‖ is an expression of their identity and a focal point of social activity, and concomitantly in the past 40 years, ‗the superior diet,‘ ‗the healthiest alternative‘ and ‗medically sanctioned‘ cuisine. hence, in the rethymno community context all three sub-groups of women had not experienced or been subjected to changing health/ diet policies and medical discourses regarding their traditional diet, yet it was only the older women sub-group that had remained very stable and persistent in their eating habits, their thoughts and feelings about diet and eating and the nature and the meaning of food in their lives. for the middle age sub-group the changing social context with regard to food and individual change (having a family, working outside the home, not having extended family supports) impacted their subjective experiences of food-choices, preparation, concerns, and worries. this subgroup described in very vivid and distinct voices the tensions in managing time, making choices for their families and coping with the diverse food ‗pressures‘ and ‗tensions‘, echoing the literature on the time pressures, sacrifices and food choice and preparation challenges (blake et al., 2009; devine et al., 2006; devine, et al., 1999). it is interesting to underline that these women did not focus explicitly and at length on the pressures to follow traditional roles, food choices, habits, social markers and ceremonies, yet did express embodied tension, stress, and emotional turmoil. perhaps in this manner they were expressing the entrapment they embody—feeling trapped between the old and new social context as it is emerging. these women‘s embodied subjective experiences highlight bourdieu‘s discussion of ‗habitus‘ and the ‗hysteresis effect‘--the tension between the formation of new cultural habits and dispositions and the pressing presence of those formed in the past (bourdieu, 1984). europe’s journal of psychology 184 the women described vividly this clash of the new and old habits and ways of being and their bodily-felt sense of powerlessness in reconciling or coming to terms with it. the younger age group focused more persistently on body image relegating it to a social marker for personal and social identity, where a fit body was equated with being successful in dieting and self-control (bisogni, et al., 2002). these women‘s words imply a body-management focus, the practices associated with it and the complex relationships with food and their bodies that they described were obviously a part of the normative discourses in the media and in the culture at large. these women were not ‗anorexic‘ or ‗bulimic‘ or otherwise ‗eating disordered.‘ the implications of this finding are that such ‗eating pathologies‘ are culturally embedded and hence not outright ‗personal pathologies‘ (choate & schwitzer, 2009; hesse-biber, 2007; malson & swann, 1999; piran, 2010; piran & cormier, 2005). hence, a cultural clash was also a part of these women‘s embodied subjectivity in that they lived in two distinct worlds—the old of their parents and of local cretan traditions, cretan cuisine and socialization processes and the new ‗lifestyle‘ world of the media focusing on the self-interest, bodily perfection and weight management practices. in essence this new world could be anywhere and these women embodied the pressures of being/living/ experiencing in a decontextualized and perhaps compartmentalized ―social universe‘ devoid of place (delind, 2006). the implications of this finding is that counselling professionals working in prevention or intervention of eating difficulties or in the public health domain need to take into consideration the complexities of social identity, embodiment, and habitus {internalization of culture that guides food choices and eating habits} (heading, 2008; hesse-biber, 2007; piran, 2010). the women in the middle age group and the younger group, taken together voice clearly that traditional meal patterns and practices have changed a great deal. their changing social roles and identities (e.g., work roles, the dictum ‗we are what we eat‘), family organization (from an extended family system to more of a nuclear family system), media messages and the greater availability of ‗fast foods‘ and the availability of many food options have made family meals more hurried and fewer in number. this finding corresponds to the international literature (bisogni, et al., 2002; poulain, 2002) that describe the decline in the traditional norms for eating, preparing food, and sharing meals. for these women all this distressful in that in today‘s globalized crete what they ‗know‘ and have experienced and internalized through lived interpersonal interactions is somehow ‗negated‘ or strongly influenced by the media, consumerism, telecommunications and the globalized world markets. in bourdieu‘s terms embodiment becomes the focal point for understanding the lived women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 185 meaning of a constantly changing culture-persistent expectations from the past and contemporary experiences (bourdieu, 1984). further analysis revealed that the participants were very much aware of the pervasive role that food and food insecurity play in their lives. this finding coincides with anthropological studies of food and eating behavior (mintz & du bois, 2002). cretan social life seems to be inextricably entwined with food and this was highlighted by the memories, stories, and concerns that the participants provided as feedback. food and social change were mentioned in many of the feedback protocols and more detailed research is needed in order to capture how the dietary habits of crete‘s inhabitants have been affected by the very present social change. along this same line, the war years and insecurity about food during that time as compared to today is also ripe for interdisciplinary and psychological research. the phenomenon dubbed the ‗occupation syndrome‘ by these participants appears to be an interesting interpretation and way of producing culturally relevant meaning. eating and ritual and their relationship to identity were also touched upon by the participants and this has to be researched in a more in-depth fashion. this small project touched upon the relation of food, subjectivity, (in)security and embodiment in the cretan culture. the women voluntarily joined and attended the group and participated in the research and were very forthcoming with in-depth information of their subjective experiences of food and eating. the study focused solely on women‘s lives and experiences with food and a similar study needs to be conducted with cretan men. this study offers conceptual understanding of how a sample of women living within a distinct culture, a culture considered privileged to possess ‗a medically sanctioned‘ diet and cuisine, subjectively experience food and eating. this collaborative community research and intervention endeavor also highlights how inner subjective experience can be used in counselling towards building personal and community capacity via helping women discuss, reflect upon, and analyze their experiences. the women feel included and empowered by contributing to the social discourses and constructions. they also feel less alone with the ambiguities and socialcultural pressures that permeate their daily lives. much remains to be done in exploring these issues in a more detailed and comprehensive way, it may be though, that the community partnership research and prevention methodology may be a sound one in that it allows people to collaborate, talk, debate and grapple with the realities of their changing communities, habits, behaviors, 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(2008). prevention programs for body image and eating disorders on university campuses: a review of large, controlled interventions. health promotion international, 23, 173-189. women’s subjective experiences of food and eating 191 about the author: sofia triliva is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the university of crete. her primary are of research is the development and empirical validation of mental health prevention programming and mental health promotion initiatives for children, families and communities. address for correspondence: sofia triliva, department of psychology, university of crete, 74100, gallos, rethymnon, greece. e-mail: triliva@psy.soc.uoc.gr suicide ideation and psychopathology among adolescents dr. brijesh kumar upadhayay researcher department of psychology, gurukul kangari university, hardwar, uttranchal, india dr. rohtash singh lecturer department of psychology, kurukshetra university, haryana, india abstract suicides are linked to feelings of depression and hopelessness. other factors in suicide include anxiety, drug abuse, problems in school or at work, and social problems. aim of the present investigation is to know the differences between male and female adolescents. the sample consists of 50 (25 male and 25 female) subjects drawn from district hardwar. the age of all subjects ranged from 15 to 18 years (mean 16.5 years) and majority of the subjects belonged to middle socio-economic status. all the tests were administered on the sample in-group setting in classrooms. over the centuries, suicide had different meanings. males of all the ages commit suicide at a higher rate than females although females attempt suicide more often than males. suicide rates in india have shown a gradually increasing trend. study reveals that male adolescents have scored significantly higher on the measures of suicidal ideation, whereas male adolescents have more psychological impairment on psychopathic deviation (pp). there is significance gender difference on the measure of suicide ideation introduction besides physical change, the adolescents are on course for adulthood. in other words this period is the foundation stone of their life style. since 1950s, the incidence of suicide among adolescents and young adults has nearly tripled (centers for disease control and prevention (1995). suicide is now the third leading cause of death among young people aged 15 to 24 years, following motor vehicle crashes and homicide. although suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, completed suicide are still relatively uncommon. because completed suicides are so rare, it is useful to study more frequently occurring phenomena that often precede completed suicide, such as suicidal ideation. the present study “ suicidal ideation among adolescents”, is an attempt with the objectives: • to find out etiological factors leading to suicidal ideation. • to know the differences between male and female adolescents on depression, hopelessness, neuroticism, psychoticism, extraversion and stressful life events. i) over the centuries, suicide had different meanings. socrates’ suicide is one of the most famous examples. the decision to commit suicide is more often prompted by a desire to stop living than by a wish to die. no single theory is likely to take into account all the available information about suicide. very young children may be particularly at risk because they generally believe that death is reversible. although the vast majority of teenagers pass through adolescence without major psychological problems. males of all the ages commit suicide at a higher rate than females although females attempt suicide more often than males. the suicide ratio male and female range from 2:1 to 7:1. in many studies it is reported that the exposure to model of suicidal behavior can be a risk factor for suicide behavior. suicide behavior can be learnt by imitation, especially among children, adolescents and adults (schmidtke, 1988, 1998; diekstra, 1995). suicide rates in india have shown a gradually increasing trend. the rate in 1999 was 11.2 per 100,000 (accidental deaths and suicide in india 1999, published by national crime record bearue (ncrb), ministry of home affairs, govt. of india). states and cities with rapid social change are associated with higher suicide rates, such as the states of kerala and tripura, and cities like pondicherry and bangalore. the important association is alcohol dependence as a direct or indirect cause of suicide, the haryana state reported significant rise in suicide (43.1 %) in 1999 over 1998. the average suicide rate of haryana was 11.7 per lakh as compared to national suicide rate 11.2 per lakh (accidental deaths and suicide in india, published by ncrb, ministry of home affairs, govt. of india). freud is regarded as the father of psychological explanations of suicide, although he never wrote a paper specifically about suicide. he proposed that most individuals cope with the loss of a loved person through the experience of mourning. eros is the life force, driving us towards survival, and thanatos, the death instinct, propels us towards a state of non-existence. there is a constant interplay between these forces during an individual’s life. essentially, freud saw suicide as the outcome of this intrapsychic struggle. mental disorders are the most important cause of suicide. several researches based on eysenck’s personality tests (lolas et al, 1991; nordstrom et al, 1995; pallis and jenkins, 1977) reveals that suicide attempters produce higher scores than controls on neuroticism and psychoticism. methodology sample the sample consists of 400 ( 200 male and 200 female) subjects drawn from various government senior secondary schools by using the multi-stage random sampling from kurukshetra, ambala, sonepat and jhajjar. the age of all subjects ranged from 15 to 18 years (mean 16.5 years) and majority of the subjects belonged to middle socio-economic status. all the tests were administered on the sample in-group setting in classrooms. the following tests were used in this study: 1. scale for suicide ideation (beck, kovacs, weissman, 1979) (beck depression inventory (beck, ward, mendelson, mock & erbauge, 1961)) 2. eysenck personality questionnaire (eysenck and eysenck, 1976a) 3. hopelessness scale (beck, weissman, lester & trexler, 1974) 4. stressful life events scale (singh, kaur and kaur, 1984) 5. clinical analysis questionnaire (part-ii) (cattell and pebhees, 1971) scoring of the tests the tests were scored strictly in accordance with the procedure suggested by the authors in manuals. eysenck personality questionnaire was scored for extraversion, psychoticism and neuroticism measured which were labeled as e, p and n, scale for suicidal ideation, hopelessness scale and beck depression inventory were scored for three measures pertaining to suicidal ideation, hopelessness and depression. stressful life events scale was scored for the measure of the impact of life stressful events. clinical analyses questionnaire part-ii was scored for all (12) pathological supplements. all measures were used for examining the structure of suicide ideation. results and discussion after ascertaining that obtained data more or less meet the requirement of ‘t’ test to compare the mean scores of male and female adolescents the ‘t’ ratios were computed for all the measures used in the study. the mean, sd and ‘t’ ratio’s on different measures are reported in table-1. the ‘t’ ratio 1.96 and 2.59 with the degree of freedom 398 (n-2) are significant at .05 and .01 levels of probability respectively. table 1 comparison of mean scores of male and female adolescents on personality & suicide ideation psychopathological dimensions * significant .05, (1.96) ** significant 0.01, (2.59) the application of ‘t-test’ of significance reveals that male and female adolescents differ significantly on the measures of suicidal ideation, neuroticism a measure of personality, stressful life events, anxious depression (d4), a measure of depression and on psychopathic deviation (pp), (reported by caq). it can be noted that female adolescents have scored significantly higher on the measures of suicidal ideation, neuroticism, stressful life events and anxious depression (d4), whereas male adolescents scored significantly higher on the measure of psychopathic deviation (pp). it suggests that female adolescents presently have more psychological impairment in terms of higher suicidal ideation, neuroticism, stressful life events and anxious depression (d4), whereas male adolescents have more psychological impairment on psychopathic deviation (pp). further an examination of table 4.1 reveals that significance gender differences on the measure of suicide ideation (t = 2.72, p it may be noticed from the present investigation that the measures of depression (bdi), psychoticism, hypochondriasis (d1), brooding discontent (d3), guilt and resentment (d6), bored depression (d7), paranoid (pa) and psychasthenia (as) having very low ‘t’ values. there is no gender difference on these measures, whereas male and female adolescents differ at some extent on the measures of general psychosis (ps), euphoria (d5) and schizophrenia (sc). the present study confirmed the earlier studies that women have more psychological impairment than do men, cochrane & stopes roe (1980, 1981), weissman & klerman 1977, garrison et.al. (1993); garrison et al. (1991); lewinsohn et al., (1993, 1994). these findings provide some encouragement for examining gender differences experimentally using the twin strategies of clinical and normal individual differences research. references cochrane, r., & stopes-roe, m. (1980). factors affecting the distribution of psychological symptoms in urban areas of england. act a psychiatrica scandinavica, 61, 445-460. cochrane, r., & stopes-roe, m. (1981). women, marriage, employment and mental health. british journal of psychiatry, 139, 373-381. diekstra, r.f.w.; kienhorst, c.w.m. & d.de. wilde, e.j. (1995). suicide and suicidal behaviour among adolescents. in m. rutter & d.j. samith (eds), psychological disorder in young people. time trends and their causes. chichester: wiley. garrison, c.z., mckeown, r.e. valois, r.f. & vincent, m.l. (1993). aggression, substance use and suicidal behaviour in high school students. american journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 46(5), 860-868. lewinsohn, p.m.; rohde, p. & seeley j.r. (1994). psycho-social risk factors for future adolescents suicide attempts. journal of consulting and clinical psychology. vol. 62, 297-305. lolas, f.; gomez, a. & suarez, l. (1991). epq-r and suicide attempt: the relevance of psychaticism. psychological medicine. vol. 27, 973-977. pallis, d.j., & jenkins, j.s. (1977). extraversion, neuroticism, and intent in attempted suicides. psychological reports, 41, 19-22. schmidtke & hafner (1988). the werther effect after television films. psychological medicine, 18, 665-676. weissman, m.m.. & klerman, g.l. 1977). sex differences and the epidemiology of depression. archives of general psychiatry, 34, 98-111. european identity: a threat to the nation? professor m.j. wintle european studies, university of amsterdam, the netherlands biographical note michael wintle (ma, phd) is professor of european history at the university of amsterdam, where he directs the degree programmes in european studies. prior to 2002, he held a chair of european history at the university of hull, uk, where he had taught since 1980. his current research interests are in european identity and especially the visual representation of europe, cultural aspects of european integration, european industrialization, and the modern social and economic history of the low countries. he has published widely on dutch and european history, including the following recent books: culture and identity in europe (avebury, 1996); under the sign of liberalism (walburg, 1997); an economic and social history of the netherlands (cambridge up, 2000); the idea of a united europe since the fall of the berlin wall (macmillan, 2000); ideas of europe since 1914 (palgrave, 2002). introduction as a general rule, identities are only widely discussed when we think there might be something wrong with them, or some kind of identity crisis is apparent. in the last decade or two, there have many conferences organized and books published on the subject of european identity, and so it is safe to assume that there are some perceived problems in this area. in an attempt to illuminate such problems, and even to provide some answers, we shall deal here with definitions: what exactly is collective identity? how does it work? what might a european identity consist of? and how might it compete with national identity? in this way some of the confusion surrounding this issue can be cleared away. first it must be recognized that we are dealing with a very important issue: identity is am extremely powerful agent, and can be dangerous. furthermore, ‘identity construction is a political process … "we" utterances must be treated as partial statements of claims rather than as descriptions of a reality.’ it is always necessary to ask who is promoting which particular collective identity and why, and who is resisting it. expressions of identity are aspirational, for it can well be argued that there is no such thing as a complete, finite and perfect collective identity. indeed, to strive for such completion is dangerous: we must endeavor by democratic means to restrain ‘the volcano of identity passions’. identities can be destructive and negative in their effects, and although they are almost always ‘positively valued’ by their owners, their faults and defects can pose serious political and social problems for them and others. with identity we are playing with fire. secondly, whatever the politicians and populists may say, virtually all the academic experts agree that identities are constructed according to the social, cultural and geo-political environment, and are subject to change over time and from place to place. identities are not self-evident, and not given, they are man-made and constructed. this is not to deny entirely the influence of climate, physical environment, bloodline, genes and the rest, but rather to accept that these ‘givens’ are only some of the elements in the complex make-up of a collective identity. their importance is usually determined by the degree to which they are recognized within a ‘constructed’ identity, than by the self-evident power of their ‘essentialist’ nature. collective identities, then, are largely to do with nurture, not nature, and are defined in the main by culture rather than genes. to be sure, popular myths about in-born, shared characteristics and essentialities can take on their own momentum, and generate enormous political forces once their credibility is established – as happened in nazi germany and in many other ultra-nationalist situations. but in spite of popular conviction on occasion, collective identities are not immutable: they change over place and time. moreover, identities are multiple in nature. one may have a single identity, but it will be made up of many levels of loyalty and identification. an individual’s or a group’s identity can consist of allegiance to such things as gender, family, class, region, religion, age group, kin group, nation, and so on: all these things are important, and seldom does one dominate to the exclusion of others. identities, especially of groups, are best represented therefore as matrices, the compositions of which are not fixed. identities change, because they are based on perceptions, which – again – change over space and time. and if collective identities are based on perceptions, such perceptions are not only of ourselves, but of what we think ‘we’ are not. all kinds of collectivities, including peoples, states, nations and indeed continents, identify themselves partly by defining their own characteristics, but also by defining those which they think they do not share. this ‘othering’ process, or the construction of identity by defining alterity, is to do with noticing difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’, whether real or imagined. some differences seem obvious and physical, to do with skin or hair colour; most perceived differences are however behavioural. indeed, it is often easier to identify characteristics in an ‘opposite’ group than it is in one’s own. it is a kind of identity-formation based on the perception of stereotypes, or even scapegoats; often malignant prejudices are involved, and indeed it is essential to expose any such misconstructions which may underpin a european identity. a european identity? is there such a thing as a european identity? it is now generally accepted that there is, even if some people, proud of their patriotism, find the whole thing rather awkward. in an endless stream of questionnaires and surveys, it is clear than increasing numbers of europeans do identify in one way or another with europe, and claim to have some kind of european identity, often alongside a national identity. how can that european identity be defined? one problem in persuading certain people to admit that there is such a thing as a european identity is that many see it as fundamentally opposed to, and designed to undermine, their national allegiance. i would argue, however, that feelings of europeanness are not at all incompatible (necessarily) with national loyalties. it may very often be the case that one level or type of loyalty within an identity is stronger than another, without entirely eclipsing the weaker ones; that is, one’s primary loyalty can be to one’s nation, while a meaningful identity also attaches to supranational institutions like a global religion, or to europe. most kinds of european identity are emphatically not the same as a national identity, the collective identity from which a state – especially a nation state – derives its political legitimacy. a general feeling of ‘europeanness’ and loyalty to europe, in a cultural sense, does not need to conflict with national identities. there is, it is true, another kind of european identity possible, a european version of the national identity which is the driving force behind the nation state, and which legitimizes the political power of national governments. this is to transpose the nation-state model to the european level, and to seek justification for european government, state apparatus, army and police in the feelings of loyalty and allegiance of europeans. it has to do with the kind of national identity which generates patriotism, duty to country, and jingoism, up to and including dying for one’s country; in short, national identity. does this kind of european identity exist? again, many would deny that there can be proper loyalty to a european state, because there are no common myths and symbols, and no meaningfully shared common ideology, history or culture. however, if one applies a model of nation formation and state formation to europe, such processes are generally of two kinds, which can be called ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’. the top-down processes are mainly to do with state formation and the political unification of a territory. modern european national histories are littered with examples – most of them successful – of governments and elites trying to engineer such unification processes. they include the standardization and unification of the coinage and currency, of language and linguistic usage, weights and measures, time, legal procedures of all sorts, and taxation; the centralization of armies, the police, and education; economic integration, and the copious use of national flags, anthems, monuments and the like. at european level, a number of organizations and elites have been involved in this kind of activity on a modest scale for some time now; most of the activity has been confined to western europe, and there was very little of it before the twentieth century. the european union and its predecessors have been the most active in the field, but the council of europe and other bodies also engage in such attempts to foster a european identity, and have been doing so for much of the last century. as for the ‘bottom-up’ activities aimed at the realization of a european identity, or grass-roots co-operation, there has again been considerable activity at european level, much of it relying on the loose and relatively uncommitted feelings of identity with europe. it tends to be effected by elites rather than by the masses, but nonetheless a great many people are involved in all the pan-european sporting and cultural activities which take place, and in the education exchange programmes: these are all driven by active participation from below. in politics, this kind of europe-association also takes place, for instance in the confederations of european conservatives, of european christian democrats, and of european socialists. there are european trade union movements, and many regions and minorities are active in trying to carve out a niche for themselves or locate themselves in a european context. these activities are confined largely to sports, culture and grass-roots politics, but then so is the majority of public activity. these are the beginnings of a european ‘civil society’, and while it is easy to mock posturing and failure, these activities have also been going on for many decades now, and are not easily swept away. things may not have got very far compared to the level achieved in so-called nation states, but there has been some progress. to summarize, feelings of european identity, and their consequences, do not need to compete directly with national identity. collective identity is constructed, multi-level, and subject to change over time and place. european identity, in the sense of feelings of ‘europeanness’, has existed widely for a very long time, certainly since the renaissance, but such feelings are not the same as those which underpin national identity. in the sense of a collective identity at european level which might justify the existence and operation of a modern state, or in this case a super-state, there has been a certain level of activity in the twentieth century, especially by the eu in its top-down activities. however, it would be hard to argue that a critical mass has been reached, and certainly the achievements are marginal or at best minor, compared to the activities of nation-state governments and populations. national identity and european identity are not mutually incompatible, and european identity is really not the threat to the nation that is sometimes perceived to be. notes 1. this article is a revised version of an introductory address to the unica student conference entitled, ‘unity and diversity in europe: the question of identity’, held in amsterdam, 27-30 october 2004. 2. garcía, 1993: 81-2. 3. grillo, 1980: 10-13. 4. michael, 1996: 2-9. 5. foucher, 1994: 56-7 & 60-1. 6. bloom, 1990. 7. spiering, 1996: 115-18. 8. wintle, 1996: 22-3. 9. garcía, 1993: 83-4; von benda-beckmann & verkuyten, 1995: 15-18. 10. foucher, 1994: 57-8; grillo, 1980: 10. 11. macdonald, s., 1993: 221-2. 12. andréani, 1999:13; mikkeli, 1998: 228-9; herb & kaplan, 1999: 61; beetham & lord, 1998: 33-50. schild, 2001 suggests that recent successes by nationalist-populist parties have made the tension between national and european identity more problematic. 13. smith, 1995: 131, 155. 14. for a summary of the issues in the literature as they apply to the example of europe, see wintle, 1996: 16-22. 15. delanty, 1995: 6. 16. fulbrook, 1993: 266. references andréani, g., 1999. europe ‘s uncertain identity (london, centre for european reform, 1999). beetham, d., & c. lord, 1998. legitimacy and the eu (london, longman, 1998). benda-beckmann, k. von, & m. verkuyten (eds), 1995. nationalism, ethnicity and cultural identity in europe (utrecht, ercomer, 1995). bloom, w., 1990. personal identity, national identity and international relations (cambridge, cup, 1990). delanty, g., 1995. inventing europe : idea, identity, reality (basingstoke, macmillan, 1995). foucher, m., et al., 1994. the next europe: an essay on alternatives and strategies towards a new vision of europe (bilbao, fundacion bbv, 1994). fulbrook, m. (ed.), 1993. national histories and european history (london, ucl press, 1993). garcía, s. (ed.), 1993. european identity and the search for legitimacy (london, pinter, 1993). grillo, r.d. (ed.), 1980. ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in europe : anthropological perspectives (london, academic press, 1980). herb, g.h., & d.h. kaplan (eds), 1999. nested identities: nationalism, territory and scale (lanham maryland, rowman & littlefield, 1999). macdonald, s. (ed.), 1993. inside european identities: ethnography in western europe (oxford, berg, 1993). michael, m., 1996. constructing identities: the social, the nonhuman and change (london, sage, 1996). mikkeli, h., 1998. europe as an idea and an identity (london, routledge, 1998). salzmann, s. (ed.), 1988. mythos europa: europa und der stier im zeitalter der industriellen zivilisation (hamburg, ellert & richter, 1988). schild, j., 2001. ‘national v. european identities? french and germans in the european multi-level system’, journal of common market studies , 39/2 (2000), 331-51. smith, a.d., 1995. nations and nationalism in a global era (cambridge, polity, 1995). spiering, m., 1996. ‘national identity and european unity’, in culture and identity in europe: perceptions of divergence and unity in past and present , edited by m.j. wintle (aldershot, avebury press, 1996), pp. 98-132. wintle, m.j. (ed.), 1996. culture and identity in europe : perceptions of divergence and unity in past and present (aldershot, avebury press, 1996; reprinted 2002 ). microsoft word 12. the embodied mind.doc the embodied mind: perspectives and limitations radboud university nijmegen october 27, 2010 – october 28, 2010 the last decade cognitive neuroscience has seen a growing interest in an embodied view of cognition, according to which higher-level cognition is supported by basic sensory-motor structures. however, the embodied view of cognition has not gone unchallenged and has been criticized on both methodological and philosophical grounds. in addition, researchers from within the field differ in their views, ranging from strong claims about embodied processes as a necessary prerequisite for thinking to weaker claims about embodiment as merely accompanying higher-order cognitive processes. crucial questions that remain unanswered include: “how conclusive is the support for strong or weak claims of embodied cognition?”, “how does an embodied view of cognition account for higher-order abstract thinking?” and “how do we represent concepts that we have never experienced ourselves?”. this workshop aims to shed light on these issues by getting together empirical researchers of embodied cognition from different backgrounds. deadline for poster submissions: 4 july 2010 invited speakers • alfonso caramazza, harvard university, cambridge, usa and center for mind/brain sciences, university of trento, italy • pierre jacob, institut nicod, paris, france • alex martin, national institute of mental health (nimh), bethesda, usa • rolf zwaan, erasmus university rotterdam, the netherlands • tania singer, max planck institute for human cognitive & brain sciences, leipzig, germany • harold bekkering, donders institute for brain, cognition & behaviour, nijmegen, the netherlands visit the website for more information http://embodiedmind.cognitive-psychology.eu/ microsoft word 3. research anger as a moderator.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 14-43 www.ejop.org anger as a moderator of the relationships between attachment, dyadic adjustment, and childhood victimization in physically violent spouses claude bélanger university of quebec in montreal mcgill university and douglas hospital research center hélène brisebois university of quebec in montreal abstract the present study examines the moderating effects of the anger characteristics of violent husbands on the relationships between a set of predictors and both psychological and physical husband violence. based on data from 76 married violent men recruited through community organizations that work with abusive males, a series of moderated multiple regression analyses showed that anger repression and felt intensity of anger does moderate the effects of attachment, dyadic adjustment, and childhood victimization on physical violence, but not on psychological violence. considering that anger repression and felt intensity of anger are the more internally-related anger characteristics experienced in the couple relationship leads to the suggestion that the more covert characteristics of anger are more likely to play a moderating role than the overt characteristics, and reinforce the idea that it would be advantageous to consider anger as a multidimensional construct in studies of violence. keywords: support seeking, care giving, conflict management, observational data introduction marital violence and specifically husband violence are increasingly a focus of attention in north america. more than 500,000 american women are injured yearly as a result of partner violence and require medical treatment (tjaden and thoennes, 2000). the national violence against women (nvaw) survey was conducted from 1995 to 1996 and sampled both american women and men. analysis of survey data on the prevalence, incidence, and consequences of violence sheds light on many anger as a moderator 15 aspects of the problem. first, specifically referring to physical partner violence, it revealed that women are more likely to be victims of violence than men: 22.1 % of women, compared with 7.4 % of men, reported they had been physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, boyfriend or date in their lifetime. also, nearly two-thirds of women who reported having been raped, physically assaulted, or stalked since the age of 18 had been victimized by intimate partners. moreover, among women who were physically assaulted or raped by a partner, a third of the cases resulted in injury. a more recent survey in canada revealed that among women, 30% have experienced at least one act of physical or sexual violence from their partner (statistics canada, 2001). husband violence still appears to be underreported but women are more likely to report violent incidents to the police when the abuse occurs after a separation; 44% of women assaulted by a previous partner seek police assistance (statistics canada, 2001). as for intimate abuse in current relationships, occurrence of victimization was brought to the attention of the police in 26% of cases involving women (statistics canada, 2001). the consequences of partner violence are extensive. it is associated with both short and long-term problems, including physical injury and illness, psychological symptoms, economic costs, and in the most severe cases, death (national research council, 1996). also, because of severe partner violence, female victims are more likely than male victims to need medical attention and to take time off from work; they also spend more days bedridden because of injuries, and suffer more stress and depression for the same reasons (national research council, 1996; ramos, carlson, and mcnutt, 2004). one important indirect consequence of partner abuse is that each year thousands of american children witness their mother being abused. childhood witnesses of violence are at risk for long-term physical and mental health problems, including alcohol and substance abuse, victimization, and perpetration of partner violence (felitti et al., 1998; albus, weist, and perez-smith, 2004). these pervasive negative consequences of domestic violence are also reported in canada. a national survey established that women that are victims of marital violence could suffer from various physical traumas, some of them being very serious and even lethal (statistics canada, 2002). moreover it was reported by our team in a recent paper on attachment and marital violence that consequences of marital violence could also be more pervasive and associated with psychological dysfunctions: fear, anxiety and phobias, depression, insomnia and nightmares, etc. (gosselin, lafontaine & bélanger, 2006). until 20 years ago, researchers had paid relatively little attention to the issue of marital violence. a lot of work has been done since then, resulting in a better understanding of the different variables that predict the propensity for a male to europe’s journal of psychology 16 resort to abusing his partner. however, piecing these results together to paint a more complex picture of male marital violence remains a challenge. there is a need for more integrative studies that would consider the complex relationships that may exist among the constellation of factors that have been linked to partner abuse. the present study investigates the links between husbands’ anger and a number of other predictors of husband violence. various definitions of husband violence have been used in the scientific literature. this has contributed to some inconsistencies and difficulties in comparing results across studies. some researchers have focused only on direct physical assaults (holtzworth-munroe and stuart, 1994; margolin, john, and gleberman, 1988), whereas others have also included threats of assault and non-physical acts of aggression (dibble and straus, 1980; sharpe and taylor, 1999). to address the definition issue, a team of researchers designed a test, the revised conflict tactics scale, that differentiates between psychological aggression, physical assault, and sexual coercion (straus, hamby, boney-mccoy, and sugarman, 1996), the first two being more widespread in violent husband populations (tjaden and thoennes, 2000). some studies indicate that psychological aggression may often be a precursor to physical violence (murphy and o’leary, 1989; o’leary, malone, and tyree, 1994). accordingly, some authors recommend the inclusion of both types of abuse in studies of marital violence (barling, 1996). a wide range of variables have been associated with husband violence, but the complex relationships that exist between the various predictors of this violence had not been studied until relatively recently (holtzworth-munroe, 1997). because of the quantity of correlates of marital violence that have been identified, it may be instructive at this point to determine which of those variables interact to increase or decrease the level of violent behavior by husbands. among studies that incorporate several predictors, most focus on clusters of variables that are similar in nature. for instance, stith and farley (1993) include cognitive and sociodemographic variables, while dutton and starzomski (1994) focus on different aspects of personality organization. it would be useful to have a better understanding of how the various clusters of correlates compare as predictors of husband violence. predictors of violence could be categorized along many clusters. one of these categorizations could include four types of variables: personal history, personality, dyadic, and psychological variables. for personal history variables, the link to husband violence is more consistent for witnessing interparental violence than it is for parental child abuse (sugarman and hotaling, 1989). few studies have sought to identify moderation effects on those variables, which would anger as a moderator 17 be of clinical relevance; personal history cannot be acted upon directly, whereas moderators may be amenable to change and thus potentially offer a way of buffering the effects of personal history. with respect to personality variables, some studies suggest that men who are physically aggressive towards their partner exhibit aspects of borderline personality organization (dutton, saunders, starzomski, and bartholomew, 1994). it would appear that violence arises in these men as a result of intense anger built up because of frustrated attachment needs (holtzworth-munroe et al., 1997) also, other studies that cast attachment style as a stable personality characteristic (holtzworthmunroe; dutton and starzomski, 1993) indicate that abusive men are dependent on their wives and show preoccupied attachment patterns (holtzworth-munroe, 1997). the fact that problematic attachment is itself an underlying component of borderline personality may make it a key aspect in the study of husband violence. results for dyadic variables show that violent husbands have less spouse-specific assertiveness skills (rosenbaum and o’leary, 1981). in their marital communication patterns, violent couples, as compared to conflictual but non-violent partners, tend to display more negative behaviors (e.g. anger behavior, contempt, and belligerence) that promote a more rigid and highly contingent negative style of communication that is resistant to change (burman, margolin, and john, 1993). violent husbands tend to instigate negative discussions, inculcate fear in their partner, and react aggressively to many violent and non-violent behaviors by their wives (jacobson et al, 1994). furthermore, violent couples are more likely to engage in husband demand/wife withdraw communication patterns which correlate significantly with increases in psychological and physical aggression (babcock, waltz, jacobson, and gottman, 1993; berns, jacobson, and gottman, 1999; feldman and ridley, 2000). marital satisfaction research also reveals that the link with marital violence may not be direct; the presence of other factors, such as husband hostility or husband alcohol use, combined with marital dissatisfaction, contribute to increasing general husband aggression, particularly husband psychological aggression, which then leads to a heightened potential for husband physical aggression (o’leary, malone, and tyree, 1994). with regard to psychological variables, violent men generally score higher on depression (julian and mckenry, 1993) and lower on self-esteem (hotaling and sugarman, 1986). it is also well accepted among researchers that alcohol abuse is correlated with marital violence and that this relationship may weaken as the abusers grow older (heyman, o’leary and jouriles, 1995). studies have consistently revealed that violent husbands obtain higher scores for anger and hostility (dutton europe’s journal of psychology 18 and starzomski, 1994; heyman et al.). since anger is also known to interact with other psychological variables in predicting problem behaviour (colder and stice, 1998), it is suspected to have interaction effects that explain husband violence. although in many studies anger has been evoked as an important factor in explaining the escalation of conflicts of violent couples, anger, hostility and aggressivity have often been cited with little distinction between them. consequently, it is sometimes difficult to know whether the results are indicative of links with hostility or anger (laughrea, bélanger, wright, and mcduff, 1997; spielberger, 1988). according to laughrea and her colleagues (1997), anger can be conceived as an emotional state, triggered by a frustrating event or the anticipation of such an event, where feelings vary in intensity from a state of irritability to rage. the notion of hostility also involves feelings of anger but includes a complex set of feelings and attitudes that may motivate aggression and vindictive behavior (laughrea et al, 1997). the term aggression is primarily used to describe destructive and punitive behavior (laughrea et al, 1997; spielberger, krasner, and solomon, 1988), and it encompasses psychological and physical violence. following that line of thought, anger is necessary but not sufficient for hostile and aggressive behaviors to surface (spielberger, 1988; spielberger et al, 1988). this observation suggests that anger may play a moderating role in the occurrence of violent acts; its presence may enable a third variable to covary with violence; its absence may inhibit such a relationship. for example, a man who experiences anger following feeling of spouserelated frustration may become violent if he is not satisfied with his marriage, whereas his degree of marital dissatisfaction may not have a bearing on the expression of violence if he is not angry. it would therefore be interesting to investigate whether anger has an indirect relationship to violence. in particular, it would be instructive to see how anger and the expression of anger can modulate the links between various predictors and marital violence. many studies of marital violence have used hostility and aggression measures without including anger measures (barnett, fagan, and booker, 1991; mckenry et al, 1995; leonard and blane, 1992). anger measures arguably get closer to the inner process that may lead to violence than hostility and aggression measures, which get closer to the overt behaviors of violence that are usually assessed. our team proposed a typology of anger in an attempt to identify these patterns of couples' anger management profiles (laughrea, wright, mcduff & bélanger, 2000). cluster analysis was conducted using five indices of anger derived from inventory of anger experience in couples (laughrea, bélanger, & wright, 1996). sample consisted of 220 couples from normal and clinical populations. four types of couples were identified: (a) relaxed couples, (b) slightly angry couples, (c) explosive angry couples, and (d) dangerously enraged couples. results also indicated that the higher the disturbance of anger anger as a moderator 19 dynamics between partners, the more psychologically and maritally distressed they were, and the lower the quality of their coping strategies. among those types of studies that evaluate the concept of anger in relation to couple violence, many components of anger (e.g. state anger, trait anger, anger-out, anger-in, anger control, range of anger elicitation situations, frequency of anger, duration of anger, magnitude of anger, etc.) have also been identified as correlates of domestic violence ((laughrea et al., 1996; dutton et al, 1994; dye and eckhardt, 2001; date and ronan, 2000). although anger has been explored in numerous investigations of marital violence, few anger measures have been developed (multidimensional anger inventory (mai; siegel, 1986); state-trait anger expression inventory (staxi; spielberger, 1988)). instruments that evaluate couple-related anger are even rarer (inventory of the experience of anger in the couple (iecc; laughrea et al, 1997); anger management scale (ams; stith and hamby, 2002)). as variables that are congruent (i.e. share elements of context) appear to be more likely to show interaction relationships (schat and kelloway, 2003; tetrick and larocco, 1987), anger measures that are specifically designed for the marital experience would be interesting to consider as moderators in that context. a number of variables have been identified as moderators in studies of husband violence. margolin (1998) found that alcohol impairment, while not in itself a significant predictor, moderated the effects of life stress and marital dissatisfaction on husband violence. mauricio and gormley (2001) found that adult attachment style significantly moderated the relationship between need for dominance and frequency of violence. lafontaine and lussier (in press) found that trait anger and anger control played a moderation role in the relationship between low anxious attachment and physical violence in men, but not in women, and they called for more complex models of prediction. by testing models that incorporate more predictors, it may be possible to determine at once whether anger variables play a key moderation role in several relationships between predictors and husband violence. this information could help to design clinical strategies by pointing to factors that have several indirect repercussions on the occurrence of violent acts by husbands. lastly, we should note that most of the research that deals with the relationship between anger and closely related concepts (e.g. hostility) and husband violence does not differentiate between psychological and physical violence. comparatively few studies have dealt specifically with psychological violence, and it appears that this type of aggression is considerably more difficult to predict from direct correlates europe’s journal of psychology 20 than physical aggression (black, schumacher, smith slep, and heyman, 1999). this suggests that interaction relationships between factors may better explain psychological violence. also, very few studies have compared the respective relationships of anger to psychological and physical husband violence. such a comparison would provide insight into the differences and similarities between those two forms of violence, e.g. by helping to better understand the complex process of escalation from psychological to physical violence (murphy and o’leary, 1989; o’leary et al., 1994; laughrea, wright, mcduff, and bélanger, 2000). the main goal of the present study was to examine whether anger in the marital context acts as a moderator for various types of predictors (dyadic adjustment, attachment, childhood victimization, and childhood witnessing interparental violence) of male psychological and physical violence. we hypothesized that anger would moderate the relationships between the various predictors and both husband physical and psychological aggression. because psychological violence appears to be more difficult to predict from direct correlates than physical violence (black et al., 1999), we further hypothesized that husband psychological aggression scores would show stronger interaction effects than physical aggression scores. lastly, we hypothesized that the strongest interaction of anger as experienced in the couple relationship would be with dyadic adjustment variables, as a corollary of the congruence hypothesis mentioned above (schat and kelloway, 2003; tetrick and larocco, 1987). method participants our sample was composed of men recruited through a canadian community organization that works with violent men in the montreal area. of all males who sought help with the organization during the time of our study, 223 french-speaking men agreed to meet with the research team to learn more about the research project and be briefed on confidentiality issues; 76 clients (34 %) actually came to the interview, during which they were asked to give their written consent to participate in the project and to fill out the various questionnaires participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 58 years old and the average age was 36 years old. education levels ranged from 2 to 18 years, with an average of 11 years (to high school level). rounded annual income in canadian dollars ranged from $5,000 to anger as a moderator 21 more than $90,000, and the average income was approximately $25,000. two-thirds of respondents (n=48) were still living with their partner at the time they completed the questionnaires. the men had between 0 and 4 children, with an average of 1.74 children. among those men, 67% reported to follow the therapy for violent men for personal reasons, while 33% of them would report that they would follow the intervention program because they were ordered by the court to do so. measures adult romantic attachment: a 36-item scale that can be divided into two 18-item subscales measuring two attachment dimensions: anxious attachment style and avoidant attachment style. the original questionnaire by brennan, clark, and shaver (1998) was translated and validated in french by lafontaine and lussier (2001). items were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). alpha coefficients are satisfactory in the translated version (.86 for the anxiety scale and .87 for the avoidance scale), and are comparable to the original english version (.91 and .94 respectively). dyadic adjustment scale: an abbreviated and validated 16-item french version (lussier, valois, sabourin, and dupont, 1998) that measures the same four subscales as the original english version by spanier (1976): dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, dyadic consensus, and emotional expression. the total score combining all subscales is used as the measurement of dyadic adjustment. five items dealing with agreement between partners in different areas were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 6 (strongly disagree). four items about attitude and behavior regarding their romantic relationship were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (always) to 6 (never). one item on common interests outside the home was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (in all) to 5 (in nothing). items about the frequency of positive couple interaction were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (always) to 6 (never). there was one yes/no question on disagreement about manifestation of one’s love. the last item, addressing the degree of happiness in the romantic relationship, was rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (extremely unhappy) to 7 (perfectly happy). alpha coefficients for the short version of the scale are very similar to those obtained with the original version: dyadic satisfaction (α=.94), dyadic cohesion (α=.86), dyadic consensus (α=.90), and affective expression (α=.73) (lussier et al., 1998). witnessing marital violence. this was assessed with one very brief yes/no question of our own formulation: “when you were a child, did you ever witness acts of marital violence?” europe’s journal of psychology 22 victim of violence. similarly, this was assessed with one very brief yes/no question of our own formulation: “were you ever a victim of violence during your childhood?” inventory of the experience of anger within the couple. a 32-item validated french version of the staxi (spielberger, 1988), adapted to take into account the various components of expression and experience of anger in the context of couple relationships (laughrea, bélanger, and wright, 1996). numerous aspects of anger toward a romantic partner are evaluated in this questionnaire. in what follows, alpha coefficients indicating internal consistency reliability are listed in parentheses for each subscale. the first part of the questionnaire measures the presence and intensity of anger feelings toward the partner at a specific time (first subscale: anger feelings, α = .88). the second part of the questionnaire measures the presence of anger personality traits. two types of anger personality traits are considered: the tendency to become angry regardless of the situation (second subscale: angry temper, α = .85) and the disposition to express anger when criticized by others (third subscale: angry reactions, α = .75). the sum of the subscales for anger personality traits yields a general anger personality trait subscale (fourth subscale: anger personality trait, α = .82). the third part of the questionnaire measures the style of expression of anger, with three different subscales: anger repression (fifth subscale, α = .79), inadequate expression of anger (sixth subscale, α = .74), and positive anger control (seventh subscale, α = .87). the sum of the subscales for anger expression style yields a general anger expression score (eighth subscale, α = .72). the items were rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always). psychological and physical violence. two subscales of a french version of the revised conflict tactics scale (cts-2) originally designed by straus and colleagues (1996) and translated and validated by lafontaine and lussier (in press) were used as outcome measures to evaluate psychologically and physically abusive behavior. all items were rated according to the frequency of certain behaviors over the past year in eight different categories, ranging from “none” to “21 or more times”. range midpoints of 0, 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15 and 25 were used for the encoding of scores. for the french version, the alpha coefficient is .71 for the psychological violence scale and it is .78 for the physical violence scale. alpha coefficients for the english version scales are respectively .79 and .86. psychological violence. an 8-item subscale of the cts-2 that measures verbal and non-verbal destructive male behaviors. these behaviors could be aimed directly at the partner, or at different objects, with the objective to intimidate and/or ventilate anger. anger as a moderator 23 physical violence. a 12-item subscale of the cts-2 that measures threatening male behaviors or actions. these behaviors are aimed at the female partner’s body. results moderated hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed to test for the moderation effect of the husbands’ couple-related anger subscale scores on the relationship between their attachment, dyadic adjustment, childhood victimization, childhood witnessing of interparental violence, and physical and psychological violence. the first step consisted of normalizing the predictor (i.e. attachment, dyadic adjustment, etc.) and moderator (anger) variables. our analysis was then conducted using the normalized values. to investigate the moderating effects of anger subscale scores, the main and interaction effects were entered hierarchically. we entered each individual moderator variable and the predictor into the regression, and the terms that interacted with that moderator were entered into a second block. if the second block accounted for significant incremental variance, a significant moderating effect could be inferred for that particular moderator. this is equivalent to an omnibus test of the moderating effects of each anger characteristic, after controlling for the main effects of the predictor and the moderator variables. where moderating effects were found, the significance of each individual interaction term was assessed post hoc through hierarchical moderated regressions. this enabled us to determine which interactions of the predictor and anger variables would predict violence. because our predictions of the moderating effects of anger characteristics depend on interaction effects, and because interaction effects supersede direct effects (pedhazur, 1973), we interpreted the results using interaction effects. before conducting the analyses, we examined the data for violations of assumptions and outliers. we did not find any serious outliers, but the distributions of psychological and physical violence variables were positively skewed. a square root transformation restored normality to the distribution of psychological violence, and a fourth root transformation did likewise for the physical violence variable. descriptive statistics, internal consistency coefficients, and intercorrelations for all of the study variables are provided in table 1. table 1: descriptive statistics, internal consistency coefficients, and intercorrelations of study variables mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1. physical aggression .934 1.64 (0.81) 0.51** -0.16 -0.05 -0.28* -0.21 0.40** -0.18 0.01 0.17 0.17 0.23* 0.13 0.46** -0.25* 2. psychological aggression 5.60 4.03 (0.72) -0.24* -0.13 -0.54** -0.41** 0.38** 0.04 0.09 0.08 0.31** 0.57** 0.40** 0.65** -0.43** 3. dyadic adj. consensus 12.6 3.16 (0.66) 0.43** 0.51** 0.41** -0.40** -0.07 -0.07 -0.10 -0.32** -0.26* -0.13 -0.25* 0.28* 4. dyadic adj. affective expr. 7.15 2.42 (0.56) 0.38** 0.35** -0.42** -0.14 -0.08 0.16 -0.35** -0.22 -0.20 -0.24* 0.33** 5. dyadic adj. satisfaction 15.1 4.96 (0.79) 0.79** -0.70** -0.16 0.00 -0.10 -0.43** -0.46** -0.60** -0.57** 0.28* 6. dyadic adj. cohesion 11.8 4.13 (0.79) -0.74** -0.07 0.15 -0.07 -0.21 -0.38** -0.53** -0.50** 0.22 7. avoidant attachment 2.99 1.13 (0.88) 0.06 -0.22 -0.08 0.25 0.43** 0.54** 0.56** -0.21 8. anxious attachment 4.10 1.18 (0.89) 0.27* 0.20 0.28* 0.40** 0.33** 0.15 -0.06 9. childhood witnessa .510 .500 n/a 0.40** 0.20 0.09 0.00 0.11 -0.26* 10. childhood victima .588 .495 n/a 0.06 0.12 0.03 0.20 -0.05 11. anger – felt intensity 1.65 .72 (0.85) 0.31** 0.29* 0.31** -0.36** 12. anger – trait 17.97 4.58 (0.81) 0.52** 0.58** -0.59** 13. anger – repression 2.21 .55 (0.78) 0.49** -0.16 14. anger – inadequate expr. 7.30 2.01 (0.68) -0.45** 15. anger – control 2.28 .55 (0.65) note. scale reliabilities are shown in parentheses along the diagonal. a variable is dichotomous. * p < .05. ** p < .01. a general picture of the severity of psychological and physical violence present in our sample can be inferred from the descriptive statistics. the average frequency of psychological violence corresponded to about 45 occurrences per year (nearly once a week), and the average frequency of physical violence corresponded to approximately 11 times a year (almost once a month). these figures are higher than general population scores (lafontaine and lussier, in press; straus, 1990) by ratios of six to one for psychological violence and three to one for physical violence. while most of the predictor variables showed a correlation with husband violence measurements, a number of them did not show a significant direct link with husband physical aggression, namely dyadic adjustment consensus, dyadic adjustment affective expression, dyadic adjustment cohesion, anxious attachment, childhood witnessing of interparental violence, childhood victimization, anger repression, and felt intensity of anger. in addition, a subset of those variables was not significantly correlated with husbands’ psychological aggression: dyadic adjustment affective expression, anxious attachment, childhood witnessing of interparental violence, and childhood victimization. surprisingly, anxious attachment did not appear to be correlated to the dyadic adjustment scales. examining the distribution of anxious attachment scores revealed that they were mostly elevated: very few of them were at the lower extremity of the scale. this restriction of variance may explain the lack of correlation observed. the results of the omnibus moderated multiple regressions appear in tables 2 and 3. as shown in table 2, anger repression and felt intensity of anger were found to significantly moderate the effects of predictor variables on physical violence, f(8,54) = 2.56, p=.02 and f(8,54) = 2.24, p=.04. moderation effects were not found for anger trait, inadequate expression, and anger control. as for psychological violence, table 3 shows that anger characteristics do not appear to moderate its link with predictor variables. other contrasting results are revealed in tables 2 and 3; in table 2, the model that excludes interaction effects accounts for very little of the variance in physical aggression scores, whereas the opposite is true of the psychological aggression scores (table 3). europe’s journal of psychology 26 table 2: summary of results for omnibus moderated multiple regression analyses of the interactions between predictor variables and anger subscale scores on physical aggression moderator repression trait inadequate expression felt intensity control step ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 1 1.820 .321 1.784 .321 1.748 .321 1.748 .321 1.820 .321 2 2.562* .223* 1.180 .127 1.104 .123 2.242* .210* 1.360 .140 step 1 included the following variables: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, the four dyadic adjustment variables, childhood victimization, childhood witnessing of interparental violence, and the five anger scores. step 2 included interaction terms of the respective anger moderator with the following variables: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, the four dyadic adjustment variables, childhood victimization, and childhood witnessing of interparental violence. * p < .05. table 3: summary of results for omnibus moderated multiple regression analyses of the interactions between predictor variables and anger subscale scores on psychological aggression moderat or repression trait inadequate expression felt intensity control step ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 ∆f ∆r2 1 6.634* .633* 6.502* .633* 6.369* .633* 6.369* .633* 6.634* .633* 2 .865 .052 1.430 .080 1.063 .064 1.896 .101 .440 .028 step 1 included the following variables: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, the four dyadic adjustment variables, childhood victimization, childhood witnessing of interparental violence, and the five anger scores. step 2 included interaction terms of the respective anger moderator with the following variables: anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, the four dyadic adjustment variables, childhood victimization, and childhood witnessing of interparental violence. * p < .05. table 4 presents the multiple regression coefficients for psychological violence. two variables were found to be significant positive correlates of psychological violence: anger trait (beta = .360, t (61) = 2.47, p<.05) and inadequate expression of anger (beta = .449, t (61) = 3.53, p<.01), while another one, the satisfaction subscale of dyadic adjustment, was inversely correlated (beta = -.355, t(61) = -2.04, p<.05). anger as a moderator 27 table 4: coefficients in the multiple regression involving psychological violence predictor b seb β t (constant) .000 .071 -.006 anger trait .073 .029 .360* 2.474 anger repression .068 .214 .040 .317 anger control -.055 .218 -.033 -.252 anger inadequate expr. .208 .059 .449** 3.532 anger felt intensity .005 .137 .004 .037 dyadic adj. cohesion .006 .036 .026 .160 dyadic adj. satisfaction -.066 .033 -.355* -2.039 dyadic adj. affective expr. .021 .042 .054 .489 dyadic adj. consensus .008 .032 .028 .256 avoidant attachment -.198 .126 -.242 -1.569 anxious attachment -.123 .086 -.156 -1.437 childhood victim -.197 .192 -.105 -1.024 childhood witness .138 .201 .074 .685 note: * p < .05. ** p < .01. follow-up regression analyses conducted to examine individual interaction terms, presented in table 5, showed that anger repression interacts significantly with a number of variables to predict husband physical violence. the interaction term with dyadic adjustment cohesion accounted for 6% of the variance of physical violence; with dyadic adjustment satisfaction, 8.5%; with affective expression and with avoidant attachment, 11%; and with anxious attachment, 10%. felt intensity of anger was seen to interact with a different set of variables. its interaction term with dyadic adjustment consensus accounted for 10% of the variance of husband physical violence, and its interaction term with childhood victimization accounted for 7%. other interaction terms were not significant at the .05 level. table 5: summary of moderated multiple regression analysis results for individual interactions of predictors with anger repression and felt intensity of anger (dependent variable: physical aggression) anger repression felt intensity of anger predictor b seb β ∆r2 b seb β ∆r2 dyadic adj. cohesion .051 .023 .298* .061* .013 .020 -.087 .006 dyadic adj. satisfaction .061 .023 .360* .085* .030 .016 .228 .018 dyadic adj. affective expr. .134 .044 .396** .107** .024 .031 .105 .008 dyadic adj. consensus .049 .030 .213 .034 .056 .019 .358** .101** avoidant attachment -.242 .079 -.385** .110** -.093 .065 -.181 .028 anxious attachment -.220 .077 -.354** .097** -.097 .075 -.172 .024 childhood victim -.242 .188 -.156 .022 -.333 .144 -.291* .067* childhood witness .064 .246 .042 .001 -.063 .155 -.053 .002 following cohen, cohen, aiken and west (2003), we obtained simple slopes at high (one standard deviation above the mean) and low (one standard deviation below the mean) values of moderating anger variables. figures 1-7 illustrate the significant interaction effects by plotting the simple regression lines at these values. figures 1 through 5 represent, respectively, the interaction of anger repression with avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, and dyadic adjustment affective expression, satisfaction and cohesion. figures 6 and 7 represent, respectively, the interaction of felt intensity of anger with dyadic adjustment consensus and childhood victimization. figure 1: interaction between avoidant attachment and anger repression (repr.) on husband physical violence. -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 avoidant attachment h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e anger repr. high anger repr. low anger as a moderator 29 figure 2: interaction between anxious attachment and anger repression (repr.) on husband physical violence. -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 anxious attachment h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e anger repr. high anger repr. low figure 3: interaction between dyadic adjustment affective expression and anger repression (repr.) on husband physical violence -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 dyadic adjustment affective expression h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e anger repr. high anger repr. low europe’s journal of psychology 30 figure 4: interaction between dyadic adjustment satisfaction and anger repression (repr.) on husband physical violence -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 dyadic adjustment satisfaction h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e anger repr. high anger repr. low figure 5: interaction between dyadic adjustment cohesion and anger repression (repr.) on husband physical violence -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 dyadic adjustment cohesion h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e anger repr. high anger repr. low anger as a moderator 31 figure 6: interaction between dyadic adjustment consensus and felt intensity (int.) of anger on husband physical violence -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 dyadic adjustment consensus h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e felt int. of anger high felt int. of anger low figure 7: interaction between childhood victimization and felt intensity (int.) of anger on husband physical violence -0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 childhood victimization h u s b a n d p h y s ic a l v io le n c e felt int. of anger high felt int. of anger low as shown in figure 1, when men reported low repression of anger, the link between avoidant attachment and physical violence was significant and positive (b = .34, t(61) = 3.2, p = .002) but it was not significant when they reported high repression (b = -.14, t(61) = -1.3, p = .19). figure 2 shows that when men reported low repression of anger, the link between anxious attachment and physical violence was not significant (b = .12, t(61) = 1.3, p = .20) but it was significant and negative when they reported high repression (b = europe’s journal of psychology 32 .32, t(61) = -3.5, p <.0001). as displayed in figure 3, when men reported low repression of anger, the link between dyadic adjustment affective expression and physical violence was not significant (b = -.1, t(61) = -2.0, p = .053) but it was significant and positive when they reported high repression (b = .17, t(61) = 3.3, p = .001). as shown in figure 4, when men reported low repression of anger, the link between dyadic adjustment satisfaction and physical violence was significant and negative (b = -.07, t(61) = -2.4, p = .02) but it was not significant when they reported high repression (b = .05, t(61) = 1.6, p = .11). figure 5 shows that when men reported low repression of anger, the link between dyadic adjustment cohesion and physical violence was not significant (b = -.04, t(61) = -1.6, p = .12) but it was significant and positive when they reported high repression (b = .06, t(61) = 2.1, p = .05). as displayed in figure 6, when men reported low felt intensity of anger, the link between dyadic adjustment consensus and physical violence was significant and negative (b = -.076, t(61) = -2.8, p = .007) but it was not significant when they reported high repression (b = .037, t(61) = 1.4, p = .18). finally, figure 7 shows that when men reported low felt intensity of anger, the link between childhood victimization and physical violence was significant and positive (b = .42, t(61) = 2.3, p = .025) but it was not significant when they reported high repression (b = -.025, t(61) = -1.4, p = .19). discussion in the present study, we investigated whether anger in the couple relationship would moderate the effects of various predictors on the husbands’ psychological and physical violence. we examined three different types of predictors of husband violence (personality variables: avoidant attachment and anxious attachment; couple variables: dyadic adjustment (satisfaction, cohesion, consensus, affective expression); personal history variables: childhood witnessing of interparental violence and childhood victimization), five components of couple-related anger (repression, felt intensity, control, trait, inadequate expression), and two forms of husband violence (psychological violence and physical violence). the results of our study provide some support for our hypotheses that anger in the couple relationship would moderate the effects of all three types of predictors on husband violence. however, the predictors in our study were found to have contrasting relationships with the two forms of violence under investigation. moderation effects were observed with physical violence but not with psychological violence. this runs contrary to our hypothesis that psychological aggression is more likely to be moderated by anger characteristics. recalling our earlier observation that the direct effects largely explained variance in psychological aggression, this result may indicate that the overlap between anger and psychological violence in violent husbands is such that it leaves little room for a moderation relationship. more anger as a moderator 33 specifically, the direct correlation found between the dimensions of trait anger and inadequate expression of anger suggests that these aspects of anger are intimately connected to psychological aggression among violent husbands. moreover, the level of satisfaction within the relation appears to provide a partial explanation of psychological violence, which suggests that unsatisfied husbands may be more prone to engage in psychological violence. other relationships may also be involved in explaining psychological abuse; for instance, lafontaine and lussier (in press) found that anger variables explained the association between husbands’ insecure attachment and intimate psychological violence. if we look at the couple-related anger characteristics that were potential moderators in our study, two of them (anger repression and felt intensity of anger) were found to moderate the relationship between our various predictors and physical aggression, while the other three (anger control, inadequate expression of anger, and anger traits) would not be moderators in this relationship. considering that anger repression and felt intensity of anger are the more internally-related anger characteristics experienced in the couple relationship leads to the suggestion that the more covert characteristics of anger are more likely to play a moderating role than the overt characteristics, and reinforce the idea that it would be advantageous to consider anger as a multidimensional construct in studies of violence. looking at the significant interaction effects for physical violence, the strongest and most consistent buffering effects were found for anger repression; it interacted with all the dyadic adjustment variables, except consensus, and both attachment variables to predict physical violence. for felt intensity of anger in the couple, significant interactions occurred with the consensus and childhood victimization variables. overall, significant interactions accounted for 6% to 11% of the variance in physical aggression. these are substantial moderation effects (champoux and peters, 1987; cohen, cohen, west & aiken, 2003). how can the direction of these interactions be interpreted? anger repression was found to moderate the relationship between avoidant attachment and violence. it appears that violent outbursts are most likely when anger is not repressed and avoidant attachment is elevated. when anger is repressed, however, there does not seem to be a relationship between avoidant attachment and violence. because of the connection between avoidant attachment and antisocial personality (holtzworth-munroe and stuart, 1994; egeland, weinfield, bosquet and cheng, 2000), this result is consistent with the notion that there exists a “type i” of batterers who exhibit antisocial personalities and are not driven to repress anger (gottman et al, 1995). europe’s journal of psychology 34 anger repression also moderated the relationship between anxious attachment and violence; when anger is repressed, the presence of anxious attachment reduces husband violence, whereas low anxious attachment is associated with higher physical violence. this may suggest that anxiously attached husbands fear losing their partner enough that they do not let their repressed anger surface in the form of violence, and that conversely, husbands low in anxious attachment are relatively indifferent of their partner. this result is analogous to that of lafontaine and lussier (in press), who found that high trait anger and low anger control were linked to a relationship between low anxious attachment and increased physical violence in a non-clinical sample. however, the anger variables that stood out in lafontaine and lussier’s study were different than the ones we found. this suggests a qualitative difference between the ways in which violence erupts in violent husbands who require treatment and the general population. in addition, anger repression was found to moderate the relationships between dyadic adjustment (affective expression, satisfaction, and cohesion) and violence, much in the same manner for each one (compare figures 3, 4, and 5). men who tend not to repress anger show less violence as dyadic adjustment increases, while the opposite trend is observed for men who tend to repress anger. moreover, the simple slopes appear to converge towards the mean in the region of high dyadic adjustment. thus, for husbands who are comparatively well-adjusted in their couple, anger repression appears to have little bearing on the level of violence; however, when a husband is dyadically maladjusted, low anger repression signals increased risk for violence. this perspective suggests that anger repression may act as a coping mechanism for men who are not well-adjusted in their couple, driving them to react to marital problems in ways other than outward violence. the felt intensity of anger was identified as a moderator of the relationship between dyadic adjustment consensus and husband physical violence. it appears that, for men who report a low intensity of anger, violence decreases significantly as consensus increases while it remains elevated for men who experience intense anger. by itself, the felt intensity of anger was not correlated to physical aggression (table 1); this moderation clarifies the role that anger intensity plays with respect to men’s violence against their partner. finally, felt intensity of anger in the couple was found to moderate the relationship between childhood victimization and physical violence in husbands. violence was least frequent among men who felt a low intensity of anger and were not battered as children. for male partners who feel anger more intensely, childhood victimization appears to be unrelated to the degree of violence exhibited. accordingly the fact anger as a moderator 35 that victimization as a child would not impact on the link between anger and marital violence would suggest that social learning theory (bandura, 1977) does not always offer a complete explanation for the causes of husband violence. social learning theory would imply that victimized children would learn from observation and modeling after their violent parent’s behavior. accordingly, one must expect that observation of violent behavior would predispose to imitate these aggressive behaviors and develop a pattern of violent behaviors when frustrated or angry. our results would imply that this trans generationnal pattern of violence would not always be there and that other issues are at stake to explain violence, like poor problem solving skills, dysfunctional patterns of communication, etc. our hypothesis that anger in the couple relationship would have the greatest interaction with dyadic adjustment variables was partially corroborated by our results, as was the moderation effect of felt intensity of anger. our hypothesis was not confirmed for anger repression, the latter interacting more extensively and consistently with attachment variables. the results we obtained might be better explained by noting that the variables that interact with anger repression are of an emotional nature, while those that interact with felt intensity of anger are not. this may reflect the fact that anger repression in the couple relationship generally controls whether other emotions in the couple will influence behavior. by contrast, the interactions we identified for felt intensity of anger suggest that this characteristic interplays with less emotional experiences in the here and now. together, these observations again underscore the complexity of anger as experienced in the couple. our findings may assist in the design of interventions with violent husbands, because they indicate where the moderator role of anger may be brought into play to reduce the level of violent behavior towards the partner, for example, through anger control training. in cases where the goal is to reduce psychological violence, the constructiveness of altering a male partner’s anger characteristics does not appear to depend on other variables. where reduction of physical violence is the goal, however, it would be constructive to consider anger in light of its interactions with other factors. based on the results of our study, the internally experienced aspects of anger (repression and felt intensity) seem to be of greater relevance. in particular, the moderation relationships that we have uncovered provide a number of specific indications for therapy. first, if violent husbands who exhibit high avoidant or anxious attachment were to repress anger more, it could reduce the amount of physical violence. this suggests that anger management training may be especially effective for intensely-attached violent men. second, an analogous observation holds for men who are not well-adjusted to their couple: anger management might especially be europe’s journal of psychology 36 beneficial for reducing acts of violence by those men. third, our results suggest that it would be desirable for violent men who don’t feel intense anger to learn to attain an increased consensus in their marital relationship in order to reduce the occurrence of violence, while violent husbands who already have a good degree of consensus should seek ways of reducing the intensity of anger that they experience. finally, for violent men who were not battered as children, working towards a state where anger is felt in a less intense manner could be effective in reducing violence towards the female partner. while the findings of this study are valuable, a number of limitations should be acknowledged. first, because our data is generated from self-reports, there may be bias in the values collected. people tend to underreport their own violence; however, only a weak negative relationship has been observed between social desirability and self-reports of intimate violence in the general population (sugarman and hotaling, 1997). in addition, since our sample was composed of men who had already acknowledged their violent behavior toward their partner, this bias is probably considerably reduced. a second potential limitation of our study stems from the relatively small sample size and the limited statistical power inherent to hierarchical multiple regression analyses (champoux and peters, 1987). null findings should be interpreted carefully, because there are non-negligible chances that other moderation effects were present and went undetected. thirdly, because our sample consisted of men who are under treatment for partner violence, it is not possible to ascertain whether the results generalize to male partners from the general population. similarly, our sample did not include men who committed more extreme acts of violence towards their partner, such as incarcerated batterers. it may however be that no single model applies across the whole spectrum of the husband violence phenomenon. of course, the present data is cross-sectional in nature, and a longitudinal design would help shine light on the temporal aspect of the relationships under investigation. as noted in the results section, a number of variables found to be correlated with husband violence in previous work did not show a direct link in our analyses, especially in the case of physical violence (for instance, childhood witnessing of violence). though this may be due to the limited size of our sample, it may also be attributed to the fact that our sample did not include non-violent men. correlations may be absent for variables that differentiate between violent and non-violent men, but are not indicative of the degree of violence in men who abuse their partner. it should be noted that most of the variables in question showed significant anger as a moderator 37 moderation relationships with aggression, which suggests that to understand the role of those variables it may be beneficial to consider interaction effects. further work is necessary to pursue the exploration of the results obtained in this study. while our findings were restricted to anger characteristics as moderators, it is possible that other variables play a moderation role. furthermore, our study did not include all predictors of husband violence; it would be interesting to examine more closely the similarities and differences between the interactions of predictors belonging to the different clusters that we used (personal history, psychological, personality, and dyadic variables) and anger characteristics. additionally, conducting studies similar to ours but with larger samples 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(2000). full report of the prevalence, incidence, and consequences of intimate partner violence against women: findings from the national violence against women survey. washington: national institute of justice. about the authors dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at the university of quebec in montreal, as well as associate professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university and researcher at the douglas university mental health university institute. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, problem solving behaviours in couples, and anxiety and marital functioning. correspondence should be addressed to dr. bélanger at belanger.claude@uqam.ca dr. hélène brisebois did her ph.d. studies at the university of quebec in montreal under the direction of professor bélanger. her interests include couples and marital violence. she now practices as a clinical psychologist. microsoft word 1. editorial zimbardo 402 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 402-407 www.ejop.org why the world needs heroes by philip zimbardo professor emeritus, stanford university can thoughts ignite revolutions? how can one person’s imagination empower millions to challenge tyranny and injustice in the name of freedom and democracy? in recent times, the world has been witnessing just such a mindful, viral transference of power in the uprisings and revolutions spreading across the middle east. in cairo, egyptian youth, with neither a political leader of an opposition party, nor armed weapons to fight against the government militia, have been able to create a largely peaceful coup d’état. remarkably, they achieved their goal in less than one month. their success inoculated untold numbers of others in that region with a newfound moral courage, which is critical for translating personal intentions into civic action. we also have to acknowledge the power of the internet and tv media for creating connectivity among the revolutionaries and the global spread of the unfolding events witnessed by millions worldwide, hour-by-hour. now let us return to an earlier era when mail was in the form of written letters, “snail mail,” not the digital magic of instant messaging. and we also must move our clock back to the late 1960’s, while changing our google maps from the middle east to middle europe, then mostly dominated by soviet communist regimes. specifically, we focus our analytical lens on a young playwright whose personal vision of his nation as free from external oppression got him into continual trouble with the administration. he was frequently jailed for his vocal opposition to the czechoslovakia communist government. yet, he continued to write “dissident” letters from his jail cell to his wife, and others, deploring the sad state of his country. after years of nazi cruel rule, the communists came along to more insidiously dominate all aspects of czech life. europe’s journal of psychology 403 who is to blame, he asked rhetorically, for the continued suppression of individual freedom, the constraints on creativity and the pursuit of happiness. his reasoned answer was not focused on the communist regime, its dictatorial policies, nor even its military might that had earlier crushed the “prague spring” of 1968. his target audience was his own people, friends, family, co-workers, and ordinary czech citizens. before recalling his message, let us first revisit that time zone. recall that time of the prague spring, 1968, when the people of a brave nation attempted a remarkable social experiment — seeking to put a 'human face' on its political agency. many czech people and their leaders believed the time had come to enhance rather than diminish the human condition through institutions that promoted freedom of expression and human dignity. sadly, that hope of peaceful liberation was dashed by the mighty armor of the state. during my visit to prague in july 1969 (for a psychology conference), i personally witnessed the resignation of many people i met about ever being freed from their external domination. they had tried, but failed to throw off the yoke of oppression. it seemed hopeless to try again. they had internalized a presentfatalistic mindset, in which capricious fate not personal action guides one’s life. changing resignation into resilience and revolution our young playwright, václav havel, identified the psychological reason for the effective control of the masses as self-imposed passive resignation. havel said in letters sent from his jail cell, “we had all become used to the totalitarian system and accepted it as an unchangeable fact, and thus helped perpetuate it. in other words, we are all…responsible for the operation of totalitarian machinery. none of us is just a victim. we are also its co-creators.” his call was in a sense, to remove the “cortical cataracts’ that have been blinding the vision and thinking of his people. first, they needed to see and be aware of their communal complicity in being dominated, and then to look inward to their personal and communal power to change current unacceptable reality to a more desirable state of being and existence. they needed to engage their sense of personal and community resilience to challenge unjust authority and systems that demean and degrade human dignity. once the people realized the wisdom in that analysis, they were able to work collectively to free themselves from the oppression they had been passively enduring. without firing a shot, a peaceful revolution unfolded that dazzled the world by its immediacy and vibrancy. václav havel has become one of my personal heroes, at that time a very ordinary young man, a playwright, whose values, thoughts and words creating a revolution in the minds of his people. it is incredible to even imagine that his words in letters, and later from podiums, could lead to the why the world needs heroes 404 peaceful overthrow of a massive dictatorship. it foreshadowed by many years the fall of the berlin wall and the final demise of soviet totalitarianism over much of eastern europe. from thoughts, to words, to actions, to social change but how do mere words change reality? they must reflect the personal virtues of integrity, compassion, and wisdom that all people respect and seek to emulate. next, the words must embody a commitment to action, and the willingness to risk the consequences of a thoughtful decision to act on behalf of others in need, or in defense of a moral cause or social/political principle. putting words into action is akin to sociallyengaged compassion. that also entails suspending our usual egocentric preoccupation while replacing it with the desire for socio-centrism, a genuine concern about making the human connection with others in our life space. in sum, when words reflect considered thoughts based on vital core values, they spark the “heroic imagination” within each of us. such an orientation is a mind set that when internalized becomes the source of powerful personal and societal transformations. it is the antithesis to the “hostile imagination” that fuels a psychology of enmity. it is what every nation’s propaganda machine works to instill in its people, to hate a given enemy enough to suffer war and death of its soldiers to oppose that evil demon. while much research in social psychology, some of which i have contributed to, reveals the strong influences of the social context in dominating individual behavior for the worse, we should also be aware that good people can transform bad or even evil situations for the better. through imaginative involvement and political activism individuals can make heavens of hell. by their collective, selfless actions people can even transform dictatorships into democracies -one enduring lesson of czechoslovakia’s "velvet revolution.” heroic networks and challenges to traditional hero conceptions nelson mandela has since reminded us of the wisdom of gandhi’s non-violent movement that underscored the power of creating networks of individuals who refuse to be oppressed by colonial governments, and who are willing to stand up to and speak out against national policies based on racist ideologies. in the end, goodness triumphs over perpetrators of evil. václav havel has provided another creative model of national liberation from oppression. again, recall the motto of the velvet revolution that overthrew years of tyranny: "truth and love must prevail over europe’s journal of psychology 405 lies and hatred." that same view was evident in the heroic whistleblowing of american daniel ellsberg, whom nixon’s then secretary of state, henry kissenger, termed “the most dangerous man in america.” ellsberg risked a long prison term as a state traitor for revealing top-level secret documents-the pentagon papers-to the media. those annual reports by u.s. generals to each current president all concluded that the war in vietnam was unwinnable, yet there was no good exit strategy. nevertheless, all the presidents continued to pursue the failed war persuading the public that it was indeed winnable. ellsberg’s bold and brave action hastened the end to the vietnam war, and also indirectly led to the demise of president richard nixon, forced to resign over his complicity in attempts to discredit ellsberg. heroes come in many forms, young and old, male and female, who are mostly ordinary, everyday people whose acts of heroism qualify as extra-ordinary. the defining qualities of heroism are: intentional action in service to others in need, or to humanity by defending a moral cause, aware of potential risks and personal costs. so first, we must democratize the notion of heroism away from older views of the select few, who seem not to walk on mortal soil, and to be blessed with inborn super qualities. anyone can be a hero at any time an opportunity arises to stand up for what is right and just, and to speak out against injustice, corruption, and other evils. heroism can be learned, can be taught, can be modeled, and can be a quality of being to which we all should aspire. next, we must defuse the notion of the “solo hero,” such as a military warrior who risks his or her life in battle to save comrades, to embrace the greater value of “heroic networks.” when ordinary people band together to oppose systemic evil of any kind, they become communal heroes. they would be relatively impotent if acting alone. in contrast to “reactive heroes” who act spontaneously in response to an emergency, such as saving a person drowning, most whistle-blowers are “pro-active heroes” who identify a wrong needing to be righted, and typically engage other like-minded people to assist in the investigation or to form a political action committee. christians who aided jews during the holocaust were successful when banding in such networks that could move the children and families from place to place. one outstanding example of such heroism is seen in the mission of polish social worker, irena sendler, who worked tirelessly to save jewish children in the warsaw ghetto from extermination. through devious means she arranged for children to be escorted out of this sure death camp to safety. the network that sendler had created of 20 other polish citizens, who risked their death to save innocent lives of strangers, saved the lives of at least 2,500 children. since that time why the world needs heroes 406 those children have had children and grandchildren, so the gain to life over death numbers more than ten thousand by now! let me add for contrast, a 9 year-old chinese boy, a reactive hero, who saved lives by his quick response to an emergency. a massive earthquake just prior to the beijing olympics destroyed lin hao’s classroom in szechuan province. as he was escaping the devastated classroom, lin noticed two students struggling under the debris. he raced back to save their lives. when asked why he had taken such a risk, he answered assuredly: “i was the hall monitor, it was my job to look after my classmates.” that is a dutiful hero in action. psychology of liberation and the heroic imagination the time has come for us all to help create and enjoy a new ‘psychology of liberation.” it is a compassionate call to arms in opposing all those forces both within and without each individual that diminish the potential for human perfection. it is an invitation to join in a global community that supports those forces that will strengthen the bonds of the human condition -starting with justice, peace, and love. in the end, i believe that each of us has the ability to make a difference in improving the human condition -through acts of kindness, generosity of spirit, and a vision that always seeks to make others feel special, worthwhile, understood and embraced as our kin, especially when they are not of our kind. what inner quality heroes such as, ghandi, václav havel, nelson mandela, martin luther king, jr., daniel ellsberg, irena sendler, and others have that sets them apart from their non-hero acting peers, was the “power of the heroic imagination.” it is a unique mindset that must be internalized and utilized to crystallize beliefs and values into social, political action. such a belief system enables any of us when faced with situational forces that make us feel powerless to rise above and beyond those limitations and gain strength to act wisely and nobly as effective everyday heroes. this heroic imagination gains action force through strengthening our sense of moral courage. the formula for heroism is: heroic imagination plus moral courage equals the willingness and ability to stand up to evil in all its many forms, challenging injustice, inhumanity, indifference, and corruption. recently, i have been able to found and preside over a new san francisco based, non-profit organization, the heroic imagination project, or hip. its revolutionary mission is to sow the seeds of everyday heroes around the earth, starting with youngsters as our ambassadors of heroic deeds, while virally spreading our messages and strategies via the world wide web to their elders, parents, educators, politicians, europe’s journal of psychology 407 and ordinary citizens. our goal is to encourage each of those people to start their personal hero journey one good deed at a time, while learning how to be effective change agents able to cope with and remediate problems in their families, schools, workplaces, communities, and nations. in addition to our education initiative, we are promoting new research on heroism (currently there is very little), corporate initiatives of building corporate cultures of integrity, and public engagement initiatives where we are developing programs of: eco heroes, disability heroes, health heroes, tech heroes, anti-bullying programs, and much more. think big, but start now by doing small, constructive daily social and political actions that in concert are the stuff of everyday heroism. please visit us at: www. heroicimagination.org and take the hero pledge and challenge. about the author: philip g. zimbardo is professor emeritus at stanford university and one of the leading figures of contemporary psychology. having received his b.a. in 1954 from brooklyn college, he completed both his msc and phd at yale university in social psychology. professor zimbardo taught at yale, new york and columbia universities before moving to stanford university in 1968. his distinguished career spans many decades and many research topics including: prisons, time, shyness, madness, violence/evil, persuasion, hypnosis, dissonance, teaching, political psychology, terrorism, and others. one of his best known studies is the famous stanford prison experiment, 1971, exploring the impact of an extreme social context on the behaviour of normal individuals. he has authored more than 200 articles and chapters as well as numerous textbooks. professor zimbardo held two times the position of president of the western psychological association, and is also past president of the american psychological association. he is leading the heroic imagination project, and was involved in establishing the shyness clinic and institute. professor zimbardo is a strong believer in the practical value of psychology, a strong media figure and advocate of the power to change for the better. among his recent books: the lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil (2007); the time paradox: the new psychology of time that will change your life (2008) (with j. boyd). address for correspondence: philip zimbardo, department of psychology, building 420, stanford university, stanford, ca 94305-2130 email: zim@stanford.edu microsoft word 1. editorial.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp.1-2 www.ejop.org the psychology of specialization and specialization in psychology by fathali m. moghaddam georgetown university some years ago i committed blatant heresy by publishing a book that questions one of the sacred beliefs of the modern world; namely, that specialization is necessarily beneficial. this belief has become sacred because it is derived from two lines of argument, each of which is independently taken for granted as received wisdom. the first line of argument derives from the ideas of adam smith (1723-1790), particularly as set out in the wealth of nations. by increasing divisions of labor, smith argued, workers could become more productive, “the division of labour… so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportional increase of the productive powers of labour.” the second line of argument is derived from an even more illustrious source, charles darwin’s (1809-1882) monumental scientific treatise on the origin of species. the theory of evolution seems to imply that specialization is necessary to maximize the utilization of environmental resources, find ‘vacant spaces’, and increase survival chances. taken together, smith and darwin seem to present increasing specialization as an inevitable and necessary path to increasing production and improving survival opportunities. in the specialized society (1997), i argued that specialization in areas such as human education and research should not be designed according to purely materialist criteria, such as ‘productivity’. education and research must give priority to training the ‘whole person’ and to the individual as a unique, independent, complete entity, rather than to shaping the individual as ‘a specialized part of a whole’. i continue to wonder, was i being too idealistic? the sub-title of the specialized society is the plight of the individual in an age of individualism, and i wonder if i was being too idealistic to question and spotlight that plight? graduate education seems to be forcing students into narrower lines of research, which if they are successful will be published in ever more specialized journals. in europe’s journal of psychology 2 every major domain of research, there are now ten and in some instances twenty or forty or fifty times more specialized journals than there were several decades ago. i used to be able to keep up with the half a dozen or so journals in my academic area, but now there are dozens and dozens of specialized journals publishing on topics ‘in my field’ and i do not even keep up with the titles of papers being published. is this trend beneficial? does this trend represent progress? perhaps it does in a way, but these are questions we seldom discuss, because we are all hurrying to publish the next paper in our increasingly specialized journals. we do not have time for such ‘large’ questions, we are too deeply immersed in our specialized lines of research to be able to look about and critically examine the larger picture and our own development as whole persons. this continues to be the plight of the individual in an age of individualism. about the author: fathali moghaddam is professor, department of psychology and director, conflict resolution program, department of government, at georgetown university in washington. he is also senior fellow at the center for interdisciplinary policy, education and research on terrorism. prof. moghaddam has been published extensively on the psychology of intergroup conflict, subjective justice, radicalization, and terrorism. he was awarded the lifetime achievement award in 2007 by the american psychological association's society for the study of peace, conflict and violence. among his publications: the specialized society: the plight of the individual in a age of individualism (1997); social psychology: exploring universals across cultures (1998); from the terrorists' point of view: what they experience and why they come to destroy (2006) and multiculturalism and intergroup relations: psychological implications for democracy in global context (2008). effect of chronic disease on romantic partner choice loredana ruxandra gherasim associated lecturer faculty of psychology and education sciences, department of psychology alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi, romania andreea mihaela mihalca msc candidate faculty of psychology and education sciences, department of psychological counseling and psychotherapy babes-bolyai university, romania abstract background: interpersonal attraction is influenced by many factors like physical attraction, similarity or proximity. the impact of chronic illnesses on romantic relationships hasn’t been studied very deeply. method. an experimental study was completed in order to analyze how the chronic disease influences the choice of a romantic partner and the compensatory role of partner’s personality traits on relationship assessment. five hundred and forty undergraduate students (270 men and 270 women from 18 to 31 years old) participated in this experiment. results. the effect of chronic disease upon romantic partner’s choice proved to depend on the type of partner’s personality traits. the positive personality traits compensated the physical chronic disease and the chronic diseases compensated the negative traits of personality. this study is one of the few done in this field and brought valuable information’s about ill person’s assessment as a partner in a romantic relationship. keywords: chronic disease, romantic availability, personality traits, gender, choosing a romantic partner during the years, numerous studies have been completed in order to identify the factors that established interpersonal relationship and romantic partner choice. there are many theories that explain interpersonal attraction: the proximity effect (berscheid & reis, 1998, byrne 1997), the similarity theory (klohnen & luo, 2003, berscheid, 1985), the reciprocal linking (kenny, 1994, murray & col., 1998), the physical attraction (berscheid & reis, 1998). there are also more theories that tried to explain attraction and love: the social exchange theory (rusbult, martz & agnew, 1998), the equality theory (clark, 1984), the evolutionist theory (buss, 1996) and the socio-cultural perspective of couple’s relationship (archer, 1996). even if there are numerous studies regarding human attitudes toward ill persons, only few researches focused on the attitude toward the intimate relationship and marriage with ill persons. the negative attitude and the increased social distance regarding ill persons are well documented, studies demonstrating that mental diseased and retarded persons are the least socially accepted (corrigan & col., 2001; link & phelan, 1999). some of the researches indicated that healthy individuals perceive their interactions with ill ones as being difficult, forced and discomfort inducing (evans, 1976). healthy persons consider ill individuals as being more socially anxious, uneasy about dating, less likely to date (fichten, 1989). the cultural perspective on mental illness explains the interaction difficulties through the existing social stereotypes, ill persons being perceived as having more undesirable characteristics (link & phelan, 1999; martin, pescosolido & tuch, 2000). it seems that an increased social contact and a better understanding of illness improve the attitude toward ill persons (corrigan & col., 2001; link & phelan, 1999). some authors consider that the attitude regarding ill persons has to be examined in a certain social context and for certain types of illnesses. so, it has been found that people have a more positive attitude regarding ill persons at work than when it comes about intimate relationship and marriage (wright, 1988; grand, bernier & strohmer, 1982). also, people have a more positive attitude regarding persons with physical diseases than the ones with mental diseases, avoidance tendency increasing with the severity of disease’s symptoms (socall & holtgraves, 1992). based on these findings, this research focuses on the impact of chronic disease on romantic partner choice. the study started from the hypothesis that the romantic availability for a heterosexual relationship with a person suffering of a chronic disease (physical or psychological) depends on target’s personality traits and on the gender of the person who makes the choice. method participants five hundred and forty undergraduate students (270 men and 270 women from 18 to 31 years old) from alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi participated voluntary in this experiment. the experiment followed a 2 (gender: men vs. women) x 3 (information type: positive, negative and control) x 3 (chronic disease type: physical, psychological and control) factorial design. instruments: in a preliminary study (n=270, 135 men, 135 women aged 19-25 years) undergraduate students were asked to describe specific initiating and avoiding behaviors of heterosexual romantic relationships in order to make an instrument to measure the availability for romantic relationship. the final form of availability for romantic relationship scale (arr) had an increased level of internal consistency (α=0.83), likewise for initiating romantic relationship subscale (irr, α=0.95) and avoiding romantic relationship subscale (avrr, α=0.92). to manipulate the type of chronic disease there were used descriptions of physical and psychological chronic diseases from scientific literature (giorgianni, grana & scipioni, 2001, wahl, 2003) and those done by 17 students in the last year from university of medicine of iasi (i. e. the person is suffering from a long term disease (lasting more than three months) which isn’t spontaneously cured; periods of amelioration alternate with acute periods (of relapse); general evolution of the disease is towards progressive aggravation; the person needs long-life treatments and observations, but will never be completely cured; on long terms, may appear complications that affect more organs, leaving behind disabilities for physical chronic disease or involution of psychological capacities for psychological chronic disease). these general descriptions of physical and psychological chronic diseases were subsequently evaluated by undergraduate students (n=20, 10 men and 10 women aged 20-25 years), in order to assess the level of recognition of those two types of chronic diseases. to manipulate the type of personality information 5 positive adjective traits (i.e. sincere, tender, understanding) and 5 negative adjective traits (i.e. arrogant, liar, selfish) were used, resulted from a preliminary survey in which undergraduate students (n=90, 45 men and 45 women aged 20-26 years), were asked to specify personality traits that they would, and respectively, would not like their partners to have. procedure first of all subjects received information about target’s personality, some of the participants receiving the negative traits, others the positive ones and others no information about the target’s personality traits. then, the subjects from each group received the description of the physical chronic disease, or the description of the psychological chronic disease, or no information about the presence of the chronic disease. the disease type manipulation messages contained information about the long lasting and oscillating disease evolution, the long term effects (physical disabilities for the physical disease condition and the involution of the psychological capacities for the psychological disease condition) and about the treatment necessity and permanent observation of the ill person. finally, participants filled out the availability for romantic relationship scale (arr), consisting of 67 items, 38 out of them measuring the initiation of a romantic relationship (i.e. “i initiate discussion to identify common interest points”) and 25 items focused on the relationship avoidance (i.e. “i avoid the groups of friends he/she is a part of”). participants were asked to evaluate each item on a scale with 6 points, from total disagreement (1) to total agreement (6). results the data were analyzed by univaried analyses of variance (anovas) for information type, chronic disease type and gender. the main effect of the information type emerged for scores of arr (f(2,539)=50,841; p table 1 means of arr scale, and irr and avrr subscales by information type and chronic disease type no –no information, pi–positive information, ni–negative information the 2 x 3 (gender x chronic disease type) anova on scores of availability for romantic relationship indicated a main significant effect of the subject’s gender on the arr scores (f(1,539)=7,10; p table 2 means of arr scale, and irr and avrr subscales by chronic disease type and gender discussion this study started from the small number of studies regarding the theme of romantic relationships with persons suffering of degenerating chronic diseases and it focused on the ill person’s assessment as a partner in a romantic relationship. the results indicated that the availability for romantic relationship isn’t dependent on the presence of chronic disease, this being salient only in association with the information about the target’s personality and the gender of the person who makes the choice. when the chronic disease wasn’t mentioned, the romantic relationship with persons who have negative traits was least preferred. these results indicate that people evaluate the implications that partner’s personality traits has on the romantic relationship, negative information having a stronger impact on the evaluation than the positive ones has (ito & col., 1998). it seems that people feel the need for having agreeable persons around and this may explain the tendency to make “the person with positive traits” assumption even for the targets they have no information about. the visibility of stigma could explain the reduced romantic availability in physical chronic disease condition compared to no disease condition (corrigan & col., 2001, joachim & acorn, 2000). the psychological chronic diseases are not so visible; in consequence, the stigmatization couldn’t be achieved from the first interaction. stigma associated with the ill person may be transferred upon the romantic partner, this being the so called “tribal stigma” (joachim & acorn, 2000). the low romantic availability, no matter the type of chronic disease, could be explained by the responsibilities and costs involved in this kind of relationship. it was also found that only the physical chronic diseases are compensated by the positive traits, the psychological chronic diseases being even more prejudiced when giving the negative information. the compensation of physical chronic disease by the positive traits could be the consequence of the increased interactions with this category of persons; this leading to a decrease of prejudices (corrigan and col., 2001; link & phelan, 1999). the compensation of psychological chronic disease by positive traits would be in contradiction with the prejudice regarding this kind of persons, like lack of judgment or antisocial behaviors (link & phelan, 1999; martin, pescosolido & tuch, 2000). otherwise, the negative personality traits are compensated by the presence of degenerating chronic disease and this indicates that the reasons why the negative traits emerge have an important role in assessment. so, it is possible for the participants to consider the negative personality traits as being consequences of lack of disease control, defense or uprising modalities against their chronic disease. the chronic disease effect on the availability for romantic relationship depends on the gender of the one who makes the assessment. it turned out that both sexes are interested in a possible romantic relationship with an ill person. the only difference found was in the type of chronic disease they “preferred” in their possible romantic partner. so, men are more available to romantic relationships with partners suffering of psychological chronic disease than women are. the results sustain the evolutionist theory, according to which men are looking for women with a good capacity of reproduction, being more focused on the female physical aspect than on their mental health (archer, 1996). on the other hand, women showed an increased level of interest for those relationships that involved partners suffering of a physical chronic disease. these results contradict the ideas of evolutionist theory that sustains that women look for men that will provide the material support needed for raising their children. in fact, the results sustain the social role theory according to which women assume the role of the family caregiver (archer, 1996). in all, the results of this research showed that even if there are differences in the availability for romantic relationships with persons suffering from chronic disease, this group of people isn’t significantly avoided. the mystery surrounding the chronic disease and the desire of knowing may break out in others the desire to connect with this group of people too. limits: a limit of this study is the lack of evaluation of participant’s level of understanding of the implications that chronic disease has upon the romantic partner; participants may have different levels of comprehension of the effects of partner’s physical or psychological chronic disease upon them. also, there was no evaluation of the presence of a person suffering from a chronic disease in participant’s life and of the type of this relationship, nor of the implication of the participant in a current romantic relationship, things that could influence the results. likewise, it wasn’t mentioned what type of romantic relationship the participants had to think about, in consequence, we don’t know if the participants though about a long term or short term relationship, or about a relationship with someone to have children with and settle down or about a companion but not marriage. further research: this study does not analyze in exhaustion the impact of chronic disease on romantic relationships. the effects of chronic diseases could be analyzed within a more complex factors assembly that influences the choice of a romantic partner. it is possible to analyze the romantic availability for a relationship with a person suffering of a degenerating chronic disease based on the short term or long term relationship duration that can be finalized with a possible marriage. it is also possible to study unmarried but stable couples in which one is suffering of a degenerating chronic disease, in order to identify what specific elements compensate the chronic disease and what are the reasons that maintain this kind of relationship. biographical notes loredana ruxandra gherasim, associated lecturer at alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi faculty of psychology and education sciences, department of psychology, toma cozma street, no 3, iasi, romania, e-mail gloreda@uaic.ro, tel: +40 741 785739. she has competences in social cognitive psychology domain in which she is preparing the phd thesis and in which she has published articles (like, “gender or genders of the social representation of power”, social psychology review, 2005, 14, 49-69; “mental map of romania a source to maintain the self-esteem in self-image threatening situations”, social psychology review, 2002, 8, 77-90). also, she has attended national (like “effects of learned helplessness on academic performance”, conference organized by romanian psychologists association, neptun, romania, 2002) and international conferences (like, “depression and learned helplessness: reactions to exposure to lack of control” in 5th international conference of phd students, university of miskolc, miskolc hungary, 2005; “the influence of ego-discrepancies on the self-evaluation of rich and poor attributes”, in international conference “povertypsychosocial aspects”, iaşi, romania, 1998 “) with papers in this field. andreea mihaela mihalca, msc candidate, at babes-bolyai university, faculty of psychology and education sciences, department of psychological counseling and psychotherapy, republicii street, no 37, cluj-napoca, romania, e-mail: mi_deea@yahoo.com, tel: +40 740 248076. she has graduated alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi, faculty of psychology and education sciences, general psychology specialization in 2005. this paper is an abstract of her diploma thesis at which she has collaborated with loredana gherasim. references archer, j. 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(1988). attitudes and the fundamental negative bias: conditions and corrections. in h.e. yuker (ed.), attitudes toward people with disabilities (pp. 3-21). new york: springer. correlations between hexaco scales and ei and humor scales europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 9-33 www.ejop.org a behav ioral genetic study of relationships between humor styles and the six hexaco personality factors livia veselka department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada julie a. schermer management and organizational studies, university of western ontario, london, canada rod a. martin department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada lynn f. cherkas twin research and genetic epidemiology unit, king’s college london, uk tim d. spector twin research and genetic epidemiology unit, king’s college london, uk philip a. vernon department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada abstract in this study, four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, self-defeating) were assessed in conjunction with a measure of the hexaco model of personality, in order to gain greater insight into the etiology of these humor styles, and to situate them better in the framework of human personality. participants were 664 monozygotic twin pairs and 522 dizygotic twin pairs from the united kingdom who completed the humor styles questionnaire and the hexaco personality inventory. univariate behavioral genetic analyses of the hexaco revealed that individual differences in all of its dimensions were entirely attributable to additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors. significant phenotypic correlations were found between many of the hexaco factors http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 10 and the four humor styles, and bivariate behavioral genetic analyses revealed that these correlations were themselves accounted for entirely by correlated genetic and correlated non-shared environmental factors. our study adds to the literature validating humor as a personality construct and assessing its relations to psychological well-being. key words: humor styles, hexaco model of personality, behavioral genetics, individual differences. over the past several years, there has been a dramatic shift in the way psychologists perceive humor. no longer v iewed as a one-dimensional construct with consistently beneficial effects on physical and psychosocial well-being (e.g., lefcourt, 2001; martin, 2001), humor is now defined by a complex collection of traits that relate to both beneficial and deleterious outcomes (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, grey, & weir, 2003). most recently, the notion of humor styles—different ways of expressing and using humor—has attracted a substantial empirical following (martin et al. , 2003). while a considerable portion of the emerging research has focused on better understanding these styles (e.g., chen & martin, 2007; frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008), very little is centered upon situating these styles within various frameworks of human personality, and understanding their etiology in the context of these frameworks. although some research is available that examines humor styles in conjunction with the big five model—the conventional structure of human personality (e.g., vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008b)—studies assessing different and more elaborate structures of personality in relation to humor do not exist. given that there is still a lack of consensus as to the true structure of personality (lee & ashton, 2004), and a continuing debate as to the number of higher-order dimensions that are needed to account for the variance in human personality (e.g., veselka, schermer, petrides, & vernon, 2009, but see also ashton, lee, goldberg, and de vries, 2009), this restricted focus on the big five model in personality research is not justified. with this in mind, the present study focuses on humor styles in relation to the hexaco model—an alternative structure of personality comprising six rather than five higher-order dimensions (ashton & lee, 2001). in addition to reporting the first behavioral genetic investigation of the hexaco model, our study assesses the phenotypic correlations between the four humor styles and the six dimensions of this model. further, by using data obtained from samples of twins, the study explores the extent to which obtained phenotypic correlations are attributable to correlated genetic and/or correlated environmental factors. behavioral genetic study 11 development and behavioral genetic investigation of the hexaco model throughout most of the 20th century, little consensus existed regarding the structure of human personality (lee & ashton, 2004). several models were put forth, offering varying numbers of higher-order dimensions (e.g., cattell, 1946; eysenck, 1947; wiggins, 1979), but with the exception of eysenck’s p-e-n model, none gained an especially strong following. by the 1980s, however, the research community began to embrace the idea that variation in human personality was attributable to five broad, roughly orthogonal dimensions (e.g., goldberg, 1990; saucier & goldberg, 1996). collectively named the "big five" (goldberg, 1990), these factors comprised extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect/imagination. costa & mccrae (1985) incorporated these five dimensions into their personality questionnaire research, which led them to propose the existence of a five factor model of personality—a model very similar, though not identical, to the big five. since the emergence of five-factor models of personality, lexical investigations carried out in a number of different languages have pointed to the potential existence of more elaborate personality models. specifically, studies conducted in german (angleitner & ostendorf, 1989), dutch (de raad, 1992), korean (hahn, lee, & ashton, 1999), and french (boies, lee, ashton, pascal, & nicol, 2001) have all noted the existence of a sixth factor of personality in addition to the conventional five—one that touches upon sincerity and modesty. moreover, studies carried out in hungarian and i talian have confirmed a five-factor solution of human personality structure, but have defined the fifth factor as reflecting integrity and trustworthiness rather than the conventional intellect/imagination (e.g., de raad & szirmak, 1994; di blas & forzi, 1998). taking these results into account, ashton and lee (2001) proposed the hexaco model of personality, which is composed of six distinct dimensions. five of these dimensions are conceptually similar to those of the big five (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotionality, and openness to experience). the sixth factor is labeled honesty-humility, and is defined by characteristics such as modesty, fairness, sincerity, and lack of greed (lee & ashton, 2004). although behavioral genetic analyses of the hexaco model have not yet been undertaken, the big five factors of personality have been investigated using this approach, the results of which shed some light on the potential etiology of at least some of the hexaco dimensions. across the great majority of the available studies, there is a consensus that indiv idual differences in the big five dimensions are attributable primarily to genetic and non-shared environmental factors (i.e., things europe’s journal of psychology 12 which one twin experiences but which their co-twin does not experience; for example, having different friends or being assigned to different teachers at school), with negligible contribution from the shared environment (i.e., things which both twins have in common; such as growing up in the same homes or going on vacations together with their parents) (e.g., jang, livesley, & vernon, 1996; jang, mccrae, angleitner, riemann, & livesley, 1998; loehlin, 1992; riemann, angleitner, & strelau, 1997). further research by loehlin, mccrae, costa, and john (1998) has shown that the big five dimensions are all approximately equally heritable, and that these heritabilities do not differ significantly across sexes. most recently, johnson, vernon, and feiler (2008) rev iewed every behavioral genetic study of the big five and related personality traits that had ever been conducted: they found 145 such studies, carried out between 1955 and 2007, and their rev iew confirmed that additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors accounted for the majority of the variance in these traits. their rev iew, and the other investigations referred to above, however, did not include the sixth hexaco factor of honesty-humility, which does not have a big five analogue, and therefore information on the genetic and/or environmental etiology of this factor is currently not available. humor styles and their personality correlates humor styles were first introduced in early psychological research, where it was observed that certain uses of humor (e.g., perspective-taking, affiliative) were linked to positive psychological functioning, whereas other forms of humor (e.g., sarcastic, disparaging) were associated with more negative outcomes (e.g., allport, 1961; freud, 1928; maslow, 1954). however, it was martin et al. (2003) who formally proposed the existence of distinct humor styles—two positive and two negative— after noting that prev ious empirical studies had found only weak associations between measures of humor and mental health variables (e.g., kuiper & martin, 1998; thorson, powell, sarmany-schuller, & hampes, 1997), and inconsistent relations between humor and physical health constructs (martin, 2001). specifically, martin et al. (2003) proposed the existence of affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and selfdefeating styles of humor. affiliative humor is a non-hostile form of humor that is intended to amuse others as a way of facilitating relationships. self-enhancing humor sees indiv iduals finding amusement in life's hardships and incongruities, allowing them to maintain a humorous outlook even when faced with adversity. aggressive humor is a form of disparaging humor that entails sarcasm and put-downs, and which can be used to manipulate others. finally, self-defeating humor involves saying funny things at one's behavioral genetic study 13 own expense in order to gain approval, and laughing along with others when one is being ridiculed. only the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles have been linked positively to psychological well-being, whereas aggressive and self-defeating humor styles tend to be negatively associated with well-being and relationship satisfaction (e.g., kazarian & martin, 2006; martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). in developing the theory behind these humor styles, martin et al. (2003) also assessed associations between the styles and the big five factors of personality. the authors found that the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles were positively associated with extraversion and openness, with self-enhancing humor further correlating positively with agreeableness. additionally, significant negative correlations were noted between the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles and the factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness. finally, significant relations between neuroticism and some of the humor styles were observed, with the self-enhancing humor styles correlating negatively with this dimension, and the aggressive and self defeating styles correlating positively. these findings were largely replicated by vernon, martin, schermer, and mackie (2008). given the relatively novel status of the hexaco model, it has not yet been assessed in terms of its relations to the humor styles. while the existing research examining the correlations between the big five dimensions and the four styles of humor does shed some light on the manner in which five of the six hexaco factors would be expected to relate to the humor styles, this research does not prov ide any clues about the hexaco factor of honesty-humility. prev ious work that has noted a positive association between fairness and well-being (e.g., sparr & sonnentag, 2008; tortia, 2008) suggests that a positive relation between honesty-humility and the two positive humor styles will be found, because the latter have also been linked to wellbeing (e.g., kazarian & martin, 2006; martin et al., 2003). i t might also imply negative correlations between this hexaco dimension and the two negative humor styles, which tend to be negatively associated with mental health (e.g., martin et al., 2003). these suggestions are at this point quite speculative, however, and require empirical inquiry. previous behavioral genetic analyses of humor styles early research on the behavioral genetic origins of variation in humor focused on humor appreciation, which assessed the extent to which participants perceived target material as being funny (vernon, martin, schermer, cherkas, & spector, 2008a). results from these studies indicated that indiv idual differences in humor europe’s journal of psychology 14 appreciation were primarily attributable to shared and non-shared environmental factors (e.g., cherkas, hochberg, macgregor, snieder, & spector, 2000; nias & wilson, 1977; wilson, rust, & kasriel, 1977). later assessments of humor, however, noted that the construct of humor appreciation, though legitimate, w as not related to one’s ability to produce or to engage in humor, and was therefore not a valid representation of sense of humor or humor style (köhler & ruch, 1996). as such, subsequent behavioral genetic research on humor shifted to assess indiv idual differences in sense of humor, which represents the extent to which indiv iduals notice and enjoy humor, maintain a cheerful outlook, and laugh and smile frequently (e.g., martin, 1996). findings from these studies suggested that variation in sense of humor is partly heritable (loehlin & nichols, 1976), and attributable to a combination of genetic and non-shared environmental factors (e.g., manke, 1998). most recently, behavioral genetic research on humor has begun to focus on humor styles. vernon et al. (2008a) carried out the seminal study assessing the potential etiology of humor styles, and found that indiv idual differences in all of the styles were accounted for by genetic, shared, and non-shared environmental factors. specifically, they observed that the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles were primarily influenced by genetic and non-shared environmental effects, with only a negligible contribution from shared environmental factors. variation in the aggressive and self-defeating styles, on the other hand, was mainly attributable to shared and non-shared environmental factors. the researchers further carried out a bivariate behavioral genetic investigation to assess the extent to which phenotypic correlations between the four humor styles and the big five factors of personality were attributable to common genetic and/or environmental factors. results revealed that the obtained phenotypic correlations were entirely accounted for by correlated genetic and correlated unique environmental factors. no significant shared environmental correlations were noted between the variables. these results suggest that both the humor styles and the big five dimensions share some of the same genetic and non-shared environmental determinants. bivariate behavioral genetic studies that employ humor style variables have not yet been carried out in conjunction with personality structures other than the big five, meaning that shared etiological factors underlying the hexaco dimensions and the four humor styles have not yet been assessed. the work of vernon et al. (2008a) prov ides a good basis for this type of research, given that five factors of the hexaco model are very similar to the big five, and may therefore yield similar results. the honesty-humility factor, however, has not been explored in relation to humor styles, and will therefore make a novel contribution to this area of research. behavioral genetic study 15 present study the purpose of the present study was to gain a greater understanding of humor styles by examining them in relation to an alternative model of personality—that of the hexaco. in this study, humor styles were measured using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) and the hexaco factors were assessed using the short form hexaco-60 (ashton & lee, 2009). univariate behavioral genetic analyses were first employed to investigate the extent to which indiv idual differences in the hexaco factors can be accounted for by genetic and/or environmental factors—findings that are important for better understanding results at the bivariate level (plomin, 1986). phenotypic correlations between the four humor styles and the six hexaco dimensions were then computed to determine the relations between these sets of constructs, and to situate the humor styles into an alternative personality model other than the big five. finally, bivariate behavioral genetic analyses w ere carried out to assess the extent to which any obtained phenotypic correlations are attributable to common genetic and/or environmental factors. these analyses will prov ide a deeper glimpse into the potential etiology of humor styles in relation to personality structure dimensions. in the univariate behavioral genetic assessment of the hexaco model, it was predicted that variation in all six dimensions w ould be accounted for by genetic and non-shared environmental factors. as noted above, prev ious studies of the big five factors of personality, which are roughly analogous to five of the six hexaco factors, exhibit this pattern of results. although no previous etiological work has been done on the variables characterizing the sixth factor of honesty-humility, or on the dimension itself, it was expected that it would behave as most personality variables do—showing primarily genetic and non-shared environmental effects (johnson et al., 2008). in terms of phenotypic correlations, it was predicted that the positive and negative styles of humor would exhibit different patterns of associations with the hexaco dimensions. specifically, based on prev ious findings with the big five model (e.g., martin et al., 2003; vernon et al., 2008b), it was expected that affiliative and selfenhancing humor styles would correlate positively with the hexaco factors of extraversion and openness. i t was also expected that aggressive and self-defeating humor would correlate negatively with agreeableness and conscientiousness, and positively with emotionality—the hexaco analogue to the big five’s neuroticism. finally, an additional positive correlation was predicted between agreeableness and self-enhancing humor. with regard to the honesty-humility dimension, it is europe’s journal of psychology 16 plausible that this might correlate positively with the two positive humor styles, given that these humor styles as well as the honesty-humility factor all show associations with psychosocial well-being (e.g., martin et al., 2003). by the same token, it was expected that the two negative humor styles would show negative correlations with honesty-humility, because they tend to be negatively associated with well-being (e.g., kazarian & martin, 2006). finally, it was predicted that the bivariate behavioral genetic analyses would show that the phenotypic correlations between the humor styles and the hexaco dimensions would be accounted for by correlated genetic and correlated nonshared environmental factors. this prediction is especially salient for the hexaco dimensions that are similar to those of the big five, given that the correlations between these big five dimensions and the four humor styles have previously been shown to be attributable to genetic and unique environmental effects. because there is presently no large body of research dealing with the personality correlates of the honesty-humility dimension of the hexaco, predicting its behavior under bivariate behavioral genetic investigation with the four humor styles is less straightforward. i t was, however, suggested that any observed correlations between the humor styles and honesty-humility would also be accounted for by correlated genetic and non-shared environmental factors, based on the pattern of results obtained with other higher-order personality dimensions (e.g., vernon et al., 2008a). method participants participants in the present study were 1,186 pairs of twins: 664 monozygotic (mz) twin pairs (604 female pairs and 60 male pairs) and 522 dizygotic (dz) twin pairs (482 female pairs and 40 male pairs). although there are many more females than males in our samples, this is not uncommon in research with twins (lykken, mcgue, & tellegen, 1987) but is particularly exaggerated in our sample because the original focus of research with these twins was the genetics of osteoporosis and osteoarthritis: conditions which are much more common among females. twins ranged in age from 18 to 92 years (m = 56.4, sd = 13.2), and were participants in ongoing studies conducted by the department of twin research and genetic epidemiology (dtr) at king’s college london in england. this department mails out questionnaires to approximately 9,000 indiv idual twins each year. the zygosity of participating twins has been established by means of genome scans (100% accurate), dna tests (99.5% accurate), or by responses to the ―peas in a pod‖ zygosity questionnaire (95% behavioral genetic study 17 accurate). twins taking part are not compensated for their participation. materials humor styles questionnaire (hsq). indiv idual differences in four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating) were assessed using the 32-item hsq (martin et al., 2003). each item of the hsq presents a self -reflective statement pertaining to humor. participants indicate the extent to which they agree with each statement using a 7-point likert scale (where 1 = totally disagree and 7 = totally agree). example items include: "i enjoy making people laugh" (affiliative); "i f i 'm by myself and i`m feeling unhappy, i make an effort to think of something funny to cheer myself up" (self-enhancing); "i f i don't like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down" (aggressive); and "letting others laugh at me is my way of keeping my friends and family in good spirits‖ (self-defeating). reliabilities of the scales are .81 for self-enhancing humor, 80 for affiliative and self-defeating humor, and .77 for aggressive humor. hexaco personality inventory. participants also completed the 60-item hexaco personality inventory (hexaco-60; ashton & lee, 2009), which assesses indiv idual differences in six personality dimensions—conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, emotionality, and honesty-humility. participants responded to self-reflective statements on this questionnaire v ia a 5point likert scale (where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). internal consistency reliabilities for the scales have been reported to range between .77 and .80 in a sample of college students and between .73 and .80 in a community sample (ashton & lee, 2009). procedure in november 2008, approximately 9000 indiv idual twins were mailed a questionnaire which included the hexaco-60 as well as additional questions that are not pertinent to the present study. approximately 5000 indiv idual twins (56%) returned the completed questionnaires and, of these, a total of 3012 were complete same-sex pairs (837 mz pairs and 669 dz pairs). two years earlier, the questionnaire mail-out included the hsq, and 664 mz and 522 dz twin pairs had completed this as well as the hexaco. twins completed the questionnaires at their own time in their homes, and returned them to the dtr. europe’s journal of psychology 18 analyses even though the majority of the participating twins completed the questionnaires in full, there were rare instances in which an item was left blank. in these cases, the missing information was replaced with the average of the item’s likert scale. subsequently, the items of the hsq were reduced to four scores reflecting the four humor styles being assessed. similarly, the items of the hexaco-60 were converted to six unique scores corresponding to the six dimensions of the hexaco model of personality. prior to analysis, all data were corrected for age and sex v ia the regression approach proposed by mcgue and bouchard (1984). this controls for any age or sex differences which might exist (see below) and is particularly important given the much greater number of females than males in our sample. when conducting univariate behavioral genetic analyses, members of each twin pair were randomly designated as ―twin 1‖ or ―twin 2‖ and between-twin correlations were then calculated separately for mzs and dzs. structural equation model-fitting was then carried out using the software package mx (neale, boker, xie, & maes, 2006) to estimate the extent to which indiv idual differences can be attributed to additive genetic (a), shared environmental (c), and non-shared environmental factors (e). although it is possible to fit reduced models to data (e.g., ae, ce), we did not do so in the present analysis due to the recommendations of sullivan and eaves (2002). these researchers have suggested that such reduced models yield oversimplified rather than more parsimonious results, whereas full ace models prov ide accurate estimates for discrete traits. bivariate bg analyses were also performed using mx. these analyses estimate the extent to which observed phenotypic correlations between variables are attributable to common genetic and/or common environmental influences by examining the cross-correlations within twin-pairs (i.e., the correlation between one twin’s score on one variable with their co-twin’s score on another variable) using the method of cholesky or triangular factor analysis (neale & cardon, 1992). in conducting these analyses, a full ace model was tested as well as reduced ae and ce models: the model with the lowest chi-square value and lowest aic value is chosen as the best fitting model. for each of the correlations reported in table 2 below, an ae model was found to have the best fit, resulting in estimates of genetic (rg) and non-shared environmental (re) correlations. behavioral genetic study 19 results given the large size of our samples, not surprisingly significant sex differences were found on most of the variables. in fact, of the six hexaco and the four hsq variables, significant differences existed on all except conscientiousness and openness. females obtained significantly higher scores on honesty-humility, emotionality, and agreeableness (all 2-tailed p < .0001); males scored significantly higher than females on extraversion (p < .05, 2-tailed) and on all four hsq humor styles (all 2-tailed p < .05). these findings are not atypical, particularly for emotionality, honesty, and aggressive humor (e.g., ashton & lee, 2009; chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006), although it also bears noting that the actual mean differences between males and females were quite small. we also found significant correlations between age and all hexaco and hsq variables except openness, although these were again quite small, ranging from .04 for age and selfenhancing humor to -.21 for age and affiliative humor. though small, these significant age and sex effects nonetheless need to be (and were) controlled for before conducting the analyses that follow. twin correlations and parameter estimates derived from univariate behavior genetic analyses of the six hexaco dimensions are presented in table 1. for all of the dimensions, mz correlations were substantially larger than dz correlations, implying the existence of genetic effects. model-fitting results clarified these effects by revealing that indiv idual differences in the higher-order hexaco factors can be accounted for entirely by genetic and non-shared environmental effects. genetic effects were particularly strong for the hexaco dimension of openness to experience (.59) while conscientiousness exhibited the lowest contribution from genetic factors (.32). this is the first report on the heritability of t he hexaco dimensions and it is of interest that honesty– the dimension unique to the hexaco model– shows a similar degree of genetic influence (.35) as several of the other more traditional dimensions. table 1 twin correlations and parameter estimates for the hexaco dimensions variables correlations parameter estimates (95% ci) mz dz a2 c2 e2 honesty .36 .14 .35 (.22 to .40) .00 (.00 to .11) .65 (.60 to .71) emotionality .49 .23 .48 (.30 to .00 (.00 to .52 (.48 to .58) europe’s journal of psychology 20 .52) .15) extraversion .48 .14 .45 (.36 to .50) .00 (.00 to .07) .55 (.50 to .60) agreeableness .40 .12 .37 (.28 to .42) .00 (.00 to .07) .63 (.58 to .68) conscientiousn ess .33 .16 .32 (.14 to .38) .00 (.00 to .16) .68 (.62 to .74) openness .59 .28 .59 (.48 to .63) .00 (.00 to .10) .41 (.37 to .46) note. a2 = additive genetic effects; c2 = shared environmental effects; e2 = nonshared environmental effects; ci = confidence interval. all effects whose confidence intervals do not include zero are significant at the .05 level. the results of univariate genetic analyses of the hsq within this sample have been reported previously (vernon, martin, schermer, cherkas, & spector, 2008). in brief, in this uk sample of twins indiv idual differences in all four humor styles were found to be attributable to additive genetic and non-shared environmental factors, with heritability estimates ranging between .34 (self-defeating humor) and .49 (affiliative humor). phenotypic correlations (rp) between the hsq and the hexaco-60 are shown in table 2. from these correlations, it is ev ident that the affiliative and self -enhancing humor styles are positively associated with hexaco`s extraversion and openness to experience and to a lesser extent with conscientiousness. both positiv e humor styles are also negatively correlated with the model`s emotionality dimension. affiliative humor also shows a small but significant negative correlation with the honestyhumility factor, while self-enhancing humor correlates positively with agreeableness. as would be expected, aggressive and self-defeating humor styles are negatively related to hexaco`s honesty-humility, agreeableness, and conscientiousness factors. self-defeating humor shows a positive correlation with the emotionality dimension, whereas aggressive humor has a small but significant negative behavioral genetic study 21 correlation. self-defeating humor also has a small but significant negative correlation with extraversion. table 2 phenotypic (rp,) genetic (rg) and environmental (re) correlations with confidence interval values between the hexaco dimensions and the humor styles measured by the hsq hsq scales affiliative self-enhancing aggressive self-defeating h rp = -.06* rg = -.10 (-.23 to .02) re = -.03 (-.10 to .04) rp = .01 rg = -.03 (-.17 to .11) re = .02(-.05 to .09) rp = -.33* rg = -.55 (-.43 to .76) re = -.18 (-.12 to .25) rp = -.16* rg = -.21 (-.08 to .35) re = -.12 (-.05 to .19) em rp = -.09* rg = -.09 (-.19 to .02) re = -.10 (-.02 to .18) rp = -.17* rg = -.26 (-.14 to .37) re = -.11 (-.04 to .18) rp = -.07* rg = -.20 (-.09 to .31) re = .03 (-.04 to .10) rp = .15* rg = .14 (.03 to .25) re = .13 (.06 to .20) ex rp = .42* rg = .61(.53 to .69) re = .26 (.19 to .32) rp = .39* rg = .60 (.50 to .70) re = .23 (.16 to .29) rp = .03 rg = .09 (-.02 to .20) re = -.01 (-.07 to .07) rp = -.08* rg = -.12 (-.23 to .01) re = -.04 (-.11 to .03) a rp = -.01 rg = -.10 (-.22 to .01) re = .07 (-.01 to .14) rp = .19* rg = .16 (.04 to .29) re = .19 (.12 to .25) rp = -.27* rg = -.47 (-.36 to .59) re = -.13 (-.06 to .20) rp = -.06* rg = -.14 (-.02 to .27) re = -.01 (-.07 to .07) c rp = .10* rg = .25 (.13 to .38) re = -.02 (-.09 to .05) rp = .06* rg = .08 (-.06 to .22) re = .03 (-.04 to .10) rp = -.16* rg = -.18 (-.05 to .31) re = -.15 (-.08 to .22) rp = -.15* rg = -.19 (-.06 to .32) re = -.12 (-.05 to .19) europe’s journal of psychology 22 o rp = .20* rg = .29 (.21 to .38) re = .09 (.02 to .16) rp = .17* rg = .28 (.19 to .38) re = .06 (-.01 to .14) rp = -.05 rg = -.04 (-.14 to .06) re = -.06 (-.13 to .01) rp = .03 rg = .11 (.07 to .21) re = -.06 (-.13 to .01) note. h = honesty-humility. em = emotionality. ex = extraversion. a = agreeableness. c = conscientiousness. o = openness to experience. rg = genetic correlation. rc = shared environmental correlation. re = non-shared environmental correlation. numbers appearing in brackets represent the 95% confidence interval values. all correlations whose confidence intervals do not include zero are significant at the .05 level. *p < .01, two-tailed. the bivariate model-fitting results are also reported in table 2 and reveal that the phenotypic correlations between the hexaco and the hsq are entirely attributable to correlated genetic (rg) and correlated non-shared environmental (re) factors. for the positive humor styles, significant genetic correlations can be seen between affiliative humor and extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, and between self-enhancing humor and emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience. for the negative humor styles, significant genetic correlations exist between aggressive humor and honesty-humility, emotionality, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and between self-defeating humor and all hexaco dimensions except extraversion. several of the genetic correlations are quite large (e.g., .61 and .60 between extraversion and affiliative and self-enhancing humor, respectively, and -.55 between honesty-humility and aggressive humor), indicating substantial overlap between the genes that contribute to indiv idual differences on each of these variables. in terms of environmental correlations, significant non-shared environmental associations exist between affiliative humor and extraversion and openness to experience, as well as between self-enhancing humor and extraversion and agreeableness. significant non-shared environmental correlations can also be seen between aggressive humor and honesty-humility, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and between self-defeating humor and honesty-humility, emotionality, and conscientiousness. the great majority of the environmental correlations were somewhat to substantially smaller than the genetic correlations between the same pairs of variables. no shared environmental correlations were found between any of the variables. behavioral genetic study 23 discussion in addition to reporting the first behavioral genetic investigation of the hexaco model, the present study had two main goals: to determine the associations between the four humor styles and the hexaco dimensions, in order to situate the humor styles in a more comprehensive personality structure, and to assess the potential etiology of humor styles in the context of this structure. these goals were addressed through a correlational analysis coupled with univariate and bivariate behavioral genetic model-fitting analyses. as predicted, indiv idual differences in the six hexaco dimensions were entirely attributable to genetic and non-shared environmental factors. in part, these findings replicate the results of past studies of the big five model (e.g., jang et al., 1996; johnson et al., 2008; riemann et al., 1997), the dimensions of which are roughly analogous to five of the six hexaco factors. these studies have reported that variance in the big five dimensions is largely accounted for by genetic and unique environmental factors. beyond replicating these findings, and extending them to the hexaco model, however, the present study also confirmed that the sixth hexaco dimension of honesty-humility also behaves in the same manner as do its other dimensions. as such, the present study further validates the hexaco model by demonstrating that all of its dimensions share a similar etiology. moreover, it is likely that the heritabilities found in our study are lower-bound estimates because we used the short-form of the hexaco personality inventory which is not as reliable as longer measures. many of the phenotypic correlations observed between the hexaco dimensions and the four humor styles confirmed our predictions, and echoed the results of prev ious studies examining relationships between humor styles and the big five. these correlations are also likely to be underestimates because of the two year gap between subjects’ completing the hsq and the hexaco-60. with regard to the prosocial humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing), positive correlations were noted between these and hexaco’s extraversion and openness factors, and an additional positive correlation was observed between self-enhancing humor and hexaco’s agreeableness dimension. given that prev ious studies with the big five have found similar associations (e.g., martin et al., 2003; vernon et al., 2008b), and that the two prosocial humor styles or related measures have been linked to social intimacy (martin et al., 2003), creativ ity (e.g., oral, 2006; wycoff & pryor, 2003) and trust (hampes, 1999), which are characteristics of extraversion, openness, and europe’s journal of psychology 24 agreeableness, respectively (lee & ashton, 2004), these correlations are not surprising. with regard to the two deleterious styles of humor (aggressive and self-defeating), these were found to correlate negatively with hexaco agreeableness and conscientiousness, as we had predicted. similar findings have been reported in prev ious studies of humor styles and the big five (e.g., martin et al., 2003; vernon et al., 2008b). other studies have further substantiated these findings by noting negative relations between these two humor styles and related measures, and the constructs of trust (e.g., hampes, 1999) and perfectionism (e.g., fry, 1995) characteristics that help to define the hexaco factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness, respectively. in addition to these predicted correlations, other associations were observed that had not been noted in prev ious studies of humor styles. for example, negative correlations were found between the two positive humor styles and the hexaco dimension of emotionality, which is an analogue to the big five dimension of neuroticism. prev ious studies have found this type of correlation between selfenhancing humor and neuroticism, but have not done so with affiliative humor (e.g., martin et al., 2003; vernon et al., 2008b). however, given that both of these prosocial humor styles have been linked to psychological well-being (martin et al., 2003), whereas emotionality reflects such negative affect traits as anxiety, fearfulness, and dependence (lee & ashton, 2004), the correlations we obtained hold conceptual validity. moreover, although we expected that both negative humor styles would correlate positively with emotionality, given the findings of prev ious studies linking the big five’s neuroticism to aggressive and self-defeating humor, only self-defeating humor exhibited this positive relation. in our study, aggressive humor actually correlated negatively with emotionality. i t can, however, be argued that this pattern of correlations makes sense, in light of the manner in which hexaco’s emotionality is defined. specifically, because emotionality is characterized by qualities such as fearfulness, anxiety, and dependence (lee & ashton, 2004), it may be the case that those who employ self-defeating humor are high on the emotionality dimension due to their insecurity (high anxiety) and excessive concern about close relationships with others (high dependence). on the other hand, those exhibiting an aggressive humor style may be unconcerned about harming the feelings of others (low anxiety), and may be motivated to push others away (low dependence). behavioral genetic study 25 in addition to substantially replicating many of the correlations prev iously noted between the big five and humor styles, thereby confirming the hexaco model’s validity as a higher-order personality framework, we also observed several correlations between the humor styles and hexaco’s sixth dimension of honestyhumility. specifically, as expected the two negative humor styles exhibited negative correlations with honesty-humility. because honesty-humility is defined as a prosocial dimension (lee & ashton, 2004), while aggressive and self-defeating humor have more socially aversive overtones (martin et al., 2003), these obtained negative correlations are reasonable, suggesting that those who employ deleterious humor styles – particularly aggressive humor are likely to be less sincere, less modest, less fair, and more greedy than those who do not. a small yet significant negative correlation was also found between affiliative humor and honesty-humility factor, which we had not predicted. this correlation may indicate that while high scorers on honesty-humility tend to exhibit modesty and avoid flattery, those who use affiliative humor may sometimes employ a certain amount of insincere adulation in an effort to secure friendships and, as a result, may score lower on the honesty-humility dimension. we acknowledge that this suggestion is speculative and that it requires further investigation. finally, with regard to the multivariate behavioral genetic analyses, we found that the phenotypic correlations discussed above were entirely attributable in the first instance to correlated genetic factors and secondarily to correlated non-shared environmental factors, as predicted. these results suggest that the four humor styles and the six hexaco dimensions share many overlapping genetic and unique environmental determinants. these results also add to the existing literature by showing that all of the hexaco dimensions, including the honesty-humility factor that has not been explored previously using multivariate behavioral genetic methodology, behave as other higher-order dimensions of personality have done (e.g., vernon et al., 2008a). to put our results into a broader context, it will be informative to look at studies of relationships between humor styles, the big five, and trait emotional intelligence (trait ei) (e.g., greven, chamorro-premuzic, arteche, & furnham, 2008; vernon, villani, schermer, kirilov ic, martin, petrides, et al., 2009, vernon, villani, schermer, & petrides, 2008). the construct of trait ei comprises a collection of self-perceived emotionrelated dispositions and abilities. in its global form, it is negatively associated with neuroticism and positively associated with the other big five factors (vernon et al., 2008c) correlations which indicate its prosocial nature, while also situating it within the structure of human personality. in addition, trait ei correlates positively with the europe’s journal of psychology 26 two prosocial humor styles, and negatively with the two deleterious humor styles (e.g., greven et al., 2008; vernon et al., 2009). given these links, it is possible that trait ei contributes to determining why people adopt certain humor styles. specifically, the characteristic use of positive humor styles may require high trait ei , given that indiv iduals need to understand the emotions of others, and to manage their own emotions if they want to create friendships and overcome adversity (vernon et al., 2009). on the other hand, those who employ negative humor styles may be lower on trait ei , being emotionally unaware or emotionally self-harming in their use of humor (vernon et al., 2009). if this is the case, then it is unsurprising that, in the present study, the positive humor styles were linked to hexaco’s extraversion, openness, and agreeableness dimensions that are associated with high trait ei (vernon et al., 2008c). this may also account for the negative correlations we found between the negative humor styles and honesty-humility, which is defined by constructs such as forgiveness and fairness which in turn reflect high trait ei . further support linking humor styles and the hexaco model to trait ei comes from research on the so-called general factor of personality (gfp) a super-dimension that has been proposed to sit at the apex of the personality hierarchy and to subsume all personality traits in a manner similar to spearman’s g in the domain of mental abilities (ruhston, bons, & hur, 2008). using principal components analyses, veselka, schermer, petrides, cherkas, spector, & vernon (2009) extracted a general factor from the six hexaco and four trait ei factors; emotionality loaded negatively on this factor in addition, a general factor has been extracted from the big five factors, the four humor styles, and four factors of trait ei (rushton, bons, ando, hur, irwing, vernon, et al., 2009). from these results, it may be that positive humor styles, trait emotional intelligence, and the hexaco factors (including low emotionality) have slowly evolved over time in concert with one another because they have helped to contribute to social dominance and reproductive success. i t should be noted, however, that this proposition is debatable, particularly given the lack of consensus that surrounds the existence of a gfp. recently, ashton, lee, goldberg, and de vries (2009) suggested that it is lower-order variables representing same-sign blends of multiple higher-order orthogonal dimensions that account for the noted associations between these dimensions, rather than a broad general factor. i t is also possible that ―halo effects‖ or ―egoistic bias‖ contribute to what may be mistakenly described as a gfp (anusic, schimmack, pinkus, & lockwood, in press). through this study, we have demonstrated that the hexaco model is a valid framework structure that behaves similarly to the big five model when assessed in conjunction with the four humor styles. the honesty-humility factor of the hexaco is behavioral genetic study 27 also a justifiable addition to personality structure given its correlations with humor styles, and its etiological similarities to the other higher-order dimensions. in terms of the humor styles, our study has confirmed their place in personality by situating them within the hexaco model an alternative to the big five in addition to prov iding greater insight into their etiology. we propose that 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(2003). cognitive processing, creativity, apprehension, and the humorous personality. north american journal of psychology, 5, 31-44. about the authors: liv ia veselka is a phd student in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario. her research interests lie in the fields of behavioral genetics and personality theory. her prev ious publications and conference presentations have largely addressed the theoretical structure of personality by examining existing models of personality, trait emotional intelligence, and the dark triad personality traits. address for correspondence: liv ia veselka, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 e-mail: lveselka@uwo.ca julie aitken schermer received her phd in 1999. she was appointed assistant professor at brescia university college from 2001-2003 and then assistant professor in the management and organizational studies program at the university of western ontario in 2003. she was promoted to her current rank of associate professor in 2006. her research mailto:lveselka@uwo.ca behavioral genetic study 33 areas involve all aspects of human personality, intelligence, abilities, and interests. she has published 50 articles, one textbook, and has been involved in 67 conference presentations. rod a. martin completed his phd in clinical psychology at the university of waterloo in 1984, and has been a faculty member in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario since then. his research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being. he has served as president of the international society of humor studies, is on the editorial board of humor: international journal of humor research , and is the author of the book the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. lynn cherkas is a research fellow at the department of twin research and genetic epidemiology (dtr), king’s college london, where she is head of the behaviour research unit. her main interest is in quantitative genetic analysis of twin data to assess the genetic and environmental influences on common complex diseases of aging and behavioral traits. lynn has published in leading scientific journals and liaises with the media to disseminate research findings. she has a bsc in psychology from the university of birmingham and a d.phil. in behaviour genetics from the university of oxford. tim d. spector is a professor of genetic epidemiology at kings college, london, and director of the twins uk registry at st thomas’ hospital, london. he founded the uk twins registry of 11,000 twins in 1993, which is one of the largest collections of genotype and phenotype information on twins worldwide. i ts breadth of research has expanded to cover a wide range of common complex traits, many of which were previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment. he has published over 450 research articles on common diseases and traits. philip a. vernon received his phd in 1981 and was appointed assistant professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario in london, ontario, canada in 1982. he was promoted to associate professor in 1987 and to full professor in 1992: a position he still holds. vernon's research interests include indiv idual differences broadly defined and he has published over 125 articles, 30 book chapters, and 3 edited bookson such topics as intelligence and mental abilities, normal and abnormal personality, and behavioral genetics. vernon has served as president of the international society for the study of indiv idual differences and is co-editor in chief of personality and indiv idual differences. he also serves on the board and as a rev iewer for numerous other journals. european diploma in psychology: a common framework for psychology education in europe kristina potocnik slovenia angel barrasa spain efpsa edp project european diploma in psychology represents a system of standards for the education and training of professional psychologists in europe. this system is organised under the initiative of the european union (eu) and the european federation of psychologists’ associations (efpa), in order to achieve greater mobility of professionals across europe. the europsy project team was also established to develop the contents of this diploma. the project in general proposes a common framework for training and education of psychologists in europe (lunt et al, 2001), and is divided into three phases. the first phase offers a basic education in all areas of psychology, more precisely, in the major psychology theories and techniques. it lasts for three years and does not lead to any occupational qualification nor does it provide the students with the necessary competence for the independent practice in psychology. the second phase prepares the student for the independent professional practice in the field of psychology. in this phase the student also has to show the capacity to acquire skills in research. furthermore, this part of the curriculum might either be undifferentiated and prepare the student for further phd training or employment as a psychologist or be differentiated and prepare for practice within a particular professional area of psychology, such as clinical psychology or work & organizational psychology. however, either type of curriculum content is acceptable in the framework of the second phase since all of the knowledge and skills acquired are based on the discipline of psychology. the last phase consists of one year of supervised practice within a particular area of professional psychology. altogether, the university curriculum should last at least 5 years (300 ects) and the duration for supervised practice should be at least 1 year. to sum up, in the first phase the project team had considered both ‘input’ (curriculum) and ‘output’ (competence) approaches to develop the proposed common framework. on the other hand, in the second phase the project team has elaborated this common framework, consulted on it, and prepared a plan to implement it (peiró y lunt, 2002). in general, current psychology students and graduates as well as future psychology students and psychologists, already working, will benefit from the proposed edp, which will have impact on student mobility as well as on psychologists’ mobility in europe, on university level teaching, and on employers who will benefit from higher standards of training and competence (tikkanen, 2003). besides, one of the most important benefits of the edp refers to more work opportunities. namely, psychologists holding an edp will have more work opportunities compared to psychologists holding only a national diploma (efpa, 1990; tikkanen, 2004). as efpsa became an affiliate member of efpa in the year 2001, students became more involved in this project. at the beginning the role of efpsa was mainly to do promotion in the form of different seminars, round tables and presentations in each of its member country. in this way efpsa wanted to involve students and find out their opinion about the proposed european diploma in psychology (edp). in order to gain a better insight into students’ attitudes towards the edp, we conducted an international survey in 2003, applying a questionnaire created for this purpose. there were 2983 students from 21 different countries participating in the survey. the aim of the study was mainly to find out what students know about the edp and what kind of doubts they might have. the results showed that one third of the participants were aware about the edp and one of there main sources of information were students’ associations. we are proud to say that we informed approximately 2000 students about the edp only by conducting our survey. finally, one of the most important findings was that more than half of the participating students think the need for the standardized education of psychology is urgent and very important (andics et al, 2003). efpsa approved the special edp project at its last congress in serbia and montenegro, which is currently preparing a slightly modified version of the first questionnaire in order to assess possible changes in students’ attitudes over the two year period. the results of this second survey will be presented at the ‘european students & young psychologists program’ taking place at the 9th european congress of psychology in granada (spain) on the 5th of july 2005. we will hold a round table discussion, where student as well as professional points of view regarding edp will be presented. to sum up, we would like to invite all european students to participate in our second survey. in this way efpsa will be able to present a more solid and representative student attitudes towards this proposed common framework, which will bring a european dimension to national training programmes and will affect a lot the current as well as future psychology students’ careers. references andics, a., akcay, c., arzumanyan, a., baran, b., barrasa, a., behluli, v., casarano, m., cehajic, s., coelho, v., dogan, e.b., febles, m.j., feher, a., gaal, z.a., gross, s., hadziosmanovic, m., haugaa, p.j., hausammann, m., hayrapetyan, d., hiltunen, s., huberty, y., hüüdma, m., indus, k., istrefi, z., jenni, c., jurek, p., lakic, s., lelicanin, v., leo, v., lokasaari, a., maloku, e., markosyan, a., martins, m., masiak, k., maters, g., mladic, m., morris, r., nassar, a., noronen, j., nousiainen, e., petrusova, m., piirsalu, t., pilepic, b., poghosyan, a., potocnik, k., simonsen, h.n., simsic, b., sircova, a., solcova, i., stankovic, s., sucha, m., sulajkovski, m., tanczos, v., thormann, s., tutnjevic, s., unal, a.b., wollen, s., wouda, m., zsadon, a. 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(2004). european diploma in psychology (edp) in consultation process. european psychologist, 9, 64-65. a tri-modal risk attitude indicator for aviation personnel: design and diagnostic validity marian popa ph.d., national institute of aeronautical medicine, bucharest, romania bucharest university, romania cezarina rotaru national institute of aeronautical medicine, bucharest, romania bucharest university, romania ioana oprescu national institute of aeronautical medicine, bucharest, romania bucharest university, romania abstract in accordance with atkinson’s risk preference theory, we see the conduct within risk situations as a result of opposite tendencies between risk and prudence orientation. in order to asses risk attitude, we designed a system made up of three specific indicators, based on a genuine interpretation of ac-ref (acceptance-refusal) values inventory (zörgö, 1977) . risk significance (as a physical threat, danger for life or health) of the 272 ac-ref items has been subjected to an evaluation on a 1 to 10 scale, by a sample of 96 subjects. following this procedure, 43 items with risk significance and 36 items with prudence significance were chosen. a sample of 1168 subjects has been evaluated with a computerized version of ac-ref inventory. risk\prudence orientation modes have been calculated as a pondered sum of the transformed values of the items having risk\prudence significance. a composed indicator, meaning risk\prudence balance attitude, has been computed as difference between the two primary indicators. the three indicators, as three specific modes of risk attitude (risk preference, prudence preference, and risk \prudence balance), show very good psychometric features. the diagnostic (construct) validity of these indicators was tested against some major questionnaires such alaps (armstrong laboratory aviation personality survey), cattell 16pf, and eysenck personality inventory. first of all, we got consistent and significant correlations between risk attitude mode indicators and some of the alaps scales, especially for “risk taking”. the other questionnaires also show significant association with these indicators. the three modal indicators show significant variations as far as psychosomatic type is concerned, but also related to age and gender. introduction there are very few human behaviors that do not imply a certain level of risk, meaning by that, on the one hand, a degree of uncertainty regarding target achievement, and, on the other hand, some related potential losses. the specific means of referring to a risk situation is approached through the concept of “attitude toward risk”. this refers to an individual feature endowed with a certain degree of constancy, which tends to actualize in a relatively constant manner in various risk situations. risk behavior has been seen as closely related to decision-making situations (ceauşu, 1972, 1976, plous, 1993), and also, as an important component of the usual repertoire of the pilot’s professional behavior. as a result of this, the assessment of attitude towards risk is especially important for the behavioral and adjustment prediction of the air personnel. the main goal of our study is to conceive a system made up of indicators relevant for the risk attitude, which may be used within the process of psychological assessment of aviation personnel. at this moment we intend mainly to develop a procedure of outlining these indicators and evaluating psychometrical and differential diagnostic qualities. background two major models explain behavior in risk situations: cognitive and motivational. the cognitive model is well represented by the “risk homeostasis theory”, promoted by wilde (1982). mainly, this theory states that in any activity the individual tends to accept a certain level of risk regarding their safety and health, in exchange for certain benefits they hope to gain from that activity. due to this fact, the perceived risk level is compared with the accepted risk threshold, aiming to maintain the distance between the two at a minimum. thus, if the subjectively estimated risk is smaller than the accepted risk threshold, individuals tend to increase the accepted risk level. conversely, when the perceived risk exceeds the level of the accepted risk, a more cautious behavior is adopted (wilde, 1994, p.7). simonet & wilde (1997) found experimental evidence in the laboratory experiment based on a computer program to support the “risk homeostasis theory”. the motivational model based on mcclelland’s research (1953, 1985) and on that of his collaborators regarding self-actualization needs refers to each individual’s attempt to achieve the highest level possible of performance. a high level of achievement need has been associated with a tendency towards a moderate risk level and with perseverance in a chosen behavior. from this, atkinson (1957, cf. potkay & allen, 1996, p.352) derived the well-known model of risk preference, according to which people are motivated simultaneously both by the attraction to success, and by fear of failure. the result of these two opposite tendencies is directly materialized in the accepted risk level. the more intense either motivation is compared to the other, the greater the accepted risk level. our study follows the path of atkinson’s model . we predicted that the potential loss significance (intensity of the threat) is always reflected mainly in the emotional area of personality. in addition to that, constancy of the emotional pattern of the human conduct makes this an extremely useful target for psychological assessment. in spite of the popularity of the atkinson’s model, and of numerous studies generated by it, the concept of risk behavior depiction retained a narrow attention, in which the risk preference and risk avoidance are perceived as extreme values on a unique scale. we argued that there are two opposite tendencies, relatively independent but complementary to each other, that describe the risk attitude as a result of risk preference (the need for success, actualization) and of the caution preference (failure avoidance). so, we aimed to discover a three way indicator made up of specific indicators of the risk and prudence preference, and a final indicator derived from the difference between these opposite tendencies, thus building on the atkinson’s model of risk preference. method and sample we chose the ac-ref values inventory conceived by zörgö (1976) to be the basis of our measure. within this measure the ac-ref allows participants to answer personally on a scale on a 1 to 100, which measured the acceptance or refusal of 272 items (words or expressions) referring to facts, objects or usual every day situations. applied within of psycomp computerized system (popa, popescu, 1994) and interpreted according to our special designed method (“in-subject standardization”), ac-ref proved to have a remarkable psychodiagnostical potential as far as professional adjustment for aviators is concerned (popa, draghici, 1994). in our opinion the main advantage of this instrument is its semi-structured nature, which allows the subject to express the intensity of his\her attitude without feeling constrained by the item structure, or by the rigid frame of a forced responses panel. when carrying out a lab examination with participants subjected to an assessment procedure with decisional purpose, this method of investigation may overcome the drawbacks specific to that of questionnaires (friedenberg, 1995, anastasi, urbina, 1997). the study followed two steps: (1) first, we asked a sample of “experts” (n=81) to assess the risk significance (as danger for health or for physical integrity), giving grades from 1 to 10 to all of the 272 ac-ref items. after this, we ordered the item list according to the median value of the grades given by the “experts” . thus we conceived a list of 43 risk significance items and another list with 36 prudence significance items. (2) secondly, a sample of 1168 aviation subjects were assessed with the ac-ref. for each subject, the risk and prudence preference indicator was calculated as the sum of row scores with the median value of each item. in order to emphasize more obviously the individual significance, they have been transformed into standardized scores (t scores). finally, the compound indicator of the risk-prudence balance has been computed as the difference between the two primary indicators. results and discussion below are the most significant results that emerge from the analysis of the three indicators. first we shall analyze their psychometrical features in order to see if they have the formal features required by the psychological diagnosis. secondly, we shall assess the sensitivity of these indicators with assessments of certain personality traits and biographical data (as age and gender) which naturally show variations associated to the attitude towards risk. •  psychometric features all the three computed indicators show adequate psychometric features, the distribution being noteworthy, as it is close to the normal curve. table 1: correlations within the three risk attitude indicators (n=1168) risk preference prudence preference risk\prudence balance risk preference 1 -0.374 ** +0.829** prudence preference 1 -0.829 ** risk\prudence balance 1 * p<0.05, ** p<0.01 among the correlation of the three indicators shown in the table 1, we find particularly significant the one between risk and prudence preference. the significant value still moderate as far as intensity is concerned, between the risk preference and prudence preference, is able to confirm our hypothesis, which states that, even related, this indicators have also an important degree of independence. •  external construct validity the “diagnostic”, or in other words, “construct” validity, refers to the extent to which the three indicators we have computed may be said to actually measure a construct related to risk attitude behavior. to do this, the risk attitude indicators were tested against personality traits and some biographical data, which have a proven to be in relation with risk behavior in previous research. 2.1) risk attitude indicators (rai) and original ac-ref indicators in the first instance the relation between rai and some genuine ac-ref indicators was questioned. from a relatively long list we have chose only five indicators related to psychosomatic type and social or performance behavior. table 2: correlation between risk attitude indicators and ac-ref indicators (n=1168) risk preference prudence preference risk\prudence balance socialness 0.322** -0.231** performance 0.357** 0.208** somatotonic 0.412** 0.239** viscerotonic 0.233** -0.180** cerebrotonic -0.153** 0.632** -0.472** * p<0.05; ** p<0.01 (only the significant correlations are shown) as it can be seen there are some consistent correlations between the rai and ac-ref indicators. the preference for risk is positively related to the performance orientation and somatotype indicator, but negatively with cerebrotype. also, the prudence preference shows significant relation with sociability, viscerotype, and especially with cerebrotype. as far the risk\prudence balance is concerned, we can see a complete list of significant correlations. the degree of specificity of each indicator must be underlined as revealed by “independent” relation with each construct criterion. 2.2) rai and personality traits when referring to the interaction between risk attitude and personality traits we may discuss two different trends. from the cognitive point of view, wilde (cit. before, pp.180) describes a personality type oriented towards excessive risk taking. its main features are: optimistic face, non-realistic assessment of his chances, small imagination, apparent preoccupation with physical threats, reduced awareness of personal motivations, “cyborg complex” (identifying oneself with the tool or machine that sustains the self-assertion), and belief in one’s “lucky star”. we often find examples of such personality type among the aviators or people addicted to extreme sports. in a study regarding the personality and attitude involvement in traffic accident risk, west and hall, (1997) concluded that the tendency towards norm and rule breaking is significantly associated with taking excessive risks. we can agree with vasilescu (1995) who states that the “purely rational” decider is only fiction, the risk conduct being inevitably influenced by emotional and motivational variables, in their turn associated to personality constants. based on these assumptions we started to investigate the relation between the three modes of risk attitude and the results from other assessment carried out by using some personality inventory ordinarily used in aviation personnel assessment: armstrong laboratory aviation personnel survey (alaps), eysenck personality inventory (epi-form a), and cattell 16pf. 2.2.1) rai and alaps alaps is a 240 item questionnaire, recently developed by retzlaff, king, mcglohn and callister (1996), and especially designed for aviation personnel assessment. alaps has 15 scales divided into three major categories: personality scales (confidence, sociality, aggressiveness, orderliness, negativity), psychopathology scales (emotional instability, anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse), and crew interaction scales (dogmatism, deference, team oriented, organization, impulsivity, risk taking). alaps was adapted for the romanian population and experimentally run into psycomp system on 53 young pilot students who had a previous ac-ref assessment. table 3 provides all the obtained correlations between rai and alaps scales. table 3: correlations between rai and alaps scales (n=53) risk preference prudence preference risk\prud. balance personality confidence 0,228 -0,108 0,212 sociality -0,248 -0,009 -0,155 aggressiveness 0,352** -0,162 0,325** orderliness -0,243 -0,073 -0,113 negativity 0,060 -0,035 0,060 psychopathology emotional instability -0,188 -0,067 -0,082 anxiety -0,082 0,097 -0,111 depression -0,051 0,062 -0,070 alcohol abuse -0,101 -0,074 -0,021 crew interaction dogmatism 0,177 -0,048 0,143 deference 0,041 0,042 0,001 team oriented -0,427** 0,166 -0,376** organization -0,043 -0,123 0,045 impulsivity 0,167 -0,142 0,193 risk taking 0,478** -0,410** 0,554** * p<0.05; ** p<0.01 as it can be seen, there are some significant correlations between rai and alaps scales. first of all, the consistent correlations with “risk taking” of all risk attitude modes must be highlighted, including prudence preference, risk preference, and, especially, risk\prudence balance. this supports the prediction that our rai accurately measures risk attitude. based on the above correlations, it can be assumed that risk attitude is characterized by a combination of aggressiveness and self oriented attitude. 2.2.2) rai and epi (a) scales the table below shows the correlations between risk attitude modes and the three traits measured by epi: extraversion, neuroticism, and instability . table 4: correlations between rai and epi-a (n=366) risk preference prudence preference risk\prud. balance extraversion (e) 0,126* -0,215** 0,204** neuroticism (n) -0,221** 0,166** -0,231** instability (e+n) -0,120* * p <0.05; ** p<0.01 (only the significant correlations are shown) the output values show moderate but significant correlations between rai and all epi scales. risk preference seems to be related with extraversion (r=,126) but less intensely than prudence preference is related with introversion (r=-,215). also, risk preference attitude is related with neuroticism tendency less than prudence preference is related with “emotional stability”. risk\prudence balance correlates in a positive manner with extraversion and in a negative one with neuroticism. 2.2.3) correlations between rai and cattell 16pf factors the cattell 16pf is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in the aviation community. for that reason, we evaluated the rai against this classical instrument for personality assessment. table 5: correlations between rai and cattell 16pf factors (n=471) risk preference prudence preference risk\prud. balance (a) outgoing vs. reserved -0,049 -0,097 0,031 (c) emotional stability vs. instability 0,079 0,018 0,036 (e) dominance vs. submissiveness 0,157** -0,112* 0,166** (f) optimistic vs. pessimistic 0,082 -0,163** 0,152** (g) strengthens vs. weakness superego -0,219** 0,079 -0,183** (h) adventurous vs. timid 0,045 -0,089 0,084 (i) tendervs. tough-minded -0,187** 0,408** -0,371** (l) suspicious vs. trusting 0,085 -0,046 0,081 (m) imaginative vs. practical -0,034 0,153** -0,117* (n) shrewdness vs. unpretentious -0,048 0,121** -0,106* (o) insecure vs. self-assured -0,064 -0,011 -0,032 (q1) radicalism vs. conservatism 0,124** -0,076 0,123** (q2) self-sufficiency vs. group dependence -0,035 0,155** -0,119* (q3) controlled-casual -0,042 0,089 -0,081 (q4) tensed vs. relaxed -0,004 0,015 -0,012 * p <0.05; ** p<0.01 although the correlations are relatively small, many of them are significant. it must be underlined again the relative independence between rai and criterion indicators. and, especially, the fact that risk\prudence balance indicator has more correlations with criteria than the primary indicators. overall, it must be observed that all the risk attitude modes are related with some of cattell 16pf factors in a consistent way with other research regarding risk behavior. the results presented allow us to conclude that: ( i ) rai show a significant relation with a wide range a of personality traits assessed with laboratory instruments, ( ii ) there is a certain particularity of each risk attitude mode indicator, suggested by the correlation independence with personality criterions. this fact sustains the hypothesis that risk attitude must be assessed on a multidimensional scale instead of on a unidimensional one. 2.3) risk attitude mode indicators and biodata (gender and age) the existence of a difference between women and men is constantly revealed in the risk behavior researches (goma-freixanet, 1997, west &hall, 1997 ). generally, women are believed to have a greater predisposition to accept rules (norms) and, thus, a smaller involvement in risky situations. that is why we found necessary to emphasize the variation of the rai according to gender variable. table 6: anova statistic for rai and gender risk preference prudence preference risk\prud. balance males mean(m) 52,86 47,34 53,32 n 546 546 546 females mean(f) 43,47 57,70 41,40 n 108 108 108 mean(m)-mean(f) 9,39 -10,36 12,02 t=80,614 t=99,598 t=133,810 sig.=0.000 sig.=0.000 sig.=0.000 as it can be seen in the table above, the risk attitude mode indicators have a significant variation among gender criterion. it also must be underlined that the largest difference between males and females is the risk\prudence balance indicator. another biographical variable traditionally associated with risk attitude is age. in aviation we talk about the “conservatism” progressively displayed by the pilots as they are aging, which results in less frequent involvement in high-risk situations. the scientists from us naval safety center (eyraud & borowski, 1985) carried out research regarding the relation between flight accidents and age of pilots by analyzing the flight accidents during 1977-1982. the results concluded that there is an association between the age of the pilots and the type of accident they are involved in. along with other relevant aspects, they emphasized a tendency to exaggeratedly take risks in pilots under 30-33, also associated with a more “relaxed” attitude towards the regulation constraints. in order to emphasize the “sensitivity” of the risk attitude mode indicators with regard to age, we computed the anova statistic along 10-years of age intervals . table 7: anova statistic for rai and age (male subjects) risk preference prudence preference risk\prud. balance -20 mean 53,4821 46,6148 54,1444 n 428 428 428 21-30 mean 50,4794 49,5906 50,5364 n 249 249 249 31-40 mean 47,7592 51,3296 47,8452 n 230 230 230 41-50 mean 43,7897 53,4658 44,1605 n 43 43 43 f=29,199 f=18,402 f=36,113 sig.=0.000 sig.=0.000 sig.=0.000 as it can be observed, there is an obvious variation of rai related to age, showing a systematic decrement of risk preference and increment of prudence preference as far as age is growing up. conclusions our study has to answer two main questions: (1) are the three risk attitude mode indicators specific enough to justify their use within a unique assessment model of personal behavior in risky situations? (2) is there a significant variation they would register according to individual variables whose relation with the risk behavior has already been proven? the results of our study allow us to give a positive answer to both these questions. firstly, independent associations with different personality variables were found. secondly, rai were found to have significant variation with regard to gender and age, which are well known for their relations with risk attitude and behavior. therefore, we believe this model of output interpretation with the ac-ref values inventory may be included in the psychological assessment process. moreover, we also believe that other types of indicators must be developed in future via the same procedure. notes 1 the ac-ref inventory consists of 272 common words or expressions, of which refusal or acceptance must be evaluated with a number between 0 to 100. 2 in fact, this paper focuses on just one of the parts of a risk behavior assessment system, which will include three specific tests based on different theoretical backgrounds. 3 it must be said that the “expert” subjects did not take part in the following step of the study, as they where explicitly motivated as experts, in order to avoid the distortion by way of defense mechanisms. 4 we have called “instability” the computed scale (e+n), used by eysenck himself in “crime proneness” scale in judiciary studies. 5 it must be stipulated that the results are quite similar for 5-year of age intervals. references anastasi., a., urbina, s., 1997, psychological testing (7th ed.), prentice-hall, inc. bruno, f.j., 1993, psychological symptoms, john wiley&sons ceauşu v., 1972, de la incertitudine la decizie, editura militară, bucureşti ceauşu v., 1976, psihologia zborului, editura militară, bucureşti eyraud m., borovski b., 1985, age and pilot performance, aviation space & envirnmental medicine, 56 friedenberg, l., 1995, psychological testing; design, analysis, and use, allyn&bacon goma-freixanet m. 1997, personality and risk taking behaviour in women: some preliminary results, ecp (abstract), http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~ivanmerv/ecp8250.html mcclelland, d.c., 1985, human motivation, glenview, ill; scot, foresman mcclelland, d.c., atkinson, j.v., clark, r.w., lowell, e.l., (1953), the achievement motive, new york : appleton-century, crofts popa m., drăghici m., 1994, “structuri de orientare valorică specifice la aviatori”, comunicare la conferinţa naţională de psihologie, bucureşti, 27-29 mai popa m., popescu c., 1994, “laborator psihologic informatizat în regim l.a.n.”, comunicare la conferinţa naţională de psihologie, bucureşti, 27-29 mai potkay ch. r., allen p.b., 1986, personality: theory, research, and applications, brooks\cole publishing retzlaff, p.d., king, r.e., mcglohn, s., callister, j.d., 1996, the development of the armstrong laboratory aviation personality survey (alaps), interim technical report, al\ao-tr-1996-0108 plous, s., the psychology of judgement and decision making, mcgraw-hill, inc. simonet, s., wilde g.j.s., 1997, “risk: perception, acceptance, and homeostazis”, applied psychology: an international review, 46, 235-252 vasilescu i.p., 1995, “eficienţa deciziilor, flexibilitatea comportamentală şi stabilitatea internă: investigaţie computerizată”, conexiuni, coord. s. chelcea, l. mitrănescu, editura i.n.i., bucureşti west r., hall j., 1997, “the role of personality and attitudes in traffic accident risk”, applied psychology: an international review, 46, p.253-264 wilde, g.j.s., 1982, “the theory of risk homeostazis: implications for safety and health”, risk analysis, 2, p.249-258 wilde, g.j.s., 1994, target risk, www http://pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca/target/index.html zörgö, b., 1976, “inventarul de valenţe ac-ref”, îndrumător psihodiagnostic, vol 3, cluj, universitatea cluj-napoca microsoft word 11. global psypulse2.doc identity, multiculturalism and changing societies: challenges for social psychology in and about asia the ever changing complexities of the modern world compel us to confront anew those issues of identity and multiculturalism that have long been at the centre of public debates as well as academic discourses. social scientists today are faced with a plethora of issues that demand re-analysis and comprehension at various levelsfrom the individual, cultural groups to larger societies as a whole. such a gamut of constant and instant transformations in the external world means that we all have to cope with multiple psychological demands that seem to strain the resources of ‘childhood’. consequently, fundamental redefinitions of the self appear inevitable in contemporary times. celebration of difference, respect for pluralism, recognition of ethnic and minority status and the avowal and redefinition of identity are matters that every society is in its own way grappling with today. its engagement with these concerns means that the arena of social psychology is also faced with the exciting possibilities of paradigmatic changes from within. the discipline of social psychology must not only provide answers but also today face the challenge of framing questions in a manner that will enable a deeper understanding of the factors that influence cultural continuity and change. the present conference provides a platform for professionals in the areaand in related fields to share views and perspectives on dynamic new research that is, paradoxically, shaped by the very factors that they seek to investigate. venue the inaugural ceremony will be held at iit, new delhi the conference will take place at india habitat centre (ihc), lodhi road, new delhi, between 11-14 of december 2009 for more information visit the conference website: http://web.iitd.ac.in/~caasp09/index.php microsoft word 14. lse graduate conference.doc 11th annual graduate conference "observing, promoting and resisting social change: perspectives from the social sciences" 21-22 may 2010 london school of economics and political science the social psychology graduate conference has a tradition dating back to a decade ago. it was born out of the collaboration between graduate students of the lse, university of cambridge and ecole de hautes etudes en sciences sociales, who sought a space for sharing ideas, concepts and applications in the field of social psychology. since then, the conference has greatly expanded and attracts graduate students and their academic supervisors from a wide range of disciplines, institutions and countries. next year’s conference will address an area of great importance for social psychologists, social scientists and modern societies at large: social change. key-notes and paper presentations will be dedicated to exploring the ways in which individuals and communities experience, react to, support, or resist social change in all instances of everyday life and human interaction. this generous topic invites both theoretical and practical contributions, capable of providing us valuable insight into the mechanisms of transformation and innovation in today’s society. this theme expresses a core preoccupation of societal psychologists and we will allow an exploration of how psychological variables can contribute to the understanding and explanation of pressing contemporary social problems. contributions are welcomed from graduate students in the field of psychology and also connected disciplines: economics, sociology, anthropology and social policy, etc. the six topics for break-out sessions are: • health and development • social and cultural psychology • organisational psychology • social cognition • communication and the public sphere • developmental social psychology visit the website for more information http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/lsecamconf/index.html microsoft word 3. burke research.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2009, pp. 12-30 www.ejop.org work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being among turkish manufacturing managers1 ronald j. burke york university mustafa koyuncu nevsehir university lisa fiksenbaum york university fusun tekin acar erciyes university abstract this research examined the relationship of a newly developed measure of work intensity and of work hours on potential antecedents and work and well-being consequences. data were collected from 877 male and female managers and professionals working in a variety of organizations in the manufacturing sector in turkey using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 58 percent response rate. the 15 item measure of work intensity was found to have high internal consistency reliability. work intensity was significantly correlated with work hours, but weakly. gender and organizational level predicted both work intensity and work hours; males, and respondents at higher organizational levels indicated greater work intensity and more work hours. hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for personal demographic and work situation characteristics, showed that work intensity but not work hours was a consistent and significant predictor of work outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, work engagement) and psychological well-being (e.g., exhaustion). the interaction of work intensity and work hours was not a significant predictor of work or well-being outcomes. interestingly, work 1 preparation of this manuscript and conduct of the research was supported in part by york university and nevsehir university. ufuk durna, mehmet tekinku�, cetin bektas and halil demirer assisted with the data collection. we thank our respondents for their participation. work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 13 intensity was positively related to work outcomes and negatively related to indicators or psychological well-being. issues related to work, including long work hours and work intensity, have been attracting increasing attention for researchers and practitioners (bell & freeman, 2001; burchell & fagan, 2004; burke, 2007; burke & cooper, 2008; dembe, erickson, delbos & banks, 2005; eastman, 1998; filer, hammermesh & rees, 1996; green 2001, 2008; feldman, 2002; ng, sorenson & feldman, 2007; hochschild, 1997; schor, 1991; sparks, cooper, fried & shirom, 1997; van der hulst, 2003). this interest is not surprising given the importance of work in the lives of women and men. work is an important economic, social and psychological element in human life. it provides income for goods and services needed by employees and their families, it helps socially by providing group identification and affiliation, and it offers a sense of meaning and purpose. work can also provide enjoyment, satisfactions and a sense of accomplishment, achievement and success (o’toole & lawler, 2006). overwork may also have negative consequences for employees, their families, organizations and society (burke & cooper, 2008; dembe, erickson, delbos & banks, 2005; feldman, 2002; sparks, cooper, fried & shirom, 1997; van der hulst, 2003). but there is also emerging evidence that some individuals working long hours may be thriving. in a recent harvard business review article, hewlett and luce (2006) reported on a growing trend for employees to be working 70 hour work weeks and its potential effects. this issue has attracted research attention in a few developed countries such as the us and the uk (burchell & fagan, 2004; green, 2004a, 2004b; hochschild, 1997; schor, 1991). hewlett and luce (2006) found that their sample of high level executives were extremely satisfied with their jobs, satisfaction coming from the rewards, meaning and challenges inherent in their high level positions. an earlier american study of mba alumni of a prestigious business school also found high levels of satisfaction among women and men working 61 hours a week or more (brett & stroh, 2003). thus the relationship of working hours and individual satisfaction and well0-being has produced some conflicting results. the study of work hours and work intensity has both theoretical and practical interest. at the individual level, there are concerns that working long hours may have negative physiological consequences resulting in insomnia, fatigue, irritability and sickness. these consequences not only affect the individual’s well-being but also that of their families and co-workers (buell & breslow, 1960; dembe, erickson, delbos & banks, 2005; sparks, cooper, fried & shirom, 1997; van der hulst, 2003). the europe’s journal of psychology 14 japanese have even coined a term to describe death from overwork – karoshi (uehata, 1991, kawahito, 1991). at the organizational level, these negative psychological and physiological responses can interfere with the smooth and efficient functioning of the organizations. thus much of the research on the effects of long work hours has called for organizations to take note and deal with likely negative outcomes of long work hours such as stress, burnout and turnover (burke, 2007; burke & cooper, 2008; munck, 2001). but as hewlett and luce note (2006), among managers and professionals, working long hours can be satisfying if they are motivated by the rewards, challenges and growth inherent in their high level positions. work hours and work intensity working hard can be thought of as having a time component (e.g., hours worried) and an intensity component (e.g., how intense is the effort during the time worked). work has traditionally been viewed as the amount of hours a person spends on the job. the time aspect has itself generated considerable debate (brett & stroh, 2003; maume & bellas, 2001; schor, 1991). while the average time worked in the typical week has been relatively stable (galarneau, maynard & lee, 2005), it is unevenly distributed among workers; the longer work hours of some employees, particularly managers and professionals (golden, 2007), are balanced by increases in the number of employees working fewer hours per week either by choice or hourly limits set by contractual arrangements (zeytinoglu & cooke, 2005; cranford, vosko & zukevich, 2003). blue-collar workers now tend to work fewer hours while white collar employees are working longer hours. the time aspect of “working hard” has received most of the research attention to date (see burke, 2007; burke & cooper, 2008, for reviews). work intensity, on the other hand is a construct that is not yet well-developed. there is also no overarching theory that underlies research on work intensity. researchers from different backgrounds and disciplines have used different frameworks to address work intensity (bell & hart, 1999; eastman, 1998; filer, hammermesh & rees, 1996; hewlett & luce, 2006; hochschild, 1997). work intensity is sometimes viewed as an effort-related activity. in this regard, it is similar to the “work effort” concept discussed in the economics literature. green (2001; 56) described work effort as “the rate of physical and/or mental input to work tasks performed during the working day ….in part, effort is inversely linked to the ‘porosity’ of the working day, meaning those gaps between tasks during which the body or mind rests.” it is obviously difficult to measure such effort objectively, it can only be assessed through self-reports, or well work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 15 designed and controlled laboratory experiments. burchell and fagan (2004) used “speed of work” to capture work intensity, and reported that europeans were working more intensely in 2001 compared to 1991. green (2001) focused on “effort change” in which respondents were asked to compare their current jobs with those they held five years earlier. green and mcintosh (2001) found that, among european countries, britain experienced the fastest rise in work effort in the early to mid-1990s, while in germany, denmark and greece, there was little effort intensification. effort was higher in jobs that used computers more frequently, and except for britain, higher in private sector than public sector jobs. effort had also increased in counties where union membership had declined (green & mcintosh, 1998). green (2004a, 2004b) found that in britain in the 1990s, both technological and organization changes were important sources of work intensification. and burchell, day, hudson, lapido, mankelow, nolan, reed wichert and wilkinson (1999) found an association between levels of job insecurity and feelings of work intensification among workers in britain. finally, green and mcintosh (2001) suggested that work intensification was likely to be associated with physical exhaustion and mental stress. burke, singh and fiksenbaum (2008) conducted an exploratory study of a newly developed measure of work intensity and potential antecedents and consequences. they collected data from 106 respondents enrolled in three university business courses using anonymously completed questionnaires. they found that their measure of work intensity had high internal consistency reliability. work intensity was significantly related to respondent’s organizational level and work status (full-time versus part-time). in addition, respondents individuating higher levels of work intensity also reported working more hours, a higher workload, and greater job stress. work intensity was unrelated to organizational values supporting workpersonal life imbalance, to three workaholism components or to measure of job satisfaction or work engagement. they concluded that work intensity was more reflective of one’s job and its demands than stable individual difference factors or aspects of one’s organizational culture. the present study, building on the burke, singh and fiksenbaum work (2008), reports on the further development and evaluation of a measure of work intensity, some of its properties, and its relationship with potential antecedents and work and wellbeing consequences. it was hypothesized that individuals reporting higher levels of work intensity would be less satisfied and indicates lower psychological well-being. europe’s journal of psychology 16 in addition, the relationship of work hours with the same antecedents and consequences was examined. it was hypothesized that individuals working more hours would be less satisfied and indicate lower psychological well-being. the effects of work intensity were hypothesized to be stronger than those of work hours. finally, the interaction of work hours and work intensity was also considered to determine whether the effects of work intensity increased the more hours one worked. method procedure data were collected from organizations in 16 turkish cities (e.g., denizli, mersin, and nevsehir). members of the research team contacted organizations in the manufacturing sector in these cities requesting their participation in the research. cooperating organizations then provided a list of their managers and professionals. approximately 1500 managers and professionals were contacted; 945 returned questionnaires to the research team of which 877 provided reasonably complete data, a 58% response rate. questionnaires were completed anonymously. measures originally developed in english were translated into turkish using the back translation method. organizations fell into a variety of industries including agricultural machinery, textiles, health products, construction, food processing, furniture, metal, carpet production and electrical products. the respondents are best described as a large sample of turkish managers and professionals in the manufacturing sector. respondents table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the sample. most respondents were male (77%), married (72%), were between 26 and 35 years of age (47%), had children (74%), had 2 children (44%), were college/university graduates (63%), held supervisory jobs (82%), worked between 41-50 hours per week (49%), earned between us$10,000 –us$14,000 income (24%), had 5 years or less of organizational tenure (45%) and 5 years or less of job tenure (62%), worked in organizations having 250 or fewer employees (77%), and worked in production or accounting and finance(30% and 28%. respectively). there was a tendency for a higher proportion of males to work in production and management and a lower percentage of males to work in marketing or accounting and finance. work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 17 table 1. demographic characteristics of sample gender male female marital status single married length of marriage 5 years or less 6 – 10 11 – 15 16 – 20 21 or more education elementary high school college masters/phd supervision yes no organizational tenure 5 years or less 6 – 10 11 – 15 16 or more job tenure 2 years or less 3 – 5 6 – 10 11 years or more organizational size 50 or less 51 – 250 251 or more n 637 186 234 591 177 137 102 85 92 38 208 521 56 662 141 393 232 89 100 245 265 199 113 318 311 186 % 77.4 22.6 28.4 71.6 29.8 23.2 17.2 14.3 15.5 4.6 25.3 63.3 6.7 82.4 17.6 48.3 28.5 10.9 12.3 29.8 32.8 24.0 13.7 39.0 38.2 22.8 age 25 or younger 26 – 35 36 – 45 46 – 55 56 or older parental status children no children number of children 1 2 3 4 or more hours worked 40 or less 41 – 50 51 – 60 61 or more income $9,999 or less $10,000 $14,999 $15,000 $19,999 $20,000 $24,999 $25,000 $29,999 $30,000 or more department production marketing human resources research & develop. account. & finance information systems management n 79 382 254 93 10 511 183 157 229 97 33 92 401 211 109 179 197 147 115 53 133 252 133 72 32 234 14 109 % 9.7 46.7 31.0 11.4 1.2 73.6 26.4 30.4 44.4 18.8 6.4 11.3 49.3 26.0 13.4 21.7 23.9 17.8 14.0 6.4 16.1 29.8 15.7 8.5 3.8 27.7 1.8 12.9 europe’s journal of psychology 18 measures work intensity work intensity was assessed by a 15 item scale (�=.85). some items were taken from hewlett and luce (2006), while other items were developed by the researchers. items included “an unpredictable flow of work”, “availability to clients 24/7”, and “a large scope of responsibility that amounts to more than one job”. personal and work situation characteristics a number of personal demographics (e.g., age, gender, level of education, marital and parental status) and work situation characteristics (e.g., hours worked per week, job and organizational tenure, organizational level, organizational size) were measured by single items (see table 1). outcome variables a wide range of outcome variables were included in this study covering both work and extra-work domains. these variables were consistent with those typically used in studies of work and well-being more generally (e.g., barling, kelloway & frone, 2005 ; schabracq, winnubst & cooper, 2003). job behaviors two job behaviors were included 1. perfectionism (�=.84) was measured by an 8 items scale developed by spence and robbins (1992). one item was “ i am satisfied with nothing short of perfection in my work.” 2. non-delegation (�=.71) was measured by a 7 item scale also developed by spence and robbins (1992) an item was “i’d rather do tasks by myself instead of relying on others to help do the job.” work engagement three aspects of work engagement were measured using scales developed by schaufeli, salanova, gonzalez-roma, & bakker, 2002). 1. vigor was measured by 6 items (�=.76). one item was “at my work i feel bursting with energy.” 2. dedication was assessed by 5 items (�=.83). an item was “ i am proud of the work that i do.” 3. absorption was measured by 6 items (�=.82). one item was “i am immersed in my work.” respondents indicated their agreement with each item n a five work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 19 point likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 5=strongly agree). work outcomes four work outcomes were included. 1. job satisfaction (�=.81) was measured by a 7 item scale developed by kofodimos (1993). an item was “i feel challenged by my work.” 2. career satisfaction was measured by a 5 item scale(�=.86) developed by greenhaus, parasuraman and wormley (1990). one item was “i am satisfied with the success i have achieved in my career.” 3. job stress was measured by a 9 items scale (�=.58) developed by spence and robbins (1992). one item was “sometimes i feel like my work is going to overwhelm me.” 4. intent to quit (�=.66) was measured by two items developed by burke (1991). an item was “are you currently looking for a different job in a different organization?” (yes/no). psychological well-being four indicators of psychological well-being were included. 1. exhaustion (�=.86) was measured by 9 items developed as part of the maslach burnout inventory (maslach, jackson & leiter, 1996). one item was “ i feel emotionally drained from my work.” 2. work-family conflict was assessed by a nine item scale (�=.85) developed by carlson, kacmar and williams (2000). time-,.strainand behaviorally-based work-family conflict were each measured by 3 items. one item was “my work keeps me from family activities more than i would like.” 3. psychosomatic symptoms were measured by 19 items (�=.88) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they experienced each physical symptom (e.g., headaches, having trouble getting to sleep) in the past year. 4. life satisfaction was assessed by a 5 item scale (�=.84) developed by diener, emmons, larsen and griffin (1985). a sample item was “i am satisfied with my life.” europe’s journal of psychology 20 results work intensity and work hours work intensity and work hours were significantly and positively correlated (r=.14, p<.001), but only weakly. analysis strategy in order to better understand the sources of work intensity and work hours, and to examine our general hypotheses, a hierarchical regression analysis was first undertaken in which the measures of work intensity and work hours were separately regressed on two blocks of predictors entered in a specified order. the first block of predictors (n=5) consisted of personal demographics (e.g., age, gender, education). the second block of predictors (n=6) included work situation characteristics (e.g., organizational level, job and organizational tenure). when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance on a given criterion variable (p<.05), individual items or measures within such blocks having significant and independent relationships with these criterion variables were then identified (p<.05). this analysis controls for the relationships of both personal demographics and work situation characteristics before examining the relationship of the work intensity and work hours measures and the other work and well-being outcome variables of interest. predictors of work intensity and work hours table 2 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which measures of work intensity, and work hours, were regressed on two blocks of predictors: personal demographics and work situation characteristics. personal demographics and work situation characteristics accounted for a significant amount and increment in explained variance on work intensity. males, and respondents at higher organizational levels indicated greater work intensity (bs=-.12 and .17, respectively). personal demographics and work situation characteristics also accounted for a significant amount and increment in explained variance on work hours. males, younger respondents, less educated respondents, respondents at higher organizational levels, and respondents having longer job tenure worked more hours (bs=-.13, -.16, -.10, .20 and .12, respectively), work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 21 table 2. predictors of work intensity and work hours work intensity (n=651) r r2 �r2 p personal demographics gender (-.12) .15 .02 .02 .001 work situation organizational level (.12) work hours (n=640) personal demographics gender (-.13) age (-.16) education (-.10) work situation organizational level (.17) .24 .21 .30 .06 .04 .09 .04 .04 .05 .001 .001 .001 consequences of work intensity and work hours predictors of job behaviors table 3 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which two job behaviors were regressed on four blocks of predictors. the first two blocks of predictors were the personal demographics (n=5) and the work situation characteristics (n=6) as mentioned above. the third block of predictors (n=2) consisted of the measures of work intensity and work hours. the fourth block of predictors included the interaction term of the measures of work intensity and work hours. the following comments are offered in summary. first, the block of measures of work intensity and work hours accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on both job behaviors. respondents indicating higher levels of work intensity also reported greater perfectionism and more non-delegation (bs=.16 and .11, respectively). the interaction of work intensity and work hours failed to account for a significant increment in explained variance on either. table 3. predictors of job behaviors perfectionism (n=640) r r2 �r2 p personal demographics work situation organizational level (.12) .07 .16 .00 .03 .00 .03 ns .01 europe’s journal of psychology 22 work intensity/hours intensity (.16) intensity x hours non-delegation (n=640) personal demographics marital status (.12) work situation organizational tenure (-.16) organizational size (-.10) work intensity/hours intensity (.11) intensity x hours .32 .33 .18 .25 .27 .28 .12 .12 .03 .06 .07 .08 .09 .00 .03 .03 .01 .01 .001 ns .001 .001 .05 ns predictors of work engagement table 4 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which three measures of work engagement were regressed on the same four blocks of predictors mentioned above. the block of predictors including work intensity and work hours accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on each engagement measure. work intensity had a significant and independent relationship with each; respondents indicating higher levels of work intensity also reported more vigor, dedication and absorption (bs=.22, .21 and .27, respectively. the work intensity and work hours interaction accounted for a significant increase in explained variance on only one of the three engagement measures (vigor, b=.10). table 4. predictors of work engagement vigor (n=640) r r2 �r2 p personal demographics work situation organizational level (.21) work intensity/hours intensity (.22) intensity x hours dedication (n=640) personal demographics work situation organizational level (.21) job tenure (.11) work intensity/hours intensity (.21) .13 .28 .35 .37 .13 .27 .34 .02 .08 .12 .14 .02 .07 .12 .02 .06 .04 .02 .02 .05 .05 ns .001 .001 .01 ns .001 .001 work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 23 intensity x hours absorption (n=639) personal demographics work situation organizational level (.11) work intensity/hours intensity (.27) intensity x hours .35 .06 .15 .30 .31 .12 .00 .02 .09 .09 .00 .00 .02 .07 .00 ns ns .05 .001 ns predictors of work outcomes table 5 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses is which four work outcomes (job satisfaction, career satisfaction, job stress, intent to quit) were regressed on the four blocks of predictors. the block of predictors including work intensity and work hours accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on only two of the four work outcomes (job satisfaction and job stress).respondents indicating greater work intensity also reported higher levels of job satisfaction and higher levels of job stress (bs=.20 and .33, respectively). none of the interactions of work intensity and work hours accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on any of the four work outcomes. table 5. predictors of work outcomes job satisfaction (n=639) personal demographics work situation organizational level (.19) work intensity/hours intensity (.20) intensity x hours career satisfaction (n=640) personal demographics work situation organizational level (.21) organizational tenure (.15) work intensity/hours intensity x hours job stress (n=640) personal demographics r .17 .29 .35 .35 .25 .34 .35 .35 .07 r2 .03 .08 .12 .12 .06 .12 .12 .12 .00 �r2 .03 .05 .12 .00 .06 .06 .00 .00 .00 p .01 .001 .001 ns .001 .001 ns ns ns europe’s journal of psychology 24 work situation organizational level (-.18) work intensity/hours intensity (.32) intensity x hours intent to quit (n=638) personal demographics parental status (-.13) work situation organizational tenure (.16) job tenure (-.14) work intensity/hours intensity x hours .16 .36 .36 .13 .20 .22 .22 .03 .13 .13 .02 .04 .05 .05 .03 .10 .00 .02 .02 .01 .00 .01 .001 ns .05 .05 ns ns predictors of psychological well-being table 6 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which four indicators of psychological well-being (exhaustion, work-family conflict, psychosomatic symptoms, life satisfaction) were separately regressed on these same four blocks of predictors. the block including work intensity and work hours accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on three of the four indicators of psychological well-being (not life satisfaction).respondents indicating higher levels of work intensity also reported lower levels of well-being: more exhaustion, greater work-family conflict and more psychosomatic symptoms (bs=.25, .33 and .22, respectively). the work intensity-work hour’s interaction did not account for a significant increment in explained variance in any of these analyses. table 6 predictors of psychological well-being exhaustion (n=640) r r2 �r2 p personal demographics education (.11) work situation organizational level (-.20) work intensity/hours intensity (-.25) intensity x hours work-family conflict (n=640) personal demographics work situation .16 .22 .32 .33 .10 .16 .02 .05 .11 .11 .01 .02 .02 .03 .06 .00 .01 .01 .01 .01 .001 ns ns ns work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 25 work intensity/hours intensity (.33) intensity x hours psychosomatic symptoms (n=629) personal demographics gender (.08) work situation work intensity/hours intensity (.22) intensity x hours life satisfaction (n=640) personal demographics work situation organizational level (-.26) organizational tenure (.18) work intensity/hours intensity x hours .36 .37 .15 .18 .28 .28 .21 .35 .35 .36 .13 .13 .02 .03 .08 .08 .05 .12 .12 .13 .11 .01 .02 .01 .05 .00 .05 .07 .00 .01 .001 ns .05 .001 .001 ns .001 .001 ns ns discussion this research makes an important contribution by considering both number of hours worked and work intensity –the nature of one’s work – simultaneously. our measure or work intensity and work hours were significantly and positive correlated, but only weakly so. let us begin with an overview of the findings. the measure of work intensity shared two common predictors (table 2): males and respondents at higher organizational levels worked more hours and indicated greater work intensity. the results of hierarchical regression analysis in which work intensity and work hours were simultaneously entered as predictors of job behaviors, work engagement, several work outcomes and various indicators of psychological well-being indicated no effects for work hours (see tables 3 through 6).and the interaction of work intensity and work hours did not emerge as a significant predictor of these criterion variables. the results of these same analyses, however, indicated several significant effects of work intensity. respondents reporting greater work intensity also indicated higher levels of potentially problematic job behaviors (perfectionism, non-delegation), and lower levels of psychological well-being (more job stress, exhaustion, work-family europe’s journal of psychology 26 conflict, and psychosomatic symptoms). in addition, respondents indicating higher levels of work intensity also reported higher levels of work engagement –a positive work outcome-and more job satisfaction, suggesting the complexity of relationships of work intensity with various outcomes (see tables 3 through 6). work intensity and work hours were unrelated to other aspects of work (e.g., career satisfaction, intent to quit) or psychological well-being (life satisfaction), each of these likely affected by other factors more central to them than either work intensity or hours worked. there are perhaps two important implications of these findings that need to be highlighted. first, work intensity emerged as a considerably more powerful and consistent predictor of work and health outcomes than hours worked. future research needs to include both assessments of work intensity and work hours if the effects of work hours are to be more fully understood. second, the results highlight the complex interplay of work intensity and work and well-being outcomes. managers reporting higher levels of work intensity were more job satisfied and engaged in their work while at the same time reporting lower levels of psychological well-being. these findings are somewhat consistent with those reported by hewlett and luce in their study of “extreme jobs”. they found very high levels of satisfaction and engagement in work among their senior level executives and managers working 60 or more hours a week in intense jobs. these individuals however, did express some concern as to the effects of these investments on their families and on their health. most indicated a preference to work a few hours less a week in the not too distant future. this pattern of findings highlights the difficulty individuals have in making choices in whether or not they want to work fewer hours (burke & cooper, 2008). limitations of the research most research has limitations and this study is no exception. the following limitations should be acknowledged to put the findings in context. first, all data were collected using self-report questionnaires raising the slight possibility of response set tendencies and common method variance. second, all data were collected at one point in time making it difficult to address issues of causality. third, some of the measures had a level of internal consistency reliability below the generally accepted level of .70. fourth, some of the outcomes were themselves significantly but moderately inter-correlated. fifth, although the sample was large, it was not possible to determine its representativeness. sixth, it is not clear the extent to which these work hours, work intensity, satisfactions and psychological well-being 27 findings would generalize to other occupational samples in other cultures and countries. future research directions our knowledge of the effects of work hours and work intensity would be increased by including a wider array of potential individual and organizational antecedents (need 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(2003) non-standard work and benefits. industrial relations, 60, 29-60. about the authors: ronald j. burke is currently professor of organizational behavior schulich school of business, york university. his research interests include corruption in organizations, occupational health and safety and corporate reputation. e-mail: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca mustafa koyuncu is p rofessor of management, faculty of commerce and tourism education, nevsehir university. his research interests include tourism education, human resource management in the tourism and hospitality sector, and cross cultural research in tourism. lisa fiksenbaum is currently a phd candidate in the department of psychology, york university. her research interests include work and family. strress and health and statistical methods. fusun acar is a professor of management at erciyes university in turkey. his research focuses on the hospitality and tourism sector. the link between the mathematical game theory and the transactional analysis. a new kind of psychological game comes into being in new interpersonal relations. vandra attila trainer of the romanian association of debates, oratory and rhetoric (ardor) and transsylvanian debate association (ede) abstract mgt studies human games to find the best strategies for gaining a concrete advantage. ta studies human games to get the answer to the question why people make efforts in order to suffer, (to win negative payoffs), and how these people can be helped to give up these daily repeated games. these cause sufferings for all participants, and are the causes of many psychological diseases. however both describe the human conflicts, suffering having a sense of lost in mgt, apparently mgt games and ta games are in contrast with each other. studying the evolution (the degeneration) of mgt games, we can observe that the majority of human conflicts start off with a “prisoners dilemma”, goes on with the “chicken! game” and degenerates into a “dollar auction game”. the last one is a trap, and its main characteristic is that all participants, even those who wins the “dollar” (the target of the game), loose, having invested more than they could earn back. the psychological games result for the need for self-justification, for psychological pay-offs of the participants. the more you play the game the earlier the suffering as a target appears in the mgt game, transforming it into a „fireman game”, than in a „double target game”. at the end the concrete target transforms into gimmick, a pretext for winning the psychological pay-off of negative strokes. at this point we can speak about a real psychological game. in the author’s opinion the negative stroke is not a real target, it is only a way, a means of winning the real one, the self-justification, which is a positive pay-off in comparison to loosing without having any justification. keywords: mathematical game theory, transactional analysis, human conflicts, game degeneration, to win and to triumph, psychological game, pay-off 1. introduction the term “game” has two meanings: one is related to children’s activity and time spending, the other is a concept related to human conflicts. other languages, like romanian and hungarian, use two different terms for these concepts („joacă” and „joc”, respectively „játék” and „ játszma”) the literally, wrong translation of the word „game” is the source of many confusions and the incorrect use of these terms. mathematical game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that studies strategic situations where players choose different actions (moves) in an attempt to maximize their returns. the target of the game is to win the reward, a concrete advantage (like in chess). first developed as a tool for understanding economic behaviour, game theory is now used in many diverse academic fields, ranging from biology, psychology, philosophy, political science, military strategy etc. (mérő lászló, 1996, wikipedia, 2006) in the mgt the game has participants, rules, rewards (pay-offs), moves, an optimal strategy and an unpredictable outcome. in mgt games participants can not be characterized as being „positive” or „negative”; every participant acts according to his interest. if one of the participants can make an unpunished move which breaks the rules, the game degenerates into another game, in which the named move is allowed (for example a card game degenerates into a card-sharp game ). mgt studies games in order to find the most rational and optimal strategies (series of moves), which lead to the most probable or highest reward. ‘game’ is also a key-concept in transactional analysis (towards ta – berne, e., 1964). ta (or psychological) games are a repetitive, stereotyped human behaviours with a predictable end, following predetermined patterns and rules, and have a pay-off of racket feelings (parr, j., 2002, p39). they are psychological games (towards pg), because: they have strict rules have a lot of tactical moves. pg-s can not be continued if one of the participants quits the game, or introduces new rules (f. várkonyi zsuzsa, 2001) at the end of the game every participant earns a pay-off of racket feelings (berne, e., 1964). from the point of view of mgt, pg-s are irrational behaviours. ta tries to get the answer to the question why people play repetitively such absurd games if they suffer because of them, and how they can be helped to quit these games. conflict situations are ta games only if: the game goes through a set of sequences as follows: con+gimmick (accepted provocation) = response + switch + cross up + pay-off (parr, j., 2002). these are repetitive and have a predictable end. the switch is an obligatory step. in one of the moments of the game one of the participants changes his behaviour which surprises the other (crossup). from this moment participants concentrate on making each other suffer (berne e., 1964). these negative pay-offs give them psychological advantages. earning these advantages is the real target of the ta games. while in mgt games participants can win and lose, loss is an unknown notion in ta. (lassus, rené de, 1991) if anybody tries to deprive them of the sufferings, they make desperate efforts to earn these irrational pay-offs. (berne, e. 1964) in ta games there are three typical roles: the persecutor, the victim and the rescuer, which form stephen karpman’s drama triangle (parr, j., 2002). in ta games participants can change their roles. there are no “positive” or “negative” roles, each participant (even the victim) has its own interest to continue the ta game. (berne, e. 1964) if one of these conditions is missing then the described phenomenon is not a ta game. (stewart, i. – joines, v. 1987, english, f. 1987). transactional game analysis was considered fundamentally different from rational or mathematical game analysis in the following senses: the players do not always behave rationally in transactional analysis, but behave more like real people their motives are often ulterior (wikipedia, 2006) this study tries to give the answer to the question if there is a link between a pragmatic, rational mgt game, which tries to give the answer to the questions “who, and how much will win?” and “which is the optimal strategy to win more?”, and an irrational ta game with a predictable end (whose main question is: “why do we continue this absurd game?”). the example of the poker-player is thought-provoking. when the poker-player plays for the first time, he wants to win. for an ingrained poker-player the game itself is a necessity, he has to play even if he wins or not, even if he loses everything. when and why should he change his attitude? in order to get the answer we shall study a conflict of a young couple from the point of view of the game theories. 2. the prisoner's dilema in most cases human conflicts begin when participants realise that their interests come into conflict. we shall study the conflict of a young couple, maria and john. each of them likes to drink coffee served in bed. but who will prepare the coffee? which of them will give up the joy of serving it? on the first day john woke up first. he thought he would surprise his young wife… next day it was maria’s turn to surprise his lovely husband… on the third day they woke up at the same moment. after having good fun, because they tried to get up at the same moment, they drank the coffee in the dining room after preparing it together. but not in bed… next day both of them concluded: „i will wait to be served in bed…” both of them had to choose between two behaviours (moves, strategies). 1) adaptive move: „i give up to be served, but i do what my partner expects from me.” (mgt uses the term “cooperative” instead of “adaptive” in my opinion it is not a correct terminology, because cooperation needs the participation of both participants, and a move is chosen by one of them. cooperation appears in case of mutual adaptive behaviour). 2) defecting (non-adaptive) move: „i wait till i am served, even if i do not what my companion expects from me.” both have a dilemma. they have to choose between adaptive behaviour and the defecting (non-adaptive) one, which maintains the possibility of earning the maximum advantage. the game has 2*2=4 solutions: 1. john prepares the coffee and loses, maria triumphs over him. 2. maria prepares the coffee and loses, john triumphs over her. 3. they get up and prepare the coffee together, but both give up the maximum advantage: to be served in bed. 4. both wait to be served by the other in bed, so the conflict continues: who will get up and will prepare the coffee? this is not a real solution. the possibilities are shown in table 1: table 1. the solutions of the „who serves the coffee” game. free roman numbers show how beneficial the solutions are from the point of view of john, the roman numbers in parenthesis show the order from the point of view of maria. (i. most beneficial … iv. less beneficial). this will be a repetitive game in this family. the question is which is the best strategy to win the maximum advantage in this situation (to be served as frequently as possible with coffee). in mgt, this game is known as „the prisoner’s dilemma”. the game has got its name from merril flood and merlin drescher’s idea and since 1950 has probably become the most studied game in mgt. (mérő lászló, 1996, in: wikipedia, 2004). this game is beyond formal logic’s limits. (the classical prisoner’s dilemma: two suspects, a and b, are arrested by the police. the police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and having separated both prisoners, visit each of them and offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. if both stay silent, the police can only give both prisoners 6 months for a minor charge. if both betray each other, they receive a 2-year sentence each. each prisoner must make a choice – to betray the other, or to remain silent. however, neither prisoner knows for sure what choice the other prisoner will make. what will happen? (in: wikipedia, 2004) for john seemingly, it would be advantageous to stay in bed (defecting strategy). if maria got up (adaptive strategy), it would be better for him to be served than to drink the coffee together with his wife in the living-room. if maria didn’t get up (defecting strategy), it would still be advantageous for john to stay in bed, because in the case of a “stay in bed contest”, which has got a 50% chance of winning, he would still get his coffee in bed in at least half of the cases. but the rules of logics are valid for maria as well. according to formal logics, each day will start with a “stay in bed contest”. wouldn’t it be more advantageous to have the coffee in the living-room? or to reach an agreement according to which one of them will prepare the coffee one day and the other the next day without a fight? cooperation, mutual adaptive behavior, would be more effective on a long term. mgt researches have shown that the one who can get more out of the prisoner’s dilemma-situation is the one who can persuade the other to apply the adaptive strategy. for this he needs a strategy that the opponent can only fight back advantageously by applying the adaptable strategy. the most effective in repetitive prisoner’s dilemma was invented by anatole rapoport and he called it “tit for tat” (tft). (rapoport, a. – chammach, a. 1965, axelrod, r. 1984). the main point is that during the first round he applies an adaptable strategy, and then during the next rounds he applies the strategies used by his opponent during the first rounds. in this way, if the opponent wants to be adaptable, he has to adapt as well. a long-term cooperation is the result of this. wanting to triumph is a trap and it implies a non-adaptive strategy. two concepts need to be clarified: 1. to win, that is to earn more advantages and does not suppose triumphing 2. to triumph, is to overcome the opponent in a direct confrontation mo matter what. one can check theoretically and practically as well that one can not triumph applying a tft strategy. however, it ensures the biggest win on a long term if the game is symmetrical. (if the chances of the competitors are equal). some observations: the most significant element of the game is trusting the other (mutual trust). if you can trust your opponent that he will be adaptive, then it is worth to be adaptive, if not, it is more advantageous to defect in order to avoid loss. (axelrod, r., 1984). in an asymetrical game, when the chances of the players are not the same, one of the players gains more or easier than the other and the tendency for cooperation (for adaptive behaviour) will decrease. (kelley, h. h. – thibaut, j. w., 1978). the player who starts off with a higher chance of winning hopes to win more and the one who is in disadvantage counts on the fact that his opponent will try to take advantage of his own situation and will not trust his opponent. during the asynchronous game, when the players do not take decisions together but separately, the will to cooperate decreases. (kelley, h. h. – thibaut, j. w., 1978). the defecting strategy might have two motivations: the will to triumph and distrust. three out of the four situations of the game (when at least one of them is adaptive) gives an immediate solution to the conflict. but if both of them apply a defecting strategy there will be a rivalry, but this is a completely different game situation. some of the prisoner’s dilemma situations regularly turn into a “chicken” game. as a trainer, i have often used “the prisoner’s dilemma” as a starting point for debates. the students had to play the repetitive “prisoner’s dilemma” using a scoring which has been modified by me (winning = 5 points, cooperation – mutual adaptive move = 2 points, mutual defecting = 2 points, loss = 5 points). the playing conditions were as follow: after 5-6 rounds the two players that got the least points were disqualified, but the game moved on by swapping partners and zeroing their points, until only two players remained. this is the final. if there were pairs in the first two rounds who were disqualified together because they used mutual defecting strategies, the ones who got to the final and was adaptive, would lose. but usually this was not the case. in 90% of the cases the game was a draw. it seemed as if they had played a completely different game in the final, but, apparently, nothing has changed. “all” that happened was that there were only the two of them left; staying in the game did not depend on what happens in the other games. winning was not the point in the final, but triumphing… but let’s see what is going on here in fact. 3. the "chicken!" game let’s return to our story. none of them had spoken. however, each of them knew that there was a competition. but it was more and more uncomfortable to stay in bed. each of them hoped that the other would eventually give up… john gave up, maria triumphed over him. but next day john woke up with the thought of not giving up and he succeeded: 1:1 was the score! it was a sport. when the honeymoon ended, they had to go to work, and maria needed more time to prepare. the game became asymmetric; maria prepared the coffee all week. the „the one who gives up, loses” type of game in mgt is known as the „chicken!” game. the adolescent dare game of chicken came to public attention in the 1955 movie rebel without a cause. in the movie, spoiled los angeles teenagers drive stolen cars to a cliff and play a game they call a “chickie run.” the game consists of two boys simultaneously driving their cars off the edge of the cliff, jumping out at the last possible moment. the boy who jumps out first is jeered “chicken” and loses. (w. poundstone, 1992, mérő lászló 1996) is the merit of bertrand russel, who saw in „chicken” a metaphor for the nuclear stalemate. mgt studies as model the “highway chicken game” in which players drive their cars towards the other’s car with high speed and the one who swerves sooner is the „chicken!” at the beginning, the game seems to be a prisoner’s dilemma. players can decide, in each moment of the game, on using adaptive or defecting behaviour. as time passes, going on with the game becomes more and more dangerous. at a certain moment, it becomes more rational to swerve giving the game up and lose than risk frontal collision. but this is also valid for the opponent. he may give up… the one who triumphs in this game can remain in the game. it seems to be a sport. studying the model-game, we should think that normal people do not play such a crazy game. in real life, most human conflicts pass over this phase of the game. people with rational behaviour have no chance of triumphing in this game, because giving up the game would be the rational behaviour! (mérő lászló, 1996). cooperation has no chance, because nobody trusts the opponent. there are only two solutions in this game: to lose or to triumph. a new motivation is coming into being: the desire to triumph, which can be more powerful than to earn the original reward. triumph is a psychological reward, which has concrete advantages, so it is a typical reward in mgt games. the risk of collision is another parameter of the game: what can players lose by “making a collision”. (in real life chicken games game is not about life or death, players often risk collisions). it is not the same risk as being in a tank or in a trabant. the one who has more to worry about is in a disadvantage. but how can anybody triumph in this game? the most efficient strategy is to convince the opponent that you will not quit the irrational game in any circumstances. the most significant elements of the game are self-confidence and fear. it is not the one who has more to lose that loses, but the one who is more afraid of “collision.” (children, who are dependent of their parents’ nurturing, are the artists of this game. usually they triumph in most “chicken!” games played against their parents). causes of asymmetry in “chicken!” games are related partially to the material world, and only partially have psychological sources (can be found in their scripts). if the game is asymmetric, it will always have the same end. the player which always loses becomes frustrated, because he can not satisfy his necessities. being desperate, he will tend to break the rules of the game (aronson e., mettee, d., 1968): he will probably apply to emotional blackmail. blackmail is not a permitted move in the “chicken!” game, because it degenerates into another game. sport transforms into war. 4. the dollar auction game on saturday the “competition” continued. maria, who had lost all week, broke the rules of the game. “please serve the coffee”,said john. the emotional blackmail stated as a request was efficient. how could john say no, if he was asked? power relations changed. but next day john wasn’t so compliant. he realised that this is part of the game. “i served it yesterday” – he answered to the request. “but i have done it all week” – was her answer. he began to tickle her. she answered by pounding him playfully. “don’t be a bad girl!” – said john. “if you don’t prepare it today, you’ll get no coffee all week!” threatened maria, offended. this was not a sport any more, it was war. it was like in an auction: one of them tried to put pressure on the other and the other raised the ante… john gave in again, but he served the coffee less kindly than before. he lost again. this type of game is known in mgt as the dollar auction game. (shubik, m., 1971). in the model game, a 1$ bill is auctioned, but the rules are not conventional. the upset price is 10 cents, the ante can be raised only by 10 cents, (not more, not less), and the most important rule is the trap of the game: at the end of the auction not only that pays who made the highest bid and won the dollar, but also the one who made the last bid, whose bid was lower by 10 cents than that of the winner. the one who bids 90 cents (0.9$), while his opponent bids 1$, will be caught in a trap. either he loses 90 cents or makes a bid of 1.1$ for the 1$ bill. continuing the game seems to be a rational move, because it is better to lose only 10 cents than 90 cents. but his opponent’s logic will be the same and he will bid 1.2$… according to shubik (1971), the average price paid for the dollar bill is 3,5$, but baga tibor, my student, organized an auction, where the final bid was 12.4$! the slogan of the game is “too much invested to quit.” (mérő lászló, 1996). every move (bid) seems to be rational, but the whole behaviour is completely irrational because the winner pays more for the dollar than it is actually worth. but the one who gives up easily, decreases his chance to triumph in the next game. he will lose more and more games. in the dollar auctions of life, “bids” are emotional blackmails or threats. players send each other the following message: “i can hurt you more than you can!” this is real war, not a sport. threats, emotional blackmails, as bids in the model game, can not be retracted. each player feels himself a victim, identifies his opponent as a persecutor. if one of the players began the “auction”, the opponent would only keep his chance to win overbidding him. some real-life auctions end up in law courts, in hospitals, at the police or even in the cemetery. let us return to our story. the atmosphere cooled down by next morning. “we had a fight over nothing!” they made a deal: on weekdays maria serves the coffee, during the weekends it is john’s turn. the conflict seemed to be solved. because the ones who triumph can also lose, the consequences of this are motivation for finding a joint solution. h. h. kelley and j. w. thibaut’s (1978) researches have shown that a long term mutual adaptive behaviour (real cooperation) is possible after a mutual defecting one and they quit the game all at once. but this is only a chance. it is very important how the players assimilate the events after the game. the self-respect of the players is manhandled in this game because they have lost (even if they have triumphed) and because they were forced by the trap of the game to have an antisocial behaviour. a new necessity of the players comes into being: to save their self-respect whatever the costs. without positive self-respect, man would lose self-confidence, their safety-feeling. (várkonyi f. zsuzsa, 2003) self-respect can be saved by transferring all responsibility to the opponent (to the enemy), using a double ethic (allport, g. w., 1999) and rationalisation (festinger, l. 1957). the lawful consequence of the dollar auction game is the desperate desire for self-excuse. this necessity becomes more and more imperative as auction degenerates, because he commits more and more blameworthy acts (glass, d., 1964). john escapes his remorse by transferring responsibility to his wife. it is a relief for him that her wife is the guilty. maria is also relieved, because she can accuse her husband. no one could prevent them to do so. it was a game without a real opponent, in which they could triumph without an effort. the attempt to save self-respect is a new mgt game, but it is the lawful consequence of the first game. the motivation for playing this second game came into being while playing the first game. losing the first game generates a situation, in which it became easy to accuse, to transfer the whole responsibility. how could they accuse each other before the coffee-conflict? to do so, they needed to suffer first. there are some advantages of being a victim. there are diverse forms of emotional blackmail. the punitive (persecutor) is not the only one. the suffering (victim) can also be an emotional blackmailer (forward, s. – frazier, d. 1997). suffering is also blackmailing others by attacking their self-respect: “you have made me suffer!” but you have to suffer first, you have to make a “queen-sacrifice.” you have to provoke the opponent to produce you suffering, and after that you can switch to accusing him for it. the more the persecutor punishes, the more efficient the blackmailing by suffering of the victim can be. moreover, you can punish yourself in order to blackmail, like the child, who blackmails his parents by refusing to eat. this type of emotional blackmailers are named by forward, s. and frazier, d., (1997) as self-punishers. such a manoeuvre is a typical tactical move in mgt games (like the queen-sacrifice in chess), but in these pragmatic games the target of the sacrifice is to earn a concrete advantage. sacrifice is only worth if the reward of the second game is bigger than the negative consequences of losing the first game. 5. different grades of psychological games the fireman-game (fireman psychology) studying pg-s, we can observe that pg-s can be divided into two mgt games. the first one, with a pay-off of a concrete advantage, is only a gimmick (a queen-sacrifice). it is easy to triumph in the second game, earning psychological pay-offs of negative strokes by losing the first one. in my opinion, it is a wrong interpretation that the target of psychological games is suffering; the real target is to save positive self-respect. suffering is only an instrument, a manoeuvre, a “queen-sacrifice” for winning the real target. in pg-s, the switch is a compulsory move. but, suddenly behaviour-changings (switches) have different forms: 1. after the end of the game, the player begins a different activity (a new, different mgt game). 2. after loosing the game, the player looks for compensation, playing another, different game. (for e.g. john after losing the game began to growl alone, being angry with her). 3. giving up an unreachable target switches to running after a more reachable (winnable) one, finding compensation in it. 4. switching is a calculated manoeuvre; the real target is to win the second game. only the last two are real switches, because behaviour change occurred while playing, not after the end of the game. the difference between the last two examples is that in the third case the intention to make a switch “to compensate losses” did not exist at the beginning. if he won the first game, he would not try to make efforts to triumph in the second game. in the fourth case, winning the first game would make him feel a loser, because he had lost a chance of winning the real target. in this situation, the player would make more effort to reach his real target. the third case isn’t a manoeuvre even if it looks like it, the fourth is, however. a degenerated dollar auction game isn’t a real pg, even if it seems like it. without a real switch, it can be classified as racketeering. (english, f., 1987). the main difference is that, for the player, who accepts to take part in a dollar auction-like game, the concrete target is more important than psychological compensation, thus saving his wounded self-respect. for john and maria, to be served with coffee in bed and the symbolic meanings of being served were important. the other difference was that the game did not have a predictable end. but degeneration of the game has given birth to a new necessity: saving self-respect. let us return to our story. they complied with the agreement until christmas holidays came, but during the holidays, they did not have to go to work on monday. maria tried a gimmick: “do you love me?” “yes.” “then you should prepare the coffee!” john did not let himself be fooled. “it is a weekday today” “holidays are like weekends, we do not go to work” she answered. “you are being selfish” she added. “and you?” replied john. maria got angry: “you are insolent!” this remark opened pandora’s box. they began to accuse each other, overbidding each other. neither of them prepared the coffee, they did not drink coffee that morning. their only consolation was that the other was the guilty one. neither of them felt responsible for the happenings. or was it only appearance? if maria’s mother-in-law had not come to visit, they would probably have never made up again. john “accidentally” broached the coffee story. his mother immediately took his son’s part. “i prepare the coffee for my husband every morning. that is a woman’s duty”. the game became asymmetric once more. this fight was different from the previous one. in the first fight each tried to put pressure on the other one to convince him/her to prepare the coffee. they even used labels (for example: “don’t be a bad girl!”) to convince the other to give the game up. in today’s fight, the same thing happened at the beginning, but only up to a point. “you are insolent”, was an unmistakable insult. an insulted person would do what you expect him to do. this action did not bring the target nearer, it made it more improbable to reach. after the switch, they made efforts not to reach the original target; they tried to save their self-respect. the easiest way seemed to provoke the other to antisocial behaviour, to have enough reason to accuse him/her, to make revenge possible. coffee served in bed? it was not important any more. why? we have seen that degeneration of the conflict gives birth to a new necessity: to save self-respect. when the game repeated itself, they saluted the well-known feeling which appeared, in previous cases, only after finishing the game. this necessity brought up a dilemma: to triumph in the “who prepares the coffee?” game, they had to continue overbidding the opponent, leading to further decreasing self-respect. to save self-respect, they had to transfer responsibility to the opponent, but for this they had to give up the “who prepares the coffee?” game. i named this “skylla or charybdis”-type of dilemma the “fireman psychology”. if your house is burning, you can do two things: either you are fighting with the fire, risking losing everything in the fire, or you give up the fight and try to save what you can. first you are thinking about having chances to rake out the fire, but you gradually lose faith to carry it out and you will make a switch and will begin to save what can be saved. after the house has burnt down, you will tell your neighbours how happy you are, because you have rescued the tv and they will be surprised how happy you can be when your house has burnt down… rescuing the tv is a gain if we make a comparison to the situation before the fire, with the possibility of losing everything, even the tv. is it worth to get series of insults only to have the opportunity to accuse the other? for a rationally thinking man, the answer is a categorical no. but for those who fell in the trap of the dollar auction game and have lost all hope to triumph, things appear different. a gain is a relative notion. “i have more after the game, than before, so i have won”. but what is the sense of “before?” before what? rescuing self-respect is a real gain, if we think like this: i have lost the game anyway, but i am not responsible”. for those who have lost all hope to triumph, rescuing the remaining of self-respect is a real gain. theoretically, the conflict can be solved in such a situation, if both players accept the responsibility for their own mistakes. but there is a risk. if one of them accepts and the other does not, the fist one not only loses, but the whole responsibility for the happenings will be his/hers. (is a prisoner’s dilemma-like decision). for such a risk neither has enough self trust, but in a degenerated game it is easy to accuse the other… in our story, the switch appeared when maria concluded that she has no chance to triumph. switch is related to losing self-confidence and the desperate try to rescue self-respect. this can be considered a pg; however, it is not a typical one. the game follows the typical steps of a pg, includes a switch and each player gains a pay-off of racket feelings. but we can not sustain that the target of provoking the game was to have justification to accuse the other, the outcome was not predictable at the beginning of game. the game is a hybrid between mgt games and pg-s. the more you play the game, the earlier the switch appears in the mgt game. a factor, which introduces asymmetry in the game (for example the appearance of a “rescuer” who interferes with one of the players), will be the catalyst of transforming into a pg. the player in disadvantage, when he concludes that he will lose, will make a switch to rescue his self-respect, posing himself as a victim, and his opponent and his unconditioned rescuer as a persecutor. if the game is asymmetric, its outcome will always be the same and the roles become steady. it is easy to imagine that if the mother-in-law had lived with them, maria would have lost every day. maria would try to win, but… she would lose every time. (“as you see, i tried everything, but…” game – berne, e., 1964) in asymmetric games, the scenario is the same and has a predictable outcome. the one who loses every time, has no alternatives: he has to compensate the permanently lost game or triumph in other games (reciprocity = a type of cooperation), or console himself with something like a child with a dummy: “the other is the guilty one” the double-target game next morning maria asked john: “will you prepare the coffee or not?” john became upset by the tone, hesitated a moment, but was ready to get up to serve the coffee. maria gave him no opportunity to do so, seeing that he doesn’t get up immediately and feeling herself a loser after losing the game a day before. so she played her last card: “if you don’t make it hearty, i do not need it!” john fell in the trap, he had two bad choices: either he prepares the coffee to prove his wife that he makes it hearty (and loses) or he will be the (only) guilty in his wife’s opinion (and he will feel as he has lost too). john got up angrily, but he did not prepare the coffee. he’d rather give up to drink coffee. his consolation was the feeling of revenge. the experience of s. berglas and e. e. jones (1978) is the proof that those who don’t have self-confidence have the tendency to increase their self-handicap in order to have justification for losing. their experience subjects, students, who had to give a test, had to choose between two pills which they had to swallow before the test. they were told that one of the pills increases, the other decreases efficiency at the test. those who had low self-confidence about passing the test chose the pill that decreases efficiency, in order to have further justification for not passing. if they did not succeed in taking out the fire, they would try to have justification. the tone used by maria and then her “pride”, deprived her from beginning to obtain what she desired. despite this behaviour, she wished to be served with coffee in bed. her low self-confidence motivated her to have insurance against loss. for her, the game had two targets: “either i’ll be served coffee or john will be guilty of everything.” if she loses, at least she’ll have justification. she could be sure that one of the targets will be obtained. it was impossible to loose both games. but desire to be served with coffee still existed. maria still wanted to get john ask her for forgiveness and she let him serve the coffee. but because john did not ask for forgiveness, it was clear, that morning, that she has lost the chance to be served. the game transformed into a pg, in which both have gained a pay-off: “you are the guilty one! everything is all on you!” from this moment, the psychological advantage gained from suffering became a real target. it is not easy to separate a double target game from a typical pg. theoretically, the separation limit is where the original target (to be served coffee in our story) becomes negligible compared to the psychological pay-off. when you lose an mgt game, it is only a manoeuvre to gain the real target, the psychological pay-off, a good occasion to play your favourite pg. a double target game is also a transition between mgt games and pg-s, but in comparison to the dollar auction game (or the fireman game), this game contains only tracks of the main characteristics of an mgt game, that is the purposefulness. the typical psychological game next morning they had another quarrel, but this time it did not count if the other serves the coffee or not. only who is the guilty was important. they quarrelled over unimportant things all that day and each time the issue was brought back onto the coffee story. every scene had a similar scenery: maria asked for something, using an imperative, impolite tone, and if his husband didn’t react immediately, she said offended: “i don’t need your help, if i have to implore you!” john tried to make her to change her mind about it, but because his wife didn’t change her proud attitude immediately, he gave up relieved his attempt to persuade her to change her attitude. “as you see, i tried everything, but…” they agreed on a single thing: the other is the guilty one. they tried to persuade each other in a way that did not succeed, as if they wanted to suffer. the fact that maria did not let john to persuade her to give up on the self-punisher behaviour, shows that, in this game, the debate was not about the coffee. coffee was only a gimmick, a trap, and john did not learn from the happenings (as he did not want to). after john fell in the trap, maria began to play the victim’s role and could prove that she had justification for channelling her rage on john. john, after the first uncourageous attempt, suffered relieved because of her wife’s rage and named her “hysterical” because she escaped responsibility. (as you see, i tried everything, but…” game – berne, e., 1964) the “who is served coffee in bed?” game was a lost game for both of them from the start point. if one is guilty, the other can justify any behaviour. the other deserved it… didn’t he? when all participants of a game find their own psychological pay-off, we have a typical pg. in pg-s, players have double motivation. on the one hand they are suffering from the game, they would like to avoid it, and on the other hand they desire to relieve transferring whole responsibility to the other, being ready to sacrifice the reward of mgt game as well. there is a competition between these contrary motivations (fireman psychology). while the first motivation and the desire to earn the reward of the mgt game seams to be more important and reachable, players make efforts to win the mgt game and to avoid pg. but as the game advances and because of the trap of the dollar auction game, the self-respect becomes lower and lower, the second motivation becomes more and more important and at a certain moment it lawfully takes initiative. this is the moment when the switch happens. from this moment, the player makes desperate efforts to gain the psychological pay-off (transfer of responsibility). switch upsets efforts to avoid pg. this is the key moment of transforming the mgt game into a pg. but a pg can not be continued only by the participation of all players. if one of the players makes a rule-breaker move and tries to quit the game, then a new mgt game bears. the target of this game is whether players would play the pg or not. the player, who wants to quit, tries to persuade his opponent to give the game up, the other will provoke him to continue it. game has finished when all players give up making efforts to gain the psychological pay-off. one can be dependent on saving self-respect as on alcohol or drugs. as somebody becomes more and more dependent on psychological pay-off-s, he will provoke more and more desperately, he is not obligated by social rules any more or to have rational behaviour, so in most cases he will triumph in this game. the player, who tries to quit without succeeding, has a psychological pay-off too. as the reward of mgt games is more important, players could more easily be persuaded to avoid pg-s. there are only quantitative differences among the fireman-game, the double target game and a typical pg. the main quantitative difference is the relative importance of the concrete and psychological target in the starting moment of the game, in the prisoner’s dilemma situation. in the fireman game, the target of the mgt game is more important, the psychological pay-off is only an alternative for losing. in the double target game the motivations are similar. in typical pg-s the target of the mgt game is only a queen-sacrifice for gaining the real target, the psychological pay-off. in the fireman game the player is happy to earn the reward of the mgt game, giving up the psychological pay-off. in the double target game, he can be persuaded to give up psychological pay-off if he earns the reward of the mgt game, but in a typical pg, gaining the reward of an mgt game instead of psychological pay-off would make the player feel like a loser, so he will make other desperate efforts to win the psychological pay-off, provoking other games. but how can players quit such a game? the antithesis that night they slept back-to-back. however, neither could sleep nor said a word, although night was a good adviser. in the morning, john got up, prepared the coffee, and served it to maria, and then he said: “i know that you like coffee served in bed. me too. i realized how much my mother’s words offended you. yesterday, i wanted to serve the coffee, but you did not give me a chance. i do not want to begin another quarrel on this subject, but i have to say, that it makes me nervous when somebody speaks to me on such an imperative tone. if somebody speaks to me like that, i say no, even if normally i should say yes.” after he finished, he left the bedroom. maria was so surprised, that, for a moment, she had no answer. then she had nobody to quarrel with. her first reaction was: “if he did not bring it to me with pleasure, i do not need it!” she did not drink the coffee, but she did not get up either. she only tried to channel her rage on john. but as time passed, she realized that she can’t persuade herself. but how would she confess? both were very quiet all day. at night, in the bed, maria wreath her arms around john, and said: “i do not want to quarrel with you. i love you.” – then burst into tears. john strained her in his arms and said: “neither do i.” then added: “i wanted to say me too” they began to laugh… in the morning, maria told john, who was about to get up: “let me do it. it’s my turn!” that day the mother-in-law came again to visit. she brought up the coffee story again. they responded in the same moment: “mother, we can work out our problems alone!” in that moment, they looked at each other and screamed with laughter. the game was over. or was it? the mother-in law felt that the youngsters made her feel like an idiot… she has lost the occasion to “rescue” his son… this message of john’s was different. he did not implore his wife; he did not let her feel dominant, provoking her to be a persecutor. in the same time, he did not accuse her, provoking her to be a victim. he told her his own feelings and thoughts. thomas gordon (1974) names this type of messages i-messages, because, in the message, the subject is “i”; the person who is communicating has a problem. for example: “i should like to” “disturbs me”. characteristic of these games is that these messages are changed by messages which communicate about “you”, the person who you are speaking to. these types of messages are named by th. gordon “you-messages”. for example: “(you) serve the coffee!” “it’s your obligation” i-messages contain no crawl and no accuse, so they make it more difficult to transfer responsibility, to gain the psychological pay-off. if a message contains an alternative as well, another reward instead the lost psychological pay-off and also gives time to assimilate the happenings, then, it increases the probability of quitting the game. the behavior, which makes it more difficult to obtain the psychological pay-off, makes the game meaningless, and is named antithesis. using antithesis, deprives partners of psychological pay-offs, so they will provoke the game-breaker desperately to continue the game (berne, e., 1964). a new mgt game appears when using antitheses: “do we play pg or not?” this mgt game can be won by both parts. the consequence of the unsuccessful use of antithesis is that next time it will be more difficult to use it. partners learn how the game-breaker can be provoked back in the game. his provocation will be more vehement and the player will apply to more desperate moves. if antithesis is applied with success, it puts the basis of a real, long-term cooperation, like in our story. in real cooperation, in the thinking of participants (not players!), “i (my)” is changed by “we (ours)”. (our common interest is to renounce to some advantages because i trust that you will do the same). using antitheses deprive the rescuer as well to earn the psychological pay-off, so he will provoke the others to continue the game. in our story the loser of the cooperation of the young family is the mother-in-law, who can not gain psychological pay-offs rescuing his son. she will probably try to provoke other games to get the pay-off from other games. 6. conclusions the metamorphosis of motivations human conflicts work on the pattern of prisoner’s dilemma "chicken! – game", "the dollar auction game", "a type of pg (fireman game, double target game or typical pg)" sequence. motivations are not constant; they change while the game advances and time passes. the following is a wrong question: “which is the motivation of the game?” for a wrong question there are only wrong answers. the way games generate the motivation of players changes too. the way the outcome of mgt games (prisoner’s dilemma, chicken! game and dollar auction game) is decided by reciprocal trust, self-confidence and self-respect, motivations change in the same way. in the prisoner’s dilemma the main motivation is “i want to hit my target”. next to this motivation, in the chicken! game, the desire to triumph appears and also the fear of the consequences of continuing the game. in the dollar auction game, the desire to rescue self-respect, lawfully appears, which becomes more and more important than motivations to hit the original target. switch is the consequence of lawfully changes in values. the intention to make a switch and transform the mgt game into a pg is not compulsory in the starting point of the game (the moment of provocation). in the case of repetitive conflicts, achieving psychological triumph as a motivation appears in more and more earlier stages of the game. from this point we can speak about double motivation, which accompanies it all through the game. reasons why people play pgs according to ta, the main reason why people play pgs is the necessity of stimuli, of strokes. but this necessity can not explain exclusively all phenomenology of pgs. the necessity of strokes can not explain why a peaceful activity, by reason of a mutual rigid standpoint (both want to triumph), transforms suddenly into a power play, which degenerates into racketeering and, after a switch, ends as a pg, which does not solve anything. it is not easy to explain what the source of stroke necessity is, because it was not present in the peaceful activity. the internal pressure to be fit to script messages achieved during childhood has an important influence on the general self-image and decisions taken in pgs. but these scripts also can not be considered as exclusive reasons why people play pg. scripts can decide inclination for games, which will be the preferred games, but do not give any explanation for changes in intensity of pgs. why does the dictator-director play the role of the victim at home, when, in his office, he plays the role of a persecutor? why does the intensity of pgs increase in the elderly period? why does the intensity of pgs increase during the teenager period and decrease (without the help of the ta specialist) spontaneously at the end of this period? scripts do not change. prank campaigns carried on with the classroom’s scapegoat within a children’s group are also pgs. why do all members of the group participate independently regardless of their scripts? why is the tendency of finding a scapegoat more intensive in the case of discipline-centered (punitive) education? if the scapegoat leaves the group, there is a high probability of another scapegoat to appear in the game-deprived group. if we transfer the scapegoat, the class, which was deprived of it, will most probably look for another one. (allport, g. 2000). the series of questions can be continued. neither necessity of strokes nor scripts give a satisfying answer. in all pgs it is common that the target of the game is to save self-respect no matter what. the key-move of the pg is the switch. players switch exactly when, in their vision, saving self-respect becomes more important than making efforts to hit an unreachable target. saving self-respect as a necessity can exist at the beginning of the game (at the moment of provocation – mgt game is only a gimmick), but can come into being while playing the mgt game too, as a lawfully consequence of the degeneration of the mgt game. the laws of mgt games give enough explanation how pgs come into being. using occam’s razor (one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything. – f. heylighen, 1995), we can conclude that pg can come into being without the influence of scripts. negative experiences of pgs give enough motivation for quitting repetitive pgs. if players do not quit, it is hard to give a satisfying explanation to the phenomenon without referring to scripts. beyond scripts, other influences can increase probability of playing pgs: 1. non-scriptic origin relationship asymmetry. 2. frustration because of losing other games. 3. physiologic or healthy bodily causes: hunger, tiredness, illness. 4. rule-systems and expectations of the environment (in such situation the correct behaviour is…) or examples can have an influence (conformism – aronson, e., 1999). a part of the factors that have influence on playing pg-s are found in the present (here and now) or in recent past. these factors, together with the scripts, lead to pgs. degrees of pgs according to eric berne, games vary in intensity or degree from the relatively harmless first degree to the hard third degree game which leads to personal injury, involves tissue destruction and end in the law court, in the hospital, at psychiatry or in the cemetery. (berne, e., 1964). the link between mgt and ta give us another criteria of classification the degrees (intensity) of games. as i have shown, the pg can be divided in two mgt games. the target of the first is a concrete advantage; the second one’s saving self respect by sacrificing the reward of the first game. the relative importance of the two targets in the vision of the player (in the moment of provocation in the first mgt game) defines three degrees of a pg in the start point of the game. first degree game: in the start point the concrete target is more important, but as game evolves, the psychological pay-off becomes more and more important. in the fireman-game player is happy to hit the reward of the first mgt game, the concrete advantage, renouncing to get the psychological pay-off. second degree game: the importance of the targets is appreciatively equal. (double target game). the player assures himself that he is going to have a consolation in case of losing the first game. the player can be convinced to give the psychological pay-off up by getting the reward of the first game, the concrete advantage. third degree game: the mgt game is only a gimmick, a pretext. there is only a single real target and that is to hit the psychological pay-off. if somebody deprives him of this pay-off, he will desperately provoke another game. one can be dependent of games as of alcohol. (berne, e., 1964). the degrees of dependency are also measures of the degrees of games. dependency has four degrees as shown in the analogy with degrees of alcohol dependency. every degree of dependency can be considered another degree of the pg. degree 0: testing (first time tastes alcohol) – game degree 0 –it is not a game. degree 1: enjoying (drinks occasionally with friends) – first degree game degree 2: falling into a habit (is drinking regularly, but he can give up making an effort) – second degree game degree 3: dependency (alcohol becomes a vital necessity, he sacrifices anything for a drink) – third degree game. table 2 shows the correspondence between dependency, berne’s game degrees and degrees given by the relative importance of the concrete and psychological target. there is no equivalence between different types of degrees, only similarity. table 2 similarity between different expressions of psychological game degrees 7. after word there are two different methods for solving human conflicts: cooperation and games. the condition of cooperation is mutual adaptation, but adaptive behaviour is risky, you can lose. the consequence of mutual defecting behaviour is a competition, which lawfully transforms into a “dollar auction” if none give up. in “dollar auction games”, it lawfully decreases self-respect of participants and the low self-respect creates ideal conditions for transforming into a pg. by switching, conflict situation it transforms into a pg. all pgs can be divided into two mgt games. both games studied separately seem to be rational, but together they are an irrational behaviour. in my opinion, the statement, according to which the target of pgs is suffering, is false. suffering is only an instrument in rescuing the remaining of self-respect. sufferings can justify any unsocial behaviour. it is an exaggeration to say that stroke necessity and forwarding scripts are exclusive causes of pgs. both lead to pgs only together with mgt games (here and now phenomena). variation in pgs’ intensities can be explained by the help of here and now phenomenon. adequate treatment of mgt games can prevent one from having inclination to play pgs here and now. for prevention, it is worth being attentive to laws of mgt games, because in different phases of the game the efficient strategy is different. but the efficient treatment of a concrete mgt game does not solve the script-based tendency for playing pgs and the dependency on pgs. in new relations, two different mechanism lead to pgs: 1. a person who has script-given tendency to play pgs, looks for partners to play favourite games. 2. the lawfully decreasing self-respect in generated by mgt games make ideal conditions to a runaway into pgs. if the conflict does not have a real solution, the game will repeat itself on a higher degree. the fireman-game, in the course of time, transforms into a double target game and then into a typical pg. in my opinion, the statement according to which pgs are unambiguously prejudicial for players is false. low degrees pgs (fireman games) have their positive role, for example, rescuing self-respect. (contrary, according to natural selection, people who have the tendency to play pgs would be eliminated, forming a non-player human race). when appealing to antithesis, it is not sufficient to deprive players of psychological pay-offs, it is necessary to give them a consolation and the reward of the mgt game is one of the best options. those who want to deprive the partner of an absurd psychological pay-off, have to know the laws of mgt games too. quitting a pg is an mgt game… (do we play or not a pg?) patients go to ta specialists when they reach higher degrees of pgs, when scripts have the most important role in guiding pgs. without scripts, mgt games would not generate chronic pgs. even so, mgt conclusions can help ta specialists. mgt game conclusions have an important role in prevention. educators (parents or pedagogues) have the opportunity to block games coming into being in time. most of the time the educators do not realise that by punishing or “rescuing”, they are, in fact, the ones who drive children to pg-s. 8. references allport, gordon w. (1999). „az előítélet” osiris könyvkiadó budapest aronson, elliott (1999). “társas lény” („the social animal”, 1972) közgazdasági és jogi könyvkiadó, budapest. aronson e., mettee, d (1968). “dishonest behaviour as a function of different levels of self-esteem”, in journal of personality and social psichology, p. 121-127 berglas,s., jones e. e. (1978). „drug choice as self-handicapping strategy in response to noncontingent success.” journal of personality and social psichology, 36 berne, e. (1964). “games people play. the psychology of human relationships.” grove press, new york. berne, eric (2000). „emberi játszmák”, háttér kiadó, budapest. berne, e. (2000). „sorskönyv”, háttér kiadó, budapest. berne, e. (1972). „what do you say after you say hello?” national bank, beverly hills, california english, fanita (1987). „qui suis je face toi? analyse transactionelle et relations humaines”. hommes et grouppes editeur, paris festinger, leon (1957). „a theory of cognitive dissonance and consumer behaviour”, stanford university press, stanford. forward, s., frazier, d. (1998). „érzelmi zsarolás”, („emotional blackmail”, 1997) édesvíz könyvkiadó, budapest glass, david (1964). “changes in liking as a means of reducing_cognitive discrepancy between self-asteem and agression” in: journal of personality, 32. p. 531-549 gordon, th. (1991), „sz.e.t”. („p.e.t. – parent effectiveness training”, 1975), gondolat könyvkiadó, budapest gordon, th. (1991). „t.e.t”. („t.e.t. – teacher’s effectiveness training”, 1974), gondolat könyvkiadó, budapest f. heylighen (1995). “occam’s razor”, in: f. heylighen, c. joslyn and v. turchin (editors). principia cybernetica web (principia cybernetica, brussels), url: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/:/occamraz.html járó katalin (szerk. 1999). „játszmák nélkül” helikon könyvkiadó, budapest. kelley, h. h. – thibaut, j. w.(1978). „interpersonal relations”, wiley. lassus, rené de (2000). „analiza tranzacţională” („l’analise tranzactionnelle”, 1991) editura teora, bucureşti mérő lászló (1996). „mindenki másképp egyforma” tericum könyvkiadó, budapest parr, john (2002). „individuation, attachment & group dynamics”, revista de psihologie aplicată. universitatea de vest din timişoara, 3/2002. poundstone, w.(1992). “prisoner’s dilemma”, doubleday, ny 1992, pp. 197-201. poundstone, w., excerpts from prisoner’s dilemma, pratkanis, a.r., aronson, e. (1992). „a rábeszélőgép” („the age of propaganda”, 1992), ab ovo könyvkiadó, budapest rapoport, a., chammach a.(1965). „the prisoner’s dilemma” university of michigan press. shubik, m. (1971). „the dollar auction game: a paradox in noncooperative behaviour and escalation”. journal of conflict resolution 15, p. 109-111 stewart, ian & joines, vann (1998). „a tranzakcióanalízis ma” grafit könyvkiadó, budapest stewart, ian & joines, vann (1998). „ta today – a new introduction to tranzactional analysis”, nottingham lifes shape f. várkonyi zsuzsa (2001). „már százszor megmondtam…” magyar könyvklub, budapest, 2001 f. várkonyi zsuzsa (2003). „tanulom magam”, mérték kiadó, budapest wikipedia, the free enciclopedia (2004). “transactional analysis” url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/transactional_analysis#contrast_with_rational_.28mathematical.29_games wikipedia, the free enciclopedia (2004). “prisoner’s_dilemma” wikipedia, the free enciclopedia(2006). “game theory” 9. biographical note vandra attila, trainer of the romanian association of debates, oratory and rhetoric (ardor www.ardor-deb.ro) and transylvanian debate association (ede – www.ede.ngo.ro), member of international debate education association (idea – www.idebate.org) adress: vandra attila, str. berzei 2b ap. 20, 500276 brasov, romania e-mail: vandraattila@rdslink.ro tel: 0040 368 402 523 mobile: 0040 722 264 666 1st international krakow conference in cognitive science, 27-29 september 2012, kraków, poland the 1st international krakow conference in cognitive science: consciousness and volition will focus on the current state of consciousness research, with particular reference to connections with issues pertaining to volitional acts. principal topics will include: mental acts of volition, perception, memory, qualia, emotions, as well as the neurophysiological and physical foundations of all of these. we will also set out to analyse the possibility of artificial modelling of such mental acts, and correlations between them and experimentally discoverable events. the program of the conference, which is envisaged as having an interdisciplinary flavour, will not, however, be limited to just these themes and presentations. it is hoped that it will include a wide-range of related topics and innovative approaches, even where these involve research with an explicitly interdisciplinary orientation. one of the most important challenges that this conference aims to address is that of bridging the explanatory gap between first-person experience, psychological research and the various ways in which the brain itself may be studied. the conference organisers therefore cordially invite prospective participants to submit original proposals for consideration with a view to selection, in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and other related fields. on behalf of the organizers and programme committee józef bremer, professor of philosophy visit the website for more information http://cognitivescience.eu/ http://cognitivescience.eu/ emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 174-195 www.ejop.org a framework for thinking about the (not-so-funny) effects of sexist humor julie a. woodzicka washington and lee university thomas e. ford western carolina university abstract the prevalence of sexist humor in popular culture and its disguise as benign amusement or ―just a joke‖ give it potential to cultivate distress and harassment for women and to facilitate tolerance of sexism and discriminatory behavior among men. thus, understanding the social consequences of sexist humor is a critical project for research in social psychology. the purpose of our paper is to provide researchers with a conceptual framework for organizing and evaluating empirical research and theories on sexist humor. we div ided research on sexist humor into two categories: direct effects and indirect effects. research on direct effects addresses questions about variables that moderate the interpretation of sexist humor as benign amusement versus a reprehensible expression of sexism. research on indirect effects considers questions about the broader social consequences of exposure to sexist humor. for instance, "how does exposure to sexist humor affect the way people think about women and their perceptions of discrimination against women?" and "does sexist humor promote sexist behavior among men?" for each category of research, we describe representative empirical research and theoretical frameworks used to guide that research. importantly, we also raise important issues or questions that require further empirical research or theoretical development. we hope that this research will cultivate further interest in theoretically guided empirical research on sexist humor. keywords: sexist humor, sexism, hostile work environment, effects of humor http://www.ejop.org/ effects of sexist humor 175 in a recent national basketball association (nba) playoff game post-game show, commentator charles barkley teased a camerawoman because he was able to do more push-ups than she. in that context, barkley joked with his co-host kenny smith, "how do you fix a woman's watch? you don't. there's a clock on the stove" (estrada, 2009). charles barkley's joke exemplifies sexist humor. sexist humor demeans, insults, stereotypes, v ictimizes, and/or objectifies a person on the basis of his or her gender (lafrance & woodzicka, 1998). importantly, women are more frequently the target of aggressive humor and the object of sexual humor than are men (cantor & zillmann, 1973). the popularity of sexist humor is seen in mass media, workplaces, and informal social interactions. access to the internet has increased the ease with which sexist jokes can be located and distributed. for example, type the words ―sexist joke‖ into any web browser and a library of female denigration immediately appears. sexist humor communicates denigration of women while simultaneously triv ializing sex discrimination under the veil of benign amusement (bill & naus, 1992). by communicating denigration of women through lev ity sexist humor makes ambiguous how one should interpret a message (johnson, 1990) like charles barkley's joke. machan (1987) articulated this paradox, suggesting that what is funny to one person is ―the height of bad taste to another‖ (p. 218). research on sexist humor can be div ided into two categories. the first category addresses questions about variables that foster the interpretation of humorous disparagement like barkley's joke as funny, benign horseplay versus "the height of bad taste"—an inexcusable expression of sexism. in the present review, we refer to the immediate interpretations of and emotional reactions to sexist humor as direct effects. the second category of research addresses the broader social consequences of exposure to sexist humor. for instance, we rev iew how exposure to sexist humor affects the way that people think about women and the extent to which sexist humor promotes sexist behavior among men. we refer to such broader social consequences as indirect effects of sexist humor. the purpose of our paper is to rev iew contemporary research on the direct and indirect effects of sexist humor. for each category of research, we describe representative empirical research and theoretical frameworks used to conceptualize or guide that research. importantly, we also delineate novel and potentially fruitful directions for future investigations. europe’s journal of psychology 176 direct effects of sexist humor whether you appreciate charles barkley's joke, that is, interpret it as benign amusement, or consider it an offensive expression of sexism depends on the degree to which you are willing to overlook or excuse the underlying sentiment. historically, humor researchers have emphasized the role that sex differences and attitudes toward women play in moderating appreciation of sexist humor. furthermore, humor appreciation has been operationally defined as amusement with sexist humor (brodzinsky, barnet, & aiello, 1981; chapman & gadfield, 1976; hassett & houlihan, 1979; losco & epstein, 1975; love & deckers, 1989; neuliep, 1987, priest & wilhelm, 1974; ryan & kanjorski, 1998), perceived offensiveness of sexist humor (ford, 2000; greenwood & isbell, 2002; hemmasi, graf, & russ, 1994; lafrance & woodzicka, 1998; ryan & kanjorski, 1998), and willingness to tell sexist jokes (ryan & kanjorski, 1998; thomas & esses, 2004). sex differences in sexist humor appreciation social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986) prov ides a framework for understanding empirical findings on the relationship between biological sex and sexist humor appreciation. social groups are v iewed as competing for recognition, not necessarily for material resources. this recognition is known as positive distinctiveness. when a group is recognized as superior to a relevant out-group along some valued dimension, it has achieved positive distinctiveness. because social groups value positive distinctiveness, they will use various means for attaining it. one such means is disparagement humor (barron, 1950; bourhis, gadfield, giles, & tajfel, 1977). bourhis et al. (1977) suggested that disparagement humor allows people to maintain positive social identities—feelings of superiority over out-groups. they proposed that, "anti-out-group humor can, through out-group devaluation and denigration, be a creative and potent way of asserting in-group pride and distinctiveness from a dominant out-group" (p. 261). according to social identity theory, men and women construct gender identities in an effort to differentiate themselves from one another. as a result, they should appreciate only humor that positively distinguishes the in-group from the out-group (duncan, smeltzer, & leap, 1990; hemmasi, graf, & russ, 1994; smeltzer & leap, 1988). not surprisingly, then, men v iew sexist humor as funnier and less offensive than women v iew it (chapman & gadfield, 1976; hassett & houlihan, 1979; losco & epstein, 1975; love & deckers, 1989; mundorf, bhatia, zillmann, lester, & robertson, 1988; neuliep, 1987, priest & wilhelm, 1974). love and deckers (1989), for instance, effects of sexist humor 177 found that women rated sexist cartoons as less funny than men did because they identified with the female cartoon v ictim. furthermore, women are more likely than men to v iew sexist jokes as constituting harassment (e.g., bell, mclaughlin, & sequeira, 2002; frazier, cochran, & olson, 1995; hemmasi & graf, 1998; smeltzer & leap, 1988). smeltzer and leap (1988) found that women considered sexist humor in the workplace as more inappropriate than men did. similarly, frazier et al. (1995) reported that 74% of the women they surveyed considered sexual jokes and teasing to be harassment, whereas only 47% of the men felt the same. attitudes toward women and sexist humor appreciation consistent with la fave’s v icarious superiority theory (la fave, 1972; la fave, haddad, & maesen, 1976) and zillmann and cantor’s (1972; 1976) disposition theory, the differences in humor perceptions between men and women may be due more to gender attitudes than to an in-group bias based on biological sex (hemmasi et al., 1994; sev’er & ungar, 1997). a central hypothesis of disposition theory that has received considerable empirical support is that the degree of amusement elicited by disparagement humor is related positively to the degree to which one holds negative attitudes toward the disparaged target (e.g., cantor & zillmann, 1973; la fave, mccarthy, & haddad, 1973; mcghee & duffey, 1983; wicker, barron, & willis, 1980). specifically, zillmann and cantor (1976/1996) proposed that, "humor appreciation varies inversely with the favorableness of the disposition toward the agent or entity being disparaged" (pp. 100-101). for thorough rev iews of disposition theory and other "superiority" theories and their origins, see ferguson and ford (2008), gruner (1997), keith-spiegel (1972), morreall (1983) and zillmann (1983). in the context of sexist humor, chapman and gadfield (1976) found that, for both men and women, appreciation of sexist cartoons was negatively related to the extent to which participants endorsed women's liberation ideology. research that more directly measured attitudes toward women has revealed similar results. regardless of sex, people enjoy sexist humor insofar as they have negative (sexist) attitudes toward women (e.g., butland & ivy, 1990; henkin & fish, 1986; moore, griffiths, & payne, 1987). the development of glick and fiske's (1996) ambivalent sexism inventory (asi) has allowed researchers to make further advances in our understanding of the relationship between attitudes toward women and sexist humor appreciation. the asi measures two types of sexist attitudes, hostile sexism and benevolent sexism. hostile sexism refers to antagonism or animosity toward women, whereas benevolent europe’s journal of psychology 178 sexism refers to subjectively positive attitudes toward women that are rooted in masculine dominance and conventional stereotypes (glick & fiske, 1996). lafrance and woodzicka (1998) found that, for women, hostile sexism was a significant predictor of amusement with sexist jokes. in addition, hostile sexism, but not benevolent sexism, significantly predicted felt duchenne smiling—smiling that reveal truly positive affect—in response to sexist humor. subsequent research also has found that both men and women appreciate sexist humor insofar as they are high in hostile sexism (eyssel & bohner, 2007; ford, 2000; ford, johnson, blev ins, & zepeda, 1999; greenwood & isbell, 2002; thomas & esses, 2004). greenwood and isbell (2002), for instance, found that men and women high in hostile sexism were more amused by and less offended by ―dumb blonde‖ jokes than were men and women low in hostile sexism. similarly, thomas and esses (2004) found that men reported more enjoyment of sexist jokes and a greater likelihood of telling those jokes insofar as they were high in hostile sexism. research on the role of benevolent sexism in predicting sexist humor appreciation has revealed more complicated findings. for men, benevolent sexism predicts amusement ratings in a straightforward fashion (eyssel & bohner, 2007; greenwood & isbell, 2002). men higher in benevolent sexism appreciate sexist humor more than those low in benevolent sexism. women high on benevolent sexism, on the other hand, appear to find sexist jokes less amusing than their less benevolently sexist counterparts (greenwood & isbell, 2002). indeed, lafrance and woodzicka (1998) found that benevolent sexism correlated positively with nonverbal expression of disgust with sexist jokes. as greenwood and isbell (2002) pointed out, the degree to which women high in benevolent sexism appreciate sexist humor is similar to that of women who endorse feminist social/political ideologies. future directions for the study of direct effects contemporary research on the direct effects of exposure to sexist humor has prov ided valuable insights into the critical variables that moderate the interpretation of sexist humor as benign amusement versus a reprehensible expression of sexism. specifically, research has revealed that men more than women are willing to overlook the underlying sentiment of sexist humor for the sake of amusement. also, both men and women who have sexist attitudes are particularly likely to be amused rather than offended by sexist humor. we propose that future research can build upon these findings by expanding the scope of investigations in a number of ways. first, research could expand on the effects of sexist humor 179 measurement of humor appreciation to assess other emotional responses to sexist humor. second, research could expand beyond the use of self-report measures to include non-verbal measures of reactions to sexist humor. non-verbal measures potentially could prov ide a more complete, accurate assessment of emotional reactions to sexist humor. third, research could consider more fully women's reactions to sexist humor. measuring emotional responses other than humor appreciation. research guided by disparagement humor theories has typically measured humor appreciation as the primary dependent variable. measuring humor appreciation alone is problematic, as it negates the investigation of a wider variety of potential affective responses to sexist humor. indeed, research has largely ignored negative emotional responses to sexist humor such as embarrassment, disgust, guilt, anger, and frustration (but see la france & woodzicka, 1998). such negative affective responses are not theoretically irrelevant—disparagement humor theories are not silent on such affective reactions. according to both social identity theory and disposition theory sexist humor should meet with negative affective reactions (not simply lack of amusement) under certain conditions. thus, we recommend that researchers "unpack" the diverse range of emotions that are immediately felt upon exposure to sexist humor. this research would contribute to a more complete picture of people's "in-the-moment" reactions to sexist humor. measuring nonverbal responses to sexist humor. humor appreciation is typically measured using self-reports on rating scales. the exception to this is a small handful of studies that incorporated facial expression in addition to funniness ratings (brodzinsky, barnet, & aiello, 1981; lafrance & woodzicka, 1998; olson & roese, 1995). we propose that the reliance on self-report measures of amusement may not always prov ide an accurate gauge of actual amusement or other emotional reactions to sexist humor. research participants may give false reports because of demand characteristics in a given study or because of social desirability concerns more generally. in contrast, because nonverbal responses can be difficult to regulate, they could contribute to a more nuanced picture of emotional reactions to sexist humor. for instance, brodzinsky et al. (1981) rated participants' spontaneous expressions of mirth to three types of cartoons using a 4 point scale based on smiling (1 = blank expression, 2 = slight smile, 3 = full smile, 4 = chuckling or laughter). in addition, they collected standard self-report ratings of amusement. findings revealed differences in humor appreciation depending on whether amusement was measured by selfreport or facial expression. the self-report ratings indicated that female participants europe’s journal of psychology 180 enjoyed absurd cartoons significantly more than cartoons disparaging either males or females. however, the ratings based on smiling behavior indicated that female participants felt equally amused by the three types of cartoons. similarly, lafrance and woodzicka (1998) found that sexist and neutral jokes differentially affected funniness ratings but not duchenne smiling. these findings suggest that the measurement of smiling and other nonverbal responses should reveal more complex and subtle emotions, and shed new light on how sexist humor is experienced emotionally as a function of one's sex and attitudes toward women. accordingly, we recommend that researchers measure a variety of non-verbal responses to disparagement humor such as facial expressions and gestures because they are generally less reactive and can reflect both positive and negative affective states (lafrance & woodzicka, 1998). women's reactions to sexist humor. we propose that an important oversight in the literature is that there has been little empirical research directed at how women respond to sexist humor (nelson, 2006). like research on other types of prejudice, research on sexist humor has largely ignored the target’s perspective (swim & stangor, 1998). notably, lafrance and woodzicka (1998) acknowledged the social relevance of sexist humor for women and initiated the study of women's responses to sexist humor. they found that hearing sexist jokes had adverse emotional effects on women. specifically, women reported feeling more disgusted, angry, and surprised in response to sexist jokes than to non-sexist jokes. also, their nonverbal facial expressions revealed negative affective reactions. compared to women hearing jokes about attorneys, women hearing sexist jokes were more likely to roll their eyes, displaying feelings of contempt, and to cover their mouths with their hand, showing signs of embarrassment. furthermore, lafrance and woodzicka (1998) found that women’s levels of hostile sexism and their degrees of identification with women moderated their emotional responses to sexist jokes. hostile sexism was positively related to self-report and nonverbal affective reactions to sexist jokes. in addition, level of identification with women was associated with less amusement with sexist jokes and more non-verbal displays of negative emotion such as frowning. in sum, women who endorsed nonsexist attitudes or who identified strongly with women had especially adverse emotional reactions to sexist jokes. extending the findings lafrance and woodzicka (1998), future research could determine if women differentially identify with particular sub-groups of women and therefore respond differently to sexist humor that targets those sub-groups. unlike men, women have the dual status of both the recipient and the object of sexist effects of sexist humor 181 humor (greenwood & isbell, 2002). thus, according to both disposition theory (zillmann & cantor, 1976/1996) and social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986) women would have to dissociate or disidentify with the specific humor target in order to excuse the underlying sentiment of sexist humor and find it amusing. thus greenwood and isbell (2002) may have found that women high in hostile sexism enjoyed "dumb blonde" jokes because they did not identify with the subtype of women targeted by the jokes. glick and fiske (1996) suggested that hostile sexism is understood within a context of a backlash against feminism. thus, we propose that women high in hostile sexism particularly disidentify with feminists. i f women high in hostile sexism particularly disidentify with feminists, they should be more likely to accept sexist humor that disparages feminists than humor that disparages women in general or other ―nonnorm challenging‖ sub-groups of women (e.g., blondes, housewives). humor targeting women in general, however, may be associated with disapproval and negative affect. in keeping with this hypothesis, preliminary data we recently collected revealed a stronger negative relationship between women’s level of hostile sexism and identification with feminists than with women in general. further, the positive relationship between hostile sexism and amusement ratings for feminist jokes was stronger than the relationship between hostile sexism and ratings of sexist jokes that targeted women in general. indirect effects of sexist humor in addition to having direct effects, sexist humor has broader social consequences, or indirect effects, on both women and men. specifically, sexist humor potentially can create distressing, hostile work environments for women (boxer & ford, in press; duncan, smeltzer, & leap, 1990; hemmasi, et al., 1994). also, sexist humor affects the ways that men think about women and perceive discrimination against them (ford, 2000; ford, wentzel, & lorion, 2001; ryan & kanjorski, 1998) as well as their willingness to engage in subtle sexist behavior (ford, boxer, armstrong, & edel, 2008). the impact of sexist humor in creating a hostile work env ironment sexist jokes have been construed as a form of sexual harassment because they can contribute to a hostile work environment (baker, terpstra, & larntz, 1990; fitzgerald, swam, & fischer, 1995; gutek & koss, 1993). indeed, in 1995, chevron corporation agreed to pay over two million dollars to settle sexual harassment charges brought by four female employees what said that they had been targeted with offensive jokes, e-mail messages, and comments about their clothes and bodies (lewin, 1995). europe’s journal of psychology 182 in this case and others, employers have been held financially liable for behavior that might have been delivered as a joke, but that others v iewed as harassing. in a 1995 survey of 4,000 people, 71% of respondents considered the telling of gender stereotypes jokes in the workplace to be sexual harassment (frazier, cochran, & olson, 1995). this number reflects a growing consensus that sexist humor constitutes a form of sexual harassment. in 1987 only 20% of respondents perceived sexist jokes as harassment (terpstra & baker, 1987). further, women consider the telling of sexist jokes at work to be more inappropriate than do men (hemmasi et al, 1994; smeltzer & leap, 1988) and sexist jokes are more likely to be v iewed as sexual harassment when coming from a male superv isor than by a male co-worker (hemmasi et al, 1994). like other forms of gender harassment, sexist humor negatively affects relationships among co-workers. duncan (1982) for instance, found that sexist humor decreased cohesiveness among co-workers. sexist humor may also reinforce status differences among workers, particularly men (who are often the joke tellers) and women (the objects of sexist jokes). these dynamics are thought to lead to further power imbalances (duncan, 1982; sev’er & ungar, 1997). sexist humor might also affect how people perceive sexism in the workplace. ford (2000) found that sexist jokes increased tolerance for sexist behavior in the workplace among participants high in hostile sexism. he exposed male and female participants, who were either high or low in hostile sexism, to sexist jokes, sexist statements, or neutral jokes. participants then read a v ignette in which a male superv isor treated a new female employee in a patronizing manner that was inappropriate and potentially threatening in the workplace. after reading the v ignette, participants rated the offensiveness of the superv isor's behavior. the results indicated that exposure to sexist jokes led to greater tolerance of the superv isor's sexist behavior in comparison to exposure to neutral jokes or comparable nonhumorous sexist statements, but only for participants high in hostile sexism. sexist humor and discrimination against women a growing body of research has documented that, among sexist men, exposure to sexist humor uniquely fosters a social climate of discrimination against women. ford and ferguson's (2004) prejudiced norm theory explains these findings and delineates the mediating processes by which sexist humor functions as a "releaser" of prejudice. sexist humor and stereotypes about women. weston and thomsen (1993) found that participants made more stereotypical evaluations of men and women after effects of sexist humor 183 watching sexist comedy skits than after watching neutral comedy skits. these findings suggest that exposure to sexist humor activates gender stereotypes. as ford and ferguson (2004) noted, however, weston and thomsen's study lacked the non-humorous control condition necessary to make conclusions about the unique effects of humor as a medium for communicating disparagement. in fact, hansen and hansen (1988) found that exposure to non-humorous stereotypes of men and women increased the accessibility and use of gender stereotypes. furthermore, weston and thomsen's study failed to include indiv idual differences in attitudes toward women as a potential moderator variable. in a study that addressed these methodological problems, ford, et al. (2001) demonstrated that, even among men high in hostile sexism, exposure to sexist humor did not affect the evaluative content of men’s stereotypes about women relative to comparable non-humorous disparagement or neutral humor. thus, to date, there is no ev idence that exposure to sexist humor uniquely affects stable, internal knowledge structures, such as stereotypes and attitudes toward women (see also olson, maio & hobden, 1999). sexist humor and prejudiced norm theory. although exposure to sexist humor may not affect internal sources of self-regulation (i.e., attitudes and stereotypes), it can still affect men in ways that have negative social consequences for women. as mentioned earlier, ford (2000) demonstrated that exposure to sexist humor was associated with greater tolerance of a subsequently encountered sexist event. in addition, ryan and kanjorski (1998) found that, among men, enjoyment of sexist humor correlated positively with acceptance of rape myths and endorsement of adversarial sexual beliefs. ford and ferguson (2004) proposed their ―prejudiced norm‖ theory to explain these findings and generate new hypotheses about the social consequences of exposure to sexist humor. prejudiced norm theory is built on three interrelated propositions. first, humorous communication activates a conversational rule of lev ity–to switch from the usual serious mindset to a non-serious humor mindset for interpreting the message. according to berlyne (1972), ―humor is accompanied by discriminative cues, which indicate that what is happening, or is going to happen, should be taken as a joke. the ways in which we might react to the same events in the absence of these cues become inappropriate and must be withheld‖ (p. 56). in the case of disparagement, humor cues communicate that the message is non-threatening and can be interpreted in a playful, non-serious mindset. as zillmann and cantor europe’s journal of psychology 184 (1976/1996) suggested, the ―club over the head‖ is funny when the protagonists are clowns in cartoons but not when they are police officers responding to a riot. second, by making light of the expression of prejudice, disparagement humor communicates an implicit ―meta-message‖ (attardo, 1993) or normative standard that it is acceptable in this context to relax the usual ―critical sensitiv ities‖ and treat such discrimination in a less critical manner (husband, 1977). for example, gollob and levine (1967) found that when participants were asked to focus on the content of highly aggressive cartoons, they reported appreciating the cartoons less. humor indicates a shared understanding of its meta-message only if the recipient approves of the humor (fine, 1983; kane, suls, & tedeschi, 1977). so, if the recipient approves of disparagement humor–that is, switches to a non-serious humor mindset to interpret the expression of prejudice–he or she tacitly consents to a shared understanding (a social norm) that it is acceptable in this context to make light of discrimination against the targeted group. in keeping with this hypothesis, ryan and kanjorski (1998) found that men who were exposed to sexist jokes reported greater acceptance of rape myths and v iolence against women but only when they found the jokes amusing and inoffensive–that is, when they interpreted the jokes in a nonserious humor mindset. ford (2000) manipulated humor type (sexist, control) and critical mindset (serious, control) to see if critical mindset would affect amusement ratings. as expected, those in the critical mindset condition rated the jokes as funnier than those in the control condition. third, one’s level of prejudice toward the disparaged group affects reactions to disparagement humor. insofar as recipients are high in prejudice toward the disparaged group, they will interpret disparagement humor through a non-serious humor mindset (zillmann & cantor, 1976/1996). thus, upon exposure to disparagement humor, people high in prejudice are more likely than those low in prejudice to perceive an external social norm of tolerance of discrimination against the disparaged group. furthermore, people who are high in prejudice tend to have more weakly internalized non-prejudiced convictions compared to people who are low in prejudice (monteith, devine, & zuwerink, 1993). they are primarily motivated by external forces (social norms) to respond without prejudice (e.g., devine, monteith, zuwerink, & elliot 1991; devine, plant, amodio, har mon-jones, & vance, 2002; plant & devine, 1998). as a result, people high in prejudice are more likely to use external norms as a standard defining how one ought to behave (monteith, deneen, & tooman, 1996; wittenbrink & henly, 1996). highly prejudiced people suppress prejudice when social norms dictate restraint; they release prejudice when the norms communicate approval to do so. ford’s (2000) research lends support to this idea. he found that sexist jokes increased tolerance of a sexist event only for effects of sexist humor 185 participants high in hostile sexism who adopted a non-critical mindset when listening to sexist jokes. for participants low in hostile sexism there was no difference in tolerance of a sexist event related to critical mindset. like people who are high in other forms of prejudice, people who are high in hostile sexism are motivated to suppress prejudice against women to avoid social sanctions, not because of internalized convictions (ford & lorion, 2000). however, ford and lorion (2000) found that these effects did not extend to those high in benevolent sexism. specifically, those high in benevolent sexism did not show lower internal motivation to respond to women without prejudice than those low in benevolent sexism. because benevolent sexism is characterized by the idealization rather than derision of women, people high in benevolent sexism might be more likely than those high in hostile sexism to internalize nonsexist standards of conduct. because people who are high in hostile sexism are primarily externally motivated to respond without prejudice, they are more likely to assent to the norm implied by sexist humor that it is acceptable to make light of sex discrimination and not take it seriously in the immediate context. as rev iewed earlier, research shows that people approve of sexist humor to the extent that they have sexist attitudes (e.g., butland & ivy, 1990; greeenwood & isbell, 2002; lafrance & woodzicka, 1998). ford, boxer, armstrong and edel (2008) addressed more directly the processes that mediate the effects of sexist humor on men's willingness to discriminate against women. they found that, upon exposure to sexist comedy skits, men who were high in hostile sexism were more likely than those who were low in hostile sexism to perceive a norm of tolerance of sexism in the immediate context, and they were more likely to use that norm to guide their own reactions to a sexist event. hostile sexism predicted the amount of money participants cut from the budget of a women’s organization relative to four other student organizations upon exposure to sexist comedy skits but not neutral comedy skits. a perceived local norm of approval of funding cuts for the women’s organization mediated the relationship between hostile sexism and discrimination against the women’s organization. future directions for the study of indirect effects sexist humor as a form of gender harassment at work . gender harassment has been shown to have a cumulative, eroding effect on the women's mental health. even low-levels of gender harassment at work are associated with decreased psychological well-being and life satisfaction (schneider, swam, & fitzgerald, 1997). no research to date has directly examined long-term emotional consequences of europe’s journal of psychology 186 exposure to sexist humor at work. however, insofar as sexist humor at work constitutes a form of gender harassment, it is possible that repeated exposure to it negatively affects women's psychological well-being. thus, we propose that an important project for future research is to more fully delineate the long-term emotional consequences for women of repeated exposure to sexist humor at work. sexist humor, discrimination against women and prejudiced norm theory. sexist humor may derive power to triv ialize sexism and foster a normative climate of tolerance of sex discrimination from the ambiguity of society’s attitudes toward women. the blatant sexism and open discrimination that existed prior to the civ il rights movement of the 1960s and the feminist movement of the 1970s has been largely replaced by subtle, more complex forms of sexism such as ―ambivalent sexism‖ (glick & fiske, 1996), ―modern sexism‖ (swim, aikin, hall, & hunter, 1995), and ―neo-sexism‖ (tougas, brown, beaton, & joly, 1995). these contemporary models suggest that attitudes toward women have become ambivalent, containing both positive and negative components. that is, many americans consciously espouse egalitarian values and non-prejudiced attitudes while possessing negative sentiments toward women. as a result of this ambivalence, society does not consider sexism as being completely unacceptable as it might prejudice toward boy scouts or firefighters (crandall & ferguson, 2005). on the other hand, society does not treat sexism as being completely acceptable and free to be expressed openly as it might prejudice toward criminals or white supremacy groups (crandall & ferguson, 2005). sexism is in an ―in between‖ state of acceptability; it is in what crandall and ferguson (2005) refer to as a state of ―shifting social acceptability.‖ that is, sexism is shifting from being completely acceptable to being completely unacceptable. thus, sexism is conditional. i t must be suppressed under most circumstances. however, it may be released if immediate social norms justify its expression (crandall & eshleman, 2003). in such a context, one can release prejudice and be spared the recognition that he or she had behaved inappropriately (gaertner & dovidio, 1986). research guided by prejudiced norm theory suggests that sexist humor creates a normative context that justifies the release of prejudice against women. however, we propose that important theoretical questions remain to be addressed in future research. first, it is possible that disparagement humor has the power to release prejudice against only groups for whom society’s attitudes are ambivalent—those groups in the ―in between‖ state of acceptability against whom the expression of prejudice is effects of sexist humor 187 dependent on immediate social norms to justify it (e.g., women, african-americans). in contrast, for groups like criminals or white supremacists, society does not promote a general norm of prejudice suppression. instead, society treats prejudice against such groups as completely acceptable and free to be expressed openly. thus, the expression of prejudice against such groups should not be dependent on events like disparagement humor to create a local norm to justify it. as a result, exposure to disparagement humor should have little effect on the release of prejudice against them. second, research guided by prejudiced norm theory has focused largely on the social consequences of sexist humor for men. for men, the relationship between sexist attitudes and responses to sexist humor is straightforward: the higher men are in hostile sexism, the more they are amused by sexist humor and the more likely they are to express prejudice in the context of sexist humor (ford et al., 2008). for women, however, the relationship between sexist attitudes and responses to sexist humor may be more complicated. in some cases, sexist humor might foster discrimination against disliked groups of women as it does for men. i n others it might create emotionally challenging or distressing environments. of particular interest is how women high in benevolent sexism would fit into prejudice norm theory. as greenwood and isbell (2002) pointed out, amusement reactions to sexist humor by women high in benevolent sexism resemble ratings made by feminists. i t is likely that the subgroup of women (e.g., feminists, housewives, etc.) that is being targeted is especially important when examining how sexist humor affects women high in benevolent sexism. we expect that women high in benevolent sexism feel that some women, particularly women in the non-norm challenging subgroups, should be protected while others, women who challenge existing norms, should not. third, research could examine the possibility that others' reactions to sexist humor contribute to the degree to which it functions as a releaser of prejudice. young and frye (1966) argued that a confederate’s laughter enhanced amusement in response to sexist humor by relaxing the ―social taboos‖ associated with expression of sexist sentiments (p. 754). by displaying cues of approval of sexist humor, recipients mig ht further encourage both men and women high in hostile sexism to adopt a noncritical mindset for interpreting the underlying derision and to perceive a shared norm of tolerance of discrimination against feminist women thus further promoting discrimination. on the other hand, others’ disapproval of the humor might make salient a discrepancy between personal affective reactions toward feminist women and prevailing normative standards. under such conditions, men and women high europe’s journal of psychology 188 in hostile sexism might experience self-directed negative affect (e.g., guilt) and suppress rather than release prejudice against feminist women. conclusion as charles barkley's joke on national telev ision attests, sexist humor is pervasive in contemporary society. i t appears in all forms of mass media, from telev ision to the internet. paradoxically, as sexist humor becomes increasingly pervasive, the public and social scientists alike have increasingly recognized sexist humor as an insidious expression of sexism. whether through cultivating distressing work environments for women (boxer & ford, in press; duncan, smeltzer, & leap, 1990; hemmasi, et al., 1994) or facilitating tolerance of sexism and discrimination among men (ford, 2000; ford et al., 2008; ford & ferguson, 2004; ford et al., 2001) sexist humor can have detrimental social consequences. with the growing awareness that sexist humor can function as a potential tool of prejudice and discrimination, there is a clear need for social scientists to continue to conduct empirical research to illuminate the potentially complex emotional responses that people may have to sexist humor. there is also a clear need for researchers to continue to conduct research in an effort to further delineate the broader social consequences of sexist humor, and thus help us better understand how sexist humor shapes social interaction. the present research offers one contribution to this effort. our first goal in writing this paper was to prov ide researchers with a conceptual framework for organizing and evaluating empirical research and theories on the immediate or direct effects of sexist humor as well as on the broader, indirect social consequences of sexist humor. our second goal was to raise important issues or questions that require further empirical research or theoretical development. we hope that this paper will cultivate further interest in theoretically guided empirical research on sexist humor. references attardo, s. 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(1976/1996). a disposition theory of humor and mirth. in a. j. chapman & h. c. foot (eds.), humor and laughter: theory, research and applications (pp. 93-116). new york: wiley. about the authors: julie a. woodzicka is an associate professor of psychology at washington and lee university. her research interests include the effects of sexist humor, nonverbal responses to prejudice, stereotypes of and prejudice against atheists, and perceptions of priv ilege. address for correspondence: julie woodzicka, department of psychology, washington and lee university, lexington, va 24450 usa e-mail: woodzickaj@wlu.edu thomas e. ford is a professor of psychology at western carolina university. his research interests include disparagement humor and discrimination, humor and coping with stress, the relationship between religion and prejudice, and unintentional racism and stereotype threat in educational settings. thomas e. ford, department of psychology, western carolina university, cullowhee, nc 28723 usa, tford@wcu.edu emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 221-240 www.ejop.org do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? michael galanakis panteion university of social and political sciences fotini galanopoulou panteion university of social and political sciences anastasios stalikas panteion university of social and political sciences abstract occupational stress is considered as one of the most important work-related psychological problems. to date, research findings demonstrate that specific coping strategies lead to positive results, via the impact of specific positive elements such as relaxation and reframing. the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (fredrickson, 1998, 2001, 2003) provides an alternative approach suggesting that positive emotions experiencing leads to beneficial psychological results. in this study we examined the relationship between positive emotions and strain in a sample of 2775 professionals. the results indicate that the experiencing of positive emotions is negatively correlated with occupational strain and that overall and discrete positive emotions predict strain over and beyond stressors. key words: occupational stress, positive emotions, coping strategies, the broaden–andbuild theory of positive emotions. introduction occupational stress is considered to be one of the most prominent and serious psychological problems. according to the national institute of occupational safety and health (2002), 40% of all employees experience their job as “very” or “extremely” stressful and at least 26% feel professionally exhausted. researchers http://www.ejop.org/ do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 222 have studied occupational stress in relation to gender, age, profession, smoking habits, stressors in the working place, residence, tenure, recent health problems, level in the organization and trait optimism (bakker, demerouti, de boer, & schaufeli, 2003; cooper & cartwright, 1994; galanakis, stalikas, kallia, karagianni & karela 2009; grzywacz & butler, 2005; jansen, peeters, de jonge, houkes & tummers, 2004; karasek, 1979; karasek & theorell, 1990; lazarus, 2000; major, klein & ehrhart, 2002; seigrist 1996; van vegchel, de jonge, bosma & schaufeli; 2005). these variables are crucial in our effort to comprehend strain levels in employees and are taken into account in our research design. stress is defined as an unpleasant psychological state related to emotions of fear, anxiety, disturbance, anger, sadness and grief (botheridge 2001, 2003; greiner, krause, ragland & fisher, 1998; hacker, 1991; halbesleben & buckley, 2004a; motowidlo, packard & manning, 1986; schaufeli & kompier, 2001). lazarus (2000) defines stress as a complex, multidimensional negative emotion. due to the detrimental effects of stress various coping strategies have been designed and are applied at an individual or at an organizational level. while there has been a large body of research that examines the efficacy of a variety of individual coping strategies many researchers link stress coping mechanisms to positive attributes and psychological features such as creativity, broadening, relaxation and reframing (caulfield, chang, dollard, & elshaug, 2004; edwards, 1988; galanakis, moraitou, garivaldis, & stalikas, 2009; karasek, & theorell, 1990; osipow, & spokane, 1984, 1987).therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of overall positive emotions affecting strain levels. this contributes to the extant literature by broadening our comprehension of the efficacy of positive emotions in stress coping and also reveals a new direction for the creation of innovative strategies based on positive emotions. the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions positive emotions feel good. plus, the balance of people’s positive and negative emotions contributes to perceptions of life satisfaction (diener & larsen, 1993). however these are not the only reasons that people should care about positive emotions. according to fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory (1998), positive emotions not only make us feel good in the present, but they also increase the likelihood that one will feel good in the future. that is, positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward enhanced emotional wellbeing. this proposition stems from a new perspective regarding positive emotions offered within fredrickson’s (1998, 2001, 2003) broaden-and-build theory. europe’s journal of psychology 223 this model posits that, unlike negative emotions, which narrow people’s thoughtaction repertoires (e.g., fight or flight), positive emotions broaden people’s thoughtaction repertoires, encouraging them to discover novel lines of thought or action. an incidental outcome of these broadened mind-sets is an increase in personal resources: key to our knowledge that positive emotions trigger upward spirals is the proposition that positive emotions broaden attention and cognition. evidence supporting this claim comes from studies that use globallocal visual processing paradigms to assess biases in attentional focus (basso, schefft, ris, & dember, 1996; derryberry & tucker, 1994). other studies have shown that positive emotions produce patterns of thought that are notably unusual, flexible, creative, and receptive (isen, 1987). in general, positive emotions “enlarge” the cognitive context (galanakis & stalikas, 2004), an effect linked to increases in brain dopamine (ashby, isen, & turken, 1999). if positive emotions broaden attention and cognition, enabling flexible and creative thinking, they should also facilitate coping with stress and adversity (aspinwall, 1998). fredrickson’s research findings showed that specific positive emotions (joy, interest, tranquility, amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, hope, love, pride, and sexual desire) lead to: a) cognitive broadening and personal resources building (fredrickson, & branigan, 2000), b) negative emotions’ psychological stimulation decrease (“the undoing hypothesis”, fredrisckson, & levenson, 1998), c) increase of psychological resilience (tugade, & fredrickson, 2004), d) activation of upward spiral mechanisms that lead progressively to psychological health and wellbeing (fredrickson & joiner, 2002). to date, there are only few studies that have examined the influence of positive emotions on strain levels linking variables associated to positive emotions with the occupational stress process. the few studies that have been conducted provide support to the hypothesis that positive emotions are linked to occupational strain levels. such studies are reviewed in the section below. review of prior research findings folkman (2008) and folkman & moscowitz (2000) stated that there is a lack of studies examining the role of overall positive emotions in the stress process even though there is a reasonable theoretical basis. giga, cooper, & faragher, (2003) underlined the lack of an explanatory framework as to what makes existing stress coping strategies effective. bond & bunce (2000) explained the differences in emotion based vs. action based stress coping strategies through emotion regulation and do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 224 positive to negative emotion equilibrium. several researchers examined the importance of social support in stress coping and suggested that its function may be explained by overall positive emotions experiencing (beehr, 1995; beehr, farmer, glazer, gutanowski, & nair, 2003; caplan, cobb, french, harrison, & pinneau, 1975; cohen, & wills, 1985; kahn, & byosiere, 1992; viswesvaran, sanchez, & fisher, 1999). additionally other researchers conducted studies relative to positive and negative affect and recognized the importance of positive affect in stress coping (arvey, bouchard, segal, & abraham, 1989; tellegen, 1982; watson 1988; watson, & clark, 1984; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). israel, baker, goldenhar, heaney and schurman (1996) underlined the impact of strengthening personal resources and psychological resilience on coping actively with the environmental stressors. a similar connection has been demonstrated by freedy and hobfall (1994), kline and snow (1994) and meichenbaum (1993) who recognized the increase of personal resources as a stress-coping factor. finally seligman & csikszenmihalyi (2000b) found that positive affect helped healthcare professionals, who worked with aids patients, to experience low strain levels and suggested (2000a) that positive emotions promote psychological health and well being. altogether, these findings indicate that stress is a widely studied variable which is linked to specific personality, behavioral and demographic variables and that coping strategies are successful in decreasing strain levels. the broaden-and-build theory (fredrickson, 1998, 2001, 2003) provides an alternative framework which suggests that overall positive emotions are linked to occupational strain, and that the success of certain coping strategies may be a result of experiencing positive emotions. finally recent studies provide –at leastindirect support to the hypothesis that experiencing positive emotions is linked to strain reduction via associating variables related to positive emotions such as social support and positive affect. study rationale and research hypotheses fredrickson (1998, 2001, 2003) proposed that experiencing positive emotions is beneficial in multiple ways; it activates broadening and creativity, decreases negative emotions arousal, and fosters psychological resilience and well-being. empirical results appear to support her model ((fredrickson & branigan, 2000; fredrickson & joiner, 2002; fredrickson & levenson, 1998, fredrickson, tugade, waugh, & larkin, 2003). the aim of the study is to investigate the relationship of experiencing positive emotions with strain and how this relationship may differ as a function of demographic, personality or background variables. europe’s journal of psychology 225 specifically, the study’s research hypotheses are: 1) higher levels of positive emotions correlate to lower levels of occupational strain. 2) the relationship between overall positive emotions and occupational strain is not affected by specific control background variables (gender, age, profession, smoking habits, stressors in the working environment, residence, tenure, recent health problems, level in the organization and optimism) which have been suggested by the literature to be related to occupational strain. 3) discrete positive emotions have differential effects on occupational strain levels. 4) positive emotions predict greater occupational strain levels variance when combined with background, personality and demographic control variables. method sample and procedure the sample was comprised of 2775 greek employees, (41.80% men and 58.20% women). the average age of the participants was μ=35 years (sd=11.43). from the total of the sample 1149 (42.10%) participants were employed in the private sector, 640 (23.50%) were employed in the public sector, 71 (2.60%) were medical doctors, 44 (1.60%) were lawyers, 56 (2.10%) worked as military personnel, 80 (2.90%) were selfemployed, 31 (1.10%) were psychologists and 656 (24%) worked in other professions. test completion was anonymous. the researchers visited participants in their working place and administered the test battery after receiving their informed consent. all participants were provided with adequate information regarding the completion of the tests. the test battery was completed in approximately 30 minutes. individual results were sent to participants through e-mail upon completion of the study measures demographic and background control variables this form was constructed to record specific demographic, personality and behavioral variables that influence occupational strain levels. specifically, in this form the participants provided information regarding the following: gender, age, profession, smoking habits (non smoker, occasional smoker, frequent smoker, and very frequent smoker), residence, tenure, recent serious health problems (yes or no in the previous year), level in the organization (low, medium, high, based on their organizational chart) and trait optimism. do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 226 differential emotion scale-modified (des-mod; frederickson et al., 2003) this scale is comprised of 21 items and assesses the experiencing of eleven positive (joy, interest, tranquility, amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, hope, love, pride, and sexual desire) and nine negative emotions during a two weeks period time. participants were asked to indicate the degree that they have experienced each of the emotions in the last 15 days using a 5point likert scale (1= i have not experienced this emotion, 5= i have experienced this emotion in the maximum degree). this scale has been developed by the fredrickson research team, has been used in many studies (e.g. fredrickson 2003, coefficient alpha =0.85) and represents one of the very few available scales for the assessment of positive emotions. in addition to the 20 items, there is one nominal – categorical item in which participants record the one emotion that they have experienced most often in the last 15 days. this item was later used in the study for participant categorization in 11 different positive emotion groups. along with the specific score of each of the 20 likert items (ranging from 1 to 5), the scale provides a total score for all negative emotions (coefficient alpha =0.73) (ranging from 9 to 45), a total for all positive emotions (coefficient alpha =0.79) (ranging from 11 to 55) and a total score that indicates if the person has experienced more positive or negative emotions. this score is calculated by dividing the total of positive emotions with the total of the negative emotions. the internal consistency of the scale in our study was similar to previous studies (coefficient alpha = 0.82). occupational stress inventory (osi) (osipow & spokane, 1987) the osi includes 92 items which are allocated in three different subscales (psq, orq and prq). scores are calculated on the basis of a 4 point likert scale that ranges from definitely disagree (1) to definitely agree (4). participants completed the following two scales from the occupational stress inventory. 1) the personal strain questionnaire (psq) includes 22 items and measures occupational strain levels (coefficient alpha=0.88) (scores range from 22-88 points). the coefficient alpha results were similar to the ones mentioned in the manual of the test from its original standardization process (coefficient alpha=0.87) 2) the occupational roles questionnaire (orq) consists of 30 items and calculates the degree in which the working environment is stressful (coefficient alpha=0.78) (scores range from 30-120 points). the coefficient alpha results were similar to the ones mentioned in the manual of the test from its original standardization process (coefficient alpha=0.81). europe’s journal of psychology 227 results for the assessment of overall positive emotions we calculated the ratio of total positive to total negative emotions per participant according the des.mod results and this ratio score was used in all analyses. for the assessment of occupational strain we estimated participants’ total sum of the personal strain questionnaire of the osi by adding responses to all 22 4point likert items. participants’ scores ranged between 22 points (absence of stress) to 88 points (stress overload). for the assessment of stressors in the workplace we accumulated each participant’s answers in the occupational roles questionnaire and this score was used in all analyses for the second and fifth research questions. scores ranged between 30 (relaxed workplace) to 120 points (extremely stressful workplace). overall positive emotions are the independent variable and occupational strain is the dependent variable throughout all the analyses. in order to examine the first research hypothesis, regarding the relationship of positive emotions with occupational strain, a correlation analysis was conducted between the positive to negative emotions ratio score of des.mod and the total psq score. the analysis showed that there is moderate negative correlation between overall positive emotions experiencing and occupational strain (r=-0.53, p< 0.01). this result suggests that the higher the overall positive emotions experienced by the individual the lower the occupational strain levels. in order to examine the second research hypothesis as to whether the relation between overall positive emotions and occupational strain is affected by specific background variables, a partial correlation analysis was conducted. specifically 10 variables were examined: gender, age, profession, smoking habits, stressors in the working place, residence, tenure, recent health problems, level in the organization and trait optimism. the results showed that there is a negative (r=-0.441) and statistically significant (p<0.001) correlation between overall positive emotions and occupational strain. the correlation between these two variables without controlling for the impact of the do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 228 above intervening variables was r=-0.53, p<0.01. in order to identify the exact impact of each one of the ten intervening variables we conducted further partial correlations analyses for each intervening variable separately. the results of these analyses showed that trait optimism has the greater intervening impact in the relation between overall positive emotions and strain (positive emotions/strain r=0.28, p<0.05). this particular personality variable magnifies the identified relationship between positive emotions and occupational strain. moreover in relation to the second research hypothesis we examined specifically the role of profession in the relationship of overall positive emotions and occupational strain. for that reason a manova analysis was conducted, which is indicated when examining the impact of two or more categorical independent variables on a single dependent variable, by comparing the statistical significance of strain level differences with the interaction of overall positive emotions (high, medium, low positive emotions and negative emotions categories) and profession (public servants, private sector employees, medical doctors, military, lawyers, self – employed, psychologists) as the independent variables. according to the manova there is a statistically significant impact of the degree of experiencing positive emotions f(3, 2020)=64.607, p<0.000 and profession f(7, 2020)=2.195, p<0.05 on occupational strain levels, but no statistically significant impact is observed for their interaction f(18, 2020)=1.143, ns. the findings indicate that profession and overall positive emotions influence occupational strain levels independently. nevertheless, when we examined whether the overall positive emotions – occupational strain relationship differs in various professions the analysis showed that no differential impact exists. overall positive emotions relate to occupational strain regardless of the profession of the individual. in relation to the third research hypothesis we examined whether specific positive emotions have differential effects on occupational strain levels by conducting an analysis of variance. specifically, we divided participants into 11 different positive emotions groups according their answers in des.mod (categorical item no.21, “which emotion have you experienced the most during the last 15 days?”). then we compared their occupational strain levels and checked for statistically significant differences which could be attributed to specific positive emotions experiencing. the analysis of variance showed that the mean differences in occupational strain levels were statistically significant f(10, 1613) = 4.426, p <0.001. in order to examine which positive emotions had differential effects on occupational strain levels, post hoc analyses were conducted. according to these results using the tamhane europe’s journal of psychology 229 criterion, statistically significant differences were observed for the emotions of joy and tranquility compared to the other nine positive emotions examined. the employees that experienced joy (r=-0.61, p<0.001) and/or tranquility (r=-0.67, p<0.001) as the most prominent emotion during the 15 days period preceding the study had lower strain levels in comparison to those who experienced interest, amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, hope, love, pride, and sexual desire. finally as far as the fourth hypothesis is concerned we examined whether positive emotions experiencing can predict occupational strain levels. for that reason a hierarchical regression analysis was conducted. according to the results of the hierarchical regression analysis, overall positive emotions seem to influence the stressor – strain relationship. in particular, job stressors were added first in the equation and they predicted 16% of occupational strain variance. by adding “trait optimism” 27.90% of occupational strain variance was explained. with the addition of “gender” the percentage of the explained variance increased to 31.30%. with the addition of “recent serious health problems” 33.10% of the variance was explained. the addition of “smoking” increased the explained variance to 34.10%. the addition of “age” increased the percentage of the predicted variance to 34.40%. finally, “overall positive emotions” increased the explained variance to 42.70%. “residence” and “profession” did not add any predictive power. in order to avoid type i statistical error, due to the possibility of a spillover effect, we conducted regression analysis for the proposed equation following the reverse order so as to secure that overall positive emotions influence occupational strain levels rather than the opposite. the results showed that occupational strain levels explain 28.60% of the variance of “overall positive emotions” and combined with “trait optimism”, “job stressors” and “tenure” they explain 36.20% of the variance of positive emotions experiencing. furthermore, additional regression analyses were conducted in order to estimate the impact of specific positive emotions on occupational strain levels. for this analysis the five basic positive emotions suggested by fredrickson were examined (contentment, pride, joy, interest and love) along with the other positive emotions embedded in this research design based on the des.mod (tranquility, amusement, awe, gratitude, hope and sexual desire). do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 230 according to the results love, pride, awe, amusement, tranquility, gratitude, hope, sexual desire and interest do not seem to add to the explained variance of the model, while contentment and joy add +2.50% and +4.40% on the explained occupational strain variance. discussion the results of the present study showed a) that there is statistically significant negative correlation between experiencing positive emotions and occupational strain levels, b) that this relationship is not influenced by demographic, personality and behavioral variables or by profession, c) that specific positive emotions (joy and tranquility) exert a greater influence in reducing strain and d) that overall positive emotions predict occupational strain levels. a plausible interpretation of these findings can be given through fredrickson’s theoretical framework which suggests that positive emotions experiencing leads to cognitive broadening and personal resources building, which in turn helps employees discover new ideas and strengthens their problem solving abilities (fredrickson, 1998). moreover positive emotions diminish negative emotions arousal (“the antidote hypothesis”, fredrickson, 1998) and they have a direct “anti-negative” emotions effect. finally positive emotions lead through upward spiral mechanisms (fredrickson, 2001) to psychological resilience and well being, which help employees sustain occupational stressors and handle strain efficiently. nevertheless the importance of these mechanisms on stress coping were not tested in the present study. the findings reported here have a range of implications. first, they add force to recent efforts to situate positive emotions within models of stress and coping (e.g., folkman, 1997; folkman & moskowitz, 2000). classic theoretical depictions notwithstanding, positive emotions do not disappear during times of acute and chronic stress. the work reported here joins past work (e.g., keltner & bonanno, 1997; stein et al., 1997) in demonstrating that positive emotions are indeed present and functional during distressed periods, just as they are in other circumstances. second, together with related research (e.g., fredrickson, mancuso, et al., 2000; fredrickson & joiner, 2002), our findings suggest that efforts to cultivate and nurture positive emotions pay off both in the stress coping procedure. seeking these alluring payoffs begs the question of how to cultivate positive emotions in stressful conditions. noting that emotions cannot be instilled directly (fredrickson, 2000), and drawing on recent work by folkman and colleagues (folkman, 1997; folkman & moskowitz, 2000; park & folkman, 1997), we suggest that http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9381234 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10892207 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9325589 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9108700 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r32 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11934003 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11934003 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r24 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9381234 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10892207 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r67 europe’s journal of psychology 231 finding positive meaning may be the most powerful leverage point for cultivating positive emotions when under pressure. holding spiritual or religious beliefs or otherwise appreciating the meaning of life on philosophical levels can increase people's likelihood of finding positive meaning (folkman, 1997; frankl, 1959; fredrickson, 2002a; park & folkman, 1997). yet with or without the infusion of the above, people can find positive meaning in daily life by reframing adverse events in a positive light, infusing ordinary events with positive value, and pursuing and attaining realistic goals (folkman, 1997). and in contexts of stress therapy, clinicians might cultivate positive emotions by training clients in relaxation (fredrickson, 2000, 2002b), assigning them to engage in their favorite pleasant activities (fredrickson, 2002b; lewinsohn & gotlib, 1995), and asking patients to discuss their past best of times (joiner et al., 2001), clinical efforts that appear to accelerate the treatment process. our results are in line with findings of previous studies (folkman & moscowitz, 2000; giga, cooper, & faragher, 2003; lazarus 2000) and they validate them in the occupational stress territory, through a large sample of professionals and in a variety of professions, thus increasing their external validity. the empirical validation of the above is extremely important in the level of science, society and occupation. specifically, the discovery of the impact of positive emotions on the experience of job stress may increase the comprehension of the phenomenon and lead to the creation and the adoption of new strategies of coping with it. additionally, the founding enforces the state of personal centered theories that have begun to gain attention over the last years. at the same time the occurring with these positive emotions opens the way to the examination of the experience of positive dimensions in the dealing with the negative aspects which unipolars the searching interest during the previous decades. the main limitations of the study can be grouped into five main categories. first, all data were collected through self report questionnaires and in one test session, which can lead to subjective answers and inhibits any intention to establish causal relationships. our findings are correlational. second, we conducted the research in the actual working place which was one way to have access to a large number of professionals but on the other hand it gave us little control over intermediate variables like employee relationships, management style, alcohol consumption or previous psychopathology. third, given the complexity of the study and the large number of variables in the research design, we needed to exclude other important variables related to the phenomenon like personality type or locus of control. fourth, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9381234 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r21 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r26 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r67 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9381234 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r24 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r27 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r57 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2755263/#r46 do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 232 even though our sample size was adequate some categories of the sample were underrepresented compared to others. for example we had a small number of lawyers and medical doctors. future studies may expand our findings into five possible research directions: a) do other positive emotions, like enthusiasm, 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(1996). affective events theory: a theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. research in organizational behavior, 18, 1-74. about the authors: dr. galanakis michael completed his studies in psychology, at the national kapodistrian university of athens, at the department of philosophy, pedagogic and psychology in 1999. he holds a masters degree (msc) in economical and organizational psychology from panteion university of social and political sciences (2003). in 2009 he received his phd in organizational psychology from panteion university of social and political http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=publicationurl&_tockey=%23toc%235925%232005%23999399994%23538313%23fla%23&_cdi=5925&_pubtype=j&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=c000050221&_version=1&_urlversion=0&_userid=10&md5=4cd8ca6efae21a9dd04835d3fd9bd519 do positive emotions help us cope with occupational stress? 240 sciences. his research interests include topics such as occupational stress, team effectiveness, motivation, job satisfaction and professional behavior. he has participated in several psychological conferences in greece and abroad. he has also published several prototype research projects in scientific journals such as “stress and health”, and “psychology”. he is a member of the international association of applied psychology since 2008 and of the greek personnel management association since 2008. address for correspondence: galanakis michael, panteion university of social and political sciences, 10a panagi tsaldari street, kifisia, athens, greece, 145 61 mail: galanakismichael@hotmail.com galanopoulou fotini holds a b.sc. degree in psychology from panteion university of social and political sciences. her research interest includes variables such as occupational stress, well being and psychological health. she is currently working as a psychologist and seeking her entrance in a masters university programme. dr. stalikas anastasios received his bachelor degree in psychology from concordia university in montreal, canada. he holds a masters degree in clinical and consulting psychology from the university of ottawa. he received his phd in clinical and consulting psychology from the university of ottawa in 1991. he has been employed as a psychology professor in mcgill university, university of athens and cretan university. from 1998 until today he works as a psychology professor in panteion university of social and political sciences. his research interests include variables from clinical, consulting and organizational psychology, while he specializes in methodology and statistics. he has published several articles in major international and national journals. he is the author of a large number of scientific psychology books. he is an active member of psychological associations such the american psychological association, the canadian psychological association, the ordres des psychologues du québec, the society for psychotherapy research and the greek national psychology association. s questionnaire elvis burlan bsc psychology elvisburlan@hotmail.com abstract the word sincerity has profound connections with both religion and philosophy, in which we can find the very essence of its meaning. the need for sincerity is the need to find the truth in people, facts and the world in general. it is the desire for illumination, which motivates human existence on an intellectual and spiritual level; even though sometime such a need is revealed unconsciously or, perhaps, in a peculiar manner. generally speaking we have access to world’s reality through our own limited senses. this reflection of the surrounding reality leads us only to obtain the observable facts, but it is not entirely sufficient for explaining why the world is seen this way and not another. this situation motivates us for the principle of causality. finding the reasons for why the world exists the way that it does counts as the second and most important reflection of one’s image of the world. it would be a re-reflection, a process of question and conformation about what we know of the world. accordingly, human beings face inner tensions and conflicts that sometimes contradict the external world. they do so through manifestation of instincts, reflexes, needs, aspirations and self motivation. in such a context we find ourselves more often than desired, in the position where the so called “outside reality” is hard to accept. now, because of the inner conflicts we face, the external reality is trimmed and adapted to our personal needs, according to our own beliefs and interests. all these internal storms have an influence on the psychosocial behavior described, from a qualitative point of view, through – what i will call – sincerity behavior. the sincerity behavior should give an indication of how one relates with the world and how they cope with themselves. keywords: sincerity, sincerity behavior, sincerity tendency, sincerity dynamics, personal coping strategy, sincerity, need for sincerity. s questionnaire online (romanian and english) introduction in facing inner conflicts and for an easier acceptance of reality, humans seem to develop personal coping strategies. these are personal cognitive schemas for solving emotional problems. later, these schemas are adopted up to a level where they then become personality traits. according to moretti and higgins (1990) who conducted research regarding the implications of the self-esteem level, those with low self-esteem develop a discrepancy between the real and the ideal self. though a person with a low self esteem may not posses a negative opinion about themselves, they often do not see the positive aspects within themselves. even if they appear to be more adaptable to others because of the higher conformity they convey, they feel a cognitive dissonance when coping with several of life’s situations especially those filled with emotional load. for instance, those with a lower self-esteem do not expect success or positive appreciation from others towards them. in fact they cause a great deal of anxiety, because they do not expect to receive honest appreciations, even if they deserve so. having difficulties to accept their own image, facing the conflict between the ideal (imaginary) self and the real (in action) self, they have a never-ending reason to be uncomfortable. hence, they develop several strategies to cope with reality: humble attitude, avoidance, patience, describing themselves inadequate, makes complicated decisions but delay the action, risk avoidance, etc. (lelord, 1999). in order to unveil the tendency of such adaptive strategies described as sincerity behavior, i have developed a measuring instrument called “the s questionnaire”. this instrument aims to investigate the way one perceives psycho-socio-cultural reality (figure 2.1). figure 2.1 – coping strategies and sincerity behavior the questionnaire aims to find answers to these two questions: 1) are we able to accept the world for what it is, or do we bend reality in order to accept it? 2) are we capable of self acceptance, or do we prefer to change in order to be accepted by others? what is sincerity behavior? the word sincerity has profound connections with both religion and philosophy, in which we can find the very essence of its meaning. the need for sincerity is the need to find the truth in people, facts and the world in general. it is the desire for illumination, which motivates human existence on an intellectual and spiritual level; even though sometime such a need is revealed unconsciously or, perhaps, in a peculiar manner. generally speaking we have access to world’s reality through our own limited senses. this reflection of the surrounding reality leads us only to obtain the observable facts, but it is not entirely sufficient for explaining why the world is seen this way and not another. this situation motivates us for the principle of causality. finding the reasons for why the world exists the way that it does counts as the second and most important reflection of one’s image of the world. it would be a re-reflection, a process of question and conformation about what we know of the world. accordingly, human beings face inner tensions and conflicts that sometimes contradict the external world. they do so through manifestation of instincts, reflexes, needs, aspirations and self motivation. in such a context we find ourselves more often than desired, in the position where the so called “outside reality” is hard to accept. now, because of the inner conflicts we face, the external reality is trimmed and adapted to our personal needs, according to our own beliefs and interests. all these internal storms have an influence on our psychosocial behavior, described from a qualitative point of view as sincerity behavior (figure 2.2). the sincerity behavior should give an indication of how one relates with the world and how it copes with himself. figure 2.2 – sincerity behavior dynamics one’s distortion of reality could be associated with immature personality, which is characterized by the simplicity of psychic structures, the lack of logical correlation between these structures, inefficient functionality, unpredictability and low adaptation to new situations (zlate, 2000). to the contrary, allport describes the mature personality through characteristics such: the extension of self, overcoming egocentrism, self-control, emotional balance, perception, thinking and acting according to the external reality, autonomy, philosophic harmony (apud zlate, 2000). describing sincerity behavior i have described sincerity behavior in a bi-dimensional manner, corresponding to the inner and outer forces one encounter. the result of the action of external forces lies in attitudes such as: lack of sincerity presence of sincerity conformism and obedience critical and constructive attitude cognitive dissonance and confrontation avoidance realist evaluation and acceptance of reality disharmony optimal adaptation long lasting internal conflicts small, solvable conflicts learn and refine the art of compromise adopts moral and ethical principles contests others value recognize and accepts other people’s value the inner pressure (self-acceptance) leads to attitudes such: lack of sincerity presence of sincerity discrepancies between real and ideal self self acceptance personal under-evaluation and mediocrity consciousness of the self-value upsetting consciousness of needs and self-motivation refuge in dreaming interest for personal development low tolerance on frustration tolerance of frustration accepting long lasting conflicts solving conflicts constructing ”s questionnaire” it is difficult to build items that can receive sincere answers and still capable of describing sincerity behavior. when questioned, subjects tend to present themselves in a favorable spotlight, to make a better impression. for this questionnaire i constructed simple questions or definitions for which subject’s answer would have to relate both, inner emotional life and social interactions. the inner life regards the way the subjects reflect reality, and the questions were related to particular situations in which the subjects have certain behavior due to the way they accept and process the information. some other items aim to identify the cognitive schemas upon which subjects organizes their inner life. items have been constructed in such a way that the subjects would be provoked to respond describing the way they behave in critical situations where they face higher emotional involvement. i felt the need to keep count of these two aspects, because of the conscious part of behavior, which are the expression of a subject’s personal development, as well as the situational part of behavior, which could be also influenced by the first one. during personal development, people adhere in certain ways to socio-cultural and spiritual values and conventions. moreover, people develop habits and have their own personal desires. all of these largely resemble the ones they have been in contact with during their personal development. for instance, starting from a simple social convention i built a definition that places the subject in a sincerity behavior situation: instead of making others feel uncomfortable with my point of view, i’d rather be silent. it is well known that people feel the need for acceptance, especially from those they deem as superior. the definition above places the subject in a conformity-anxiety situation, where both are accepted by individuals who prefer other’s acceptance instead of a possible conflict of ideas, which is uncomfortable. such subjects face a lack of sincerity towards themselves, conforming to others instead of debating. thus, they censor their own behavior in order to be accepted by others, while they suffer from anxiety and humiliation internally. from another point of view, people build their own personal philosophy of life. they act in respect to their personal values, principles, beliefs and judgments. some values and judgments are moral morally based which can also shape sincerity behavior. such a principle is reflected by “what one does not know cannot hurt them”. people with respect for such a principle would deem information manipulation acceptable. they make a habit from hiding things from others who are entitled to know about it, thinking that they are doing justice by preventing the suffering of others if they knew the truth. lying for the sake of protecting others is a moral dilemma. some will chose to solve the dilemma by lying and others by telling the ‘ugly’ truth. both cases are adaptable solutions to an anxious situation. such principles are encoded in definitions like: i speak what i feel. i take responsibility for my actions. other items are built in such a way for the subject to see themselves through other people’s eyes (the reflected self): i tend to let people believe things that are not entirely true because they make me look better. those who know me consider my deeds as just and honest. some items challenge subjects to unveil their level of personal aspiration and the means used to accomplish them: success should be gained by any means. i tend to say what others want to hear. in order to avoid looking foolish i keep some facts hidden. such items should unveil the sincerity tendencies through means that we are willing to use in order to accomplish our purposes, aspirations and needs. the means that are used to one’s personal advantage are not always honest. moreover, we take advantage in projecting a false but clean personal image which hides some or many personal faults. this projected image is used like a fancy dress that gives us the passport to the desired society or companions. a reversed situation is defined by this item: sincerity helps me to easily make new friends. the above statement is challenging and is usually not the case. sometimes, it is easier to pick up friends using lies instead of speaking our mind and being honest. limitations the answers to “s questionnaire” should be interpreted somehow like the principle of uncertainty from physics (werner heisenberg, 1932) where a moving particle can only know either a position in space, or the velocity but never both (s. hawking, 1988). using this analogy, the “s questionnaire” only unveils the tendency of the “sincerity vector” reflected by the strategy used to adjust behavior according to a particular situation. the presence or absence of sincerity revealed by the questionnaire’s score does not guarantee an absolute and precise descriptor for an individual and their strategy. the sincerity behavior should give an indication of how one relates to the world and how they cope with themselves. sampler the subjects were selected at random from women and men twenty to forty – 56% being twenty to thirty, the rest being above thirty. although the age span is quite vast, i consider it to be appropriate for intellectual and spiritual maturity. most individuals pass through this life stage with consolidated values and principles. the testing sampler had 30 subjects – 51% men and 41% women – and well educated – 58% with university degree and 42% with a high-school diploma. as a limitation, the results should be relevant only for such a population. about the score the answers to the item’s definitions have been closed in five options on a likert scale: a definitely not like me b little like me c somehow like me d pretty much like me e definitely like me the subjects must select the letter corresponding to the answer that is most appropriate for each respective item. each answer is awarded from 1 to 5 in respect to the signification answer (table 3.1 and 3.3 from annex a). for certain items the points have been given backwards to avoid the habit of answering or suggesting the positive answer. the maximum score one can achieve is 90* and the minimum is 18. lower scores suggest the person has difficulties with adaptation especially in social circumstances, and tend to be self-centered, instable and emotionally immature. higher scores indicate more mature personalities, higher adaptation levels, responsible behavior, and adherent to moral and ethical values, with healthy principles of life. at the same time, extremely high scores should be seen with caution. such people could be driven by an obsession for high moral and social standards up to the point where they could become hostile to the others in convincing to obey such moral and social values. * at present moment, the s questionnaire is slightly different. although the items were not modified, each item has now only four answer options, to avoid central tendency error. the score span modifies as follows: minimum score=18, maximum score=72. pre-testing and testing the s questionnaire was first pre-tested with 24 items on 30 subjects (annex a, s questionnaire – pre-tested version). each item resulted a frequency distribution which is presented in drawing 1 and the results are presented in table 3.2 from annex a. because pierson’s variation coefficient was above 15% and for some items exceeded 30% i only accepted items that had a symmetrical frequency distribution of answers, but the items were slightly modified for the ongoing testing version. that was needed for better discrimination of the answers (items 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, and 20). some other items were dropped off. figure 2.3 presents the overall frequency distribution for the second tested version of the questionnaire. the final version was made on a different sample of subjects, to avoid any contamination from the previous pre-tested sample. n = 30; mean = 57,26; standard deviation = 4,73 figure 2.3 – test frequency distribution the remaining items prove themselves to be a diagnostic for what they are supposed to investigate and they were used further on. questionnaire’s validity the questionnaire’s fidelity was determined through three different methods. split-half method this method consists of dividing items into odds and evens and considers testing the same sample of subjects twice. this method used testing data that is presented in table 3.6 from annex a. using bravais-pierson formula we get: r = 0,45 this result has a signification level of .01 (p=0.01) leading us to conclude that the s questionnaire reveals what it was supposed to. test-retest method the second method used to determine questionnaire’s fidelity is to retest the sample of subject after a period of time (2 weeks) enough for them to forget the answers they gave when first tested. the results are presented in table 3.7 from annex a. using the same bravais-pierson formula we get: r = 0,35 this result has a signification level of .05 (p=0.05) leading us to conclude that the questionnaire’s fidelity is acceptable. consistency coefficient method in order to determine how much of the result reveal what they were supposed to measure (tendency), i used alfa crombah consistency coefficient method of calculi attaining a coefficient of 0.51. although a rigorous research method would consider a coefficient higher than 0.60 i accepted the one that i got from the data collected at this point for 2 reasons: first, the attained coefficient is close enough to the acceptable one and secondly, the questionnaire is still under development. conclusion following the statistical results, the s questionnaire can be considered valid for the purpose it was designed which is to measure sincerity tendency, a good predictor for sincerity behavior. sincerity behavior is to be interpreted as a qualitative aspect of social behavior as well as a reflection of the inner life climate. sincerity behavior manifests in social interactions as a standing towards norms and values of which people adhere and later internalizes. it is also a position taken by individuals when facing situations that involve high emotional involvement, especially when personal success and self preservation is the goal. sincerity tendency should be interpreted as a concept that is to be shaped by cultural climate, family and social interaction during personal development. later on, sincerity behavior blends with one’s personality and is only unveiled through personal coping strategies. sincerity behavior is part of one’s character, which suggests that it could be learned and later used as an instrument for adapting to the surrounding world as well as a strategy used to develop interpersonal relations. about the author elvis burlan is a 35 years old psychologist, licensed at ovidius university in constanta, romania. currently he follows master courses in cognitive behavioral therapies at titu maiorescu university in bucharest, romania. at the same time, he is conducting psycho-social researches in a private held 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(2004). leadership şi management. iasi: ed. polirom. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 241-260 www.ejop.org the differential impact of prognostic and process expectations versus panic severity on depressive symptoms in panic disorder with agoraphobia theodora e. katerelos university of quebec in montreal, quebec, canada michel perreault mcgill university and douglas mental health university institute, canada claude bélanger university of quebec in montreal mcgill university and douglas mental health university institute, canada andré marchand university of quebec in montreal research centre fernand-séguin, lh. lafontaine hospital, canada john pecknold mcgill university and douglas mental health university institute, canada abstract background: panic disorder with agoraphobia (pda) co-occurs highly with depression. greater panic symptoms, agoraphobic avoidance, comorbidity and anxiety sensitivity have all been linked to depressive symptoms in pda. psychotherapy research has historically linked prognostic and process expectationsto symptom severity. however, no study has explored the relationship of expectancies and depressive symptoms in pda. the purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which expectations and panic symptomatology have a differential impact on depressive symptoms in pda above and beyond the influence of anxiety sensitivity and secondary axis i comorbid disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder) just prior to entering therapy. method: the relationship between depressive symptoms, panic symptomatology and expectancies (i.e., prognostic and process expectations) was http://www.ejop.org/ expectancies and panic disorder 242 investigated in 74 patients with a primary diagnosis of panic disorder with agoraphobia. it was hypothesized that expectancy measures rather that panic symptomatology would add to the prediction of depressive symptoms beyond the effects of secondary comorbid disorders and anxiety sensitivity. results: the findings showed that prognostic and process expectations accounted for significant variance in depressive symptoms beyond that predicted by anxiety sensitivity and secondary axis i comorbid disorders. in addition, pda symptomatology failed to significantly enter into our prediction model. conclusions: these results suggest that expectancies have a greater impact on depressive symptoms in pda regardless of the secondary comorbid disorders and severity of symptoms in pda. implications of these findings on the treatment of pda are discussed. key words: prognostic expectations, process expectations, anxiety expectancy, anxiety sensitivity, panic disorder with agoraphobia, depression. introduction panic disorder is frequently accompanied by agoraphobia (american psychological association, 1994). panic disorder is a sudden onset of intense apprehension or doom associated with four out of thirteen symptoms such as shortness of breath, palpitations, chest pain or discomfort, choking or smothering sensations, and fear of “going crazy” or losing control (american psychiatric association, 1994). agoraphobia is a fear about being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having a panic attack (american psychiatric association, 1994). the co-occurrence of panic disorder with agoraphobia (pda) and depression has been demonstrated in numerous studies (andrade, eaton, & chilcoat, 1994; regier, rae, narrow, kaelber & schazberg, 1998; renneberg, chambless, & gracely, 1992; tsao, lewin, & craske, 1998). for instance, renneberg and colleagues (1992) reported that 15% of the pda participants in their study suffered from major depression and 27% from dysthymia(a chronic depression that is less severe than major depressive disorder) (american psychiatric association, 1994). higher levels of depressive symptoms may also be related to avoidance behaviour in anxiety disorders (cassano, perugi, musetti, & akiskal, 1989; cox, endler, & swinson, 1995; parker, wilhelm, mitchell, austin, roussos, & gladstone, 1999; telch, brouillard, telch, agras, and taylor, 1989). telch and associates (1989) found that subjects with pda had significantly greater levels of depression as measured by the beck depression inventory (bdi; beck, steer, & brown 1996) than those with just panic disorder. chambless (1985) also reported significant links between bdi scores and patients suffering from agoraphobia. avoidance behaviours may also act as risk factors in the onset of depression. for instance, parker europe’s journal of psychology 243 and colleagues (1999) found that social avoidance tends to precede the onset of major depression. in addition, regier and colleagues (1998) discovered that the average age of onset of agoraphobia and comorbid depression is much younger for agoraphobia (i.e., 15.7 years old) than the age of onset for major depression (i.e., 24.1 years old). this suggests that avoidance behaviours in pda may precede and precipitate the onset of a comorbid major depressive episode. a stronger association has also been detected between anxiety expectancy (i.e., the extent to which patients expect to experience anxiety) and avoidance behaviour, rather than with the occurrence of panic attacks and avoidance (e.g., cox, endler and swinson, 1995; cox, swinson, norton and kuch,1991; craske, rapee, & barlow, 1988; telch, et al., 1989; whittal & goetsch, 1997). for instance, telch and colleagues (1989) found that panic expectancy was the best predictor of agoraphobic avoidance in pda. moreover, in contrast to panic disorder without agoraphobia, pda patients reported more anticipation of panic. this implies that as expectation of panic increases, so does avoidance. this finding is also supported by craske and barlow’s (1988) hypothesis suggesting that there is a greater relationship between avoidance behaviour and anxiety expectancy rather than with the occurrence of panic attacks. similarly, depressive symptoms in pda patients are also considered predictors of panic expectancy. for instance, whittal and goetsch (1997) found that higher scores on the bdi predicted higher expectations of panic prior to entering a grocery store. similar to the research results on anxiety expectancy, other studies have also demonstrated a relationship between high levels of anxiety sensitivity and avoidance behaviour. more specifically, individuals with high anxiety sensitivity expect that their anxiety sensations will cause them somatic, psychological or social harm (reiss, 1991; reiss, peterson, gursky & mcnally, 1986). this suggests that negative expectations related to sensations of anxiety in panic disorder may lead to greater avoidance. according to reiss’ expectancy theory (reiss, 1991; reiss et al., 1986), anxiety sensitivity can precede panic attacks and may be a risk factor for panic disorder with agoraphobia (reiss, 1991;reiss et al., 1986; maller & reiss,1992). once again, studies have also linked depression to greater fear of anxiety sensations (taylor, koch, woody,& mclean, 1996). taylor and associates (1996) detected high levels of anxiety sensitivity in individuals with depression. schmidt, lerew and joiner (1998) found that high scores on the anxiety sensitivity index (asi; reiss et al., 1986) were more likely to exacerbate depressive symptoms in the context of anxiety. cox, enns, freeman and walker (2001) demonstrated that patients who were no longer diagnosed with a major depressive episode after a one year follow-up, continued to score high on the asi. in contrast to normal controls, formerly depressed patients expectancies and panic disorder 244 displayed significantly higher levels of anxiety sensitivity even though there was no difference between the two groups on level of depressed mood. the above studies on anxiety expectancy and anxiety sensitivity suggest a cognitive style that may be different in patients suffering from pda alone versus those with pda and high symptoms of depression. since depression has been previously linked with negative automatic thinking, including pessimistic cognitions (nekanda-trepka, bishop, & blackburn, 1983; see telch, 1988), low self-esteem, negative self-concepts and expectations (bachelor, bleau, & raymond, 1996; nekanda-trepka et al., 1983), it would be important to examine to what extent overall expectations and panic symptomatology impact on pda clients with depressive symptoms. by identifying these predictors, the treatment may be appropriately adapted to also meet the needs of those with pda and comorbid depression. studies have found evidence on the effects of panic symptomatology, anxiety expectancy and sensitivity on depressive symptoms in pda. however, no studies to our knowledge, have examined the role of process expectations on depressive symptoms in pda. process expectations include (1) participant roles referring to anticipations regarding therapist characteristics, and therapist and client behaviour and attitudes expected to be displayed throughout therapy, and (2) anticipations referring to therapeutic process and procedures. the negative cognitive style in depressive clients may also impact on their expectations of what therapy will involve. the majority of the studies conducted on process expectations are found in counselling research (e.g., kunkel, hector, gongóra coronado & castillo vales, 1989; mezydlo subich & coursol, 1985; tinsley, bowman, & ray, 1988; tinsley, brown, st. aubin, & lucek, 1984; tinsley, workman & kass, 1980). al-darmaki and kivlighan (1993) examined the effect of expectation congruence on the client-counsellor relationship and on their working alliance. the findings suggested that increased congruence in their expectations with regards to the therapeutic relationship is a good predictor of alliance. examining the level of congruence in clients’ process expectations to the treatment they are about to participate in, may provide information on how to modify the treatment to address their needs or their incongruent expectancies at the beginning of therapy. this study examines the differential impact of panic symptomatology and expectancy on depressive symptoms in pda. the association between depressive symptoms, panic symptomatology, prognostic expectancies (anxiety sensitivity, anxiety expectancy and avoidance expectancy), and process expectations was explored. next, the differential impact of panic symptomatology and expectancies europe’s journal of psychology 245 on depressive symptoms was examined above and beyond the influence of secondary axis i disorders (including depression) and anxiety sensitivity as measured by the asi (reiss et al., 1986). as previously indicated, the asi has already been detected as a determinant of depression in several studies. we hypothesized that expectancy measures rather that panic symptomatology would add to the prediction of depressive symptoms beyond the effects of secondary comorbid disorders and anxiety sensitivity. method participants the sample consisted of 76 participants (26 males, 50 females) with a principal dsmiv (american psychiatric association, 1994) diagnosis of panic disorder with agoraphobia (pda). the mean age of the sample was 40.1 years (sd = 10.11; range: 19 65) and the mean education level was 11.9 years (sd = 3.46). the average number of years of marriage or cohabitation was 11.39 years (sd = 10.99). approximately 39.5% of the patients were married, 38.2% were cohabiting, 17.1% were single, 2.6% were separated or divorced and 2.6% were widowed. most participants (68.4%) took psychotropic medication. participants were recruited from two specialized outpatient anxiety disorder clinics in montreal: the douglas anxiety clinic (n = 13) and the outpatient clinic at louis-h. lafontaine hospital (n = 16). participants were also recruited from advertisements in the local newspapers (n=47). analyses of variance demonstrated no significant difference between clients referred from either of the two clinics and those referred from the local newspapers on any sociodemographic, expectancy, or symptom measure (p > .05). patients included in the study met the following criteria: (a) a primary dsm-iv diagnosis of pda assigned by a psychiatrist; (b) a primary diagnosis of pda according to the anxiety disorders interview schedule, for dsm-iv, lifetime version (adis-iv-l; dinardo et al., 1994) with a clinical severity rating of 4 or above on a scale ranging from 0 (none) to 8 (very severely disturbing-disabling), (c) a secondary dsmiv axis i diagnosis with an assigned adis-iv-l clinical severity rating which ranges from moderate to severely disabling (i.e., 4 to 6) and consists of a rating of 2 or more levels lower than the pda rating, (d) age between 18 and 65 years, and (e) a mean of at least 1 panic attack per week in the 3 weeks prior to participating in the assessment. exclusion criteria included: (a) the presence of substance-related, psychotic, and any organic brain conditions; and (b) the presence of any unstable medical condition considered by the evaluating psychiatrist to be mistaken for anxiety expectancies and panic disorder 246 symptoms (e.g., thyroid disorders, asthma, cardiovascular diseases, etc). the average duration of pda was 12.8 years (sd = 9.8; range: 1 40 years). patients met criteria for one or more of the following secondary diagnosis: generalized anxiety disorder (n = 20), major depressive disorder (n = 10), social phobia (n = 6), dysthymia (n = 4), obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 4), specific phobia (n = 4), post traumatic stress disorder (n = 4), hypochondriasis (n = 3), and mania (n = 1). procedure participants recruited from advertisements in the local newspapers were screened using a brief telephone interview in order to determine suitability. potential candidates were invited to either one of the clinics to take part in the adis-iv-l administered by advanced graduate students in psychology. if the criteria for a primary diagnosis of pda were satisfied according to the adis-iv-l, a psychiatrist subsequently evaluated the participants to confirm the initial diagnosis. participants completed the questionnaire battery after their diagnosis had been confirmed. those recruited directly from the clinics had already received a diagnosis of pda by one of the psychiatrists. they nevertheless received the structured interview with the adis-iv-l in order to rule out an additional axis i primary diagnosis and to confirm the psychiatrist's diagnosis. all participants provided informed consent prior to the structured interview with the adis-iv-l. no discrepancies were reported between the adis-iv-l diagnosis and that of the psychiatrist. measures symptom severity measures. participants completed a battery of self-reported measures commonly used in pda research. the following measures on symptom severity have demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. a french validated version of these questionnaires was utilized in the current study. the adis-iv-l (dinardo et al., 1994), a structured interview, was administered to assess the differential diagnoses among anxiety disorder categories. it also evaluated the history of the problem, situational and cognitive factors influencing anxiety, detailed symptom ratings and the interviewer's judgment of the degree of distress and interference in functioning associated with a pda diagnosis. a validated french version of the beck depression inventory-ii (bdi-ii; beck et al., 1996) was administered in the current study to assess the severity of depression over the last two weeks. it is composed of 21 items measuring depressive symptoms on a 4-point scale. the bdi assesses somatic symptoms, mood disturbances and negative cognitions over the past two weeks. sound psychometric properties have been europe’s journal of psychology 247 associated with the english version of this measure. in the current study, internal consistency was estimated at .91. there is no validation study for the frenchcanadian version of the bdi-ii that was translated in 1997. the earlier frenchcanadian versions, the bdi (1961) and bdi 1a (1978), have been validated (gauthier et al., 1982; bourque and beaudette, 1982). we nevertheless chose to administer the french-canadian version of bdi-ii because it is more consistent with the dsm-iv criteria for major depressive disorder than the earlier versions. the body sensations questionnaire (bsq; chambless et al., 1984) and agoraphobia cognitions questionnaire (acq; chambless et al., 1984) assessed severity of cognitive panic symptoms. the bsq is a 17-item questionnaire that measures level of fear concerning bodily sensations during a panic attack. the acq consists of 14 items measuring the frequency of catastrophic thoughts during a panic attack. both measures are rated on a 5-point likert-type scale. coefficient alpha for the bsq in this study was estimated at .88 and for the acq at .77. the psychometric properties of the french-canadian versions employed in this study are equivalent to those of the english version (stephenson et al., 1998; stephenson et al., 1999). the mobility inventory for agoraphobia-alone (mia-a; chambless et al., 1985) was used to assess the severity of agoraphobic avoidance behavior when the person is alone. this 26-item questionnaire is rated on a 5-point likert-type scale. this study calculated the coefficient alpha at .92. psychometric properties of the frenchcanadian version have been found to be similar to those of the english version (stephenson et al., 1997). beck anxiety inventory (bai; beck et al., 1988) assessed physical and cognitive symptoms experienced during the past week. this 21-item questionnaire, rated on a 4-point scale, examines the degree to which participants were affected by their symptoms over the past week. in this study, internal consistency was estimated at .93. cronbach’s alpha of the french-canadian version administered in this study has been previously calculated at .85 (freestone, ladouceur, thibodeau, gagnon, rhéaume, 1994). expectancy measures. all expectancy measures for this study were translated into french by the back-translation method (vallerand, 1989; see table 1 for overall distribution of all expectancy measures). anxiety expectancies: the section on the severity of panic symptoms from the adisiv-l (dinardo et al., 1994) was adapted and reformulated into expectations to assess prognostic expectations specifically related to panic-related symptoms. the expectancies and panic disorder 248 symptom expectancy questionnaire (seq) consists of 14 items, rated on a 4-point scale, that measure the extent to which patients expect various panic-related symptoms to be diminished following therapy (e.g., at the end of treatment, i expect my symptoms of dizziness to....) the cronbach alpha coefficient for the french version of the seq (marcaurelle and katerelos, 1998) using the current sample was calculated at .92. avoidance expectancies: an adaptation of the mobility inventory for agoraphobiaalone (mia-a; chambless et al., 1985) was used to assess prognostic expectations related to the degree to which clients expect their avoidance behavior to persist following therapy (i.e., avoidance expectancy). the same items were administered along with the corresponding 5-point scale. however, the adapted version contains questions reformulated into expectancies (e.g., "after the treatment, i expect to never avoid going to the movies"). with the current french sample and with the items reformulated into expectancies, internal consistency was at .92. this questionnaire will be referred to as the expectancy mobility inventory for agoraphobia-alone (emia-a; katerelos et al., 1998). process expectations: the process expectations questionnaire (peq; i.e., expectations of therapeutic process and procedures and roles of participants and therapist) was devised by the authors and consists of 28 items rated on a 4-point likert scale (1= strongly agree to 4=strongly disagree) divided into two sub-scales, (1) expectations on the process and procedures of therapy (10 items); (2) role expectations (18 items). nine out of the ten items on expectations on the process and procedures of therapy were inspired from the attitudes towards, and beliefs about psychotherapy questionnaire (abpq; furham and wardley, 1990), a 40-item questionnaire, with an internal consistency of .70. items from this questionnaire that were adapted and reformulated into expectations include: 2 items loading highest on the factor conflicts and emotions referring to psychodynamic therapy (pdt) techniques; 4 items related to the factor dealing with what psychotherapy teaches or instructs clients (2 cbt items and 2 pdt); and 1 item referring to the background of psychotherapy sessions themselves (pdt item). the following items that did not load on any factor structures were also included because they were considered relevant to the current study: 1 question referring to exposure to a feared situation (cbt); and 1 item pertaining to the unconscious nature of psychological problems (pdt). finally, we also added 1 item examining whether clients expected to participate in exercises that would provoke anxiety symptoms (cbt), for a total of 10 items on the process and procedure expectancies. europe’s journal of psychology 249 the 18 items pertaining to role expectations were inspired from thoughts about psychotherapy survey (taps; kushner and sher, 1989), the reactions to psychotherapy questionnaire (rpq; furham and wardley, 1990), psychotherapy questionnaire (pq; zwick and attkisson, 1984) and the abpq, (furham and wardley, 1990). five of the 6 items from the taps were adapted and reformulated into expectations from the first of three factors entitled therapist competence and professionalism, and one item was inspired from therapist responsiveness and image concerns. the 6 items adapted and reformulated into expectations from the rpq include: 3 items loading highest on the factor negative reactions; 2 items associated with understanding; and 1 item loading on active change (i.e., involvement of patient in therapy). four items were adapted and reformulated into expectations from the pq: talking with a therapist is much like chatting to a friend; dependence on the therapist; therapeutic advice similar to what a medical doctor does; and immediate therapeutic progress. two items were added and reformulated into expectations dealing with resistance to change (see abpq; furham and wardley, 1990) and expectations of the therapist finding solutions for all anxiety-related problems. internal consistency for the taps has been calculated at .87 to .92 (kushner and sher, 1989), for the rpq at .70 (furham et al., 1992) and for the original pq at .85 (zwick and attkisson, 1985). the current study estimated the cronbach alpha for the process expectations questionnaire (peq) at .72 (katerelos, bélanger et al., 1998). control variable. the anxiety sensitivity index (asi; reiss et al., 1986) is a 16-item questionnaire, rated on a 5-point likert-type scale, that measures fear of anxiety and has been specifically associated with agoraphobia (see taylor, 1993). each item assesses concerns about the possible negative consequences of symptoms associated with anxiety. the internal consistency of the questionnaire has been estimated at .88 (cox et al., 1996) and a two-week test-retest reliability has been computed at .75 (reiss et al., 1986). psychometric properties of the french-canadian version have been found to be similar to those of the english version (marchand et al., 1999). internal consistency for the french translation of the asi was calculated at .82 in this study. results descriptive statistics for the bdi-ii scores on the bdi-ii were normally distribution with a mean score of 18.99 (sd = 10.94; range = 2 46). a one-way analysis of variance (anova) revealed a significant expectancies and panic disorder 250 difference in severity of depressive symptoms in patients suffering from one axis i disorder (n = 49; m = 17.15, sd = 11.02) versus two or more secondary axis i anxiety and affective disorders (n = 27, m = 22.34, sd = 10.14) f(1, 74) = 4.07, p < .05. those with two or more axis i disorders displayed higher levels of depression. no significant relationship was detected between depressive symptoms and duration of pda (r = .08, p > .05) and depressive symptoms and number of panic attacks in the past week (r =.05, p > .05). predictors of depressive symptoms in pda table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for all expectancy and symptom measures, and the correlation between these measures and the bdi-ii. all measures were distributed normally. table 1: overall distribution of expectancy measures and correlations with the bdi-ii variables r with bdi-ii m sd range symptom bsq .21 50.39 14.29 17-85 acq .29* 36.76 8.85 17-60 mia-a .13 84.38 22.58 42-130 bai .25* 28.79 14.43 0-60 expectancies asi .38*** 35.39 10.55 11-59 seq 1 -.38*** 42.08 6.12 28-54 emia-a .33** 54.93 18.76 26-114 peq 2 -.40*** 86.24 6.99 69-105 n = 76. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p< .001. 1 higher scores: clients expect their panic symptoms to diminish after treatment has ended 2 higher scores: greater congruence with treatment process and procedures and therapist and participant roles europe’s journal of psychology 251 hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine whether expectancies predicted depressive symptoms in patients suffering from panic disorder with agoraphobia, beyond the effects of pda symptomatology. analyses were conducted into four steps: (1) since comorbidity main effects were detected, comorbidity (i.e., presence or absence) was entered into the first step as a control variable. (2) similarly, because previous data has demonstrated the asi as a predictor of depressive symptoms, it was entered into the second step. (3) symptom measures were entered into the third step in order to ascertain their incremental validity. (4) finally, expectancy measures were entered in the fourth step to determine the extent to which these measures add to the prediction rating above and beyond the effects of the other measures. table 2 shows that the asi added to the prediction model of depressive symptoms in pda above and beyond that of our control variable. in fact, when the asi was included in the prediction model, comorbidity failed to enter significantly into the second step. moreover, the addition of pda symptom measures did not produce significant increments in the explained variance over that accounted for by the asi and comorbidity. however, the expectancy measures significantly added to the prediction model of depressive symptoms in pda. these findings suggest that expectancies are better predictors of depressive symptoms in pda then measures commonly used to evaluate pda symptomatology. table 2: hierarchical regression analysis of the bdi-ii on pda symptomatology and expectancy when comorbidity and anxiety sensitivity are controlled model predictor variables r2 change f value for r2 change dfs semipartial r2 1 comorbidity .16** 6.77 2, 73 1.2 asi 10.4** 2 acq .01 .54 2, 71 .06 bai 1.5 3 peq .16** 5.54 3, 68 6.8* seq 4.7* emia-a .08 n = 76. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p< .001 expectancies and panic disorder 252 hierarchical regression analyses were re-ran in order to determine whether process expectations (peq) and prognostic expectations (seq) would significantly predict depressive symptoms after controlling for comorbidity and anxiety sensitivity. comorbidity was entered into the first step followed by the asi and then the peq and seq were entered into the final step. this analysis indicated that 5.2% of the variance in the bdi was explained by comorbidity f(1, 74) = 4.07, p < .05, 10.4% of the variance was accounted for by the asi f(1, 73) = 9.02, p < .01, and 16.4% of the variance was explained by the peq and seq f(2, 71) = 8.55, p < .001 accounting for a total of 32.0% of the variance. these findings suggest that the inclusion of process and prognostic expectancies contribute additional information in predicting depressive symptoms in pda. discussion the current study examined the differential effect of pda symptomatology and expectancies on depressive symptoms above and beyond the influence of secondary axis i disorders (i.e., anxiety and affective disorders) and anxiety sensitivity. as hypothesized, expectancies predicted depressive symptoms above and beyond the influence of pda symptomatology, comorbidity and anxiety sensitivity. moreover, symptom measures failed to enter significantly into the model. this finding suggests that depressive symptoms in pda, evaluated prior to any therapy, are generally predicted by two or more axis i disorders, levels of anxiety sensitivity, prognostic expectations and expectations related to the procedures in therapy. our findings showed that individuals with high anxiety sensitivity (i.e., expectations about the potential harmfulness of anxiety-related sensations) were more likely to experience depressive symptoms. these findings are consistent with previous studies examining the links between anxiety sensitivity and depression (cox et al., 2001; otto et al., 1995; schmidt et al., 1998; taylor et al., 1996). these studies detected elevated scores on the asi in depression with no comorbid anxiety disorders (cox et al., 2001; otto et al., 1995; schmidt et al., 1998; taylor et al., 1996). our data suggest that pda participants with greater fears of their sensations of anxiety, regardless of whether they have another comorbid axis i disorder, will experience greater depressive symptoms. the current results may have important implications when planning treatment since increased anxiety sensitivity has been previously detected as a negative predictor of response to cbt and pharmacotherapy in panic disorder (clark et al., 1994). since pda patients with increased depressive symptoms also have greater anxiety sensitivity it may be suggested that the addition of depressive symptoms may contribute to a poorer treatment outcome. europe’s journal of psychology 253 participants with greater depressive symptoms were also more likely to have low expectations that their symptoms of panic would improve following therapy. consistent with seligman's helplessness theory (seligman, 1975), it may be suggested that expectations of those with depressive symptoms may be more negative due to their pessimistic explanatory style. depressed individuals do not only internalize and generalize bad events that happen to them, they also tend to believe that these events will remain stable throughout time (see abramson et al., 1978; burns and seligman, 1991). for instance, they may expect that their panic attacks will persist even after a treatment has been administered. moreover, their pessimistic explanatory style may contribute to their low expectations of beneficial treatment effects. our results are similar to those of cohen and colleagues (2001) who examined whether "treatment-specific optimism" (e.g., beliefs about the treatment working) in cancer patients is associated with better mental health at the beginning and at the end of a cancer treatment. they found that patients who had negative expectations regarding their treatment outcome were more likely to have a depressed mood at the beginning and at the end of treatment. they concluded that patients who are not optimistic about the treatment helping them are more likely to have depressive symptoms. these findings may have serious implications since pessimistic expectations regarding treatment outcome may deter pda patients from participating in therapy if they expect a poor prognosis. future research should examine the effect of cognitive explanatory styles of pda patients with depressive symptoms. panic disorder with agoraphobia participants whose expectations of the process and procedures of therapy that were congruent with the actual treatment being offered demonstrated lower levels of depressive symptoms. clients with pda who demonstrated positive expectancies in terms of their own role in therapy (e.g., participation) and that of the therapist (e.g., expertness of the clinician) also had low depressive symptoms. low depressive pda patients may have a more optimistic cognitive-style that positively affects both their expectations of the therapist competency to help them and their expectancy of their personal involvement in the therapy. depressive symptoms are frequently characterized by low motivation (e.g., inability to perform tasks), negative self-concept (e.g., views self as defective or inadequate), passivity and inactivity (beck, rush, shaw & emery, 1979). the above variables may have influenced the manner in which pda patients with high depressive symptoms expected to behave in therapy. the current study demonstrated that pda patients with relatively high depressive symptoms have more overall negative expectations than those with lower depression. regardless of the severity in pda symptomatology, cognitions related to expectancies and panic disorder 254 negative expectancies appeared to be the primary determinants of depressive symptoms in pda. however, the data are preliminary in nature and most expectancy measures that were utilized were new. future studies should attempt to replicate these findings. the psychometric properties of the process expectations questionnaire and the symptom expectations questionnaire should undergo further study. future studies should also examine the extent to which optimistic and pessimistic cognitive styles are linked to the different types of expectations. in addition, their influence on treatment outcome for pda with depressive symptoms should be further explored since negative cognitive styles in high depressive pda patients may interfere with a cognitive-behavioral treatment geared for pda without depression. finally, although there eis a greater relationship between negative expectations and depressive symptoms in pda, regression analyses do not allow us to conclude that expectations explain the variance in depression. on the contrary, it is possible that depressive symptoms in pda contribute to negative expectancies. there may be important implications for treatment process and outcome in patients suffering from pda with depression. cognitive-behavior therapy appears to be the most commonly used and effective psychotherapy for pda patients. in fact, efficacy rates have been reported as high as 80 to 90% (see margraf et al., 1993). other, findings, nevertheless, show that many panic disorder patients still experience substantial anxiety (klosko et al., 1990) and approximately half of the patients experience a reoccurrence of panic attacks two years after cbt (brown and barlow, 1995). expectancies and depressive symptoms may be factors to consider when the effectiveness of cbt is examined. these findings may suggest that cbt is not effective for some pda patients. perhaps, pda patients with depression may benefit less from cbt if their expectations are not addressed at the outset of therapy. addressing expectations early on in treatment may decrease anxiety about undergoing therapy and improve treatment efficacy. the treatment may be appropriately tailored to deal with specific expectations (i.e., anxiety expectancy, anxiety sensitivity, and process expectations) of those with pda and depressive symptoms. by addressing the negative cognitive styles, including their expectations, early on in therapy there may be positive or congruent shifts in the different types of expectations from pretherapy to the early-stages of treatment. such cognitive shifts may prove to be important for the long-term outcome of panic disorder with agoraphobia. europe’s journal of psychology 255 references abramson, ly, seligman, mep, teasdale, j. 1978. learned helplessness in humans; critique and reformulation of depression. psychol 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can psychol 30:662-680. vasile, rg, goldenberg, i, reich, j, goisman, rm, lavori, pw, keller, mb. 1997. panic disorder versus panic disorder with major depression; defining and understanding differences in psychiatric morbidity. depress anxiety 5:12-20. whittal, ml, goetsch, vl. 1997. the impact of panic expectancy and social demand on agoraphobic avoidance. behav res ther 36:813-821. zwick, r, attkisson, cc. 1985. effectiveness of a client pretherapy orientation videotape. j counseling psychol 32:514-524. zwick, r, attkisson, cc. 1984. the use of reception checks in client pretherapy orientation research. j clin psychol 40:446-452. about the authors dr. theodora e. katerelos completed her ph.d at the university of quebec in montreal, under the direction of dr. bélanger and dr. perreault. her primary research interests focus on anxiety disorders. dr. michel perreault (corresponding author) is associate professor at mcgill university and a researcher at the douglas mental health institute. his studies are centered on patient expectations and satisfaction toward treatment measures. address for correspondence: dr perreault, institut de santé mentale douglas 6875 boul. lasalle, montréal, québec, canada h4h 1r3 e-mail: michel.perreault@douglas.mcgill.ca expectancies and panic disorder 260 dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of anxiety disorders at the university of quebec in montreal, as well as assistant professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university. he is also involved as a clinician and researcher in the anxiety clinic at the douglas mental health university institute. his primary research interests include anxiety disorders as well as predictors of efficacy for treatment of panic disorder. dr. andré marchand is a full professor at the university of quebec in montreal, and codirector of the laboratory on trauma studies at l.h. lafontaine hospital. his primary research interests focus on anxiety disorders as well as predictors of efficacy for treatment of these disorders. dr. john pecknold is a psychiatrist, assistant professor at mcgill university and head of the anxiety clinic at the douglas mental health university institute. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 359-373 www.ejop.org understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains of patients from tradition-bound cultures jan ilhan kizilhan university of freiburg abstract patients from collective cultures with a tradition-bound cultural background (e.g., people from the middle east and some south european countries such as italy and greece), have a different perception of pain and different conceptions of healing, which up till now have not been sufficiently appreciated in modern multimodal therapeutic approaches. inadequate knowledge of anatomy and bodily functions and traditional perceptions of pain (magic, curse, punishment, etc.) have a substantial influence on diagnostics. the pain experience is regarded holistically in relation to the body, rather than being confined to a particular part of the body. limited access to psychological complains treatment often leads to diffuse pain. the ailing body expresses its state in social, collective, economic, migration historical, psychological and cultural terms. a multimodal interdisciplinary and culture-sensitive approach is required for the effective pain treatment of patients from a tradition-bound background. keywords: pain perception, disease perception, traditional medicine, collective culture, culture-sensitive psychotherapy introduction the multifactorial disorder model (gatchel, 2005; kröner-herwig, 2009) generally accepted by specialists today is based on the general assumption that biological, psychological and social factors are involved in somatoform pain symptoms. indeed, the basis for the modern understanding of pain was laid in the 17th century; pain became a physically determined phenomenon. around the middle of the 19th century, new methods were developed to deaden and anaesthetize pain. since then, the interpretation and understanding of pain has been dominated by medical views. sociocultural influences, which up to that time played an important role in http://www.ejop.org/ understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 360 dealing with pain, were pushed into the background (schmiederbach, 2002; gatchel et al. 2007). the debate in medical circles about the purpose and meaning of pain was intensified in the western world only in the beginning of the 20th century. unsatisfied with references to a purely bodily function, circumstantial reference was made by some to relevant expositions in philosophy, pedagogics and, somewhat later, in psychology (gatchel & turk, 1999). cultural differences in the expression and experience of pain were first discussed in anthropological medical literature (kleinman, 1980). in the anglo-saxon part of the world, it was not until the 1950s that the question as to whether the cultural background has a bearing on pain behaviour and pain perception and hence whether it is significant for treatment was addressed (künzler, 2005). some studies conducted in the usa showed that cultural differences in pain behaviour do exist (zborowski, 1969; turner, 1989). they revealed that both subjective pain intensity and pain sensation are closely associated with psychological factors such as attitude and motivation as well as with the ethnic background (turner, 1989; bates et al. 1993; mccracken et al. 2001). german physicians and therapists report, for instance, that turkish patients from rural areas and patients belonging to other ethnic groups from southern european countries present with diffuse whole-body pain more frequently than german patients (sherman, 1943; clark & clark, 1980; glier & erim, 2007; arratow, 1995). pain, like no other sensation, is characterised by cultural influences, which also have a corresponding influence on disease perception and the behaviour associated with it (kirmayer, 2008). this article will discuss the perception of pain and possibilities of treating pain in migrants from family-oriented societies (which include southern italy, mediterranean countries and asia, as opposed to people from what are regarded as individual-oriented societies, i.e., europe, north america, germany and the united kingdom), who have migrated to germany to live and work. the situation of refugees with ptsd in connection with pain will not be dealt with here because this would exceed the scope of the paper. pain perception in archaic and antique civilisations of the middle east (babylonian, assyrian and egyptian medicine), pain perception was based on magic and religious ideas. the belief was that, e.g., headache and facial neuralgia were caused by anthropomorphic ghosts or that they were to be regarded as punishment for insulting the gods (tainter, 1948). europe’s journal of psychology 361 babylonians believed that aches and pains occurring in certain parts of the body were the result of moral misconduct for which deity claimed those body parts. ritual cleansing, prayers, sacrifices, pilgrimages to shrines were prescribed in combination with magic ceremonies to appease the gods. so-called priest-doctors or wound healers specialised in magic rituals and special therapeutic methods (medication, massage techniques, prescription of certain kinds of food, etc.). the development of pain treatment was advanced by the arab-persian physician avicena, also known as ibn sina (980-1037), who developed causal therapeutic, local analgesic and mind-altering treatment methods for 15 kinds of pain, which he described in his canon medicinae (zimmermann, 2000). traditional medicine is still used not only in tradition-bound parts of the middle east, but also in large cities in the middle east as well as in migration communities in europe. various traditional healers are active not only at home but also in countries they migrate to. such traditional healers include bone healers, religious healers, who work as magicians or sorcerers, arab physicians carrying on the tradition of the four humour theory, herbalists and women practicing the art of healing, whose help is sought particularly in dealing with gynaecological and obstetrical problems (heine & assion, 2005). for instance, bone healers are still consulted for the treatment of strains, dislocations and suspected or actual bone fractures. as a rule, these religious healers are familiar with the qur'an, but this is not a prerequisite. in many oriental countries there are also numerous traditional non-islamic healers, known as hodjas in the turkish culture. religious healers are believed by some to be able to recognize magic influences such as the "evil eye", evil spirits or black magic as causes of a disease. traditional healers are consulted for a wide variety of problems ranging from psychological, neurological, and psychosomatic ailments such as depression, epilepsy or chronic complaints to family problems, financial or work-related difficulties (heine & assion, 2005). according to kohnen (2006), every culture has developed strategies for dealing with pain, which correspond to its own values and norms: the irish, for instance, preferred to withdraw when in pain because they regarded it as bad form to show they were in pain. north americans preferred to see the doctor as early as possible to describe their complaint without displaying any emotion so that he could immediately initiate a rational treatment. italians, greeks, spaniards and portuguese expressed pain loudly and clearly in order to enlist sympathy from members of their family. philippinos accepted their fate fatalistically. psychological complaints express themselves, i.a., through pain corresponding to the sufferer’s cultural background (borchert et al. 1998). nigerians, for instance, report having a „sensation of heat“ in the head, „worm crawling“ and „biting sensations“ in the whole body during states of anxiety and depression (edigbo, 1986). patients in psychiatric clinics in chine understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 362 complain of „nervous exhaustion“, attended by fatigue, headache, vertigo and gastrointestinal complaints (kleinman 1980). many people from south america and the mediterranean area react to psychological stress with headache, myalgia, sensations of heat, tingling sensation in the feet, heart problems and stomach complaints (finerman, 1999). based on traditional medicine, people from the middle east associate certain complaints with certain very specific organs shown in table 1. associating complaints with specific organs applies to tradition-bound communities in the middle east and some balkan countries such as albania and macedonia. table1: culture-specific syndromes from traditional societies from middle east and part of the balkans (petersen, 1995) aetiology symptoms therapy associations fallen navel heavy lifting, jumping up, hard work, hard life, stress bellyache and stomach pain, nausea, vertigo, weakness, fatigue belly and back massage, hot plates, pulling the navel to correct position, followed by rest hard life, loss of moderation burning liver sadness, worry, deep sorrow liver pain, pain in epigastric region reciting passages from qur'an, take herbs and juices grief , worry, longing, loss or lovesickness back pain family conflicts, worry, role problem, hard work stabbing and dragging back pain, hardly able to move or to lift or carry anything massages, restrict movement, rest power, seat of strength and stamina in men, weakened „male identity“ (loss of libido) calf pain/ „wind pain“ grief , worry, conflicts, longing fatigue, weakness, lack of drive, the pain is in a different part of the body every day massage, rest, avoid stress little acceptance in the family or community, hard life feeling of apprehension grief , worry, feelings of guilt, longing, anger headache, sore throat, claustrophobia, globus symptom, feeling of asphyxiation, shortness of breath hopdja, doctor, use of wearing „protective amulets“ anxiety, insecurity europe’s journal of psychology 363 somatic disorders since somatoform disorders of these patients play an important role in the work of physicians in private practice and in subsequent treatment in clinics (keel, 2000), we shall consider these disorders as an example and deal with them in greater detail. one of the central problems involved in providing medical care to migrants is the somatisation of problems of psychological and social origin in the biomedically oriented sub-system of our society’s medical culture somatoform disorders are a category of disorders that comprises physical symptoms without a sufficient somatic explanation, excessive worry about a physical illness, often associated with depression, anxiety and frequent visits to the physician with negative examination results (glier & erim, 2007; koch, 2003). in in-patient rehabilitation treatment focused on the treatment of migrants, somatisation disorder is one of the most frequent diagnoses (koch, 2003; schmeling-kludas, 2005; kizilhan, 2010). the patients from middle east (turks, kurds, persians, arabs) concerned describe all complaints as if they were physical and they seem to follow an archaic perception of disease. the subjective complaint can then be symbolically represented by tiredness, crying, use of walking aids, etc.; they present themselves as broken, weak people. as a rule this regressive and appellative bearing is maintained consistently, so that these patients no longer participate even in any domestic activities. schmeling-kludas (2005) examined a group of coeval patients with a migration background, from turkey, in a psychosomatic clinic (n=184), 53% of them women. somatoform disorder (62%) was the most frequent initial diagnosis in 2005. koch (2003) and kizilhan (2008) arrived at similar results with kurdish, arab and persian patients. from the point of view of gender-specificity, male migrants frequently complain of back problems, whereas among women headaches and pain in the lower abdomen are common. in general, pain in the rheumatic and arthritic and gastrointestinal categories is also a common complaint. in our own experience which gained at the university of freiburg in germany in 2008, there is a manifestly higher incidence of gastric disorders among traumatised refugees, especially among those from the middle east who have experienced torture. it seems that some ethnic groups tend to respond to severe stressors more frequently with gastric disorders rather than with headaches, etc. fainting spells, paralyses, blockages, hypochondriac symptoms and histrionic behaviour also occur in conjunction with physical complaints (schmeling-kludas, 2005; kizilhan, 2008). understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 364 this strict confinement to physical complaints, whose causes are often difficult to make out, frequently leads to problems in establishing the diagnosis and in therapy (glier & erim, 2007; kizilhan, 2008). diagnostics diagnosing diffuse aches and pains is an interdisciplinary task (comprising various disciplines such as psychology, medicine, psychopharmacology, physiological measures, etc. involved in diagnostics and treatment) for all ethnic groups, top priority being given to searching for a medically treatable cause (gardea & gatchel, 2000). as mentioned previously, many pain syndromes are not accessible to causal treatment, which eliminates or reduces the cause of a disease. an example of causal treatment is the use of an antibiotic to kill off bacteria, thereby eliminating the cause of a disease. as regards pain, many patients from this cultural group complain of unspecific back pain (which accounted for over 90% of all cases of persistent back pain) and are unable to explain its exact cause. the same applies to primary headaches such as migraine or headache due to tension or temporomandibular dysfunction (facial neuralgia). fibromyalgia attended by pain in extensive regions of the body is not accessible to a simple causal explanation (blumenstiel et al. 2004). for this reason, a psychological diagnosis should always supplement the medical diagnosis in such cases (lautenbacher, 2004). the distinguishing culture-specific feature of diagnostics of patients from traditionbound cultures is their lack of knowledge (the arab-greek medicine of four humour theory is still regarded as the theoretical basis of the study of diseases) about anatomy and physiology of their body and their traditional notions about pain (magic, curse, punishment, etc.). the pain experience is not confined to a part of the body, but is viewed holistically in relation to the body. and yet an analysis of the circumstances of the first occurrence or of aggravation of the pain, taking into account the individual and collective biography (e.g., ostracism on account of ethnicity and/or religious affiliation in the country of origin, cultural and generational conflicts, etc.) has to be made in order to obtain possible clues regarding the triggering factors. it is important to find out what alleviates or aggravates the pain and what impairments this causes (see box1). europe’s journal of psychology 365 box 1: case study of a patient with undefined body pain case-study eight years ago, a 28-year-old patient of turkish background married a turkish woman who grew up and lived in germany and emigrated to germany. owing to the couple’s different social backgrounds (the patient was born and grew up in a turkish village) and the patient’s patriarchal ideas, conflicts keep recurring between them. following a violent argument, the neighbours called the police. when the patient sees the police in front of his door, he suddenly collapses and is unable to get up. he is taken to the hospital as an emergency case. several somatic and neurological examinations are performed which yield no abnormal findings. even after six months, the patient can only move about in his apartment with the aid of walking aids. he complains of undefined whole-body pain and does not believe he can work again. his wife and another relative look after him round the clock. the patient’s ability to communicate is limited and he speaks only if he is spoken to. only following treatment in his native tongue at a psychosomatic clinic does he talk about how the insult and humiliation he felt when the police appeared in front of his door. he had “lost face” because strangers had found out that his wife would not listen to him. believing he was a “weak man”, he had then broken down. following ten weeks of therapy in which his wife participated, and in the course of which the connection between psychological and physical complaints was explained to him and fresh familial prospects developed (changed gender roles, dealing with tradition-bound family issues in his country of origin, etc) the patient is able to walk again confidently and without walking aids. in analysing the behaviour of people coming from tradition-oriented cultures, it is especially important to identify relieving and withdrawal behaviour, the patient's response to preceding treatments and the medications the patient is taking. according to the fear-avoidance (fa) model (vlaeyen & linton, 2000) these behaviours may initially be adaptive, but they paradoxically worsen the situation when engaged in later on. avoidance behaviour may fuel pain, disability and depression (leeuw et al. 2007). in addition to possible avoidance and anxiety, the general perception of disease in these tradition-bound societies is that when the body is sick it must rest and should not move (glier & erim, 2007).) families support this relieving behaviour, thereby reinforcing the secondary gain from illness. the family thus becomes an important part of the diagnostic process, which should be taken into account, e.g., in the case of indirect anamnesis. taking large quantities of drugs, which is associated with drug addiction, is also a familiar behavioural characteristic in tradition-bound societies. the use of opium, mandrake and henbane for pain relief is still practiced in parts of iran, afghanistan and pakistan. identifying the consequences of the patient's attitude to pain is another precondition for developing a pain model for him. understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 366 the patient’s attitudes, evaluations and convictions regarding pain must be ascertained, taking into account their cultural character and generational differences in the sense of a cognition analysis. resources such as solidarity, familial loyalty, support from the social network and traditional methods of alleviating pain can help the patient adopt a favourable behaviour to cope in a difficult situation. motivation analysis relates especially to the patient's readiness to change and his or her expectations of self-efficacy. hence, patients from tradition-bound societies tend to be less willing to accept active attitudes (glier & erim, 2007), such as participating in sports and physiotherapy. at this point the question arises how to motivate these patients to adopt such attitudes. a patient's willingness to "try out" a change in his attitude should already be seen as a positive sign. the notion, for instance, that pain can be stopped through medication alone can make psychotherapeutic treatment, whose aim, initially, is to learn how "to live with pain", more difficult. in this context, it is very important to take stock of individual and cultural resources (external and/or internal ones) so that they can be applied to bringing about changes in behaviour. this means that apart from focusing on the pain, the significance of the context in which the patient lives should not be underestimated. legacy stress like arranged marriage, female genital mutilation etc. should be paid as much attention to as culture-specific coping strategies (special relaxation and massage techniques from the country of origin, prayer, involving the family in the treatment process, etc.). problem-analytical diagnostics should be supplemented with questionnaires and with keeping a pain diary over a certain period. implementing this is problematical, especially in the case of patients with a low level of education. patients from urban areas in turkey, iraq or syria are often illiterate and completely inexperienced in dealing with psychometric tests (strate & koch, 2000; kirmayer & young, 1998), which underlines the need for a very detailed pain and social case history for patients from tradition-bound cultures. it is also necessary to consider comorbidity, because in literature authors very often proceed from several psychological and physical diagnoses (glier & erim, 2007; kizilhan, 2008). for instance, a swiss study conducted in 2009 on pain in migrants by the university of basel, which was supported by the national research programme of the health ministry in vienna, revealed that apart from pain, migrants from turkey also suffer from other psychological complaints, the principal ones being depression and anxiety disorders. many patients either do not recognise the connection between the disorders or they have not been sufficiently informed about it yet (sleptsova et al. 2009). europe’s journal of psychology 367 treatment as mentioned in the foregoing, the primary objective of psychological pain therapy is to reduce the patient's impairment, which, as a rule, is associated with a reduction in the patient's subjective pain intensity. psychological variables like stress, distress or anxiety as well as mood and emotions, cognitive functioning, and pain behaviour play an important role during the treatment (linton, 2000). psychological factors also play a significant role in the aetiology of chronic and acute pain, particularly in the transition to chronic problems. specific types of psychological variables (perception of illness and pain, personality, culture-specific treatment etc.) emerge and may be important in distinct developmental time frames, also implying that assessment and intervention need to reflect these variables (linton, 2000). most patients from tradition-bound cultures present with a pain model that is reduced to somatic influence factors and in some cases a different understanding of anatomy, i.e., their causal and control attributions are determined in part by simple biomedical assumptions and notions of magic. consequently, psychoeducation is a necessary component of therapy whose aim is to reinforce convictions of self-efficacy. this should include the use of media such as self-help brochures and videos in the patient's native language. part of this education is aimed at explaining to the patient how physical and psychological processes overlap. however, this means that the therapist needs to ascertain his patients' level of knowledge in order jointly to develop an explanation model. patients from tradition-bound cultures are not used to this kind of joint development of an explanation model, their expectation being that the therapist will provide a complete explanation model after the first examination session (kröner-herwig, 2005). in earlier times, traditional healers developed the explanation model using a combined approach that involved magic, religious and medical aspects. this is why the patient needs to be informed, already after establishing the diagnosis, about the treatment strategy, which he/she is not familiar with, and its purpose. the mode of action of relaxation training can be explained through the education content. relaxation can be seen as a method of self-control to prevent recurrent pain episodes or to reduce a high tonic pain level. hypnosis induction, dancing and meditation are known in these cultures and can be applied to good effect. the activity range of many patients is considerably limited, so that their life is reduced to the point where it revolves only around their pain and becomes the centre of their thoughts and behaviour. in patients from tradition-bound cultures, the range of activity is additionally restricted through the assumption that the body must understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 368 rest when in pain. therefore, trying to expand the range of action, which is necessary to remove patient's behavioural (limited movement), emotional (diminishing depressiveness and feeling of helplessness) and cognitive (restricting pain) limitations, is a challenging task. building motor activities is of special significance, especially in patients suffering from back pain, so that sport therapy components are an important part of the therapy. it is not only a matter of improving muscle strength and mobility through physiotherapeutic interventions to alleviate pain, but primarily of enabling the patient to alleviate anxiety by "confronting" activities previously regarded as harmful and to help him realise that the feared negative consequences do not materialise (kröner-herwig & frettlöh, 2004). thus, diminishing avoidance behaviour has high priority in the treatment. it is also very important to identify a possible functional role that may be attributed to the pain. it may exist in the form of "rewarding" pain behaviour by getting more attention from the family or through negative reinforcement if the pain enables the patient to avoid aversive situations (being put on sick leave in the case of conflicts at the place of work). the patient also experiences a secondary gain from illness in the form of self-esteem stabilisation (failure attributed to pain as the cause). pain therapy will not be successful if the significant functional connections cannot be resolved here by mediating adequate problem solutions. sustained treatment of the patient by one medical and psychotherapeutic caregiver has proved to be a favourable framework condition, which is relatively difficult owing to these patients' limited knowledge of german. for various reasons, there is still a large deficit in native-speaker caregivers in the outpatient health service (koch, 2003). as a rule, an integration of psychological and medical pain treatment can be seen as the optimum therapy. to date, there are no studies on the effectiveness of pain treatment of people from tradition-oriented cultures living in germany. the culture-specific aspects summarized in box 2 which should be taken into consideration in the treatment of patient suffering from diffuse aches and pains who come from tradition-oriented cultures. europe’s journal of psychology 369 box 2: culture-specific aspects to be taken into account in the psychosomatic rehabilitation treatment of turkish patients culture-specific aspects to be taken into account: initial examination:  on the first visit, the patient's report may be limited to, and fixed on, physical aches and pains. possible psychological conflicts and stresses may initially be rejected. inadequate fluency in german may make the taking of the case history a challenging task.  the patient's feeling that the complaints are not taken seriously enough may intensify the fixation on physical complaints.  turkish patients with somatization disorders or other pain syndromes report about multiple, recurring, fluctuating, physical symptoms occurring in alternating body organs. these migrating aches and pains can be felt in various parts of the body every day.  frequent physical and organic complaints include: headaches, pain in the neck, shoulders, backache, gastric disorders, vertigo, accompanied by fainting spells, shaking, agitation, tiredness, fatigue, lack of drive. comorbidity  a comorbidity accompanied by other psychological complaints, mainly depression and anxiety disorders, is frequently observed. many patients do not recognize a possible connection between the disorders or have not been sufficiently informed about it. psychoeducation  psychoeduactive measures need to be adapted to the patient's cultural origin for the jointly developed model of the disorder to be understood and accepted. family involvement  involving members of the family in the treatment can be important for both the diagnosis and the treatment in terms of the secondary gain from illness, family dynamics, etc. the family can be involved in supporting the therapy to improve the patient's skills in the sense of social competence and resources. medication  from the patient's point of view, treatment by medication, surgery, physiotherapeutic measures, etc., may initially seem sufficient. physiotherapeutic measures and sports involving movement  recommending sports activities in which the patient has to move despite the pain he feels often causes irritation, because from his/her viewpoint his/her body is ill and needs rest. activities do not fit in with the perception many of these patients have of disease; part of the work involved in the treatment must therefore be dedicated to convincing the patient by providing him or her with relevant information, advice and psychotherapy. despite regular assurances, the question in how far the newly learned movement patterns are integrated into everyday life remains open. however, if there should be no relief from pain, many patients react indignantly, feel offended and not being understood.  passive applications such as massages, thermal therapy, etc. are accepted more readily (glier & erim, 2007; kizilhan, 2010) relaxation methods relaxation methods such as pmr (progressive muscle relaxation) and other methods of relaxation like hypnosis are accepted, but it is questionable whether these methods are also used in everyday life after the treatment is completed. understanding and treatment of diffuse aches and pains 370 in the psychotherapeutic treatment of patients from tradition-bound cultures with traditional ideas of healing, not only the general treatment strategy should be used, but, as described in the foregoing, the patient's personal disease experience and the possible underlying history of the social network of the country of origin with a different interpretation of conflicts, stresses and diseases should be given greater consideration (kizilhan, 2010). concluding remarks the use of culture-sensitive psychotherapy of patients from tradition-bound cultures suffering from diffuse aches and pains is indicated when the patient presents with a high degree of impairment and when he/she makes frequent use of health care services, when the diagnosis can verify that psychological factors have a bearing on the pain experience and impairment and conventional treatment methods do not provide sufficient relief due to these patients' different perception of pain. empirical evidence with respect to the expanded use of therapy of this group of patients still needs to be provided. the experience gathered by caregivers to date highlights the importance of interdisciplinary and culture-sensitive therapy, with medical pain therapists and psychotherapists working in cooperation with sports therapists, physiotherapists and other professionals and giving due consideration to the patients' cultural aspects according to the rules of the art. there are, however, various factors for example in germany, austria and switzerland opposing the realisation of this therapeutic approach, including the health service's structures that are averse to cooperation, the small numbers of native-speaker psychotherapists with advanced pain therapy training and the lack of psychotherapists with an adequate cultural background. in view of the relevance of pain to public health policy and the increasing number of migrants from traditionoriented cultures, steps should be taken to abolish the obstacles on the way to generally accessible, high-quality, 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(2005). verhaltenstherapie bei schmerzen: wie wirksam ist psychologische schmerztherapie? psychotherapie im dialog, 6, 76-81. kröner-herwig, b. (2009). chronic pain syndromes and their treatment by psychological interventions. current opinion in psychiatry, 22(2), 200-204. künzler, e. (2005). ethnopsychoanalytische untersuchung bei schmerzund chronisch kranken arbeitsmigrantinnen und –migranten sowie flüchtlingen aus dem kosovo. dissertation an der universität zürich. zürich: studentendruckerei. europe’s journal of psychology 373 lautenbacher, s. (2004). schmerzmessung. in h.-d. basler, c. franz, b. kröner-herwig, h. p. rehfisch (eds.), psychologische schmerztherapie (pp. 271-288). berlin: springer. linton, s.j. (2000). a review of psychological risk factors in back and neck pain. spine, 25, 9, 1148–1156. mccracken, l. m., matthews, a. k., & tang, t. s. (2001). a comparison of blacks and whites seeking treatment for chronic pain,clinical journal of pain, 17 (3), 249-255. petersen, a. (1995). somatisieren die türken oder psychologisieren wir? gedanken zur angeblichen neigung der türken zum somatisieren, curare 18(2):531–540. schmeling-kludas, ch. (2005). psychosomatische rehabilitation von migranten. in assion, j. (hrsg.), migration und seelische gesundheit (pp.187-193). heidelberg: springer. zimmermann, e. (2000). kulturelle missverständnisse in der medizin. ausländische patienten besser versorgen. bern: huber. about the author: prof. dr. jan ilhan kizilhan is a psychologist and psychoterapist. his expertise is in psychotraumatology, social medicine (rehabilitation and retirement), forensic and ethnological studies. address for correspondence: jan ilhan kizilhan, institure for psychology, department of rehabilitation psychology and psychotherapy, workgroup migration and rehabilitation, university of freiburg germany, engelberger str. 41, 79106 freiburg, germany e-mail address: kizilhan@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de mailto:kizilhan@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 227-237 www.ejop.org guided imagery as a psychotherapeutic mind-body intervention in health psychology: a brief review of efficacy research öykü özü celal bayar university, demirci, manisa, turkey abstract in this article the guided imagery technique, which is a therapeutic tool in counseling and allied fields using mental images produced by appropriate scripts, suggestions or affirmations by videos/tape records and by the client himself/herself, will be discussed. guided imagination is a mind-body intervention. mind-body interventions focus on the interactions among the brain, mind, body, and behaviour, and on the powerful ways in which emotional, mental, social, spiritual and behavioural factors can directly affect health. the technique, used in health psychology and counseling psychology, can be classified by the modality of its content: visual, verbal, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, or kinesthetic. it is a flexible intervention whose efficacy has been indicated through a large body of research in the field over many decades. as such, it has earned the right to be considered a research-based technique. this article will give a brief outline of guided imagery techniques, and examples of selected research indicating its efficacy. keywords: guided imagery, health psychology, counseling psychology, mind-body interventions. imagery, as a mind-body intervention in counselling health psychology, is a general name given to a series of cognitive processes. the procedures used in these processes are psychotherapeutic tools that help professionals change people‟s attitudes, behaviours, emotions and physiological reactions. the cognitive element in the techniques of imagery is “the whole of thoughts which represent and interpret the context of perception” (crawford, 1992). a revival of interest in imagery was an important component of the so called cognitive revolution in psychology during the 1960s and early 1970s, a period when the behaviorist intellectual hegemony over the field was broken and the concept of mental representation was established as http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 228 central and vital to psychological theorizing (kosslyn, 1980). beginning in the 1960s, and perhaps stimulated by some of the research mentioned by holt, there was also a growing interest in the application of imagery based techniques in psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine (assagioli, 1965, cited in thomas, 2010). it is sometimes claimed or implied that these sort of techniques are based on ancient oriental, and particularly indian, spiritual practices (e.g., samuels & samuels, 1975; gawain, 1982, cited in thomas, 2010), and it thus may not be coincidental that a prominent figure in the psychotherapeutic imagery movement is a pakistani born psychologist, akhter ahsen, known mostly but not exclusively for his clinical and theoretical work (e.g. ahsen, 1965, cited in thomas, 2010). today it is believed that mental imagery is based on a theory which assumes that personality and consciousness are composed of images and that, when required to make a change in a person‟s consciousness level, the first thing to do is to „fix‟ his/her distorted images (ahsen, 1968). this is allows the person to discover his/her inner „forms and symbols‟ and control his/her behaviors (achterberg & lawlis, 1982). some of therapy models which use the tool of imagery are biofeedback, neurolinguistic programming (nlp), rational emotive therapy (rebt), gestalt therapy and hypnosis; desensitization and counter-conditioning techniques also use imagery. moreover, recently performed meditative interventions that follow mantra and relaxation techniques by using systematic guidance are said to be located in the framework of imagery techniques (crawford, 1992). using mind-body interaction in health psychology guided imagery, based on the philosophy of general imagery techniques, is a method of mind-body interaction that includes some specific interventions made by health professionals. like other mind-body interventions, guided imagery is also based on the assumption that the mind affects how the brain functions. mind-body interventions focus on the interactions among the brain, mind, body and behaviour, and on the powerful ways in which emotional, mental, social, spiritual and behavioural factors can directly affect health (astin, shapiro, eisenberg et al., 2003). mind-body medicine typically focuses on intervention strategies that are thought to promote health, such as relaxation, hypnosis, visual imagery, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, tai chi, qi gong, cognitive-behavioral therapies, group support, autogenic training, and spirituality (astin, shapiro, eisenberg et al., 2003).. the field views illness as an opportunity for personal growth and transformation and health care providers as catalysts and guides in this process (national center for complementary and alternative medicine reports, 2007). guided imagery aims at guided imagery as a psychotherapeutic mind-body intervention in health psychology 229 making the mind go on a journey with the help of multiple senses (the containing function of the five senses), and not at making it focus on a stimulant (an image or a word) (lynn & rhue, 1988). according to lynn and rhue (1988), the main purpose of guided imagery is firstly to calm a person‟s mind, secondly to enable him/her to face negative emotions like anxiety, fear or ambivalence and provide the person with an increased sense of consciousness with the help of the five senses. lastly, this technique is teaching the patient to evoke his/her inner power, step by step, getting rid of the negative emotions that block behaviour and generate anxiety. with the help of guided imagery people can see, hear, feel, taste and smell „images‟. the reason why it is called „guided‟ imagery is that video, tape records or the professionals‟ instructions are used in the process. this way, the patient becomes able to use the interaction of mind-body-spirit for healing purposes. the guided imagery process relaxation techniques are used in the initial phase of guided imagery as they help the mind be open to experiences and consciousness and as they make knowledge more easily to be processed. they not only decrease the tension of muscles, but also help the images in the subconscious to emerge. arthur reber (1985) in dictionary of psychology defines the term “subconscious” as follows: subconscious 1 n. in psychoanalytic theory, a level of mind through which material passes on the way toward full consciousness. note that, in fact, most purists eschew the term as overly popularised and imprecise, preferring the term preconscious. 2 n. in more general writings, an information store containing memories that are momentarily outside of awareness but which can easily be brought into consciousness. 3 adj. characterising information that is not part of one’s momentary awareness but which can, given the proper circumstances, be made conscious. 4 adj. descriptive of information or stimuli that are at the margins of attention, events that one is only vaguely aware of. it should not, in any circumstance, be used as a synonym for unconscious. in this context, guided imagery can be seen as „playing pictionary with your subconscious‟. the mind and the body, when relaxed, can process positive images more easily and this way physical and emotional healing is accelerated (epstein, 2009). using guided imagery after relaxation is recommended since this way the positive messages are more easily transmitted from mind to the body. in fact, guided imagery can be considered as a „small journey of the mind‟. europe’s journal of psychology 230 as discussed in martin & rossman (2000), a typical guided imagery session begins with relaxation techniques; the person closes his/her eyes and focuses on breathing. secondly, some instructions are given by the therapist to the patient for helping him/her to be more relaxed and empty his/her mind. with these instructions, the patient is set on a journey to a place in which he or she can feel calm. during this journey the therapist gives other instructions to help the patient use all of the senses and help him/her face with the difficult issues in accordance with the treatment purposes, while also asking the patient what he/she feels and what comes to mind during these states (horrigan, 2002). consequently, the patient „migrates‟ to a different conscious level, uses his/her senses of the mind, feelings and body in interaction, gains the ability to see the problems he/she faces from a different perspective, and gains control over his/her body, mind and emotions by learning to heal himself or herself. in this process, videos and some other visual materials can be used alternative to the instructions of the therapist. the technique of guided imagery can sometimes be used as a mental rehearsal to balance emotional reactions which have been generated in an anxiety-provoking situation (lascelles, cunningham, mcgrath & sullivan, 1989) and also as a supporter of other therapeutic techniques that are used to increase patients‟ abilities in different domains (morrison & cometa, 1977). usage in hospitals in studies researching the effectiveness of the guided imagery technique in mind and body health, it was found that it is used in hospitals and health centers for reduction of pain, anxiety and reducing the hospitalization time of the patients after surgeries; also for increasing patients‟ confidence of the medication for pain reduction and the level of benefit taken from the medication. moreover, it is widely used in decreasing the level of anxiety before normal delivery by means of cognitive rehearsal (oster, 1994; manyende et all., 1995). the technique, employed as a tool to reduce the level of anxiety, is also used in the relaxation of patients before surgeries, increasing concentration, body awareness, and decreasing the level of anxiety (oster, 1994). it had been used to increase psychological adaptation before surgeries for a long time but it has proved its effectiveness as a relaxation technique in clinical situations mostly since the 1980s. the usage of therapeutic communication and guided imagery interactively can be seen as a mechanism which changes people‟s perceptions, emotions and body reactions. a mechanism like this accelerates patients‟ recovery processes, increases their physical and psychological control over pains and helps decrease patients‟ guided imagery as a psychotherapeutic mind-body intervention in health psychology 231 level of anxiety to an optimum level. in a study conducted by norred (2000), a psychotherapy including guided imagery was given to a group of patients for 6 days before and after their colorectal surgeries. results indicated that the level of anxiety of the patients who had attended the therapies before and after the surgeries was lower than that of the control group patients. also, they had less pains after the surgeries. in another study made at california university (2000) results indicated that guided imagery sessions decreased surgery complications and the level of anxiety and pains before and after surgeries. for this reason the use of special videos and tape records of guided imagery in the hospital became more spread (trump, 2004). to conclude, there are indications that guided imagery techniques can be effective for pain control among patients (deisch, soukup, adams & wild, 2000; dreher, 1998). one of the reasons for his is that the technique increases the endorphin secretion of patients (thomas, 1991). moreover, the interaction of guided imagery and relaxation techniques with cognitive behavioral and biofeedback methods have been proven to be effective in increasing the general well being of hospitalized patients in several studies (devine & cook, 1986; dreher, 1998). guided imagery in oncological studies the guided imagery technique as a psychotherapeutic intervention is based on the idea that personal images affect physical and psychological health directly or indirectly (lascelles et al., 1989). because of this, the technique is widely used in integration with other mind and body techniques and hypno-rebt, especially as fortification and improvement of bodily health. the usage of the technique in this field was accelerated by studies of oncologist carl simonton on cancer (lemonick, 2001). a series of studies reported the efficacy of some psychotherapeutic techniques in decreasing, at least for a short time, the psychological disorders of cancer patients. among these, guided imagery is the most popular one (baider, uziely & de-nour, 1994). the results of a study made at the hebrew university on 56 people with advanced cancer who were experiencing anxiety and depression was conducted by sloman (2003). the study aimed at establishing the effectiveness of progressive relaxation and guided imagery techniques in decreasing the depression and anxiety levels of advanced cancer patients. patients were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: (1) progressive muscle relaxation training, (2) guided imagery training, (3) both of these treatments, and (4) the control group. results showed that progressive muscle training and guided imagery training together decreased the depression levels of the patients while they increased the patients‟ quality of life. in another study made by hammond (2004a), which aimed at exploring which cancer patients benefited more from the use of the guided imagery technique as a strategy for controlling aches, 62 hospitalized cancer europe’s journal of psychology 232 patients who were complaining about pains were sampled. the results showed that the patients who had believed in the effectiveness of the techniques benefited more than the patients who did not believe in it. the results also showed that the ability of the patients to image predicted the level of pain, the perceived control over the pain and also positive emotions. accordingly, the ability of the patient to image affected the level of benefit taken from using the technique. results of cassel‟s (1991) longitudinal study, which sampled five year old cancer patients, showed that the 70% of the children‟s complains about pains, nausea and anxiety were decreased after a year of systematic guided imagery process. as it is seen from this research, guided imagery can potentially impact on many aspects of your body. during guided imagery patients are taught how to control their breathing and relax their muscles. they learn to focus on something specific – such as the therapist‟s voice or the instructions given on a dvd or audio tape. they enter into a state of deep relaxation, success, and wholeness – similar to meditation. in guided imagery patients consciously imagine something – and that something depends on what the goal of the therpay is (lynn & rhue, 1988). if the goal has to do with healing from cancer, for instance, patients would be asked to visualise their cells and organs as strong, powerful, and healthy. if it is stress reduction before surgery, they would imagine the surgery from beginning to end – with a capable surgeon, caring nurses, and successful outcomes (martin & rossman (2000). guided imagery for stomach and migraine pains searching the literature it was also found that guided imagery is widely used in decreasing stomach and migraine pains for both children and adolescents. hammond‟s (2004b) pilot study for example aimed at determining if guided imagery was effective for decreasing stomach pains in the case of children. the sample was made up of ten children who had been complaining about stomach pains. they attended guided imagery sessions for four weeks (50 min. every week). the results indicated that the interaction of the two techniques decreased about 67% of children‟s pains. migraines like headaches affect children‟s daily functions negatively, and decrease their attendance to school. in the literature it is seen that relaxation and guided imagery techniques are effective for also decreasing migraine in children and adolescents (penzien & holroyd, 1994; baumann, 2002). another field in which guided imagery has proved to be effective is that respiratory disorders, especially asthma, in the case of children and adolescents. the study of castes, hagel, palenque, canelones, corao and lynch (1999) focused on the usage of rgi (relaxation guided imagery technique) on children and adolescents complaining about asthma. the study indicated that the children who had attended rgi sessions had less complains and less need for medications than the http://behavioural-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/coping_with_stress_and_anxiety guided imagery as a psychotherapeutic mind-body intervention in health psychology 233 ones who had not. peck, bray and kehl‟s (2003) study showed that the rgi techniques were also effective in increasing the self esteem of children and adolescents with asthma. this may result from the fact that two dimensions of temperament (negative reactivity and task persistence), as well as perceived coping efficacy and self-esteem, play a significant role in influencing the psychological adjustment of children with asthma (lima, guerra & de lemos, 2010). there are also authors who consider the importance of studying self-esteem in children with chronic illness, believing that it may act as protective factor or rather that children who have a „healthy‟ self-esteem are less likely to suffer as much from their illnesses and to adapt more easily (barros, 1999, cited in lima, guerra & de lemos, 2010). other fields of usage the literature shows that guided imagery can also be used effectively in remembering and reconstructing traumatic memories (loftus, 1993; hyman & pentland, 1996). but some don‟t support these conclusions because with this technique people can remember false memories, memories of events that they had not lived before (heaps & nash, 1999; paddock, 2001). the studies that focused on the usage of the technique in anxious and depressed patients have showed that the technique can be used effectively in interaction with other psychotherapy techniques (turner, calhoun & adams, 1992). at the same time it is well known that alternative psychotherapy techniques like guided imagery, meditation and yoga require people‟s belief in the effectiveness of the techniques (martin & rossman, 2000). the literature that supports the effectiveness of these techniques in severe psychiatric disorders is still limited. a study conducted by russinova and wewiorski (2002) investigating 157 severe psychiatric patients showed that guided imagery techniques decreased these patients‟ emotional and cognitive distortions, and affected their social and spiritual development positively. but, the effectiveness of guided imagery in the case of psychotic patients is not supported yet widely supported by the literature. conclusion mind-body techniques have potential benefits and advantages in counseling and health psychology. importantly, the physical and emotional risks of using these interventions are minimal. moreover, once tested and standardized, most mind-body interventions can be taught easily. finally, future research focusing on basic mindbody mechanisms and individual differences in responses is likely to yield new insights europe’s journal of psychology 234 that may enhance the effectiveness and individual tailoring of mind-body interventions. in the meantime there is considerable evidence that mind-body interventions, even as they are being studied today, have positive effects on psychological functioning and quality of life (national center for complementary and alternative medicine, 2007) and may be particularly helpful for patients coping with chronic illness and in need of palliative care. evidence has shown so far that guided imagery, as a psychotherapeutic tool used in health psychology, can be effective in changing negative bodily reactions faced in somatic and psychosomatic disorders for more positive ones using the body-mind interaction. major clinical chronic illnesses had increased by over 250% in the 1900sand cancer and cardiovascular disorders are first in the list (cassel, 1991). the studies focusing on preventing and treating these disorders are more and more numerous. from this perspective, guided imagery technique can continue to prove its effectiveness through its support for mind-body interaction and its focus on a holistic approach within counseling and health psychology research. references achterberg, f., & lawlis, j. 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(1992). handbook of clinical behavior therapy (2nd ed.). new york: wiley. about the author: öykü özü had graduated from istanbul bilgi university, psychology dept. she had her master‟s degree at ege university in guidance and psychological counseling. she is currently enrolled as a phd student in the same department at ege university in turkey. in her research she focuses on stress and anxiety; holistic therapies, psychodrama and art therapy in counseling/psychotherapy. address for correspondence: öykü özü, department of psychology, i̇stanbul bilgi university, santral campus, eski silahtarağa elektrik santrah, kazım karabekir cad. no: 2, 34060 eyüp / istanbul e-mail: oykuozu@gmail.com microsoft word 2. in memoriam.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 7-10 www.ejop.org editors’ note: in this issue, instead of our usual interview, we feature an “in memoriam” dedicated to prof. dr. horia d. pitariu (19392010), valued member of ejop’s scientific committee. in memoriam prof. dr. horia d. pitariu by dragos iliescu, ph. d. national school of political and administrative studies & test central bucharest, romania the mentor of romanian i/o psychology, prof. horia d. pitariu, passed away on march 25th, 2010 he would have been 71 years on april 9th, only 2 weeks later. and i cannot help but think that he would have been 81 in 10 years from now, and no one is able to assess what further creations he would have given to romanian and international i/o psychology in these other years – it’s only sure that he would have. the professional and teacher horia pitariu is a loss to our whole community, but it is the man horia pitariu some of us will miss most. his educational activity and his career as a professor are closely linked to the name of the babes-bolyai university in cluj-napoca, where he obtained his ba, msc and phd, under the guidance of prof. alexandru rosca, and where he spent his entire career. during his career, he has received a number of attractive proposals to migrate to other universities, in other towns, but he has always remained faithful to the babes-bolyai university and to his city, cluj-napoca, which he loved with the unassuming and quiet pride of a true transylvanian. his activity as a teacher has spanned five decades, with courses in psychology and related areas: personnel psychology, ergonomics, experimental psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, general psychology, statistical methods in psychology, personnel assessment and evaluation, human resources assessment, human resources management. europe’s journal of psychology 8 even though he lived in a country where psychology was at best tolerated and at worst outlawed (for more than a decade, during the communist regime) and had to fight the stereotypes and ill-will of a time where communications with researchers from other countries, especially from the west, were a luxury romanians could only afford at the price of intrusion in their privacy, he has had remarkable collaborations with researchers and universities from all around the world. prof. pitariu was a fellow and grantee of irex/penn state university (1991-1992), and of the institut fur arbeit physiology at dortmund (1993-1994), having also intensive collaborations as invited professor with the berkeley university (institute for personality assessment), universidad national autonoma de mexico; and the work and organisation research center at tilburg (holland). he has shared a respectful friendship for more than 40 years with such huge names of international psychology as harrison gough, frank landy, edwin fleishman, charles spielberger and others. as a matter of fact, he was recently very grieved by the passing away of his long-time friend and collaborator frank landy, and was writing an “in memoriam frank landy” to be published in romania, which he never came to finish. throughout his career he published 22 books in the area of i/o psychology, for one of them he received the romanian academy of sciences award (human resources management: the measurement of professional performance) and has published over 300 papers in romanian and international scientific journals. during his career, he has been a member in the board or even editor-in-chief for many scientific journals, among others psychology and daily life, the journal of psychology of the romanian academy of sciences, human resources psychology, studia universitatis babeş-bolyai, test validity yearbook (usa), psychologie du travail et des organisations (switzerland). he was also a member of the scientific committee of ejop. at the international level his research was published in top journals such as academy of management journal, personnel psychology, journal of organizational behavior, and journal of cross-cultural psychology among others. he was a member or fellow of many professional associations in romania and internationally: the romanian association of psychology, association of transylvanian psychologists, the european association of cognitive ergonomics, international association of applied psychology, european association of psychological assessment, european association of personality assessment, european association of work and organizational psychology, association of french language work in memoriam prof. dr. horia d. pitariu 9 psychology, american psychological association, academy of management, the romanian association of industrial and organizational psychology. he founded the romanian association of industrial and organizational psychology (apio) in 2001. apio is the most active branch association in psychology in romania, with intensive ties to the eawop and an active stance in the educational and business environment. the apio, under the leadership of professor horia pitariu, has succeeded in constantly promoting its important and high-impact projects, among others publishing its journal (human resources psychology) and to have its annual conference, which is the foremost forum of discussion in i/o psychology in romania. aside from his dedication to the field of i/o psychology, professor horia pitariu has had a passion for psychological assessment in general and for psychological testing especially. his name will be remembered as probably the most prolific test creator and adapter in romanian psychology, with a vision of providing for the use of romanian psychologists all the internationally renowned assessments. his is the founder of romanian efforts in test adaptation and his name is intertwined, as first author, or member of the project staff with such measures as the california psychological inventory, the freiburger persönlichkeitsinventar, the eysenck personality inventory (and the eysenck personality scales), the neo personality inventory revised, the big five questionnaire, the adjective check-list, the selfdirected-search, the test of motivational orientation, the torrance tests of creative thinking, the state-trait anxiety inventory, the state-trait anger expression inventory, the job stress survey, the fleishman job analysis survey etc. this list could go on and on – suffice it to say that the last few years of his activity was more or less dedicated to tests and testing and in only 7 years he translated, adapted, developed norms, and published a number of 22 measures. but, truth be told, his favorite measurewas the california psychological inventory (cpi); even aside from his friendship with the cpi author, harrison gough, he had a passion for this inventory, comparable with the undying enthusiasm of a student on the brink of his career, and this passion has never diminished. . professor horia pitariu was very fond of his career as a professor. of course, at the same time, he was a distinguished consultant and practitioner and has always believed that as a professor one would quickly lose one’s grasp on the real work of real people if one would not practice what one preaches. an university career brings all kind of satisfaction, in romania however such a career has never brought financial satisfaction, quite on the contrary. in spite of this, he never pondered with the idea of giving up his professorship. europe’s journal of psychology 10 students were fond of him, though his exams have always been a tough hurdle, most were not in a position to take from the first trial. but his unassuming, open and benevolent manner and his keen sense of humor merged into a personality that made him more likable, the more one worked with him. he was also fond of his students and respected them. as far as i know, in his entire career, he never missed a class. one day before being hospitalized and losing consciousness he had held his classes, and even on that very day, he wanted to go to the university and had to be pushed to visit a doctor, because, no matter how bad one feels, “my students are waiting for me”. prof. pitariu had a happy marriage of more than 40 years. his wife, ana, a top scientific researcher herself (in natural sciences), has always been an incredible and stoic support for a busy and always travelling professor, overburdened by dozens of projects. his son, adrian, has a successful career as researcher and professor in north america, having been a fulbright scholar in the u.s. and holding now a position of assistant professor at the university of regina in canada. romanian and international psychology suffered a heavy loss with the passing into eternity of professor horia pitariu. his family, friends, students, and collaborators suffered an even heavier loss with the passing into eternity of the man horia pitariu. those who knew him will always remember him as a mentor and a friend. positive contributions of constructivism to educational design brian pagán university college maastricht address: hoenderstraat 13b, 6211 el maastricht, the netherlands tel: weekdays: +31 (0) 61 546 8341; weekends: +49 (0) 6561 968 619 e-mail: b.pagan@student.unimaas.nl thanks: i would like to thank pascal van gerven of the maastricht university faculty of psychology for his support and guidance while writing this paper. he is an excellent instructor and he provided me with valuable insights, which i still apply today. abstract this paper contrasts contemporary traditional and constructivist educational models to show that constructivist models have invaluable advantages over and are more effective than more traditional models. bruner’s constructivist theory is discussed, as well as some of its influences, then traditional and constructivist educational models are contrasted point-for-point. the paper then refers to factual examples of successful constructivist education models in practice and suggests methods for using constructivist theory to improve traditionally designed curricula. positive contributions of constructivism to educational design a major theme in bruner’s constructivist theory is that learning is an active process, whereby students learn best by constructing new ideas and building new schemas based upon current and past knowledge. the cognitive processes behind this construction draw heavy influence from cultural and social aspects of students’ lives, implementation of rewards and punishments, and students’ motivation to learn the material. educational models that utilize constructivist theory consider these influences and attempt to match education systems and curricula to each socio-culturally distinct group of students. they also build programs and train instructors to encourage students to discover principles on their own, using the knowledge they already have to embrace and internalize information (mos, 2003). traditional education models, however, do not employ these techniques and are based on outdated educational theory. with socio-cultural diversity being an ever-growing issue for educators and educational system designers, constructivist education models should be more widely used in education. to support this statement, this paper will first delve into bruner’s constructivist theory. it will then examine traditional and constructivist educational models, listing each one’s pros and cons. the paper will contrast real-life examples of constructivist and traditional educational models and discuss ways to improve curricula by using constructivist models. bruner’s constructivist theory the main theme inherent in constructivism is that people learn by constructing new ideas and concepts by interpreting them through comparison with previous knowledge. people attribute meaning to new ideas, and this process represents learning (hein, 1991). this implies that learning is not about simply being exposed to new information but is an active process whereby learners examine, code, decode, and interpret new concepts and ideas. learners select and transform information, construct “hypotheses,” and rely on cognitive structures to build and refine their schemas (kever, 2003; mos, 2003). broken down, bruner emphasizes that people interpret their world through the similarities and differences between objects and events. learners thus compare new ideas to the ones they already have and learn through the similarities and differences they find. a person’s socio-cultural background and situation play a highly important role in dictating what sorts of information that person will learn, as well as forming the cognitive processes that person uses to build and use schemas (kever, 2003). these principles are central to the discussion of education design improvement later in this paper, and they owe much to ideas proposed by jean piaget. while working with children to improve standardized intelligence testing, he modified the standard methods by going further than simply recording a child’s answer. piaget encouraged children to reason about the problem he posed to them. through this, he discovered that younger children were not “dumber” than older ones, nor were they behind in any way. younger children simply thought about things in a completely different way than did the older ones, because they have a conception of the world that is distinct from that of older children (gardner, 1972). piaget examined the differences between younger and older children’s cognition, and bruner examines the differences between that of different cultures. these differences between cultures in this sense arise from necessity. all cultures develop habits, traditions, and activities adapted to their specific needs. these needs stem from environmental and many other factors, and the culture’s cognitive development and learning, as well as the relative strengths and weaknesses pertinent to creating and adapting schemas, are adapted specifically to help meet these needs (glassman, 1996). this is the basic overview of how people’s environments and cultures play key roles in their cognitive development, and this paper will now discuss some aspects of bruner’s constructivism that more directly relate to education. constructivist education theory in addition to recognizing that people from different cultures learn in different ways, bruner also developed an almost universally applicable instruction theory. the idea behind this theory hold to basic constructivism in that an instructor’s main task is to translate information to be learned into a format suited for students’ state of understanding. constructivist instruction theory addresses four highly important aspects of the learning process, (1) students’ predisposition towards learning, (2) how to structure knowledge that it can be most readily understood by the learner, (3) the most effective sequence in which to present material, and (4) the nature and pacing of motivational rewards and punishments. instructors should encourage students to discover the principles of the lesson themselves, primarily by engaging in active dialogue with the instructor and other students (mos, 2003). active dialogues is a part of socratic learning, based on socrates’ premise that discussion engages a student’s mind more than listening to lectures. this is because discussion involves active participation on the student’s part, instead of passively hearing a lecturer or teacher. having outlined educational constructivism’s key premises, this paper will contrast traditional and constructivist educational models. educational design models educational design, is not as straightforward as many believe. it is characterized by a heterogeneity that causes pressures and expectations to vary across the field, but some common issues face all designers. these issues include (1) choosing the most effective teaching, learning, and assessment methods, (2) developing the learning environment, and (3) integrating students’ experience into various course elements (bines, 1992a). both constructivist and traditional educational models address these issues. the differences, however, lie in the ways they address them, and the next section will contrast these ways. traditional educational design models traditional education seeks to transfer knowledge into students’ memory and measures its success through monitoring students’ responding to questions in the exact way that they were taught to (boekaerts, 1996). this subject material reproduction emphasizes exam scores and final answers, rather than the way students arrive at their answers. with the high amount of control afforded traditional education designers, they tend to make use of a content-first design approach. they analyze content and prerequisites first, outline curricula, then generate teaching plans, which they mostly expect instructors to follow closely (skaalid, 2003). designers thus choose or design teaching methods based on their efficiency in exposing students to information. for example, lectures, with one instructor lecturing to as many as 400 students, empower a few staff members to distribute information to a large number of students. this method is time efficient; because once a designer creates a curriculum intended for the lecture method, instructors do not need to do extra work or planning on their own. the lecture method is also fiscally efficient, allowing schools to reduce tuition fees, construction costs, and logistics costs. another example is the smaller-scale classroom-teaching model, where an instructor lectures to between 20 and 30 students and takes time to address individual students’ questions and provide a small measure of extra help. while this method is not as cost effective as lecturing to larger audiences, it is more effective in bringing information to students and reinforcing its successful transfer, because instructors can concentrate more on individual students than in a lecture (bines, 1992a, 1992b). important to note with regard to both of these instructor-centered education methods is that talking among students is strictly discouraged. students are traditionally only allowed to speak to the instructor after requesting permission to do so, usually by raising a hand and waiting to be addressed by the instructor (schuh, 2003). the most interaction students could have under a traditional education system would be recitation of answers in a classroom, prompted by an instructor (aulls, 2002). traditional teaching methodology depends on efficient and one-way transfer of information directly from few instructors to many students with minimal or no student discussion. such teaching methods encourage learning methods like rote memorization, in which students commit blocks of information to memory. these blocks of information usually include a question and its answer, and students often gather information into lists for easier memorization. chronological processes (such as the steps of the water cycle) and nomenclature lists (the parts of the brain) are especially suited for this learning method, because one can easily memorize words in sequence and recite them from memory, without having to understand or think about what the words mean. students can facilitate this memorization process through repetition by verbally repeating words, using flashcards, creating songs to sing repeatedly, etc. (bines, 1992a, 1992b). these teaching and learning methods are parts of teacher-centered education models and best represent traditional methodologies and education models (schuh, 2003). since these methods simply bring information from the instructor to the students, there is not much variation possible in instructors’ curricula. once an educational designer creates a curriculum, instructors simply deliver it, occasionally adjusting for slower or faster students as the need arises. the high level of control possessed by educational designers in this case allows them to utilize highly automatable assessment methods, like multiple-choice testing. these assessment methods are highly susceptible to automation, because students have little choice in their responses, and variation in student response is quite limited, like the instructor’s curricula, as mentioned above. automation possibilities include computer-assisted grading, with which multiple choice examinations are highly compatible. for example, scantron is a computer-assisted assessment method that takes full advantage of multiple-choice exams and their compatibility with computer technology. students mark their responses on a sheet of paper separate from the sheet upon which exam questions are printed. the response sheet has small boxes itemized by numbers and grouped by response possibilities (a, b, c, etc.). during the exam, students color in the small boxes with a pencil. after the exam, the instructor inserts the response sheets into a scanning machine that allows a computer to compare each student’s responses with those laid out on an instructor-made answer sheet. this computerized scantron method saves instructors time and educational institutions money. again, traditional education methodologies show their appeal to financial planners (bines, 1992b). another appeal that traditional methodologies hold is the maintenance of objectivity in assessment. as discussed, traditional education models rely on directly exposing students to information and base assessments on students’ responding in exactly the way the instructor(s) taught them (boekaerts, 1996). these models also favor instructor-centered teaching methods, learning methods, and assessments, representing the first of the three common educational design issues (schuh, 2003). the second common issue in educational design is the learning environment. a traditional learning environment, much like the methodologies associated with traditional education models, is instructor-centered. it is common in traditional education settings for instructors to remain distant from their students, especially in lecture settings. indeed, it is quite difficult for a single lecturer to develop strong relationships with the 400 students enrolled in his course. even in classroom-teaching settings, instructors only build relationships with his students insofar as he interacts with them. interaction is the key learning factor, and it is lacking in most classroom-teaching environments (schuh, 2003). as mentioned, students are discouraged from talking, both amongst themselves and with instructors. this atmosphere severely restricts the interaction level between students and instructors and prevents instructors from building relationships with their students. according to traditional educational designers, such interaction and relationship building is unnecessary to the education process. they maintain that students need only speak to instructors if they have questions or problems assimilating the instructor’s presented information, because speaking by students only interrupts instructors’ delivery of the material. such interruptions should only occur when necessary (bines, 1992a). the learning environments provided by traditional education models are instructor-driven, usually quite formal, promote the retention of distance between students and instructors, and discourage verbal activity on students’ parts. traditional education models barely need to approach the third common educational design issue. integrating students’ experience into various course elements is unnecessary for these educational models. since traditional education features instructors dispensing knowledge at passive students, the students’ level of knowledge is almost irrelevant. of course, in designing educational curricula, one must ensure that students are capable of comprehending the information, but traditional education does not usually go deeper than that. a typical traditional curriculum will include prerequisites for courses that ensure that all students enrolled in a course are equipped with minimum qualifications to understand the material presented to them. at most, educational planners will develop multiple courses pertaining to the same subject matter, but approaching it at different levels, something along the lines of novice, advanced, and expert (bines, 1992b). to summarize, traditional educational models utilize instructor-centered methodologies, foster formal, non-interactive learning environments, and retain a low level of integration of students’ previous experience. constructivist educational design models constructivist educational models address the same three education issues in completely different ways than traditional models. constructivist teaching methods are student-centered, not instructor-centered. where traditional education models emphasize direct transfer of information from instructor to student, constructivist models emphasize less instructor participation and much more student action. in fact, constructivist education is based on students’ work, rather than that of instructors (schuh, 2003). constructivist classes are made up of small groups, usually comprising between five and 16 students and one instructor. the main idea is that the instructor will help students develop effective course goals, and students work together to accomplish those goals. such education is built upon discussion among students with only brief and necessary guidance from instructors. this implies that constructivist designers make use of a different approach than traditional educational designers. also different from traditional models is the constructivist encouragement of student interaction and discussion. the major role that discussion plays results from socratic learning theory, mentioned above. aulls refers to such discussion as academic discourse and notes that substantive academic discourse facilitates students’ exploration of curriculum topics and material. such discussion is more than simple, mundane exchanges between instructors and students; it involves students talking about the subject and arriving at their own conclusions (aulls, 2002). instructors should not be interested so much in students’ responses, but the way students arrive at and defend those responses. in this process, students display elements of scientific reasoning. one some level, all students should recognize problems, formulate hypotheses, construct mental models, research and test their hypotheses, adjust their mental models, and reach conclusions with minimal guidance from instructors (echevarria, 2003). this high student emphasis level, however, creates a large unpredictability factor for education designers. constructivist designers embrace this factor in the design phase by keeping pre-specified content to a minimum and ensuring that instructors encourage students to actively seek their own knowledge sources to deepen and enrich their comprehension of the course material (skaalid, 2003). what most constructivist designers do is formulate clear course goals, comprehension objectives that students should accomplish by the end of a course. these goals provide a structure and clear “measuring stick” for instructors while empowering students with as much academic freedom as possible. indeed, this academic freedom most clearly illustrates instructors’ role in constructivist education. the most important of constructivist instructors’ tasks is keeping students on track and guiding them toward the accomplishment of course goals (echevarria, 2003). such goals also provide students with contextual frameworks that help them determine from which perspective they approach course material (boekaerts, 1996). another difference between traditional and constructivist course design is instructor involvement in the design process. traditional designers usually perform the process without much interaction between themselves and course instructors. on the other hand, constructivist course designers usually work closely with instructors to ensure smooth design implementation and eliminate any nasty surprises that could hinder the learning process (skaalid, 2003). in summary, constructivist teaching methodology is student-centered, emphasizes the ways students construct their knowledge, and encourages students to interact with each other as much as possible. these constructivist teaching methods require high student activity levels, and the corresponding learning methods reflect those levels. the most important constructivist learning method is problem solving. petraglia maintains that effective constructivist education provides problems that students must handle like real-life problems and that people solve problems better through social cognition rather than alone. constructivist course goals should provide realistic problems that elicit social cognition, facilitate student application of external knowledge sources, and encourage students to utilize scientific reasoning (echevarria, 2003; petraglia, 1998). scientific reasoning is another learning technique that students employ in constructivist education. as mentioned above, students must formulate and test hypotheses, build and adjust mental models, and form conclusions based on the course material and their own research (echevarria, 2003). through this process and lack of excessive interference by instructors, students also develop self-regulation techniques. common personal attributes associated with good self-regulation are heightened self-efficacy, willingness to participate, commitment, time management, and efficient strategy use (boekaerts, 1996). in addition, the group work and cooperative discussions in constructivist education allow students to hone their communication and argumentation methods. these methods are more skills that students can use outside the classroom, and they reinforce social cognition (aulls, 2002). constructivist learning techniques not only help students learn as efficiently as possible, they also give students the opportunity to practice and perfect skills needed in real life. since students have so much academic roaming area, constructivist educational designers cannot rely on objective, direct assessments the way traditional ones can. in order to remain flexible to meet the assessment needs of flexible curricula, constructivist instructors must assess their students with subjective, context-based techniques. the most common of these are essays and open-question exams. instructors usually apply both types of assessment to single individuals, but they can also adapt essays to be worked in small groups. essays and open questions force students to think outside the constrictions of multiple-choice tests and memorized responses. in keeping with constructivists’ emphasis on students’ argumentation and the ways they arrive at their responses, essays and open questions provide an excellent way for students to communicate their thoughts to instructors that traditional assessments do not provide (jonassen, 2003). as discussed, constructivist teaching, learning, and assessment methodology all depends on high levels of student activity and is much more subjective than traditional methodologies. in addressing the second design issue, learning environment, constructivist education models are different from traditional ones in almost every aspect. traditional learning environments are formal, promote distance retention between students and instructors, and discourage verbal activity by students. constructivist learning environments, however, are usually more informal, promote close working relationships between students and instructors, and rely on verbal activity by students. as mentioned in the context of traditional learning environments, relationship building requires interaction between students and instructors. in constructivist classrooms, instructors see many aspects of students’ personalities and can easily assess each student’s communication, argumentation, and problem-solving skills. students, in addition, are exposed to instructors’ group leadership abilities and often senses of humor (jonassen, 2003; kever, 2003). these interactions form bonds that are impossible to form in traditional learning environments. these bonds also make students feel more comfortable in their academic environment, which builds confidence and boosts learning performance. this effect also comes from constructivist education’s reliance on and encouragement of student discussion and activity. in traditional education settings, students are punished for expressing themselves at “inappropriate times” and often develop the feeling that their opinions are worthless or unimportant. this feeling can bleed over into real life and later the workplace, resulting in low self-esteem and reluctance to express opinions and views. in a constructivist educational environment, however, students are made to feel that their contributions are important and worthy of being expressed (schuh, 2003). constructivist educational models also approach the third common design issue more in-depth than traditional models. the third issue is integrating students’ prior experience into course aspects, and constructivist models’ key factor here is the student-centered approach. since their curricula and methodologies are not designed around instructors, but students, constructivist educational models are much more flexible and far easier to adapt than traditional ones. discussion’s major role puts students in the spotlight and automatically brings previous experience to the fore. whenever any students have extra knowledge about topics or problems, the constructivist learning environment encourages them to share their experience with the rest of the group, where all groups members can benefit from the knowledge (mclnerney, mclnerney, & marsh, 1997; schuh, 2003). in a more restrictive sense, prerequisite requirements (like in traditional educational models) installed in courses ensure that all group members can follow discussions and make worthwhile contributions to them. in short, constructivist educational models put forth student-centered methodologies, foster open, challenging learning environments, and highly integrate students’ prior experience in the learning process. constructivism at work now that traditional and constructivist educational models have been explored in detail, this paper will discuss two real-life examples of successfully applied constructivist educational models. the first of these examples is in brazil, where high rates of school failure were observed in the beginning of the 20th century. the country’s mass education system had been implemented at the time, and children from low social strata were thrust into an educational system designed for children of middle to high social strata. the difference between performance rates appeared immediately. children from lower-class families failed significantly more than those from middleand upper-class families did. most psychologists viewed the situation from a social darwinist standpoint and attributed the difference to biological and genetic factors. when helena antipoff arrived in the country in 1929, she was an instructor for new brazilian teachers, and she immediately set herself to work upon learning about the cognitive character of brazilian children. through her studies, she found that the social and cultural environment in which children grow up heavily influences their cognitive development. many children that came from rural families failed in urban schools, and so did many that came from impoverished and/or abusive households. she also determined that standard iq tests were not adequate measures of comprehension and invention implied by their definition. using this information and her position at the teacher’s training college, she played a key role in adjusting schools to be more accommodating to lower-class children by rescheduling class times to adjust them to the children’s socio-cultural lives, educating teachers in improved instructional techniques, and restructuring the way iq tests were used to separate children in schools. not all of her proposals were implemented, but those that were brought brazilian schools out of a period of mass failures and into one of maintained high rates of grade retention by the early thirties. antipoff saw the most important problem as being that teachers thought children’s low iq test scores and high failure rates meant that they were less intelligent, when the case was simply that the tests and urban school settings were so strange for the children that they could not effectively cope with them (campos, 2001). currently, many us institutions are replacing the traditional classroom-teaching style of education with the constructivist problem-based learning style (pbl), both in higher and professional education. professional educators prefer the pbl system, because it facilitates student autonomy and easier curriculum negotiation. furthermore, when pbl is combined with small group work, it includes communication and collaborative skills that are missing in traditional professional education (bines, 1992a) practical application this paper has shown that constructivist education models have already been successfully implemented, now it will explore some ways to convert traditional education systems into effective, constructivist ones. the first area of focus for improvement will be the traditional design process. most traditional designers base their final curricula on available content material. this design strategy is constrictive for instructors and students and does not provide enough flexibility or adaptability. to remedy this, education designers should create less restrictive course goals and not focus excessively on course material. this method, as already mentioned briefly, both encourages students to seek out their own materials and provides enhanced flexibility for instructors to adapt curricula to different student groups and academic situations (skaalid, 2003). another common design error that traditional designers make is material oversimplification. the idea behind this simplification is to make the material easier to teach and to learn, but it actually strips away most of the material that should stimulate critical thinking in students. instead of simplifying material, education designers should challenge instructors to devise more efficient discussion methods. efficient discussion allows students to reach many conclusions by themselves that they normally would not (jonassen, 2003). other ways to improve traditional education systems lie in the way instructors execute designers’ course plans. this paper has already mentioned that instructors should be closely involved with the course design process, but faulty execution can ruin even the best plans. for example, instructors and designers should perform progress-monitoring tasks continuously throughout the project cycle, not only once in the beginning. this constant monitoring provides up-to-date feedback and allows designers and instructors to modify education systems and correct problems before they become too severe. traditional instructors place too much emphasis on design goals or objectives when implementing new education models, where objectives are not limits but heuristics for guiding operational performance. limiting students according to course objectives defeats the purpose of constructivist educational models. another point on flexibility is to allow for additional goals and/or objectives to arise during a course. instructors that follow course goals to the letter often reject additional course goals, and this an unnecessary limit for students. another consideration in improving existing programs is that education designers (in concert with instructors) must tailor implementation strategies to the course material and goals. to avoid going wrong in this regard, designers should utilize rapid prototype techniques or conduct small-scale experiments to determine a program’s compatibility with its material (skaalid, 2003). still, an institution must consider some issues before converting to a constructivist education system. one of the possibly negative consequences of such conversion could be the loss of objectivity and formality that accompany traditional education methods. as previously discussed, constructivist assessment methods are highly subjective, whereas automated traditional assessments are reasonably objective in comparison. another negative consideration is the financial one. it costs more to have many small classrooms that it does to have a few large lecture halls. smaller class sizes and groups mean either lower admissions or hiring more instructors. to be the most effective, students should have ready access to resources like libraries, the internet, e-mail, etc. the advantage of these expenditures is naturally better education, but if an institution cannot afford such adjustments, then it is unfeasible to attempt them. conclusion as above sections have shown, constructivist educational models have a real and quite powerful impact upon education and learning in general. failing to apply the principles inherent in such models can cause such problems as high failure rates among students and mistaken low-ability assessments, and it can waste valuable learning potential. to avoid these problems, educational designers, working closely with instructors, should tailor curricula to the target students in keeping with socio-cultural environment and other cognitive influences. educators, in turn, should employ sound educational methods that promote socratic learning and encourage students to “fill in the blanks” themselves. this paper has also shown the positive consequences of antipoff’s application of constructivist principles in brazil during the early 20th century. furthermore, it has also put forth recommendations and considerations regarding the improvement of existing educational systems and transforming them into more efficient, effective, and constructivist ones. once constructivist principles are globally applied to education, the world’s students will learn more efficiently and effectively. who knows what we could accomplish then? references aulls, m. w. 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(2003). application of constructivist principles to the practice of instructional technology. retrieved january 28, 2004, from http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/skaalid/application.html interview with vasile dem zamfirescu by beatrice popescu and andreea enache our interviewee is one of the most prominent personalities of romanian academic and cultural life. starting as one of constantin noica’s disciples, he begun his carrier as a philosopher, but in time he grew more and more acquainted with psychoanalysis, so that he finally came to embrace it as a full-time profession, not only as a professor, but also as analyst and director of the main psychoanalytical publishing house in romania. his research activity spreads out on more than 30 years, during which he worked in the research institutes of the romanian academy (the philosophy institute, the anthropology institute) and in several faculties of psychology, philosophy and educational sciences within the university of bucharest and “titu maiorescu” university. as philosopher, psychoanalyst, professor and researcher, vasile dem zamfirescu is a vivid example of professional and academic excellence and also an active model for younger generations, in a cultural area profoundly marked by the inevitable side-effects of about half a century of communism. ejop: your writings constantly unveil as your main mentors constantin noica and eugen papadima. how did they influence you in both your profession and your spiritual life? v. d. zamfirescu: when one places the two names one next to the other the association seems at least striking, but most often quite contradictory. however they met and reconciled themselves within me, fore, once with noica offered me an initiation in philosophy and more precisely in a certain way of “making” philosophy, eugen papadima initiated me in my own unconscious. and still things seem to reject rapprochement; but if i were to say that one can also build a philosophical vision on psychoanalysis, then we would have a point of convergence. ejop: in the same order of ideas i would ask you if you’d rather consider yourself a psychoanalyst or a philosopher, and if there is any kind of tension between the two vocations? v. d. zamfirescu: there was a tension, especially during my formation as a psychoanalyst; now, the tension is gone as i came to consider myself a psychoanalyst first of all. ejop: do you somehow have the feeling of having betrayed noica? v. d. zamfirescu: no, on the contrary! i see myself as a wandering son who definitely does a better job than those stuck at home… ejop: there is a problem that you have already signaled in your writings and that i would like us to briefly consider for discussion: is psychoanalysis a science or a hermeneutics? v. d. zamfirescu: i would definitely give another answer now to this question and probably dissolve the dilemma that you have proposed; i would rather say that psychoanalysis is a tremendous life experience both for the analyst and the analyzed, and that the question of it being a science or a hermeneutics is secondary. ejop: elisabeth roudinesco argued that psychoanalysis can by no means be subsumed to psychology; that the psychological discourse applied to psychoanalysis is detrimental or even lethal to it. how do you see the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychology? v. d. zamfirescu: if we were to consider psychology only as a psychology of consciousness, we could say we have the problem that roudinesco had raised. my view is that psychoanalysis is a psychology of the unconscious, a different type of psychology if we were to compare it with the traditional one, yet, a psychology. ejop: could we understand that you regard psychoanalysis as solely a psychoanalysis of the unconscious? v. d. zamfirescu: i would add a nuance to this statement and say that in psychoanalysis, that can be view as a sum of disciplines, there is a psychology of the unconscious as there is a psychopathology related to it. the psychology of the unconscious is complementary with the traditional psychology of the consciousness. in other words, i do not agree with roudinesco! ejop: another famous phrase of elisabeth roudinesco is that we live in a depressive society. do you consider this to be true for nowadays society? v. d. zamfirescu: what roudinesco says stands true for the western society. in romania there is indeed much depression, but it is different from the west in the sense that it is a depression that precedes consumerism; here depression is much more often caused by the strife for survival, economic shortages, earning a living… therefore we should see how we could apply what roudinesco says to romania. as statistics show, we do have a lot of depressed people, but their depression is not caused by a sense of alienation, by the society’s atomization; instead, poverty plays a crucial role. ejop: in other words, could we say that we are depressed because we cannot be depressed in the western style? v. d. zamfirescu: we are depressed in a romanian style, which means in a way that is specific to developing countries. we rather suffer from a neurotic type of depression, that is, a milder type… ejop: in your book “in cautarea sinelui” (“searching for one’s self”), you wrote that : “in romania , every discussion on psychoanalysis has to begin with a negative operation: that of deconstructing its bad and unfair name that almost invariably transform this orientation in some kind of pornographic literature.” do you think that such an operation is still needed? v. d. zamfirescu: unfortunately, it is still needed, and i would even say that, surprisingly as it may seem, the self-labeled elites of intellectuals still indulge in some long ago out-dated preconceptions about psychoanalysis that would finely suit the ’20. knowledge about psychoanalysis in romania in elder generations is still limited to what psychoanalysis was before 1915, when freud discovered the unconscious in relation with the neurotic dysfunctions caused by repressed sexuality. therefore, in romania this kind of speech is still needed but less than 10 or 15 years ago. now we have a fairly rich psychoanalytic literature that makes it possible for those willing to know to adjust their representation and correct some preconceived ideas. ejop: at this moment we witness a great enrichment in psychoanalytic theory in general, not only in the freudian, orthodox stream, but also in the dissident movements. all in all, we came to have a very diverse range of sometimes contradictory “psychoanalyses”. which one would be, in your view, the dominant discourse? v. d. zamfirescu: at this moment the dominant trend is traced by the anglo-saxon psychoanalysis, mainly the north-american one. although we are much closer to the francophone area, i must admit that america produces most significant advancements in psychoanalysis. in terms of trends and schools, the dominant movement is that of object relations, a theory initiated by melanie klein and developed by many contemporary disciples. ejop: the authors of the “treatise on contemporary psychoanalysis” (h. thoma and h. kachele) anticipated a paradigmatic shift in nowadays psychoanalysis. do you consider the object relations theory to stand for it, or are we still expecting a “revolution”? v. d. zamfirescu: the paradigmatic shift has already taken place, is taking place and will be, as psychoanalysis gives up some parts of the freudian theory (especially those related to metapsychology, the more philosophical ones). freud had an inclination for philosophy and he had exercised his philosophical ambitions in his psychoanalytical writings. however, contemporary psychoanalysis is much more pragmatic, more oriented towards psychotherapy and more eager to give up philosophical speculation. ejop: do you consider this to be an advantage or a loss? v. d. zamfirescu: it is a loss in case no one pays attention to the anthropological implications of new theories. however, it is also an advantage as long as, in comparison with traditional theories, the new ones have directed our attention towards new aspects of the unconscious that have become the focus of theoretical and practical interests. ejop: psychoanalysis is a long-term therapeutic and self-initiating act that requires a certain amount of effort (financially, time wise, and psychologically) from the subject that embarks on this experience. do you think that the current time economy and the general social formula for evaluating profitable actions would still allow for such a “sacrifice”? v. d. zamfirescu: it depends on what each of us looks after: if one is only interested in the immediate results, such as the disappearance of symptoms, it is sure that he will view psychoanalysis as obsolete and, ultimately, as a sacrifice. but if one thinks that in time the symptoms reappear, than, of course, psychoanalysis turns out to be a much safer investment. ejop: we have all been witnesses to an epidemic of alternative therapies (from aromatherapy to hydrotherapy, litho therapy, and so on) that have sprung like mushrooms in the last 10 or so years and that perfectly fit the neurotic symptoms of nowadays society diagnosed by bruckner in his books: infantilism, consumerism and the need for innocence. do you think that, in this context, psychoanalysis could become exclusively an elites’ therapy? v. d. zamfirescu: psychoanalysis has always been a therapy or an experience of the elites, first of all, of financial ones, then of both financial and intellectual ones; it has been and probably it will remain a type of experience for a somewhat limited category of people with good financial support and with a proper understanding of its efficiency. ejop: don’t you think that there is the possibility of increasing its availability without harming its quality? v. d. zamfirescu: there have been attempts to broaden psychoanalysis’ target, we already have several examples, especially in the west and in the latin america countries – they are not very rich countries but psychoanalysis is very well represented there, and they have made some efforts to modify the therapeutic framework (for example, the psychoanalyst would visit the client at home for their sessions, that are still held observing the basic principles of classic psychoanalysis). however, it is hard to ascertain the success of such attempts, but it is not without meaning that they have taken place. ejop: the romanian “case” is in many ways different. how would you explain the precariousness of clinical psychology in our country? v. d. zamfirescu: it is a direct outcome of the devastating effects of communism on psychology in general, on psychoanalysis and clinical psychology, and, at large, on every form of humanistic science at that time. the “fury” went as far as dissolving their support institutions and professions, as is the case with the disappearance of psychology from the academic area around 1980. therefore, the guilt for the present situation is mainly bore by the communist system, on the one hand, and the communist ideology, on the other, as it promoted materialism and denied categorically the importance that soul and spirit might have in a person’s life. everything was material, and everything stem out from it as simple epiphenomena. ejop: let alone the impact of communism, do you think that there might be some kind of fundamental in-appetence specific to romanians in relation to psychoanalysis? is there a greater tendency to dismiss the idea that the human soul is not entirely bright and sunny, that we all bear our shadows within us? it has been said in theory that the west has already gone through disenchantment, while the east still clings to a phantasm of innocence. v. d. zamfirescu: given my experience as a university professor – i have been teaching psychoanalysis since 1990 – i can say that there is a great interest in psychoanalysis amongst students in romania. in 15 years i had generations after generations of young people who, properly informed (neither apologetically, nor with excessive criticism) on psychoanalysis, reacted positively by either maintaining a vivid interest even after graduation or by engaging on becoming psychoanalysts themselves. i do believe that this phenomenon that i have been witness to along so many years is relevant for romanians’ psychological willingness to develop an interest in psychoanalysis. ejop: what could you tell us about contemporary romanian psychoanalysis in a european and international context? v. d. zamfirescu: i think that it is much better positioned then it was between the two world wars, when, and this is a fact commonly not known by many, romanian psychoanalysis had a very good start. at present there are many things that justify our belief and hope that the new beginning of psychoanalysis in romania will bring about is stability and enforcement. first of all, psychoanalysis is now a study object in universities, a situation that we have never before encountered and that allows young people to become acquainted with psychoanalysis during their first stages of formation. we also have a publishing house dedicated to psychoanalytic literature. thare is a psychoanalytic society, already 15 yeas old, that functions in full conformity with the formal standards of ipa to which it is affiliated as a study group (being on its way to becoming a full member). at present, there are 8 romanian psychoanalysts recognized by ipa which makes it possible for young people interested in psychoanalysis to benefit from accredited formation. all in all, even if well behind the west, romanian psychoanalysis is very on the right track and has an advantage: whereas in the west psychoanalysis is undergoing a reflux, in romania we expect a period of flourishing and free ascension. ejop: speaking of the reflux … what do you think that its causes might be, and how do you see the future of psychoanalysis both as cultural orientation and psychotherapy, especially given this context? v. d. zamfirescu: the reflux should mainly be understood as a coming out of fashion. all along about 20 years, psychoanalysis “filled the first pages” of the media, literature, culture and science. therefore, cultural life in the west, and especially in france and the usa , was impregnated with psychoanalysis. psychoanalysis is no longer on the first page; it has become normal, customary. this is the first meaning of the reflux. there are countries where psychoanalysis is still powerful, such as france and countries in latin america, where psychoanalysis is in a position similar to, let’s say, the one it held in europe 20 years ago. we should look at the nuances of the situation, as we definitely cannot talk about disappearance or oblivion as long as psychoanalytic concepts are deeply impregnated in the texture of western culture. this is why i think that this is a normal phase in the life of a discipline and of a culture as we cannot have one leading orientation lead forever; it is a natural turn and i think that psychoanalysis’ existence is not endangered for as long as there is the unconscious psychoanalysis will be of great use. vasile dem zamfirescu, february 2005 how humor heals: an anatomical perspective arthur asa berger professor emeritus broadcast & electronic communication arts san francisco state university the notion that humor is something that heals is now generally well recognized. norman cousins’ book, anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient spread the news of humor’s healing powers to the general public. but well before cousins came along, many others had been doing research and writing about the healing power of humor. a bio/psycho/social/cultural perspective on the effects of humor thus, the indefatigable william fry, the notorious chimp tickler, had explained in an address given to the american orthopsychiatric association in washington d.c. as early as 1979 that: “mirthful laughter has a scientifically demonstrable exercise impact on several body systems. muscles are activated; heart rate is increased; respiration is amplified, with increase in oxygen exchange–all similar to the desirable effects of athletic exercise. stress is antagonized by humor in both its mental or emotional aspects and its physical aspect. emotional tension, contributing to stress, is lowered through the cathartic effects of humor. mirthful laughter is followed by state of compensatory physical relations, diminishing physical tension.” fry has made numerous other contributions dealing with the relation of humor and health, and a considerable number of other scholars have done so, as well. i don’t think it is necessary, then, to argue that humor is generally held to help people, in a number of different ways. i will suggest, in this little essay, that exploring how humor “heals” should take what i describe as a bio/psycho/social/cultural perspective. i will be dealing, then, with the biological, the psychological, the social, and the cultural aspects of humor as they relate to health. these can be correlated with responses of the body (in the biological area) and kinds of communication (in other areas): area kind of communication biological internal: physical responses by body psychological intrapersonal: internal dialogues, etc. social interpersonal: relations with others cultural coded: learned methods of coping fig. 1: humor and the bio/psycho/social/cultural perspective i will deal with these four areas in my analysis of how humor heals, but first, a radical proposal. a radical proposal: it’s the techniques found in humor that do the work i have suggested, in earlier works, that there are 45 techniques, which, used in various permutations and combinations, generate humor in humorous texts: jokes, cartoons, comic strips, plays, movies–you name it. these techniques are the engines that drive the car of comedy and humor and it is these techniques, not the subjects of humor, that are the crucial matter in understanding how humor heals. i have discussed these techniques in some detail in my book, an anatomy of humor (transaction, 1993) and will not go over them but i will offer them for readers. language logic identity action allusion absurdity before/after chase bombast accident burlesque slapstick definition analogy caricature speed exaggeration catalogue eccentricity facetiousness coincidence embarrassment insults comparison exposure infantilism disappointment grotesque irony ignorance imitation misunderstanding mistakes impersonation over literalness repetition mimicry puns/wordplay reversal parody repartee rigidity scale ridicule theme stereotype sarcasm variation satire unmasking here are the 45 techniques numbered and placed in alphabetical order. 1. absurdity 16. embarrassment 31. parody 2. accident 17. exaggeration 32. puns 3. allusion 18. exposure 33. repartee 4. analogy 19. facetiousness 34. repetition 5. before/after 20. grotesque 35. reversal 6. bombas 21. ignorance 36. ridicule 7. burlesque 22. imitation 37. rigidity 8. caricature 23. impersonation 38. sarcasm 9. catalogue 24. infantilism 39. satire 10. chase scene 25. insults 40. scale, size 11. coincidence 26. irony 41. slapstick 12. comparison 27. literalness 42. speed 13. definition 28. mimicry 43. stereotypes 14. disappointment 29. mistakes 44. theme/var. 15. eccentricity 30. misunderstanding 45. unmasking techniques of humor in alphabetical order i elicited these techniques when i made a substantial content analysis of humorous works, asking the question “what is it that is generating the humor in the text i am examining?” after i found that i had 45 techniques i discovered that they fit into four categories: humor that deal with logical considerations, humor that deals with identity, humor that is essentially linguistic, and humor based on physical actions–speed, body language and so on. what i will suggest is that it is these techniques, in themselves, and separated from jokes, riddles, random comments that evoke laughter–or any other form of humor–are what help us when we experience mirthful laughter. it is the techniques, often working in combination, behind the message or content aspect of the humor, that does the work of healing and helping people deal with anxieties and other problems. humor at the biological and at the intrapersonal level let me assume that i have already covered the biological aspects of humor. we have seen that mirthful laughter has an immediate physical effect on a number of systems in the body and there is ample evidence that mirthful laughter stimulates the production of endorphins and has other immediate physical benefits. at the biological level, we have a kind of visceral or neuro-physical communication as the body responds, immediately, to the stimuli generated by humor and laughter. at the intrapersonal level, when we laugh at ourselves (so to speak), humor helps us recognize that there is an element of absurdity in life, helps us recognize the negative consequences of being overly serious about ourselves, and helps us deal with the internal dialogue we often carry on in our heads that often causes problems for us. many jokes and other humorous texts can be thought of as being similar to stories that hindu medicine healers make up to help patients deal with their problems. according to bruno bettelheim, who discusses this matter in his book the uses of enchantment , these medicine men create a story which gives form to the problems the person suffers from and by contemplating this story, the afflicted person is able to understand the impasses he or she is suffering from and ways these problems might be resolved. there is a big difference between being given some abstract information about a problem a person is suffering from and creating a narrative in which this problem is dramatized and ways the problem may be dealt with are suggested. in one of matt groening’s strips in life in hell , (“parents out of control”) he has a character offer a monologue on the various horrendous things parents often do to their children. this character says: they can really screw up your mind, because they’re the only parents you know. so you think this is the way the world is, but it isn’t. and you end up growing up all weird and damaged and unhappy…. groening is offering a lecture, actually, in cartoon form, on the problems that people face growing up in so-called dysfunctional families. his zany characters and his nonidealized picture of families has, i would suggest, a considerable value to many people who can recognize that they, too, might have had a “childhood in hell,” and can laugh at groening’s characters–and then, recognizing that they are like countless others, and can also laugh at themselves. we have here the techniques of analogy and exaggeration at work. misery, we have been told, likes company–and so, it would seem, do children from dysfunctional families…and others who suffer from one affliction or another. they recognize that they are not alone. the social or interpersonal level of humor let me move on, now, to the next level of analysis–the social or interpersonal level, when there are interactions between individuals that are of consequence. consider the following joke. (a joke will be understood to be a short narrative, meant to amuse, with a punch line.) tried it once and didn’t like it smith is in his club and he’s alone, except for one other person. trying to be sociable, smith asks the person, “can i buy you a drink?” “no,” says the person. “i tried it once and didn’t like it.” “oh,” says smith. “well, would you like to shoot some pool with me?” “no,” says the man. “i tried it once and didn’t like it. besides, my son is coming soon.” “your only son, i presume,” says smith. the man in this joke is rigid–he has the same answer to all of smith’s inquiries. “tried it once and didn’t like it.” thus, the punch line, “your only son” picks up on this and shows the futility of rigidity. this joke, like a story made up by our hindu healer for a person who suffers from rigidity and perhaps a mild form of obsessive-compulsive behavior, has something to teach us–even though we might not recognize we are learning anything. rigidity, over-literalness, and other similar forms of behavior are then ridiculed and one is led to see, in the events that take place in the joke, of the folly of these kinds of behavior. in order to function in society, and get along with others, we need to be flexible and able to adjust to various problems and complicated situations that come our way. in dramatic comedies, jokes, and other forms of humor, we often have rigid, monomaniacal types who are the butts of the humor: misers, gluttons, dirty old men and women, and so on. let me offer a poem that shows the folly of being rigid. here lies the body of john o’day who died maintaining the right of way. he was right, dead right, as he walked along. but he’s just as dead as if he had been wrong. we find many jokes, cartoons and comics deal with problems people face at the interpersonal level–focusing attention on relations between men and women, workers and bosses, parents and children, and so on. and sometimes, we have humor that has a direct socio-political dimension, as we find in many episodes of doonesbury . how humor heals at the cultural level we are now at the final level of analysis, the cultural level–in which humor functions as a kind of coding that pervades a given cultural group or sub-cultural group of some kind. culture is defined in many different ways, but the anthropological view of culture, which is the one i am concerned with here, generally suggests that culture deals with ways of living that are passed on from one generation to another. culture involves notions of what is good and bad, what is beautiful and ugly, what is sacred and profane, and how to relate to others and function in society. (anthropologists have offered more than a hundred different definitions of culture but they all deal with these topics, and see culture as a kind of coding or set of rules for living.) on the cultural or perhaps sub-cultural level, jewish humor is worth considering. there are two strains of jewish humor: that which comes from the shtetls and eastern-european jewish life in the early twentieth century and more contemporary jewish humor, stemming from the experience of jews in modern societies. in the shtetls, the jews were generally poor, were constantly persecuted (suffered from pogroms and other forms of anti-semitism) but though they lived precariously, on the thin margin of survival, their humor radiates with warmth. jewish humor, as i understand it, is humor told by jews that deals with jewish beliefs, institutions, cultural practices, historical experiences and related matters. this humor, in its eastern european form, involves a remarkable collection of eccentric types and zanies–schlemiels, schlimazels, schnorrers, schadkens and so on–who developed as a consequence of the harsh conditions under which everyone lived and who were accepted as part of life in the shtetls. jewish humor helped the jews in the shtetls survive; it was a valuable adaptive coping technique. it kept them alert, it taught them how to laugh at themselves and helped them deal with the anxiety that they experienced. on techniques of humor and their functions let me suggest some of the more common techniques of humor used by jews in eastern europe (and in contemporary countries as well) that are connected to their marginality and relative powerlessness. jews were required to use techniques that were not too overtly hostile and whose aggression could not be easily recognized. in many cases we find the jews using “victim humor” which can be thought of as aggression or “insult humor” that is turned against the teller. but the use of this victim humor is not an exercise in masochism but a subtle and indirect way of attacking enemies. freud said that he could think of no people who made fun of themselves more than the jews, but this “making fun” of oneself was not a matter of self-hate, at all. it was a defensive form of aggression against others who were more powerful. let me offer and example. i’ll take ten god comes down to the assyrians and says “i have a commandment i’d like to give you.” what is it asks the assyrians? “thou shall not commit adultery!” says god. “no thanks, ” says the assyrians. so then god comes down to the babylonians and says “i have a commandment i’d like to give you.” “what is this commandment?” ask the egyptians. “thou shall not commit adultery!” says god. “no way!” say the egyptians. so god comes to moses and says “i have a commandment i’d like to give you!” “how much does it cost?” asks moses. “nothing!” says god. “then i’ll have ten!” says moses. this joke seems to deal with the stereotype of jewish cheapness. moses doesn’t ask what the commandment is but how much it costs. but in reality or on a more profound level, it could be argued, the joke deals with the rejection of god and his commandments by others. and the stereotype of jewish cheapness (ironic in that the jews are amongst the most generous contributors to charities in the united states ) must be seen against the background of poverty and deprivation that was the lot of most jews in the shtetls and small communities in eastern europe. let us consider, then, some of the basic techniques of humor jews use in their humor, keeping in mind their relative powerlessness and social marginality. in the united states of america, we must remember, approximately 98 out of every 100 people are not jewish. technique of humor benefits: (shows that) absurdity life is full of illogicalities, crazy things accidents people make mistakes all the time allusions others screw up, too exposure people do lots of stupid things mistakes life is a comedy of errors misunderstanding people often get confused about things rigidity fixations and obsessiveness are self-defeating techniques of humor and their functions jewish humor, i would suggest, functioned as a means of transcendence for the jews in the shtetls and also helped give the jews a stronger sense of identity. these techniques of humor have the same function for people from other religions as well, i should add. conclusions humor, we see, functions on many different levels and has many positive effects. at the biological level, laughter provides exercise and stimulates the production of endorphins. at the psychological or intrapsychic level, it helps us cope with our internal dialogues and lessen the severity of our feelings of guilt and anxiety. at the social or interpersonal level, it facilitates our relations with others (sometimes distracting us when we are angry or confusing communication so that people who should be antagonistic towards one another don’t recognize they should be hostile). and at the cultural level, humor helps members of various sub-cultures and cultures maintain their identity and cope with problems connected to their marginality and status. humorists are, it could be said, unacknowledged therapists and humor has obvious and impressive therapeutic value–at every level we find it. humor helps us avoid obsessive behavior, it relieves us of feelings of guilt, it fosters creativity, and it purges us of violent emotions. conrad hyers points out in zen and the comic spirit that the zen masters acted like clowns and made use of humor in their teaching for hundreds of years. our humorists and comedians can be thought of, then, as secularized versions of the zen masters. these humorist who, without recognizing what they are doing (and often without our recognizing what they are doing to us and for us) help heal us, and perhaps also help us learn how to heal ourselves. he and she who laughs, lasts and those who laugh last, laugh best. references bettleheim, bruno (1976). the uses of enchantment: the meaning and importance of fairy tales new york : alfred a. knopf. berger, arthur asa (1993). an anatomy of humor. new brunswick, nj: transaction books. berger, arthur asa (1995). blind men and elephants. new brunswick, nj: transaction books. berger, arthur asa (1996). the genius of the jewish joke. northvale, nj: jason aronson publishers. berger, arthur asa (1997).the art of comedy writing new brunswick, nj: transaction books. cousins, norman (1979). anatomy of an illness. new york: w.w. norton & co. freud, sigmund (1963). jokes and their relation to the unconscious. new york: w.w. norton & co. fry, william (1979). “using humor to save lives.” address at american orthopsychiatric association meeting, washington d.c. hyers, conrad (1974). zen and the comic spirit. philadelphia: westminister. mindess, harvey (1971). laughter and liberation. los angeles: nash publishing. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 408 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 408-418 www.ejop.org on culture and human development: interv iew with barbara rogoff by vlad glăveanu ejop editor in this interv iew professor barbara rogoff explores the many ways in which culture shapes the course of human development, and illustrates this with several findings from her past as well as most recent work. these reveal the v ital importance of growing up in a family and a community for the human child and participating, from early on, in their various rituals and practices. building on and enriching cultural psychological sources, professor rogoff offers us a comprehensive framework with which to understand both cultural and developmental phenomena and, above all, their multiple intersections. her suggestions will prove to be invaluable for all the students of culture and community life in their ontogenetic expression. barbara rogoff is uc santa cruz foundation distinguished professor of psychology, fellow of the american psychological society, the american anthropological association, the american psychological association, and the american educational research association. she served as editor of human development, study section member for the national institute of child health and human development, and committee member on the science of learning for the national academy of science. her book apprenticeship in thinking (1990) received the scribner award from the american educational research association, learning together: children and adults in a school community (2004) was finalist for the maccoby award of the american psychologist association, and the cultural nature of human development (2003) won the william james book award of the american psychological association. her latest book, developing destinies (2011), is based on her more than 3 decades of research in a mayan town in guatemala. address for correspondence: barbara rogoff, psychology department, ucsc, santa cruz, ca, 95064 email: brogoff@ucsc.edu http://www.ejop.org/ http://people.ucsc.edu/~brogoff/learningtogether.html http://people.ucsc.edu/~brogoff/learningtogether.html http://people.ucsc.edu/~brogoff/cnhd.html http://people.ucsc.edu/~brogoff/william%20james%20award.pdf http://people.ucsc.edu/~brogoff/ddbookdescribed.htm javascript:mailit('brogoff','ucsc.edu') europe’s journal of psychology 409 ejop: professor rogoff, your work over the past decades has dealt extensively with the intersections between culture and development, at a time when more mainstream approaches were focused on intra-psychological aspects. what made you interested in studying the cultural aspects of growing up in different human communities? prof. rogoff: while i was a grad student studying cognitive development, i had the opportunity to work and live in a mayan community in guatemala, thanks to professors jerome kagan, beatrice whiting, shep white, and ben and lois paul. i was interested in how mayan children learned many complex skills, such as weaving intricate fabrics. i was puzzled when i asked mothers how they taught their daughters to weave and they responded that they did not teach the girls; the girls simply learned. this went against my assumptions (perhaps derived from having spent 19 years in school) that children learn by being taught. so i asked more questions and watched, and over the intervening three decades, i learned that the children learn through observ ing keenly and contributing to ongoing endeavors, with the support of their families. so, the children are not “taught” lessons like in many schools, with exercises and lengthy explanations out of the context of productive involvement. at the same time, they do not simply “discover” how to weave and to carry out other complex activ ities. rather, they attentively engage in the activ ities of their community, together with the people around them, who provide access to observe, show children how to contribute, support children’s efforts, and provide pointers for improvement. this is a mutually constituting process, in w hich indiv idual, interpersonal, and cultural/community aspects are all crucial. ejop: today there is growing interest in culture and how it impacts human life, both in psychology and related disciplines. what would you say we learned and what we still need to learn about “development in (cultural) context”? prof. rogoff: what we have learned about “development in cultural context” is the theme of my book the cultural nature of human development (oxford university press, 2003). in brief, we know that culture matters, and we have some ideas of how culture matters. for example, one way that culture matters is that cultural communities prov ide opportunities and constraints in what settings children frequent — in some communities, children are included in most events and activ ities; in some other communities, children spend most of their day segregated from the broader community in settings designed to keep them separate (such as many daycare on culture and human development 410 settings and schools). my book develops the themes of how culture matters within the classic areas of human development such as cognitive development and social relations among children and their families and peers. what do we still need to learn? we need to develop clearer ideas of cultural patterns in human development. understanding patterns of cultural variations and similarities would allow us to understand some generalities, and not just say ‘every place is different.’ at the same time, we need more nuanced ways to understand the patterns, and not just lump whole continents together or split the world into east/west or other dichotomies. in the cultural nature of human development, i argued for looking at culture in terms of cultural practices that show both stabilities and changes across generations. i proposed several patterns that i think are central to understanding the cultural basis of human development. one involves the integration of children in community life (in contrast to segregating them in a ‘child world’). children who are part of community life have many opportunities to learn by observ ing and contributing in real ways, through intent community participation (in contrast to depending on adults to devise artificial exercises for their learning). i believe that this contrast outlines two very different patterns organizing children’s lives and learning. the book explores the implications of these patterns — and others — for children’s learning, thinking, communication, social interactions, developmental transitions, and roles. ejop: from a more methodological perspective, it has often been acknowledged that studying culture and also development is a very difficult endeavor due to their intrinsic complexity. trying to look at them both and their interconnectedness surely faces the researcher with an extremely rich and diverse set of data. how is it that such data can be obtained and, most importantly, made sense of? prof. rogoff: the study of culture and development go together: culture is best understood historically, examining how current practices reflect past circumstances and ideas, and seeing how new generations adapt practices of those who w ent before. this historical approach involves the development of indiv iduals as well as of generations. development is best understood culturally; all people develop in the context of particular times and places. these ideas are developed in the cultural nature of human development and also in my new book, developing destinies: a mayan midwife and town (oxford, 2011). with regard to more specific methodological approaches, it is helpful to make use of the tools available in both qualitative and quantitative approaches (rogoff, mistry, europe’s journal of psychology 411 göncü, & mosier, 1993; rogoff, topping, baker-sennett, & lacasa, 2002). some of the studies in my research group have focused ethnographically on a few cases in great depth. in other studies we have made use of ethnographic information to find or devise situations that can be repeated, to be able to look at multiple cases and make comparisons. for example, we have studied the route planning of girl scouts delivering cookies they have sold. and we have devised scenarios based on observations of everyday life, to be able to study children’s attention (such as a v isit with a toy salesperson and origami and other craft demonstrations). in our research, we pilot our procedures extensively to make sure that the situation is understood by participants in the way that we intend. we devise our coding schemes to capture the phenomenon about which we want to make conclusions, carefully piloting the coding schemes as well. before we run statistical analyses, we graph the patterns of the data extensively, often case by case (see casegraphs in rogoff et al., 1993; correa-chávez, rogoff, & mejía-arauz, 2005). statistical analyses follow, to help us simplify the data and to check the strength of the patterns we have come to understand through graphing. we try to employ the simplest statistical analyses possible, to communicate findings clearly and to avoid losing the phenomenon in complexities of statistical analyses. ejop: in your work you made use of different theories and models of development, particularly drawing inspiration from the work of lev vygotsky. what are the advantages of ‘wearing’ these particular theoretical lenses? prof. rogoff: i became particularly aware of the work of vygotsky and his colleagues when i was trying to make sense of my dissertation data, focusing on memory development in mayan children. like scribner, cole, and others, i was struck with how little the work current in the 1970s helped to understand how people could remember beautifully outside the testing room but have difficulty when given lists of words to say back to a researcher. vygotsky’s theory specified the centrality of social interaction and cultural tools in cognitive development and it opened a new window on processes of learning and development that was sorely needed. i also found the work of dewey and gibson to be very helpful as i delved further into understanding how thinking and learning are part of social and cultural processes. ejop: echoes of such sources of inspiration are found in your very useful model of learning through intent community participation (icp). can you please describe briefly your conception and also comment on the model’s applicab ility (perhaps to other contexts in which children’s participation in community activ ities may not be so obvious)? on culture and human development 412 prof. rogoff: my colleagues and i have been investigating how children learn by observ ing and pitching in to ongoing activ ities of their families and communities, especially in communities where children are included as participants in most of community life. we call this cultural tradition learning through intent community participation (rogoff, paradise, mejía-arauz, correa-chávez, & angelillo, 2003; rogoff, moore, najafi, dexter, correa-chávez, & solís, 2007). although children learn by observ ing and pitching in throughout the world, this approach appears to be especially prevalent in indigenous communities of the americas and among people with historical roots in such communities, such as many immigrants to the united states from mexico and central america. learning through intent community participation seems to be less prevalent in communities where children spend extensive time in western schooling, but it is nonetheless present in important places: in everyone’s first-language learning, we listen closely and pitch in when we have something to communicate. i t occurs often in doctoral education and in many preschools. i t has been found in some elementary schools, such as the innovative school that was the basis of a book on how adults and children can form collaborative communities of learning (learning together: children and adults in a school community, by rogoff, goodman turkanis, & bartlett, oxford, 2001). one of the reasons that my research group and i are investigating this approach is that we are convinced that it is one of several promising ways that learning situations can be improved, in schools as well as other settings such as museums and family. we define learning through intent community participation in a prism with 7 interrelated facets (see below). as summarized in rogoff (2011, submitted), the 7 facets of learning through intent community participation are as follows: 1. learners are incorporated in the range of ongoing endeavors of their families and communities, with expectations and opportunities to contribute. 2. learners are eager to contribute, belong, and fulfill roles that are valued in their families and communities. other people present are involved in accomplishing the activ ity at hand, and may provide guidance. europe’s journal of psychology 413 3. learning involves keen attention, during or in anticipation of contributing, guided by community expectations of responsible contribution and sometimes by other people. 4. social organization involves collaborative engagement in family and community endeavors, with flexible leadership and trust in learners to take initiative, along with others who also participate at a calm mutual pace. 5. communication occurs through coordination of shared endeavors through articulate nonverbal conversation and parsimonious verbal means , as well as through narratives and dramatization that contextualize information and ideas. 6. the goal of education is transformation of participation, which involves learning to collaborate, with appropriate demeanor and responsibility , as well as learning information and skills, to be responsible contributors belonging in the community. 7. assessment includes evaluation of the success of the arrangements as well as the learner’s progress, in support of learners’ contributions, during the endeavor. feedback is direct, from the outcome of learners’ efforts and the acceptance (or not) of the efforts by others as productive contributions. (rogoff, 2011 submitted) we have developed an international research consortium that focuses on learning through intent community participation; we have met for 8 years. we are developing a website that describes the work of the consortium: http://www.intentcommunityparticipation.net http://www.intentcommunityparticipation.net/ on culture and human development 414 ejop: at an empirical level, you have been interested for a long time in populations with indigenous heritage (in mexico, guatemala, etc.). your most recent book ‘developing destinies: a mayan midwife and town’ (oxford university press, 2011) reflects very well this interest. what is particular about this research context and how are ‘destinies developed’ within these communities? prof. rogoff: i have worked for 37 years in the mayan town of san pedro, in guatemala, studying child development. that work has been a major source of inspiration for my ideas about how children learn, and especially learning through intent community participation. in the process, i came to know a leading expert on childrearing, the renowned spiritual midwife chona pérez. over the 37 years that i have known her, i became interested in how she became so expert in birth practices, childrearing, and in the spiritual side of shepherding new souls into the world. chona’s expertise comes from being born with the destiny of being a spiritual midwife (indicated by being born with a small piece of the amniotic sac over her head, as shown in my painting below). copyright barbara rogoff, 2011 the book developing destinies: a mayan midwife and town developed into a case study of chona and of san pedro, examining changes and continuities in the life and learning of this indiv idual and of her community. the book illustrates theoretical ideas regarding the relation between indiv idual and cultural processes, taking a europe’s journal of psychology 415 historical v iew of both. i t also examines changes and continuities in ways of organizing children’s learning, birth practices, family organization, and other aspec ts of childrearing in san pedro. in the process, the book argues that each of us is born with a sort of destiny, by being born in a particular time and place with specific cultural patterns – and that this destiny develops. as with chona, we are not limited to what our time and place equip us with; we contribute with our experiences, decisions, and adaptations of what is present at our births. as indiv iduals, we contribute to our cultural communities at the same time that our cultural communities contribute to our development. copyright valerie magarian 2011 this photo was taken recently at the formal presentation of developing destinies to the mayan town and to the spiritual midwife that are central to the book. i am on the right, chona pérez, the midwife, is in the middle, and on the left is my longtime colleague and research assistant, marta navichoc cotuc. we plan for the book to be translated into spanish and into the mayan language. my royalties for the book are contributed to the learning center and other projects in san pedro: http://www.taapit.org/en/about-us/31-resumen-general.html more photos and paintings appear on facebook page "barbara rogoff publications": http://www.facebook.com/barbararogoffpublications ejop: at a more practical level, how can we put in practice everything we have learned about the role of communication and participation? how should we design http://www.taapit.org/en/about-us/31-resumen-general.html http://www.facebook.com/barbararogoffpublications on culture and human development 416 programs that help enhance human growth and development, in different cultural contexts? prof. rogoff: a key feature of putting ideas into practice is to adapt them to local circumstances. programs cannot be ‘one size fits all.’ a related feature of designing programs is to include the people for whom the programs are designed, as contributors in the planning as well as implementation of the programs. these are widely accepted precepts. my colleagues and i explored them in learning together: children and adults in a school community (oxford, 2001). this book was written collaboratively by teachers, parents, students, and a few researchers involved in an innovative public elementary school, to examine principles of learning collaboratively. another important precept is that people can and should learn to do things more than one way. programs should usually not substitute one cultural pattern for another. instead, programs can assist people in learning new ways of doing things while maintaining other ways, and can help people learn when to use each approach. this is a matter of enlarging people’s repertoires of cultural practices (gutiérrez & rogoff, 2003; rogoff, 2003). for example, people can flexibly use the approach of learning through intent community participation as well as approaches common in western schooling, depending on the circumstances. ejop: towards the end i would like to ask you about your current research and future projects. how continuous (or not) are they with your prev ious work. prof. rogoff: i continue to work on understanding learning through intent community participation. my colleagues and i have recently submitted a research monograph that examines how this approach works and how general it is across populations that no longer live in indigenous communities — people who have migrated or who live in a community that no longer identifies in this way. we are trying to understand the process of surv ival, adaptation, and resistance of cultural practices stemming from indigenous communities of the americas, especially learning through intent community participation. our work includes immigrants to the us and migrants to mexican cities from regions of mexico that have historically involved indigenous communities, as well as indigenous communities native to the us, guatemala, and mexico. we study children’s integration in the work and other endeavors of their families and communities, their initiative and consideration for the direction of collaborative endeavors, keen attention to surrounding events, helping without being asked, europe’s journal of psychology 417 coordination with others using articulate nonverbal means, and blending agendas rather than div iding resources. we also examine the corresponding ways that adults and communities organize learning through intent community participation: expecting children to be present and contributing to the wide range of family and community activ ities, collaborating with children in a way that prov ides guidance and leadership and at the same time has room for children’s initiative and leadership, blending agendas with a calm measured pace rather than div iding resources or tasks or controlling children, according children responsibility to make sense of the world, and using example, subtle nonverbal conversation, and narrative to shape children’s understanding and participation in family and community ways. ejop: finally please address some words to our readers, most of them graduate students and young academics and professionals. what should early students of culture and development be aware of, focus on and hope for? prof. rogoff: be aware that there are usually several good ways to do things, not just one best way, and that people can learn to do things more than one way. focus on learning from the situations to which you have access — be alert and open-minded. hope for? world peace. seriously, though…. understanding each other will hopefully aid the process of achiev ing a more peaceful and just world. ejop: thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. barbara rogoff would like to thank maricela correa-chávez, katie silva, angélica lópez, omar ruvalcaba, lucía alcalá, and andrew coppens for comments on a prior version of this interv iew. references correa-chávez, m., rogoff, b., & mejía-arauz, r. (2005). cultural patterns in attending to two events at once. child development, 76, 664-678. gutierrez, k., & rogoff, b. (2003). cultural ways of learning: individual traits or repertoires of practice. educational researcher, 32, 19-25. rogoff, b. (2003). the cultural nature of human development . ny: oxford university press. on culture and human development 418 translated into i talian (2004). la natura culturale dello sviluppo. raffaello cortina editore. in portuguese (2005). a natureza cultural do desenvolvimento humano. porto alegre, brasil: artmed editora. in japanese (2005), shin-yo-sha press. www.shin-yosha.co.jp/mokuroku/books/4-7885-1013-8.htm translated into chinese (2008) psychological publishing co., ltd. isbn 978-986191-177-9. being translated into arabic. rogoff, b. (2011). developing destinies: a mayan midwife and town. ny: oxford university press. rogoff, b., goodman turkanis, c., & bartlett, l. (2001). learning together: children and adults in a school community. new york: oxford university press. rogoff, b., mistry, j.j., göncü, a., & mosier, c. (1993). guided participation in cultural activ ity by toddlers and caregivers. monographs of the society for research in child development, 58 (7, serial no. 236). rogoff, b., moore, l., najafi, b., dexter, a., correa-chávez, m., & solís, j. (2007). children’s development of cultural repertoires through participation in everyday routines and practices. in j. e. grusec & p. d. hastings (eds.), handbook of socialization. (pp. 490-515). ny: guilford. reprinted in french, in g. brougère & m. vandenbroeck (eds.), repenser l'éducation des jeunes enfants [rethinking the education of young children]. (pp. 103-138). brussels: peter lang. rogoff, b., paradise, r., mejía arauz, r., correa-chávez, m., & angelillo, c. (2003). firsthand learning through intent participation. annual review of psychology, 54, 175-203. http://arjournals.annualrev iews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601. 145118?cookieset=1 reprinted [in spanish] in l. de león (ed.), socialización, lenguajes y culturas infantiles: estudios interdisciplinarios. (pp. 95-134). mexico city: ciesas. rogoff, b., topping, k., baker-sennett, j., & lacasa, p. (2002). mutual contributions of indiv iduals, partners, and institutions: planning to remember in girl scout cookie sales. social development, 11, 266-289. http://www.shin-yo-sha.co.jp/mokuroku/books/4-7885-1013-8.htm http://www.shin-yo-sha.co.jp/mokuroku/books/4-7885-1013-8.htm http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145118?cookieset=1 http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.54.101601.145118?cookieset=1 ta today: a new introduction to transactional analysis by ian stewart and vann joines reviewed by radu gheorghe psychology student university of bucharest what is ta? transactional analysis is a theory of personality that can be applied in virtually all fields of psychology: educational, counseling, organizational and psychotherapy. besides the theory on personality, ta also provides us with a theory of communication, a theory of child development, and a theory of psychopathology. what is the purpose of this book? the reader will find in this book the basic concepts of ta. by “basic concepts” i mean that all areas of the ta theory will be covered, but more at the level of understanding how the model is linked to reality than at the level of actually applying it. this book may be considered as a reference for the basic ta concepts, as a starting point in learning ta. therefore, this book will be useful as an introduction – for someone new in ta, but also as a reference – for someone already familiar with these concepts. the book’s structure the book is divided in seven parts, from explaining what is transactional analysis and the ta philosophy up to how ta is supposed to look in practice. let’s take them one by one: part i: introducing ta this part gives a definition of what ta is, and then a brief introduction of the concepts that will be discussed in the rest of the book: the ego-state model (parent-adult-child model) transactions, strokes and time structuring discounting, redefining and symbiosis rackets, stamps and games autonomy then, it is explained that ta is based on some philosophical assumptions: people are ok everyone has the capacity to think people decide their own destiny. these decisions can be changed based on this, ta is a contractual method, which means that the practitioner and the client take joint responsibility for achieving the decided goals. in ta practice, a contract is established, in which both parts know their task, and the task is shared (if only one of the parts does all the work, then it’s not a good contract). ta practice is also based on open communication, which means that both the practitioner and the client have full information about what is going on in their work. part ii: picturing personality – the ego-state model the ego-state model is one of the most important concepts of ta, as it is illustrated in the book’s cover. it states that in any given moment, we think, feel and behave in a parental way, in a child-like way, or in an adult (or age-appropriate) way. therefore, one can assume that, in a given moment, was in parent/adult/child. there are two pac (parent-adult-child) models: the functional model, which explains the external, observable behavior, and the structural model, which explains the dynamics of personality. in this part, the reader is presented with this theory, with both the functional and structural analysis. the reader will also learn the difference between those two, and how to diagnose ego states in practice. the ego-state pathology is also analyzed, through contaminations and exclusions part iii: communicating: transactions, strokes and time structuring as the cover illustrates, when two people communicate, they communicate from their ego states. in ta theory, communication is divided to these bits, called transactions so that it can be analyzed. a transaction consists of a stimulus (when i say “good morning!”) and a response (when you reply “good morning!”). strokes are units of recognition. when we communicate, we recognize one another; we transmit energy through words and non-verbal language. some transactions provide less of these strokes (like “hello – hello”) and some provide more (like “i love you – i love you too”). people need strokes in their lives in the same way as they need food or water. that’s why we structure our time so that we get the amount of strokes that we need, from isolation to intimacy. in this part, the reader is presented with the definition of transactions and the types of transactions. also, the reader is introduced to strokes, types of strokes and stroke economy. the reader will also learn how one can offer, accept or reject a stroke, or about self-stroking. the end of this part is about time structuring – the ways people interact to get more or less strokes. part iv: writing our own life story: life-scripts the life-script is basically the story of our life. we wrote it mainly in our childhood, under the influence of our parents and other caretakers. then, we took decisions about how we are, how other people are, and how the world is. in our daily life, the script is mainly outside of our awareness, but we behave and we redefine reality according to what it says there. in this part the authors describe the origins of script, how the script is lived out, and various theories that explain how it works: life positions, script messages, miniscript, etc. part v: making the world fit our script: passivity this part is about what we do – or what we don’t do – to confirm our script. the decisions that we made on how the world works, leading to our script, may not fit to reality. however, through passivity, we reinforce our decisions. let’s say that in early childhood, jim decided that the world is tough, and that it’s not ok to express anger. if, while traveling in a bus, someone steps on jim’s foot, he doesn’t express his anger and doesn’t tell that person to get off his foot. therefore, his pain increases and this leads to the conclusion that the world is tough (painful). part vi: justifying our script beliefs: rackets and games games are an important concept in ta theory. in ta, we define games as repetitive patterns of behavior that lead to a negative payoff. this negative payoff is called a “racket”, which reinforces our script. in this part, the authors introduce the reader to games and game analysis, why people play games, as well as to rackets, stamps and the racket system. part vii: changing: ta in practice this part has a dedicated chapter to the concept of contracting, which is very important in ta practice. the reader is presented to the aims of change in ta, how ta has developed and to the characteristics of ta in therapy, education and organizations. the appendices of this book also bring useful information, mainly about important ta books and ta training and accreditation. overall view the content of this book is easy to understand, which fits well in ta philosophy – everyone should understand the terms used. there are lots of examples which, along with the simple language, make the reading experience entertaining. even though parts 4, 5 and 6 are quite well linked to each other, you still get the overall impression that this book is walking the reader through a list of concepts, rather than following a single line. this approach suits the purpose of this book but some readers won’t find it organized enough. in the end, i believe this book achieves its objectives: to be a comprehensive, easy to understand, introduction to ta. the significance of this book official training in transactional analysis should include an “official 101” – the introductory course, which delivers the fundamentals of the ta theory. this book covers all the topics that an official 101 should cover, with a lot of details and examples. as more and more interpretations of the ta theory emerge, it’s also very important that this book takes an “official” approach. this is the main reason why this book is quoted in many ta workshops worldwide. this book was published in 2000 by lifespace publishing, nottingham, england. a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 19–32 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.338 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 undergoing haemodialysis: a qualitative study to investigate the lived experiences of patients paraskevi theofilou, clairy synodinou, helen panagiotaki retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejops's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. the first author admitted responsibility for writing the whole article. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf communication and representation in the construction of the european identity a theoretical and empirical study on the elaboration of social representations through mass-communication processes andreea enache psychology bsc (hons) – faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest ma student in communication and public relations – faculty of communication and public relations “david ogilvy”, national school of political and administrative sciences ma student in intercultural management – unesco department, university of bucharest abstract our study deals with the issue of the relationship between what is conveyed through mass media and what is represented and organized socially in the form of social reality. the first part of our study focuses on theoretical aspects of this relation, by defining and explaining concepts such as mass-communication, social reality, social representation, cognition, imaginary, and social identity, along with trying to understand the specific relation between these concepts. the second part aims to present and briefly reproduce some of the conclusions of one of our study on european identity, in close relation with the issue of the way in which social representations are constructed from the initial message of the sender with the affective, cognitive and imaginary participation of the receiver. keywords: european identity, mass-communication, social representation, social reality, imaginary introduction this study aims to deal with the process through which acts of mass-communication produce social representations and to show (based on a case study) how this process is determined by the projective involvement of the subject and the group in the construction of social objects. the implicit assumption of our work is that the fundamental function of human communication is to generate a unified, consistent and coherent social reality that can be used collectively as a mental framework for social practices(1). thus, we understand communication (and especially mass-communication) as a psycho-social process of construction of meaning(2), a process by which material objects are transferred into the social world and transformed into social objects that have a significance and that are able to sustain salient relationships with other objects(3). this can never be a strictly objective process, for all meaning is a social representation that has already assimilated throughout its elaboration the cognitive schemas and phantasmatic products of the collective and individual psyche(4). the distance between the conveyed object (that we can also call “object in communication) and the represented object (or the “object in representation”) is therefore the inescapable result of a universal projective mechanism that makes every subject attribute to the real object his/her own phantasms, desires, anxieties, as well as the idiosyncratic aspects of his/her own relationship with it. between communication and representation, there is always the imaginary participating in the construction of a meaning that can never be wholly attributed to cognition, logic and reason. mass-communication is the process most likely to become subject to phantasmatic activity, and its products – social meanings, generally labeled as social cognition that is organized as a hyper-complex system of social representations(5) – will always bear the mark of this sinuous path that leads alternatively to the conscious and the unconscious, to cognition and phantasm, to the real and to the imaginary. mass-communication(6) and the construction of social reality our contemporary society is fundamentally marked by an excess of differences, perspectives, opinions and orientations. interest groups, pressure groups, political parties, civil society organizations, academic and scientific communities, union trades, international organizations, vip’s and stars, they all try to catch the public eye by putting on a huge media show that seems to have reached a point of unprecedented variety, beyond which it is very hard to conceive any further expansion. the differentiating and, sometimes, segregating vectors acting upon the social body are nevertheless counterbalanced by a series of mechanisms specific to processes of mass communication; these processes have the quality of leveling differences, unifying opinions, enforcing the status quo and validating a consensual vision of the world(7). the mass-media paradox is based in this specific tension between the principles that found it (the democratization of public discourse by extensive access to communication for different actors of social life and by increasing availability in relation with ever more numerous categories of publics) and the effects of its functioning (the leveling of opinions and interpretations of reality). born out of diversity the media eventually produces uniformity, but we can, lately, notice that the media itself becomes more and more segregated, thus mirroring the groups that it specifically targets and reproducing in great detail their own radical differences. the mass media and the acts of mass-communication that it initiates are beyond doubt the most powerful agents of social reality construction. the pressure the media place on the way we perceive and conceive reality, on the way we think and act is tremendous(8); the vision according with which the media would reflect (i. e. re-produce) reality as a perfectly neutral and unbiased mirror has long ago been assigned to epistemological naivete; researchers, as well as producers, transmitters and receivers of “symbolic contents” conveyed through mass-media have all convened that none of the actors involved in these symbolic transactions is either passive, or perfectly objective(9). each act of human communication has a transactional character, which implies that it involves both the sender and the receiver, and allows the elaboration of a message that would never be identical to the one intentioned by the sender(10). therefore, social reality is structured somewhere between the sender and the receiver, in the incessant exchange of messages, through successive actions of interpretation and correction of perceptions, on the basis of coding and decoding mechanisms, and even by the means of co-evolution and mutual adjustment of significance-symbolizing systems. it is certain that models such as press agency and public information (vs. bilateral symmetrical and asymmetrical ones) are more adequate for the description and explanation of mass-communication processes(11). however, almost all models mentioned above ignore the fact that the subject who receives the message expresses himself/herself and translates his/her own attitudes in behaviors and actions even when he/she is not explicitly or officially invited to do so by the sender. thus, the receiver’s participation in the construction of the message is not a process that needs the sender’s approval in order to take place; human subjects are, by their very nature, interpretative, constructive and creative. irrespective of the sender’s intentions and interests, the receiver will always have something to “say”; he/she will always react with the fibers of his/her affect to the messages that are transmitted, and his/her imagination will always complete and supplement the version of reality offered by the communicator, no matter what degree of credibility or authority this one possesses. the structure of social reality: social representations denise jodelet(12) systematically exposes the fundamental theses over which there is a widely distributed consensus between researchers in the field of social representations and we will further on reproduce these postulates, as they will also be the postulates of our study: a) social representations are a form of knowledge, socially elaborated and shared, having a practical function and concurring to the construction of a common reality for a given social entity; b) as systems of interpretation governing out relation with the world, social representations orient and organize our social behaviors and communications; c) social representations intervene in processes such as spreading and assimilation of knowledge, individual and collective development, personal and social identity defining, group expression and social change; d) social representations involve the social belonging of individuals, with its affective and normative implications, with the internalization of experiences, of practices, of models of action and thought, socially determined or transmitted through social communication; e) social representations are at the same time products and processes of a social activity of reality comprehension; f) there is no (social) representations without an object of representation; g) social representations replace the object, make it present when this one is absent, substitute it and symbolize it; h) social representations have a constructive and creative character, having a part of subject-expression and one of object-interpretation; i) social representations are based on the correspondence between the forms of social organization and communication and the types of social thinking, with their categories, operations and logic. these postulates outline a theoretical and conceptual framework that we broadly accept and agree with; however, this does not exclude our separation from or doubt on some of the ideas expressed above. for example, we think that the concept of social cognition needs reinterpreting and a more intense capitalization on the role that the social imaginary plays in its structure and dynamics. thus, we consider that, first of all, knowledge is not obtained exclusively by means of perception and thinking, but also through imagination (with all its forms), which calls for a redefinition of knowledge and cognition, based on a more phenomenological approach rather than on a positivistic one. considering all this, we give the following definition: “social representations are systems of knowledge achieved and constructed through reflection, interpretation and imagination of reality, shared by a social group and elaborated in the act of social communication by its members. in other words, they are ways of structuring, organizing, processing and communicating the social knowledge that contributes to and conditions the definition of social reality and each human subject’s access to it” (enache, a., in press). social representations are not only social-cognitive constructions and cannot be limited to the study of “social thinking”(13). through system of knowledge we understand a system through which the social group produces information. the species of information production (reflection, interpretation, imagination) can be rational, as well as irrational, conscious, as well as unconscious, governed by thinking or by intuition, based on reproduction of reality or on the re-creation/imagination/anticipation of it. therefore, cognition(14) and phantasm(15) will be the two most likely and also most contradictory ways of information production in relation with a social object; their part in the construction of social representations can, of course, vary with individuals and groups, depending mostly on cultural aspects, but they will never act entirely alone. the role of the imaginary in the construction of social reality “the imaginary is a central concept for the analysis of human individual and group behavior. a poignantly intellectual philosophical tradition imposed the idea that humans are rational beings, whose actions depend on logical mechanisms that can be reduced to intelligible diagrams. or, this myth of absolute reason does not describe reality, but rather an ideal, an anthropological utopia. in order to understand, anticipate and eventually influence and determine individual and collective conducts, one should first look closely at people’s unconscious motivations, imaginary and symbolic contents, emotional experiences and so on. the research on the imaginary thus comes to compensate this major shortage in european philosophy and psychology”(16). this “defect” is attributed by culianu to the major religious but also cultural processes of the reform and the counter-reform; in his book eros and magic he shows how these ideological transformations of the western society lead to a massive repression of phantasmatic processes and products(17). the rigor of the reform had a direct impact on scientific discourses and procedures, so that, if the renaissance managed to consecrate magic and imagination as privileged means of knowledge, the reform managed to inverse this tendency and impose the belief that these were evil and improper to be used as tools for science. in a similar way, gilbert durand shows how the imaginary comes to derision because of its closeness to another “disliked” concept – the one of image, that, in the context of radical iconoclastic western ideologies (among which the reform holds a high rank), comes to be equaled with the one of imaginary(18). being conceived of as a sum of images, the imaginary could never compete with the prestige and authority of rational, systematic, positivistic knowledge or with the nobility of concepts, ideas and judgements. the cognitive dimensions of social representations has thus come to enjoy great popularity among scholars and researchers who favored this culture of radical rationality and systematically discouraged all interest for other aspects of the human psyche(19). this can also be attributed to the difficulty in studying and researching practically the phantasmatic (and mostly unconscious) dimensions of our life. still, a major role in this is being played the prevalence of the social-cognitive psychology paradigm in the field of general contemporary social psychology. let alone these aspects that refer to particular orientations and schools, we feel compelled to underline the fact that there is a strong need for the reassessment and the capitalization of already classical achievements of psychology; one of these (now indisputable) theoretical accomplishments is that our psychic life is double-faced – on the one hand, there is the conscious experience, and, on the other hand, the unconscious activity of our mind that we cannot deal with directly, but which is however responsible for a great part of our experience and behavior. each representation is a mixture of image and concept, of conscious elements (prevalently cognitive) and unconscious ones (prevalently phantasmatic). however, we do not intend to suggest that there is a perfect overlapping between the conscious and the cognitive, or between the unconscious and the phantasmatic (cognitive psychology mentions unconscious dysfunctional cognitions, subliminal perception, and freud classifies, as we have seen, phantasms in conscious, unconscious, and original; thus, we can only speak of phantasms being prevalently unconscious and cognitions – prevalently conscious, but even such claims should be made with great reserve and be submitted to scientific inquiry). we are, thus, in the apparently paradoxical situation in which the concept of social or collective imaginary knows its hay-days in social sciences, with the sad exception of psychology, the very field from which it received its first scientific arguments. there are, still, some exceptions: claire belisle, for example, states the following: “the participation in the social life of some institutions, organizations and groups determines in the individual a (often phantasmatic) image of the world, giving birth to a thematic structure that is being “nurtured” by the motivational (instinctive and impulsive) energy of the person. this image, having many figurative elements, incorporates of course previous perceptions, but also the affective impact of the moment, the social-cultural imaginary, as well as the mirror-like reflection of present data”(20). this type of theoretical approach mentions aspects of pulsional, affective and phantasmatic nature as elements of social representations. similar ideas appear in the work of someone we could name an “orthodox” in the “continental” study of social representations: adrian neculau writes that ”the symbolic world is still little conceptualized, and especially its affective and imaginary dimensions. this world embraces phantasms, unconscious structures, and emotional emanations, inhibited conflicting pulsions, repressed desires. the imaginary is interpreted today as an alternative to the real world, a mentally constructed world that often opposes the concrete, the palpable one, thus doubling the real image. fracturing the ego, deriving an ideal sequence from a real one, the imaginary re-thinks, re-assembles reality, and suggests a new strategy for information treatment: through closeness and distance at the same time, and through a novel interpretation in order to access meanings”(21). in the same text he claims that “the process of representation has two principal dimensions – an ideological and an imaginary one. the latter is the one that contributes to the stimulation of psychic energy, to the preservation of “production”, to the maintenance of desire, introducing a separation from reality or idealizing it in order to make it supportable. the social imaginary is an account of the way in which social representations are based in individual affect while working in accordance with an internal logic and observing its rules”(22). jodelet, when referring to the multiple domains in which the concept of social representations is used at present, as well as to all those fields of study from which it can benefit of conceptual clarifications and methodological borrowings, seems to admit that a psychoanalytical approach of the subject is also highly recommended (although, of course, not exclusively): “as kaes, chombart de lauwe and feuerhahn show, one can distinguish the play of individual phantasms and that of the social imaginary in the production of representations, which clearly leads us to psychoanalysis”(23). strangely enough, even the psychosocial carrier of the concept of symbol has gained in notoriety only lately, in the last decades, because of the re-launch and the explanation of the concept of social imaginary. “the imaginary, thinks the french historian le goff, occupies a wide portion in the space of representation, extracts its sap from the symbolic, relates closely with the ideological, but it is more than that. the imaginary includes the mental productions (mostly the productions of the collective mind), as well as the iconic and written ones, publicly expressed or internally preserved, and requires the research of the origin and the profound nature of human beings, the in-depth knowledge of social consciousness and its historic evolution”(24). the psychoanalytical literature seems to be still the most probable domain of the recuperation of individual and group phantasmatic life (see florence giust-desprairies, didier anzieu, rene kaes(25) ); but these authors still ignore the fact that mental life and social dynamics cannot be wholly attributed to the unconscious, and that they heavily rely on reason and thinking capacities of human beings. thus, these two sides of social representations call for an equal consideration: the present psychological orientations (the social cognition and the psychoanalytical one) seem however rather unprepared for such a great paradigmatic shift. a conclusion that almost imposes itself on us after the presentation of the above-mentioned theories is that the imaginary exists; in order to say something more than this, in order to speak of its nature, dynamics, structure and functions we need to study it in its phenomenological hypostases. to this aim, we will refer to a case study that takes as an object for research the european identity, its communication and its social representation. european identity: a value-based definition a vast scientific literature, but especially the public discourses of the “center”(26) accredited the idea that the most efficient, operational and accessible way to define european identity is the one based on values(27). far from being an achieved concept or at least one relatively exhaustible in a systematic description, the european identity is a concept in full process of being constructed and also a process that, as wintle points it out(28), is active on the top-down process, as well as on the bottom-up one (although significantly more on the former). the stake is not at all easy to neglect: the very wide and enthusiastic objectives of the eu and the complexity of its administrative bodies meant to ensure their achievement cannot entirely rely on formal mechanisms, no matter how efficient they may be. the eu has, at present, a flag, an hymn, a europe’s day, a project for a a constitution, a parliament, a huge legislative literature called aquis communautaire, common objectives and strategies for all members who seem to be dedicated to the idea of turning europe into a space of prosperity, security, peace, law, freedom, democracy and observance of human rights(29). however, all these values will never get to be translated into concrete attitudes and behaviors unless they are to be supported by an adequate cultural infrastructure; at the same time, an identity thus defined risks to never be actually able to know its own limits – the universality of the values it rests on invalidates their use in a local or regional political discourse and makes it almost impossible to argue why these values should be european and not global. despite all this, it seems that such a “valor-cultural” definition of european identity is (at least meanwhile) the best solution in order to sustain not only ideologically, but also practically the premises and consequences of contemporary multiculturalism. conveyed identity – represented identity(30) we have seen above which are the main valor coordinates of european identity, as they are mainly communicated by the political and administrative center of the eu. further on, we will focus on the outlining of a conceptual framework for identity construction that would permit us to explain the role the imaginary plays in the elaboration of this specific type of social representation. social identity is based on a double belonging of the individual – to the formal group and to the psychosocial one. in order to distinguish between the two we have chosen the terms of formal belonging, that depends on a process of cognitive identification, and psychosocial belonging, depending on a process of phantasmatic identification. the formal belonging can be validated or established by applying a simple formal criterion (usually the logic criterion for the categorization of different individuals into a certain group), while psychosocial belonging is “established” by each and every member of the group in their turn, for themselves and for the others. this type of belonging is strongly marked by the emotional involvement of the individuals with the group and with other members. the process of cognitive identification allows an individual to know if he belongs or not to a certain formal group (a romanian will know he/she is a romanian because of his/her citizenship), while the phantasmatic identification allows an individual to feel more or less as a member of a certain group, with its characteristics, and prescribed behaviors, attitudes and attributes (a romania can, from a psycho-social point of view feel more or less romanian, or, sometimes, even not at all). in our specific case, we can say that, formally, to be european means to inhabit one of the states historically thought to belong to europe. psychosocially, instead, to be european means a lot more. the characteristics and attributes specific to the members of this social group are elaborated in the form of a social representation that has, in its turn, a peripheral and a central structure. the central structure of this social representation is precisely what we have called social identity. and if we remember what we have discussed in the paragraphs dedicated to social representations, we will see that on the basis of this social identity one cannot operate radical inclusions and exclusions, for social identity does not express what is de facto european, but rather an ideal model (what it should be or what we would like it to be) of being european. we could say that, if formal identity is established at the level of the ego, the social one is decided at the level of the ideal ego. a major consequence of this is the fact that the process of identification will operate mainly in the sphere of formal belonging, while the psychosocial belonging will be constructed prevalently through projections (tajfel and taylor, instead, two of the major researchers in the field of social identity only discussed identification with the group in social identity building). this double identitary rapport that the individual has with the group he/she belongs to is the source of phantasmatic productions involved in any construction of representations of this type. the european identitary repertoire: phantasm and cognition our empirical study of european identity followed a content analysis methodology applied to a verbal material that we have obtained through a free associative experiment with three words: european, europe and european union. the content analysis was made by placing the verbal associations thus obtained into one of the 36 categories that expressed in the form of bipolar dimensions the final and instrumental values of rokeach for a similar population in terms of age(31). we have thus obtained a broad image of the social representations of these three social objects, in terms that values that are salient for each of them, in terms of positiveness of the representation, prevalence of concepts vs. images and phantasms vs. cognitions, as well as in terms of central vs. peripheral elements of the representation. our results showed that there are significant superpositions between the three social representations, but also some major discrepancies that seem to draw a separation line especially between europe and the eu in our social representations. in this case, we could say that the issue of european identity is no longer “does it exist?”, but “how congruent are the social representations of objects that it is founded on and which of these objects is most salient today for what we call european: europe, the eu or europeans themselves?”. however, our study also showed that values are very “active” in relation with these three objects (a very small percentage of words obtained through free association could not be attributed to any of the rokeach valor categories). the differences mainly emerged on the dimensions of freedom, intellectual openness, power and civilization. moreover, there are also differences in the degree of positiveness of these representations: the europeans benefit from a highly positive image, europe follows them close, but the eu seem to have something of a deficit, although we are referring to a population that is renowned for its consistent euro-optimism. thus we come to face a rather strange situation in which the most active vehicle of european consciousness and identity – the eu – is also the least probable to be able to sustain the assimilation of values that it claims to be at its basis and that it promotes with great impetus as the nucleus of its identity. our results show a clear tendency to outline the eu as an economic and political entity that loses the cultural and intellectual relevance of europe. at the same time, being a very complex and complicated administrative body, the eu also attracts negative representations strongly associated with the idea of bureaucracy, norms, rigid rules, standardization, limitations, and restrictions. on the contrary, the european is free (a central element), open to novelty, to change, modern and transforming. europe’s position is, from this point of view, somehow strange: while being a space culturally marked by tradition and conservatism, it still manages to stay open towards the new and allows the innovative capitalization of a cultural background that it preserves fairly well. although the stress on the past is pretty strong, europe is perceived as an open intellectual environment and one very prone to change. however, the central element for all the three social representations is “true friendship”; a much more adequate word for this social level of analysis would probably be “solidarity” – and this value seems to be the core of all three social representations, the basis of the european construction, as well as its foremost resource. but, strangely enough, when it comes to europeans they are not perceived as being particularly friendly! moreover, given the fact that rokeach’s classification of values lists “true friendship” as a final value, in the second level of associations we obtained mostly words that were connected with instrumental values of “power” and “help”; this, of course, makes us wonder what is the relation between the final and the instrumental values and, more precisely, if the final one does not play an instrumental part in relation with the other two! we have here again the emergence of material (economic) motivations in relation with the european space, a tendency that has already proved to be extremely detrimental to the european project as a whole (social support functions only as long as the financial benefits of being a member are satisfying enough, while economic crises stimulate a rapid increase in euro-skepticism). even in such a context, it is not without importance that the first level associations are in the zone of the final value of solidarity (true friendship). other significant aspects are connected in our opinion with the social representation of the european and the eu on the dimension “comfort”hedonistic vs. stoical (the former being perceived as hedonistic, associated with loisir activities, travelling, comfort searching and high spirits, the latter being associated with work, effort, obligations, responsibility and tasks). two major communication failures (considering the “ideal” european identity suggested by the official discourses) are the ones regarding the elements of peace and security. these values are either inactive or very little activated when it comes to any of the three social objects. we also noticed that religious values are almost inactive in the representation of the eu, and only slightly activated – in their “catholic” version – when it comes to the representation of europe. another extremely interesting aspect of our study is that it finally lead us to the conclusion that there is a certain type of role-distribution between the three social representations: the way the attributes are attached to each of the social objects investigated are very similar to the way roles and their specific characteristics are attributed to the members of the nuclear family: mother, father and child. we noticed that there is a tendency to associate the behavioral and psychological profile of the european with that of the child (by the stress placed on freedom, hedonism, openness to novelty and change); europe is very close to a classical maternal imago, by its anchoring in the past, its indifferent relation with the issue of freedom, the powerful focus on tradition and stability; the eu takes part in this family scenario in a rather predictable way, by assuming the attributes of paternal authority, power and the economic function, traditionally associated with pater familias. however, if for a psychologist this distribution of characteristics and roles can look interesting and invite to some further (psychoanalytical or not) research, for the one who is primarily interested in the european issue, such a diagnosis is not too much of good news as long as we concede that european identity, its strength and endurance, are strictly dependent on the degree of convergence between the social representations of objects that it is founded on. footnotes (1) this idea is expressed several times in the work of the psycho-sociologist serge moscovici, in papers such as “la psychanalyse: son image et son public” (moscovici, 1976), “psihologia socială sau maşina de fabricat zei” (moscovici, 1997, p. 9, p. 177-196) or “fenomenul reprezentărilor sociale” (moscovici, 1997, p. 22-26). as far as the paradigms specific to communication sciences are concerned, this type of approach is explicitly assumed by the semiotic school (borţun, 2002, p. 44-53) represented by ferdinand de saussure and chales s. pierce, while the most general theoretical framework of this kind was designed by the constructivist school of palo alto. (2) the process of communication interpreted as a construction of social meaning is the object of a minute analysis in “theories of communication” (defleur, m. and sandra ball-rockeach, 1999, p. 231-271). as the authors show in their work, this way of understanding communication is also tributary to the sociological paradigm of symbolic interactionism (op. cit., p. 47). (3) when presenting the fundamental premises of social constructivism, dumitru cristea shows that “we do not simply perceive the world we live in, but we construe it; our social reality is an interpretation built up through communication, on the basis of human interaction in a given social and historical framework” (cristea, 1996, p. 52-54). (4) e. l. schaub stresses the fact that durkheim’s collective representations in the form of concepts and categories are at the basis of community life, making the object of social communications and establishing the common sense (schaub, 1920, p. 319-339). thus, we see that even the information gathered under the label of science is under the power of social groups engaged in acts of social communication: “the value that attribute to science is dependent, ultimately, on the idea that we make, collectively, of its nature and of its function, thus expressing a state of opinion. everything, after all, in social life, is based on opinion, even science” (durkheim, 1912, p. 626). (5) d. cristea, op. cit., p. 57-58. (6) we will use this term in agreement with the definition that janowitz gave it in 1968: “mass communication comprises institutions and techniques through which specialized groups using technical means (press, radios, movies etc) transmit a symbolic content towards numerous, heterogeneous and heavily dispersed audiences” (apud mcquail and wihdahl, 2001, p. 13). (7) in his book, introduction to sociology, anthony giddens shows that: “exposing to and consumption of media products has become an integral part of the daily lives of the majority, providing them to a considerable extent with their picture of social reality” (giddens, 1982, p. 541); “given these high levels of exposure, the media constitute potentially strategic socialization agencies; they represent an institutionalized channel for the distribution of social knowledge and hence a potentially powerful instrument of social control (as well as social critique), sustaining or challenging the status quo” (giddens, op. cit., p. 542). other authors who adopt a similar point of view are cohen and young, who, in 1973, claimed that: “ the mass media provide a major source of knowledge in a segregated society of what the consensus actually is and what is the nature of deviation from it” (cohen and young, 1973, p. 342); “the mass media do not simply provide information and reflect the social world – rather, they structure it for us, not simply increasing our knowledge of the world, but helping us to make sense of it; the media both utilize a consensual image of reality and help to reproduce it” (cohen and young, op. cit., p. 544). (8) this kind of influence was evidenced by the theories of indirect influence (defleur, 1999, p. 170-185), which focused on the long-term effects of exposure to different types of messages transmitted through mass media. a theory that also allows a major place for the role mass media has in the construction of social reality is the theory of the magic bullet (posthumously thus named by schramm, in an article that appeared in 1971), but which in time lost its popularity because of its radicalism and reductionism. (9) in support of this affirmation we recommend you to study the very complex model of maletzke; his model emphasizes the fact that even the channel transmitting a certain information and the image the receiver has on the channel are a key-factor in the general economy of message transmission. mcluhan (1964) even said that “the means is the message” (apud mcquail and windhal, 2001, p. 45). (10) if the first models of communication (shannon, lasswell, osgood and schramm, dance) were conceiving both the sender and the receiver as neutral and impersonal actors, coding and decoding information according to a series of conventions that determined the functioning of symbolic codes through which certain signs were consistently assigned to certain meanings, later models (gerbner, newcomb, the model of dynamic convergence of mcleod and chaffe, the model of convergence of rogers, the model of maletzke, the ritual model of carey) admit the value and the necessity of interaction, the role of feed-back and the interpretative character of communication acts (mcquail and windhal, 2001, p. 19-54). (11) hunt and grunig, 1984, p. 21-22. (12) jodelet, 1997, p. 112-113. (13) this is the case, for example, of the model presented by d. cristea in his treaty of social psychology where he stresses the processes of social cognition and their role in the dynamics of social representations, while ignoring the communicational dynamics and the projective and phantasmatic involvement of the subject in their construction. (14) the dictionary of psychology (durot, 1999) tells us that: “just as the adjective cognitive, the term cognition has been recently imported in the french psychological and philosophical lexicon; the dictionary of a. lalande (vocabulaire de philosophie, 1956) mentions it as an “english term”, and suggests that it “be preserved in order to describe a particular act of knowledge, in opposition with knowledge in general”. its current use (that tends to replace words such as knowledge, intelligence etc) highlights the success of anglo-saxon schools of thinking from which it was borrowed. (…) cognition means, first of all, the sum of knowledge acts and processes, the total of mechanisms through which an organism acquires information, treats it, conserves it, exploits it; the word also refers to the mental product of these mechanisms. it is strictly connected with psychological activities and thus bears a more specific meaning than the general term of knowledge, that can also refer to information independent of the subjects that have acquired it or hat use it at present. the term covers functions that were traditionally thought to ensure the accumulation of information an organism needed in order to maintain vital exchanges with its environment, i.e. perception, memory, learning, intelligence, the symbolic function and language. it also differentiates this domain from the one of drives, motivation, instincts, emotion and affect”. (15) “in a broad sense, the term of phantasm defines imagination, but it has been used in psychoanalysis, where it received a special status – that of scenario for the accomplishment of an unconscious desire involving defensive mechanisms. the term indicates scenes with a different psychological status that relate to one another and form the privileged object of psychoanalytical investigation. freud distinguishes between conscious and unconscious phantasms (the former being similar to daydreaming and the latter functioning as underlying structures of manifest contents); he also speaks of original phantasms that are considered universal, irreducible to the conditions of individual experience and that he thinks to be transmitted philogenetically (primitive scene, castration, seduction, intrauterine return) (durot, 1999). the word comes from greek wher0.e it initially meant “appearance, phantom”, thus referring to a non-testable psychic reality, that cannot be seized for verification; something that escapes rational control, that could be equally true or false, real or simply imagined. in time, the term suffered an ample extension, eventually coming to signify the whole sphere of creative imagination and being able to function as an equivalent for the one of imaginary. (16) braga, corin, 2005, p. 1. (17) culianu, i. p., 2000, p. 163-183. (18) durand, 1999, p. 34. (19) we present an extended version of a multi-dimensional model of social representations in “repertoriul identitar european – abordare multidimensională a reprezentării sociale a identităţii europene” (enache, a., in press); there we argue that social representations are organized on a four-dimension basis: structure (central vs. peripheral), code (image vs. concept), information (cognition vs. phantasm) and affect (negative vs. positive). (20) belisle, 1984, p.322. (21) neculau, 1997, p. 12-13. (22) neculau, 1997, p. 12. (23) jodelet, 1997, p. 92. (24) le goff, 1991, p. 37. (25) de vissher (coord), 2001, p. 247-367. (26) we use this term in the sense h. r. patapievici gives it (patapievici, 2004, p. 29-65). (27) katinka wering von dittrich, vice-president of the european cultural foundation, writes, in a way that leaves very little room for interpretation, that “europe is being built on shared values” (dittrich, 2006, www.ejop.org). (28) wintle, m. j., 2005, www.ejop.org. (29) the conclusions of several extensive scientific studies, made on large lots of subjects, show that the values that seem to orientate europeans (at declarative level) are help for the others, valuing people for what they are, contributing to the making of a better society, personal development, success, self-knowledge and money. these data were collected at the moment when the eu had 15 member states (european commission, 2001), but they clearly show that there is a big difference between what politicians think of and promote as european identity expressed in values, and what europeans themselves think to be the values that guide their lives. (30) in this study, we have used the following operational definition of social identity: “social identity is a partial social representation, produced by the ingroup or the outgroup, of attributes and characteristics essential and characteristic for the group itself and its members” (enache. a., 2006, in press). (31) roco, 2001, p. 151-163, for example, for the main category of happiness (final value) we had the bipolar dimension of happy – unhappy; for an instrumental value such as imagination we had the bipolar dimension creative-reproductive. for more information on this research you can see enache, a., 2006, in press. references borţun, d. (2002). bazele epistemologice ale comunicării. bucureşti: ed. ars docendi. braga, c. (2005). imaginarul european. bucureştiul cultural, anul v, 19/20. belisle, c. & schiele, b. (1984). image, imaginaire et representations en formation d’adultes. les savoirs dans les pratiques quotidiennes sur lea representations, paris: edition du cnrs. cohen, s. and young, j. (coord) (1973). the manufacture of news. london: constable. culianu, i. p. (2000). eros şi magie în renaştere. bucureşti: humanitas. de visscher, p. (2001). dinamica grupurilor restrânse. dinamica grupurilor, iaşi: editura polirom. defleur m. & sandra ball-rokeach (1999). teorii ale comunicării de masă. iaşi: ed. polirom. denise jodelet (1997). reprezentările sociale – un domeniu în expansiune. in (coord) neculau, a., psihologia câmpului social – reprezentările sociale, iaşi: ed. polirom. dittrich van werigh, k. (2005). is there a european identity? europe’s journal of psychology, 1(1), february 2005. dorot, r. şi parot, f. (1999). dicţionar de psihologie. bucureşti: ed. humanitas. dumitru, c. (2001). tratat de psihologie socială. ed. pro transilvania. durand, g. (1999). aventurile imaginii. imaginaţia simbolică. imaginarul, bucureşti: ed. nemira. enache andreea (in press). repertoriul identitar european – abordare multidimensională a reprezentării sociale a identităţii europene. iaşi: ed. lumen. european commission (2001). how europeans see themselves – looking through the mirror of public opinion surveys. press and communication service of the european commission, brussels. giddens a. (coord) (1982). introduction to sociology. london and basingstoke: the macmillian press ltd. le goff (1991). imaginarul medieval. bucureşti: humanitas. mcquail, d; windahl, s. (2001). modele ale comunicării pentru studiul comunicării de masă. bucureşti: ed. comunicare.ro. moscovici, s. (1997). psihologia socială sau maşina de fabricat zei. iaşi: ed. polirom. moscovici, s. (1976). la psychanalyse: son image et son public. paris: presses universitaires de france. moscovici, s. (1997). fenomenul reprezentărilor sociale. in (coord) neculau, a., psihologia câmpului social – reprezentările sociale, iaşi: ed. polirom. patapievici, h.-r. (2004). discernământul modernizării. bucureşti: ed. humanitas. roco, m. (2001). cercetări privind gândirea morală şi ierarhia valorilor. revista de psihologie, 47(3-4), 151-163, bucureşti. schaub, e. l. (1920). a sociological theory of knowledge. the philosophical review, 29(4), 319-339. wintle, m. j. (2005). european identity: a threat to the nation? europe’s journal of psychology, 1(2), may 2005. the power of diversity alexa ispas assistant editor, europe’s journal of psychology phd student, cardiff university ispasa@cf.ac.uk i remember one of my lecturers telling me a few years ago that psychology is different from sciences such as physics. not just because of the ‘is psychology a science?’ debate. but more importantly, because the field of psychology is so diverse that psychologists working in different fields simply cannot properly understand one another. as i don’t know much about physics, i cannot judge the accuracy of this comparison. but as for the diversity of fields that come under the heading of ‘psychology’ – just think: from intricate brain scans to unconditional love; from face perception to alzheimer’s in transgenic mice; from conversation analysis to physiological investigations of remote staring. in fact, you probably haven’t even heard about some of these, although they constitute key topics of research in different areas of psychology. given that our interests are so different, and that each area of psychology has cultivated its own ‘lingo’, no wonder we are sometimes having trouble communicating with one another. is psychology, as anderson once called the nation, just another ‘imagined community’? diversity does not need to be a divisive force, though. if we learn to respect one another for the contributions that each one of us, in our particular area, makes to the broad field of psychology, diversity can become our strength. rather than setting barriers between us, diversity could in fact help us communicate better by giving us a more rounded perspective on the subject of our enquiry. but in order to communicate with one another, we first have listen – and read – about other areas of psychology. this is where europe’s journal of psychology comes into the equation. as an online publication, the journal offers easy and free access to current research in all areas of psychology. the journal is intended as a communication tool between psychologists, as a way of helping us keep up to date with developments in other areas of our ever-so-diverse discipline. let us all take advantage of this wonderful opportunity – the ejop team is looking forward to your contributions! microsoft word 9. book review.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp.105-109 www.ejop.org preliminary comments on ethics in psychology. the case of the systems paradigm “fears, panics and phobias, a brief therapy” by giorgio nardone review by maximiliano e. korstanje university john f. kennedy the present piece is aimed at debating critically the contributions and limitations of systems psychology in the treatment of disorders relating to anxiety and phobias. the criticism is based on the book entitled “fears, panics and phobias, a brief therapy” authored by g. nardone (1997, editorial herder, barcelona) because of two main issues: from an epistemological point, systems paradigm does not distinguish experimentalism from linear causality. secondly, serious ethic involvements are questioned considering the ways in which therapists conduct this kind of programs. a set of interesting forewords no less than by marcelo ceberio and paul watzlawick introduce readers to the text of giorgio nardone on fears, panics and phobias. i strongly believe that it is important not to lose from sight the necessity of recovering this kind of outstanding works for the development of knowledge. for further understanding, this book initially explores the concept of circularity defying the linear causality between effects and causes that characterizes modern science. all the way through his book, nardone emphasizes that the reasons behind panic attacks, phobias and obsessive-compulsive disorders are polysemic and circumscribed to a lot of previous working definitions. under such circumstances, nardone argues that psychological structures follow complex and unabated interests. whenever psychologists examine the patient’s pathology, they access only a memoirist past which is elaborated by subjects following symbolic and emotional dynamics. this recall is no other thing than an insight on the motivational forces of europe’s journal of psychology 106 behavior irrespective of the facts as they occurred. in other contexts, by means of a professional diagnosis, patients are often involuntarily induced by the therapist to create a depiction of reality which explains the pathology but it is unable to resolve it. following this, systems psychology sets forward to examine the circularly of pathologies focusing on the manifestation of symptoms quite aside from involving the reasons behind such a disorder. by following the research of phobias, nardone criticizes previous contributions of psychoanalysis that argued phobias resulted from an unresolved trauma during childhood. from 152 studied cases, nardone said that only 3 corresponded to an earlier trauma and 2 of these 3 participants admitted to have received a psychoanalyst’s treatment. the second criticism against psychiatry is leaned on supposing that the phobia lies in the excess of serotonin in the brain as well as a glitch in lobe locus caeruleus. third argument questioned by nardone seems to be that phobias and panic attacks are associated to over-protective homes or weaker social and familiar bondages during life span. from this point of view, nardone acknowledges that from 152 persons, 91 participants (60%) demonstrated to have physical and emotional independence from their parents. ultimately, fourth critiques are directed against the mecanisist paradigm which supports the belief that there is a bridge between phobic reaction and stimuli based on risk behavior. nardone explains that 68% of 152 persons stated not having previous reactions or episodes before the crisis. the fact is that, for nardone, the constitution of phobia is not the fear as such but the fear of fear. whenever a person assumes its own inabilities to overcome risks and threats or in controlling all variables of the environment, this feeds a posterior a sentiment of impotence. of course, a growing uncertainness alternating individual shyness with a request of help addressed to relatives deteriorates the self-esteem of the subject worsening the symptomatology. the threshold between acts and message is an interesting point of analysis in this problem. cases of panic attacks and phobia are often characterized by friends and familiars who come to the aid of their loved one but reply with a double-bind message: “i help you because i love you but you are ill”. the “fear of fear” creates in the subject a closed entropic system which does not allow breaking the bubble. under these circumstances, patients reduce their capacity of exploration and withdraw in the core of their homes looking for a feeling of security. for this reason, anyone who is affected by the disorder of anxiety builds its reality as externally imposed when really is constructed by him or her. fears, panics and phobias 107 unlike other cases, obsessive-compulsive disorders are linked to the elaboration of symbolic rituals which temporarily alleviate the symptoms but reinforce the vicious circle. by means of induction, therapists should impose to the patient a new structure to perceive a safer realm. as nardone assumes, his brief therapy opens the door for resistance towards change to be successfully broken. this process comprises four stages ranging from 1 to 12 sessions. in successive chapters of this book, nardone describes the different steps in the protocol which should be followed for achieving the discharge. providing several clinical cases and examples, nardone insists in the efficacy and efficiency of his method for the total remission of pathology. preliminary steps to initiate this therapy consist of reversing the influence of fears by diverting the patient’s attention to a curious but unimportant issue which is not perceived by the patient’s cognitive structure but decisive for the therapy’s success. finally, the treatment culminates with the explanation of goals and steps accomplished during the diverse sessions. in other terms, the therapist will request from the patient to describe meticulously in a pocket diary all feelings and things he or she is reminded of whenever the crisis occurs. a task of this nature focuses on the tendency of the subject to elaborate rituals and utilize them to disrupt their beliefs. a couple of days later, when the person involved in therapy returns to the therapist’s office, she or he feels better but refuses to achieve the requested tasks. the homework task allows the patient to draw his/her attention from the object of fears and focus on other issues. in a second phase, the therapist will trivialize the patient’s statement about his/her trouble, reducing that way the dramatic burden. it is clear that if the person can break the original vicious circle there is no reason to assume the problem is more serious. as nardone puts it, on this facet, the patient should take a noisy alarm clock and put it inside a saucepan and shut itself away in a room forcing to think about all the gruesome circumstances that predispose the emergence of fears. in response to this, the patient will experience that the fright did not return as expected thanks to the disarticulation of negative thought. in general, the person is ready to play a pro-active role that will enhance its self-esteem and determination. empathy in communication is a fundamental factor in the treatment of phobia and panic attacks depending on the characteristics of the pathology at hand. whatever the case may be, there exist some ethic issues which should be re-visited in the application of brief-therapy and systems psychology. at a first glance, epistemologically, we run across some contradictions between introductory chapters and further development. secondly, nardone insists that systems wave is not interested in explaining the origin of pathology but only the way it works in social europe’s journal of psychology 108 life. in clinical practice, the method would have higher rates of effectiveness. the question that nardone does not intend to follow up is why remission of pathology cannot offer an explanation about the reasons behind that affliction. in order for the therapist to undo an existent tie, nardone claims that it is not important to know further about the beginning of fears, phobia and panic attacks. by the way, such a pathology perpetuates whenever the subjects do not help from avoiding the unpleasant symptoms and looking for family contention. of course, this is a sheer contradiction since nardone does not solve out the issue of how a person can deploy strategies or courses of action without understanding the underlying logic of the problem. not only these issues are not being correctly examined by nardone but also he recurs to his own clinical cases to test previous hypothesis. after this, immediately, another question arises: does the systems paradigm back up the roots of the experimental method unintentionally? to put this bluntly, the italian researcher criticizes the experimental method due to a linear causality and sets forward an alternative aimed at describing the circular multi-causality with basis on self-poietic entropy. this term refers to second law of physic which puts emphasis on the energy a system needs to be neutralized. in social sciences fields, self-poetic entropy is based on the ability of persons to construct circular-closed net of symbols. nevertheless, nardone confuses linearity with experimentalism. in fact, experimental method does not correspond to the search for univocal variables but the validity or testing of previous hypothesis. for instance, let us remind our readers that systems psychology was born at stanford university a couple of decades ago and made a real revolution in the world of epistemology once it adapted the second law of thermodynamics in psychology and social sciences. some of the most prestigious exponents have been gregory bateson, paul watzlawick, giorgio nardone and marcelo ceberio. since that day onwards, many topics on the principle of circularity have been thoroughly debated. founding their doctrine on the idea that a system is not the sum of its parts, this stream considered homeostasis and entropy as two of main dynamics overt systems show. their contributions in clinical therapy are oriented to stress that patients belong to a broader system such as family, that we are not able to study. from this point of view, afflicted person represents the peak of a deeper iceberg which should be examined by the therapist. in a sharp contrast with long therapies such as psychoanalysis, systems psychology presents a shorter alternative and an effective pathway. with a sample of 152 patients, nardone experimentally tests his hypotheses with cases in treatment. the point is why nardone attacks the experimental method? fears, panics and phobias 109 my personal opinion is that systems psychology may be criticized because it is the based on a misunderstanding of experimentalism with positivism. it may be worth to note that clinical studies have been coined in the cradle of experimentalism, which very well compared certain stimuli, placebos and reactions in experimental and control groups. this is not the case of positivism which emphasized the univocal effects of variables in social and natural life. the epistemological differences between positivism and experimentalism once explained, let us address the second limitation of g. nardone in regards to ethics applied to clinical treatment. for instance, reading this insightful book we find terms such as “manipulation” or “imposition” which denote a strong ethical critique. from nardone´s viewpoint, the vicious circle is a prerequisite for the impossibility of the patient to overcome the trouble with their own resources. this is the reason why the goals of therapy are not revealed before the end of treatment. the problem here is that nardone experiences the same limitation he encounters when criticizing the familiar structure. to a certain extent, this thought is the product of stoic philosophy which regards the figure of the expert as the only one who can solve paradoxical situations. under such a context, stoicism emphasizes knowledge as a mechanism capable to solve glitches and the patient as a victim who is unable to see how pathology operates in its life. regarding the criticism against systems therapy as being unethical, nardone replied arguing that his method, unlike others, offers much more efficacy in results as well as a rapid remission, which saves suffering, time and money. and of course, these should be seen as academic criteria to consider a theory as ethical or unethical. once again, under this paradigm, subjects are very well constrained to a subordinated role based on in their ignorance regarding the emotional aspects involved in shaping their life. such an idea works as a pretext in the binomy between the hegelian logic of master and slave. this point leaves us in an ethical dilemma surrounding the process of control and hegemony between systems psychology and american pragmatism. in other words, the susceptibility of the patient as a sick individual is opposed to the truth of therapist who is legitimated by the legacy of the geek tradition which originally set the boundaries between good and evil. this mythical archetype is combined with a pragmatism typical in united states which misjudges efficacy and speed with ethic. it is important to scramble with a more humanistic clinical psychology that valorizes the integrity of human beings quite aside from efficiency and utilitarianism. of course, this seems to be a superficial expression of a much more deep-seated issue which deserves to be developed in other works. journey into contemporary psychology: madrid, vienna and athens vlad-petre glaveanu assistant editor it is considered that every journey makes the traveler become richer; that it represents a gain in itself. this is especially the case when the voyage offers the possibility to meet persons having similar interests, to hear about the latest discoveries in your work field, to discuss problems that concern specialists from several countries. this was a unique opportunity for me, to be able to attend, within four months, three scientific events that have made me travel around europe. my first destination was madrid, the sunny capital of spain. here, in the heart of the iberian peninsula, a psychology student congress took place from 24th to 30th april 2005. it was the first event of this kind to ever be held in spain, and at the same time the 19th european congress that brought together psychology students from many european countries. the topic was an extremely generous one: “the art of living: 21st century challenge”, and the congress was organized by cep-pie spanish psychology students’ association with the support of the spanish psychological association and of 15 psychology faculties of spanish universities, under the auspices of efpsa, or the european federation of psychology students’ associations. in order to better understand the nature of this event it should be stated that this was the annual efpsa congress, and that efpsa has 23 member organizations and represents over 75.000 students from all over europe. this year, the participants to the congress came from 30 different countries and the themes included in the “art of living” were: diversity, normality, coexistence, conflicts, progress, innovation, change, health and future. it was impossible to attend this event and not make new friends. once at the congress, everyone started greeting old friends or discussing with new participants, mainly about the life and psychology in each country and about spain. students had the chance to present their studies, during the first days in the “students’ papers and poster presentation”. the range of themes was impressive: from creativity, organizational diagnosis, self-esteem, attachment styles up to national identity, human facial expression, love and sexuality. at the workshops everyone had the chance to debate on subjects like “laugh therapy” or “behavior manipulation” or to form practical skills in domains such as “developing and validating a questionnaire”, “negotiation” or even “cross-cultural research”. the lectures were held by university professors or professionals, and starting from the grand opening of the congress a special introductory lecture was held by prof. helio carpintero on “historical traits of applied psychology”. of course, many activities facilitated social interaction between the students and aimed at creating a special atmosphere, a typical spanish one. from the first day, the “cultural evening” encouraged every participant to bring traditional food, drinks and music, so that everyone would experience first hand the customs and life around europe. another evening was dedicated to “learning activities” and these were represented by dance lessons held by professional salsa and flamenco dancers. in the end, the visit to toledo and the traditional bullfight were unique experiences that reminded us of the values and principles of don quixote facing the realities of our 21st century. a second destination in my scientific tour led me to vienna, a former imperial city that lies in the heart of europe. this time, the name of the conference was “psychology for the 21st century” and it was sponsored by the neuwaldegg insitute, under the patronage of the educational initiative for central and easter europe. attending this event between 27th and 30th june 2005 by gaining a scholarship was again a perfect occasion to meet colleagues from central and eastern europe, over 60 persons from 13 countries to be more precise, both undergraduate and graduate students, many preparing for their phd in psychology. the course was designed and taught by prof. paul c. vitz, professor of psychology emeritus at the new york university and professor of psychology/senior scholar at the institute for psychological sciences in arlington, virginia. all the participants were welcomed at schloss neuwaldegg, a castle that was first mentioned in official documents in the year 1315. the atmosphere was typical viennese, with statues and paintings and a superb baroque garden in front of the castle, one of the few left in europe. the purpose of the conference was to analyze several new trends in psychology nowadays. the four lectures followed by seminars debated several topics: “the new, positive psychology, or modern psychology discovers the virtues”, “psychotherapy and forgiveness: an introduction”, “personalist philosophy and a new psychology of the person: a response to the postmodern critique” and “the crises in the family and the rediscovery of the psychology of fatherhood”. professor vitz focused mainly on introducing the concept of “transmodern” psychology, a new era in the field of psychology together with other human sciences, one that has different features from the classical concepts of “modern” and “postmodern” defining specific periods. obviously, nobody left vienna without visiting the sigmund freud museum, without having a coffee in the nearby coffee shop and taking a picture in the sigmund freud park, in front of the impressive votivkirche with its two 99m high towers. finally, the third destination for this summer was the ancient city of athens, one that we can refer to as the historical capital of europe. the occasion was represented by the “27th international school psychology colloquium 2005”, from 13th to 17th july 2005, that had as a theme: “promoting the well-being of children and youth: a challenge for the school, the family and the school psychologist”. the colloquium gathered practitioners, psychology students, professionals from the field of education and school psychology. over 300 abstracts were received for this event and the participants came from 35 countries all over the world. it was a unique experience and a great opportunity to share knowledge, make new friends, exchange ideas and by this to contribute to the promotion of action models and dialogue. the colloquium included keynote lectures, workshops, symposia and a number of 47 thematic sessions. the topics discussed were extremely diverse, starting from learning difficulties, bullying in school, counseling, up to self-mutilation, well-being in the academic environment, intervention programs. this extraordinary event was co-hosted by the international school psychology association and the department of psychology national and kapodistrian university of athens under the aegis of the ministry of national education, the ministry of health and the municipality of athens. during the colloquium an exhibition of children’s creative work from twenty one different countries related to the olympic spirit and ideals took place. the olympic project exhibition was suggestively called: “the olympic spirit through children’s voice”. staying in athens for almost a week gave us the chance to visit the spectacular parthenon with all the architectural masterpieces on the sacred hill of acropolis. listening to the lectures and symposia gave as the chance to understand that, on the one hand, modern psychology speaks ancient greek and that, on the other hand, the general efforts of specialists from different continents aim at making the world a better place for the next generations. this was the message of the ispa colloquium this year. and with this my journey ended, a journey that can be considered as one into contemporary psychology. there were unique moments, there was so much to learn and so many fiends to make. all the conferences reflected the contribution of psychologists to the development of the modern world, focused on the value of applied psychology and on the value of dialog between students, specialists and practitioners worldwide. maybe in the future we will all meet again, and the perfect occasion can be another neuwaldegg event, the annual efpsa meeting next year in the czech republic or the next ispa colloquium in china! maybe there, with a little luck, i will meet you too! microsoft word 13. moscow international congress moscow international congress dedicated to the 110th anniversary of alexander romanovich luria’s birth 20-22 september 2012 moscow, russia the year 2012 marks 110 years of the birth of alexander luria (1902-1977). to commemorate the life and scientific achievements of this world-renowned psychologist and the founder of the russian neuropsychology, moscow lomonosow state university, in collaboration with the the burdenko neurosurgery institute (where the first russian neuropsychological laboratory was open) are pleased to announce moscow international congress. the congress will be held in moscow, 20 22 september, 2012. during the congress three conferences are planned: 1. “a.r. luria and the development of the world psychological science” 2. “a.r. luria and the modern neuropsychology” these conferences continue the first and the second (moscow, 1997, 2002) and the third (belgorod, 2007) international luria memory conferences. 3. “basic and applied aspects of mental recovery after brain injury: a multidisciplinary approach” the conferences will include plenary and subject sessions (oral and poster presentations), round table discussions and evening lectures of the leading specialists in psychology, medicine and neuroscience from russia and other countries. a competition will be organized between the papers of students, postgraduate students (ph.d. fellows) and young researchers (under 33 years old). the social program is also planned. visit the website for more information http://lomonosov-msu.ru/eng/event/553/ microsoft word 6. depressive symptoms and their correlates .doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 71-103 www.ejop.org depressive symptoms and their correlates with locus of control and satisfaction with life among jordanian college students jehad alaedein zawawi, ph.d assistant professor of counseling psychology, department of educational psychology, hashemite university jordan shaher h. hamaideh, ph.d. assistant professor of community & mental health nursing, department of psychiatricmental health nursing, hashemite universityjordan abstract objective: to establish estimates of the prevalence of depressive symptoms, and their correlates with locus of control and satisfaction with life among undergraduate students in hashemite university (hu) jordan. method: a randomized sample of college students (n=492), 67 (33.9 %) were male, completed the multidimensional health locus of control scale (mhlc), the satisfaction with life scale (sls), and the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d). results: study outcomes showed a great ratio of depressive symptoms among hu students, almost half of college-aged individuals had a major depression, and statistical analyses showed no relationship between externality of locus of control (powerful others) and depression, while externality of locus of control (chance) was found to be significantly positively related to depression, and in line to previous studies a significant negative relationship was found between internality of locus of control and depression. additionally, significant negative relationship was found between satisfaction with life (sls) and depression. however, satisfaction with life was found to be the first best predictor of depressive symptoms and chance was found to be the second best predictor of depressive symptoms. conclusion: findings of this study hold implications for depressive symptoms interventions, such as expanding psychoeducation courses to include strategies for enhancing and maintaining a sense of personal control and selfactualization. keywords – external locus of control; internal locus of control; satisfaction with life; depressive symptoms; college students. europe’s journal of psychology 72 introduction most lifetime mental health disorders have first onset during or shortly before the typical college age (kessler, et al., 2005), and these problems may be precipitated or exacerbated by the variety of stressors in college life, including separation from family, sharing close living quarters with strangers, the formation of new social groups, intense academic pressures and the balancing of social engagements with academic and other life responsibilities (marano, 2002). while all of these circumstances offer opportunities for growth, they may also result in stress that precipitates the onset or recurrence of psychiatric or mental health disorders (blanco et al., 2008). although most of those young people manage to handle college life stresses and challenges with aplomb, others have difficulty adjusting. they are experiencing emotional turmoil, suffering from depressed mood, believing their lives are controlled by outside forces rather than their own efforts, and feeling discontented with life. in response, some seek out artificial and unhealthy means of improving their mood or numbing their unpleasant thoughts and feelings (national center on addiction and substance abuse [ncasa], columbia university, 2003). increases in external locus of control among college students may be related to the concurrent trends toward increased depression and anxiety, drug abuse, and diminished academic achievement (twenge, zhang & im, 2004). accordingly, this study provides information regarding the relationship between depression and some personality cognitive factors (locus of control and satisfaction with life) in college students. college may be a key time for catching and treating depression, specifically, mental health problems among college students related to depression should not be a hindrance to their education and development. successful intervention by college counseling centers may prevent future episodes of depression over the lifetime as well as improve the college experience for students suffering from depressed mood, and distortion in cognition. in jordan, depression may be highly prevalent among young adults. according to statistics released by the jordanian ministry of health, the number of depressed patients in the ministry's psychiatric clinics rose last year to reach (23,369) cases, of them (11,622) males, and (11,747) females, mostly or about (19,000) cases in the age group of (15-45) years (dellewany, 2006). one depressive symptoms and their correlates 73 national study suggested a prevalence of depression of greater than 30% in 493 randomly selected female patients treated at primary health care out-patient centers in west amman, jordan (hamid et al., 2004). al-khulaidi (2004) found in her study that 18.1% of the college students' sample (n=703), suffer from severe depression. a recent study conducted by jordanian psychiatrist dr. jamal alkhatib, concluded that 40% of the cases of private psychiatric clinics are university students, 23% of high school students, and 8% of community college graduates (as cited by dellewany, 2006). similarly, at international level, depression is widespread in college campuses. for example, a recent study (blanco et al., 2008) found (45.8) percent of american college students (n=2,188), age 19 to 25, met the criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder. almost half of college-aged individuals meet criteria for depression, personality disorders or another mental health condition, but only one-fourth of those seek treatment. also, results of a survey by the american college health association (kisch, leino, & silverman, 2005) found that 62.2% of students had experienced feelings of hopelessness at least once during the past year, and 44.4% reported having experienced being “so depressed it was difficult to function” (p. 7), and in furr, westefeld, mcconnell and jenkins' study (2001) of 1,455 college student participants, up to 53 percent reported having experienced depression since beginning college. accordingly, many studies explored the cognitive factors that have been implicated in depression, and support the notion that an internal health locus of control orientation is negatively correlated with depression (afifi, al riyami, morsi & al kharusil, 2006; benassi, sweeney & dufour, 1988; twenge et al., 2004) and positively correlated with life satisfaction (klonowicz, 2001; rapaport, clary, fayyad, & endicott, 2005; simpson, schumaker, dorahy, & shrestha, 1996; sunders & roy, 2000). despite this plethora in depression and its correlates' research, there is a paucity of research examining issues of depression for arab college students in general, and much less for jordanian college students in particular. this research advances knowledge of student mental health and seeks to explore some personality variables, specifically cognitive factors that predict depression occurrence among college students. in particular, studies showed that locus of control and satisfaction with life represent alarm indicators to depression in early intervention prevention programs. europe’s journal of psychology 74 depressive symptoms in the present study, the operational definition of depression refers to the depressive symptoms in accordance to the score on the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d) (radloff, 1977). depressive symptoms describe emotional experiences ranging from occasional periods of sadness to very serious disorders or chronic loss of interest or pleasure in nearly all activities. according to beck’s (1967) cognitive theory on depression, cognitive distortions in depressed individuals lead them to view themselves, their environment, and their future in a negative manner, which has a significant impact on the onset and the continuation of the disorder (haley, fine, marriage, moretti, & freeman, 1985; mccauley, mitchell, burke, & moss, 1988). beck (1967) has found evidence that "deviation from logical and realistic thinking was found at every level of depression from mild neurotic to severe psychotic" (p. 240). from a somehow different perspective, abramson and his colleagues (1989, 1978) have proposed a model of depression that is related to learned helplessness and state that individuals can come to perceive outcomes as uncontrollable because of their lack of success and inevitable lack of control. when individuals see themselves as helpless, as a consequence of thinking that outcomes are not related to their efforts, they will attribute a reason for their helplessness. for instance, if an individual makes an internal attribution to his or her helplessness, and therefore sees his or her powerlessness as a personal shortcoming, this can lead to an increase in passivity and a loss in self-esteem and motivation. consequently, this causes impairments in the individual’s emotions and cognition, which create a sufficient condition for depressed mood. this attribution style of internalizing helplessness has been found in depressed adults, as well as among children and adolescents with depressive symptoms (mccauley et al., 1988). many researches on depression, with behavioral and cognitive perspectives, have focused on the relationship between individuals’ control beliefs and depression and claimed that there is an association between depression and locus of control (nolen-hoeksema, larson, & grayson, 1999; weisz, sweeney, & carr, 1993). someone with external locus of control believes that outside factors, such as chance, fate or luck, determine the outcome of events, whereas internal locus of control is explained as an individual’s perception that depressive symptoms and their correlates 75 his or her own actions and efforts have an effect on the outcome of events (chubb, & fertman, 1997). in relation to this, a frequent topic of investigation is whether internal locus of control or external locus of control is associated with depression. it appears that the most dominating support has been given to the view that states that more external locus of control is correlated with more depression (benassi et al., 1988). for example, mccauley and his colleagues (1988) demonstrated in a study on depression in children and adolescents that the depressed group had lower scores on self-concept and higher scores on external locus of control, compared to the control groups. greater internality in an individual, in contrast, has been found to be connected with successful adjustment in school, independency, responsible behavior, and more self-control. however, locus of control should be viewed as a continuous variable, which implies that an individual’s locus of control may change between different situations (chubb, & fertman, 1997). furthermore, psychosocial aspects, such as parental emotional detachment, conflicts in the family and weak family cohesion are related to children’s depression (petersen et al., 1993). however, factors that influence depression cannot be established separately, instead they are in a complex interaction and related to an individual’s characteristics and biospsychosocial context (pelkonen, marttunen, & aro, 2003; petersen et al., 1993). murphy & wetzel (1990) assert that comorbidity of depression and alcohol abuse is common, “major depression was one and one half times more frequent in alcoholics than non-alcoholics” (p. 390). individuals who are developing a drinking problem may be ingesting alcohol to relieve feelings of boredom, depression, anxiety, or inadequacy (rotter, 1966). alcohol abuse is not the only cause of depression in college students. other major factors associated with depression among college students are grade problems, money problems, and relationship problems (furr et al., 2001). locus of control locus of control is viewed as "a cognitive expectancy which defined the individual’s view of causal factors related to these outcomes” (nunn, 1995, p. 421). rotter (1966) defined locus of control as a “generalized expectancy of internal versus external control over behavior outcomes". although this trait is no doubt distributed normally among people, those who believe that they are europe’s journal of psychology 76 influenced by external forces are considered to have an external locus of control. however, those who have confidence that whatever happens to them, pleasant or unpleasant, is substantially within their domain of influence are said to have a predominantly internal locus of control (tones, 1997). levenson developed an alternative model in 1973. whereas rotter’s concept viewed locus of control as unidimensional (internal to external), levenson’s model asserts that there are three independent dimensions: internality, chance, and powerful others. according to levenson’s model, one can endorse each of these dimensions of locus of control independently and at the same time. for example, a person might simultaneously believe that both oneself and powerful others influence outcomes, but that chance does not. different models were developed in order to identify factors that affect changes over time in locus of control. several authors connected externality to conformity and internality to individual action (crowne & liverant, 1963; kelman & lawrence, 1972). in contrast, the alienation model (see twenge et al., 2004) asserts that locus of control has become more external today due to greater individuation. this model focuses on two historical trends: the tendency to blame one’s misfortunes on outside forces, and increases in negative social indicators. it reflects the greater cynicism, distrust, and alienation of recent generations (fukuyama, 1999; pharr, putnam & dalton, 2000; sloan, 1996). since its introduction, the locus of control construct has undergone considerable elaboration, and several context-specific instruments have been developed. health researchers in particular have embraced locus of control as a concept for explaining behavior. among the most widely used health-specific measures is the multidimensional health locus of control scale (wallston, wallston, & devellis, 1978). this instrument retains levenson’s three dimensions but is focused on outcomes that are specifically related to health and illness, such as staying well or becoming ill. for this study, locus of control is operationally defined by the multidimensional health locus of control scales (mhlc scales form a; wallston et al., 1978). life satisfaction many of the studies that focus on what makes people content with their lives distinguish between two related aspects: the cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective well-being (swb). the cognitive dimension is usually depressive symptoms and their correlates 77 referred to as life satisfaction, whereas the affective dimension represents positive and negative emotions such as happiness and loneliness (klonowicz, 2001). most researchers agree that, although life satisfaction fluctuates over time (diener, oishi, & lucas, 2003), in the long run, even exhilarating or traumatic events do not change it drastically. one explanation for that is that personality explains most of the variability in life satisfaction, and, as personality traits and dispositions tend to be stable over time, they create stability in levels of life satisfaction (spector et al., 2001). researchers refer to diverse aspects of personality when discussing life satisfaction. some focus on locus of control (e.g., spector et al., 2001; wardle et al., 2004) others on depression (e.g., hong, & giannakopoulos, 1994). life satisfaction in this study refers to the extent to which individuals are satisfied with the progress of their own life, as measured by the satisfaction with life scale (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985; pavot, diener, colvin, & sandvik, 1991). literature to examine the relationship between locus of control and depression, banks and goggin (1983) conducted a study with a sample of college students (n=100) who completed rotter's (1966) internal-external locus of control scale, the attributional style scale, and beck depression inventory. statistical analyses showed no relationship between externality of locus of control and depression, and a significant interaction existed between attribution and locus of control, leading to the conclusions that individuals who are either internal or external on both locus of control and attribution are least depressed, while individuals who are internal on one and external on the other are the most depressed. the authors (1983) concluded that both external locus of control (i.e., a generalized expectancy that reinforcement is controlled by luck or fate instead of oneself) and internal locus of attribution (i.e., beliefs that success or failure result from an individual's actions rather than external causes) have been related to depression. burger (1984) found that locus of control scores, particularly the extent to which college students perceived that their lives were controlled by chance, were significantly related to the depression levels. it was also found that high desire europe’s journal of psychology 78 for control subjects who held external perceptions of control were most likely to seek nonprofessional help for depression. in addition, high desire for control subjects who perceived their lives as generally controlled by chance were most likely to have suicidal thoughts. brown and siegel (1988) also found a link between perceived control and depressive affect. in their study, 176 female adolescents were studied at two times approximately eight months apart. participants were administered a measure of life stress, an attribution questionnaire, and the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (cesd). via hierarchical regression analyses, they found that internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events attributed to uncontrollable causes were related to increases in depressive affect. conversely, internal and global attributions for negative events attributed to controllable causes were related to less depressive affect. benassi and his colleagues (1988) in their meta-analysis study, found strong support for the hypothesis that greater externality is associated with greater depression. in their major analysis, they obtained a mean effect size of .31. the analyses based on levenson's (1973) dimensions of internality, powerful others, and chance produced mean effect sizes of .23, .38, and .31, respectively. klonowicz (2001) studied the relationship between locus of control and life satisfaction in a population of individuals with reactive temperaments. the data suggested that high reactivity coupled with external locus of control was more often associated with lower ratings of subjective well-being. further analysis indicated that life satisfaction was most influenced by locus of control rather than by reactivity, thus suggesting the relative strength of locus of control beliefs. twenge and her colleagues (2004) in their meta-analysis study for (97) samples of college students (n = 18,310), conclude that college students in 2002 had a more external locus of control than 80% of college students in the early 1960s, and found that externality is correlated with poor school achievement, helplessness, and depression. weitzman (2004) study describes patterns of poor mental health/depression (pmhd) in a national sample of college students and the relationships among pmhd, alcohol consumption, harm, and abuse. responses to mailed questionnaires completed by a random sample of 27,409 students at 119 colleges were analyzed using logistic regression. 4.8% of students reported pmhd. the average college prevalence was 5.01% (range, 0.68% to 13.23%). students with pmhd were more likely than their peers to be female and from low socioeconomic status families, less likely to report never drinking. rapaport and his colleagues (2005) investigated quality of life among individuals with a variety of anxiety and depressive disorders who were enrolled in a clinical psychopharmacology trial. participants completed the quality of depressive symptoms and their correlates 79 life enjoyment and satisfaction questionnaire, which assesses global quality of life as well as quality of life in a variety of domains including physical health; social and family relations; functional ability; and participation in work, hobbies, leisure, and household activities. substantial proportions of participants with chronic depression (85%), major depressive disorder (63%), and ptsd (59%) reported severely impaired quality of life, and impairment occurred across domains. afifi and his colleagues (2006) explored the rate and correlates of depressive symptoms among 5409 secondary school adolescents in oman. high score in negative health locus of control, low score in positive health locus of control, poor relationship with family members, friends and teachers significantly predicted depressive symptoms in the logistic regression model. having a hobby and never dropping a class were protective variables. finally, afifi (2007) investigated the association of health locus of control with depression among adolescents in alexandria, egypt. the tools used were the multidimensional health locus of control scale and the child depression inventory. adolescents with low internal health locus of control and high chance external health locus of control were more likely to have depressive symptoms than others. the study findings demonstrated an association between health locus of control and adolescent depression. building on past research, the present study was designed to examine the relationship between self-reported depressive symptoms and cognitive style in college students. it was hypothesized that perception of internal locus of control (i.e., the belief that the individual personally has control over life events and environment), perception of external locus of control (i.e., the belief that chance, and powerful others determine fate), and unsatisfactory with life would be negatively and positively, respectively, related to depressive symptoms significantly. significance of the study college is a critical context for studying youth mental health. although young adulthood is often characterized by rapid intellectual and social development, college-aged individuals are also commonly exposed to circumstances that place them at risk for mental health and psychiatric disorders. mental health disorders appear to be common among 18 to 24-year-olds, college students (blanco et al., 2008). europe’s journal of psychology 80 uncovering the personality cognitive factors correlates with these mental health disorders, such as depression, will help counselors to work actively and put forth directly deliberate programs to deal with this serious area. this study is significant because it contains therapeutic implications. identifying predictors of depression may help participants enhance their quality of life, avert rapid decline, and live longer. this study may have implications for counseling services and enhance adjustment among university students. a main implication is to improve existing services or design new services to have more control and personal responsibility in an environment where they usually feel out of control. another implication is that this study is generating new knowledge with focus on psychological cognitive variables and specifically locus of control and satisfaction with life can contribute to the body of young adulthood research, since predicting depression and avoiding psychological morbidity contributes to the well-being and quality of life of college students. information in enhancing personal control and life satisfaction, in the lives of those young adults, may assist the mental and physical health professional to create tools for assisting those adolescents and youth who are struggling with lack of control over their lives, and may call universities' attention to the mental health needs of young adults, according to background information in the study. research questions the purpose of this study is to explore and answer the following research questions: 1. what is the prevalence rate of depressive symptoms among college students at hashemite university [hu]? 2. what are the relationships among locus of control, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms, among college students at hu? 3. are there significant differences in depressive symptoms, locus of control, and satisfaction with life, among university students in relation to their academic achievement, substance abuse, financial problems, and perception of health? 4. what are the best predictors for depressive symptoms among hu students? method sampling and data collection target population of the current study was all students at hu who registered in the first semester courses for the academic year 2008-2009, which depressive symptoms and their correlates 81 approximately equals to 18,000 students. (for the purpose of this study, we did not include graduate students). stratified random sampling according to academic level (year) was used to select participants for this study. after getting the approval from the scientific research committee at hu, to conduct the study, the registration department office at the hu provided the researchers with a list of all courses offered to all undergraduate students during the first semester of the academic year (2008-2009) according to the course level (first, second, third, and fourth). numbers were assigned to each course, then two courses from each group were selected using simple random sampling. then, the researchers contacted the teacher/instructor of each selected course to set a plan for data collection during the class lectures. there were 610 students in the randomly selected courses, 492 (response rate=80.6%) were agreed to participate in the study and responded to a questionnaire for extra credit. the average age of the students was 20.32 years (sd=1.55). the questionnaire consisted of the three measures given below. procedures and research design each participant completed a packet of questionnaires with demographic information included during one of several scheduled testing times. participants were not asked to include their names or any identifying information. the following measures were administered: (a) the mhlc, (b) the sls (c) the ces-d. average time to complete all 43 items was approximately 15 minutes. each participant was given extra credit point for completing the measures, providing the applicant’s course grade with five extra points. all participants were treated in accordance with the american psychological association's ethical principles. measures three instruments multidimensional health locus of control scale form a, satisfaction with life scale, and center for epidemiologic studies depression scale, in addition to the demographic sheet, were used to collect the data in this study. for the purpose of this study, by using the 'forward-backward' procedure, the english version of the three instruments was translated into the arabic language by an expert in bilingual language, then another bilingual expert translated the arabic version into english without accessing to the original version. a third bilingual faculty member compared the translated arabic and the translated english versions, corrected any incongruence in the translation. no significant variation between the two was detected. these europe’s journal of psychology 82 instruments have been translated into many languages, and for many of these translations validation studies confirm the internationally applicable nature of these tools. also, these scales are in the public domain. therefore, they may be used without copyright permission. 1. multidimensional health locus of control scale mhlc-form a, (waltson et al.,1978), was used to assess locus of control. this scale has been used in many educational and psychological researches and cited frequently in the literature (afifi, 2007). this scale consists of 18 items each of which is rated on a 6-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). this scale contains three 6-item subscales: internality (beliefs in internal or personal control over health), powerful others (such as medical staff, family and friends), chance (external locus of control or beliefs in chance and fate) (norman, & bennett, 1996). ratings were summed for each scale. therefore, scores for each subscales ranged from 6 to 36. items include "if i take care of myself, i can avoid illness"; "when i get sick, i am to blame". higher scores indicate greater beliefs in internal, powerful others, and chance control over health. in the current study, cronbach's alpha for (mhlc), form a was 0.63 and guttman split-half alpha was 0.53, with moderate internal consistency: cronbach's alpha values for the subscales were 0.67 (internality), 0.56 (powerful others), and 0.66 (chance). in addition, average three-week test-retest reliability coefficient for mhlc subscales was 0.68, 0.60, and 0.65, respectively. 2. satisfaction with life scale (sls) was used to assess life satisfaction (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). this scale which is used to assess the level of satisfaction with life, consists of 5 items scored on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). a total score is calculated by summing the individual responses to the 5 items. scores on the total scale ranged from 5 to 35. items include "in most ways my life is close to my ideal ". the higher the score, the more satisfied the individual with his/her life. the satisfaction with life scale (sls) was developed to assess satisfaction with the respondent's life as a whole. the scale does not assess satisfaction with life domains such as health or finances but allows subjects to integrate and weight these domains in whatever way they choose. in the current study, cronbach's alpha for sls was 0.79, and guttman split-half alpha was 0.77. in addition, average three-week test-retest reliability coefficient for sls was 0.78. 3. center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d) (radloff, 1977). the ces-d is a valuable tool for identifying a group at-risk for depression and for studying the relationship between depressive symptoms and other variables, depressive symptoms and their correlates 83 was used in the current study to assess level of depressive symptoms. ces-d is a 20-item self-report scale designed to measure multiple dimensions of affective symptomatology and current depressive symptoms within the last week in the general population. the scale addresses six components of depression: depressed mood, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, psychomotor function, loss of appetite, and sleep disturbances. the scale also can distinguish between clinical groups and general community groups. the scale addresses four factors: depressed affect (7 items), somatic symptoms (6 items), reversed positive affect, (4 items), and interpersonal difficulties (3 items). each item is rated on 4-point likert-type scale indicating the degree of their occurrence during the last week. the items' responses range from 0 (rarely or none of the time) to 3 (most all of the time). items include: “i felt sad,” “i felt that i was just as good as other people,” and “i felt i could not get going. a total score is ranged from 0 to 60. a score of 22 or higher indicates probable major depression. a score between 15 and 21 indicates the need for more in-depth assessment and treatment for mild to moderate depression. a score of 14 or less is not indicative of depression. the total ces-d scores reflect a sum of reversed positive affect, negative affect, somatic symptoms, and interpersonal relations. overall, the total ces-d scores and scale scores for each subcategory were examined in the present study. although it is usually scored continuously, there are various cut-off scores for clinical depression with reasonable associations between cut-off scores and clinical diagnosis. a widely used cut-off to identify depressed individuals is a score of 16 or greater on the ces-d. acceptable validity and reliability have been found across a wide variety of demographic characteristics [76]; [78]. in the current study, cronbach's alpha for ces-d was 0.86 and guttman split-half alpha was 0.87; with high internal consistency: cronbach's alpha values for the subscales were 0.85 (depressed affect), 0.89 (somatic symptoms) and 0.84 (reversed positive affect), and 0.86 (interpersonal difficulties). average threeweek test-retest reliability coefficient for ces-d total scores was 0.88. 4. academic achievement refers in the selected sample to student grade point average (gpa) with scores ranging from 4–0, as follows: excellent (3.5-4.0); very good (3.0-3.49); good (2.5-2.99); acceptable (2.0-2.49); weak (below 2.0). values were classified in three n-tiles, one central n-tile. (p25 to p75), and two ntiles than 50% of the grade point average level, were used to compare results. 5. substance abuse refers to students' usage of various substances. a single question was given to the participants to determine whether usage of various substances (no=1) or (yes=2). europe’s journal of psychology 84 6. financial difficulties refer to student's experience of a financial problem while managing his college expenses. a single question was given to the participants to determine this experience (no=1) or (yes=2). 7. perception of health refers to self-rated overall students' health. a single question given to the participants concerning their self-rated overall health was used with a scale ranging from one to five; poor 1; average 2; good 3; very good 4; or excellent 5. values were classified in three n-tiles, one central n-tile. (p25 to p75), and two n-tiles than 50% of the perception of health level, were used to compare results. data analysis data were analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (spss version 12.0, 2006). descriptive statistics were used to generate means, standard deviations, and frequencies for a list of variables. in addition, research questions were answered by employing correlations, anova, and step-wise multiple regression. results 1. description of demographics: the sample consisted of 492 undergraduate students. age of the participants ranged between 17-29 years (m= 20.32, sd= 1.55). there were 167 male (33.9 %) of the sample. only 55 (11.2%) of the participants' mothers are currently employed outside home. sixty-nine (14.0 %) of the participants are working in different areas beside their role as students. only 86 (17.5%) of the participants were regular smokers, and 48 participants (9.8%) who abused substance or more during the last month. of the total sample, 214 participants (43.5%) indicated that they suffer from financial problems, and only 71 (14.4 %) students participated usually in extracurricular activities at the university (see table 1). table 1. sample's demographic variables (n=492). variable n (%) students' level (year) first year 152 (30.9) second year 98 (19.9) third year 96 (19.5) fourth year 146 (29.7) students' faculty humanistic 265 (53.8) depressive symptoms and their correlates 85 scientific 227 (46.2) grade point average (gpa) excellent (3.5-4.0) 39 (8.1) very good (3.0-3.49) 146 (30.3) good (2.5-2.99) 184 (38.2) acceptable (2.0-2.49) 97 (20.1) weak (below 2.0) 16 (3.3) substance abuse alcohol 27(5.5) calming drugs 16(3.3) stimulant drugs 3 (0.6) hashish 2 (0.4) yes 48 (9.7) no 444 (90.2) financial difficulties yes 214 (43.5) no 278(56.5) students’ self-perception of health excellent 128 (26.0) very good 238 (48.4) good 110 (22.4) average 11 (2.2) poor 5 (1.0) 2. the first research question is targeting the prevalence rate of depressive symptoms among students at hu. results of the total scores in ces-d (tot depressive symptoms) showed that 47.8 percent and 24.4 percent of students suffered from major depression and mild-moderate depression, respectively. while the rest (27.8 percent), have no indicative of depression (see table 2). table 2 tot depressive symptoms scores of study sample(n=492) on the three levels of depression* three levels of depression* 1 2 3 total count 137 120 235 492 tot depressive symptoms total % within depressive symptoms 27.8% 24.4% 47.8% 100.0% *1= 0-14(not indicative of depression); 2=15-21(mild-moderate depression); 3=22 and higher (major depression). 3. we had three (2, 3, and 4) additional basic research questions, each of which is presented separately below. the second question was strictly europe’s journal of psychology 86 correlational in nature: are both cognitive (locus of control and life satisfaction) constructs related to student depressive symptoms. the results are reflected in table 3. virtually most of the variables are related significantly to the other variables at the .0.01 level. all but 2 correlations were significant at the .0.05 level (rs > .107; .095). these results indicate, first, that sufficient systematic variability exists for relations to emerge if they exist, and, second, that cognitive constructs are related to student depressive symptoms. in fact, the variation in sizes of correlations indicates that different aspects of cognitive styles correspond differentially with different aspects of student depressive symptoms. this idea is examined in more detail below (see table3). table3. intercorrelations between measures of cognitive constructs (locus of control and life satisfaction) related to student depressive symptoms (n=492) 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1.0 locus of control internality 1 1.0 0.362** externality: powerful others 2 1.0 0.154** 0.074 externality: chance 3 1.0 -.135** .131** 0.150** satisfaction with life 4 1.0 .449**0.169** -0.027 -0.047 depressive symptoms depressive affect 5 1.0 0.642** -.300** 0.142** -0.008 -0.073 somatic 6 1.0 0.427** 0.563** -.393** 0.140** -0.063 0.119** reversed positive affect 7 1.0 0.329** 0.440** 0.519** -.370** 0.165** -0.073 -0.107* interpersonal difficulties 8 .616* * .731** .827** .914** -.472** .190** -.037 -.095* tot depressive symptoms 9 * p<.0.05. ** p<.0.01. two-tailed internality (m=23.54;sd=5.39), powerful others(m=21.12; sd=5.87), chance (externality) (m=18.24; sd=4.83), satisfaction with life (m=19.79;sd=6.63), depressive affect(m=7.01;sd=5.17), somatic(m=7.97;sd=4.03), reversed positive affect (m=6.37;sd=3.07), interpersonal difficulties(m=1.23;sd=1.61), tot depressive symptoms(m=22.60;sd=11.30). 4. the third question addressed whether there are significant differences in locus of control, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms, among students in relation to their academic achievement, substance abuse, financial problems, and perception of health. univariate analysis of variance (anova) between independent variables (selected demographic variables) and dependent variables (locus of control, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms) was conducted. the results are reflected in table 4. depressive symptoms and their correlates 87 table 4. univariate analysis of variance (anova) between independent variables (selected demographic variables) and dependent variables (locus of control, satisfaction with life, and depressive symptoms) (n=492). academic achievement substance abuse financial difficulties perception of health f (sig.) f (sig.) f (sig.) f (sig.) locus of control internality 0.154 (.695) 0.148 (.701) 4.498 (.034*) 0.826 (.364) (externality) powerful others 2.250 (.134) 0.325 (.553) 0.475 (.491) 1.627 (.203) (externality) chance 0.000 (.987) 0.442 (.506) 15.024 (.000**) 2.442 (.119) satisfaction with life 10.182 (.002**) 4.104 (.043*) 73. 340 (.000**) 12.243 (.001**) depressive symptoms depressive affect 2.499 (.115) 3.566 (.060) 18.133 (.000**) 9.191 (.003**) somatic 1.207 (.273) 9.227 (.003**) 13.612 (.000**) 11.726 (.001**) reversed positive affect 3.443 (.064) 0.884 (.348) 20.119 (.000**) 10.622 (.001**) interpersonal difficulties 0.257 (.613) 0.000 (.948) 17.052 (.000**) 1.031 (.310) tot depressive symptoms 2.290 (.059) 4.834 (0.28*) 26.200(.000**) 10.390 (.000**) * p<.0.05. ** p<.0.01., two-tailed these results indicate that there was a statistically significant effect for first, academic achievement (f (1, 490) = 10.18 (.002), p<.01) in the satisfaction with life scores. second, for substance abuse (f (1, 490) = 9.22 (.003), p<.01; 4.834 (.028) p<.05; 4.10 (.043), p<.05) in somatic scores, tot depressive symptoms and satisfaction with life, respectively. third, for financial difficulties (f (1, 490)= 4.49 (.034), p<.05; f(1, 490)= 15.02 (.000), p<.01) in internality and externality (chance) scores, respectively; and (f(1, 490)= 73.34 (.000), p<.01) in the satisfaction with life scores, and (f(1, 490)= 18.13 (.000), p<.01; 13.61 (.000), p<.01; 20.11 (.000), p<.01; 17.05 (.000), p<.01; 26.20 (.000), p<.01) in the four ces-d subscales [depressive affect, somatic, reversed positive affect, interpersonal difficulties] and tot depressive symptoms, respectively. lastly, for perception of health (f (1, 490) = 12.24 (.001), p<.01; 9.19 (.003), p<.01; 11.72 (.001), p<.01; 10.62 (.001), p<.01; 10.39(.001), p<.01) in the satisfaction with life, a three of ces-d subscales [depressive affect, somatic, reversed positive affect], and tot depressive symptoms, respectively. (the experiment-wise error europe’s journal of psychology 88 rate was controlled by performing post hoc multiple comparisons procedure and pair-wise comparisons only when the anova f-test is significant1) 5. according to the fourth and last research question "what are the best predictors for depressive symptoms among hu students?" a stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the relative importance of each cognitive variable in predicting depressive symptoms (ces-d). as indicated in table 5, the only variables entered in the analysis were satisfaction with life and externality (chance) locus of control. the satisfaction with life (sls) score was entered in the first step of the regression analysis, followed by externality (chance) locus of control (mhlc). twenty-four (0.239) percent of the variance in depression was explained by the two cognitive variables, with satisfaction with life accounting for 22%, and externality (chance) locus of 1 we performed post hoc multiple comparisons procedure and pair-wise comparisons for significant (f):(academic achievement) satisfaction with life; (substance abuse) satisfaction with life; tot depressive; (financial difficulties) locus of control (internality), externality [chance], satisfaction with life and tot depressive; (perception of health) satisfaction with life, tot depressive. by conducting fisher’s least significant difference (lsd) procedure to control the comparison-wise error rate, for variables with more than two subgroups, we obtained many outcomes, for example, firstly, post hoc tests (lsd) results for grade point average (gpa); perceptions of health [ph] five subgroups (excellent; very good; good; acceptable; weak) indicated that for (gpa), a significant difference occurred between excellent and weak [gpa] levels and also between very good and the other [gpa] subgroups except excellent group, with very good students having significantly higher satisfaction with life (sls) scores than students in good, acceptable and weak (gpa) groups. for perceptions of health [ph] five subgroups, a significant difference in (sls) occurred between excellent and the other four [ph] subgroups, with excellent group having significantly higher satisfaction with life scores, and also between very good and the other three [ph] subgroups except acceptable group, with very good having significantly higher satisfaction with life scores than students in good and weak (ph) groups. furthermore, a significant difference in total (total depressive symptomstotds) occurred between excellent and the other four [ph] subgroups and also between very good and the other three [ph] subgroups except acceptable group, with very good having significantly higher satisfaction with life scores than students in good and weak (ph) groups. secondly, pair-wise comparisons were conducted for substance abuse and for financial difficulties subgroups (yes-no). the results indicated that substance abuse non-users students having significantly higher satisfaction with life, and lower tot depressive symptoms scores, than students who indicated their usage of different types of drugs. students who stated not facing financial difficulties reported significantly higher satisfaction with life and higher internality scores, and lower tot depressive symptoms and lower externality (chance) scores, than students who suffered from these difficulties. 2 further preliminary statistical analyses for gender differences in depression by using (anova) revealed that there was a statistically significant effect for gender variable (f(1, 490)= 11,99, p<05) in the total ces-d scores, in favor of females (females, m=23.85, sd.11.39; males, m=20.16, sd.10.76). depressive symptoms and their correlates 89 control style for negative events contributing for 2%. table 5 shows a summary of the regression analyses. table 5. stepwise multiple regression of cognitive variables on depressive symptoms scores (n=492). predicting variables r r2 adjusted r2 standardiz ed coefficien ts f p satisfaction with life 0.472 0.223 0.221 -.472 140.63 0.000* * externality (chance) 0.489 0.239 0.236 -.455 76.87 0.000* * ** significant at the 0.001 level. discussion the purpose of this study was to establish estimates of the prevalence of depressive symptoms, and correlates of depressive symptoms, with locus of control and satisfaction with life among university students. the results showed a great ratio of depressive symptoms among hu students, almost half of collegeaged individuals had a major depression, and one-third had a moderate depression. these findings are consistent with results of some recent studies conducted in jordan (e.g., dellewany, 2006), and in other countries (e.g., blanco, et al., 2008; furr et al., 2001; kisch et al., 2005; weitzman, 2004) and indicate the global and internationality of this problem among those young adults. however, these results are in contrast with some research (e.g., kanazawa, white, & hampson, 2007; tsai, & chentsova-dutton, 2002) that asserted the impact of culture on the prevalence of experience and presentation of depressive symptoms which have been attributed to cultural differences in the conceptualization of depression. kanazawa and his colleagues (2007) attribute these differences to cultural variation in normative emotional expression: an individual’s positive emotions and open expression may be encouraged and rewarded in western individualistic cultures, while an individual’s balance and control of emotional expression may be encouraged and rewarded in non-western collectivistic cultures in order to maintain group harmony. previous research suggests that at least three cultural factors may contribute to the presentation and diagnosis of depression: cultural representations of the self, mind-body relations, and emotional regulation or expression (tsai, & chentsova-dutton, 2002). europe’s journal of psychology 90 this discrepancy may be related to the different samples used with respect to socio-demographic variables, or to the varying methods of assessment used across studies to measure depression in members of these populations (culbertson, 1997). for instance, some researchers used the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale while others used the beck depression inventory-ii to assess level of depression. this makes accurate comparisons among studies impossible and, more importantly, does not allow the literature to develop a consistent and clear understanding of depression in a particular culture group. consequently, the discrepancy in the results of this literature deserves further attention in order to identify what factors are contributing to contradictory findings in cross-cultural studies. additionally, the center for epidemiological studies-depression scale (ces-d) is used mostly for initial screening of symptoms related to depression or psychological distress (radloff, 1977). the ces-d has also been used extensively for research purposes to investigate levels of depression among the nonpsychiatric population. however, because the ces-d does not assess the fullrange of depression symptoms (for example, it does not assess suicidality) and because it assesses the occurrence of the symptoms during the past week, the (ces-d) authors cautioned against relying on the ces-d exclusively. accordingly, we may conclude that psychiatric individuals require more elaborate tools to generate accurate and meaningful diagnostic data (culbertson, 1997; radloff, 1977). we may cite what furr and his colleagues (2001) asserted that students’ self-reports of depressive symptoms produce much higher rates than reports of clinical diagnoses of depression, with up to 53 percent of students reporting having experienced depression since beginning college. furthermore, this finding bears to be interpreted in light of the large number of female participants (66%) in our study sample that may raise the ratio of depression. gender difference in depression is among the most robust of findings in psychopathology research. estimates are that, in adulthood, twice as many women as men are depressed (see hyde, mezulis, & abramson, 2008). specifically, nolen-hoeksema (1990, 2001) reported also that the culture of a country is a significant determinant of female-male differences in depression. of the studies she included in her analyses, women were diagnosed as having depressive disorders significantly more frequently than men, at a 2:1 ratio. she also found that women reported a greater number of depressive symptoms than did men. depressive symptoms and their correlates 91 while gender differences in depression2 were beyond the scope of our stydy, and were not included in this study, we consider gender and depression in college students' groups an important further next research step. overall, the universality of this finding has prompted some (wupperman, 2003) to suggest that college students' greater tendency toward depression may involve inherent biological or genetic cause, although little evidence for such a cause has been found. the results of this study suggest that this high prevalence rate of depression and vulnerability factors leading to depression may be more a function of social trends than they are a function of actual psychiatric disorder. in addition, the results confirmed the relationships between the two cognitive constructs (locus of control, satisfaction with life), and depressive symptoms, among students at hu. significant positive correlations were found among internality locus of control (ihlc), externality powerful others, and satisfaction with life (sls). additionally, the internality was negatively correlated with two subscales of depressive symptoms [reversed positive affect and interpersonal difficulties] and tot depressive symptoms. in contrast, externality chance (chlc) was correlated positively with powerful others, the four subscales of depressive symptoms [depressive affect, somatic, reversed positive affect, interpersonal difficulties] and tot depressive symptoms, and negatively with satisfaction with life (sls). significant negative correlations were found also among satisfaction with life (sls), the four subscales of depressive symptoms depressive symptoms and tot depressive symptoms. additionally, significant positive correlations were found among scores in total depressive symptoms and the scores in four subscales of ces-d, and further proved high internal consistency for the scale among the study sample of college students. these sets of correlational results are congruent with findings of some research (e.g., afifi, 2007; afifi et al., 2006; benassi et al., 1988; rapaport et al., 2005; vandervoort, luis, & hamilton, 2007). specifically, they suggest that issues about control are related to negative affect and indicate the often-cited relationship of an external locus of control to depression. in addition, these results go in line and support beck’s (1967) cognitive theory on depression, which emphasizes the importance of adaptive beliefs in mood state. although they are in contrast with the revised theory of learned helplessness (abramson, seligman, & teasdale, 1978), which predicts that internal expectations lead to learned europe’s journal of psychology 92 helplessness and depression. these findings do not, however, support the view that depression is associated with different types of external locus of control, but rather suggest a unified set of locus of control beliefs underlying the four types of depressive symptoms. in addition, evidence is provided for the external validity of the multidimensional health locus of control (mhlc) scales with respect to mental health. furthermore, results indicate that satisfaction with life is related to academic achievement. these results revealed that earning high-level grades influences students’ perception significantly. happier individuals appear to seek learning goals; that is, they are more interested in gaining knowledge or selfimprovement [83]. additionally, we found that a significant relationship exists between substance abuse, depressive symptoms and dissatisfaction with life. specifically, those who depend on drugs, alcohol, and abuse tranquillizing/stimulating medications, compared to their non-dependent counterparts, seem more depressed, have more somatic complaints and are less satisfied with their lives. these results were supported by numerous studies (e.g., blanco et al., 2008; weitzman, 2004), and endorsed the fact that college youth who suffer from depression may be especially vulnerable to complications with alcohol. in addition, the consumption of alcohol to cope with depressive symptoms seems to increase the chances of subsequent alcohol abuse (cooper, russell, & george, 1988). moreover, the results showed that financial difficulties place burdens on college students to the degree that affects their beliefs and interpretations of these bad stressful events they are facing, leading them to feel distressed and depressed. those with financial problems are perceiving less control over their behavior, less belief that they control their own destiny. in contrast, they believe more that their lives are determined mainly by sources outside themselves chance or powerful others. consequently, they are less satisfied with their lives, and more depressed. experiences in continuously adverse circumstances do not make life appear to be subject to control through one’s own efforts. perceived lack of control produces a feeling of helplessness and loss of hope, and diminishes an individual’s will power (lefcourt, 1991). these results imply that depressive symptoms in young adulthood seem to be like depression in adolescence (kinderman, & bentall, 1997). we found that these maladaptive symptoms are associated with such negative outcomes as academic problems, substance abuse (cigarette smoking, alcohol and drug abuse) and impaired social relationships. depressive symptoms and their correlates 93 further, the results indicate that perception of one’s health may play a significant role in one’s mental health. the health behavior model of the relationship between satisfaction with life, depression and physical health is sufficient to explain the relationship (vandervoort et al., 2007). lastly, linear regression analysis indicated that twenty-four (0.239) percent of the variance in depressive symptoms was explained by the two cognitive constructs: satisfaction with life (sls) and externality chance, with satisfaction with life accounting for the most of this variance (22%), stand as the best predictors for depressive symptoms among hu students. these results are consistent with the cognitive model of depression, asserting the role of cognitive processing in emotion and behavior is a paramount factor in determining how an individual perceives, interprets, and assigns meaning to an event. moreover, these results bear interpretation in light of the alienation model(twenge et al., 2004), outlined in the introduction, where college students increasingly believed that their lives were controlled by outside forces rather than their own efforts. apparently, the larger social forces leading to increased externality reach those young adults, leading them to be less satisfied with life and more depressed. conclusions and implications scientifically, this study supports past research indicating the importance of student belief system as a predictor of student mental health. also, it provides further evidence to the importance of locus of control for effective coping behavior in the case of negative life events (i.e., low grades, financial difficulties, health problems). when faced with these events, internals tend to adopt a problem-solving strategy while the externals tend to react emotionally, for example by being sad or angry (sarason & sarason, 1989, p. 441). consequently, internals are able to leave their disappointments behind them and live happily. externals, on the other hand, continue to carry their burdens into their future and hence are often depressed. however, both scientifically and educationally this research fits well with the current emphasis on improving the positive elements of colleges proactively rather than retroactively trying to “fix” problems that emerge. it is important that this “reverse” (positive, proactive) view becomes part of the educational and public understanding of student success. more than that, we need to europe’s journal of psychology 94 distinguish the important components of well-being, such as the cognitive and affective components, as they relate to the educational enterprise. findings of this study, specifically the high rate of depressive symptoms among college students, hold implications for depressive symptoms interventions, such as expanding psychoeducation courses to include strategies for enhancing and maintaining a sense of personal control and self-actualization. this mental health disorder in this population can be effectively treated with evidencebased psychosocial and pharmacological approaches. specifically, cognitive behavior therapy (cbt) addresses these social cognitive processes in the context of a therapeutic relationship. prior studies have shown that cognitive behavior therapy is effective in the treatment of adolescent and young adult depression. accordingly, establishing a skills building psycho-educational course, with a strong emphasis on behavioral skills training, in the campuses, will be effective in the treatment of college student depression (lewinsohn, clarke, hops, & andrews, 1990; reinecke, ryan, & dubois, 1998). beck and weishaar (1989) believe that in order to treat depression, clients need to treat their maladaptive interpretations and conclusions as testable hypotheses. the role of the therapist in a cognitive-behavioral intervention is to help the clients examine alternative interpretations and to produce contradictory evidence that support more adaptive patterns. according to the cognitive theory of depression proposed by beck, "the behavioral consequences of psychopathology will depend on the content of cognitive structuring" (beck & weishaar, 1989, p. 293). this relationship between therapist and client can be called collaborative empiricism because it involves a collaborative enterprise between therapist and clients in order to produce therapeutic change. we may also suggest that involvement of students in extracurricular activities, whether sports or community service may help those at risk for depression (hellandsjbّu, watten, foxcroft, ingebrigtsen, & relling, 2002). limitations and research recommendations several limitations should be taken into consideration when interpreting the results of the present study. firstly, the use of retrospective reports of the frequency of experienced emotions instead of structured direct assessments. depressive symptoms and their correlates 95 these self-evaluations include the possibility of having depression, the figure tends to be higher, and could easily be affected by memory biases. the second potential limitation pertains in several ways to the sample used in this study. although a simple random sampling of undergraduate students was used to allow for a large sample, as well as for a more diverse sample better representing the general population, the sample consisted mostly of female students, since the participation was voluntary and required written consent from participants (response rate was 80.6%). a disadvantage of this strategy, in addition to the possibility of that certain significant attributes may be were under or over represented, is that this sample consisted of a large number of participants who were specifically from hu campus. this sample does not represent the whole community of college students in other jordanian universities, which encompass the real characteristics of these young people from different jordanian cities. consequently, each of these factors mentioned above may limit the generalizability of results (e.g., the large number of female participants may have precluded finding significant high ratio of depression prevalence). therefore, a larger representative college student sample with an equal number of male and female participants from different colleges and various ses may demonstrate a larger and/or different effect size, in both the depressive symptoms, and cognitive constructs. the interrelationship of mental health problems and their clustering by group and college are important considerations for prevention and treatment. thirdly, our results are limited to the scales used. for example, the ces-d which was used as a measure of depressive symptoms is usually used for initial screening of symptoms related to depression or psychological distress. therefore, it is suggested that the scale be used only as an indicator of symptoms relating to depression, not as a means to clinically diagnose depression. using a longer but more psychometrically sound measure of the same personality constructs, such as the depression adjective check lists (dacl; lubin, 1981; lubin, swearngin, & seaton, 1992), may have been more sensitive in detecting certain personality characteristics or more reliable in distinguishing differing personality styles. a replication of the current study may also yield additional significant findings if conducted on a more homogeneous sample, particularly a self-described europe’s journal of psychology 96 depressed sample. much of the previous research conducted on depression has been done with clinically diagnosed samples. moreover, another possible limitation of the present study on depressive symptoms, locus of control, and satisfaction with life pertains to the statistical approach used to examine the associations between these constructs. to the extent that previous studies relied upon analysis of observed data without accounting for error of measurement, the results of such studies are at best biased estimates of the particular associations. as such, a more sophisticated data analytic approach is considered helpful in elucidating the relationships among these constructs. furthermore, the last limitation relates to the demographic predictors that were not included in this study, and accordingly, prevent discovering some important data. this supports further analyses and replication with these kinds of predictors. however, it was not the intention of our study to report how gender, socioeconomic status, students' faculty, year, or interaction between these factors affected depression differently among those students. determining the prevalence of depression in college students and their correlates with locus of control and satisfaction with life was the purpose of this research. clearly, replication of this study's results on different samples and with different scales is essential. further research will be required to determine the effect of gender on depression, locus of control and satisfaction with life, whether the lower mean score of externality locus of control is the result of lower reporting of depression on this instrument (ces-d), the actual experiencing of less depression, or a social desirability effect. further studies might also evaluate whether gender or socioeconomic status has played a role in these results. biafora (1995) found that by controlling for socioeconomic status, differences in depression scores among students from different races could be eliminated. additionally, investigations should attempt to ascertain what places college students at a lower risk of developing depression than non-college students. finally, despite these limitations, the present study has successfully provided some useful information for planning and designing effective counseling interventions. colleges and 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(2003). differences in depression as a function of gender roles and rumination. unpublished master thesis. university of north texas. retrieved january 11, 2009 from www.library.unt.edu/theses/open/20033/wupperman_peggilee/thesis.pdf about the authors: jehad alaedein zawawi, ph.d. counseling psychology, is assistant professor, department of educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, hashemite universityjordan. her research interests include prevention group counseling, gender-based personality differences, and mental & physical health counseling rehabilitation. she is also a teacher of theories of counseling, group and family counseling for undergraduate and graduate students. e-mail: jehadala@hu.edu.jo shaher h. hamaideh, ph.d. psychiatric-mental health nursing –adults, is assistant professor, department of community & mental health nursing, at the faculty of nursing, hashemite university-jordan. his research interests focus on mental illness stress, coping addiction and substance abuse and women's mental health stress. he is also a teacher of mental health nursing, education and group counseling for undergraduate and graduate nursing students. e-mail: shaher29@hu.edu.jo microsoft word 4. memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement .doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 40-51 www.ejop.org memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement among iranian adolescents fayegh yousefi1 marُof redzuan2, mariani bte mansor2 mansor abu talib2, rumaya bte juhari2 1department of psychiatry, faculty of medicine, kurdistan university of medical science, pasdarran st., sanandaj-iran 2-faculty of human ecology, universiti putra malaysia abstract the purpose of this paper is to determine the mediation effect of memory on the relationship between depression and academic achievement. the paper is based on a study, which was carried out among adolescents in iran. the respondents of the study were 400 adolescents (200 males and 200 females) in the age range of 15-19 years old. instruments used for data collection were the beck depression inventory (21 items) and the wechsler memory scale – 3rd edition (wms-iii). the finding shows that depression significantly affected academic achievement and this relationships is mediated by memory (z=1.65, p≤ 0.). thus, it is recommended to enhance academic achievement and mental health in school settings, support strategies such as educational guidance and counseling. teaching life skill programs and psychotherapy should be promoted. keywords – depression, memory, adolescents, academic achievement introduction education is vital for every country in the world, and iran is not an exception; a strong and effective education can help boost the development of the country. however, academic failure is one of the major problems the families, society and government. memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement 41 furthermore, the rate of academic failure among high schools students is high in iran. for instance, amin far (2002) found that 65 percent of students (girls) from rural areas and 34 percent of students (boys) from urban areas experience academic failure. according to the education organization of sanandaj (2007), 27 percent of high school students have academic problems. also, 28 percent, 27 percent and 11.55 percent of them in first grade, second grade, and third grade respectively had dropped out of school. in addition, hamidian (2006) indicated that usd 50 million is needed to solve academic failure in western azerbaijan province in iran. many factors affect academic achievement. one of them is depression. depression has a high prevalence and relationship with both memory and academic achievement. depression markers are: persistent sadness, discouragement, loss of self-worth and interest in daily activities. true depression in teens is often difficult to diagnose because normal adolescent behavior is marked by both up and down moods. these moods may alternate over a period of hours or days (mackenzie, gover, armstrong & mitchell, 2001). depression has an effect on academic achievement. research has indicated that depressed mood is negatively related to academic achievement (chen and li, 2000, and sanders, 2001, cited in, modabber-nia, moosavi & fallahi, 2006). thus, the major aim of the current study is to describe the role of depression on academic achievement mediated by memory. literature review a) depression among adolescents it was estimated that 14 percent of the adolescents aged 12 to 17 (approximately 3.5 million adolescents) had a major depressive episode (mde) in their lifetime, and an estimated of 9.0 percent (2.2 million adolescents) experienced at least one mde in the past year. american adolescents aged 16 or 17 were more than twice as likely to report past year mde as compared to those aged 12 or 13 (12.3 % vs. 5.4 % ) in 2004 (hallfors, waller, bauer, ford & halpern, 2005; rockville, 2005) it is important to realize that many factors such as cultural, location, and samples differences are related to prevalence of depression. a piece of research which used beck’s depression questionnaire found that 34 percent of the respondents suffered from depression among 4020 high school students in rasht, north of iran (modabber-nia et al., 2006). hossaini and mousavi (2004) found that 44.3 percent of the high school students, and masood zadeh (2002) found that 39.1 percent of high school students in iran had depression. also, ghahari (2004) reported that 27 percent of students were depressed in iran .while, frojd, nissinen & pelkonen et al. (2008) indicated that the rate of depression among american adolescents were 18.4 percent for girls and 11.1 for percent boys. europe’s journal of psychology 42 similarly, another survey in usa which used a summarized self-administered beck’s questionnaire, reported severe depression in 18 percent of 8,206 adolescents (kandel & davies, 1988; cited in modabber-nia et al., 2006).). although the rate of depression seemed to be higher in those with low socio-economic status, there is no strong evidence to support this hypothesis (akiskal, 2000; murray, lopez & hughes, 1998; poznanski & mokros, 1994; cited in modabber-nia et al., 2006). b) depression, memory and academic achievement from his research, airaksinen, wahlin, forsell and larsson (2006) found that depression has an impact on memory performance among respondents. moreover, pine, lissek, klein et al. (2004) indicated that there were significant relationships between memory performance, age and gender. data from their study showed that there were associations between memory performance and major depression [f (2,351) = 3.3; p < .05], mean that depression significantly decreased memory performance. furthermore, park, goodyear & teasdle (2002) found that depression affected and impaired the memory capacity among adolescents. in addition, mowla, ashkani, ghanizadeh, dehbozorgi, sabayan & choherdri (2007) showed that memory performance, through subtests of the wechsler memory scale-iii, was related to depression. in addition, torzandjani (2006) found that depression impacted on subdivisions of memory such as mind control, visual memory and learning of association. it means that depression impairs attention and concentration. to elaborate this process, information processing theory (atkinson and schifrin, 1968) is employed to explain the effect of depression on memory. according this theory, when concentration and attention are impaired, short term memory could not transfer information to long term memory. as mentioned above, depression prevents the transferring of information from short-term memory to longterm memory. in other words, for transformation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory; students must focus attention and concentration. at this stage, depression disrupt this process, and therefore, memory is impaired due to inability to memorize and recall the information (eggen & kauchak, 2004; raulin et al., 2003). moreover, depressed people with and without memory complaints had lower scores on the wechsler memory scale-iii than the control group. furthermore, rohing & cogin (1993) found that depression has an impact on memory dysfunction, especially in older adults. similarly, an de decker, hermans, raes and eelen (2003) showed that depression, anxiety, worry, hopelessness, or subjective stress, were significantly related to the retrieval of specific memories. also, afshar (2004) found that mean of memory which memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement 43 was measured by wechsler memory scale –3rd editions (wms-iii) in depressed, alzheimer and normal groups was 47, 37 and 55 respectively. annett, bender & gordon (2007) in their study in the usa with 939 children ages 6-12 years old without neuropsychological problems, showed that memory was strongly related to academic achievement (p ≤ .001). meanwhile, annett, bender, & gordon (2007), in their study among 939 children with 6-12 years old without neuropsychological problems in america, found that memory was strongly related to academic achievement (p ≤ .001). moreover, wilding, andrews & heidelberg (2007), in their study among 90 undergraduate students in united kingdom, found that there were correlations between working memory and second year examination performance. in addition, schwartz & gorman (2003) in their study with 199 elementary students at usa; wintre & colleen, (2007) ; newman, griffen,, o′connor & spas (2007), reported that depression was related to academic achievement . research methodology this study was carried out in sanandaj, iran. the population of the study consisted of 33 high schools in sanandaj province. nine schools were selected randomly. from these schools, 400 students (in the age range of 15-19 years old) were selected randomly as the respondents of the study. depression was measured using the beck depression inventory (bdi). the beck depression inventory is a 21-item self-report rating inventory measuring the characteristic attitudes and symptoms and level of depression among respondents (beck, steer, and garbin, 1988).the respondents were asked to answer each of the questions expressing their current feeling. the internal consistency for the bdi ranges from 0.73 to 0.92 with a mean of 0.86 (beck et al., 1988). similar reliabilities have been found for the 13-item short form (groth-marnat, 1990). the bdi demonstrates high internal consistency with cronbach’s alpha co-efficient of 0.86 and 0.81 for psychiatric and non-psychiatric populations respectively (beck et al., 1988). in this study, bdi was adapted for iranian culture (mansour & dadsetan, 1988). according to mohammad-jafar modabber-nia et al. (2007), beck’s standardized questionnaire scores are defined as follows: symptom-free or normal (0 – 15) mild depression (16 – 30) europe’s journal of psychology 44 moderate depression (31 – 46) severe depression (47 – 63). meanwhile, memory was measured by wechsler memory scale –3rd edition (wms iii). the reliability coefficients for the wms-iii primary subtests and primary indexes were on average found to be higher than the wms-r. internal consistency reliability coefficients ranged from 0.70s to the 0.90s. in addition, data from the current study shows the reliability of the wms-iii, based on cronbach’s alpha, was 0.68. in terms of academic achievement, the study follows the rules of the ministry of education in iran, in which the cumulative grade point average (cgpa) is categorized into four categories: 0 to 9.99 is considered fail; score of 10 to 14.99 is considered as weak; score of 15 to 16.99 is considered as moderate, and finally, score of 17 to 20 is considered as excellent. moreover, students were asked, about their previous year cumulative academic achievement (0.00–20.00). the results of the study are presented as descriptive statistics, which include frequency and percentage distributions for level of depression and academic achievement variables. statistical analyses employed in this study sobel test. this analysis is based on baron & kenny’s theory (1986), specifically to determine the mediation effect of memory on relationship between depression and academic achievement. according to baron & kenny’s theory (1986), there are four conditions regarding mediating variables. firstly, the predictor must be significantly related to the outcome variable. secondly, the predictor variable must be significantly associated with the mediator. thirdly, the mediator must be significantly associated with the outcome variable. finally, to establish the significance of the mediator, the relationship between the predictor and the outcome variables must be reduced after entering the mediator into the equation. results of the analysis the respondents in the current study were 200 (50%) male and 200 (50%) female students. the age range of the respondents is 15 to 19 years old, and is divided into three categories 43 percent aged 15 to 16; 38 percent aged 17 to 18, and the last group, i.e. 17 percent aged 19 years old (see table 1). meanwhile, 3 percent of the respondents reported their academic achievement was less than 9.99, while 43.8 percent, 26.2 percent and 27 percent of them reported their academic achievement to be 10-4.99, 15-16.99 and more than 17, respectively (see table 2). in terms of the level of depression experienced by the respondents, the results show memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement 45 that 70.5 percent of the respondents were symptom-free or normal, while 22.3 percent of them were mildly depressed, 3 percent of respondents were moderately depressed, and 2.8 percent of them had severe depression (insomnia, hypersonic, concentration and attention problems etc) . table 1: the age range of the respondents (n=400) age range n % 15 – 16 174 43.5 17 – 18 155 38.5 >19 71 17.8 table 2: the academic achievement levels and depression level of the respondents (n=400) academic achievement levels (scores) n percent 0-9.99 12 3.0 10-14.99 175 43.8 15-16.99 105 26.2 more than 17 108 27.0 total 400 100.0 depression levels (scores) 0-15 (symptom-free or normal) 282 70.5 16-30 (mild depression 95 23.7 31-46 (moderate depression) 12 3.0 47-63 (severe depression) 11 2.8 total 400 100.0 table 3: the sobel test results related to the influence of depression on academic achievement mediated by memory mediated pathway standardized coefficients sobel test result b s.e. z p depression→ memory →academic achievement .053* .027** 1.65 0.04 memory .065*** .021**** * the regression coefficient for the relationship between depression and memory. ∗∗ the standard error of the relationship between the depression and the memory. ∗∗∗ the regression coefficient for the relationship between the memory and the academic achievement. ∗∗∗∗ the standard error of the relationship between the memory and the academic achievement. europe’s journal of psychology 46 table 2 shows the result of sobel test. the main purpose of the test was to determine the mediation effect of memory on relationship between depression and academic achievement. the result shows that memory mediates the relationship between depression and academic achievement. in other words, depression significantly affected academic achievement mediated by memory. (z=1.65, p≤ 0.04). discussions the finding of the study shows that memory is an important mediating variable. the finding of this study implies that memory would mediate the relationship between depression and academic achievement. it means that depression had indirect effect on academic achievement mediated by memory. as mentioned earlier, 43.8% of respondents were labeled as weak and 3% of respondents as failed in 2008. findings from the current study are different from the findings of daskzan (2005); mozafari (2003) & nosrati shoar (2003). the differences might be due to different sample size, motivation of the students, school’s activities, different objectives and design of the studies. for instance, in this present study, academic achievement was investigated in regard to depression and memory; meanwhile the previous studies were carried out only on factors of academic achievement, such as the rate of academic failure. moreover, the samples of the study conducted by nosrati shoar (2003) were elementary students. these findings confirm those of pine et al. (2004), an de decker (2003) and park et al. (2002), who found that students with symptoms of depression are predisposed to focus their attention on interfering, irrelevant thoughts, leaving little sustained attention available for cognitive tasks which leads to academic failure. many of the school activities and homework depend on the ability to sustain attention and concentration. thus, depression disrupts concentration and attention in school which, consequently, is likely to undermine academic performance, and also, researchers indicated that depressed mood is negatively related to academic achievement (chen & li 2000, and sanders 2001, cited in needham, 2006). in addition, depression is one of the mental disorders which bring many problems for a society, especially high school students. the current study shows that around 30 percent of the respondents were depressed. these results, however, were different from other research. for instance, based on hallfors et al. (2005), it was estimated that 14 percent of the adolescents aged 12 to 17 had experienced at least one major depressive episode (mde) in their lifetime, and an estimated of 9.0 percent of them experienced at least one mde in the past. adolescents aged 16 or 17 were memory as a mediator between depression and academic achievement 47 more than twice as likely to report past mde compared to those aged 12 or 13 (12.3 % vs. 5.4 %). the current study, also, differs from the studies by modabber-nia et al. (2006), hossaini mousavi (2004) and masood zadeh et al. (2002). the disagreement may be related to the using of different tools for measurement of depression, different sample size, motivation of respondents to respond, and the subjects’ lifestyle. on the other hand, it is important to note that depression among high school students in the current study and other iranian studies (modabber-nia et al., 2006; hossaini & mousavi, 2004, and masood zadeh et al., 2002) found the prevalence of depression in iran more than the other countries such as usa and england. this difference may be related to cultural differences concerning psychosocial stress, and difference in the application of concepts such as self evaluation, social self-confidence, and adaptive behavioral styles (modabber-nia et al. 2006). this might also related to the type of their view regarding the self and the world. for example, based on the beck depression theory (1977), negative view about self, future and world would lead to low self esteem, hopelessness and depression. however, the result of the present study is in agreement with the results of the study carried out by annett et.al (2004), who found that, there was a significant relationship between depression and memory performance [f(2,351)=3.3; p≤.05]. in addition, the results of the present study also confirm with the results of the studies by park et al. (2002) and mowla et al. (2007), who indicated that depression has an impact on memory. park et al. (2002) showed that depression had impact on memory among adolescents. in addition, mowla et al. (2007) reported that depression affects memory performance. conclusion the present study has proved that memory is a significant mediating variable between depression and academic achievement. in other words, among adolescents, memory is mediated between depression and academic achievement. the finding of this study implies that depression among adolescents could affect their learning process and other school activities. moreover, depression could affect their learning motivation, and also their ability to pay attention and concentration in learning, and this could lead to academic failure. thus, authorities that are concerned with the academic achievement of the children should take preventive actions, such as developing programs related to counseling and psychotherapy. to prevent the incidence of depression among students, the ministry of education should organize practical programs such as individual and group europe’s journal of psychology 48 counseling. these programs could help and support students, where they can increase their abilities to perform better in school. references afshar, h. 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(2007). peer relationships and academic achievement as interacting predictors of depressive symptoms during middle childhood. canadian journal of behavioral science 39: 220-234. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 40-61 www.ejop.org talking about traumatic events: a cross-cultural investigation simone freitag anna grimm silke schmidt department health & prevention, institute of psychology, ernst-moritz-arndt university, greifswald abstract individuals are facing traumatic situations like natural crises (like floods, earthquakes) and man-made disasters (terroristic attacks) incrementally. traumatic events are related to psychological consequences for survivors (depression, posttraumatic stress disorder). the experience of a traumatic event can be disclosed through narratives, which can be linguistically analyzed with the linguistic inquiry and word count (liwc). in this study, cultural and temporal differences in narratives about different traumatic events in seven european countries are investigated. 132 survivors, who experienced a traumatic situation, reported their experiences in focus groups and interviews. the transcripts of narratives were analyzed with the liwc2007 (pennebaker, chung, ireland, gonzales & booth, 2007). regarding the liwc categories affective and cognitive processes, event characteristics as well as cultural and temporal differences were explored. results show that traumatic situations are reported with a greater amount of negative emotion words. cultural differences regarding the liwc categories are found between the seven european countries. a temporal factor, considering days elapsed between an event and narrative, was investigated. temporal differences in cognitive word use, but not for affective contents, were recognized. this study was able to show tendencies of cultural diversity in the expression of traumatic events in survivors of seven european countries as well as to explore a temporal factor, which is related to a retrospective way of narration. keywords: traumatic event, crisis, liwc, affective, emotion, cognition, word use. societies are threatened by events like hurricanes, floods, fires and nowadays by terroristic activities like the world trade center (wtc) attacks on september, 11th http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 41 2001 or the london tube bombings in 2005. in fact, societies are affected by a lot of threats, which can cause severe impact on population in terms of increased prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorders (ptsd; (galea, et al., 2002; kessler, sonnega, bromet, hughes, & nelson, 1995; miguel-tobal, et al., 2006; schlenger, et al., 2002). most threats can be categorized as natural disasters versus human-made disasters (marsella, johnson, watson, & gryczynski, 2008, p. 7). natural disasters are characterized as event over which humans have no control like flood, fire and earthquake. therefore, only preventive strategies can be employed (marsella, et al., 2008). the experience of a flood followed by the loss of property is related to increased psychological health issues (carroll, morbey, balogh, & araoz, 2009). experiencing an earthquake and being rescued is associated with increased distress and high prevalence of ptsd even four years after the events’ occurrence (livanou, et al., 2005). surviving a residential fire is also accompanied by heightened distress (keane, pickett, jepson, mccorkle, & lowery, 1994). humanor man-made disasters are directly linked with human behavior in terms of accidents, violence and human failures like terrorist attacks, war or rape (marsella, et al., 2008). terrorist attacks like the wtc attack on september 11th 2001 or the madrid train bombings in march 2004 are accompanied by increased prevalence for major depression and ptsd (galea, et al., 2002; miguel-tobal, et al., 2006; schlenger, et al., 2002). linguistic analysis research has shown that such traumatic events have long-term effects on the individual’s health. hence, little is known about the individuals’ cognition and emotions during and after a traumatic event. useful sources to investigate individuals’ perception of traumatic events are personal narratives about it (smyth, hockemeyer, & tulloch, 2008; smyth, true, & souto, 2001). therefore, the specific choice of words can be an indicator of the internal processes of the individual that experienced the event. the emotional state of a writer can be reflected in his/her words; anger is expressed by an increased use of negative emotion words whereas joy is expressed through positive emotion words (gill, french, gergle, & oberlander, 2008). several studies have demonstrated that writing about a traumatic event is accompanied by an increased use of words reflecting emotions and cognition (cohn, mehl, & pennebaker, 2004; gortner & pennebaker, 2003; pennebaker & francis, 1996). written narratives can be analyzed with the computerized quantitative text analysis software, the linguistic inquiry and word count (latest version liwc2007) developed by pennebaker, chung, ireland, gonzales & booth (2007). the software counts words of texts by default word categories. liwc2007 contains about 80 categories like the talking about traumatic events 42 file name, general descriptor categories (total word count, words per sentence), linguistic dimensions (pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs) and amongst others word categories tapping psychological constructs (affect, cognition, biological processes) (further categories in liwc 2007 manual, pennebaker et al., 2007). exemplified in table 1 are the categories for affect and cognition words including subcategories, abbreviations and example words. a sentence containing the word “nice” would increase the subcategory “positive affect” as well as the superior category ”affective processes” by percentage. table 1: liwc2007 content categories of affective and cognitive processes, with subcategories, abbreviation and examples extracted from (pennebaker, chung, et al., 2007, p. 5) category abbreviation examples affective processes affect happy, cried, abandon positive emotion posemo love, nice, sweet negative emotion negemo hurt, ugly, nasty anxiety anx worried, fearful, nervous anger anger hate, kill, annoyed sadness sad crying, grief, sad cognitive processes cogmech cause, know, ought insight insight think, know, consider causation cause because, effect, hence discrepancy discrep should, would, could tentative tentat maybe, perhaps, guess certainty certain always, never inhibition inhib block, constrain, stop inclusive incl and, with, include as demonstrated, a lot of studies and findings are available for the word categories affective and cognitive processes. liwc analysis of students’ essays about traumatic and neutral events revealed that writings about traumatic events contained more emotion related words than writings about neutral topics (pennebaker & beall, 1986). the expression of cognition and emotions in a disclosure task was found to increase positive growth after a trauma over time (ulrich & lutgendorf, 2002). an increased use of cognitive words was more associated with health improvement than emotion word use (pennebaker, mehl, & niederhoffer, 2003). liwc is sensitive to identify overall emotional expression (.88). satisfying reliabilities for positive (.80) and negative emotions (.78) were found (bantum & owen, 2009). europe’s journal of psychology 43 linguistic characteristics of traumatic events as demonstrated, the experience of traumatic events is associated with a heightened likelihood of psychological impairment like ptsd, depression and anxiety disorders. personal experiences, which are told or written, are related to specific linguistic patterns (groom & pennebaker, 2002). whether certain types of events are linked with certain linguistic patterns has not yet been analyzed. are there hints of how narratives about traumatic events are linguistically characterized? narratives of negative life events with an emotional impact to the individual were characterized by an increased number of words, a greater number of sentences and they contained more emotional words compared to events without emotional impact (rullkoetter, et al., 2009). writing about cultural or community-wide upheavals was related to an increased use of first person plural “we” (chung & pennebaker, 2007). interviews with female sexual assault victims revealed a higher amount of words related to death and dying, which was associated with a poor perception of physical health and lower well-being. a greater use of cognitive words was related to less anxiety after a treatment (alvarezconrad, zoellner, & foa, 2001). in this study different traumatic events are examined in terms of their linguistic characteristics, affective and cognitive word use. do cultural differences appear in the linguistic expression of traumatic events? yeomans, forman, eshun, & gurung (2009) explored the cultural factors in handling traumatic stress. individuals of different cultures vary in the extent to which they express distress; for example, asians are more reluctant to express distress in public. differences between north-american and east-asian narratives were found for the use of pronouns referring to the self “i” or collective “we” (chung & pennebaker, 2007). from a psycho-linguistic point of view, cultural differences between an us and a spanish sample have been explored. fernandez, paez, & pennebaker (2009) revealed differences between spanish and american texts reporting about terroristic attacks. significant differences regarding the emotional and cognitive liwc categories in both samples were found: the us text sample comprised less affective or emotional processes than the spanish. in both samples more negative (sadness, depression) than positive emotions were expressed. regarding cognitive processes, significant differences were found for the use of causation words which was higher in spanish texts; words of discrepancy and certainty were higher in the us writings (fernandez, et al., 2009). less research has been done exploring cultural differences between european countries. this study aims to investigate whether certain type of events differ linguistically in seven different european countries. talking about traumatic events 44 does the time of disclosing a traumatic event has an impact on the way the event is narrated? temporal influences might have an impact on the content of traumatic event reports, in terms of increased use of emotion and cognition related words shortly after an event compared to the decreased use after a greater temporal distance between event and narrative. the “social stage model of collective coping” considers a temporal factor for the need to talk about a traumatic event (pennebaker & harber, 1993). it contains three stages of coping with collective traumatic events: the emergency phase is characterized by an increased need for people to talk about the event and to build a collective script of the event. the emergency phase is followed by the inhibition phase. in the inhibition phase the talking is reduced, but thoughts about the event remain. at last the adaptation phase contains a further decrease of conversations and thoughts about the event until both are finally suspended. linguistic differences between disclosed and undisclosed experiences have been investigated. pasupathi (2007) found that recently disclosed experiences were reported with a greater amount of past tense words and references to others. talking about traumatic events after months or years has not been investigated yet. in this study a temporal factor is investigated, considering the days passed between the event and the interview about the event. present study this study aims to explore the use of emotional and cognitive words in retrospective reports of survivors who experienced the following traumatic events: residential fire, flood, earthquake, bus accident, collapse of a building, terrorist attack and fire in a public building. traumatic events can be emotionally arousing; therefore emotional words are investigated to elaborate whether certain patterns of emotions are represented in narratives about the events. cognitive words are investigated due to the idea that individuals need to make sense of the incident. words referring to cognitive processes and emotions are used for causal explanatory frameworks and emotional integration to understand the event and to build a coherent narrative about it (fernandez, et al., 2009; pennebaker & seagal, 1999; smyth, et al., 2001). the comparison of texts concerning different events in a single study has not yet been investigated. this study presents narratives about the above mentioned events, which are compared in terms of emotion and cognitive word use through the liwc. narratives were obtained in face-to-face interviews and focus groups in seven european countries. first, differences between type of events that happened in at least two countries are investigated for cultural distinctions of content dimensions in reports. secondly, a temporal factor will be explored additional to the narratives. it is investigated if recent events contain a different amount of emotional and cognitive words than prior events. europe’s journal of psychology 45 method participants the sample consisted of 132 people from seven european countries (germany, united kingdom, spain, sweden, poland, czech republic and turkey). participants were recruited after having experienced one of the following types of events: residential fire, flood, terrorist attack, collapse of a building, bus accident, earthquake and/or fire in a public building. the target populations were interviewed in 32 focus groups of two to six people and in face-to-face interviews. the sample included 63 male and 66 female participants; mean age of 47.8 (sd=14.2) years. table 2 indicates the number of participants for each of the seven european countries and types of events, as well as socio-demographics of the sample. table 2: socio-demographics – count of survivors per country, type of event, injuries, fatal casualties and sex of participants n % nation germany 13 10.4 united kingdom (uk) 10 7.5 spain 11 11.3 sweden 14 10.4 poland 16 11.9 czech republic (cz) 42 31.3 turkey 23 17.2 type of event residential fire 41 31.7 flood 35 27.1 terrorist attack 11 8.5 collapse of a building 12 9.3 bus accident 9 6.9 earthquake 10 7.7 fire in public building 11 8.5 injuries yes 39 29.1 no 95 70.9 fatal casualties yes 56 41.8 no 78 58.2 sex of participant male 63 48.8 female 66 51.2 talking about traumatic events 46 procedure recruitment. various recruitment strategies were applied across the seven european countries. participants were recruited through firefighters, police as well as by general medical and emergency services after the incident. via media (newspaper, internet) and public information significant events were identified. participants were contacted personally. some centers advertised the study in newspapers and on radio stations to raise consciousness of the study and to address potential participants. contact addresses of the research teams were placed within those advertisements. inclusion criteria. participants had to experience one of the investigated situations (residential fire, flood, earthquake, collapse of a building, terrorist attack, bus accident, fire in public building). during the event participants had to be evacuated. the situation required the attendance of medical and emergency services. the experienced event must have happened within the last ten years. focus groups and interviews. focus groups and interviews were arranged at a venue of the research center or at a venue chosen by the participants for example at home. survivors, who experienced the same type of event, were interviewed in focus groups, especially in case of domestic fires, floods and earthquakes. focus groups were conducted to get access to a group of people with similar experiences. it was an economic and more natural setting for exploring participants’ thoughts and beliefs than one-on-one interviews. participants involved in unique type of events, like terrorist attacks, were interviewed face-to-face by one researcher. both, focus groups and interviews were based on a semi-structured questionnaire, which assessed the participants’ self-reported behavior, cognition and emotions at different stages of the situation. all interviews were conducted with at most two researchers. with the participants’ permission, the interviews were audio taped. the tapes were transcribed and consistently translated into english language. measurement linguistic inquiry and word count 2007 (pennebaker, booth, & francis, 2007). the transcripts were analyzed with the computerized quantitative text analysis software linguistic inquiry and word count 2007 (liwc2007; pennebaker, booth, et al., 2007) introduced before. the software is able to accept written or transcribed verbal text. the liwc 2007 contains about 80 output variables, which are written as one line of data into an output file. to give an overview, the output file includes the file name, general descriptor categories (total word count, words per sentence), standard europe’s journal of psychology 47 linguistic dimensions (pronouns, articles, verbs), categories tapping psychological constructs (affect, cognition, biological processes), categories of personal concern (work, home, leisure activities), punctuation categories (periods, commas) and some other elements (detailed list see liwc2007 manual; pennebaker, chung, et al., 2007). this research focused on the word categories tapping psychological constructs (affect, cognition). a single file or a group of files can be entered into liwc2007 at once. for each sequentially analyzed file, a single output file is displayed. the liwc 2007 software reads each word of a designated text file, whilst the dictionary file is searched. if a target word and the dictionary match, the word count of a certain category is increased. to give examples for the use of affect words: the sentence “i am afraid.” would tap among others the following liwc 2007 categories: “i” increases the categories pronoun and first person singular. the word “am” taps the categories verb and present tense. “afraid” increases word count for categories anxiety and affective processes. the english dictionary was applied. statistical analysis the statistical program stata 10.0 (statacorp, 2007) was used. at first, differences between types of events that occurred in at least two countries were investigated for distinctions. considering the small sample size of participants per type of event, non-parametric tests were used to calculate differences between countries. in case there were two countries per type of event, wilcoxon rank sum test (w) was performed. in case of more than two countries per event, kruskal-wallis equality of populations rank test (h) was performed. an additional feature for stata 10.0 was loaded, which performs the kruskal-wallis equality of populations rank test and post hoc multiple comparison tests between groups (caci, 1999). this allows the detection of overall differences as well as the location of specific group differences (bonferroni corrected alpha; =.001). secondly, it was investigated whether the time unit between the date of an event and its disclosure has an influence on the content of the retrospective report. time units were assessed in days. wilcoxon rank sum test was performed in case of two time units. for more than two units of time kruskal-wallis equality of populations rank test was required for analysis. the word usage rates of texts in this study were compared to the base rates of word usage of liwc (by means and standard deviations) in order to check whether the reports contents are as emotional as texts from emotional writing studies. talking about traumatic events 48 results descriptives. one hundred and thirty two participants were surveyed in focus groups and interviews. three participants had to be excluded, because of missing data. data was assessed by seven centers in germany, united kingdom (uk), spain, sweden, poland, czech republic (cz) and turkey. at least one type of event (residential fire, flood, terrorist attack, collapse of building, bus accident, earthquake or fire in a public building) had to be conducted by each centre. the count of participants per center and per type of event is demonstrated in table 2 and 3. the distribution of 63 male and 66 female participants is equal. the mean age is 47.8 (sd=14.2) years. injuries over all type of events happened 39 times, fatal casualties occurred 56 times. the mean age per center ranged from 38.1 (sd=9.9) to 55.7 (sd=13.8) years. a correlation was calculated to explore an influence of age on the word use of survivors. the only association between age and liwc2007 emotion categories was found for anxiety words (r=-.25, p=.02). no significant correlations were recognized between age and cognitive categories. associations between gender and affective and cognition word categories did not reach statistical significance. table 3: amount of types of events per country, socio-demographics for seven european centers germany uk spain sweden poland cz turkey total type of event residential fire flood terrorist attack collapse of building bus accident earthquake fire in public building total 6 0 3 0 0 0 4 13 2 0 8 0 0 0 0 10 5 0 0 6 0 0 0 11 2 0 0 0 5 0 7 14 10 0 0 6 0 0 0 16 7 35 0 0 0 0 0 42 9 0 0 0 4 10 0 23 41 35 11 12 9 10 11 129 sex male female 6 7 4 6 7 4 9 5 9 7 20 22 8 15 63 66 age mean sd 43.07 14.61 55.2 7.31 53.72 9.30 39.92 15.11 55.75 13.86 50.85 14.37 38.17 9.95 47.81 14.26 note. uk-united kingdom, cz –czech republic 1. comparison to base rates of liwc2007. to verify that the investigated events are equal to the narratives investigated by pennebaker (liwc2007 manual, p. 9; pennebaker, chung, et al., 2007), the means of affective and cognitive categories for the type of events were compared to the liwc base rates. regarding affective europe’s journal of psychology 49 categories, collapse of a building was close to non-emotional reports. the other type of events ranged between non-emotional and emotional reported experiences. higher scores compared to means of emotional reports were found for anxiety words in reports of bus accident and earthquake. regarding the cognition dimension, the means for each type of event lay between non-emotional and emotional texts. higher means were found for cognitive processes, insight and tentative words in reports about terrorist attacks. higher amounts of inhibition words were found for the events bus accident and earthquake. 2. explorations of differences in the expression of traumatic events between european countries. as can be seen in table 3, except for residential fire, not every event occurred in each country. only reports about the same type of events were compared to investigate the differences of emotion and cognition word use. at first, the expression of residential fire is examined. residential fire. comparing ranks for seven independent groups kruskal-wallis test was performed (see table 4). differences on the liwc 2007 affective and cognition categories were found between countries. table 4: sum of ranks per country for type of event residential fire over all seven countries; kruskalwallis test statistic (h) and p-value countries kruskal wallis germany uk spain sweden poland cz turkey h p observations 6 2 5 2 10 7 9 sum of ranks affective processes 153.0 22.0 65.5 37.0 210.5 97.0 275.5 12.81 .04* positive emotion 201.0 41.0 90.0 67.0 216.0 127.0 119.0 13.24 .03* negative emotion 94.0 20.0 77.0 19.0 214.0 111.0 326.0 21.64 .01* anxiety 86.0 35.0 80.0 18.0 181.0 130.5 330.5 21.26 .01* anger 133.0 33.0 156.0 41.0 253.0 74.0 171.0 10.81 .09* sadness 78.5 33.0 126.5 44.5 184.5 141.0 253.0 7.22 .30* cognitive processes 201.0 71.0 31.0 58.0 167.5 147.0 185.5 19.25 .01* insight 102.5 75.0 67.5 53.0 223.5 76.0 263.5 16.26 .01* cause 100.0 20.5 85.0 21.0 286.5 124.5 223.5 9.99 .12* discrepancy 131.0 30.0 48.0 39.5 205.0 199.0 208.5 8.08 .23* tentative 153.0 79.0 87.0 79.0 295.0 73.0 95.0 28.16 .01* certainty 138.5 50.5 96.0 66.5 241.0 98.5 170.0 5.92 .43* inhibition 81.5 29.5 58.0 23.0 200.5 187.0 281.5 15.46 .01* * p< .05. talking about traumatic events 50 regarding affective processes, countries differed significantly in the use of affective (h=12.81, p=.04), positive emotion (h=13.24, p=.03), negative emotion (h=21.64, p<.01) and anxiety words (h=21.26, p<.01). post hoc multiple comparison wilcoxon tests were applied. no differences for the usage of affective words in general were revealed. german narratives contained significantly more positive emotion words than turkish reports (wemp 1=20.28>wcrit 2=19.18, p=.0006). turkish reports enclosed significantly more negative emotion words compared to german (wemp=20.56>wcrit=19.18, p=.0005), spanish (wemp=20.82>wcrit=20.30, p=.0009) and czech survivor reports (wemp=20.37>wcrit=18.34, p=.0003). furthermore turkish reports included a higher amount of anxiety related words than german (wemp=22.39>wcrit=19.18, p=.0001), spanish (wemp=20.72>wcrit=20.30, p=.0009) and polish reports (wemp=18.62>wcrit=16.72, p=.0003). regarding the cognitive categories, differences were found for cognitive processes (h=19.25, p<.01), insight (h=16.26, p<.01), tentative (h=28.16, p<.01) and inhibition words (h=15.46, p<.01). post hoc tests revealed that cognitive process words were more frequently used by germans than by spanish survivors (wemp=27.30>wcrit=22.04, p=.00008). words of insight were more often used in turkish than in czech reports (wemp=18.42>wcrit=18.34, p=.001). regarding tentative words, three group comparisons showed no equal sum of ranks. turkish reports contained more tentative words than british (wemp=28.94>wcrit=28.45, p=.0009). and polish reports contained more tentative words than czech (wemp=19.07>wcrit=17.93, p=.0006) and turkish reports (wemp=18.94>wcrit=16.72, p=.0002). though the category inhibition showed overall significant differences, post hoc tests revealed no differences between countries. each of the events terrorist attack, collapse of a building, bus accident and fire in a public building were reported in two countries and revealed the following differences (see table 5). 1 the empirical found wilcoxon test statistic wemp is calculated against the critical wilcoxon test statistic wcrit; null hypothesis is wemp= wcrit and the probability p is calculated. 2 if wemp is exceeding wcrit and p<.001 (bonferroni adjusted), the null hypotheses is rejected and a significant difference between two groups can be assumed. europe’s journal of psychology 51 table 5: wilcoxon sum of ranks test (w), z-score and effect size r for two group comparisons performed for the events terrorist attack, collapse of a building, bus accident and fire in a public building note. numbers in brackets are the number of reports * p<.05 terrorist attack. the event terrorist attack was experienced by german and british survivors. reports differed on each emotion related category. the british used affective words significantly more often than germans (r=.62-.74). the same direction of differing sum of ranks was found for the cognitive liwc dimensions insight (z=-2.04, p=.04, r=-.61) and inhibition words (z=-2.25, p=.02, r=-.67). collapse of a building. experiences of the event collapse of a building were reported by spanish und polish survivors. the polish used positive emotion words more often than the spanish (z=-2.00, p=.04, r=.-57). anger words (z=1.92, p=.05, r=.55) were more frequently used by spanish survivors. the use of certainty words was significantly increased in the polish reports (z=-2.88, p=.00, r=-.83). bus accident. regarding the event bus accident, swedish and turkish reports were compared. results demonstrate significant differences regarding the affective categories: affective processes (z=-2.44, p=.01, r=-.81), positive emotion (z=-2.46, p=.01, r=-.82), negative emotion (z=-2.44, p=.01, r=-.81) and anxiety (z=-2.44, p=.01, r=-.81). turkish survivors used higher amounts of these words than swedish. regarding cognitive categories, swedish survivors used more tentative words (z=2.44, p=.01, r=.81). turkish reports contained more inhibition words (z=-1.96, p=.04, r=.-65). terrorist attack germany (3), uk (8) collapse of a building spain (6), poland (6) bus accident sweden (5), turkey (4) fire in public building germany(4), sweden(7) w z r w z r w z r w z r affective processes 23.89 2.45* .73 39.00 -1.76 -.5 16.67 -2.44* -.81 27.87 -0.47 -.14 positive emotion 23.56 2.47* .74 38.73 -2.00* -.57 16.53 -2.46* -.82 28.00 0.94 .28 negative emotion 23.89 2.45* .73 38.73 -0.56 -.73 16.67 -2.44* -.81 28.00 -1.89* -.56 anxiety 23.67 2.46* .74 38.32 -1.61 -.46 16.67 -2.44* -.81 28.00 0.56 .16 anger 23.89 2.25* .67 39.00 1.92* .55 16.67 -0.49 -.15 27.87 -2.08 * -.62 sadness 23.56 2.06* .62 38.86 -1.60 -.46 16.53 -1.23 -.41 27.87 -0.56 -.16 cognitive processes 24.00 0.00 0 39.00 -1.21 -.34 16.67 1.47 .49 28.00 0.37 .11 insight 23.89 -2.04* -.61 39.00 0.16 .04 16.67 -0.24 -.08 28.00 -1.13 -.34 cause 23.89 1.43 .43 38.86 -0.64 -.18 16.67 -1.71 -.57 28.00 -0.37 -.11 discrepancy 24.00 -1.02 -.30 38.73 -0.96 -.27 16.67 0.49 .16 28.00 0.94 .28 tentative 23.89 -0.81 -.24 39.00 -1.21 -.34 16.67 2.44* .81 27.87 0.00, 0 certainty 23.89 1.22 .36 38.86 -2.88* -.83 16.67 1.22 .40 27.87 -0.66, .19 inhibition 23.89 -2.25* -.67 39.00 0.32 .09 16.53 -1.96* -.65 27.75 -1.70, -.51 talking about traumatic events 52 fire in a public building. german and swedish survivors experienced this type of event. the swedish reported significantly more negative emotion (z=-1.89, p=.05, r=.56) and anger words (z=-2.08, p=.03, r=-.62). no differences between the sum of ranks for the cognition related word categories were found. all in all, moderate to large effect sizes for the significant comparisons can be recognized, ranging from r=.55 to .83 (rosnow & rosenthal, 2009). 3. temporal differences in retrospective reports of the same type of event. as presented previously, survivors of residential fires were interviewed across all national centres. the time elapsed between the event and conduction of focus groups and interviews differed. some experienced fires happened just a few days before the focus group or interview, others several years before. a sensible question is whether the difference in time is reflected in retrospective reports of the event. is an event that dates back several years reported the same way as one that dates back only a few days or weeks, especially regarding affective and cognitive word use? for the nations of czech republic, poland, turkey and germany, several reports of the event residential fire were available (see table 6). in the following, “time unit” describes the same amount of days elapsed between the event and interview. the reports of spanish (five reports after 379 days) and swedish participants (two reports after 449 days) could not be calculated, because all survivors reported at the same time unit and no comparison is possible. in the british sample two time units (1962; 2871) with only one survivor each reported about residential fire. no differences were found on the liwc dimensions. table 6: comparisons for the event residential fire in four countries after different units of time between the event and the focus groups: wilcoxon sum of ranks test (w), z-score, p-value and effect size r for two group comparisons; kruskal wallis equality of populations rank test (h) and pvalue for three group comparison tests residential fire days between event and focus group/interview (number of reports) czech republic germany poland turkey 662(4) 2959(3) 28(2) 58(2) 120(2) 180(3) 201(2) 306(5) 106(5) 130(2) 221(2) w z p r h p h p h p affective processes 8.00 -1.06 .28 -.40 3.42 .18 1.37 .50 0.36 .83 positive emotion 8.00 0.00 1.00 0 0.85 .65 1.57 .45 3.24 .19 negative emotion 8.00 -1.41 .15 -.53 4.57 .10 0.01 .99 0.77 .67 anxiety 8.00 -1.06 .28 -.40 4.57 .10 2.72 .25 3.33 .18 anger 7.43 0.00 1.00 0 4.57 .10 3.41 .18 0.77 .67 sadness 7.86 -0.53 .59 -.20 1.14 .56 0.89 .64 0.34 .84 europe’s journal of psychology 53 cognitive processes 8.00 -1.06 .28 -.40 3.42 .18 2.45 .29 3.77 .15 insight 8.00 -2.12 .03* -.80 3.71 .15 1.14 .56 0.81 .66 cause 8.00 1.06 .28 .40 2.00 .36 0.72 .69 2.97 .22 discrepancy 8.00 0.70 .47 .26 0.00 1.00 1.45 .48 4.29 .11 tentative 8.00 .35 .72 .13 2.00 .36 4.72 .09 3.33 .18 certainty 8.00 -2.12 .03* -.80 2.00 .36 0.01 .99 1.94 .47 inhibition 8.00 -1.76 .07 -.66 2.00 .36 5.28 .07 3.97 .13 * p<.05. residential fire in czech republic was experienced and reported by seven survivors interviewed in two focus groups after two time units. three survivors reported after 2959 days (almost eight years) and four after 602 days. a wilcoxon rank sum test was performed. no differences regarding affective liwc categories were recognized. hence, significant differences appeared in two cognition categories. words expressing insight (z=-2.12, p=.03, r=-.80) and certainty (z=-2.12, p=.03, r=-.80) were more frequently used by the survivors who reported about a fire which happened almost eight years ago. kruskal-wallis test showed no differences in the affective and cognitive categories in polish, turkish and german reports. discussion the current study is one of the first studies comparing the use of affective and cognitive words in narratives about traumatic situations across nations. the study is genuinely explorative and was conducted to elicit research questions concerning the cross-cultural use of the liwc categories. the base rates of word usage from liwc studies were compared to the investigated narratives about traumatic events. as demonstrated, narratives scored higher than the texts from the control condition and contained equal amounts of affective and cognitive words as texts from liwc studies with emotional and traumatic conditions (liwc2007 manual; pennebaker, chung, et al., 2007). accordingly, the narratives used here can be considered as charged with emotions. the reports are considered useful material for this investigation. with regard to the linguistic characteristics of the narratives, the following can be observed: the reports about residential fire, terroristic attack and bus accident contained words of the liwc categories affective processes, positive emotion, negative emotion and anxiety. the events collapse of a building and fire in a public building additionally enclosed anger words. concerning the cognitive categories, insight and inhibition words occurred more often in narratives about residential fire, talking about traumatic events 54 terrorist attacks and bus accidents. collapse of a building was narrated with more words of certainty. fire in a public building contained no significant differences in the use of words regarding cognitive processes. to sum up, traumatic situations were reported with a greater amount of negative emotion words, which is in line with and confirms prior research results (fernandez, et al., 2009; gortner & pennebaker, 2003). a unique feature of this study is the exploration of verbal expression for different types of events. some types of events occurred in only two countries, but differences were recognized as well. besides some differences regarding the content liwc categories between participating survivors, most of the word usage was similar between the reports collected from different nations. the reports of turkish survivors stick out with respect to the topic of residential fire. the narratives enclosed higher amounts of negative emotion and anxiety words than texts from german, spanish and czech survivors. regarding the event bus accident, turkish reports displayed more affective processes, positive and negative emotion as well as anxiety words than swedish narratives. our findings suggest that the turkish way to express emotional content is more verbally outspoken in comparison to the other investigated countries. turkish reports stood out in comparison to rather unspecific differences of the other countries’ narratives as well. turkish reports contained more words in general and were longest compared to the other countries’ narratives. unsurprisingly, negative emotion words were mainly used across all narratives. even though positive emotion words could be found in reports of residential fire by germans, collapse of a building by polish and bus accident by turkish survivors. the use of positive emotion words in the context of severe events seems at first counterintuitive. considering that the liwc software counts single words, it is possible that phrases expressing luck or being glad count for the positive emotion dimensions. the appraisal of surviving a certain event may also lead to positive expressions in the narration. expressing positive emotions in narrations of traumatic events seems also commonplace and is considered to be a coping strategy (han, et al., 2007). therefore, significant differences regarding positive emotion words are coherent even in traumatic event reports. in contrast, the expression of words relating to cognitive mechanisms in different countries is rather ambiguous and heterogeneous. to interpret the findings properly more validating studies are needed. further research including bigger sample sizes is recommended to accurately interpret the findings for cognition word usage. thus, cultural differences on the liwc categories were found, but can only be a hint for prospective research on this subject. beneath considerable cultural differences, the findings may also be due to situational factors of the event (emotionally arousing europe’s journal of psychology 55 vs. capable, etc.), the impact of the event, the narrating style (emotional vs. nonexpressive) and length, as well as the temporal gap between the event and the interview (tuval-mashiach, et al., 2004). the investigation of a temporal factor, in terms of days elapsed between the event and the interview about it, was performed on the event residential fire. the time units ranged from 28 day to 2959 days between the traumatic event (fire) and the participation in focus groups. according to the collective coping theory (pennebaker & harber, 1993), the rate of affective word use should be heightened shortly after the event. survivors should still be emotionally involved and express their feelings verbally with emotion related words. after an estimated four to six weeks, the event should be emotionally processed and a decrease of emotion word usage should be noted. our results showed no significant differences in the use of affective words, whether the time unit was 28, 120 or 306 days, which was against the expectations. in contrast to the model of pennebaker & harber (1993), who claimed increased thoughts or cognitions, no differences were found three to ten months after the event regarding the cognitive categories. survivors, who reported about the fire after eight years, used a higher amount of insight and certainty words. supposedly, the delayed reporting about this event required more cognitive processing, which is a sign of sense making, reasoning about the experience and building a coherent story (cohn, et al., 2004; gortner & pennebaker, 2003). an event which happened longer ago needs to be mentally reconstructed and requires more cognition related words. recalling the event after several years affords increased cognitive resources, which are also expressed verbally. advantages of this research this study combined some unique features of research. at first, participants of seven european countries have been recruited. second, information about seven different events has been conducted. third, cultural and temporal differences in narratives have been explored. these features altogether have not been accounted for until now. a new issue considered in this research is the investigation of communication in focus groups. focus groups are a common technique in organizations. here, they were implemented because of practical and economical considerations. a focus group consists of two to six people, who experienced the same event. therefore the costs of leading six face-to-face interviews are saved. though interviews have been part of earlier investigation, the method of focus groups in this field of research is innovative. participants enjoyed the experience of coming together and exchanging experiences. analyzing focus groups and interviews with a quantitative talking about traumatic events 56 text analysis software like liwc2007 is a rare and special way to explore differences in the expression of traumatic events. in conclusion, we found differences in the expressed word basis between countries for the investigated type of event residential fire and regarding a temporal factor. we focused on the expression of affective and cognitive words, which are relevant when it comes to positive health changes and coping with traumatic events, like breast cancer (alpers, et al., 2005; pennebaker, et al., 2003) or tragic accidents (gortner & pennebaker, 2003). individuals who talk about traumatic events in their lives gain greater health benefits when using positive emotion words, a moderate use of negative emotion words and an increased amount of words regarding cognitive processes (pennebaker & francis, 1996). the health issues have not been investigated here, but are suggested for further research. limitations of the study first to be mentioned are the small sample sizes per country and per type of event, which were due to the type of crisis situations included and the in-depth approach of qualitative interviews. a common criticism in leading face-to-face interviews and focus groups is that participants consider their stories not interesting or unimportant for research. hence, individuals are likely to conceal information while they narrate. secondly, social desirable statements and the cultural context must be taken into consideration. to recall and disclose behaviors and feelings after being in threatening situations can be intimidating and unpleasant. talking about very personal feelings is not common sense in some cultures (for example in asia) and can be socially sanctioned. eventually, participants didn’t disclose their real feelings and answered in socially desirable ways. more shortcomings of focus groups can be decreased expressivity of participants due to personal characteristics (extraversion vs. submission) and limited time of the focus group. transcripts revealed participants with more or less fractions of talk. a further consideration is that some of the memories of participants have been synchronized due to the group approach, so a homogenous story is told instead of individual experiences (as a need for coherent stories). a further shortcoming is that the impact of each event has not been considered, because of the small sample sizes. all interviews and focus groups were transcribed in original language and translated into english. due to the translation process from native language into english, a loss of information can be considered. therefore, all narratives should have been analyzed in their native language, but liwc dictionaries were not available for the following languages: swedish, polish and czech. for consistent evaluation translated english europe’s journal of psychology 57 texts were used. therefore the linguistic dimensions of the liwc2007 had to be neglected. special characteristics of each language risk remaining unnoticed in the translation and differences can occur. the focus was rather on the content-related liwc dimensions, which offer insight into crucial emotional and cognitive processes of the participants. implications for further research differences between survivors of european countries narrating about different types of events were found. investigating several type of events is an ambitious aim. it might be therefore considered to explore just one type of event, like wtc attacks on september 11th 2001 (fernandez, et al., 2009). these events are unique and traumatic. therefore research should focus on more common events like residential fires, earthquakes or floods. additional focus should be on the impact of those events on survivors and the eventual correlative verbal expression of those experiences, i.e. higher emotional word usage after highly threatening events. in order to explore cultural differences regarding linguistic dimensions the investigation of reports in the original language is recommended for further research. moreover, this study was rather exploratory and needs to be validated in studies with higher rates of participants per type of event. further research on cultural, linguistic and content-related differences within european countries is needed to verify and complement our results. to investigate what bothers individuals emotionally and cognitively after such a traumatic situation might lead to implications for coping or communication about these situations. hence, this can result in practical communication strategies between survivors and medical and emergency services after those events. in conclusion, this study was able to present some preliminary analyses of cultural diversity in the expression of various traumatic events in survivors from seven european countries, and to explore a temporal factor related to the way in which events are reported retrospectively. acknowledgements this paper was written on behalf of the besecu group by simone freitag, anna grimm and silke schmidt. project besecu (contract 218324) is funded under the european union framework 7 security initiative. the authors acknowledge the co-operation of their project partners: ernst-moritz-arndt university greifswald, department of health and prevention, germany (project co-ordinator prof. dr. silke schmidt); 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(pp. 221-244): wiley-blackwell. about the authors: simone freitag is a psychologist and phd student. she works as a scientific assistant at the department health and prevention at the ernst-moritz-arndt university of greifswald. one of the main research interests is the application of linguistic inquiry and word count (liwc) to different populations and issues (e.g. word usage in traumatic situations, in biography narration of aged people, etc.). address for correspondance: simone freitag, robert-blum-str. 13, 17487 greifswald, germany e-mail: simone.freitag@uni-greifswald.de anna grimm is a psychologist and phd student at the department health and prevention at the ernst-moritz-arndt university of greifswald. her main research interests are the behavior and emotions of people surviving different types of crisis situations. silke schmidt is professor and head of the department health and prevention at the ernst-moritz-arndt university of greifswald. one of the areas of research is cross cultural assessment of mental and physical health as well as quality of life. a second focus is on psychological prevention. mailto:simone.freitag@uni-greifswald.de europe’s journal of psychology 3/2010, pp europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 94-121 www.ejop.org bad humor, bad marriage: humor styles in divorced and married couples vassilis saroglou department of psychology, université catholique de louvain christelle lacour department of psychology, université catholique de louvain marie-eve demeure department of psychology, université catholique de louvain abstract humor has been found to play a key role in close relationships, including marriage. the objective of the present work was to investigate the role of specific humor styles, i.e. affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, earthy, and self-defeating, with regard to (a) relationship quality among married and divorced people and (b) divorced versus married status. we compared men and women from 98 married and 48 divorced couples (total n = 292) who evaluated their humor styles, anxiety and avoidance in attachment, marital satisfaction, and (ex-)spouse’s humor styles. constructive humor (self-enhancing and/or affiliative), especially among men, was related to increased relationship satisfaction and to non-divorced status. self-defeating humor, especially among women, predicted marital satisfaction but also divorce. use of antisocial humor (aggressive and earthy), especially by men, predicted divorce and was related to low (retrospective) relationship quality among divorced couples. humor styles were unique predictors of divorce beyond the impact of insecure attachment. finally, partner similarity in the high or low use of self-defeating humor and the (transgressing social norms) earthy humor was observed in both the married and divorced, but the latter were dissimilar in the high or low use of humor styles implying positive or negative quality in interpersonal relations. partners’ humor styles provide unique and gender -specific information to our understanding of factors influencing marital stability and dissolution. keywords – humor styles, attachment, marital satisfaction, divorce, aggression http://www.ejop.org/ humor styles, marriage, and divorce 95 is humor, as often believed, an important ingredient for quality in romantic relationships, especially among married couples? prev ious research has investigated this question but often done so treating humor as a global trait without distinguishing between different humor styles. more intriguing: do specific humor styles contribute to marital stability and, consequently – by their absence or because of their quality – to relationship dissolution and divorce? as far as we know, there is no empirical research on this issue. finally, the quality of humor styles and, subsequently, their positive versus negative role in a couple’s relationship, may just be an artifact of general positiv ity or negativ ity in the way partners see themselves or the other in the relationship, i.e. anxiety or avoidance in attachment. do humor styles play an additive, unique role in predicting marriage stability or dissolution? the objective of the present study was to investigate whether specific humor styles may play a role in marital (in)satisfaction and marital (in)stability, as well as whether the role of humor styles in predicting divorce is unique, i.e. exists beyond the possible influence of the quality of adult attachment. two kinds of samples were included, i.e. divorced and married couples; and both husbands and wives (or ex-spouses) prov ided an evaluation of their humor styles as well of the humor styles of their partner. below, we will rev iew the relevant literature and develop specific hypotheses. humor styles in romantic relationships and marriage humor is an important ingredient in a partner’s attractiveness and its presence increases desirability for a romantic relationship (bressler & balshine, 2006; lippa, 2007). note however that these effects are more present in women’s perception of men’s attractiveness; and they are accompanied by the idea that humorous indiv iduals, although more socially adapted, may be less intelligent and trustworthy than their non-humorous counterparts. sharing humorous experiences during a fir st encounter between strangers leads to greater feelings of closeness (fraley & aron, 2004), and young dating couples’ similarity in humor appreciation of the same material was found to be related to their predisposition to marry the partner (murstein & brust, 1985). many people will take the step to become involved in a relationship with, or even to marry, such a desirable partner. does humor contribute to, or at least reflect, relationship satisfaction? the existing ev idence is somewhat in favor of this idea but this ev idence is sometimes inconsistent, indirect, or more complex. use of humor by newly married wives (but not husbands) in problem-solv ing in a laboratory study, was europe’s journal of psychology 96 correlated positively with the wives’ marital satisfaction; there was also a high correspondence between spouses on use of humor (cohan & bradbury, 1997). however, in that study, husbands’ humor seemed to contribute to marital instability when spouses reported more major life events (possibly, this humor was used as an avoiding coping mechanism). in a similar study, humor was related to observed affection between spouses (johnson, 2002). interestingly, positive perception of the spouse’s humor was also found to relate positively to one’s own marital satisfaction (ziv & gadish, 1989) and negatively to marital discord (rust & goldstein, 1989). married people seem to attribute the success of their marriage, among other things, to the humor and laughter they share (lauer, lauer, & kerr, 1990; ziv , 1988), but spouse similarity in humor appreciation of the same material was found to be unrelated to marital affection (priest & thein, 2003). in these studies, humor was measured as a unidimensional construct. however, recent conceptualization and research using the humor styles questionnaire(hsq; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003; see also martin, 2007) has established the existence, distinctiveness, and divergent external outcomes of at least four humor styles: (a) affiliative (or social), (b) self-enhancing (or use of humor as positive coping), (c) aggressive, and (d) self-defeating. these humor styles differ in the way one includes or disparages others in humor (respectively, a and c), and the way one strengthens or diminishes the self (respectively, b and d). as summarized recently (veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010, p. 772): “affiliative humor involves the use of joking and friendly humorous banter to facilitate interpersonal bonds. self enhancing humor is characterized by the ability to find amusement in life’s stresses. aggressive humor entails the use of sarcasm and put-downs to hurt or manipulate others. and self-defeating humor represents indiv iduals’ attempts to amuse others by making excessively disparaging humorous remarks about themselves”. these four styles have theoretical and content proximity with most of the six bipolar humor types measured by the humorous behavior q-sort deck (hbqd; craik, lampert, & nelson, 1996). the latter offers an additional humor style, called “earthy vs. repressed”, that is defined as delight and non inhibition in joking about taboo topics: macabre, sexual, scatological, vulgar. we hypothesized that, overall, the two positive humor styles, i.e. affiliative and self enhancing will relate positively to relationship quality, because they express either a solid self that overcomes life’s adversities (self-enhancing) or concern for interpersonal bonds through humor (affiliative). the opposite would be the case for the two negative humor styles, because, through humor, they diminish others (aggressive) or the self (self-defeating). since a marital relationship involves (at least) humor styles, marriage, and divorce 97 two, both other-directed and self-directed humor styles should play a role. no specific hypotheses were made with regard to the earthy humor style. personality and mental health-related correlates of the four humor styles are in favor of these hypotheses. the two positive humor styles reflect high self -esteem, emotional intelligence, positive emotions, optimism, and intimacy. the other two dimensions are associated with hostility, neuroticism, and psychological distress; and self-defeating humor in particular is associated with sociotropy (dependence and excessive need to please others), loneliness, and burnout (martin, 2007, for rev iew; see in addition, fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009; frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008; kuiper & mchale, 2009; tümkaya, 2007; vernon et al., 2009). each of these psychological dimensions are important for intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning, particularly within close relationships. finally, no clear predictions could be made on the association between marital satisfaction and earthy humor. on one hand, this humor style reflects openness to experience and flexibility (craik et al., 1996; craik & ware, 1998), although it is unclear whether this means something more (e.g., creativ ity) than simply low conservatism. on the other hand, appreciation of sick humor seems to be characteristic of people with low emotional responsiveness (herzog & anderson, 2000; herzog & karafa, 1998), but also of people who, in their coping, are characterized by social expression of emotions (saroglou & anciaux, 2004). in favor of our expectations, there is some initial and indirect ev idence from research that distinguishes between humor styles diverging in quality. self-reported use of positive and negative humor when interacting with the partner was, respectively, positively and negatively associated with relationship satisfaction among students (butzer & kuiper, 2008; the effect was stronger in a conflict scenario) and married couples (de koning & weiss, 2002; both spouses’ humor was related to each partner’s satisfaction). in a direct observation setting where dating student couples were involved to a conflict discussion task, indiv iduals whose partners used more affiliative and less aggressive humor during the discussion were more satisfied with their relationship and reported an increase in perceived closeness and better resolution following the discussion (campbell, martin, & ward, 2008). the role of selfenhancing and self-defeating humor was not investigated in that study. in sum, no study, to our knowledge, has investigated how several distinct humor styles, as stable personality characteristics of one and/or the other partner, are related to the quality of relationship among married couples. europe’s journal of psychology 98 humor styles, relationship dissolution, and divorce do humor styles play a role in predicting divorce of married couples? for the same reasons applied above to married couples, we hypothesized that affiliative and selfenhancing humor may contribute to “prevent” divorce, and should thus be more present among married than divorced couples. similarly, self-defeating and aggressive humor may “facilitate” divorce and should therefore be more present among divorced compared to married couples. no prediction was made regarding the role of earthy humor. the same hypotheses were made regarding the relation between humor styles and the relationship quality of divorced participants during their marriage. divorce, and relationship dissolution more generally, is a result of an accumulation of, and interactions between, a series of factors relative to each partner’s and the couple’s enduring vulnerabilities, stressful events, and adaptive processes. low use of self-enhancing humor is a good candidate to explain marital instability since this humor style serves by definition as a coping mechanism against life’s adversities. the lack of successful emotional regulation in marital interaction is found to predict divorce (rodrigues, hall, & fincham, 2006). low use of affiliative humor and high use of aggressive humor may also predict insatisfaction and relationship dissolution, since behaviors denoting hostility (e.g., reject) and lack of warmth (e.g. no cooperation, no enjoyment) in marital interaction, were found to predict divorce in wellestablished marriages (e.g., matthews, wickrama, & conger, 1996). high use of earthy humor could predict divorce, since, by its socially transgressive character, this humor style may reflect personality tendencies (e.g., negative indiv idualism: kirsh & kuiper, 2003) that can reasonably be conceived as predicting divorce. on the other hand, its strong personality correlate, openness to experience (craik & aron, 1998), is known to be a positive ingredient in marriage (mccrae & sutin, 2009). finally, high use of self-defeating humor should be a predictor of marital dissolution since this humor style reflects neuroticism, negative emotionality, and excessive dependence, all of which are typically predict divorce (rodriguez et al., 2006, for rev iew). there is some suggestive, intriguing, yet inconsistent ev idence on the role of humor in general (but not on specific humor styles) on relationship dissolution and divorce. longitudinal research, where specific characteristics observed in spouse interaction at one point in time were examined as predictors of marital stability or dissolution many years later, did not prov ide consistent ev idence in favor of humor. humor has no effect; or has a positive effect for marital stability; or has a negative effect if it is husbands’ humor that could be seen as a tool used to avoid facing problems humor styles, marriage, and divorce 99 (cohan & bradbury, 1997; gottman, 1994; gottman & levenson, 1999; gottman, coan, carrere, & swanson, 1998). dating couples of university students who engaged in affiliative humor (doris, 2004, as cited in martin, 2007) or friendly rather than aggressive teasing (keltner, young, heerey, oemig, & monarch, 1998) were found to be more likely to break up within a few months. note though that the characteristics and functions of early dating relationships may be, at least partially, different from those of long-term established marriages. in the former, as noted by martin (2007), good humor may even predict a quick break up if it is used to test alternatives and if good humor means high desirable status (see also felmlee, 1995). humor styles, adult attachment, and marital (in)stability do humor styles contribute to marital (in)stability in a unique, specific way or are they simple artifacts of indiv idual differences within the broader quality of romantic relationships such as adult attachment? this is an important question since the hypothesized role of humor styles on divorced versus married status could simply reflect positive versus negative quality in affects and cognitions relative to the image of the self and/or the image of the other in the relationship, and thus not add any specific value to the prediction. there is indeed theoretical and empirical ev idence suggesting (a) that humor styles reflect indiv idual differences in attachment (dimensions of anxiety and avoidance) and (b) that attachment insecurity may predict marital insatisfaction and instability. first, in a series of studies from different countries (belgium, canada, lebanon, and the usa), self-defeating humor was found to be typical of people with insecure, especially anxious, adult attachment; the opposite seems to be the case with self enhancing humor. additionally, affiliative versus aggressive humor is more present among people with secure versus insecure, especially avoidant, adult attachment (cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher, kazarian, & martin, 2008). second, attachment theory supports the idea that adult attachment insecurity should contribute to the vulnerability of marriage and its dissolution (feeney & monin, 2008). only very recently has this idea been tested. in one study, attachment security of wives and husbands with respect to their relationship, as assessed at their first child’s transition to kindergarten after about eight years into marriage, revealed a long-term effect of attachment security on marital satisfaction, although it was not significantly related to the surv ival of the marriage over a 10-year period (hirschberger, srivastava, marsh, cowan, & cowan, 2009). in another study, among adults who had experienced their parents’ divorce as children, those who were classified as secure in their attachment europe’s journal of psychology 100 representations were less likely than insecure participants to divorce in the early years of marriage (crowell, treboux, & brockmeyer, 2009). however, we hypothesized that, although humor styles and attachment with respect to the relationship may share some common variance in predicting divorced status, humor styles should prov ide a unique contribution to marital instability. indeed, humor styles point to very specific acts that constitute “micro-events” in the everyday life and do not simply mirror the quality of the partners’ relationship or one’s own working models of self and the other in general. by its very nature, humor introduces something unique to human interactions that may contribute to, or even change, more stable emotional states, cognitive schemata, and working models. positive humor styles may stabilize marriage (e.g., by reducing tension or by communicating warm feelings) in the presence of disagree ment, conflict, or relational insecurity, while negative humor styles may destabilize marriage (e.g., by introducing tension or by communicating criticism) even in the presence of secure attachment, agreement, and harmony. method participants two samples of participants were included, one of married couples and the other of divorced couples. the first sample was composed of 98 married heterosexual couples (total n = 196) who were approached by acquaintances of the second author and agreed to participate. the study was advertised as aiming “to explore different dimensions of family life, i.e. different aspects of partners’ relationships, including humor”. in selecting couples, we paid attention to the fact that at least one of the partners should have a job and the age of participants should not be higher than 65. effective age of participants varied between 26 and 62 yrs-old (m = 45.8; sd = 8.7) and the mean duration of marriage was 19.5 years. the mean number of children was 2.2. all couples lived in urban areas of the french-speaking part of belgium. they were asked to fill in the protocols anonymously and separately and to send them back within four to six weeks. people were thanked for their participation and provided the option to be informed of results if they so wished. the second sample was composed of 48 divorced heterosexual couples. participants (total n = 96) were recruited through acquaintances of the third author under the same conditions as the first sample. their mean age was 44.8 and the mean duration of the ended marriage was 13.5 years. most of the couples had divorced just a few months earlier than the time of participation, and the others had been divorced humor styles, marriage, and divorce 101 between one and three years. data were collected in 2002 (married couples) and 2004 (divorced couples). in both samples, participants received a protocol in which they had to evaluate adult attachment dimensions, marital satisfaction, and the use of different humor styles (self-reports). in addition, they were requested to prov ide spouse-ratings, i.e. to evaluate the partner’s (current spouse for the married couples, and ex-partner for the divorced) on the use of these different humor styles. measures humor styles. based on prev ious research and measures, five humor styles were investigated: affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor, as well as earthy humor. at the time of the data collection, the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) was only just emerging. we thus selected items from three existing different scales in order to tap, to the best extent, the content and specifics of each humor style: the hsq (martin et al., 2003; french translation by saroglou & scariot, 2002), the humorous behavior q-sort deck (hbqd: craik et al., 1996; french translation by lacour, 2002), and the coping humor scale (chs: martin & lefcourt, 1983; french translation in saroglou, 1999). affiliative humor was measured through three items from the socially warm conduct pole in the hbqd and three others from the affiliative style of the hsq. self-enhancing humor was measured through three items from the chs and three items from the self-enhancing style of the hsq. aggressive humor was measured through two items from the negative pole, “meanspirited”, of the benign conduct in the hbqd, and four items from the aggressive style in the hsq. earthy humor was measured through six items from the earthy (vs. repressed) conduct of the hbqd, and self-defeating humor through six items from the self-defeating style in the hsq. in both selfand spouse-ratings, possible answers ranged from 1 (does not characterize me at all) to 5 (characterizes me totally). in order to increase reliability, three items (one for three different humor styles) were deleted when computing the aggregate for each style score. humor styles were then measured in total by 27 items. reliabilities were satisfactory, for both selfand spouse-ratings, among married participants (affiliative: .79 and .82; self-enhancing: .71 and .75; aggressive: .60 and .73; earthy: .58 and .72; and self-defeating: .77 and .73) as well as among divorced couples (affiliative: .81 and .83; self-enhancing: .69 and .75; aggressive: .78 and .79; earthy: .82 and .80; and self-defeating: .86 and .70). europe’s journal of psychology 102 here are sample items: (a) “i usually don’t laugh or joke around much with other people” (affiliative; reverse keyed); (b) “i f i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor (self-enhancing); (c) “i f someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it” (aggressive); (d) “i have a reputation for indulging in coarse or vulgar humor” (earthy); and (e) “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh” (self-defeating). attachment dimensions. brennan, clark, and shaver’s (1998) experiences in close relationships is a 7-point likert-format scale that contains 36 items measuring two orthogonal dimensions of attachment to the adult partner in the relationship: anxiety and avoidance. the scale is based on analyses of prev ious attachment scales and taps the underlying structure of these measures corresponding to two orthogonal axes, i.e. (a) anxiety about self and (b) discomfort with contact with others. the scale has higher psychometric qualities in comparison with prev ious multi-item attachment scales (fraley, waller, & brennan, 2000) and the two-factor structure in our french translation was confirmed in a prev ious study (saroglou, kempeneers, & seynhaeve, 2003). for this study, we selected 18 items (nine items for each dimension) that were found in saroglou et al.’s (2003) study to have the highest loadings in their factor. the two-factor structure was once again well replicated and reliabilities were satisfactory for both anxiety and avoidance in married (α = .80, .85) and divorced (.83, .84) participants. here are two sample items: “i worry a lot about my relationships” (anxiety) and “i try to avoid getting too close to my partner” (avoidance). marital satisfaction. the spanier dyadic adjustment scale (spanier, 1976) was administered as a commonly used 32-item measure of marital satisfaction (french translation by baillargeon, dubois, & marineau, 1986). the scale prov ides an evaluation of four dimensions of dyadic adjustment in couples: satisfaction, cohesion, consensus, and affective expression. for the analyses, we used the total score on marital satisfaction that we computed by summing the items of all the subscales (as = .89, for married, and .85, for divorced couples). (note that in the sample of married couples, the reliability of affective expression was low ; this subscale was thus not included when computing the global mean score). here are two sample items: “how often do you and your partner quarrel?” and “indicate the approximate extent of agreement or disagreement between you and your partner on amount of time spent together”. humor styles, marriage, and divorce 103 results gender differences across raters and ratings table 1 details means and standard deviations of humor styles, in both self and spouse-ratings, distinctly for men and women and for married and divorced participants. in married couples, when comparing self-reports, men, compared to women, reported higher use of affiliative humor, but also of aggressive and earthy humor. these differences were confirmed when comparing the spouse-ratings, with, in addition, self-enhancing humor being perceived as being higher among men (see table 1). moreover, when comparing the husband-ratings of wife’s humor with husbands’ and wives’ self-reports, the former were significantly lower in all cases: husbands perceived wives as lower than them with respect to all humor styles, and the scores of the evaluations were also lower in comparison to wife’s self-reports (all ps > .01). when comparing wife-ratings of husband’s humor with husbands’ and wives’ self-reports, it turned out that wives perceived their husband to be higher than themselves in affiliative humor, f = 24.48, p < .001 (and even more, compared to the husband’s self-ratings; f = 5.46, p < .01), as well as in earthy humor (24.69, p < .001), but lower in aggressive and self-defeating humor styles in comparison to husbands’ self-reports (3.68, 5.66, p < .05). table 1. selfand spouse-ratings of humor, distinctly for married and divorced couples. men’s humor (m, sd) women’s humor (m, sd) men > women (f) humor styles self-ratings spouse-rat. self-ratings spouse-rat. self-rat. spouse-r. married couples (n = 98) affiliative 3.70 (0.83) 3.90 (0.92) 3.30 (0.85) 3.08 (0.76) 12.29*** 51.23*** self-enhancing 3.01 (0.78) 2.93 (0.89) 2.83 (0.87) 2.49 (0.68) 2.14 14.17*** aggressive 2.56 (0.74) 2.40 (0.84) 2.26 (0.72) 2.01 (0.78) 8.36** 15.16*** earthy 2.57 (0.76) 2.55 (0.80) 2.11 (0.66) 1.89 (0.74) 28.27*** 48.44*** self-defeating 2.22 (0.86) 2.01 (0.84) 2.07 (0.74) 1.88 (0.71) 1.89 1.66 divorced couples (n = 48) affiliative 2.90 (0.58) 2.71 (0.54) 2.76 (0.45) 2.64 (0.49) 1.71 0.35 self-enhancing 2.95 (0.68) 2.50 (0.83) 2.60 (0.93) 2.36 (0.87) 3.98* 0.54 aggressive 2.83 (0.75) 2.87 (0.97) 2.07 (0.78) 2.09 (0.70) 18.37*** 23.62*** earthy 3.17 (1.07) 3.33 (0.87) 2.14 (0.83) 1.77 (0.40) 36.28*** 138.6*** self-defeating 2.61 (1.00) 2.32 (0.92) 2.40 (0.22) 2.09 (1.71) 1.16 2.51 *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. europe’s journal of psychology 104 in divorced couples, similarly to the married couples, men scored higher than women in self-reported use of aggressive and earthy humor and this was confirmed when comparing the spouse-ratings. however, they did not differ from women in use of affiliative humor; and the difference in self-enhancing humor, found in self-reports, was not confirmed by spouse-ratings. we also focused on cross-comparisons of selfratings with ex-spouse-ratings. like in married couples, divorced men evaluated themselves higher in all humor styles compared to the evaluations they made of their ex-spouses (all ps > .05), but, except for self-enhancing and self-defeating humor (fs = 10.12 and 8.81, ps > .01), the self-ratings were over-estimated compared to the exspouse-ratings. women did not seem to discriminate in their evaluations between themselves and their ex-husbands, with the exception of the two negative humor styles, i.e. aggressive and earthy, for which they attributed higher scores to their exhusbands, fs = 21.39, 61.61, ps > .001. finally, women evaluated themselves higher in self-enhancing, earthy, and self-defeating humor in comparison to how they were seen by their ex-spouses (4.84, 8.84, and 9.47, all ps > .05). as far as attachment dimensions and marital satisfaction are concerned, no significant gender differences on these dimensions were found, for either the married or divorced participants. spouse-validation of self-ratings and spouse similarity on humor as detailed in table 2, in both groups, importantly, spouses validated self-ratings for all humor styles. distinct gender analyses did not show a gender effect on these results. the effects were however stronger in married, compared to divorced, couples for affiliative humor (z = 3.05, p < .01) and in divorced, compared to married couples (z = 2.65, p < .01), for self-defeating humor. table 2 also details coefficients of correlations when examining spouse similarity on humor styles. three indicators of this similarity were computed, i.e. correlations in humor styles (a) between men’s and women’s self-ratings, (b) between men’s ratings of women and women’s ratings of men, and (c) between each participant’s (distinctly for men and women) evaluations of the self and the spouse. among married couples, an important similarity was found between men and women on their high or low use of aggressive, earthy, and self-defeating humor. among divorced participants, there was also ex-spouse similarity on earthy humor and selfdefeating humor, though often at a marginal significance level (but note the much lower n of this group). however, there was evidence of divorced partner dissimilarity on aggressive humor (at the self-ratings level, and in men’s “minds”, i.e. when humor styles, marriage, and divorce 105 crossing their self-ratings with their perception of women’s humor) and affiliative humor (in spouse-ratings). table 2. spouse-validation of self-ratings and between-spouse similarity on humor styles. spousevalidation spouse similarity humor styles spouse-ratings  self-ratings selfratings spouseratings men’s ratings: self  spouse women’s ratings: self  spouse married couples (98 couples) affiliative .59*** .07 .11 -.02 .06 self-enhancing .39*** -.05 -.05 .02 .14† aggressive .50*** .05 .23* .36*** .36*** earthy .59*** .29** .25* .51*** .30** self-defeating .46*** .15† .24* .34*** .53*** divorced couples (48 couples) affiliative .21* -.10 -.46*** -.15 .02 self-enhancing .45*** -.10 -.18† -.23† -.12 aggressive .61*** -.30* .14 -.47*** .08 earthy .62*** .23† .11 .20† .23† self-defeating .79*** .22† .26+ .42** .14 *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. † p < .10. mean differences between married and divorced couples mean differences (t-tests) were computed, distinctly for men and women, between married and divorced participants on measures of relationship quality and all humor styles (see tables 3 and 4). table 3. descriptive statistics (m, sd) of quality of relationship measures and differences between married and divorced couples (distinct by gender information). married couples divorced couples differences: married vs. divorced(t-tests) relationship men women men women men women anxiety 3.52 (1.25) 4.71 (1.29) 4.06 (1.27) 4.46 (1.51) -2.43* -3.12** avoidance 2.46 (1.03) 2.26 (1.16) 3.59 (1.16) 3.33 (1.47) -5.98*** -4.76*** marital satisfaction 4.81 (0.45) 4.83 (0.46) 3.82 (0.67) 3.58 (0.64) 9.14*** 11.99*** *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. europe’s journal of psychology 106 table 4. differences between married and divorced couples on humor (t-tests). self-ratings spouse-ratings humor styles men women men’s of women women’s of men affiliative 6.74*** 5.02*** 4.23*** 9.76*** self-enhancing 0.50 1.47 0.92 2.80** aggressive -2.11* 1.48 -0.59 -3.00** earthy -3.96** -0.23 1.26 -5.39*** self-defeating -2.43* -1.72† -1.64† -2.02* *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. † p < .10. as expected, both men and women who were divorced reported higher anxiety and avoidance in attachment, and lower marital satisfaction, compared to, respectively, married men and women. moreover, regarding humor styles, consistently across genders and selfand spouse-ratings, married participants were characterized by a higher use of affiliative humor compared to divorced participants, whereas the latter were characterized by a higher use of self-defeating humor compared to married participants. in addition, men’s use of aggressive and earthy humor, both as reported by themselves and by their partners, was more present among divorced than married couples. finally, married, compared to divorced, women reported that their husband uses self-enhancing humor to a greater extent. humor styles, attachment, and marital satisfaction humor styles (self-reports) were associated with quality of attachment. as detailed in table 5, married and divorced men’s self-defeating humor was positively related to their anxiety and/or avoidance; this was also the case with divorced women’s self defeating humor and anxiety. low self-enhancing humor was typical of anxiety among divorced men and women, as well as married women. high use of aggressive humor was related to married men’s anxiety and divorced men’s avoidance, but, on the contrary, it was low earthy humor that reflected insecure attachment among divorced women (both anxiety and avoidance) or among married men (avoidance). there was one surprising result, i.e. a positive association of divorced men’s self-enhancing humor with avoidance, which may suggest the usefulness for men of humor as a coping mechanism which allows them to create distance from their partner through divorce. humor styles, marriage, and divorce 107 in order to clarify the humor-attachment links, given some interrelation between the two attachment dimensions, we computed, distinctly for men and women, multiple regression analyses on each humor style, using the two attachment dimensions as predictors. we treated the two samples, married and divorced participants as one (see table 6). self-enhancing and self-defeating humor reflected predominantly – respectively, secure versus problematic – relation to the self, i.e. anxiety (but in men, self-defeating humor also reflected avoidance). on the contrary, affiliative and aggressive humor reflected predominantly, respectively, secure versus problematic concern for the other partner, i.e. avoidance. finally, use of earthy humor seems “natural” to men whereas in women it even expresses security in attachment (both dimensions). table 5. coefficients of correlations of humor styles with quality of relationship. anxiety avoidance marital satisfaction men women men women men women humor styles men/womena men/womena married couples (n = 98) affiliative .15 -.12 .01 -.24** -.13 / .08 -.10 / .12 self-enhancing -.00 -.29** -.11 -.14 .21*/ .08 .22*/ .12 aggressive .17* .02 ¤ .05 .13 -.13 / .09 -.09 / .00 earthy -.06 -.09 -.20* -.09 .02 / .17 -.03 / .16 self-defeating .37*** .12 .29** -.10 -.12 / .22* .02 / .13 divorced couples (n = 48) affiliative -.18 .10 .16 -.04 .39**/ -.20 .50**/-.19 self-enhancing -.47*** -.32* .48*** .23 .04 / .32* .10 / .10 aggressive -.23 -.16 .25* .18 -.32*/-.35* -.31*/-.31* earthy -.01 -.30* -.02 -.27* -.39**/-.15 -.29*/-.10 self-defeating -.04 .28* .32* -.21 -.12 /-.10 -.05 / .21 a men’s and women’s humor. *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. correlations of men’s and women’s humor styles (self-ratings) with marital satisfaction provided specific results depending on marital status, as well as on whose satisfaction was considered and whose humor was involved (see table 5). humor styles did not seem to play a major role on marital satisfaction among married couples, with two notable exceptions: men’s self-enhancing humor was associated with increased marital satisfaction of both men and women. and women’s selfdefeating humor was associated with increased men’s marital satisfaction. on the contrary, marital satisfaction among divorced couples was clearly a function of the europe’s journal of psychology 108 provs. anti-social character of three humor styles. aggressive humor in both men and women was an indicator of low marital satisfaction of both ex-spouses. and men’s use of affiliative and earthy humor was related to, respectively, high and low marital satisfaction of both partners (significantly of men). table 6. regression of attachment dimensions on humor styles (βs). men (n = 146) women (n = 146) humor styles anxiety avoidance r2 anxiety avoidance r2 affiliative -.01 -.16† .03 -.14† -.28*** .10 self-enhancing -.16† .07 .03 -.32*** -.03 .10 aggressive .04 .17* .03 -.08 .09 .01 earthy .02 .03 .01 -.16* -.15† .05 self-defeating .20* .32*** .16 .23** -.09 .06 *** p < .001. ** p < .01. * p < .05. † p < .10. unique effects of humor styles and attachment on divorced status humor styles reflected quality in attachment; and both humor and attachment were found to differ when comparing married to divorced couples. we investigated whether humor styles may uniquely predict marital status, independently of the effect of attachment. before computing multiple regressions, and in order to avoid risks of multicolinearity and to maximize conciseness in the presentation of results, we integrated the five humor styles into three higher order types using an exploratory factor analysis (pca) with varimax rotation (eigenvalue > 1). in men, aggressive and earthy humor constituted the first factor (loadings: .87 and .84); affiliative and self-enhancing humor constituted the second (.86 and .80); and self-defeating humor (.95) was the last factor. with one exception (.33), no second loading was higher than .13; and total variance explained was 79%. extraction of three factors among women replicated this pattern with affiliative and self-enhancing humor constituting the first factor (.89 and .80), aggressive and earthy the second (.80 and .74), and selfdefeating the third (.92; total variance explained = 75%). we then averaged, for each factor, the respective humor styles and computed the subsequent analyses with three humor types, i.e. (a) constructive humor (affiliative and self-enhancing), (b) antisocial humor (aggressive and earthy), and (c) self-defeating humor. note that in a prev ious study where different humor measures were factor-analyzed, humor styles, marriage, and divorce 109 aggressive and earthy (otherwise “boorish”) humor styles were found to compose one broad factor, labeled “bawdy humor”, that mainly reflected negative indiv idualism (kirsh & kuiper, 2003). table 7. logistic regression of humor styles and attachment on divorced (versus marred) status. men women predictors a wald p a wald p first step constructive humor -1.24 13.17 .000 -1.03 10.74 .001 antisocial humor 0.92 9.87 .002 -0.14 0.16 .688 self-defeating humor 0.56 6.29 .012 0.56 7.01 .008 r2 = .20 (men), .11 (women) second step constructive humor -1.20 10.65 .001 -0.91 6.39 .011 antisocial humor 0.87 7.73 .005 -0.08 0.05 .824 self-defeating humor 0.06 0.06 .804 0.61 6.53 .011 anxiety 0.26 2.04 .153 0.27 3.07 .080 avoidance 0.96 17.77 .000 0.69 17.63 .000 r2 = .32 (men), .25 (women) in order to examine whether the humor styles play a unique role on marital status or whether this role is mainly an artifact of the quality of attachment, we performed a logistic regression analysis with marital status as a dichotomous dependant variable. in the first step, the three humor styles (self-reports) were entered as predictors, and in the second step the two attachment dimensions were added. this analysis was carried out separately for men and women. as detailed in table 7, in both men and women, low constructive humor and high self-defeating humor was predictive of divorce. additional predictor of divorce was men’s use of antisocial humor. when the two attachment dimensions, i.e. avoidance and anxiety, were entered into the regression, they were found to be, respectively, a clear and a marginal predictor of divorce. furthermore, with the addition of these factors, the role of men’s self-defeating humor in predicting divorce disappeared, but all the other effects of humor types (self-defeating among women, antisocial among men, and constructive among both men and women) remained significant. europe’s journal of psychology 110 discussion using data from two samples composed of married and divorced couples, we investigated, cross-sectionally, how humor styles of both men and women (a) are related to two aspects of the quality of a marital relationship, i.e. quality of attachment to the partner and marital satisfaction, and (b) differed when comparing divorced with married couples. we also investigated the unique role of humor styles in predicting divorce, beyond the role of attachment dimensions. the results overall confirm the expected links and provide, in some cases, more nuanced information when one distinguishes between (a) divorced and married couples, (b) men and women, and (c) different styles from the broad categories of the so-called “positive” and “negative” humor. humor styles and attachment in line with prev ious studies on humor styles and attachment rev iewed in the introduction, it turned out that humor styles which are directed towards others, either by including them (affiliative) or by disparaging them (aggressive), reflect, respectively, a positive and negative model of the other person in attachment (avoidance dimension). the humor styles that aim to strengthen the self in the face of adversity (self-enhancing) or to disparage the self in order to gain others’ acceptance (self-defeating) reflect, respectively, a positive or negative image of the self in attachment (anxiety dimension). the additional fifth style, earthy (nonrepressed) humor, seems to be “natural” for men, i.e., independent from attachment quality, and to even reflect secure attachment in women. alternatively, it may be that insecure women tend to feel uncomfortable with, and “inhibit”, the expression of earthy humor, a humor style that is very likely socially perceived as inappropriate for them. humor styles in married couples the secure versus insecure, in terms of attachment, quality of each hu mor style did not necessarily imply a face-to-face correspondence with positive versus negative consequences for the quality and stability of partners’ relationship. in addition, the role of men’s and women’s humor styles on relationship satisfaction seeme d to be modest within the context of married couples. married men’s use of self-enhancing humor indicated high marital satisfaction of both themselves and their wives. this was very likely due to the nature of this humor style which is used to cope with life’s humor styles, marriage, and divorce 111 everyday stresses and to find amusement in life’s incongruities. in stable long-term relationships, self-enhancement humor can thus be an efficient tool for increasing relationship satisfaction. moreover, women’s self-defeating humor seemed to contribute to men’s, but not women’s, marital satisfaction. this unexpected result (see also below for the detrimental role of this humor style on marital stability), if not due to chance, could be interpreted as an indication of a traditional gender asymmetry in marriage. women’s self-ridiculization through humor may please husbands and increase their marital satisfaction. this can be facilitated by the fact that self-defeating humor does not explicitly attest asymmetry: “it was only a joke”. the fact that it was men’s and not women’s self-enhancing humor that seemed to play a role on both partners’ satisfaction may also be understood in terms of gender differences. men and women, especially in married couples, seemed to agree, consistently across judgments of self and the spouse, that men use humor – all styles except self-defeating – more than women. married husbands may then contribute to both spouses’ marital satisfaction by using the prototypical – in terms of positive coping – humor style. another explanation can be provided by the results on married spouse similarity on humor styles. consistently across (a) self-perceptions, (b) spouse-ratings, and (c) evaluations of self versus spouse, there was a similarity between the two spouses on the high or low use of the three very “specific” in content, negative in emotionality, and low in frequency humor styles: earthy, aggressive, and self-defeating. on the contrary, no spouse similarity was observed on the use of the two more common, positive humor styles, i.e. affiliative and selfenhancing. thus, it may be the use of one of these two humor styles (self-enhancing) by at least one partner (husband) that makes the difference in the marital satisfaction of both spouses. one could be surprised by the fact that no other humor style – especially the aggressive style – showed an association with marital satisfaction. this was also true of the perception each partner had of the spouse’s humor. i t may be that, in the present sample of couples with 20 years of average marriage duration, the variability of marital satisfaction and the humor-marital satisfaction association are lower in comparison to recent studies that have investigated this question among students in general (cann et al., 2008), students in dating couples (butzer & kuiper, 2008; campbell et al., 2008), newlywed couples (driver & gottman, 2004), or married couples with much shorter marriage duration (de koning & weiss, 2002). note that the between-spouse similarity in the use of the three negative humor styles (earthy, aggressive, and self-defeating) but not the two positive styles (affiliative and europe’s journal of psychology 112 self-enhancing) can be understood in the light of prev ious research on spouse similarity in personality traits and values. recent research suggests that there exists moderate spouse congruence on agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, but not on extraversion and neuroticism, where congruence is close to zero (rammstedt & schupp, 2008; see also lee, ashton, pozzebon, visser, bourdage, & ogunfowora, 2009, for similar findings in friendships). the first two personality dimensions constitute the two “moral traits” in personality (cawley, martin, & johnson, 2000); and openness to experience reflects (low) conservatism in values and related sociocognitive dimensions and social behaviors (mccrae & sutin, 2009). interestingly, the major personality correlate of the two positive humor styles, as of humor in general, is extraversion, whereas aggressive and self-defeating humor are characterized, in addition to neuroticism, by low agreeableness and conscientiousness (galloway, 2010; martin, 2007; saroglou & scariot, 2002; vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008) and high psychopathy and machiavellianism (veselka et al., 2010); and earthy humor correlates mainly with openness to experience (craik & ware, 1998). in other words, spouses may differ on the use of general/social humor, but they are similar on the high or low use of humor styles that reflect respect or transgression of interpersonal and social values and norms such as aggressive and earthy humor. humor styles in divorced couples much more extended, but still gender-specific, was the role of humor styles in predicting divorce and (retrospectively reported) relationship quality among divorced couples. in line with the findings on married couples, men’s low use of self enhancing humor – at least on the basis of spouse-ratings – predicted divorced, compared to marital, status. in addition, both male and female ex-spouses, and consistently across selfand spouse-ratings, reported lower use of affiliative humor and higher use of self-defeating humor, in comparison to married couples. moreover, men’s high aggressive and earthy humor, measured through both self and spouse-ratings, predicted divorced versus marital status. with the exception of self-defeating humor, which turned out to mirror insecure attachment, all other humor styles remained significant predictors of divorce, once attachment dimensions were also entered in the regression (which also controlled for betweenhumor styles overlap). as expected, insecure attachment, with regard to the partner, was higher in divorced than married couples; and divorced men and women tended to be both anxious and avoidant. but beyond these effects, low use of constructive humor by both men and women, high use of antisocial humor (earthy humor styles, marriage, and divorce 113 and aggressive) by men, and high use of self-defeating humor by women, uniquely and additively predicted divorce. when focusing on “assumed” spouse differences, i.e. those established when evaluating one’s own humor versus spouse’s humor, it turned out that divorced men were similar to married men in discriminating between themselves and their (ex)wives by attributing to them less humor of any style. however, divorced women did not attribute a greater use of affiliative humor to their ex-spouse compared to themselves, contrary to what married women did. they may have “underestimated” their ex-partner’s use of positive humor, or they may have somehow integrated the fact that ex-husbands are not so good at using it (what seemed to be the case when comparing married to divorced men in self-reports). or, finally, divorced men may have “overestimated” their use of positive humor. obviously, in divorced couples, there is a discrepancy in perceptions of men’s use of positive humor. interestingly, there was no such discrepancy with regard to aggressive and earthy humor for which the gender differences were consistent, across judgments and judges, in favor of a higher use of these humor styles by men. additional information was obtained when examining spouse-validation of selfreports as well as spouse similarity on humor styles. like in married couples, there was, in divorced couples, (a) spouse-validation of self-ratings in all humor styles, and (b) spouse similarity, consistently across judges and judgments, on earthy and self defeating humor. this could be understood by the fact that the ex-partners were, at one time in the past, probably dating, and certainly married. obviously, like the still married couples, they had an accurate perception of the partner’s humor; and they shared similarities on humor styles that reflect (a) conventionalism or transgression of social norms and openness to experience (earthy humor) and (b) neurotic tendency for self-diminishment in order to please others (self-defeating). however, unlike the married couples, affiliative humor in divorced people received weak spousevalidation, and, more importantly, together with aggressive humor, it constituted a domain of dissimilarity between partners. in other words, partner dissimilarity in the proversus anti-social quality of humor used seems to be an additional characteristic of divorced compared to married couples. note, finally, that the hypothesized role of prosocial and antisocial humor in predicting high versus low relationship satisfaction was found to be significant among divorced couples, which was not the case in married couples. presumably, among the former, hostility and low warmth in the relationship, including when joking, but also dissimilarity between men and women on this form of humor, europe’s journal of psychology 114 decreased relationship satisfaction, increased the explosiveness of the couple in the presence of vulnerabilities and adversities, and led to relationship dissolution. on the contrary, prosocial and non-hostile humor, as well as spouse similarity on these constructs, may not be a necessary indicator of marital satisfaction among partners who have already enjoyed marital stability for many years; if not, they should have had divorced. in sum, marital instability and insatisfaction among divorced people seem to occur (a) not only in the context of men’s and women’s insecure attachment, but also when partners (b) make insufficient use of positive, constructive humor, (c) make high use of antisocial (aggressive and earthy) humor (especially men), (d) differ in interpersonal warmth or hostility when using humor, (e) misperceive men-women differences in the use of positive humor, and (f) make high use of self-disparaging humor (especially women). limitations and questions for future research despite the interest of presenting and comparing data on specific humor styles from divorced versus married couples, this study presents important limitations. the crosssectional design prohibits any attribution of causality and causal direction. although there is important longitudinal research in favor of the idea that humor itself and humor interaction predict changes in a relationship months and years later, it cannot be totally excluded that divorced participants accentuated negativ ity in humor evaluations, in line with their stereotypical perceptions of reasons leading to divorce. on the other hand, whereas divorced participants filled in the questionnaires without reciprocal consultation, we had no control on married partners who could have communicated with each other when providing their responses. these limitations constitute challenges to be faced in future research through more careful, ideally longitudinal, designs, and behavioral and observational measures not only of humor styles of each partner but also of their humor interaction. studying specific humorous responses during interactions can provide more nuanced information on the impact humor has on interpersonal relationships. idiographic assessment of humor seems to better predict intra-indiv idual variability as a function of the situation and context than do nomothetic approaches of humor that assess only between-person differences (caldwell, cervone, & rubin, 2008). as briefly evoked in the introduction, the role of a specific humorous response (e.g., of affiliative type), even within the same indiv iduals and with respect to the same domain, i.e. romantic relationships, may have different functions and effects humor styles, marriage, and divorce 115 depending on whether this occurs before dating (attractiveness), during dating (comparative testing of alternatives), marriage (stability), divorce (successful dissolution), or the post-divorce period (ex-spouses’ continuation of co-parenting). another issue that arises from the present findings is that both partners’ humor styles seem to have an impact on marital insatisfaction and dissolution, but, in several cases, this was in a way that paralleled gender differences on personality. men are typically found to be less agreeable and more aggressive, whereas women more neurotic (lippa, in press). i t may then be that, to some point, the problem for marital satisfaction and stability comes from men’s excessive use of “masculine” humor (aggressive and earthy) and women’s excessive use of “feminine” humor (self defeating). i t could thus be interesting to investigate in future research whether the role of humor styles in predicting divorce simply reflects basic personality tendencies that are gender-specific or plays a unique and additive effect. moreover, the impact of humor styles on relationship satisfaction and stability may be stronger or clearer once other indiv idual differences are included in the study as moderators. for instance, kuiper and borowicz-sibenik (2005) found that the relation between humor and indicators of well-being was clearer for people who “needed” it because of their low agency and low communion. the latter are important also for functioning in close relationships, and humor may thus be particularly beneficial to partners who are low on these dimensions. finally, it is needless to say that the present work was purely descriptive of psychological processes, and not evaluative of the personal and social quality of the human realities studied: marriage, divorce, and humor. independently of whether particular humor styles may have a facilitative or deleterious effect on marital stability or dissolution, it is our pleasure to offer 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(1989). humor and marital satisfaction. journal of social psychology, 129, 759–768. about the authors: vassilis saroglou, ph.d., is professor of psychology at the université catholique de louvain, div ision of social psychology. he has extensive research on personality and social psychology of religion, as well as psychology of humor from a personality and positive emotions perspective. address for correspondence: prof. vassilis saroglou uclouvain, dept. of psychology, centre for psychology of religion, division of social and organizational psychology, pl. du cardinal mercier 10 b-1348 louvain-la-neuve, belgium email: vassilis.saroglou@uclouvain.be christelle lacour holds a master’s degree in psychology from the université catholique de louvain. data and results from the sample of married couples were first presented in her master’s thesis (2002). marie-eve demeure holds a master’s degree in psychology from the université catholique de louvain. data and results from the sample of divorced couples were first presented in her master’s thesis (2004). mailto:vassilis.saroglou@uclouvain.be contrasting effects of ridicule that targets other people versus the self europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 46-70 www.ejop.org is it you or is it me? contrasting effects of ridicule targeting other people versus the self leslie m. janes brescia university college james m. olson university of western ontario abstract in this paper, we describe a program of research on the topic of ridicule, which explored the differing effects of observing either ridicule directed at other people or selfdisparaging ridicule. in three studies, participants listened to humor that either ridiculed another person, ridiculed the self (the person expressing the humor), or involved no ridicule. results in two studies showed that observing ridicule that targeted another person led participants to conform more to the alleged attitudes of others and to behave in ways suggesting a heightened fear of failure, compared to self-ridicule or no ridicule. in contrast, results in a third study showed that observing self-disparaging ridicule led participants to generate more creative ideas, compared to other-ridicule or no ridicule. the implications of these “inhibiting” effects of other-ridicule and “disinhibiting” effects of self-ridicule are discussed. keywords: ridicule, disparagement humor, self-ridicule, conformity, creativity ridicule is defined as “the act of making someone the object of scornful laughter” (webster‟s new world dictionary, 2002). this type of humor is common in modernday society. i t is a staple in late-night comedy shows, political campaigns, advertising, and even prime time telev ision. stocking, sopolsky, and zillmann (1977) did a content analysis of humor in prime time telev ision for one week. an incident of humor was recorded as “hostile” if a person or thing was disparaged. they found that 69% of all humorous incidents in prime time were hostile. http://www.ejop.org/ contrasting effects of ridicule 47 of course, ridicule is not a modern phenomenon—indeed, it has been around for millennia. in an examination of the humor in the old testament, koestler (1964) found that most of the references to humor or laughter were linked with scorn, derision, mockery, or contempt. only 2 of the 29 humor references in the old testament were categorized as “good-natured.” more recently, gruner (1978) has argued that “ridicule is the basic component of all humorous material” (p. 14). ridicule is one form of disparagement humor, a broader category that has been defined as humorous material in which one party is v ictimized, belittled, humiliated, or suffers some misfortune or act of aggression (zillmann, 1983). most disparagement humor targets groups or members of groups (e.g., women, ethnic groups, lawyers) rather than indiv iduals. ridicule can be distinguished from disparagement humor in that it tends to be more personal in nature and is typically directed at an indiv idual rather than a group (wilson, 1979). in this paper, we describe a program of research we have conducted on the topic of ridicule, exploring the differing effects of ridicule directed at other people versus the self. we begin by rev iewing some past theories and empirical studies by other researchers on disparagement humor, which have identified important consequences of such humor on listeners‟ attitudes and stereotypes. we then turn to our own research. theories of disparagement humor several theoretical models have been proposed to explain the prevalence and consequences of disparagement humor (and, by implication, ridicule). we briefly rev iew four of these models in the following sections (for more detailed rev iews, see ferguson & ford, 2008; martin, 2007). psychoanalytic theory freud (1905/1960) theorized that we enjoy disparagement humor because the comedic façade disguises the hostility of the content. thus, we can vent our aggressive feelings in a socially acceptable manner. from this perspective, disparagement humor “provides the humorist with a relatively benign means of expressing and satisfying unconscious, socially unacceptable impulses” (ferguson & ford, 2008, p. 285). furthermore, according to freud, expressing these aggressive impulses through humor has a cathartic effect—a reduction of hostile psychic energy. europe‟s journal of psychology 48 in empirical tests, however, the catharsis hypothesis has received little support. in fact, researchers have typically found that exposure to hostile humor actually increases expressions of aggression (e.g., baron, 1978; ryan & kanjorski, 1998). in baron‟s study, for example, male college students were exposed to non-humorous materials, hostile humor, or non-hostile humor. the students were then given an opportunity to aggress against a male confederate. results of the study indicated that students in the hostile humor condition aggressed more than did those in the non-humor condition, whereas those students in the non-hostile humor condition aggressed less than those in the non-humor condition (baron, 1978). i t is true that people sometimes enjoy humor that disparages others, but there is little ev idence that such v icarious hostility reduces our aggressive urges. superiority theory superiority theory dates back to the earliest greek philosophers. both plato and aristotle posited that people find the weaknesses of others humorous, and that “laughter is an expression of derision or malice directed at the less fortunate” (ferguson & ford, 2008, p. 288). many centuries later, thomas hobbes, who is often considered the “father” of modern humor theory, hypothesized that amusement and laughter are the result of the glory we feel when we favorably compare ourselves with less fortunate others (hobbes, 1651/1968). hobbes noted “i t is no wonder therefore that men take heinously to be laughed at or derided, that is, triumphed over” (hobbes, 1681/1968). charles gruner (1997) is a modern advocate of the superiority theory of humor. he proposes that all humor, no matter how seemingly innocuous, contains hostility and aggression. this perspective would seem at odds with the existence of humor that appears nonaggressive. for example, puns and limericks often use clever wordplay to amuse. or humor can be used to poke fun at oneself, or to comment on the absurdities of life. yet gruner maintains that aggression toward others and triumphing over them is an essential aspect of humor, at least implicitly: “successful humor…must include winning” (1997, p. 9). the concept of shadenfreude (delight in the misery of others) captures the essence of this superiority dynamic— it sometimes makes us feel good to see other people fail. ridicule simply adds a dose of humor to the mix, thus making our shadenfreude more socially acceptable. a humorous communication implies that its message is to be interpreted in a non-serious manner. thus, “disparagement humor can uniquely contrasting effects of ridicule 49 denigrate its target while stifling challenge or criticism” (ferguson & ford, 2008, p. 284). one theme of our own research, described later in this article, is that shadenfreude can be a double-edged sword, so to speak: when we revel in the misery of others, we may also become more acutely aware that others may similarly revel in our misery. disposition theory a more recent version of superiority theory, disposition theory, echoes the basic premise that we are entertained by the misfortunes of others, but also stipulates that our relationship to the target of the humor affects the degree of our enjoyment of the humor. specifically, we are more entertained by the disparagement of targets we dislike or members of an out-group, as opposed to targets we like or members of our in-group (e.g., la fave, 1972; wicker, baron, & willis, 1980). for example, in an early experiment on humor, wolff, smith, and murray (1934) presented anti -jewish jokes to both jewish and non-jewish participants. perhaps not surprisingly, they found that the non-jewish participants enjoyed the jokes more than the jewish participants. zillmann and cantor (1976) emphasized the importance of an indiv idual‟s attitudes toward the target group, rather than merely in-group vs. out-group status, in determining one‟s appreciation for humor that targets an out-group. for example, thomas and esses (2004) found that men who were high in hostile sexism reported more enjoyment of jokes that disparaged females compared to men who were low on this dimension. as noted earlier, one way in which ridicule can be distinguished from disparagement humor is that the former is more personal in nature and is usually directed at an indiv idual rather than a group (wilson, 1979). for example, ridicule often consists of derisive joking about some aspect of an indiv idual‟s behavior or appearance. an interesting study that examined personal attitudes toward a particular indiv idual was conducted by zillmann and bryant (1980). in this study, participants were treated either rudely or politely by a female experimenter. participants then witnessed her in one of three conditions: she spilled a cup of hot tea on herself; she spilled tea on herself when a jack-in-the-box suddenly popped out of a box; or a jack-in-the-box popped up, but she did not spill her tea. results of the study indicated that humor cues (smiling and laughing) were highest in the condition in which the participants had been treated rudely by the experimenter and the tea was spilled in response to the jack-in-the-box. i t appeared, therefore, that observ ing a disliked target have a europe‟s journal of psychology 50 mishap was not sufficient for the experience of mirth: some humorous cues were also necessary. social identity theory social identity theory (tajfel, 1978; tajfel & turner, 1986) is a broad perspective built on the assumption that people‟s group memberships constitute an important part of their identity. whereas traditional models of identity focus on indiv iduals‟ personal qualities and accomplishments (baumeister, 1998), social identity theory emphasizes indiv iduals‟ social relationships and group memberships as additional sources of selfevaluation. social identity theory assumes that people want to maintain a positive identity, including a positive social identity. one way to achieve a positive social identity is by judging one‟s own groups to be superior to other groups. in fact, researchers have found that indiv iduals will try to create a positive social identity by treating members of in-groups more favorably than members of out-groups (e.g., tajfel, 1970). clearly, a motivation to perceive one‟s in-groups as superior to out-groups can be served by disparaging humor about those out-groups. thus, social identity theory prov ides a motivational account of why people enjoy disparagement humor (bourhis, r.y., nicholas, j.g., howard, g., & henri, t. 1977; ferguson & ford, 2008). for example, ev idence that members of ethnic groups find humor about other ethnic groups funnier than humor about their own ethnic group (e.g., la fave, 1972; wicker et al., 1980; wolff et al., 1934) may reflect perceivers‟ desires to create or maintain a positive social identity. the effects of disparagement humor on attitudes and behavior given the prevalence of disparagement humor in our culture, understanding its effects on listeners‟ attitudes and behavior is important. there is a common perception that disparagement humor can influence listeners‟ stereotypes; that is, hearing disparaging jokes targeting a particular group may strengthen or perhaps even create negative stereotypes about that group. a series of experiments by olson, maio, and hobden (1999) tested this perception. in their studies, participants were exposed to disparaging humor about men or about lawyers, whereas control groups were exposed to non-disparaging humor, non-humorous disparagement, or nothing. participants‟ attitudes towards the target groups were then assessed, as well as the latencies of responses to these attitude items (as an indication of the contrasting effects of ridicule 51 accessibility, or ease of retrieval, of the attitudes). additionally, participants were asked to rate the target groups on stereotypic attributes and to evaluate ambiguous behaviors by members of the target group. the results suggested that exposure to disparaging humor did not influence participants‟ attitudes toward members of the target group, nor did it elicit stereotypical attributions regarding the group. one important limitation of these studies, as the authors noted, was that the targets of the disparagement humor were relatively high-status indiv iduals (lawyers). perhaps the effects of exposure to disparagement humor would be more pronounced with socially marginalized groups. a subsequent experiment asked participants to recite, as opposed to listen to, disparaging humor about another target group (newfoundlanders—people liv ing in a canadian province who are sometimes negatively stereotyped). results showed that participants who had recited the humor expressed more negative stereotypes about newfoundlanders than did those who recited non-disparaging humor (maio, olson, & bush, 1997). the authors noted that these findings could be explained by either cognitive dissonance theory or self-perception theory. according to cognitive dissonance theory (festinger, 1957), the participants‟ negative behavior (reciting the disparaging jokes) may have conflicted with their actual, positive attitudes toward the target group, which elicited dissonance arousal and led them to alter their opinions to be more consistent with their negative behavior. alternatively, according to self-perception theory (bem, 1967), participants may have been unsure of their original attitudes toward the target group. reciting disparaging jokes about that group may have led participants to infer that their attitudes were relatively negative. prejudiced norm theory a relatively recent theory that has attempted to delineate more clearly the mechanisms through which disparagement humor can affect people‟s attitudes is prejudiced norm theory (ford & ferguson, 2004). these researchers have focused on whether disparaging humor targeting an out-group increases tolerance for discrimination toward members of those groups. according to ford and ferguson, disparaging humor makes prejudice and discrimination toward the target group more acceptable; it contains a “normative standard that, in this context, one need not consider discrimination against the targeted group in a serious or critical manner” (p. 83). as a result, indiv iduals who are already predisposed to feel europe‟s journal of psychology 52 negatively toward the target group are likely to exhibit increased tolerance for discrimination. for example, ford et al. (2001) found that men who scored high in hostile sexism were more likely than men low in this dimension to perceive a norm of tolerance to sexism upon exposure to sexist humor. exposure to non-humorous sexist statements, or to non-sexist humor, did not produce this tolerance. i t appears that the lev ity contained in humor allows those who are predisposed to feel negatively about particular groups to bypass critical assessment of the derogatory information embedded in the humor. ridicule as an educational corrective some researchers have also examined whether ridicule may be used an educational corrective—to encourage positive behaviors through the ridicule of negative behaviors. for example, an experiment by bryant, brown, parks, and zillmann (1983) had young children observe muppet models being corrected for engaging in specific negative behaviors through either ridicule, commands, or suggestions. later, the children were observed to see whether they engaged in the targeted negative behaviors. interestingly, 6-year olds were more influenced by the ridicule than the other modes of correction, whereas 4-year olds were not. the authors hypothesized that “6-year olds are apparently sufficiently socialized to recognize and appreciate the punishing power of derisive laughter. in contrast, 4year olds…may lack the experience necessary to recognize derision for what it is” (bryant et al., 1983, p. 252). another study examining the use of ridicule as an educational corrective was conducted with university students (bryant, brown, & parks, 1981). students in a lecture-style course were given one of three course handouts employing different motivational strategies. in one condition, the handout consisted of cartoons ridiculing students who did not complete their course readings. other students were given handouts insulting (without humor) students who did not complete the readings. a third group of students was assigned to a “gentle reminder” condition, with a message stressing the importance of completing the course readings. the dependent measure in this study was the performance of the students on a surprise quiz that tested knowledge of the course readings. students in the ridicule condition performed significantly better on the quiz than did students in the other two conditions. contrasting effects of ridicule 53 an interesting aspect of these results is the finding that ridicule was more effective than insult in motivating the students. there are at least two possible reasons why, in various settings, ridicule may have more impact than insult. first, ridicule makes retaliation (e.g., rejection of the attempted influence in the course outline) less appropriate for the target. unlike insult, which can only be interpreted as aggressive, ridicule contains an element of lev ity or amusement. targets might hesitate to engage in retaliation to ridicule because they do not want to be seen as “a poor sport” or “having no sense of humor.” second, ridicule is more socially acceptable than insult. a person (e.g., a professor) who ridicules others (e.g., in the course outline) may be perceived as witty and clever, possessing a good sense of humor, whereas someone who insults others is more likely to be perceived as rude or boorish. these perceptions are likely to increase the persuasiveness and influence of the former indiv idual relative to the latter. self-deprecating humor self-deprecating humor occurs when an indiv idual pokes fun at him or herself. whereas humor that ridicules other people has been shown to have potentially negative effects (e.g., greater tolerance of discrimination against the targeted group), it seems plausible that self-deprecating humor might have different consequences. for example, observ ing another person making light of her or her personal shortcomings may induce liking for the apparently modest speaker, which might prevent the attribution of negative characteristics to him or her. indeed, by joking about personal weaknesses or failures, a self-deprecating model demonstrates a lack of concern about the social consequences of the admitted foibles. this lack of concern may encourage observers to perceive their own shortcomings as less serious or even amusing. unfortunately, research examining self-deprecating humor is relatively scarce and has not directly tested the preceding speculations. an early study conducted by stocking and zillmann (1976) found that a male who disparaged himself was perceived by other men as having lower self-esteem, being less intelligent, and being less confident than a male who disparaged others. women, on the other hand, reported more favourable impressions of those males who engaged in selfridicule. a more recent study by lundy, tam, and cunningham (1998) examine d the combined effects of self-deprecating humor and physical attractiveness on an observer‟s desire for future romantic interactions. male and female participants were europe‟s journal of psychology 54 shown a photograph of a person of the opposite sex and a transcript of an interv iew with that person. the independent variables were whether the photograph was of an attractive or unattractive person, and whether the transcript contained selfdeprecating humor or no humor. participants expressed their interest in several types of relationships with the target person (e.g., dating, marriage, intercourse). for men, the attractive female target was perceived to be more desirable than the unattractive female target for most types of relationships, and humor had no effects. for women, however, there was an interaction between attractiveness and humor. self-deprecating humor increased the desirability of attractive males, but not of unattractive males. this increased desirability was found for both short term (e.g., intercourse) and long-term (e.g., marriage) relationships. unfortunately, because this study did not include targets who exhibited other-deprecating ridicule, it is impossible to ascertain whether females‟ greater liking for attractive males who used self-deprecating humor was due to the self-deprecating nature of the humor or to the simple fact that the males exhibited a sense of humor of any kind. a study by greengross and miller (2008), examining the adaptive functions of humor, did contrast the effects of selfand other-deprecating humor. participants listened to tape recordings of opposite-sex people who generated either self-deprecating or other-deprecating humor, and who were described as either high or low status. participants were asked to rate the target‟s attractiveness as a shortand long-term mate. humor style and status had no effect on short-term attractiveness of the target, but both men and women rated high-status presenters who engaged in selfdeprecating humor as being more attractive as long-term mates than those who engaged in other-deprecating humor, no differences were found in the low -status condition. these studies suggest that indiv iduals who are socially advantaged (e.g., high status, attractive) might be perceived as more appealing when they engage in self-deprecating humor, perhaps because this type of humor signals a sense of modesty on the part of the humorist that would bode well for long-term relationships. humor styles another issue that is relevant to understanding both other-ridicule and selfdeprecating humor is the notion of preferred humor styles. the humor styles questionnaire, developed by martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003), was designed to assess chronic indiv idual differences in preferred types of humor. the authors proposed that there are four principal types of humor: aggressive, affiliative, self-defeating, and self-enhancing. martin et al. hypothesized that aggressive and contrasting effects of ridicule 55 self-defeating humor are relatively unhealthy and maladaptive, whereas affiliative and self-enhancing humor are more healthy and adaptive. aggressive humor is the tendency to use humor to demean others; most ridicule directed at other people falls into this domain. affiliative humor refers to the tendency to be humorous in order to amuse others. this type of humor represents a non-hostile, tolerant use of humor that enhances interpersonal relations. whereas ridicule of others would generally fall into the category of aggressive humor, sometimes people in close relationships will lov ingly tease each other, poking fun at the other person‟s weaknesses. in this case, the humor is intended more for affiliative purposes than aggressive ones. thus, it may be difficult at times to distinguish between aggressive and affiliative styles of humor. a key distinction, however, between the two styles is that affiliative humor is associated with concern and care about others, whereas aggressive humor is characterized by “lack of personal regard or concern for the feelings and rights of others” (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004, p.145). self-enhancing humor refers to humor that allows the speaker to maintain a positive and amused perspective on life‟s trials and tribulations. self-defeating humor, on the other hand, refers to the use of excessively self-disparaging humor, perhaps to ingratiate oneself with others. the boundaries between self-enhancing and selfdefeating humor can be blurred as well. they are both self-focused in orientation, as opposed to the other-orientation of affiliative and aggressive humor (kuiper et al., 2004). although the use of self-deprecating humor might be excessive in some cases (and therefore qualify as self-defeating humor), at other times, it is more moderate and constitutes self-enhancing humor—laughing at one‟s own difficulties. for example, in the opening scene of an inconvenient truth, al gore announces “hello, my name is al gore, and i used to be the next president of the united states”. the crowd ate it up. although self-deprecating, this type of humor can be considered self-enhancing. allport (1950) noted that “the neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure” (p. 180). when engaging in self-deprecation, we take ourselves less seriously, something that may be adaptive rather than self-defeating. at times self-deprecation may actually be liberating, allowing us to reinterpret negative stereotypes in a positive way. in his article exploring jewish self-deprecating humor, davies noted that “ethnic jokes told from outside as mockery can become assertions of autonomy and v itality when told be the subjects themselves” (1991, p.189). europe‟s journal of psychology 56 thus, both other-directed and self-deprecating humor come in different varieties. people may poke fun at others in gentle ways that promote affiliation, or they can engage in more hostile other-ridicule. similarly, people may mock themselves in gentle ways that remind the audience that everyone has weaknesses and foibles, or they can exhibit more extreme self-ridicule, perhaps in a desperate attempt to be liked by others. armed with this brief rev iew of research on disparagement humor, we can now turn to the specific issue that has driven our own research. we have been interested in the effects of observing ridicule, either other-directed or self-directed, on indiv iduals‟ psychological states and behavioral tendencies. our specific hypotheses concern the possible differential effects of other-directed versus self-directed ridicule on conformity, fear of failure, and creativ ity. we coined the term “jeer pressure” to capture the essence of the process that results from observ ing other-directed ridicule. research on jeer pressure in our research, we have tested the hypothesis that observ ing another person being ridiculed has an inhibiting effect on the observer. this jeer pressure (similar to “peer pressure”) is assumed to spring from evaluation apprehension—a concern on the part of the observer that he or she might also become a target of evaluation and ridicule. the evaluation apprehension motivates conformity: the indiv idual will conform to norms and rules so as to avoid standing out. jeer pressure was also expected to reduce participants‟ creativ ity, which requires divergent thinking. we have also tested a secondary hypothesis , which is that self-ridicule, rather than producing inhibition and conformity, might actually have a disinhibiting effect. we speculated that seeing an indiv idual make fun of him or herself might make the observer less concerned than usual about being negatively evaluated and, therefore, less conforming and more creative. overview of dependent measures in studies the dependent measures we employed in one or more of our three experiments were: conformity, fear of failure, and creativ ity. first, we expected that seeing another person being ridiculed would produce conformity in the observer, because he or she would want to reduce the likelihood of personally becoming a target of ridicule. in fact, several theorists have suggested that one of the social functions of ridicule is to castigate nonconformity (e.g., martineau, 1972; wilson, 1979). contrasting effects of ridicule 57 conformity was assessed in experiments 1 and 2 by having participants rate the funniness of four cartoon strips, which had bogus ratings by “previous participants” included on the rating sheet (ostensibly to save trees by conserv ing paper). these “previous ratings” were designed to be erroneous: the funniest cartoons received the lowest bogus ratings, whereas the least funny cartoons received the highest bogus ratings. conformity was defined as adhering closely to the “previous ratings”. a second dependent measure in experiments 1 and 2 was fear of failure. we predicted that observ ing another person being ridiculed would increase participants‟ fear of failure on a subsequent task because they would be more anxious about being ridiculed if they failed. we assessed fear of failure v ia a ring toss task, in which participants tried to throw rings made of rope onto wooden pegs. according to early research conducted by atkinson and litwin (1960), people who are afraid of failing on this task are more likely to employ either a self-handicapping strategy (whereby they stand very far away from the peg to toss the rings, giv ing themselves a plausible explanation for failure) or a low risk strategy (whereby they minimize the chances of failing by standing very near to the peg to toss the rings). in contrast, indiv iduals who are lower in fear of failure are more likely to stand at a moderate distance from the peg to toss the rings; in this fashion, they are able to realistically challenge themselves at the ring toss task. finally, in all three studies, we measured creativ ity, which we also expected to be influenced by observ ing the ridicule of others. because creativ ity involves divergent thinking—thinking “outside the box”—it was assumed that observ ing others being ridiculed might constrain this type of thinking. the desire to avoid looking foolish might interfere with one‟s ability or motivation to engage in unconventional thinking. thus, observers of other people being ridiculed were expected to exhibit less creative thinking than those who did not witness such ridicule. in contrast, observers of self-ridicule were expected to feel more comfortable taking risks and, therefore, to exhibit greater creativ ity. creativ ity was assessed in experiments 1 and 2 using the multiple uses task (torrance, 1962), in which participants are asked to generate as many non-traditional uses for a brick as possible. responses are scored for both quantity and creativ ity (non-traditional responses). a different task was used to measure creativ ity in experiment 3, which we will describe later. experiment 1 in experiment 1 (janes & olson, 2000, experiment 1), participants were exposed to one of three 8-min v ideotapes of a stand-up comedian telling jokes. in the othereurope‟s journal of psychology 58 ridicule condition, the comedian told ridiculing jokes about another person. in the self-ridicule condition, the comedian told the same jokes, but with himself as the target (e.g., “this guy i know tried to join a lonely hearts club, but they said „hey, we‟re not that desperate‟” vs. “i tried to join a lonely hearts club, but they said „hey, we‟re not that desperate‟”). in the control condition, the humor had no target (e.g., “he crossed a hyena with a parrot so it could tell him what it was laughing about” ). after observ ing one of the humorous v ideotapes, participants completed the fear of failure, conformity, and creativ ity tasks. results. analyses showed that participants who v iewed the other-ridiculing v ideotape exhibited more fear of failure than participants in the other two conditions. specifically, in the ring toss task, participants who v iewed other-ridicule were more likely to stand either very close to the peg (indicating a lack of self challenge) or very far from the peg (indicating self-handicapping) than participants in the self-ridicule and control conditions, who did not differ and who stood a more moderate distance from the peg, indicating that they were realistically challenging themselves (atkinson & litwin, 1960). participants in the other-ridicule condition also exhibited more conformity than participants in the other two conditions. specifically, participants who v iewed otherridicule were more likely to match the bogus funniness ratings of the cartoons than were participants in the self-ridicule and control conditions, who did not differ. no differences between conditions were found, however, on the creativ ity task. thus, other-ridicule did not impair creativ ity. surprisingly (at least to us), on all three dependent measures, no significant differences emerged between the self-ridicule condition and the control condition. thus, self-deprecating humor did not appear to have any disinhibiting effects on participants‟ behavior or thinking. experiment 2 the second experiment (janes & olson, 2000, experiment 2) was designed to replicate experiment 1 and to investigate a possible mediator of the obtained effects of other-ridicule. our conceptual reasoning was that the effects of observ ing other people being ridiculed were caused by an increased salience of potential personal rejection; that is, observ ing another person being ridiculed increased the accessibility of the observer‟s thoughts about his or her own possible ridicule or contrasting effects of ridicule 59 rejection. we assessed this hypothesized salience of rejection using a lexical decision task. participants had to decide, as quickly and accurately as possible, whether a string of letters displayed on a computer screen comprised a word or a non-word. forty trials involved real words: 10 acceptance-related words (e.g., accepted, approval), 10 rejection-related words (e.g., humiliated, mocked), and 20 neutral words. there were also 40 non-word filler trials. i f, indeed, observ ing other-ridicule increases the accessibility of rejection-related thoughts, then such participants should recognize rejection-related words more quickly (and perhaps acceptancerelated words more slowly) than participants in other conditions. experiment 2 employed the same basic design as experiment 1. participants v iewed one of three 8-min v ideotapes and then completed the dependent measures. new versions of the v ideotapes, however, were developed for this second study. these v ideos were ostensibly designed to be educational v ideos—teaching observers how to change a bicycle tire. on these v ideos, an instructor and his assistant gave instructions regarding the lesson. in the self-ridicule condition, the instructor made several mistakes throughout the v ideo and expressed ridiculing comments about himself. in the other-ridicule condition, the instructor again made mistakes, but his assistant directed the ridiculing comments at the instructor. thus, the ridiculing comments were identical in the two conditions, but they were delivered either by the instructor or by the assistant. for example, at one point in the lesson, the instructor pinched his finger in a pump while trying to inflate one of the bicycle‟s tires; he or the assistant then said “i guess that‟s why they call it a foot pump!” in the control condition, no ridiculing comments were made by either person in the v ideotape. the dependent variables included the same measures of fear of failure and creativ ity that were used in experiment 1, as well as the lexical decision task. the conformity measure was changed slightly: participants rated qualities of the v ideotape itself rather than funniness ratings of cartoons, but the logic of the measure was the same (i.e., inaccurate ratings by alleged “previous participants” were provided). results. replicating experiment 1, the analyses showed that participants in the otherridicule condition exhibited greater fear of failure on the ring-toss task and greater conformity in the cartoon-rating task than did participants in the other two conditions, who did not differ from one another. thus, again, the self-ridicule condition did not have a disinhibiting effect compared to the control condition. also replicating the first study, no differences between any of the three conditions were found on the creativ ity measure. europe‟s journal of psychology 60 importantly, the lexical decision task also yielded significant differences between conditions. as predicted, participants in the other-ridicule condition recognized rejection-related words (relative to neutral words) significantly more quickly than did participants in the self-ridicule and control conditions, who did not differ. thus, exposure to other-ridicule made thoughts of rejection more accessible. no differences between conditions were revealed in responses to the acceptancerelated words. we also conducted mediation analyses that tested whether thoughts about rejection mediated the effects of other-ridicule on fear of failure and conformity. these analyses indicated that the salience of rejection (as ev idenced by faster responses to rejection-related words than to neutral words) did, indeed, mediate the effect of other-ridicule on fear of failure; that is, when responses on the lexical decision task were controlled statistically, the other-ridicule condition did not differ from the remaining conditions in fear of failure. in contrast, the salience of rejection did not mediate the effect of other-ridicule on conformity. perhaps our measure of conformity reflected a wish not to stand out, rather than fear of rejection per se. in sum, the results of the first two experiments supported our primary hypothesis that observ ing other people being ridiculed would have an inhibiting effect on the observer. in both experiments, participants in the other-ridicule condition exhibited more fear of failure and more conformity than participants in the self-ridicule and control conditions. additionally, ev idence in experiment 2 implicated the accessibility of thoughts about rejection as the psychological mediator of the differences in fear of failure. we think it is noteworthy that inhibiting effects were obtained in response to the v ideotapes used in these studies, given the non-threatening nature of these stimulus materials. participants observed other-ridicule v ia a stand-up comedian or an educational tape demonstrating how to change a bicycle tire. there was no possibility that participants would be ridiculed by these indiv iduals: the ridicule was pre-recorded, and participants did not expect to meet the depicted indiv iduals. i f these kinds of distant, non-threatening exposures to other-ridicule can produce jeer pressure, imagine what people must feel in real-life situations where they are exposed to actual ridicule and might, indeed, become a target of ridicule themselves (e.g., in the schoolyard or at social gatherings). neither experiment found differences in creativ ity due to the humor stimuli. one possible explanation for these null results is that the multiple uses task (torrance, 1962) has been criticized for relying excessively on verbal fluency as opposed to contrasting effects of ridicule 61 creativ ity. additionally, in both studies the creativ ity measure was assessed last, after the fear of failure and conformity measures. i t is possible that any effects had dissipated by the time the third dependent variable was assessed. in experiment 3, we employed a different measure of creativ ity, and creativ ity was the sole variable we assessed. also, neither experiment showed significant effects for self-deprecating humor compared to the control groups. that is, self-ridicule did not have its predicted disinhibiting effects, such as increasing indiv iduals‟ creativ ity. one possible explanation for these null results may be that the ridiculing jokes contained on the v ideotapes were too hostile or extreme, so when they were told as self-ridicule, they fell into the self-defeating category rather than the self-enhancing category (martin et al., 2003). in the next experiment, we employed jokes that were gentler and more self-enhancing in nature, hoping that they might produce the predicted disinhibiting effect on observers. experiment 3 in a third experiment (janes & olson, 2009), only creativ ity was assessed. we focused on this variable because ridicule‟s effects on fear of failure and conformity had already been replicated in the prev ious studies. we expected that other -ridiculing humor would hinder creativ ity in participants, given the “inhibiting” effect that this ridicule had on participants in term of conformity and fear of failure. moreover, some research suggests that environmental cues associated with danger activate in people a systematic, detail-oriented, risk-averse processing style, whereas a benign environment motivates a “risky processing style, in which internal knowledge structures serve to enrich the information at hand, thereby leading to more unconstrained creative thinking and a broad conceptual scope” (kuschel, förster, & denzler, 2010, p. 4). i t seemed possible that observ ing ridicule of other people might be perceived as danger-related, whereas observing someone poking fun at themselves would produce a more benign environment (and, therefore, unconstrained creative thinking). in this study, participants were again exposed to one of three v ideotapes containing either self-ridicule, other ridicule, or no humor. participants were led to believe that they were watching an instructional v ideotape offering a 10-min lesson on writing haiku poetry (a highly stylized form of japanese poetry) by a professor. as in the first two studies, the only difference between the conditions related to humor. in the selfridicule condition, the professor poked fun at himself (e.g., “my idea of roughing it is europe‟s journal of psychology 62 getting poor serv ice at the holiday inn.”), whereas in the other-ridicule condition, the professor made fun of someone else (e.g., “his idea of roughing it is getting poor serv ice at the holiday inn.”). these ridiculing jokes/comments were selected to be less caustic and denigrating than in the prior studies. in the control condition, all humorous comments were omitted. participants watched one of the three v ideos, ostensibly to learn how to write haiku poetry, and were told that their comprehension of the material would be assessed. after watching the v ideotape, students reported their impressions of the instructor on a series of 7-point scales (e.g., “the instructor on the v ideotape seemed warm and friendly”). next, participants completed a creativ ity task, torrance‟s test of creative thinking (1966), which involved using circles to make more elaborate objects. the validity of this test as a measure of creativ ity has been empirically supported (e.g., torrance & perbury, 1984; torrance & safter, 1989); scores reflect four dimensions of creativ ity: originality, fluency, flexibility, and elaboration. results. analyses revealed a main effect for humor condition on participants‟ creativ ity scores. as predicted, participants in the self-deprecating condition exhibited significantly higher levels of creativ ity on the task than did participants in the other-ridicule and no-ridicule conditions, which did not differ. additionally, participants‟ perceptions of the instructor on the v ideotape were more positive in the self-ridicule condition than in the other two conditions, which again did not differ. specifically, participants in the self-ridicule condition found the instructor to be significantly more “warm” than did participants in the other two conditions and expressed significantly higher levels of respect for the instructor than did participants in the other two conditions. to our knowledge, this study provides the first empirical ev idence that selfdeprecating humor can have positive, disinhibiting effects relative to a control condition; participants in the self-ridicule condition were more creative than participants in the other two conditions. creativ ity requires divergent thinking—that is, approaching a task with an open and curious mind. i t makes sense that exposure to someone who pokes fun at his or her own weaknesses and foibles can produce greater openness and creativ ity. presumably, self-deprecating humor generated a non-threatening atmosphere that allowed participants to be more “daring” in their thoughts about the task. there are at least three possible explanations for why the first two studies examining self-ridicule did not find any differences in creativ ity between conditions, whereas contrasting effects of ridicule 63 experiment 3 did. first, the dependent measure for creativ ity in experiment 3 (torrance test of creativ ity) was arguably a better measure than the one used in the first two studies (multiple uses task), which has been criticized for tapping verbal fluency rather than divergent thinking. second, in experiment 3, the creativ ity task was administered very soon after the v ideotape (with only the ratings of the instructor intervening); this procedure ensured that the effects of observ ing the humor had not dissipated by the time the participants performed the creativ ity task. finally, the nature of the humor employed in the studies differed. in the first two studies, the self-deprecating humor (and the other-ridiculing humor) was quite caustic (e.g., “when i was a kid, i was so unpopular that my mother had to tie a pork chop around my neck just to get the dog to play with me”). in the third experiment, the ridicule was gentler and less dehumanizing (e.g., joking that someone‟s idea of roughing it is getting poor serv ice at the holiday inn). in this context, we should note that the gentler nature of the ridicule in experiment 3 might also have contributed to the null result that participants in the other-ridicule condition were not creatively inhibited (although reduced creativ ity was also not obtained in the first two experiments). another finding in experiment 3 was that perceptions of the instructor in the selfridicule condition were more positive than those in the other conditions. the selfdeprecating instructor was perceived to be more “warm” than the instructors in the other two conditions, and participants had more respect for the self-deprecating instructor. the latter effect—greater respect for the self-deprecating instructor than for the other-ridiculing instructor—conflicts with early research examining perceptions of the instigators of ridicule. for example, in the research cited earlier by stocking and zillmann (1976), it was found that a male who disparaged himself was seen as having lower self-esteem, being less intelligent, and being less confident than a male who disparaged others—though only by male perceivers, not female perceivers. more recent research suggests that both men and women favor opposite-sex indiv iduals who generate self-deprecating as opposed to other deprecating humor for long-term relationships, prov iding they are high status (greengross & miller, 2008). perhaps changes over the last three decades in norms and sex-role stereotypes have resulted in more favorable attitudes toward those who poke fun at themselves and less favorable attitudes toward those who ridicule other people among both men and women. europe‟s journal of psychology 64 general discussion whereas much research has examined humor, very little has investigated the psychological and behavioral effects of observ ing different types of humor. to our knowledge, with one exception (stocking & zillmann, 1976), the present research is unique in that it contrasts other-deprecating and self-deprecating ridicule while holding the content of the jokes constant. this design makes it possible to ascertain that the target of ridicule, regardless of the content, is critical for how that ridicule affects observers. our research documents two, contrasting effects of ridicule. first, observ ing ridicule of others has inhibiting effects—it motivates people to be “wary” in their behavior. the thought of being the target of ridicule oneself is aversive enough to inhibit people from standing out (e.g., they conform to the perceived opinions of others). although this fear of ridicule can be employed in socially useful ways (e.g., the research described earlier on ridicule as an educational corrective), ridicule is often used for less socially desirable purposes. for example, school-aged children and teenagers are often subjected to ridicule for failing to conform to peers‟ standards of behavior. the student who refuses to take drugs or drink alcohol may be ridiculed, as may an indiv idual whose interests or clothes do not conform to those preferred by the peer group. of course, these last examples involve the direct targets of ridicule, and our studies show that the effect of ridicule goes beyond the target. our research shows that those who merely observe others being ridiculed are affected by it—even when they are in no danger of being the target of ridicule themselves. witnessing another person being ridiculed leads observers to avoid behavior that might stand out; they choose, instead, to “play it safe”. the fear of being noticed and/or performing badly in front of others can result in missed opportunities (e.g., participants in experiments 1 and 2 did not realistically test themselves on the ring-toss task). ridicule is not confined to the schoolyard by any means. election campaigns seem to be increasingly characterized by ridicule and less by open discussion of the issues involved. an interesting, though unanswerable, question is how many competent and responsible indiv iduals have been deterred from seeking public office due to fear of personal ridicule. as mark twain noted, “there is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless” (1893). contrasting effects of ridicule 65 the second effect of ridicule documented in our research involves self-deprecating humor, which appears to have disinhibiting effects. with this type of humor, the indiv idual makes jokes about his or her own personal shortcomings. often, selfdeprecating humor involves poking fun at those “absurdities and infirmities” that beset all of us. our final study showed that merely observ ing self-deprecating humor can produce greater creativ ity—it seems to induce a readiness and/or ability to engage in more divergent thinking, presumably because people are more willing to risk generating ideas that might be perceived as bizarre or outlandish. limitations there are some potential limitations to our research on the effects of both self and other-directed ridicule that should be noted. the first limitation relates to indiv idual differences. i t is likely that there are traits that influence how people are affected by various types of humor. for example, indiv iduals‟ chronic humor styles may influence their responses to observ ing ridicule. an indiv idual who tends to use hostile humor in interpersonal settings may be less influenced by observ ing ridicule of others than an indiv idual who refrains from that type of humor, whereas an indiv idual who tends to use affiliative humor might be more disinhibited by self-ridicule than an indiv idual who refrains from that type of humor. additionally, the theme or topic of the humor may influence how people are affected by it. for example, observ ing other-directed ridicule that mocks characteristics that the observer feels he or she also possesses may have greater impact than ridicule mocking a characteristic that the observer considers personally irrelevant. thus, an athletically-challenged indiv idual may be more inhibited by observ ing other-directed ridicule 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(1996). a disposition theory of humor and mirth. in a.j. chapman & h.c. foot (eds.), humor and laughter: theory, research, and applications (pp. 93-116). ny: wiley. about the authors: leslie m. janes leslie m. janes is an associate professor in the psychology department at brescia university college in london, canada. her research interests include humor, motivation, and personality variables relating to resource allocation. europe‟s journal of psychology 70 address correspondence to: leslie janes, psychology department, 1285 western road, london, ontario, canada, n6g 1h2 e-mail: ljanes@uwo.ca james m. olson james m. olson is a professor in the psychology department at the university of western ontario, london, canada, where he served as chair of the department from 1998 to 2003. his research interests include humor, attitudes, and the social psychology of justice. he has published more than 100 articles and chapters and has edited 10 books. he is a co-organizer of the ontario symposium on personality and social psychology. loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 159-181, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.301 www.ejop.org exploring the relationship among loneliness, self-esteem, selfefficacy and gender in united arab emirates college students saleh a. al khatib al ain university of science and technology abstract the objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gender among united arab emirates college students. the respondents were 495 college students from al ain university of science and technology. the sample was stratified by sex. among the respondents, 59% were female students and 41% were male students. the mean age of the sample was 21.8 years ranging from 18 to 36. loneliness was measured by revised ucla loneliness scale (version 3) (russell, 1996), while self-esteem was measured by rosenberg self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1965). general self-efficacy scale (jerusalem and schwarzer, 1979) measured self-efficacy. the findings of the study showed that females reported higher loneliness compared to their males counter mates. lower self-esteem and lower self-efficacy were associated with high levels of loneliness. however, self-esteem emerged as the most significant predictor of loneliness accounting for 22.9% of the variance, self-efficacy and gender each accounted for an additional 6.5% of the variance in loneliness. all three predictors explained 29.4% (r = .543) of total variance. loneliness has been associated with various negative emotions and behaviors. therefore, it is of great value to explore the predictors of loneliness and find effective ways to reduce lonely feelings among college students. keywords: loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy, college students, uae. introduction loneliness is a distressing, painful experience that humans want to avoid. most people are probably going to have a significant experience of loneliness some time europe’s journal of psychology 160 in their lives (rokach & brock, 1997). oshagan and allen (1992) reported that the prevalence of loneliness in the general population has been estimated to range from 15% to 28%. unfortunately, researchers emphasized that loneliness is a more prevalent and serious problem among college students. moreover, many students have reported experiencing loneliness (wiseman, guttfreund, & lurie, 1995). knox, vail-smith and zusman (2007) found that 25.9% of college male students and 16.7% of college female students had severe loneliness feelings. in the same vein, mcwhirter (1997) reported that in the us, approximately 30% of college students experienced loneliness and at least 6% considered it a major problem. in a more recent study, özdemir and tuncay (2008) found in their study on turkish college students that 60.2% of the participants experienced loneliness. the findings also showed high means of loneliness (45.49). the united arab emirate’s society is a very conservative with strong family ties. religion and culture play a major role in the formation of their world views. a significant number of college students are married while at the college. young adults are expected to have children within the first two years. these practices results of adhering to cultural and societal values. also, this may create stress, especially for females, as young women attempt to balance childcare, college, domestic, familial, and marital duties simultaneously. ghubash, daradkeh, al-muzafari, almanssori, and abou-saleh (2001) concluded that the rapid sociocultural changes in the emirates society are demonstrated on increase in chronic illness like diabetes and heart diseases, as well as by increase in mental health disorders. according to the findings of few studies in this area in the uae, mental health disorders may be highly prevalent among college students and adults. abou-saleh, ghubash, and daradkeh (2001) conducted a study on a sample included 1394 adults systematically sampled from al ain community in the uae. they used the international classification of diseases (icd-10, and found that the prevalence of mental disorder rate was 8.2% and the rate of mental distress as measured by the new screening instrument was 18.9% . mood disorders and anxiety (neurotic) disorders were more common in women and alcohol and substance use disorders were exclusively confined to men. female sex, young age, quality of marital relationship, life events over past year, chronic life difficulties, physical illness, family history of psychiatric disorders and past history of psychiatric treatment were found to be significantly associated with icd-10 psychiatric disorder. multivariate analysis revealed that age, sex, exposure to chronic difficulties and past history of psychiatric treatment were the most significant predictors of icd-10 psychiatric disorders, and exposure to chronic difficulties, past history of psychiatric treatment and educational attainment were the significant predictors of lifetime ever and current mental distress. loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 161 in a cross-sectional study conducted in an international medical college at the city of dubai in the uae, the participants were 103 pre-clinical medical students. the major findings of the study were that 23.3% of the sample was in moderate depression range, and none of the students had severe depression (ahmadi, kamel, ahmed, bayoumi, & moneenum, 2008). it is not surprising that college students develop feelings of loneliness because the university life is a transitional period from high school to college and from being adolescent to being an adult. the new environment demands abandoning the old social network and exerting a great effort to seek and build a new close and social relationship with others, which may lead to the experience of loneliness. loneliness feelings loneliness has been described as negative feelings that exist when there is a discrepancy between what one wants in terms of interpersonal affection and intimacy and what one, in fact, has (lauder, siobhan, & kerry, 2004). blazer (2002) reported that the discrepancy can be long standing or can result from changes in the individual's social relations or changes in the person's social needs or desires. moreover, peplua and perlman (1982) described loneliness as a subjectively experienced aversive emotional state that is related to the perception of unfulfilled intimate and social needs. furthermore, loneliness involves the cognitive awareness of a deficiency in one’s social and personal relationships, and leads to affective reactions of sadness, emptiness, or longing (asher & paquentt, 2003). this can occur not only when people lack ongoing relationships with others, but even when they have meaningful relationships that take negative turns. for example, loneliness can be a response to separations, such as when a friend is unavailable to play with or moves away leaving behind affectionately stranded friends (asher & paquentt, 2003). moreover, peplua and perlman (1982) described loneliness as a subjectively experienced aversive emotional state that is related to the perception of unfulfilled intimate and social needs. rokach (2011) proposed three distinguishing characteristics of all loneliness experiences: loneliness is a universal phenomenon, a subjective experience, and a multifaceted experience. it is always very painful, severely distressing, and individualistic. several studies have explored the causes of loneliness (peplua & perlman, 1982). one set of the causes lies in cultural and situational environments such as changes in social networks, and changes in personal relationships especially loss of significant relationships. transfer is another cause of loneliness which may involve separation europe’s journal of psychology 162 from most of the person’s social networks. the other set due to personality traits like lack of social skills, fear of rejection, and anxiety (peplua & perlman, 1982). self-esteem and loneliness self-esteem has been regarded as an essential component of mental health (taylor & brown, 1988). self-esteem is an important factor for college students, it’s related to loneliness, and contributes to interpreting student’s behavior, when a student feels lonely (hobfoll & london, 1986). according to bandura (1997), self-esteem can be defined as the positivity of the person’s evaluation of the self. kohn (1994) reported that self esteem is the personal judgment of worthiness that is expressed in the attitude the person holds toward himself. it is how the individual evaluates himself and his characteristics. various research indicated that self-esteem was negatively correlated with loneliness (e.g., davis, hansen, edson, & ziegler, 1992; lasgaard & elklit, 2009; mahon, yarcheski, yarcheski, cannella, & hanks, 2006; mcwhirter, 1997; ouellet & joshi, 1986; roscoe & skomski, 1989). in their study, nurmi, toivonen, salmela-aro, and eronen (1997) investigated self-esteem and the attribution strategies in beginning a university freshman. they found that self-esteem was significantly predictive of loneliness following the college adjustment period. this finding suggested that the relationship between self-esteem and loneliness is stable over time. mahon et al. (2006), reported in their meta-analytic that 27 studies investigated the relationship between loneliness and self-esteem, the r effect sizes for the relationship between loneliness and selfesteem were in the range of a high medium effect size with outliers (r = -.42 to .45) and when outliers were removed (r= -.48 to -.50). when low self-esteem is formed, it affects all aspects of an individual’s life especially the relationship with others. individuals with low self-esteem usually avoid social settings and isolate themselves resulting in having the feelings of loneliness from their lack of confidence. ouellet and joshi (1986) reported correlation of r = -.72 between loneliness and self-esteem, indicating that higher levels of self-esteem were related to lower levels of loneliness. other studies exploring this relationship have yielded slightly weaker correlation between self-esteem and loneliness, with values of approximately r = -.50 (haines, scalise, & ginter, 1993). self-efficacy and loneliness to understand the variables that contribute to or influence the experience of loneliness among college students, college counselors also need to investigate the role of self-efficacy. self-efficacy was introduced by bandura (1977) and represents one aspect of his social-cognitive theory. general self-efficacy (gse) is the belief in loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 163 one's competence to tackle novel tasks and to cope with adversity in wide range of stressful or challenging encounters, as opposed to specific self-efficacy, which is constrained to a particular task at hand (luszczynska, gutiérrez-dona, & schwarzer, 2005). self-efficacy makes a difference to as how people feel, think, and act. high self-efficacy allows individuals to choose challenging settings and explore their environment or create new ones. while bandura (1997) reported that a low selfefficacy is associated with a low self-esteem, heslin and klehe (2006) noted that selfefficacy is related to the experience of stress and work burnout. specifically, low selfefficacy can lead to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness about one's capability of self-esteem. recent research findings show that gse negatively associated with loneliness (e.g., leganger, kraft, & roysamb, 2000; luszczynska et al., 2005). a study conducted by dussault and deaudelin (2001) found a negative correlation between self-efficacy and loneliness (r = .25). this finding suggests that loneliness is more likely exists in people who have lower self-efficacy. as a further support for this finding, the study findings of cheng and furnham (2002) revealed moderate, negative correlations between general self-efficacy and both the intimate others and social others subscales of the ucla loneliness scale. to further support the predictive relationship between self-efficacy and loneliness, these authors tested a path model that also included personality, social and academic variables. even with the inclusion of these other variables, self-efficacy uniquely predicted both the intimate others and social others components of loneliness. these findings suggest that higher levels of self-efficacy may protect against loneliness. bandura (1997) suggested that people with high self-esteem should have high selfefficacy, since they undertake more challenging goals than those with low selfesteem. this suggestion was confirmed by the findings of betz and klein (1996) a correlation of r = .53 for males and r = .43 for females between generalized selfefficacy and self-esteem. further, wulff and steiz (1999) identified a correlation of r = .38 between generalized self-efficacy and self-esteem. these studies demonstrate a moderate relationship between generalized self-efficacy and self-esteem. gender differences in loneliness gender differences in loneliness have been examined widely, unfortunately, the results were inconclusive. for example, many studies identify male students as lonelier than female students (deniz, hamarta & ari, 2005; yang, 2009), others have shown that female students were lonelier than male students (anderson, horowitz, & french, 1983; page & cole, 1991), and others found no significant gender differences europe’s journal of psychology 164 in relation to loneliness (al-kfaween, 2010; archibald, bartholomew, & marx, 1995; knox, vail-smith, & zusman, 2007; weiss, 1973). in a meta-analytic study of predictors of loneliness during adolescence, mahon et al. (2006) found that 19 out of 31 studies showed no significant gender differences. of the remaining 12 studies, 9 studies showed males were significantly lonelier than females were, two other studies showed females were significantly lonelier than males. in a related study, yang (2009) affirmed that men had higher loneliness than women and self-esteem did not explain the degree of loneliness. deniz, hamarta & ari, (2005) argued that loneliness levels are higher among male than female students because female students have better attachment skills and are well socialized in the social-emotional area. as can be seen in the theoretical frame, loneliness is associated to many variables that might be seen as risk factors in college students’ lives. lonely students tend to become depressed, suicidal, and engage in self-destructive behaviors (hermann & betz, 2006). further, loneliness has been associated to low self-esteem (weiss, 1973), social skills (deniz, hamarta & ari, 2005), interpersonal relationships, poor social adjustment, shyness, satisfaction (çivitci & çivitci, 2009), social support, and positive mood (cacioppo, et al., 2006) in low degrees, but, on the other hand, negative mood, such as anxiety, anger, and depression in high degrees (cacioppo et al., 2006). moreover, loneliness has been found to be related to health outcomes such as increment in hypertension (cacioppo, crawford, burleson, & kowalewski, 2002) inefficiency in sleep (hawkley & cacioppo, 2010) and poor perceived health (theeke, 2009). significance of the study despite increasing interest in loneliness-related issues in psychology, there is no study that investigated which variables contribute to uae college students’ loneliness. a study of loneliness among college students, particularly in the united arab emirates, is of significance as it can present practical information regarding the development of coping strategies for loneliness, and may provide knowledge for additional understanding of college students’ traits in the arab culture. furthermore, loneliness has been associated with various negative emotions and behaviors. therefore, it is of great value to explore the predictors of loneliness and find effective ways to reduce lonely feelings among college students (yang, 2009). loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 165 study hypotheses based on the literature regarding the theories of loneliness and the findings of the previous studies, this study hypothesized the following: (1) female students would experience higher levels of loneliness than male students; (2) higher levels of selfesteem will be associated with lower levels of loneliness; (3) higher levels of selfefficacy will be associated with lower levels of loneliness; (4) and the collectively of these independent variables (self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender) will account for a significant portion of variance in college students’ loneliness. the relationship between loneliness, self-esteem and self-efficacy has implications for college students' counseling because it was suggested that an increase in selfefficacy and levels of self-esteem might reduce levels of loneliness. betz and schifano (2000) reported that the studies that evaluate interventions were designed to increase the sources of self-efficacy which produces evidence that perceived efficacy expectations improve as a result of intervention. accordingly, the study of self-efficacy may have practical implications for counseling, and for understanding psychological processes and behavior change (hermann, 2005). method participants the main sample of this study involved 495 undergraduate students who were selected from the population of al ain university of science and technology (au) in the united arab emirates. the sample was stratified by sex. among the respondents, 292 (59%) were female students and 203 (41%) were male students. the mean age of the sample was 21.8 years ranging from 18 to 36 (sd = 2.95). with regard to their marital status, 361 (72.9%) were single, 112 were married (22.6%), and 22 (4.4%) were divorced. of the sample as a whole, 194 were freshmen (39.2%), 132 (26.6%) were sophomores, 98 (19.8%) were juniors, and 71 (14.4%) were seniors. procedure permission for participation of students was obtained from the related chief departments and students in both samples (pilot and main) voluntarily participated in the research. the scales were distributed to the university students in a classroom setting. to avoid social desirability effects, titles of the scales were not displayed all participants were treated in accordance with the american psychological association’s ethical principles. all data were collected by the researcher between europe’s journal of psychology 166 august and december 2011. the sample for the pilot study consisted of a one-intact psychology class (n = 28) during the fall semester of the academic year 2011/2012. there were 12 males and 16 females. by using this sample the scales were piloted and the three-week test-retest reliability coefficients were computed. the students selected for the pilot study were not included in the main study. measures three scales; university of california los angeles loneliness scale, general selfefficacy scale, and general self-efficacy scale, in addition to the demographic sheet, were used to collect data in the current study. for the purpose of this study, by using the “forward-backward” procedure, the english version of the three scales (ucla, ses and gss) used in this study was first translated into the arabic language by an export in bilingual language, then another bilingual expert translated the arabic version into english without accessing to the original version. a third bilingual faculty member compared the translated english versions. any discrepancies between the original english versions and the back-translated versions were discussed carefully by the translators and then resolved by joint agreement. these scales have been translated into different languages, and for many of these translations validation studies support the use of these instruments in different cultures. while the permission to use the ucla scale was obtained from its author, the other two scales (ses and gss) are in the public domain. therefore, they may be used without copyright permission. 1. demographic information. a questionnaire was designed to collect general demographic information including age, gender, college, income, marital status, and employment status. 2. university of california los angeles loneliness scale (version 3) (russell, 1996). ucla was used to measure participants’ level of loneliness. this 20-item scale asks participants about how frequently do they agree with statements such as "i feel left out", "i lack companionship" and "i am no longer close to anyone". it includes 9 positive and 11 negative items, randomly distributed throughout the scale. the items are scored on a 4 point likert-type scale. each item is rated from 1 (not at all true of me) to 4 (very true of me).the responses were summed for a total score in which high scores indicate greater loneliness. reliability of the ucla loneliness scale is high with a coefficient range of alpha .89 to .94 across various samples (russell, 1996). testretest reliability in adult samples has also been found to be high with a correlation of .73 (russell, 1996). the criterion-related validity has been examined. russell (1996) concluded that the convergent validity of the loneliness scale was supported by the loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 167 strong significant correlations with other measures of loneliness such as the nyu loneliness scale and the differential loneliness scale. in the current study, cronbch’s alpha for ucla loneliness scale was 0.91. three-week test-retest reliability coefficient for ses was .89. 3. self-esteem scale (ses, rosenberg, 1965). this scale was used to measure participants’ self-esteem. the ses is a 10 item self report measure. each of the 10 items are rated on a 4-point likert-type response format from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). a sample item is "on the whole, i am satisfied with myself". five of the items are reverse scored (3, 5, 8, 9, 10), so the "strongly disagree" was given a score of 1, and "strongly agree" was given a score of 4. higher ses scores indicate higher self-esteem levels. the ses has a reported reproducibility coefficient of .92 and a test retest correlation over 2 weeks of .85 (robinson & shaver, 1973). convergent validity is reported between r = .56 and r = .83 (robinson & shaver, 1973). the cronbach's alpha of the scale in the present study was .76. three-week test-retest reliability coefficient for ses was .81. 4. general self-efficacy scale (gss), (jerusalem & schwarzer, 1979). the general self-efficacy scale (gss) was used to collect data about participants' general selfefficacy. the scale was originally developed in germany by jerusalem and schwarzer in 1979, and originally consisted of 20 items. in 1981, it was reduced to 10 items and subsequently adapted to 28 languages including arabic (schwarzer & jerusalem, 1995). the gss was developed to measure perceived self-efficacy at the broadcast level. the scale has 10 items with a 4 point scale, ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = not at all true), (2 = hardly true), (3 = moderately true), and (4 = exactly true). the items' example is "i can solve most problems if i invest the necessary effort"). responses to all the 10 items have to be summed up to yield the final score with a range from 10 to 40. higher scores indicate greater degrees of self-efficacy. gss reliability has been established in samples from 23 nations, cronbach’s alphas ranged from .76 to .90, with the majority in the high .80s. criterion-related validity is documented in numerous correlation studies where positive coefficients were found with favorable emotions, dispositional optimism, and work satisfaction. (brenlla, aranguren, rossaro, & vazquez, 2010). gss reliability using cronbach's alpha in the present study was .87, and its test-retest reliability coefficient was .79. europe’s journal of psychology 168 data analysis descriptive statistic was utilized to describe the variables of this study. t-test was performed in order to compare males’ and females’ scores on main variables of the study. pearson correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between loneliness, self-esteem and social self-efficacy. hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to identify the independent variables that are useful in predicting college students' feelings of loneliness. results means, standard deviations, and reliabilities of the scales for college students are reported in table 1. the reliability for the scale of loneliness (ucla) was assessed using chronbach's alpha. the value of coefficient alpha was .91. nurmi et al. (1997) reported similar reliability, with chronbach alpha of .92. the range of scores in this study on loneliness was 18 to 72. the mean score of loneliness was 43.62 (sd = 8.91). this result was moderately higher than the total scale mean scores, on the ucla loneliness scale, among western students and students in turkey, which normatively range from 36.56 to 40.08 (russell, 1996). however, the study conducted by özdemir and tuncay (2008) on a sample from three universities in ankara indicated that the mean of students’ loneliness score was 45.49. the mean self-esteem (28.2) score was on the higher end of the self-esteem scale score (10 to 40). a chronbach's alpha of .76 was demonstrated for the ses. the mean score for self-efficacy was 27.5 indicating that respondents obtained above the average scale score when compared to scale score of 10 to 40. table 1. descriptive statistics and cronbach’s alpha values (n = 495). males (n = 203) females (n = 292) total (n = 495) variables m sd m sd m sd  loneliness 40.96 11.08 45.06 9.93 43.38 10.60 .91 self-esteem 29.43 5.50 26.97 4.44 28.60 5.14 .76 self-efficacy 28.37 5.03 27.54 4.72 27.88 4.68 .87 table 1 presents the mean scores for males and females on the loneliness level of participants. the mean ucla loneliness scale score was 43.38 (sd = 10.6) for the total sample. female students loneliness level (m = 45.06, sd = 9.93) is higher than male students (m = 40.96, sd = 11.08). to identify if the observed differences between loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 169 gender was statistically significant an independent t-test was applied to the data. the results revealed that there was a significant difference between males and female in terms of loneliness level (t = -4.36, p < .001). as can be seen in table 2, results of the t-test showed that there is a significant difference in self-esteem scores between male and female students (t = -2.3, p  .01). however, the difference between males and females in self-efficacy was not statistically significant (t = 1.1, p = .051). the outcomes of t-test analysis in this study supported hypothesis 1. table 2. results of t-tests for all variables by gender (n = 495). variable n m t value p loneliness -4.36** .000 male 203 40.96 female 292 45.06 self-esteem -2.3* .004 male 203 29.43 female 292 28.07 self-efficacy 1.1 .051 male 203 28.37 female 292 27.54 *p < .01, **p < .001 to test the hypothesis (hypotheses 2 and 3) that self-esteem and self-efficacy would be negatively associated with loneliness, bivariate pearson’s correlations between these variables were conducted and are displayed in table 3. the table suggests a negative and moderate correlation between loneliness and self-esteem (r = -.48, p < .001) and self-efficacy (r = -.46, p < .001). consistent with the hypotheses, these intercorrelations suggest that greater loneliness is related to both lower self-esteem and to lower self-efficacy. self-esteem was highly correlated with self-efficacy (r = .59, p < .001). respondents who reported higher self-esteem scored higher self-efficacy. although the independent variables are significantly related to each other, they also possess correlation coefficients lower than .60, which indicates their utility in accounting for greater amounts of unique variance in subsequent regression analyses (stevense, 1986). europe’s journal of psychology 170 table 3. correlation matrix of the dependent and independent variables (n = 495). 1 2 3 loneliness (1) 1.000 -.48** -.46** self-esteem (2) 1.000 .59** self-efficacy (3) 1.000 *p < .01, **p < .001 table 4 shows the results of regression analysis on the full sample with the independent variables self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gender used to predict the dependent variable of loneliness. forward selection hierarchical regression, in which the independent variables were entered into the regression equation in a preselected order, was chosen as the preferred statistical method because it is more theory driven than other methods, such as stepwise regression, also because it uses a prior conceptualization about the relationships among variables (pedhazur, 1982). based on the strength of bivariate correlations between all variables, self-esteem was the first variable entered into each of the three regression equations, because it was known to be highly correlated with loneliness it was expected to account for the greatest amount of variance in predicting loneliness. because the second hypothesis dealt with the specific contribution of self-efficacy to loneliness, its placement after self-esteem in the regression equation seemed most consistent with the theoretical rationale for performing the study. gender was entered third, so the unique contribution of gender in predicting loneliness could be seen after both self-esteem and self-efficacy were entered. table 4 showed the results of the analysis of model 1, 2 and 3. r is different from zero at the end of each model. in model 1, after the entry of self-esteem in the equation, r2 = .229, f(1, 494) = 146.63, p < .001. self-esteem had a high significant (ß = -.479, p < 0.001) contribution in predicting loneliness among participants. about quarter (22.9%) of the variability in loneliness was explained by self-esteem. model 2, with self-efficacy added to the prediction of self-esteem, r2 = .279, f(1, 492) = 35.733, p < .001. thus, self-efficacy predicted additional variance in loneliness beyond that shared with self-esteem. r2 increased .051 from .228 to .279 and self-efficacy jointly accounted for 28.1% of the variance in college students’ loneliness. in model 2, self-efficacy was a significant unique predictor (ß = -.283, p  .001) of loneliness. loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 171 in model 3, gender was introduced at step 3. the addition of gender increased the percentage of explained variance by 2.94%, r2 = .290, f(1, 491) = 9.048, p  0.003. r2 increased .011 from .279 to .290. these results indicate that gender predicted additional variance in loneliness, and it was a significant unique predictor (ß = .115, p = .003). self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gender altogether predicted 29.4% of the variance in loneliness. self-esteem was found to have the largest contribution to a students' loneliness scores, followed by self-efficacy. gender had a small contribution on students' loneliness. according to these findings, the hypothesis of this study (hypotheses 2, 3 and 4) were supported and accepted. table 4. regression results of self-esteem, general self-efficacy and gender on loneliness (n = 495). mod. variables std.  r total r2 r2 f total (df) f 1 self-esteem -.479** .479 .229 .228 146.63 (1, 494)** 146.63 2 self-esteem self-efficacy -.311** -.283** .531 .281 .279 96.347 (2, 493)** 35.733 3 self-esteem self-efficacy gender -.301** -.274** .115* .543 .294 .290 68.298 (3, 492)* 9.048 *p < .01, **p < .001 discussion in the current study, the ucla loneliness scale was used to determine the levels of college students’ loneliness. female students’ loneliness level was higher than male students. this result supported some previous studies’ findings (e.g., de jong-gierveld, 1987; page & cole, 1991). whereas several studies found that loneliness levels were higher among males (e.g., cheng & furnham, 2002; davis & franzoi, 1986; yaacob, juhari, abu-talib & uba, 2009; yang, 2009), other studies found no significant differences between males and females (e.g., brage, meredith, & woodward, 1993; özdemir & tuncay, 2008;). although research findings concerning gender differences on loneliness are still not quite consistent, the current study provides evidence for females’ higher loneliness than males. regarding the gender differences in self-esteem and self-efficacy, this study revealed that males’ selfeurope’s journal of psychology 172 esteem was higher than that of females, whereas there was no significant gender differences on self-efficacy. gender differences in loneliness levels could be explained by the characteristics of the participants, and more likely their gender role in uae society. in addition, it can be avowed that cultural construction of the family in uae supports the gender differences in loneliness. traditionally, religious, social and cultural norms in the uae have influenced the position of women. family dictates the rules and controls the daily life activities especially for females (al khatib, 2007). as rokach and brock (1997) outlined, the social tapestry, and the support network which are available to individuals in different cultures affect the causes of loneliness. as hypothesized, the results of the correlation analysis showed that self-esteem was correlated significantly and negatively with loneliness. that is to say, if the self-esteem levels of college students increases, loneliness decreases. this finding was supported by mcwhirter (1997) who found that loneliness had a moderate negative relationship with self-esteem. the findings of the present study indicated that self-esteem may play an important role in reducing loneliness among college students. finally, the relationship between loneliness and self-efficacy was examined by some researchers who have reported that there is a significant negative relationship between loneliness and self-efficacy (e.g., hermann, 2005). similarly, the findings of this study showed that loneliness was negatively associated with self-efficacy. self-esteem scores and self-efficacy scores were shown to have a statistically significant correlation for college students. although, this finding contradicted the results of mckenzie (1999), it supported other studies (e.g., blake & rust, 2002; hermann, 2005). from this result, it can be concluded that it matters how individuals perceive themselves. individuals who are more efficacious have more esteem than those who are less efficacious. also, students who have more self-esteem and more self-efficacy would suffer less loneliness syndrome. in general, the findings of the present study denote that gender, self-esteem, and self-efficacy are critical predictors of college students’ loneliness. loneliness among college students was associated with decreased self-esteem and self-efficacy. these associations are in agreement with many previous findings. the negative relationship between self-esteem and loneliness can be interpreted as hoffmann, powlishta, and white (2004) noted that individuals with low self-esteem are likely to feel disapproved and rejected by others. additionally they may have poor self-confidence and social skills required for initiating and developing relationships; factors that are related to loneliness. moreover, gerson and perlman (1979) reported that poor social skills loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 173 predispose individuals to loneliness because of ineffective social interactions that do not generate positive reinforcement from the environment. as a result, lonely people will not value themselves and will act to avoid anticipated rejection (jones, 1982). in either case, attempts at interaction tend to decrease and become less effective, and a cycle of increased social pessimism about social relations is continued (jones, 1982). the lack of internal emotions may function as a personal vulnerability factor to loneliness, and thus serious negative results influence the college students’ mental health. therefore, a greater importance should be given to the presence of high levels of both self-esteem and self-efficacy to decrease the levels of loneliness feelings of the college students. the feelings of low self-esteem lead to attitudes of hopelessness, uselessness and feelings of scantiness. with these attitudes, it is difficult to build any social relationships and this leads to isolation and loneliness. the findings of the present study implied that low self-esteem and low self-efficacy are risk factors for loneliness among college students. college students who are lonely and have low self-esteem may lack social support, social skills and have interpersonal deficiency. overall, the results of this study support previous suggestions (e.g., smith & betz, 2002) that both self-esteem and self-efficacy interventions can be helpful in reducing high levels of loneliness. hermann & betz (2006) suggested a model to increase personal efficacy and social skills. the model was based on bandura’s (1997) four sources of efficacy information – performance accomplishments, vicarious learning/molding, anxiety management, and social persuasion. these sources of information could easily be integrated within a social skills training or interpersonal skills group to increase personal efficacy and social skills. limitations and recommendations of the study overall, this study demonstrates increase understanding of loneliness and the relationship of loneliness to gender, self-esteem and self-efficacy among uae college students. although the results of the current study are interesting and have implications for interventions that could reduce loneliness feelings in college students, several limitations may have influenced the results. first, the sample did not represent all university students because of the convenience sampling. therefore, caution need to be exercised in generalizing the findings of this study to college students. second, the data in the current study were gathered at one point in time. consequently, the respondents’ perception may have been influenced by covariate factors. thus, the interpretation of the results is constrained by the cross sectional nature of the data. in addition, the current study was limited to self-report europe’s journal of psychology 174 data, which may raises the potential problems with desirability bias and tiredness, thereby affecting the result of the study. finally, difficulties such as misunderstanding the likert-type scale and carelessness were encountered in the administration of the instruments. these difficulties may have affected the scores obtained and thus weakened the validity of the study. based on the limitations, the findings should be interpreted cautiously and the findings need to be replicated with more representative sample of college students. in general, there is an obvious need to carry out further research to investigate the variables explored herein with large samples spanning multiple cultures or different ages, and with other populations, such as children and younger adolescents, older adults. future studies should continue to explore other factors that might contribute to loneliness. in addition, there is a need for interventional studies aimed at helping college students who experience chronic loneliness. more so, research replicating the present study could also be performed to either confirm or repudiate the findings of the study. this study has several practical implications for college counselors and parents. college students who are lonely and have low self-esteem, and low self-efficacy may lack social support, social skills and have interpersonal deficiency (yaacob et al., (2009). the findings of the present study suggest that college counselors and health professionals can develop counseling and treatment interventions better tailored for lonely students if self-esteem and self-efficacy support are addressed. programs can also be designed to better educate students, parents, and faculty members about contributing factors to loneliness, how to identify them and how to properly approach these factors. improving students’ self-esteem, enhancing their self-efficacy may contribute to better counseling and treatment programs for lonely college students. conclusion as a result, it can be concluded that gender significantly contributed to loneliness feelings. this finding was supportive of previous studies that indicate females experience higher loneliness than males do. self-esteem and self-efficacy are important variables in predicting variables of loneliness. as pointed out in the literature, loneliness and self-esteem have a strong correlation, and also in the selfefficacy literature. overall, the type of correlation between loneliness and self-esteem, self-efficacy, and gender were generally consistent with previous research, demonstrating that the features of lonely college students in the uae are not unique, but are in fact loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 175 similar to what has been observed in other countries. although future research is needed to clarify the causational relationship between the selected variables in this study, this investigation highlights the importance of developing a treatment and prevention programs and find ways to reduce the levels of loneliness among college students. references abou-saleh, m. t., ghubash, r., & daradkeh, t. k. 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(master’s thesis). retrieved from http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/23150. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6601_2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.49.4.438 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.49.4.438 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193 http://bir.brandeis.edu/handle/10192/23150 loneliness, self-esteem, self-efficacy and gender 181 about the author associate professor dr. saleh a. al khatib obtained undergraduate degree in education from jordan university, jordan. both his master and ph.d. degrees in counseling psychology were obtained from jordan university and cairo university respectively. dr. saleh conducted many researches in the field of psychology (e.g., al khatib, 2007). dr. saleh published many books in psychology in english and arabic such as counseling in school (in arabic), mental health disorders (in arabic) and general psychology (in english). he taught in different universities and finally joined al ain university in the united arab emirates in 2005 as both a faculty member and the director of counseling centre. address for correspondence: dr. saleh a. al khatib, associate professor. director of counseling center, college of education, al ain university of science and technology, p.o. box: (64141), al ain, united arab emirates, e-mail saleh1950@live.com. transactional analysis seen by a critical parent eye: crossed transactions, reality or graphic illusion? parallel communication vandra attila trainer of the romanian association of debates, oratory and rhetoric (ardor) and transsylvanian debate association (ede) vandraattila@rdslink.ro introduction: basic concepts in transactional analysis (ta) transactional analysis, commonly known as ta to its adherents, is a psychoanalytic theory of psychology, developed by psychiatrist eric berne during the late 1950s, (berne, e. 1957) based on the study of evolution and the pathological functioning of ego states (várkonyi f. zsuzsa, 2003). revising freud’s concept of the human psyche as composed of the ego, superego, and the id, (freud, s. 1900, 1977) berne, e. (1964) postulated instead three “ego states”, the parent (p), adult (a) and child (c) ego states, which were largely shaped through childhood experiences. (wikipedia, 2006) ta has four parts: the structural analysis, transactional analysis, game analysis and script analysis. (járó katalin, editor, 1999) eric berne defined ego state as a “consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior” (in: parr, j., 2002) even a grown-up man often behaves childlike, or in other situations might imitate parenteral figures from his childhood, and his behavior can be also as a rational, independent adult’s. in the first case, his behavior is determined by the c ego state, in the second the by the p ego state and in the third case by the a ego state. berne’s ego state model is a „switch” model: human behavior is influenced always by a single ego state, never more. this radical distinction has his own advantages (ernst, f. h., 1971), but is also a source of confusion (eysenk, h. j., 1983, strauss, j. s. & hafez, h., 1981, white, t., 1984) these discussions are out of the range of the present analysis. ta uses two main ego state models. eric berne (1964) represents ego states in the so-called pac, or „snowman” model, as shown in figure 1. figure 1. eric berne’s ego state model, the “snowman” model, or pac model in p ego state, one can behave in two radically different manners: as a critical parent (cp) and as a nurturing parent (np). also in c ego state one can behave as free child (fc) and adaptive child (ac). so the functional ego state model was born. (figure 2). figure 2. the functional ego state model we can find different names in ta literature for cp, np, fc, and ac, each of them having positive and negative manifestations, which have different names in many literature sources (f. várkonyi zsuzsa, 2001, birkenbihl, vera, f., 2000, cocorada elena, 2005, lassus, rené de, 1991). one in c ego state, can also have the rebel child (rc) behavior. we can find in literature rc as a negative part of ac (lassus, rené de, 1991), as negative part of fc (cocorada, elena, 2005) and as distinctive part of c ego state (f. várkonyi zsuzsa, 2001, 2003). my opinion is close to rené de lassus’s, however these discussions are out of the range of the present analysis. levine proved by rat experiments rené spitz’s presumptions: stimuli are vital necessities (in: berne, e. 1964).in his experiment, rats got ill and died, if they were grown up without stimuli and were recovered in the same way getting positive or negative stimuli. the stimuli can be physical ones (caress, pain), communicative stimuli (verbal or non-verbal ones) or actions, which have (positive or negative) consequences for the other. human actions are part of human interactions and have role in human communication. (vandra attila, 2001). berne, e. (1964) named these: stimuli strokes. another important human necessity is time-structuring. eric berne (1964) classified human time-structuring in 6 categories: isolation, rituals, pastimes, activities, intimacy and games. stewart, ian & joines, vann (1998) and english f. (1987) define two other ones: the power plays, respectively the racketeering. crossed transactions taking in account that human communication is not only verbal, we communicate also nonverbaly and by our actions we can say, that stroke change is a communicative action. the elementary unit of human communication is the message. human communication is a social interaction realized by message change. (buda béla, 1994). the receiver of the message reacts obligatory to the stimuli with a feed-back message. the first axiom of communication of the palo alto school: is impossible not to communicate (to avoid communication). (watzlawick, p.-beavin, j. h.-jackson, d. d. 1967) a message and its feed-back response constitutes of a transaction, which is the elementary unit of human interaction in ta point of view. a transaction consisting of a single stimulus and a single response, verbal or non-verbal, is the unit of social action. (in: underwood, mick editor, 2003) a message can be graphically represented using the ego state models as an arrow, which starts from one of the ego states of the emitter and arrives to one of the ego states of the receiver. a transaction can be represented as a pair of arrows. (berne, e. 1964). we can make distinction between overt transactions, which are realized on social level and can be received also by an external person and covert transactions named also ulterior transactions which are realized in psychological level, and are often not received by the environment. the covert transactions are after-word messages. covert transactions are always accompanied by overt transactions with a different content. together, overt and covert transactions constitute duplex transactions. according to e. berne, there are in fact 6597 possibilities, but he assures us that only about 15 are commonly used (in: underwood, mick editor, 2003). classical ta makes difference between two types of overt transactions: i. complementary transactions, if the transaction participates in only two ego states. the message and the feed-back answer involving the same ego states. (in: wikipedia, 2006). some literature sources use the “parallel transaction” term instead of the “complementary transaction.” (lassus, rené de, 1991). in my opinion it is not a correct name, taking in account that parallels never meet, is a source of confusion. the term “parallel” suggests that a transaction is formed by independent messages, what is not a true affirmation. i use the “parallel” term exactly in this sense. classical ta literature represents complementary transactions as parallel, contrary arrows. (berne, e. 1964). i prefer to represent them as double sensed arrows. on the structural model theoreticaly we can have 3*3 = 9 complementary transactions. most of complementary transactions can be included in five categories: three symmetrical ones and two unsymmetrical ones. 1. a↔a: eg: activities. („what’s the time?” „ten past nine”) (figure 3a) 2.: p↔p (cp↔cp) eg: pastimes (“youngsters of today…” “when we were of their age…”) (figure 3b and figure 4b2) 3. c↔c (fc↔fc) eg: intimity or proximity (lassus, rené de, 1991): „i like to be with you.” ”me too”. – figure 3c) 4. p↔c (cp↔ac): eg: activities, accept of control: „what’s this disorder in your room?” “i do my room immediately.” (figure 5a, figure 6a) 5. c↔p (ac↔νp) eg. nurturing (proximity) („ouch! my leg!” „let me bandage you!”) (figure 5b, figure 6b) figure 3. symmetric transactions a: a↔a b: p↔p c: c↔c the inconvenient of representing the p↔p (cp↔cp) transaction (figure 3b) on the classical functional model is that the arrow „crosses” the np, which does not participate in the transaction. representing the receiver’s ego states rotated 1800 around his vertical ax („in mirror”) resolves the problem. the answering cp „turns” to the cp of the emitter, how humans do while they communicate. why can not the ego state models be rotated? why do we have to represent them in only a classical way? figure 4. representation of cp↔cp transaction on the functional ego state model b1: in classical way b2: rotated 1800 around his vertical ax. figure 5. a: the p↔c (cp↔ac) transaction.    b: the c↔p (ac↔np) transaction. if we accept the rotation of classical ego state models in graphic representations, (ego states turn to each other), and the tendency of having the closest position as possible in transactions, we have to rotate the receiver’s ego states in figure 5a and b with 1800 around his horizontal ax. in this way the classical pac representation transforms in a cap one. in this way the arrows, which represent the transactions, will be horizontal. figure 6. representation of a: the p↔c (cp↔ac) b: the c↔p (ac↔np) transactions on the rotated model. the arrows are horizontal. in the symmetrical transactions rotation is not necessary, because they are face-to-face on the classical model. ii. the second type of overt transactions are found the so called crossed transactions. in the case of the crossed transactions participate in more than two ego states in the transactions, because the feed-back messages are coming from a different ego state than the addressed one, or it is sent to a different ego state, than the original message is coming from. on the classical model are represented by crossing arrows, this phenomena generated their name. they can not be represented as double sense arrows. theoretically crossed transactions are also of many types, but most of them can be included in three categories. a. a→a p→c (cp→ac) transactions: are frequently starting transactions in psychological games. („don’t you know where my watch is?” „i always have to know where you leave your things, because you are disorderly!”) (figure 7a and figure 8a) b. p→c (cp→ac) a→a transactions: are frequent in antithesis. the person who was provoked to a psychological game refuses to be a partner in the game, gives an adult an answer. („you fool!” „i see, you are angry with me.”). (figure 7b and figure 8b) c. p→c p→c (cp→ac, cp→ac) transactions are the typical transactions of power plays, racketeering and psychological games („your idea is a fool idea” „better you’ll use your mind to understand it!”). (in all cases p has a negative controlling parent – critical parent – behavior). (figure 7c and figure 8c) crossed transactions are characteristic in games. there are two different types of games. in the first category the competition games can be enumerated. players try to win a reward against each other. these games, named also rational games, are studied by mathematical game theory, which tries to find the best strategies to win more or with more probability. transactional analysts (stewart, ian – joines, vann, 1998) names them power plays. in the second category are the psychological games (named also irrational games) which are common stereotype sets of interactions involving ulterior motives. (in: wikipedia, 2006), repetitive, stereotyped human behaviours with a predictable end, following predetermined patterns and rules, and have a pay-off of racketfeelings (parr, j., 2002, p39) figure 7. the classical representation of crossed transactions a: a→a, p→c (cp→ac) transaction b: p→c, (cp→ac) a→a transaction c: p→c, p→c (cp→ac, cp→ac) transaction the feed-back is coming from a different ego state. representing crossed transactions on the rotated models, on which the communicating ego states are face to face, we get the representation showed on figure 8: figure 8. representation of the crossed transactions on the rotated model. (the active ego states turn to each other) a: a→a, p→c (cp→ac) transaction b: p→c, (cp→ac) a→a transaction c: p→c, p→c (cp→ac, cp→ac) transaction the representations are parallel arrows starting from different ego states. on the rotated model, crossed transactions are represented by parallel arrows not by crossing ones! but these arrows are distanced, showing that the content of the message and of its feed-back is not complementary (figure 8). the only advantage of the classical representation is the emphasize, that the players’ interests “cross” each other. the question is: why is it necessary to emphasize it? there are not alternative or more important phenomena to represent on the model, which are possible on the rotated model, but not on the classical one? the present study tries to prove, that the classification of overt transactions in complementary/crossed ones is a procustes’s bed, trying to improve a new, better classification. in isolation there are no transactions, in rituals, pastimes, activities, and intimacy are characterized by cooperative behavior. the non-cooperative behavior is characteristic of the rational non-cooperative games and psychological games too. rational games and psychological games are not independent phenomena. the transformation of rational games into psychological games were described by vandra attila (2006). psychological games can be divided into two rational games (one before and one after the switch). the target of the first rational game is to win an advantage, the reward of the game. the rational game transforms while playing. game begins as a prisoner’s dilemma, (mérő lászló, 1996, rapoport, a., chammach, a., 1965) continues as a chicken! game (poundstone, 1992, mérő lászló, 1996), transforms into a dollar auction game (shubik, m. 1971, mérő lászló 1996), which’s main characteristic is that even who triumphs looses (mérő lászló, 1996, vandra attila, 2006). (transactional analysis include prisoner’s dilemmas into activities, chicken! games into power games, dollar auction games into power games or racketeerings. all these time-structuring can be defined as games, from the mathematical game theory point of view). this is why players lose self-respect while playing. after one of the players concludes that he can not win any more, makes a switch, trying to save disparately his self-respect. this is the key-moment, when a rational game transforms into a psychological game. (vandra attila, 2006) making an effort to save self-respect is also a rational game, but together the first game it is an irrational behavior. the most efficient way he can save self-respect is loosing the first game and provoking the other to make him suffer. becoming a victim he can easily transfer the whole responsibility to his opponent: “he is the guilty one, he and nobody else!” saving his positive self-respect. after becoming a victime he can not loose this game. apparently the target of the whole game is to suffer, getting negative payoffs (parr, j. 2002). the reality is that the negative payoffs are never targets of the games, they are only ways to hit the real target, rescuing his self-respect (vandra attila, 2006). analyzing games from point of view of mathematical game theory we can conclude, that all transactions in games are non-cooperative ones. all rational games (and as it was shown in psychological ones too) begin with a prisoner’s dilemma type situation (vandra attila, 2006). in prisoner’s dilemma, players have to choose between an adaptive (cooperative) and a non-cooperative (defecting, non-adaptive) move (mérő lászló, 1996). if one of them chooses the adaptive (cooperative) move, the game ends immediately. if both chose the non-cooperative move prisoner’s dilemma transforms into a chicken! game and can degenerate into a dollar auction game both characterized by non-cooperative moves (vandra attila, 2006). who makes a cooperative move, gives up the game and looses. the cooperative transactions are excluded in rational games, so in psychological games too, because they are formed of two rational games. also not all rational games transform into a psychological one. if one gives up before the switch the game ends as a rational game. in rational games each player tries to improve his own interest, so tries to lead the communication in the direction of resolving his own interest. so each player will try to communicate about his problem, his rules, his point of view, his value system: “that is the problem that we can resolve (first).” the attempt to discuss about different things, leads to the parallel communication: dialog transforms into two independent monologues. we can find many transactions, which on the classical representation are represented by not-crossing arrows, but they are not cooperative ones, they are typical game transactions: „youngsters of today…” “when we were of their age…” is a typical p↔p (cp↔cp) complementary transaction (time-spending). but the next one, between two mother-in-laws, is only formal is the same. „your daughter is lazy!” „and your sun is a saint?” they are discussing about different youngsters, not as in the first example. it is a cp→cp, cp→cp transaction (figure 9a) „let’s go to left!” „better to right” apparently is a typical a↔a transaction. the continuing too. „to the left, because…” „to the right because…” first transaction is an informational change. the second is a reasoning one. but why aren’t we surprised by the continuation?: „we always proceed as you want to!” (cp→ac). the last message is a typical one in psychological games. the first player switched to accuse the other. the switch is a direct consequence of the first transactions. (the first transaction is prisoner’s dilemma, the second one, the dollar auction game. the chicken! game is present only in a moment of waiting the other’s decision between the two transactions). it was not an activity; it was a power play, a competition from from the first moment. (figure 9b.) when the child tries to get forgiveness from his punishing parent it is a similar transaction. „you are punished!” „please, don’t punish me!” the continuing: “you deserve it!” „i’ll never do it again!” both are p→c, c→p (p↔c?) transactions, but in this case we can recognize, that the ac sends his response not to the cp who addressed him the message, but to the np: is a cp→ac ac→np transaction, which is not a typical crossed transaction. the competition is present also in this example: who convinces who? (figure 9c). the parent refuses to answer from the np ego state, if he would, (“i understand you!”) he would risk to loose. „kiss me!” „how beautiful the sunset is!” is a c→c c→c (fc→fc, fc→fc ≠ fc↔fc) transaction: in this example the most striking is that we have two parallel monologues, not a dialog. the boy invites the girl to a sexual game, the girl wants to watch the sunset, and invites the boy to do the same. the girl’s answer can be a refuse (“i don’t want to kiss you!” – covert transaction) or only a request for waiting (“let’s admire it two minutes, after the sunset i’m yours”). is not important what the girl’s motivation is, is not a cooperative transaction, however it is formal, because it involves only two ego states (figure 9d). figure 9. false complementary transactions a: cp→cp, cp→cp transaction b: a→a, a→a transaction c: cp→ac, ac→np transaction d: fc→fc, fc→fc transaction let us verify that in the other three examples, the parallel monologue phenomena. while in the typical complementary transaction both discussed about “the youngsters”, one of the mother-in-laws communicated about her daughter-in-law, the other about her sun-in-law. both tried to have a discussion about their own idea, neglecting the others. the pc tried to have a discussion about the conformation, the ac about understanding. in all false complementary transactions, it is a competition, not cooperation. both have a defecting behavior, not an adaptive one, they do not accept to have a discussion about the other’s problem. mathematical game theory analysis on prisoner’s dilemma situations had shown, that a reciprocal defecting (non-adaptive) behavior lead to competition, while the condition of cooperation is a reciprocal adaptive behavior. (mathematical game theory bibliography sources use the “cooperative” term instead of “adaptive”. i prefer the last one. in my opinion cooperation is a common action between two players; adaptation is only an attempt for cooperation. if one has an adaptive, the other a defecting strategy, the first one looses, the second triumphs, which is not a real cooperation – rapoport, a., chammach, a. 1965). let us see how the transactions would be in case of adaptive behavior, without loosing the game. „your daughter is lazy! „yes, she should do more. but neither your sun is an example of assiduity.”. „you are also right. these youngsters…” they had affirmations about two different persons, but first they accepted that the other’s affirmation is real, closing the transaction, only after that they began to change the subject, beginning another transaction. in this way they had a common discussion about the youngsters. „let’s go to left!” ”i understand your opinion, but i should go to right!” “i know, what you want, but i have arguments to do so” “i learned about them, but please take in account my arguments too” “ok, how shall we proceed taking in account both opinions?” this is a competition, but not a rough one, like in the original story. they try to find a solution to leave together the competition, trying to find a compromise, a common solution. „you are punished!” „i understand, that you are angry with me, i realize that i deserve the punishment, but i want to ask you, to forgive me”. „i understand that you want to avoid-l the punishment, but it is very important to me, to give you a lesson”. „i know, that this is your aim, but i promise, that i will never do it again”. neither did the two different problems disappear. but in either cases, they do not change the subject before giving an adaptive answer. to the typical cp→ac message (“you are punished!”) the child gives an answer which has two parts. the beginning is an ac→cp one, (“i realize i deserve it”) which closes the cp↔ac complementary transaction. the second part is an a→a answer, beginning a new transaction, which gets another a→a feed-back, (a↔a transaction). this is not a cp→ac, a→a “crossed” transaction, (“parallel” transaction). there are two independent complementary transactions. „kiss me!” „immediately! let’s admire the sunset two minutes, after which i’m yours. do you see how beautiful it is?” the girl’s answer also two parts: 1. conditional adapting. 2. changing the subject. conditional adapting (‘immediately”) closes the first transaction, in this way the second part of the answer does not “cross” the boy’s request. it is not a parallel answer, it is another one. in typical “crossed” transactions it is also observable the parallel monologues. in example “a”, the first person requested an information about his watch, the answer was a judgment about his behavior. in example “b” to the judgment about the second person recieves an answer about the feelings of the first one. in the “c” example the first person characterized the second person’s idea, the answer was an judgment about the first person. thomas gordon (1991) described 12 communication barrages. communication barrages are phenomena, which transform cooperative communication into games. his observation was that, while all communication barrages, participants try to resolve their own problems, and are communicating about the other person trying to convince him to give up his own position. grammatically, this leads to messages in which the subject is the other person, so he called them “you-messages”. because “you” is a different person from point of view of the two participants this leads to a parallel communication, to parallel transactions. false complementary transactions are in reality duplex ones, because being competitive ones, the social level overt transactions always are accompanied by a covert (cp→ac, cp→ac) transaction (“give up!” “give up you!”) in the psychological level. social level (overt transaction): „let’s go to left!” „it is better to right!” psychological level (covert transaction): „give up! let it be as i want to!” „you give up social level (overt transaction): 1. a→a, a→a 2. … psychological level (covert transaction):: 1. cp→ac, cp→ac 2. … (figure 10) the distinction between real complementary (cooperative) transactions and false complementary (parallel) transactions can be made on both (classical and rotated) models, representing cooperative transactions as double sense arrows, and parallel transactions as parallel, contrary simple sense arrows. the advantage of the new (rotated) model is that the representation of false complementary (competitive) transactions is similar to the representation of typical competitive (“crossed”) transactions, showing the relationship between them. figure 10. representation of the covert transactions in the false complementary a→a, a→a transaction a. on the classical model b. on the rotated model. the overt transactions are represented by continue, the covert ones by dashed arrows. the examples of false complementary transactions try to prove, that is more important to make a distinction between cooperative (real complementary) transactions and competitive (parallel) transactions than between crossed and not crossed ones. the proposed distinction makes the difference between game or not game phenomena. because psychological games can be divided in two rational games (one before and other one after the switch), and because rational games often degenerate into psychological games mathematical game theory conclusions can be useful in ta. (vandra attila, 2006) on the rotated model rational games are more visible phenomena. however the existence/absence of covert transactions make the difference between real and false complementary transactions easier to recognize the difference between them focusing attention to existence/absence of parallel communication. the proposed model and focusing attention to parallel transactions will make easier the distinction between game and not game phenomena not only for patients but also for ta specialists. focusing to rational games is important in the starting points of games (rational games often degenerate to psychological games, or are good opportunities to play psychological games) and for studying possibilities to avoid or to quit psychological games. in moments, when one of the players does not want to play, it is crucial to understand the laws which guide rational games, because the attempt to quit the psychological game is a typical rational game: “let’s play a psychological game!” “i do not want to!” “give up, quitting playing!” “give up the game!” are the typical covert parallel transactions of these moments, it is a typical competition between the person who wants to play, and the other, who wants to quit. understanding laws of mathematical game theory will help those, who want to quit the game. closing possibilities to hit the negative payoff is not enough for quitting games, if we do not take in account the laws of competitions. not all rational games end degenerating in psychological ones. the distinction between to win and to triumph is the most important contribution of mathematical game theory for avoiding degeneration in psychological games. the proposed model, and distinction between cooperative and competitive transactions will help to understand in an easier way how to avoid rational game degeneration. conclusions in my opinion “crossed transactions” are no more than a graphical phenomenon. the proposed new classification (cooperative/non-cooperative as well as complementary/parallel transactions) is more anchored to reality, to the phenomenon that we have to focus to. the proposed rotated model makes it easier to understand the distinction between cooperation and competition, making a necessary bridge between the two game theories, the mathematical and psychological ones. on the proposed model it is important to make a clear graphical distinction between cooperative (real complementary) transactions and competitive, parallel ones, representing cooperative (complementary) transactions by double sense arrows, and with two different arrows the parallel ones. because in ta studies is frequently used the term of “parallel” transactions instead of complementary ones, and this study uses the “parallel” transaction instead of competitive transaction to avoid misunderstandings, it is better to use the “competitive” transaction term, or the “parallel communication” one. there is no contradiction between classical ta, and the proposed model and the new classification. the new classification can be used instead the classical one to understand game phenomena, or as an alternative, in this way this can be complementary to classical ta. bibliography berne, e, (1957): „the ego states in psychoterapy” the american journal of psychoterapy, 11/1957 berne, e. 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(1967): “pragmatics of human communication. a study of interactional patterns, pathologies and paradoxes”. norton, n. y. wikipedia the free encyclopedia (2006): “transactional analysis” white, tony: (1984): „new ways in transactional analysis” ta books, north perth, wa, australia, second edition, 2000 emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 624 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 624-639 www.ejop.org hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being among nurses in turkish hospitals1 ronald j. burke york university mustafa koyuncu nevsehir university lisa fiksenbaum york university abstract this study examined the relationship between self-reports of hospital culture and indicators of work satisfaction and engagement, perceptions of hospital functioning and quality of nursing care, and psychological well-being of nursing staff in turkish hospitals. it represents the first study of its kind. data were collected from 224 staff nurses using anonymously completed questionnaires, a 37% response rate. two aspects of hospital culture were included: hospital support and hospital health and safety climate. hierarchical regression analyses, controlling for both personal demographic and work situation characteristics, indicated that hospital culture accounted for significant increments in explained variance on most outcome measures, particularly work outcomes. interestingly, hospital support and hospital health and safety climate were associated with different outcomes in several cases. explanations for the association of hospital culture with various outcomes are offered along with potentially practical implications. keywords: hospital culture, work satisfaction, well-being, turkish hospitals. people in most countries see health care as an important priority and it is likely to become even more important as populations age. in response to this need, national and local governments devote significant amounts of their budgets to funding their http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 625 health care systems. nurses occupy a key role in the delivery of health care, though countries may have different health care systems and methods of payment options. research on the experiences of nurses in various countries however has indicated that nurse report relatively high levels of job dissatisfaction, burnout, and intention of leaving the profession (aiken, clarke, sloane & sochalski, 2001).it has even been suggested that he quality of nursing care has deteriorated (commonwealth fund, 2000). in addition nursing is less likely to be seen as a desirable occupation by younger women and men. some countries are now reporting a shortage of nurses, often compounded by the fact that richer nations are luring nurses away from poorer ones. the health care system has also undergone significant change over the past decade. these stem from the greater use of new technologies, off-shoring some services to developing countries, advances in medical knowledge, an aging population, more informed and critical users of the health care system, and efforts by governments to further control health care expenditures. it is not surprising then that considerable research has been undertaken to understand the work experiences of nurses, particularly as these relate to nurse satisfaction and well-being and patient care. it has concentrated on issues of hospital workplace culture, workload, lack of resources, overtime work, and increases in abuse experienced in the work place by nursing staff as these affect burnout, depression, psychosomatic symptoms, absenteeism and intent to leave the profession (aiken, clarke, sloane, sochalski & silber, 2002). the bulk of nursing research has used a stressor-strain framework and has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the experiences of nurses in their workplaces. magnet hospitals research initially conducted in the us (aiken, smith & lake, 1994; aiken, sloane & clarke, 2002), but now replicated in several other countries, has identified characteristics of hospital environments associated with high levels of nurse satisfaction, low nurse turnover and high levels of patient care quality. these hospitals were termed “magnet hospitals” for their ability to both attract and retain nursing staff (aiken, 2002). magnet hospitals are distinguished by their workplace cultures (havens & aiken, 1999; kramer, 1999; kramer & schmalenberg, 1988a, 1988b). magnet hospitals are characterized by the following: a philosophy of caring from top management that permeates the patient care environment, leaders that are visible and approachable, participatory management, facilities that support high quality care for patients, high levels of involvement of nurses in planning for hospital programs, equipment and technology, nurses given high levels of professional autonomy, leaders that encourage and support continuous staff hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 626 development, fair and competitive wages, and an emphasis on quality and learning from efforts to understand both successes and failures in achieving quality standards. interestingly, the concept of magnet hospitals is consistent with research and writing on high performance work systems (hpws) found in the human resource management literature (e.g., becker & huselid, 1998; huselid, 1995; pfeffer, 1998, 1994). nursing research in turkey nursing research in turkey is still relatively new, ozsoy (2007) describing the struggle to undertake and report such work, but increasing. ergul, ardahan, temel and yildirim (2010) undertook a bibliographic review of references of nursing research papers in turkey over a ten year period (1994-2003) documenting this increase. most turkish nursing research has been carried out by academics with university affiliations. recent research has examined developing approaches to increase patient safety (badir, 2009), ethical issues in health care (ulusoy & ugar, 2000; ersoy & gaz, 2001), sexual harassment of female nurses in hospitals (kisa & dziegielsewski, 1996), and leadership development among nursing students (duggulu, hicdurmaz & akyar2008). there are a few journals in turkey that have published nursing research (see egul and his colleagues, 2010). turkey is similar to other countries in facing a nursing shortage. turkey also spends a lower percentage of its gdp on health care, however, than do most other oecd countries. the present study considers the relationships of measures of nurses’ perceptions of hospital culture and a variety of work satisfactions, indicators of psychological wellbeing. and perceptions of quality of nursing care among nurses working in turkish hospitals. no other research on hospital culture and work experiences of nurses in turkey, to our knowledge, has considered these issues. nine work and well-be4ing outcomes were included in the study, consistent with both earlier north american hospital research and reviews of important indicators of individual satisfaction and health (barling, kelloway & frone, 2005; cooper, quick & schabracq, 2009) the general hypothesis underlying this research would be that nurses describing their hospital cultures more favorably would be more work satisfied, report higher levels of psychological and physical well-being, and describe their hospital as functioning at a higher level. this hypothesis builds on and is consistent with earlier work undertaken in north america. europe’s journal of psychology 627 method procedure this study was carried out in hospitals in ankara turkey, research sites being randomly selected from the various hospitals in that city. the health ministry sent a cover letter to the chief physicians of these hospitals requesting their cooperation. the research however was not undertaken for the ministry of health. six hundred questionnaires were administered to staff nurses in the hospitals. measures originally in english were translated into turkish using the back translation method. data were collected in march 2009. two hundred and twenty four nurses anonymously completed the surveys, a 36% response rate. respondents table 1 presents the personal demographic and work situation characteristics of the sample (n=224). there was considerable diversity on each item. the sample ages ranged from under 25 to over 46, with 128 (59%) being between 26 and 35.. most were married (77%), had children (70%), worked full-time (79%), wanted to work fulltime (99%), were female (84%), worked between 41-45 hours per week (69%), had a high school or vocational school education (35%), did not have supervisory responsibilities (56%), had not changed units in the past year (74%), had five years or less of nursing tenure (59%), five years or less of hospital tenure (58%), and worked in a variety of nursing units. table 1: demographic characteristics of sample age 25 or less 26 – 30 31 – 35 36 – 45 41 – 45 46 or older n 18 76 52 44 17 8 % 8.4 35.3 24.4 21.5 8.3 3.9 sex female male n 180 25 % 87.8 12.2 parental status children childless 151 64 70.3 29.7 marital status married single 168 49 77.4 22.6 education high school vocational school bachelor’s degree master’s degree faculty 75 50 70 2 20 34.6 23.0 32.2 .9 9.2 number of children 1 2 3 or more 70 76 5 46.4 50.3 3.3 hours worked 40 or less 41 – 45 46 – 50 39 84 38 19.8 42.6 18.3 work status full-time part-time 160 54 79.4 20.6 hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 628 51 – 55 56 or more 9 27 4.6 13.7 changed units past year yes no 53 151 26.0 74.0 supervisory duties yes no 69 148 31.8 68.2 nursing tenure 5 years or less 6 – 10 years 11 – 15 years 16 – 20 years 21 years or more 119 41 14 18 9 59.1 20.4 7.0 9.0 4.5 preferred work status full-time part-time 197 1 99.5 0.5 hospital tenure 5 years or less 6 – 10 years 11 – 15 years 16 – 20 years 21 years or more 118 49 14 15 9 57.6 23.9 6.8 7.3 4.4 measures personal and work situation characteristics these were measured by single items (e.g., age, sex, level of education, unit tenure, hospital tenure). hospital culture two aspects of hospital culture were included: perceptions of hospital support and perceptions of the hospital occupational and safety climate. health and safety climate nurses indicated their agreement with eight items (=.74) developed by the authors based on zohar and luria (2005) and an extensive review of the accident and safety climate literature. an item was, “i feel free to report safety problems where i work”. again a five point likert scale anchored by strongly agree (5) and strongly disagree (1) was used. hospital support hospital support was assessed by eight items (=.95) developed by eisenberger, huntington, hutchison and sowa (1986). an item was, “this hospital is willing to help me when i need a special favor”. respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a seven-point likert scale (1= strongly agree, 4= neither agree nor disagree, 7= strongly disagree). europe’s journal of psychology 629 work outcomes nine work outcomes were included. job satisfaction was measured by a five-item scale (=.79) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). one item was, “all in all, how satisfied would you say you are with your job?” respondents indicated their responses on a four-point likert scale (1-very satisfied, 4=not at all satisfied). absenteeism nurses indicated first how many days they had been absent from work during the past month, and then how many of these days of absenteeism were due to sickness. intent to quit (=.76) was measured by two items used previously by burke (1991). an item was, “are you currently looking for a different job in a different organization?” work engagement three dimensions of work engagement were assessed using scales developed by schaufeli et al. (2002) and schaufeli and bakker (2004). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five-point likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 3=neither agree nor disagree, 5=strongly agree). vigor was measured by six items (=.82). one item was “at my work, i feel bursting with energy”. dedication was measured by five items (=.79). an item was “i am proud of the work that i do.” absorption was assessed by six items (=.85). one item was “ i am immersed in my work”. burnout three dimensions of burnout were measured by the maslach burnout inventory (maslach, jackson & leiter, 1996). respondents indicated how often they experienced each item on a seven-point scale (0=never, 3=a few times a month, 6=every day). exhaustion was measured by a five-item scale (=.86). an item was “i feel burned out from my work”. cynicism was assessed by a five-item scale (=.58). one item was “i have become more cynical about whether my work contributes anything”. efficacy was measured by six items (=.77). an item was “i have accomplished many worthwhile things in this job”. psychological well-being five aspects of psychological well-being were included. positive affect was measured by a ten-item scale (=.91) developed by watson, clark and tellegen (1988). respondents indicated how often they experienced hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 630 these items during the past week (e.g., excited, proud, excited) on a five-point likert scale (1=not at all, 5=extreme). negative affect was also measured by a ten-item scale (=.86) developed by watson, clark and tellegen (1988). respondents indicated how often they experienced these (e.g., irritable, nervous, distressed) on the same frequency scale. psychosomatic symptoms was measured by nineteen items (=.91) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they had experienced each physical condition (e.g., headaches, having trouble getting to sleep) during the past year. responses were made on a seven-point likert scale (1=never, 4=often). medication use was measured by a five-item scale (=.75) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they took listed medications (e.g., pain medication, sleeping pills) on a five point scale (1=never, 5=a lot). the nature of this scale makes it difficult to achieve a higher level of reliability however; it is unlikely that respondents would be taking all medications listed. life satisfaction was assessed by a five-point scale (=.90) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated their agreement with each item (e.g., in most ways my life is close to ideal) on a seven-point likert agreement scale ( 1=strongly agree, 4=neither agree not disagree, 7=strongly disagree). perceptions of hospital functioning and health care two measures were included here, one assessing perceptions of hospital incidents such as errors and accidents, and one assessing perceptions of patient care quality. workplace errors and accidents nurses indicated how frequently they observed six hospital incidents (=.64) on a four-point scale (1=never, 4=frequently). incidents included, “patient received wrong medication or dose”, “patient falls with injuries”). this scale was created by the researchers. patient care nurses indicated on a single item their views on the quality of patient care provided (“in general, how would you describe the quality of nursing care delivered to patients on your unit?” where 1=excellent, 4=poor). this item was created by the researchers. single items have been found to be highly reliable (wanous & hudy, 2001). europe’s journal of psychology 631 results correlation of culture measures the two hospital culture measures, hospital support and health and safety climate, were positively and significantly correlated (r=.21, p<.001, n=200). this low correlation suggested that these two measures were relatively independent. hierarchical regression analysis hierarchical or stepwise regression analyses were undertaken in which various work outcomes, indicators of psychological well-being and perceptions of hospital functioning were regressed on three blocks of predictors entered in a specified order. the first block of predictors (n=4) consisted of personal demographics (e.g., age, marital status, level of education); the second block (n=4) consisted of work situation characteristics (e.g., job has supervisory duties, hospital tenure, work status, full-time versus part-time); the third block of predictors (n=2) consisted of the measures of hospital culture (e.g., hospital support, health and safety culture). when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance (p<.05), individual variables within these blocks having significant and independent relationships with the criterion variable (p<.05) were identified. these variables are indicated in the tables that follow along with their respective s. hospital culture and work outcomes table 2 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which nine work outcomes were regressed separately on the three blocks of predictors: personal demographics, work situation characteristics, and hospital culture. the following comments are offered in summary. hospital culture accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on eight of the nine work outcomes. nurses reporting higher levels of hospital support also indicated more job satisfaction, les intent to quit, fewer days of absenteeism, less exhaustion and less cynicism (bs=.28, .24, -.17, -.34 and -.25, respectively). nurses perceiving a more favorable health and safety climate also indicated higher levels of vigor, dedication and absorption, and less cynicism (bs=.18, .21, .16 and -.18, respectively). hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 632 table 2: hospital culture and work outcomes work outcomes job satisfaction(n=163) personal demographics r .22 r2 .05 δr2 .05 p ns work situation supervisory duties (.16) hospital culture hospital support (.28) intent to quit (n=163) personal demographics work situation work status (.24) hospital culture hospital support (-.24) days absent (n=163) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (-.17) engagement vigor (n=165) personal demographics work situation changed units (-.20) supervisory units (.16) hospital culture health and safety climate (.18) dedication (n=164) personal demographics work situation work status (.28) changed units (-.17) hospital culture health and safety climate (.21) absorption (n=164) personal demographics work situation unit tenure (.16) hospital culture health and safety climate (.16) .32 .45 .37 .42 .49 .09 .12 .23 .25 .40 .46 .13 .35 .43 .15 .35 .29 .11 .20 .14 .18 .24 .01 .02 .05 .06 .16 .21 .02 .12 .18 .02 .12 .16 .06 .09 .14 .04 .06 .01 .01 .03 .06 .10 .05 .02 .10 .06 .02 .10 .04 .01 .001 .001 .001 .001 ns ns .05 .05 .001 .05 ns .001 .05 ns .001 .05 europe’s journal of psychology 633 burnout exhaustion (n=163) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (-.34) cynicism (n=164) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (-.25) health and safety climate (-.18) efficacy (n=164) personal demographics work situation hospital culture .24 .32 .48 .14 .28 .43 .11 .25 .27 .06 .10 .23 .02 .08 .18 .01 .06 .07 .06 .04 .13 .02 .06 .10 .01 .05 .01 ns ns .001 ns .05 .001 ns ns ns hospital culture and psychological well-being table 3 shows the results of hierarchical regression analyses involving five indicators of psychological well-being: positive and negative affect, psychosomatic symptoms, medication use and life satisfaction. the following comments are offered in summary. hospital culture accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on two of the five indicators of psychological health: psychosomatic symptoms and life satisfaction. nurses indicating higher levels of hospital support reported few psychosomatic symptoms and greater life satisfaction (bs=-.32 and .36, respectively). nurses indicating a more positive health and safety climate also reported fewer psychosomatic symptoms (b=-.17). table 3: hospital culture and psychological well-being psychological well-being negative affect (n=160) r r2 δr2 p personal demographics .15 .02 .02 ns work situation unit tenure (-.39) hospital culture positive affect (n=162) personal demographics work situation .27 .30 .14 .26 .07 .09 .02 .06 .05 .02 .02 .04 .05 ns ns .05 hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 634 supervisory duties (.16) hospital culture psychosomatic symptoms (n=165) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (-.32) health and safety climate (-.17) medication use (n=161) personal demographics work situation hospital culture life satisfaction (n=164) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (.36) .26 .23 .30 .48 .06 .20 .21 .14 .21 .40 .07 .05 .09 .23 .00 .04 .04 .02 .04 .16 .01 .05 .04 .14 .00 .04 .00 .02 .02 .12 ns ns ns .001 ns ns ns ns ns .001 hospital culture, hospital incidents and quality of patient care table 4 presents the results of hierarchical regression analyses in which two indicators of perceived hospital functioning (errors and accidents, quality of patient care) were regressed on the three blocks of predictors. hospital culture accounted for a significant increment in explained variance on quality of patient care; nurses reporting higher levels of hospital support also reported higher quality of patient care (b=.16). table 4: hospital culture and hospital functioning hospital functioning hospital errors and accidents (n=160) r r2 δr2 p personal demographics .18 .03 .03 ns work situation .19 .04 .01 ns hospital culture quality of patient care (n=163) personal demographics work situation hospital culture hospital support (.16) .27 .24 .25 .34 .07 .06 .06 .11 .03 .06 .00 .05 ns ns ns .01 europe’s journal of psychology 635 discussion this study provided preliminary support for the general hypothesis underlying the research. that is, nurses having more favorable perceptions of levels of hospital support, and support for a healthy and safe hospital environment, also indicated more positive work outcomes, higher levels of psychological well-being and more positive views of hospital functioning. although our measures of hospital culture were more focused and narrower than those included in the magnet hospital literature, our findings were consistent with their earlier results. in addition, our findings were supportive of writing on the correlates of organizational culture in organizations more generally (see ashkanasy, wilderon & peterson, 2004; erhart, schnei9der & macey, 2011). practical implications procedures have been developed, first in the us and later in other countries, that allow hospitals to apply for designation as magnet hospitals. this involves a rigorous evaluation of hospital policies and practices. this set of procedures supports hospitals in their quests to develop cultures that not only support the attraction and retention of scarce nursing staff, but also examines staffing issues, continuing education, improving nurse-doctor relationships, nurse empowerment, and improved problemsolving and decision-making processes. limitations of the research some limitations of the research should be noted to put the findings into a broader context. the sample of nurses in this study was small (n=224). the sample was young, had little nursing experience, and was not highly educated. it was not possible to determine the representativeness of those nurses that participated. all data were collected using self-report questionnaires raising the possibility of response set tendencies. the data were collected at one point in time making it difficult to determine causality. finally, some of the outcome measures themselves were significantly correlated likely increasing the number of significant findings. future research directions future research needs to involve a larger and representative sample of nurses drawn from several different hospitals. in addition, other measures of hospital culture would enrich our understanding of the effects of hospital culture (e.g. nurse empowerment, staffing levels, quality of nurse-doctor relationships) on nurse satisfaction and well hospital culture, work satisfaction and psychological well-being 636 being and ultimately on the quality of patient care. as more research data accumulates, the stage for the evaluation hospital efforts to change their cultures will be set. references: aiken, l. h. 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(1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. footnotes: 1. preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by york university and nevsehir university. we thank the health ministry for their assistance, the hospitals for their cooperation, and our respondents for their participation. europe’s journal of psychology 639 about the authors: ronald j. burke is currently professor of organizational behavior schulich school of business, york university. his research interests include corruption in organizations, occupational health and safety and corporate reputation. address for correspondence: prof. ronald burke, schulich school of business, york university, 4700 keele st. toronto, on m3j 1p3, canada e-mail: rburke@schulich.yorku.ca mustafa koyuncu is professor of management, faculty of commerce and tourism education, nevsehir university. his research interests include tourism education, human resource management in the tourism and hospitality sector, and cross cultural research in tourism. lisa fiksenbaum is currently a phd candidate in the department of psychology, york university. her research interests include work and family. strress and health and statistical methods. running head: does humor benefit health in retirement europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 122-148 www.ejop.org does humor benefit health in retirement? exploring humor as a moderator gillian p. freeman the university of massachusetts amherst, united states of america w. larry ventis the college of william & mary, united states of america abstract this research assessed the extent to which humor moderates the relationship between retirement stress, including hassles, and health. two hundred sixty-five retirees over the age of 55 years responded to an on-line survey, completing the rand 36-item health survey and the humor styles questionnaire. stress was measured using the self perceived stress in retirement scale and the hassles scale. the stress moderating effect of humor was examined via regression analyses. contrary to expectation, and the assumed nature of humor styles, results suggest that the adaptiveness of humor styles depends on the level of stress or hassles one perceives, as well as gender. this is a first indication that whether specific humor styles are adaptive or maladaptive may depend on specific circumstances or person variables. keywords – humor, retirement, coping, stress, health both researchers and the popular media alike have taken an increased interest in indiv iduals’ adaptation to retirement (beehr & adams, 2003). successful adaptation to retirement involves coping with changes in income, social supports, and the loss of work identity and alterations in general identity (hayslip, beyerlein, & nichols, 1997; sharpley, 1997). while many are able to transition into retirement with little problem, for a large number of people, the retirement transition is disruptive and a period of instability (marshall, clarke, & ballantyne, 2001). thus the aim of the current study was to better understand how the four humor styles, identified by the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003), are associated http://www.ejop.org/ does humor benefit health in retirement? 123 with perceived retirement stress and daily life hassles. these four styles include two positive or adaptive humor styles (affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor) and two negative humor or maladaptive humor styles (aggressive humor and selfdefeating humor). to our knowledge this is the first research to investigate coping humor and the humor styles among retirees. in the current investigation, physical and mental health outcomes were assessed as well, to explore how humor moderates the relationship between health and stress during retirement. humor, health, and stress there exists substantial literature that suggests that life stress is detrimental to physical and psychological wellbeing (cohen, janicki-deverts, & miller, 2007; gunnar & quevedo, 2007; miller, chen, & zhou, 2007). together this body of research underscores the relationship between stress and poor health among various agegroups. a recent study that examined the stress and health relationship among an aging sample found indiv idual differences in self-perceived stress and health outcomes in older adults (sapolsky, 2004). sapolsky (2004) reported that although some indiv iduals with significant chronic stress appear to be coping well, many are not and experience negative changes in lifestyle and health impairments due to chronic stress. in the present study, we examined to what extent one particular coping mechanism, humor, may be adaptive in buffering the stress and health relationship. i t has now been acknowledged that humor is a multi-dimensional construct (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; thorson & powell, 1993) involv ing cognitive, emotional, behavioral, physiological, and social aspects (martin, 2007). in observation of the multidimensionality of humor, a more recent shift in humor research has been to investigate both its possible beneficial and deleterious impact on health and wellbeing (kirsh & kuiper, 2003; kuiper et al., 2004; tümkaya, 2007). the development of the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) has advanced humor research, as it assesses indiv idual differences in the four styles of humor along what are believed to be both beneficial and deleterious dimensions of humor (martin et al., 2003). the hsq assesses four distinct and independent dimensions of humor—two dimensions of humor are typically positively related to health and w ell-being and two dimensions are typically negatively related to health and well-being. europe’s journal of psychology 124 martin and his colleagues (2003) identified two uses of humor they endorse as being potentially adaptive. these uses of humor include affiliative humor, which involves the use of humor to enhance one’s relationships with others, and self-enhancing humor, which involves the use of humor to enhance the self and find humor in stressful situations (martin et al., 2003). in addition, martin and colleagues have identified two humor styles they propose to be detrimental or maladaptive uses of humor. these maladaptive styles have been identified as aggressive humor and self defeating humor (martin et al., 2003). aggressive humor is the use of humor to enhance the self at the expense of others, while self-defeating humor is the use of humor to enhance relationships at the expense of self (martin et al., 2003). self defeating humor relates to tendencies to use humor in an excessively self disparaging and ingratiating way, and the use of humor as a form of defensive denial to hide underlying negative feelings (martin et al., 2003). i t is often assumed that humor benefits both physical and psychological health, however, research thus far has yielded equivocal results (see kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2004; nezu, nezu, & blissett, 1988). i t has been suggested that the diverse conceptualizations of both humor and well-being account for much of the confusion in comparing results across studies (martin, 2004). nonetheless, humor does appear to have physiological benefits, which may be especially important to the well-being of older, more sedentary adults who can benefit from the increases in circulation and immune function brought about by laughter (berk, 2001). humor and stress during retirement a possible explanation for contradicting results in coping humor research is that coping, like humor, is a multidimensional construct (carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989; folkman & lazarus, 1988). prev ious research may have assessed coping hu mor over a range, not only of humor measures but also of coping situations as well, making comparisons across studies inappropriate. for this reason we examined the effects of humor styles, especially coping humor, during a specific period of stress—retirement. increases in health problems and many other types of stress related to aging, such as losses of friends, family, health, and mobility, are characteristic of retirement (aldwin, yancura, & boeninger, 2007). coping responses are among the many predic tors of adaptation to retirement including personal characteristics, and financial, social, and physical resources before and after retirement (pinquart & schindler, 2007; wang, 2007). i t has been suggested that humor may be a positive means of coping with age-related loss does humor benefit health in retirement? 125 (simon, 1988, as cited in celso et al., 2003). folkman, lazarus, pimley, and novacek (1987) found that emotion-focused forms of coping (including humor) are useful strategies for older adults who perceive stressful events as out of their control. given that retirement and aging mean giv ing up control and autonomy in some cases (kelly & barratt, 2007), humor may be one of the more useful coping strategies during this time period. humor as a moderator i t has been proposed that there are three possible mechanisms by which humor and laughter impact physical health. first, it has been suggested that the laughter that accompanies humor conveys beneficial physiological changes in neural, muscoskeletal, cardiovascular, endocrine, and/or immunological systems (see berk, 2001). second, laughter and humor may directly affect health v ia their accompanying positive emotional states (argyle, 1997; edwards & cooper, 1988). third, it has been posited that humor may moderate the relationship between stress and health. i t has been proposed that changes in cognitive appraisals and attributions, as a result of a humorous outlook on life, may lead to more positive coping strategies, reduce stress, and improve health (martin, kuiper, olinger, & dance, 1993). in this perspective humor has an indirect, rather than direct, effect on physiological health variables—interacting with stress levels in reducing the degree to which stress would normally negatively affect health. i t is the stress-moderating theory that was examined in the current study. a humorous perspective on an otherwise stressful situation may serve as an adaptive coping strategy similar to positive reinterpretation or perspective-taking (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993; lefcourt, davidson, shepherd, phillips, prkachin, & mills, 1995). in this v iew it is the cognitive component of humor, rather than the physiological products of laughter, that is associated with the use of humor as a coping strategy (kuiper et al., 1993). the examination of humor as a moderator also introduces the possibility that certain styles and uses of humor may be more adaptive and health enhancing, whereas others are maladaptive (martin, 2001). examining the four humor styles proposed by martin et al. (2003), in terms of a stress-moderating perspective, one can imagine aggressive humor could serve as an avoidance or defense mechanism that may be less conducive to effective coping with stress than a self-enhancing approach. affiliative humor could be used to enhance social support that is more beneficial to coping than utilizing a defensive denial strategy with self-defeating humor. europe’s journal of psychology 126 thus far, studies specifically investigating the stress moderating effect of humor have produced weak and inconsistent results. research has found that depressive reactions to stress were mitigated in those who employed humor as a coping strategy (nezu et al., 1988). however, other studies examining the relationship between humor and well-being have not found any effect (boyle & joss-reid, 2004; porterfield, 1987) or have found significant results suggesting that humor has a detrimental effect on coping (anderson & arnoult, 1989). i t has been suggested that prev ious use of unidimensional instruments to measure humor accounts for the weak results (boyle & joss-reid, 2004), and diverse conceptualizations of both humor and well-being account for some of these inconsistencies between studies (martin, 2004). this study was an attempt to reconcile these inconsistencies in two ways. first, by utilizing the hsq (martin et al., 2003), we examined two positive and two negative styles of humor. by examining two seemingly adaptive humor styles and two seemingly maladaptive humor styles, we hoped to better understand both the positive and negative implications of humor styles in relation to stress during retirement. second, we examined the stress-moderating theory during a specific period of stress—retirement. in particular, we examined humor styles in relation to stress measures both proximal (hassle intensity) and distal (global retirement-specific stress) to the occurrence of humor among retirees. specifically regarding the stress measures, we used those that tapped into perceived stress, rather than stressors. this is particularly relevant with hassles, where perception is part of determining whether something is labeled as a hassle, and if so, with what intensity. likewise, with the global retirement stress, perceived stress during retirement was measured. in the stress literature, proximal measures of stress refer to those that capture an indiv idual’s immediate perception and life situation, whereas distal measures of stress typically do not describe the ongoing, immediate, pressures of life (delongis, coyne, dakof, folkman, & lazarus, 1982). in this way lazarus and colleagues have proposed that daily hassles are proximal measures of stress because they pertain to a person’s immediate life circumstances (delongis et al., 1982). measures of global retirement stress perception, like life events, on the other hand, are more distal to the immediate life circumstance (delongiset al., 1982; rowlinson & felner, 1988). gender differences in studies that examined the relationship between stress and health reporting numerous indiv idual differences, gender has been reported to affect both stress does humor benefit health in retirement? 127 perception and resulting coping behaviors. numerous reports suggest that females report being in more stressful situations and have more chronic stress than males (matud, 2004; mcdonough & walters, 2001). i t has been suggested that traditional gender-roles may play a role in stress and coping differences as females typically serve as caregivers (lee, 2001), may be more emotionally involved than males in social and family interactions (kessler & mcleod, 1984), and experience more daily demands and frustrations (matud, 2004). gender differences in health have also been consistently reported among older adults. there is a significant difference in mortality rates as women live about 6 -8 years longer than men (who, 2000). although women live longer, they also have higher morbidity rates compared to men their own age. this paradox of a lower mortality rate and higher impairments in mobility and functioning has been frequently reported (see arber & cooper, 1999). i t has been suggested that gender differences in self-reported health may be the cause of reported disparities. however, a recent study gathered self-reported health data v ia interv iew of a sample of 544 community-dwelling participants over the age of 65. they found that gender differences were due to a worse health status of women, rather than to differences in self-reports (orfila, ferrer, lamarca, tebe, domingo-salvany, & alonso, 2006). research examining humor as a moderator between stress and health have either not found or not reported gender differences (anderson & arnoult, 1989; boyle & joss-reid, 2004; nezu et al., 1988; porterfield, 1987). however, some gender differences have been found in the use of humor. studies utilizing the hsq have found that males report using both aggressive and self-defeating humor styles more often than females (freeman & ventis, 2008, november; kazarian & martin, 2004; martin et al., 2003) or have found no gender differences at all (erickson & feldstein, 2007). in addition, studies have not reported any gender differences in coping humor scores (anderson & arnoult, 1989; nezu et al., 1988). because gender appears to affect stress, health, and humor measures, it may be worthwhile to explore if humor moderates the relationship between stress and health differently for males and females. aims of current study in summary, this study sought to broaden the depth of knowledge of both humor and retirement stress by clarifying the stress-moderating theory of humor on health. first, it was hypothesized that the two adaptive humor styles, especially selfeurope’s journal of psychology 128 enhancing humor, would be negatively correlated with stress and poor health. second, we expected that the two maladaptive humor styles would be positively correlated with stress and poor health. finally, it was expected that humor styles would act as a moderator of stress that is both proximal to humor (daily hassles) and stress that is more distal (retirement stress) on overall health. specifically, adaptive humor styles were expected to boost health scores, especially during periods of high stress or high hassles (as opposed to low stress or low hassles). on the other hand, maladaptive humor styles were expected to have the opposite effect. reports of high use of negative humor styles were expected to diminish positive health outcomes, especially during periods of high stress. exploratory analysis was conducted on gender differences. given that females experience more daily hassles and have a higher rate of morbidity than males, it was expected that the specific stress and health relationship that is moderated by humor may differ depending on gender. method participants with the help of the college of william & mary’s alumni association, approximately 5900 william & mary alumni who graduated prior to 1976 were inv ited to complete an online survey if they were both over the age of 55 and retired. the survey site was v isited 674 times following the email inv itation. of the 674 site v isits, 323 indiv iduals consented (351 site v isits did not result in participation). of the 323 consenting participants, 10 surveys were incomplete and 48 indiv iduals were not retired, leaving a final sample size of 265 retired adults ranging from 55 – 91 years of age. the mean age of the sample is 67.48 years (sd = 7.293). one hundred and twenty-one (45.7%) participants were female and 143 (54.0%) were male and one respondent (.4%) did not specify a gender. the mean age of males was 68.99 years (sd = 7.074) and the mean age of females was 65.58 (sd = 6.989). this sample is predominantly caucasian (n = 260, 98.1%). one participant represented multiple ethnicity (0.4%), and four respondents did not prov ide ethnicity information (1.5%). due to the manner of recruitment, this sample was highly educated. nearly half of the respondents had completed masters-level degrees (n = 113, 42.6%). the second highest degree attained was 4-year college degree (n = 103, 38.9%), followed by doctorate (n = 47, 17.7%) and 2-year college degree (n = 2, 0.8%). does humor benefit health in retirement? 129 measures humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin, phulik-doris, larsen, gray & weir, 2003). the hsq is a 32-item questionnaire that assesses four different styles of humor. respondents indicate on a seven-point likert scale the degree to which they agree or disagree with each item. self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles were identified as two facilitative humor styles and aggressive and self-defeating humor styles were identified as the two deleterious styles. the self-enhancing dimension involves the use of humor as a coping mechanism. i tems assessing each of the humor styles follow: ―if i ’m by myself and i ’m feeling unhappy, i make an effort to think of something funny to cheer myself up‖ (self-enhancing); ―i laugh and joke a lot with my friends‖ (affiliative); ―i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should‖ (self-defeating); ―i f i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down‖ (aggressive). the test-retest correlations are: 0.81 for selfenhancing humor; 0.85 for affiliative humor; 0.82 for self-defeating humor; and 0.80 for aggressive humor (martin et al., 2003). in the present sample, internal consistencies (cronbach’s α) for the self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive humor scales were 0.80, 0.86, 0.80, and 0.75, respectively. daily hassles scale (kanner, coyne, schaefer & lazarus, 1981). the hassles scale measures the occurrence and intensity of 117 hassles that characterize everyday dealings with the environment. daily hassles include: ―inconsiderate smokers,‖ ―filling out forms,‖ and ―troublesome neighbors‖. circling the hassle indicates occurrence of hassles. intensity is measured on a three-point scale ranging from 1 (somewhat severe) to 3 (extremely severe). this scale prov ides an easy way to demonstrate an indiv idual’s need to cope. the test-retest correlation is 0.48 for hassles intensity (kanner et al., 1981). the internal consistency coefficient (cronbach’s α) was .95 for the present study. self-perceived stress in retirement scale (sharpley, 1997). the self-perceived stress in retirement scale measures the amount of stress a retiree experiences on a day-to-day basis. the scale presents 14 items including ―your physical health,‖ ―loss of purpose,‖ and ―boredom,‖ which are rated on a five -point scale ranging from 1 (l ittle to no stress) to 5 (extreme stress). for the present study, the internal consistency coefficient (cronbach’s α) was 0.80. rand 36-item short form health survey (sf-36; hays, sherbourne, & mazel, 1993). the sf-36 is a 36-item survey that assesses both physical and mental health. each item is scored on a 0 to 100 range so that the higher number represents a more favorable health state. i tems intended to measure physical health include: physical europe’s journal of psychology 130 functioning, pain, general health, and role limitations due to physical problems. i tems designed to measure mental health include: energy/v itality, social functioning, emotional wellbeing, and role limitations due to emotional problems. many psychometric analyses have been published on the sf-36 reporting good reliability and validity. the internal consistency coefficients (cronbach’s α) for the present study ranged from 0.70 to 0.89. demographics. i tems concerned general background information (e.g., gender and ethnicity) as well as the respondent’s pre-retirement income. procedure in this correlational study, all self-report surveys were uploaded onto opinio’s online survey software. the survey took approximately 45 minutes to answer. participants were encouraged to complete the survey independently, in a quiet location. results initial analysis means and standard deviations of the humor, stress, and health measures for the entire sample, as well as for females and males separately, are presented on table 1. initial independent-measures t-tests revealed significant gender differences between means along humor, stress, and health variables. i t is worth noting that, in this sample, significant correlations were not found between time since retirement and our variables of interest. first, analysis of the sample as a whole will be discussed, followed by the outcomes of gender differences. __________________________________________________________________________________ combined male female __________________________________________________________ m(sd) m(sd) m(sd) __________________________________________________________________________________ affiliative humor* 42.57 (9.21) 43.85 (8.21) 41.08 (10.14) self-enhancing humor 40.11 (7.55) 39.82 (7.09) 40.44 (8.11) aggressive humor*** 22.98 (8.16) 26.16 (7.93) 19.29 (6.72) self-defeating humor** 24.67 (8.31) 25.96 (7.73) 23.01 (8.69) retirement stress** 21.84 (5.73) 21.00 (5.09) 22.83 (6.29) hassles intensity 1.15 (0.28) 1.12 (0.28) 1.18 (0.27) general health 68.16 (19.93) 68.25 (18.91) 68.00 (21.23) physical functioning 80.56 (20.32) 82.08 (19.15) 78.90 (21.61) does humor benefit health in retirement? 131 role limitations (physical) 79.13 (31.51) 82.56 (28.60) 75.00 (34.31) role limitations (emotional) 88.95 (24.25) 89.55 (22.69) 88.15 (26.13) energy/vitality 65.25 (19.57) 66.29 (19.12) 64.06 (20.18) social functioning 91.18 (16.98) 92.31 (15.62) 89.77 (18.47) pain* 76.57 (18.56) 79.16 (16.33) 73.57 (20.61) emotional wellbeing* 82.36 (13.42) 83.90 (13.17) 80.52 (13.59) _________________________________________________________________________________ note. asterisks after variable names indicate a significant gender difference, *p < .05 **p < .01 ***p <.001. table 1. means and standard deviations for humor, stress, and health measures generally, the expected significant correlations between humor styles, stress, and health were found. the intercorrelations are presented in table 2. looking at the correlations between humor styles and stress, as expected, both adaptive humor styles had negative correlations with the stress measures affiliative humor had a significant negative correlation with hassles intensity, but not retirement stress. self enhancing humor had significant negative correlations with both stress measures. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1. aff .49** .14* .32** .10 -.13* .08 .02 -.07 -.02 .07 .03 .04 .14* 2. se .01 .17** -.25** -.22** .17** .05 .07 .12 .20** .12 .13* .29** 3. agg .39** -.04 -.12 -.04 .09 -.02 .01 .05 .08 .13* -.06 4..sd .11 .05 -.07 -.01 -.07 -.03 -.13 -.05 -.01 .23** 5. sprs .50** -.40** -.30** -.41** -.38** -.49** -.43** -.37** -.59** 6. hi -.25** -.20** -.23** -.30** -.39** -.31** -.31** -.48** 7. gh .58** .48** .28** .55** .43** .48** .38** 8. pf .55** .27** .56** .46** .54** .25** 9. lim ph .41** .50** .58** .58** .28** 10. lim eh .35** .42** .27** .45** 11. vitality .55** .59** .57** 12. sf .54** .48** 13. pain .29** 14. ewb ______________________________________________________________________________ * p < .05 **p < .01 note: aff = affiliative humor, se = self-enhancing humor, agg = aggressive humor, sd = self-defeating humor, sprs= retirement stress, hi = hassles intensity, gh = general health, pf = physical functioning, lim ph = role limitations due to physical health, lim eh = role limitations due to emotional health, sf = social functioning, ewb = emotional well-being table 2. intercorrelations between subscales of humor styles, stress, and subscales of health europe’s journal of psychology 132 examining the correlations between humor styles and health, both adaptive humor styles had positive correlations with some optimal health outcomes. affiliative humor was positively correlated with emotional well-being only. however, self-enhancing humor was positively correlated with general health, vitality, pain, and emotional well-being. self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with emotional wellbeing, as hypothesized. however, aggressive humor had a significant positive correlation with pain, which was not in the expected direction. this incongruity between expectations and outcomes for the aggressive humor style will be elaborated upon in the discussion. all of the correlations between health outcomes and stress were significant, such that positive health outcomes were negatively correlated with stress and hassles intensity. these significant correlations demonstrate that there is indeed a strong relationship between health and stress and serve as a sturdy foundation on which to examine the moderating effects of humor. stress moderating effect of humor regression analyses were used to examine the stress moderating effect of humor. moderator effects were examined as interactions between either stress or life hassles and the moderating variables—the four humor styles (aiken, l. s., & west, 1991). for each of the eight health outcomes and for each of the four moderators, we assessed the main effects of stress (retirement stress or life hassles), the moderator, and their interaction. only regressions for which significant interactions were found are described below, as these are the only instances in which a humor style was acting as a moderator between stress and health. for all regressions depicted in the figures below, increasing scores on the y-axis represent optimal health outcomes. self-enhancing humor as a moderator hassles intensity and self-enhancing humor did not result in significant interactions across any health outcomes. self-enhancing humor and retirement stress resulted in significant interactions for two health outcomes. specifically, the regression of emotional well-being on retirement stress at varying levels of self-enhancing humor was significant (f (3, 257) = 56.48, p < .001). the corresponding retirement stress × self-enhancing interaction was significant, indicating a moderating effect (β = .15, p < .01). in addition, the regression of role limitations due to emotional problems on retirement stress at differing levels of self-enhancing humor was significant (f (3,256) = 19.19, p < .001). the corresponding interaction—retirement stress × self-enhancing humor—was also significant (β = .21, p < .001). does humor benefit health in retirement? 133 as demonstrated in figure 1, under low stress, reports of emotional well-being were high and unaffected by humor style. however, when stress was high, retirees who reported high levels of self-enhancing humor reported higher emotional well-being than participants who reported low levels of self-enhancing humor. this result supports the hypothesis that self-enhancing humor would boost health scores, especially during periods of high stress. the regression of role limitations due to emotional problems at varying levels of self-enhancing humor demonstrated a similar significant pattern. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 low stress high stressretirement stress em o tio n a l w e llb e in g low self-enhancing humor mean self-enhancing humor high self-enhancing humor figure 1. regression lines predicting emotional wellbeing scores from retirement stress at varying levels of self-enhancing humor affiliative humor as a moderator four interactions were found using affiliative humor as a moderator between both retirement stress and hassles intensity and various health outcomes. specifically, the regression of general health on retirement stress at differing levels of affiliative humor was significant (f (3, 257) = 18.23, p < .001). the retirement stress × affiliative humor interaction was significant, denoting a moderating effect, with β = -.11, p < .05. additionally, the regression of emotional wellbeing on hassles intensity at differing levels of affiliative humor was significant (f (3, 252) = 28.98, p < .001). the corresponding hassles intensity × affiliative humor interaction was significant (β = -.16, p < .01). moreover, the regression of social functioning on hassles intensity at differing levels of affiliative humor was significant (f (3, 252) = 10.99, p < .001) and the europe’s journal of psychology 134 interaction—hassles intensity × affiliative humor—was significant (β = -.14, p < .05). finally, the regression of role limitations due to emotional problems on hassles intensity at differing levels of affiliative humor was significant (f (3, 251) = 10.71, p < .001). the corresponding hassles intensity × affiliative humor interaction was significant, β = -.157, p < .05. figure 2 shows that when hassles were low, retirees with high affiliative humor did not appear to differ from those reporting low affiliative humor. in high hassles situations, however, retirees with low affiliative humor appeared to have less role limitations due to emotional problems. all four regressions, portraying affiliative humor as a moderator, followed a similar pattern to that depicted in figure 2. 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 low hassles high hassleshassles intensity r o le l im ita tio n s d u e t o e m o tio n a l p ro b le m s low affiliative humor mean affiliative humor high affiliative humor figure 2. regression lines predicting role limitations due to emotional problems scores from hassles intensity at varying levels of affiliative humor self-defeating humor as a moderator turning now to the maladaptive humor styles, two significant interactions were revealed with self-defeating humor as a moderator. the regression of pain on retirement stress at differing levels of self-defeating humor was significant (f (3, 256) = 15.66, p < .001). the corresponding retirement stress × self-defeating humor interaction was also significant (β = .13, p < .05). in addition, the regression of pain on hassles intensity at differing levels of self-defeating humor was significant (f (3, 252) = 10.70, p < .001). the hassles intensity × self-defeating humor interaction too was significant (β = .14, p < .05). does humor benefit health in retirement? 135 plotted, the two significant regressions suggested that self-defeating humor only appeared to be maladaptive when daily hassles/stress were low. however, when daily hassles/stress were high a higher self-defeating score was related to less reported pain, and thus appeared to have an adaptive quality for retirees (see figure 3). 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 low hassles high hassleshassles intensity p a in low self-defeating humor mean self-defeating humor high self-defeating humor figure 3. regression lines predicting pain scores from hassles intensity at varying levels of self-defeating humor aggressive humor as a moderator three significant interactions were discovered using aggressive humor as a moderator. first, the regression of energy/vitality on hassles intensity at differing levels of aggressive humor was significant (f (3, 253) = 17.50, p < .001). the hassles intensity × aggressive humor interaction was also significant at β = .14, p < .05. additionally, the regression analysis of pain on hassles intensity at differing levels of aggressive humor was significant (f (2, 253) = 12.72, p < .001). the hassles intensity × aggressive humor interaction was significant at β = .17, p < .01. finally, the regression of pain along retirement stress at differing levels of aggressive humor was significant (f (3, 257) = 17.92, p < .001. the corresponding interaction of retirement stress × aggressive humor was significant, β = .14, p < .05. the three significant regressions depicting aggressive humor as a moderator suggest that when hassles/stress was low, there did not appear to be a distinction between high and low aggressive humor use. however, in contexts of high hassles/stress, europe’s journal of psychology 136 higher use of aggressive humor was related to more optimal health outcomes (see figure 4). 60 65 70 75 80 85 low stress high stress retirement stress p a in low aggressive humor mean aggressive humor high aggressive humor figure 4. regression lines predicting pain scores from retirement stress at varying levels of aggressive humor gender differences statistical examination of the sample demonstrated that the extent to which a humor style was adaptive depended on the stress context in which it was examined. as other contexts might result in similar patterns, we then examined whether gender, a dispositional factor, also affected the stress moderating effect of humor. initial analysis of gender differences independent t-tests were used to examine gender differences on humor, stress, and heatlh outcomes. refer to table 1 for corresponding means and standard deviations. a significant difference was found in the use of aggressive humor (t (261) = 7.49, p < .001), with means for males higher than means for females. there was also a significant difference in self-defeating humor (t (260) = -2.90, p = .004), with means for males again exceeding means for females. unexpectedly, significant gender differences were found with use of affiliative humor as well (t (260) = 2.44, p < .05), does humor benefit health in retirement? 137 with means for males higher than means for females. no gender differences were found for the use of self-enhancing humor. gender differences were found in the amount of retirement stress reported (t (259) = -2.60, p < .01), with females reporting more distal stress than males. there were no gender differences found with hassles intensity. comparing males and females along the health outcomes, two significant differences were found. a significant difference was found in reported health on the pain outcome (t (262) = 2.46, p < .05), with males reporting more optimal health along this measure than females. a significant difference was also found for emotional wellbeing (t (262) = 2.05, p < .05), again with means for males exceeding means for females . humor as a moderator by gender regression analysis was used to examine the stress moderating effect of humor and gender. gender was dummy coded and all scores were centered prior to testing the joint effect of three independent variables (hassles/stress, humor style, and gender) on the dependent variable (health outcome). in all three-way interactions, humor style (z) and gender (w) were moderator variables of the relation between stress/hassles (x) and health outcome (y). the significance level of xwz was set at p < .05. there were no significant three-way interactions that included self-enhancing humor or affiliative humor as moderators. however, several significant regressions were uncovered when examining self-defeating humor and gender as moderators and aggressive humor and gender as moderators. with self-defeating humor and gender as the moderators, regressions revealed five significant interactions. with aggressive humor and gender as the moderators, three significant three-way interactions were revealed. for all eight significant regressions, male retirees followed the same trend reported in the aforementioned two-way regressions, such that selfdefeating and aggressive humor only appeared maladaptive when stress was low. however, when stress was high, higher self-defeating and aggressive humor scores were related to more optimal health outcomes, and thus appeared to have an adaptive quality for retirees. however, for female retirees, the opposite pattern emerged. when hassles/stress were low, humor levels had no impact on health outcomes. however, once hassles/stress were high, high self-defeating and aggressive humor scores were related to poorer health outcomes and appeared to be maladaptive (see figure 5). europe’s journal of psychology 138 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 low hassles high hassles hassles intensity so c ia l f u n c tio n in g low self-defeating humor female high self-defeating humor female low self-defeating humor male high self-defeating humor male figure 5. regression lines predicting social functioning scores from hassles intensity at varying levels of self-defeating humor and gender by including gender as a moderator, the contextual nature of humor as a moderator is underscored. i t appears that not only the level of stress and hassles determines the adaptiveness of a humor style, but gender as well. discussion in this study we aimed to examine further the relationship between humor, stress and health in retirement. analyses were aimed at understanding the moderating effect of humor on the relationship between stress and measures of health. humor as a moderator the plotted two-way interactions suggest that the ―adaptiveness‖ of humor styles depends on the level (low or high) of stress or hassles one perceives. these results suggest that it may not be adequate to label a humor style as simply adaptive or maladaptive. i t was found that self-enhancing humor only appears to be truly adaptive in situations of high stress. in low stress situations, however, retirees with high self-enhancing humor did not appear to differ from those reporting low self enhancing humor. in this way, the adaptiveness of the humor style appears to be contextual. perhaps under sufficiently low stress there is no advantage to be gained v ia self enhancing humor, but under high stress the adaptive advantage is revealed. does humor benefit health in retirement? 139 similarly, when examining the two-way interactions, self-defeating humor appeared only maladaptive when daily hassles are low. however, when daily hassles were high a higher self-defeating score was related to less pain, and thus appeared to have an adaptive quality. this was a consistent pattern when examining the aggressive humor style as well. thus, it seems that the extent to which self-defeating and aggressive humor are maladaptive is truly situational. the three-way interaction analyses revealed a dispositional variable that affects the adaptiveness of a humor style—gender. examination of the significant three-way interactions demonstrated a consistent pattern of divergence between males and females across multiple health outcomes, underscoring the importance of examining gender when exploring adaptiveness in the use of humor. males followed the pattern revealed in the two-way interactions, such that a high self-defeating or aggressive humor score was adaptive during high stress/hassles. females, on the other hand, displayed the hypothesized pattern, such that a high self-defeating or aggressive humor score was more maladaptive when stress/hassles were high. these results call attention to the importance of examining both contextual and person variables before labeling a humor style as ―adaptive‖ or ―maladaptive.‖ i t may be that something as basic as gender might indicate the extent to which a humor style serves as an adaptive or maladaptive mechanism when dealing with stress and health in particular circumstances. perhaps age is another such relevant person variable. these findings have interesting implications for the hsq (martin et al., 2003). the hsq is a constructive acknowledgement that humor is not a unitary construct, but multifaceted, including positive and adaptive, as well as negative and maladaptive styles. however, the results of the present research imply that even the addition of positive and negative humor styles is not a sufficient acknowledgement of humor’s complexity. i t appears that the adaptiveness of the humor styles may not be an allor-none phenomenon, but that adaptiveness or maladaptiveness of a given style may be a function of both contextual (e.g., high or low stress) and dispositional variables (e.g., gender). however, it should be kept in mind that this sample of retirees is comprised of well-educated college graduates from the same undergraduate institution. future research should attempt to collect a more diverse sample to see if these results will be replicated. moreover, further understanding of the contextual nature of the adaptiveness of humor styles may benefit from looking at different contexts. in this study daily hassles and stress were examined, but it may europe’s journal of psychology 140 be that differing levels of self-esteem or anxiety also produce similar patterns that highlight the contextual nature of the humor styles. examining these moderation effects not only revealed information about humor as a moderating variable, but intimates information about the general nature of these humor styles as well. for instance, in examination of figure 2, affiliative humor appeared to be a more natural humor style in a low stress context. this humor style is consistently, and significantly, positively associated with cheerfulness, psychological wellbeing, and social intimacy (martin et al., 2003), as well as harmony, sharing, and mutual happiness among in-group members (kazarian & martin, 2004). so while this humor style may be adaptive in terms of enhancing social supports and relationships, it does not appear to be as effective in terms of directly coping with stress or health. further investigation of situations that require adaptation, other than health, may further our understanding of the adaptiveness of affiliative humor. taking a broader look at the moderating effects of the negative humor styles, it could be argued that the use of self-defeating and aggressive humor styles may just be an acknowledgement of one’s circumstances under high stress or high hassles (see figures 3 and 4). in this way, the difference between high and low use of the negative humor styles during high stress situations may reflect a tendency to express or communicate feelings and awareness of discomfort as opposed to a tendency to suffer in silence. i t may be that the communication of discomfort, although negative towards others (aggressive humor) or oneself (self-defeating), may be cathartic because the indiv idual is simply expressing that there is a problem. indeed, actively suppressing one’s negative emotional experience has been related to the development of health problems (pennebaker, 1992). whereas self-enhancing humor is adaptive because one is cognitively reappraising a stressful situation, the adaptiveness of the negative styles may function in a different way—by merely acknowledging or confronting a negative circumstance v ia humor. as always, it is a concern with correlational data that causality cannot be demonstrated, but if the relationship is causal, it may not be clear which variable is the cause and which is the effect. the present study proposes that changes in health outcomes in reaction to stress may be allev iated or exacerbated by the use of humor. this study is a partial replication of nezu and colleagues (1988). going beyond the correlational methodology used in the present study, nezu et al. (1988) used a more rigorous prospective design to test this relationship. they reported finding humor as a moderator between stressful events and depressive symptoms (nezu et al., 1988). similarly, the present study found more significant results with mental health measures than the truly physical ones. does humor benefit health in retirement? 141 interpreting unexpected correlations correlations that have not been previously reported were revealed with this current sample. first, the aggressive humor style had a significant positive correlation with pain, contrary to expectations for a negative correlation with the health measures. on the other hand, self-defeating humor, the other negative humor style, had an expected negative correlation with the health measures. the moderating effect of aggressive humor supported the positive correlation. reports of high use of aggressive humor appeared to be more adaptive in periods of high stress in both the combined sample and among males. however, this effect may not be entirely satisfying as an explanation. the self-defeating humor style was negatively correlated with emotional wellbeing, as expected, and among the combined sample and males, appeared to have the same adaptive quality in high stress/hassles as aggressive humor. although the unexpected positive correlation between aggressive humor and pain seems to be indicative of a genuine moderating effect and not a mere anomaly, future research may clarify this finding. an unpredicted significant gender difference with use of affiliative humor was also revealed, as males reported more use of affiliative humor than females. to our knowledge this has not been reported in prev ious studies using the hsq. a brief inquiry into prev ious literature has revealed two common outcomes regarding gender differences on the hsq. the most common finding is that males use the selfdefeating and aggressive humor styles more than females, but no significant gender differences emerged with the self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles (kazarian & martin, 2004; martin et al., 2003). otherwise, studies indicate that there are no gender differences across all four humor styles (erickson & feldstein; martin & lefcourt, 1983). i t is not entirely clear why in the current sample gender differences were found with respect to the affiliative humor measure. i t is worth mentioning that the studies mentioned above utilized mostly college-aged samples. i t may be that elderly males typically use more affiliative humor, or this finding may be unique to this sample. further research should be done to examine the use of humor among diverse elderly samples to clarify this unexpected outcome. limitations and future directions one limitation of this study is that stress measures were collected at a single time point. the use of ecological momentary assessments (emas), in which participants europe’s journal of psychology 142 are reminded throughout the day to record immediate experiences, may reveal more information on proximal stress in particular. prev ious studies have found that elderly indiv iduals do not report as many hassles as younger adults (aldwin, sutton, chiara, & spiro, 1996). perhaps it may be more difficult for older indiv iduals to recall hassles retrospectively. i t has also been suggested that the number of hassles decrease as the number of social roles decrease in old age (aldwin et al., 2007). alternatively, hassles from other sources, such as diminishing abilities and loss of acquaintances may increase for the elderly. likewise, gottlieb and wolfe (2002) promote study designs that facilitate observation of coping as it unfolds over time. again the use of emas could prompt real-time assessment of the use of humor as a coping strategy in conjunction with hassle and stress reports. a study utilizing ema could then illuminate both real -time stress as well as the strategies used to cope with them. finally, these results should only be generalized to a very well-educated, caucasian, elderly retired population. the current research pulled from an email listing of college graduates. more than 60% of this sample acquired additional education beyond a four-year college degree. in addition, the retirees that comprised the current sample were all comfortable enough with computers to complete a lengthy 45 minute online-survey. i t appears that this unique sample may not need to rely as much on humor when dealing with stress. highly educated, wealthy indiv iduals tend to be buffered from negative life experiences (baltes & lang, 1997) and may have a wealth of other coping strategies to choose from. this is plausible, given that humor is an emotional coping strategy, which makes the best of a stress one cannot change. future studies could examine these humor styles in relation to stress among other, more diverse samples. given some prominent aspects of humor, there is sound justification for more extensive research effort which addresses some of the complexity of the roles and effects of humor in retirement. first, the fact that humor is a form of emotional coping (folkmann & lazarus, 1988), may imply a critical role as a coping response in retirement. emotional coping consists of making the best of a situation in which problem solv ing to eliminate the stress is not an option, and in retirement many stressors, such as decreases in physical abilities or loss of friends, are such sources of unavoidable stress. consequently, a humorous perspective may often be significantly helpful in minimizing the negative consequences of such losses. additionally, the cognitive flexibility implicit in being able to readily switch from a telic or goal directed state of mind to a paratelic or playful state may be beneficial in itself (apter, 1997). further, the social nature and consequences of humor can also does humor benefit health in retirement? 143 have particular relevance in retirement. since social support is a prominent buffer against stress vulnerability (koenig, westlund, george, hughes, blazer, & hybels, 1993), humor can be seen as one means of fostering and maintaining positive and supportive social relationships. these are just a few of the potential reasons why there may be particular value in devoting extensive future research effort to a better understanding of roles of humor in the context of retirement. finally, this line of research—investigating the stress and health buffering capacity of different humor styles—was also designed to set the groundwork for more applied research designs in the future. for example, as adaptive consequences of differing humor styles are clarified in different contexts, future studies may test the feasibility of teaching coping humor to retirees for whom it is low or to reinforce coping humor in indiv iduals who may use this style only in select instances. a prev ious study has shown that humor can be used to alter an emotional response in a 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(2000). women, ageing and health. fact sheet no. 252. about the authors: gillian p. freeman conducted the above research while completing her m.a. in psychology at the college of william & mary. she is continuing her graduate education at the university of massachusetts amherst in developmental psychology, with a focus on aging, retirement, and humor. address for correspondence: g. p. freeman, department of psychology, university of massachusetts amherst, tobin hall, 135 hicks way, amherst, ma, 01003-9271, united states of america e-mail: gpfreema@psych.umass.edu w. larry ventis is a clinical psychologist and professor at the college of william and mary. his research on humor has dealt primarily with applications of humor. the current topic was of particular interest as he is not so far from retirement himself. running head: impact of humorous comments europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 236-266 www.ejop.org reactions to humorous comments and implicit theories of humor styles nicholas a. kuiper university of western ontario gillian a. kirsh university of western ontario catherine leite university of western ontario abstract the first two studies investigated reactions to several different types of humorous comments. participants indicated they would be significantly more likely to continue interacting with a friend who used adaptive self-enhancing or affiliative humor rather than maladaptive aggressive or self-defeating humor; with the most detrimental effects being evident for aggressive humor. adaptive humorous comments also made recipients feel significantly more positive and less negative about themselves. humor styles were further investigated in terms of implicit theories about humor. study 2 indicated that for the self, humor was perceived as being used most often with close friends, followed by family members, romantic partners, casual acquaintances, and least often with teachers. participants also indicated that affiliative humor was used most frequently for each relationship, followed by self-enhancing humor, self-defeating humor, and then aggressive humor. study 3 examined the perceived frequency of use for each humor style by others. participants indicated affiliative humor to be the most frequently used humor style, regardless of the group being rated (people in general, people one knows, family and friends), self-enhancing humor to be the second most frequently used, and the two maladaptive humor styles as being used the least often. different co-variation patterns for the four humor styles were also found. these findings were then discussed in terms of the strong differential impact of humor styles on the recipients of humorous comments; as well as the implicit theories of humor styles that are ev ident for self or others. key words: humor styles, humor impact, humor use, implicit theories of humor, self, other http://www.ejop.org/ humor impact and implicit theories 237 i t has often been suggested that humor plays an integral role in a wide variety of social interactions and interpersonal relationships (butzer & kuiper, 2008; klein & kuiper, 2006; martin, 2007). for example, in rev iew ing the social psychological aspects of humor, martin (2007) has pointed out that humor is fundamentally a social phenomenon that is involved in numerous aspects of interpersonal communication. these functions include using humor to save face and relieve tensions in potentially embarrassing situations, as well as the use of humor to self-disclose and determine the beliefs and attitudes of others. furthermore, humor can also be used by a high status indiv idual to maintain dominance over others, and by a low -status indiv idual to gain the approval of those thought to be important (klein & kuiper, 2006). in a group context, humor can be used to highlight and enhance group identity and cohesion; or manage discourse by shifting conversations away from threatening to more light-hearted topics (martin, 2007). interpersonally, humor is rated as being among the most important personal characteristics we seek in others; with this desire for humor ev ident in many different types of relationships, including dating, marriage, and friendships (butzer & kuiper, 2008). much of the theorizing and work on the role of humor in social interactions and interpersonal relationships has rested on the implicit assumption that humor is primarily a positive attribute. as such, this work has often focused on the beneficial contributions made by humor‟s involvement in social domains, leading to the more general notion that humor prov ides a social facilitative effect. this effect is undoubtedly a very important function of humor use in both social interactions and interpersonal relationships. however, other contemporary research suggests that it is equally important to consider the possible detrimental impact of humor. this personality research on humor, which forms the theoretical and empirical keystone for the present set of studies, is described in more detail below. over the past several years, a number of research studies have clearly delineated the existence of both facilitative and detrimental humor styles (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003; martin, 2007; saroglou & scariot, 2002). in this personality-based approach to humor, the two adaptive styles are affiliative and self-enhancing humor; whereas the two maladaptive styles are aggressive and self-defeating humor. affiliative humor involves funny, non-hostile jokes, and spontaneous witty banter to amuse others in a respectful way. i t is aimed at others and used in an adaptive manner to facilitate relationships and reduce interpersonal conflict. aggressive humor, on the other hand, is intended to put others down by using sarcasm, teasing and ridicule. as such, the use of this maladaptive humor style may hurt or alienate others. in europe’s journal of psychology 238 contrast, self-enhancing humor is often used as an adaptive coping mechanism, allowing the indiv idual to adopt a humorous outlook on life and maintain a realistic perspective in stressful situations. finally, self-defeating maladaptive humor involves self-disparagement and allowing oneself to be the „butt‟ of the joke, in order to gain the approval of others. the four humor styles, as described in the above model, have typically been assessed v ia the humor styles questionnaire (hsq). using this measure, a number of studies now provide evidence for the existence of these four styles across european (saraglou & scariot, 2002; vernon, martin, schermer & mackie, 2008), north american (kuiper et al, 2004: martin et al., 2003), middle eastern (kalliny, cruthirds & minor, 2006; taher, kazarian & martin, 2008) and eastern cultures (chen & martin, 2007). furthermore, these studies also support the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles, as higher levels of adaptive humor are usually associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem. in contrast, higher levels of maladaptive humor are typically associated with increased depression and lower self-esteem. the important role of several of the humor styles in contributing to these aspects of psychological health has been further confirmed by recent work focusing on multiple mediators of well-being (dozois, martin, & bieling, in press; kuiper & mchale, 2009). taken together, the above studies prov ide a clear and comprehensive picture of the four humor styles and their differential relationship to psychological well-being. in contrast, much less is known about how these humor styles may impact on another person in a typical social interaction (klein & kuiper, 2006). as such, this issue was explored in the present set of studies by focusing on the responses made by indiv iduals that were the recipients of humorous comments pertaining to each of the four humor styles. in this research, we were first of all interested in determining the extent to which each type of humorous comment (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating) might have either a positive or negative impact on the recipient‟s overall desire to continue interacting with the indiv idual that just made that comment. secondly, we were also interested in determining the degree to which each type of humorous comment might make recipients feel either more positive or negative about themselves. these two issues were empirically investigated in study 1 using a university sample, and then in study 2 using a younger sample of high school adolescents. in addition to investigating the potential effects of humor styles on recipients, the present studies were also designed to further our knowledge base concerning humor impact and implicit theories 239 implicit theories of humor, particularly as they apply to the four humor styles. implicit theories of humor concern the indiv idual‟s beliefs, cognitions and perceptions regarding various facets of humor and include, for example, perceptions of the additional personality attributes that are expected to characterize indiv iduals high on each humor style (kuiper & leite, 2010). since the humor styles have only been recently identified, little research has thus far focused on implicit theories of humor as they may directly pertain to these four styles. accordingly, a further aim of the present research was to expand our understanding of several additional facets of implicit theories of humor. study 2 began this examination by documenting indiv iduals‟ perceptions regarding their own perceived frequency of use for each humor style, across a variety of typical relationships (e.g., close friends, family members, and teachers). study 3, in turn, assessed participants‟ perceptions of the frequency of use of each humor style by others, including people in general, people one knows, and family and friends. this final study also explored the extent to which the humor styles are perceived to covary. in other words, given that a person displays a certain humor style (e.g., affiliative) how much would we also expect that person to dis play each of the remaining humor styles (i.e., self-affiliative, aggressive, and self-defeating)? study 1: the impact of humorous comments on others in light of the major distinctions between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (martin, 2007), we expected that the various humor styles would exert quite different effects in an interpersonal context. our first study provided a preliminary examination of this issue by investigating two potential effects of humorous comments. the first was the effect of a friend‟s humorous comments on the recipient‟s desire to continue interacting with that friend. the second was the effect of a friend‟s humorous comment on the recipient‟s feelings about self. these two effects were examined using short scenarios that were presented in a questionnaire format. participants were first asked to imagine that a friend had just made a humorous comment in a social situation. here, each humor style was represented by a brief statement that captured the essence of that particular style. for example, the statement for aggressive humor was, “a friend makes a humorous comment that puts down another person in the group.” following each humorous comment, participants then rated how much they wanted to continue interacting with that friend, followed by a rating of how that comment made them feel about themselves. europe’s journal of psychology 240 the humor styles model (kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007) was used to generate predictions for the expected pattern of findings. overall, we expected that the adaptive humorous comments (self-enhancing and affiliative) would result in a stronger desire to continue interacting with the friend and more positive feelings about self, than the maladaptive humorous comments (self-defeating, aggressive). affiliative humor, for example, functions primarily to enhance social relationships (martin, 2007). as such, the basic facilitative nature of this adaptive style would help foster more pleasant social interactions, including more positive feelings about self. in a similar fashion, self-enhancing humor, while not directly oriented towards the other indiv idual in an interaction, would nonetheless still contribute to a more positive and light-hearted social interchange, thus having positive effects on our two measures. in contrast, for the maladaptive humor styles, we hypothesized that the aggressive humorous comments would have the most negative impact on the recipient, resulting in the lowest desire to continue interacting and the most negative feelings about self. these predictions stem from the deliberately hurtful nature of aggressive humor that is directed towards the recipient (martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007). these characteristics of maladaptive aggressive humor would make the recipient want to withdraw from the situation, both emotionally and physically. at a broader level, these detrimental effects could then lead to enhanced negative feelings about the self. as such, we expected to see a significant main effect of adaptive versus maladaptive humor in our analysis. finally, our expectations regarding the impact of self-defeating humor on recipients were less clearly defined. the humor styles model proposes that the function of self defeating humor is to make the indiv idual feel more accepted by the people they interact with (martin, 2007). in turn, this suggests that the use of self-defeating humor would be v iewed by the recipients in a more favourable manner than aggressive humor, resulting in the recipients having an increased desire to continue interacting with the indiv idual using self-defeating humor. this could also lead to more positive feelings about the self in this situation. in our analysis, this pattern of findings could be reflected in a significant interaction between adaptive-maladaptive humor and the self-other focus of this humor, with self-defeating humor being significantly less negative in its impact than aggressive humor, but not as positive as either of the adaptive humor styles (affiliative or self-enhancing). on the other hand, the explicit demeaning and ingratiating nature of self-defeating humor may result in a negative distancing response by recipients. this distancing reaction would be evident in a reduced desire to interact with the indiv idual using this humor style, and a more detrimental impact on the recipients‟ feelings about self. to the extent this negative distancing effect is ev ident, it could result in effects for self-defeating humor that are humor impact and implicit theories 241 equivalent to those expected for aggressive humor, thus precluding any significant interaction effects in our analyses. method participants the sample consisted of one hundred and thirty-two university students (42 males and 90 females), enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the university of western ontario. their mean age was 19.23 (sd = 1.12), with a range from 17 to 24. each participant received one course credit for participation. measures reactions to humorous comments inventory (rhci). the rhci was designed specifically to assess participants‟ reactions to the use of each humor style by another person. to begin, three researchers highly familiar with the humor styles model jointly crafted a brief statement for each style that incorporated the essential aspects of that humor style. each of these four statements was then presented on the rhci as if a friend of the participant had just made that humorous comment in a social interaction. the four types of statements were as follows: “a friend makes a positive humorous comment to help maintain group morale” (affiliative humor style), “a friend makes a positive humorous comment to cheer him/herself up” (self enhancing humor), “a friend makes a humorous comment that puts down another person in the group” (aggressive humor), and “a friend gets carried away in making humorous comments that are self-critical” (self-defeating humor). for each humorous comment, participants were first asked to rate the degree to which they would want to continue interacting with a friend using that type of humor. following this, participants indicated the extent to which each type of humorous comment would make them feel either more positive or negative about themselves. these self-ratings were made separately for positive and negative feelings, as prev ious research has demonstrated that these two constructs are often independent (kirsh & kuiper, 2003). all of the ratings on the rhci were made on 5point likert scales, with 1 = “not at all” and 5 = “very much.” procedure after receiv ing appropriate ethics approval, participants were tested in groups that ranged in size from 20 to 25 indiv iduals. each participant was given an informed europe’s journal of psychology 242 consent form prior to completing the questionnaire booklet (which also contained several further questionnaires not relevant to the present study). upon completion of the booklet, which took approximately 30 minutes, participants were given a debriefing form with further details regarding the present research. results and discussion the means and standard deviations for each rhci rating are presented in table 1 , ______________________________________________________________________________________ humorous comments adaptive maladaptive self other self other _____________________________________________________________ self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive continue interacting m 4.38 4.36 3.30 2.72 sd .68 .70 .89 1.08 positive self-feeling m 3.58 3.70 2.72 2.43 sd 1.11 .87 1.00 1.10 negative self-feeling m 1.73 1.52 2.40 2.38 sd .91 .73 1.00 1.12 notes. n = 132 all ratings were made on 5 point scales, with 1 = “not at all” and 5 = “very much. table 1: study 1 means and sds for responses to humorous comments __________________________________________________________________________________ for each type of humorous comment. each rating (continue interacting, positive and negative self-feelings) was analyzed using a 2 x 2 repeated measures analysis of variance (anova), in which the first factor was the adaptive versus maladaptive nature of the humorous comment involved. recall that the adaptive comments involved either self-enhancing or affiliative humor, whereas the maladaptive comments involved either self-defeating or aggressive humor. the second factor for each anova considered the self versus other focus of the humorous comment; with self-enhancing and self-defeating humor being self-focused, and affiliative and aggressive humor being other-focused. this 2 x 2 analysis followed directly from the theoretical distinctions made in the humor styles model (martin et al., 2003). finally, humor impact and implicit theories 243 in addition to considering main effects, each anova also tested for a significant interaction between adaptive-maladaptive and self-other humor styles. desire to continue interacting. the 2 x 2 anova on these ratings (shown in the top row of table 1) revealed the expected significant main effect of adaptive versus maladaptive humor, f = 283.89, p < .001. here, participants indicated that they would be significantly more likely to continue interacting with a friend who used adaptive rather than maladaptive humor (respective main effect means of 4.37 versus 3.01). this anova also revealed that the main effect of self-other humor was significant, f = 26.65, p < .001, with self-focused humor resulting in a greater desire to continue interacting than other-focused humor (respective means of 3.83 versus 3.54). both of these main effects, however, were qualified by a significant interaction between adaptive-maladaptive and self-other humor. examination of the cell means shown in the top row of table 1 indicated that all t-test comparisons were significant (p‟s <.001), except affiliative versus self-enhancing humor. thus, for both types of adaptive humorous comments (self-enhancing, affiliative) participants were more willing to continue interacting with these friends than with friends that used either aggressive or self-defeating humorous comments. furthermore, participants were significantly less likely to want to continue interacting with friends who used aggressive humorous comments, when compared with friends who used self-defeating comments. this pattern indicates that aggressive humor is even more maladaptive in a social interaction context than self-defeating humor. positive self-feelings. the 2 x 2 anova on the ratings shown in the middle row of table 1 indicated a sole significant main effect for adaptive versus maladaptive humor, f = 158.61, p < .001. as expected, a friend‟s use of adaptive humor resulted in significantly more positive feelings about the self than the friend‟s use of maladaptive humor (respective main effect means of 3.64 versus 2.58). neither the main effect of self-other humor, nor the two-way interaction were significant. overall, this pattern indicates that recipients‟ positive feelings about the self are only influenced by the adaptive versus maladaptive nature of the humorous comments; and are not influenced by the self versus other focus of these comments. with respect to maladaptive humor, for example, it was not the case that aggressive humorous comments lead to significantly less positive self-feelings than self-defeating humorous comments. similarly, both adaptive humorous comments (affiliative and self-enhancing) resulted in the same degree of positive feelings about self. negative self-feelings. a 2 x 2 repeated measures anova on the ratings shown in the bottom row of table 1 indicated a sole significant main effect for adaptive europe’s journal of psychology 244 versus maladaptive humor, f = 83.83, p < .001. again, as expected, there were more negative feelings about the self following a friend‟s use of maladaptive humor than after adaptive humor (respective means of 2.49 versus 1.63). neither the main effect of self-other humor nor the two-way interaction were significant. thus, once again only the adaptive versus maladaptive nature of the humorous comments was relevant. the self versus other focus of the humorous comments was once again irrelevant; aggressive humorous comments did not result in more negative selffeelings than self-defeating humorous comments. similarly, the two adaptive humorous comments (self-enhancing and affiliative) both had the same impact on the recipients‟ negative feelings about self. study 2: the impact and use of humor in adolescents the vast majority of research on the humor styles model has been conducted with adult samples (martin, 2007). much less is known about humor styles in younger participants, although recent work by erickson and feldstein (2007) has found evidence for the existence of humor styles in adolescents as young as 12 years of age. furthermore, these researchers found that the humor style scores displayed by these adolescents were quite comparable to an adult comparison group; and that the adolescent sample also showed the same general pattern of relationships between each humor style and coping or psychological well-being as adults. these findings indicate that the further investigation of humor styles in adolescents is warranted. accordingly, the first part of study 2 examined the same issues looked at in study 1, but now using a younger sample of adolescents in high school. as noted by many developmental psychologists, adolescence is a time of profound change, with the indiv idual practicing a variety of new roles and incorporating sev eral of these into a more complex and differentiated self-concept (harter, bresnick, bouchey & whitesell, 1997). these different aspects of self emerge across adolescence, with discrepancies often being evident across various self-concept roles and relationships, such as being shy in romantic relationships yet very talkative with samesex friends (harter, 1999). the examination of humor is particularly relevant to this age group, as one of the defining characteristics of adolescence is the increasing emphasis on forming and maintaining relationships of various kinds, including close friends, romantic partners, and casual acquaintances. in these relationships, humorous communication is often taken less seriously than non-humorous communication, and can therefore function humor impact and implicit theories 245 as an outlet for experimentation with new roles and activ ities. as such, examining the impact of humor in a social context may have particular relevance for adolescents. given that the four humor styles are also quite ev ident in adolescents (erikson & feldstein, 2007) we expected a pattern of findings similar to study 1. in other words, we expected that the adaptive humorous comments would lead to an increased desire to continue interacting, along with more positive (and less negative) feelings about self, when compared with maladaptive humorous comments. with regards to further distinctions between the two types of maladaptive humorous comments (selfdefeating versus aggressive), erikson and feldstein (2007) found that self -defeating humor was particularly salient during adolescence, and predicted depression symptoms above and beyond coping styles and other defence strategies. thus, it may be the case that adolescents distinguish more clearly between the effects of self-defeating versus aggressive humorous comments than do adults. i f so, this may result in differential effects for these two maladaptive humor styles across all three of our measures, namely the desire to continue interacting, as well as positive and negative feelings about the self. this pattern would emerge in the form of a significant interaction term for all three analyses. on the other hand, it also remains possible that adolescents will display a pattern similar to adults, with differences between self-defeating and aggressive humor comments being limited only to the desire to continue interacting with the friend. in turn, the second part of study 2 focused on implicit theories of humor as they pertain directly to the four humor styles. since almost no research has examined this issue, we began our investigation by determining how indiv iduals v iew certain aspects of their own humor styles. thus, the reactions to humorous comments inventory (rhci ) was further modified to assess the perceived frequency of use for each of the four humor styles across five different types of relationships. these relationships included close friends, family members, romantic partners, casual acquaintances, and teachers. these categories ensured coverage of both close and more distant relationships. in general, we expected that the adaptive humor styles (both affiliative and self enhancing) would be more widely used across all of the above relationship categories than the maladaptive styles (self-defeating and aggressive). in addition, we expected that the highest overall frequencies of humor use would be evident for close relationships (such as close friends and family), whereas the lowest frequencies of humor use would be evident for the more distant relationships (e.g., teachers). europe’s journal of psychology 246 beyond this, however, we also expected that the distinct multidimensional nature of the self-concept in adolescence (harter et al., 1997; harter, 1999) would enhance the use of quite different humor styles for some of these relationships. for example, adolescents may be much more comfortable using the maladaptive humor styles most often with close friends, but least often with teachers and family members. method participants the sample consisted of 181 students (80 males and 101 females) enrolled in two local high schools. the students were in grades 9 through 13, and were taking classes in english, computer science, geography, mathematics, and parenting. their mean age was 16.55 (sd = 1.50), with a range from 14 to 21 years. measures reactions to humorous comments inventory (rhci). study 1 prov ided a description of the initial rhci that assessed the impact of humorous comments on both the desire to continue interacting and self-feelings (positive and negative). in study 2, a second section was added to the rhci to assess participants‟ use of each of the four humor styles in five different types of relationships (with close friends, family members, romantic partner, casual acquaintances, and teachers). each humor style was presented for each type of relationship by using the self-referent format illustrated in the following statements: “i make positive humorous comments to help maintain the morale of others” (affiliative humor), “i make positive humorous comments to cheer myself up.” (self-enhancing humor), “i make humorous comments that put down another person.” (aggressive humor), and “i get carried away in making humorous comments that are self-critical.” (self-defeating humor). frequency of use was assessed for each humor style, for each type of relationship, using a 5-point likert scale, with 1 = “very rarely used” and 5 = “very frequently used.” procedure the study received ethics approval from the university, as well as the two school boards that were involved. two high schools (one from each school board) participated in the study. the principals in each school described the study to the teachers, and those interested volunteered their class time. each student was given an informed consent form that was taken home and signed by a parent (or humor impact and implicit theories 247 guardian) and the student. participants completed the booklets (which contained further questionnaires not relevant to the present study) in classes of 10 to 25 students, in about 40 minutes. upon completion of the booklet, participants were given a debriefing form with further details of the study. results and discussion t-tests revealed that there were no significant differences between the two schools on any of the measures. accordingly, the findings reported below are based on analyses that collapsed the data across the two high schools. means and standard deviations for the desire to continue interacting, as well as positive and negative feelings about the self, are shown in table 2. each measure was analyzed using a 2 x 2 repeated factors anova to test for both the main effects of adaptive-maladaptive and self-other humor, as well as their possible interaction. desire to continue interacting. the top row of table 2 presents the effects of a friend‟s humorous comment on a recipient‟s desire to continue interacting with that friend. as expected, a significant main effect was found for adaptive-maladaptive humor, f =419.50, p <.001, with a much stronger desire to continue interacting with a friend that used adaptive versus maladaptive humorous comments (respective main effect means of 4.03 versus 2.62). a significant main effect was also found for the self-other focus of the humor, f = 20.03, p<.001, with recipients reporting a stronger desire to continue interacting with a friend that used self rather than other humorous comments (respective main effect means of 3.44 and 3.21). a significant interaction was also found, f = 7.18, p <.025, with post-hoc tests indicating that all comparisons among the four cell means shown in the top row of table 2 were significantly different, except affiliative versus self-enhancing humor. thus, affiliative and selfenhancing humor resulted in the most favourable reaction to continue interacting, followed by self-defeating, and then aggressive humorous comments. this is the same overall pattern found in study 1, and indicates that aggressive humorous comments were also the most detrimental for adolescents. europe’s journal of psychology 248 __________________________________________________________________________________ humorous comments adaptive maladaptive self other self other _____________________________________________________________ self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive continue interacting m 4.08 3.98 2.81 2.43 sd .91 .84 .93 1.04 positive self feelings m 3.53 3.58 2.61 2.40 sd 1.01 .90 .98 1.14 negative self feelings m 1.96 1.75 2.59 2.46 sd 1.06 .87 1.14 1.19 notes. n = 181 all ratings were made on 5 point scales, with 1 = “not at all” and 5 = “very much. table 2: study 2 means and sds for responses to humorous comments ______________________________________________________________________________________ positive self-feelings. the degree to which humorous comments impact the self in a positive way are presented in the middle row of table 2. the 2 x 2 anova on these ratings indicated a significant main effect for adaptive-maladaptive humor, f = 177.28, p<.001; with significantly more positive feelings about the self for adaptive compared to maladaptive humorous comments (respective means of 3.44 versus 2.50). no further effects were found for this anova. this pattern for adolescents is identical to that found for the young adults in study 1. negative self-feelings. the bottom row of table 2 presents the means and standard deviations for negative feelings about the self. a 2 x 2 anova indicated significant main effects for both adaptive-maladaptive, f = 7.37, p <.025, and self-other humor, f = 60.42, p <.001. thus, as was the case for adults in study 1, the adolescents in study 2 also reported more negative feelings about themselves after a friend‟s use of maladaptive versus adaptive humorous comments (respective main effect means of 2.51 versus 1.86). in addition, however, these adolescents also reported more humor impact and implicit theories 249 negative self-feelings after the friend‟s use of humorous comments with a self rather than other focus (respective main effect means of 2.29 versus 2.11). finally, the interaction term was not significant in this analysis, as w as the case in study 1. __________________________________________________________________________________ humor styles self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive close friends m 3.64 4.32 2.79 2.51 (m=3.32) sd 1.21 .89 1.18 1.37 family members m 3.32 3.68 2.53 2.46 (m=3.00) sd 1.16 1.03 1.24 1.36 romantic partners m 3.16 3.70 2.30 1.77 (m=2.72) sd 1.31 1.05 1.13 1.09 causal acquaintances m 2.74 3.23 2.02 1.78 (m=2.45) sd 1.17 .94 1.06 1.04 teachers m 2.44 2.75 1.74 1.52 (m=2.11) sd 1.26 1.16 .98 .99 self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive overall m 3.06 3.53 2.28 2.01 table 3: study 2 means and sds for humor styles use by type of relationship _________________________________________________________________________________ humor use in different types of relationships. table 3 shows the perceived use of each humor style across five different relationships. examination of the means shown in table 3 indicates two prominent patterns. first, the pattern of use for the humor styles remains quite consistent within each of the five relationships. in other words, when looking across each row of table 3, it is ev ident that affiliative humor is used most often in each type of relationship (close friends, family members, etc.), compared to the remaining three humor styles. after affiliative humor, self enhancing humor is used second most often, followed by self-defeating humor, and then aggressive humor, which is used least often (see also the bottom-most row of table 3 for overall means for each humor style collapsed over all relationships). thus, as expected, the adaptive humor styles were perceived as being used more often by the self than the maladaptive humor styles. europe’s journal of psychology 250 a second consistent pattern is the relative frequency of humor use across the five relationships. as shown in the columns of table 3, each of the four humor styles is used most frequently with close friends, followed by family members, romantic partners, casual acquaintances, and teachers. combining the two patterns indicates that the humor style used most often is affiliative humor, and it is used most often with close friends. the overall means for humor use in each type of relationship (i.e., the averaged use of all four humor styles for that relationship) are presented directly under each relationship label along the left-side of table 3. given that all four humor styles were used most frequently with close friends, t-tests were performed comparing overall humor use in this type of relationship with all of the remaining types of relationships. all of these comparisons were significant, all p‟s < .001, indicating that significantly more humor is used with close friends than with any of the other types of relationships. overall, this pattern supports the proposal that more humor is used in close rather than more distant relationships (e.g., close friends versus teachers). study 3: implicit theories of humor use and covariation in others there has been very little research examining how implicit theories of humor might incorporate the four humor styles. for example, it is not yet known whether affiliative humor is perceived as being used by other indiv iduals more frequently than selfenhancing humor. similarly, nothing is yet known about the perceived frequency of use of either aggressive or self-defeating humor by others. furthermore, there has been no investigation of indiv iduals‟ perceptions of the covariation among the four humor styles. in other words, it is unclear how a person that displays high affiliative humor would be perceived with respect to the remaining styles of humor, such as self-enhancing or aggressive humor. would such an indiv idual be v iewed as also having higher self-enhancing humor than aggressive humor, or v ice-versa, or equal levels of both? in addition, would their level of self-defeating humor be v iewed as being higher or lower than their self-enhancing or aggressive humor? currently, no information exists regarding the perceived patterns of humor covariation that underlie an implicit theory of humor styles. accordingly, the main purpose of study 3 was to investigate the above issues. we began by exploring how often each humor style is thought to be used by other people. here, we also took into account the potential impact of various types of relationships that differ in familiarity. thus, we considered perceived frequency of use for each humor style for people in general, people one knows, and close family humor impact and implicit theories 251 and friends. overall, we expected that the perceived frequency of use for the two adaptive humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing) would be higher than perceptions of use regarding the two maladaptive humor styles (aggressive, self-defeating). this pattern would be consistent with research findings indicating that positive instances of humor use are generally much more frequent than negative (butzer & kuiper, 2008; dekoning & wiess, 2002; martin, 2007). i t is possible that any distinctions between perceived frequencies of use for the four humor styles may pertain to the target group being considered. for example, the use of adaptive humor that facilitates interactions may be particularly valued in encounters with people one does not know well, thus highlighting affiliative humor for people in general. however, for highly familiar others, such as family members, affiliative humor may not play such a central role. in turn, this may limit the salience of its perceived use among family members and friends. furthermore, for familiar others, one may become more cognizant of that person‟s use of adaptive humor for other purposes, such as coping with stress v ia self-enhancing humor. thus, by including target groups with three different levels of familiarity, we were able to examine the degree to which perceptions of humor use may also be sensitive to the degree of knowledge about others. the second and final part of study 3 examined indiv iduals‟ perceptions of the relationships among the four humor styles. participants were given separate descriptions of four target indiv iduals, each of whom was high on one of the four humor styles. for each target indiv idual, participants were then asked to rate the degree to which they believed the remaining three humor styles would also be characteristic of that target person, thus prov iding an assessment of the perceived degree of covariation among the various humor styles. at least two possibilities exist for how indiv iduals may perceive the humor styles to be associated. one possibility is that perceived covariation may be primarily based on the adaptive versus maladaptive nature of humor, as this dimension appears to be a fundamental underlying characteristic of the humor styles model (martin, 2007). i f this is the case, then indiv iduals may perceive the adaptive humor styles to be strongly related. for example, an indiv idual with high affiliative humor may be perceived as also having higher levels of self-enhancing humor and lower levels of maladaptive humor (aggressive and self-defeating). similarly, indiv iduals may perceive the two maladaptive humor styles to be strongly related. here, an indiv idual high on aggressive humor would be perceived as having higher levels of self-defeating humor and lower levels of adaptive humor (affiliative and self enhancing). europe’s journal of psychology 252 i t remains possible, however, that patterns of covariation may also be influenced by the second underlying dimension of the humor styles model, namely, a self versus other focus (martin, 2007). i f this is the case, then indiv iduals may perceive a strong positive relationship between the two self-focused humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating), and also between the two other-focused styles (affiliative and aggressive humor). as one illustration, an indiv idual high on self-enhancing humor would be attributed with higher levels of self-defeating humor than with affiliative or aggressive humor. thus, by assessing covariation for all four of the humor styles, we will be able to determine the extent to which the relationships among the styles may be driven by each of the underlying dimensions (adaptive-maladaptive and selfother). method participants the sample consisted of 166 students (102 females, 64 males) in introductory psychology classes at the university of western ontario. their mean age was 19.50, with a range from 18 to 33. each participant received one course credit for participation in this study. materials and measures frequency of use for each humor style. for each of the four humor styles, participants were first presented with a brief description of the main humor-related behaviors and motivations associated with that humor style. these descriptions were created v ia the consensus of three investigators highly familiar with the humor styles model, and are presented directly below. self-enhancing humor is a humor style that involves a tendency to be amused by the absurdities of daily liv ing. indiv iduals with this humor style have a humorous outlook on life, even in the face of stress and adversity. when things go wrong or when they are upset, these indiv iduals can usually find something amusing about the situation to cheer themselves up. affiliative humor is a humor style that involves saying funny things to amuse others and to put others at ease. indiv iduals with this humor style tend to make people laugh by making friendly jokes and finding witty things to say. this humor style often helps to facilitate relationships with others and decrease tension in a group. humor impact and implicit theories 253 self-defeating humor involves making fun of one‟s own weaknesses and faults in order to get acceptance. indiv iduals with this humor style allow themselves to be the “butt” of jokes, and laugh along when others ridicule them, in order to gain others‟ approval. these indiv iduals let others laugh at them and make fun at their expense in the hopes that others will like and accept them. aggressive humor is a style of humor that is sarcastic and used to ridicule and put-down others. indiv iduals with this humor style can‟t resist saying funny things that may be offensive and hurtful to others, and express humor without regard for its impact (e.g. sexist or racist humor). this type of humor often involves criticizing and teasing other indiv iduals. each of the above humor style descriptions was printed on a separate page, followed immediately by three frequency of use items. the first item asked participants to indicate on a 7-point scale how often the given humor style is used by people in general, with 1 = “not used very often,” 4 = “sometimes used,” and 7 = “used all the time.” the second item asked participants to indicate the approximate percentage of people they know that use the given humor style (with a possible range from 0 to 100%). the third item asked participants to indicate on a 7-point scale how often the given humor style is used among their social circle of family and friends, with 1 = “never,” 4 = “occasionally,” and 7 = “almost always” humor style covariation. participants were instructed to imagine a person who is high on a given style of humor by being presented with a description of the humor behaviors and motivations that characterize this person. these descriptions were obtained by slightly modifying the versions used previously for the frequency of use measure. two illustrative examples are presented directly below. now, please imagine a person who is high on affiliative humor. remember, this means that this person says funny things to amuse others and to put others at ease. also, this person often makes others laugh by joking and finding witty things to say. finally, this person‟s friendly humor helps to create good relationships with others and to decrease tension in a group. now, please imagine a person who is high on self-defeating humor. remember, this means that this person allows them self to be the “butt” of jokes and laughs along when others ridicule and disparage them in order to gain others‟ approval. also, this person lets others laugh at them and make fun at their expense. finally, this person says funny things about their own europe’s journal of psychology 254 weaknesses and faults in order to get people to like and accept them. following each description of a person high on a given humor style, participants were then presented with three further items. each item described the key humor behaviors indicative of one of the remaining three humor styles. for example, if the given humor style was high affiliative humor, then the three subsequent items pertained to aggressive humor (“also uses humor to ridicule, criticize, and „putdown‟ others”), self-enhancing humor (“has a humorous outlook on life, even in the face of stress and adversity”), and self-defeating humor (“lets others criticize and make fun of them, in order to be accepted”). when the given humor style was not affiliative humor, the subsequent item used to describe affiliative humor was, “also uses humor to facilitate relationships.” for each of these items, participants were asked to rate the extent to which the imagined indiv idual (e.g., a person with high levels of affiliative humor) would also display the humorous behaviors portrayed in that item. each rating was made on a 7-point likert scale, with 1 = “almost never,” 4 = “sometimes,” and 7 = “all the time.” the items were presented in different random orders for each of the given humor styles. procedure participants were tested in groups of 15 to 30 people. after reading and signing an informed consent form, participants completed a booklet of questionnaires containing both the frequency of use and covariation measures. the order of presenting all of the measures was randomly varied across booklets. after completion of the booklet, participants were given a debriefing form. results and discussion frequency of humor styles use. the means and standard deviations for perceived humor use by people in general are shown in the top row of table 4, as a function of humor style (self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive). the anova on these frequency of use ratings indicated that the main effect of humor style was significant, f = 21.83, p < .001. subsequent t-tests indicated that, as expected, indiv iduals rated affiliative humor as being used more often than the remaining adaptive style of self-enhancing humor, p < .01; or either of the two maladaptive styles of aggressive and self-defeating humor, p‟s < .001. furthermore, selfenhancing humor was perceived as being used more frequently than self-defeating humor impact and implicit theories 255 humor, p < .001; but not more frequently than aggressive humor. finally, no significant difference was found between the frequency of use for the two maladaptive styles of aggressive and self-defeating humor. _______________________________________________________________________________ ___ _ humor styles self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive people in general m 4.63 5.57 3.95 4.21 sd 1.05 .92 1.10 1.51 people one knows m 51.17 63.42 33.06 36.89 sd 19.51 20.54 21.10 26.54 family & friends m 4.82 5.65 3.39 3.57 sd 1.19 1.02 1.32 1.62 notes. n = 166 people in general were rated on a 7-point scale, with 1 = “not used very often”, and 7 = “used all the time.” people one knows were rated on a percentage scale, ranging from 0 to 100 percent. family and friends were rated on a 7-point scale, with 1 = “never”, and 7 = “almost always.” table 4: study 3 means and sds for use of humor styles by social group __________________________________________________________________________________ the means and standard deviations for the frequency of use ratings for people one knows are shown in the middle row of table 4. the anova on these ratings revealed a significant main effect of humor styles, f = 30.96, p < .001. a series of t-tests indicated that affiliative humor was rated as being used significantly more often than self-enhancing humor, p < .001; and also significantly more often that either of the two maladaptive styles of aggressive and self-defeating humor, p‟s < .001. selfenhancing humor was also rated as being used significantly more often than either aggressive or self-defeating humor, p‟s < .001. there was no significant difference in perceived humor use between the two maladaptive styles of aggressive and selfdefeating humor. the means and standard deviations for the frequency of use ratings for family and close friends are shown in the bottom row of table 4, with an anova indicating a significant main effect of humor styles, f = 41.29, p < .001. affiliative humor was once again perceived as being used more often than any of the remaining styles, namely, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating humor, all p‟s < .001. aggressive and europe’s journal of psychology 256 self-defeating humor were perceived to have equal frequencies of use, with both of these maladaptive styles being used significantly less often than either of the adaptive styles, all p‟s < .001. humor styles covariation. the means and standard deviations for the covariation ratings are shown in each row of table 5. for each of the four given humor styles (high self-enhancing, high affiliative humor, and so on), a single factor repeated measures analysis of variance was performed on the perceived levels of the remaining three humor styles (as shown in each row of table 5). the anova on the covariation ratings for the target high on self-enhancing humor indicated a significant main effect of humor styles, f = 28.48, p < .001. as shown in the top row of table 5, this target person was attributed with significantly higher levels of affiliative humor than either aggressive or self-defeating humor, p‟s < .001. this pattern supports the proposal that these covariation ratings are based primarily ________________________________________________________________________________ humor style covariation self-enhancing affiliative self-defeating aggressive given humor style high self-enhancing m 5.55 4.30 3.96 sd .74 1.40 1.53 high affiliative m 5.27 4.00 2.98 sd 1.04 1.53 1.47 high self-defeating m 3.54 4.79 4.20 sd 1.49 1.65 1.74 high aggressive m 3.70 3.98 2.55 sd 1.51 1.52 1.58 notes. n = 166 all ratings were made on 7-point scales, with 1 = “almost never”, and 7 = “all the time.” table 5: study 3 means and sds for perceived covariation __________________________________________________________________________________ on the adaptive-maladaptive distinction in the humor styles model. furthermore, there was no significant difference between perceived levels of self-defeating versus aggressive humor, suggesting that the self-other dimension of the humor styles model humor impact and implicit theories 257 is not particularly salient when making covariation judgments based on selfenhancing humor. the anova on the covariation ratings for the target high on affiliative humor (as shown in the second row of table 5), also yielded a significant main effect of humor styles, f = 36.53, p < .001. as expected, a person high on affiliative humor was attributed with significantly higher levels of self-enhancing humor than either aggressive or self-defeating humor, p‟s < .001. once again, this pattern supports the primacy of the adaptive-maladaptive dimension when making these covariation judgments. in addition, however, this target person was attributed with significantly lower levels of aggressive humor than self-defeating humor, p < .001. this latter distinction draws upon the self-other dimension, as knowing that a target has a high amount of an other-focused adaptive humor style (i.e., affiliative humor) led to decreased perceptions for the corresponding other-focused maladaptive style (i.e., aggressive humor). high self-defeating humor also had a significant effect on perceived levels of the other three humor styles, f = 7.80, p < .01. as shown in the third row of table 5, a person high on self-defeating humor was attributed with significantly higher levels of affiliative humor than with self-enhancing humor, p < .01; but with equivalent levels of aggressive humor. this pattern suggests that perceived relationships between self defeating humor and the other humor styles are based equally on both the adaptive-maladaptive and self-other humor dimensions, as indiv iduals who use selfdefeating humor are perceived to be just as likely to use humor that disparages others (aggressive humor), as they are to use adaptive humor. finally, high aggressive humor also had a significant impact on levels for the remaining three humor styles, f = 22.19, p < .001. examination of the means shown in the bottom row of table 5 indicated that a person high on aggressive humor was attributed with significantly higher levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humor than with self-defeating humor, p‟s < .01. furthermore, high aggressive humor was perceived to be associated with equivalent levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humor. interestingly, these findings suggest that high aggressive humor is perceived to be primarily associated with the adaptive humor styles. thus, indiv iduals with high aggressive humor are perceived to be more likely to use humor that enhances social relationships and reduces feelings of stress, in a manner that is accepting of both the self and others, than to use humor that is self-defeating in an attempt to gain others approval. europe’s journal of psychology 258 general discussion over the past decade there has been a considerable resurgence of interest in psychological approaches to the study of humor. one of these avenues of research has documented the existence of four distinct humor styles (martin et al., 2003), and then described how these styles have very different relationships with psychological well-being (kuiper et al., 2004). substantial research evidence has now accumulated in support of this humor model which includes both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al. 2003; martin, 2007). recall that adaptive humor is used in a beneficial manner to help maintain social relationships (affiliative humor) or assist in coping with stressful events and adverse life circumstances (self-enhancing humor). in contrast, maladaptive humor is used in a much more harmful manner to either put-down others (aggressive humor) or putdown one‟s self (self-defeating humor). the present research employed this humor styles model as the theoretical and empirical foundation for examining possible associations between humor styles and social interactions. the first part of this examination focused on the recipients of humorous comments, whereas the second part elucidated more clearly how implicit theories of humor may incorporate these four styles when describing self or others. the impact of humorous comments on others the first major goal of this research was to survey the impact of a friend‟s use of humorous comments on the recipient‟s desire to continue interacting with that friend, and also on the recipient‟s positive and negative feelings about self. these issues were examined in study 1 using a young adult sample and in study 2 using an adolescent sample. both studies prov ided consistent empirical support for the proposal that different types of humorous comments can have a considerable differential effect on recipients, with a positive impact being evident for adaptive humor comments and a negative impact ev ident for maladaptive comments. as predicted, when a friend used either style of adaptive humor (affiliative or self enhancing), the recipient reported a greater desire to continue interacting with that friend, and more positive and less negative feelings about the self. this pattern clearly indicates that when considering the two adaptive humor styles, the self -other distinction in the humor styles model is of little functional relevance. in other words, although affiliative humorous comments are specifically orientated towards fostering social interactions and relationships (martin, 2007) they did not result in significantly higher impact ratings than obtained for the self-enhancing humorous comments. this suggests that the general positive orientation ev ident in both of the adaptive humor impact and implicit theories 259 humor styles is sufficient to engender a strong social facilitative effect when using either affiliative or self-enhancing humor. thus, humorous comments which are specifically designed to enhance the self can, nonetheless, also impart a significant positive effect on the recipient of these comments. furthermore, this effect is comparable to that obtained for affiliative humorous comments designed specifically to enhance social relationships. in contrast to adaptive humor, the pattern for the two maladaptive humorous comments showed that both of the underlying dimensions of the humor styles model were quite relevant. thus, as predicted, maladaptive humorous comments resulted in a more negative impact than adaptive humorous comments. in particular, recipients were significantly less willing to continue the interaction when friends used maladaptive humorous comments (either aggressive or self-defeating), and reported less positive and more negative feelings about the self. in addition, however, the self-other dimension was also quite relevant for the maladaptive humor styles. here, other-directed humorous comments (aggressive) demonstrated significantly more negative effects on the desire to continue interacting than did selfdirected comments (self-defeating). in other words, the self-focused maladaptive style of self-defeating humor did not have as pervasive a negative impact on the relationship as the other-focused maladaptive style of aggressive humor. as such, this pattern highlights the very potent negative impact of aggressive humor on social and interpersonal relationships. i t also indicates how self-defeating humor can be v iewed in a somewhat less negative manner by others, thus prov iding some further empirical substantiation for its use as an effective tool to ingratiate oneself to others. although adolescence is generally a time of great flux and change with respect to social relationships and self-concept roles (harter, 1999), we found that the high school students in our second study displayed very few differences from the young adults tested in study 1. in fact, adolescents showed the same identical pattern of wanting to continue interacting with their friends as did the university students. as such, both studies revealed that either of the adaptive humor styles (affiliative or self enhancing) prompted an increased desire to continue interacting. in contrast, both types of maladaptive humorous comments (aggressive or self-defeating) resulted in a reduced desire to continue interacting with the friend, but with the aggressive humorous comments again being significantly more detrimental than the self defeating comments. the adolescents in study 2 also felt the most positive about themselves after being the recipients of adaptive humorous comments made by a friend, compared with europe’s journal of psychology 260 receiv ing maladaptive humorous comments. similarly, when considering negative self-feelings, adolescents again showed a pattern identical to young adults, in that the maladaptive humorous comments once more led to the most negative self feelings. in addition, however, the adolescents were sensitive to the self -other dimension of these comments, with self-focused humorous comments by a friend resulting in more negative self-feelings than other-focused comments. overall, these findings suggest that the humor style effects that are unique to adolescence are minimal, and appear to be limited to some minor differentiation on the self-other dimension for negative self-feelings. otherwise, the adolescents in our second study showed the same pattern of findings as the young adults in study 1, thus highlighting the continuity of humor styles and their effects across adolescence and young adults. this continuity is in accord with research by erickson and feldstein (2007) demonstrating the existence of the four humor styles in a group of young adolescents, along with patterns of relationships with psychological well-being that are quite similar to those found in adult samples (e.g., chen & martin, 2007). implicit theories of humor styles the second major goal of the present research was to examine how the four humor styles may be represented in implicit theories of humor, both for self and others. the study 2 findings for perceived frequency of humor use by the self showed a remarkably consistent pattern, with the most humor, overall, being displayed with close friends. furthermore, the two adaptive humor styles were used most often across all of the different relationships, with affiliative humor always being more frequently employed than self-enhancing humor. both maladaptive humor styles showed much less perceived frequency of use, with aggressive humor being used the least, regardless of the specific relationship being considered. in study 3 the examination of implicit theories of humor focused on the perception of humor styles in others, rather than the self. overall, the findings for frequency of use were extremely consistent across the three different social groups we examined (people in general, people one knows, and family and friends). in particular, indiv iduals perceived affiliative humor to be the most frequently used humor style, regardless of familiarity level, self-enhancing humor to be the second most frequently used, and the two maladaptive humor styles as being used the least often (and equivalent to one another). furthermore, in only one instance (for people in general) was a maladaptive style (aggressive humor), rated as being used at a rate equivalent to one of the adaptive styles (self-enhancing humor). in all other instances, the two adaptive humor styles were always rated as being used more humor impact and implicit theories 261 frequently that the two maladaptive styles. this pattern of perceived use maps directly onto prior work demonstrating that positive instances of humor use have a much higher rate of occurrence than negative instances (dekoning & weiss, 2002; martin, 2007). as one example, butzer and kuiper (2008) found that indiv iduals in romantic relationships reported using significantly more positive humor to facilitate their relationships than negative humor to put their partners down. the above findings suggest that affiliative humor may be the most prominent aspect of a multi-faceted implicit theory of humor. in particular, studies 2 and 3 found very similar patterns for the perceived use of humor styles for either self or others. affiliative humor was consistently perceived as being used the most often, followed by self-enhancing humor, then self-defeating humor, and finally, aggressive humor. this pattern of perceived use was remarkably stable across various types of relationships with the self (study 2), as well as varying degrees of familiarity w ith other people (study 3). when taken together, these systematic and consistent differences in frequencies of use suggests that indiv iduals may generally direct their attention towards and recall experiences of adaptive humor, particularly affiliative humor, more so than experiences of maladaptive humor. this frequent attention to affiliative humor experiences is likely to increase the salience and activation level of affiliative humor within implicit theories of humor. thus, when considering humor as a personality attribute, indiv iduals are more likely to bring to mind more instances of adaptive styles of humor, particularly affiliative humor. in turn, this may lead indiv iduals to primarily conceptualize humor as an adaptive characteristic that is used to enhance interpersonal relationships in a manner that is accepting of the self and others. overall, this may help explain the general tendency in the literature to often think of humor as a positive construct that is most closely aligned with affiliative humor. in this final study we also explored covariation of the humor styles by examining indiv idual‟s ratings of perceived inter-relationships among the four styles. these findings showed that a person with high affiliative humor was attributed with significantly higher levels of self-enhancing humor than either maladaptive humor style (but with more self-defeating than aggressive humor). similarly, a person with high self-enhancing humor was attributed with significantly higher levels of affiliative humor than with either of the maladaptive humor styles (but with equal levels of aggressive and self-defeating humor). these findings indicate that indiv iduals perceive an adaptive humor style to co-occur more strongly with a second adaptive style, than w ith either maladaptive style. thus, indiv iduals believe that a person who uses affiliative humor to enhance relationships with others in a warm and europe’s journal of psychology 262 accepting manner is more likely to also use self-enhancing humor that reduces stress in a benign and accepting manner, than to use humor that is critical and disparaging of either themselves (self-defeating) or others (aggressive humor). as such, these findings indicate that the perceived relationship between adaptive humor and other humor styles is primarily based on the adaptive-maladaptive humor dimension, especially for self-enhancing humor. however, the perceived association between affiliative humor and other humor styles is also partially a function of the self-other humor dimension, as indiv iduals perceive high affiliative humor to co-occur more with self-defeating humor than with aggressive humor. thus, indiv iduals perceive humor that adaptively enhances social relationships to also involve humor that is disparaging of one‟s self, more so than humor that is disparaging of others. in contrast to adaptive humor, our findings revealed that the perceived covariation of maladaptive humor with the remaining humor styles is not based primarily on the adaptive-maladaptive humor dimension. for example, high aggressive humor was perceived to be associated with higher levels of adaptive humor than with self defeating humor, and was attributed with equal levels of affiliative and self enhancing humor. as such, an indiv idual with high aggressive humor is perceived to be more likely to use humor that is accepting of both the self and others, than to use humor that is self-defeating. furthermore, it is interesting to note that perceptions of covariation between high aggressive humor and other humor styles are also not a direct function of the self-other humor dimension. in particular, indiv iduals who use aggressive humor that derogates others are perceived to be just as likely to use affiliative humor that adaptively enhances social relationships, as humor that adaptively enhances the self. finally, our study 3 results showed that high self-defeating humor, which is used to gain the approval of others, was perceived to be more strongly associated with adaptive affiliative humor that enhances relationships than with self-enhancing humor. this association between self-defeating and affiliating humor suggests that indiv iduals may, in fact, perceive self-defeating humor to be a partially adaptive characteristic for the development of social relationships. however, a person who uses self-defeating humor is perceived to be just as likely to use aggressive humor that is derogatory of others, as to use adaptive styles of humor. as such, these findings indicate that the perceived covariations between self-defeating humor and the other humor styles are a function of both the self-other and adaptivemaladaptive dimensions of humor. humor impact and implicit theories 263 general implications and future research directions although previous research has suggested that humor has a facilitative effect on social relationships, that work has generally conceptualized sense of humor as a single, positive construct. in contrast, our findings demonstrate the critical need to distinguish between several different humor styles, since these styles have differential effects on social relationships. for example, compared to adaptive humor styles, we found that indiv iduals are less likely to want to continue interacting with others displaying maladaptive aggressive or self-defeating humor. furthermore, our findings suggest that these differential effects may also pertain to recipients‟ feelings about themselves. compared to adaptive humor, maladaptive humor styles resulted in recipients having less positive and more negative feelings about themselves. interestingly, we found that it was the adaptive-maladaptive dimension, rather than the self-other dimension, which was central to the effects of humor on recipients‟ feelings about themselves. although it may be reasonable to assume that humor focused on the self (self-enhancing and self-defeating humor) would have little impact on recipients‟ feelings about themselves, our findings did not support this assumption. rather, we found that humor styles with a self-focus differed in their impact on the recipients‟ self-feelings, based on their adaptive-maladaptive nature. in particular, self-enhancing adaptive humor led to recipients having more positive and less negative feelings about themselves than self-defeating maladaptive humor. as such, it may be beneficial for future research to delineate the precise mechanisms whereby the various humor styles impact on recipients‟ feelings about themselves. given that adaptive humor styles are desirable and valuable qualities in social interactions, indiv iduals may believe that they possess and frequently use these positive qualities themselves. indeed, our findings indicate that indiv iduals perceive themselves as using adaptive humor styles, particularly affiliative humor, more frequently than maladaptive styles. furthermore, indiv iduals perceive themselves as engaging least often in aggressive humor, the humor style resulting in the most social distancing by others. future research should behaviourally assess each humor style displayed by an indiv idual, and then determine concordance rates with that indiv idual‟s perceptions of actual use. i t is possible that indiv iduals are biased and perceive themselves as more frequently using more desirable humor styles, in order to minimize their perceptions of the actual use of maladaptive styles of humor. europe’s journal of psychology 264 the present study also contributed to our understanding of the effects of humor styles on attributions about other styles of humor. in particular, indiv iduals displaying an adaptive humor style are believed to be more likely to use another adaptive, rather than maladaptive, humor style. thus, indiv iduals who display affiliative humor are believed to be more likely to also use self-enhancing humor, than aggressive or self-defeating humor. given that each of these adaptive humor styles increase recipients‟ desire to interact with an indiv idual, the implicit attribution of a second adaptive humor style may contribute to, and help account for, the positive impact of adaptive humor in social interactions. interestingly, the present research also found that indiv iduals using aggressive humor are believed to be more likely to use an adaptive humor style than a second maladaptive humor style (self-defeating humor). however, since the present work did not examine the level of each humor style that is attributed to a “typical” person, it is not possible to determine whether aggressive humor is associated with higher or lower levels of adaptive humor styles than would be attributed to a typical person. as such, it would be worthwhile for future research to examine this issue, as well as the effects of these attributions on subsequent social interactions. with respect to broader implications, our findings highlight the importance of clearly acknowledging various styles of humor and their differential effects on social interactions. thus, when psychosocial programs attempt to enhance indiv iduals‟ social skills through the use of humor, it would be critical to distinguish between each humor style and encourage the development of specific adaptive styles of humor, rather than humor in general. furthermore, programs attempting to develop skills to enhance social relationships should focus not only on affiliative humor, but also on the development of self-enhancing humor, since both these styles have an equal effect in terms of enhancing social interaction. furthermore, the inclusion of selfenhancing humor in such programs would provide the added benefit of increasing one‟s repertoire of coping strategies. references butzer, b., & kuiper, n. a. (2008). humor use in romantic relationships: the effects of relationship satisfaction and pleasant versus conflict situations. the journal of psychology: interdisciplinary and applied, 142, 245-260. campbell, l., martin, r.a., & ward, j.r. (2008). an observational study of humor use during a conflict discussion. personal relationships, 15, 41–55. humor impact and implicit theories 265 chen, g-h., & martin, r. a. (2007). a comparison of humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between chinese and canadian university students. humor, 20, 215-234. dekoning, e. & weiss, r. (2002). the relational humor inventory: functions of humor in close relationships. the american journal of family therapy, 30, 1-18. dozois, d. j., martin, r.a., & bieling, p.j. (in press). early maladaptive schemas and adaptive/maladaptive styles of humor. cognitive therapy & research. erickson, s.j., & feldstein, s.w. (2007). adolescent humor and its relationship to coping, defense strategies, psychological distress, and well-being. child psychiatry & human development, 37, 255-271. harter, s. (1999). the construction of the self. new york: guilford press. harter, s. bresnick, s., bouchey, h., & whitesell, n. (1997). the development of multiple role-related selves during adolescence. development and psychopathology, 9, 835-853. kalliny, m., cruthirds, k.w., & minor, m.s. (2006). differences between american, egyptian and lebanese humor styles: implications for international management. international journal of cross-cultural management, 6, 121-134. kirsh, g.a., & kuiper, n.a. (2003). positive and negative aspects of sense of humor: associations with the constructs of individualism and relatedness. humor: international journal of humor research, 16, 33-62. klein, d. n., & kuiper, n.a. (2006). humor styles, peer relationships, and bullying in middle childhood. humor, 19, 383–404. kuiper, n. a., grimshaw, m., leite, c., & kirsh, g. (2004). humor is not always the best medicine: specific components of sense of humor and psychological well-being. humor, 17, 135-168. kuiper, n.a. & leite, c. (2010). personality impressions associated with four distinct humor styles. scandinavian journal of psychology, 51,115-22. kuiper, n. a., & mchale, n. (2009). humor styles as mediators between self-evaluative standards and psychological well-being. journal of psychology: interdisciplinary and applied, 143(4), 359-376. martin, r. a. (2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. new york: academic press. europe’s journal of psychology 266 martin, r. a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., & weir, k. (2003). individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. saroglou, v. & scariot, c. (2002). humor styles questionnaire: personality and educational correlates in belgian high school and college students. european journal of personality, 16, 43-54. taher, d., kazarian, s.s., & martin, r.a. (2008). validation of the arabic humor styles questionnaire in a community sample of lebanese in lebanon. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 39, 552-564. vernon, p.a., martin, r.a., schermer, j.a., & mackie, a. (2008). a behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the big five personality dimensions. personality and individual differences, 44, 116-1125. about the authors: nicholas a. kuiper dr. kuiper has been a professor of psychology for over 3 decades. during this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, well-being, selfschemata, depression, and other topics of interest. address for correspondence to: n. kuiper, department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca gillian kirsh dr. kirsh completed her ph.d. degree in clinical psychology at the university of western ontario under the superv ision of dr. kuiper. gillian‟s research interests focused on the psychology of humor, including applications of the humor styles model to adolescents. catherine leite catherine leite is now completing her ph.d. degree in clinical psychology at the university of western ontario under the superv ision of dr. kuiper. catherine‟s research interests include interpersonal aspects of humor use, factors contributing to decisions to seek treatment in depression, and client variables that may facilitate or deter psychotherapy. mailto:kuiper@uwo.ca effects of task demands in the auditory attentional blink cory gerritsen york university elzbieta slawinski university of calgary david eagle university of calgary abstract auditory perception may be modified by attentional mechanisms. forward informational masking, an attentional phenomenon, was studied as a function of time and task demands. a rapid auditory presentation (rap) task involving timbre-based streaming of to-be-attended sound signals from distractors was used to assess the report of a to-be-attended signal (probe; “p”). the experiment consisted of a sequence of distractors alone, or following another to-be-attended signal (target; “t”), in various conditions. participants (29 undergraduate psychology students) were asked either to simply detect or to identify p at various stimulus onset asynchronies (soas) after t. learning effects were also examined. response task was found to be irrelevant to decrements, while decrements were generally ameliorated as soa increased, and as experience with the tasks increased. these performance decrements represent an auditory attentional blink. keywords: attention, informational masking, auditory attentional blink introduction navigating our perceptual environment would be impossible were it not for our ability to determine which items in the environment were task-relevant to us and which items were not. our cognitive systems cannot process all pieces of information that are presented to us each moment (tsotsos, 1997). selective attention allocation allows for some, but not all stimuli to be processed in a task-appropriate way. the mechanisms by which stimuli are selected for this differential processing are largely unknown, as is the nature of the processing itself. the attentional blink numerous researchers have studied auditory attention by exploring situations in which the auditory system fails to process relevant information due to interference from another signal. when such a failure cannot be attributed to limitations of the physiological hearing apparatus, the phenomenon is referred to as informational masking (e.g., massaro and khan, 1973; leek, brown, & dorman, 1991). the attentional blink (ab), in audition, is an example of such a situation. in visual research, ab is a much-studied phenomenon wherein the correct report or identification of a to-be-attended stimulus (e.g., a letter or digit) is made less likely due to the allocation of attention to a previously presented stimulus (raymond, shapiro, and arnell, 1992). ab tasks typically employ the rapid presentation of to-be-attended signals set within a sequence of distractors. for example, brief serial presentations of letters may be interspersed with digits and participants may be asked to report the presence or identity of these digits. a blink is defined by the failure to report the presence of one to-be-attended signal (probe: “p”), significantly more often in trials wherein it is preceded by another to-be-attended signal (target: “t”), than in trials in which it is presented alone. theorizing about the attentional blink the formulation of new models of how the blink occurs in audition may be useful. currently, models for how the ab works are based primarily on evidence from the visual domain, due to a much stronger representation of visual blink research in the literature. examples of such models are given in shapiro, raymond & arnell (1994), chun and potter (1995) and jolicoeur (1998). one exception to this rule is the hypothesis of potter, chun, banks & muckenhopt (1998). they have proposed that the ab in audition is due to a task-switching deficit, since a blink was observed only in trials wherein the processing of t and p differed in their task. however, more recent work using higher presentation rates (goddard and slawinski, 1999) has demonstrated a blink in an auditory presentation involving only one task. the possibility of multiple loci or task-dependant loci for attentional selection (lavie, 1995) has also not been considered in theories of ab in audition. it has not yet been demonstrated clearly that the ab in audition or vision reflects only one type of processing failure at only one level of the system (jolicoeur, 1998). furthermore, visual models of the ab may be ill suited to explain the ab in audition. the mechanisms by which auditory and visual input are processed are fundamentally different in several ways. given these differences, attentional systems in the two modalities are likely to function in different ways. for example, there is no analogue to visual fixation in audition (banks, roberts, and cyrani, 1995). although the auditory system can focus attention on one band of frequencies, roughly paralleling the visual fixation process (mondor and bregman, 1994), this process would only be useful in “fixating” on auditory objects that are defined by the frequency region they occur in. most sound objects are not clearly defined in this way, making attentional selection a much different task in audition. empirical evidence exists that supports the idea that visual and auditory abs are separate phenomena. goddard, isaak and slawinski (1998) found that visual and auditory abs did not correlate within individuals in a study that subjected participants to both. if a single, amodal mechanism was responsible for both decrements, a positive correlation may be expected. furthermore, it has been observed that when no spatial shift is required between t and p viewing in visual blink tasks, stimuli immediately following t in the sequence are often spared from the effects of the blink (for a summary, see visser, zuvic, bischof & dilollo, 1999). this phenomenon, called “lag one sparing” (potter et al., 1998), has not been observed in auditory tasks. in fact, p is in fact least likely to be reported when it immediately follows t in such tasks. all of these considerations provide a strong impetus to explore the attentional blink in audition separately from its visual counterpart and to generate unique models for its functioning. the ab in audition has been labeled the auditory attentional blink (aab; duncan, martens, and ward, 1997; slawinski and goddard, 2001), although, for reasons described above, it is uncertain whether it is best to describe the visual and auditory versions of ab in similar terms. given the unclear status of aab theories in the existing literature, the current study serves to address questions about the ab in audition specifically, with a view towards developing theories about the processes that contribute to it. aab with various stimuli and the current study this study aims to disentangle the contributions of identification processes and simpler detection processes to the the aab. this goal requires the development of new stimuli that will allow for such an analysis while avoiding possible confounds. while aab studies using speech stimuli have yielded blink phenomena (e.g., duncan et al., 1997), it is uncertain whether this is a purely auditory phenomenon, since visual representations may be made of speech stimuli (goddard, isaak, and slawinski, 1998), and since the blink may occur between modalities (arnell and jolicoeur, 1999). linguistic stimuli are also highly familiar and may be categorized nearly automatically when presented. this makes categorical processing a plausible candidate for the cause of the decrement along with simpler auditory processes. however, the aab has also been demonstrated to occur in tasks that employ pure tones as stimuli, with t and p defined by intensity (i.e., these tones were louder than distractors; goddard, isaak and slawinski, 1998; slawinski and goddard, 2001). this procedure theoretically eliminates the possible effects of visualization and linguistic processing. the current study examines the aab in a task that employs timbral differences between novel, non-speech targets, probes, and distractors as the basis for their discrimination. the use of a timbre as a basis for discrimination makes it possible for participants to identify individual to-be-attended signals: qualitative differences between a t and p that vary in timbre may be described by a participant, allowing for identification tasks to be conducted as well as simple detection tasks. furthermore, participants have no experience discriminating these sounds, and as such they are prone to automatic categorization or identification. therefore, such sounds will provide an opportunity to study separately the roles of categorization and simple detection or discrimination processes in the aab. an aab observed in such a task would also indicate implications for research in music perception, in which rapid presentation of sounds with various timbres is common. the proneness of the aab to learning effects will also be easier to observe when these novel stimuli are employed. observing learning effects is a secondary aim of the current study. the presence of learning effects would indicate that an aab observed with these stimuli is not due to absolute limits of the auditory system (as in, for example, energy masking), but rather that a process that is prone to learning is responsible for the effect. summary and hypotheses to summarize, this study aims to determine whether an ab effect will be seen in a timbral-streaming rapid auditory presentation task not involving speech sounds while differentiating between tasks involving the detection and identification of t and p. the study will also examine learning effects in the aab. it is hypothesized that an attentional blink will be observed in this study, that the observed blink’s characteristics will vary according to task demands, and that learning will ameliorate the blink decrement. methodology participants twenty-nine participants volunteered for the study (for individual participant characteristics, see table 1). criteria for exclusion from statistical analyses included: 1. a false-positive rate of greater than 15% (this rate reflected the incidence of the participant indicating they had heard two to-be-attended signals when only one was present), 2. the use of responses by the participant other than those given as options (indicating possible misunderstanding of the instructions), and 3. failure to pass the initial hearing screen. all participants were screened for normal hearing with audiograms generated by a bruel and kjaer type 1800 audiometer prior to participating. normal hearing was defined as not more than 40db hl loss of hearing at any frequency tested, in either ear. data from seven participants were not included in analyses as they did not meet these criteria: two participants did not meet criterion 2, while five participants did not meet criterion 1. all participants passed the hearing screen. table 1. participant characteristics by task task identify detect n 12 10 male:female ratio 7:5 2:8 mean age (years) 24 22 procedures and equipment stimuli consisted of sound sequences presented at a rate of 10 signals/ second, with 20ms pauses between signals, yielding 80ms individual signals. a 5ms ramp at each signal’s onset and offset was added to eliminate artifactual clicks. target and probe sounds consisted of two different synthesized complex sounds approximating the spectral characteristics of a bell and a pipe organ. which sound constituted t and which one constituted p was randomized across sequences. t and p were recorded from synthesizer notes in their steady state to obtain a temporal envelope that remained more or less unchanged over time (i.e., to eliminate sharp attacks or varying rates of decay). distractors were simple tones, generated by matlab, of frequencies varying between 200hz and 2.5khz in 100hz increments, and were amplified so that their intensities were equal to those of the to-be-attended signals. these auditory sequences were generated by a hewlett-packard vectra computer. the program was designed using matlab. stimuli were played through sennheiser hd 265 linear headphones, and amplified through the terminal’s bw-692 speaker system. stimuli were chosen based on the subjective qualities that made them subjectively easy to distinguish from each other, as well as from distractors. in order to obtain sounds that were noticeably dissimilar from one another, and from distractors, several target stimuli were played for five volunteer participants. the two most noticeably different sounds as agreed upon by participants (the synthesized bell and organ sounds) were selected for programming into the experimental presentation sequences. these sequences were also reviewed by the five pilot-study participants to confirm that they were still discernible at the rate at which they would be presented during the experiment. half of the sequences in each trial contained a target and probe, while the other half contained only a probe. the probe-only response rates were used as baseline measures to determine the extent of decrements due to the presence of a target. in sequences with no target, the space the target would have occupied was filled with another distractor sound. in all, 16 sounds were presented per sequence. targets (or the distractors that replaced them in control trials) were presented 3, 6, or 9 positions after the onset of the sequence. these positions corresponded to signal onsets 200ms, 500ms and 800ms after the onset of the sequence. stimulus onset asynchrony (soa) between target and probe ranged from 100ms (p presented immediately following t) to 500ms. see figure 1 for a graphic representation of one such sequence. figure 1. spectrogram of a sample experimental sound sequence. to-be-attended signals can be seen in positions 5 and 10. stimuli were analyzed using micromat computer systems’ soundmaker version 1.0.1 software. recordings for signal analysis were made via a revox m 3 500 microphone connected to the hewlett packard terminal via a shure model m 268 mixer. each participant’s trial consisted of 80 sound sequences, half of which were experimental sequences (including target and probe) and half of which were control sequences (including only the probe). this variable is henceforth referred to as “target presence”. the instructions given varied between participants also varied, with half of the participants being asked to indicate whether they had heard the “bell”, the “organ”, or both within each sequence (“identify” condition). the other half merely being asked to indicate how many of the to-be-attended sounds they had heard (“detect” condition). this variable is henceforth referred to as “task”. also, each participant’s performance in the first 40 sequences was compared with performance in the next 40 sequences to gauge any effects of repeated exposure to the sequences (i.e., learning effects). this variable is henceforth referred to as “exposure”. the final variable was soa: the delay between the onset of the target (or distractor in its place in control trials) and that of the probe. soa and target presence were balanced between the two levels of exposure to ensure that its effects were not artifactual of the experimental design. soa, target presence and exposure were manipulated within participants while task was manipulated between participants. after the peripheral hearing test screening, practice trials were administered. participants performing the identification task were given practice identifying the targets on their own, then embedded in distractor sequences, until they demonstrated that they could correctly identify single targets embedded in sequences. participants performing the detection task were allowed to practice listening to single-target streams until they could discriminate target sounds from distractor stimuli. when participants reported feeling comfortable performing these tasks, they began the trials. participants performing the detection task were asked to indicate how many of the sounds they heard in a given sequence – zero, one, or two – and were told that there would never be more than two. before performing the identification task, participants were given the same instructions, except that they were told to identify the sounds they heard; none, bell, organ, or both. trials began with a key press. participants were given as much time as they wanted to respond and made their responses by keyboard. participants were instructed to guess in case of uncertainty. results data were analyzed using a 2x2x5x2 (task x target presence x soa x exposure) mixed-model anova. significance was assessed using alpha levels determined using the bonferroni correction for family-wise error rates based on an alpha level of 0.05. significant main effects were found for target presence, f(1,20)=45.70, p the exposure x task presence interaction is summarized in figure 2. significant differences were found between target-absent and target-present trial means at both levels of exposure. at the first level of exposure (first 40 trials for each participant), a two-tailed simple t-test yielded significance, t(21)=-7.16, p figure 2. significant learning effect. x axis shows 1st v/s 2nd half of trials performed by each participant, y axis shows the likelihood out of one of reporting p when presented with (black bar) and without (grey bar) t. the target presence x soa interaction is summarized in figure 3. two-tailed simple t-tests yielded significant differences between target-absent and target-present trial means at 100ms (.580 and .977, respectively), t(21)=-7.01, p figure 3. significant blink effects were seen at soas 1, 2 and 5. y axis shows the likelihood out of one of reporting p when presented with (black bar) and without (grey bar) t. discussion hypotheses the hypothesis that an attentional blink would be observed in this study was supported – a clear decrement was seen at three of the soas tested; 100ms, 200ms, and 500ms. while these were the only decrements that achieved statistical significance, decrements at 300ms and 400ms approached significance. a timbral streaming task (using stimuli other than speech sounds) may then produce an aab comparable to tasks involving other stimuli. the hypothesis regarding learning was also supported: across tasks and soas, performance in the report of p was better during the second half of trials presented. the hypothesis that the observed decrement would vary according to response task was not supported. no difference was found between blink functions produced by the two types of tasks. implications the observation of aab in the tasks described above highlights the pervasiveness of this phenomenon and its robustness across different stimuli and tasks. differentiating identification and detection tasks. the lack of an effect of task demands in this study is particularly interesting. visual blink tasks in which targets are discriminable from distractors by category membership (e.g., letter or number) may require rapid identification of visual forms in order to be discriminated from the distractor stream. this makes such processes plausible explanations for the presence of a blink. auditory tasks that employ speech sounds may also be incapable of creating a distinction between identification and detection since these signals may be categorized automatically. auditory tasks typically employ simpler stimuli whose discrimination does not require identification, only the detection of intensity level differences. in such tasks, identification of targets and probes is not assessed. the task used in this study was unique in that it allowed for a distinction to be drawn between identification and detection task demands. the lack of differences observed may suggest several possibilities. it is possible that the aab involves a failure to discriminate t and p from distractors due to basic deficits in determining these sounds’ distinguishing spectral characteristics, resulting in an inability to detect and, therefore, to identify the sounds. the fact that the aab effect, in this scenario, was prone to learning effects also has implications. if the aab represents an early failure to distinguish between t, p, and distractors, and if this failure may be ameliorated through learning (suggesting that it is not a physiological limit of the auditory system), auditory scene analysis (asa) may be responsible for the aab. asa is the processes by which the auditory system perceptually group sonic signals together to form sound objects. these mechanisms often rely on learned information in order to function, a phenomenon referred to as schema-based streaming (bregman, 1990). the operation of such mechanisms may have implications for selective attention to different auditory signals. failures to discriminate sounds from the background stream may result in a failure to allocate attention to them. this idea is not incompatible with other ideas about the blink; central processing decrements may still occur, and given the evidence from cross-modal blink tasks (arnell and jolicoeur, 1999), they likely do. the suggestion is simply that more basic perceptual processes may also be prone to failures in the processing of a signal related to the processing of another signal when presented in close succession. more support for this hypothesis may be seen in informational masking research performed by leek, brown & dorman (1991). these authors found that target detection was adversely affected as the degree of similarity between targets and distractors increased. if informational masking is released when a target and distractor are dissimilar enough, this may suggest that a resource-consuming discrimination or grouping task is at the root of informational masking and, possibly, the aab. interpreting the lack of a difference between results yielded by the two tasks should be performed with caution, though. it is possible that null finding may simply be construed as a lack of statistical power. they may also reflect the possibility that some form of identification of t and/or p occurred regardless of the instructions given to participants. even in the detection task, for instance, participants tended to come up with their own labels for the targets as they learned the task. implications for music and speech perception. the fact that the aab may occur in a timbre-based discrimination task demonstrates that it may have implications for research in music perception. listening to music is a task that often requires distinctions to be made between sounds generated by different instruments with characteristic timbral qualities, when these sounds are presented in rapid succession as they were in this study. speech stimuli also share these qualities: phonemes in ordinary speech are rapidly-presented (several separate phonemes may presented within 500ms) and discernible in part by timbre. if the aab were as prevalent in everyday conversation as it was in this study, speech comprehension would seem almost impossible. the amelioration of blink effects through learning may explain, in part, a listener’s ability to make such rapid distinctions and identifications. future directions although the current study revealed a pattern of results suggesting the presence of aab, to of the soas examined yielded only nearly-significant decrements. these results should be interpreted with caution in light of the possibility that the decrements observed may operate over a different time course than decrements observed in other rap tasks. the null finding for task demand effects in this study should also be interpreted with caution due to the possibility of multiple explanations. future studies may benefit from the use a timbral discrimination-based aab task by assessing which of t and p are actually reported in the event of a blink. information masking tasks (e.g., massaro and khan, 1973) have demonstrated that im may operate both forwards and backwards in time. it is unknown which of the two signals is typically “missed” in the event of an aab, if there is a characteristic pattern at all. the possibility of reporting target identity makes this a possible topic of study. conclusions models of how the ab functions are often based largely on evidence from the visual domain, and may not be transferrable to the auditory modality. the timbrally-based discrimination task has proven to be a useful way of exploring the aab, making various new paradigms available for research into this phenomenon. it has yielded a pattern of attentional decrements that are robust across task demands, but that may be ameliorated by learning. these findings may have implications for theories about the processes that contribute to aab. references arnell, k. m. & jolicoeur, p. (1999). the attentional blink across stimulus modalities: evidence for central processing limitations. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 25, 630-648. banks, w. p., roberts, d. & cirani, m. (1995). negative priming in auditory attention. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 21, 1354-1361. bregman, a. s. (1990). auditory scene analysis: the perceptual organization of sound. cambridge, ma: mit press. chun, m. m. & potter, m. c. (1995). a two-stage model for multiple target detection in rapid serial visual presentation. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 21, 109-127. duncan, j., martens, s. & ward, r. (1997). restricted attentional capacity within but not between sensory modalities. nature, 387, 808-810. goddard, k. m.; isaak, m.i. & slawinski, e. b. (1998). modality specific attentional mechanisms can govern the attentional blink. canadian acoustics, 27, 98-99. jolicoeur, p. (1998). modulation of the attentional blink by on-line response selection: evidence from speeded and unspeeded task one decisions. memory and cognition, 26, 1014-1032. lavie, n. (1995). perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 21, 451-468. leek, m. r., brown, m. e. & dorman, m. f. (1991). informational masking and auditory attention. perception and psychophysics, 50, 205-214. massaro, d. w. & kahn, b. j. (1973). effects of central processing on auditory recognition. journal of experimental psychology, 97, 51-58. mondor, t. a. & bregman, a. s. (1994). allocating attention to frequency regions. perception and psychophysics, 56, 268-276. raymond, j. e., shapiro, k. l. & arnell, k. m. (1992). temporary suppression of visual processing in an rsvp task: an attentional blink? journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 18, 849-860. shapiro, k. l., raymond, j. e. & arnell, k. m. (1994). attention to visual pattern information produces the attentional blink in rapid serial presentation. journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 20, 357-371. slawinski, e. b. & goddard, k. m. (2001). age-related changes in perception of tones within a stream of auditory stimuli: auditory attentional blink. canadian acoustics, 29, 3-12. tsotsos, j. k. (1997). limited capacity of any realizable perceptual system is a sufficient reason for attentive behavior. [abstract]. consciousness and cognition, 6, 429-436. visser, t. a. w., zuvic, s. m., bischof, w. f. & dilollo, v. (1999). the attentional blink with targets in different spatial locations. psychonomic bulletin and review, 6, 432-436. biographical notes cory gerritsen received a b.a. in psychology from the university of calgary in 2002 and is currently studying clinical psychology at york university. elzbieta slawinski received her ph.d. at the university of warsaw in 1978. she recently retired from her position as associate professor of psychology at the university of calgary. david eagle received his ph.d. at the university of california, berkeley in 1992. he is currently associate professor of composition and electroacoustic music at the university of calgary. regulating the psychological therapies – from taxonomy to taxidermy (pccs books, 2 cropper roaw, alton road, ross-on-wye, hr9 5la, uk) by denis postle reviewed by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor denis postle, the author of this book, is not the typical therapist or writer. he epitomizes the creative personality with a history of two decades as an accomplished documentary film-maker, who decided to use his talent and devotion to make psychotherapy a fit home for the human spirit. he co-founded the independent practictioner’s network (ipn), a structure of professionals offering self and peer-accreditations, with no hierarchy and low bureaucracy, with no central administration, but accessible to any practitioner who meet the criteria. he also developed an internet journal http://ipnosis.postle.net/, a rich resource for any practitioner interested in news on state regulation issues. producer of over forty films prior to 1985, denis published four books and one cdrom, in a half dozen language editions, on personal and professional development and related topics. for the last 15 years, the author has edited, written and maintained a series of web-sites devoted to psycho practice issues. denis postle’s new book, ‘regulating the psychological therapies – from taxonomy to taxidermy, is for anyone with an interest in counseling, psychotherapy and the human psyche. the book is addressed not only to people who are directly affected by or working with regulation issues of psychotherapeutic practice, but also to those of us who live and work in the consumer society and are concerned and unsure that the human spirit could be institutionalized. book description the book is divided into three parts of varying length and purpose. the introduction allows the reader to listen to the strong voice of the dominant discourse of psychotherapy professionalisation and draws attention to the new cultural shift the author and his colleagues noticed developing in last years: the shift from an open-ended, self-directed environment to a more consumerist attitude, at its center standing questions like: “what is the product i am buying?”. the author ironically wonders how working alliances may be shaped in therapy by employer-led, job-description-driven, cost-effective goals? the author voices his concern that the therapy market is being currently rigged and its diversity is endangered by installing monocultures of the mind and soul. each of three parts casts a new and different light on professionalisation issues. in the last chapter called “psychopractice for a post-modern era” of the first part “waking up to the shadow of professionalisation”, denis postle remains critical about any idea of unification of psycho practice trends and insists on pluralism in graduate school training and variations in clinical theory and practice. he cannot resist the temptation of criticizing the “manage care”, the us insurance industry which is guilty for turning the “cottage industry of psychotherapy” into a production line delivering standardized treatments. author’s background of documentary film-making is inexorably leading him to reveal a rather similar realistic view as michael moore’s work recently presented at cannes film festival. part two is divided into eleven chapters, each chapter dealing with a controversial issue. in chapter fifteen, ’registering human nature’ he draws a signal upon the assumption made in ‘psychotherapy bill’ that is registrar and all practitioners are male. the bill is envisaged as a very important document that attempts to put certain definitions of what is ‘human’ and ‘nature’, but in a male-dominant, hierarchical, autocratic view. chapter twenty two explores efficiency of therapy based on more formal approaches: ’did it work?’, “did i get the help i needed?’, quoting research studies showing that academic and technical competence is contributing as little as 15 percent to client outcomes, placebo effects are seen as at least important. conclusion is: present forms of psychotherapy/counseling accountability rely too much on qualifications, training, continue professional development, plus supervision to support and sustain practitioner capability, while neglecting client education and information. part three is divided into twelve chapters, consisting in articles, press releases published by different professional associations on the regulation issues in uk and also statement of opposition to the state regulation of psychotherapy, counseling and psychoanalysis. it deals with issues such as civic accountability, protecting client experience and ethical standards. perhaps one of the most courageous steps in articulating their concern over regulations was ipn issuing the statement of opposition to the state regulation of psychotherapy, counseling and psychoanalysis, which is considered an historic moment deserving to be fully presented at chapter thirty-three. the author’s thesis against state regulation of psychotherapeutic professions stands on arguments from ecology, human nature, incongruity and creative style. he hopes that generating awareness within the community will create better premises for therapists to provide superior services for their clients. in his view, the issue of power seems to be hugely affected by the model of human nature that is implicit in any particular form of psycho-practice. ‘at least two divergent models are abroad at the moment. one, the psychodynamic one, characterizes human nature as a veneer of civility over a chaotic mass of destructive and sexual impulses, in which control and regulation is essential, because it naturalizes ‘power-over’ relations expressed through hierarchical structures. the other model of human nature, the broadly humanistic one, sees human beings as intrinsically ok, except as their unfolding potential has been damaged. practitioners who subscribe to it prefer ‘power-with’ structures, with an emphasis on diversity of practitioner’s style and self-reflexive regulation.’ one of the most interesting and useful feature of the book is a user guide to psycho-practice: ‘protecting the client experience,’ evolved from the complexity of clients’ cases he encountered throughout his career as a counselor or group facilitator. the consequent purpose of the book is to examine the necessity of state regulation of the psycho-practice, in its diversity and to challenge it. it is also an important document charting the story of attempts to regulate psychotherapy in the uk. the years spend as a documentary film-maker has made this attempt easier and more constructive. as the author shows, psychotherapy is at such an early stage of its development with no clear theoretical agreement as to purpose and methodology, that regulation is likely to inhibit new thinking and perhaps crush innovation and creativity. compromising creativity is one of the main concerns denis postle has. he obviously fears that the extended definition of ‘roles’, ‘standards’, ‘disciplines’, ultimately manages to inhibit psychotherapeutic creativity and create a ‘pasteurized’, risk-averse practice. the author notices with subtle irony that many of the organizations who are active in the present moves to professionalisation seem to be economically committed to psychotherapy training. he wonders if protecting clients’ interests is really at the centre of the moves to create a psychotherapy ‘profession’, wouldn’t an association using a ‘business’ or a ‘trade’ model, as the other service industries, actually be more appropriate? the questions that arise upon reading denis postle’s controversial book are: how the future model of psycho-practice will look like in the future and should we actually fear that there are premises for this field to turn into an industry? present dilemmas in forensic psychology veronica sanchez varela phd student suffolk university http://www.suffolk.edu/ our world is engulfed in violence. crime rates seem to increase yearly, and violence, from terrorism to domestic abuse, is present everywhere. in the midst of the wave of terrorism, crime, and hate that we are experiencing internationally, some psychologists cannot help but wonder: how can we make a difference? in the light of this question, i would like to accept the invitation to write an editorial for ejop, and focus on a predicament i have developed in my mind thanks to my most recent work in the forensic psychology arena. in the last year, i have come across numerous individuals who had a childhood abundant with abuse, neglect, and suffering. now, in their adult lives, they find themselves in the correctional system or locked down in forensic psychiatric wards where they will spend a great amount of time, if not all of their lives, for having committed terrible crimes. in these forensic psychiatric wards, all individuals receive medical care and rehabilitation services. however, it is not surprising to hear members of the hospital staff express their disbelief in the usefulness of psychological rehabilitation for patients who have committed severe crimes. other professionals dedicate their lives to understanding what motivates some people to commit murder, rape, or become suicide bombers, and to improving their skills to help these forensic patients. as a psychologist in the making, i have had many struggles with this issue as i have not come to terms with the dilemma of whether psychological rehabilitation is in fact beneficial for these specific clients, given that we still seem to know so little about the way their psyche develops and the way it functions. there are some of us who may believe that providing some of the services that are available now is the right and most appropriate thing to do, even if not specific to the population. on the other hand, some health professionals are convinced that no service provided at an individual level would help break the cycle of crime and therefore the efforts should be located elsewhere, perhaps with clients with whom we have a better chance of making a difference. as a psychology trainee, i have learned about the therapeutic approaches which effectiveness for specific diagnoses is evidence-based. but in terms of treatments for the forensic patients, there is still a lot of ambiguity as to what is the most appropriate path to follow. w. edwards deming once wrote that “it is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” however, what happens when we do not know exactly what to do? forensic psychology is an emerging field, and understanding criminal behavior has proven to be a difficult task. so the question is: should we still do our best, even though we do not know exactly what to do? july 07, 2005 sexual dysfunctions gizem arıkan (bsc) middle east technical university, department of psychology, turkey e-mail: gizemarikan@yahoo.com phone: +905333671019 biographical staement: graduated from middle east technical university department of psychology and department of philosophy (double major) in 2005. graduate student in psychology (clinical psychology option) at middle east technical university. abstract in this paper, sexual dysfunctions are explained in terms of dsm-iv-tr criteria. information about prevalence and occurrence rates is specified. phases of sexual intercourse is explicated which enhance knowledge about disorders. physiological factors such as reproductive life cycle, urinary track infections, diabetes, cardiopathies and drug side-effects and past and current psychological conditions are explained to assess the basis of sexual dysfunctions. influence of variables on treatment is underlined with respect to different therapeutic tools, techniques and methods. outcome and effectiveness research support evaluated. lastly, important aspects in the course of therapy, elements and key concepts that would be beneficial for successful outcome are discussed. keywords: sexual dysfunctions, physiological factors, psychological factors, therapy outcome introduction sexual dysfunction is one of the most important areas, which require special knowledge and different perspectives to apply varied therapeutic concerns. sexual disorders are categorized into four main sections according to dsm-iv-tr (2000): sexual desire disorders, sexual arousal disorders, orgasmic disorders and sexual pain disorders. firstly, sexual desire disorders are defined as general persistent or recurrent deficiency of sexual fantasies or sexual activity leading to disturbance with causing marked distress. sexual desire disorders are hypoactive sexual desire disorder and sexual aversion sexual desire disorder. secondly, sexual arousal disorders include female sexual arousal disorder and male erectile dysfunction. sexual arousal disorders explained as persistent or recurrent inability to attain or to maintain sexual response like lubrication and erection until the end of intercourse. this leads to marked distress. thirdly, orgasmic disorders contain female orgasmic disorder, male orgasmic disorder, and premature ejaculation. orgasmic disorder defined as persistent or recurrent delay or absence of orgasm following a normal sexual excitement phase. this causes distress. clinician while evaluating diagnosis should consider the age. lastly, sexual pain disorders characterized as recurrent or persistent pain associated with sexual intercourse which results in marked distress. dyspareunia and vaginismus are subcategories of sexual pain disorders. dyspareunia can be diagnosed in both males and females however vaginisumus, which is recurrent or persistent spasm of the musculature of the outer third of vagina that interfering sexual intercourse, diagnosed in females. the sexual dysfunctions should not be better accounted by another axis i or direct physiological effects of a substance or a general medical condition (dsm-iv-tr, 2000). causes, epidemics and therapy sexual disorders reflect problems in the phases of sexual intercourse. these phases are excitement, orgasm and resolution (oltmanns & emery, 2001). excitement starts from initial stimulation with physiological changes until orgasm takes place. secondly, orgasm is explained as gradual build up of sexual excitement and ends with sudden release of tension. lastly, resolution occurs in which excitement is lessened in the end of intercourse. according to prevalence rates %49 of females have one sexual dysfunction, lack of sexual desire problems seen in the rate of %26, pain during intercourse prevalence is %23, and %21 of brazil population has orgasmic dysfunction (abdo, oliveria, moreira & fittipaldi, 2004). in national health and social life survey reports that, %43 of women and %31 of men undergoes sexual dysfunction in usa (lauman, paik & rosen, 1999 cited from heinman, 2002). another study contains information from 29 countries’ prevalence of any sexual dysfunction and reports that between ages of 40-80, prevalence of sexual dysfunctions is %28 (mohan, & bhugra, 2005). all studies propose that prevalence rates of sexual dysfunctions cannot be undermined and importance of knowledge on sexual disorders is vital. sexual dysfunctions are derived and maintained by both physiological and psychological causes. physiological causes may occur due to reproductive life cycle, urinary track infections, diabetes, cardiopathies and drug side-effects. for females most relevant physiological sources for sexual problems is reproductive life cycles (warnock, 2002). menstrual cycles may come up with high sexual desire because of ovulation and readiness for offspring production or decreased sexual desire as a result of sensitivity and premenstrual syndrome. in addition, hormonal contraceptives affect reproductivitiy causing low levels of testosterone level. also, postpartum states and lactation results in low levels of estrogen and vaginal dryness. these conditions lead to decrease in sexual desire. peri-post menopause periods for women carry a critical influence on reproductivity. in such age periods, operations on ovaries, uterus can be seen and sensation in sex decreases which may lead to problems in sexual life (warnock, 2001). both males and females are inclined to undergo sexual problems as a result of urinary track infections. urinary track infections associated with sexual arousal and pain disorders in females and erectile dysfunction in males (heinman, 2002; mohan & bhugra, 2005; mccabe, 2005; morton & hartman, 1985). furthermore, diabetes leads to lack of sexual desire and orgasmic dysfunctions (abdo, et.al., 2004). the diabetes itself causes some problems and medication related to that illness may results in sexual problems in adults. another medical condition is cardiapethies which may be observed in both late adulthood and early ages. especially, vaginismus and pain during sex may take its source from cardiovascular system malfunctioning (abdo, et.al., 2004). therefore in the treatment plan, hormonal tests and cardiovascular assessment definitely required for adequate categorization. also some drugs’ side effects result in sexual dysfunctions. mao inhibitors, benzodiazepines, tricylics and antidepressants are related to orgasmic delay (segraves, 2002). it is required to know drug use and possible side effects of both legal and illegal drugs. psychological basis of sexual dysfunctions are varied in the sense that they may be sourced from past and current conditions of adult. past conditions like childhood history, sexual development, adolescence period and parental relations carry importance for later sexual functioning. some female sexual dysfunction cases are found to be in relation with traumatic sexualization and childhood sexual abuse. according to merrill, guimond, thomsen, & milner (2003) traumatic sexualization shapes child’s sexuality in an interpersonally dysfunctional manner, this may cause inappropriate sexual activity and arousal. it is found that arousal disorder in females related to experiencing childhood sexual contact or male sexual force in childhood (heinman, 2002). one of the major effects that may trace in childhood is sexually touched before puberty. in males sexually touched before puberty three fold increases erectile dysfunction and two fold increases ejaculation problems and sexual desire disorders (heinman, 2002). in addition to that history of childhood abuse or other abnormal sexual development problems lead to longer periods of erectile dysfunction in males (banrofti herbenick, barnes, hallam-jones, wylie, janssen & members of basrt, 2005). if there is history of childhood sex or sexual abuse, sex becomes associated with negative emotions and memories which is generalized to non-abusive sexual experiences and leading to phobic reactions to sexual intimacy and avoidance of sex (merrill, et.al., 2003). in meston & heiman study it is found that sexually abused women compared to nonsexual abused women uses negative affect and giving less positive meaning to sexual behavior words (2000). it could be suggested that one of the major concern while dealing with sexual disorders is the past history related to abuse or other abnormalities in development since this reflects the cognitive structuring about sexuality and associated feelings towards sex. in addition to that, parental attitudes towards sexuality may bring up problems in sex life of adults. therefore, it should be concerned too. secondly current psychological functioning is vital to acknowledge the details about sexual disorders and maintaining factors. other dysfunctionalities in the form of psychological disorders are relevant to assess since comorbidity can be observed in most cases. it is known that patients diagnosed with depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorder may suffer from sexual difficulties and these may result in sexual dysfunctions (segraves, 2002; mohan & bhugra, 2005). it is crucial to know current status of the patient in terms of stress and emotional problems since they may be related to sexual dysfunctions. in the study of bozkurt, it is found that psychogenic impotence patients get higher scores on anxiety and depression scales and recorded higher scores in somatic complaints, obsessive compulsive symptoms, interpersonal relationship sensitivity, hostility, psychoticisim, and paranoid thinking than organic impotence patients (1996). all these indicated that sexual dysfunctions may lead to stress in life and difficulties in many areas. patients’ evaluations about themselves and towards sexual intercourse are important elements in sexual dysfunctions. parallel to that, attributions, experiences, attitudes, self-esteem and body image found to be influential in sexual dysfunctions (mohan & bhugra, 2005). in females, attitudes toward sex, which were shaped in childhood in accordance with parental attitudes and beliefs, and performance anxiety are found to be related to sexual dysfunctions (mccabe, 2005). anxiety during sexual activity carries great importance in the continuation of dysfunction. in most cases of male sexual dysfunctions, performance anxiety has a role. in erectile dysfunction, attentional biases, distraction, negative cognitions are found to be linked with maintenance of problems (heiman, 2002; mohan & bhugra, 2005; morton & hartman, 1985). once sexual dysfunction develops both males and females starts to monitor their levels of interest and arousal, leading to increase in anxiety (mccabe, 2005). there are two proposed mechanisms for sexual responses (banroft, et.al, 2005): excitatory and inhibitory. these systems should be in equilibrium for normal sexuality. if excitatory mechanisms works excessive there may occur risky sexual behaviors. when inhibitory mechanism’s influence increases, sexual dysfunctions may take place. some of the relevant concepts for male sexual dysfunctions are sourced from cognitive fallacies that can be developed towards sexual intercourse: anger and resentment; fear of causing harm; guilt masochism and depression; feeling of inadequacy and fear of rejection; fear of rejection of partner; and fear of injury (morton & hartman, 1985). most of these concepts are psychodynamic theory originated. still they have influence in misunderstandings towards sexual intercourse and self perception in relationship with partner. thus, to question these fallacies would reveal the basis of male sexual dysfunctionality. since sexual intercourse relates two people, it is central to know relationship quality and intimate relationship style. relationship quality and interpersonal relations are found to be important for both male and female sexual dysfunctions (mccabe, 2005; bozkurt, 1996). nevertheless, demirkol, 1998 suggested that marital conflict not related with sexual dysfunction and therapy outcome. this may resulted from different measures used in studies to assess marital relationship effects. for therapy and outcome studies there are varied results in terms of application of therapy, kind of therapy and duration of therapy. furthermore, outcome measures differ study to study. for that reason, it is not likely to make concrete conclusions about treatment effectiveness and most appropriate methods to be enhanced. nonetheless, there is a chance to overview what influence process of treatment. demographic characteristics are influential in the outcome study of demirkol. in the study, erection dysfunction, premature ejaculation patients with erection dysfunction comorbidity, premature ejaculation, vaginismus, orgasmic dysfunction and dyspreniua patients went through three sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy. results suggest that, males, older adults and singles were dropped out more than females, younger adults and married ones. the most successful cases were vaginismus and premature ejaculation without comorbidity (1998). it is found that therapist intervention is not really critical in van, everaerd & grotjohann (2001) study. ten week bibliotherapy including cognitive and behavioral methods, self help strategies, masturbation techniques, physiological mechanisms, exercises, exploration of genitals and sexual fantasies applied with phone support therapist. results indicated that there is general improvement about sexual problems (van, et.al, 2001). sexual dysfunction if associated with anxiety, systematic desentization would be effective (lopiccolo & stock, 1986). the most used therapy method is master’s & johnson behavioral therapy. in addition to that, directed masturbation, sexually arousing stimulation, education, self exploration, partner acknowledgement, cognitive work, exercises, cognitive homework, vaginal self dilation, sensate focus, cognitive restructuring, masturbation techniques are found to be effective for treatment (lopiccolo & stock, 1986; mccabe, 2001; kabakçı & batur, 2003). combined sex and marital therapies, hormone therapy and couples therapy found to be effective (rosen & leiblum, 1995). however, there are alternative results suggesting no difference in varied therapy methods. o’carrol (1991) found that there is no difference between masters & johnson therapy against relaxation with marital therapy, for instance. in turkey, most responsive cognitive behavioral therapy results are taken from vaginusmus cases (kabakçı & batur, 2003; demirkol, 1998). this would be related to desire of having baby of couples since vaginusmus do not allow penetration and full sexual intercourse. therefore, attendance to therapies and treatment procedures is high for such a secondary gain. still, it is not very likely to have good feedbacks about cognitive behavioral therapies due to active directiveness expected from therapist by patients (kabakçı, 2003). therapist should have adequate knowledge base and has the capacity to explain methods and sources of problem to other side by informing in many aspects. people who are coming with different myths like masturbation is harmful, sexual fantasies are immoral and unroyal, erection is the key for making love etc. should be reflected upon in therapy sessions (özmen, 1999). basic information about nature and development of sexual dysfunctions, emotional reactions, hypothesis about dysfunction, attempts to solve problems, psychiatric history, physical health status, medicines and taken drugs, motivation of treatment, initial sexual history, changes in sexual history, method of satisfaction, birth control, family culture, religious background, early sex play, education, initial experiences, abuse and adolescence period should be questioned before initiating therapy sessions. conclusions detailed evaluation of these key concepts would be beneficial for what sort of plan should be chosen and which aspects should be more emphasized in therapy. for solving the problems, standpoints of both partners should be taken into account and therapy session should be formed with interactive communication and participation. consequently, in sexual disorders varied therapeutic tools needed to understand the basis and maintaining elements of problems. therapist should encourage patient to be clear and open for dealing with sexual disorder. also partner should be included in the treatment plan for successful outcome. references dsm iv, (2000). american psychiatric association quick reference to criteria from dsm-iv-tr. fourth ed. abdo, c.h.n., oliveria, w.m., moreira, e.d., and fittipaldi, j.a.s.(2004) prevalence of sexual dysfuncitons and correlated conditions in a sample of brazilian women: results of the brezilian study on sexual behavior (bssb). international journal of impotence reseach. 16, 160-166. banroft, j., herbenick, d., barnes, t., hallam-jones, r., wylie, k., janssen, e., & members of basrt. (2005).the relevance of the dual control model to male sexual dysfunction: the kinsey institute/basrt collaborative project. sexual and relationship therapy. 20(1), 13-30. bozkurt, a. (1996). psychopathology in male dysfunctions. (thesis) demirkol, a. (1998). charateristics, treatment outcome and factor related to prognoses of sexual dysfunction cases. (thesis) heiman, r.j. (2002). sexual dysfunction: overview of prevalence, etiological factors, and treatments. the journal of sex reseach, 39, 73-78. kabakçı, e. & batur, s.(2003). who benefits from cognitive behavioral therapy for vaginismus? journal of sex & marital therapy. 29(4), 277-288. lopiccolo, j. & stock, w.e. (1986)treatment of sexual dysfunction. journal of consulting and clinical psychology. 54(2), 158-167. mccabe, m. (2005) the role of performance anxiety in the development and maintenance of sexual dysfunction in men and women. international journal of stress management, 12(4), 379-388. mccabe, m. (2001). evaluation of cognitive behavioral therapy program for people with sexual dysfunciton. journal of sex and marital therapy. 27, 259271. merrill, l.l., guimond, j.m., thomsen, j.c., & milner, j.s. (2003). child sexual abuse and number of sexual partners in young women: the role of abuse severity, coping style and sexual functioning. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 71 (6), 987996. meston, c.m., & heiman, j.r.(2000)sexual abuse and sexual function: an examination of sexually relevant cognitive processes. journal of consulting and clinical psychology. 68(3), 399-406. mohan, r. & bhugra, d. (2005). literature update: a critical review. sexual and relationship therapy, 20 (1), 115-122. morton, r.a. & hartman, l.m. (1985).a taxonomy of subjective meanings in male sexual dysfunction. the journal of sex research. 21(3), 305-321. o’carroll, r (1991)sexual desire disorders: a review of controlled treatment studies. the journal of sex research 28(4), 607-624. oltmanns, t.f & emery, r,e. (2001). abnormal psychology. 3rd ed. prentice hall: usa (chapter 12) özmen, e. (1999). cinsel mitler ve cinsel i̇şlev bozuklukları. psikiyatri dünyası. 2, 49-53. rosen, r.c., & leiblum, s.r.(1995).treatment of sexual disorders in the 1990’s: an integrated approach. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 63(6), 877-890. segraves, r.t. (2002). female sexual disorders. canadian journal of psychiatry, 47(5), 419-425. van., j.j.dm., everaerd, w., & grotjohann.(2001)cognitive behavioral bibliotherapy for sexual dysfunctions in heterosexual couples: a randomized waiting-list controlled clinical trial in the netherlands.the journal of sex research. 38(1), 51-67. warnock, j.j.k. (2002) female hypoactive sexual desire disorder: epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment. cns drugs 16(11), 745-753. 11th international conference on social representations, 25-28 june 2012, évora, portugal (announcement) xi international conference on social representations 25-28 june 2012 évora, portugal this conference, taking place every two years, aims to present research where the theory of social representations, introduced by serge moscovici in 1961, is particularly relevant. the conference equally intends to allow a wide and interdisciplinary debate, both at the theoretical and methodological levels, on matters related to social thinking and associated psycho-social phenomena. the conference is the continuation of a sequence which had its first occurrence in ravello (italy) in 1992, followed by rio de janeiro in 1994, aix-en-provence in 1996, mexico city in 1998, montreal in 2000, stirling in 2002, guadalajara (mexico) in 2004, rome in 2006, bali in 2008 and tunis in 2010. the theme for this conference is: “social representations in changing societies” the rapid pace of change in contemporary societies, giving rise to economic crises of unforeseen consequences as well as to the loss of trust in leadership and widespread distress, calls for an increased attention from social scientists. due to the centrality conferred to the study of how the interpretations of experts come to be appropriated by common sense, the theory of social representations assumes particular relevance in the present historical context. of no lesser importance in the dynamics of contemporary societies, the media, another social actor, has earned the theory’s attention. we anticipate that the same will happen in this conference. visit the website for more information http://www.cirs2012.uevora.pt/index%20ing.html http://www.cirs2012.uevora.pt/index%20ing.html microsoft word 10. 5th interdisciplinary social sciences.doc social sciences conference 2010 welcome to the 5th international conference on interdisciplinary social sciences. in 2010, the conference will be held at university of cambridge, cambridge, uk from 25 august 2010. the conference will address interdisciplinary practices across the social sciences, and between the social sciences and the natural sciences, applied sciences and the professions. plenary speakers will include some of the world’s leading thinkers in the social sciences, as well as numerous paper, colloquium and workshop presentations. all are encouraged to register and attend this significant and timely conference. themes of the conference: • social science agendas • interdisciplinary social science practices • the social, the natural and the applied sciences • social science methods participants are also welcome to submit a presentation proposal either for a 30minute paper, 60-minute workshop, or jointly presented 90-minute colloquium session. parallel sessions are loosely grouped into streams reflecting different perspectives or disciplines. each stream also has its own talking circle, a forum for focused discussion of issues. for those unable to attend the conference in person, virtual participation is also available. we encourage all presenters to submit written papers to the international journal of interdisciplinary social sciences, a fully refereed academic journal. virtual participants may also submit papers for consideration by the journal. all conference participants who have finalised their registration will receive a complimentary online subscription to the journal. this subscription is valid until one year after the conference end date. the deadline for the current round in the call for papers is 11 march 2010. visit the website for more information http://thesocialsciences.com/conference-2010/ i changed the stress, stress changed me, you can not separate the stress form life and you can not separate the stress from me, because stress became life and by that stress is influenced all life europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 1-7 www.ejop.org evidence-based ethical problem solving to guide practise in psychology research by vania ranjbar the university of edinburgh introduction looking back to the world war ii activities, undertaken in the name of research, there is little room for doubt as to why we have ethics committees (ecs; or institutional review boards, irbs, as they are referred to in the u.s.) and various ethical codes of conduct. on one hand, no contemporary scientist would deny the need for a peer review process to ensure ethical treatment and protection of human research subjects, especially in psychology research. on the other hand, anecdotal evidence of ecs becoming an impediment to scientists and their research is mounting up (ceci & bruck, 2009; fiske, 2009; sieber, 2009; tully, ninis, booy, & viner, 2000); albeit empirical data on the issue is lacking (ceci & bruck, 2009; fiske, 2009). there appears, however, to be a general sense in the academic world that this impediment sometimes arises as a result of ec members’ lack of awareness or understanding of the particular research topic under review and its associated literature and methodologies, including what may constitute contemporary best practise in the area. this may then give rise to competing ethical concerns, between ec members and their department colleagues. members of psychology ecs are not, and could not possibly be, experts on all psychological topics and methodologies. scientists, however, have an "ethical responsibility not to prevent research that might improve the human condition" (fiske, 2009, p. 30) and thus potentially important research ought not to be prevented simply due to a lack of awareness amongst ecs. fiske (2009) argues how the responsibilities of ecs can be theorised in terms of prevention and promotion: preventing negative outcomes of research participation, while promoting beneficial research. the aim of this editorial is thus to encourage psychology students (and non-students) to start collecting data on the experiences of research participation to, first, contribute to a knowledge base that can be used http://www.ejop.org/ evidence-based ethical problem solving 2 to facilitate ecs’ decision-making, especially when concerning sensitive research; and, second, to help ecs to achieve both goals of prevention and promotion. furthermore, such data collection would not only facilitate ecs to achieve their goals but it could potentially be valuable in evaluating whether ecs do in fact achieve their goals. the aim of this brief editorial is thus to encourage more engagement in evidence-based ethical problem solving (sieber, 2009). reactions to research participation in sensitive research: presumptions versus empirical evidence ethical dilemmas are particularly pertinent within the social sciences, and even more so when conducting sensitive research; that is, “research which potentially poses a substantial threat to those who are or have been involved in it” because the topics are considered to be “private, stressful or sacred” and thus pose an “intrusive threat” (lee, 1993, p. 4). lee, however, further points out that “the sensitive character of a piece of research seemingly inheres less in the specific topic and more in the relationship between that topic and the social context” (lee, 1993, p. 5). in an academic context it is the issue of responsibility, i would like to argue, that becomes central. with vulnerable samples there is an underlying fear that participating in research that addresses their negative experiences might exacerbate their distress and thus have harmful consequences. it is, arguably, the responsibility that scientists need to take for this potential outcome that brands this kind of research as “sensitive research”. if one, then, (inaccurately) presumes that exacerbated distress is an inevitable outcome of sensitive research, then this type of potentially important research might be more at risk of being delayed, rejected, or modified in such ways that the results are altered (goodyear-smith, lobb, davies, nachson, & seelau, 2002). there is thus the risk that unfounded presumptions may prevent potentially important research. the empirical evidence, however, speaks differently. first, although most likely there will always be a subset of a sample that will report negative research experiences to varying extents when participating in sensitive research, a majority of research participants tend to report being pleased to have participated in such studies and report no elevated distress due to their participation (priebe, 2009; scott, valery, boyle, & bain, 2002). this seems to be the case even in research as sensitive as asking adolescents about sexual abuse, where the majority disagreed with statements such as “the questions were unpleasant to answer” or “one should not ask people such questions” (priebe, 2009). even amongst the adolescents who did report experiences of sexual abuse did the majority disagree with such statements. systematically europe’s journal of psychology 3 assessing research participation can thus provide us with empirical evidence which highlights discrepancies between inaccurate presumptions and real life situations. second, despite this risk of exacerbated distress and negative outcomes, scientists, and participants alike, are increasingly recognising the benefits of participation in sensitive research (kelly & halford, 2007). for example, in a study with female survivors of interpersonal violence (griffin, resick, waldrop, & mechanic, 2003), not only was participation found not to have any harmful psychological effects but it was in actual fact perceived as a positive and beneficial experience despite participants having experienced strong emotions during the assessments. during my own current phd research on the experience of aids-related bereavement, aid workers predominantly report their participation in the qualitative interviews in a positive light. as one participant put it, “i’ve counselled myself”. this is not to say that research participation ought to be erroneously advertised as an opportunity for counselling or other psychological interventions, unless it is specifically clinical research conducted for that purpose and with qualified practitioners. it is important to highlight this distinction to participants as to prevent any false expectations. despite participants explicitly being informed about this distinction, participation may nonetheless come to resemble an informal “counselling” opportunity for some as it provides an opportunity to reflect. benefits from participation in trauma research are thought to result from reflection on one’s experiences, which in turn can lead to new insights (newman & kaloupek, 2004). in my previous (qualitative) research on recovery from sexual abuse, when asked to freely comment on their experience of participation, over one third of the sample explicitly stated having felt good about participating. furthermore, the majority of the sample reported having partaken in the study hoping that their participation would contribute to improved situations for other survivors. participants had previously described how being able to appreciate the good aspects of life, despite their traumas, was important to their recovery process; participating in research with the aspiration to improve the situation for other survivors enabled them to focus on the good in life to overcome the bad (the aftermath of trauma). this finding is in line with other studies that show that individuals participating in trauma research often do so to help others (e.g., campbell & adams, 2009). we must not, after all, forget that the conception of and advances in research on sexual and domestic violence originated partly in the focus groups held by feminist organisations with women who spoke out about their own experiences – and were relieved about doing so (jones & cook, 2008). evidence-based ethical problem solving 4 it is thus clear that the actual experiences and perceptions of trauma research participants, based on empirical evidence, can noticeably differ from presumptions regarding such experiences, based on myths and stereotypes of trauma survivors. consequently, empirical investigations on the matter are important to identify and highlight any such discrepancies. the reactions to research participation questionnaire (rrpq) one effective tool for collecting such empirical evidence and for assessing the experience of research participation is the reactions to research participation questionnaire (rrpq; newman, willard, sinclair, & kaloupek, 2001). research participation can be theorised within a cost-benefit framework: participation is more likely if the benefits are greater than the costs (campbell & adams, 2009; newman, et al., 2001). the rrpq is a quantitative measure that assesses participants’ experiences of the research procedures and their perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation across five factors: participation, personal benefits, emotional reactions, perceived drawbacks, and global evaluation. participants are asked to indicate on a 5-point likert scale the extent to which they agree or disagree with 23 items dealing with their experience of participating in the study, such as, ”knowing what i know now, i would participate in this study if given the opportunity” and “the research raised emotional issues for me that i had not expected”. it has previously been successfully utilised in studies of domestic violence (johnson & benight, 2003), with children (chu, deprince, & weinzierl, 2008; kassamadams & newman, 2002; rrpq-c), with cancer patients (whitaker, brewin, & watson, 2008), and samples vulnerable in other ways (widom & czaja, 2005). in addition to assessing participants’ reactions to participation, the rrpq also allows individuals to report on their reasons for participating. as such, using the rrpq, either in full or by selecting appropriate individual items from the scale, enables psychology researchers to collect necessary empirical evidence to contribute to ethical advancements within the discipline. summary conclusively, there are three main arguments for including assessments of reactions to research participation in psychology studies. first, if ecs wrongly hold the view that researching certain topics or adopting certain methodologies may be harmful to participants, then this can cause delays in research being conducted, contribute to a waste of resources, inconsistencies across ecs, and in some cases even prevent potentially important research from being conducted (ceci, peters, & plotkin, 1985; europe’s journal of psychology 5 ceci & bruck, 2009; goldman & katz, 1982; middle, johnson, petty, sims, & macfarlane, 1995; walsh, 1998). it is, therefore, important that psychology researchers collect empirical evidence to help ecs and peers make the best possible decisions that are guided by this evidence rather than by presumptions that are based on personal opinions or myths and that may be inaccurate. data collection on reactions to research participation could thus contribute to ecs achieving their promotion objective. second, ceci and bruck (2009) raise the issue that ecs were established with the remit to protect research participants by ensuring ethical treatment, but that evidence that this objective is being achieved is lacking. empirical evidence on research participants’ experiences across various methodologies could enable a comparison of these methodologies to help identify those most suitable with regard to ethical conduct. data collection on reactions to research participation could thus contribute to ecs achieving their prevention objective. finally, as the rrpq also asks about individuals’ reasons for participating in the research, in addition to learning more about the experience of participating in (sensitive) research, we can also learn about why people participate in our research studies. this piece of knowledge may help us learn about any peculiarities of our sample, which may be useful to consider when drawing conclusions about our data. data collection on reactions to research participation could thus potentially contribute to better understanding of findings. based on these arguments i would urge psychology students and other researchers, especially those conducting sensitive research, to consider incorporating assessments of reactions to research participation into their studies. acknowledgements the rrpq was developed by elana newman, at the university of tulsa, and her colleagues. it is available, for free, on her personal website. references campbell, r., & adams, a. e. (2009). why do rape survivors volunteer for face-to-face interviews? a meta-study of victims' reasons for and concerns about research participation. journal of interpersonal violence, 24(3), 395-405. evidence-based ethical problem solving 6 ceci, s., peters, d., & plotkin, j. (1985). human subjects review, personal values, and the regulation of social science research. american psychologist, 40(9), 994–1002. ceci, s. j., & bruck, m. (2009). do irbs pass the minimal harm test? perspectives on psychological science, 4(1), 28-29. chu, a. t., deprince, a. p., & weinzierl, k. m. (2008). children's perceptions of research participation: examining trauma exposure and distress. journal of empirical research on human research ethics, 3(1), 49-58. fiske, s. t. (2009). institutional review boards: from bane to benefit. perspectives on psychological science, 4(1), 30-31. goldman, j., & katz, m. d. (1982). inconsistency and institutional review boards. the journal of the american medical association, 248(2), 197-202. goodyear-smith, f., lobb, b., davies, g., nachson, i., & seelau, s. (2002). international variation in ethics committee requirements: comparisons across five westernised nations. bmc medical ethics, 3(1), 2-9. griffin, m. g., resick, p. a., waldrop, a. e., & mechanic, m. b. (2003). participation in trauma research: is there evidence of harm? journal of traumatic stress, 16(3), 221-227. johnson, l. e., & benight, c. c. (2003). effects of trauma-focused research on recent domestic violence survivors. journal of traumatic stress, 16(6), 567-571. jones, h., & cook, k. (2008). rape crisis: responding to sexual violence. lyme regis: russell house. kassam-adams, n., & newman, e. (2002). the reactions to research participation questionnaires for children and for parents (rrpq-c and rrpq-p). general hospital psychiatry, 24(5), 336-342. kelly, a. b., & halford, w. k. (2007). responses to ethical challenges in conducting research with australian adolescents. australian journal of psychology, 59(1), 24-33. lee, r. m. (1993). doing research on sensitive topics. london: sage. middle, c., johnson, a., petty, t., sims, l., & macfarlane, a. (1995). ethics approval for a national postal survey: recent experience. bmj, 311(7006), 659-660. newman, e., & kaloupek, d. g. (2004). the risks and benefits of participating in traumafocused research studies. journal of traumatic stress, 17(5), 383-394. europe’s journal of psychology 7 newman, e., willard, t., sinclair, r., & kaloupek, d. (2001). empirically supported ethical research practice: the costs and benefits of research from the participants' view. accountability in research: policies and quality assurance, 8(4), 309-329. priebe, g. (2009). adolescents’ experiences of sexual abuse. prevalence, abuse characteristics, disclosure, health and ethical aspects. lund: lund university. scott, d. a., valery, p. c., boyle, f. m., & bain, c. j. (2002). does research into sensitive areas do harm? experiences of research participation after a child’s diagnosis with ewing’s sarcoma. medical journal of australia, 177(9), 507-510. sieber, j. e. (2009). evidence-based ethical problem solving (ebeps). perspectives on psychological science, 4(1), 26-27. tully, j., ninis, n., booys, r., & viner, r. (2000). the new system of review by multicentre research ethics committees: prospective study. bmj, 320(7243), 1179-1182. walsh, k. (1998, november). researching the sensitive: gendered violence and child abuse. paper presented at the australian association for research in education annual conference, adelaide, australia. whitaker, k. l., brewin, c. r., & watson, m. (2008). intrusive cognitions and anxiety in cancer patients. journal of psychosomatic research, 64(5), 509-517. widom, c. s., & czaja, s. j. (2005). reactions to research participation in vulnerable subgroups. accountability in research: policies & quality assurance, 12(2), 115-138. about the author: vania ranjbar is currently a phd psychology student at the university of edinburgh. her research area of interest is psychological trauma. she has previously conducted work on recovery from sexual abuse and is a member of the british psychological society scotland survivors of childhood sexual abuse working party (bpsss), the uk psychological trauma society (ukpts), and the european society for traumatic stress studies (estss). currently she is investigating the traumatic effects of bereavement due to hiv/aids and tuberculosis on aid workers in south africa. address for correspondence: vania ranjbar, psychology, the university of edinburgh, 57 george square, edinburgh, eh8 9ju, uk e-mail: v.ranjbar@sms.ed.ac.uk mailto:v.ranjbar@sms.ed.ac.uk 15. 11th european conference on psychological assessment 11th european conference on psychological assessment 31 august 2011 to 3 september 2011 riga, latvia we are pleased to welcome you to the 11th european conference on psychological assessment (ecpa2011) of the european association for psychological assessment (eapa), to be held in riga, latvia and hosted by the university of latvia, department of psychology, in partnership with the union of latvian psychologists. the conference will be held august 31rst to september 3rd and it promises to continue the previous traditions of eapa conferences, offering a scientific programme of high quality, representing significant state-of-the-art issues in psychological assessment. the program will include topics of psychological assessment across the developmental life-span, including various aspects of cognitive, emotional, social, personality and psychopathological functioning. the formal and informal settings will provide opportunity to meet interesting colleagues and to establish important international contacts. the venue of the 11th european conference on psychological assessment will be the university of latvia main administrative building, which is located precisely in the centre of riga, near to the historical old riga, the national opera and other notable sites. riga is a charming city on the baltic sea coast, founded in 1201, a former member of the hanseatic league, and internationally recognized for its extensive jugendstil (art nouveau) architecture. the conference registration fee includes a gala dinner for all conference participants in one of the elegant historical buildings of riga, associated with the early strivings for freedom at the turn of the last century. riga provides many fine hotels for comfortable accommodation. welcome! see you in riga, august 2011! malgozata rascevska & sandra sebre co-presidents of the ecpa2011 visit the website for more information http://www.ecpa11.lu.lv/ humor, an antidote to life’s incongruities an interview with dr. john morreall by alexandra ilie our interviewee john morreall, phd, professor of religion at the college of william and mary, has been studying humor for more than 25 years. he is the current president of the international society for humor studies. morreall teaches several courses at william and mary, “comedy, tragedy and religion”, “modern religious thought”, “theory and method in the study of religion”, and “roman catholicism since 1800″. he has given more than 400 talks and seminars on humor in the united states, canada, europe and japan. ejop: although you are philosophy professor, you have been studying humor for 25 years and you have also conducted over 400 talks and seminars on the values of humor. how did you become interested in this field? john morreall: i was a young philosophy professor at a competitive university in the late 1970s. i knew that i had to publish a book, but did not want to write about the same old topics philosophers had written about since plato. so i chose humor, as something important but neglected by scholars. at that time, psychologists were starting to do interesting research on humor and laughter, and people were organizing international conferences. so i made friends fast. once i had published books on humor, i started receiving invitations from business and medical groups to talk about the benefits of humor. that led me to create the company humorworks (www.humorworks.com) in 1989, through which i give seminars. ejop: many corporations have hired humor consultants in order to work out certain problems. what sort of background should anyone have in order to become a humor consultant? john morreall: to be a humor consultant, you should know about the psychology of humor– how it reduces stress, promotes creative problem-solving, and helps people get along with each other. you should also have work experience in different fields, so that you can relate to your different audiences. most importantly, you need a sense of humor yourself, especially the ability to tell funny stories. doing a humor seminar for a corporation or hospital is not an academic lecture—it is just as much entertainment as it is providing information. ejop: what theory do you consider would provide a comprehensive explanation of humor, laughter and playfulness? john morreall: i think that the most reasonable overall approach is to think of humor as a kind of play in which we enjoy incongruities, that is enjoy experiences that violate our ordinary mental sets and expectations. as paul mcghee, one of the pioneers of the psychology of humor, says, humor is cognitive play. as for laughter, i like the theory jan van hoof proposed in the 1970s and robert provine recently used in his book laughter. they say that laughter evolved from the open-mouth display of primates, which was as a play signal. in early humans, laughter was a way for one person to indicate to another that what they were doing—chasing, tickling, hiding, wrestling—was not intended seriously, but was just “in fun.” without such a play signal, chasing or tickling would be interpreted as real aggression. ejop: humor was overlooked at work for a long time, but in the last years managers have started to appreciate the values of humor. what are the benefits of humor in the workplace? john morreall: the benefits of humor that i talk about in my seminars fall under three headings. first, humor is physically and psychologically healthy, especially in reducing stress. it also reduces pain, and, according to some research, boosts the immune system. secondly, humor promotes mental flexibility—creative thinking, coping with change, recovering from failure and mistakes. people who have seen a funny video, for example, and then take a test of creative thinking, do better than people who have watched an informational video. and thirdly, humor serves as social lubricant, reducing friction between people. ejop: looking at the maladaptive styles of humor, to what extent can these forms be considered humor per se and to what extent humiliation, aggressiveness or anger? john morreall: rod martin, who just succeeded me as president of the international society for humor research, is a psychology professor in london, canada. he has written a lot about beneficial styles of humor and maladaptive styles, such as sarcastic humor. you might contact him for an interview! as your question suggests, there is nothing essentially humorous about humiliation, aggression or anger. we could have any of them without anything being funny. but sometimes these negative interactions do take the form of humor. the simple fact is that humor can hurt as well as help. ejop: as we have moved into a postindustrial society, stress has become a life-style. might humor work effectively against stress? john morreall: yes, humor does work against stress. stress chemicals in the blood such as epinephrine are reduced after laughter. and while stress gives us a feeling of helplessness, humor gives us a feeling of control. freud talked about that in his 1928 essay “humor.” joking about a problem is doing something about it, if only seeing it in a new way. ejop: are there differences between men’s sense of humor and women’s sense of humor? john morreall: some studies show that men tend to use humor aggressively, and that women tend to use humor cooperatively, to support other people. that shows in practical jokes, which are almost exclusively male. when i lived in florida, there was a case of two men digging a trench for an electric line. one man found a vine that looked like a snake. for a joke, he threw it above the other man’s head, shouting, “snake”! the other man died of a heart attack. women don’t do things like that. ejop: could we possibly consider sense of humor a personality trait? john morreall: the phrase “sense of humor” has several meanings. sometimes it means the ability to appreciate humor. sometimes it means the ability to create humor. rod martin and willibald ruch (zurich, switzerland) are two psychologists who have studied humor as a personality trait. that includes a long-term disposition to see the funny side of everyday situations. ejop: nowadays we come across both healthy forms of humor and maladaptive ones (teasing, putting other people down, sarcasm, boorish humor). could positive forms of humor challenge the negative ones? john morreall: sometimes you can challenge maladaptive humor with healthy forms of humor. but it’s difficult, unless you are very creative. when someone is putting you down, it’s hard to think up a funny response that doesn’t simply put them down. ejop: there is a common misperception (coming from both employees and managers) that humor is the opposite of work and seriousness. how could this negative perception about humor turn into a constructive one? john morreall: yes, many people in business still see humor as the opposite of work and seriousness. i distinguish between seriousness and solemnity. you can be engaged in a task without shutting out all playfulness. creativity studies have shown that many of the most profitable ideas have come when people were thinking playfully. humor is valuable, too, as a social lubricant when you are working with other people. we have different ways of working, and so we tend to annoy each other. laughing about our differences helps us get along better and so be more productive. ejop: religion has often condemned laughter and playfulness. even in the bible there are warnings against laughter. we all know you are a professor of religion and also a humor scholar. what connection do you consider might be between religion and humor? john morreall: there are several connections between religion and humor, which i discuss in my book comedy, tragedy and religion. the big one is that both religion and humor involve seeing familiar things in new ways. all religions, east and west, teach that the way things usually look is not how they really are, and that we should look at things “in the big picture,” with cosmic perspective. in hinduism, the world of ordinary perception is maya, it is illusory. the goal of life is moksha, enlightenment, which hindus compare to waking from a dream or getting a joke. buddhists emphasize the constant change in the world. our sense of stability, especially our belief in a stable “myself,” they say, is illusory. the enlightened person (which is what buddha means) is like the person who gets a joke and laughs. zen buddhism is especially rich in humor. here is a poem by masahide: my barn burned down now i have a better view of the rising moon ejop: what qualities do you believe a prolific researcher and professor should have? john morreall: a prolific researcher and professor needs many qualities. for me, the most important is the ability to choose topics that really interest you, and that you can be enthusiastic about for a long time. john morreall, february 2006 psychology and the problem of evil interview with dr. ashok nagpal by ankur prahlad betageri professor of psychology at the university of delhi (north campus) dr. ashok nagpal with his mentor dr. sudhir kakar made pioneering efforts in developing psychology into a culturally sensitive and socially relevant discipline. using psychoanalysis as a model they sought to understand the rich and diverse tradition of healing in india, and revealed how that knowledge could be integrated with the mainstream psychotherapies to bring about a synthesis: a synthesis which would enhance the scope of mystical cults and broaden the reach of psychology. in this short interview dr. nagpal addresses three core issues: manic self interest, passive indifference and fear of labeling, and using the concept of evil offers invaluable insights into the nature of urban living and why it’s failing humanity. question: psychology is not playing a major part in squarely addressing the human problems. it has become a sophisticated clinical tool of discrimination and labeling, incapable of being moved by human suffering. why is the field of psychology so self-obsessed and dehumanized? dr. ashok nagpal: why humanism is not taking root here…? because there is an overarching presence of evil here which expresses itself in the form of indifference. everyone’s life here is dominated by self-interest, and every activity born exclusively to serve the needs of the self creates a lot of noise. i have very few ears left; i can’t take any more noise. i need to distill pure thought out of this noise. every action of self-interest restricts us, cuts upon our desires and moulds us. a greedy unselfconscious self-interest is the way evil manifests itself in our time. question: how does psychology understand the process of creativity? i have seen many psychologists taking pride in and overcoming their own insignificance by calling artists abnormal. dr. ashok nagpal: madness provides a special inspiration for creativity; especially in the world of literature it allows our imagination to abandon itself. you glimpse something, you know others will find it too provocative, too dangerous and in clinical language it will be dubbed as a symptom. but if even one another person could understand it then it could be called creativity. so labeling is a way of setting limits to creativity. so that it doesn’t become too dangerous to the society. question: i see… what exactly do you mean by evil? dr. ashok nagpal: evil is that which is ‘not to be lived’. if you read ‘live’ backwards it reads evil, so evil is the opposite of living. the creative flash makes an artist forget his boundaries and he begins to live the unlivable by being possessed by his creativity. a creative person should bear in mind that his creative enacting shouldn’t be disestablishing. his creative enacting shouldn’t disturb the life process. so a creative person is always either the chosen one or the obscure one. labeling helps us to be aware of the potential danger a person might have in disturbing the delicate structure of the society. in a time of outcry against labeling we should see the positive side of labeling. labeling should always be dynamic but the society never allows any dynamic symbolism to be dynamic for too long. it turns everything into black and white and that is the tragedy. question: but most of the time psychologists and psychiatrists insist on understanding people in their own narrow perspectives and terminologies. dr. ashok nagpal: you can always create sensitivity among psychologists that there is more to psychology than what they are practicing. this is something which is very difficult to deal with especially in a democracy. question: can you elaborate on the concept of evil? are there any religious and theological connotations to that concept? dr. ashok nagpal: no. evil is the label through which we arouse curiosity about something. evil is something which hasn’t been nurtured completely in a person. evil is to be overly self sufficient to flatten others into a state of subservience. evil makes itself so self-resourceful that it makes others beg and crawl… it wants to feel that it is giving; that gives it a position of power. it tempts others to crave for it and that is why it is called evil… if it doesn’t make others beg it feels that it itself is in a position to beg. this is because it can see itself either as a beggar or as a giver, not in any position in between. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 105-122 www.ejop.org cross-cultural study: risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men gilda gomez peresmitre department of psychology. national autonomous. university of mexico (unam) bukard jaeger department of psychosomatics and psychotherapy. hannover medical school gisela pineda garcia department of social and administrative sciences. autonomous university of baja california (uabc) silvia platas acevedo department of psychology. national autonomous. university of mexico (unam) abstract dietary restraint is, together with other risk factors, part of an integrative etiological theory that contemplates direct and mediational mechanisms by which risk factors (ideal and actual figures, body dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness and body mass index) might work together to promote dieting and risky eating behaviors. to gain a better understanding of the risk factors associated with dieting, it was proposed to identify similarities and differences between mexican and german cultures, and to develop structural models by comparing the interrelations of dieting risk factors. the sample (n = 221) was formed of medical and nursing male students, who completed a survey assessing these risk factors. there were 73 mexicans and 148 germans. the mean age of the total sample was m = 20.8 years (sd = 0.71). it was found that mexican men displayed a higher body mass (t (177) = -4.2 p= .000) and were more dissatisfied with their body (t (184)=-2.9, p=.004), and also showed higher restrictive dieting (t (190) = 2.2, p= .03) than german men did. the hypothesized role of the body dissatisfaction factor was confirmed in both mexican and german models, body dissatisfaction showed a direct link with dieting (body dissatisfaction predicts dieting), as well as a mediate one between body mass and dieting, and between ideal figure and dieting (dieting is http://www.ejop.org/ risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 106 indirectly predicted by body mass or by ideal figure through body dissatisfaction). the relevance of this study is increased by the fact that it is a cross-cultural study, involving mexican and german samples. keywords: cross-cultural study, predictive structural models, dietary restraint, risk factors prevention, mexican and german men. introduction it is usually believed that pathologies in eating behavior are only seen in women, and that only recently the males begun to show this problem. for this reason, it is somewhat surprising that andersen (1990) states that one of the first two reports of anorexia nervosa written by richard morton in 1694 was that of a man. the prevalence of anorexia nervosa today is significantly higher in women than in men (10 to 1) (andersen, 1992; saldaña & tomás, 1998; rastam, gilberg, & garton, 1989). however, statistics of identified cases report 5 to 10% anorexic men (lucas, beard, kurland, & o’fallon, 1991), and 10 to 15% bulimic men (carlat & camargo, 1991; garfinkel et al., 1995). with regard to body appearance, what do men want? men look for a mesomorphic figure, characterized by an athletic, muscular, strong, compact, but fatless body, often wish a “medium build” in v shape i.e., with their shoulders wider than their hips (bruchon-schweitzer, 1992; gomez-peresmitre, granados, jáuregui, tafoya, & unikel, 2000; mccrary & seasse, 2000). some studies show that among young adult men (18 to 25 years), half of them want to be thinner and the other half want to be bigger (abel & richards, 1996; mccabe & ricciardelli, 2001). however, as blyth et al. (1981) state, although some boys wish to be larger and more muscular, there may be an optimal range of body mass, because overweight boys have significantly lower selfesteem and are more self-conscious than their normal weight counterparts. field et al. (2001) reported that weight concerns in boys were strongly related to body mass; boys become concerned and dissatisfied only when they were objectively overweight. it has been found that for women, as well as for men, dieting and negative affect predict binge eating (stice, akutagawa, caggar, & agras, 2000). for the purpose of this study, negative affect was defined as a way of thinking, and feeling about oneself as a sense of ineffectiveness; that is feeling less confident, alone in the world, feeling inadequate, having a low opinion of oneself, and so forth. thus, it was decided to apply one of the existing instruments, which estimates the ineffectiveness factor, i.e. the ineffectiveness scale of the eating europe’s journal of psychology 107 disorders inventory (edi) developed by garner, olmsted, & polivy (1983), which has been successfully validated (convergent-validation) with self-esteem. this scale has also been used in a cross-cultural study in 12 countries (jaeger et al., 2002). this study starts from the theoretical premises that state body dissatisfaction (bd) is one of the components of the risk factor chain that not only precedes dietary restraint (dr) but also plays a mediating role among some body factors and dr (stice, hayward, cameron, killen, & taylor, 2000; stice, 1994; 2001; 2002). dr in turn, precedes bulimic eating behaviors and bulimia nervosa (bn). dr has accumulated a great deal of evidence supporting its role as a predictive and facilitator risk factor for the onset and maintenance of bn (johnson & wardle, 2005; neumark-sztainer et al. 2006; polivy & herman, 1985). these antecedents raised the following hypotheses: 1) the ideal figure predicts bd (ideal figure → bd) with a negative relationship between them; 2) body mass index (bmi) predicts bd (bmi → bd) with a positive relationship between them; 3) bd predicts dr (bd → dr) with a positive relationship between them, and 4) bd mediates the relationship between: a) bmi and dieting and b) ideal figure and dieting. therefore, the planned objectives of the study were: 1) to analyze risk factor distributions (ideal figure, actual figure, bd, ineffectiveness and bmi) associated with dr to identify similarities and differences between these two groups from different cultures – mexico and germany – (it is expected extreme cultural groups it would facilitate detecting factors shared regardless of culture and those specific to cultural groups); and 2) to develop structural models of the inter-relations among these risk factors, analyzing the strength of association (beta weights) the structure and direction of the relational links. methodology participants a cross-cultural field study, with a cross-sectional design, was conducted with medical and nursing students. the total non-random (propositive) sample of 221 males comprised of mexican (n = 73) composed of med. students 38% and nurs. students 62%, with a mage = 20.52, (sd = 0.50), and of german (n = 148) formed by med. students 69% and nurs. students 31%, with a mage = 21.09 ( sd = 0.92). the samples were equated to some demographical variables, such as age (the risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 108 participants were recruited among first-year students of medicine and nursery within an age range of 19 to 22 years old) all of them were urban male students with the same academic field study (related to medicine) and the same study status (university level). measures body dissatisfaction. in order to estimate body dissatisfaction, a cross-cultural measuring scale was used. it composed of ten silhouettes covering a continuum of body weight, ordered in equal intervals, from the thinnest (1) to the largest (10). this scale was previously used in a multi-cross-cultural research with participants from 12 different countries (jaeger et al., 2002). according to its authors, (jaëger et al. 2000), this scale is free of cultural and ethnic factors (figure 1). the participants were asked four questions: “please mark with a cross the silhouette that best represents the current shape of your body;” “how would you wish to look like?” “what is the most attractive silhouette in your opinion?” and “which do you find the most attractive silhouette in the opposite sex?” participants were asked to mark the position with a cross, which represented their attitudes on a 0-10 decimal scale; positions between the two silhouettes were allowed and coded as real numbers. test-retest reliability reported by the authors are rtt = 0.82 (“actual”); rtt = 0.77 (“ideal”); rtt = 0.71 (“attractive”), and those of the convergent validity are rcit = 0.73 (“actual” and bmi). for a complete revision of the instrument (see jaeger et al., 2000; jaeger et al., 2002). coefficients of convergent validity were, mexican men rcab = 0.64 and german men rcab = 0.67. dietary restraint. dietary restraint was measured by the dieting scale of the eating attitudes test (eat) (garner, olmsted, bohr, & garfinkel, 1982), including 16 statements on a 6-point scale (never = 0 / always = 5), with higher scores indicating a higher level of restrained eating. coefficients of internal consistency were mexican men (alpha = 0.89), german men (alpha = 0.70). ineffectiveness scale. the negative affect was estimated through the ineffectiveness scale of the eating disorders inventory (edi) (garner et al., 1983), which has shown a convergent validity (ineffectiveness / self esteem) of r = 0.70 (p < .001) and a reliability estimate of alpha = 0.90 for the sub-scale. the ineffectiveness scale comprised of ten statements scored on a 6-point scale (never = 0 / always = 5), with higher scores indicating a higher degree of ineffectiveness. coefficients of internal consistency were mexican men (alpha = 0.60) and german men (alpha = 0.79). europe’s journal of psychology 109 body mass index. body mass index (bmi) was calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in square meters (bmi = kg/m2). weight and height measures were taken by medical staff. figure 1. intercultural silhouette scale procedure the research team from each country (formed by the authors and three graduate students) divided the procedure of data recollection as follows: 1) in each classroom of medical and nursing freshmen, the students were informed about the research; 2) students who had agreed to participate were asked to sign an informed consent form; 3) questionnaires were applied to groups of students in their classrooms and participants were informed about the weight and height measures required to obtain their bmi. they were informed that to meet this requirement they had a period of eight days to go to the first aid post or health center in their schools to be weighed and measured. the translation was done by professional translators and controlled by retranslation procedures. the research protocol was approved by the corresponding local ethics committees. data analysis the data were analyzed via the spss windows program (version 10.0). to analyze the functional interrelations, parameters, and path-models, the maximum likelihood method was utilized, and these were tested using the structural equation model analysis (sem) with the statistical program, amos 4.0 (arbuckle & wothke, 1999). risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 110 results preliminary analysis age. we expected that there were not significant differences in the variable of age, although a very small difference was found between the mean age of mexican (mage = 20.5, sd = 0.5) and german (mage = 21.1, sd = 0.9); they resulted statistically significant (t (219) = 4.9, p = .000) due to the size of the sample. weight and height. an examination of the height and weight data shows that mexican participants are significantly shorter than german are, with a difference of almost 10 points (mmex = 171.8 cm, sd = 7.0. vs mgerm 181.4 cm, sd = 7.0, t (218) = 9.5, p = .000). however, mexicans are as heavy as german men are (mmex = 72.2 kg, sd = 10.3 vs mgerm = 74.3 kg, sd = 10.3). these differences were not statistically significant: t (217) = 1.4, p = .15. body mass index. the bmi ranges were for mexicans (17.5 to 29.4) and for germans (18.4 to 31.2). according to the obtained cutting points with the validated bmi scale with mexican students (gomez-peresmitre & saucedo 1997; saucedo & gomezperesmitre, 1997), overweight is established when bmi ranges from 23 to 27. this finds 43% of mexican men are overweight. obesity is when the bmi is greater than 27, so 21% of mexican were obese [n.b.: in the world health organization (who) (1999) classification, 0% of mexican men and 2% of the germans fell into the obesity range, while the overweight range covered 37% of the mexicans and 14% of the germans]. actual figure. the actual or current figure refers to self-perception about corporal weight and shape (how i perceive my body shape and size). this estimation is obtained using a scale of ten silhouettes (figure 1). according to the ten silhouette scale positions (ssp), ssp ranges from 1 to 4.5, very thin and thin silhouettes were elected by 36% of mexican men and 45.8% of german men. an ssp of 5 to 6, which represents “normal“ weight were elected by 46 % mexicans and 47 % of germans. lastly, the ssp (from 6.5 to 8), silhouettes, which are two points over the “normal” weight, were selected by the same percentage (16%) of both mexican and german men. ideal figure. ideal figure is related to the desired body size. in terms of the ssp, 86% of mexicans and 81% of the germans chose thin and very thin figures (ssp 1 to 4.5); ssp from 5 to 6.0 were elected by 10% and 17% of mexican and german men, respectively. only 3% and 2%, respectively, chose a ssp greater than 6.5. europe’s journal of psychology 111 body dissatisfaction (bd). the estimated score of bd is calculated by subtracting the ideal figure from the perceived figure. the bigger the difference, the higher the bd. a positive difference means that an individual is dissatisfied because he wants to be thinner than his current body size, while a negative difference refers to an individual who is dissatisfied because he wants to be bigger. forty-two percent of mexican men obtained a satisfaction score (no differences between the perceived figure minus the ideal figure) and 50%, a positive difference score. forty-three percent of german men obtained a satisfaction score and a 45%, a positive score. as can be seen, the minor percentages, 8% for the mexican men and 12% for german men, were negative difference scores. attitudes towards one’s own body. results of the estimate for attitudes towards body size, and self-perception, as well as attitude towards thinness, obtained with the use of a scale of ten silhouettes, appear in table 1. here, it can be observed that none of the estimates was significantly different, although two of them (ideal and attractive opposite sex) produced marginal significances (p = .09). according to the mean silhouette scale position (mssp) selected by mexican men, it can be seen that mexicans see themselves as larger than german men (mssp = 4.96 vs. mssp = 4.67; t (179) =-1.18, p = .24). however, the ideal figure of mexican men is thinner (mssp = 4.16) than the one of germans (mssp = 4.52; (t (176) = 1.7, p = .09). the other figures, the most attractive and the most attractive for the opposite sex, are also thinner for mexican men, where the most attractive figure for the opposite sex is the thinnest (mssp = 2.99). thus, the male figure considered as the most attractive to women is a thinner silhouette compared with the one they believe is the most attractive one to men and the one they choose as their “ideal” figure (mssps = 2.99 < 4.03 < 4.16). it is worth mentioning that, all those marks for the same figures done by germans, except the “actual” figure, correspond to larger figures than the ones selected by mexican men (see table 1) but with the same direction. however, the figure considered most attractive for the opposite sex is also thinner, but not as thin as the one selected by the mexicans (msspmex = 2.99 vs. msspgerm = 3.40; t (146) = 1.7, p = .09) (table 1). table 1. means and standard deviations. differences in silhouette estimates by country country n actual m (sd) ideal m (sd) most attractive m (sd) attractive opposite sex m (sd) mexico 73 4.96 ( 1.62) 4.16 ( 1.48) 4.03 (1.53) 2.99 (1.51) germany 148 4.67 (1.38) 4.52 ( .14) 4.30 (1.13) 3.40 (1.34) risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 112 total 221 4.76 (1.53) 4.41 (1.34) 4.21 (1.27) 3.25 (1.41) t(179)= -1.18 p=.240 t(176)=1.68 p=.094 t(173)=1.32 p=.189 t(146)=1.71 p=.090 . risk factors for dietary restraint. the risk factors of internalization of a thin ideal figure (“ideal”) and that of actual figure (“actual”) are shown in table 1. table 2 shows the mean value of body dissatisfaction, (“body-dis”), which is significantly higher (t (184) = -2.9, p = .004) for mexicans (m =0.80, sd = 1.62) when compared with germans (m = 0.15, sd = 0.92). these numbers represent the difference between the actual and the ideal figure of men – the bigger the difference, the higher the dissatisfaction. this means that mexican men are more dissatisfied with their bodies than german men are. curiously, although the mean of self-esteem values (measured with edi’s ineffectiveness scale) were higher for germans (m = 11.13, sd = 5.69) than for mexicans (m = 8.04, sd = 5.28), the differences were not significant (t (140) = 1.86, p = .60). the bmi values reveal that mexican men’s bmi (24.29) is significantly higher (t (177)= 4.2, p = .000) than german men’s bmi (22.58) (table 2). it has been indicated, according to the cut points of the mexican validated bmi (saucedo & gomezperesmitre, 1997; gomez-peresmitre & saucedo, 1997), that the bmi of the mexicans fall into the overweight category while the germans have normal weight. according to the who (1999) values, mexican men are significantly heavier than german men are, although the mexican and the german men fall into the normal weight range. it is important to note that the mean value of dietary restraint for the mexicans was significantly (t (190) = 2.21, p = .028) higher (m = 13.45, sd = 10.32) than that of the germans (m = 11. 16, sd = 6.78). table 2. means and standard deviations. differences in risk factors by country country n body dissatisfaction m (sd) ineffectiveness (edi) m (sd) bmi m(sd) dietary restraint (eat) m (sd) mexico 73 0.80 (1.62) 8.04 (5.28) 24.29 ( 2.67) 13.45 (10.32) germany 148 0.15 ( 0.92) 11.13 (5.69) 22.58 (2.63) 11.16 (6.78) total 221 0.45 ( 1.29) 9.77 ( 6.85) 23.25 (2.77) 12.31 (8.55) t(184)=-2.91 p=.004 t(140)=1.86 p=.605 t(177)=-4.22 p=.000 t (190) = 2.21 p = .028 europe’s journal of psychology 113 main analyses structural models. the indexes used to assess the models fit, i.e. the ability of a model to reproduce the data, were 1) the chi-square that tests the null hypothesis that the model has a good fit in the population, thus it is the acceptation of it what the researcher expects; 2) the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) measures the error of approximation and a value of zero indicates the best fit. thus, rmsea ≤ .05 indicates close approximate fit, values between .05 and .08 suggest reasonable error of approximation, and rmsea ≥ .10 suggest poor fit; and 3). the normed fit index (nfi), define the null model as a model in which all of the correlations or co-variances are zero. a value between .90 and .95 is acceptable, and above .95 is good (bollen & long, 1993). both models, the one of mexican men (figure 2) and that of german men (figure 3) obtained indicators with an acceptable goodness of fit values (arbuckle & wothke, 1999; bollen & long, 1993). firstly the chi-square values were not significant: mexicans (x2 (4) = 5.1, p = 0.27) and germans (x2 (4) = 7.16, p = 0.12). nfi values close to the unit in the mexican model (nfi = 0.94) and in the german model (nfi = 0.92). finally, there were low rmsea values: mexican men (rmsea = 0.06) and german men (rmsea = 0.08). starting with the interrelations among bmi, ideal figure (ideal) body-dissatisfaction (body-dis), ineffectiveness and dietary restraint (dr), it can be seen that in both men risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 114 models (mexican vs german) the same links appear with similar beta weights and same directions. it is shown that bmi (mex 0.43 vs ger 0.52) and ideal figure (-0.57 vs 0.48) are directly inter-related with body-dis, and with a negative relationship between ideal and body-dis (i.e., the thinner the ideal figure, the most body dissatisfaction) and a similar correlation (doubledheaded arrow) between bmi and ideal (0.25 vs 0.18). other similar interrelations in both models are: 1) the link “bodydis” and dieting, although among mexicans this link is higher, more than twice, than that among germans and 2) body-dis working, as a mediating factor between bmi and dr (bmi → body-dis → dietary restraint), and between the ideal figure and dr (ideal → body-dis → dietary restraint) (see figures 2 and 3). it must be underlined that the first difference between these two models is that, in the german model, bmi shows a direct link with dr and an indirect one (through body-dis) with dr, which is not present in the mexican model. thus, bmi relates directly and indirectly with dr. finally, another similar relationship in both models is that of ineffectiveness and dr (mex 0.29 vs ger 0.26), although, here we find a second difference in these two models. in the mexican model, there is a direct link between bmi → ineffectiveness, however, the beta weight of this link is very low, practically non-existent (-0.03). it does not contribute to explaining the variance (r2 = 0.001), while in the german model, this link simply vanishes (see figure 3). lastly, with respect to the explained variance by the other risk factors, it can be seen that body-dis and dr have a similar variance in both models, 0.38 vs 0.40 and 0.44 vs 0.23, respectively. europe’s journal of psychology 115 discussion it is worth noting that few cross-cultural studies focus on risk factors for the development of anomalous eating behaviors, and there are even fewer studies with men samples and almost none in latin america. thus, this study represents one of the first contributions to the field of cross-cultural research focusing on predictive or antecedent risk factors for dietary restraint (dr) in men. taking into account that dr is an important antecedent to the onset and maintenance of bulimia nervosa (leon, fulkerson, perry, & early-zald, 1995; stice, nemeroff, & shaw, 1996; stice, stewart, & hammer, 1998), two proposals addressed this work: 1) to determine differences and similarities between the risk factors distributions for dr (actual and ideal figures, body dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, and bmi) by comparing mexican and german men models, and 2) to develop structural models of the inter-relations among these risk factors, to detect and confirm, the presence of expected results as were postulated by the hypotheses of this study. it is worth mentioning that the major percentages for both groups were comprised of satisfied and positively dissatisfied scores, whereas only a small percentage (< 10%) averaging the number of men of both groups were negatively dissatisfied. that is, a minority wanted to be bigger than their current figure, contrary to the higher and similar rates (between those men wanting a body size bigger or thinner than their current body size) often reported by some studies (abell & richards, 1996; mccabe & ricciardelli, 2001; 2003; ricciardelli & mccabe, 2001). however, it must be noted that previous studies, which have examined the desired body size among men, have produced mixed results (ricciardelli & mccabe). we need more studies to compare the results of the measurement cross-cultural scale used in this study versus those using other body figure drawings. taking into account that mexicans are significantly shorter (almost ten points less) than germans, but both are equally heavy, what is the ideal figure of the groups? we found that a majority of the men in the two samples (> 80%) in congruence with their positively dissatisfied response, elected a thin silhouette (one point under the “normal” weight) as an ideal figure. however, the ideal figure for the mexicans is even thinner (with a marginal significance) than the ideal figure for the germans, so one could expect it translated into more body dissatisfaction than german men have. effectively, this higher body dissatisfaction was confirmed. it can be observed (see table 2) that mexican men are five times more dissatisfied than german men (0.80 vs. 0.15). further results from the structural analysis also confirmed this statement risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 116 (regarding the higher dissatisfaction of the mexicans), since it was found for each structural men model (besides the expected order: ideal figure → body-diss) a negative relationship (see figures 2 and 3) between ideal figure and bodydissatisfaction, meaning that a thinner ideal figure leads to more body dissatisfaction, confirming, in this way the hypothesis 1. thus, it can be inferred that mexican men suffer greater social pressure related to body weight, as paxton et al. (1991), and thelen and cormier (1995) stated, there is a positive correlation between bmi and body dissatisfaction, and they suggest the existence of the same relationship between body dissatisfaction and anomalous eating behavior. this last aspect was also found in this study, confirming hypothesis 3, when it was evident that mexicans are restrained eaters and they diet more than germans (see table 2). these findings were replicated by structural modeling. the variance explained by dietary restraint was almost more than twice for mexicans (44%) than for germans (23%), and the results of the two structural male models confirmed the hypothesis 2 , the relationship (bmi → body-dis), as previously pointed out by blyth et al. (1981) and field et al. (2001). in this same way, the risk factor of body dissatisfaction show a higher influence, more than twice (b 0.60), on dietary restraint (dieting) among mexicans than among germans (b =.27) (see figures 2 and 3), meaning that mexicans are not only more dissatisfied but they also diet more than germans. some readers would argue that dieting is an adequate eating behavior for heavy or overweight men; however, this statement could be true if the indicated behavior were elicited by healthy motives. one should be careful of viewing dieting independently of important related variables. in this study, dieting was seen as interrelated to a self-perceived, big actual figure, associated to the wish of a thin ideal figure, and in connection to body dissatisfaction. on the other side, it is intriguing that ineffectiveness, like actual figure, was not significantly different between mexican and german groups (see tables 1 and 2), and that ineffectiveness was linked with a mid beta weight to dietary restraint. it was also found that the bmi → ineffectiveness link, showed the lowest negative beta weight (-0.03), although the negative relation goes in accordance to results reported by blyth et al. (1981) the greater the bmi the lower effectiveness. in comparing the selected figures in both groups, specifically thin as ideal and the most attractive for the opposite sex, we can see from table 1 that the ideal and the most attractive for the opposite sex – were thinner for mexican men. regarding the results related to the last figure (“the most attractive…sex”) it could be said that europe’s journal of psychology 117 mexican men do not only feel pressure themselves, but they, in turn, also exert more pressure on their female counterparts than would be expected from the germans. thus, according to the above stated results, one of our main conclusions is that there seem to be more similarities than differences in the factors distributions, as well as in the structure of the models of the mexican and german men groups. other conclusions are: 1. the most obvious physical difference between these two groups of men is the bigger corporal mass in mexicans (mexican men’s bmi > german men’s bmi with a statistically significant difference) and their shorter height (10 points less than germans). the importance of these physical characteristics is that because of them, the results have greater negative implications. that is, one could expect that mexicans have a higher risk of developing bulimic behavior due to their significant higher bmi, their higher body dissatisfaction, and their increased dietary restraint (dieting), as stated by other authors such as leon et al. (1995), stice et al. (1996, 1998), and stice, (2001). 2. the hypothesized mediate role of body-dissatisfaction (hypothesis 4) was confirmed: a) in the two men models, the body-dissatisfaction played a mediate role as stated by stice et al. (2000) and body-dissatisfaction appears as a mediating factor between bmi and dietary restraint; (body dissatisfaction → dietary restraint.) confirming stice (1994; 2001; 2002) and b) a second mediate role by the body dissatisfaction factor was produced between ideal and dieting (ideal figure → body-dis → dieting). body-dissatisfaction explains a similar percentage of variance in the mexican and german models, whereas the explained variance by dietary restraint was higher in the mexican model, almost two times more, than that in the german one, confirming the significant difference of the higher mexican value of the dr mean obtained in the statistical t test (see table 2). the results of this study, specifically those associated to the key role of the body dissatisfaction related to direct and mediating influence with dietary restraint, suggest that further research with stronger methodological designs is required to demonstrate the causal relationships among these preceding risk factors of dietary restraint. an experimental design or a longitudinal or prospective one would allow establishing cause-effect relationships, which is impossible to achieve with the crosssectional design presented above. another limitation of this study is its inability to generalize (extend) the results to the respective populations (mexican and german medical and nursing students) because of its sampling frame and the cross-sectional risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 118 design, which does not allow temporal and causal relationships to be unambiguously interpreted. the study also relied entirely on self-report data, which should be supplemented in future studies with more precise analysis methods and data collection. in addition, it is theoretically and empirically relevant to note that future research should be done measuring bulimic behavior to complete the model of risk factors in the development of bn proposed by stice (1994; 2001). acknowledgment. we want to thank the grant given to our study (the mexican research group) by the national council of science and technology (conacyt) (reference number 84543). references abell, s.c., & richards, m. h. 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(2002). risk and maintenance factors for eating pathology: a meta-analytic review. psychological bulletin, 128, 825-848 stice, e., nemeroff, c., & shaw, h. (1996). a test of the dual pathway model of bulimia nervosa: evidence for restrained-eating and affect regulation mechanisms. journal of social and clinical psychology, 15, 340-363. stice, e., stewart a.w., & hammer l. d. (1998). risk factors for the emergence of childhood eating disturbances: a fiveyear prospective study. international journal of eating disorders, 25, 375-387. stice, e., akutagawa, d., gaggar, a., & agras, w. s. (2000a). negative affect moderates the relation between dieting and binge eating. international journal of eating disorders, 27, 218-229. stice, e., hayward, c., cameron, r., killen, j. d., & taylor, c. b. (2000b). body image and eating related factors predict onset of depression in female adolescents: a longitudinal study. journal of abnormal psychology, 109, 438-444. thelen, m.h., & cormier, j.f. (1995). desire to be thinner and weight control among children and their parents. behavior therapy, 26, 85-99. world health organization (who) (1999). the use and interpretation of anthropometry. technical report series. n 854. geneva:who about the authors: gilda gomezperesmitre (phd) is full time professor of the department of psychology at national autonomous university of mexico (unam) and head researcher of the area of study related to eating disorders, where she and her collaborators were pioneers on this subject. she has conducted several research projects and published several papers about detection and prevention of risk eating behaviors on eating disorders. address av. universidad 3004. col. copilco mexico d.f. cp. 04510. address for correspondence: gildag@servidor.unam.mx http://mx.mc508.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=gildag@servidor.unam.mx risk factors for dietary restraint in mexican and german men 122 burkard jaeger (phd) is full time professor and researcher on the department of psychosomatics and psychotherapy at hannover medical school. in the last years he has been the leading investigator of a research team focused on cross-cultural research on body image and other subjects related to eating disorders. he has published several papers and participated on several projects specialized in the field of eating disorders. address for correspondence: jaeger.burkard@mh-hannover.de gisela pineda garcia (phd) is professor and researcher on the department of social and administrative sciences at the autonomous university of baja california (uabc). she graduated with honors from the department of psychology at the national autonomous university of mexico (unam). she has published several papers about risk factors on eating disorders. address for further correspondence: gyspypg@yahoo.com.mx silvia platas acevedo (ma) is an assistant professor and graduate student in the department of psychology at the national autonomous university of mexico. she has actively participated on research projects related to eating disorders and actually she is working in her doctoral dissertation which central subject is child obesity. address for correspondence: romsip@yahoo.com.mx http://mx.mc508.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jaeger.burkard@mh-hannover.de http://mx.mc508.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=gyspypg@yahoo.com.mx country microsoft word 9. book review.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 150-152 www.ejop.org add – hidden obstacles: navigating the detours by karin windt original title in dutch: add-onzichtbare obstakels; van den berg publishers, almere enschede, the netherlands, 1st edition, 2009, 168 pages (paperback) reviewed by professor jessica hellings kansas university notable in the growing literature base on attentional difficulties, distractibility and impulsivity currently described and studied as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd), is that studies focusing on the non-hyperactive subtype of the disorder or attention deficit disorder (add) are relatively lacking. while the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders text revised, 4th edition includes the diagnostic category adhd, predominately inattentive type, much study is still needed of this disorder in terms of phenomenology, treatment and outcomes in individuals of all ages. in addition, nomenclature of this and other adhd subtypes is likely to change in the next edition of this diagnostic manual, anticipated in 2012. while adhd occurs more commonly in males, the inattentive form or add is thought to be more common in girls and women. add is more likely to be missed due to its lack of overt disruption in the school setting and general lack of awareness of the diagnosis. therefore, ms. windt’s introspective and sensitive contribution is most valuable. the author starts the text off well, with a conversation between herself and a friend, explaining her subjective experience of add. “well, adhd is different from add, but just as serious”. no scientific or other references are used at all in the text, although the author has clearly read broadly on the topic. individuals who possibly add – hidden obstacles: navigating the detours 151 have add are urged to seek medical advice, referral and treatment by psychiatrists. readers are alerted to a possible brain dopamine deficiency, “a deficiency of a substance in your brain that helps you deal with tedious matters”. the issue of comorbidity is also included, “this add demanded so much energy/mental effort on my part that i became mentally exhausted for the first time at a young age and developed depression at the age of 19.” indeed, the “racing thoughts” and “mood swings” in the comprehensive lists of characteristics of add presented in the book may relate not only to frustration and anxiety, but also to possible bipolar mood disorder comorbidity. such issues of comorbidity present not only to individuals seeking help in clinical practice, but also as possible diagnostic confounds to their treating professionals. the author includes information on learning disorder comorbidity, “… my developmental arithmetic disorder meant that having to redo a year of school was a very real possibility almost every year”. the language in the text is both sensitive and deliberately simply written as well as and easy to understand. also, as clearly stated, “to assist those with concentration problems or dyslexia, this publication uses a larger font and expanded spacing”. the many lists of symptoms are useful, including symptom comparisons between add and adhd, “ways to hide add” and “consequences of hiding add”. some other lists are “dopamine-enhancing characteristics of add children”, and “greatest problems for add adolescents”. chapter 10 has a good list of strategies aimed at helping the child with add. the discussion of add, personality style and insecurity in relationships, including intimacy is important. individuals with this disorder may be empowered by such knowledge and self-realization. another important piece is the author’s inclusion of proneness to addiction, as well as details of her own personal strategies to try and prevent this, for example, “…if i buy alcohol, i buy tiny bottles…”. as usual, the challenge is to not ascribe every perceived strength or weakness to add. at times, one wants the author to forget the add in her life experiences and just be who she is. however, her genuine effort to focus on add as part of her awareness of these events comes across as aimed to help others be aware of possible add in themselves. some of the descriptions and experiences may be colored by social anxiety and past depression, also. perhaps without these qualities and experiences, the author may not have written this valuable book. the book europe’s journal of psychology 152 covers both good and bad aspects of add self-realization, and useful strategies to accommodate to allow maximum achievement with it. for example she states, “my first priority is to figure out what works best for me”. “this is in turn enables me to give the best of myself to others and to relax and recharge”; and “i need help managing my finances”. the person with add “lives from distraction to distraction”, is frequently considered “lazy or stupid” at school, and the author points out that due to unawareness of the condition, individuals may not mention it to their family doctor. “even in 2008, large numbers of people…suffer from add in silence”, and children with add are not receiving special help in school. the increasing demands of adult life and the need to multitask are discussed with sensitivity, balancing failures with optimism, for example, “add-prone individuals are an essential part of every society”, and “more schools are willing to treat students as individuals”. “persons with add have reason to be proud”, and likewise the author should be extremely proud of this work. readers should include interested individuals, parents and potential candidates for the diagnosis and comorbidities, educators and professionals and researchers serving individuals of all ages. it will be interesting to compare future publications and findings from research with this present work. page 145 includes the website for the add netherlands foundation at www.sadd.nl, and english and dutch versions are available. the author also organizes a national add day in holland. disclosure: the reviewer reports previous consultation to, and study funding by, abbott laboratories, inc., and study drug and placebo supplied by janssen pharmaceutica. other past funding agencies include national institutes of mental health, and national institute of child health and human development. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 8-14 www.ejop.org the intrinsic diversity of creativ ity research: interv iew with prof. todd lubart by vlad glăveanu ejop editor professor todd lubart’s past and present work on creativ ity is a perfect example of how dynamic and multi-faceted this area of psychology really is. creative phenomena draw on cognitive, personality, emotional, motivational and social processes at once and creativ ity studies can be found at the intersection between different psychological fields: cognitive, social and personality, organisational, developmental, educational, indiv idual differences and so on. in this interv iew professor lubart discusses his creativ ity research projects and how they evolved in a constant dialogue between personal interests and opportunities for research and collaboration. creativ ity is portrayed as a heterogeneous domain where the most interesting breakthroughs happen ‘at the borders’. here, those who make an i mpact are the ones ready to take risks and exploit the domain’s intrinsic diversity and the possibilities for creative thinking associated with it. todd lubart is professor at the university paris descartes where he directs the activity of the laboratoire adaptations travail individu (lati). he earned his phd from yale university in 1994 under the supervision of robert sternberg and soon after that moved to the university of paris descartes where he became an assistant professor in 1995 and then professor of psychology in 2002. he was a member of the institut universitaire de france (2005-2010). his work on creativity is extensive and includes approximately 75 publications, articles, books and book chapters covering various aspects of the phenomenon: creative process, individual differences, role of cognition and emotion, environmental and cultural factors, etc. among his coauthored books, “defying the crowd: cultivating creativity in a culture of conformity” (1995, with r. sternberg), “psychologie de la créativité” (2003) and the co-edited volume “models of intelligence: international perspectives” (2003, with r. sternberg and j. lautrey). professor lubart was responsible for several research grants on creativity and co-organised several conferences or symposiums dedicated to this topic. his current work develops a multivariate approach to creativity. http://www.ejop.org/ the intrinsic diversity of creativity research 9 � address for correspondence: prof. todd lubart, institut de psychologie université rené descartes (paris 5), 71 avenue edouard vaillant 92774 boulogne-billancourt e-mail: todd.lubart@univ-paris5.fr ejop: thank you for accepting our inv itation for an interv iew. your work for many years had focused on the topic of creativ ity and indiv idual differences, could you tell me how did you come to work in this particular area? todd lubart: i started by studying various topics in psychology actually, first psycholinguistics and then deductive logical reasoning and inductive reasoning, and then i started to look for a kind of problem solv ing topic to study more in-depth for my masters degree or phd, and had the opportunity to find creativ ity among the subjects offered. and this particular topic was kind of on my line of evolv ing interests, but i was also fascinated by it because i initially studied v isual art as my first discipline before i got involved in psychology. and so during about seven years i had done studies in v isual arts and considered going to an art school before i decided differently. but then creativ ity made me go back to some of my previous interests since some of the things i was studying involved people making drawings and other similar products. and in fact, when i actually started psychology, i was more oriented towards a generalist approach, not an indiv idual differences one in particular. but when i got involved in that reasoning study, on inductive and deductive reasoning, i was in fact looking at people who deviated from the general logical reasoning model. and i got interested in what they were thinking and in the indiv idual differences associated with this. however in the end, when the moment came for me to choose a masters and phd topic my decision also had to do with the chance of having creativ ity research proposed by the university. ejop: so this kind of converged with your many interests, including your work in v isual arts and then reasoning. but did you know from before about creativ ity or the idea just came then and there? todd lubart: well i can say that i wasn’t specifically thinking about creativ ity until i looked at the list of topics proposed that included many choices, different professors to work with. and at that moment i thought that creativ ity seemed to me to be the most interesting. there were other choices that were not of zero interest but this was the most appealing. and then, when i came to work on it i saw it is even more fascinating because i am not a purely cognitive-oriented person, so i was interested in some social aspects, etc., and in creativ ity in fact you kind of have a mix of cognitive and other types of factors, like emotional, social, motivational and so on. europe’s journal of psychology 10 � so that was a good choice for me because it gave me the chance to move around within the same topic. ejop: you said you also have a background in v isual arts. do you think this influences the way you came to think about creativ ity? i s it important for you and your work that you know both ‘sides’ of creativ ity, as practice and as a research topic? todd lubart: i don’t know, it’s hard to say, i don’t know what could have been, what would have been if things were different. i also don’t think that i am consciously considering my v isual arts training when i am studying creativ ity but i would say that the basic point of departure for my work on creativ ity was the artistic process. so it was probably not a random choice. and i was mostly into activ ities such as drawing and painting and that was where i ’ve put more effort. and i was in touch with some students in art and art graduates or professors who were judging the products, i was also in some art workshops at the university where the participants were these more advanced art students and just after that i extended my interests to literature, to writing as forms of creativ ity, and then to other things. notably now i am quite interested in design, which is a bit connected to the artistic stuff. so art definitively is a connecting point but i do not sit and think about my previous personal experience. ejop: i understand. you approached a lot of aspects of creativ ity in your work, as you mentioned already: from the cognitive to the social, from organisational to developmental and educational, the study of giftedness and so on. and now you were talking a bit about a kind of ‘art nucleus’. what would you say are the red threads going through your work? do you think in terms of an overarching project or do you have all these different projects and are keeping them a bit separated? todd lubart: i had shifting interests: so at one point i was interested more in cognitive factors and studying them, at another i was in a more detailed personality traits phase, one moment i was in a more social environment phase; but ultimately now i had an opportunity to think about this because here in france we do a thing called ‘habilitation’ so it’s a moment when people are encouraged to put all their work together and make a master plan. so i was able to kind of put it together around the multivariate, multi-faceted approach to creativ ity in the sense that i was all this time exploring the different facets of the phenomenon. and i kind of had for each facet a timeline, a kind of curve of my activ ity on each of them. and there were opportunities that presented themselves that made me be more interested in one facet compared to another, when some collaborators were available. and so the whole picture is diverse, leading me to move in and out of interest for particular facets, each with its timeline of activ ity. and currently i am preoccupied a little bit the intrinsic diversity of creativity research 11 � more with trying to connect the factors or facets with the creative process, in adults in different domains. and this work has an aspect of identifying dimensions and ways of training what can be trained to enhance creativ ity in different domains. i t is based on identifying the profile of factors at play for one type of creativ ity or another. and with children we have a project of assessing creative potential again in different domains. we have developed a new battery of creativ ity measures for children, called epoc (evaluation of potential for creativ ity). so i am kind of in a phase that is very much assessment related. ejop: and with educational applicability. todd lubart: yes, educational applicability or educational implications. for children and adults depending on the profile of the person and comparing it with the kind of profile that is ideal for creative expression in their domain. so this is the stage i am at. ejop: well it has been a kind of organic growth of your interests i see. but at the same time you now have this particular focus. you also rev iewed several creativ ity models in your work and you are obviously preoccupied with ‘modelling’ creativ ity, taking into account domain specificity. i t is interesting that you mentioned the children and adults focus. talking about continuities in creative expression, do you see creativ ity in childhood and adulthood as two completely different things or are you concerned with the links between them? todd lubart: oh they are not two different things. they are linked, connected, and the basic model is the same, but the manifestation is a little different because in adults it gets more domain and expertise-linked. and in children there is a domain specificity that can be detected from quite early on but the domains are broader, and so not as detailed and specific as in the case of adults. but ultimately i have the same ideas about the factors involved, the process, etc. ejop: so the ‘content’ elements are different, the ‘input’ and ‘output’ as it were. todd lubart: yes, that’s it. the nature of what is ‘entering’ for example from the environment and so on, and what is ‘coming out’, the kind of production they make, and also the way that others are reacting to the work is different for children and adults, but it is globally the same basic idea. ejop: and in terms of research, what are the methods you usually employ to study creativ ity? especially now that you said you are in an assessment phase. europe’s journal of psychology 12 � todd lubart: well mostly we ask people, children and adults, to produce works and when they produce the works we try to measure or observe certain things in the process. and then we get a final production, which we submit to a panel of judges, using consensual assessment, and we relate the outcome of their evaluation to other indiv idual differences variables that we measure off-line, which concern personality or cognition. this is the basic technique. but i should say that my indiv idual differences approach became even more focused when i came over to paris, because at that moment i joined a research group which was 100% working on indiv idual differences, with more elaborate models of how these differences are constructed and evolve and so on. so through these contacts with people around me i’ve got more and more focused on this aspect. ejop: at the same time you have edited many book chapters on creativ ity and culture along the years. and it is interesting to notice how they sit together: on the one hand indiv idual differences and on the other cultural differences, the micro and the macro level. todd lubart: well indiv iduals obviously reflect a lot from their cultural environment. i t’s true that the culture work is more at a macro level and i don’t exclusively work at an indiv idual level. in fact i initially started working on the topic of creativ ity and culture when i was interested in the social environment, i was in a ‘less indiv idual’ phase, and at that time it was very little written on that topic. i t became quite popular afterwards and so i would have probably left it at some point, after an initial entry, but then i had continuous solicitation for this, it was a like a snowball effect. so i kept coming back to it, trying to get a little further on it. and then obviously when i came over here in france i was myself experiencing a new culture and was also getting more in contact with various people in europe and other places too that put me into the kind of situation that brings this cultural aspect back in, back to my mind. ejop: i t is interesting how you said you picked some ideas up and then left them at some point, at least for a while; it reminds me of the investment theory of creativ ity you proposed with robert sternberg. actually i was curious to know if you still work on that idea or have integrated it somehow in your current research. i know that the seeds of the multivariate approach were present in there. todd lubart: yes in that model there is the multivariate approach which i obviously continue to use for structuring my thinking about creativ ity. then there was also the more specific investment concept and that is something in fact i am reflecting on at the moment: the connection between investment, economic thinking and the creative person as a decision-maker, choosing where to go next. there were a few the intrinsic diversity of creativity research 13 � times when i worked on this occasionally, so i did keep it alive and sporadically there were requests to give an update on it. and chance has it that i might go back to that idea since i am currently involved in a teaching situation where economics and psychology are brought together, in a masters programme. so it just so happens that in creativ ity there is always this possibility of working on different areas at the same time. and so it works out... ejop: to continue ‘investing’ in the investment model. todd lubart: yes, yes, right, because now i am suddenly in contact with a lot of economists and so there might be some new things to work on there. ejop: so i understand that your professional trajectory had to do with an interaction between your interests and the opportunities you encountered: of teaching, of writing, of researching and so on. after working so much on creativ ity, what do you find to be the most interesting parts of this work, and also the most challenging parts? what do you like best? todd lubart: oh, well, i like best working on developing some theoretical ideas and trying to think of how we can design an empirical study that could test these ideas. and i also like the data analysis phase because it is actually a rather inventive or exploratory phase, usually. so i like these phases of research. and then creativ ity is a topic that, compared to other topics of psychology, is not that much studied. but there is a growing number of studies, kind of an exponential growth of creativ ity studies. and in any case, within the field of creativ ity i was always interested in those topics that were the most ambiguous. i don’t know for what reason but perhaps because they give the most leeway, the most room for moving around, trying whatever you like to try, compared to those topics where, after a certain time and number of studies, you get into a mode of detailed testing and finding that last brick that is missing from the nice wall that was built. but that is not my cup of tea. ejop: in creativ ity studies there are bricks everywhere, but no final wall. todd lubart: yes, right. i would say that in the scientific method there is an aspect that is quite technical and rational and detail-oriented but there are also phases and topics where things are a little more ‘artistic’. and even in analysis, people say for example that exploratory factor analysis is a little bit of an artistic tool, compared to other techniques were everyone will get to the exact same result. in factor analysis it is not completely sure that with the same dataset everyone gets the same result. i t’s a more exploratory, a little bit ‘artistic’, treatment of the data. and those europe’s journal of psychology 14 � were always the kind of topics that i was attracted to. luckily i also have a lot of interesting collaborators and so when something gets to ‘sticky’ or difficult than i call up on somebody who i might have met, who might have ideas. i am not really much of a lone worker. ejop: in the end, do you have any words of advice for young scholars or students working on creativ ity? any concluding thoughts? todd lubart: well i think that for any topic, but i suppose you can apply this to creativ ity, that you obviously want to know what has been done but you don’t want to get too stuck in the current thinking. and that is true for any search for a creative idea; one could apply it or should apply it even more to thinking about creativ ity. so the idea would be to take the risk to go in a new direction, counter the current thinking, and try out new things. because in the worst case you wasted your time or finally don’t get a result that was worthy to see the light of day but... ejop: the voyage was worth making. todd lubart: yes. exactly. ejop: thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(1), pp. 62-80 www.ejop.org an investigation of the effective factors on students' motivational beliefs: the case of iranian students zhaleh taheri university of allameh tabatabaie abstract this study explored the effective factors on students' motivational beliefs (familial, individual, academic and environmental) among iranian students. the data are derived from a survey using a standard questionnaire with adequate validity and reliability. the participants of the study were selected from high school students in tehran (total = 518; female = 293 (56.6%) and male = 225 (43.4%)) through random sampling and within the age group of 15-18 in may 2010. the data was analyzed with the help of independent sample tests, pearson correlations and multiple regressions. the results revealed that there is a significant relationship between the above mentioned factors and students' motivational beliefs. the effective factors, in the order of their importance are: environmental factors, individual factors and academic factors. it was observed that familial factors do not have a significant effect on students' motivational beliefs; however this result was different between male and female participants. keywords: motivational beliefs, automatic strategies, attitude toward school, internal and external control, students. motivation is one of the most important elements of our mental life, playing a significant role in learning and achievement. in addition to aptitude, which is one of the important and defining factors in students' learning, there are other effective factors as well. for instance, we can refer to motivational beliefs. motivation is an internal phenomenon which activates behavior over a time span, directs it and sustains it (murphy & alexander, 2000; pintrich, 2003; schunk, 2000; stipek, 2000). students who have motivation for learning use higher cognitive processes in learning (driscoll, 2000; jetton & alexander, 2001; pintrich, 2003). generally speaking, there are two types of motivation for learning and development, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. when people do something to get rewarded or to avoid punishment, http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 63 they are motivated externally. in contrast, motivation is of an intrinsic type when people perform an action following their internal inclination for successfully fulfilling it and ignore the fact that it may be followed by reward or punishment. the positive results of intrinsic motivation outweigh those of extrinsic motivation because intrinsic motivation is a psychological state and occurs when people know themselves to be determined and competent. both perceptions comprise the concept of control. in the first case, i.e. self-determination, it means having an opportunity for controlling and in the second one, i.e. competence, it means capability of controlling (moore, 2009; wright, 2009; kruse, 2004; ryan & deci, 2002). motivational beliefs are a series of personal and social criteria to which people refer in order to perform an action (pintrich, 2000). their study includes different constructs which belong to different theoretical models such as attribution theory, self-efficiency theory, goal theory and intrinsic motivation theory (vermer, boekaerts and seegers, 2000). although there are many effective factors influencing students' motivational beliefs, they can be classified into four general categories: familial, individual, academic and environmental. the decline of learning motivation is a growing problem in today‟s world. research findings show that learning motivation decreases during adolescence (maeher & anderman, 1994) and, to be more precise, it reduces during the time between primary school and high school (slavin, 2001). in determining the reason for the decline of motivation, it is supposed that students after grade school spend less time with their teacher and may have less opportunity to have a close relationship with their teacher; so this aspect can affect their motivational beliefs (deci & ryan, 2000). familial factors concerning familial factors, we can refer to the control by parents, the expectations of parents regarding children‟s success, the way of raising children, the quality of the parents-child relationship and the socioeconomic situation of the family. findings of past research reveal that family environment has a significant effect on students' motivational beliefs. in other words it affects their efficiency and also their social goals (lens, 2005). the authoritative way of training children through kindness and closeness and through clear and obvious rules plays a significant role in students‟ motivation and learning efficiency. the easy-going or strict parents have a negative impact on their children‟s learning processes (ryan, 2001). as a mark of the authoritarian parenting style, parents force children to follow them, apply severe limitations and controls on them, and have slight verbal exchange with each other. in contrast, other parents encourage children to independency and have more verbal exchange with them and support them. what characterizes a neglectful effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 64 parenting style is the fact that parents may not involve themselves in their children‟s life. parents may not know for example where their children are or what they are doing. finally, as an indulgent parenting style, parents interfere more in their children‟s life and limit them slightly. such parents let their children do whatever they want (epstein & sanders, 2002). there has been a lot of research done on the difference between middle class and working class families regarding raising children (natriello, 2002). most of the children from low income families are raised in a way that, in contrast to the middle class children, is less in-sync with what is expected from them in school. when middle class children enter school, they are good at following instructions, explaining reasons and understanding them, comprehending difficult language and using it; while working class children have little experience in all these fields (natriello, 2002). middle class parents expect their children to be more successful, while working class and lower class parents probably expect them to be more well-behaved (heyman & snook, 2000). the students from families with lower socioeconomic situation are more likely to quit school before entering high school (ekstrom et al, 1986). learning motivation is thus constrained by the quality of the relationship between parents and children. the perceived ability of children and the family environment act as important motivational sources for the person (ryan & patrick, 2001). individual factors individual factors play a defining role in the students' motivational beliefs. individual factors refer to factors which are about the person him or herself. considering these factors, we can refer here to learning efficiency, perceived competence, perceived control, attributions, achievement goals and attitudes toward school. personal self-efficacy refers to a person's beliefs about his/her effectiveness or ability in a particular field. investigations show that self-efficacy is important and positively predicts student's self-involvement and self-regulation in a learning session (zimmerman , 2000). students who are confident in their learning and writing abilities, are more likely to use successful cognitive and organizational strategies. these strategies involve deep cognitive processing of materials taught during the learning course (radosevich et al, 2004; zimmerman, 2000; pintrich, 2003). students‟ perception of their ability has a significant role for their involvement in academic activities. therefore, teachers who attempt to improve the learning europe’s journal of psychology 65 motivation of students should not ignore the role of education in providing an opportunity for understanding the real ability of students (weiner, 2005). research shows that there is a positive and significant correlation between perceived ability and learning achievement (lucangeli & scruggs, 2003). students with higher control perception also have higher intrinsic motivation, try more, mostly use self-regulatory strategies, and generally feel much more control over their life (perry, 2001). students‟ cognitive attitudes toward school also have a significant relationship with learning achievement. students with high learning achievement become interested in school and have a positive attitude toward school, while a negative attitude might be the result of the weakness in dealing with school (majoribanks, 1992). academic factors the other class of effective factors on students' motivational beliefs is the academic one. in thinking about these factors, we can refer to educational method, learning program or goals and expectations, educational materials, the reward and punishment system set in place, emotional support of students, mutual respect, teacher's enthusiasm and behaviour, teacher and student interactions and assessment method. most of the families consider the weakness of adolescents' motivational beliefs to be due to education and especially due to teachers. the reason for their belief is the difference between „love‟ for education in the first years of entering school and the „hatred‟ for the school environment during grade school and high school (boekaerts, 2002). providing the reason for reduced educational motivation from primary to high school, slavin (2001) assumes that because students in grade school and later spend less time with their teacher, and they may have less opportunity to communicate closely with their teacher, this can have a significant influence on their motivational beliefs. intrinsic motivation for learning increases through using interesting materials and supplementary materials. for instance, teachers can maintain the interest of the students to learn different disciplines through using overhead projectors, graphs, movies, shows and materials alike. using a computer can also increase the intrinsic motivation of most of the students (jetton & alexander, 2001). for the motivation system to be successful, the teacher must provide opportunities not only to reward successes but also to make up for the failures. so, teachers must insist on establishing positive values by providing successful models, improving existing capacities by training for attributing the successes to attempt and failures to lack of attempt, and developing new capacities by training useful skills and approaches to learning and study; they must also guarantee equal and appropriate effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 66 opportunities (such as avoidance of unfair training based on non-logical prejudice) for all the students. without guiding and suitable calculation, the motivational system cannot properly perform its duties regarding rewarding or making up for the failures (kermmer, 1990). motivating adolescents is directly affected by some environmental factors related to school and home, such as communicating with teachers and parents (lamsen, 1994; quoted by ryan & deci , 2002). the way in which a teacher assesses his/her students can be effective in reducing their educational failure. teachers' grades have great motivational value. a teacher can increase learners‟ motivational level through repeating tests. however, a point that must be mentioned regarding tests and exams is using them as a means for reflection by students about their level of learning rather than as a means of threat and punishment (woolfolk, 2004). in a study, keith & cool (1992, quoted from woolfolk, 2004) examined the effects of several important factors such as the ability of learners, training of the teachers, and motivation about learning in more than 25000 students. the most important factor related positively and directly with learning rates was the capability of learners. then, there were two other important factors, i.e. training the teacher and motivation for learning. concluding their studies, keith and cool wrote “it seems that students who are studying in a school with high quality and high level plans enjoy more incentive. students who have high educational incentive accept more educational activity, do more homework and consequently achieve more success". environmental factors the other type effective factors influencing students‟ motivational beliefs are environmental factors, among which we can refer to interaction with friends and peers, job opportunities and socio-cultural values. interaction with peers is considered an important source of support for the growth of adolescents. peer support is related to the self-esteem of the person (harter, 1998). an adolescent who does not have a satisfactory relationship with his/her peers is more likely to face problems in the field of learning and compatibility in school. it has been revealed that student‟s friends can affect whether or not s/he quits school, is absent from school, gets lower grades, and/or has lower motivation and a less positive attitude towards school. on the other hand, friends can help each other in entering college (ekstrom et al, 1986). the impact of the socio-cultural factors and conditions on students' educational motivation needs to be considered. the aspiration of having a job with high social europe’s journal of psychology 67 value in the future increases the self-esteem of the student and leads to higher motivation, feelings of security and a stabilized identity. on the contrary, if society declares that it does not need them and employment is impossible, students will be doubtful and confused and they will suffer from lack of motivation and the fall of selfesteem (osipow, 1986). therefore, as it was mentioned before, based upon theoretical principles and research, the researcher has divided the effective factors on motivational beliefs into four factors, namely familial, individual, academic and environmental. method participants the participants in this study were 518 students including 293 females (56.6 %) and 225 males (43.4 %) aged 15 -18 with the mean age of 16.16 years old and standard deviation of 0.93. 41.1 percent of the students were in the first grade in high school, 29.2 percent in the second grade and 29.7 percent in the third grade. materials considering the method, the researcher first provided a questionnaire to analyze the views of experts (specialists in the fields of psychology, educational psychology and study planning). then, after a poll of experts, the effective factors influencing the improvement of students' motivational beliefs were revealed. in the next step, standard questionnaires focused on these factors (grouped in the four categories described above) were designed and administered to students in may of 2010. the materials used in this research involve the following: 1motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq), 2the school attitude assessment survey _ revised (saas_r), 3rotter‟s internal external control scale, 4researcher designed questionnaire for assessing academic factors, 5researcher designed questionnaire for assessing social values and culture 6family socio-economic status questionnaire. mslq scales tap into three broad areas: (1) value (intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation, task value, e.g. “in a class like this, i prefer course material that really challenges me so i can learn new things”), (2) expectancy (control beliefs about learning, self-efficacy, e.g. “i'm certain i can understand the most difficult material”); effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 68 and (3) affect (test anxiety). the learning strategies section is comprised of nine scales which can be distinguished as cognitive, metacognitive, and resource management strategies. the cognitive strategies scales include (a) rehearsal, (b) elaboration (e.g. “i try to relate ideas in this subject to those in other courses whenever possible”), (c) organization, and (d) critical thinking. metacognitive strategies are assessed by one large scale that includes planning, monitoring, and regulating strategies. resource management strategies include (a) managing time and study environment; (b) effort management, (c) peer learning, and (d) help seeking. scale reliabilities are robust, and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated good factor structure. in addition, the instrument showed reasonable predictive validity to the actual course performance of students. the reliability of each area of this scale for an iranian student population was as follows: value (0.72), expectancy (0.73), affect (0.72), cognitive strategies (0.71), and metacognitive strategies (0.69). the saas-r measures five factors: academic self-perceptions, attitude toward teachers, attitude toward school, goal valuation, and motivation/self-regulation. mccoach and siegle (2003) reported that the saas-r was developed to explore the relationship between these five factors and scholastic underachievement in academically able students. the saas-r employed a likert type agreement scale ranging from 1 to 7, where 1 represented "strongly disagree" and 7 represented "strongly agree". it contains 43 items. a confirmatory factor analysis of the saas-r indicated that the data provided a reasonable fit to a model with five correlated factors (mccoach & siegle, 2003). each of the five factors in the sample has reliability estimates ranging from 0.89 to 0.95 (mccoach & siegle, 2003). the reliability of each of the five factors for the iranian population was as follows: academic selfperceptions (0.72), attitude toward teachers (0.87), attitude toward school (0.90), goal valuation (0.77), and motivation/self-regulation (0.86). the reliability of the full scale was 0.87. rotter's internal-external control scale has a forced-choice format with an internal belief pitted against an external belief. for example, on one item participants must choose whether people‟s misfortunes are due to their own mistakes (internal) or due to bad luck (external). this scale has 29 items and the items on the scale are classifiable into six subcategories on the basis of the types of needs that are portrayed and the characteristics of the described goals. the six categories are: academic recognition, social recognition, love and affection, dominance, sociopolitical beliefs and life philosophy. for assessing academic factors, the researcher designed a 43-item questionnaire with a 5-point likert type of answer. this scale measures seven factors: teacher‟s europe’s journal of psychology 69 behavior, teacher and student interactions, education method, assessment method, reward and punishment system, learning program or goals and expectations, and educational materials. the reliability of the scale regarding iranian students was 0.95. for assessing environmental factors (including social values and culture), the researcher constructed an 11-item questionnaire and employed a 7-point likert type agreement scale ranging from 1 to 7, where 1 represented "strongly disagree" and 7 represented "strongly agree". for example, "in our culture, joblessness and laziness are considered inappropriate". the reliability (alpha) of this scale in the case of iranian students was 0.69. the family socio-economic status questionnaire asked for information about the education and profession of parents, housing, car ownership and facilities which parents can provide for their children. the reliability for an iranian sample was 0.86. in conclusion, the variables of the study and their corresponding measurement were: instruments variables motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mslq) motivational beliefs family socio-economic status questionnaire familial factors the school attitude assessment survey _ revised (saas_r) rotter‟s internal_ external control scale individual factors researcher designed questionnaire academic factors researcher designed questionnaire environmental factors it needs to be mentioned that the validity and reliability of the questionnaires were analyzed and confirmed in iran and foreign countries (pintrich, mc keachie, smith & garcia, 1993). after data collection, the results were analyzed using the spss software. descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) were used for the description of data, and inferential statistics (independent sample test, pearson correlation and multiple regression) were used for analysis. effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 70 results the statistical analysis shows that the mean of female students' motivational beliefs is higher than the mean of male students' motivational beliefs and the difference between male and female students is statistically significant (p< 0.05). to put it in another words, girls have higher motivational beliefs in comparison to boys (table 1). the average of the scores of students' motivational beliefs in the first, second and third grades were similar and the difference among them was not statistically significant (p>0.05) (table 2). table 1: the comparison of the students' motivational beliefs with regard to sex p value d.f t sd m n sex 0.036 497 2.0999 21.47 158.34 282 female 23.77 154.07 217 male table 2: the comparison of the students' motivational beliefs with regard to grade p value d.f f sd m n grade 0.170 2.496 1.777 23.781 157.25 201 first 22.558 153.63 148 second 20.724 158.27 150 third 22.571 156.48 499 total results show there is a significant relationship between students' motivational beliefs and academic, individual (attitude toward school and internal control) and environmental factors (culture and social values) (p<0.01) and their relationship with familial factors (socio-economic situation) was not significant (p>0.05) (table 3). according to the statistics, there is a significant relationship between male students' motivational beliefs and academic, individual (attitude toward school and internal control), and environmental factors (culture and social values) (p<0.01) and also with familial factors (socio-economic situation) (p<0.05) (table 4). europe’s journal of psychology 71 table 3: correlation matrix of students' motivational beliefs with academic, individual, environmental and familial factors familial factors environmental factors individual factors academic factors motivational beliefs variables 1 motivational beliefs 1 0.248(**) academic factors 1 0.266(**) 0.426(**) individual factors 1 0.526(**) 0.160(**) 0.440(**) environmental factors 1 -0.065 -0.106(*) 0.072 -0.002 familial factors (*) significance in the level of 0.05 and (**) significance in the level of 0.01 table 4: correlation matrix of students' motivational beliefs (male) with academic, individual, environmental and familial factors familial factors environmenta l factors individual factors academi c factors motivational beliefs variables 1 motivational beliefs 1 0.220(**) academic factors 1 0.331(**) 0.425(**) individual factors 1 0.631(**) 0.167(*) 0.447(**) environmental factors 1 -0.218(**) -0.242(**) -0.129 -0.157(*) familial factors (*) significance in the level of 0.05 and (**) significance in the level of 0.01 the relationship between female students' motivational beliefs with academic, individual (attitude toward school and internal control), and environmental factors (culture and social values) is significant at the level of p<0.01 and is not significant in the case of familial factors (socio-economic status) (p>0.05) (see table 5). effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 72 table 5: correlation matrix of students' motivational beliefs (female) with academic, individual, environmental and familial factors familial factors environmental factors individual factors academic factors motivational beliefs variables 1 motivational beliefs 1 0.242(**) academic factors 1 0.252(**) 0.432(**) individual factors 1 0.414(**) 0.099 0.427(**) environmental factors 1 0.025 0.039 -0.026 0.097 familial factors (*) significance in the level of 0.05 and (**) significance in the level of 0.01 the results of the linear and simultaneous regression revealed that the effect of academic, individual (attitude toward school), and environmental (culture and social values) on students' motivational beliefs is statistically significant (p<0.01), while other factors (age, grade, external control and socio-economic status of the family) are not statistically significant. also, the effective factors influencing students' motivational beliefs in the order of importance are as following: environmental factors, individual factors, academic factors, educational grade, familial factors and age (table 6). table 6: the impact of factors on students' motivational beliefs p_ value t beta b entered variables 0.754 -0.314 -0.022 -0.527 age 0.363 0.911 0.064 1.746 educational grade 0.003 3.010 0.128 0.95 academic factors 0.000 4.629 0.222 0.236 individual factors 0.000 6.997 0.336 0.917 environmental fact. 0.505 0.668 0.028 0.168 familial factors note: the three sections in the table show the steps of entering variables into the analysis discussion the results of the survey administered to students revealed that the most important effective factors influencing their motivational beliefs can be put in the following order: environmental factors (culture and social values), individual factors (attitude toward school), academic factors and familial factors (socio-economic status). it europe’s journal of psychology 73 further revealed that the effective factors influencing male students' motivation are in the following order: environmental factors (culture and social values), individual factors (attitude toward school), academic factors, and familial factors (socioeconomic status). the effective factors influencing female students' motivation factors are in the following order: environmental factors (culture and social values), individual factors (attitude toward school), academic factors, individual factors (attributions) and familial factors (socio-economic status). it seems the relation between the motivational beliefs of students and academic factors is meaningful because teachers provide an effective training environment and fulfill their training part. they play an important role in creating the incentive in young learners. in the academic environment, pupils develop their cognitive capabilities and competence and attain the knowledge and problem solving skills that are necessary for efficient cooperation in the greater society. in the school and training environment, the knowledge and thinking skills of students are evaluated continuously and compared socially. by achieving the cognitive skills required, pupils attain an increasingly feeling of their mental efficiency. most social factors apart from official training (such as modeling the cognitive skills of peers, social comparing with the performance of other students, increasing the educational motivation by goals and positive motives and interpretations of coaches for the successes and failures of the student, thus reflecting the desirability and undesirability of their capabilities) will influence the judgments of students about their mental self-efficiency. therefore, teacher and variables of class environment offer the general framework for the motivational beliefs of students. this conclusion is compatible with studies of ryan (2001) and ryan and deci (2002). the results of the research for females were the contrasting those for males. in other words, the impact of academic factors on female students' motivational beliefs was statistically significant. this finding is similar to zimmerman (2000), ryan & deci (2002) and wigfield (2006)'s research findings. however winnie-reid (1996) and miltiadou (1999)'s research did not show any difference between male and female students regarding motivational beliefs. gender differences in the field of education and motivational beliefs are not due to biological factors. but it seems that perception of sexual roles and clichés, incorrect perception of abilities, lack of skill or preparedness, inequality in teaching methods, models and educational opportunities, and lower expectations are among the factors which affect gender differences based on the transference of socio-cultural values through media, governmental organizations, social organizations, home and school organizations (schunk & pajares, 2004). the reason effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 74 one can think of for lack of influence of academic factors on the motivational beliefs of male students seems to be the fact that males, compared with females, may not care much about the behaviors of the teacher, about the training method, evaluation method and interaction and personal communication with their teacher. if a teacher behaves badly with a female student, and punishes her in the classroom, and criticizes her, she will be hurt severely, she might not even have any motivation to come back to school; while such behavior with a male may not be followed by such severe reactions. female students care much more for having higher grades, for communicating friendly with their teacher as well as for the training method and behavior of teacher than males. such differences of course are true only on average. therefore, the above mentioned aspects can be a reason for lack of influence of academic factors on the motivational beliefs of males (schunk & pajares, 2004). it seems that the reason for the significance of the relationship between students' motivational beliefs and individual factors (attitude toward school and attributions) is due to the defining role of individual factors in students' motivational beliefs. cognitive theorists believe that the perspectives of the person are the source of his/her motivation; and his/her behavior is made and directed by goals, plans, expectations and attributions about himself/herself. they also believe that behavior is defined by our thought and not simply by past rewards and punishments. most of current cognitive theories (such as attribution theory, self-efficiency theory, goal theory and intrinsic motivation theory) have a great emphasis on mental structures and organizing experiences. according to this approach, motivation is the result of a person‟s learned beliefs about individual values, abilities, goals and expectations of the person for acquiring success or failure and positive and negative feelings resulting from self-regulatory processes. the concept of influence of attitude toward school on the motivational beliefs of students, male and female, can be explained such that motivational beliefs of students are influenced by the interaction between many variables. some are influenced by the student itself, some are related to his/her family, peers, society and culture and the remaining are influenced by school and training system and teacher; so that these factors are not separate from each other, but are interacting. today, both families and teachers and school attendants emphasize the value of education and this may create a positive motivation for students toward the school because they may attain this belief that they can have a good job and social situation only through higher education (weiner, 2005). therefore, the attitude of the students toward school and their attributions can constitute a general framework for their motivational beliefs. this finding is similar to those of schunk (1984), bandura (1986), ames (1990), wigfield & karpathian (1991), europe’s journal of psychology 75 majoribanks (1992), lyon (1993), weiner (1994), maccoach (2002), maccoach &siegle (2003) and pintrich (2003). as the results of this research revealed, there is no significant relationship between students' motivational beliefs and the socio-economic status of the family. the same results were found for female students, but there was a reverse and significant relationship between males' motivational beliefs and socio-economic status. in other words, those who had a lower socio-economic status of their family had higher motivational beliefs. the reason seems to be this: males from a lower socio – economic background have more motivation for studying because they can attain their goals only by education. males care more for having a good profession and higher social situation than females and believe these purposes are achieved only through education (sirin, 2003). the results of the research also revealed that there is a significant relationship between students' motivational beliefs (male and female) and environmental factors (culture and social values). according to ecological system theory, proposed by bronfenbrenner, a person grows in a complex relation system where several levels of environment will influence him/her. the most external surface of bronfenbrenner‟s model is the macro system which includes values, rules, customs, and possibilities of a culture. culture includes norms, customs, behaviors, language and common deductions of a group (king, 2002). a possible reason for this significant relationship is that when students follow the stated principles within their culture and its social values, they receive positive feedback and social rewards and thus are motivated on the part of parents, teachers and school authorities. being motivated increases the level of attempt made by the individual. more attempt increases positive attributions for more success. all of this optimizes the student‟s self-esteem and aliments his/her motivational beliefs. the reason for why the relation between motivational beliefs of students and culture and social values is important is that fortunately the view of our community toward education and graduates has been positively changed. as we can see, parents, teachers, training and education as well as public authorities emphasize indirectly the value of education. it is natural that when the convergent messages of parents, teachers and authorities stress the value of education, and there is a sense in which a higher social situation can attain only through education, the student may be motivated and this is what the society wants and the training system needs. the increase in the number of university fields, universities, specialized professions and use of educated individuals for different professions also caused people to believe that education is the most important issue of modern world. effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 76 the present study comes with some limitations that reduce its potential to be generalized. some of these limitations include running the study in one education and training district of tehran and including a limited age range (high school students). all this can be expanded in subsequent research. it is also recommended to study the practical ways in which students‟ motivational beliefs can be enhanced, and this should be studied in the future using experimental designs. references ames , c. a. 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(1991). who am i and what can i do? children selfconcepts and motivation in achievement situation. educational psychologist, 26(3-4), 233-261. winnie-reid, e. (1996). manual for the test of student's perception of readiness. retrieved from: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/edu/staff/jhattie/winnietest.htm. http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/edu/staff/jhattie/winnietest.htm effective factors on students' motivational beliefs 80 woolfolk, a. e. (2004). educational psychology. (9th ed.). new york: pearson. wright, t. (2009). how to be a brilliant teacher. london and new york: routledge. taylor & francis group. zimmerman, b.j. (2000). self-efficacy: an essential motive to learn. contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 82-91. about the author: zhaleh taheri has a phd in the field of educational psychology from the university of allameh tabatabaie and her research interests focus on the investigation of the effective factors on iranian students‟ motivational beliefs. address for correspondence: zhaleh taheri, department of psychology and educational sciences, pardis assembly of allameh tabatabaie university, tehran, iran. e-mail: zhaleh_taheri@yahoo.com thics & behavior 697 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 697-715 www.ejop.org turkish adaptation, validity, and reliability of the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure orkide akpınar ege university, i̇zmir abstract domestic violence is a traumatic experience faced primarily by women all over the world. thus, ways in which victims of domestic violence cope with the stress caused by violence emerge as in important area of inquiry. calling attention to the issue, charles c. benight, alexandra s. harding-taylor, amanda m. midboe and robert l. durham developed the dv-cse scale in 2004. the dv-cse scale aims to measure the coping self efficacy of female victims of domestic violence following the latest attack, and is used in clinics in the us that provide support to victims of violence who have suffered physical or psychological damage. in turkey, where one in every three women is a victim of domestic violence, there are no studies on the subject. this present study represents the adaptation of the dv-cse scale to turkish and comprises validity and reliability analyses. the sample of the study consisted of 258 women who applied to various institutions in and around izmir due to domestic violence. all of these women had faced some type of domestic violence within the previous six months (physical, sexual, emotional or economic). following the completion of the pre-adaptation study, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the validity of the measure. to investigate reliability, cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used. the other method used to examine the reliability of the measure was structural reliability calculation. the analyses conducted showed that the dv-cse-t (turkish form) is a uni-dimensional and highly reliable scale for measuring levels of domestic violence coping self efficacy. keywords: domestic violence coping self-efficacy measure, violence, domestic violence against women, coping self-efficacy, cognitive schemes. it is known that domestic violence against women is a pervasive, traumatic experience in turkey, as well as in other parts of the world (study on domestic http://www.ejop.org/ the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 698 violence against women in turkey, 2008; damka, 2009). yet, only in the last 20 years has domestic violence been the subject of academic studies (altınay & arat, 2008), very few of these are on coping with domestic violence, and to the best of our knowledge, none focus on domestic violence coping self-efficacy. considering this gap in the literature, the aim of this study is to examine women’s domestic violence coping self-efficacy in turkey by adapting the dv-cse measure to turkish, as a firsttime effort. the world health organization defines violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation” (who, 2002, p. 5). a more comprehensive definition of violence would include, besides intentional and physical harm, verbal and psychological pressure as well. in this definition, violence refers to all sorts of behavior that restrict the enjoyment of freedoms and rights. violence may emerge as a result of many factors at individual, inter-individual, family and societal levels. domestic violence can be defined as violent behavior displayed by one person against another that aims to coerce, humiliate, or punish the victim, or serves as a show of force or discharge of anger or tension for the perpetrator (heise, 1993). the international council of nurses (2001) defines domestic violence as “a process whereby physical or emotional harm is done as a result of physical or sexual violence exerted by at least one family member against another or others” (international council of nurses, icn, 2001, p. 9). domestic violence usually starts with a marked tension in relations between family members and threats, and emerges in the form of the physical and emotional abuse of the children, child neglect, elderly neglect, and wife-beating. in inter-spousal violence, men are usually the perpetrators and women the victims of violence (who, 2002). the world health organization found, in 48 studies covering all the world’s population, that 10% to 69% of women have suffered physical violence from their spouses or partners (who, 2002). according to a 2004 report by amnesty international, based on data from the united nations, the world health organization, various governments and non-governmental organizations, at least one in every three women in the world, i.e., close to one billion women, has been the victim of beatings, forced sexual encounters, or some other form of abuse at some point in their lives, usually by a family member or someone they know (amnesty international, 2004). the first studies on domestic violence against women europe’s journal of psychology 699 in turkey were conducted about 20 years ago (altınay & arat, 2008). according to data reported in a study on domestic violence against women in turkey (2008), 39% of women have been victims of physical violence, 15% have been victims of sexual violence, and 44% have been victims of emotional violence by their spouses or partners at some point in their lives. it is notable that women of all ages, cultures, statuses, levels of education and environments are subject to one or multiple forms of violence (physical, psychological, sexual, and economic, among others) (who, 2002; study on domestic violence against women in turkey, 2008). thus, in recent years violence against women has started to be considered by who not as something that should remain private, but as a public health issue that needs to be dealt with, and as a violation of human rights. in other words, domestic violence against women today means the restriction of women’s rights to live and feel secure, to have a high level of physical and mental health, and to participate in education, work life, and social life (who, 2002). this, in turn, is known to have detrimental effects on the physical and psychological health and the social lives of women who have been victims of violence (who, 2002; damka, 2009). the physical effects of violence on women are visible to the eye, but the effects on the psychological health of women, are not. violence harms a woman’s psyche; depression, high levels of anxiety, suicidal thoughts, psychosomatic illnesses and post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) are frequently seen among women who are psychologically sensitive (clements, sabourin and spiby, 2004; perez, castano & lozano, 2007; korkut-owen and owen, 2008; cieslak, benight & caden, 2008; damka, 2009). for example, gleason (1993) found that 40% of women who stay in women’s shelters, and 31% of female victims of violence who do not stay in shelters suffer from ptsd. saunders (1994) found that 60% of a sample which consisted of women who applied to various organizations seeking help against violence was diagnosed with ptsd. on the other hand, it is notable that some of these symptoms are never or rarely seen in some female victims of violence. for example, some studies show that female victims of violence who make use of effective methods of coping with stress, such as problem-solving, self-confident approach to life and seeking social support suffer to a lesser degree from negative symptoms that follow violence, such as low self-respect, depression and ptsd (foa et. al., 2000; waldrop & resick, 2004; sabina & tindale, 2008). in addition, the structures of cognitive schemes that are found to be directly related to the use of effective methods of coping with stress are thought to affect whether these symptoms appear (houskamp & foy, 1991; foa, cascardi, zoeller & feeny, 2000). the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 700 cognitive schemes are defined as mental representations or rules used to conceive of the world, deal with difficult experiences, think about problems and solve them (budak, 2000). these cognitive schemes are mental representations formed as a result of the experiences of the individual, or his/her relationships with others. they begin formation in childhood and from then on are continually shaped throughout our lives, and affect our perceptions of the world and the self in various ways. from the perspective of the schemes we have formed, these effects may be positive (adaptive) or negative (non-adaptive) (calvete, estevez and corral, 2007). previous studies show that anger, guilt, disengagement, and use of non-effective ways of coping are related to negative schemes, and their presence may result in symptoms of depression, an insufficient problem solving ability, and ptsd (foa et al., 2000; benight & bandura, 2004; calvete, estevez and corral, 2007). on the other hand, a balanced perception of the world, perception of control, and use of effective ways of coping are found to be related to positive schemes, and that their presence contributes to psychological health (foa et al., 2000). another concept thought to be related to positive cognitive schemes and considered to be an important self resource is coping self-efficacy (benight & bandura, 2004; hulberti & morison, 2006). coping self-efficacy is defined as the self-belief of the individual that he or she can respond in effective ways to threatening environments or situations (bandura, 1997; benight & harper, 2002; johnson & benight, 2003; benight, harding-taylor, midboe & durham, 2004; benight & bandura, 2004; hulberti & morrison, 2006). in the context of domestic violence, coping self-efficacy is defined as a very important self resource that enables women subjected to violence to avoid suffering psychological difficulties and to choose and use more effective ways of coping, referred to as domestic violence coping self-efficacy (benight & bandura, 2004). the concept of domestic violence coping selfefficacy is conceptualized as the perception of women regarding their ability to deal with the trauma they experience in the aftermath of violence during post-traumatic healing process (benight & bandura, 2004). on the basis of these definitions and views, benight, harding-taylor, midboe and durham (2004) developed the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure, which aims to measure women’s levels of coping self-efficacy following the latest attack. when they are responding to the scale, women who have been victims of violence self-evaluate their levels of coping self efficacy concerning the situations, thoughts and/or emotions stated in each item. items of the scale express feelings and situations such as anger, guilt, shame, suicidal thoughts and exclusion that may accompany the latest incidence of violence (for example: handling feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, since the most recent assault). europe’s journal of psychology 701 also, the dv-cse measure contains many behaviors required in the post-violence healing process. use of this measurement tool in institutions serving women who have been victims of violence would help them focus on women’s strengths, and these institutions would be able to structure their psychological counseling in consideration of the items on the measure. in addition, school counselors provide help for many students who experience the negative consequences of domestic violence occurring in their home between their parents. some students experience psychological, and as a result, academic difficulties at school due to violence faced by their mothers. in such cases, school counselors provide guidance and psychological counseling both for the students and their parents. it is important that, in their sessions with mothers who have been victims of violence, school counselors focus on ways of coping with stress and how to strengthen self resources, not on the stress itself. thus, domestic violence coping self-efficacy can serve as an important tool helping women/mothers to deal with domestic violence more effectively, to access social resources, and even to end the relationship of violence they are in. positive change in mothers would also have positive effects on their children’s psychological health. method sample the study for the adaptation of the dv-cse measure to turkish was conducted between january 2009-july 2009 with the participation of 258 volunteer women who had been subjected to any form of domestic violence within the previous six months and who had applied to the psychological guidance and counseling service of i̇lkkurşun school of primary education run by the izmir provincial directorate of national education, the izmir psychological counseling center, the izmir provincial social services directorate of the turkish republic prime ministry social services and the child protection agency, the psychiatric clinic of karşıyaka state hospital, the women’s solidarity center of gaziemir municipality, the çamdibi women’s solidarity center of bornova municipality, the psychiatric clinic of alsancak state hospital, and the women’s solidarity association. the dv-cse-t measure was applied by the researcher personally to women who ask for assistance from the psychological guidance and counseling service of i̇lkkurşun school of primary education, the izmir psychological counseling center, and the gaziemir women’s solidarity center. the researcher also provided psychological the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 702 guidance and counseling in these institutions to women who had been victims of violence. in addition, the researcher contacted women who had been victims of domestic violence via seminars organized by various institutions and via home visits. in the rest of the institutions, the dv-cse-t measure was applied by psychologists / psychological counselors or social workers serving in those institutions. prior to the application of the questionnaires, the researcher met with these experts and informed them about the purpose of the study and the dv-cse-t measure. research instruments domestic violence coping self-efficacy measure (dv-cse) the “domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse)” measure was developed in 2004 by charles c. benight, alexandra s. harding-taylor, amanda m. midboe and robert l. durham for the direct measurement of cognitive schemes related to violence. the measure aims to evaluate the coping self-efficacy of women following the latest attack (see appendix). in the study conducted by benight, harding-taylor, midboe ve durham (2004), the questionnaire thus developed was applied to 283 women who had sought help after being subjected to violence. all women in the sample reported that they had been victims of violence within the previous six months. a factor analysis was conducted following data collection, weak items were removed, and the final measure consisted of 29 items with a single factor. factor loadings varied between .53 and .85. reliability of the measure was high, as indicated by an internal consistency coefficient of .97. in addition, the life orientation test (scheier and carver, 1985), the short psychological well-being measure (ryff, 1989), the coping measure (cope) which assesses four ways of coping (active coping, seeking social support, acceptance and giving up), the short form of the profile of mood states, and the impact of event measure-ies-r, which measures post-traumatic stress symptoms, were applied to the participants by the researchers. conclusively, positive correlations were found between scores from the measure and optimism, social acceptance, active coping and psychological health. scores from the measure were negatively correlated with trauma related stress, negative mood, and the coping method of giving up. the measure was not correlated with seeking social support. the theoretical connection between the measure and related constructs is very strong, indicating high construct validity (benight, taylor, midboe & durham, 2004). europe’s journal of psychology 703 the dv-cse scale developed by benight, taylor, midboe & durham (2004) consists of 29 items and a single dimension (“see appendix”). women who have been victims of violence give themselves an efficacy score of 0 to 100 for each situation described in the scale. a score of 0 indicates no self-efficacy, 50 indicates medium self-efficacy, and 100 indicates perfect self-efficacy. the overall score from the scale is calculated by taking the arithmetic mean of the scores received from individual items. the higher this score, the higher the domestic violence coping self efficacy. procedure the process of the adaptation of the dv-cse measure to turkish started with acquiring written permission from charles c. benight, after which, the following procedure was followed: in the first stage, the dv-cse measure was translated into turkish separately by the researcher, a psychological counseling expert, and an english teacher. a psychological counseling and guidance faculty member and the researcher compared these three translations, and the initial form of the dv-cse-t was created by combining the best parts of these translations, making any necessary adjustments. extra care was taken to use simple language considering that women who will respond to the scale may have low levels of education. for example, instead of psychological concepts such as trauma, stress and anxiety, non-scientific words such as pessimism, sadness and worry were used. the initial form of the turkish adaptation and the original measure were examined by five faculty members, each holding phds, one from the field of social psychology, one from clinical psychiatry and three from psychological counseling and guidance. at this stage, an important emphasis was that women who have been victims of violence in turkey could be reluctant to share their experiences or provide information. thus, the researcher contacted other experts who would be applying the scale (psychologists/psychological counselors, social workers), told them about the purposes of the study, and specifically asked them to emphasize privacy and anonymity issues prior to the interviews. the researcher has also prepared a written guideline on the application of the scale. the items of this guideline were as follows:  if possible, interviews should be made face to face and no third person should be present.  it should be clearly stated and emphasized that no names or private information will be used in the study. the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 704  interviewers need to make sure that the explanation and the example that precede the scale are read.  interviewers need to state that they can answer only general questions and that the interviewees should respond to the items on the basis of what they make out of the wording of the item.  following the application of the scales, they need to be sent to the researcher as soon as possible. the scale was originally developed for application to women who have been victims of physical violence only, and it was re-structured, after informing charles c. benight, to cover all types of violence (physical, sexual, emotional and economic). interviewers and participants were specifically told that the word “attack” referred not only to physical attacks, but to verbal/and emotional attacks as well. the reason for this was the concern that turkish women may tend to hide physical violence in particular. on the other hand, it is known that many turkish women are victims of emotional/verbal and economic violence. another reason for the inclusion of these violence types in the scale was to create social awareness about them as well. in addition, the experts who assessed the dv-cse-t scale stated that participants may have difficulty giving themselves scores in the range of 0 to 100. accordingly, the scores for the items of the scale were restructured as follows: the option “never capable” was given a score of 0, “rarely capable” was given a score of 1, “sometimes capable” was given a score of 2, “often capable” was given a score of 3, and “always capable” was given a score of 4. thus, the minimum score that could be received from the dv-cse-t scale became 0, and the maximum score became 116. necessary adjustments were made in line with the feedback received from the faculty members, and the pre-adaptation stage was thus completed, making the measure ready for validity and reliability analysis. findings and results validity of the dv-cse –t measure in this study, the process mentioned above, whereby the suitability of the dv-cse-t scale to turkish language and culture was assessed is also treated as an assessment of the content validity of the scale. europe’s journal of psychology 705 to test the construct validity of the dv-cse-t measure, factor analysis was used. the factor analysis was conducted using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) 13.0, over data collected from a sample of 258 participants. to examine the factor structure of the dv-cse-t measure, principal components analysis was used. the results of the principal components analysis showed that all items had factor loadings over .40 with the first factor. the single-dimensional solution was accepted because the theory also predicted a single-factor measure. the factor analysis was repeated using the single-dimensional structure. factor loadings that emerged in this second factor analysis are reported in table 1, and eigenvalues of the factors and explained variances are reported in table 2. figure 1 displays a graph of the eigenvalues. table 1: factor loading values for items of the dv-cse-t measure item no factor 1 16 .78 14 .72 24 .71 12 .69 28 .68 19 .67 11 .67 5 .67 15 .67 20 .66 17 .66 23 .66 4 .65 21 .65 29 .64 1 .64 6 .62 25 .62 2 .60 27 .60 13 .59 7 .58 26 .58 8 .58 10 .57 9 .55 18 .49 3 .45 22 .44 the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 706 table 2: factor eigenvalues and explained variance percentages factor eigenvalues % of variance cumulative % 1 11.595 39.982 39.982 figure 1: eigenvalues graph 2928272625242322212019181716151413121110987654321 component number 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 e ig e n v a lu e scree plot table 1 shows that the factor loadings of all items of the measure with the first factor are .44 and above. this finding indicates that the measure has a single general factor. table 2 shows that the first factor explains 40% of the total variance. considered together, the variance explained and the factor loadings of the items with the first factor show that the turkish adaptation of the dv-cse-t is singledimensional, which is consistent with the original. this result is considered as an indication of the construct validity of the measure. to gather evidence on the construct validity of the dv-cse-t measure, this study used confirmatory factor analysis. confirmatory factor analysis is a method that allows testing of a previously formed hypothesis or theory concerning the relationship between variables. this method explores whether there is a fit or high correlation between different variables and the factors identified in the exploratory factor analysis (kyle, 1999). in light of this information, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using the lisrel 8.51 program on the basis of the single-dimensional model consisting of the 29 europe’s journal of psychology 707 items in the turkish adaptation of the dv-cse measure. the results of the confirmatory factor analysis for the single dimension showed that the chi-square value was significant at the p<.01 level of significance (  df= 374). the ratio between the chi-square value and the degrees of freedom was smaller than three, which indicates an acceptable level of fit (şimşek, 2007). an examination of the fitness values of the measurement model in question showed that the gfi value was .98, the agfi value was .98, the cfi value was .96 and the rmsa value was 0.065. the gfi, agfi, and cfi values found indicate a good level of fitness, and the rmsa value indicates an acceptable level of fitness (şimşek, 2007). the path diagram that contains the standard values of the confirmatory factor analysis is shown in figure 2. figure 2: path diagram of the confirmatory factor analysis for the dv-cse-t in conclusion, the results of the factor analysis conducted showed that the dv-cse-t measure has high construct validity. the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 708 reliability of the dv-cset measure reliability analysis was conducted to see if the items on a measure represent a homogenous structure (kalaycı, 2005). the reliability of the dv-cse-t measure was examined using the internal consistence coefficient and structural reliability calculations. internal consistency refers to the ratio of the sum of the variances of individual items on a measure to overall variance. this resulting figure, which varies between 0 and 1, is referred to as cronbach’s alpha coefficient. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient thus calculated is a measure of the similarity of or proximity between the items on a measure, for measures in which the total score is calculated as the sum of the scores for each question (kalaycı, 2005). the analysis conducted showed that the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the dv-cse-t measure was .94. the other method used to examine the reliability of the measure was structural reliability calculation. mcdonald’s omega ( coefficient was calculated using the results of the confirmatory factor analysis, which was found to be .99 for the dv-cse-t measure. these values provide good evidence as to the internal consistency and structural reliability of the measure. factor loadings ((ir 2 values and cronbach’s alpha and omega values on the basis of the results of the confirmatory factor analysis for the dv-cse-t are reported in table 3. table 3: factor loadings and r2 according to the results of the confirmatory factor analysis, cronbach’s alpha, and mcdonald’s omega values of the dv-cse-t measure item i r2 α = .94 = .99 1 .75 .39 2 .78 .33 3 .61 .19 4 .85 .41 5 .86 .43 6 .83 .37 7 .76 .32 8 .81 .32 9 .75 .29 10 .78 .32 11 .87 .44 europe’s journal of psychology 709 12 .92 .46 13 .79 .33 14 .98 .52 15 .92 .41 16 1.02 .60 17 .88 .42 18 .66 .23 19 .87 .44 20 .90 .43 21 .78 .40 22 .56 .19 23 .92 .41 24 .87 .49 25 .82 .37 26 .79 .32 27 .80 .34 28 .90 .42 29 .87 .40 conclusion and future perspectives the results of the study show that the turkish adaptation of the dv-cse measure consists of a single factor that measures domestic violence coping self-efficacy, and that the figures associated with the measure are at sufficient levels in terms of psychometric characteristics. most of the studies on domestic violence against women focus on the pervasiveness of domestic violence, and the physical and psychological effects it has on women. qualitative and quantitative studies to be conducted in the future on domestic violence coping selfefficacy would bring a fresh perspective to the issue of domestic violence, and make important contributions to the literature on the subject. from another angle, experimental studies that would complement the descriptive studies on domestic violence coping self-efficacy would make an important contribution to the practice of psychological counseling and guidance. experimental studies on the effectiveness of group psychological counseling and psychological training on improving the coping self-efficacy of female victims of domestic violence, and use of programs scientifically shown to be effective in institutions serving women who have been victims of violence would improve the overall quality of the services offered. thus, the use of the dv-cse-t in institutions serving women who have been victims of violence can help identify the strengths of these women, and can contribute to the development of support programs against the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 710 violence. in particular, it can help answer, even if only partially, the question “what makes a victim of violence strong?”. from another angle, the dv-cse-t scale avoids focusing solely on physical violence, which can help create an awareness that violence may come in different forms, such as in the form of emotional/verbal, sexual or economic violence, and that it is necessary and possible to deal with these forms as well. moreover, this study had a number of limitations. women who have been victims of violence in turkey may still be reluctant to share the violence they faced. even when they seek help from various institutions themselves, women may be worried that they might face violence by their husbands again, which makes it difficult to collect data on domestic violence. the sample of this study consisted of female victims of violence who lived in or around izmir, due both to the difficulties associated with data collection and time limitations. in addition, no demographic information (age, level of education, socio-economic status, etc.) was collected about the participants due to anonymity concerns. the validity of the dv-cse-t scale was examined in this study via an assessment of the content and construct validity only. using other validity analyses such as criterion validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity with larger samples, future studies may create new versions of the dv-cse-t scale. the sample of this study consisted of women who applied to various institutions due to domestic violence. yet, it is known that many women who are victims of violence avoid taking this step, and we have insufficient information on how these women cope with the violence they face. thus, future studies could provide more and comprehensive information on domestic violence by contacting women who have been victims of violence but who did not apply to any institution seeking help. comparative studies on the coping self-efficacy of female victims of domestic violence who apply and do not apply to various institutions, on the other hand, could make an important contribution to the literature on domestic violence. references amnesty international 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(2004). coping among victims of domestic violence. journal of family violence, 19 (5). who (2002). world report on violence and health, genova. the domestic violence coping self-efficacy (dv-cse) measure 714 appendix items of the domestic violence coping self efficacy (dv-cse) measure (original form) 1. feeling good about myself, since the most recent assault. 2. managing feelings of grief, loss and abandonment after the latest attack. 3. managing my housing, food, clothes and medical needs, since the most recent assault. 4. managing feelings of depression and/or suicidal thoughts, since my partner attacked me. 5. handling feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, since the most recent assault. 6. controlling thoughts that i am going crazy, since my latest assault. 7. managing my feelings of guilt and self-blame about the abuse. 8. handling fears of being alone after the latest assault. 9. handling feelings of anger/rage at my partner, since the most recent assault. 10. managing my desire to have closure of my relationship with the abuser. 11. controlling feelings of anxiety and panic after the latest assault. 12. coping with loneliness and isolation, since the most recent attack. 13. dealing with nightmares/flashbacks concerning the latest assault. 14. thinking that i am a competent woman, since the most recent assault. 15. dealing with feelings of shame concerning the abuse. 16. coping with feeling completely overwhelmed with everything, since the most recent assault. 17. being able to concentrate and effectively handle my home, job and parenting responsibilities. 18. dealing with my anxiety about the future without my partner. 19. controlling thoughts that “i just can't handle this.” 20. being strong emotionally for my family and friends. 21. managing my own spiritual pain, since the most recent assault. 22. trusting anyone. 23. coping with my appearance, since the most recent assault. 24. dealing with feelings of sadness. 25. controlling negative thoughts about myself (for example "i am stupid", "i am to blame”, “i am a loser”, “i screw-up everything”, “i deserved to be attacked”). 26. coping with loss of the "good" aspects of my relationship with the man who assaulted me. 27. coping with the feelings that family and friends just don't understand. 28. handling feelings of embarrassment. 29. dealing with rejection from others. europe’s journal of psychology 715 about the author: orkide akpınar had graduated from dokuz eylül university (i̇zmir, turkey), guidance and psychological counseling dept. she had master’s degree at ege university (i̇zmir, turkey) in guidance and psychological counseling. she obtained her ph.d degree at ege university in same dept. at the same time she works at a public primary school in i̇zmir as a school counselor. psychodrama and stress coping are also among her main interests. address for correspondence: orkide akpınar, i̇lkkurşun i̇lköğretim okulu, 4539 sk. no: 10 yeni çamlık / i̇zmi̇r e-mail: orkide1605@gmail.com interview with cary l. cooper by alexandra ilie and beatrice popescu our interviewee is cary l. cooper, professor of organizational psychology and health, lancaster university management school and pro vice chancellor (external relations) at lancaster university. he is the author of over 100 books (on occupational stress, women at work and industrial and organizational psychology), has written over 400 scholarly articles for academic journals, and is a frequent contributor to national newspapers, tv and radio. he is currently founding editor of the journal of organizational behavior and co-editor of the medical journal stress & health (formerly stress medicine). he is a fellow of the british psychological society, the royal society of arts, the royal society of medicine, the royal society of health, and an academician of the academy for the social sciences. professor cooper is the president of the british academy of management, is a companion of the chartered management institute and one of the first uk based fellows of the (american) academy of management (having also won the 1998 distinguished service award for his contribution to management science from the academy of management ). in 2001, cary was awarded a cbe in the queen’s birthday honours list for his contribution to organizational health. he holds honorary doctorates from aston university (dsc), heriot-watt university (dlitt), middlesex university (doc. univ) and wolverhampton university (dba). professor cooper is the editor (jointly with professor chris argyris of harvard business school ) of the international scholarly blackwell encyclopedia of management (12 volume set); and the editor of who’s who in the management sciences. he has been an adviser to two un agencies; the world health organisation and ilo; published a major report for the eu’s european foundation for the improvement of living and work conditions on `stress prevention in the workplace’; and is a special adviser to the defence committee of the house of commons on their duty of care enquiry.  he is also the president of the institute of welfare officers, vice president of the british association of counselling, an ambassador of the samaritans and patron of the national phobic society.  ejop: we would like to thank you for kindly affording us an interview. we know stress is a fundamental element for your research activity. how did your ‘ passion for stress’ occur? cary l. cooper: before i did my phd, when i was a social worker in the city of los angeles (because i come from california originally but i have been living in europe for thirty-five years), i saw the kind of stress the people were under. later on, when i started to do work in the field of occupational psychology, i found out that stress was a very under-researched topic, in the late ‘70′s; therefore, i thought somebody ought to take a look at what’s happening to people in the work place, particularly because the nature of work was beginning to change. ejop: among all stress models available, which one do you consider being the most appropriate to capture the complex nature of job stress? cary l. cooper: i don’t think a simple model, like models that say it’s all about overload and control, for example karasek’s model, is particularly helpful. i think it was useful in its early days, because that model focused on something that is relatively two-dimensional. it’s now being extended to a third dimension, social support. but i personally think that if you look at any work place, there could be four or five factors operating on employees in that workplace, whether it’s in the private or the public sector, and they may not have anything to do with overload and control. there may be a problem with the way people are managed, in the sense that people are badly treated and devalued, it could be the long hours, it could be the lack of work-life balance, it could be whether the public view your role as important or not, so it’s not only about overload and control, these are too simple models. i don’t think that any theory which only posits two or three factors and says these factors operate in all work environments is particularly useful. ejop: we are familiar with the idea that organisational stress does not reside either in the organisation, nor in the individual, but in the relationship/ transaction between the two. what strategies do you recommend both the organisation and the individual in order to reduce one of the latest issues in the organisational pathology? cary l. cooper: this is a good question. i developed a strategy with the european foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions, which is a european agency. they asked me what kind of strategy should be followed in europe to manage organisational and workplace stress and the strategy we came up with when looking at both the individual and the organisation is a complete strategy having a primary, a secondary and tertiary level. so, the primary level deals with finding the sources of stress in an organisation. what you should do is to perform a stress audit and this is doing a primary intervention, because you are doing a diagnosis on the basis of what you find. afterwards you do an intervention. so, for example, if you are looking at the p olice in romania, in bucharest, we are trying to find out what’s causing the p olice stress. in this case, you would use psychometric measures like asset, a measure i developed, that looks at a variety of aspects in the workplace that could cause policemen in bucharest problems. then you would give it to them, identify which ones are causing the problems, and the problems could be: increasing absence, mental health, labour turnover, whichever the outcome is, you would decide which sources of stress are predicting these negative outcomes. and then you take intervention strategies to deal with them, for example, if it was the lack of role-clarity – they didn’t know exactly what their role should be – you find ways to clarify it. the same applies to police in iraq. you probably see the police in iraq are not quite clear what their role is, you would have to find ways of clarifying the police role, and what you should do is a stress audit and then intervention based on whatever the diagnosis is. that’s the primary intervention. secondary, it means training the individual to cope better with the pressures of his or her job, helping her or him by providing training in time management, in being more assertive, in how to deal with a difficult colleague (or whatever the training is). secondary intervention means you are training the individual on areas needing help to cope better. and the tertiary one is when the organisation provides conflict service for individuals who are not coping well. they may not be coping well because of problems at home or at work. the conflict service enables them to talk about their problems and think about the solutions. so i think you need all of those areas of intervention and if the organisation follows the primary, secondary and the tertiary strategy, it would have very few problems in the end and most of them dealt with. ejop: there is a large body of research on organisational stress in academics, but virtually none on the stress that academic institutions cause to students. very often, in eastern-europe, exceptional research-oriented students are limited in their endeavours by the lack of appropriate information resources and the inflexible attitude of some academics towards their needs. what strategies of stress management do you recommend them? cary l. cooper: what i would recommend them is almost what i said in the last question. i think you are absolutely right about this and i think it applies even in the developed world, in western europe and north america. i don’t think we have done enough research on what are the stress levels on undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate student at all. there is quite a lot of research being done on academics and what their stress levels are, but not on undergraduate or graduate students like yourselves. what i would suggest doing is the same way i would handle it with any organisations. for instance, if you take the university of bucharest, i would suggest they do a survey with an established measure like asset (an organisation stress-screening tool) which is online or paperpencil. by using it, sending it to all your undergraduate or graduate students, all of them, you can identify what the problem area is. if the problem is they are not supervised properly, their professors are taking them for granted, then that requires a particular type of solution, but you have to know from the students just as you have to know from the workers, what are the sources of their problems. some students may say they are not well supervised, other students may say there is low financial support they get, others may say it’s a lack of it equipment, a lack of infrastructure, and others may say it’s the lack of expertise of the faculty. so your solutions depend on what you find, but a stress audit of undergraduate and graduate students would be a way of identifying the nature of their problems. ejop: even though romania is an emergent market, romania research lacks visibility on the international arena. what strategies do you think our researchers should employ in order to become internationally-recognised and synchronised with scientific progress reached in economically-developed countries? cary l. cooper: i think that the difficulty of course comes from the fact that romanian is a minority language. what i think has to happen is what happened in certain eastern european countries where a small group of people have got together and they have done very good quality research by looking at the literature and seeing what research had been done and tried to publish in international journals. in the stress field, romanian researchers could publish in the international journal of stress management, a journal that welcomes work from foreign countries, also from eastern european countries, but of course the articles would have to be in english in order to be accepted. if it’s a good piece of work, it could be accepted and that would start the process. but i think in the sense of developing eastern european countries in a new field like this, i consider it does require getting together and creating an association, a society of researchers. those working together in a brand-new field might create their own little academy of scientists, and then try to write the articles they do, as well as in romanian, but also in english. by submitting them to one or two journals, i think other scholars would be really interested in their work. ejop: we live in a hi-tech post-industrial society with ever-rising technological progress. does communication paraphernalia (meant to ease our lives) help in reducing stress, or paradoxically, in maximizing it? cary l. cooper: that’s a very good question! new technological innovations like e-mail, mobile phone, are actually creating more stress. initially, i think we thought that those would help people, but actually what has been done in the work place, it’s been creating more stress because the new technology, like faxes, e-mail, texting, ipod, mobile phone, all off these technologies, are creating more stress particularly on workers. people sending those messages and asking for more pieces of information of people are overloading them electronically. the technology is not sophisticated enough in a way which could tell the receiver of the e-mail, for example how important the message really is, so people are loaded with e-mails and people are demanding an immediacy of response. when it was by letter, you had time to think it through, to prioritize what came in, and seeing what’s important, what you could deal with now and what you should put away for another week or two. now everybody is expecting an immediacy of response, a quick response, and that’s causing enormous trouble, adding more stress and strain. if these people had be trained to manage e-mails better, that would be a good move, but they are not, and what they do, they just get overloaded by it…so, electronical overload and being able to contact people 7 days a week and 24 hours a day by mobile phone is causing enormous problems in the workplace. ejop: in the consumer society in which workload and other organisational stressors have dramatically increased to the detriment of leisure time, can we still talk about attachment to traditional values such as family and religion? cary l. cooper: i think what’s happening in many of the developed countries in the west, whether in north america or western europe, the problem you see is that we have a long working hours culture. these long hours and new technology are invading people’s personal life. therefore, when you have employee surveys done at company or organisational level, you’re finding that thing that comes at the top – besides workplace stress itself – is lack of work-life balance. the family life is being eroded, for several reasons: one, work is long and it’s spilling over into the family life; number two, the technology means calling you and asking you to do things while you are home; and number three: the long hours mean you don’t have emotional time to devote to your partner or children, like we used to have when we had something called “the forty hour week”, which in the west we no longer have. ejop: it is largely accepted that humour is important in the workplace. there are already many humour consultants employed by both big corporations and small entrepreneurs. could we consider positive adaptive humor as a stress antidote in the organisational environment? cary l. cooper: of course! lightening the workload and trying to improve morale and make these people feel better and smiling and having a good time is quite important, but it doesn’t solve underlying problems. if the real problem in your organization is a bullying or autocratic management style, all the humour in the world is not going to get rid of that. what you actually have to attack is the underlying source of the problem, in that case a bullying or an autocratic management style. if you get people to come into the office and they do juggling and they crack jokes and they do things that make people feel good, but if there’s another problem, like, for example, say, the problem is a glass ceiling [i.e. limit on promotional opportunities] for women, the women can’t get ahead in an organization which is very male dominated, all the juggling and gesturing and comical and theatre you put on in the workplace is not going to solve that problem. you don’t want to cover up and some stress coping strategies are a cover up for real problems. i am not saying it is not nice to have humour in the workplace, it is nice, but it doesn’t solve the problems. ejop: maladaptive uses of humor in the workplace, such as sarcasm, irony, teasing, may be considered as a form of bullying? cary l. cooper: it could be! putting other people down in a humorous way, it’s not just bullying, it’s devaluing somebody. in a way it is bullying, it’s psychological bullying. bullying in the workplace has increased in the developed world, as western europe and eastern europe and the rest of the globe gets more americanised. i think that an american way of working tends to introduce a long hours culture, intrinsic job insecurity and it also brings in a kind of much more bottom line management style. now what you are looking at is the bottom line always. and that thing can be very down-putting to people. so, i think that’s a very important construct – the notion that it is good to look at the us because it has very good aspects of its practices as organizational level, but there are also aspects in it which i think do not fit culturally into europe. ejop: by your presence in tv and print media, you are a frequent contributor to the popularisation of stress issues. how important is for a scientist to advertise his research discoveries? cary l. cooper: very important, but the problem we have to understand is that some scientists are just not good at it. they are good at doing their research, are good at writing in the academic papers and books, but they are not necessarily good at talking to the media and conveying it in a popular way. we don’t have a lot of people who could do that, but whoever has the propensity to do it should do it because it’s important. first of all, our research is funded by the public sector, by government. we work in academic institutions, we are paid for by the people, therefore if you are capable of it, you should convey whatever your science field is in the eye of public. but we have to understand that not everybody could do this and probably only a very small minority can. that minority should not feel intimidated by the scholarly hierarchy within their own universities or country which doesn’t normally reward and in fact probably discourages communication with the media. ejop: does a scientist need pr or marketing skills? cary l. cooper: it requires media skills – to be on radio, to speak to journalists, to do television. a lot of universities, for example in the uk do put on media programs for its academics, because only few academics would be good at doing this. these programs need to be done more often, because i think if the public understand how important the research work we do is, the only way they could understand it is by hearing about what we do in more common language. ejop: who are the science personalities whose masterpieces most deeply influenced your professional life? cary l. cooper: in the stress field when i started it was pretty new. i guess somebody who influenced me a bit was professor leonard levy in the karolinskyan institute of sweden, he is now retired, he is a good friend of mine, and he influenced me indirectly. i didn’t know him at first, but i have read some of his work and although much of the beginning was fairly general, he was talking about the kind of things i was thinking about from a medical point of view, because he is a medical doctor. he was talking about what stress was doing to people’s health generally and i was working in the workplace. his work influenced me to think about this not just from an ordinary stress and health point of view, but from a workplace stress and health point of view. ejop: we know your mother was born in romania. do you feel connected in any way with romanians? if yes, is there a message you would like to convey to our compatriots? cary l. cooper: i feel totally connected, because my grandparents used to speak romanian in the house. they spoke in english and romanian. i felt very connected. it’s an irony that in all these years i‘ve been to russia, and my father by the way, came from russia and the ukraine, but i haven’t been to romania, so i must go to romania. i felt close because my grandparents, first of all my grandmother used to make romanian food and my grandmother spoke romanian to her husband and my mother spoke romanian and she used to speak back with them, my mother was born there, my grandparents were there, and my great grandparents were there, so i have a very strong connection that way. i just want to come to romania and i will, i promise you. ejop: what is your message to romanian professionals? cary l. cooper: i think the future is in europe and ultimately getting into the european union. your research work is very good; i would like to see all my scientific colleagues in romania. i want to see them go on the world’s stage, like they are in athletics, in the gymnastics, like they are in certain other areas in the world; they can do it in the scholarly world as well. i am afraid that these days the international scientific language is english, you’ve got to do more work on english to get into the journals that would make a difference and would show just what kind of scholarships is going on in romania. cary l. cooper, may 2005 phone interview by courtesy of cary l. cooper microsoft word 2. interview.doc europe’s journal of psychology 3/2009, pp. 3-8 www.ejop.org research and practice in organizational sciences interview with frederick p. morgeson by dan ispas and alexandra ilie ejop senior editors university of south florida studied under various names such as industrial-organizational psychology, organizational behavior, human resources management etc., organizational sciences share a focus on both research and practice. however, most of the actors in the field chose one over the other. for this issue’s interview, we talked to dr. fred morgeson a prolific researcher who successfully combined science and practice in his work. frederick p. morgeson (www.morgeson.com) is a professor of management and valade research scholar at the eli broad college of business at michigan state university. he received his ph.d. in industrial and organizational psychology from purdue university. dr. morgeson teaches and does research in human resource management and organizational behavior. his research has focused on four distinct areas. first, he has a continuing interest in leadership, particularly with respect to the role of leadership in self-managing teams and the nature of the relationship between leaders and followers. second, dr. morgeson has examined fundamental questions about the nature of work, which includes how work is structured and how people perceive their work. these issues have been explored in a series of studies in the job analysis, work design, and work teams areas. third, he has studied the effectiveness and consequences of different selection techniques. fourth, dr. morgeson has explored issues of theory development and sought to produce integrative research in the substantive research areas noted above. this research has been published (or is forthcoming) in academy of management journal, academy of management review, academy of management learning and education, american psychologist, consulting psychology journal: practice and research, human performance, human resource management, international journal of selection and assessment, journal of applied europe’s journal of psychology 4 psychology, journal of business and psychology, journal of international business studies, journal of management, journal of organizational behavior, journal of quality management, leadership quarterly, organizational behavior and human decision processes, and personnel psychology. in addition, he has co-authored the leading job analysis book (job analysis: methods, research, and applications for human resource management), authored or co-authored numerous book chapters, and presented over 75 papers at professional meetings. finally, dr. morgeson is the associate editor of personnel psychology, is on the editorial committee for the annual review of psychology, is a member of the academy of management’s hr division executive committee. prior to his academic career, dr. morgeson was a manager at a recording studio in the detroit area. in addition, he has been involved in variety of consulting and applied research projects for a number of organizations in the areas of job analysis, work design, recruiting, personnel selection, leadership development, compensation, and organizational assessment. ejop: numerous papers have been written about the “scientist-practitioner” gap in organizational research. you have successfully combined science and practice in your work. what can be done to narrow this gap? frederick morgeson: although there is often quite a bit of collective hand-wringing about the scientist-practitioner gap in our field, it is important to recognize that there are many practitioners who take a fairly sophisticated scientific or research-based approach in their work. similarly, quite a few research oriented scientists find it a high honor to be able to work on problems that organizations find relevant. thus, it seems that the key issue is how we can encourage more practitioners and scientists to work in the same manner. i think one of the things that contribute to this gap is that scientists often study things that organizations don’t care about. thus, one way to help close the gap would be for academics to go out into the field and work with organizations, either in a consulting/advisory capacity or through applied research projects. by interacting with organizational members, academics can gain a better understanding of the range of issues organizations face. this will help academics identify (and hopefully study) pressing organizational problems, thereby closing the scientist-practitioner gap. another tool that could help address this gap is to create additional forums for publishing research that is more accessible (and relevant) to practitioners. it seems that as the organizational sciences have evolved, we have developed an increasingly technical and formulaic form of academic writing. thus, most research published in our top journals typically must forward a set of carefully developed research and practice in organizational sciences 5 hypotheses that draw from various theories but also somehow extend or contribute to those same theories. yet, sometimes there are compelling practical problems that research can address and the typical journal article is ill-suited to address. although there are some places where such research can be published (e.g., the scientistpractitioner forum in personnel psychology), there are few other top-tier outlets where such research can be presented. this would seem to further separate science from practice. finally, as a field i think we should insist that practice be based on sound science. thus, i think we should actively oppose those that seek simplistic solutions to complex problems, the proliferation of buzzwords or fads that seem to favor marketing over science, and the development of proprietary tools (e.g., instruments, measures) that are not freely available to the broader scientific community. having said all of this, however, it is important to recognize that there is a role for research that does not address any immediate or obvious practical problems. thus, the challenge for the field is to ensure a balance of basic and applied research. ejop: it is generally acknowledged that it is quite difficult to gain access to organizations to collect data. what are some of the strategies researchers could use to facilitate their access to organizational data? frederick morgeson: probably the biggest aid to gaining access to organizational data is to study issues organizations find interesting. organizations are sometimes willing to help researchers answer the questions the researcher is interested in, but more often than not they are mainly interested in better understanding something that they are struggling with. my own research interests tend toward applied issues and this aligns well with studying the kinds of organizational problems i noted earlier. for example, some of my research has involved understanding the role of formal leaders in self-managed teams. when i started this work (in the mid-1990’s), many organizations were still struggling to understand the role of these leaders. as such, i found that many organizations were interested in partnering with me to help me conduct the research. of course, simply studying something they find interesting often isn’t enough. you also have to articulate and provide something of value to the organization. that could be a report, feedback to research participants, or some sort of training initiative. whatever it is, however, you have to clearly demonstrate the value of your research. this is certainly aided by focusing on topics of interest to the organization. ejop: top-tier academic journals have become more and more reluctant to publish cross-sectional self-report studies. what are your views on this trend? are there any possible negative consequences? europe’s journal of psychology 6 frederick morgeson: we have long known that there are many weaknesses associated with single-source, single-method, single-time period data collection efforts (campbell & fiske, 1959). as such, it is surprising that scholars would utilize such research designs given what is known about the problem and the admonition against conducting such research (campbell, 1982). the weakness of such study designs are so well-known and understood that this is identified by virtually every reviewer and editor of our major journals as a “fatal flaw.” i doubt this will change at any point in the near future, and this isn’t such a bad thing. as science progresses rigor typically increases. this is good. ejop: some say there is a striking difference between current research from top-tier academic journals and research published in the same journals in the 80s or early 90s: the number of pages dedicated to theoretical development of the hypotheses has increased dramatically. at the same time, top-tier journals from other fields such as the natural sciences are publishing shorter papers with minimal introductions and a focus on the findings. is there a danger of over-emphasizing theory? should we adopt the natural sciences model? frederick morgeson: as i noted earlier, i think one of the reasons for the scientistpractitioner gap is the evolution of our field to one that is much more dependent on theory development and the theoretical contribution of a manuscript. this is probably a good trend, but perhaps one of the costs of this trend is that we are going to miss some particularly interesting and novel empirical findings that cannot be well-anchored in existing theory. perhaps we should be more willing to publish papers that primarily make an empirical (rather than a theoretical) contribution. of course, this would require a fairly substantive empirical contribution, and it is not clear that many (primarily) empirical studies would actually meet this standard. yet, i suspect we should seek more of a balance between theory and empiricism, rather than rather a potential (over) emphasis on theory. ejop: you have published numerous papers in top tier academic journals. what advice do you have for novice researchers? frederick morgeson: there are many outstanding places to get advice and learn about the publishing process (e.g., cummings & frost, 1995), so i’m afraid that what i’m going to say will not be particularly ground-breaking. nonetheless, i think there are a handful of things that can help you a successful scholar, assuming that you define “success” as publishing in top-tier academic journals. this isn’t always an appropriate definition of success for everyone, but that’s a different question entirely. research and practice in organizational sciences 7 first, it is essential that your interest in research and the topic you are studying come from your own curiosity and engagement in answering a particular question rather than from some sort of extrinsic reward (e.g., getting a “pub”). although i suppose there are many extrinsic rewards associated with publishing, such rewards are often distal, uncertain, and ultimately not sustaining for life as a scholar. intrinsic motivation, however, will help you persevere when you encounter difficulty and makes life so much more enjoyable. so, i guess my advice here would be to simply do what you love to do (in terms of topic and research more generally). if you find that you really don’t love research, perhaps you should seek an alternative career path. second, you need to have a certain amount of what one might call technical skill. this is the “blocking and tackling” of science. can you design a study? what kinds of statistical techniques do you know? can you write clearly? without these skills you will have a tough time as a scholar. yet, such technical skills are necessary but not sufficient. so, third, you also need to have good ideas. you can think of these as conceptual skills, and they revolve around understating a literature, being able to identify interesting and important research questions, and being able to tell a compelling story with your research. this seems to be a rarer commodity than technical skills. one way to develop one’s conceptual skill (and because it’s a skill it can be developed) is to gain a mastery of the literature and the topic you’re studying. if you know everything there is to know about the topic, you will have a much better idea about how to frame your own research (and what constitutes “enough” of a contribution in a given paper). fourth, being resilient and persistent turns out to be pretty important. these traits are important because all research involves numerous challenges that you must overcome. for example, you often get receive negative feedback as you pursue your research. this can come from a dissertation committee, the review process, or your own self-editing. do you view this kind of feedback as a (negative) indicator of your own competence and use it as an excuse to give up? or do you view it as valuable feedback that can stimulate adaptation and learning? in addition, in virtually all research you will reach a point where you’re not sure how to proceed. it may be a seemingly intractable conceptual problem, difficulty in securing a research site, or uncertainty about how to respond to reviewers. every scholar, no matter how successful, routinely encounters such difficulties. what differentiates successful from unsuccessful scholars is their response (hint: they don’t give up). fifth, it goes without saying that you need to work hard. conducting research and seeing it though to publication takes a lot of time and effort. most highly productive europe’s journal of psychology 8 scholars work pretty hard at it. this really isn’t all that different from any other domain or career field. to be successful requires quite a bit of work. ejop: what can international scholars do to increase their chances of publications in top-tier english journals? frederick morgeson: what i find so wonderful about our field (especially top-tier journals) is that it is a meritocracy: you are judged by the quality of your work, not who you are or where you come from. for example, there are well-known criteria against which journal submissions are judged and reviewer judgments are done in the absence of knowledge of the author’s identity. thus, the advice i would give to any scholar, regardless of his or her location, would be to learn about the journal you seek to publish in, understand what they are looking for in terms of theory and methods, and hone your skills so you can write manuscripts that will fit with that journal. one way to do this is to extensively read articles published in that particular journal. this will better enable you to understand the mission and focus of that journal and likely increase your chance of success. most top-tier journals, however, are published in the english language. this obviously poses a major challenge for non-native english-speaking scholars. so, enhancing english writing skills is a key task. there are numerous writing guides that can help. one of my favorites is strunk and white’s elements of style. it offers all sorts of specific tips and techniques for writing clearly. another strategy is to develop a peer network with native english-speaking scholars who can read drafts of manuscripts and help refine the writing. a final strategy is what i noted earlier. read the journal so you can get a sense of its tone and content. see how authors structure arguments and transition between topics and sections. understand how one builds a compelling story throughout the manuscript. be very deliberate at analyzing the components of the articles, particularly about how they are structured and developed. doing these things will surely improve your writing skills. references campbell, j. p. (1982). editorial: some remarks from the outgoing editor. journal of applied psychology, 67, 691-700. campbell, d. t. & fiske, d. w. (1959). convergent and discriminant validation by the multitrait-multimethod matrix. psychological bulletin, 56, 81-105. cummings, l. l., & frost, p. j. (eds.) (1995). publishing in the organizational sciences (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. stereotypes revised – theoretical models, taxonomy and the role of stereotypes vlad glăveanu faculty of psychology and educational sciences university of bucharest traditionally social psychologists had been “stereotypical” about stereotypes. especially the early work in this field presented stereotypes as misleading, extreme and destructive in the context of inter-group relations. such a position is explained by the fact that most researchers focused initially on the study of antagonistic groups that shared a past of conflict, exploitation and violence (brigham, 1971). as a result, a common belief at that time was that inter-group harmony can be enhanced by eliminating stereotypes (taylor, 1981). despite this initial tendency, contemporary research promotes a more balanced attitude (smith and bond, 1994) partially renouncing at considering stereotypes just as simplifying errors and rigid schemata (stănculescu, 2000). facts about stereotypes nowadays the number of studies on stereotypes and related topics (mainly prejudice and discrimination) has increased substantially especially concerning gender and ethnic issues. stereotypes became one of the most popular themes of debate during reunions among social scientists (leyens and bourhis, 1997) due to their connection with almost all major research subjects in social psychology (worchel et al., 1989). the term stereotype was first introduced by walter lippmann (1922). in his book on public opinion he anticipated several important positions in contemporary research on stereotypes: their predominant cognitive nature (hamilton, 1981), their utility as cognitive economy and energy-saving instruments (macrae et al., 1994), and the antagonism between stereotyping and individuating processes (fiske and neuberg, 1990). lippmann compared stereotypes with stable images in our head that shorten our perceptions. they are economical in the sense that previous experience moulds current perceptions. there are, however, some notable exceptions: we tend not to stereotype persons we love or admire. over the years several important features of stereotypes have been highlighted by theorists thus constructing a convergent image of the nature, role and impact stereotypes have on social functioning and group interaction. generally stereotypes are seen as: a set of shared convictions / beliefs about members of a particular group (leyens at al., 1994; smith and bond, 1994) perceptions of a genuine correspondence between group membership and certain traits (doise et al., 1999) constructs describing both personality traits and behaviour patterns (leyens at al., 1994; drozda-senkowsks, 1999) standardized, stabile and preconceived images (gavreliuc, 2006) a natural function of the human and cultural mind (nachbar and lause, 1992) to summarize, stereotypes are defined by their social, shared, generalised, contextual, dual and schematic nature. that is stereotypes are shared beliefs between group / category members about the in or out-group members (both their personality and behaviour – the dual nature) usually formed during the process of social interaction (therefore being contextual). they are schematic (often simple, essentialist) and generalised (describing all members and ignoring individual differences). stereotypes as collective constructs are all socially constructed images stereotypes? most certainly not but surprisingly many beliefs are wrongly labelled as stereotypes. for instance some consider that stereotypes stand for both persons and objects (nachbar and lause, 1992) or that a stereotype can be held by just one person and not necessarily shared with other in-group members (drozda-senkowska, 1999). in my opinion stereotypes are only those beliefs that transcend the individual level. stereotypes are an excellent illustration of “collective constructs” as discussed by hofmann (2004) and particularly the subtype of “shared constructs” (distinct from global or configural ones). as shared constructs, stereotypes gain validity only when group members share similar perceptions. this remark leads to two important criteria in defining a stereotype: the analysis level and the generality level. the analysis level addresses the question of “who holds the stereotype belief” and the generality level addresses the question of “who the stereotype belief refers to”. in both cases there are three distinct possibilities: a person, a group (or micro-group) or a community (or macro-group) as can be seen in figure 1. figure 1. the analysis and generality level in the study of stereotypes considering the level of analysis, the individual can only have a schema of another person or an “individual stereotype” of specific groups / communities. genuine stereotypes are beliefs shared by groups and refer to members of another group / category. if the stereotype is held by members of a macro-group / community (and refer to members of another group / community / category) it may be considered a cultural stereotype. taking into account the level of generality all stereotypic beliefs of an individual should be considered as schemata rather than stereotypes. for example a person can have a schema of a specific neighbour and all persons from the same building (a micro-group) can hold a shared schema of the property-owner. theoretical approaches if, as we have seen, stereotypes have been characterized in a rather homogenous manner, most discrepancies emerge when constructing a theory of stereotypes, or, in other words, a coherent theoretical model that would explain this phenomenon. among the well-known theories that can clarify how stereotypes come to exist and function one can find: the psychodynamic model / the authoritarian personality (adorno, 1950), the social learning theory (bandura, 1977), the realistic group conflict theory (sherif, 1966) and the cognitive theories (pendry and al., 1998). still, despite this diversity of particular theoretical models, three broad theoretical and methodological approaches dominate the study of stereotypes. each one of these is defined by a unique outlook on what stereotypes are and how they should be studied (see figure 2). figure 2. theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of stereotypes the social cognition approach focuses on the study of stereotypes at an individual level and uses mainly laboratory studies (highly rigorous but sometimes low in ecological validity). processes such as categorisation, social perception and comparison are primarily investigated and stereotypes are defined / explained in terms of schemata or prototypes. on the other hand, the inter-group relations approach focuses on the group level, especially on relations between group members, and therefore it primarily involves field studies. stereotypes are considered in relation to group membership, attitudes, social identity and self-esteem and their connection with prejudice and discrimination becomes much more salient. at first glance the two perspectives above appear to contradict one another and, indeed, researchers from both sides tend to ignore each other (bourhis and leyens, 1994). currently the “dichotomy” is completed by a third approach, that of social representations. from this perspective stereotypes are seen as essential or synthesized expressions / components of social representations (moliner, 1996; mannoni, 1998; chiru, 2000). the level of study this time transcends the individual and even the group level. the community / societal focus as well as a rather balanced positioning between universal and situational claims characterise this last frame. if cognitive processes are generally presumed as universal (or less influenced by cultural factors) and inter-group relations need to be studied contextually, stereotype representations (glăveanu, 2007) simultaneously consider social practices and cultural norms. still, it is important to notice that the social representations approach does not combine or transcend social cognition and inter-group relations. all three are fertile and equally productive viewpoints on stereotypes and it is in the responsibility of social scientists to be flexible in selecting the most suitable theoretical perspective for particular research objectives. taxonomy apart from the theoretical distinctions discussed in the last section it is useful to consider the taxonomy of stereotypes. for a better understanding let us consider two interacting groups, group 1 and group 2. their members develop at least four types of stereotype images (in this case ethnic stereotypes) as represented in figure 3. figure 3. types of stereotypes in an inter-group relation usually what one thinks of when talking about stereotypes are “heterostereotypes” (a stereotype of the out-group). in our example members from group 1 have a heterostereotype about members from group 2 and members from group 2 also develop a heterostereotype regarding group 1 members. at the same time members from both groups have an image concerning their own group and this kind of images are conceptualised as “autostereotypes”. things become even more complicated when taking into account, for instance, how members from group 1 think members of group 2 see themselves or, in other words, when considering the stereotype members of group 1 share in regard to the (presumed) autostereotype of group 2 members. in this case we talk about an “attributed autostereotype”. last but not least group 1 members also think about how group 2 members see them (about the heterostereotype that members from group 2 share about members of their group) or the “projected heterostereotype”. if the distinction between hetero and autostereotypes is a rather classical one (doise et al., 1999; chiru, 2000), there are some terminological disagreements concerning the other two forms. for example other authors tend to use a reversed terminology and refer to “projected autostereotypes” instead of “projected heterostereotypes” and “projected heterostereotypes” instead of “attributed autostereotypes” (lehtonen, electronic article). they also commonly refer to “projected heterostereotypes” using the term “metastereotype” (owuamalam and tarrant, 2006). in my opinion the term metastereotype should be used in a more general and abstract manner following the epistemological meaning of the prefix “meta” (“about”) as it is reflected in concepts such as “metacognition”, “metamemory”, “metaemotion” etc. from this perspective metastereotypes define one’s ability to analyse and reflect upon personal stereotypes – how they are generated, how they function and impact social interactions – and then act accordingly modifying these processes (an awareness and understanding of stereotypes guided by personal experience). the role of stereotypes from the beginning i have emphasized the paradigmatic shift in the case of stereotypes from considering them as harmful and erroneous to discovering their social and cognitive utility. in fact, the three major approaches pointed out earlier each suggested how stereotypes might be useful if not unavoidable in everyday situations. the cognitive perspective is maybe the most eloquent in demonstrating how stereotypes contribute to cognitive economy and how they help each of us save valuable cognitive resources. in this field the shift from metaphorically considering every social actor as a cognitive sloth (gilbert and hixon, 1991) to a motivated tactician (fiske and taylor, 1991) is highly representative. when confronted with multifaceted social situations stereotypes represent quick, effortless and even adaptive “answers”. using them helps us become cognitive experts and remain cognitively efficient (macrae and bodenhausen, 2001). from the inter-group relations perspective positive stereotypes of the in-group and less positive ones for out-group members serve to protect / enhance our “positive social identity”. such a premise has been formalised as one of the most prominent contributions of the european social psychology, the social identity theory (tajfel and turner, 1986). both auto and heterostereotypes play an important part in building our identity as group members and also allow us to comprehend and justify certain attitudes or conducts toward out-group members. the social representations frame furthers this understanding and goes beyond the identity issue by explaining social practices and norms. stereotypes not only regulate particular inter-group interactions but are part of a broader cultural system that orientates our behaviour in various social contexts. still, a fundamental role of stereotypes has been repeatedly ignored or only briefly discussed by most theorists: “having stereotypes makes us feel safe”. stereotypes give us a sense of control over our social contacts, and help us reduce uncertainty and avoid risky situations (both personal and social). this basic need surpasses that of esteem / positive identity and is more specific than most cognitive-economy strategies (that employ not only stereotypes but also concepts and prototypes). the “safety” hypothesis most certainly does not exclude all other theories presented above. experience has taught us that when studying stereotypes it is best to eliminate all preconceived beliefs and keep an open mind to alternative explanations. references adorno, t. w. (1950). the authoritarian personality. new york: harper. bandura, a. (1977). social learning theory. new york: general learning press. brigham, j. c. (1971). “ethnic stereotypes”. psychological bulletin, 76. bourhis, r. y. & leyens, j.p. (1994). “perceptions et relations intergroupes: deux solitudes?”. in r.y. bourhis and j.p. leyens (eds), stéréotypes, discrimination et relations intergroupes. liège: mardaga. chiru, c. (2000). “atribuirea de calităţi şi defecte psihomorale”. in s. chelcea (homage), stereotipuri, reprezentări şi identitate socială. piteşti: editura universităţii din piteşti. doise, w., deschamps, j.-c., & mugny, g. (1999). psihologie socială experimentală. iaşi: polirom. drozda-senkowska, e. (1999). psihologie socială experimentală. iaşi: eurocart. fiske, s. t. & neuberg, s.l. (1990). “a continuum of impression formation, from category-based to individuating processes: influences of information and motivation on attention and interpretation”. advances in experimental social psychology, 23. fiske, s. t. & taylor, s.e. (1991). social cognition. new york: mcgraw-hill. gavreliuc, a. (2006). de la relaţiile interpersonale la comunicarea socială, ediţia a ii-a. iaşi: polirom. gilbert, d. t. & hixon, g.j. (1991). “the troubles of thinking activation and application of stereotypic beliefs”. journal of personality and social psychology, 60. glăveanu, v. p. (2007). “românii şi statutul de cetăţean european: apartenenţe identitare şi reprezentări stereotipe ale bucureştenilor”. psihologia socială, nr 19. hamilton, d. l. (1981). “stereotyping and intergroup behavior: some thoughts on the cognitive approach”. in d. l. hamilton (ed.), cognitive processes in stereotyping and intergroup behaviour. hillsdale, nj: erlbaum. hofman, d. a. (2004). “issues in multilevel research: theory development, measurement, and analysis”. in s.g. rogelberg (ed.), handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology. blackwell publishing. lehtonen, j. (electronic article). cultural stereotypes. http://www.jyu.fi/viesti/verkkotuotanto/kp/vf/jaakko.shtml, accessed on 12.08.2007. leyens, j.-ph., & yzerbyt, v. y., & schadron, g. (1994). stereotypes and social cognition. london: sage. leyens, j.-ph., & bourhis, r. y. (1997). “epilog: percepţii şi relaţii intergrupuri”. in r. y. bourhis & j.-p. leyens (coord.), stereotipuri, discriminare şi relaţii intergrupuri. iaşi: polirom. lippmann, w. (1922). public opinion. new york: harcourt brace. macrae, c. n., milne, a. b. & bodenhausen, g. v. (1994). “stereotypes as energy-saving devices: a peek inside the toolbox”. journal of personality and social psychology, 66. macrae, c. n. & bodenhausen, g. v. (2001). “social cognition: categorical person perception”. british journal of psychology, 92. mannoni, p. (1998). les représentations sociales. paris: puf. moliner, p. (1996). images et représentations sociales. de la théorie des représentations a l’étude des images sociales. grenoble: pug. nachbar, j. & lause, k. (1992). popular culture: an introductory text. ohio: bowling green university popular press. owuamalam, c. k., & tarrant, m. (2006). metastereotype negativity, legitimising ideology and willingness to attribute life’s outcomes to discrimination. http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/ps/spssibiennialconventionposter.pdf, accessed on 12.08.2007. pendry, l. f., macrae, c. n., & hewstone, m. (1998). “reflecţii asupra celuilalt: o abordare socio-cognitivă”, in s. moscovici (coord.), psihologia socială a relaţiilor cu celălalt. iaşi: polirom. sherif, m. (1966). group conflict and cooperation: their social psychology. london: routledge & keagan paul. smith, p. b. & bond m. h. (1994). social psychology across cultures. analysis and perspectives. massachusetts: allyn and bacon. stănculescu, e. (2000). “abordarea sociocognitivă a stereotipurilor” in s. chelcea (homage), stereotipuri, reprezentări şi identitate socială, piteşti: ed. universităţii din piteşti. tajfel, h. & turner, j. c. (1986). “the social identity theory of inter-group behavior” in s. worchel and l. w. austin (eds.), psychology of intergroup relations. chigago: nelson-hall taylor, d. m. (1981). “stereotypes and intergroup relations” in r.c. gardner and r. kalin (eds.), a canadian social psychology of ethnic relations. toronto: methuen. worchel, s., cooper, j., & goethals, g. (1989). understanding social psychology (4th edition). california: books/cole publishing company. biographical note contact: glaveanu_vlad@yahoo.com the author has graduated from the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest, and has worked as youth trainer and researcher in consumer psychology. he is a member of several international organisations (international association for applied psychology, international school psychology association) and ngo’s (save the children, fice-romania, aspse). co-editor of europe’s journal of psychology, the author has published numerous articles, books / book chapters in national or international volumes on themes such as social psychology, organisational psychology and educational psychology. currently he has been offered a scholarship for a master programme in social and cultural psychology at london school of economics and political science. microsoft word 8. theoretical contribution clinical judgement in violence risk assessment.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 128-149 www.ejop.org clinical judgement in violence risk assessment jennifer murray glasgow caledonian university dr. mary e. thomson glasgow caledonian university abstract the present article discusses the three main approaches to violence risk assessment, clinical judgement, actuarial assessment, and structured clinical judgement, informing the reader of the comparative benefits and short-comings of these methods of violence risk assessment. in particular, the present article highlights the controversy within the literature surrounding clinical judgement in comparison to actuarial assessments of violence risk, and proposes that the statistically significant ‘improvements’ of violence prediction when using actuarial scales in comparison to clinical predictions of dangerousness do not necessarily measure the skill of the clinician adequately. specifically, an assessment of ‘dangerousness’ does not equal a prediction of violent recidivism. it is argued that clinicians are not predictive forecasters of risk, as in actuarial scales, but are, rather, trained to manage risk. in addition, suggestions for future research directions in the field of improving violence risk assessments are made. keywords – clinical judgement, actuarial assessment, structured clinical judgement, violence, violence risk assessment. within the field of violence risk assessment, clinicians are reported to be increasing their use of, and are indeed being encouraged to use, standardised risk assessment tools to supplement their own judgements (scott & resnick, 2006). historically, clinicians would be expected to conduct violence risk assessments based upon their own experience in practice using judgement alone, without the use of standardised aids (harris & lurigio, 2007). while this approach is still common in practice (cooke, michie, & ryan, 2001), increasing concerns over the accuracy of clinical judgements of violence risk assessment (for example, monahan, 2001) have led to a vast number clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 128 of tools and approaches being developed regarding the way in which violence risk assessments should be conducted. three key approaches to the way in which violence risk assessments are conducted exist: clinical judgement alone; actuarial scales, which are standardised measures based on statistical models used to predict the risk of future violence; and structured assessment tools to aid clinical judgement, which allow clinicians to use their experience to make judgements in a clear and structured manner using standardised guidelines. however, there is still a great deal of debate within the academic literature regarding the most effective approach to conducting violence risk assessments. for example, while quinsey, harris, rice, and cormier (1999) suggested that clinical judgement should be replaced completely by the use of actuarial scales, douglas, ogloff, and hart (2003) have criticised actuarial tools for being rigid, lacking sensitivity to change and failing to aid risk management and the prevention of violence. in relation to clinical judgement, the debate centres on the accuracy of the clinician’s ability to predict violence. although clinical judgement is reported as being the most commonly used method in clinical practice (cooke et al., 2001), this approach has been widely criticised as inaccurate. in fact, monahan’s (1984) claim that two thirds of all clinical predictions of violence are incorrect has been widely cited. in view of such claims, the present paper will discuss each of the three key methods of risk assessment, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses, thus providing the reader with an adequate knowledge of the current situation surrounding the practice of violence risk assessment. in order to achieve this, however, the wider ranging importance of clinical accuracy in violence risk assessments must first be understood. the accuracy of clinical judgements has been a highly researched area since ashley’s (1922) research, which investigated whether released psychiatric patients posed a real criminal threat to the public. in this research, the criminal behaviour of 700 psychiatric patients was followed for three months after their release from hospital. ashley (1922) reported that only twelve of these patients had been rearrested for a variety of violent and non-violent crimes. while this finding would seem to indicate a poor relationship between mentally ill individuals and criminal behaviour, harris and lurigio (2007) highlighted that the findings of ashley’s research cannot be interpreted with high levels of confidence as the arrest rates for the patients and the general population were never compared. similarly, thornberry and jacoby (1979) followed up the rates of violent offences committed by individuals who had been released from hospitals for the criminally insane to civil hospitals as a result of judicial decisions. while these individuals had previously been europe’s journal of psychology 129 deemed as too dangerous for release, of the 65% who were subsequently released into the community, only 11% were re-arrested for violent offences. studies such as ashley’s (1922) and thornberry and jacoby’s (1979) would appear to indicate that mentally ill individuals in the past were unjustly confined due to faulty judgements assessing an above average level of risk of dangerousness which resulted in them being confined within facilities which were more restrictive than was perhaps necessary (litwack, zapf, groscup, & hart, 2006). the long standing popularity of this field of research can therefore be attributed to its multi-faceted appeal and applications: it is important to assess the risk of violence accurately from both a legal and an ethical standpoint. in relation to the former application, clinicians are called upon explicitly to conduct violence risk assessments within a legal setting (dempster, 2003). the apparent increase in the legal requirement of risk assessments has been attributed to a number of factors, including changes in the law relating to mentally ill offenders (for example, the baxtrom ruling, 1966, which led to 967 offenders being released or transferred from high security to low security psychiatric hospitals [steadman & cocozza, 1974]) in addition to the increase in media portrayal of violent crimes being attributed to mentally ill individuals and the subsequent public concerns and fear brought about by these factors (douglas & webster, 1999). it has therefore been predicted that concerns relating to mentally ill individuals committing violent acts will remain a core issue in both mental health law and academic research alike (monahan, 1988). the key focus of recent research relating to the field of violence risk assessment centres on the best methods used in predicting future violence, i.e., through using a clinical or actuarial approach. this comparative vein of research has been popular largely due to the demands placed on clinicians to produce accurate and reliable risk assessments of future violence. there are now a large number of violence risk assessment tools available to the clinician when conducting a risk assessment. the particular tool chosen will depend on a number of factors, including the clinician’s preferred tool, the most suitable tool for the specific case (e.g., the vrag for predicting recidivism in male violent offenders and its derivative scale, the sorag, for assessing male sexual offenders [quinsey, harris, rice, & cormier, 1998], the hcr20 for assessing risk of violence in a structured manner across a broad range of settings [webster, douglas, eaves, & hart, 1997] and, more recently, the development of the prism for assessing situational/institutional violence [johnstone & cooke, 2008]) and which tool the funding body or employer uses or supports. historically, clinicians would be called upon to use their own experience and intuition when conducting violence risk assessments. this method, while still common in clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 130 practice, has been highly criticised as being limited in terms of both accuracy and inter-clinician agreement (hart, michie, & cooke, 2007). while it has now become common within the literature to find statements which suggest that actuarial assessments are superior to unstructured clinical assessments, there is evidence to suggest that this may not be the case (litwack, 2001). for example, in an analysis of the statistical and clinical evidence, greenland (1980) found that psychiatrists may have been more accurate in their prediction of violence than previously reported when the type of offender is considered and controlled. furthermore, through the utilisation of clinical experience when making judgements about the risk of violence posed by an individual, the clinician can assess emotional state throughout the interview. for example, emotional traits such as lack of empathy and anger (menzies, webster, & sepejak, 1985) and physiological and behavioural traits such as chanting, flared nostrils, flushed face and clenching of the jaw and hands (berg, bell, & tupin, 2000) are among the indicators of violence that may not be detected through the use of actuarial tools alone. the use of both actuarial tools and of structured risk assessment instruments in conjunction with clinical interviews has therefore been judged to be most effective (scott & resnick, 2006). this recommendation harvests the benefits of both actuarial tools and clinical judgement (structured or unaided) while minimizing their limitations in practice. the vrag is the most widely used actuarial scale for predicting violence (cooke et al., 2001). this tool was developed by quinsey et al. (1998) in order to predict the likelihood of violent behaviour enacted by institutionalised adult males. although the predictive accuracy of the vrag has been widely demonstrated, it has also come under criticism. critique aimed specifically at the vrag highlights the issue of insensitivity to the type of violence committed: the level of severity of the violent act being assessed is not taken into consideration or weighted differently by the vrag, and, as such, important information about the offence may be lost. for instance, when using the vrag the violent act of murder would carry the same weight as that of assault, despite the much greater severity of the consequences to the victim. in addition, the vrag does not take into account drug or substance abuse as a risk factor for violence, despite this factor being a key factor in predicting recidivism (howard, 2009). no specific reason is given for the omission of this important risk factor from the vrag; however, it is logical that the omission would be based on the characteristics of the base sample. that is, based on the sample on which the vrag was developed, drug or substance abuse may not have been a common factor associated with violence, despite this being a key predictive factor in other offending populations. thus, while the information gathered through this tool may be of use in predicting risk, there is a possibility of missing important ‘broken leg’ or dynamic risk cues. these so called ‘broken leg’ cues are changeable in nature and europe’s journal of psychology 131 over time, with the classic example of an individual having a broken leg: in the short term, this would likely hinder the individual’s opportunity to engage in violent behaviour, thus lowering their level of risk and dramatically altering their risk management needs. thus, in this instance the clinician may choose to adjust the actuarial prediction to take into account this dynamic risk/protective factor. a similar adjustment may also be made in the case of drug abuse (which, as mentioned is not included in the vrag), thus aiding the formulation of the risk management plan while still taking into account the important risk factors highlighted within the actuarial tool. this cautiously adjusted actuarial approach is not, however, ideal (kriegman, 2007), as clinicians tend to identify too many exceptions to the actuarial formula, thus modifying the prediction to a great extent (dawes, faust, & meehl, 1989); however, dawes et al. (1989) suggested that the inclusion of the clinician’s modifications does not necessarily aid the prediction, and if over-adjusted may, in fact, negatively affect the accuracy of the prediction. in addition, practical limitations of time may not always allow for such ‘full’ and rounded assessments. while actuarial tools have been widely criticised for being rigid, lacking sensitivity to change and for not being generalisable to populations out with the sample on which they were based (scott & resnick, 2006), it is thought that these tools can be of great use to the clinician when gathering information in the initial assessment stages, since many of the factors included within actuarial assessments are those upon which clinical assessments are based (litwack et al., 2006). in common with clinical judgement, however, actuarial tools are limited when used alone. within true actuarial assessments, no clinical judgement is present but instead strict, uniform rules and decision making criteria are adhered to. it is largely considered that due to the statistical improvement in inter-rater reliability (dempster, 2003), that actuarial assessments of violence risk are superior to clinical judgements. in fact, quinsey et al. (1999) have recommended the complete replacement of clinical evaluations of dangerousness with actuarial tools. however, concerns relating to the highly variable nature of forensic cases have led to criticisms of this recommendation: because cases are diverse in nature and because it would be impossible to mathematically model every relevant clinical factor, to rely solely on an actuarial tool could cause potentially important indicators of violent behaviour to be missed. the use of structured clinical judgement has been seen as a step towards more accurate decision making practice, with this approach being based upon clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 132 combining empirically established risk factors with clinical judgement (douglas et al., 1999). this method of violence risk assessment is considered advantageous as the clinician is given some level of flexibility and discretion. in addition, working to nonweighted guidelines that are easily adapted to new cases (hart, 2000) allows the decision making process to be recorded. the factors on which the final judgement is made are explicit, as in actuarial tools, thus the level of inter-rater reliability can be considered as higher than would be the case with clinical judgement alone. the hcr-20 is one of the most widely researched structured risk assessment guides and has been boasted as “the leading instrument of the structured professional judgement approach” (lamont & brunero, 2009). this broadband risk assessment measure was developed by webster et al. (1997) to assess violence across a range of situations, and has been validated in both forensic and civil psychiatric populations (canter & zukauskiene, 2008). it comprises 20 items across three subscales: 10 historical items, 5 clinical items and 5 risk management items. unlike the actuarial tools of the past, the hcr-20 (and structured risk assessment tools in general) do not seek to predict violence, but instead aim to identify the presence of relevant risk factors, to assess and indicate the individual’s current level of risk posed, and to inform suitable interventions in order to best manage the presenting level of risk. thus, rather than predicting the risk of future violence that an individual poses, the hcr-20 instead acts to inform and manage this risk. in a similar manner as with actuarial tools, it has been reported that these structured tools are also being used in an ‘adjusted’ manner, with the guidelines proposed by these tools not being applied uniformly; instead, these guidelines are reported as being used in a selective manner, with expert users substituting their own techniques in individual cases (garfield & garfield, 2000). this selective use, while not entirely in keeping with ‘evidence-based practice’ may perhaps represent one of the key attributes of violence risk assessment: each case is individual. as instances of violent behaviour can be highly individual in nature, one must take into account that no single evidence-based risk assessment tool or set of guidelines can capture every aspect of every case. as such, the experienced clinician may choose to supplement the risk assessment guideline with additional knowledge about the case that they feel is of paramount importance in assessing the level of risk posed. while this was not an easy option when using the earlier actuarial risk assessment tools which were weighted using mathematical formula (e.g., the vrag), structured risk assessment guidelines (such as the hcr-20) do allow the clinician some freedom to include additional information that they feel is relevant to the case, as the completion of the assessment is not only informed by historical or case file information, but also through clinical interviews thus preventing important ‘broken leg’ information from being ‘lost’ through the process of assessing risk. europe’s journal of psychology 133 despite the controversy relating to the accuracy of clinician judgement (borum, 1996) and the reliability of actuarial tools used within violence risk assessments (litwack, 2001), clinicians continue to be called upon within a courtroom setting to assess whether or not an individual poses a serious level of risk to the public (litwack et al., 2006), as previously discussed. typically, clinicians in these circumstances are asked to assess the likelihood of an individual committing violent behaviour if released into the public (rabinowitz & garelik-wyler, 1999). however, within mental and forensic health services, clinicians are not primarily trained in behavioural forecasting but are instead trained in providing care for their patients and taking preventative action where vulnerable individuals may pose a risk of harming themselves and/or others (rabinowitz & garelik-wyler, 1999). it must be noted that a clinician’s assessment of an individual as ‘dangerous’ is not a guarantee or a prediction of violent behaviour, but is, rather, an indication that the individual poses a significant risk of committing a violent act in the future. as illustrated by litwack et al. (2006), while a patient may be assessed by a clinician as too dangerous for release, this individual may not commit violent acts when released. this cannot be seen as a faulty judgement on the part of the clinician, who merely acted within their boundaries of responsibility in assessing the individual’s overall level of risk and was therefore not necessarily acting within a behavioural forecasting role. in addition, while much of the research relating to clinical accuracy in the prediction of violent behaviour discusses judgements of ‘dangerous’ and ‘non-dangerous’, differences in terminology must be considered. for example, in kozol, boucher, and garofalo’s (1972) research investigating the accuracy of clinical judgements, individuals who were reported to be ‘dangerous’ and who were therefore considered within the research to be likely to commit violent acts were, instead, simply not recommended for release by clinicians. there is clearly a distinction between an individual being not recommended for release and being directly estimated to commit a violent act. the terminology on which dangerous and non-dangerous groups are categorised prior to making bold statements pertaining to the accuracy of clinician judgements must therefore be established within specific research. for example, lidz, mulvey, and gardner (1996) found that mental health professionals performed at a level that was better than chance when asked to rate cases on a scale directly assessing the clinician’s opinion of the ‘potential for violence’ over a six month period. the authors further asserted, however, that due to considerable numbers of individuals who had been rated as having a low potential for violence committing violent acts (a measure of sensitivity) and a considerable proportion of those deemed as having a high potential for violence not committing violent acts (a measure of specificity) within the six month follow up period, that clinical judgements did not have a high enough clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 134 level of sensitivity or specificity to produce accurate predictions of violence. the terminology used in this study must again be considered, as rating the ‘potential for violence’ is once again not a pure prediction of violence. as illustrated, it is clear that the findings of research relating to violence risk assessment are highly inconsistent, with monahan (1988) going as far as to state that for every piece of research that may find an increase in the predictive accuracy of clinicians, another will find that clinicians perform at a level that is no more accurate than chance. thus, in relation to the body of research concerning the accuracy of clinical judgements in violence risk assessment, it is of the utmost importance to take into account the differing contexts and definitions of ‘risk’ across different disciplines. the concept of risk encompasses “the nature, severity, imminence, and frequency or duration of harm – as well as its likelihood” (litwack et al., 2006, pp.493). risk can therefore be considered as dynamic, with hart (2000) further adding that risk, when considered in terms of violence prediction, is an unknown hazard that can must be predicted with a level of uncertainty. from these definitions, it can clearly be extruded that there is no single-faceted definition of risk in terms of clinicians’ assessments of violence risk and prediction. it is for this reason that much of the previous research on clinician accuracy has since been criticised. for example kozol et al. (1972) conducted research into the accuracy of clinical judgements relating to predicting future violence. they followed up a cohort of males who had been released from restrictive facilities over a five year period. the sample consisted of 592 males who had been convicted for assaultive offences and who had been assessed by a team of mental health professionals using clinical interviews, life histories and psychological tests. 386 of the sample were released on the basis of being assessed as no longer dangerous, with a further 49 being released against the advice of a mental health team. at the conclusion of the five year follow up period, kozol et al. (1972) reported that only 8% of the non-dangerous sample recidivised, while 34.7% of those who had been diagnosed as dangerous were found to have committed a serious crime. the findings of kozol et al.’s (1972) research have been widely cited as a demonstration of clinical predictions of violence being incorrect every two out of three instances (e.g., monahan, 1984). however, while it is reported that clinicians provided correct judgements of violence prediction in only 34.7% of the dangerous group, kozol, boucher, and garofalo (1973) later reported that of the 49 dangerous patients released, at least fourteen would not have been diagnosed as dangerous had they been assessed in the latter half of the research due to the improved diagnostic techniques used. in addition, it must always be considered with research europe’s journal of psychology 135 reporting and measuring crime rates that criminal and recidivistic behaviour may indeed be higher than recorded. indeed, research by hall (1982) indicated that only 20% of serious crime may result in arrest. this is of utmost importance in assessing the level of accuracy in clinical predictions of violent behaviour when considering research of the nature of that by kozol et al. (1972). it must therefore be taken into account that apparently faulty judgements may, at least in part, be the result of inaccurate measures of recording criminal behaviour. this can be evidenced by the findings of klassen and o’conner (1987): the authors found that by simply including a measure of self-reported violence to that of arrest rates, the accuracy of clinical predictions of violence could be increased by up to 27.8%. kozol et al.’s (1972) research does, however, suggest that clinicians are significantly better at judging accurately cases of non-violent future behaviour than predicting future violence. in addition, research by rabinowitz and garelik-wyler (1999) found that psychiatric trainees staffing a psychiatric emergency room were better at predicting non-violence than predicting violence in newly admitted patients. this finding is a positive indicator in light of the concerns raised relating to the possibility of excessively high levels of false-positive judgements resulting in individuals being held in highly restrictive facilities (litwack et al., 2006). that is, in light of the aforementioned research findings, that the majority of the individuals who had been deemed too dangerous for release had not actually violently re-offended upon release, the findings of kozol et al. (1972) and rabinowitz and garelik-wyler (1999) go some way to alleviate the ethical concerns raised by the earlier research. there are clear ethical issues associated with the high levels of positive predictions of violence: if the majority of individuals who have been judged to be ‘dangerous’ and have therefore not been recommended for release have been shown statistically to not behave in a dangerous manner when released, should these individuals be incarcerated in the first place? in order to answer this question, a number of factors must be considered. these shall briefly be discussed, but it must be noted that the full range of ethical issues associated with violence risk assessment and detention cannot be covered in the scope of this article. in terms of both a legal and an ethical standpoint, the criminal justice mental health standards (standards 7-3.10; american bar association, 1989) outline that an individual must have not only sufficient education and clinical training and experience, but must also have adequate forensic knowledge gained through specialized training or an alternative route in order for an individual to be court appointed to perform a forensic evaluation. the individual must, therefore, be adequately knowledgeable in both the required clinical matters and the associated legal matters prior to passing a judgement on the level of violence that an individual poses. in addition, when clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 136 assessing the level of risk that an individual poses, the expert must consider not only the individual being assessed (i.e., the offender) and the level of risk to the public, but also under what circumstances this level of risk will be best managed and in turn reduced. thus, where an expert may recommend that an individual not be released from detention, the decision is based on not only concern for safeguarding the public but also will consider what is best for the offender in terms of lowering their likelihood of re-offending through the implementation of interventions. in addition, when considering issues related to re-offending, one must consider that the aim of an intervention, whether it is through the implementation of a clinical risk management plan or simply a period of incarceration, is to reduce the level of risk posed by an individual (heilbrun, 1997). in contrast, the aim of the majority of published violence risk assessment research concerns the accuracy of clinical predictions (carroll, 2007). if one considers that through the course of incarceration an individual may receive some form of therapeutic intervention (e.g., an anger management course), it then becomes somewhat intuitive that the level of risk posed will be lower at the end of the intervention/incarceration than that assigned beforehand. thus, if the intervention has been successful a negative relationship between the original prediction made (e.g., highly dangerous) and the likelihood of re-offending should be found. furthermore, if clinicians are indeed efficient at predicting non-violence accurately, as would be suggested by kozol et al.’s (1972) and rabinowitz and garelik-wyler’s (1999) findings, there may be fewer ‘non-dangerous’ individuals, where the definition of dangerousness acts as a prediction of violence, incarcerated than would be suggested when taking solely into account the earlier research findings reporting high rates of false positive predictions of violence in those incarcerated individuals (e.g., ashley, 1922; steadman & cocozza, 1974; thornberry and jacoby, 1979). as can be seen, the issues surrounding the prediction of violent re-offending behavior found in the literature and the reality of offender reform and detention are complex. in order to judge effectively whether the high level of false positive predictions of future violence found in the literature is indeed that, or whether it is actually based on the success of the interventions applied to an individual, research which takes into account not only predictions of future violence and follow-up re-offending data, but also whether or not the individual had received any interventions must be conducted. rabinowitz and garelik-wyler (1999) further emphasise this within their violence prediction research, stating that some form of preventative action or treatment may have affected the outcome of the target individual’s behaviour. that is, where a prediction of violent behaviour has been made, any treatment or therapy received europe’s journal of psychology 137 either while incarcerated or in the community may reduce the potential for violence. thus, there has been a move within the literature which is driving the focus towards the management of risk, rather than the prediction of future violence. the very nature of violence risk assessment has come to be considered as an ongoing process, not a single standing assessment (davidson, 1997). this movement towards viewing risk assessment as an ongoing process relating to the management of the posing risk, rather than making a one-off assessment bases on static factors, is in line with the argument initiated by davidson (1997); that the risk of violence posed by an individual is a dynamic factor and as such is subject to change over time. thus, rather than assessing the likelihood of risk, it is now accepted that risk must be managed. while great attention within the literature has been given to the various methods of improving the accuracy of clinician judgements, less detail has been paid to the actual processes used by clinicians whilst assessing violence risk in practice (elbogen, 2002) and the ways in which risk is managed in practice (dempster, 2003). in relation to this descriptive research, elbogen (2002) reviewed three key areas of clinician judgement: cue utilisation (the risk factors utilised in decision making), clinical reliability and clinical decision making. in relation to cue utilisation, elbogen’s (2002) review of the descriptive research relating to clinician judgements of violence risk assessment found that clinicians tend to over-emphasise the importance of certain crimes and under-emphasise others (e.g., murder and sexual offence, respectively). it should be noted however, that it is not the primary aim of the clinician to predict future violence but rather it is to manage the risk of violent re-offending (litwack et al., 2006), as previously discussed. elbogen and huss (2000) further specified that the context in which violence risk assessments are made may affect the types of risk factors focused upon when decision making. for example, menzies and webster (1995) found that in a forensic setting, clinicians focused their decision making on previous violence, alcohol abuse and low anger control to a greater extent than other presenting cues. conversely, quinsey (1995) suggested that clinicians rely on salient cues, such as extreme delusions, when assessing the risk of violence, even when these cues are not necessarily related to the case or indeed relevant. homan, van knippenberg, van kleef, and de dreu (2007) conducted research concerning the effects of differing levels of salience in group decision making which may be relevant when considering clinical decision making and violence risk assessments conducted within group settings. in addition to levels of informational diversity to which the group was exposed, homan et al. (2007) further emphasised the importance of the salience of clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 138 social categories within the group. the authors found that with increasing diversity in the social categories included within the group, increased conflict arose as a result of the formation of social subgroups. this finding is theoretically considered to arise due to the difficulties experienced by groups when faced with exploring and accepting the perspectives of several subgroups (bowers, pharmer, & salas, 2000). conversely however, van knippenberg, de dreu, and homan (2004) found that diversity of information within a group can lead to elaboration of task-relevant information, arguing that this increased exchange of information will aid the accuracy of the decision making process. these apparently opposing standpoints may, however, be considered as complimentary: in order for informational diversity to be exchanged and discussed by a group, sub-group categorisation must be minimal (homan et al., 2007). thus, in order to attain maximal benefits within group decision making, informational diversity must be high and group heterogeneity must be minimal. however, while the impact of group processes on decision making in violence risk assessment would appear to be extremely relevant within a clinical setting due to the increasing tendency for clinicians to conduct violence risk assessments in groups (croskerry, 2005), research of this nature (that is, the exploration of social salience/subgroup categorization on group decision making) has largely not been empirically applied to the field of clinical decision making in violence risk assessment. thus, little is actually known about the possible effects that group decision making may have on judgements made concerning violence risk assessments. it should therefore be noted that the research discussed here regarding group decision making in violence risk assessment does not and cannot cover every theory or model of group decision making, and indeed there is an entire literature on the topic of group decision making in contexts other than violence risk assessment that may be applicable to the field. future research investigating group processes in violence risk assessment, particularly investigating the impact of multi-disciplinary teams on judgement and decision making in this context, would therefore be beneficial. while it is recognised that not all of the aspects of group decision making that may affect judgement in violence risk assessment can be covered in the scope of the current article, a number of the main factors shall now be discussed. for example, false congruence in decision making may occur as a result of group processes. it has been well documented that in group situations the diversity of information and perspectives is often not exploited to full potential (bowers et al., 2000; homan et al., 2007; webber & donahue, 2001). while it is thought that group decision making may be better than individual decision making due to the ability to pool unique information (hollingshead, 1996), it has been found that group discussions europe’s journal of psychology 139 disproportionately reflect information that is know by all members of the group; thus making information that is known by only one member of the group less discussed and therefore less important in terms of weighting in the final decisions made by the group (hollingshead, 1996). this may then lead to a false sense of congruence in the final decision made and result ultimately lead to a less than optimal decision being made (stasser & titus, 1985). however, stasser, stewart, and wittenbaum (1995) found that the heightened influence of shared knowledge compared to unique knowledge in group settings could be decreased by making it clear to all members of the group that each member has additional, non-shared information. with regard to violence risk assessment, when discussing a case the multi-disciplinary team should explicitly recognise the value of individual information that may not be held by all of the group members or indeed contained within the violence risk report or case being discussed. in addition, hellingshead (1996) highlighted that through having access to information profiles rather than having to rely on memory alone, groups discussed both unique and common information to a greater extent. however, when asked to write rationales for their decisions, groups who had access to the information profiles did not have a higher mention of the unique information when compared to groups who relied on memory alone. stewart and stasser (1995) also found that unique information was omitted from recalled information where it was previously included in discussion, with the exception of when the unique information was presented by an individual who was considered to be an expert. homan et al. (2007) argued that it is not only the diversity of information and the way that this is shared within a group that may affect decision making, but also the diversity of the group members. this has major implications in terms of the decisions reached by multi-disciplinary teams in violence risk assessment. a recent study by kettles, gass, addo, and mckie (2009) found that key care decisions within intensive psychiatric care units still tended to be made by doctors and nurses, and that decisions made by medical staff held more authority than those made by other members of the care teams. kettles et al. (2009) concluded from these findings that inequalities in power still exist within multidisciplinary teams. with a related focus on leadership in group decision making, taggar and ellis (2007) conducted research which investigated the role of leaders in shaping team norms, based on feldman’s (1984) suggestion that team leaders have a strong impact on team norm development. it was found that the prior expectations held by both leaders and other group members effect the formation of team norms, and that those leaders who held high prior expectations for team problem solving behaviours are able to compensate for a team’s lower expectations. taggar and ellis’ (2007) findings therefore suggest that leaders play a critical role in forming and shaping team norms. taggar and ellis (2007) further clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 140 asserted that effective team behaviours are improved through formal norms being established at the beginning of team interaction. if these norms are indeed influenced more by leaders than by the other members of the group, as suggested by taggar and ellis’ (2007) findings and by feldman (1984), and if unique information provided by experts is weighted more heavily than information provided by other members of the team, it can once again create a false sense of congruence in decision making. that is, while the team may agree to a particular decision, the level of importance placed on the opinions and wants of the ‘leader’ may be higher than those proposed by a group member ranking lower in the hierarchy, and may be discussed to a greater extent, thus leading to unique information that is perhaps as important or more important than that being considered being sidelined in discussions. the decisions made based on the discussions may, in such cases, be biased towards the overall opinions and wants of the team leader, rather than representing the opinions of the team members. it should be pointed out that in group formation, team leaders are not necessarily those who are explicitly assigned the role, but are often assigned the role of leader through peer negotiation, spoken or unspoken (seers, petty, & cashman, 1995). leaders are often members of a group who are able to exert influence or authority over the team (taggar & ellis, 2007). taking kettles et al.’s (2009) findings into account, it may therefore be assumed that in a forensic or psychiatric multidisciplinary team setting, the team leader is likely to be the individual perceived by the others to be most medically trained, e.g., psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric nurses. with regard to group decision making, it is important that all group members are happy with the hierarchical culture of the group. a successful hierarchical group culture should emphasise stability, rules, policy and regulations, while also accentuating teamwork, cohesiveness and participation (mccomas, tuite, waks, & sherman, 2007). a successful hierarchical group culture will therefore foster not only a more satisfied organisational culture, but also will increase individual group member’s commitment (mccomas et al., 2007). the satisfaction of group members is important for optimal decision making in hospital and forensic cases making as it has been shown to improve performance and decrease the frustration that may otherwise be felt by members of a group (zazzali, alexander, shortell, & burns, 2007). in their research concerning group member’s perceptions of procedural justice, zazzali et al. (2007) pointed out that when members of a group are unsatisfied with a process, they are more likely to view it as biased and are less likely to accept the outcome. this may then lead to unsatisfied group members to lose interest and limit their participation in decision making discussions, an issue which, according to europe’s journal of psychology 141 zazzali et al. (2007), has the potential to limit the ability of the group to make informed decisions as representative input is not achieved. to reiterate, when making judgements in violence risk assessment, not only should the uniqueness of information held by the group be made explicit and be taken into consideration, but so too should the diversity of the different group members in order to improve individual satisfaction and therefore group performance. it may be argued that due to the relatively low volume of research surrounding descriptive research in the area of clinician judgement, that the most commonly over-emphasised cues used by clinicians have not been fully identified. this has major implications for the development of both actuarial scales and for improving clinician decision making alike. for example, in an assessment of the sage assessment survey, an actuarial tool measuring self-reported aggression, downey and zun (2007) found that while the overall scoring of the sage was unsuccessful at identifying those at risk of partaking in violent behaviour, certain factors in the tool were effective. while this would appear promising, the tool gives equal weight to all of the included factors, and thus the effect becomes annulled (downy & zun, 2007). mills, kroner, and hemmati (2007) have further indicated that the inclusion of items that do not discriminate between recidivists and non-recidivists in risk assessment scales may indeed devaluate the risk assessment being conducted. this therefore suggests the need for the identification of the cues most often over-emphasised in terms of importance by both clinicians and risk assessment tools. ebogen’s (2002) review of the descriptive research further highlighted issues regarding clinical reliability for instance, the measurement of inter-clinician agreement on specific clinical judgements. it has been hypothesised that greater congruence in a decision made between clinicians will lead to greater reliability of that decision (werner, rose, & yesavage, 1990). however, research by quinsey and ambtman (1979) found low levels of reliability between health professionals when assessing dangerousness. with regards to violence risk assessment, werner, rose, and yesavage (1983) found similarly low levels of reliability in clinician decision making within the context of a psychiatric care facility when psychologists and psychiatrists were asked to make judgements of dangerousness. however, when the scores of judgements of dangerousness made by the psychologists and by the psychiatrists within the sample were combined as a single group, greater levels of congruence, thus reliability, were apparent in the violence risk assessments made. thus it would appear that greater reliability in clinical decisions of violence risk assessment may be apparent within group decision making than would be the case with individual decision making. clinical judgement in violence risk assessment 142 furthermore, research conducted by skeem, mulvey, odgers, schubert, stowman, gardner, and lidz (2005) found that levels of violence prediction differed across mental health professionals pending on their professional role. in an examination of this disagreement between estimates of future violence occurring, lidz, mulvey, apperston, evanczuk, & shea (1992) found that the key sources of this disagreement may be levels of clinician experience in addition to organisational variables. this finding would suggest that whist levels of accuracy increase with multiple decision makers being involved (werner et al., 1983), when the decision making group is of multiple disciplines/levels of experience, greater levels of disagreement within that group may exist (lidz et al., 1992). the level of congruence in clinical decisions made in groups is of utmost importance in terms of the reliability of that decision: it is believed that greater accuracy in violence risk assessments may be achieved in group decisions made with high levels of agreement (elbogen, 2002). as there are increasing requirements within violence risk assessment practice to make decisions in groups (croskerry, 2005), it is of great importance that the implications of this alteration are understood. for example, the types of heuristics and biases used by all decision makers unconsciously (croskerry, 2005) are argued to be different for individual and group decision making. thus, where the majority of past research in the field of clinical judgements of violence risk assessment has focused on individual decision makers, the findings of such research may not translate accurately with regards to group decisions in violence risk assessment. further to this increasing tendency of group decision making in violence risk assessment, there is little apparent standardisation of the demographics of the group decision makers. for example, in utilisation of the hcr-20 (webster et al., 1997) and other risk assessment/management tools, reports are gathered from multiple sources, e.g., social services, prison officers, clinical psychologists, parole officers, psychiatrists. while andres pueyo and redondo illescas (2007) point out that risk assessment is an individual process for the majority of mental health professionals and criminology experts involved in the task, through gathering data from multiple sources, as outlined above, and through different means (e.g., personal interviews, psychological and medical assessments, judicial and social records and the collateral recollection of information) and then discussing the initial individual judgements made with the multi-disciplinary team, the violence risk assessment process may then be considered, in part, as a multi-disciplinary process. the use of multi-disciplinary decision making groups with varying levels of expertise in clinical violence risk assessment has neglected to be the primary focus of the majority of research in the area. whilst research, such as that by werner et al. (1983), indeed investigated the differences between different types of clinical decision makers, europe’s journal of psychology 143 subsequent research in the area has not appeared to progress to such a level as to explore the possible social impact of multi-disciplinary group decision making in violence risk assessment, in comparison to single-disciplinary group or individual clinical decision makers. in addition, elbogen’s (2002) review highlighted the need for greater research in the area of clinical decision making on the heuristics and biases used by clinicians whilst making violence risk assessments. further to this, mcneil (1998) suggested that in order to improve clinician skill when making violence risk assessments, there must be at least an awareness of the possible cognitive biases that may be active with decision making. the present article has summarised the key points relating to the state of violence risk assessment, informing the reader of the use of clinical judgement, actuarial tools, and structured professional guidelines when conducting a violence risk assessment. the controversy surrounding clinical judgement and the actuarial assessment of violence risk in particular has been discussed. in addition, the present article has highlighted the need for a greater focus on the ways in which risk assessment and management could be improved and informed through more targeted research investigating the actual process of violence risk assessment (e.g., elbogen, 2002), and the need for research investigating the possible social effects of multidisciplinary group decision making, and the impact of cognitive heuristics and biases on the accuracy and efficacy of violence risk assessments. references american bar association (1989). criminal justice mental health standards. washington, d. c. andres pueyo, a., & redondo illescas, s. 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(2007). organizational culture and physician satisfaction with dimensions of group practice. health services research, 42(3 pt 1), 1150-1176. about the authors: jennifer murray* jennifer murray is a phd student in the department of psychology, glasgow caledonian university. her thesis investigates the effects of attributional manipulations in clinical judgements of violence risk assessment, at various stages of the violence risk assessment process. the current paper is completed in part-fulfilment of jennifer murray’s phd thesis. *requests for reprints should be addressed to jennifer murray, dept. of psychology, glasgow caledonian university, 70 cowcaddens road, glasgow, g4 0pp, scotland, uk (email: jennifer.murray@gcal.ac.uk) dr. mary e. thomson dr. mary e. thomson is a reader of decision science from the department of psychology, glasgow caledonian university, who has published in various books and journals, including risk analysis, decision support systems, the international journal of forecasting, the european journal of operational research and the journal of behavioral decision making. microsoft word 7. prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 104-117 www.ejop.org the prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use among black african minorities in england abeeb olufemi salaam department of psychology, university of surrey abstract the current study examined the prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use among black african minorities in england. participants, comprising 82 males (i.e., 71.9%) and 32 females (i.e., 28.1%), aged 18 to 60 years, were recruited through contact on the streets, and from recreation centres, bus stations, train stations, and shopping centres in liverpool, manchester, and london. a self-report anonymous questionnaire covering drug and alcohol use and measures of impulsivity (i.e., sensation seeking, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance and urgency) was administered. although the results suggest a low level of illicit drug use, a significant number of the participants admitted to alcohol use. while predicting the motivation for alcohol use via the whiteside and lynam (2001) measures of impulsivity, a lack of premeditation was significantly attributed to motivation for alcohol use among the participants. other impulsivity measures, such as sensation seeking, urgency, and lack of perseverance, do not appear to be significant predictors of alcohol use, but there were significant relationships between urgency, lack of premeditation and patterns of alcohol use. the implications of the findings in terms of policy formulation on drug treatment services are emphasised. key words – ethnic minorities, black african minorities, drug and alcohol use, impulsivity background britain has had a long history of immigration, with considerable inflows of migrants from different parts of the world (stillwell & williams, 2005). of all these immigrants, the proportion of black african minorities is steadily increasing, with a gain of 53 percent between the 1981 and 1991 census period and 141 per cent during the 1991 to 2001 census period (rees & butt, 2003). the rapid growth in the black african prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 105 population, particularly from nigeria, ghana, somalia, angola and congo, has been attributed to consistent immigration flow into britain and high fertility rate, further enhanced by a considerable number of youths among the group (mccarthy, 2003). the vast majority of black and minority ethnic groups in england are heavily concentrated in certain london boroughs and metropolitan districts (office of national statistics, 2001) or the most deprived inner-city areas (social exclusion unit, 1998), and the relative economic deprivation of these neighbourhoods has been associated with increasing risks of drug and alcohol mis-use (harrison, sutton, & gardner, 1997; haw, 1985; pearson, 1987; rasool, 2006; patel & wibberley, 2002). sangster, shiner, sheikh and patel (2002) also observed that the levels of drug and alcohol use among black minority groups is steadily increasing but lower than the indigenous white population. the differences in patterns of drug and alcohol use between ethnic minorities and indigenous white population notwithstanding, there is evidence to suggest that a wide range of black and minority ethnic groups are involved in illegal drug use (rasool, 2006; sangster et al., 2002). a number of risk factors have been implicated in the aetiology of substance abuse behaviour among different groups. these factors can be classified into intra-personal risk factors (e.g., personality traits of impulsivity, negative affectivity, cognitive disability), or extra personal risk factors (e.g., peer pressure, neighbourhood disorganisation, lack of parental monitoring, etc) which are external to the individual (sussman & ames, 2001). of these factors, the current study focuses on intra-personal factors of impulsivity to explain motivation for drug and alcohol use among black african minorities in england. the current researcher is particularly interested in impulsivity because there are robust findings linking impulsive temperament with substance misuse and other problem behaviour (allen, moeller, rhoades, & cherek, 1998; dawe, loxton, et al., 2007; evenden, 1999). indeed, research on impulsivity and addiction finds that impulsivity plays a significant role in explaining the lack of behavioural inhibition in drug abusers (for reviews, see allen, moeller, rhoades, & cherek, 1998; evenden, 1999; bickel & marsch, 2001; moeller & dougherty, 2002; hayaki, stein, lassor, herman, & anderson, 2005). the definition of impulsivity varies among investigators, but most have similar components. impulsivity is defined as a predisposition toward rapid, unplanned reactions to internal or external stimuli without regard to the negative consequences of the actions on the impulsive individual or on others (moeller, barratt, dougherty, schmitz, & swann 2001). petry (2001) suggested that impulsivity includes an orientation towards a diminished ability to delay gratification, behavioural disinhibition, risk taking, sensation seeking, boredom proneness, reward sensitivity, and poor planning, all of which often leads to undesirable consequences. europe’s journal of psychology 106 impulsivity model posits that it is the inability of an individual to process and analyse the immediate action properly that may prompt such an individual to engage in antisocial behaviour. this therefore explains why impulsivity has been used to explain motivation for substance misuse behaviour because of the inability of some addicts to weigh the consequences of their immediate actions (kirby, 1997; madden, petry, badger, & bickel, 1997; petry, bickel, & arnett, 1998; kirby et al., 1999; kollins, 2003; petry, 2003; kirby & petry, 2004). however, it should be noted that impulsive personality trait associated with substance misuse and other forms of antisocial behaviour include not only rash impulsiveness, but also several other personal dispositions. these include lack of premeditation, urgency, sensation seeking and lack of perseverance (whiteside & lynam, 2001). pre-meditation as a construct of impulsivity describes the ability to think and reflect on the consequences of an act before engaging in that act. conversely, a lack of pre-meditation suggests insufficient ability or complete inability to plan out actions and anticipate consequences or deficits in executive functioning (whiteside & lynam, 2001). an individual suffering from lack of pre-meditation tends to act on the spur of the moment without regard to the consequences of the immediate action that describes the most frequently cited risk factors for substance misuse behaviour. low scorers in (lack of) premeditation scale are thoughtful and deliberative, whereas high scorers act on the spur of the moment and without regard to the consequences. the urgency sub trait of impulsivity refers to the tendency to experience strong impulses, frequently under conditions of negative affect. high scorers on urgency are likely to engage in impulsive behaviours in order to alleviate negative emotions despite the long-term harmful consequences of these actions. the items that contribute to urgency and the fact that urgency is aligned with neuroticism suggest that the impulsive actions associated with this personality trait are coloured and influenced by strong impulses and emotions (whiteside & lynam, 2001). lack of perseverance refers to an individual’s inability to remain focused on a task that may be boring or difficult. individuals low in (lack of) perseverance are able to complete projects and to work under conditions that require resistance to distracting stimuli. lack of perseverance may be related to disorders that involve the inability to ignore distracting stimuli or to remain focused on a particular task, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd). sensation seeking on the other hand describes a tendency to enjoy and pursue activities that are exciting and openness to trying new experiences that may or may not be dangerous. sensation seeking includes risk-taking, which typically satisfies the high sensation seeking individual's prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 107 desire for novel and intense experiences (myerson & green, 1995). for example, a high sensation seeker might choose to use alcohol or marijuana despite possible addiction, overdose, and legal, social, and school-related problems. high scorers in sensation seeking scale enjoy taking risks and engaging in dangerous activities, whereas low scorers avoid risk and danger. given this background, the overall aim of the current study was to determine the prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use among black african minorities in england in order to establish the patterns of drug and alcohol use among the group, and thereby come up with suggestions on policy formulation that may benefit minority ethnic groups residing in england. to achieve this, the following research questions were addressed: � what is the pattern of drug and alcohol use among black african minorities? � is there any significant difference between the patterns of alcohol and drug use across various demographic characteristics (e.g., duration of staying in england, marital status, and age group)? � what is the relationship between substance abuse and levels of impulsivity among the participants? � to what extent do personality traits of impulsivity predict the involvement of the participants in drug and alcohol use? methods ethical procedures and sampling after a favourable ethical opinion to conduct the present study was obtained from the university of surrey ethics and quality committee, the researcher recruited participants, i.e., male and female adults within the ages of 18 to 60 years through personal contacts on the streets and in the recreation centres, bus stations, train stations, football pitch, and shopping centres in liverpool, manchester, and london. while the researcher was distributing the questionnaires, the participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and anonymous. to further ensure their anonymity, the participants were told not to put their names or any of the pages of the questionnaire or put any marks that might identify them. the researcher emphasised that the return of a completed questionnaire constituted informed consent to participate in the study. out of 375 questionnaires that were distributed during this study, 114 (i.e., 30.4%) were returned via self addressed prepaid envelopes. however, it should be noted that there was a section of the questionnaire that requires the participants to state their country of origin in order to europe’s journal of psychology 108 ensure that the target group (i.e., black african minorities) were recruited for the study. questionnaire: a self-report, anonymous questionnaire was used to generate responses from the participants. the questionnaire contained four parts: • section a focused on the demographic variables of the participants where they were asked to report to provide the requested information on their demographic characteristics by stating their exact age, occupation, gender, country of origin, and duration of residency in the united kingdom. • section b consisted of a 45-item, self-rated upps personality scale that was developed by whiteside and lynam in 2001. the author of the current study was interested in this scale because the scale presents a new perspective which regards impulsivity as an artificial umbrella term that actually encompasses four distinct facets of personality associated with impulsive behaviour. the four distinct facets incorporated in the instrument focuses on the dimensions of urgency (12 items), lack of premeditation (11 items), lack of perseverance (10 items), and sensation seeking (12 items). each item is rated on a 0 = not at all to 4 = very much – point scale. individuals high on impulsivity are characterized by low urgency, high sensation seeking, low perseverance and low premeditation scores. the subscales upps scale has sound internal consistencies in the original study (a ranged from .82 to .91) (whiteside & lynam, 2001). the coefficient reliability of the upps scales used in the present study is reported in table 1. • section c contains screening measures to determine the prevalence of drug and alcohol use. in this section, the respondents were requested to report incidents of the drugs and alcohol that they have used in the past. also, items regarding the estimates of joints smoked and units of alcohol used in the past week were included. a unit of alcohol is equivalent to half a pint, a measure of spirits, or a glass of wine. table 1: coefficient reliability of the scale used for the present study data collection scales cronbach alpha item mean minimum maximum lack of premeditation .822 2.84 2.16 3.15 sensation seeking .833 2.56 2.00 3.05 lack of perseverance .732 1.81 1.59 2.55 urgency .837 1.66 1.47 2.64 prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 109 analytic strategies statistical package for social sciences (spss) was used for data analysis. a combination of univariate (frequency counts), bivariate (chi square statistics) and multivariate (logistic regression) analyses were conducted to determine the prevalence of, and motivation for, alcohol and drug use among the participants. results sample description: the summary data of demographic characteristics of the participants are shown in table 2. table 2: sample characteristics (n=114) characteristics frequency percentage gender male 82 71.9 female 32 28.1 marital status married 43 37.7 single 69 60.5 divorce 02 1.8 age group 18-20 17 14.9 21-30 48 42.1 31-40 32 28.1 41-50 13 11.4 51-60 04 3.5 education masters 31 27.2 degree 38 33.3 hnd 04 3.5 ond 01 0.9 college 02 1.8 diploma 12 10.5 a level 22 19.3 high school 03 2.6 primary 01 0.9 country of origin nigeria 66 57.9 others 48 43.1 duration of residency in the uk 0-3 years 49 43.0 europe’s journal of psychology 110 4-6 years 26 22.8 7-9 years 09 7.9 more than 10 years 30 26.3 occupation security 08 7.0 student 51 44.7 support work 06 5.3 engineering 06 5.3 customer care 12 1.5 others 31 27.2 note: other countries of origin include ghana, dr congo, uganda, zimbabwe, kenya, and south africa self-report drug use: the most prevalent ever used drug/substance among the participants was alcohol (60.5%). this was followed by cigarettes (29.8%) and cannabis (15.8 %). there was similar pattern for alcohol and cigarettes used during the last week with alcohol topping the list of most consumable drug. there was generally low level of drugs and alcohol used with only few numbers admitted taking drugs in the past. additional information on patterns of drugs and alcohol use are summarised in figure 1 below. figure 1: self report incidents of alcohol and drugs use prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 111 combined analysis chi square analysis was employed to predict patterns of relationship between units of alcohol used across various demographic factors of the participants (e.g., gender, age group, duration of staying in the united kingdom, and marital status (see tables 4-7). pearson correlation was further used to determine patterns of relationships between impulsivity measures and units of alcohol used. table 4: patterns of relationship between units of alcohol used per week and age group alcohol used age group never used ever used chi square df p 18-20 years 06 11 2.0 2 0.364ns 21-30 years 16 32 31-60 years 23 26 note: ns= not significant the computed outcomes from the chi square statistics suggest that there was no statistically significant relationship between units alcohol used per week and age group of the participants. however, it should be noted that the expected frequency for ages 41-60 among the participants who has never used alcohol is less than 5. this explains why the ages 31-60 was grouped to make it appropriate for chi square tests. table 5: patterns of relationship between units of alcohol used per week and gender alcohol used gender never used ever used chi square df p male 31 51 0.34 1 0.559 ns female 14 18 similarly, there was no statistically significant relationship between units alcohol used per week and gender of the participants. table 6: patterns of relationship between units of alcohol used and duration of stay in england alcohol used duration of staying in the uk never used ever used chi square df p 0-3years 24 25 5.7 3 0.126ns 4-6years 08 18 7-9years 05 04 more than 10 years 08 22 note: ns= not significant europe’s journal of psychology 112 there was also no significant relationship between units of alcohol used and duration of staying in the united kingdom among the participants. table 7: patterns of relationship between units of alcohol used and marital status alcohol used marital status never used ever used chi square df p married 17 26 0.012 2 0.913ns single 28 41 note: ns= not significant finally, there was no significant relationship between units of alcohol used and marital status of the participants. relationships between impulsivity measures and units of alcohol used pearson correlation analyses suggest significant relationships between lack of premeditation and units of alcohol use (r=.237, p< 0.05) whereby lower premeditation scores wee associated with higher units of alcohol consumed by the participants per week. similar significant relationships were found between urgency and units of alcohol used (r=. 193, p < 0.05) which suggest that lower urgency is associated with high level of alcohol use by the participants. conversely, there were no significant relationships between sensation seeking and units of alcohol used (r=.166, p= 0.141), lack of perseverance and units of alcohol used (r=.121, p = 0.307). logistic regression analyses where units of alcohol use in a week was the dependent variable, the regression model (adjusted r2 = 0.461, f4, 22 = 4.305, p<0.05) was predicted by lack of premeditation (t =2.090, p< 0.039, β = 0.195) which indicates that the participants who scored low on lack of premeditation scale were significantly more likely to consume more alcohol per week. urgency (t = 1.238, p< 0.218, β = 0.129), sensation seeking (t =-1.262, p < 0.210, β = -0.117) and lack of perseverance (t = 0.266, p < 0.791, β = 0.027) were not significant predictor of patterns of alcohol use by the participants. discussion the present study examined the patterns of and motivation for drugs and alcohol use among black african minorities in england. the findings indicate low rates of illicit drug use, such as cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin (see figure 1), but a majority of the prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 113 respondents (i.e., 60.5%) admitted to consuming alcohol. this was followed by cigarette use (29.8%) and cannabis use (15.8 %). however, the low level of rates of alcohol consumption does not necessarily imply that survey participants do not consume drugs and alcohol. as drug use is heavily stigmatised among members of african communities, the admittance of such behaviour might be seen as a source of shame. respondents may also feel reluctant to disclose their true use of illicit drugs because of their fear of legal repercussions. another possible explanation for the relatively low level of drug and alcohol reported use among the black african population may be connected to the expectations of their family and acquaintances back home. the expectations of migrants’ family, friends, and associates in their countries of origin are high, and a choice to turn to criminal activity would be deemed disgraceful. the majority of the participants who did admit to consuming alcohol and those few admitted to other types of drugs in the recent past were males who fell within the age group of 21 to 30 years. although age group of the participants was not found to be statistically significant, this observation on male domination of the alcohol use corresponds with findings of research regarding alcohol related problems in nigeria, and elsewhere in africa which revealed that males who are adolescents or more youthful in terms of age are more likely to show drug and alcohol related problems than their female counterparts (gureje, obikoya, & ikuesan, 1992; obot, 1990; gureje et al., 2007; flisher et al., 2003; odejide, ohaeri, adelekan & ikuesan, 1987). it should be highlighted that the present study was designed to predict motivation for illicit drug and alcohol use, but this proved difficult because the overwhelming majority of the respondents did not report illicit drug use, hence the study is restricted to predicting motivating factors for alcohol use instead. results of the analysis on this suggest that lack of premeditation is the only predictor of alcohol use among the participants. a lack of pre-meditation as predicted in the current study suggests insufficient ability or complete inability to plan out actions and anticipate consequences or deficits in executive functioning (whiteside & lynam, 2001). in this context, drug and alcohol users tend to act on the spur of the moment without regard to the consequences of the immediate action that describes the most frequently cited risk factors for substance misuse behaviour (bickel & marsch, 2001; kirby, petry, & bickel, 1999; moeller, barratt, dougherty, schmitz, & swann 2001). meanwhile, it seems appropriate to acknowledge the fact that the present study suffers from some attendant limitations that must be acknowledged and addressed in future work. firstly, the sample size for the participants was relatively small (n=114), compared to the large numbers of black african minorities residing in england. also, europe’s journal of psychology 114 most of the participants selected for the present study were male. although it is possible that male participants can be more easily approached because the researcher who distributed the questionnaire was of the same sex, the domination of the male sample may limit the extent to which we can make an inference about patterns of drug and alcohol use among female black african minorities. it would therefore be better if the future studies recruited a larger sample with an adequate number of female participants in order for such findings to be replicated to other settings. the uncorroborated self report method of data collection and the extent to which the respondents underreported or over reported their involvement in various activities and behaviours may as well not be truly determined. although the researcher assured confidentiality of the participants’ response, the research topic is sensitive and the admissions of the participants to substance misuse are potentially compromising. in this sense, social desirability factors cannot be ruled out, as participants may want to conceal certain information in order to prevent themselves from being implicated. all of the appropriate caveats notwithstanding, the findings of the current study have contributed to research knowledge that will be relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to have a basic knowledge on the patterns of alcohol and drug use among the black african minorities residing in england and, through this, develop strategies for preventing or minimising drug and alcohol problem associated with this particular group. concluding thoughts although the current study did not establish patterns of illicit drug use among the group, this does not justify the neglect of the needs of ethnic minorities in terms of policy formulation on drug treatment services. it should be recognised that black and minority ethnic groups in the united kingdom constitute a heterogeneous group with varying values, attitudes, religious beliefs, and customs that may affect their ways of life and possible patterns of substance abuse. this cultural diversity among the group is further enhanced by various risk factors that may precipitate members of the group to engage in substance misuse behaviour. for instance, rasool (2006) reported that members of the group were over-represented among the lower social classes, with higher unemployment rates, impoverished living conditions, poorer housing, and low employment status, all of which may constitute risk factors for substance misuse behaviour among the group. it will therefore not be appropriate prevalence of and motivation for drug and alcohol use 115 for the government to wait until the drug problem among ethnic minorities escalates before implementing a preventive or mediation service. preventive services in the forms of orientation or sensitisation programmes on the effects of drug and alcohol use that will focus on minority groups may need to be put in place. this will go a long way in reducing the number of individuals among the group who are more likely to engage in substance misuse, and consequently will reduce government expenditure in terms of drug treatment services for minority ethnic groups. references allen, t.j., moeller, f.g., rhoades h.m., & cherek, d.r. (1998). impulsivity and history of drug dependence. drug alcohol dependence, 50, 137–145. dawe, s., loxton, n.j., gullo, m.j., staiger, p.k., kambouropoulos, n., perdon, l., & wood, a. (2007). the role of impulsive personality traits in the initiation, development, and treatment of substance misuse problem. in p.m. miller and d.j. kavanagh, translation of addictions science into practice, elsevier, london. pages 321-340. evenden, j.l. (1999). varieties of impulsivity. psychopharmacology, 146, 348–361. flisher, a.j., parry, c.d.h., evans, j., muller, m., & lombard, c. (2003). substance use by adolescents in cape town: prevalence and correlates. journal of adolescent health, 32, 58–65. gureje, o., degenhardt, l., olley, b., uwakwe, r., udofia, o., wakil, a., adeyemi, o., bohnert, k.m., & anthony, j.c. 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(2006). substance abuse in black and minority ethnic communities in the united kingdom: a neglected problem? journal of addiction nursing, 17(2), 127 – 132. rees, p., & butt, f. (2003). ethnic change and diversity in england, 1981-2001, paper presented at the rgs-ibg annual conference, london, september. sangster, d., shiner, m., sheikh, n., & patel, k. (2002). delivering drug services to black and minority ethnic communities, dpas/p16. home office drug prevention and advisory service (dpas), london. social exclusion unit (1998). bringing britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal. london: stationery office. stillwell, j., & williams, d. o. (2005). ethnic population distribution, immigration and internal migration in britain: what evidence of linkage at the district scale? paper presented at the annual conference of the british society for population studies at the university of kent, canterbury, september. sussman, s., & ames, s.l. (2001). the social psychology of drug abuse. buckingham: open university. whiteside, s. p. & lynam, d.r. (2001). the five factor model and impulsivity: using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. personality and individual differences, 30 (4), 669-689. about the author: abeeb olufemi salaam is currently a research student in the department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford. corresponding address: department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, gu2 7xh. e-mail address: a.salaam@surrey.ac.uk; moolikah@yahoo.com on social and organisational psychology: interview with alex haslam interview on social and organisational psychology: interview with alex haslam vlad glăveanu*a, alex haslamb [a] london school of economics, london, united kingdom. [b] school of psychology, university of queensland, st lucia 4072, australia. abstract in this interview prof. alex haslam discusses his past and present work in social and organisational psychology and the multiple ways in which these two fields are inter-connected. he considers the guiding threads within his scientific activity from the famous bbc prison study to more recent work on leadership. covering both theoretical to applied considerations, this interview addresses important questions for psychologists working in organisations and elsewhere in society. it offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of humans as social beings capable of forming groups and sharing identities, of including but also excluding, of both following and leading. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 received: 2012-07-05. accepted: 2012-07-11. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: psy.journal@gmail.com. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. vlad glăveanu: professor haslam, your work in the past decades has made significant contributions to the literature in both social and organisational psychology. you have covered a variety of topics from stress, motivation and leadership to stereotyping, extremism and resistance. what would you say are the common threads within your research, the core questions you have been preoccupied with, and how did your interest in all these different topics evolve? alex haslam: all my work has developed from my original interests in social identity and self-categorization theories, and from my original phd work which explored the role that social context plays in structuring people’s understanding of self. a key point that emerged clearly from this was that the nature of self varies, and varies logically, so that in some contexts people define themselves (and act) as individuals in terms of their personal identity (as “i” and “me”) and in other contexts they define themselves (and act) as group members in terms of a social identity (as “us” and “we”) that is shared with others, and with whom the self becomes categorically interchangeable. moreover, the content of social identity also changes lawfully as a function of changes in context — so that “us psychologists” means something different (and dictates different forms of behaviour) when we compare ourselves with physicists rather than footballers. on the face of it, this is a very simple idea. however, once you really embrace its full implications, you see that they are very radical and, moreover, that they challenge a whole host of assumptions and notions that are pervasive in social and organizational psychology. is the nature of self fixed? no. is the true self found in people’s individuality? no. are categorical representations (that accentuate intra-category similarity and inter-category difference) a distortion of reality? not necessarily. are these categorical representations central to processes like communication, trust, and leadership? absolutely. once such realizations had got hold of me, it was as if i had caught a thread --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ that started to unravel the whole jumper of our discipline but which then allowed me to work with others to try to reknit it in a different form. vlad glăveanu: more generally, how do you think social psychology can advance our understanding of organisational phenomena and, in turn, organisational psychology can add to social psychological theories? alex haslam is professor of social and organizational psychology and australian laureate fellow at the university of queensland and a former commonwealth scholar at macquarie university (sydney) and jones scholar at emory university (atlanta). he was associate editor of the british journal of social psychology from 1999 to 2001 and chief editor of the european journal of social psychology from 2001 to 2005. at queensland he is part of a team of internationally renowned researchers who conduct theory-driven research into a range of core social and organizational topics — including leadership and motivation, stress and health, power and prejudice. his work in this team is also informed by close collaborations with colleagues in australia, europe and north america. this is exemplified by his recent books the new psychology of leadership: identity, influence and power (haslam, reicher, & platow, 2011) and the social cure: identity, health and well-being (jetten, haslam, & haslam, 2012). correspondence: alex haslam, school of psychology, university of queensland, st lucia 4072, australia, email: a.haslam@uq.edu.au alex haslam: i don’t think it’s possible to have viable models of organizational psychology without a good understanding of social psychology. however, i think this is true for all sub-branches of our discipline, since, as i see it, all psychology is social psychology for the simple reason that, at core, humans are social animals whose psychology has evolved to support group life and to make it possible. at the same time, the problem with a lot of social psychology is that it isn’t very social psychological. for me the great thing about organizational psychology is that its social dimensions are unavoidable. accordingly, it forces us to deal with the fundamentally social nature of our psychology, and its subject matter throws out the most important challenges for psychology as a whole. so, in addressing the nature of things like leadership, communication, and innovation indeed to grapple with what it is that makes organizational behaviour possible we are addressing the biggest and most important questions in the discipline. vlad glăveanu: perhaps one of the most visible research projects you have coordinated in the past, together with professor steve reicher, is the famous bbc prison study (haslam & reicher, 2006; reicher & haslam, 2006). how did you come to do this large-scale project and how did its findings influence your research since then? alex haslam: it’s hard to underestimate the impact this had on me at a number of levels. first, the study opened my eyes to the ways in which our understanding of psychology is constrained by sub-disciplinary and topic boundaries. that is, in the study it clearly wasn’t the case that social psychology (e.g., influence, stereotyping) was going on in one corner, organizational psychology (leadership, planning) in another, and clinical psychology (anxiety, depression) in another. instead, these things were seamlessly interdependent. at the same time, though, the analytical tools provided by social identity theorizing allowed us to integrate across these domains and to see conceptual relationships that we hadn’t seen before. in particular, it became apparent that at the same time that social identity is the basis for group processes like influence, communication and leadership, its erosion is a basis for disorganization, stress, and depression. and here the great thing about the study was that it allowed us to see these processes both in the flesh and as they unfolded. prior to this i hadn’t really noticed how much time i (and others) had devoted to studying phenomena that we never europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 on social and organisational psychology 322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ really looked in the eye. certainly, before this point, i had never been really impressed by any examples of leadership that i had studied, or shocked by any instances of stress, or terrified by any looming tyranny. vlad glăveanu: one decade after the prison study how do you think its lessons regarding obedience, power, tyranny and rebellion have been integrated not only by the scientific literature on these topics but in the practical ways in which people and the media understand, portray and react to group behaviour especially when it involves aggression and resistance? alex haslam: this is hard to assess, but i think it is clear that the study has had quite a lot of impact and probably much more than we imagined it would have. most obviously, this is because it has led people to question ideas that are deeply rooted in standard understandings of these phenomena (as associated with textbook accounts of zimbardo and milgram’s work; see smith & haslam, in press). specifically, whatever else it does, the study reveals the limitations of the view that people conform naturally to roles and blindly follow orders. going further, i think it is a bit harder for people to come to terms our argument that behaviour in both paradigms can be seen as a form of followership that is predicated upon both (a) leadership (on the part of the experimenters) and (b) identification with that leadership, as this involves quite a major rethink of the underlying psychology. however, here too, editors and reviewers have been far more receptive than we were expecting, and i think there are signs that our alternative analysis is starting to take hold. from the comments we get, i think this is because people find the ideas both refreshing and liberating not only because they show that destructive behaviour is not an inevitable consequence of our psychological make up, but also because they point to the practical possibility of resistance. vlad glăveanu: one of your most recent books is the new psychology of leadership: identity, influence and power (npol; haslam et al., 2011). this triad of identity, influence and power has been present in many forms in your work. how can it inform us about leadership and how is this ‘new’ psychology different from previous understandings of the phenomenon? alex haslam: the long answer to this question is provided by the book itself, and i would make the point that this is a very good question that deserves a long answer. briefly, though, the key point that we make is that leadership is a group process that centres on a partnership between leaders and followers a partnership which becomes powerful (i.e., world-changing) to the extent that relevant parties perceive themselves to share a sense of social identity. in these terms, it is a shared sense of ‘us’ that gives meaning and direction to both leadership and followership and that not only aligns these two things but also makes them possible. there is a lot that is new about these ideas, but the most obvious thing is that they move beyond dominant models which see leadership as all revolving around the individual psychology or personal identity of the leader. in short, then, we see leadership (like much else in organizational psychology) as a ‘we thing’ not an ‘i thing’, and we also explain why this is the case and why it matters. vlad glăveanu: what is your most current research focused on? how does this recent work continue, develop or create a shift from your previous interests? alex haslam: i have just moved to the university of queensland to start work on a project which will focus on two things. first, the contribution of social identity to the dynamics of health. we know from work that has been done over the course of the last decade that social identity processes feed into health outcomes in a range of important and interesting ways (e.g., by determining perceptions of symptoms, support, control, and isolation). empirically, though, we have only just scratched the surface of these phenomena especially as we haven’t looked europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 glăveanu & haslam 323 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in much depth at how these interact with physiological and physical processes. accordingly, these are issues i want to explore with colleagues like jolanda jetten and catherine haslam. at the same time, i’m also keen to do more research into the social identity approach to organizational behaviour and, in particular, leadership (after haslam, 2004). in part this will expand on work with inma advares-yorno and tom postmes which has looked at the way in which creativity is structured by social identity and self-categorization processes such that what people create and how it is received depends on how they understand themselves in relation to others (adarves-yorno, postmes, & haslam, 2007; adarves-yorno, haslam, & postmes, 2008). i also want to do more work with steve reicher on the idea that successful leadership involves identity impresarioship the embedding of identities in the practices, rituals and habits of everyday group life (reicher, haslam, & hopkins, 2005). this is an idea we discuss a lot in our book, but which remains to be properly explored in psychological research. vlad glăveanu: how do you see the relationship between theory and practice for a social and organisational psychologist as well as in your own work? alex haslam: this is something i agonize quite a lot, because of all the questions i get asked when i give external talks (e.g., on leadership or stress), the most common is “this is great, and i believe everything you say; but how do i translate these ideas into practice?” and certainly “i don’t know” isn’t a very satisfactory answer. accordingly, my colleagues and i have devoted quite a bit of energy to trying to develop answers, and to testing their efficacy. the clearest example of this is in the aspire model (haslam, eggins, & reynolds, 2003) which has now been supported in quite a wide range of settings, and in our specification of the three r’s of leadership (reflect, represent, realize) at the end of npol. in all this, i follow lewin’s dictum that nothing is so practical as a good theory, but equally see practice (or more broadly ‘what is going on in the world’) as an essential testing ground for theory and as an agenda setter. certainly, much of my work is stimulated by the impracticality of bad theory and, unfortunately, there is a lot of this about. vlad glăveanu: what would you say are some of the most interesting developments taking place today at the intersection between social and organisational psychology? alex haslam: i think this has always been a very fertile niche in the discipline as seen in work on topics like leadership, communication, negotiation, and diversity. as always, there is lots of interesting work being done on these and other topics at the moment, but one topic that i am currently fascinated by concerns the relationship between identity and space: on the one hand, the way that who we are determines how we create, manage, and respond to space, and, on the other, the way that the spaces we inhabit determine how we see ourselves and how we act. some of our own work has looked at these issues in offices and care homes (knight & haslam, 2010; knight, haslam, & haslam, 2010) and the results have convinced me that there is much more to be done. vlad glăveanu: finally, what would be your advice for young and developing scholars (in social and organisational psychology but not only) on how to succeed in today’s academic and professional world and make an impact through their psychological research? alex haslam: i think there are two things that i would stress. first, collaborate. apart from the fact that it’s incredibly hard to make progress on your own, it’s also a lot less fun. second, choose your collaborators carefully, and when you find someone good to collaborate with, stick with them. the best collaborators force you to think straighter, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 on social and organisational psychology 324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work harder, and to aim higher. in my case this has involved working with people like john turner, steve reicher, craig mcgarty, naomi ellemers, jolanda jetten, tom postmes, and michelle ryan. great collaborators give you purpose, propulsion, and passion. it’s a social identity thing. vlad glăveanu: thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. alex haslam: thank you for asking (and reading). vlad glăveanu ejop editor references adarves-yorno, i., haslam, s. a., & postmes, t. (2008). and now for something completely different? the impact of group membership on perceptions of creativity. social influence, 3, 248-266. doi:10.1080/15534510802341124 adarves-yorno, i., postmes, t., & haslam, s. a. (2007). creative innovation or crazy irrelevance? the contribution of group norms and social identity to creative behavior. journal of experimental social psychology, 43, 410-416. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2006.02.013 haslam, s. a. (2004). psychology in organizations: the social identity approach (2nd ed). london: sage. haslam, s. a., eggins, r. a., & reynolds, k. j. (2003). the aspiremodel: actualizing social and personal identity resources to enhance organizational outcomes. journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 76, 83-113. doi:10.1348/096317903321208907 haslam, s. a., & reicher, s. d. (2006). stressing the group: social identity and the unfolding dynamics of responses to stress. the journal of applied psychology, 91, 1037-1052. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.1037 haslam, s. a., reicher, s. d., & platow, m. j. (2011). the new psychology of leadership: identity, influence and power. london: psychology press. jetten, j., haslam, c., & haslam, s. a. (eds.). (2012). the social cure: identity, health and well-being. new york and hove: psychology press. knight, c., & haslam, s. a. (2010). the relative merits of lean, enriched, and empowered offices: an experimental examination of the impact of workspace management strategies on well-being and productivity. journal of experimental psychology. applied, 16, 158-172. doi:10.1037/a0019292 knight, c., haslam, s. a., & haslam, c. (2010). in home or at home? how collective decision making in a new care facility enhances social interaction and wellbeing amongst older adults. ageing and society, 30, 1393-1418. doi:10.1017/s0144686x10000656 reicher, s. d., & haslam, s. a. (2006). rethinking the psychology of tyranny: the bbc prison study. the british journal of social psychology, 45, 1-40. doi:10.1348/014466605x48998 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 glăveanu & haslam 325 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15534510802341124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.02.013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/096317903321208907 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.1037 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019292 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0144686x10000656 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/014466605x48998 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reicher, s. d., haslam, s. a., & hopkins, n. (2005). social identity and the dynamics of leadership: leaders and followers as collaborative agents in the transformation of social reality. the leadership quarterly, 16, 547-568. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.06.007 smith, j. r., & haslam, s. a. (eds.). (in press). social psychology: revisiting the classic studies. thousand oaks, ca: sage. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 321–326 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.494 on social and organisational psychology 326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2005.06.007 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on social and organisational psychology references (microsoft word 9. health psychology\222s role in sexual health care) 550 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(3), pp. 550-564 www.ejop.org health psychology’s role in sexual health care jude hancock sash team, applied research centre in health and lifestyle interventions, coventry university, uk susan lees department of nursing, midwifery and health care, coventry university, uk katherine e. brown sash team, applied research centre in health and lifestyle interventions, coventry university, uk abstract this article provides an overview of the current and potential role of health psychology in sexual health care. research, which applies various behaviour change techniques, is reviewed alongside one of the most extensively used theories, the theory of planned behaviour (see conner and sparks 2009). this paper aims to link theory to practice giving the reader an indication of the range of work that health psychologists are involved in, and how this could be applied to sexual healthcare practice which supports positive behaviour change. keywords: health psychology, theory of planned behaviour, intervention. sexual health care is an umbrella term encompassing topics such as family planning, sub-fertility, sexually acquired infections (sai), female genital mutilation and sex and relationships education (world health organisation, 2010). this paper will provide a definition of a health psychologist and evaluate their role in the provision of sexual health care by considering the issues related to informing and supporting behaviour change in a variety of different settings, including reference to appropriate and relevant research. europe’s journal of psychology 551 the ways in which sexual health services are provided, and the health care professionals who deliver these services differ considerably by country and region (bellamy, 2002; department of health, 2010a; faculty of family planning and reproductive health care, 2006; marie stopes international, 2009; moya, 2002). many countries are seeing a rise in the number of people living with hiv (world health organisation, 2009), and being diagnosed with sai as a result of risky behaviour (misovich, fisher & fisher, 1992). behaviour change is one focus of health psychology; which may be well placed to tackle these increasing figures. this paper will consider different techniques that health psychologists have applied to change behaviour such as, motivational interviewing and supporting formation of implementation intentions. the discipline of psychology emerged in the 1800s and is defined by the british psychological society (bps) as “the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour” (bunn, 2008; bps, 2010a). health psychology emerged as a profession to address the failure of the medical model to acknowledge the psycho-social influences on individual’s health (matarazzo, 1982). health psychologists “scientifically study the psychological process of health, illness and health care” which may be used to promote healthy lifestyles and help individuals maintain their health or manage existing conditions such as diabetes (bps, 2010b). health psychologists may work directly with patients, families and carers as well as directing initiatives relating to health policy, promotion, education and research (dhp, 2009). health psychologists are bound by professional guidelines outlined by the health professions council (2008) and the british psychological society (1993) both underpinned by the philosophy that care should be provided with impartiality and respect for the person being treated. there are also academic health psychologists who do not work directly with patients but are based in academic institutions; they often provide consultancy advice on health care service provision based on rigorous scientific research (dhp, 2009). in 2002, the faculty of hiv and sexual health, a subgroup of the bps division of clinical psychology, carried out a survey of clinical psychologists working in sexual health settings (shaw & cutler, 2002). they found clinical psychologists worked in a range of settings, including, genitourinary medicine clinics (gum), hiv inpatients and outpatients, directly in the community and clinics for psychosexual issues. when asked how they worked with clients, techniques such as cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt), counselling, health behaviour, solution focussed therapy and psychodynamic methods were cited. the focus of clinical psychology is to deal with mental and physical health problems in order to promote psychological well-being whereas in health psychology the focus is to promote change in the way people health psychology’s role in sexual health care 552 think about their health in order to promote good health and prevent illness (bps, 2010b). behaviour change techniques used by health psychologists include goal setting, action planning and exploration of barriers and facilitators of change, all used collaboratively with the patient (michie et al. 2008). in terms of reproductive health care, academic health psychologists, have been influential in developing interventions to promote safer sex. nurses have benefited from health psychology in terms of understanding the psychological mechanisms underpinning individuals’ behavioural choices, in order to apply these to sexual health assessment (browes, 2006). interventions to change behaviour have been found to be most effective when they are grounded in theory and are preceded by elicitation studies in the population to be targeted (fisher & fisher, 1992). many interventions promoting safer sexual practices have been based on the theory of planned behaviour (tpb; ajzen, 1991). the theory states that an individual’s intentions to perform a given behaviour (e.g. have safer sex) are influenced by three variables: 1. attitude toward the behaviour, 2. subjective norm and, 3. perceived behavioural control, as illustrated in figure 1 (ajzen, 2006). figure 1: diagram of the theory of planned behaviour figure one shows that an individual’s underlying beliefs influence intention and subsequent behaviour. the tpb variables are derived from multiplicative composites in that an individual’s beliefs are a combination of belief multiplied by outcome. for example, an individual’s attitude is determined by the perceived likelihood of an outcome occurring multiplied by an evaluation of that outcome (conner & norman 2009, p. 176). an attitude may be positive or negative toward the behaviour. subjective norms (sn) are the perceived social pressures from important others to europe’s journal of psychology 553 perform behaviour, which like attitudes are formed from individuals’ salient normative beliefs. sn is measured by the perceived social pressure from salient referents multiplied by the motivation to comply with their requests (conner and norman 2009, p. 176). perceived behavioural control (pbc) comprises of an individual’s salient control beliefs, how much control they feel they have over performing the behaviour given both internal and external factors (ajzen, 1991). pbc is measured by the perceived belief strength from salient beliefs multiplied by the control belief power to perform the behaviour (ajzen, 2006). the theory recognises that variables external to the model such as demographics, personality traits and environmental factors will influence beliefs (conner & norman 2009, p. 176). in terms of sexual health care interventions the tpb recognises that the importance of the attitude, sn or pbc variables will vary in different populations (fishbein, 2000). an example of this would be in relation to adolescent behaviour, where age has been found to influence salient beliefs and be particularly influential on attitudes and sn variables (sheeran et al., 1990). safer sex using condoms has also been found to vary in relation to whether an individual is having intercourse with their main partner or a casual partner. montano, kasprzyk, von haeften, and fishbein (2001) demonstrated that sn is influential for condom use with a main partner for example, respecting and complying with partners’ wishes, but with a casual partner attitude is more influential (e.g. knowing that using a condom will reduce the chance of contracting a sexually acquired infection). health psychologists need to understand these underlying beliefs in order to design behaviour change interventions. bryan, aiken and west (1996) developed a theory-based intervention that aimed to increase condom use in young women to prevent sai. they argued that many interventions are targeted at hiv prevention and yet other sai are more prevalent in the general population, which is certainly the case in the united kingdom (office for national statistics, 2006; health protection agency, 2009, avert, 2010). they recognised that attitudes toward condoms were important, but other variables such as the perceived susceptibility to and severity of contracting an sai as well as the perceived benefits of condom use were worth targeting. furthermore, during a sexual encounter an individual needs to be assertive about their intent to use a condom. this links to the pbc variable in the tpb as well as bandura’s (1977) concept of self-efficacy. self-efficacy is defined as “…the conviction that one can successfully execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes” (bandura 1977, p. 192). in 1994 bandura noted that mastering experiences (such as using condoms) could result in the achievement of a ‘strong sense of self-efficacy’. to target these variables bryan et al. (1996) used a combination of videotaped segments, lecture presentations alongside audience participation in one 45-minute health psychology’s role in sexual health care 554 session. six months later, self-reported condom use had increased along with the perceived benefits of condom use, control over the sexual encounter, perceived self-efficacy for condom use, and intentions to use condoms. this intervention clearly demonstrates that using a theoretical framework not only aids intervention planning but helps to sustain changes in behaviour over a period of time. weinstein (1980) developed the concept of ‘optimistic bias’ to explain how some individuals have ‘unrealistic optimism’ about future events, for example, belief in the myth that ‘you cannot get pregnant the first time you do it’. health psychologists often use motivational interviewing (mi) to help change behaviour and reduce unrealistic optimism (rollnick & miller, 1995). motivational interviewing is a client-led technique, which can produce behaviour change by helping clients explore and reduce ambivalence toward behaviour. mi is closely related to the transtheoretical model of change (ttm) which states that individual’s move through five stages of intentional behaviour change; precontemplation (not thinking about changing their behaviour), contemplation (thinking about behaviour change), preparation (ready to attempt behaviour change), action (making an active effort to change behaviour) and maintenance (sustaining the desired behaviour change) (prochaska & diclemente, 1984; prochaska, diclemente & norcross (1992). the ttm assumes that “individuals who are in different stages of change have different psychosocial characteristics from individuals who are in another stage of change” (sarafino, 1998, p. 178). an example would be an individual in the precontemplation stage practicing a risky behaviour, such as unsafe sex, who is likely to have less belief in their abilities to perform safer sex (i.e. low self-efficacy) and see more barriers than benefits for practicing safer sex than an individual in the action stage that often practices safer sex. mi can be used to encourage individuals to move from an earlier to later stage of behaviour change with an aim to ultimately move and stay in the maintenance stage. although mi was originally developed for problem drinkers, it can be applied successfully to a plethora of behaviours (michie et al. 2008). motivational interviewing may be used with women who are regular users of emergency contraception, to motivate them to change to being regular and consistent contraception users (peterson et al. 2004). using an mi-based approach this would be achieved in three stages. the first stage involves listening to a woman’s story about why she is currently not using contraception. secondly, the clinician imparts some knowledge about the benefits of regular and consistent contraceptive use (e.g. intrauterine systems effectively prevent unwanted pregnancy and may help with heavy menstruation or, using condoms will prevent unwanted pregnancies and sai if the woman does not have a main partner) (faculty of sexual and europe’s journal of psychology 555 reproductive healthcare, 2007a; faculty of sexual and reproductive healthcare, 2007b). the third and final stage is the exploration of potential benefits from undertaking the behaviour where the clinician reflects the words of the client back to them so they can hear the commitment to change they are making. scaling questions may be used to elicit the importance of the change and the client’s confidence in undertaking the change. mi techniques have also been successfully applied in hiv risk-reduction with specific ‘at-risk’ populations such as gay men (harding, dockrell, dockrell & corrigan, 2001). research within sexual health services has demonstrated that using a different approach, that of planning techniques can also change behaviour by reducing consultations for pregnancy testing and emergency contraception in teenage women (martin, sheeran, slade, wright, and dibble, 2009). implementation intentions are a brief planning technique used to change an individual’s intention into action. a meta-analysis of 94 studies using this technique showed it to have a medium-tolarge effect size (d=.65) (gollwitzer & sheeran, 2006). to form an implementation intention a person develops an if-then plan, for example with using a contraceptive pill effectively, a woman may state, “if i am getting dressed, then i will take my pill”. health psychologists are well positioned to teach other health care professionals working in reproductive healthcare, such as sexual health clinics, how to use this simple yet effective technique with clients. in the study by martin et al. (2009) the formation of implementation intentions reduced consultations for pregnancy testing and emergency contraception. only 38% in the experimental group returned for pregnancy testing or emergency contraception compared to 55% in the control group. this study was longitudinal with a 9-month follow-up. from the eight-hundred and twenty-six women aged 19 years and under attending the clinic during the study period, two hundred and sixty-one women were randomised to either the implementation or control condition, surprisingly during the 9-months only sixty-one women were lost to follow-up. this study demonstrates the power of implementation intentions in the long-term in a good size sample within a clinical setting. although the authors noted that the positive findings were from one clinic and furthermore, contraceptive services delivered elsewhere (e.g. general practice or pharmacies) were not monitored, so women may have accessed these services for emergency contraception. the recent past has seen a growing number of websites dedicated to assisting people living with long-term conditions. a review by phoenix and coulson (2010) highlighted that the use of the internet for people living with hiv /aids had positive psychosocial outcomes such as adherence to antiretroviral treatments, increased knowledge about hiv, active and information-seeking coping and better emotional health psychology’s role in sexual health care 556 health. the use of hiv-specific online support systems gave people online support and allowed interaction between others living with hiv. the fact that the internet can often help people living with a condition but who are geographically isolated, is a major benefit of using this technology (pequegnat et al. 2007). phoenix and coulson (2010) do not promote the internet as a replacement for face-to-face consultations, but as an adjunct to traditional services. websites such as nhs choices are an excellent resource for information about sexual health (nhs choices, 2010), but websites alone do not necessarily lead to a change in behaviour, or sustain positive psychological outcomes such as hiv-specific sites. the foundation of health psychology training is research, which is crucial in service planning. health psychologists are well trained to undertake research on service delivery and client preferences utilising, for example, qualitative methods such as interviewing (grbich, 1999). qualitative research can be used to answer health questions such as, why did you decide to use a walk in centre to obtain emergency contraception rather than your gp or local pharmacy? these questions are difficult to answer using a traditional scientific method (chamberlain, 2004). furthermore, qualitative research can allow patients to tell their story, which may be used tailor sexual health services for specific populations (nzioka, 2000). a disadvantage of qualitative research is that it does not allow for findings to be generalised outside of the sampled population, however, this is widely acknowledged as a feature of quantitative research (polit & beck, 2011). the generalisability of findings from quantitative research depends on the study sample, many safer sex interventions are developed in students samples that are not necessarily representative of the general population (armitage & talibudeen, 2010; sheeran & taylor, 2006). a mixed methods approach, where both qualitative and quantitative data are collected, is recommended as the most appropriate way to develop tpb theory-based interventions (sutton, 2002). triangulating findings from use of mixed methods allows clarification of theoretical assumptions (östlund, kidd, wengström, and rowadewar, 2011), yet in practice this is rarely achieved, often due funding issues (fisher & fisher, 1992). using a qualitative approach chouliara, karatzias, day, and goulbourne (2009) interviewed 12 female university students and identified six themes about chlamydia: 1. facts versus risk misjudgements, 2. social stigma and taboos, 3. assertiveness versus fear of conflict, 4. respect versus being patronised, 5. accessibility and discretion, and 6. targeting young people. the findings concluded that women wanted effective sexual health education and were concerned with the shame, embarrassment and social stigma associated with chlamydia testing and diagnosis. these findings highlight the need for sexual health services that are accessible and europe’s journal of psychology 557 discrete. the authors state “anonymity, confidentiality, open access and a relaxed and friendly atmosphere was thought to be at the core of providing effective and user-friendly services” (chouliara et al. 2009, p.22). furthermore, “feeling patronised, deprived of enough choice, rushed and pressured for time were identified as factors that can undermine the quality of services provided to such women and making their experiences of using the services more distressing” (chouliara et al. 2009, p. 22). this research highlights the service that health psychologists can provide in helping commissioners and frontline staff in delivering effective sexual health care. knowing what clients think about the services they access enables commissioners and frontline staff to change practice in a positive way. in november 2010, the government published ‘healthy lives, healthy people: our strategy for public health in england’ (department of health, 2010b). the publication recognises that a new approach to public health is needed that “empowers people to make healthy choices” and that health is a lifelong challenge. in terms of reproductive healthcare this is particularly challenging as sexual health is often viewed as a topic for those who are able to reproduce (nusbaum & rosefeld, 2004). clinicians report initiating sexual health discussion with clients as difficult, especially during routine screening, particularly with older people (nusbaum and rosefeld, 2004). yet, the department of health (2010) document reiterates that sai figures are rising, which is also supported by office for national statistics data (ons, 2006). health psychologists are well positioned to help change risk-taking sexual behaviour that leads to a spread of sai regardless of an individual’s sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, age, religious beliefs, or disabilities, all factors found to influence an individual’s salient belief that ultimately underlie intention to perform (or not) a riskybehaviour such as unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners (sheeran, abraham, abrams, and spears, 1990). to date, clinical psychologists dominate the clinical work undertaken in reproductive healthcare but health psychologists have contributed greatly to intervention design, development and evaluation, as well as teaching and training other health care professionals in behaviour change techniques (newson & forshaw, 2009). this paper has discussed reproductive health care in terms of the reduction of risky behaviours that lead to negative outcomes, unwanted pregnancy and sai; in conjunction with different techniques that may be used to change risky behaviours. behaviour change may also be about promoting behaviours that lead to a positive outcome, for example, men and women altering unhealthy lifestyles that can assist in conception where subfertility issues have been identified as being present (lees, 2010). health psychology is still a new profession compared to others (e.g. nursing) but has already contributed considerably to the field of reproductive healthcare in health psychology’s role in sexual health care 558 terms of for example, understanding how teenagers view emergency contraception (bayley, brown & wallace, 2009), developing brief interventions that can positively change behaviour (martin et al. 2009) and using modern technology to assist individuals living with long-term conditions such as hiv (phoenix & coulson, 2010). increasing the involvement of health psychologists in sexual health service delivery would compliment other professional roles and help to tackle the limited psychological therapeutic services currently available (taylor and lavender, 2007). future sexual health research, particularly in terms of safer sex, should focus on the ‘general population’ who have largely been ignored (bowleg, 2011). this needs to include older people due to the rise in sai diagnosis in this group (bodley-tickell et al. 2008). references ajzen, i. 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(1990). the post aids structure of students' attitudes to condoms: age, and sex, and experience of use. psychological reports, 66 (2), 614. sheeran, p. & taylor, s. (2006). predicting intentions to use condoms: a meta-analysis and comparison of the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour. journal of applied social psychology, 29 (8), 1624-1675. sutton, s. (2002). using social cognition models to develop health behaviour interventions: problems and assumptions. in d. rutter & l. quine (ed.), changing health behaviour (pp.193-208). maidenhead: open university press. taylor, j.l. and lavender, t. (2007). new ways of working for applied psychologists in health and social care – final report of the new roles project group. leicester: the british psychological society. weinstein, n. d. (1980). unrealistic optimism about future life events. journal of personality and social psychology, 39 (5), 806-820. world health organisation (2009). aids epidemic update. geneva: unaids. world health organisation (2010). sexual health. retrieved january, 12, 2010, from http://www.who.int/topics/sexual_health/en/ about the authors: jude hancock is chartered psychologist and registered health psychologist currently studying for a phd at coventry university. her research is using the theory of planned behaviour to develop an online safer sex intervention, which is applicable to anyone who is currently sexually active or intends to be in the future. address for correspondence: jude hancock, applied research centre in health & lifestyle interventions, faculty of health & life sciences, whitefriars building, coventry university, coventry, cv1 5fb. email: hancoc16@uni.coventry.ac.uk health psychology’s role in sexual health care 564 susan lees is a trained midwife who is currently a senior lecturer in midwifery at coventry university. susan has undertaken research on teenage sexual behaviour and attitudes which included the views of asian teens on sources of sexual information. dr katherine brown is a chartered psychologist and registered health psychologist and is the lead of the sash (studies in adolescent sexual health) team at coventry university (www.healthinterventions.co.uk). katherine is also the course director for the msc health psychology programme in the universities psychology department. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 261-278 www.ejop.org what‘s stopping you? the contribution of gender essentialism to sex differences in subject choice japinder dhesi london school of economics abstract the present study considered the impact of gender essentialism on sex differences in subject choice. secondary school children, aged 11-12 years (n = 30) and 15-16 years (n = 26), were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions, and completed a thought experiment requiring them to make inferences about two gendered attributes; academic subject ability and gender-stereotyped properties, of a hypothetical male and female; (a) raised in an opposite sex environment; (b) following a brain transplant from a member of the opposite sex and (c) a ‗normal‘ male or female, acting as a baseline response. results from the experiment indicated that children do hold essentialist beliefs about gender. however, such beliefs vary as a function of both the age of participants, and the gendered attribute considered. we conclude that gender essentialism may account for the persistence of sex differences in subject choice. key words: gender, essentialism, academic ability, subject choice introduction in britain, up to and including much of the twentieth century, differentiation by sex was used both formally and informally in schools for curricular and disciplinary purposes (radford, 1996). significant inroads were made following feminist interventions including, the passing of the sex discrimination act in 1975, and the introduction of a national curriculum in 1988, making it obligatory for all students to study science, mathematics and english up to the age of 16. however, despite such changes there remain significant sex differences in educational subject choice. while the examination entries of boys and girls are broadly even in compulsory subjects at gcse level, there are significant sex differences in the take-up of optional http://www.ejop.org/ gender essentialism and educational subject choice 262 subjects such as i.t and social studies. there are also significant sex differences in subject choice at a level; girls are more likely to study art & design, english, textiles and social studies, whereas boys are more likely to study design and technology, mathematics, i.t and physics (dfes, 2007). the fact that boys and girls tend to choose different pathways through the education system may not be considered problematic given that they have access to all subjects. however, this is an important area of study as it has been found that the gender stereotyping of subjects is one of the major factors guiding subject choice. this, i will come to argue, renders the notion of ‗free choice‘ largely redundant (kelly, 1981). furthermore, the fact that boys and girls continue to make different subject choices has direct consequences for higher education and occupational opportunities (eoc, 2005), for example, entering stereotypically masculine or feminine occupations. the present study considers whether psychological essentialism, a theory of category representation, can offer an insight into the persistence of sex segregation in subject choices. sex differences in subject choice the issue of sex differences in subject choice was placed on the research agenda by feminists in the 1970s. research on gender and education highlighted a number of factors as influencing subject choice, including family background, school environment and inherent sex differences in cognitive abilities (radford, 1996). foremost among these was the gender stereotyping of subjects amongst students (stanworth, 1981). numerous studies have documented how school children distinguish between ‗masculine‘ subjects such as physics, i.t and mathematics, known collectively as the ‗sciences‘, and ‗feminine‘ subjects such as art, languages, and textiles, known as the ‗arts‘ (archer & macrae, 1991). there is evidence that boys show more of a bias in their subject choices than girls (whitehead, 1996). it has also been found that the beliefs and behaviour of teachers in relation to gender can moderate gender stereotyping among children (colley, 1998). in a more recent study francis (2000) has suggested that there has been a decline in the gender-stereotyping of subjects such as mathematics and english. however, in this study children were asked to rate their favourite subjects which may not correlate with their actual subject choices. furthermore statistics for examination entries, discussed above, show no evidence of a decline in sex segregation in subject choice. accordingly, colley (1998) has argued that the gender stereotyping of academic subjects remains one of the most fundamental factors guiding subject choice. in order to explain the origin of the gender stereotyping of subjects colley europe’s journal of psychology 263 argued that perceptions of male and female social roles and the abilities which are considered typical of these social roles leads to the assignment of subjects as masculine or feminine. hence, the binary gender dichotomy presented below appears to be central to our gender-role concepts: male female rationality emotion aggressive nurturing objectivity subjectivity science arts the acquisition of gender-role concepts psychological essentialism medin & ortony (1989) proposed that humans approach the categorization of certain entities with an essentialist heuristic, known as psychological essentialism. this heuristic leads people to believe that members of a category share a deep underlying causal essence which confers their identity, and is responsible for many of their observable features, both perceptual and behavioural features. a distinction is made between metaphysical essentialism, the view that things have essences, and psychological essentialism, the view that people‘s representations of these things might reflect such a belief (as erroneous as it may be) (ibid). furthermore, medin and ortony (1989) propose that peoples concepts contain an ‗essence placeholder‘ as while people believe that a category has an underlying essence they may not know what it is, or which observable features of category members are linked to this essence. hence although it is difficult to obtain direct evidence of essentialism there is support for a varied set of early developing, essentialist-like beliefs about natural kind categories, including (1) the expectation that category members share non-obvious similarities in the face of conflicting perceptual information (gelman, collman & maccoby, 1986); (2) category membership is believed to remain stable over time and transformations (keil, 1994) and (3) properties of category members are considered to have innate origins and are impervious to environmental influences (gelman & wellman, 1991). while early formulations of psychological essentialism characterised the representation of natural kinds (e.g. plants and animals), in recent years evidence has emerged which suggests that humans also essentialise social kind categories such as race (hirschfeld, 1996), caste (mahalingham, 2001) and, of interest here, gender (taylor, 1996). gender essentialism and educational subject choice 264 gender and essentialism gender essentialism has been characterized in several different ways in the literature. following medin & ortony‘s (1989) articulation of psychological essentialism, an essentialist construal of gender would entail the belief that females have an inner essence that distinguishes them from males, and is responsible for differences in appearance and behaviour between the sexes. there are several converging lines of research that support the view that an essentialist bias shapes children‘s and adult‘s representations of gender. one of the manifestations of essentialism is that categories are endowed with rich inductive potential (haslam, rothschild and ernst, 2000). several studies have demonstrated how the category of gender promotes rich inferences. for example, martin (1989) found adults readily infer a number of properties including role behaviours, traits and occupations on the basis of knowledge of sex group membership alone. a second manifestation of essentialism is ‗boundary intensification‘, which entails the treatment of category membership as mutually exclusive and an exaggeration of differences between category members (gelman, 2003). in a review of studies exploring children‘s memory errors, signorella and liben (1987), have shown that children often misremember or deny gender anomalies such as a female firefighter. finally, a third manifestation of essentialism is the belief in nativism; the assumption that properties of category members are the result of an innate potential, and will develop in spite of powerful environmental influences. in one of the first studies of gender essentialism from this perspective, taylor (1996) found that four-year old children predicted that a hypothetical infant raised on an island with only members of the opposite sex would nonetheless grow up to display gender-stereotyped properties. taylor (1996) also found that older children (10 years of age) and adults were more likely to recognise the potential impact of the environment on gender-role development than younger children. this is consistent with previous research, which has indicated that children initially attribute gender differences to biological causes, and only later recognise the role of environmental factors. however, there is disagreement about at which age this shift occurs, ullian (1976), for example, reported that by age 12, children recognise that gender roles are a function of social conventions, whereas smith and russell (1984) found that even by age 15 only 61% of girls and 25% of boys explained gender differences in terms of social factors. furthermore, adults have also been found to hold essentialist beliefs about gender, for example mahalingham and rodriguez (2003) found that american adults believed that a brain transplant from a member of the opposite sex would lead to a change in the gender specific behaviour of the recipient. europe’s journal of psychology 265 while most of the research reviewed has focused on beliefs about gender, there is some evidence which indicates that these beliefs may have an impact on behaviour. martin, ruble, & szkrybalo (1995) found that children use knowledge of whether a toy is ―for girls‖ or ―for boys‖ to guide both their inferences about the toy preferences of other children and their own toy preferences. in a more recent study, prentice and miller (2006) found that participants who believed that they differed from a member of the opposite sex on a novel attribute (perceptual style) were significantly less likely to make corrections to their performance on a dot estimation test given the opportunity, than those who were told they were similar to a member of the opposite sex. this research suggests that cross-category differences trigger essentialist thinking about social categories. in order to account for why social categories such as gender are essentialised it has been suggested that children perceive phenomenal variation in humans, and in order to make sense of this they resort to the essentialist heuristic from the natural kinds module (atran, 1998). however, a crucial difference between animal and social categories is the role of culture in categorisation, while children and adults from various cultures seem to hold similar beliefs about animal categories, cultures differ in terms of how they conceive of the same social categories and which categories they essentialise (astuti, solomon, & carey, 2004). it is important, therefore, to consider the cultural factors which may contribute to the essentialisation of social categories. in relation to gender, gelman (2003) has noted how cultural factors such as stereotyping and gender-typed practices can serve to heighten (or indeed dampen) an essentialising tendency. present research while most of the existing literature concerning sex differences in subject choice is mainly devoted to describing or decrying them, it suggests that gender stereotyping plays an important part in guiding children‘s subject choices. there is evidence to suggest that psychological essentialism is crucial to our representations of social categories such as gender, and therefore may be one of the central cognitive biases underlying stereotyping (haslam et al., 2002). although most of the research reviewed above focused on beliefs about gender, it was seen that there some evidence to suggest that essentialist beliefs have an impact on behaviour (prentice & miller, 2006). the present study considers the possibility that children hold essentialist beliefs about gender, specifically, about sex differences in academic subject ability, which may help to explain sex differences in subject choices. hence, the central research question addressed is: do children hold gender essentialist beliefs about academic subject ability? gender essentialism and educational subject choice 266 a thought experiment was conducted to examine the representations of gender held by 11-12 year old and 15-16 year old children. specifically, children were asked to make inferences about two types of gendered attributes of a hypothetical male and female; (i) academic ability in stereotypically masculine and feminine subjects and (ii) gendered properties such as occupational preferences. there were three experimental conditions; an island condition to assess whether these attributes are considered to be open to environmental influence, a transplant condition to assess whether these attributes are believed to have a biological basis in the brain and a control condition to assess whether children are willing to make inferences about these attributes based on knowledge of sex group membership alone, as a baseline response. these age-groups were chosen for two reasons. firstly, 11-12 year olds are just beginning at secondary school and will be required to choose their gcse subjects at age 14, while 15-16 year olds are at the end of compulsory schooling and will be making important decisions about a-level subjects and/or careers. secondly, previous research has indicated that there are important age-related changes in representations of social categories with older children moving away from essentialist beliefs and taking into account the role of environmental factors (taylor, 1996). a sub-question that is addressed is whether there are age differences in essentialist beliefs. however, in their discussion of psychological essentialism medin and ortony (1989) propose that the people‘s concepts contain an essence placeholder, therefore, the present study also examines the possibility that older children reject an essentialist account because of their belief about the kind of attribute being considered, as opposed to a rejection of an essentialist account per se (gelman, 2003). method thought experiment in order to examine whether children hold gender essentialist beliefs about academic subject ability, a thought experiment was designed as this research method is most conductive to uncovering people‘s implicit mental representations (gelman, 2003). participants fifty-four children, thirty 11-12 year olds and twenty four 15-16 year olds, attending a mixed sex comprehensive school in west london. europe’s journal of psychology 267 experimental design a 3 (experimental condition: island, transplant and control) x 2 (age; 11-12 and 15-16 year olds) x 2 (gendered attributes: academic ability in subjects and gendered properties) x 2 (sex of participant: male or female) x 2 (sex of character: male or female) design was used. where experimental condition, age and sex of participants were between-subjects factors and gendered attributes and sex of character were within-subjects factors. experiment materials island condition one of the manifestations of essentialism is a belief that properties of category members are immutable and impervious to environmental influences (gelman & wellman, 1991). in order to obtain evidence of this the island paradigm used by taylor (1996) was adapted and forms the basis for the island condition. participants read two stories one about a 16 year old boy, mark, who was raised from birth by his aunt on an island populated entirely by girls and women, and the second about a 16 year old girl, sarah, raised from birth by her uncle on an island containing only boys and men. the task was divided into two sections; in the first section participants were required to predict mark and sarah‘s gcse examinations grades in stereotypically feminine subjects (art, english and rextiles) and stereotypically masculine subjects (mathematics, physics and i.t) on a scale from a* to g. the subjects selected are those that have been highlighted by previous research and show the greatest discrepancy in take-up between the sexes in postcompulsory education. the scale of a* to g was used as it is the official gcse examination mark scheme, and therefore one that school children are familiar with. in the second section participants were asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement about the likelihood of mark and sarah acquiring 8 gendered properties; 4 stereotypically feminine properties (cries a lot, wears dresses, wants to be a ballet dancer and wants to be a nurse), and 4 stereotypically masculine properties (gets into fights, has short hair, wants to be a soldier and wants to be a fire-fighter) from taylor‘s (1996) study. the properties were presented in a random order and the rating scale ranged from 1 (very strong agreement) to 7 (very strong disagreement), with 4 representing neither agreement nor disagreement. at the end of both sections participants were provided with a blank box and were asked to write down why they had chosen these answers. the task took them on average 20 minutes to complete. gender essentialism and educational subject choice 268 transplant condition another manifestation of essentialism noted above is a belief in nativism. in a later study using the island paradigm, taylor and gelman (unpublished) found that in some cases children were suggesting that while children raised on the island would acquire gendered properties they may be less likely to display them (cf. taylor, 1996). therefore mahalingham and rodriguez‘s brain transplant paradigm was used as a more direct test of essentialist beliefs. participants in this condition read a story about a 16 year old boy called mark and a 16 year old girl called sarah whose brains had been switched. the remaining procedure was identical to that in the island condition. control condition in the control condition participants were required to make inferences about the two gendered attributes on the basis of sex group membership alone i.e. the names of the boy and girl. this condition also provides a baseline level of responses to ensure that the attributes used were ones that children found to be stereotypically feminine and masculine. if children are prepared to make inferences about gendered properties based on category membership this may also provide evidence of essentialism given that one of its manifestations is that social categories are infused with inductive potential. procedure an equal number of participants were randomly assigned to the 3 experimental conditions (ten 11-12 year olds and eight 15-16 year olds in each condition). the participants were tested in their form group by one of the researchers in their own classrooms during a free study period. the researcher introduced the research as a thought experiment about school children. participants were informed the study would take 30 minutes to complete and they were given a consent form to sign. consent was also obtained from the students‘ parents prior to the experiment. the researcher emphasised that there are no right or wrong answers and the need to answer the questions independently, and in silence. the students were given the opportunity to withdraw from the experiment if they did not want to take part. both the researcher and the class teacher ensured that no communication took place between the students during the procedure. each participant read two short stories, one with a female character and one with a male character, and answered a series of questions. the order of presentation of the stories was counter-balanced across participants to minimise order effects. upon completion of the task participants were debriefed, thanked for partaking in the study, and the researcher offered to answer any questions. europe’s journal of psychology 269 results an analysis of variance (anova) was used to examine whether children hold essentialist beliefs about the two gendered attributes. preliminary anovas revealed no significant main effect or interactions involving sex of participant, and thus data were pooled across this variable. for all subsequent analyses 3 (experimental condition: control, transplant and island) x 2 (age: 11-12, 15-16) betweensubjects anovas were used. the alpha level was set at 0.05. all comparisons among means following significant anovas were conducted using the tukey-d test and r was calculated as the effect size. sex differences in academic ability the main dependent variable, mean predicted gcse grades, were aggregated across stereotypically feminine (art, english and textiles) and masculine subjects (mathematics and physics). if children hold essentialist beliefs about sex differences in academic ability they would predict a higher grade in stereotypically feminine subjects for the male in the transplant condition (male with female brain) than a male in either the island condition (opposite sex environment) or control condition (‗normal‘ male) and vice versa for the female. the predicted grades were reverse coded such that higher numbers represent higher grades, thus 8 = a* and 1 = g in order for the presentation of the results to be clearer and more intuitive. feminine subjects a two-way anova for the female character‘s predicted grade in stereotypically feminine subjects revealed significant main effects for experimental condition f(2, 48) = 16.739, p <.001, r = 0.68, and age f(1, 48) = 4.755, p < .05, r = 0.52. however, the interaction between experimental condition and age failed to reach statistical significance, f(2, 48) = 1.499, p = .234. post-hoc comparisons indicated that the predicted grade for the female character was significantly lower in the transplant condition (m = 5.2, sd = .96) than in the island condition (m = 6.1, sd = .98, p < 0.05) and control condition (m = 6.8, sd = .59, p < .001). the analysis of the male characters predicted grade revealed a significant main effect for experimental condition, f(2, 48) = 13.821, p < .001, r = 0.65. however, neither the main effect of age [f(1, 48) = 1.132, p =.293] nor the interaction effect [f(2, 48) = 2.105, p = .133] reached statistical significance. post-hoc comparisons revealed that the predicted grade for the male in the transplant condition (m = 6.8, sd = .66) was significantly higher than in the island condition (m = 5.1, sd = 1.2, p<.001) and the control condition (m = 5.4, sd = .54, p < .001). gender essentialism and educational subject choice 270 masculine subjects a two-way anova for the female and male character‘s mean gcse grade in stereotypically masculine subjects revealed that neither the main effects of experimental condition [f (2, 48) = 1.206, p=.308, f (2, 48) = 2.732, p=.075, for female and male character respectively] and age [ f(1, 48) = 1.410, p=.241, f(1, 48) = .306, p= .583] nor the interaction effect [f(2, 48) =2.384, p=.103, f(2, 48= 2.915, p = .064] reached statistical significance. in order to explore why none of the effects reached statistical significance anovas were performed for individual masculine subjects. mathematics: an analysis of a two-way anova for the female and male character‘s mean gcse grade in mathematics revealed that neither the main effects for experimental condition [f (2, 48) =.548, p=.582. f (2, 48) = .965, p = .388, for the female and male character respectively] and age [f (1, 48) = 1.420, p=.239, f (1, 48) = .024, p = .878] nor the interaction effect [f (2, 48) = .709, p=.497, f (2, 48) = .860, p = .430] reached statistical significance. physics: a two-way anova for the female character‘s grade in physics revealed a significant main effect for experimental condition, f (2, 48) = 3.169, p < .05, r = 0.33. the main effect for age [f (1, 48) = 1.534, p=.222], did not reach statistical significance. the interaction effect was statistically significant, f (2, 48) = 4.611, p < .05, r = 0.58 post-hoc comparisons following a one-way anova, for 11-12 year olds indicated that the predicted physics grade for the female character was significantly higher in the transplant (m = 6.6, sd = 1.3) condition than in the island condition (m = 5.2, sd = 1.2 p < .05) and the control condition ( m = 5.0, sd = .61, p < .05). in contrast a one-way anova for 15-16 year olds revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the predicted physics grade for the female character between the 3 experimental conditions, f (2, 21) =3.089, p= .067. a two-way anova for the male character‘s grade in physics revealed a significant main effect for experimental condition, f (2, 48) = 5.309, p < .05, r = 0.44. the main effect for age did not reach statistical significance, f (1, 48) = .725, p=.399. however, the interaction effect was statistically significant, f (2, 48) = 4.958, p < .05, r = 0.53. a one-way anova for 11-12 year olds revealed a statistically significant difference in the physics grade for the male character between the three experimental conditions, f (2, 27) = 9.809, p < .001. post-hoc comparisons indicated that the physics grade for the male character was significantly lower in the transplant condition (m = 4.6, sd = 1.7) compared to the island condition (m = 6.2, sd = .63, p < .05) and the control condition (m = 6.8, sd = .79, p < .001). this indicates that 11-12 year olds believe that a male with a female brain would do worse in gcse physics than a male raised in an opposite sex environment and a ‗normal‘ male. in contrast europe’s journal of psychology 271 there were no statistically significant differences in the physics grade for the male character between the 3 experimental conditions for 15-16 year olds, f (2, 21) =1.961, p= .166. the acquisition of gender stereotypical properties the main dependent variable, mean predicted likelihood of acquiring gendered properties, were aggregated across stereotypically feminine (cries a lot, wears dresses, wants to be a nurse andwants to be a ballet dancer), and masculine properties (gets into fights a lot, has short hair, wants to be a fire-fighter and wants to be a soldier). if children hold essentialist beliefs about the acquisition of gender stereotyped properties they would be expected to predict that the male in the transplant condition (male with a female brain) is more likely to acquire feminine properties than the male in either the island condition (opposite sex environment) or control condition (‗normal‘ male). similarly, they would be expected to predict that the female character in the transplant condition (female with male brain) is more likely to acquire masculine properties than the female in either the island (oppositesex environment) or control conditions (‗normal‘ female). the scores were coded such that lower numbers indicate higher likelihood as 1 = very strongly agree, 4 = neither agree nor disagree and 7 = very strongly disagree. feminine properties a two-way anova for the female character‘s predicted likelihood of acquiring feminine properties revealed a significant main effect for experimental condition, f (2, 48) = 11.947, p < .001, r = 0.62. the main effect for age failed to reach statistical significance, f(1, 48) =.948, p = .335. the interaction effect was statistically significant, f(2, 48) = 3.660, p < .05, r = 0.46. post-hoc comparisons indicated that for 11-12 year olds the predicted likelihood of the female character acquiring feminine properties was significantly lower in the transplant condition (m = 5.0, sd = 1.1) compared to the island condition (m = 3.2, sd = 1.1, p <.001) and the control condition (m = 2.9, sd = .70, p < .001). in contrast there was no statistically significant difference between the 3 experimental conditions for 15-16 year olds (p= .08). it is noteworthy that the means for the transplant and island condition are 4.3 and 4 respectively, which represents neither agree nor disagree suggesting that they are uncertain as to whether biological or social factors influence the acquisition of gendered properties. a two-way anova for the male character‘s predicted likelihood of acquiring stereotypically feminine properties revealed significant main effect for experimental condition, f(2, 48) = 10.931, p< .001, r = 0.60. the main effect for age did not reach statistical significance, f(1, 48) =1.343, p = .252. the interaction effect was statistically gender essentialism and educational subject choice 272 significant, f(2, 48) = 4.418, p<0.05, r = 0.50. post-hoc comparisons for 11-12 year olds indicated that the likelihood of a male acquiring feminine properties was significantly higher in the transplant condition (m = 3.8, sd = 1.1) compared to both the island condition (m = 5.8, sd = 1.1, p< .001) and the control condition (m = 6.0, sd = .86, p < .001). for 15-16 year olds the post-hoc comparisons indicated that the likelihood of the male acquiring feminine properties is significantly higher in the island condition (m = 4.0, sd = 1.8) compared to the control condition (m = 6.1, sd = 1.) p< .05). the transplant condition did not differ significantly from the other 2 conditions. however, as above the means for the transplant and the island conditions were 4 and 4.4 respectively which again suggests they are uncertain about whether the acquisition of feminine properties is influenced by biological or social factors. masculine properties a two-way anova for the female character‘s predicted likelihood of acquiring stereotypically masculine properties revealed significant main effect for experimental condition f(2, 48) = 7.496, p< .001, r = 0.52. the main effect for age did not reach statistical significance f(1, 48) = 3.243, p = .078. the interaction effect was statistically significant, f(2, 48) = 3.600, p < .05, r = 0.49. post-hoc comparisons for 1112 year olds indicated that the likelihood of the female acquiring masculine properties was significantly higher in the transplant condition (m = 3.7, sd = 1.0) compared to the island condition (m = 5.2, sd = 1.0 p< .001] and the control condition (m = 5.3, sd = 4.3, p < .001]. in contrast there was not a statistically significant difference between the 3 experimental conditions for 15-16 year olds, (p= .133). the analysis for the male character‘s predicted likelihood of acquiring stereotypically masculine properties revealed a significant main effect for experimental condition f(2, 48) = 22.349, p< .001, r = 0.73. the main effect for age did not reach statistical significance, f(1, 48) = .910, p = .345. the interaction effect was statistically significant, f(2, 48) = 7.139, p < .05, r = 0.62272. for 11-12 year olds post-hoc comparisons indicated that the predicted likelihood of a male acquiring masculine characteristics was significantly lower in the transplant condition (m = 4.9, sd = .62) compared to the island condition (m = 3.0, sd = .62, p = .001) and the control condition (m = 2.7 , sd = .59, p< .001). for 15-16 year olds the likelihood of the male possessing masculine properties characteristics was significantly higher in the control condition (m = 2.7, sd = 1.2) compared to both transplant condition (m = 4.2, sd = .85, p< .05) and the island condition (m = 4.3, sd = 97, p < .05). as above, the means for the transplant and island conditions fall in the neither agree nor disagree category (4), again indicating uncertainty about the factors influencing the acquisition of gendered properties. europe’s journal of psychology 273 summary of results overall, results from the experiment showed that both 11-12 year olds and 15-16 year olds appear to hold essentialist beliefs about sex differences in academic ability in stereotypically feminine subjects. only 11-12 year olds were found to hold essentialist beliefs about sex differences in stereotypically masculine subjects. furthermore, 11-12 year olds were found to be more likely to hold essentialist beliefs about genderstereotyped properties; masculine and feminine than 15-16 year olds who appear to be ambivalent as to the factors influencing the acquisition of these properties. discussion gender essentialism is the theoretical position that the categories of male and female have an inner essence that it is this inner essence that is responsible for observable sex differences. the present study explored whether this mode of category representation is indicative of the persistence of sex segregation in educational subject choice. the thought experiment results indicate that school children hold essentialist beliefs about gender. although such beliefs vary as a function of both the age of participants and the gendered attributes considered, both 11-12 and 15-16 year olds were found to hold essentialist beliefs about academic ability in stereotypically feminine subjects, predicting, for instance, that a following a brain transplant from a female, a male would achieve higher grades in art, english and textiles than a male raised by women or a ‗normal‘ male. in relation to stereotypically masculine subjects no significant differences were found in the grades for mathematics across the experimental conditions for both age-groups. while only 11-12 year olds were found to hold essentialist beliefs about academic ability in physics. although these findings do not provide direct evidence of essentialism, this is the first study to provide converging evidence for three manifestations of psychological essentialism; (1) inductive potential; children made inductive inferences about academic subject ability on the basis of knowledge of sex group membership alone, (2) a belief in nativism; children believe that academic subject ability has a biological basis in the brain and (3) immutability; academic subject ability is not seen perceived as open to environmental influence. whilst acknowledging that gender stereotyping is not the only factor guiding subject choice, the fact that children hold essentialist beliefs about academic subject ability may deter them from choosing subjects that are not stereotypically aligned with their own gender for further study. there is some evidence to suggest that holding essentialist beliefs has an impact on behaviour (martin et al, 1995) so these gender essentialism and educational subject choice 274 essentialist beliefs about sex differences in academic ability in stereotypically masculine and feminine studies may well influence children‘s subject choices. children were found to hold less essentialist beliefs about masculine subjects which may help to explain why boys show more of a bias in subject choice than girls (whitehead, 1996). furthermore, leaper (2000) has argued that boys have more at stake than girls in maintaining group boundaries due to males‘ higher status in society. the role of power and status in relation to essentialist representations of social categories remains relatively unexplored (although see mahalingham, 2001), and is an important area for future research. in the second part of the experiment children were required to make inferences about the gendered properties from taylor‘s (1996) study. it was found that 11-12 year olds appear to hold essentialist beliefs about gender-stereotyped properties predicting, for instance, that a male with a female brain is more likely to acquire feminine properties than a male raised by only women and a ‗normal‘ male, yet the15-16 year old participants were found to be ambivalent as to the factors influencing the acquisition of these properties. previous research has suggested that as children get older they move away from an essentialist construal of gender, an important finding in this study is that even 15-16 year olds appear to view certain, but not all, gendered attributes in essentialist terms. based on the present findings it is plausible that what previous researchers uncovered was not that the older children and adults were no longer essentialist per se but just that they did not construe the specific gendered attributes participants were asked to make inferences about in essentialist terms. in other words, they may still believe there are innate sex differences in certain skills and attributes but not about others. another possibility leading on from this is that some of the older participants may not perceive the brain to be central to gender identity, one of the 15-16 year old participants in the transplant condition for instance stated: ‗some things would change but there are differences in the body too – like hormones‘. overall, the present data suggest that gender essentialism may be ongoing in development and future research needs to uncover which attributes people believe are linked to the gender essence, as well as where the essence is believed to be located. although the extent to which these results can be generalized needs to be considered. previous studies on essentialism have been conducted with mainly white, middle-class samples, the present study was conducted at school where a significant majority (70%) of the students come from an ethnic minority and it is possible that gender attitudes are relatively less liberal in this sample. future research europe’s journal of psychology 275 should broaden the range of samples and consider the intersection of gender, class and ethnicity. another issue that needs to be considered is that of individual differences between the participants, based on the explanations they provided for their answers some appear to have an essentialist orientation stating ‗girls are better than boys in some subjects like textiles but boys are better at science‘, while others refused to make gender-category based inferences stating that ‗the information provided was too vague‘. of relevance to educational subject choice is the possibility that the gender stereotyping of subject areas is more of an attraction/deterrent to some pupils than others. a further nother issue that needs to be addressed concerns the use of thought experiments as a way of uncovering gender representations. there is evidence to suggest that some of the 15-16 year olds over-interpreted the task, for instance 3 of the participants in the island condition mentioned that there were no computers on the island and therefore they could not predict grades for i.t. it is for this reason that predicted grades for i.t were excluded from the analysis. this illustrates the need for future research to utilise a more sensitive measure of older children‘s knowledge. finally, the role of culture in relation to essentialist representations of social categories remains relatively underspecified. although psychological essentialism is a cognitive heuristic which categories people essentialize varies both across and within cultures. more research is required which explores the role of culture in essentialism, specifically the cultural conditions including the nature of cultural discourse that serve to heighten or inhibit children‘s essentialist beliefs about social categories such as gender. conclusion if an attempt is to be made to design policies or campaigns that counteract prevailing gender stereotypes and their influence upon subject choice it needs to be based on an understanding of both the acquisition, and nature of gender-role concepts. while the present study is only the first step in this direction, the current findings suggest that psychological essentialism as a theory of category representation may underlie the gender stereotyping of subjects amongst children, and may explain why sex differences in subject choice persist despite 30 years of gender reform policies. gender essentialism and educational subject choice 276 acknowledgements we would like extend our gratitude to all the students who took part in our experiments for their generous cooperation. a special thanks to debbie prentice for reading an earlier draft of this paper. references archer, j., & macrae, m. 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(1996). sex stereotypes, gender identity and subject choice at a-level. educational research, 38 (2), 147-160. about the author: japinder dhesi was awarded a phd from the institute of social psychology at the lse, uk. her doctoral thesis brings together social psychological, evolutionary and anthropological ideas as a means of generating new insights into the cognitive foundations of social group stereotyping. address for correspondence: japinder dhesi, institute of social psychology, london school of economics, st clements building, houghton street, london, wc2a 2ae e-mail: jap.dhesi@googlemail.com handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology edited by steven g. rogelberg blackwell publishing review by vlad glăveanu ejop editor to cover an extensive topic such as research methods in organizational psychology is most definitely an ambitious goal. nowadays more than ever researchers and practitioners are dealing with an overwhelming variety of methods and designs. with these new concerns arise, among them the problem of choosing the most adequate methodology, of increasing the validity of our instruments, of collecting and reporting data while respecting research ethics. in the intricate labyrinth of methods the “handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology” represents an exceptional guide destined to help the organizational scientist make the right choices in performing high-quality research. edited by steven rogelberg, it has been first published in paperback in 2002 by blackwell publishing as part of the blackwell handbooks of research methods in psychology series. the book is organized into four main parts reflecting the four major stages of organizational research. first the “foundations” are discussed, offering the reader a greater understanding of research paradigms and key-concepts. second, we find a comprehensive view on “data collection procedures and approaches” discussing both traditional and cutting-edge data-gathering techniques. third we have “data investigation”, a core aspect covering data analysis procedures. finally, a guideline for effectively presenting research results is offered and the handbook concludes with a chapter addressing the key challenges faced by the community of industrial and organizational researchers. within the first part, “foundations”, several topics are explored. the first chapter presents a short history of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology focused on the development of measurement methods, research designs and analysis techniques. the second chapter is dedicated to “research ethics” and participants’ rights (informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, protection from deception, debriefing), reflecting one of the most pressing concerns of organizational scientists. special circumstances such as resolving complaints or performing research using the internet are discussed with a focus on ethical imperatives. most of the first part (chapters 3-6) addresses crucial problems in i/o research: validity and reliability, research designs, qualitative methods and power analysis. the second part, “data collection procedures and approaches”, is opened by a chapter dedicated to surveys as one of the flourishing trends in today’s organizational research. a special attention is given to internet / intranet surveys. the following chapter addresses the rich legacy of qualitative data collection and analysis methods used in organizations with a focus on interviews and focus-groups, open-ended surveys, observation-based approaches and case studies. from well-known qualitative methods we are invited to investigate a revolutionary research methodology successfully used in natural sciences: computational modeling. benefits and limitations of modeling are presented as well as examples of research with great importance for i/o researchers (such as modeling organizational withdrawal). we are long passed the time when research meant single studies focusing on a certain level of a national organization. researchers are increasingly “forced” to put their research results in perspective through meta-analysis, to study multi-level organizational constructs and have a cross-cultural overview. chapters ten, eleven and twelve address these topics, showing their utility for organizational scientists and their weight in contemporary research. if at the beginning of the second part we were introduced to organizational surveys in the last chapter we are invited to step beyond online surveys and discover internet research opportunities for industrial-organizational psychology. a world of new possibilities opens in front of our eyes: field experiments using a browser, behavioral observation using virtual reality, online interviewing, naturalistic observations using webcams, smartcards and “little brothers”, participant observation in virtual organizations and the analysis of internet archives. it is a glance into the future i/o research, a realistic and not an overenthusiastic portrait of innovative methods that will most probably thrive in the decades to come. finally, the third major part, “data investigation”, starts with two chapters: one addressing the topic of outliners and influential cases and the other discusses the proper ways of coping with missing data (listwise or pairwise deletion, mean substitution, hot deck imputation and others). since scale development is a central element in the work of every organizational psychologist chapter sixteen presents item analysis as seen from the point of view of classical and modern test theory. this section also includes a comparative analysis of cct and irt. the topic of data investigation wouldn’t be complete without discussing method variance and bias and especially the ways of controlling them (chapter seventeen). the last four chapters of this part (18-21) address themes related to confirmatory factor analysis and modeling data structures (the general linear model, longitudinal modeling, modeling nonlinear relationships). the statistical and practical implication of using such data investigation methods is analyzed taking into account the nature and complexity of organizational variables. as we mentioned earlier, the final part focuses on how to disseminate research results though articles and how to secure our collective future: eight challenges faced by i/o researchers. one of the first features that recommend this handbook as a promoter of research excellence is high scientific quality: it gathers articles signed by prestigious scholars and professionals in the field of methodology and data-analysis. the variety of themes is also impressive, starting with research ethics, validity and reliability, research design and up to cross-cultural organizational research and modeling complex data structures. if no book can cover all the research-related aspects in industrial and organizational psychology this handbook comes close to this ideal and, most of all, offers information in a comprehensive manner, logically organized and presented. this is why we consider it as readable and useful, combining theoretical and practical aspects and, by this, destined for both students and specialists. finally, another great merit is that of focusing simultaneously on research paradigms that became tradition as well as contemporary or even revolutionary designs and methods such as the ones using the internet or computational modeling. in concluding, “the handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology” is a milestone marking the constant evolution of organizational research methods and offering a wide-ranging outlook on the past, present and near future of this vast domain. humor style and motor skills: understanding vulnerability to bullying research reports humor style and motor skills: understanding vulnerability to bullying stephanie plenty*a, susanne bejerotab, kimmo eriksson cd [a] department of clinical neuroscience, karolinska institutet, stockholm, sweden. [b] vub/kognus, saint göran hospital, northern stockholm psychiatry, stockholm, sweden. [c] school of education, culture, and communication, mälardalen university, västerås, sweden. [d] centre for the study of cultural evolution, stockholm university, stockholm, sweden. abstract the purpose of this study was to examine the role of humor style and motor skills in vulnerability to bullying. 729 adults responded to the humor style questionnaire (hsq) and items retrospectively addressing their motor skills and bullying experiences during childhood. consistent with recent research, poorer motor skills were associated with a greater extent of having been bullied. an association between stronger motor skills and affiliative humor was found, lending support to a shared biological basis theory underlying social and motor competency processes. most importantly, being bullied was associated with higher self-defeating humor and lower affiliative humor. this supports earlier theoretical work by klein and kuiper (2006) and highlights the role that humor styles play in social interactions that can promote positive peer acceptance and wellbeing. keywords: bullying, hsq, humor styles, motor skills, peer acceptance europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 received: 2014-01-20. accepted: 2014-02-11. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of clinical neuroscience, karolinska institutet, stockholm 17177, sweden. e-mail: stephanie.plenty@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction bullying is a prevalent and worldwide phenomenon. across european and north american countries prevalence rates among school children range from approximately 5% to 30% (currie et al., 2012). in sweden almost 30% of adults report having been bullied at some stage during school (bejerot, plenty, humble, & humble, 2013). bullying refers to repetitive actions involving intimidation, aggression or harassment against another person that are characterised by a power imbalance (olweus, 1993, 1994). these behaviours can be direct or indirect, physical or verbal (salmivalli, huttunen, & lagerspetz, 1997) and may be carried out by one or more persons (olweus, 1992). bullying can have serious and long-term negative consequences for the targeted child’s health and wellbeing (arseneault, bowes, & shakoor, 2010; copeland, wolke, angold, & costello, 2013; kumpulainen, räsänen, & puura, 2001; varhama & björkqvist, 2005). to help understand how this harmful and complex problem can be prevented, we ask why some individuals are more vulnerable to bullying than others. children perceived as unusual may be rejected by other children (juvonen, 1991), as the most frequent reason given by youth for someone being bullied is that ‘they didn’t fit in’ (hoover, oliver, & hazler, 1992; hoover, oliver, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ & thomson, 1993). consistent with this, deficiencies in social competence are common amongst bullied children (fox & boulton, 2005; kaltiala-heino, rimpelä, rantanen, & rimpelä, 2000; olweus, 1992; perren & alsaker, 2006; varhama &björkqvist, 2005). having physical features signalling difference are alsomore commonly observed amongst bullied children than other children. for instance, physical cues such as being overweight (lumeng, forrest, appugliese, kaciroti, corwyn, & bradley, 2010) or belonging to an ethnic minority (hjern, rajmil, bergström, berlin, gustafsson, & modin, 2013) are acknowledged risk factors. a growing body of evidence also points to below average motor skills and an increased likelihood of bullying (bejerot, edgar, & humble, 2011; bejerot & humble, 2007, 2013; bejerot et al., 2013). movements that are poorly integrated or motor responses not accurately tuned to the social situation may be interpreted by others as socially inept or ‘awkward’. interestingly, perceptions of social incompetence and atypical physical features are related. bierman, smoot, and aumiller (1993) found that peer-ratings of physical atypicality (e.g., handicaps and oddness in behavior) and social insensitivity formed a common factor on which nonaggressive rejected children scored particularly high. evolutionary mechanisms have been suggested to play a role in explaining why children with certain characteristics may be targeted rather than others (volk, camilleri, dane, & marini, 2012). bullies are often psychologically and physically stronger than victims (juvonen, graham, & schuster, 2003) and bullying actions demonstrate a desire for social influence and power. thus, individuals that present ‘differently’ or as being more fragile and submissive, whether socially or physically, may be at increased risk for bullying by others who strive for dominance (bierman, smoot, & aumiller, 1993). social competence involves a variety of skills that assist in managing social interactions in a functional way (cavell, 1990; cavell, meehan, & fiala, 2003) and a key social strategy is to use humor. the appropriate use of humor helps foster social acceptance by facilitating positive interactions and promoting relationship development (klein & kuiper, 2006; yip & martin, 2006), thereby contributing to emotional health and wellbeing (martin, 2007). the humor style questionnaire (hsq) is a self-rated scale designed to describe the humor style an individual tends to use (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). it examines four styles: self-enhancing, affiliative self-defeating and aggressive. the self-enhancing style represents a generally humorous outlook and tendency to apply a humorous perspective during adverse situations, as well as taking others’ perspectives. this humor style minimises negative emotions while retaining a realistic view of a potentially unpleasant situation (martin et al., 2003). the affiliative humor style tends to apply jokes, witty banter and funny comments to entertain others and enhance relationships. although it may involve self-depreciating humor, this is done while also maintaining self-acceptance. the self-defeating humor style aims to promote interpersonal affiliation but at one's own expense, denying one’s emotional needs (fabrizi & pollio, 1987; martin et al., 2003). the aggressive humor style functions to enhance one’s self-image at the expense of others, often in front of an audience. both the self-enhancing and affiliative styles are generally ‘adaptive’ approaches that use humor in a tolerant and accepting manner both towards oneself and others. they are both associated with greater positive mood, selfesteem and relationship building (cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004). however, affiliative has stronger links with social self-esteem, while self-enhancing is more relevant to reduced anxiety and negative affect (kuiper et al., 2004). these two positive humor styles have been shown to be positively associated with greater interpersonal competence in general (yip & martin, 2006). in contrast, the selfdefeating and aggressive styles present generally ‘maladaptive’ approaches by using humor in a derogatory manner, either at one's own or someone else's expense (klein & kuiper, 2006) and are negatively associated with socially adaptive behaviour. both are associated with neuroticism and relationship dissatisfaction, while the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 plenty, bejerot, & eriksson 481 http://www.psychopen.eu/ former promotes ridicule and is more common among individuals who feel lonely (fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009) and socially uncertain (kuiper & mchale, 2009), the latter tends to alienate people (martin et al., 2003). klein and kuiper (2006) argue for mutually reinforcing interactions between humor styles and bullying dynamics. they suggest that affiliative humor should align with peer acceptance and thus be negatively associated with bullying. this may be explained through two complementary mechanisms: (a) children who skilfully use affiliative humor are more likely to be popular and are therefore at a lower risk of victimisation and (b) socially excluded children have less opportunity to develop such humor skills. in contrast, self-defeating humor is likely to be positively associated with being bullied because targeted children may have lower self-esteem and learn to allow others to laugh at their expense. furthermore, “victims of bullying may lack the abilities to effectively use a variety of humor styles, and thus rely primarily on a self-defeating humor style” (p. 398). thus, a tendency to use affiliative humor styles and avoid self-defeating humor may promote social interaction skills, presumably reducing the risk of bullying. positive humor styles, particularly affiliative humor, requires good timing abilities related to tone of voice, prosody, facial expression, gestures, eye glance and turn-taking during conversation, etc. similar to other forms of successful social interaction, positive humor involves the application of sensorimotor integration (velasques et al., 2011). the cerebellum is a region of the brain that is important for gross motor skills, but also contributes to sensorimotor coordination, exactness, accurate timing, and also calibrating sensorimotor information from other brain areas (ivry, spencer, zelaznik, & diedrichsen, 2002; spencer, ivry, & zelaznik, 2005). it is thought that deficiencies in social skills may be related to impairments in these fine-tuned cerebellar functions (rogers et al., 2013). accordingly, links between poor gross motor skills and poor social skills have been observed in clinical populations (reiersen, constantino, & todd, 2008; valera et al., 2010; zelaznik et al., 2012). for example, almost all children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate both poor motor skills and poor social skills. autistic children also show poor humor competence (asperger, 1991; weiss et al., 2013). amongst the non-clinical adult population, autistic traits are associated with weaker adaptive humor tendencies (eriksson, 2013; rawlings, 2013). as positive humor is linked with social competence, we propose that in a nonclinical adult population a shared biological basis between social and motor skills may be represented by poor motor skills and the low use of positive humor. the current study by understanding the risk factors for bullying, we can promote wellbeing through enhanced efforts to prevent this harmful behaviour. within the broad risk factors of atypicality and social incompetence, our study focuses on motor skills and humor styles. based upon klein and kuiper’s (2006) suggestions, we expect different humor styles to show distinct patterns with peer acceptance, as represented by bullying. although it has been suggested that self-defeating humor styles may increase the likelihood of bullying and affiliative humor may decrease the likelihood (klein & kuiper, 2006), no prior empirical research has investigated this link. this is therefore a key aim of the current study. a second aim is to shed more light on the recently identified association between being bullied and poor motor skills (bejerot & humble, 2013; bejerot et al., 2013). the third aim is to theoretically investigate the proposed biological link between motor and social skills in a nonclinical population by using adaptive humor as a proxy for social skills. it will consider if poorer motor skills are associated with less socially ‘adaptive’ humor (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing). analyses will be conducted on women and men separately so that the extent of any gender differences can be observed. additionally, as this is the first application of the hsq in a swedish population, the basic psychometric properties of this scale will also briefly be examined. the following four hypotheses will be examined: europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 humor styles and motor skills: vulnerability to bullying 482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ h1: stronger motor skills are expected to be negatively associated with being bullied. h2: stronger motor skills are expected to be positively associated with adaptive humor. h3: a greater tendency to use affiliative humor will be negatively associated with experience of being bullied. h4: a greater tendency to use self-defeating humor will be positively associated with experience of being bullied. method participants and procedure participants comprised of 729 swedish health care workers who attended a one-day training course during 2011. the final sample with complete data (n = 626, 86% of original sample) consisted of 498 women (68.3%) and 97 men (13.3%) (31 cases were missing gender information), with an age range of 18 to 69 years (mean age = 46 years). during the day, questionnaires were distributed and participants were invited to participate in an anonymous questionnaire. they were told that the study addressed coping approaches and that participation was voluntary. questionnaires were completed at a time of participants’ choosing and collected at the end of the day. in appreciation of their contribution, they were offered the chance to win a book gift voucher. under swedish law, formal ethical approval is not required for research methods using anonymous self-rated questionnaires (riksdagen, law 2003:460). measures the ‘humor styles questionnaire’ (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003) was translated to swedish for this study. the instrument’s author, rod martin approved the re-translation back to english. the hsq comprises of 32 statements intended to represent four styles of humor: aggressive (e.g., ‘if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it’), self-defeating (e.g., ‘i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should’), self-enhancing (e.g., ‘my humorous outlook on life helps me to not get too upset or depressed about things) and affiliative (e.g., ‘i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends’), with eight items for each subscale. participants indicate to what extent they agree or disagree with each statement along a seven-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = agree completely). scores for each subscale were calculated by summing participants’ responses (after reverse-coding some items according to the hsq coding scheme). missing responses were replaced by mean replacement using items within the same subscale. cases missing three or more responses within a subscale were removed from further analysis. the hsq has previously shown good validity and psychometric properties amongst north american adolescents and young adults (for example, eriksson, 2013; erickson & feldstein, 2007; frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008; hampes, 2010; hodson, macinnis, & rush, 2010). participants indicated their age and gender. two items also addressed their motor skills and experiences of being bullied during their school years. response options were along the same seven-point scale as the hsq items ranging from strongly disagree to agree completely. 1. experience of being bullied: ‘i was bullied by other children in school, i.e., i was exposed, repeatedly over time, to negative actions by one or more persons during my school days’. 2. motor skills: ‘i was considered good at physical education in school, i.e., regarding motor smoothness, coordination and ball skills’. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 plenty, bejerot, & eriksson 483 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics the hsq scale reliabilities and correlations are presented in table 1. strong internal reliability was observed for all scales. the two positive styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) were most strongly correlated with each other and the two negative styles (aggressive and self-defeating) were most strongly correlated with each other, consistent with correlation patterns observed in previous research using the hsq (fitts et al., 2009; kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). male and female showed a generally similar pattern of correlations. as shown in table 2, while no gender differences were observed in affiliative and self-enhancing humor scores, men scored higher than women on both aggressive and self-defeating humor, as well as on self-reported motor skills and experience of being bullied (marginally significant). table 1 cronbach’s alphas and correlations amongst the humor subscale self-defeatingaggressiveself-enhancingaffiliativesubscale affiliative .20***.10*.34***.77 self-enhancing .17***.06.74.40*** aggressive .38***.63.02-.07 self-defeating .78.41***.15.08 note. cronbach’s alphas presented on the diagonal; female correlations in the upper triangle; male correlations in the lower triangle. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 2 descriptive statistics by gender psdmeangendermeasure femaleaffiliativea .19.17.043 male .06.044 femaleself-enhancinga .09.67.534 male .17.036 femaleaggressivea .001<.66.922 male .57.026 femaleself-defeatinga .001<.18.423 male .48.026 femalebulliedb .02.91.32 male .91.62 femalemotor skillsb .007.12.44 male .02.05 note. 498 females and 97 males. at-tests. bmann-whitney u tests. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 humor styles and motor skills: vulnerability to bullying 484 http://www.psychopen.eu/ associations between humor style, motor skills and bullying as predicted, a negative correlation was observed between motor skills and being bullied, rs = -.23, p < .001. this was observed for both men (rs = -.23) and women (rs = -.26) separately. table 3 presents correlations of motor skills and being bullied with the four humor styles. overall, those who reported stronger motor skills also tended to score higher on affiliative and self-enhancing humor. however, when considering only women, motor skills were significantly associated with all four humor styles. greater affiliative and self-enhancing humor were both associated with better motor skills, whereas higher aggressive and self-defeating humor were associated with poorer motor skills. amongst males, no significant correlations between motor skills and the humor styles were observed, although there was a weak trend for higher aggressive humor to be associated with better motor skills. for both genders, a greater experience of being bullied was associated with lower affiliative humor and greater self-defeating humor. table 3 correlations for good motor skills and being bullied with hsq self-defeatingaggressiveself-enhancingaffiliativesample motor skillsall .06-.06-.11**.13** bullied .22***.10*.03.12**motor skillsfemale .09*-.11*-.12**.14** bullied .26***.11*.01.12**motor skillsmale .07.19†.01-.09 bullied .12.03.08.17†note. 498 females and 97 males †p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. spearman correlations. table 4 presents results from a multivariate regression predicting being bullied frommotor skills and humor styles. being bullied was uniquely predicted by weaker motor skills, lower affiliative, as well as greater self-defeating humor, and to a lesser extent self-enhancing humor. the gender specific analyses however, showed some key differences. while motor skills, self-defeating humor and affiliative humor predicted being bullied amongst females, affiliative humor was the only significant predictor of having being bullied amongst males. table 4 multivariate regression predicting being bullied malefemaleallrisk factor motor skills .17-.23***-.20***affiliative humor .26*-.14**-.16***self-enhancing humor .18.09.10* aggressive humor .05.03-.01self-defeating humor .10.21***.19*** r2 .11.11.10 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. standardized coefficients presented. p-values are based on 5,000 bootstrap samples. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 plenty, bejerot, & eriksson 485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study examined the role of humor styles and motor skills in understanding vulnerability to bullying. poorer motor skills were associated with weaker adaptive humor. as expected, greater self-defeating humor and lower affiliative humor, as well as poorer motor skills significantly predicted having been bullied. however, self-enhancing and aggressive humor showed few associations with being bullied. a greater tendency to use maladaptive humor, particularly self-defeating humor was associated with having been bullied. thus, the findings are consistent with klein and kuiper’s (2006) suggestion that bullied children and adolescents are likely to use self-defeating humor to a greater extent than children who are not bullied. greater use of this humor approach also aligns with previous observations of greater submissive and avoidance behavior amongst bullied individuals (fox & boulton, 2005; perren & alsaker, 2006). using self-defeating humor to promote relationships with others, risks promoting a negative self-image and increasing perceived vulnerability among peers (klein & kuiper, 2006). furthermore, potentially negative outcomes of this humor style may be compounded because individuals who tend to use self-defeating humor, may have a lower propensity to use adaptive humor styles (fitts et al., 2009). individuals may benefit from understanding how reducing the use of self-defeating humor can promote both self-respect and inter-personal respect. bullied women in the current study also showed a slightly greater tendency to use aggressive humor than non-bullied women. although aggressive humor may represent an attempt towards adaptive humor, or to defend oneself, it may exacerbate a victim's vulnerability, by contributing to further social alienation (fitts et al., 2009). as maladaptive humor styles are more common among males than females (martin et al., 2003), females that present an aggressive humor style signal atypical behavior, which is regarded as being perceived as ‘different’. according to evolutionary processes this atypical gender-typed behaviour may be perceived as being ‘different’ or ‘weak’ by peers seeking social dominance. furthermore, aggressive humor is probably more relevant to characterising bully-victims, rather than victims of bullying, as this humor style can work to lower another individual’s status within a group (klein & kuiper, 2006). another gender difference of note was of a weak trend for males between greater motor skills and aggressive humor, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for females. this is consistent with previous research finding that superior motor skills are associated with being a bully in boys, but not in girls (jansen, veenstra, ormel, verhulst, & reijneveld, 2011). consistent with expectations, the tendency to use affiliative humor was greater amongst individuals with lower levels of bullying. this humor style is associated with taking the initiative in relationship building and also managing social conflict (martin et al., 2003). individuals with this tendency are more likely to involve themselves in social contexts that promote functional interpersonal relationships ( yip & martin, 2006). thus, learning to apply this type of skill, particularly in combination with the minimization of maladaptive humor (i.e., self-defeating humor) (klein & kuiper, 2006; martin et al., 2003) could be very useful for individuals at risk of social exclusion (klein & kuiper, 2006). unexpectedly, self-enhancing humor showed weak positive associations with being bullied. it should be noted that unlike self-enhancing humor, the proposed mechanisms underlying the link between affiliative humor and bullying are based on social interaction. in this sense, being bullied may not impede the development of selfenhancing humor and it is possible that socially exclusion may actually provide individuals with more opportunities to develop self-enhancing humor. this study also indirectly tested a proposed biological basis underlying social and motor deficits. as strong motor skills were positively associated with adaptive humor, the findings lend theoretical support to this proposal. a europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 humor styles and motor skills: vulnerability to bullying 486 http://www.psychopen.eu/ range of fine-tuned motor skills (e.g., timing and facial expression) are required in adaptive humor and these presumably stem from cerebellar functions. this is the same brain region that performs gross and fine motor functions. these results extend previous research reporting links between poor gross motor skills and poor social skills amongst clinical populations (reiersen, constantino, & todd, 2008; valera et al., 2010; zelaznik et al., 2012) to non-clinical adult populations and demonstrate the complex skill processes required for adaptive humor. we do not argue that it is the poor use of humor or motor skills per se that causes bullying. rather, we suggest that individuals with limited use of affiliative humor, and greater use of self-defeating humor may be generally perceived as less socially competent than others. as the type of humor style an individual tends to use is related to broader social competence and communication abilities (martin et al., 2003), it may reflect a general perception of ‘being’ different, which makes certain individuals more vulnerable to bullying than others. similarly, poor motor skills can represent atypical physical features that signal difference and perhaps fragility. poorly timed or coordinated motor responses may be perceived by others (even at an unconscious level) as social awkwardness or ‘oddness’, reducing their likeability and therefore lead to an increased risk of being bullying. this was the first study to apply the hsq within a swedish population. furthermore, it involved a large (mostly female) adult sample who were not university students and supported previous research showing good reliability and validity of the hsq four scales (martin et al., 2003; kazarian & martin, 2004; saroglou & scariot, 2002). however, the findings must be interpreted with consideration of the sample’s gender imbalance, and are thus more applicable to women. although some patterns specific to men (such as a trend between stronger motor skills and more aggressive humor) were observed, most findings for bullying were in a similar direction to those for women, albeit non-significant, presumably due to sample size limitations. a larger sample with greater statistical power is needed to replicate and validate these gender specific findings. furthermore, as the current study used retrospective measures of bullying, the causal pathway between humor styles and vulnerability to bullying was not tested. it is likely that the relationship between humor and bullying is bidirectional, as bullying can also perpetuate social difficulties (hodges & perry, 1999). since the development of social skills, including the use of humor, is fostered by a safe and positive climate (klein & kuiper, 2006), victimised individuals may develop further difficulties in developing broader and appropriate humor skills (i.e., affiliative humor). this study investigated risk factors for bullying stemming from physical atypicality and social incompetence. it was the first study to investigate humor styles and bullying and in doing so demonstrated an increased likelihood of having been bullied with greater use of self-defeating humor and lower affiliative humor. the findings also support a growing body of literature indicating a link between poor motor skills and an increased risk of bullying. furthermore, the shared biological basis hypothesis regarding social competency and motor skills was supported. individuals tend to use a range of humor styles (klein & kuiper, 2006) and so self-defeating and aggressive humor may be used on occasion. however a greater tendency towards affiliative humor is more closely associated with social acceptance. thus, the current findings highlight the role that humor styles can play in promoting wellbeing through adaptive social interaction. funding this study was partly financed by funding susanne bejerot received from the swedish research council; 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(2012). motor timing deficits in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. human movement science, 31(1), 255-265. doi:10.1016/j.humov.2011.05.003 about the authors stephanie plenty’s main research interests address the importance of social conditions for positive development in both clinical and non-clinical populations. this includes a focus on how psychosocial factors within the school context can influence health and wellbeing. susanne bejerot’s research interest is the relationship between motor skills and social rejection and bullying, across clinical and non-clinical populations. the clinical populations consist of adults with obsessive compulsive disorder, autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder. she has also studied gender aspects in autism. kimmo eriksson is a professor of mathematics. while a fan of humor, his main research interests are processes of cultural change and the scope and limitations of game theoretic modeling of human behavior. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 480–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.749 plenty, bejerot, & eriksson 491 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9450.00040 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00221-004-2088-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2010.05.012 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.96.2.269-272 http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/15622975.2010.551405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ab.21418 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2011.05.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor styles and motor skills: vulnerability to bullying introduction the current study method participants and procedure measures results descriptive statistics associations between humor style, motor skills and bullying discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors microsoft word 3. research personality as moderator.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 11-31 www.ejop.org personality as moderator of the relationship between communication and couple stability ariane lazaridès university of quebec in montreal, quebec, canada claude bélanger university of quebec in montreal, mcgill university and douglas research center, montreal, quebec, canada stéphane sabourin laval university, sainte-foy, quebec, canada abstract in this longitudinal study, we examined the moderating role of personality in the relationship between communication behaviors (withdrawal, dominance, criticism, support, and problem solving) and couple stability. at time 1, 135 couples completed the neo five-factor inventory and the dyadic adjustment scale. these couples were also videotaped during a 15-minute problem-solving discussion. approximately 2.5 years later, these same couples were contacted to assess their relationship status – intact, or separated or divorced. results show that women’s time 1 extraversion moderates the relationship between couple stability and men’s withdrawal and problem solving. men’s neuroticism moderates the relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability. men’s agreeableness moderates the relationship between women’s withdrawal and couple stability. keywords: couples, personality, communication, behaviors, stability, observation. europe’s journal of psychology 12 background couple relationships have long been an object of interest for psychologists. however, given the high divorce and separation rates that currently prevail as well as their consequences on individuals, their families and society at large (ambert, 2005), understanding the processes that lead to couple disruption has taken a new significance and the potential to impact a greater number of people. observation of marital interaction has been used by a few research teams to try to pinpoint factors impacting marital outcomes, whether they be marital satisfaction measures or marital stability. while we cannot assume that marital satisfaction and stability are affected in the same manner by different variables, they are clearly related (separation and divorce imply some level of dissatisfaction with the relationship, although dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to divorce), and most variables have effects of the same valence for both (karney & bradbury, 1995). research on predictors of marital satisfaction can thus give hints about variables significantly related to marital stability. couple interactions have been used to predict whether a couple will separate (cohan & bradbury, 1997; gottman, 1994; karney & bradbury, 1995; matthews, wickrama, & conger, 1996). reciprocation of aversive, or negative, behaviors (e.g. criticism) (filsinger & thoma, 1988; gottman, 1994) and, interestingly, of rewarding, or positive, behaviors (e.g., agreement) (filsinger & thoma, 1988) has been linked to decreased stability. whereas the link between reciprocation of negative behaviors and instability intuitively makes sense, it seems surprising that reciprocation of positive behaviors would also be associated with separation. in couples who present a high level of reciprocation of positive behaviors, positive behaviors are more often emitted as a form of payment for a previous positive behavior. it seems that when behaviors are emitted according to a strict reciprocation model, couples are less stable than when there is more flexibility and reciprocation takes place over the long run. affects have also been used to predict couple dissolution. emotions have been found to partially explain the association between social support behaviors and later couple dissolution (sullivan & al., 2010). gottman and his colleagues (gottman, coan, carrere, & swanson, 1998) reported that it was possible to predict which couples would divorce over a 6-year period with 83% accuracy by observing affects expressed during the first three minutes of a session of marital conflict resolution. predictably, couples that remained stable over this 6-year period manifested more positive affect and less negative affect than couples that would eventually divorce. personality as moderator 13 gottman also found that couples that divorced earlier in their marriage tended to have an affective style characterized by high levels of conflicts and expressed negativity, while couples that divorced later were characterized by high levels of neutral affect – essentially an absence of expressed affect (gottman & levenson, 2002). however, these studies have been subjected to methodological and conceptual criticism (dekay, greeno, & houck, 2002; heyman & slep, 2001; stanley, bradbury, & markman, 2000) and have in some cases failed to be replicated (kim, capaldi, & crosby, 2007). few other studies have examined the impact of affect on couple stability. among them, cohan and bradbury (1997) found that husband’s humor, in the context of major life events, had a negative association with stability. another study (rogge, bradbury, hahlweg, engl, & thurmaier, 2006) found that hostility of both spouses predicted couple instability over a 5-year period. couple relationships feature a complex interplay between the interactions of the two partners and their respective intrapersonal characteristics. in particular, personality is a factor that has been studied frequently in conjunction with close relationships (cooper & sheldon, 2002). in the metaanalysis by karney and bradbury (1995), in which they analyzed 115 longitudinal studies of marital outcomes (stability and marital satisfaction), they found that several personality characteristics predicted marital stability. most of them were factors from the five-factor model of personality (mccrae & costa, 1987), which is perhaps the current most prominent model of personality. its five factors are the following: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. in the metaanalysis by karney and bradbury (1995), agreeableness and conscientiousness of both genders were positively associated with stability. the case of extraversion and openness is mitigated: few studies found a relationship between these traits and marital stability, and results were inconsistent among them (donnellan, conger, & bryant, 2004; watson, hubbard, & wiese, 2000). neuroticism in both genders was negatively associated with stability. remarkably, neuroticism was the single variable most negatively related to marital stability for women, and was second only to parental divorce for men. clearly, personality does play a role in marital stability. the inconsistencies in the separate bodies of research about couple outcomes and behaviors on the one hand, and personality on the other hand, lead us to believe that more complex models are required to better understand how these variables are related. little is known about how personality could exert its influence on marital outcomes. however, we can suppose that since personality is a tendency to react in consistent patterns (behavioral, cognitive, or affective) across situations (pervin, cervone, & john, 2005), it is likely to affect how one tends to react to behaviors from the partner (sullivan, 1997) and as such, is likely to play a role in couple interactions. europe’s journal of psychology 14 one way to integrate personality and behaviors as predictors of marital satisfaction, is a mediational model in which personality exerts its influence on marital satisfaction through partner interactions. karney and bradbury (1995) proposed such a model as part of a larger vulnerability-stress-adaptation model to account for changes in marital satisfaction. other studies found evidence of a mediation relationship between personality, behaviors and marital outcomes (caughlin, huston, & houts, 2000; donnellan et al., 2004). in particular, both these studies found that the relationship between neuroticism and decreased marital satisfaction was mediated by marital interactions high in hostility and low in warmth. donnellan et al. (2004) also found that the relationships between agreeableness of both genders and marital satisfaction were mediated by marital interactions, as well as that between wives’ openness and marital satisfaction. another way, never explored as far as we know, in which personality and behaviors could be combined, is in a moderational model that posits that behaviors from one partner are differentially related to marital stability according to the other partner’s personality. for example, criticism could have a very different impact on a person high on neuroticism, who tends to get easily angry, hostile or anxious, than on somebody who is even-tempered and tends to experience positive affect. in the same manner, the likely impulsiveness of the high-neuroticism person could mean that they would react in a different way than their low-neuroticism counterpart, evoking a different reaction from their partner, and so on. this model gives a different but complementary point of view from which to understand the interaction between personality and behavior. in this study, we will examine how verbal (e.g. criticizing) and non verbal (e.g. looking away) communication behaviors manifested by one partners interact with the personality of the other partner to influence couple stability. as a preliminary step, we will start by examining the relationship between communication behaviors and couple stability, and between personality and stability. we will then investigate the potential moderator role of personality in the relationship between communication behaviors and couple stability. method participants the original time 1 sample included 315 french-speaking canadian heterosexual couples from quebec. the subsample used for the current study comprises 127 personality as moderator 15 women and 116 men from 135 different couples who could be contacted, and accepted to participate in the second phase of the study, 2.5 years later. eighty-two couples (60.7% of the sample) were intact, and both members of these couples participated at time 2. fifty-three couples (39.3%) of the sample were separated or divorced; eight women and 19 men from those 53 couples declined participation. at time 1, 59 (43.7%) of these couples were married, and 76 (56.3%) were cohabiting. cohabitation is widely accepted in quebec, with about 35% of all couples cohabiting in 2006 (statistics canada, 2007). the proportion of cohabiting couples in our sample is higher, perhaps because our participants are french-speaking and have more formal education than average, two characteristics that are associated, in quebec, with a higher likelihood of cohabitation (milan, 2003). the couples in our sample had been living together for an average of 7.7 (sd = 7.68) years. couples had an average of 1.00 child from their current relationship (sd = 1.29), and individuals had on average .32 children from previous relationship (sd = .83). the mean age of women was 33.8 years (sd = 9.01), with 15.36 years of formal education (sd = 3.05). the mean age of men was 36.34 years, with 15.84 years of formal education (sd = 3.64). mean annual income was $21,418 cdn (sd = 15,287) for women and $36,656 cdn (sd = 22,450) for men. couples in which men had more education (t(133) = 2.298, p = .023) or women had a higher income (t(133)= 1.978, p = .05) were less likely to be separated. marital status at time 1 was not linked significantly to separation or divorce. procedure these couples were recruited in the community through newspapers, television and radio. at both stages of the study, they completed self-report questionnaires (see description below). at stage 1, they were also videotaped during a 15-minute conflict resolution discussion whose topic was chosen based on the partners’ answers to the potential problem checklist (patterson, 1976). measures dyadic adjustment. the dyadic adjustment scale (das; spanier, 1976, translated into french by baillargeon, dubois, & marineau, 1986) is a self-report measure of marital adjustment. its 32 items yield a global score which is used as a measure of dyadic adjustment as perceived by the individual. a score of 100 or above is usually interpreted as indicating good adjustment. in our sample, 60.0% of women and 68.9% of men were adjusted at time 1. the french version used for this study has europe’s journal of psychology 16 satisfying psychometric properties (baillargeon et al., 1986; sabourin, lussier, laplante, & wright, 1990). in the current study, cronbach’s alpha for this questionnaire was .84. conflict sources. the potential problem checklist (patterson, 1976, translated into french and modified by bourgeois, sabourin, & wright, 1990) enumerates 16 topics that can be a source of conflicts for couples, and asks the respondent to rate, on a 7-point likert scale, to what degree they and their partner agree about each topic. personality. the neo five-factor inventory is a shortened version of the neo personality inventory–revised (costa & mccrae, 1992). it comprises 60 statements that are rated on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”, according to the extent to which the respondent believes the statement describes himor herself. the inventory yields scores on five subscales: neuroticism (defined as anxiety, depression, hostility, impulsiveness, self-consciousness, and vulnerability); extraversion (defined as warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking, and positive emotions); openness (defined as openness to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values); agreeableness (defined as altruism, compliance, modesty, straightforwardness, tender-mindedness, and trust); and conscientiousness (defined as achievement striving, competence, deliberation, dutifulness, order, and self-discipline). the scores are transformed in t scores with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. for this study, alpha coefficients ranged from .62 to .80. communication behaviors. the global couple interaction coding system (gcics; bélanger, dulude, sabourin, & wright, 1993) is a macroanalytic marital coding system that measures five dimensions of couples’ problem-solving interactions : (1) withdrawal/avoidance : withdrawal from discussion, avoidant non-verbal behavior; (2) dominance: control and direction of the discussion; (3) criticism/attack/conflict : criticism, blame, threat, non-verbal display of hostility, negative mind-reading and negative escalation; (4) support and validation : listening, validation and reinforcement of partner’s statements, verbally or non-verbally; (5) problem solving : acknowledgement of the existence of a problem and work towards its resolution. each dimension includes verbal as well as nonverbal behaviors. for this study, the couples’ 15-minute discussions were coded by two graduate students in psychology who received training in coding problem-solving interactions with this instrument. the discussions were divided into three 5-minute segments. for each of the five dimensions, each partner was given a score on a 4-point scale ranging from “not displayed” to “strongly displayed” according to the frequency, personality as moderator 17 intensity and duration of the behaviors displayed during each of the three segments. the scores given by a coder for the three segments were then averaged to yield the global score for that dimension. the final score for each dimension was the average of the global scores given by the two coders. intercoder agreement was calculated with intraclass correlation coefficients using the global scores of 25 discussions. the intercoder agreements were .90 for withdrawal, .84 for dominance, .86 for criticism, .75 for support, and .78 for problem-solving behaviors, with an average of .83, which denotes nearly perfect agreement, according to bech and clemmesen (1983). couple stability. couple stability is a binary variable representing the status (separated/divorced, coded 0, or together, coded 1) of the couple at time 2. it was measured by asking partners, when contacted to participate in the second phase of our study, whether they were still together. results means and standard deviations for dyadic adjustment, personality, and communication behaviors at time 1 are presented in table 1. we verified whether men and women differed on these variables, using gender as a repeated measure because the scores of men and women were expected to be correlated. men scored significantly higher on dyadic adjustment (t(134) = 3.33, p = .001, effect size d = .21) and withdrawal (t(134) = 2.03, p = .04, d = .18), and significantly lower on neuroticism and criticism (t(134) = 3.33, p = .001, d = .39 and t(134) = 3.44, p = .001, d = .23, respectively). table 1: means and standard deviations for time 1 variables by gender women men m sd m sd dyadic adjustment scale 103.42 21.48 107.68*** 18.40 neo-ffi subscales neuroticism 51.27 9.34 47.73*** 8.77 extraversion 49.47 10.57 51.57 10.32 openness 50.05 10.33 50.68 10.47 agreeableness 50.42 10.60 49.97 10.00 conscientiousness 48.99 11.00 51.22 9.97 communication behaviors withdrawal .46 .52 .56* .57 dominance .75 .52 .74 .58 europe’s journal of psychology 18 criticism .62 .59 .49*** .53 support .53 .36 .51 35 problem solving .58 .33 .55 .35 note: n = 135. means accompanied by asterisks indicate that a significant difference was found between the means of men and women for this variable. all p values for two-tailed tests. * p < .05, *** p < .001 correlations between time 1 variables and couple stability we then examined how time 1 dyadic adjustment, communication behaviors and personality were related to couple stability. couple stability was coded as a dummy variable with 0 standing for separated/divorced couples and 1 for intact couples. male and female dyadic adjustment were correlated with stability (r(133) = .355, p = .000 and r(133) = .402, p = .000, respectively). given the correlation between dyadic adjustment and stability, we then used each gender’s dyadic adjustment as a covariable when computing the correlations between the other variables for that gender (personality and communication behaviors) and stability. the only time 1 variable correlated to stability was female support (r(133) = -.17, p = .05). the weakness of many of the associations between communication behaviors and stability could be the result of the existence of a moderator variable (baron & kenny, 1986), which was hypothesized to be personality. if this hypothesis were right, the associations between time 1 behaviors and time 2 stability, which were low when we considered all levels of personality traits in the partial correlations, would become stronger at different levels of personality traits. this is the hypothesis that we tested next. moderation by personality of one partner of the relationship between communication behaviors of the other partner and couple stability we examined if and how personality of one partner moderated the relation between communication behaviors of the other partner and couple stability. according to baron & kenny (1986), a moderator is a variable that changes the direction and/or strength of the relation between an independent or predictor variable and a dependent or criterion variable. kraemer et al. (2002) add that a moderator also has to preexist the independent variable. in our case, we wanted to verify if communication behaviors emitted by one of the partners were differently related to couple stability depending on the personality traits of the other partner. for each personality factor of partner a, we performed logistic regressions of time-2 stability using the following predictors: the mean of time-1 dyadic adjustment of both personality as moderator 19 partners as the first block, the z values of the personality factor score of partner a and of the communication behavior score of partner b as the second block, and the product of the z values of the personality factor of partner a and communication behavior of partner b as the third block, following the procedure suggested by baron and kenny (1986). note that the requirement for the moderator to not be correlated to either the independent variables (here, communication behaviors) or the dependent variable (marital stability) concerns not so much the significance of the correlation as its strength, or absolute value (jaccard, turrisi, & wan, 1990). in this study, none of these correlations were above .29. we can thus safely assume that neither the independent variables nor the moderators, taken alone, are sufficient to explain the dependent variable’s variance and we have been able to successfully run moderation analyses. the requirement that the moderator should be present before the independent variable is also met, since personality of either partner, as a stable characteristic, preexists communication behaviors from the other partner. we plotted the significant interactions at three levels of the moderator (z = -1, z = 0, and z = 1). for each of the three levels of the moderator, we calculated the value of the regression equation at two levels of the predictor (z= -1 and z = 1), giving us three lines representing the interaction. we also calculated the region of significance of the relationship between the predictor and the dependent variable, that is, at what values of the personality trait (moderator variable) the relationship between the behavior (predictor) and couple stability (dependent variable) became significant. we tested for significance up to +/3 sd. it is noteworthy that the very fact that there is a significant interaction between behavior and personality trait indicates that the relationship between behavior and couple stability varies significantly across the range of values of the personality trait (jaccard et al., 1990), i.e., regardless of the region of significance, there exists two values of the moderator variable for which the relationship between predictor and dependent variable differs significantly. figure 1 (and associated results in table 2) show that men’s neuroticism moderates the relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability, such that an increase in men’s neuroticism is associated with a more positive relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability. the relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability becomes significant when men’s neuroticism is greater than 2.0 sd above mean. europe’s journal of psychology 20 figure 1: relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability according to men’s neuroticism level table 2: logistic regression analysis of couple stability on the interaction between men’s neuroticism and women’s problem solving predictor b se b wald’s χ2 p odds ratio average of t1 das .06 .01 19.44 .00 1.06 men’s neuroticism .38 .26 2.18 .14 1.46 women’s problem solving .28 .25 1.28 .26 1.32 men’s neuroticism × women’s problem solving .50 .25 3.95 .04 1.65 constant -5.30 1.33 15.84 .00 .005 note: model’s χ2 = 28.76, df = 4, p = .00. wald’s df = 1 for all predictors. interaction term’s cox & snell r2 change = 0.025. figure 2 and table 3 show that women’s extraversion moderates the relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability. a greater female extraversion is associated with a more negative (or less positive) relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability. the relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability is significant when women’s extraversion is lower than 1.1 sd below mean or higher than 1.3 sd above mean. personality as moderator 21 figure 2: relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability according to women’s extraversion level. table 3: logistic regression analysis of couple stability on the interaction between women’s extraversion and men’s problem solving predictor b se ß wald’s χ2 p odds ratio average of t1 das .06 .01 19.74 .00 1.06 women’s extraversion -.36 .22 2.75 .10 .70 men’s problem solving .03 .24 0.13 .91 1.03 women’s extraversion × men’s problem solving -.71 .30 5.47 .02 .49 constant -6.06 1.46 17.11 .00 .002 note: model’s χ2 = 32.11, df = 4, p = .00. wald’s df = 1 for all predictors. interaction term’s cox & snell r2 change = 0.037. in figure 3 and table 4, we see that women’s extraversion moderates the relationship between men’s withdrawal and stability. the figure shows that an increase in women’s extraversion was associated with a more positive (or less negative) relationship between men’s withdrawal and couple stability. the relationship between men’s withdrawal and couple stability becomes significant when women’s extraversion is lower than 0.4 sd below mean or higher than 1.2 sd above mean. europe’s journal of psychology 22 figure 3: relationship between men’s withdrawal and couple stability according to women’s extraversion level table 4: logistic regression analysis of couple stability on the interaction between women’s extraversion and men’s withdrawal predictor b se b wald’s χ2 p odds ratio average of t1 das .06 .01 18.29 .00 1.06 women’s extraversion -.28 .22 1.59 .21 .70 men’s withdrawal -.20 .22 0.82 .36 1.03 women’s extraversion × men’s withdrawal .79 .27 8.53 .004 .49 constant -5.80 1.47 15.60 .00 .002 note: model’s χ2 = 37.15, df = 4, p = .00. wald’s df = 1 for all predictors. interaction term’s cox & snell r2 change = 0.064. figure 4 and table 5 show that there is an interaction between women’s withdrawal and men’s agreeableness in predicting couple stability, such that an increase in men’s agreeableness was associated with a more negative, or less positive, relationship between women’s withdrawal and couple stability. the relationship between women’s withdrawal and couple stability is significant when men’s agreeableness is lower than 1.8 sd below mean or higher than 0.6 sd above mean. personality as moderator 23 figure 4: relationship between women’s withdrawal and couple stability according to men’s agreeableness level. table 5: results of the regression of couple stability on the interaction between men’s agreeableness and women’s withdrawal predictor b se b wald’s χ2 p odds ratio average of t1 das .06 .01 18.29 .00 1.07 men’s agreeableness -.39 .23 1.59 .09 .68 women’s withdrawal -.07 .20 0.82 .72 .93 men’s agreeableness × women’s withdrawal .65 .28 8.53 .02 .52 constant -6.50 1.47 15.60 .00 .002 note: model’s χ2 = 32.66, df = 4, p = .00. wald’s df = 1 for all predictors. interaction term’s cox & snell r2 change = 0.034. discussion in this research, we have explored the moderator role of personality in the relationship between time 1 communication behaviors and couple stability 2.5 years later. we have found that women’s conscientiousness and extraversion, and men’s europe’s journal of psychology 24 agreeableness all play a moderator role in the relationship between communication behaviors of their partners and couple stability. we found that men’s neuroticism moderates the relationship between women’s problem solving and couple stability. neuroticism and its elevated levels of negative emotions has been associated with poor choice of problem-solving strategies, especially when the individual high in neuroticism is in conflict with someone close to them (delongis & holtzman, 2005). however, the moderating effect of women’s problem solving behaviors on the relationship between men’s neuroticism and couple stability seems to indicate that adequate problem solving behaviors displayed by women compensate for high-neuroticism men’s poor problem-solving skills. women’s extraversion also moderates the relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability. for low-extraversion women, the relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability is positive. apparently, the relative passivity and nonassertive behavior of these women is well complemented by a high level of problem-solving behaviors on their partner’s part. as women’s extraversion increases, the relationship between men’s problem solving and couple stability becomes more negative. this result is consistent with previous research (wood & bell, 2008) that found that extraversion positively predicted a conflict-resolution style that was assertive, and negatively predicted a conflict-resolution style that was collaborative and accommodating. in other words, extraverted women would tend to force their preferred solution to the conflict upon their partner. it thus seems that the combination of a man who tries to solve relationship problems by finding compromises and a woman who is victory-oriented in her problem solving interactions with her spouse is associated with low couple stability. women’s extraversion also moderates the relationship between men’s withdrawal and stability. the relationship goes from negative at the lower end of the women’s extraversion spectrum, to positive at its higher end. in other words, couples with a withdrawn man and a woman low on extraversion are more likely to separate or divorce than couples with a withdrawn man and an extraverted woman, whose complementary behaviors could be contributing to higher couple functioning. therefore, the extraverted woman would take the conversational space not taken by the withdrawn man, leading to a mutually acceptable interaction style. on the other hand, couples with a low-extraversion woman and a high-withdrawal man could have interactions that are not stimulating to either of the members and they would become detached in the long run. gottman and levenson (2002) found that a highly neutral affective style during couple interactions was predictive of divorce personality as moderator 25 after a long union. such could be the case in couples where the woman is low on extraversion and the man is high on withdrawal. we also found that men’s agreeableness moderates the relationship between women’s withdrawal and couple stability, such that for low-agreeableness men, the correlation between women’s withdrawal and stability is positive, whereas it is neutral in the moderate-agreeableness men group and negative in the highagreeableness men group. in other words, couples with an avoidant woman are less likely to dissolve if the man is low on agreeableness. highly agreeable men focus on positive relationships and expect reciprocity to their benevolent attitude towards others. it is likely that withdrawn women fail to manifest such an attitude and this could create distress in their partners and eventually, this situation could contribute to a decrease in couple stability. the combination of a man low on agreeableness and a withdrawn woman, on the other hand, seems to be stable. one hypothesis is that they form a subgroup of emotionally disengaged couples where the woman has adopted withdrawal as a tactic against the man’s irritability and egocentrism, and this arrangement allows them to go on as a stable, albeit most likely unhappy, couple. it seems that the relationship of agreeableness to couple stability is more complex than previous research would let us suppose and further research is needed to better understand this relationship. this study shows that a proper assessment of couples must take into account personality as a factor in the impact that partners’ behaviors have on relationship functioning, and eventually, on stability of the couple. as this study suggests, clinicians should be aware that personality influences how one perceives the behavior of one’s partner, and a proper evaluation must take this influence into account in order to pinpoint with more accuracy those aspects of the conjugal relationship that create distress. limitations and conclusion the results from this study suggest that the personality of a person does have a moderator role in the relationship between the communication behaviors of this person’s partner and couple stability. in other words, one’s communication behaviors’ influence on stability varies with the personality traits of the partner. in our study, women’s conscientiousness and extraversion, as well as male agreeableness, played such a moderator role. this research was the first, as far as we know, to test a moderational model of communication behavior, personality and couple stability. as such, beyond the results obtained, it opens new research questions and invites further exploration of more complex relationships between predictors of marital europe’s journal of psychology 26 stability. we studied combinations of one type of communication behavior from one partner and one personality trait in the other partner, but it is likely that there are many more combinations that could be examined, involving more traits or other characteristics such as attachment, attributions, life events, etc. of course, as the complexity of the model grows, so do the costs of testing it, in terms of time, number of participants, etc., but a better understanding of the complexities of couple dynamics cannot dispense with models that have the capability to represent these subtleties. the current study is a step in that direction. our study also helps to bridge individual differences theories of couple stability with theories focused on behavioral factors, which have long been independently studied. a limitation to the generality of our results comes from the composition of our sample. perhaps because of the recruiting procedure which used a free consultation with a couple therapist as an incentive, our sample seems to have a lower dyadic adjustment than that of the samples used for validation. dyadic adjustment score in our sample was around 105 on average, whereas average is close to 114 in samples used to validate the dyadic adjustment scale and its french translation (baillargeon et al., 1986; spanier, 1976) . this might explain the very high separation rate of 40% over 30 months. the fact that most couples in our sample were cohabiting could also have an impact on the separation rate, as cohabiting couples have a higher separation rate than married couples (ambert, 2005). however, the lower dyadic adjustment also means that this sample is perhaps closer to what would be found in the general population and certainly closer to consulting couples. it is also noteworthy that the participating couples were not selected according to the length of their union. the influence of personality on stability is not necessarily the same at the beginning of a relationship than after a longer time (bouchard & arseneault, 2005), and our conclusions could have been different if we had used a sample of newlyweds or a sample of mature couples. we know from preliminary analyses of our data that for women, but not for men, dyadic adjustment at time 1 was negatively correlated with length of the relationship. however, marital status was not related to dyadic adjustment for either gender. it is also possible that the individuals from separated couples who chose to participate in the second stage of our study differed from those who declined in ways that could have affected our results, but we did not find any evidence supporting that hypothesis. we assessed personality by one self-report measure, which can be subject to social desirability and other biases. ideally, personality would be assessed by behavioral personality as moderator 27 observation, but this would be a much more resource-consuming procedure than the one used in this study. we also assessed personality at one point in time, as personality is purported to be quite stable (roberts & delvecchio, 2000), and as such we did not expect to measure much change over a 2.5 year period. the fact that personality was measured by way of a self-report measure but behaviors were observed adds to the strength of the results presented here, as shared measure variance is eliminated. we chose to use the standard alpha level throughout the study, thus decreasing the risk of type-ii errors. in the context of an exploratory study such as the current one, it makes sense to choose a lower risk of making type-ii errors. imposing an overly demanding alpha level, at this stage of research, could have the effect of eliminating potentially interesting research avenues. we have thus chosen to favor exploration of new avenues at the expense of a more conservative alpha level. as discussed by kraemer & al. (2002), such a strategy is useful to “foster stronger hypothesis-testing studies and to provide the background information necessary to design such powerful studies.” more research is certainly necessary to get a clearer picture of the relationship between communication behaviors, personality, their interaction and couple stability. however, the results reported here are an indication that the interplay between these factors could be worth considering when assessing couple difficulties. the actual behaviors manifested during couple interactions are processed through filters (such as personality) at both ends of the communication and these filters’ role could be important to grasp the dynamics of distressed as well as nondistressed couples. references ambert, a.-m. (2005). divorce: facts, causes, and consequences. ottawa, canada: vanier institute of the family. baillargeon, j., dubois, g., & marineau, r. (1986). traduction française de l'échelle d'ajustement dyadique [a french translation of the dyadic adjustment scale]. revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 18, 24-34. baron, r. m. & kenny, d. a. (1986). the moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. journal of personality & social psychology, 51, 1173-1182. europe’s journal of psychology 28 bech, p. & clemmesen, l. (1983). the diagnosis of depression: 20 years later. acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 68, 9-30. bélanger, c., dulude, d., sabourin, s., & wright, j. (1993). validation préliminaire d'un système global de cotation des interactions conjugales. revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 25, 483-498. bouchard, g. & arseneault, j.-e. (2005). length of union as a moderator of the relationship between personality and dyadic adjustment. personality and individual differences, 39, 1407-1417. bourgeois, l., sabourin, s., & wright, j. (1990). predictive validity of therapeutic alliance in group marital therapy. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 58, 608-613. caughlin, j. p., huston, t. l., & houts, r. m. (2000). how does personality matter in marriage? an examination of trait anxiety, interpersonal negativity, and marital satisfaction. journal of personality and social psychology, 78, 326-336. cohan, c. l. & bradbury, t. n. (1997). negative life events, marital interaction, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage. journal of personality and social psychology, 73, 114-128. cooper, m. l. & sheldon, m. s. (2002). seventy years of research on personality and close relationships: substantive and methodological trends over time. journal of personality, 70, 783-812. costa, p. t. & mccrae, r. r. (1992). revised neo personality inventory (neo pi-r) and neo five-factor inventory (neo-ffi) professional manual. odessa, fl: psychological assessment resources. dekay, m. l., greeno, c. g., & houck, p. r. (2002). searching for a two-factor model of marriage duration: commentary on gottman and levenson. family process, 41, 97-103. delongis, a. & holtzman, s. (2005). coping in context: the role of stress, social support, and personality in coping. journal of personality, 73, 1-24. donnellan, m. b., conger, r. d., & bryant, c. m. (2004). the big five and enduring marriages. journal of research in personality, 38, 481-504. filsinger, e. e. & thoma, s. j. (1988). behavioral antecedents of relationship stability and adjustment: a five-year longitudinal study. journal of marriage & the family, 50, 785-795. personality as moderator 29 gottman, j. m., coan, j., carrere, s., & swanson, c. (1998). predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interactions. journal of marriage & the family, 60, 5-22. gottman, j. m. (1994). what predicts divorce? the relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, inc. gottman, j. m. & levenson, r. w. (2002). a two-factor model for predicting when a couple will divorce: exploratory analyses using 14-year longitudinal data. family process, 41, 83-96. heyman, r. e. & slep, a. m. s. (2001). the hazards of predicting divorce without crossvalidation. journal of marriage & the family, 63, 473-479. jaccard, j., turrisi, r., & wan, c. k. (1990). interaction effects in multiple regression (72). beverly hills, ca: sage. karney, b. r. & bradbury, t. n. (1995). the longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: a review of theory, methods, and research. psychological bulletin, 118, 3-34. kim, h. k., capaldi, d. m., & crosby, l. 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(2005). personality: theory and research (9th ed.). oxford, england: john wiley & sons. roberts, b. w. & delvecchio, w. f. (2000). the rank-order consistency of personality traits europe’s journal of psychology 30 from childhood to old age: a quantitative review of longitudinal studies. psychological bulletin, 126, 3-25. rogge, r. d., bradbury, t. n., hahlweg, k., engl, j., & thurmaier, f. (2006). predicting marital distress and dissolution: refining the two-factor hypothesis. journal of family psychology, 20, 156-159. sabourin, s., lussier, y., laplante, b., & wright, j. (1990). unidimensional and multidimensional models of dyadic adjustment: a hierarchical reconciliation. psychological assessment, 2, 333-337. spanier, g. b. (1976). measuring dyadic adjustment: new scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. journal of marriage and the family, 38, 15-28. stanley, s. m., bradbury, t. n., & markman, h. j. (2000). structural flaws in the bridge from basic research on marriage to interventions for couples. journal of marriage & the family, 62, 256-264. sullivan, k. t., pasch, l. a., johnson, m. d., & bradbury, t. n. (2010). social support, problem solving, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage. journal of personality and social psychology, 98, 631-644. statistics canada. (2007). familles comptant un couple selon la présence d'enfants de tous les âges dans les ménages privés, chiffres de 2006, pour le canada, les provinces et les territoires données-échantillon (20 %) [families consisting of a couple with or without children of all ages in private households, 2006 counts, 20% sample data.]. retrieved november 29th, 2007, from http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/data/highlights/households/pages/page.c m?lang=f&geo=pr&code=01&table=1&data=count&age=1&startrec=1&sort=2&dis lay=page sullivan, k. t. (1997). contributions of personality and behavior to change in marital satisfaction. dissertation abstracts international: section b: the sciences and engineering, 58, 3328. watson, d., hubbard, b., & wiese, d. (2000). general traits of personality and affectivity as predictors of satisfaction in intimate relationships: evidence from self and partner ratings. journal of personality, 68, 413-449. wood, v. f. & bell, p. a. (2008). predicting interpersonal conflict resolution styles from personality characteristics. personality and individual differences, 45, 126-131. personality as moderator 31 about the authors: dr. ariane lazarides completed her ph.d at the university of quebec in montreal, under the direction of dr. bélanger. her primary research interests focus on couple relationships and predictors of couple stability. correspondence should be addressed to dr. lazarides at: ariane.lazarides@gmail.com. dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at the university of quebec in montreal, as well as associate professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university and researcher at the douglas university mental health university institute. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, problem solving behaviours in couples, and anxiety in relation to marital functioning. correspondence should be addressed to dr. bélanger at: belanger.claude@uqam.ca. dr. stéphane sabourin is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at laval university in quebec city. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, as well as personality disorders and their relationship to marital functioning. correspondence should be addressed to dr. sabourin at: stephane.sabourin@psy.ulaval.ca. living with intensity europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 238-240 www.ejop.org clinical case formulation varieties of approaches edited by peter sturmey wiley-blackwell, 2009 reviewed by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor str. bucur 4-6, etj 1, ap. 4, bucuresti, romania beatrice.popescu@ejop.org clinical case formulation is an impressive collection of case studies gathered in a volume coordinated and edited by peter sturmey. the book provides an overview of the general features of case formulation and how it can drive treatment. featuring clinical cases from a variety of populations and focusing on a range of different problems, the volume covers all the major theoretical perspectives in clinical practice -behavioral, cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, medical and eclectic. each chapter describes a case, presenting two contrasting formulations and a commentary from a different perspective. these examples not only provide the reader with clear models of case formulations, they also highlight the different constructs and world views that characterize alternative theoretical approaches to case formulation. research in the area has not been extensive and appears that developers of case formulation models tend not to view them as psychometric instruments subject to the same statistical criteria that other psychometric tools are held to. the current status of case formulation is a relatively new phenomenon. the behavioral and humanistic traditions have historically not considered formulation to be a core concept in therapy (eells, 2007). within the humanistic tradition, rogers cautioned that “psychological diagnosis” is not necessary and may harm the http://www.ejop.org/ clinical case formulation 239 psychotherapeutic process by positioning the therapist in the expert position. in contrast, many methods presented in this book emphasize establishing a collaborative therapist-client relationship. the few volumes available on case formulation are cognitive and cognitivebehavioral approaches to formulation, although this literature does address all major theoretical approaches (psychoanalytic, eclectic, cognitive, cognitive-behavioral perspectives). most of these volumes present only the theoretical perspective, several books present case formulations from different perspectives, but no books directly contrast different approaches to case formulation. this volume addresses this particular gap and this exactly what sets it apart from the current literature on case formulation. part ii presents sally, a case of depression, from two different perspectives: cognitive and behavioral. both formulations contain richness in understanding how sally feels, both assess the client history, recommend a treatment plan, assess progress and treatment plan modifications. but most importantly, both pay attention to sally as an individual and her needs in the therapeutic process. zeppi is a case of psychosis, formulated from a psychiatric perspective and also a behavior analytical view. the story of zeppi, described by d.a. casey and d.a. wilder describes a fairly typical case of psychotic behavior, as it may be encountered on a common psychiatric ward. casey provides a standard psychiatric formulation using the dsm system and offering additional insights into schizophrenia; wilder, on the other hand, offers a more speculative behavioral analysis of the functions of zeppi’s behaviors offering paths of treatment and intervention. third case analyzed in the volume is antoinette’s, a client of 17 years with an eating disorder. two ways to conceptualize antoinette’s problems are presented in this chapter, outlined by weerasekera as a multiperspective approach (mpa) and by lappalainen and colleagues as a functional analytic clinical case model (faccm). both offered a framework within the practitioner can understand and help treat antoinette’s eating disorder. similarities and differences are discussed by mira cooper who also offers a philosophical stance, trying to integrate them as to offer a successful outcome to the patient. a case of problematic behavior of an older adult, mrs. lewis, is discussed and analyzed in the following chapter. there are two formulations made on this theme: a cognitive analytic formulation (m. dunn) and a psychodynamic formulation (m. s. europe’s journal of psychology 240 barrett). the commentators, howells and jones, admit that providing a commentary could be dangerous from at least one reason: the potential idiosyncratic definition formulated by the commentators may be rejected by the original formulators. nevertheless, they engage themselves in a thorough analysis, assuming however that all frameworks might reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the claim to truth being made. the list of case formulation is completed by a case of anger in a person with intellectual disabilities. n. beail and t. jackson provide a psychodynamic formulation of the case of mr. b, 32 years old and single, never married and living with his mother. a cognitive-behavioral formulation of the same case is offered by p. willner. similarities and differences of the two approaches are many and they are beautifully highlighted by the commentator, r. didden: ”each formulation provides a more or less coherent account for mr. b’s anger problems and aggression. while the model proposed by willner is comprehensive, it contains variables that are not causally related to one another, therefore this inference of causation is circular.” according to didden, the evidence base for cognitive-behavior therapies such as anger management is growing and this approach has been effective in the treatment of anger and aggression. in the last chapter of the volume, tracey d. eells introduces us in contemporary themes in case formulations. she provides the reader with a few suggestions for future work in this area: the need for more research, the prerequisite to increase the standards for the content of a case formulation, a set of empirically supported principles, more effort in developing quantitative methods, the emergence of a new integrative model of case formulation and last, but not least, taking into consideration the cultural embeddedness of the patient. this complex volume, superbly edited by peter sturmey, meets an important need for structure of students and practitioners in the field of clinical work, from all psychotherapeutic directions. most important though, it also focuses on the client, whose life is elegantly scrutinized and skillfully examined using the lenses of most important psychotherapeutic approaches, trying to provide him with the best treatment option. flexibility both in theoretical and practical aspects of case formulation was essential in accomplishing this immense effort of integration that eventually led to publishing the current book by wiley and sons. cock fights and the balinese male psyche arthur asa berger phd, san francisco state university abstract this essay deals with the social, religious and sexual dimensions of cockfighting in bali and the roles it plays in balinese culture. it considers unconscious attitudes balinese men may have about their penises and hidden anxieties they may have about circumcision and castration generated by attendance at cockfights. this analysis of cock fighting in bali is from a manuscript i’m writing, bali tourism, that has been accepted for publication by the haworth hospitality press, in the united states. haworth has published two of my other semiotically informed tourism studies, vietnam tourism and thailand tourism. in my books i devote some chapters to statistics on tourism in the country being studied and then offer a psycho-social semiotic analysis of important symbolic phenomena, icons, and practices. bali is an island that has been analyzed and studied by very many social scientists over the past fifty years because its culture is so rich, complicated, and endlessly fascinating. william ingram begins his superb memoir of his experiences living with a balinese family, a little bit of one o’clock, describing the sounds of cocks crowing. he writes (1998:13): "i woke to the sound of roosters. there were hundreds of them. the nearest was right beside my room on the waist-high compound wall. others scrabbled and crowed in a neighboring bamboo grove. the calls from across the whole village blended into a constant wailing." the crowing of roosters is one of the basic sounds of bali. you hear them all the time, making their presence felt by their seemingly endless crowing. you also see them at various sites, in the cages that the balinese have devised for them, waiting patiently for their brief moment of glory and almost inevitable death in cockfights, which are now limited to being held at temple ceremonies, odalans. there are special arenas for the cockfights, in pits next to temples. the one i saw took place in a kalagan, a squared area about fifteen or twenty feet on each side, with tiered concrete rows that served as benches, where people with cocks, people interested in gambling on the fights, or those who are simply spectators watch the fights, sat. before they fight, you can see the owners of the roosters gently stroking and caressing them. they seem to display deep affection for their birds, which have been trained to fight. people make bets on the outcomes of the fights—money that is supposedly for the temple where the fights are held. at the fight i witnessed, the owners of the contending cocks spent a few minutes attaching a razor sharp blade, perhaps four inches in length, to the spur on one of the legs of their birds. a smallish dirty white cock was matched against a somewhat larger red and black cock. before they fought, their owners held them near one another, face to face, as if to show them who they would be fighting. when they were released the cocks advanced on one another, and then in a few moments of furious wing flapping and flailing, they assaulted one another. after that initial combat it was obvious that somehow the small white cock had inflicted a serious wound on the red and black one. it only took a bit more time for the white cock to peck at its opponents neck and the wounded cock fell down, dead. a few minutes later, the victorious white cock was matched against another cock, a large brown one, and the same ritual took place. but this time the brown cock severely injured the white cock. it did not kill it, however. the owner of the brown cock picked it up and had the owner of the white cock place it at the neck of the brown cock. the white cock didn’t do anything. it had no energy and was obviously dying. the victory was awarded to the brown cock, who then had to face another cock. around the arena, cocks were lined up in their cages, waiting for their moment in the sun. the driver of our car wagered on the fights we saw, and we had to pull him away to continue our tour. obviously these cock fights have enormous meaning to the balinese. in his book the interpretation of cultures, the anthropologist clifford geertz has a long chapter, “deep play: notes on a balinese cockfight,” which was first published in 1972. he noticed the “deep psychological identification of balinese men with their cocks,” and points out that sabung, the word for cock, is used metaphorically to suggest “hero,” “warrior,” “champion,” “man of parts,” “lady-killer,” and “tough guy.” he adds that cockfights become the metaphor for wars, trials, political contests, and street fights. he mentions bateson and mead’s notion that since the balinese see the body as (1973:417) “a set of separately animated parts, cocks are viewed as detachable, self-operating penises, ambulant genitals with a life of their own.” and a rather short life, i might add. obviously, cockfights strike deep psychological chords in balinese culture. geertz’s description of a cockfight is quite poetic. he writes (1973: 422): "most of the time, in any case, the cocks fly almost immediately at one another in a wing-beating, head-thrusting, leg-kicking explosion of fury so pure, so absolute, and in its own way so beautiful, as to be almost abstract, a platonic concept of hate. within moments one or the other drives home a solid blow with his spur." since geertz wrote his article, the indonesian government has banned cockfights, except during religious celebrations at temples, and has tried to limit the gambling that goes on. the psychiatrists gordon d. jensen and luh ketut suryani discuss cockfights and concur with geertz’s observation that balinese show little emotion during cockfights, since that is part of balinese culture. they are interested in cockfights because they believe that cockfights can be used to counter bateson’s assertion that there are no climaxes or resolutions in balinese culture. they discuss some cockfights they attended (and videotapes) and mention that before the actual fight, there was a kind of animated feeling among the spectators as people placed bets. and they expressed emotion during the fight. but once it ended, there were no emotional responses. as they write, concluding a short discussion of cockfighting (1992:108): "in summary, the cock-fight is an emotionally intense event with a building up of tension to a point of climax. at the preliminary stages of the cock-fight, emotion is expressed overtly. climactic emotional responses are not evident to the observer but are felt internally by the participants. various emotions associated with winning and losing tend to be suppressed or dealt with by the utilization of the concept of karma, as it is understood by the individual." for the authors, cockfights suggest that bateson’s notions about balinese culture always being “steady state” and having no resolutions, such as one finds in western cultures (where the good guys ultimately triumph over the bad buys) were incorrect. the barong-rangda relationship, where neither triumphs, would be an examples of a lack of final resolutions or climaxes in balinese culture. there is another matter, related to sexuality, that needs to be dealt with. if mead and bateson are correct, and the cock is a “detachable, self-operating penis,” what does that suggest about the male balinese psyche, which continually is battling other cocks and which is destined, most of the time, to be destroyed. is a cockfight a kind of circumcision? the very sharp bladed attached to the cocks’ spurs call to mind the scalpels used in circumcisions. are the cockfights connected to some kind of an unconscious repetition compulsion to undergo symbolic castration or, perhaps, to face it and triumph over it, since there is always another cock to be trained and sacrificed? our guide informed us that cockfights are necessary because blood has to be spilled at temple ceremonies, and it is the cocks blood that is used. so the cockfights have an obvious utilitarian function, connected to balinese religious beliefs. but that is the manifest or obvious function of these fights. what we must consider is what the latent and unconscious meaning of cockfights might be, and how these fights, which are so central to balinese life, may relate to unrecognized and unconscious attitudes balinese men have about their penises. usually, when there is intense emotion involved in some activity, there is a subliminal or masked sexual dimension to it that is operative. it may be far-fetched to suggest that cockfights deal with unconscious attitudes men have toward their penises and anxieties they have about circumcision or castration, or both, but cockfights, to my mind, at least, can be seen—whatever else they may be—as having to do with these matters. finally, there is the possibility that the conclusion of the cockfight represents a kind of sublimated orgasm, one of a series of “little deaths” that balinese men experience during sex or during cockfights. there is a sexual dimension to cockfighting that involves the lives of the cocks. as bill dalton explains in his bali handbook (1997:171): "fighting cocks are giving loving care—regularly massaged, bathed, bounced on the ground, and trained every day. their feathers, combs, earlobes, and waffles are trimmed so that none provide a beak-hold for the opponent bird. the owner prepares a diet of specially selected grains and a mixture of chopped, grilled meat, and jackfruit, which is believed to thicken the blood—preventing serious bleeding—and to make the bird lean and little subject to fatigue, its sexual energies are directed only toward fighting, so the cock leads a celibate life except when breeding new fighters." there is, then, a sexual dimension to cockfighting that involves the cocks, but also, i would suggest, the men who attend these fights. dalton describes how the cocks are stimulated and excited before they fight—their handlers tease them, pull their tails, ruffle their feathers and sometimes force red pepper down their throats. this stimulation calls to mind the narrative of the sexual act, which starts with stimulation and excitement and ends, generally speaking, with an orgasm, or, in the case of the cocks, the violent confrontation, which they may experience as orgasmic, as well. dalton writes that cocks seldom survive more than five or ten fights in their careers and that wounded ones are sometimes kept as pets. the passion that one finds in the audiences of cockfights has a much more profound meaning, i believe, than is commonly understood. if it is a symbolic orgasm, it would have to be considered one extremely important example of a climax (physically and psychologically) in balinese culture. references dalton, bill.(1997) bali handbook, 2nd edition, chico, ca: moon publications. geertz, clifford (1973), the interpretation of culture, new york: basic books. jensen, gordon and luh ketut siryani. (1992), the balinese people: a reinterpretation of character, kuala lampur: oxford university press ingram, william. (1998), a little bit of one o’clock, ubud, bali: ersania books. microsoft word 6. research zinc levels, cognitive and personality features.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 82-101 www.ejop.org zinc levels, cognitive and personality features in children with different socioeconomic backgrounds victoria papadopol senior researcher department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania eugenia tuchendria senior researcher department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania iliana palamaru senior researcher department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania abstract zinc is an essential nutrient having a complex biological role, including neuropsychological aspects. the study aimed to compare zinc level and psychic features in two pupils groups from different socioeconomic backgrounds. it also ascertains the relationship between zinc levels and aspects of intellectual development (attention, memory, intelligence) and personality features (psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion). 103 pupils from an orphanage and 100 pupils from a regular state school were investigated. they were 11-15 years old and apparently healthy. serum and erythrocyte zinc mean values were higher in the regular state school group (p=0.001 in both cases). the distribution of subjects regarding intellectual development was different in the two groups (p=0.000 in all cases) and personality features differed regarding psychoticism and neuroticism tendencies (p=0.019 and p=0.012 respectively). the u-test showed a significant difference between the subjects with deficient serum zinc and those with normal serum zinc as regarding attention (p=0.024) and intelligence (p=0.035) and between the subjects with deficient erythrocyte zinc and those with normal erythrocyte zinc as regards extraversion (p=0.011) in the group from the orphanage. subjects with normal zinc status obtained higher (better) scores for psychological traits in zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 83 all these situations. in conclusion, zinc levels and psychological features were different in the two groups of pupils. our study pointed out a positive connection between zinc level and some aspects of intellectual developmental and personality features, emphasizing the importance of this trace element for the normal psychological status of children. key words: zinc, intellectual development, personality features, children (11-15 years), different socioeconomic conditions background literature (connolly & kvalsvig, 1993; pollitt, 1994) points to the negative effects of malnutrition on cognitive performances and generally on mental health. malnutrition involves protein-energy ingestion but also micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals including zinc (zn). zn is an essential nutrient whose deficiency continues to be a modern health concern in both developing and developed countries (sandstead & penland, 1997). the main cause of human zn deficiency is consumption of diets containing little highly bioavailable zn. meat foods, especially red meat, are the best dietary sources of bioavailable zn, while foods rich in phytate and dietary fiber inhibit zn retention. major adverse effects of zn deficiency include, besides others, impaired neuropsychological functions among children and adults. this is because it contributes to the structure and function of the brain (black, 1998). zn is one of the most prevalent essential elements found in the brain. it is primarily retained in the hippocampus and its levels in this area are greater than those of any other element (rajan et al, 1976). structural studies have shown truncated dendritic arbors and reduced regional brain mass in the cerebellum, limbic system, and cerebral cortex in zn deficiency. neuronally, presinaptic boutons are dependent on adequate zn for delivery of neurotransmitters to the synaptic cleft (frederickson & danscher, 1990). it is important for the fetal brain development (wauben et al., 1999) but it also has a number of roles in the functioning of the postnatal developing, and developed brain (arnold & di silvestro, 2005). it is also necessary for many homeostatic processes in the brain. zn has the potential to act as a modulator of both excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission (smart, 2004; kay & toth, 2008). zn is also necessary for the production and modulation of melatonin, which helps regulate dopamine function (sandyk, 1990; chen et al., 1999) which is widely believed to be a key factor in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. growing evidence suggests that zn may also be a key mediator and modulator of the neuronal death associated with transient global ischemia and sustained seizures, as well perhaps as other neurological _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 84 diseases states (choi & koh, 1998). the studies of wang & al. (2001) suggest that zn deficiency suppresses development of neural stem cells and this effect may lead to neuroanatomical and behavioral abnormalities in adults. postnatal moderate zn deficiency in rats has demonstrated a number of brain effects, including impaired learned behavior and impaired cell maturation (takeda, 2000; yeiser et al., 2002). in humans, zn deficiency has been proposed to lead to mental disturbances, loss of sensory acuity and impaired cognitive and psychological function (levy & bray, 2009). other authors noted irritability, emotional imbalance, sleeping disorders, mental lethargy (neve & peretz, 1988), depression (mcloughlin & hodge, 1990). arora & al. (1987) found in mentally subnormal children values of serum zn significantly lower than in controls. walravens & al. (1978) reported behavioral abnormalities in severe zn deficiency. prasad (1991) included mental disturbances among the clinical manifestations of severe zn deficiency and mental lethargy among the manifestations of moderate zn deficiency in human subjects. severe zn deficiency impairs thought process (henkin, 1975). less severe deficiency has more subtle effects on neuropsychological functions that are not perceived by affected individuals. zn deficiency may affect cognitive development, though the mechanisms remain unclear (bhatnagar & taneja, 2001). so, the role of zn in this respect is not fully understood and its relationship with children’s cognitive performance and personality features has been insufficiently studied. for the purposes of this study, cognitive performance comprises known aspects of intellectual development (attention, memory, intelligence) and personality features are those included in the p-e-n model of eysenck: psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism. psychoticism can be defined as a predisposition or susceptibility towards psychotic behavior. it comprises of: behavioral disturbances, schizotypal disorders, antiauthoritative attitude, and non-acceptance of cultural norms but a high level of creativity. in children it means: isolation, lack of sensibility, aggression, lack of feelings of guilt and fear. the cognitive and emotional functions are not disturbed. neuroticism is an enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states such as: hyper-emotivity, hyper-excitability, anxiety, anger, impulsivity. neuroticism can play a critical role in the development of depressive disorders (hodgins & ellenbogen, 2003). it is sometimes called an emotional instability. neuroticism is not in itself pathological but has tendencies that can become pathological in certain conditions (physicalrelated to living or working place or emotional conditions). zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 85 extraversion is a personality feature that manifests as positive mood and includes: sociability, enthusiasm and energy but also impulsivity. extraverts enjoy being with people and also like to talk and draw attention to themselves. the aims of the study were to compare zn levels and psychological traits in two groups of children from different socio-economic backgrounds and to ascertain the relationship between the zn levels and aspects of intellectual development and personality features in these children and teenagers. it was hypothesized that socio-economic level influences the body zinc level which, in its turn, may influence intellectual development and the personality. method subjects 103 children from an orphanage (group i) made up of 71 girls and 32 boys and 100 children from a regular state school (group ii) made up of 56 girls and 44 boys were investigated. they were 11 to 15 years old and apparently healthy (they had no diarrhea or other disorder). their health status was appreciated through direct observation, consulting their register cards and talking to the nurse of the school. a questionnaire was filled in for every child. zinc determination blood was drawn from the antecubital vein of each subject. serum and erythrocyte zn were determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry in air-acetylene flame (roth & kirchgesner, 1980 and prasad, 1985, respectively). the subjects were divided into normal and zn-deficient ones depending on the low normal limits (normal ranges: serum zn 70 – 120 µg/dl (bogden & al., 1987) and erythrocyte zn 10 – 14 µg/ml (robson & spell, 1981). diet investigation in orphanage, zn content from all the meals sampled 7 consecutive days was determined (by atomic absorption spectrophotometry) after wet mineralization (stas 10542/1-86). also, the children were asked what they do not eat from the ordinary menu and what they eat beside it. _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 86 in regular state school, weekly frequency consumption of some foods (meat, organs, eggs, dairy produces, and sweets) was recorded. psychological tests the psychological examination was carried out with the help of specific tests. two categories of tests were used: for cognitive capacity and for personality aspects. thus, the cognitive capacity was investigated by: • attention using the bourdon amfimov test for capacity concentration (martin, 2010) the subject must, in a fixed interval, detect certain letter groups which are randomly disposed in lines on an a4 sheet. data processing of the test is made quantitatively by framing into a classification and qualitatively by pointing out, besides the attention capacity concentration, aspects of visual perception, spatial orientation, disturbing factors, resistance to intellectual effort and monotonous activity. these psychological characteristics are corroborated with working speed (with implication of manual dexterity). • memory using the rey verbal memory test (vlaicu, 2000) the psychologist reads slowly many words and the subjects have to keep in mind and reproduce in writing as much words as they can. the processing of the test answers is made quantitatively (global volume of the immediate correct reproduction) by reporting to a classification and qualitatively by pointing out the contiguity relationships of the stimulus word with other familiar words from the environment or from daily preoccupations. also, the test gives information about the capacity of attention concentration and manual dexterity. • intelligence by the raven test, standard variant (a non verbal intelligence test, non influenced by the educational activity) ( raven & al, 2003). the task of the subject is to discover the relationships between the components of a matrix with geometrical figures. the time is not limited. the processing of the answers allows the calculation of the intelligence quotient, but also appreciates the capacity of visual, spatial perception, capacities of synthesis and analysis, comparison, learning, attention concentration and distributivity. for attention, memory and intelligence a 5 step scale was used. it ranged from very weak = step 1 to very good = step 5. zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 87 the personality aspects (psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion) were investigated using the eysenck test (children variant, standardized for romania) (eysenck & eysenck, 1975; şerbănescu-grigoroiu, 1986). this test uncovers the socioemotional state of the personality. it comprises a number of questions regarding the reactions and behaviors of the investigated person in certain situations. the processing of the answers allows the framing of the results in certain levels according to the intensity of reactions and behaviors concerning psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion. for the personality test, the subjects obtained scores from 1 to 3 (pathological to normal). this test was applied to 84 subjects in group i and 69 subjects in group ii. all these tests were chosen because they correspond to the aim of the paper; we have taken into account the effects of zn deficit and what these tests qualitatively and quantitatively point out on the whole. the benefits of using these tests were: they have parallel forms that allow successive testing, they are standardized for romania, they are easy to apply and it’s possible to make a collective testing. statistical analysis statistical processing was performed by epi info programme. mean and standard deviations of the means were calculated. the next tests were used: student “t” test to compare the mean zn values in the two groups, “chi-square” test to investigate the association between zn level and food frequency consumption, to compare the deficit frequencies and the distribution of the subjects (psychological tests), mann-whitney u-test to show the differences between the zn level and psychological features. the relationship between the zn levels and the scores of psychological features was verified by pearson correlation index (r). statistical significance was set up at p<0.05. results table 1 presents the means +/standard deviations values of zn levels in the two groups of pupils. both serum and erythrocyte zn levels were higher in group ii (regular state school). _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 88 table 1: zinc mean values group i group ii t-test p serum zinc(µg/dl)* erythrocyte zinc (µg/ml)* 73.0 +/11.2 11.0 +/1.7 82.3 +/17.4 11.7 +/1.3 4.43 3.74 0.001 0.001 *mean +/standard deviation; p: significance level agreeing with the upper values, serum and erythrocyte zn deficit frequencies were higher in group i (table 2) but the difference between the two groups was significant only for erythrocyte zn. as one can see, the majority of deficits were marginal. table 2: zinc deficit frequencies zinc level group i (%) group ii (%) χ2 p serum zinc erythrocyte zinc <70 µg/dl < 70 and >62 µg/dl <10 µg/ml < 10 and > 8.9 µg/ml 37.6 24.7 25.2 14.5 26.8 14.4 9.3 5.2 2.65 8.82 0.103 0.003 p: significance level distribution by sexes showed a significant difference only in group i for serum zn, the boys being advantaged (table 3). table 3: mean zinc values by sexes girls boys t p group i serum zinc 71.4 +/10.8 76.7 +/11.3 2.24 0.025 erythrocyte zinc 11.1 +/1.8 10.8 +/1.4 0.92 0.638 group ii serum zinc 79.6 +/16.8 85.6 +/17.7 1.69 0.089 erythrocyte zinc 11.6 +/1.4 11.9 +/1.3 0.84 0.591 further, the groups were not divided by sexes in order to obtain a better statistical significance for the applied testes. zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 89 analysis of the weekly menus from the orphanage emphasized a mean zn content of 9.05 ± 2.65 mg zn/ day (range: 6.37 – 13.25 mg/day). the frequency of food consumption in the week was as follows: meat – 3 times, organs – once, dairy produces – 3 times, eggs – twice, sweets – 3 times. probation of the food preferences of the children showed that some of them did not eat vegetable hotchpotch, bacon, green beans, which have, otherwise, a low zn content, but some of them declared that they do not eat meat (especially beef meat) and eggs. 99% of children had the habit to eat bread, and most of them to eat many sweets beside the meals from the orphanage eating hall. investigation of the eating habits of the children from regular state school, showed that 60.6 % of children eat meat 2-3 times by a week and 26.3 % more, and 50.5 % of children eat eggs 2-3 times by a week and 38.4 % more (table 4). table 4: weekly frequencies of food consumption in regular state school (%) no consume once 2 -3 times >= 4 times meat 0 13.1 60.6 26.3 organs 21.2 68.7 9.1 1.0 eggs 0 11.1 50.5 38.4 dairy produces 0 11.1 47.5 41.4 sweets 0 9.1 29.3 61.6 serum or erythrocyte zn level did not associate with frequency of food consumption (p> 0.05 for “chi square” in any case). 83.8 % of the children eat bread besides meals. the distribution of the subjects as regard to the intellectual development was significantly different in group i versus group ii (figure 1). _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 90 figure 1: comparison of intellectual development attention 9 48 32 12 2 5 15 36 24 20 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 very weak weak medium good very good no of cases group i group ii memory 12 37 40 11 33 10 25 35 27 0 10 20 30 40 50 very weak weak medium good very good no of cases group i group ii intelligence ( 5step scale) 47 29 14 8 53 15 33 31 18 0 10 20 30 40 50 very weak weak medium good very good no of cases group i group ii χ 2 =71.84 p=0.000 χ 2 =56.06 p=0.000 χ 2 =37.35 p=0.000 zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 91 also, the personality features in the two groups differed significantly regarding psychoticism and neuroticism tendencies (figure 2). figure 2. comparison of personality features psychoticism 12 9 63 11 19 39 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 pathological pathological tendencies normal no of cases group i group ii neurotism 18 23 43 6 12 51 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 pathological pathological tendencies normal no of cases group i group ii extraversion 15 25 44 14 17 38 0 10 20 30 40 50 pathological pathological tendencies normal no of cases group i group ii χ 2 =0.53 p=0.7666 χ 2 =8.75 p=0.012 χ 2 =7.87 p=0.019 _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 92 the u-test showed in group i a significant difference between the subjects with normal serum zn and those with deficient serum zn regarding attention and intelligence, and between the subjects with normal erythrocyte zn and those with deficient erythrocyte zn regarding extraversion (table 5). table 5: relationships (associations) between zinc deficit and psychic features group subjects no of subjects mean +/sd* u-test p serum zn attention i zn deficient zn normal 38 63 2.29 +/0.87 2.67 +/0.88 5.06 0.024 serum zn intelligence i zn deficient zn normal 38 63 1.74 +/1.13 2.16 +/1.18 4.43 0.035 erythrocyte zn extraversion i zn deficient zn normal 20 64 2.00 +/0.72 2.45 +/0.75 6.33 0.011 erythrocyte zn neuroticism i zn deficient zn normal 20 64 3.00 +/1.22 3.78 +/1.02 3.48 0.061 erythrocyte zn memory ii zn deficient zn normal 9 88 3.00 +/1.22 3.77 +/1.02 3.67 0.055 *mean +/ standard deviation for the psychic features scores; p: significance level there was also a less significant difference between the subjects with normal erythrocyte zn and those with deficient erythrocyte zn regarding neuroticism in group i (p=0.061) and regarding memory in group ii (p= 0.055). erythrocyte zn positively correlated with extraversion in group i and with memory in group ii (table 6). table 6. correlations of zinc levels and psychic features group r n p erythrocyte zn – extraversion erythrocyte zn memory i ii + 0.25 + 0.22 84 97 0.023 0.031 r: correlation index; n: number of subjects; p: significance level zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 93 discussion the work followed zn levels and psychological features in two apparently healthy pupil groups and the relationship between these aspects. the precarious economic situation of the majority of population in the transition period determines some health problems even in older children and adolescents. if children are further institutionalised, stress and the generally unfavourable climate in the institution influence their psychological development (macavei, 1989). as regards the zn levels (table 1), both serum and erythrocyte zn levels were significantly higher in group ii (the regular school). the cause of this difference may be the stress and the nutrition. the stress alone can cause a rapid fall in plasma zn values by reduced food intake and by an increased urinary excretion. nutrition is very important for zn levels from the tissues in general. the nutrition of the children from the orphanage is characterised by a satisfactory, uniform level for all the children. but some of them refuse to eat zn rich food like meat or eggs (animal protein) and many of them eat bread in excess and sweets which impair absorption of the metal. the nutrition of the children who live with their families is very variable but generally better, as zn levels reflect, probably because of socio-economic differences. it seems that they consume more meat, organs (liver, kidney) and eggs and less bread and sweets. plasma zn levels respond very rapidly to a low dietary zn intake largely because of the limited capacity of the metal to be readily mobilised from other body zn deposits. for this reason, plasma zn levels in animals and in humans have been observed to fall by up to 50% within 24 hours of a receiving an inadequate dietary zn intake (dreosti, 1997). zn levels determined in this study in apparently healthy children were lower than zn levels reported by other authors (laitinen et al, 1989; van biervliert et al., 2003; dabbaghmanesh et al., 2008) in other groups of almost the same age and apparently healthy. erythrocyte zn reflects the metal status for a longer time period because of their time life of about 120 days (prasad, 1985). as table 2 shows, the frequencies of erythrocyte zn deficit differed significantly between the two groups. this means that, in the orphanage group, comparing with the regular school, there are many more children with erythrocyte zn deficit reflecting a serious problem of zn nutrition in the case of these children. we talk about the nutrition with red meat, nuts, seeds, cocoa, _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 94 which are foods rich in zn but also expensive. this nutritional zn problem in about a quarter of the children from the orphanage group is important because zn is mainly an intracellular element and a low erythrocyte concentration that is more stable, emphasizes the depletion of zn from the body. zn levels did not clearly differ between girls and boys (table 3). if erythrocyte zn is almost equal in girls and boys, serum zn is higher in boys but the difference is significant only in group i. the analysis of weekly menus and food preferences of the children from the orphanage partly explains the low zn intake by food. in what children from regular school are concerned, it seems that they consume more meet and eggs (zn rich food) comparing with the children from orphanage. regarding intellectual development, we found large gaps referring to the numbers of cases in the two groups for weak attention and very good attention (figure 1). also memory differed very much between the two groups in terms of weak, good, and very good memory. the graph for intelligence should capture our attention because the children living in the orphanage do not all have a normal distribution (bell-shaped curve) but an extremely distorted iq range. actually, initially, the test for intelligence had a 7 step scale and the distribution of the orphanage children was different, but using this 7 scale for iq, the calculated chi square was not valid (some scoring expected cells < 5). the differences in the psychological tests between group i and group ii can be explained by the different social and emotional conditions experienced by the subjects in the first years of their life when the native psychological potential would have been developed (macavei, 1989). and, as engle and black (2008) show, poverty affects the child’s development and educational outcomes beginning in the earliest years of life. the children who live in the orphanages generally come from unstable, low income families, frequently disturbed by alcohol abuse and/or domestic violence. the children born in these families with a psycho-emotional climate, that is adverse to their development and mental health, may be considered to be disadvantaged from birth (duda, 1996). when they are placed in an orphanage, they have further abnormal emotional conditions which can stress them. on the other hand, the children from the orphanage have a uniform lifestyle (they have a more regular programme of eating, sleeping and physical activities). regarding the psychological features and zn levels, group i (orphanage) showed more relationships than group ii (table 5) probably because the zn level was lower. zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 95 the correlation index (a more powerful test) emphasized only two correlations of erythrocyte zn (table 6). our results are in agreements with those of other authors. two studies among schoolaged children found a beneficial impact of zn supplementation on neuropsychological processes, namely reasoning (black, 2003). also in children, zn deficiency has been associated with hyperactivity, sleeping disorders as well as mental retardation (tuormaa, 1995). a controlled trial of zn repletion in stunted chinese children showed that neuropsychological performance and growth were most improved after treatment with 20 mg zn with micronutrients (sandstead et al., 1998). in school-aged children, thatcher et al. (1984) reported a positive correlation between hair zn and reading ability. penland et al. (1998, 2005) and sandstead et al. (1998) used an extensive neuropsychological test battery to measure cognitive and psychomotor function of children in response to repletion with zn. the consistent finding was that zn supplementation resulted in greater improvement than control treatments in performance on tasks assessing visual memory, a word recognition, vigilance and reasoning. furthermore, it is notable the kretsch’s remark that cognitive changes can occur well ahead of other blood or urine biochemical indicators of decreased zn. in the test of verbal memory, the men who slowed the most also had the greatest decrease in blood levels of zn (kretsch, 2009). the exact mechanisms of impaired cognitive development are not clear but it appears that zn is essential for neurogenesis, neuronal migration, synaptogenesis and its deficiency could interfere with neurotransmission and subsequent neuropsychological behavior (bhatnagar & taneja, 2001). zn binds with proteins and is considered to be essential for nucleic acid and protein synthesis (frederickson et al., 2000). that is why zn deficiency may interfere with these processes and compromise subsequent development. also, it plays fundamental roles in cell division and maturation, and in the growth and function of many organ systems, including the neurological system. in addition, there is suggestive evidence from animal models (halas et al., 1977) and psychiatric patients (mcloughin & hodge, 1990) that zn deficiency may affect emotionality and response to stress, factors that may influence infant development. also, from animal and human findings, it is hypothesized that malnutrition (including zinc malnutrition) impairs neurocognitive functioning by reducing neurons, alternating neurotransmitter functioning and increasing neurotoxicity, and such neurocognitive impairments predispose to externalizing behavior (liu & raine, 2006). furthermore, zn is an antioxidant and this function was first proposed in 1990, based largely upon in vitro evidence that illuminated two distinct mechanisms (levy & bray, 2009): _______________________________europe’s journal of psychology_________________________ 96 the protection of proteins and enzymes against free radical attack, the prevention of free radical formation by other metals, such as iron and copper. in conclusion, zn levels, as well as the psychological features, were generally different in the group of children from an orphanage compared to the group from a regular secondary school, perhaps due to the different socio-economical conditions. our study pointed out many relationships between the serum or erythrocyte zn level and intellectual development (attention, memory, intelligence) and personality features (neuroticism and extraversion), emphasizing that zn is an essential element for normal psychological functioning. limitations and perspectives this study has some limits that partly are due to the different living conditions of the two groups which forced us to approach them differently (diet registration). also, the groups are imbalanced regarding the distribution by sexes and the psychological tests were not applied to all children. we suggest that further research is needed, using a more complex model, taking into account at the same time other dietary minerals and other factors (neurological, social, etc.) which may influence together children’s psychological development. references arnold, l.e., & di silvestro r.a. 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(2000). movement of zinc and its functional significance in the brain. brain research review, 34(3), 137-148. thatcher, r.w., mcalastar, r., lester, m.l. et al (1984). comparison among eeg, hair minerals and diet predictions of reading performance in children. annals of the new york academy of sciences, 433: 87-96 . tuormaa, t.e. (1995). adverse effects of zinc deficiency: a review from the literature. journal of orthomolecular medicine, 10(3&4), 149-164. van biervliert, s., van biervliert, j-p., bernard, d. et al. (2003). serum zinc in healthy belgian children. biological trace elements research, 94(1), 33-40. vlaicu, b. (2000). elemente de igiena a copiilor si adolescentilor, ed. solness, timisoara, 102. walravens, p.a., van doorninck, w.j. & hambidge k.m. (1978). metals and mental function. journal of pediatrics, 93: 535-541 . wang, f.d., bian, w., kong, l.w, et al. (2001). maternal zinc deficiency impairs brain nestin expression in prenatal and postnatal mice. cell research, 11, 135-141. wauben, i.p., xing, h.c., & wainwright, p.e. (1999). neonatal dietary zinc deficiency in artificially reared rat pups retards behavioral development and interacts with essential fatty acid deficiency to alter liver and brain fatty acid composition. journal of nutrition, 129, 1773-1781. yeiser, e.c., vanlandingham, j.w., & levenson, c.w. (2002). moderate zinc deficiency increases cell death after brain injury in the rat. nutritional neuroscience, 5, 345-352. about the authors victoria papadopol ph.d. in pharmacy, senior researcher, department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania area of specialization: trace elements (especially zinc) and magnesium zinc, cognitive and some psychological features 101 current interests: relationship between trace elements and magnesium and psychological development, nutrition and mental health, relationship between bioelements and nutrition and general health status published research papers in refereed romanian and international journals. e-mail: vicpapadopol@yahoo.com mailing address: institute of public health, 14 victor babes str, 700465, iasi, romania eugenia tuchendria psychologist, senior researcher, department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania published research papers in refereed romanian and international journals. liana palamaru ph.d. in chemistry, senior researcher, department of food hygiene and nutrition, institute of public health, iasi, romania published research papers in refereed romanian and international journals. an alternative support model to the medical model of medication for long term schizophrenia mr shuresh patel university of bolton, uk email: shureshpatel@hotmail.com some historical background to schizophrenia is also outlined. the theory is that alternative support like long term clinical hypnotherapy and long term cbt plus psychotherapy and counselling is effective in helping some schizophrenics to reduce their medications to improve their quality of life. the main biographical source is a book which is came out into print at the end of january 2007 by rosalind hewitt titled: “moving on: a handbook of good health and recovery for people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia” by karnac books publishers. the other inspiration is an article in the psychologist, september 2005, p535 called “the nhs has got it wrong”. the analysis criterion is my medically evidence of my lifetime recovery in terms of my quality of life with my long standing schizophrenia for over 26 years. i have discovered these alternative therapies personally and i now report a temporary improvement in my condition. the conclusion is that the alternative therapies experience is at least effective in reducing my medication for schizophrenia to the international minimum recommended dosage level by the medical model and so for me is an effective support mechanism to the medical model. currently i am trying a medication dosage below any recommended minimum dosage levels but i am still in a stage of transition; its results are not finalised at this point in time. the key phrases are that long term clinical hypnotherapy, long term cbt, long term counselling and long term psychotherapy – in combination – have never been medically documented before; this is a first international clinical trial of its kind. the following is a brief history of schizophrenia: the concept of “dementia praecox” which is the early term for schizophrenia and first established as late as 1898 was initially formulated by a german and swiss psychiatrists namely kraepelin and bleuler. “dementia” means a progressive intellectual deterioration and “praecox” means an early onset. the “dementia” however is not that associated with the ageing process but rather a term which kraepelin saw as mental enfeeblement. the original major symptoms of schizophrenia according to kraepelin are “hallucinations, delusions, negativism, attentional difficulties, stereotyped behaviour and emotional dysfunction.” bleuler broke ranks with kraepelin on two major points. he did not neccessarily believe that schizophrenia had an early onset and that it did not necessarily head towards dementia. thus in 1908, bleuler coined the new name of schizophrenia from the greek roots of “schizen” meaning to split and “phren” meanng mind. in his opinion, this summed up the essential nature of the condition and it is still called this today (bootzin, acocella, alloy p365). schizophrenic symptoms for most people in britain today are controlled with the use of psychotropic medication. for the last 26 years i have been under this regime. but in october 2002 my schizophrenic medication reduction started – under medical supervision. at the same time i started to have weekly sessions of cognitve behavioural therapy and clinical hypnotherapy – plus psychotherapy and counselling. now, nearly five years on, i have achieved a 64% medication reduction. this tremendous reduction has only been possible by persevering with my weekly therapy sessions, which have enabled me to cope with the substantial withdrawal symptoms – such as an increase in hearing voices, paranoia and delusional ideas. simultaneously i am studying for a psychology degree at the university of bolton which incidentally is funding my therapies as part of my disabled student package. all in all, i have found that these alternative therapies are an excellent replacement for my previous extensive medications. however, i will probably continue to be on a little medication for the rest of my life. i want to stress that such therapies need to be experienced over a number of years in order to be effective. the 12 weeks of cognitive behavioural therapy on offer from the british national health service i have found to be inadequate. it is not long enough for a single medication reduction i.e. 5mgs. even the international pharmaceutical industry recommends at least 16 weeks for a single medication reduction. so, the british national health service needs to greatly increase its provision of these different types of alternative therapies if it wishes to use them as a treatment for schizophrenia. references bootzin, acocella & alloy (1993). abnormal psychology current perspectives (6th edition). mcgraw-hill,inc. hewitt, r. (2007). moving on: a handbook of good health and recovery. for people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. karnac publishers. construction and validation of the marital justice scale research reports construction and validation of the marital justice scale adaptation of social justice theory in marriage majid ghaffari*a, maryam fatehizadea, seyed ahmad ahmadia, vahid ghasemia, iran baghbana [a] university of isfahan, isfahan, iran. abstract the main purpose of this study was to construct and validate a scale for measuring marital justice. a sample of three hundred and four voluntary and unpaid married participants (194 females, 110 males), aged between 20 and 35 years old (29.01 ± 4.44 years), were selected randomly through multi-stage sampling in isfahan, iran; the participants included in this sample had preschool child/children, were all in the first decade of marriage, and had at least eight grades of education. all participants were asked to complete the marital justice scale (mjs), the revised dyadic adjustment scale (r-das; busby, christensen, crane, & larson, 1995), and the marital conflict questionnaire (mcq; sanai zaker, 2000). the exploratory factor analysis extracted two factors labelled ‘procedural/interactional justice’ (twelve items) and ‘distributive justice’ (eight items) which accounted for 66.70% of the total variance. the convergent and discriminant validity of the 20-item mjs were supported by an expected pattern of correlations between the scale and the measures of marital quality and marital conflict. all correlation coefficients between the mean scores of the mjs and the scores of the rdas and the mcqwere statistically significant. the obtained internal consistency was markedly high (cronbach’s α = .97). the test-retest reliability of the mjs was .87. the results suggest that the mjs is a reliable and valid measure; however, further studies should be carried out in other countries, based on different age groups and socio-economic levels, various developmental stages of family life cycles, diverse cultures and sub-cultures, and according to gender difference so as to validate the mjs. keywords: marital justice scale (mjs), validity, reliability europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 received: 2013-05-25. accepted: 2013-09-20. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland. *corresponding author at: faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of isfahan, hezar jarib street, isfahan, iran. e-mail: psymgh@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. relationships consist of interpersonal interactions and exchanges. as used in the field of family studies, a basic premise of the behavioral theory framework is that positive marital behaviors enhance spouses’ global feelings toward the marriage whereas negative behaviors diminish positive feelings and cause harm to perceptions of the relationship (markman, 1981). since the concept of justice is related to humanitarian and ethical standards that describe how we should act and treat others (e.g., miller, 2001), and considered as an important positive social behavior (greenberg & colquitt, 2005), it may probably enhance spouses’ global feelings toward the marriage. the lack of application of psychologically-based notions of social justice to marriage and family studies is remarkable in light of the positive usage of such notions in other research arenas. the issue of social justice is a dominating theme in our daily lives as it reflects a fundamental concern in most of our interactions with others. concerns about the value of justice in our social lives go back to ancient moral philosophers such as plato and socrates (rawls, 1971). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ justice has clear implications for people’s identity (de cremer & tyler, 2005). this may not come as a surprise as the nature of people’s identity is fundamentally relational (leary, 2002). as sedikides and gregg (2003, p. 110) note “the self operates predominantly within the social world”. furthermore, it is well accepted that the social self of people is developed and constructed by information that they receive through social interaction with others (leary, 2002; sedikides & gregg, 2003). in turn, this relational information defines one’s level of identity and goals, and ultimately regulates one’s social actions (carver & scheier, 1998). as social interactions are the medium through which important others shape the opinion persons have of themselves (hoelter, 1984) and the way they evaluate or feel about themselves (leary, 2006), justice thus clearly shapes people’s identity, motivation and behavior. de cremer and van dijke (2009) have noted that justice reflects important social feedback that people attune to and consequently shapes their identity and motivations. sedikides and brewer (2001) have reported that justice can have an impact on the self and identity at the individual (personal goals, and self-enhancement), relational (reliance on interactional goals, role-expectations, and dyadic connections), and collective (reliance on collective goals, and group norms) levels. justice also affects and activates particular goals, beliefs and values (lord, brown, & freiberg, 1999). by activating goals, the motives of people will energise and consequently direct behavior (carver, 2001). justice has the potential to influence people’s actions and thus guide the process of selfregulation (kunda, 1999). de cremer and van dijke (2009) noted that justice has a strong motivational component and has considerable impact on people’s behavioral responses. to study this important social aspect of our interactions with others, the psychological literature has distinguished between different types of justice. specifically, contemporary justice research distinguishes between distributive justice which denotes justice in effort and rewards (i.e., the fairness of the outcome of and rewards received as a result of one’s efforts and also fairness in the assignment of responsibilities and the carrying of burdens), procedural justice (i.e., the fairness of the decision-making procedure) and interactional justice (the attention, dignity, honesty and respect and also the correctness and transparency of the information and explanations one receives during the treatment) (greenberg & colquitt, 2005). the importance assigned to these different types of justice clearly emphasizes that information about justice has social consequences. for example, receiving fair or unfair outcomes signals our position towards others and the employment of fair procedures signals that we are valued by the decision-maker. as a result, it follows that justice is an important social regulation tool because it helps shape (a) how our interactions with others evolve and are coordinated, (b) how we can evaluate ourselves in the social world in a meaningful way (i.e., selfesteem), and (c) how our motives and identity are regulated (de cremer & van dijke, 2009). recent research on justice has revealed many insights regarding the social regulation potential of justice. de cremer and van dijke (2009) reported that according to the new results, receiving outcomes by means of fair distributions, procedures, and respectful treatments (distributive, procedural and interactional justice) does not only lead to fair or even favorable outcomes (shapiro & brett, 2005), but also has consequences that directly implicate one’s self-definition and social behavior. the social justice theory was adapted for organizations (colquitt, 2001; niehoff & moorman, 1993). roch and shanock (2006) noted that organizational justice received much attention in the organizational study literature because many important organizational attitudes and behaviors can be directly linked to employees’ perceptions of justice. researchers have found that employee justice perceptions have implications for employee attitudes, such as their perceived organizational support (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002), commitment to the organization (mcfarlin & sweeney, 1992), and pay satisfaction (sweeney & mcfarlin, 1993). justice perceptions have also been found to have implications for employee behaviors such as job performance (adams, 1965). in the field of organizational studies, distributive justice has been defined as feelings of fairness surrounding the allocation of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 marital justice scale (mjs) 732 http://www.psychopen.eu/ organizational resources including pay, bonuses, terminations, or any other resources that an organization can provide to employees (deutsch, 1975). procedural justice has been defined as feelings of fairness regarding the procedures used in an organization (thibaut & walker, 1975). interactional justice has been described in terms of feelings of fairness regarding how one is treated in an organization, typically by one’s supervisor, when procedures are enacted (bies & moag, 1986). de cremer (2005) has reported that when employees perceive procedural justice in the decision-making process of their organization, they show increased commitment and cooperation. nadi and golparvar (2011) found significant correlations between distributive justice with procedural justice, procedural justice with organizational identification—the perception of oneness with or belongingness to an organization (mael & ashforth, 1992)—and cooperative behaviors with organizational identification. also, rankin and tyler (2009) found that when employees perceive their supervisors as procedurally fair in their decision-making, they show increased compliance with norms and expectations and when they perceive their supervisors’ respectful treatment they show more voluntary effort to help the organization. due to the following reasons, it could be expected that the social and organizational consequences of justice in the family would be similar to those resulting in organizations. first, the family is defined as an important social organization (wood, 1996) with interactional subsystems and a hierarchical power structure (haley, 1971; minuchin, 1974). thus, the family can be considered as a kind of organization. second, such consequences have been reported as characteristic of strong families in the family-strength literature. family strength is defined as social and psychological characteristics which create a sense of positive family identity, promoting satisfying interaction among family members, and encouraging the development of the individual potential of family members (otto, 1962). previous research in the field of family strength reported positive family identity (stinnett, 1979), motivation, cooperation and goal-orientation (trivette, dunst, deal, hamer, & propst, 1990), personal worth for the self and others, positive, clarified and respectful interactions and commitment between the spouses (schumm, bollman, jurich, & hatch, 2001) as the components that characterize the strength of families. hence, considering the similarity between the social and organizational consequences of justice and the characteristics of family-strength, justice can be an important element in the family context. third, there are a number of indirect evidences regarding the impact of justice on marriage. for example, heaton and albrecht (1991) found that the fair division of household labour and assets influence marriage preservation. schwartz’ (1994) research included couples who had a mix of equity (fairness) and equality from six large cities in the united states. in his study, having a successful marriage usually meant that spouses shared decision making, responsibility, household labour and financial equity where neither person felt economically dependent on the other. skogrand, johnson, horrocks, and defrain (2011), in a qualitative study on self-selected couples who believed they had good marriages, reported that the important elements of financial management in their marriages were trust and communication. wallerstein and blakeslee (1995) also found that couples with good marriages felt respected, cherished and loved being together. as noted earlier, the lack of the application of psychologically-based notions of social justice to marriage and family studies is remarkable in light of the positive usage of such notions in other research arenas. this study aimed at constructing and validating ‘the marital justice scale’ (mjs) as a measure of a person’s perception of the level of justice in his/her spouse’s behavior and dyadic life. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 ghaffari, fatehizade, ahmadi et al. 733 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants according to kline (1994), analyses such as the factor analysis and item analysis must be taken into consideration in determining the sample size in pie-applications; the number of sample participants must preferably be ten times greater than the number of the items. kline (1994) pointed out that a 200-person sample would be enough to come up with reliable factors. a sample of three hundred and four people (194 females, 110 males), aged between 20 and 35 years old (29.01 ± 4.44 years) with preschool child/children and in the first decade of marriage (6.05 ± 3.46 years) with at least eight grades of education, were selected randomly through multi-stage sampling from the seven zones of the whole fourteen geographic zones of isfahan, iran. the mean age for men was 32.88 (sd = 4.38) and for women was 30.06 (sd = 3.95). because of the more convenient availability of married subjects with preschool child/children by means of kindergartens, one kindergarten from each zone of the city was selected. subsequently, one class of each kindergarten was randomly selected and the instruments were filled by one parent of each child. all participants were volunteers, anonymous and unpaid. before the administration of the instruments, the participants received a brief introduction about the nature of the research, ethical requirements for confidentiality and voluntary participation. in order not to be influenced by their spouse, the participants were asked to fill out the scales alone. only the subjects that completed the instruments were included in the analysis. similarly, another sample with one hundred participants (50 females, 50 males), aged between 25 and 32 years old (29.17 ± 4.46 years), selected randomly through multi-stage sampling was considered in order to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale. measures marital justice scale (mjs) — first, based on the social and organizational justice literature (cropanzano, prehar, & chen, 2002; de cremer, 2005; de cremer & van dijke, 2009; greenberg & colquitt, 2005; rankin & tyler, 2009; sedikides & brewer, 2001) and some justice assessment questionnaires and scales such as the 20item organizational justice questionnaire (colquitt, 2001) and the 18-item organizational justice scale (niehoff & moorman, 1993) serving as the indicators of employees’ point of view about various types of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional justice) in their organization, the preparatory 50-item version of the mjs was developed and included items about the person’s perception of distributive, procedural and interactional justice in his/her spouse’s behavior and in his/her dyadic life. most of the items were written from one spouse’s point of view about the justice demonstrated by the other spouse or within the marital relationship. a 5-point likert scale was used: 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often and 5 = always. after primary investigations, inappropriate items were removed or revised within three stages: 1the content validity of the mjs was confirmed by four faculty members specializing in psychology who were knowledgeable about social and organizational justice. 2before data collection from the study sample, a group of 30 individuals participated in a pilot study to give feedback on the time requirements, wording, and item content of the measure. participants were asked whether they encountered any difficulty in understanding any of the items. based on the pilot study feedback and expert feedback, 32 items were selected and item revisions were made before the administration of the scale to the study sample. 3an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the remaining items. the factor loadings considered meaningful were ≥ .35 (hair, anderson, tantham, & black, 1998). ultimately, these three stages resulted in a 20-item persian version mjs (with a total score range of 20-100). higher scores europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 marital justice scale (mjs) 734 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this scale represented higher levels of the individual’s perception of justice in his/her spouse’s behavior and dyadic life. the revised dyadic adjustment scale (rdas; busby, christensen, crane, & larson, 1995) — busby et al. (1995) developed the 14-item rdas from the original 32-item dyadic adjustment scale (das, spanier, 1976). the rdaswas developed to serve as ameasure of marital quality in a close relationship and yields total adjustment score and three subscales: dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, and dyadic cohesion (busby et al., 1995). dyadic consensus measures the amount of marital agreement between partners. each item of the dyadic consensus subscale is followed by a likert-type response scale ranging from 0 (always disagree) to 5 (always agree). an example of an item from the 6-item dyadic consensus subscale is “making major decisions”. dyadic satisfaction measures the tension or discord between partners. each item of the dyadic satisfaction subscale is followed by a likert-type response scale ranging from 0 (all the time) to 5 (never). an example of an item from the 4-item dyadic satisfaction subscale is “how often do you and your partner quarrel?”. dyadic cohesion measures the sharing of pleasant activities (busby et al., 1995). the 4-item dyadic cohesion subscale is followed by two different likert-type response scales. participants use a 5-point likert scale (0 = never, 4 = every day) for one item of the four items (“do you and your mate engage in outside interests together?”), and a 6-point likert scale (0 = never, 5 = more often) for the other three items such as (“have a stimulating exchange of ideas”). the psychometric properties of the rdas (reasonable construct validity and cronbach’s α from .80 to .90) were confirmed by previous research (hollist & miller, 2005). isanezhad, ahmadi, bahrami, baghban, farajzadegan, and etemadi (2012) examined the psychometric properties of the persian translation of the rdsa in an iranian population and showed that it had reasonable construct validity and internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .86). the internal consistency coefficients (cronbach’s α) of the rdas and its subscales namely dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction and dyadic cohesion in this study were found to be .90, .83, .88 and .76 respectively. the marital conflict questionnaire (mcq; sanai zaker, 2000) — the 42-item marital conflict questionnaire (mcq) was used in this study. the mcq yields a total conflict score and seven subscales: partnership reduction (e.g., “when my spouse has a request from me, i pretend to be too busy with other stuff”), sexual relationship reduction (e.g., “when there is a resentment between my spouse and me, niether of us is inclined to initiate sexual intercourse”), increased emotional reaction (e.g., “when i have a quarrel with my spouse, i shout and insult him/her”), increased support seeking from child/children (e.g., “to gain their consent and support in my favour, i satisfy and give in to my child’s/children's irrational demands”), increased individual relationship with family and relatives (e.g., “i am alone in the relationship with my family and my spouse has no relationship with them”), reduction of relationship with wife/husband‘s family and friends (e.g., “in case of dispute with my spouse, i break off my relationship with his/her family and friends”), and separating of finances from each other (e.g., “without informing my spouse, i have/open a new saving account”) (sanai zaker, 2000). each item is followed by a five likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (always) to 5 (never). a higher score in this scale represents a higher level of marital conflict. the psychometric properties of the mcq (reasonable construct validity and cronbach’s α from .65 to .81) were confirmed by previous research (afkhami, bahrami, & fatehizade, 2007). the internal consistency coefficients (cronbach’s α) of the mcq and its subscales namely partnership reduction, sexual relationship reduction, increased emotional reaction, increased support seeking from child/children, increased individual relationship with family and relatives, reduction of relationship with wife/husband‘s family and friends, and separating of finances from each other in this study were found to be .83, .69, .71, .71, .78, .73, .70, .69 respectively. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 ghaffari, fatehizade, ahmadi et al. 735 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results the total score of the mjs and the scores of its subscales are expressed by mean and standard deviation. the reliability of the scale was estimated using the cronbach’s α coefficient (cronbach, 1970) and test-retest reliability. the construct validity of the mjswas investigated through the exploratory factor analysis. the principal components analysis, the scree test (cattell, 1966) and eigenvalues ≥ 1 were used. the pearson product moment correlation between the mjs, the mcq and the rdas was used to evaluate concurrent validity. an exploratory factorial analysis was carried out to identify the underlying factors. this analysis showed two factors (kaiser-meyer-olkin = .971), and an oblique rotation method was employed to facilitate the interpretation. data analysis was performed using the spss/pc+ statistics package (version 16.0). validity of the marital justice scale the scree plot of the exploratory factor analysis of the mjs using the extraction method principal components indicated that two factors with an eigenvalue ≥ 1.5 should be retained, accounting for 66.70% of the total variance (f1 = 60.50% and f2 = 6.20%). examination of the zero-order correlations among items (not shown here) showed that all items were moderately to highly intercorrelated (average range of correlations = .60-.80). also, the exploratory factor analysis supported the two-factor structure model of the mjs both for female and male samples accounting for 69.25% of the total variance for females (f1 = 62.83% and f2 = 6.42%) and 61.90% of the total variance for males (f1 = 55.46% and f2 = 6.44%). table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of the mjs and its subscales for females, males and the sample as a whole. table 1 means and standard deviations for the mjs and its subscales totalmalefemale variable sdmsdmsdm procedural/interactive justice .0110.3748.726.1051.9710.1647 distributive justice .577.7535.735.3037.178.0635 marital justice .5812.8063.988.8566.7013.4262 the oblique rotation final solution is presented in table 2 where all the items are grouped in the two factors. as shown in table 2, the items that evaluated procedural and interactional justice are synthesized under the same factor (f1). this factor, which we labelled ‘procedural/interactional justice’, was constituted by twelve items and the second factor, labelled ‘distributive justice’, by eight items. for procedural/interactional justice, the item values loaded ranged from .59 to .96 and for distributive justice, the item values loaded ranged from .58 to .86. the first factor grouped the items about the fairness of the decision-making procedure (3, 5 and 11) and the attention, dignity, honesty, respect and also correct and transparent information and explanations one receives during the treatment (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12). the second factor was constituted by factors about the fairness of the outcome and the rewards received congruent with one’s efforts and also fairness in the assignment of responsibilities and the carrying of burdens (13 to 20). all the items had significant correlations with the total score of the mjs, ranging from .64 to .83 (p < .001 in all cases). tucker’s congruence coefficient (cc; lorenzo-seva, & ten berge, 2006) supported the similarity of a factor in the female group with a factor in the male group (ccf1 = .98 i.e., the similarity of f1 between female and male samples; ccf2 = .87 i.e., the similarity of f2 between female and male samples). lorenzo-seva and ten berge (2006) suggested a value in the range .85–.94 corresponds to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 marital justice scale (mjs) 736 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a fair similarity, while a value higher than .95 implies that the two factors or components compared can be considered equal. table 2 principal components analysis: oblique rotated solution totalmalefemale itema f2f1f2f1f2f1 my spouse gives sufficient reasons for his/her plans and decisions in marital life.1. .59.45.66 my spouse has an open, transparent, and honest relationship with me.2. .82.81.79 my spouse makes his/her decisions clear for me and, if i ask, s/he offers me more information. 3. .91.84.97 my spouse honestly keeps me informed about his/her decisions.4. .92.85.93 before making decisions, my spouse assures that all my concerns and opinions are heard. 5. .75.54.79 my spouse treats me with attention and kindness.6. .74.52.78 any action s/he takes or any desicion s/he makes, my spouse explains it clearly for me. 7. .96.84.97 in relation to any action s/he takes or any decision s/he makes, my spouse gives me enough information, fairly and honestly. 8. .91.83.93 my spouse treats me with respect and dignity.9. .65.60.66 in making decisions, my spouse favors my rights.10. .60.52.60 my spouse lets me criticize, challenge, or revise his/her decisions.11. .76.59.79 on topics related to marital life, my spouse consults me fairly.12. .64.51.64 the pressure and burden on me is fair in marital life.13. .84.79.85 through various ways, congruent with my efforts in marital life, my spouse rewards me. 14. .77.72.76 in general, my share in marital life (in all aspects) is congruent with my efforts.15. .82.70.87 restrictions people must comply with after marriage are evenly and fairly distributed between me and my spouse. 16. .78.70.81 my spouse’s emotional support is congruent with my efforts in marital life.17. .66.51.72 my responsibilities are fair in marital life.18. .86.74.91 congruent with my efforts in marital life, my spouse appreciates me.19. .72.60.75 my spouse’s financial support of me (through making a budget, providing facilities, or being economical and fair) is congruent with my efforts in marital life. 20. .58.41.59 note. f1 = procedural/interactional justice; f2 = distributive justice. aby using a standard “forward-backward” translation procedure, each item was translated into english. the construct validity of the mjs was also examined through calculating the correlation coefficients between the subscales and the total score of the mjs (table 3). as shown in table 3, all correlations are significant. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 ghaffari, fatehizade, ahmadi et al. 737 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 pearson’s correlation coefficients between subscales of marital justice scale (mjs) with each other, and with total score of mjs 321variable female 11) distributive justice .88**.60** 12) procedural/interactional justice .93**.60** 13) marital justice .93**.88** male 11) distributive justice .83**.54** 12) procedural/interactional justice .90**.54** 13) marital justice .90**.83** total 11) distributive justice .85**.59** 12) procedural/interactional justice .91**.59** 13) marital justice .91**.85** note. n = 304. **p < .01. a separate group of one hundred participants (50 females, 50 males) was recruited in order to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the mjs. table 4 presents the correlations between the mjs, the mcq and the rdas. as shown in table 4, all correlations are significant. these results confirm the convergent and discriminant validity of the mjs. table 4 pearson’s correlation coefficients between subscales of the marital justice scale (mjs) with revised dyadic adjustment scale (rdas) and marital conflict questionnaire (mcq) 21variable female distributive justice .37**-.78** procedural/interactional justice .44**-.71** marital justice .46**-.81** male distributive justice .28**-.69** procedural/interactional justice .36**-.63** marital justice .39**-.72** total distributive justice .33**-.76** procedural/interactional justice .42**-.68** marital justice .43**-.79** note. n = 100. 1 = revised dyadic adjustment scale; 2 = marital conflict questionnaire. **p < .01. the reliability of the mjs was evaluated in terms of internal consistency reliability and test-retest reliability. cronbach’s α coefficient was used to determine the internal consistency of the mjs. the internal consistency (cronbach’s α) of the overall mjs and its subscales namely procedural/interactional justice and distributive justice were found to be .97, .96 and .93 respectively (n = 304). test-retest reliability of the mjs was assessed in a subeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 marital justice scale (mjs) 738 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sample of 60 participants (30 females, 30 males) of the total sample who completed the mjs on two separate occasions with a 2 week interval between the surveys. the coefficients for procedural/interactional justice, distributive justice and the overall scale were found to be .84, .81and .87 respectively (p < .001). discussion this study aimed at constructing and validating ‘the marital justice scale’ (mjs) as a measure of the individual’s perception of the level of justice in his/her spouse’s behaviors and dyadic life. the psychometric properties obtained for the mjs suggest that this instrument is effective and reliable. the 20 items that compose the scale are grouped into two factors, and the percentage of variance explained by the factors is high (66.70%). the items of the distributive factor are adapted to, and consistent with, colquitt’s (2001) distributive justice (four items) and niehoff and moorman’s (1993) distributive justice (five items) subscales. the items of procedural/interactional justice are adapted to, and consistent with, niehoff and moorman’s (1993) procedural (five items) and interactional (eight items) justice subscales. the high and positive significant correlations of the mjs subscales with each other, the total score of the mjs and the rdas, and also the negative significant correlations of the subscales with the mcq show the reasonable construct validity of the scale. the internal consistency coefficients for the mjs (cronbach’s α = .97), distributive justice (cronbach’s α = .93) and procedural/interactional justice (cronbach’s α = .96) and the test-retest coefficients for the distributive justice (r = .81), procedural/interactional justice (r = .78) and total score of the mjs (r = .84) confirm the acceptable reliability of the scale. as discussed, since the family is defined as an important social organization (wood, 1996) with interactional subsystems and a hierarchical power structure (haley, 1971; minuchin, 1974), the social and organizational consequences of justice could be transferred to the family system. the similarity of the identified characteristics of strong families (schumm et al., 2001; stinnett, 1979; trivette et al., 1990) with the consequences of social (de cremer & van dijke, 2009; greenberg & colquitt, 2005; sedikides & brewer, 2001; shapiro & brett, 2005) and organizational (de cremer, 2005; nadi & golparvar, 2011; rankin & tyler, 2009) justice and also the confirmation of the psychometric properties of the mjs in this study show that justice can be a possible foundamation for family strength. the results of this study can, in a way, confirm the research carried out by heaton & albrecht (1991), schwartz (1994), skogrand et al. (2011) and wallerstein and blakeslee (1995). through the results of this study, it can be fairly expected that justice in marriage will lead to consequences similar to those in organizations. it seems in a satisfactory marriage, spouses improve their relationship, communication, feeling of worth, commitment, goal-orientation, cooperation and positive individual, relational and collective identity through behavior based on justice in various aspects of their dyadic life. in the field of organizational studies, researchers have found that employee justice perceptions have implications for a wide variety of employee attitudes, such as the perceived organizational support (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002), commitment to the organization (mcfarlin & sweeney, 1992), pay satisfaction (sweeney & mcfarlin, 1993), and behavior such as job performance (adams, 1965). the results of this study provide initial evidence for the probable manifestation of the implications of justice simiar to that seen in organizations, for spouses‘ attitudes and behavior. more research is needed to provide a comprehensive theoretical explanation for the adaptation of the social justice theory in marriage and family context. as shown in table 2, in this study the items that evaluated procedural justice and interactional justice are synthesized under the same factor. the results of this study are in need of extension and replication. organizational europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 ghaffari, fatehizade, ahmadi et al. 739 http://www.psychopen.eu/ justice researchers had long debated the distinction between procedural and interactional justice. in the field of organizational studies, several researches have proposed that procedural and interactional justice can be distinguished from one another using social exchange theory (cropanzano et al., 2002). in particular, procedural justice applies more to the exchange between the individual and the employing organization, whereas interactional justice generally refers to the exchange between the individual and his or her supervisor. in an organization, procedural justice is more closely associated with reactions toward upper management and organizational policies, whereas interactional justice is more closely associated with reactions toward one’s supervisor and job performance (cropanzano et al., 2002). thus, an explanation for the synthesis of procedural justice and interactional justice in this study could be the difference between the nature of hierarchical structure in dyadic life and in an organization. the population and size of the sample are the limitations of this study which should be mentioned here. of course, our work should be considered as an initial approach, and further studies should be carried out in other countries, based on different age groups and socio-economic levels, various developmental stages of family life cycles, diverse cultures and sub-cultures, and also according to gender difference. references adams, j. s. 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(2011). financial management practices of couples with great marriages. journal of family and economic issues, 32, 27-35. doi:10.1007/s10834-010-9195-2 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 marital justice scale (mjs) 742 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/job.4030130202 http://doi.apa.org/journals/ccp/49/5/760.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.49.5.760 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.527 http://www.sid.ir/en/viewpaper.asp?id=212147 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256591 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/348232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf03080137 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.698 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0149206305280115 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.88.4.965-973 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10834-010-9195-2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ spanier, g. b. 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(1996). a developmental biopsychosocial approach to the treatment of chronic illness in children and adolescents. in r. h. mikesell, d. d. iusterman, & s. h. mcdaniel (eds.), integrating family therapy: hand book of family psychology and systems theory.washington, dc: american psychology association. about the authors majid ghaffari is a phd student of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology and education science at university of isfahan, iran. his research is in family counseling with a special interest in application of social justice theory in the field of marriage and family studies. also he is a couple and family therapist, and clinical psychologist (ma) with a special interest in application of cognitive hypnotherapy. maryam fatehizade is an associate professor of counseling, faculty of psychology and education science in the department of counseling at university of isfahan, iran. seyed ahmad ahmadi is a professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology and education science at university of isfahan, iran. vahid ghasemi is an associate professor of social sciences in the department of social sciences, literature faculty at university of isfahan, iran, with special interest in application of structural equation modeling and fuzzy set theory. iran baghban is an associate professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology and education science at university of isfahan, iran. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 731–743 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.632 ghaffari, fatehizade, ahmadi et al. 743 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0749597883710228 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1993.1022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/027112149001000103 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en marital justice scale (mjs) (introduction) method participants measures results validity of the marital justice scale discussion references about the authors occupational psychology facing globalisation mark taylor psyd student technical director ryder marsh ltd. http://www.rydermarsh.co.uk/ when i was first asked to write this editorial on occupational psychology from an international perspective, my first thoughts were why ask me? i thought surely there are better qualified people to write on this topic (and there most definitely are), but as i looked over my laptop and towards the lounge of yet another international airport it dawned on me that whilst i cannot offer a definitive academic account, i can attempt to share some of my observations as a practitioner. it is in this vein i would like to share my thoughts with learned colleagues. in the face of increasing globalisation, often via mergers and acquisitions, organisations can soon find themselves operating on many international fronts. with this exposure comes a host of new challenges to the occupational psychologist, simply because where once the psychologist was dealing with issues internal to the organisation they are now more likely to find themselves dealing with organisational issues that arise from the conflict between the organisational culture and that of the host nation. it is here that the ability of for an organisation to manage diversity becomes critical and where the occupational psychologist skills are put to the test. this is because the simplest of assumptions, such as issues regarding the development of empowerment and participation of employees in organisations, can often clash with well established cultural norms. in turn this can place strain on an organisation implementing any process that does not take into account of the wider cultural context. the question is how professional development can prepare a practitioner for the challenges that face them. whilst there is no simple solution, what is evident from the ‘coal face’ is that there is a need for greater awareness of cultural issues, and how they can impact on core areas of occupational psychology. this then needs to be addressed during the early stages of professional accreditation and further supported by a framework of continuing professional development. only then can we as a profession start to develop an international standard of competence that safe guards the ‘global client’. ecdp the organizers of the xiv european conference on developmental psychology have a great honour and pleasure of inviting you to take part in this conference to be held in vilnius, lithuania, august 18-22, 2009. the conference will focus on the most relevant topics and issues within recent theoretical and methodological advances of developmental psychology, basic research and applied areas and will provide a forum for presentation of a wide range of papers in all aspects of human development in european contexts. over and beyond basic research, we will put emphasis on the transfer of psychological insights to social policies and programme development. pre-conference workshops will be held on august 17 18, 2009. invited speakers & their lecture topics • prof. lars r. bergman | “methodological challenges for developmental psychology“ • prof. nathan a. fox | “the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development: the bucharest early intervention project” • prof. angela d. friederici | “brain correlates of language acquisition” • prof. leon kuczynski | “conceptual frameworks for studying dynamics in parent-child relationships and interactions” • prof. heikki lyytinen | “early identification and prevention of dyslexia: highlights from the jyväskylä longitudinal study of dyslexia (jld)” • prof. dan olweus | “large-scale dissemination of the olweus bullying prevention program and some methodological issues in the study of bully/victim problems” • prof. dr. rainer k. silbereisen | “coping with demands of social change across the lifespan” pre-conference workshops august 17 • the model of hierarchical complexity: scoring for stage of development, creating new problems and dilemmas, and analyzing social problems • bayesian evaluation of informative hypotheses august 18 • methodological issues in the analysis of longitudinal data • olweus bullying prevention program invited symposiums • peer influence in children and adolescents • symposium on language acquisition • family functioning and psychosocial adaptation in immigrant children and youth • life span development of cognitive functions • learning outcomes in the early school years: predictability from pre-school information and intervention strategies • bullying in schools: findings and policy implications after a quarter century of research • functional brain development in infancy for more information about the conference you are welcome to visit conference website www.ecdp2009.com organizers: an old debate but still alive, fruitful and able to renew itself: the language in psychology between the particular and the universal book reviews salvatore, sergio, gennaro, alessandro, & valsiner, jaan (eds.). (2013). making sense of infinite uniqueness: the emerging system of idiographic science (yearbook of idiographic science). charlotte, nc: information age publishers. 274 pp. isbn 9781623960254. anold debate but still alive, fruitful and able to renew itself: the language in psychology between the particular and the universal book review of “making sense of infinite uniqueness: the emerging system of idiographic science” raffaele de luca picione*a [a] dipartimento di studi umanistici – università degli studi di napoli federico ii, naples, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 869–872, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 published (vor): 2013-11-29. *corresponding author at: dipartimento di studi umanistici, università degli studi di napoli federico ii, via porta di massa, n.1, napoli, cap. 80133, italy. e-mail: raffaele.delucapicione@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. salvatore, sergio, gennaro, alessandro, & valsiner, jaan (eds.). (2013). making sense of infinite uniqueness: the emerging system of idiographic science (yearbook of idiographic science). charlotte, nc: information age publishers. 274 pp. isbn 9781623960254. the volume “making sense of infinite uniqueness”, released by the editors salvatore, gennaro, and valsiner (2013), continues the path of research, discussion and redefinition of idiographic science focusing now attention to the issue of language. the various worldwide contributors to this book examine the role of language in the psychological research, both in the field of cultural psychology, social psychology and clinical psychology. the book presents a multitude of perspectives for research and interesting theoretical and methodological discussions. the debate between the idiographic sciences and nomothetic sciences is far from resolved and closed. it is alive, thriving and innovative. it started in the second half of the 19th century within the classical and historical opposition between the "science of nature" naturwissenschaften and the "science of the spirit" geisteswissenschaften. according to dilthey, the geisteswissenschaften produces knowledge through understanding and insight while naturwissenschaften generates knowledge through explanation. in this philosophical and epistemological scenario, in 1904, windelband introduces the contrast between knowledge construction that emphasizes the general (nomothetic) and that which focuses on the particular (idiographic). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology as a discipline experienced a difficult negotiation between these two poles. the current interest in this issue is not a mere exercise in historiography but one of the starting points in order to revitalize the theoretical, epistemological and methodological debate in psychology which, in the current mainstream of the discipline, gives up more and more the subjective and particular aspect of human experience in its becoming over time. this aim of recovering a long tradition is alive in the intents, in the reflections and discussions of the yis (yearbook of idiographic science) editorial project. the focus of the present volume is language. language is far from a way of assembling words and terms, far from an already provided and pre-established code. language is a process through which the human being makes more complex its experience with the world and with others. language is a way to become a subject; it is a way to make discrete units within the continuous flow of experience; it is a way to be in relationship with others. language is also the way in which the human being explores its capacity to know and expand the products of knowledge. as such, language – in this volume – is proposed both as a process and as a tool, being both the "how" and the product of all human activity (which always has a symbolic, relational and cultural matrix). in this way, language assumes a crucial position in the epistemological debate because it clearly highlights that there is a continuous, never-ending and unresolved dialectic between instances of uniqueness and generalization. this issue raises the need to problematize language and not to treat it as a spontaneous human activity, namely the purposes of the book is to make language a problematic instrument of investigation and research and not a simple and objective communication tool. the language is the focus far from easy of the idiographic debate in this volume. this focus animates the reflections and research efforts of many authors, from all over the world, who participated in the volume. from different psychological perspectives, they deal with the issues of communication (section ii), with intervention (section iii), and research methodologies (section iv). as previously mentioned, language in the modern idiographic debate captures a continuous tension between the possibility to generalize and the need to grasp the uniqueness of psychological phenomena. an idiographic approach to knowledge does not limit the ability to produce models of general knowledge, indeed, it allows and encourages their construction through in-depth studies of a single case which is caught in its temporal development. between the mode of deductive knowledge and that of inductive knowledge, there is a third way (defined aptly by peirce), the way of abductive logic, that triggers a process of new knowledge construction through the generation of hypotheses and models ready to be verified. the reflection of salvatore and valsiner is an interesting contribution to the development of idiographic epistemology which does not renounce the contextuality and contingency of any psychological phenomenon. the authors' proposal to use the neologism "individext" has to be carefully considered. there is never an isolated absolute individual but always and only an individual who discloses him/herself in a relational, contextual dynamic. therefore the individual lives in a process of continuous transformation, change and development over time. according to the authors, individext is a theoretical-methodological construct and not an empirical one. it is proposed as an analysis unit. the individext is also the critical response to the theorem of ergodicity (according to which a europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 869–872 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 making sense of infinite uniqueness 870 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specimen is assumed to be homogeneous in some respects – the ones of interest to the research purposes – to all the other members of the sample). in this perspective, the opposition between idiographic and nomothetic approaches does not translate into an opposition between qualitative and quantitative. in this volume, we find several possibilities to observe, as the idiographic approach represents a way of producing knowledge through the study of a single case and being able to construct general models based on it. according the authors, the idiographic approach can be both qualitative and quantitative. the importance of this approach takes place through the consideration that every science is idiographic in its relationship to the phenomena under investigation, but it is also nomothetic because it is always focused on theoretical assumptions that define a phenomenon. therefore, the use of the average and the bell-curve distribution in the case of a population have different risks of hypostatization for the studied phenomenon, that is, of confirming what is already known – namely, the qualities and aspects pre-assumed by the researcher. this approach does not produce new knowledge. the “particular” must not be hypostatized as certain, timeless and static knowledge but as a phenomenal dimension that develops in time, within the multiple relations of a field. the point of view advanced by salvatore and valsiner is that switching from point-like signs to generalized abstract fields allows us to have a wider and more dynamic perspective on psychological processes, considering them in their temporal, contextual and relational nature. based on these theoretical and epistemological premises, communication – the topic of the second section of the volume – is questioned and addressed by a series of clinical perspectives and methodological analyses in which there is a great deal of attention to the multiplicity of points of view, the multidimensionality of sense-making processes and the action of reality-making processes through the dialogical intra-inter-subjective dynamic. language takes on an interesting structuring function. it reproduces itself in a hierarchical poly-semiotic embodied process and yet it reconfigures itself from moment to moment, depending on context. in the third section of the volume, concerned with intervention, this characteristics of flexibility, plasticity and variability are grasped as opportunities for clinical intervention, taking advantage of possibilities for innovation and expansion of the meaningmaking process. from the point of view of the idiographic methodologies to the study of language (section iv), the field seems still in need of development. the analysis models proposed in the book, to address this need, are very interesting. the focus is on how to produce generalization through the study, observation and analysis of "linguistic peculiarities". section iv includes contributions dealing with the growth of the dynamic analysis of meaning through multimodal assemblage models. ultimately, according to the author of this review, this volume is very informative because it shows how the use of language presents both great variability over time and a tendency towards regularity – similar to what is the case for an open biological system. in fact, the language process always emerges as a function of situativity and contextuality, through a deep cultural relationality on which intersubjectivity is based. on these assumptions, every methodology and every form of analysis – quantitative and qualitative – should be addressed and considered. the invitation to take into consideration this volume is well founded on the commitment of all the authors to reflect on and discuss the sense-making process as a never-ending open system in which language recursively meets with other semiotic codes, resulting in semiotic complex hierarchical organizations with different levels of generaleurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 869–872 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 picione 871 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ization. the theoretical and methodological proposals that originate in this important book can no longer be overlooked. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 869–872 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 making sense of infinite uniqueness 872 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en making sense of infinite uniqueness (article body) gender differences in the effects of perception of organizational injustice on workplace reactivity research reports gender differences in the effects of perception of organizational injustice on workplace reactivity bolanle ogungbamila*a, i. bola udegbeb [a] adekunle ajasin university, akungba-akoko, nigeria. [b] university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria. abstract previous studies have not adequately examined, in a single model, how gender and perception of organizational injustice are related with revenge-motivated behaviors, especially in male-dominated societies. this study investigated the extent to which gender and perception of organizational injustice predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in workplace reactivity, which comprises organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption in a sample of 703 (460 females; 243 males) employees. results of the hierarchical multiple regression indicated that gender predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge and interpersonal violence; with males showing higher tendencies than females. there were no gender differences in employees’ tendencies to engage in corruption and interpersonal revenge. employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption significantly increased with perception of organizational injustice. females who felt unjustly treated exhibited as much organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corrupt tendencies as males who felt unjustly treated. implications for theory and research are discussed. keywords: gender, injustice, reactivity, revenge, violence, corruption europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 received: 2013-01-20. accepted: 2014-01-19. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: maria kakarika, kedge business school, marseille, france *corresponding author at: department of pure & applied psychology, adekunle ajasin university, p.m.b. 001 akungba-akoko, 34-234 ondo state, nigeria. e-mail: bolanle.ogungbamila@aaua.edu.ng this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. workplace reactivity (wr), which comprises organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption, refers to employees’ affective and behavioral states following perceived wrongdoing. this might be because they perceived the wrongdoing as a threat to their legitimate chances of acquiring and protecting workplace resources. in such condition, employees may find justification in acting vengefully towards the perceived source(s) of the threat (i.e. the organization or other organization members). the reaction may be mild (interpersonal or organizational revenge) or intense (interpersonal violence or corruption) depending on the perceived magnitude of the threat. the management perspective of workplace reactivity views such behaviors as deviant and unwanted (bennett & robinson, 2000; kwok, au, & ho, 2005; marcus, lee, & ashton, 2007). the management perspective may be faulted for not incorporating the reasons for such behaviors in its conceptualization. normative control (kwok et al., 2005) and screening deviant employees out of employment (marcus et al., 2007) as suggested by the advocates of the management perspective may yield limited and temporary solutions to workplace reactivity because emeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ ployees will continue to react vengefully as long as they perceive negative work situations no matter the level of organizational control. on the other hand, the employee/ reactor-perspective viewsworkplace reactivity as revengemotivated behaviors that are connected with perception of injustice (skarlicki & folger, 1997), anger rumination, and revenge inclination (barber, maltby, & macaskill, 2005; bushman, 2002; extremera & fernandez-berrocal, 2006). the employee-perspective could provide shortand long-term benefits to the avenger and the organization if well managed (aquino, tripp, & bies, 2001; bies & tripp, 2005). this study adopted the employee/ reactorperspective ofworkplace reactivity because the organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corrupt tendencies exhibited by employees could be reactions to unpleasant psycho-physical conditions associated with perception of organizational injustice. a major lacuna in literature is that the connections among gender, perception of organizational injustice, and revenge-motivated work behaviors have not been adequately investigated in one single model, especially in a maledominated society. the aim of this study was to extend the literature on revenge-motivated behaviors; and the extent to which employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption (workplace reactivity) could be connected with gender and perception of organizational injustice. literature review revenge motivation has been implicated in cycles of depression and hostility (rijavec, jurčec, & mijočević, 2010), which could have negative implications for the functionality of the organization and employees. previous studies (e.g.; carmody, 2010; maltby et al., 2008) reported that revenge motivation was strongly connected with high neuroticism, low agreeableness, low trust and trait forgiveness. apart from personality factors, power relation, perceived justice, blame attribution, victim status, and offender status are important in predicting whether an individual would seek revenge for perceived injustice or not (aquino et al., 2001; aquino, tripp, & bies, 2006). the individual seeking revengemay also need to analyze the cost and benefit of revenge and forgiveness. for example, rijavec, jurčec, and olčar (2013) reported that individuals who felt it was costly to forgive tended to seek revenge towards the offender than those who felt otherwise. revenge motivation could also be attributed to gender-related differences in processing and reacting to justice information. gender differences in the perception of and reaction to injustice may be more pronounced in patriarchal or male-dominated societies where gender relations and stereotypes follow the dictates of the society (akinwale, 2009; fawole, 2008; oyewumi, 1997; udegbe & bamgbose, 2001). for example, in nigerian societies, females are generally socialized to be less competitive, aggressive and vengeful; but more submissive, tolerant, and nurturing thanmales (mudiare, 2013; udegbe & bamgbose, 2001). in matrilineal societies (e.g. khasi in india) females are socialized to be more competitive than males (gneezy, leonard, & list, 2009). since competition has been associated with retaliation and revenge (duke, 2013), it may not be out of place to submit that females socialized in matrilineal societies may be as vengeful as males raised in patriarchal societies. this may explain why eagly and steffen (1986) submitted that gender differences in revenge and aggression are a function of perceived consequences of such behaviors that are learned as gender and other social roles dictated by social and cultural norms. it is often expected that these cultural and societal norms must be adhered to in the workplace even if they are at variance with job roles (kidder & parks, 2001). vigoda-gadot and kapun (2005) submitted that gender differences in justice-related issues may be more noticeable in public than private sector organizations. in the former work europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 151 http://www.psychopen.eu/ outcomes are based more on socio-political rather than objective considerations (vigoda-gadot & kapun, 2005). in nigeria, the local government represents public sector organizations that may perpetrate male dominance because of its closeness to traditional societies where traditional customs and beliefs might still hold sway. this may explain why female, compared with male kenyan employees, perceived higher level of injustice (mueller & mulinge, 2001). among korean employees, youn (2007) also found that female employees perceived higher level of injustice than males. the above findings generally indicate that differential treatment by sex still exists in some organizations. due to spill-over effects, an organization might not be totally immune to the prevailing socio-cultural circumstance in its host community (dietz, robinson, folger, baron, & schulz, 2003; fawole, 2008). in line with the nigerian socio-cultural work environment, which may promote perception of injustice among female employees, one would expect females to show higher revenge tendencies than males. unfortunately, theory and research seem not to support this. for example, the normative theory of emotion and emotional reaction posits that the expression and reactions of males and females to emotion-related situations are often consistent with gender-specific emotion beliefs and cultural expectations (hochschild, 1979). these cultural norms, which expect men to express anger and be more vengeful or violent than women, may determine and guide employees’ emotional expressions in terms of appropriateness, duration, and intensity in a given situation (simon & nath, 2004). taiwo’s (2004) findings, which indicated that males expressed higher violence tendencies than females, might be connected with the nigerian cultural system that condones and promotes revenge and violent behavior more in males than in females. in three separate studies, wilkowski, hartung, crowe, and chai (2012) found that men were more revenge-motivated and physically aggressive than women. therefore, females are expected to be less vengeful than males in reaction to injustice because of cultural norms. against this background, the following hypotheses were tested. hypothesis1a: gender predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge such that males will show higher organizational revenge tendencies than females. hypothesis 1b: gender predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal revenge such that males will show higher interpersonal revenge tendencies than females. hypothesis 1c: gender predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal violence such that males will show higher violence tendencies than females. studies on gender and workplace corruption yielded mixed results. adebayo (2005) found that females displayed more ethical behaviors than males. in a cross-country study involving 93 countries, swamy, knack, lee, and azfar (2000) reported that females were less involved in bribery and were less likely to condone bribe taking. the attitudes of the respondents were also compared on corrupt practices such as tax evasion, bribery, and claiming government benefits under false pretence. the authors reported that males were generally more tolerant of, and favorably disposed to, corruption than females. they, therefore, advocated that more women should be involved in public administration. however, alolo (2006), ti (2007), and agbalajobi (2008) warned that the rush to include more women in public offices as an anti-corruption drive could also be a source of corruption. alolo (2006) explained that women are socially expected to exhibit higher ethics of care than men. these ethics of care run contrary to the public sector ethics. this is because alolo (2006) found that male and female employees held similar favorable attitudes toward europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 152 http://www.psychopen.eu/ corruption. males were tolerant of corruption if it would lead to justice and fair-play while females displayed higher level of tolerance if corruption would provide opportunity to take care of more people. hypothesis 1d: gender predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in corruption such that males will show higher corrupt tendencies than females. perception of organizational injustice refers to employees’ subjective appraisal of the extent to which distribution and allocation (distributional justice) of workplace resources and rewards and the procedure (procedural justice) used to determine outcomes as well as the quality of interpersonal treatment (interpersonal justice) received, met some general and or specific rules of fairness (rupp, ganapathi, aguilera, & williams, 2006). employees regard the organization’s formal procedures for allocating workplace resources as fair when the process of decisionmaking is consistent, accurate, correctable, objective, participatory/ representative, and morally acceptable (skarlicki & folger, 1997). the quality of interpersonal treatment is perceived as high, and consequently just, when employees perceive social sensitivity between and among employees; and adequate explanations/ information are provided for work-related decisions and actions (skarlicki & folger, 1997). studies have reported a strong connection between perception of injustice and revenge actions (carlsmith, wilson, & gilbert, 2008; gollwitzer, meder, & schmitt, 2011; shaw & james, 2012). this may be linked with the avenger’s desires to discourage injustice, restore equity, and indirectly announce acceptable conducts (mccullough, kurzban, & tabak, 2010). the fairness theory submits that employees blame the organization and other individuals when they perceive that the organization or other individuals “could” and “should have acted differently” in order to prevent a negative situation (colquitt & chertkoff, 2002; folger & cropanzano, 2001; shaw, wild, & colquitt, 2003). this implies that the connection between injustice and revenge-motivated behaviors (workplace reactivity) may not be automatic. beugré (2005) submitted that revenge actions emanating from perceived injustice are, among other things, embedded in a nexus of blame attribution and the advantages incurred by such actions. therefore, it might be logical to assert that employees’ revenge actions, guided by cultural rules of emotional behavior, would be directed at the person or entity adjudged responsible for the negative work situation. hypothesis 2a: perception of organizational injustice predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge such that organizational revenge increases with perception of injustice. hypothesis 2b: perception of organizational injustice predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal revenge such that interpersonal revenge increases with perception of injustice. hypothesis 2c: perception of organizational injustice predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal violence such that interpersonal violence increases with perception of injustice. hypothesis 2d: perception of organizational injustice predicts employees’ tendencies to engage in corruption such that corrupt tendencies increase with perception of injustice. studies on gender differences in perception of injustice yielded mix results across some cultures. in a sample of employees in western culture, lambert, paoline, hogan, and baker (2007) reported that female employees felt as justly treated as their male counterparts. however, studies conducted among employees in africa (e.g. mueller & mulinge, 2001) and asia (e.g. youn, 2007) indicated that females perceived higher level of organizational injustice than males. despite the fact that female employees in africa may perceive higher level of injustice than male employees, cultural expectations and social norms support and condone revenge and violent reactions in males europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 153 http://www.psychopen.eu/ than females (taiwo, 2004). this implies that the connection between perception of organizational injustice and revenge-motivated behaviors may be affected by gender-specific social and cultural expectations on revenge and violent reactions (hochschild, 1979). against this background, it was expected that gender would moderate the relationships between perception of organizational injustice and the components of workplace reactivity. it was hypothesized that: hypothesis 3a: females who perceive organizational injustice exhibit lower tendencies to engage in organizational revenge than males. hypothesis 3b: females who perceive organizational injustice exhibit lower tendencies to engage in interpersonal revenge than males. hypothesis 3c: females who perceive organizational injustice exhibit lower tendencies to engage in interpersonal violence than males. hypothesis 3d: females who perceive organizational injustice exhibit lower tendencies to engage in corruption than males. methods participants and procedure this study was conducted in the six local government headquarters domiciled in the capital of the six southwestern states in nigeria. the questionnaires were distributed (in all the offices in the local government headquarters) to employees who were willing to participate in the study. the participants were made to understand that they could discontinue with the research whenever they felt so. they were also assured that their responses could not be traced to them. to further ensure confidentiality, the participants were provided envelopes to return the completed questionnaires. with an average of 140 questionnaires per state, a total of 827 questionnaires were distributed. that is, about 47% of employees in each of the local government headquarters were sampled for the study. seven hundred and sixty five questionnaires were returned in sealed envelopes. this yielded a response rate of 93%. out of the 765 envelopes that were returned, 703 contained questionnaires that were duly completed and found usable. the participants were 703 employees (460 females; 243 males) whose ages ranged between 19 and 59 years (mage = 33.93; sd = 7.64). they had spent an average of 6.03 years (sd = 4.32) in the employment of the local government. their average promotion tenure, as at the time of this study, was 2.01 years (sd = 2.41). for job status, 44.10% (n = 310) were at the senior level; 30.40% (n = 214) were at the junior level; and 25.50% (n = 179) were at the intermediate level. in the case of academic qualification, 43.40% (n = 305) held first degree or higher national diploma; 37.70% (n = 265) held ordinary national diploma or national certificate in education; 13.80% (n = 97) had up to ordinary level certificate; while 5.10% (n = 36) held postgraduate degree/diploma. measures perception of organizational injustice— this was measured using perception of organizational injustice scale (pois). it was a 13-item inventory made up of three subscales: interpersonal, distributive, and procedural. the interpersonal subscale was developed by colquitt, conlon,wesson, porter, and ng (2001) to measure the perceived quality of interpersonal relationship that employees enjoy in their job. price and mueller (1986) developed the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 154 http://www.psychopen.eu/ distributive subscale to measure the extent to which employees perceive that their efforts are fairly rewarded by the organization. the procedural subscale was developed by rupp and cropanzano (2002) to measure employees’ perceived fairness in the organization’s procedure of rewarding employees. pois was rated on a 5-point scale (never = 1; always = 5). sample items include: “to what extent are you treated with dignity in your workplace?” (interpersonal injustice); “to what extent are you fairly rewarded in your workplace taking into account the amount of education and training that you have had?” (distributive injustice); and “to what extent are the procedures your organization uses to make decisions fair?”(procedural injustice). colquitt et al. (2001) reported a cronbach’s alpha of .93 for the interpersonal subscale, while price and mueller (1986) found a cronbach’s alpha of .91 for the distributive subscale. the procedural subscale had a .83 cronbach’s alpha (rupp & cropanzano, 2002). in the current study, the summated scores in pois were used because the one-factor solution with oblimin rotation was better than the three-factor solution. a cronbach’s alpha of .77 was obtained for the overall scale. pois was scored in such a way that high scores indicated that the participants perceived high level of organizational injustice. workplace reactivity — workplace reactivity scale (wrs) was used to measure participants’ tendencies to engage in the four components of workplace reactivity. it was a 26-item instrument rated on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 4 = strongly agree). this current study focused on the tendencies to engage in, rather than the extent to which the respondents engaged in, workplace reactivity. this is because the item format in the original scales may increase the respondent’s “motivation to under-report behaviors, such as theft, that put them at risk of job loss or legal prosecution” (penney & spector, 2005, p. 782). the current scale comprised items drawn from other relevant instruments and those generated by the researchers through focused group discussion with selected local government employees. this method of item selection could lead to item-overlap (penney & spector, 2005). two steps were taken to reduce item-overlap. first, items were selected from the pool based on nominations by subject matter experts (smes) (golden, sawicki, & franzen, 1993). three of the smes represented each of the three job levels (senior, intermediate, and junior) and had been working as local government employees for at least 2 years. the remaining smes were 2 psychologists who had conducted researches on the aspects of workplace reactivity investigated in this study. these criteria were used to ensure that the individuals had a fair knowledge about the aspects of workplace reactivity being investigated. only the items that 80% of the five smes voted as reflections of the concept of workplace reactivity in this study formed the initial items for the scale (marcus et al., 2007). the 5 smes categorized all the initial items into the four subscales (corrupt tendencies, organizational revenge tendencies, interpersonal violence tendencies, and interpersonal revenge tendencies). eighty percent of the smes must agree in their placement of an item into a particular dimension (bruk-lee & spector, 2006; spector et al., 2004). only the items that met these rules were tested in a pilot study. second, it was decided that any item that had item-total correlation coefficient less than .31 and whose elimination increased the reliability of the scale would be deleted from the final scale (ehigie, 2005). the results of the item analysis show that all the items were valid. corrupt tendencies subscale: this measured corrupt tendencies. the smes categorized 3 out of the initial 12 items in the corrupt tendencies subscale as acts of organizational revenge. as result of this, the final corrupt europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 155 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tendencies subscale comprised 9 items. sample items include: “helping another person to take a property or an item that belonged to the organization” and “diverting the organization’s fund for personal use”. the subscale had .92 cronbach’s alpha. high score indicated that the participant exhibited high tendencies to engage in corruption. interpersonal violence tendencies subscale: this subscale measured the participant’s tendencies to exhibit interpersonal violence directed at other employees (coworker and superior officers). it was a 7-item scale (psychological violence = 3 items; physical violence = 4 items) adapted from leblanc and kelloway (2002) and schat, frone, and kelloway (2006). in their scales, the respondent is the victim of the interpersonal violence. in the current scale, the respondent is the reactor. sample items are: “threatening to hit or throw something at a superior officer or coworker” (psychological violence), and “kicking, beating, or hitting a superior officer or coworker with a fist” (physical violence). leblanc and kelloway (2002) reported a .90 internal consistency coefficient for their original scale. the current version of the scale had a .92 cronbach’s alpha. a high score indicated that the respondent showed high tendencies to engage in interpersonal violence. organizational revenge and interpersonal revenge tendencies subscales: these subscales comprised 10 items (organizational revenge = 6; interpersonal revenge = 4) drawn from bennett and robinson’s (2000) scale of workplace deviance. sample items include: “participating in slowing down work” (organizational revenge) and “withholding important information from a coworker or superior officer” (interpersonal revenge). lee, ashton, and shin (2005) reported internal consistency reliability coefficients of .87 and .92, respectively for the interpersonal and organizational dimensions of the bennett and robinson’s (2000) original scale. in the current study, .76 and .83 cronbach’s alpha coefficients were obtained for the organizational revenge and interpersonal revenge subscales, respectively. high scores indicated that the employee exhibited high tendencies to engage in organizational and interpersonal revenge. the overall cronbach’s alpha of wrs was .95. an exploratory principal component analysis with oblimin rotation was performed to determine the factor solution and inter-factor correlation of the overall workplace reactivity scale. as indicated in the pattern matrix and the factor correlation matrix, the 4 components of workplace reactivity were distinct but moderately related with coefficients ranging between .55 (organizational revenge and interpersonal violence tendencies) and .61 (interpersonal violence and corrupt tendencies). this indicated that there were no multi-colinearity problems among the subscales of wrs. results descriptive and inter-variable correlations the results of the descriptive and inter-variable correlations are presented in table 1. table 1 indicates that employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, r(701) = .27, p < .01; interpersonal revenge, r(701) = .24, p < .01; interpersonal violence, r(701) = .22, p < .01; and corruption, r(701) = .27, p < .01, increased significantly with perceived level of organizational injustice. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 mean, standard deviation, inter-variable correlations, and reliabilities 10987654321variables 11. age 12. gender .0213. job level .03-.37** 14. academic qualification .47**.15**-.06 15. job tenure .07-.25**.08*.40** (.77)6. perception of organizational injustice .04-.00-.02-.01.01 (.76)7. organizational revenge tendencies .27**.02-.04-.11*-.11**-.03 (.83)8. interpersonal revenge tendencies .57**.24**.04-.08-.08*-.05-.01(.92)9. interpersonal violence tendencies .55**.58**.22**.00-.04-.04-.06-.03 (.92)10. corrupt tendencies .61**.58**.58**.27**.00-.07-.09*-.04-.00---m .2816.4612.877.609.2240.036.9333 ---sd .798.417.684.315.569.324.647 note. n ranges between 520 and 703. reliabilities are in brackets along the diagonal. gender was coded male 0; female 1. job level was coded junior level 1; intermediate level 2; senior level 3. academic qualification was coded ordinary level certificate 1; ordinary national diploma / national certificate in education 2; first degree/ higher national diploma 3; postgraduate degree/ diploma 4. *p < .05. **p < .01. tests of hypotheses the hypotheses expected that gender and perception of organizational injustice would predict employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption. to test these hypotheses, four sets of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were performed (one for each component of workplace reactivity). in each case, the demographic variables were entered in model 1. in model 2, the independent effects of the predictors were entered. the moderation effects of gender on the relationships between perception of organizational injustice and the components of workplace reactivity were entered in model 3. table 2 shows the results of the hierarchical multiple regression on organizational revenge tendencies (hypotheses 1a, 2a, and 3a). as shown in table 2, gender significantly predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge; with males showing higher tendencies than females, β = -.15; t(701) = -3.37, p < .01. this result supported hypothesis 1a. perception of organizational injustice significantly predicted employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge such that the tendencies increased with employees’ perception of organizational injustice, β = .20; t(701) = 4.57, p < .01. this result supported hypothesis 2a. however, gender did not moderate the relationship between perception of organizational injustice and employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, β = .03; ∆r2 = .00; ∆f = .04, p > .05. this implied that employees who perceived organizational injustice tended to revenge toward the organization, irrespective of whether they were males or females. therefore, hypothesis 3a was not supported. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 157 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 hierarchical multiple regression on organizational revenge tendencies ∆ff∆r2r2rtβmodels model 1 .611.611.02.02.12 age .281.07 job level .63**-2.14academic qualification .031.05 job tenure .16.01 model 2 .32***16.88**5.06.07.27 age .111.06 job level .21*-2.12academic qualification .19.01 job tenure .07.00 gender .37**-3.15perception of org. injustice .57**4.20 model 3 .04.82**5.00.07.27 age .241.06 job level .78-1.09academic qualification .11-.01job tenure .25.01 gender .10-.14perception of org. injustice .15**3.20 gender x perception of org. injustice .19.03 note. n = 703. gender was coded male 0; female 1. job level was coded junior level 1; intermediate level 2; senior level 3. academic qualification was coded ordinary level certificate 1; ordinary national diploma / national certificate in education 2; first degree/ higher national diploma 3; postgraduate degree/ diploma 4. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. another set of hierarchical multiple regression was performed to test hypotheses 1b, 2b, and 3b. the results are presented in table 3. contrary to the position in hypothesis 1b, gender did not significantly predict employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal revenge, β = -.06; t(701) = -1.41, p > .05. this implied that females tended to be as vengeful as males towards other employees. based on this, hypothesis 1b was rejected. perception of organizational injustice exerted a significant effect on employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal revenge such that employees who perceived organizational injustice tended to engage in interpersonal revenge, β = .23; t(701) = 5.34, p < .01. this supported hypothesis 2b. there was nomoderation effects of gender on the connection between perception of organizational injustice and interpersonal revenge tendencies, β = .16; ∆r2 = .002; ∆f = 1.08, p > .05. therefore, hypothesis 3b was not supported. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 158 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 hierarchical multiple regression on interpersonal revenge tendencies ∆ff∆r2r2rtβmodels model 1 .98.98.01.01.10 age .25-.01job level .52-1.08academic qualification .53-.03job tenure .02.00 model 2 .35***15.12**5.06.07.26 age .34-.02job level .12-1.06academic qualification .05-1.06job tenure .13-.01gender .41-1.06perception of org. injustice .34**5.23 model 3 .081.90**4.002.08.26 age .11.01 job level .46-.02academic qualification .30-1.06job tenure .53-.02gender .32-1.20perception of org. injustice .53*2.16 gender x perception of org. injustice .041.16 note. n = 703. gender was coded male 0; female 1. job level was coded junior level 1; intermediate level 2; senior level 3. academic qualification was coded ordinary level certificate 1; ordinary national diploma / national certificate in education 2; first degree/ higher national diploma 3; postgraduate degree/ diploma 4. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. to test hypotheses 3a to 3c, a set of hierarchical multiple regression was conducted. the results are presented in table 4. the results in table 4 indicate that gender significantly predicted violence tendencies among employees; with males showing higher tendencies than females, β = -.12; t(701) = -2.64, p < .01. this supported hypothesis 1c. interpersonal violence tendencies among employees increased significantly with the extent to which they perceived organizational injustice, β = .21; t(701) = 4.81, p < .01. this supported hypothesis 2c. there was no moderation effect of gender on the relationship between perception of organizational injustice and interpersonal violence tendencies, β = .01; ∆r2 = .00; ∆f = .01, p > .05. the implication was that being a male or female did not count in employees’ tendencies to engage in interpersonal violence as long as they perceived organizational injustice. hypothesis 3c was not supported. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 159 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 hierarchical multiple regression on interpersonal violence tendencies ∆ff∆r2r2rtβmodels model 1 .85.85.01.01.09 age .351.08 job level .34-1.07academic qualification .28-.01job tenure .66-.03model 2 .22**15.99**4.06.06.25 age .221.07 job level .90-.05academic qualification .01-1.06job tenure .79-.04gender .64**-2.12perception of org. injustice .81**4.21 model 3 .01.63**3.00.06.25 age .131.06 job level .30-.01academic qualification .58-.03job tenure .14.01 gender .40-.06perception of org. injustice .91**2.19 gender x perception of org. injustice .08.01 note. n = 703. gender was coded male 0; female 1. job level was coded junior level 1; intermediate level 2; senior level 3. academic qualification was coded ordinary level certificate 1; ordinary national diploma / national certificate in education 2; first degree/ higher national diploma 3; postgraduate degree/ diploma 4. **p < .01. ***p < .001. lastly, hypotheses 1d, 2d, and 3d were tested with a hierarchical multiple regression. table 5 shows the results. gender did not significantly predict employees’ corrupt tendencies, β = -.06; t(701) = -1.35, p > .05. this implied that female employees tended to be as corrupt as their male counterparts. hypothesis 1d was, therefore, not supported. however, perception of organizational injustice significantly predicted corrupt tendencies among employees, β = .26; t(701) = 6.83, p < .01. these tendencies increased with the level at which the employees perceived organizational injustice. this supported hypothesis 2d. table 5 shows that gender did not moderate the extent to which perception of organizational injustice predicted corrupt tendencies, β = .17; ∆r2 = .002; ∆f = 1.25, p > .05. this implied that, irrespective of gender, when employees felt unjustly treated they reacted with corrupt tendencies. therefore, hypothesis 3d was not supported. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 160 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 hierarchical multiple regression on corrupt tendencies ∆ff∆r2r2rtβmodels model 1 .59.59.01.01.08 age .30.02 job level .17-1.06academic qualification .33-.02job tenure .64-.03model 2 .19***19.93**5.09.08.29 age .22.01 job level .73-.04academic qualification .87-.04job tenure .82-.04gender .35-1.06perception of org. injustice .83**6.26 model 3 .251.57**6.002.09.29 age .04-.002job level .04-1.05academic qualification .90-.04job tenure .55.02 gender .41-1.21perception of org. injustice .11**3.20 gender x perception of org. injustice .121.17 note. n = 703. gender was coded male 0; female 1. job level was coded junior level 1; intermediate level 2; senior level 3. academic qualification was coded ordinary level certificate 1; ordinary national diploma / national certificate in education 2; first degree/ higher national diploma 3; postgraduate degree/ diploma 4. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion and conclusion this study investigated the extent to which gender and perception of organizational injustice predicted workplace reactivity, which comprises organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corrupt tendencies. the results of the present study showed that males tended to be more vengeful than females toward the organization; but not toward other organization members. these results were partly in consonance with previous studies (e.g. wilkowski et al., 2012), which reported that males exhibited higher revenge motivation than females. apart from physiological explanations, the normative theory of emotional reaction (hochschild, 1979) posits that males are usually socialized to be more revenge-oriented than female, especially in male-dominated societies such as nigeria (udegbe & bamgbose, 2001). as found in the current study, the normative theory and social/ cultural hypothesis (wilkowski et al., 2012) of revenge did not envisage gender similarities in interpersonal revenge. the gender similarities found in interpersonal revenge occurred probably because males, compared with females, blamed the organization (colquitt & chertkoff, 2002; folger & cropanzano, 2001; shaw et al., 2003) for providing opportunities (even) for interpersonal transgressions. consequently they were more willing to mildly avenge the transgressions emanating from the organization than those perpetrated by other organization members. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 161 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the case of interpersonal violence, results indicated that males exhibited higher violence tendencies than females. this corroborated the findings of taiwo (2004), who reported that males showed higher violence tendencies than females. these tendencies are usually recognized and reinforced in males through socialization processes (taiwo, 2004) may be because such tendencies help sustain dominance and enhance territorial behavior. the normative theory (hochschild, 1979) posits that socially and culturally sanctioned gender-specific emotional reactions usually dictate the intensity and duration of such behavior for males and females. in most cases, violent behaviors are more tolerated in males than in females. this may explain why males tended to be more violent than females. as noted in previous studies (e.g., dietz et al., 2003; fawole, 2008) individuals may not be totally immune to the socio-cultural beliefs and events in their environment. in such case, employees’ decisions and actions might be based on informal rules and norms dictated by the cultural and social expectations rather than the formal rules of the organization. since the nigerian cultural beliefs and expectations condone violence more in males than females, it was therefore, not out of place for males to show higher violence tendencies than females. contrary to our expectations, females tended to be as corrupt as males. these results question the findings of adebayo (2005) and swamy et al. (2000) who reported that males weremore susceptible to corruption than females. however, our results confirmed the fears of agbalajobi (2008), alolo (2006), and ti (2007) that females may display comparable levels of corruption with males if exposed to certain level of injustice. in addition to that, the gap in economic expectations and financial responsibilities among males and females, which tend to induce more pressure on males than females seem to have reduced considerably. therefore, females might have experienced comparable levels of financial pressure and the zeal to help people as males did. the employees might have perceived that the organization could not provide just and legitimate opportunities to meeting such demands. this might have motivated them to exhibit corrupt tendencies. true to our hypotheses, perception of organizational injustice predicted all components of workplace reactivity. employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption increased with perception of injustice. our findings were in tandem with previous studies (e.g. carlsmith et al., 2008; gollwitzer et al., 2011; shaw & james, 2012), which reported that revenge-motivated behaviors were closely connected with perception of injustice. this implied that the employees held the targets of these forms of revenge-motivated behaviors responsible for the unpleasant work situations. our results indirectly confirmed the submission of beugré (2005) that attribution of blame and the expected benefits of revenge actions are important in the link between injustice and revenge-motivated behaviors. according to mccullough et al. (2010), the benefits of revenge, violence, or corruption for reactive employees might not only be linked with the zeal to discourage injustice and promote equity but also with the opportunity to push the organization and other organization members to behave in acceptable manners (colquitt & chertkoff, 2002; folger & cropanzano, 2001; shaw et al., 2003). one of the major contributions of the present study to the fairness theory was that it empirically showed link between perception of injustice and corrupt tendencies. other studies (e.g. agbalajobi, 2008; alolo, 2006; ti, 2007) were only speculative about such connection. none of the hypotheses on the moderation effects of gender on the relationships between perception of organizational injustice and the components of workplace reactivity was supported. however, gender and perception of organizational injustice jointly influenced employees’ tendencies to engage in organizational revenge, interpersonal revenge, interpersonal violence, and corruption. this implied that even if socio-cultural beliefs and expectations europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 gender, injustice and workplace reactivity 162 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discourage females from revenge inclinations, they could still be vengeful if injustice was perceived. for example, when perception of organizational injustice was added to the model connecting gender and interpersonal revenge tendencies, the insignificant relationship became significant with a 6% change. similarly, perception of organizational injustice enhanced the relationship between gender and corrupt tendencies to the tune of 9% change. the results of the present study, therefore, extended the normative theory of gender difference in revenge-motivation. the present study has shown that socio-cultural norms may not guarantee low revenge-motivation in females if injustice is perceived. in spite of its contributions, this study was not without short-comings. the major short-coming was that this study was prone to common method variance. our study only relied on self-report measures of the dimensions of workplace reactivity. despite the addition of a statement that portrays revenge and provides justification for their actions, respondents may under-report such behavioral tendencies for fear of being punished. it may, therefore, be beneficial if future studies combined self-report with another measure of workplace reactivity. lastly, the fact that gender did not strongly affect the relationships between perception of organizational injustice and the components of workplace reactivity might be because it was treated as a moderator and not as a mediator variable. therefore, future studies should examine the mediation effects of gender on the connections between perception of organizational injustice and the components of workplace reactivity. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adebayo, d. o. 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(2007).gender and corruption: understanding and undoing the linkages (working paper #03/2007). retrieved from http://www.transparency.org/content/download/23815/356307 udegbe, i. b., & bamgbose, o. (2001). the effects of high-tech work demand on women’s reproductive behavior. nairobi, kenya: african technology policy network. vigoda-gadot, e., & kapun, d. (2005). perceptions of politics and perceived performance in public and private organizations: a test of one model across two sectors. policy and politics, 33(2), 251-276. doi:10.1332/0305573053870185 wilkowski, b., hartung, c., crowe, s., & chai, c. (2012). men don’t just get mad; they get even: revenge but not anger mediates gender differences in physical aggression. journal of research in personality, 46(5), 546-555. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2012.06.001 youn, d.-h. (2007). the effects on job attitude of perception of justice in the hrm system. japanese journal of administrative science, 20(2), 185-201. doi:10.5651/jaas.20.185 about the authors bolanle ogungbamila, phd is a lecturer in psychology at the department of pure & applied psychology, adekunle ajasin university, nigeria. he is the director of the centre for entrepreneurship development, adekunle ajasin university, nigeria. bola udegbe, phd is a professor of psychology at the department of psychology, university of ibadan, nigeria. she is the director of the office international programmes, university of ibadan, nigeria. she supervised the first author’s doctoral thesis. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 150–167 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.575 ogungbamila & udegbe 167 http://www.transparency.org/content/download/23815/356307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/0305573053870185 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2012.06.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.5651/jaas.20.185 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en gender, injustice and workplace reactivity (introduction) literature review methods participants and procedure measures results descriptive and inter-variable correlations tests of hypotheses discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors wwu researcher explores ‘trust’ in internet consumerism drew weidenbacher (360) 393-9266 or dweidenbacher@qwest.net george cvetkovich (360) 650-3544 or george.cvetkovich@wwu.edu may 23, 2006 bellingham – using his own experience on wall street along with mentoring by one of the nation’s leading experts on “trust,” western washington university master’s graduate drew weidenbacher has completed research that points to the importance of “virtual reputations” in internet consumerism. weidenbacher’s research, which was published as a master’s thesis in march, is titled “willingness to rely on ebay sellers: the effects of value similarity and trust.” “we looked at one of the most popular e-commerce sites, ebay, and did several pilot studies to determine what information about sellers was most important to buyers’ decisions,” weidenbacher said. “sellers with long experience and good previous-buyer ratings were more trusted. the findings indicate the importance of trust to e-commerce and that trust in ebay sellers is based on sellers’ virtual reputations.” the former stock market trader’s research uniquely examined internet consumerism from a behavioral perspective, rather than from the typical economic standpoint. “everything that has ever been written or quantified in economics and consumer behavior takes on a new meaning in this ‘internet age,’” weidenbacher said. “the internet is here to stay. consumers and businesses alike need to understand how e-commerce behavior differs from behavior with ‘brick and mortar’ merchandisi ng. consumers and businesses must find that new place in the middle, where buyer meets seller in cyber space.” weidenbacher said the inspiration for his thesis was two-part: his own professional experience and his thesis advisor, western psychology professor george cvetkovich, who has taught at wwu for more than 37 years and continues to research trust, primarily in the context of hazard and risk management. “i initially became interested in consumer behavior because of my experience as a wall street trader,” weidenbacher said. “professor cvetkovich was my second inspiration. as someone with a long experience in research on trust, he encouraged me to think beyond traditional economic concepts and forced me to view things from behavioral and psychological perspectives.” “the key to my thesis was when i came to realize and understand that the engine driving e-commerce decision-making was the individual’s own feelings about trust, including emotionally identifying a similarity of values with the seller,” weidenbacher said. weidenbacher, who lives in bellingham, graduated from wwu in march with a master’s degree in psychology. he also has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics from bernard baruch college in new york city. weidenbacher continues to research consumer behavior and has a consulting business strictly for advice on e-commerce and individuals’ behaviors. “there is still so much left to understand about individuals’ behaviors when interfacing with the internet,” weidenbacher said. evolutionary psychology insights regarding human sexuality russell eisenman, ph.d. university of texas-pan american department of psychology edinburg, tx 78541-2999 usa e-mail: eisenman@panam.edu abstract evolutionary psychology has presented important insights about many areas, with human sexuality being one of the areas of important insights. some contributions of evolutionary psychology to six areas are discussed here: sexual intercourse vs. masturbation, preference by aging males for younger and younger females, ovulation and female sexuality, differences in male and female jealousy, waist to hip ratio, and childhood deprivation and earlier pregnancy. also, the importance of realizing that many behaviors are unconsciously motivated is discussed. keywords: evolutionary psychology, human sexuality, males, females, masturbation, jealousy, pregnancy. introduction evolutionary psychology has been especially helpful in the area of human sexuality, where our understanding lags behind the importance of an area that affects us all. not only would the human race not survive but for heterosexual attraction and heterosexual intercourse, but also, there are many important aspects of human sexuality, including both biology and male-female relationships, that are poorly understood. there are six areas that i will discuss, in which evolutionary psychology provides extremely important insights, and in which other fields seem unable to explain well what is occurring. other fields have some insights, but nothing like that provided by evolutionary psychology. the six areas that seem especially important to me and in which evolutionary psychology provides excellent insights are the preference of both males and females for sexual intercourse over masturbation; the preference for males, as they age, for younger female partners; female sexual desire during ovulation; differences in male vs. female jealousy; waist-to-hip ratio; and, childhood deprivation leading to earlier pregnancy. i have discussed some of these briefly before (eisenman, 2001a) but will discuss them here in greater detail, and add some new studies. sexual intercourse vs. masturbation at first glace, it might seem obvious that people prefer sexual intercourse to masturbation. for one thing, our culture often puts down masturbation, and makes it seem like some undesirable thing only engaged in by people who are disturbed, or who are deficient because they cannot obtain a partner. however, the reality is much more complex. famous sex researchers masters and johnson (1966) found that masturbation provides more physiological intensity (presumably enjoyable intensity) for both males and females than does sexual intercourse. so, even with cultural taboos, why would people not prefer masturbation to intercourse? even when things are tabooed, people usually figure out what causes pleasure, and seek it out. evolutionary psychology provides the answer. while there could be other answers from other fields, i have never seen any that explain well the preference for intercourse over masturbation. the evolutionary psychology answer is that sexual intercourse can send our genes into future generations, while masturbation cannot. since a major desire of humans, according to evolutionary psychology, is to transmit our genes into future generations, we will engage in behavior that promises to do so. even behaviors that are unlikely to do so, such as using birth control during intercourse, contain the sexual intercourse behavior that does send out genes into future generations. so, sexual intercourse is a powerful, natural desire of humans and animals, regardless of whether or not birth control is also employed. preference by aging males for younger and younger females the second area, preference by aging males for younger and younger females, also invokes the gene-spreading explanation. without this explanation, there is no way to understand why males, the older they get, prefer younger and younger female sex partners. much of this may be reserved for sexual fantasy, but as glenn wilson (g. wilson, 1992) points out, in sexual fantasy we often see what the person really desires. in real life, it is usually only the very wealthy or powerful who are actually able to live out their sexual fantasies. as the man ages, he fears that his genes will not be as good. just as men in general desire youth, attractiveness, and health in their female partners, so that their genes will be good ones and will be spread into future generations, so too the aging man seeks this. but, he seeks it even more so than usual, as he fears, perhaps unconsciously, that his genes are not as good now as they once were. to make up for this, his partner must have excellent genetic potential. the way to achieve this is to balance his aging with her youth. years ago, a tennis partner of mine, about 60 years old or so, told me “ i am attracted to young girls. i mean, really young girls. i could get in trouble from this attraction.” he seemed perplexed by his attraction to young females. so was i. through all these years i could never figure out why this would be true for him, and for other men i have discussed this with. now, evolutionary psychology has come along and provided a theoretical structure of male and female desires, which explains why aging men would desire young, female partners. ovulation and female sexuality the third area is female sexual desire during ovulation. as i got interested in this area, i started looking at introductory psychology textbooks to see what they say about ovulation, since it plays such an important part in female sexuality. however, i found that most of the ones i examined do not even mention ovulation. if it is covered at all, it is just briefly mentioned as part of how conception occurs. but, ovulation has powerful effects on female sexual behavior. for example, i have found that women often “forget” to use birth control during ovulation (eisenman, 2003). i believe this is an unconscious motivation to get pregnant, and thus continue the human race, and to send her genes into future generations. grammer (1996) found that the closer women in bars were to ovulation, the skimpier the clothing they wore. this would fit again with my explanation about unconscious desire to become pregnant and spread genes to future generations. it is of interest to note that the skimpy dress is a sexual signal sent to men, that indicates the woman’s receptiveness to sexual intercourse. she may not even realize she is sending this signal, so, again, it is an unconscious signal. i think the concept of the unconscious is important, but many in evolutionary psychology and other fields avoid it, perhaps because of freud’s usage in his psychoanalytic theory, which they reject. however, if one does not like the word “unconscious” one could use “unaware” or some other term which indicates that the person does not know why they do something. human females can be receptive to sexual intercourse at all phases of their menstrual cycle, but desire increases some at ovulation (alcock, 1989). further, when women have sexual affairs with someone other than the husband or boyfriend, the affair often occurs during ovulation, the woman and her partner typically use no birth control, and the partner chosen by the woman has some quality that the husband/boyfriend lacks (baker & bellis, 1993; bellis & baker, 1990). for example, if the husband is attractive but not intelligent, the woman is likely to have an affair with an intelligent man. not using birth control increases the likelihood of pregnancy, and thus increases the quality of her gene pool, since she now combines her genes with that of an intelligent man, whereas previously she combined her genes with that of an attractive man. thus, ovulation would seem to have powerful effects on the woman and on her sexual behavior. it needs to be given much more consideration that it has typically received. and, it is evolutionary psychology findings that make us appreciate the importance of ovulation, beyond simply being an important part of conception. differences in male and female jealousy for many years, until getting into evolutionary psychology, i have been perplexed by something. on almost any measure of sexual behavior or fantasy, the male seems more interested in sex than the female. males engage in more different kinds of sexual behaviors than women, are more receptive to sex with someone they do not know, have more varied sexual fantasies than women, etc (g. wilson, 1992). men seem much more permissive, much more liberal, in sex than do women. yet, why is it, then, that women are often much more accepting of their mate having a sexual affair? i have observed this repeatedly, both in people i know, and in famous people. the woman will tolerate her boyfriend or husband having sex with others, but the male will often seem to “go crazy” when his mate does that, and may engage in violence. it does not seem to fit the pattern of the more accepting male. here is the insight from evolutionary psychology, which explains this otherwise unexplainable phenomenon. david buss (1989,1999) studied human sexuality in 37 different cultures. he found stable male vs. female sex differences across the 37 cultures. males wanted partners with youth, attractiveness and health, while females wanted partners with money, status and power. men want many partners, while women are more interested in a partner who will care for her and her children. each sex is seeking the kind of partner who will best help them spread their genes into future generations. when it comes to jealousy, there are also sex differences. men are threatened by any sexual intercourse their partner engages in with others, since this could result in his raising a child who will not spread his genes into future generations. he might not know this is not his offspring, and thus invests resources into a child whose genes are not his, and the future generations gene payoff for the man (with regard to this child) is zero. for the woman, the threat is when the man has emotional investment in the other partner. sexual intercourse per se is not that big a threat. the real threat is that he will stop caring for the wife (or current girlfriend) and start caring for the new partner(s). so, jealousy often springs from different sources in men and women. waist to hip ratio just as buss (1989) found that his evolutionary psychology findings on sex differences applied in different cultures, so too does the work of singh on wait-to-hip ratio hold up in different cultures (singh, 1993a, 1993b, 1995; singh & luis, 1995). singh has shown that there is a preference among men for a certain waist-to-hip ratio in females. a 70% waist-to-hip ratio indicates, apparently, health and fertility in the woman, and is the male ideal. this holds up across different cultures, suggesting, like the buss (1989) sex differences in mate preferences, that it is a universal reality. singh has pointed out that even women who look very different may have similar wait-to-hip ratios. for example, he says that the famous actress marilyn monroe and the current skinny model kate moss both have the ideal waist-to-hip ratio. even though they look quite different, their having the ideal waist-to-hip ratio would help explain their appeal, and why they have become stars when other attractive women have not. there is also a female preferred waist-to-hip ratio for men, of 80-95% (singh, 1995). smell research by wedekind and furi (1997) indicated that smell may be a major part of female attraction toward men. smelling t-shirts, women tended to prefer the odor that, unknown to them, showed that the male wearer possessed the mhc gene opposite from them. if they had a child with such a man it would give them a child with immune system advantages, as the child could have the different genetic mhc qualities from both parents. the women participants often remarked that the smell was like that of their husband/boyfriend. so, they had apparently chosen their boyfriend/husband on the basis of a smell which indicated an opposite mhc gene, and thus immune system advantage for their children, who would inherit different protective genes—similar and dissimilar mhc–from the mother and father. childhood deprivation and earlier pregnancy evolutionary psychology provides insights into how childhood deprivation leads to earlier menarche (the age of first menstrual period) and thus—in many cases—earlier pregnancy. the findings are summarized by palmer and palmer (2002). at first glance, one would think the variables would have nothing to do with one another. why should the age when a girl begins her menstrual cycle and becomes able to become pregnant have anything to do with how she is treated at home? it seems a quantitative strategy is invoked when a child is treated badly, either by abuse, having a less than loving parent, or even having a stepfather (who might be considered more inclined to mistreat or sexually abuse the female child than would a biological father). a quantitative strategy is used when the person will have many children, to make up for the fact that many will face tough odds and not survive. if things were better, a qualitative strategy could be employed, having few children and investing much time and resources in them. but, if resources are not good—e. g., if there is an abusive parent—somehow the female child comes to menarche earlier and is inclined to produce many children. many have heard of young female children in poverty households having repeated pregnancies. it all seemed explainable by learning. but, the evolutionary psychology theory here says it is not all due to learning, but is a strategy that seeks to ensure survival of children, viz., the offspring of the young girl who becomes pregnant. in turn, this ensures survival of her genes into future generations. of course, the young girl who becomes pregnant does not realize she is employing a quantitative strategy, etc. but, her body changes to allow her to become pregnant earlier than would otherwise be the case if everything in her family were all right (belsky, steinberg, & draper, 1991). some data some recent data from a study by dantzker and eisenman (2005) show sex differences between males and females at a hispanic-serving university in the united states, where the enrollment is about 88% mexican-american. for a related study, see eisenman and dantzker (2006). from three college courses a total of 126 surveys were distributed and returned. there were 56 males and 70 females in the sample. for ethnicity, 114 identified themselves as hispanic, 8 as non-hispanic, and 4 did not answer this question. thus, the sample was overwhelmingly hispanic. the 126 surveys were coded, entered into an spss database, and analyzed, using nonparametric chi square to assess the gender differences. results to examine the relationship by gender for each statement, a nonparametric chi square was used, degrees of freedom=4 (df=rows-1 x columns-1), using spss. a 2×5 chi square was employed (2 genders: male or female x the 5 items on the 1-to-5 scale). comparing the mean scores for each statement by gender, a statistically significant difference for 19 of the 38 statements was found. among the 19 statistically significant differences of the means by gender, 8 found males to be more agreeable to the statement than females. these statements included the idea that: premarital sex is acceptable for males oral sex before marriage is acceptable males should have sexual experience prior to marriage forcing a person to have sex if spouse is ok marriage should not stop person from having sex with other people "topless clubs" are acceptable places for adult entertainment condoms interfere with the pleasures of sex prostitution should be legalized in all states> females agreed with 11 statements more than males, to a statistically significant extent. these ideas included: when growing up, parents told me premarital intercourse is unacceptable when growing up, parents told me any type of sexual behavior before marriage is unacceptable sex should only occur with a person you love lust and love are two different emotions if i were to have sex, i would always practice safe sex clubs that promote all nude dancing should not be allowed to exist magazines such as playboy are demeaning to women magazines like playboy are pornographic and should not be published pornographic material causes males to become sexually aggressive masturbation is wrong i would be jealous if my partner had sexual intercourse with someone else these results, in general, are consistent with evolutionary psychology theory regarding sex differences between males and females. conclusion evolutionary psychology has provided a radical new theory, which has had a tremendous effect on psychology and other fields (barkow, cosmides, & tooby, 1992; buss, 1999; palmer & palmer, 2002). the theory helps bring back a proper focus on such neglected areas as biology, genetics, and the brain. too often, psychology and other fields overemphasized learning as the sole or primary explanation. the theory is especially powerful in the area of human sexuality, where it explains a great deal that other theories cannot explain, or explain 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(1993b). adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: role of waist-to-hip ratio. journal of personality and social psychology, 65, 293-307. singh, devendra (1995). female judgment of male attractiveness and desirability for relationships: role of waist-to-hip ratio and financial status. journal of personality and social psychology, 69, 1089-1101. singh, devendra & luis, s. (1995). ethnic and gender consensus for the effect of waist-to-hip ratio on judgment of women’s attractiveness. human nature, 6, 51-65. masters, william h., & johnson, virginia e. (1966). human sexual response. boston: little, brown. wedekind, claus & furi, s. (1997). body odor preferences in men and women: do they aim for specific mhc combinations or simply heterozygosity? proceedings of the royal society-london-b-biological science, 264, 1471-1479. wilson, glenn (1992). the great sex divide: a study of male-female differences. washington, dc: scott-townsend publishers. a call for more research on the relationship between intelligence and job performance: non-task performance, non-euro-american contexts, and the science-practice gap editorial a call for more research on the relationship between intelligence and job performance: non-task performance, non-euro-american contexts, and the science-practice gap in-sue oh*a [a] department of human resource management, fox school of business, temple university, philadelphia, pa, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of human resource management, fox school of business, temple university, philadelphia, pa 19122, united states. e-mail: insue.oh@temple.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. i have long been interested in the use of general mental ability (gma; intelligence) tests for personnel selection decisions. there is ample evidence demonstrating the superiority of gma vis-à-vis other predictor constructs (e.g., personality, interests) for the prediction of important workplace outcomes such as job and training performance (scherbaum, goldstein, yusko, ryan, & hanges, 2012; schmidt & hunter, 1998). however, i have never thought that we have reached the point that wemay not need additional research on the validity of gma for job performance. in fact, i have always thought that we need more research on this, given some important research gaps discussed later. furthermore, unarguably, better predicting job performance has been and will be regarded as one of the most important research questions among industrial and organizational (i/o) psychologists and gma will always play a crucial role in predicting job performance. below, i discuss three major areas where i call for more research with regards to the relationship between gma and job performance after briefly reviewing its current status of knowledge. cumulative research evidence indicates that gma (manifested through the abilities to learn, reason, and solve problems) is the single best predictor of job (and training) performance and that its validity increases as the complexity level (in terms of information processing) of the job in question increases (schmidt & hunter, 1998). by synthesizing eight independent, minimally overlapping meta-analyses conducted in north america and europe, schmidt, shaffer, and oh (2008) showed that the mean of meta-analytic operational validity estimates ( ρ̄̂xp) of gma in predicting overall job performance is as high as .65 (.78, .61, and .55 for high, medium, and low complexity jobs, respectively).i for training performance, the mean of meta-analytic operational validity estimates ( ρ̄̂xp) of gma is as high as .67 (.80, .69, and .56 for high, medium, and low complexity jobs, respectively). furthermore, in a survey of 85 editorial board members from four top journals in human resource management (e.g., the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ journal of applied psychology and personnel psychology), rynes, giluk, and brown (2007, p. 989) found that the importance of using gma as a personnel selection tool was voted as the most fundamental finding in human resource management research that all practicing hr managers should know about. three areas where more research on the relationship between gma and job performance is urgently needed are now discussed below. 1. we have done relatively little research on the relationship between gma and non-task performance criteria. in examining the relationship between gma and job performance, we have almost exclusively focused on “task” performance (or overall job performance). regrettably, despite the importance of non-task performance (organizational citizenship behavior [ocb], counterproductive work behavior [cwb]) in today’s fast changing and teambased workplace, we have not yet conducted sufficient research on the relationships between gma and “nontask” performance criteria. in particular, one may ask this question given the expanded, multi-dimensional criterion domain of job performance (rotundo & sackett, 2002): “is the validity of gma for non-task performance also as strong as that of gma for task performance?” earlier, borman andmotowidlo (1993) argued that “the major source of variation in contextual (non-task) performance, however, is not proficiency, but volition and predisposition… predispositional variables represented by personality characteristics” (p. 74). many i/o psychologists often (mis)interpret this as indicating that gma is not a valid predictor of non-task performance criteria. however, salgado (1999, p. 10), in his review of personnel selection research done between 1991 and 1997, called for a systematic, empirical test of this argument: “a future line of research will be to check borman andmotowidlo’s (1993) suggestion that cognitive abilities predict task performance and not contextual performance”. however, it is fair to state that we have not yet responded to his call and available research findings are rather mixed. for example, motowidlo and van scotter (1994) found, based on 174 u.s. air force mechanics, that gma is more highly (though still modestly) related to contextual performance (r = .15) than to task performance (r = -.01).ii van scotter andmotowidlo (1996), using two independent samples of u.s. air force mechanics, found that gma (ns = 857 – 873) is not related either to task performance (for both samples; rs = -.06 and -.04, respectively) or to contextual performance (interpersonal facilitation for the first sample and job dedication for the second sample; rs = -.05 and -.01, respectively).iii indeed, it is odd that gma was not related to job performance (in particular, task performance) in van scotter and motowidlo (1996) because both project a (mchenry et al., 1990) and schmidt, hunter, and outerbridge (1986) found gma to have strong validity for job performance based on large samples in the same, military setting. in particular, in a project a result, mchenry et al. (1990) reported the moderate, yet meaningful, operational validity ( ρ̂xp) estimates of gma for three non-task performance criteria (.31, .16, and .20 for effort and leadership, personal discipline, and physical fitness and military bearing, respectively; on average .22); the operational validities for task performance categories were found to be much stronger as expected (mchenry, hough, toquam, hanson, & ashworth, 1990, table 4).iv recently, dilchert, ones, davis, and rostow (2007) found that the operational validity ( ρ̂xp) of gma for cwb objectively measured is -.33 based on a large police officer applicant sample (n = 816).v it may seem that this study clearly shows that gma is important for predicting cwb. however, it should be noted that the relationship between gma and cwbmay be more complicated, given the possibility that highly intelligent employees are less likely to get caught even if they engage in some wrongdoings (e.g., “catch me if you can”). that is, highly intelligent employees may engage in cwb more often (given that they are smart enough not to get caught) or less often (given that they better anticipate the negative consequence of their wrongdoings; dilchert et al., 2007) than less intelligent employees. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 intelligence and performance 2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ except for these studies mentioned above, there is surprisingly little published research that relates gma to both task and non-task performance simultaneously in the same sample. thus, it seems fair to say that past research findings are at least inconclusive about the validity of gma with regards to non-task performance criteria. accordingly, more “theoretical as well as empirical” research on the relationships of gma to both task and non-task performance is necessary in order to establish a more complete understanding of the roles that gma plays in predicting the expanded criterion domain of job performance. research along this line should also examine potential moderators (e.g., job complexity in terms of “emotional demands” or “interpersonal interaction”) and mediators (e.g., contextual/teamwork knowledge) of the relationships. another research question worth an empirical examination is the interactive effect of gma and personality on ocb or cwb – note that this interaction was not supported in predicting task and overall job performance in prior research (e.g., mount, barrick, & strauss, 1999). it may be plausible that intelligent yet dishonest (disagreeable) individuals are more likely to engage in cwb than others. 2. we do not yet know whether gma is the best predictor of job performance outside north america and europe. herriot and anderson (1997, p. 28) rightfully noted: “the findings from [north american] meta-analyses have been unreservedly cited by personnel psychologists in other countries and appear to have been unquestioningly accepted as being generalizable to different national contexts. social, cultural, legislative and recruitment and appraisal differences have been overlooked… these findings may indeed be transferable to other countries, but then again they may not be, given the pervasive cultural differences.” because gma is an all-purpose tool, it seems there can be no possibility that it is invalid for any of the job performance criteria in any culture. however, i cannot agree more with herriot and anderson (1997) that it is better to have such (cross-cultural validity generalization) evidence. given lack of such evidence, this is a legitimate research question: “do we know whether gma is the single best predictor of job performance in non-euro-american cultures?” in particular, we (i/o psychologists in euro-american countries) do not currently have systematic validity generalization evidence for gma from asian countries (e.g., china, taiwan, singapore), recently emerging economies comprising bric (brazil, russia, india, and china), and africa. one exception is an unpublished small-scale meta-analytic study by oh (2009); based on three south korean employee samples, he found that the operational validity estimate ( ρ̄̂xp) of gma was .53 in predicting job performance. although i do not think gma is invalid in other cultures, i urge that more validation studies be conducted in these cultures given the urgency in the globalization era that requires evidence-based cross-cultural understandings in every corner of human resource management (arvey, bhagat, & salas, 1991). if gma is found to be less or more valid outside euro-american countries, we also need to seek an explanation probably by considering cross-cultural differences in selection and performance management practices, labor market conditions, and social values. 3. many practitioners do not know that gma is the best predictor of job performance. rynes, colbert, and brown (2002) sent a survey to 5,000 society for human resource management (shrm) members whose title was at the managers level and above. these respondents not only occupied an important role in designing and implementing hr practices but also had on average 14 years of work experience in hr. rynes et al. (2002) asked them one question relevant to this paper: “do companies that screen job applicants for values have higher performance than those that screen for intelligence?” the answer to this question is (definitely) no! shockingly, however, 57% of respondents said “yes” to the question. that is, more than half the respondents europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 oh 3 http://www.psychopen.eu/ did not know the most fundamental evidence based on over 100 years of research findings in personnel selection; namely, that intelligence (or gma) is the single best predictor of job performance. given the respondents’ highlevel hr positions and considerable experience in hr, i speculate that the percentage of wrong answer would be even higher among less experienced hr staff. relatedly, rynes, giluk, and brown (2007) also found that only four articles had been published about the use of gma in applied settings, in three major practitioner and bridge journals (zero of 785 articles in hr magazine; two of 168 articles in human resource management; and two of 537 articles inharvard business review) between 2000 and 2005. accordingly, i believe that there is a considerable gap between scientific findings and relevant practices in the area of personnel selection or staffing (le, oh, shaffer, & schmidt, 2007; rynes et al., 2002; rynes et al., 2007), where many hr managers are unaware of (or do not believe) the most fundamental research evidence and, as a result, likely to fail to use a valid employment selection procedure. this clearly shows that we, i/o psychologists, should do a better job at disseminating our research findings to practitioners although they may have done a good job in their academic community (rynes et al., 2007; scherbaum et al., 2012). accordingly, we, i/o psychologists, should (re)direct our attention to realizing the scientist-practitioner model and evidence-based human resource management (le et al., 2007; rynes et al., 2002; rynes et al., 2007). there are two other areas in personnel selection i would like i/o psychologists to pay attention to in the near future. first, what we currently know about how to select for high performance is exclusively based on employees, and we do not yet know whether these findings are generalizable to executives. given the critical roles that executives play for the success and failure of an organization, we, i/o psychologists, should pay more attention to executive selection. this may be a more cost-effective and preemptive way to reduce agency costs than compensationbased, prescriptive and costly interventions. second, our current knowledge about personnel selection is based on the relationship between “individual” characteristics (including gma) and “individual” performance, so we do not know whether this relationship will maintain (i.e., be homologous) at the unit or organizational levels. thus, personal selection research should incorporate multi-level modeling principles and more studies should be conducted at the supra-individual levels. in summary, i argue that we, i/o psychologists, still need more empirical and bridge research on the relationship between gma and job performance, particularly focusing on non-task performance, non-euro-american contexts, and how to close the widest science-practice gap in employee selection among various human resource management areas (i.e., how to realize evidence-based employee selection). additionally, we also need more research on executive selection as well as more research that applies multi-level modeling principles to traditional singlelevel validation research. i believe that the prospects for additional research on the relationship between gma and job performance are still rosy, not bleak. notes i) indirect range restriction correction methods (schmidt, oh, & le, 2006) were used to estimate these values. ii) gma was measured with the armed forces qualification test (afqt), which are derived from verbal and quantitative subtests of the armed services vocational aptitude battery (asvab). van scotter and motowidlo (1996) also used the same test. iii) their results from motowidlo and van scotter (1994) and van scotter and motowidlo (1996) were not corrected for range restriction on the gmameasure andmeasurement error in supervisor ratings of performance, and thus the observed correlations reported here were underestimates. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 intelligence and performance 4 http://www.psychopen.eu/ iv) reported validities of gma were corrected for range restriction and adjusted for shrinkage. gma was operationalized as a composite of four high g-loaded test scores from the armed services vocational aptitude battery (asvab). the validity estimates of gma for two task performance criteria (core technical proficiency, general soldiering proficiency) were high at .63 and .65 (on average .64). v) when the more accurate correction method for indirect range restriction (schmidt et al., 2008) is used, the validity of gma is substantially higher at -.57. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author would like to thank frank schmidt for his comments on an early version of this article. references arvey, r. d., bhagat, r. s., & salas, e. (1991). cross-cultural and cross-national issues in personnel selection and human resources management: where do we go from here? in g. r. ferris & k. m. rowland (eds.), research in personnel and human resources management (vol. 9, pp. 367-407). greenwich, ct: jai press. borman, w. c., & motowidlo, s. j. (1993). expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance. in n. schmitt & w. c. borman (eds.), personnel selection in organizations (pp. 71-98). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. dilchert, s., ones, d. s., davis, r. d., & rostow, c. d. (2007). cognitive ability predicts objectively measured counterproductive work behaviors. the journal of applied psychology, 92, 616-627. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.92.3.616 herriot, p., & anderson, n. r. (1997). selecting for change: how will personnel and selection psychology survive? in n. r. anderson & p. herriot (eds.), international handbook of selection and assessment (pp. 393-412). london, united kingdom: wiley. le, h., oh, i.-s., shaffer, j. a., & schmidt, f. l. (2007). implications of methodological advances for the practice of personnel selection: how practitioners benefit from meta-analysis. the academy of management perspectives, 21, 6-15. doi:10.5465/amp.2007.26421233 mchenry, j. j., hough, l. m., toquam, j. l., hanson, m. a., & ashworth, s. (1990). project a validity results: the relationship between predictor and criterion domains. personnel psychology, 43, 335-354. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1990.tb01562.x motowidlo, s. j., & van scotter, j. r. (1994). evidence that task performance should be distinguished from contextual performance. the journal of applied psychology, 79, 475-480. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.475 mount, m. k., barrick, m. r., & strauss, j. p. (1999). the joint relationship of conscientiousness and ability with performance: test of the interaction hypothesis. journal of management, 25, 707-721. doi:10.1177/014920639902500505 oh, i.-s. (2009). the five-factor model of personality and job performance in east asia: a cross-cultural validity generalization study (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of iowa, iowa city, ia. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 oh 5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.3.616 http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2007.26421233 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1990.tb01562.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.475 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014920639902500505 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rotundo, m., & sackett, p. r. (2002). the relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: a policy-capturing approach. the journal of applied psychology, 87, 66-80. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.87.1.66 rynes, s. l., colbert, a. e., & brown, k. g. (2002). hr professionals’ beliefs about effective human resource practices: correspondence between research and practice. human resource management, 41, 149-174. doi:10.1002/hrm.10029 rynes, s. l., giluk, t. l., & brown, k. g. (2007). the very separate worlds of academic and practitioner periodicals in human resource management: implications for evidence-based management. academy of management journal, 50, 987-1008. doi:10.5465/amj.2007.27151939 salgado, j. f. (1999). personnel selection methods. in c. l. cooper & i. t. robertson (eds.), international review of industrial and organizational psychology (vol. 14, pp. 1-54). london, united kingdom: john wiley & sons. scherbaum, c. a., goldstein, h. w., yusko, k. p., ryan, r., & hanges, p. j. (2012). intelligence 2.0: reestablishing a research program on g in i-o psychology. industrial and organizational psychology, 5, 128-148. doi:10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01419.x schmidt, f. l., & hunter, j. e. (1998). the validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. psychological bulletin, 124, 262-274. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262 schmidt, f. l., hunter, j. e., & outerbridge, a. n. (1986). impact of job experience and ability on job knowledge, work sample performance, and supervisory ratings of job performance. the journal of applied psychology, 71, 432-439. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.432 schmidt, f. l., oh, i.-s., & le, h. (2006). increasing the accuracy of corrections for range restriction: implications for selection procedure validities and other research results. personnel psychology, 59, 281-305. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00065.x schmidt, f. l., shaffer, j. a., & oh, i.-s. (2008). increased accuracy of range restriction corrections: implications for the role of personality and general mental ability in job and training performance. personnel psychology, 61, 827-868. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00132.x van scotter, j. r., & motowidlo, s. j. (1996). interpersonal facilitation and job dedication as separate facets of contextual performance. the journal of applied psychology, 81, 525-531. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.81.5.525 about the author in-sue oh is currently an associate professor in the department of human resource management, fox school of business at temple university. he earned his phd from the university of iowa. his research interests include personnel selection, individual differences (personality, intelligence), person-environment fit, leadership development, and meta-analysis methods. his research has been published in top-tier scholarly journals such as the journal of applied psychology, personnel psychology, academy of management journal, organizational behavior and human decision processes, journal of organizational behavior, and journal of vocational behavior. he currently serves as an associate editor of the journal of occupational and organizational psychology and as an editorial board member of personnel psychology, journal of organizational behavior, and journal of leadership and organizational studies. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.757 intelligence and performance 6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.1.66 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hrm.10029 http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.27151939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-9434.2012.01419.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.71.3.432 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00065.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2008.00132.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.5.525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en intelligence and performance (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author scientific insights regarding the orgasm russell eisenman ph.d. department of psychology university of texas-pan american edinburg, tx 78539-2999 usa abstract several scientific insights about the orgasm are presented. insights from evolutionary biology and psychology contribute to understanding the orgasm. important issues are the point of inevitability (which only exists in males), effects of endorphins, differences regarding orgasm for the two sexes, and how the orgasm increases the strength of a relationship. introduction the orgasm is an extremely important part of life, yet many are ignorant of important aspects. even textbooks sometimes neglect orgasm. an excellent insight is provided by komisaru, beyer, and whipple (2008), especially with regard to th effects of drugs, and of sex hormones, and findings from brain imaging. i wish to follow up on their work and present here a brief discussion of some additional scientific findings and ideas about the orgasm. the orgasm is one of the greatest experiences of joy that people can have. several studies or reports have tried to explain orgasm or sexual arousal, with many of the issues being controversial, since different researchers take different perspectives (baker & bellis, 1993, 1995; bancroft, 1984, 1988, 1989, 2002; baumeister & tice, 2001; brackett, bloch, & abae, 1994; bridges, critelli, & loos, 1985; buss, 2000, 2004; clifford, 1978; darling, davidson, & cox, 1991; dantzker & eisenman, 2003; davidson & hoffman, 1986; dunn & trost, 1989; eisenman, 2001a, 200lb, 2003a, 2003b; eisenman & dantzker, 2004a, 2004b; eisenman, dantzker, & ellis, 2004; ferguson, 2004; hines, 2001; hyde, 2001; lederman, chan, & roberts-gray, 2004; masters & johnson, 1966; palmer & palmer, 2002; panksepp, 2000; scholly, katz, gascoigne, & holck, 2005; shackelford & leblanc, 2001; shackelford, weekes-shakelford, leblanc, bleske, euler, & hoier, 2000; tiefer, 2001; whipple, 1995, 2000; zaviacic, 2001). sexual attitudes and doubt behavior can differ according to gender and ethnicity as eisenman and dantzker (2006) found for hispanics vs. nonhispanics and for males vs. females. both physiology and environmental learning are important. thus an ideal, complete understanding would take into account both biology and culture. but, what is orgasm? it is a build up and release of sexual tension. it is also the physiological changes that go on in the body associated with the release of sexual tension. and, it is psychosocial, since attitudes are involved as well as, in sexual intercourse, interactions with another person. in males, it is associated with ejaculation of seminal fluid. but, the ejaculation is not the orgasm, it is just something that typically occurs at the same time. probably many people are confused by this fact, and think that ejaculation and orgasm is the same thing, since they typically occur together. evolution and evolutionary psychology/biololgy explanation in males, the orgasm would seem to be explainable as inducing great pleasure and thus increasing the likelihood that men would want to engage in sexual intercourse and thereby spread their genes into future generations. in females, an evolutionary psychology explanation is less obvious. if women always or usually achieved orgasm via sexual intercourse, then a similar explanation—pleasurable thus increasing the likelihood of spreading one’s genes into future generations–would seem appropriate. but, since women seem to reach orgasm much less in sexual intercourse then men do, it is less clear what the function of the orgasm is for women, from an evolutionary standpoint. perhaps it is the same as it is for the man, only operating less efficiently in women, i. e., women are less likely to achieve orgasm in intercourse than are men, but they do so enough to make sexual intercourse highly desirable to women (buss, 2004; fisher, 1992). both men and women also can attain orgasm via masturbation, but even here they sometimes fail to achieve orgasm. orgasm could also be a signal sent to the other partner, notifying that partner of one’s attractiveness, in a general sense. sending and receiving signals is very much part of male-female attractiveness communication (bridgeman, 2003; buss, 2004; endler & basolo, 1998; fisher, 1992; gaulin & mcburney, 2001; grammer, 1996). point of inevitability in males, the person reaches the point of inevitability, where orgasm is sure to happen. but, in women, there is no such point. a woman can be distracted near the time she might have had an orgasm and will not reach orgasm, whereas the man likely still would reach orgasm, despite the distraction. further, based on the above citations, orgasm is both a physiological response connected to the brain and spinal cord, and also a function of learning, as well as other physiological responses within the nervous system. endorphins the orgasm releases endorphins, which are responsible for good feelings in people. endorphins can both give pleasure directly and also decrease any pain a person is feeling. thus, they are very important brain chemicals. as a columbia university web site called go ask alice stated: “some researchers believe that strenuous exercise releases endorphins into the blood stream. others agree that endorphins are released during orgasm, as well as during laughter. endorphins are a group of substances formed within the body that naturally relieve pain. they have a similar chemical structure to morphine. in addition to their analgesic affect, endorphins are thought to be involved in controlling the body’s response to stress, regulating contractions of the intestinal wall, and determining mood. they may also regulate the release of hormones from the pituitary gland, notably growth hormone and the gonadotropin hormones. it seems that endorphin stimulation may occur with frequent sex and masturbation, yet alice doesn’t know of any evidence at the moment that too much sex (or exercise or laughter, for that matter) and consequential elevated levels of endorphins would have any kind of reverse effect–i.e. depletion of bodily endorphins, depression, etc. as we speak, there is current research being done to elucidate the full range of endorphins’ functions in the body.” from: http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0483.html. the orgasm in women and men many women seldom or never experience orgasm, at least not via sexual intercourse, perhaps seldom or not at all by any means (lauman, gagnon, michael, & michaels, 1994; wiederman, 1997). some males also have problems with orgasm, although to a markedly lesser extent than do females (rathus, nevid, & fichner-rathus, 2005). sexual problems, including failure to reach orgasm, can come about for a variety of reasons. it can be due to psychological reasons, e. g., strict religious training in which sex is seen as dirty and bad, or other negative attitudes about sex, or due to physiological reasons, e. g., various illnesses or failure of the physiological system to function properly. both men and woman have the hormone testosterone in their system, but men have much more than do women. in animals and probably in humans, testosterone is associated with sex and aggression. in some cases, the woman’s testosterone is so low that she has no interest in sex. but, by increasing her testosterone, the sex drive can be restored. conclusions in conclusion, orgasm is a major source of enjoyment for men and women. it is the climax of the sex act for many, and those who do not achieve orgasm often feel they are missing out on full sexual enjoyment. one can, however, enjoy the sex act even without orgasm, so one should not feel like a failure if orgasm is not reached. the orgasm has evolutionary value for men and probably for women in increasing the pleasure of sexual intercourse, and thereby increasing the likelihood that one’s genes will be spread into future generations. the orgasm also likely increases pair bonding between the man and woman, in turn providing two parents for any offspring (or increasing the closeness of homosexual relationships). the orgasm is based on both biology and learning. references baker, r. r. & bellis, m. a. (1993). human sperm competition: ejaculate manipulation by females and a function for the female orgasm. animal behavior, 46, 887-909. baker, r. r. & bellis, m. a. (1995). human sperm competition. london: chapman & hall. bancroft, j. (1984). hormones and human sexual behavior. journal of sex and marital therapy, 10, 3-21. bancroft, j. (1988). sexual desire and the brain. sexual and marital therapy, 3, 11-27. bancroft, j. (1989). human sexuality and its problems (2nd edit.). new york: churchill livingston. bancroft, j. (2002). biological factors in human sexuality. journal of sex research, 39, 15-21. baumeister, r. f. & tice, d. m. (2001). the social dimension of sex. needham heights, ma: allyn & bacon. brackett, n. l., bloch, w. e., & abae, m. (1994). neurological anatomy and physiology of sexual function. in c. singer & w. j. weiner (eds.), sexual dysfunction: a neuromedical approach (pp. 1-43). new york: futura. bridgeman, b. (2003). psychology and evolution: the origins of mind. thousand oaks, ca: sage. bridges, c. f., critelli, j. w., & loos, v. e. (1985). hypnotic susceptibility, inhibitory control, and orgasmic consistency. archives of sexual behavior, 14, 373-376. buss, d. m. (2000). the dangerous passion: why jealousy is as necessary as love and sex. new york: free press. buss, d. m. (2004). evolutionary psychology: the new science of the mind (2nd edit.). boston: pearson/allyn & bacon. clifford, r. (1978). development of masturbation in college women. archives of sexual behavior, 7, 559-573. dantzker, m. l. & eisenman, r. (2003). sexual attitudes among hispanic college students: differences between males and females. international journal of adolescence and youth, 11, 79-89. darling, c. a., davidson, j. k., & cox, r. p. (1991). female sexual response and the timing of partner orgasm. journal of sex and marital therapy, 17, 3-21. davidson, j. k., sr. & hoffman, l. e. (1986). sexual fantasies and sexual satisfaction: an empirical analysis of erotic thought. journal of sex research, 22, 184-205. dunn, m. e. & trost, j. e. (1989). male multiple orgasms: a descriptive study. archives of sexual behavior, 18, 377-387. eisenman, r. (2001a). penis size: survey of female perceptions of sexual satisfaction. bmc women’s health, 1, article 1. on biomed central website at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6874/1/ eisenman, r. (2001b). sex addicts: do they exist? journal of evolutionary psychology, 22, 123-133. eisenman, r. (2003a). forgetting to use birth control: unwanted pregnancies support evolutionary psychology theory. journal of evolutionary psychology, 24, 30-34. eisenman, r. (2003b). why evolutionary psychology is not mere speculation or “just so” stories: with examples from human sexuality and from narratives. journal of evolutionary psychology, 24, 128-135. eisenman, r. & dantzker, m. l. (2004a). permissiveness and male vs. female privileges in hispanic college students: factor analysis of a sex attitudes scale. journal of evolutionary psychology, 25, 2-9. eisenman, r., & dantzker, m. l. (2004b). sex differences in sex attitudes among hispanic college students: findings from a texas university near mexico. international journal of psychosexual rehabilitation, 9, 17-21. eisenman, r. & dantzker, m. l. (2006). gender and ethnic differences in sexual attitudes at a hispanic-serving university. journal of general psychology, 133, 153-162. eisenman, r.,. dantzker, m. l, & ellis, l. (2004). self ratings of dependency/addiction regarding drugs, sex, love, and food: male and female college students. sexual addiction and compulsivity, 11, 115-127. endler, j. a. & basolo, a. l. (1998). sensory ecology, receiver biases and sexual selection. trends in ecology and evolution, 13, 415-420. ferguson, c. u. (2004). review of l. marks, healing the war between the genders. ahp perspective, april/may, 26-27. fisher, h. e. (1992). anatomy of love: the natural history of monogamy, adultery, and divorce. new york: norton. gaulin, s. j. c., & mcburney, d. h. (2001). psychology: an evolutionary approach. upper saddle river, nj: prentice-hall. grammer, k. (1996). the human mating game: the battle of the sexes and the war of signals. paper presented at the human behavior and evolution society annual conference, northwestern university, evanston, il. hines, t. m. (2001). the g-spot: a modern gynecologic myth. american journal of obstetrics and gynecology, 185, 359-362. hyde, j. s. (2001). the next decade of sexual science: synergy from advances in related sciences. journal of sex research, 38, 97-101. komisaruk, b. r., beyer, c., & whipple, b. (feb. 2008). the psychologist, 21, part 2, 100-103. lauman, e. o., gagnon, j. h., michael, r. t., & michaels, s. (1994). the social organization of sexuality: sexual practices in the united states. chicago: university of chicago press. lederman, r. p., chan, w., & roberts-gray, c. (2004). sexual risk attitudes and intentions of youth aged 12-14 years: survey comparisons of parent-teen prevention and control groups. behavioral medicine, 29, 155-163. masters, w. h. & johnson, v. e. (1966). human sexual response. boston: little, brown. palmer, j. a. & palmer, l. k. (2002). evolutionary psychology: the ultimate origins of human behavior. boston: allyn & bacon. panksepp, j. (2000). emotions as natural kinds within the mammalian brain. in m. lewis & j. m. haviland-jones (eds.), handbook of emotions (2nd edit.) (pp. 137-156). new york: guilford. rathus, s. a., nevid, j. s., & fichner-rathus, l. (2005). human sexuality in a world of diversity (6th edit.). boston: pearson/allyn & bacon. scholly, k., katz, a. r., gascoigne, j. & holck, p. s. (2005). using social norms theory to explain perceptions and sexual health behaviors of undergraduate college students: an exploratory study. journal of american college health, 53, 159-166. shackelford, t. k. & leblanc, g. j. (2001). sperm competition in insects, birds, and humans: insights from a comparative evolutionary perspective. evolution and cognition, 7, 194-202. shackelford, t. k., weekes-shakelford v. a., leblanc, g. j., bleske, a. l., euler, h. a., & hoier, s. (2000). female coital orgasm and male attractiveness. human nature, 11, 299-306. tiefer, l. (2001). a new view of women’s sexual problems: why new? why now? journal of sex research, 38, 89-96. whipple, b. (1995). research concerning sexual response in women. the health psychologist, 17, 16-18. whipple, b. (2000). beyond the g spot. scandinavian journal of sexology, 3, 35-42. wiederman, m. w. (1997). pretending orgasm during sexual intercourse: correlates in a sample of young adult women. journal of sex and marital therapy, 23, 131-139. zaviacic, m. (2001). the human female prostate and its role in women’s lives: sexology implications. scandinavian journal of sexology, 4, 199-211. website cited: http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/0483.html biographical note russell eisenman, ph.d. is associate professor of psychology at university oftexas-pan american, edinburg, tx 78539-2999, usa e-mail: eisenman@utpa.edu phone: 956 381-3327 over age in marital status and submissiveness as determinant of suicide ideation in adults c.p. khohkar head of department of psychology g. k. university, hardwar abstract assertiveness trait of an individual is straight forwardness in all dealings of life. the person has independence in nature, non convincing with other’s ideas, and dominance in behavior in general, whereas submissiveness keeps his ideas to himself only, not dare to open her mouth, fearful to meet and exchange views with others, accept subordination and act as others say, hesitant to oppose other’s views. it appears that young adults today are more likely prone to emotional-disorders that develop suicidal thoughts correspond closely to marital-status, in that it tends to occur more frequently among single persons and those who are divorced and separated than among married living together. the ex post facto study adopted 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 four-variate factorial design in natural setting to vary operations and to study interactions. a total sample of 240 subjects has been drawn from hardwar and & its adjoining districts through purposive random sampling. results of the study show that suicide ideation is significantly higher in adults having submissive trait of personality than assertive. people having single marital status (not-married, divorced, widowed & separated) are more prone to suicide ideation as compared to married ones. trait approaches have been developed to accommodate the various degrees to which people may possess a feature. all individuals can be scaled or assigned a value along a trait dimension. some will have very little, others very much; they represent the extremes of the distribution. most people would show moderate amounts of any trait. everyone has certain personality traits that form their personality and make them unique. from birth, our personalities develop in response to our social and cultural environments. our conception of right and wrong and how we view ourselves, and the world, are developed during this time, and have a tremendous bearing on the types of personality we will have as adults. most of us end up with a combination of elements from all of the personality types discussed, but typically one element tends to predominate. this blending of personality characteristics is normal and dictates how we respond to the world. personality does become problematic when decidedly normal traits like anger, guilt, shyness and suspiciousness, for example, become clinically diagnosable conditions called personality disorders. it indicates that assertiveness of an individual as a person is straight forward in all dealing of life, bold, having traits of leadership, likes to act as main role player, independent nature, non convincing with other’s ideas, dominant, whereas submissiveness keeps his ideas to himself only, not dare to open his mouth, fearful to meet and exchange views with others, accept subordination and act as others say, hesitant to oppose other’s views. marital status is strongly correlated with suicide. twice as many single people than married kill themselves, and childless women are more likely to commit suicide than those with children (hoyer & lund, 1993). since women are more prone to depression than men and depression is often associated with suicide, then rates of suicide in women would be much higher than in men. indeed three times more than men attempt suicide (nimh, 2000; lewinsohn et al., 1994). according to kushner, 1995; moscicri, 1995, men and boys are four times more likely than women and girls to complete suicide. as many as 3% of the population contemplates suicide at sometime in their lives, and between 5 and 16% report having had suicidal thoughts at sometime (crosby, cheltenham & sacks, 1999; statham etal.,1998). there are large differences between men and women, age groups and cultural groups in rates of suicide. although it is tempting to speculate that marriage contributes to the prevention probably more correct to say that emotional-disturbances themselves may have lead to the marital-breakups. it is also possible that young persons who were emotionally disturbed in the first place did not marry and thus the rate of suicide increases in them. perhaps the most striking shift is the decrease, over the past 60 yrs, in suicide rates among men over the age of 60 years. ( murphy, lindesay, & grundy, 1986) methodology and design present study is an ‘ex post facto’ attempting to estimate the role of independent variable in retrospect. the ex post facto study adopted 2 x 2 x 2 x x2 four-variate factorial design in natural setting to vary operations and to study interactions. independent measure 1. personality trait: assertiveness vs. submissiveness as 2. over to marriageable age: two groups 30 to 35 and 45 to 50. 3. sex: male and female both 4. marital status: married vs. unmarried dependent measure 1.the dependent measures of the study are suicide ideation. sample a total sample of 240 subjects has been drawn from hardwar and & its adjoining districts as per the requirement of paradigm through purposive random sampling. each group constructed on the basis of assertive v/s submissive consists of 120 adults. age range of the adults was 30-50 years in two different groups with a span of 5 years i.e. (30+5) years & (45+5) years. sample is further categorized gender wise male and female on marital-status married and single (single means not widowed divorced and separated) subjects. only literate subjects from nuclear & joint families belonging to rural and urban areas working in private and public sectors were taken from hardwar district, india. tools the following two psychological tests were used for collecting information from the universe 1. the scale for suicide ideation: constructed by beck, a. t., kovacs, m. & weissman a. (1979) test have inter rater reliability coefficient 0.83. 2. dimensional personality inventory: constructed by dr. mahesh bhargava, (1994) consists of 60 statements split half reliability of the test for activity dimension for boys and girls and psychaitric paients was 0.56, 0.57 and 0.39 respatively. coefficient of correlation ‘r’ for criterion related validity for activity and pasivity dimention of the test was 0.74). high score indicates the assertiveness trait of personality, whereas low score is near to submissiveness dimension. -the anova summary (p < .05) table-1 -research paradigm: showing the total score of subject in each cell table-3 details of results suicide ideation is significantly higher in adults of submissive personality in comparison to those having assertive trait of personality. people single in marital status (excluded from sample -divorced, widowed & separated) are more prone to suicide ideation as compared to married ones. bivarite interaction assertive vs. submissive with marital status is significant on suicide ideation the further breakup of interaction results are given as below: table-2 interpretation of significant results of 2 x 2 bivariate interactions: • ii: unmarried people having submissive trait of personality are more prone to suicidal ideation than single (unmarried people) with assertive trait of personality. • iv: unmarried people having submissive trait of personality are more prone to suicidal wishes than married people having submissive trait of personality. it appears that young adults today are more likely prone to emotional-disorders that develop suicidal thoughts correspond closely to marital-status, in that it tends to occur more frequently among single persons and those who are divorced and separated than among married living together. although it is tempting to speculate that marriage contributes to the prevention probably more correct to say that emotional-disturbances themselves may have lead to the marital-breakups. it is also possible that young persons who were emotionally disturbed in late adolescent and young adult phase did not marry and he rae of suicide was found in creaming in them. there are large differences between men and women, age groups and cultural groups in rates of suicide. marital status is strongly correlated with suicide. twice as many as single people than married kill themselves, and childless women are more likely to commit suicide than those with children. researchers found that married individuals are less lonely than their non-married counterparts (unmarried) (perlman & peplau, 1998). the present investigation indicates that unmarried people of age group (30-50) years have more anxiety, depression, confusion, unable to concentrate, and less sociable or introvert. horwitz, allan v., white, helene raskin, howell-white sandra (1996) found that despite the assumption that marriage enhances psychological well-being, little evidence exists that the social role of marriage, rather than the characteristics of individuals who get married, accounts for the benefits of marriage. a field study, conducted in calcutta reported some important correlates of common mental disorders in women. age, marital status, economic status, occupation, education and family roles comprise these correlates. neuroses increase with age for both sexes but women have a much higher rate. single women were found to have less illness compared to single men. the ratio was equal for married couples but widowed females had higher rates of illness. the influence of economic status was not very clear. -graphical presentation of main effect & interaction 1. mean values on suicide ideation in relation to assertive vs. submissive (personality trait), age, sex, and marital-status in adults. graph-1 2. interaction between personality trait and marital-status on suicide ideation in adults graph-2 graph-3 reference crosby, a. e., cheltenham, m. p. & sacks, j. j. (1999). incidence of suicidal ideation and behavior in the united states. suicide and life-threatening behavior, 29, 131-140. statham, d. j., health, a. c., madden, p., bucholz, k., beirut, l., dinwiddie, s. h., slutskee, w. s., dunne, m. p., & martin, n. g. (1998). suicidal behavior: an epidemiological study. psychological medicine, 28, 839-855. hoyer, g. & lund, e. (1993). suicide among women related to number of children in marriage. archives of general psychiatry, 50, 134-137. nimh (2000). the mental health of urban america: the urban programs of the national institute of mental health. washington, d.c.: government printing office lewinsohn, p. m., roberts, r. e., seeley, j. r., rohde p., gotlib, i. h., & hops, h. (1994). psychosocial risk factors for depression. journal of abnormal psychology, 103,302-315. kushner, h. i. (1995). women and suicidal behavior: epidemiology, gender and lethality in historical perspective. in s. s. canetto & d. lester (eds.), women & suicidal behavior: new york: springer. moscicri, e. (1995). epidemiology of suicidal behavior. suicide and lifethreatening, 25, 22-35. murphy, e. lindesay, j. & grundy, e. (1986). 60 years of suicide in england & wales: a cohort study. archives of general psychiatry, 43, 969-976. beck a. t., kovacs m., & weissman a. (1979). assessment of suicidal intention: the scale of suicide ideation. j consult clin psychology, 47, 343-352. bhargava, m. (1994). dimensional personality inventory (dpi), nandini enterprises, agra, india. perlman, d., & peplau, l. a. (1998). loneliness. in h. s. friedman (ed.), encyclopedia of mental health (vol.2), san diego: academic press horwitz, a. v., white, h. r., & howell-white s. (1996). becoming married and mental health: a longitudinal study of a cohort of young adults. journal of marriage and the family, 58(4), 895-907. making a difference: ejop choice beatrice popescu ejop editor the initiative of launching an electronic journal of psychology may seem rather eccentric in today’s eastern europe where economic and political priorities tend to animate both the academic “arena” and the cyberspace. whether there is a need for such a product or not on the free market of ideas, time will probably decide. for the time being though, our wish is to launch a warm invitation to you, all students and professionals in the field of psychology to express your views, regardless of theoretical orientation. in ejop we will try to balance both the scientific and the applied areas, ideally following the scientist-practitioner’s paradigm. ejop will welcome any contribution beneficial to the development of psychology as theory and practice. and if this also involves constructive criticism from professionals in the field, we will welcome this kind of approach too. while most of the psychology journals worldwide try to maintain a rather narrow view in the name of specialization, some of the keywords expressing ejop’s style are: eclecticism, diversity, inter-disciplinarity, multiculturalism, courage, humour. still a rather shy newcomer in the virtual psychological community, ejop will try to prove its efficiency by meeting your professional needs as soon as possible. our hope is that you, dear reader, will soon become our partner into sharing the latest thoughts and questions stirring the contemporary man or woman interested in psychology either as science, art, theory, praxis, vocation or passion. hopefully we will be able to grow together sharing our intellectual experiences, by taking advantage of the benefits offered by internet communication. enhancing the success of outsourcing initiatives carroll hern the cumis group york university ronald j. burke the cumis group york university outsourcing has become an increasingly powerful option for many companies seeking to reduce costs, enhance service and focus on core competencies. most commonly used for information technology services, this trend of business process outsourcing (bpo) is very prevalent in human resources (hr). it is a $1.36 billion industry in canada alone and is expected to increase 10.6 percent each year over the next five years (vu, 2004). according to the gartner group, hr administrative tasks topped the list of processes outsourced in 2003 and predict that by 2007, hr bpo will be a $37.8 billion-plus industry in the united states, up from $25 billion in 2002, for an 8.6 percent growth rate. defining outsourcing the word “outsourcing” defines the process of transferring the responsibility for a specific business function from an employee group to a non-employee group. essentially, outsourcing is the transfer of services or functions previously performed within the organization to a provider outside of the organization and is increasingly a key component in many business strategies. outsourcing is not new to hr but, until fairly recently, it has been largely confined to functions like reference checking, payroll and benefits administration. over the past five years, companies have begun expanding the scope of hr activities they are willing to turn over to an outside organization. outsourcing has therefore migrated to include other functions such as training, recruitment, compensation, hr information technology and performance management. according to a recent survey by hewitt associates, more than sixty percent of companies outsource part or all of hr administration. simultaneously, as functions are outsourced, leaders relieve their employees of albeit important, but mundane, repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus their efforts solely on the core, value-adding activities needed for the organization to maintain its competitive advantage. if the role of hr and the opportunity to contribute to the business strategy is enhanced by hr bpo, then the core responsibilities that are likely to stay in an organization are hr strategy, hr program design, coaching and consulting, workforce analysis and planning, change management, budget and vendor management (stroh & trechiboff, 2003). why outsource/benefits motivations to outsource come from many places and are as varied as the companies pursuing the solution and most organizations who decide to outsource are doing so with the objective to achieve a combination of many associated benefits. some of the main driving factors prompting organizations to outsource include cost savings, a focus on core competencies, access to leading–edge technological advances, access to specialized expertise, improvement in the delivery and quality of services, and/or a solution to resolving organizational politics (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). cost savings research on outsourcing typically presents outsourcing as primarily a time and money-saving strategy, as a way to obtain better services at cheaper rates (jeffay, bohannon, & laspisa, 1997) generally speaking, there is little reason to outsource if contracting out the function incurs more time and money than keeping the activity in-house. studies of cost savings pertaining to outsourcing arrangements of two or more years showed average savings of fifteen percent (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). exult, a leading hr bpo provider, say that it is reasonable to expect at least a 20% reduction in hr administrative costs (lawler, ulrich, fitz-enz & madden, 2004). according to bendor-samual (1998) cost savings occur due to the fact that outsourcing provides certain leverage that is not available to a company’s internal departments. this leverage can have many dimensions: economies of scale, process expertise, access to capital and access to expensive technology. the combination of these dimensions creates the cost savings inherent in outsourcing. furthermore, cost savings are realized by converting in-house fixed costs, such as hr staff salary to variable costs wherein organizations only purchase and pay for the services related to areas such as design and strategy consultation when they need it (jeffay, et al, 1997). these costs savings however, are only realized if in fact the organization limits the use of these additional services. this type of arrangement allows financial benefits in that organizations can predict their outsourcing costs and budget without fear of fluctuating costs (ioma’s report on managing benefits plans, 2003). for the supplier, hr outsourcing is likely to require upfront investment in understanding the particular needs of the organization. where firms emphasize distinctive practices, they will likely limit the ability of the contractor to provide satisfactory services. if outsourcing is argued to result in greater economies of scale due to availability of multiple clients with similar needs ( abraham & taylor, 1996); economies of scale will decline when idiosyncratic practices required specific investments. the reduction of economies of scale, will, in turn, adversely impact the cost advantage of hr outsourcing. focus on core competencies the new challenge to hr is to take accountability for the return on investment of essential corporate assets, people and organizational processes. hr’s redefined role is to concentrate on providing strategic value that helps the company gain relative advantage against its competition. if hr is largely focussed on administration, many executives may discount its strategic importance. a number of research studies have pointed out that hr executives are often mired in administrative details when they should be dealing with major strategic business issues. outsourcing non-core activities can allow hr professionals to move away from routine administration to a more strategic role. outsourcing provides the opportunity for these resources to re-focus on strategic work that adds value to the organizations’ core competencies. in fact, companies who have embraced outsourcing are generally more advanced in the hr shift away from administration towards strategic contribution (hr focus, 2004). rather than juggling every aspect of the business, organizations can focus on their core competences, while moving other activities to organizations which excel at these functions (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). a company should not outsource any activity that directly contributes to its strategic, competitive advantage. if a company believes it can build a sustainable lead in an activity that offers long –term competitive advantage, then it should refrain from outsourcing and focus on building superior capability in that area. core, strategic hr functions that should not be outsourced in order to ensure a strategic link to the business include orientation, leadership development, employee relations, final selection, performance management and succession management (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). the rationale behind these suggested ‘core functions’ is effective management of these functions depends on a deep understanding of organizational culture, trust, consistency, access to confidential information and a long-term orientation (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). this would help to explain why different companies of different sizes choose to outsource different hr activities. a strong case can be made that hr needs to develop better metrics and analytics if it is ever to become a true strategic partner in most organizations. outsourcing not only frees up time for other purposes but, data from outsourcers can provide valuable insights about how strategies are working and what might be expected in different strategic scenarios. as they gain clients, they are likely to be able to provide valuable normative data as well as analytic models. lawler and mohrman (2003b) identify the use of metrics as one of four characteristics that lead hr to become a strategic partner. boudreau and ramstad (2003) distinguish between providing more hr measures (not a strategic contribution) and providing better logic and analytics for making decisions about talent (a strategic contribution). the adoption of an hr bpo approach should lead to improved metrics about how well the hr function is operating. analytics can help an organization diagnose what is and what is not working and make improvements in its practices. access to leading-edge technology managing a successful hr operation relies on increasingly large investments in technology and it is becoming increasingly complicated to put together and sustain a state-of the art delivery system. technological advances enable the automation of many hr functions, promoting hr as a top candidate for outsourcing (logue, 2004). hr outsourcing provides a means for accessing and maintaining the latest technology that may otherwise not be feasible in-house from a cost perspective. “handling all the different aspects-software, system integration and maintenance, call centres and more-requires tremendous resources. it is more than a lot of companies can handle”. (bloom & wallace consulting firm) access to these advancements such as self-service web-based technology allows employees to have improved access to their hr information (smail, 2003) and benefit from quicker transaction times (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). access to specialized expertise one-third of respondents in one study of companies outsourcing human resources, indicated access to specialized hr expertise to be the primary motivation for outsourcing (abrahamson & ruth, 2003). results of a recent survey identified vendor expertise, along with time savings, as the most frequently cited rationales for outsourcing hr activities. the demand for specialized expertise is not surprising, given the growing complexity of hr tasks and the decline in hr specialists resulting from organizational downsizing. as companies require more specialized hr expertise, their best alternative is to hire external hr vendors to perform activities that were formerly performed in-house. an outsourcing vendor specialized in hr can apply a portfolio of accomplishments from other organizations facing similar challenges to solving an organization’s hr needs (martin, 1997). outsourcing provides organizations with the opportunity to tap into the leading edge “hr thinking, technologies and programs without having to invest in developing and maintaining them” (jeffay et al, 1997, p.2). hr bpo organizations do not just need a core competency in hr administration, they need a core competency in web-enabled hr administration. if an hr bpo can satisfy a diverse customer base with the same technology, it gains even further economies of scale and is likely to be more profitable. additionally, outsourcing an hr activity can reduce liability and risk, which is critical for smaller companies that do not have the resources to employ staff specialists who are fully informed on the legal requirements of hr programs. for example, substantial expertise is required to insure that a retirement program conforms to the employee retirement income security act (erisa). as a result, smaller companies sometimes outsource the administration of their entire retirement program. employee assistance programs (eaps) and drug testing are also frequently outsourced regardless of company size, thus reducing legal liability associated with divulgence of confidential information. improving the quality of service data from hewitt’s annual best employers in canada study, demonstrates that one characteristic that sets “best employers” apart from other participating organizations, is their ability to do ”the basics well”. outsourcing often allows a company to get better quality hr services. many companies outsource because they believe they can get the new required level of hr service faster and with more confidence in succeeding, through outsourcing (jeffay et al, 1997). this is particularly true as companies can choose vendors with excellent track records, wherein acceptable performance standards are written in a contact (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). although the anticipated increase in quality of service is linked to the best practices realized through specialized expertise and the technological capabilities, inherent in most outsourced hr service providers, there may be other reasons contributing to the enhanced service level over in-house hr departments. prospective clients believe that bpo providers offer focus, expertise, and ability to obtain economies of scale which should improve the service that the companies are getting from their internal staff groups. exult, a leading bpo provider convincingly argues that they can make process improvements that will upgrade service quality, reduce costs, and increase speed to levels that cannot be obtained from a staff group (lawler, et. al, 2004). overall, organizations are finding more flexible, responsive, higher quality services in outsourced hr service providers (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). organizational politics organization politics play a part in terms of the perception around acceptable headcount within an organization or function (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). downsizing has frequently required hr departments to contribute to the organizational restructuring by reducing their staffs. hr outsourcing presents the option of cost reduction and the choice to hold or release control of selected hr activities. the choice depends on whether an activity is deemed a core competency with the hr department. organizational politics may even be the reason the outsourcing vendor is able to provide better service as contractors are often able to negotiate the necessary improvements and investments more easily than managers of in-house services (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). the use of outsourcing is a way to “syndicate the risk” when the organization cannot stay current on all the new developments in the hr field hr bpo may also make sense for organizations because they can provide support and flexibility when the firm is growing or scaling down in size. cost efficiencies can be gained due to adjustments based on the expansion or reduction of an organization’s headcount. limitations given that many organizations are convinced that the above noted benefits can be achieved through outsourcing, as in many situations, the key to effective outsourcing is to manage the risk downward, while strengthening the factors that lead to success. there are major risk areas that organizations need to consider when making the decision to outsource, some of which include, projected benefits are often not fully realized, flexibility to change service requirements are limited, reduced value of the organization and employee morale is negatively affected (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). 1. projected benefits vs. actual benefits hr bpo is still in its infancy and much is still to be learned. results to date are early indicators and companies are not yet experiencing consistent results. towers perrin surveyed 32 companies, nearly all of which had outsourced five or more hr business process between 2000 and 2004. the survey did find that organizations are realizing immediate returns on the cost front, with more than 75% of the respondents saying they had met short-term cost savings. this is not surprising since most contracts hold the outsourcer to some level of required savings, which can range from 12% to 40% of outsourced process costs depending on the nature of the arrangement and a company’s willingness to rely on the outsourcer’s standard approach and practices. reductions in long-term costs are beginning to emerge as well. participants generally have not met broader objectives around shifting their focus to core competence and only 35% cited improvements in service quality beyond what they could have achieved on their own. in contrast, in a recent yankee group report, on hr bpo, only 48% of key decision makers agreed that hr outsourcing had delivered the promised return on investment they expected. in some instances, outsourcing has been found to raise costs. reasons for increased costs include system incompatibilities requiring further investment or additional services needed beyond the initial contract negotiated (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). in one survey interviewees explained that their existing scale effects of already being part of a large company eliminated any potential savings from outsourcing. what is clear is that organizations need to recognize that cost savings are not immediate, and are typically not recognized for at least five years (ioma’s pay for performance report, 2004). 2. service risks even if a company achieves their cost objectives, they must also be mindful of the potential impact on the quality of service. for example, one u.s company’s goal was to reduce administrative costs by 40%, but failed to sufficiently examine the implications such a reduction would have on employee service. the new effect was that the organization’s expectations were never realized and the hr leadership was unable to deliver service at the level needed to sustain the workforce. outsourcing hr enables companies to provide new capabilities and services for employees. once an outsourced vendor takes accountability for delivering services, the organization has limited control in changing the nature of the services to reflect the changing needs of the business (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). in essence, the organization loses the “flexibility and customization it enjoys from its own hr people when it out sources” (seeley, 1992, p.2). for example, consider whether the outsource provider would be able to respond if the client moved to a new performance management program or how responsive a provider can be if the company was to enter into a merger or acquisition. companies can mitigate this impact by understanding their anticipated organizational needs at the outset, and then decide to employ a fixed-price or variable priced model, or a combination of both. in some cases such as dispute resolution, some hr managers noted that it can be difficult for employees to find an hr professional to help them with a problem. in all cases, they can contact a service centre, but some employees feel that it is an impersonal and ineffective way to have their grievances resolved. another reason why managers may not recognize improvement in service is that hr staff members and the employees they serve can develop a co-dependency relationship when it comes to hr administration and problem resolution. that is, they learn to depend on each other, and although the relationship may not be very efficient and may be quite costly, both become attached to it. it provides the hr staff members with a reason for being and a great deal of satisfaction when they are able to solve a problem or resolve a dispute. other related risks are that the third party vendor becomes so familiar with the organization they are able to enter in the same market and position themselves as a competitor. (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). reduced value insufficient focus on retaining hr activities that support core competencies can have unintended consequences when key hr activities are hollowed out of the old hr department, resulting in lost capability and diminished customer service quality. this has the potential of reducing hr’s competitive advantage for the firm. in addition, there may be unintended consequences of outsourcing the organization’s knowledge and skills to external firms. the vendor may even sell acquired know-how to competitors (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). because hr departments run the risk of losing their identities with extreme levels of outsourcing, a mixture of outsourcing and in-house activities seems optimal in many circumstances. employee morale a decision to outsource needs to take the psychological effects into consideration, as it represents the human cost of the outsourcing activity. “choosing not to address the emotional toll an outsourcing decision can have may lead to actual costs, in the form of reduced morale and productivity or an unsuccessful outsourcing relationship” (overby, 2004, p.1). outsourcing inevitability results in displaced employees (belcourt & mcbey, 2004) ultimately affecting morale and productivity. in an outsourcing arrangement, employees may be transferred to the outsourced vendor, internally to other departments, out-placed or offered voluntary retirement packages (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). all of these options can result in negative reactions or feelings from the affected employees. although transferring jobs to outsourced vendors can minimize the impact as a job still exists for employees, the terms and conditions of the current contract may not be fulfilled by the new organization, contributing to further anxiety. employees identify themselves as part of an organization and, as individuals, thrive on a sense of belongingness (maslow’s hierarchy of needs) that no longer exists if their job is outsourced. the psychological impact even from just rumours of outsourcing can range from fear and uncertainty to more devastating affects such as depression or violence among affected employees (overby, 2004). these affects in turn influence morale, productivity and ultimately impact achieving the goals of the outsourcing arrangement. key success factors outsourcing is not a small undertaking; it requires planning, communication and follow-up (zhu, hsu & lillie, 2001). companies that have effectively implemented outsourcing in their organizations point to different reasons for their success, but most employers agree on the following core elements to successful implementation: 1. planning and preparation: set realistic objectives and expectations for the process and the transition. 2. effective change management: includes obtaining stakeholder buy-in, communicating early and often and planning for the work that will stay and for the people whose work will go away. 3. manage the relationship: design and execute a robust governance structure, promote teamwork and evaluate progress by measuring the right things 4. contract negotiations: be thorough in understanding and documenting requirements 5. vendor selection: select the right outsourcing provider planning and preparation: before making the decision to outsource, companies must plan thoroughly and gain full commitment from the entire organization. outsourcing must be conducted carefully, systematically and with explicit goals. the primary motives for considering outsourcing should include strategic as well as tactical considerations at both the department and organizational level. it is important that management not use outsourcing to justify relinquishing control of inadequately managed, poorly understood or costly functions, as this would result in an unsatisfactory outcome. preparation involves examining current internal processes and setting realistic goals for the outsourcer (hr focus, 2003). it is important to understand what work is done in the current environment, why it is done and why it is done a certain way. nigel knight, of ibm business consulting services suggests that a project team be established to assess the potential scope and risks of bpo. an often neglected aspect of the planning stage is the assessment of the current costs and performance of the hr function. such data analysis provides a baseline for measuring what bpo can achieve and may ultimately be pivotal in developing the business case. in addition to costs, other considerations that also should be addressed in the business case include: the impact outsourcing a particular function may have on customer service, the impact it may have on the community where is operates as well as the potential political consequences of employee reduction. successful outsourcing requires thorough execution of all implementation activities. it is equally critical to not under-estimate the time and effort it will take to make the transition to a new system, particularly if it is web based. allow time for employees to become comfortable with the new approach. in any change of this magnitude, at least 10 to 20 percent of people affected will be opposed. change management: the shift to hr bpo is a major transformation in the way hr services are delivered and therefore brings a number of significant changes to the organization, raising critical change management issues. this change in delivery requires buy-in and participation from several stakeholders, leaders, managers, employees and hr professionals to ensure the shift is a success. companies that have the greatest success in driving change designate a leader with credibility to be the champion of the change in order to accelerate the adoption of the new delivery model. a particularly important feature of the change process concerns how the existing employees will be dealt with. outsourcing has a major effect on the employees in hr and a significant effect on all other employees. over prepare the hr employees who will be directly involved. employees may feel threatened; they may also be suspect of a larger hidden agenda. it is necessary to be completely transparent regarding short term and long term plans and goals. a major communication and training effort is needed to explain what is happening and why and to familiarize employees with the new process. although there are varying opinions as to when employees should be informed about the process (belcourt & mcbey, 2004), the reality is that information is bound to leak out and even if it has not been formally announced, rumours are just as likely to heighten anxiety and potentially encourage the best performers to job search. candid communication wherein the rationale of the merger is shared (caplan, 2004) and information prepared around how the outsourcing arrangement may impact employees is critical in retaining the trust of employees. additionally, some of the strongest advice is to involve unions if they will be affected by the change. it will be necessary to keep them educated and informed and let them have an opportunity to understand what is going to unfold. manage the relationship and monitor the arrangement: a crucial factor often overlooked by management when calculating the potential benefits of an outsourcing strategy is that, by nature, outsourcing trades the problems associated with managing a specific service or function for those of managing alliances with external partners. organizations in the hr bpo relationship need to work together in a partnership mode. they are in a long-term, multi-year relationship that can only work if the organizations and people trust and respect each other. no contract, no matter how extensive, can cover all of the contingencies that come up, so it is critical that processes be put in place that allow organizations to deal with problems and unexpected events effectively. some of the key culture fit issues are the value that the organizations involved place on speed and quality and how they resolve conflict. one of the biggest mistakes organizations make after outsourcing is to assume hr staff is no longer needed (ioma’s pay for performance report, 2003).the contracts and relationships need to be continuously managed to ensure productivity and efficiency in reaching an organization’s outsourcing goals. the role of the hr person or team dedicated to outsourcing is basically to manage the relationship with the vendor to ensure the organization is receiving effective and efficient services at an acceptable level. frequent, accurate reports should be reviewed to ensure satisfaction with the vendor(s)’ commitment to these measures (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). further, client satisfaction surveys should be conducted regularly to gauge the quality of service provided (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). research indicates the companies realizing the benefits of outsourcing were the ones who managed the vendor relationship better and built a relationship right from the very start (tarsh, 2004). this involves a complete partnering between the organizations to review progress and continuously improve the arrangement (yallof & morgan, 2003). a relationship should be built between the vendor(s) and the organization to ensure the vendor acts in the organizations best interest (belcourt & mcbey, 2004) and to ensure mechanisms exist to work out issues along the way. trust between the contractor and purchaser is essential since no set of rules can define the relationship. the required relationship between the parties has been called a “clan” where shared values, common beliefs, and serial equity become foundations for sustaining the contract. as previously mentioned, for organizations to work together, it is imperative that there be some degree of cultural fit and compatibility between them. as any differences in culture and operating styles between partners are likely to emerge only as the collaboration evolves, much depends on being able to identify such differences quickly and to resolve them effectively. governance is a crucial component which ensures a successful long term relationship. governance is a formal management framework and structure that enables vendors and organizations to mutually manage the relationship, expectations, contractual dependencies and services. the most successful bpo arrangements to date have regular client-provider meetings and also have designated managers on each side and at several levels to keep watch over the relationship. as such, there should be regular meetings scheduled to review progress and discuss and recommend ways to remove barriers that either organization is feeling to ensure a solid relationship. regular meetings with the vendor provide a critical opportunity to clearly express priorities, review what is working what is not working, identify continuous improvement initiatives and set objectives for both organizations aimed at attaining success (yallof & morgan, 2003). some successful organizations even conduct joint training and development programs focusing on building this relationship such as mutual problem solving workshops providing both organizations with the tools to work together to solve issues (hunt, 2004). the individual or team managing the relationship will need hr expertise, systems knowledge and management skills to effectively build solid relations and ultimately guide outsourcing operations to success (o’connell, 1997) although governance provides a structural and procedural context for leadership, effective suppliers exercise leadership more directly. one study found that the individuals fulfilling supplier leadership roles had a considerable impact on client relationship success. in unsuccessful cases, the leader of the supplier team was often seen as too focused on delivery and meeting contractual service levels. in successful relationships, the quality of the supplier leader’s personal relationship with the client leader and the relationship between the supplier’s leader and the supplier’s top management can have an important impact on the wider relationship between client and suppler organizations. selection of the individual to lead the client account would therefore be a key consideration in sustaining an effective ongoing partnership. contract negotiation: developing a good contract is critical to hr bpo outsourcing. entering into contracts that are poorly structured can lead to failure. due diligence needs to extend into the contract negotiation stage of the process. too often organizations sign the contract before finalizing all of the fine details such as service level agreements and find they are not attaining the benefits they were seeking (huber, 2003). because every aspect of the outsourcing arrangement is governed by the contract, both sides must agree on all the terms and conditions of the partnership agreement. this requires that management consider every possible contingency that could arise during the course of the partnership, including the resolution of disputes after the contract has been signed. thus, it is advisable that internal as well as external legal experts be consulted when drafting the contract. experts advise organizations to seek independent council and experts the same way the vendor would, to ensure the organizations interests are being met, acceptable performance standards are determined (belcourt & mcbey, 2004) and an appropriate fee structure and exit strategy is covered. some experts even recommend having a fallback plan, such as another qualified supplier to ensure organizations do not feel limited if the organizational requirements can not be met. acceptable service and quality level measures should be explicitly outlined and penalties enforced if the vendor does not meet these levels (belcourt & mcbey, 2004). there should be clear goals for all relevant criteria including performance indicators such as accessibility, timeliness of service, accuracy, and customer satisfaction (yallof & morgan, 2003). although organizations want to protect themselves with tight agreements leaving no room for misinterpretation, there is also the risk of specifying conditions too tightly. this does not allow the vendor room to apply discretion to respond to a business needs or insert innovation to improve services (tarsh, 2004). in contracts as large as and complicated as those in hr bpo, many issues will remain vague and depend on trust. thus, it is particularly important that contracts be clear about expectations, roles and dispute resolution. vendor selection: cost, customer service and experience were found to the biggest priorities of firms selecting a provider (abrahamson & ruth, 2003), however, many of the outsourcing failures by corporations can be traced to choosing the wrong vendor. nothing is more fundamental to the success of an outsourcing effort than the fit between an organization and its vendor. the vendor needs to have the right systems and working style that fits with the company it is serving. one of the most difficult and underestimated issues facing outsourcing relationships is the impact of cultural differences between the client and vendor organizations. clients tend to believe that the norms, values and ethics of their vendors will be similar to their own. once into the relationship, they realize that the vendor’s view of time management, organizational structure, business approaches, decision-making processes, long term cooperation and teamwork may be much different from their own. if these issues are not addressed and resolved in a timely manner, the relationship is destined to finger pointing, low productively and mutual dissatisfaction. selection criteria should include a high criterion weighting for vendors’ knowledge of the industry because hr practices differ across industries. finally, organizations that choose a firm with similar culture (hr focus, 2003) increase compatibility throughout the process, and should have the infrastructure to adapt to changing business needs (employee benefit plan review, 2000). in addition, vendor stability and continuity are critical to the long term success of an hr bpo contract. conclusion the search for how hr can be more strategic and aligned with the business has been an ongoing goal of hr professionals and certainly outsourcing has become an important strategic tool in today’s competitive business environment. the decision to outsource a function should start with a sound business plan and successful outsourcing process starts with a good contract. the business relationship between the client and the vendor after the outsourcing should be clear to all parties prior to the completion of the vendor agreement. addressing the key change management issues for employees impacted by the decision is necessary to achieve long term success. it is clear that the role of outsourcing should not only include cost saving objectives but should look to address other benefits such as improved service, focus on core competencies, access to leading-edge technology and specialized expertise. as indicated in the research findings, organizations can achieve significant benefit from using outside agencies to provide non-core services, however organizations must weigh carefully the specific reasons, costs and benefits associated with the decision. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(4), pp. 56-70 www.ejop.org subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes: ev idence from cortisol analyses martin verner1 achim conzelmann2 katrin lehnert2 roland seiler2 annina wassmer2 thomas rammsayer1 1) institute of psychology, university of bern, bern 2) institute of sport science, university of bern, bern abstract stress response can be considered a consequence of psychological or physiological threats to the human organism. elevated cortisol secretion represents a biological indicator of subjective stress. the extent of subjectively experienced stress depends on indiv idual coping strategies or self-regulation skills. because of their experience with competitive pressure, athletes might show less pronounced biological stress responses during stressful events compared to non-athletes. in the present study, the short version of the berlin intelligence structure test, a paper-pencil intelligence test, was used as an experimental stressor. cortisol responses of 26 female swiss elite athletes and 26 female non-athlete controls were compared. salivary free cortisol responses were measured 15 minutes prior to, as well as immediately before and after psychometric testing. in both groups, a significant effect of time was found: high cortisol levels prior to testing decreased significantly during the testing session. furthermore, athletes exhibited reliably lower cortisol levels than non-athlete controls. no significant interaction effects could be observed. the overall pattern of results supports the idea that elite athletes show a less pronounced cortisol-related stress response due to more efficient coping strategies. keywords: cortisol, athletes, intelligence test, sport http://www.ejop.org/ subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes 57 introduction elite athletes are often confronted with highly stressful events during contests. not only because the participation in important competitions can lead to nervousness, but also due to critical situations during a contest. such critical situations leading to acute stress could be a tie-break situation in a tennis game, a referee’s wrong decision, experiencing pain or being reprimanded by the coach. i t has been demonstrated that coping abilities have a crucial impact on the performance and personal satisfaction of athletes (anshel, 1990). the inability to cope with acute stressors during contests can have a negative effect on psychological processes such as concentration, attentional focus, and arousal. lower concentration or attention can lead to lower sport performance. in case that the athlete is able to cope with the stressful demands, the crucial processes and the performance stay unaffected (anshel, 1990; smith, 1986). i t is well-known that stress reactions depend on three components: the characteristics of the stressor, the person’s appraisal of the situation, and indiv idual coping strategies (lazarus & folkman, 1984). adequate coping strategies lead to less subjectively experienced stress. consequently, a successful athlete might experience events during the contest generally as less stressful compared to a less successful athlete. the successful athlete might categorize an event as a challenge rather than a threat and is more likely to adopt an adequate and effective coping strategy. proceeding from these considerations, elite athletes, compared to non-athletes, may also experience lower subjective stress in performance-related everyday-life situations. from a biological v iew, there is a functional relationship between stress reaction and activ ity of two physiological systems, namely the sympatho-adreno-medullary (sam) system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis. experienced stress activates the sam system and involves increased blood pressure, heart rate and the secretion of epinephrine and norepinephrine. the activation of the hpa axis represents a mainly endocrine response to stress. during stressful situations, especially during experienced feelings of helplessness as well as perceived uncontrollability and inability to cope, the pituitary gland releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (acth) into the bloodstream which in turn leads to a release of corticosteroids, including cortisol, in the adrenal cortex. cortisol responses reach their peak approximately 20-30 minutes after exposure to stress. thus, elevated cortisol secretion represents a biological indicator of subjectively experienced stress. therefore it is reasonable to assume that athletes show lower cortisol levels during threatening or challenging situations compared to non-athletes (weiner, 1992). europe’s journal of psychology 58 i t is necessary to distinguish between physical and psychological stressors. a large number of studies showed, that the hpa-axis can be stimulated by physical activ ity. for example, healthy participants showed elevated cortisol levels during sporting activ ity on bicycle ergometers (davis, gass, & bassett, 1981; mason, et al., 1973), treadmills (luger, et al., 1987), and long-distance runs (dessypris, et al., 1980). on the other hand, there is also ev idence for psychological or cognitive stimuli affecting the cortisol levels. mason (1968) postulated the following basic components of a psychologically provoked cortisol response: novelty or unpredictability of a situation, coping with stressful and uncontrollable situations, anticipation of future challenging events. for instance, elevated cortisol levels were found during anticipatory periods prior to exhausting muscle work (mason, et al., 1973), academic or scholar exams (hellhammer, heib, hubert, & rolf, 1985) or public speeches (lehnert, et al., 1989). hence, expecting an upcoming threatening or challenging event can lead to a stress reaction represented by an increased cortisol secretion. studies comparing endocrine responses in athletes and non-athletes during psychologically stressful situations are extremely scant. in a recent study, rimmele et al. (2007) compared cortisol responses of physically trained and untrained males to psychosocial stress induced by means of the trier social stress test (tsst kirschbaum, pirke, & hellhammer, 1993). the trained group consisted of members of swiss national or olympic teams recruited from endurance sports. the tsst consists of an anticipation period and a test period which includes a free speech and a mental arithmetic task in front of an audience. the trained group showed significantly lower heart rate and cortisol responses to the stressor compared to the untrained group. in a later study, rimmele et al. (2009) found support for their prev ious findings. a group consisting of amateur sportsmen was added to the experimental design. amateur sportsmen and untrained man showed the same cortisol levels and only elite sportsmen exhibited reliably lower cortisol levels after exposure to the tsst. in a prev ious study, sinyor, schwartz, peronnet, brisson, and seraganian (1983) compared self-reported arousal and anxiety, heart rate, and biochemical measures, such as cortisol and prolactin in trained and untrained subjects prior, during, and after exposure to three different cognitive tasks. the three tasks consisted of a mental arithmetic task during exposure to white noise, 23 quiz questions of varying difficulty, and a stroop task. with this latter task, color-words were displayed on a screen and participants were required to report the color in which the word was printed. the font color was always different from the color-word. trained subjects showed faster heart rate recovery. the trained group had marginally higher cortisol values than the untrained group but this effect failed to reach statistical significance. subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes 59 with regard to cortisol measures, the findings of the mentioned studies are quite inconsistent. there might be several reasons for the discrepancy. a possible reason for these ambiguous results may represent differences in the operationalizations of athleticism. synior et al. (1983) defined the trained group as subjects who participated heavily in “aerobic activ ities”. rimmele et al. (2007) recruited only sportsmen who were members of national teams in endurance-trained sports. additionally rimmele et al. (2009) were able to show that the level of physical activ ity affects cortisol levels during stressful situations. thus, athlete samples may have differed in the absolute level of physical fitness as much as in the efficiency of cognitive strategies for coping with stressful situations. another possible reason that could account for divergent results in the studies by rimmele et al. (2007, 2009) and synior et al. (1983) may be the fact, that different psychological stressors were applied in the two studies. for example, on the one hand, the hpa axis has been shown not to be particularly sensitive to mental arithmetic tasks (biondi & picardi, 1999). on the other hand, it has been argued that stressors containing a socioevaluative and uncontrollable element much more effectively produce an endocrine response compared to other stressors (dickerson & kemeny, 2004). this seems to be a crucial point since the tsst, as used by rimmele et al. (2007, 2009), is characterized by a strong socio-evaluative component (kirschbaum, et al., 1993). a social-evaluative threat can be defined as a situation in which important aspects of self-identity are judged by others (dickerson & kemeny, 2004). while certain aspects of self-identity may be indiv idually important in special situations or among certain groups of people – for instance athletic ability among athletes – intelligence is considered a core aspect of self-identity, sensitive to social judgment across diverse situations and domains (crocker & wolfe, 2001). consequently, psychometric assessment of intelligence should cause a stress response accompanied by increased cortisol secretion. furthermore, athletes might exhibit lower cortisol levels during performing on an intelligence test than non-athletes. although several studies analyzed endocrine effects while performing different cognitive tasks (dickerson & kemeny, 2004), to our knowledge, the effect of standardized psychometric intelligence tests on cortisol levels in athletes compared to non-athletes has not been investigated yet. in the present study, therefore, the short version of the berlin intelligence structure test (jäger, süss, & beauducel, 1997), a paper-pencil intelligence test, was used as an experimental stressor. cortisol measures prior and after the test have been taken as a physiological indicator of the subjective level of experienced stress. europe’s journal of psychology 60 we expected that the social-evaluative threat evoked by the intelligence test would elevate the cortisol levels significantly in both groups. furthermore we predicted, in accordance with the explanations above, that the athletic sample would experience generally less subjective stress, hence show lower cortisol levels compared to the non-athletic sample. kirschbaum, wüst, and hellhammer (1992) investigated sex differences in cortisol responses to psychological stress in four independent studies. men showed higher cortisol responses to stress and the anticipation of upcoming psychological stress compared to women. the authors suggested that sex differences in cognitive and/or emotional reactions to stress exposure may have led to the higher cortisol levels in men compared to women. to avoid any possible gender effects on subjectively experienced stress our sample includes solely female participants. a female sample may be of particular interest because prev ious studies on endocrine responses in athletes and non-athletes during psychologically stressful situations primarily investigated men. method participants participants were 26 female athletes ranging in age from 18 to 29 years (mean age ± sd = 21.0 ± 2.9 years) and 26 female non-athletes ranging in age from 18 to 31 years (mean age ± sd = 21.2 ± 2.7 years). the athletes group consisted of 11 members of the swiss national foot orienteering team, six members of the swiss national judo team, and nine members of top swiss floorball teams. all participating athletes had accomplished secondary education and had acquired a general qualification for university entrance. as a matter of fact, 24 of the 26 athletes were enrolled in university or advanced technical college classes. non-athlete controls were undergraduate psychology students from the university of bern who neither were members of a sports club nor reported work out on a regular basis. all participants were offered indiv idual intelligence profiles. in order to avoid interference with assessment of indiv idual cortisol levels, participants were instructed to refrain from physical activ ity, drinking soft drinks with low ph, eating meals, and smoking at least one hour prior to testing. informed consent was obtained from each participant before the experiment began. subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes 61 procedure berlin intelligence structure (bis) test for the measurement of psychometric intelligence, the short version of the berlin intelligence structure (bis) test (jäger, et al., 1997) was administered. this test is based on jäger's (1984) bis model of intelligence. the bis model classifies cognitive abilities with respect to the required mental operations and, concurrently, with respect to the contents of the processed tasks. four operations (reasoning, speed, memory, and creativ ity) and three contents (verbal, numerical, and figural) are differentiated. the short version of the bis comprises 15 subtests. reasoning is assessed by six subtests (two verbal, two numerical, and two figural subtests), while speed, memory, and creativ ity are measured with one verbal, one numerical and one figural subtest, respectively. scores on each of the 15 subtest were z standardized. the four operations were quantified by averaging the indiv idual z standardized scores on the six or three subtests for each operation. a more detailed description of the bis model and an evaluation of the bis test are prov ided by bucik and neubauer (1996) and by süß, oberauer, wittmann, wilhelm, and schulze (2002). assessment of cortisol levels cortisol concentration was assessed by collecting saliva samples using salivette (sarstedt, sevelen, switzerland) collection devices. saliva contains free cortisol which is a reliable measure for cortisol concentration in blood plasma (kirschbaum, 1991). assessment took place at three different time points. participants collected saliva samples themselves by chewing on the cotton swab for one minute. all saliva samples were kept frozen at -20 degrees celsius until biochemical analysis. the samples were analyzed as described by westermann, demir & herbst (2004). after preparing the samples by centrifuging at 3000 rounds per minute for five minutes to get a supernatant of low v iscosity, a commercially available immunoassay with chemiluminescence detection was used (clia; ibl-hamburg, hamburg, germany). in this study all cortisol measures are reported in nmol/l. time course of the study all test sessions started in the afternoon and took 65 minutes. after arrival, participants were briefly informed about the study protocol and instructed how to collect the first saliva specimen (t1). the second sample (t2) was obtained 15 minutes later immediately before psychometric assessment of intelligence. during the 15 minutes prior to the second saliva sampling, participants filled in a europe’s journal of psychology 62 questionnaire on personal details, such as demographic information and sportive activ ities, and were given general instructions on the subsequent psychometric assessment of intelligence. after collection of the second saliva specimen, participants worked on the short form of the bis intelligence test for 50 minutes. the final sample (t3) was collected after completion of the intelligence test. results descriptive statistics for cortisol levels (three time points) and the operation-related abilities as measured with the bis test (reasoning, speed, memory, and creativ ity) are presented in table 1. athletes non-athletes mean sem mean sem cortisol t1 6.19 .66 7.86 .66 t2 5.44 .61 8.82 .69 t3 3.93 .41 6.14 .53 intelligence speed .09 .13 -.09 .14 memory -.20 .12 .20 .12 creativity -.02 .12 .02 .15 reasoning -.19 .15 .19 .12 table 1: mean and standard error of the mean for the cortisol concentration at the three different time points of assessment (15 minutes before, immediately before and immediately after intelligence testing) in nmol/l, and mean z-scores and standard error of the mean (sem) for each operation of the berlin intelligence structure test in athletes (n = 26) and non-athletes (n = 26). a two-way analysis of variance was conducted with athletes and non-athletes being two levels of a group factor and the three measures of cortisol secretion [15 minutes prior to the assessment (t1), immediately before the assessment (t2) and immediately after the assessment (t3)] being three levels of a repeatedmeasurement factor. this analysis was computed to investigate a possible differential temporal course of cortisol secretion from 15 minutes prior to the psychometric assessment of intelligence until the end of the assessment. the main effect of the subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes 63 temporal course yielded statistical significance [f(2,100) = 22.20; p < .001; η2 = .31]. after high cortisol measures prior to the intelligence test, cortisol levels decreased during the testing session in both groups. post-hoc scheffé-tests revealed that cortisol secretion was significantly lower at t3 compared to t2 but did not vary significantly from t1 to also the group effect was statistically significant [f(1,50) = 10.50; p < .01; η2 = .17]. athletes showed reliably lower absolute cortisol levels (5.19 ± .53 nmol/l) compared to non-athletes (7.61 ± .53 nmol/l). although the interaction effect just failed to reach statistical significance [f(2,100) = 3.06; p = .052; η2 = .06], there was a slight increase in cortisol secretion from t1 to t2 in the non-athletic group, while the athletic group showed a slight decrease of cortisol secretion from t1 to t2. figure 1. mean cortisol levels and standard error of mean for each assessment time point (t1: cortisol sampling on arrival 15 minutes before intelligence testing; t2: immediately before intelligence testing which was 15 minutes after arrival; t3: immediately after intelligence testing which was 65 minutes after arrival). discussion and conclusion in the present study, salivary cortisol levels prior to and immediately after completion of an intelligence test were investigated with emphasis on differences between europe’s journal of psychology 64 athletes and non-athletes. the analyses showed differences in salivary cortisol levels over time. after high cortisol measures prior to the intelligence test, cortisol levels decreased significantly during the testing session in both groups. furthermore differences in cortisol levels between athletes and non-athletes were found. throughout the three time points of cortisol measurement the athletes showed lower cortisol levels compared to non-athletes. all participants refrained from physical activ ity, eating meals, smoking, and drinking soft drinks with low ph at least one hour prior to the experiment. all participants were female and of similar age. controlling these variables, the constant difference over time in cortisol levels between athletes and non-athletes supports the idea that highly trained and professional athletes use better or more efficient coping strategies compared to untrained people (anshel, 1990). to answer the question of whether intelligence tests produce an increased cortisol response, it is necessary to distinguish between base and reaction levels in our data. base cortisol levels represent endocrine activ ity without responding to a stressor. only reaction measures would be indicators for subjectively experienced stress. the analyses revealed reliably lower salivary cortisol levels in athletes compared to nonathletes at all three time points of cortisol measurement. i f our data consisted only of basal measures in situations where stressors are absent, highly trained athletes should have lower cortisol levels compared to untrained indiv iduals. according to luger et al. (1987), repetitive high physical activ ity leads to alterations in baseline as well as in reaction cortisol levels. highly trained runners showed elevated basal cortisol concentrations compared to sedentary participants and moderately trained runners. in the same study, highly trained runners showed lower cortisol reactions during physical activ ity compared to untrained controls. based on these findings, our cortisol data do not represent basal cortisol measures because athletes show lower cortisol levels compared to non-athletes. both groups did not engage in physical activ ity at least one hour prior to the experiment. this leads to the assumption that the higher salivary cortisol secretion in athletes compared to non-athletes in the present study was due to the anticipation of the psychometric assessment of intelligence. further support for this assumption provides the decrease of salivary cortisol during the test session. prev ious studies on the circadian activ ity revealed a moderate decrease of salivary cortisol during the afternoon. the decrease of salivary cortisol observed from t2 to t3 in the present study is larger than the decrease which could have been expected due to normal circadian activ ity (kirschbaum, 1991). a third argument for the assumption that the cortisol levels in our data represent stress reactions are the absolute values for each assessment time. considering the daytime of assessment our cortisol measures for athletes and non-athletes of 7.02 ± 3.45 (t1), 7.13 ± 3.71 (t2), and 5.04 ± 2.63 nmol/l (t3) were higher than baseline subjective stress in female elite athletes and non-athletes 65 salivary cortisol levels as measured by kirschbaum (1991) where mean salivary cortisol levels were of 4.50 ± 3.5 nmol/l (n = 708) between 3 pm and 5 pm. the first cortisol measure (t1) might represent an anticipatory response prior to the assessment of intelligence. during the first measure of cortisol secretion 15 minutes prior to the assessment of intelligence, participants knew that they were supposed to undergo psychometric assessment of intelligence. a reason for a stress reaction prior to the intelligence test might be the uncertainty about the form and content of the upcoming cognitive tasks and, of course, the social-evaluative element of such a test. intelligence builds a fundamental aspect of self-identity (crocker & wolfe, 2001) and was going to be measured by a test. consistent with earlier studies (hellhammer, et al., 1985; lehnert, et al., 1989; mason, et al., 1973), the anticipation of future threatening or challenging events elevated cortisol levels. both groups, athletes and non-athletes, showed a stress reaction. the fact that athletes showed lower cortisol secretion compared to non-athletes at t1 indicates that athletes used better coping strategies prior to the actual stressor. the next cortisol specimen (t2) was taken immediately prior to the assessment of intelligence. again athletes showed significantly lower stress reactions compared to non-athletes. although the measures at t2 did not differ significantly from t1 within the groups, there was a tendency for a slight decrease in the athletes group and an increase in the non-athletic group. this differential pattern of results suggests that athletes not only use better coping strategies but also engage them earlier. cortisol secretion decreased significantly in both groups from immediately before to immediately after the assessment of intelligence. this decrease of cortisol secretion indicates that subjectively experienced stress decreased during the assessment of intelligence. a possible reason for the decreasing stress could be that participants became familiar with the nature of the tasks and had the chance to judge or estimate their performance. such an adaptation to the situation should decrease the social-evaluative threat by the assessment of intelligence. without any physical or psychological stressors the sole working on cognitive or arithmetical tasks does not lead to higher cortisol activ ity (biondi & picardi, 1999). because we would not expect athletes to have lower cortisol levels compared to non-athletes in situations without any stressors, the significant difference between athletes and non-athletes in t3 might indicate that base levels might not have been reached yet immediately after intelligence testing since it takes cortisol measures around 20 minutes to reach their maximum levels after exposure to a stressor and about 40 minutes on average to return to basal levels again (dickerson & kemeny, 2004; kirschbaum, 1991). europe’s journal of psychology 66 mental performance data is shown in table 1. possible differences in intelligence between athletes and non-athletes are not part of this study and are therefore discussed very briefly. non-athletes showed a better performance in reasoning and memory compared to athletes. one possible explanation could be that athletes took the test session less seriously which might have an impact on the subjective social-evaluative threat of such an intelligence test. consequently this idea would also explain the lower cortisol levels. the missing differences in the other operations and the fact, that the athletes and their coaches received intelligence profiles as feedback do not support this idea. another explanation could be that the nonathletes group used better memory strategies. some of the psychology students might have acquired useful strategies in study courses and it is possible that they also have more experience in intelligence testing, especially concerning tasks measuring reasoning skills. also relations between cortisol secretion and memory performance should be mentioned here briefly. a large amount of literature documents effects of stress on memory. however, the direction of this effect does not seem to be consistent. while some studies found a negative effect of cortisol on memory, others showed that stress can enhance memory performance (buchanan, tranel, & adolphs, 2010). i t could be that in our non-athletes sample the higher cortisol levels had a positive effect on memory performance, but the fact that enhancing effects were mainly found in emotionally arousing memory tasks does not support this assumption (buchanan & lovallo, 2001; cahill, gorski, & le, 2010). the examination of differences in intelligence scores between athletes and non-athletes and the question in what extent cortisol levels affect psychometric intelligence demand further research. to avoid any clues which could lead to an additional threat of self-esteem and, therefore, to higher stress reactions, no self-evaluation of the subjectively experienced stress has been conducted. in future studies information about subjectively experienced stress might help interpret and assure the meaning of cortisol data. another limitation of the present study can be seen in the fact that no clear baseline measure was obtained. as mentioned above, cortisol levels reach their peak around 20 minutes after exposure to a stressor. it should be noted, however, that several samplings during the period after the completion of the intelligence test would have been helpful to better understand the differences between athletes and nonathletes. references anshel, m. h. 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(2004). determination of cortisol in saliva and serum by a luminescence-enhanced enzyme immunoassay. clinical laboratory, 50, 11-24. about the authors: martin verner studied psycholology at the university of bern until 2009. the data and results in the present work were part of his diploma thesis. at the moment he’s working at the institute of psychology at the university of bern. his main research interests are intelligence and temporal information processing and stress. address for correspondence: martin verner, institut für psychologie, universität bern, muesmattstrasse 45, ch-3000 bern 9 e-mail: martin.verner@psy.unibe.ch achim conzelmann, full professor, director of the institute of sport science, university of berne/switzerland, research interests: personality development in and through sport, differential sport psychology, motor development through the lifespan, talent research. katrin lehnert works at the institute of sport science at the university of bern. at the moment she`s doing her phd in sport psychology. her main research interests are sport and personality and differential gerontology. europe’s journal of psychology 70 roland seiler phd, holds a position as professor of sport science, mainly sport psychology, at the institute of sport science, university of berne, switzerland. his main research interest centres around first, the effects of sport involvement on a series of psychological dimensions such as, for example, stress, social anxiety, mental toughness, or attitudes towards violence and deviant behaviour, and second, social psychological themes of group action and group performance such as, group collective efficacy, emotions in groups, and coach–athlete and teacher–pupil relation and interaction. research is embedded into the framework of psychological action theory. a major concern is the quality management of applied sport psychology services, and a specific interest lies in the historical development of sport psychology. thomas rammsayer is professor of psychology at the university of bern, switzerland. he is trained in experimental, biological, differential, and clinical psychology and received his degrees from the universities of tübingen and giessen, germany. his research interests lie in experimental and biological psychology, including temporal information processing, pharmacopsychology, the biological basis of individual differences, and research on intelligence. the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology”: an innovative theoretical proposal and welcomed toolbox advancements book reviews neuman, yair (2014). introduction to computational cultural psychology. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. 226 pp. isbn 9781107661585. the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology”: an innovative theoretical proposal and welcomed toolbox advancements raffaele de luca picione*a [a] dipartimento di studi umanistici, università degli studi di napoli federico ii, naples, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 published (vor): 2014-11-28. *corresponding author at: dipartimento di studi umanistici, università degli studi di napoli federico ii, via porta di massa, n.1, napoli, cap. 80133, italy. e-mail: raffaele.delucapicione@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. neuman, yair (2014). introduction to computational cultural psychology. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. 226 pp. isbn 9781107661585. the book "introduction to computational cultural psychology" (cambridge university press, cambridge, 2014), written by professor yair neuman (ben-gurion university of the negev – beer-sheva, israel), is a further important contribution to the development of cultural psychology. the book is innovative, interesting, capable of cutting across different disciplines and scientific fields with ease but without ever slipping into banality or speculation. cultural psychology is developed and implemented in this book through the use of computational tools. in general terms, neuman, through a complex semiotic perspective, raises the possibility of using new analytic and computational tools for the study of meaning-making processes. over this remarkable work, he presents a broad overview of various computational tools capable of handling the complexity of the meaning-making process “in-between” cultural systems. neuman's endeavor focuses on running a series of in-depth studies through the development of computational tools that are capable of dealing with an extensive textual corpus. so far this task has proved quite impossible because of the enormous size of such a corpus and because of the weakness of certain theoretical perspectives underlying the use of previous tools of analysis. the results of neuman’s efforts appear solid, fruitful and very promising in this regard. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ neuman's mastery of traditionally discrete domains of knowledge is considerable. he manages to deal, from a multidisciplinary perspective, with cultural psychology, semiotics, psychoanalysis, dynamical systems, chaos theory, theoretical biology, and the use of statistical and computer tools. those who have read neuman’s two other books "processes and boundaries of the mind-extending the limit line" (published by springer, new york, 2003), and "reviving the living: meaning making in living systems" (published by elsevier, oxford, 2008) already know the fluid and clear style of argumentation and discussion which neuman is apt to adopt. issues of great complexity and importance are discussed through numerous examples, anecdotes, dialogues, including the description of personal episodes. this clarity never detracts from the rigor and meticulousness of a clear, precise and detailed argumentation. the style is fascinating and keeps the reader glued to the text. we emerge from the reading enriched not only by the amount of information offered, but also by the quality of the questions and open issues which keep on crossing the reader's mind long after finishing the book. even readers not intimately familiar with statistical tools can enjoy reading this book. those less interested in the detailed descriptions of the statistical instruments can skip the paragraphs of the chapters where these tools of analysis are presented. the field of cultural psychology is bound to benefit from this work. in addition to the technical aspect of the various analytic procedures, crucial theoretical and epistemological issues of cultural psychology are addressed. culture is discussed and analyzed in its ability to mediate between multiple levels of interaction. the somatic level, the subjective level, and the cultural and social level are ingeniously interwoven by neuman's studies and reflections. the corporeality, action, and materiality of interactions and routine practices are observed and described in their complexity and non-linearity as semiotic cultural processes. culture is not presented as a platonic idea or a set of instructions already given and passed down by genetic inheritance. on the contrary, it is a semiotic interface enabling the relationship between a person and her environment (whose materiality is always mediated by the presence of others). it is not a rigidly structurally defined system but a non-linear process of transformation in continuous development. neuman hearkens the lessons of two great semioticians, often regarded as antithetical and irreconcilable: saussure (structural linguistics) and peirce (interpretive process of semiosis). this connection is further strengthened by the lessons of vygostky's historical-cultural school and bakhtin’s attention to dialogic-interpretive activity. in this regard, it is important to emphasize that the recursive circularity between language and thought is discussed in depth in each section of the book. furthermore, the language-thought relationship is discussed from a keen perspective which recognizes the primary importance of the bodily processes (smell, taste, visual perception, etc.) and of social relations (de luca picione & freda, 2014). in this sense, text-making always takes place within culturally defined practices and in the presence of other persons, for communicative, pragmatic and constructive purposes. in fact, textualization is considered a way of being and acting, that contributes to the organization of the world. language takes shape in the constant pragmatic exchange with others, in a wider discursive field of speech. language is a semiotic device that enables human beings to implement their material relations with the world, and make them more complex. a text, in its most general sense, is a gateway to the understanding of a culture because culture is semiotically mediated (valsiner, 2007). both in continuity and in dialogue with the cultural psychology of jaan valsiner (2007, 2014), the focus on specific semiotic processes of sense-making recurs throughout the whole book. this focus is extensively developed through several concrete and specific applications. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology” 784 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from neuman's perspective, the mind is a semiotic embodied mind which develops from a shared cultural background and a symbolic mediation made possible thanks to others. the mind is constituted by processes of meaning-making. the construction of meaning is performed through two fundamental processes: the perception of differences and the social mediation of others. we find here an interesting development of gregory bateson's ideas from a cultural perspective. the basic unit of the mind – whether the mind of a chicken, the mind of the immune system, or the mind of a human being – is as explained by gregory bateson (2000, 318) a “difference which makes a difference […] signs, as units of meaning, exist in every complex biological system. we may therefore define the “mind” as the general term for a meaning-making system. […] there is of course a difference in the way different systems are involved in meaning making. human language and its written representation create a sharp demarcation between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom. despite similarities with other signaling systems, human semiotic systems are complex and abstract in a unique way (neuman, 2014, p. 8). language, with its possibilities for abstraction, creates the conditions for the further development of the mind. the relationship between subject and environment is made possible through the mediation of signs (which are transformed into differences, differences that generate differences). in this sense, the mind is a continuous social and relational process, because signs can exist only at the level of collective communication. subjectivity from a perspective critical of the solipsistic cartesian rationalism is restored as a profound and radical bodily and social experience. the social-material has precedence over the metaphysical, transcendental, and individual self. the rejection of all metaphysical and transcendental perspectives leads to consider the notion of context as central in cultural psychology for understanding any process of meaning-making. understanding a different culture in its context entails that we understand cultural situations. it depends on our ability to grasp the material environment with its symbolic value as well as the common knowledge of the participants and their evaluation of the situation from within their set of values (neuman, 2014, p. 13). from these considerations, neuman's ambitious, specific project takes on its own specific form and substance: “while there is no news in understanding cultures and the way they interact with the psychology of the individual, there is news in the way i propose to address this challenge. cultural psychology has gained insights from close ethnographic analysis of other cultures as well as from some quantitative studies. however, in recent years we have been experiencing a change that cannot be ignored or dismissed by cultural psychologists. the emergence of theweb, the establishment of huge data repositories unprecedented in human history, and the development of powerful information technology tools for text processing and data analysis have changed the scope of our research. whether such a changing landscape is an opportunity or a fashion is still an open question, but my aim is to introduce a new field and some preliminary evidence that this is indeed an opportunity” (neuman, 2014, p. 15). neuman faces in his book a great, insidious challenge: is it possible to understand the nature of the human mind, semiotically mediated (and understood as a system of meaning-making), through computational tools? this is the real challenge posed to an innovativecomputational cultural psychology. neuman deals with such a transition and methodological transformation in terms of a quantum leap in psychology. the ability to develop and use innovative tools cannot be ignored, discounted, or denied. neuman's purpose is being able to detect and study the time course and complexity of the systems of meaning-making by means of statistical and computational tools. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 de luca picione 785 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this follows exactly in the footsteps of an influential reflection by salvatore and valsiner (2010) about the possibility of developing an idiographic approach capable of creating generalized knowledge. in this sense, the classical opposition between the qualitative and the quantitative becomes immaterial. they state that every science is idiographic in its relationship to the phenomena under investigation, but it is also nomothetic because it is always focused on theoretical assumptions which define a phenomenon. (de luca picione, 2013; salvatore, gennaro, & valsiner, 2012; salvatore & valsiner, 2010). in the detailed, in-depth examples in neuman’s book, one can find the full synthesis of a qualitative interest for relational phenomena with the precision, accuracy and formalism of computational tools. the statistics and the systems of algorithms designed by neuman and his colleagues are not developed as a purely formal exercise, but are in fact tools which can be used and implemented to yield new knowledge. “my suggestion is that in order to be relevant to the study of complex systems and to cultural psychology in particular, psychology should undergo a change, becoming interdisciplinary in nature by relying on enormous resources of digital information through the platforms provided bymodern information technology and by adopting powerful computational tools for the analysis and simulation of real world data” (neuman, 2014, p. 22). reading neuman’s book and his proposal of a computational cultural psychology, i was reminded several times of the french mathematician benoit mandelbrot who, in the '60s and '70s, could visualize, by using the early computers, fractal figures unimaginable until except by intuition. computers allowed mandelbrot to explore the possibilities of fractal geometry (mandelbrot, 1975). the development of this geometry was not an exercise of pure formalization; it was rather an endeavor toward a qualitative topological geometry, interested in isomorphism and in relationships between the parts and the whole. this geometry has been successfully applied to a variety of disciplines, from biology to economics, from astronomy to medicine, from geography to social phenomena. likewise in the case of computational cultural psychology: the use of computer resources becomes a springboard to explore complex, non-linear relationships in themeaning-making processes which every cultural system develops through interactions between people. neuman always adopts a critical approach, and his enthusiasm for the innovative tools proposed is never blind to inherent difficulties. unlike the general idea of “computational social science”, computational cultural psychology focuses on the way the humanmind is mediated through sign systems, and the way this mediation may be studied through computational tools and new data repositories. neuman is well aware that our hermeneutics and interpretative skills are not replaceable, and that men and women cannot be summarized and described by linear descriptions. in this volume, one never finds a static representation of human beings; we are rather presented with fascinating and dynamic descriptions of the complex processes of human sense-making engendered by mundane intersubjective situations. it is impossible for this review to dwell on a detailed description of the computational tools used by neuman. the book presents and describes every tool and every procedure in detail. however, i am interested in presenting here a general overview of the chapters and some of their contents which can be considered central to any semiotic process of sense-making, and to its study, comprehension and research. in this regard, in chapter 3, the computational tools used by neuman are aimed at identifying the level of concreteness and abstraction of signs and words. this purpose is a remarkable one because it concerns semiotic develeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology” 786 http://www.psychopen.eu/ opment and recursive transformations between the referential-denotational function and the abstracting-generalizing function of signs. in two detailed statistical studies, starting out from a large textual corpus on pairs of terms "sweet-sweetness" and "dark-darkness", neuman reaches conclusions of great interest. our sign system, which is social by nature (saussure, 1972), starts with referential denotational signs to the concrete reality/experience, whether external or internal reality (danesi, 2003). this reference to the embodied experience should be clarified in order to sharpen the difference between human and nonhuman cognition. in contrast with animal communication, human language “deals mainly with entities” (vauclair, 2003, 12) rather than with holistic situations (e.g., the presence of a predator). therefore, our language is a language of “reification” (neuman, 2003), as it allows us to “crystallize” the dynamic flux of sensorimotor experience into objects of reflection and contemplation (i.e., signs). (neuman, 2014, p. 52). in this seminal research, neuman provides empirical support for peirce’s hypothesis about the processes of reification and hypostatic abstraction whereby a predicate is transformed into an argument (neuman, 2014, p. 53). human thinking is characterized by internalization of symbolic interactions with others relating with objects in the world. by social-semiotic interaction, human thoughts become more abstract, and the signs now used to reflect on the external and internal reality – drift far away from their embodied origin. in chapter 4, neuman describes another equally interesting study on the difficulty and the importance of understanding another cultural mind through a careful analysis of language and thought. starting from a wide, long and deep reflection, neuman produces evidence frommathematics, philosophy, and linguistics, for the idea that culture is what is lost in the translation process (p. 57). the seemingly paradoxical methodology, discussed in-depth, is used to identify the themes that are lost through the back-translation made by a translation machine (mt). structural and semantic criteria are used in a complementary way, and it is possible to analyze large amounts of texts, through an automated procedure, in a short time. starting from these findings, important implications are discussed in terms of utility and applications. another disputed question is addressed in chapter 5: the use of metaphors in language. metaphor is a psycholinguistic device used to describe a concept in terms of another. according to the metaphorical view, human thinking is deeply rooted in conceptual metaphors that underlie processes of knowing, learning, and experiencing. that is, our thoughts are mediated through language and conceptual metaphors are one of the main tools that guide this mediation. we may conclude that understanding people is possible by understanding the metaphors they use (neuman, 2014, p. 79). neuman's purpose in his fifth chapter is, first of all, to characterize the way metaphors can be identified and their underlying conceptual structure extracted. this intent is the basis for the development of the automatic processing and analysis of large textual corpora. here too the starting point is the importance of distinguishing first the level of abstraction and concreteness. furthermore, an important part of the analysis of metaphors is the identification of the semantic frames and different syntactic structures involved in the construction of a metaphor (that is, what verbs, nouns, adjectives are chosen and used, and how). this chapter too expatiates on detailed algorithms, statistical analyses, and an extensive discussion and conclusions about the possible uses of these computational tools. chapter 6 presents another admirable discussion about the circular relationships between body, language and culture. there is an interesting study about the human sense of smell. by highlighting the inadequacy of a europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 de luca picione 787 http://www.psychopen.eu/ simplistic model where each odor corresponds to a specific receptor, it is argued that the meaning we attribute to a smell is weaved through “multiple threads of memory, comparison, language, and judgment, all of them deeply rooted in our cultural schemes and practices” (pp. 100-101). we find here an interesting discussion about the multidimensionality of each experience and the need for action and cognition to simplify and reduce the continuous and undifferentiated flow of experience. this complexity reduction is made possible by symbolic mediation providing discrete lower-dimensional tools. these symbolic representations are transformed recursively into objects of reflection and via a complex dynamic and developing network of associations, connotations, metaphors, and metonymy they become themselves objects of greater complexity. culture contributes directly and efficiently to this complex continuous circle between high dimensionality and low dimensionality, introducing variability and novelty. the specific study of smell fits into this theoretical framework, and neuman's computational model is developed based on how connotation (the extended sense of the word) emerges from denotation (the literalmeaning of a word). from the meaning of the sensory-motor denotative content of a term, one can generate a connotative process through "association-by-inference” (p. 109). in chapter 7, we find an interesting study on the psychosocial representation of love. here as well neuman’s computational cultural psychology shows how it is possible through the use of computer tools to go beyond the usual clichés found in a popular love song of the '70s, towards a deeper understanding of cultural processes. the text of the song is compared with a vast textual corpus taken from google book search. a historical period of over two hundred years is considered. through the analysis and study of the frequency of occurrences of adjectives and nouns, a profound, interesting discussion is developed about the synergy between different attempts to understand the modern representation of love. chapter 8 is devoted to a topic of paramount importance for cultural psychology: the relational matrix of the ego (p. 126). in this chapter, semiotic studies by bakthin and peirce are beautifully linked with the psychoanalytic studies by bion, winnicott, and lacan. here the uniqueness of “i” as sign is taken into account. unlike all other signs, "i" has no clear reference. the sign “i” fulfills the mysterious function of associating the lived experience of the individual with a communicable and social form of expression (p. 128). the use of the pronoun “i” imposes a tragic, inbuilt gap between the mature subject and herself, a break created by language and the way it distances the subject from lived experience. the unique psycho-semiotic status of the first-person-singular pronoun exposes a duality, a separation, between the inner “i” and the social, communicable “i”. starting out from this finding, neuman states that the only way to understand the “i” is by carefully weaving the matrix of objects and relations in which it is embedded. one may even argue that what we describe as the i is no more than the sum of objects and relations in which the so-called individual is embedded (p. 129). there is no intent here of understanding the inner life of a person through a sort of an “archaeological excavation”. a person is not beneath the surface. understanding a person implies focusing on the weaving of a tapestry showing what is in-between the singularity of the first-person perspective, and the secondand third-person perspectives. this point is crucial for cultural psychology because people need to be understood neither as isolated atoms nor as puppets of social forces. the individual is comprehensible only as the dynamic entity existing in between the singularity of the first-person perspective and the social perspectives where language, or more generally our semiotic systems, function as the “glue” (p. 129). this discussion leads us to search for a regularity in patterns of mediation, rather than a platonic transcendental self. in a nutshell, chapter 8 presents a specific perspective on issues of language, interpretation, validity, truth, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology” 788 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and reality, inasmuch as the psychological reality does not reveal itself through linguistic analysis per se but from the emerging patterns of meaning associated with a “languaging” activity in context (p. 138). in chapter 9, neuman develops an innovative analysis tool apt to support the interpretations of group dynamics. this methodology is designed to identify emerging themes in the dynamics of small groups. the group matrix a concept originally used by foulkes in the '60s to define the network of connections and relationships within a group is here understood as a semiotic matrix of the group. it has a twofold course of development: it emerges from group dynamics in a bottom-up manner and then it directs the dynamics in a top-down manner. in this dynamic, complex perspective, it becomes important to identify network motifs, i.e. those particular occurring patterns of connection (consisting of nodes and edges) that represent units of meaning. they are conceived of as basic modules (basic meaning structures that configure relationships) making up the group as a relational whole. two in-depth studies are conducted by means of computational tools to identify these motifs. notably, human interpretation remains central and necessary, but the motifs provide empirically grounded anchors for that interpretation. in chapter 10, neuman – following up on his keen interest for the interconnection between corporeality/cognition/culture investigates the interplay between the function of eating as an action aimed at nourishing the body, and dining as a symbolic-cultural practice. the study deals with the symbolic value of soup through a historical, cultural and contextually determined research (with reference to european habits and texts). by analyzing the time series and simultaneous occurrences of different recurrence plots in a textual corpus extending over two hundred years, neuman studies the measurement of the level of synchronization (with reference to the dynamical systems perspective) and non-linear relationships between different words. interesting considerations of epistemological, social and economic value intertwine in the study about the practice of dining, understood as a gestalt evolving in a non-linear way, weaving dimensions of continuity and transformation. in the last chapter (chapter 11), we have the opportunity to read about a study on the value of revenge and its genesis. the discussion and reflection develop by intertwining cultural psychology and psychoanalysis: cultural practices and subjective feelings are not discussed as separate dimensions only subsequently to be connected to each other. from the critique of kohut's perspective on the feeling of revenge linked to narcissistic feelings, neuman discusses the value of law, the desire for order, the painful experience of disorder, comparing in an innovative and fruitful manner several authors such as bakthin, bion, matte blanco, lacan. the result reached through an in-depth study of two entire novels and other historical documents, all analyzed using computational tools is topical and teeming with useful potential applications in terms of social safety. as a final consideration for this review, neuman’s semiotic approach note that there is no mention of "semiotic theory", only of semiotic approach and perspective shows us how to take the sign as a basic unit of analysis and how to transcend the language-thought dichotomy in order to move between different scales of a system, from the individual subject to the culture. neuman never refrains from discussing, in an honest, clear manner, the hard, complex issues dealt with in his book. he applies great honesty and intellectual rigor to bolster his innovative theses, studies, and methods. neuman warns more than once that human interpretation is irreplaceable, so computational cultural psychology is a rigorous, meticulous attempt to introduce powerful tools into a systematic analysis interpreting and understanding meaning-making processes. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 de luca picione 789 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally i want to focus on some issues deserving further development. the book is definitely innovative; however, it could perhaps have the limit of coming across as a large collection of studies carried out in computational cultural psychology. the tools appear to have been developed ad hoc to be applied to specific topics and studies. how can their use be extended to other studies? i believe that such an extension and generalization of tool use is a task up to the readers, scholars and researchers interested in it. this book is not a handbook and that is not its purposes. from my point of view, the book is only the first step in a long, still untraveled path. as this is the first worldwide presentation of this approach (although neuman has published in the last years a large number of papers in leading international journals dealing with semiotics, cultural psychology, intelligent systems, psycholinguistics and psychoanalysis), his intent is to show how it is possible to run in-depth studies and to support interpretative processes through computational tools. the readers can evaluate their real novelty, efficiency and consistency only by specific, concrete examples. in other words, only starting from specific case studies can the readers broadly evaluate both their strengths and their shortcomings. a last important consideration: neuman’s efforts in dealing with the resources that the web provides is just an initial step forward, but it does not exhaust the matter. as researchers and scholars, we face the task to reflect in anthropological, psychological and sociological terms about the progress of the web, its exponential growth and the scope of its transformation of sense-making processes as well. neuman’s semiotic approach should take into account that the web a contemporary collective symbolic device of construction of reality is not only an immense ready-for-use text resource. indeed the web itself is to be studied to understand its new specific ways of producing culture, social relations, new potential connections with the bodily processes and the current transformation of meaning-making processes. in conclusion, neuman’s book deserves to be read not only for its innovative techniques of computational analysis. thanks to its interdisciplinary approach, this volume provides an important opportunity for discussion, debates and confrontations among cultural psychologists, semioticists, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, sociologists, scientists, epistemologists, mathematicians and philosophers of language. the book not only presents techniques and tools in a deeply rigorous way, but also provides a real opportunity to develop new knowledge. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references de luca picione, r. (2013). an old debate but still alive, fruitful and able to renew itself: the language in psychology between the particular and the universal [review of the bookmaking sense of infinite uniqueness: the emerging system of idiographic science, edited by s. salvatore, a. gennaro, & j. valsiner]. europe's journal of psychology, 9(4), 869-872. doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology” 790 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v9i4.689 http://www.psychopen.eu/ de luca picione, r., & freda, m. f. (2014). catalysis and morphogenesis: the contextual semiotic configuration of form, function, and fields of experience. in k. r. cabell & j. valsiner (eds.), the catalyzing mind: beyond models of causality (pp. 149-163). doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-8821-7_8 mandelbrot, b. (1975). les objects fractals: forme, hasard et dimension. paris, france: flammarion. neuman, y. (2003). processes and boundaries of the mind: extending the limit line. new york, ny: springer. neuman, y. (2008). reviving the living: meaning making in living systems. oxford, united kingdom: elsevier. neuman, y. (2014). introduction to computational cultural psychology. new york, ny: cambridge university press. salvatore, s., & valsiner, j. (2010). between the general and the unique: overcoming the nomothetic versus idiographic opposition. theory & psychology, 20, 817-833. doi:10.1177/0959354310381156 salvatore, s., gennaro, a., & valsiner, j. (eds.). (2012). making sense of infinite uniqueness: the emerging system of idiographic science (yearbook of idiographic science). charlotte, nc: information age publishers. valsiner, j. (2007). culture in minds and societies: foundations of cultural psychology. new delhi, india: sage. valsiner, j. (2014). an invitation to cultural psychology. los angeles, ca: sage. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 783–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.806 de luca picione 791 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8821-7_8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354310381156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the case of neuman’s “computational cultural psychology” (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references microsoft word 9. contribution counselling psyhology.doc europe’s journal of psychology 2/2010, pp. 123-149 www.ejop.org counselling psychology and disability pavlo kanellakis south staffordshire and shropshire healthcare nhs foundation trust, uk abstract this article addresses disability-related theory and research associated to attitudes and social action, equality of opportunity, respect and inclusion. it highlights the significance of disability in counselling psychology and that counselling psychologists (as other such professionals) need to be mindful of the wider disability issues that may be related to even those clients who do not apparently present with disabilities. issues of terminology and conceptualisation of the terms disability versus handicap are then addressed. linking issues of equality of opportunity, inclusion & respect to disability, as a psychosocial construct, leads to the exploration of individuals owning their own and their families’ disabilities and, consequently, challenging the positioning of disability outside the personal. counselling psychologists’ approaches to working with disability are then discussed and four examples are explored. it is concluded that counselling psychologists can use their skills to intervene at preventative and organisational as well as psychological counselling/therapy level and that they are also contributing significantly as translators of medical jargon, mediators between clients and medical personnel, and as educators. keywords: counselling psychology, disability, social construct. introduction counselling psychology’s tradition is interlinked with the psycho-social construct of disability. this article addresses some european dimensions of disability and uses the uk as an area for more in depth focus of the issues, since counselling psychology has been most established in this country. european legislation and subsequent national legislation are addressed in relation to practice and clinical examples are included. europe’s journal of psychology 124 furthermore, this article illustrates that counselling psychology work related to disability is characterised by diversity in terms of theoretical models, population groups, age span and work settings. it supports the importance of counselling psychologists learning from clients and the other professionals that work with them, rather than trying to ascribe to a specific model or technique. as disability is a concept that clusters together a diverse range of physical impairments, by focusing on the psychosocial impact of these impairments, this article also addresses disability-related theory and research associated to attitudes and social action, equality of opportunity, respect and inclusion. historical background the discipline and profession of counselling psychology developed in the usa in the context of ex military personnel with disabilities, the needs of which the us veterans administration (va) was established to meet. patterson (1955), cranston (1986) and munley, duncan, mcdonnell, and sauer (2004) highlight the va’s significant contribution to the development of counselling psychology in the usa. patterson draws particular attention to the vocational rehabilitation and education program (inaugurated in 1943) that involved helping the vocational rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of veterans with disabilities. therefore, working with disabilities is part and parcel of the historical roots of counselling psychology rather than something alien to it. why consideration of disability is important to all counselling psychologists all counselling psychologists are obliged to exercise professional practice in the context of legal and statutory obligations. following earlier similar legislation in the usa (national association of councils on developmental disabilities, n.d.; disabilities rights section of the u.s. department of justice, 2005), in the uk the disability discrimination act 1995 and its 2005 amendment defines the obligations of all professionals with respect to disability, and this of course includes counselling psychologists, . an astonishing amount of the work of all counselling psychologists is covered under this legislation, which contradicts the idea that only some counselling psychologists work in the field of disability. counselling psychologists need to be cautious not to ignore: • mental health as well as physical disabilities (including specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia); • disabilities with fluctuating or recurring (rather than sustained) symptoms; this counselling psychology and disability 125 includes disabilities with symptoms that are only noticeable when the person is under stress or tired (e.g. dyslexia) and disabilities with symptoms that are linked to seasons, times of day or night, lighting, temperature, humidity or other similar environmental factors (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis); • disabilities that are disguised through avoidance of situations or through treatment or adaptations (such as counselling, hearing aid or prostheses); • disabilities involving moderate impact on someone’s ability to carry out day to day activities, such as shopping, reading and writing, having a conversation or using the telephone, watching television, getting washed and dressed, preparing and eating food, carrying out household tasks, walking and travelling by several forms of transport, and taking part in social activities (the threshold of substantial impairment is set to be when an individual cannot lift with one hand, for a reasonable period of time, a moderately heavy object such as a chair, briefcase, weekend bag and shopping bags; in terms of mobility, substantial impairment is considered to be when an individual cannot go up or down steps, stairs or gradients and cannot walk for a mile at more than a mere slow pace or without unsteady or jerky movements); • minor adverse effects in several activities amounting to significant impairment; • past disabilities; • the people who are impacted by someone else’s disability due to their relationship with them (e.g. family members); • non-therapeutic but related work such as supervisory, training, research, managerial, marketing and collegial interactions. consider the following vignette about ann: ann1 is a 64-year-old client who avoids social situations and presents with mild symptoms of anxiety; the above symptoms seem to have started six months ago when they were moderate but ann has been taking anxiolytic medication. ann has been obese for a couple of years now (body mass index of 30.5 places her at the lower end of the obese scale) and this might be linked to moderate back-pain which she had for two brief periods over the last two years. ann avoids walking, especially in the summer, when she finds the sweating particularly uncomfortable; she uses lifts rather than staircases. although it has not been tested, it is likely that she could not walk for a mile without an aid. 1 all names have been changed; furthermore, material from different clients and colleagues has been amalgamated, so that the examples stated are as close as possible to my actual experience whist maintaining confidentiality europe’s journal of psychology 126 counselling psychologists might consider clients of theirs as not disabled, on the basis of their actual presentation and provide services to them without taking into account disability issues. this vignette firstly illustrates how, influenced by discriminatory attitudes linked to aging (united nations world health assembly committee b, 2005), we may feel tempted to discount the significance of the mobility problems of clients like ann. the fact that ann is not an unusual person is also characterised by the high prevalence of obesity in western countries; for example, according to craig and mindell (2008), in england approximately one in four (24%) of the general adult population is obese. similarly, we may be tempted to discount the significance of ann’s back pain, as it is a very common physical complaint and, in this case, has had a very sporadic presentation. additionally, the recent nature of the anxiety symptoms may misleadingly indicate that they are of low significance. secondly, the disability discrimination act legislation instructs professionals like counselling psychologists to consider whether a client is disabled based on their assessment of the hypothetical scenario that the client did not receive treatment for their presenting problems. in ann’s case, this includes the likelihood that both the psychological treatment and psychotropic medication are masking the severity of her symptoms. therefore, ann’s hypothetical scenario is that if it is likely that the anxiety symptoms persisted for more than a year were she not to receive psychological treatment, then she would be covered by the disability discrimination act even if she never had any accompanying physical impairments such as her obesity and back pain. it is also important to consider the likelihood that ann’s avoidance may not only contribute to the maintenance of her difficulties but also make her anxiety distress less visible. finally, it is important to note that because ann’s two episodes of back pain were spread over two years (i.e. more than one year), the back pain itself, which has an impairing effect on her mobility, would have been sufficient to cover her under the legislation. similarly, the legislation would also cover her in relation to the summerspecific problems, as they have spread over two years. terminology davis and gandy (1990) address the relationships between the terms disability, handicap, rehabilitation, habilitation and physical impairment. they link disability with psychological processes characteristic of people with impairments and handicaps. having acknowledged that some people develop disabilities from early counselling psychology and disability 127 childhood or birth (and thus the term “habilitation” is used to highlight that in such cases there are no pre-developed physical, mental, social, vocational and economic functions to be restored), they conceptualise handicaps as the resulting functional limitations in a person’s physical and social environment from medical impairments linked to long-lasting anatomic or functional abnormalities. maki and riggar (2004) emphasise the importance that the term handicap is only used for the sources of limitations, such as architectural features (i.e. buildings and roads being designed in ways that handicap people with various impairments) or negative social attitudes. bruyère, van looy and peterson (2005) support the use of the new bio-psycho-social international classification of functioning, disability and health (icf) of the world health organization. icf uses the term disability for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, whilst using the umbrella term of functioning for all body functions, activities and participation. bruyère (2005) emphasises the benefits of universal adoption of such a conceptual system for rehabilitation service planning and delivery, counsellor education and research (e.g. using the same indicators of successful outcomes in the integration of persons with disabilities into the workforce and community for comparisons across service systems). disability as a psychosocial construct linked to equality of opportunity, inclusion and respect the united nations (1996) cite world bank figures that put two thirds of all people with more than slight or mild disability in the poverty category. in the european union, • compared to 64% of people without disabilities, approximately 38% of people with disabilities aged 16-34 across europe have an earned income; two to three times more people with disabilities are unemployed compared to people without disabilities; • people without disabilities are more than twice as likely to have reached third level education than people with disabilities; • one in two persons with disabilities has never participated in leisure or sports activities; • one third of people with disabilities has never travelled abroad or even participated in day-excursions due to inaccessible premises or services; • compared to people without disabilities, more than twice the proportion of europe’s journal of psychology 128 people with disabilities meet their friends and relatives less than once or twice per month (eurostat, 2001 cited by the european disability forum, n.d.). in the uk, • disabled people are more than twice as likely as non-disabled people to have no qualifications (12%as opposed to 30%); • less than half of disabled people of working age are at work, compared with over 80 per cent of non-disabled people of working age; • approximately half of people with disabilities are economically inactive compared with only 15% of the non-disabled population and • households containing a disabled adult have a workless rate of over 30% compared with a rate of less than 10% for those households where no disabled adult is present, evidencing that disability has a great impact on the combined economic activity status of households too (smith & twomey, 2002). counselling psychologists need to be aware of the extensive discrimination that people with disabilities face. clients may not have such awareness and counselling psychologists’ awareness of such social discrimination is of great importance, so that experiences are put into perspective. also, holzbauer and berven (1996) acknowledge that differentiation of socio-economic power can lead to harassment of people with disabilities and it can be useful if harassment is named so, both in terms of the recipient of such harassment making sense of their experience and in terms of effective problem solving aiming to improve the situation. counselling psychologists can also make important contributions to the planning and evaluating of services, as well as practice and research. therefore, familiarity with national demographic, economic, employment, health and other bio-psychosocial data sets is of great importance (bruyère & houtenville, 2006). people with disabilities face environmental impediments similar to those of other minorities (e.g. ethnic and racial ones) and a minority group status in the case of people with disabilities can lead to social action that decrease those environmental impediments, just as it has for many ethnic and racial minorities (moore & feist-price, 1999). the disability status in racial, ethnic, gender or cultural minorities often results in multiple minority statuses, and compounded multiple negative effects of deprivation counselling psychology and disability 129 and denial of self-identification and preferred ways of life (mpofu & conyers, 2004). for example, many lesbians and gay men with disabilities have been experiencing hopelessness because of belonging to several separate communities and rarely finding acceptance in any. similarly, women with disabilities in general face a double handicap, being oppressed on the grounds of both being female and having disabilities (palombi & matteson mundt, 2005; smith & twomey, 2002). kanellakis (2000) similarly illustrates the case of gay people with disabilities linked to hiv/aids, who also face multiple discriminations. morrow (2003) and bowman (2003) address the case of lesbians, gay and bisexual people who also are from a racial or ethnic minority and have disabilities. on the other hand, counselling psychologists need to be aware that psychological skills and knowledge about accessing resources developed in relation to one minority status can develop into instrumental learning spreading into the other minority areas (mpofu & harley, 2006). ignoring discrimination linked to disability impairs effective decision-making that takes into account all significant factors. particular attention is needed to what individual counselling psychologists might not identify as linked to particular constructs as disability, but there might be grounds for others to conceptualise it in relation to disability. such others include their colleagues and people with disability and those close to them, as well as the society in general, which is represented by various structures including legal and social care. prendes-lintel (2000) highlights the case of refugees, who “rarely understand the concept of … disability … or the complicated rules and regulations involved in health care delivery” (n.p.); this prevents them from adequately accessing social care and legal support linked to disability. bruyère, erickson and vanlooy (2004) surveyed both u.s. and u.k. employers regarding their responses to respective legislation concerning accommodations or adjustments needed by applicants and employees with disabilities. they concluded that all health care professionals working with people with disabilities have a duty to understand employee rights and employer responsibilities under this legislation, they need to know where employers may have difficulty in responding to an accommodation request and be familiar with resources and processes that can support an effective response to such requests. bruyère, erickson and vanlooy (2006) also illustrated the research contributions of counselling psychologists to attitudes and practice of those involved in recruitment and management. counselling psychology research has an important role in the efforts to ensure that the dominant societies are responsive and equitable in their economic and social europe’s journal of psychology 130 policies and distribution of resources and services (mpofu & conyers, 2004). after all, counselling psychology has a strong commitment to social justice and an affinity with critical psychology that goes beyond sophisticated critiques of the status quo (prilleltensky & prilleltensky, 2003; toporek, gerstein, fouad, roysircar, & israel, 2005; greene, 2005). feist-price and khanna (2003) emphasise the importance of professionals, such as counselling psychologists, to support and advocate for clients with disabilities to have reasonable adaptations made by employers to enable successful employment that comes with a plethora of bio-psycho-social benefits. in addition, maki and riggar (2004) highlight the commitment to supporting persons with disabilities in advocacy activities to enable them to further empower themselves. important aspects of empowerment and disempowerment are the restrictions on communicative representation. mpofu and conyers (2004) link the foucault and habermas’ theories with social representation ones; they state that people (including professionals) without disabilities oppress the expression of people with disabilities and exercise their dominance through censorship. this, mostly unconscious, restriction of uncensored expression by people without disabilities often relates to what is said, and how, by people with disabilities about disabilities and themselves. according to this perspective, expressions of people with disabilities are judged and rejected by people without disabilities using criteria or norms that perceive people with disabilities as inferior. only through conformity with the dominant discourse, and the ways in which it is expressed, are people with disabilities given access to high-impact means of communication. the professionalism of counselling psychology carries dangers concerning the appropriation of cultural information, disability-associated life stories and other related knowledge (mpofu, thomas, & thompson, 1998; mpofu, 2000). the slogan “nothing about us without us” seems particularly poignant. in relation to the above, the positioning of the author of this article seems of great importance; i am a person with several (invisible) disabilities and i have several family members with a range of disabilities. owning one’s own and one’s families’ disabilities: challenging the positioning of disability outside the personal experiences of counselling psychologists dr apio is a black, female, counselling psychologist working for a cluster of schools in north london. she is 57 years old and currently single (she has had one significant relationship with a woman in the past). for the last 2 years she has been significantly counselling psychology and disability 131 impaired by back pain. she has mixed thoughts and feelings regarding her back pain as a disability. her family-of-origin experiences were marked by women getting back pain from their mid fifties and there was a strong association with ageing. she draws on her determination to not allow her physical pain to interfere with her work; she is trying very hard to keep a focus on what she can do rather than what she cannot do any longer. she needs more time to achieve some tasks, although the situation would have been worse if her knowledge and skills that she developed over the years did not compensate for the challenges she faces. moreover, she is taking home a bit more work than she used to. in the evenings and the weekends she does not have time and energy to do as many of the pleasurable activities she used to, although she still does some. her work is a mix of clinical work, supervision, management and research on child psychology; the word disability does not appear in any of her research publications and, although it has been occasionally and fleetingly used in her clinical and management supervision sessions (both the ones she receives and the ones she provides), it has never been the focus. one of her therapy clients is 13-year-old aliyah, a black student who has dyslexia, which was recently diagnosed by the other counselling psychologist who works for the school cluster. aliyah also has mixed thoughts and feelings about her dyslexia; her family members and her friends question whether she would be ok if she were to try harder, rather than focus on external support. will dr apio address aliyah’s mixed thoughts and feelings about her dyslexia? will her mixed feelings about her own back pain be a bridge for her to connect with aliyah, or will the similarities prove overwhelming? will dr apio parallel aliyah’s family and friends, by emphasising the development of determination (focus on intra-psychic processes) or will she emphasise interpersonal variables, linked to accessing support from others? all people with impairments and associated handicaps, counselling psychologists included, are faced with the dilemma of whether to acknowledge or minimise the significance of their situation in relation to these; thus the issue of whether such counselling psychologists identify as having disabilities or not is highly linked to this personal dilemma. moreover, it is important to acknowledge that, regardless of profession and presence or absence of disability, we all grow in a society that disempowers people with disabilities. europe’s journal of psychology 132 owen (1993), in an extended review of guy’s 1987 book “the private life of the psychotherapist”, highlights the link between counselling psychologists’ own disabilities and jung’s notion of the shadow (i.e. what is hard to acknowledge and to tell others about). he debates the complexities of good enough therapy and the circumstances when therapists are not able to carry out their responsibilities sufficiently towards their clients in connection to disabilities. the openness of counselling psychologists with disabilities about their disabilities challenges the negative stereotypes that people with disabilities have, just like the larger society, and provides positive role models for possible achievements and empowerment (mpofu & conyers; 2002). this is in line with counselling psychology’s emphasis on the therapeutic use of the self (rowan & jacobs, 2002). on the other hand, we need to be cautious so that we avoid simplistic matching of clients with disabilities with counselling psychologists with disabilities. similarly, caution needs to be shown when staff with disabilities receive attention in relation to their disability rather than as individuals. at the same time, the extent to which services mirror discrimination of people with disabilities (e.g. by under-representing them in their staffing on all levels of the hierarchies) is significant. tokenism theory (mpofu & coneyers, 2002, citing data by krogh, 1998), has been used to highlight: • the perception that less consideration is given to the views of professionals with disabilities compared to their colleagues without disabilities (i.e. “contrast effects”); • the stereotypical view that people with disabilities should be recipients rather than makers of decisions (i.e. “role encapsulation”); • the contradiction that senior managers (who are rarely people with disabilities) on the one hand encourage their workers with disabilities to be self-managing, but on the other discourage from any initiatives that would reduce their dependency on the organisation in which they work (i.e. “ambivalence effects”) and • the pressure that professionals with disabilities feel to be unemotionally involved with their disability experience in the way that professionals without disabilities would, and to uncritically adopt management methods selected by higher levels of management (i.e. “assimilation effects”). the current challenge we face as a discipline and profession is how we match the challenges to avoid discrimination and the calls for social action with compassion and reconciliation that is inclusive of all rather than alienating. counselling psychology and disability 133 counselling psychologists’ approaches to working with disability the only survey that focuses on counselling psychology and disability in its totality (rather than specific illnesses associated to disability) was conducted very recently (kanellaki & kanellakis, 2009). all chartered psychologists whose details were included in the online directory of chartered psychologists published by the british psychological society, and all the counselling psychologists who were members of the european association of counselling psychology were invited to participate in this survey (the overwhelming majority of the members of the european association of counselling psychology work or trained in the uk). the responses of 98 participants who met certain criteria, which were developed through a process of data cleansing, were analysed quantitatively. a large percentage (66%) of participants had worked, at least on a part-time basis, in private practice, whilst a significant number of participants had worked for the charity and voluntary sectors (31%), although this seems like a small adjunct to their main work portfolio. a sizable percentage (27%) had worked for the employee assistance programmes, whilst the increased profile of counselling psychologists in public mental health hospitals or clinics is reflected by the 51% of respondents with such an experience. forensic and social services employment were minimally represented. the participants were characterised by having considerable professional experience; only 3.1% had training and experience of four years, whilst 22.7% had 1115 years and 18.6% 20-30 years. maybe the less experienced counselling psychologists did not significantly relate to the topic, leading to their low participation; as counselling psychologists engage in the practice of counselling psychology, the issue of disability might be unavoidable and their learning might be increasing in the context of ongoing professional development. it might also be that prequalification counselling psychology training does not sufficiently sensitise newly qualified counselling psychologists to the issue of disability. although the research team drew attention to a number of research limitations and make suggestions for changes in future research in this area, a number of quantitative analysis findings were identified. the vast majority of the participants reported that they had been working with clients in the field of disability alongside other fields. they stated that the vast majority of their therapeutic work had been with people with disabilities on a one-to-one basis; there was a great range in how europe’s journal of psychology 134 much this was in relation to the participants’ overall work. approximately half of the respondents reported that they had been working with carers of people with disabilities, although this seemed less when compared to direct work with people with a disability. approximately a third of the respondents stated that they had been working on a one-to-one basis with professional and volunteer carers of people with disabilities, although this was again a small part of their overall work. similarly, approximately a third of the participants reported that they had been working with families of people with disabilities, but again this was a small part of their overall work. diversity seemed to be a theme, although one to one work was more predominant than group work. regarding the age groups of the counselling psychologists’ clients with disabilities, only a small minority of the participants stated that they had not been working with working age adults. actually, approximately a quarter of the respondents stated that they had only been working with this age group, and for half this was the dominant age group with which they had been working. nevertheless, approximately a third of the participants had been working with older adults and the figure for teenagers was similar (although again, these client groups represented a small minority of the overall work of the respondents). in terms of school age children, approximately a quarter of the participants reported that they had been working with this age group (for the vast majority of the participants, this had been a third or less of their work). the work with pre-school age children was the smallest, both in terms of the percentage of the counselling psychologists with experience with this age group and in terms of this having been less than a third of their work). the survey also investigated the theoretical models used by respondents in their work related to disability. more than half of the respondents reported that theyhad been using cognitive behavioural therapy. approximately half of the respondents stated that they had been using a client-centred / humanistic model, whilst approximately a third of the participants reported that they had been using a psychoanalytic / psychodynamic model. approximately a quarter of the respondents stated that they had been using a systemic approach and a similar percentage had been using an attachment-based approach. a very small minority had been using only one model, which is in line with the multi-model competencies of counselling psychologists in the uk. nevertheless, counselling psychology is still debating about whether different models have more efficacy with different clients with disabilities, which mirrors the general ongoing debate about efficacy about psychological models. the debate includes whether some research evidence has greater weight than other pieces of counselling psychology and disability 135 research evidence, but the current situation is that we still need more research. examples of counselling psychology work example 1 in london, john, a 17-year-old man of afro-caribbean dissent, is referred to dr claus, a german counselling psychologist, for “challenging behaviour” and obesity. there are references to getting into fights and inappropriately touching girls of his age. john has been in contact with learning disabilities services since his education at a specialist school for children with cognitive impairment; his cognitive abilities had been paralleled to that of a child of five years of age. he has not been able to function on a day-to-day basis without significant support from specialist teachers and his family. dr claus discovers that john is the first of two children that his afrocaribbean parents had, and when he was born this was a shock to both of them. his father had a distant relative with learning disability so this provoked guilt in him and some fear that he might be blamed for his first son’s imperfection. his mother was a heavy smoker at the time and she also felt guilty and some fear that she would be blamed too. however, they have focused most of their energies and time looking after john. consequently, they have been relating to john as if he were five years old. as john was growing up, his sexual behaviours have been met with fear, embarrassment, frustration and anger by his parents whilst his sexual feelings have been unattended. three years ago, john’s father died but he was excluded from the funeral, as his mother had strong feelings that “he would not really understand and … get too upset”; john still keeps on asking his younger brother where their dad is. john’s mental capacity to make decisions about what he wants in terms of relationships have been questioned and past psychometric assessments were referred to. however, dr claus has the sense that this was an underperformance linked to poor therapeutic alliance with the person who carried out the test administration; actually his iq score has been presented as a figure with little reference to john as a person and the range of his abilities. during several sessions of getting to know john and his problems, dr claus is considering his input • in relation to john and his family, • a sexuality group that the counselling psychologist is co-facilitating with a speech and language therapist, • a gestalt group that the counselling psychologist is co-facilitating with an arttherapist, • a therapy group that he co-facilitates with an occupational therapist and a europe’s journal of psychology 136 dog-therapist (i.e. a dog which has been approved to work as a co-therapist), • a cognitive-behavioural treatment in relation to the problems, • mental capacity act assessment and advocacy and, • psychometric re-assessment to address the hypothesised inaccuracies. in work associated with learning disabilities frequent dilemmas are consent issues, who should be involved in the treatment and what the focus of the work should be. each person might hold different opinions about these issues and, at times, it is not easy to establish how to bring them together, whilst not loosing either the individual or the systemic focus. the impact of discovering that their child has a learning disability on the parents cannot be underestimated (woolfe & barrlett, 1996; forster & tribe, 2005; robins & kanellakis, 2008); this is often conceptualised by drawing on person-centred as well as psychodynamic (e.g. fairbairn, klein, winnicott), attachment-based and developmental theories and research. additionally, biological and physiological knowledge need to inform conceptualisations that guide interventions; in relation to the above vignette, people with the syndrome prader-willi tend toward obesity (beitman et al., as cited in forster & tribe, 2005). the strong feature of several other physical disabilities alongside learning disability makes multidisciplinary collaboration important. example 2 ysberin is a white 71-year-old welsh man who has been in a low-security inpatient unit for several years, as he is considered a threat to women (especially female children) and no alternative all-male accommodation can be found. he has two sons, one of which visits him regularly. the nursing staff have strong feelings for his sexual history but these are put to the side in order to physically nurse him as well as possible. the staff grade psychiatrist is wondering whether ysberin has mild dementia. ysberin is referred for psychological input at his local nhs psychological services for older adults. this nhs trust covers a large, thinly-populated, geographical area and the psychological services for older adults are split into sections. psychological services in this specific locality are staffed by dr andre, a maltese male counselling psychologist. the neighbouring section is not nearby and is staffed by a female clinical psychologist. andre is considering his input in relation to (a) training staff in conceptualising the interplay between biological, social and psychological dimensions, (b) providing an experiential group for staff where they can process counselling psychology and disability 137 emotions rather than suppressing them until they become unmanageable and (c) working with the family system of ysberin. furthermore, as dr andre gets to know ysberin, he realises that ysberin needs a neuropsychological assessment regarding frontal lobe damage; ysberin develops trust for dr andre and is open for dr andre to administer the tests. dr andre has recently administered such tests to another service user and received neuropsychological supervision by a senior colleague in the trust. the above illustrates not only the importance of not ignoring the needs of older clients with disabilities such as dementia but also the real life complexities of working with clients with neuropsychological problems (regardless their age) in thinly populated localities that are geographically spread out. although it is appreciated that not all uk counselling psychologists will want to develop expertise in the neuropsychological field, fairfax (2007) links neuropsychological assessment with the phenomenological tradition of counselling psychology and presents the therapeutic relationship as an essential foundation of valid neuropsychological testing. further to this, he also presents his positive experience of a uk pre-doctoral internship as a counselling psychologist in neuropsychology and he advocates for the expansion of such options in the uk. a lot of counselling psychology attention has been on the neglected family members of people with head injuries, which can range from sensory motor disturbance to post-traumatic epilepsy, and to cognitive deficits such as impairment of learning and memory. family members may experience threats of violence and be impacted by the various personality changes of people with brain injury. jackson and haverkamp (1991), drawing on the lezak (1986) work, acknowledge that people with traumatic brain injury might have: • impaired capacity for social perceptiveness, resulting in self-centred behaviour and reduced ability to be self-reflective and empathic; • impaired capacity for self control, resulting in impulsivity, random restlessness and impatience; • stimulus-bound behaviour, resulting in difficulties in organising and planning and decreased behavioural initiative; • inability to profit from experiences, even when the ability to absorb new information is intact; • other changes such as apathy, silliness, significantly increased sexual interest or decreased sexual inhibitions or virtual loss of sexual drive. europe’s journal of psychology 138 all the above seem to have significant burden to the vast majority of the relatives, with severity levels reaching that of clinical diagnoses (e.g. depression or anxiety), as evidenced by a range of research findings. furthermore, these are not restricted to care givers’ family members. on the other hand, systemic and interpersonal counselling psychology acknowledges the importance of interpersonal relationships to rehabilitation (e.g. in relation to family members’ realistic or unrealistic optimism or pessimism, but also rigidity versus adaptive flexibility). it also acknowledges the benefit of developing communication and problem solving skills, as well as flexibility, in the way that families are psychologically structured (e.g. in terms of roles and responsibilities of each member). such flexibility is important so that the family navigates through the complex challenges and dilemmas encountered. it is important for counselling psychologists to pay attention to psychological processes of coming to terms with the news of the implications of a family member having a head injury. initial shock, which is accompanied with denial of the longterm significance of demanding or childlike behaviours, might be followed by relief or thankfulness that at least imminent death has been avoided. however, when the realisation that the initial hopes for full recovery might not be realistic emerges, associated feelings of despair and mourning may be experienced before eventually managing to reorganise their family and individual lives and adapt, as well as possible, to the new circumstances. systemic counselling psychology also focuses on communications of professionals who might use recovery language but actual refer to improvement and consequently might be confusing lay people. counselling psychology is also making positive contributions to the field through peer support groups for family members (jackson & haverkamp, 1991) and psychoeducational group psychotherapy approaches for family members who are the primary caregivers of people with head-injured adults (lauer-listhaus, 1991). example 3 isla, a scottish 55-year-old single mother, is seen with paul, her 14 year old son, her main carer, by dr simon, a counselling psychologist who works in private practice, mostly as an associate of various employee assistance programme companies (he also provides organisational consultancy and training on a contract basis). dr simon holds level a and b certificates in occupational testing with particular expertise in counselling psychology and disability 139 rehabilitation career counselling. during his counselling psychology training, he focused on cognitive behavioural therapy and family therapy. he has been recently trained in eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (emdr) and interpersonal psychotherapy (ipt). in the past, dr simon used to work for a pain management clinic. isla used to work as a physiotherapy assistant for the local hospital until two years ago when she was physically attacked by a hospital visitor and consequently lost mobility of her legs; moreover, she has been having severe back pain since the attack. although she was diagnosed with ptsd for which she has not received treatment, one year ago, she went back to her job but she found that her work organisation was not making satisfactory accommodations for her and subsequently left. isla and paul are having several arguments with each other. paul states that he feels that he does not want to stop caring, that he is doing what is “right”, that he is part of his mother, that he does not want to leave home as his mother might not manage without him and that now he would feel lost without his caring role. he adds that he feels different from other boys, that he often gets picked on at school and that his teachers do not really understand how tired he is. although he implies that he feels trapped, that he does not see an end to the caring and that he feels envy for other children, he adds that he now accepts that this is how his life is. he confirms that he finds it hard to relax and that he is worried that he would be taken into care. isla is pursuing compensation and dr simon is called as a witness to the court. the above illustrate not only that such work might be interconnected with medicolegal work but also the complexities of working with professional or non-paid carers of people with disabilities. one in four europeans has a family member with a disability (eurostat, 2001 cited by the european disability forum, n.d.). in particular, earley, cushway and cassidy (2007) highlight the needs of child carers of people with disabilities. hornby and seligman (1991) emphasise the importance of consideration of the impact on the family; this is based on research findings, which support the view that “families are interdependent and that a disability in one member affects all family members, that is, no one is exempt from the effects of a disability in the family” (n.p.). disability requires several thinking and behavioural shifts from the family. it is not only the individuals with the impairment but also their family members who have to make europe’s journal of psychology 140 sense of what caused the disability, “why us” and what are the family implications of the disability in the future years. family members might also share the larger society’s negative views of people with disabilities and thus have to review those. in need of support, they might become affiliated to other families who are coping with similar situations, thus the families’ friendships are affected too. on the behavioural domain, disability can mean a plethora of visits to hospitals, clinics and support groups. as many people with disabilities are cared for by other family members, there are many issues requiring behavioural management; examples include those linked to the hygiene, feeding or physical treatment at home, outpatient clinics or day hospitals (including transportation issues). hornby and seligman (1991) and papadopoulos (1995) emphasise that by definition (the significant negative impact of impairments to functioning), disability is associated with changing of family roles (e.g. breadwinners becoming supports at home or homemakers becoming breadwinners). papadopoulos (1995) also acknowledges the research findings with a broad range of chronic illnesses in which good family relationships and practical and emotional support from the various family members have been associated with positive adjustments of the individuals with the disability. progressive or terminal illnesses can provide the stimulus for families to come together and manage the challenges as well as possible confronted but chronicity can lead to families breaking down, especially in absence of support from wider social systems. the cognitive and behavioural framework appears to be the dominant model in the field of pain and ptsd; it has been used flexibly and incorporated a range of techniques such as hypnosis to biofeedback (winterowd, beck, & gruener, 2003; hetzel, 1999). nevertheless, new methodologies such as emdr and the role-transition focus of ipt seem particularly relevant too. similarly, in the cases where the above approaches have not resulted in sustainable changes (as well as for clients with pronounced characterological difficulties) psychodynamic approaches within interpersonal and object-relationships frameworks are also useful. overall, the training and experiences as a counselling psychologist provide with a strong foundation for clinical work, training and research in the area of pain and symptom management, particularly drawing upon developmental themes, holistic approaches to health and wellness, the development of strengths and adaptive strategies, vocational training and commitment to diversity (okey, 1998; hetzel, 1999). counselling psychology and disability 141 example 4 counselling psychologists have also been making extensive contributions to hiv/aids work through research, (e.g. bor, 1991), psychological therapy supervision (bor , scher, & salt, 1992b), vocational issues (conyers, 2008), health concerns, diversity and social justice (werth, borges, mcnally, maguire, & britton, 2008). people with hiv/aids have experienced discrimination in general and also in work settings in specific; now that hiv is considered a chronic illness, people with hiv have been facing the challenges of starting or returning to work and keeping these jobs, as demonstrated in the following vignette (bor & kanellakis, 2008) keith, a 4o-year-old white englishman living in manchester with kayode, his 35 year old zimbabwean partner are self-referred to dr mary, an english white counselling psychologist working in an hiv clinic; both keith and kayode are hiv positive. dr mary saw kayode seven years ago, around the time that his then afro-caribbean partner called jonathan was dying from an aids related illness. kayode had found dr mary a supportive “outsider” from the gay communities overwhelmed with multiple losses and the afro-caribbean christian community with strong anti-gay beliefs. keith is under pressure to get a job as the original assumptions that he would be dead by now have changed with pharmacotherapy developments. in this vignette, the current vocational rehabilitation focus is in contrast to the multiple bereavement theme that was previously particularly dominant in hiv counselling psychology work. vocational themes are also significant when working with young people who were born with hiv who now cope with education and work as part of living with a chronic illness (kanellakis 2000; feist-price & khanna, 2003). the above vignette also highlights the interplay of disability, culture, sexuality and religion linked to discrimination, and that counselling psychology work is also done with couples (kanellakis 2000). in relation to hiv, counselling psychologists have been addressing the education of professionals (sherr & davey, 1991) and the wider society, as well as providing assessment and counselling to individuals, their loved ones, their caretakers (gurney, 1995) and their communities (bor, miller, & goldman, 1992a; bor & elford, 1998). counselling psychologists have been making significant contributions to the education of professionals in informing clients who have been tested for hiv of their results and processing complex dilemmas connected to balancing the individual rights of clients with the rights of others. decisions about disclosure of hiv status are europe’s journal of psychology 142 not only linked to disclosure to social contacts, but also to which health professionals clients want to inform and from which health professionals involved in their care they wish to keep this information confidential. counselling psychologists have also been addressing professionals’ assumptions that clients always wish for a negative result, highlighting issues linked to clients wishing hiv infection / hiv positive diagnosis (kanellakis 2000). the above issues have been often associated with pre and post testing counselling (e.g. bor, 1997). however, the complex work on disclosure is ongoing and involves not only adults but also children. for example, parents with hiv need to decide when to tell their children about their own status and hiv negative or positive parents are confronted with difficult decisions regarding when to inform their hiv infected children about their status. direct work has been done not only with individuals but also with families (bor & elford, 1998) and groups affected by hiv/aids (balmer, 1994). the most noticeable theoretical models used in this area are humanistic (feist-price & khanna, 2003; gurney, 1995) and systemic (bor et al., 1992a; feist-price & khanna, 2003) frameworks, although the importance of cognitions, as well as emotions, in relation to behaviours is recognised and cognitive behavioural techniques are also utilised, especially in terms of problem solving regarding the bio-psycho-social symptoms and the development of related skills (e.g. relaxation training; bor & kanellakis, 2008). particular attention has been paid to the psychological bases for beliefs underlying high-risk sexual behaviour (sherr, strong, & goldmeier, 1993). although the emphasis is often on post-testing counselling as the forum to explore support with dealing with a positive or negative diagnosis, including the complexities of telling others, the effectiveness of such counselling work significantly increases when psycho-education and exploration of the dilemmas has happened in pre-test counselling (bor, 1993, 1997; kanellakis, 2000). the contribution of counselling psychologists to the hiv field extends from pre-testing counselling to pre-medical intervention counselling (bor, 1993). hiv and aids counselling entails not only complexities regarding neuropsychological functioning but also related decisions with significant ethical dilemmas such as that of suicide (werth, 1993; rogers & britton,1994). counselling psychology and disability 143 conclusion counselling psychologists can use their skills to intervene at preventative and organisational level, not only in terms of policy development but also developing and facilitating experiential groups that address attitudes towards disability (e.g. in schools; triliva, anagnostopoulou, hatzinikolaou, & chimienti, 2009). institutions (such as schools, hospitals, government organisations, etc.) and the professionals that staff them can be a source of not only support to families affected by disability but a source of stress for the family, as systems magnify not only positive impact but also negative too (e.g. through organisational discrimination) (hornby & seligman, 1991). counselling psychologists are making significant contributions, in terms of not only psychological counselling and therapy, but also as translators of medical jargon, as mediators between clients and medical personnel, and as educators. acknowledgments the author would like to thank professor robert bor, cliff robins, barbara douglas, ray woolfe, jennefer d’aubyn, simon cook and my clients for their contributions and support with this article. references balmer, d.h. 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(1996). one bad experience is one too many: parents’ experience of the diagnosis of disability in their infants. counselling psychology review, 11, 7-11. about the author: pavlo kanellakis works as a consultant psychologist in the nhs and kca uk and is a member of a number of educational boards and faculties in the field of psychology, counselling and psychotherapy (e.g. efficacy & mechanism evaluation college of experts of the medical research council / national institute for health research evaluation, trials & studies coordinating centre). he is a health professions council uk registered counselling psychologist and british psychological society chartered psychologist, as well as registered psychologist specialising in psychotherapy with senior practitioner status. he is also the editor of the free and open-access european journal of counselling psychology. corresponding details: 117 gainsborough road, hayes ub4 8qg, uk. positive and negative self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards catherine leite the university of western ontario london, ontario, canada nicholas a. kuiper the university of western ontario london, ontario, canada abstract this study examined several different types of self-worth beliefs and evaluations as predictors of depression and self-esteem. based upon a self-schema model of emotion, some of these beliefs and evaluations had a traditional negative focus (e.g., “i am failing at work”), whereas others focused specifically on positive aspects of self-worth (e.g., “i am able to give, as well as receive, in relationships”). findings indicated that positive self-worth evaluations were one of the main predictors of greater self-esteem and less depression, thus indicating a need for further exploration of the role of positive evaluative components of the self-schema on psychological well-being. our findings also revealed that self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards pertaining to independence and a sense of mastery over one’s environment were generally better predictors of well-being than those pertaining to relationships with others. this pattern was particularly evident for self-esteem, and supports the distinction made in the self-schema model between self-worth based upon individualism versus relatedness themes. finally, we compared the relative predictive utility of the self-schema model with a self-worth contingency model advanced by crocker. here, the beliefs and evaluations specified in the self-schema model were significant predictors of well-being, above and beyond the specific content domains specified in the self-worth contingency model. keywords: self-worth evaluations, depression, self-esteem the construct of self-worth, which incorporates both the beliefs used to judge one’s self and the resulting evaluations based on these beliefs, has long been a prominent topic in psychology. more than half a century ago, maslow (1954) proposed that one of the most central human needs is for high personal regard, that is, a feeling that one is worthwhile and valued as an individual. accordingly, self-worth has been examined in the context of a number of aspects of psychological well-being, including both depression and self-esteem (kuiper & olinger, 1986). the two components of self-worth highlighted above, namely, the beliefs used to judge self-worth and the resulting evaluative judgments themselves, have been incorporated in a self-schema model of emotion proposed by winter and kuiper (1997). building upon previous work in the depression domain by kuiper and olinger (1986), the first component of this model describes the self-worth beliefs that may be used by an individual to guide, assess and integrate one’s life experiences. one example of such a belief is “if others dislike you, you cannot be happy.” in turn, the second component of the model describes the evaluative standards that derive directly from these beliefs. the extent to which a person either agrees or disagrees with these evaluative standards then determines their degree of self-worth. for the belief just described, the corresponding evaluative standard is “i am disliked by other people.” if a person endorses this standard, there will be an increased negative evaluation of self, marked by lower self-esteem and heightened depression. conversely, if the person disagrees with this standard, then a negative evaluation of self would not occur (i.e., self-esteem would not decrease and depression would not increase). consistent with cognitive approaches to psychopathology, the self-schema model of emotion postulates that certain self-worth beliefs are negative and quite maladaptive. for example, an individual may have the negative self-worth belief, “if i fail at my work, then i am a failure as a person.” the implication of this belief is that an individual’s self-worth is contingent upon the absence of any failures in the work domain. as most individuals will have at least some setbacks in this domain, there is an increased likelihood that the negative evaluative standard associated with this belief (“i have been failing at my work”) will be endorsed; thus resulting in negative perceptions of self-worth and reduced psychological well-being. a second contribution of the self-schema model is that it also acknowledges the potentially important role of positive self-worth beliefs and their associated evaluative standards in determining psychological well-being. that is, individuals may also hold some self-worth beliefs that are positive, such as, “one should expect strengths and weaknesses, but overall be positive about oneself.” in turn, the evaluative standards that are associated with these positive self-worth beliefs are more realistic and viable, and thus more likely to be endorsed. as such, evaluative standards based upon positive self-worth beliefs will more likely result in enhanced levels of self-worth and psychological well-being (i.e., greater self-esteem and less depression). in this regard, it is important to note that the inclusion of a distinct set of positive self-worth beliefs and associated evaluative standards in the self-schema model stands in marked contrast to prior theoretical approaches, which have focused almost exclusively on the negative components of self-worth as predictors of psychological well-being (kirsh & kuiper, 2002). a third contribution of the self-schema model is that the positive and negative components of self-worth (both beliefs and evaluative standards) have also been categorized in terms of their individualistic or relatedness orientation (kirsh & kuiper, 2002). individualism refers to a sense of identity that is separate from others, control over the environment, and a personal desire to achieve. relatedness pertains to a focus on one’s relationships and attachment with others. prior research has empirically demonstrated that negative self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards clearly map onto these two domains (kirsh & kuiper, 2003). in particular, work on the dysfunctional attitudes scale, which taps negative self-worth beliefs, has consistently revealed two major factors. these are “performance evaluation” (e.g., “people will probably think less of me if i make a mistake”) which pertains to the individualism domain; and “need for approval” which assesses the relatedness domain (e.g., “it is awful to be disapproved of by people important to you”). in a similar fashion, positive self-worth components have also been found to map onto these two domains. for example, a positive self-worth belief that pertains to the individualism domain is, “a person needs to develop and improve one’s self over time.” an example of a positive self-worth belief that pertains to the relatedness domain is, “it is important to be able to receive, as well as give, in relationships.” although prior work has provided empirical support for considering both negative self-worth beliefs and evaluations when predicting depression, there has been no research to date that has directly examined the utility of positive self-worth components in predicting psychological well-being; especially when done so in direct comparison with negative components. as such, one purpose of the present study was to offer an initial empirical examination of the role of both positive and negative self-worth beliefs and evaluations in the prediction of depression and self-esteem. in doing so, the present study also considered the possible impact of the individualistic versus relatedness focus of these beliefs and contingencies on well-being. thus, in order to test the predictive utility of the various facets of the self-schema model of emotion, participants in this study completed measures of both depression and self-esteem; and also provided ratings of their degree of endorsement of positive and negative self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards that had either an individualistic or relatedness focus. the resulting four categories of beliefs and evaluations (i.e., positive and negative individualistic, positive and negative relatedness) were then used to predict depression and self-esteem. comparison of self-worth models in predicting depression and self-esteem the second purpose of this study was to compare the predictive utility of the self-schema model with another theoretical model that also focuses on self-evaluations and psychological well being, namely crocker’s self-worth contingency model. their model proposes that individuals invest their self-worth in specific life domains; and that personal evaluations of self-worth become contingent upon success or failure within each domain (crocker, luhtanen, cooper & bouvrette, 2003). for example, after being exposed to negative interpersonal feedback, park and crocker (2008) found that individuals with more negative self-worth contigencies, pertaining to the approval of others, displayed lower self-esteem and heightened negative affect, relative to individuals with only a few negative self-worth contingencies in this domain. in crocker’s model, the seven specific domains are approval of others, appearance, academic competency, competition, god’s love, family support, and virtue. this relatively large number of domains is in contrast to the self-schema model which articulates only the two broad themes of individualism and relatedness (but does so in terms of both positive and negative beliefs and their associated evaluative statements). as such, we were particularly interested in comparing the relative efficacy of each model in the prediction of self-esteem and depression. method participants a sample of 137 university students (44 male, 93 female) enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the university of western ontario participated in this study, in partial fulfilment of course requirements. their mean age was 19.64 years (sd = 2.5). self-worth beliefs and evaluations scale (swbe). the swbe is a two-part self-report scale measuring self-worth beliefs (part 1), and their associated evaluative standards (part 2). in order to assess negative individualistic and relatedness self-worth beliefs, 14 statements were selected from the two factor domains of the dysfunctional attitudes scale (das). in particular, the 7 highest factor loading statements on the performance evaluation factor, such as “if i fail partly, it is as bad as being a complete failure,” were selected to measure negative individualistic self-worth beliefs. similarly, the 7 highest factor loading items on the approval by others factor, such as “what other people think about me is very important,” were chosen to measure negative relational beliefs. in order to measure positive self-worth beliefs in both the individualistic and relatedness areas, 14 further items were selected from a positive belief statements questionnaire (pbsq) developed by hillson (1997; see kirsh & kuiper, 2003 for details). of these 14 statements, 7 pertain to positive individualistic beliefs, such as, “a person should be in charge of creating a satisfying life for themselves,” and 7 pertain to positive relational beliefs such as, “ it is important to have a sense of belonging with those around you”. thus, in part 1 of the swbe, participants rated their agreement with each of the above 28 belief statements on a five-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). in terms of psychometric properties, the original das is a highly reliable measure, with internal consistencies ranging from .79 to .93; and a test-retest reliability of .74 over an 8-week interval. strong predictive validity is evident, as das scores predict subsequent levels of depression and self-esteem for up to three years, even after controlling for initial depression (otto et al.,2007; winter & kuiper, 1997). the original pbsq has also demonstrated good reliability, with internal consistencies ranging from .70 to .85; and has been shown to converge appropriately with other measures of positive individualism and relatedness (kirsh & kuiper, 2003). part 2 of the swbe was printed on a separate page and contained the evaluative standards for each of the 28 self-worth beliefs presented previously in part 1. an example of an evaluative standard pertaining to the positive individualistic belief provided above is, “i am in charge of creating a satisfying life for myself”. all of the positive evaluative items (for both individualism and relatedness) were taken from the pbsq developed by hillson (1997). the evaluative standards pertaining to the negative individualistic and relatedness self-worth beliefs were taken from a modified version of the dysfunctional attitudes scale that specifies the negative evaluations associated with each belief (kuiper & olinger, 1986). for example, the evaluative standard corresponding to the negative relatedness belief provided above is, “other people do not think very much of me.” participants rated each evaluative standard using a 5 point scale ranging from not at all true (1) to extremely true (5). thus, higher scores on the positive evaluative scale reflected greater perceived fulfilment of positive self-worth standards. in contrast, higher scores on the negative evaluative scale indicated greater perceived failure in meeting the negative standards of self-worth. contingencies of self-worth scale (csw; crocker et al., 2003). the csw measures the extent to which an individual’s evaluation of self-worth is contingent on each of seven specific content domains (approval of others, appearance, academic competency, competition, god’s love, family support, and virtue). the csw is comprised of 35 statements, such as, “i can’t respect myself if others can’t respect me” and “when i think i look attractive, i feel good about myself.” participants rate the extent to which they agree with each item on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing strongly disagree and 7 representing strongly agree. higher scores on each subscale indicate the individual’s greater use of that domain as a basis of self-worth evaluation. the csw has been shown to have good temporal stability, as evident from test-retest reliabilities of .60 to .85 over a five month period (crocker et al., 2003). rosenberg self-esteem inventory (rsei; rosenberg, 1965). the rsei measures global self-esteem. participants rated 10 items, such as “i feel that i have a number of good qualities,” on a four-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4). scores range from 10 to 40, with higher scores indicating higher levels of positive self-esteem. the rsei has been shown to have good psychometric properties. centre for epidemiological studies – depression scale (cesd; radloff, 1977). the cesd is a 20-item questionnaire designed to assess depressive symptomatology among both community and clinical populations. examples of such items include, “i felt that everything i did was an effort,” and “i thought my life had been a failure.” participants were asked to indicate how frequently they had experienced each symptom during the past week on a scale of (1) rarely or none of the time to (4) most or all of the time. scores range from 20 to 80, with higher scores indicating increased levels of depressive symptomatology. studies have shown the cesd to have high internal consistency in both community and clinical samples; and to have high reliability and validity among university populations. procedure participants were tested in groups of 20 to 25 people. after providing informed consent, participants completed a booklet of questionnaires within approximately 30 minutes. measures were presented in different orders across the booklets. upon completion of the booklet, participants were given a debriefing form that provided further details of the study. results descriptive statistics and correlations the means, standard deviations and correlations between the self-worth and well-being measures are presented in table 1. the correlations in part 1 of this table indicate that greater agreement with negative self-worth beliefs (either individualistic or relatedness) was associated with significantly higher depression and lower self-esteem. positive self-worth beliefs were generally unrelated to either of these well-being measures, except for a very modest relationship between higher levels of positive individualism and greater self-esteem. when considering self-worth evaluative standards (see part 2 of table 1), all four types of evaluations were significantly related to the two well-being measures. in particular, increased personal endorsement of positive self-worth evaluative standards (either individualistic or relatedness) was linked to greater well-being (i.e., lower depression and higher self-esteem); whereas increased endorsement of either type of negative evaluative standard was associated with higher depression and lower self-esteem. finally, the bottom portion of table 1 shows that there were only very modest relationships between some of the csw content domains and well-being. the most notable were approval of others, appearance, and competition. in general, these correlational findings indicate that all four types of self-worth evaluations, along with negative individualism and relatedness self-worth beliefs, display the strongest links to well-being; with only modest relationships evident for a specific subset of csw content domains. regressions predicting self-esteem and depression self-schema model of emotion. to simultaneously examine the contribution of all of the self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards to the prediction of psychological well-being, two multiple regression analyses were conducted (one for each criterion variable of self-esteem and depression). in these two analyses, all four types of self-worth beliefs were entered as the first block of predictor variables, followed by all four types of evaluative standards as the second block. for self-esteem, the overall regression model was significant, r2 = .61, f (8,128) = 27.91, p < .001. when considering just the 1st block of predictors (self-worth beliefs), the regression equation was also significant, r2 = .43, f (4,132) = 24.39, p < .001; with negative individualistic beliefs being the sole significant contributor (b = -.54). the subsequent inclusion of the 2nd block of predictors (evaluative standards) resulted in a significant incremental change in r2 of .21, f-change (4,128) = 18.50, p < .001. thus, in the overall equation, positive individualistic evaluations were the largest significant predictor (b = .54), followed by negative individualistic beliefs (b = -.37), then negative individualistic evaluations (b = -.16), and finally, positive individualistic beliefs (b = .14). overall, this pattern highlights the strong role of both positive individualistic evaluations and negative individualistic beliefs in predicting self-esteem, with some further limited contributions evident for the two remaining individualistic components. none of the beliefs or evaluations involving relatedness was significant predictors of self-esteem. turning to depression, the second regression equation revealed that the overall model was significant, r2 = .44, f (8,128) = 14.20, p < .001. the regression equation for the 1st block of predictors (self-worth beliefs) was also significant, r2 = .29, f (4,132) = 13.58, p < .001, with negative individualistic beliefs once again being the only contributor (b = .54). when the 2nd block of predictors was entered into the equation (i.e., evaluative standards), the incremental r2 change of .18 was significant, f-change (4,128) = 10.80, p < .001. the resulting overall equation showed that both positive individualistic evaluations and negative individualistic beliefs were the two largest predictors (respective b’s of -.35 and .35), with both negative individualistic and relatedness evaluations adding further (but more limited) predictability (respective b’s of .20 and .17). this pattern is quite similar to that obtained for self-esteem, and once again highlights the importance of positive individualistic evaluations, negative individualistic beliefs, and negative individualistic evaluations as significant predictors of well-being. the sole distinction in predicting depression was that relatedness also played a role, with the degree of endorsement of negative relatedness evaluations also adding to the predictability of this well-being measure*. comparing the self-schema versus contingencies of self-worth models. two regression analyses (one for self-esteem and one for depression) were conducted to test the relative utility of the two models of self-worth. in each analysis, all seven content domains of the contingencies of self-worth (csw) model were entered first as block 1 (e.g., family, approval of others, competition, etc.). following this, the five significant predictors associated with the self-schema model of emotion (as reported in the above regression analyses) were entered next. thus, block 2 consisted of positive and negative individualistic beliefs and evaluations, along with negative relatedness evaluations†. when predicting self-esteem, the first regression analysis revealed that three of the csw domains in block 1 were significant predictors (family b = .28; approval of others b = -.21; and competition b = -.19), f (7, 129) = 3.70, p < .01, with an r2 =.12. the incremental change in r2 of .47 when entering the five self-worth beliefs and evaluations (block 2 predictors) was substantial, f-change (5, 124) = 31.96, p < .001, with positive individualistic evaluations being the largest predictor (b = .51), followed by negative individualistic beliefs (b = -.34) and finally, negative individualistic evaluations (b = -.14). interestingly, in this overall regression model, r2 = .60, f ( 12, 124) = 18.07, p < .001, none of the block 1 csw predictors remained significant. the second regression analysis focused on the prediction of depression. here, when the seven csw predictors were entered first, the regression equation was not significant, r2 = .04, f (7, 129) = 1.82, ns. however, the subsequent entry of the block 2 predictors (the 5 self-worth beliefs and evaluations), resulted in a substantial increase in r2 of .42, f-change (4, 125) = 26.98, p < .001. four of the five self-schema predictors were significant in this overall model, as was one of the seven csw domains, r2 = .47, f ( 11,125) = 11.91, p < .001. in descending order, these were positive individual evaluations (b = -.38), negative individualistic beliefs (b = .28), negative relatedness evaluations (b = .25), csw family domain (b = .18), and negative individualistic evaluations (b = .15). overall, these two regression analyses indicated that even after entering the seven csw domains first, there was still considerable predictive utility that could be ascribed to the self-worth beliefs and evaluations associated with the self-schema model‡ . discussion our findings showed that both the self-worth beliefs and evaluations in the self-schema model of emotion are predictive of psychological well-being. evaluative standards (particularly in the positive individualistic domain) were the strongest predictor of self-esteem, and also one of the major predictors of depression. self-worth beliefs (particularly in the negative individualistic domain) were the second strongest predictor of self-esteem, and one of the main predictors of depression. in contrast to prior studies which have focused solely on negative self-worth beliefs and evaluations in predicting well-being (kuiper & olinger, 1986), the present study examined both negative and positive beliefs and evaluations. in doing so, we provided further support for the self-schema model by demonstrating that positive self-worth components are also very important predictors of psychological well-being. in particular, positive self-evaluations were found to be the strongest predictor of self-esteem. positive self-evaluations were also found to be one of the major predictors of depression, along with negative self-worth beliefs. thus, while depression is strongly predicted by the presence of negative and irrational self-worth beliefs, it is also predicted by the extent to which individuals are fulfilling the adaptive, rational, and positive components of their self-worth. little prior work has examined positive elements of the self-schema in this fashion, and the present findings indicate that further theoretical and empirical consideration is definitely warranted. the current study further extends the self-schema model by examining the relative predictive utility of both the individualistic and relatedness dimensions. overall, self-worth beliefs and their associated evaluative standards pertaining to independence, achievement, and a sense of mastery over one’s environment were better predictors of psychological well-being than those pertaining to relationships with others. although depression is primarily predicted by the individualistic aspects of self-worth components, it should be noted that it is also predicted, to a limited degree, by greater endorsement of irrational and unrealistic self-evaluative standards pertaining to relationships with others. a second purpose of this study was to examine the relative predictive utility of the self-schema model, when compared with crocker’s self-worth contingency model. their model proposes that individuals invest their self-worth in specific life domains, and self-evaluations of self-worth become contingent upon success or failure within those domains (crocker et al., 2003). the self-schema model, in contrast, focuses on the broader dimensions of positive and negative self-worth beliefs and evaluations. our findings indicate that the endorsement of more general self-worth evaluative standards that are either positive (i.e., rational and feasible) or negative (i.e., irrational and unrealistic), significantly adds to the prediction of psychological well-being, over and above the extent to which individuals invest their self-worth in specific content domains. in addition, our findings show that the valence of self-worth beliefs is also an important consideration when predicting psychological well-being. recall that the self-schema model of emotion differentiates between self-worth beliefs that are positive (i.e., rational and adaptive) and negative (i.e., irrational and maladaptive). in contrast, crocker’s model primarily focuses on the degree to which individuals invest their self-worth in particular domains. as such, their model does not consider the valence of the self-worth beliefs that may underlie an individual’s assessment of self-worth in a given domain. our findings, however, indicate that the extent to which individuals hold negative self-worth beliefs significantly adds to the prediction of psychological well-being, over and above the extent to which individuals invest their self-worth in a specific domain of life. the present findings also have implications for interventions associated with self-esteem and depression. consistent with theory underlying cognitive therapy, individuals with low self-worth and depression are likely to benefit from therapies that address irrational standards of self-worth, particularly those pertaining to independence and achievement. the present study also found positive individualistic self-evaluative standards to be a strong predictor of depression and self-esteem. this suggests that perceived failures in meeting rational, realistic standards of self-worth may also play a role in the onset and maintenance of maladaptive functioning. as such, individuals might benefit from cognitive interventions that help to establish a sense of self-worth that is less contingent on meeting particular standards, be they positive or negative. finally, it should be noted that the present study has several limitations. since we used a correlational design, it is not possible to determine whether self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards caused changes in psychological well-being, or vice versa. for example, self-esteem and depression may also influence individuals’ endorsement of self-worth beliefs and evaluative standards. furthermore, although depression was equally predicted by negative self-worth beliefs and the failure to fulfill positive standards of self-worth, it still remains possible that the depression associated with each of these predictors may have quite distinct characteristics. for example, failing to achieve adaptive self-evaluative standards may lead to depressive symptoms that are temporary and relatively mild, reflecting more of a transient mood response. in contrast, negative, maladaptive beliefs that underlie and guide the assessment of one’s self-worth may be associated with a depression that is more long-lasting and recurring. this information is not attainable from the current study, and it would be worthwhile for this issue to be included in future research. in this regard, it may also be useful to examine the extent to which negative self-worth beliefs increase an individual’s sensitivity to failure to fulfill a wide range of self-evaluative standards, including those that are rational and feasible. references crocker, j., luhtanen, r. k., cooper, m. l., & bouvrette, s. (2003). contingencies of self-worth in college students: theory and measurement. journal of personality and social psychology, 85, 894-908. kirsh, g. a., & kuiper, n. a. (2002). individualism and relatedness themes in the context of depression, gender, and a self-schema model of emotion. canadian psychology, 43, 76-90. kirsh, g.a., & kuiper, n.a. (2003). positive and negative aspects of sense of humor: associations with the constructs of individualism and relatedness. humor, 16, 33-62. kuiper, n. a., & olinger, l. j. (1986). dysfunctional attitudes and a self-worth contingency model of depression. in p.c. kendall (ed.) advances in cognitive-behavioral research and therapy (vol. 5, pp. 115-142). new york: guilford. hillson, j. m. c. (1997). an investigation of positive individualism and positive relations with others: dimensions of positive personality. unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of western ontario. maslow, a. h. (1954). motivation and personality. new york: harper & row. otto, m.w., teachman, b.a., cohen, l.s., soares, c.n., vitonis, a.f., & harlow, b.l. (2007). dysfunctional attitudes and episodes of major depression: predictive validity and temporal stability in never-depressed, depressed, and recovered women. journal of abnormal psychology, 116, 475-483. park, l.e. & crocker, j. (2008). contigencies of self-worth and responses to negative interpersonal feedback. self and identity, 7, 184-203. radloff, l. (1977). the ces-d scale: a self-report depression scale for research in the general population. applied psychological measurement, 1, 385-401. rosenberg, m. (1965). society and the adolescent self-image. princeton, nj: princeton university press. winter, k. a., & kuiper, n. a. (1997). individual differences in the experience of emotions. clinical psychology review, 17, 791-821. footnotes * as a check, the entry order of the blocks was reversed in two further regression analyses. both blocks still contributed significantly to the prediction of each well-being measure. however, block 1 (evaluations) now accounted for slightly more predictability for both self-esteem (r2 = .52) and depression (r2 = .39); whereas block 2 (beliefs) now accounted for slightly less (self-esteem r2 change = .11; depression r2 change = .08). these findings reinforce the proposal that both beliefs and evaluations contribute significantly to the prediction of well-being, regardless of order of consideration. † as a check, further regression analyses were conducted that included all 8 of the self-worth beliefs and evaluations. the findings for these analyses were essentially similar to those reported in the text. ‡ two final regression analyses were conducted in which the order of blocks was reversed. for self-esteem, the csw domains (as block 2) did not provide a significant increment in predictability above and beyond that already accounted for by the self-worth beliefs and evaluations entered as block 1, r2 = .60, f (12, 124) = 18.07, p < .001. for depression, the csw family domain (block 2) did add significantly to predictability, albeit an r2 change of only .06, f-change (7, 125) = 2.26, p < .05. congruent with the presented analysis, the self-worth beliefs and evaluations (in block 1) counted for the bulk of the predicted variance, r2 = .43, f (11, 125) = 11.91, p < .001. correspondence address n. kuiper, department of psychology, westminster college, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7 (e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca; fax: 1-519-850-2554). authorship is equal. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 267-287 www.ejop.org searching for the sense of humor: stereotypes of ourselves and others bernard c. beins i thaca college shawn m. o‟toole i thaca college abstract researchers have made consistent claims that people do not have an awareness of their humor competence and that the vast majority of people claim to have an aboveaverage sense of humor. in this study, we examined whether people‟s self reports of humor competence matched an independent measurement of sense of humor. we also investigated participants‟ self-reported personality characteristics to see if they attributed to themselves the same characteristics that participants in earlier research attributed to hypothetical others that shared their level of humor competence. participants completed the multidimensional sense of humor scale (mshs) and inventories based on the big five model of personality. the results revealed that participants had a realistic view of their humor competence. their self-perceived humor competence correlated reliably with their scores on the mshs. in addition, they characterized themselves on the personality inventories in the way that previous research participants evaluated others. participants‟ self-reports matched the stereotypes they had of imaginary others for extraversion and neuroticism, but not for agreeableness and openness. the findings suggest that people hold implicit theories of the link between humor and personality and apply it reliably both to themselves and to others. results are discussed in terms of the need to study humor as multidimensional construct and in light of expectations of evolutionary theory. keywords – sense of humor, stereotypes, implicit theories of personality, personality traits http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 268 two statements about humor appear incontrovertible. first, humor is a social lubricant. second, having a good sense of humor is a social characteristic that people prize in themselves and others. buss (1988) has shown that humor is highly desirable in mate selection and that people perceive it to be a highly effective strategy in mate attraction. there also seems to be a consistent relation between humor and intelligence (howrigan & macdonald, 2008). possession of a good sense of humor (soh) is so important to one‟s self concept that, according to declarations of researchers, just about everybody believes that their sense of humor is at least average (allport, 1961; lefcourt & martin, 1986). there appear to be no reports that people are willing to state that they are truly deficient in humor, although people lower in soh than their peers may be aware of it and provide data consistent with it (kruger & dunning, 1999). various personality characteristics have been associated with high or low levels of humor. these associations reflect the positive v iew of the soh. for example, cann and calhoun‟s (2001) participants characterized a hypothetical other regarding personality based on whether that hypothetical person had a poor, average, or good sense of humor. systematic differences appeared as a function of putative soh, with a better soh being related to more positive social traits. people imagined as having a good sense of humor benefit from a halo effect. they are also perceived as more pleasant and interesting but less complaining or shallow (cann & calhoun, 2001). beyond this, cann and calhoun explored different characteristics of the neo-ffi factors as associated with level of soh. again, high levels of soh were related to high scores on positive factors like agreeableness, and low levels of soh correlated with higher levels of neuroticism. i t is important to remember that cann and calhoun tested participants‟ reactions to hypothetical others, so it is not clear that the stereotypes their participants reported are consistent with personality dimensions of actual people. in terms of actual relations between sense of humor and personality characteristics in real people, the correlational findings are mixed. ruch and carrell (1998) found a fairly strong relation between trait cheerfulness and soh. further, thorson and powell (1993c) have found correlations between soh and deference (negative) and exhibition (positive), and kelly (2002) discovered a correlation (negative) between worry and soh, although the magnitude of these correlations was quite modest. other personality traits show little connection to soh, such as achievement or aggression (thorson & powell, 1993a). the lack of a relation here is not particularly stereotypes and sense of humor 269 surprising, given that sense of humor seems to consist of a relatively small number of components (ruch & carrell, 1998; thorson & powell, 1993a) that are probably psychologically unrelated to traits like achievement. regarding neuroticism on neo-ffi measurements, there appears to be an inconsistent relation between neuroticism scores and level of soh (e.g., köhler. & ruch, 1996). part of this inconsistency may result from an interaction between type of humor and neuroticism. galloway and chirico (2008) predicted that neuroticism scores and joke ratings would be related differently, depending on type of joke. because anxiety is a component of neuroticism and because novelty is associated with anxiety, people who scored high on the neuroticism dimension would be less likely to enjoy jokes that involve novelty, that is, nonsense jokes. the researchers hypothesized, and found, that as neuroticism increases, liking of nonsense humor decreases relative to liking of incongruity-resolution humor. the present research is based on cann and calhoun‟s (2001) investigation of evaluations of personality characteristics of hypothetical others with varying levels of soh. as noted above, these researchers measured reactions to imagined people. the present research will replicate their design in the sense of relating personality characteristics to soh. in our study, though, rather than responding about the stereotypes that people have about imagined others, participants will connect the personality traits to an actual person--themselves. as such, we will address the question of whether people with poor, typical, or good soh show the same patterns in evaluating themselves that cann and calhoun‟s participants revealed in evaluating others. the answer to this question will prov ide insight into the way people conceive of their own sense of humor and its relation to their personality. given that personality researchers accept the validity of self-report measures, if our participants show the same pattern of association between level of soh and personality in themselves as cann and calhoun‟s participants did of others, it could mean that people apply the same implicit theory of humor and personality to themselves that they do to others. one potential implication here is that participants would need to have some selfknowledge of their humor competence. researchers have posited, however, that people do not have very good insight into their soh (e.g., kruger & dunning, 1999; lefcourt & martin, 1986). thus, if low soh people attributed to putative others with low soh the same personality characteristics that they themselves showed, it would imply that these people had some reliable level of insight into their own soh. in fact, kruger and dunning reported a significant correlation between self reports of participants‟ humor competence and independently generated measures of such europe’s journal of psychology 270 competence. on the other hand, if people have very limited insight into their humor competence, the relation between soh and personality traits would be weak or nonexistent. one goal here is to see whether our participants apply the same criteria to themselves that cann and calhoun‟s participants applied to imagined others in their stereotypes regarding personality and humor. further, we might see whether the stereotypes are at all veridical. that is, do the connections between participants‟ own soh and their personalities resemble the stereotypical connections of cann and calhoun‟s participants? in the present research, we will measure participants‟ soh in two ways. the first is based on one question on a ten-point scale: how good is your sense of humor? this measurement is quite subjective and not tied directly to any behaviors. the second way will involve thorson and powell‟s (1993a, b) multidimensional sense of humor scale (mshs). the mshs is psychometrically validated and will constitute what we will refer to as an objective measurement of soh. i t is true that the mshs involves self report, but it has acceptable psychometric properties and consists of items that are somewhat tied to descriptions of behaviors (e.g., other people tell me i say funny things). so for convenience of description, we will refer to mshs scores as objective rather than with more cumbersome terminology like psychometrically derived. a second, subjective single-question measurement will ask participants how funny they think they are. the mshs appears to have broad utility, as shown with portuguese students (jose, parreira, thorson, & allwardt, 2007), with spanish students (carbelo-baquero, alonsorodriguez, valero-garces, & thorson, 2006), and with regionally diverse samples within the united states (romero, alsua, hinrichs, & pearson, 2007). thorson, powell, sarmany-schuller, and hampes (1997) also documented the wide range of demographic samples to which it has been administered successfully. thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the sample in this study is appropriate for its use. of particular interest in the present study are both the total soh score and the subscale scores of the mshs that thorson and powell (1993) identified: humor production, coping with humor, attitudes toward the use of humor, and humor appreciation (p. 802). given that humor is a complex construct, it seems reasonable to believe that there are multiple components to it. research has supported the existence of the dimensions posited by thorson and powell. for example, romero et al. (2007) have documented different demographic variables that correlate with the subscales of the mshs. further, carbelo-baquero et al., 2006) have used the stereotypes and sense of humor 271 subscales to distinguish humor patterns across spanish and american samples, with the former using coping humor and the latter producing more humor. the different dimensions of the mshs have also shown links to personality characteristics among an american sample; for instance, the humor creation and the coping subscales of the mshs correlate reliably to hope, as measured by the hope scale (cann & etzel, 2008). in addition, the different dimensions of the mshs may have some predictive power regarding issues of stress. for instance, moran and hughes (2006) reported that people with high humor production scores on the mshs showed lower stress than people who tended not to produce humor. furthermore, people scoring high on the liking of humor scale showed some higher stress scores than those who produced humor, a finding that cann and etzel (2008) also reported. these dimensions can provide a more fine-grained analysis of the structure of the soh. thus, possible reasons for the inconsistent relation between neuroticism scores and soh (e.g., deaner & mcconatha, 1993; köhler, & ruch,1996) might emerge if some, but not all, dimensions of humor relate to neuroticism. howrigan and macdonald (2008) and others have also shown a correlation between soh and extraversion. the latter trait is embedded in the total mshs score, but the extraversion is likely to correlate with humor production, whereas it may not relate to the use of humor for coping or to humor appreciation. i t should be noted that the mshs may show some instability in its factors. factors associated with relatively few items on the 24-item scale can be unreliable (kirsch & kuiper, 2003). thus, some items may tap a given underlying dimension and, depending on the sample, also show an association with different factors. in addition, as kirsch & kuiper pointed out, the mshs and other humor scales tend to focus more on the positive aspects of humor (e.g., coping) than on negative aspects (e.g., mean-spirited humor). thus, mshs may be useful for studying various dimensions of humor while remaining silent on others. a second component of our study involves whether people are willing or able to report their level of soh accurately. claims persist that they cannot or will not (allport, 1961; cann & calhoun, 2001; kruger & dunning, 1999). i f people cannot report their own soh accurately, their stereotypes of imagined others may reflect a comparison of their self image to the hypothetical other, believ ing themselves to be above average. as such, cann and calhoun‟s participants might have been assuming that their soh is above average and, consistent with the need to hold a positive self image, might have rated positively others like them (i.e., people with above-average europe’s journal of psychology 272 soh) and more negatively people not like them (i.e., people with below-average soh). unfortunately, the oldest report that describes everybody‟s belief that he or she is above average provides sketchy detail about the phenomenon. allport‟s (1961) claim referred to an unpublished study in which 94% of people claimed to have soh that was above average (p. 292-293); the methodology is unknown. in contrast, lefcourt and martin (1986) prov ided the important elements of their research methodology. they used a five-point scale on which participants responded. the researchers reported that, in response to the item how would you rate yourself in terms of your likelihood of being amused and of laughing in a wide variety of situations? (p. 27), 94% of participants reported being at or above average, the same percentage as in allport‟s work. additional well-documented evidence suggesting a disconnect between a person‟s beliefs and the reality about his or her soh involved low soh participants showing poor levels of agreement with the judgment of actual comedians about funniness of jokes (kruger & dunning, 1999). in that research, the investigators assessed soh based on the correlation between funniness ratings by participants and by comedians: a low correlation was equated with poor soh in that one would expect professional comedians to have a good soh and be able to differentiate reliably stimuli that were funny and those that were not. their results reveal one of the difficulties in measuring the funniness of jokes and relating it to soh. when kruger and dunning intercorrelated the ratings of the funniness of jokes by comedians, there was a clear positive relationship (r = .72), but the relation was far from perfect because of the complexities involved in judging humor. in fact, the ratings of one comedian correlated negatively with the ratings of the others. i t might also have been the case that the comedians recognized the humor as coming from a particular source. the researchers chose well-known comedians (e.g., woody allen, al franken), whose work other professional comedians might recognize. for instance, the stimulus with the highest rating was “if a kid asks where rain comes from, i think a cute thing to tell him is „god is crying.” an d if he asks why god is crying, another cute thing to tell him is „probably because of something you did.‟” i t would not be surprising that professional comedians would recognize this humor as one of jack handy‟s “deep thoughts”. the expectation of funniness may have been raised for those stimuli, a process that could lead to elevated ratings stereotypes and sense of humor 273 (e.g., wimer & beins, 2008) both by comedians and by participants with a good soh who might be somewhat familiar with the comedians. further, the differences in types of humor and people‟s preferences for them are always problematic and can lead to uncertainty in measurement. for instance, kruger and dunning did not indicate a gender breakdown among their participants. given that more women participate in psychology studies and that women tend to show higher neuroticism scores than men (e.g., buchanan, johnson, & goldberg, 2005), the nature of the humor in that study might have had an effect on the outcome. so the correlation they reported relating assessment of one‟s soh may have underestimated the participants‟ ability to do so. our methodology is similar to that of cann and calhoun (2001) regarding the nature of our stimuli. we assessed participants‟ levels of traits from the so-called big five, as measured by scales developed by the international i tem personality pool (http://ipip.ori.org/ipip/). unfortunately, for technical reasons, measurements of conscientiousness failed to record. in addition, we obtained self-reports on 36 personality characteristics that cann and calhoun measured (e.g., friendly, interesting, complaining, passive). those researchers identified the characteristics on two orthogonal dimensions: desirability (high or low) and control (high or low). the difference between their study and ours is that our analysis will investigate whether participants with a good sense of humor will show the same characteristics that cann and calhoun‟s participants envisioned in a person with a good sense of humor. that is, do people attribute the same stereotypical characteristics associated with a good sense of humor in others to themselves? similarly, do those with a poor sense of humor do so? kruger and dunning (1999) reported that their participants‟ self-ratings of humor compared to their peer group correlated significantly with those researchers‟ objective measurement of soh. we are looking at whether participants are aware of their level of soh as measured on a likert-type scale without reference to a peer group. prev ious self-measurements of soh may have relied on less specific measurements given the report that 94% of participants believed that they were above average (allport, 1961). in addition, it is not clear how participants differ in their answers if they compare themselves to a peer group as opposed to simply assessing themselves v ia a number on a more abstract likert-type scale. file:///d:/beins/local%20settings/temp/(http:/ipip.ori.org/ipip/) europe’s journal of psychology 274 method participants we tested 109 volunteers from psychology courses. they received extra credit for their participation. there were 75 women and 33 men. the sample comprised 97 white participants, 6 black participants, 4 asian americans, and 2 who did not indicate race or ethnicity. materials we used measures of the big five personality traits from the collaboratory prov ided by the oregon research institute (http://ipip.ori.org/ipip/). they included 10-item scales for neuroticism with an acceptable level of reliability (α = .86), extraversion (α = .86), and openness (α = .82); we used the 20-item scale agreeableness (α = .85) because its reliability was comparable to that of the other scales. in addition, our participants completed the multidimensional sense of humor scale (mshs; thorson and powell, 1993a), a 24-item self-report inventory with statements like my clever sayings amuse others and humor is a lousy coping mechanism (reverse scored). responses to items on this inventory are on a scale of 1 (very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate). for data analysis to replicate cann and calhoun‟s approach, we created three levels of soh: low, medium, and high. our cutoffs for inclusion in the three groups involved a breakdown into three groups with approximately equal numbers of participants based on scores on the mshs. next, participants rated themselves on the set of 36 adjectives that cann and calhoun (2001, p. 122) used. the adjectives reflected traits that represented high or low desirability and high or low control. high desirability-high control adjectives included words like friendly and pleasant. high desirability-low control words included interesting and imaginative. the low desirability-high control words involved words such as complaining and cold; low-desirability-low control included words such as passive and restless. participants self-rated these on the same scale of 1 (not at all like me) to 9 (completely like me) that cann and calhoun used. procedure participants reported to the laboratory and completed the study in groups either on a computer or on paper. they sat in nonadjacent seats to minimize the likelihood file:///d:/beins/local%20settings/temp/(http:/ipip.ori.org/ipip/) stereotypes and sense of humor 275 that responses would be influenced by others who might see how they rated themselves on the various characteristics. after completing informed consent forms, they rated themselves on measures of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness. subsequent to those ratings, participants completed the multidimensional sense of humor scale, then rated themselves on the 36 adjectives that differed in control and desirability. results subjective and objective measures of humor when our participants indicated on a 10-point scale how funny they thought they were and how much of a soh they possessed, the results showed, predictably, that they tended not to rate themselves as being at the very low end of the scale. but the 10-point scale gave them the psychological space to indicate that they believed themselves to be low relative to others. in fact, for both funniness and soh, the data are reasonably well distributed. although it is not surprising that people did not rate themselves as being entirely humorless, few people rated themselves at the highest levels for either characteristic. the patterns appear in figures 1 and 2. these data belie the claim that people are not aware of their humorous aspects. in fact, both lefcourt and martin (1986) and kruger and dunning (1999) reported significant correlations between inventory items or other external measures of sense of humor and self-ratings. the present data resulting from a 10-point scale shows that people are clearly not obliv ious to their relative standing regarding humor competence. in fact, if one were to ignore self ratings of three and lower, an area on the scale that is sparsely populated, one has a typical seven-point likert-type scale with ratings along the entire scale. particularly for soh, people are reluctant to place themselves at the very bottom of the scale. but they are willing to admit that they are not at the top of the scale. using our objective measure of soh, the mshs, we grouped participants as being low, medium, or high in soh to match the categories that cann and calhoun used for the assessment of hypothetical others. when we analyzed our participants‟ self reports about sense of humor, there was remarkable agreement between the participants‟ self perceptions and the objective measurements for their responses to both self assessments, “how funny do you think you are?” and “how would you rate europe’s journal of psychology 276 your sense of humor?” figure 1. frequency of occurrence of self rated funniness on a scale of 1 (not very funny) to 10 very funny) figure 2. frequency of occurrence of self rated sense of humor on a scale of 1 (very poor sense of humor) to 10 (very good sense of humor) participants who reported not being very funny scored reliably lower on the mshs, those seeing themselves as being moderately funny scored in the middle, and those whose self perceptions were as being very funny scored highest, f(2,103) = 23.67, p < .01, partial η2 = .32. participants who reported not having much of a soh were likely to score lowest on the mshs, with those reporting a moderate soh reliably higher on the mshs, and those claiming best soh scoring highest on the mshs, f(2,103) = 7.62, p < .01, partial η2 = .13. the pattern of results appears in figure 3. for each question, the self-reported humor in the low, medium, and high groups differs significantly from the other two groups. stereotypes and sense of humor 277 figure 3. self-reported humor levels as a function of level of humor competence as measured by the mshs we factor analyzed the 24 items from the mshs into its components. the factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed five components with eigenvalues greater than 1.00. although our sample size was on the lower bound for analyzing a 24-item instrument, our factors were similar enough to those of thorson and powell (1993a) that we are comfortable using the factors that emerged from the analysis. together, they accounted for 67.04% of the variance. the factors involved (a) humor production (items 1 to 10), (b) positive feeling about coping humor (items 11 to 14 and item 16), (c) utility of humor (items 15 and 17), (d) humor appreciation (items 19 to 23), and (e) comfort with humor (items 18 and 24). all coefficients but one were above .5; the single exception was .45. table 1 gives examples of some of the mshs items associated with the five factors. there is good consistency regarding participants‟ v iews of their own humor competence and its objective measurement on the mshs. reinforcing these results is the significant correlation between self reports of being funny and the mshs score, r(107) = .71, p < .01. the correlation between the self report and the humor production factor on the mshs was even higher, r(107) = .77, p < .01. with respect to the self report of having a good sense of humor, participants‟ self ratings correlated significantly with mshs scores, r(107) = .44, p < .01. the phrase sense of humor appears to mean something different than being funny, given this lower correlation with mshs score and with the even lower correlation between selfreported soh and mshs score on the production factor, r(107) = .42, p < .01. europe’s journal of psychology 278 factor example humor production i ‟m regarded as something of a wit by my friends positive feelings about coping humor humor helps me cope utility of humor humor is a lousy coping mechanism humor appreciation i appreciate those who generate humor comfort with humor i ‟m uncomfortable when everyone is cracking jokes table 1. examples of items from the mshs (thorson & powell, 1993a) associated with the five factors resulting from a factor analysis of participant responses in general, there is a stronger relation between mshs score with its components and belief in one‟s funniness than belief in one‟s soh. so either the mshs is a better measure of funniness as people characterize it, or soh is a more global construct that goes beyond the factors of the mshs. still, the mshs does more than an adequate job of dealing with both perceived funniness and soh. personality characteristics and humor when we analyzed our data using the same nominal groupings that cann and calhoun did (low, average, and high in soh) when their participants envisioned a hypothetical other, there were some similarities in the patterns of results. for some personality characteristics, our participants rated their own personality the same way cann and calhoun‟s participants rated a hypothetical other. our participants attributed extraversion to themselves just as cann and calhoun‟s participants attributed extraversion to the hypothetical other, with low -soh participants showing significantly lower levels of extraversion than medium or high, f(2, 103) = 6.03, p < .01, partial η2 = .10. with respect to neuroticism, a marginally significant effect showed that our participants with low and medium soh were about equal, with high soh participants having lower levels of neuroticism, f(2, 103) = 2.40, p = .10, partial η2 = .04. this marginal effect replicates that of cann and calhoun. stereotypes and sense of humor 279 our pattern of results regarding openness shows some similarity with the prev ious research, with the highest levels of openness associated with high-soh participants, f(2, 103) = 3.05, p = .05, partial η2 = .06, although the levels for low and medium participants is reversed here compared to cann and calhoun. finally regarding this set of characteristics, we found no differences across humor levels regarding agreeableness, f < 1. cann and calhoun found increasing levels of agreeableness attributed to others as their putative level of soh increased. summary data from our study appear in table 2. extraversion neuroticism openness agreeableness low 3.19 (.12) 2.41 (0.11) 3.46 (0.09) 3.67 (0.09) medium 3.81 (.13) 2.31 (0.12) 3.26 (0.10) 3.73 (0.10) high 3.60 (.12) 2.64 (0.11) 3.58 (0.09) 3.56 (0.08) table 2. mean self ratings of personality characteristics according to level of sense of humor as measured by the mshs these results are intriguing in that the attribution of some personality characteristics is similar regardless of whether one is evaluating a hypothetical other with, for instance, an above-average soh or a high-soh person is evaluating himself or herself. such attributions occurred both for positive traits (i.e., extraversion and openness) and a negative trait (i.e., neuroticism). in addition to analyzing overall humor competence, we investigated the relation between subcomponents of humor, as identified in the factor analysis of the mshs data, and the elements of the big five personality theory. the patterns of correlation appear in table 3. interestingly, overall humor competence did not correlate with neuroticism for either funniness or soh, r = -.06 and .04, both ps > .56. nor was there a relation between funniness or soh and openness, r = .08 and .03, both ps > .41. (for all analyses, df = 107.) self-reported funniness and extraversion were significantly correlated, r = .35, p < .01, whereas soh was marginally related, r = .18, p = .06. agreeableness and funniness were not significantly correlated, r = .11, but agreeableness and soh were, r = .20, p = .04. these latter two patterns suggest that the psychological processes associated with funniness and soh may overlap but that they also have discrete components. europe’s journal of psychology 280 a breakdown of mshs factors and their associations revealed that certain personality characteristics are correlated with different traits. for instance, humor production correlated significantly with extraversion, but not with any other traits. extraversion neuroticism openness agreeableness humor production .37** .03 .10 .06 coping with humor .00 -.03 .27** .27* utility of humor -.02 -.12 -.11 .23* humor appreciation .03 -.08 .26** .29* comfort with humor -.11 -.32** -.06 .21* total mshs score .24* -.06 .24* .08 note: significant correlations appear in bold type. for all correlations, df = 107. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 3. correlations between personality traits and components of sense of humor these correlations prov ide an interesting look at the various components of humor and the traits associated with them. participants with high extraversion scores produce humor, but their extraversion does not predict anything about the other components of humor. similarly, participants scoring high on neuroticism show discomfort with humor, agreeing that statements like i’m uncomfortable when everyone is cracking jokes describe them accurately. another pattern of interest concerns openness. there is a direct relation between one‟s level of openness and the two components of humor, use of coping humor and humor appreciation. openness does not correlate with negative responses to humor, discomfort or how useful humor is for coping. as such, openness relates to positive reactions to humor but not to negative responses. this prov ides an interesting contrast to the decreasing comfort with humor as neuroticism increases without a concomitant relation to responses to positive use of coping humor. in addition, agreeableness is not associated with humor production, but it is with acceptance of and appreciation of humor. this is not surprising given that agreeableness in our measurements was associated with a positive outlook, which could reasonably include appreciating the value of humor and its ameliorative social effects. stereotypes and sense of humor 281 finally, the ratings of the adjectives that varied in control and in desirability did not vary systematically with humor level, as in cann and calhoun‟s study. we presented all adjectives in each category together, which we think simply led to higher ratings for high desirability adjectives and lower ratings for low desirability adjectives without differentiating across humor levels. thus, we will not discuss this analysis further. discussion the two most interesting and important findings in this research are that (a) people do know their level of humor competence and will report it with reasonable accuracy and (b) people attribute some traits to themselves that they attribute to a hypothetical other who possesses the same level of humor competence as they do. as noted above, a recurrent theme in discussing humor competence is that people believe that they show high levels of sense of humor and that they report their levels inaccurately (allport, 1961; kruger & dunning, 1999; lefcourt & martin, 1986). this theme persists in spite of reports correlations between self-perceived soh and some objective measures of soh (kruger & dunning; 1999; lefcourt & martin, 1986). one of the difficulties in measuring personality and humor is the subjectiv ity that is necessarily involved. there is no objective metric for identifying constructs of funniness of jokes (wimer & beins, 2008), so using responses to jokes as a measurement of a person‟s sense of humor is reasonable, but not perfect. similarly, measuring a person‟s self perception of humor has its limitations because such measurement implies that people are able and willing to monitor the effect that their humor production has on those around them. our data reflect the importance of the particular measurements used and the need to attend to the multidimensional nature of humor. in this study, we extended the scale of possible responses from the typical five as used by lefcourt & martin to a ten-point scale. knowing that people are unwilling to characterize themselves as completely devoid of humor competence, we reasoned that by extending the scale, we would allow people to avoid assigning extremely low values to their level of humor but, at the same time, they might stil l be able to position themselves with relative accuracy. our results justified that approach. using a ten-point scale appears in a psychological sense to be the same as using a sevenpoint scale on which there are three fictitious (i.e., unused) points. participants tended not to self rate with very low numbers when reporting their soh, although they were willing to admit being low on the funniness scale. i t appears that people differentiate between having a good soh, which is highly desirable, and being funny, which is also desirable but not absolutely critical. europe’s journal of psychology 282 when we examined participants‟ scores on the mshs in relation to their self-reported soh and level of funniness, we found impressive correlations. the correlation between the humor production factor of the mshs and the self rating of funniness was .765, which would account for over 58% of the variance in that relation. this figure is very high for measurements of such a complex psychological construct. the aforementioned research implies that some cognitive characteristics are associated with recognition of one‟s humor competence. kuiper, mckenzie, and belanger (1995) showed that humorous people were able to change their perspectives when contexts changed; they called for recognition of the multidimensional nature of humor as it related to indiv idual differences. other researchers have taken their cues from kuiper et al. in the realm of personality characteristics (e.g., craik, lampert, & nelson, 1996; köhler, & ruch, 1996). the research addressing the association of humor and personality characteristics is very complex and sometimes inconsistent. for example, neuroticism sometimes correlates with soh (e.g., deaner & mcconatha, 1993), but sometimes it does not (e.g., köhler, & ruch,1996). in the present research, neuroticism did not correlate with overall soh as measured by the mshs, but higher scores on neuroticism are associated with greater levels of discomfort with expressions of humor. as köhler & ruch (1996) pointed out, measures of neuroticism focus on qualities like shyness and mood changes; further, galloway and chirico (2008) pointed out that people high in neuroticism dislike the anxiety of some humor (e.g., nonsense humor), so it is no surprise that humor production is unrelated to neuroticism score in our data. thus, the nature of the measurement appears to be crucial in establishing any connection among these variables, as suggested by kuiper at al. (1995). this suggestion is further supported by our finding that the relations between total mshs scores and personality scores are not as strong as the relations between subcomponents of the mshs and personality scores. looking back at lefcourt and martin‟s (1986) report that 94% of participants were at or above average in humor, one can ask whether the question to which they referred may relate to humor appreciation or coping more than to other subcomponents of humor. in fact, dewitte and verguts (2001) showed that what constitutes a “good joker” involves two components, frequent joking and attention to the effects of that joking. self-monitoring seems to be a critical element in becoming a good joker because a degree of sensitiv ity to listener reactions helps fine tune one‟s humor skills. as such, the importance of self monitoring may explain why openness and agreeableness are reliably associated with soh: both of these characteristics relate to paying attention to context. stereotypes and sense of humor 283 the importance of separating the components of humor is clear in our data regarding openness and agreeableness. mshs overall scores correlate significantly with agreeableness scores but not with openness as shown in table 3. a breakdown into the components of humor, on the other hand, reveals an interesting relation between neuroticism scores and the comfort with humor subcomponent of the mshs. the lack of an overall correlation between mshs score and neuroticism score fails to reveal that those high in neuroticism feel discomfort around the expression of humor, a finding also reported by köhler, & ruch (1996). extraversion is reliably associated with humor production, although it is not clear that extraversion is association with being a good joker. i f an extravert is low in social sensitiv ity, the person may tell jokes frequently, but not well because the person has not used cues from the audience to refine his or her ability, as dewitte and verguts noted. thus, even though there may be no everyday, objective metric for measuring humor or one‟s sense of humor, those high in self-monitoring may pick up reliable cues from those around them. in fact, turner (1980) found that research participants rated high self monitors as being wittier; participants similarly rated cartoon captions produced by that group as funnier than captions produced by low self monitors. i t is possible that those lower in sensitiv ity to pick up on social cues may constitute the group that sees itself, erroneously, as above average in funniness; they observe themselves telling jokes, but they do not register the lack of success in their performance. this research also prov ided reason that people have at least some ability to recognize their humor competence. another aspect of our research addressed the degree to which participan ts‟ self perceptions tended to match their perceptions of people who were like them in terms of level of humor competence. cann and calhoun reported on stereotypes that people have of others with below average, typical, and above average senses of humor; we investigated whether participants attributed to themselves the same characteristics that cann and calhoun‟s participants attributed to an imaginary other. our results revealed that there were similarities between self ratings of participants with a given level of humor competence and cann and calhoun‟s reports of ratings of hypothetical others. this comparability suggests that the attributions accorded to others who may have, for example, a very good sense of humor are actually shared by people whose objectively determined sense of humor is good. europe’s journal of psychology 284 perceptions of one‟s humor level may not be perfect, nor are objective measurements, but there is an element of veridicality to both. cann and calhoun reported that imaginary others with a good sense of humor were v iewed as being more intelligent than those with a poor sense of humor. as howrigan and macdonald (2008) have shown, there is a reliable correlation between intelligence and humor and between extraversion and humor (the latter being a consistent finding). so there is little surprise to see some correlation between intelligence and extraversion. nor is it a surprise that people would correctly perceive this link. one might suspect that spotting positive traits like intelligence (and their correlates) might be matched by the ability to spot undesirable traits. our results match those of cann and calhoun regarding neuroticism. our participants attributed to themselves the same level of neuroticism that cann and calhoun‟s participants attributed to imaginary others when the level of humor competence of our participants matched that of cann and calhoun‟s imaginary other. in contrast, our participants did not show different levels of openness or agreeableness as a function of level of humor competence. this lack of an effect probably would not surprise either howrigan and macdonald (2008) or buss (1988), who advanced their arguments in the context of evolutionary psychology, specifically mate selection. higher levels of humor are associated with “a positive growth-oriented fashion with a variety of life circumstances and situations” (kuiper et al., 1995, p. 371). one can imagine that neither openness nor agreeableness per se would be evolutionarily related to mate selection in the same way as intelligence, which may be reliably associated with perceptions of humor competence through the related variable of extraversion. i t would be useful to explore the possible connection between perceptions of intelligence, humor, and extraversion. in conclusion, our data support the contention that people are good, but not perfect, in assessing their level of humor competence. further, when they assess the humor competence of others (see cann and calhoun, 2001), they may be using their own self perceptions as a basis in evaluating others. thus, some of the humor stereotypes of others that cann and calhoun reported may have their root in veridical self perceptions. the importance of humor in social situations and the ability to recognize traits that co-occur with high levels of humor competence are not unexpected when v iewed within the context of evolutionary psychology. finally, in assessing personality characteristics associated with humor competence, it is important to treat humor as the multidimensional construct that it is. stereotypes and sense of humor 285 references allport, g. h. 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(2008). expectations and perceived humor. humor: international journal of humor research, 21, 347-363. doi:10.1515/humor.2008.016 about the authors: bernard c. beins bernard c. beins is professor of psychology. he chairs the psychology department at i thaca college in i thaca, new york. his interests involve the relation between personality and sense of humor, the role of expectations in humor perception, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the history of psychology. address for correspondence: prof. bernard beins, school of humanities and sciences, 119n williams hall i thaca, ny 14850 e-mail: beins@ithaca.edu shawn o‟toole shawn m. o‟toole is a 2007 graduate of i thaca college, where he earned his b.a. in psychology. currently, he is pursuing his master‟s degree in adolescent education at st. john‟s university. shawn ultimately plans to teach both mathematics and special education. correspondence with the author: shawnot@gmail.com. mailto:beins@ithaca.edu imap://beins@ic4.ithaca.edu:993/fetch%3euid%3e/shawnot@gmail.com chuang-tze：a positive psychologist in ancient china ren jun professor at the psychology department, zhejiang normal university liu yingli master of psychology department, zhejiang normal university ma tianyu ph.d. student, social psychology department, jilin university abstract the positive psychological movement has played a more and more important role in the stage of psychology. positive psychology emphasizes subject well-being and has three pillars: positive emotion, positive traits, and positive institutions. chuang-tze was a notable thinker in the history of ancient china. his life career and his world outlook provide an important cue to the understanding of positive psychology. the unexhausted life force and lofty state of spirit in his thought strongly influence and attract people of later generation. moreover, his brilliant exposition about value and value judgment is the vital source for us to excavate his theory of value. by means of his understanding of “tao”, chuang-tze put his concept into the field of value, in this way form his theory of value with the characteristic of relativism. chuang-tze’s profound philosophy can be summarized in four phrases: “tao as the source of the world”, “uniformity of things”, “non-action in face of nature” and “absolute freedom”. the ideal personality advocated by chuang-tze is that of a “real man ——the surpassing integrity of pure temperament and elevated spiritual delight untouched by the outside distractions ——which is far beyond the usual concept of life and death of this world. what is more, chuang-tze referred some traits of real man and also talked about some ways toward real man which is the same as that of current positive psychology. therefore, chuang-tze can be regarded as the earliest positive psychologist in ancient china. keywords: chuang-tze; tao; real man; sitting and forgetting; the fasting of the mind chuang-tze (369 b.c.—286 b.c.) is a song state person in the middle period of the warring states and was born in a place called meng. chuang-tze is a famous ideologist in ancient china, whose ideas are mainly expressed in the book of “chuangtse”. there are three parts involved in the book, the inner part, the outer part, and the mixed part, which sum up to 33 chapters. the ideology system of chuang-tze is very sophisticated, including politics, philosophy, ethics, arts, and religion etc., which has left profound influence on the after generations. however, few scholars have paid much attention to the influence that chuang-tze has put on the development of psychology. in fact, throughout the 33 chapters in the book of “chuangtse”, there are many thoughts and ideas are consistent with the modern positive psychology. as a mainstream in the development of modern psychology (schultz & schultz, 2004, p.ⅹⅶ), positive psychology is featured as providing technique support which aims at getting a happy life for people in general. the main contents are called “a core with three braces to support”, that is, taking people’s subjective well-being as the core, and positive experience, positive traits, and positive institutions as the three pillars (seligman, 2002, p.ⅹⅲ). in the past, psychology has much more concerned about the psychological problems. as a result, it has become a priority to the minority (people who have psychological problems) and strays far away from the majority people living a normal life. the positive psychology is arisen to change the pathological feature of the traditional psychology (ren jun, 2006, pp.336-342), and at present, it has won the consensus in psychological field throughout the world, and its influence even stretches into other fields such as pedagogy, sociology, management and economics. 1. the positive faith in living in chuang-tze’s ideological system the taoist school initiated by lao-tze started to separate in the warring states, which partly became huang-lao school (wei xiangdong, chao bingsheng, yang guang & cheng qing, 1998, p.227), a political art used by the ruling class then and after. the other part was centered by “seclusion”, with uncooperative attitude to the ruling class, in which chuang-tze was a representative (zhang c. & wang c., 2000, pp.46-49; zhang dainian & fang keli, 1994, pp.85-86). nevertheless, someone think that “it is a bit awkward to put chuang-tze and lao-tze together in the historical records, for though chuang-tze and lao-tze are almost in successive relationship, the basic characteristics don’t match. lao-tze’s theory is a political philosophy that positively goes into the society, while chuang-tze asks for metaphysics that goes beyond the society.” (li zhehou, 1986, p.177) but most scholars are apt to believe that the theory of chuang-tze is originated from taoist school initiated by lao-tze. what’s more, they think it inheriting the essence of the taoist school, which means that chuang-tze epitomizes the taoist theory (wei xiangdong, chao bingsheng, yang guang & cheng qing, 1998, p,227). 1.1 emphasis on the perfect happiness—the core of chuang-tze’s positive living theory perfect happiness is the maximal happiness. chuang-tze believes that “life with extreme joy is what we live for; life with endless sorrow is not what we want.”(chao c., 1982, p.258) birth and death are only natural rules. as long as we escape all realistic burdens and integrate with nature, we’ll have no sorrow any more. in the 18th chapter in “outer chapters”, chuang-tze equals perfect happiness to non-action. non-action here mentioned by chuang-tze means that human should obey the natural rules of the things’ change rather than doing nothing. this idea is clearly manifested in the chapter “competent emperors and kings” in “inner chapters”. “the perfect man has a mind like a mirror, which neither welcomes nor sends which reflects things but does not retain things. therefore, he can act successfully without wearing out his mind.” (chao c., 1982, p.119) it means that the heart filled with perfect joy and nobility is like a mirror, reflecting all the things naturally, without leaving any imprints even after responses, in which way the whole things will be reflected without any damage to the heart. in fact, chuang-tze’s behaviors are probably the best explanation to the perfect joy and non-action. according to the 18th chapter in “outer chapters”, when chuang-tze’s wife died and hui-tze went for condolence, chuang-tze play the drum instead of cry, which surprised hui-tze a lot. chuang-tze explained that his wife’s death was just as natural as the alternation of the four seasons, thus there was nothing to be sad of. chuang-tze’s behavior (playing the drum) obviously accords with the natural rule, which is a kind of perfect happiness. therefore, we can come to the conclusion that non-action is not doing anything. there are many ways of living, any of which has the side to make us happy. we should take the happy side as our starting point and thus gain us a meaningful life. when chuang-tze emphasized perfect happiness, he was also strongly against the rigid unnecessary worry. he thought that people were unhappy not because of life itself without joy, but they were not good at getting happiness out of life. in the first chapter in “inner chapters”, hui-tze got a seed of calabash from the king of wei and planted it. later, he got a big calabash which he wanted to use it as a water container but it was not strong enough. then he used it as a water ladle, but it was too big. so hui-tze smashed the calabash, for he thought the calabash wouldn’t bring any joy to him. when chuang-tze heard this, he said “why don’t you tie them around your waist as buoys when you go floating over the river or the lake instead of worrying that they are too large to be used anywhere?” (chao c., 1982, p.12) during one’s life, he is bound to face up some misfortunes, to which, according to chuang-tze, the best way is to keep a positive attitude and enjoy the most happiness. if god turns my left arm into a rooster, i’ll use it to herald the break of a day; if god turns my right arm into a catapult, i’ll use it for fowling to eat; if god turns my ass into wheels, i’ll change my spirit into a horse for riding (chao c., 1982, p.100). all these romantic and easy opinions for a perfect happy life rooted in chuang-tze’s views of different things’ value. to chuang-tze, life itself is more important than anything else; we can’t exchange our precious life for something trivial. therefore, we should be in a state of perfect happiness through our life time. chuang-tze’s attitude to life is a typically positive attitude: to enjoy the happiness of living when is alive; to enjoy the cheer of death when die. only if we spend all our lives on pursuing the good things and experiences can our lives be perfect with extreme joy. 1.2 dialectic—the basis of chuang-tze’s positive living theory chuang-tze’s dialectic is originated from lao-tze. in the “moral”, lao-tze’s suggests that the existences of all the things rely on each other: they are not isolated, for one can’t be without another. it is so called “being and not-being grow out of one another; difficult and easy complete one another; long and short test one another; high and low determine one another; pitch and mode give harmony to one another; front and back give sequence to one another.” (ren j., 1985, p.47) lao-tze’s dialectic first came from the change of the natural rules. he thought that though the young plant was vulnerable, it would grow strong, and after maturity it had to face up death. from this we can see that the emphasis of lao-tze’s dialectic is the death; he seems to summarize the thing’s dialectic development full of fear and plaint, so as to seek for the evidence for his theory of doing nothing, which is typically negative. just as someone has said, “after lao-tze said ‘the movement of the tao by contraries proceeds’, he put forward ‘weakness marks the course of tao’s mighty deeds’. he thought he knew the argument that ‘things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme’, and he thought the best way was to stay vulnerable, ‘man who knows his manhood’s strength, yet still maintains his female feebleness’, which led to his conservative and negative conclusion.” (zhang c & wang c., 2000, p.11) chuang-tze developed the dialectic theory of lao-tze. he found the integrity not only in the conflictions of natural phenomenon and social life, eg. this or that, life or death, ens or nil, big or small, and success or failure etc., but also the positive meaning out of the opposite consistency: he brought forward the idea of “uniformity of things”. there are two parts in the idea: firstly, chuang-tze suggested that we should see the world by the doctrine of “tao”, and understand the meaning of life from the origin. chuang-tze especially outlined the consistency in the integration and transformation of the opposite sides. as he developed the dialectic, he also provided romantic sangfroid and easiness for people faced with difficulties, which is superior to lao-tze. as chuang-tze believed, “where there is birth there must be death; where there is death there must be birth. where there is approval there must be disapproval; where there is disapproval there must be approval. where there is recognition of the right there must be recognition of the wrong; where there is recognition of the wrong there must be recognition of the right.”(chao c, 1982, p.22) it means that death coexists with life; wrong coexists with right. we should leave right and wrong alone without caring about them excessively. chuang-tze also thought that all the things are relative, for we can get a different understanding if we see from a different perspective. “from the viewpoint of tao, there is nothing noble or mean; from the viewpoint of things, an individual often thinks highly of himself and thinks lowly of others; from the viewpoint of worldly learning, the distinction lies outside things themselves. from the viewpoint of distinctions, if we say that something is large because it is relatively large, then everything can be said to be large. if we say that something is small because it is relatively small, then everything can be said to be small. from the viewpoint of functions, if we say that something is useful because it is useful in one respect, then everything can be said to be useful. if we say that something is useless in another respect, then everything can be said to be useless…from the viewpoint of preference, if we say that something is right because it is right in one sense, then everything can be said to be right. if we say that something is wrong because it is wrong in another sense, then everything can be said to be wrong (chao c., 1982, p.244). chuang-tze’s dialectic theory stresses a mediocre mind without being driven by desires but learning to forget both success and failure, and forget worldly living and realistic burdens so as to be a whole with nature getting delightfulness freely out of the landscape or wandering in the beautiful scenes. superficially, this idea of chuang-tze’s is in accordance with lao-tze’s theory, which seems to deal with life negatively in a metaphysical way of doing nothing. but in fact, they are different. lao-tze arrived at a stay-vulnerable attitude to life from the dialectic development that enlightening doing nothing, while chuang-tze learned to trace back the origin of the confliction, the so called “love and hate are out of disputes; disputes are out of limits; limits are out of thing’s formation; things come from nothing”. (chao c., 1982, p.29) being nothing is a natural state, which emphasize that we can do something. therefore, chuang-tze’s non-action differs from lao-tze’s doing nothing: the final goal of chuang-tze’s non-action is to find the meaning of life through the integration with nature, which to some extent, edifies our spiritual world and enriches our soul. secondly, although both lao-tze and chuang-tze have expounded the dialectic thoughts, the aim of their dissertation are different: lao-tze is obviously negative, while chuang-tze is much more positive. as lao-tze has said, “misery!—happiness is to be found by its side! happiness!—misery lurks beneath it!……the (method of) correction shall by a turn become distortion, and the good in it shall by a turn become evil (and thereby invites feller)” (ren j., 1985, p.186), “he who (relies on) the strength of his forces does not conquer; and a tree which is strong will fill the out-stretched arms” (ren j., 1985, p.225), “it is because every one under heaven recognizes beauty as beauty, that the idea of ugliness exists. and equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue, this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness.” (ren j., 1985, p.63) after reading those words, we might probably experience a helpless feeling of daring not to be the pioneer, and a sentimental feeling about the existence itself. this may be related to lao-tze’s special emphasis on the ideas of being “gentle” “weak” and “humble”, which to some extent adds much more negative flavor into his proposition. yet chuang-tze is different. he has often dissertates his dialectic ideas positively, e.g. “when something falls into disintegration, some new entities are formed; when some new entities are formed, something must have fallen apart. but for things in general, there is neither disintegration nor formation—there is always the interchangeability and uniformity of things” (chao c., 1982, p.25). so “the great tao goes beyond description; the argument goes beyond words; great humaneness goes beyond good deeds; great integrity goes beyond modesty; great courage goes beyond violence” (chao c., 1982, p.32). this means that the so-called great “tao” cannot be explained. who has mastered brilliant views doesn’t need to argue with others; who has great benevolence will not love, for to love something means not to love something else; who is the most disinterested is not modest; who is the bravest will not do harm to others. the starting point of these arguments centers definitely around doing something in the real world, which at least makes us appreciate the easiness and freedom by controlling our own lives. what’s more, if we compare the sentence form of lao-tze’s and chuang-tze’s used to expound their dialectic thoughts, we will find something interesting: under most circumstance, lao-tze usually took the negative side of the contradiction as the epilogue of his dissertation (the epilogue is usually the stressed part in the sentence meaning). the arguments of lao-tze mentioned before are best manifestations, while chuang-tze’s dissertation doesn’t have such obvious feature. we all know that “repeated fights end up in repeated failures” is different from “repeated failure inspires repeated fight”. the former one is typically negative, while we can sense the positive significance in the latter one. we might say that chuang-tze’s argumentation enjoys the positive significance in his sentence form similar to the notion that repeated failures inspire repeated fights. 2. chuang-tze’s ideal personality chuang-tze called ideal personality a real man who detached himself from all the mundane affairs and incarnated and lived up to taoism which had no boundary of living and dying and kept a peaceful hearty at any time. 2.1 the meaning of the real man chuang-tze explained the meaning of a real man in his way of life which was so-called wandering in absolute freedom. it is a kind of spiritual freedom which emphasizes the existence of noumenon and that a man has to get rid of all the extrinsic material desires in order to become an adult and obtain the freedom. chuang-tze’s philosophical idea embodies an important modern topic, which is refusing to be the slave of money or substance. “only the man who holds the kingdom and is not influenced by worldly things can control the kingdom” (chao c., 1982, p.156). “chuang-tze was angling in the pu river when lord wei from the state of chu sent two ministers to invite him, saying, ‘we’d like to entrust you with the state affairs.’ holding the fishing rod in his hand, chuang-tze did not look back, saying, ‘i’ve heard that there is a sacred turtle in the state of chu, which was dead for three thousand years. the lord keeps it in a bamboo case covered with a kerchief. would this turtle prefer to be dead and kept in such a grand style or to be alive and able to drag its tail in the mud?’ ” (chao c., 1982, p.255) chuang-tze was unwilling to be an officer because he didn’t want to be tired or be impelled by money and substance or change his real man life style. he became a real man because he hoped to live freely and happily. there are two characteristics in chuang-tze’s generalization of real man: first, chuang-tze suggested the meaning of real man’s personality on the basis of investigating all kinds of hardship of human which to some extent is a kind of transcendence to the hardship in life. as chuang-tze viewed, people might face lots of hardship in life which mainly involves three parts: one is from the nature world in which man is only a substance. so no one could escape from the laws of nature …… they begin and end in endless cycles, which stipulate that one dies once is born and death is the final limit which can’t be spanned. therefore, it is inevitable for all kinds of hardship caused by death. second is the hardship from the society world of human’s existence. a man is one living in the society who exists and is influenced by others. sometimes, this kind of influence even controls a man’s existence. for example, chuang-tze once had to borrow food from the superintendent of river-courses but was refused. his late yeas are more miserable. he lived in a shabby lane and had to make a living by weaving grass-shoe even if he was sallow and emaciated. thus, war, convulsion, tyranny of rulers, refusal to cooperate with others are the second part of hardship which human might face. third is the hardship from ego which mainly refers to the inevitable feeling of sadness and gladness and the desire for gain. the ideal personality suggested by chuang-tze indicates that human can realize the spiritual freedom and achieve the state of real man once get rid of these hardship mentioned above. and this state is wandering in absolute freedom which is also suggested by him and he portrays a beautiful tableau of it: “i’m about to keep company with the creator of things. when i get tired, i will ride on the bird of ease and emptiness, flying out of the universe, to wander in the land of nothingness and stay in the boundless wild field.” (chao c., 1982, p.113) “rides on the cloud, harnesses the flying dragon and roams beyond the four seas.” (chao c., 1982, p.34) “experience the bounteous tao and wander in the realm of infinity.” (chao c., 1982, p.119) although it depicts a picture of xanadu, the ideal personality of chuang-tze is not entirely irony-towered and exists in certain thought. he stressed real man had to go back to mundane world after his unification with the ten thousand things of creation on the earth. “he neither showed disdain for anything nor questioned for right and wrong, but harmonized with worldly affairs.” (chao c., 1982, p.508) real man has not only happiness, anger, grief and joy —the gamut of human feeling, but also the seven human emotions and the six human desires. “he was as austere as autumn and as warm as spring. his joy and anger succeeded each other as naturally as the succession of the four seasons. he was in conformity with everything in the world, but he was fathomless to all. all served their respective masters. they brought comfort to others, but never to themselves.” (chao c., 1982, p.89) this means that the gamut of human feeling of real man should comply with the nature towards the way to taoism. second, the meaning of real man’s personality of chuang-tze is proposed after summarizing and estimating the relevant theories of each faction in history and it is a refinement to the personality theories of all of these factions. chuang-tze thought that the views of “no-music”“restraint”from mohist school seemed to be harsh to ourselves. this viewpoint should be criticized because the sage is also a vulgar person. and this also indirectly proves that the ideal personality of chuang-tze is not an unreal but actual one. similarly, chuang-tze made known his attitude towards the sage also by praising the view “do not get entangled in worldly affairs; do not decorate with material ornaments; do not comply with others; do not violate the popular wishes. let everyone keep his body and soul together in peaceful world; let everyone live a substantial life and speak his mind.” (chao c., 1982, p.499) from song jian、yin wen school. there are some commonalities between these two schools. they were all hardworking and plain living. they loved people eagerly and regarded putting down wars and realizing the stability as their mission. however, song jian and yin wen were more amiable and easy of approach and have less emotion and desires than mozi. shen dao and tian pian could forget themselves, discard the wisdom and uniform all the things, that is “being fair and impartial, being easy to approach and selfless, doing away with subjective evaluation, judging things with one criterion, being decisive without apprehensions, seeking no display of wits, making no choice among objective things, and going along with the natural course of events.” (chao c., 1982, p.502). but they didn’t achieve mastery through a comprehensive study of these thoughts, so they failed to find the real tao and they were still laymen. guan yi and lao-tze regarded “the core of the universe” as their core which advocates to be open-minded, forbearing and tolerant to people and things and able to make concessions to achieve one’s aim. “tao that governs to universe is the quintessence; anything tangible in the universe is non-fundamental. savings will make one insatiable; a quiet and simple life is the principle of tao. … they established their view-point of ‘original existence’ and ‘original non-existence’ and the core of their view is the ‘absolute tao’. externally, they impressed the people with a soft and prudent attitude; internally, they maintained a quiet and non-destructive state of mind” (chao c., 1982, p.505). thus, it helps people to avoid enduring hardships in life. they are already a great real man; however, they can’t be because they still haven’t got to the summit of “tao”. chuang-tze considered a real man should be “emptiness leaves no trace; change signifies no form. there is no life or death. tao coexists with the heaven and the earth and communicates with both the internal and the external. it goes to nowhere in a trance and comes from nowhere in a trance. it contains everything and yet does not know its final destination.” (chao c., 1982, p.508) 2.2 specific personality traits a real man should have chuang-tze put forward the real man’s personality trait on the basis of his ideal which claimed to return to the nature and attained noumenon’s independence and freedom. the maximal life-goal of chuang-tze accords to the nature and keeps a naturalism attitude. from the domain field of conception, ideal is not a narration of factual event, but a presentation of a kind of imaginary connection about culture or events (max w., 2002, p.16). it is contrary to naturalism in domain. but chuang-tze defined the connotation of ideal as naturalism, so the two opponent domains because unifies here by him which was indeed a distinct part in chuang-tze’s thought. concretely speaking, there are several aspects in his real man’s personality traits, as follows: 1. great ambition: the first space in “chuangtse” is about ambition which demonstrates chuang-tze’s emphasis on the ambition’s influence upon life. “have a bright future” is an idiom which is elicited from the content of chuang-tze’s “wandering in absolute freedom” by the offspring. chuang-tze thought that people should have great goals and can’t be fettered by the facing reality in lives. 2. honesty: chuang-tze saw honesty as the symbol of the real man’s personality. he elaborated it in “the fisherman”: “the natural disposition means the apex of absolute sincerity. without absolute sincerity, you will never be able to elicit the emotions and passions of others. so, a forced wail only appears to be sorrowful; a forced rage only appears to be severe and forced warmth only appears to be friendly.” (chao c., 1982, p.474). we can see from his discussion that actually honesty reflects his same value-interest—returning to the nature. “if everyone rectifies himself and keeps his virtue to himself, he will not enforce his virtue upon others; otherwise, everything in the world will lose its inborn nature.” (chao c., 1982, p.232). that is to say that one’s morality is sterling originally, but if he is forced to accept his own morality which can’t be imposed, he will lose his nature one. 3. keeping faith: there is some dissimilarity in chuang-tze’s discussion on the opinion of keeping faith. he pretended to be a robber called zhi. his emphasis on keeping faith aimed for accusing confucius confucianism theory of hypocrisy and deceit and he insisted that people’s lives should conform to the nature and go back to barbarism, not to be bothered by the extrinsic repute. 4. pure friendship: “outer chapter — chapter twenty a mountain tree” mainly discusses the way to form one’s mind and get along with others in life. the essence of it is emphasizing that people should behave according to the nature and do not associate with others for personal interests. he believed that people could discard each other when facing poverty, disaster and hurt if they united because of respective interests. one day, zi si，zi yu, zi li, zi lai came together and chatted: “we will make friends with whoever can regard nihility as head, existence as back, death as buttock and can understand the truth that living and death is a unitary one.” (chao c., 1982, p.100). the four people looked at each other and laughed. they knew each other by heart and became best friends. although the fellowship between gentlemen is pale like water while that between mean person is sweet like wine, the friendship of the former is forever while that of the latter is easy to break off. people will finally leave each other for no reason if they come together in the same way. 5. serenity: chuang-tze considered that quietness is foundation for nature to keep balance and that is the maximal state of morality and cultivation. “indifference, solitude, emptiness and non-action — these are the yardsticks of the heaven and the earth, and the perfection of tao and virtue.” (chao c., 1982, p.228) 6. tolerance: “he who always conforms with things will fare well with others; he who does not conform with things will not tolerate himself, still less tolerate others. he who does not tolerate others will have no friends around him; he who has no friends around him will be the out case of the society.” (chao c., 1982, pp.351-352) there is a common character in chuang-tze’s description of the above traits. he combined some connections and events in people’s activity with a non-contradictive world of nature which was composed of all kinds of imaginary conditions and connections and contains some characters of modern utopia. consequently, chuang-tze obviously didn’t wish to demonstrate the traits of his ideal personality in reality; instead, he regarded it as an attempt to build up a kind of ideal personality. however, these propositions of chuang-tze can easily be found in the positive personality traits proposed by current positive psychology (seligman, steen, nansook, & peterson, 2005). just as a saying goes, “fine things will come together in the end.” 3. ways to realize ideal personality the real man is a man who knows “tao”. chuang-tze brought out the ways to know “tao” by the mouth of a man who had already known it. “when three days passed, he was able to put the physical world beyond him. after he had put the physical world beyond him, i went on with my enlightenment. when seven days passed, he was able to put material things beyond him. after he had put material things beyond him, i again went on with my enlightenment. when nine days passed, he was able to put his life beyond mind, as fresh as dawn. after he had discerned the independent tao, he was able to obscure the distinction of the past and the present. after he had obscured the distinction of the past and the present, he was able to ignore life and death.” (chao c, 1982, p.98) here, chuang-tze stressed that once one should conform to nature if he/she wanted to know the ways to realize the ideal personality, what is called “if you had called me a bull yesterday, i would have agreed with you; if you had called me a horse, i would have agreed with you too.” (yu dan, 2007, p.117) according to chuang-tze, a man is called a man because of its combination with the nature. therefore, if one wants to be a real man, he/she has not to contend with people or things and comply with the world peacefully. this view of knowing “tao” is a combination of intuition and personal life experience. and it is a typical mental pursue and spirit illusion which aims at emphasizing the role of one’s own spirit. if we make a full analysis to this thought, we may easily find that chuang-tze’s so-called “knowing the ‘tao’” is indeed an emphasis on sticking to the real humanity and a kind of criticism to the outside substance’s disobedience to humanity. specifically, chuang-tze suggested two main ways to become a real man: “sitting and forgetting” and “the fasting of the mind”. 3.1 sitting and forgetting chuang-tze explained this conception tactfully by the mouth of confucius and yan hui in order to emphasize its value. chuang-tze said “i cast off my limb and trunk, give up my hearing and sight, leave my physical form and deprive myself of my mind. in this way, i can identify myself with tao.” (chao c, 1982, p.109) after chuang-tze has put forward “sitting and forgetting”, it has been regarded as a good way to cultivate oneself through meditation. and the posterity has the greatest esteem for it all the time, just as chinese traditional qigong regarded “sitting and forgetting” as a main way when doing exercises and a kind of maximal state (wang fengyan & zhenghong, 2005, pp.206-207). chuang-tze’s “sitting and forgetting” is like yoga in indian culture which insists on getting rid of the influence of the external things and memory and being calm to hold the origin of life which is called “atman” in yoga (marvin levine, 2000, pp.81-83). 3.2 the fasting of the mind the fasting of the mind is a way for spirit or soul to keep quiet which means that people should hear but pay no attention to the outside, the ears should not be stirred up by the sound from the outside and the heart should stop contacting the external world. if depicted in modern language, it refers to closing all the perceptive organs of people, excluding any thought in mind and letting oneself hold the vacuity in heart (yu dan, 2007, pp.35-36). chuang-tze said “you must concentrate your attention. do not listen with your ears, but with your mind; do not comprehend with your mind, but with your vital energy. your ears can only hear and your mind can only comprehend. but the vital energy is an emptiness that is responsive to anything.” (chao c, 1982, p.55), which means that the fasting of the mind is to keep the heart a pure one and banish distracting thought from the mind. one should not listen with ears but the heart and should not listen with heart but the spirit. the spirit and heart chuang-tze mentioned here actually can not be used for listening and also can not be combined to the outside things. here he just wanted to give prominence to core of his viewpoint — the emptiness of heart. tao can gather into the emptiness because only emptiness can hold the universe. people can not hear if the empty heart is intruded by any outside things. so emptiness is indeed the fasting of the mind which is the way to know “tao”. 4. conclusion although some people think that the core of thought in ancient china is not a kind of culture emphasizing the personal value(nisbett & peng, 2001), from the content of the 33 chapters of “chuangtse”, chuang-tze’s theory is not philosophy of society and politics or ethics and it is different from the confucianism’s opinions of cultivating oneself and put family in order to rule the country and give peace to the world (lei kehong, 1996, pp.1-21; dahlsgaard & peterson, 2005). it advocates observing and purifying life from the angle of nature and it is a positive psychics which stresses the harmonious development between human’s heart and nature. this can be called a kind of positive psychology to some extent and therefore chuang-tze can be regarded as the earliest positive psychologist in ancient china. although chuang-tze’s psychics didn’t been absorbed by the rulers of the contemporary society and had nothing to do with the labor in lower class. but it influenced the whole society through the attitude, behavior and the mental state of the literators and some of the scholar-officials and finally became an important component of the collective personality of the chinese. references chao c. (1982). chuangtse annotated index (in chinese). chinese publishing house, 258. dahlsgaard k., & peterson, c. (2005). shared virtue: the convergence of valued human strengths across culture and history. review of general psychology, 9(3), 205-206. lei kehong (1996). the analects of confucius (in chinese). shanxi people press. li z.(1986). the theory of chinese ancient thoughts (in chinese). the people publishing company. marvin levine (2000). the positive psychology of buddhism and yoga. lawrence eribaum associates, inc. max, w. (2002). the methodology of the social sciences (in chinese). the center translation and edition publishing hous., nisbett, r. e., peng kaiping. (2001). culture and systems of thought: holistic versus analytic cognition. psychological review, 108(2), 291-293. ren j. (1985). lao-tzu new translation(2nd edition). shanghai ancient books publishing house (in chinese). ren jun. (2006). positive psychology (in chinese). shanghai education press. schultz, d. p., & schultz, s. e. (2004). a history of modern psychology (8th edition). thomson learning. seligman, m. e. p., steen t. a., nansook park & peterson c. (2005). positive psychology progress. american psychologist, 60(5), 411-412. seligman m. e. p. (2002). authentic happiness. free press. wang fengyan & zhenghong. (2005). chinese cultural psychology (in chinese). jinan university press. wei xiangdong, chao bingsheng, yang guang & cheng qing. (1998). the history of chinese ancient culture (in chinese). suzhou university press. yu dan (2007). what i have learned from chuangtse (in chinese). chinese democracy and legal system press. zhang c, wang c. (2000). the ten philosophers (in chinese). nanjing university publishing company. zhang dainian & fang keli (1994). the conspectus of chinese culture (in chinese). beijing normal university press. biographical notes correspondent: ren jun, phd, professor of psychology department, zhejiang normal university, (zhejiang, jinghua, china. post code: 321004.) does researches on academic psychology and positive psychology. e-mail: drinren66@163.com ma tianyu, phd student, social psychology department, jilin university (changchun, china), makes researches on academic psychology. liu yingli, master of psychology department, zhejiang normal university, does researches on positive psychology. the rise of ethics fundamentalism in the uk: a warning to europe john barry phd student city university, london j.a.barry@city.ac.uk http://www.city.ac.uk/ “research is unethical if it is without scientific merit… student projects do not usually have this potential” (doyal 2004, section 4.1). the above quote sounds as if it has come straight from heller’s catch 22, but is in fact from the official draft proposal for guidelines on the regulation of student projects in britain. you have just entered the crazy world of medical ethics in the uk. if you think this doesn’t apply to you because you are a cognitive psychologist & don’t intend to set foot in a hospital until you are ill, you might be shocked. and if you should find yourself ever daring approach a hospital patient, hospital staff, or even setting foot on hospital grounds with a questionnaire, read on and pay close attention. at the outset i should state that i have an interest in this issue. in 2002, as part of my msc health psychology at the university of westminster in london i wanted to study the psychological aspects of polycystic ovary syndrome (pcos), which required that i recruit patients with this condition from the nhs. despite having spent the summer reviewing the literature and designing the study, i was not prepared for the fact that the national health service (nhs, state run health industry) would delay my study for so long that in the end i didn’t have time to recruit through the hospital they were representing. in fact i would have failed my msc had it not been for the overwhelmingly positive response from a pcos support group who came to my rescue at the last moment, volunteering in droves. so who were the ethics committee representing the wishes of? certainly not women with pcos, who tend to be extremely concerned at the lack of research into their condition. i have found out since that my msc experience of recs (research ethics committees) is one that is all too common in the uk, and predictably i am having similar problems on my current phd research. but it seems that research at all levels is obstructed by the recs. is the experience of ethical review the same throughout the eu? hearnshaw (2003) compared the uk to some other countries, namely austria, belgium, denmark, france, germany, israel, netherlands, portrugal, slovenia, and switzerland. hearnshaw wanted to trial a leaflet intended to improve involvement of older patients with their family doctors. for this non-invasive, non-interventional trial only three of the countries required compulsory ethical approval: belgium, slovenia, and the uk – the rest required no notice for this type of study. in belgium’s defence, at least they didn’t require as much paperwork as slovenia and the uk. the uk rec process was found to be the most arduous of all the countries, spanning ten weeks, requiring two submissions (as changes were deemed necessary), and five days of administration. the whole wasteful experience left hearnshaw to ponder that “uk partners may be unwelcome in international studies” (hearnshaw 2004, p. 140). but curiously, the recs across europe & israel all base their decision-making process on the europe-wide ethical guidelines based on the declaration of helsinki, so how can the decisions be so heterogenous? despite attempts by some in the uk to fall back on the old excuse of blaming eu interference for bureaucratic messes e.g. derbyshire & highfield (2004) it seems on the contrary that nearly every other eu country – using the same guidelines as the uk – has not got this problem of rec delays. obviously there is more than one way to interpret guidelines, and for some reason the uk makes the harshest possible interpretation. to put this situation in context, the history of modern ethical guidelines begins with the nuremburg code (1949) intended to prevent the gross abuses of human dignity that were seen in nazi death camp ‘experiments’. the guidelines of the declaration of helsinki (in several versions from 1964 to 2002) stemmed from this. so let’s take a reality check for a moment: the ethical decision-making process that hearnshaw went through with his leaflets designed to help elderly people stay healthy is based on guidelines intended to prevent gross abuses of human dignity that were seen in the nazi death camps; does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? do the uk recs see a dr mengele behind every rec application? according to the president of the royal college of physicians, recs should protect patients and encourage research beneficial to patients (alberti, 2000). did the uk rec encourage hearnshaw’s research, which was clearly beneficial to patients? did the uk rec think that hearnshaw’s leaflets might damage patients? it is the strictness of interpretation of ethical guidelines that prompts me to describe the ethos as fundamentalism. you might think furthermore that if a study has no problems in terms of ethics, then the rec would not have a problem with it; wrong. as the recs are of the view that a poorly designed study would be unethical – it would be a waste of patients’ time and effort – this means that the recs have a say in the design of the study too, whether you agree with their opinion or not. but it goes further still: though the hospital trust gives final approval for research, the recs have the right to review any study that involves nhs patients or their families or their records, nhs staff, nhs premises or equipment, unborn babies and the recently deceased. an application to the rec may be approved, deferred (pending alterations or additional information), or rejected on the basis that it needs to be fundamentally altered. the reasons for rejection are legion, and would seem to the uninitiated to have nothing to do with ethics. any aspect of the design may be seen to be wanting e.g. not enough participants for sufficient power, or the researchers may be seen as lacking the expertise or funding to carry out the research, or they may have a track record of not completing projects, or the researchers are intending to offer inducements (e.g. cash or the promise of special attention) to participants to take part in the study. this final point does, at least, relate – however weakly – to an ethical dimension of the study! rejection however is not as frequent a problem as deferral. delay in their research has been the bane of many a researcher in the uk. as you can imagine, in a health-care setting delays cost lives. the head of clinical programmes at cancer research’s uk, dr richard sullivan has complained that trials of breast and bowel cancer drugs now took five times longer than in the early 1990s due to rec beurocracy (derbyshire & highfield, 2003). even the late sir richard doll – co-author of the first paper linking smoking and cancer – was so incensed by the bureaucracy that had crept into research ethics that he would “without doubt be willing to break the law” to draw attention “to the absurdity of the situation” (highfield 2004, paragraph 4). the letters pages of the lancet, british medical journal (bmj) and other leading publications often have complaints from researchers – mainly undertaking medical research i.e. clinical trials – who are tired and frustrated with the time-wasting tactics of the uk recs. for example “to delay necessary research without good cause is itself unethical” (gilbertson 1999, p.7). another researcher complains that “we now… cannot do our jobs because of ethics committees” (nicholl 2000, 1217). others express the opinion that recs don’t understand research methods (pearson, 2000, p.1217). this opinion has been reinforced by the recent review of uk recs which has advised that they should not judge the scientific merit of research proposals; this should be left to experts in the field of research being proposed (department of health, 2005). to be fair to the recs, how could a panel of 7 to 18 committee members – including at least one lay member – be expected to have sufficient knowledge of all areas of research that might come their way in order to be able to come to a sound judgement as to its validity? these people are unpaid and usually have a great amount of work to undertake under time constraints. and there is also the fact that some recs have a reputation for being more strict than others – it seems that choosing the right rec can be more important in getting your study done within your deadline than making sure the study is sound. also if your study uses measures unfamiliar to any members of the rec you can expect to have your research delayed while they get you to clarify it for them. walker et al. (2004) suggest that recs are often ignorant of complementary and alternative medicine, resulting in the suggestion of unrealistic alterations. “there is at least one ethics committee that refuses all qualitative research proposals at first review” (walker et al. 2004, p.122). if professional researchers within the medical establishment (e.g. doll) have a hard time of it, you can imagine the reception that psychologists – with their weird and unfamiliar psychometric measures – might get: more delays while the point of the study is explained to a degree unnecessary to those with a basic knowledge of psychometrics. and if you are a student wanting to research using nhs patients, staff etc, then it is even tougher. marvel at this quote from the working group on ethical review of student research in the nhs: “research is unethical if it is without scientific merit… student projects do not usually have this potential” (doyal 2004, section 4.1). the nhs seems intimidated by what appears to them an “enormous and growing” area stretching the resources of the already overworked recs (doyal 2004, section 1.4). it is as if students are unwanted immigrants attempting to breach the borders of medicine. and it is not entirely flattering to the researchers of tomorrow to read that student research is “not designed to generate new knowledge. rather… to develop students’ understanding of scientific methods and their skills in applying them. new discoveries may occasionally emerge … but this will usually be an unintended consequence of such work” (doyal 2004, 1.2). no wonder then that msc research “all but grinding to a halt” (minnis 2004, p.122) and that some supervisors advise their students to abandon projects that require rec approval (mckee 2004, p.122). the working group express concerns over student clinical psychology & social work/care/policy projects, especially those using qualitative methods: “when undergraduate students interview patients, they risk causing distress and thus potential complications in the patient’s illness or recovery. the fact that such harm may be rare does not obviate the moral importance of avoiding it” (doyal 2004, 2.3). this applies even if only interviewing staff, who are presumably only vulnerable to an everyday degree. but isn’t this view risk averse in the extreme? in psychology we use probability to guide whether we accept or reject a hypothesis, but it seems the recs are inclined to reject this kind of study even though the probability of risk is extremely low. in any case, can’t the students’ universities properly regulate the students so that only good quality proposals reach the recs? surely psychologists are in a better position to judge the risks inherent in interviews and questionnaires. doyle et al say that such regulation is “patchy” to “non-existent” (doyal 2004, 1.3). their proposed solution to this failure to properly supervise student projects is student project ethics committees (or specs, presumably to correct the short-sightedness with which student projects are designed). these are proposed to run along similar lines to the nhs recs and “would need to be a joint endeavour between the department of health and the university” (doyal 2004, 5.3). specs would govern any project using human participants regardless of whether based in healthcare or not. is it me, or does this sound like trying to put out a fire with petrol? and why all this extra bureaucracy? because doyle et al want to ensure that student projects don’t have the potential to breach the helsinki declaration. despite their recognition that it is important to train researchers somehow, student projects have inferior scientific standards. they view the cost-benefit analysis as weighing against the student, for example the potential distress caused by a questionnaire is usually unseen by both student and supervisor, and can only be safely assessed by an independent committee i.e. specs. but don’t worry, because now we have the new improved eu directive 2001/20/ec that applies to all eu countries and has promised to improve the situation e.g. by ensuring an rec decision within 60 days of receipt of application. but the decision doesn’t have to be ‘yes’, it may be ‘no’, or require any number of amendments. once amendments are made, you submit the documentation again (all of it) and the sixty day clock starts ticking once more. but perhaps many psychologists in the eu will not even notice the change, as the directive is supposed to govern clinical trials i.e. should not apply to questionnaire or other non-medical research. furthermore: “this directive does not apply to non-interventional trials” (eu directive 2001/20/ec, p.3). thus there are no guidelines whatsoever for research involving only questionnaires/leaflets etc. so if a piece of research is non-medical and non-interventional, why do we need the nhs ethics committees to get involved? the answer is that we probably don’t, neither ethically, scientifically, nor legally. but who is going to challenge the nhs on this? the legal expense and paperwork involved would put all but the most resilient off this idea. to confuse matters further it seems that corec (the central office for research ethics committees) view questionnaires as a type of intervention. in defining questionnaires in this unusual way gives recs some sort of excuse to review questionnaire-based research. but why should the nhs act in such an unreasonable way? perhaps it is a knee-jerk reaction to the moral panic that followed alder hey and similar scandals in the 1990’s. it has been suggested to me that since alder hey the nhs ethics committees have become very sensitive to allowing any research that might leave them open to being sued or blamed for causing distress or harm of any kind to patients or public. if this were true it would imply that the nhs – through the recs – are as interested in protecting themselves as they are their patients. again, it seems ridiculous to put questionnaire research in the same bracket as research involving the organs of dead babies, but this is the ridiculous ‘one size fits all’ mentality of the nhs recs. as glasziou and chalmers (2004) point out (see the hearnshaw 2003 study), britain – along with belgium and slovenia – have the strictest recs of the 10 european countries (plus israel) that they tested. naturally many parties interested in investing in research can see just how difficult it is to do research in britain. the result? they will invest elsewhere, in countries that have recs that appear grounded more in science and less in kafka. the rot has clearly set in in the uk; could it take hold elsehwhere in europe? what can we do in the uk to improve the situation? well, consider that membership of the rec is voluntary, and one third of the maximum of 18 members may be lay i.e. not necessarily connected to medicine or science in any way. decisions are made when consensus is reached, at least by the majority on the committee. so why not have a say in the process, and join your local committee? applications can be made to join an rec by contacting them direct. a list of contact details of recs in the uk can be found here: http://www.corec.org.uk/recs/contacts/recsgeo.htm another option is what is called ‘patient power’ – no, not the kind of patience you need when making an application to a uk rec, but the kind of power exerted when patients realise that their needs are not being met and so they do something constructive about it. this has been the case recently with the breast cancer drug herceptin, which until patients voiced their protest (34 000 signatures to downing st), was not available to women with early stage breast cancer. i would predict that the public would protest in a similar way if they realised that every day that the availability of drugs, treatments, and medical knowledge were being delayed by the rec system of review, a system that is crying out to be changed. footnotes 1 "clinical trial" means any investigation in human subjects, other than a non-interventional trial, intended (a) to discover or verify the clinical, pharmacological or other pharmacodynamic effects of one or more medicinal products, (b) to identify any adverse reactions to one or more such products, or (c) to study absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of one or more such products, with the object of ascertaining the safety or efficacy of those products (eu directive 2001/20/ec, p.3). 2 neither does the more recent good clinical practice directive (2005/28/ec). 3 prompted by uncertainty around the meaning of the term “non-interventional research” in the latest nhs rec form (version 5.1) the term has been removed i.e. there is no longer an option for ‘non-interventional research’ (downing 2006, p.2). the term has been replaced by a new option “research limited to working with human tissue samples and/or data”, which is apparently what corec had meant by the term all along. this hardly clarifies matters for those of us whose research involves questionnaires. perhaps the inclusion of an option for “research limited to working with data” would have made things clearer? 4 there was a public outcry when it became known that many babies who died at the alder hey childrens’ hospital between 1988-1996 had various organs removed for research purposes without the knowledge or permission of parents. this was in breach of existing legislation, the human tissue act of 1961. 5 this is not to say that they have ever been considered a push-over since their inception in 1968. references alberti, k. (2000). bmj, 320, 1157-1158. bbc news (2006). doctors ‘prescribing herceptin’. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4677538.stm department of health (2005). report of the ad hoc advisory group on the operation of nhs research ethics committees. http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetroot/04/11/24/17/04112417.pdf. accessed 7-2-06. (a summary is available here: http://www.dh.gov.uk/publicationsandstatistics/pressreleases/pressreleasesnotices/fs/en?content_id=4112425&chk=bxhylq). derbyshire, d. & highfield, r. (2003) brussels red tape ‘costs lives of cancer patients’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/12/ncanc12.xml 12/09/2003. accessed 7-2-06 downing, j. (2006). http://www.corec.org.uk/applicants/index.htm#060206a. accessed 7-2-06 doyal, l. (2004). the ethical governance and regulation of student projects: a draft proposal working group on ethical review of student research in the nhs. http://www.aaps.ed.ac.uk/committees/rec/2003-04/rec_agenda_190204.pdf eu clinical trials directive. directive 2001/20/ec of the european parliament and of the council of 4 april 2001. http://www.wctn.org.uk/downloads/eu_directive/directive.pdf. accessed 7-2-06 gilbertson (1999). ethical review of research. british journal of anaesthesia, 82, 1, 6-7. hearnshaw, h. (2004). comparison of requirements of recs in 11 european countries for a non-invasive interventional study. bmj, 328, 140-1. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7432/140. accessed 3-4-04 highfield, r. (2004). rules ‘threaten medical research’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/26/nrules26.xml . accessed 7-2-06 human tissue act (1961) cited in http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1136723.stm. accessed 3-4-04 nuremberg code (1949) cited in http://ethics.sandiego.edu/resources/htm. accessed 3-4-04 eu directive 2001/02/ec (directive 2001/20/ec of the european parliament and of the council) http://www.wctn.org.uk/downloads/eu_directive/directive.pdf wma (2002). declaration of helsinki. http://www.wma.net/e/policy/pdf/17c.pdf. accessed 10-4-04 spaars approach: integrated cognitive model of emotion of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder neha khetrapal centre for behavioural and cognitive sciences university of allahabad, allahabad, india abstract spaars (schematic, propositional, analogical and associative representational systems) is the integrated cognitive model of emotion proposed by power & dalgleish (1997). in spaars, emotions are described as appraisal based against an individual’s goals and this makes the theory functional in nature. the theory proposes two routes for the generation of emotions, namely a direct one in which the appraisals have become automatized and the other where these are still not automatized. it provides a useful approach within which both basic and complex emotions can readily be understood. the theory can also be applied for explaining the disorders of emotion and it can be used to generate novel therapeutic interventions for them. in the current review, the spaars approach in conjunction with the theory proposed by nigg and casey (2005) has been applied for understanding adhd. according to nigg & casey, affective deficits in adhd could be due to problems with either approach or avoidance emotions. these problems have been explained with the help of appraisals and reinforcement learning within the spaars framework. interventions that follow logically from the spaars framework have also been suggested. keywords: adhd; affective deficits; emotions; spaars; therapeutic interventions introduction spaars (schematic, propositional, analogical and associative representational systems) is the integrated cognitive model of emotion proposed by power & dalgleish (1997). it is multi-level in nature. the initial processing of stimuli occurs through sensory-specific systems like vision and so on. these grouped together are called the analogical representation system. the output from this system then feeds on to three semantic representation systems that operate in parallel. at the lowest level is the associative system, which takes the form of a number of modularized connectionist networks. the intermediate level has the propositional system that has language like representation though it is not language specific. according to the model, there is no direct route from propositions to emotions but they feed either through appraisals at the schematic level or directly through the associative system. the highest level is called the schematic model level. it has the advantages of storing information in a flexible manner along with the traditional schema approach. at this level the generation of emotion occurs through the process of appraisal. there are different types of appraisals for eliciting basic emotions like sadness, happiness, anger, fear and disgust. these basic emotions can be classified as approach or avoidance emotions; for instance, appraisal for fear involves the interpretation of threat to one’s physical or emotional safety and hence is useful for avoiding a potentially threatening stimulus. the basic emotions are thus generated via the direct route. an additional way in which emotions might come to be generated through the direct route is from repeated pairings of certain event emotion sequences that eventually leads to the automatisation of the sequence. this repetition bypasses the need for any appraisal that the event has important implications for one’s goals and thus becomes directly associated with emotion. example of the involvement of the direct route in an emotional disorder is an instance of phobia where the automatic processing of the objects is anxiety provoking even though the appraisal route is processing it as non-threatening. the appraisals also provide the staring point for complex emotions. for instance, empathy can be aroused in a person the appraisal process that takes into account the loss of goals of others. in this scheme the disorders of emotions also derive from the same set of basic emotions. thus, the spaars model serves as a useful approach for understanding the affective deficits in various disorders. the purpose of this review is to apply the spaars model in conjunction with the cognitive and affective neurosciences theory proposed by nigg and casey (2005) for understanding the nature of affective deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd). adhd is characterized by hyperactivity/impulsivity and/or inattention that interfere with normal functioning in various settings (american psychiatric association, 1994). although there are three proposed subtypes, the focus over here would be only on the combined subtype of the disorder. according to nigg and casey (2005) one route to adhd might be due to a breakdown in the prediction mechanism performed by the prefrontal cortex (pfc) that in turn would lead to problems in cognitive control. this leads to ineffective and disorganized behavior. the other two routes might be affective in nature. the first out of these would be due to extreme approach behavior (due to the over reactivity of the nucleus accumbens of the amygdala), which combined with poor socialization of self-control leads to impulsive and overactive behavior. the second would be due to over-functioning of the avoidance systems (due to the under-reactive amygdala-frontal circuit) which when combined with poor socialization of empathy and social rules leads to impulsive conduct problems and antisocial behavior. adhd as explained by spaars according to the theory proposed by nigg and casey (2005) adhds would have a problem in generating the basic approach and avoidance emotions. adhds would also have a problem in learning to generate appropriate emotions even after witnessing repeated pairing of certain event-emotion sequences that eventually leads to the automatisation of behavior. evidence for problems in reinforcement learning in adhd has also been found (sagvolden et al., 2005; 1998). thus the two routes for the generation of emotion are not functioning properly in the disorder. adhd would be further characterized by problems in showing complex emotions like empathy that would eventually lead to impulsive behavior. in the spaars approach there are inhibitory and facilitatory processes that operate to maintain an optimal balance between the avoidance and approach behavior, this intricate balance could be possibly disturbed in the disorder due to extreme of approach or avoidance behavior. therapeutic interventions within the spaars approach, techniques that address the schematic model of an individual will be successful in helping him or her to the extent that faulty appraisals of situations are involved. providing a new schematic model for appraisal of events would be an option in this case. this is an instance of fast change processes occurring in therapy. but adhds may continue to experience the maladaptive emotions through the activation of the direct route that is slow to change and the adhds in this case may benefit from behavioral exposure techniques. directions for future research it would be fruitful in the future to conduct experiments that would serve as evidence in support of the spaars approach and would ultimately be helpful for understanding the disorder better. topics like the appraisals for generating the basic and complex emotions could be addressed in future research endeavors. the spaars model could be explored within a cognitive neuroscience framework, for instance, the focus of approach and avoidance behavior that is the nucleus accumbens and the amygdala-frontal circuit respectively as proposed by nigg & casey. conducting work in the domain of therapy with a focus on the principles of spaars approach could help improve the affective problems of adhds. conclusion the spaars approach in conjunction with the theory proposed by nigg and casey can offer a good understanding of the affective deficits in adhd. it is not only a parsimonious theory but it also generates empirical predictions that can be readily explored to gain empirical knowledge about affective functioning in adhds. the framework also offers innovative ways of treating the affective deficits found in the disorder. future efforts should be made for applying the theory to other emotional disorders with the aim of understanding these better. references american psychiatric association (1994). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed). washington, dc: american psychiatric association. nigg, j. t. & casey, b. j. (2005). an integrative theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder based on the cognitive and affective neurosciences. development & psychopathology, 17, 785-806. power, m. & dalegleish, t. (1997). cognition and emotion: from order to disorder. england: the psychology press. sagvolden, t., johansen, e. b., aase, h. & russell, v. a. (2005). a dynamic developmental theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) predominantly hyperactive/impulsive and combined subtypes. behavioral brain science, 28, 397-419. sagvolden, t., aase, h., zeiner, p. & berger, d. f. (1998). altered reinforcement mechanisms in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. behavioral brain research, 94, 61-71. biographical note neha khetrapal centre for behavioural and cognitive sciences university of allahabad allahabad 211002 india phone: (91-532) 2460739 fax: (91-532) 2460739 email: nehakhetrapal@gmail.com at present, the author is a graduate student at the centre for behavioural & cognitive sciences, university of allahabad, india. she has joined d.phil (cognitive science) 1 year ago and also took her master’s at the same centre. her first degree of b.a. (honors) in psychology has introduced her to the mysteries of brain and behavior and since than she became interested in psychopathology. she always wanted to come up with appropriate theories potentially capable of explaining the underlying deficits in disorders but found the right direction of doing so in her research program where she has started reading extensively about various theories that could explain normal behavior. as a result the author has tried to apply the theories and developed them further so that they could explain the nature of deficits. up to date she has published several papers in various journals and attended international conferences where she has presented such theories on adhd and psychopathy. she strongly feels that research carried under the framework of these theories will not only help to develop them better but also explain disorders better. dimensionality of affect intensity this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe’s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 139-158, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.302 www.ejop.org validation of dimensionality of affect intensity using the hindi version of the emotional intensity scale rakesh pandey department of psychology, banaras hindu university, varanasi-221005, india prachi saxena department of psychology, banaras hindu university, varanasi-221005, india abstract the dimensionality of the construct of affect intensity is still a debated issue and most of the studies dealing with this debate have used the affect intensity measure (aim; larsen & diener, 1987) although this measure has been criticized on various psychometric grounds. we speculate that the inconsistency regarding the dimensionality of affect intensity may be either because of lack of clarity in its conceptualization or inappropriateness of its psychometric measures. in view of this, the present study attempts to explore the dimensionality of affect intensity using the hindi version of the emotional intensity scale (eis; bachorowski & braaten, 1994) that claims to overcome the psychometric limitations of the aim. the eis-h was administered to 284 hindi speaking indian adults (119 males and 165 females). exploratory factor (principal component) analysis identified two factors that were labelled as positive and negative emotional intensity. however, observation of some overlap and/or cross loading undermines the factorial purity of the eis-h. thus, a maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test two models one assuming the two factors to be uncorrelated and the other as correlated. findings revealed that the correlated two factors model provided a better fit to the data as compared to that which assumed the two factors to be uncorrelated. findings imply that affect intensity is a multidimensional construct that encompasses two independent yet related dimensions of positive and negative affect intensity and the eis-h may be used to reliably measure it. keywords: affect intensity, emotional intensity, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, positive affect intensity, negative affect intensity europe’s journal of psychology 140 individual differences in experience, expression, and regulation of emotions and their implications for health have attracted considerable attention of the researchers during the last few decades (see pandey & choubey, 2010 for a review). one such emotion related construct is affect intensity that represents individual differences in the experience of emotions. it has been defined as stable individual differences in the experienced strength or magnitude of emotions regardless of emotional valence i.e., positivity or negativity of emotional experience (larsen & diener, 1985, 1987). the basic idea behind this construct is that some individuals experience all emotions, both positive and negative, more intensely than others and the individual differences is reflected in the intensity or magnitude of emotional experience and not in the valence (larsen & diener, 1985, 1987). accordingly, an individual who experiences intense positive emotions would also tend to experience intense negative emotions. such conceptualization of affect intensity, though, suggests that it should be considered as a unidimensional construct inasmuch as it is theorized to vary along only the intensity or magnitude of experienced emotions, empirical evidences are inconsistent regarding its dimensionality. most of the empirical evidences however suggest that it is a multidimensional construct consisting of domains defined by arousal and emotional valence but there is still no consensus among the researchers regarding the nature and number of factors underlying affect intensity. for instance, factor analytic studies with the affect intensity measure (aim) (larsen & diener, 1987), one of the initial and most frequently used measures of affect intensity, have failed to converge in terms of number of factors underlying it. in an exploratory factor analysis of the aim, williams (1989) obtained a four-factor solution. the findings yielded two affectively positive factors, correlating positively with extraversion, and two affectively negative factors, correlating positively with neuroticism and negatively with extraversion. a model similar to that of williams‟ (1989) was found by weinfurt and associates (weinfurt, bryant, & yarnold, 1994) with two positive dimensions (positive affectivity and serenity) and two negative ones (negative intensity and negative reactivity). bryant and colleagues (bryant, yarnold, & grimm, 1996) examined the goodness-of-fit of five different measurement models of the aim in order to resolve the dimensionality issue of affect intensity. they noted that the larsen's one-factor model produced the poorest fit, whereas the bryant et al.'s (1996) three-factor model (positive affectivity, negative intensity, negative reactivity) produced the best fit. although these empirical evidences indicate that affect intensity should be considered as multidimensional construct, the lack of consensus regarding the number of factors associated with it suggests two possibilities. first, there may be uncertainty at the level of theory about what the concept should dimensionality of affect intensity 141 mean and secondly, the measure(s) used to examine the structure of the construct may be psychometrically less adequate. it is likely that the inconsistency in findings regarding the number and nature of factors underlying affect intensity may be because of vagueness at the level of theorization of the construct. for instance, if a conceptual model of affect intensity says that it is a construct that varies only in terms of intensity of experienced emotion and not in terms of emotional valence (e.g., larsen & diener, 1985) then any of its measure should not yield valence specific factors. this speculation regarding the uncertainty of the meaning of affect intensity becomes apparent in studies dealing with the measurement of the construct. for instance, larsen and colleagues (larsen & diener, 1987; sandvik, diener, & larsen, 1985) although they originally proposed the aim as a multidimensional construct consisting of five factors (positive affect intensity, negative affect intensity, preference for arousal, general emotional intensity, and visceral reactivity to emotional events), later conceived it as a unidimensional measure (larsen & diener, 1987). some theoretical arguments and empirical observations also points towards the possibility that inconsistency in findings related to the dimensionality of affect intensity may be partly because of poor conceptualization of the construct (cooper & mcconville, 1989, 1993). for example, cooper and mcconville (1989, 1993) suggested that affect intensity should be viewed as a blend of trait extraversion and trait neuroticism rather than as a construct with independent psychological relevance. taking into account the cooper and mcconville‟s (1989,1993) suggestion and integrating the theoretical framework of eysenck (1967, 1981) and gray (1981), bachorowski and braaten (1994) conceptualized affect intensity as a trait that varies in terms of experienced intensity of emotion vis-à-vis emotional valence. incorporating gray‟s (gray,1981) conceptual framework of behavioural inhibition, behavioural activation, and nonspecific arousal systems within eysenck‟s (1967, 1981) framework of extraversion and neuroticism, they have theorized that extraverts are particularly prone to experiencing positive emotional states such as pleasure and elation because of their sensitivity to stimuli such as cues for reward. on the other hand, introverts tend to experience negative emotional states because of their sensitivity to cues such as punishment and uncertainty. they further argued that individual differences in the intensity with which the positive or negative emotions are experienced rest on the position of an individual on the dimension of neuroticism (bachorowski & braaten, 1994). based on such conceptualization of affect intensity that takes into account not only the intensity of the emotional experience but also its valence (positivity or negativity) europe’s journal of psychology 142 bachorowski and braaten‟s (1994) developed the emotional intensity scale (eis) to assess the intensity of positive and negative affective experiences. the eis is based on a theory that assumes affect intensity as a multidimensional construct (supposed to vary on both emotional intensity and valence) as opposed to the conceptual model proposed by larsen and diener (1985, 1987) that views affect intensity as a unidimensional construct assumed to vary only in terms of intensity or strength of experienced emotions. thus, the eis appears to be an alternative to the aim to address the issue of the dimensionality of the affect intensity inasmuch as it is based on a multidimensional theory from the start. the inconsistency in findings regarding the dimensionality of affect intensity is also likely to be an outcome of the psychometric inadequacy of the measures used to examine its factor structure. the aim is one of the most widely used measures to explore the dimensionality of the construct of affect intensity. however, researchers (e.g., bachorowski & braaten, 1994; bryant et al., 1996; cooper & mcconville, 1993; weinfurt et al., 1994) on several grounds have criticized the aim as a measure of affect intensity. for example, some researchers have argued that though, aim claims to measure the intensity of emotional experiences, examination of its content and the response format indicates that the aim appears to measure some combination of the frequency and intensity with which people experience a variety of emotions (bachorowski & braaten, 1994). thus, the score on aim may not be considered to reflect a true measure of affect intensity rather it represents an intermingling of intensity as well as frequency of emotional experience (bachorowski & braaten, 1994). others have criticized it on statistical grounds as well as at a conceptual level (cooper & mcconville, 1993). for example, cooper and mcconville (1993) contended that affect intensity construct is a statistical artifact of the affect intensity score calculation procedures and represents a blend of extraversion (positive affect) and neuroticism (negative affect). to overcome the psychometric problems associated with the aim, bachorowski and braaten (1994) developed the emotional intensity scale (eis). this scale is explicitly meant to provide a measure of affect intensity independent of the frequency of occurrence of emotions. the eis consists of 30 items theoretically divided into two subscales negative emotional intensity (eis-neg) consisting of 16 items and positive emotional intensity (eis-pos) consisting of14 items. the initial psychometric evaluation of the eis revealed satisfactory reliability and validity (bachorowski & braaten, 1994). however, some researchers have noted that “the validity evidences for the eis is sparser than it is for the aim” (larsen, 2009, p. 242) and the clustering of eis-pos and eis-neg is purely based on theoretical grounds and not on empirical evidence. dimensionality of affect intensity 143 such observations suggest a need to further examine the psychometric properties of the eis and validate its proposed two factors structure. however, little has been done to examine and validate the factor structure of the eis. an attempt to validate the anticipated factor structure of the eis was made by geuens and pelsmacker (2002). the study provided evidence for the proposed two factors structure of the eis with a 17-item reduced version of the eis. another study by mcfatter (1998) also provided some evidence that two factors (positive and negative affect intensity) underlie the eis. however, the study pointed out the possibility of splitting the negative affect intensity factor into two components the frustration/anger and a non-anger component. the findings of the mcfatter‟s (1998) study, though, suggest that eis measures two broad dimensions of affect intensity, it also advocates further refinement of the negative affect intensity factor. thus, the two available empirical evidences for the validity of the factor structure of the eis fail to converge and call for collecting further empirical evidences for the validity of the proposed two-factor model of the eis. the foregoing review brings to the fore the possibility that the lack of consensus regarding the dimensionality of affect intensity may be a product of ambiguous conceptualization of the meaning of the construct (that is reflected in nonconvergence or incongruity of theory and measurement) as well as use of less adequate psychometric measures of affect intensity. it is also evident from the preceding review that the eis developed by bachorowski and braaten (1994) may be a more suitable tool to address the issue of the dimensionality of affect intensity because of two reasons. first, it has been developed to overcome various psychometric inadequacies of its predecessor, the aim, that has been widely used to examine the dimensionality of affect intensity. secondly, it is based on a multidimensional theoretical model of affect intensity, derived from the synthesis of personality theories of eysenck (1967, 1981) and gray (1981), which assumes that affect intensity may vary on both emotional intensity as well as valence. further, the review of studies dealing with validation of the factor structure of the eis suggests a need to reexamine its psychometric properties including its factor structure. in light of the aforesaid observations, the present study attempts to re-examine the issue of the dimensionality of affect using the hindi version of the original 30 item eis. such effort would not only help to address the issue of the dimensionality of the construct of affect intensity but would also provide empirical evidence for the validity of its specific measure i.e., the eis. further, the attempt to test the factor structure of a measure of affect intensity in a hindi-speaking indian sample would help to demonstrate the cultural fairness and linguistic independence of the eis in europe’s journal of psychology 144 general and the construct of affect intensity in particular. sometimes, direct translations of psychometric measures, particularly dealing with some aspects of emotions, into another language may fail to capture the meaning of the construct in another culture/language. for instance, mearns and colleagues (2009) observed that the construct of negative mood regulation expectancies is sufficiently different between japanese and american cultures and literal translation of the american scale in japanese may not represent the way the japanese regulate their negative mood. further, evaluation of the psychometric properties of self-report measures of emotional constructs (e.g., affect intensity) across different cultures becomes important in the light of the observed cultural differences in terms of affect intensity, emotion display rules and self-report of emotions (matsumoto, 1993). although direct empirical evidences dealing with differences in indian and western cultures in terms of affect intensity are scant, numerous studies demonstrate that indians differ from individuals of other cultures in terms of other emotional aspects. for instance, scollon, diener, oishi and biswas-diener (2004) compared emotional recall across five different cultures (european americans, asian americans, japanese, indians and hispanics) and found that there were cultural differences in the degree of recall of frequency of emotions and they were related to the reports of intensity of those emotions. similarly, elfenbein, mandal, anbady, harizuka and kumar (2002) found cultural variations in the way indians, americans and japanese recognize facial emotions. american expressors were more easily understood than indian expressors, who were more easily understood than japanese expressors were. cross-cultural differences have also been observed in emotional appraisal among indian and american students. indians, when compared to americans, appraised events as less discrepant and showed lower sadness and anger (roseman, dhawan, rettek, naidu & thapa, 1995). to our best knowledge, no attempt has been made to develop the hindi version of the eis or other measures of affect intensity and to examine the dimensionality of the construct of affect intensity in the indian culture. thus, the findings of the present study would demonstrate the validity of the construct of affect intensity and its measure in the indian cultural context in addition to paving the way for future research in the area of affect intensity by making available a hindi version of the eis. method participants the study was conducted on a convenience sample of 284 hindi speaking indian adults (living in varanasi, india) who volunteered for the study. the sample consisted dimensionality of affect intensity 145 of 165 females and 119 males in the age range of 18 to 50 years (mean age 24.31, sd = 5.98years). due attention was given to get a relatively heterogeneous sample in terms of age, occupation and education level in order to ensure wide variation in response so that inter-correlation among items is not artificially truncated because of restricted response variance. accordingly, effort was made to sample participants from different occupational background including students, teachers, advocates, officers, housewives, marketing personnel, office workers, businessman as well as some unemployed individuals. the education level of the participants also varied considerably ranging from matriculation (standard x) to ph.d. all the participants belonged to middle class socio-economic status. measures the emotional intensity scale (eis; bachorowski & braaten, 1994) is a self-report measure intended to assess the usual or typical intensity with which people experience emotions. the scale consist of 30 items, 14 items measure positive emotions such as joy and liveliness, while the remaining 16 items assess an array of negative emotions, including anger and frustration. each item is followed by five response options each reflecting different levels of emotional response intensities and the participants are required to choose one that best describes their way of experiencing emotions. the total eis score can range from a minimum of 30 to a maximum of 150 with higher score indicating higher affect intensity. an example of an item from the original emotional intensity scale is “i think about awful things that might happen. i feel:i. it has little effect on me, 2. a little worried, 3. worried, 4. very worried, 5. so worried that i can almost think of nothing else”. procedure the hindi version of the eis (eis-h) was developed and administered individually or in small groups. initially a group of three researchers in the field (having knowledge of both hindi and english) were requested to translate the eis into hindi. this group was briefed about the concept of affect intensity and the purpose of the original scale and was requested to give due attention to the grammatical form as well as psychological content of each item while translating it. these three translations were evaluated by the first author and a preliminary hindi version of the eis was prepared. alternate forms were kept where there was lack of consensus among translators. this preliminary hindi version of the eis (with alternate forms of certain items) along with the original was submitted to a panel of three experts working on this topic for evaluating the adequacy of the translation. the experts were asked to rate the appropriateness of the content for each translated item on a three point scale 1 europe’s journal of psychology 146 (not adequate at all), 2 (moderately adequate) and 3 (adequate) and to give suggestions for improving the content of those items that received a rating of less than 3. approximately 10% of the items were revised according to the given suggestions. the final hindi translation of the eis (hereafter referred to as the eis-h) was then back translated into english by another researcher of the field. the back translation was compared with the original form by the second author and the translation was found satisfactory. the final hindi version of the eis was administered on a small group of 15 individuals to evaluate the subjective understanding of the item content and identify any ambiguity (if present) in instructions or meaning of the items. this pilot testing revealed no difficulty in understanding either the instruction or the item content of the eis-h. finally, the eis-h was administered on the 284 participants of the present study either individually or in small groups. first, we explored the factor structure of the eis-h using both exploratory and factor analytic approaches followed by an evaluation of other psychometric properties of the scale such as item-total correlation, alpha-if-item deleted and internal consistency. results exploratory as well as confirmatory factor analyses were done on the data and the findings are summarized in the following two sections. exploratory factor analysis before factor analysing the data, the determinant of the correlation matrix, bartlett‟s test of sphericity and kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy (kmo) were computed to examine the adequacy of the sampled data for factor analysis. the bartlett‟s test of sphericity was found significant (chi square (435) = 191.7, p< .000) which suggests that it is unlikely that the correlation matrix is composed of uncorrelated variables. the problem of multicolinearity was also not detected in the present data as the determinant of the correlation matrix (0.0001) was higher than .00001. the kmo measure of sampling adequacy (kmo= 0.833) was found to be higher than .8 which suggests that the correlation matrix is compact and is likely to yield distinct and reliable factors. the observation of the anti-image correlation matrix also revealed that the kmo values for individual variables were higher than .50, which further supports the adequacy of the data for factor analysis (see gorsuch, 1983; hutcheson & sofroniou, 1999). dimensionality of affect intensity 147 table 1: the rotated component matrix of the eis-h components item no. 1 2 25 .590 7 .544 19 .537 11 .523 9 .519 1 .513 3 .507 16 .501 4 .476 5 .475 30 .469 .309 22 .457 .313 17 .446 13 .397 15 .392 .390 21 .382 26 .260 6 .646 12 .642 28 .624 20 .616 2 .606 10 .571 24 .257 .535 29 .435 8 .425 14 .265 .410 18 .365 23 .278 .356 27 .291 europe’s journal of psychology 148 to explore the dimensionality of the eis-h, the obtained data was subjected to principal component analysis that identified eight components with eigen values greater than one. however, only the first two factors (explaining 27.448% of the total variance) were subsequently rotated as the eis has originally been developed with the intent to measure two factors and the scree plot also indicated the presence of two significant factors. for the interpretation of the factors, a cut-off loading of .25 was used as per the suggestions of the gorsuch (1983) study to use the double of the correlation coefficient found significant for a given sample size. the varimax rotated two factor solution of the eis has been presented in table 1. it is evident from the table 1 that 17 items loaded significantly on the first component and 13 on the second component. the examination of the content of the items having significant loading on the first factor revealed that all the 14 items originally proposed to measure positive affect intensity loaded significantly on it. some example items loading on this factor include item 25, my boss gives me an unexpected pat on the back and says, „nice work‟. i feel: 1. exuberant-my day is perfect, 2. very gratified, 3. gratified, 4. slightly gratified and 5. it has little effect on me. item1: someone compliments me. i feel: 1. it has little effect on me, 2. mildly pleased, 3. pleased, 4. very pleased, and 5. ecstatic, on top of the world. however, the item 4 (i see a child suffering. 1 feel: 1. it has little effect on me, 2. a little upset, 3. upset, 4. very upset and 5. so extremely upset i feel sick to my stomach), item 15 (someone i know is rude to me. i feel: i so incredibly hurt i could cry, 2. very hurt, 3. hurt, 4. a little hurt and 5. it has little effect on me) and item 22 (i have hurt someone‟s feelings. i feel: 1. it has little effect on me, 2. a little sorry, 3. sorry, 4. very sorry and 5. so extremely sorry i will do anything to make it up to them), which were originally proposed to measure negative emotional intensity, also loaded significantly on the first factor thereby reducing the factorial purity of the scale. thirteen items loaded significantly on the second factor and all of them reflected negative emotional intensity, as originally proposed by bachorowski and braaten (1994). some example items from the original scale that loaded significantly on second factor are: item 6: something frustrates me. i feel: 1. it has little effect on me, 2. a little frustrated, 3. frustrated, 4. very frustrated and 5. so extremely tense and frustrated that my muscles knot up; item 12: people do things to annoy me. i feel: i. it has little effect on me, 2. a little bothered, 3. annoyed, 4. very annoyed and 5. so extremely annoyed i feel like hitting them. three items (items 14, 23 and 24) having significant loading on this factor also loaded significantly on the first factor. however, the magnitude of the factor loadings of these items were relatively lower on the first dimensionality of affect intensity 149 factor (loadings ranged from .257 to .278) as compared to the second factor and the item contents (item 14: i have an embarrassing experience. i feel; item 23: i am late for work or school and i find myself in a traffic jam. i feel; item 24: i am involved in a situation in which i must do well, such as an important exam or job interview. i feel) were congruent with rest of the items defining the second factor (negative affect intensity); these items may therefore be considered as part of this factor. thus, the second factor with 13 items, all of which represent negative emotional content, may be labled as negative affect intensity. overall, the findings of the exploratory factor (principal component) analysis provide partial support that the eis-h measures two factors the positive and negative emotional intensity. however, the observation that some items loaded on factors other than that which they belonged to (or loaded on both factors) puts a caveat on the factorial purity of the eis-h, particularly the factorial purity of the positive affect intensity factor as it was found to be composed of both positive (14 items) and negative (3 items) affect intensity items. in view of the lack of factorial purity of the structure of the eis-h, we tried a varimax rotated three factor solution. however, the obtained pattern of loadings across the three factors were more difficult to interpret as compared to the aforesaid twofactor solution. the first and the third factors were found to be composed of items representing both positive and negative affect intensity whereas the second factor was composed of only negative affect intensity items. to sum up, the findings of exploratory factor analysis do not provide full support to the factor structure of the eis-h as proposed by bachorowski and braaten (1994). thus, to validate the hypothesized factor structure of eis-h (14 items defining positive affect intensity and 16 negative affect intensity) a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. confirmatory factor analysis to validate the two dimensional structure of the eis-h as originally proposed by bachorowski and braaten (1994), a maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis was done using amos-16. to assess the goodness of fit of the hypothesized factor structure models the criteria used in earlier confirmatory factor analytic studies of the eis (geuens & pelsmacker, 2002) were used. geuens and pelsmacker (2002) used the following six criteria for examining the model-fit (a) the goodness-of-fit index (gfi) greater than .80, (b) the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (agfi) greater than .9, (c) the root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea) less than .08 (cole, 1987), (d) europe’s journal of psychology 150 the ratio of maximum-likelihood chi-square to the degrees of freedom (x2/df, bollen, 1989) less than five, (e) tucker and lewis non-normed fit index (tli) greater than .9, and (f) bentler‟s comparative fit index(cfi) greater than .9. here it is worth mentioning that although we are using the criteria of testing the model fit as used by geuens and pelsmacker (2002) to have parity, the recent recommendations for some of the said fit indices are slightly different. for example, now days a good fit is inferred if the gfi and agfi are greater than .95, x2/df< 2 and rmsea is less than .05 (see hooper, coughlan, & mullen, 2008 for details). table 2. goodness-of-fit measures for the two models and the two revisions of the model-2 measures of goodnessof-fit acceptable value model 1 model 2 revision 1 revision 2 x2 (df) 886.005 (405) 798.753 (404) 798.722 (403) 797.204 (402) x2/df <5 2.118 1.977 1.844 1.793 gfi >.8 .798 .833 .844 .848 agfi >.9 .718 .808 .820 .824 tli >.9 .669 .727 .764 .779 cfi >.9 .691 .747 .782 .796 rmsea <.08 .065 .059 .055 .053 two models were tested: one assuming that the two factors (positive and negative emotional intensity as originally proposed by bachorowski & braaten, 1994) are uncorrelated and the other assuming them to be correlated. in the first model the items of the eis were supposed to load on two factors (14 items on positive and 16 on negative emotional intensity) and these two factors were not allowed to correlate whereas in the second model these factors were allowed to correlate.the test of these models indicated that model-2 yielded a better fit than model-1 (see table 2). for the first model all the indices of goodness-of-fit were beyond the acceptable range except x2/df ratio and rmsea . however, the second model yielded a better fit to the data as compared to model-1 as indicated by a significant diference between the chi square values of model-1 [x2(405)= 886.005] and model-2 [x2(404)=798.753] [x2 difference (1) = 87.252, p< .001] . out of the six measures of dimensionality of affect intensity 151 goodness-of-fit most were in the acceptable range (as per the criteria used by geuens and pelsmacker, 2002) except the tli and cfi. the agfi (.808) was, though, also not in the acceptable range, close to the acceptable value of .9. to achieve a better fit the second model was revised twice (hereafter referred as revision-1 and 2 respectively) on the basis of the modification indices. in the first revision the error terms associated with item 11 and item 13 were allowed to correlate and in the second revision the error terms associated with item 3 and 11 were also allowed to correlate. the examination of the various measures of goodness of fit (table 2) indicated that these modifications, however, slightly improved the model fit, but the improvement in the values of the various indices were negligible [x2 difference (1) = 0.031, p>.05, between model-2 (x2(404)=798.753) and revision-1(x2(403)=798.722); x2 difference (1)= 1.522, p>.05, between revision-1(x2(403)=798.722)and revision-2 (x2(402)=797.204]. overall, the findings of the confirmatory factor analyses suggest that the two-factor (positive and negative emotional intensity) model of the eis (with the factors allowed to correlate, i.e., model-2) represents a satisfactory or adequate fit as most of the criteria of goodness of fit are met for this model (as per the criteria used by geuens and pelsmacker, 2002, as well as those recommended in the contemporary literature). the parameter estimates (factor loadings or the standardised regression weights) of all the items (when allowed to load on the factors to which they were assumed to belong) were found to be significant (table 3) which provides further evidence and support for the validity of the two correlated-factor model of the eish. to obtain further evidence for the two correlated-factor structure model of the eis-h, the product moment correlation between the scores of positive and negative affect intensity were computed that yielded a positive correlation between the two. the observation of a significant positive correlation (r = 0.505, p<.000) between the total scores of the positive and negative emotional intensity sub-scales provides further support to the validity of model-2 which assumes the two factors to be correlated. europe’s journal of psychology 152 table 3: the parameter estimates of the model-2 of the confirmatory factor analysis items positive affect intensity negative affect intensity 1 .510 3 .510 5 .418 7 .488 9 .437 11 .492 13 .369 16 .469 17 .420 19 .509 21 .311 25 .492 26 .255 30 .499 2 .473 4 .397 6 .555 8 .393 10 .501 12 .449 14 .450 15 .509 18 .388 20 .515 22 .479 23 .410 24 .564 27 .318 28 .562 29 .411 dimensionality of affect intensity 153 psychometric properties of eis-h the item level psychometric properties of the eis-h were also found to be satisfactory. the corrected item total correlations were found to be statistically significant and ranged from a high of .238 to .484. further, none of the „alpha if item deleted‟ values exceeded the overall alpha which provides further evidence of the reliability of the items of eis-h. the cronbach‟s alpha coefficient for the eis-h was .853 which demonstrates satisfactory internal consistency of the eis-h. the internal consistency of the positive and negative emotional intensity subscales of the eis-h were also found to be psychometrically sound (cronbach‟s alpha was found to be 0.763 and 0.808, respectively). to further ensure the reliability of items of eis-h, the conventional item analysis was also done for the two subscales separately. none of the items were found to be psychometrically poor. the corrected item-total correlations for each subscale were found to be statistically significant and ranged from .264 to.446 for positive emotional intensity subscale and from .289 to .505 for negative emotional intensity subscale. none of the „alpha if item deleted‟ values exceeded the overall alpha which provides further evidence for the reliability of the eis-h items. discussion the findings of the present study provide support to the multidimensional nature of the construct of affect intensity and suggest that it has two related dimensions: positive and negative affect intensity. the observation of a satisfactory fit of the twocorrelated factor model of the hindi version of the eis also extend support to the cross-cultural validity of the construct of affect intensity and its measure, the eis. however, it is important to mention that the two observed dimensions of affect intensity (the positive and negative affect intensity), although found to be related, should be considered to represent different dimensions inasmuch as the correlation between the two domains was far from unity. further, the findings also suggest that affect intensity can be measured reliably in other cultures and languages inasmuch as the hindi version of the eis showed satisfactory psychometric properties and a factor structure theoretically congruent with the structure proposed by bachorowski and braaten (1994). contrary to earlier studies (mcfatter, 1998) which demonstrated that the original eis did not fit with twofactor model as proposed by bachorowski and braaten (1994), the findings of confirmatory factor analysis of the current study suggest that eis measures two dimensions (or factors) of emotional intensity, positive and negative emotional intensity. the observed two correlated factor model of the eis-h is very similar to that europe’s journal of psychology 154 observed by geuens and pelsmacker (2002) and the results of the test of goodness of fit of the two correlated factor model of the eis-h correspond well with the results obtained by geuens and pelsmacker (2002) except for few measures of goodness of fit (specifically the tli and cfi values). this observation of the present study partially supports the validity of the bachorowski and braaten‟s (1994) conceptual model of affect intensity which has been based on the synthesis of the eysenck‟s (1967, 1981) and gray‟s (1981) theories of personality. according to this conceptual model, the dimension of extraversion (associated with gray‟s behavioural activation and behavioural inhibition system) determines the valence of experienced emotions whereas the neuroticism dimension determines the intensity of experienced emotions. accordingly, this theoretical frame of affect intensity predicts that it is a two dimensional construct that varies on the dimensions of intensity and valence of experienced emotions. thus, the present observation of positive and negative affect intensity as two correlated factors is theoretically congruent with the bachorowski and braaten‟s (1994) two-dimensional model of affect intensity. further, the findings of the present study also offer evidence for the cross-cultural validity of the proposed two-factor structure of the eis. we observed that all the 14 items of the eis-h proposed to measure positive affect intensity and the 16 items proposed to measure negative affect intensity (bachorowski & braaten, 1994) loaded significantly on the respective factors in the confirmatory factor analytic model. however, the observed positive correlation between the positive and negative emotional intensity subscales and a better fit observed for the correlated factor model (the model-2) suggest that the two factors (the positive and negative emotional intensity) should be considered related with each other. the observation of two positively correlated factor model of the eis is also congruent with the original conceptualisation of the construct of affect intensity which assumes that “people who experience their positive emotions more strongly will, overtime, generally experience their negative emotions more strongly as well” (larsen, 2009, p. 241). however, this finding of the present study can be better interpreted by integrating the bachorowski and braaten‟s (1994) two-dimensional model of affect intensity with larsen and diener‟s (1985, 1987) model. the observation of two different yet positively related factors of positive and negative affect intensity suggests that affect intensity should be conceived as a multidimensional construct that varies on both emotional valence and intensity but variation in the intensity dimension is independent of the valence dimension of affect intensity. accordingly, the variation in the experienced strength or intensity of emotion is observed (in the same direction, i.e., high or low intensity) irrespective of the valence (positivity and negativity) of experienced emotion. further, the tendency to experience the extremes of both dimensionality of affect intensity 155 positive and negative emotions seems independent of culture inasmuch as a similar pattern of relationship between positive and negative affect intensity has been noted in other cultures as well (see larsen, 2009). conclusion to sum up, the findings of the present study clearly indicate that affect intensity is a multidimensional construct and is composed of at least two factors: positive and negative emotional intensity. however, these two dimensions of emotional intensity should be considered related yet independent traits as the correlation between them was considerably less than one. the highly satisfactory psychometric properties of the eis-h (observed both at item and scale level) and its theoretically congruent and highly comparable factor structure with that of the original english version suggests that affect intensity can be reliably measured in the indian culture using a hindi lexicon. this observation highlights that despite the reported differences in indian and western cultures in terms of various aspects of emotion such as perception and appraisal of emotions (elfenbein etal., 2002; roseman et al., 1995), emotional display rules (matsumoto, 1993), emotional recall (scollon et al., 2004) etc., the measurement of affect intensity is less likely to be influenced by cultural factors. despite the encouraging findings of the present study, there is a need to further examine and validate the two-factor model of the eis in general and the eis-h in particular. the re-validation of the eis-h on other samples in future research is required inasmuch as a few measures of goodness of fit for two-factor model of the eis-h were not found to be in the acceptable range as per the current criteria of the model fit (see hooper et al., 2008). further, since this was probably the first attempt to validate the factor structure of affect intensity using hindi lexicon, future replication studies are required to establish the stability of the factor structure of the construct and measure of affect intensity among hindi speaking indians. acknowledgement we acknowledge the help of the anonymous reviewers for providing insightful suggestions and technical inputs that assisted us a lot in improving the overall quality of the manuscript especially in placing the research objectives in a better theoretical 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(2009, may). creating a japanese measure of generalized expectancies for negative mood regulation. paper presented at the annual aps convention, san francisco, ca. pandey, r., & choubey, a. (2010). emotion and health: an overview. sis journal of projective psychology & mental health, 17, 135–146. roseman, j. i., dhawan, n., rettek, s. i., naidu, r. k., & thapa, k. (1995). cultural differences and cross-cultural similarities in appraisals and emotional responses. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 26(1), 23–48. doi:10.1177/0022022195261003 sandvik, e., diener, e., & larsen, r. j. (1985). opponent process theory and emotional response intensity. motivation and emotion, 9, 407–418. doi:10.1007/bf00992209 scollon, c. n., diener, e., oishi, s., & biswas-diener, r. (2004). emotions across cultures and methods. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 35, 304–326. doi:10.1177/0022022104264124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(85)90013-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0092-6566(87)90023-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00995188 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(97)00220-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022195261003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00992209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022104264124 europe’s journal of psychology 158 weinfurt, k. p., bryant, f. b., & yarnold, p. r. (1994). the factor structure of the affect intensity measure: in search of a measurement model. journal of research in personality, 28, 314–331. doi:10.1006/jrpe.1994.1023 williams, d. g. (1989). neuroticism and extraversion in different factors of the affect intensity measure. personality and individual differences, 10, 1095–1100. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(89)90261-4 about the authors dr. rakesh pandey is presently professor at the department of psychology, banaras hindu university, india. his current research is focused on exploring the link of emotion and health and includes such topics as alexithymia, emotional intelligence, emotion regulation, and emotion related difficulties and deficits in health and well-being. he is also working on an ongoing ugc funded project on hemispheric asymmetry in depression. e-mail: rpan_in@yahoo.com, rpandeybhu@gmail.com prachi saxena is currently perusing her ph.d. research in department of psychology, banaras hindu university. her work is centered on role of emotional deficits in substance abuse – mental illness relationship. e-mail: prachisaxena.bhu@gmail.com http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1994.1023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(89)90261-4 mailto:rpan_in@yahoo.com mailto:rpandeybhu@gmail.com mailto:prachisaxena.bhu@gmail.com global psypulse www.muppmalta.org/ispa2009 the 31st international school psychology association (ispa) conference will be held in malta from 7-11th july 2009. the conference theme is school psychology for diversity. diversity is inherent in the work of school psychologists. in the latest issue of school psychology international, annan et al. (2008) focus on educational psychologists’ routine role of facilitating teams in which participants hold diverse points of view: they suggest that ‘psychologists can support effective interventions by recognizing, understanding and utilizing the diverse views of the people involved in their consultation work.’ this is just one example of how school psychologists use diversity for the flourishing of educational communities. school psychologists everywhere are engaged in enabling caregivers and educators to value each child whatever his or her characteristics and background. this too calls for the ability to ‘recognize, understand and utilize’ the diversity of student strengths and needs for the development of the potential of each child and the enhancement of his or her membership in the learning community where he or she is being educated. such work has become more important as people have become more mobile, making communities more diverse in all sorts of ways and children increasingly educated in mainstream schools. thus, it is appropriate that the theme of the next ispa conference in malta will be school psychology for diversity. it is expected that there will be a great diversity of presentations from psychologists around the world on how they are succeeding to facilitate the valuing of children and adults from different ethnicities, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, languages, beliefs, intelligences, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities. some of these issues will be addressed by renowned keynote speakers. for instance, prof. robert sternberg, whose long standing and extensive research has widened our concept of intelligence and education goals, 2 will be touching on issues very close to the work of school psychologists, namely teaching and testing for diverse learners, and prof. chris forlin will address another central challenge for diversity in education: learning outcomes in inclusive education. it is expected that a wide variety of issues will be raised by speakers in the paper presentations, symposia, workshops, and posters. the following issues have been highlighted in the call for papers: • developing professional competence in respecting and responding to all forms of diversity; • taking into account the diversity of intelligences, of languages and cultures, and of gender; • developing educational systems that enable inclusive education and a quality education for all; • enabling understanding and respect for all types of minority and marginalized groups in psychological services and education, such as children with disabilities, ethnic minorities, language minorities, religious minorities, children who are obese, children with a minority sexual orientation, poverty stricken children, street children, hiv/aids orphans, migrants, refugees or displaced children; • understanding and respecting the educational challenges of children with learning difficulties or giftedness; • ensuring equal educational opportunities for both genders in different situations of different countries. early bird registration is up to march 15th, 2009. the final deadline for submission of abstracts will be april 30, 2009. we hope that the malta ispa conference will enable each participant of whatever belief, culture, or country to feel that he or she can contribute to the international understanding of school psychologists’ role for diversity. for more information and facilities for submitting papers and registration, please go to the conference website on www.muppmalta.org/ispa2009 negative results in european psychology journals research reports negative results in european psychology journals martin rachev vasilev*a [a] department of psychology, sofia university “st. kliment ohridski”, sofia, bulgaria. abstract psychologists have long speculated that the research literature is largely dominated by positive findings, but yet there is little data to justify these speculations. the present study investigates the extent to which negative findings exist in the literature by reviewing articles published in five european psychology journals. while no temporal change was observed, the results indicate that almost all (95.4%) articles published in 2001, 2006 and 2011 found support for at least one tested hypothesis. moreover, a sizable number (73%) of papers found support for all tested hypotheses. it is argued that the lack of negative findings can have a detrimental effect on the ability to systemize scientific knowledge, the way science is practiced, and the rate of replications in psychology. publishing positive findings may be very important for making progress in our field, but negative findings are also crucial for maintaining its scientific integrity. when we base our conclusions on results that support our predictions and ignore data to the contrary, we run the risk of creating a biased view of reality that gives us little confidence in the validity and applicability of our findings. keywords: negative results, publication bias, file-drawer problem, european journals, psychological research europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 received: 2013-02-13. accepted: 2013-08-26. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. *corresponding author at: sofia university "st. kliment ohridski", department of psychology, 15 tsar osvoboditel blvd., 1504 sofia, bulgaria. e-mail: martin.r.vasilev@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there has been a growing concern that publication decisions in scientific journals largely depend on the study outcomes. positive results that report significant outcomes and confirm the researcher’s expectations are more likely to be published and have higher odds of being fully reported (dwan et al., 2008). negative results, on the other hand, are often difficult to publish as they fail to reach the conventional significance levels and do not support the tested hypotheses. as a result of this, journals are filled with positive findings, while negative results are largely inaccessible to the scientific community. concerns with this practice are not new (e.g., mcnemar, 1960; smith, 1956; tullock, 1959) and have sporadically occupied psychologists for decades. yet, besides the fact that negative results are important for designing better systematic reviews and meta-analyses, few other arguments are given as to why negative results are important in psychology. the present article revisits the problem in two ways. first, it investigates empirically the extent to which negative results exist in the literature by examining articles published in five european psychology journals. second, it europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ discusses how the general lack of negative results contributes to other problems that empirical psychology faces today (e.g., see nosek, spies, & motyl, 2012; pashler & wagenmakers, 2012). meta-analysis: problems with the lack of negative results publishing positive findings that support the tested hypotheses is important for the advancement of scientific knowledge. however, different problems can arise when the literature is dominated by a disproportionate amount of positive results. first of all, this can be a potentially major threat to systematic reviews and meta-analyses (bradley & gupta, 1997; egger & smith, 1998; rothstein, sutton, & borenstein, 2005b; thornton & lee, 2000; torgerson, 2006; although see dalton, aguinis, dalton, bosco, & pierce, 2012). meta-analytic studies can be used to shed light on important practical and empirical questions, but the confidence that we have in their results depends on the extent to which they are free from bias (banks, kepes, & banks, 2012). if studies reporting positive results are more likely to be published, they will also be easier to obtain compared to negative and unpublished ones (torgerson, 2006). this could potentially bias any attempts to do a systematic review or to derive valid estimates by pooling data from multiple studies (thornton & lee, 2000). also, because published studies may systematically differ from unpublished ones, meta-analysis based only on published data may reach misleading conclusions. this holds major practical implications because meta-analysis aggregates data from many studies and is thus a good reference source for practitioners, policy makers and the general public. the consequences of ignoring negative studies, however, are not only constrained to the meta-analysis at hand and the validity of its conclusions. when a meta-analysis that ignores relevant negative studies is published, and the conclusions are later found to be misleading or incorrect, the perception is fostered that meta-analysis cannot be trusted (rothstein, sutton, & borenstein, 2005a). another problem with a misleading meta-analysis is that it slows scientific progress and it may give us the false illusion that conclusions are supported by data from multiple studies when, in fact, they are biased or overstated due the excessive number of positive results. these consequences probably don’t happen often, but when they do, they can have lasting effects on the field. although different methods for overcoming this bias have been proposed (see below), thornton and lee (2000) argue that the best way to eliminate its effects on meta-analysis is to stop it from happening in the first place. for this reason, negative studies play an important role in systemizing scientific knowledge and the trust that we have in the validity of our conclusions. the pressure to publish positive results a second problem with the excessive amount of positive results in the literature is that they can influence research decisions. because negative results are often difficult to publish, this can indirectly encourage questionable research practices that are aimed at obtaining publishable results (nosek et al., 2012). in the publish-or-perish world of academia, publishing as many papers as possible is essential for one’s career. yet, researchers eventually find themselves in a situation in which they fail to obtain results that reach the conventional significance level (p < 0.05). such a situation can be tempting in itself and encourage research decisions that vary in their degree of scientific misconduct but that are ultimately aimed at getting one’s results published (e.g., see neuroskeptic, 2012). the prevalence of questionable research practices was aptly demonstrated by a recent survey of over 2 000 psychologists (john, loewenstein, & prelec, 2012). it measured the extent to which they engage in ten such europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 718 http://www.psychopen.eu/ practices that range from milder ones (e.g., not reporting all conditions or dependent variables) to more severe ones, such as falsifying data or deciding to exclude data after looking at their effect on the results. the survey revealed that 94% of them admitted to having engaged in at least one questionable research practice. moreover, 66% of the surveyed researchers admitted that they have failed to report all dependent variables and 58% admitted that they have checked for significant results before deciding whether to collect more data. the results from this survey are also in line with recent studies that have shown how “unacceptably” easy it can be to obtain and report positive results (simmons, nelson, & simonsohn, 2011). because psychologists normally have great flexibility during the process of data collection and analysis, the rate of discovering false positive results is inflated and researchers can easily accumulate significant findings that they can later report. thus, it can be argued that the pressure to come up with positive findings stimulates questionable research practices among psychologists. negative results and replications the lack of negative results in the literature is also closely related to another problem in empirical psychology – the low rate of replications (makel, plucker, & hegarty, 2012; pashler & wagenmakers, 2012). the lack of replications of research findings is a concern in many other scientific disciplines (ioannidis, 2005), but the situation in psychology seems to be further complicated by the high prevalence of positive results. currently, psychologists have little to gain from doing replications, but they do even less so if they cannot publish unsuccessful replications due to the lack of significant results. а single failed replication is often difficult to publish (aldhous, 2011), and peer-reviewed journals are likely to accept failed replications only after a few attempts have been made. in this sense, the bias against negative findings is actually hindering replication studies because failed replications аre often denied publication. the problem with unpublished failed replications can be viewed in at least two ways. first, on a more pragmatic level, when an effect fails to be replicated, scientists from other labs may be largely unaware of this, especially if the study is a conceptual replication (see pashler & harris, 2012). for example, if there are a few unsuccessful attempts to replicate an effect, but nobody knows about them because they were not published, researchers from other labs may also go on to pursue effects that don’t exist. this could potentially lead to wasted research funds, time and resources that could be used to pursue other avenues (knight, 2003). second, unpublished replications may also have wider implications for the field. currently, replications in psychology are very rare (about 1% of all publications; makel et al., 2012), and it could be speculated that a large number of replications that are actually carried out are never published. unsuccessful replications may be difficult to publish, but successful ones may ironically share the same fate, as some journals reject them on the grounds that they do not contribute anything new beyond what is already known (spellman, 2012). this further exacerbates the problem because incorrect results from previous studies, however well-intentioned, remain unchallenged. if replications (successful or not) and negative studies are hard to publish, then this leads to a situation in which psychological theories are not rigorously evaluated and may even become unfalsifiable (ferguson & heene, 2012). for this reason, replications and negative studies have implications that are not restricted to the respective field of research, but that are also important for maintaining the scientific integrity of psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 vasilev 719 http://www.psychopen.eu/ prevalence of negative results: previous studies considering the fact that these issues hold major implications for psychology as a science, it is important to know how prevalent negative studies are. at present, however, not much is known about the extent to which they exist in the literature. the main reason for this is that the studies that have investigated the problem are few and far in between (bozarth & roberts, 1972; spence & blanchard, 2001; sterling, 1959; sterling, rosenbaum, &weinkam, 1995). sterling (1959) was first to systematically analyze articles published in four psychology journals. he found that 97.2% of all articles using significance tests rejected the main stated null hypothesis. three decades later, sterling et al. (1995) reviewed eight psychological journals using the same criteria and concluded that publication practices have not changed over the past 30 years. these results were also confirmed by bozarth and roberts (1972), who found that 94% of articles published in three psychology journals rejected the null hypothesis. more recently, spence and blanchard (2001) did a cross-sectional analysis of five journals in sport and exercise psychology that spans over 10 years and found that 97.5% of all articles using significance tests rejected at least one null hypothesis and that 80.1% rejected the main stated null hypothesis. the present study most of these studies were conducted decades ago and this would imply that the problem has since been forgotten. however, in recent years there has been a mounting interest in the lack of negative results and replicability of psychological research both among professionals and european psychology students (flis, 2012, january 1; pashler & wagenmakers, 2012). this calls for a more thorough investigation of the problem, which will allow psychologists to determine the extent to which negative findings are published in the literature. such an estimate is important because the information can be used to inform future meta-analytic studies and systematic reviews. traditionally, efforts to detect and correct for excessive positive findings have been done in meta-analytic studies within the framework of publication bias – defined as the tendency of scientific journals to preferentially publish papers that report significant results (pautasso, 2010; rosenthal, 1979). nowadays, the majority of published meta-analytic studies in psychology make some efforts to analyze for publication bias (ferguson & brannick, 2012) and authors are routinely advised to take it into account when doing a meta-analysis (e.g., see field & gillett, 2010). there are several statistical methods that are normally used to control for publication bias: failsafe n, funnel plot, trim and fill, correlation and regression-based methods, and selection models (kepes, banks, mcdaniel, & whetzel, 2012). however, these methods are not without their limitations and the wisdom of their use lies with the researchers. for example, funnel plots, which are often used to detect publication bias, can be distorted by heterogeneity across studies or by the number of studies included in the plot (daya, 2006; lau, ioannidis, terrin, schmid, & olkin, 2006). because these methods are more suitable for controlling for publication bias when doing a meta-analysis, they were not used in the present study. the aim of this study was to estimate the proportion of positive and negative results in european psychology journals, as this is more closely related to the problems discussed in this paper. this was done by reviewing published articles and coding for whether the tested hypotheses are supported or not supported by evidence. while the current method estimates the prevalence of positive results, it does not in itself demonstrate evidence for publication bias, as no excepted percentage of positive studies exists (thornton & lee, 2000). therefore, the results will only be discussed in terms of hypotheses that are supported or not supported by evidence. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 720 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study utilized a design that is similar to spence and blanchard‘s (2001), sterling’s (1959), and sterling et al.’s (1995) studies. however, in contrast to them, articles were not coded according to whether a particular null hypothesis was accepted or rejected, but according to whether all tested research hypotheses are supported or not supported by evidence. this approach provides wealthier data about published articles and avoids certain technical problems associated with coding articles in terms of accepted or rejected null hypotheses (e.g., some research hypotheses are tested with multiple significance tests). method data all research articles from 2001, 2006 and 2011 were downloaded from the following five journals: european journal of psychology of education, european journal of social psychology, scandinavian journal of psychology, british journal of clinical psychology and british journal of developmental psychology. the main inclusion criteria were that journals had to: 1) be intended as an outlet for european psychologists 2) publish at least 4 issues per year and 3) have a publication record that goes back to at least 2000. from all eligible journals, the present five were chosen so that they represent geographically diverse areas and serve as research outlets of different fields in psychology. furthermore, preference was given to journals that publish more research articles. the first two journals were selected because they meet the criteria of representing different fields and european psychologists at the same time. the scandinavian journal of psychology was chosen because it publishes papers in all areas of psychology and is intended as an outlet for psychologists from scandinavia. the last two journals were selected in order to acknowledge the fact that the majority of european english-speaking journals are based in the united kingdom; another reason was the above-mentioned aim to include journals that publish papers in different psychological areas. the temporal choice of articles was motivated by the fact that five years should be enough to detect possible changes over time. a wider cross-sectional span could make results difficult to interpret and would overlap with previous studies that covered articles published in the previous century. coding of articles all downloaded articles (n = 639) were reviewed manually and the ones not relevant to the current study were excluded. first, all articles that did not test any hypotheses were removed. these included brief reports, pilot studies, validation studies, and reliability and factor analysis studies. second, in order to reduce bias, only papers with explicitly stated hypotheses were included. hypotheses were coded if they were clearly stated, appeared before the ’method’ section and contained one of the following keywords – “hypothesize”, “expect”, “predict”, “assume”, “anticipate”, “propose”, “postulate”. the articles were screened for these keywords with the search tool if authors hadn’t differentiated the hypotheses from the introduction part. moreover, hypotheses that were stated as a question (e.g., ‘is x positively associated with z?’), contained “whether” (e.g., ‘we wanted to see whether x predicts z’), or were otherwise not clearly formulated were also excluded. of all the articles that had explicitly stated hypotheses (n = 393), 14 were excluded because it wasn’t possible to determine whether one or more hypotheses were supported or not supported by evidence without prior knowledge in the area. furthermore, 24 articles were excluded because all tested hypotheses were partially supported. finally, two articles were excluded because they did not use null hypothesis significance testing (nhst) for testing hypotheses. this left a total of 353 articles that were used in the data analysis. table 1 shows the number of articles per year for all five journals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 vasilev 721 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 coded articles per year for all five journals 201120062001journal 14613ejpe 633934ejsp 39227sjp 131211bjcp 362519bjdp 16510484total all papers were coded according to how many hypotheses were 1) tested, 2) supported, 3) not supported, 4) partially supported and 5) whether at least one hypothesis was supported by evidence. articles that reported partially supported hypotheses (n = 97) were coded as usual, but these hypotheses were not included in the analysis. while hypotheses in the sample were tested using nhst, not every hypothesis was tested with just one significance test. therefore, the number of tested research hypotheses does not necessarily correspond to the number of significance tests that were carried out by the authors. to calculate coding reliability, 30 randomly chosen articles were coded by an independent rater. the overall interrater agreement was 75.3% for all five coded variables. cohen’s kappa for the “at least one supported hypothesis” variable was k = .59. methodological issues investigating positive and negative results in psychology is intimately related to the nhst procedure, a method for statistical inference that is widely used in psychology and other social sciences. despite its enormous popularity, nhst has generated a considerable amount of controversy (nickerson, 2000) and has been criticized for its incorrect use by researchers (e.g., see cohen, 1994; gigerenzer, 2004). all articles that were analyzed in this study used nhst for statistical inference. although alternative methods for testing hypotheses, such as the bayesian factor, are becoming more popular in psychology (andrews & baguley, 2013), nhst continues to dominate the field overwhelmingly (cumming et al., 2007). this is further supported by the fact that out of all eligible articles, only two did not use nhst for testing hypotheses. due to the controversial nature of nhst, alternative methods for data analysis, such as effect size estimation and interval estimation, have been suggested (american psychological association, 2009; kline, 2004). however, they were not taken into account as separate methods of inference as a lot of articles were published when these practices were not so common. moreover, the implementation of these alternative methods has been happening slowly and even authors that report confidence intervals rarely use them as a method of inference (cumming et al., 2007; fidler, thomason, cumming, finch, & leeman, 2004). results the outcome of data analysis is displayed in table 2. the data show that 95.4% of all coded articles found support for at least one tested hypothesis. interestingly, the percentage of articles supporting at least one hypothesis was 95.3% in 2001 and then it dropped to 92.3% in 2006. however, this tendency did not persist into 2011, when the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 722 http://www.psychopen.eu/ percentage of articles supporting at least one hypothesis was 97.5%. articles that tested only one hypothesis (n = 68) yielded a similar result – 92.6% of them found support for it. table 2 number of hypotheses supported and not supported by evidence average number of hypotheses not supported by evidence (sd) average number of hypotheses supported by evidence (sd) all hypotheses supported by evidence (%) at least one hypothesis supported by evidence (%) number of tested hypothesesyear of publication 0.22 (0.49)2.05 (1.34)80.995.22112001 0.44 (0.69)2.02 (1.47)66.392.32892006 0.40 (0.77)2.41 (1.68)73.397.55092011 0.37 (0.69)2.21 (1.55)73.095.41009total the results also demonstrate that 73% of all articles found support for all tested hypotheses. similarly, there was a slight decrease in this number in 2006, but then it went up again in 2011. overall, the average paper supported 2.21 hypotheses and failed to support 0.37 hypotheses. this means that the average hypothesis was 5.9 times more likely to be supported by evidence than not to. the average hypothesis from articles in 2001, 2006 and 2011 was 9.3, 4.5 and 6 times more likely to be supported than not to be supported, respectively. temporal trends a chi-square test showed no significant relationship between the year in which papers were published and the number of papers that supported all tested hypotheses, χ2 (2) = 5.050, p = .080, φ = .120. the effect of the year of publication on whether at least one hypothesis was supported was not possible to calculate because the expected counts of 2 cells were less than 5, thus violating the assumptions of the chi-square test statistic (the minimum expected count was 3.81). kruskal–wallis tests revealed that the year in which the papers were published does not have a significant effect on the number of hypotheses that were supported (h (2) = 5.638, p = .060) or not supported (h (2) = 5.174, p = .075) by evidence. in other words, no statistically significant change in the number of hypotheses supported or not supported by evidence was observed. even though no significant differences emerged in the time period that was studied, it is interesting to note that from 2001 to 2011 there was a 2.4% increase in the number of studies that found support for at least one hypothesis. in contrast, the percentage of papers supporting all hypotheses decreased by 9.3%. mixed results were also observed in the average number of tested hypotheses. the average number of supported hypotheses increased by 17.5%, but the average number of hypotheses not supported by evidence also increased by 81.8%. in other words, in 2011 there were 81.8% more hypotheses that failed to receive support than there were in 2001. discussion the present study set out to investigate the extent to which negative results exist in five european psychology journals. to achieve this, it measured four variables that can be used to infer this: the number of articles that europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 vasilev 723 http://www.psychopen.eu/ support at least one hypothesis, the number of articles that support all tested hypotheses, and the average number of hypotheses that are supported and not supported by evidence. taken together, these findings demonstrate that negative results are rare and that positive results still largely dominate all five journals. because articles were not coded in terms of separate null hypotheses, it is difficult to make straightforward comparisons with previous studies. nevertheless, the present study obtained results that are very similar to those reported by spence and blanchard (2001) in that 95.4% of all articles found support for at least one tested hypothesis. the strength of the current study is that it provides more information that can be used to estimate the prevalence of negative results in european psychology journals. it shows that even articles that tested one hypothesis found support for it in almost all cases. also, the majority (73%) of published papers supported all tested hypotheses. moreover, the average hypothesis was almost six times more likely to be supported than not to. this suggests that studies testing multiple hypotheses may be less likely to be published if the majority of research hypotheses are not supported by evidence. even though no expected percentage of negative results exists, the fact that only 4.6% of all articles failed to find support for any of the tested hypotheses suggests that studies reporting entirely negative results may be difficult to publish. while the present data cannot give an explanation as to why this happens, it could be speculated that some authors who obtain negative results may conduct other studies, perhaps with significant results, in order to increase the publication “value” of their paper. another possibility is that authors may report only what “worked” and leave out negative findings that may make the paper more difficult to publish. the latter argument is in line with the results from john et al.‘s (2012) survey, which found that a fair number of psychologists admitted that they have not always reported all conditions or dependent variables. the statistical analyses that were carried out revealed that the year of publication did not have a significant effect on the variables of interest. in other words, the number of positive findings has not changed significantly over the time period that was studied. this conclusion is further supported by the average number of supported hypotheses. while the number of supported hypotheses increased from 2001 to 2011, the increase in the number of hypotheses that were not supported by evidence was more than four times as much. this suggests that although the number of articles reporting positive results remained high, more articles that reported hypotheses not supported by evidence were published in 2011 compared to 2001. these results seem to contradict a recent survey by fanelli (2012), who reported that negative results are disappearing from most sciences. according to fanelli (2012), articles that report full or partial support for hypotheses have increased by more than 20% across multiple disciplines from 1990 to 2007 and the trend is “significantly stronger in the social sciences (p. 895).” this difference may be due to the fact that that the present study was concentrated on cross-sectional data that covers two 5-year periods. also, fanelli (2012) coded hypotheses that received both full and partial support, whereas the present study did not take into account partially supported hypotheses. the results of the present study, however, are in line with spence and blanchard’s (2001) study, which also did not find any clear temporal change in the percentage of positive results. moreover, pautasso (2010) reviewed abstracts of published papers but also failed to find evidence that positive results in psychology are increasing. this could suggest that positive results may fluctuate slightly from year to year, but that they do not change significantly. in this sense, although the data from the present study shows that positive findings are high in all five europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 724 http://www.psychopen.eu/ journals, there is no evidence to suggest that they have increased (or decreased) significantly over the last 10 years. limitations of the study the present study, of course, is not without its limitations and the results should be considered in the light of its shortcomings. first, the collected data is not representative for all european psychology journals. therefore, no attempts are made to generalize the findings to all european psychology journals. second, inter-rater agreement was only marginally substantial (landis & koch, 1977). however, this calculation was based on only 8% of all articles and inter-rater agreement could be different if all papers were independently coded. furthermore, all variables are interdependent and coding one variable differently results in differences in most others variables, thus making nearly perfect agreement impossible to achieve. the results of the study may also be potentially influenced by the articles published in the chosen journals or the editorial policies at that time. for example, some articles may be unique in their research hypotheses or studied populations. also, journal turnover rate of editors and reviewers could be an influence because it is not known whether or howmany of them had stayed with the journals for the whole time period. finally, the empirical evidence presented here cannot be used to give an explanation why this bias against negative results exists. the importance of negative results in psychological research the present article has tried to argue that the low number of negative results indirectly encourages questionable research practices and can have a detrimental effect on systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and replications in psychology. even though publishing more negative results will not eradicate all the problems associated with these areas, it can nonetheless do a lot to ameliorate them. it is difficult to draw any causal relationships between negative results, questionable research practices and doing replications, but it is logical to assume that an increase in the proportion of negative findings in the literature will also reduce the incentives that researchers have to engage in questionable research practices. this is likely to happen because the difficulty of publishing papers with negative results is what tempts researchers to resort to them in the first place. moreover, such an increase in the published studies that report negative results will also help design better systematic reviews and meta-analyses that will account for data that is not otherwise accessible. finally, publishing more studies with negative results will also stimulate researchers to conduct more replications, not fearing that failed attempts will not get published. the long-term benefits of publishing more negative findings are hard to ignore, but the shift towards this change is more difficult. some attempts have already been made to stimulate the replicability of psychological research and to make negative results more easily accessible. for example, the psychdrawer depository (http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/) and the journal of articles in support of the null hypothesis both aim to make replications and studies with negative results publicly available. the viability of these research outlets, however, is questionable in the long term as few researchers to date have uploaded their unpublished manuscripts to psychdrawer and a journal publishing entirely negative findings is bound to face different obstacles. nevertheless, they carry the important message that the lack of negative results in the literature is a problem that hinders scientific progress and that it should be addressed in a more substantial manner by psychologists. another intuitive but more difficult to implement solution would be to change editorial practices of peer-reviewed journals that lead to this problem. if journal editors put more emphasis on the contribution of a given study instead europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 vasilev 725 http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/ http://www.psychfiledrawer.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of whether most (or all) significance tests yielded positive results, the problems associated with excessive positive findings are likely to be reduced. more negative findings in the research literature will not only benefit systematic reviews and meta-analyses, but they will also show if previous findings hold up; in the case that they don’t, this will help identify areas that require more attention from researchers. in fairness to journal editors, it should be noted that authors may also contribute to the problem. for example, they may be more reluctant to submit a manuscript for publication if it reports negative results (coursol & wagner, 1986; møller & jennions, 2001). one reason why this could happen is that the increasingly competitive world of academia puts pressure on researchers to come up with positive findings (fanelli, 2010). for this reason, researchers who obtain negative results may not generally consider it worthwhile to pursue their publication, perhaps fearing that they will waste precious time and resources. it could be further argued that some researchers who do submit their negative studies for publication may not make much effort to explain why their negative results are important and how they fit in the scientific body of knowledge. ultimately, it is the author’s job to explain in a comprehensive way why their findings are important and to place them in the context of past and future research; likewise, it is the editor’s and reviewers’ job to evaluate the contribution of each article to existing knowledge. if authors reporting negative results are not motivated to make a strong case for their paper, then perhaps reviewers and editors may not be entirely responsible for preferring positive studies that may explain their findings better. in this sense, it is an oversimplification to say that journal editors are entirely responsible for the high prevalence of positive results in the literature. however, they also hold the key to changing the current situation. just like the authors who submit their papers, journal editors are also researchers themselves, and as such, they should live up to the challenges that psychology faces today (e.g., see nosek et al., 2012; pashler & harris, 2012). by developing journal policies that are more accepting towards negative results, editors will also motivate researchers to submit more negative studies. this will stimulate an environment in which editors and reviewers are less likely to consider negative findings as inferior to positive ones, and authors are less likely to not submit them for publication. while this change would probably happen slowly, it has great potential to benefit empirical psychology. the lack of negative results is part of a wider context and it is not by any means the ultimate solution to all other problems. however, publishing more papers with negative results will stimulate the replicability of research findings and the trust that we have in their validity. conclusion bias against negative findings exists in many scientific disciplines and psychology is no exception (fanelli, 2012). however, as this and previous studies have demonstrated, the percentage of papers reporting negative results in psychological research is alarmingly low. this leads to a situation in which studies are virtually excluded from the scientific body of knowledge if the results failed to reach the “holy grail of p < .05” (glaser, 2010, p.330). as a consequence, there is tremendous pressure on researchers to obtain and report positive results, which could potentially lead to dishonest research practices aimed at producing publishable results. the difficulty in publishing negative results is also part of a wider framework, because it contributes to the problem of replicability and validity of research findings in psychology. while there is no easy solution to the problem, it is important to remember that scientific journals are the gatekeepers of research output, and as such, they should strive to publish research findings that represent reality more closely. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 726 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reporting findings that support the tested hypotheses is indispensible to the advancement of psychology as a science because it tells us what works. however, we must not forget that often it is just as important to know what does not work (nippold, 2012). putting away studies in file drawers only because they failed to reach the conventional significance level leads to a unilateral view of reality. when we cannot see the bigger picture, it is difficult to estimate the validity of research findings, to inform practice and to translate research findings into psychological interventions. acknowledgements i would like to thank dr. nikolay ratchev for helping me with the independent coding of articles and for his insightful comments during informal discussions of this 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(1959). publication decisions and tests of significance: a comment. journal of the american statistical association, 54(287), 593. doi:10.2307/2282539 about the author martin rachev vasilev is a recent psychology graduate (b.a.) from sofia university “st. kliment ohridski” who has a wider interest in methodology and scientific publishing. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 717–730 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.590 negative results in psychology 730 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2282137 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0895-4356(99)00161-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2006.00332.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2282539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en negative results in psychology (introduction) meta-analysis: problems with the lack of negative results the pressure to publish positive results negative results and replications prevalence of negative results: previous studies the present study method data coding of articles methodological issues results temporal trends discussion limitations of the study the importance of negative results in psychological research conclusion acknowledgments references about the author linking university students’ willingness to learn to their recollections of motivation at secondary school research reports linking university students’ willingness to learn to their recollections of motivation at secondary school julia gorges*a, malte schwingera, christian kandlerb [a] department of psychology, educational psychology, bielefeld university, bielefeld, germany. [b] department of psychology, personality psychology and psychological assessment, bielefeld university, bielefeld, germany. abstract this study investigated the role of recollected school-based motivation on university students’ willingness to use new learning opportunities. following eccles’ expectancy-value theory, willingness to learn was conceptualized as task value, which has been found to predict task choice in previous empirical studies. based on three motivational theories, we suggest two broad motivational dimensions for an economic description of motivational orientations, inward and outward, that should differentially predict the formation of task value. german university students (n = 1580) were asked about their task value for receiving their instructions in english as a foreign language at university and, retrospectively, their motivation in english language class at secondary school. principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analyses of motivational variables yielded a two-factor solution supporting the differentiation between inward and outward motivational orientation. inward motivational orientation at school was positively linked to students’ task value in adulthood, even if the individual’s self-concept of ability was controlled. the effects of outward motivation were rather small and tended to be counterproductive. our findings suggest a complex interplay between past and present motivation and self-concept of ability underlying one’s willingness to learn and to participate in education. keywords: adult learning, higher education, adult education, motivation, task value europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 received: 2013-05-31. accepted: 2013-10-10. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, educational psychology, bielefeld university, po 100131, 33501 bielefeld, germany. e-mail: julia.gorges@uni-bielefeld.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction lifelong learning and participation in education has been a central theme in educational policy and research for decades (field, 2000; oecd, 2005). the concept of lifelong learning emphasizes the vertical integration of educational settings. vertical integration emanates from people’s continuous cognitive and non-cognitive development and, therefore, overrides the traditional separation between an educational life phase during childhood and adolescence and a non-educational phase during adulthood (cropley, 1977). consequently, learners develop their habits and motivation throughout their whole lives and across educational settings. in fact, previous educational experience is an important factor for ongoing participation in education (wigfield & eccles, 2000). however, although longitudinal studies suggest an evolving development of both cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics across educational settings surprisingly few studies link different educational settings europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ beyond secondary school. for example, while many longitudinal studies track pupils’ motivational development from grade 1 to grade 12 (cf. wigfield & eccles, 2002), transitions from secondary school to higher and further educational institutions are scarcely considered. similarly, research on adults’ participation in education typically neglects previous educational experience (apart from quantitative information such as years of schooling; cf. courtney, 1992). therefore, the present study seeks to contribute to closing this gap by investigating people’s willingness to learn at adult age (i.e., at university) in consideration of their previous educational experience (eccles, 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000). from a motivational perspective, one’s willingness to learn and subsequent engagement in learning reflects educational task choice. empirical research, mostly set in secondary school, shows that a person’s subjective value of a task predicts task choice (e.g., harackiewicz, durik, barron, linnenbrink-garcia, & tauer, 2008). thus, task value constitutes an important prerequisite for engagement in (new) learning activities. its importance should increase with people’s freedom of choice. that is, task value is supposed to be especially important for one’s decisions to participate in (voluntary) education and learning activities (knowles, holton, & swanson, 2005). recently, gorges and kandler (2012) showed that adult students use (recollected) school-based learning motivation as a basis to assess task value with respect to a new but similar learning opportunity. thus, in the same way as knowledge and skills acquired in school form the basis for further cognitive development and learning (credé & kuncel, 2008; helmke & weinert 1997), adult learners’ willingness to learn appears to be rooted in school-based motivational experiences recollected in adulthood. extending this line of research, we suggest that the quality of one’s learning motivation at school (i.e., their recollected motivational orientations) differentially affects the formation of task value of new learning opportunities for the better or the worse. assuming that recollections of motivational orientations influence people’s perception and behavior (even if they are not accurate accounts of the past, see pillemer, 2001) we use retrospective assessments of previous motivation. educational psychologists use many different theoretical concepts to investigate learning motivation (cf. schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2008). as many researchers agree that there is a certain overlap of these concepts, we introduce an integrative model of higher-order motivational factors. we argue that differentiating two broad motivational orientations allows for an economic description of differences in secondary school students’ motivation accounting for students’ willingness to learn at adult age, that is, at university. we call these two types of motivational orientation inward and outward, respectively, because they describe whether people’s engagement in learning focuses on themselves, or on contextual or social contingencies (e.g., a personal interest versus a reward). the present study investigated the link between university students’ retrospective assessment of their former motivational orientation (i.e., at secondary school) and their current valuing of an extracurricular learning task. as our study was conducted in germany, we examined the link between university students’ task value for englishdelivered instructions (i.e., a task beyond regular academic challenges) and their learning motivation in the same domain while in secondary school (i.e., during classes in english as a foreign language). our aims with this study were twofold. first, we tested the concept of inward and outward motivational orientation as parsimonious dimensions to capture three theoretical approaches to learning motivation. second, we examined whether students’ recollections of motivational orientations endorsed at secondary school have an effect on task value in the same domain in adulthood. we hypothesized that the quality of the recollected motivational orientations differentially affects task value. moreover, since the belief in one’s own abilities is also an important predictor of task engagement (i.e., the expectancy of success within expectancy-value theory; marsh, köller, trautwein, lüdtke, & baumert, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 765 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2005; marsh & yeung, 1998; wigfield & eccles, 2000, 2002), we controlled for both current (at university) and retrospective (at secondary school) ability beliefs. perspectives on learning motivation literature review — various empirical studies in the framework of expectancy-value theory have shown that task value predicts task choice (e.g., durik, vida, & eccles, 2006; eccles, 2005; harackiewicz et al., 2008; meece, wigfield, & eccles, 1990). this finding makes task value especially relevant for research aiming at an explanation of people’s voluntary engagement in learning and education after having completed secondary schooling (battle & wigfield, 2003; eccles, 2005; wigfield & eccles, 2000, 2002). in line with eccles and colleagues, who propose individual and environmental factors (simpkins, davis-kean, & eccles, 2006; wigfield & eccles, 1992, 2000), we assume that certain motivational characteristics developed in previous educational contexts facilitate the formation of task value for a new learning task. we focused on three prominent approaches of learning motivation: achievement goals, self-determination theory, and personal interest (for a summary, see schunk et al., 2008). achievement goals — according to achievement goal theory (ames, 1984; dweck, 1986; elliot & murayama, 2008; nicholls, 1984, 1990), students pursue superordinate goals while learning. these goals can be located on two dimensions: mastery vs. performance on the one hand, and approach vs. avoidance on the other (elliot & church, 1997; elliot & mcgregor, 2001). students who pursue mastery (-approachi) goals strive to develop their skills and competence using an individual frame of reference. mastery goal oriented students perceive mistakes as an opportunity to learn and to improve their skills, so they are open to new tasks and more risk-taking (anderman & maehr, 1994; maehr & midgley, 1991). accordingly, mastery goals have been found to be more adaptable for accepting new academic challenges (duda & nicholls, 1992; dweck, 1999; harackiewicz, barron, tauer, carter, & elliot, 2000). in contrast, performance-approach oriented students strive to outperform others while performance-avoidance oriented students seek not to perform worse than others do and to hide their own deficits (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001). performance-approach goals have been linked to higher achievement (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008) while performance-avoidance goals have often been associated with negative learning aspects, e.g., fear of failure, test anxiety, and self-handicapping (duda & nicholls, 1992; dweck, 1999; midgley, arunkumar, & urdan, 1996; schwinger & stiensmeier-pelster, 2010). altogether, for people pursuing performance goals, a learning opportunity promises success only when they feel they can meet the demands and only when the task holds the possibility for praise, reward, favorable social comparison, or other external incentives. having said this, performance goals should only promote the formation of task value for new learning opportunities when expectancy of success is high while mastery goals should generally promote task value. self-determination theory — deci and ryan (2002; ryan & deci, 2000) introduced a continuum from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation and a process of internalization, which infers a stepwise transition from externally to internally motivated activities. on the externally motivated side of the continuum is extrinsic motivation (by rewards and punishment). identified motivation is the first stage of internal forms of motivation. themotivated person consciously values the activity as important. identified motivation is not a result of the evaluation of an activity as being enjoyable but as being beneficial for the person. internally motivated behavior feels self-determined without being intrinsically motivated; that is, this behavior is not an end in itself (deci & ryan, 2002). through internalization, (academic) learning behavior, which is at first requested by parents and teachers and motivated by extrinsic structures and rewards, can develop into internal forms of learning behavior (deci, vallerand, pelletier, & ryan, 1991; ryan & europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 766 http://www.psychopen.eu/ deci, 2000). overall, previous identified motivation should support the formation of task value for new learning opportunities because learning itself has become a personally important activity. personal interest — individual or personal interest (renninger, 2000; renninger, hidi, & krapp, 1992; krapp, 1999, 2000a) refers to the liking of and the willful engagement in activities related to a particular object. interest gains importance with age and reflects at least parts of the perceived value of a learning opportunity (hidi & harackiewicz, 2000; krapp, 2000b). both teachers and students have often seen interest as the most important construct for (learning) motivation. a broad range of interests is one of the best prerequisites for successful and enjoyable learning, both in primary and secondary school and within higher and further education (krapp, 2000a, 2000b). the quality of interest-based motivation largely corresponds to intrinsic motivation as outlined within selfdetermination theory (krapp, 2005). thus, interest-based motivation does not require external incentives or contingencies to stimulate behavior. underlyingdimensions ofmotivational constructs— to date, educational psychology research has investigated learning motivation from different theoretical perspectives (for a recent review, see wigfield & cambria, 2010). these singular approaches have some conceptual overlap. integrative approaches to learning motivation have shown various forms of associations both within and between different conceptualizations of learning motivation (hidi & harackiewicz, 2000; standage, duda, & ntoumanis, 2003; wigfield & cambria, 2010). in addition, empirical research has shown varying degrees of correlations and causal relationships between different constructs (harackiewicz et al., 2008; hulleman, durik, schweigert, & harackiewicz, 2008). based on these theoretical considerations and empirical findings we deem it reasonable to distinguish between learning motivation focused (1) on the learner and (2) on contextual and social contingencies of learning. that is, learning motivation may be about the self versus about the environment. more specifically, we argue that interest-based motivation, identified motivation, and mastery goal orientation share the focus on the individual learner (i.e., the individual’s interests, values, development, and growth) in terms of an inward motivational orientation. accordingly, performance goal orientation and extrinsic motivation share the focus on contextual (e.g., rewards) or social (e.g., being better compared to others) contingencies in terms of an outward motivational orientation. with an inward motivational orientation, the learning directly relates to the individual learner. in contrast, with an outward motivational orientation, learning is attributed to environmental aspects and social influences and refers either to contingencies of learning or to other people’s reactions (e.g., positive evaluations or compliments). theoretically, inward motivational orientation is associated with beneficial effects and should be more adaptive in terms of ongoing participation in education. an inward motivational orientation reflects self-centeredness in a positive way: the person can establish the value of a learning opportunity independently (e.g., based on personal interests). inwardly oriented learners are supposed to behave proactively when faced with learning opportunities. even the learners’ own abilities (i.e., their self-concept of ability for the learning content in question) are second rank because the desire to learn from the task has the highest priority. in contrast, an outward motivational orientation directs the attention and the search for guidance and for reasons to engage in learning away from the individual: the person depends on external incentives (e.g., rewards, praise) to engage in learning. for outwardly oriented learners, task engagement is only a means to an end, which serves to express one’s (superb) abilities (or to hide a lack of ability), and to gain approval and recognition by significant others. if a learning task is not well suited to reach these goals beyond pure task fulfillment (e.g., because the learner’s self-concept of ability suggests that the learner may not be successful), learners with this type of learning europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 767 http://www.psychopen.eu/ motivation would not engage in the task. thus, this distinction is especially important for research on voluntary participation in, or abstinence from, extra-curricular tasks and continuing education (e.g., courtney, 1992; maehr, 1976). although our distinction may appear similar to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, we would like to emphasize that our motivational orientations are theory-driven dimensions extending the intrinsic / extrinsic distinction by deci and ryan (2002). hence, we call this distinction inward versus outward motivational orientation, respectively, not least to avoid further dilution of the motivational terms intrinsic and extrinsic (see, for example, amabile, hill, hennessey, & tighe, 1994, who refer to deci and ryan, 1985, without being consistent in using their terminology). in contrast to previous higher-level ordering of motivational constructs which were based on adaptive vs. maladaptive outcomes (martin, 2007), conceptual overlap based on statistical correlations (marsh, craven, hinkley, & debus, 2003), or item-based exploration of several motivational measures (amabile et al., 1994), the motivational orientations presented here are rooted in characteristics of the underlying motivation theories. thus, this classification extends the utility of such integration in that it not only facilitates communication and offers parsimony but also contributes to our understanding of conceptual similarities and differences of the three motivational theories included in this study. furthermore, our model is based on established measurement instruments and is nested within a broader framework which outlines the role of recollected motivational orientations and self-concept of ability—a complementary factor influencing learning motivation (wigfield & eccles, 2000)—for the formation of task value. the dimensions of inward and outward motivational orientation are compatible with a large body of literature from psychological approaches to learning motivation (cf., heckhausen & heckhausen, 2006; schunk et al., 2008), and findings from qualitative and exploratory studies in adult education (cf., courtney, 1992). we assume that motivational orientations establish in childhood and adolescence (cf. wigfield & eccles, 2002) and—according to our hypothesis—are still effective during the adult years via individual recollections of past learning motivation. the present study — the present study investigated the hypothesized link between recollections of broad motivational orientations during secondary school and task value with respect to a voluntary task in adulthood. more specifically, we examined students’ task value for a new learning opportunity at a german university, with the opportunity being to develop and improve their english (i.e., a foreign language) by receiving their instructions and studying in english (jochems, 1991). this task includes working with english texts and discussing topics in english in seminars and workshops allowing students to add an international component to their regular course of study (gorges, kandler, & bohner, 2012). at the same time, however, english-delivered instructions would increase the challenge of studying and could compromise students’ chances for receiving high marks (jochems, 1991). as the university did not offer regular study programs or courses with english-delivered instruction at the time, students were asked to assess the value of a hypothetical task. we linked students’ task value to recollections of their school-based motivational orientations within the same domain by measuring school-based motivation retrospectively with reference to the students’ english as a foreign language classes at secondary school. we expected the six motivational concepts to be structured in terms of two factors, namely inward and outward motivational concepts (hypothesis 1). in addition, we expected recollections of inward motivational orientations endorsed at secondary school to be positively related to (hypothesis 2) and outward motivational orientation to be negatively related to the formation of task value (hypothesis 3) in the same domain at university. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 768 http://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, drawing on expectancy-value approaches to willingness to learn, expectancy of success is an important factor (wigfield & eccles, 2000). expectancy of success is based on one’s self-concept of ability, which has been found to reciprocally relate to task value (e.g., interest; amabile et al., 1994). thus, self-concept of ability may affect interrelations between different motivational concepts as well as people’s willingness to learn. therefore, we took self-concept of ability—referring to both past motivation at secondary school and current willingness to use a new learning opportunity—into account as covariate. controlling for self-concept of ability should not change the direction of the hypothesized association (hypothesis 4). however, it could influence their strength. method participants and procedure participants included students at a german university who took part in an online survey dealing with the introduction of english-delivered instruction in selected courses of the students’ study program. only participants who completed the whole questionnaire (n = 1580; 58 participants were excluded due to missing data) were included in the analysis. about 51.2% were females. average age was m = 23.7 (sd = 3.6). students were from eight different fields of study: economic science (16.5%), law (15.2%), technology (16.2%), psychology (8.9%), sports science (5.0%), physics (6.7%), mathematics (13.7%), and sociology (17.8%). the survey took about 25 minutes to complete. its first part focused on the participants’ current situation within the university, including task value (tv) and current self-concept of ability (sccurr). its second part referred to participants’ school experience, including retrospective measures of extrinsic and identified motivation (extmot and idmot), personal interest (int), mastery goal orientation (mgo), performance-approach orientation (pgoap), performance-avoidance orientation (pgoav), and self-concept of ability (scretro). we assessed students’ task value (tv) with reference to a possible introduction of courses with english-delivered instruction in their respective field of study. since the use of english instruction has not yet been established in germany (only 1.5% of all bachelor degree programs in germany include english instruction; daad, 2010), this learning opportunity is truly new and beyond regular academic challenges at university. thus, it is comparable in these aspects to potential continuing education opportunities that learners may face after graduation. we controlled for self-concept of ability, both referring to english classes at school (scretro) and to receiving instructions and studying in english (sccurr). measures newly developed scales were used to measure tv and sccurr on a 6-point likert-type scale (ratings between strongly disagree and strongly agree). items to measure tv emphasized the benefits of english-delivered instruction and captured students’ appraisal of english-delivered instruction as a new learning opportunity. items from the sccurr scale assessed whether students feel confident to master particular classroom situations in english. internal consistency was rather high due to the specific context in which tv and sccurr was measured (see table 1). the mean differences between tv and sccurr indicate that students tend to be more willing than able. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 769 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sample items, internal consistency, and descriptive statistics sample itemsdmαitemsvariables i would appreciate more courses taught in english. courses taught in english would increase the value of studying here. 6tv .341.324.88 my english language proficiency is good enough to keep up with a lecture. it is no problem for me to read and understand academic journal articles in english. 9sccurr .301.683.94 why did you make an effort in english classes at school? …because i wanted my teacher to be pleased with me. 5extmot .66.831.77 why did you make an effort in english classes at school?…because being good at english classes was important to me. 3idmot .79.023.80 english was one of my favorite subjects.6int .87.362.91 i felt really content in english classes when i came to understand something that was not clear to me before. 5mgo .58.472.70 i felt really content in english classes when i knew more than the others4pgoap .87.222.86 it was important to me not to make a fool of myself in front of my classmates3pgoav .87.122.83 i was good at english.4scretro .90.732.94 note. n = 1580; scretro = retrospective self-concept at school; sccurr = current self-concept at university; int = interest; idmot = identified motivation; mgo = mastery goal orientation; pgoap = performance approach goal orientation; pgoav = performance avoidance goal orientation; extmot = extrinsic motivation; tv = task value. all retrospective measures were adapted from previous research (adapted to german by wild & remy, 2002) using a 4-point likert-type scale (ratings between strongly disagree and strongly agree) and reformulated to focus specifically on english as foreign language as a school subject. internal consistency was acceptable to good, ranging between α = .70 and α = .94 (see table 1). scretro was measured based on jopt (1978) and wild and remy (2002). int was operationalized as personal interest eliciting intrinsically motivated behavior and was measured using items adapted fromwild and remy (2002). extrinsic motivation (extmot) and identified motivation (idmot) were measured using an adaptation of ryan & connell (1989; see wild & remy, 2002, for german adaptation). mean differences between idmot and extmot indicate that students had more identified than extrinsic motivation. goal orientation was measured by adapting a german scale by köller and baumert (1998; based on nicholls, patashnick, & nolen, 1985) and wild & remy (2002). pgoap was conceptualized normatively with an emphasis on social comparisons.mgowas conceptualized as the “striving toward development and growth of competence” (grant & dweck, 2003, p. 543), with an emphasis on an individual frame of reference. pgoav items emphasized students’ fear of public failure in class. mean levels indicate that students tend to show higher mastery than performance related goal orientations. analyses we started data analysis with an inspection of the bivariate correlations of the theoretical concepts. next, we ran an exploratory principal components analysis (pca) of the six scales int, extmot, idmot, mgo, pgoap, and pgoav. this type of statistical analysis was used to find inherent structures or patterns in the data, expecting a two-higher-order factor structure reflecting inward and outward motivational orientation. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 770 http://www.psychopen.eu/ based on the pca solution, we included a correspondent confirmatory factor structure over the manifest scale scores as primary predictors of tv in a structural equation model. that is, we specified a latent structure model that includes the six motivational variables according to the results of the pca. as the self-concept of ability might be responsible for the correlations among motivational variables and between motivations and tv, we additionally controlled all retrospective variables for scretro and tv for sccurr in the model. that is, we eliminated the influence of both current and retrospective self-concept. thus, the resulting model contains a confirmatory factor analysis (inward and outward motivational orientation as latent factors, inward and outward) controlled for the effects of the self-concept (sc). according to our hypothesis that inward andoutward predict tv, the complete model also included a predicted variable (tv). the full structural equation model was fitted to the complete data via maximum likelihood using the statistical software package amos 17.0 (arbuckle, 2009). the model fit was evaluated by the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), and the comparative fit index (cfi). values of rmsea, srmr < 0.05 and cfi > .95 indicate a good fit, and values of rmsea, srmr < .08 and cfi > .90 indicate at least an acceptable fit. results correlations and principal components analysis correlations showed a clear pattern grouping the six theoretical concepts into the two hypothesized dimensions (see table 2): interest, identified motivation and mastery goal orientation (all r’s > .50) on the one hand and extrinsic motivation, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (all r’s > .42) on the other hand are strongly associated. in contrast, correlations between theoretical concepts deemed inward versus outward, respectively, are weaker (all r’s < .32) with the exception of mastery and performance-approach goals, which typically show a positive correlation in academic achievement contexts (e.g., steinmayr & spinath, 2009). moreover, correlations confirmed the need to control for self-concept of ability, which showed significant correlations to task value and to all motivational variables. thus, self-concept of ability may represent a confounding variable accounting for the correlations between motivational orientations and tv. table 2 correlations pgoavpgoapmgointidmotextmotsccurrtvvariables sccurr .44** extmot .07**.10**idmot .16**.27**.24** int .65**.11**.50**.31** mgo .50**.54**.24**.25**.24** pgoap .42**.32**.29**.42**.14**.09** pgoav .43**.19**.03.12**.51**.14**-.04scretro .08**-.28**.34**.70**.45**.02.66**.27** note. n = 1580; scretro = retrospective self-concept at school; sccurr = current self-concept at university; int = interest; idmot = identified motivation; mgo = mastery goal orientation; pgoap = performance approach goal orientation; pgoav = performance avoidance goal orientation; extmot = extrinsic motivation; tv = task value. *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 771 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pca of the six retrospective motivation scales with oblique rotation suggested a two-factor solution (see table 3 for factor loadings). eigenvalues dropped off markedly after the two largest values 2.67 and 1.47. the two factors accounted for 69% of variance, and the factor correlation was r = .25. the factors could easily be interpreted as inward and outward motivational orientations, thereby supporting hypothesis 1. results of factor analyses for men and women separately, as well as for subsamples of students from different fields of study, did not differ markedly supporting the validity of the two-factor solution across subgroups.ii table 3 oblique rotated factor loadings for the six scales of motivation motivation factors outwardinwardscale int .107.863 idmot .179.862 mgo .354.784 pgoap .717.472 pgoav .838.093 extmot .820.176 note. n = 1580; int = interest; idmot = identified motivation; mgo = mastery goal orientation; pgoap = performance approach goal orientation; pgoav = performance avoidance goal orientation; extmot = extrinsic motivation; factor loadings greater than .5 are shown in bold. structural equation analyses the full model with path coefficients is presented in figure 1 (χ2(19) = 213.69). whereas the rmsea = .08 represented a marginally adequate fit, the srmr = .03 and cfi = .96 showed a good model fit. controlling for the effects of the sc, the influences of the latent factors inward and outward on tv are significant (hypothesis 4). moreover, the relationships showed a clear pattern. as predicted in hypotheses 2 and 3, tv was positively affected by inward, whereas the effect of outward on tv was negative. generally, the estimates of effects indicated that inward is more important with respect to tv than outward, even though the self-concept of ability was found to explain a substantial proportion of the link between inward and tv.iii again, there were nomarked differences between sexes and among students of different study contexts. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 772 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. inward and outward motivation factors as predictors of task value. note. scretro = retrospective self-concept at school; sccurr = current self-concept at university; int = interest; idmot = identified motivation;mgo =mastery goal orientation; pgoap = performance approach goal orientation; pgoav = performance avoidance goal orientation; extmot = extrinsic motivation; outward = outward motivational orientation; inward = inward motivational orientation; residuals not explained by the model are left out. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion this study investigated the role of people’s individual recollections of learning motivation at secondary school on their task value with respect to a new learning opportunity in the same domain using a university student sample. moreover, different theoretical conceptions of learning motivation were supposed to be structured according to an inward-outward distinction. the effects of self-concept of ability, which is closely related to learning motivation, have been statistically controlled in the analyses. results show that recollections of inwardly oriented forms of former learning motivation contribute positively to task value while recalled outward motivational orientation shows a negative relation. our results suggest that motivational orientations associated with secondary school—and probably actually experienced at that time—are important prerequisites for the formation of task value during adulthood. task value, in turn, is an important factor for people’s task choice, and should therefore be relevant as a predictor of their ongoing educational activities and lifelong learning. thus, recollected motivational orientations may be used as a framework to evaluate people’s learning motivation in order to predict and to promote their engagement in learning beyond the self-concept of ability. these findings are relevant especially for the field of higher and adult europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 773 http://www.psychopen.eu/ education. knowing what motivates people to learn is useful to facilitate learning in (adult) educational settings (courtney, 1992; knapper & cropley, 2000) and prepare children and adolescents for ongoing participation in education. the concept of inward and outward motivational orientation inward motivational orientation means that the focus of task engagement is directly related to the learner (e.g., personal interest) while outward motivational orientation means that the focus of learning is on contextual or social contingencies of task engagement. distinguishing inward and outward motivational orientation does not necessarily result in a new theory of motivation. rather, it represents a simplified, but not exhaustive, dimensional structure of motivation integrating different theories of learning motivation together under the umbrella of parsimony. thus, inward and outward motivational orientation may be useful terms to subsume more than just the motivational constructs included here when reference to that particular shared characteristic is important. in our study, we included achievement goals, interest-based, identified, and extrinsic learning motivation as first order factors, and inward and outward motivational orientation as second-order factors. achievement goals have been measured on a higher level of abstraction and their classification as inwardly vs. outwardly oriented is a little less clear compared to extrinsic, identified, and interest-based motivation. moreover, as correlations show (see also steinmayr & spinath, 2009), many participants from our sample seemed to pursue both mastery and performance goals, which may lead to the crosswise contribution of achievement goals to both motivational orientations, accounting for the positive link between inward and outward orientations. this finding refers to the topics of multiple goals and individual motivational profiles (e.g., pastor, barron, miller, & davis, 2007). future studies should take into account that students may be both inwardly and outwardly oriented simultaneously. nonetheless, factor loadings indicated a classification of achievement goals according to our hypothesis. past and present factors of task value and engagement in learning consistent with our hypotheses and previous studies (durik et al., 2006; harackiewicz et al., 2008; hulleman et al., 2008), we found that a person’s task value is influenced by that person’s recollections of former learning motivation. another, and apparently, more important contributor to learning motivation is the learner’s self-concept of ability (i.e., expectancy of success; eccles & wigfield, 1995), which is also closely associated to task value (marsh & craven, 2006; steinmayr & spinath, 2009). since we controlled for self-concept of ability, we may say that the quality of recollected learning motivation reflected by people’s motivational orientation shows its unique contribution to task value. extending findings from gorges and kandler (2012), recollected learning motivation may affect the formation of task value positively or negatively depending on its quality. our results support the assumption that learners high on recollected inward motivational orientation (beyond self-concept of ability) would use a new learning opportunity while recollected outward motivational orientation appears to be counterproductive, if at all relevant. this is a significant finding for generating motivation in senior school students and in adult learners and important for the promotion of learning motivation in adults. in particular, while research on adult learning predominantly considers negative school experience as a factor for nonparticipation in adult and continuing education, the results presented here emphasize positive effects of previous educational experiences if adults remember inward motivational orientations. thus, researchers should consider people’s previous experiences as factors influencing engagement in learning for the better or the worse. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 774 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition, our results shed light on the part of the individual’s background within the expectancy-value model (wigfield & eccles, 2000). task value is based on prior experience, mostly within an educational or achievement context (wigfield & eccles, 1992, 2000, see simpkins et al., 2006, for the role of out-of-school activities). important factors that influence the formation of task value are hypothesized to be the learner’s goals, task-specific selfconcept, and interpretation of past events (e.g., attribution of success and failure). in turn, these are influenced by socialization, education, and upbringing. if we assume that recollected motivation may be an accurate account of the past (see neisser & libby, 2000, for a review of research on autobiographical memory), we may tentatively conclude that motivational orientations developed during school represent a specification of these antecedents of (at least) task value. however, while the chronological sequence of secondary school preceding higher education suggests that recollections of past motivation influence present motivation, we cannot rule out the possibility that people’s evaluations of their previous educational experience changes over time and may be affected by people’s current motivation. educational implications our results are relevant for learners and educators from two perspectives. first, learners’ motivation may be affected by their individual educational experience or behavior in the past which could promote or oppress motivation. both the learners themselves and their instructors may benefit from an explicit consideration of recollected educational experience. for example, one’s adoption of maladaptive performance-avoidance goals could be traced back to negative achievement-related experiences at school (anderman, austin, & johnson, 2002), which, in turn, may be reframed by changing attributions (similar as, for example, in trauma therapy; van der hart, steele, boon, & brown, 1993). second, linking secondary school experience to adult students’ participation in education puts new responsibilities on teachers. instead of using marks and degrees to make students work harder and perform better, the quality of adolescents’ educational experience could coin their long-term valuing of and participation in educational and learning activities. having said this, more attention should be paid to inward motivational orientation, such as the promotion of mastery goals, and less weight should be placed on competition in educational settings. as pisa has shown, countries that introduce marks only later in pupil’s educational careers actually outperform countries that emphasize performance in early school years (ratzki, 2010) and have higher participation in continuing education rates (schaeper, 2008). limitations and outlook further research is needed to confirm the higher order factors of inward and outward motivational orientation, to include more theoretical approaches to learning motivation (e.g., self-efficacy and attribution style; bandura, 1997), and to test the proposed associations with different outcome variables. based on replications of our structural model, it may be beneficial to develop a direct measure for inward and outward motivational orientation, thus replacing the combination of scales used to measure several observed variables. this could broaden the empirical basis of the concept of motivational orientations and facilitate further research. apart from the focus on the individual learner versus environmental contingencies, other underlying characteristics of learning motivation could be important to characterize theoretical overlap of motivational constructs. we would therefore encourage other researchers to analyze their data while keeping the idea of shared characteristics and options for integration in mind. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 775 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some researchers argue that autobiographical memories are merely reconstructions of the past (neisser & libby, 2000). therefore, retrospective assessments of learning motivation at school may be biased by later events and/or experiences (ross, 1989). however, research on retrospective assessments of motivation based on self-report scales is scarce. in fact, we do not know much about its accuracy measured by what really happened in the past, or about the possible generalization of school experiences in terms of a broader evaluation of motivation. thus, it remains unclear as to whether participants’ assessment of their learning motivation refers to a particular episode or school year, or if it reflects a consolidation of their experience, in general, in terms of a general or domainspecific schema. in addition, in order to refine the effect of remembered motivation, more research is needed to gain insight into possible memory biases and factors that may affect people’s recollections of their past learning motivation. especially our tentative assumption that learning motivation at secondary school influences adults’ willingness to learn calls for a longitudinal study. our cross-sectional data offers a large sample size, but only correlational information about the links between past learning motivation and current task value. in addition, participants were university students who may already be more willing to learn than other groups of people. ideally, further research on the interaction of motivation and experience will shed light onto their (causal) relationships, both short-term and in the long run and using different samples. finally, we agree with wigfield and cambria (2010) that it is important to increase research efforts that shed light on the interdependence of motivational variables and effects on achievement and other outcomes (e.g., educational task choice). research integrating several motivational constructs is valuable because, in practice, the goal is to promote individual participation in education. we have to consider the relation and the interplay of motivational constructs within the individual learner to be able to support the individual’s engagement in learning. for this, we need integrated approaches informing and directing our actions. notes i) by definition, mastery-avoidance oriented students are supposed to "focus on not performing worse than before, not stagnating, or not losing their skills, abilities, or memory" (elliot & mcgregor, 2001, p. 502). however, up till now, the mastery-avoidance construct has received only limited empirical support (moller & elliot, 2006), so akin to recent achievement goal studies (e.g., lau & nie, 2008), we did not include mastery-avoidance goals in the present research. ii) we also ran pcas of all items from the six retrospective motivation scales with oblique rotation. results suggested a six-factor solution. the factors represented the six scales, which measured the different motivational constructs, respectively. iii) without the self-concept of ability in the model (sccurr and scretro) the effect from inward on tv was .412, whereas the effect from outward on tv was -.186. acknowledgement this research emerged from a project on foreign language teaching partly supported by the local committee to improve study conditions.we thank faculty deans and students for their participation. we also wish to thank gerd bohner for his support of this research. references amabile, t. m., hill, k. g., hennessey, b. a., & tighe, e. m. 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(2002): development of achievement motivation. london, united kingdom: academic press wild, e., & remy, k. (2002). affektive und motivationale folgen der lernhilfen und lernbezogenen einstellungen von eltern [affective and motivational consequences of parental teaching strategies]. unterrichtswissenschaft, 30, 27-51. http://www.juventa.de about the authors julia gorges earned her phd in educational psychology in 2012. she now holds a post-doc position at the department of psychology, bielefeld university. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 gorges, schwinger, & kandler 781 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.5.749 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020 http://d-nb.info/1014037425/34#page=19 http://www.juventa.de/# http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.1.70 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.97 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2008.05.004 http://www.copingwithdissociation.com/treatment_of_traumatic_memories_1993.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2009.12.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0273-2297(92)90011-p http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1015 http://www.juventa.de http://www.psychopen.eu/ malte schwinger earned his phd in educational psychology in 2008. he now holds a post-doc position at the department of psychology, university of giessen. christian kandler earned his phd in personality psychology in 2010. he now holds a post-doc position at the department of psychology, bielefeld university. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 764–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.638 motivation at secondary school and at university 782 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en motivation at secondary school and at university introduction perspectives on learning motivation method participants and procedure measures analyses results correlations and principal components analysis structural equation analyses discussion the concept of inward and outward motivational orientation past and present factors of task value and engagement in learning educational implications limitations and outlook notes acknowledgments references about the authors stress in greek primary schoolteachers working under conditions of financial crisis research reports stress in greek primary schoolteachers working under conditions of financial crisis efrosini kalyva*a [a] city college, international faculty of the university of sheffield, thessaloniki, greece. abstract teachers come in daily contact with a number of students and colleagues and are likely to report high levels of job-related stress. this study aims to explore the effect of gender, age, years of teaching experience, teaching students with special educational needs and burnout on teacher stress. the participants were 384 greek primary schoolteachers, aged 25 to 59 years old (mean age = 41 years and 4 months), 146 males (38%) and 238 females (62%). they completed the questionnaire on teacher stress (kyriacou & sutcliffe, 1978) and the maslach burnout inventory – educators survey – mbi-es (maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996). it was found that greek primary schoolteachers report low levels of stress and that their stress is predicted by burnout and teaching students with special educational needs. more specifically, teachers with higher levels of burnout and those who do not teach students with special educational needs report higher levels of stress. keywords: stress, burnout, primary schoolteachers, greece europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 received: 2012-07-02. accepted: 2013-01-08. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: psychology department, city college, international faculty of the university of sheffield, 24 proxenou koromila street, 546 22 thessaloniki, greece. e-mail: kalyva@city.academic.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. teaching is one of the most stressful professions worldwide with potential detrimental effects on both teachers and their students (johnson et al., 2005). stress is a term that was not used in relation to teachers and instruction until 1972, while there was a vast increase in publications in the following years (kyriacou, 2001). teacher stress is defined as the experience of unpleasant and negative states, such as anger, tension, disappointment or depression, which arise from teaching responsibilities (kyriacou, 2001). stress tends to impact upon a person’s overall performance, both in terms of productivity and service delivery (mcshane & von glinow, 2005). almost one third of teachers consider their profession to be extremely stressful (jepson & forrest, 2006; kyriacou, 2000) while, in comparison to other professionals, teachers experience much higher levels of stress. in particular, smith, brice, collins, matthews, and mcnamara (2000) found that 41% of teachers reported high levels of job-related stress when compared to 31% of nurses, 29% of managers and 27% of administrators. travers and cooper (1993) reported that teachers experienced higher levels of stress than other employees in client-related professions, such as medical doctors, nurses, and hospital attendants. according to the transactional model for understanding stress and coping proposed by lazarus and folkman (1984), when encountering life demands, a cognitive process is triggered in which perceived demands of the event are weighted against a person’s perceived capabilities for coping with those demands. stress results from the perception that work demands exceed available resources. there are also other organizational and bio-psyeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ chological models that have attempted to explain the experience of stress, but most researchers refer to the basic assumption of lazarus’ stress model (hinton & rotheiler, 1998). stressed teachers are usually less tolerant of their students’ unwanted or challenging behaviors (kokkinos, panayiotou, & davazoglou, 2005), tend to employ less ineffective classroom management strategies (clunies-ross, little, & kienhuis, 2008), and fail to support their students effectively (jennings & greenberg, 2009). it is fairly easy to measure work stress that is related to a specific and concrete factor, such as exposure to loud noise, but variables related to the psychosocial work environment, such as job demands, aremuchmore complicated to measure and investigate (landsbergis & theorell, 2000). some of the factors that contribute to stress are associated with: a) the in-class rather than organizational structure, reflected in disciplinary problems, class heterogeneity, and work overload (forlin, 2001; lewis, 1999; male & may, 1998), b) individual differences that affect and determine teachers’ vulnerability against stress, such as age and gender – with younger and female teachers reporting higher stress levels (byrne, 1991; kantas, 2001; offerman & armitage, 1993), and c) factors related to the school organization and administration, such as limited governmental support and resources, inadequate training, continuous changes in the curriculum and legislation (forlin, 2001; travers & cooper, 1997). teacher stress may be related to external factors, for example workload, time pressure, external evaluation, relationships with co-workers, classroommanagement (chan, 2002; jepson & forrest, 2006), as well as the instruction of students with special educational needs (sen) who need more intensive and specialized training often with limited support and resources (forlin, 2001; male & may, 1997). internal factors that could affect teacher stress are type of personality, professional commitment, and burnout (jepson & forrest, 2006; yoon, 2002). burnout can be one of the primary causes of stress (yoon, 2002), although there is also evidence that prolonged stress may cause burnout (kyriacou, 2001). people who experience emotional exhaustion or depersonalization (which are basic components of burnout), are more likely to feel stressed when they have to face challenges in their work environment. burnout is a work syndrome that stems out of the perceived discrepancy between the effort put into work and its corresponding rewards (friedman, 1995) and leads to decreased prosperity and accomplishments (burke & greenglass, 1995). it is commonly observed in professions with intense face-to-face interactions, such as teachers or doctors (schwab & iwanicki, 1982) and its manifestation includes emotional and physical exhaustion, as well as many psychological symptoms – such as irritability, anxiety, and decreased selfesteem (farber, 1991). it should be noted finally that burnout must be viewed as a continuous variable and not be classified as “all or nothing” (girgin & baysal, 2005). leiter and maslach (1998) reported that burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion that may result in physical symptoms such as loss of energy, depersonalization (described as cynicism), lack of idealism, negative or inappropriate attitudes against other people, and decreased personal accomplishment that is linked to decreased professional efficacy and productivity, low morale and inability to cope with work demands. it seems that both environmental–organizational and personal factors are involved in the etiology and manifestation of burnout (farber, 1991), as put forward by the transactional model (shirom, 1993). since the work of teachers is extremely hard and demanding, many of them report increased burnout (evers, browers, & tomic, 2002) that can prevent them ultimately from performing well in their job. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 kalyva 105 http://www.psychopen.eu/ culture seems to constitute an important component of work-related stress, as proposed by the culture-workhealth model (peterson & wilson, 2002).there have been very few relevant studies on greek primary schoolteachers. however, before discussing them, it is important to provide some information about the greek situation. greek primary schoolteachers work less hours than their european colleagues, have considerably longer vacations, a permanent job and no official evaluations. on the other hand, they have limited to non-existent resources, they are relocated often to different schools (very often away from their families), they have limited promotional opportunities, and low salaries with no extra benefits (kantas & vassilaki, 1997). actually, since the financial crisis started in greece, primary schoolteachers have also experienced 30%-40% cuts in the salaries. the greek literature on the topic includes work by koustelios and kousteliou (1998) and kantas and vassilaki (1997), who studied teachers from both primary and secondary education and focused mainly on burnout, leontari, kiridis, and yalamas (1996), who obtained a general index of stress measured with a general single item, and pomaki and anagnostopoulou (2003), who measured aspects of stress using scales on job characteristics. these studies concluded that greek schoolteachers experience relatively low levels of stress, whereas other studies have indicated that greek teachers experience considerably high levels of stress and psychosomatic symptoms (kantas, 2001; papastylianou, 1997). as such, there is a documented need to measure stress among greek teachers focusing on a particular level of education (due to work differences between primary and secondary education), with a large sample and appropriate instruments. this has become more imperative in order to monitor the extent to which the recent massive educational and financial changes may have impacted on teacher stress (kyriacou, 2001). therefore, the main aim of the present study is to examine levels of teacher stress among greek primary schoolteachers. the secondary aim is to explore whether internal (gender, age, years of teaching experience, and burnout) and external (teaching students with sen) factors can predict levels of teacher stress. method participants a number of 384 primary schoolteachers took part in this study, aged 25 59 years old (mean age = 41 years and 4 months). there were 146 males (38%) and 238 females (62%). more than half (61.7%) had never taught a child with sen, while the remaining 38.3% had taught a student with sen. their teaching experience varied from 3-33 years (mean years of teaching experience = 14 years and 9 months). all the teachers were recruited from primary schools in middle and northern greece. measures the participants were asked to offer some demographic data and then to complete two questionnaires: the questionnaire on teacher stress (kyriacou & sutcliffe, 1978) and the maslach burnout inventory – educators survey (mbi-es maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996). the questionnaire on teacher stress (kyriacou & sutcliffe, 1978) is one of two instruments that have been constructed to measure teacher stress (developed by kyriacou, who also has offered the first definition of teacher stress). it has been used in other similar studies (e.g., van dick & wagner, 2001; kyriacou, 1979). it is made up of 50 items and, for the present study, the following scales were selected: unwanted student behavior (6 items), professional demands and responsibilities (8 items), school management (7 items), time pressure (5 items) and health problems (10 items). the instrument also makes it possible for teachers to identify 14 sources of stress, but this was beyond the scope of the present study. the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 stress in teachers 106 http://www.psychopen.eu/ answers are provided on a likert scale from 1 to 7, where 1 = never and 7 = daily. none of the scores are reverse coded and all items are added to provide a total score. the minimum score is 36 and the maximum is 252, with a higher score indicating higher levels of stress. the cronbach α reliability of the scale for the current study is 0.87 and is considered satisfactory. the mbi-es (maslach et al., 1996) comprises 22 items that measure variables related to the teacher profession. it is the most widely used tool to measure burnout not only among teachers, but also among all mental health professionals – more than 90% of studies (hastings, horne, & mitchell, 2004; schaufeli & enzmann, 1998). it yields scores along three dimensions: a) emotional exhaustion, which consists of 9 items that ask respondents to rate how frequently they experience such things as fatigue, frustration, and interpersonal stress in their jobs; b) depersonalization, which consists of 5 items that ask respondents to rate how frequently they have negative experiences with colleagues and clients; and c) professional accomplishment, which consists of 8 items that ask respondents to rate how frequently they have positive experiences in their job. the answers are provided on a likert scale from 1 to 7, where 1 = never and 7 = daily and some items are reverse coded. the minimum score is 22 and the maximum is 154. the cronbach α reliability of the scale for the current study is 0.89 and is considered satisfactory. procedure the first step was to gain ethical approval for the study and then to randomly select 35 schools from a list of all primary schools in northern greece. school principals were contacted and informed about the purpose of the study. permission to contact the teachers was granted by 24 school principals and the researcher visited them to brief potential participants. it was stressed that participation was optional and that data collection would take place at the school after teaching hours. the questionnaires were anonymous and participants were informed that they could withdraw at any time without penalty. out of the 400 teachers who were approached initially, 384 returned their questionnaire fully completed and the return rate was excellent (96%). the completion of the questionnaire lasted approximately 30 minutes and the researcher was available to answer any questions. results linear multiple regression was conducted to analyze the data. teacher stress scores were regressed on gender, age, years of teaching experience, teaching students with sen, and burnout (see table 1). these five predictors accounted for almost one third of the variance in teacher stress scores (r2 = .33). table 1 means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among the variables 654321sdm 1. gendera .001.490.621 2. age .001.12*-0.015.4041 3. years of teaching experience .001.75**0.09*-0.466.9214 4. teaching children with senb .001.13*0.15*0.080.490.621 5. burnout .001.16*0.14*0.09*0.580.1312.6661 6. stress .001.29**0.15*0.040.040.050.2049.0092 a1 = male and 2 = female. b1 = taught students with sen and 2 = did not teach students with sen. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.001. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 kalyva 107 http://www.psychopen.eu/ burnout (β = .27, p < .001) and teaching children with sen (β = .15, p = .045) demonstrated significant effects on teacher stress scores, while gender (r(384) = .05, p = .190), age (r(384) = -.04, p = .227), and years of teaching experience (r(384) = -.04, p = .240) were not associated with teacher stress. discussion the main aim of this study was to examine the levels of stress that greek primary schoolteachers experience after the recent massive educational and financial reforms, using an appropriate measure that relates to this specific profession. it was found that the mean scores obtained from the teacher stress questionnaire were low (with a mean of 92 out of 252), indicating low levels of stress. this finding is contradictory to those of other studies (e.g., jepson & forrest, 2006; smith, brice, collins, matthews, & mcnamara, 2000) that have been conducted in other countries, while evidence from greece is contradictory. although direct comparison with other studies is quite difficult due to the different nature of the sample and the different measurement techniques, this study is in line with the findings of leontari et al. (1996) and pomaki & anagnostopoulou (2003). this could be attributed to the fact that greek primary schoolteachers have long vacations, a permanent job, and no official evaluation (kantas & vassilaki, 1997). it was expected that the recent developments would have contributed to increased teacher stress but it is plausible that, since they are largely an external factor and everybody in greece experiences these changes, people have started to adjust to them. levels of teacher stress were predicted by the burnout they experience and whether they have taught students with sen regardless of their age, gender, and years of teaching experience. the variance that was explained by those two variables was quite satisfactory (33%). burnout has been associated with stress in other studies conducted in greece (e.g., leontari et al., 1996; pomaki & anagnostopoulou, 2003), but there were issues with the measurement of stress and/or the nature of the sample (since stress was measured with more generic questionnaires and the sample contained also secondary schoolteachers and this group faces different professional challenges). very few studies so far have identified burnout as a predictor of stress among primary schoolteachers, although this has been found for other professions (jepson & forrest, 2006; yoon, 2002). this can have important practical implications, since techniques used to reduce burnout could be effective also in decreasing the levels of stress reported by teachers. teachers who have taught students with sen in this study reported lower levels of stress than their colleagues who did not have such an experience. this finding is contradicted by some studies (e.g., forlin, 2001; williams &gersch, 2004) and supported by others (e.g., trendall, 1989). it could be attributed to the fact that greek primary schoolteachers who instructed students with sen have a considerably smaller class and a more flexible curriculum (koustelios & kousteliou, 1998), which seems to be themain difference from teachers who teach non-sen students. more research is needed in this area to explore this factor that seems to predict the level of teacher stress and should, thus, be investigated further. although gender and age were found to differentiate levels of teacher stress in other studies (byrne, 1991; kantas, 2001; offerman & armitage, 1993), this was not the case in the present study, despite the fact that the sample was properly balanced. it is possible that these factors differentiate between teachers who experience high levels of stress which was not the case in this dataset. this study, which is the first to explore teacher stress in greece after the beginning of the financial crisis using appropriate questionnaires and a large sample of primary schoolteachers, has certain limitations. more specifically, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 stress in teachers 108 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it relies on self-reports that are more prone to bias than biological measures (avramidis & kalyva, 2006); also, some other variables could affect stress levels, such as personality traits or work conditions (e.g., jepson & forrest, 2006; yoon, 2002), and they were not considered in the present study. levels of stress among greek primary schoolteachers are not as high as in other european countries due to specific work conditions and despite the fact that this population has suffered frommassive salary cuts and radical educational reforms. this is something worth exploring more in future research, as there seem to be some protective factors against stress even in extremely stressful times that need to be identified and enhanced through appropriate support mechanisms. it was also found that burnout and teaching students with sen predicted almost one third of the variance in teacher stress. since this was one of the few studies that used burnout as a predictor of stress, and not the other way around, further research is needed to explore this relationship in more detail. references avramidis, e., & kalyva, e. 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(2004). teaching in mainstream and special schools: are the stresses similar or different? british journal of special education, 31, 157-162. doi:10.1111/j.0952-3383.2004.00347.x europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 kalyva 111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9604.00075 http://dx.doi.org/10.5993/ajhb.26.1.2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0887044031000147256 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013161x82018001005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02678379308257062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013188890310106 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000709901158505 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0952-3383.2004.00347.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ yoon, j. s. (2002). teacher characteristics as predictors of teacher-student relationships: stress, negative affect, and self-efficacy. social behavior and personality, 30, 485-493. doi:10.2224/sbp.2002.30.5.485 about the author efrosini kalyva is a psychologist, practitioner, writer and academic specializing in education and treatment of individuals with special educational needs. she holds two masters degrees and two phds and she is trainer of professionals working with children with special educational needs in a variety of settings. she is currently based in thessaloniki (greece), where she is senior lecturer in psychology at city college, an international faculty of the university of sheffield. she is also a guest lecturer in public universities and delivers speeches and seminars on the education and treatment of individuals with special educational needs. she is the author of 6 books and several papers in international scientific journals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 104–112 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.488 stress in teachers 112 http://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2002.30.5.485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stress in teachers (introduction) method participants measures procedure results discussion references about the author joint effects of gender and personality on choice of happiness strategies research reports joint effects of gender and personality on choice of happiness strategies greg huszczoa, megan endres*a [a] eastern michigan university, ypsilanti, usa. abstract the purpose of our study is to investigate the individual and joint effects of gender and personality on choice of happiness strategies. a total of 204 participants were surveyed on happiness strategies and were classified as thinking or feeling based on the mbti form m and a “true fit” workshop. the interaction effects revealed detailed differences in participants that would be missed if gender or personality were studied in isolation. the majority of differences were due to females with “feeling” preferences expressing significantly higher use of happiness strategies than males with “thinking” preferences. females with “thinking” preferences and males with “feeling” preferences showed few significant differences from other types. future researchers may need to address the ‘silent minority’' of men and women who have been clustered with others solely based on gender. keywords: gender, personality, attitudes, health attitudes and behaviour, industrial/organisational psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 received: 2012-10-11. accepted: 2013-01-23. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: eastern michigan university, college of business, department of management, 515 owen building, ypsilanti, mi, 48197, usa. e-mail: megan.endres@emich.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there is a dilemma in the very nature of research on individual differences. on the one hand, we want to discover the characteristics of a subgroup of people in order to understand them and gain insights regarding the implications of their differences. on the other hand, the attempt to identify any group’s characteristics leads to stereotyping. this dilemma seems even more striking when the sub-grouping of interest, gender, involves groups of people representing roughly 50% of the population each. there are bound to be within-group differences and the dangers of stereotyping create problems in work situations and in relationships in general. the literature tends to describe females as nurturing, emotional, sensitive, and more aesthetically oriented than males (brody, 1997). while this tendency may be present, there are many, no doubt millions, of females who do not portray these characteristics. maybe we need to refine our understanding of gender differences by looking at the personality differences within each gender’s population. personality traits should have long-term influence on outcomes and, therefore, should be preferred predictors (phillips & lloyd, 2006). specifically, with respect to gender, important variance may be lost in the dichotomous identification of individuals as male or female. gardenswartz and rowe (1994) identified layers of diversity, suggesting that gender is a dimension that helps defines one’s identity, but personality is a deeper level of diversity, closer to the centre of what defines who we are. personality underlies and offers a more complex explanation for behaviour compared to gender alone. if we really want to understand women (or men), therefore, we need to look at the interaction between gender and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ personality (visser & roelofs, 2011). despite the identification of gender differences in a variety of work-related behaviours, interactions with deeper-level variables received little attention. we chose to investigate the happiness construct due to its significant, positive effects on various work-related outcomes and the potential to clarify mixed findings in past research (bowling, eschleman, & wang, 2010; kroll, 2011). the goal of our study was to investigate whether personality and gender interact in predicting the choice to pursue various happiness strategies, and if this interrelationship is a predictor of strategy choice versus gender or personality as sole predictors. relevant literature is presented, followed by a research model and hypotheses. next, method and data are described, along with a discussion of results, limitations and suggestions for future research and application. hypothesis development deepand surface-level diversity gardenswartz and rowe (1994) identified four layers of diversity to help distinguish how people differ. the outer two layers of their model describe externally established dimensions (e.g., organisational field of work, seniority level, marital status, religious affiliation, etc.). gender is an internal dimension, as is race, and thus closer to a core element of one’s identity. personality is at the centre of the diversity levels and makes us who we are. other researchers have adopted the perspective of diversity ‘layers’ (see figure 1). for example, researchers labelled such observable traits as gender as sources of “surface-level” diversity (harrison, price, & bell, 1998). such unobservable types of diversity as personality have been called “deep-level” diversity traits. surface-level and deep-level traits both influence behaviour (phillips & lloyd, 2006); however, deep-level traits become better predictors of outcomes over time, while surface-level traits become less important (harrison et al., 1998). perhaps the interaction of the key surface trait of gender and a key personality trait will help better explain perceived differences between men and women. figure 1. surface-level versus deep-level diversity. therefore, surface-level characteristics are interpreted as proxies for deep-level characteristics (chatman, polzer, barsade, & neale, 1998; chen & kenrick, 2002; lawrence, 1997; phillips, 2003). people may assume deep-level diversity is present when only surface-level diversity actually exists, or vice-versa (phillips & lloyd, 2006). this misunderstanding may prohibit the opportunity for deep-level understanding of relationships among the variables europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 137 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (harrison et al., 1998). if a link between surfaceand deep-level diversity can be identified by researchers, then the effects of deep-level traits are more lasting and have longer-term influence, so they would be preferred as predictors. in summary, researchers agree that personality traits may offer an underlying explanation for gender differences. identifying the specific personality traits and their links to gender could lead to more lasting, detailed understandings of behaviour. these links may be interactive and could reveal underlying meaning that has been masked by studying only main effects. research findings relating gender and personality researchers have investigated the interplay between gender and personality in predicting various behaviours such as in interpersonal communication (baker & mcnulty, 2011); altruism (ben-ner, kong, & putterman, 2004; swope, cadigan, schmitt, & shupp, 2008; visser & roelofs, 2011); job performance (saad & sackett, 2002); entrepreneurship (zhang et al., 2009); work-life balance (george, helson, & john, 2011) and happiness (warner & vroman, 2011). researchers studied the interaction between gender and outcome variables that are stereotypically male or female, such as altruism and communication style. results have revealed that personality traits explain more variance in addition to gender. although gender may have predicted the behaviour in a manner consistent with stereotypes, personality interacted with gender to provide more fine-tuned predictions. for example, visser and roelofs (2011) investigated the reasons for gender effects on altruistic behaviour. gender differences in altruism were found only in those individuals whose scores were higher or lower than the average on each personality factor of the big five personality traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion (costa & mccrae, 1992). ben-ner et al. (2004) also investigated the joint effects of gender and personality on the relationship between awareness of gender of a fictitious endowment recipient and altruism toward that person. for women, the relationship between recipient gender and altruism related to each of the big five personality factors. finally, baker and mcnulty (2011) investigated effect of the interaction between gender, self-compassion and conscientiousness on relationship satisfaction and willingness to correct interpersonal errors. women’s self-compassion positively affected their desires to increase relationship satisfaction and to correct their interpersonal mistakes. these relationships only held for men with high conscientiousness, however. other researchers found as well that personality added explanation power to gender when predicting non-stereotypical behaviours. for example, george et al. (2011) found that personality was an important and stable predictor of women’s work behaviours over a 50-year period. personality traits explained various outcomes such as career choice, work involvement, status, satisfaction, and financial security. saad and sackett (2002) hypothesised an interaction between personality and gender on u.s. army employees’ job performance. results reveal that job performance was over-predicted for women when personality interactions were included. in addition, warner and vroman (2011) found relationships between happiness-inducing strategies, perceived happiness, gender, and the big five personality traits. women reported significantly higher perceived happiness than men, and significantly higher use of some happiness-inducing strategies. big five personality traits also significantly predicted happiness-inducing strategies with conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and extraversion as positive predictors. the relationship between happiness-inducing behaviours and perceived happiness europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 joint effects of gender and personality 138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was not moderated by gender or by the big five traits. the authors note, however, that the study was exploratory and that they used a very short (two items per trait) version of the big five measure (goldberg et al., 2006) and a new measure of perceived happiness. the large sample size (n = 903) may have also led to misleading significant relationships with weak correlations. genetic studies added credibility to the knowledge that gender and personality interact to predict behaviour. in a study of twins, zhang et al. (2009) investigated the relative influence of gender, big five personality traits, and environment on the decision to become an entrepreneur. for women, the relationship between genetics and entrepreneurship was mediated by extraversion and neuroticism. for men, the relationship between shared-environmental influences and entrepreneurship was mediated by extraversion. in summary, researchers have shown that personality and gender jointly predict various workand relationshiprelated behaviours. this research spans a wide range of personality tests and a wide range of behavioural outcomes. as a result of this variation, although some indication of a consistent personality-gender link is evident, it is difficult to draw overarching conclusions, given the challenges inherent in comparing studies (visser & roelofs, 2011). happiness, gender, and personality happiness research is on the forefront of the positive psychology movement and has recently received increased consideration in organisational research (judge & kammeyer-mueller, 2011). happiness is an affective component of subjective well-being (swb) for which researchers have identified “considerable” gender differences in past studies (kroll, 2011). in addition, bowling et al. (2010) identified the presence of moderators in their meta-analysis and suggested that gender should be investigated in more detail in future research. happiness is positively related to various work-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction (bowling et al., 2010); and positive moods, motivation, and subjective well-being (judge & kammeyer-mueller, 2011). in addition, happiness is negatively related to depression and anxiety (borooah, 2010). studies have proposed happiness ties to organisational outcomes, as well, such as social capital (leung, kier, fung, fung, & sproule, 2011); organisational citizenship behaviour (rego, ribeiro, & cunha, 2010); flexible work environments (atkinson & hall, 2011); job performance, and organisational functioning (fredrickson, 2003). research supports that happiness can be increased and environmental influence can play a critical role (nes, 2010). specifically, behavioural strategies can be used to increase happiness (warner & vroman, 2011). in one study, these behavioural strategies appear to vary according to gender and personality, but only as linear predictors and not as interacting variables (e.g., tkach & lyubomirsky, 2006). in one study, researchers found a genderpersonality interaction in use of happiness strategies, but using exploratory scales (warner & vroman, 2011). in happiness research, strategy choice is typically measured when participants rate their use of various methods that have been shown to increase happiness, including such behaviours as expressing gratitude and active leisure behaviours (lyubomirsky, 2008). the measurement rating gives the individual a choice of five motivations for a person to persist in performing different activities (i.e., the behaviours are natural to them, they enjoy performing the behaviours, they appreciate the value of the behaviours, or they engage in them out of feelings of guilt or due to situational demands). men and women may tend to choose happiness strategies that are considered to be stereotypically gender-appropriate. in fact, individual choices are affected by sociocultural stereotypes (carr & steele, 2010). women, in europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 139 http://www.psychopen.eu/ particular, are more positively evaluated for behaviour that is consistent with social expectations than men (shaughnessy, treadway, breland, williams, & brouer, 2011), and therefore may choose ‘feminine’ strategies to induce happiness. individuals of both genders could even adopt stereotypical methods for gaining happiness, even if their genuine interests and desires are not consistent with these stereotypes. stereotypes that are widely accepted (but not necessarily true) and could influence happiness strategy choice include the idea that compared to men, women are more emotional (heesacker et al., 1999) and express different emotions (plant, hyde, keltner, & devine, 2000). compared to men, women are also stereotypically thought to be more fearful (condry & condry, 1976) and to express more intense embarrassment (keltner, 1995). in sum, happiness is an appropriate outcome variable in a study of gender and personality effects. the study of happiness involves behaviour, in the form of strategies used to increase happiness, and affect toward the particular strategies chosen. the myers-brigg type indicator (mbti) and suitability for gender studies one of the most commonly used personality indicators in business settings is the myers-briggs type indicator. although scored in an ipsative fashion (two acceptable options are provided and the participant is forced to choose only one), the scales of the mbti have been repeatedly found to be of high reliability with abundant evidence of their validity (e.g., harvey, 1996; johnson, 1992; myers, mccaulley, quenk, & hammer, 1998; mccrae & costa, 1989). those that have criticized the reliability of the mbti (clark & estes, 2002; strickler & ross, 1962) were examining older versions, and the present study used the recently improved version (form m) and a “best-fit” procedure. analysis of a national sample data (myers et al., 1998) showed internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities of the mbti form m assessment to be good or superior to those of such commonly used personality measures as the neo pi, birkman method, disc, bar-on eq-i and the 16pf. in addition, the cronbach alpha measures of internal consistency reliability were found to be between .86 to .92 for all the scales in samples comprising different ethnic and age groups. while considerable research has been done on the mbti assessment in a variety of countries (beuke, freeman, & wang, 2006; schaubhut, 2008; yiannakis & taylor, 2009), data gathered from africa, asia, australia, europe, latin america and the middle east also showed good evidence of internal consistency / reliability, ranging from .81 to .91 with a pattern similar across all six regions (schaubhut, herk, & thompson, 2009). convergent and divergent validity evidence is reported based on correlation patterns with other personality assessments, namely the cpi, firo-b, and the adjective checklist. the strong correlations are comparable to those found when big five factors were measured by the neo-pi (myers et al., 1998). the mbti is based on jung’s theory of personality and has a scale that corresponds to each of the dimensions of the big five.1 the results of each scale are reported as dichotomous type preferences (akin to right-handedness versus lefthandedness) rather than scores on a trait, but with acknowledgement that behaviourally we may use “either side of the trait” in order to match the demands of a given situation. in the “best-fit” or “verified type” procedure used to feedback mbti results, participants are given detailed information on their reported type and alternative type descriptions. a number of studies (hammer & yeakley, 1987; herk & thompson, 2009) revealed high rates of agreement between type as reported by the instrument and bestfit type (72.9% agree on all 4 scales of the mbti assessment). we will be using best-fit type in this study in order europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 joint effects of gender and personality 140 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to ensure that the participants are convinced by the description of their personalities. studies conducting confirmatory factor analyses (harvey, murry, & stamoulis, 1995; johnson & saunders, 1990) provide further evidence of the validity of the mbti scales. study after study has found that females are much more likely to be the “feeling” personality types and males are much more likely to be “thinking” types. for example, in the nationally representative sample utilized in the hammer and mitchell (1996) study, 75.5% of females’ scores classified them as “feeling” preference and 24.5% as “thinking” preference. amongmales, 56.5% scored a preference for “thinking” and 43.5% scored a preference for “feeling.” jung used the terms “thinking” and “feeling” to describe the two types of rational functions that are used to appraise or evaluate perceptions. thinking types come to decisions through logical connections relying on the principles of cause and effect. feeling types come to decisions by weighing the relative values and merits of the issues, relying on an understanding of personal values and aesthetics. neither approach is inherently superior. the rational judging function scale significantly correlates with big five measures of agreeableness (mccrae & costa, 1989). one inherent difficulty in investigating the interactions between gender and personality lies in the trait approach, or in classifying individuals as “high” or “low” on given dimensions. for example, if women are described as more “agreeable” than men, does this mean that men should be described as “disagreeable” (costa, terracciano, & mccrae, 2001)? we suggest that research investigating the interaction effects of gender and personality is better served by using this typological approach. instead of suggesting that females are more agreeable and males more disagreeable, we propose to investigate gender interactions with the mbti thinking and feeling dimensions. the preference for thinking over feeling in the mbti framework indicates individuals who are more willing to analyse and critique ideas. thus we are proposing to study four mbti types: feeling females, feeling males, thinking females and thinking males. based on the above literature, we conclude that personality is a deep-level diversity trait and gender is a surfacelevel diversity trait. we conclude also that gender differences in work-related behaviours may be better understood by their interaction with personality traits, especially those that classify individuals into ‘types’, allowing for a better understanding of each group rather than a “high” versus “low” on a single trait. last, we propose that happiness is a valuable construct for studying personality-gender interaction effects. because happiness is studied in terms of behavioural choices of strategies as well as affect for those strategies, a multifaceted understanding may be gained that gives more information about gender-personality relationship as predictors. research regarding choice behaviour suggests that sociocultural stereotypes may affect evaluation of the happiness strategies one uses, but not enough evidence is available to specifically hypothesize results. therefore, based on the literature presented here, we offer the following hypotheses: h1: choice of happiness strategies will vary significantly according to participant gender. h2: choice of happiness strategies will vary significantly according to participant personality. h3: choice of happiness strategies will vary significantly according to an interaction between participant gender and participant personality. specifically, females with “feeling” mbti classification and males with the “thinking” classification are expected to exhibit the largest number of significant differences in strategy choices. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 141 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample of this study included 208 students in the graduate and undergraduate sections of a course on organisational behaviour. four surveys were not completed and, therefore, were not included in the sample. the usable sample included 103 females (50.50%) and 101 males (49.50%). the sample was composed of 98 students who were identified as thinking types (48.04%) and 106 who were identified as feeling (51.96%). in order to test hypothesis 3, four groups were formed from the male-female and thinking-feeling combination, resulting in thinking males (n = 62, 30.39%), feeling males (n = 39, 19.12%), thinking females (n = 36, 17.65%), and feeling females (n = 67, 32.84%). measures the research questionnaire included the person-activity fit diagnostic survey (lyubomirsky, 2008) that measures happiness activities fitting one’s interests, values, and needs. the survey asks the degree to which the participant considers each of 12 happiness activities and to reflect on what it would be like to do it every week for an extended period of time. they are then asked to rate each activity on a 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much) scale regarding five reasons why they may engage in each activity. thus, participants were asked to rate why they might keep doing this activity in terms of each of the following reasons: 1. natural: i’ll keep doing this activity because it will feel “natural” to me and i’ll be able to stick with it. 2. enjoy: i’ll keep doing this activity because i will enjoy doing it; i’ll find it to be interesting and challenging. 3. value: i’ll keep doing this activity because i will value and identify with doing it; i’ll do it freely even when it’s not enjoyable. 4. guilty: i’ll keep doing this activity because i would feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious if i didn’t do it; i’ll force myself. 5. situation: i’ll keep doing this activity because somebody else will want me to or because my situation will force me to. in addition to responding to the mbti form m written survey, the students participated in a “true fit” workshop. the purpose of a “true fit” workshop is for students to verify their personality type preferences and learn more about their types. for those people who have only a slight preference for thinking versus feeling in their written scores, they are able to consider which classification would be their best fit and re-classify themselves if they feel it is necessary. data analyses table 1 presents the sample means and standard deviations for each of the 12 happiness activities and associated reasons for their choice (lyubomirsky, 2008). the mean values show some differences in reasons for choosing happiness activities. in particular, choosing activities due to guilt or due to the situation were rated lower than choosing activities due to being natural, enjoyed or valued by the person. hypothesis 1 proposed that reasons for choosing happiness activities would vary significantly by gender, and significant t-values lend support for five of the 12 activities (practising kindness, nurturing relationships, learning to forgive, savouring joys, and committing to goals). as shown in table 2, female participants reported significantly more use of these five activities due to ‘natural feeling’ (practising kindness, t = -2.48, p < .01; nurturing relationships, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 joint effects of gender and personality 142 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sample means of five possible reasons for choosing 12 happiness activities (1 = not at all, 7 = very much) situationguiltyvalueenjoynatural 2.942.925.345.125.26expressing gratitude1. 3.062.064.224.133.86cultivating optimism2. 3.512.884.383.874.09avoiding overthinking and social comparison3. 3.373.096.046.155.96practising acts of kindness4. 3.363.135.385.205.03nurturing social relationships5. 3.922.824.813.854.71developing strategies for coping6. 3.573.224.543.563.82learning to forgive7. 3.282.415.255.725.20increasing flow experiences8. 2.942.435.605.845.53savouring life's joys9. 3.793.365.895.465.34committing to your goals10. 3.333.594.754.223.83practising religion and spirituality11. 3.543.956.035.665.39taking care of your body12. t = -2.86, p < .01; savouring joys, t = -3.17, p < .002; and committing to goals, t = -2.09, p < .04), ‘enjoyment’ (practising kindness, t = -2.72, p < .01; nurturing relationships, t = -2.24, p < .03; and savouring joys, t = -2.62, p < .01), and ‘situation’ (learning to forgive, t = -2.03, p < .04). hypothesis 2 proposed that reasons for choosing happiness activities would vary significantly by personality, operationalised as thinkers versus feelers. the hypothesis was supported by a significant t-value for eight of the 12 activities. as shown in table 2, feeler participants reported significantly more use of seven of these eight activities due to ‘enjoyment’ (expressing gratitude, t = -3.23, p < .001; cultivating optimism, t = -2.31, p < .02; practising kindness, t = -2.66, p < .01; nurturing relationships, t = -2.69, p < .01; savouring joy, t = -2.32, p < .02; and practising religion/spirituality, t = -2.27, p < .02), ‘natural feeling’ (practising kindness, t = -2.58, p < .01; nurturing relationships, t = -3.27, p < .01; learning to forgive, t = -2.05, p < .04; savouring joy, t = -3.14, p < .002; practising religion/spirituality, t = -2.36, p < .02), ‘value’ (nurturing relationships, t = -2.59, p < .01; learning to forgive, t = -2.80, p < .01; practising religion/spirituality, t = -2.09, p < .04), and ‘guilty feeling’ (learning to forgive, t = -2.21, p < .03).in addition, thinker participants chose to commit to goals due to ‘guilty feeling’ significantly more than feeler participants. hypothesis 3 proposed that strategy choice should differ significantly in four types combining gender and personality differences. specifically, females with the “feeling” mbti classification and males with the “thinking” classification were predicted to exhibit the largest number of differences in strategy choices, versus females with the “thinking” mbti classification and males with the “feeling” mbti classification. anova verified significant differences exist between the ff, ft, mf, and mt types for five activities. table 2 shows the four types differ significantly in how they express gratitude, practise acts of kindness, nurture social relationships, savour life’s joys, and practise religion/spirituality. as hypothesised, the significant differences were primarily between female feelers (ff) versus male thinkers (mt). discussion and conclusions the results of this study have important implications for understanding the relationship between gender and individual behaviour. the outcomes apply specifically to happiness/subjective well-being research, indicating that the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 143 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 significant differences in strategy choice by gender, personality, and the gender-personality interaction f-test resultst-test results combined types differencesfeeling (f) vs. thinking (t)male (m) vs. female (f) directionreasondirectionreasondirectionreason ff > mt*enjoyf > t**enjoyexpressing gratitude1. f > t*enjoycultivating optimism2. ff > mt*naturalf > t**naturalf > m**naturalpractising acts of kindness3. ff > mt**enjoyf > t**enjoyf > m**enjoy ff > mt*naturalf > t**naturalf > m**naturalnurturing social relationships4. ff > mt*enjoyf > t**enjoyf > m*enjoy f > t**value f > t*naturalf > m*situationlearning to forgive5. f > t**value f > t*guilty ff > mt**naturalf > t**naturalf > m**naturalsavouring life's joys6. ff > mt*enjoyf > t*enjoyf > m**enjoy mf > ff*guilty t > f*guiltyf > m*naturalcommitting to your goals7. mf > mt*naturalf > t*naturalpractising religion and spirituality8. mf > mt*enjoyf > t*enjoy mf > mt*valuef > t*value ft > mt*situationtaking care of your body9. note. ff = female feelers; mf = male feelers; ft = female thinkers; mt = male thinkers. *p < .05. **p < .01. reasons individuals choose some happiness strategies depend not only on gender and personality alone, but also on an interaction between them. researchers who study happiness should consider gender as an important variable in theoretical models and as potentially interacting with personality. more broadly, the results of this study may support the view that personality is an underlying ‘deep-level’ diversity that provides a more-defined explanation for surface-level gender differences. the thinking-feeling dimension of the mbti was used in this study, but other researchers should consider what additional deep-level dimensionsmight underlie such gender differences as individual values or attitudes toward work and relationships. the results in this study suggest that personality gives greater dimensionality to the bipolar notion of female versus male. although gender is often studied as an explanatory variable for behaviour, attitudes, or values, researchers rarely take issue with its lack of depth or its range restriction. results here specifically show that the male-female dichotomy is a poor proxy for the underlying personality differences that explain choice of strategies for happiness. gender may be a significant predictor of behaviour, as in this study, but its limitations obscure complexities that may be essential for full-specified models of human behaviour. interestingly, female feelers repeatedly reported that they pursued happiness strategies because they ‘felt natural’ and were ‘enjoyable,’ significantly more so than male thinkers reported. male feelers rated that they ‘valued’ strategies significantly more than male thinkers did. the addition of the thinking-feeling dimension, therefore, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 joint effects of gender and personality 144 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reveals these stereotypical differences are not female versus male, but they apply to subsets of each gender. because most ‘feelers’ are female and most ‘thinkers’ are male, variation in strategy choice would have been attributed to gender if personality was not measured. the male feeler versus male thinker differences were not observed until personality was added to the analysis and would have been obscured in a study that only measured gender. as discussed above, a gender-only approach to research may wash out the underlying ‘deep-level’ explanation for behaviour. more research questions arise as to why individuals pursue certain types of happiness strategies. answering these questions could lead managers or counsellors to provide a broader set of strategies for pursuing goals that will appeal to more people. in practice, these preferred strategies may lead to more successful goal attainment. what, ‘feels natural’ and ‘enjoyable’ to female feelers? the strategies appear to be typically categorized as female, including expressing gratitude, practising acts of kindness, nurturing social relationships, and savouring life’s joys. past researchers concluded that individuals may develop deeply-held values for certain behaviours and traits if they adopt stereotypical values and then respond to psychological tests in a way that is consistent with these biases (eagly, 1987; mazzella & feingold, 1994; saad & sackett, 2002). in fact, happiness may be perceived as a feminine concept altogether. alternately, the individual may define happiness and definitions can vary depending on one’s personality. another explanation for stereotypical gender differences may be that the subsets that actually adopt societal norms also dominate within the stereotyped gender. the whole male group or female group takes on the broad characteristics of the majority. in fact, research shows that gender has particular problems with prediction due to the differences between gender and gender-role orientation (choi, 2004). results of this study also provide information for gender in management practice. clearly, the reasons for pursuing various happiness strategies are not solely dependent on gender, but also on personality. an effective manager would not assume, for example, that a female employee is regularly kind to coworkers because it is a natural behaviour, when she may be acting solely based on specific situational factors. an effective manager would also not assume that a female employee would express gratitude more often because she finds it more enjoyable than male employees. the lack of awareness of differences represented by female thinkers (ft) and male feelers (mf) also may lead to false attributions. female thinkers (ft) tend to be more detached emotionally from a decision situation and prefer logical analysis. the ft may be compared to female feelers (ff) as being less personable and be negatively judged. or, female thinkers (ft) may be more positively judged in an environment that favours logic and practicality. similarly, male feelers (mf) who are more attuned to the harmony and balance needed in a decision situation may be compared to the perceived male standard of male thinkers (mt) and subsequently judged as lacking logic or knowledge. alternately, male feelers (mf) may excel in an environment heavily reliant on interpersonal relationships and values. in conclusion, this study indicates that the relationship between personality and gender provides a more complete explanation for choice of happiness strategies. specifically, reasons for choosing particular strategies were significantly different for a subgroup of women versus a subgroup of men. these would have appeared as simple gender differences if personality was not measured. future researchers should investigate other measures of gender orientation (bem, 1981). future researchers should determine how gender orientation interacts with personality to predict behaviour. future researchers may be interested in why differences occurred in the reasons for choosing strategies. for example, female feelers europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 145 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (ff) rated ‘enjoyment’ significantly higher than male thinkers (mt) as a reason for four strategies (expressing gratitude, practising kindness, nurturing relationships, and savouring joy). ff also rated ‘a natural feeling’ significantly higher than mt as a reason for using three strategies (practising kindness, nurturing relationships, and savouring joy). in the workplace, researchers could explore in the future the effects of gender and personality interactions on job design, morale, training, career counselling, benefits options, or reward systems. limitations of this research include the use of a self-report measure of strategy choice versus actual choice behaviour. participants were required to rely on their memories of past choices, which memories may be flawed. another limitation may be present in the cross-sectional nature of the research, since a longitudinal approach could be better fitted to assess cause-effect relations. despite these limitations, however, this study may provide one step forward in providing deeper-level explanations for gender differences in behaviour. notes 1) the neuroticism measure on the mbti is not included on form m of the mbti, and is not typically used in business settings or in this study. it is available in the “step-iii” version of the mbti, which is only provided to those trained to handle feedback on this dimension. references atkinson, c., & hall, l. 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(2009). south african mbti form q data supplement. johannesburg, south africa: jopie van rooyen & partners. zhang, z., zyphur, m. j., narayanan, j., arvey, r. d., chaturvedi, s., avolio, b. j., . . . larsson, g. (2009). the genetic basis of entrepreneurship: effects of gender and personality. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 110(2), 93-107. doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.07.002 about the authors greg huszczo is a professor of organizational behavior and development at eastern michigan university. his research interests focus on teams, leadership, change, and personalities. he has written four books and has published in journals such as american psychologist, international journal of diversity, and leadership and organization development. megan endres is an associate professor of organizational behavior and development at eastern michigan university. she researches gender issues, self-perceived ability, and knowledge sharing and has published in journals such as academy of management journal, journal of managerial issues, and theory and decision. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 136–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.536 huszczo & endres 149 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0197-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02683941111164490 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2006.12.065 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-005-4754-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9278-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-010-9245-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.07.002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ joint effects of gender and personality (introduction) hypothesis development deepand surface-level diversity research findings relating gender and personality happiness, gender, and personality the myers-brigg type indicator (mbti) and suitability for gender studies method participants measures data analyses discussion and conclusions notes references about the authors religious faith, militarism, and humorlessness john morreall department of religious studies college of william and mary williamsburg, va 23187-8795, usa (757) 221-2173 jsmorr@wm.edu biographical note john morreall is president of the international society for humor studies. his books include “taking laughter seriously”; “the philosophy of laughter and humor”; “humor works; and comedy, tragedy and religion”. he also does presentations on the benefits of humor under the name “humorworks” (www.humorworks.com). abstract researchers like vassilis saroglou have found a negative correlation between religious belief and sense of humor. i add two things to this line of research. first, i argue that the features that make religious believers humorless also make them militaristic. secondly, i argue that militarism and humorlessness are concentrated in religions which stress orthodoxy and faith, such as christianity and islam; militarism and humorlessness do not dominate nontheistic religions such as buddhism which do not stress orthodoxy and faith. introduction vassilis saroglou (2002) has explored the psychology of religious belief and the negative correlation between religious belief and sense of humor. i want to continue that discussion with reference to religious faith and militarism—the reliance on violence as a way to solve problems. we live in a dangerous world. and much of the danger comes from religious people who are convinced of the correctness of their world view and the moral uprightness of the violence they create. a noteworthy feature of militarist religious people is their lack of humor. two examples of the connection between religion and militarism show up in the news every day: those islamic fundamentalists who use terrorism to achieve their goals, and the christian fundamentalists in the u.s. government who are fighting against them—president george w. bush being the prime example. the nineteen men who commandeered the planes over new york and washington on september 11, 2001, to kill thousands of people, were all religiously motivated. messages from such terrorists often include lines from prayers, such as “in the name of god,” and “god is great,” which were traditional battle cries of muslim armies. similarly, george w. bush’s confidence as he invaded afghanistan and iraq was “faith-based.” before bush made his final decision to invade iraq, he did not consult his secretary of state, his secretary of defense, or even his biological father, george herbert walker bush, who had significant experience with invading iraq. instead, he consulted his “higher father,” who, according to bush, assured him that invading iraq was the right thing to do. bush has hired many like-minded fundamentalist christians. john ashcroft, former attorney general of the united states, regularly held bible study meetings with the people who worked for him. general jerry boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, regularly “witnesses” in churches—that is, gives impromptu sermons—in which he says that the “war on terrorism” is a religious war in which “the enemy is a guy names satan.” the terrorists, boykin says, serve “the principalities of darkness,” that is satan, and so they hate america because “we’re a christian nation.” justifying violence by faith killing people is the most harmful action anyone can perform, and so it is the action which requires the most justification. killing innocent people is an action which rational moral agents presume to be wrong, unless an extraordinary case can be made. those who are going to kill innocent people should be certain that they have a very good reason to do so. when the american military dropped nuclear bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki in world war ii, for example, they argued that the loss of innocent lives was counterbalanced by the lives that would be saved in bringing the war to an end. half a century later, ethicists are still discussing that justification. notice how much stronger a military commander’s justification for killing innocent people would be, if that action were based on a higher, divine command. if god told you that what you were planning to do was the correct course of action, what could anyone say after that? in ordinary deliberations, i might argue for a course of action, but then you might point out something that i had overlooked. so i might change my mind. but if god tells me that my idea is the best thing to do, i can stop thinking right there. no conceivable argument should get me to change my mind after god has spoken. it is because divine commands would give such absolute justification for violent actions, i think, that so many warriors have claimed that god told them to do what they did. this is the supreme form of the old justification “i was following orders.” the tradition begins in the bible with the book of joshua, which describes how god ordered the people of israel to invade jericho and then dozens more cities, killing every man, woman, child, and animal therein. this is the bible’s summary of the conquest of ai: when the israelites had cut down to the last man all the citizens of ai who were in the open country or in the wilderness to which they had pursued them, and the massacre was complete, they all turned back to ai and put it to the sword. the number who were killed that day, men and women, was twelve thousand, the whole population of ai. (joshua 8: 24-25) now those who are attacked by religious warriors have often disagreed with the claim that god had ordered their slaughter, of course, and good evidence for such claims is seldom offered. when religious warriors offer an explanation for their actions, it is typically based on their “faith.” although people often use the word “faith” as synonymous with “religion,” there is no necessary connection between the two. in non-literate tribal religions, as in africa and australia, people do not speak of faith. among the literate world religions, faith is not appealed to in buddhism, confucianism, or taoism. where faith became important was in monotheistic religions—especially christianity and islam. in the hebrew bible, faith was largely trust in god, rather than assent to certain doctrines, but in christianity, faith in doctrines became central. the emphasis on doctrines became important in the fourth century, as christianity became the state religion of the roman empire. early in that century, the emperor constantine made it a legal religion. seventy years later, theodosius ii made christianity the only legal religion. but if this religion was required, there had to be criteria of who met the requirement. and what served as those criteria was beliefs. constantine commissioned the first church council in nicea in 325. there and in three more councils over the next century, christian leaders formulated doctrines such as the incarnation and the trinity. those who accepted them were counted orthodox christians. those who did not accept them were counted heretics, and were to be either converted to the correct belief, or destroyed. from the beginning, the christian emphasis on correct belief was highly political. the first theory of just war in christianity came from st. augustine of hippo. it said that heretics who did not convert deserved to be killed. the violent suppression of other beliefs continued in the crusades, the spanish inquisition, anti-semitic pogroms, and the holocaust. now church doctrines such as the trinity could not be demonstrated rationally. so christians were encouraged to accept these doctrines without evidence–to “take them on faith.” faith, as the dictionary tells us, is complete confidence in something open to question. for some of the church fathers, if it was virtuous to believe in spite of a lack of evidence, then it could be even more virtuous to assent to beliefs which were internally inconsistent. in fact, one church father, tertullian, is famous for saying, “credo quia absurdum” (i believe because it is absurd). in the seventh century, a new version of monotheism arose on the arabian peninsula, islam, and it also emphasized faith, along with militarism against the “infidels” who would not accept that faith. through the medieval period and even today, in areas dominated by christianity or islam, the word “faith” has a positive connotation. faith and humorlessness with this understanding of the psychology of religious faith and its support of militarism, we can now consider the opposition between both faith and militarism, on one side, and humor, on the other side. using a scheme i developed in morreall (1999), i will contrast militaristic faith and humor in seven ways. the overarching difference is between the mental rigidity of religious faith and the mental flexibility of humor. 1. the first contrast is between the respect for authority in religious faith, and the questioning of authority in humor. in faith-based religions, people believe what they are told, and do they do what they are told, by a leader, typically a patriarchal leader. god himself is pictured as the ultimate patriarchal authority, the lord, the king of the universe. the psychology of humor, by contrast, involves questioning authority. the humorist’s role, from the court jesters of ancient china to today’s standup comedians, has been to think critically about people’s language, about their reasoning, about their actions, and about the relations between all three. from the days of ancient greek comedy, the creators of humor have looked for discrepancies between what political and religious leaders say and what they do. aristophanes poked fun not only at political leaders but at intellectual leaders like socrates, and even at the gods. 2. the second contrast is between the simple, often dualistic, conceptual schemes of religious faith and the more complex conceptual schemes of humor. faith-based religions offer believers simple concepts with which they can classify everything they experience. master categories include “good and evil,” and “us and them.” osama bin laden’s speeches and george w. bush’s speeches are full of name-calling based on such simple dualistic categories. as bush has admitted, he “doesn’t do nuance.” comic thinking, on the other hand, is more complex and messy. the world doesn’t separate neatly into a few categories. in comedy, there aren’t any all-good people, nor any all-bad people. even the best person involved in the best kind of action is likely to be tainted by some selfishness, foolishness, and maybe even hypocrisy. when characters appear in comedy promoting simple conceptual schemes, they are often satirized as fanatics or fools. 3. the third contrast is between the militarism of religious faith and the pacifism of humor. religions based on faith tend to feel threatened by other world views and so tend to want to eliminate the proponents of those views. and so they often justify violence against “the heathen” or “the infidel,” as general boykin and osama bin laden do. from the beginning, however, comedy has been suspicious of calls to eliminate those who think differently, and has been suspicious of violence as a way to solve problems. aristophanes’ comedy lysistrata satirized the insanity of the constant fighting between the greek city states. in modern times, the futility of war has been the theme of dozens of comedies, which have lampooned the willingness to kill or die on command. comic heroes are usually good at talking their way out of conflicts, and when that fails, they are not ashamed to run away. the comic attitude here is captured in the old irish saying “you’re only a coward for a moment, but you’re dead for the rest of your life.” 4. the fourth contrast is between the single-mindedness of religious faith and the willingness to change one’s mind in humor. the person of faith treats alternative viewpoints as possible sources of doubt, and so something to be suppressed. once they make a divinely sanctioned choice of action—as in george bush’s decision to invade iraq, they “stay the course” no matter what happens. they do not look for mistakes they might have made, they do not try to think of how they might proceed differently, and they tend to be defensive when they are challenged. faith-based religions tout what conrad hyers (1996) calls “warrior virtues”: courage, loyalty, duty, honor, indomitable will, unquestioning obedience, stubborn determination, and uncompromising dedication. in comedy, by contrast, the person who has an idée fixe is portrayed as foolish. comic heroes do set courses of action, but they are adaptable after that. as situations change, they can too. their plans are not set in stone but are contingent and reversible. often, the comic hero has not even determined in advance what will count as success or failure. 5. the fifth contrast is between the idealism of religious faith and the pragmatism of humor. the rhetoric of faith-based religions is full of abstractions like truth, faith, and freedom. on the enemy side are those who love evil. comedy, on the other hand, is based not on abstractions but on concrete things, people, and situations. comic heroes are concerned not about truth and freedom but about their next meal, and getting the one they love to love them in return. not longing for some utopia, they are at home in the world as it is. 6. the sixth contrast is between the convergent thinking of faith-based religions and the divergent thinking of humor. convergent thinking aims at reaching the correct answer. in divergent thinking there is no single correct answer, but dozens, maybe hundreds of possible good answers. a standard exercise in divergent thinking is to think of thirty uses for a building brick. with their simple conceptual schemes and their emphasis on thinking in traditional ways, faith-based religions do not encourage creativity or cleverness. a good example is george w. bush and his wife laura. on a tv interview program, laura bush was asked if she and the president had pet names for each other. she said, “oh yes.” “what is your pet name for him?” the interviewer asked. “bushie,” she answered. “what is his pet name for you?” “bushie,” she said again. unlike such unimaginative plodders, people with a rich sense of humor are creative. the master skill of the comedian is to look at something familiar in a new way. 7. the seventh contrast is between seriousness and playfulness. faith-based religious visions of life are paradigms of seriousness, and humor is a paradigm of nonseriousness. it is persons, i take it, who are serious in the basic sense of the word. issues and problems are called “serious” because they require persons to be serious about them. for us to be serious is to be solemn and given to sustained, narrowly focused thought. it is also for us to be sincere in what we say and do. we say only what we believe, and act only according to our real intentions. seriousness is contrasted with playfulness. when we are playful, we are not solemn and are not given to sustained, narrowly focused thought. we are not bound to sincerity in what we say and do. we may say something outlandishly false for the mental jolt it gives us and others. we may impersonate someone, or feign some emotion, just for the fun of it. now some people are serious only occasionally, or only about a few issues, while others are serious virtually all the time, about everything. a vision of life such as those of faith-based religions can be serious, when it evaluates most or all situations in life as serious, that is, as calling for our solemn, narrowly focused attention. in contrast to a religious or other serious view of life, the comic view of life treats most events in life as non-serious–as not calling for our solemn, narrowly focused, resolute attention. it sees playfulness as appropriate in many or most situations. we can be playful in the sense of not being grave, not being engaged in deep, narrowly focused thought. and we can be playful in the sense of not being sincere in what we say and do. as a joke, we can engage in non-bona fide communication and activity. we can exaggerate, understate, or even deny what we believe to be true. in christianity and islam, of course, people who is not serious in what they say and do are, at best, fools, and, at worst, deeply immoral. non-faith-based religions and humor since i have presented all these contrasts between religions and humor, it might seem that i think of religions as essentially humorless. but that is not the case. to see how humor and religion can fit together, let me conclude with a few comments on zen buddhism, a religion which is not based on faith and which encourages people to think for themselves. in buddhism there is no single correct divine perspective with which we should align our minds and wills. morality is based not on obeying a god, but on compassion for all living things. there are no crusades or jihads to convert unbelievers. buddhists are not asked to kill or die for the cause. they are supposed to live in ahimsa, nonviolence. the goal of buddhism is not to align one’s will with god’s commands, but to become enlightened, to see things the way they really are. we achieve enlightenment by becoming emotionally disengaged from the familiar world. we quiet the noise of ordinary consciousness and eliminate ordinary cravings for such things as power and wealth. nonattachment, self-control, and clearheadedness are the big virtues. enlightenment involves experiencing the incongruities in life without suffering, and that is possible because emotional detachment blocks fear, anger, sadness, and other negative emotions. that same attitude lies at the heart of humor. what buddhists call non-attachment is often called “distance” in comic theory. henri bergson called it an “anesthesia of the heart” (in morreall 1987, 118). to reach nonattachment, buddhism uses meditation exercises. the simpler ones free us from attachment to things like food, and the more sophisticated ones from higher attachments like the attachment to self. all of them have comic overtones. consider the exercise which buddhaghosa, a meditation master of the fifth century c.e., used to free his disciples of gluttonous desires (in conze 1969, 101-103). he had them think in detail about how they obtained their food, how it was digested, and how it was excreted. since monks beg for food, he first asked them to meditate on how they had to leave the peace and quiet of the monastery. “on your way to the village, you meet with many nasty sights and smells, walking on rough roads full of stumps and thorns ... when you walk in the village, your feet sink deep into the mud, or the wind covers you with dust, and flies land on you. some people give you no food, others give you stale or rotten food, others are rude to you.” next buddhaghosa had them think about how grotesque eating is. crushed by the teeth and smeared with saliva, chewed food becomes repulsive slop, “like dog’s vomit in a dog’s trough.” it passes to the stomach, “which resembles a cesspool that has not been washed for a long time,” then on to the abdomen, where it becomes feces and urine. badly digested food, the master continued, causes “hundreds of diseases, such as ringworm, itch, scab, leprosy, eczema, consumption, coughs, dysentery, etc. notice how the techniques used here, especially the piling up of details and exaggeration, are the standard techniques of today’s comedians. the best known buddhist meditation exercises come from zen buddhism, a tradition rich in humor. consider this zen poem by masahide: since my barn burned down i now have a better view of the rising moon. more sophisticated than zen’s liberation from attachment to food and shelter is its liberation from attachment to words, concepts, and logical thinking. we are attached, according to zen, when we treat logical thinking as a form of power and control, when through our words and concepts we try to “capture” or “master” the world. but understanding through concepts is inferior in at least three ways. first, it is a mediated kind of knowledge, while zen seeks direct experience of reality. secondly, concepts mislead us because they are static, while reality is in constant flux. and thirdly, conceptual thinking works by making distinctions, especially between opposites–mind/matter, subject/object, good/bad–while reality is essentially a unity. our minds, of course, cannot be prevented from forming concepts. but we need to remind ourselves that any conceptual system, however useful in a particular situation, is at best a tool. we must constantly challenge our conceptual systems, according to zen, and “break up” our concepts, to prevent ourselves from thinking that they give us an objective grasp of things. in helping us break attachments to things, words, concepts, and self, humor is valuable for its fostering of critical thinking and mental flexibility. it gets us out of mental ruts and blocks negative emotions, allowing us to face what might otherwise be disconcerting truths. almost any sudden realization may trigger laughter. enlightenment and amusement often overlap. zen is famous for its use of humor to break up our attachment to logical thinking. exchanges between zen students and masters often involve illogical shifts of thought, as when tozan was asked, “what is the buddha?” and answered, “three pounds of flax.” and answers to students’ questions need not have any meaning at all. rinzai, who founded one of the two great schools of zen, would often reply, no matter what the question, with “kwatz!”, a meaningless sound. indeed, a question may be “answered” without words: the master may slap students or twist their noses. the purpose of all this nonsense and slapstick is to derail the rational mind, so that students can break their attachment to it. there is one last kind of nonattachment that we should mention, which is also fostered through a shocking kind of humor. zen masters teach that our attitude toward buddhism itself can be a form of attachment, if buddhism is thought of as a creed to which we subscribe or a set of rituals we follow. so there are no rituals, scriptures, doctrines, or religious figures–not even the buddha–to whom we should become attached. even the idea of nonattachment is not something to get attached to! to break these attachments, zen uses iconoclastic humor (hyers 1991, ch. 4). sengai (1750-1837) has a drawing of a meditating frog with a grin on its face. the inscription: “if by sitting in meditation, one becomes a buddha”; the implicit punch line: “then all frogs are buddhas.” another drawing by the same master shows a small boy leaning over to fart: its title is “the one hundred days teaching of the dharma.” the master tanka (738-824), according to a famous story, stopped for lodging at a temple where the deep snow prevented the monks from getting firewood. tanka took one of the three wooden images of the buddha from the altar and used it for firewood. when a monk asked the master ummon (862-949), “what is the buddha?”, he answered, “a wiping stick of dried dung!” before him tokusan (780-865) had said, “the buddha is a dried piece of barbarian dung, and sainthood is only an empty name.” there is even a zen saying, “if you meet the buddha, kill him.” conclusion among the world’s 10,000 religions, then, there is a considerable range of possibilities for humor. the monotheistic religions which are based on orthodoxy and faith tend to foster mental rigidity and militarism, and thus to suppress humor. religions such as buddhism which do not require doctrines or faith, which distrust ordinary experience, and which encourage people to think in new ways, are quite compatible with humor. if i were given three wishes, one of them would be that osama bin laden and george w. bush spend a week at a zen monastery and like it so much that they convert. references conze, edward (1969). buddhist meditation. new york: harper torchbooks. hyers, conrad (1991). the laughing buddha: zen and the comic spirit. durango, co: longwood academic. hyers, conrad (1996). the spirituality of comedy: comic heroism in a tragic world. new brunswick, nj: transaction. morreall, john, ed. (1987). the philosophy of laughter and humor. albany, ny: state university of new york press. morreall, john (1999). comedy, tragedy, and religion. albany, ny: state university of new york press. saroglou, vassilis (2002). religion and sense of humor: an a priori incompatibility? theoretical considerations from a psychological perspective. humor: international journal of humor research 15/2, 191-214. emotional intelligence and work performance among executives europe’s journal of psychology, 7(2), pp. 374-394 www.ejop.org women‟s body image and the role of culture: a review of the literature savita bakhshi london metropolitan university abstract body image can be described as a combination of a person‟s perceptions, feelings and thoughts about his/her body and their general physical appearance. self-perceptions are important to examine because they can have implications for a person‟s psychological and physical health. past research has shown that culture plays a significant role in forming appearance ideals and that these vary for women of different cultures. the purpose of this article was to review the present literature on the prevalence of negative body image in women of different ethnic groups living in western cultures. the similarities and differences between cultures in terms of negative body image in women were discussed followed by an examination of the role of acculturation in the development of negative body image. the findings showed that a significant proportion of women of different ethnicities are dissatisfied with their bodies and many are dieting to lose weight. the similarities between the groups indicated that the effect of non-western cultures that previously promoted larger, more realistic body ideals is now diminishing. thinner body ideals are now being reinforced for all women regardless of culture and ethnicity, thereby increasing the vulnerability towards developing a negative body image. the role of individual differences and the implications of this change are also discussed in this article. keywords: body image, culture, ethnicity, women, body ideals, body dissatisfaction, dieting behaviour. body image can be described as a combination of a person‟s perceptions, feelings and thoughts about his/her body and their general physical appearance (cash & henry, 1995). it is usually conceptualised as an individual‟s body size estimation, evaluation of body attractiveness and emotions associated with their body shape http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 375 and size (cash & henry, 1995; grogan, 2006). szymanski and cash (1995) proposed that body image consists of 2 components: 1) cognitive appraisal and associated emotions concerning an individual‟s own physical appearance, and 2) the extent of appearance investment. this research indicates that an individual‟s subjective experiences of their body may be more powerful than how they look in reality (cash, 2004). these self-perceptions are important to examine because they can have implications for psychological and physical health, and can influence whether an individual has a positive or negative body image. past research has found that certain traits are perceived as being associated with having a positive body image, including: happiness (grogan, 1999), health (bush, williams, lean & anderson, 2001), success (stice, 1994; mckinley, 1999), attractiveness and intellect (ogden, 1992, 2010), psychological and physical self-control (ogden, 2010), high self-esteem (swami, airs, chouhan, padilla leon & towell, 2009), and generally being satisfied with one‟s body (wood-barcalow, tylka & augustus-horvath, 2010). negative body image has been reported widely across different samples, and a variety of different psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors have been found to influence this state (see grogan, 1999, for a review). body dissatisfaction is one psychological and cognitive aspect of negative body image. it has been defined as: „a discrepancy between perceptions of reality versus those of an ideal…‟ (ogden, 2004, p. 141) and is made up of an individual‟s own subjective experiences of their appearance. body dissatisfaction stems from within the individual as they may have distorted perceptions about their body (i.e. perceiving the body bigger or smaller than it actually is). ogden (2004, 2010) proposes that body dissatisfaction can be thought of and assessed in three ways: 1) distorted body size estimation perceiving the body larger than it really is, 2) discrepancy from the ideal a discrepancy between how an individual perceives themselves and how they want to look, and 3) negative feelings and cognitions towards the body the most frequent way of assessing body dissatisfaction by asking questions such as „do you worry about parts of your body being too big?‟ in contrast to general body image, body dissatisfaction may also be influenced by others‟ perceptions of the self. fallon (1990) described body size as „the way people perceive themselves and, equally important, the way they think others see them‟. this suggests that personal and perceived others‟ ideals are important influences on body dissatisfaction. the main behavioural effects of negative body image (and indeed body dissatisfaction) is a need to alter one‟s body shape and weight through restrictive eating, dieting, physical activity and/or other weight loss methods (anderson, eyler, galuska, brown & brownson, 2002). dieting is often used to lose and/or maintain weight, along with an increase in physical activity and other weight loss methods women’s body image and the role of culture 376 (i.e. medical advice). the word „dieting‟, however, is problematic as it can have different meanings for different people (french & jeffery, 1994; neumark-sztainer & story, 1998; andersen, cohn & holbrook, 2000). dieting behaviour may include: changes in eating patterns, unhealthy eating behaviours (i.e. low calorie diets, diet pills, fad diets), associated harmful behaviours (i.e. vomiting and laxative use), and dieting to the extreme, resulting in conditions such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa and other eating disturbances (breitkopf & berenson, 2004). generally, diets can be expensive if dieters are asked to eat particular foods and/or consume specific pills, and potentially dangerous if little or no food is consumed, leading to physical and psychological difficulties (andersen et al., 2000). it is important to acknowledge that people displaying such behaviours come in all shapes and sizes, but their actual size does not matter; what motivates them to diet (and/or lose weight) is their perceived size (ogden, 1992). people may go on a diet or attempt to lose weight because they feel fat and not necessarily because they are overweight (hill, oliver & rogers, 1992). therefore, self-perceptions of weight can have negative effects on health because they motivate dieting, weight loss and exercise behaviours in order to increase body satisfaction. the purpose of this article is to review the present literature on the prevalence of negative body image in women of different ethnic groups living in western cultures. it is important to investigate negative body image in different groups so that any areas of concern within specific groups can be identified and addressed as appropriate (holmqvist & frisen, 2010). a brief overview of the body ideals in western and non-western cultures will be presented, followed by the similarities and differences between cultures in terms of negative body image in women. finally, the role of acculturation in the development of negative body image will be examined. a detailed discussion of the various factors that influence the similarities and differences between groups are beyond the scope of this paper, but it is anticipated that these will be examined in future articles. the role of culture in body image development although the terms ethnicity, culture and race have been used interchangeably in past research, it is important to differentiate between these terms for the purposes of this review. williams (2007) proposes that ethnicity „emphasises the differentiation between groups in terms of their religious, ancestral, cultural and social backgrounds, and with the belief that ethnic groups are bound together by shared attitudes, behaviours and experiences‟ (p. 35). culture, on the other hand, has been described as a: “…society that shares and transmits behaviors to its members…” (as europe’s journal of psychology 377 cited in wildes, emery & simons, 2001, p. 522). therefore, a culture may be shared by a society (i.e. everyone living in the uk), or smaller ethnic groups living within the uk (i.e. south asians). it is important to remember, however, that „cultural boundaries are not always as clear-cut as the borders between countries.‟ (holmqvist & frisen, 2010, p. 135), thus we need to exercise caution when interpreting findings. culture plays a significant role in forming appearance ideals, including ideal body shapes and sizes (fallon, 1990; wiseman, gray, mosimann & ahrens, 1992), and it is widely recognised that these vary for women across societies and cultures. the ideal female body shapes and sizes have changed over the last century, and definitions of what it means to be attractive and healthy have been modified as a result. body ideals in western cultures over the last century, the ideal female body in the west has decreased significantly in terms of weight and size, even though the average woman in western cultures has become larger over the years (wiseman et al., 1992). previously in the west, the female body was represented with a full stomach, rounded hips and breasts (grogan, 1999). furthermore, larger body size ideals were considered as ideal as they represented wealth, prosperity and health (thompson, heinberg, altabe & tantleff-dunn, 1999), as well as being a symbol of fertility (fallon, 1990). women are now encouraged (and indeed expected) to be thin and slender, which is linked to attributes such as sexual attraction, fitness, success and self-control (wykes & gunter, 2005; cheney, 2010). (a detailed review on how the female ideal body shape has changed over the twentieth century can be found in grogan, 1999). it is expected that people have control over their body weight and shape, and that an individual can achieve the ideal body with minimal effort (vartanian & herman, 2006). however, although women continue to accept the thin societal ideal as a goal, these ideals have been criticised for informing individuals that body shape and weight are flexible, and that these ideals are achievable, whereas this may not be the case in reality (pompper & koenig, 2004; wood-barcalow et al., 2010). body ideals in non-western cultures nasser (1988) argued that the emphasis on thinness in the western cultures may be a culture-bound syndrome, as thinness is devalued and deemed unattractive in many non-western cultures, where larger body sizes are considered attractive (furnham & patel, 1994; cachelin, monreal & juarez, 2006; cheney, 2010). for example, nasser (1988) suggested that for a punjabi indian to greet you with a saying of you “look fat and fresh today” is regarded as a compliment. in arabic cultures, thinness is regarded as socially undesirable and bigger body sizes are symbolic of fertility and women’s body image and the role of culture 378 womanhood. furthermore, larger shapes in non-western cultures also stand for affluence and longevity in countries such as china and india. other groups such as african americans and hispanics have also been shown to adopt culture-specific ideals that place less emphasis on achieving the thin ideal and show a greater acceptance of larger body sizes (demarest & allen, 2000; fitzgibbon, blackman & avellone, 2000; cachelin, rebeck, chung, & pelayo, 2002). rubin, fitts & becker (2003) found that whereas white western women often have a fixed concept of beauty (i.e. thinness), african american groups may define beauty through other aspects such as attitude, style, dress and personality (flynn & fitzgibbon, 1998; cheney, 2010; kronenfeld, reba-harrelson, von holle, reyes & bulik, 2010). hispanic women also value other aspects of their appearance such as style and grooming, which leads to an acceptance of different body shapes and sizes (wood-barcalow et al., 2010). in an investigation of idealised body image standards in two generations of hispanic women aged between 18-35 and 36 and over, pompper & koenig (2004) found that hispanic women are also more accepting of larger figures. they found that the both groups were more accepting of larger and curvier figures, which were perceived as healthy looking. warren, gleaves, cepeda-benito, del carmen fernandez and rodriguez-ruiz (2005) proposed that ethnicity protects against the development of a negative body image as non-western cultures provide people with larger, more realistic and attainable physical ideals (rubin et al., 2003; swami, neto, tovée & furnham, 2007). in india, for example, the prevalence of eating disturbances are rarely reported, perhaps due to the traditional indian culture which does not encourage thinness as a symbol of feminine beauty (dasgupta, 1998; malhotra & rogers, 2000; furnham & adam-saib, 2001). in non-western cultures, less value is placed on physical appearance as a defining feature of woman‟s worth, role in society and an indicator of success (bush et al., 2001). this is in contrast to the west where women‟s appearance is viewed as important feature for competitiveness, achievement and professional success (stice, 1994; mckinley, 1999; cheney, 2010). ethnic minorities may have comparable levels of awareness of the thin ideal but may not internalise such information because of an affiliation with a culture of origin that does not support such values and ideals (wood-barcalow et al., 2010). thus, identifying aspects of non-western cultures may protect against the development of a negative body image (warren et al., 2005). europe’s journal of psychology 379 negative body image in western cultures ethnic group differences the research cited above indicates that the standards and ideals of physical attractiveness vary across cultures and may contribute to the development and maintenance of a negative body image (miller & pumariega, 2001). the prevalence of negative body image appears to vary among different groups, and change with time as cultures evolve. the prevalence of negative body image has been investigated in early, middle and later adulthood women of different ethnic groups in mainly north america and the uk. in an overview, grogan (1999) found that body dissatisfaction was more frequent in british and american white women compared to other groups such as black, african american, hispanic and asian women. neff, sargent, mckeown, jackson and valois (1997) found that most young african caribbean and asian women showed more body satisfaction and fewer weight concerns, whereas white women were more likely to consider themselves as overweight and to engage in unhealthy weight management practices. anderson et al. (2002) compared body satisfaction levels of hispanic, non-hispanic black, american indian/alaskan native and non-hispanic white women aged 40 and older. they found that hispanic, non-hispanic black and american indian/alaskan native women were more likely to express body size satisfaction compared to non-hispanic white women. in a study looking into ethnic group differences in positive body image, swami et al. (2009) found that hispanic women showed the highest body appreciation scores, followed by african caribbean and white caucasian women. in addition, kronenfeld et al. (2010) found that african american women were also more likely to select a smaller figure to represent their current size, larger figures as their ideals and overall had lower body dissatisfaction compared to white women. together, these findings support past research which has shown that young black and hispanic girls are happier with their bodies compared to white girls, as they prefer higher weights and are more accepting of larger body sizes (wardle & marsland, 1990; lynch, heil, wagner & havens, 2007). swami et al. (2009) also found that south asian women did not have a more positive body image than white women, which also supported earlier research that indicated that this group is now at risk of developing negative body image. other research has also shown that there may be few differences between different ethnic groups for aspects such as body weight and shape concerns (dolan, lacey & women’s body image and the role of culture 380 evans, 1990). in a meta-analysis of the literature, grabe and hyde (2006) investigated body dissatisfaction levels among asian american, black, hispanic and white women. looking specifically at white women, they found that their body dissatisfaction levels did not differ when compared to asians and hispanics, but they reported higher levels of body dissatisfaction than black women. when black women were compared to hispanics, higher levels of body dissatisfaction were reported by the latter group, but no differences were found when compared to asians. lastly, asian and hispanic women had similar levels of body dissatisfaction. the analysis showed that body dissatisfaction is still the least prevalent in black women, but other non-white groups are now showing similar rates of body dissatisfaction when compared to whites. furthermore, the outcomes of studies may depend on the groups that are compared, and so to conclude whites are more dissatisfied than non-white groups may be incorrect (dolan et al., 1990; cummins & lehman, 2007; holmqvist & frisen, 2010). shaw, ramirez, trost, randall and stice (2004) also found few ethnic group differences for eating pathology and the internalisation of the thin ideal. consistent with past research, black and hispanic women showed less internalisation of the thin ideal compared to whites and asians, indicating that the two former groups are still protected to some extent as they idealise larger weights and sizes. however, there were no ethnic group differences for the eating disorder symptoms (i.e. weight and shape concerns and fear of fat), and eating disorder risk factors (i.e. pressure to be thin, body dissatisfaction and the influence of family, friends and peers), which suggests that there may be fewer differences between the groups now, and only some factors may protect against negative body image in non-white groups. other non-academic research shows different patterns. the dove report (2004) showed that african-american and hispanic women had more positive feelings about their looks compared to white caucasian women aged 20-65 years. fifty-nine percent of african-americans and 60% of hispanics liked the way they looked, compared to 51% of white women, and many rated their looks above average, although the differences were less pronounced between the groups (african-americans 41%, hispanics 38% and whites 35%). together, this research seems to indicate that white women have more body and weight-related concerns, compared to other groups. negative body image in black, hispanic and white women much research has focused on investigating figure preferences and negative body image differences between white and black women, some of which has highlighted the relationship between body image and obesity risk in black women. gluck and geliebter (2002) found that african american women chose a larger ideal as their europe’s journal of psychology 381 preferred body size, and showed less body discrepancy between their actual and ideal figures compared to white women. allan, mayo and michel (1993) found an effect of social class as black women of lower social economic groups were heavier in weight, perceived themselves as heavier, and believed a heavier body looked attractive compared to black women of a higher social economic group and white women. furthermore, these women had to become heavier than the other groups before they felt they were overweight, indicating that this particular group may have a wider range of body shapes and sizes that are perceived as normal and attractive, even though they are actually overweight (paeratakul, white, williamson, ryan & bray, 2002). flynn and fitzgibbon (1998) also found that black women chose heavier ideals than white women, and were less accurate in perceiving their weight. reviews of the literature have also shown that black american women generally experience less body dissatisfaction, weight concerns and diet less than white american women (striegel-moore, wilfley, caldwell, needham & brownell, 1996; wildes et al., 2001; gluck & geliebter, 2002; grabe & hyde, 2006; roberts, cash, feingold & johnson, 2006). altabe (1998) also found that african americans had the most positive general body image, when compared to white, hispanic and asian women. in their examination of weight reduction behaviours, breitkopf and berenson (2004) found that low-income african american women were less likely to diet (i.e. eat less or differently to lose weight) and purge (including vomiting and/or using of laxatives or diuretics) compared to white and latina women of similar socioeconomic groups. they also exercised less frequently compared to the others groups, even though a significant proportion of the sample had a bmi of 25 and over. traditionally, hispanic women have also been considered protected from negative body image development and disordered eating (rubin et al., 2003; cheney, 2010). like black women, hispanic women may also report that they do not relate to the thin ideals as the hispanic culture is more accepting of larger shapes and sizes that are considered attractive (pompper & koenig, 2004; cheney, 2010). such shapes and sizes are also reflected in the female body preferences chosen by men. in a study looking at female body weight and shape preferences outside of north america, swami et al. (2007) found that british, spanish and portuguese men chose different figures to represent female attractiveness. there was a stronger preference for a more shapely body shape in spain and portugal, although all the groups showed a preference for figures at the lower end of the bmi scale. the authors proposed that local factors may play a role in the acceptance and preference of larger figures in counties such as spain and portugal, including a relaxed attitude to eating and weight. wardle, hasse and steptoe (2006) also reported similar findings women’s body image and the role of culture 382 as women from the mediterranean felt less overweight compared to other groups, indicating the importance of local factors in influencing attitudes to body weight and shape. the influence of media is also important in these cultures as it shows women who are conforming to the cultural ideal. this helps to endorse the larger ideal, compared to predominantly western cultures where the thin ideal is portrayed (pompper & koenig, 2004). these findings may also be due to a tolerance of higher weights and a flexible cultural standard of attractiveness and body shapes (paeratakul et al., 2002; allan et al., 2003; schwartz & brownell, 2004). black and hispanic women who are exposed to the thin western ideal may not internalise it due to their cultural background. historically, lower weights were associated with poverty in black societies, whereas heavier bodies were seen to represent health, wealth and power (flynn & fitzgibbon, 1998). although this view is helpful in promoting a positive body image in black and hispanic women, it places them at a higher risk on obesity than whites, as they may chose to lose weight at a higher body weight and/or when they are a larger shape (allan et al., 2003; kronenfeld et al., 2010). this acceptance and compliance to their culture-specific beauty ideals may lead to a high prevalence of overweight and obesity in these groups, resulting in various health complications (williams, 2007). fitzgibbon et al. (2000) studied the association between bmi and body dissatisfaction in white, hispanic and black women. they found that whereas white women experienced body dissatisfaction at a lower bmi, black and hispanic women did not report body dissatisfaction until they were overweight (as assessed by their bmi). but people may not always be accurate in perceiving their weight, which can have implications for their health. paeratakul et al. (2002) found that self-perceptions of overweight were the highest in white women, compared to black and hispanic women. these results indicate that black and hispanic women may be susceptible to overweight and obesity as they do not have an accurate perception of their body weight. this, in turn, will lead to increased obesity within these groups, as well as other related health implications. other studies have indicated that these groups are no longer immune from negative feelings about the body (cheney, 2010). studies have shown that hispanic girls become strongly affected by the western culture with increasing levels of integration, leading to higher levels of body dissatisfaction (fitzgibbon et al., 2000; cheney, 2010). this may be especially true in younger hispanics who may be influenced by the western media, which portrays larger and curvier figures as socially inacceptable, and thin and toned women as more attractive (pompper & koenig, 2004). altabe (1998) found that white and hispanic americans showed more europe’s journal of psychology 383 weight-related and body image disturbance than africans and asians, indicating that the body image disturbances in hispanics are becoming similar to those of whites. negative body image in asian women compared to other groups the fact that asian women showed less body size dissatisfaction than white women in altabe‟s (1998) study implies that the asian culture may still devalue thinness and consider larger body sizes as attractive (nasser, 1988). cachelin et al. (2002) found that asian women reported less body dissatisfaction than whites, hispanics and blacks, and that they chose larger figures to represent underweight females than did black women. other studies have shown that asian women are not protected against the development of body image and eating disturbances in a similar way that black women are (swami et al., 2009). grabe and hyde (2006) proposed that like hispanics, asians are also likely to conform to the thin ideal due to processes such as acculturation and integration into the dominant western culture. evans and mcconnell (2003) looked at the way white, black and asian women responded to mainstream western beauty ideals, and whether they compared themselves to these images. they found that black women viewed the mainstream ideals as irrelevant and reported positive self-evaluations about their bodies. in comparison, asian women were more likely to endorse these ideals, similar to white women, and also experienced greater body dissatisfaction compared to black women. asian women also often report similar levels of eating disturbances, and have been found to have slightly more weight and diet concerns, and greater dietary restraint compared to whites (wildes et al., 2001; cummins & lehman, 2007). gluck and geliebter (2002) found that prior to controlling for bmi white women had a greater body discrepancy between their actual and ideal figures than asians. however, the two groups became similar afterwards and both showed a greater discrepancy compared to african women. dolan et al. (1990) also found that british asian women showed more disordered eating attitudes than white women. in their comparison of asian and white australian women, jennings, forbes, mcdermott and hulse (2006) found that asians scored significantly higher for eating disorders psychopathology than the white group, as measured by the eating disorders inventory-2. these findings indicate that asian and white women are equally susceptible to eating disturbances. increased risk of developing a negative body image has also been seen in young asian girls compared to white girls (mumford, whitehouse & platts, 1991; hill & bhatti, 1995; furnham & adam-saib, 2001). women’s body image and the role of culture 384 body image concerns in asian subgroups have also been investigated. kennedy, templeton, gandhi and gorzalka (2004) compared body satisfaction levels of canadian chinese, indian and white (of european decent) undergraduates, and predicted that the asian groups would report greater negative body image attitudes than whites. the findings showed that there were significant differences in the body satisfaction levels of all three groups. in contrast to studies that have shown whites have high levels of negative body image, the findings of this study showed that white women had the most positive body image, followed by indians and chinese. the chinese participants were the most concerned with aspects such as their attractiveness, and least satisfied with their physical condition and body parts such as the face and breasts. women of all ethnic groups reported a desire to be thinner. these results indicate chinese and indian populations are susceptible to negative body image just like whites, and that ethnic group differences within the asian population are likely to exist, as some aspects of body image may be more concerning to particular groups than others. dunkel, davidson and qurashi (2010) examined body satisfaction levels and internalisation to the western ideals of appearance in younger and older muslim and non-muslim women in the us. the relationships between wearing western and nonwestern clothes was also assessed. as predicted, younger and older muslim women reported a discrepancy between their current and ideal body shapes, although this discrepancy was smaller compared to non-muslim women of both age groups. younger muslim women who wore non-western clothing were less likely to conform to the thin ideals than those who wore western clothes, indicating the protective impact of culture on the internalisation of the thin ideal. overall, the older women in both groups were less satisfied with their bodies and reported less pressure to conform to the thin ideal than younger women. thus, although age and culture were protective for some groups, the findings indicate that there is an increased risk of developing a negative body image in younger and older muslim women. the majority of studies in this review so far have focused on aspects of negative body image, but it is also important to mention studies that have focused on characteristics of positive body image (swami et al., 2009; cheney, 2010). in interviews with black, white and asian american women, wood-barcalow et al. (2010) found that as well as accepting their bodies for the way they are, women also expressed love for their bodies through positive thoughts, emotions and protective behaviours. they spoke positively about various aspects of their body and appreciating its unique beauty and its practical functions. in contrast to the research conducted on weight-related attitudes, concerns and behaviours as discussed earlier, the women in this study made healthy food choices and consciously avoided europe’s journal of psychology 385 disordered eating and dieting behaviours, thereby protecting their bodies from developing a negative body image. the research discussed so far has shown that ethnicity is an important influence on body dissatisfaction as body image relates to cultural values and norms, more highly in some groups than others. the role of acculturation as described earlier, recent studies show that there are now few differences between the satisfaction levels of white and non-white women, as more individuals and groups identify with the western culture, compared to earlier. but, what implications does this have for people who have migrated to the western culture, but yet still hold their native beliefs about body size, shape and weight? iyer and haslam (2003) suggest that women who still identify with their culture of origin after migrating are protected against the unrealistic norms of the dominant culture (i.e. the west). however, increasing integration into the western culture may increase vulnerability towards higher body dissatisfaction, as an individual is likely to adopt the culture‟s attitudes and norms, which may be in conflict with the beliefs of their native country (saran & eames, 1980; dasgupta, 1998; talbani & hasanali, 2000; cachelin et al., 2006; lynch et al., 2007; cheney, 2010). the level of acculturation („the extent to which individuals have maintained their culture of origin or adapted to the larger society‟, farver, bhadha & narang, 2002, p.12) has been perceived as an important influence on body dissatisfaction and weight change (wildes et al., 2001). ball and kenardy (2002) found a strong acculturation effect in south asian women living in australia, finding an association between the length of time spent in australia and their weight and body shape concerns. the values and behaviours of these women became similar to those living in the host culture indicating that women who migrate to a western culture may want to change their body shapes once settled into the new culture, which may initially lead to a negative body image. jaeger, ruggiert, edlund, gomez-perretta, lang, mohammadkhani, et al. (2002) also found women living in india showed little discrepancy between their perceived and ideal body image, whereas indian women living in the uk showed greater dissatisfaction with their body image compared to white women. this suggests that integration into a new culture could lead to body dissatisfaction (cheney, 2010). other findings have shown that the level of acculturation does not change the susceptibility of asian women for developing eating disturbances (jennings et al., 2006). women’s body image and the role of culture 386 lopez, blix and gray (1995) investigated how length of residence affected actual and ideal body image perception in american latina and non-latina white women. the latina participants were split into three groups: those born in the us, those who arrived before they were 17 years old, and those who immigrated at 17 years or older. no differences were found between the four groups for perceived body size, and actual and ideal figures chosen, even though they felt overweight. the length of residence was not associated with ideal body image, but the age at which the latina women entered the us was important in forming the ideals. those who migrated before they were 17 years old, had ideals similar to the western thin ideal, compared to those who immigrated at 17 years or older. this research indicates that the earlier one migrates to the western culture, the more likely it is that they will adopt the dominant culture‟s ideals. however, some people may remain unaffected as they continue to conform to their own cultural ideals of appearance (wildes et al., 2001; swami et al., 2007). bush et al. (2001) compared the body dissatisfaction levels of south asian and italian female migrants to women born in the uk. the results showed that few south asians had tried to lose weight in the past or had experienced external pressures from others to change their body size and shape. however, when asked to choose ideal body shapes, all of the groups wanted to resemble one of the two thinnest shapes equating them with longevity, likelihood of marriage and job success, indicating that physical appearance is not the sole reason behind wanting to change one‟s body. detailed accounts of the ways in which ethnically diverse women adjust their body image when living in western cultures can be found in cheney (2010). conclusion the purpose of this literature review was to describe the prevalence of negative body image in women of different ethnic groups living in western cultures. the research presented in this review has shown that a significant proportion of women of different ethnicities are dissatisfied with their body, many are dieting to lose weight and the prevalence of overweight and obesity is on the rise in different groups. the findings have been varied and it seems that the patterns are changing constantly, as more recent studies have shown fewer ethnic group differences for negative body image than studies conducted before and during the 1990s. the research presented has shown that women belonging to non-western cultures living in western cultures are increasingly adopting the western standards of appearance, as opposed to the larger body weights, shapes and sizes that were considered attractive in their culture of origin (cummins & lehman, 2007; dunkel et al., 2010). the europe’s journal of psychology 387 similarities between the groups in terms of their body dissatisfaction levels and dieting behaviour seem to indicate that the effect of non-western cultures that previously promoted larger, more realistic body ideals (nasser, 1988; warren et al., 2005) is diminishing, and is now beginning to reinforce thinner body ideals for women (malhotra & rogers, 2000; mahmud & crittenden, 2007). this, in turn, increases vulnerability towards developing a negative body image (mumford & choudry, 2000; wildes et al., 2001; gluck & geliebter, 2002; grabe & hyde, 2006; cummins & lehman, 2007). nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that because body image is measured in different ways, it is difficult to draw concrete conclusions unless women from different cultures are compared directly in one study (fallon, 1990; holmqvist & frisen, 2010). it is also difficult to develop measures that are easy to administer, are applicable across different cultures and its people, and take into account the complexity and multifaceted nature of body image (roberts et al., 2006; kronenfeld et al., 2010). therefore, one must keep these points in mind when interpreting the findings cited in the present review and others. a detailed review of the problems encountered in studies investigating cultural differences in body dissatisfaction can be found in holmqvist and frisen (2010). research examining cultural differences also often makes generalisations that every person will be exposed to the same cultural messages. categorising and determining the extent to which people from different cultures living in one country have a similar lifestyle may be problematic because the cultural boundaries may not be explicit. thus, we must also consider the role of individual differences, as people have unique environments and past experiences, which can lead to some people being more susceptible to negative body image than others. an individual‟s judgement of their ideal body weight and size are important considerations, as these can influence negative body image (ogden, 1992, 2010; wood-barcalow et al., 2010). people are not always aware of, nor are they good at assessing their own body weight (flynn & fitzgibbon, 1998; fitzgibbon et al., 2000). this implies that even though there are certain external factors that may lead to appearance concern, it may be an individual‟s perceptions and the actions that they take, that determine how satisfied they are with their body (schwartz & brownell, 2004). the next step is to review and examine the variety of different psychological, social, cultural and demographic factors have been found to influence the development of negative body image in women of different ethnicities. it is also essential to examine the reasons for why some groups tend to be more prone to developing a negative body image of themselves compared to other groups. it is anticipated that future articles will consider these areas. women’s body image and the role of culture 388 references allan, j.d., mayo, k., & michel, y. 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(2005). the media and body image: if looks could kill. sage publications. about the author: dr. savita bakhshi is a research fellow at the school of psychology, london metropolitan university. her primary research interests include the relationships between body image, food, health, exercise and the media in different ethnic groups. address for correspondence: savita bakhshi, school of psychology, faculty of life sciences, london metropolitan university, calcutta house, old castle street, london e1 7nt email: s.bakhshi@londonmet.ac.uk mailto:s.bakhshi@londonmet.ac.uk do humorous people take poorer care of their health? associations between humor styles and substance use research reports do humorous people take poorer care of their health? associations between humor styles and substance use kim r. edwards*a, rod a. martina [a] university of western ontario, london, canada. abstract a sense of humor is widely viewed as beneficial for physical health. however, some limited research suggests that humor may actually be related to increased smoking and alcohol consumption because humorous individuals may take a less serious attitude toward substance use. the purpose of the present study was to explore this hypothesis in greater detail in a sample of 215 undergraduate students. individual differences in humor were measured using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq), and playfulness (i.e., low seriousness) was assessed using the trait version of the state-trait cheerfulness inventory (stci-t). participants also completed a questionnaire about their substance use (smoking, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine). as predicted, affiliative humor, aggressive humor, and playfulness were significant predictors of greater substance use. mediation analyses confirmed that the link between both affiliative and aggressive humor and substance use was mediated by seriousness, indicating that this association is due, at least in part, to high-humor individuals taking a less serious, more playful outlook on life. overall, these results support the view that a sense of humor may be related to less healthy habits, at least in the domain of substance use. keywords: substance use, humor styles, playfulness, seriousness europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 received: 2012-05-15. accepted: 2012-08-01. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7, email: kedward7@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the humor and health movement has a dedicated following. significant media attention, web-based publicity, magazine articles, and claims of some health care professionals promote the view that humor enhances immunity, increases pain tolerance, and improves the functioning of various body systems (e.g., association for applied and therapeutic humor, 2011; cousins, 1976; mcghee, 1999). although some research support has been found for benefits of humor and laughter on some aspects of health such as increased pain tolerance, research evidence in other areas is generally inconclusive (martin, 2001, 2007). for the most part, theories and research about health benefits of humor have hypothesized that potential links between humor and health are mediated by physiological mechanisms. in other words, it is assumed that humor and/or laughter produce bodily changes (e.g., hormone levels, heart rate) which in turn have beneficial effects on various systems of the body (e.g., immunity, cardiovascular function). it is further assumed that individuals with a greater sense of humor (who, by definition, tend to engage in humor and laughter more frequently in their daily lives) will tend to experience more of these health benefits than their low-humor peers. another potential link by which humor might affect physical health, which has received little consideration, is through health habits such as smoking and alcohol consumption (martin, 2007). given that a large body of research europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ exists to suggest that a number of illnesses (e.g., up to 30% of all common cancers) could be prevented through limiting the consumption of alcohol and tobacco (e.g., world cancer research fund, american institute for cancer research, 2007), it is important to explore potential associations between humor and substance use. however, rather than humor contributing to decreased substance use, the limited research that currently exists on this topic suggests that a sense of humor may actually be associated with increased substance use. because humor inherently involves playfulness and a non-serious attitude, high-humor individuals may take a less serious attitude toward potentially risky behaviors such as the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana. if this is the case, it would seem to have important implications for the humor and health movement. the purpose of the present study was to follow up previous research exploring the relationship between sense of humor and substance use, by using a more updated and well-validated multidimensional measure of humor. a second purpose was to examine whether playfulness may mediate any observed associations between humor styles and substance use. theoretical rationale a sense of humor inherently involves a playful, non-serious perspective on life (martin, 2007). some theorists have suggested that an essential cognitive mechanism of humor is diminishment, which involves playing with a potentially serious topic in an incongruous way, making it less important (apter, 2001; wyer & collins, 1992). in contrast to such a humorous perspective, the self-discipline needed for engaging consistently in healthy lifestyle practices, including avoiding unhealthy activities (e.g., smoking), would seem to require a generally serious attitude toward health concerns. therefore, because they tend to view most aspects of life less seriously, individuals with a high sense of humor may also tend to view substance use less seriously. this generally playful perspective of high-humor individuals may also be associated with unrealistic optimism, or the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of favorable outcomes (schneider, 2001). past research has shown that individuals who are higher on unrealistic optimism tend to engage in less healthy behaviors (e.g., davidson & prkachin, 1997; weinstein, 1987). in addition, individuals with high scores on measures of sense of humor tend to be high on extraversion and sensation seeking (deckers & ruch, 1992), both of which have been found to correlate with riskier behaviors, such as greater substance use (e.g., mezquita, stewart, & ruipérez, 2010; raynor & levine, 2009). in summary, the playful outlook on life that characterizes a sense of humor, because of its association with diminishment, unrealistic optimism, extraversion, and sensation-seeking, may give people a perception of immortality, invulnerability, and invincibility (kerkkänen, kuiper, & martin, 2004), which in turn may lead to less motivation to avoid the use of unhealthy substances. previous research past research bearing on the association between humor and substance use has been quite limited. friedman and colleagues (1993) conducted analyses on data from the well-known terman life-cycle study which followed a cohort of 1178 individuals across their lifetimes. ratings of sense of humor and optimism, provided by parents and teachers of the participants when they were 12 years of age, were used to create a composite measure of cheerfulness. the researchers found that children with higher cheerfulness scores actually died at a younger age in ensuing decades than did other children who were rated as less cheerful. to further explore this surprising finding, l. r. martin and colleagues (2002) conducted analyses on the same data set and found that more europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 humor and substance abuse 524 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cheerful/humorous children also grew up to have greater alcohol consumption and tobacco usage than did their less cheerful/humorous counterparts. these authors speculated that, due to their less serious approach to life, more humorous individuals may not be as concerned about health risks and may therefore engage in more risky behaviors. in a similar vein, kerkkänen et al. (2004) found that finnish police officers with higher scores on some subscales of the multidimensional sense of humor scale (mshs; thorson & powell, 1993) had higher rates of smoking, suggesting an association between humor and a less healthy lifestyle. finally, in a more recent study, robertson, xu, and stripling (2010) explored the association between substance use and coping styles (one of which was humor) in a sample of female adolescent offenders. humor was measured using the two-item humor subscale of the brief cope inventory (carver, 1997) designed to capture different coping styles in response to a stressful situation. robertson and colleagues found that higher scores on this humor measure were significantly associated with greater alcohol use. taken together, these research findings suggest that a greater sense of humor could be considered a risk factor for increased substance use. however, these studies have limitations regarding the measurement of humor. in particular, sense of humor was measured using only one or two items or by employing measures that fail to distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (cf. martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, &weir, 2003). these studies also did not examine potential mediating mechanisms, such as the hypothesis that the association between sense of humor and substance use is due to a less serious perspective on life. the present study the present investigation was designed to address the limitations of the existing research by employing the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) to assess both potentially beneficial and detrimental humor styles, in conjunction with substance use (including tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine). the hsq was designed to distinguish between two ways in which people use humor in everyday life that are potentially beneficial for mental health (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two styles that are potentially detrimental (aggressive and self-defeating; martin et al., 2003). affiliative humor is characterized by sharing witty comments, humorous anecdotes, and jokes to enhance relationships. self-enhancing humor involves the use of humor to cope with stress and maintain a cheerful outlook on life in the face of adversity. aggressive humor refers to the tendency to use humor in the form of teasing or witty sarcasm to make fun of others. finally, self-defeating humor consists of excessively self-disparaging humor to make others laugh at one’s own expense. in addition to the distinction between beneficial and detrimental uses of humor, the four humor styles may also be distinguished in terms of the degree to which they are other-focused versus self-focused (cann, zapata, & davis, 2011). affiliative and aggressive humor both involve humor that focuses particularly on social interactions, albeit with quite different outcomes for interpersonal relationships (affiliative humor is association with greater relationship satisfaction whereas aggressive humor is inversely related to relationship satisfaction; cann et al., 2011). in contrast, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor both involve a greater focus on one’s own emotional well-being, with the former being associated with high self-esteem and positive emotions, and the latter with low self-esteem and negative emotions. we hypothesized that all four humor styles would be associated with increased substance use, consistent with the previous research described earlier. this hypothesis was based on the assumption that a generally playful, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 edwards & martin 525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ non-serious outlook underlies all four humor styles. in turn, as suggested earlier, this playful outlook is assumed to lead to less concern about a healthy lifestyle (and hence, increased use of substances). moreover, all four of the scales of the hsq have been found to be positively correlated with the humor measures used in two of the studies described earlier, which were found to be associated with increased substance use (i.e., the mshs and the cope humor scale; martin et al., 2003). however, we expected that the other-focused humor styles would be more strongly associated with playfulness and substance use than would the self-focused uses of humor. although exploratory, we hypothesized that humor used with a particularly interpersonal focus would be more playful than humor used to cope with one’s own emotional state. humor is predominantly a social phenomenon (martin et al., 2003) and when used in social interaction, reaction and feedback to the humorous comments may enhance and prolong playful communication. this greater level of playfulness would then lead to increased substance use relative to the self-focused uses of humor, which we tentatively hypothesized to be less strongly associated with playfulness, and therefore less unhealthy with respect to health habits. to assess the relationships between the humor styles and seriousness, the state-trait cheerfulness inventory (stci-t) was used. developed by ruch, köhler, and van thriel (1996), the stci-t measures three dimensions underlying a humorous temperament. the two more affective subscales are trait cheerfulness (cheerful mood, laughter, smiling) and trait bad mood (sad, grumpy interactional styles especially at times when others may be cheerful). in contrast, the more cognitive dimension capturing an attitude toward life is trait seriousness (i.e., inverse of playfulness). in this approach, a good sense of humor is seen as comprising a nonserious or playful attitude toward life, along with a habitually cheerful and non-dysphoric mood. in this study, we were particularly interested in the seriousness subscale of the stci-t, because of its direct relevance to our hypotheses about the role of playfulness (i.e., low seriousness) in the hypothesized link between sense of humor and substance use. we speculated that individuals with high scores on trait seriousness (and therefore low sense of humor) may more reliably estimate the dangers associated with substance use. their tendency to plan ahead, combined with a rational frame of mind (ruch & köhler, 1998), may also make it easier to refrain from more unhealthy activities such as the use of marijuana and tobacco. therefore, a higher level of playfulness (defined as low seriousness) was hypothesized to be predictive of increased substance use. besides examining the direct correlation between seriousness and substance use, we were also interested in examining mediating effects of seriousness on any observed correlations between the humor styles and substance use scores, as a way of testing our assumption that a less serious outlook on life may mediate the predicted link between sense of humor (assessed via humor styles) and use of marijuana, alcohol, tobacco and cocaine. (for interest, the associations of the other stci-t subscales, cheerfulness and bad mood, with substance use were also examined.) in summary, the first research question addressed in the present study was the extent to which humor styles are associated with substance use in a sample of university students. the second research question was whether the associations between humor styles and substance use are mediated by a playful outlook toward life (i.e., low seriousness). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 humor and substance abuse 526 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample was comprised of 215 first-year undergraduate students (92 males, 123 females) at the university of western ontario who participated in this study for partial course credit. the mean age of participants was 18.58 years (sd = 1.99). measures demographics questionnaire — a brief demographics questionnaire was administered to provide general information about participants’ age, gender, and ethnicity. substance use— a health habits questionnaire was developed by adapting andmodifying items from the national college health assessment (ncha; american college health association, 2005), a measure used to collect information about health habits and behaviors in college students. for the purpose of this paper, only the four item substance use scale, measuring the extent to which participants engaged in alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine use during the preceding month, was of interest. items were rated on a likert scale ranging from 1 (never used in past 30 days) to 8 (used daily). consistent with robertson et al.’s (2010) methodology, a substance use index was created by averaging the items. the cronbach’s alpha for the composite substance use variable was .61. humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) — the hsq is a 32 item measure that examines four styles of humor in everyday life: affiliative humor (e.g., “i laugh and joke a lot with my friends”), self-enhancing humor (e.g., “if i am depressed i can usually cheer myself up with humor”), aggressive humor (e.g., “if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”) and self-defeating humor (e.g., “i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should”) . items are rated on a 7-point, likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). in the present study, internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) for the affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating scales were .81, .84, .73, and .79, respectively. the state-trait cheerfulness inventory (stci-t; ruch et al., 1996) — the stci-t is a 30-item self-report questionnaire that assesses individual differences in trait cheerfulness (“i like to laugh and do it often”); trait seriousness (“in most situations, i initially see the serious aspect”) and trait bad mood (“when friends try to cheer me up by joking or fooling around, i sometimes become more morose and grumpy”). respondents indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with each item using a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). internal consistency (coefficient alpha) for trait cheerfulness, trait seriousness, and trait bad mood in the current study were .84, .73, and .82, respectively. procedure — participants were tested in groups of 10 to 20. all measures were administered in a randomized order and completed in an average of twenty minutes. statistical analyses correlation analyses were conducted to assess the relationships between the four humor styles and substance use. similarly, the associations between the stci-t subscales and substance use were also explored with a particular focus on the correlations between seriousness and substance use. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 edwards & martin 527 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mediation analyses were then conducted to test the hypothesis that seriousness mediates the relationship between the humor styles and substance use. as noted by baron and kenny (1986), a prerequisite for mediation is that there must be significant correlations between predictor and criterion variables, between predictor and mediator variables, and between mediator and criterion variables. multiple mediation analyses were conducted separately for only those humor styles that were significantly correlated with both seriousness and substance use. a given humor style was used as the predictor variable and the substance use score as the criterion variable in each analysis. to test for potential mediating effects of seriousness, we used the recently developed bootstrap sampling procedure described by preacher and hayes (2008). this procedure allows for the statistical testing of the direct effect of the predictor variable on the criterion variable, as well as the indirect (i.e., mediating) effect through the pathway of the mediator variable. this bootstrap procedure uses sampling with replacement to draw a large number of samples (2,000 in the present study) from the data set and calculate path coefficients for each sample. then, using the estimates based on these 2,000 bootstrap samples, the mean direct and indirect effects and their confidence intervals (cis) are calculated. these cis are used to determine if each effect is statistically significant. for each effect, the 95% ci is examined and, if this range does not include zero, then this effect is statistically significant at p < .05. in a similar fashion, cis can also be set at 99%, resulting in significance levels of p < .01 if zero does not fall within the calculated ci range. preacher and hayes (2008) articulated several advantages of using this bootstrap-driven ci statistical test for direct and indirect effects, compared to product-of-coefficient approaches such as the sobel test. one important advantage of this approach is that it does not impose the assumption of normally distributed variables. we conducted these analyses with spss 18.0 using the macro provided by preacher and hayes (2008) for carrying out the bootstrap procedure. in order to compare the results across analyses and variables, all variables used in these analyses were standardized (m = 0, sd = 1.0). path coefficients can therefore be interpreted in a manner similar to correlation coefficients. results for descriptive purposes, the means, standard deviations, and ranges of the measures of humor and substance use used in this study are presented in table 1 (see appendix). pearson correlations between the four scales of the hsq, the three subscales of the stci-t, and substance use scores are presented in table 2. both affiliative and aggressive humor styles were positively correlated with substance use. as expected, seriousness was negatively correlated with substance use, whereas bad mood was positively correlated with this variable. interestingly, seriousness was negatively correlated with the more interpersonal humor styles (affiliative and aggressive), but not with the more intrapsychic styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating), indicating that affiliative and aggressive humor are both associated with a more playful (less serious) attitude toward life. given that affiliative and aggressive humor were significantly correlated with substance use and seriousness, and that seriousness and substance use were also correlated, the criteria for mediation analysis were met for these two interpersonal humor styles. using the bootstrap procedure described earlier, analyses were then conducted to examine the potential mediating effects of seriousness on the relationships between affiliative humor and substance use as well as between aggressive humor and substance use. the results of these analyses are presented in figure 1. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 humor and substance abuse 528 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between the substance use composite and scores on the hsq and stci-t as well as correlations between seriousness and scores on the hsq seriousnesssubstance use hsq se .06-.003 hsq af .18**-.20** hsq ag .19**-.22** hsq sd .10-.09seriousness .25***cheerfulness .03bad mood .15* note. hsq af = affiliative humor, hsq se = self-enhancing humor, hsq ag = aggressive humor, hsq sd = self-defeating humor. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 1.mediating effect of seriousness on relationships between affiliative as well as aggressive humor and substance use. note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in both mediation analyses, significant mediating effects were found for seriousness (p < .01). thus, higher scores on both affiliative and aggressive humor were associated with lower scores on seriousness, which in turn predicted higher substance use scores. in addition to the indirect effect of these humor styles on substance use through seriousness, a direct effect was also found (affiliative humor: c’ = .16, p < .05; aggressive humor: c’ = .18, p < .01), indicating that seriousness only partially mediates these relationships. to obtain an estimate of the strength of this effect, multiple regression analyses were conducted to compare the variance in substance use scores europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 edwards & martin 529 http://www.psychopen.eu/ accounted for by affiliative and aggressive humor when each were entered as the sole predictor, and after first entering seriousness scores. the analysis for affiliative humor showed a reduction in r2 from .04 to .02, whereas the analysis for aggressive humor showed a reduction in r2 from .05 to .03, indicating that the mediating effect of seriousness accounts for about 50% of the total effect of affiliative humor and 40% of the total effect of aggressive humor on substance use. discussion the main purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between humor styles, seriousness, and substance use. we hypothesized that all four styles would positively correlate with substance use, but that the relationships would bemore pronounced for the interpersonal uses of humor. as predicted, affiliative and aggressive humor were positively correlated with substance use. however, contrary to our expectation, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor were unrelated to substance use. these results can be understood within the context of the associations between humor styles and playfulness. both affiliative and aggressive humor were negatively correlated with seriousness whereas self-enhancing and self-defeating humor were unrelated with this variable. these results indicate that we were incorrect in assuming that a sense of playfulness underlies all four humor styles. instead, the results highlight the importance of the distinction between the intrapersonal (i.e., self-oriented) and interpersonal (i.e., other-oriented) functions of humor. humor used either to enhance relationships (affiliative) or to tease andmake fun of others (aggressive) is associated with playfulness, whereas humor that focuses on one’s own emotional well-being either in a positive (self-enhancing) or negative (self-defeating) way is not significantly related to playfulness. perhaps these latter uses of humor tend to be more strategic or purposeful and therefore less likely to be associated with playfulness. in addition, the more interpersonal styles of humor may be more likely to elicit humorous responses from others, leading to more reciprocated humor exchanges and enhanced feelings and expressions of playfulness. in contrast, the self-focused uses of humor may involve fewer playful signals from the user and any recipients who may be present, resulting in a humorous episode that is shorter in duration and overall experienced as less inherently playful. these hypotheses could be explored in future research. with regard to correlations between the stci-t subscales and substance use, the results indicated that, as predicted, more serious (i.e., less playful) persons are less likely to engage in substance use. serious persons may attach more importance to a healthy lifestyle and, since they tend to plan ahead, may be more likely to foresee the dangers associated with health compromising behaviors. as a result, they may be less likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and use other drugs. in contrast, more playful persons may not be as concerned about the health risks associated with excessive substance use. although not a focus of this study, in addition to seriousness, the stci-t bad mood subscale was found to be positively correlated with substance use, indicating that habitually grumpy or grouchy feelings could be a risk factor for substance use. bad mood has previously been found to be positively correlated with neuroticism (ruch & köhler, 1998), and a link between neuroticism and risky health behaviors has been well established in past research (e.g., goodwin & hamilton, 2002; vollrath & torgersen, 2002). however, this raises the question of why self-enhancing and self-defeating humor (which are negatively and positively associated with neuroticism, respectively; vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008) were uncorrelated with substance use in the present europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 humor and substance abuse 530 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study. perhaps the role of playfulness is more important than neuroticism when it comes to the link between humor styles and substance use. this is a question for further research with other populations. a further purpose of this investigation was to test whether seriousness accounts for the hypothesized link between humor styles and substance use. as expected, our mediational analyses revealed that the associations of both affiliative and aggressive humor with substance use were mediated by seriousness, with moderate mediating effects (40% 50% of the total effects). thus, individuals with these other-focused styles of humor tend to be more playful in their outlook on life, which in turn may lead to greater substance use due to less concern about health risks. however, given that only partial mediating effects were found, it appears that other factors besides a lack of seriousness may account for the link between these two humor styles and substance use. future research could explore variables such as extraversion and unrealistic optimism as possible additional mediators. it is important to note that although the effect sizes being interpreted in this study are relatively small, they were statistically significant and of interest. as sin and lyubomirsky (2009) note, small effect sizes can have enormous practical importance and usefulness when examining dependent variables that are difficult to change, such as health habit behavior. furthermore, many life-saving treatments in medicine have similar or even smaller effect sizes (e.g., taking aspirin for the prevention of heart attacks, r = .03) than those found in this study (sin & lyubomirsky, 2009). an important limitation of the present study is that the use of a correlational methodology precludes drawing inferences about the direction of causality among variables. therefore, future research using experimental methodology is warranted to demonstrate causal effects. another limitation of this study is the use of self-report questionnaires to assess humor and substance use. this may have influenced the strength of the findings because of common method variance. future research should attempt to replicate our findings using observational approaches or daily diary reports of humor use and substance use, instead of retrospective self-report assessment measures. an additional limitation of this study is the use of a university sample of participants. however, we would argue that this age group is particularly relevant for this research question, because the transition from adolescence to early adulthood is when most individuals initially establish a relatively stable pattern of life-long substance use behaviors (sax, 1997). in addition, university students display a great deal of variability in patterns of substance use, increasing the likelihood of finding correlations. nonetheless, it would be of interest to investigate this research question with other age groups as well. in summary, although it is commonly believed that humor is good for one’s health, the results of this study provided no evidence that a greater sense of humor (conceptualized using the humor styles questionnaire) is related to healthier lifestyle behaviors. instead, the results indicate that both affiliative and aggressive humor styles are associated with greater use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine. this finding accords with previous research indicating that higher levels of humor are related to some types of unhealthy lifestyle behaviors (friedman et al., 1993; kerkkänen et al., 2004; martin et al., 2002). the present findings suggest that these associations are primarily found with other-focused uses of humor rather than with self-focused uses. furthermore, as expected, seriousness was a significant mediator of both of these relationships, suggesting that a playful attitude accounts, at least in part, for this link between humor styles and substance use. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 edwards & martin 531 http://www.psychopen.eu/ although the results of the present study are consistent with previous research suggesting that a sense of humor (at least when defined in terms of other-focused uses of humor) may be associated with less healthy lifestyle behaviors, it is important to recognize that there may well be other ways in which humor can lead to improvements in health. for example, the positive emotion associated with humor may produce physiological changes in hormone levels or endorphin production, which in turn could result in analgesic or immune-enhancing effects (martin, 2007). thus, we are not suggesting that humor is never beneficial for health. however, these results do suggest that advocates of the humor and health movement who wish to promote humor as a means of enhancing physical health should also promote awareness that, when it comes to substance use, a more serious perspective may be more beneficial than a humorous one. appendix table 1 means, standard deviations, and ranges of the hsq, stci-t, and substance use composite total samplevariable: rangesdm hsq af -56.020.0.056.6247 hsq se -56.011.0.438.3038 hsq ag -52.010.0.927.5431 hsq sd -49.010.0.648.9628 seriousness -37.015.0.464.3226 cheerfulness -40.017.0.184.9533 bad mood -36.010.0.744.2018 substance use -6.500.00.001.222 note: hsq af = affiliative humor, hsq se = self-enhancing humor, hsq ag = aggressive humor, hsq sd = 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(1992). a theory of humor elicitation. psychological review, 99(4), 663-688. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.99.4.663 about the authors kim r. edwards is a ph.d. candidate in clinical psychology at the university of western ontario under the supervision of rod a. martin. her research interests include humor, health, and positive psychology. rod a. martin is a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on the conceptualization andmeasurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 523–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.461 humor and substance abuse 534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.1996.9.3-4.303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07448481.1997.9936895 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.56.3.250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199301)49:1<13::aid-jclp2270490103>3.0.co;2-s http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(01)00080-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00846146 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.99.4.663 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor and substance abuse theoretical rationale previous research the present study method participants measures statistical analyses results discussion appendix references about the authors emotional intelligence and work performance among executives 739 europe’s journal of psychology, 7(4), pp. 739-777 www.ejop.org psychobiography as a method. the revival of studying lives: new perspectives in personality and creativity research zoltán kőváry institute of psychology, university of szeged abstract psychobiography was invented by sigmund freud while investigating the psychological determinants of leonardo da vinci’s artistic creativity. following the founder of psychoanalysis there were about 300 psychobiographic analyses published until 1960. from the 1930’s psychoanalysis also influenced the unfolding personality psychology trend called personology in the usa, led by g. w. allport and henry a. murray, who also worked with life stories. however, the major methodological problems of classic psychobiography and the rising of nomothetic approaches in personality research effaced studying lives between the 1950’s and the 1980’s. the narrative turn in psychology made life story analysis accepted and popular again, and from the 90’s we can talk about “a renaissance of psychobiography”. the new endeavors encompass psychoanalytical and personological traditions and also integrate narrative perspectives. contemporary psychobiography is constantly widening its focus: not only artists, but scientists, political and historical figures are also analyzed with more explicit methodology and comparative proceedings. in addition to the fact that psychobiography is a qualitative research method, it is very useful in exploring the psychology of creativity and personality itself and hence can be used as an instrument to train psychology students and prepare them for practical activities like psychotherapy or consultations. with the application of psychobiography the knowledge about human functioning and self-awareness is deepening, since it can be viewed as a practical realization of hermeneutical dialogue leading to the understanding of the human mind. keywords: psychobiography, psychoanalysis, personology, creativity, personality research, education of psychologists, dialogue. http://www.ejop.org/ psychobiography as a method 740 introduction the much contested method called psychobiography has now a century-long history: freud published his groundbreaking essay on leonardo da vinci in 1910 (freud, 1957). this approach became popular mainly within psychoanalysts who cultivated psychology of arts as a secondary interest: about 300 similar articles were published until 1960 and these works also heavily influenced literary criticism (kraft, 1998). psychobiography did not remain the interior case of psychoanalysis. the idiographic approach in personality research studying life stories called personology became widespread in the united states from the 1930’s by the works of g. w. allport (1980) and henry a. murray (2008) and their disciples. allport himself emphasized that life story has to be the starting point for every other research method in the investigation of personality. however, in the second half of the last century the nomothetic approach – which studies and formulates the general or universal laws became hegemonic within personality psychology and, as a consequence, psychoanalytic and personological traditions were relegated in the background, rendering psychobiography an „out of favor” method for decades (barenbaum & winter, 2003; runyan, 1997). though critiques of the nomothetic perspective were already rising in the 1970’s (“where is the person in personality research?” – asked rae carlson in 1971), dramatic changes only appeared in the 80’s and 90’s, since after a „narrative turn” in psychology (lászló, 2008) life story analysis became more accepted in personality psychology and in applied psychology. after the spread of the narrative approach and contemporary psychodynamic self-theories (karterud, monsen, ed. 1999), psychobiographical research came to a kind of renaissance in psychoanalysis and in personality research as well (anderson, 2003; mcadams, 1988, 2001; elms, 1994, 2007; runyan, 1997). since 2005 the first synthesis of modern endeavors is already accessible (schultz, 2005a). this paper presents the theoretical, methodological and practical specificities of contemporary psychobiography with respect to its important historical antecedents. besides personality psychological and psychoanalytic aspects it focuses on its importance in creativity research. there are numerous reasons for this: psychobiography, on one hand, arose from the psychoanalytic inquiry of artistic creativity (blum, 2001), whereas on the other hand, from the second half of the 20th century, a lot of psychologists argued that normal personality functioning is strongly connected with creativity (csíkszentmihályi, 1996; may, 1959; maslow, 1999; richards, 2006, winnicott, 2005). therefore, by learning how creativity works, we will be able to europe’s journal of psychology 741 define the conditions of healthy self-functioning. finally, during my quest in studying the dynamics of creative process i have also turned to psychobiographic analyses (kőváry, 2009a, 2009b). using the elements of contemporary psychobiography i came to the conclusion that this method’s outstanding significance not only lies within personality and creativity research but i also believe that the utilization of psychobiography in education can be very useful. in-depth life story analyses can help psychology students to further expand their knowledge about the human mind and behavior by integrating and using psychological attainments. given that this work is a dialogue an encounter with the other, it is a good chance for deepening empathic skills and self-awareness. historical antecedents of psychobiography psychobiography – just like it’s theoretical and methodological foundation, psychoanalysis – had not come into existence out of thin air: it has very important and identifiable antecedents. one of them is the biographical literature based upon pioneering works by plutarch (45-125 ad.), who focused on political and historical figures. the interest for the life and the personality of artists appeared much later in the 16th century (wittkower & wittkower, 2006). giorgio vasari, who probably invented the word “renaissance”, published his book, lives of the artists was published in 1550 (vasari, 1998); this book is often cited in the very first psychobiography, sigmund freud’s leonardo-essay. biography writing reached its zenith in the 19th century, in the age of romanticism, a period that had a great intellectual influence on freud’s conception of creativity (kőváry, 2011) and also led to the formation of modern hermeneutics (dilthey, 1996). the heydays of biography writing were in the 19th century – wrote hungarian publicist aladár schöpflin (1933). history was rediscovered and reformed, first to fantasize about it with romantic inspiration, then to create an uplifting collection of instances for the present, and finally to get to know it pragmatically by scientific methods. if we talk about writing and analyzing life-stories, it’s not easy to distinguish literature from psychology. lohmann (2008) thinks that if we take a look at freud’s life work, it actually begins with a bundle of short stories (studies on hysteria) and ends with a historical novel (moses and monotheism). it’s also notable, that the father of psychoanalysis was honored with the literary goethe-prize of frankfurt in 1930 (schwielbusch, 1994). the demarcation is also complicated from the side of literature. the biographies written by freud’s friend stefan zweig, are filled with psychological insights, like his masterpiece the struggle with the daemon (2001) or even with psychoanalytic ideas, like his essay on freud (1932). so we might agree with fathali moghaddam (2004), who emphasizes that it is practically impossible to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lives_of_the_most_eminent_painters,_sculptors,_and_architects psychobiography as a method 742 set a system of criteria that enables us to distinguish psychology clearly from literature. the other source of psychobiography is a medical approach called pathography. pathography, as schioldann’s (2003) defines it, is a ”historical biography from a medical, psychological and psychiatric viewpoint. it analyses a single individual's biological heredity, development, personality, life history and mental and physical pathology, within the socio-cultural context of his/her time, in order to evaluate the impact of these factors upon his/her decision-making, performance and achievements” (2003, p. 303). pathography is rooted in the philosophies of plato and aristotle, who underlined that there is an inherent connection between madness and genius. the first modern psychiatric approach, la psychologie morbide dans ses rapport avec la philosophie de l'histoire ou l'influence des névropathies sur le dynamisme intellectual (psychopathology in connection with the philosophy of history or the effects of nervous illnesses on the dynamics of the intellect) was written by jacques-joseph moreau (de tours) in 1859, in the great century of biography writing. this work had a great influence on the notorious author of genius and madness, cesare lombroso who published his famous book in 1864. in turn, the concepts about degeneration by lombroso (2000) and the hungarian descent max nordau influenced the era’s scientific standpoint and the advance of medical discourse (foucault, 1984). the phrase “pathography”, which is also mentioned in freud’s leonardo-paper, was first used by german psychiatrist paul julius möbius, who wrote several pathographies, for example about rousseau, goethe, schopenhauer and nietzsche (schioldann, 2003). in this respect, ernst kretschmer and karl jaspers are also notable; jaspers for example published writings about strindberg and van gogh (bormuth, 2006). although freud (1964) essentially denied philosophical inspirations, there are some doubtless similarities between psychoanalysis and the continental lebensphilosophie of the late 19th century, concerning the role of studying the human individuum in an idiographic way and the importance of biographical approach. wilhelm dilthey, the founder of modern hermeneutics, in 1883 in his introduction to human sciences emphasized the importance of studying the whole individuum’s uniqueness, and he also designated the tool for this work. “biography – he wrote is “an important resource for the further development of a true realpsychologie… one can regard the true work of the biographer as the application of the science of anthropology and psychology to the problem of bringing to life and making intelligible the nature, development and destiny of a life unit” (dilthey, 1989, p. 85-86). later (1894), in ideas concerning a descriptive and analytic psychology, dilthey claimed that in the 18th and 19th centuries, man had “created modern biography” for the understanding of europe’s journal of psychology 743 human evolution and “natural history of psychic life” (dilthey, 1977, p. 105). dilthey, through his disciple eduard spranger strongly influenced gordon allport, the pioneer of idiographic approach in personality psychology, who worked as a postdoc scholar in germany in 1923 with spranger (barenbaum & winter, 2003). the other important connection to lebensphilosophie is friedrich nietzsche. freud’s conceptions of creativity and the psychology of the artist – which are inherently related to the emergence of psychobiography – are showing some mysterious overlaps with nietzsche’s apprehension (kőváry, 2011). according to thomas mann (1985), agnes heller (1994) and others, with the interpretation of an artist’s (i.e. richard wagner’s) personality nietzsche tried to handle his deep emotional involvement and ambivalence towards the composer, whom he first admired, before becoming enemies. in explaining the psychology of the creative process (nietzsche, 1994, 2001), the german philosopher used the same concepts (hypnosis, neurosis, hysteria, instinct, sublimation) as freud did 15 years later. the origins of this obvious connection between the two thinkers have remained unsolved to this date (bókay, 1995; lohmann, 2008). in the quoted paper (kőváry, 2011) i used the approach of “multiple case psychobiography” (see isaacson, 2005) to reveal that the likeness of freud’s and nietzsche’s theories of artistic creativity might stem from the fact, that both formed their doctrines by an inquiry of the idealized other (leonardo and wagner), who represented the ideal self and the father for both of them. their investigations, which were psychological/psychobiographical studies, were based on the empathic identification with the other (or, using a psychoanalytic phrase, transference to the other), and both included implicit, indepth analysis of the self. by this, nietzsche and freud both contributed to the modern hermeneutics of human subjectivity, which takes the unavoidable involvement of the researcher into account (bókay, 1995; dilthey, 2002; steele, 1979). later in the 20th century, some great findings in personality psychology were mostly attached to idiographic, hermeneutic approaches, life story analyses and studying single cases. it’s not specific only to psychoanalysis: murray, erikson, maslow and others formed their basic concepts about personality in the same way (schultz, 2005b). the birth of psychobiography: freud’s leonardo-essay we know through the reports written on the meetings of the vienna psychoanalytic society that freud believed that pathography couldn’t provide any novel evidence about the examined person, most commonly about an artist (mack, 1971). as freud emphasized in the last chapter of his analysis of jensen’s gradiva (freud, 1959), he was more interested in answering the question: where was the poetic material psychobiography as a method 744 coming from, what are origins of the writer’s spontaneous knowledge of the depths of the human soul? his essay on leonardo was not the only effort to investigate the enigma of the artist. some years later he wrote a short analysis about goethe (1955) then about dostoevsky (1961), but these writings are not approaching the level of significance and influence of leonardo da vinci and a memory of his childhood. this essay created a new genre in psychology, but it has been seriously criticized to date. the analysis is based on the so called „vulture fantasy” that freud explicated by one detail of leonardo’s diary. that particular note is the only one that tells something about the artist’s childhood, according to which a vulture supposedly flew on leonardo’s cradle and stabbed his mouth with its tail. freud, by his analytic experiences and his knowledge about egyptian mythology, created an exciting and coherent narrative on leonardo’s psychosexual development. freud believed that the characteristics of this event unambiguously influenced the renaissance master’s life story, art and scientific work. however, it turned out shortly that merezhkovsky, whose biography was a main source for freud’s interpretation, had translated the italian word nibio inaccurately, confusing vulture with kite. however, by overrating the significance of this mistranslation, we might draw erroneous conclusions about freud’s work as a whole. ferenc erős claims that from the viewpoint of psychological significance of fantasies, the species of the bird that visited leonardo’s cradle is ultimately insignificant (erős, 2001). erős underlines that in a note added in 1919 (note no. 31) freud himself came to the conclusion that the big bird didn’t necessarily have to be a vulture by all means. nevertheless, contemporary psychobiography approaches accent that building analysis on a „single cue” (just like the vulturefantasy) is a basic mistake in psychobiography, similar to using psychopathological arguments (which appeared in the leonardo-essay in spite of freud’s caution) and reconstructing childhood events without sufficient data (schultz, 2005b). another problematic element, as meyer schapiro (1956) pointed out, is the fact that freud was probably not right, when he attributed psychological importance to the composition of the virgin and child with st anne. according to freud, this unusual layout (virgin mary is nursing the child jesus sitting on the lap of st anne) reflects on a life-story fact and a psychological situation, namely that leonardo had two mothers. for some years he was raised by his biological mother, and subsequently his father’s wife became his second mother. schapiro thinks that this kind of artistic representation in leonardo’s age was not as extraordinary as freud supposed, hence questioning the validity of this psychological explanation. schuster (2005) stresses that it’s a general rule in the psychology of art not to draw far going psychological conclusions from works of art without a comprehensive knowledge about the conventions of imagery in a specific era. europe’s journal of psychology 745 in addition to the above, there are some very strong critiques that refer to freud’s excessive identification with the artist, so his interpretation can be considered a continuation of the self-analysis that led to the birth of his interpretation of dreams in the end of 19th century. ernest jones, freud’s biographer was one of the first who implied this (wittkower & wittkower, 2006). alan c. elms (1994, 2005), -one of the leading authors in contemporary psychobiography, thinks that in the background of this phenomenon we can discover freud’s ambivalence towards his own mother, who fixed her own son with her enthusiastic and erotized love and robbed his masculinity just like freud supposed was the case of leonardo’s mother in his interpretation. elms’ other concept contains some more daring hypotheses. from the biographies it’s well-known that freud’s wife, martha became pregnant easily, but as a consequence, serious medical complications emerged (not to speak about the existential difficulties associated with the increasing number of children). the contraceptive methods in those days were primitive and drastic, so the freud couple – in lack of better solutions – decided to suspene sexual intercourse. in the first decade of the 20th century sigmund freud lived a kind of ascetic way of life, as mclaren (2002) also noted. on the contrary, some say that there is some evidence of a liaison between freud and his sister in law, minna bernays (rudnytsky, 2011). elms believes that these rumors (probably coming from jung) are in contrast with the fact that at that time freud really became sexually abstinent. he also thinks that freud’s urge to finish and publish the leonardo-essay as soon as possible can be associated with the emergence of his homosexual libido’s (see his friendships with fliess, jung and ferenczi in lohmann, 2008). according to elms the leonardo case was a serious chance for him to sublimate these feelings intellectually. for this process, the indepth analysis of the renaissance master seemed to be ideal, because according to freud, leonardo da vinci struggled with similar conflicts. elms claims that the phrase freud used in a letter that was written to jung in 1910 to describe his reviving instinctual strives after the years of abstinence – “indian summer of my eroticism” – referred to this, and not to ongoing sexual activity (elms, 1994. p. 46). from another point of view, identification doesn’t seem that problematic for psychological analyses. in human sciences, that are based on hermeneutic approach, there is no “objectivity” (steele, 1979; dilthey, 1989) and in order to do his/her job well, the psychobiographer has to “develop an empathic relationship with his subject, a relationship, which aids him in listening” (anderson, 1981, p. 474). in identifying with leonardo, harold blum (2001) sees a chance for constructing the self, which also made it possible for freud to expand the application of the psychoanalytic method. in the leonardo-essay, the creator of psychoanalysis deployed almost every element of his ambitious conception of infantile psychosexual development. besides instinct theory considerations (as sublimation of psychobiography as a method 746 oral fantasies and oedipal curiosity), his analysis also contains ideas that enabled the widening of the repertoire of psychoanalytic approaches. blum thinks that the lack of theoretical and methodological background at that time underlines the significance of freud’s revolutionary ideas and dampens the consequences of the naive mistakes he presumably made. in addition to inventing psychobiography, even art historians confess that the paper is a cornerstone in their field of research. freud’s writing was the first serious effort to understand artistic creativity psychoanalytically, and the effort remained a model for subsequent work. moreover, in leonardo he introduced some psychoanalytic themes and concepts that later became extremely important in the development of psychoanalytic theory. these were the interpretation of the psychogenesis of one type of male homosexuality, the idea of narcissism, and the recognition, in the pre-oedipal phase, that the mother-child relationship has an immense influence on shaping a man’s fate. according to freud, in mona lisa’s smile leonardo succeeded in portraying the simultaneous existence of the ominous threat and the promise of limitless delicacy that both belong deeply to femininity (freud, 1957). freud thought that leonardo’s duality was coming from the imago of the mother, and that it was projected to the model of the painting. the ambivalent representation of the mother later became a basic conception in developmental ego psychology (edith jacobson) and in melanie klein’s object relations theory (fonagy & target, 2002; mitchell & black, 1996). an interesting question of priority might lead to an alternative to elms’ interpretation of freud’s urge to finish and publish his work. in his writing about homosexuality, freud refers to the inquiries of his contemporary, isidor sadger, in a footnote (no. 43). sadger was an important figure in the history of early psychoanalysis. by the analysis of homosexual patients he emphasized the early influence of the mother in the formation of this disposition, and he was the first analyst, who ever used paul nacke’s phrase „narcissism”. but what is the most important for us: sadger also played an important role in the development of psychobiography. in the year of the birth of the leonardo-essay (1910), he published a psychoanalytic biography about heinrich von kleist, and even two years before, in 1908, he wrote one about conrad ferdinand meyer (mijolla, 2005). one can easily imagine that freud, who was very sensitive about priority in psychoanalysis, with the urgent publishing of his leonardo work intended to ensure his primacy not only in the field of psychodynamic concepts (homosexuality and narcissism) but also as a psychobiographer. europe’s journal of psychology 747 the prosperity and decline of classic psychobiography following freud’s pioneering explorations, psychoanalysts began to use psychobiography widely to investigate the personalities of artists. from 1912 to 1937 otto rank hanns sachs edited imago, a periodical dedicated to the application of psychoanalysis to human sciences such as anthropology, literature, philosophy, theology and linguistics. the writings published in imago that dealt with arts were about (1) examining the relationship of the artist and the neurotic, (2) providing evince about the connections between biography and the peculiarities of a particular artist and (3) legitimizing pathography and psychobiography as a research method (schönau, 1998). representatives of early psychoanalysis wrote several psychobiographies, as among them the aforementioned isidor sadger, ernest jones (about shakespeare), m. graaf (about wagner), karl abraham (about amenhotep the 4th) and p. smith (about luther). in the 1910’s some reviews about this developing method such as dooloey’s psychoanalytic study of genius in 1916 were also published (runyan, 2005a). the rise of psychobiography elicited the opposition of art lovers, because the authors handled existing literature like “some museum that is easy to access, using its exhibited objects to justify new hypotheses” (schönau, 1998, p. 32). these hypotheses were mostly of a psychopathological nature. in the personality and creativity concepts of classic psychoanalysis, psychopathological viewpoints were fairly dominant; consequently, in the first half of the 20th century, pathographical aspects formed an essential part of psychobiographical analyses. one of the bestknown works of this kind is princess marie bonaparte’s monumental, 700 pages long book on edgar allen poe, in which the author draws conclusions about the american poet-writer concerning his supposed necrophilia. “edgar allan poe was a psychopath and not a pervert. although the psychic traumata he experienced in infancy induced necrophilia in him, it was a necrophilia that was partly repressed and partly sublimated. this fact provides a key to his psychoneurosis, character, life and work” wrote bonaparte in 1933 (quoted by warner, 1991, p. 454). it’s very interesting that, in addition to the abovementioned opposition between artists and art-lovers, some of them – for example surrealists – accepted the psychoanalytic approach as a relevant method to explore the dynamics of creative processes. at the same year that princess bonaparte published her book, hungarian poet géza szilágyi, “the hungarian baudelaire”, who was analyzed by sándor ferenczi and was personally very close to the members of the “budapest school of psychoanalysis”, (bókay, lénárd & erős, 2008) wrote a paper about late romantic hungarian poet jános vajda, which can be regarded as a psychobiography (szilágyi, 1993). szilágyi drew a parallel between the neurotic love life of vajda and the characteristics of his psychobiography as a method 748 poetry, and he interpreted this with the presumption of the poet’s unsolved oedipal conflicts. these approaches were criticized strongly not only because of being overloaded with psychopathological concepts, but also because of unreliable data management and dogmatic interpretations. american analysts edmund bergler in the middle of the 20th century became notorious for this approach, and significant literature critics like lionel trilling (1950) or malcolm cowley (1955) referred to his works to provide deterrence. in his analyses bergler defined creative writing as a neurosis based on oral fixation and psychic masochism, similar to alcoholism and homosexuality, which he believed to be correlated with writing talent (bergler, 1947). in the 1950’s some significant endeavors appeared, even within psychoanalysis, which tried to clarify the opportunities and scientific status of psychobiography. in 1952 ernst kris in his classic psychoanalytic explorations in art (2000), devoted a chapter to the question of psychobiography (the image of the artist). he writes that, from the age of renaissance, biographers had generally referred to the childhood of artists when they tried to demonstrate the special and outstanding nature of their personality. by the biographies of giotto and dante, kris demonstrates how this formula became popular and widespread, and adds that the readers’ susceptibility to accept this is connected with unconscious fantasies like freudian “family romance” or rank’s “myth of the birth of the hero”. related to this “our general readiness to overvalue the children’s accomplishments and to regard them as extraordinary and singular, an attitude obviously connected with the search for augury in the child’s early behavioral manifestations. it is not difficult to deduce some determinants of this attitude. we can often find ourselves in the desire to discover those abilities and attributes in our children, which we deny to ourselves or which we are especially proud of. we are under the spell of narcissism.” (kris, 2000, p. 72) these psychological factors rephrase the legends of the talent’s discovery, and also influence the way we elaborate and interpret data obtained from different sources. kris believes that the myth of the artist was formed by the interaction of several psychological, social and historical factors, and it determined the traditions of both historical and psychological biography writing ever since. some years later, david beres intended to clarify the status of psychobiography in his article the contribution of psychoanalysis to the biography of the artist – commentary on methodology (beres, 1959). according to beres, the analyst has to limit his/her interest, and beware of identifying himself/herself with the object or transpose hostile feelings on it. this kind of attitude helps analysts to avoid the misunderstandings and misinterpretations during their work. clinical experiences can be used in the reinterpretation of life story data, but it can turn out that some of them – tough previously regarded as fact – are only myths, and the plausibility of an europe’s journal of psychology 749 interpretation doesn’t prove its validity by all means. the meaningful relationship between psychological specificities of an artistic product and some supposed childhood happenings is not always obvious. beres names ella sharp as an example: the english analyst speculated about shakespeare’s infancy and personality through the writer’s literary works and some available data of his early life. in addition, applying psychoanalytic knowledge by non-analysts to answer some artistic questions can also be problematic. in these cases it’s a typical mistake to come to over-generalizations, for example to suppose that a poem expresses oedipal or preoedipal conflicts. these statements do not add too much to our understanding of the artist, being similar to cases when someone claims that the artist suffered from neurotic or psychotic problems. the in-depth analyses by laymen remain at the level of early psychoanalytic art-theory, when analysts used the model of dream interpretation to enucleate the artist’s unconscious problems from the “manifest” content of the work of art. in spite of the constructive criticism by kris, beres and others who tried to call attention to the importance of methodological clarification and the necessity of diverging from the psychopathology-centered approach, in the middle of the 20th century classic psychobiography lost its popularity and a substantial part of its credibility. after world war ii the landscape of personality psychology changed markedly; researchers began to focus on decontextualized dispositional constructs (e.g. field independence) and their measurement using laboratory experiments and correlational studies (mcadams, 1997). following the triumph of the nomothetic approach in personality and creativity research from the 1950’s, dynamic life-history analysis – apart from erik h. erikson’s works (1968, 1993) – became a marginalized scientific method for some decades (barenbaum & winter, 2003; runyan, 2005a). the traditions of idiographic personality research in the 20th century when in the last decades of the 20th century – due to the increasing popularity of narrative psychology – psychobiography revived, it was necessary to redefine the theoretical background and methodological base of the method. on one hand, authors had to clarify their intellectual relationship with the classic psychoanalytic approach: what was useful and what is to be corrected? on the other hand, they had to designate what kind of other theories and methods can be included in the eclectic toolbar of modern psychobiography besides psychoanalysis. the other source of theories and methods was the personological tradition. from the 1930’s the psychobiographic approach was not restricted to psychoanalysis anymore: following the pioneering work of g. w. allport and henry murray at harvard, a personality research approach known as personology was formed. this trend psychobiography as a method 750 focused on the exploration of the individual through life stories, and though from the 1950’s it was relegated to the background (just like classic psychobiography), it created a tradition in the american personality psychology that was easy to access for those who preferred holistic approaches and wanted to develop their modern version (barenbaum & winter, 2003; runyan, 2005a). william m. runyan (1997, 2003, 2005a) claims that psychodynamic and personlogical traditions together with narrative psychology form a group called „historical-interpretative psychology”, which is the third way to make scientific psychology besides the two approaches defined by cronbach (correlational and experimental). as he writes: „historical interpretive psychology employing narrative methods is used in clinical case studies, in psychobiography and in studying lives in particular social, cultural, and historical contexts” (runyan, 2005a, p. 20-21) in the following, i will briefly refer to the works of some north american personality psychologists, who contributed to the development of idiographic personality research and the studying of lives in the 20th century. (1) gordon w. allport was one of the leading personality researchers at harvard university between 1930 and 1967, and he was “interested in the german method known as verstehen which he translated the intuitive method” (barenbaum & winter, 2003, p. 186). as mentioned before, he learned verstehen from dilthey’s disciple eduard spranger. in his encyclopedic book, pattern and growth in personality (1961), he ranked psychological means into 11 groups that are suitable for explorations of personality. the third group is called “personal documents and case studies” that can be used in studying lives. these are (a) autobiographies, (b) diaries, (c) letters, (d) unstandardized, open questionnaires, (e) oral reports like interviews, and (f) certain literary products. allport calls these first-person documents, but besides these we can use reports obtained from a third person, just as (g) case studies, (h) life stories and (i) biographies. in the middle of the century, allport wrote an entire book on this topic called the use of personal documents in psychological science (1942). in the case of first-person documents allport mentions more then a dozen possible motives that could play a significant role in the birth of the text (defence, literary needs, catharsis, etc); the analyst always has to clarify these before the work begins. it is true that psychologists sometimes do not go beyond common sense when writing a case study or analyzing a life story. but allport (1961) believed that this does not mean that we have to question the applicability and usefulness of the method. he emphasized the fact that life story is the only dimension that uncovers individuality, and no one can deny that, when speaking of human personality, we often mean the person’s life story. europe’s journal of psychology 751 (2) the 20th century american idiographic approach in personality research is almost completely interconnected with the creator of the famous thematic apperception test, henry a. murray. originally murray was a biologist, but in the beginning of his thirties, around 1926, he had three important encounters in his life which made him one of the greatest personality psychologists of the usa. as a married man, he fell in love with christiana morgan, who according to rosenzweig was the real inventor of tat (duncan, 2002a). through morgan he was introduced to jungian psychology, and later he met jung in person and they remained life-long friends. similarly to what allport did three years earlier, murray travelled to europe to gain inspiration for the search of the soul. sailing the atlantic ocean, he discovered herman melville, the writer of moby dick. writing about him was his first psychological work, and he remained deeply involved in the topic through his entire life (elms, 1994; taylor, 2009). barresi & juckes (1997) state that “even though murray never completed his biography of melville, his four published studies of melville represent perhaps the most successful attempt by a psychologist to dive into the mind of a creative literary genius” (p. 705). in 1938 in his colossal book, explorations in personality (2008) murray presented his concepts that later became famous as “personology”. the methodological part of the book was written with the contribution of murray’s disciples from the harvard psychological clinic: saul rosenzweig, the creator of picture frustration test, robert w. white, who developed an influential egopsychological theory on effectance-competence motivation, and erik (homburger) erikson. in the following decades murray was the leading personality psychologist at harvard university. beside the above mentioned contributors, he had several creative and successful disciples and followers like david winter and david mcclelland, who continued to develop murray’s personality theory of needs, donald mackinnon, the first director of berkeley university’s ipar (institution of personality assessment and research), the illustrious representative of modern affectand scripttheory, silvan tomkins, and the major contemporary narrative personality psychologist dan p. mcadams. in addition to psychoanalysis, personology is the most important theoretical and methodological basis of contemporary psychobiography (runyan, 2005a). (3) starting from murray’s circle, saul rosenzweig after his years in harvard went to clark university in worcester (where freud held his american lectures in 1909), to develop his picture frustration test between 1938 and 1943. two years before this he wrote an important and prophetic article, some implicit common factors in diverse forms of psychotherapy. in this writing – for the first time in psychotherapy’s history – he emphasized that different psychotherapeutic methods can be effectively applied to the same problems, because results depend on some common factors like the personality of the therapist rather than on particular techniques (duncan, psychobiography as a method 752 2002b). rosenzweig was deeply interested in literature, creativity, history and in the possibilities of exploring personality’s individual aspects. from the 1950’s he intended to integrate his concepts in an approach he called “idiodynamics”. the approach of idiodynamics according to duncan “focuses on the dynamics of the life history by studying the blending of the biogenic and cultural milieus in the matrix of the idioverse (the individual world of events), with special emphasis on creative process” (duncan, 2002a, p. 36). after developing idiodynamics, rosenzweig published several psychobiographies: about freud’s journey to america, henry and william james, herman melville, nathaniel hawthorne and lewis carroll. (4) erik h. erikson was trained as a psychoanalyst in europe, but after his immigration to the states he became a member of murray’s legendary research group at harvard, and also worked for the ipar (alexander, 2005). after decades of research, erikson came to the conclusion that “the psychoanalytic method is essentially a historical method” (1977, p. 14). following this, he started a groundbreaking experiment: he tried to capture the interaction of individual personality and historical milieu by analyzing life stories. it is highly remarkable, that more than 50 years before this, wilhelm dilthey wrote as the last sentences of ideas concerning a descriptive and analytical psychology: “it is a tremendous task to bridge the gap between psychology that has up to now existed and the intuition of the historical world!” (dilthey, 1977, p. 117). it took another 50 years for psychologists to discover the intellectual relationship between dilthey and erikson (tonks, 2001). erikson first presented his solutions in childhood and society (1977) through a psychoanalytic interpretation of the young manhood of a historical (adolf hitler) and a literatury (maxim gorkij) person. by demonstrating how to draw general historical conclusions from life stories, erikson overstepped the usual boundaries of psychobiography. his work young man luher, that was published in 1958, is held in esteem not only by psychobiographers (alexander, 2005), but it is also regarded as the foundation of “psychohistory” along with norman o. brown’s life against death (botond, 1991). in his book, erikson ventured to demonstrate how an individual life can become an important historical event. but where can we draw the line between psychobiography and eriksonian psychohistory? psychohistory, according to botond, is the “application of psychology (especially psychoanalysis) in the search for the past. sometimes it lays once famous people on the coach of the imaginary analyst, sometimes it explores the historical variations of the family and childhood (…) and sometimes it tries to identify the psychological motivations behind the dynamics of the masses and social groups” (botond, 1991, p. 12) this definition – which explicitly refers to the three investigated areas of the psychohistorical approach – regards psychobiography as a part of psychohistory. this interpretation is confirmed by erikson himself: before he published his other significant psychobiography in 1969 europe’s journal of psychology 753 (gandhi’s truth. on the origins of militant nonviolence), he expounded the method of his research in his article on the nature of psychohistorical evidence. in search of gandhi (1968). definitions of contemporary psychoanalysis – in contrast to erikson’s view – argue that despite some similarities there are essential differences between psychobiography and psychohistory. „psychobiography – writes shiner – is a major instrument of psychohistory for the study of leading historical figures. but the two are not identical since psychohistory is especially concerned with group behavior” (shiner, 2005, p. 1388). modern psychobiography does not refer to psychohistory at all; probably by struggling for scientific recognition the approach is trying to distance itself from this trend, which in the last decades became rather inacceptable due to some radical ideas by the school of lloyd de mause (botond, 1991). in his previously mentioned article (1968), erikson tried to clarify the methodological principles of „psycho-historical” explorations, which can be placed at the intersection of psychoanalytic and historical inquiries. in addition to that, the researcher uses freud’s basic psychological findings (repression, ambivalence, the importance of infantile experiences) during analysis of the explored person’s texts, as erikson accented, one has to take into consideration that the author of the autobiography can induce some unconscious countertransference reactions in his reader. erikson believed that even the best trained historian cannot defend him/herself from these emotional impacts; most of the time the writer emphasizes, ignores, loves or hates things about his/her subject under the influence of unconscious motives. from this point of view, a psychoanalyst can profit from his/her analysis training and also is able to identify these distorting motives. therefore, the researcher has to elucidate the functions that the analyzed record might play not only in the life of the author and his/her community, but also in the reviewer’s actual life, and uncover what meaning the review might gain in his/her community both currently and historically (figure 1). psychobiography as a method 754 figure 1. things the researcher has to clarify during his work (erikson, 1968, pp. 702-709) erikson thinks that this diagrammatic formula can be used even in the analysis itself, for example when interpreting the subject’s partial or entire life we should look for a historical analogy. in these cases, we have to compare the two persons’ actual and historical conditions as well as the actual and historical conditions of their environment. in this analysis model we can discover the prefiguration of contemporary “multiple case” psychobiography (isaacson, 2005). for example in his book erikson often draws a parallel between luther and freud (erikson, 1993). (5) one of the leading american personality psychologists of our time is dan p. mcadams, who integrates the narrative approach with murray’s personology and erikson’s identity theory. his career began in the late 80’s, when he published power and intimacy: identity and the life story (1988), in which he called for the revitalization of the personological tradition, and in the same year he edited psychobiography and life narratives with richard ochberg. mcadams thinks that dynamic narratives derived from the individual’s life stories ensure the personality’s goals and unity (identity). he developed an empirically tested structural model of identity/life story that can be applied well in psychobiographical analyses. in this model, life stories that form identity are determined by four components (nuclear episodes, imagoes, ideological setting, generativity script) and two second-order variables (thematic lines, narrative complexity), which mutually impact each other (mcadams, 1988; see details later). moreover, mcadams is making efforts to integrate personality theories in a hierarchic model (mcadams & pals, 2007), and europe’s journal of psychology 755 emphasizes that contemporary psychobiography should apply more concepts of modern personality psychology (mcadams, 2005). (6) the rebirth of psychobiography overlapped with the renewal of american psychoanalysis as self psychology. an important bridge between these schools is the work of author pair robert stolorow and george atwood (karterud & island, 1999). stolorow wrote his phd at harvard university and his supervisor was murray’s colleague and adherer robert w. white, who himself played an important role in the history of psychobiography. in the 1970’s stolorow went to rutgers university, where another outstanding murray-disciple, silvan tomkins was working with his assistant george atwood. tomkins developed an influential affect-theory that was applied by self psychologists when they replaced the instinct-based theory of psychoanalysis with motivational viewpoints (monsen, 1999). tomkins’ script-theory is often mentioned and used in contemporary psychobiography and life-story analysis (barresi & juckes, 1997; mcadams, 2005; schultz, 2005c). tomkins influenced the cooperation between stolorow and atwood. their works intended to explore the nature of subjectivity, in which they were trying to integrate psychoanalysis with phenomenology, hermeneutics and existential philosophy. stolorow and atwood insisted that psychoanalysis had to break up with its positivist heritage, and had to deal with human subjectivity, the meaning of human experience and behavior (stolorow & atwood, 1984). during this work, they became acquainted with kohut’s calling for psychoanalysis as pure psychology (kohut, 2009). stolorow and atwood synthesized kohut’s approach with their “psychoanalytic phenomenology”, and created one of the strongest trend in psychoanalytic self psychology called “intersubjectivity theory” (karterud & island, 1999). their book, faces in a cloud. subjectivity in personality theory (1979), in which they showed the subjective sources of significant personality theories of the 20th century, is an important reference for contemporary psychobiography (elms, 2007; runyan, 1997). atwood’s article written with kyle arnold about nietzsche (2005) is a chapter in the handbook of psychobiography (schultz, 2005a). the “narrative turn” and the renaissance of psychobiography the pretension to study individual lives scientifically returned to personality psychology upon intensification of the critics in the 70’s (carlson, 1971), and following the so-called “narrative turn” in psychology that began in the 1980’s (bruner, 1986; hargitai, 2007; lászló, 2008). due to this processes, psychobiography as a method began to resurrect in the 80’s through the pioneering works of james anderson, irving alexander, william runyan, alan c. elms, dan mcadams and others. in the last two decades – especially in the united states – following the increasing popularity of psychobiography as a method 756 narrative approach, there has been a veritable renaissance of psychobiography and the efforts of studying lives (barenbaum & winter, 2003; runyan, 2005). in 1988, the journal of personality published a thematic issue on psychobiography with the writings of mcadams, elms, anderson, runyan, irving alexander, rae carlson, david winter, richard ochberg and others; the issue later was published as a book as well (psychobiography and life narratives). in 1994, elms issued uncovering lives (elms, 1994), and runyan’s article, studying lives: psychobiography and the structure of personality psychology was included in the american academic press’ monumental handbook of personality psychology (runyan, 1997). after the turn of the millennium more and more journals and handbooks began to open towards psychobiography: in 2007 the prestigious the guilford press published handbook of research methods in personality psychology, which contains a chapter by alan c. elms entitled psychobiography and case study methods (elms, 2007). by the middle of the decade, the first synthesis of “new” psychobiography was born: william todd schultz edited handbook of psychobiography with the contribution of mcadams, runyan, elms, alexander, anderson, ogilvie, atwood and others (schultz, 2005a). the success of this revival helped the rebirth and reforming of the psychoanalytic tradition. in 2003, the annual of psychoanalysis published a psychobiographic special issue, the authors of which were partly identical with those of handbook of psychobiography (james anderson, alan c. elms, william runyan), though the latter was not committed to psychoanalysis. recent psychoanalytic attempts moved further away from the original freudian instinct theory and the formalism of egopsychology, and enriched psychobiography with concepts from object relations theories and psychoanalytic self psychology (anderson, 2003). the development of the modern psychobiographic approach hasn’t stagnated; it still contains some further opportunities. according to elms (2007), the most striking tendency is that the focus of analysis seems to shift from single cases to comparative explorations (see “multiple case psychobiography”, isaacson, 2005). the accumulating results of idiographic research can form a database which will help the comparative analysis of biographic categories. elms stresses that, when utilizing this database, we shouldn’t keep aloof from quantitative methods and statistical tests, because their use will not mean a return to the much criticized nomothetic approach. “we do have by now quite a few studies of creative writers,, so maybe the more quantitatively oriented among our life history researchers can begin to draw statistically meaningful conclusions across them… there is no reason to protect our methodological purity by refusing to look also at data across a number of those individual and unique writers.” (elms, 2007, p. 111). europe’s journal of psychology 757 theoretical and methodological aspects of contemporary psychobiography what are the advantages and novelties of contemporary psychobiography compared to its predecessor, the classic psychoanalytic approach? first of all, the authors mentioned above tried to clarify their relation to the classic approach, because its “bad reputation” and the partly justified critiques gave an opportunity to question psychobiography’s mere raison d’être. nevertheless, according to schultz (2005b), the existence of bad psychographies does not tell anything about psychobiography in general and, with the knowledge of its potentials and disadvantages, it is easier to write outstanding analyses (figure 2). figure 2. characteristics of good and bad psychobiographies (schultz, 2005b) good psychobiography markers bad psychobiography markers cogency narrative structure comprehensiveness data convergence sudden coherence logical soundness consistency viability pathography single cues reconstruction reductionism poor theory choice poor narrative structure runyan (1997) in the 80’s and 90’s has already called attention to the dangers of reductionism in psychobiography: the pitfalls that lie in the reconstructions of early childhood events or the overemphasis on infancy at the cost of later life events. he also pays particular attention to the critical evaluation of alternative explanations (runyan, 2005b). comparing more than a dozen, mostly psychoanalytic interpretations of van gogh’s ear-cutting story, he asks the question: how can we decide from the available data, which explanation is standing next to the truth? his criteria are the following: (1) logical soundness, (2) comprehensiveness, i.e. taking into account several different aspects, (3) surviving the tests of attempted falsification, (4) consistency with the full range of relevant evidence, (5) supports from above, i.e. consistency with general knowledge about human psychology and with our knowledge about the particular person, and (6) its credibility is comparable to that of other interpretations. psychobiography as a method 758 a) theoretical background “perhaps the most frequent criticism of psychobiography concerns its heavy dependence on psychoanalytic theory” – wrote alan c. elms (1994, p. 9) the psychoanalytic approach focuses on emotional questions that essentially determine the formation of a life story; psychobiographical analysis is not functioning without this outlook. for today’s psychobiographers, a broader theoretical arsenal is available. elms (2007) is adducing erikson’s developmental model, murray’s theory of needs and its supplements by mcclelland and winter and finally, tomkins’ scripttheory. runyan (2005a) demonstrates in a historical context how theories and methods have influenced the studying of lives in the 20th century from basic psychoanalitic concepts (freud), through the traditions of personology (allport, murray, white), to contemporary narrative approaches (mcadams, wiggins). mcadams (2005) believes that psychobiography should rely more courageously on different theories and methods of personality psychology. however, by applying these authors have to keep in mind that the functioning of personality has at least three different levels (dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations, life stories). all of these can play an important role in life stories and in the understanding of the person, but their usage requires different theoretical and methodological approaches, and providing the results of one level (e.g. dispositional traits) does not mean that we have covered the other aspects as well. elms (1994) points out that this relationship is not one sided: psychobiography and psychology can mutually do a lot for each other. not only psychobiographic explorations have to take the more rigorous methodological expectations of personal psychology research into consideration, but personality psychology could also learn a lot from psychobiography, for example to realize that sometimes it’s more useful to investigate the personally significant then the statistically significant. and finally, adds schultz (2005b), one should also keep in mind that in personality psychology several outstanding theorists – freud, jung, maslow, piaget, erikson, laing, murray, allport and tomkins – created their influential models by analyzing single cases or by exploring only a few people. b) data management methods the first step in biographical explorations is to choose the subject, which is not a rational decision most of the time; “let your subject choose you!” – suggests elms (1994, p. 19). in these cases – as erikson (1968) already pointed out – it is useful to clarify the analyst’s personal motivations. in current qualitative research this is called personal reflexivity. as carla willig defines it, “personal reflexivity involves reflecting upon the ways in which our own values, experiences, interests, beliefs, political commitments, wider aims in life and social identities have shaped the research. it also involves thinking about how the research may have affected, and possibly europe’s journal of psychology 759 changed us, as people and as researchers.” (willig, 2008, p. 10) these partly unconscious aims exist regardless of whether we take them into consideration or not, and they determine our approach. to avoid excessive subjectivity it is important that the person we choose to analyze should not be too loveable (like mother theresa) with the potential to cause idealization, or too deterrent (like hitler); the best condition to start with is ambivalence towards the person of choice (elms, 1994). the next step is to look after available data about our subject: this is when the firstperson and third-person documents come into view (biographies, confessions), as allport (1961) defined and ranked them. the data coming from different sources have to be evaluated, selected, graded and interpreted. irving alexander in his article published in journal of personality’s psychobiography issue (1988) and in his 1990 book on the psychobiography of freud, jung and sullivan (personology: method and content in personality assessment and psychobiography) presented his basically psychoanalytic oriented model, which helps to organize and to select biographic material (alexander, 1990). alexander (figure 3) listed eight characteristics he calls “primary indicators of psychological saliency” that can be used in psychological analysis. these are frequency, primacy, emphasis, isolation, uniqueness, incompletion, error, distortion and omission and finally negation. for example the only place where leonardo spoke about his childhood in his diary belongs to “primacy”, while the lion head with open jaws as pictorial repetition on salvador dalí’s paintings in 1929 is corresponds to “frequency” (kőváry, 2009). figure 3. the models of alexander and schultz that help in organizing biographical material, for example to select the psychologically significant parts of an autobiography (schultz, 2005b) irving alexander: primary indicators of psychological saliency william todd schultz: keys to identifying “prototypical scenes” frequency primacy emphasis isolation uniqueness incompletion error, distortion, omission negation vividness, specificity, emotional intensity interpenetration developmental crisis family conflict thrownness (getting into a scene that places the subject into a situation which violates the status quo) psychobiography as a method 760 schultz (2005b) claims that, by using the concepts of alexander, we can identify a large amount of outstanding motives in biography. but how shall we know which one of them holds the key to understand the person’s life? those life story events and memories that possess this quality schultz calls “prototypical scenes” and, according to his assumptions, these can be extremely important in understanding an individual’s life. in these scenes numerous motives and conflicts are compressed, motives and conflicts that are very significant in the subject’s life. every prototypical scene is salient from alexander’s viewpoint, but not every salient event or memory is prototypical. (salient for the researcher and for the subject, but for the latter it is not always clear and conscious.) schultz names five specificities to identify scenes: emotional intensity, interpenetration, developmental crisis, family conflict and throwness (figure 3). by this it is assumed that the 24-year old salvador dalí’s encounter with his future wife gala in 1929 was a prototypical scene because it had serious emotional, familiar and artistic consequences and it is related to the emergence of lion heads on his paintings in the same year (kőváry, 2009). the “identity as life story” concept of dan p. mcadams (1988), who is coming from the direction of narrative psychology was presented in the reinterpretation of erikson’s young man luther. the model contains four components: nuclear episodes of life stories, the characters of the story called imagoes, the ideological background and a script of generativity. each component is determined by two second-order variables: thematic lines and narrative complexity (figure 4). in our analysis, we can reveal the specificities of these components in a particular life story and we can also evince how second order variables influence the components and vice versa. the identification of these connections could be very useful in organizing and interpreting biographical data. in the case of thematic lines – depending on the subject – the motives of power and intimacy can be replaced by other motives defined by murray and his followers (see for example smith, 1992). narrative complexity is determined by the maturity of the ego that can be identified with the help of jane loevinger’s model (loevinger, 1997). considering the connections of the variables we can set hypotheses about the protagonist of the life story that can be evaluated both with text analysis and empirical methods, depending on whether the protagonists are alive or have already deceased (mcadams, 1988). europe’s journal of psychology 761 figure 4. identity as life story and its components – the model of dan p. mcadams (mcadams, 1988, p. 61) naturally, in this phase we can use other models to organize our material, especially if we are interested in aspects of personality that are beyond the dimensions mentioned above by mcadams (2005). based on the modern psychoanalytic approach, during the organization and interpretation of biographical data one can apply winnicott’s conception of false/real self conception and his theory of transitional phenomena; it is also possible to outline the principles and the level of managing subjective experience of the self and the objects by using ideas from kernberg. employing the theories of kohut one can describe the consequences of the interactions between self and mirroring self-objects (anderson, 2003). in my multiple case psychobiography of hungarian writers and cousins géza csáth and dezső kosztolányi (kőváry, 2009), i applied the categories of lipót szondi from his theory of the “family unconscious” (1996) to organize the biographic material. c) interpretive models after collecting the data from firstand third-person documents defined by allport and organizing, selecting and evaluating them according to the above mentioned models, the psychobiographer can begin to elaborate his or her interpretations. according to elms (1994, 2007) the process of a psychobiographic study does not follow any predetermined standards. the form of the analysis always depends on the explored person, on the investigator, on the place of the publication, on the planned length of the article and some other variables. shorter psychobiographies may be organized according to the regular apa standard (literature review, hypothesis, data, discussion, conclusion) but even in these cases it is not likely that psychobiography as a method 762 the study would strictly follow the progression of the typical psychological investigation. in elms’ description (2007), the process begins with (1) the choice of the subject, followed by (2) the formulation of tentative hypotheses. elms says that if we are lucky, in this phase a “genuine mystery” emerges from the life story that can’t be explained with the usual attributional schemes (for example: are there any psychological factors that might explain why on every painting dalí made in 1929 there is a lion’s head with open jaws?). after that we can start the (3) initial data collection from varied sources: this usually begins with accessible biographies about the chosen person (third-person documents), then it extends on autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters and creative products (first-person documents). since the third-person documents are full of interpretations and can be distorted by the prejudices of the author, it can be useful to read them in parallel and critically. psychobiographers often stop collecting data after some time, because too many narratives can be confusing. but what is the point of stopping? rae carlson, who was one of the pioneers of modern psychobiographic research in the 1970’s and 1980’s reclined on the most reliable biography of the investigated person (elms, 2007). after data evaluation (4) we can revise the tentative hypotheses, depending on the applied theoretical framework (psychoanalysis, personology, narrative theories). next (5) we can perform a more focused data collection. at this time, it can be useful to apply alexander’s concept of “primary indicators of psychological saliency” or schultz’s method to identify prototypical scenes in the life story. the data collected from different sources could contain several contradictions. to handle these (6) elms suggests adopting some methods used by historians: whenever it is possible we have to lean on primal sources, but if it is necessary to employ secondary ones, the researcher has to clarify the author’s attitudes towards the protagonist (see erikson, 1968). we have to keep in mind that in the genre of psychobiography, the research process is iterative. “instead of cumulating every possible bit of data in one big pile then pulling conclusions out of that pile, a conscientious psychobiographer will engage a more or less continuous process of examining preliminary data” – says elms (2007, p. 103). so we have to apply further operations in iterative analysis (7). on the basis of preliminary data we formulated tentative hypotheses, then we were looking for justifying or refuting data to narrow or shift the focus of the hypothesis. now we can look for further evidence (independent from the data that were the basis of tentative hypotheses): this will justify, refute, narrow or modify our assumptions again. the method of this iterative analysis fully resembles the hermeneutical circle that is well-known in european philosophy for ages (dilthey, 1996; gadamer, 2004). finally, we (8) can identify and delimit valid conclusions; they will be probably followed by (9) further iterative studies of the europe’s journal of psychology 763 subject done by other researchers. time, readers and further testing will tell which one will be considered more insightful. a few years before elms’ description, william m. runyan (1997) developed a process model for the progress of analysis and interpretation (figure 5). runyan thinks that particular phases do not follow each other in fixed order in this process: the numbers are only for denoting the sequences. figure 5. a model of the component process of studying lives (runyan, 1997, p. 52.) a special form of life story analysis is “multiple case” psychobiography, denoting the parallel processing of more cases, the significance of which is increasing (elms, 2007). in psychobiographies containing the exploration of more than one person, one can find the characteristic starting points of this approach (isaacson, 2005): (1) we can aim at unfolding the personality psychological background of a product created by two or more individuals; (2) we can try to shed light on both sides of a relationship; (3) we might compare two persons who have something significant in common (e.g. both of them are writers); (4) we might want to study a political, historical, social or cultural movement; (5) we can use comparative psychobiography for theory building or testing. multiple case psychobiography has two subtypes: (a) in one of them there is a direct/indirect connection between the explored persons or, alternatively, we can apply (b) categorical pairing or a single dimension comparison. sometimes these categories are overlapping. in my above mentioned paper i was investigated the psychological background of some works of two hungarian writers, géza csáth and dezső kosztolányi (kőváry, 2009). the analyzed novels and short stories, “anyagyilkosság” (“matricide”) by csáth and “édes anna” (“sweet anne”) by kosztolányi were about murdering the real (csáth) and the symbolic (kosztolányi) bad mother. csáth and kosztolányi were cousins and they grew up together (isaacson’s starting point no. 2). both became writers (starting psychobiography as a method 764 point no. 3), though csáth was a doctor as well. there was a direct relationship between them (subtype a), but there are also several common motives in their lives and works (dealing with literature, interested in psychoanalysis, using morphine, writing about matricide – subtype b). the similarities and differences between these motives illuminate individual psychological specificities of the subphases in the case of the creative process. in my analysis i focused on four intersections between their lives and work, which all can be regarded as choices determined by their personality and the unconscious (not only the freudian personal subconscious but the family unconscious observed by szondi). these intersections were the choice of occupation, the choice of ideals, the “choice” of sickness and the choice of love object. these are similar to szondi’s categories that describe the dynamics of family unconscious. there are conspicuous similarities in their choices (as partly mentioned above): kosztolányi and csáth both became writers, they both thought that psychoanalysis was a kind of intellectual revolution, they used morphine, but what is more important that there are significant differences between the outcomes of the choices. all the differences show that csáth was a more impulsive personality and couldn’t keep up some boundaries. he became morhine addict and died at the age of 32, and there are overgrown psychoanalytic concepts in his late short stories (while kosztolányi gave up morphine by himself and in his writings – while influenced – kept a healthy distant from psychoanalysis). it’s very interesting and salient that they both wrote their version of matricide. (the fantasy of matricide is connected to individualization and creativity, see julia kristeva’s melanie klein: matricide as pain and creativity, 2001). the elaborations of the matricide fantasy are different: kosztolányi’s version is more symbolic and decent, while the short story of csáth is very direct and explicit. it is also notable, that following his psychological disintegration caused by addiction (associated with the loss of his poetical language) csáth, who couldn’t find a symbolic way out of his more and more abnormal impulses, committed a kind of real matricide by murdering his wife. psychobiography as a method: its limits and its usefulness psychobiography can be regarded as a method of idiographic approach in personality psychology. classic freudian psychobiography was about analyzing and understanding the dynamic and developmental determinants of artistic creativity. but the correlations and connections that were revealed by freud’s research illuminated not only some important aspects of the creative process, they led to europe’s journal of psychology 765 significant insights into the functioning of the human mind and personality in general (blum, 2001). psychobiography is akin to some qualitative methods such as case studies and text analysis, and its results have to be assessed within the context of the hermeneutic tradition (szokolszky, 2004). it is different however from text analysis because in psychobiographical analyses the author of the text (for example in autobiography) is not seen as a function of the text (as in discourse analysis) but rather as a real phenomenon, who can be explored and interpreted psychologically(schultz, 2005b). on the other hand case studies are usually focusing on clinical aspects, and modern psychobiography tends to avoid pathography. in addition, in clinical case studies several facts have to be withheld because of ethical and juristic reasons which limit the exploration of the “connectedness of the world of human spirit” or the “life-nexus” (dilthey, 2002, p. 213 and 218) that is necessary for understanding the psychological aspects of the subject’s life history. findings about the subject’s personality can be embarrassing, and publishing these can cause trouble in the subject’s professional and private life. in psychobiography, which usually deals with departed people, there are no such limits, and working with entirely public data about an identified subject makes it easier to evaluate the results of the research. nevertheless, the number of available tools is limited. psychoanalytic psychobiography for example must do without two essential tools of dynamic psychology: free associations and the analysis of transference. some critics hence suggested that it was much more rewarding to start from the psychoanalysis of living artists than to apply an uncertain form of psychobiography (kraft, 1998). there are two problems with this suggestion: to begin with creative artists tend to avoid in-depth analyses of their personality because they have a fear of losing their capabilities (schuster, 2005). the other factor is connected with time and distance. schultz (2005c) stated in his chapter on the psychobiography of artists: nothing alive can be calculated, and this position is similar to the approach of hans georg gadamer, who says that temporal distance has a great significance in hermeneutical interpretation and understanding. he wrote: “everyone is familiar with the curious impotence of our judgement where temporal distance has not given us sure criteria.” (gadamer, 2006, p. 334). that the application of psychobiography in personality psychology is inevitable on the other hand is connected with the specificities of personality psychology as a discipline. mcadams (2005; mcadams & pals, 2007) emphasizes, as mentioned also above, that the three levels of personality research (dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations and integrative life narratives) have different questions to answer and use different methods, and results of one level do not mean that they cover other psychobiography as a method 766 dimensions as well. the first level is trying to capture individual differences by using correlational methods, the second is focused on motivations, aims and needs; laboratory experiments can help a lot to improve this approach. the third, holistic dimension studies identity as it is constructed by life story narratives, and it can only rely on case studies (figure 5). taylor (2009) argues that mcadams’ model should be supplemented with two other levels: the unconscious, that is explored through dialogue in the situation of transference-countertransference, and subjective experiences inquired with the help of introspection. figure 6. the three levels in personality research (mcadams & pals, 2007, p. 5) willam m. runyan (1997, 2003) believes that the study of lives is based on historicalinterpretative methods, which are the third way to do scientific research in personality psychology besides experimental and quantitative (correlational) approaches. but runyan goes further as he claims that, since the last decades, there has been a tendency for integration in human sciences just as in the case of personality psychology. it is easy to see that this synthesis usually concerns the theories and methods of “hard” traditions in personality psychology (behavior research, cognitive psychology, psychometric and biological approaches). runyan thinks that it would be very useful to find a similar synthesis for the approaches in personality research that belong to the “soft” end like psychoanalysis, phenomenological-humanistic psychology, cultural psychology or narrative perspectives. (i would add that some psychoanalytic authors like john gedo, mark solms or peter fonagy would argue that psychoanalysis doesn’t belongs to the “soft end”, as they regard it as natural science based on biology, see fónagy & target, 2002; gedo, 1999). studying lives could play a significant role in creating this soft synthesis and, beside the abovementioned, this synthesis would also encompass case studies and all the theoretical aspirations and quantitative-empirical europe’s journal of psychology 767 researches that belong here. runyan stresses that the formation of a “soft synthesis” and “historicizing of psychology” is timely, because the “hard synthesis” and its integration with biology (cognitive neuroscience) foreshadows a scientific hegemony within psychology that could affect the decline of studying other important dimensions, such as personality and life stories, subjective experiences, texts and their meaning, and cultural-historical influences. finally, i would like to stress that research practice using psychobiography could also serve the training of psychologists. in their education there is often a great emphasis on theoretical training and on the learning of quantitative research and assessment methods. however, developing practical competencies of the professional helper is a much harder question, though after graduating most of the psychologists will perform practical work. psychology students therefore need comprehensive, deep and personal knowledge of psychological functioning (including the functioning of their own self) that can be applied in practice. what factors make psychological consultations or psychotherapies successful? reviewing the outcomes of relevant investigations duncan (2002b) claims that the client’s personality adds up to 40%, technique and placebo effects (beliefs, expectations) 15-15%, and the qualities of the relationship 30%. in this respect, university education can contribute to the future success of psychology students if it focuses on the development of the student’s personality (self-awareness) and their empathic skills. an extremely hard question of socializing for this profession is how we can support the students’ professional personality development and self awareness appropriately within academic institutions, since forming self-knowledge groups out of student groups can cause problems. students also have to acquire a knowledge of human functioning that is beyond “common sense” and that is useful in practical work, but until their master practices they do not have enough opportunities to deal with clients on a longer term basis, and in a supervises manner. in my opinion, this knowledge can only be created by in-depth, integrative personal work that is not based on statistic evaluation of correlated personality traits, but on the understanding of individual lives by case studies and exploration of life stories. it is not accidental that the traditions of training students in personality psychology established by henry a. murray at harvard contained the idiographic, in-depth, semester-long inquiry of one chosen individual (karterud & island, 1999; runyan, 2005a). teaching and applying modern psychobiographic approaches could become part of the theoretical and practical education of psychology students, and could play a significant role in socializing for the profession of psychology. a century-long psychobiography as a method 768 experience reveals that studying lives can be extremely useful and contribute to the development of the recognition of the self and the other, and its practical applications such as psychobiography are able to prepare future professionals to better understand the meaning of individual lives supported by indispensable selfreflection; just as dilthey wrote: “understanding is the rediscovery of the i in the thou” (1996, p. 192). references alexander, i. 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(1932). sigmund freud. in s. zweig, mental healers. franz anton mesmer, mary baker eddy, sigmund freud. new york, ny: the viking press inc. about the author: zoltan kovary, phd is hungarian clinical psychologist and a litterateur and linguist. he studied at universities of szeged, debrecen and budapest, and finished his phd studies at university of pécs in a theoretical psychoanalysis program. currently he lives in budapest, and working at university of szeged. he is teaching personality psychology, personality assessment, rorschach test, psychotherapy and psychology of art. his main research topics are the personality background of creative process and psychobiography as a qualitative research method. he published psychobiographical studies about salvador dalí and hungarian writer géza csáth; the former was published by psyartjournal.com founded and edited by norman n. holland. besides teaching and research he have a clinical practise in a student’s counselling center and also running a private practise, but before that he also worked at a psychiatry department, a drug ambulance and educational advisory centers. he is one of the editors of a hungarian psychological journal called imago budapest. zoltan kovary has just finished his book named creativity and personality. from psychoanalytic creation theories to psychobiographical research, which will be published in 2012. address for correspondence: zoltan kovary, 1066 budapest, zichy jenő utca 23, i/9, hungary email: kovary.zoltan@gmail.com rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research book reviews panayides, panayiotis (2014).rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research. saarbrücken, germany: lap lambert academic publishing. 93 pp. isbn 978-3-659-57607-2. rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research tom bramley*a [a] cambridge assessment, cambridge, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 169–171, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.913 published (vor): 2015-02-27. *corresponding author at: research division, cambridge assessment, 1 regent street, cambridge, uk, cb2 1gg. e-mail: bramley.t@cambridgeassessment.org.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. panayides, panayiotis (2014). rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research. saarbrücken, germany: lap lambert academic publishing. 93 pp. isbn 978-3-659-57607-2. rasch measurement is an approach to measuring attributes such as ‘mathematics ability’ or ‘quality of life’ – that is, the kind of attributes encountered in the non-physical sciences. it began in the 1960s in the field of educational assessment, where it is most widely known, but has spread in recent decades to other areas of social science. within educational assessment, its main applications are in item banking, test equating and computer adaptive testing (cat), where the focus is on estimating the level of ability/achievement/proficiency of test-takers who have taken different tests. within social science, its main application is in developing instruments (usually questionnaires with likert-style response formats) to measure a specific concept of research interest. rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research is a short book for social science researchers, written with the aim of encouraging them to use the rasch model in their own work by providing a brief introduction to the rasch measurement perspective, discussing some of the criticisms of the use of the rasch model, and illustrating how various kinds of research question can be approached within the rasch framework. the preface to the book warns readers that the aim of the book is “not to describe the models exhaustively nor to provide a step by step guide to their use”. the brevity of the book means that many of the issues it raises are europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ not dealt with as thoroughly as they should be for it to be useful to practitioners who already know the basics of rasch measurement. for readers without much of a quantitative background the text may well be too technical in places – terms like ‘sufficient statistics’, ‘principal components analysis’, ‘threshold estimates’ and ‘eigenvalue’ are used with little or no explanation. on the other hand, quantitative researchers familiar with statistical methods who know nothing of rasch or irtmay want to see more discussion of how rasch-based methods would compare and contrast with other methods they were familiar with for approaching the same kinds of research question. chapter 1 at 22 pages is the longest in the book, and is an introduction to the conceptual and practical issues of raschmeasurement. it draws quite heavily on other introductory textbooks. there is a good discussion of invariance and unidimensionality. other features of rasch models are also described, sometimes in a way which assumes a certain level of familiarity on the part of the reader. it is not emphasised clearly enough that some attractive properties of the rasch model only apply when the data fits the model. more discussion would have been helpful of what the implications of misfit are for interpretation of results, and what the implications of addressing misfit (e.g. by removing items) are for understanding the concept being measured. there are also several pitfalls for the unwary in the form of occasional mistakes, inaccuracies and oversimplifications. chapter 2 is drawn from an article published by the author and colleagues in the british journal of educational research, discussing some of the criticisms of the rasch model and giving counter-arguments, although the brevity of the chapter means that many of the details and subtleties of the arguments for both sides cannot be explored in depth. chapters 3 to 6 are based on other work of the author and colleagues, some of it published in this journal (i.e. europe’s journal of psychology). they illustrate the way that different types of analysis within the rasch framework can be used to address various problems of research interest, such as developing and refining a questionnaire, investigating unidimensionality, and investigating person misfit to the model. all the examples are interesting, but many will raise further questions in the mind of the reader which they will need to go elsewhere to answer more fully. chapter 7 shows how the number of citations of rasch-based articles has increased dramatically over the decades, and concludes with a summary of the basic principles and advantages of rasch models. before the list of references the author gives some book suggestions, with the good advice for novice and experienced researchers to start with applying the rasch model by bond & fox (2007). i would agree, and also think that enough good material is freely available online about the topics covered by the book reviewed here to make it a non-essential purchase. this book will be of most interest to those who are looking for examples and guidance relating to the analytical possibilities available within the rasch framework when developing and validating instruments for assessing concepts of the kind found in social science research. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 169–171 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.913 rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research 170 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the author tom bramley is the deputy director of cambridge assessment’s research division. his main areas of expertise are rasch measurement, and the psychometric issues associated with test development, standard setting, standard maintaining and comparability monitoring. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 169–171 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.913 bramley 171 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en rasch measurement in the social sciences and quality of life research (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments about the author investigating the role of humor in psychological health and well-being editorial investigating the role of humor in psychological health and well-being opening comments nicholas a. kuiper*a [a] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 408–411, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.809 published (vor): 2014-08-13. *corresponding author at: university of western ontario, department of psychology, westminster hall, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7. e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the role of humor in psychological health and well-being is the primary focus of this special issue of europe’s journal of psychology (ejop). it was approximately four years ago that the first special humor issue was published in ejop, highlighting humor research in both the personality and social psychology domains (kuiper, 2010). since that time, considerable additional research has been conducted on many different aspects of the construct of humor. one of these lines of research has considered how humor may play a role in psychological well-being and health. this line of work is reflected in the current special issue, which includes eleven original research studies on this topic, as well as an interview with a humor investigator who has conducted a number of studies on humor, health and psychological well-being. in addition, this special issue also provides a review of a recent book describing a theory of humor, coupled with comments on how this theory might then be applied to further investigations of humor, well-being and health. table 1 provides a brief summary of several key characteristics for each of the eleven research articles in this special humor issue. these include the nature of the humor construct that is being investigated, the sample employed, and the main issues under consideration. as shown in this table, these eleven studies encompass several different approaches to defining humor. several of these studies have conceptualized humor as an individual difference construct, with four different humor styles being evident. these include not only the more adaptive styles of humor, such as affiliative and self-enhancing humor; but also the more maladaptive styles, such as selfdefeating and aggressive humor. in addition, humor has been described in some of the present research studies by using a positive psychology approach that views humor as a character strength. further theoretical perspectives on the construct of humor are offered by additional studies in this special issue that emphasize humor as a coping technique for dealing with stressful events; or consider the interpersonal and relational aspects of humor, be they positive, negative, or instrumental. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 overview of research studies in the special humor issue of ejop (august 2014) main issues examinedsamplehumorinvestigators relationships between humor styles, ryff positive psychology dimensions and psychological high school and university students in italy sirigatti, penzo, giannetti, & stefanile affiliative humor self-enhancing humor well-being. initial use of humor styles questionnaire (hsq) in an italian context. aggressive humor self-defeating humor humorous coping vs. serious cognitive reappraisals in the regulation of positive and negative emotions. university students in the united states humorous copingsamson, glassco, lee, & gross relationships between humorous coping, self-worth contingencies, and set-backs in various personal domains. university students and a community sample in germany humorous coping & an incongruity theory of humor geisler & de assunção relationships between a good sense of humor, the maintenance of stable positive affect, and psychological well-being. university students in the united states self-enhancing humorcann & collette relationships between self-defeating humor, social competencies, motor skills, and bullying swedish health care workers in sweden self-defeating humorplenty, bejerot, & eriksson in childhood. initial use of hsq in swedish context. relationships between humor styles, intolerance of uncertainty and excessive worry in predicting generalized anxiety. university students in canada kuiper, klein, vertes, & maiolino affiliative humor self-defeating humor relationships between humor styles and positive psychology constructs of gratitude and savoring university students in canada maiolino & kuiper affiliative humor self-enhancing humor in predicting positive and negative indices of psychological well-being. aggressive humor self-defeating humor relationships between self-defeating humor, rumination, reflections, brooding and suicidal ideation. university students in the united states self-defeating humortucker, wingate, slish, o’keefe, cole, & hollingsworth comparing humor styles with a positive psychology humor scale in terms of predicting various positive psychology outcomes. university students in canada edwards & martin affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor values in action humor scale relational humor use and its impact on varying degrees of success in the resolution of conflicts in couples. heterosexual married couples in canada relational humor use (positive, negative, & instrumental) campbell & moroz relationships between humor, approach and avoidance motives, and happiness. community sample in the united states ford, mccreight, & richardson affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor these various ways of conceptualizing or defining humor are then explored in this special humor issue of ejop by examining a number of different issues that pertain to humor’s role in psychological well-being and health. as europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 408–411 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.809 kuiper 409 http://www.psychopen.eu/ shown in table 1, there are a wide variety of humor-related topics that are considered. these include a number of theoretical-empirical investigations of various links and relationships between humor research and positive psychology approaches to well-being, as well as work examining the role of humorous versus serious cognitive reappraisals in dealing effectively with stressful events. further topics examined in this special issue include the relationships between humor and bullying in childhood, humor and conflict resolution in couples, humor and the stability of positive affect, humor and generalized anxiety, humor’s role in rumination and suicidal ideation, the relationship between humor, coping and self-worth contingencies, and humor’s links with dispositional motives to approach and avoid. taken together, this collection of studies provides an intriguing view of contemporary research on the role of humor in psychological well-being and health. furthermore, this collection clearly elucidates several recent advancements in psychologically-based humor research that have become increasingly evident over the past few years. until fairly recently, many of the research studies on humor’s role in psychological well-being and health were primarily descriptive in nature, consisting of demonstrations that humor, either as an individual difference construct or a manipulation, could play some type of role in psychological well-being and health. much less was said, however, about exactly how humor might operate to either enhance or detract from psychological well-being and health. in other words, relatively little is yet known about the proposed theoretical mechanisms and processes that may account for humor’s impact on well-being and health, be it positive or negative. in contrast, the present set of studies moves to the next level of scientific explanation by more clearly detailing the various theoretical processes and mechanisms that may link various facets of the construct of humor to psychological health and well-being. in doing so, many of the studies in this special issue integrate relevant theoretical approaches and models from a wide variety of domains in psychology into the study of humor, well-being and health. these approaches and models cover such topics as positive psychology character strengths, gratitude and savoring, emotional regulation, resilience, social competencies and motor skills, intolerance of uncertainty and generalized anxiety, goal activation and shielding, self-worth contingencies, broaden and build approaches, a response style theory of rumination, interpersonal theories of suicide, and dispositional approach and avoidance motives. moreover, these advances in theoretical model-building have also been coupled with the use of more sophisticated data analytic techniques. in turn, these techniques provide for the more precise articulation and tests of possible causal pathways and underlying theoretical processes in humor research on psychological well-being and health. as represented in several of the studies in this special issue, these techniques include the use of multiple mediator models, structural equation modelling, and an actor-partner interdependence model to help explain humor’s potential role in health and well-being. in reading through the present set of articles, it should be kept in mind that that the intent of this special issue was not to provide the reader with an exhaustive overview of all of the current research that investigates the role of humor in psychological health and well-being. rather, the intent was to provide the reader with a snapshot of several different contemporary approaches that investigate the role of humor in this domain. as such, the topics covered in this special issue represent only a small portion of the increasing number of studies that now explore the role of humor in psychological well-being and health. it is hoped, however, that even this limited set of articles will provide the reader with an intriguing and fascinating journey through contemporary theoretical and empirical approaches to the investigation of humor, psychological health and well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 408–411 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.809 humor, psychological health and well-being 410 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references kuiper, n. a. (2010). introductory comments: special issue of ejop (august 2010) on humor research in personality and social psychology. europe's journal of psychology, 6(3), 1-8. doi:10.5964/ejop.v6i3.205 about the author dr. nicholas a. kuiper has been a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, selfschema processing of personal information, and other topics of interest. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 408–411 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.809 kuiper 411 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v6i3.205 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor, psychological health and well-being (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author treatment of dyslexia in a regular orthography: efficacy and efficiency (cost-effectiveness) comparison between home vs clinic-based treatments research reports treatment of dyslexia in a regular orthography: efficacy and efficiency (cost-effectiveness) comparisonbetweenhome vsclinic-based treatments patrizio e. tressoldi*a, francesca brembatib, roberta doninib, roberto iozzinoc, claudio viod [a]dipartimento di psicologia generale, università di padova, padua, italy. [b] studio abilmente, cassano d'adda, italy. [c]centro trattamento dislessia, disturbi cognitivi e del linguaggio, asl rm/a, rome, italy. [d] npi unit, asl 10, san donà di piave, italy. abstract the outcomes of three treatments for dyslexia, one clinic-based and two home-based, were compared using a quasi-experimental design for their efficacy and efficiency in improving accuracy and fluency in reading in a large sample of italian students. the efficacy comparison was based on gain scores in fluency and accuracy of reading texts, and lists of words and nonwords. the efficiency (cost-effectiveness) comparison was based on the ratio of gain scores to the number of hours of treatment. efficacy and efficiency measures yielded very different results. the efficacy comparison showed a clear superiority of the clinic-based treatment over home-based treatments. the efficiency comparison, on the other hand, showed the superiority of a home-based treatment. the importance of considering both efficacy and cost-effectiveness in any comparison of treatment outcomes is discussed within the framework of the dissemination of evidence-based treatments. keywords: treatment, dyslexia, efficacy, efficiency, cost-effectiveness europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 received: 2012-04-20. accepted: 2012-06-11. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: dipartimento psicologia generale, università di padova, via venezia 8, 35131 padova, italy, email: patrizio.tressoldi@unipd.it. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the aim of this study is to compare the efficacy and efficiency (cost-effectiveness) of two home-based versus one clinic-based treatment for developmental dyslexia. there is considerable evidence showing that specific interventions can improve reading in terms of accuracy and fluency for children with developmental dyslexia from both regular and less regular orthographies. the following references are only a sample of all studies carried out to date: bakker (2006), scammacca et al. (2007), tijms (2007), tressoldi, lorusso, brenbati, & donini (2008), wexler, vaughn, edmonds, & reutebuch (2008). very few studies however have added cost-effectiveness information to their efficacy analysis. as regards accuracy, torgesen et al. (2001) compared the results of an intervention that placed primary instructional emphasis on building skills in phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding (i.e., phonemes discrimination, spelling, etc.) and another intervention placing more emphasis on their application while reading meaningful text, with the results obtained in another six studies using similar training with students of the same ages. they compared gains in standard score points per hour of instruction for three measures of reading skills. the gains ranged from 0.30 to 2.57 for phonemic decoding, from 0.13 to 0.23 for word identification and from 0.12 to 1.7 for passage comprehension. these differences are not trivial, but were not discussed further by the authors. tijms (2007) obtained improvements in reading accuracy and fluency with effect sizes ranging from d = 0.81 to d = 1.49 in a sample of 140, 10 to14-year-old dutch children with reading and spelling difficulties who had been --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ receiving treatment for dyslexia for twelve to fifteen months. the treatment was computer-based and focused on learning to recognise and use the phonological and morphological structure of dutch words. the treatment consisted of several modules, each addressing specific links between phonological concepts and the writing system. a cost-effectiveness analysis revealed that the treatment produced a gain of 0.60 to 0.74 in standard score points (m = 100, sd = 15) per teacher hour. the importance of studying efficiency is crucial for the generalisation and wide implementation of empirically-supported treatments. for each unit of time, i.e., one hour, there is a corresponding economic cost in terms of charges to the national health service or educational economic resources and/or to customers. if the question “is this treatment effective with respect to....?” is answered positively, the natural corollary is to ask “how much does it cost with respect to ....?”(cambridge & knapp, 1997). two well-known factors that limit the dissemination of effective treatments are cost and treatment availability (higa & chorpita, 2008; henggeler, lee, & burns, 2002). customers and private or public insurers cannot pay, regardless of cost, even if the treatments concerned are proven to be efficient. increased cost-effectiveness would make treatments accessible to more individuals in need of assistance. patients would enjoy rapid treatment gains, and this would also improve the credibility of the treatment and increase the motivation for further change. the aim of this study is to compare efficiency in terms of cost-benefit analysis, among three treatments with previous evidence of efficacy in improving the accuracy and fluency of reading in a regular orthography. one of the treatments was clinic-based, that is, children received treatment at a centre run by professional speech therapists or psychologists. apart from the costs levied by the clinic, there were further costs, including travel expenses from the patient’s home to the clinic and non-monetary costs, such as the time necessary to travel from home to the clinic. the other two treatments were home-based. after assessment, participants and their parents or tutors were trained to implement the treatment activities at home. treatment integrity and treatment adjustments were monitored periodically, usually fortnightly to monthly, by the treatment supervisor. costs were clearly lower, because the number of treatment sessions on site was less. although there was a reduction in the number of treatment sessions directly delivered by experts (thus reducing associated costs), there was no guarantee that the same benefits were obtained when the treatment was implemented by parents or tutors who were not specialised in this field. this study is the first to be carried out in italy, but is potentially of interest to all those involved in the assessment of treatment efficiency in terms of cost-effectiveness. in sum, the principal aim of this study was to answer the question “in term of efficiency (cost-effectiveness), can home-based treatments obtain similar improvements in reading accuracy and fluency as clinic-based treatments?”. we sought to answer this question by first comparing efficacy, that is, differences (gains) from preto post-treatment and second efficiency, that is, the ratio of these gains to the hours of intervention, among three different treatments. method participants overall, 384 participants (258 males and 126 females) took part in this study. all were diagnosed as dyslexic by clinical psychologists or infant neurologists, according to dsm-iv recommendations, following an accurate examination of their reading speed and accuracy, if they achieved a total iq above 85 and after a discussion of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 376 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the consequences of this condition for their everyday lives, particularly at school (see instruments and procedure). to avoid the inclusion of participants who were simply at risk of being diagnosed as dyslexic, we selected participants attending the third to eighth grades, corresponding to a chronological age of eight to thirteen years old and consequently with a minimum of two years of regular schooling and reading instruction. all participants were born in italy and used italian as their first oral language. they were enrolled in the different treatment regimens according to their willingness to participate in the treatment offered by the participating clinics and the availability of opportunities for regular follow-up. given the geographical distance between the different clinical centres, it was impossible to assign participants randomly to the different treatment regimens. however clinical and demographic conditions at baseline were considered in the efficacy and efficiency comparison analysis (see results) with gain scores as the dependent variable covariated with gradei. the different treatments were offered by different clinical centres located in different parts of northern italy (two) and in the centre of italy (one) with comparable socio-economic conditions. instruments reading of all participants was assessed at baseline and after intervention with the following tasks: • text reading drawn from the mt battery (cornoldi, colpo, & gruppo, 1998) related to the grade of each participant. each participant was individually tested being required to read as fast and correct as possible, but also to comprehend a text ranging from 250 to 500 syllables for a maximum of four minutes. fluency (measured in syllable x sec) in reading the text and number of errors were collected. • reading of isolated words and nonwords, using the lists presented in the dde-2 battery (sartori, job, & tressoldi, 2007). each participant was individually tested being required to read as fast as correctly possible two lists of 28 high frequency words, two lists of 28 low frequency words and three lists of sixteen legal nonwords of different orthographic complexities. fluency (measured in syllable x sec) and number of errors were collected. all these instruments obtained good reliability (test-retest correlation above 0.85) and concurrent and predictive validity scores. iq was measured with the italian version of wisc-r or wisc-iii and compared with italian norms (orsini, 1993; orsini & picone, 2006). to be included in this study, a participant had to have a total iq above 85 to exclude participants with intellectual disabilities. iq was not included in the analysis because previous studies showed that iq did not predict the responsiveness of children to therapy (ferrer, shaywitz, holahan, marchione, & shaywitz, 2010; francis et al., 2005; jimenez et al., 2003; stuebing, barth, molfese, weiss, & fletcher, 2009). procedure all treatments were provided on a 1:1 basis. for all treatments, parents were informed about the requirements of participation in the treatment prior to children enrolment, i.e. the expected duration and treatment requirements, such as regular attendance at the clinic or daily training at home. it is important to note that all these treatments had been proven effective in previous studies (allamandri et al. 2007; tressoldi, lonciari, & vio, 2000; tressoldi, vio, & iozzino, 2007; tressoldi, lorusso, brenbati, & donini, 2008). in this sense, the present study may be considered a comparative efficiency (cost-effectiveness) study of treatments of proven efficacy. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 377 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the common theoretical framework of all three treatments was the simple view model (hoover & gough, 1990; joshi & aaron, 2000) and goswami’s development of reading model (goswami, 2008). common characteristics in the treatments, consisted of reading texts facilitating the identification of syllables, the sublexical units that are more consistent in regular orthographies (carreiras, alvarez, & devega 1993; carreiras & grainger, 2004), to build up orthographic representations of recurrent syllables to achieve faster, automatic direct word recognition. in italian, the correspondence between syllables and phonology approximates 99% regularity. for example, the syllable’pa’ is pronounced /pa/ in whichever word and position, as in patate (potatoes), scarpata (escarpment), or scarpa (shoe). the choice to present syllables within connected texts was justified by evidence that shows there is greater generalizability if words are presented in context than in lists. martin-chang and levy (2005), for example, showed that training words in context, as compared with training in isolation, led to the faster reading of those words when they were later encountered in a new context for both good and poor readers. treatments home-1 and home-2 both of these clinics, adopted home-based treatments. the minimal requirements were twofold: the availability of a computer with hardware characteristics sufficient to run the special software designed to promote fluency and accuracy of text reading (mainly winabc® or reader®ii) at home; the commitment to practice for at least ten minutes a day under the supervision of a tutor (usually a parent) for three months. exercises consisted mainly of reading text of different length, difficulty level, and content, to meet the child’s preferences. the software options facilitate the visual identification of each syllable (i.e. inserted in a box or coloured differently). for example, with the word “palazzo” (palace), the identification of the three syllables could be facilitated as follows: palazzo, palazzo, palazzo. the shift of the target syllable from left to right could be obtained at a self-paced speed, by pressing the space bar of the computer keyboard or automatically, setting the shift-time using the software options. the participant was invited to read the text accurately and as fast as he or she could, but still paying attention to its content. if the advancement of the target syllables was self-paced, the participant was invited to aim for the velocity goal defined by the therapist. if the syllable advancement was automatic, the participant was invited to maintain the fluency imposed by the computer. reading errors were registered by the tutor and used for subsequent feedback. when the child met the fluency goal with a percentage of errors below 3% of the number of words in the text, the treatment supervisor increased the velocity goal gradually, usually adding 0.2 syllables per second at each increment. to check treatment fidelity, parents or tutors of participants were requested to keep a diary of the type and amount of daily exercises and were monitored by experienced clinicians approximately every fifteen days by phone, email or direct interview. this enabled the clinicians to monitor the correct implementation of their recommendations, support parents, motivate participants to continue the treatment and change software parameters to improve accuracy and fluency when necessary. the two treatments differed only in the modality used to present the target syllables. in treatment home-1, the syllable was tackled at a self-paced rate, whereas in treatment home-2, it was presented at a fixed rate. this difference may have had important implications for the rapid identification of syllables and automatisation of their recognition (tressoldi, vio, & iozzino, 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 378 http://www.psychopen.eu/ treatment clinic differently from the home-1 and home-2 treatments, specific exercises were applied to reduce errors according to their position during text reading. for example, participants were trained to identify errors in the initial or final graphemes, or syllables, of words in texts when there were recurrent errors in this part of the word. when accuracy was considered sufficient, participants were trained in fluency, by means of the same special software designed to present text rather than isolated words used in the home-based treatments). participants attended two sessions a week, lasting approximately 45 minutes each, for approximately two months. results the descriptive statistics of the main variables that were identified at baseline assessments, are presented in table 1. table 1 means and standard deviations (in parenthesis) at baseline of main demographic and reading measures of participants of the three treatments. nonwords errorswords errorstext errors nonwords fluency (syll/sec) words fluency (syll/sec) text fluency (syll/sec)graden (m-f)treatment clinic (6.6)13.7(7.7)13.9(8.4)20.8(.38).96(.73)1.3(.66)1.65.1 (1.7)(175-29)202 home-1 (7.6)15.9(9.9)17.1(7.0)9.2(.27).72(.36).92(.45)1.1(1.1)3.1(63-13)76 home-2 (10.2)17.2(13.6)17.4(10)16.09(.25).65(.69)1.1(.65)1.3(1.7)4.6(87-19)106 for each treatment we registered the mean number of hours of effective intervention and the months of its duration. the ratio between hours and months gives an index of treatment intensity (ti), hours x months (see table 2). table 2 mean and standard deviation (in parenthesis) of hours, months and treatment intensity (ti) of each treatment timonthshourstreatment clinic (1.6)7.1(.8)1.8(4.0)11.8 home-1 (1.7)2.7(.7)1.9(2.8)5.0 home-2 (1.5)6.2(2.1)3.9(13.2)23.4 important differences in the treatment intensity are observed. these differences support the importance of comparing efficiency as well as efficacy among treatments. baseline comparison we report the clinical significance of the differences. for dyslexic children, a difference of at least 0.3 syllables/second (syll/sec) is considered clinically significant (tressoldi, stella, & faggella, 2001), which corresponds to the annual expected change in fluency reading of texts and isolated words. in addition, a difference of at least 0.15 syll/sec, is considered clinically significant in relation to reading nonwords without specific intervention. according to this criterion, participants in treatments home-1 and home-2 show lower fluency in reading text and participants in treatments home-1 show lower fluency in reading isolated words, whereas participants in treatment home-1 and home-2 are considered to be at the lower level of fluency in reading nonwords. for accuracy, we europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 379 http://www.psychopen.eu/ chose a difference of at least 20% to be clinically significant. the choice was based on the fact that this difference corresponds to a different level of accuracy severity according to italian normative data. with this criterion, participants in treatments clinic and home-2 show a lower accuracy in reading text, and participants in treatments home-1 and home-2 show a lower accuracy in reading words whereas no clinical differences are observed for nonwords. for the variable ‘grade’, participants in treatments home-1 were shown to be more than one school grade younger than participants in the two other treatments. outcome comparison among the three treatment approaches in order to take into account the differences at the baseline assessment, in relation to each reading task, text, words and nonwords, we calculated the gain scores weighted for grade (used as a covariate) and the corresponding confidence intervals of fluency expressed in syll/sec and accuracy, expressed as number of errors at outcome. it is important to remember that for regular orthographies such as german or italian, accuracy is not the main problem to be solved. children with dyslexia may read in a relatively correct fashion but their reading is characteristically slow and laborious (wimmer,1993; zoccolotti et al., 1999). from a clinical and practical point of view, it is more interesting to calculate the effect sizes of the comparisons between the outcomes obtained with the three treatments. we calculated the effect size d (cohen, 1988) and the improvement index (ii) as suggested by valentine and cooper (2003). effect size dwas calculated with the formula mt1-mt2/pooled sd, where mt1 andmt2 represents the means of the gain scores of the two groups being compared (morris, 2008). the improvement index (ii) represents the difference between the percentile rank corresponding to the intervention group mean, and the percentile rank, corresponding to the comparison group mean (that is, the 50th percentile) in the comparison group distribution. alternatively, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if the student had received the intervention. results of fluency are presented in figure 1 and results of accuracy are presented in figure 2 (results in tabular form are reported in the appendix). it is important to consider that not all participants to home-2 treatment were assessed for words and nonwords reading (see number in the appendix). although we report both accuracy and fluency treatment outcomes, it is important to remember that the more important are those related to fluency. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 380 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fluency outcomes figure 1. means of gain scores in fluency, expressed in syll/sec, obtained by the three treatments in reading text, words and nonwords. for text and word fluency treatment clinic obtained the best results with the following effect size differences with respect the other two treatments: for text fluency, the differences of clinic with treatment home-1 and home-2, are respectively d=1.17; ii= 38% and d=0.70; ii= 26%; for word fluency the differences of clinic with treatment home-1 and home-2, are respectively, d=0.80; ii= 29% and d=0.50; ii= 19%. for nonword fluency, treatment clinic obtained the best results. the differences of treatment clinic with home-1 and home-2, are respectively d=0.76; ii= 28%, d=0.32; ii= 13%. the superiority of treatment clinic confirms the importance of the quality of treatment. even if treatment intensity was identical to treatment home-2, an intervention delivered by an expert is clearly more tailored to the individual reading and personality needs of each child. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ accuracy outcomes figure 2. means of errors reduction obtained by the three treatments in reading text, words and nonwords. for text accuracy, treatment home-2 obtained the best results. the differences of treatment home-2 with treatments clinic and home-1, are respectively d=0.25; ii = 10% and d=0.62; ii = 23%. for words and nonwords accuracy all treatments reduced errors to the same amount. to summarise, treatment clinic, obtained the best results for fluency. for accuracy, differential efficacy among treatments was observed only in reading text where treatments home-2 obtained the best results. efficiency comparison the measure of efficiency is the relationship between amount of treatment and outcome results. to compare efficiency among treatments, we calculated the ratio between gain scores and hours of treatment. the choice between hours and months can be justified in economic terms because consumers pay per hour of treatment, irrespective of the ti. figure 3 show the mean gain of syll/seciii weighted for grade (used as covariate) x hour of intervention related to fluency, whereas figure 4 show the main gain of errors reduction x hour of intervention obtained by the different treatments. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 382 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fluency efficiency outcomes figure 3. means of gain scores expressed in syll/sec (*100) x hour of intervention related to fluency obtained by the three different treatments in reading text, words and nonwords. similarly to the efficacy comparisons, we calculated the effect size d and the improvement index (ii) for each statistically significant difference. for text fluency, treatment home-1 outperformed all other treatments with a difference with treatment clinic of d=0.57; ii = 22%, and a difference of d= 1.85; ii= 47%with home-2 treatment. almost identical results are observed for word fluency. the difference between treatment home-1 and treatment clinic is d=0.65; ii=24%, whereas the difference with home-2 treatments is d=1.2; ii=38%. for nonword fluency, treatment clinic outperformed with a small difference, treatments home-1 and home-2 corresponding to a d=0.30; ii= 12%. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 383 http://www.psychopen.eu/ accuracy efficiency outcomes figure 4. means of errors reduction x hour of intervention, obtained by the three different treatments in reading text, words and nonwords. for accuracy, treatment home-1 obtained the best outcomes in all three types of reading tasks. for text accuracy, the difference with treatment clinic is d=0.40; ii=16%, whereas the difference with home-2 is d=0.77; ii=28%. for word accuracy the difference of treatment home-1 with respect to the two other treatments equals to d=1.0; ii=34%, whereas the difference for nonword accuracy with respect to the two other treatments equals to d= 0.80; ii=29%. to summarize, treatment home-1 obtained the best results x hour of intervention in both fluency and accuracy in all three reading measures, followed by treatment clinic. discussion the comparisons of outcomes obtained with the different treatments changed dramatically depending on whether we used efficacy or efficiency measures. using efficacy measures, treatment clinic, obtained the best results. conversely, using efficiency measures, treatment home-1 obtained the best outcomes. the importance of considering efficacy parameters as well as efficiency (cost-effectiveness) parameters in comparisons of treatment regimens was corroborated by our results. using efficacy parameters, the clinic-based treatments, showed the best outcomes in relation to the improvement of reading fluency with respect to other treatments with an average improvement index difference of 23% in fluency. the superiority of the clinic-based treatment over home-based treatments is expected if we consider that every treatment session is delivered by a professional at a ratio of 1:1. when we divide the gains in accuracy and fluency measured at the end of treatment by the number of hours of treatment employed, a different picture emerges. with respect to the clinic-based treatments, treatment home-1 obtained an average improvement index difference in fluency and accuracy of 11% of 26% respectively. with respect to treatment home-2, the average improvement index difference of treatment home-1 was 35% and 30% europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 384 http://www.psychopen.eu/ respectively for fluency and accuracy. for text reading, treatment home-1 obtained an average gain of 0.094 syllables per second and an average of 0.7 error reduction x hour of treatment. the superiority of treatment home-1 over treatment home-2, can partially be explained by the differences in the training characteristics, for example the modality used to present the target syllables, self-paced versus fixed rate respectively. this is an important topic to study, but at present there is insufficient evidence to support the superiority of one of these modalities. however, even if this difference may have contributed to the outcomes, we cannot exclude the possibility that other variables, such as individual differences in reading level, motivation, etc., contributed to the differences in outcomes. if we assume that each hour of treatment will obtain similar outcomesiv, we can estimate that the clinic-based treatments and treatment home-2 need respectively approximately half an hour (0.094/0.069) and three and a half hours (0.094/0.025) more to obtain the fluency results in reading texts obtained with treatment home-1 and approximately half an hour (0.7/0.45) and two hours (0.7/0.38) more respectively to obtain the accuracy results achieved in treatment home-1. from these simple comparisons which can be extended to the outcomes related to words and nonwords, the differences in cost-effectiveness among treatments are quite apparent. the data observed in this study cannot be generalised to other treatments. we believe however, that we have presented sufficient reason to support the importance of complementing efficacy comparisons with efficiency comparisons. efficiency (cost-effectiveness) measures are the basis for any economic decision, both at a governmental level and at a private level and efficiency measures are fundamental to the successful dissemination of previously proven effective treatments. this approach is emphasized by different authors (i.e. duncan & magnuson, 2007; ludwig & phillips, 2007). for example duncan and magnuson state: although effect sizes can help standardize (and compare) results and ensure that statistical significance will not be the sole arbiter of meaningful effects, we argue that they provide incomplete and at times misleading guidance to policymakers. a cost–benefit approach is more useful because evidence-based policy decisions must compare the value of a program’s effects with the costs incurred in achieving them. an inexpensive program that produces small but economically valuable outcomes may make for good policy, whereas a very expensive program that produces larger but not proportionately larger effects may not (duncan, & magnuson, 2007, p. 46). given the feasibility of home-based treatments, clinicians should devise means of training parents, teachers and/or educators to deliver trainings with a sufficient standard of quality to achieve the best possible outcome for every dyslexic child. limitations and future research if we compare our experimental design with those recommended by the what works clearinghouse (wwc), namely (a) the use of random assignment, (b) evidence of the use of a check of fidelity of treatment, and (c) the use of standardised measurement, we see that our experimental design suffers from the lack of random assignment of participants to the three treatments. the justification for this lack of random assignment was presented in the participants section and we consider that the use of gain scores covariate with grade may sufficiently have taken into account the differences observed at baseline although we hope to replicate this study using the recommended random assignment of participants. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we hope that further comparative studies of reading interventions from different countries will analyse the outcomes observed not only in terms of efficacy but also in terms of cost-effectiveness. acknowledgments we thank the reviewers for their accurate revision and precise suggestions to improve the quality of the paper. we also thank the proof reading services for english revision. notes i) this choice was preferred to a mancova because we are more interested in the question of “whether the two groups differ in terms of their mean change" whereas mancova addresses the question of “whether an individual belonging to one group is expected to change more (or less) than an individual belonging to the other group, given that they have the same baseline response" (fitzmaurice, laird, & ware, 2004, p. 124. (more detailed arguments may be found here: http://www.ori.org/~keiths/files/tips/stats_gainscores.html) ii) winabc® www.impararegiocando.it; reader® www.ariee.it/reader.htm iii) multiplied for 100 to facilitate their representation. iv) this assumption must clearly be demonstrated, but it is used here for a simple simulation of cost-effectiveness comparison between treatments. references allamandri, v., brenbati, f., donini, r., iozzino, r., ripamonti, i. r., vio, c., ... tressoldi, p. e. (2007). trattamento della dislessia evolutiva: un confronto multicentrico di efficacia ed efficienza. [treatment of developmental dyslexia: a multicentric efficacy and efficiency comparison]. dislessia, 4(2), 143-162. bakker, d. j. (2006). treatment of developmental dyslexia: a review. pediatric rehabilitation, 9, 3-13. cambridge, p., & knapp, m. 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(1999). markers of developmental surface dyslexia in a language (italian) with high grapheme-phoneme correspondence. applied psycholinguistics, 20, 191-216. doi:10.1017/s0142716499002027 appendix efficancy results (syll x sec.gain scores) in tabular form. 95% confidence interval for mean std. errorstd. deviationmeanntreatment upper boundlower bound text fluency 202clinic .793.696.024.34.75 76home-1 .442.281.035.31.36 106home-2 .582.450.028.30.52 words fluency 202clinic .559.473.021.30.52 76home-1 .359.216.028.25.29 37home-2 .472.277.047.29.37 nonwords fluency 199clinic .35.28.017.25.31 76home-1 .15.06.023.20.13 16home-2 .34.08.060.24.23 text accuracy 202clinic .06.04.436.26.05 76home-1 .93.508.836.37.22 106home-2 .98.1066.906.39.57 words accuracy 202clinic .56.54.471.76.65 76home-1 .66.2943.851.47.05 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 388 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002221940003300305 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002221940103400503 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00222194070400030201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dys.359 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-007-9085-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716400010122 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716499002027 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 95% confidence interval for mean std. errorstd. deviationmeanntreatment upper boundlower bound 37home-2 .57.597.62.710.14 nonwords accuracy 199clinic .135.533.381.45.34 76home-1 .376.753.627.55.15 16home-2 .207.711.391.65.54 efficiency (cost effectiveness) results (syll x sec gain scores x 100 hour of treatment) in tabular form 95% confidence interval for mean std. errorstd. deviationmeantreatment upper boundlower bound text fluency clinic .3877.4536.267.04.96 home-1 .48410.4058.574.75.49 home-2 .1633.8881.931.61.52 words fluency clinic .3515.2614.277.73.84 home-1 .1199.7556.596.28.97 home-2 .1963.695.966.41.91 nonwords fluency 3.396clinic .4622.232.62.92 home-1 .7802.726.501.47.81 home-2 .0243.216-.811.41.41 text accuracy clinic .524.374.038.5.45 home-1 .863.539.083.01.70 home-2 .482.277.134.5.38 words accuracy clinic .609.323.073.6.47 home-1 .0822.4621.157.62.771 home-2 .625.375-.254.6.13 nonwords accuracy clinic .521.211.078.5.37 home-1 .9181.2501.168.92.581 home-2 .769.306-.272.3.23 about the authors patrizio e. tressoldi is full time researcher at the dipartimento di psicologia generale of padova university, italy. francesca brembati is a clinical psychologist at the studio abilmente in cassano d’adda, milano, italy. roberta donini is a clinical psychologist at the studio abilmente in cassano d’adda, milano, italy. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 tressoldi, brembati, donini et al. 389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ roberto iozzino is a clinical psychologist at the centro trattamento dislessia, disturbi cognitivi e del linguaggio, asl rm/a, roma, italy. claudio vio is a clinical psychologist at the npi unit, of asl 10 in san donà di piave, italy. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 375–390 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.442 home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison 390 http://www.psychopen.eu/ home vs clinic treatments efficacy and efficiency comparison method participants instruments procedure treatments home-1 and home-2 treatment clinic results baseline comparison outcome comparison among the three treatment approaches fluency outcomes accuracy outcomes efficiency comparison fluency efficiency outcomes accuracy efficiency outcomes discussion limitations and future research acknowledgments notes references appendix about the authors a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 207–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.411 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 outcomes assessment in cancer: measures, methods and applications paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejop's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf music to our ears: interview with victoria williamson interview music to our ears: interview with victoria williamson rhian worth*a, victoria williamsonb a bangor university, bangor, uk. b department of psychology, goldsmiths, university of london, london, uk. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 217–221, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.454 received: 2012-05-05. accepted: 2012-05-07. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: rhian.worth@hotmail.co.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. rhian worth: how did you start working on memory? victoria williamson: my interest in memory began when i was a psychology undergraduate at the university of york (uk). in my third year i attended a module called ‘practical applications of the psychology of memory’, which was taught by profs. alan baddeley and graham hitch. i was fascinated right from the start. the course focused equally on expert memory and memory disorders, and built on the basic understanding of memory cognition that we had built up in our first two years of the psychology degree. i was surprised and heartened by the patient studies as well as being intrigued by the possibilities seen in expert memory performance. my interest in memory continued after i began a masters degree in the psychology of music (ma) at the university of sheffield. i was keen to learn more about how professional musicians learn to use their memory and began to be intrigued by the question of whether they developed specialised memory systems as a result of their extreme training. while at sheffield i had a lecture on music and short-term memory by prof. eric clarke (currently at oxford). he presented a diagram from a publication by berz (1995) which postulated an additional loop within the working memory model – a musical loop. i took this image back to york to show to alan baddeley and i remember his reaction quite clearly. he smiled, looked at me and said ‘looks like a good idea for a phd if you are interested’. i was. i applied and was accepted for a phd to study the role of music in the working memory model. rhian worth:what projects have you been involved with in the past and what kinds of findings have you had? victoria williamson: for my phd work i chose to study the working memory model as an empirical framework and adapted traditional short-term verbal memory paradigms to the musical domain in order to compare processing of verbal and tonal sequences. i built a new type of serial recall paradigm for musical and verbal sounds that can be used by musicians and non-musicians, which we called the recall matrix. we used the matrix to compare --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ immediate serial recall of verbal and tonal sequences under conditions of phonological similarity (and its musical equivalent, pitch proximity) (williamson, baddeley, & hitch, 2010a), articulatory suppression and irrelevant sound. victoria williamson is a lecture and co-director on themsc in music, mind and brain at goldsmiths, university of london. following completing her phd with professors alan baddeley and graham hitch at university of york looking at the role of music in the working memory model, victoria was awarded an esrc fellowship and moved to goldmiths, university of london. victoria’s current research includes the fascinating earworm project, whilst previous research has included looking at congenital amusia, and music and driving. in this interview victoria discusses past and present research, main directions in current research and an insight into victoria’s sources of inspiration in her career. correspondence: victoria williamson, department of psychology, goldsmiths, university of london, new cross, london, se14 6nw. email:v.williamson@gold.ac.uk to summarise the outcome of all the findings, i postulated that there was likely to be strong overlap in the subvocal rehearsal processing that was necessary to refresh both verbal and tonal sounds in memory but more distinct storage mechanisms, especially in musicians. this theory has found support from recent neuroimaging work by katrin schulze (schulze, mueller, & koelsch, 2011a; schulze, zysset, mueller, friederici, & koelsch, 2011b) after i finished my phd i began a postdoctoral fellowship investigating short-term memory ability in individuals with congenital amusia (tone deafness). i found that these special individuals had increased decay in their short-term memory for single absolute pitch sounds compared to matched controls (williamson et al., 2010b) and significantly smaller tone sequence spans (but comparable verbal sequence spans; williamson & stewart, 2010 and visuo-spatial memory; williamson, cocchini, & stewart, 2011). in short, these individuals appear to exhibit a tone specific memory difficulty. rhian worth:what are you working on at the moment? victoria williamson: at the moment i am working on an interesting form of involuntary memory that is specific to musical imagery: we call them ‘earworms’. an earworm (or involuntary musical imagery) is a short snippet of music that comes unbidden into the mind and then repeats outside the will of conscious control. not much work has been done on this phenomenon apart from questionnaire studies that have established its prevalence in everyday life (e.g. beaman & williams, 2010; halpern & bartlett, 2011; liikkanen, 2012). we have been collecting thousands of earworm stories in collaboration with the bbc, and the radio station 6music in particular. our initial analysis has documented the situational antecedents of earworms and revealed an important role for general involuntary memory processes in the experience (williamson et al., 2012). at the time of writing we are completing two further studies that explore the links between individual differences and earworm characteristics (frequency, length and control) and the musical structure of earworm tunes as compared to matched control tunes. rhian worth:what do you hope these findings will achieve and/or practical application of the findings? victoriawilliamson: earworms are so ubiquitous and prevalent in everyday life that i believe there is real practical application in understanding more about their aetiology and how we might control them. thinking a little wider europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 217–221 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.454 music to our ears 218 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, there are also interesting potential applications for learning. wouldn’t it be great if we could recall useful knowledge as easily as an earworm! i hope that by learning more about why and how these tunes get stuck in our heads we can extrapolate information that will help us build learning materials that are more easily encoded and/or recalled. this is nothing new in theory of course; i still recall with ease the song i was taught in order to learn my alphabet. but there is big potential to improve understanding of this practice once we have a more systematic understanding of why tunes come so easily to mind. rhian worth: you recently spoke on the bbc about some of your work: how important is it to be able to talk your work like this in terms of research and findings? victoria williamson: i have benefited hugely from my interactions with the media, which you can see by visiting my educational blog at musicpsychology.co.uk. journalists are extremely busy people of course, but they have also been very helpful to me in terms of gathering data and disseminating the results of our work. i received some very useful free training in media interaction from the science media centre in london and i would recommend that any early career researcher invests time in similar professional development activities. both the traditional media and digital/social media can add a whole new dimension to research, as they give you a direct line to the general public. rhian worth:what is your opinion about the state of affairs in the psychology of memory and current research: what are the main directions? victoria williamson: the psychology of memory is such a critically important field and one that contributes in numerous ways to other new and emerging fields, including music psychology. i am glad that students are still taught about the history of the discipline as i think this factor is crucial to understanding how and why we have come to the present state of affairs in memory research. and although neuroscience has provided fascinating insights i am glad that memory is still one of the fields of psychology that is strongly anchored in the traditional of behavioural work. of all the future directions, i am personally most excited by involuntary memory phenomena, including recent interest in involuntary autobiographical memory (berntsen, 2009) and semantic memory (kvavilashvili & mandler, 2004), which has followed on from research into mind wandering and the activity of the ‘resting state brain’. i think there will be many new interesting insights to come from this area in the next few years. rhian worth: is there any advice you would have for people who want to study memory, memory and music and teach memory? victoria williamson: number one, read the classic literature. follow the trail of how research in your field of memory developed when you first begin a project, in order to give you the best understanding of where you could or should go in the future. if you want to study music and memory, then my best advice is talk to musicians. their descriptions of their memory techniques are fascinating and have no doubt inspired a great deal of research in the past. my second piece of advice is to tread carefully. years ago i had the idea it would be fairly straight forward to adapt classic verbal short-term memory tests to musical stimuli, but there were so many different variables that i had to consider, that in the end it took nearly a year to come up with a decent design. music is not a language, and it is a mistake to treat it as just a series of notes in the same way that one can treat verbal material as a sequence of consonants. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 217–221 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.454 worth & williamson 219 http://www.psychopen.eu/ teaching memory must be one of the most fun jobs in the business. there are so many great examples that you can use; case studies, patient histories and real world applications. give your lessons relevance and impact by placing memory in the context of everyday life. rhian worth:who has been a source of inspiration for you this far in your career? victoria williamson: i have found many sources of inspiration from the wonderful colleagues that i have studied alongside and worked with over the past few years. when you work in an interdisciplinary context there is an even wider scope to learn from individuals who come from very different academic worlds. my current research manager, dr lauren stewart, is my guiding light as i navigate the choppy waters of early career research. but without a doubt, my main career inspirations were, and always will be, professors alan baddeley and graham hitch. 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(2011a). neural correlates of strategy use during auditory working memory in musicians and non-musicians. the european journal of neuroscience, 33, 189-196. doi:10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07470.x schulze, k., zysset, s., mueller, k., friederici, a. d., & koelsch, s. (2011b). neuroarchitecture of verbal and tonal working memory in nonmusicians and musicians. human brain mapping, 32, 771-783. doi:10.1002/hbm.21060 williamson, v. j., jilka, s. r., fry, j., finkel, s., mullensiefen, d., & stewart, l. (2012). how do earworms start? classifying the everyday circumstances of involuntary musical imagery. psychology of music, 40(3), 259-284. doi:10.1177/0305735611418553 williamson, v. j., baddeley, a., & hitch, g. j. (2010a). musicians’ and nonmusicians’ short-termmemory for verbal and musical sequences: comparing phonological similarity and pitch proximity. 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(2011). the relationship between pitch and space in congenital amusia. brain and cognition, 76(1), 70-76. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2011.02.016 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 217–221 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.454 music to our ears 220 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712609x479636 http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/mp.2011.28.4.425 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-0285(03)00115-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0305735611406578 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07470.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hbm.21060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0305735611418553 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/mc.38.2.163 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/v10053-008-0073-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2011.02.016 http://www.psychopen.eu/ williamson, v. j., & stewart, l. (2010). memory for pitch in congenital amusia: beyond a fine-grained pitch perception problem. memory (hove, england), 18(6), 657-669. doi:10.1080/09658211.2010.501339 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 217–221 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.454 worth & williamson 221 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2010.501339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ music to our ears references microsoft word international conference on education and educational psychology.doc international conference on education and educational psychology kyrenia, cyprus 2 5 december 2010 the international conference on education and educational psychology [iceepsy] 2010, sponsored by the cyprus consciousness, achievement and futurity association, will be held 2-5 december 2010 in kyrenia on the island of cyprus. the iceepsy 2010 aims to provide an opportunity for academicians, practitioners, and professionals from education and educational psychology with crossdisciplinary interests to bridge the knowledge gap, promote research esteem and the evolution of pedagogy. the iceepsy 2010 also aims to promote effective practices in education and educational psychology as well as collaboration among academicians, practitioners, and professionals from education and psychology fields. the iceepsy 2010 will include added features such as preconference training sessions, workshops, poster presentations, and special interest group (sig) symposiums. the iceepsy is focused at researchers, academicians, teachers, trainers, parents, and leaders from non-governmental organizations throughout the world. leading experts from the united states of america and the united kingdom have already confirmed their participation. visit the website for more information http://www.iceepsy.org/ self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment research reports self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment claude bélanger*abcd, marie-france di schiavie, stéphane sabourindf, caroline dugalad, ghassan el baalbakiab, yvan lussierdg [a] university of québec at montréal, montréal, canada. [b] mcgill university, montréal, canada. [c] douglas hospital research center, montréal, canada. [d] centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les problèmes conjugaux et les agressions sexuelles (cripcas), montréal, canada. [e] university of montréal, montréal, canada. [f] laval university, québec, canada. [g] university of québec in trois-rivières, trois-rivières, canada. abstract the main objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between self-esteem, specific coping strategies and marital adjustment. the sample consists of 216 subjects from 108 couples who completed the dyadic adjustment scale, the rosenberg self-esteem scale and the ways of coping checklist. the results confirm the presence of a relationship between self-esteem, specific coping strategies and marital adjustment in men and women. high self-esteem and marital adjustment are associated with the use of problem solving strategies and less avoidance as a way of coping. moreover, cross analyses reveal that one’s feelings of self-worth are associated with his/her spouse's marital adjustment. the theoretical implications of these results are discussed. keywords: self-esteem, coping strategies, marital adjustment europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 received: 2014-05-10. accepted: 2014-08-08. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of québec in montréal, cp 8888, succ. centre-ville, montréal, qc, canada, h3c 3p8. e-mail: belanger.claude@uqam.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction for some years now, researchers have been studying marital relationships and their importance for the well-being of individuals. much energy is being devoted to trying to determine which factors are at play in well-adjusted relationships between husbands and wives. concepts such as coping styles, attributions, locus of control and others are often reported to be associated with dyadic adjustment. recent studies have also explored stable personality traits such as self-esteem (erol & orth, 2013; howard, 2000; kwon, 2001; lippes, 1999; sciangula &morry, 2009), the big 5 personality traits (claxton, o’rourke, smith, & delongis, 2012; dasgupta &mazumder, 2012), affectivity (watson, hubbard, &wiese, 2000), and temperament (blum &mehrabian, 1999) and their role in marital satisfaction. following this perspective, it would be interesting to explore the relationship between self-esteem, situationspecific coping strategies and their contribution to marital adjustment. an individual’s coping style is a variable that is known to affect marital adjustment (bodenmann & cina, 2006). coping refers to the cognitions and behaviors used by individuals to manage internal and external demands that europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ exceed their psychological resources (lazarus & folkman, 1984). coping strategies can be differentiated on the basis of whether an individual attempts to engage with or avoid a stressor (kraemer, stanton, meyerowitz, rowland, & ganz, 2011). for example, approach-oriented coping includes attempts to solve problems and to understand or express stressor-related emotions, whereas avoidance-oriented coping involves cognitive and behavioral attempts to minimize the threat (kraemer et al., 2011). according to bodenmann (2010), stress is known to increase the likelihood of arguments and divorce and to decrease relationship quality. it is also known that individuals are influenced by their partner’s coping strategies (kraemer et al., 2011). for example, a stressed partner may bring his or her concerns home, which is likely to have a negative impact on the other partner (bodenmann, 2005). on the other hand, certain coping strategies may alleviate the harmful effects of stress on close relationships (bodenmann, 2010). therefore, marital relationships provide a unique opportunity for researchers to study coping efforts within the context of an intimate relationship where conflicts arise and must be handled. some studies have found that certain coping strategies are associated with particular levels of dyadic adjustment. for example, the literature demonstrates that withdrawalor avoidanceoriented coping strategies are important predictors of marital dissatisfaction. on the other hand, approach-oriented coping strategies such as seeking social support, emotional expression and problem-solving capacities are related to marital satisfaction (berghuis & stanton, 2002; kraemer et al., 2011). while studying coping strategies in close relationships, bélanger, sabourin, and el-baalbaki (2012) found that for women, positive comparisons and negotiation are positively associated with marital adjustment whereas emotional discharges, resignation, and selective ignoring are negatively correlated with marital adjustment. for men, positive comparisons and negotiation are also positively correlated with marital adjustment but selective ignoring is negatively related to marital adjustment. researchers have also found that emotion-focused coping strategies are negatively related to marital satisfaction and that task-focused coping is positively related to marital adjustment (bodenmann & shantinath, 2004). these results are supported by berghuis and stanton (2002), who found that women benefit from their partner’s problemfocused coping and that men’s distress is associated with avoidance by their female partners. in other words, marital satisfaction is influenced by how both partners cope when faced with difficult situations. in their longitudinal study, bodenmann and cina (2006) proposed that couples who display self-blaming and a lack of active problem solving are more likely to show distress than those who use positive coping strategies. couples who use positive coping strategies tend to communicate more effectively and show greater marital satisfaction than couples who use negative coping strategies such as blaming, avoidance and passivity. researchers have also found that denial, negative self-verbalization, withdrawal, drug abuse and violence are negative coping strategies related to marital dissatisfaction. on the contrary, optimism, positive self-verbalization and reframing of the situation are functional coping behaviors related to higher marital satisfaction (bodenmann & cina, 2006). in a study examining coping strategies in romantic relationships with unfulfilled standards, alexander (2008) discovered that relationship satisfaction is related to punishing and self-disparaging coping strategies. individuals with higher levels of marital satisfaction were less likely to endorse coping strategies such as making their partners feel guilty, reprimanding their partner, withdrawal or threatening detrimental consequences if the problem were to continue. the preceding studies all point toward the fact that regardless of the measures used, coping efforts and marital adjustment are related. coping skills are also found to be associated with self-esteem. rosenberg (1985) defines self-esteem as the capacity for acceptance, tolerance, self-respect and personal satisfaction with regards to one's self while excluding feelings of superiority and perfection. although self-esteem and coping are related, the exact nature of their relationship is unclear. for example, can self-esteem be viewed as a stable personality trait that influences how indieurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 bélanger, di schiavi, sabourin et al. 661 http://www.psychopen.eu/ viduals cope with everyday life, or can we assume that our choice of coping efforts will determine our feelings of self-worth? research has not answered these questions, but it seems clear that different levels of self-esteem are associated with different coping responses. for instance, high self-esteem is associated with the use of more adaptive coping behaviors such as problem-focused efforts to manage stress (smedema, catalano, & ebener, 2010), proactive coping skills (koivula, hassmén, & fallby, 2002), and less avoidance as a way of coping (doron, thomas-ollivier, vachon, & fortes-bourbousson, 2013). lower levels of self-esteem are related to emotion-focused coping strategies (boyes & french, 2009; marshall, cripps, anderson, & cortoni, 1999; sándor & monika, 2013) such as rumination, self-blame (muller & spitz, 2003) and avoidance (doron et al., 2013; lodge & feldman, 2007; riley, dennis, & powell, 2010). smedema and her colleagues (2010) have discovered that among people with spinal cord injury, the use of a negative coping style such as dysfunctional attitudes and catastrophizing is related to a decreased sense of self-worth, whereas a proactive coping style and humor were found to increase feelings of self-worth. according to this study, positive coping appears to positively influence subjective well-being by first increasing feelings of self-worth. others have also reported a significant positive association between self-esteem and proactive coping strategies (doron et al., 2013; griva & anagnostopoulos, 2010; muller & spitz, 2003). these results suggest that strong feelings of self-worth enhance a person’s ability to engage in proactive coping. as shown above, self-esteem and coping efforts are often found to be associated in studies using a wide variety of populations (child molesters, athletes, adolescents, ostracized individuals, etc.). it would be interesting to determine whether the relationship between these two variables is also present when marital relationships are considered. the role of self-esteem and its possible relationship with dyadic adjustment has been given very little attention. when studying actor and partner effects of self-esteem on relationship satisfaction, erol and orth (2013) noted that self-esteem predicted relational satisfaction for both partners. a few researchers also report similar findings in whichmarital satisfaction is positively related to self-esteem (howard, 2000; kwon, 2001; lippes, 1999). research then suggests that self-esteem predicts higher marital satisfaction (sciangula & morry, 2009). the preceding studies show that coping efforts are found to be associated with self-esteem andmarital satisfaction. there also seems to be a possible relationship between self-esteem and dyadic adjustment, which has not been given much attention. to our knowledge, very few studies have investigated these variables and their relationships. domenico and windle (1993) studied female adult children of alcoholics (acoas) with regard to intraand interpersonal functioning. they reported lower levels of self-esteem and lower marital satisfaction in female acoas compared to female non-acoas. female acoas also used less problem-solving and more coping motives for drinking. in this study, low levels of self-esteem were associated with low marital satisfaction and ineffective coping. higgins, bailey, & pearce (2005) conducted a survey of caregivers of a child with an autism spectrum disorder (asd) to examine the relationship between asd characteristics, family functioning and coping strategies. these caregivers reported healthy self-esteem and lower marital satisfaction. however, coping strategies were not found to predict these variables. the authors suggest the homogeneity of the sample and the specificity of the measure as possible explanations for these results that contradict those of other studies on coping with chronic illnesses. it would be interesting to determine whether the results of these studies can be generalized to a heterosexual population using standardized measures. following this perspective, the primary objective of the present research is to investigate the relationship between self-esteem, coping efforts and their respective contribution to marital adjustment. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment 662 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses: it is hypothesized that self-esteem will be related to marital adjustment. self-esteem will also be associated with the use of specific coping strategies, and these coping efforts will be related to dyadic adjustment. method participants a total of 216 people from 108 couples with an average score of 108 (sd = 16.89) on the dyadic adjustment scale participated in this research project. the couples are all french-speaking and have been living together for a minimum of 2 years prior to participating in this research. the mean period of cohabitation is 11.8 years (sd = 7.74). each couple has an average of 1.67 children. the women have a mean age of 36.65 years (sd = 7.60), whereas the mean average of the men is 39.01 years (sd = 7.93). mean years of schooling for both men and women are very similar, 13.91 years (sd = 2.97) and 13.55 years (sd = 2.69), respectively. finally, the average family annual income is €22,553 (sd = €15,685). procedure questionnaires were mailed to couples alongside a letter, which mentioned that the results as well as brief interviews explaining the results were offered to those who choose to participate. the documentation included a consent form, a questionnaire pertaining to demographic information and, among others, french translations of the das, rse and ways of coping scales. measures a french validated version (baillargeon, dubois, & marineau, 1986) of the dyadic adjustment scale (das) (spanier, 1976) was used to measure the degree of marital adjustment. the questionnaire comprises 32 items, which yield an overall score ranging from 0 to 151. a high score indicates a high degree of marital adjustment. the instrument's validity and reliability in its original english version (spanier, 1976) (alpha ranges from .72 to .85) as well as in its french translated version (baillargeon et al., 1986) (alpha ranges from .82 to .91) have been shown to be high. the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rse) (rosenberg, 1965) was used to measure self-assessment attitudes. the scale consists of 10 items, which offer four possible answer choices on a likert-type scale. a total score ranging from 10 to 40 is possible. higher scores indicate higher levels of self-esteem. the rse has displayed good reliability and discriminant validity (harter, 1983; wylie, 1974). in addition, preliminary results have demonstrated that the french translation of the rse (vallières & vallerand, 1990) displays internal consistency (alpha ranges from .70 to .89), construct validity and temporal stability (test-retest correlation r = 0.84, p < 0.001). internal consistency was also demonstrated by the results of the present study (alpha is .85). theways of coping scale (revised) was developed by lazarus and folkman (1984) to evaluate coping strategies used by individuals to address specific conflicts. the questionnaire contains 67 items, which measure eight different coping strategies (confrontive coping, distancing, self-control, seeking social support, escape-avoidance, planful problem-solving, positive reappraisal, and accepting responsibility) (folkman, lazarus, dunkel-schetter, delongis, & gruen, 1986). a french translated version of the instrument was used and proved to be reliable (alpha ranges from .58 to .83). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 bélanger, di schiavi, sabourin et al. 663 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results self-esteem and marital adjustment correlational analyses were conducted to study the relationships between all three variables. correlation matrices presented in table 1 show that for both men (r = .36, p < .01) and women (r = .33, p < .01) there is a significant relationship between self-esteem and marital adjustment. higher scores on the self-esteem scale tend to indicate a higher level of dyadic adjustment. further cross analyses were performed, where correlations between women's self-esteem scores and men's marital adjustment scores were verified and vice versa. these analyses reveal that self-esteem in women is significantly related to adjustment scores in men (r = .21, p < .05), whereas feelings of self-worth in men are associated with women's marital adjustment (r = .32, p < .01). self-esteem and coping strategies table 1 shows that self-esteem is significantly related to certain coping strategies for both men and women. women with higher self-esteem tend to take less responsibility for problems (r = -.27, p < .01) and do not avoid problems (r = -.34, p < .01). self-esteem for women is also associated with the use of problem solving strategies (r = .19, p < .01). for men, higher self-esteem scores are associated with the use of problem solving strategies (r = .32, p < .01) as well as a tendency to re-evaluate problematic situations (r = .22, p < .05). men whose scores on the rse are high do not tend to avoid problems (r = -.41, p < .01). coping and marital adjustment as shown in table 1, certain coping strategies are found to be related to marital adjustment for men and women. women who tend to avoid problems (r = -.38, p < .01) or to distance themselves from problems (r = -.22, p < .01) seem to experience less marital adjustment. women who directly confront their difficulties (r = -.27, p < .01) or who seek out support from their peers (r = -.28, p < .01) also tend to demonstrate a lower level of dyadic adjustment. cross analysis further reveals that avoidance in women is related to adjustment scores in men (r = -.20, p < .05). that is, women who use escape-avoidance as a way of coping have husbands who tend to express lower levels of marital adjustment. for men, greater marital adjustment is expressed by those who tend to use more problem solving strategies (r = .20, p < .01) as well as those who re-evaluate conflictual situations (r = .23, p < .01). on the other hand, men who avoid problems show less marital adjustment (r = -.32, p < .01). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment 664 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 c or re la tio ns b et w ee n s el f-e st ee m ,c op in g e ffo rts an d d ya di c a dj us tm en ts co re s fo rb ot h m en an d w om en sd m 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 m ea su re 1. d ya di c ad ju st m en ts co re s (1 7. 39 ) 16 .4 8 (1 08 .2 3) 10 7. 13 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 2. s el f-e st ee m sc or es (4 .7 0) 3. 95 (3 3. 28 ) 34 .3 0 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.3 3* *) .3 6* * 3. c on fro nt iv e co pi ng (2 .6 5) 2. 72 (7 .0 7) 6. 34 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.0 6) .1 1 (.2 7* *) .1 2 4. d is ta nc in g (3 .0 9) 2. 65 (5 .5 7) 6. 21 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.2 6* ) .1 0 (.1 0) -.0 3 (.2 2* *) .0 1 5. s el f-c on tro l (3 .5 2) 2. 93 (9 .4 5) 9. 25 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.4 5* *) .3 1* * (.3 9) .2 7* (.1 6) -.0 3 (.1 9) -.1 8 6. s ee ki ng so ci al su pp or t (4 .0 1) 3. 06 (5 .9 9) 3. 69 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.2 9* *) .1 5 (.0 8) .1 7 (.5 6* ) .3 0* * (.0 6) .0 2 (.2 8* *) .0 4 7. e sc ap eav oi da nc e (4 .5 6) 3. 31 (5 .5 5) 4. 30 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.4 1* *) .1 6 (.5 1* *) .3 8* * (.4 3* *) .1 9 (.4 6* *) .2 0 (.3 4* *) -.4 1* * (.3 8* *) -.3 2* * 8. p ro bl em -s ol vi ng (3 .2 3) 3. 20 (7 .8 1) 8. 20 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.2 0) .0 6 (.3 0* *) .3 3* * (.4 0* *) .4 0* (.3 5* ) .2 4* (.5 1* *) .5 7 (.1 9* *) .3 2* * (.1 9) .2 0* * 9. p os iti ve r ea pp ra is al (4 .4 1) 3. 49 (8 .6 3) 7. 15 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.5 7* *) .5 9* * (.3 1) .0 6 (.3 4) .4 2 (.3 6* ) 16 (.3 6* ) .1 3 (.3 9) .3 8* * (.0 9) .2 2* (.0 7) .2 3* * 10 .a cc ep tin g r es po ns ib ili ty (2 .0 8) 1. 75 (5 .1 0) 4. 91 (1 .0 ) 1. 0 (.3 9) .3 7* * (.5 3* ) .4 5* * (.3 6* ) .1 4 (.2 8* ) .2 7* (.3 9) .4 0* (.3 2* ) .0 9 (.4 5* ) .3 8 (.2 7* *) .1 0 (.0 5) .1 7 n ot e. w om en 's sc or es ar e pr es en te d in pa re nt he se s. *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 bélanger, di schiavi, sabourin et al. 665 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the main objective of the present study was to investigate the relationship between self-esteem, specific coping efforts and marital adjustment. the results show that a relationship does exist between self-esteem and marital adjustment for both men and women. these observations support other researchers’ findings (erol & orth, 2013; lee & shehan, 1989; robinson & cameron, 2012) and confirm our first hypothesis. few studies are available to explain this relationship, but kavanagh, fletcher, and ellis (2014) have found that a partner’s commitment to his/her relationship tends to diminish when social acceptance by members of the opposite sex increases one’s self-esteem. they also found that an individual’s level of self-esteem is positively related to the couple’s satisfaction. these results suggest that there is a relationship between self-esteem and marital adjustment, but its precise nature must be further studied. furthermore, cross analyses also reveal that a husband's or wife's feelings of selfworth are associated with his/her spouse's marital adjustment. that is, spouses with high self-esteem tend to have partners who express more marital adjustment, whereas spouses with low self-value have partners who tend to be unsatisfied with their marital relationships. this pattern would imply that both romantic partners not only benefit from their own but also from their partner’s self-esteem (erol & orth, 2013). in this case, maybe selfesteem should be conceptualized as an additive pooled resource between partners (robinson & cameron, 2012). a limitation of this study is the correlational nature of the data that does not allow us to determine the direction of causality. however, because self-esteem is a rather stable personality trait developed early in childhood, we may assume that a person's feelings of self-worth will influence his/her subsequent adjustment in marital life. longitudinal studies concerning these issues may shed some light on this area of research. moreover, only individual coping strategies were explored rather than dyadic coping techniques. future studies could focus on the nature of coping in regards to dyadic adjustment and self-esteem. from that perspective, it could be interesting to perform actor-partner interdependence model analyses (apim; kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006). our second hypothesis predicts a relationship between self-esteem and coping efforts. these two variables are found to be associated in a variety of studies using different populations. however, self-esteem and coping are rarely studied in the context of marital relationships. this second hypothesis is partially confirmed. that is, certain coping strategies for both men and women are related to self-esteem. interestingly, the coping efforts related to self-esteem in women differ slightly from the coping skills related to feelings of self-worth in men. it seems that women with high self-esteem not only use more problem solving strategies and less avoidance, they also assume less responsibility for marital problems. this suggests that women with a greater sense of self-worth do not blame themselves for problems that arise within their marriage but instead prefer using other coping responses to address their situations. as for men, higher self-esteem also means the use of more problem-solving strategies and less escape-avoidance. in addition, it seems that feelings of self-worth are associated with positive reappraisal. that is, men with a greater sense of self-esteem will tend to look at difficulties in a positive way, focusing on the good things, such as personal growth, which may result from conflict. our results support fleishman's earlier findings (1984). he found that high self-esteem is related to active problem-focused coping, whereas low self-esteem is associated with more emotion-focused coping responses. he reasoned that individuals with high self-esteem do not need to resort to emotion-focused coping responses because they are not easily threatened by difficult situations. our findings are somewhat similar in that they also show that individuals with high self-esteem will tend to use problem-solving and positive reappraisal as coping techniques while excluding the use of more emotion-focused strategies such as avoidance and self-blame. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment 666 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we also predicted a relationship between specific coping responses and dyadic adjustment. this hypothesis was partially confirmed. the results show that women who use avoidance, distancing, confrontation or seek social support as ways of coping all express less marital adjustment. these findings support those of houser, konstam, & ham (1990) and are in agreement with previous findings. however, a more surprising result was that seeking support from friends and family is related to lower levels of dyadic adjustment. this result may be explained by the fact that choosing outside support when dealing with marital difficulties instead of directly resolving conflicts with the partner may lead to poor marital adjustment because difficulties arising within the marriage are not being handled. using alternative coping strategies such as planful problem-solving or positive reappraisal might decrease the chance that conflicts remain unresolved, further exacerbating marital distress. cross analyses further reveal that women who use escape-avoidance as a way of coping with marital difficulties have husbands who tend to express lower levels of marital adjustment. as for men, results show that those who use problem solving strategies and positively re-evaluate difficult situations report higher levels of dyadic adjustment, whereas those who use escape-avoidance strategies express less marital adjustment. certain results may seem surprising. for instance, coping efforts, which seem quite different and even complete opposites are reported to be associated. this is the case for escape-avoidance behaviors and confrontation. how can such seemingly different concepts be correlated? an item analysis reveals that these coping strategies are not mutually exclusive. a person may wish for a miracle (escape-avoidance), may take it out on others (escapeavoidance), and may also express his/her anger (confrontation). one strategy is not used at the expense of all others. in other words, the coping response used may never be pure. additionally, the ways of coping checklist evaluates strategies used to address specific conflicts. a person may use several coping efforts depending on the nature of the conflict, their mood and the situation. the scale does not measure coping traits, which tend to be more stable over time. to conclude, it has been shown that self-esteem, specific coping efforts and marital adjustment are related. these results underline the importance of studying stable personality traits, as well as specific strategies, when investigating marital relationships. attention must also be given to possible mediating and/or moderating effects that may be present in the relationships between such variables. for example, the mediating role of secure attachment has been studied in the relationship between self-esteem and marital adjustment (erol & orth, 2013). perhaps including a measure of attachment style could explain the impact of coping strategies on marital adjustment. as a way to extend the present study, a behavioral coding system such as the global couple interaction coding system (gcics; bélanger, dulude, sabourin, & wright, 1993; bélanger, sabourin, laughrea, dulude, & wright, 1993) could be used to study specific coping behaviors such as problem solving and communication and their impact on coping strategies and on marital adjustment. finally, longitudinal studies have been suggested to further explore the relationship between stable personality traits and situation-specific responses to determine causal effects. in conclusion, the present research contributes to the understanding of the relationship between self-esteem and marital adjustment and highlights the relevance of studying coping efforts as both being affected by and contributing to these two variables. these results may then contribute to designing effective interventions aimed at reducing and preventing marital and individual difficulties. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 bélanger, di schiavi, sabourin et al. 667 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the research was supported in part by funds granted to stéphane sabourin by a quebec fcar grant. this research was also supported by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada through a canada research fellowship to stéphane sabourin. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank diane dulude for her precious contribution to the statistical analyses of the data involved in this research project. references alexander, a. l. 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(1974). the self-concept: a review of methodological considerations and measuring instruments (vol. 1). lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. about the authors dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at the university of quebec in montreal, as well as associate professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university and researcher at the douglas university mental health university institute. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, problem solving behaviours in couples, and anxiety in relation to marital functioning. marie-france dischiavi is a clinical psychologist who did her psychology studies at the university of montreal, in the laboratory for the study of couples under the supervision of dr. sabourin and dr. bélanger. dr. stéphane sabourin is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at laval university in quebec city. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, as well as personality disorders and their relationship to marital functioning. caroline dugal is a ph.d. student at the university of quebec in montreal under the direction of professors claude bélanger and natacha godbout. her interests include predictors of marital adjustment, problem solving behaviors, couples psychology, and marital violence. dr. ghassan el-baalbaki is an assistant professor at the university of quebec in montreal. he is also an adjunct professor at mcgill university, faculty of medicine, oncology department. he is also involved as a researcher at the trauma study center of l.-h. lafontaine hospital’s fernand-seguin research centre. his research interests include the study of couples, of personality traits in different clinical contexts, hypnosis, and health psychology. dr yvan lussier is a full professor of psychology at university of quebec in trois-rivières. his primary research interests include couples psychology, predictors of psychological andmarital adjustment, violence in intimate relationships, and attachment representations. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 660–671 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.807 bélanger, di schiavi, sabourin et al. 671 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0034355209358272 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207599008247865 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00102 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en self-esteem, coping efforts and marital adjustment introduction method participants procedure measures results self-esteem and marital adjustment self-esteem and coping strategies coping and marital adjustment discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors democratic dialogic education for and from authorial agency interview democratic dialogic education for and from authorial agency an interview with professor eugene matusov eugene matusov*a, ana marjanovic-shaneb [a] school of education, university of delaware, newark, de, usa. [b] division of teacher education and leadership, chestnut hill college, philadelphia, pa, usa. abstract in this multi-topic interview, professor eugene matusov from the school of education at the university of delaware discusses the desirability and necessity for a psychological and educational shift from knowledge, ability, and skill to dialogically and a democratically understood notion of authorial agency. in this discussion, professor matusov tells about his own transition from his interest in vygotsky to bakhtin, discusses conceptual and ethical tensions among these scholars, and how his pedagogical practice informs his educational research. professor matusov provides a somewhat optimistic view on the transition of our society from knowledge-based to agency-based and discusses the role of education in this transformation. the interview was audio recorded and transcribed following closely the discussion. we tried to preserve both orality and the russian and serbian accents of the participants without sacrificing the readability of the text. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 published (vor): 2014-02-28. *corresponding author at: 16 w main street, school of education, university of delaware, newark, de 19176, usa. e-mail: ematusov@udel.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ana marjanovic-shane: let's talk about dialogic education for and from agency – this is what i’m interested in asking you today. can you explain what that is? what does that mean? why do you use that term? eugene matusov:well, uh, i'm constantly working on this concept, and currently i would call it "democratic dialogic education for and from authorial agency” (ddeffaa). ana marjanovic-shane: “for and from authorial agency?” wow, so many words there. eugene matusov: let me tell you that it actually started with “efa,” which was the abbreviation for “education for agency.” and then the more i was working on this concept, the more i specified... i hope deeper and more specific, it became “ddeffaa.” so everything is double except e. ana marjanovic-shane: ok, so let's jump to the past, to the actual beginning – how did you start thinking about dialogism, and about dialogic education in the first place. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ eugene matusov is a professor of education at the university of delaware. he studied developmental psychology with soviet researchers working in the vygotskian paradigm and worked as a schoolteacher before immigrating to the united states. he uses sociocultural and bakhtinian dialogic approaches to education. correspondence: 16 w main street, school of education, university of delaware, newark, de 19176, usa. email: ematusov@udel.edu ana marjanovic-shane is an associate professor of education at chestnut hill college, philadelphia. she studies meaningmaking, imagination and creativity in children's play, language and in education. she uses the sociocultural and bakhtinian dialogic orientation to study the dynamics of play and educational events. correspondence: 1906germantownave, philadelphia, pa 19118, usa. e-mail: anamshane@gmail.com eugene matusov: well, i was interested in education despite my phd being done in developmental psychology, because… it's an interesting story in itself. back in the soviet union, in moscow, i attended a special high school 91 that was a pedagogic lab for the soviet pedagogical academy. some of my teachers were graduate students working with a very famous russian educational psychologist davydov. but at the same time, the school was innovative also for a completely different reason. it was run by a number of people, who were interested in math education, and so it had very many diverse sources of pedagogic innovations. anamarjanovic-shane:how did you feel in that school with these innovations? did you know there was something different about your school than other schools at that time? eugene matusov: yes, of course. i actually chose that school, because i was interested in math, so it was a school that had a special focus in math and science. the science at that time wasmostly defined by physics, rather than chemistry or something else. so, math education was interesting because it was organized by a person, whose name is konstantinov. he invited undergraduate college students who were highly interested in and enthusiastic about math to teach us math. they were teaching us in a very interesting way. they gave us very interesting and serious math problems, which we could do in class or we could leave this classroom and do them elsewhere. i remember at some point we were asking our teachers to provide some guidance and they were doing that. so they were mostly teaching when we asked them to teach. when we solved the problem, we were telling them the solutions and sometimes asking for help. it was a very strange way [of teaching] because they were mostly providing some lectures, for example, where we asked them in advance. without this explicit request from us, they would not do it. plus, the problems were very different from traditional math problems. for example, i remember we were asked to develop alternative axioms for arithmetic to see what kind of new math would be taking off from that, and what practical application it might have in real life. or, we were learning about computers by playing in the computers, like life computers, so we were creating programs for each other and seeing... ana marjanovic-shane: … what will happen? eugene matusov: yeah, we were enacting the programs. there were many interesting pedagogical innovations. we had several different branches of math taught by completely different people with completely different ideas of how to teach it. we learned math from people from the most prestigious soviet university, which is moscow state university. so that was one side. but another side was physics. the physics teachers were graduate students of vasiliy davydov, a student of leont’ev who was a founder of activity theory and a colleague of vygotsky. they europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 10 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conducted some psychological experiments with us, plus one of the teachers, who was my physics teacher, was very dialogic in his way of teaching. ana marjanovic-shane: what do you mean by that? eugenematusov:hewas dialogic in a very particular way, i would say he was socratically dialogic. he constantly challenged any statements we made, which sometimes was very discouraging for some of us. thus, i remember he was teaching physics by introducing interesting problems-provocations for us, and then we would discuss and approach to them. one of the problems, i still remember, was about why in the locations where there is a lot of sun people have black skin, while in the locations where there is a lack of sun, people have white skin. from a straight physics point of view, it should actually be reverse, because white surface better reflects the sun, and black is actually more absorbs the sun. from this straight physics point of view, it should be reverse: black people should live in the places with little sun while white people should live in the places of a lot of sun. europeans should have been black, and africans should have been white. why is that not the case? so, puzzles like that. plus, he had a very interesting style of dialoguing because he crushed almost any position that you had. which upset a lot of students who didn't like him because of that. ana marjanovic-shane: were you upset by that? eugene matusov: no… uh well, yes, i was upset but i liked him a lot. he puzzled me and i was intrigued by him. once i introduced his own position to him probably to please him or maybe in agreement with him. i expected that he would affirm that position, since it was his own and he was invested in it. to my big surprise, he crushed it as well... possibly he might not have a good memory and did not recognize his own points that he used to crush my own position in past. after that, i was intentionally bringing his own past arguments to see how he would crush them. i have learned a lot from him – his self-dialogue -not to stick with dear positions and constantly to seek for limitations of my own ideas. ana marjanovic-shane: or maybe you experienced it as crushing but it was just like, uh, deconstructing? eugene matusov: yeah, maybe, but i would say crushing, there was like... ana marjanovic-shane: …was it personal? eugene matusov: yeah, there was some personal thing because he had this personal judgment, which was also supported by davydov's work – to finalize and label people... you see, he followed davydov in labelling people… davydov had this approach of empirical thinking and theoretical thinking. so he divided people into those who think mostly theoretically or mostly empirically. and that is kind of finalizing and very snobby one – looking on people from above and calculating them. anyway, i becamemore and more interested in psychology, my interests shifted from math – especially when i was in college, — to psychology and specifically educational psychology. although i was a sophomore in a college, where i studied computer science, i visited my high school physics teachers, participated in designing their psychological experiments with kids, and attended davydov’s lecture at moscow state university and his institute of psychology, where he was the director. i read a lot of vygotsky on their advice, which i liked a lot. once, my physics teacher asked me to go to a local bookstore to buy a new book for him and his psychology colleagues that was just released. i asked him, “who is the author of that book?” he pronounced the name, i'd never heard it before, and it was bakhtin. i asked, “so, it is another book about psychoeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 11 http://www.psychopen.eu/ logy?” and he said, “no, it isn't about psychology.” i asked him, “what is it about?” and he said, “it is about like, literary criticism, but very important so i’d recommend you buying it for yourself as well”... ana marjanovic-shane: …is it “the poetics of dostoyevsky”? eugene matusov: no, “the aesthetics of verbal art.” i went to the bookstore. there was a huge line, so i stayed there several hours, and i bought several books. including for myself. ana marjanovic-shane: this was in the 70s? eugene matusov: 79. the book was called “the aesthetic of verbal art,” which was not a book written by bakhtin, but it was a collection of fragments, from different writings by bakhtin. it was the first book that was published since probably the 1930's by bakhtin in the soviet union. initially, it was very difficult to read for me – i remember the first part was almost entirely incomprehensible for me,– it was called “author and hero”, very difficult. and then there were fragments from his book on dostoyevsky “poetics of dostoyevsky”, and from many other books and texts by bakhtin. but, i got very excited! i became very excited especially about his essay on methodology of humanitarian sciences. it gave me a completely different view on science making. it called to address people, to ask for their replies, to dialogue with people rather than to finalize them, objectify them, measure them, calculate them, label them, predict them, and sort them – as we did in davydov’s lab. studying dostoevsky's novels, bakhtin discovered that the author did not tell anything about the characters to the reader that the characters did not know about themselves. i thought that psychology should do the same with people it studied -no talking behind people's back. so, i remember i said to myself and my high school teachers, graduate students in educational psychology, “well, there should be a different psychology after that.” but my psychology colleagues were not as excited as me. they were saying that bakhtin’s texts were interesting but esoteric... i remember their advice, “you should stick with vygotsky.” ana marjanovic-shane: and you knew already vygotsky? eugene matusov: before that, i was reading a lot of vygotsky. again, there was not much published in the ussr by then, but i went to a very interesting library, the ushinsky pedagogical library in moscow, where they kept old texts, forbidden in the ussr. i forgot who helped me to get a permission to go there, since, at that time it was very difficult to get such permission. in the library, there were a lot of books saved from destruction during the stalinist time. there were a lot of old texts of vygotsky that were published in the 20's and 30's that miraculously survived thanks probably to unknown brave heroes and heroines. i found even old russian translations of nietzsche there – during the stalinist time these authors were forbidden and their books were destroyed. there were many rare and forbidden publications from the tsarist time and the earlier 20s when soviet censorship was much lighter than later, so i was reading things other than vygotsky. i also read early piaget that was published in the 20s and the early 30s. the library had many very good sources. i was very interested in vygotsky until i met bakhtin. i should admit that after reading bakhtin, my heart was not with vygotsky, never again. ana marjanovic-shane: do you remember what in bakhtin that was, from what you were reading, that was for you so promising? eugene matusov:well one thing that i really liked – at that time it was not so much for education, it's interesting, that idea came later – but for psychology; that idea that science should be not about people, but it should be with people, and... europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 12 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ana marjanovic-shane: …it should not objectivize? eugene matusov: it should not objectivize and it should be asking people what they think about any observation that was done, not for the purpose of verification and checking with them whether is it right or wrong. of course, it can still serve that purpose as well, but that was not the primary reason that i was interested and excited about that. the primary reason i was excited with it was the idea to share with the people what you observe about them. that the people know what other people think about them or even what people have noticed about them, so they can reply, change, transcend – and do something about it, whatever they want to do. ana marjanovic-shane: so the humanistic part? eugene matusov: it's the humanistic part that i really like. ah, actually i put it together with pedagogy because after graduation of my college i didn't go into computer science, which was my major, but became a physics schoolteacher. my teaching then and, it’s probably now, was very... i would say, looking back, uneven. partly because at that time, i really didn't know much about pedagogy — what good teaching is, — which probably was good because i would have studied traditional pedagogy to learn about it. although, traditional pedagogy had interesting sides as well, especially when it is contextualized into a subject area and so on. but anyway, i struggled as a young unexperienced and pedagogically ignorant teacher. one thing i remember that was interesting for me, one struggle was how to engage students in physics, the subject i taught in school. how can a teacher genuinely engage students in learning physics, especially those students who might be not very interested in that? how can a teacher make all students interested and passionate? then i believed that it is possible, if a teacher finds the right pedagogical tricks. i invited my physics schoolteacher, my former high schoolteacher, to the classes i taught, and i was observing how he made his teaching magic, getting almost all students involved, this was at least how it felt at time. and again, some students hated him for crushing their ideas -but! they might hate him, but they were definitely engaged in physics. at that time, i thought his magic was about asking students good questions. so, i tried to write down all his questions, and i used these questions again in my other classes but nothing good happened. i also noted that sometimes i was successful … and i tried to remember what i did... aha!... ana marjanovic-shane: …this was also what i have done, all the time. eugene matusov: exactly. well, sometimes i had parallel classes in the same grade, teaching different students the same topics. so, if i got something pedagogically successful, i was just thinking, “in an hour or two i will apply this to the next [group].”, “best practice!” – ha, ha, ha! except, it didn't work at all. and i thought, “what was the trick?!” i felt, on one hand, it was something systematic, my seasoned schoolteacher came and created this teaching magic in a predictable way; but, on the other hand, what is it about, why cannot it be repeated using word-byword, letter-by-letter?! if it was not about asking good questions, what was it? he came to my classes not knowing much about my students and his questions were about physics, but when i repeated them they did not work! why? also, i noticed that he never repeated his own questions. something was always new, exciting, and fresh. i was struggling back and forward with that puzzle when i was a schoolteacher. later, i’ve recognized that solution of this puzzle was in bakhtin, not in vygotsky…. when i came to the us, again people were mostly interested in vygotsky, not bakhtin. there was some peripheral interest in bakhtin. like my phd advisor, barbara rogoff, she was interested in bakhtin, but not as her primary interest. my interest at that time was about the concept of intereurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 13 http://www.psychopen.eu/ subjectivity, which i didn’t realize. only later a colleague of mine, tony whitson helped me to realize that i was looking at the issue of intersubjectivity from a more bakhtinian side, rather than from the mainstream. ana marjanovic-shane: how did you define intersubjectivity? eugene matusov:well, at the time when i was studying intersubjectivity, almost all people, whom i knew, defined intersubjectivity as something that people share. something in common, something people have in common. i think, i always felt that this idea of sharing and having in common was actually, deep down, inhumane…unethical. ana marjanovic-shane: where does that come from? eugene matusov: i don't know. i think that deep down, it is some kind of influence by bakhtin. but, [it was very] deep down. because, i realized that bakhtin was anti-hegelian, and i thought that this idea of common and sharedness is a very hegelian idea. so i was rebelling against that. the main reason why i think intersubjectivity as having common subjectivity was inhumane was because, well if something is shared, why one person would need another? and even from activity theory… ana marjanovic-shane: on the other hand, even tomasello in his language theory, and even holliday, almost everyone talks about shared attention on an object or event, and how language can develop only within that shared attention…. eugene matusov: yeah... and if you think about, there are a lot of social linguists who talk about how to repair misunderstandings or breakdowns in communication, it’s like, anything that is not shared is considered as temporary and bad... ana marjanovic-shane: because you're not coming to an agreement. eugene matusov: yeah, because you're not coming to an agreement. and this is where i feel extremely, ah, politically and ethically bad, because this demand for agreement – agreement as a proxy for truth. ana marjanovic-shane: right. eugene matusov: again, i feel this idea of sharedness is unethical because you don’t need other people after you have an agreement with these people. like why do we need people when you already got anything important from them? in this approach, you need them only to accomplish something together with them — something that you couldn't accomplish without them. this instrumental relationship with other people dominates traditional defining of the concept of intersubjectivity in psychology and education. when you reach an agreement with people or accomplish something together, you don't need them anymore. traditionally, in psychology as well, education it looks like the main issue is how to get some things off other people, how to squeeze their subjectivity and then throw them away as useless pulp. you get all the juice out of them, then they are useless. ana marjanovic-shane: well even vygotsky's zone of proximal development is first interpersonal and then it becomes intrapersonal. eugene matusov: right, and then that's it, and other people are not needed anymore. ana marjanovic-shane: so, then you are self-sufficient. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 14 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eugene matusov: exactly! and this is where i felt deeply that bakhtin is taking a completely different stand on that. for bakhtin, it's very essential that we will never understand each other, and that's good – it's not a bad thing -people will always have interest in each other, there will always be more and more… human consciousnesses are essentially opaque to each other and cannot be fully transparent. actually, agreement is an epiphenomenon – when people can temporarily disregard differences and opaqueness with each other for some practical purpose. i was very much attracted to this bakhtinian position and more and more away from vygotsky's activity theory. it took me a while there, though both my teaching and my research interests were coming back to bakhtin without my own realization. i think it was 2003, when my graduate students asked me to teach a class on bakhtin and education. i thought, “what should i do?!”, because i didn't know much of what's bakhtin got to do with education. ana marjanovic-shane: oh, even in 2003 you still did not think of bakhtin in terms of education? eugene matusov: no, although, again looking back, i was doing a lot of things in that direction, but i didn't realize that... i didn't yet realize that my project is to translate bakhtin’s philosophy embodied in the material of literary studies into the material of education. looking back i was already highly engaged in this project, but i just did not realize that. anamarjanovic-shane:so you were not aware of it for a long time! you were in the us from 1988, and graduated in 1994 and started to work in delaware in 1997! so it was more than 10 years that you were working in delaware... how would you characterize what you were doing in that time? eugene matusov: that's a good question. i think a part of that was rebelling against vygotsky. ana marjanovic-shane: at that time still, still without bakhtin, or dialogism in mind? eugene matusov: i think it was, but it's interesting what you mean by 'in mind'. yes and no. it was in practice, but not very deliberate. and, of course, if you look back, actually, i increased more and more citing bakhtin, but not committing to him. this was, probably, what i was doing. i criticized the traditional notion of intersubjectivity, especially... the one that vygotsky had. and uh, but i'm not sure when i arrived at... ana marjanovic-shane: …so what would you say, what was the breaking point, if there is any. were you suddenly… was it this course that they asked you to do...? eugene matusov: …i think through teaching this course on bakhtin in 2003, i became more and more aware that i was onto something different than i had thought before... at that time, i was working on several empirical projects. in my mind then, these projects existed separately, all by themselves, but later they became a part of my book, my first 2009 book “journey into dialogic pedagogy”. but initially i didn't feel that they even connected. it was only after a conference presentation, i think… it was when i came to the bakhtin conference in crete, somebody told me that i should write a book, and i asked with surprise, “what book?!” and i made a presentation there… ana marjanovic-shane: …what was the presentation? eugene matusov: i'm trying to remember… no, i don't remember, sorry, but it was definitely a chapter of this book. and i realized that it's not a self-sustained journal article, it's chapters of a book i'm going to write. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 15 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ana marjanovic-shane: yeah but when one reads that book, it seems already mature thinking about dialogism. not a beginners' [thinking], but kind of really much further in dialogic pedagogy. eugene matusov:well, that might be true, but again i was so prepared, i was almost like doing an underground work on bakhtin and bakhtinian topics and dialogic pedagogy without much realizing what i was doing, but i was doing that. ana marjanovic-shane: right. eugene matusov: so, it was not the case that i suddenly become interested in bakhtin. ana marjanovic-shane: no, but i was asking when, in your mind, it became a project that unified them? eugene matusov: it's uh, in my view, i would say that other people saw it before me. i was bakhtinian in eyes of other people before i was bakhtinian in my own eyes. it was like other people's gift to me. i don't remember who was the first person who was saying, “it's a book,” let me give the names so they should receive the deserved credit. at some point, chris clark, who was actually director of the school of education in delaware who initially encouraged me to teach the class on bakhtin. he attended that class, initially i hoped we would co-teach the class together. but, he was not teaching the class, he was just attending the class for his interest in bakhtin, he was almost like a student there. i remember he was telling me, “write a book on bakhtin! write a book!” my spanish former graduate student, colleague, and dear friend, maria candela albuquerque was telling me, “eugene, this will be a book,” and i was asking, “what book?” she said, “i don't know, it sounds like so many interesting things you are talking about, it sounds like a book.” uh, my norwegian colleague olga dysthe. she told me i need to work on the book, so there's... and probably i've missed some other people – someone in finland in 2005 now i can't remember who told me that, actually, it's a book. and, it's about, it's about, something about dialogic in bakhtin, or something like that. and, uh, so i would say that other people told me about that. and, i would say, one person who told me a long time before i knew what it was, that i was working on dialogic pedagogy, was... my good university of delaware colleague, tony whitson. he was on my promotion committee, twice, and he was kind and generous to study carefully my scholarship -he told me, on the second time, “you had it for a long time, and this is your trajectory.” i looked after that at my papers and exclaimed, “wow, that is true.” i wish i knew earlier, but i didn't…. so, i have been blessed with many generous colleagues who kindly provided me with their gifts of surplus of vision of my scholarship — a kind of dialogic finalizing. ana marjanovic-shane: ok! so that's it about dialogism and bakhtin. what about "democratic"? where does that come from? eugene matusov: so, back to the bakhtin. at the end, this is kind of poetic because of attraction to bakhtin. bakhtin worked with literary material. he developed this kind of philosophical framework of dialogism, right, what can be called ontological dialogism, but he worked with literary material. my challenge became to translate his literary ontological dialogism into pedagogical material. in terms of democratic dialogism, it came to me later when i was teaching my 2nd class of graduate students on dialogism, where i did this disastrous experiment on dialogic pedagogy that i described in my second 2013 book. i was trying to apply bakhtinian dialogism to my own teaching. it was, not completely unsuccessful, but, i would say, it was disastrous rather than unsuccessful, which is not the same thing. ana marjanovic-shane: right, right. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 16 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eugene matusov: no, i would say it was rather a successful disaster! a lot of good things happened, but disastrously happened, rather than nothing good happened at all, in my judgment. i really wanted to break with traditional educational chronotope, when students do the professor’s assignments. and, i would say that these assignments that i had were pretty good... maybe. but still, what i didn’t like, the students, at the end of the day, tried to please me… they were working for me. the problem was not that my assignments were bad – they were not bad at all, in my professional judgment. what was bad for me was the fact that almost anything what my students did in the class was driven by my assignments and not by their own professional and learning activism. i wanted to fight it, i wanted to change it. ana marjanovic-shane: did you feel like that in your high school math classes, when your enthusiastic teachers were giving you excellent math assignments, did you still feel that you were working for them and not for yourself? eugene matusov: yes... it's not like... actually that's a very good question that you ask! thank you! back then, in my terrific innovative high school, i often felt tired with these excellent assignments… as a student, i remember that very well. on the one hand, i felt constantly being tired of these terrific thought provoking assignments, — and not only me, other students, my peers, felt like that, it was like, “oh gosh... and another thing to do”. it was constant struggle for having your own time, your own learning activism, and your own self-assignments. at the same time, i got very excited about some of the assignments and exposure to deep math that the teachers did to us. i started doing something new in response to the teachers’ terrific assignments. now i almost had to fight with my exciting initiatives that i was running in my head to let the perpetual flow of the teachers’ assignments go. so, the teachers’ assignments provoked something very interesting in me – and then i started competing with them for my own ideas and initiatives, and it's... ah, i felt very tiresome, with this constant flow of the teachers’ assignments. very ambivalent and confusing indeed. currently, i see it as a struggle in dialogic pedagogy between the student’s responsive authorship — an authorship that comes to the student’s response to somebody else’s provocation and assignment — and the student’s self-generated authorship — an authorship that comes from the student’s own learning initiatives, self-assignments, and learning journeys. ana marjanovic-shane: so you thought that it's, you translated that feeling to your students, you're giving them assignments and...? eugene matusov: no, i didn’t translate it – i think they felt that as well in my class. my students got very excited with my assignments — i saw clearly that. the class was very dialogic in its nature. but they also were tired and confused, similar to me in my high school. there was something missing in my view. i came to a realization that they didn't feel ownership over what they did. i mean, it's also not exactly true – they felt kind of ownership, but also they had a feeling that they were not having ownership. i was constantly commanding them, “you need to do this” or “you need to do that,” which was with the graduate students even more interesting because this were people who came, or many of them came to become scholars... and the practice of scholarship, i believe, strongly requires the participants’ self-generated authorship. also, i had known some of them well outside of the class and i was excited because they demonstrated this ownership for their own learning and scholarship. we had had almost the same discussions in class and out of class, or almost the same kind of experience, in terms of its intellectual nature in the class and outside of the class. outside of the class, it felt like a free thing, but in class this felt to my students like that they worked to please me and do it “for me”. i asked them, 'why to please me? you need to please yourself, rather than me,” so i couldn't understand what it was coming from, all this oppressive part of the school. of course, you can say it was because we were in an oppressive institution of conventional university, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 17 http://www.psychopen.eu/ which is true; but on the other hand, a conventional university has a lot of freedom, and power for the professor to do a lot of innovative things. i could not justify oppression in my class because of imposition of my traditional institution on me or because of my fear of the institution. rather, i felt that i didn't know what to do to shake of this real sense of oppression that my students felt in my class. so, gradually through these bizarre pedagogical experiments – i would say disastrous, rather than unsuccessful, ah, i came to a realization that the issues of ownership and democratic decision-making are the key... looking back it sounds like a very obvious thing, but ownership was democratic... without decision making about your own fate, your learning and professional development, when it's absent, it's very difficult to – take ownership of your education. so, that led to my interest in and practice of democratic education. democratic education has been exemplified by summerhill in uk, the circle school in pennsylvania, the sudbury valley school in massachusetts, and the like. in democratic education schools, students make decisions about what to study, how, and whether to study it at all. again, i was slowly coming to that through my own teaching while reading what has been done before me in that direction. i studied the existing democratic education practices and have realized that these terrific educators were not coming from a dialogic position either, they were coming from therapeutic or democratic citizenship positions. i also started investigating my pedagogical desires and i have discovered that many pedagogical desires were progressive in their nature, “how can i make students to want what i want them to want?” michel foucault would love that! i have come to a realization that i should legitimize and respect the students’ disengagement, non-cooperation, and nonparticipation — i.e., their own pedagogical and non-pedagogical desires. ana marjanovic-shane: it's almost like there are two strands that are coming together for you – one from the dialogic position and another from the democratic traditions that uh... eugene matusov: …but also, there is thinking about studying agency and conceptualizing agency! i also felt – and not only me, a lot of people, i would say, talk about that in socio-cultural approach, coming from vygotskian strand, and beyond vygotsky, approaches that heavily include vygotsky's perspectives, especially certain versions of them, -there is a sense that agency… first of all, it's needed. but at the same time, it's almost like the concept of agency has to be sacrificed to avoid individualism of traditional cognitive approaches. ana marjanovic-shane: mhm, people try to resurrect it? eugenematusov:yeah, they try to resurrect the notion of agency. but in my view, there were unsuccessful attempts to resurrect it, because they tried to resurrect it within activity theory. and in my view, strangely enough, this does not exist… ana marjanovic-shane: that's very strange because you would think that's its empowering agency, is activity theory. eugene matusov: yeah. ana marjanovic-shane: but no! i think that maybe it's because they are looking at a system in which individuals are part of a big machine, so they don't have their own agency. eugenematusov: yeah, and especially a sociocultural scholar talks about how a person/actor is shaped by culture, society, institutions, history and so on and so forth, which is good and important, but it's also a very conservative approach – focusing on how culture maintains itself, reproduces itself. by “conservative”, i'm not talking here about not politically conservative [but culturally conservative], focusing on how a person is shaped by [ready made] europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 18 http://www.psychopen.eu/ culture and institution. on one hand, it is very exciting, but on the other hand, i always felt a sort of a conservative strand in that. it's about preservation of the culture, preservation of… ana marjanovic-shane: …but you don't see where the innovation, where the personal uniqueness comes out. eugene matusov: yeah, exactly! because as soon as you look at innovation in a sociocultural approach, you start tracing “shapeness” by the given – the ready-made culture, institutions, history, social relations, social structure, language structure, even dynamics, and so on. “shapeness” means, it's some kind of “there” – and shape again means that you are a part of something and not a universe in yourself. and again, it's not like i'm giving a new critique of a socio-cultural approach — i'm giving an internal critique of socio-cultural approach from the practitioners of that approach. i've heard a lot of the dissatisfaction from my sociocultural colleagues, who have been saying for years, “well, we need to include that.” “that”, meaning “human agency.” and there have been some attempts to do that, but again, in my view, they are not successful because the problem is that they become either individualistic -which was not satisfactory from a socio-cultural approach -or conservative focusing on what shapes the human agency. ana marjanovic-shane: what about those who are trying to resurrect the agency to play? like van oers' work on play and imagination? remember how van oers' program in amsterdam includes the whole person back into the process? eugene matusov: i'm not sure i know exactly what you are talking about… ana marjanovic-shane: well, the article that he published in "human development" that you and i commented on... remember it was his struggle to include the whole person? eugene matusov: oh, yeah! i remember. but again, the whole thing is about his focus... back to vygotsky, since van oers’ focus on imitation, i think, comes from vygotsky… not only from vygotsky, also from many others, like probably piaget as well, but vygotsky definitely. in this focus, the interest is in how culture reproduces itself, which again, is a very conservative inquiry. it’s kind of how the past continues in the future and not how the future comes up in the present and how the present breaks up with the past while being embedded in it. ana marjanovic-shane: yeah, and you can't account for how… eugene matusov: and that's why innovation is either... unexplained, or again, reduced to the past and the given which is not innovation anymore. anamarjanovic-shane:right, although activity theory scholars have this idea of, like, a breaking away... they’re trying to… eugene matusov:…yes, in my view its, sorry to say, but [i] often [feel that] it becomes almost like the dialectics' equilibristic of suddenly something coming out of nothing. ana marjanovic-shane: ok, say what, for you, is the difference between dialectics and dialogic? eugene matusov: well, there is nothing new i can say other than what bakhtin already said. i think bakhtin viewed dialectics as the highest andmost interesting form of monologism, where voices of other people are reduced to their logical positions and put in the heads of one person. so, voices are extinguished, ontological intonations europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 19 http://www.psychopen.eu/ are removed -voices become dead. it's kind of dead dialogue. i agree with him. there are two ways to look at that. on the positive side, it's the highest and smartest form of monologism with the focus on the word “highest.” on the negative side, it's still a form of monologism. it is abstracting others' subjectivities, becoming not interested in alive people, their corporeal bodies, and their ontologies anymore, because they are now in your head. you don't need alive people for that. i have many ethic concerns about dialectics. because, for me, again, dialectics is killing life, and deeply down, in its totalizing form, dialectics is a very unethical position because you don't need other people. dialectics is pregnant with totalitarianism. like any extreme monologism, it is potentially homicidal. this is why i really feel very anxious and suspicious about focus on internal dialogue – not by itself, there's nothing wrong to study internal dialogue, but viewing it as being the highest form of dialogism or cognition or anything like. and sometimes people refer to bakhtin for references to internal dialogue and dialogic self. but remember, bakhtin studied the work of dostoyevsky, where characters were marginal people who were suffering from, what bakhtin called, “excessive dialogism,” which is a form of monologism, and that's not a positive thing. ana marjanovic-shane: right, talking to yourself all the time, or answering to imaginary people… eugene matusov: … which by itself is not bad when you return back to a dialogue with alive people. however, in the case of dostoevsky’s characters, it's a very hostile dialogue, internal dialogue that's started by hearing hostile voices constantly challenging the voice of the character. and again, viewing internal dialogue as the highest form of dialogism, i think is unproductive, wrong, if not straight dangerous. ana marjanovic-shane: you also say that for the concept of agency, for the way it is mostly used in education, is instrumental: it is really for gaining knowledge and skills. i think that that [your concept of agency] may be the biggest difference –maybe – from all other educational positions you have, even from dialogism or even democracy; something completely different. eugene matusov: it's interesting to explore how much democratic education practitioners and theoreticians, who are interested in the issue of students’ ownership of their own life, would disagree about my notion of authorial agency – it's an interesting question. they are definitely interested. for example, our great sociocultural scholar jim wertsch is interested in this notion of educational agency. but, the way i see it, educational agency is not about gaining knowledge and skills or even identities, as these folks may believe, for several reasons. one reason is… well, if you're looking at how quickly knowledge, skills and identities become obsolete in our society, which is rapidly changing. the changes are accelerating. what were valuable skills and knowledge about 10-15 years ago, and sometimes even 5 years, and sometimes 3 years, and sometimes 2 years, and sometimes 1 year ago, become completely obsolete… ana marjanovic-shane:well that’s really all at the cutting edge of technology, but there's still a lot of knowledge that's not obsolete, in many different areas of life eugene matusov: like what? ana marjanovic-shane: well, social work… eugenematusov:…i think that's changing rapidly – listen, if you think about what was considered to be knowledge at the time, i'm not even talking about what was knowledge in schools, in our time – you and me – which was… europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 20 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ana marjanovic-shane: …yeah i mean like the helping professions. yes, details of how you navigate the day to day are very different eugene matusov: well, read dr. spock, and see how different views are now, and not only substance but even the idea of, in dr. spock, the idea of finding the correct way [the best practice] of raising children – the idea which is collapsed, the meta-narrative collapsed. not completely, again, not fully, but it has collapsed. and it keeps collapsing in an interesting way. ana marjanovic-shane: that's right. eugenematusov: but again, even the specifics have also collapsed, like childrearing – i'm just bringing something that people will say, 'well, children are children, they're kind of biologically the same'. no, no, no. ideas about the childhood, what's ok, what's not ok, are very different. ana marjanovic-shane: i'm just thinking in science technology definitely very, very big changes, what about ... eugene matusov: well, if you think, what we're talking now about gay marriages… for the last five years, american dominant views on gay marriage have rapidly changed. there are a lot of things i remember teaching our students about many social issues that have dramatically changed. certain things that were scandalous before stopped being scandalous now, and then other scandalous things have emerged, which were not scandalous before. one good example is about the 1988 video “preschool in three cultures”: suddenly in the early 2000's my students have started noticing american preschool kids using real knives for making soup with the teacher, which becomes scandalous for them. this was completely not scandalous, not noticeable, for my american students before the 2000s. you see, knowledge and skills become heavily more and more obsolete and cheap – they are available cheaply on the internet. so if it's not about teaching knowledge and skills, what is it about? again, people are spending in school more and more time. but if you look at knowledge, it becomes obsolete. so what is it [education] about if it's not about knowledge and skills? one possibility is that it's about authorial agency, which is not about knowledge and skills, and not even about ability to get knowledge and skills! it's about production of culture. ana marjanovic-shane: is that how you would say what agency is? eugene matusov: yes. it's about production of culture, not reproduction of culture, but production of culture, which is making new culture. ana marjanovic-shane: so that's why you're calling it authorial agency? eugenematusov:um, yeah i call it authorial agency. working with my colleagues kathy von duke and shakhnoza kayumova, we realized that the notion of agency is used so differently in the literature, in four different ways. one of these uses and, probably, the most common one is instrumental – a capability of doing something, which is very common in the literature on agency, but it's not what we meant. like ability to read – ability to do things. ana marjanovic-shane: so, authorial agency is not in the domain of ability, what about the domain of initiative? eugene matusov: ah, well it could be part of initiative, but also could not be part of initiative but a response to somebody. initiative can be focused on agency, or have high concentration of agency. even students pleasing their teachers demonstrate authorial agency because it is not easy to please another person — one have to be europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 21 http://www.psychopen.eu/ creative, just ask advertisement businesses! i define authorial agency more as a transcendence of the given, recognized by the self and/or others. recognition by the self and/or others can problematize the notion of agency, because it is a contested term – it's not something you can observe... easily or “objectively” – if i say, “this is agency,” other people may disagree with me. i can only make a discursive bid on recognizing “agency” to other people and to the author. ana marjanovic-shane: so it's a dialogic... eugene matusov: …yes, it’s dialogic. it has dialogue, it is discursive. it's this constant sense of dialogue, whether or not you have agency and [what] agency is... anamarjanovic-shane: is it like that an example about kids playing video games andmany adults do not recognize creativity and educational value of the games or the values of playing in itself? eugene matusov: yes. the example was about some kids playing games… ana marjanovic-shane: …some people think playing video games is a waste of time, some other people [are] recognizing that... it may not be a bad thing. eugene matusov: and people have interesting life trajectories. if, for example, children spent almost all their time playing video games in high school and not doing much of anything else and then later on created their own business as a gaming company that made video games, or tested or designed new games, and becamemillionaires -suddenly other people said, “this is a valuable thing!” ana marjanovic-shane: even, look at the guy, who created facebook, mark zuckerberg. eugene matusov: yeah, right. at the time, i just imagine his parents, who might not seen his work of designing facebook as being valuable – chasing for and flirting with girls, gossiping, or something like that -and might have seen it as a distraction from his academic studies. ana marjanovic-shane: what's the social media? like people just chatting and… eugene matusov: …yeah. ana marjanovic-shane: “tell me, what is it about?” eugene matusov: “waste of time, waste of time.” yes, and now we don't think so, a lot of people might think like that. ana marjanovic-shane: like tweeting! people say like, “what's that stupid thing ... tweeting?!” eugene matusov: yeah, so, that's why it's very important that the notion of authorial agency is very discursive and contested, that is why, in my view, it’s so elusive. constantly, people are trying to validate or invalidate agency or whether or not it… ana marjanovic-shane: it is contestable. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 22 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eugene matusov: right. plus, authorial agency is not necessarily a positive thing. not always. like, for example, according to that definition, hitler had a lot of authorial agency. it will be probably agreed by a lot of people —that it’s true: hitler was extremely creative, transcending so many things. that's why he was so innovative, creative and so on and so forth. that's something that you cannot take from him. on the other hand, a lot of people maybe not all, but a lot of people – will see that as a very bad evil and asocial, unethical, immoral thing – bad agency. hitler had a lot agency but it was bad agency, if not evil. he was a genius, an evil genius. ana marjanovic-shane: so still it's very hard to right my mind about this notion, it's kind of like a praxis. because it may or may not be recognized, but it may be in a phase, like when you were talking about your life trajectory, you didn't really know that it's turning into some particular direction, so would you still say that you had agency? eugene matusov: absolutely, and this is what i meant when i said “recognized by others,” so you might not recognize your own agency, but other people can recognize that. that's a very good point. another interesting thing in this case, is that it's not individualistic in a sense that it breaks with a sociocultural tradition. in fact, culture, institutions, cultural mediation, history, language and so on – everything that is given – is the material for the transcendence, the material for agency. it's not about shaping agency by culture or institution, it's about transcending -it's about using the given as material for transcendence. culture, institutions, existing social relations, or existing practices are the material for agency. in this case, agency does not exist in the vacuum and uh, it's not by itself without other people or other practices, it's history, and so on so forth… it is historic… ana marjanovic-shane: what do you mean it's historic? eugene matusov:well, again, it's about transcendence. i'm transcending the historically given. so the history is material available for the person’s transcendence, agency cannot exist without history and culture and other people, in the vacuum. transcendence doesn't happen, like transcendence that was 2000 years ago is not the same as now, because there is a historical change – history is kind of... ok let me give a wonderful example. i saw a wonderful documentary about an inuit community of traditional jewelry making. there was an inuit jewelry maker, who was accused by members of his community for using modern materials and deviating from traditional methods of jewelry making. he defended himself by claiming that he followed the tradition of his forefathers by using any materials and tools that “the ocean brings to shores” including shipwreck from a western ship. since, speaking metaphorically, “the ocean of the modern life brings modern materials, tools, and methods to his shores,” he must use them according to the tradition. he argued that locking the practice in the past by limiting it to old materials, tools, and methods was a distortion from this tradition, not following it. so, there is a lot of things coming up, right now, from “the ocean of diverse cultures” – speaking metaphorically – and according to the tradition we must use that treasure, if we want to continue the tradition. when people are trying to create a “cultural zoo” or a “cultural museum” by refusing to innovate, — in my view, they make this tradition dead. ana marjanovic-shane: so they're keeping conservative with some old materials... eugene matusov: …keeping conservative…, which is again, i'm not against that. “the ocean of history,” so to speak, brings a lot of rich old materials as well that are worth of preserving. there’s nothing wrong to use them. conservation of the historically given provides us with the rich material for our agency and creativity. but, like that inuit traditional jeweler, i question some people’s insistence on conservation without its transcendence, or insistence on using only the old materials, and not to see what other, new, things the ocean brings. this innovative traditional europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 23 http://www.psychopen.eu/ inuit jeweler said, “and that's my mission. because our forefathers used everything that was available, and there's now so much available and it’s our tradition to use that.” in my view, this is an interesting thing about agency and history and tradition -they get in an interesting relationship. in my view, this is where the socio-cultural paradigm and approach continues in my notion of authorial agency. how a personal agency is shaped by history and culture through the given as the material for transcendence by a person. culture and history do not determine authorial agency but shape it by constraining it with what is possible and impossible and giving the material for the personal agency to work with (i.e., transcend). ana marjanovic-shane: uh huh. yeah, because it's also mystifying, i mean the conservatism of the sociocultural approach is mystifying really the origins of anything. it often focuses on cultural reproduction and cultural socialization in the given culture. sociocultural conservatism loses human agency and personal creativity. it's not human. eugene matusov: right. well, it's always like culture, like everything before people... but again, i don't want to criticize sociocultural scholars too much – to whom i also think i belong. i think many, if not all, that i know, talk about this challenge in a sociocultural approach -a need to connect culture with the personal agency. but again, agency, unfortunately, was traditionally – at least from my understanding – was understood as “ability.” and that is a decontextualized, universalized, individualistic ability – a traditional notion of agency. it is outside of sociocultural approach. the way some sociocultural scholars are often trying to resolve that is to make agency a social ability, like “asking for help”, for example. but again, they didn't solve the problem of agency, in my view. ana marjanovic-shane: is it something you can develop, or is it something you are... traditional. but you are... kind of like... because, if you have... good circumstances of life, you are almost endowed agency because you are in a richer environment, or something like that? eugene matusov:well, it's very interesting to look at an issue of agency historically, from a historical perspective. in my view, you don't need to develop authorial agency because we constantly demonstrate our authorial agency at a small or big scale. the presence of agency is not the issue, because we are full of authorial agency... and this is why i was justly criticized by my colleague kathy von duyke: when i initially labeled my new approach “education for agency,” she said, “so it's from nothing to agency?” and she was right about that. i accepted that criticism, so i added “from” agency as well. authorial agency is always there. the issue is that actually, society was heavily interested… historically actually, for some time society was interested in suppressing authorial agency. educational philosopher sasha sidorkin writes about that in his last 2009 book, but he thinks that suppressing authorial agency is a good thing — as a part of education to reproduce culture. and the reason for that societal suppression – a little bit of authorial agency is fine, but not much, — is that the society is very much interested in pressing a little bit on gas but heavily on brake when it’s concerned about authorial agency, so to speak. so it's uneven. authorial agency of some, actually very few, people will be supported, but it's not so for many other people. the reason for that, basically, is that this kind of western civilization gets really... accelerated... or i don't know how to say, it almost is getting on the drugs of technology. which means that the first machines were people. so, the idea is to make people behave like machines. very specialized machines, very complicated, even smart (like smartphone)... but very predictable... according to a machine vision of people, people-machine should be predictable, replaceable, standard... -which is all anti-agency. you see, authorial agency cannot be standard, predictable and replaceable. and this trend is very much with us now, it is not like i’m saying, the time of peoplemachine has been passed, but i’d argue that it starts breaking now. it's... at least this is how i see it. maybe i'm too optimistic, but i see the raising wave of changes. more and more things that people can do, as machines, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 24 http://www.psychopen.eu/ machines can do. so, it seems to me that now we have reached a point where machines are becoming what people call “smart” machines. machine-like human labor becomes devalued and outsourced from developed countries to china and india as cheap labor. the fact that we are calling machines “smart”... is freeing people back to agency. the agency-labor – design, creativity, innovation, practical wisdom, critical thinking, authorial judgment and leadership, responsible risk-taking, personal relations, caring, and so on -becomes more and more in demand and value in the new emerging agency-based economy. before even reaching the destination of knowledge-based economy, we already start transforming from knowledge-based economy and society to agencybased economy and society. ana marjanovic-shane: right, on the one hand, but on the other hand, it is also freeing people from income, because there are less and less jobs that are given to people to do, because machines can do it. eugene matusov: i'm not an economist to talk about that this painful process but… anamarjanovic-shane:…that's kind of like, sometimes i have fears that we are on a breaking point of the whole economy, how we live, or how the ability to be distributed… eugenematusov:…my suspicion, again, i'm not an economist, it's nice to check that with economists. it's actually interesting, the more and more people seem to get involved in economy on the globe... rather than less people involved... but i think you're right about... that the process is very painful. the process is painful for many different reasons. one reason it is painful is that schooling, and many other institutions and practices are trying to break human agency and creativity with all its neoliberal reforms focusing on standardization, accountability, testing, but at the same time, there seems to be growing demand for it. ana marjanovic-shane: it's a contradiction. eugene matusov: it's a huge contradictory situation, that's one thing. i think that current neoliberal reforms are last kicks of dying horse. very painful kicks, if not deadly at times, indeed. i hope they won’t last long enough but it depends on our efforts as well. and all these contradictory transitions painfully disrupt people’s way of being, for many people. there’s a lot of exploitation going on, and uh, and it is still heavily based on the exploitation of the people – of each other. plus, again, this trend, although it's there in my view, it's just beginning, but it's not there yet, so we cannot fully rely on an agency-based economy yet... this is my claim, that there is a growing new agency-based trend in economy, and not only in economy – it's bigger than an economy. we are shifting from the knowledge-based and skill-based society to an agency-based society – post-knowledge [society]. and a lot of people right now think that it's fashionable to talk about a knowledge-based society as a new thing. but, it is already old-new thing, in my view. we are in a transition to agency-based society. i suspect many contradictory processes are going on in our global society at the same time. ana marjanovic-shane: best teaching practices are... evidence-based teaching, research-based teaching. eugene matusov: yes, ugh — all that nonsense; which is based on the knowledge evidence, — this is a technological trend of knowledge-based economy. this trend is probably even getting stronger as we speak. but, i think there is more future in an agency-based tendency. knowledge-based is the past, the present and [the] past, rather than the future. one reason for that is that knowledge has become more available on internet... as educational philosopher alexander sidorkin says, educated person is not one who knows and can do things, but one who can find things and can learn them on the internet, and i would add, who desires finding them and dialoguing about europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 matusov & marjanovic-shane 25 http://www.psychopen.eu/ them in a critical manner. here you see the shift to authorial agency. becoming smart used to be associated with becoming knowledgeable — now, being smart is associated with creative and critical authorship. i heard that knowing about how to take care of a plant was considered to be smart. well now, people can look on the internet for that. smartness has been redefined as being a unique, irreplaceable, creative, specialized… ana marjanovic-shane: …available. eugene matusov: and become very available, on demand. because internet is at the fingers of more and more people. knowledge becomes more and more available and less and less valuable. ana marjanovic-shane: so… eugene matusov: …so, agency becomes valuable. there is another issue if you are interested in authorial agency: not only do you think about future, but also, it's about... defining education. in my view, education is not so much about authorial socialization in a socially valuable practice, even creative socialization in that practice. it is a critical socialization in practice, in which people not only creatively transform the cultural practice, but also critically evaluate the practice itself, including practice of education. which means that the people, actually students, have to decide for themselves what good education is for them, or even if they want it... — the terrible question, for an educator [laughs]: whether you need education at all, in anyway it is defined. socrates said that unexamined life is not worth living. but, as a political philosopher kukathas convincingly argued, some unexamined life may be worth living while some examined life might not. i wonder if genuine education should include debates about that as well. if my conceptualization of history is correct, currently schooling is more about putting brakes on authorial agency in the name of knowledge and skills – i.e., production of machine-like people. definitely, we should move away from that. what a waste of humanity! people are people, full of authorial agency – they are not standard predictable machines, and we, educators, should not try to make them as such. ana marjanovic-shane: i have many more questions to ask about your vision of education and schooling in agency-based society, about painful transitions, agency-based teaching, critical dialogue, and so on but our interview time is, unfortunately, up. eugene matusov: thanks a lot, ana, vlad, and europe's journal of psychology for giving me this opportunity! i have learned from your questions a lot. i have also many questions as well about agency-based schooling and agency-based research— i hope to discuss in my upcoming book on ddeffaa. i’m also interested what readers think…. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 9–26 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.762 interview with eugene matusov 26 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview with eugene matusov (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments microsoft word 2. interview ideas that shape contemporary psychology.doc europe’s journal of psychology 1/2010, pp. 6-13 www.ejop.org ideas that shape contemporary psychology: interview with prof. robert sternberg by vlad glăveanu ejop editor professor robert sternberg is a scholar that needs no introduction for all those who are in contact with fields such as intelligence and creativity, thinking and problem solving, social relations and leadership, and thus, more generally, with the discipline of psychology. his prodigious scientific activity has greatly shaped our understanding of the human mind, of intelligent and creative behaviour, of the development of the intellect. professor sternberg’s research stands out not only as a fundamental contribution to psychological theory but, above all, as an example of how psychological research can be extremely useful for different fields of human activity, from educational to organisational settings. in this interview professor sternberg talks about the past an present of intelligence and creativity research, and also about his career and current projects, a source of inspiration for graduate students, young scholars and psychologists at large. currently dean of tufts' school of arts and sciences and honorary professor at the university of heidelberg, robert j. sternberg is the director of the pace (psychology of abilities, competencies and expertise) center. his work at the pace center is dedicated to the advancement of theory, research, practice and policy advancing the notion of intelligence as modifiable and capable of development throughout the life span. former ibm professor of psychology and education and professor of management at yale university, robert sternberg received his ph.d. from stanford university and his b.a. summa cum laude and phi beta kappa, with honors and exceptional distinction in psychology, from yale university. he has also received ten honorary doctorates. he is a past-president of the american psychological association (apa) and the eastern psychological association (epa), and has served on the boards of directors of the apa, apa insurance trust, and american psychological foundation. robert sternberg is currently on the boards of the american association of colleges and universities and the eastern psychological association. ideas that shape contemporary psychology 7 ejop: prof. sternberg, your outstanding career has been shaped by multiple interests. alongside a key preoccupation for human intelligence and the related fields of creativity, wisdom, thinking styles, reasoning and problem solving, and intellectual development, you have made significant contributions to the study of social relationships, love and hate, social competences, leadership and ethnics, among others. your theories have found numerous applications, predominantly in the psychology of education and school psychology. are there any underlying themes or assumptions that permeate your work in all these different areas? how did your add, in time, more and more areas of interest and how do you see the connections between them? robert sternberg: i pretty much pursued topics that interested me. almost always, the topics followed from personal failures. i became interested in intelligence because i scored poorly on iq tests as a child; i started studying creativity as a result of feeling bereft of ideas; i studied wisdom as a result of giving poor advice to a graduate student; i started studying love when i was in a failing relationship; i started studying hate because i lost much of my mother’s side of the family during the holocaust. in general, i think my theories take ideas that are fairly intuitive and commonplace, formalize them, and present them in a testable way. that is to say, none of the theories is particularly deep or insightful, but rather characterizes phenomena in common-sensical ways. some scholars prefer to pick one topic and stay with it for their entire careers. this path, although probably the more rewarded one, would have bored me. i am easily bored, most of all, with my own work, so i tend to move on although never to abandon an area entirely. ejop: from past to present and also to the future. what are the projects you are working on at the moment in terms of research and/or publications? how do these projects continue or fit into the “big picture” of your previous work? robert sternberg: my largest project right now is on university admissions—applying my wics theory (wisdom-intelligence-creativity-synthesized) to the admission of students. we did a first project when i was at yale, and now at tufts, wics has become a part of the admissions process for undergraduates. basically, we found that by assessing wics, we could increase prediction of first-year grade-point average and also of participation in extracurricular and leadership activities. our assessments, unlike the commonly used sat and act, do not show ethnic-group differences. this work will be summarized in a book to be published next fall by harvard university press, seeking the best. i also am involved in testing some of the predictions of the balance theory of wisdom. also in press is a coauthored book, europe’s journal of psychology 8 explorations of giftedness (cambridge university press), and coedited new editions with cambridge of my handbooks of intelligence and creativity. ejop: you are one of the main contemporary theorists of intelligence and have greatly influenced the psychological study of this phenomenon in your career spanning almost four decades. how would you appreciate the current state of the psychology of intelligence compared to the time when you started working on the triarchic theory? what has been and has not been yet achieved by research on intelligence? where should we look to next? robert sternberg: on the positive side, there is a lot of excellent work going on, especially in the cognitive area, looking at relations between constructs such as working memory and attention, on the one hand, and intelligence, on the other. great progress has been made in understanding brain correlates of intelligence, although sometimes the investigators forget that they are indeed studying correlates whose causal roles are not yet clearly demonstrated. there has also been a great deal of excellent work on cultural aspects of intelligence and on educating students to increase their intelligence. the work on the flynn effect also has been fascinating. on the negative side, there has been less development theoretically than i had hoped. many people are still stuck on g theory and doing endless studies showing that g correlates with this and that. they seem to lack the capacity to be bored, as they keep finding new things with which to correlate g, and indeed, the number of potential constructs is probably infinite so they will be assured of having something to do for the rest of their careers, as will their successors. there is also a group that is obsessed with showing that people like them are smarter than people who are not like them, but i suspect that will always be the case. some of the people attracted to the field are attracted because it helps them deal with their own insecurities. (take me, for example: i study intelligence because of my poor childhood intelligence test scores!) indeed, sometimes i go to parties and talk to people who manage to slip in their standardized test scores from their youth. in some cases, that may be the last great thing they did. ejop: your triarchic model of intelligence emphasized the role of creativity for intelligent behavior. you expanded your work on creativity through time and proposed, with todd lubart, new models such as the investment theory of creativity. at the same time, comparing intelligence and creativity research in psychology in general, the latter seems rather underdeveloped. how would you appreciate the current state of the psychology of creativity? what have we gained in the past decades and what is still ahead of us in terms of pressing questions and challenges? ideas that shape contemporary psychology 9 robert sternberg: the psychology of creativity has moved forward greatly. i am currently coediting a new cambridge handbook of creativity with james kaufman, which updates my earlier handbook, and contains a summary of current research. great progress has been made in understanding personality attributes underlying creativity, brain correlates of creativity, and techniques for developing creativity. i would have hoped to see more gains in applied research—for example, new ways of teaching for creativity and innovative ways of measuring creativity that could become part of standardized testing batteries. instead, many educators are still using the torrance tests, which were innovative when they were introduced but now are very old. it is a bad sign when old tests hold on, because it means that the field of assessment is not moving. of course, the whole testing industry is stuck in a retrograde early twentieth-century mentality, so the use of the torrance tests is hardly surprising. the problem is that there is so little innovative competition. if testing companies faced the kind of competition software companies do, they would all have been driven into the ground long ago. but even the dinosaurs eventually lost their dominion over the world. ejop: continuing the discussion of the triarchic model, you have emphasized the role of wisdom for human thought and behavior. and yet the concept of wisdom is somehow unfamiliar to psychologists and much more associated with philosophical inquiries into human nature. why do you feel we need this concept and how can we go about measuring wisdom in psychological research? robert sternberg: i became interested in wisdom in part because i once gave bad advice to a graduate student. i was about 30, and suppose i was smarter than i was wise. i also became interested because in the 1980s and 1990s, there were so many smart people doing stupid things. very smart and well-educated people were bringing down companies and committing genocides. little did i know that by 2008, some of the smartest and best educated people would bring down the world economy, and having done so, been concerned only with how to profit from the misery they created. in the united states, at least, there are very clever people at major investment banks who, having screwed the public once, are now trying to do it again by profiting from the losses they caused others. i think we really need to pay more attention to wisdom and ethics, lest the future of the world be destruction wrought by our own cleverness (financial ruin, ruin by biological or chemical or nuclear attacks, or whatever). the best psychologist studying wisdom was paul baltes. he really opened the field up. i am so pleased that others are now following in his shoes. i am pleased that the templeton foundation is supporting research on wisdom: it is what the world needs. europe’s journal of psychology 10 ejop: moving from analytical to creative and especially to practical skills as part of intelligence, more and more emphasis is given to the contextual nature of intelligent behaviors and, consequently, the need to take context into account in the assessment of intelligence. defining what is creative and what is a successful application of knowledge and analytical skills is only possible if we understand the situational aspects of intelligent action. your work has paid tribute to this nonuniversalistic understanding of what intelligence is and can help us become. at the same time the main drive behind psychometric studies has always been that of standardizing conditions and working with rather “universalistic” criteria. how do you think one can solve dilemmas such as the above? more generally, how do we manage to respect the particular circumstances of the respondents in intelligence testing? robert sternberg: in the theory of successful intelligence, which was presented to me while i was on a mountain and was written on a tablet by a holy angel (only kidding), there is a universal part—the components of intelligence—and a culturespecific part—the application of these components to experience in real-world contexts. that is, in any culture, people must recognize when they have a problem, define what the problem is, figure out how to solve the problem, monitor their problem solving, and so forth. but the contexts in which they apply these components differ. for example, defining a problem as one of free speech to present dissent can bring you accolades in one culture and death in another. so i believe that there are universal but also culture-specific aspects of intelligence. when we use an intelligence test, we need to recognize it may not be measuring the same thing in one culture as another , even if it has been translated. ejop: a great part of your work at this point is dedicated to wics – wisdom, intelligence, creativity, synthesized – proposed as an integrated model for instruction and assessment. what are the main principles that should inform teaching according to the wics model? correspondingly, what should be the main principles to inform student assessment? robert sternberg: the main idea is that we should teach and assess in a variety of ways that enable all students to capitalize on their strengths and correct or compensate for their weaknesses. in our own research, we have found better student learning outcomes when students are taught analytically, creatively, and practically, as well as for memory. we also now infuse wisdom-based thinking into our curricula. too often, teachers teach the way they were taught and assess the ways they were assessed. the result is that little changes. students might actually be able to excel if taught in ways that better suit them. one of the disappointments in ideas that shape contemporary psychology 11 my own career is that i have found many scientists to be quite conservative and protective of the status quo. after all, it got them where they are, so it must be pretty good, and those who could not cut it based on that status quo—well, tough on them! as a dean, i find that scientists on the whole are much more conservative than people in the humanities, and in psychology, the scientists are more conservative than the practitioners, on the average. there is nothing wrong with being conservative, but in education, it results in stagnation. we are still, in the us, doing what we have done for over 100 years and will probably keep doing it as those in power continue to justify the system that put them into their positions of power and that will ensure their children benefit as well. i hope i am not being cynical. it is just how people are, and why at times we need revolutionary thinkers in science and in everything else, a point tom kuhn made 40 years ago! ejop: besides being a renowned theorist and researcher you have built a strong reputation for putting your research intro practice. the “rainbow” and “kaleidoscope” projects are clear illustrations of this. without disregarding more “traditional” measures (like sat scores) you advocated for the introduction of tasks that require the use of creative and practical skills as integral parts of candidates’ assessment process. what are the chances of this becoming common practice in the near future? what kind of challenges did you face in applying this new assessment strategy? overall, is the educational system ready for integrating these novelties? robert sternberg: kaleidoscope is based on the notion of assessing and teaching for analytical, creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills. it is now part of what we do at tufts, but whether it will continue beyond my deanship, i cannot say. other schools have started using some of our methods as well. it is an uphill battle as there are strong vested interests in the conventional system. in the us, testing companies make money; universities don’t have to pay—the students pay for the tests—so they feel free to continue to require them; news magazines evaluate universities based on their test scores so universities keep trying to raise their averages. it is a vicious circle, in a way, with one part of the system feeding off another. i greatly underestimated, when i was young, how hard it is to change a system, or at least, my own ability to change it. the keenest disappointment of my professional career is how little success i have had in changing anything that matters—a rather sorry record for 35 years of effort! ejop: towards the end of our interview i would like to ask you to address a few words to our readers. one of our aims with europe’s journal of psychology is to promote an active dialogue between scholars, young professionals and graduate students. as europe’s journal of psychology 12 one of the most prolific researchers in psychology and as a scholar who offered us around twelve hundred publications until now, what would you advise students pursuing a career in psychology? robert sternberg: i tend to have three-part theories, so i would give three pieces of advice. first, find your passion and study that. there is a lot of pressure to study certain areas over others—those where the money is, those where one’s friends are, those where the job openings are. it is sad how fad-driven psychology is. in the united states, at least, someone in the bottom 1/3 of cognitive-neuroscience researchers will have an easier time finding a job than someone in the top 1/10 of creativity researchers. so it is with many subfields—the money is here but not there. that said, the most creative and meaningful research is always done in the areas for which one has passion. second, do not let conventional thinkers discourage you from moving a field forward. psychology is filled with tradition-bound thinkers, many of them with very high iqs, who are frightened by the idea that traditional paradigms might be inadequate. remember, there was a long period of time in which people who studied the mind were considered quite unscientific by the reigning behaviorists. unfortunately, we select highly in our universities for correlates of iq, and this is a very conservative way of selecting people—it tends to select for those who are good at playing the conventional game, which is essentially what iq is a measure of. i have had more negative reviews of my work than most people will ever have reviews, positive or negative. third, learn from your mistakes and don’t get stuck. we all make mistakes and sometimes it is hard to admit to them. in my own work, my theories have moved from being rather narrow to being much broader. every few years, i would recognize that the way i defined problems was more limited than i realized at the time. we need to spend more time thinking about what the big problems are before we rush to solve the small ones. ejop: finally, what do you think is the role of psychology in the contemporary world? what is/are the main contribution(s) it made or has to make in the coming future to strengthen its role as one of the most dynamic and important fields of scientific inquiry? robert sternberg: psychology has many important contributions to make. in the us, i have started as president-elect of the federation of association of behavioral and brain sciences, and my major role is to educate policy-makers regarding what we are psychologists can do for society. we can make a difference to education, physical and mental health (which of course are closely connected), industry, and politics, to name a few domains. we as a field often have a compulsion to imitate biology and other natural sciences. it is great that our scientific progress can in some ideas that shape contemporary psychology 13 ways mirror those. but i hope that, in our rush to be part of the natural sciences, we do not lose concern with issues of values, ethics, and how to use our science for the common good. the effect of the negotiator's social power as a function of the counterpart's emotional reactions in a computer mediated negotiation research reports the effect of the negotiator's social power as a function of the counterpart's emotional reactions in a computer mediated negotiation shlomo hareli*ab, shlomo davidb, sagi akrona, ursula hessc [a] faculty of management, university of haifa, haifa, israel. [b] the interdisciplinary center for research on emotions, university of haifa, haifa, israel. [c] humboldt-university, berlin, germany. abstract a negotiator’s own power and their counterpart’s emotional reaction to the negotiation both influence the outcome of negotiations. the present research addressed the question of their relative importance. on one hand, social power should be potent regardless of the other’s emotions. on the other hand, the counterpart’s emotional reactions inform about the ongoing state of the negotiation, and as such are more diagnostic than the more distal power cue. in a simulated computer mediated negotiation, 248 participants assumed the role of a vendor of computerized avionics test equipment and their objective was to negotiate the price, the warranty period, and the number of software updates that the buyer will receive free of charge. participants negotiated the sale after being primed with either high or low power or not primed at all (control condition). they received information that their counterpart was either happy or angry or emotionally neutral. the findings showed that even though power was an important factor at the start of negotiations, the informative value of emotion information took precedence over time. this implies that emotional information may erase any advantage that counterparts have in a negotiation thanks to their higher social power. keywords: emotions, social power, negotiation, anger, happiness europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 received: 2013-05-31. accepted: 2013-10-28. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: maria kakarika, kedge business school, marseille, france. *corresponding author at: university of haifa, graduate school of management, university of haifa, haifa, 31905, israel. e-mail: shareli@gsb.haifa.ac.il this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. social power has an important influence on how people behave (galinsky, gruenfeld, & magee, 2003; keltner, gruenfeld, & anderson, 2003; sachdev & bourhis, 1991). social power is usually defined as one's ability to influence and control the behavior of others (french & raven, 1959; imai, 1993; manz & gioia, 1983). the social power of negotiators affects negotiations in several ways, for one, by determining the negotiator’s aspirations, demands, and willingness to make concessions (see e.g., de dreu, 1995; giebels, de dreu, & van de vliert, 1998) but also by influencing the extent to which a negotiator is aware of what the counterpart’s underlying interests in the negotiation are (mannix & neale, 1993). yet, the effect of social power on negotiations should also vary as a function of how the negotiation unfolds. next to social power, the emotions expressed during a negotiation are a potent factor for the unfolding of a negotiation (see e.g., kopelman, rosette, & thompson, 2006; sinaceur & tiedens, 2006; steinel, van kleef, & harinck, 2008; van kleef, de dreu, & manstead, 2004a, 2004b, 2006). generally emotions serve a communicative function by providing information about expressers (hareli & hess, 2012; hareli & rafaeli, 2008; hareli, sharabi, & hess, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2011; van kleef, 2009, 2010). in the specific context of a negotiation, emotions can serve as feedback about the negotiator's mood and their willingness to agree to proposed offers (putnam, 1994). indeed, every emotion carries a specific message; for example, a positive emotion signals trust and a willingness to cooperate (frank, 1988; fridlund, 1994; knutson, 1996), whereas a negative emotion may denote an intention to compete (allred, mallozzi, matsui, & raia, 1997; thompson, medvec, seiden, & kopelman, 2001). more specifically, the emotions of a participant in a negotiation provide information about how far the current offer is from what the participant wants to achieve. thus, negotiators concedemore to angry counterparts than to neutral ones and less to happy counterparts than to neutral ones (van kleef et al., 2004a, 2004b). one important question is how these two factors work together in affecting the negotiation. this question is important because, as reviewed briefly above, both factors were shown to independently play an important role in negotiations. however, given that both factors often coexist in a negotiation and that they are closely linked (keltner et al., 2003; tiedens, 2000) it becomes of interest to examine how these factors interact to affect negotiations. previous research, acknowledging the potential link between these factors in negotiations, has shown that the extent to which negotiators consider the emotions expressed by their counterpart during the negotiation depends on the decisional power of the perceiver (van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, & manstead, 2006). specifically, when negotiators were not dependent on the counterpart, that is, were not obliged to reach an agreement in the negotiation, their offers were not influenced by the counterpart’s emotions. by contrast, the counterpart’s emotions were taken into account in situations of high dependency, either because negotiators did not have an alternative to the negotiation, or because they are low in organizational status, that is, held a low level position in the organization (van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006).yet, this raises the question of the relative importance of emotions and power for the negotiation. on the one hand, social power is known to be a potent factor in negotiations, hence its impact should be potent regardless of the emotions of a counterpart. on the other hand, emotions are more proximal signals about the ongoing state of the negotiation, and as such can be more diagnostic in specific situations than power, which is a more distal cue (hareli, sharabi, cossette, & hess, 2011). thus, the question arises of how the influence of power and emotions unfolds over the course of the negotiation and whether they interact or both independently influence the negotiation. this was the main question addressed in this research. based on the rationale delineated above, we predicted that emotions, being a more proximal signal of the way the negotiation unfolds, will overpower the importance of the negotiator's social power as this is a more distal cue and hence less predictive of what is expected to happen at specific points in the negotiation. we explored the extent to which negotiators’ offers in a computer-mediated negotiation were affected by their social power and their counterpart’s emotional reactions to their offers using a paradigm adapted from van kleef and colleagues (see e.g., van kleef et al., 2004a, 2004b). specifically, participants were to assume the role of a vendor (i.e., a sales person) who has to negotiate with a buyer (i.e., costumer) a deal involving a computer system, using a computer mediated communication system. they had to negotiate the price of the computer system, the number of free software updates and the years of warranty. the “buyer,” who was actually simulated by the computer, rejected offers that were above a pre-set acceptable offer, with a message reflecting either anger, happiness or emotional neutrality. the negotiation task was designed such that it captured the main characteristics of real-life negotiations in that it included multiple issues differing in utility to the negotiator, information about one's own payoff only, and a typical offer-counteroffer sequence (see also van kleef et al., 2004a). computermediated negotiation is a frequently used tool for negotiation and important in its own right (de dreu & van kleef, 2004) and research indicates that results from negotiation studies using computer mediated communication and studies in which similar negotiations were performed in face to face communication (kopelman et al., 2006) or by europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 hareli, david, akron et al. 821 http://www.psychopen.eu/ other means such as the simulation of negotiations over the phone (van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006) are comparable. importantly, both studies mentioned above, tested the role of emotions in negotiation and the second one specifically tested the role of emotions and power in negotiations. to manipulate the vendor’s power, priming was used. in previous research, power has been manipulated in various ways, for example, by varying negotiators’ freedom to act or by giving them a specific organizational status (van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006). organizational status refers to the standing or position of a specific individual in the organization, for example, an employee or manager. however, a person with high organizational status has also more decisional latitude than a person with low organizational status. yet, this larger latitude can grant the negotiator a practical advantage in the negotiation that is not necessarily uniquely related to power. also, organizational status is not always equivalent to actual power and this may be of specific concern in a country with low power distance such as israel where hierarchies are often perceived as flat (basabe & ros, 2005). previous studies testing the role of emotions and power in negotiation were conducted mainly in the netherlands (e.g., de dreu & van kleef, 2004; van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006) and the u.s. (e.g., kopelman et al., 2006). we therefore decided to manipulate power through priming, a procedure that has been shown to be effective for power manipulations and that does not present the above mentioned disadvantages (see e.g., galinsky et al., 2003; galinsky, magee, inesi, & gruenfeld, 2006; smith & trope, 2006). method participants a total of 248 participants (128 men) with a mean age of 30 years (sd = 7.3, range 20-56) who were graduate and undergraduate students from the university of haifa participated in the study for partial course credit. they were recruited frommba (188 participants) and b.a. social psychology classes and participated in the experiment for extra course credit. participants volunteered to participate in the experiment during class breaks. the study was approved by the university's ethics committee. procedure participants entered the laboratory where they were told that they are going to be engaged in two separate and unrelated studies and that for each they would get separate course credit. participants, who signed the informed consent form, then received randomly one out of three texts used for the power priming task developed by galinsky, gruenfeld, andmagee (2003). specifically, participants in the high social power condition were requested to describe as detailed as possible a time when they had power over another person or persons. participants in the low social power condition were asked to describe a time when another person or persons had power over them. in the control condition, participants had to describe what happened yesterday. each participant wrote one of these descriptions as a function of the condition he or she was assigned to. thus, the social power of the participant was exclusively determined on the basis of the type of situation they were asked to describe. once they had finished this task, participants placed the page in one of three boxes on which it was written “you having power over others,” “others having power over you,” or “yesterday,” in line with the experimental condition they were assigned to. the respective box was left in front of them during the entire study to increase the impact of the priming. the negotiation task the negotiation task consisted of a computer mediated negotiation paradigm adapted from van kleef et al. (2004a, 2004b). the task was designed to capture the main characteristics of real-life negotiations as detailed above. in europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 power and emotions in negotiations 822 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the adapted version, participants were assigned the role of a vendor of computerized avionics test equipment (i.e., computer hardware and software designed to test aircraft electronic devices) and their objective was to negotiate the price, the warranty period, and the number of software updates that the buyer will receive free of charge. they were told that the other negotiator is a student from a different university who studies in a similar program. in reality the buyer was simulated by the computer program. participants received a payoff chart (see table 1) that showed them which outcomes were most favorable to them and were told that their objective was to earn as many points as possible. as shown in table 1, higher prices, fewer updates and fewer years of warranty yielded more points. table 1 participants’ payoff chart – points earned as a function of choices made by the participant software updateswarranty periodprice of computer system level payoffnumber of updatespayoffwarranty (in years)payoffprice ($) 24011201400150,0001 2102105350145,0002 .51 1803902300140,0003 150475250135,0004 .52 1205603200130,0005 90645150125,0006 .53 607304100120,0007 3081550115,0008 .54 09050110,0009 the participants were told that "you can observe that the best deal for you is 1-1-1, which will yield 760 points (400 + 120 + 240)." to clarify the payoff chart, consider the following examples. a choice of 8-7-7will yield 140 points (50 + 30 + 60), 7-6-7 yields 205 points (100 + 45 + 60) and a choice of 6-6-6 yields 285 points (150 + 45 + 90). the corresponding payoff table for their counterpart was not shown, but participants were told that it differed from their own. to enhance participants’ involvement in the negotiation task, they were informed that at the end of the experiment the points they receive would be converted into lottery tickets and that the more points they earned, the more lottery tickets they will obtain and hence the greater their chance of winning the prize (dinner for two at a restaurant) would be. to emphasize the mixed motive nature of the negotiation, participants were told that only those who reached an agreement could participate in the lottery. thus, on the one hand, there was an incentive to earn as many points as possible, whereas on the other hand, there was an incentive to reach an agreement. after a short pause during which the computer supposedly assigned buyer and vendor roles to the participants, all participants were assigned the role of vendor. they were told that the buyer (i.e., their counterpart) would make the first offer and that the negotiation would continue until an agreement was reached or until time ran out. just before the negotiation started, participants were told that an additional goal of the study was to examine the effects of having versus not having information about the counterpart’s intentions. they read that they had been randomly assigned to receive information about the intentions of their counterpart without the counterpart knowing this; and that the counterpart would not conversely receive information about their intentions. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 hareli, david, akron et al. 823 http://www.psychopen.eu/ following these instructions, the negotiation started and the buyer (i.e., the computer) made a first offer. during the course of the negotiation, the buyer accepted higher prices and less service. conditions set by the participants were accepted if they equaled or exceeded the offer the computer was scheduled to accept in the next round. if no agreement was reached after the sixth and last round, the negotiation was terminated (for the rationale of this choice, see van kleef et al. (2004a). thus, the maximum number of rounds was six. emotion manipulation after the first, third, and fifth negotiation round, participants received information about “the intentions of the buyer,” which included information about the buyer’s emotion. figure 1 describes the task and its various stages. figure 1. graphic description of the negotiation task. participants had to wait for about a minute and a half while the buyer was supposedly asked to reveal what he or she intended to do in the next round, and why. participants then received the written answer in a separate box on the screen. the answers consisted of the buyer’s intentions for the next round as well as of an emotional verbal statement, for example, “this offer makes me really angry,” that comprised the experimental manipulation. it was stressed that the buyer did not know that his or her “intentions” were revealed to the participant. this was done in order to lead participants to believe that they received information about the real emotions of the counterpart, and not strategically faked, inhibited, or exaggerated emotions. the emotional statement was either angry, happy, or neutral (see table 2). as shown in table 2, the emotional verbal statements representing each emotional reaction were somewhat varied across the rounds in which this information was provided to increase the impression that these were actual written responses of the counterpart. thus, as figure 1 shows, for up to 6 rounds, as long as the buyer does not accept the vendor's offer, the negotiation continues and the vendor receives the buyer's emotional reaction to his/her previous offer. if the buyer accepts an offer, the negotiation ends. to sum, our experimental manipulation resulted in a 3 (social power: high vs. low vs. not defined) x 3 (emotional response of the buyer: anger vs. happiness vs. emotional neutrality) betweensubjects design. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 power and emotions in negotiations 824 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 statements used for the manipulation of the counterpart's experienced emotion statementcounterpart's emotion after round 1 this offer makes me really angry, i think i will offer 8-7-7.anger i am happy with this offer, i think i will offer 8-7-7.happiness i think i will offer 8-7-7.no emotion after round 3 this is really getting on my nerves. i am going to offer 7-6-7.anger this is going pretty well so far. i am going to offer 7-6-7.happiness i am going to offer 7-6-7.no emotion after round 5 i am going to offer 6-6-6, because this negotiation pisses me off.anger i am going to offer 6-6-6, because i feel good about this negotiation.happiness i am going to offer 6-6-6.no emotion note. statements have been translated from hebrew. results participants’ negotiation results for price, warranty and updates were converted into points based on table 1. the following analyses were conducted on the total number of points obtained at each round of the negotiation. to assess the effect of the negotiation partners' emotion expression and participant's social power on the negotiation results, a 3 (emotion: neutral, happy, anger) x 3 (priming: no status priming, high status priming, low status priming) x 6 (negotiation round) a mixed factors anova was conducted on the total number of points obtained at each of the six negotiation rounds. simple effect analyses (fisher lsd, p <. 05) were used to follow-up on these effects. a significant main effect of negotiation round emerged, f(2, 421)i = 219.4, p < .0001, such that over the course of the negotiation participants compromised by asking for a lower price, and granting more updates and longer warranties. in addition, a significant main effect of emotion expression emerged, f(4, 421) = 4.80, p < .01, which was qualified by an emotion expression x negotiation round interaction, f(4, 421) = 4.75, p < .01. specifically, at the first negotiation round (before the first emotion feedback was given) no significant differences between the emotion conditions emerged. as shown in figure 2, a significant difference between happiness and neutral emotion information emerged from round two to six, such that participants compromised less when their counterpart showed happiness rather than emotional neutrality. from round four onward, happiness was also significantly different from anger such that participants also compromised less when their counterpart expressed anger rather than happiness. no difference between anger and neutrality emerged. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 hareli, david, akron et al. 825 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the effect of counterpart’s emotion on participants offer over the course of negotiation terms. that is, as soon as emotion feedback was provided, participants whose negotiation partner expressed happiness tended to compromise less and this effect became increasingly stronger over the course of the negotiation. thus, a counterpart's emotion message had an effect on the subsequent offers of the participant. further, a significant status x negotiation round interaction emerged, f(4, 421) = 2.60, p = .042 (see figure 3). simple effects analyses revealed, as expected, that in the beginning of the negotiation (rounds one to three) negotiators primed with high power compromised less than those primed with low power. however, from round four to the end of the negotiation, social power made no difference anymore as participants in all three social power conditions made comparable offers. this shows that participants' primed social power influenced the offers they made during the negotiation. in sum, whereas the emotions of the counterpart had an increasingly stronger effect as the negotiation proceeded, the effect of social power waned. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 power and emotions in negotiations 826 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. the effect of negotiator’s social power participant’s offer over the course of negotiation terms. discussion the goal of the present study was to assess the impact of the participant's social power and the emotional reactions of their counterpart to the participants' offers on the outcome of a negotiation. previous research on negotiations already alluded to the importance of negotiators' social power (kopelman et al., 2006) and even to the interaction between emotion information and power (van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006). however, this latter study operationalized power in terms of decisional power. specifically, the high power individual not only had more power but actually additional means to reach their goal in the negotiation, that is, they had a practical advantage over the low power individual. by contrast we manipulated only the social power of the negotiator without affecting their options in the negotiation. in such a situation we predicted that social power on its own will have a lesser effect on the negotiation relative to the emotional reaction of a counterpart to the negotiation. this, since such emotions serve as a more proximal cue of the way the negotiation unfolds. as expected, following the logic of the negotiation process, negotiators compromised over the rounds of the negotiation by asking for a lower price, and granting more updates and longer warranties. this effect was qualified by the counterpart’s emotion during the negotiation. specifically, we replicated van kleef et al.’s (2004a, 2004b) finding that negotiators whose counterpart expressed happiness with the negotiation compromised less than those whose counterpart expressed anger. however, in this study, the same effect as for anger was found for neutral expressions as well. this latter finding of congruent effects of expressed anger and neutrality replicates previous findings (hareli, shomrat, & hess, 2009) and may reflect a cultural difference in reactions to emotions. alternatively, people who express neutrality when an emotional reaction might be expected can be perceived as more negative (hess, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 hareli, david, akron et al. 827 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adams, & kleck, 2007). due to this fact, it is possible that in the present context, the two reactions conveyed a similar message regarding the counterpart’s intentions in the negotiation. importantly, social power had a significant effect on the offers made by the participant such that the high power participant compromised less than the low power one. however, in line with our predictions, this was the case only at the beginning of the negotiation. the social power of the negotiator lost its effect on the participants’ offers as the negotiation progressed. thus, over all, when considering the combined effect of the negotiator’s social power and the emotions of their counterpart, social power played a role mainly early in the process. by contrast, the role of emotions becomes stronger as the negotiation moves on and agreement is not reached. this indicates that the tracking role of emotions in negotiations (van kleef et al., 2004a) becomes a more potent factor in the negotiation as it progresses. this, because emotions provide a more proximal and reliable indicator of where the negotiation stands vis-à-vis one’s counterpart. by contrast, social power, which is a more distal factor, determines the starting point of the negotiation and becomes less and less relevant when the emotions provide on-going feedback about how the negotiation progresses. this finding shows that a negotiator’s social power when determined by his general standing does not determine whether the emotions of the counterpart are relevant or not. yet, when a negotiator’s social power provides him or her, a practical advantage in the negotiation as, for example, in van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al. (2006) it has an effect across the negotiation. rather as long as the negotiator has an interest in successfully concluding the negotiation (which was not the case in the study referenced above, where power was operationalized as decisional freedom), the emotions of the counterpart, regardless of social power, not only remain pertinent but gain increasing importance as the negotiation progresses. this further shows the power of emotions in negotiations. specifically, previous research showed that the social power of negotiators affects negotiations in several ways, among other things, by determining the negotiator’s aspirations, demands, willingness to make concessions, and actual gains (see e.g., de dreu, 1995; giebels et al., 1998) as well as the extent to which a negotiator is aware of what the counterpart’s underlying interests in the negotiation are (mannix & neale, 1993). yet, as the present research shows, this effect may be restricted to early stages of a negotiation and/or to situations in which social power is directly linked to decisional freedom in the negotiation. however, when the social power of the negotiator does not impinge on decisional freedom, its effect seems to diminish in the face of more proximal and hence more diagnostic information about the situation such as that provided by the emotions of the counterpart. despite the fact that we were able to show the combined effect of social power and emotions on negotiations, our research also suffers from some limitations. first, we employed a computer mediated negotiation. even though there is good evidence that the results of studies using this type of negotiation match results of studies using face to face negotiations (e.g., kopelman et al., 2006) or other paradigms of simulating negotiations (e.g., van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, et al., 2006) we cannot preclude the possibility that at least partly our findings are limited to this type of negotiation. this may be especially the case since negotiators do not see one another and hence social power may have less of an importance in this case. further, our study was conducted in a culture known to be low on power distance (basabe & ros, 2005). it may be the case that in a different culture in which power distance is higher social power is a more potent factor in negotiations across the entire process. future research needs to address these possibilities. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 power and emotions in negotiations 828 http://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, the present study demonstrated that even though power is an important factor at the start of negotiations, the informative value of emotion information takes precedence over time and emotion information, as a more proximal cue to the other person’s intentions, becomes more diagnostic than perceptions of one’s own power. notes i) to account for lack of sphericity, degrees of freedom were greenhouse-geisser adjusted. reported degrees of freedom were rounded to the next integer. references allred, k. g., mallozzi, j. s., matsui, f., & raia, c. p. 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(2004b). the interpersonal effects of emotions in negotiations: a motivated information processing approach. journal of personality and social psychology, 87, 510-528. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.4.510 van kleef, g. a., de dreu, c. k. w., & manstead, a. s. r. (2006). supplication and appeasement in conflict and negotiation: the interpersonal effects of disappointment, worry, guilt, and regret. journal of personality and social psychology, 91(1), 124. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.124 van kleef, g. a., de dreu, c. k. w., pietroni, d., & manstead, a. s. r. (2006). power and emotion in negotiation: power moderates the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness on concession making. european journal of social psychology, 36(4), 557-581. doi:10.1002/ejsp.320 about the authors dr. shlomo hareli is a social psychologist and a faculty member of the university of haifa's faculty of management. dr. hareli studies the social function of emotion by focusing on the link between emotions and social judgments in social and managerial contexts. for the past several years he has investigated the social implications of people observing the emotions of others. his research in this field is both theoretical and empirical. dr. hareli is also the director of the interdisciplinary center for research on emotions at the university of haifa. dr. david's research focus is on the social function of emotion. dr. david is the research manager of the interdisciplinary center of research on emotions at the university of haifa. he is involved in research on the function of emotion in negotiation, social relationships and decisions. dr. akron is an assistant professor of finance at the faculty of management, university of haifa. dr. akron holds a ph.d. in finance, from tel aviv university the faculty of management, the leon recanati graduate school of business administration. his research focuses on corporate finance and governance managerial compensation, corporate hedging, and the value of control, anomalies in light of business cycles, business cycles and real estate public sentiment, behavioral finance, the financial implications of corporate social responsibility. he teaches managerial economics, corporate finance, and investments. dr. hess' current research is in the area of emotion psychology, in particular, the communication of affect with an emphasis on two main lines of research. first, using psychophysiological (e.g., electromyography) measures she studies the influence of a sender's expressive behavior on the receiver, in terms of mimicry and emotional contagion. second, she is interested in the role of social influences (e.g., beliefs about group membership) in the encoding and decoding of emotion expressions. more recent research efforts aim to combine these lines of research into a larger theoretical perspective. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 820–831 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.639 hareli, david, akron et al. 831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01633.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00262.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.1.57 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.4.510 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.320 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en power and emotions in negotiations (introduction) method participants procedure the negotiation task emotion manipulation results discussion notes references about the authors the beauty of self-actualisation: linking physical attractiveness and self-fulfilment itai ivtzan department of psychology ucl (university college london) hee sun moon department of psychology ucl (university college london) abstract the current study examined the relationship between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation. it was hypothesized that higher levels of physical attractiveness lead to higher levels of self-actualisation, as physically attractive and self-actualised people share certain characteristics, such as inner-directiveness, sociability and self-acceptance. to investigate this hypothesis, 119 participants completed the personal orientation inventory (poi) questionnaire as a measure of self-actualisation and six professional judges rated the participants’ level of physical attractiveness. the study revealed that participants in the high attractiveness group scored significantly higher on 7 of the 12 poi scales in comparison to the participants in the low attractiveness group: inner-directed, self-actualising value, feeling reactivity, spontaneity, self-regard, self-acceptance, and capacity for intimate contact. the role of self-esteem and the self-fulfilling prophecy effect were discussed as possible explanations for the findings. introduction beauty stereotypes beauty and physical attractiveness are highly complex concepts, which have been the subject of much research and debate within the field of psychology (eagly, ashmore, makhijiani & longo, 1991). although several past investigations such as studies by beck, ward-hull and mclear (1976) and ford and beach (1951) revealed that there are substantial individual differences in preference for beauty standards, more contemporary studies have revealed that people share common views of physical attractiveness regardless of race, age or nationality (fink & neave, 2005). a meta-analysis, conducted by langlois et al (2000), confirmed that the rating participants strongly agree concerning the question of beauty, both within and between cultures. as well as this more contemporary view of a universal perception of beauty and attractiveness, there is also a well-known and almost universally agreed hypothesis among social psychologists that a person’s looks affect a variety of dimensions (marcus & miller, 2003). individuals that are considered physically attractive and beautiful are perceived more positively than those considered physically unattractive (collins & zebrowitz, 1995). for example, a “what is beautiful is good” halo effect (dion, berscheid & walster, 1972) can be demonstrated, whereby individuals who are judged to be physically attractive are perceived to have better personalities, be more sociable, dominant, competent, confident, popular, and be considered to be better employees than are those who are less attractive (eagly et al., 1991). furthermore, they are also considered to be warmer, stronger, more poised, flexible in their thoughts, mentally healthy, intelligent, socially skilled and more successful in their careers than those considered physically unattractive (feingold, 1992; hosoda, stone-romero & coats, 2003; miller, 1970). while perceptions of beauty or attractiveness may change, the positive stereotypes associated with attractiveness are not simply the consequence of modern western society, as evidence of such stereotypes can be seen even during the renaissance. for example, in the visual arts, saints, angels, the virgin mary and jesus were consistently represented as beautiful or attractive, while devils and demons were represented as hideous (zuckert, 2005). this robust existence of the halo-effect of attractiveness extends to occupational, economical and social contexts. for instance, photos of attractive counsellors and teachers are rated more positively on dimensions such as warmth, trust and communication ability than their unattractive peers (cash, begley, mccown, & weise, 1975; goebel & cashen, 1979), and a study by hamermesh and biddle (1994) revealed that attractive people earn about 10% more than unattractive people while all participants hold equal demographic and labor-market characteristics. similarly, weitz (2001, p.668) described attractiveness as “a realistic route to power”, for women specifically, his study revealed that women who are deemed to be attractive are “more likely to marry men of higher socio-economic status, more often hired, more often promoted, and paid higher salaries”. finally, even criminals have shown physical attractiveness to be a positive resource, in that it appears to be associated with lower levels of punishment (downs, & lyons, 1991). the accuracy of beauty stereotypes an interesting question arising from the discussion of such stereotypes is how accurate these stereotypes are? stereotypes are based upon common components such as traits and physical appearance; such traits might be either accurate or inaccurate (biernat & thompson, 2002). previous studies have shown that the stereotype linking physical attractiveness with better social skills is an accurate one. for example, goldman & lewis (1977) tested 120 undergraduate students to assess whether individuals considered to be physically attractive were more socially-skilled than those deemed unattractive. telephone conversations were used to rate subjects social skills, and the results showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the observer’s physical attractiveness ratings and their social skills rating. crucially, this experiment was designed to prevent participants seeing their telephone partners’ photographs before they rated their social skills; ensuring the finding was not simply a product of the stereotype being assessed. a similar study by erwin & calev (1984) supported these results. their research showed that, in a group of individuals with varying levels of attractiveness, physical attractiveness could be distinguished on the basis of an individual’s social skills when dealing with their friends and partners. in relation to these social skills findings, further research has also found attractiveness to be associated with an absence of shyness and social anxiety (lerner & lerner, 1977). another important stereotype linked with beauty is higher intelligence. a large volume of studies demonstrate peoples’ expectation of the physically attractive to be more intelligent in comparison with the physically unattractive (zebrowitz, hall, murphy, & rhodes, 2002) while certain researchers also claim that this stereotype is accurate (e.g., kanazawa & kovar, 2004) and that attractive individuals are indeed more intelligent. furthermore, webster and driskell (1983) refer to physical attractiveness as a status characteristic which has a crucial effect on others’ perceptions of competence; this status characteristic also leads to the attractive individual being more popular and preferred among members of their social groups. for example, krebs & adinolfi (1975) revealed that participants who were highly accepted by their peers were more physically attractive than participants who were less accepted or were neglected, and goldman & lewis (1977) stated that more-physically-attractive participants were better liked than the more unattractive participants in their study. furthermore, in a study of 416 middle school students by felson & bohrnstedt (1979), extremely high correlations were found between physical attractiveness and popularity among peers (.86 among the boys and .90 among the girls), which suggested that the children did not distinguish between physical attractiveness and general personal attractiveness. moreover, physically attractive individuals are often stereotyped as dominant, strong, behaviourally flexible, and stable (hatfield & sprecher, 1986). it is therefore reasonable for one to claim that the stereotypes towards beauty are true to some extent, and that attractive people may, in fact, be more socially-skilled than unattractive individuals. one possible explanation for the link between these stereotypes and the actual behaviour of attractive/unattractive individuals is the self-fulfilling prophecy effect (berry, 1991; borkenau & liebler, 1993; kenny et al., 1994; levesque & kenny, 1993; moskowitz, 1990). dion, berscheid and walster (1972) hypothesized that one’s self-concept develops from observing what others think about oneself. for example, if a physically attractive person is consistently treated as a sociable person, the behaviour of others may influence them to gradually internalize sociability as a part of their self-concept, even if they were not sociable in the first place; thus generating a self-fulfilling prophecy effect. this is because the attractive person behaves in accordance with his/her self-image, and thus ultimately becomes the kind of person predicted by the externally exerted stereotypes (swann, 1984). physical attractiveness and self actualisation the characteristics discussed above, which appear to be associated with physical attractiveness, also correspond to the concept of self-actualisation. the notion of self-actualisation was first introduced by kurt goldstein (1934) and was extended by abraham maslow in 1943. maslow (1943, 1954) introduced the idea that as humans meet ‘basic needs’, they seek to satisfy successively ‘higher needs’ that occupy a set hierarchy. this ‘hierarchy of needs’ contains deficiency needs, such as physiological, safety, love/belonging and esteem needs at the lower levels, and once these needs are satisfied the higher growth need, which is the need for self-actualisation, comes into focus. sitting at the top of maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’, self actualisation can be described as realising one’s potential, “fulfilling themselves” and “doing the best they are capable of doing” (maslow, 1954, p.150). self-actualisation signifies an important stage of advanced development in adulthood, which is rarely fully achieved (pfaffenberger, 2005). one of the most popular tools for the measurement of self-actualisation is the personal orientation inventory (poi) questionnaire (shostrom, 1962). the poi was created to measure 12 specific characteristics deemed to be most important for achieving higher levels of self-actualisation. the 12 poi scales regard the time ratio and support ratio as the two major areas that contribute to one’s competence in development towards a self-actualising person (knapp, 1990): • the time ratio measures the degree to which one lives in the present, not the past or future. self-actualised individuals are time-competent (tc) therefore they focus on their present experience without unnecessarily ruminating on past events or future fantasies. they are less burdened by guilt or regrets from the past, and their future is mainly tied to achieving present goals, therefore they live in the present with achievable goals and full awareness. • the support ratio measures whether one is inner-directed or other-directed. if a person is inner-directed (i), their own beliefs and self-motivations are the driving force for any decisions or actions that they make in life. other-directed persons, however, are to a great extent guided by external circumstances or surrounding peer groups rather than their own internal states. this could lead to over-sensitization and fear of others’ opinions. self-actualised individuals tend to be more inner-directed, meaning they are self-supportive and free from others’ judgments. the poi measures, in addition, ten other subscales: • self actualising values (sav) – measuring affirmation of primary values characterised by self actualising individuals (e.g., autonomy and independence, self sufficiency and self efficacy); • existentiality (ex) – measures ability to react to each situation without rigid adherence to principles; • feeling reactivity (fr) – measures sensitivity of responsiveness to one’s needs and feelings; • spontaneity (s) – measures freedom to act and be oneself; • self regard (sr) – measures affirmation of self worth and strengths; • self acceptance (sa) – measures acceptance of oneself in spite of weaknesses; • nature of man (na) – measures extent of constructive view of the nature of man; • synergy (sy) – measures ability to resolve dichotomies; • acceptance of aggression (a) – measures ability to accept one’s aggression as natural; • capacity for intimate contact (c) – measures ability to develop intimate relations with others, unencumbered by expectation and obligation. characteristics of self-actualised individuals can also be found by studying the correlations between the poi scales and the dimensions measured by the sixteen personality factor questionnaire (cattell, cattell & cattell, 1993) and the guilford-zimmerman temperament survey (doyle, 1976). for example, in a study of 159 students doyle (1976) found that self-actualising students could be described as more assertive, self-assured, active, sociable, emotionally stable and expedient than their less self-actualising peers. these positive characteristics mirror those discussed previously in association with physically attractive people, thus the question arises whether physically attractive individuals will find it easier to achieve a higher level of self-actualisation? does being attractive make it easier for them to become more self-fulfilled? the potential relationship could be explored by comparing the characteristics of physically attractive and self-actualising individuals (as measured by the poi). for example, because the physically attractive are better liked and preferred than the unattractive (krebs & adinolfi, 1975), they are likely to develop a higher level of self-esteem (patzer, 2006; thornton & ryckman, 1991). with higher self-esteem, they may be confident enough to express themselves freely to other people without fear of peer feedbacks. they will act in accordance with their self-motivations to achieve their goals rather than defer to external influences, thus being more likely to become inner-oriented than unattractive people with lower self-esteem. high measures of inner-directedness are regarded as one of most important values for self-actualisation (shostrom, 1962), and therefore the inner-orientated characteristics of the physically attractive suggests an inclination for them to reach higher levels of self-actualisation than those less physically attractive. as well as sharing a level of inner-directedness, the levels of self-regard and self-acceptance may also be similar for both physically attractive and self-actualising individuals. recent studies by frost & mckelvie (2004), russel (2002) and laliberte et al. (2007) concluded that self-esteem is positively correlated with self-satisfaction and body-satisfaction. as physically attractive people are more liked and preferred by both sexes, this leads to developing satisfaction of self, which in turn increases self-esteem. because they are pursued and self-confident with high esteem, they would value themselves with higher self-worth and thus become more self-loving/regarding. moreover, identification of their own weaknesses or deficiencies is likely to have less effect on these self-loving and confident attractive individuals compared to the physically unattractive individuals with lower self-regard and confidence in self. therefore physical attractiveness is related with higher self regard and self acceptance, again matching the characteristics of self-actualising individuals. another possible connection might exist between physical attractiveness and the scales of feeling reactivity and spontaneity. muehlenkamp and saris-baglama (2002) proposed that physically unattractive individuals, with low self-esteem and low self-satisfaction, may become more self-objective and self-conscious, causing them to care about their external appearances excessively and identify less with their internal states. with less awareness of their internal states, one would not be able to identify or express his/her own feelings and needs. on the other hand, physically attractive, dominant and self-confident individuals would find it easier to express their own feelings and thoughts to others, as they are inner-oriented. similarly, attractive individuals may be less concerned by external feedback and the reactions of their peers, thus making it possible for them to concentrate on their own internal states. therefore it can be hypothesized, in light of muehlenkamp & saris-baglama’s findings that more physically attractive people would score higher in feeling reactivity and spontaneity than less attractive people. finally, with the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, when a physically attractive person is stereotyped and treated as mentally flexible by peer groups (hatfield & sprecher, 1986; miller, 1970), s/he would eventually internalize flexibility as a part of his/her self-concept. flexibility reflects high level of existentiality, another key aspect of self-actualisation, which measures the extent to which one applies their values to life flexibly (shostrom, 1962). in summary, the suggested characteristics of physically attractive individuals appear to directly equate to the values required for achieving high levels of self-actualisation and the characteristics of typical self-actualising individuals. it is this potentially fascinating connection that is being explored in the current study. in order to do so, the physical attractiveness of the participants will be rated by judges, creating 2 groups, high and low attractiveness, and the level of self-actualisation will be measured using the poi questionnaire. based on the possible relationship between the characteristics of physically attractive and self-actualising individuals described above, it is hypothesized that the high attractiveness group will score significantly higher on the poi scales than the low attractiveness group. method design a between subjects design was utilised to explore the potential link between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation. the pseudo independent variable in this quasi – experimental design was physical attractiveness rating, with two levels, high and low attractiveness. the dependent variables were the 12 self-actualisation scores as measured by the poi. participants 119 participants volunteered to take part in this study, of which 81 (68%) were undergraduate students, recruited from the psychology department at university college london, and 38 (32%) represent an opportunity sample of adults from the general population. there were 53 males (45%) and 66 females (55%), with an age range of 18-36 (mean = 21.2, sd = 4.565). materials the personal orientation inventory (poi) questionnaire was used to measure participants’ level of self-actualisation. the questionnaire consists of 150 items; each taking the form of two contrasting statements addressing the same issue, the subject must select the statement they believe applies to them best. these items are then used to calculate the score for each of the twelve poi scales. as explained earlier, the poi is designed to measure factors which are important for achieving self-actualisation, which are time ratio, support ratio, self-actualising values, existentiality, feeling reactivity, spontaneity, self-regard, self-acceptance, nature of man, synergy, acceptance of aggression, and capacity for intimate contact (shostrom, 1962). the poi has been regarded as the standardized inventory for measuring one’s self-actualisation since its publication. it is extensively used in a wide context and is highly validated on test-retest reliability (klavetter & morgan, 1967, reporting coefficients from 0.52 to 0.82), shown to be relatively stable over time (knapp, 1990), and uninfluenced by social desirability (shostrom, 1974; warehime & foulds, 1973) even cross-culturally (knapp, cardenas & michael, 1978; steilberg, 1976), validating it as a measure of actual beliefs. for attractiveness ratings, each participant had a picture of the shoulder-up front profile taken. the photographs were 15.4cm x 16.0cm in size with a white background and of high resolution (599 dpi). the resulting professional quality, colour portraits were then shown as slides on a 28.7cm x 21.4cm samsung sens x06 laptop screen to 6 judges (3 male and 3 female) for attractiveness rating. a rating sheet was distributed to the judges beforehand which consisted of a diagram of an attractiveness continuum on the top of the page (ranging from 1extremely unattractive on the far left to 7extremely attractive on the far right of the continuum) and a table to be filled in with rating for each participant numbered from 1 to 119. the physical attractiveness rating for each participant was the mean of the judges’ ratings of that participant. procedure following recruitment participants were asked to complete the poi questionnaire and provide details of their age and gender. on completion of the questionnaire a photograph was taken and participants were debriefed. at this point all participants were assured their data would be treated anonymously and with confidentiality and that they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time. the photographs were rated by 3 male and 3 female judges, professional model recruiters in a model agency in central london. they were specifically chosen as judges in this experiment because, as it is their job to seek for and rate people’s beauty on a daily basis, they can be considered experts in rating physical attractiveness. the judges were told that the purpose of the study was to explore a possible relationship between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation, and that they were to rate participants’ facial attractiveness based on the photographs. the judges rated one photograph at a time, and each photograph was shown by slides for 10 seconds. mean attractiveness ratings and total scores of each of the poi scales were entered into the spss for statistical analysis. using a median split the participants were divided into 2 groups according to their attractiveness ratings; high attractiveness (n= 62, mean attractiveness score = 4.976, sd= .80) and low attractiveness group (n= 57, mean attractiveness score = 2.462, sd= .72). results as shown in table 1, the high attractiveness group scored higher on all 12 poi scales, with 7 of them reaching statistical significance at the p < 0.05 level (one – tailed): inner directedness, self actualising value, feeling reactivity, spontaneity, self regard, self acceptance and capacity for intimate contact. even using a more conservative alpha level to control for multiple testing, a bonferroni corrected p < .004, four scales would remain significantly different across groups. thus the results partially support the experimental hypothesis that physical attractiveness is associated with higher levels of self-actualisation. graphs 1 and 2 show that, although not all statistically significant, the high attractiveness group scored higher in all the poi scales in comparison to the low attractiveness group. figure 1. high and low attractiveness group means for time competence and innerdirectedness. figure 2. high and low attractiveness group means on the 10 poi subscales. sav: self actualising value. ex: existentiality. fr: feeling reactivity. s: spontaneity. sr: self regard. sa: self acceptance. nc: nature of man. sy: synergy. a: acceptance of aggression. c: capacity for intimate contact. table 1.the mean differences between high and low attractiveness groups on the poi self-actualisation scales. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, one-tailed. discussion the primary goal of this study was to examine the potential relationship between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation. the results partially supported the hypothesis that participants in the high attractiveness group would score higher on all poi scales, thus displaying consistently higher levels of self-actualisation, than those in the low attractiveness group. specifically, participants in the high attractiveness group showed significantly higher scores on the scales of inner-directedness, self-actualising value, feeling reactivity, spontaneity, self-regard, self-acceptance, and capacity for intimate contact. such clear relationships between these scales and physical attractiveness could be explained by two main factors: self-esteem and the self fulfilling prophecy. self-esteem the results strongly support the hypothesis that physical attractiveness leads to higher self-regard and self-acceptance. this could be explained by referring to the question of self-esteem. as stated in the introduction, the physically attractive are admired and pursued as a result of their beauty, and this would lead to developing self-satisfaction, which in turn attributes to develop high self-esteem (downs, james & cowan, 2006; frost & mckelvie, 2004; krebs & adinofi, 1975). this self-confident and satisfied attractive individual would learn to value themselves with self-worth as they are pursued and looked up to by their peers, thereby scoring high in self-regard. also, when the attractive individual identifies his own weaknesses, it is more likely that he would accept and work towards overcoming them rather than devaluing his self-worth due to the identified weaknesses. in contrast, as physically unattractive people are less likely to be highly self-satisfied, they would have lower self-esteem compared to physically attractive people. low self-satisfaction and esteem lead to development of self-objectification, whereby one judges oneself solely on appearance (downs, james & cowan, 2006). as unattractive individuals become more self-objective and self-conscious, this may attribute to further dissatisfaction with their appearance and lower self-esteem. due to this negative loop of self-dissatisfaction – low self-esteem, it is possible that unattractive individuals regard themselves with less self-worth than their attractive counterparts, as well as being less well equipped to accept their own weaknesses. furthermore, the results of this study revealed an important relationship between physical attractiveness and inner-directedness, with the high attractiveness group scoring significantly higher than the low group. as discussed in the introduction, it is likely that an individual’s level of self-esteem exerts a great impact on their inner-directedness. an attractive individual, who is likely to be self-confident, self-regarding and accepting, will be more confident in his/her thoughts or actions, and less fearful of making mistakes. moreover, as the thoughts or negative consequences of their actions are less likely to affect an attractive individual’s self-regarding and self-loving personality, this may gradually lead to development of inner-directedness. with high levels of confidence, it is more likely that the physically attractive would follow their own decisions and act in accordance with motivations set by the self, rather than acting in accordance with external reactions or pressures. on the other hand, less attractive individuals, with lower self-esteem, self-regard and accepting personalities, would be less confident in their own beliefs and choose to act in favour of peer groups to protect themselves from any negative responses. a similar explanation may also address the links found between attractiveness and feeling reactivity and spontaneity. again, in support of the hypothesis, participants in the high attractiveness group scored significantly higher on the measures of feeling reactivity and spontaneity than those in the low attractiveness group. as mentioned earlier, own beliefs and self-motivations are the main determinants of behaviour for the inner-directed attractive people. this means that they would be more likely to focus on their internal states and beliefs and set achievable goals based on their own perspective, thus also increasing the likelihood of their being sensitive to their own feelings or needs and less afraid of expressing their feelings spontaneously. these results agree with muehlenkamp and saris-baglama (2002), who stated that low self-esteem in unattractive people leads to the development of self-objectification, which in turn inflates the importance of external appearances and diminishes their awareness or expression of internal states. self-fulfilling prophecy effect another possible explanation for the relationship between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation is based on the self-fulfilling prophecy effect (swann, 1984). with such an effect, when a person is perceived as dominant, for example, he may gradually develop dominance as his personality trait by responding to the surrounding pressure. this agrees with the results found in the study by moskowitz (1990), where there was a high convergence of scores from self-reports of dominance and independent observers reports of perceived dominance. as described in the introduction, the physically attractive are stereotyped as being more sociable, confident, warm, strong, poised, absent of shyness and social anxiety, dominant, stable, and socially skilled. in the presence of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, the attractive individuals who are stereotyped as such would respond to these perceptions of themselves by gradually internalising such traits and fulfilling the stereotype. therefore, the strong link found, for example, between physical attractiveness and capacity for intimate contact could be due to the stereotype of attractive individuals being more sociable, socially skilled and warm. this result supports similar ideas concerning high social skills of the physically attractive suggested by patzer (2006) and the results of a study by goldman & lewis (1977), which found significant positive correlations between physical attractiveness and sociability. limitations there are some limitations to this study that may have confounded the results to some extent. the photographs used for attractiveness ratings may have involved other influencing factors; while pose and distance from the camera were consistent, other details such as facial expression, the presence of glasses and clothing type were not considered. different clothing (e.g., clothing from a popular brand), presence of pins, jewellery, glasses, etc., may inform the rating judges of their socioeconomic cues, which may have affected attractiveness ratings. furthermore, as the judges recruited for the present study were professionals in model agencies, they may be more sensitive to fashion, thus attractiveness ratings might have been skewed towards the participants who were perceived as fashionable. with regard to facial expression, it has been demonstrated that individuals with features that show more positive emotions, such as larger smiles, higher eyebrows, and larger pupils, are perceived as more attractive (cunningham, 1986). as the decision to smile or not during the photography session was left up to the participants in the present study, the attractiveness ratings may have been biased toward those who chose to smile. furthermore, the age range of the participants may have been too restricted in the study. the age range was 18-36 and the mean was 21.2 yrs. this age range is due to the fact that most of the participants were university students. aggression, motivation, interest in career and physical aspects of life decline with age, meaning that level of self-actualisation is likely to be affected with age alone (reiss & havercamp, 2005). therefore a broader age range of participants would be required to be able to further conclude on the relationship between physical attractiveness and self-actualisation. conclusion the main aim of the study was to investigate the potential relationship between physical attractiveness and level of self-actualisation. 119 participants were recruited, and the results confirmed that physical attractiveness leads to achieving higher level of self-actualisation. 7 out of the 12 measures of self actualisation were found to be significantly higher for the attractive individuals, supporting the fact that social and personal characteristics of the attractive individual’s life produce an environment which enhances self-actualisation. factors such as self-esteem, confidence, and social skills, which were found to be more prevalent among the attractive individuals, lead the physically attractive to being more self-actualised than the less attractive. these results provide a broader understanding of the influence of 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(2005). boring beauty and universal morality: kant on the ideal of beauty. inquiry, 48(2), 107-130. biographical note itai ivtzan is a psychology lecturer at ucl (university college london) and has been a member of the faculty since 2005. he has been teaching at some of the best universities in the uk including city university, birkbeck and the university of oxford. he received his bsc (hons) in psychology from the academic college of tel aviv and is currently at the final stages of writing his phd at goldsmiths college, university of london. his research interests in psychology are in the areas of social, humanistic, and positive psychology, evaluating concepts such as self-awareness and self-actualisation. his main task is to better understand the psychological factors which allow us to live life fully while experiencing our greatest potential. correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: itai ivtzan department of psychology ucl (university college london) 26 bedford way london wc1h 0ap office 413 emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy as predictors of psychological well-being among secondary school adolescents in ogbomoso, nigeria adeyemo, d. a. ph.d. department of guidance and counselling university of ibadan, ibadan adeleye, a. t. m.ed. department of guidance and counselling university of ibadan, ibadan abstract the study investigated emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy as predictors of psychological well-being among secondary school adolescents. the study made use of stratified random sampling in selecting 292 adolescents from ten (10) secondary schools in ogbomoso, oyo state, nigeria. the sample age ranged between 13 -20 years. four instruments were used, namely: general self-efficacy scale, well-being manifestation measurement scale; the wong and law emotional intelligence scale (wleis); and religiosity scale. data analysis involved the use of multiple regression and pearson product moment correlation. the results indicated that the three independent variables as a block were effective in predicting psychological well-being of adolescents. on the basis of the finding, it was suggested that teachers should endeavour to teach rudiments of emotional intelligence to the students while school counselors and psychologists should develop programmes to foster emotional intelligence and self-efficacy. keywords: emotional intelligence, religiosity, self-efficacy, psychological well-being, adolescents. introduction adolescence as a developmental period is filled with many challenges. early developmental theorists, particularly erickson (erickson, 1959) have defined the period of adolescence as one of identity versus role confusion, in which adolescents must determine who they are, combining their self-understanding and social roles into a coherent identity. today, adolescents live in a society which has become multi-complex, thus making the roles of adolescents very diffuse and confusing. the roles of adolescents and their developmental tasks are no longer well defined and prescribed. knowledge explosion, material wealth pursuit, plurality of the society and estrangement from the extended family system, the hypocrisy of adult standards, the fallacy of physical maturity all present a great battle for the adolescent to fight with the dilemma of indefinite status. coupled with this complexity are the multifarious needs (biogenic, physiogenic, sociogenic and psychogenic) that the adolescent has to satisfy. he has got exuberant energy with which to pursue his needs but perhaps not the logical rationale with which to estimate the balance between degrees of freedom and the threshold of danger. thus, adolescent engages in activities that pose real threat to his/ her psychological well-being. adolescence is full of challenges. the change is fast, everywhere and hard to keep up with: the body changes in response to increasing levels of sex hormones; the thinking process changes as the child is able to think more broadly and in abstract ways; the social life changes as new people and peers come into scope. yet the child needs to deal with every single one of these changes, all at the same time! thus, making the issue of psychological well-being, that of adolescence. psychological well-being is a multi-dimensional concept. cheerfulness, optimism, playfulness, self-control, a sense of detachment and freedom from frustration, anxiety and loneliness had been accepted as dimensions of psychological well-being ( sinha & verma, 1992). mcculloch (1991) has shown that satisfaction, morale, positive affect and social support constitute psychological well-being. psychological well-being is a point of much emphasis in society today. whereas insurance companies and society in general once thought of a person’s health mainly in physical terms, in modern society personal wellness has come to refer to a more thorough definition that includes psychological well-being. in regard to psychological well-being, within the literature, happiness has generally been viewed as the outcome variable (ryff, 1989). traditionally, psychological research has focused on negative states, their determinants and consequences (shehan, 1984, chang, 1998). studies on depression, separation, alienation and similar topics focus on people’s suffering and its deleterious effects on their psychological and physical states until relatively recently, when few studies have been conducted on subjective moods or feelings of well-being and their determinants (crocker, luthertanen, baline, & broadnax, 1994). perhaps, due to the fact that psychological well-being is a subjective term which means different things to different people, earliest literature focused on short-term affective well-being (happiness) at the expense of enduring effects. ryff(1989) operationally defined psychological well-being as: self-acceptance, and personal growth. the theory behind this view aimed at measuring all aspects of this form of well-being and created a broader, more accurate definition. however, there are remarkable differences in the abilities of adolescents to cope with the challenges which confront them. some adolescents have great difficulty in dealing with problems which for others would be minor. when these young people are not able to cope with stresses in an adaptive manner they may develop problem behaviours and are at risk of developing mental health problems. other adolescents with major problems seem to be able to emerge from stressful encounter not only successfully, but also with increased abilities and resources (seoffge-kreake, 1995). it is worthy to note that contemporary studies undoubtedly show that higher functions in no small measure develop under the influence of social and cultural factors. perhaps the reason why emotional intelligence though adopted as a relatively new concept, has always, even if largely unacknowledged, been a part of humanity. it is a novel area with regard to research, especially with regard to testing emotional intelligence and establishing the role of emotional intelligence during the adolescence. adolescence is in and of itself a difficult challenge in the realms of emotions. the adolescent is faced with new relationships and atmosphere where proper social integration is of utmost importance for success. as the adolescent travels on this journey to the time of graduation and engages in the progression towards adulthood, being emotionally competent is not only important, it is a necessary ingredient for successful journey. goleman (1995) stated that students who have emotional competency can better deal with the pressure of peer politics, the higher demands required for academics, and the temptations of alcohol, drugs and sex. according to salovey and mayer (1990), emotional intelligence involves abilities that may be categorized into five domains: i) self-awareness – observing oneself and recognizing a feelings as it happens. ii) managing emotions – handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger and sadness. iii) motivating oneselfchanneling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self-control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses. iv) empathysensitivity to others’ feelings and concerns and taking their perspective, appreciating the difference in how people are feeling about things. v) handling relationship: managing emotions in others; social competence and social skills. a look at the domains summarized above, shows that they have a wide range of useful implications for adolescents in secondary schools. when faced with the struggle of broken families, abuse, the temptation of drugs, alcohol and sex as well as other struggles all five factors of emotional intelligence can contribute to an adolescent being true to himself or herself. furthermore, these domains can assist in fostering a strong form of development in body, mind and spirit for each adolescent. according to mayer and cobb (2000), the current definition of emotional intelligence as defined by mayer, salovey, and caruso (2000), includes the capacity to perceive, understand and manage emotions”. a student high in emotional intelligence based on the above definition should have some of the elements required for also being high in psychological well-being such as self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth. emotional intelligence has been theoretically related to several important human values including life satisfaction, the quality of interpersonal relationships, and success in occupations that involve considerable reasoning with emotional information such as those involving creativity, leadership, sales and psychotherapy (bar-on, 1997; goleman, 1995; palmer, walls, burgess, & tough, 2001; salovey & mayer, 1990). it was noted in the findings of palmer, donaldson and stough (2001) that emotional intelligence was moderately correlated with psychological well-being and significantly explained some of the variance in psychological wellbeing. religiosity includes having or showing belief in and reverence for god or a deity, as well as participation in activities pertaining to that faith such as attending services/worship regularly and participating in other social activities with one’s religious community. religiosity has been linked to a greater sense of well-being in late adulthood as well as to the ability to better cope with stressful events in middle adulthood [koenig, smiley, & gonzalez, 1999; santrock 2002]. religious practices and beliefs often play a role in understanding oneself and the world especially when given meaning and value for the relation between oneself, others, surrounding environment and existence (canda,1989). religious beliefs become more abstract, more principled, and more independent during the adolescence years. specifically, adolescents’ beliefs become rituals, practices and strict observance of religions customs (steinberg, 2002). generally speaking, the stated importance of religionand especially of participation in an organized religion – declines somewhat during the adolescence years. more younger adolescents than older adolescents attend church regularly, and, not surprisingly, more of younger adolescents state that religion is important to them (benson, donahue & erickson, 1989; johnson, o’malley, & bachman, 1986). some, but not all, researches suggest that religious adolescents are less depressed than other adolescents, significantly less likely than peers to engage in premarital sexual intercourse, and somewhat less likely to engage in deviant behaviour, (benson et al; 1989; donahue, 1994; litchfield, thomas, & li 1997; wright, frost, & wisecarver, 1993). not only does religious participation affect other aspects of adolescents’ behaviour, but certain behaviour themselves also affect religious participation. the implications of religion and spirituality for individual well-being had captured the attention of many foundational social theorists, [ e.g marx, 1844, freud, 1928; james , 1912; weber, 1958; & maslow, 1954]. however, there has been renewed interest in systemically exploring the interface between religi-spirituality and psychological well-being. drawing across studies from this body of research, several recent review articles have concluded that there is a modest salutary association between various aspects of religi-spirituality and psychological well-being (hackney & sanders, 2003; koenig & larson, 2001; sawatzky, ratner, & chiu 2005). earlier classic theorizing (durkheim,1951) on the importance of social integration for individual well-being suggests how religious participation might lead to individuals better psychological well-being noting that engagement with institutions like religion can serve to temper individuals’ desire and thereby help them to achieve better psychological well-being. scholars have suggested that religious involvement promotes individuals well-being by providing them access to social support, a source from which to cultivate soul identity, as well as a factor that encourages individuals to avoid negative health behaviours (george, ellison, & larson 2002). findings from previous studies that simultaneously have examined multiple dimensions of psychological well-being suggest that different patterns of association between religiosity, spirituality, and well-being are likely to emerge across diverse dimensions of psychological well-being (e.g. frasier, mintz, & mobley 2005; maselko & kubzansky, 2006).corroborating earlier researchers, greenfield and nadine (2007), noted that associations between more frequent formal religious participation and psychological well-being were largely contingent upon the dimension of psychological well-being under consideration. self-efficacy theory (bandura, 1977) provides insight into the components of human motivation and behaviour. the theory posits the importance of perceived self-efficacy as the primary stimulus for pursuing a behaviour. self-efficacy is one’s belief in his or her ability to perform a specific behaviour to achieve an outcome. self-efficacy is usually thought to influence behaviour in specific domains of action and is considered to be a universal construct, which applies to all individuals regardless of race, gender or culture. self-efficacy beliefs determine an individuals’ resiliency to adversity and her vulnerability to stress and depression (bandura, caprara, barbaranelli, gerbino & pastorelli, 2003).general self-efficacy aims at a broad and stable sense of personal competence to deal effectively with a variety of stressful situations (scherer et al., 1982; schwarzer, 1994). research reported that general self-efficacy was related to physical and mental health (wang & liu, 2000). purpose of the study due to the increasing maladjusted behaviour manifested by many adolescents and against the proven empirical facts that adolescence is not necessarily inherently stressful, it is necessary to have a look at the factors that contribute to psychological well-being of adolescents. specifically the study examined emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-sefficacy as predictors of psychological well-being. research questions based on articulated objectives of the study, the following research questions were addressed in the work. 1. are there significant relationships among emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy and psychological well-being? 2. what is the joint effect of emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy on psychological well-being? 3. what is the separate effect of emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy on psychological well-being? methodology research design the descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. in this type of design, the researchers are interested in knowing the influence of the independent variables on the dependent variables without necessarily manipulating the independent variables. participants ten secondary schools were randomly selected from the five local government areas in ogbomoso. stratified random sampling was employed where each local government formed a stratum. in each of the local governments, two schools were randomly selected and 30 students were selected from each school. the age of the respondents ranges between 13 and 20 years, with a mean age of 15.90 and sd of 3.4. there were 161 (55.1%) males and 151 (44.9%) females. there were 230 (78.8%) christians and 62 (21.2) muslims. instrumentation five instruments were used to collect the data for the study. the description of the instruments is given below: the general self-efficacy scale: the scale was developed by matthias jerusalem and ralf schwarger in 1979 with german version which was later revised. it was developed to assess a general sense of perceived self-efficacy for adult population, including adolescents. responses are made on a 4-point scale and summing up the responses to all ten items to yield the final composite score ranging from 10 to 40. in samples from 23 nations, cronbach’s alpha ranged from .76 to .90, with the majority in the high .80. the scale is unidimensional. criterion – related validity is documented in numerous correlations studies. the response format is 1 = not at all true, 2 = hardly true, 3 = moderately true, 4 = exactly true. well-being manifestation measurement scale: this scale was developed by masse, poulin, dassa, lambert, belair and battaglini (1998b). the need for a scale which is shorter and easy to administer informed the choice of this scale. the scale contains 25 – items with six factors. the six factors are control of self and event, happiness, social involvement, self-esteem, mental balance, and sociability. masse et al (1998a) found an overall cronbach alpha of 0.93 = .85 and a range of .71 on the subscales. they also found that the item explained 52% of the variance in psychological well-being. wong and law emotional intelligence scale (wleis): the scale was designed by wong and law (2002) based on the four dimensions of emotional intelligence as proposed by davis et al 1998. it consists of 16 items in which 4 items were drawn from each dimension. self-emotional appraisal (sea), other emotional appraisal (oea), use of emotional (uoe) and regulation of emotion (roe). emotional intelligence scale yield coefficient alpha of: self emotion, 0.89, regulation of emotion 0.89, use of emotion 0.80, and others emotion 0.89. religiosity scale: this scale was developed by the researchers in the course of the research work. the scale is made up of 12 items. responses are made on a 5 – point likert format i.e. strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree. it has a reliability coefficient of 0.88 determined by test-retest method. procedure the questionnaires were administered on the participants in their various schools following the approval of the school authorities. the administration of the instruments took one week. as a result of the fact that the participants had to respond to four instruments, it was not possible to retrieve them on the very day of administration. this necessitated further visits by the researchers. of the three hundred distributed, two hundred and ninety-two were retrieved. this represents a response rate of 97.3%. data analysis data were analysed using pearson product moment correlation and multiple regression analysis. results table 1: mean, standard deviation correlation among the variables table 1 shows that: 1. emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy have significant relationship with psychological well-being (p 2. religiosity has a significant relationship with emotional intelligence (p0.05). 3. self-efficacy has a significant relationship with emotional intelligence (p0.05). 4. emotional intelligence has a significant relationship with religiosity and self – efficacy (p table 2: regression analysis showing the joint effect of emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy on the psychological well-being of the respondents. from table 2, it was found that the linear combination of religiosity, self-efficacy and emotional intelligence had significant effect on the psychological well-being of the respondents (f(3,288) = 63.218, p table 3: relative contributions of the independent variables on psychological well-being of the respondents table 3 shows for each independent variable, the unstandardised regression weight (β), the standard error of estimate (seβ), the standardized coefficient, the t-ratio and level at which the t-ratio is significant. emotional intelligence made the highest contribution (β = .544, t= 10.598, p .05 ). discussion results as shown in table 2 indicate that the three independent variables (emotional intelligence, religiosity and self-efficacy) as a block seem to be effective in predicting psychological well-being of secondary school adolescents. the observed f-ratio is significant ( f (3,288 = 63.218, p results from table 3 show the extent to which each of the independent variables contributed to the prediction and the value of t-ratio associated with respective variables. it indicates that emotional intelligence and self-efficacy contributed significantly to the prediction of psychological wel-lbeing of the adolescents while religiosity did not. the values of the standardised regression weights associated with these variables indicate that emotional intelligence made the greatest contribution followed by self-efficacy and then religiosity. the results corroborate the finding of de lazzari (2000) that emotional intelligence was moderately correlated with psychological well-being and that it explained some of the variance in psychological well-being. the significant contribution of emotional intelligence to the prediction of the psychological well-being of the adolescent is explicable considering the central role emotion (its understanding and use) plays in the psychological well-being of people. considering the definition of emotional intelligence by mayer, salovey and caruso (2000), as “the capacity to perceive, assimilate, understand and manage emotion”, a student high in emotional intelligence based on the above definition should have some of the elements required for also being high in psychological well-being such as self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. combining the concept of social perspective taking with emotional intelligence from a developmental perspective, one might come to recognise the impact of emotional intelligence on psychological well-being. a variety of inferences can be drawn as to why adolescents who are high in emotional intelligence also score high in psychological well-being. one explanation is that adolescents with high scores in emotional intelligence have a good knowledge of their emotions and this is characterised by self-awareness which is critical to self-acceptance which has been operationalised as a domain of psychological well-being [see, ryff,1989]. awareness of ones emotion is also crucial to autonomy (self-determination, independence and ability to regulate ones behaviour) and personal growth, both of which are domains of psychological well-being. self-efficacy significant contribution to the prediction of psychological wellbeing is consistent with the assertion of wang and liu, (2000) that general self-efficacy was related to physical and mental health. also, self-efficacy aims at a broad and stable sense of personal competence to deal effectively with a variety of stressful situations [ schwarzer, 1994]. again, self-efficacy beliefs determine an individual resiliency to adversity and vulnerability to stress and depression (bandura, caprara, barbaranelli, gerbino & pastorelli, 2003). the finding that religiosity did not contribute significantly to psychological wellbeing of the adolescents is inconsistent with previous studies which have suggested that increased religious participation leads to enhanced well-being over time (strawbridge, shema, & cohen, 2001). however, this is explicable using the assertions of greenfield and nadine (2007), that associations between more frequent formal religious participation and psychological well-being were largely contingent upon the dimension of psychological well-being. furthermore, findings from previous studies that simultaneously have examined multiple dimensions of psychological well-being suggest that different patterns of association between religiosity and well-being are likely to emerge across diverse dimensions of psychological well being (e.g maselko & kubzansky,2006 ). based on these empirical evidences it is plausible that religiosity could only predict certain aspects of 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(1995). generalized self-efficacy scale in j. weiman, s. wright & m. johnston (ed). measures in health psychology: a users portfolio causal and control beliefs; pp. 35-37, winderser, uk nfer-nelson seoffge-kreake, i. (1995). stress, coping and relationships in adolescence. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. shehan ,c. , l.,( 1984). wives’ work and psychological well-being: an extension of gove’s social role theory of depression. sex role, 11, 881-899. sinha, j.n.p. & verma, j. (1992). social support as a moderator of the relationship between allocentrism and psychological well-being. social and applied issues. steinberg, l.d. (2002); adolescence (6th ed.). the mcgraw-hill companies, inc. strawbridge, william j., sarah j. shema, richard d. cohen, & george a.kaplan, (2001). religious attendance increases survival by improving and maintaining good health behaviours, mental health and social relationships. society of behavioural medicine, 23:68-74”. wang, c. & liu, y. (2000). the relational study on general self-efficacy, trait anxiety, state anxiety and test anxiety. chinese journal of clinical psychological. 8(4), 229-230. weber, m (1958). the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. new york: c. scribner’s press. wong, c.s., & law, k. s. (2002). the effects of leader and follower emotional intelligence on performance and attitude: an exploratory study. the leadership quarterly, 13, 243-274. wright, l., frost, c., & wisecarver, s. (1993). church attendance, meaningfulness of religion, and depressive symptomalogy among adolescents. journal of youth and adolescence, 22, 559-568. biographical notes correspondence: drdaadeyemo@yahoo.co.uk dr. d.a. adeyemo holds doctor of philosophy in counselling psychology.he is currently a senior lecturer with the department of guidance and counselling, university of ibadan, ibadan, nigeria. he has published several articles in local and international journals.his area of research interest is application of emotional intelligence to enhance career sucess and general wellbeing. mr. a.t. adeleye holds a masters degree in counselling psychology with bias for adolescent and youth counselling.he is currently undergoing doctoral trainning in the department of guidance and counselling, university of ibadan., ibadan, nigeria. on third generation activity theory: interview with yrjö engeström interview on third generation activity theory: interview with yrjö engeström yrjö engeströma, vlad glăveanu*b [a] center for research on activity, development and learning cradle, university of helsinki, helsinki, finland. [b] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract in this interview prof. engeström discusses his professional trajectory and interest in cultural-historical activity theory with a focus on its insights into the fields of work and human development. he comments on recent transformations within this theoretical orientation, many of them promoted by his research into a variety of workplaces and organisations. methodological aspects, and in particular formative intervention methods such as the change laboratory, are also considered. prof. engeström’s published work covers a multitude of real-life contexts and offers us a perfect example of how psychological research can be a powerful tool not only for understanding reality but actively shaping it. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 515–518, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.555 received: 2012-11-20. accepted: 2012-11-20. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark, email: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. vlad glăveanu: professor engeström, your research in the past decades has significantly advanced our understanding of development and learning in different work settings and made significant contributions to cultural-historical activity theory. how exactly did you become interested in these topics and what would you say influenced you most in choosing this trajectory? yrjö engeström: i belong to the generation of the radical student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. as a university student and activist, like many others, i was dissatisfied with the then-dominant positivist, decontextualized, statistically oriented approach to education and psychology. in our search for alternatives, we found the soviet-russian tradition of cultural-historical activity theory, from vygotsky to luria, leont’ev, davydov, and others. i attempted to use these theories, in collaboration with progressive teachers, in intervention studies in school settings. but i found this very difficult given the curricular constraints of the time. in the world of work and organizations, i encountered a more open attitude toward novel ideas and practices. in 1982, i embarked on my first activity-theoretical study of work and learning. this was done among janitorial cleaners working for a large cleaning company. this job was commonly considered one that requires no education and that everybody can do without much cognitive effort. inspired by sylvia scribner, among others, i wanted to show that every kind of work requires complex thinking, problem solving, and learning. this study was the beginning of an approach we now call developmental work research. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ yrjö engeström is professor of adult education and director of the center for research on activity, development and learning (cradle) at university of helsinki. he is also professor emeritus of communication at university of california, san diego, where he served as director of the laboratory of comparative human cognition between 1990 and 1995, and honorary professor in the school of education at university of birmingham, uk. his work uses the framework of cultural-historical activity theory and he is known, among other contributions, for his theory of expansive learning. professor engeström explores transformations in work and organizations, combining micro level analysis of discourse and interaction with historical analysis and modeling of organizations as activity systems working through developmental contradictions. some of his recent books include perspectives on activity theory (edited with reijo miettinen and raija-leena punamäki, 1999), between school and work: new perspectives on transfer and boundary crossing (edited with terttu tuomi-gröhn, 2003), developmental work research: expanding activity theory in practice (2005), and from teams to knots: activity-theoretical studies of collaboration and learning at work (2008). he has also recently finished a new book, expertise in transition: expansive learning in medical work, to be published by cambridge university press. correspondence: center for research on activity, development and learning cradle, p.o. box 9, fin-00014 university of helsinki, finland, email: yrjo.engestrom@helsinki.fi vlad glăveanu: activity theory is an old tradition in psychology with roots in eastern europe but strong echoes, especially in past decades, in cultural and historical approaches developed in many other parts of the world. what would you say are the most notable recent developments of the theory and how are they advancing our knowledge of human development, cognition and action in concrete settings? yrjö engeström: from my point of view the most notable recent development in cultural-historical activity theory is the emergence of what i have called third generation activity theory. this refers to theorizing and empirical studies which expand the unit of analysis from a single activity system to multiple, minimally two, interacting activity systems. in such a framework, for example schooling is analysed as dynamics within and interplay between the activity systems of the student and the teacher, possibly also including other relevant activity systems. this expansion is accompanied with increased attention to the dynamics of the subject, with new important openings into the analysis of agency, experiencing, and emotion. vlad glăveanu:while many would think of development and learning in the context of childhood years your work has focused in particular on adult learning and organisational settings. what is unique about these contexts and how can a concept such as ‘expansive learning’ help us understand and intervene in them? yrjö engeström:workplaces and organizations are cradles that generate new forces of production that eventually change the world. societal contradictions are intensively played out in these settings. thus, workplaces and organizations are optimal laboratories for observing and analyzing collective and individual development, learning and cognition “in the wild.” observation and analysis in dynamically changing settings must be based on what urie bronfenbrenner called “transforming experiments” which radically restructure the environment, producing new configurations that activate previously unrealized behavioral potentials of the subjects. building on vygotsky’s principle of double stimulation and my theory of expansive learning, we have developed a methodology of formative interventions aimed at generating collective agency among practitioners faced with the challenge of redesigning their activity systems. expansive learning is learning what is not yet there, that is, learning to master a new way of working while designing and implementing that new way of working. vlad glăveanu: great emphasis in your work has been placed on designing and re-designing activity systems and capturing the essence europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.555 on third generation activity theory 516 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of transformation and change in organisations. what are the best methodological tools we can use to unpack these processes? yrjö engeström: in my research center, the cradle, we have developed and implemented in a variety of settings a formative intervention method called the change laboratory. a working collective, such as a team or group of practitioners representing different functions in an organization, goes through eight to ten sessions in which they analyse the contradictions of their activity and construct a new model to resolve them. they first encounter “mirror data” depicting recurring problems and disturbances in their work, then analyze the history of their activity to identify systemic contradictions that give rise to the troubles. this leads to a focused effort to sketch a zone of proximal development for the activity and a model that can become the core concept of the new way of working, followed by selected experiments to test the model and eventually full-scale implementation in practice. all this is accomplished with the help of “second stimuli”, conceptual and graphic tools, initially offered by the interventionist-researchers but regularly modified and often replaced with more appropriate ones by the practitioners themselves in the process of the intervention. vlad glăveanu:great emphasis in your work is also placed on practical intervention and the facilitation of positive transformation in a multitude of work settings. how can tools such as the ‘change laboratory’ achieve these aims and what are the opportunities but also challenges faced by practitioners in this regard? yrjö engeström: no tool achieves anything by itself. the change laboratory must be carefully adapted to the local circumstances and historical conditions, every time it is used. currently there are change laboratory interventions underway at least in mexico, brazil, south africa, serbia, and russia. experiences from and analyses of these interventions will greatly add to our understanding of the potentials and limits of this method. we already know some critical issues: timing (the intervention should be in synch with a major transformation effort that will take place in any case), alignment (the intervention should not take place in a bubble, separated from key stakeholders and partners outside the focal activity system), and vertical dialogue (an intervention with frontline workers and clients should be in active dialogue with managers and policy makers). vlad glăveanu: your newest book, ‘collaborative expertise: expansive learning in medical work’ will focus on the medical sector. what is specific about this work context and how is ‘collaborative expertise’ built and enacted in medical work? yrjö engeström: i have studied and conducted interventions in health care settings since 1986, which means more than 25 years. this context is of huge societal importance, especially with regard to the aging of populations and the dramatic increase in chronic illnesses. health care is full of devoted, highly educated and hard-working practitioners and patients. yet, the internal divisions of labor and the primary contradiction between profit-making and healing have led to severe fragmentation of care. the challenge of developing new forms of collaborative and expansive expertise is obvious. this is also a challenge to our deep-seated notions of expertise as an individual, well-defined property. in our intervention studies we have generated and tested the idea of fluid “negotiated knotworking” as a new type of expertise in which no single party is the permanent center of power: the center does not hold. vlad glăveanu: activity theory has been used to theorise and improve work processes in a variety of organisations. what would be the next type of settings you would like to see the theory applied to in the future?what new avenues europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.555 engeström & glăveanu 517 http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of research would, on the one hand, benefit from applying this conceptual framework and, on the other, potentially contribute to its further development? yrjö engeström: i have recently started a new project in which we study collective concept formation in quite diverse settings – home care of the elderly in helsinki, tomato growers in western finland, and builders of traditional wooden ships in india, russia, and finland. the choice of these settings illustrates two emerging concerns. first, i am interested in new kinds of global connections and interactions between ostensibly very different activity settings and cultures. secondly, i am interested in understanding the future-making power and potential of traditions, and the creation of sustainable futures by mixing or blending insights and practices from different historical layers, cultural contexts, and modes of knowing. this may be a move toward a new, non-linear historical materialism. vlad glăveanu: as the director of the ‘center for research on activity, development and learning (cradle)’ at the university of helsinki you are overseeing a number of projects and research groups applying the theory to different contexts. what are the current directions of research at the centre and what kind of projects are members involved in? yrjö engeström: besides my own project on ‘concept formation and volition in collaborative work activities’ mentioned above, two exciting projects must be mentioned. reijo miettinen leads a large longitudinal project on ‘building information modeling (bim) as a tool for collaboration and learning in multi-actor construction projects’. this is research into the practical implications and theoretical potentials of a new complex technology that may radically change the nature of collaboration in construction industry. the other new project, led by annalisa sannino, is called ‘the emergence of agency: foundations for educational change from below’. this project is aimed at developing a theory of the emergence of transformative agency, grounded in both experiments and formative field interventions. vlad glăveanu: finally, what would be your advice for young, emerging scholars interested in development, learning, organisations and activity theory? how can they succeed in today’s academic and professional world and make an impact through their research? yrjö engeström:my advice is: take no shortcuts, this is not a superficial fad you can pick and use as theoretical decoration in your studies. this approach is demanding both theoretically and practically. but it can make a difference, it can influence and change people’s lives. to succeed within this approach, you need collaboration, so find colleagues and centers that you can interact with and learn from. for example, cradle organizes every august a three-week international summer school course on activity theory and formative interventions. it is one good way to start. vlad glăveanu: thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.555 on third generation activity theory 518 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on third generation activity theory freud's conceptualization of the social world this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe‟s journal of psychology, 8(1), pp. 182-202, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i1.304 www.ejop.org freud‟s conceptualization of the social world: psychology recapitulating sociology or sociology recapitulating psychology? jonathan n. stea department of psychology, university of calgary, calgary, canada abstract this paper articulates sigmund freud‟s conceptualization of the social world by surveying and critically examining four of his major sociological works: civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness (freud, 1908/1991b), totem and taboo (freud, 1913/1946), the future of an illusion (freud, 1927/1991d), and civilization and its discontents (freud, 1930/1991a). the paper also embeds the development of freud‟s social theory within its historical context by discussing the impact of various evolutionary, philosophical, and life event influences. it is argued that freud‟s social theory is merely a projection of his psychological theory of mind, which is predicated on the biogenetic principle (i.e., ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny). in tracing the development of freud‟s social theory over time, an isomorphism is revealed whereby the changes in freud‟s psychological thought reflect the changes in his social thought. in this way, freud‟s sociology can be said to recapitulate his psychology despite freud‟s insistence otherwise. keywords: freud, psychoanalysis, psychology, sociology, social world. sigmund freud is renowned for inventing the psychological paradigm of the mind known as psychoanalysis, which is acclaimed and revered by some, and denigrated and scorned by others. indeed, it is fitting that opinions about psychoanalysis within the field of psychology are marked by ambivalence seemingly more than any other popular psychological theory. i contend that this ambivalence stems from the radical comprehensiveness of psychoanalysis, which freud extended beyond the psychological and into the social realm. in a sense, psychoanalysis is a theory of everything. it is a story that depicts the state and development of the human condition spanning from prehistory to predictions about the future of civilization, freud's conceptualization of the social world 183 across the life-span, and from unconscious processes dwelling within the depths of the mind to conscious processes at the forefront of waking life. this paper will navigate the vastness of psychoanalysis with the aim of extracting the core of freud‟s social theory. in doing so, it will be necessary to embed freud‟s social view within its theoretical and historical context in order to elucidate its origins. to accomplish this task, the paper will be composed of two sections. the first section will involve discussing how various evolutionary and philosophical ideas came to influence freud‟s extension of his psychological theory to his social theory. in addition, relevant historical and personal life events will be discussed where it is believed that they impacted freud‟s social theory. in the second section of the paper, freud‟s social worldview will be explicated with a view towards highlighting exactly how his conceptualization of the social world corresponds with his psychological theory. i will first draw upon and discuss four works that i believe provide the foundation for his social theory – namely, „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness (freud, 1908/1991b), totem and taboo (freud, 1913/1946), the future of an illusion (freud, 1927/1991d), and civilization and its discontents (freud, 1930/1991a). i then explicitly argue that freud‟s social theory is merely a projection of his psychological theory, and as such, it assumes that the dynamics of the individual psyche are isomorphic with the dynamics of the social world. moreover, it will be revealed that freud‟s application of psychoanalysis to the social realm was uni-directional. that is, while freud was adamant that his psychology recapitulated his sociology, it will become clear that his sociology in fact recapitulated his psychology. this latter point is not trivial; since freud's sociology was borne out of his psychology and not vice versa, his sociology is not unique and is sustainable only insofar as the tenets (primarily the oedipal process) of his psychology hold true. historical and theoretical backdrop of freud‟s social theory in order to understand freud‟s conceptualization of the social world, it is necessary to understand the evolutionary principles, philosophical ideas, and life events that drove his theorizing. thus, this section will highlight how these various influences anticipated and contributed to the development of freud‟s social theory. evolutionary influences freud‟s social theory was heavily influenced by the evolutionary climate of his time, and particularly by jean-baptiste lamarck, charles darwin, and ernst haeckel (de europe‟s journal of psychology 184 luca, 1977; sulloway, 1982; wallace, 1983). the biogenetic law – first propounded by the natural philosopher carl friedrich kielmayer, endorsed by darwin, and reinterpreted and popularized by haeckel (wallace, 1983) – is essentially the mechanism that freud uses to expound his social theory. according to the biogenetic law advanced by haeckel, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or in other words, in man, the development from fetus to adulthood (i.e., ontogeny) is a brief recapitulation of the entire history of the race (i.e., phylogeny). haeckel, the german apostle of darwin (wallace, 1983), believed that adult stages become modified by experience and that these modifications are then inherited and recapitulated at increasingly earlier stages in the descendants, such that ontogeny was thought to be a sort of memory for phylogeny – the experiences of which become condensed and abbreviated by ontogenetic repetition (sulloway, 1982). sulloway notes that in currently accepted darwinian theory, however, there is no such recapitulation in the haeckelian sense, as embryos are not miniature versions of ancestral adults but merely embryos that resemble one another more closely than adults simply because natural selection has acted far more intensely upon the adult states during the course of evolution thereby causing later stages, but not the embryos, to diverge. in the preface to the third edition (1915) of the three essays on the theory of sexuality (freud, 1905/1953), freud explicitly states his view of the biogenetic law: ontogenesis may be regarded as a recapitulation of phylogenesis, in so far as the latter has not been modified by more recent experience. the phylogenetic disposition can be seen at work behind the ontogenetic process. but disposition is ultimately the precipitate of earlier experience of the species to which the more recent experience of the individual, as the sum of the accidental factors, is superadded. (p. 131) while it is believed that freud read haeckel, it is perhaps darwin that exerted the most influence on freud, as it is thought that freud not only owned virtually every work by darwin, but darwin was also one of the few individuals that freud was not shy to mention his intellectual indebtedness (de luca, 1977; wallace, 1983). as such, darwin‟s lamarckism and belief in the biogenetic law were particularly influential on freud (ritvo, 1965). in light of lamarck‟s model, which allowed for the inheritance of acquired characteristics, darwin thought it possible for humans to inherit quite complicated behavioral traits (e.g., idiosyncratic physical mannerisms and personal habits) as well as complex mental attributes (wallace, 1983). the impact of lamarckian and biogenetic thinking on darwin is especially salient in his assertion that “every human brain passes in the course of its development through the same freud's conceptualization of the social world 185 stages as those occurring in the lower vertebrate animals.” (1872, as cited in wallace, 1983, p. 245). freud‟s social theory was also indebted to several evolutionary anthropologists; there is direct evidence that he read john lubbock, herbert spencer, and edward tylor, and a strong probability that he was familiar with the works of lewis morgan, john ferguson mclennan, and johann jakob bachofen (wallace, 1983). according to wallace, the views of these anthropologists had several fundamental notions in common. first, they believed that the history of human society is a development following very closely to one general law. second, they presupposed man‟s psychic unity, the assumption of which is that the human mind works the same way in all individuals irrespective of various tribes and nations. third, they espoused the doctrine of survivals, which essentially meant that processes, customs, opinions, and so forth, were carried on by force of habit into new societies different from that in which they had their original home, and thus they remained as proofs and exemplars of older cultures out of which newer ones evolved. fourth, in line with their concept of survivals and their conviction that one could rank cultures on a scale of development, the anthropologists adopted the „comparative method‟, which involved extrapolating from known stages of development in one culture to unknown stages in another. finally, many of the anthropologists adhered to the lamarckian notion of the transmission of cultural traits and the belief that the biogenetic law could be extended to psychic phenomena. thus, wallace argues that freud was influenced by many of the ideas from these evolutionary thinkers, which is consistent with freud‟s insistence throughout his career that “the phylogenetic foundation has . . . the upper hand” (freud, 1940/1964a, pp. 188-189), and by extension, his insistence that his psychology recapitulates his sociology. philosophical influences wallace (1983) notes that at about the same time that freud was reading darwin, he was also reading the works of david hume, ludwig andreas feuerbach, and friedrich nietzsche. these philosophers equipped freud with the intellectual seeds that would help germinate not only his psychological theory but his social theory in particular. according to wallace for example, in the natural history of religion (hume, 1757, as cited in wallace, 1983), hume looked at his subject developmentally, viewed polytheism as the earliest stage of religion, thought that man conceived his deities as having qualities like himself, and viewed the origin of religion as stemming from passion, not curiosity. similarly, feuerbach (1841, 1849, as cited in wallace, 1983) viewed religion as a necessary stage in the development of man‟s self-consciousness, believed that religion everywhere preceded philosophy europe‟s journal of psychology 186 among both individuals and the human race, believed that animal worship everywhere preceded that of anthropomorphic deities, and saw religion as infantilism. in this way, both hume and feuerbach can be regarded as anticipating freud‟s the future of an illusion. gay (1989, p. xxi) opines that freud attempted to stay away from nietzsche “precisely because he sensed how relevant” he was to his “terrain”, which is consistent with wallace‟s (1983) contention that there lurked some embarrassment on freud‟s part at the many parallels (e.g., repression, sublimation, aggression, the unconscious) between his own work and nietzsche‟s. indeed, wallace notes that by 1873, freud had read everything nietzsche had written up to that point. according to wallace, like hume, nietzsche (1878, 1880, as cited in wallace, 1983) also posited that religion arose in passion, whereby nietzsche believed that on the basis of human needs and emotions, the human intellect caused the phenomenon of religion. moreover, wallace contends that nietzsche anticipated freud‟s totem and taboo insofar as nietzsche viewed dreams and poetry as connected to primitive thought, and via his endorsement of the application of the biogenetic law to the psychic domain: “there must, too, be grooves and twists in our brains which answer to that [prehistoric] condition of mind, as in the form of certain human organs there are supposed to be traces of a fish-state.” (nietzsche, 1878, as cited in wallace, 1983, pp. 63-64). life event influences a few notable historical and personal life events are relevant to the development of freud‟s social theory and therefore are worth highlighting. wallace (1983) notes that freud‟s infatuation with archaeology and ancient societies began in childhood and continued throughout his life; indeed, freud was known to be an antiquity collector, and one-fifth of the titles in freud‟s london library – which consisted only of what the nazis allowed him to take – are on archaeology and ancient history (wallace, 1983). moreover, wallace speculates that freud‟s cultural consciousness may have been increased both by his ambivalent attitude towards his jewish identity and by the growing viennese anti-semitism of his time. in this way, freud‟s cultural interests and view of society were tainted by an interaction between his intellectual proclivities toward the study of archaeology and the political climate in which he lived. indeed, it has been suggested that the grim tone of freud‟s civilization and its discontents owes much to the growing power of nazism both in germany and in austria; and that the final sentence in civilization and its discontents, which was added by freud in the second edition of 1931 (i quote this sentence later in the freud's conceptualization of the social world 187 paper), may be understood to mirror freud‟s dismay over the electoral triumph of hitler‟s nsdap in the elections to the german reichstag the previous september (gay, 1989). in addition, as fancher (1998) suggests, the increasing philosophical and pessimistic tone of freud‟s writing, as illustrated in the future of an illusion and civilization and its discontents, might also have been influenced by the difficult fourteen remaining years of his life whereby he underwent a long series of painful and disfiguring operations as a result of being diagnosed with mouth cancer. finally, and interestingly, it has been suggested that freud‟s totem and taboo was essentially an answer to carl gustav jung. schmidl (1952) explains that just prior to the publication of totem and taboo, jung began publishing his deviating ideas from psychoanalysis, which included his view that the oedipus phantasy was „irreal‟ insofar that actual incest had never played any role in the history of mankind. moreover, jung explained the human psyche through myths, which precluded the search for the ultimate biological basis of the human psyche through the metaphysical postulate of a „collective unconscious.‟ for freud, this was a betrayal of psychoanalysis, and was unacceptable because he believed that an explanation of the basic qualities of man had to be based upon biology. in this way, freud searched for the links that connected human history with biology and that connected the beginning of civilized society with prehistoric man, which he found in the myth of the primeval patricide. while it remains an assumption that totem and taboo is essentially a polemical book directed at jung, it is at the very least likely that those of freud‟s followers who were interested in religion, myth, and fairy tales (e.g., otto rank, theodor reik, and carl gustav jung) served to influence the direction of his anthropological and sociological ideas (schmidl, 1952). summary it is in light of this historical and theoretical context that freud became equipped with the intellectual framework to develop his social theory. drawing from this framework, as will become apparent in the next section, it was freud's belief in the biogenetic principle that was chiefly integral to his application of psychoanalytic theory to his social theory. tracing the development of freud‟s social theory to freud, psychoanalysis was clearly a social theory as well as a psychological theory. this section is dedicated to illustrating exactly how freud‟s social theory corresponds to his psychological theory of the mind (i.e., psychoanalysis). i trace the development of freud‟s social theorizing through four major works – namely, europe‟s journal of psychology 188 „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness (freud, 1908/1991b), totem and taboo (freud, 1913/1946), the future of an illusion (freud, 1927/1991d), and civilization and its discontents (freud, 1930/1991a) – and highlight along the way precisely how freud predicates his social worldview on psychoanalysis. it should be noted that space precludes an exhaustive in-depth survey of all socially-relevant freudian works, and as such, the works i have chosen to discuss center around macro-level social processes, such as the development and organization of culture, civilization, and religion. thus, other important works that discuss micro-level social processes will not be discussed. for example, i will not touch upon group psychology and the analysis of the ego (freud, 1921/1991c), which is concerned with interpersonal (cf., being in love and hypnosis) and micro-group level processes (cf., two artificial groups: the church and the army), nor will i discuss moses and monotheism (freud, 1939/1964b), which is primarily concerned with leadership and does not offer anything new with respect to freud‟s social theory (wallace, 1977). „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness freud‟s first sociological exposition, entitled „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness, was first published in march, 1908 (gay, 1989). in this work, freud discusses for the first time at length the antagonism between civilization and instinctual life. to begin, freud notes that his clinical observations had led him to differentiate between two groups of nervous disorders: the neuroses proper and the psychoneuroses. importantly, the etiology of the neuroses proper (which freud mentions are commonly grouped together as „neurasthenia‟) is strictly sexual in nature and does not involve a “hereditary taint.” in other words, these neuroses have nothing to do with civilization per se (the significance of which will become salient in a moment), and their etiology only involves disturbances or “injurious influences” that occur during sexual development or sexual life. on the other hand, with the psychoneuroses (e.g., hysteria and obsessional neurosis), freud contends that “the influence of heredity is more marked and the causation less transparent” (p. 38), and that civilization may play a causal role by virtue of its influence in the suppression of sexual instincts: they spring from the sexual needs of people who are unsatisfied and represent for them a kind of substitutive satisfaction. we must therefore view all factors which impair sexual life, suppress [italics added] its activity or distort its aims as being pathogenic factors in the psychoneuroses as well (p. 38). the upshot of freud‟s nervous disorder distinction is that suppression of the sexual instincts can result in psychoneuroses, and that this suppression is also precisely how freud's conceptualization of the social world 189 civilization develops; and indeed, as articulated in totem and taboo, this suppression is partly responsible for the origins of civilization in the first place. freud contends in „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness that “generally speaking, our civilization is built up on the suppression of instincts” (p. 38). when sexual instincts become suppressed, they find their expression either through the process of sublimation, which according to freud is the “capacity to exchange . . . sexual aim for another one, which is no longer sexual but which is psychically related to the first aim” (p. 39), or they exhibit an obstinate fixation, which renders them “unserviceable” and sometimes causes them to “degenerate into abnormities.” importantly, then, suppression of the sexual instincts may result in psychoneuroses (via the sexual instincts becoming fixated) or it may result in the pursuit of cultural activities and the development of civilization (via sublimation). according to freud, the intensity of the sexual instincts and the proportion that is possible to sublimate are individual differences. in alluding to a machine that cannot indefinitely transform heat into mechanical energy, freud notes that a person cannot sublimate indefinitely and must succumb to the hedonistic pleasure of the sexual instincts at least occasionally in order to avoid illness. however, freud makes a case that finding this balance is a rarity; for reasons which will become clear in my discussion of civilization and its discontents. thus, freud raises the question as to “whether our „civilized‟ sexual morality is worth the sacrifice which it imposes on us” (p. 55). in other words, freud wonders whether the suppression of our sexual instincts, which on the one hand, serves to develop civilization by re-directing libidinal energy into productive cultural pursuits, and on the other hand, results in psychoneuroses that inevitably stifle those same cultural activities, is worth the return on investment. it is noteworthy that „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness was devoted to describing the development and maintenance of civilization, as opposed to the origins of civilization, which freud would go on to address in totem and taboo. in addition, „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness was devoted to explicating the antagonistic role of the sexual instincts, as opposed to the role of aggressive or destructive instincts. interestingly, however, while in his editor‟s note (freud, 1908/1991b, pp. 29-31) dickson maintains that freud does not at all mention the aggressive instincts in „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness, close inspection reveals that freud does indeed briefly foreshadow their role in the development of civilization, albeit the sexual instincts are given far more weight: europe‟s journal of psychology 190 each individual has surrendered some part of his assets – some part of the sense of omnipotence or of the aggressive or vindictive inclinations in his personality. from these contributions has grown civilization‟s common assets in material and ideal wealth. besides the exigencies of life, no doubt it has been family feelings, derived from eroticism, that have induced the separate individuals to make this renunciation. the renunciation has been a progressive one in the course of the evolution of civilization. (p. 38-39) although no more regard is given to the aggressive instincts in the rest of „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness, the above passage shows that freud was already beginning to contemplate their role in the development of civilization; which he would eventually elaborate on in great detail in civilization and its discontents. while „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness was freud‟s first fulllength discussion of the antagonism between civilization and instinctual life, dickson, in his editor‟s note (freud, 1908/1991b, pp. 29-31), highlights that freud was contemplating his application of psychoanalysis to the social realm much earlier. for instance, in a memorandum sent to his close friend wilhelm fliess on may 31st 1897, freud contended that incest was anti-social and that civilization involved its progressive renunciation (freud, 1897/1966). similarly, in his paper sexuality in the aetiology of the neuroses (freud, 1898/1961b), freud concluded that civilization could justifiably be regarded as partly responsible for the spread of neurasthenia; albeit not because of sexual suppression per se, but rather because contraception as a tool of civilization serves to impair sexual enjoyment and negatively impact sexual life, thereby causing illness. finally, in his three essays on the theory of sexuality (freud, 1905/1953), freud spoke of the inverse relation between civilization and the free development of human sexuality. totem and taboo in the first three essays that compose totem and taboo – the horror of incest, taboo and emotional ambivalence, and animism, magic and the omnipotence of thoughts – freud presents cultural-anthropological, sociological, and psychological evidence to build a case for the argument he would present in his widely regarded controversial fourth and final essay. it is in this fourth essay, the return of totemism in childhood (freud, 1913/1989), that freud explicitly launches his theory that the origins of “religion, morals, society and art converge in the oedipus complex” (p. 510). freud's conceptualization of the social world 191 drawing explicitly from the work of j. g. frazer, charles darwin, j. j. atkinson, and his own clinical case formulations, freud directly aims to use psychoanalysis to explain the origins of the two taboos of totemism: the law protecting the totem animal and the prohibition of incest. in constructing his argument, he first generalizes the findings from his phobic patient little hans (freud, 1905/1955) and sandor ferenczi‟s phobic patient little arpad (as cited in freud, 1913/1989) to conclude that the majority of animal phobias stem from a fear related to the father. freud further invokes these cases to infer that it is common for people to displace their feelings from their father on to an animal, and that what typically follows is a projected ambivalent emotional attitude towards the animal (characterized by both hatred and affection), which culminates to identification with the animal. this psychological theory of the oedipal process sets the stage for freud‟s parricide hypothesis, which is essentially the foundation of his social theory. the parricide hypothesis proposes the literal reenactment of the oedipus complex by our ancestors. freud contends that in the prehistoric primeval family, the brothers of the primal horde had initially been banished by the ruling father, who kept all of the females for himself. the brothers then banded together, killed, and devoured their father, which ended the patriarchal horde. by devouring the father, the brothers came to identify with him. in light of the ambivalence felt for the father, the brothers were overwhelmed by guilt over his murder. out of this filial sense of guilt, the two taboos of totemism were created, which corresponded to the two repressed wishes of the oedipus complex; that is, the repressed wish of sexual yearning for the mother corresponded with the exogamy rule and the repressed wish of wanting to kill the father corresponded with the rule governing protection of the totem. freud then goes on to speculate about the development of the notion of god and christianity (the ideas of which become more fully formed in the future of an illusion), and importantly, postulates that the unconscious memory and guilt over killing the father is inherited from generation to generation. interestingly, while freud admits that his premises contain a great degree of uncertainty, he nevertheless is adamant that his literal depiction of the primeval oedipal scene might have been an historical reality. he suggests that the minds of neurotics and primeval man are very similar in that they both “prefer psychic to factual reality and react just as seriously to thoughts as normal people do to realities” (p. 512). there is an important difference, however, between neurotics and primitive men: but neurotics are above all inhibited in their actions: with them the thought is a complete substitute for the deed. europe‟s journal of psychology 192 primitive men, on the other hand, are uninhibited: thought passes directly into action. with them it is rather the deed that is a substitute for the thought. and that is why, without laying claim to any finality of judgment, i think that in the case before us it may safely be assumed that „in the beginning was the deed.‟ (p. 513) in addition to freud‟s belief that the “deed” actually took place, the corollary point that i am trying to make salient is that yet again, he draws upon his psychological theory (of the neurotic mind) in order to generate conclusions about primitive men, and consequently, the social world. moreover, freud essentially predicates the arguments made in totem and taboo on the biogenetic principle. he actually explicitly addresses this issue by stating “i have taken as the basis of my whole position the existence of a collective mind, in which mental processes occur just as they do in the mind of an individual” (p. 511). freud further admits that “these are grave difficulties; and any explanation that could avoid presumptions of such a kind would seem to be preferable” (p. 511). that being said, he goes on to defend his position by asserting that it must be possible for psychical processes to continue from one generation to the next, or else social psychology in general could not exist. the future of an illusion while totem and taboo was concerned with explicating the roots of civilization, the future of an illusion was freud‟s major work on religion as a contemporary social phenomenon. in this work, freud likens religious ideas to powerful illusions that originate from the combination of both phylogenetically transmitted historical recollections (as outlined in totem and taboo) and the most pressing infantile wishes of mankind. these wishes, according to freud, correspond to the yearning for protection through love from the father, which stem from the impression of helplessness in childhood. importantly, freud asserts that “the recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one” (p. 212). thus, for freud, religious ideas serve the function of a kind of mental protection provided by an illusory and powerful father figure. the other crux to freud‟s argument is that religion is the “universal obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional neurosis of children, it arose out of the oedipus complex, out of the relation to the father” (p. 226). in other words, drawing upon his psychological theory, freud contends that in the developmental process of resolving the oedipus complex, children typically cannot progress to the “civilized stage” without first passing through a phase of neurosis. this is because the child cannot handle all of the instinctual demands placed upon him or her, and so these freud's conceptualization of the social world 193 demands become tamed via the process of repression, which produces various forms of anxiety. most of the neuroses are overcome spontaneously during the natural course of development, which freud mentions is especially true for the obsessional neuroses of childhood. in this vein, freud argues that in just the same way, humanity as a whole, in its development through the ages, fell into a state analogous to the childhood obsessional neurosis. crucially, freud asserts that in line with this typical developmental process, humanity should eventually resolve the oedipus complex and consequently abandon religious beliefs: if this view is right, it is to be supposed that a turning-away from religion is bound to occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth, and that we find ourselves at this very juncture in the middle of that phase of development. (p. 227) thus, in the future of an illusion, freud extends his psychological theory to his social theory by means of diagnosing religion as an obsessional neurosis that parallels the experience of children during development. here again, as in totem and taboo, freud invokes the biogenetic law to argue that the ontogenetic oedipus complex of the individual reflects the phylogenetic oedipus complex of the human species. the biogenetic law also underlies the premise that the infantile wishes of the helpless individual child correspond to the wishes of the helpless human species. civilization and its discontents in civilization and its discontents, freud explicitly returns to the theme of antagonism between the expression of primal instincts and the development and maintenance of civilization. he expounds a convoluted albeit vivid rendition of how his most recent contributions to psychoanalytic theory – namely, the superego and the death instinct and its derivatives (i.e., the aggressive and destructive instincts) – apply to his evolved social worldview. in updating his social theory, freud begins in the first chapter by reiterating his message from the future of an illusion; namely that the origin of religious attitudes and beliefs can be clearly traced to the feeling of infantile helplessness. in the second chapter, freud argues that the purpose of life is to satisfy the pleasure principle, whereby he details a variety of ways that this can be achieved – such as via sublimation, illusions (e.g., satisfaction through art and beauty), and engulfment in love (including sexual gratification). freud asserts that these activities essentially represent various ways to mitigate three sources of suffering: the deterioration of the body, ravages from the external world (e.g., natural disasters), and inadequate relations with other people (including lovers, friends, family, and society). in an europe‟s journal of psychology 194 attempt to avoid pain and neuroses as best as possible, freud prescribes evenly distributing one‟s libidinal energy rather than placing all eggs in one basket, so to speak. thus, for freud, “happiness . . . is a problem of the economics of the libido. there is no golden rule which applies to everyone: every man must find out for himself in what particular fashion he can be saved” (p. 271). interestingly, freud further comments that by virtue of religion forcing a state of psychic infantilism and mass-delusion, it serves to restrict one‟s path to the acquisition of happiness and protection from suffering, and consequently, it succeeds “in sparing many people an individual neurosis . . . but hardly anything more” (p. 273). freud uses the third chapter to build upon his thoughts regarding the third source of human suffering (i.e., inadequate relations with other people). he suggests that “civilization is largely responsible for our misery” (p. 274) and devotes the rest of the chapter to describing the general nature of civilization. he contends that order and cleanliness are important requirements of civilization, and in this respect, he alludes to the development of anal eroticism in children and then points out the similarity between the process of civilization and the libidinal development of the individual child. in chapter four, freud refers to totem and taboo to introduce the notion that eros (love) and ananke (necessity) became the initial parents of civilization following the overthrow of the primal father. he further describes the function of eros as serving to bind together considerable numbers of people, which civilization has ironically come to tame by virtue of restricting the sexual instincts of individuals. even heterosexual genital love is restricted in the form of legitimacy and monogamy: in no other case does eros so clearly betray the core of his being, his purpose of making one out of more than one; but when he has achieved this in the proverbial way through the love of two human beings, he refuses to go further. (p. 298) this antithesis between civilization and sexuality in particular was discussed in „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness. to understand the cause of the antagonism between civilization and sexuality, freud invokes the notion of the death instinct (the term „thanatos‟ is never actually employed by freud in any of his works) in chapter five. he explains that the “inclination to aggression . . . is the factor which disturbs our relations with our neighbor and which forces civilization into such a high expenditure [of energy]” (p. 302). the aggressive instinct, which is a derivative of the death instinct, is responsible for the antagonism between civilization and sexuality because uninhibited sexuality would result in rampant competition, which would lead to ubiquitous aggressive freud's conceptualization of the social world 195 activity. freud thought that the instinctual passions were stronger than reasonable interests (i.e., common work and interests) and that civilization had to invest a tremendous amount of energy in order to set limits to man‟s aggressive instincts: hence, therefore, the use of methods intended to incite people into identifications and aim-inhibited relationships of love, hence the restriction upon sexual life, and hence too the ideal‟s commandment to love one‟s neighbour as oneself – a commandment which is really justified by the fact that nothing else runs so strongly counter to the original nature of man. (p. 303) in this vein, the death instinct, in opposition to eros, threatens to tear civilization apart. as such, civilization encourages the suppression (note that freud is unclear about the distinction between suppression and repression) of both the sexual and aggressive instincts, albeit at the cost of man‟s happiness in exchange “for a portion of security” (p. 306). in chapter six, freud makes it explicitly clear that he is applying psychoanalysis to his conceptualization of the social world. he outlines how in beyond the pleasure principle (freud, 1920/1961a), his former distinction between ego-instincts and object-instincts became subsumed under the power of eros, whereby „libido‟ came to denote the energy of eros in order to distinguish it from the energy (which incidentally was not given a label) of the death instinct. civilization is considered to be “a process in the service of eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind” (p. 313). the aggressive instinct acting as a derivative and representative of the death instinct is always in opposition to eros, at both the individual and social level, rendering “the meaning of the evolution of civilization” a constant struggle “between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction, as it works itself out in the human species” (p. 314). the final two chapters are devoted to delineating how the superego serves as the mechanism that civilization employs in order to inhibit aggressiveness. here again, freud explicitly mentions that we can draw upon the history of the development of the individual in order to infer the process by which the superego exerts its effects. in the individual, aggressiveness is internalized and introjected back on to the ego, thereby re-directing the aggressive instinct energy. that is, the aggressive energy that was originally directed at other people is taken over by the agency of the superego, and in the form of „conscience‟ (which freud describes as the function of the superego), is ready to displace back on to the ego. the tension between the harsh superego and the ego generates „the sense of guilt‟, which expresses itself as europe‟s journal of psychology 196 a need for punishment. in the same way, freud describes epochs of civilizations as having their own superego (which he called the cultural superego), with the sense of guilt originating from the oedipus complex, which was acquired at the killing of the father by the primal brothers (as described in totem and taboo). importantly, freud contends that by means of the superego, it is the aggressive intention, not necessarily the act that invokes a sense of guilt. thus, the effect of aggressive instinct renunciation on the conscience is that “every piece of aggression whose satisfaction the subject gives up is taken over by the superego and increases the latter‟s aggressiveness (against the ego)” (p. 321). this unconscious sense of guilt is phylogenetically transmitted to every individual as a result of the transmission of ambivalence surrounding the oedipus complex. crucially for freud, the sense of guilt intensifies and strengthens as the community widens, since civilization is under the spell of eros, which tries to erotically unite all human beings. as eros widens its range, so too does the death instinct, and so too does the feeling of ambivalence originating from the oedipus complex, which can be conceived of as extending from an individual‟s father to society at large. in other words, ambivalent affection and hatred stemming from the oedipus complex, represented as eros and the death instinct, respectively, is extended beyond the family, which necessarily increases the sense of guilt by virtue of amplifying aggressive wishes (originally confined to the father within the family) toward other people in society. in this vein, freud asserts that the sense of guilt is the most important problem in the development of civilization in that “the price we pay for our advance in civilization is a loss of happiness through the heightening of the sense of guilt” (p. 327). at bottom, the sense of guilt coincides to fear of the superego, which results in a form of enduring anxiety produced by civilization that either remains to a large extent unconscious or manifests as a sort of malaise and general dissatisfaction. in the final pages of the book, freud acknowledges the similarity between psychoanalytic theory and his view of the social world. he contends, however, that one feature differs between the developmental process of the individual and the process of civilization. in the individual, the main aim is finding happiness, which is achieved via satisfaction of the pleasure principle. in contrast, the main aim of civilization is to create a unity between individual human beings. this difference, as freud acknowledges, is not a struggle between the primal instincts of eros and death but rather is a dispute within the economics of the libido, which concerns the distribution of libido between ego and objects. freud states then, that “the developmental process of the individual can thus be expected to have special features of its own which are not reproduced in the process of human civilization” (p. freud's conceptualization of the social world 197 334). as is clear, however, the main aim of civilization is still an application of eros, which is a concept that is derived from freud‟s psychology theory of the mind. finally, freud concludes by suggesting that epochs of civilizations can become neurotic given the similarity between the development of civilization and the individual. however, he also warns that we should be cautious of the implications of communal neuroses given that “we are only dealing with analogies and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to tear them from the sphere in which they have originated and been evolved” (p. 338). moreover, freud acknowledges that with an individual neurosis, we have a benchmark of normality, which is absent in the case of communal neuroses. thus, the fate of civilization is dependent upon eros‟ ability to conquer the death instinct. interestingly, in 1931, freud added the following final sentence regarding eros‟ aforementioned ability, which is apparently reflective of his increasing pessimism surrounding the menace of hitler: “but who can foresee with what success and with what result?” (p. 340) isomorphism of freud‟s social theory from the previous discussions, it is clear that freud was conspicuously applying psychoanalytic theory to his conceptualization of the social world. indeed, freud was not hiding the fact that he thought concepts such as the oedipus complex, neuroses, and the superego were social as well as psychological. these concepts operated in exactly the same way at both the social and psychological levels. as such, despite the fascinating implications, i contend that freud‟s social worldview is merely an application of psychoanalysis that is contingent upon the success of the biogenetic principle. that is, without freud‟s prehistoric reification of the oedipus complex and its phylogenetic transmission, the entirety of freud‟s social theory falls apart. the oedipal process occurring at the social level is responsible for the origins, development, and maintenance of macro-level social processes, including religion, culture, and civilization. thus, freud‟s social theory is not unique insofar as it merely represents psychoanalytic principles operating at the social level of analysis. in this vein, despite freud‟s insistence otherwise, his sociology is in fact a recapitulation of his psychology. to somewhat digress briefly, it is interesting that in 1983, a lost paper that freud wrote on july 28, 1915 entitled the overview of the transference neuroses was discovered in a trunk which belonged to sandor ferenczi (see silverstein, 1989). in this paper, silverstein explains that freud first warned his audience that his ideas were not confirmed, and then he presented a „phylogenetic fantasy‟ whereby he speculated that the development of individual psychopathology corresponded to a biogenetic europe‟s journal of psychology 198 series. that is, psychological disorders purportedly recapitulated a stage in the history of human civilization: anxiety hysteria was related to economizing libido during the ice age; conversion hysteria, to the need to limit overpopulation; obsessional neurosis, to the appearance of the primal horde; dementia praecox, to the pressure from the primal father to relinquish all sexual objects; paranoia, to the struggle against homosexuality instituted by the primal father; melancholia, to remorse over the killing of the primal father; and mania, to identification with the primal father. this digression (both mine and freud‟s) attests to freud‟s conviction regarding the biogenetic law and its influence on his thinking (wallace, 1983). in any event, not only is it clear that freud intended to apply psychoanalytic principles to his social theory, but in surveying the works discussed above, it becomes evident that his application of psychoanalysis was isomorphic with his social theorizing. in other words, as freud‟s psychological theory of the mind evolved over time, so too did his social theory in a correspondingly strict fashion. this isomorphism is particularly salient when one considers that „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness was originally published in 1908 and was therefore written within the framework of freud‟s topographical model of the mind; whereas civilization and its discontents was originally published in 1930, and was based on freud‟s structural theory of the mind, which he most concretely espoused in 1923 with the publication of the ego and the id (freud, 1923/1961c). moreover, it was only after the publication of beyond the pleasure principle in 1920 that freud incorporated notions of the love and death instincts into his social theory. interestingly, close inspection of totem and taboo reveals the seeds of what was to become freud‟s concept of the superego: thus after a long lapse of time their bitterness against their father, which had driven them to their deed, grew less, and their longing for him increased; and it became possible for an ideal to emerge which embodied the unlimited power of the primal father against whom they had once fought as well as their readiness to submit to him. (p. 505) again, however, the superego per se was never formally invoked in freud‟s social theorizing until after the publication of the ego and the id. cavalletto (2007) notes a chronological puzzle in freud‟s work. although the future of an illusion and civilization and its discontents were published only two years apart (as civilization and its discontents was originally published in 1929, despite the 1930 version in my references section), they appear to be products of different theoretical mindsets. the future of an illusion invoked the terms of freud‟s first theory freud's conceptualization of the social world 199 of the instincts, which resulted in cultural manifestations of unconscious wishes and instinctual desires – thoughts that are reminiscent of „civilized‟ sexual morality and modern nervous illness and in general, freudian theorizing from 1905 to 1917. in contrast, as was previously mentioned, civilization and its discontents invoked freud‟s structural theory of the mind and his more recent theory of instincts involving the battle of eros against death. cavalletto suggests that the reason freud ignored radical revisions to his theory and retreated to the earliest stages of his thinking in the future of an illusion is because freud distrusted system building, so to speak. that is, he often adopted new ideas while at the same time remained attached to older, no longer fully compatible ones. in this sense, freud followed a patchwork method of conceptualization, which one might argue renders him a true evolutionist! of course, the biggest problem with freud‟s adherence to the assumption that the dynamics of the individual mind correspond to the dynamics of macro-level social processes is that freud would have a difficult time not only explaining the radical diversity between religions, cultures, and civilizations, but also the diversity within them. indeed, just as freud‟s psychological theory assumes psychic unity across individuals, his social theory assumes a kind of social unity across time, religions, cultures, and civilizations. wallace (1983) argues that freud can only apply psychoanalysis to the social realm metaphorically, and that for the most part, it is only with the smallest and most homogenous societies that a „group unconscious‟ might retain any meaning. finally, by virtue of freud‟s social theory mirroring his psychological theory, an illusion of credence is given to psychoanalysis. in other words, freud‟s social theory might be regarded as a red herring insofar as criticisms that are launched towards it should really be aimed at his psychological theory if they wish to be effective (for criticisms against his social theory, see wallace, 1983). in this sense, freud‟s social theorizing merely furnishes and buttresses psychoanalysis, albeit redundantly. conclusions freud‟s social worldview was very much the product of the historical context in which it was developed, which consisted of the interplay between freud‟s theoretical influences, personal life events, and cultural and political climate. these influences served to shape the formation of psychoanalysis in general and facilitated its extension to the social realm. by tracing the corresponding vicissitudes of freud‟s psychological and social thought, it becomes evident that his conceptualization of the social world was merely a uni-directional projection of psychoanalysis, which was predicated on the biogenetic principle. this isomorphism was problematic because europe‟s journal of psychology 200 it rendered freud‟s psychological and social theories vulnerable to the same set of criticisms. nevertheless, psychoanalysis was destined to invade other academic disciplines (gay, 1989, p. xxii), and i contend that its strength is demonstrated in part by this ability to reach beyond psychology into other domains of inquiry. acknowledgements i thank dr. henderikus j. stam for his kind words and suggestions for how to improve this manuscript. references cavalletto, g. 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(1983). freud and anthropology: a history and reappraisal. new york: international university press about the author jonathan n. stea is a phd candidate in the clinical psychology program at the university of calgary, canada. his primary research interests include topics that focus on the etiology and determinants of addiction-related disorders. address for correspondence: jonathan n. stea, department of psychology, university of calgary, 2500 university drive nw, t2n 1n4, calgary, alberta, canada. e-mail: jnstea@ucalgary.ca http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000306516501300302 lemons into lemonade: development and validation of an inventory to assess dispositional thriving research reports lemons into lemonade: development and validation of an inventory to assess dispositional thriving shadi beshai*a, laura d. brancoa, keith s. dobsona [a] department of psychology, university of calgary, alberta, canada. abstract research indicates that health and disorder are polar opposites of the same continuum of vulnerability. research has focused almost exclusively upon one end of this continuum, namely disorder. as such, instruments that assess adaptive dispositions (e.g., “thriving”, or post-trauma growth) have rarely been developed. the purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument that assesses dispositional thriving. undergraduate students (n = 289) were asked to complete the dispositional thriving inventory (dti), in addition to a number of other instruments designed to assess adaptive (e.g., optimism, acceptance, planning, etc.) and maladaptive (depression, dysfunctional attitudes, etc.) constructs. factor analysis revealed four orthogonal factors comprising the dti. results indicated that the 26-item scale is reliable (α = .88) and valid. scores on the dti positively correlated with optimism, and adaptive coping, and negatively correlated with depression and dysfunctional attitudes. there is some evidence that the dti is a reliable and valid instrument. the construct of thriving has wide implications upon the onset and treatment of psychopathology. keywords: thriving, assessment, factor analysis, scale development, mental health europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 received: 2012-08-08. accepted: 2012-10-23. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of calgary, 2500 university drive nw, calgary alberta. t2n 1n4. e-mail: sbeshai@ucalgary.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it has recently been recognized that understanding healthy reactions to environmental problems may benefit our understanding of disordered reactions, as these two types of reactions likely exist on a continuum of vulnerability (widiger & trull, 2007; flett, vredenburg, & krames, 1997). despite this fact, mental health research has focused primarily on pathology and dysfunction (for surveys of the history of clinical psychology, see schultz & schultz, 2011). some efforts have been made to investigate positive factors in mental health. one of such positive factors that has been widely studied within the context of clinical psychology is optimism, a stable trait that determines one’s level of confidence regarding events over the course of their life (scheier & carver, 1992). optimism is associated with better coping (nes & segerstrom, 2006) and decreased stress following stressful events (e.g., allison, guichard, & gilain, 2000; brissette, scheier, & carver, 2002; fitzgerald, tennen, affleck, & pransky, 1993). it has also been linked to decreased hopelessness (e.g., gustavsson-lilius, julkunen, & hietanen, 2007) and increased resilience to negative life events (fredrickson, tugade, waugh, & larkin, 2003). thus, the association between optimism and risk of psychopathology is well documented (carver, scheier, & segerstrom, 2010). a number of investigations have examined resilience and its relationship to other psychological constructs. unfortunately, far fewer investigations have been conducted to examine the related construct known as “thriving”. thriving consists of the positive changes experienced or benefits perceived following adversity (joseph & butler, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2010). although people commonly interpret negative events as valuable sources of insight and learning, this phenomenon only began to be formally investigated in the late 1980s. an early attempt to understand adaptive responses to adversity was made by affleck, tennen, croog, and levine (1987). in this investigation, participants who experienced a cardiac arrest were given questionnaires which assessed attributional style and perceived benefits from their experience. these participants were contacted eight years after the initial assessment, and aspects of their physical health were examined. the results of the study indicated that individuals who reported perceiving more benefits from the initial heart attack were less likely to experience a second heart attack and exhibited less morbidity at the time of the second assessment. it is important to note, however, that conclusions regarding “perceived benefits” were drawn from participants’ answers to a single open-ended question. such methods have limited validity and reliability. a study by davis, nolen-hoeksema, and larson (1998) assessed growth in the context of bereavement. individuals were interviewed in hospices both before and after the loss of their spouse, and levels of psychological adjustment, as well as the tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic, were examined. in post-loss interviews, participants also answered two open-ended questions about the extent to which they made meaning out of the experience of losing a loved one. one of these questions related specifically to “thriving”, or post-traumatic growth. these researchers found that participants who were able to make meaning of the experience earlier in the process were less likely to experience psychological maladjustment. however, as in the affleck et al. (1987) study, there were methodological issues in the assessment of post-traumatic growth. the use of open-ended questions and coded answers may have limited the validity and overall generalizability of the results. to resolve these methodological issues, standardized instruments have been designed to assess positive or constructive attitudes in response to stress. the posttraumatic growth inventory (ptgi; tedeschi & calhoun, 1996) and the stress-related growth scale (srgs; park, cohen, &murch, 1996) are examples of such instruments. subsequent research of stress-related growth made use of these scales, which led to more easily replicable and generalizable results. a study by weiss (2002), for instance, used the ptgi to observe post traumatic growth in women who had experienced breast cancer. a total of 98% of the women reported post-traumatic growth. the ptgi was also administered to participants’ husbands, and it was found that this post traumatic growth was corroborated by the women’s spouses. results similar to those obtained by weiss (2002) were produced by a number of studies which assessed posttraumatic growth with questionnaires and scales rather than open-ended questions. a negative correlation between reported benefits and symptoms of post-traumatic stress has been detected in victims of general trauma (linley, joseph, & goodfellow, 2008) and, more specifically, in rape victims (frazier, tashiro, berman, steger, & long, 2004). a recent meta-analysis of 87 studies of responses to traumatic events found that individuals who reported benefits from negative experiences also exhibited fewer depression symptoms and reported higher levels of wellbeing (helgeson, reynolds, & tomich, 2006). while the development of quantitative scales was undoubtedly an important step in this line of research, it is important to note that such measures evaluate “state” levels of thriving. thriving has been found to be related to cognitive appraisal of events (evers et al., 2001; fontana & rosenheck, 1998; park et al., 1996) and coping strategies (armeli, gunthert, & cohen, 2001; evers et al., 2001; koenig, pargament, & nielsen, 1998), suggesting that there may be stable, underlying cognitive features that promote one’s tendency to thrive. indeed, cognitivebehavioral researchers, such as clark, beck, and alford (1999), have long speculated about the existence of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 63 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “compensatory schemas” which, when activated, “counter the dysfunctional schemas” (p. 67). scales such as the srgs and the ptgi, which orient respondents to answer the items in the context of their experience with one particular traumatic event, may not provide an accurate indication of participants’ general tendency to thrive. valuable information could be gained from the development of scales that assess “trait” levels of the construct. secondly, the above mentioned measures are arguably narrow in their assessment of the construct of thriving. carver (1998) defined thriving as decreased negative reactions to subsequent stressors. as such, individuals high on this disposition should theoretically exhibit a higher level of functioning or report gains in skills or knowledge as a result of experiencing a negative event. this concept is best exemplified by the personal accounts of individuals who have reported experiencing positive life changes as a result of a number of traumatic events. as such, although growth/ learning in reaction to stress is an important feature of the thriving variable, we believe that pre-post level of functioning and problem orientation are other important features which remain virtually untapped by the extant scales. third, other scales which assess psychological health have items which measure intrapersonal resilience, which will be distinguished throughout this paper from thriving. thriving is defined as the capacity for growth and learning when faced with personal adversity, as measured by pre-post stressor functioning, general growth, and adaptive attitudes toward stressors. resilience, on the other hand, can be defined as the ability to return to baseline levels of functioning after experiencing trauma or adversity, reliable assessment of adaptive attitudes has major clinical implications. lower levels of adaptive dispositions could predict maladaptive responses to negative life events. if this is found to be the case, therapeutic efforts which focus on the development and fostering of such adaptive dispositions could reduce the recurrence of disordered reactions to negative events. the aim of the current study was to develop and provide preliminary validation for an inventory which assesses dispositional thriving. there is a hypothesized, positive relationship between thriving and constructs such as resilience, post-traumatic growth, optimism, internal locus of control, and positive coping. conversely, we hypothesize that thriving is negatively associated with constructs such as depression, dysfunctional attitudes, poor functioning, and negative coping strategies (e.g., substance use, distraction, etc.). given that thriving is defined as post-trauma growth, heightened functioning, and adaptive problem orientation, we hypothesize that the tool will exhibit a three-factor structure, with three orthogonal factors combining to form the construct. the development of this scale represents the combined efforts of the authors of this report working collaboratively with five graduate students to produce items which capture the thriving construct, as defined above. once the items were created and agreed upon, they were subjected to an initial pilot study, and then, based on the results of this initial study, the items were refined and used in the current investigation. in order to validate the instrument, a number of well-validated scales intended to measure constructs which are hypothesized to relate to the thriving construct (e.g., coping, optimism, depression, etc.) were used. development of the dispositional thriving inventory dispositional thriving inventory (dti) the dti is a rationally derived scale which aims to assess the extent to which people thrive in response to negative life events. drawing upon previous studies and extant scales of psychopathology and health, the principle investigators created a number of items designed to assess functioning, appraisal of adversity, and growth in response europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 measuring dispositional thriving 64 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to adversity. the initial version of the dti comprised 29 items, 12 of which were modified from extant scales of similar constructs (e.g., resilience, etc.), while the remaining 17 were originally created. together, the 29 items described potential responses to negative life events (e.g., “i become a better person when i overcome difficult times”; “going through difficult times can be a learning experience.”). each item is rated on a seven-point likert scale, ranging from “1 – entirely disagree” to “7 – entirely agree.” the items which were hypothesized to capture post-trauma functioning asked respondents to rate the quality of their functioning on a number of daily living tasks (e.g., work, school, relationships, etc.). pilot testing preliminary psychometric data regarding the dti was gathered through a pilot study conducted on a sample of 59 university students (78% female; m age = 22.11, sd = 4.16) in the context of another study. participants completed the dti, the ces-d and the das-24 in randomized order, and also underwent a negative mood induction procedure (nmip). throughout the study, participants were asked to provide mood ratings, which were compared to dti scores so that relationships between dispositional thriving, baseline mood and reaction to the nmip could be investigated. a negative correlation between dti and ces-d scores (r = -.43, p < .05) suggested discriminant validity. furthermore, a median split based on participants' dti scores produced evidence related to the protective effects of thriving on mood: low scorers had a lower baseline mood (t(57) = -2.31, p < 0.05) and experienced greater decreases in mood as a result of the mood induction (t(57) = 2.39, p < .05) as compared to high scorers. method participants participants for this study were selected from the university of calgary, department of psychology research participation system. as such, volunteers were provided with course-credit as compensation for their participation. a total of 298 students (ages 18-51) were selected for the purposes of this study. nine students failed to provide answers to one or more measures, and as such, the data for these participants were removed from further analyses. other exclusionary criteria included age (under 18 or over 60), primary language (other than english), and uncorrected visual impairments. data from the 289 participants were used throughout. the average age of respondents was 21.55 years. the sample consisted of primarily white (43.3%) and asian (32.1%) participants, and 73.3% of the sample was female. the sample was predominantly single (89.7%), but a small proportion of participants were married (5.2%). the sample consisted primarily of full time students. approximately 48.4%worked part time, and 16.3% of the sample worked full-time. an estimated 12.5% of the sample reported a prior diagnosis of major depression. procedure the study was advertised through the department of psychology research participation system. students interested in participating were directed to a website link hosted by qualtrics online survey software. after providing consent, participants completed the study measures in randomized order. at the end of the study, participants were provided with a debriefing form that offered a list of recourses for depression which could be consulted if needed. measures the center for epidemiological studies – depression scale (ces-d). the ces-d is a 20-item self-report measure designed to assess the frequency and severity of depressive symptomatology in the general population europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 65 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (radloff, 1977). the instrument utilizes a 4-point likert scale (from “0” or “rarely or none of the time”, to “3”, or “most or all of the time”). scores on this scale range from 0-60, with higher scores indicative of greater distress. a number of studies have established the psychometric soundness of the instrument with the general population (radloff, 1977; ross & mirowsky, 1984), as well as among university samples (devins et al., 1988). life orientation test – revised (lotr). the lot-r (scheier, carver, & bridges, 1994) is a 10-item scale designed to measure dispositional optimism, or positive outcome expectancy. the scale instructs respondents to indicate their agreement, on a 5-point likert scale (from “0”, or “strongly disagree”, to “4”, or “strongly agree”), with the provided items. four of the 10 items are filler items. with negatively worded items reverse scored, scores on the scale range from 0 to 30, with higher scores more indicative of higher dispositional optimism. since its inception, the lot-r has been widely used to measure optimism in a number of samples. the lot-r has demonstrated sound psychometric properties (scheier et al., 1994; carver et al., 2010). for instance, the lot-r correlates significantly and positively with measures of adaptive coping and subjective well-being, and negatively with measures of psychological distress (scheier et al., 1994). longitudinal investigations of the measure have shown that the inventory successfully predicts future physical and mental well-being (carver et al., 2010). dysfunctional attitudes scale (24-item version). the 24-item version of the dysfunctional attitudes scale (das-24; power et al., 1994) is a subscaled version of forms a and b of the dysfunctional attitudes scale (das; weissman & beck, 1978). the aim of the das is to examine attitudes people may hold, in particular those related to the negative cognitive schemas often seen in individuals with depression (beck, rush, shaw, & emery, 1979). tests of the das on university samples have shown the scale to have an internal consistency ranging between .88 and .90 (dobson & breiter, 1983), and a test-retest reliability of .71 for an 8-week period (weissman & beck, 1978). the das-24 consists of 24 statements which describe attitudes people may have; respondents are asked to indicate on a seven-point scale, where “1 = totally agree,” “4 = neutral” and “7 = totally disagree,” the extent to which they identify with each particular attitude. the range of scores is 24 to 168, and more elevated scores indicate a smaller number of dysfunctional attitudes displayed. the das-24 correlates highly with results from the form a of the das (r = .90; power et al., 1994). a study by farmer et al. (2001) has also shown that das-24 scores are significantly correlated with depression symptoms as measured by the beck depression inventory (bdi), r = 0.68, p < .001. the same study also found that the das-24 can differentiate between depressed and non-depressed individuals. brief cope. the brief cope (carver, 1997) is a 28-item measure designed to assess adaptive and maladaptive coping. this scale is the predecessor of the longer cope (carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989), and is composed of 14, 2-item subscales. only six (active coping, acceptance, planning, denial, substance use, and self-blame) of the 14 scales were used in the current investigation. carver (1997) found that the 14 subscales possess acceptable internal consistency (ranging from .50 to .90). results psychometric properties item evaluation. data from 289 participants were analyzed and scale score and split-half reliabilities were calculated. the analysis revealed that chronbach’s alpha coefficient for the 29-item scale (with negatively worded items reversed) was .88, while the split-half reliability was equivalent to .84. to reduce item redundancy, items were eliminated if their deletion resulted in an alpha coefficient that was equal to, or greater than one derived from the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 measuring dispositional thriving 66 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intact scale. an initial reliability analysis was conducted for all 29 items and this analysis revealed that the deletion of the third item (i.e., “my relationships (romantic, familial, friendships) get better if i am facing difficult times”) did not impact the alpha coefficient (it remained static at .88), and thus this item was deleted from further analyses. a second reliability analysis was conducted with the remaining 28 items. this secondary analysis revealed that deletion of item five (i.e., “i get easily distracted during difficult times”) had no effect on the alpha coefficient, and this item was removed. a third analysis with the remaining 27 items revealed that the deletion of item 8 (e.g., “it is harder to get along with people when i am going through difficult times”) did not impact the alpha coefficient of .88. therefore, this item was also deleted from further analyses. we chose not to eliminate any further items, as doing so resulted in the reduction of the internal reliability of the scale. based on the above analysis, we chose to retain 26 of the original 29 items. the final 26-item version of the dti was used in all the remaining analyses (appendix a). factor analysis. data from 289 participants who responded to the 26 items of the dti were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. the initial analysis yielded five separate factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. the data evidenced sampling adequacy, as the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) value was .89, which exceeded the recommended cutoff value of .6 (kaiser, 1974). furthermore, bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < .001), which supports the factorability of the correlation matrix. the initial, un-rotated eigenvalues (and percent of variance explained) for each of the five factors were as follows: 8.86 (34.08%), 3.70 (14.24%), 2.28 (8.78%), 1.39 (5.32%), and 1.13 (4.34%). a parallel analysis (horn, 1965) on a random data matrix of 26 variables by 289 respondents and 100 replications suggested the retention of four factors. the first four randomly generated eigenvalues were 1.60, 1.51, 1.44, and 1.38, all of which are below the resultant eigenvalues in the real dataset. the fifth randomly generated eigenvalue was 1.32, which exceeded the fifth eigenvalue generated from the real dataset (1.13). to determine the orthogonality of the factors, a direct oblimin rotation with a four-factor structure was applied to the data, and the correlation matrix was examined, as suggested by tabachnick and fidell (2007, p. 646). as the factors evidenced low correlations with one another, the factors were deemed nearly orthogonal to increase the interpretability of the results, a varimax rotation was applied. the results revealed a four-factor structure with the following eigenvalues: 6.28 (24.15%), 4.07 (15.67), 2.64 (10.16), and 2.28 (8.76). together, these four factors accounted for 58.74% of the variance in the data. a number of factor solutions were compared in order to obtain the most optimal and theoretically sound structure. such models were compared using criteria from cattell’s (1966) scree test and gorsuch’s (1997) a priori cut-off value for substantive loadings (+ .4). the interpretability and theoretical coherence of the different models were used to determine factor retention. examination of the scree plot indicated that there was a clear and distinct descent beginning with the fourth factor. a three, four, and five factor solutions were seen as the most parsimonious and interpretable, given that such factors exhibited the least amount of multiple item loadings and negative items loaded meaningfully onto factors. we chose to retain the initial four factor solution for theoretical reasons, however, since this structure was the most interpretable, and the items loaded onto the four factors in a theoretically coherent manner. in addition, the three and five factor solutions did not provide better interpretations of the data as compared to the four-factor solution. finally, the earlier parallel analysis supported the retention of four factors, and as such, corroborated the researchers’ decision. ten items loaded substantively onto the first of four factors. given the themes of “learning” and “growth” which bound such items together, the first component most meaningfully represents a learning/growth in adversity europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 67 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor. seven items clustered together in the second of the four factors. such items thematically represented achievement and functioning. as such, this factor most meaningfully conveys a latent factor of achievement in adversity. the third factor included substantive loadings from 5 items. such items were negatively worded and asked respondents about their general appraisals of difficult times. as such, this factor most meaningfully represents a negative appraisal of adversity construct. finally, 6 items clustered substantively onto the fourth factor. such items were positively worded, and represented positive or adaptive appraisals of adversity/stress. as such, this component most meaningfully signifies a positive appraisal of adversity factor (see table 1). table 1 four-factor varimax solution for the dispositional thriving inventory factor 4factor 3factor 2factor 1item i have learned important lessons.12. .85 has helped me learn more about myself.10. .85 helped shape who i am today.6. .82 can be a learning experience.26. .80 i grow as a person.28. .78 opportunity for personal growth.15. .77 i have learned a lot.4. .76 i am a better person.17. .74 i have learned nothing.11. .71i become a better person.1. .66 i can focus better.14. .85 i do better in school/work.7. .78 i perform worse at work/school.22. .77i have trouble finishing tasks.13. .73 i find it easier to “get things done”.25. .71 i lose interest in work/school activities.19. .47.63i become more motivated.29. .44.58 my self-esteem goes down.16. .73 i cannot be happy.9. .70 just too difficult to tolerate.23. .70 always a negative experience.2. .58 challenges to be overcome.21. .65 actually blessings in disguise.24. .63 i can see a silver lining.20. .58 i find it easier to focus on what is important in life.18. .48 i communicate better with people.27. .41 2.28 (8.76)2.64 (10.16)4.07 (15.76)6.28 (24.15)eigenvalue (% accounted for) gender differences. mean scores, standard deviations, and mean differences between males and females for the different outcome measures used in the study can be observed in table 2. males scored significantly higher than females on the dti, t(287) = 2.30, p < .05. secondly, males scored significantly higher than females on the acceptance subscale of the brief cope, t(287) = 2.28, p < .05. third, males scored higher than females on the das-24, t(287) = 2.62, p < .01. finally, females scored higher than males on the planning subscale of the brief cope, t(287) = -2.72, p < .01. reliability. as males evidenced significantly higher dispositional thriving, we conducted separate reliability analyses for both genders. cronbach’s alpha coefficients and split-half reliabilities were obtained for the dti. the analyses europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 measuring dispositional thriving 68 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics for measures for total sample, males and females, and mean differences in scale scores between genders. t testfemales (n = 209)males (n = 80)total sample (n = 289) significancetm (sd)m (sd)m (sd)measure dti = .022p.30*2(16.79)118.63(20.06)124.00(17.89)120.12 lot-r > .05p.881(3.77)14.43(3.61)15.35(3.74)14.68 cope active > .05p.180(1.40)6.08(1.25)6.11(1.36)6.09 cope accept = .023p.28*2(1.24)5.92(1.30)6.30(1.26)6.03 cope plan < .01p.71**-2(1.37)6.13(1.26)5.65(1.36)6.00 ces-d > .05p.82-1(7.40)18.37(4.90)15.81(10.58)17.27 das-24 < .01p.62**2(18.78)95.80(16.26)102.76(18.36)97.71 cope denial > .05p.340(1.41)3.10(1.36)3.16(1.40)3.11 cope substance > .05p.271(1.55)2.93(1.82)3.20(1.63)3.00 cope – self-blame > .05p.45-1(1.75)5.52(1.65)5.19(1.73)5.43 note. dti = dispositional thriving inventory; lot-r = life orientation test – revised; cope – active = active coping subscale of the brief cope; cope – accept = acceptance subscale of the brief cope; ces-d = center for epidemiological studies depression scale; das-24 = dysfunctional attitudes scale – 24 items; cope – denial = denial subscale of the brief cope; copesubstance = substance use subscale of the brief cope; cope – self-blame = self-blame subscale of the brief cope. *p < .05. **p < .01. yielded high internal consistency coefficients for both males, α = .91, and females, α = .87. similarly, high splithalf reliability coefficients were obtained for both males and females (.90 and .83, respectively). the internal consistency of the growth subscale was .94 and .93 for males and females, respectively. internal consistency of the achievement subscale was .87 for females and .83 for males. finally, the internal consistency of the negative appraisal subscale was .75 and .70 for males and females, respectively, while the internal consistency of the positive appraisal subscale was .66 and .65 for females and males, respectively. construct validation as the factors evidenced orthogonality, a total score for the dti was obtained, and pearson’s coorelation coefficients between dti scores and scores on other measures were calculated. table 3 presents correlation coefficients for the entire sample. given the statistically significant differences in scores on the dti obtained between the genders, however, separate correlational analyses were conducted for males and females. life orientation/optimism.pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated between the dti and other inventories. as predicted, the dti was significantly and positively correlated with the lot-r for both males, r = .38, p < .01, and females, r = .34, p <.01. depression. pearson’s correlation coefficients, stratified by gender, were calculated between the dti and other inventories measuring theoretically divergent constructs. as such, scores on the dti were subjected to a correlation analysis with scores on the ces-d. as predicted, females’ scores on the dti were significantly and negatively correlated with scores on the ces-d, r = -.38, p <.01. for males, dti scores were also significantly and negatively correlated with scores on the ces-d, r = -.44, p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 69 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlation coefficients between dispositional thriving and other related measures for the entire (n = 289) sample, females, and males. dti – males (n = 80) dti – females (n = 209) dti (n = 289) measure lot-r .38**.34**.36** cope – active .33*.29**.32** cope – accept .33*.26**.28** cope plan .30**.26**.24** ces-d .44**-.38**-.40**das-24 .28*-.30**-.26**cope – denial .18-.29**-.25**cope – substance .18-.22**-.19**cope – self-blame .15-.18**-.18**note. dti = dispositional thriving inventory; lot-r = life orientation test – revised; cope – active = active coping subscale of the brief cope; cope – accept = acceptance subscale of the brief cope; ces-d = center for epidemiological studies depression scale; das-24 = dysfunctional attitudes scale – 24 items; cope – denial = denial subscale of the brief cope; copesubstance = substance use subscale of the brief cope; cope – self-blame = self-blame subscale of the brief cope. the entire correlation matrix can be obtained from the corresponding author. *p < .05. **p < .01. dysfunctional attitudes. for females, dysfunctional attitudes (scores on the das-24) were significantly and negatively correlated with thriving, r = -.30, p < .01. this pattern was also obtained for men, whereby dysfunctional attitudes were significantly and negatively correlated with dti scores, r = -.28, p < .05. brief cope. six subscales from the brief cope inventory were chosen, and scores on such scales were correlated with score on the dti. for females, significant and positive correlations were obtained between dti scores and scores on the active coping (r = .29, p < .01), acceptance (r = .26, p < .01), and planning subscales (r = .28, p < .01). whereas significant and negative correlations were acquired between scores on the dti and scores on the denial (r = .29, p < .01), substance use (r = .22, p < .01), and self-blame (r = .18, p < .01). for males, significant and positive correlations were also obtained between scores on the dti and scores on the subscales of active coping (r = .33, p <.01), acceptance (r = .33, p <.01), and planning (r = .30, p < .01). nonsignificant, negative correlational trends were obtained between dti scores and denial (r = -.18, p > .05), substance use (r = -.18, p > .05), and self-blame (r = -.15, p > .05) subscale scores. discussion the exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor structure for the dti. items of the scale clustered onto each of these four factors in a theoretically coherent manner. the first factor, which resembled previous measures (e.g., srgs and ptgi) of the thriving construct, appears to assess growth/learning in reaction to adversity (dubbed as the learning/growth in adversity factor). the second (appearing to measure functioning/achieving in response to stress), third (negative appraisal of adversity), and fourth (positive appraisal of adversity) factors represent unique sub-domains which were not adequately represented in existing scales of the thriving construct. the 26-item dti evidenced strong internal (.88) and split-half (.84) reliabilities. further, scores on the scale seem to co-vary with scores on measures which assess theoretically similar and divergent constructs. for instance, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 measuring dispositional thriving 70 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thriving scores were significantly and positively correlated with scores on optimism and adaptive coping scales. as such, it appears that as dispositional thriving increases, so do optimism, active coping, acceptance and planning. in contrast to this correlational pattern, thriving appeared to be negatively correlated with measures of psychological distress, negative attitudes, and maladaptive coping. thus, it appears that individuals high on thriving are less likely to experience such pathological reactions to adversity. these results reveal that the dti exhibits theoretically meaningful relationships with other constructs in the nomological network. results from the correlational analyses provided further support for the construct validity of the dti. further, the modest correlation coefficient obtained between the dti and other measures of adaptive dispositions confirms the incremental validity and orthogonality of the thriving construct. the present study had a number of strengths. first of all, although other measures of thriving and stress-related growth have been developed, the dti represents the first attempt to measure the dispositional features of the thriving construct. in other words, whereas previous measures of thriving measured the variable in the context of the particular stressor/trauma, the dti is the first instrument that assesses “trait” levels of the construct. secondly, and as previously mentioned, embedded within the definition of thriving is the notion of increase in pre-posttrauma/stressor functioning. as such, we believe previous “thriving” scales were narrow in their definition and assessment of the construct, and that the dti assesses a wider, more full range of the variable in question. third, although the sample size was relatively modest, it produced a factorable correlation matrix. also, the sample size proved to possess ample power, and thus, significant correlational patterns were readily observed. despite these strengths, the study was not without its limitations. first of all, this was a sample of convenience, and thus, relatively homogenous in composition (e.g., students, mostly single, white, and female). given the sample’s homogeneity, it is difficult to generalize the obtained results onto other samples. secondly, although partial construct validity for the dti was established, the study did not assess the instrument’s relationship with other pertinent variables (e.g., self-esteem, anxiety, physical well-being, etc.). third, confirmatory factor analysis of the four-factor model of the dti is a necessary second step in establishing the scale’s internal structure. given such limitations, a number of suggestions for future research are provided. first of all, and given the current sample’s homogeneous composition, the dti’s structure, reliability and validity should be examined and established among different samples. in particular, we suggest that the scale’s psychometrics and validity be confirmed among clinical and general community samples. secondly, we believe that the thriving construct is universal, and thus, it is important to establish the validity of this construct in ethnically diverse samples. third, since the thriving variable is defined as an increase in the levels of pre-post adversity/stressor functioning and general growth due to stress, predictive validity of the dti must be established to further support the instrument’s psychometric soundness. it is predicted that individuals high on dispositional thriving would exhibit increases in their functioning, self-esteem and subjective well-being post stress/trauma. furthermore, this increase would be evidenced despite the type and intensity of the stressor. also, and given the clinical implications of the thriving variable, scores on the dti can theoretically distinguish between resilient, thriving, and disordered populations. clark and colleagues (1999) have speculated about the existence of “constructive schemas” which are “designed to maximize accuracy and adaptability” (p. 68). further, some evidence (e.g., dozois & dobson, 2001) indicates that individuals with depression have poorly organized positive self-referent schemas. despite these notions and the implications they may have upon clinical application, adaptive constructs have been fairly neglected in research of psychopathology. for instance, the activation of thriving schemas may act to offset the activation of depressive europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 71 http://www.psychopen.eu/ schemas. for instance, depressive schemas are said to hijack the information processing system by narrowing the focus of the sufferer upon negative stimuli in the environment (beck, 1967). it is possible that adaptive schemas act in a similar fashion wherein information processing becomes narrowed upon positive experiences and personal growth and thus thriving becomes the likely outcome of this process. if such hypotheses are supported in future research, therapeutic protocols may benefit from enhancing the interconnectedness and activation of these so-called thriving schemas in patients. depending on the degree of a number of variables, and the interaction between such variables, individuals may be placed on a continuum of psychological health. in themaladaptive end of this hypothetical continuum, we observe individuals who exhibit a number of vulnerability factors, and who thus experience a psychological disorder (e.g., depression) in response to adversity and stress. in the middle of this continuum, we observe individuals who possess a balance of vulnerability and protective factors, and who are thus resilient to stress and do not readily develop psychological disorders. finally, and near the extreme end of well-being, we observe individuals who are not only resilient to stress and adversity, but those whose dispositional faculties make them more likely to thrive and excel in the face of adversity. quantitative instruments are needed which aid in the placement of individuals on this hypothetical continuum of psychological health. thus far, most of these instruments have been biased to the assessment of dysfunction and vulnerability. as such, measures such as the dispositional thriving inventory are necessary in the assessment and understanding of the full range of human experience. references affleck, g., tennen, h., croog, s., & levine, s. 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(2007). plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorders: shifting to a dimensional model. the american psychologist, 62(2), 71-83. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.62.2.71 appendix dispositional thriving inventory (dti) the following statements refer to attitudes people might have toward difficult times in their lives. difficult times are periods of stress and negativity that can come about due to a negative life event or a personal problem. think about your past experience with such situations and read the statements below. indicate how much you agree with each on the following 7 point scale: figure a1. entirely agreeentirely disagree 7654321i become a better person when i overcome difficult times.1. 7654321going through difficult times is always a negative experience.2. 7654321i have learned a lot by going through difficult experiences in my life.3. 7654321my experience with difficult times helped shape who i am today.4. 7654321i do better in school/work during difficult times.5. 7654321i can’t be happy if i’m faced with difficult times in my life.6. 7654321going through difficult times has helped me learn more about myself.7. 7654321i have learned nothing from difficult times i have gone through in life.8. 7654321i have learned important lessons from difficult times in my life.9. 7654321i have trouble finishing tasks during difficult times.10. 7654321i can focus better on tasks during difficult times.11. 7654321going through difficult times in life can be an opportunity for personal growth.12. 7654321my self-esteem goes down with every new problem that i face in my life.13. 7654321i am a better person because of the difficult times i faced in my life.14. 7654321i find it easier to focus on what is important in life during difficult times.15. 7654321i lose interest in work/school activities during difficult times.16. 7654321i can see a silver lining in whatever problem i may face.17. 7654321i see major life problems as challenges to be overcome.18. 7654321it is harder to get along with people when i am going through difficult times.19. 7654321some of life’s problems are just too difficult to tolerate.20. 7654321most of life’s problems are actually blessings in disguise.21. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 beshai, branco, & dobson 75 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.2490090305 http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/j077v20n02_04 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.62.2.71 http://www.psychopen.eu/ entirely agreeentirely disagree 7654321i find it easier to ‘get things done’ during difficult times.22. 7654321going through difficult times can be a learning experience.23. 7654321i communicate better with people during difficult times.24. 7654321i grow as a person when i’m faced with difficult times in my life.25. 7654321i become more motivated during difficult times.26. about the authors shadi beshai is a ph.d. candidate in the program of clinical psychology at the university of calgary, canada. his research program investigates the cross-cultural applicability of cognitive theories of depression. this work will potentially be expanded to the investigation of the efficacy and dissemination of these therapeutic modalities with culturally diverse samples. shadi is also highly interested in comparing depressive and normative reactions (e.g., resilience and thriving) to significant adversity. shadi’s research has lead to five published articles, a book chapter on relapse prevention in depression, and several conference presentations. shadi has received several awards and scholarships, including the canadian psychological association’s academic excellence award. he is currently finishing his doctoral dissertation and supervising a number of honours students at the university of calgary. laura d. branco graduated in 2011 from the psychology honours program at the university of calgary, canada. her honours thesis focused on the development of an inventory to assess cognitive defenses against depression, which was the initial step in the development the dispositional thriving inventory. laura is interested in cognitive psychology, and is currently working as a research coordinator in a cognitive psychology laboratory in brazil. laura has received a number of scholarships and undergraduate awards in completing her bacholar’s degree. she is looking forward to starting her graduate training in psychology in the upcoming year. dr. keith dobson is a professor of clinical psychology at the university of calgary in canada. dr. dobson’s research has focused on both cognitive models and mechanisms in depression, and the treatment of depression, particularly using cognitive-behavioural therapies. he has participated in several trials of the treatment of acute depression, as well as prevention of depression. a current focus of his work is on the prediction and prevention of relapse in depression. dr. dobson’s research has resulted in over 160 published articles and chapters, 9 books, and numerous conference and workshop presentations in many countries. in addition to his research in depression, he has written about developments in professional psychology and ethics, and has been actively involved in organized psychology in canada, including a term as president of the canadian psychological association. he is the past-president of both the academy of cognitive therapy, and the international association for cognitive psychotherapy. he is also a principal investigator for theopening minds program of the mental health commission of canada, with a focus on stigma reduction related to mental disorders. among other awards, he has been given the canadian psychological association’s award for distinguished contributions to the profession of psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 62–76 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.508 measuring dispositional thriving 76 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring dispositional thriving (introduction) development of the dispositional thriving inventory dispositional thriving inventory (dti) pilot testing method participants procedure measures results psychometric properties construct validation discussion references appendix dispositional thriving inventory (dti) about the authors the humor styles questionnaire in italy: psychometric properties and relationships with psychological well-being research reports the humor styles questionnaire in italy: psychometric properties and relationships with psychological well-being saulo sirigattia, ilaria penzoa, enrichetta giannettib, cristina stefanile*b [a] human sciences department, european university of rome, rome, italy. [b] department of health sciences, university of florence, florence, italy. abstract this study investigated the psychometric properties of the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) and the relation between humor and psychological well-being within the context of italy. a total of 293 (178 females, 115 males) italian high school and undergraduate university students – whose ages ranged from 14 to 25 years – completed the italian versions of the hsq and the ryff’s psychological well-being scales (rpwb). the hsq scale reliabilities were generally acceptable, and intercorrelations among the scales were rather low; the confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor structure. males reported significantly more use of aggressive humor than did females; no differences were found between adolescents and young adults in the use of humor styles. affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles were positively associated with the six dimensions of the rpwb, whereas self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with the rpwb scales. sem analysis showed a significant and positive relationship between humor as measured by the hsq and psychological well-being as assessed by the rpwb. overall, the findings supported the theoretical structure and usefulness of the hsq in an italian context and the differential role of humor components in the various dimensions of psychological well-being. keywords: humor, humor styles, psychological well-being, gender differences, age differences, italy, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 received: 2013-08-30. accepted: 2014-01-23. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: dipartimento di scienze della salute – sezione di psicologia, via di san salvi, 12, 50135 firenze fi, italy. e-mail: stefanile@psico.unifi.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the growing interest in positive human psychological functioning has focused on the potentially beneficial effects of humor on physical and psychosocial health and well-being (e.g., edwards & martin, 2010; kuiper & harris, 2009; kuiper & mchale, 2009; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). the cross-cultural stability of such relations has been assessed with samples from different countries (e.g., bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen &martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; kuiper, 2010; kuiper, kazarian, sine, & bassil, 2010; penzo, giannetti, stefanile, & sirigatti, 2011). several investigations have been conducted to ascertain the associations between aspects of humor and psychological characteristics – such as dimensions of personality, empathy, resiliency (e.g., dyck & holtzman, 2013; galloway, 2010; hampes, 2010; jovanovic, 2011; kuiper, 2012) – as well as the influence of parental interactions during childhood on development of humor styles (kazarian, moghnie, & martin, 2010), europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and the genetic and environmental predictors of the correlations between humor styles and traits of emotional intelligence (vernon et al., 2009). notwithstanding the large number of studies conducted and the variety of correlations examined, insights into the role of humor as a component of positive psychology linked to the various aspects of mental and physical health and psychological well-being remains rather weak. in contemporary psychological research, humor represents a multidimensional construct related to features of the stimulus, to mental processes affected, and to personal responses provided by people; whereas a sense of humor refers to a personal trait that covers the various cognitive, emotional, behavioral, psychophysiological, and social components of humor (martin, 2000; martin et al., 2003; vernon et al., 2009). several conceptualizations of the construct have evolved over time. in the last century, humor has been considered a strategy for coping with stress or as a defense mechanism (lefcourt & martin, 1986), an ability to create humor and to amuse others (feingold & mazzella, 1993), an everyday conduct style (craik, lampert, & nelson, 1996), an emotion-related temperament trait (ruch, köhler, & van thriel, 1997), and an aesthetic response (ruch & hehl, 1998). furthermore, humor has not always been viewed positively. some examples come from early theorists of laughter such as aristotle and plato, who considered the sense of humor a result of a sense of personal supremacy derived from ridiculing another’s lack of common sense, personal limitations, or unattractiveness. these different conceptualizations of the construct – referring to all that is considered laughable – have been assessed by researchers using various measurement approaches: humor appreciation ratings such as the wit and humor appreciation test (what; o’connell, 1960), behavioral observation techniques such as the humorous behavior q-sort deck (hbqd; craik et al., 1996), and ability tests such as the state-trait-cheerfulness-inventory (stci; ruch, köhler, & van thriel, 1996, 1997). the survey instruments also included self-report scales such as the sense of humor questionnaire (shq; svebak, 1974a, 1974b), the coping humor scale (chs;martin & lefcourt, 1983), the situational humor response questionnaire (shrq; martin & lefcourt, 1984), and the multidimensional sense of humor scale (mshs; thorson & powell, 1993). however, the review of the literature has identified several conceptual and psychometric limitations in these instruments. earlier self-report measures have often considered sense of humor as a one-dimensional construct, often assessed in terms of laughter frequency. in addition, humor was regarded as producing only positive and beneficial effects including laughter responsiveness, humor appreciation and a socially skilled use of humor. these measures did not always consider that the uses of humor could have adverse effects on physical and psychosocial health and well-being (dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin, 2004; martin et al., 2003; thorson, powell, sarmany-schuller, & hampes, 1997). moreover, although the psychometric properties of the self-report measures of a sense of humor are often considered acceptable, several limits have been identified (lefcourt & martin, 1986; martin, 1996, 2007). based on these assumptions and previous literature, martin and colleagues (2003) developed their multidimensional approach by identifying four different styles of humor: two potentially adaptive-positive and beneficial (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two possibly maladaptive-negative and detrimental (aggressive and self-defeating), composing both the interpersonal and the intrapsychic uses of humor. according to martin et al. (2003), affiliative humor refers to the tendency to say funny things, to tell jokes, and to engage in spontaneous witty banter to amuse others for the purpose of facilitating relationships and reducing interpersonal tensions. self-enhancing humor involves a generally humorous outlook on life, a tendency to be frequently amused by the incongruities of life, and a primary focus on intrapsychic personal processes. aggressive humor involves the use of sarcasm, teasing, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 430 http://www.psychopen.eu/ derision, “put-downs”, or disparaging humor for the purpose of manipulating without regard for potentially negative effects on others. self-defeating humor comprises excessively self-disparaging humor, attempts to amuse others by doing or saying funny things at one’s own expense as a means of gaining approval, allowing oneself to be the “butt” of others’ humor, and laughing along with others when being ridiculed or disparaged. these four humor styles have been assessed using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003). the questionnaire has been developed and validated with several large canadian samples showing satisfactory psychometric qualities with good levels of reliability and validity and a clear factor structure corresponding to the four humor styles highlighted above. the authors reported internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha: .77 for aggressive, .80 for both affiliative and self-defeating, and .81 for self-enhancing humor). the correlations between the scales appeared quite low, ranging from .12 to .36, signifying their independence. test-retest reliabilities were between .80 and .85. the hsq received cross-cultural validation among european (saroglou & scariot, 2002), chinese (chen &martin, 2007), american (cassaretto & martínez, 2009; erickson & feldstein, 2007), and arabic samples (kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; taher, kazarian, & martin, 2008), demonstrating good psychometric properties and supporting the four-factor model in understanding the dimensions of a sense of humor. an examination of the item loadings of each dimension revealed that the four factors corresponded closely to the original proposal although there were some exceptions (kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006). most validations of the hsq have generally been performed on adults with some exceptions (chen & martin, 2007; erickson & feldstein, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004; martin et al., 2003; pietrantoni & dionigi, 2006; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher et al., 2008). as far as age differences are concerned, younger people reported higher scores on affiliative and aggressive humor scales than did older participants while non-significant effects were observed for self-enhancing and self-defeating styles (martin et al., 2003). although studying humor during childhood and adolescence is considered important, to date there are insufficient psychometrically sound instruments specifically developed and standardized for these groups (erickson & feldstein, 2007; fox, dean, & lyford, 2013). the factor structure of the hsq, investigated within an italian context (penzo et al., 2011; pietrantoni & dionigi, 2006), confirmed, with some minor differences, four distinct dimensions. a few items did not adequately load on the factor, as hypothesized. however, the reduced sample sizes and the exploratory procedure of the factor analysis did not allow for generalization of the data. regarding gender differences, previous and recent investigations show that males and females reported similar uses of both adaptive humor styles; however, they differed in the use of maladaptive styles. significantly, males reported more frequent use of aggressive and self-defeating humor regardless of setting, sociocultural context or studied population (kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; kazarian et al., 2010; martin et al., 2003; pietrantoni & dionigi, 2006; saroglou & scariot, 2002). in the past, psychological theorists such as freud (1928), maslow (1954), and allport (1961) postulated that certain types of humor such as affiliative or sarcastic humor were significantly associated with psychological health. lately, several studies have examined links between humor and particular aspects of psychosocial health and well-being. they sought to identify the potentially benign or detrimental uses of humor styles. particularly, several studies have demonstrated that adaptive humor styles – affiliative and self-enhancing humor – are positively related to aspects of psychological well-being: openness to experience, self-esteem, intimacy, relationship satisfaction, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 431 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mature and effective coping, positive self-evaluative standards, subjective happiness, and mainly positive moods and emotions. conversely, maladaptive humor styles – aggressive and self-defeating humor – are positively related to psychological distress, neuroticism, anxious attachment, immature and avoidant coping, negative self-evaluative standards, negative emotions, low self-esteem, and interpersonal relationship dissatisfaction (bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen &martin, 2007; erickson & feldstein, 2007; galloway, 2010; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; kazarian et al., 2010; kuiper et al., 2004; kuiper & mchale, 2009; martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002). thus, the development of a multidimensional model and the construction of a questionnaire specifically devoted to assessing psychological well-being, namely the ryff's psychological well-being scales (rpwb; ryff, 1989; ryff & keyes, 1995), are important. this instrument, previously adapted to the italian context (ruini, ottolini, rafanelli, ryff, & fava, 2003; sirigatti et al., 2009, 2013), relies on a validated construct; simultaneously, the rpwb is comprehensive, articulate, and useful in offering a positive description of good adjustment. more specifically, in canadian and italian samples, martin et al. (2003) and penzo et al. (2011) explored the relationships between the hsq dimensions and the rpwb total score. in both studies, positive relations between adaptive humor styles and overall psychological well-being emerged, whereas only self-defeating humor – among the maladaptive styles – showed an inverse correlation with the rpwb total score. considering that in both studies the sample sizes were rather small and that the only well-being indicator used was the total score, it may be advisable to replicate the investigation with a larger number of participants and widen the enquiry to the possible links between the hsq dimensions and the six indexes of psychological well-being proposed by ryff (1989), i.e., self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, and purpose in life. based on the previous review of the literature, the present study sought to explore the cross-cultural stability of the humor dimensions – as proposed by martin and colleagues (2003) – by investigating the psychometric properties, gender and age differences, and factor structure of the hsq applied to italian adolescents and young adults. the second aim of the research was to examine the possible relationships between participants’ styles of humor and the dimensions of psychological well-being as conceived by ryff (1989) and ryff and keyes (1995). in particular, we expected that: a. the hsq would show satisfactory psychometric qualities with a clear factor structure corresponding to the four humor styles; b. males would report more use of aggressive humor than females; c. younger participants would report higher scores on affiliative and aggressive humor scales than older ones; d. the adaptive and maladaptive humor styles would show different relations with psychological well-being; specifically affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles would play an adaptive role, whereas self-defeating and aggressive humor styles would be maladaptive. method participants the participants in the present cross-sectional study were 293 (178 females, 115 males) italian high school and undergraduate university students from central italy (see table 1). the participants’ ages ranged from 14 to 25 years (14-17 years: 53%; 18-25 years: 47%). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 432 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 participants by gender and age total by genderyoung adults (18-25 years)adolescents: 14-17 years gender / age %n%n%n 1155560males .239.818.520 1788395females .860.328.432 293138155total by age .0100.147.952 measures the participants completed a questionnaire containing the following self-report measures for assessing humor styles and psychological well-being. humor styles— the italian version (penzo et al., 2011) of the hsq (martin et al., 2003) was employed to assess different styles of humor according to a multidimensional approach. the hsq is a 32-item measure comprising four eight-item correlated dimensions related to different humor styles: adaptive-positive and beneficial – i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing – and maladaptive-negative and detrimental – i.e., aggressive and self-defeating. items were rated on a 4-point likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). high scores for each dimension indicate high levels for that style of humor. the following are sample items for each style of humor: “mi piace far ridere le persone [“i enjoy making people laugh”] for affiliative; “se mi sento depresso, di solito riesco a tirarmi su con l'umorismo” [“if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor”] for self-enhancing; “se non mi piace qualcuno, spesso uso l'umorismo o la presa in giro per buttarlo giù di morale” [“if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”] for aggressive; “spesso esagero nel prendermi in giro quando scherzo o provo ad essere divertente” [“i often go overboard in putting myself down when i am making jokes or trying to be funny”] for self-defeating. the psychometric properties and content validity of the hsq italian version were satisfactory, essentially confirming the four-factor structure (dionigi & libardoni, 2010; penzo et al., 2011; pietrantoni & dionigi, 2006). cronbach’s alphas across the four humor scales ranged from .58 to .81 indicating acceptable internal consistency: affiliative = .81, self-enhancing = .75, aggressive = .58, and self-defeating =.72 (penzo et al., 2011). psychological well-being — the italian version (ruini et al., 2003) of the 84-item rpwb (ryff, 1989; ryff & keyes, 1995) was used to evaluate psychological well-being by the following six intercorrelated dimensions according to a multidimensional approach: self-acceptance (sa), positive relations with others (pr), autonomy (au), environmental mastery (em), personal growth (pg), and purpose in life (pl). items were rated on a 4point likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). high scores for each dimension indicate high levels of well-being. the following are sample items for each dimension: “sono soddisfatto di come sono andate le cose nella mia vita” [“when i look at the story of my life, i am pleased with how things have turned out”], sa; “spesso mi sento isolato perché ho poche vere amicizie con cui condividere le mie preoccupazioni” [“i often feel lonely because i have few close friends with whom to share my concerns”], pr; “non ho paura di esprimere le mie opinioni, anche se esse sono contrarie a quelle della maggior parte delle altre persone” [“i am not afraid to voice my opinions, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 433 http://www.psychopen.eu/ even when they are in opposition to the opinions of most people”], au; “le richieste della vita di tutti i giorni spesso mi abbattono” [“the demands of everyday life often get me down”], em; “per me la vita è stata un continuo processo di apprendimento, cambiamento e crescita” [“for me, life has been a continuous process of learning, changing, and growth”], pg; “non ho una buona percezione di quello che sto cercando di fare nella vita” [“i don’t have a good sense of what it is i am trying to accomplish in life”], pl. test-retest correlations across the six well-being scales ranged from .21 to .82, indicating acceptable stability for at least four scales (ruini et al., 2003). previous studies have also explored the factor structure of the rpwb, highlighting the coexistence of different models that differ in their linear and hierarchical structures and item loadings (e.g., abbott, ploubidis, huppert, kuh, & croudace, 2010; burns & machin, 2009; cheng & chan, 2005; van dierendonck, díaz, rodríguezcarvajal, blanco, & moreno-jiménez, 2008). of these, the rpwb six correlated first-order factor model represents one of the models that better fits the data, which was also shown in a previous italian study (sirigatti et al., 2009). procedure after a brief presentation of the study’s objectives and procedures, consent was directly obtained from participants in legal age and from parents or guardians for underage participants. research participation was granted only to individuals who had provided informed consent for the processing of personal data. the questionnaires were completed anonymously, and in groups between 15 to 30 individuals, and the staff was present during the data collection. participation in the study was voluntary and confidentiality was assured; no incentives were offered. upon completion of the questionnaires, participants received a debriefing that offered further information regarding the study. data analysis preliminary data processing was conducted for subsequent analysis. fifteen out of 309 individuals, who failed to respond to more than one of the 116 items, were excluded from the analyses. the task of dealing with incomplete data was performed using the prelis program for the imputation of missing values (jöreskog & sörbom, 1996a). with pattern matching imputation, a missing value was replaced with an observed score from another case that had a similar response pattern over a set of variables. for three cases out of four, this replacement was possible, and therefore they were included in the subsequent analyses. analyses included descriptive statistics concerning the hsq and rpwb subscale scores. uniand multivariate analyses were performed to test gender and age differences, as well as the relations – hypothesized on the basis of previous studies and conceptualizations – among the four hsq dimensions and the six rpwb scales, and their total scores. evidence of construct validity was sought by conducting a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) on a matrix of interitem polychoric correlations on the basis that items may be considered as categorized continuous variables from a normal multivariate distribution (holgado-tello, chacón-moscoso, barbero-garcía, & vila-abad, 2010; jöreskog, 1994). once the matrix of polychoric correlations had been estimated, the supposition of bivariate normality was tested by calculating the percentage of tests that rejected the null hypothesis of bivariate normality for each pair of correlations. after that, a cfa was performed to test the viability of the hypothesized four-factor structure that had been formulated from theoretical considerations and from results of previous exploratory factor analyses (efas) (martin et al., 2003; penzo et al., 2011). the goodness of fit of the cfa model was assessed by means of the weighted least squares method, implemented in the lisrel program (jöreskog & sörbom, 1996b). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 434 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lastly, structural equation modeling (sem) – using the robust maximum likelihood estimation procedures – was conducted to test the plausibility of the putative influence of the two adaptive, positive and beneficial humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) and the two maladaptive, negative and detrimental (aggressive and self-defeating) humor styles on the six rpwb dimensions. sem analysis techniques included the assessment of the measurement and of the structural models (anderson & gerbing, 1988; jöreskog & sörbom, 1996a, 1996b). evaluation of the acceptability of the models was performed using the satorra-bentler scaled chi-square (s-b χ2) and the following fit indices: the s-b χ2 to degrees-of-freedom ratio (s-b χ2/df), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the 90 percent confidence interval for rmsea (rmsea 90% ci), the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), the comparative fit index (cfi), the normed fit index (nfi), the nonnormed fit index (nnfi), and the parsimony goodness-of-fit index (pgfi). the criteria recommended by schermelleh-engel, moosbrugger, and müller (2003) and by hooper, coughlan, and mullen (2008) were utilized to establish goodness-of-fit of the models to the data. data were analyzed using statistica 12 (statsoft) and lisrel 8.80 (jöreskog & sörbom, 2006). results scale descriptive statistics: gender and age differences table 2 presents the mean scores and standard deviations of each of the four scales for males and females as well as for the total sample. in addition, the significance levels of the t-test comparing males and females are provided. the discriminant analysis performed to compare the two groups showed a significant difference between males and females on the hsq dimensions (wilk's lambda = .94, f(4,288) = 4.72, p < .001). such a difference was due to scores on aggressive humor, in which males scored significantly higher than females (t(291) = -3.65, p < .001). there were no significant gender differences on the remaining three humor scales although males reported a slightly higher mean score on self-enhancing and self-defeating humor and females scored slightly higher average scores on the affiliative scale. table 2 means and standard deviations of hsq scores, and student’s t-test for gender difference femalescmalesbtotal samplea scale pt valuesdmsdmsdm n.s.affiliative .84.563.1727.264.7826.853.0227 n.s.self-enhancing .50-1.404.8820.334.6621.384.1821 aggressive .001<.65-3.922.2117.253.5418.123.7317 n.s.self-defeating .70-1.504.0417.114.9217.364.3917 an = 293. bn = 115. cn = 178. table 3 presents the mean scores and standard deviations of each of the four scales for adolescents and young adults; in addition, the significance levels of the t-test are provided. the discriminant analysis performed to compare the two groups showed a non-significant difference on the hsq dimensions (wilk's lambda = .97, f(4,288) = 2.07, p < .085). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 means and standard deviations of hsq scores, and student’s t-test for age difference young adultsbadolescentsa scale pt valuesdmsdm n.s.affiliative .901.394.5726.263.4227 n.s.self-enhancing .30.504.0821.304.2321 n.s.aggressive .32-1.343.9917.892.5017 n.s.self-defeating .57-1.714.8117.014.0117 an = 155. bn = 138. scale reliability and intercorrelations reliabilities of the four hsq scales for males, females, adolescents, and young adults separately, as well as for the total sample are presented in table 4. adequate internal consistencies were observed for the self-defeating, self-enhancing, and affiliative humor scales, demonstrated by cronbach’s alphas ranging from .70 to .85; the aggressive humor scale had a lower score for internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha from .50 to .61). the intercorrelations among the four scales were generally rather low, indicating that each scale is relatively distinct from the others, ranging from -.06 to .31 for the total sample, from .03 to .39 for males, from -.01 to .26 for females, from .02 to .29 for adolescents, and from .12 to .34 for young adults. positive and significant correlations were observed between affiliative and self-enhancing (r = .39 for males; r = .26 for females; r = .29 for adolescents; r = .32 for young adults) and between affiliative and aggressive humor scales (r = .29 for males; r = .16 for females; r = .34 for young adults). lastly, the self-enhancing style showed a positive association with the aggressive scale for males and young adults (r = .29), and with the self-defeating scale for males (r = .19). table 4 cronbach’s alphas coefficient of the hsq scales self-defeatingaggressiveself-enhancingaffiliativesample totala .74.58.74.80 malesb .72.61.75.84 femalesc .75.50.74.76 adolescentsd .70.53.73.72 young adultse .77.61.76.85 an = 293. bn = 115. cn = 178. dn = 155. en = 138. hsq confirmatory factor analysis cfa was performed to test the viability of the hypothesized structure that had been formulated from theoretical considerations and results of past studies. the goodness of fit of the confirmatory factor model, with polychoric correlations and asymptotic covariance matrix, was assessed by means of the weighted least squares method, implemented in the lisrel program (jöreskog & sörbom, 1996b). measurement error was assumed to be uncorrelated between items, whereas the four latent variables were allowed to covary. model fit was evaluated using multiple indicators, obtaining some conflicting results (see table 5). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 436 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 cfa of the hsq: goodness-of-fit indexes pgfinnfinficfisrmrrmsea 90% cirmseas-b χ2/dfpdfs-b χ2 .66+.95+.88.96+.094+.036 .049+.042++1.52++<.00001458697.67 note. n = 293. +acceptable fit; ++good fit (hooper et al., 2008; schermelleh-engel et al., 2003). the hypothesized structure did not match the observed data when the evaluation of the model was performed using the satorra-bentler scaled chi-square (s-b χ2 = 697.67; p < .00001). however, given that the chi-square may suggest significant misfit for a model that is slightly misspecified (marsh, hau, & wen, 2004), additional absolute, relative, and parsimony fit indexes were employed to evaluate the model’s goodness-of-fit. the observation of the s-b χ2/df, the rmsea, the rmsea 90% ci, the srmr, the cfi, the nnfi, and the pgfi suggested that the model offered a good or an acceptable fit to the data; in contrast, the nfi suggested an unsatisfactory model fit. factor loadings of the 32 items on their respective latent variables averaged .55 (in absolute value), ranging from -.68 to .89. particularly low factor loadings occurred between latent variables: self-enhancing humor and item 30 (“non ho bisogno di stare con gli altri per divertirmi. riesco di solito a trovare cose su cui ridere anche quando sono solo” [“i don’t need to be with other people to feel amused – i can usually find things to laugh about even when i’m by myself”]); aggressive humor and item 11 (“quando racconto barzellette o dico cose divertenti, di solito non mi interessa molto il modo in cui le altre persone la stanno prendendo” [“when telling jokes or saying funny things, i am usually not very concerned about how other people are taking it”]) and item 23 (“non mi associo mai a ridere di altri, anche se tutti i miei amici lo fanno” [“i never participate in laughing at others even if all my friends are doing it”]); self-defeating humor and item 28 (“se ho problemi o mi sento infelice, spesso lo nascondo scherzandoci su, in modo che persino i miei amici più stretti non sappiano come mi sento veramente” [“if i am having problems or feeling unhappy, i often cover it up by joking around so that even my closest friends don’t know how i really feel”]). relations between humor styles and psychological well-being descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients between each of the hsq humor scales and the rpwb dimension were computed for the total sample as well as for males, females, adolescents, and young adults separately (see tables 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). considering the total sample, results revealed positive and significant associations between both affiliative and self-enhancing humor and all psychological well-being dimensions, including the overall score, ranging from r = .23 to r = .55 for affiliative and from r = .25 to r = .46 for self-enhancing. a similar trend was observed for males and females although with occasionally different significance levels; the only exception was the relation between self-enhancing humor and autonomy (au) which was non-significant among males. considering adolescents, results revealed positive and highly significant associations between self-enhancing humor and all psychological well-being dimensions, but often lower correlations between affiliative style and some aspects of well-being (see table 9). with regard to young adults (see table 10), affiliative humor was positively correlated with all dimensions of rpwb, while self-enhancing showed positive links with sa, em, pl, pg, and total psychological well-being (t_rpwb). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 437 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 means, standard deviations, and correlations between hsq and rpwb dimensions for total sample (n = 293) t_rpwbpgplemauprsadimension affiliative .44***.29***.33***.29***.23***.55***.33*** self-enhancing .46***.40***.38***.38***.26***.25***.43*** aggressive .05.07.04-.06.08.01.07 self-defeating .24***-.05-.18**-.24***-.18**-.14*-.27***m .46248.7943.5741.2839.8940.0844.8638 sd .8828.545.806.805.446.176.067 note. sa = self-acceptance; pr = positive relations with others; au = autonomy; em = environmental mastery; pl = purpose in life; pg = personal growth; t_rpwb = total psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 7 means, standard deviations, and correlations between hsq and rpwb dimensions for males (n = 115) t_rpwbpgplemauprsadimension affiliative .56***.41***.41***.39***.33***.55***.43*** self-enhancing .36***.31**.34***.30**.15.22*.31** aggressive .16.09.09.18.08.17.11 self-defeating .18-.04.19*-.19*-.20*-.04.29**m .98245.8642.1241.0339.3840.9942.5939 sd .4927.445.806.785.765.426.246 note. sa = self-acceptance; pr = positive relations with others; au = autonomy; em = environmental mastery; pl = purpose in life; pg = personal growth; t_rpwb = total psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 8 means, standard deviations, and correlations between hsq and rpwb dimensions for females (n = 178) t_rpwbpgplemauprsadimension affiliative .35***.19*.26***.22**.16*.54***.29*** self-enhancing .53***.48***.42***.44***.32***.29***.50*** aggressive .01.11.11-.00.10.05-.03 self-defeating .26***-.08-.17*-.26***-.16*-.24**-.27***m .06250.3944.8541.4439.2141.7844.3938 sd .7129.545.816.825.846.915.527 note. sa = self-acceptance; pr = positive relations with others; au = autonomy; em = environmental mastery; pl = purpose in life; pg = personal growth; t_rpwb = total psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. when aggressive humor was considered, no significant association emerged between this style and all dimensions of psychological well-being in either the total sample or when males, females, adolescents, and young adults were considered separately. instead, negative and occasionally highly significant associations were observed between europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 438 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-defeating humor and several dimensions of psychological well-being. this tendency was present in both the total sample (from r = -.05 to r = -.27), among males (from r = .04 to r = -.29), in females (from r = -.08 to r = -.27), in adolescents (from r = .00 to r = -.18), and among young adults (from r = -.13 to r = -.38). table 9 means, standard deviations, and correlations between hsq and rpwb dimensions for adolescents (n = 155) t_rpwbpgplemauprsadimension affiliative .37***.41***.27***.20.15.50***.21** self-enhancing .56***.46***.47***.48***.27***.37***.51*** aggressive .01.04-.00.02.02-.01-.09 self-defeating .15-.00.09-.18*-.16-.09-.12m .21248.5643.2841.9938.8640.6944.8238 sd .7826.944.476.375.546.595.446 note. sa = self-acceptance; pr = positive relations with others; au = autonomy; em = environmental mastery; pl = purpose in life; pg = personal growth; t_rpwb = total psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 10 means, standard deviations, and correlations between hsq and rpwb dimensions for young adults (n = 138) t_rpwbpgplemauprsadimension affiliative .50***.29***.37***.37***.32***.55***.41*** self-enhancing .34***.27**.32***.30***.14.19.37*** aggressive .08.01.04-.10.10.11.09 self-defeating .31***-.13-.26**-.27***-.22**-.16-.38***m .85248.3844.7641.5839.1041.2043.8238 sd .9030.015.247.406.166.856.827 note. sa = self-acceptance; pr = positive relations with others; au = autonomy; em = environmental mastery; pl = purpose in life; pg = personal growth; t_rpwb = total psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regression analyses were used to determine the predictive value of each humor scale (see tables 11 and 12). in the overall sample, they indicated that t_rpwbwas positively predicted by both the affiliative and self-enhancing styles and negatively predicted by self-defeating humor (r = .61; r2adj = .36). similar tendencies were observed in both males and females, in adolescents, and in young adults, with multiple correlation coefficients of .63 for males, .63 for females, .63 for adolescents, and .61 for young adults, with determination coefficients of .37, .38, .38, and .36 respectively. as tables 11 and 12 show, the role played by the humor styles in predicting the wellbeing dimensions varied, to some extent, according to gender and age of participants. the lisrel computations were implemented (jöreskog, sörbom, du toit, & du toit, 2001) to verify the hypothesized structural model concerning the relations among hsq scales and rpwb dimensions – as suggested by the preliminary results of the present study and by the previous conceptualizations and empirical findings. therefore, a structural model with both the two adaptive, positive and beneficial humor styles and the two maladaptive, negative and detrimental humor styles (represented by the latent variable humor) and the six dimensions of psychological europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 439 http://www.psychopen.eu/ well-being (represented by the latent variable well-being) was developed and then tested to verify the goodnessof-fit to the data. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 440 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 11 b et a w ei gh ts ,m ul tip le c or re la tio n c oe ffi ci en ts ,r 2 an d a dj us te d r 2 fo rt he m ul tip le r eg re ss io n a na ly se s fo rt ot al s am pl e an d g en de r t_ r pw b pg pl em a u pr sa f m to t f m to t f m to t f m to t f m to t f m to t fc m b to ta a ffi lia tiv e .2 1 .4 8 .3 2 .3 6 .1 8 .1 7 .3 3 .2 4 .2 9 .1 7 .3 1 .1 4 .5 0 .5 5 .5 3 .1 4 .3 4 .1 9 s el f-e nh an ci ng .4 8 .2 2 .3 9 .4 6 .1 9 .3 6 .4 0 .2 7 .3 5 .4 2 .2 2 .3 5 .3 0 .2 2 .1 8 .1 1 .4 7 .2 4 .4 0 a gg re ss iv e .1 9 .1 4 .1 5 .1 1 s el f-d ef ea tin g .2 3 .2 3 .2 4 .1 4 .2 5 .1 8 .2 4 .2 5 .2 5 .1 6 .2 3 .1 9 .1 7 .1 1 .2 5 .3 4 .2 8 r .6 3 .6 3 .6 1 .4 9 .4 5 .4 4 .5 1 .5 2 .5 0 .5 2 .4 9 .4 9 .3 7 .4 0 .3 5 .6 1 .5 5 .5 8 .5 9 .5 6 .5 6 r 2 .3 9 .3 7 .3 7 .2 4 .1 7 .2 0 .2 6 .2 4 .2 5 .2 7 .2 1 .2 4 .1 2 .1 6 .1 3 .3 8 .3 1 .3 3 .3 4 .3 2 .3 1 r 2 ad j .3 8 .3 7 .3 6 .2 3 .1 7 .1 8 .2 4 .2 4 .2 4 .2 5 .2 1 .2 3 .1 2 .1 3 .1 1 .3 6 .2 8 .3 2 .3 3 .2 9 .3 0 n ot e. s a = s el f-a cc ep ta nc e; p r = p os iti ve r el at io ns w ith ot he rs ;a u = a ut on om y; e m = e nv iro nm en ta lm as te ry ;p l = p ur po se in li fe ;p g = p er so na lg ro w th ;t _r p w b = to ta lp sy ch ol ogi ca lw el l-b ei ng . a n = 29 3. b n = 11 5. c n = 17 8. b et a w ei gh ts :b ol d: p < .0 01 ;i ta lic :p < .0 1; n or m al :p < .0 5; no ts ig ni fic an tb et a w ei gh ts ar e no tr ep or te d. a ll r ,r 2 , an d r 2 a dj ar e si gn ifi ca nt (p < .0 01 ). ta bl e 12 b et a w ei gh ts ,m ul tip le c or re la tio n c oe ffi ci en ts ,r 2 an d a dj us te d r 2 fo rt he m ul tip le r eg re ss io n a na ly se s fo ra ge t_ r pw b pg pl em a u pr sa y. a d. a do . y. a d. a do . y. a d. a do . y. a d. a do . y. a d. a do . y. a d. a do . y. a d. b a do .a a ffi lia tiv e .4 0 .2 4 .2 4 .3 1 .3 1 .1 5 .2 5 .2 6 .5 6 .4 4 .2 6 s el f-e nh an ci ng .2 7 .5 1 .2 4 .3 8 .3 0 .4 4 .2 5 .4 7 .2 6 .2 6 .3 4 .4 9 a gg re ss iv e .1 9 s el f-d ef ea tin g .2 8 .1 7 .2 2 .2 7 .2 0 .2 1 .1 7 .3 8 r .6 1 .6 3 .3 8 .5 5 .5 3 .5 1 .4 9 .5 2 .3 7 .3 4 .5 6 .5 7 .6 1 .5 4 r 2 .3 7 .4 0 .1 4 .3 1 .2 8 .2 6 .2 4 .2 7 .1 4 .1 1 .3 2 .3 3 .3 7 .2 9 r 2 ad j .3 6 .3 8 .1 2 .2 9 .2 6 .2 4 .2 2 .2 5 .1 1 .0 9 .3 0 .3 1 .3 5 .2 7 n ot e. s a = s el f-a cc ep ta nc e; p r = p os iti ve r el at io ns w ith ot he rs ;a u = a ut on om y; e m = e nv iro nm en ta lm as te ry ;p l = p ur po se in li fe ;p g = p er so na lg ro w th ;t _r p w b = to ta lp sy ch ol ogi ca lw el l-b ei ng . a n = 15 5. b n = 13 8. b et a w ei gh ts :b ol d: p < .0 01 ;i ta lic :p < .0 1; n or m al :p < .0 5; no ts ig ni fic an tb et a w ei gh ts ar e no tr ep or te d. a ll r ,r 2 , an d r 2 a dj ar e si gn ifi ca nt (p < .0 01 ). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 441 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the goodness of fit for the model, implying the putative influence of humor on well-being, was assessed using the robust maximum likelihood method, and the goodness of the model fit was evaluated using several indicators. an evaluation performed using the satorra-bentler scaled chi-square (s-b χ2 = 54.04; df = 28; p < .0022) showed that the hypothesized structure did not match the observed data. however, a different picture emerged when some additional indexes were employed to evaluate the model’s goodness-of-fit. the s-b χ2 to degrees of freedom ratio, the rmsea, the rmsea 90% ci, the srmr, the cfi, the nfi, the nnfi, and the pgfi suggested that the model offered a good or an acceptable fit to the data (see table 13). table 13 influence of humor on well-being: goodness-of-fit indexes pgfinnfinficfisrmrrmsea 90% cirmseas-b χ2/dfpdfs-b χ2 .49++.98++.97++.98++.043++.033 -.079+.056+1.93++<.00222854.04 note. n = 293. +acceptable fit; ++good fit (hooper et al., 2008; schermelleh-engel et al., 2003). well-being appeared to be strongly and directly affected by humor (see figure 1). affiliative and aggressive humor styles were correlated as were the self-enhancing and self-defeating styles. the latent variable humor showed direct and positive links with the affiliative and self-enhancing styles, whereas with self-defeating humor, the connection was direct but negative. conversely, the latent variable well-being established direct and positive associations with all six dimensions, with path coefficients ranging from .50 to .90. figure 1. path diagram of humor influence on well-being. note. chi-square = 54.04; df = 28; p-value = .00221; rmsea = .056. discussion the present cross-sectional study– realized within an italian context and among adolescents and young adults – explored the psychometric properties, the factor structure, the gender and age differences of the hsq. in addition, the relations of both adaptive andmaladaptive humor styles, as proposed by martin et al. (2003), to the six dimensions of psychological well-being, as theorized by ryff (1989) and ryff and keyes (1995), were investigated. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 442 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the hsq was developed and applied in several european, american, middle eastern, and eastern cultures generally showing satisfactory psychometric qualities with good levels of reliability (kuiper, 2010; kuiper et al., 2010; martin, 2007). in the same vein, this study contributed by establishing that the italian version of the hsq showed psychometrically appropriate levels of reliability and validity when measuring humor styles in a sample of italian adolescents and young adults, providing further evidence that these distinct dimensions of humor, may be found in a wide range of cultures. in the present research, the internal consistencies were somewhat lower than those reported by martin et al. (2003) but similar to those reported by cassaretto and martínez (2009), chen and martin (2007), erickson and feldstein (2007), kazarian and martin (2004), and saroglou and scariot (2002). even though three of the reliabilities were acceptable, the reliability of the aggressive humor scale remained somewhat low. this outcome may suggest that the questionnaire manifests some limitations when applied to this italian context. this could be due to an inappropriate translation of the questionnaire but also may be a result of the different and peculiar forms of expression that humor may have in different socio-cultural contexts. in particular, some items – such as 11, 23, 28, and 30 – are poorly represented by the hypothesized factor model and require a careful review. the correlations among the four scales tend to be moderate, confirming the findings of previous studies and showing that the four scales are distinct from one another (e.g., kuiper, 2010; kuiper et al., 2010; martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). the cfa – referring to the total sample – with good or acceptable goodness-of-fit indexes, supported the four-factor model of humor as measured by the hsq, consistent with previous research with various samples (e.g., chen & martin, 2007; erickson & feldstein, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher et al., 2008). regarding gender differences in humor styles, males reported higher use of aggressive humor than did females. there were no significant gender differences in affiliative, self-enhancing or self-defeating humor. these data are consistent with edwards and martin (2010) and, in part, with bilge and saltuk (2007). as far as age differences are concerned, the hypothesis based on the study by martin et al. (2003) – according to which younger participants would report higher scores on affiliative and aggressive humor scales than older participants – was not confirmed. perhaps this result was due to the restricted range of ages in the italian sample (14 – 25 years) which did not allow us to observe the eventual modifications in the use of humor linked to developmental changes. findings from the present study clearly suggest that there is an important role of humor in the enhancement of positive life experiences, but the findings also indicate that different humor styles can have different, and even contrary, effects on well-being. humor is a multidimensional concept: some of its facets may be associated with psychological health and well-being, whereas others, such as the aggressive styles, appeared unrelated. replicating the results of previous research, our findings showed that different humor dimensions are not highly correlated with one another and supported the necessity of ascertaining the role that humor styles may differentially play in psychological well-being (e.g., chen & martin, 2007; kuiper et al., 2004; kuiper & mchale, 2009; martin et al., 2003). affiliative humor was observed to be positively correlated in males, females, and young adults with pr and sa; however, some differences emerged in relation to age. according to ryff and keyes’ definitions (1995), high scorers often reported enjoying warm, satisfying, trusting relationships with others, being capable of empathy and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 443 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intimacy, and showing interest in human relationships. higher scorers in sa possess a positive attitude towards oneself and past life, accepting both their own good and bad qualities. self-enhancing humor appeared to be highly correlated with well-being showing, however, some differences in relation to gender and to age. female and adolescent high scorers, in addition to presenting an elevated level of sa, often conveyed a feeling of continued development, a sense of realizing their own potential, and a firm belief in personal improvement and in aims and objectives for living. in addition, they expressed a sense of mastery and competence in managing their environment and confidence in their ability to choose or create context appropriate personal needs and values. with regard to males and young adults, associations between self-enhancing humor and well-being dimensions manifested a similar but weaker trend, particularly evident when the well-being dimensions of sa and pg were considered. the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles – generally both deemed maladaptive, negative and detrimental (bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen &martin, 2007; erickson & feldstein, 2007; galloway, 2010; kazarian &martin, 2004, 2006; kazarian et al., 2010; kuiper et al., 2004; kuiper & mchale, 2009; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002) – established diverse relationships with psychological well-being. consistent with some previous research (chen & martin, 2007; dozois et al., 2009; dyck & holtzman, 2013; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003), no significant evidence emerged for a connection between the aggressive humor style and any dimension of well-being even though the use of this humor style was more frequent in males. conversely, self-defeating humor style displayed negative links to several dimensions of well-being. male high scorers frequently reported dissatisfaction with oneself and past life, worry about certain personal qualities, concern regarding the expectations and evaluations of others, conformity to social pressures, difficulty managing everyday affairs, and lack of control over the external world and a sense of meaning in life. additionally, female high scorers mentioned the scarcity of close warm and trusting relationships with others, isolation and social frustration.while in adolescents, self-defeating humor showed a weak negative link to well-being dimension of environmental mastery, in young adults this style displayed moderate and negative associations with almost all well-being dimensions. notably, the observed relationships could be bi-directional with psychological well-being providing opportunities for participants to increase the use of their adaptive humor styles and to limit the manifestations of the negative styles. the present research adds plausibility to the adaptive role played by affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and to a maladaptive effect generated by self-defeating humor. nonetheless, some study limitations deserve mention: the cross-sectional design impeded the identification of the direction between variables; the collection of data, only based on self-report, hampered the validity of measures; the sample, limited to italian adolescents and young adults, reduced the findings’ generalizability. therefore, longitudinal and daily diary studies have been recommended as well as experimental investigations to better understand how contextual factors interact with humor styles to influence everyday psychological well-being. the notion that humor may influence psychological well-being immediately poses the question of whether effective humor use can be trained (edwards & martin, 2010; falkenberg, buchkremer, bartels, &wild, 2011; kuiper, 2012; martin, 2007; tugade & fredrickson, 2007; vernon et al., 2009). psycho-educational and therapeutic interventions, focusing on the development of affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles, could facilitate the regulation of emotions, improve social relationships and promote psychological well-being. conversely, significant benefits may also be derived from learning to contain the use of maladaptive humor styles, particularly self-defeating expression. the implementation of specific training in the effective use of humor may contribute to enriching programs europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 444 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that inspire psychological and psychotherapeutic well-being (fava et al., 2005; 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(2013). benessere, psicoterapia del. in g. nardone & a. salvini (eds.), dizionario internazionale di psicoterapia (pp. 124-128). milano, italy: garzanti. sirigatti, s., penzo, i., iani, l., mazzeschi, a., hatalskaja, h., giannetti, e., & stefanile, c. (2013). measurement invariance of ryff’s psychological well-being scales across italian and belarusian students. social indicators research, 113(1), 67-80. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0082-0 sirigatti, s., stefanile, c., giannetti, e., iani, l., penzo, i., & mazzeschi, a. (2009). assessment of factor structure of ryff’s psychological well-being scales in italian adolescents. bollettino di psicologia applicata, 56(259), 30-50. svebak, s. (1974a). a theory of sense of humor. scandinavian journal of psychology, 15(1), 99-107. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1974.tb00561.x svebak, s. (1974b). revised questionnaire on the sense of humor. scandinavian journal of psychology, 15(1), 328-331. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1974.tb00597.x taher, d., kazarian, s. s., & martin, r. a. (2008). validation of the arabic humor styles questionnaire in a community sample of lebanese in lebanon. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 39(5), 552-564. doi:10.1177/0022022108321177 thorson, j. a., & powell, f. c. (1993). development and validation of a multidimensional sense of humor scale. journal of clinical psychology, 49(1), 13-23. doi:10.1002/1097-4679(199301)49:1<13::aid-jclp2270490103>3.0.co;2-s thorson, j. a., powell, f. c., sarmany-schuller, i., & hampes, w. p. (1997). psychological health and sense of humor. journal of clinical psychology, 53(6), 605-619. doi:10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199710)53:6<605::aid-jclp9>3.0.co;2-i tugade, m. m., & fredrickson, b. l. (2007). regulation of positive emotions: emotion regulation strategies that promote resilience. journal of happiness studies, 8(3), 311-333. doi:10.1007/s10902-006-9015-4 van dierendonck, d., díaz, d., rodríguez-carvajal, r., blanco, a., & moreno-jiménez, b. (2008). ryff’s six-factor model of psychological well-being: a spanish exploration.social indicators research, 87(3), 473-479. doi:10.1007/s11205-007-9174-7 vernon, p. a., villani, v. c., schermer, j. a., kirilovic, s., martin, r. a., petrides, k. v., . . . cherkas, l. f. (2009). genetic and environmental correlations between trait emotional intelligence and humor styles. journal of individual differences, 30(3), 130-137. doi:10.1027/1614-0001.30.3.130 about the authors saulo sirigatti, phd, is a professor of clinical psychology at the european university of rome, italy. his research concerns psychological assessment, stress and stress coping, as well as the promotion of psychosocial well-being. ilaria penzo, phd, is a professor on contract of social psychology at the european university of rome, italy. her current research interests are focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor and psychological well-being, on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being, and on evaluation of interventions for the promotion of well-being. enrichetta giannetti, is an assistant professor of social psychology at the university of florence, italy. her current research interests are focuses on the processes of socialization throughout life, on the identification of protective factors and prevention of risk, on the intervention strategies for the promotion of psychological well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 sirigatti, penzo, giannetti et al. 449 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0082-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9450.1974.tb00561.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9450.1974.tb00597.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022108321177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199301)49:1<13::aid-jclp2270490103>3.0.co;2-s http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199710)53:6<605::aid-jclp9>3.0.co;2-i http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-006-9015-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-007-9174-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001.30.3.130 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cristina stefanile, is full professor of social psychology at the university of florence, italy. her research concerns attitudes and attitude change, psychological assessment, self-image and body dissatisfaction, stress and stress coping, psychosocial well-being. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 429–450 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.682 psychometric properties of hsq and well-being 450 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en psychometric properties of hsq and well-being introduction method participants measures procedure data analysis results scale descriptive statistics: gender and age differences scale reliability and intercorrelations hsq confirmatory factor analysis relations between humor styles and psychological well-being discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychiatry and psychotherapy editorial psychiatry and psychotherapy a troubled relationship andreea enache-tonoiu*a [a] university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 published (vor): 2013-11-29. *corresponding author at: 39 tuzla st., apt. 16, sector 2, bucharest, romania. e-mail: andreea.enache@bellanima.ro this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction historically, the relationship between psychiatry and psychotherapy has not started on a positive note and tensions have marked their development throughout the 20th century. however, the relationship has evolved significantly during recent years, with both professions acknowledging the role of each other and developing a better interdisciplinary communication. still, there are significant divergences on who is better equipped to treat mental illness (the psychiatrist or the psychotherapist?), which therapy is more efficient (pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy?) and who should perform them (the psychiatrist only or other specialized professionals too?). at present, relational models between psychiatry and psychotherapy differ largely across countries. in this editorial, i will explore several models and review the latest scientific research with the aim of sustaining the thesis that integration is paramount for the achievement of better results in treating mental illness. current definitions of psychiatry and psychotherapy in the uk, the national health system proposes the following definitions for psychiatry and psychotherapy: “psychiatry is the study of mental disorders and their diagnosis, management and prevention. psychiatrists are medical doctors who have qualified in psychiatry. they often combine a broad general caseload alongside an area of special expertise and research. consultant psychiatrists in psychotherapy are medical doctors who have qualified in psychiatry and then undertaken a three or four-year specialist training in psychotherapy. their role is in the psychotherapeutic treatment of patients with psychiatric illnesses. … psychotherapy is conducted with individuals, groups, couples and families. psychotherapists help people to overcome stress, emotional and relationship problems or troublesome habits. a psychotherapist may europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ be a psychiatrist, psychologist or other mental health professional, who has had further specialist training in psychotherapy. increasingly, there are a number of psychotherapists who do not have backgrounds in the above fields, but who have undertaken in depth training in this area.” (nhs careers, n.d.) we can see that the uk model proposes that psychiatry takes exclusive care of mental health disorders, either by means of pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy, while psychotherapy alone is restricted to dealing with and solving specific emotional, relational or behavioral challenges. in the us, the american psychological association proposes the following definitions, based on gerrig & zimbardo (2002): “psychiatrist an individual who has obtained anm.d. degree and also has completed postdoctoral specialty training in mental and emotional disorders; a psychiatrist may prescribe medications for the treatment of psychological disorders. … psychotherapy any of a group of therapies, used to treat psychological disorders, that focus on changing faulty behaviors, thoughts, perceptions, and emotions that may be associated with specific disorders.” (american psychological association, n.d.) this understanding of psychiatry and psychotherapy also raises a barrier between the two professions, in the sense that it allocates pharmacotherapy to psychiatry and psychotherapy to another professional, while both of them are assigned the role of treating psychological disorders. at the same time, the american psychiatric association states that: “psychotherapy is a treatment that involves a relationship between a therapist and patient. it can be used to treat a broad variety of mental disorders and emotional difficulties. the goal of psychotherapy is to eliminate or control disabling or troubling symptoms so the patient can function better. therapy can also help build a sense of well-being and healing. problems helped by psychotherapy include difficulties in coping with daily life, the impact of trauma, medical illness, or loss, like the death of a loved one, and specific mental disorders, like depression or eating disorders. psychiatrists and other mental health professionals can provide psychotherapy. … psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and some others may have specialized training in psychotherapy. however, only psychiatrists are also trained in medicine and are able to prescribe medications. psychiatrists are medical doctors who are specially trained to treat individuals for a broad range of emotional and behavioral problems. they are uniquely qualified to diagnose and treat emotional difficulties because they understand the mind, brain and body and their interactions. they are trained to use psychotherapy, medications, and the two in combination.” (american psychiatric association, n.d.) these definitions alone point out to the fact that internationally acknowledged institutions have not yet reached a common understanding of the role and practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy, and that these professions are still fighting for territory. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 enache-tonoiu 665 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specialist literature and research on the relationship between psychiatric and psychotherapeutical interventions there is generally little discussion worldwide on the integration of psychiatry with psychotherapy (imhof, altman, & katz, 1998) as it is not unusual for each profession to propose that it is best equipped to treat mental disorders. many psychiatrists still disconsider psychotherapy’s benefits or consider that they are better trained to also deliver psychotherapy, while psychotherapy schools tend to focus on what they can do alone for a troubled patient. this situation is proliferated also by the fact that many psychotherapy schools to not adhere to standard classifications and definitions of mental disorders, and, therefore, they seem to contradict in a fundamental way the etiological understanding of mental illness proposed by modern psychiatry. to this, social perceptions and stereotypes add to the dissociation: psychiatry is for “lunatics”, while psychotherapy is for “normal” people. the medical model emphasizes the biological bases of behavior and pharmacological manipulation of these biological bases to achieve behavior change (gabbard, 1994; schatzberg, cole, & debattista, 1997), while psychotherapy is rooted in and enhanced by a therapeutic alliance between therapist and client/patient that involves a bond between the psychologist and the client/patient, as well as agreement about the goals and tasks of the treatment (cuijpers, van straten, & smit, 2006; karver et al., 2006; lambert, 2004; norcross, 2011; shirk & karver, 2003; wampold, 2007). there is consistent research showing that the general or average effects of psychotherapy are widely accepted to be significant and large (chorpita et al., 2011; smith, glass, & miller, 1980; wampold, 2001). these large effects of psychotherapy are quite constant across most diagnostic conditions, with variations being more influenced by general severity than by particular diagnoses. that is, variations in outcome are more heavily influenced by patient characteristics e.g., chronicity, complexity, social support, and intensity, and by clinician and context factors than by particular diagnoses or specific treatment "brands" (beutler, 2009; beutler & malik, 2002; malik & beutler, 2002; wampold, 2001). according to themayo clinic, psychotherapy can be a useful tool in treating addictions, depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders and personality disorders. it can also help people who don't have a mental condition, but who are having issues with stress, sleep, sex, conflicts, life changes or anger. harvard psychologist irving kirsch, phd, recently said in an interview that “the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.” however, a newly published “panoramic overview” of 127 meta-analyses challenges that assertion by demonstrating how psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants, are as efficacious as drugs used to treat general medical conditions (leucht, hierl, kissling, & dold, 2012). according to the research team, an effect size of 0.2 is considered significant but low, while an effect size of 0.8 or above is considered high. the median of all effect sizes was 0.40. there was a lot of variability in effect size for medical conditions, still. for example, there was a high effect size (1.39) for proton pump inhibitors to treat reflux esophagitis and a high effect size (2.27) for interferon to treat chronic hepatitis c. but many commonly used general medicine drugs, such as statins and aspirin in cardiovascular disease and stroke, had small effect sizes (0.12 for aspirin for secondary prevention of cardiovascular events and 0.15 for statins for cardiovascular events). as a generalization, the effect sizes of psychiatric drugs are right in the middle of most of the drugs used in internal medicine. antidepressants used as “maintenance treatment” to prevent a relapse of mdd had an effect size of 0.64; antipsychotics used to prevent relapse in schizophrenia had an effect size of 0.92. less pronounced europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 editorial 666 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was the effect size of 0.26 for cholinesterase inhibitors for dementia. in between were atypical antipsychotics and haloperidol, with an effect size of 0.44 for acute mania in bipolar disorder. therefore, we have consistent evidence that both psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy produce significant positive results in the treatment of mental illnesses. but what happens when they are put to work together? the use of psychotropic medications (pharmacotherapy) in conjunction with psychotherapy is regarded as the standard of care for many mental health disorders (king & anderson, 2004). and scientific research on the efficacy of dual therapy does not fall short of demonstrating that this should be a generally accepted best practice for most psychological disorders. in many instances, multiple interventions are most effective when done conjointly, although the timing of various interventions should be adjusted in accordance with individual need (fenton &mcglashan, 1997; kates & rockland, 1994). moreover, there is evidence that a therapeutic relationship, when used in addition to drug therapy, is helpful in reducing the rehospitalization rate even in severe mental illness such as schizophrenia (fenton & mcglashan, 1997; hogarty et al., 1995; kopelowicz & liberman, 1998; rapp, 1998). however, fenton and mcglashan (1997) point out that psychotherapists should respect the fact that ambitious counseling interventions, when misapplied, can cause “destabilizing cognitive overload”. conversely, individual and group therapies that utilize specific combinations of support, education, and behavior and cognitive skills training should be offered over time to improve functioning in schizophrenic patients. researchers such as cuijpers, van straten, hollon, and andersson (2010) go even further to investigate the contribution of active medication to combined treatments of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for adult depression. they consider that, although there is sufficient evidence that combined treatments of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy are more effective for depression in adults than each of the treatments alone, it remains unclear what the exact contribution of active medication is to the overall effects of combined treatments. by means of a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials comparing the combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy with the combination of psychotherapy and placebo, they reached the conclusion that active medication has a small but significant contribution to the overall efficacy of combined treatments. however, in another meta-analysis (thase et al., 1997) on the treatment of major depression with psychotherapy or psychotherapy-pharmacotherapy combinations reached the conclusion that, whereas combined therapy was not significantly more effective than psychotherapy alone in milder depressions, a highly significant advantage was observed in more severe recurrent depressions. this leads us to bring to attention another very recent meta-analysis (cuijpers, reynolds, donker, li, andersson, & beekman, 2012) which shows that although a considerable number of studies have compared medication, psychotherapy, and combined treatments, and some preliminary results are useful for deciding which treatment is best for which patient, the development of personalized treatment of depression has only just begun. from the author’s point of view, personalized medicine aims to identify which characteristics of an individual predict the outcome of a specific treatment, in order to get a better match between the individual and the treatment received. they conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials comparing two treatments directly in a group of patients with a specific characteristic in one of the following categories: (a) with a predefined sociodemographic characteristic, (b) a specific type of depression, (c) a comorbid mental or somatic disorder, or (d) from a specific setting (outpatients, primary care). in order to examine the 20 characteristics in the three categories of comparisons, 254 studies would be needed for having sufficient statistical power to show an effect size of g = europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 enache-tonoiu 667 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 0.5., therefore no statistically significant results could be obtained. however, what we find particularly interesting about this study is that it goes beyond the question psychotherapy or pharmacoterapy to the more pertinent questions of psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy: combined or not? for whom and for what? conclusions still, to answer these questions there is stringent need for further interdisciplinary research. integration of psychotherapy and psychiatry should therefore also become alive in academia and research units, if we are to obtain a strong evidence base for integrated practice in the treatment of mental illness. also, detailed questions need to be asked and be answered in order to understand what each of them is best at, when should be combined and when it is more economical for the patient (emotionally, time-wise, financially) to adopt a first-line treatment strategy of either pharmacotherapy or psychotherapy. here we come close to the concept exposed above of personalized medicine which acknowledges that individual characteristics and illness stage and severity can be powerful mediators of both psychotherapy’s and pharmacotherapy’s results. in the end, i would like to outline what i consider to be some pre-requisites of an efficient integration of psychiatry and psychotherapy in practice: 1. common theoretical grounds on the definition of mental illness, classification of mental illnesses and general etiological model of psychological disorders/mental illness. 2. common understanding about the role of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of mental illness and recognition that their combination is the best therapeutical approach for the largest majority of mental illnesses, whether they play a therapeutical or support role. 3. sustained communication and collaboration at the level of the therapeutically team (psychiatrist and psychotherapist primarily, but also social assistants, counselors, general medicine practitioners, nurses etc., when involved), based on a clear definition of roles, responsibility and collaboration protocols. references american psychiatric association. 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(2011). psychotherapy relationships that work: evidence-based responsiveness (2nd ed). new york, ny: oxford university press. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 enache-tonoiu 669 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/da.21985 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2009.01513.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gps.1620 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/schbul/21.3.379 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2005.09.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00318.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.111.096594 http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/psychological-therapies/differences-between-psychology,-psychiatry-and-psychotherapy/ http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/explore-by-career/psychological-therapies/differences-between-psychology,-psychiatry-and-psychotherapy/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ rapp, c. a. (1998). the strengths model: case management with people suffering from severe and persistent mental illness. new york, ny: oxford university press. schatzberg, a. f., cole, j. o., & debattista, c. (1997). manual of clinical psychopharmacology (3rd ed.). washington, dc: american psychiatric press. shirk, s. r., & karver, a. (2003). prediction of treatment outcome from relationship variables in child and adolescent therapy: a meta-analytic review. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 71, 452-464. doi:10.1037/0022-006x.71.3.452 smith, m. l., glass, g. v., & miller, t. i. (1980). the benefits of psychotherapy. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. thase, m. e., greenhouse, j. b., frank, e., reynolds, c. f., iii, pilkonis, p. a., hurley, k., . . . kupfer, d. j. (1997). treatment of major depression with psychotherapy or psychotherapy-pharmacotherapy combinations. archives of general psychiatry, 54(11), 1009-1015. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1997.01830230043006 wampold, b. e. 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(2001). the great psychotherapy debate: model, methods, and findings. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. about the author andreea enache-tonoiu is a psychologist, founding editor of europe's journal of psychology and general director of bellanima medical center, an outpatient clinic specialized in the treatment of depression, located in bucharest, romania. she has published “european identity – social representations” in 2006 at lumen publishing house (isbn: 973-7766-79-2) and “the language of global brands – a content analysis” in communication and intercultural management, research journal of the unesco chair department, university of bucharest, 2010/no 2 (10). andreea is currently studying at the johns hopkins university (online program) in the area of "major depression in the population". psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 664–670 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.717 editorial 670 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.71.3.452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1997.01830230043006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.62.8.857 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en editorial introduction current definitions of psychiatry and psychotherapy specialist literature and research on the relationship between psychiatric and psychotherapeutical interventions conclusions references about the author extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology book reviews schmidt, stephen r. (2012). extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology. psychology press extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology victoria wright*a [a] aberystwyth university, ceredigion, uk. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 507–510, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.501 received: 2012-07-31. accepted: 2012-08-01. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, aberystwyth university, aberystwyth, ceredigion, wales, uk sy23 3ux, email: viw8@aber.ac.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. schmidt, stephen r. (2012). extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology. psychology press the apollo 11 moon landings. the challenger space shuttle disaster. the 9/11 world trade centre attacks. depending on your age, there’s a good chance you have a particularly vivid and highly detailed memory of at least one of these events. at the same time, your memory for the days immediately preceding, and following, these events is probably poor. why is it that we are able to remember momentous events better thanmundane events? and just how accurate are these exceptional memories that we create? these are the central questions addressed in ‘extraordinary memories for exceptional events’, by stephen r. schmidt, a timely consideration of the vast body of theoretical and empirical evidence that underpins our understanding of memory for exceptional events. the purpose of schmidt’s book is to draw together key theories and empirical evidence in order to persent a comprehensive overview of memory for extraordinary events. in doing so, it necessarily makes some consideration of the nature of memory itself and, from the outset, schmidt takes the position that memory is a complex, multi-faceted process that is influenced by a range of factors. as such, a great strength of this book is that it adopts a broad view of memory and does not confine itself exclusively to cognitive considerations. although schmidt clearly positions memory processes within the cognitive domain, the interface between memory and non-cognitive processes such as emotion is extensively developed in chapter 4. furthermore, the wider importance of autobiographical memory for exceptional events to the individual, --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ to society and to culture at large, is also considered in chapter 2. such a broad view enables the reader to place the empirical evidence presented by schmidt into both theoretical and real-life perspective. a common theme throughout the book is that of distinctiveness. chapter 1 poses the question of whether we remember exceptional events more easily simply because they are so distinct from our everyday experiences. in seeking to address this question, schmidt draws the distinction between primary and secondary distinctiveness – a dichotomy generally in line with william james’ concept of primary (short-term) and secondary (long-term) memory. an event has primary distinctiveness if it stands out of a set – so, for example, if we see a row of ten shapes and nine of the shapes are squares, a circle stands out as being distinctive. by contrast, an event has secondary distinctiveness if there is no similar existing representation in long-term memory – so, your first time visiting a new country would hold secondary distinctiveness for you. whilst an account of exceptional memory based purely on distinctiveness is intuitively appealing – after all, aren’t things that stand out easiest to remember? this chapter effectively highlights the problems involved in assuming extraordinary memories are simply a function of the distinctiveness of an event. many exceptional events, while undoubtedly distinctive, may have other qualities that might make them particularly memorable. for example, many highly distinctive events also arouse extreme emotion in witnesses. in general, chapter 1 serves as a concise and useful introduction to the role of distinctiveness in memory for exceptional events. even in the age of cognitive neuroscience, psychologists are essentially engaged in studying the processes of an eternally unseeable entity – the humanmind. as a consequence of this, those involved in studying the processes of the mind such as memory often rely on metaphors to describe and explain abstract concepts and processes. in chapter 2, schmidt classifies key memory models into one of four different types of metaphor – spatial, computational, biological and sociological – and outlines how each metaphor seeks to account for exceptional memory. this chapter is useful in thinking about memory as a high-level process and whilst many involved in cognitive memory research may be familiar with explanations that fall under the computational and biological models, the inclusion of the sociological metaphor places an emphasis on the personal importance of memory for everyday events, a facet of memory that is frequently overlooked in memory research. exceptional events can often have huge personal consequences – schmidt gives the example of people who witnessed the awful events of 9/11 and subsequently enlisted in the military. it is an unfortunate – although understandable – fact that much research on flashbulb memory revolves around tragic events in history. indeed, even in his preface, schmidt traces the origins of this 2012 book to january 28, 1986, the day of the challenger space shuttle disaster. in chapter 3, schmidt reviews much of the literature on flashbulb memories and begins by asking what exactly we mean by ‘flashbulb memory’ – is it a particular type of memory, a hypothetical construct or a research methodology? the real strength of chapter 3 lies in the fact that schmidt draws on much of his own research as a means of illustrating the theories that have been proposed to account for the flashbulb memory phenomena. in particular, sub-sections that consider the research on challenger disaster flashbulb memories and 9/11 flashbulb memories particularly illustrate how vivid, detailed and highly emotional people’s recollections of such events can be, yet, in many cases, highly prone to inaccuracy. in one study into 9/11 flashbulb memories, schmidt recruited participants who had witnessed the 9/11 attacks live on tv and interviewed them on two separate occasions the day after the attacks (september 12th 2001) and again six months later. only 47% of those interviewed gave the same answers at both interviews; however, the truly staggering finding of this study is that for the 53% of participants who gave different accounts across the two interviews, these differences were not attributable to either forgetting or generalisation – instead, key details across europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 507–510 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.501 extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology 508 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the two accounts had changed from one recollection to the next. overall, this chapter serves as an excellent introduction to flashbulb memory and the difficulties involved in studying the phenomena. we have already noted that many exceptional events can also be emotionally arousing and, in keeping with this, chapter 4 considers laboratory research into the role of emotional significance on exceptional memory. the question at the heart of the chapter is whether emotional responses inhibit or facilitate memory performance for exceptional events. the chapter extensively reviews studies that have sought to manipulate emotional responses by presenting participants with emotionally significant stimuli such as emotional or taboo words and pictures. the body of literature reviewed points to the finding that memory for exceptional events occurs at the expense of memories for surrounding information. for example, schmidt cites a key study by detterman and ellis (1972), in which participants were presented with line drawings of everyday objects. in the control condition, participants saw line drawings of twenty items. in the experimental condition, a line drawing in the middle of the list was replaced by a critical item a photograph of a full-frontal nude model. participants in the control condition demonstrated a pattern of results in line with the standard serial position curve – that is, a u-shaped function with improved performance for items falling either early or late in the list, relative to those in the middle of the list. by contrast, participants who saw the critical item showed a markedly different serial position curve. firstly, it was noted that recall for the target item was 100%, compared to just 60% accuracy for a line drawing of an everyday object in the same serial position in the control condition. secondly, in the experimental condition, recall of the items immediately preceding, and following, the nude photograph was significantly poorer than in the control condition. this suggests that an exceptional event can impair memory for surrounding events, a finding which has important implications for many theoretical and practical applications of memory. overall, chapter 4 presents compelling evidence for the role of emotion on memory for exceptional events. one of the biggest strengths of this book is that critical consideration of methodological issues is woven into each chapter. this is of particular importance as the empirical evidence base upon which schmidt draws is highly diverse, including as it does findings drawn from behavioural, neuroscience, neuroimaging, observational and correlation research. lab-based memory research is often criticised for lacking ecological validity and the ability to generalise findings to real-life, and, in the same vein, schmidt rightly criticises laboratory experiments that seek to manipulate distinctiveness using list-learning paradigms. by the same token, studies exploring participants’ real-life memories of real-life exceptional events can also be problematic and schmidt is careful to consider these issues as the evidence is discussed. of particular note is that distinctiveness effects are closely tied to experimental design. in chapter 6, schmidt describes a set of studies exploring distinctiveness – involving words, sentences and images – in which distinctiveness effects are consistently found in within-subjects designs but not in between-subjects designs, highlighting the role of context in determining distinctiveness. in ‘extraordinary memories for exceptional events’, stephen schmidt draws on evidence from a range of perspectives and approaches to develop a unified framework for thinking about memory for exceptional events. the book’s well-developed arguments, critical analysis of empirical evidence and consideration of research methodology mean it is invaluable for those involved in memory research, especially those interested in autobiographical memory for exceptional events. it is also likely to be of interest to underand post-graduate students who are interested in taking a broad perspective of how memory operates on biological, cognitive, personal, social and cultural levels. moreover, schmidt’s engaging, entertaining and accessible written style, often featuring personal insights, means this book will also appeal to non-subject specialists who might be interested in topics such as flashbulb memory. as humans, we are often all too aware of the fragile, fallible and forgetful europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 507–510 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.501 wright 509 http://www.psychopen.eu/ nature of our memory; however, ‘extraordinary memories for exceptional events’ is a reminder of just how complex and robust our memories can be, and how some memories can last a lifetime. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 507–510 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.501 extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology 510 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extraordinary memories for exceptional events: essays in cognitive psychology validation of a turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) research reports validation of a turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) jan ilhan kizilhan*a, antje ronigerb, friedrich von heymannc, karin trittcd [a]cooperative state university bw, villingen-schwennigen, germany. [b]university of freiburg, freiburg, germany. [c]quality development in psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine (iqp), munich, germany. [d] university of regensburg and quality development in psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine (iqp), munich, germany. abstract numerous psychiatric and psychosomatic clinics in turkey and germany use the symptom checklist 90 revised (scl-90-r) developed by derogatis (1977) or the validated turkish version by dag (1991) for assessing psychological symptoms. many patients informed us during numerous studies and visits to these clinics that this test with its 90 questions took too long and that they were unable to sufficiently concentrate on it. in the meantime, the much more economical icd-10 symptom rating (isr) (tritt et al., 2008) self-rating questionnaire, comprising 29 questions, has been developed in germany in 2008. in 2008 and 2009 we therefore decided to translate the isr into turkish, to analyse it for its reliability and validity and compare it with the scl-90-r and the bdi. in an analysis of 277 turkish subjects – 127 of whom were inpatients, 36 outpatients and 104 clinically unremarkable healthy participants – very good psychometric characteristics were achieved in terms of high internal consistency of individual, additional and overall scales. the results of the factor analysis conducted showed that the isr measure has satisfactory construct validity. in a random sample of inpatients, the cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.66 (scale: compulsive syndrome) to 0.93 (overall scale). the advantage of this instrument over bdi and scl-90-r lies in its shorter processing time. the german version of the isr promises lesser use of time and good empirical quality, which we double-checked with a translated turkish version tested on persons of turkish origin in germany. keywords: psychometrics, turkish version, isr, validity, reliability europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 received: 2013-01-28. accepted: 2013-04-19. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: institute for psychology, department of rehabilitation psychology and psychotherapy, workgroup migration and rehabilitation, university of freiburg germany, cooperative state university bw, schramberger str. 26, 7054 villingen-schwennigen, germany. e-mail: kizilhan@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction psychometric symptom capture is a widely used method in psychotherapeutic practice (freyberger & stieglitz, 2005), quality assurance (grawe & braun, 1994; heymann, zaudig, & tritt, 2003) and research (hill & lambert, 2000). it enables those symptoms of a disorder that are important for the entire treatment process to be determined from the initial visit, and it assists the process of arriving at a diagnosis and assessing the therapy. at the same time, regular methods of diagnosing psychiatric disorders using psychometric tests for each individual patient can be too time-consuming and impracticable (wittchen & perkonigg, 1997). for this reason, when developing psychometric tests, efforts are made to bear in mind not only validity and reliability issues, but also their application in terms of time and practical implementation. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is precisely thanks to the fact that it is economical and practical to implement that the scl-90-r is one of the most frequently used self-assessment instruments for patients with psychological disorders undergoing inpatient or outpatient treatment as well as in research (hill & lambert, 2000). a number of different symptoms are polled in a relatively short time using its 90 items. apart from nine individual scales and a global symptom index (gsi), the scl-90-r provides a characteristic value for the severity of psychological impairment, which also takes psychological comorbidity into account. the drawback of the scl-90-r is that its suitability for patients with somatoform disorders, whose symptoms are mainly of a physical nature, is reported to be limited (tritt, peseschkian, & bidmon, 2002). it has been reported that the test’s 90 questions are too much to handle, especially for patients with moderate to severe depression and that they feel that the application of the test is stressful (kizilhan, 2010). the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) instrument as an economical and comprehensive symptom survey across the spectrum of disorders is designed to image psychological complaints that the patients themselves are able to assess and to rate their degree of severity. an attempt is made, using a timeand resource-saving approach with the newly developed icd-10 symptom rating (isr) instrument (which is available free of charge), to bridge the gap between capturing psychiatric symptoms across the spectrum of disorders, on the one hand, and provide diagnoses that are standardised to a maximum extent on the other (tritt et al., 2008). thus, unlike the scl-90-r, the isr is limited to the non-psychotic disorders. the isr, with its compulsive and eating disorder syndrome scales and screening items relating to further disturbances and impediments, goes beyond such instruments as the scl-90-r and phq (patient health questionnaire), imaging the most common psychosomatic disorders (gräfe, zipfel, herzog, & löwe, 2004). despite this, the questionnaire and its 29 items are decidedly shorter than the phq with 78 items or the scl-90-r with 90 items. the objective of the instrument is to assess the severity of psychological disorder at overall and syndrome-specific levels (tritt et al., 2008). the instrument, based on the worldwide consensus of the icd-10, describes which symptoms are relevant to the description and evaluation of psychological disorders and consistently adheres to the diagnostic criteria. the questionnaire comprises five syndrome scales (depression, anxiety, compulsion, somatisation, eating disorders) and an additional scale with a screening function for various other symptoms, which a panel of experts found to be possible to evaluate through self-assessment (fischer, tritt, klapp, & fliege, 2010). the syndrome scales do not correspond to specific clinical icd diagnoses, but rate those symptoms that frequently accompany various disorders (e.g., anxiety syndromes in specific phobias, panic disorders or hypochondriacal disorder). empirical studies conducted to date in the german-speaking part of the world rate the isr’s quality (validity and reliability) as being in the middle range (brandt, 2009; fischer et al., 2010; schirmer, 2009; tritt et al., 2008). the turkish versions of the questionnaires in use for the general collection of symptoms on patients of turkish origin in germany, such as scl-90-r, phq (patient health questionnaire) or ghq (general health questionnaire), are also problematic due to their large number of items and their insufficient coverage of the most frequent disorders of psychosomatic patients (goldberg, 2008; kizilhan, 2011). however, we believe that the present study would help to address the issue of providing empirical evidence for the validity of the isr. furthermore, the attempt to test the factor structure of a measure of symptoms in a turkisheurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 kizilhan, roniger, von heymann et al. 367 http://www.psychopen.eu/ speaking sample would help to demonstrate the cultural fairness and linguistic independence of the isr in general and its more economical use of time in particular. sometimes, direct translations of psychometric measures – particularly dealing with psychiatric syndromes, which depends on culture and local understandings of illness (kizilhan, 2012) – into another languagemay fail to capture the meaning of the construct in the new culture and language. for instance, haasen and colleagues (2005) observed that the construct of psychotic symptoms is sufficiently different between german and turkish cultures and literal translation of the german scale in turkish may not reflect the way in which turkish participants regulate and understand psychotic symptoms. further, evaluation of the psychometric properties of self-report measures of psychiatric syndromes across different cultures becomes important in light of the observed cultural differences in terms of affect, cognition, behaviour and physiological reactions (kizilhan, 2011). the connection between attitudes on health and illness, on the one hand, and cultural norms, on the other, are particularly strong, which also means that any statement about an illness is culture-specific to a certain degree (kizilhan, 2012). for instance, the association of religious and magic notions (such as the existence of spirits, jinn, symbols or rituals) on the one hand and illness on the other is still of great relevance to many traditional societies in middle east and africa (heine & assion, 2005). the present study will test the validity of isr and its usability in the turkish cultural context in addition to paving the way for future research in the area of transcultural diagnostic and psychometric tests by making available a turkish version of the isr. method sample the sample of this study comprised a total of 277 participants, 127 of whom were inpatients, 36 outpatients (therapeutic treatment once a week by a therapist) and 104 clinically (healthy) unremarkable subjects. the number of female subjects taking part in the study was almost twice as high (64.1 percent) as that of the male ones (35.9 percent). this proportion is homogeneous in all three groups (χ2 (2, n = 276) = 0.165; p = 0.92; ns; m.v. (missing value) = 1). the groups differed with respect to the participants’ age (f(2, 272) = 180.12; p < 0.01). inpatient subjects (m = 42.92; sd = 9.39) and outpatient ones (m = 45.21; sd = 7.48) were older than the healthy participants (m = 26.93; sd = 7.11); this was a strong effect (η2 = 0.57). the difference between the outpatients and inpatients was not significant statistically (p = 0.43). the variable education was formed by scoring the highest completed level of education stated by the participant (0 = no education; 1 = elementary school; 2 = upper division of elementary school; 3 = junior high school; 4 = senior high school/vocational school; 5 = university of applied sciences; 6 = university). it made no difference whether the education was completed in turkey or in germany. the level of education of the clinically unremarkable subjects was higher than that of those from the other two groups. there was also a statistically significant difference between outpatients and inpatients (f(2, 274) = 194.93; europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) 368 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p < 0.01; n = 277); this, too, was a strong effect (η2 = 0.58). in the inpatient group, men (m = 2.84; sd = 1.35) had a markedly higher level of education than women (m = 1.74; sd = 1.21, t = 4.67; p < 0.01; n = 126, m.v. = 1); this was also a strong effect (d = 0.86). research instruments icd-10-symptom rating: a detailed description of the design of the icd-10 symptom rating can be found in tritt et al. (2008). the licence-free questionnaire is available for download free of charge. the questionnaire lists a total of 29 items, which comprise five syndrome scales and an additional scale with a screening function. a fivelevel rating scale from 0 (do not agree) to 4 (agree absolutely) is provided as an answer format. the sociodemographic questionnaire by koch (1997) provides important background information about a person (origin, religion, migration status, family, work, financial situation, duration of illness, treatment, etc.). beck depression inventory (bdi). the severity of depressive symptoms was captured with the turkish version of the questionnaire (hisli, 1989) of bdi (beck, ward, mendelson, mock, & erbaugh, 1961). numerous validation studies have been published, which assume the capture of the construct of depressivity to be highly valid and reliable for patients of turkish descent (aktürk, dagdeviren, türe, & tuglu, 2005). the symptom check list (scl-90-r; derogatis, 1977) measures a person’s subjectively perceived impairment through physical and psychological symptoms. dag (1991) analysed and confirmed the reliability and validity of the turkish version of the scl-90-r. procedure the turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) instrument was developed by researchers working in small groups. initially, a group of four researchers in the field (who spoke both turkish and german) were requested to translate the isr into turkish. this group was briefed about the concept of affect intensity severity and the purpose of the original scale and was requested to pay attention to the grammatical form as well as the psychological content of each item they translated. these four translations were evaluated by the first author and a preliminary turkish version of the isr was prepared and accepted by the four researchers. the final turkish translation of the isr was then translated back into german by another researcher specialising in this field. the back translation was compared with the original form by the first and second author and the translation was found satisfactory. the final turkish version of the isr was administered to a group of 10 members of a turkish migrant association and a group of 25 turkish inpatients in a psychosomatic clinic to evaluate their subjective understanding of the item content and identify any ambiguity in instructions or meaning of the items. this pilot study revealed no difficulty in understanding either the instruction or the item content of the isr. finally, the isr was administered to the 277 participants of the present study. the collection of data was carried out with three groups of subjects of turkish descent living in germany: group 1: clinically unremarkable subjects. group 2: patients undergoing outpatient psychotherapeutic/psychiatric treatment. group 3: persons undergoing inpatient psychosomatic treatment. a total of six clinics and four outpatient psychotherapists, who provide treatment to turkish-speaking patients in their native tongue, took part in the study. data on the clinically unremarkable subjects were collected in the period from october 2008 to january 2009. to this end, turkish associations were contacted in person or in europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 kizilhan, roniger, von heymann et al. 369 http://www.psychopen.eu/ writing to draw their attention to the investigation. they were then provided with the test questionnaires and asked to complete them. participants who had already sought psychological help in the past were therefore excluded a priori from this group. the clinical outpatient subjects were informed about the investigation, asked to complete the questionnaire in a room where they would not be disturbed in and to return it when they were finished. participants in an inpatient setting were selected within the framework of the standardised test diagnostics at the initial visit or admission using the test instruments that had been prepared in advance. statistical investigation the collected data were processed using the spss 15.0 forwindows (2006) and amos 7.0 software. the concurrent validity of isr was analysed using pearson correlations of the isr scales with the established turkish translations of the scl-90-r and bdi instruments, while confirmatory factor analysis was used to check the model fit of the isr. comparisons of fischer’s z transformed correlations were made using z tests and weighting of the random sample size. results confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) confirmatory factor analysis was used to check if the questionnaire’s structure corresponded to the theoretical model (see table 1). the individual items were understood to be manifest variables of five latent correlated syndrome scales. table 1 fit indices of the tested models of the icd-10 symptom rating srmrcfinfirmseaχ2/dfdfχ2nparmodel 10961total sampling (n = 277) .07.94.91.078.642.64287 10961inpatients (n = 127) .08.89.82.09.052.91223 10961clinically conspicuous patients (n = 163) .07.93.87.08.072.05225 10961clinically inconspicuous patients (n = 104) .12.80.72.12.572.69279 the testing was carried out on a total random sample of n = 277 subjects as a recursive model. parameters were assessed using the maximum likelihood method. the partial standardized regression weights ranged from 0.47 (item 15) to 0.97 (item 16). the non-standardized regression weights became significant for all items at α level of p < 0.001. a test for collinearity of the items showed no item correlation > 0.85. the variance of the items clarified by the factor ranged from 0.22 (item 15; eating habits) to 0.93. all error variances except item 16, thinking about food, (p = 0.31), became significant at α level of p < 0.001 (see figure 1). particularly striking was the connection between the latent variables compulsion and anxiety (r = 0.89), which in turn correlated strongly with the latent variable somatoform disorder (r = 0.85). confirmatory factor analysis revealed a significant deviation of the data set from the specified model (χ2 (109, n = 277) = 287.64). since all items except item 9 (compulsion) and 17 (thinking about weight reduction) clearly violated the multivariate normal distribution (z > 1.96) in the mardia test, a bollen-stine-bootstrap correction of the p value was made. this too resulted in a clear rejection of the model (p = 0.001). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) 370 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. model of the cfa of the overall sample with factor loading and factor correlations. based on the classic, descriptive goodness-of-fit measure (see table 1), the model fit can be seen as satisfactory. gender effects and education the gender effect (t = 2.70; p < 0.01) was found to be moderate on the eating disorder syndrome scale at the level of the groups of clinically unremarkable patients (see table 2). women (m = 0.66; sd = 0.96; n = 66) had higher values than men (m = 0.29; sd = 0.43; n = 38; d = 0.50) and a weaker effect at the inpatient level (women: m = 0.71; sd = 0.47; men: m = 0.55; sd = 0.47; d = 0.47). however, after a bonferroni correction of the error, these effects were no longer statistically significant. the same applied to the weak gender effect on the anxiety syndrome scale in the case of inpatients (d = 0.38), to a weak gender effect on the depressive syndrome scale (d = 0.34) and to the overall score (d = 0.24) in the case of clinically unremarkable patients. economy and practicability in contrast to the isr questionnaire, the scl-90-r comprises only 29 items which, on average, can be processed in ten to twelve minutes. the participants needed significantly less time (f(2,156) = 27,43; p < 0.1) to complete the isr (m = 11,40; sd = 4.0) than the bdi (m = 16,36; sd = 6.13) and the scl-90-r (m = 20.11; sd = 7.57). this effect was strong (η2 = 0.25). all individual comparisons were significant at α level of p < 0.01. missing variance homogeneity was corrected in accordance with tamhane-t2. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 kizilhan, roniger, von heymann et al. 371 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 gender differences for the isr scale means of inpatients and clinically inconspicuous test persons clinically unremarkable personsinpatients cohen's d women (n = 66)men (n = 38) cohen's d women (n = 82)men (n = 44) sdmsdmsdmsdm depressive syndrome .34.011.061.81.75.10.91.182.91.092 anxiety syndrome .00.497.40.47.40.38.97.052.97.681 anankastia syndrome .06.75.44.59.48.08.92.551.92.621 somatoform syndrome .02.50.26.50.27.06.99.651.995.711 eating disorder syndrome .497.96.66.43.29.47.71.89.71.55 additional scale .15.41.51.51.44.15.65.601.65.501 overall score .24.46.55.44.44.197.67.651.67.521 reliability in inpatients, item 15 (weight control) had the lowest mean value (0.43). the means of the remaining items ranged from 0.77 (item 21; scale: additional scale) to 2.36 (item 3; scale: depressives syndrome). the distribution of the item peaks was predominantly broad. the item means of the turkish random sample (m = 1,62; sd = 0.51) were distinctly higher than those of the german random samples obtained by fischer, 2009 (m = 1,12; sd = 0.50). this difference was statistically significant (t = 3,75; p < 0.01); this was a strong effect (d = 0.97). the differences ranged between 0.02 (item 17) and 1.12 (item 29). only items 15 and 21 relating to eating habits were below the values of the german patients. the internal consistency of the scale with cronbach’s alpha of 0.78 was seen as good. all other scales, too, especially the depressive syndrome scale (cronbach’s alpha: 0.90), anxiety syndrome (cronbach’s alpha: 0.89), the additional scale (cronbach’s alpha: 0.91) and the overall scale (cronbach’s alpha: 0.96) proved stable. concurrent validity compared with the results on patients undergoing inpatient psychosomatic care obtained by tritt (tritt et al., 2008) and other turkish participants in psychosomatic clinics, a higher correlation was observed on the isr scales anxiety syndrome, somatoform syndrome and compulsive syndrome and the corresponding subscales anxiety, somatisation and compulsiveness of the scl-90-r. the depressivity scale of scl-90-r correlated better with the isr than the bdi overall value did, also at the item level, as can be seen in table 3. discussion the present study analysed the turkish translation of the icd-10 symptom rating questionnaire (isr) for its validity and reliability. using confirmatory factor analysis, the intended dimensional structure of the instrument could not be unambiguously confirmed for the overall sample or at the level of individual groups. however, the various goodness-of-fit measures confirmed a “good” fit of the theoretically specified model based on the overall sample. the isr showed good psychometric characteristics, with high internal consistency, weak age and gender effects, and weak to moderate education effects for female participants. the instrument proved objective, reliable and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) 372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations of the isr scales bdi and the scl-90-r german version of isr current studygroupscale frankecbrandtbtritt et al.a r = .79**r = .89**totaloverall isr score & scl-90-r-gsi r = .75**r = .76**r = .81**totalisr: depressive syndrome & scl-90-r: depressivity r = .73**r = .73**totalisr: depressive syndrome & bdi: sum value r = .75**r = .76**r = .88**totalbdi: sum value & scl-90-r: depressivity r = .72**r = .82**totalisr: anxiety syndrome & scl-90-r: phobic anxiety r = .66**r =. 84**totalisr: anxiety syndrome & scl-90-r: anxiousness r = .49**r = .71**totalisr: anankastia syndrome & scl-90-r: anankastia r = .37**r = .74**totalisr: somatoform syndrome & scl-90-r: somatisation note. correlations of the isr scales for the complete group (ntotal = 267) with the sum value of the bdi and the scl-90-r-gsi in comparison to the results of the german version of the isr. acorrelation and significance level according to tritt et al. (2008), n = 22. bcorrelation and significance level according to brandt (2009) n = 968, correlations before treatment. ccorrelation and significance level according to franke (2001, 2002), n = 5057. **p < .01. valid on all scales with respect to the criteria set except the eating disorder syndrome scale, which was not examined. decidedly less time-consuming, the isr achieved reliability values comparable to those obtained with the more extensive scl-90-r. the same holds true for the performance of the isr scale depression syndrome with only four items compared with the bdi’s 21 items. in terms of comparability, this speaks in favour of using isr. the validity of the results for patients with a turkish background undergoing inpatient psychosomatic treatment was considered good. a generalization of the results for the unremarkable subjects needed to be qualified only to the extent that only a selective portion of the normal population could be reached through turkish associations and personal contact. also, since the reliability of the data obtained on the outpatients was limited owing to the small number of subjects (n = 39) (bühner, 2006), they were not incorporated into or discussed in the results. a minimum of n = 100 subjects is considered necessary confidently to assess the reliability of a test (mendoza, stafford, & stauffer, 2000). the scl-90-r proved more suitable for identifying and filtering out psychologically challenged persons, giving it a slight advantage over the icd-10 as a global screening instrument (fischer et al., 2010). the correlation between the scl-90-r scales was markedly higher than that of icd-10 scales (tritt et al., 2008); this difference in relations was statistically significant for both the group of unremarkable subjects and that undergoing inpatient treatment. an explanation for this can be found at the items level. for instance, the scl compulsion scale comprises items relating to memory difficulties and a feeling of lack of motivation. these items are equally suited for assessing depression and/or cognitive deficits (tritt et al., 2008). hitherto, it has not been possible, with the aid of the scl-90-r, to establish the intended independence of individual symptom-related scales in different populations such as a normal population or psychosomatic patients (olsen, mortensen, & bech, 2004; rief, greitermeyer, & fichter, 1991; schmitz, hartkamp, kiuse, franke, reister, & tress, 2000); by in contrast, by using the isr, it is more likely to be possible to diagnose disorder-specific conditions beyond the overall severity factor (fischer et al., 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 kizilhan, roniger, von heymann et al. 373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as regards linguistic comparability, it can be said that, in general, comparable reliability values of the german and turkish versions have been achieved. in both languages, the instrument has apparently evoked similar concepts in the respondents. it was possible sufficiently to confirm the criterion validity in all cases via correlations with the two quasi criteria of scl-90-r and bdi. moreover, the strong correlation between the overall isr score and the scl-90-gsi spoke in favour of a valid capture of the criterion of overall severity. further investigations with valid and reliable diagnostic test instruments would be required to assess the criterion validity of the eating disorder syndrome scale, which was not analysed. it would also be advisable to analyse the criterion validity of all icd-10 symptom rating scales with regard to real external criteria and target criteria. larger samples are required to reach more reliable findings. further objectives are a five-to ten-fold parameter number of a model or samples with n > 250 (scholderer & balderjahn, 2006). the stability of the individual icd-10 symptom rating scales has been substantiated by the present investigation. however, larger samples are needed to reach more reliable findings regarding the reliability of the scales for their use in the outpatient setting and regarding the intended syndrome structure of the instrument. validations of the isr scales using other established diagnostic test instruments, clinical diagnoses and interviews would be advisable in order to assess the validity and diagnostic precision of the turkish-language instrument. it should be mentioned that the isr is not a replacement for more intensive and lengthy diagnostic protocols, but serves as a reliable and valid screening measure. the isr is of course not the only method for arriving at a diagnosis and there is a need of more research in different kind of groups and in different cultures. this study has several limitations. we gathered the data from psychosomatic patients and not psychiatric patients in this study. data collection from a group of psychiatric patients will be necessary in future studies. when a cutoff point is set, utility is high for clinical application. furthermore, we believe that standardisation data from patients of turkish descent living in germany and from those living in turkey from several regions in turkey as a reference population are absolutely necessary to have a culture-sensitive approach in accordance with the test adaption guidelines of the international test commission (hambleton, 2001; 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(2008). entwicklung des fragebogens „icd-10-symptom-rating“ (isr). zeitschrift für psychosomatische medizin und psychotherapie, 4, 409-418. wittchen, h. u., & perkonigg, a. (1997). dia-x-screening-verfahren: fragebogen dia-ssq: screening für psychische störungen; fragebogen dia-asq: screening für angststörungen; fragebogen dia-dsq: screening für depressionen. frankfurt: swets und zeitlinger. about the authors prof. dr. jan ilhan kizilhan is a psychologist and psychotherapist. his expertise is in psychotraumatology, social medicine (rehabilitation and retirement), culture sensitive psychiatry and psychotherapy, forensic and ethnological studies. dipl. psych. antje roniger, doctorate student in clinical psychology, specifically in clinical psychology and psychometric tests dr. friedrich von heymann, has a background as a general doctor in munich and is a head of department of quality development in psychotherapy and psychosomatic medicine (iqp) in munich. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) 376 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1082-989x.5.3.356 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2004.00399.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1008931926181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ prof. dr. karin tritt, is a psychologist and psychotherapist. her expertise is in clinical psychology, social-medicine, psychosomatic and psychometric tests. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 366–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.580 kizilhan, roniger, von heymann et al. 377 http://www.psychopen.eu/ turkish version of the icd-10 symptom rating (isr) introduction method sample research instruments procedure statistical investigation results confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) gender effects and education economy and practicability reliability concurrent validity discussion references about the authors from reflecting to making: psychology in a world of change editorial from reflecting to making: psychology in a world of change kenneth j. gergen*a [a] swarthmore college, swarthmore, united states of america. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 511–514, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.545 received: 2012-11-09. accepted: 2012-11-09. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: 500 college avenue, swarthmore, pa 19081, email: kgergen1@swarthmore.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. numerous scholars now characterize our emerging cultural condition as one of rapid, incessant, and accelerating change. as zygmunt bauman (2010) comments, for example, everything or almost everything in this world of ours keeps changing: fashions we follow and the objects of our attention (constantly shifting attention, today drawn away from things and events that attracted it yesterday, and to be drawn away tomorrow from things that attracted us today), things we dream of and things we fear, things we desire and things we loath, reasons to be hopeful and reasons to be apprehensive. (p.1) as i proposed some years ago (gergen, 2001), such change can be attributed in important degree to the mushrooming developments in communication technologies – from the telephone and radio early last century, through television in mid-century, and now the internet and multi-purpose cell phone. all these technologies essentially contribute to creating, sustaining, or subverting forms of understanding or belief. in today's world the circulation of meaning – in volume, speed, and number of participants – approaches staggering proportions. in the time required to read this sentence aloud, 80 million email messages will have been launched into the world. in the last year alone it is estimated that 8 trillion text messages were sent via cell phones. everywhere in motion are meanings being shaped and reshaped on virtually every issue of importance to our lives – government, education, religion, family, work, leisure, the economy, love, appearance, and so on. this transformation in cultural conditions should give us pause. the traditional aim of psychological research is usually couched in terms of prediction and control. we test hypotheses in an attempt to generate propositions that serve as the best fit to the world, with the ultimate hope of making increasingly better predictions about human behavior. as commonly voiced, we hope these predictions can be used in wide-ranging contexts for the betterment of humankind. in effect, our traditional orientation presumes a world of enduring and predictable entities or processes. yet, in the contemporary world of transience, it is increasingly difficult to locate enduring patterns of behavior. to be sure, we may conjecture about underlying lawfulness, but with continuous change in patterns of action, how the laws apply to contemporary circumstances must continuously be renegotiated. we must seriously confront the limitations in prediction and control. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in my view, the most promising road ahead is suggested by a statement often attributed to the business sage peter druker, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” rather than chasing after continuously emerging patterns of behavior, we may turn our attention to creating futures that we believe will benefit the human condition. before outlining such possibilities, however, it is important to underscore a major shift in orientation this will entail. psychology has long clung to the presumption of value neutral inquiry – with the aim of illuminating “what is,” as opposed to making claims to “what should be.” to be sure the assumption of value neutrality has always been controversial in psychology, and critical psychologists have made great strides in analyzing the many ideological biases that inhabit our theories and methods. however, if we do engage in forming societal futures, it is imperative to do so with an acute sense of the values that are being both championed and suppressed, and an appreciation for reflexive deliberation. let us consider, then, the more specific array of activities invited by a future making perspective. in terms of research, our tradition has favored a search for universal truths, and thus research abstracted from the daily affairs of society. a concern with future building shifts the emphasis to research focused on issues of pressing social importance. thus, rather than investing primarily in substantiating theoretical truths ("pure" research), the inspiration for inquiry begins with issues of current concern within the society. to a limited extent, psychologists have engaged in such research. the classic work pettigrew (1971) on racial integration, and kelman (1987) on peace building are illustrative, along with kruglanski and fishman’s (2006) more recent explorations of the roots of terrorism, bar tal’s work on on arab/israeli relations (bar tal & teichman, 2005), walkerdine’s (1998) research on girls and mathematics education, and hammack’s (2010) incursions into the politics of identity among israeli and palestinian youth. while not directly affecting the future, such research can inform the ongoing debates of the times, and in this sense affect policies and practices. more directly engaged in change, however, is participatory action research (reason & bradbury-huang, 2001). in this case the psychologist works with groups in society to bring about specific changes. illustrative here are fine and torre’s (2006) research assisting women in prison, lykes’ (2001) community building work with rural guatemalan women, and russell and bohan’s (1999) anti-gay resistance work. turning to theoretical work, the challenge of future shaping also invites us to think in new ways. from the traditional standpoint, theory serves as the handmaiden to research, integrating and synthesizing research findings, and thus providing an abstract edifice from which deductions can be made to subsequent practices. that is, theory is a way of integrating reflections of the way the world is. this is not the place to recount the many flaws inherent in this inductivist vision of theory. however, theory begins to acquire future shaping potentials when we begin to see it as a vehicle for generating cultural meaning. theory is effectively a means of making sense – of ourselves and the world. it defines and interprets and directs, and in this sense has significant potential for cultural transformation. darwinian theory, for example, has virtually no predictive value (toulmin, 1961), but its effects on our conceptions of human beings and our place in nature has been enormous. similarly, the theories of freud, marx, and skinner were catalytic in their cultural impact, even while their evidential grounds were fragile. for good or ill, they were future forming in their effects. it is in this vein that a number of psychologists have been engaged in developing a socio-cultural centered view of the person as a counter to the traditional conception of self-contained or biologically given mental processes (see, for example, kirschner & martin, 2010). the emphasis shifts, then, from the individual to the relational context. and, with a critical eye toward the individualist ideology supported by the traditional view of the person, these discussions have been a major stimulus to my own work on relational being (gergen, 2009). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 511–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.545 from reflecting to making: psychology in a world of change 512 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the case of professional practices, one might say that practitioners have always been engaged in actively creating the future. psychologists have originated a rich range of therapeutic practices, along with practices for fostering community mental health, physical well-being, the prevention of mental illness, educational efficacy, and so on. how does the proposal for a future-making psychology add anything of significance to this tradition of innovation? consider the longstanding search for the single best form of therapeutic treatment, with evidence based practices now employed to winnow out the ineffective treatments and to establish a standardized practice for all. indeed, many believe that cognitive behavioral therapy now approaches this regnant position. however, the efficacy of any therapeutic practice fully depends on cultural beliefs. if one does not believe in mental illness, or attributes his or her suffering to societal conditions, “talking cures” are irrelevant. thus, if the complex of cultural beliefs is undergoing continuous change, the search for a “single best” practice is counter-productive. in their winnowing function, evidence based practices are also ill considered. rather than ruling out any form of therapy, from the standpoint of moving with the global flows of meaning, evidence should be used to help in the continuous process of forming and reforming practice. finally, if we shift from an emphasis on reflecting the past to making the future, it is vital that we expand our collaborative efforts – both across disciplines and within the society more generally. with multiplicity in viewpoints, the tendency to freeze and finalize is reduced. rather, one understands more fully the ambiguities surrounding decisions about human betterment, and is sensitized more fully to temporal contingencies. most important, it is through collaboration that we take in the multiple ideas, beliefs, and values circulating about the discipline, and which enable us to join more effectively in making a contribution to both science and society. references bar tal, d., & teichman, y. (2005). stereotypes and prejudice in conflict: representations of arabs in israeli jewish society. cambridge: cambridge university press. bauman, z. (2010). 44 letters from the liquid modern world. malden, ma: polity press. fine, m., & torre, m. e. (2006). intimate details, participatory action research in prison. action research, 4, 253-269. doi:10.1177/1476750306066801 gergen, k. j. (2001). the saturated self: dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. new york: basic books. gergen, k. j. (2009). relational being: beyond self and community. new york: oxford university press. hammack, p. l. (2010). narrative and the politics of identity: the cultural psychology of israeli and palestinian youth. new york: oxford university press. kelman, h. c. (1987). the political psychology of the israeli-palestinian conflict: how can we overcome the barriers to a negotiated solution? political psychology, 8(3), 347-363. doi:10.2307/3791039 kirschner, s., & martin, j. (eds.). (2010). the sociocultural turn in psychology: the contextual emergence of mind and self. new york: colombia university press. kruglanski, a., & fishman, s. (2006). the psychology of terrorism: “syndrome” versus “tool” perspectives. terrorism and political violence, 18, 193-215. doi:10.1080/09546550600570119 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 511–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.545 gergen 513 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476750306066801 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3791039 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546550600570119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lykes, m. b. (2001). creative arts and photography in participatory action research in guatemala. in p. reason & h. bradbury (eds.), handbook of participatory action research. thousand oaks, ca: sage. pettigrew, t. (1971). racially separate or together. new york: mcgraw hill. reason, p., & bradbury-huang, h. (2001). handbook of action research: participative inquiry and practice. london: sage. russell, g. m., & bohan, j. s. (1999). hearing voices: the uses of research and the politics of change. psychology of women quarterly, 23, 403-418. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1999.tb00371.x toulmin, s. (1961). foresight and understanding: an enquiry into the aims of science. bloomington, in: university of indiana press. walkerdine, v. (1998). counting girls out: girls and mathematics. london: routledge. about the author kenneth j. gergen is a senior research professor at swarthmore college, and president of the taos institute, a non-profit educational organization. he has served as president of two divisions of the american psychological association, and as associate editor of both the american psychologist, and theory and psychology. gergen has been a major contributor to social constructionist theory and practice, and a longstanding commentator on psychology and cultural context. among his major works are realities and relationships: soundings in social construction (harvard university press, 1995), the saturated self (basic books, 1991), an invitation to social construction (sage, 1999), and relational being, beyond self and community (oxford university press, 2009). gergen has received many awards for his work, including honorary degrees in both europe and the us. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 511–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.545 from reflecting to making: psychology in a world of change 514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1999.tb00371.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ from reflecting to making: psychology in a world of change references about the author the process of dreaming, communication and a bit of psycho-analysis (part 1) adela toplean university of bucharest adela.toplean@gmail.com biographical note researcher, collaborator-lecturer at fjcs ( univ. of bucharest ), has translated a book on qualitative methodology, published 8 studies on the anthropology of death and history of death representations. researcher at lund universitet beginning with sept. 2005, department of psychology of religion.   the shadow : i didn’t hear you talking in ages today i will give you this opportunity. the traveller : i hear voices. who’s talking? where this talking comes from? it’s like i hear myself talking. it’s just that the voice i’m hearing is weaker than mine… (f. nietzsche, the traveller and his shadow) (our translation) abstract is the reality of the dream something (slightly) different from the psychic reality? we will try to answer this question by fitting the problem of dream into a classic communication pattern and looking at the psychic agencies from a communication-related perspective. thus, the dream will take the form of a message whose shape is influenced by the sender and the receiver requirements, but also set as an (apparently) autonomous product of the unconscious. how much legitimacy would then lie in assigning the regulation of the onirical reality to “another” consciousness? would it be possible for the reality “state” we experience while dreaming to be due to a sort of onirical awareness that arises from an integration-reflex in the moment when the dreamer encounters a world that lacks any kind of antagonistic sensations and so, seemingly, very real? such faultless integration into the dreamt world through precise reflexes that are just the same as the ones used for appropriately approaching the outside world, seriously moots the problem of an (appearing) autonomy of reactions of the sleeping man – still perfectly awake in the strange light of a new, paradoxical and less approached “vigilance”. keywords: communication pattern, freudian topics, onirical consciousness, psychical space, autonomous reality of the dream, ey’s consciousness vs. freud’s consciousness, the problem of presentations in psychoanalysis and phenomenology. introduction we will try to take a look at our dreams through less common lenses that were never called down to clarify any of the psychic realities; moreover, such lenses are, seemingly, totally ineffective in the problem of dreaming: we are referring to the classical shannon-weaver pattern of communication (see dinu m., 1997, esp. p. 24) which allocates (and divides) the “responsibility” of a well-done communication process to the sender, the sent message, the received message, the channel, the gate-keeper and finally the receiver. after manufacturing and polishing the right lenses through which we intend to watch the psychic agencies, we will try to place the dream in a pattern which would be suitable enough for revealing both its – paradoxically – autonomous nature and its tributes paid to those that design its shape and supply it with raw materials. the problem we intend to approach could be however never endingly branched out in all sorts of perspectives, all risky, all venturesome and, of course, finding themselves in a permanent fight for exclusivity. as our readers surely know much better than us, the reality of the unconscious as well as that of the consciousness were either trusted, either totally distrusted by different trends as behaviorism, humanist psychology, cognitivism, psychoanalysis or phenomenology, and so the experience of dreaming was, together with the trends above, either lessened or surcharged. but then again, when one of the two terms tends to disappear, our discussion on the particularities of communication within our psychic apparatus would be completely useless. freud is among those who raised the problem of such communication. yet, to him, it is not the communication between the consciousness and the unconscious that produces the dream; conversely, communication is counted among the functions of the dream, along with those of defending the ego, synthesizing and hedonic ones (zlate, 1996, p.265). let’s see then, at leisure, who adjusts to whom. and, furthermore, why. as we are finding ourselves at this very moment looking for a less disputable connection between dream and the unconscious, we decide to call a halt for ey’s observation: if dreaming and psychopathology wouldn’t have existed, freud wouldn’t have discovered the unconscious (ey, quoted work, p. 326); because the natural disposition of the consciousness is to disguise it, not to reveal it. and here we stand all of a sudden in front of two psychoanalytical basic assumptions: 1. a hardly deniable connection between the unconscious materials and the ones parading on the dream-stage and 2. the (at least seeming) clash between the conscious tendencies and the unconscious ones. both features will prove themselves useful during our attempt to find out if one can indeed talk about a communication process within our psychic apparatus, having the dream as a message. the unconscious – a conceivable sender? the sign reveals, and yet conceals. m. de certeau , the mystical fable (our translation) it would be a naivety from our part to imagine that the nature of the unconscious can be revealed and summarized in a few pages. so we will mainly aim to make a direct and as licit as possible leap towards a few significant conclusions concerning our matter: why the unconscious seems to be taken as the first responsible for our dreams, and to what extent the unconscious should be seen as a sender of information? furthermore, assuming we have found a positive answer to the last question: whom these pieces of information are addressed to? in ancient times, the difference between what we now call “dream” and some matters that, at some point, could fall under the vigilance level, wasn’t very clear whatsoever. moreover, such a difference sometimes happened to be explicitly absent. among the archaic people and then later on, among ancient ones, the overwhelming amount of dreams was of the sacred type (premonitory, mantic etc.) hippocrates himself found them helpful in treating patients following both the symbolical and the straight shapes of some “diseased physiological states” (dodds, 1998, p. 109) of the soul who scrutinized its own body during sleep. equally, asclepios’ cult in the greece of the 5 th century b.c. turned incubation into a frequent practice. we can also mention, without too many details though, the somehow vague, but still possible connection between what we now call the unconscious and the process of dreaming, and plato’s try in timaios to bring out an explanation for mantic dreams: the dreams that can reveal a cataclysm or a certain physical condition arise from the intuition of the rational soul and then they are perceived by the irrational soul that reflects them as images on the plain surface of the liver (ibid., p. 109); and so the interpretative approaches of these images are taken as being perfectly reasonable . leaping over more than 2000 years, we will find jung’s definition for intuition formulated as following: a function that “mediates perceptions through unconscious means” (jung, 1997, p.491); moreover, the object of these perceptions may have an inner, an external or even a mixed nature. going back in time at aristotle’s explanation on visionary dreams (dodds, the quoted work, p. 110), we may notice a common shade: certain ignored symptoms during wakefulness may get through the consciousness, then suffering changes during sleep and eventually suggesting the dreamer certain ways of action. the very fact that plato attributes such an intuition to the rational soul might have a fine alliance with jung’s remark on the implication of perception in the intuition-process which basically provides its absolute certainty, close to the sensation-based processes. through socrates’ voice, plato explains to simmias in fedon: “if one has a visual or audible perception, another piece of information, forgotten at some earlier point, is now arousing in one’s mind, through the resemblance or the lack of resemblance with the newly perceived one” (platon, 1995, fedon, 76a, p. 177). in his endeavour to approach and explain the remembering process, didn’t socrates speak to simmias about that “reservoir” of feelings, ideas and old knowledge that our soul learnt in his extremely long experience of humankind which can (and has to) be produced in the light of consciousness through a sort of anamnesis using – what we now call – the free association process ? but let’s not get lost in too many speculations. the “palpation” of the unconscious deals, by all means, with the specific usage and intentionality of the late 19 th century, whilst its “intuition” was, as we could see, much earlier. if, in the old times, the dreamer looked at his dreams as being – spontaneously or provocatively – coming as a warning or consolation from gods and always connected with his or her destiny, “maintenant nous utilisons le reve … comme expression de l’inconscient” (jung, 1993, p. p. 51). freud and jung are still sharing the observation above. they also take the same path when referring to the manifest dream (the one we remember in the morning) as being nothing more than a pale shadow of the weird, intricate edifice we build up during sleep. in the first instance (see freud, 1992a, pp. 28, 29), psychoanalysis indeed counted among its goals the revealing of the unconscious; the concrete attempt consisted in stressing the contrast between the reality of the psychic phenomena that tends to an illusory satisfaction (laplanche and pontalis, 1985, p. 14) and the material reality that always tries to impose and extend itself (which is also one of the most well-underlined ideas of ey ). but freud will soon realize that revealing the unconscious will always remain an unaccomplished task: there are “the most” unconscious – please read blamable – phantasms that the sick person mainly fears; these are the ones regularly forgotten, whilst the psychotherapy may, possibly, prove that the very overlooked fact is nothing but the essential. the tendency of the consciousness is indeed that of choking somehow the unconscious and freud’s “chance” to discover it basically consists in the practical investigation of the daily slips, mental disorders and, of course, dreams. and thus we may have here a basic communication problem: the consciousness, as a possible receiver doesn’t seem too eager to welcome the message emission coming from the unconscious; on the contrary, it looks like trying to ward off , more or less successfully, any kind of unconscious attack. about where the consciousness begins and ends and a prime communication problem but let’s take it at leisure. freud, on one hand, has written it plainly: “the consciousness state easily disappears” (freud, 1992a, p.97). ey, on the other hand, in spite of his following a freudian-related tradition, points out: “what we take as being the self-consciousness and structure of the living presence-field actually implies the unconscious in the very constitution of our consciousness as well as in the self-construction of the ego” (ey, the quoted work, p. 319), our being-conscious unfolds “within an environment founded on everlasting comings and goings between consciousness and the unconscious” (ibid., p. 320). however, ey’s position represents more or less the modern view on the relationship between the two agencies and may also be described as consisting of “mobile thresholds: synchronous and alternating” (zlate, 1996, p. 244). freud wouldn’t have subscribed to such dynamics, still, we assume, the mobility of an unconscious which has to limit its influence to the advantage of a pre-conscious that it’s free to slide “up” an “down” between the unconscious and the conscious (see hall and calvin, 1979, p.54) within his first topography may suggest and anticipate the above dynamics. freud’s subconscious seems to be more afraid of some possible unconscious infiltrations (chartier, 1998, p. 121) than of the conscious stamps: “the difficult, delicate, effort-taking intellectual work itself can be, after all, fulfilled at the preconscious level, without even reaching the consciousness.” (freud, 1992a, p.104). paul ricoeur believes that freud’s second topography (ego , id, super-ego) does not exclude the first one (unconscious, pre-conscious, consciousness), on the contrary, the two topographies may be seen as completing each other (ricoeur, 1998, p. 75); more connections are needed to be considered this way as long as the dream remains for both of them “an over fulfilled and yet unfulfilled pattern” (ibid.). in freud’s psychoanalysis, the dream is basically related to the wish that is also, at least to ricoeur, an idea , a fulfilled thinking in a disguised manner: through the dream-work the dreamt thinking is very much distorted until it becomes the weird manifest content we manage to remember in the morning; this transposition actually “splits up the dream from the rest of our psychical reality” (ibid., p. 37), shaping it in an unique manner. if the unconscious thoughts openly operating in dreams would be, by any chance, compared with the ones we have when we are awake, we would be surprised to discover them as being more or less similar. in other words, the nebulous nature of the dream is due to the censorship that “alters and disguises the repressed contents” (freud, 1991, p.52). all the things that our consciousness finds inappropriate, all that appears distressing (within our unconscious, the presentations “do not know any denial or doubt” (chartier, the quoted work, p. 121) would suffer the needed transformations for becoming befitting; only the converted dream is to be communicated to the consciousness. at first sight, we can only notice a faint attempt of one-way-road communication: from the unconscious to the consciousness, affecting the ego and so the individual’s behavior in the outside world. but what can we say about a communication initiated by the external environment and directed towards our inner world? freud assures us of one thing: “d’une autre cote, le danger exterieur (reel) doit aussi avoir passe par une interiorisation pour pouvoir prendre un sens pour le moi…il semble qu’une connaissance instinctive des dangers… » (freud, 1973, p. 97). however, there are more ways to stress the bi-direction of such a communication, for instance: “le danger reel menace a partir d’une objet exterieur, le danger nevrotique (interieur!) a partir d’une revendication pulsionelle » (ibid.). the consciousness itself (through sensations, perceptions, attention and memory), as a receptacle of external stimuli, sends its own messages towards the unconscious, and it is obvious that some of them could carry potential harmful contents. and so we might say that, under certain circumstances, with some people more than with others and definitely with all mentally-ill patients, the unconscious and the consciousness disturb each other through communicating, in spite of some effort-taking adjustments of all inputs and outputs. but let’s go back to freudian topographies, especially to the first one to whom ricoeur sometimes ascribes an abstract nature. this particular topography, he thinks, has the mission of “determining that particular area that may be considered the very root of the true dream-thoughts” (ricoeur, the quoted work, pp. 116, 117). and so, wanting to sleep (always connected with wanting/needing to dream) is a part of the very substance of the unconscious. we could clearly see that a freudian conclusion irremediably binds dream and the unconscious: not even a very strong wish (although intermittent) as the wish for falling asleep cannot be sufficient for producing the dream, it has to be overlapped with a permanent wish represented by the forbidden impulses that are asking for a dreamt exposure; and all these, because, freud adds, “nothing ends, nothing passes and nothing falls in forgetfulness within our unconscious” (ibid., p.118, quoting freud, p. 555). and here we can notice the gap between the importance conferred to the unconscious and that conferred to the consciousness: as ricoeur says, we deal with a sliding from the adjective-unconscious to the subject-unconscious . the consciousness is somehow put on “stand by”, it’s less operative compared with the force, the urgency and, after all, the efficiency of the unconscious. if, in the beginning, the quality of the unconscious was understood and evaluated only through relating it to the consciousness, now the unconscious seems to be (it’s a way of saying, of course), on “its own”: it has its own persisting presentations that may remain there, at the unperceivable level , acting independently of our conscious intentions, even though its label discloses a hard-to-deny comparison-reflex: latency state . these unconscious “thoughts”, excluded at some previous point from consciousness or even born at the unconscious level, are impended by certain forces to conquer (or re-conquer) the conscious territory. “it is the energetic pattern that motivates the re-orientation ; and then reaching the conscience is only an add-on-extra job. consciousness does not exist by right; it only rises from the unconscious.” (ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 131). thus, it represents the defending ; a bit closer to the consciousness is the preconscious that only makes interdictions , with revocability, and finally, the unconscious which means resistance . now, by only transferring these (force-) relationships to whatever commonsensical communication pattern, we wouldn’t lack a sender that seems to move quite freely and be quite secure about its own pieces of information when trying to send/impose them to a receiver that doesn’t seem to share the same “sensorial area” (dinu, the quoted work, p. 67) (it’s a way of saying) with the sender, and thus the presence of a gate-keeper meant to filter and select the information for a finical and circumspect receiver also seems to be unavoidable. the problem of becoming-conscious-of-an-unconscious-”thought” may be set in the following terms: assuming that, in the beginning, the receiver rejects the communication as long as its laws and codes are completely different from those suggested by the sender, we may say that a real communication only takes place at the moment when the resistances are finally defeated, the gate-keeper fails to work at full capacity and “decides” to give up to a certain extent; the receiver will be then compelled to accept the invasion of unconscious contents that, still, had enough time to disguise themselves (did the gate-keeper help with the disguising-process?) what happens though if the resistance cannot be defeated? let’s suppose that the patient (or the dreamer) has become indeed conscious of some previously repressed presentation, but only because a psychoanalyst dug for it in his or her unconscious and then brought it out for therapeutical purposes. at first sight, we may think that such an assisted case is as communication-based as the naturally-occurred one seemed to be: a repressed content ends up in the very consciousness, with a specialist’s help. a problem rises though: the effect of such communication process – that of rectifying the patient’s behavior – is still far from being achieved: we shouldn’t be surprised if his/her reaction would be that of vehemently denying that particular presentation while we will notice a typical situation of “double registration” (freud, 1992a, p.102 and the following ones, ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 134): as long as the resistance wasn’t really defeated and the “guilty” piece of information didn’t pass through the gate-keeper’s “hands”, the particular presentation will remain by right in the sender’s possession even though it seems to be in receiver’s area as well, with the essential remark that the last one cannot recognize it as a message that has just came from the unconscious, but only as a disreputable piece of information that has to be fought with. without taking the right form, it won’t get recognized by the receiver for what it really is: a precise psychical presentation standing for an instinct will be thus rejected by the consciousness . as for the swiss psychoanalyst, he tries to value both, the consciousness and the unconscious without taking the autonomy of the unconscious away which proves to be, he thinks, crucial to a balanced psychic state. jung assumes that the unfolding of the unconscious processes has great influence upon the organism as a whole while his psychiatric experience helps him to conclude: “we wouldn’t need a big disaster for our psychic unity, hardly coagulated in years of evolution, to break into pieces, to split up and dismember it within seconds.”(jung, 1994b, p. 30). as for an unconscious-related psychology, it would obviously imply the study of dreams. the dreams are the natural products of unconscious psychic activity. thus, they couldn’t lack certain compensatory (marjasch, the quoted work, p. 135) features as long as, jung thinks, the firm connection between the unconscious processes and the conscious ones “can be described best as being a compensation, which also means that all existent deficiencies in our consciousness … are correctly counterpoised through unconscious processes” (jung, 1994a). and so, from a jungian perspective, we couldn’t really bring out a discussion on a strained communication between a “naughty” sender and a “bashful”, conventional receiver, but on a never-ending effort of re-balancing the relations between the unconscious and the consciousness through communication: two psychic agencies (one being ready to counterpoise, when and if needed, the other’s deficiencies) try to function together for a most propitious working of the whole psychical system. under such circumstances, the dream, as essential message coming from the unconscious, holds a high relevancy concerning the general working of the psychic mechanism and the “replies”-exchange between the two psychic agencies. for getting closer to the jungian approach of the nature of dreams we have, of course, to remember the crucial importance of “those shared unconscious connotations” (jung, 1994b, p. 71), the well-known archetypes that work independently of the individual’s psychology and which are often present in people’s dreams, still having no connection to any repressed content. these universal and uniform data are grounded on similar premises for the entire humankind (jung, 1994a, p. 27). not having other means for being revealed, they will make themselves available through singular individuals . basic images of this kind often seem to have mystical germs, rallying philosophical and “religious visions of people that use to think about themselves as being far away from experiencing such weak moods” (ibid., p. 73). such archaic contents also seem to open their own ways to the consciousness by modifying it, but also fundamentally motivating it. on one hand, they have the constraint of the instincts , and, on the other hand, they seem to provide some excellent adjustments to our consciousness, grounding the highest human preoccupations. being endowed with a great flexibility, they are able to conjure up “certain feelings” or supplying them with “a proper path to express themselves” (jung, 1997, p. 478). they are, jung thinks, preliminary steps leading to ideas (ibid., p. 479). would we then be allowed to assume that, for knocking the archetypes together, a special communication channel is established between the unconscious and consciousness, apart from the one generally conducting the usual drives? the communication between a repressed unconscious and consciousness has its specific degrees of tension caused by the conflicting nature of the instincts and the marked coercive nature of the consciousness whose duty is to take action against these drives by inhibiting them; still, what can we possibly say about a communication process initiated by the collective unconscious and leading towards consciousness ? would it be more relaxed or, at least, different in certain points from the one already discussed? jung plainly answers the question: no. “the archetype and the instinct are finding themselves in the most obvious imaginable contrast as we can easily notice by comparing a man being conducted through his drives with another one guiding himself after his spiritual propensities. still, as the contrasts are always tightly connected to each other … the common quip les extremes se touchent has its perfect justifiability in this case as well” (jung, 1994b, p. 74) – they meet each other, indeed, in dreams, raving images, visions, masterpieces, and this very coexistence has nothing really ill-fated as long as the archetype in itself cannot be labeled as being good or bad, in exactly the same manner in which the instinct cannot be detrimental through its very essence. all in all, everything seems to take shape in a perfectly closed, but still haphazard relationship, compelling us to refer to an unique communication pattern that might include, in extreme situations, either the instincts alone, either the archetypes alone; the domination of one tendency upon the other one as well the equilibrium between the two of them mostly depends on the level of understanding of a certain person (see ibid. for more details, p.75) and of the “state” of his or her consciousness at that very moment, the condition of the consciousness usually sliding up and down between archetype and instinct. here, as in any other communication-based situations, the place and the moment of the process are remarkably important: the sender practically speculates a suitable “state” of the receiver for favoring the acceptance of its message. the consequences of such communication may be decisive for individual’s existence as long as we agree, together with the generic psychoanalyst, upon the fact that the human being is mainly threatened by his/her innermost gulfs and secondarily by the outside world. thus the communication of a primordial image may concur to a general counterpoising of the individual in both ways (jung, 1993, p.121), in spite of their lacking in any rigor and their arising a real blast of feelings (see ibid., p. 125). if jung does not hesitate in supposing that all psychic functions appearing as being conscious were, at a certain far-off immemorial moment, a part of the unconscious luggage but still taking action as if they would have been conscious (jung, 1994b, p. 79), freud surprisingly speculates upon a supposed connection between affectivity, taboo and the genesis of the self-awareness and endows the archaic man with a strong, constraining moral consciousness understood as being “the inner perception of the interrogation upon certain impulsive drives dwelling inside us” (freud, 1993, p. 81); these impulsive instincts, freud thinks, lie at the basis of the taboo whose existence implies an affective ambivalence due to “the awareness of the taboo-sin” (ibid.); this awareness appears in the very moment when the taboo is encroached upon, as a sort of imperative of the consciousness that suddenly gives birth to the guilt-feeling. all in all, the clash between the unconscious (repressed) drives of the archaic people (the killing of their kings and the fathers of the tribe, the eating of the forbidden animal etc.) and the moralizing consciousness generates an anguish that freud sees as being a sort of “reaction au danger” (freud, 1973, p. 77). unlike jung, freud seems to attach to the dawn of our consciousness a whole range of capacities that lack any kind of spiritual shades, rather taking into account the “founding”-repressed-gestures through which our ancestors stood against commandments as “do not kill” or “do not feed yourself with the totemic animal” – all of them, unconscious orders that aroused, even from the beginning of time, repulsion and attraction (see also laplanche, 1996, p. 103) . following the above angle, we may say that certain communication paths – trodden for at least 10 thousand years – exist between the unconscious and consciousness, and they are strictly configured by a pattern like this: instinct – interdiction – rejection and, if need be, anxiety that could have leaded, in time, at a sort of improvement of the repressing manners, of the “coaching” of the gate-keepers and, last but not least, to the perfecting of the requirements imposed by the receiver that was becoming, in time, even more susceptible and finical concerning the codes-standards of the reaching messages. it is difficult though to guess who “uses up” whom: would the destiny of the rejected unconscious messages be always the same? in its turn, is the warding off of the consciousness always a successful job? freud stresses out as often as he can the fact that, in spite of the weird dream we manage to remember in the morning, the foremost importance always rests in the primary raving idea whose sense is always well-determined. because of the displacement, the concatenation of the dream ideas we find in the morning in our consciousness does not reflect the real coherence of our dream: ‘the relation between the dream-ideas may be inverted if not completely shattered or completely replaced with a brand new relation between its elements” (freud, 1993, p.111). as a result of the secondary revision of its content, the dream will be given a new meaning which is always relevant for what could be labeled as the communication requirements of the consciousness . any material reaching the agency of consciousness needs an approved clothing; thus, for fulfilling this job, a special function (freud simply calls it “the intellectual function”) enters the game and modifies the relations between the dream-ideas. it is known, the unconscious tension grows proportionally with the “number” of rejections of the messages reaching the receiver. at our previous question “who uses up whom?, we could answer through another question: is it really necessary for one agency to “use up” the other one? the common sense and an evolutionist approach of the psychic could tempt us to imagine a certain evolution of communication processes themselves: the experience of the involved agencies, their flexibility, their dynamics, the adjusting of one to the other are, all in all, their very qualities that certify the psychic coherence of a certain individual could assess such evolution. this kind of reasoning is however vehemently incriminated by jung. he believes that the ego doesn’t need to get through changes otherwise the risk of a psychological disorder is considerably increased. after each unconscious uptake, the ego, a “well-settled agency” (jung, 1994b, p. 96), suffers more or less profound transformations. if its structure is not strong enough for facing the threatening unconscious invasion, then the assimilation/communication process reached its goal and the ego might become, eventually, richer and better grounded. still, jung says, such case is quite rare; prevailingly, the ego, once moved from its fixedness, can easily be shattered, making room for a real colony of unconscious impulses, good ones and bad ones, that can be seen by the psychoanalyst’s eye as shaping a psychopathological diagnosis. in short, the ego is indeed ready for improvement only to a certain extent, but less disposed to reshape its contents at the unconscious’ will. if we’d follow laplanche’s explanation regarding the loss of the real sexual instinct (laplanche, 1996, p. 34) and its replacement with a rather mimetic instinct, then we should also submit to the idea that, through evolutions, stoppings, returns, regressions and identifications, the instinct par excellence (the sexual one) has been re-invented by each and every generation, losing bit by bit its “natural” character. for regaining it, laplanche thinks, we should come back at the starting point, or even beyond it: to the inborn phantasms , brought back into the light together with another psychoanalyst, j. b. pontalis. at first sight, it seems that they are not rigorously different from jung’s archetypes: the phantasms make an attempt to conduct – from the unconscious – conscious reactions and gestures for determining them to go back at the primary order (?) that these phantasms once used to direct. the very thing imposing a difference between the phantasms and the jungian archetypes is the location of the first ones: they are a part of our memory and take the shape of remembrances (or remembrance-patterns) revealing themselves from time to time only. a good example of such phantasm is the fear of castration shaped, in the first instance, as a reply to child’s curiosity regarding the sexual differences. these phantasms could represent “l’objet psychanalytique par excellence” (laplanche & pontalis, 1985, p. 35). in spite of their being relatively autonomous and thick, these fundamental fantasies are still intangible, just like dreams and just like the “world” they come from: the psychical reality that laplanche still avoids (laplanche, 1996, p. 13) to define by stressing the differences between this one and the real world . but why such a discrepancy? why the impossibility of comparing the two “worlds”? is the world explored and ruled by the unconscious totally distinct from the one explored by our consciousness? the unconscious, laplanche says, is the heir of a world that, at the very beginning , was established as the one and only reality of the subject, exclusively built on the pleasure principle – there was the place where the phantasms were born; and to this inner world, the “reality”-proof doesn’t have any relevancy (laplanche & pontalis, 1985, p. 14) of course we could not speak in absolute terms about such separation between the inner world and the world outside us. we shouldn’t forget that the ego (even to freud) is unconscious to a certain extent, even though it also dominates the consciousness by controlling “the access-ways to motility” (freud, 1992a, p. 102) (which means that the ego undertakes the responsibility of the responses to external excitations, including the communication with the “objective” reality.) an ego seen as being responsible for the libido-cathexis (“the ego is the proper, basic reservoir of the libido”, ibid., p. 75) but also playing the main part in the apperception of the environment, hardly can be suspected as being unfamiliar with one of the two worlds. we could rather say that the ego is the key-witness letting us believe that we recognize a certain degree of “non-reality” (of imaginary) to the outside world, just as well as we sense a dose of reality in our inner world due to a certain pattern through which the ego gets accomplished into a “presence-field”, as ey says. dreaming or living at the daylight, a person is still the same person, regardless the very psychological state he or she is in, and however, a certain psychological state is born “through the reflex of all the others” (bergson, 1993, p. 115) without losing any of its more specific features. the display of a psychological state – on the inner or on the outside stage – appears as a free act, “and it always expresses the entire ego” (ibid.). bergson also thinks that on the ego’s surface “certain independent adenoids” (ibid.) may float – for instance, the suggestions made to a person found in a half-conscious state or under hypnosis will be incorporated into his or her consciousness (preserving bergson’s terms) (ibid., esp. p. 115) and into his or her ego (preserving freud’s terms). the ego promotes objectivity without being its slave. the ego itself being overloaded with contradictions (see ey, the quoted work, p. 324), it keeps the objectivity “through its effects only, more exactly, through its deeds” (ibid.). ey calls this dark side of the ego that is unaware of its inabilities and thus transforms them into principles (ibid.), “the paradoxical unconsciousness” (ibid., p. 325). but this “unconsciousness” implies and grounds the unity of the ego even though the last one denies it as long as its “self-construction…cannot be other except the one wanted by the ego” (ibid.). we may then conclude that experiencing certain parts of reality is not an impossible task for the unconscious. from freud – “our entire knowledge is connected to our consciousness. the unconscious itself cannot be known otherwise but through consciousness” (freud, 1992a, p. 104) – to ey – “this subjective-objective reality, this essential ambiguity actually grounds the ontological pattern of the conscious phenomena: neither entirely objective, nor exclusively subjective. our consciousness corresponds to such reality, firstly conceived as a ligament between objectivity and subjectivity” (ey, the quoted work, p. 36) – the long ramifications of consciousness, reaching even the deepest gulfs of unconscious, are always reminded. a strategic inversion before proceeding in making the first changes in the communication pattern between the unconscious and consciousness, we will invert – not for long – our perspective trying to take a look at the communication process as it may be seen from the consciousness to the unconscious. among other manners of denying the consciousness, ey also counts its reduction to a common feature of our psychic or to a common function usually named “vigilance” (ibid., p. 83); we, of course, stumble across this very “sin”, at freud. in beyond the pleasure principle , he concludes: “the consciousness is the surface of our psychic apparatus…we understand it as being a function of a system that is, spatially speaking, in the very proximity of the external world” (freud, 1992a, p. 104); or “the consciousness is, before everything else, a purely descriptive term…our psychical life is rather marked by the fact that the consciousness quickly disappears” (ibid., p. 97). from the moment when the reference-point status is refused to our consciousness, the place of the real sense (ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 451) would be then looked for elsewhere: namely, among the unconscious obscurities. this way, ricoeur thinks, the consciousness itself becomes problematical within freud’s psychoanalysis: “from this point on, we deal with “qualms” of conscience, more exactly, with the problem of getting-conscious…that replaces the so-called evidence of being-conscious” (ibid.). but such difference is not psychoanalysis’ own point. moreover, in its very essence, it seems to be a rather fortunate wording. ey has meant his book on consciousness as a come-back to the basic freudian theory “that discovered the reality of the unconscious by gradually crossing over…the reality of the conscious structures” (ey, 1983, the foreword to the 2 nd french edition, p. 22) and he subscribes, we believe, to such disposal through the thetic function conferred to the consciousness. since this thetic function is a faculty of “recognizing in each move made by the consciousness and for each of its modalities, the precise contents that belongs to it, that proceeds from it, that misses or overlooks and stumbles in” (ibid., p. 137), we may assume that, to ey, the consciousness doesn’t only play the part of an organizer that is tightly connected with the “constitutional acts of the living reality” (ibid., p. 11) (memory, perception, verbal communication), but also one of becoming-conscious-through-apprehension : we could say, an uninterrupted decreasing of the entropy if we’d consider the freudian approach of the consciousness as being the bound energy while the unconscious represents the free energy. in the formulation “becoming-conscious” lies the dynamics that our psychic apparatus needs for surpassing each moment the bi-polarity somehow interpreted as being an unconscious determination from which one has to escape not by ignoring it or getting rid of it, but by integrating it and assimilating it. it would be fanciful to believe that, at some point in the future, the communication between the consciousness and the unconscious would become profitless thanks to a total assimilation of our soul’s gulfs by our comprehensive consciousness, and the human being would become hyper-aware of himself or herself and of his or her very place in the world and not having anything shameful to repress anymore. we’d rather have to underline that both agencies implied by such communication process are never endingly fed by their own contents, strengthening their positions this way: “through becoming-conscious the unconscious is repressed, though it never ceases imposing itself” (ibid., p. 24). the communication between the two agencies will never become unserviceable. for a better demonstration, we should borrow ey’s metaphor describing the consciousness as a performance on a theatre stage (ibid., p. 137) and we will take advantage of his analogy by guiding it to our own purposes: the individual performing on a stage (living, fully experiencing) always communicates (more or less discreetly) with the “backstage”, with his prompter. while performing, he doesn’t only reproduce the lines he learnt by heart (that is he doesn’t only resorts to his memory, perceptions and reflexes of all kinds as a secure harvest of a long living-exercise), but he also improvises. in other words, the “objective legality of the outside world” (ibid.) (the connections with his audience and with the location of his performing), his hidden wishes (maybe the wish to be liked by a certain person in the audience), his fantasy (permanent adjustments of his lines, fortunate corrections of his slips) and the stage directions he gets, in whispers, from the prompter backstage, are all melting together in the act of living. all these factors successfully interfere providing, in the end, a definite shape and a definite value to that experience (performing). what happens then when the audience is gone and the performer himself goes backstage, washing his make-up off and throwing away the stage outfit? these are the moments when our performer – sleeping or being psychically ill – lets himself sliding down through the labyrinths of his own unconscious, on the backstage halls. imagining the life of an old performer: we could “see” a tested man, but still liable to stage-fright, making the same moves for years and years: entering and leaving the stage. we’ve just provided a suitable analogy that could baffle a hasty opinion about the fact that to-be-conscious, to live and to experience, to be into the world means rejecting the communication with the unconscious; however, such an opinion is probably based on the fact that rejecting means – indeed – stopping, thwarting the communication with the unconscious contents, the single “communication”-states actually being those of a de-structured consciousness. in reality, the last ones are the only ones that do not require any communication: in such case, we dwell in the world of darkness. when we wake up and remember what we dreamt during night, the non-communication becomes communication. thus, the impossibility of recalling our dreams shouldn’t lead us to the conclusion that they did not exist: it only means they were strictly kept at the unconscious level. merely in the moment when the dream reaches the level of the consciousness we can refer to its communication . so the dream appears as an independent unconscious message , quite easily distinguishable when compared with other unconscious diffuse contents that may interweave with the real living experiences. caught with the right eye, ey’s statement: “to-be-conscious means ceasing being unconscious” (ibid., p. 20) wouldn’t look that deep-seated anymore; especially if we’d choose to continue it this way: but being conscious integrates the unconscious state as long as, without being really (and excessively) wide-open to communication, the consciousness admits (permits) the communication precisely through its attempt to dominate, forbid and impose order (see ibid., p. 146 where ey seems to suggest more or less the same idea). references aristotle, (1966), de l’âme , société d’édition “les belles lettres”, paris, tr. by e. barbotin. bergson, h. (1993), eseu asupra datelor imediate ale constiintei , ed. by dacia, cluj-napoca, tr. by horia lazar. bergson, h. (1996), materie si memorie , ed. by polirom, iasi, tr. by cora chiriac. brès, yvone (1975), la psychologie de platon , p.u.f., paris, publication de la sorbonne “n.s. recherches” – 4, the chapter “le rêve et le savoir”. caillois, r. & grunebaum, g. e. (coord.) (1967), le rêve et les sociétés humaines , gallimard, paris, marjasch, sonja le rêve et c.g. jung chartier, j.-p. (1998), introducere in psihanaliza lui freud , ed. by iri, bucharest, tr. by michaela brandusa malcinschi. culianu, i. p., (1996), eros si magie in renastere.1484 , ed. by nemira, bucuresti, tr. by dan petrescu. dinu, mihai (1997), comunicarea , ed. by ed. stiintifica, bucharest. dodds, e.r. (1998), grecii si irationalul , ed. by polirom, iasi, the 2nd edition, tr. by catrinel plesu. ey, henri (1983), constiinta , ed. by ed. stiintifica si enciclopedica, bucharest, trans. by dinu grama. ficino, marsilio, (2000), les trois livres de la vie – des triplici vita , fayard, paris, tr. par guy le fevre de la borderie secretaire de monseigneur frere unique de roy et son interprete aux langues entrangeres, texte revue par thierry gontier. freud, s. (?) zur wunscherfüllung , g.w. ii/iii, quoted by ricoeur (see below) freud, s. (1911), formulations sur les deux principes du cours des événements psychiques , in résultats, idées, problèmes i , p.u.f., paris. freud, s. (1973), inhibition, symptôme et angoisse , p.u.f., paris, 1re éd. 1951, tr. par michel tort. freud, s. (1992a), dincolo de principiul placerii , ed. by jurnalul literar, bucharest, tr. by george purdea and vasile dem. zamfirescu. freud, s. (1992b), interpretarea viselor , ed. by maiastra, bucharest, tr. by nicolae anghel. freud, s. (1993), totem si tabu , ed. by mediarex, bucharest, tr. by dr. leonard gavriliu. hall, v. & calvin, s. (1979), a primer of freudian psychology , a mentor book, new american library, n.y.& scarborough, 1st publ. in 1952. jung, c. g. (1993), psychologie de l’inconscient , le livre de poche, georg éd., 8e éd., tr. par dr. rolan cahen. jung, c. g. (1994) puterea sufletului – psihologie individuala si sociala , the 3rd part, ed. by anima, bucharest, 1994, tr. by suzana holan. jung, c. g. (1994), puterea sufletului. reflectii teoretice privind natura psihismului , the 4th part, ed. by anima, bucharest, tr. by suzana holan. jung, c. g. (1997), tipuri psihologice , ed. by humanitas, bucharest, tr. by viorica niscov. laplanche, j. and pontalis, j.-b. (1985) fantasme orginaire. fantasmes des origines. origines du fantasme , hachette. laplanche, j. (1996), seductia originara. noi fundamente pentru psihanaliza , ed. by jurnalul literar, bucharest, tr. by jeana rotescu, septimiu roman, vera sandor. platon (1995), dialoguri , ed. by iri, bucharest, tr. by cezar papacostea based on the edition c. fr. hermann platonis dialogi , issued in 1851-1853, fedon. pontalis, j.-b. (1977), entre le rêve et la douleur , gallimard, paris. ricoeur, p. (1998), despre interpretare. eseu asupra lui freud , ed. by trei, bucharest, tr. by magdalena popescu and valentin protopopescu. roudinesco, e. (1995), de la sigmund freud la jacques lacan. istoria psihanalizei in franta , ed. by humanitas, bucharest, tr. by g. bratescu. sartre, j.-p. (1997), imaginatia , ed. by aion, oradea, tr. by narcisa serbanescu. saussure, f. de (1998), curs de lingvistica generala , ed. by polirom, iasi, tr. by irina izvena tarabac. viseax, d., (1989), la mort et les états posthumes selon les grandes traditions , éd. de la maisuie, guy trédaniel, paris. zlate, m. (1996), introducere in psihologie , ed. by sansa, bucharest. zlate, m. (1999), psihologia mecanismelor cognitive , ed. by polirom, iasi. notes this specific phrase was however noticed by ricoeur and immediately amended as an undeniable index of the psychoanalyst’s weakness : freud relates himself to the consciousness without even wanting it and knowing it. the term “mental apparatus” is, as we know, used by freud because of its energetic, economic and topographical applications that succeed in structuring the psychic in freudian psychoanalysis. still, henri ey prefers the formulation “psychic organism” distrusting the absolute importance of a mechanical and structured-based approach of the human psychic. see ey, henri, 1983, constiinta, ed. by ed. stiintifica si enciclopedica, bucharest, trans. by dinu grama, p. 146. the sick person should sleep into a temple and dream about what his or her treatment should consists of. for more details concerning the importance – not excessively great – of dreams in plato’s works, see brès, yvone (1975), la psychologie de platon, p.u.f., paris, publication de la sorbonne “n.s. recherches” – 4, the chapter “le rêve et le savoir”. we won’t specify the concrete attributes of the vehicle of the soul, later improved by artistotle and then taken over by neoplatonic philosophers of the middle age. on the same matter, we also suggest the following works: viseax, dominique, (1989), la mort et les états posthumes selon les grandes traditions, éd. de la maisuie, guy trédaniel, paris, pp. 77-85, ficino, marsilio, (2000), les trois livres de la vie – des triplici vita, fayard, paris, tr. par guy le fevre de la borderie secretaire de monseigneur frere unique de roy et son interprete aux langues entrangeres, texte revue par thierry gontier, culianu, i. p., (1996), eros si magie in renastere.1484, ed. by nemira, bucuresti, tr. by dan petrescu, who also shows the filiation between ficino’s magic and the aristotle’s vehicle of soul ( pneuma). see esp. pp. 24, 25, 51, 52, 53, 55 and the anexe 1, “the origins of the doctrine concerning the vehicle of soul”, p. 307. see also aristotle, (1966), de l’âme, société d’édition “les belles lettres”, paris, tr. by e. barbotin. jung himself seems to accept the possibility of the pre-existence of archetypes in the soul; see zlate, quoted work, p. 240. see ey, the quoted work, chapters “the reality of consciousness”, “the consciousness and the experience of reality”, ” general talking about being conscious”, “the two ways of being conscious” and the foreword to the 2nd french edition. it’s important to take into account sonja marjasch ‘s observation concerning jung’s day-”uproar”: “jung soutient ici la thèse selon laquelle nous rêvons continûment, c’est-à-dire que les petits psychismes secondaires sont toujours en action, mais que le vacarme diurne et la volonté consciente du complexe moi sont si forts que le murmure persistant des complexes est habituellement perçu en surimpression”, le rêve et c.g. jung in 1967, le rêve et les sociétés humaines, r. caillois and g.e. grunebaum (coord.), gallimard, paris, p. 130. we still have to mention that in freud’s works the ego does not represent the conscious being par excellence; the ego may also have an unconscious part just as well as the unconsciousness does not perfectly coincide with the repression, even though each repressed material should necessarily be unconscious. freud also talks about a cathectic energy of our mental apparatus; following breuer, he makes a distinction between “a free energy that tends to dischargement, and a bound energy”. see freud, dincolo de principiul placerii, pp. 45, 47. from this point on, freud only speaks about unconscious psychical acts. there is no enough space for more details about the relationships imposed by freud’s second topography: the ego (which cannot be superposed with the consciousness from the first topography) is here the one resisting to unconscious invasions. now everything depends on the strength/weakness of the ego, everything stays or falls with the very manner in which the ego bears the specific dominations of the world, of the super-ego and of the id. (which, once again, cannot be superposed with the unconsciousness). see ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 229 and freud, dincolo de principiul placerii, p. 112. following a 2nd topography-based perspective, an exemplary communication should have one direction only: namely, from an ego always threatened and always ready to re-balance the present situation, towards the other agencies. “the one who suffers from neurosis is basically the one who lost control of his own household” ( ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 199). in other words, within the 2nd topography, the sender could be the id. while the ego does nothing but trying to ward off the inappropriate messages and eventually receiving them to a certain extent only. in such case, the ego would have to face not only the id. but also its ideal, the super-ego (another possible sender) that urges it from the opposite point trying to impose its own standards usually inaccessible to the ego: ” this way, the ego is not only closely watched upon, but also tortured by both, its inferior and its superior agency.” (ibid., p. 201). seemingly, the gate-keeper’s job is still available; still, we could assume that the ego is the one trying to shoulder this job as well, the ego is the one suggesting solutions for the conflicts controlling the access to the consciousness more or less successfully. we could also say that its prolongations (not negligible at all) in both, unconsciousness and consciousness validates its involvement in filtering information and makes it look more flexible. in short, the receiver par excellence will be once again the consciousness (the “consciousness-perception”, as it appears in freud’s system). the effect of the communication process will be then once again that of an action exerted from inside to outside, the goal: integration of the personality. and here jung discusses in great detail dreams and raving images crammed with archaic fantasies that his patients remembered when asked to express themselves artistically through drawing, painting, music, dance or literature. he eventually states that “all possible mythical themes were to be found at a certain moment in those imaginary products of people”. useless to add that none of his patients knew anything about the objective existence of the mythical themes they innocently (re)produces. see ibid. jung talks quite ambiguously about “the spontaneous amplification of the archetypes”. much later, laplanche will underline the fact that certain dream-states can be seen to a certain extent as being regressions to an “old” age when, he says balancing and synthesizing the classic psychoanalytic approaches, there was no gap between the unconscious and the preconscious. the “old” times are not only the times before language, but also the times before the censorship: “as a matter of fact, the language and the censorship were responsible for the distinction between the preconscious/conscious mechanism and the unconscious one. (laplanche, 1996, p. 103) we will recognize here an aspect that jung mentioned already. the two french psychoanalysts agree with freud when he states that “avec l’introduction du principe de réalité une forme d’activité de pensée se trouve séparée par clivage; elle reste indépendante de l’épreuve de réalité et soumise uniquement au principe de plaisir” (quoted from formulations sur les deux principes du cours des événements psychiques, in résultats, idées, problèmes i , 1911, p.u.f., paris, pp. 138, 139). without straightly stating it, it’s very possible that ey himself to agree upon the unconscious part of the ego; he talks about its undertaking of all facts and events engaged in its construction and that are, as a matter of fact, developed by the ego itself. by stating that the individual disposes of himself through his ego, ey also comes closer to bergson who connects the ego with each free act that we do. see also bergson, 1993. emotional and instrumental aggressiveness and body weight loss sébastien paradis centre de recherche sur le métabolisme énergétique (creme), département d’anatomie et physiologie, université laval, québec, canada j. martin ramirez departamento de psicobiología, universidad complutense, madrid, spain michel cabanac département d’anatomie et physiologie université laval, québec, canada abstract violence and aggressiveness are social concerns. also, at a time of rising prevalence of obesity, many people tend to control their body weight through dieting. we analyzed the impact of weight loss on aggressiveness: 150 participants completed anonymously two questionnaires assessing their aggressiveness, age, sex, diet, recent body weight change, reasons of recent body weight changes, and perceived difficulties related to those changes. results showed that participants who had deliberately lost weight reported higher aggressiveness than controls, but passive weight-losers did not. the raised aggressiveness was stronger for hostile aggression than for instrumental aggression. such a rise is likely to be due to the discomfort associated with opposing body weight set-point. keywords: aggression, dieting, weight loss, body weight regulation, set-point. introduction in a context of rising prevalence of obesity, many people tend to control their body weight by dieting. at a time when high prevalence of violence and aggression remains a permanent social concern (chesnay, 2003), we explored the influence of dieting on aggressiveness. the impact of several specific diets on mood and cognitive performances are currently giving rise to an increasing number of studies. a low-fat diet was shown to increase anger-hostility and tension-anxiety parameters compared to isocaloric control diet (wells, read, laugharne, & ahluwalia, 1998). on the other hand, a low-carbohydrate (hi-fat) diet, also isocaloric, had a similar effect, in addition to a decrease in physical performance (butki, baumstark, & driver, 2003; filaire, maso, degoutte, jouanel, & lac, 2001). other diet changes influenced other traits: a hi-carbohydrate/low-protein diet could help to cope with stress-proneness (markus, panhuysen, tuiten, & koppeschaar, 2000). deijen et al. (1989), on the basis of an experiment with dieters on a protein-rich diet, concluded that dietary composition had no effect on mood and behavior. these above mentioned studies focused on the effect of specific diet composition, but the impact of changes in energy intake and weight loss on mood remains unclear. bryan and tiggemann (2001) reported that weight loss can improve some aspects of psychological well-being such a better feeling of self-control and can decrease depression and anger. on the other hand, hall and lane (2001) observed that judo athletes loosing weight quickly in preparation for a competition, not only experienced a decrease in physical performance and vigor, but also showed increased anger, fatigue, and tension. aggression is a heterogeneous phenomenon that can take place in several situations and covers a wide spectrum of different behaviors and meanings. many classifications of human aggression have been proposed, reflecting a wide array of paradigms and research goals. most of these classifications follow a common dichotomy, even when using different terminologies: on the one hand, the “instrumental-controlled-proactive-cold blooded-offensive-predatory-premeditated” type, and on the other hand, the “emotional-hostile-impulsive-reactive-hot blooded-defensive-affective” type (ramirez & andreu, 2003). aggression thus belongs to two categories: a) instrumental aggression, chiefly aimed at obtaining a reward, such as some goal or advantage for the aggressor, without anger to trigger it; and b) hostile, impulsive, or emotional aggression, which is carried out in an outburst of rage or anger, aiming merely at harming another person, without necessarily weighing costs and benefits (berkowitz, 1993; feshback, 1964; hartup, 1974; kingsbury, lambert, & hendrickse, 1997). certain traits or factors predispose individuals to higher or lower levels of aggression. this predisposition may be called aggressiveness. our hypothesis was that aggressiveness related to emotional aggression, related to the individual’s mood, would be more influenced by dieting than aggressiveness related to the more rational instrumental aggression. this hypothesis would be justified by the fact that people who have recently lost weight through dieting are presumably below their body weight set-point. according to the body weight regulation paradigm, body weight is regulated at a “set-point” (cabanac, 2001; cabanac, duclaux, & spector, 1971; hervey, 1969). a deliberate weight loss presumably generates a difference between actual body weight and set-point. we explored the hypothesis that such a difference (called “error-signal”), is interpreted by the body as a situation of “lack” or “need,” a situation susceptible to arouse discomfort and, in turn, to alter aggressiveness. methods one hundred and fifty participants of all ages (60 males and 90 females; 16-82 years old) were anonymously recruited at random among men and women met in public spaces such as university campus and shoping centers. no participant was obese, as visually estimated. full anonymity and confidentiality were observed. all participants were invited to answer anonymously two questionnaires. questionnaire 1 (q1) was a french translation of the cama test that probes aggressiveness. the acronym of cama, meaning cuestionario de actitudes morales sobre agresión, is a questionnaire originally constructed by lagerspetz and westman (1980), and subsequently revised by ramirez (1991) and andreu (2001) in order to investigate attitudes towards interpersonal aggression in different situations from the observer’s perspective. since the degree of approval would depend on the qualities of the behavior observed, the items describe several aggressive acts of different quality and intensity, from ‘gentlest’ to most harmful, in combination with different instrumental and hostile situations in which they may be conducted. the eight categories of aggressive acts and the eight different circumstances in which the aggressive behavior may be justified are presented in table 1. the response scale for the questionnaire is a two-point scale (acceptable vs. not acceptable) this questionnaire has already been administered to about 3000 respondents, ranging in age from 12 to 90, and in quite varied cultures: in finland (lagerspetz & westman, 1980), britain (benton, kumari, & brain, 1982), poland (fraczek, 1985); spain (ramirez, 1991, 1993), japan and the u.s.a. (fujihara, kohyama, andreu, & ramirez, 1999; ramirez & fujihara, 1997), iran (fujihara, andreu, musazadeh, & ramirez, 2000), and canada (ramirez, bonniot-cabanac, & cabanac, 2005). internal consistency reliability in those studies, calculated with cronbach’s alpha, has ranged from .77 to .91, indicating that it is internally consistent. the internal consistency for the subtests in the finnish population was .91 (lagerspetz & westman, 1980). a factorial analysis of the principal components of cama and varimax rotation demonstrated two groups of situations (>0.35) internally consistent and relatively independent of one another (ramirez & andreu, unpublished results). questionnaire 2 (q2) followed with questions about the participant’s present diet, age, sex, and body weight. in addition, this questionnaire explored the time course of body weight over the previous month. q2 was deliberately presented after q1 in order to avoid providing any hint about the purpose of the study to the participant. table i: the 8 actions and 8 situations presented in the questionnaire 1 (cama test) results were analyzed as global frequency of yeses and nos in the group of participants. then the results were analyzed by intensity of response: the group frequency of acceptation of a specific act (the number of times in which this act had been considered justified) was plotted against each of these possible behaviors. the same analysis was conducted regarding situations: the group number of acceptance of aggressive acts was plotted against each of the eight situations. in that way, each act or situation received a score between 0 and 8. multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was conducted for act score and for situation score with the following factors: act or situation with 8 levels, gender with 2 levels, and weight loss with three levels (passive weightloss; active weight-loss, control). independent post hoc student’s t-tests were performed when necessary (sig: p results out of the 150 participants, 46 (30.6%) declared to have lost weight recently. weight loss ranged from 2.0 kg to 15.0 kg with a mean (±se) weight loss of 4.9 ± 0.44 kg. there was no significant difference between mean weight loss of men and women (p = 0.47). anova revealed no significant difference between responses given by men and by women to questionnaire 1, i.e. their global degree of aggressiveness was similar. therefore, the results were pooled for subsequent analysis. out of the 46 participants who had declared recent weight loss, 19 were passive weight losers, 26 were active weight-losers, i.e. was dieting, and 1 had not answered the related question. the remaining 104 participants were considered as controls. figure 1 presents the global aggression acceptance score. it can be seen that the aggression score of active weight-losers, was above that of controls. in addition, the score of passive weight-losers did not differ from controls (p>0.1). fig.1: global degree of acceptance of aggressive acts by passive weight-losers (n=19), active weight-losers (n=26) and controls (n=104). bars with different superscripts are significantly different from each other (student t-test, p < 0.05) figure 2 presents the group frequency of acceptance for the various aggressive acts, plotted in rising intensity. there was a general decrease of the acceptance of aggressive behaviors with rising intensity. stopping (hindering), a passive aggressive act, was accepted by the largest number of respondents. all acts, except hindering, were more accepted by active weight-losers than by passive weight-losers and controls, but only mild acts, shouting and hitting reached significant difference (p fig.2: magnitude of aggressiveness related to 8 aggressive acts in groups of participants sorted according to recent body weight change: passive weight-losers (n=19), active weight-losers (n=26) and controls (n=104). bars with different superscripts are significantly different from each other (student t-test, p < 0.05). figure 3 presents the group frequency of acceptance for the various aggressive acts, sorted according to the situations. both situations related to hostile aggression were significantly affected by active weight loss: “severed communication” and “anger.” in instrumental situations, active weight-losers group reached a significant rise only in situation of “preservation of reputation.” fig.3: magnitude of aggressiveness in 8 specific situations in groups of participants sorted according to recent body weight change: passive weight-losers (n=19), active weight-losers (n=26) and controls (n=104). bars with different superscripts are significantly different from each other (student t-test, p < 0.05). discussion “folk psychology” tends to consider that men are generally more aggressive and they would justify aggression more than women. this point of view was confirmed by many studies, that have revealed differences between men and women about their representation of aggression (andreu et al., 2002; archer & haigh, 1999; hines & saudino, 2003; ramirez, andreu, & fujihara, 2001), its justification or acceptability (archer & mcdaniel, 1995; astin, redston, & campbell, 2003; stewart-williams, 2002), and its occurrence (connor, steingard, anderson, & melloni, 2003; graham & wells, 2001; kinney, smith, & donzella, 2001; knight, guthrie, page, & fabes, 2002; zeichner, parrott, & frey, 2003). however, our results limited to attitude toward aggressiveness, did not show such sexual differences; thus, they rather confirmed other studies in which differences between men and women were also absent or minute (ramirez, fujihara, & van goozen, 2001). this absence of sexual difference may be explained by the fact that, in this present work, the change of the degree of aggressiveness was related to the defense of body weight, which implies fundamental survival behaviors, equally present in males and females. it is not surprising to discover that mildly aggressive acts were significantly more acceptable than stronger and more drastic acts least (fig. 2). also, it is interesting that altruistic behavior was the most accepted cause (situation) of aggression, followed closely by self-defence (fig. 3). these observations in this group of canadian participants matched with what has been previously found in other quite different cultures of four continents (ramírez, 2003). the higher aggressiveness in the active-weight-loss group was especifically significant for the mild aggressive acts (being ironic, threatening). even if this trend in aggressiveness was also observed for stronger aggressive acts (having a fit of rage, stopping another person from doing something, shouting, hitting, torturing, killing), such a rise was less significant for any of the intensely aggressive items. this lower influence of body weight loss on the aggressive acts of stronger intensity may be explained by its relation to strong moral beliefs, unlikely to be influenced by the mood (ramirez, 1993). thus, aggressiveness related to clearly and extremely aggressive acts is likely to be less sensitive to the effect of mood-related physiological changes, such as weight loss, and more sensitive to rational influence. the influence of active weight loss was significant only for aggressiveness related to hostile aggression (severed communication, anger). no situation of instrumental aggression (self-defense, protection of somebody else, defense of one’s property, punishment, to obtain sexual resources) reached a significant difference, except preservation of reputation, but this latter situation, even if labelled ‘instrumental’ a priori, also implies an important emotional load. such a difference between hostile and instrumental aggressiveness is consistent with an inhibitory influence of rationality on aggressiveness. instrumental aggression is a premeditated behavior aiming at a specific advantage for the aggressor. it is a rather rational technique used as a strategy to achieve some social or material goals (berkowitz, 1993). we may assume that motivational goals of instrumental aggression are harder to be modified by weight loss. it seems normal, thus, to observe no difference in aggressiveness related to instrumental situations between controls and active weight-losers. on the contrary, hostile aggression is an impulsive, thoughtless behavior, i.e. less rational and more emotional (ramirez & andreu, 2003). thus, being more mood-related, hostile aggressiveness is likely to be more sensitive to the effect on mood of physiological changes, such as body weight loss. those participants who had lost weight actively showed a significantly higher degree of aggressiveness than participants who had lost weight passively, i.e. involuntarily, without effort, and without discomfort. there was no difference between passive weight-losers and controls. thus, weight loss influenced aggressiveness only when this weight loss had been achieved actively, with personal efforts. those observations are in accordance with the hypothesis that weight loss raised the level of aggressiveness because of a discomfort resulting from of an error-signal in body weight regulation i.e. a difference between actual body weight and the set-point (cabanac, 1971; cabanac et al., 1971; hervey, 1969). the ‘set-point’ is the virtual body weight that the regulatory system aims at maintaining steady. an ‘error-signal’ is a difference between actual body weight and set-point body weight. to loose weight is difficult when behavior opposes the physiological defence mechanisms that maintain a stable body weight (cabanac, 2001). thus, to keep body weight under its set-point requires chronic efforts. a similar situation has been found in the studies on the psychological effect of hypoglycemia, which represents a more acute discomfort (andrade, benton, brain, ramirez, & walmsley, 1988; benton et al., 1982; gold, macleod, frier, & deary, 1995; roy, virkkunen, & linnoila, 1988; woods, 1991). on the other hand, passive weight-losers did not have to make efforts to loose weight, thus their actual body weight was presumably congruent with their set-point, i.e. there was no error-signal in their body weight regulation. such a hypothesis would agree with their lower aggressiveness scores, similar to those of controls, because they did not feel the discomfort of the error-signal. we saw above that several specific diets low-fat (wells et al., 1998) as well as high-fat (butki et al., 2003; 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(2003). gender differences in laboratory aggression under response choice conditions. aggressive behavior, 29, 95-106. biographical notes sébastien paradis completed is ph.d. degree in physiology-endocrinology in 2007 at laval university. his work explored several behavioural and physiological aspects of body weight regulation. he is now professor of biology at ste-foy college (québec, canada). his research interests are related to behavioral physiology and health education. j. martin ramirez was born in madrid, and he studied medicine, philosophy and arts, and law at madrid university. he is doctor in medicine and surgery (neuroscience) and in philosophy (pedagogic) and has a diploma in high studies on defense. he presently works at the institute for biofunctional studies and is the head of the department of psycobiology of the universidad complutense madrid. his main scientific field of interest is research on aggression from an interdisciplinary prospective. he is a member of the isra (international society for research on aggression) and has been an official of its council as well as a member of its mass media and united nations committees. he was a representative of the spanish national group of the pugwash movement, nobel prize for peace 1995. dr. ramirez is also a member of the editorial council of the international journal on world peace, the international journal of comparative psychology, and of international journal of evolutionary psychology. michel cabanac (md) is a recognized physiologist, since he chaired iups commission on thermal biology, was invited to write an annual review of physiology, to contribute to the handbook of physiology and to encyclopaedia of neurosciences, and publishes regularly in physiology journals. he is also recognized by psychologists: his deep influence on physiological psychology and motivation, results from his papers on pleasure, and can be recognized in his numerous invitations to address meetings of experimental psychology. corresponding author cabanac, michel département d’anatomie et physiologie université laval québec, canada g1k 7p4 phone : 1-418-656-3068 fax : 1-418-656-7898 email : michel.cabanac@phs.ulaval.ca coefficient alpha research reports coefficient alpha interpret with caution panayiotis panayides*a [a] lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. abstract heavy reliance on cronbach’s alpha has been standard practice in many validation studies. however, there seem to be two misconceptions about the interpretation of alpha. first, alpha is mistakenly considered as an indication of unidimensionality and second, that the higher the value of alpha the better. the aim of this study is to clarify these misconceptions with the use of real data from the educational setting. results showed that high alpha values can be obtained in multidimensional scales or tests given a sufficient number of items. therefore, alpha cannot be an indication of unidimensionality. at the same time, after a certain point, higher values of alpha do not necessarily mean higher reliability and better quality scales or tests. in fact very high values of alpha could be an indication of lengthy scales, parallel items or a narrow coverage of the construct under consideration. researchers are advised to apply caution when reporting alpha. keywords: coefficient alpha, reliability, unidimensionality europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 received: 2013-06-26. accepted: 2013-08-04. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland. *corresponding author at: nikou kavadia 1, k. polemidia, 4152, limassol, cyprus. e-mail: p.panayides@cytanet.com.cy this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in many studies on the construction and validation of psychometric scales heavy emphasis is placed on coefficient alpha (cronbach, 1951). however, there seems to be some confusion as to the true meaning and proper interpretation of this well-known statistic. many authors have pointed out that alpha is inappropriately used in studies mainly because satisfactory, or even high, values of alpha are persistently and incorrectly used as an indication of the unidimensionality of the scale (cortina, 1993; nunnally & bernstein, 1994; schmitt, 1996; sijtsma, 2009; streiner, 2003). the confusion arises from the use of internal consistency and homogeneity as if they were synonymous. internal consistency refers to the degree of interrelatedness between the items whereas homogeneity refers to the unidimensionality of a set of items. internal consistency is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for homogeneity (green, lissitz, & mulaik, 1977). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the formula for alpha is given by where n is the number of items, vt is the variance of the total scores and vt is the variance of the item scores. cronbach (1951) describes alpha as a generalization of the kuder-richardson’s coefficient of equivalence (kr20) that has the following important properties: (a) α is the mean of all possible split-half coefficients (b) α is the value expected when two random samples of items from a pool like those in the given test are correlated (c) α is the lower bound of the coefficient of precision … (d) α estimates, and is the lower bound to the proportion of test variance attributable to common factors among the items … (e) α is an upper bound to the concentration in the test of the first factor among the items (pp. 331-332). cortina (1993) cited a series of definitions and descriptions of alpha and then proceeded to incorporate these in the following description of alpha: it is a function of the extent to which items in a test have high communalities and thus low uniquenesses. it is also a function of interrelatedness, although one must remember that this does not imply unidimensionality or homogeneity. (p. 100) the above description clarifies that high alpha does not necessarily mean unidimensionality. provided that the items have high communalities (i.e., total variance explained by the factor(s), that is, high loadings of items with one or more factors) alpha will be high, especially so if the scale has a large number of items. cortina (1993) has demonstrated, by means of various hypothetical examples, that alpha can be high (greater than 0.7) in spite of low item intercorrelations and multidimensionality, provided there is a sufficient number of items. with average item intercorrelations of 0.50, he found alphas of 0.85 and 0.76 in a two-dimensional and three-dimensional scale respectively, with orthogonal (uncorrelated) dimensions and scale length of 18 items. when the average item intercorrelation was raised to 0.70 alpha values were increased to 0.90 and 0.84. values of alpha and test items since alpha is influenced by the number of items and the inclusion of parallel items, many scale designers fall into the trap of including an unnecessarily high number of items in an attempt to achieve high alphas believing this to be an indication of a good psychometric scale. high values of alphamay indicate item redundancy as a result of numerous items that relate weakly to the construct. it may also indicate items with high inter-item correlations which exhibit a narrow coverage of the construct under consideration, thus causing construct underrepresentation and lowering the validity of the scale (boyle, 1991; 1985; kline, 1979). boyle (1991) argues that in order to maximise the breadth of measurement of the construct one should select items with high loadings on the factors measured but at the same time with low inter-correlations. he suggests that a moderate to low item homogeneity is preferable particularly for the areas of motivation and personality. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 coefficient alpha: interpret with caution 688 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kline (1979) also suggests that each part of the test must be measuring something different (hence the moderate to low item homogeneity). he advises that correlations above 0.70 should be avoided as they make the scale too narrow and too specific. he states that “if one constructs items that are virtually paraphrases of each other, the result would be high internal consistency and very low validity” (p. 292). nevertheless, in some instances perhaps narrow construct coverage is desirable. such cases include if one wants to measure a highly specific attribute of a construct, or if the intention is a selection process which, with the use of a test, aims to isolate only the persons with the highest ability. having the aforementioned in mind, the practice of merely including additional itemsmust be regarded as an unwise method of increasing the reliability of a scale. nunnally (1978) recommends reliabilities of 0.70 or better (but not much beyond than 0.80) for basic research and between 0.90 and 0.95 in cases where important decisions are to be made on the basis of the test scores. this study the aim of this study is to help resolve two misconceptions about cronbach’s alpha. first, that alpha is an indication of the unidimensionality of a scale or test and second, that the higher the value of alpha the better. these are explained through a brief review of the literature (presented in the short introduction) and by means of two examples with real data from the educational setting. example 1 in this example the effects of changes in dimensionality and number of items on coefficient alpha are displayed. in contrast to cortina’s (1993) report, where the two and three dimensions were made orthogonal, in this example the researcher used real data from the educational setting. for the first example data from panayides (2009) were used with permission from the author. the data was comprised of 272 high school students’ responses to a 20item maths test, a 20-item language test and a 6-item maths self-esteem (mse) scale. the two tests were diagnostic tests given to identify weaknesses in basic knowledge in the given subjects with the intention of providing remedial support to those needing it. the maths test contained exercises on algebra (operations with simple fractions, algebraic fractions, expansions, algebraic identities, factorizations, solutions of simple linear and quadratic equations with the use of factorization) and geometry (properties of angles, angles at a point, on a straight line, in a triangle, and in parallel lines). the language test consisted of a reading comprehension, the text for which was unfamiliar to the students, and a grammar exercise. all test questions were of a familiar nature to the students. a marking scheme was provided for each test to ensure uniform marking by all the teachers involved. the mse scale contained items such as “i am quite good in maths” and “i have generally done better in mathematics courses than in other courses” answered on a 6-point likert scale. the tests were administered at the beginning of the academic year to senior high school beginners. initial analyses on the data showed that the maths items had corrected item-total correlations from 0.420 to 0.794. the corrected item-total correlations for the language test varied from 0.204 to 0.507 and for the mse scale from 0.501 to 0.729. alpha was found to be 0.910, 0.751 and 0.842 for the maths and language tests and the mse scale respectively. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 panayides 689 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the two factors of maths ability and language ability, as measured by the two tests, were moderately correlated. the maths self-esteem (mse) factor was highly correlated with the math ability and weakly correlated with the language ability. furthermore, confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was performed on the data in order to confirm the factor structure (the three dimensions) of the data. description of cfa is beyond the scope of this study. it is however worth referring to the goodness of fit (of the model to the data) statistics that are used in this study. brown (2006) refers to three different groups of indices depending on the information they provide and advises researchers to use at least one from each group. for this reason, the researcher used the standardised root mean square residual (srmr) from the absolute fit group of indices, the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) suggested by browne and cudeck (1992) from the parsimony correction fit group and the comparative fit index (cfi) from the comparative fit group. hu and bentler (1999) suggested that reasonably good fit of the model under consideration to the data is obtained for • srmr values close to 0.08 or below. • rmsea values close to 0.06 or below. • cfi values close to 0.95 or greater, in agreement with bentler (1990) who adds that values between 0.90 and 0.95 may indicate acceptable model fit. table 1 below shows the fit indices for two of the sets of data used. first the two-factor model (maths and language) with data from the two tests only and then the three-factor model (maths, language and mse) with the whole set of data. table 1 fit indices for the two models 3-factor model2-factor modelfit index srmr .0490.0500 rmsea .0270.0310 cfi .9450.9380 the fit indices indicate a good fit of the two different models to the two sets of data. the disattenuated correlation (rd) between the maths and language factors in the two factors model was 0.647 (corresponding to attenuated r = 0.538) indicating moderately correlated factors. similarly, table 2 shows the disattenuated correlations in the three-factor model. table 2 factor correlations in the 3-factor model mselanguagemaths maths .0001 language .0001.6500 mse .0001.5280.8390 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 coefficient alpha: interpret with caution 690 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as expected the maths factor and the mse are highly correlated (rd = 0.839 corresponding to r = 0.734) whereas there is a weaker correlation between the language factor and mse (rd = 0.528 corresponding to r = 0.422) alpha calculations alpha was calculated for tests with a different number of items. the tests used included two moderately correlated factors (maths + language), two highly correlated factors (maths + mse) and two more weakly correlated factors (language + mse). in doing so, the researcher complements the study by cortina (1993) who used orthogonal factors. finally a three-factor test was used (maths + language + mse). in order to eliminate bias in the item selection process a randomized design was used. the items used in each test were randomly selected from the data set, two or three at a time thus steadily increasing the test length and this can be considered as representative of the item set. table 3 shows the alpha values and the corresponding standard errors of alpha (ase), for the various sample sizes in the case of the 2-factor test with the two moderately correlated factors of maths and language ability. it is obvious that, despite the two different and distinct factors alpha increases as the test length increases. in fact, with around 10 to 11 items alpha exceeds 0.7 (the minimum value considered satisfactory for psychometric scales), with around 18 to 20 items alpha exceeds 0.8 (a satisfactory value for educational tests) and with close to 40 items alpha exceeds even 0.90. as expected, ase decreases as the number of items increases. table 3 alpha values for various test lengths (2-factor test) asealphalang. itemsmaths itemsno. of items 336 .0480.4920 448 .0350.6130 5510 .0270.6980 6612 .0220.7570 7714 .0200.7730 8816 .0190.7900 9918 .0180.7960 101020 .0170.8020 121224 .0140.8430 141428 .0120.8630 161632 .0100.8810 181836 .0090.8970 202040 .0080.9090 table 4 shows the alpha values for the various sample sizes in the case of the other two 2-factor tests. first a test with the two highly correlated factors (maths and mse) and then a test with the two more weakly correlated factors (language and mse). it is obvious that in the case of the two highly correlated factors alpha reaches 0.8 in a test length of around 7 items and 0.9 at around 16 items. in contrast, in the case of the more weakly correlated factors, alpha reaches 0.80 in a test length of about 16 items. it is clear from the three presented examples that in the case of a 2-dimensional test, given a sufficient number of items alpha will exceed 0.7, or 0.8, or even 0.9, regardless of the dimensionality of the test (this is true only for positively correlated factors). it is also evident that the higher the correlation between the two factors the smaller the number of items required for alpha to exceed 0.80 or 0.90 and the smaller the standard error of alpha. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 panayides 691 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 alpha values for various test lengths (2-factor tests) 2 – factor test (language + mse)2 – factor test (maths + mse) asealphamse itemslang. itemsno. of itemsasealphamse itemsmaths itemsno. of items 112112 .1100.1150.0520.5700 224224 .0600.3990.0360.6370 336336 .0380.5940.0210.7720 448448 .0290.6830.0170.8160 55105510 .0250.7280.0150.8310 66126612 .0190.7850.0110.8770 6101661016 .0180.8000.0090.8940 table 5 shows the alpha values for the various sample sizes in the case of the 3-dimensional test. it is clear that, despite the three different and distinct factors alpha again increases as the test length increases. in fact, with a test length of around 8 items alpha exceeds 0.7, with around 13 items alpha exceeds 0.8 and with around 36 items it exceeds 0.9. table 5 alpha values for various test lengths (3-factor test) asealphamse itemslang. itemsmaths itemsno. of items 2226 .0370.6030 3339 .0260.7140 44412 .0180.7970 55515 .0150.8280 66618 .0130.8560 6101026 .0110.8780 6151536 .0090.9020 6202046 .0070.9250 example 2 this example demonstrates why higher values of alpha do not necessarily mean higher reliability and a better scale or test. for the purposes of this example the researcher refers to the findings of panayides and walker (2013) whose study was on the psychometric properties of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas). they report five different studies, including the original one on the construction of the scale, in which alpha values were indeed very high ranging from 0.90 to 0.96. panayides and walker (2013) investigated the reasons for these high values. of the 33 items only 5 had corrected item-total correlations below 0.5; in fact 15 (almost half) of these correlations were above 0.70, not very desirable values according to kline (1979) because these could suggest a very narrow construct coverage. the range of the construct coverage was investigated by panayides and walker (2013) with the use of the rasch models. these models have a unique advantage over all other models in item response theory, the placement of persons and items on the same axis, with the same measurement units, the logits. figure 1 displays the distribution of person measures on the flca axis and item estimates. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 coefficient alpha: interpret with caution 692 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. distributions of person measures and item estimates. the coverage of the construct by the items of the scale was indeed too narrow. the distribution of person estimates varies from about – 5.0 to 3.0 logits, a range of about 8.0 logits (log-odds units, onto which the raw scores are transformed by the rasch models, thus achieving interval-level measurement from ordinal-level scores). the one person with a measure of approximately 6.0 is the one with the maximum possible score on the scale. similarly the six persons with an estimate of -6.0 are the ones with the minimum possible score on the scale. in a very notable contrast the item difficulties only covered a range of just 1.44 (from –0.76 to 0.68) logits. figure 2 shows the test information function (tif) for the scale used. this curve shows the range of values of the measures for which information about person estimates is high (i.e., where the standard errors of the estimates are small). the ideal shape for a tif is rectangular, meaning high information all over the construct continuum. in this case however, there is a very narrow peak indicating that high information is obtained for about a range from -2.0 to 2.0 logits. as a consequence of this narrow coverage of the construct a large proportion of person estimates, the ones positioned far from the narrow range covered by the items, have larger errors of estimate. thus the precision of these person estimates is jeopardized. panayides and walker (2013) also reported that the scale included many parallel items including a group of six parallel items with very similar statistics (item measures from -0.15 to 0.26 and point measure correlations from 0.63 to 0.76) and high inter-correlations (from 0.46 to 0.69). when any five of these six items are removed, leaving one as a representative of the whole group of the six items, alpha changes from 0.963 to a range from 0.953 to 0.955, depending on which five are removed. therefore, the removal of five of the six parallel items does not significantly affect the value of alpha. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 panayides 693 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. test information function. conclusions given the heavy reliance on cronbach’s alpha in many validation studies, the aim of this study is to clarify possible misconceptions on the following two questions with the use of real data from the educational setting. question 1: is alpha an indication of the unidimensionality of a scale? extending on cortina’s (1993) examples with hypothetical data with two or three orthogonal dimensions, the researcher used data from two educational tests, a maths and a language test, and from a 6-item math self-esteem (mse) scale. the conclusion drawn from these examples is clear. given any combination of a 2-dimensional test (whether the two factors are highly, moderately or weakly correlated) with a sufficient number of items alpha can exceed 0.70 or 0.80 or even 0.90. the researcher suggests that no one can argue that using maths items together with mse items, or language items with mse items will constitute a unidimensional test and yet high alphas can be achieved. in fact, in these specific examples, with only 16 items alpha reached 0.90 in the first case, where the two factors were highly correlated and 0.80 in the second where the two factors were more weakly correlated. a similar conclusion can be drawn from the 3-factor dataset. given a sufficient number of items alpha will reach very high values. therefore, the answer to the first question is that alpha is not an indication of the unidimensionality of the scale since high alphas can be achieved with multidimensional scales, given a sufficient number of items. what alpha indicates is merely the length and the interrelatedness between the items of a scale. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 coefficient alpha: interpret with caution 694 http://www.psychopen.eu/ question 2: are higher values of alpha always better? it is made clear in the literature that very high values of alpha could mean lengthy scales, parallel items, item redundancy or narrow coverage of the construct (or construct underrepresentation). whichever of these reasons applies, it is generally accepted that this lowers the validity of the scale (kline, 1979). in the example referred to in this study the reason for high alpha values was a combination of the aforementioned reasons. the researcher argues that the narrow construct coverage intuitively leads to an oxymoron: after a certain value (say above 0.90), higher values of alpha represent possibly higher item reliability but lower person reliability, in the sense of accuracy of measurement. the explanation is quite simple. narrow construct coverage leads to a larger proportion of person estimates outside the item targeting range, which in turn leads to a larger proportion of higher errors of estimates in the person measurement process. therefore, the precision, and thus the reliability, of person measures decreases. concluding remark researchers are advised to apply caution in reporting alpha and to bare in mind two important facts. first, as reported in the literature and demonstrated in this study, high values of alpha do not necessarily mean that the scale is unidimensional. evidence regarding the factor structure of the data has to be collected through factor analytic methods. second, alpha “should not be too high (over 0.90 or so). higher values may reflect unnecessary duplication of content across items and point more to redundancy than to homogeneity” (streiner, 2003, p.102). furthermore, higher values may reflect a narrow coverage of the construct which jeopardizes the precision of a large proportion of person measures. references bentler, p. m. (1990). comparative fit indices in structural models. psychological bulletin, 107, 238-246. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238 boyle, g. j. (1985). self-report measures of depression: some psychometric considerations. the british journal of clinical psychology, 24(1), 45-59. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8260.1985.tb01312.x boyle, g. j. (1991). does item homogeneity indicate internal consistency or item redundancy in psychometric scales?personality and individual differences, 12(3), 291-294. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(91)90115-r brown, t. a. (2006). confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. new york, ny: the guilford press. browne, m.w., & cudeck, r. (1992). alternative ways of assessing model fit. sociological methods & research, 21(2), 230-258. doi:10.1177/0049124192021002005 cortina, j. m. (1993). what is coefficient alpha? an examination of theory and applications. the journal of applied psychology, 78(1), 98-104. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.78.1.98 cronbach, l. j. (1951). coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334. doi:10.1007/bf02310555 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 panayides 695 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1985.tb01312.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90115-r http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049124192021002005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.1.98 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02310555 http://www.psychopen.eu/ green, s. b., lissitz, r. w., & mulaik, s. a. (1977). limitations of coefficient alpha as an index of test unidimensionality. educational and psychological measurement, 37, 827-838. doi:10.1177/001316447703700403 hu, l., & bentler, p. m. (1999). cutoff crieteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. structural equation modeling, 6(1), 1-55. doi:10.1080/10705519909540118 kline, p. (1979). psychometrics and psychology. london, united kingdom: academic press. nunnally, j. c. (1978). psychometric theory (2nd ed.). new york, ny: mcgraw-hill. nunnally, j. c., & bernstein, i. h. (1994) psychometric theory (3rd ed.). new york, ny: mcgraw-hill, inc. panayides, p. (2009). exploring the reasons for aberrant response patterns in classroom maths tests (doctoral dissertation, durham university, durham, united kingdom). retrieved from http://ethos.bl.uk/orderdetails.do?did=3&uin=uk.bl.ethos.492990 panayides, p., & walker, m. j. (2013). evaluating the psychometric properties of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale for cypriot senior high school efl students: the rasch measurement approach. europe's journal of psychology, 9(3), 493-516. doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 schmitt, n. (1996). uses and abuses of coefficient alpha. psychological assessment, 8(4), 350-353. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.8.4.350 sijtsma, k. (2009). on the use, the misuse and the very limited usefulness of cronabch’s alpha. psychometrika, 74(1), 107-120. doi:10.1007/s11336-008-9101-0 streiner, d. l. (2003). starting at the beginning: an introduction to coefficient alpha and internal consistency. journal of personality assessment, 80(1), 99-103. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa8001_18 about the author panayiotis panayides holds a bsc in statistics with mathematics (queen marycollege, university of london), an msc in educational testing (middlesex university, uk) and a phd in educational measurement (university of durham, uk). he is currently an assistant headmaster and head of the mathematics department at the lyceum of agros in cyprus. his research interests include educational and psychological measurement and research into mathematics education. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 687–696 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.653 coefficient alpha: interpret with caution 696 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/001316447703700403 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118 http://ethos.bl.uk/orderdetails.do?did=3&uin=uk.bl.ethos.492990 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.8.4.350 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11336-008-9101-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa8001_18 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en coefficient alpha: interpret with caution (introduction) values of alpha and test items this study example 1 alpha calculations example 2 conclusions question 1: is alpha an indication of the unidimensionality of a scale? question 2: are higher values of alpha always better? concluding remark references about the author italian family business cultures involved in the generational change research reports italian family business cultures involved in the generational change ruggero ruggieri*a, maura pozzib, silvio ripamontib [a] human, philosophic, and educational science department, university of salerno, salerno, italy. [b] psychology department, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. abstract in family firms, the business and the family are two arenas in which processes significantly overlap and influence management. the present paper investigates the overlap of the family system and the business through the use of culture. adopting an idiographic approach and recognising the unique psychodynamic process of family business (fb), this study aims to identify the cultural patterns within the fb, starting from what families define as a) family, b) business and, c) the generational change. twenty-five family firms were considered during the generational change. the results show how and when this overlap takes shape pointing out how the role of family tradition can became a critical or success factor for the business. keywords: family business, generational change, local culture, eat method, italian family business case europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 received: 2013-05-13. accepted: 2013-12-17. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of human, philosophic and educational science, stecca i, room 2052, via giovanni paolo ii nr 132 84084 fisciano (sa). e-mail: rruggieri@unisa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over the last few years in italy, there has been a marked growth in the amount of interest being given to the theme of family businesses (fbs) and the generational change within them. the growing attention for fbs is due to the economic boom that has distinguished post-war italy and europe, during which many firms have been born. these fbs are currently undergoing a generational change. fbs are a worldwide phenomenon (molly, laveren, & deloof, 2010). over 90% of the businesses in north america, as well as the vast majority of firms worldwide, are family-owned; fb in the united states account for 78% of new job creation, 60% of the national employment and 50% of the gross domestic product. in north america (poutziouris, 2010) andwestern europe, two of every five businesses employ two generations of family members (ward, 2004). approximately 35% of fortune 500 firms are declared as “family firms” (controlled and/or managed by a family). u.s. fbs account for 49% of the gross domestic product, while italian fbs account for 40% of the gross domestic product (montemerlo, 2000). in 2001, ninety-eight per cent of italian manufacturing companies have fewer than 50 employees, yet these companies account for more than 55% of the total manufacturing workforce (office for national statistics, 2001). more recent studies (cucculelli & micucci, 2008) have highlighted that these percentages have risen to 99% and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 77% for firms and employment, respectively, for businesses with fewer than 250 employees. many of these companies either are run as family businesses or have family members as key shareholders who are capable of exerting a significant influence on company affairs. fbs are more generally defined as firms "run and owed by a family" (montanari, 2003, p. 5). however, there is a lack of a clear definition with regard to which elements distinguish family firms from non-family firms (handler, 1989). in general, authors have identified criteria to calculate the degree of "familisation" of firms based on objective and subjective information (handler, 1989). objective information concerns the degree of involvement of the family in the property and management of the firm, the number of generations belonging to the firm, the number of male and female family members potentially involved, and the number of employees. subjective information includes norms, values, expectations and the degree of overlap between the family and business dynamics (montanari, 2003). given the difficulties in defining the phenomenon of fbs based on the variability of objective and subjective criteria, scholars have highlighted the challenge of comparing results across studies. as the literature states, studies on fbs include fbs that are very different from one another (montemerlo & ward, 2005), suggesting that a "chronic lack of empirical studies on the phenomenon is possible" (montanari, 2003, p. 6). ward (1987) defined family firms in terms of succession, including a "family business as one that will be passed on for the family's next generation to manage and control" (p. 252). following a review of 250 articles, chua, chrisman, and sharma (1999) defined fbs in terms of a business managed with the intention to pursue a vision across generations by a coalition of individuals belonging to the same family. the importance of defining what is meant by a common culture or a common vision becomes salient. from a psychological point of view, fbs represent a social phenomenon wherein individual, family, work and cultural aspects overlap. several studies have demonstrated that both the personality of the entrepreneur and the family model strongly characterise the business foundation. thus, fbs represent a highly unique and relevant system that is currently affected by specific critical aspects: • nearly 40% of the family businesses in america and italy will be passing the business (“passing the baton stage”, gersick, davis, hampton, & lansberg, 1997) to the next generation over the next 5 years; • by 2050, virtually all closely held and family-owned businesses will lose their primary owner due to death or retirement in america and italy. approximately $10.4 trillion of the companies' net worth will be transferred by the year 2040, with $4.8 trillion transferred in the next 20 years. only 40% of the family-owned businesses around the globe will survive to the second generation, 12% to the third, and 3% to the fourth; • of all ceos due to retire within the next 5 years, 55% have yet to choose their replacement (gersick et al., 1997). in europe, the asm-sme observatory estimated that in the three-year period of 2001-2004, the percentage of companies involved in a generational change was 68% in 2003, 64% in 2002 and 63% in 2001. the importance and the extent of the phenomenon of fbs has been highlighted by various european commission directives and opinions (european commission & austrian federal ministry for economic affairs and labour, 2002; european commission, 2003, 2006) over the last ten years. these directives and opinions have focused on supporting the transition of fbs and have recommended the adoption of specific policies for this sector. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 80 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the extent of the phenomenon is also supported by additional data that highlight the low prevalence of business success across generations: only 13% of businesses survive the third generation transition, and fewer than twothirds do not progress to the second generation (crescentini, 2007). furthermore, other studies have shown that only 5% of fbs have a successful transition (blotnick, 1984). only three of every ten businesses transition to the second generation, while only one in ten transition to the third generation (kets de vries, 1987). in italy, 45% of employers struggle to ensure continuity. fifty per cent of fbs reach the second generation, compared to 15% reaching the third generation and only 3-4% reaching the fourth generation (pasqualetto, 2007). succession in family firms is more a process than an event (churchill & hatten, 1987; farquhar, 1989; friedman & olk, 1987; gilmore & mccann, 1982; gordon & rosen, 1981; handler, 1990; longenecker & schoen, 1978; vancil, 1987). as handler (1994) states, "succession is not simply a single step of handing the baton; it is a multistage process that exists over time, beginning before heirs even enter the business. furthermore, the effectiveness of succession is not limited to whether a president has been designated; the ongoing health of the firm, quality of life, and family dynamics are critical to the success of the succession process" (p. 134). numerous studies (montanari, 2003; montemerlo, 2000) by both academic and private institutions, such as banks and banking foundations, have highlighted the critical issues related to this particular phenomenon and its impact on the economy of the society at large. one of the critical issues of fbs is the logical overlap between family and business logics (basco & pérez rodríguez, 2009). it is worth considering that recent studies have suggested that inherited management within a family negatively affects the firm’s performance, due to the transfer of family conflicts to the workplace (eddleston & kellermanns, 2007), or a lack of management professionalism. other studies, however, have suggested that family involvement brings significant advantages by diminishing agency problems and bringing unique resources to the family business, namely social capital resources (chrisman, chua, & kellermanns, 2009; dyer, 2006). the heterogeneity within the group of family businesses has encouraged scholars to inquiry upon different ways to distinguish among different types of family firms (basco & pérez rodríguez, 2009; corbetta, 1995; dyer, 2006), developing several classifications. yet the existing set of typologies are mostly based on the amount of family involvement in ownership or management (dekker, lybaert, steijvers, depaire, & mercken, 2013). dyer (1989) has highlighted the importance of family business culture to deepen the insight into these complex systems, where family and business firm merge their boundaries. this “institutional overlap” (lansberg, 1983) between family norms and business rules is widely recognised in the current literature. it has been defined as a common denominator across various theoretical models and analysis grids that have been created by the different subject areas involved, including jurists, economists, tax-consultants, business-studies experts, and psychologists (boldizzoni, 1988; gersick et al., 1997; schillaci, 1990). the aims of this study were to verify and explore this institutional overlap in a group of italian family firms undergoing intergenerational succession and to assess the role played by the “family business culture” (dyer, 1989), intended as the specific cultural traits of the whole integrated system that comprises family and family-owned, family-managed business firm. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 81 http://www.psychopen.eu/ theoretical frame: the local culture since the 1970s, culture has been one of the main interests of anthropology, pedagogy and sociology, resulting in several different definitions with different systems of measurement (tosi & pilati, 2008). nevertheless, organisational behaviour studies have also highlighted the emergence of soft approaches in relation to the hard ones. according to bonazzi (2002), these approaches can be distinguished into cultural approaches (gatrell, jenkins, & tucker, 2001; hofstede, 1993; kunda, 2009; martin 1992; normann, 1986; schein, 1985) and interpretive approaches based on the subjectivity of the sense-making processes (weick, 1995). a relevant part of contemporary psychology ranges from a socio-constructivist origin (bruner, 1990; harré & gillett, 1994; valsiner, 2009; zittoun, gillespie, & cornish, 2009) to a psychodynamic approach (salvatore, davanzati, potì, & ruggieri, 2009). this distinction between culture and interpretative approaches is overcome, and in some ways integrated, through the concept of local culture, which has become recognised as a scientific construct based on its observable and measurable nature (carli & paniccia, 1999; salvatore & scotto di carlo, 2005). according to this perspective, family and organisational (business) dynamics are treated as expressions and consequences of the interpretations that the actors make based on their own context. they are symbolic dynamics that can be defined as local cultures (carli & paniccia, 1999). the local culture (lc) is a specific outcome of the co-existent processes of emotion and thought, where the first process somehow defines and restricts the second process. in other words, the lc is set up in cooperation with the unconscious (emotionality), which governs the processes of emotional categorisation, and the conscious, which controls the operational categorisation (thought) (fornari, 1979; matte blanco, 1975). how does culture work? lc can be considered a mental software that decodes information so that behaviour can be constructed. lc is a specific mental symbolic order that is object dependant and hierarchically organised. it is changed in relation to the objects with which people relate (cesaro & ruggieri, 2011). the adjective “local” underline the situated nature of culture in order to its dependence on the object and target population. lc as an expression of a particular symbolic order does not imply a single thought or action of all the actors within a context. in contrast, lc allows for a plurality of cultural models in relation to the reference objects that determine different opinions, attitudes and behaviours in diverse target population. the actors give meaning and significance to their actions recurring to shared cultural codes, which entail both cognition and emotionality (ripamonti & kaneklin, 2006). every individual is influenced by the culture in which he socially positions himself. in this case, the objects being discussed are a) the family, b) the business and c) the generational change. lc refers to a common platform that generates shared meanings. cultural models precisely represent the ways of interpreting how the actors relate to the lc through different views, opinions and attitudes, all of which are related to the same object. therefore, cultural models describe the variability of sense and meaning present in collective life. identifying the cultural models active in a fb means studying the variability of the active viewpoints in that specific social dimension by tracing them back to a single shared origin: the lc. at the same time, it means understanding the decision making process and the organisational behaviour shaped by the culture models. identifying these cultural models makes it possible to access the plurality of the emotional processuality different ways of thinking and acting in the fb. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 82 http://www.psychopen.eu/ according to this perspective, social and market change, the diffusion of innovative business practices, such as the development of adequate activity planning systems (e.g., those of the generational change), and the general systems of corporate governance are all processes linked to the family and business culture. these processes are also linked to the functions of the active role in the context under study, such as the father/founder. the cultural dimension, which includes channelling and mediating the interpretations of the environment developed by the actors, is a key variable for the development and/or maintenance of the business and a key factor that determines the success/failure of the generation change. for family business systems, emotionality, therefore, do not need to be considered a disturbing element, as claimed by some scholars (dyer & handler, 1994; montanari, 2003). on the contrary, it is a principal and essential dimension of behaviour because of its ability to give meaning and significance to human actions. it gives a meaning to reality, which in some ways is always emotional and never neutral (salvatore & scotto di carlo, 2005). the present study the present study investigated the overlap of the family system with that of the business through the use of local culture. by adopting an idiographic approach (salvatore & valsiner, 2010) and recognising the unique psychodynamic process of fbs (kellermanns & eddleston 2004, 2007; nicholson, 2008), this study aimed to identify the cultural models starting from what families define as a) family, b) business and c) the generational change. these three objects, more than other, can be considered the core elements of the connection between the individuals with the family and the business system: in fact the generational change represents the way through which the actors reinterpret the concept of family and business and direct their actions in future prospective (björnberg & nicholson, 2012). method participants the participants were divided into two equal groups: that of the incumbents, or current heads of the business, mostly company founders, letting go and transferring their leading roles (seniors), and that of the successors, in the process of establishing their role within the firm (junior). in total, there were 50 participants, including 25 seniors (m = 60.5, sd = 3.5; 20 males, 5 females) and 25 juniors (m = 29.9, sd = 4.6; 15 males, 10 females). they were selected using the snowballing technique (morse, 1991). this technique enables the further recruitment of participants with the help of the first participants, who identify other potential participants based on their relationship networks. the industrial association in monza indicated the companies associated with them and which companies were currently undergoing a generational change. given the complexity of several factors of variability in the target population (e.g., turnover, number of employees, industry sector), the sample was balanced on the basis of the following variables: company, position (senior, junior), gender, age, and number of employees. the emotional analysis of text the local culture of the fb, with particular reference to the generational transfer, was identified using the eat (emotional analysis of the text). the eat is a method of content analysis developed in order to explore the emergence of local cultural models characterizing the participants’ narratives in relationship with an object of ineurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 83 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vestigation. it is based on a general theory of meaning and it enables the researcher to code and map the texts produced by the participants in a meaningful way. in fact, it assumes a semiotic and dialogic view of the mind, according to which people use speech to constructively interpret their experiences (salvatore & valsiner, 2010), in a process of intersubjective sense making. according to this view, speech assumes its meaning value in a cultural context, shaping the dialogues and the individuals’ minds at the same time. this method belongs to a family of models focused on representing the content of a text, namely the cultural meanings it conveys. rather like grounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967), it starts from the text and, by mapping the text meaning content through an iterative and interpretative procedure, it comes to define a representation of the textual data in terms of thematic nuclei, or local contexts of meaning. basically, it takes into account the specific interconnections that words create within a particular text, as well as their frequency of appearance (co-occurrence and recurrence). as a method focused on the co-occurrence of words, it pursues to highlight the “contextual effect” of the meaning of single words. in other words, the sense and the meaning do not depend on a single word but instead on the relationship between words within the text. a set of frequently co-occurring words mark a specific thematic context. the eat has been considered a “text-driven” content analysis methodology noted as “fishing expeditions” (krippendorff, 2004, p. 340) because it does not include specific research questions and because it permits significant thematic domains to identify semantic variability of the text corpus rather than a priori categories defined by the scholar (krippendorff, 2004). eat is performed using the t-lab software (lancia, 2000: www.tlab.it). a text is always open to many different levels of interpretation. this kind of semantic analysis reduces the multidimensionality of meaning within a text utilising semantic analysis procedures embodied in the software, which are aimed at ensuring a valid representation of the textual data. the researchers establish the statistical parameters of the analysis performed by the software and then interpret the results (the subsequent mapping of the texts as clusters of linked words) on the basis of a theory of meaning. the inferential process is applied considering the statistical link between words, the same sequence represents an associative chain that is both socially and culturally defined: it is interpreted based on the “free association” technique used in both psychoanalysis and psychodynamic theory. the relationship between words identifies the socio/emotional representation, i.e., the symbolic process that is underway. each word acquires meaning from the previous and following terms, thereby reducing the polysemy that it bears. eat postulates that linguistic production is organised by two types of words: a dense word (lexemes with high polysemy valence and a high emotional communication level, e.g., “enemy”, “bad”) and a not dense word (words with a high ambiguity level and low polysemy, e.g., “which”, “however”). the lexemes (sets of words derived from the same root) have a high polysemic value that may convey, from a symbolic point of view, an infinite variety of meanings. in this sense, they are real keywords full of emotionality. polysemy refers to the infinite emotional association of a meaning that is attributed to a word when it is set from the text corpus that reduces its polysemy. this chain of dense words (lexemes) shows a shared affective symbolisation that is related (via local culture) to the object of investigation. the principle underlying eat is the allocation of the meaning given by the researcher to the relationship between words that belong to different classes of statements. in addition, the reliability and validity that determine the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 84 http://www.tlab.it http://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical power of the eat are based on the person organising a narrative that is as clear as possible for the objects presented to him. according to socio-constructivism prospective, this methodology is essentially a data drivenmethodology (strauss & corbin, 1990) and calls for the theoretical sensitivity of the researchers who have the task of attributing meaning to the data based on abductive logical (hirasawa, ki-chul kweon, & learmount, 2007; krippendorff, 2004) and on a hermeneutic/interpretive activity for understanding the data (gelo, braakmann, & benetka, 2008; krippendorff, 2004; mannetti, 1998). procedure data were collected with the help of unstructured interviews (corbetta, 1995). because the distribution of the vocabulary and the co-occurrence in the vocabulary were relevant, it was important that the respondents were not guided by either predefined themes or contents or procedures for presenting the questions. therefore, the respondents could freely organise their discourse without any subsequent form of influence. the interviews were conducted in such a way that the respondents presented and justified their opinions in the manner they deemed the most appropriate, isolated from any noise, including communication with other family members or the company during the study. the participants interviewed were presented with the following thematic areas that included a stimulus-object for the production of discourse: family, business and generational change. each interview lasted between one hour and one hour and a half. the interviews were transcripted verbatim and then the relative texts united into a single textual corpus. a dictionary was created for the data analysis, and it excluded any pronouns, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, or prepositions, as well as the words “family”, “business/company” and “generational change” due to the subject of our analysis; this dictionary was then introduced to the respondents. the manual procedure of lemmatisation was adopted to reduce each word (e.g., verbs, adjectives, nouns) to the same semantic root (lexemes) to identify the dense words. clusters are obtained by a statistical analysis of the multiple correspondences between the individual lexemes and text segments as well as a subsequent hierarchical factor analysis applying theward technique. each obtained cluster was a set of text segments characterised by the same lexical units (lemmas) and the most characteristic context units (sentences) from which it was composed. thechi-square test (χ2) verified the significance of a word recurrence within each cluster. the lexemes subjected to the statistical analysis of the multiple and factorial correspondence had a chi-square test (χ2) = 11. the dendrogram tool segregated the repartition into five clusters. through the cluster analysis, the relationship between the cluster and the n-dimensional space that represented the latent aspect organising the core semantic oppositions of the text corpus was explored. the relationship between clusters in n-dimensional space was determined using a value test, a statistical measure with a threshold value that corresponds to the statistical significance (p = 0.05) and a sign (/+) that facilitates understanding of the poles of factors detected through correspondence multiple analysis. the first step included interpreting the cluster words (known as cultural models cm) that represent the culture patterns. this step was followed by interpreting the clusters (cm) in the factorial space that represents the local culture related to the object of investigation. the criteria of interpretation are addressed in models of affective europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 85 http://www.psychopen.eu/ symbolisation (carli & paniccia, 2002), which are derived from the primitive system of model categorisation of reality in psychodynamic theory (e.g., in/out, friend/enemy, attack/escape, in front/behind, past/future). results as shown in figure 1, the statistical analysis output is composed of five clusters. figure 1. histogram of clusters. each cluster has a different weight percentage and consists of the specific lemmas (keywords) and some examples of headlines (elementary context units) derived from the interviews. it represents a cultural model of investigated local culture; they are obtained from the inferential nature of the lexemes of each cluster, excluding those with a chi-square (χ2) < 6. the name of the clusters derives from the interpretative activity of data taking in account the sequence of lemmas and the use of lemma in elementary text units (table 1). the threshold of the test value was (-/+) 2 (p = 0.05). the sign (-/+) indicates the factorial pole with which each cluster is associated. the illustrative variables (company, senior/junior, gender, age, number of employees) were not significantly different. they are not included in any clusters, as shown in table 1. the words in italics are the lexemes of these five groups. the statistical criterion of greatness was used, where the cluster associated with the highest percentage had a greater weight in the definition of the factorial plane, up to level 6. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 86 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 the most representative lemmas and the elementary text unit elementary text unitχ2lemmacluster my father is responsible for productionresponsibilitycluster 1 (32.8%): the gilded cage .346 my role is in administrationrole .030 i’m responsible for salessale .722 i’m optimistic about the futurefuture .815 i have the responsibility to guarantee the customersguarantee .712 i always worked and studied at the same timestudycluster 2 (16%): impossible to wrong, impossible to innovate .591 i was luckyluck .138 you must study to excelexcel .223 the training during school is different compared to the practice in the firm.training .115 i was at university. my father was not;university .411 we serve the customers, we produce value for customersservicecluster 3 (7.9%): innovation and crm .4200 we follow the marketmarket .3142 we realise needs for the marketrealise .4131 if we earn money and we produce wealth, we deserve itwealth .6126 first, we always try to invent somethinginvent .112 a symbiotic relationship exists between usrelationshipcluster 4 (33%): worship of the family .158 the family makes these economic results possiblefamily .730 i was born here; this is my second home (the firm), where i have growngrow .429 faith in the parent is fundamentalfaith .320 you enjoy using your social positionenjoycluster 5 (9.7%): the fight for control .430 you can have an expensive holiday for enjoymentholidays .529 we are arguingarguing .419 all seems fantastic from the outside, but there are conflicts of interestsinterest .621 between cousinscousin .512 i want to take his role and be in commandcommanding .57 the cultural models of family business worship of the family (cluster 4, 33%) — the first words are relationship and family, followed by growth and crisis. family represents the place where relationships, in terms of conflicts and comparisons, take place. these comparisons present difficulties and can undermine the family itself, especially when the family is faced with the prospect of change due to the growth of its structure in relation to the original nucleus. however, the crisis is a moment where choices need to be considered and decisions need to be made. nevertheless, these choices can only be based on the concept of family that is similar to that of worship, which is related to faith (i.e., a “belief”), which has its roots in personal authority or conviction. this fideistic dimension of the family is configured as a primary emotional core that gives meaning to action. this code determines how emotional choices and decisions are made. the main idea is based on a mental equation for which the business is the family and the family is the business. this identity is based upon the worship of the family and the business in its original set-up. whoever works in the business, such as the employees, addresses the founders of the family (parents) as if they were their children. both groups are in a subordinate dimension, according to a top-down logic. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 87 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the founders play their role and tend to concentrate on the decision-making processes. they are still in doubt, a condition of uncertain willingness to delegate (connect, colleagues from the latin cum legare) the succession to their children. these children are increasingly seen as children, as if they do not have the right tools to understand and manage their lives because they lack the necessary knowledge, regardless of age or experience. in this perspective, the identity "family = business" is maintained and reinforced by the fideistic connotations, within which the feelings of fear and negativity generated by family ties are experienced. the business is where family ties are discussed based on company performance and how business works. however, these links are maintained exactly the same in their initial set-up and are not modified based on the previously discussed identity, which is nurtured, sustained and nourished by faith in the family. there is therefore hope that everything stays as it is and that there is no future solution of continuity, devoid of any possible element breaking away from the past. thus, the generational change is seen and interpreted as maintaining the status quo or, rather, the status quo ante. discussion of generational change means to shape a figure, leaving a clear and indelible mark (influence) that perpetuates such a way of thinking. this represents a clear advantage (benefit) given that different people are sharing risks and responsibilities (involve) that are grouped together (oblige), similar to a family, around the religion of sales. in this way, the future is ensured (influence). explicitly, the continued existence of both the family and the business is always understood in terms of the present conditions without any changes. according to this logic, the company and family systems seem to be intertwined and therefore closed and highly complicated. however, these systems represent something that should be made sacred (sacrifice) from their tiring and daily sharing of interests and difficulty. from this perspective, the subjects involved in this cultural model do not work to live but live to work, with the fb becoming the organising element upon which their existence is based. the environmental variability is not a useful element in the definition of business processes. in contrast, what counts is the preservation of the current dynamics. the gilded cage (cluster 1, 32.8%) — the first words are occupy and weigh, followed by pass and role. their existence is characterised by a regular commitment (being busy) as the basic premise that makes it possible to consider the possibility of leaving (pass) someone else inside the business to play a role. however, the word role refers to an organisational behaviour from action that is well-defined and limited and is a demonstration of a dynamism, i.e., the ability to uptake and move with a certain speed. however, this capacity remains constrained and inscribed and is always subordinate, which is typical of an employee/worker. this model lacks independence because it is bound by family law and therefore to the figures in power, which makes it possible to hold together the various elements of the business reality through a dimension of control that limits the actions of others. this process guarantees the possibility to build something that is clearly observed in practical (possible) sales policies (sell). it is thus plausible to object to (call) and then follow the difficult generational change, because implementing this generational change made the company's entrepreneurial capacity subordinate to others. it is not the result of clear criteria, such as experience, managerial competence or merit, but rather submission to the laws of the family through an obvious condition of dependency. it is not possible to proceed in any other way. this type of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 88 http://www.psychopen.eu/ affective code highlights that it is useless to acquire experience and do anything different from the business. the most important thing is the close relationship with and dependence on the founder. based on this logic, this model is assigned to the same species (generations) according to an allocation criteria (distribute), with management activity (direct) looking to the future in terms of realising a superior condition of material advantage as the only condition to be able to go on (proceed), always ensuring that the old is never left abandoned, regardless of the socio-economic and market conditions. there have not been any regenerating systems of these processes as changes of the core business elements. commerce is the only ground where it is possible to think differently, where opposing ideas can “clash” and where behaviours that differ from the traditional family and business ones (history) can be implemented. commerce, therefore, is the place where it becomes important to choose the project that counts, e.g., that makes the most profit and enables the company to produce and compete on a global scale (world). the transition from artisan to industry is not easy and requires increased responsibility according to the roles that are covered. the roles are never limited to the business but are also within the family. as the business grows, so does the dependency of the family, which continues to become intertwined, thus forming a golden cage. it is called a cage because the family constraints are always associated with the business, and this cage is golden because one component is the livelihood of the other component. impossible to go wrong, impossible to innovate (cluster 2, 16%) — the first words are study, return, luck, and home. this cluster addresses love and dedication to learning something useful outside the rules of the home to find themselves by chance (luck) in the same place of departure through the rediscovery of belonging to a family, a home (home) and a specific economic status (luck). in this way, you begin to pay off your debt to your parents by handling an obligation or a duty (reply) or by excelling at all costs over everyone, constantly competing. however, this means accepting the differences and, therefore, setting aside any unnecessary, discordant and conflicting points of view. this also means to marry and recognise the reasons, practices and rules to follow (technique), as well as the procedures that are well established and have been in operation for years with which the family has organised itself and its work activities. this affective code highlights how “leaving the house”, in its iconic and symbolic dimension, is something that never really happens. it implies staying at home after having left because there is neither a change expected from the family system nor any degree of renewal. in fact, “leaving the house” means staying in touch (proximity, telephone) with its own membership system. outside the walls of the house, mistakes can also be made as long as they are conceived as a training tool capable of preparing for the future; for example, school, high-school and university programs represent educational systems where it is possible to practice some notions that may be useful for future activities. making mistakes is therefore limited to training, where it is also possible to practice new notions. however, they are not allowed into the home. the way to avoid them is to follow the established rules, which are the measures set by previous generations. this maintains, albeit with some lack, the position acquired by the family (luck), by starting to follow the business through the activities of administration. even in this case, to maintain seems to be an important dimension in europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 89 http://www.psychopen.eu/ keeping and organising both the family and the business relationships. it comes down tomaintaining the economic and social position, similar to the market share. the latter activity is not an easy one. on the contrary, it is full of fighting to support (struggle), especially in relation to the staff, to whom it is possible to do wrong (do wrong). staff who have knowledge of business trends and therefore all types of conflict (war) that occur during work activities and are not an obstacle to happiness but are instead a necessary condition to be able to reach happiness. developing one’s own opinions and deciding which business management support method to adopt does not safeguard against any worries that something important may have been left out or something irrelevant (put) chosen. in this case, all that remains is to anticipate a consultancy capable of offering a more accurate diagnosis for the survival (lasting) of the business and the need for the security of the property. the fight for control (cluster 5, 9.7%) — the first words are boy, friend, soul and enjoy. this cluster addresses a child or an individual who is not an adult and is therefore still involved in minor business activities. it is a friend or a benevolent person with specific favourable qualities and characteristics (soul) that make it possible to take advantage of economic conditions (enjoy), thus satisfying the needs of vacation, as in the case of wives. these are the people with whom sociality is lived and organised through meetings and conflicts originating from exchange. in fact, exchange is defined as taking something for something else. it assumes both the supplying of goods or services in exchange for another good or service and the mistaken identification of a person or object for another. therefore, in some cases, these exchanges are both carriers of information and disagreements that may cause closure in relationships with other family members (close). this element becomes visible in the educational process (educate) of their children and emerges when different personal interests that are different world views are visible in the conceptions of life and in business management. these are the distances that produce arguments (arguing). distances are identified as the defects of others with whom we have a relationship, whether it is a child, parent, wife or cousin. when under these conditions, a strong foundation (base) is needed, i.e., to make decisions that have a starting point and final aim based on the interests of the business (company). at times, it is necessary to block the path of a relative who thinks otherwise (cousin). it may be necessary to equip yourself with good will and make your own way of thinking, vision, and love for the business clear to everyone, including employees. therefore, saving the business (business) means destroying the hostile relative (brother-in-law) and beating him, though this is a source of sorrow and conflict. there is no possibility of avoiding this family conflict because the family’s own future, as well as that of the company, is at stake. it is therefore necessary to acquire the space to command, thereby acquiring a lot of patience and the knowledge that whoever has the role of the employer is the subject of envy (envy). in fact, this can be fun, taking actions that are outside the normal canonical rules that all others are bound to obey. the actions of the employer acquire their own specific weight, by being able to determine an inevitable effect on the fortunes of the company, its employees and other family members. innovation and customer relationship management (crm) (cluster 3, 7.9%) — the first words are serve, market, achieve and wealth. it seems evident that the origin of this cultural model is entirely based on the reasons of the business. through a total dedication (serve) that is capable of satisfying any function or need (market), it is possible to actually achieve (achieve) the desired aim of wealth. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 90 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this activity requires a total dependence on the needs of the market. it must therefore determine and constantly monitor the needs of the market, so it can provide tools that will meet (support) the various needs, depending on the market sector it addresses. it must take the correct direction and trust the abilities of others to recognise the social values and merits of their work (honour) and, thus, of their own identity and family business. this recognition is finalised with the request of a contract (order). in this cluster, the culture of merit prevails. there is a need to be consistent and motivated (persevere) and to accept some sacrifices (compromise) with several incomplete or not fully satisfactory solutions by putting aside feelings (pride) that can somehow appear excessive and unilaterally related to their personality or family and as such, altering the social relations relevant to the business. otherwise, there is a risk of creating isolated positions in the dense web of social and commercial relationships with obvious negative effects on both the business and the “good name” of the family. in contrast, there is a need to assess and consider the customer, as well as the competition, by evaluating with care what the customer needs and the various offers of different competitors. this is done to invest in something solid (money) that makes this assessment simple and easy, which is unnecessary for the sale due to the correct set up of the definition of the product. this process still requires effort (cost) and having to address the risks and sacrifices that can influence a new activity (invent), as well as the return in supplying goods and services to customers. thus, succession is an innovative activity (innovate) made possible (exist), which reflects the professionalism of the history of the business and boasts (boast) a certain aggressiveness (nastiness) in taking risks by immediately predicting market shares and exposing itself and its actions to others. clusters and factorial space the cluster analysis indicated three latent dimensions that organised the semantic opposition in the textual corpus. these dimensions show the position of the clusters in factorial space. the results of the v-test (table 2) indicated significant differences for the following: • factor 1, for clusters 5 (χ2 29.68), 4 (χ2 23.10) and 2 (χ2 10.23) for the negative polarity and clusters 1 (χ2 + 34.66) and 3 (χ2 + 26.14) for the positive polarity; • factor 2, for clusters 3 (χ2 30.75), 2 (χ2 19.01) and 5 (χ2 12.18) for the negative polarity and clusters 1 (χ2 + 22.42) and 4 (χ2 + 17.74) for the positive polarity; • factor 3, for clusters 4 (χ2 20.86) and 3 (χ2 17.87) on the negative polarity and clusters 2 (χ2 + 29.33) and 1 (χ2 + 10.77). in contrast, cluster 5 (χ2 4.09) was not significant. the threshold of the test value was (-/+) 2 (p = 0.05). the sign (-/+) indicates the factorial pole with which each cluster was associated. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 91 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 clusters and factors factor 3factor 2factor 1 cluster tradition/innovationpast/futurefamily/market cl.1 the gilded cage .77+ 10.42+ 22.67+ 34 cl.2 impossible to gowrong, impossible to innovate .33+ 29.0119.2310 cl.3 innovation and crm .87+ 17.7530.14+ 26 cl.4 worship of the family .86-20.74+ 17.10-23 cl.5 the fight for control .0894.1812.6829 combining the data from the relative individual clusters and accounting for their different contrasts on the factorial plane, it is possible to infer other types of actions that define specific management business and family relationships systems. the completeness of the information contained on the factorial plane, which can be defined as a cultural space, also makes it possible to understand the ways in which the generational change takes shape and is carried out. in other words, the cultural space shows the local culture, that is the difference of positioning of each cultural model and the culture dynamic active. the cartesian axes intersect on the zero point and, moving away from it, generate values in opposite directions. therefore, the factorial plane x, y, z is organised on bipolar dimensions for all factors (1, 2, 3). looking at the distribution of the clusters and considering cluster 4 – worship of the family (figure 2) due to its greater statistical power, one can observe that it lies almost in a central location within quadrant d. in contrast, quadrant a shows the presence of cluster 1 – the gilded cage, which also has a central location. together, these two clusters overwhelm the positive semi-axis of factor 2 in quadrants a and d. they also share a fundamental dimension that is associated with family history, the past. in cluster 4, the generational change is something that takes shape in maintaining the status quo, while in cluster 1, some degree of change is expected, but only in commerce policy, because everything else must remain bound to the existing set-up of the family and business systems. in opposition to the past dimension is that of the future. therefore, factor 2 is characterised by the polarity of the past/future. factor 1 is represented by the x-axis (figure 2 and figure 3) and acquires meaning on its negative polarity through the lexemes boy, friend, wife, and parent and on the positive polarity through lexemes such as market, serve, achieve, and produce. a first polarity seems to distinguish between the cultures of the fb and finds its definition in the conflict between family and market (figure 2 and figure 3). this polarity is confirmed by the cultural patterns in the different quadrants. in fact, quadrant c is characterised by two cultural models: cluster 5 (the struggle for control), which is where the future finds significance through a non-peaceful resolution of family conflicts, and cluster 2 (impossible to go wrong, impossible to innovate), which concerns the future in relation to the ability to maintain the position reached. lumpkin, martin, and vaughn (2008) suggest that fbs “have highest potential for interpersonal conflict” (p. 135) in both substantive (disagreement about tasks) and affective terms (negative emotion between members of the family). in general, the literature suggests that these types of physiological conflict need to be managed by the founder during the generational change (guetzkow & gyr, 1954; karofsky et al., 2001; lumpkin et al., 2008; nicholson, 2008). in fact, such conflicts can generate diseconomies. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 92 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. representation of the x-y plane. figure 3. representation of the x-z plane. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 93 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 clearly includes the detailed dynamic between the different cultural models in the semi-axis (past) in quadrants a and d. they interact and organise their lives based on the family. the family is the dimension, or the generative nucleus used to make business choices. in addition, the family logics are characterised by size, which privileges the dynamics of the in-group rather than those of the out-group. these culture patterns shape any form of thought and behaviour according to the relevance of the interlocutors, e.g., the advice received in relation to the internal/external dynamics. everything that is outside the family system does not belong to the pattern and is therefore seen as alien, provocative, or an enemy to be resisted. keeping in mind the negative and positive aspects, pearson, carr, and shaw (2008) warned of the operating mode in fb. they proposed a familiness construct theory to explain the different logic between family firms and non-family firms, noting that family represents both a constraint and an opportunity in terms of social capital. royer, simons, boyd, and rafferty (2008) discussed “nepotism” actions for the logic of self-referential systems, which are actions that do not involve a change or assimilation of information other than those existing within the family history or place of life. internal successors are preferred to external (idem). it is thus impossible to use any information learned externally (cluster 2) because on the outside, the rules of the game differ from those of family and everything must be kept as is (clusters 1, 2, 5). the only possible change is at the top of the system. the motivation that distinguishes these types of behaviour is affiliated for clusters 1 and 2 and power for cluster 5 (mcclelland, 1985). as discussed by montemerlo (2000), these cultures find expression in their inability to use a consultant who is not recognised as a member of the family or as someone who has worked for years with them and is thus unable to understand the family's business processes, such as market logics. according to these cultures, there is no room for information coming from a person who does not frequent the family and the business regularly (e.g., on a daily basis over the course of years). these aspects are more characteristic of the italian fb than the american fb phenomena (montemerlo, 2000), due to the different background linked to the conception of family (zattoni & ravasi, 2000). some management models do not take much account of the environmental variability to which a business is subject and tend to organise their business processes based on mechanical models rather than organic ones (tosi & pilati, 2008). in contrast, clusters 1 and 3 in quadrants a and b interact with each other through the market. they are cultures where the business organises the processes and activities, highlighting how they have varying degrees of openness to the outside and are therefore capable of seizing the business opportunities in the market, though they contrast each other. however, due to its anchorage to the family history, cluster 1 fails to learn and acquire the exploratory capacity that is the very characteristic of the cultural model of cluster 3, where the motivation for success (mcclelland, 1985) promotes the development of the use of any information, regardless of the family system to which it belongs. considering the positioning of the clusters in relation to the third factor (figure 3), the data confirm that quadrant b represents the size of this development within the local culture in question. in fact, the quadrant b applies logics that allow for the existence of merit-based systems through monitoring of the management of the business. it is a control that primarily comes from the market and, therefore, the customer. this new factorial distribution also makes it possible to see how cluster 1 (the golden cage) is again a way in which family tradition meets the market. however, quadrants a and b (figure 3) highlight several interesting differences. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 94 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the innovation of the business process necessarily entails abandoning family traditions because of customer needs. it is worth noting a further element of difference in the ways of relating to the market between the cultures of clusters 1 and 3. while it is not possible to discuss specific production aspects in cultural model 1, it is completely possible in the third model. in fact, it is necessary to start from production aspects. to better understand this difference, the businesses working with the cultural model of the golden cage never question their relationship with the suppliers and vendors with which it has established a relationship of trust, even in light of cost. this is considered acceptable due to the assumed “familiar” relationship that has been acquired. moreover, respect for tradition does not allow questioning this relationship. however, doing so does open up new possibilities while maintaining some traditional aspects. thus, it becomes possible to think of opening up new sales channels through the use of technological tools (e.g., web, mobile phone), while keeping as much as possible unchanged. in contrast, the dominant element that organises cluster 3 (innovation and crm) is the ability to intercept new markets or old markets that require new ways of defining the product and service. in panel d, tradition and family are still the organisers of the sense through which the generational change occurs and are replacements for the vertices that do not require substantial changes (cluster 2 impossible to go wrong, impossible to innovate). in summary, this type of action may use the following statement: “if you do not change, you cannot go wrong”. in addition, an analysis of the factorial plane x-z highlights a highly significant and critical issue through the position of cluster 4 (worship of the family) in quadrant c. a first interpretation appears to show some inconsistency in the data that would call into question its validity and reliability. it raises the question of how it is possible that this cultural model is between innovation and the family. as supported and discussed in the description of the cluster and in the previously mentioned considerations, it is evident that the cultural model of the worship of the family is not the carrier of innovative culture but is instead far from it. the eat literature defined this output as a rare case where it is possible to understand the symbolic variation of emotional issues, such as the family and the business. in this case, we are confronted with ambivalence and ambiguous aspects of the culture (carli & paniccia, 2002). this cultural model highlights how it considers families and business owners who say that innovation processes are very important for the development of their company. they speak of hypothetical realities that are organised as a rhetorical procedure, devoid of any active foundation. their behaviour is similar to those who attend conferences to meet people rather than in response to an interest in the subject. those attending conferences on family businesses consider that the speakers have nothing to teach them. this phenomenon is also due to the italian proverb: “don't air your dirty laundry in public”. this element discusses a more critical issue that is associated with the intervention in or planning of preventive actions for a successful generational change. it is clear how this logic denies any action, sign, or information of support derived from consultants. finally, the explanatory variables (company, position (senior, junior), gender, age, number of employees) considered were not statistically significant, with the exception of those identifying the businesses, which were omitted for reasons of privacy. the lack of cultural differences between juniors and seniors can be explained by the theoretical model used. the culture of the family business, as been studied here, is unlike any other social condition for which the family dieurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 95 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mension does not coincide with the work dimension: it is less susceptible to semiotic stress. it is also less susceptible to symbolic changes. because fathers and children are involved in the cultural processuality, a lack of cultural diversity between their positions can be expected. this is known as the intergenerational influence effect in fb research. by adopting a different theoretical approach, i.e., the symbolic interactionism and theory of planned behaviour, carr, and sequeira (2007) confirmed that parental work experience may have significant effects on children and that these effects can be internalised as norms of behaviour within these children in the future, thereby shaping the entrepreneurial intent of the successor. this strong relationship between the founder and successor explains the lack of statistical significance observed for the other variables. in fact, the individuated cultural models are so shared among the participants that no variables become discriminating. the “company” variable only discriminates the cultural models. in other words, each company is characterised by its organisational culture, as demonstrated using the organisational theory (schein, 2000; weick, 1995). social and cultural vicinity are also considered as good circumstances for the conveyance of skills and competence (ripamonti & scaratti, 2012), as from senior to junior members within the family business. conclusion the aim of this study was to verify the overlap between family and business. our results confirm the existence of different culture models of the family business, which influence the action taken in the course of the intergenerational transition process. we see family, family managed business and ownership as a whole integrated system, wherein the same actors play their role referring to a shared symbolic order (local culture, as defined), which entails both cognitive and affective direction. the local culture show many different kinds of symbolic repertoires and approaches to the intergenerational transition. they are expression of different levels of connection with the general social and economic context. in some cases (worship of the family, the golden cage, the fight for control) there is a marked retreat on the familiar symbolic order, heritage and the web of relationships within the family take the leading role, while the gradual building of the successors’ leadership and skills (salvato & corbetta, 2013) are less represented. in other cases (impossible to wrong; innovation and customer relationship management), there is ample representation of the business context and of relationships outside the family circle (even if it tends to present itself as preoccupation). basically, our research highlight the existence of two kind of passing of baton: focused on family/tradition and focused on market/innovation. as demonstrated by this work, the generational change is a transition of the entire family organisation rather than a simple rotation (handler, 1994). it urges researchers to compare all parties through the structuring of a new symbolic order, e.g., a new culture capable of capturing and using the signs of change within the family and outside. in this perspective, a generational change in business means addressing issues of co-existence between the family generations, which includes tools and other devices, in relation to a generational change confined to the single dimension of succession. limitations and future research directions this study is not without limitations. first, as discussed previously, the literature on family businesses is of a different nature (e.g., economy, organisation, financial, legal studies). unfortunately, it was impossible to access other variables, such as annual turnover, sales indicators, and financial and market indicators (kaslow, 2006). we may have been able to better understand the relationship between cultural patterns of fbs and their origin by comparing these variables with our results. however, the involved firms denied access to these data because they were considered confidential and sensitive information. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 family business dynamics 96 http://www.psychopen.eu/ second, the firms are not homogenous in many aspects. we focused on firms in generational change, thereby reducing variability through the building of a macro category; however, the variability was maintained as a critical dimension of fb studies according to the methodology of the research (montemerlo & ward, 2005). third, other aspects related to individual differences, such as personality, leadership, locus of control, self-esteem, and self-efficacy (gorrese & ruggieri 2012, 2013; lumpkin et al., 2008), could be more informative about the local culture. we did not find studies that crossed individual differences and culture variables in fbs, e.g., the influence of individual differences on family dynamics. the approach in this study highlights the value of the family dimension and has the advantage of identifying the intersubjective depth that distinguishes these types of families. it also highlights how the dynamics of families and businesses should be considered with a different lens according to the context in which the psychological aspects take shape and meaning through the contingency by which the phenomenon occurs. the proposed methodology (eta) allows us to identify the developmental dimension present in the local culture. as discussed, it includes clusters 3 and 1 in factorial space x-z (figure 3). thus, the generation change can be read as the transition between a culture model to another one (i.e., from cluster 4 to cluster 3). from an individual perspective, the generational change or passing of the baton could be considered an identity transition phenomenon between senior and junior (ruggieri & pecoraro, in press). future research should focus on these issues. for example, the construction of family orientation (in terms of trust, tradition, loyalty, equality and inclusiveness values) and its variation in time could be useful in understanding its relationship with the market (lumpkin et al., 2008). to our knowledge, only one paper discusses generational change as an identity transition. in that paper, two clinical cases with a depressive diagnosis were subjected to a clinical intervention. the result of the treatment was the resolution of the transition from the father to the individual’s own rules of life with consequential changes in the rules of business. these entrepreneurs were unable to generate a change in their businesses because of their respect for the father’s values and family tradition (carli, 2008). future studies should use a longitudinal research design to incorporate process variables more than static variables. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the 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(2009). fragmentation or differentiation: questioning the crisis in psychology. integrative psychological & behavioral science, 43(2), 104-115. doi:10.1007/s12124-008-9083-6 about the authors ruggero ruggieri. assistant professor in dynamics psychology (university of salerno), has hold different positions at university of salento including the post as lecturer in organization psychology and clinical psychology. he is member of psychology list and he is also a specialist in human resources & organization development. he earned a ph.d. in community psychology and training education models at university of salento. his research interests concern the models of functioning of the mind and derivatives applications in different sectors according to cultural psychology and idiographic approach. currently he is carrying out researches on passing of baton of family business, mind and temporality, decision making and sense making, reflexivity and methods of psychology intervention. maura pozzi assistant professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she earned a ph.d. in social and developmental psychology in the same university where she is a member of the psychology department and of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research since 2001. her research interests concern family functioning models, particularly focusing on intergenerational dynamics. currently she takes the post lecturer in social and community psychology. she is also co-investigator in several researches on family as well as volunteerism and disobedience. silvio ripamonti assistant professor in organizational psychology psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). he earned ph.d. in organizational psychology. his research interests concern organizational development and change focusing on reengineering processes. adopting the action-research method, he carrying out several researches in collaboration with confindustria (italian industrialists association) for investigating the implicated cultural aspects in success and failure businesses. specifically, his studies focus on the transition events as passing of baton in family business. currently he takes the post lecturer in organizational psychology. he has promoted a several seminaries on work stress and work related health conditions. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 79–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti 103 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9083-6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en family business dynamics (introduction) theoretical frame: the local culture the present study method participants the emotional analysis of text procedure results the cultural models of family business clusters and factorial space conclusion limitations and future research directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors cultural models shaping stalking from a content analysis of italian newspapers research reports cultural models shaping stalking from a content analysis of italian newspapers andrea caputo*a [a] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, rome, italy. abstract the increasing spread of stalking in recent years has captured the community’s and media’s interest and highlighted complex legal, clinical and cultural issues. this phenomenon, far from being an individual problem, can be considered as a product of a growing culture that seems to reveal the crisis of current rules of social coexistence. this work aims at detecting the cultural repertoires that organise the stalking discourse, from an analysis of italian newspaper articles, within a socio-constructivist paradigm. emotional text analysis was conducted on a corpus of headlines and subheadings derived from 496 articles. these articles were published in major national newspapers and helped to identify four cultural repertoires (clusters) that characterise the social representation of stalking: gender violence and women’s social independence (cluster 1), psychological violence and control as illusion of intimacy (cluster 2), anomic violence and intolerant individualism (cluster 3), domestic violence and women’s marital obligation (cluster 4). these repertoires are conceived along three latent dimensions which respectively refer to the cultural functions of stalking (factor 1), representations of the victim (factor 2), and gender inequalities (factor 3). the paper offers a key to a social contextualisation of stalking in italy, in order to re-think work practices within institutional agencies that deal with this phenomenon. keywords: stalking, cultural models, social representations, content analysis, socio-constructivism europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 received: 2013-03-19. accepted: 2013-05-07. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: via pescasseroli 6, 00177 roma, italy. e-mail: caputo.and@libero.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, stalking has increasingly been recognised as a social and legal problem and has captured the community’s and media’s interest. the term “stalking” emerged in the early nineties in the anglo-saxon countries, following some incidents of persecution that involved public personalities from the entertainment world. subsequently, this phenomenon has rapidly increased also in the general population (de fazio & sgarbi, 2009), mainly as product of a growing culture which seems to reveal the crisis of current rules of social coexistence. according to data from the national observatory for stalking (ons) (2009), 20% of the italian population was a victim of stalking, mostly females, 17% out of the total reported it and in 90% of the cases there was a previous relationship between victim and stalker. more precisely, stalking occurred in 55% of cases within couples, in 25% between neighbours, in 15% at work and in 5% within the family (children, brothers/sisters and parents). according to research conducted in italy by the national institute of statistics (istat) (2007), 2 million and 77 thousand women suffered stalking by ex-partners, equal to 18.8% of the divorced/separated italian women, and 48.8% of them were subject to persecutory behaviours (such as unwanted communication, shadowing, threats) before being victim of physical or sexual violence. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to this emergency, the decree-law 11/09 was finally approved in italy; this introduced the new offense of stalking into the penal code (law no 38 of 23 april, 2009). however, despite the growing attention to the issue and the extensive literature produced in recent years, several limitations are found in coming to a clear definition of the phenomenon. consider, for example, the difficulty of scientifically defining and measuring harassing behaviours because of the simultaneous coexistence of normal behaviour and threatening acts that potentially have both clinical and legal consequences (centro documentazione donna di modena, 2010). this difficulty mainly relies on the fact that the stalking definition is often based on the perception of intrusiveness of such behaviour, depending on the victim’s tolerance and reactivity level. indeed, the legal definition of stalking in italy refers to persecutory acts done repeatedly which make the victims experience a serious and continuing state of apprehension and fear for their safety or that of any other person close to the victim and which compel victims to alter their own choices or life habits. in this sense, the offence of stalking deals with both an objective and subjective standard of harm because the offender must intend to cause harm or apprehension and the victim must subjectively experience such an affect. this makes the stalking detection quite complex because the subjective intent of a person can be difficult to prove, as well as the victim’s experience and distress, thus requiring the competence to analyse interpersonal behaviours within a relational perspective. current classifications of stalking thus depend not only on the characteristics of what is classified, but also on the needs of their proponents (curci, galeazzi, & secchi, 2003). the classifications drawn up by several groups (clinical professionals, lawyers, etc.) emphasise their specific objectives and are consistent with their assumptions and languages. indeed, to date, several classification systems have achieved some popularity, since no single system has been firmly established in the literature on the issue. as stated by canter and ioannou (2004, p. 114): “different explanations and their related typologies are derived for different reasons, for example in an attempt to predict dangerousness or to offer aetiologies or to provide guidance to the courts on appropriate sentencing, but this diversity creates a lack of clarity in modelling the actions of stalkers. the mixture of sources of information from which the classifications are derived also adds to this confusion”. theoretical framework despite the heterogeneity of its manifestations, stalking is generally defined as a set of repetitive and intrusive behaviours regarding surveillance and control, search for contact and communication, that are unwanted by the victim that perceives them as arousing concern and fear (de fazio & galeazzi, 2005). in this regard, some authors proposed a definition of stalking syndrome (galeazzi & curci, 2001) including three types of behaviour: unwanted communication, unwanted contact and associated behaviours. unwanted communication deals with letters, phone calls, text messages, e-mails which, usually, are directly addressed to the victim, but may also consist of threats to the victim’s family, friends or colleagues. unwanted contact refers to behaviours that aim at approaching and getting close to the victim in some way, such as shadowing. finally, associated behaviours can range from sending unwanted gifts or floral tributes, to threats and property damage, physical aggression and violence. meloy and gothard (1995) utilise the term “obsessional follower” to describe the individual who persecutes or harasses another person. however, what allows us to define stalking, is not the repetition and persistence of certain controlling behaviours over time, but rather the subjective threat perceived by the victim, who finds such behaviours intrusive and unwelcome (mullen, pathé, & purcell, 2009). as well as research on forensic and legislative interventions (caldaroni, 2009; forum-associazione donne giuriste, 2009), several studies were also developed in clinical setting with regard to the different types of abuser-persecutor’s europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 444 http://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviour (mullen, pathé, & purcell, 2009; mullen, pathé, purcell, & stuart, 1999; wright et al., 1996; zona, sharma, & lane, 1993), psychological impact of stalking on victims (pathé & mullen, 1997) and therapeutic measures promoting both the victim’s recovery and the stalker’s recovery (rosenfeld et al., 2007; warren, mackenzie, mullen, & ogloff, 2005). most of the existing literature on the subject is therefore limited to the legal and psychiatric issues, in accordance with mainstream scientific research that has focused primarily on the criminological and social health field. indeed, these two approaches aim at detecting some criteria which consent to define stalking, mostly seen as deviance from the norm. legal measures are hypothesised to be a good deterrent to stalking, while clinical research is regarded as useful in providing objective indicators for diagnosis and prevention. however, to date, it emerges that legislative interventions are quite ineffective in reducing this phenomenon (modena group on stalking, 2007). in addition, it is not possible to establish a direct relationship between stalking and psychiatric or clinical disorders (gargiullo & damiani, 2008; marasco & zenobi, 2003). this highlights the profound limits of the rationalist postulate, shaping the legal perspective which looks at the individual as rationally oriented to follow social norms, and of the individualistic postulate, mostly taken in clinical research, according to which behaviour is apart from the context and characterised by inner psychological processes (grasso & salvatore, 1997). in this paper, we aim to develop a contextualistic psychological perspective on stalking which overcomes both these postulates based on the split between emotionality and rationality on the one hand, and on the split between individual and context on the other. in order to better understand the subjective component of stalking, the focus has to be moved from a behavioural framework to a socio-constructivist one, which allows the exploration of representations that seem to shape this phenomenon. indeed, human behaviour is regulated not only by cognitive and rational dimensions but also by motivational and emotional dynamics which can affect social relationships, as well as social norms. besides, individual-centred theories share the assumption that the mind (in a broad sense) is contained in people’s heads. such theories do not necessarily deny the importance of relational dynamics and the role of the context. they however attribute structural autonomy to the intrapsychic apparatus and consequently take the individual as the unit of observation. conversely, contextualistic theories do not necessarily reject the intrapsychic; however they consider the intrapsychic dimension to be non-autonomous, but part of a social process that is organised in an environment that includes but also transcends the individual. the present study this paper aims to explore the cultural models which organise the stalking discourse from a content analysis of italian newspapers. by “cultural models” we mean the collusive dynamics, in terms of shared emotional and symbolic components, through which people represent a specific topic or “object” of investigation (carli & paniccia, 2002), in our case stalking. in this perspective, the construct of “collusion” refers to the emotional sharing of affective symbolisations of objects within a context and represents the link between individual models and cultural systems of social coexistence. by social coexistence we mean the symbolic component of human relationships based on shared rules which allows people to exchange and live together. indeed, cultural models do not specifically deal with common sense, in terms of cognitive evaluations, beliefs or stereotypes; rather they include affective meanings which people attribute to reality or social events, and symbolic processes which regulate interpersonal relationships. in this sense, cultural models shape social representations because affective symbolisations that people experience in daily interaction and communication consent to enhance consensus and stability in representations among individuals participating within the same context. the sharing of emotional symbols, which may be either the same or complementary, allows them to relate to each other in a way that mutually satisfies their needs. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 445 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the adoption of a socio-cultural approach, based on an individual-context paradigm (carli, 1990), may allow us to overcome the individualistic and medicalised perspective currently proposed by mainstream research, which mostly aims at detecting the boundary between normality and pathology in the definition of stalking. according to this framework, the social and the individual, the cognitive and the cultural, mind and society constitute functional units and social representations are manifested in any social practice. individuals are socially located and acquire their beliefs about stalking from the discourses and constructions that are available to them. in this sense, media representations of stalking produce and reproduce meaning concerning this phenomenon, for lay people and professionals alike, and mediate individuals’ lived experiences. it is thus possible to explore collective meanings related to our object of investigation, without assuming a normative and well-defined stalking definition or testing specific hypotheses previously assumed by the researcher. the adoption of a socio-cultural approach allows the contextualisation of stalking and the detection of specific collective dynamics which seem to be associated with the risk of stalking situations. this could help institutional agencies to develop attitude change in stalking prevention by making interventions more reflective of local socio-cultural conditions and hence more effective. in detail, we refer to moscovici’s theory of social representations (srt) (moscovici, 1988, 2005) according to which meaning is created through a system of social negotiation from discursive productions, rather than being a fixed and defined thing. in this sense, mass media (newspapers, radio and television) have a fundamental role in the formation and communication of social representations through the rapid communication of ideas and images, because commonsense knowledge is directly related to how people interpret or translate the knowledge that is socially transmitted by means of public information system (sommer, 1998). according to moscovici (1973): “a social representation is a system of values, ideas and practices with a twofold function: first, to establish an order which will enable individuals to orientate themselves in their material and social world and to master it; and secondly to enable communication to take place among members of a community by providing them with a code for social exchange and a code for naming and classifying unambiguously the various aspects of their world and their individual group history” (p. xiii). in this sense, srt can give valuable contributions to media research. indeed, by studying how the media and the public anchor and objectify “new” scientific, political and social issues, we obtain knowledge about vital transformations in the thought-systems or collective meaning-making of societies, because ongoing changes are not only structural material processes but also deeply emotional. in this regard, the analysis of press is meant to reveal the main processes by which media language contributes to the construction of social representations of stalking: processes of anchoring and objectification (moscovici, 2000). anchoring involves the ascribing of meaning to new phenomena by means of integrating it into existing worldviews, so it can be interpreted and compared to the "already known". by naming something, “we extricate it from a disturbing anonymity to endow it with a genealogy and to include it in a complex of specific words, to locate it, in fact, in the identity matrix of our culture” (moscovici, 2000, p. 46). objectification is a mechanism by which socially represented knowledge attains its specific form. it means to construct an icon, metaphor or trope which comes to stand for the new phenomenon or idea. it has an image structure that visibly reproduces a complex of ideas (lorenzi-cioldi, 1997; moscovici, 1984, p. 38). sometimes called the ‘‘figurative nucleus’’ of a representation, an objectification, captures the essence of the phenomenon, makes it intelligible for people and weaves it into the fabric of the group’s common sense. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 446 http://www.psychopen.eu/ information originating from the mass media plays a central role in srt. fewmembers of the public have individual access to knowledge about scientific advances, for example, except through the mass media (moscovici & hewstone, 1983), so it is natural that a study of social representations generally begins with an explication of the content and nature of information being disseminated through the media. as gaskell (2001) pointed out, when a new phenomenon arises, people do not simply sit alone to wonder about the nature of the phenomenon and what it might mean to them or the communities to which they belong. the majority of people will first rely on the media for information and then turn to conversations with family and acquaintances (gaskell, 2001; southwell & torres, 2006). as suggested by moscovici (1998), once a social representation is formed, its power will actually supersede individuals’ own direct experience with a phenomenon, because media contents serve as a proxy for direct experience and may have the same cognitive and emotional force as direct experience (joffe, 2003). at the same time, a social representation allows us to account for the potential effectiveness of the discursive moves that emerge from the co-constitutive relationship between contexts and communicative practices. indeed, discursive practices do not merely reflect an already existing social reality, but they also helps to create that reality, because meanings and representations are dynamically co-constructed by individuals, from their particular social interactions. the analysis of stalking discourse within newspapers could thus provide a portrait of public knowledge and image regarding this phenomenon. method newspapers and collection of articles for the research it was decided to consult italian newspaper articles produced over five years (between 1st january, 2006 and 31st december, 2010) using the archives of the main three national newspapers: la repubblica, corriere della sera and la stampa. the research was carried out by inserting the word “stalk*” in the search engines of the three newspapers, which retrieved all the articles containing the word in the body of the article or in the headline. a careful reading allowed us to select only the articles focusing on the topic, discarding those in which “stalk*” was only mentioned or in which the word was just listed, or used in a metaphorical sense. the result was a sample of 496 newspapers articles (263 from la repubblica, 123 from la stampa and 110 from corriere della sera). emotional text analysis emotional text analysis (aet) (carli & paniccia, 2002) is a psychological tool for the analysis of written texts that allows the exploration of specific cultural models structuring the text itself, thus outlining the “emotional construction of knowledge” of a certain research object, in our case stalking. according to this methodology, emotions are not considered as individual responses but as shared categorisation processes by which people symbolise the reality and are expressed through language, something which is consistent with the theory of social representations. specifically, aet allows to get a representation of textual corpus contents through few and significant thematic domains. it does not derive the internal structure of a corpus from ad hoc categories established by the researcher, but rather from the distribution of the words in the corpus itself, because the sense of a text can be represented in terms of its semantic variability. analysis results can be considered as an isotopy (iso = same; topoi = places) map where each of them, as generic or specific theme, is characterised by the co-occurrences of semantic traits. isotopy refers to a meaning conception as a "contextual effect", that is something that does not belong to words considered one by one, but as a result of their relationships within texts or speeches. the isotopies function help europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 447 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in understanding speeches (or texts); in fact, each of the isotopies detects a reference context shared among a number of words, which however does not result from their specific meanings. that is because the whole is something different from the summation of its parts. isotopy detection, therefore, is not a simple “fact” observation, but the result of an interpretation process. as hall (1997) argued, these “maps of meaning” reflect cultural models as frameworks for classifying the world according to some hierarchical value system and for ordering people’s lives. as gee (2001) noted: “cultural models tell people what is typical or normal from the perspective of a particular discourse… [they] come out of and, in turn, inform the social practices in which people of a discourse engage. cultural models are stored in people’s minds (by no means always consciously), though they are supplemented and instantiated in the objects, texts, and practices that are part and parcel of the discourse” (p. 720). by cultural model we mean a motivational framework for representations that are intersubjectively shared by a social group within a specific context. according to aet, language does not only refer to individuals’ cognitive meanings, but it also expresses the emotional experience which mediates social interactions, as well as practices that are culturally accepted. for instance, the cultural models of immigration do not exclusively account for the public image of the phenomenon; rather they deal with the collusive dynamics, such as affiliation, power or fear, regulating a wide range of aspects within a social system (i.e., school inclusion, labour market access, anti-racism policy, etc.). the basic hypothesis of aet relies on the “double reference” principle both lexical and symbolic implicitly connected to the language text (fornari, 1979). this allows one to capture the emotional and symbolic dimensions running through the text, apart from its intentional structuring or cognitive sense. in this sense, with polysemy, we refer to the infinitive association of emotional meanings attributable to a word, when it is taken out of language context. thus the words organising the language sample can be divided into two large categories: dense words, with the maximum of polysemy, if taken alone, and the minimum of ambiguity in the sense of a contradictory, indefinite emotional configuration (i.e., words like “bomb” or “good”); non-dense words, with the maximum of sense ambiguity and thus with the minimum of polysemy (i.e., words like “to guess” or “anyway”). if dense words, which maintain a strong emotional meaning even when taken in isolation, are identified in a text, they can be grouped according to their co-occurrence in the same text segments, thus creating different symbolic repertoires. for this purpose, text analysis was performed on the corpus composed of only headlines and subheadings (assumed as text segments) because they concisely provide an immediate image of staking representation with the clearest emphasis. indeed, newspaper headlines reach an audience considerably wider than those who read the articles. they have certain linguistic features of titles which make them particularly memorable and effective (such as the choice of emotional vocabulary) and encapsulate not only the content but also the orientation and the perspective that the readers should bring to their understanding of the article (abastado, 1980). they also represent a particularly rich source of information about the field of cultural references. this is because titles “stand alone” without explanation or definition; they depend on the reader recognising instantly the field, allusions, issues, cultural references necessary to identify the content of the articles (maingueneau, 1996). they thus rely on a stock of cultural knowledge, representations and models of reality that must be assumed to be widespread in the society if the headlines are to have meaning. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 448 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis procedures consistently with aet framework, some analysis procedures (cluster analysis and correspondence analysis) were carried out on the text with the help of specific it programs for text analysis, in our case the software was t-lab (lancia, 2004). this manages to obtain groups of words (clusters) which co-occur in the same set of text segments with the highest probability. then, it allows the detection of the latent dimensions (factors) which define the semantic relationships between these groupings. in more detail, the t-lab tool we used for the analysis was the “thematic analysis of elementary context” which transforms the textual corpus in a digital “presence-absence” matrix. to do that, each headline/subheading was considered as a segment of the corpus (namely, an elementary context unit) and represented a row of the matrix, while all the words present in the corpus represented the columns of the matrix. the analysis procedure consists of the following steps: a construction of a data table context units x lexical units (up to 150,000 rows x 3,000 columns), with presence/absence values; b normalization and scaling of row vectors to unit length (euclidean norm); c clustering of the context units (measure: cosine coefficient; method: bisecting k-means); d filing of the obtained partitions and, for each of them; e construction of a contingency table lexical units x clusters (n x k); f chi square test applied to all the intersections of the contingency table; g correspondence analysis of the contingency table lexical units x clusters. this procedure therefore performs a type of co-occurrence analysis (steps a-b-c) and, subsequently, a type of comparative analysis (steps e-f-g). in particular, comparative analysis uses the categories of the "new variable" derived from the co-occurrence analysis (categories of the new variable = thematic clusters) to form the contingency table columns. each cluster consists of a set of text segments characterised by the same patterns of keywords and can be described through the lexical units (lemmas) and the most characteristic context units (sentences) from which it is composed. chi-square test (χ2) allows us to test the significance of a word recurrence within each cluster. the function of the co-occurrence of words in the same cluster is hypothesised to reduce the association of meanings attributable to each word (emotional polysemy), thus allowing a thematic domain to be constructed. these clusters of words, that we call cultural repertoires, can be considered as the main symbolic areas which refer to the social representation of stalking. the interpretative process of each repertoire (that is labelled by the researcher) is based on using models of affective symbolisation (carli & paniccia, 2002) such as, inclusion/exclusion, power/dependence, trust/mistrust to give sense to the words co-occurring in each thematic domain1. in this regard, three different areas of affective symbolisations can be proposed which refer to primitive emotions people use to transform reality into something familiar. they deal with symbolic dichotomies which have a clear reference to the body: inside/outside, high/low, in front/behind. the first dichotomy refers to a dynamic of inclusion/exclusion because what is “inside” is represented as something good and friendly, while what is out “outside” is dangerous and rejected. we could continue with the high/low dichotomy which implies symbols of power or with the in front/behind dychotomy which refers to emotional dynamics of true and false. this inferential process also relies europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 449 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on an in-depth qualitative analysis of the text segments derived from the newspaper headlines/subheadings (i.e., the elementary context units) grouped in each cluster. then, correspondence analysis enables the exploration of the relationship between clusters in n-dimensional spaces, so as to detect the latent factors which organise the main semantic oppositions in the textual corpus. the relationship between the detected factors and clusters is evaluated through test value, a statistical measure with a threshold value (2), corresponding to the statistical significance more commonly used (p = 0.05) and a sign (/+) which helps in the understanding of the poles of factors detected through correspondence analysis. results the analysis detected four cultural repertoires (clusters) shaping the social representation of stalking. table 1 shows both the percentage of the textual corpus of which each cluster is composed of, a list of the most characteristic lemmas (keywords) and some examples of headlines (elementary context units) derived from the newspaper articles analysed. table 1 the most characteristic lemmas in thematic domains cluster 1 (44.6%): gender violence keywords: woman (χ2 = 31.86) denounce (χ2 = 9.14) attack (χ2 = 5.13) victim (χ2 = 4.32) increase in cases of stalking: helping to denounce violence against women stalking, women are victims twice: “the shame of denouncing limits us” violence against women: two attacks a day cluster 2 (14.9%): psychological violence keywords: sms (χ2 = 48.58) phone call (χ2 = 29.44) psychological (χ2 = 23.67) insult (χ2 = 18.76) harass (χ2 = 8.39) annoy (χ2 = 4.59) stalking, sms, e-mail, harassment: love-obsession is the new emergency the art of persecution is the new crime: from kidnapping the cat to insulting. as you can destroy a person violence, assaults, death threats. when love becomes a danger cluster 3 (12.4%): anomic violence keywords: living together (χ2 = 31.86) kill (χ2 = 9.14) home (χ2 = 5.13) kick (χ2 = 4.32) ex-army man threatens and kicks his intolerable next-door neighbour: arrested for stalking man kills twice in the same way: he was denounced seven times for stalking man escapes to kill the woman who accused him of stalking: he shoots her in the face cluster 4 (28.1%): domestic violence keywords: wife (χ2 = 19.51) partner (χ2 = 12.50) finish (χ2 = 9.53) trouble (χ2 = 6.95) beat (χ2 = 5.49) jealous man persecutes his wife: arrested for stalking and rape beatings and threats to ex-wives: abusive husbands arrested for stalking violence, hell is in the family: increase in women’s reports note. the threshold value of chi-square test (χ2) for each lemma is 3.84 (df = 1; p = 0.05). textual data were translated into english only for the purposes of the paper. cultural repertoires gender violence (cluster 1) — this cluster mainly relates stalking to gender violence, given the high rate of stalking cases reported within the female population. “women” are depicted as “victims” who make an effort to “denounce” stalking, perceived as a social “attack” concerning gender-role differences, as reported in most of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 450 http://www.psychopen.eu/ newspapers headings. indeed, the recent cultural changes associated to the increasing independence of women and to the improvement of their socioeconomic status place them at higher risks of victimisation (martucci & corsa, 2009). these changes seem to destabilise traditional beliefs and values on the female roles and power relationships between genders in modern society, traditionally characterised by male dominance. in this regard, sexual inequalities, gender role prescriptions and cultural norms and myths about female submissiveness and male dominance, are considered the main socio-cultural factors conducive to stalking (davis, frieze, & maiuro, 2002; white, kowalski, lyndon, & valentine, 2002). psychological violence (cluster 2) — in this cluster stalking is defined as a form of “psychological” violence characterised by a control dynamic which denies mutual acquaintance and exchange with the other, suggested also by words such as “insult”, “harass”, “annoy”. indeed, “seeking intimacy can readily merge into a desire to control the victim” (canter & ioannou, 2004, p. 123). newspaper headlines evoke “love-obsession” as the main theme of stalking, within a perverse dynamic characterised by expecting affection from the victim. the indirect communication methods used by the stalker, such as “phone calls”, “sms”, letters, email or fax, represent a way to quickly and easily establish an intimate contact with the victim (mullen, pathé, purcell, & stuart, 1999). in this sense, stalking assures the illusion of emotional dominance, as well as feeling of immunity and lacking of responsibility (kamir, 2000). anomic violence (cluster 3) — in this cluster, stalking is depicted as violation of perceived social boundaries and shared norms of social coexistence, as confirmed by opposite terms such as “living together” or “home” and “kill” or “kick” which seems to deny any form of peaceful exchange. it mirrors an anomic and individualistic culture where violence is a means to create social distance and to impose one’s own superiority by attacking what is seen as dangerous for personal or group identity (gargiullo & damiani, 2008). aggressive-destructive behaviour is recognised as one the main themes which emerges from the examination of the existing literature on stalking (canter & ioannou, 2004). indeed, newspaper headlines mainly report cases in which stalking is associated to murders and other criminal acts. in this sense, stalking is mainly considered as a crime which may easily escalate to physical assault, sexual abuse, and even murder, thus threatening individual safety (davis, frieze, & maiuro, 2002; meloy, 1997). domestic violence (cluster 4) — this last cluster relates stalking to domestic violence, in the context of couple relationships, as suggested by the words “wife” and “partner”. it focuses on the marital obligation, characterised by female submissiveness within a patriarchal culture supporting rigid masculine stereotypes about gender and sexual roles (davis, frieze, & maiuro, 2002). in this regard, the co-occurrence between the words “finish”, “trouble” and “beat” seems to suggest this vicious process according to which women’s demand for independence is likely to lead to men’s violent reaction. indeed, most of newspaper headlines relates stalking to pre-existing dynamics of possession, jealousy and abuse within the family context. women tend to feel guilty when they fail to fulfil their family duties and thus responsible for their victimisation, contributing to violence perpetration (voumvakis & ericson, 1984). as stated by mullen, pathé, and purcell (2009), “when victims do make an assertive attempt to extricate themselves, their partners typically react badly, often in a childlike or pathetic manner that exploits the victims’ guilt and sympathy” (p. 47). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 451 http://www.psychopen.eu/ latent dimensions correspondence analysis has detected three latent dimensions which organise the main semantic oppositions in the textual corpus, from the different position of clusters in the space, as indicated by test value (table 2). these three latent factors explain all of the data variance (r2 = 100%). below, figure 1 shows the distribution of clusters within the factorial space, represented graphically on a two-dimensional plane defined by the first (horizontal axis) and the second factor (vertical axis) and, with respect to which, the third factor is ‘‘virtually’’ perpendicular. figure 1. factorial space. cultural functions of stalking: infringe social norms or re-establish conformist traditions (factor 1) — the first factor (40.8% of the total variance) differentiates clusters 2 and 3 from clusters 1 and 4 and refers to two main cultural functions of stalking in terms of its different impact on social relationships. on the one hand, stalking has a transgressive function oriented to provocatively infringe social norms regulating social coexistence, such as values of privacy (cluster 2) and individual safety (cluster 3). on the other hand, stalking shows a corrective function which aims at re-establishing conformist traditions that were socially accepted in the past, associated to the inferior role of women (cluster 1) and to the indissolubility of marital institution (cluster 4). representations of the victim: object to possess or threaten to attack (factor 2) — the second factor (37.6% of the total variance) mainly opposes cluster 2 to cluster 3 and deals with two different representations of the victim, both related to the difficulty to establish an actual exchange relationship. in cluster 2 the victim is conceived as something to possess by control mechanism providing illusion of closeness and intimacy. on the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 452 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 relationship between clusters and factors (test value) factor 3factor 2factor 1 (gender inequalities)(representations of the victim)(cultural functions of stalking) cluster 1 .148.91-0.814 (gender violence) cluster 2 .52-0.667.21-9 (psychological violence) cluster 3 .97-1.82-9.07-6 (anomic violence) cluster 4 .31-7.811.676 (domestic violence) note. the threshold of test value is (-/+) 2 (p = 0.05). the sign (-/+) indicates the factorial pole to which each cluster is associated. contrary, in cluster 3 the victim is seen as threatening personal power and self-preservation, and thus is attacked within a violent dynamics characterised by progressive distancing and emotional refusal. gender inequalities: family or social role of women (factor 3)— the third factor (21.6% of the total variance) differentiates cluster 1 from cluster 4 and refers to a double-faceted dimension of violence against women with regard to gender inequalities. on the one hand, cluster 4 focuses on the traditional image of women within the family context as wives subjects to marital obligation and domestic violence. on the other hand, cluster 1 looks at gender violence as denial of the role and rights of women in the wider social context, historically characterised by male dominance. discussion the aim of this study was to provide a cultural portrait regarding the main social representations of stalking from an analysis of the italian press. four main cultural repertoires were detected which respectively refer to gender (cluster 1), psychological (cluster 2), anomic (cluster 3) and domestic (cluster 4) violence, conceived as existing along three latent dimensions. the first dimension shows two different cultural areas which portray stalking as a phenomenon whose origin is both ancient and modern (centro documentazione donna di modena, 2010). from a historical perspective, stalking seems to refer to the “gap” between traditional values on the wane such as the institution of marriage and the traditional role of women (cluster 4) and most recent values such as the independence of women in modern society (cluster 1). in this sense, the difficulty of criminology to define this phenomenon mainly depends on the paradoxical nature of stalking as both conformist and illegal behaviour (maugeri, 2010). indeed, on the one hand, stalking represents an improper amplification of certain social behaviours that were permitted in the past, such as the exasperation of the courtship ritual (martucci & corsa, 2009). on the other hand, it can be considered as a form of “asocial and destructive behaviour” (gargiullo & damiani, 2008), disruptive of shared values such as privacy (cluster 2) and individual safety (cluster 3) and derived from some changes occurred in contemporary society such as the tendency to voyeurism, hero worship, the lack of boundaries between the public and private sphere, and the development of new mediated communication. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 453 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the second dimension suggests two different forms of stalking based on a double-faceted representation of the victim as “extraneousness” on which to exert power. by extraneousness we mean the diversity of the “others”. collusive processes, regarded as shared affective symbolisations, should thus serve as a means to represent the reality, give sense to social relationships and to reduce the unknown or the different to something known. indeed, in order to promote social coexistence it is necessary that a social system is “open to dialog with the extraneous, in reciprocal processes of assimilation and accommodation which allow for the bridging of differences and interaction aimed at a productive objective” (carli & giovagnoli, 2011, p. 142). according to our results, on the one hand, the extraneous is “converted” by a process of transformation and assimilation into the dominant culture (cluster 2). on the other hand, the extraneous is “attacked” and rejected because it is perceived as a danger to one’s own stable and repetitive identity (cluster 3). in this sense, this result seems to be consistent with wider literature according to which stalking can be classified as minor or mild and as severe or violent (löbmann, 2002; velten, 2003). the first refers to constant attempts of communication against the victims’ will, i.e. by sending them unwanted items; violent stalking, on the contrary, means that the perpetrators insult and abuse the victims, threaten them, damage their property or physically attack the victims. the power relationship between stalker and victim is thus grounded on a double-faceted dynamics characterised by both control and destruction. if we consider such processes as simultaneously present, then we understand the high risk of violence escalation in stalking behaviour (baldry & roia, 2011), which can result in murder as an extreme act to establish control over the victim’s life. because control and destruction are put on the same latent factor, they can be conceived as different modes of expressing the same underlying processes along a continuum rather than as opposite themes. as revealed by a previous study (canter & ioannou, 2004), possession and aggression are regarded as one area of the stalker wishing to reduce the victim to something less than fully human that would be under his/her control. in addition, according to our study results, both these dynamics of stalking share a common destructive function oriented to disrupt social relationships, as indicated by the first latent factor. in this sense, control and destruction could reflect a different intensity of the stalker’s attempts for contact with the victim, possible due to different stages in the development of the stalking process. when the stalker fails to maintain a psychological control over the victim, the stalker’s attempts may thus culminate in a violent attack on the victim. then, the third dimension reveals the strong link between stalking and violence against women, as already indicated by previous research which related stalking to both gender-based (cluster 1) and domestic violence (cluster 4) (weiß & winterer, 2008). in this regard, the persistence of a patriarchal culture in the social hierarchy seems to have favoured the legitimisation of violence against women as functional to the maintenance of an unequal distribution of roles (basaglia, lotti, misiti, & tola, 2006). indeed, the analysis of the press discourse on stalking seems to offer a stereotypical portrait of women, mainly depicted as social victims or weak wives/partners, subjected to male dominance. when males are suspects and women are victims, the story takes on greater newsworthiness (pritchard & hughes, 1997), perhaps because it resonates with larger cultural narratives. such news not only conforms to cultural myths, but assists in enforcing them as well, because cultural narratives of crime serve the function of providing warnings and suggestions for personal risk management and sense making (spitzberg & cadiz, 2002). besides, as stated by corradi (2008), violence against women requires a complex analysis that takes into account some changes that have negatively affected the male identity. these changes do not depend only on the development of women’s social conditions but are also due to wider issues related to the italian context, such as the globalisation of labour market, the lowered prestige of certain professions and the loss of status of middle classes. the financial crisis has led women to enter into the workforce in order to contribute to family income, within a global and competitive economy. this situation has affected the traditional gender roles, according to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 454 http://www.psychopen.eu/ which males are mainly responsible for the economic support and protection of the family, while females are expected to restrict themselves to child-rearing and domestic activities. nowadays, women are provided with equal opportunities in education and employment; instead the male role has increasingly become marginal within the family. in this regard, economic resources are demonstrated to be powerful determinants of whether women enter, remain in, or leave abusive partners (anderson & saunders, 2003; lambert & firestone, 2000), because they can affect, in turn, the access to external services or assistance and contribute to overcome women’s isolation and economic dependence on partners. stalking, as well as other control strategies (i.e., intimidation, degradation, isolation, etc.), could thus represent an extreme attempt to maintain or restore male authority and to secure genderbased privilege by depriving women of their rights and liberties (corradi, 2008). conclusions a careful consideration of these cultural areas could, therefore, provide a key to a social and historical contextualisation of stalking in italy, in order to re-think work practices within institutional agencies that deal with this problem. for instance, the study results show that gender violence could represent a useful framework to analyse stalking in the italian context. in this sense, employers, housing providers, educators and other responsible parties can prevent many cases of stalking by having a clear and comprehensive policy oriented to equal opportunities and respect for human rights related to gender issues. primary prevention could thus be promoted, at both school and workplace, across three levels according to an ecological model: • individual/relationship level, such as individuals’ beliefs in rigid/unequal gender roles, and attitudinal support for violence against women; • community/organisational level, such as culturally specific gender norms, andmale peer and/or organisational cultures that are violence-supportive or provide weak sanctions against violence and/or gender inequality; • societal level, such as institutional practices and widespread cultural norms providing support for, or weak sanctions against, violence against women and/or gender inequality. in addition, research shows that the stalker’s desire to control the victim by searching intimacy with him/her could easily lead to violence and physical aggression, because both these behaviours share a common destructive psychological root. the victim, regarded as object to possess, may thus become an object to attack when control strategies fail. therefore, local law enforcement agencies should not minimise repeated unwanted communications (such as phone calls, letters, email, sms), because they could represent potential signals of stalking escalation, if they are reported over time. then, a relevant component of stalking which emerges from this study is its paradoxical nature, as both illegal and conformist behaviour, aimed at both infringing social norms and re-establishing socially accepted traditions. this means that any institutional agency has to take into account that people who experience stalking may accept their victimisation as something normal, thus contributing to violence perpetration, as it happens in domestic violence. therefore, it is important to support victims to take responsibility for his or her safety by becoming familiar with local stalking laws, resources, and law enforcement policies and also to emphasize that a victim must be assertive to ensure that safety measures are in place, as in the case of protective orders. the implementation of effective prevention and intervention efforts in the field of stalking thus requires integrating criminological and psychiatric issues into a psychosocial perspective, which allows the detection of social and cultural dynamics triggering this phenomenon. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 caputo 455 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, some limitations need to be acknowledged regarding the present study, because of its merely qualitative and exploratory nature. therefore, it does not consent to assess the real spread of stalking and the different related behaviours in the italian context, rather it only provides some cultural cues and thematic areas that need further investigation. in addition, it is not possible to detect a direct relationship between our research findings and social representations in the italian population. indeed, the cultural models of stalking could be characterised by higher variability compared to what emerges from the analysis of the popular press. in this regard, future research could carry out a representative nationwide survey in order to confirm and better explain our results. this would also consent to perform secondary sub-group analyses by geographic location and socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education, employment, etc. to further disentangle the cultural models of stalking in the general population. another limitation deals with the specific focus on newspapers’ analysis that could limit the source of mass media contributing to stalking discourse in the italian context. a future research recommendation would thus be to include other forms of mass communication (i.e., radio, television, internet, etc.) which could differently influence the social representation of the topic. notes 1) as an example of co-occurrence interpretation, think about two different clusters of words regarding the cultural models of immigration: 1) stranger threat terrorism 2) poverty inclusion solidarity we can note that, in the first cluster, immigrant is emotionally regarded as “stranger” and thus as distant from one’s own social system. the following words (threat, terrorism) suggest a feeling of danger and deep mistrust that is evoked by this distance: immigrant represents a powerful enemy from whom to defend oneself, within a conflicting relationship. on the other side, the second cluster relates immigration to “poverty”, which deals with the lack of resources and social disadvantage. the following words (inclusion, solidarity) seem to better define the symbolisation of immigrant as a weak and powerlessness person, who needs for help and social belonging, mainly within an affiliative dynamic. references abastado, c. 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(1993). a comparative study of erotomanic and obsessional subjects in a forensic sample. journal of forensic sciences, 38(4), 894-903. about the author andrea caputo is a clinical psychologist and trainee psychotherapist at the school of specialisation in health psychology (psy.d student), department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, italy. his research interests have mainly been focusing on the individual-context relationship, cultural studies and techniques for text analysis based on social representations theory, in both clinical and psychosocial field. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 443–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.604 cultural models shaping stalking 460 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bsl.593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/088626096011004003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cultural models shaping stalking (introduction) theoretical framework the present study method newspapers and collection of articles emotional text analysis analysis procedures results cultural repertoires latent dimensions discussion conclusions notes references about the author role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction: results from portugal research reports role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction: results from portugal daniel mouraa, alejandro orgambídez-ramos*ab, gabriela gonçalvesab [a] university of algarve, faro, portugal. [b] research center for spatial and organizational dynamics, faro, portugal. abstract with more organizations looking for employees who take initiative and respond creatively to the challenges of the job, engagement becomes important at both individual and organizational levels. engaged employees are generally more satisfied with their work, committed and effective at work. according to the jdr model (schaufeli & bakker, 2004), engagement may be produced by two types of working conditions: job demands (i.e., role stress) and job resources (i.e., self-efficacy). this study examines the role of role stress (role ambiguity and role conflict) and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction. a cross sectional study using online questionnaires was conducted. the sample consisted of 312 portuguese workers. hierarchical multiple regressions analyses have revealed that job satisfaction was significantly predicted by role conflict and work engagement. results support jdr model by showing that positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction, may be predicted by motivational process and job demands. on a practical level, jdr model provides a framework for understanding motivating workplaces and engaged and satisfied employees. keywords: work engagement, role conflict, role ambiguity, job satisfaction, role stress europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 received: 2013-11-03. accepted: 2014-04-07. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: dan ispas, department of psychology, illinois state university, normal, il, usa *corresponding author at: campus de gambelas, 8005-139, faro, portugal. e-mail: aoramos@ualg.pt this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the job demands-resources (jdr) model is a theoretical framework that tries to integrate two fairly independent research traditions: the stress research tradition and the motivation research tradition. according to this model, job demands are initiators of a health impairment process and job resources are initiators of a motivational process. in addition, themodel specifies how demands and resources interact, and predict important organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction or organizational commitment. previous research has shown that the assumptions of the model hold not only for self-reports but also for objective data (bakker & demerouti, 2007). moreover, studies have shown that the jdr model can predict the experience of burnout and of work engagement (demerouti & bakker, 2011). recently, there has been a great deal of interest in employee engagement. may have claimed that employee engagement predicts employee outcomes, organizational success, financial performance (e.g., total shareholder return) and client satisfaction (chaudhary, rangnekar, & barua, 2011). the experience of engagement has been europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ described as a fulfilling positive work-related experience and state of mind (schaufeli & bakker, 2004), and has been found to be related to good health and positive work affect, such as job satisfaction (alarcon & lyons, 2011; maslach & leiter, 2008; saks, 2006; schaufeli & bakker, 2004). in the current economic climate, the employees’ psychological connection with their work is certainly a key to compete effectively (chaudhary et al., 2011). the organizations are in need of employees who are engaged with their work (bakker, van veldhoven, & xanthopoulou, 2010). on the other hand, job stress has been recognized as a significant occupational hazard that can impair physical health, psychological well-being, and work performance. it is assumed that job stress is a mediator between the impact of external job demands (stressors such as role stress) and work-related outcomes (such as job satisfaction, absenteeism, or illness) (maslach & leiter, 2008). a variable closely associated with job stress and engagement in the research literature is job satisfaction. a number of writers have suggested that job satisfaction is of special significance, due to its relationship with other variables such as organizational commitment, intention to quit, and organizational citizenship (alarcon & lyons, 2011; saks, 2006; zhu, 2013). in this sense, this study examines the relationship between work engagement, role stress and job satisfaction, and the role of work engagement and role stress as antecedents of job satisfaction in a sample of portuguese workers. the job-demands and resources model the job demands and resources model (jdr) (schaufeli & bakker, 2004) distinguished two sets of variables in any kind of work: job demands and job resources. they relate, in different ways, to positive and negative outcomes, and can be typical of specific occupations. job demands are physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of work that require a physical and/or psychological effort (cognitive or emotional), and are associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs; instead, job resources refer to those physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that either/or (1) reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs; (2) are functional in achieving work goals; and (3) stimulate personal growth, learning and development. with regard to the relationship between demands-resources and personal and organizational outcomes, maslach and leiter (2008) hypothesized that the presence of specific demands (i.e., role stress) and the absence of specific resources (i.e., self-efficacy) predict burnout, leading to negative results such as job insatisfaction, job rotation, absenteeism, and reduction of organizational commitment. also, the jdr model predicts that while job demands are related to burnout, job resources are related to engagement. recent research has shown strong and positive relationships between job resources and work engagement, and negative relationships between job demands andwork engagement. several studies have revealed that job demands such as a high work pressure, emotional demands, and role stress may lead to exhaustion, disengagement, low job satisfaction, and impaired health (bakker & demerouti, 2007), whereas job resources such as social support, performance feedback, and autonomy may instigate a motivational process, leading to job-related learning, job satisfaction, work engagement, and organizational commitment (demerouti & bakker, 2011). thus, we hypothesize the following. hypothesis 1: there will be a negative relationship between work engagement and role stress. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction 292 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work engagement and job satisfaction employee engagement has emerged as one way for organizations for measure their investment in humans capital (chaudhary et al., 2011). engagement is defined as a motivational and positive construct related to work that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. vigor is characterized by high levels of energy displayed at work and dedication by high levels of meaning for work. enthusiasm and challenge relate to the work one does, while absorption refers to complete concentration and happiness at work when <<time flies>>. work engagement helps individuals deal effectively to the demands of stressful work (britt, adler, & bartone, 2001). according to saks (2006), there is reason to expect employee engagement to be related to individuals’ attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction), intentions, and behaviors. kahn (1992) proposed that engagement leads to both individual outcomes (i.e., quality of people’s work and their own experiences of doing that works), as well as organizationallevel outcomes (i.e., the growth and productivity of organizations). the experience of engagement has been described as a fulfilling positive work-related experience and state of mind (schaufeli & bakker, 2004; sonnentag, mojza, demerouti, & bakker, 2012) and has been found to be related to good health and positive work affect, such as job satisfaction (sonnentag et al., 2012). thus, we hypothesize the following. hypothesis 2: work engagement will positively predict job satisfaction. role stress and job satisfaction role stress is one of the most studied job demands in the literature. role conflict and role ambiguity have been identified as organizational factors associated with burnout, conceptually the opposite of job satisfaction (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011). role conflict is defined as the simultaneous occurrence of two or more role pressures, so that the compliance with one makes more difficult to comply with the other (rizzo, house, & lirtzman, 1970). according to ivancevich and matteson (1980), conflict occurs when more than one role pressure is exerted on an employee, and these two roles conflict with each other. increased role obligations have been shown to cause psychological conflict when multiple roles cannot be fulfilled. other studies have found excessive increase the likelihood of psychological stress (bekker, de jong, zijlstra, & van landeghem, 2000). often role ambiguity is strongly connected with role conflict, and the two topics are researched together. role ambiguity is often seen as an exaggeration factor for role conflict. ambiguity is described as a type of inadequacy where clear information is not present and communication is lacking. according to rizzo et al. (1970), role ambiguity is the degree to which clear information is lacking regarding the expectation associated with a role. ambiguous role expectations (subjective) are associated with greater tension and less job satisfaction than clear role expectations (vandenberghe, panaccio, bentein, mignonac, & roussel, 2011). according to locke (1976), job satisfaction is a kind of pleasant or positive affection state, which grows in the process of evaluating an individual’s work experience (zhu, 2013). as job satisfaction is a reaction directed toward the immediate work environment, an increase in role ambiguity and role conflict may precipitate the decline in job satisfaction. both role ambiguity and role conflict constrain employees’ ability to perform and be effective in their jobs, reducing enjoyment derived from the job (vandenberghe et al., 2011). several studies have supported the relationship between role conflict and role ambiguity and job satisfaction, specifically within teachers, nurses, and services staff (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011; crawford, lepine, & rich, 2010; zapf, seifert, schmutte, mertini, & holz, 2001). thus, we hypothesize the following: hypothesis 3: role stress will negatively predict job satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 moura, orgambídez-ramos, & gonçalves 293 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the current study job satisfaction is an important predictor of negative attitudes and behaviors in the work context. given the negative consequences that may come with low levels of job satisfaction, it is necessary an analysis of the factors that determine job satisfaction, as well as the creation of programs that increase job satisfaction reducing, as a result, negative work behaviors. this is particular important in the portuguese economic context, with new innovative and professional requirements for employees but with scarcity of economic resources. with regard to the portuguese context and according to hofstede (2001), portugal is characterized by a high hierarchical distance, high collectivism, lowmasculinity and high levels of uncertainty avoidance. this last dimension is related to role stress, specifically to role ambiguity. security is an important element in individual motivation and job satisfaction for portuguese workers, and role ambiguity may bring anxiety if there are no roles for working. the jdrmodel pretends that job demands and resources can be distinguished in any kind of occupation, regardless which country people work in. the jdr model aims to be universal, and cultural differences are not expected (bakker et al., 2010; demerouti & bakker, 2011). in this sense, new transcultural empirical evidence is needed to support the universality of the jdr model. moreover, few studies have been realized in the portuguese context analyzing the relationship between job demands (role stress), engagement and job satisfaction, in a cultural context with high levels of uncertainty avoidance. due to the necessity of new cultural evidence about the jdr model and the importance of job satisfaction on organizational outcomes, this study examines the relationship between work engagement, role stress (role conflict and role ambiguity) and job satisfaction, ant the role of work engagement and role stress as antecedents of job satisfaction. method participants the sample consisted of 312 portuguese workers from public and private companies. participants were required to have a minimum of one year’s experience in their professional positions. as for the sample’s socio-demographic characteristics, 71.6% were female, with an average age of 34.59 years (sd = 10.66). 50.7% of the participants were single, and 38.4 were married. measures all the constructs included in the analyses were assessed with perceptual self-report measures based on multiitem scales whose psychometric properties are well established. socio-demographic information— in this section, participants were asked to report age, gender, marital status and years of professional experience. work engagement—work engagement was assessed with the portuguese version of the utrechwork engagement (uwes) (schaufeli & bakker, 2004). the nine items were distributed into three dimensions: vigor (three items), dedication (three items), and absorption (three items). responses to all items were made on a likert-type ranging 0 (“never”) to 6 (“always”). high scores indicate high levels of engagement at workplace. the cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .90. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction 294 http://www.psychopen.eu/ role stress — to measure role stress, we utilized the portuguese version of the role stress scale (rizzo et al., 1970). the role stress scale consists of 11 items distributed into two sub-scales: role ambiguity (six items) and role conflict (five items). responses to all items were made on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“not agree at all”) to 5 (“very strongly agree”). high scores reveal a high presence of role stress in the employees. the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) in this study were .84 and .81 for role ambiguity and role conflict, respectively. job satisfaction — job satisfaction was assessed by the job satisfaction scale (lima, vala, & monteiro, 1994). responses to the eight-item scale were given on a likert-type from 1 to 5, where 1 signifies “not agree at all” and 5 “very strongly agree”. high scores reveal a high presence of job satisfaction in the employees. the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) in this study was .86. procedure a cross sectional study using online questionnaires was conducted. a three-page survey questionnaire in portuguese was utilized as the survey instrument. all participants were required to have a minimum of one year’s experience in their professional positions. they were informed of the study’s objectives and the confidentiality of their data, and they were asked to consent to participate. data analysis data analysis was conducted using spss 20.0 statistical package for windows. the correlations of the different instruments and the reliability coefficients of dimensions were obtained using pearson’s correlation and the coefficient of measurement. hierarchical multiple regression were used to assess the ability of engagement and role stress to predict levels of job satisfaction. results preliminary analysis first of all, before testing the regression models, we examined the measurement models with all study variables: work engagement, role conflict, role ambiguity and job satisfaction. harman’s one-factor test was conducted to test the presence of common method variance (cmv). all the variables items were entered into an exploratory factor analysis, using unrotated principal components factor analysis, and forcing to extract one factor. the factor merged accounted for less than 50% of the variance (32.45%). thus, no general factor is apparent (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). while the results of this analysis do not preclude the possibility of common method variance, they do suggest that cmv is not a great concern and thus is unlikely to confound the interpretations of the results. descriptive statistics and correlations table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis, and intercorrelations of all study variables. the mean score of the variables ranged from 3.97 to 2.21. none of the variables had absolute skewness greater than 1. work engagement and job satisfaction were slightly skewed toward the negative, yet role conflict and role ambiguity were slightly skewed toward the positive. both role ambiguity and role conflict were negatively related to job satisfaction (r = -.35 and r = -.38, p < .01, respectively) and to work engagement (r = -.47 and r = -.15, p < .05). on the opposite, there was a positive and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 moura, orgambídez-ramos, & gonçalves 295 http://www.psychopen.eu/ significant relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction (r = .49, p < .01), so that the higher levels of work engagement in individuals, the higher job satisfaction. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations of all study scales 4321kurskwsdm 11. engagement .770.89-0.021.514 12. role conflict .15*-.78-0.050.890.212 13. role ambiguity .24**.47**-.05-0.560.041.452 14. job satisfaction .37**-.38**-.49**.040.35-0.121.123 *p < .05. **p < .01. testing the hypotheses to test our hypotheses we conducted a series of multiple and hierarchical regression analyses (see table 2). regression models were used to assess the ability of work engagement and role stress (role conflict and role ambiguity) to predict levels of job satisfaction. preliminary analyses were conducted to ensure no violation of the assumptions of normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and homoscedasticity. first, it was tested the ability of both role ambiguity and role conflict to predict levels of job satisfaction. the total variance explained by the model 1 as a whole was 21.1%, f(2, 290) = 38.86, p < .01). both role conflict and role ambiguity were statistically significant, with role conflict recording a higher beta value (β = -.31, p < .01) than role ambiguity (β = -.28, p < .01). next, hierarchical multiple regression was used to assess the ability of work engagement to predict job satisfaction after controlling for the influence of role conflict and role ambiguity. role conflict and role ambiguity were entered at step 1, explaining 21.1%. after entry of work engagement at step 2, the total variance explained by the model 2 as a whole was 33.9%, f(3, 289) = 49.33, p < .01. work engagement explained an additional 12.7% of the variance on job satisfaction, after controlling for the influence of role conflict and role ambiguity,r squared change = .127, f(1, 289) = 16.78, p < .01. in the final model, only work engagement and role conflict were statistically significant, with the work engagement measure recording a higher beta value (β = -.40, p < .01) than role conflict (β = -.30, p < .01). table 2 hierarchical regression results for job satisfaction tbetase bb step 1 constant .936.281.898 role ambiguity .11-5.28**-.070.36-0 role conflict .74-5.31**-.040.25-0 step 2 constant .275.221.446 role ambiguity .62-1.09-.070.12-0 role conflict .98-5.30**-.040.24-0 engagement .467.40**.060.420 *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction 296 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion due to the current scarcity of economic resources, job satisfaction is of interest to researchers and practitioners. now, more than ever, organizations need engaged and satisfied employees. this study investigated the relationship between work engagement, role stress and job satisfaction, and the role of engagement and role stress as antecedents of job satisfaction. the results support the jdr model in a sample of portuguese workers. the results support the relationship between role stress and work engagement. findings confirmed that role stress was negatively correlated to work engagement (bakker et al., 2010; demerouti & bakker, 2011; schaufeli & bakker, 2004). an employee’s engagement level will decrease when presented with increased stress. in addition, the jdr model found that as job demands (stress) goes up engagement goes down. poorly designed jobs or chronic jobs demands (e.g., role stress) exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources, leading to the depletion of energy, absorption, and dedication related to engagement (bakker & demerouti, 2007). a positive and significant relationship between work engagement and job satisfaction was observed in the study. this result is in line with other research studies (alarcon & lyons, 2011; cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011; zhu, 2013), which have shown a positive relationship between engagement and job satisfaction, and a negative relationship between role stress (ambiguity role and conflict role) and job satisfaction. our results corroborate these findings and provide further evidence that job demands and job resources relate, in different ways, to positive and negative outcomes. according to the jdr model, there is a link between both demands and resources in the workplace, and personal and organizational outcomes, such job satisfaction, engagement or burnout (bakker et al., 2010; schaufeli & bakker, 2004). this study suggests that engagement is a key predictor of job satisfaction. these results are consistent with those found in other studies (alarcon & lyons, 2011; demerouti & bakker, 2011; saks, 2006; schaufeli & bakker, 2004). saks (2006) found work engagement had a positive relationship with employees’ job satisfaction and a negative relationship with turnover intention. schaufeli and bakker (2004) also demonstrated that work engagement influences turnover intention and job satisfaction by mediating the relationship with job resources. the positive emotions related to work engagement are likely to result in positive outcomes, such as job satisfaction. according to saks (2006), individuals who continue to engage themselves do so because of the continuation of favorable reciprocal exchanges. as a result, individuals who are more engaged are likely to be in more trusting and high-quality relationships with their employer and will, therefore, be more likely to report more positive attitudes and intentions toward the organization. with regard to role stress and job satisfaction, role conflict and role ambiguity have been identified as organizational factors associated to burnout and low job satisfaction (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011). in this study, both role conflict and role ambiguity were significant predictors of job satisfaction, as observed in other studies (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011; vandenberghe et al., 2011). the multiple demands placed on the workplace appear to create pressure to make decisions on what tasks to do or how to provide all of them with finite resources and time. also, ambiguity surrounding the role in the workplace creates pressure and influences negatively job satisfaction (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011). the tension at work caused by role ambiguity and role conflict had a significant negative correlation with job satisfaction, suggesting europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 moura, orgambídez-ramos, & gonçalves 297 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that the less role stress the workers perceived, the more satisfaction they reported (cervoni & delucia-waack, 2011; crawford et al., 2010; zapf et al., 2001). however, the relationship between role ambiguity and job satisfaction disappeared when engagement was introduced as a predictor of job satisfaction. role ambiguity refers to the degree to which clear information is lacking regarding the expectation associated with a role. the lack of information is negatively related to absorption, one of the engagement dimensions, since it difficulties the complete concentration necessary to be absorbed at work. in this sense, the influence of role ambiguity on job satisfaction may be moderated by engagement, specifically by absorption. having clear information (role clarity as opposite to role ambiguity) about the tasks associated with a role help individuals to be more concentrated and would rise up absorption levels. absorption would create positive feelings at work associated to job satisfaction (demerouti & bakker, 2011). also, the lack of clear working protocols would decrease the feeling of autonomy and self-efficacy. several studies have shown that self-efficacy is a key predictor of engagement (llorens, bakker, schaufeli, & salanova, 2006; llorens, schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2007). the impact of role ambiguity on job satisfaction may be mediated by absorption and self-efficacy, core elements of engagement. there are limitations to the study that have to be addressed. first, the cross-sectional nature of the study limited the findings in that we could not show evidence of causal relationships. second, this study relies on self-reports, which might increase the risk of common method variance (cmv). harman’s one-factor test, however, indicated that cmv did not significantly influence our results (podsakoff et al., 2003). third, the sample size and the distribution of men and women, among others factors, may affect sizes and the power of the results. future studies are to examine this model in other contexts and at different organizational levels, as well as in different samples. in future research, larger samples would allow more sophisticated statistical analyses, analyzing the role of engagement as a mediator between role stress and job satisfaction. to sum up, the jdrmodel provides a framework for understanding engaged employees and engaging workplaces, even in organizational and cultural contexts with high levels of uncertainty avoidance. this framework could be useful in designing strategies for which engaged employees may be advantageous to improving the quality of services, while at the same time increasing employees’ job satisfaction and well-being. funding this paper was partially financed by fct – foundation for science and technology (portugal). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction 298 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references alarcon, g. m., & lyons, j. b. 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(2013). a review of job satisfaction. asian social science, 9(1), 293-298. doi:10.5539/ass.v9n1p293 about the authors daniel moura is ph.d. student at the department of psychology at the university of algarve. his research interests include both basic and applied research on empowerment and work engagement. alejandroorgambídez-ramos is assistant research at the department of psychology at the university of algarve. his research interests include both basic and applied research on empowerment in organizations, work engagement and passion for work. gabriela gonçalves is associate professor at the department of psychology at the university of algarve. her current research focuses on passion for work and conflict in organizations. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 291–300 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.714 role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction 300 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.3.498 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2391486 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02683940610690169 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/job.248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028292 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/job.732 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870440108405525 http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v9n1p293 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en role stress and work engagement as antecedents of job satisfaction introduction the job-demands and resources model work engagement and job satisfaction role stress and job satisfaction the current study method participants measures procedure data analysis results preliminary analysis descriptive statistics and correlations testing the hypotheses discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors organizational science: the new frontier by alexandra ilie in a constantly changing environment organizations face complex challenges and therefore an interdisciplinary level of analysis would be more appropriate in dealing with all these demands. organizational science is an emerging field which attempts to address the shortcomings of other disciplines that work in isolation by studying organizations and how they deal with theoretical and practical problems from a multiple perspective. in this issue’s interview, we talked to dr. steven rogelberg, professor in the first organizational science doctoral program at uncc. dr. steven g. rogelberg is a professor of organizational science and professor of psychology at the university of north carolina at charlotte. in addition, he serves as director of organizational science, director of industrial and organizational psychology, and is the founder/director of the organizational science consulting and research unit. he has over 50 publications and 25 invited addresses/colloquiums addressing issues such as team effectiveness, health and employee well-being, meetings at work, organizational research methods, and organizational development. he served as editor-in-chief of the two-volume encyclopedia of industrial and organizational psychology (2006) and the handbook of research methods in industrial and organizational psychology (2002, 2004). presently serving as editor of the industrial and organizational psychology practice book series. recent honors include being named incoming program chair for the society of industrial and organizational psychology (siop); serving as chair of the siop education and training committee, serving as chair of siop’s katrina relief and assistance effort, serving as a special feature guest editor for organizational research methods; receiving the 2001 bowling green state university (bgsu) psi chi professor of the year award; serving as the 2000 bgsu graduation commencement speaker; and receiving the bgsu master teacher award. dr. rogelberg has received over $300,000 of external grant funding. he has held three international guest professor appointments: the university of sheffield, england, the university of tel aviv, israel, and the university of mannheim, germany. dr. rogelberg currently provides ad hoc reviews for a number of journals, as well as the national science foundation, and serves(ed) on the editorial board for journal of management, group dynamics: theory, research, and practice, the siop professional practice book series and the industrial psychologist. his research has been profiled on public television, radio (e.g., npr, cbc, cbs), newspapers (e.g., chicago tribune; la times, wall street journal, washington post london guardian) and magazines (e.g., national geographic, scientific american mind). companies for whom he has provided consulting services include: ibm, grace cocoa, vulcan materials, national society for black engineers, proctor & gamble, brush wellman, marathon ashland petroleum, center for self-directed work teams, toledo area regional transit authority, mid-american information services, and marshall-qualtec. before completing his ph.d. in industrial/organizational psychology at the university of connecticut in 1994, he received his undergraduate b.sc. degree from tufts university in 1989. ejop: uncc has recently developed a ph d program in organizational science that offers an interdisciplinary approach. what principles have guided the development of this new field and ph d program? steven g. rogelberg: thank you for asking this question. i always look forward to telling people about our doctoral program. organizational science is an emerging interdisciplinary field of inquiry focusing on employee and organizational health, well-being, and effectiveness. organizational science has its origin in four core disciplines: industrial/organizational psychology, organizational behavior/human resources management, organizational sociology, and organizational communication (we have 16 faculty total). despite the congruence of interests across these disciplines, for the most part, the disciplines act fairly independently. what differentiates organizational science from its core disciplines, then, are not the topics of study but, instead, the interdisciplinary perspective with which the topics are studied. organizational science views the world of work from multiple perspectives and paradigms. it is richly interdisciplinary in both philosophy and practice, examining workplace topics from the perspective of each of its core disciplines. consider, for example, the study of group behavior and effectiveness. researchers from human resource management and industrial psychology might look at the selection and training of team members. researchers with organizational behavior and organizational psychology backgrounds may focus on interpersonal processes in groups such as norms, roles, cohesiveness, and conformity. organizational sociologists may examine how the greater context (e.g., society, sector, and culture) in which the group is embedded impacts the group. organizational communication researchers may focus on the communication processes (e.g., persuasion) that facilitate/inhibit group effectiveness. an interdisciplinary organizational science approach integrates the four perspectives to more fully understand the organizational phenomenon in question, thus positively impacting both science and application. it is important to recognize, however, that in its own right, each of the core disciplines comprising organizational science is thriving. despite the success of the four respective disciplines, however, scholars in each discipline acknowledge that the potential impact of any one field on the world of work is mitigated to the extent that researchers and practitioners do not engage in systemic and integrative thinking and research. our program is designed to address the concern that klein and koslowski (2000) write about, “despite the historical and contemporary relevance of organizational systems theory, its influence is merely metaphorical…the system is sliced into organization, group, and individual levels, each level the province of different disciplines, theories, and approaches…the organization may be an integrated system, but organizational science is not” (p. 3). ejop: what are the advantages and disadvantages of an organizational science ph d program over the training offered by classic i/o psychology and business ph d programs? steven g. rogelberg: every doctoral program has strengths and weaknesses. as opposed to contrasting our program with these other types of doctoral programs, let me just point out some of our unique training elements. our students learn both qualitative and quantitative methods. our students take content classes from experts across our 4 disciplines. students can choose to have an “emphasis” in a particular discipline. we mandate an internship for our students. we have a class called “current topics in organizational science” that all students are enrolled in from the start of the program to the end of the program – as a program we meet, discuss and learn together at this time. as for other benefits, we conducted a research study to examine the viability of our program. the first part of the research examined student viability on the job market. 91% of respondents indicated that a job candidate that had been trained in an interdisciplinary organizational science program was just as preferable as, if not more preferable than, a job candidate that had been trained exclusively in the discipline for which they were hiring. this percentage increased to 95% when the organizational science graduate was described as having an “emphasis” or “concentration” and the student’s dissertation chair is from the discipline for which they were hiring. our respondents also provided a host of quotes discussing our paradigm. here is a sampling: “great concept. this is a very well conceived idea and much needed. i always think that the large number of small studies on incremental problems is a result of narrow disciplinary focus (in addition to tenure pressure). your proposed program will produce scholars who are more broad minded and creative. i’m very excited about this idea, and congratulate you for taking on this project” “i think the filed is inherently interdisciplinary, so it makes a lot of sense to have an interdisciplinary program” “the work we do or study is by nature interdisciplinary, so i see this as a great idea. europeans have been doing this for years and we’ve been sadly lagging behind. i think this approach is overdue” “the concept represents a welcome and indeed essential move away from narrow single domain perspectives. the kind of interdisciplinary training being proposed is most likely to meet the future needs of both academia and business” “based on my experience, i believe that a graduate of an organizational science program would be better positioned to succeed in an internal industry position than a graduate of single discipline program” “i think it is a wonderful concept – i believe what happens is that people get pigeon-holed into one discipline, and it is very difficult to move in other directions – it also provides one with a broader perspective and appreciation of other disciplines other than one’s own. in the business world of today and tomorrow, it will be required to possess a broader and deeper perspective and expertise. ejop: the field of i/o psychology has always been open to adopt ideas and theories from other areas of psychology (e.g., social, clinical). what other disciplines can be useful for i/o researchers? steven g. rogelberg: the connection to management is an obvious one. in addition, terrific research is coming out of sociology (e.g., org sociology and social psychology) and communication studies (e.g., organizational communication). economics is another place to look. ejop: many graduate students find it hard to decide whether they want to become practitioners or academics. what do you suggest them to do in order to find out sooner what is their true calling? steven g. rogelberg: become fully invested in your graduate education. take advantage of both practice and research activities. by fully engaging in a host of activities, the student can get a much greater sense of the plusses and minuses of each career track. i also recommend everyone doing an internship. interestingly, for me, i always thought i wanted to go into practice. then, i did my internship at ibm.in my third year. while i really enjoyed it and learned a lot, i realized after the internship that the independence, flexibility, and creativity afforded by an academic career fit me better. plus, i can still engage in practice work as an academic. ejop: what skills do graduate students need to achieve in order to be successful in academia or in the applied field? steven g. rogelberg: in general, i believe the skills needed to succeed in academics are generally the same as the skills needed to succeed in practice. they are thoughtfulness, conscientiousness, the need to manage multiple projects simultaneously, self-starting, perseverant, willingness to continually learn, ability to accept feedback, hard working, diligence and a strong sense of integrity. ejop: it is well-known that many students fear methodology and statistics. what can we do about this and how can students be motivated to show interest in these fields? steven g. rogelberg: methods and stats are our “life blood” as organizational scientists. they are our key tools. our ability to successful use and understand these tools differentiates us from others. if a student is really not showing interest in these areas, i would say they have perhaps chosen the wrong degree to pursue. ejop: your research was featured in the media (tv, radio, and newspapers). how important is it for a scholar to make his ideas accessible to a non-specialized public? steven g. rogelberg: at first, when my research on meetings at work was getting a great deal of media attention it made me uncomfortable. in some regards, as an academic, there is almost a negative stigma associated with doing media work. however, i came to realize that media attention is actually a form of research impact. we all want our research to make an impact. the media can be a key vehicle for getting the word out so that we can positively impact the world of work. as a result, i got to the point of embracing the media opportunities i made myself available for interviews. i have come to believe that we actually need to do more as a profession to get the media to discuss our work. one difficulty worth noting, however, it that it can be incredibly frustrating to see the media distort your comments and misread your work. it is a real battle to get them to publish pieces that you feel capture your findings 100% accurately. ejop: you have done research on the impact of meetings at work. in recent years the number of meetings at work has increased. what impact do these meetings have on people’s well being and effectiveness at work? steven g. rogelberg: is there a cost to having so many meetings when it comes to employee job satisfaction? scholars have yet to find a direct relationship between meeting demands (number of meetings and time spent in meetings) and job satisfaction. instead, the relationship between meeting demands and job satisfaction was found to depend on an individual difference characteristic called accomplishment striving. specifically, individuals with a strong desire to accomplish work goals tend to report poorer job satisfaction as the number of meetings they attend increases. conversely, for those employees who are less goal-oriented, a weak positive relationship between number of meetings in a day and daily well-being was found such that more meetings may be desired, perhaps to permit social interaction or to provide structure to an unstructured day. this research has also shown how nature of the one’s job matters. for employees whose jobs require more interdependent work, time spent in meetings was associated with more job satisfaction. employees whose tasks allowed for greater autonomy reported worse job satisfaction as time spent in meetings increased. for these employees, meetings seemed to interrupt rather than enhance the flow of work. finally, time in meetings perceived as ineffective seems to have the most negative impact on jawb. across two studies, how one feels about the effectiveness of the meetings they attend is the single biggest determinant of job satisfaction, an effect that is only exacerbated as the amount of time spent in these meetings increases. ejop: how could meetings be improved for employees and organization’s benefits? steven g. rogelberg: in my experience, it is quite common to find that most all employees believe that they possess “above average” meeting-oriented skills. obviously, this is not possible. as a result of this misplaced self confidence, it is often the case that people don’t improve because they do not see themselves as needing to improve. training and effective feedback are needed. training in meeting effectiveness could include a variety of learning goals, such as whether to call a meeting, planning and disseminating meeting agendas, critical decision making, active listening, constructive conflict resolution, encouraging participation, and managing cultural differences in meetings. in addition to such training, meeting feedback systems are needed to promote ongoing transfer of this knowledge into improved performance at everyday meetings. organizations should include a meeting behavior dimension on performance appraisal instruments so that employees are held accountable through the performance management process for their performance in meetings. organizations could also use a 360 degree feedback system to assess and provide feedback to the employee on their meeting effectiveness skills from the perspective of the employee’s regular contacts (e.g., their subordinates, their peers). periodic surveys assessing employee perceptions of meeting quality should be administered regularly with the results fed back to those calling and leading meetings. we have been surprised that so many organizations do so little to continuously monitor and improve such an important and time-consuming activity. given the potential costs of unnecessary meetings, employees should know when calling a meeting is more or less appropriate. establish a set of guidelines for people to use. for example, one guideline might state that a meeting should be called when unresolved issues are inhibiting the progress of one or more interdependent projects. help employees see that a variety of communication channels are available, and that a synchronous meeting is just one of many options. when a meeting is deemed appropriate, carefully plan meetings and determine who actually needs to be at the meeting and who should merely be kept in the loop. give employees the ability to opt-out of a meeting if they do not really play a key role. again, they should still be kept in the loop. to run a good meeting, i recommend the following: create an agenda and provide it and any relevant background materials in advance of the meeting. carefully consider the order in which ideas are discussed. establish a set of meeting ground rules to promote participation, focus, and results. discuss leader and participant roles and expectations, and provide constructive feedback when they are violated. evaluate the meeting periodically. either midstream or at the conclusion (or both), the group should reflect on what went well and what could be improved for the next meeting pay careful attention to time. start and end the meeting on time. provide structured, budgeted opportunities for small talk, but don’t waste people’s time. manage the time allocated to agenda items. emergent issues can be tabled for the next meeting, unless they are urgent. migrant men: managing gay and european identities in london gian nicola bagnara london south bank university abstract london and its multicultural arena provide the socio-geographical niche for the qualitative analysis of identity processes. in this report i explore the psychological strategies adopted by migrant gay men to manage multiple identities. grounded theory was used to discover dominant themes emerging from respondents’ narratives about the interplay between european, national, migrant and gay identities. my analysis suggests that multiple identities are managed as a form of resistance against the oppression inflicted by mainstream heteronormative structures. the ‘self in action’, the major emergent theme, downplays fixed identities, chooses amongst the available social scripts, and strives to generate new forms of cultural and social capital. despite a favourable socio-political climate, respondents’ narratives reflect the crisis of the london gay community in providing ‘positive gay visibilities’ that go beyond the commercial scene. the implications of multiple identities for research, as well as the risks involved with qualitative analysis of small samples, are also discussed. keywords: migrant, gay men, multiple identities, national identity, european identity. this study explores the nature of multiple identities in migrant gay men living in london. by using a phenomenological perspective, the stories of eleven gay men have been analyzed to develop a better understanding of the meanings attached to migrant, european, national and gay identities. the study begins with a review of the main social psychological and social constructionist research around identities and highlights the role of social categories (structure) and multiple identities in creative actors (agency) that emerge as dominant discourses around the nature of the self. it then looks at more recent debates to problematise and transcend the structure-agency binary by exploring the interplay between social categories, culture and subjectivity. ultimately, acknowledging both the lack of research conducted in this area and its relevance for infrastructural changes and new governmental policies on migrant sexual minorities, the keogh et al. report (2004), a community based research on migrant gay men, is analyzed and compared to the current study to stimulate a critical approach and new insights for future investigation. the migration process toward big cities and the subsequent formation of subcultural sexual minorities started at the end of the twentieth century. today london’s fame as gay-friendly and culturally diverse appears to be well established (keogh et al., 2004). migrant gay men from within the european union undertake a revolutionary journey characterized by physical and emotional distance from family and their community of origin. unfortunately, despite the actuality of migrant sexual minorities, little research has been done on the interaction between large-scale social identities and personal identities (cinnirella, 1996). for this reason, this report focuses on the interplay between migrant and gay identities with emergent european identity and long established national identities to explain the mechanisms involved in the construction of the self. on the one hand, large-scale social identities are discussed within and against mainstream social identity approaches; on the other hand, the recent work of social constructionists is used to uncover the complexity behind multiple identities and the nature of the self. the european union (eu) is a continent with many different languages, cultures and minority groups but also with shared values. it fosters cooperation among people, promoting unity while preserving diversity as an intrinsic richness of its members. the eu gives to its citizens civil and legal rights (work, movement and residency) and protects them against discrimination (see gateway to the european union, 2004). different surveys have gathered a vast amount of data on attitudes and beliefs towards the european integration, but, only recently, has research tried to explore the emergence of a european identity using a psychological approach. the main theoretical frameworks have been the ones proposed by tajfel and turner’s social identity theory, by turner’s social categorization theory and by moscovici’s social representations (cinnirella, 1996; chryssochoou, 2000; rutland & cinnirella, 2000; ruiz jimenez et al., 2005). the personal narratives of what it feels like being a european citizen have rarely been taken into account (see cinnirella, 1996; 1998). in contrast, the social constructionist’s critique against essentialism and fixity-claims (see waites, 2005) has shifted the debate onto the dynamic nature of identities. both approaches seem to have weaknesses in providing a full explanation of self-identity and they set the debate around two main academic discourses: structure versus agency (jamieson, 2002). social psychological approaches: the role of social structures mainstream social psychology focuses on social representations and categorisation processes as the key features for an understanding of the self (doise, 1997). social representations have been explained as ‘common sense theories about the social world within which stereotypes, attitudes and categorisations are elaborated’ (moscovici, 1998; in chryssochoou, 2000: p 404). they represent meaningful contexts within which people make sense of who they are and group memberships are used to maintaining positive distinctiveness and to enhancing self esteem (tajfel & turner, 1986; in cinnirella 1996). the context-dependent nature of categorisations implies that the self can be explained in terms of comparative processes rather than fixed or absolute dimensions (rutland & cinnirella, 2000). in other words, it was simplistically assumed that in any given situation, a ‘single social identity – that which is highest in salience – will have the most consequences for individuals’ (cinnirella, 1996: p 4). however, in the absence of distinctive memberships inherent in multicultural realities, it is not clear how self-categorisation can fully explain the nature of the self (chryssochoou, 2000). as jamieson points out (2002; p 7), ‘the construction of a category of humans does not necessarily mean that those attributed with membership experience themselves as being that category in any profound sense’. in this regard, jenkins introduces the main social constructionist critique to traditional social psychological approaches. he argues that all identities are developed within a social context; hence the self is constructed as an ongoing product of social practices and discourses (1996; in jamieson, 2002). social constructionist approaches: the role of subjective agency the interplay between subjective experiences of sexuality, society and culture is a challenging phenomenon for psychological research. although essentialist views are still popular in the scientific and political arena, qualitative studies on double minority status, such as sexual and ethnic minorities (see coyle and rafalin, 2000; bennett & coyle, 2001; phellas, 2001), have gained increasing attention in a multicultural europe. phellas has looked at gay minorities that live in communities based on contrasting sets of values. in the case of anglo-greek gay men, ‘the gay community seems to offer emotional support in the expression of sexual orientation; the ethnic community offers cultural identity; mainstream society offers feelings of national and international identity’ (phellas, 1996, p 3). in contrast to mainstream stage models of homosexuality (see troiden, 1993; in garnets & kimmel, 1993), anglo-greek gay men develop a balanced system of multiple identities and gay identity does not become a primary one (phellas, 2002). on the same line, chryssochoou (2000) found that the idea that people construct identities in terms of discrete social categories is not confirmed in multicultural societies where such categories are blurred and continuously negotiated. wetherell and maybin (1996) argue that individuals are able to take on multiple identities and internalise cultural truisms to make up a distributed self. as a consequence, people autonomously choose and change identities. in contrast, a different strand of social constructionism argues that ‘people have one self but many identities, some more primary than others’ (jamieson, 2002; p 3). identities are seen as projections of the self in real life contexts or the result of interaction between subjective self-agency and social structures. contemporary debates: social structures, culture and subjectivity in interaction debates around the nature of the self are still ongoing and quite controversial. according to williams (2000; in jamieson, 2002), if research focuses on structure, self-identity is made up of individual memberships of imposed social categories; whereas when research focuses on agency, multiple identities reflect the efforts of ‘creative actors in shaping the social world’ (jamieson, 2002; p 11) and achieving a sense of unity of the self. for example, markus and nurius (1986, pp 6-7) suggest that the ‘working self’ is best defined by the salient possible selves at a specific time and context. behaviours adopted by the individual would be highly influenced by the desire to realize future possible selves (e.g. fulfilling a gay identity) and to avoid particular outcomes. therefore motivations are confined within the socio-cultural maze and individuals are condemned to choose between culturally defined selves. the theory seems to perpetuate deterministic assumptions of people as passive carriers of social structures. in contrast, the working self can provide a sense of identity based on free choices and personal empowerment. steven (1996; p 275) would define it as ‘the active conscious manifestation about the options available’. i argue that the working self is the individual’s attempt to find a balance between structure and agency but also to generate new social capital as a resistance to dominant cultural norms and social models. the aims of the current study the backlash of biomedical expertise used in sexual politics to support fixity-claims of sexual attractions and identities (waites, 2005) has also emphasized the threat of essentialist approaches as a means to control our lives and ostracize other minorities (e.g. bisexual communities). rejecting essentialist views of homosexuality in research is inevitably considered a political statement. therefore, it is argued here that non-heterosexual subjective experiences and the study of it are fundamental ways to create a new public space where stories circulate within communities and give rise to claims for recognition, legitimization and full citizenship (see also plummer, 1995; in weeks et al., 2001). this report is one of them. the aim of this study was to investigate the strategies that respondents adopt to overcome conflicting identities and if they use calculated consideration of gains and losses based on self interests (see smith, 2005; in ruiz jimenez et al., 2005). i also explored if the desire to realize personal possible selves (e.g. living a fulfilled gay life) influence the strategies for social identity adopted by individuals (markus & nurius, 1986; cinnirella, 1998; weeks, 1991). as the analysis progressed, i focused on whether respondents’ narratives reflect one core vision of the self but many identities (jamieson, 2002) to the detriment of fluid accounts of multiple selves (weeks, 1995; in holt & griffin, 2003). finally, the keogh et al. (2004) report, the only example found in the literature to draw on for a comparison with the current study, was used to raise serious concerns about methodological issues in qualitative research. methodology participants were recruited from the london section of the website www.gaydar.co.uk. gaydar is one of the largest selections of gay individuals on the web, which includes thousands of members. for the purposes of this study, the profiles were chosen and then selected according to two main criteria: • european citizen living in london; and • self-defined gay men. data was gathered through email interviewing using a structured questionnaire. open-ended questions were devised to explore the participants’ life stories with the focus on european and gay identity experiences. however, respondents were mostly british, italian and spanish (see appendix 1 and 2). a crucial issue for contemporary qualitative inquiry is the influence of technology (broad & joos, 2003). the internet offers new means to gather data and to provide information in a private way. early research on identity construction ‘conducted on the web’ assumed that people would create false identities (see turkle, 1995; in broad & joos, 2004). more recent and accepted views instead suggest that the internet is a public space where identities are enacted, reproduced and imagined (see also broad and joos, 2004). in addition, i argue that online interviews might be considered as naturally occurring experiences and a unique opportunity to gather a large amount of discursive data with a minimized influence of the researcher. the knowledge i tried to produce is essentially a set of core categories from which a deeper psychological understanding of multiple identities might be developed. any analytical speculation emerged only after a thorough process of coding, which led in turn to the identification of gradually higher-level categories and, ultimately, new hypothesis. grounded theory provides a powerful instrument to make sense of large amount of data and to develop new directions for exploratory research grounded in subjective experiences (henwood, 1992; 1996; see also strauss & cobin, 1998). hence, the focus of my analysis was an understanding of the meaning that events have for the person being studied (maykurt, 1994). analysis the stories of migrant gay men provide further evidence for the need to explore the ability of people to manage multiple identities and collectively or individually transform social structures (plummer, 1982, 1992; porter and weeks, 1990; weeks, 1991; 1995; in weeks et al., 2001). respondents were asked to express the five more salient and therefore chronically accessible social categories that form the self-concept (spitzer, couch & stratton, 1971; in cinnirella & rutland, 2000). in rutland and cinnirella’s study (2000) participants used personal characteristics, but also social categories such a student (45%), gender (37%) and scottish (33%). interestingly, none activated the category ‘european’ or ‘british’. the authors argue that this is justified by the distance of such categories from a day-to-day life situation. although ‘gay’, ‘migrant’ and ‘nationality’ seemingly should be relevant social categories in daily life, my respondents barely used them and did not rely on one chronically accessible identity. this suggests the main strategy adopted to manage multiple identities: ‘the downplay of social identities and personal identities’; and the ‘self in action’ as the main defining category of the nature of the self. the ‘self in action’ the ‘self in action’ acts upon life and downplays ascribed social structures and personal identities as equally disempowering and damaging for the individual. it is a working hypothesis of liberation from oppression but it also defines the nature of the self. it is shaped by the behavioural style adopted in social interactions with people and by the emotions and feelings evoked by such interactions. the following excerpt provides a summary of the adjectives reported by participants: caring, loving, good, understanding, generous, respectful, honest, loyal, independent, energetic, disappointed, anxious, stressed, frustrated, and lonely. discourses around behaviours, thoughts and feelings define identity and become fairly stable values upon which migrant gay men wave their way through the hazards of life. in line with previous theories, the concept of trust is confirmed as a central tenet in the young adult’s life and it is necessary for adequate functioning (erickson, in carver & scheier, 2004). ‘i think i have always been a reliable person and still i am.’ (p7) the youngest participants instead take a different stand and emphasise self-centred aspects of their personalities, more concerned with individualistic enjoyment. ‘my aim to see as much as there is to see with my own eyes…. my desire to travel and to experience things first hand has been a constant.’ (p10) the self in action reflects the active conscious reflection about the options available (steven, 1996) and generate new forms of cultural and social capital, thus new identities. the following section explores the psychological underpinning of this process. migration: the empowerment of the self in action the move to london represents the beginning of a revolutionary journey whereby respondents step out of a whole system of cultural and social norms to develop what has been defined as practices of freedom or resistance to oppression (weeks et al., 2001). ‘as soon as i finished high school i booked a ticket out of home (emphasis is mine).’ (p3) ‘i was choking… i had to leave my country, its culture and ties. i felt so into the system back home (emphasis is mine).’ (p6) migrant gay men provide evidence for the hypothesis that identities are reinvented and created around relationships and conscious choices (plummer, 1995; steven, 1996). new stories about desired and imagined possible selves are told within and against a heterosexual cultural frame (weeks, 1991). other researchers would argue that multiple identities are downplayed because homosexuals do not wish to be ‘political revolutionaries’ and prefer to lay down a quiet existence within the social order (coyle, 1998; in kitzinger, 2004, p. 529). however, if coyle were right, the ‘stepping out’ of a given social order would remain unexplained. in contrast, london represents a cultural space where the self in action conquers the power of telling new stories about itself. the following excerpt speaks out for it. ‘most people who live here have decided to make this town their own (emphasis is mine), they are willing to variety in its many forms, this attitude includes the desire to interact with people of different backgrounds, race, creed, faith and so on. in london opportunities are there for everyone who dares to make personal dreams (emphasis is mine). people who find themselves uncomfortable with these concepts and lazily prefer to feel “safer” by only mixing with their own “people” will find this big city impossible (emphasis is mine) to sustain and they’ll normally move out to more provincial towns which are more suitable to the way they want to live their lives.’ (p11) respondents react against what i call ‘the biological social system’ (the one in which people have been brought up in). the upbringing of an individual within the normative and compulsory heterosexual society recalls the idea of a mission instilled in ourselves since early childhood as p8 suggests: ‘had i been heterosexual i would have felt more comfortable fitting into the life of the town i grew up in.’ in summary, the construction of the self via categorization processes and rigid social representations is contested as a fiction and imposition from which people can depart. p6 says: ‘london is giving me the opportunity to act without renouncing to my selfhood.’ as it is becoming clear, the self in action represents the authentic and unitary entity that, for example, p11 discovered in ‘london, the place where i found my voice.’ the interplay of european identity and migrant status almost unanimously, respondents moved to london because they had prior knowledge of what the city could have offered. the decision-making process relied on a high sense of self-drive and some facilitators such as friends already established in the city, a certain knowledge of the language, and enough savings to live for a couple of months. now, whether because they have bought a house, they fulfilled a career, they are studying, they pay taxes, they had their best experiences, these men have found their voices here and they perceive full citizenship. ‘i have got the right to be here as any other eu citizen. i have got friends, i work and study here, i pay taxes… hopefully one day i will buy a house. i feel part of it…’ (p6) the multitude of sensory inputs provided by london’s multicultural society is portrayed as an element of enhanced possibilities and challenges to one’s views and ideas. the self in action takes the form of a ‘pick and choose personality’ (p10) through which migrant gay men can take advantage of the ‘rainbow of possibilities’ (p6). norms are blurred and new lifestyles are invented and become available for grasp. however, the interaction between integration and diversity is not free from negativisms. p1 says that ‘there is a clear distinction between ‘british’ and everyone else, and often also amongst the many ‘types’ of british associated to skin colour, passport type, birth rights and so on.’ in other words, london’s multicultural society is located in a geographical space ruled by the british national authority. as plummer points out, the new stories still flow within a stream of social power that distributes control and regulation (1995). the positive distinctiveness and self-esteem (tajfel and turner, 1979; 1986; in cinnirella, 1998) gained through large-scale social identities have been confirmed by the analysis of the subjective meanings of such memberships and their interaction with other salient identities. for example, the eu legitimates respondents’ perceptions of full citizenship. multiculturalism instead is the means through which such citizenship is developed, although within and against the main british culture. despite legitimate doubts about its future, respondents unanimously elect the eu as an acting regulator of human rights, equal opportunities, cultural growth and democracy. ‘i don’t have much knowledge of the european union, but i do think it serves an important role, particularly in terms of human rights and democracy.’ (p8) european identities seem to be based on individual self-interest. personal evaluations of costs and benefits, together with the functioning of the national and european institutions, will decide the level of identification (ruiz-jimenez et al., 2005). the meanings attached to the european union and european identity at a collective level of abstraction are turned upside down when the subjective experiences of ‘being european’ or having a ‘european identity’ are investigated. p1 explains that the pride stems out of the ‘social status’ guaranteed to european citizens. the key elements of membership are ‘equal opportunities’, ‘freedom of working and travelling across the eu member states’ and the broad ‘cultural heritage’, which offers in turn feelings of positive distinctiveness when compared to other nations. ‘i feel happy to belong to a multicultural society that’s managed to come together to form the eu. i am proud to sponsor a partnership that would, ideally, offer equal opportunities across all its members.’ (p2) ‘i am proud and this is based primarily on my personal experiences of other continents and their cultures, and the way that non-european societies function.’ (p10) the interaction between the european identity and the migrant status provides another example of how multiple identities can be managed by the self in action. european identity is embodied to legitimate the status of migrant in the uk. in fact, these men can be defined, as p6 suggests, like ‘business class migrant’. ‘i always knew in the back of my mind that my family and my local community were there for me. i’ve never felt alone.’ the ‘business class migrant’ represents a european citizen with good education, language skills, and support from the community back home. the frame of mind is the one of a privileged person free to stay or go back, as p6 clearly points out: ‘it’s my choice whether to stay or not. that takes me back to the eu which guaranteed me this freedom.’ the concept is free from negativisms or feelings of inferiority. citizenship and social status are not doubted or lowered. the transition between the pre-maastricht eu and post-maastricht eu had deep consequences on people’s feelings of citizenship. ‘i migrated in 1989, when the word migrant was still an applicable term. now i feel part of the eu and not particularly bound to any country’. overall the interaction between the european identity and the status of migrant has an extremely positive impact on respondents’ sense of integration and belongingness to such an extent that, as p11 says, ‘before now i never gave it any thought’. the interplay of national identity and sexual identity although most european citizens seem to adopt a dual identity strategy with a stronger attachment towards their national identities (see cinnirella, 1998), the general trend is a lowered sense of national identities. moreover, what seems really interesting here is how respondents’ sexualities can be constructed in interaction with large-scale identities. british respondents’ evaluations are mainly based on socio-political aspects (see also cinnirella, 1996). ‘i could not live here and be myself…. britain is a fascist place where people have an island mentality…i did not want to deal with the aggression towards gay men anymore.’ (p9) in the case of italians, a culturally specific construct operates as a frame through which gay men shape their own experiences of distance from the country of origin. national identity is conceptualized mainly in terms of relationships with significant others (family and friends) (see also, cinnirella, 1996). the complexity of the interaction between national identities as a set of specific cultural values with relationships, sexual identities and sexual attraction stands out remarkably in p1 and p2’s narratives. in this specific instance, the stories told by p1 and p2 (similar profiles in terms of age, age at migration and nationality) illustrate how the same national identity can be strategically used by the self in action to maintain two completely opposite ‘sexual-leitmotivs’. firstly, p1 downplays the salience of his national and european identities to empower his self in action. he then starts a process of revaluation of such identities as free choices. ‘i never had strong feelings in respect of my national identity… the feelings i would attach to my national identity are sense of duty and responsibility, encompassing both my professional and emotional life (work, family and boyfriend), sense of truth and straightforwardness.’ (p1) secondly, such values become what moscovici would define social representations or common theories about reality (moscovici, 1998; in chryssochoou, 2000) and p1 incorporates them as elements of his national identity which can be used in contraposition to the british one. in line with cinnirella research (1996), p1 reinforces positive distinctiveness. ‘in london there is a clear distinction between british and everyone else…. i am proud to be european for the status symbol it expresses, freedom…. i am an italian living in london and i do not wish to hold a british passport…perhaps my feeling of national identity is stronger than i thought….’ (p1) thirdly, p1 shows how national, european and sexual identities can be managed coherently to produce a sense of wholeness in his life. ‘relationships here last just as long as a bottle of shampoo…i find british men shallow and untrustworthy, ok for a night out but certainly not for life commitment. almost all of them are unable to have meaningful relationships…our values are intrinsically different and no relationships can be based on such foundation…. personally i have managed to surround myself with good friends (all non british)…and i do consider london as my home….’ (p1) on the contrary, p2 drastically downplays his national identity. he has little contact with his family and no friendships or relationships with people back home. in this lack of national identity, there seems to be an initial emphasis on multiculturalism and the european union. ‘i have no emotional attachment to my nation, i live happily in london…i do not respect people who make no effort to integrate in a multicultural society…. i feel happy to belong to a multicultural society that has managed to come together to form the european union…. i left italy when “migrant” was still an applicable term. today i feel part of the eu and not particularly bound to any country….’ (p2) however, similarly to p1, the core values chosen by p2’s self in action are used to create feelings of belongingness. ‘i have felt at home here since i arrived and i have put it down to likeness of social ideas and the sense of ‘fair play’ inherent in british men.’ he then continues: ‘london’s attitudes towards gays helped me to decide to remain…i would consider a relationship with any other race but i find myself more comfortable with english men… i am attracted to their culture and looks…. i have discovered that non-english men tend to be the most outspoken and out of order.’ in p2’s case, sexual identity and relationships have been deeply influenced by the interaction between italian and british identities. in fact, he concludes by saying that ‘i have only had relationships with british men’. p5 instead uses such construct to manage conflicting identities (british and spanish) and cultural negativisms (ghettos, racism, cultural hypocrisy). ‘i feel spanish people are more direct and less fake…multiculturalism is bullshit because people live in ghettos and are becoming more racist than before…i am proud to be european for its art, rich culture and history…and i don’t feel a migrant…. i felt more free in spain than here in respect to my sexuality…. and the quality (of sexuality) has decreased because english people and i do not understand each other…and i tried to have a significant relationship with a british man just to prove myself that i cope with it…’ (p5) sexual identity: the downplay of gay identities and gay community migrant gay men, as cant (1997) suggests, move away from a home experienced as a prison to gain the freedom to open new choices and shape a new life. leaving home is the first step towards becoming a new person (davies, 1992, in weeks et al., 2001). in this section, i will try to explore this new person, previously defined as the ‘self in action’, by focusing on the role of sexuality within the system of multiple identities. keogh et al. argue that ‘overwhelmingly, the move to london had been necessitated by the need to live an openly gay lifestyle. the cultural conditions at home did not offer the potential for an emotionally fulfilled life as a gay man’ (2004, p 5). on the contrary, my sample rejects the ‘openly gay lifestyle explanation’. on the one hand, sexuality did not play a primary role (see also phellas, 2002); on the other hand, as it will be explored later, the concept of ‘living a fulfilled gay life’ is meaningless for the vast majority of them. ‘i had no idea i did move to london to embrace my sexuality.’ (p1) ‘i felt free in spain maybe more than here.’ (p4) ‘i do not think that my sexuality motivated me to move.’ (p7) ‘i come from a place where my sexuality wasn’t an issue so i didn’t come here in order to be able to express it; i was already free to do that.’ (p11) ‘the reality that london is britain’s only ‘true’ multicultural enclave did contribute towards my decision in terms of sexuality; however this was not a key factor.’ (p10) at an abstract level, the psychological antecedents and the narratives about expectations, hopes and fears about the move to london show only a minor presence of factors directly related to sexual identities. this trend does not imply that sexual identity is irrelevant, but surely seems to disprove those theories that would place sexuality at the core of these men’s lives. the assumption here was that if gay identity is the central tenet of one’s person life or system of multiple identities, gay men should have it chronically accessible in their narratives. this was not the case. the visibility of gay experiences and cultural gay spaces play a crucial role in the shaping of marcus and nurius’s possible personal selves and possible social identities. another important aspect of claiming a gay identity is that in heterosexual western society such a claim is not only personal and social, but also political (plummer, 1995; weeks, 2001). the following narrative shows a portrayal of the fluctuating nature of multiple identities and especially of the dis/empowerment of the self in action. it is also an historical shot of gay identity development over the last two decades. ‘i am gay. it was important to have a label and a cause during the 1980s, a very political time for me. i left thatcher’s england in 1990 having had enough of defending who i was and clause 28. england was a fascist place. i felt european when i lived in holland. i moved back to the uk to die. i have faced most of my fears. it has changed so much over the last 25 years. i was very out, proud and political…. a very visible gay man.. now i am 43, hiv+ and i belong to a peer support group. i can access services for gay men with hiv/aids although these services are fast disappearing.. i have always been a loyal person and helped others sometimes to my detriment. i don’t go out on the gay-scene anymore… the gay community is necessary but distant, alcoholic and unsafe. i am not sure that an idea of a fulfilled gay life exists (emphases are mine).’ (p9) migrant gay men show high level of expertise in managing identities in different contexts. to start with, they all share an attraction for people of the same sex and engage or desire to engage in homosexual behaviour. ‘the word gay is accurate in that it describes who i am in terms of having a sexual orientation towards other men.’ (p8) homosexuality defines their sexual orientation and is free from negativisms. gay identity instead is downplayed and deconstructed in its social components, which can be chosen or rejected according to one’s specific needs. ‘the word gay does not describe only my sexual orientation. it describes a whole series of values and culture i carry with me’ (p1). ‘to me the word “gay” identifies more the homosexuals that live in the capitalistic system build for them and defining the places where to socialize and consume.’ (p3) contemporary social constructionist research asserts that gay cultures provide a sense of support and inclusion to gay men living in ostracizing societies (weeks, 1990; in taylor, 2002). coyle (1992) adds that the degree to which one believes that gay culture provides such sense of identity has the greatest impact to the subsequent self-definition as such. both hypotheses are confirmed. in fact, in the case of migrant gay men, the gay community is described with negativisms and at the same time it is considered as a necessary evil. depending on unique life histories, gay men are differently inclined to portray themselves in terms of collective gay identity (garnets & kimmel, 1993). ultimately, it is suggested here that the downplay of gay identities is again an act of empowerment. ‘i find the gay community in london is generally rather shallow. generally, everyone is worried so much with what they look like that they forget what they should be like. often the use of drugs has a detrimental effect on relationships between people. nowadays drugs are so widely available that the majority of the gay community evolves around them.’ (p1) ‘i have no experience of such a gay community in london. there is a commercial gay scene but i would not call that a community.. there are loads of organizations pro gay, but then again those are not communities. i guess gay people had to focus on the right to having sex with another man. the more accepted and normal it will become the more rapidly the gay label will lose meaning.. what i am trying to say is that perhaps sex preferences are not enough to create a real community.’ (p6) community is strictly connected with visibility of gay experiences and identities. respondents refer almost unanimously to the commercial gay scene as community. they attach negativisms to it and indirectly highlight the lack of models to draw upon. it is crucial to understand why gay organizations, gay activists, campaigners for sexual equality and civil rights are not perceived as part of this community although visible and surely influential at a political level. does the perceived absence or weakness of the gay community act in favor of heterosexual models? in other words, do migrant gay men provide support for the social assimilation and disappearance of the modern homosexual (bech, 1997: 195-206; in waites, 2005; kitzinger, 2004: 529) or originality hypothesis (see weeks et al.; 2001)? the majority of migrant gay men does not hold an idea of ‘living a fulfilled gay life’ or reject it and replace it with life. ‘i have no idea of what it means’ (p2) ‘i am not sure i understand or even agree with this term.’ (p1) the lack of an ideal of ‘fulfilled gay life’ seems to be interconnected with the concept of visibility. plummer would probably define this as a lack of symbolic interactions or stories (1995). on the one hand, intimacy based on same-sex preferences is confined between the walls of private households located in a heterosexual society. positive models of same-sex intimacy strive to leave the private sphere, to become stories about intimacy and therefore cultural and public models of homosexual intimacies. in addition, the public spaces available at present for gay men are mainly commercial and oriented towards consumerist life styles. to sum up and to link back to my original question, are these examples of assimilation or originality? discussion this research has focused on a small group of migrant gay men and the strategies used to manage multiple identities. the aim of the study was to provide an understanding of the psychological mechanisms used to manage multiple identities in a multicultural london. the grounded theory analysis suggested one core category, ‘the self in action’ and ‘the downplay of social and personal identities’ as the main discursive theme. participants, despite the current belief that the self is fragmented across different socio-cultural dimensions and contexts (wetherell and maybin, 1996), seem to hold a unitary but not fixed view of the nature of the self. the self in action is a working hypothesis of liberation from oppression and defines the self as fluid and dynamic in its operation. it provides a new sense of identity based on free choices and personal empowerment. migrant gay men deconstruct the fixed-identities, whether it is internal or external structures that influence people’s behaviour, and undertake a process of liberation whereby multiplicity is a characteristic of the social context. the move to london is the first action undertaken to empower the self in action. it represents a journey to step out of the biological system characterized by heterosexual norms and oppressive social categories and group memberships. london provides a cultural space of neutrality, almost a ‘no man’s land’, where the self in action finds the voice to tell new stories and generate new life experiments (weeks, 2001). new stories can be imagined as snapshots of the interaction between a unitary self in action with the multiplicity of identities, cultures, and contexts. coherently with the main theme, large-scale identities are initially downplayed and disempowered. thereafter, european identity and national identity are strategically used to evaluate personal costs and benefits. the european identity is used to legitimate a sense of citizenship as a ‘migrant resident in london’ and to emphasize the importance of human rights, equal opportunities and cultural growth. large-scale identities are used to create a neutral space where integration and differentiation interact to enhance the individual’s sense of freedom. national identities create tensions and opportunities. respondents, depending on the context, critically downplay their salience at an abstract level and strategically select social meanings attached to them to increase feelings of self-esteem and positive distinctiveness. in this complex task of managing identities, the ‘business class migrant’ emerges as a european citizen with average education and linguistic skills, support from the family and the community back home, free to move and work, and with fairly stable values. should i call this person ‘business class gay migrant’? in line with the strategy used for large-scale identities, the self in action downplays sexual identity as a core identity and rejects the term ‘gay’ as a defining feature of the self or a leitmotif for personal fulfilment. migrant gay men unanimously accept their attraction towards men as a defining characteristic of their sexual behaviour and recognize that adopting a gay identity has clear socio-cultural implications. in other words, respondents provide support for the hypothesis that personal and social identities are freely chosen depending on personal evaluations and the immediate contexts. the self is neither gay nor european, but ‘in action’. in addition to this, my study suggests that gay identity fails to provide positive and empowering choices for the self in action. in other words, the self in action cannot imagine itself adopting a possible present or future gay identity. in turn, it is quite clear that the gay community is held responsible for spreading oppressive models, like those perpetuated by the heterosexual community. i argue that the gay community succeeds in supporting homosexual behaviour as an accepted variant of sexual behaviour, but fails to promote valuable possible social identities (markus & nurius, 1986; cinnirella, 1998; weeks, 1991). this is why the idea of ‘living a fulfilled gay life’ generates confusion and disagreement, and the only visible model of ‘gayness’ is the one offered by the commercial gay scene. another fundamental issue concerns the ecological validity of this kind of research. as anticipated earlier on in this paper, qualitative research is not immune from methodological flaws and biases. this is a crucial point to consider, especially if we agree that its insights should be spread into political strategies to promote social change and cultural amelioration (see also waites, 2005). in that case, methodological flaws can be highly detrimental for already ostracized minorities (e.g. the bisexual community). the following comparison between my analysis and the keogh et al.’s report (2004) aims to highlight some of these risks. the keogh et al. report collected data from 18 migrant gay men living in london who voluntarily took part in their study by responding to adverts spread in the commercial gay scene. leaving methodological issues aside for a moment, i question why and how their findings are in sharp contrast with mine? firstly, keogh et al. found that gay men migrated to london ‘to achieve the potential for an emotionally and socially fulfilled life as gay men’ (2004; p 5). my analysis, in line with phellas (1996) and chryssochoou’s (2000) views on multiple identities, suggests that gay identity does not develop as the core identity and that migrant gay men do not understand and often disagree with the concept of ‘living a fulfilled gay life’. secondly, keogh and colleagues argue that the status of migrant precludes integration into wider society, exposes them to social exclusion, and lowers the sense of agency on life and the control on social intimate relationships. on the contrary, my respondents step out of a whole system of cultural and social norms to regain control of their lives. multiple identities are managed as a form of resistance against the oppression inflicted by social power and mainstream heteronormative structures. european and national identities are embodied to legitimate the status of migrant in the uk and to allow the coexistence of diversity and integration. in this regard, the analysis of the interplay between large-scale identities and sexual identity (overlooked in the keogh et al.’s study) was crucial for an understanding of migrant gay men’s experiences. thirdly, sexuality is portrayed as an additional burden and as the main cause of fracture with families and ethnic communities. these men had to rely on the support of the gay community, which in turn failed to support them for a sense of integration in london. moreover, ‘the practical needs to find job and accommodation, improve one’s language skills, and negotiate welfare benefits are not met by any service. men without language skills and social capital come to rely on their sexual capital to make their way’ (keogh et al., 2004; p 12). the authors concluded that the needs they seek to assess will be experienced only by a proportion of men and distinguish between skilled and unskilled migrants (especially in relation to the mastering of the english language). in other words, their sample is used as representative of a new social group: the migrant gay men with low skills, language and legal difficulties. on this note, my participants have been defined as ‘business class migrants’ and therefore seem to represent a radical different social group. however, such definition emerges from the respondents’ narratives and speculations must be monitored given the small sample from which they are drawn; thus the need to discuss issues of ecological and methodological validity in qualitative analysis. without doubting the good intentions of keogh and colleagues’ research, i suggest that methodological problems might have seriously affected the interpretation of the data and in turn spread negativisms about migrant gay men by reinforcing negative stereotypes (e.g. migration equals social burden). firstly, i think that the power of qualitative methodologies is in the production and interpretation of stories and the language used to tell such stories. in keogh et al.’s report there is a big emphasis on respondents’ poor linguistic skills (english language) as one of the main causes of their upheavals. even so, interviews were conducted by three trained interviewers in english! secondly, the sample was not chosen and in this case it seems highly skewed and misleading. their respondents migrated from outside and within the european union. as my analysis suggests, the privileges that the eu citizenship guarantees to its member are enormous. for this reason, i firmly believe that their research on migrant should have kept migration from within and from outside the eu separate. thirdly, participants were recruited primarily through the commercial gay scene. amongst 18 participants, 11 were hiv+ and 14 unemployed. keogh and colleagues argue that ‘the instability, as lack of services, is often related less to an hiv diagnosis than it is to the process of migration’ (keogh et al., 2004; p 17). these are quite confounding variables when the object of the research is presented as ‘migrant gay men’ rather than ‘migrant-unemployed-hiv+ gay men’. my critique aims to highlight the potential damages caused by poorly supported causal inferences contained in the presentation of the data: ‘gay migrants give us a clear example (emphasis is mine) of the links between social deprivation, lack of personal social capital and hiv morbidity’ (keogh et al., 2004; p 21). in response to such a statement, i would suggest that, rather than migration, the use and abuse of drugs within the gay scene could be a stronger predictor of hiv morbidity, then unemployment, and finally social exclusion. why did keogh and colleagues not tackle this issue in their report, especially when the commercial gay scene, as their respondents suggest, is the cultural space where sexuality is negotiated? in a country where the stigmatization of sexual and ethnic minorities is a very delicate topic in the political arena and is always under the spotlight of public opinion, i think that these methodological flaws raise serious concerns. my fear is that this kind of research reinforces the idea of gay migrant men as a burden for ‘english society’. similarly, behaviours which concern the population in general, regardless of sexual and ethnic identities, can be wrongly labelled. in conclusion, my study suggests that there is a possible significant group of migrant gay men whose experiences deserve to be told as significant stories about personal empowerments, multiple identities, migration and integration, and last but not least, same-sex intimacies and gay identities. on the other hand, keogh et al.’s report shows that the sampling is a critical issue and different variants of migration must be distinguished. my critique is that, for the sake of transparency, sampling should be selectively manipulated and clearly stated in the object of study. the influence of large-scale, migrant and sexual identities has been proven crucial for an understanding of how people manage multiple identities in multicultural societies. therefore, further qualitative investigations that reflect ethno-socio-cultural differences (e.g. focusing on migrant gay men from a specific country) might provide significant insights. is it time to spread these insights into political strategies to promote awareness and enrich the public opinion (see waites, 2005)? perhaps it is time for the gay community to take on the responsibility of actively divulging new empowering social models of same-sex experiences that could be heard and seen in the public arena. migrant gay men, perhaps not only them, need supportive rather than oppressive identities. multiculturalism seems to be the best social arena in providing freedom of choices amongst supportive identities. at the same time the european union seems to be the best institutional backup to sponsor such multiplicity. as a conclusion of this analysis, i am proud to suggest through the voices of my respondents a definition of the european gay community: ‘a group of persons (p5), united in fears, hopes and feelings (p8), free to express and enjoy 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(2001). introducing qualitative research in psychology. chapter 3: grounded theory (pp. 32-49). buckingham: open university. appendix 1: sample demographics p1: 34, white, italian, teacher. he has been living in the uk for 12 years. p2: 37, white, italian, web-office manager. he has been living in the uk for 15 years. p3: 26, white, spanish, costume designer. he has been living in the uk for 9 years. p4: 28, white, irish, health-care consultant. he has been living in the uk for 10 years. p5: 28, spanish, white, sales assistant. he migrated one year ago. p6: 33, italian, white, customer service. he migrated at the age of 29. p7: 28, white, italian, customer service. he has been living in the uk for a year. p8: 41, white, british, theatre co-ordinator. he migrated to london at the age of 18. p9: 43, white, british, unemployed. he moved to london at the age of 17, lived in holland for few years and recently migrated back to london. p10: 25, british, marketing manager, born in wales with sino celtic heritage. he has been living in london for fours years. p11: 33, white, italian, artist and civil servant. he migrated to london at the age of 25. appendix 2: online questionnaire 1. who am i? please, feel the gap with the most salient and descriptive adjectives, which describe you today. i. i am ii. i am iii. i am iv. i am v. i am 2. think about your national identity and describe the feelings and values attached to it. please, highlight changes that might have occurred since you moved to london. 3. define your perception of multicultural society as you experience it in london. 4. if i say european union, what concepts, feelings and ideas spring to mind? 5. do you feel proud to be european? please, highlight the main reasons for a yes or no answer. 6. does the word migrant describe you? in what ways? if not, why not? 7. as eu citizen, before moving to london, were you aware of your rights (social, economic, political, etc…describe)? and now? 8. describe your physical and psychological wellbeing just before you moved to london. 9. describe hopes, expectations and fears about moving to london. 10. why london, uk and not somewhere else? 11. please, describe how you have organized your move to london (for example, think about money, work, education, language, accommodation, contacts, etc). 12. compare your current working and/or studying situation with the one before you moved to london. 13. describe how your relationship with your family developed since you moved to london. 14. throughout your lifetime, has there been an element of your personality that has remained the same? please, describe it. 15. would you describe yourself as autonomous and independent? please, provide examples to support a yes-no answer. 16. has your sexuality motivated you to move to london? and if so, why? 17. describe your life in relation to your sexuality in london (for example, fulfilling, improved, disadvantageous, etc.). 18. does the word “gay” identify you? please, describe why. 19. describe the feelings provoked by being labelled as “gay man”. 20. have you at times desired to have a significant relationship with a british man rather than non-british? why? 21. describe your idea of “living a fulfilled gay life”. 22. describe your experiences and perceptions of the gay community in london. 23. the european gay pride parade will take place in oxford street, london next year. if i say european gay man, what feelings and ideas come to mind? 24. do you consider london as your home? why? 25. how you would like to see yourself in the near future (few years)? biographical note gian nicola bagnara graduated in psychology-sexuality at london south bank university. his research interests covered issues of self, identity and multiculturalism. he is currently looking to get funding to expand his research as phd student and explore the interaction between multiculturalism, sexual identities and sexually transmitted diseases. contact details: nicolabagnara@googlemail.com acknowledgements thanks to dr. megan barker and dr. paula reavey (london south bank university) for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft, and for their challenging and thought provoking criticisms. thank to all research participants for their trust and for sharing their ideas and life experiences. this paper was published, in a previous form, as bagnara, n. g. (2007). migrant men: managing gay and european identities in london. lesbian & gay psychology review, 8(2), 152-168. couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives after intervention research reports couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives after intervention vilija girgždė*a, viktoras keturakisb, jolanta sondaitėa [a] institute of psychology, mykolas romeris university, vilnius, lithuania. [b] department of general and educational psychology, vilnius university, vilnius, lithuania. abstract relationship self-regulation is a way for couples to work on their relationships by becoming reflective about them, by setting goals for improvement, and by following up with efforts to be a better partner. reflection is an important process in relationship self-regulation addressed in this study. the aim of this study is to analyse relationship self-regulation narratives after a relationship education intervention. ten married partners (age 33-43 years) participated in a four-day reflective experiential relationship education programme intervention. the study investigated couples’ experiences of working on their relationship after the intervention. two focus groups were conducted and narrative analysis was used. four common themes emerged: becoming aware of one’s inner reactions and re-appraisals, learning to be sensitive, noticing one's own habitual responses andmaking choice, and experimenting in the relationship. these themes are discussed by applying a couple relationship self-regulation conceptual framework. we revealed that relationship self-regulation emerged as a process of regulation of intrapersonal emotional reactions to partner. reflectivity in relationship self-regulation may be defined as focusing on oneself, trying to understand one’s own feelings and needs, experimenting to meet these needs, and exploring resources. the research focuses on the study of meaning making and on the reflection processes of partners in couple relationship self-regulation. keywords: couple relationship education, intervention for couples, narratives, relationship self-regulation europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 received: 2013-06-11. accepted: 2014-04-25. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, mykolas romeris university, ateities g. 20, lt-08303 vilnius, lithuania. e-mail: vilija@porukonsultavimas.lt this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction couple relationship education couples improve their relationships when they work on their relationships. themeta-narrativei of working to improve a relationship has been produced by western culture and has been studied extensively (finkel & campbell, 2001; halford, sanders, & behrens, 1994; meyer, larson, busby, & harper, 2012). naturally, partners have relationship enrichment activities that are novel, challenging, evoking and that do not require any professional intervention (roberts & greenberg, 2002). partners also use various strategies to improve their relationship. they do this on their own, or they also look for support and services from professionals. after an intervention they are often left to continue on working on their relationships with their own efforts, competencies, and skills. there is a lack of studies that shed light on what processes are involved when couples return to their everyday lives after an intervention (markman & rhoades, 2012). the gap of follow-up research after couples intervention leaves us in the unknown as to how couples use the knowledge and skills they acquired during intervention. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ couple relationship education is a service widely used by married and committed cohabiting couples (meyer et al., 2012). there are different traditions of couple relationship education in each country (halford & simons, 2005) and different names, too (larson, 2007). couple relationship education aims to provide couples with knowledge, skills, experience, and attitude (halford, 2011) that they may use in working on their relationships and increasing their quality of life as a couple. larson (2007) described three approaches to relationship education programs: 1. “time-limited and structured relationship education such as inventories in which a facilitator systematically teaches relationship principles with participant involvement; 2. semi-structured discussion and support groups that are less time-limited and encourage active participation by couples; and 3. insight and skills-focused programs.” (larson, 2007, p. 200). many studies on couple relationship education have been conducted to provide evidence about the impact and quality of counselling services (halford, markman, & stanley, 2008; hawkins, blanchard, baldwin, & fawcett, 2008). several couple relationship education studies aimed to answer questions about outcomes, factors, and potential usefulness of educational programs (halford & bodenmann, 2013; jakubowski, milne, brunner, & miller, 2004; petch, halford, creedy, & gamble, 2012; snyder, castellani, &whisman, 2006) and also to try to understand universal processes and common factors across couple interventions (halford & snyder, 2012). according to halford (2011), many evidence-based couple relationship education programs were evaluated using inventories. the weakness of using inventories is that the usefulness of the programme is predefined by the questions of the research method, which narrows couples’ long-term feedback. parker (2005) acknowledges that well-designed studies that are grounded in scientific principles are difficult to apply in a service environment. it is important to not only demonstrate that relationship education is effective but also to understand how these programs help couples work on their relationships. there is a need to understand what couples take in long run as a resource out for intervention to sustain in healthy committed relationship. relationship self-regulation self regulation is broadly understood as the set of psychological processes through which people bring their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours in line with abstract standards, goals, or values (baumeister, heatherton, & tice, 1994). self-regulation is used interchangeably or implies the term “self control” which is not the same as that mentioned by baumeister and stillman (2008). alignment of the self with a preferred state consistent with one’s own standards and values differs from controlling one’s own impulses. the former embraces the complexity of personality processes and includes the latter. the idea of self-regulation has been applied in education, drug treatment, performance and emotion control. the research has shown that individuals use self-regulatory resources sparingly and strategically and experience efficient social interactions (finkel et al., 2006). self-regulating individuals who can persist through obstacles are more successful in their careers. they experience more life satisfaction and well-being (vohs & baumeister, 2011). the majority of models describe self-regulation as a private (koole et al., 2006), intrapersonal process. the other line of theorising is to study self-regulation socially contextualised and interdependent with social factors such as interpersonal relationships. baumeister and stillman (2008) have shown a bidirectional relationship between selfcontrol and close relationships. self-control benefits or sometimes harms close relationships and, vice versa, close relationship benefit self-control. halford, sanders, and behrens (1994) applied self-regulation theory to europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 337 http://www.psychopen.eu/ couple relationships and proposed the term couple relationship self-regulation. there are studies that have attempted to measure relationship self-regulation (gredler & schwartz, 1997), and dyadic self-regulation in couples (butner, diamond, & hicks, 2007; fitzsimons & finkel, 2012; schoebi, 2008; wilson, charker, lizzio, halford, & kimlin, 2005). the relationship self-change (termed as relationship self-regulation) is conceptualised as a common pathway for couple relationship education and relationship satisfaction, and as a mediator for change (halford, 2011). relationship self-change (relationship self-regulation) is assumed to occur in at least two different ways: by engaging in a couple relationship education project and by becoming reflective or by monitoring one’s own behaviour, or by specifically targeted and taught relationship self-regulation competences (halford, 2011) such as self-appraisal, self-directed goal setting, self-implementation of change, and self-evaluation of change efforts (halford et al., 1994). according to halford, wilson, lizzio, and moore (2002), relationship self-regulation increased through teaching and enhanced the maintenance of relationship satisfaction in distressed couples. there are important notions that each partner, instead of targeting and blaming the other for relationship troubles, attends to oneself (hira & overall, 2011). according to the strength model of self-regulation, all acts of self-regulation draw on a single, limited resource called self-regulatory strength (baumeister, vohs, & tice, 2007; muraven & baumeister, 2000) observable as the self-regulatory ability available to the individual pursuing a given goal with actions of self-control. another notion of relationship self-regulation is a reflection of each partner individually and/or conjointly exercised about relationship. then personal responsibility is taken to enhance the relationship (halford, 2011). thus, two major relationship self-regulation aspects can be distinguished: effort and reflectivity/monitoring. effort is needed to “shield commitment to a chosen action against competing action tendencies” (koole, kuhl, jostmann, & finkenauer, 2006, p. 362). “monitoring one’s pattern of behaviour and the cognitive and environmental conditions under which occurs is the first step towards doing something to affect it” (bandura, 2001, p. 8). so the question of what works in couples relationship education is still open. is self-control the mediator of change? does relationship education need to enhance it by teaching a structured curriculum? or maybe change is promoted by partners committing and learning to reflect and monitor their relationship? the control function of relationship self-regulation was studied after structured couple relationship programmes such as prevention and relationship education program (prep), couple commitment and relationship enhancement (couple care), and couples coping enhancement training (ccet) (halford & bodenmann, 2013). monitoring and reflective functioning in relationship self-regulation have not received the attention of researchers. most of the studies do not follow up on the self-regulation process after a couple has participated in an educational programme. moreover, studies by cornelius and galen (2007) and christensen and baucom (2005) make the point that, by evaluating predicted outcomes, we miss the holistic picture of how couples integrate intervention. for example, we may know that an experiential programme is effective in promoting marital intimacy (hickmon, protinsky, & singh, 1997), but we may still be left with the question of how this happens. despite the growing number of studies, there is still the lack of conclusive evidence that any particular approach in relationship education is clearly superior to the others and that the factors of the benefits of education are not clear (halford & snyder, 2012). therefore it is important to try to understand how couples relationship education works. amajority of the studies have focusedmostly on developing and investigating various control aspects of relationship self-regulation. we decided to focus on relationship self-regulation as monitored and reflected by partners so as to explore a different field in this area of study. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives 338 http://www.psychopen.eu/ by investigating the experience of working on relationships as narrated by the participants themselves, we expected a rich yield of data on how learning from relationship education is absorbed by couples into their lives after an intervention. the aim of the present study is to analyse relationship self-regulation narratives after the relationship education intervention. we focused on experiences in which partners were making the effort to self-regulate their relationship in everyday interactions. method the reasons for choosing narrative methodology to explore work on relationships were following: 1) our research strategy was based on the premises that storytelling is considered a natural human impulse (white, 1981) and a primary way of making sense of experience (mishler, 1986). 2) individuals, when creating meaning from experience, often organise non-systematic encounters into coherent stories (chamberlain, stephens, & lyons, 1997). it is particularly relevant to focus on participants' specific stories, which are real for them. a qualitative research approach within the social constructivism paradigm was used: focus groups were used for data collection and a narrative approach was employed for data analysis. description of the intervention reflective experiential couple education (rece) is an experience and reflection oriented intervention that may help a couple work on their relationship. rece is a non-religious relationship education programme that focuses on developing awareness in couples’ relationships by inviting them to participate in diverse experiential activities and to learn by reflection. it is based on the experiential education model reviewed by itin (1999) as well as on the reflection model of boud, cohen, and walker (1993). the philosophical background of rece is based on the ideas of j. dewey (wong & pugh, 2001), which hold that merely having an experience is not the same as learning from it. according to greenaway (2007), experience can be relived: an individual reflects on his or her lived experience and then interprets and generalises this experience to form inner knowledge that can be represented, expressed, and transferred to new situations. learners personally engage with the learning process. the program was conducted over two extended weekends. the rece program consisted of various outdoor and indoor activities, designed for challenging experiences (see table 1 for a description). the framework is originally conceived by the authors of this article. table 1 the reflective experiential couple education framework major steps of the programmeaims of rece 1. learning to learn; developing a learning community; sharing the insights in a peer group• to become aware of the experience and share reflections with other couples 2. accumulating intensive experience in the couple and in the group • 3.to discover more about oneself and the partner reflecting and constructing meanings 4. building bridges to real life situations 5. experimenting social tasks and dilemma theatre (boal, 1995) 6. finalising the experience and, summarising and naming what participants take away europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants ten people (five couples) out of sixteen participants (eight couples) of rece, aged from 33 to 43 years agreed to participate. one group was composed of women and one of men. the argument for this separation was that partners seemed to feel more at ease speaking about couple relationships in the absence of their partners, allowing researches to be sensitive to the relational aspects of the inquiry and to the power relationship in couple, while keeping in mind that sensitive topics are relationally defined (hydén & bülow, 2003). all couples had been married for between eight and thirteen years and had between one and five children. one woman was in her second marriage; all other participants were in their first marriage. all participants were university graduates living in the capital city, and all were employed, except two women who were on maternity leave at the time of inquiry. participants signed a consent form for participation, which allowed for the recording and transcription of the discussions. all participants were informed of their rights to refuse or to discontinue their participation in the study. assigning different names in the transcribed material allowed participants’ identities to be concealed. procedure two focus groups were conducted during two slots of 1.5 hours each with a 30-minute break in between. two psychologists with experience in qualitative research moderated the semi-structured focus groups. this allowed participants to freely narrate their experiences. discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim. the research location was at the premises of a consulting company in lithuania known for its expertise in the area of experiential learning. participants were invited to reflect on their experiences and relate what they learned to their situation at home. narratives were elicited in follow-up focus groups six months after the delivery of the rece program. the participants were asked: “could you remember a situation, an example or a moment about working on relationship, which you could relate to this couple training event?” follow-up questions such as “tell me more about that” and “what did you mean by that?” were used for clarification and elaboration. analytic procedures researchers analysed transcripts of conversations that occurred naturally during the focus group. narrative analysis (fraser, 2004) was begun by identifying narratives. the criteria for identifying narratives were the following: a. the narrative indicated an actual day-to-day experience lived and remembered by a participant; b. a segment of a given participant’s lived experience was described with elements of sequence and relation to context. an inductive coding procedure (braun & clarke, 2006) was used to generate codes from narratives. initial coding involved reading the transcripts and making notes as well as looking through notes and observations made during the focus group and transcription. meanings were induced from stories constructed by participants. emergent sub-themes were developed from these codes and clustered with related themes. researches independently went through each transcript and came together to form a consensus of the sub-themes and themes. sub-themes consisted of detailed summaries of the interview at the first level of analysis, and academic narratives at the second level were defined. different aspects of the emergent themes were discussed in order to increase the trustworthiness (creswell & miller, 2000) of the study and were finalised after mutually agreed mapping. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives 340 http://www.psychopen.eu/ each theme was reviewed and refined in light of the dual criteria for internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity (patton, 1990). reading and reducing the research material was a creative process that was guided by constant reflection on the research question, transcripts and observation material. the interpretation procedure was grounded in discursive psychology, with a focus on talk as action (edwards, 1997), and was based on detailed transcripts. the last step in interpreting the data involved a critical, in-depth understanding of the theme, where researchers’ professional psychological knowledge was taken into account. academic narratives were defined based on the personal stories of research participants. limitations of the study this study used data collected from only two groups: one male and one female. using focus groups might also have caused some caveats. dominant speakers no doubt influenced some of the participants, which affected the narratives and their course. we were using an “each participant has their own time to speak” strategy to allocate time and space for each participant in order to counter-balance the dominance of some of the participants in the group. obviously, personal and professional history and preferences for experiential learning as well as the double role of facilitating the rece and undertaking the research may have influenced the course of this study. sharing a similar cultural background with the participants (tracy, 2010) and not being far off in terms of age allowed for better rapport but may have caused oversights on a cultural level. a third researcher, who was unfamiliar with the rece and gestalt therapy, was brought in to provide an additional perspective (hill et al., 2005). this helped to note the biases and enhance the integrity of the findings (yeh & inman, 2007). findings and interpretation the map of themes and sub-themes is shown in figure 1. figure 1. map of themes on self-regulation in couple relationship. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 341 http://www.psychopen.eu/ four themes were discerned: becoming aware of and re-appraising inner reactions, learning to be sensitive, choosing between the old and the new, and experimenting in the relationship. awareness of inner reactions and re-appraisal participants noticed that they were able to “stand aside” in an intense emotional interaction. one female participant explained this in the following statement: “i become aware that i am standing and shouting. i see myself standing and shouting. i know this at the moment itself” (46, ma1). the same tendency was observed in themen’s narrations. participants recounted being slower andmore conscious about their words and actions while interacting with their partners. here is one story about refraining from commenting on a partner’s behaviour: “i stop myself during spontaneous comments. i catch myself when i see i have gone too far. i remarked about the time of her coming home, and i felt bad afterwards. i catch myself in this situation: don’t rush to comment, think and so on.” (87, va2) the ability to abstain from expressing all negative feelings spontaneously emerged from the conversation of both men and women. it was important for participants to re-define the situation, by dramatising less and re-appraising negative feelings so that they seem less tragic. miscommunication evoked irritation, but it was no longer seen as something wrong: “this irritates, but it’s not like. . . it’s not like i’m anxious (...) i do not worry that something is wrong, that something wrong is going on” (53, ma4). a participant in the men’s group expressed being more patient in situations of uncertainty. he asserted that, when his feelings were not clear to him, he felt calmer and had a sense of hope. he regulated himself by thinking the following: “i believe she will manage in this situation” (115, va6). awareness of inner reactions is one of the important factors in the self-regulatory process. this finding is in line with other empirical studies (diamond & aspinwall, 2003). gross and thompson (2007) assert that the self-regulatory process most likely draws upon cognitive resources linked to the regulation of emotions. increasing metacognitive awareness of one’s thoughts diminishes the tendency to become immersed in thoughts or emotions (brown & ryan, 2003; dijksterhuis & nordgren, 2006; moore & malinowski, 2009; strack & deutsch, 2004). learning to be sensitive partners made efforts to turn to each other in difficult situations instead of succumbing to negative feelings and blaming. this process was followed up by partners discovering and noticing things of importance to each other. one participant put this into the following words: “another kind of silence has appeared in my life, for sure. one with a more observational stance. now i make an effort to understand how it is for him at that time.” (193, mb1) participants valued the importance of maintaining their relationship. analysis showed that the process by which partners relate to each other was attended to and reviewed when necessary. partners became aware of when they were working on their relationship and when they weren’t, as the following example demonstrates: “we went to the seminar to work on our relationship for a while and after that we are back behind closed doors. we lived the experience of the seminar at first, but a lot of situations turned out differently. there are times when you work at it and times when you don’t.” (330, mc4) learning to be sensitive was about becoming aware of the power imbalance. one participant reported recognising herself as superior to her partner. she had been exposed to many types of therapeutic and self-awareness europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives 342 http://www.psychopen.eu/ training and she used this experience to compare herself to her partner advantageously. she noticed the unfair and destructive nature of this way of configuring the situation. this case illustrated how her acknowledgement of positioning herself as superior was the starting point for regulating her relationship with her partner. knudsonmartin (2013) shows why power imbalances are destructive to intimate relationships and how couples can create relationships that are less bound by gendered power structures. partners became aware of the way they in which they labelled each other in their reflections. they realised that they had made many assumptions. these assumptions had become rigid. one participant made the following statement while reflecting in the focus group: “it turned into something else; our quality of life is different. that i really can do it less. that there is a result. it changed to something else. i can label less. i was on a mission for myself. it’s working little by little (.5). it changed me personally.” (435, mb4) the same sub-theme of “labelling less” appeared in the men’s focus group. hamamci (2005) reports that most people have little or no awareness of their dysfunctional relationship beliefs. by focusing on sensitivities occurring within the relationship, couples may improve their relationship (parr, boyle, & tejada, 2008). as partners become more aware of how they communicate with each other, they gain a better understanding of their own ineffective communication patterns. noticing habitual responses and making choices participants spoke about their habitual responses toward their partners. the following example (table 2) shows a participant describing her repetitive, anxious reaction to her partner being late coming home from work and accepting responsibility for her feelings. transcription symbols are used according to kogan (1998). table 2 example of the theme “recognising one’s own feelings and taking responsibility for them.” text from focus groupline nr. interviewer: i have forgotten your theme, truly speaking (.)23 karolina: my partner made me laugh when was talking about his time. look at this (.hhh). i24 do not feel the change yet. but i see he is focusing on that and is very precise. i do not know25 how it is for him. (.5) we haven’t talked. i see he is late half of the time he promises,. he cuts26 off estimated time. i am irritated at this place of waiting. i need to change something in me27 (.hh) it is not related to him. i need just not to wait. i just stay sometimes. i do not want28 ,that we are late to go somewhere anymore. just, eh, eh... (hhhh) i would like to come29 earlier. i am in a hurry. i will be on time actually, but i have this hustle anyway. this anxiety…30 interviewer: inside yourself?31 karolina: this anxiety in me. i experience it every morning (?) now that i have plenty of32 time to learn it. it is not that i have noticed it and i can change.33 interviewer: you have noticed and it persists?34 karolina: i noticed, but i cannot change...(.5) i mean... sometimes i succeed. it is good that35 i succeed to notice.36 interviewer: what do you notice?37 karolina: i am glad that i am able to see the situation and become aware of it.38 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it seems that karolina managed regulate her persistent inner responses to her partner. our analysis shows that she may have abstained from acting and observed herself as if from the outside at the same time. this was an important shift in self-regulation. although improvements in their relationships with partners were important to participants, the implementation of those improvements did not always occur. another participant recognised that there is a choice to be made between a habitual reaction to a partner and a new way of responding: “to get the best out of it there must be some continuity, yet what i see is a lack of continuity i feel that i’ve simply forgotten it all. later i settled down. i do have the knowledge . . . but sometimes i still act superficially.” (166, vc1) halford et al. (1994) suggested that relationship self-regulation consists of another meta-competency – self-directed goal setting. it involves defining specific, actionable goals for changing one’s behaviour based on a self-appraisal. self-implementation of change is the process whereby partners take active steps to implement their self-defined goals. our study contrasted this conceptualisation, because we saw how the process of change was not linear, not straightforward, and not entirely rational. for example, one participant described how difficult it was to ask for what she wanted from her partner, even knowing the benefit of this action from her learning experience. she was in discomfort after she had behaved in her habitual way and had not decided to try something new. according to stern (2004), change is based on lived experience. we assume that once partners get a sense that they can choose to respond in a habitual way or try a different response, and then they increase their self-regulation ability. experimenting in the relationship rece provided opportunities for safe and challenging experiences. narratives from the focus group revealed relationship-enhancing behaviours. one participant reported that he has started to talk more to each other. once they were home, some participants felt encouraged to keep engaging in open and potentially confrontational discussions by not avoiding unpleasant topics in the relationship. they dared to talk about difficulties. in the men’s focus group, this was named the “not-wrapped in-cotton-wool” narrative. some men reported their unwillingness to voice the difficult truth when it emerged, trying to avoid evoking partner’s negative response. one participant reported feelings of weakness saying that he used to act in the “wrapped-in-cotton-wool” way because he was anticipating a “storm of discontent” from his partner: “it was a lot of work. she calls and asks . . . she says: when, when are you coming home? i say that i’ll be back at seven. at seven! what? at seven? mhm . . . yes, i’ll be back at seven, i say. it was 4:30 pm. before, i would have said at 5:30 pm {laughing}. that’s the truth.” (72, vc3) another participant said that he gave himself permission to experiment, and he did so with enthusiasm. he allowed his partner to do her project instead of taking over and doing it all himself. he explained the experience in the following manner: “when parking is complicated, she does it the way she wants. this is her project. i know that i can park. i have a different relation to this scenario now and i want to act differently too . . . not to take this pleasure or fun of learning away from her” (325, vd5). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives 344 http://www.psychopen.eu/ couples started experimenting with new ways of relating when they felt it was safe to do so. then feelings of enthusiasm, rather than anxiety, prevailed. safety is important for being able to look inward and get more relief and acceptance (sager & sager, 2005). a safe environment makes partners feel comfortable in expressing themselves and helps guard against lapses into destructive conflict (halford, 2011). discussion this study aimed to explore the relationship self-regulation of couples as narrated by the participants themselves. both partners from among the participating couples were involved in intervention for couples and research afterwards. the findings of this study can be transferred to similar situations, but they cannot be generalised for all couples’ relationships. all participants noted that they became more aware of their own reactions and thoughts. the participants showed signs of becoming aware of their feelings and needs. they could follow up this awareness by choosing to act upon their impulses or by withdrawing and responding differently. this process of awareness repeats in cycles. we assume that participants’ awareness expanded and included wishes and impulses that might have previously gone unnoticed. we see this expansion of awareness as a natural learning process for individuals and for couples describing how reflectivity might act as a mediating factor in relationship self-regulation (halford, 2011). baumeister, gailliot, dewall, & oaten (2006) outline that self-regulation is a monitoring process involving self-awareness and the feedbacks loop. it can be strengthened via exercise. baumeister and stillman (2008) propose “that the connection between self-regulation and close relationships is reciprocal: healthy close relationships not only follow good self-regulation, they actually strengthen self-regulation” (p. 1). an analysis of the text uncovered participants’ relationship self-regulation. they refrained from quick, unconsidered comments whilst enduring impulses to react. such reflective processes included: looking at oneself in a detached way, focusing on one’s own feelings and wishes, naming, taking responsibility of them and applying in different situations. partners that are having difficulties in their relationship usually blame each other for misunderstandings. according to our findings, accepting responsibility for one’s own reactions is an inward action in relationship regulation. regulation of intrapersonal emotional reactions could create attitudes that people can become more conscious of, which in turn helps them manage their responses to their partner. partners make voluntary efforts to regulate emotions (gross, 2007). acknowledging misunderstandings in communication and learning about sensitivity to oneself and to others as narrated by the participants in our study support findings from other studies. as summarised by diamond and aspinwall (2003), “optimal emotion regulation is continually sensitive to changing goals and contexts” (p. 149). their main idea is that social partners continue to serve as external emotion “regulators” over the course of life. we have discovered that relationship self-regulation emerged as the process of regulating intrapersonal emotional responses to a partner. a change mechanism helps partners to see each other through “softening” lenses (davis, lebow, & sprenkle, 2012). the participants in our study reported efforts to learn to be sensitive to their partners and to recognise misunderstandings in communication. we encountered different meanings that participants constructed about working on their relationships in the intervention that they all experienced together. winitzky and kauchak (1997) have maintained that learners can create different meanings from the same learning experience. each couple has their own context in which knowledge europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 345 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from experience is constructed. this study suggests that relationship self-regulation after couple relationship education is complex and varied. some participants reported that they ceased avoiding tense conversations and questioned their own usual patterned roles, while others pointed out reflectivity on response to partner. illeris (2007) found that “the more complex the type of individual acquisition is, the more likely it is that the learning could be characterised as experiential” (illeris, 2007, p. 93). we think that simplification and a focus on a deliberate goal-oriented component of self-regulation does not represent the full complexity of processes that partners experience in real life. relationship self-regulation may not only be perceived as series deliberate, planned actions in working on couple’s relationship. our study highlights that relationship self-regulation emerged as focusing on oneself, trying to understand one’s own feelings and needs, experimenting to meet these needs, and exploring resources. we are aware that “mediation effects might be moderated by pre-intervention levels of the mediator” (halford & bodenmann, 2013, p. 521). it is not enough to observe mediating factors in assessing the effectiveness of relationship education. it is very important to note what couples bring with them before the intervention as risk factors as well as their level of relationship satisfaction, which may be important in this situation (halford & bodenmann, 2013). this has not been included in our research, and it should be considered in future studies. conclusions the goals of couple intervention are, by definition, long term in nature. this study revealed that couples continue to work on their relationship six months after the intervention. self-regulation in couple relationships, narrated by the partners themselves, has important aspects of partners’ continuous awareness of their inner reactions, learning to be sensitive to one another, choosing or not new path in behaviour, and experimenting in the relationship. the variety and multidimensionality of meanings was constructed from the same experience of intervention. partners learned something they did not expect to learn. our findings allowed us to get a minor glimpse of the complexity of couple behaviour after relationship education. a qualitative study of mechanisms of change in relationships after intervention leaves many questions unanswered. for example, how the awareness of inner reactions is used by partners one or five years later; what the processes of dyadic self-regulation are; what the inner resources are used by a couple to redirect habitual reactions; how they naturally create space for experimenting with new things in their relationship. implications for reflective experiential couple education practice the integration of intervention experience is a nonlinear process. individuals expand their awareness in context with their partner, but the process is volatile and needs some support in the form of counselling sessions afterwards, or sequential couple intervention sessions to ground the insights in daily life. notes i) meta-narrative “is a global or totalising cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience“ (stephens & mccallum, 1998). funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives 346 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for the thoughtful and constructive feedback on earlier versions of this article as well as language editors darius ross and tone horwood. references bandura, a. 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(2007). qualitative data analysis and interpretation in counseling psychology: strategies for best practices. the counseling psychologist, 35, 369-403. doi:10.1177/0011000006292596 about the authors vilija girgzde is currently a phd candidate at the institute of psychology, mykolas romeris university in vilnius, lithuania. her primary research interests include couple differentiation, couple conflicts, intervention forms for couples. she has couple and individual therapy practice. viktoras keturakis, ph.d. (vilnius university, lithuania), is gestalt psychotherapist in private practice and lector at vilnius university, lithuania. his primary research interests include personality theory in experiential education and gestalt therapy, the impact of experiential interventions and gestalt therapy. jolanta sondaite is an associate professor of psychology at mykolas romeris university. she received her doctorate in psychology from lithuanian university of education sciences & vilnius university. her research interests include conflicts, relationships, family mediation. she also works as a mediator in family and cross-border family mediation conflicts. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.643 girgždė, keturakis, & sondaitė 351 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.19.3.385 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1098-2736(200103)38:3<317::aid-tea1008>3.0.co;2-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011000006292596 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en couples’ relationship self-regulation narratives introduction couple relationship education relationship self-regulation method description of the intervention participants procedure analytic procedures limitations of the study findings and interpretation awareness of inner reactions and re-appraisal learning to be sensitive noticing habitual responses and making choices experimenting in the relationship discussion conclusions implications for reflective experiential couple education practice notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors measuring patients’ attachment avoidance in psychotherapy: development of the attachment avoidance in therapy scale (aats) research reports measuring patients’ attachment avoidance in psychotherapy: development of the attachment avoidance in therapy scale (aats) andrás láng*a, bernadette péleya, laura m. barlaya, lászló bernáthb [a] university of pécs, pécs, hungary. [b] eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract a new scale measuring patient-therapist attachment avoidance was developed. attachment avoidance in therapy scale is a new measure based on the bartholomew model of adult attachment (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991) and the experience in close relationships scale (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) to measure patients’ attachment avoidance towards therapists. with 112 patient-therapist dyads participating in the study, validation of a preliminary scale – measuring both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance in therapy – took place using therapists’ evaluations of patients’ relational behavior and patients’ self-reports about their attitude toward psychotherapy. analysis of the data revealed six underlying scales. results showed all six scales to be reliable. validation of scales measuring attachment anxiety failed. the importance of attachment avoidance in therapy scale and its subscales is discussed. keywords: attachment, psychotherapy relationship, avoidance, measurement, self-report europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 received: 2012-06-26. accepted: 2012-10-23. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, university of pécs, h-7624 pécs, ifjúság útja 6, email: andraslang@hotmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ever since its birth 50 years ago, attachment theory has never been as popular as it is nowadays. this homecoming of the theory of john bowlby (1977) enriches psychotherapy practice and research to a great extent. bowlby (1969) has formerly emphasized the life span relevance of attachment in the first volume of his famous trilogy on this topic. although the development of this special bond takes place in infancy and childhood, adult expressions of attachment needs are not to be considered regressive, since their importance lasts “from cradle to the grave” (bowlby, 1969, p. 208). accordingly, it is relevant to speak of attachment beyond childhood. research in adult attachment includes phenomena such as religiousness, broad range of interpersonal relations (friendship, adult romantic relationships, therapeutic bond etc.), and connections between attachment insecurity and both childhood and adult psychopathology. social personality approach to adult attachment in the beginning, the social personality approach to adult attachment (as an alternative to the developmental point of view) focused on interpersonal relations. nevertheless, since the 1990s, more and more studies have been published about the possible relations between attachment styles and intrapsychic functioning. using the five common characteristics of psychodynamic theories (westen, 1998), shaver and mikulincer (2005) presented attachment theory as a contemporary psychodynamic approach. empirical findings considering the functioning of adult attachment have been found to be in accordance with hypotheses proposed by psychodynamic theory. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, studies of intrapsychic correlations of adult attachment are beginning to form a new model concerning the dynamics of adult attachment (mikulincer & shaver, 2008). in this model, the dynamics of adult attachment is presented in three modules. the first module is responsible for monitoring and evaluating threatening events that are stress-related. the availability of a caring and responsive attachment figure is monitored by the second module. the third part of this model is responsible for organizing secondary strategies (i.e. deactivating or hyperactivating strategies) in order to manage anxiety stemming from feeling insecure in the absence of a sensitive attachment figure. according to this model, it is clearly understandable how individual differences in adult attachment evolve. one of the most widely known models of individual differences in adult attachment is the bi-dimensional, four-category model of bartholomew (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; griffin & bartholomew, 1994). this model was based on the working hypothesis of bowlby (1973) which suggests two underlying representations regulating attachment behavior. if these representations of self and of significant others are considered bivalent (being either positive or negative), their combination leads to four categories: 1. secure individuals are able to manage both intimacy and autonomy; 2. preoccupied people’s mental capacity is totally preoccupied with worries about relationships; 3. dismissing-avoidant personalities are reluctant to create a dependent and intimate relationship, therefore they devaluate others; 4. fearful-avoidant individuals fear intimacy and are socially avoidant. these categories are organized around two dimensions. the dimension connected to the representation of significant others is called avoidance of intimacy. the dimension connected to representation of self is called separation anxiety. the relation of dimensions to categories is presented in figure 1. bartholomew and horowitz (1991, p. 240) summarized the results of the validation of their model as follows: “results of this research confirm that the valence of both self-models and models of others are separate, important dimensions of an adult's orientation to close relationships and that the two dimensions can vary independently”. the model presented above is not only of theoretical importance but is the base for different scales measuring individual differences in adult attachment. the experience in close relationships scale (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) is one of the most widely used measures. the scale has excellent internal reliability characteristics, with cronbach’s alphas ranging from .87 to .94 for the two dimensions in the original (brennan et al., 1998) and the hungarian version (nagy, 2005). validity of the scale and its dimensions is proved by the high correlations of the two dimensions with their parent factor developed from nearly 60 attachment-relevant scales (brennan et al., 1998). the psychotherapy relationship as attachment relationships are of high priority in attachment theory, in psychotherapy practice, and possibly in quite instrumental and computerized therapeutic methods as well (see e.g., andersson & cuijpers, 2008, for the efficacy enhancing effect of therapeutic support for computerized cbt). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 láng, péley, barlay et al. 621 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. two dimensions and four categories of adult attachment (based on griffin & bartholomew, 1994). for bowlby the clinical propagation of his theory was always of great significance (ainsworth & bowlby, 1991). the maudsley presentation (bowlby, 1977) played an important part in the dissemination of attachment theory among psychotherapists who work with adult patients. in this presentation five tasks of the therapist were addressed that can help patients realize, evaluate and transform their working models of attachment. these five tasks are as follows: 1. providing a secure base for the patient. the existence of this secure base enables the patient to explore inner and outer reality, past and present environment, even if it is highly distressing. 2. being a companion to the patient on these explorative journeys. 3. encouraging the patient to analyze the therapeutic relationship. 4. supporting the patient in exploring the relevance of former attachments in the formation of actual perceptions and expectations. 5. encouraging the patient to evaluate his modes of relating and whether they are in accordance with present wishes and future plans. through the use of this evaluation, which is possibly followed by restructuring, the patient is freed from rigid thinking and acting. these statements do not form an original method in psychotherapy, they are rather the reformulation of therapeutic work in attachment terms. at the same time, the five tasks implicitly present the therapeutic relationship as attachment. this attachment nature of the patient-therapist bond was empirically tested by parish and eagle (2003). guided by theoretical deduction, they composed the components of attachment questionnaire that measures the intensity of nine components of attachment. in their study, participants, who were involved in a romantic relationship and regularly visiting a therapist, were asked to rate the same statements referring first to their romantic relationship and then to their therapeutic relationship. thinking of their therapists, participants rated europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 attachment avoidance in therapy scale 622 http://www.psychopen.eu/ all nine components over mid-point. moreover, the ‘significant other as wiser/stronger’ and ‘availability’ components were significantly more characteristic for therapists than for romantic partners, whereas the ‘secure base’ component showed the same non-significant pattern. consequently, therapists were considered to be attachment figures for their patients. farber, lippert, and nevas (1995) reviewed therapists’ attachment functions. first, they described therapists as stronger and wiser personalities. the facilitating and cooperating competencies of therapists were emphasized in contrast to the traditional role of doctors. although it strengthens the bond between patient and therapist in most cases, the cooperative attitude of the therapist can be an obstacle for patients with low socioeconomic status who are accustomed to more traditional, more hierarchical settings. second, therapists were seen as means of psychological survival for some patients. third, the uniqueness of attachment to therapists was highlighted by patients’ hesitation to visit a surrogate therapist even in the case of their therapist’s longer absence. fourth, authors regard patients’ evocation of memories about the therapist or the therapeutic setting, especially in case of successful therapies, as evidence of the long term effects of attachment. these mental representations serve attachment functions in the physical absence of the therapist. fifth, intensive positive emotions present at the beginning of therapy and sadness and/or anger evoked because of temporal and emotional boundaries, were considered to be the analogues of positive emotions accompanying formation of attachment, and then heavy protest upon separation in childhood. the above statements are empirically proven as well. patients use their therapist as a safe haven, since memories of them are most likely to be summoned in times of high distress (geller & farber, 1993) and summoned representations bring feelings of security and acceptance (rosenzweig, farber, & geller, 1996). in studying the august-phenomenon (august is the month when most of the therapists in usa go on a 4-week holiday), barchat (1989 cited by mikulincer & shaver, 2007) observed that the month-long separation from the therapist evokes patients’ yearning for him or her accompanied by anger, sadness or fear. these effects are very similar to those described by bowlby (1969) in case of infants and children separated from their caregivers. measurement of patient-therapist attachment quality in the social personality tradition measurement of attachment in adulthood – including patient-therapist attachment – has been linked to the developmental approach for a long time. although the findings of studies using interviews are very promising (e.g., the patient-therapist attachment interview; diamond, stovall-mcclough, clarkin, & levy, 2003), these methods are very costly because of the training required and the face-to-face administration. in the social personality approach, mallinckrodt, gantt, and coble (1995) developed an instrument called the client's attachment to therapist scale measuring three dimensions of attachment in psychotherapy: security, avoidance/fearfulness and preoccupation/merger. analysis of data from ratings of these factors and ratings of working alliance resulted in four clusters resembling the four adult attachment styles of the bartholomew model. despite superficial resemblance, patterns of the four variables in each cluster (i.e. high vs. low scores on working alliance and the three factors of attachment in psychotherapy) are not in accordance with results of former research on attachment theory. on the other hand, robbins (1995) commenting on the development of the instrument criticizing authors for having scales with low internal reliability. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 láng, péley, barlay et al. 623 http://www.psychopen.eu/ given the lack of success in former trials to measure patient-therapist attachment correctly (both psychometrically and conceptually), the purpose of our study was to develop a valid and reliable measure for patient-therapist attachment, which is in accordance with the widespread bartholomew model of adult attachment (for details see above and bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; griffin & bartholomew, 1994). method instrument development adapting an existing, theoretically grounded scale to the distinctive characteristics of the psychotherapy setting and psychotherapy relationship was of high priority for us. so, our choice was the experience in close relationships scale (ecr; brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) which has excellent psychometric qualities and is available in hungarian (nagy, 2005). the theoretical background of this measure was presented earlier in this paper (see the bartholomew model). adapting this measure to the psychotherapy relationship is not in itself a novelty since, in his online comment, chris fraley (2005) encourages the transformation of the revised version of ecr to other possible attachment-related situations (e.g., the psychotherapy relationship). reformulation of the scale fitting the psychotherapy setting was achieved by changing the word 'partner' to 'therapist' in each of the 36 items. four of the statements were still incompatible with the properties of the psychotherapy setting or relationship, so these statements were slightly altered to fit the specific conditions. with these alterations we obtained a 36-item scale labeled temporarily as the attachment in therapy scale (ats). according to instruction, psychotherapy patients were asked to rate their degree of agreement (1 = totally disagree; 7 = totally agree) with the statements, by reference to the whole process of their current psychotherapy. participants selection criteria for participants were twofold: (1) psychotherapy patients should be older than 18; (2) psychotherapy should be lasting for at least three months, but shouldn’t be in the phase of termination. the decision about the second criterion was entrusted to psychotherapists. since at the time of the study no instrument measuring the therapeutic relation had been available in hungarian, therapists were included in the study as informants and expert raters of their patients’ interpersonal behavior in therapy. this information was then used for the validation process. 112 patients (76 women) and 22 therapists (19 women) participated in the study. mean age of patients was 36.21 years (sd: 11.17 years), 87 of the patients completed at least secondary school education. considering diagnosis, the sample was very heterogeneous. 27 patients were treated for substance dependence, 19 patients had a single or comorbid dsm-iv axis ii diagnosis (personality disorder), 59 patients had a single or multiple dsm-iv axis i diagnoses different from substance abuse. in 8 cases diagnosis was missing. out of the 22 therapists, 5 had psychotherapy qualification; other therapists were either psychiatrists or clinical psychologists. the average duration of the psychotherapies at the moment of the study was 66.82 weeks (sd: 83.4 weeks). the methods used in psychotherapies were supportive psychotherapy (46 therapies), the minnesota model (26 therapies), and diverse other methods (40 therapies). psychotherapy sessions were scheduled weekly most of the times (83 therapies). heterogeneity or large variance is not common to studies in psychotherapy research and it is fully in accordance with the idea of therapeutic attachment being developed independently of age, sex, method of therapy etc. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 attachment avoidance in therapy scale 624 http://www.psychopen.eu/ instruments data collected about patients referred to sex, age, level of education (provided by patients), dsm-iv diagnosis (provided by therapists). data collected about therapists referred to sex and level of psychotherapy training (provided by therapists). data collected about psychotherapy referred to: duration of psychotherapy in progress; frequency of sessions; method of psychotherapy (provided by therapists). the attachment in therapy scale. patients reported their experience of the psychotherapy in progress on the previously mentioned self-report scale (see table a1 for items). patients' psychotherapy attitude. patients' psychotherapy attitude was measured by their degree of agreement with three statements derived from the psychotherapy research literature as important mediating variables for the therapy’s outcome. these statements were aimed at grasping (1) the positive effects of psychotherapy on their everyday lives (usefulness; miller, duncan, brown, sparks, & claud, 2003); (2) the pleasantness of the time spent with the psychotherapist (stiles, 1980); and (3) the hope in recovery, hope in successful problem-solving with the help of psychotherapy (trijsburg, colijn, & holmes, 2005). therapists' ratings of patients' therapeutic attachment. therapists rated their patients’ attachment in psychotherapy on two statements representing avoidant and anxious behavior in psychotherapy respectively. these statements were altered forms of descriptions for anxious and avoidant attachment used by hazan and shaver (1987) in their pioneering study of adult attachment. procedure listed measures printed in a booklet were disseminated in psychotherapy ambulances and wards in south-western hungary. patients completed measures either individually in their homes or in small groups at the wards. therapists completed their booklets individually. after completion, both patients and therapists returned their booklets in a closed envelop. patient and therapist booklets were matched through an identification code derived from the patients’ names and date of birth, which guaranteed anonymity, but enabled us to pair up therapist and patient data. both therapists and patients gave their informed consent for their participation, in agreement with current ethical guidelines. patients completed the attachment in therapy scale (ats) once again one week after initial participation. results internal structure of ats scoring for items with reversed scoring in the original experience in close relationships scale (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) was reversed before factor analysis to reach best fit of the newly developed scale to the bartholomew model of adult attachment. still, in the data analysis we preferred efa over cfa because the scale was transferred to a completely new situation and we didn’t want to prevent new dimensions (e.g., a dimension measuring attachment security directly) from emerging. out of the 36 items of ats, three were excluded from later analysis because of low communality (< .25). the remaining 33 items proved to be eligible for using principal axis factoring (kmo = .78), which produced eight factors with varimax rotation. out of these eight factors, six were taken into account. the selection of these six factors was based on the following rules: (1) the number of items belonging to each factor should be more than two; (2) they should be conceptually appropriate for interpretation. two factors were omitted from further analysis because only two items loading on these factors was judged to be europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 láng, péley, barlay et al. 625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hazardous for internal reliability. the remaining six factors accounted for 46.45 per cent of total variance. attachment in therapy scale (ats) items, factors and factor loadings are presented in table a1. factors were named in accordance to the theoretical summary of wei, russell, mallinckrodt, and vogel (2007). items and factor structure of the attachment in therapy scale since the purpose of the study was to develop a measure of therapeutic attachment fitting into an existing model of adult attachment (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; griffin & bartholomew, 1994), we wanted to prove this fit not only on a theoretical ground, but also statistically. to do this, we gathered avoidance items into a superfactor and anxiety items into another one. cronbach’s alphas (indicated in table 1.) for these higher order factors were computed and found satisfactory. table 1 psychometric properties of attachment in therapy scale (ats) superfactors and scales test-retest reliability (r) no. of items cronbach’s alpha (α)rangesdmscales .9216a.89anxiety sf -8016.9215.0534 .896a.82excessive worry -386.757.3014 .847a.82lack of fit -357.017.9712 .864.79need for reassurance -264.385.968 .7913.79avoidance sf -7213.7010.6727 .645.76reluctance to self-disclosure -325.025.299 .835.78avoidance of closeness -255.775.1311 .743.69excessive self-reliance -183.543.207 note. sf = superfactor. aboth ’excessive worry’ and ’lack of fit’ scales contain item no. 4. for anxiety total score should not be added two times. psychometric properties of ats means and standard deviations for the ats subscales are presented in table 1 together with internal consistency and test-retest reliability. correlation between the two superfactors was r = .26 (p < .01). validity of ats evidence of concurrent validity tested with pearson’s correlation is presented in table 2. correlations are low to moderate between self-reported and therapist-rated attachment avoidance in therapy, and no correlation was found between self-reported and therapist-rated attachment anxiety in therapy. the correlation between patient-rated therapy attitude and attachment avoidance proved to be low to moderate, and attachment anxiety in therapy as measured in this study proved to be independent of patients’ attitude toward psychotherapy. discussion the internal structure of the attachment in therapy scale appears to be similar to that of the bartholomew model, and results were also satisfactory considering the psychometric characteristics of the measure. our results are in accordance with ideas derived from adult attachment literature by wei and colleagues (2007). in their opinion, both attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety can be further split into three scales each. we also found a europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 attachment avoidance in therapy scale 626 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 pearson’s correlations of attachment in therapy scale superfactors (sf) and scales with other measures srhpsrptsruttrantravscales -anxiety sf .17-.04-.02-.04-excessive worry .12-.10-.01-.01-lack of fit .12-.17-.18-.05-need for reassurance .17-.02-.02-.04-avoidance sf .37**-.28**-.32**-.48** -reluctance to self-disclosure .29**-.10-.23*-.39** -avoidance of closeness .22**-.30**-.24**-.40** -excessive self-reliance .35**-.21*-.25**-.25** note. trav = therapists’ ratings of clients’ avoidance in therapy; tran = therapists’ ratings of clients’ anxiety in therapy; srut = self-rated usefulness of therapy; srpt = self-rated pleasantness of therapy sessions; srhp = self-rated hope in problem solving / recovery; sf: superfactor. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. meaningful structure of six factors underlying the item pool referring to the psychotherapy setting and relationship. it means that a more detailed measurement of attachment is possible as it is an issue of concern common to those studying adult attachment. these six factors can also be of great interest for practicing psychotherapists because all of them describe patients relating to their therapists in terms of distance regulation. distance regulation was present from the very beginning of attachment theory (bowlby, 1969) and it has also been an important aspect of modern psychodynamic theories based on infant research (e.g., stern, 1985). according to these theories, the role of the therapist is much more similar to an affect-regulating significant other (stern, 1998) than to an interpreter of unconsciously motivated behaviours and effects. in our opinion, this newly developed measure (ats) is conceptually suitable to measure therapeutic relations in terms of mutual regulations. results referring the validity of the ats scales are promising for measuring attachment avoidance in therapy, but therapeutic attachment anxiety showed no correlation either with therapists’ ratings of their clients’ mode of relating or with patients’ self-reported attitude toward therapy in our study. given the nature of our results, lack of success in validating therapeutic attachment anxiety has to be discussed. internal reliability indices for these scales are equivalent or show even higher reliability than those for therapeutic attachment avoidance scales; therefore, problems in understanding can be excluded. on the one hand, lack of correlation between therapeutic attachment anxiety and therapists’ ratings of the same construct must be accounted for. attachment avoidance in therapy – e.g., patient’s reluctance to self-disclosure – is more readily observable for therapists. in contrast, attachment anxiety – being linked to representations of self and emotions (e.g., worry about losing the therapist) – in itself is not necessarily manifested on the surface. rather, uttering ambivalence and worries is connected with the dimension of attachment avoidance as represented in the scale of reluctance to self-disclosure (e.g., item 27; see table a1). in future studies of attachment anxiety in therapy, a validation distinct from therapists’ ratings should be used. on the other hand, lack of relation between therapeutic attachment anxiety and attitude toward psychotherapy can be explained based on attachment theory’s ideas about change in psychotherapy. according to bowlby (see europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 láng, péley, barlay et al. 627 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dozier & tyrrell, 1998 for a summary), the aim of psychotherapy is to change the internal working models of the patient. these representations refer either to self or to significant others (i.e. attachment figures like psychotherapists). while effective psychotherapy leads to change in both representations, these can occur at different points during the therapy. whereas attachment avoidance ought to be overcome in the first phase of therapy, where positive transference and forming a working alliance takes place, anxiety over separation from therapist is mostly worked through in the termination phase. accordingly, in the intermediate phase of the therapy, individual variances in therapeutic attachment anxiety (representation of self) are more likely to be the results of former experiences, while representation of the therapist as a significant other (therapeutic attachment avoidance) is more likely to have already been accommodated to the perceived characteristics of the therapist. this hypothetical explanation could be tested with a replication of the study with patients who are terminating therapy or with those who have already terminated their therapy several months ago. although some questions remain open concerning the measurement of patient-therapist attachment, a reliable and valid measure of therapeutic attachment avoidance has been developed. this measure – called attachment avoidance in therapy scale (aats) – is certainly of importance given the fact that hayes, wilson, gifford, follette, and strosahl (1996) describe the general phenomenon of experiential avoidance as a probable functional diagnostic dimension. moreover, our study proved attachment avoidance not only to be a valuable predictor of psychotherapy motivation (riggs, jacobovitz, & hazen, 2002), but also a valuable source of information concerning the possible 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(1998). the scientific legacy of sigmund freud: toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. psychological bulletin, 124, 333-371. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.3.333 appendix table a1 items and factor structure of attachment in therapy scale factor loading of itemsitem textitem no. superfactor i. – attachment anxiety in therapya factor 1: excessive worry about losing the therapist .74i worry a fair amount about losing my therapist.8 .70i worry about being without my therapist.14 .62i worry about being abandoned by my therapist.2 .50i get frustrated when my therapist is not around as much as i would like.30 .44when my therapist is not by my side, i feel somewhat anxious and insecure.28 .42i worry a lot about the relationship with my therapist.4 factor 3: lack of fit in closeness .61i often want to merge completely with my therapist, and this sometimes scares her/him away.12 .60my desire to be very close sometimes scares my therapist away.16 .55i worry that my therapist won’t care about me as much as i care about her/him.6 .52just when my therapist starts to get close to me i find myself pulling away.5 .49i want to get close to my therapist, but i keep pulling back.11 .42i find that my therapist doesn't want to get as close as i would like.26 .41i worry a lot about the relationship with my therapist.4 factor 5: excessive need for emotional reassurance .68sometimes i feel that i force my therapist to show more feeling, more commitment.20 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 attachment avoidance in therapy scale 630 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-0355(199823)19:3<300::aid-imhj5>3.0.co;2-p http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.48.2.176 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223890701268041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.3.333 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor loading of itemsitem textitem no. .63if i can't get my therapist to show interest in me, i get upset or angry.24 .52i need a lot of reassurance that i am liked by my therapist.18 .50i often wish that my therapist's feelings for me were as strong as my feelings for her/him.10 superfactor ii. – attachment avoidance in therapy factor 2: reluctance to self-disclosure .78i usually discuss my problems and concerns with my therapist. (r)27 .62i tell my therapist just about everything. (r)25 .56i feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with my therapist. (r)15 .52i don't mind asking my therapist for comfort, advice, or help. (r)31 .42i don't feel comfortable opening up to my therapist.9 factor 4: avoidance of closeness .81i try to avoid getting too close to my therapist.17 .69i prefer not to be too close to my therapist.23 .57i find it relatively easy to get close to my therapist. (r)19 .45i am nervous when my therapist gets too close to me.13 .43i get uncomfortable when my therapist wants to be very close.7 factor 6: excessive self-reliance .85i feel comfortable depending on my therapist. (r)29 .61it helps to turn to my therapist in times of need. (r)33 .45i turn to my therapist for many things, including comfort and reassurance. (r)35 note. (r): items should be reverse keyed. afor total score add item 4 only once. about the authors andrás láng is clinical psychologist and lecturer in clinical and developmental psychology. he earned his phd in 2011. his research interest is in clinical application of attachment theory. he is author of the book ‘attachment and psychotherapy relationship’ (in hungarian, published by animula). bernadette péley is clinical psychologist and professor of developmental and clinical psychology. she is head of the department for developmental and clinical psychology, university of pécs. her research interest is in narrative and clinical psychology. she is author of several books and other publications. laura m. barlay is a doctoral student in psychology. her main research interest is in oncopsychology, sibling relations and children’s drawings. she is an expert of mathematical statistics. lászló bernáth is lecturer of psychology at the department of school psychology, eötvös loránd university. his research interest is in cognitive psychology and mathematical statistics. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 620–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.485 láng, péley, barlay et al. 631 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment avoidance in therapy scale social personality approach to adult attachment the psychotherapy relationship as attachment measurement of patient-therapist attachment quality in the social personality tradition method instrument development participants instruments procedure results internal structure of ats items and factor structure of the attachment in therapy scale psychometric properties of ats validity of ats discussion notes references appendix about the authors a review and critique of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies theoretical contributions a review and critique of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies reckoning with heritability estimates steven charles hertler*a [a] psychology department, the college of new rochelle, new rochelle, ny, usa. abstract the present review and critique of extant etiological theories centers on a single finding: obsessive-compulsive personality is highly heritable (0.78) and not significantly influenced by “common, shared-in-families environmental factors” (torgersen et al., 2000, p. 424). this finding, though twelve years old, has remained dissociated from existing etiological accounts. psychoanalytic theories anachronistically maintain that obsessive personality is familially forged. biological theories, few, unelaborated and weakened by postulating proximate instead of ultimate explanations, fail to seriously reckon with torgersen’s findings. truly integrating heritability estimates into a functional etiological account of obsessive character, it is argued in the discussion section, will come from an evolutionary model that understands obsessive personality to be an evolved strategy rather than a dysfunctional disorder. keywords: obsessive compulsive personality, etiology, heritability, psychogenic europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 received: 2013-08-27. accepted: 2013-12-02. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: the college of new rochelle: 29 castle avenue, new rochelle, new york, usa 10805. e-mail: stevenhertler@hotmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction both the fourth and fifth editions of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders describe ten personality disorders. these ten are divided into three groups. the third group, collectively referred to as the anxious and fearful cluster, contains obsessive compulsive personality disorder (ocpd). broadly characterized by the american psychiatric association (2000, p. 296; 2013) as a pervasive pattern of “preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency,” ocpd is comprised of the following symptoms: (1) preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules; (2) shows perfectionism that interferes with task completion; (3) is excessively devoted to work and productivity; (4) is over-conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, or values; (5) is unable to discard worn-out or worthless objects; (6) is reluctant to delegate tasks; (7) adopts a miserly spending style towards both self and others; (8) shows rigidity and stubbornness. this concise list consolidates and operationalizes ocpd, which, more than its cluster c compeers, has a distinguished hundred year heritage tracing its origins to freud’s 1908 paper entitled character and anal eroticism (gay, 1989). in his seminal paper, freud explicated the anal europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ triad, a pattern of orderliness, stinginess and obstinacy that remains compatible with dsm’s definition and description. in the approximately one hundred years separating its initial exposition to its most modern formulation, ocpd has not changed in substance. although obsessive characteri is well described across time and theorists, it has yet to be satisfactorily explained. that is, no extant etiology effectively accounts for the existence of obsessive character. establishing this fact is the aim of the present paper. in attempting to accomplish this aim, ocpd etiologies will be divided into two broad categories: psychoanalytic etiologies and biological etiologies. psychoanalytic etiologies of ocpd have a much more distinguished pedigree, enjoy greater diversity, and are more conscientiously articulated. in contrast, biological etiologies of ocpd only appeared in the late 1990s and remain unelaborated adjuncts to larger works. despite differences in orientation and derivation, both psychoanalytic and biological accounts have an intractable and irresolvable flaw. psychoanalytic and biological theories alike fail to acknowledge the import of the heritability (pollak, 1987; reichborn-kjennerud et al., 2007; torgersen et al., 2000) of obsessive character. furthermore, these theories could not genuinely absorb the implications of obsessive character’s heritability without repudiating their foundational tenets. psychoanalytic models are irrevocably committed to, and fully predicated upon, psychogenic character formation. in other words, psychoanalytic models find obsessive origins in nurture to the relative exclusion of nature. long accepted and faithfully perpetuated though these models are, they have become untenable in the face of modern heritability estimates, which find obsessive origins, not in familial and social dynamics, but in mainly in heritable elements. few, unelaborated, and insufficiently differentiated from their psychoanalytic progenitors, existing biological theories, are works of localization, which provide proximate, rather than ultimate explanations of obsessive origins. nevertheless, providing proximate rather than ultimate explanations only make biological etiologies incomplete, not wrong. however, as with psychoanalytic theories, existing biological theories are controverted by their inability to absorb heritability estimates without repudiating their common central tenet; namely that obsessive character is a disorder. though biological etiologies assume that obsessive character is a disorder, none explain why this disorder exists and why it is intergenerationally perpetuated. again, the principle aim of the present article is to expose the weaknesses, peripheral and central, of current ocpd etiologies. first, psychoanalytic models will be reviewed and critiqued, and then biological models will be reviewed and critiqued. the discussion section will comment on these weaknesses and examine their implications. briefly stated here, these implications are 1) that we need to take seriously and assimilate the behavioral genetics estimates that demonstrate the high heritability of obsessive character; 2) we need then abandon psychoanalytic models outright, not as possible adjunctive modifiers of obsessive character, but as primary determinants of it; 3) we need to ask more of biological models, demanding not just localization, but true explanation; 4) we need to either reject or revise those biological etiologies that simultaneously find obsessive character to be both heritable and harmful; 5) we need to consider that the only way to craft a truly convincing model of obsessive origins might be to altogether stop thinking of obsessive character as disorder; 6) instead, we would do better to search for the adaptive logic behind obsessive behavior and posit an evolutionary model on these grounds (hertler, 2013). the process of this critique, and the conclusions that it comes to, are intended to inspire critical thought about the nature of personality and individual differences. in the rapidly changing field of personality, new information needs, not only to be generated, but assimilated. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a history of psychoanalytic etiological models in his classic track on obsessive character, character and anal eroticism, freud assumed that the obsessive is born with constitutional anal sensitivities (gay, 1989). nevertheless, it was not “anal erotogenicity” (gay, 1989, p. 294) itself, but parental reactions to it, that truly created obsessive character. later psychoanalysts would further emphasize parental dynamics to the consummate exclusion of constitutional anal erotogenicity. thereafter, decades of observation correlated perfectionism and rigidity in childhood with later development of obsessive character (millon & davis, 1996). obsessive character is hypothesized to be environmentally instilled through themechanisms of parental over-control and strict disciplinary practices. expressed during the anal phase of psychosexual development and acutely felt throughout toilet training, parental over-control creates lasting characterological defects. the child’s natural impulses to elimination are, in a series of overwrought conflicts, supplanted by the parental will to regulate and defer defecation (mccann, 2009). often, unsuccessful training is initiated before sufficient physiological control can be expected, or is carried out in an exceedingly severe manner, such that it strips the child of control. control is forever after searched for, but never found. psychoanalytic theory, as it passed from freud to his progenitors, became less sexual and more social. following this general trend, later etiological explanations of obsessive character would focus on psychosocial, rather than psychosexual factors. where traditional psychoanalytic explanation focused on the parental wish to precisely regulate the expulsion of feces, modern psychosocial explanation pivots more broadly on control. representative of such amendments to psychoanalytic canon, karen horney thought that the anal character was raised by authoritarian parents that veiled their domineering traits under a façade of “fairness and infallibility” (pollak, 1987, p. 253). the child of such a parent becomes anxious for security and so conforms obsequiously to every demand of the parent. parents demand obedience, deference and order without establishing the requisite love, trust and attachment that serve as the foundation of filial allegiance (eskedal & demitri, 2006). there is, however, significant anger that is tightly secured within the over-controlled child; anger for his acceptance being made conditional; anger at having to conform; anger at not being able to express his natural emotional reactions. according to horney, it is the parent that arouses the obsessive child’s very perception of the world as unstable and threatening (pollak, 1987). likewise, erikson and ego psychologists follow freud’s mark, but understand toileting to be one battle in a larger war of wills. obsessive character emerges from tyrannical parental control, which, over time, divests children of any vestige of self-determination (pollak, 1987). psychosexual dynamic explanations and psychosocial dynamic explanations, alike, attribute obsessive character formation to controlling, punitive, tyrannical parents that bestow approval only on children that strictly conform to parental ideals. in the refined psychosocial models, however, obsessive character is instilled over a greater span of time and through a greater range of interaction that subsumes the freudian anal stage within the eriksonian stage of autonomy versus shame and doubt. modern theorists continue to use elements of psychoanalytic and psychosocial explanation as they create ever refined etiological theories. mallinger (1984), for instance, asserts that the obsessive is “frightened in early childhood by feelings of helplessness and vulnerability stemming at least in part from anxiety-arousing parental interpersonal attitudes including rejection, domination, and intrusiveness” (pollak, 1987, p. 253). according to mallinger, early in development, the child constructs a “myth of absolute personal control” in reaction to the unconscious sense of impotence against the perception of the environment as “untrustworthy, hostile and unpredictable” (pollak, 1987, p. 253). accordingly, the obsessive’s life orientation is thought to be a relentless toil towards minimizing threatening disorder through ever rigorous control of the internal and external environment. thus early parentchild interaction stamps the child with an obsessive personality. mallinger, following the intuition of harry stack europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 170 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sullivan, believes that character is shaped as the child interacts with the environment in the same manner that smooth river stones are shaped by tumbling over one another. this is the essence of psychogenic character formation. most recently, mallinger (2009, p. 106) continues to describe the causal role of “intra-psychic forces and counterforces.” however, more andmore frequently psychoanalytic theorists are confronted with behavior genetics research, as mallinger (2009, p. 107) reports, “several twin studies conclude that specific personality traits and disorders are influenced strongly by heredity.” assuming the role of an apologist, mallinger quickly provides the following caveat: “this finding, however, invalidates neither the importance of psychological contributors nor the value of psychotherapy. indeed, the same studies also provide evidence that genetics alone cannot entirely explain ‘choice’ of personality type” (mallinger, 2009, p. 107). mallinger’s caveat is duly regarded, but so should the behavioral genetics research that inspired it. mallinger does now acknowledge genetic variation in basic temperamental features, but maintains that “early experiences and perceptions are hearth, hammer, and anvil—the shapers of these raw possibilities and limitations into coordinated adaptive trait clusters, or styles” (mallinger, 2009, p. 107). as will be seen in the following section, notwithstanding such a concession, present evidence suggests that nurture must share the field of influence more equitably with nature. evaluating psychoanalytic etiologies inchoate, developmental, dynamic and unconscious, the causal mechanisms posited by psychoanalytic etiologies of obsessive personality have proved difficult to operationalize, measure and study (mccann, 2009). still, with tenacity and persistence, studies were conducted. after reviewing a series of published studies, pollak judged predominantly psychoanalytic etiological models to no longer be viable. there is nearly no empirical support, pollak (1979) states, to the notion that rigid toilet training practices cause obsessive pathology in children. pollak (1979) cites fourteen independent researchers or groups of researchers who have experimentally investigated the proposed causal relationship. taken individually or in aggregate, the results of these investigations provide “at best, meager support for the hypothesized relationship between toilet training practices and the development of anal or obsessive-compulsive character structure” ii (pollak, 1987, p. 227). pollak cites beloff (1957), who states that, although the character type is well described and the constellation of traits co-occurs, no link between this constellation of traits can be related to how rigidly or permissively toilet training was undertaken by the parent (pollak, 1979). pollak (1979) judged the etiological literature, derived through psychoanalytic treatment and theory, to be unsupported and far from compelling. of course, psychosocial theorists construe toilet training as simply representative of the more general struggle for autonomy and control that characterizes early childhood; so what of them? again, for the psychosocial theorist, the struggle over autonomy replaces the struggle over fecal regulation, the eriksonian phase of autonomy versus shame and doubt subsumes the freudian phase of anality, and the process of character formation takes place over many years, rather than over many months. still, even when the scope is thus broadened, supporting data has not been forthcoming (pollak, 1987). there is only scanty empirical data, according to pollak, to support the widespread theories that obsessive character pathology is formed in the crucible of childhood. bettelheims’s refrigerator mother and fromm-riechman’s schizophrenigenic mother recollect the pernicious trend of unjustly saddling parents with the causal burden of their children’s mental illness. it seems that personality psychopathology has sprung the same trap, lured in by the bait of the blank slate (locke, 1689/1996; europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 171 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pinker, 2002). more than two decades ago, pollak did his part to deliver psychology from this trap, calling for biological explanations of obsessive character pathology. still, rigidly psychogenic models persisted. more than the failure to demonstrate the validity of psychoanalytic etiologies, more than the weight of pollak’s judgment, more than the fourteen studies that have failed to support the hypothesized link between elimination and personality formation, psychoanalytic theories, with their psychogenic predilections, suffer from their incompatibility with the established heritability estimates of behavioral genetics research. using controlled twin studies, behavioral genetic methods carefully tease apart genetic and environmental influences so that it is now possible for researchers, such as penke, denissen, and miller (2007, p. 550), to state that “one of personality psychology’s most important findings in the last three decades has been that virtually every aspect of personality is heritable. this fact is now so well established that turkheimer (2000; turkheimer & gottesman, 1991) even called it a law.” even in the unconditioned infant, the rudiments of traits can be observed (macdonald, 1995). further still, allelic variation can now be associated with “variation in novelty seeking and exploration behavior in a range of species, from humans to great tits” (tschirren & bensch, 2010, p. 624).” researchers such as mcadams and pals (2006, p. 207) who fully appreciate developmental dynamics, identity, narrative construction and lifespan development, nonetheless assert that “at least half of the variability in trait scores appears to be a result of genetic differences between people.” more than this, there are not only general data on the heritability of personality, but data on the anxious and fearfulness disposition. taken together, it seems that cluster c personality disorders are moderately heritable with little evidence of shared environmental effects (reichborn-kjennerud et al., 2007)iii. however, when isolating obsessive character, when studying it in its own right, heritability estimates becomemuchmore pronounced. indeed, genetic investigations of obsessive compulsive personality disorder, as estimated by torgersen et al. (2000), yielded a heritability estimate of 0.78 (torgersen et al., 2000; reichborn-kjennerud et al., 2007). in discussing this finding, torgersen et al. (2000, p. 424) described ocpd as “particularly strongly influenced by genes.” this confirms earlier reviews by pollak, which cite the co-occurrence of compulsivity in monozygotic twins. further still, this is consistent with the judgment of reichborn-kjennerud and colleagues (2007, p. 649), a group that found that obsessive character is familially grouped and that these familial groupings are “best explained by genetic factors alone.” such strong genetic influence exceeds that of nearly all axis-i disorders, rivaling even the highly heritable bipolar disorder (torgersen et al., 2000). such findings place the etiological burden squarely upon a genetic footing. after so demonstrating the heritability of obsessive character, the principle predicate of psychoanalytic etiologies becomes patently implausible. again, there is still room for such social and familial dynamics to influence identity, self and the life course; further there is still room for such social and familial dynamics to moderate personality in terms of its expression and degree, but there is no room for social and familial dynamics to either create the individual traits that comprise obsessive character or arrange them into their coherent whole. continuing to make such claims becomes anachronistic in light of the above proffered information. biological alternatives little has changed since pollak’s exhaustive etiological review written in 1987; alternative biological perspectives remain essentially unexplored (mccann, 2009). some have loosely applied cloninger’s tripartite temperamental dimensions (novelty seeking, reward dependence and harm avoidance) to explain obsessive behavior as follows: europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 172 http://www.psychopen.eu/ low novelty seeking elicits routine living; high harm avoidance elicits caution. others (joyce et al., 2003), connected the perfectionistic traits of the obsessive to the drd3 dopamine receptor, but subsequent studies (light et al., 2006) failed to replicate this association. such speculation does not amount to an etiological theory. the present review revealed only three accounts that were sufficiently coherent and elaborated to amount to an etiological theory; and truly, even of these, none are prominent authoritative statements of obsessive origins; rather, they are speculations embedded within broader works that treat obsessive character generally, measure it empirically, or evaluate it diagnostically. first, theodore millon’s writings on the genesis of obsessive personality are, in almost every manner, psychodynamic in character. nevertheless, working with davis in (1996, p. 530) he devoted two paragraphs to “hypothetical biogenic factors.” the entirety of their first paragraph is devoted to caution and disclaimer, which begins as follows: “there is little evidence to suggest that biogenic influences contribute in any distinct manner to the development of the compulsive personality.” nevertheless, millon and davis, in their second paragraph, go on to speculate upon a connection between obsessive character and limbic organization: we might hypothesize that the neurological regions of the limbic system associated with the expression of fear and anger may be unusually dense or well branched among these patients; these conflicting dispositions might underlie the hesitancy, doubting, and indecisive behaviors seen in these patients (millon & davis, 1996, p. 530). pioneering and imaginative, these were the first cautious forays away from psychoanalytic accounts. however, millon and davis quickly ended these speculative advances and, in the very next section, retreated back to psychoanalytic orthodoxy, asserting that “the foundations of the compulsive pattern are rooted primarily in interpersonal experience.” more problematically than its being abjured and unelaborated, millon and davis’ biological theory, even if borne out by research, would only find the physiological correlates of obsessive decision making. of course, this would be a spectacular advance in and of itself; but it would still leave us etiologically confounded. one would still then ask; why is the obsessive brain structured in this way? in other words, limbic differences are a proximate explanation for which an ultimate explanation would still be wanting. millon and davis, however, in later amendments to their original theory, did go on to try to connect their limbic system speculations, which by themselves amount only to a theory of localization, to more fundamental explanations. in this attempt, millon and davis invoke evolution, but seem to succeed only in reiterating psychodynamic explanations in modern garb. millon and davis speak of aims of existence, strategies of replication and instrumental modes of adapting to one’s environment, but they do so, at least as far as the obsessive personality is concerned, in a way that would not be recognizable to evolutionary biologists. mccann (1999, p. 592) summarizes: the obsessive compulsive personality is viewed as a conflicted style experiencing intense ambivalence over needs for individuation and nurturance. thus, there is guilt over seeking individual, self-centered needs but resistance to accepting direction from others. therefore, the individual that is obsessive-compulsive passively adopts strict adherence to external rules and structure to cope with the ambivalence created by attempts to individuate and seek nurturance from others. as both the tone and content of the above-referenced passage indicate, this theory is not sufficiently differentiated from its early psychodynamic heritage. evolutionary explanation is not wrought. explanations remain proximate. second, aycicegi-dinn, dinn, and caldwell-harris (2009, p. 601) proposed that characteristic obsessive compulsive personality traits arise in response to cognitive deficits. this research group submitted the following hypothesis: europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 173 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “individuals demonstrating obsessive compulsive personality traits…would demonstrate cognitive disorganization during neurocognitive task performance and would display working memory deficits.” however, the ambitious range of interests incorporated into aycicegi-dinn et al.’s research, along with the methodology employed, make it difficult to extract conclusive or convincing inferences about the etiology of obsessive character. for instance, aycicegi-dinn et al.’s participants were classified as having obsessive traits simply by placing higher than one standard deviation above the mean on a self-report measure. still, findings were forthcoming and worth considering. to test for the hypothesized deficits in organization, aycicegi-dinn and colleagues (2009) used rey-osterrieth complex figure test (rocft), which is primarily a measure of visuospatial memory. yet the rocft, in its recall phase, purportedly measures organizational strategy; and it was obsessive organizational strategy on this recall phase that proved aberrant. obsessive personality traits were associated with “significantly lower copy organization scores” and slower performance during the recall phase (aycicegi-dinn et al., 2009, p. 601). after examining their results, aycicegi-dinn et al. (2009, p. 607) were able to make the following statement: “findings lend support to the contention that ocpts [obsessive compulsive personality traits] may represent, at least in part, compensatory tactics that evolve in response to executive control deficits.” to be clear, aycicegi-dinn et al. (2009) did not seek to explain the origins of obsessive character and their quoted passage to that effect represents closing conjecture as to the results of their cognitive study. nevertheless, in closing with this interpretation of their results, aycicegidinn et al. are postulating an etiology that should be considered and weighed. third, after skillfully reviewing the diagnosis and conceptualization of the obsessive construct, hummelen, wilberg, pedersen, and karterud (2008) devote a paragraph of their discussion section to etiological speculation. although it is herein described as biological, as the authors state, their position is a generous modification of freudian theory; one that creatively couples past and present, describing an interaction between nature and nurture to explain obsessive character development. hummelen et al. most markedly diverge from freud in their use of baron-cohen’s (2006) theory of systemizing and empathizing, originally developed to describe autistic behavior. to understand hummelen’s etiological theory, it is necessary to understand the rudiments of baron-cohen’s dichotomy. on one hand, there is the systemizing mechanism, an evolutionary solution that enables comprehension for lawful and nonintentional events. on the other hand, there is an empathizing mechanism, which enables comprehension of intentional motivated behavior characteristic of humans. in typically developing persons, the empathizing mechanism and systemizingmechanism are both adequately developed and used appropriately according to the demands of particular situations. thus, the nature and dangers of gravity are discovered by the systemizing mechanism, while the wiles and cunning of man are discovered by the empathizingmechanism. using baron-cohen’s scheme, hummelen et al. assert that in the obsessive, the empathizing mechanism is blunted and the systemizing mechanism is sharpened. consequently, obsessives incongruously apply their systemizing mechanism across situations, attempting to subject the vagaries of social life to the order of physical life. this inborn imbalance represents the temperamental seeds of obsessive character, which must be cultivated by parental mismanagement, as described by hummelen et al. (2008, p. 453) in the following passage: we suggest that ocpd develops out of an intersubjective matrix where children with a moderate to high inborn tendency of systemizing mechanism and thus displaying more rigidity, stubbornness, and perfectionism than average, are met by rigid and inflexible countermeasures by parents who may share the same genetic disposition. with regard to temperament, if there is a predisposition toward rage reactivity, this intersubjective matrix may handle the rage less than optimally and fail in containing and transforming the rage into healthy assertiveness as well as failing to modify the archaic grandiose self. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 174 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this way, hummelen et al. substitute the biology of anal eroticism, as described by freud, for the biology of systemizing, as described by baron-cohen. significantly, they also endow biological contributions with much more power than freud allowed for. freudian theory describes biology essentially as a factor that skewed the nature of parental care, with the parental care itself mostly responsible for obsessive character formation. hummelen et al. assign a more independent causal role to biology, creating a system that resembles more modern conceptualizations of disorder developing via diathesis and stress or via nurture and nature. evaluating biological etiologies to recount, millon and davis (1996) first suggested that obsessive character arises from differences in limbic organization; millon and davis then suggested that there may be evolutionary underpinnings for such limbic differences. when considering millon et al.’s basic limbic speculations, we are left with a work of localization, not of explanation; when considering millon et al.’s integrated theory, we are left with a composite of biology and psychoanalysis that invokes evolution more effectively than it employs evolution. it is a composite of new and old that is certainly an advance, that is certainly more modern; but an explanation which does not explain how the obsessive character, replete with the deficits attributed to it, could have evolved. to recount, aycicegi-dinn, dinn, and caldwell-harris (2009) empirically demonstrated deficits in executive control, which they then interpreted as causally organizing all other obsessive traits through the course of development. they say that obsessive character evolves in reaction to these executive control deficits. in taking the measures of this etiological assertion, the word evolve should be scrutinized, as much hinges upon it. at first glance, it seems that aycicegi-dinn and colleagues are postulating an evolutionary account of obsessive origins, but this is not the case. their use of the word evolve does not appear to be used in a formal sense; rather it seems to be used to denote a class of developmental dynamics more precisely described as reactive heritability. reactive heritability involves structuring one’s strategy of living around an inherited trait (tooby & cosmides, 1990); for aycicegi-dinn and colleagues that inherited trait is executive control dysfunction and that strategy of living is the entirety of obsessive behavior. in other words, the obsessive personality, during the course of development, is organized around this pre-existing executive dysfunction. to the degree that the present reading of aycicegi-dinn et al.’s theory is correct, there are two prominent problems with this explanatory model: first, it is not consistent with the ample evidence that personality traits are themselves, heritable. heritable traits such as conscientiousness and extraversion are not predominantly instilled as a matter of habit. as suggested by modern personality theory and behavioral genetics research, personality traits are heritable entities in and of themselves. furthermore, these same sources do not suggest that traits capriciously coalesce into clusters over the course of development. as such, although this is a biological model with a concrete finding, the interpretation of this finding is implicitly predicated upon the psychogenic formation and organization of traits. second, should this theory be fully correct, it would still answer one question (what is the source of obsessive character traits?) by posing another (what is the source of the executive control deficits?) in other words, it would offer a proximate rather than an ultimate explanation. truly, this cognitive deficit, being a proximate explanation, must then be explained in turn and of its own accord: why does it exist and why is it perpetuated? as it currently stands, aycicegi-dinn, dinn, and caldwell-harris’ work is significant more for the biological nature of its inquiry and for its empirical findings, rather than for the integration of these findings into a functional etiological model of obsessive character formation. incidentally, aycicegi-dinn et al.’s findings are an expected validation of earlier theoretical work by shapiro on obsessive attention. for decades, shapiro (1999) has described obsessive attention as sharply focused, but rigidly fixed. also congruent with acygegidinn et al.’s findings, gibbs-gallagher, south, and oltmanns (2003) describe the obsessive as having an atteneurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 175 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tional agenda. it is very likely that the executive control problems described by aycicegi-dinn and coauthors are not causal but symptomatic of compulsivity and conscientiousness. a recent study by fineberg et al. (2010), for example, found compulsivity to be associated with a reduced ability to fluidly refocus attention to different environmental cues. compulsivity leads one to focus on perceptions, features or cues intently, rendering shifts in set difficult. in conclusion, executive control deficits documented by aycicegi-dinn et al. are likely ancillary associated features, rather than primary determinants, of obsessive character. to recount, hummelen et al. (2008) posited that obsessive character arises from an indiscriminant application and general overreliance on the systemizing mechanism, leaving the obsessive ill equipped to comprehend human motivation and action. hummelen and colleagues state that this disposition, this indiscriminate application and general overreliance, is inborn. it is an inborn deficit. nevertheless, they do not describe from whence this deficit came and why it persists. like other biologically oriented theorists, hummelen et al. mention that they will use evolution as part of the explanation of obsessive origins, but this appears to be limited to the use of baron-cohen’s two evolved mechanisms: systemizing and empathizing. they do not explicitly say that the inborn overreliance on systemizing evolved in the obsessive, and they do not further comment on its origins. because of this, hummelen et al., even if fully correct in other respects, could only provide a proximate explanation of obsessive origins. again, without specifying the etiological source of the indiscriminate application of systemizing, we are left with a partial explanation that fails to fully satisfy our curiosity. there are three problems, which at different times and to different degrees plague all three biological etiologies: 1) the substitution of proximate for ultimate explanation, 2) failure to seriously reckon with established heritability estimates, and 3) failure to rigorously apply evolutionary thought and theory. first, whatever the specified biological dysfunction, aberrant limbic functioning (millon & davis, 1996), executive control deficits (aycicegi-dinn et al., 2009) or underdeveloped empathizing (hummelen et al., 2008), there is no explanation for its existence. beyond describing their causal role in the development of obsessive character, there is no compelling description of how the various dysfunctions came to be. second, heritability is variously acknowledged, but not fully assimilated. general environmental forces or parental dynamics or the process of reactive heritability remain incongruously empowered. none of the above described biological theories, despite their characterization, are sufficiently biological. all, to a great degree, incorporate psychogenic reasoning. all continue to understand developmental dynamics as a potent causal force in obsessive personality formation. in this way they are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. because they do not make a marked break with the past, these biological theories, though to a lesser extent, are contradicted by the judgment of behavioral genetics researchers such as reichborn-kjennerud et al. (2007, p. 649) who assert that obsessive character is “best explained by genetic factors alone” and torgersen et al. who assert that obsessive character is not significantly influenced by “common, shared-in-families environmental factors” (torgersen et al., 2000, p. 422). third, all three theories mention evolution, but none are sufficiently evolutionary. in none of the three accounts are there descriptions of why the pattern might have evolved and no discussion of the evolutionary pressures that shaped obsessive character. the last of these three problems merits further scrutiny. whether in name or in spirit, whether done convincingly or unconvincingly, invoking evolution creates a new problem … at least it does so given that all three of these biological etiologies follow their dynamic predecessors in assuming that obsessive character is pathological, harmful and detrimental. simultaneously maintaining that obsessive character is dysfunctional and evolved, places a heavy burden on the theorist. it demands that these biological theorists, to the extent that they invoke evolution, answer keller andmiller (2006) and resolve the paradox of common, harmful, heritable mental disorders. for indeed, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 176 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this is what they have posited, a paradox. it seems that there is no way to extricate these theories from this paradox. to become free of this explanatory burden, these theories would have to describe how obsessive character, possessing the variously attributed deficiencies, then managed to continue its representation in the population. these theories would have to describe how obsessive persons, in spite of deficits in limbic organization, in spite of deficits in executive control, in spite of deficits in empathizing, still managed to remain as fecund and fit as their unimpaired competitors. in the struggle for life, through competition for reproductive rights and survival, the less fit are eliminated. unabashed deficiencies are not suffered to continue on. there are at least two ways to resolve this paradox and continue to maintain that obsessive character is both dysfunctional and evolved: first, one might say that obsessive character is an evolutionary vestige, a pattern that was once adaptive, but, finding itself in a modern context, is now maladaptive. this is the concept of phylogenic inertia (cachel, 2006). in such a scheme the ancestral environment should be described, followed by how it contrasts with modern environments, which no longer support such a personality organization. second, one might say that obsessive character is maintained by antagonistic pleiotropy. as the costs of sickle cell anemia are, in malarial regions, offset by the benefits of being a carrier, so too one might say that the variously proposed costs of obsessive character are somehow offset by some unarticulated balancing benefit. one may, in other words, posit a tradeoff. again, whether using one of these solutions or another, this paradox must be resolved before any of these theories can be given credence. discussion and conclusions it was in 1908 that freud wrote the first etiological explanation of obsessive character. in the past century, scientific advances have crowded academic journals, revolutionized thought and matured the western mind. this is an age of genomics, controlled twin studies, evolutionary psychology, modern personality theory and cognitive neuroscience. yet, for all such advances, we still have no compelling etiological account of obsessive origins. though lockean developmental theory, with its emphasis on nurture to the exclusion of nature, is no longer plausible, psychodynamic etiologies of obsessive character continue to be revised by theorists, published in journals and taught in schools. these psychodynamic theories are relics of a past age, but have not been recognized as such. furthermore, if the presence of alternative biological theories can be taken as a sign of progress, this progress is minimal, judged both by the number of researchers and the time invested in theory development. psychodynamic explanations are formal etiological models, but models that have not been supported by research and which cannot hope to be reconciled with the increasingly prominent demonstrations of the heritability of obsessive character. biological models, aside from not globally explaining obsessive character, have not satisfactorily explained ultimate causes. consequently, the established etiologies of yesterday are fatally contradicted, while the burgeoning alternatives of today cannot replace them. now to take up the six points outlined early in the introduction. first, we need to take seriously and assimilate the behavioral genetics data, which indicates that obsessive character is highly heritable. behavioral genetics is a more modern field than is psychoanalysis; the two fields have different researchers, practitioners and readers. still, it is nearly incredible that more than a decade has passed without psychoanalytic theorists seriously reckoning with established heritability estimates. continued adherence to traditional etiological models is not, most probably, purposefully reactionary, but it is, nonetheless, anachronistic. psychoanalytic commentary on obsessive origins continues to be uncritically read and written … it continues in lockean bliss, unimpeded by the heritability of personality and the evolutionary significance of individual differences. occasionally, contrary evidence is encountered europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 177 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and addressed. as previously described, mallinger (2009), after writing about obsessive personality in the traditional psychoanalytic mode for decades, perforce, commented on the heritability of traits. however, he defensively parried the evidence, rather than honestly accounting for it. ostensibly, mallinger and all other psychoanalysts writing on obsessive personality have not read torgersen et al.’s (2000) heritability estimate of .78. again, torgersen et al. (2000, p. 424) conclude that “common, shared-in-families environmental factors … seem to be of little importance” in explaining the origins of many personality disorders, among them obsessive personality disorder. it is now twelve years since these findings were published and still they remain dissociated from psychoanalytic and psychosocial etiological accounts. second, because of these irreconcilable differences, we need to abandon these psychogenic etiologies. the dynamics described by psychoanalytic and psychosocial models, for instance, the parent-child power struggles within erkisonian stage of autonomy versus shame and doubt, are quite possibly influential. these dynamics might very well affect identity specifically and the person generally. indeed, such dynamics could affect obsessive personality itself, modifying its expression and severity. it is just that such dynamics are not the crucible of character; they are not the primary determinants of obsessive personality. maintaining, as does mallinger, that traits are predominantly forged and arranged by parental forces contradicts demonstrable data. third, we need to ask more of biological models; we need to demand true explanation of them. rushton (1988, p. 1018) states that the “ultimate aim of science is causally to explain the world around us.” in this sense, the reviewed biological theories are not truly fulfilling this aim. they posit proximate, instead of ultimate explanations. again, an ultimate explanation is one that, when proffered, silences curiosity conclusively; one that admits of no subsequent question. suggesting differences in limbic organization (millon & davis, 1996), describing executive control deficits (aycicegi-dinn et al., 2009) or positing an overreliance on a systemizing mechanism (hummelen et al., 2008) do not causally explain at this most fundamental level. instead, what they do is offer potentially correct proximate explanations, which, if substantiated, would then themselves require ultimate explanations. in conclusion, while proximate explanations are valuable, we are still left without a compelling etiological theory of obsessive origins that is grounded in ultimate causes. fourth, we need to either reject or revise those biological etiologies that simultaneously find obsessive character to be both heritable and harmful. before being accepted, these biological theories, finding obsessive character to be heritable and harmful, should satisfactorily resolve keller and miller’s (2006) paradox: the paradox of common, harmful, heritable mental disorder. if obsessive character is, on one hand to be understood as a disorder of empathizing, limbic function or of executive control and, on the other hand is accepted as heritable, we must explain how this is so; we must explain the coexistence of these facts. just as consumers do not continue to buy products that are reliably broken, so disordered individuals do not continue to replicate at the mean reproductive rate. problems in areas as profound as empathizing, through which we explain the world of motivated behavior, limbic functioning, through which we regulate our emotion, executive control, through which we plan our actions, are significant enough to depress reproductive success. behavioral prediction, emotional regulation and future planning are essential abilities required across cultures and environments, without any of which the obsessive would be at a significant disadvantage in the competition to survive and reproduce. as a result of this disadvantage, obsessives would eventually be driven from representation within the gene pool. in conclusion, it is not that it is impossible for obsessive character or another disorder to be both heritable and harmful, but if obsessive character or another disorder is portrayed as both heritable and harmful, the etiological theorist assumes the burden of resolving and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 178 http://www.psychopen.eu/ explaining this paradoxical coexistence. none of these biological theories have recognized, much less shouldered this burden. fifth, we need to accept that the only way to craft a truly convincing model of obsessive origins might be to altogether stop thinking of obsessive character as disorder (hertler, 2013). rather than trying to fix a bad job; rather than trying to answer keller and miller; rather than trying to resolve the paradox while clinging to existing models, it seems best to start from scratch. in doing this we give up all assumptions. we accept that our descriptions of obsessive character are more or less sound, but we abjure all extant etiological speculation. most fundamentally, if we are to make headway, we do not even assume that obsessive character is dysfunctional. by finding functionality within obsessive behavior, we fully sidestep keller and miller’s challenge. instead of resolving the paradox, we escape it by stating that obsessive character is not a disorder at all (hertler, 2013). there is ample evidence to support such a position, despite some dissenting empirical studies (diaconu & turecki, 2009; soeteman, hakkaart-van roijen, verheul, & busschbach, 2008)iv and despite its incongruence with established orthodoxy, obsessives 1) manifest a high global assessment of functioning (jovev & jackson, 2004), 2) obtain material wealth and worldly success (ullrich, farrington, & coid, 2007; ryder, costa, & bagby, 2007), have sound early attachments and maintain autonomous functioning (aaronson, bender, skodol, & gunderson, 2006; kyrios et al., 2007). sixth, we would do better to search for the adaptive logic behind obsessive behavior and posit an evolutionary model on these foundations. unarguably, obsessive behavior is both irregular and extreme. yet, after surrendering the reflexive prejudice that states that obsessive character is disordered character, we are free to ask an entirely new question: what is the adaptive significance of obsessive behavior? simply in asking this question, we are oriented towards the development of an etiological theory that simultaneously accounts for established heritability estimates, avoids psychogenic explanation, and renders keller and miller’s paradox nugatory. we come to think of obsessive character as an intergenerationally transmitted pattern, which persists because of some advantage it confers. we look for the strategic function of the obsessive character. recognizing that the obsessive is not cunning, dominant or charismatic, we try to find the idiosyncratic characteristics by which the obsessive can otherwise compete (hertler, 2013). we now know that personality is not, as tooby and cosmides (1990) erroneously asserted, selectively neutral; it does indeed have profound consequences for survival and reproductive success. we also understand, as figueredo et al. (2011) state, that extreme traits can arise within a population through a process of niche splitting. as competition intensifies, organisms are driven to abandon straightforward competition and begin to evolve alternative strategies. might not the obsessive personality be an extreme character type evolved to exploit a previously unoccupied niche within the social landscape? this is precisely how linda mealey (1995) explained the psychopath. mealey shows how the psychopath, an extreme and pathologized character type approximately synonymous with dsm-iv’s antisocial personality disorder, might in fact be an evolutionary strategy. though unwanted by society, the psychopath engages in exploitative exchanges with the larger population for which it has theoretically evolved. blunted anxiety, circumscribed empathy and prominent sensation seeking are all genetically heritable neurological traits by which the psychopath effectively deceives and manipulates. in this way, for all its appearance of disorder, the psychopath, like the parasitic mosquito, is functioning just as it was designed to function. perhaps both the antisocial and the obsessive are extremes pathologized, not because they fail to function, but because they fail to function in accordance with the dominant values of the day; the antisocial in terms of honesty, honor and the social contract, the obsessive in terms of balance, spontaneity and the ideal of happiness (hertler, 2013). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) obsessive character or obsessive personality is generally substituted for obsessive compulsive personality disorder because the latter is a smaller subset of the former. the terms obsessive character and obsessive personality are more inclusive, subsuming both clinical and non-clinical manifestations of the pattern. the etiological review and the discussion of its implications are meant to apply to both the clinical and non-clinical varieties. ii) it is important to note that the studies reviewed by pollak which cast doubt on psychoanalytic etiologies do so more by failing to find support for them; rather than by pointedly disproving them. because they cast doubt on psychoanalytic etiologies rather than positively falsifying them, many continue to believe in their validity. ocpd was first observed by freud and has remained firmly ensconced in the psychoanalytic tradition. even while other psychoanalytic explanations have fell out of favor, those specific to ocpd continue strong; and even those who would not describe themselves as psychoanalytically oriented, often subscribe to psychodynamic etiological accounts of ocpd. thus, they are highlighted in the present review. only the heritability estimates cited presently can positively disconfirm these psychoanalytic theories. iii) reichborn-kjennerud et al. (2007) advise against grouping obsessive personality within the anxious and fearful cluster c umbrella because it is much more heritable and distinct from both the avoidant and dependent personalities. as reichborn-kjennerud and colleagues state, obsessive personality is truly “genotypically” and “phenotypically” distinct from its two counterparts because the avoidant personality and the dependent personality are “related to the … higher-order factor” of emotional dysregulation, while the obsessive personality is related to “the lower-order trait of compulsivity” (reichborn-kjennerud et al., 2007). iv) soeteman, hakkaart-van roijen, verheul, and busschbach (2008) found ocpd to impose more of an overall economic encumbrance than all other personality disorders with the single exception of borderline personality. likewise, diaconu and turecki (2009) found that depressed patients exhibit more non-lethal suicidal behavior when they carry a comorbid diagnosis of ocpd. such studies do not correspond with those cited above. this is especially true of ullrich et al’s work which suggests that ocpd is significantly and positively associated with elevated socio-economic standing, high income, managerial positions, enlarged living quarters, and home ownership (hertler, 2013; ullrich, farrington, & coid, 2007). nor do they correspond with other studies, as reviewed in hertler (2013) that show ocpd to have fewer comorbidities than other personality disorders (mcglashan et al., 2000), or studies that show ocpd to be less impairing than any other personality disorder (barber, morse, krakauer, chittams, & crits-christoph, 1997; skodol, gunderson, mcglashan, & dyck, 2002). soeteman et al. (2008) and diaconu and turecki (2009) use samples that are quite low functioning, and which are comprised of persons combining an array of psychological difficulties from a variety of categories. rather than representing a particular personality type, these participants most often evidence symptoms from multiple personality disorder categories, while also carrying axis i symptoms. such participants are drawn exclusively from clinical populations receiving a combination of outpatient treatment, partial hospitalization and inpatient care. such samples are not representative of the obsessive type and do not characterize the group as a whole. clinically identified obsessives represent a less functional subset of the larger obsessive population; and in turn, those in the studies by soeteman etc. represent a less functional subset of the population of clinically identified obsessives. these are people not only close enough to mental health services to be formally identified as ocpd by a mental health professional, but those that are so impaired as to gain more than one diagnosis or require treatment, and sometimes even hospitalization. in trying to understand the etiology of the obsessive, we are trying to understand their very existence. thus, we are concerned with explaining all persons of that ilk, those in the community and in the clinic. since the former far outnumber the latter, one should be careful of basing conclusions on such a select group, especially given the high prevalence of obsessive personality. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author is one of the associate editors of europe's journal of psychology but played no editorial role for this particular article. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 180 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references aaronson, c. j., bender, d. s., skodol, a. e., & gunderson, j. g. 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(2007). dimensions of dsm-iv personality disorders and life-success. journal of personality disorders, 21, 657-663. doi:10.1521/pedi.2007.21.6.657 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 hertler 183 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.629 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/pedi.1987.1.3.248 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033291706009548 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(88)90135-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2007.21.6.626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.2.276 http://dx.doi.org/10.4088/jcp.v69n0212 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1990.tb00907.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/comp.2000.16560 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294x.2009.04519.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00084 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.27.1.18 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2007.21.6.657 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the author steven hertler is a licensed psychologist and personality researcher interested in understanding the ultimate origins of character dynamics, as well as understanding how those dynamics express themselves within persons and throughout lives. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 168–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.679 obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies 184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en obsessive-compulsive personality disorder etiologies introduction a history of psychoanalytic etiological models evaluating psychoanalytic etiologies biological alternatives evaluating biological etiologies discussion and conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer research reports predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer huda abu-saad huijer*a, sarah abboudb [a] hariri school of nursing, american university of beirut, beirut, lebanon. [b] school of nursing, university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, usa. abstract quality of life (qol) is a multi-dimensional phenomenon bordering on all aspects of one’s life. the aim of this study was to determine the factors that are considered predictors of qol in a lebanese sample of cancer patients attending a tertiary healthcare center. a cross-sectional descriptive survey was used. a total of 200 adult oncology patients over 18 years of age were interviewed over a one-year period, 2009-2010. two widely known instruments were used; the european organization for research and treatment of cancer-quality of life questionnaire (eortcqlq-c30) and the memorial symptom assessment scale (msas) to evaluate the qol and symptoms experienced in this population group. the reliability coefficients of both instruments were generally satisfactory. the results showed significant predictors of better qol were being married (p = 0.04) and being single (p = 0.04), having breast (p = 0.01) and gastro-intestinal cancer (0.02) as primary cancer sites and emotional functioning (p = 0.00); significant predictors of poorer qol were the msas total symptoms (p = 0.01) and fatigue (p = 0.00). our findings provide insight into the predictors of qol of cancer patients and set the path for future research in order to improve the qol of cancer patients in lebanon. keywords: predictors, quality of life, cancer, lebanon, msas, eortc qlq-c30 europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 received: 2012-04-23. accepted: 2012-06-06. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: hariri school of nursing, american university of beirut, po box 11-0236, riad el solh 1107 2020, beirut, lebanon. e-mail: huda.huijer@aub.edu.lb this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the aim of care is to provide the best quality of life (qol) for patients and their families. however there is little evidence about the true meaning of qol from the patient’s perspective, and for the use of qol as an outcome measure for the quality of care provided to patients with cancer (jocham, dassen, widdershoven, & halfens, 2006). although qol is considered a construct hard to define, many definitions are available in the literature; the most broadly used definition is the one provided by the world health organization as the “individuals’ perceptions of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns” (world health organization, 1996). this definition emphasizes the multi-dimensional and subjective nature of qol, as well as the breadth of its scope, since it borders on all aspects of one’s life. healthcare professionals play a key role in the decision making process concerning the care of patients with cancer and they frequently use qol as a measure to judge the progress of the disease and success of treatment provided. being a multi-dimensional construct, many psychosocial and medical factors have been reported in the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ literature to predict the qol of patients; interventions targeted towards modifying these predictors will eventually influence qol either positively or negatively (lehto, ojanen, & kellokumpu-lehtinen, 2005). in a study conducted on patients with colorectal cancer, predictors of better social, emotional, and physical wellbeing were better general health and better quality of care (yost, hahn, zaslavsky, ayanian, & west, 2008). in a sample of brazilian patients with lung cancer, the predictors positively affecting qol were better pulmonary function, the six-minute walking test, and less lung resection (saad, botega, & toro, 2007). psychosocial factors were reported to be strong predictors of better quality of life in patients newly diagnosed with melanoma and breast cancer in finland (lehto et al., 2005). in a german sample of women with breast cancer, fatigue was the strongest negative predictor of all functional scores and overall qol (arndt, stegmaier, ziegler, & brenner, 2006). in a large sample of patients with different cancer sites (parker, baile, de moore, & cohen, 2003), older age and better social support were associated with less anxiety; older age, being married, and social support were associated with less depressive symptoms; males, individuals whose cancer had not recurred and those not undergoing active treatment had better physical health. in summary, several studies looked at predictors of qol in patients with different types of cancer from a multidimensional and holistic point of view. in lebanon, interest in qol research in the cancer patient population has been on the rise especially with the increased number of patients diagnosed with cancer and the availability of the advanced therapies that are prolonging patients’ lives. despite this interest, no studies have been conducted so far on the predictors of qol in patients with cancer in lebanon. a better understanding of these predictors will assist health care professionals in developing and implementing a proactive health care management plan for patients with cancer. the aim of this study was to determine the factors that are considered predictors of qol in a lebanese sample of cancer patients attending a tertiary healthcare center. methods study design and sample the study was a cross sectional descriptive survey targeting adult oncology patients (age ≥ 18 years) at the american university of beirut-medical center that provides care to a wide range of patients from different areas in lebanon and with different socio-economic backgrounds. participants were recruited from the basile cancer center (outpatient and inpatient units) in a sequential manner over a period of one year (2009-2010); participants who fit the inclusion criteria (age ≥ 18 years, diagnosed with cancer for more than one month, and are aware of their cancer diagnosis) were approached by the interviewers and asked for their willingness to participate in the study. based on eligibility criteria, the interviewers prior to initiating contact screened the patients through their medical records on a daily basis until sample size was secured. the sample size was calculated based on an estimate of 0.5 for prevalence of outcomes (such as symptom prevalence) and a precision of 7% for a 95% confidence interval; the required sample size was calculated to be 197. sample size calculation was done using the pass resource part of the ncss software. questionnaires two widely known instruments were used to evaluate qol and symptoms: the european organization for research and treatment of cancer-quality of life questionnaire (eortcqlq-c30) and thememorial symptomassessment scale (msas). good validity and reliability measures of these two instruments have been established in several europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 abu-saad huijer & abboud 9 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies (aaronson et al., 1993; aaronson, bullinger, & ahmedzai, 1988; lundh hagelin, seiger, & fürst, 2006; montazeri et al., 1999; portenoy et al., 1994; sprangers et al., 1998). the eortc qlq-c30 assesses five functional scales (physical, role, cognitive, emotional, and social), three symptom scales (fatigue, pain, and nausea and vomiting), and a global health status and quality of life scale (ghs/qol). the remaining five single items assess other symptoms commonly reported by cancer patients (dyspnea, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, and diarrhea). according to the scoring manual of the eortc qlq-c30, all items are transformed to a scale from 0 to 100, where higher scores indicate better functioning. with regard to the symptom subscales, higher scores indicate the presence of more symptoms/ problems. the msas measures 32 psychological and physical symptoms in terms of prevalence, frequency, severity, and distress. the mean scores (frequency, severity, and distress of the symptoms) are computed for 11most prevalent physical symptoms (msas-phys), for five most prevalent psychological symptoms (msas-psych), and for the total symptoms (tmsas). a demographic section was added by the authors. the instrument was translated to lebanese arabic using the back-translation method (varricchio, 2004); it was validated for cultural appropriateness by four experts in the field. the experts suggested removing two items from themsas; feeling irritable and feeling drowsy because they are respectively very similar in meaning when translated to lebanese arabic to two other symptoms; feeling nervous and dizziness that are already being assessed in the msas. the instrument was then pilot tested on ten oncology patients and no further adjustments were needed. data collection procedure data collection was initiated after receiving institutional review board approval from the american university of beirut. two trained interviewers and a research assistant were in charge of securing the informed consents and conducting face to face interviews. the personal interview method was adopted because it is viewed as the best method to ensure high quality data and low percentage missing items. all the interviews were carried out separately in a private setting/room available at the three oncology units of the center. data were collected over a one-year period and sample size secured. statistical analysis sample characteristics were analyzed using frequencies (n), percentages, means and standard deviations (sd). for the eortc qlq-c30 and msas, scores were computed according to the scoring guidelines provided by the authors of the instruments (fayers et al., 2001; portenoy et al., 1994). internal consistency of the eortc qlq-c30 and the msas lebanese arabic translated versions were assessed using cronbach’s alpha coefficients; where a value of ≥0.70 was sought (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). pearson correlations were computed betweenghs/qol and the eortcqlq-c30 functioning scales and between ghs/qol and the msas symptoms scales. the ability of the factors to predict ghs/qol was investigated using linear regression analyses. a separate model was created to investigate predictors of the five different functioning scales: physical, role, emotional, cognitive, and social functioning. a second model was created to investigate predictors of the eortc qlq-c30 symptoms scales; a third model was created to investigate predictors of the msas symptoms scales: psychological, physical, and total; and a fourth model was created to investigate predictors of the demographic and clinical europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer 10 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characteristics of the participants namely gender, age, social status, educational level, primary cancer site, time since diagnosis, treatment received, and presence of metastasis. dummy variables were computed for the categorical variables (social status and educational level).the final model was created combining all the significant predictors of the first four models. a probability level of 0.05 was used for statistical significance. the statistical package used was spss, version 19. results participants’ characteristics the majority of the interviews (95%) were conducted with patients in the outpatient units (patients coming for same day treatment). only 49 patients refused to take part in the study due to lack of time, feeling sleepy or tired. table 1 summarizes the clinical and demographic characteristics of the 200 participants who took part in the study. the majority of the sample was female (63%), married (78%), unemployed (60%), and with up to university education (46%). the most prevalent cancer site was breast cancer (44.5%), the mean time since diagnosis was 30.61 (sd = 40.84) months; metastasis to other cancer sites was reported by 34.5%, and the most common treatment received was chemotherapy (60%). significant differences between males and females were seen for age, employment status, marital status, primary cancer site, and treatment received (chemotherapy and hormone therapy) (table 1). table 1 characteristics of participants (n = 200) femalesmalestotalcharacteristic 126 (63%)74 (37%)n (%) age mean (sd) (11.99)51.89(15.26)57.77(13.60)54 18-34 (7.90%)10(9.50%)7(8.50%)17 35-54 (54.00%)68(25.70%)19(43.50%)87 ≥55 (38.10%)48(64.90%)48(48.00%)96 employment employed (30.20%)38(56.80%)42(40.00%)80 unemployed (69.80%)88(43.20%)32(60.00%)120 educational level up to elementary (20.60%)26(14.90%)11(18.50%)37 up to secondary/technical (36.50%)46(33.80%)25(35.50%)71 up to university (42.90%)54(51.40%)38(46.00%)92 marital status married (75.40%)95(82.40%)61(78.00%)156 single (11.10%)14(14.90%)11(12.50%)25 divorced/separated/widowed (13.50%)17(2.70%)2(9.50%)19 primary cancer site breast (69.80%)88(1.40%)1(44.50%)89 gastro-intestinal system (8.70%)11(33.80%)25(18.00%)36 blood (4.80%)6(18.90%)14(10.00%)20 lymphomas (5.60%)7(8.10%)6(6.50%)13 lung (2.40%)3(10.80%)8(5.50%)11 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 abu-saad huijer & abboud 11 http://www.psychopen.eu/ femalesmalestotalcharacteristic 126 (63%)74 (37%)n (%) reproductive tract (3.20%)4(9.50%)7(5.50%)11 head and neck (3.20%)4(8.10%)6(5.00%)10 urinary tract (0.80%)1(5.40%)4(2.50%)5 bone (1.60%)2(2.70%)2(2.00%)4 i don't know (0.00%)0(1.40%)1(0.50%)1 metastasis (34.10%)43(35.10%)26(34.50%)69 time since diagnosis (months) mean (sd) (37.29)29.49(46.48)32.51(40.84)30.61 treatment received chemotherapy (54.80%)69(68.90%)51(60.00%)120 surgery (57.90%)73(47.30%)35(54.00%)108 radiation (25.40%)32(23.00%)17(24.50%)49 hormone therapy (10.30%)13(2.70%)2(7.50%)15 note. n = number of participants in the study. reliability in the eortc qlq-c30, the cronbach’s alpha coefficients of the subscales were greater than 0.70 with the exception of cognitive functioning, social functioning, and nausea and vomiting. in the msas, reliability coefficients for the msas-psych, msas-phys, and tmsas were 0.72, 0.73 and 0.82 respectively. correlation analyses the ghs/qol scale correlated substantially and positively with all functioning scales (r = 0.25-0.50; p = 0.00) (table 2). table 2 pearson correlation between global health status/quality of life and functioning scales, msas scales ghs/qol correlation eortc qlq-c30 functional scales physical functioning .39*0 role functioning .45*0 emotional functioning .50*0 cognitive functioning .25*0 social functioning .29*0 msas msas-psych .31*-0 msas-phys .48*-0 tmsas .51*-0 *p < 0.01, two-tailed. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer 12 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the strongest correlation was for the emotional functioning (r = 0.50) and the role functioning (r = 0.45). on the other hand, all symptoms scales (physical, psychological, and total) were negatively correlated and the strongest correlation was for the total symptoms (r = -0.51). factors predicting qol according to the first model, the physical (p = 0.07), role (p = 0.01), and emotional (p = 0.00) functioning were the significant predictors of better qol. the included factors accounted for 35.4% of the variance of the general qol scores. in the second model, the various symptoms of the eortc qlq-c30 were included and they explained 38.8% of the variance; the significant predictors were fatigue (p = 0.00) and appetite loss (p = 0.03) predicting poorer qol (table 3). the third model (table 4) included the msas scales (physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and total symptoms). these factors accounted for 25.9% of the variance with the total symptoms scale (tmsas) being the strongest negative predictor among the three scales (p = 0.03). table 3 eortc qlq-c30 functioning and symptoms scales as predictors of quality of life r2ptβb (se)outcome functional scale constant .4800.7070(7.120)5.032 physical functioning .0700.7901.1430(0.080)0.150 role functioning .0100.620*2.2090(0.060)0.160 emotional functioning .0000.230*5.3550(0.060)0.310 cognitive functioning .1600.4101.0900(0.070)0.100 social functioning .9900.010-0.000-0(0.050)0.000 .3540 symptoms scale constant .0000.29034(2.250)77.290 fatigue scale .0000.560*-5.420-0(0.060)-0.330 nausea/vomiting scale .0900.690-1.100-0(0.080)-0.140 pain scale .4800.700-0.050-0(0.050)-0.030 dyspnea scale .6800.410-0.020-0(0.070)-0.030 insomnia .5700.560-0.030-0(0.040)-0.020 appetite loss .0300.210*-2.140-0(0.040)-0.090 constipation .2500.140-1.070-0(0.040)-0.050 diarrhea .1200.560-1.090-0(0.050)-0.090 .3880 *p < 0.05. table 4 msas symptoms domains as predictors of quality of life r2ptβb (se)outcome constant .0000.46413(9.040)121.690 msas-psych .2900.0501.192(6.390)6.680 msas-phys .6700.4190.103(12.110)5.080 tmsas .0300.150*-2.731-(18.420)-39.710 .2590 *p < 0.05. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 abu-saad huijer & abboud 13 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the fourth model was composed of demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants (table 5). the model explained 13.4% of the variance; being married (p = 0.00), being single (p = 0.00), having breast cancer (p = 0.03), gastro-intestinal cancer (0.02), or lymphoma (p = 0.05) as primary cancer site predicted better qol whereas receiving hormone therapy as a treatment (p = 0.03) predicted poorer qol. table 5 patients’ characteristics as predictors of quality of life r2ptβb (se)outcome constant .1700.3801(25.560)35.320 age .1500.4301.1200(0.150)0.210 gender .2600.120-1.110-0(4.810)-5.390 educational level secondary .7500.320-0.030-0(4.980)-1.590 university .9700.0400.0000(5.020)0.180 social status being married .0000.930*2.3100(6.050)17.730 being single .0000.030*3.3300(7.850)23.810 metastasis .4000.8500.0600(3.860)3.260 treatment received chemotherapy .6400.4600.0500(5.060)2.340 radiotherapy .6500.4500.0500(6.220)2.820 surgery .7900.2700.0300(5.320)1.440 hormone .0300.130*-2.160-0(6.610)-14.100 time since diagnosis (0.050)-.0130 primary cancer site lung .2600.1401.1100(10.390)11.800 head & neck .6600.4400.0400(10.680)4.750 breast .0300.240*2.4200(8.890)19.900 gastro-intestinal .0200.310*2.3200(8.590)19.880 reproductive tract .6100.5000.0500(10.360)5.230 lymphoma .0500.960*1.2200(10.720)21.060 blood .3500.9400.1100(9.580)9.000 .1340 *p < 0.05. the final model (table 6) was composed of: hormone therapy as treatment received, being married, being single, having breast, gastro-intestinal, or lymphoma as primary cancer site, physical, role, and emotional functioning scales, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, appetite loss, and msas total symptoms (tmsas). with these factors, the model accounted for 49.7% of the variance. significant predictors of better qol were being married (p = 0.04) and being single (p = 0.04), having breast (p = 0.01) or gastro-intestinal (0.02) as primary cancer site, and emotional functioning (p = 0.00); significant predictors of poorer qol were the msas total symptoms (p = 0.01) and fatigue (p = 0.00). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer 14 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 final model for predictors of quality of life r2ptβb (se)outcome constant .0000.9903 treatment received hormone .5300.620-0.030-0(4.930)-3.090 social status being married .0400.040*2.1600(4.410)8.990 being single .0400.070*2.1600(5.580)11.530 primary cancer site breast .0100.750*2.1700(3.010)8.270 gastro-intestinal .0200.320*2.1400(3.780)8.760 lymphoma .0900.7001.0900(5.500)9.390 functioning domains physical functioning .9400.0800.0100(0.080)0.010 role functioning .6200.500-0.040-0(0.060)-0.030 emotional functioning .0000.690*3.2400(0.060).0210 tmsas .0100.740*-2.180-0(3.150)-8.630 fatigue .0000.650*-3.340-0(0.070)-0.270 nausea/vomiting .4300.790-0.050-0(0.080)-0.060 appetite loss .0900.670-1.100-0(0.040)-0.070 .4970 *p < 0.05. discussion regarding the translation of the instruments, the reliability coefficients of the eortc qlq c-30 and the msas were generally satisfactory. in the lebanese eortc qlq c-30 only three subscales were below 0.70 with nausea and vomiting being the lowest (0.43). cronbach’s alpha values for the lebanese msas subscales were greater than 0.70. it is worth mentioning that both instruments were translated to the lebanese arabic dialect for the first time. the study results showed a strong relationship between emotional and role functioning in relation to global health/qol; patients experiencing less negative emotions (tense, worry, irritable, and depressed) and adequately performing their daily routine activities and hobbies are expected to have better overall health and quality of life. a strong negative relationship was found between total msas symptoms, physical and psychological, and qol; patients suffering from a number of symptoms are expected to have poorer global health and qol. this finding is similar to the results reported by yan and sellick (2004) who found that patients with gastro-intestinal cancer with less symptom distress reporting better global qol (yan & sellick, 2004). with regard to predictors of qol among cancer patients in lebanon, our findings showed that physical, role, and emotional functioning to be predictors for better qol. as for symptoms, the study showed that the total symptoms europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 abu-saad huijer & abboud 15 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scale as well as fatigue to be negative predictors that impact the qol of cancer patients in our sample. these results are consistent with other research findings; fatigue was the strongest qol predictor in breast cancer patients (janz et al., 2007); and fatigue and lack of appetite were the most prevalent symptoms reported by yan and sellick (2004) in chinese patients diagnosed newly with gastro-intestinal cancer. in the same study symptom distress was found to be one of the main predictors of qol (yan & sellick, 2004). concerning demographic characteristics, social status and primary cancer sites; breast & gastro-intestinal were predictors of better quality of life. in relation to social status, being married or single had equal impact on better quality of life. this finding supports the work of shapiro and keyes (2008) and depaulo and morris (2005) who found that married persons do not have a definitive social well-being advantage over unmarried persons (depaulo & morris, 2005; shapiro & keyes, 2008). in view of the lebanese culture, patients whether single or married share the support of their immediate or extended family in the community which may improve their feelings of well-being and explain the impact on their qol. in addition, the study showed a better quality of life when the disease is related to the breast and gastro-intestinal system and poor qol when patients are on hormonal therapy. these results have not been reported by other studies. parker et al. (2003) found medical variables such as time since diagnosis, recurrence status, treatment variables, stage of disease not to be associated with qol. the disease-related findings may be explained by the fact that the majority of the sample were suffering from breast and gastro-intestinal cancer. our final model explained 49.7% of the variance and identified significant positive predictors namely being married and being single, primary cancer sites (breast, gastro-intestinal), and emotional functioning. significant negative predictors of qol of cancer patient were found to be msas total symptoms and fatigue. in conclusion, a possible limitation of this study is selection bias since the majority of the patients (95%) included in this study were recruited from outpatient departments and very few were hospitalized. the small number of inpatients and their refusal to participate due to severe illness and high prevalence of symptoms can be another potential source for selection bias. finally, the sample was over-represented by females with breast cancer, which might have influenced the results. despite these limitations, to our knowledge, this is the first study in lebanon exploring the predictors of qol in cancer patients. these preliminary findings will help health care professionals to develop better assessment and management strategies that address the psychological and physical symptoms of patients with cancer with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of their lives. more research is however warranted to further explore the predictors of qol in hospitalized cancer patients in lebanon. funding we would like to thank the lebanese national council for scientific research for financially supporting this study. competing interests the authors have no conflict of interest to declare. references aaronson, n. k., ahmedzai, s., bergman, b., bullinger, m., cull, a., duez, n. j., . . . takeda, f. 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(1996).whoqol-bref: introduction, administration, scoring and generic version of the assessment. retrieved from http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/76.pdf yan, h., & sellick, k. (2004). symptoms, psychological distress, social support, and quality of life of chinese patients newly diagnosed with gastrointestinal cancer. cancer nursing, 27(5), 389-399. doi:10.1097/00002820-200409000-00009 yost, k. j., hahn, e. a., zaslavsky, a. m., ayanian, j. z., & west, d. w. (2008). predictors of health-related quality of life in patients with colorectal cancer. health and quality of life outcomes, 6, article 66. doi:10.1186/1477-7525-6-66 about the authors dr. huda abu-saad huijer is a researcher with special interest in chronic pain, palliative care, and quality of life of cancer patients and their families. in addition, she is the director of the hariri school of nursing at the american university of beirut-lebanon. sarah abboud is a research assistant and a phd student at the university of pennsylvania, philadelphia. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 8–18 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.444 predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer 18 http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/76.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00002820-200409000-00009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-6-66 http://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of quality of life in a sample of lebanese patients with cancer introduction methods study design and sample questionnaires data collection procedure statistical analysis results participants’ characteristics reliability correlation analyses factors predicting qol discussion funding competing interests references about the authors the effect of the psychological sense of community on the psychological well-being in older volunteers research reports the effect of the psychological sense of community on the psychological well-being in older volunteers maura pozzi*a, elenamartaa, daniela marzanaa, caterina gozzolib, ruggero andrisano ruggieric [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, brescia, italy. [c] department of human, philosophical and educational science, university of salerno, fisciano, italy. abstract ageing populations across europe are increasing. communities have an important role in not only engaging this segment of the population but also in helping them to make them feel “part of something” (local or global) in order to favour their psychological well-being. the purpose of this paper is to study the effects of volunteering and being connected in one’s community on well-being. the present paper will test an older volunteers’ psychological well-being model. 143 older volunteers completed measures of religiousness, sense of global responsibility, psychological sense of community, generativity, motivation to volunteer and a profile of mood states. data show that a psychological sense of community has a key role in the study of older volunteerism due to its impact on well-being. service agencies and administrations can develop campaigns to sustain older volunteerism in order to increase well-being and reduce social costs. keywords: older volunteers, motivation to volunteer, psychological sense of community, psychological well-being, volunteerism europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 received: 2014-03-07. accepted: 2014-06-04. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, l.go gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: maura.pozzi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction there is a longstanding and growing tradition in psychology and sociology of studying particular kinds of community involvement, such as volunteerism, as well as the variables related to its occurrence and the effects that reveal its benefits, both at an individual (burr, tavares, & mutchler, 2011; fothergill et al., 2011; okun, august, rook, & newsom, 2010) and societal level (cutler, hendricks, & o'neill, 2011; principi, chiatti, & lamura, 2012). volunteerism is a specific type of sustained, planned, pro-social behaviour that benefits strangers and occurs within an organizational setting (omoto & snyder, 1995; penner, 2002; snyder & omoto, 2000). volunteers are generally defined as people [who] often actively seek out opportunities to help others; [who] may deliberate for considerable amounts of time about whether to volunteer, the extent of their involvement and the degree to which particular activities fit with their own personal needs; and [who] may make a commitment to an ongoing europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ helping relationship that may extend over a considerable period of time and that may entail considerable personal costs of time, energy, and opportunity (clary et al., 1998, p. 1517). most research attempts to study volunteerism as a phenomenon similar at all ages (mannino, snyder, & omoto, 2011; omoto & snyder, 1995; penner, 2002). in the tradition of volunteerism studies, scholars tried to find a common model explaining this particular kind of civic commitment throughout all the stages of a person’s life course (clary et al., 1998; omoto & snyder, 1995). more recently, a number of studies have been interested in distinguishing the influence of being active in one’s community of belonging at different points of life (marta & pozzi, 2007; omoto, snyder, & martino, 2000). at an individual level, volunteerism has positive effects amongst all age groups: in particular, it has positive effects on older well-being. this is tremendously important when considering that the commission of the european communities research directorate-general highlights that ageing populations across europe are increasing. in western europe, the proportion of older people over the age of 60 will rise from 21 per cent in 2008 to 33 per cent in 2035. the increase will be similar in eastern europe: from 19 per cent in 2008 to 32 per cent in 2035 (kapella, de liedekerke, & de bergeyck, 2011). as antonucci, okorodudu, and akiyama (2002) point out, “old age represents a new frontier” (p. 617). the rising numbers of older people, resulting from reduced mortality and the decrease in the number of children being born, obliges the scientific community to focus on this particular stage of the life course. recently, adams and rau (2011) concluded that it is important to address retirement preparation. many scholars suggest volunteerism as a useful instrument in this preparation (morrow-howell, hinterlong, rozario, & tang, 2003; morrow-howell, hong, & tang, 2009; omoto, snyder, & martino, 2000; piliavin, 2005; snyder & omoto, 2008; van willigen, 2000). both psychologists (hinterlong, morrow-howell, & rozario, 2007) and sociologists (siegrist, von dem knesebeck, & pollack, 2004) agree in saying that being socially productive, i.e., engaging in social activities such as volunteering, has positive results on better health and psychological well-being in older populations. productive engagement in terms of productive roles, such as unpaid volunteer, caregiver, or provider of informal social assistance, is positively associated with health. furthermore, activity theorists suggest that older people in particular engage in their community due to a new social responsibility derived from the fact that many roles central to identity, such as working roles, are lost or heavily decreased as we age (lemon, bengtson, & peterson, 1972; longino & kart, 1982; steinkamp & kelly, 1987). research on older volunteers has found that being active in one’s own community is positively associated with self-esteem (omoto et al., 2000; van willigen, 2000), life satisfaction (bond, 1982; fengler, 1984; harlow & cantor, 1996), a sense of purpose (weinstein, xie, & cleanthous, 1995), extended social support systems (moen, dempster-mcclain, & williams, 1992), and longevity (musick et al., 1999; oman et al., 1999). in addition, musick andwilson (2003) suggested that increased social connections associated with volunteer activities may contribute to mental health benefits. in accordance with mellor and colleagues (mellor et al., 2009), we note that most of the literature on older volunteers focuses on physical activity benefit and indicates that volunteering helps people stay healthy and live longer when europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 pozzi, marta, marzana et al. 599 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studying variables of morbidity and mortality in large samples of older volunteers of the community (musick, herzog, & house, 1999; oman, thoresen, & mcmahon, 1999; lum & lightfoot, 2005). we think it is important, as mellor and colleagues (2009) argue, that “these findings are subject to possible moderating andmediating effects, since certain groups may benefit more from volunteering” (p. 145). in fact, volunteerism has recently often been cited as one instrument useful in promoting psychological well-being (greenfield & marks, 2004; mellor et al., 2009; morrow-howell et al., 2003; musick & wilson, 2008). meta-analyses reveal that those old people engaged in direct helping seemed to derive greater rewards from volunteering than other old people engaged in more indirect or less formally “helping” roles (principi, chiatti, lamura, & frerichs, 2012; wheeler, gorey, & greenblatt, 1998) in terms of life satisfaction and other health indices and lower mortality (oman et al., 1999). volunteers significantly reduce mortality compared to non-volunteers, and this association is greater for those who frequently attended religious services (harris & thoresen, 2005). other studies have found that volunteering is associated with greater social integration and more social connections. additionally, in a circular way, studies suggest that being linked to one’s community increases the likelihood of volunteering (narushima, 2005). okun and michel (2006) highlight the role of community in the context and process of volunteering, demonstrating the importance of the psychological sense of community in volunteering as an antecedent to voluntary service. authors have also stated that individuals with a strong sense of community are posited to feel obligated to work on behalf of the community […] and because of the efficacy and resources associated with a strong sense of community, such individuals are postulated to work hard to improve their communities (p. 174). hence, a sense of community makes people feel connected to their community and work for it in a voluntary way. volunteering during old age may benefit the volunteers themselves as well as the organizations and individuals they serve (mannino, snyder, & omoto, 2011). several mechanisms have been hypothesized linking volunteering to improved well-being, health and longevity (burr et al., 2011; fothergill et al., 2011; harlow & cantor, 1996; okun et al., 2010). in general, volunteering provides increased opportunities for social contacts and facilitates access to salutary social resources, such as emotional, cognitive, or material support as well as health-related information (luoh & herzog, 2002). theoretical frame: volunteerism and well-being okun and michel (2006) also highlight the importance of some variables intervening in the link between older volunteerism and well-being. one of these is church attendance and religiousness. volunteerism has a protective effect among those older volunteers who have a close intimate relationship or who frequently attend religious services. this can also facilitate developmentally mature goals, such as sustained engagement with life or desire to become or remain generative (harris & thoresen, 2005). religious service attendance acts as a scaffold upon which the volunteering experience is more developmentally significant and beneficial, with it developing religiousness (markides, 1983). “religiousness may protect against disease indirectly by association with healthy lifestyles” (fetzer institute, 2003, p. 3). starting from a conceptualization of volunteering explained through a theory of social capital, religious affiliation is a variable that needs to be studied to understand volunteering. mellor and colleagues (2009) refer that some europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 older volunteers and well-being 600 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies on volunteering during old age highlight that “attending religious services regularly may link volunteering to reduced morbidity and mortality” (p. 145). participating in religious services is an opportunity to be involved with one’s own community of belonging and can be related to one’s own motivation to feel connected to it and start voluntary actions (okun, o’rourke, keller, johnson, & enders, 2014). moreover, participating in religious services can favour the experience of both intragenerational and inter-generational relationships, especially with children and adolescents of the community. more recently, einolf (2011) demonstrated that religious values and beliefs promote helping others. religious people often show a higher level of generativity (mcadams, 2006). okun and michel (2006) emphasise that the generative concern is an important variable in volunteering: in fact, in our opinion, an important intervening variable between volunteerism and well-being is generativity. generativity, according to snyder and clary (2004), has an important role in defining incentives to volunteer and it is considered an additional “motivation” to volunteer. generativity is the “concern in establishing and guiding the next generation” (erikson, 1963, p. 267). generativity is closely connected to identity and civic responsibility considered as a particular element of a greater community involvement (marta, pozzi, & marzana, 2010). generativity concerns the desire to connect and commit to the broader society. in addition, snyder and clary (2004) highlight the connections between volunteerism and generativity. according to the authors, both demonstrate an interest for someone outside one’s own circle of acquaintances. “in both activities we find human beings attempting to connect with others, both others who exist and others who will one day exist, and in doing so, contribute to their communities and to their society” (p. 235). for this last reason, generativity can be related to the psychological sense of community. generativity could be consider a specific kind ofmotivation, which is an important variable in the volunteer recruiting process and in the intention to continue volunteering (marta & pozzi, 2008; omoto & snyder, 1995). omoto and snyder (1995) argue that motivations to volunteer may change during the volunteer activity and that they are different along the different phases of the life cycle. moreover, following omoto, snyder, and martino (2000), older volunteers are motivated by a strong sense of belonging to their community and a feeling of obligation to give back to it what they have received over the course of their life. in our opinion, and for the latter reason, another important variable is sense of global responsibility (malsch, 2005). a sense of global responsibility is the feeling of being globally responsible for others. as malsch noted, feeling responsible for others increases the relationship between people and the community they live in; thus, volunteers express their global responsibility by being involved in the community they live in. global responsibility is always associated with the psychological sense of community (psoc). psoc in the traditional definition by sarason (1986) is the sense that one belongs to and is meaningfully part of a larger collectivity, and includes “perceptions of similarity to others, acknowledged interdependency with others, willingness to maintain interdependence by giving to, or doing for, what one expect from them, and feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure” (sarason, 1974, p. 157). psoc has been shown to relate positively to psychological well-being as well as some indicators of social capital, such as church attendance (brodsky, o'campo, & aronson, 1999). following omoto and malsch (2005), we will consider psoc as a state involving communities that are not only contexts (associations) but also processes (volunteer activity). psoc, as theorized by okun and michel (2006), affecting the motivation to volunteer. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 pozzi, marta, marzana et al. 601 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the results for psoc have revealed it to be a unique and independent predictor of later activism and civic participation. in omoto and snyder’s studies (2000), aids-related volunteers who reported getting involved to enhance community connections as well as support and meet current community needs (and who also met more people personally affected by hiv disease) were found to be engaged in more aids-related activities 6 months later. this means that encouraging connections to one’s community by improving psoc can lead people to be involved in activities supporting that community for longer periods of time. people can be motivated to be more connected. the present study current literature clearly shows that all the above mentioned variables are directly or indirectly related to each other. up to now, no clear model has been provided to understand how all these variables are connected and how they, and especially psoc, affect psychological well-being in a sample of older volunteers. the present research aims to fill this gap. in accordance with the aforementioned literature, we hypothesize that psoc has a mediator role between religiosity and global responsibility, on one hand, and motivational variables (motivation to volunteer and generativity), on the other; and that all of these have an impact on psychological well-being (see figure 1). figure 1. a conceptual model depicting the impact of religiousness and global responsibility on the profile of mood states through the mediation of psychological sense of community (psoc), motivation to volunteer, and generativity. method participants and procedure there were 143 older italian participants, ranging in age from 60 to 86 years (m = 68.5, sd = 5.86). 86 (60%) were female and 57 (40%) were male. the majority of the volunteers (49.3%) had a high school degree, and 19% a university degree, all retired. the participants were recruited from several volunteering associations. researchers contacted the agencies and asked the representative to go to the association to present the research project and ask their older volunteers (over 60 yrs old volunteers) to collaborate. the volunteers declared to be volunteering for a mean of 7.3 hours per week (min 1 hour to a max of 35 hours, sd = 6.05) and that they were volunteering for a mean of 13.11 years (min 1 to max of 55 years). the majority of them declared to be involved in social assistance (66.9%), 21.9% in educational activities, 8.4% in health care and 2.8% in professional training activities. two main criteria were used to determine the participants eligibility in this study. they all had to have been volunteering in their community and able to complete the questionnaire by themselves. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 older volunteers and well-being 602 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to test the hypotheses, a descriptive methodology will be provided. a cross-sectional study design involving all the aforementioned variables will be carried out. instrument the participants filled out a self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire. the respondents were informed that all the information was confidential and subpoena protected. the self-administered report investigated: religiousness, sense of global responsibility, psychological sense of community, motivation to volunteer, generativity, and psychological well-being. religiousness — the construct of religiousness was measured using the brief multidimensional measure of religiousness (idler et al., 2003). the participants were assessed on a 5-point scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree) for a total of 34 items. the reliability value was .95. item examples include: “i have a sense of religious mission or calling in my own life,” or “i feel a deep sense of religious responsibility for reducing pain and suffering in the world.” sense of global responsibility — sense of global responsibility was measured using the sense of global responsibility scale by malsch (2005). the participants were assessed on a 5-point scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) on a 5 item scale. an example of an item was: “i feel a responsibility to contribute to improving the welfare of all people in need.” cronbach’s alpha value = .90. psychological sense of community — the psychological sense of community (psoc) was measured by the 15-item psychological sense of community scale (mcmillan & chavis, revised by a. m. omoto, personal communication, 2003). an example of an item was: “i feel a sense of attachment and belonging to my community.” participants were assessed on a 5-point scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). cronbach’s alpha value = .90. motivation to volunteer — motivations for volunteering were measured by the volunteer function inventory (clary et al., 1998). participants were assessed on a 25-item scale. they had to respond on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all important to 5 = extremely important). item examples were: “because i enjoy helping other people,” or “because i care about other people in general.” cronbach’s alpha value = .92. generativity — generativity, theorized by mcadams (1995), was measured with the loyola generativity scale (mcadams & de st. aubin, 1992). the participants were assessed on a 5-point scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). originally a 20 item scale, in our questionnaire we used only 11 items of the original version. cronbach’s alpha value = .88. item examples were: “i feel that other people need me,” or “i have important skills i can pass along to others.” psychological well-being — psychological well-being was measured by the short form of the profile of mood states (poms) scale (curran, andrykowski, & studts, 1995). this scale measures the psychological distress responding to the question “how have you been feeling during the past week including today?” on a 5-point likert scale (0 = not at all and 5 = extremely). the scale comprises 6 domains (fatigue-inertia, vigor-activity, tensionanxiety, depression-dejection, anger-hostility, and confusion-bewilderment). one score for overall psychological distress was considered. cronbach’s alpha value = .84. lower levels of poms mean better well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 pozzi, marta, marzana et al. 603 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results relationships among variables and descriptive statistics are reported in table 1. poms is significantly related to generativity (.31) and motivation to volunteer (.32). psoc is strongly connected to all the variables considered. psoc is strictly correlated to global responsibility (.52) and religiousness (.41). a lower value correlates psoc with generativity (.26). psoc is also strongly correlated to motivation to volunteer (.41). table 1 correlation matrix across all the variables, means and standard deviations 654321model variables -----1. psoc ----2. religiousness .41** ---3. generativity .23*.24** --4. global responsibility .08.41**.52** -5. motivation to volunteer .17.33**.12.41** -6. profile of mood states .32**.01-.31**.06-.07 m .701.352.833.292.213.443 sd .59.59.89.67.77.83 *p < .05. **p < .01. if we observe the means (see table 1), we notice that the participants show good levels of well-being (poms = 1.70), high levels of psoc (3.4) and global responsibility (3.8). another value warranting attention is religiousness (3.2). older volunteers find meaning in their life through religion. the results of the modelling are summarized conceptually in figure 1. to investigate the factors that account for the profile of mood states, a number of variables were considered as antecedents for the poms (see figure 2). as shown in figure 2, religiousness and global responsibility determine the psoc that is responsible for motivation to volunteer and generativity. these latter determine the poms variable directly. the adequacy of a structural model is determined by a chi-square test (χ2). this test evaluates how well the covariance matrix implied by the model fits the covariance matrix of the observed data. however, since the chi-square is heavily influenced by sample size (bollen & long, 1994), several fit indices have been proposed as aids to model fitting (bentler, 1990; jöreskog & sörbom, 1981). the fit index that has been suggested as the most appropriate is the comparative fit index (cfi) because it has a 0-1 range, a small sampling variability and is unaffected by sample size (bentler, 1990; garrett, ferron, ng’andu, bryant, & harbin, 1994). root means square error of approximation (rmsea) describes the acceptable error level. indices less than .08 are considered acceptable. its 90% confidence interval index is also highlighted. the sem analyses were conducted using amos (analysis of moment structures, byrne, 2001). in this particular study, we use a path analysis. the path analysis model is one of the models often tested. path analysis allows to build a model without involving latent factors. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 older volunteers and well-being 604 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. results of path analysis. note. all paths are significant (p < .005). model fit: χ2(7) = 7.63, p = .366, χ2/df = 1.09, cfi = .994, rmsea = .025, 90% ci [.000, .108]. our model was confirmed with good fit indices: χ2(7) = 7.63, p =.366, cfi = .994, and rmsea = .025, 90%ci [.000, .108]. poms is predicted by religiousness and global sense of responsibility through psoc, motivation to volunteer and generativity. in detail, the model presents good explained variance percentages for poms (r2 = .16), motivation to volunteer (r2 = .15), and psoc (r2 = .33). all the paths are significant (p < .005). the two antecedents of poms are generativity (r = .08) and motivation to volunteer (r = .22). these latter are predicted by psoc (respectively r = .29 and .39). psoc is predicted by religiousness (r = .27), and global responsibility (r = .41). discussion this study expands the current literature examining older volunteers by considering the effects of volunteering and being connected to one’s own community on the well-being of older volunteers. this study also furthers our understanding of how being religious and feeling responsible for the welfare of people in need is related to the psychological sense of being part of a community with a clear impact on the motivation to volunteer and the feeling of being generative. this pattern is sought to be determinant on the well-being of older volunteers. retirement brings new opportunities and concerns regarding how one will spend his/her own time. older people can participate in leisure activities or other productive activities such as volunteer or paid work (wang, adams, beehr, & shultz, 2009). literature on older volunteers demonstrates the benefits deriving from such activities both for the individual as well as for the community of belonging (adams & rau, 2011; wahrendorf & siegrist, 2010), but no literature was found to underline the role of psoc in older volunteers, and old people in general, in increasing their perceived psychological well-being. as age increases, many roles central to identity, such as working roles, are lost or heavily decreased. this condition forces old people to create new roles, and that of being a volunteer seems to fulfill their need to feel useful to society (wahrendorf & siegrist, 2010). in the present work, we highlight how older volunteers are characterized by a good level of psychological wellbeing. older moods (in terms of a better psychological distress) are the result of a community commitment. in addition, the “foresight report on facets and preconditions of wellbeing of families in europe” (kapella et al., 2011) highlights how the involvement in society in terms of citizenship and participation through engagement in ngos and voluntary works is one of the key dimensions of the wellbeing of the family. the report highlights how europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 pozzi, marta, marzana et al. 605 http://www.psychopen.eu/ involvement in society “should not only be understood in terms of active personal engagement in society, but also in terms of how well the person is integrated in (or excluded from) society” (kapella et al., 2011, p. 11). in other words, the perceived level of psychological well-being is the result of the integration and the inclusion of a person in her/his community of belonging (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). a psychological sense of community expresses this concept. according to mcmillan and chavis (1986), integration in the community, the belonging component of the construct, is one of the components of the psychological sense of community. a psychological sense of community is a real mediator between ideals andmotivations, with the present study demonstrating this connection. our study could explain that religiousness along with a sense of global responsibility are good predictors of a psychological sense of community. this latter is a predictor of motivation to volunteer and generativity, responsible for psychological well-being. scholars agree in considering volunteerism as an important activity to promote older well-being. since motivations are one of the best predictors of length of service as well as retention of volunteers by organizations (snyder & omoto, 2008), we recommend improving the commitment of older people to their community through actions (such as church attendance) that allow them to feel a connection or sense of belonging to it: in other words, to feel a psychological sense of community. psoc can be generated or promoted through the implementation of religiousness or a greater sense of responsibility. churches, church sponsored social services, or social agencies, more generally, can be good starting points for encouraging a positive attitude throughout the community. in accordance with martinez, crooks, kim, and tanner (2011), we posit that significant barriers need to be removed to facilitate greater participation of all older people in both formal and informal activities of volunteerism and civic engagement. in summary, this study demonstrates the importance of intervening on the context in order to favour the inclusion of older people in the community of belonging through activities such as volunteerism. the more older people are included, the more they feel to belong to a community and to experiment stronger social bonds, the more they will be motivated to continue volunteering. this latter can be a key construct in developing length of service. clear effects on the health of older people are recognized worldwide. in conclusion, this study highlights that psoc has a clear impact on sustaining motivations to volunteer and generativity and these latter on well-being. as suggested by marta and pozzi (2008) sustaining motivations to volunteer has a great importance for volunteer identity and length of service (marta, manzi, pozzi, & vignoles, 2014; marzana, marta, & pozzi, 2012). for this reason, favouring the connection of older people in their community of belonging and increasing their psoc through social agencies such as churches can favour their motivations to stay active in their community (probably for a long time), thus experiencing a better psychological well-being. having old people feeling better can have an impact on the social capital. this latter is responsible for a reduction of social assistance costs. limitations and future research directions the findings presented must be considered in light of several limitations. first, a longitudinal study could be useful in verifying the stability of the model over time as well as to check the direction of relationships: in fact, in literature, diverse models (brodsky et al., 1999; chavis & wandersman, 1990; mannarini & fedi, 2009) demonstrate the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 older volunteers and well-being 606 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reciprocity and the bi-directionality of the relationship between psoc and social participation. hence, these two processes develop in parallel and, at the same time, mutually reinforce positively. a longitudinal study with at least three waves would permit to highlight the presence of this mutual positive reinforcement between psoc and participation. second, these results could be further verified by including a control group, although some of the variables considered as motivations to volunteer should be excluded from the model. although it can be assumed that the model presented can also be useful in explaining the retention of volunteers and then suggest an even better psychological well-being resulting from the prolonged commitment, we should develop a set of studies to confirm this assumption by also introducing the “intention to continue variable” and verify through a longitudinal method the actual duration of the commitment and improvement of psychological well-being. it would be interesting to test the model with cross-cultural samples. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adams, g. a., & rau, b. l. 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(2000). differential benefits of volunteering across the life course. the journals of gerontology: series b. psychological and social sciences, 55b, s308-s318. doi:10.1093/geronb/55.5.s308 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 pozzi, marta, marzana et al. 611 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.68.4.671 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp2203_6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00270 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01437721211261831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2010.515898 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(198610)14:4<405::aid-jcop2290140409>3.0.co;2-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.sth.8700014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-2409.2008.00009.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/v813-qa3g-6aqc-mwym http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/55.5.s308 http://www.psychopen.eu/ wahrendorf, m., & siegrist, j. (2010). are changes in productive activities of older people associated with changes in their well-being? results of a longitudinal european study. european journal of ageing, 7(2), 59-68. doi:10.1007/s10433-010-0154-4 wang, m., adams, g. a., beehr, t. a., & shultz, k. s. (2009). bridge employment and retirement: issues and opportunities during the latter part of one's career. in s. g. baugh & s. e. sullivan (eds.), maintaining focus, energy, and options over the career (pp. 135-162). charlotte, nc: information age publishing. weinstein, l., xie, x., & cleanthous, c. c. (1995). purpose in life, boredom, and volunteerism in a group of retirees.psychological reports, 76, 482. doi:10.2466/pr0.1995.76.2.482 wheeler, j. a., gorey, k. m., & greenblatt, b. (1998). the beneficial effects of volunteering for older volunteers and the people they serve: a meta-analysis. international journal of aging & human development, 47(1), 69-79. doi:10.2190/vump-xcmf-fqyu-v0jh about the authors maura pozzi is a researcher and adjoin professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she received a ph.d. in social and developmental psychology. she is a member of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research. her research interests concern volunteerism, prosocial behaviors and intergenerational dynamics in families and communities. elena marta is a full professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she is a member of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research. she is a member of the scientific observatory on volunteerism and she was director of the master in psychogeriatry in the same university. daniela marzana is a post-doc fellow in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she received a ph.d. in social and developmental psychology. she is a member of the athenaeumcentre for family studies and research. her research interests concern social action, volunteerism and political engagement. caterina gozzoli is an associate professor inwork and organization (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she is a member of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research. she works as a trainer for volunteers and professionals in elderly residences. her research interests concern older people, organizational engagement and family dynamics. ruggero andrisano ruggieri is an assistant professor in dynamics psychology (university of salerno), has hold different positions at university of salento including the post as lecturer in organization psychology and clinical psychology. he is member of psychology list and he is also a specialist in human resources & organization development. he earned a ph.d. in community psychology and training education models at university of salento. his research interests concern the models of functioning of the mind and derivatives applications in different sectors according to cultural psychology and idiographic approach. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 598–612 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.773 older volunteers and well-being 612 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10433-010-0154-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1995.76.2.482 http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/vump-xcmf-fqyu-v0jh http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en older volunteers and well-being introduction theoretical frame: volunteerism and well-being the present study method participants and procedure instrument results discussion limitations and future research directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors attachment style and rejection sensitivity: the mediating effect of self-esteem and worry among iranian college students research reports attachment style and rejection sensitivity: the mediating effect of self-esteem and worry among iranian college students samira khoshkam*a, fatemeh bahramia, s. ahmad ahmadia, maryam fatehizadea, ozra etemadia [a] university of isfahan, isfahan, iran. abstract the present study evaluated the relations between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity, and the potential mediating role of self-esteem and worry. a sample of 125 iranian college students completed surveys assessing rejection sensitivity, attachment style, worry and self-esteem. structural equation modeling (sem) analyses were conducted. results show that there is a significant positive relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity. the study suggests that a higher score in anxious attachment styles is associated with a higher level of worry and lower level of self-esteem and it is also associated with higher level of rejection sensitivity. furthermore, there is a positive significant relationship between worry and rejection sensitivity and there is a negative significant relationship between self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. results indicate that self-esteem and worry mediate the relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity. keywords: rejection sensitivity, attachment style, worry, self-esteem, college students europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 received: 2011-12-04. accepted: 2012-05-19. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: university of isfahan, hezar jarib st. isfahan, iran, email: samy_khosh@yahoo.com. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. forming and maintaining positive and lasting relationships is a basic human motivation. like the need for food, water and shelter, the need to belong is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history (baumeister & leary, 1995; dewall et al., 2012. rejection by others is an inherently unpleasant event to which human beings normally react with some degree of distress (baumeister & leary, 1995; gupta, 2008). rejection sensitivity (rs) is an individual’s tendency to expect, readily perceive and react extremely to rejection (downey & feldman, 1996). research suggests that sensitive people are likely to interpret ambiguous interpersonal situations, real or imagined, as rejections and thus overreact to them (downey & feldman, 1996; downey, feldman, khuri, & friedman, 1994; feldman & downey, 1994; brookings, zembar, & hochstetler, 2003; ayduk, zayas, et al., 2008). heightened concern about the possibility of rejection is implicated in several maladaptive relational patterns like to be ready to become hostile, aggressive, over-accommodating or socially withdrawn (berenson et al., 2009; purdie & downey, 2000). likewise, it can lead to loneliness, anxiety, depression (mcdougall, hymel, vaillancourt, & mercer, 2001; ayduk, downey & kim, 2001), low self–esteem, reduction of ones’ ability to cope with social interactions, disruption of interpersonal functioning (downey & feldman, 1996; harb, heimberg, fresco, schneier, & leibowitz, 2002; butler, doherty, & potter, 2007; ayduk et al., 2000) and even violence in romantic relationships (robillard, 2009; downey, feldman, & ayduk, 2000). sensitivity to rejection and characteristic patterns of reacting to possible --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ rejection are also part of the defining criteria for several psychiatric diagnoses, including social phobia, avoidant personality disorder and borderline personality disorder (american psychiatric association, 2000). the rejection sensitivity model draws from interpersonal theories of personality (ayduk, zayas, et al., 2008). according to these theories, rejection sensitivity originates from childhood rejection and underlies interpersonal difficulties (downey & feldman, 1996). horney (1937) attributes maladaptive relationships to basic anxiety about desertion, abuse, humiliation and betrayal. she believes that this anxiety is underlying a sensitivity “to any rejection or rebuff no matter how slight, [for example] a change in an appointment, having to wait, failure to receive an immediate response” (horney, 1937, pp. 135-136). also, the core of bowlby’s attachment theory is the proposition that we share with other species an evolutionary–based instinct to seek protection from a parent (or carer) when we experience danger. based on observation of children who have experienced separations and losses, bowlby first articulated his ideas about attachment theory in terms of the damaging effects that maternal deprivation can have on a child. according to bowlby children in orphanages and other institutions where they are separate from their parents, especially their mothers, can demonstrate emotionless or sociopathic identities (bowlby, 1969; dallos, 2006). the notion that people have a fundamental desire to gain acceptance and to avoid social rejection forms the basis of attachment theory (dewall et al., 2012. based on this theory, the aim of this study was to create and test a model that illustrates how anxious attachment styles may influence the development of rs directly and indirectly. rejection sensitivity and attachment style. according to bowlby (1980), children’s mental models of themselves and of relationships influence their future relationships. the core of these models are expectations about whether significant others will satisfy their needs or be rejected. these expectations derive from the reliability with which their primary caregiver meets their needs in early childhood. the theory suggests that when caregivers tend to meet children’s needs sensitively and consistently, children develop secure working models that incorporate the expectation that others will accept and support them. conversely, when caregivers tend to react to children’s need with rejection, children develop insecure working models that incorporate doubts and anxieties about whether or not others will accept and support them. insecure working models are thought to underlie mistrustful or ambivalent orientations to adult relationships (hazan & shaver, 1994). bartholomew (1990) developed a four-category model of attachment styles based on the four combinations obtained by dichotomizing the subject’s abstract image of the self into positive (low dependence) or negative (high dependence) on one axis, and dichotomizing the subject’s abstract image of the other into positive (low avoidance) or negative (high avoidance) on an orthogonal axis. this yielded the four attachment categories denoted as secure (positive self, positive other), preoccupied with relationships (negative self, positive other), dismissing of intimacy or dismissing-avoidant (positive self, negative other), and fearful of intimacy or fearful-avoidant (negative self, negative other). bartholomew and horowitz (1991) tested this four category model of attachment by developing the instrument relationship questionnaire, containing one prototype paragraph for each of the four attachment styles that describes the characteristics of that style (chotai, jonasson, hagglof, & adolfsson, 2005). secure individuals, who have received consistent and responsive care-giving, tend to be comfortable with intimacy and are confident that they are valued by others and are able to rely on others for support (collins & feeney, 2000). such individuals are not threatened by closeness, and maintain high level of self-esteem. preoccupied persons, who have experienced inconsistent and insensitive care-giving early in life, have an amplified desire for closeness and dependence, but their concern about rejection is also heightened. such people believe that they europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 attachment style and rejection sensitivity 364 http://www.psychopen.eu/ are not worthy of being loved and cared for. preoccupied individuals are highly dependent, demand attention and become distress if the significant other is not readily available in intimate relationships. they tend to be hyper-vigilant and overly concerned with the quality of their relationships (beyder-kamjou, 2004; turner, 2008). preoccupied individuals are sensitive to significant other’s response to them and interpret any disagreement from them as an indication that they desire separation and want to reject them (pistole & arricale, 2003). fearful individuals have experienced uncaring and unavailable caregivers. such individuals desire intimacy, acceptance and approval by others; however, they are typically distrustful and uncomfortable with their intimate relationships and tend to avoid closeness because of their fear of rejection. their desire to closeness leads them to establish intimate relationships but they keep significant others at a distance because they fear being rejected (collins & feeney, 2000). dismissing individuals have a history of rejecting or unresponsive attachment figures. such individuals tend to be suspicious about their intimate relationships and value independency, achievement, self-reliance and self-sufficiency. they do not trust others to get close to them and tend to refrain from getting close to them. such people see their close relationships as relatively unimportant (beyder-kamjou, 2004; turner, 2008). based on bowlby’s theory and the conducted researches in this field, parents who react to their children’s needs in a rejecting way raise children who are sensitive to rejection (feldman & downey, 1994; downey & feldman, 1996; pachankis, goldfried, & ramrattan, 2008). it seems that this sensitivity continues well into the children’s adulthood by means of internalizing past experiences of rejection (feldman & downey, 1994). some studies have explored the relationship between adult’s attachment styles and rs (downey & feldman, 1996; kennedy, 1999). for example erozkan (2009) found that rs levels of students who had authoritarian parents were higher than rs levels of students who had experienced other parenting styles. also the rs levels of the group of students who had fearful and preoccupied attachment styles were significantly higher than those of others. the rs model (downey & feldman, 1996) argues that people high in rs not only anticipate rejection from others but are also highly concerned and anxious about its actual occurrence. thus anxious expectations of rejection form the core component of high rs (ayduk, gyurak, & luerssen, 2008). as mentioned before, people with secure attachment styles have more safe and reliable interpersonal relationship and experience more satisfaction and those with dismissing attachment styles do not respect interpersonal relationship. instead they have only positive self image and avoid experiences of emotions (beyder-kamjou, 2004). but the important point is that these two attachment styles experience less anxiety and those who are afraid of being rejected would experience more anxiety in interpersonal relationship. so probably secure and dismissing attachment styles, by comparison to anxious attachment styles, would be less sensitive of being rejected. thus, in this study it was hypothesized that anxious attachment styles (preoccupied & fearful) would be positively associated with rs. (only these two styles were studied in the proposed model). mediators: worry and self-esteem. individuals with insecure attachment styles (particularly preoccupied and fearful) experience high levels of anxiety that reflect the tendency to be hyper-vigilant to potential signs of separation from, loss of, and rejection by attachment figures. this kind of tendency is a source of psychological or emotional concern and is an important social component of worry (wilson, 2006; allison, 2003; mellin, 2008). on the other hand, the main purpose of self–esteem is to monitor social relations and detect social rejections. in such a view, self-esteem is a sociometer which activates negative emotions when signs of exclusion appear (leary & downs, 1995). seemingly, individuals with low self-esteem feel to be rejected and are disapproving of others. they may lack self-confidence and social skill required for initiating and developing relationships. considerable research indicates that secure attachment is associated with higher self-esteem level (foster, kernis, & goldman, 2007) europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 khoshkam, bahrami, ahmadi et al. 365 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and individuals with fearful and preoccupied styles of attachment have the lowest self-esteem of the attachment style groups (huntsinger & luecken, 2004). also there is evidence showing that the most important source of daily stress that adults experience consists of negative social interactions and the self-esteem system has a monitoring function for social acceptance such that interpersonal rejection and social exclusion (real or perceived) are associated with lower self-esteem (ayduk et al, 2000). in the present study, anxious attachment styles (fearful and preoccupied) were hypothesized to be positively associated with worry and negatively associated with self-esteem, and in turn, positively related to rejection sensitivity. also, it was hypothesized that worry is positively related and self-esteem negatively related to rejection sensitivity. worry and self-esteem mediate the anxious attachment styles. method participants participants were 125 undergraduate students (63 female and 62 males), recruited from introductory psychology classes at university of isfahan, iran. the age range was 18-30 years old with mean age of 20.76 years old and a standard deviation of 1.94 years old. after the purpose of the study and general procedures were described, students were consent to participate in this study, provided with a set of questionnaires. all of them were volunteers, and were not given any payment. measures rejection sensitivity questionnaire (rsq; downey & feldman, 1996). this scale includes 18 hypothetical scenarios in which an individual makes a request to a significant other that makes him/her vulnerable to rejection. participants are required to rate their agreement with each scenario on a 6-point likert scale. they indicate (a) their request (anxiety over anticipated rejection; scale: 1, very unconcerned; 6, very concerned) and (b) their subjective likelihood estimate that the person(s) in each scenario will actually respond positively to their request (expectations of acceptance; scale: 1, very unlikely; 6, very likely). downey and feldman (1996) report an internal consistency coefficient (cronbach’s α) of .83, test–retest reliability coefficients of .83 and .78 for 3 weeks and 4 months retest intervals, respectively, and supportive construct validation evidence from three additional studies (ayduk, zayas, et al. 2008). in this research the standard “forward – backward” procedure was applied to translate the questionnaire from english into persian (iranian language). two independent professionals translated the items and a provisional version was provided. subsequently it was back translated into english and after that a cultural adaption of the final version was provided. the internal consistency coefficient (cronbach’s α) of the rsq in the present study was found to be .84. attachment style questionnaire (asq). attachment styles were measured by the two scales from the attachment style questionnaire (hofstra, van oudenhoven, & buunk, 2005) that were used to assess fearful and preoccupied attachment for all respondents. a 5-point likert scale was used, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). an example of an item from the 4-item fearful scale is: “i am afraid that i will be deceived when i get too close to others”; from the 5-item preoccupied scale: “i often wonder whether people like me”. according to hofstra et al., (2005), the internal consistency estimates (cronbach’s α) were .68 for the fearful scale and .80 for the preoccupied scale. also the construct validity of the asq was satisfactory. the fearful and preoccupied attachment styles were negatively correlated with self-esteem and positively correlated with distrust. in the present study by using a standard “forward – backward” translation procedure, the english language version of the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 attachment style and rejection sensitivity 366 http://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire was translated and adapted into persian (iranian language) and the internal consistency (cronbach’s α) was found to be .81 for the fearful scale and .89 for the preoccupied scale. rosenberg self-esteem scale. the 10item rosenberg self-esteem scale used in this study. participants used a 4point likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 4= strongly agree) to rate items such as “i feel that i have a number of good qualities”. according to martin-albo, nunez, navarro, & grijalvo (2007) the internal consistency of the scale (cronbach’s α) was .88 and test-retest correlation was .84. this scale was adapted for iranian participants by shapurian, hojat, & nayerahmadi (1987). in this study the persian version was used and its internal consistency (cronbach’s α) was .81. penn state worry questionnaire (pswq; meyer, miller, metzger, & borkovec, 1990). the penn state worry questionnaire is a 16-item measure designed to assess the tendency to worry excessively (“i am always worrying about something” and “my worries overwhelm me”). each item is followed by a likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (absolutely true). a total score is derived from the score on all items. dastgiri, gudarzi, ghanizadeh, & taghavi (2008) examined psychometric properties of a persian-language version of pswq in iran, and showed that it had satisfactory internal consistency (cronbach’s α= .86), test-retest reliability (α= .87) and acceptable split half reliability (α= .90). the internal consistency (cronbach’s α) of persian version of pswq in this study was .74. results according to the hypothesis of the present study, the rs score was set as the endogenous variable. two attachment style variables (fearful and preoccupied) were set as exogenous variables which were the central parts of the structural equations that have direct effects on the rs. also, worry and self-esteem have direct effects on the rs, mediating the attachment styles; neither is independent of the other. in this study data were analyzed via structural equation modeling (sem). regarding the assumption of multivariate normality, the hypothetical model was tested using maximum likelihood (ml) estimation procedures in lisrel 8.51. table 1 presents the correlation matrix, means, standard deviations and internal consistency coefficients for the study variables. all of the correlations between rs and proposed variables (anxious attachment styles, worry and self-esteem) are significant. table 1 intercorrelations, means, standard deviations and consistency coefficients for study variables αsdm54321study variables 1. fearful attachment .81.792.4211.001 2. preoccupied attachment .89.065.9217.001.26** 3. worry .74.599.2944.001.46**.27** 4. self-esteem .81.564.2735.001.36**-.31**-.26**5. rejection sensitivity .84.221.354.001.27**-.21**.33**.27** **p < .01; n = 125 to achieve the overall goal outlined in the present study, the structural equation model was tested. fig.1 shows the construction of the proposed model in which all the connections and interactions of the variables are presented. the path coefficients given in this model are shown in table 2. in this model, anxious attachment styles (fearful and preoccupied) have a positive significant relationship with worry and rs, and a negative significant relationship europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 khoshkam, bahrami, ahmadi et al. 367 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with self-esteem. worry has a positive significant relationship with rs and self-esteem has a negative significant relationship with rs. figure 1. the structural equation model of rejection sensitivity. standardized path coefficients are presented on each arrow. table 2 standardized direct effects of proposed variables on rejection sensitivity ptβbpaths .001fearful attachment to worry .213.32.024 .001fearful attachment to self-esteem .14-3.28-.11-3 .001preoccupied attachment to worry .724.41.78 .002preoccupied attachment to self-esteem .85-2.25-.23.001worry to rs .113.27.752 .001self-esteem to rs .514.24-.82.001fearful attachment to rs .115.29.511 .001preoccupied attachment to rs .113.28.54 according to table 2, all path coefficients of the variables in this model are significant. therefore, we verify that anxious attachment styles have a positive significant relationship with rs through worry and self-esteem. the fearful attachment style, through mediators such as worry and self-esteem, has an indirect effect of .14 on rs (table 3) and a direct effect of .29 (table 2), for a total effect of .43. also, the preoccupied attachment style, through mediators such as worry and self-esteem, has an indirect effect of .17 on rs (table 3) and a direct effect of .28 (table 2), for a total effect of .45. therefore, their positive significant effects on rs increase comparing to indirect and direct effects in this model. the goodness-of-fit test yielded a chi-square of 3.21, tli =.97, ecv =.03, cfi =.98, gfi =.98, agfi = .97, and rmsea = .001. table 4 contains fit indices of this model. these results indicate a good fit of the structural equation model of proposed variables on rs. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 attachment style and rejection sensitivity 368 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 standardized indirect effects on rejection sensitivity ζsobelβpaths 1.98*.08fearful attachment to rs through worry 2.56*.11preoccupied attachment to rs through worry 2.01*.06fearful attachment to rs through self-esteem 2.21*.06preoccupied attachment to rs through self-esteem table 4 measures of fit for the structural equation model of rejection sensitivity. rmseacfitliagfigfiecvχ2/dfpdfχ2 .001.98.97.97.98.033.21.2213.21 note: df = degree of freedom; p = probability value; ecv = expected cross validation; gfi = goodness of fit index; agfi = adjusted goodness of fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation. discussion this study tested a model of the associations between insecure anxious attachment styles (fearful & preoccupied), worry, self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. the results show that there is a positive significant relationship between anxious attachment styles and worry, and also negative significant relationship between anxious attachment styles and self-esteem. also rejection sensitivity appears to be significantly positively correlated to fearful and preoccupied attachment styles and worry, and significantly negatively correlated to self-esteem. the proposed model shows that fearful and preoccupied attachment styles contribute to development of a high level of worry and a low level of self-esteem. also, worry leads to increase rs and self-esteem leads to reduce rs. finally, fearful and preoccupied attachment styles contribute to development of rs through the development of worry and reduction of self-esteem. these paths, by giving the large total effects (.43, .45) are the effective paths toward the increasing level of rs. these findings are consistent with the theoretical perspective of attachment that outlines two dimensions of working models: anxiety and avoidance. the anxiety dimension leads individuals to reflect to cues signaling rejection or separation from significant others sensitively. anxiously attached people worry excessively about losing their relationship and support of significant others (wilson, 2006). the individuals with higher levels of attachment anxiety seek out and anxiously anticipate threats in their relationships. they have negative self-view and would doubt their ability to deal effectively with threats on their own and therefore the levels of worry increase for them. it is thus expected that individuals with insecure anxious attachment styles (preoccupied and fearful) would be prone to worry. this expectation is supported by the findings of this study and consistent with the findings reported by allison (2003), kang, shin, hwang, lee, and song (2008), brown, whiteside (2008) and muris, meesters, morren, and moorman (2004). also, contrary to those who have insecure attachments, those who have secure attachments have a feeling of confidence in the available support and love of attachment figures and are motivated to feel good about themselves. feeling good about oneself protects against threats and feeling of vulnerability. self-esteem is predicted based on attachment experiences. individuals with insecure attachment styles have lower self-esteem. as it was expected, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 khoshkam, bahrami, ahmadi et al. 369 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this study there is a negative significant relationship between anxious attachment styles and self-esteem that is consistent with the results presented by downey & feldman (1996), collins & read (1990), hart, shaver, & goldenberg (2005), huntsinger and luecken (2004). attachment theory focuses on the impact that parenting has upon an infant and how it would affect individual’s relationships (bowlby, 1969). the patterns of communication and negotiation of need satisfaction formed between an infant and his or her caregiver are relatively stable in a persons’ lifetime and healthy or unhealthy types of attachment depend on these patterns. based on this assumption, downey & feldman (1996) suggested that anxious expectations of rejection are formed as a result of repeated rejection from parents or significant others. it seems that individuals with anxious attachment styles have higher rejection sensitivity. the results of this study confirmed the hypothesized association between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity that is also supported by the finding of erozkan (2009) and downey & feldman (1996). interpersonal self-efficacy in rejection sensitive people is low and may be a factor of difficult relationships. as rejection sensitivity increases, both confidence and ability in social interactions decrease, particularly on the occasion of meeting new people where the chances of rejection are highest (butler et al., 2007). interpersonal difficulties in rejection sensitive people impair their sense of personal worth and efficacy, leading to depression and decreased self-esteem in a feedback loop (leary, 1999). therefore, these individuals may tend to be particularly concerned with preventing rejection. as it was hypothesized, self-esteem and worry were significant mediators of the relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity. finally, the proposed model suggests that anxious attachment styles and rs not only have a direct relation, but one that is mediated by worry and self-esteem. in addition, these findings support the importance of focusing on individuals’ styles of attachment in development of rejection sensitivity interventions. it seems that, providing interventions in order to improve anxious attachment styles may be useful for rejection sensitive individuals. further research is needed to explore these suggestions. several limitations of this study should be noted. this study relied on a modest size and convenience sample of undergraduates, only from the university of isfahan in isfahan city. therefore, findings may not be generalized to the larger population; further study is needed in which larger samples are selected from several cities. cross-cultural studies can also be considered in future works. the other limitation is the cross-sectional nature of this investigation which renders causal conclusions less convincing. a longitudinal approach may contribute to our understanding of causal relationships between attachment style and rs. despite the limitations, all of the fit indices are acceptable, suggesting a good fit between the proposed theory and our data. hence, it can be claimed that this study contributes to our knowledge of the origins of rs. references allison, c. j. 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(2008). extension of the rejection sensitivity construct to the interpersonal functioning of gay men. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 76(2), 306-317. doi:10.1037/0022-006x.76.2.306 pistole, m. c., & arricale, f. (2003). understanding attachment: belief about conflict. journal of counseling and development, 81, 318-328. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6678.2003.tb00259.x purdie, v., & downey, g. (2000). rejection sensitivity and adolescent girls’ vulnerability to relationship-centered difficulties. child maltreatment, 5(4), 338-349. doi:10.1177/1077559500005004005 robillard, l. (2009). rejection sensitivity, information processing deficits attachment style and empathic accuracy in violent relationships (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of queensland, queensland. shapurian, r., hojat, m., & nayerahmadi, h. (1987). psychometric characteristics and dimensionality of a persian version of rosenberg self-esteem scale. perceptual and motor skills, 65, 27-34. doi:10.2466/pms.1987.65.1.27 turner, l. (2008). attachment style of children in foster care and relationship to interpersonal cognitive complexity (unpublished doctoral dissertation). wichita state university, wichita. wilson, c. l. (2006). attachment working models and false recall: a category structure approach (unpublished doctoral dissertation). texas a&m university, college station. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 khoshkam, bahrami, ahmadi et al. 373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1882.2008.tb00022.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(90)90135-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(03)00616-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.76.2.306 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2003.tb00259.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077559500005004005 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pms.1987.65.1.27 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors samira khoshkam is a phd student of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology, university of isfahan, iran. her research is in family counseling with a special interest in application of attachment-theory. fatemeh bahrami is an associate professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology at university of isfahan, iran. her main area of interest includes attachment theory and meta cognition. s. ahmad ahmadi is a professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology at university of isfahan, iran. he is a researcher in counseling psychology. maryam fatehizadeh is an associate professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology at university of isfahan, iran. ozra etemadi is an assistant professor of counseling in the department of counseling, faculty of psychology at university of isfahan, iran. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 363–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.463 attachment style and rejection sensitivity 374 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment style and rejection sensitivity method participants measures results discussion references about the authors conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements vlad glăveanua [a] ejop editor. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 published: 2012-08-29. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. . 27th annual conference of the association for applied sport psychology 3-6 october 2012-08-17 atlanta, ga, us 2012 conference theme: interdisciplinary relationships within the scientist-practitioner model as in the past, we are requesting that authors emphasize the scientist-practitioner perspective in their abstracts and during their presentations. this involves an identification of the reciprocal relationships among theory, research, and interventions/practice. for example, theory-based empirical research presentations should draw the link to the applied implications of the research findings. similarly, presentations that feature applied interventions and practice should clarify the relationship with current theory and research. this year, we are also requesting that abstract submissions promote an interdisciplinary focus within the field of sport and exercise psychology. --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ interdisciplinary relationships and the science-practice relationship can be further emphasized through the use of session moderators, symposia discussants, and workshop facilitators that can highlight these themes and connections. although these components are not required for acceptance, submissions that include an interdisciplinary approach and the scientist-practitioner perspective will be given preference. submitting authors also should include supporting, published peer-reviewed literature in their abstract submissions. visit the website for more information http://appliedsportpsych.org/conference/highlights/ europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 global psypulse http://appliedsportpsych.org/conference/highlights/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 3rd international conference on education & educational psychology 10 – 13 october 2012 istanbul, turkey i'm profoundly honoured to chair the 3rd international conference on education and educational psychology and take pleasure in inviting you—research students, academics, educators and educational psychologists from around the world—to attend the conference. i should never forget the committed team of the iceepsyscientific committee & board of reviewers who are, in the main, working with me to make the 2012 conference another resounding success following the tradition of the previous iceepsy conferences. the international conference on education and educational psychology 2012 will take place in istanbul, turkey, october 10th 13th, 2012. this conference will not only build on the success of the previous iceepsy conferences but will seek to raise the bar in international exchange of ideas, collaborations and cooperation among academics, educators and educational psychologists and other practitioners. the 2012 conference will provide unrivalled opportunities for participants to rub minds and bounce off ideas with each other. it will seek to facilitate the discussion including the challenges on education and educational psychology internationally providing a forum for scientific debate and constructive interaction in a multi cultural social environment such as istanbul. the conference will provide a platform for educators, teachers, researchers, research students and practitioners to present their work; to exchange knowledge, ideas and experience and will identify solutions to existing challenges worldwide known in education and educational psychology. doctoral candidates are also explicitly invited to present and discuss their research ideas and work in progress. the iceepsy 2012 scientific committee and board of reviewers have expanded the conference themes for 2012 and have provided added features including pre-conference continuous professional development workshops, poster presentations, and special interest group (sig) symposiums. to this end, the iceepsy 2012 scientific committee and board of reviewers welcomes papers from the following and related topics: special education, education and technology, ict, distance learning, effective teaching practices, assessment and evaluation, quality assurance and institutional effectiveness, leadership and collaborative policy, adult and continuing education, vocational and technical education, lifelong learning, higher education, teaching and learning, learning theories, models of teaching, guidance and counseling psychology (educational psychology), early years education, intercultural education, and equity, learner diversity and inclusion. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 glăveanu http://www.psychopen.eu/ iceepsy 2011 attracted over 350 abstracts and papers from participants colleagues and professionals from 49 countries from across the world. as with previous conferences, abstracts from the 2012 conference will be published by iceepsy and a full text of papers will be provided by elsevier in the iceepsy 2012 proceedings. iceepsy 2011 conference in istanbul was a huge success and iceepsy 2012 promises to be another high quality event. istanbul is a special city and one-time european capital of culture city with its position as a bridge between europe and asia the western part of the city is in europe, and the eastern is in asia. the city's hugely important historic buildings provide visitors with a great lot to see. i hope that the accessibility of the conference venue and its proximity to the city's major attractions provides additional reason to attend. i personally look forward to meeting up with colleagues and friends—old and new—in istanbul in october 10th 2012. dr james ogunleye, frsa middlesex university, uk visit the website for more information http://www.iceepsy.org europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 global psypulse http://www.iceepsy.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ the 35th annual international conference on the psychology of the self 2012 conference theme: is self an illusion? 18-21 october 2012 washington, dc, usa dear colleagues, is self an illusion? – this, our title of the 35th annual conference of the psychology of the self, challenges presenters and participants to re-focus on a central thrust of heinz kohut's inspiring contributions. exploration begins with the pre-conference, multiple morning sessions that relate self to modes of creativity. the unique afternoon session master class traces the creation and early development of the sense of self with others. then each of the four panels approaches the puzzles of "self" from a different standpoint, each considering the questions as they apply to clinical practice and theoretical understanding. plenary 1 considers how to reconcile the multiplicity of experiential states with a sense of a cohesive self. plenary 2 considers how to reconcile a patient's goal to achieve self-autonomy (an independent center for initiative) with the sense of embeddedness in a relational world. plenary 3 asks: what are the sources of leverage for therapeutic change in the sense of self? in plenary 4, four of our philosopher colleagues complete the circle of our inquiry as they use their expertise to consider: what is meant by self? in addition we are honored to have two major pioneer contributors to the development of self psychology: russell meares as the keynote speaker and estelle shane as the kohut memorial lecturer. 2012 conference chair: joseph lichtenberg, md visit the website for more information http://www.iapsp.org/conference/ europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 glăveanu http://www.iapsp.org/conference/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 5th annual european public health conference 2012 8-10 november 2012 portomaso, st. julian’s, malta the european public health association (eupha), the association of schools of public health in the european region (aspher) and the malta association of public health medicine (maphm) are pleased to invite you to the 5th joint conference combining the 20th annual eupha meeting and 34th annual aspher meeting. the european public health conference aims to contribute to the improvement of public health in europe by offering a means for exchanging information and a platform for debate to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in the field of public health and health services research as well as public health training and education in europe. visit the website for more information http://www.eupha.org/site/upcoming_conference.php europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 global psypulse http://www.eupha.org/site/upcoming_conference.php http://www.psychopen.eu/ 11th congress of world association for psychosocial rehabilitation 10-13 november 2012 milan, italy the 11th congress of world association for psychosocial rehabilitation has the aims to present and discuss innovative ideas and practices in the treatment and care of severe mental disorders and related disabilities. the congress title – change thinking, change practices, change services – refers to the deep scientific and practical crisis of psychiatry, faced everyday with hard challenges going beyond the boundaries of a medical discipline and raising political, social, ethical and scientific questions. the need to base psychiatric interventions on scientific evidence on one hand and practical needs and rights of users and families’ rights on the other hand, calls for important changes in psychiatric knowledge, in practices and in the services offered to patients. psychosocial rehabilitation, as usual in mental health care, is at the crossroads where of scientific rigor meets ethical commitment and the ability to give technically adequate, satisfying, fair answers to people’s suffering. for these reasons, the congress will address three broad areas of interest: scientific knowledge and need for enhanced consistency between practice and evidence. research needs to find new routes either in its aims and methods. the congress will therefore look into involving users in formulating research hypotheses, trans-cultural aspects of research, and new prospects opened up by the most recent findings on resilience and recovery. practice, innovative interventions and effects on organization of services. interventions must be prompt and effective and involve primary health services, as well as promoting community networks, and respond to challenges from the most vulnerable and marginal parts of the populations. congress topics will therefore include diagnosis and early treatment, rehabilitation and community care, social networks and employment strategies. ethics, users’ and families’ advocacy, and empowerment of users. the relations between human rights and psychosocial rehabilitations will be discussed, and users will talk about their empowerment experiences. the united nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities will be a basic reference. the congress has a wapr scientific committee, presided by wapr president lourdes ladrido ignacio and an international advisory committee including experts from various disciplines representing different socio-economic and cultural settings, and balanced by gender and geographical area. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 glăveanu http://www.psychopen.eu/ i am confident that the 11th waprworld congress will give a meaningful and innovative contribution to the global debate on mental health, its social determinants, and the fairest and most effective ways to meet the needs of people with psychosocial disabilities. benedetto saraceno chairman of the international advisory committee visit the website for more information http://www.wapr2012.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 global psypulse http://www.wapr2012.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 54th international conference on alcohol and addiction 12-16 november 2012 montreal, canada in montreal, high calibre experts from all over the world will address the following themes in plenary sessions. 1. substance use in the global burden of diseases. 2. one hundred years of international conventions – where next? 3.making alcohol policy global. 4. tobacco controls – the challenge of harm-reduction. 5. globalisation of gambling – prevention and policy, national and international. 6. recovery movements and the world of treatment. 7. emerging trends in behaviour and thinking: work performance enhancement, influence of context in drinking behaviours, internet addictions. 8. issues for women in substance use. 9. telling truth to power – the influence of funding on research. 10.social media and new technologies in the interests of public health or commerce? and many more major sessions and sections' sessions in the fields of prevention, treatment, policy and research. visit the website for more information http://icaa-cipat.org.dnntempurl.com/en/index.php europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.517 glăveanu http://icaa-cipat.org.dnntempurl.com/en/index.php http://www.psychopen.eu/ global psypulse 27th annual conference of the association for applied sport psychology 2012 conference theme: interdisciplinary relationships within the scientist-practitioner model visit the website for more information 3rd international conference on education & educational psychology visit the website for more information the 35th annual international conference on the psychology of the self 2012 conference theme: is self an illusion? visit the website for more information 5th annual european public health conference 2012 visit the website for more information 11th congress of world association for psychosocial rehabilitation visit the website for more information 54th international conference on alcohol and addiction visit the website for more information metaphorical representations of the consultancy and the consultant in romania (2) dragos iliescu phd in i/o psychology lecturer snspa and partner in d&d research daniela stoian msc in “managerial communication and human resources” communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania maglina filimon msc in “managerial communication and human resources” communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania mihaela păunescu msc in “managerial communication and human resources” communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania vasilica trandafir msc in “managerial communication and human resources” communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania alexandra haralambie msc in “managerial communication and human resources” communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania chapter 3: metaphorical representations about consultant and consultancy in romania (for the introduction, chapter 1 and chapter 2 of this article, please consult the column research report in ejop, issue no 4/2005). 1. the vision about his/her own organization generally, i see my organization as …? graphic 1a. generally, i see my organization as …? (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options a first glance over the data encrypted in this chapter reveals an interesting conclusion about the way in which the respondents’ vision about the organization is structured: although, on principle, it is relatively balanced, the respondents’ perception also has “extreme” components, meaning that the approach is completely authoritarian, “military”. the perception of the “commander” who controls and harshly commands the system is completely rejected, while the engineer approach, which sees the organization as a mechanism that needs to be adjusted in order to function perfectly, is totally accepted. graphic 1b. generally, i see my organization as…? (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options basically, the most accepted perception (the graphic tends to +50.0 ) regarding the vision about his/her own organization is a complex perception with two components: a. a structural „engineered” component, which focuses on the fact that the organization is a complex system made of several subinterdependent systems; in this context any force vector applied in any point of the system induces modifications in all its sub-assemblies; therefor all the “wheels” must function exactly in order for the whole machinery to work properly; b. a “metaphysical” component which underlines the fact that the mechanism mentioned above functions into an environment which is by definition chaotic, subtle, undetermined, difficult to understand and impossible to control without the existence of some one “initiated” already and who knows the “signs”. although the two components are apparently not compatible, in fact they are the facets of the same perception that unifies the respondents’ experience with the organizations under two undeniable realities: the need to control and understand the way in which the organizations function and the inevitable, symbolized by the impossibility to control and understand all the mechanisms and the sub-systems of an organization or their way of functioning. in the same time almost all of the respondents seem to reject (the graphic tends to – 50.0) the “military” perception regarding the way in which the organizations function. this phenomenon is happening because this metaphor is composed by many aspects which are one by one rejected by the respondents: first of all from the authoritarian perspective, the organization is an exact system which functions based entirely on some laws, on one set of clear and indisputable rules – aspect which is in contradiction with the metaphysical component we talked above second, from the same perspective the organization is a system that has to be permanently commanded and controlled and it does not function otherwise – a probably rejected aspect first, because of its dictatorial form and, second, for its incompatibility (easy to notice) with the reality, the way it reflects in the respondents’ personal experiences. between the other rejected perceptions of the respondents we notice furthermore: the „didactically” perception – „a system which continuously learns, accumulates ant perfects itself” the „medical” perception – „an alive organism, in which each part grows, develops and has a function in adapting to the environment ” the option to reject the two metaphors is amazing and we can only speculate about the motivations that represent the base for it. this are probably related to the fact that both require a minimum external intervention in the system and this fact is related more to a challenge, an ideal model of organization and, in fact, it’s not a reality. in other words, although the organizations “learn” and “grow” they are not self-centered systems and do not need external correcting interventions. in conclusion, the perspective over the organization in its normal state is an integrating one. this means that, from the perceptual point of view, there are combined two models which requires the functional blend of an exact science with an art – in a way similar to that described in the anticipating works where, for example, there are “psychologists-priests” or “engineers” (specialists in technology who, through the high level of knowledge, have reached the border of “mystical”, of the esoteric). this is probably the best way, through which it’s described the recipe of managing the organizational phenomenon, composed both of science and knowledge of the paradigms which can adjust the “ organizational wheels” and the intuition that can only be based on the experience of reading organizational signs. 2. the vision about his/her own organization, when it’s in difficulty the most correct analogy presenting a comparison for my organization, when it needs consultancy . graphic 2a. the vision about his/her own organization, when it’s in difficulty (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) *calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options the most important aspect arising from this chapter – related to his/her perception about the organization when it’s in difficulty – is connected to the fact that, as a concept, the respondents tend to use different constructions describing the organization in its various stages – this is an observation which still remains to be validated by the rest of the data. even in this situation of the organization there are models taken to extreme, which are completely accepted or completely rejected by the consultants. and even more, the image of the organization in trouble seems to generate more “extreme” negative reactions than the one of the organization in a “normal” state. for example: the „esoteric-religious” model, which requires the assimilation of the organization for some “godless” being who, after confessing to the priest needs his whole understanding, his advice and support. this model is totally rejected by the respondents the „metaphysical-astrological” model, which presents the organization like the solar system that allowed reading the signs and the intuition of problems from its configurations, it is also rejected the „interventionist-simple” model, which sees the organization like a building that has a fire which needs to be located and needs extinction, is also rejected in order to describe the situation of the organization in a crisis, the most suitable model to describe it seems to be the “educational-didactic” model, which sees the organization as a big cognitive (intellective) device (system) that permanently needs new information and ideas and this one is the most accepted model by the consultants. graphic 2b. the vision about his/her own organization, when it’s in difficulty (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options regarding the perception about the organization in its moments of trouble, it has two major components – which can be extremely assimilated into a “psychological” paradigm: a. first, the organization is seen as a cognitive mechanism which, in order to function correctly, needs up-to-date information; when the information input is not the best one, then there will be unbalances that need to be rectified through the same means b. second, the organization is like the human psychic, it needs therapy in order to function normally, so it constantly needs an adjusting process which will attenuate the unbalances and frustrations generally, the organization is like a human system that can experience crisis because of some unbalances in the reasoning state (the received information are not adequate) or in the emotional state (the therapy process, which ensures the balance, does not take place). the way in which are structured the other metaphorical models designed to describe the organization in a crisis, allow us to draw another important idea related to the way in which the consultants reflect in the organization: the state of the organization is the result of a continuous process and a result of decisions and exact interventions (please note the extreme rejection of the simple interventionist model described by the metaphor “fireman” and the acceptance of the models that require process). in addition, the organization experiencing a crisis needs more knowledge (science) – in order to find out how to manage the reasoning and emotional aspects. the organization does not need the shamanism and the esoteric visions, which, in fact, does not offer fundamental solutions. this is the reason why the most accepted model is a psychological one, which accepts the insights determined by the experience, but it rejects the components that are really non-scientific. 3. the vision about the difficulties experienced by the organization the situations that make me ask for consultancy, i see them like… graphic 3a. the vision about the difficulties experienced by the organization (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options as it was expected, the perception of the organizational symptoms during the difficult times is similar to the perception of the organization having the same difficulties. but, it is possible to notice the fact that, although in this situation there are extreme rejection or acceptance reactions, the number of negative reactions is smaller. graphic 3b. the vision about the difficulties experienced by the organization (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options as an extreme reaction, the only metaphor exclusively rejected is the one about the fireman, while the exclusively accepted metaphor is about the teacher. the perceptual model, considered to be the most appropriate to describe the symptoms of the organization in crisis, is the „sportsman’s” – „the organization needs higher performances in the game it plays together with the others on the market”. the “educational-didactic” model is integrated in this sport model, the first focusing on the need of the organization to be up-to-date regarding the received information. the appearance of the sport metaphor in the consultants’ perceptual preferences is not a surprise, due to the fact that the most important measure for a good functioning of the organization is represented by its results on the market on which it acts. in fact, the bad results are the most frequent symptom, which is an incontestable clue of some possible organizational problems. it is worthy of note that while the organization in the normal state is not at all possible to be assimilated into the “captain” model, when this problems appear this model quickly becomes a component of the metaphor system, considered to be acceptable by the consultants. of course, this can only be explained by the fact that the respondents see the tough intervention, the control and the redirection as a must in order to overcome some difficult organizational situations. as a conclusion, it’s possible to say that the metaphoric model, considered to be the most suitable for describing the symptoms of the organization in a crisis, is best associated with the “competitive – sport” image. the organization is a professional athlete who does not pay the expected results compared with the other athletes and this fact shows the existence of some personal problems. but these problems can be adjusted through more training, teached in accordance with the new methodologies and the access to better equipment. 4. the vision about the consultant’s activity what does the consultant… graphic 4a. the vision about the consultant’s activity (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options regarding the metaphors used to describe the consultant’s role in the organization, these have a characterization that is a more restrictive one than a prescriptive one. while there is no metaphoric model which can be definitely accepted from this point of view, we notice that there are two models which are exclusively rejected: a. the „priest / ordinee” model – „the consultant knows what is good (“virtuous”) or bad (“sinful”) and gives advices for this”; „the consultant actually represents a superior court (from the moral, systemic or legal point of view)” b. the „fireman” model – „the consultant extinguishes the flames that have overcome the organization”; „the system applied by the consultant is not always a gentle one, his interest is to save what can be saved.” graphic 4b. the vision about the consultant’s activity (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options regarding the perception about the consultant’s role in the organization and the way in which his activity can be best described, we notice a structure, centered mostly on the following primer directions: the necessity of a correct diagnosis for the problems of the organization; from this point of view, the consultant is a “doctor” who has the necessary knowledge to exactly identify the week points and the causes of the organizational crisis the necessity of prescribing exact treatments for the problems of the organization. the consultant is a “doctor” who, after identifying the problems, is able to exactly prescribe the solving recipe, he is able to exactly say what are the needed actions for eliminating the “sickness” the necessity for a strict intervention in the organization and for watching the evolutions; the consultant is a psychologist who helps the organization to identify the problems, while this action initiates a healing “per se” process; once the problems are interiorized, some internal auto-adjusting mechanisms are started and they “heal the organization, while the consultant monitors the process from the way in which the respondents’ options are structured for the above directions, we may conclude that this ones see the consultant’s role in the organization as one essentially psychological. this have to know how to identify the unbalances, the their cause and knows to prescribe the measures that will activate the “healing” abilities of the organization. this is a scientific process which eliminates the “esoteric”, but, in the same time, it eliminates the authority ant the excessive control – the organizational psychologist just identifies and daglocks the self-adjusting mechanisms of the organization, whose blocking has determined the appearance of the problems. 5. the vision about the consultant’s role i expect from the ideal consultant to come with the following things in the project … graphic 5a. the vision about the consultant’s role (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options the metaphors used to describe the ideal consultant’s role in the organization are characterized in a restrictive but also prescriptive way. it’s obvious that the respondents’ perception is better described regarding the image, of the ideal consultant the expectations they have from him. as it follows, we notice that there are definitely accepted metaphors but also clearly rejected ones from this point of view. the clearly rejected are : a. the „astrologer” model – „the consultant has abstruse, hard to understand knowledge about the methods of “conjuration”, statistics etc.” b. the „fireman” model – „the consultant is trained and has experience in “working with the flames”; more than this, he implicates many things in the action, he takes risks” the exclusively accepted are: a. the „psychologist” model – „the consultant is a facilitator who has knowledge about the inside problems of the organization and who is able to make it to go, by itself, towards the change ” b. the „teacher” model – „the consultant has great theoretical and practice knowledge and pedagogical flair.” c. the „captain” model – „the consultant has the experience and the knowledge from previous “wars” , battles”, has the ability to organize, plan and analyze” graphic 5b. the vision about the consultant’s role (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options regarding the expectation on the ideal consultant’s role in the organization and the way in which the expectations on his activity may be best described, we notice a b configuration centered mainly on the following directions: the ideal consultant must act as a “psychotherapist”, he has to be a facilitator who has the necessary knowledge in order to correctly identify the deviation from the right path of the organization and to take the deeded measures in order to putt it on the right track; he must repair the self-adjusting mechanisms and then to monitor the coming back to normal the ideal consultant must have the necessary background in order to understand the organizational problems and he must have the intuition to identify the adjusting measures; he is like a teacher who has both knowledge and a lot of important experience in working with his students the consultant must act as an accelerator for the changes in the organization, he has the role of a coach who, by leader and charismatic abilities, may change the faith of a game through the encouraging speech and the technical advice, right from the beginning of the game or at the break from the way in which the respondents’ visions are structured in the above directions, we may conclude that they perceive the ideal consultant’s role in the organization as an enterprising role. he has to know the means to identify the unbalances, their cause and then he is able to prescribe the measures that will create the “self-healing” abilities of the organization. in the same time, he acts according to the intuition given by the personal experience. his intervention in the organization does is not limited for repairing the mechanisms self-adjusting. through authority and charisma he is an accelerator of the change and, in the same time, he monitors and closely controls the most important process. 6. the vision about the consultant’s activity i expect the consultant to spend time in the organization, as it follows … graphic 6a. the vision about the consultant’s activity (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options the metaphors used to describe the consultant’s behavior in the organization have a characterization that is both prescriptive and restrictive. the respondents’ perception is, also in this case, well précised. in conclusion, we notice that there are a large number of definitely accepted metaphors, but also there are definitely rejected metaphors from this point of view. the exclusively rejected are: a. the „astrologer” model – „he spends time with the customer to bone up on a subject, but he considers that the data sent by the customer are enough and not necessarily personally collected. he gives the solution after he thinks it over and he is helped by his initiation abstract methods ” b. the „mechanic / engineer” – „he comes, he repairs the broken organizational mechanism and leaves without asking about something else ” c. the „fireman” model – „he remains in the organization as long he needs to “extinguish the fire”, in order to overcome the crisis. it’s not his job to clean after.” d. the „priest / ordinee” – „he spends a lot of time in the organization but he offers advice only when he is asked for.” the ones exclusively accepted are: a. the „guide” model – „he stands beside the organization during the whole project, but his role ends when he reaches the destination.” b. the „designer / aesthetician” – „he has an exact interaction with the organization, limited in time and in objectives ” c. the „coach” model – „ he spends enough time in the organization in order to teach the individuals and the departments to interact one with another.” d. the „teacher” model – „ he spends enough time in the organization in order to pass over the needed knowledge and to evaluate them. when the “courses” and the “exams” end he will leave.” graphic 6b. the vision about the consultant’s activity (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options the consultant’s activity is primarily defined by the characteristics of his essential non-intervening demarche. the consultant’s presence in the organization is determined by the problems it has and, therefore, his role is to solve them. his behavior is focused on monitoring the process of recovery of the organization; he shows it the way until the organization covers all the necessary steps in order to consider the problems solved. in that moment his role stops. but until it stops, the consultant is responsible for bringing the organization into the competitive parameters. this fact does not happen directly only through his actions, but is a process determined by the consultant through the implication of the key components (departments, humans). in other words, the consultant is a coach, a teacher who knows the organizational components which need to be modified in order to overcome the problems and his influence is mainly over these ones and not over the entire organization. when he is sure that the key points of the organization have been “prepared” for repairing, his role stops. 7. the vision about consultancy, in general for me the finality of the consultancy is … graphic 7a. the vision about consultancy, in general (compared presentation acceptance vs. rejection) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options also, the metaphors associated with the image of the ideal consultancy and its finality are well shaped. we notice even here the existence of some models which are exclusively accepted –the „educational” one which says that the final purpose of the consultancy is getting supplementary information, useful for the organization and it’s members; the „psychological” one which says that the finality of the consultancy is to consolidate the personality and health of the organization– but also exclusively rejected models – the „police officer” a model which says that the finality of the consultancy is to identify and punish the individuals responsible for the problems of the organization; the „fireman” model which says that the finality of the consultancy is to overcome the crisis ; the „designer / aesthetician” which says that the finality of the consultancy is the amelioration of the external image of the organization. graphic 7b. the vision about the consultancy, in general (composite index of preference) * calculated based on 188 questionnaires, with the measures of expressed options the most accepted model used for describing the ideal finality of the consultant’s organizational demarche is based on the concept of “consolidation”, evolution, optimizing. therefore, we consider that we might gather the common traits of this set of metaphors in two possible “extra-metaphors”: a. the organizational construction, at the end of a consultancy process, is an improved consolidated construction with functional improvements and, also, design improvements b. or the organizational personality, at the end of a consultancy process, is an auto-updated one – it knows its vulnerabilities but also its potential and it has the necessary instruments (incorporated in the system) for controlling the first and fructifying the last. in the same context, , the objective of the consultancy is, therefore, a positive optimistic one, characterized by constructive thinking – the objective to overcome the present problems, to overcome the difficulties and to improve the self-adjusting mechanisms towards a level that will no more allow the appearance of such problems. in other words, the organizational system does not need to be simply helped to overcome the moment of crisis, but it has to be endowed in order not to get to such moments. conclusions in brief, what would be the most important conclusions that we can draw at the final of this study? first, the metaphors may successfully be a common language of the hr professionals, a new “esperanto” that can be sometimes extremely useful for other professionals but especially, for the organizational consultants. because, at the extreme, this may be a metalanguage which is not influenced by the numerous theoretical structures and specific versions of the multi-discipline and multi-paradigm system represented by the organizational sciences. in other words, a well chosen metaphor may best describe an organizational situation and in many times has the chance to be a messaje that travels directly from the sender to the receiver, without cognitive or experimental distorsions. second, the understanding of the organizational metaphors may be a very useful instrument, which may help defining and profoundly interpreting the perceptions and expectations that the human relations’ specialists have. from among all this we will only mention the most important metaphors and the ones highly general. for starter, we may say that there is an obvious difference between the way in which the organizations in a normal state are perceived and the ones in a “crisis” are, too. the organization in a “normal” state is dodged-up in a way which has almost the clock precision – it is a complex mechanism, a large number of pieces which are all related and depend one to another. in addition, like for the great swiss clocks, beyond the excellent technical knowledge, the clockmaker also needs a set of abilities that overpass the raw physics. these abilities are the intuition, the experience and the knowledge of internal life of the mechanisms. the organization in a “crisis” is profoundly humanized, psychologizated, is an alive organism which needs not only correct and up-dated information, but also a good emotional flux. the organizational being needs therapy in order to overcome the crisis. from this perspective, the hr specialist is a psychotherapist who, in order to solve the problems, utilizes a mixture mostly composed of science and he has “the personal art”, as an accelerator, a hard to define dimension which comes from empathy, experience and intuition. another very interesting thing is related to the hr specialists’ expectations about the organizational consultants’ role. they should be a kind of “parental figures”, they should appear when the organization is in trouble and implicate themselves in the demarches of getting back the normal state: (1) they should provide to the organization the needed instruments in order to self-adjust; (2) they should guide the organization and its key members towards the assimilation and application of these instruments, all through a non-dominant but harsh style; (3) they should become a “role model” through the charisma ant competence and, at last; (4) they should respect the sign of “no entry” on the organization chamber when it functions correctly again. national identification and collective emotions as predictors of pro-social attitudes toward islamic minority groups in indonesia research reports national identification and collective emotions as predictors of pro-social attitudes toward islamic minority groups in indonesia ali mashuri*ab, esti zaduqisti c [a] department of psychology, university of brawijaya, malang, indonesia. [b] department of social and organizational psychology, vu university amsterdam, amsterdam, the netherlands. [c] department of islamic counseling, stain pekalongan, pekalongan, indonesia. abstract the present study examined the role of indonesian moslemmajority’s national identification, collective emotions of pride and guilt in predicting their support in helpingmembers of islamic minority and their perceived inclusion towards this group. data from this study (n = 182) demonstrated that, in line with our prediction, support for minority helping significantly predicted perceived inclusion. we also hypothesized and found that collective pride and collective guilt directly predicted the minority helping. finally, national identification had significant direct effects on both collective pride and collective guilt. these findings shed light on the importance of collective emotions and national identification in giving rise to pro-social attitudes of indonesian moslemmajority towards members of islamic minority. implications of the research findings were discussed with reference to theories of group-based emotion and intergroup helping, and to practical strategies indonesian government can apply to recognize islamic minorities. keywords: national identification, collective pride, collective guilt, minority helping, perceived inclusion europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 received: 2013-10-23. accepted: 2014-03-04. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of brawijaya, jalan veteran, malang, 65145, indonesia. e-mail: alimashuri76@ub.ac.id this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. indonesia, theoretically, is a country that supports religious pluralism, as explicitly indicated in the first principle of its national ideology pancasila (the five pillars) that declares one supreme god. this means that basically indonesian people could maintain and express any kinds of monotheistic religions. ironically and contradictorily, however, aggressions and persecutions by radical islamists against non-moslems and even islamic minority over the past ten years have steadily increased (kapoor, 2013). shiites and ahmadis are the most salient islamic minorities among the majorities of sunni moslem in indonesia. the estimated number of indonesian sunni moslems is 200 million whereas that of shiites and ahmadis is 100,000 and 400,000 respectively (budiman, 2013). some sunni moslems tend to label ahmadis and shiites as a false moslem due to their doctrines that are deemed as heretic. as an illustration, ahmadis hail mirzā ghulām ahmad as a prophet after muhammad, whom sunni muslims believe to be the last prophet. shiites recognize ali as the first and the only caliphate, whom sunnis consider as the fourth caliphate (rayda, 2011). given such moslem majority judgment that the teachings of shia and ahmadiyya are deviant and blasphemous, members of these islamic minorities find multifaceted predicaments to enjoy a normal life in indonesia (aritonang, 2012; rayda, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2013). such predicaments take form in, for example, the nationwide banning for ahmadis and shiites to practice their faith publicly and displacement of these members of islamic minority groups to isolated areas after the destruction of their mosques, houses, and schools (budiman, 2013; hermawan, 2013). they are therefore calling for help from the indonesian government to renovate their destroyed houses andmosques, to live in non-segregated areas (hariyadi, 2013). however, the effectiveness of the indonesian government to carry out such facilitation greatly depends on the support and action by members of indonesian moslem majority. while radical islamists have transparently shown their opposition towards the governmental facilitation, attitudes of moderate moslem majority in indonesia are still understudied. to fill this void, the current study aimed to test some determinants of the feasibility of moderate moslems to endorse the indonesian government’s actions to help followers of shia and ahmadiyya and in turn, through this endorsement, to regard members of these islamic minorities as representative indonesian people. minority inclusion the ingroup projection model (ipm:wenzel, mummendey, weber, &waldzus, 2003) posits that negative outgroup attitudes in terms of intolerance, discrimination, and conflict in part originate from the perception of majority members that their norms, cultures, or values are the most representative or prototypical in a superordinate level of intergroup category. this projected ingroup representativeness is exclusionary, paving the way for ingroup members to disrespect minority groups’ characteristics (wenzel, mummendey, & waldzus, 2007). this tenet of the projected ingroup model suitably describes how some indonesian moslems view the existence of islamic minorities. yet some moslems in indonesia, more particularly radical islamists, consider that sunni is the only true islam. as a result, some sunni moslems presume that ahmadiyya and shiite, which have to some extents different teachings and practices, are perverts of islam. such a unilateral claim therefore constitutes a justification for aggressions and persecutions against members of shi’a and ahmadiyya. to be more tolerant, majority members should praise the existence of minority cultures, norms, and values, by including instead of excluding these properties into a superordinate category. the recognition of this shared membership and representativeness in a superordinate category is of fundamental for intergroup harmony and solidarity to take place (waldzus &mummendey, 2004; waldzus, mummendey, wenzel, &weber, 2003). inclusion of the minority into a superordinate category likewise activates a common ingroup identity (gaertner, dovidio, anastasio, bachman, & rust, 1993), with which the majority no longer categorizes the minority as an outgroup, but as their fellow ingroup. in fact, this perceived inclusion of outgroups into a common ingroup identity has turned out to decrease intergroup biases in terms of prejudice and discrimination, which can impair harmonious intergroup relations (e.g., gaertner et al., 1993; gaertner, rust, dovidio, bachman, & anastasio, 1994). intergroup helping and inclusion social psychological literature differentiates helping behaviors at individual, interpersonal, and intergroup levels (penner, dovidio, piliavin, & schroeder, 2005). intergroup helping denotes categorization of ingroup as a helper and outgroup as a recipient, which can operate on the grounds of prosocial or strategic motives. empathy and perspective-taking inspirit prosocial intergroup helping, whereas vested interests such as restoring a threatened identity, asserting power or dominance catalyze a strategic intergroup helping (van leeuwen & täuber, 2010). previous studies have also reported that intergroup helping can be a strategic medium through which ingroup members want to communicate warmth traits (i.e., friendly, sincere, helpful) as their good qualities or images to a doubting outgroup (van leeuwen & mashuri, 2012; van leeuwen & täuber, 2012) or a disadvantaged outgroup europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 256 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (mashuri, zaduqisti, & supriyono, 2012). through helping another group, people can also communicate their desire to maintain or preserve a positive relationship with the group. this can be the case because people regard helping in and of itself as a signal of kindness (hopkins et al., 2007). in support of this idea, for example, van leeuwen and mashuri (2013) recently found that the indonesian majority support for central government intentions to help separatist society correlated positively to their perceived inclusion of this society. this finding implies that intergroup helping is indeed a communication tool through which people want to signal their desire to have a constructive relationship with another group. accordingly, we predicted that the more indonesian moslems endorsed governmental help to shiites and ahmadis the more they included in their mind these islamic minority groups as a representative category of indonesian people (hypothesis 1). collective pride, collective guilt, and intergroup helping emotion can operate on individual, interpersonal, and group levels. group-based emotions can function as a motivator and regulator of group members’ cognition, conation, and even actual behaviors in connection to social groups (smith, seger, & mackie, 2007). drawing on self-categorization theory (sct: turner, hogg, oakes, reicher, & wetherell, 1987), brown, gonzález, zagefka, manzi, and čehajić (2008) explained the feasibility of group-based emotions by arguing that as individuals’ membership in social groups serve as a foundation for their self-concept, this internalization plausibly makes these individuals affectively implicated by the actions of other ingroup members. actualization of these motivating and regulating roles of group-based emotion can occur via two mechanisms: group members’ appraisal about out-group emotions and group members’ appraisal about their own group emotions (sun, zagefka, & goodwin, 2013). the focus of this study is on the second mechanism. collective pride is a group-based emotion which reflects a positive feeling that may arise due to two factors: people’s group typical achievements or excellence in comparison to another group (see van leeuwen, 2007) and people’s group past or current commendable treatments of another group albeit the possibility that these people did not personally contribute to such virtue (see van leeuwen, van dijk, & kaynak, 2013). we argue that collective pride might promote intergroup helping due to two rationales. first, collective pride in general reflects a positive affect or emotion (smith & kim, 2006), and feeling good has been found to lead people’s willingness to help others (isen & levin, 1972; moore, underwood, & rosenhan, 1973). second, recipients evaluate positively helping provisions that signify and affirm help providers’ pride and see this kind of helping as an act of kindness (shorr, 1993). previous studies have admittedly identified that collective pride significantly generates outgroup helping. for example, van leeuwen (2007) found that the dutch participants were willing to provide help to the victims of the december 2004 tsunami in southeast asia, more particularly when the help touched on the dutch national pride (i.e., water management). in the recent study, van leeuwen et al. (2013) reported that collective pride in terms of the dutch’s historical benevolence to resist the nazi occupier in world war ii (wwii) correlated positively with willingness to help the disadvantage group (i.e., victims of wwii). collective guilt is an aversive feeling that occurs when people’s group ever perpetrated or is currently perpetrating misdeeds towards another group, in spite of the possibility that these people did not individually take part in such negative actions (wohl, branscombe, & klar, 2006). people may feel collective guilt prominently when they think that they have some responsibility for their group’s misdeeds (branscombe, slugoski, & kappen, 2004). a welldocumented finding in the literature of collective guilt is that collective guilt stemming from the group’s harmful acts toward another group indeed stirs up these people’s willingness to help the victimized group (e.g.,brown & čehajić, 2008; brown et al., 2008; halloran, 2007; klandermans, werner, & van doorn, 2008). however, in all of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 257 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these studies, collective guilt induces the advantaged group’s endorsement for helping the disadvantaged group, especially when the helping is connected to an affirmative action as a means of compensating the past misdeeds by the former group against the latter group. however, when helping policy is irrelevant to such compensatory action to repair the historical misdeeds, the advantaged group’s collective guilt is unrelated to support for the policy (iyer, leach, & crosby, 2003). the explanations above suggest that collective pride and collective guilt can have a unique, independent impact on intergroup helping. as pointed out by van leeuwen et al. (2013), collective pride and collective guilt are a double-sword concept that, however, can occur simultaneously, depending on the specific context. in support of this notion, some moslems in indonesia feel proud of president susilo bambang yudhoyono’s international achievement to receive the world statement award in new york in 2013 for his merit in maintaining religious tolerance and freedom of worship in indonesia in general, in spite of his government inaction to cope with some incidents of interreligious intolerance (the jakarta post, 2013). as commented by the former indonesian vice president jusuf kalla, the achievement particularly has to do with the indonesian president’s success in maintaining pluralism in indonesia despite some cases of intolerance. members of the shia community also have expressed their proud that the indonesian president received the award (the jakarta post, 2013). at the same time, however, some indonesian moslems also feel guilty towards the failure of the indonesian government to protect some members of shi’a and ahmadis from aggressions and persecutions by radical islamists, which can threaten the united nation of indonesia republic (sihaloho, 2013). drawing on these viewpoints, we predicted that the more indonesian moslems feel proud of the indonesian government efforts in promoting interreligious harmony and stability the more willing they were to support for indonesian government intentions to help shiites and ahmadis (hypothesis 2). we also predicted that the more indonesian moslems feel guilty towards the failure of indonesian government in preventing radical islamists’ misdeeds against islamic minority members the more supportive they were of the indonesian government initiatives to help these minority members (hypothesis 3). national identification and collective emotions there are multifarious social identities that people belong to, but a national identity is very typical in the sense that it is an important part of people’s identity (schildkraut, 2011). however, religion is also vital to its believers and religious groups are among the salient buttresses of identity (verkuyten, 2007). both national identification and religious identification thus are salient identity that are relevant to stipulate how people react to religious issues within a country (verkuyten, 2007; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). however, we suggest that national identification is more promising than religious identification in promoting people’s positive emotions and feelings in response to religious issues. strong religious identification can prompt people to believe that their own group’s worldviews and practices are more superior to those of out-groups, the superiority of which then promotes extreme ingroup favoritism that hinders pro-outgroup emotions, attitudes, and behaviors (hunsberger & jackson, 2005). in indonesia, as discussed above, some sunni moslems consider ahmadis and shiites as a false moslem due to their teachings perceived as deviant. we argue that such label instead motivates sunnis to regard ahmadis and shiites as an outgroup rather than an ingroup, the categorization of which makes a dichotomous polarization of “us” (sunni moslems) versus “them” (ahmadis and shiites) become salient. this categorization increases the tendency of sunni moslems to unilaterally extoll their mainstream own teachings and doctrines from which ingroup favoritism then arises and hinders this mainstream islamic group’s positive emotions in response to issues related to ahmadis and shiites. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 258 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a stark contrast, we contend that national identification potentially facilitates positive emotions and feelings towards interreligious groups. some scholars (e.g., blank & schmidt, 2003; huddy, 2004; schatz, staub, & lavine, 1999) contend that national identification is a general concept of national identity, describing a positive emotional bond with a nation or subjectively internalized sense of belonging to the nation. to the extent that people strongly identify with their nation, people are more curious and sensitive to think, feel, and behave in line with the actions of a nation or country to which they belong (mashuri, burhan, & van leeuwen, 2013). that said, the more people identify with a nation or a country the more likely it is that they are susceptible to group-based emotions related to certain actions of the nation (roccas, klar, & liviatan, 2006). in the lens of social identity theory, social identity in general and national identity in particular serves as a source of collective self-esteem (crocker & luhtanen, 1990). thus, the more people strongly identify with their nation the more they feel proud of the nation. evidence for this idea has been shown in the study by van leeuwen et al. (2013) in which the more the dutch participants identified with their nation the more they felt proud of their government’s historical virtuous deeds towards the victims of wwii. in case of indonesia, as mentioned previously, many indonesian people including shiites are proud of the current president’s achievement in supporting and maintaining religious pluralism in spite of the fact that religious intolerance has not been totally resolved. in line with this reasoning, we therefore predicted that the more indonesian moslems identify with indonesia the more they felt proud of this country’s efforts in promoting interreligious harmony and stability (hypothesis 4). prior studies have reported that national identification either negatively or positively correlates with collective guilt, depending on some specific contexts. in the study by doosje, branscombe, spears, and manstead (1998), national identification negatively correlated with feeling of a group-based guilt especially in a condition in which both negative and positive aspects of participants’ national history was made salient. in another study doosje et al. (2006) found that national identification was unrelated to collective guilt when the past misdeeds were said as stemming from an outgroup source. however, national identification positively related to collective guilt when the historical misdeeds were said as coming from an ingroup source. roccas et al. (2006) differentiated two modes of national identification: national identification based on general attachment to a nation and national identification based on glorification to a nation. the twomodes of national identification were found to have a contrasting effect on collective guilt, wherein the first positively correlated with collective guilt for the in-group’s historical transgressions and the second negatively correlated with the guilt. all of these findings suggest that when national identification is framed as general attachment to a nation the more likely it is that this national identification positively relates to a feeling of collective guilt for the ingroup’s, but not for the outgroup’s past misdeeds. with reference to national identification as general attachment to a nation, we accordingly predicted that the more indonesian moslems identify with indonesia the more they felt guilty about this country’s negative treatment toward members of islamic minority (hypothesis 5). methods participants and design participants were 182 students (66 = male, 116 = female; meanage = 19.90; sdage = 1.10; age ranged between 17 and 23) from the department of psychology, university of brawijaya. one hundred and fifty nine participants (87.4%) reported as ethnically javanese, and twenty three of them (12.6%) belonged to ethnic groups other than javanese. all participants admitted as a sunni moslem. we recruited participants voluntarily, in exchange of no rewards. designed as a correlational study, unless otherwise indicated, we measured all variables in this study. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 259 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure and measures we compiled in a questionnaire scales to measure each variable in this study. averaging the item scores on each variable was a criterion to create the scales. calculation of the item scores was on the basis of a five-point likert-type scale that ranges between strongly disagree (1) and strongly agree (5). a class-room was a setting in which to distribute the questionnaire. we firstly asked participants to ascertain their agreement to involve in this study by filling out an informed consent. after completing this consent, we distributed the questionnaire to participants, which comprises scales to measure national identification, collective pride, collective guilt, support for islamic minority helping, and perceived inclusion, respectively. the questionnaire consisted of several parts, wherein in the first part we asked participants to indicate their agreement with four items to measure national identification, adapted from verkuyten (2009) (e.g., “i respect the existence of indonesia”; α = .90). subsequently following this scale was four items to measure collective pride, developed by the authors (e.g., “i am proud of the indonesian government’ efforts and achievement in maintaining interreligious harmony in indonesia”; α = .94). the second part of the questionnaire was four items to measure collective guilt, developed by the authors to suit a timely anecdotal context of religious intolerance against members of islamic minority in indonesia (e.g., “i feel guilty toward the indonesian government’s failure in reinforcing human rights for members of the shi’a and ahmadis in indonesia”; α = .91). after this scale, five items followed to measure support for islamic minority helping, developed by the authors to ecologically match with recent grievances among the victimized members of the shi’a and ahmadis (e.g., “the indonesian government should give legal permission for shi’a and ahmadis to build and use their mosques”; α = .89).the last part of the questionnaire was four items to measure perceived inclusion, adapted from van leeuwen and mashuri (2013) (e.g., “i think shi’a and ahmadis constitute a group that represents indonesian people in general”; α = .80). at the end of the study, we asked participants to inform their demographic information about gender, age, ethnicity, and religion. upon finishing, we debriefed and thanked the participants. results preliminary analyses descriptive statistics — table 1 demonstrated correlations among variables and the means as well standard deviations of each variable in this study. as shown in this table, demographic variable of age had a significant effect on national identification and minority helping. gender had a significant effect only on national identification whereas ethnicity had no significant effect on all of the measured variables. the implication of these findings was that the effect of gender on national identification and that of age on national identification and minority helping should be considered in the subsequent test of hypotheses. moreover, correlations among measured variables tended to be significant, except for the correlation between national identification and perceived inclusion. inspection of one-sample t-test revealed that scores for each variable are high as they are significantly above the midpoint of 3, except for collective guilt. convergent and discriminant validity— assessment of validity in this study focused on construct validity, which is generally defined as the extent to which items of a scale or a test are accurately measuring psychological construct the scale or test intends to measure (ary, jacobs, sorensen, & razavieh, 2010). there are multiple approaches to assess construct validity, and we in this study focused on convergent and discriminant validity. convergent validity refers to the degree to which items theorized to measure the same constructs should highly correlate one europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 260 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations among variables in the study 8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.variables --1. age .05ns-.28**-.08ns-.10ns-.18*-.16*.19** --2. gender .00ns.07ns-.01ns.13ns.15*.08ns --3. ethnicity .07ns-.13ns-.08ns-.02ns.01ns --4. national identification .14ns.20**.25**.39** --5. collective pride .23**.43**.38** --6. collective guilt .30**.31** --7. minority helping .39** --8. perceived inclusion mean .353.713.103.323.404 sd .82.80.92.97.66 t .79***5.99***11.48***1.13ns3.89***28 note. correlations among variables were derived from an analysis of bivariate correlation using spss 18 for windows. these correlations were based on observed scores instead of latent scores for each variable. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not significant. another. on the contrary, discriminant validity refers to the degree to which items theorized to measure different constructs should weakly correlate one another (netemeyer, bearden, & sharma, 2003). examination of convergent and discriminant validity was using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa: harrington, 2008). more particularly, in terms of the cfa, we implemented two methods to assess convergent and discriminant validity, as recommended by hatcher (1994): average variance extracted (ave) and its squared root (√ave ). ave is defined as the amount of variance captured by the constructs compared with the amount of variance due to measurement errors, which is mathematically formulated as the following (fornell & larcker, 1981): the threshold value of acceptable convergent validity is that constructs should have ave greater than .50 (chin, 1998; fornell & larcker, 1981; hair, anderson, tatham, & black, 1995). table 2 presented a manual calculation of ave, wherein values of standardized factor loading (λ) for each item or indicator were drawn from path coefficients in figure 1. as shown in this table 2, all constructs had ave greater than .5, which therefore confirmed their convergent validity. with regard to discriminant validity, the rule of thumb is that the square root of ave of each construct should be greater than correlations among the latent constructs (fornell & larcker, 1981). as demonstrated in table 3, each construct turned out to have the square root of ave, which was presented in the diagonal elements of the table, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 261 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 average variance extracted (ave) and squared root average variance extracted of each variable in the study √aveaveitemsparameters national identification ident4ident3ident2ident1 .84.70 λi .81.79.87.87 λi2 .66.62.76.76 2.79σλi2 (1λi2) .34.38.24.24 1.23σ(1λi2) collective pride pride4pride3pride2pride1 .89.79 λi .93.92.87.83 λi2 .86.85.76.69 3.16σλi2 (1λi2) .14.15.24.31 .84σ(1λi2) collective guilt guilt4guilt3guilt2guilt1 .84.70 λi .78.83.9.84 λi2 .61.69.81.71 2.82σλi2 (1λi2) .39.31.19.29 1.19σ(1λi2) minority helping help5help4help3help2help1 .79.63 λi .64.75.82.88.85 λi2 .41.56.67.77.72 3.14σλi2 (1λi2) .59.44.33.23.28 1.86σ(1λi2) perceived inclusion inclu4inclu3inclu2inclu1 .71.51 λi .68.82.69.65 λi2 .46.67.48.42 2.03σλi2 (1λi2) .54.33.52.58 1.97σ(1λi2) greater than correlations among the latent constructs, which was presented in the off-diagonal elements of the table. thus, all variables in this study lived up to criterion of good discriminant construct validity. testing the hypothesized measurement model —we compared the hypothesized measurement model in this study with other rival models to assess its goodness of fits to the data, by assessing the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the comparative fit index (cfi), and the normed fit index (nfi) (kelloway, 1998). we used lisrel 8.80 (jöreskog & sörbom, 2007) to run the analyses. as a rule of thumb,rmsea that has values europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 262 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations of latent variables and squared root of average variance extracted (ave) of the latent variables in the study 5.4.3.2.1.variables 1. national identification .17*.24**.28***.43***.84 2. collective pride .26**.49***.43***.89 3. collective guilt .36***.33***.84 4. minority helping .44***.79 5. perceived inclusion .71 note. numbers in the off-diagonal element = correlations among the latent variables. numbers in the diagonal element = square root of ave. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. of less than .08 and cfi and nfi that have values of .09 or greater confirm that the model specified has good fits to the data (hu & bentler, 1999). the first model is a hypothesized model, specified by estimating the standard measurement model that allows all factors to co-vary (oblique five-factor model). the second model is specified by creating a new measurement model similar to the hypothesized model, except that correlations among factors are fixed to 0 (orthogonal fivefactor model). the last model was specified by loading all items measuring each variable on a single latent factor (one factor model), by fixing correlations among factors to 1. as shown in table 4, the hypothesized five-factor oblique resulted in good fits to the data than the other two rival models both in terms of rmsea, cfi, and nfi. however, to verify that the fit of hypothesized model was indeed statistically better than the two rival models, we conducted the chi-square difference test, following a procedure by kelloway (1998). the result revealed that the first model provided a better fit to the data than did the second model, χ2diff (7) = 88.44, p < .001, and the third model, χ2diff (7) = 1202.88, p < .001, see http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/davis/375/popecol/tables/chisq.html for the chi-square difference test. table 4 comparison of fit indices of the first model (five-factor oblique), the second model (five-factor orthogonal), and the third model (one factor) fit indices models cfinfirmseadfχ2 179five-factor oblique .97.93.07.33333 186five-factor orthogonal .95.91.08.77421 186one factor .75.72.20.211536 main analyses testing the hypothesized full model — we examined the hypotheses in this study using a full model that combines measurement and structural models. figure 1 showed that all standardized factor loadings were significant. overall, as shown in table 5, the specified model yielded good fits to the data, χ2(184) = 352.95, p < .001; rmsea = .07; nfi = .92; cfi = .96. this full model explained (see values of r2 in figure 1) 19% variance of perceived inclusion, 23% of minority helping, 19% of collective pride, and 9% of collective guilt. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 263 http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/davis/375/popecol/tables/chisq.html http://www.psychopen.eu/ as discussed in the descriptive statistics section, age had a significant effect on national identification and minority helping while gender had a significant effect on national identification. to follow-up these findings, we conducted an analysis of multiple indicator multiple analysis (mimic: jöreskog, 1976; muthén, 1989). a mimic approach in essence resulted in a model in which the data analyzed does not need splitting on the basis of participants’ groups such as gender, age, education and so forth (hancock, 2001). this mimic analysis in this study yielded two alternative models, with the first model adding the path from age to latent variables of national identification and minority helping (alternative model 1) and the second model adding the path from gender to latent variable of national identification (alternative model 2). as shown in table 5, indices of the goodness of fits among the three models seemed relatively identical. indeed, inspection of chi-square difference test revealed that the hypothesized model proved to be not statistically different compared to the second model in which age included as having an effect on national identification and minority helping, χ2diff (19) = 10.31, p > .05, and so did compared to the third model in which gender included as having an effect on national identification, χ2diff (20) = 13.63, p > .05. these findings mean that inclusion of age and gender in the hypothesized full model did not have significant impacts in changing goodness of fits of this model. stated another way, we could exclude age and gender in the hypothesis testing. table 5 comparison of fit indices of the hypothesized full model and the various alternative models fit indices models aiccfinfirmseadfχ2 184hypothesized full model .95446.96.92.071.95352 203age included (am 1) .26463.96.92.066.26363 204gender included (am 2) .58464.96.92.066.58366 180saturated model (am 3) .00462.96.93.073.42351 184reverse path model (am 4) .03473.96.92.077.03379 182correlated criterion model (am 5) .50449.96.93.072.50351 184collective emotion precedes national identification (am 6) .97451.96.92.072.97357 note. am = alternative model. table 5 also demonstrated that the chi-square of the hypothesized full model turned out to be not significantly different with that of the saturated model (alternative model 3) which added the paths from national identification to minority helping and perceived inclusion and those from collective pride and collective guilt to perceived inclusion, χ2diff (4) = 1.53, p > .05. as a consequence, we could rely on the more parsimonious hypothesized model rather than the saturated model to test the main hypotheses in this study. in addition, we also examined other three rival models: (1) a reverse path model (alternative model 4) by interchanging the mediator (minority helping) as an outcome variable and the outcome (perceived inclusion) as a mediator, (2) a correlated criterion model (alternative model 5) by treating minority helping and perceived inclusion as correlated outcomes, and (3) a rival model specifying that collective emotion of pride and guilt precede national identification (alternative model 6). because the hypothesized full model and these three rival models are not nested, for the model comparison we used akaike’s information criterion (aic), with lower aic indicating a better fit (burnham & anderson, 2004). as shown in table 5, the aic value of the hypothesized full model was lower than that of the three rival models. this result confirmed that the hypothesized full model had better fits to the data than the alternative model 4, 5, and 6. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 264 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as shown in figure 1, standardized coefficients of all hypothesized paths were significant (p < .001). national identification had significant direct effects on collective pride, β = .44, p < .001, and collective guilt, β = .30, p < .001. collective pride proved to have a significant effect on minority helping, β = .43, p < .001, and so did collective guilt, β = .17, p < .001. the last direct effect was minority helping on perceived inclusion, β = .44, p < .001. all of these findings therefore corroborated each of the hypotheses specified in this study (hypothesis 1 to hypothesis 5). figure 1. full model of the relationships among perceived inclusion, minority helping, collective pride, collective guilt, and national identification. numbers in the model are standardized path coefficients. note. ident1 – ident4 = items of national identification. pride1 – pride4 = items of collective pride. guilt1 – guilt4 = items of collective guilt. help1 – help5 = items of minority helping. inclu1 – inclu4 = items of perceived inclusion. ***p < .001. discussion this current study confirmed the prediction that indonesian moslems’ support for governmental helping to members of shia and ahmadiyya associated positively with their perceived inclusion of these islamic minority groups as a representative category of indonesian people. collective emotions of pride and guilt also proved to directly predict the support for the minority helping. finally, as expected, indonesian moslems’ national identification had a direct impact on collective pride and collective guilt, separately. the finding in this study that helping to members of the shia and ahmadis elicits perceived inclusion of these islamic minority groups corroborates a communicative nature of intergroup helping through which people want to europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ signal or communicate a desire to establish a positive relationship with another group (van leeuwen & mashuri, 2013; van leeuwen & täuber, 2012). this implies that an image of intergroup helping as a strategic motive is not always negative, as is the case in helping another group to make the group become more dependent (nadler, harpaz-gorodeisky, & ben-david, 2009) or appear incompetent (gilbert & silvera, 1996). members of the majority group’s perception to include members of minority group into a super-ordinate category in and of itself bears appreciation and recognition by the first group to regard the latter group as having prototypical characteristics in the superordinate category. from this process, members of the majority group will not evaluate members of the minority group as inferior, deficient, and non-normative. rather, majority groups’ perceived inclusion of disadvantaged groups in the context of intergroup helping denotes that the former groups appreciate the existence of the latter group within a more inclusive category of a nation (van leeuwen & mashuri, 2013). appreciations by the majority group to perceptually or cognitively include the minority group into a superordinate category in turn can minimize outgroup devaluation in the forms of discrimination and intolerance (mummendey & wenzel, 1999). moreover, by respecting and recognizing a subgroup’s distinctiveness and its valued contribution to a superordinate group, harmonious and cooperative relations among subgroups in the superordinate group can be more readily achieved (hornsey & hogg, 2000). the operationalization of collective pride in this study builds on the indonesian government’s positive efforts in preserving and maintaining interreligious pluralism and harmony in the past. the role of this kind of collective pride in directly predicting minority helping therefore complements the study by van leeuwen et al. (2013). as argued and found by these researchers, the impact of such collective pride on outgroup helping to a disadvantaged group is mediated by the activation of empathy towards this group. this observation thus is of fundamental importance for widening the horizon of understanding potential precursors of empathy and intergroup helping, wherein these pro-social behaviors are not only likely activated by an outgroup-focused orientation in terms of perspectivetaking (e.g., batson, chang, orr, & rowland, 2002; mashuri, hasanah, & rahmawati, 2013; mashuri et al., 2012; stürmer, snyder, davis, & maitner, 2009) but also a superordinate-focused orientation in terms of common identity (e.g., levine, prosser, evans, & reicher, 2005; nadler et al., 2009) or collective pride as found in this study. the finding in this study that collective guilt significantly predicted minority helping substantiates the needs-based model of reconciliation (shnabel & nadler, 2008). according to the model, disadvantaged groups as the victim and dominant groups as the perpetrators in intergroup conflicts have asymmetrical compensatory motivations (shnabel, nadler, ullrich, dovidio, & carmi, 2009). victims, on one hand, typically experience an enhanced need for empowerment and are motivated to restore their sense of power by, for example, regaining their respect, sense of competence, status, and security. perpetrators, on the other hand, experience an enhanced need for social acceptance and are motivated to restore their impaired moral image. indeed, some studies have reported that ingroup’s willingness to help outgroup, who has negative stereotypes about the ingroup, reflects a strategic, communicative motive of ingroup to refute such negative meta-stereotypes (hopkins et al., 2007; van leeuwen & mashuri, 2012; van leeuwen & täuber, 2012). another observation in this study that national identification correlates positively with collective pride and collective guilt confirms the rationale of ‘group identity lens model’ (turner & reynolds, 2001). this model postulates that social identification provides people with a medium through which people perceive and make a meaning of the world. social identification leads people to be more sensitive and more concerned with anything that could be beneficial or harmful to their group. parallel with the findings in this study, the more indonesian moslems identify with indonesia the more they feel proud of the indonesian government’s positive achievements in maintaining europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 266 http://www.psychopen.eu/ interreligious pluralism and harmony, which is possibly beneficial to elevate the image of indonesia as a multicultural country. in a similar vein, the more indonesian moslems identify with indonesia the more they feel guilty of indonesian government‘s negative actions in treating members of shi’a and ahmadis, which is potentially capable of threatening the multicultural image of indonesia and the integrity of the united nation of indonesia republic. a full model specified in this study proved to be better than various rival models which may challenge the plausibility of both theoretical and methodological rationales constructed to support the hypothesized model. first, we found that the hypothesized model is as better as the two rival models that incorporated the effects of either age or gender. these findings signify that age and gender do not necessitate to be considered in the model despite the significant effects of both demographic variables on national identification or minority helping. second, the fit indexes of the hypothesized model are as better as those of a nested, saturated model. implicatively, the hypothesized model that is more parsimonious than the saturated model could be relied to test the main hypotheses in this study. third, the hypothesized model turned out to be better than the rival model specifying a reverse path in which perceived inclusion precedes minority helping. fourth, the hypothesized model is likewise better than another rival model specifying minority helping and perceived inclusion as correlated criterion variables. these last two findings substantiate the theoretical rationales in this study that intergroup helping can serve as a strategic medium through which people want to communicate their desire to maintain a positive relation with other groups in terms of including these groups as a representative category within a nation. in the lens of this communicative nature of intergroup helping, helping provision precedes perceived inclusion and not the other way around. finally, we also found that the hypothesized model is better than a rival model specifying that collective pride and guilt assumed to precede national identification. this finding corroborates the theoretical rationales in this study that national identification is a source of self-esteem that facilitates the emergence of a collective feeling of pride and guilt. study limitations some limitations in this study are noteworthy and merit discussing. first, the role of support for governmental helping to islamic minorities of shiites and ahmadis in promoting perceived inclusion of these groups, as discussed earlier, underlines the communicative nature of intergroup helping. however, it is still unclear whether such communicative nature of intergroup helping operates at the group level or individual level. the argumentation is that helping in this study is indirect, in the sense that it is the indonesian government and not the participants themselves who becomes the agent or the actor of the helping provision. future studies therefore may also differentiate and measure direct helpings and indirect helpings to ascertain that communicative intergroup helping feasibly occurs at the individual level (see van leeuwen & täuber, 2012) and group level. communicative nature of intergroup helping is channeled more prominently to a relevant and not an irrelevant target (hopkins et al., 2007; van leeuwen & mashuri, 2012, 2013). future studies therefore may also measure perceived inclusion of minority groups other than shi’a and ahmadis to verify this notion. in addition, intergroup helping in this study is operationalized as a form of affirmative action to compensate the failure of indonesian government to find solutions for predicaments and hardships experienced by members of shia and ahmadiyya. that such affirmative helping is significantly predicted by collective guilt in this study is in support of the previous empirical findings. however, to verify that collective guilt indeed specifically predicts compensatory intergroup helping, future studies thus may measure a non-compensatory intergroup helping and examine how this intergroup helping may or may not be predicted by collective guilt. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 267 http://www.psychopen.eu/ collective pride in this study is defined on the grounds of the indonesian government achievement in preserving and maintaining interreligious harmony. however, collective pride may also stem from competitive achievements or excellence in the domains of sports, politics, history, culture, or economy, which generally triggers ethnocentrism and negative out-group attitudes (müller-peters, 1998). accordingly, a future study may address this issue by distinguishing non-competitive collective pride and competitive collective pride, and connect each of these collective prides to minority helping. third, national identification in this study refers to general attachment to a nation that, in line with findings in the previous studies, correlates positively with collective guilt. as empirically investigated by roccas et al. (2006), national identification can also take shape in glorification to a nation that negatively correlates with collective guilt. moreover, we suggest that islamic identification can be a salient identity the same as national identification on the religious issues within a country but may have impacts on elevating negative intergroup emotions and attitudes in response to the issues. in the study by licata, klein, saade, azzi, and branscombe (2012) for example, religious identification among the youth of maronite christian lebanese predicted negative intergroup attitudes towards moslem lebanese in the context of conflict in lebanon. taken together, future studies may employ the two modes of national identification (i.e., attachment to a nation and glorification to a nation) together with islamic identification to examine how these various identifications have differential associations with collective emotions, minority helping, and perceived inclusion. fifth, in this study we only used the javanese moslems as participants, which are the majority group in indonesia both in terms of the population number and political power (suryadinata, arifin, & ananta, 2003). since it is more common that a nation state is simply an extension of majority group and a marginalization of minority group, thus the former group tends to more strongly identify with the nation than the latter group (staerklé, sidanius, green, & molina, 2010). a follow-up study thus may recruit non-javanese moslems in indonesia as participants, to test a consistency of empirical findings in this study using, for example, a multi-level analysis. sixth, as this study is correlational in the sense that all variables are measured instead of manipulated, a causal relationship between the variables thus cannot be assumed. moreover, structural equation modeling (sem) is an insufficient and inappropriate analysis to claim causal effects (kelloway, 1998), despite the sem-based findings in this study that the model specified resulted in good fits to the data better than all proposed rival models. accordingly, future studies could test causal relationships by manipulating national identification, collective pride, and collective guilt and examine the effects of these manipulated variables on minority helping and perceived inclusion. national identification could be manipulated using a paradigm by tarrant, calitri, and weston (2012) whereas collective pride and collective guilt could be manipulated using a paradigm by van leeuwen et al. (2013). finally, bearing in mind that self-report measures in the social science research are basically susceptible to social desirability bias or responding (van de mortel, 2008), future studies may employ social desirability scale. if found that social desirability scale correlates significantly with one or more measured variables, to cope with social desirability bias, then the effect of the social desirability must be controlled (nederhof, 1985). practical implications we proposed some practical implications in this study. first, the indonesian government needs to be more forceful in protecting religious minorities from the increasing trend of intolerance and violence (“indonesia urged to tackle religious intolerance,” 2013). the realization of this action is very urgent to cope with the growing radicalization of islamists that target members of islamic minorities. one reason that makes the indonesian government half-hearted to give the best solutions for ahmadis and shiites is the fear that the indonesian sunni majority may interpret such action as non-islamic (aritonang, 2013). however, findings in this study that support of moderate europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 268 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sunni moslems for the indonesian government actions to help members of ahmadiyya and shia and their perceived inclusion towards these islamic minority groups are high assert that the indonesian government reason is illegitimate. such reason may be true for small number of islamist radical groups but untrue for the moderate sunni moslems in indonesia. however, to convince the indonesian government that the implementation of islamic minority helping is indeed feasible, the moderate sunni moslems need to translate their perceived, verbal supports into concrete actions such as a massive demonstration to oppose small portion, but very dangerous, radical islamists on the issue of religious tolerance and to express their agreement with the helping. but herein then lies a problem because moderate sunni moslem majority in indonesia tend to be silent and dormant in opposing the radicalization (rogers, 2012). such passivity is also prevalent when it comes to do real actions to help ahmadis and shiites in spite of exemplary actions by some elite moslem activists to help, in a sporadic and small scale, shiites in east java, indonesia (hariyadi, 2012). second, the finding in this study that indonesian sunni moslems’ national identification boosts collective pride and guilt and in turn, these group-based emotions give rise to these islamic majority groups’ endorsement for minority helping and inclusion vividly reflects the importance of national identification in promoting peaceful responses to deal with issues of ahmadiyya and shia in indonesia. the indonesian government therefore should find the best ways to internalize in the hearts and minds of indonesian people in general and indonesian moslems in particular the importance of indonesian national identity. one of these ways can be inculcating the inclusive and pluralist ideology pancasila and bhinneka tunggal ika (unity in diversity) as the core spirit of the indonesian secular national identity into academic curriculum in all levels of education, which has promising potential to promote religious tolerance in indonesia (christy & daslani, 2012). this program might be worthwhile for preventing the indonesian moslems from espousing the ideology of islamist radicalism that has steadily increased over the past decade (bachtiar, 2013) or the growing implementation of an exclusive islamic law (sharia) in many indonesian provincial districts (cochrane, 2013), both of which can instead exacerbate religious intolerance. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank an anonymous english-native speaker who has been kindly willing to help refining the final version of this article, which is particularly related to the grammar. references aritonang, m. s. 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(2003). the ingroup as pars pro toto: projection from the ingroup onto the inclusive category as a precursor to social discrimination. personality and social psychology bulletin, 29(4), 461-473. doi:10.1177/0146167202250913 wohl, m. j. a., branscombe, n. r., & klar, y. (2006). collective guilt: emotional reactions when one’s group has done wrong or been wronged. european review of social psychology, 17(1), 1-37. doi:10.1080/10463280600574815 appendix items of national identification scale 1. i am proud of being an indonesian (ident1) 2. i feel happy to be an indonesian (ident2) 3. i respect the existence of indonesia (ident3) 4. i am not reluctant to recognize that i am an indonesian (ident4) europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 mashuri & zaduqisti 275 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167211436253 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430213485995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430207078695 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11211-008-0087-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167207304276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2003.09.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-1031(02)00507-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10463280701728302 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167202250913 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10463280600574815 http://www.psychopen.eu/ items of collective pride scale 1. i am proud of the indonesian government’ efforts and achievement in maintaining interreligious harmony in indonesia (pride1) 2. i am proud of the indonesian government’s ability to maintain and protect religious minority groups in indonesia (pride2) 3. i am proud of the indonesian government’s efforts in maintaining interreligious tolerance in indonesia (pride3) 4. i am proud of the indonesian government’s ability to maintain a conducive social stability in the dynamics of interreligious relations in indonesia (pride4) items of collective guilt scale 5. i feel guilty toward the indonesian government’s failure in reinforcing human rights for members of shi’a and ahmadis in indonesia (guilt1) 6. i feel guilty toward a series of human right violations against members of shi’a and ahmadis in indonesia (guilt2) 7. i feel guilty toward the growing violent actions of certain islamic groups against members of shi’a and ahmadis (guilt3) 8. i feel guilty toward insecurity felt and experienced by members of shi’a and ahmadis in indonesia (guilt4) items of islamic minority helping 1. the indonesian government should give legal permission for shi’a and ahmadis to build and use their mosques (help1) 2. the indonesian government should protect shi’a and ahmadis to conduct their worships (help2) 3. the indonesian government should protect shi’a and ahmadis to live together with other islamic groups (help3) 4. the indonesian government should give legal permission for shi’a and ahmadis to establish their educational institutions (help4) 5. the indonesian government should firmly punish any people who ban shi’a and ahmadis to pray in their mosque (help5) items of perceived inclusion scale 1. i think that shi’a and ahmadis constitute a group that represents indonesian people in general (inclu1) 2. i think that shi’a and ahmadis are very contributive of coloring the indonesian diversity (inclu2) 3. i think that shi’a and ahmadis are as representative as majority groups in indonesia inclu3) 4. i perceive that shi’a and ahmadis are a salient group although living in isolated areas in indonesia (inclu4) about the authors ali mashuri msc is a senior lecturer at the department of psychology, university of brawijaya, indonesia, who is currently undertaking phd at the department of social and organizational psychology, vu university amsterdam, the netherlands. he is interested in investigating several topics in social psychology including intergroup helping, separatism conflict, belief in conspiracy theories, and multiculturalism. dr. esti zaduqisti is a head in the department of islamic counseling, islamic university of pekalongan (stain pekalongan), indonesia, who focuses her research mainly on islamic inclusiveness and problem-based learning. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 255–276 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.707 minority helping and inclusion 276 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en minority helping and inclusion (introduction) minority inclusion intergroup helping and inclusion collective pride, collective guilt, and intergroup helping national identification and collective emotions methods participants and design procedure and measures results preliminary analyses main analyses discussion study limitations practical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix items of national identification scale items of collective pride scale items of collective guilt scale items of islamic minority helping items of perceived inclusion scale about the authors semiotic mediation, psychological development process and social representations: towards a theoretical and methodological integration maria helena fávero instituto de psicologia at the universidade de brasilia abstract this article proposes the integration of the subjective, developmental and cognitive aspects of the semiotic processes in a psychological context, and the historical, institutional and ideological fundamentals of sign systems in a sociocultural context. it revisits certain arguments for the rejection of the mind-body dichotomy, investigates the implications of this rejection in terms of the relations thought / language, individual / collective and cognition / emotion, and establishes relations between the process of semiotic mediation and the theory of social representations. it proposes, both theoretically and methodologically, a psychosocial synthesis for human psychological development, forming the basis for psychological intervention in social interaction situations, based on three main points. the focus group is used not simply in order to treat and develop a particular object through conversation, but as a procedure for psychological intervention and a locus of change, presupposing a sequence of group situations, each based on what was produced the previous time. the analysis of the speech acts produced in this sequence of focused conversations reveals participants’ personal paradigms and allows their foundation to be studied. in addition, the piagetian focus on the grasp of consciousness reveals both the cognitive and metacognitive regulations that occur during the sequence of conversations together with their role in the reelaboration of the premises that form the basis for the personal paradigms and in the grasp of consciousness regarding the possibility of transformation. keywords: semiotic mediation, social representations, personal paradigms, focus group speech acts. in the pioneering work psychology: a study of a science, edited by koch between 1959 and 1963, it was argued that psychology was at least twenty years behind crucial issues formulated by the philosophy of science. wallon (1963) defended similar ideas in the same period and, in 1981, koch himself challenged researchers to accept that psychology involved important objects of investigation that may require methods other than those of the natural sciences (see manicas & secord, 1983). since the 1970s and 1980s, as in other areas of science, (see, for example, kolakowski, 1976; gutting, 1980; cohen, 1981; haberman, 1987; castoriadis, 1987; jacquard, 1987; janicaud, 1987; kuhn, 1989; feyerabend, 1991; asch, 1992) psychology has seen the growth of an epistemological debate which we see as decisive for developmental psychology and which has clearly stated a theoretical and methodological challenge: the integration of psychological and sociological data (see, for example, sinha, 1988; wertsch, 1985; greeno, 1989; bruner, 1990; cole, 1997). at the end of the 20th century, wertsch was clearly still uneasy about this challenge: the need to integrate psychological analyses into a larger whole has come to be widely discussed, if not accepted, in theoretical discussions in the social sciences. however, it has proven to be quite difficult to translate into concrete practice. i am often struck by the tendency among psychologists (including myself!) to claim that we need to overcome the tendency to isolate the individual and the individual’s psychological processes from other dimensions of the sociocultural setting and then to turn right around and do just that in concrete research. this tendency is so strong and so pervasive – even among those who profess views to the contrary – that it would seem time to recognize it as a part of something that goes deeper than disciplinary orientation, paradigm loyalty or some other such issue in our professional lives alone (1995, p. 82). without losing sight of this ongoing challenge, we propose a theoretical and methodological integration, especially in situations that demand psychological intervention which, although based on different fields of knowledge, seeks to focus on what they have in common: the need to go beyond the isolated individual in order to understand human behaviour, including communicative and mental activities (see, for example, hilgard, 1980a; hilgard, 1980b; farr, 1981; koch, 1981; wartofsky, 1982; kimble, 1984; manicas & secord, 1983; braun & baribeau, 1985; doise, 1985; asch, 1992, rogoff & chavajay, 1995, wertsch, 1995). as stated by bruner (1990), the aim is “to bring ‘mind’ back into the human sciences after a long winter of objectivism” (p. 1). for this reason, this text aims to establish the rejection of the mind-body dichotomy and, by implication, of the dichotomies between individual and society, between thought and language and between cognition and emotion, on the psychosocial basis derived from the late 19th and early 20th century authors and revisited since the 1980s. accepting the importance of semiotic mediation in the process of psychological development, which this theoretical basis assumes, we then propose an integration with the theory of social representations and present an alternative methodology. rejection of the dichotomies according to nuttin (1992), despite the huge diversity of tendencies that characterised the “science of mental life” at the end of the 19th century, the dualism of mind and body was the strongest feature of the first two international congress of psychology: the paris congrès international de psychologie physiologique of 1889, and the london international congress of experimental psychology of 1892. at the same time, their titles demonstrate the desire to construct a fully scientific field of knowledge, which resulted in the rejection of a significant number of thinkers who sought to establish a connection between psychological and spiritual phenomena (see also, fodor, 1981). in this context, wundt is one researcher seen to have unquestionable mastery of the scientific progress of his era, creating the institute of psychology and establishing the psychological research laboratory in leipzig, germany. in addition to confronting kant’s ideas about the impossibility of a scientific psychology, this laboratory trained the first great german psychologists and influenced major figures in both psychology and philosophy, including durkheim, mead, thomas and malinowski (forgas, 1981; diriwächter, 2004). for this reason, it is through wundt that we will introduce the discussion of the rejection of the duality of mind and body, implicitly and explicitly present in the defence of the relation between individual and collective and, by implication, between thought and language and between reason and emotion. the aim is to reaffirm the relevance of semiotic mediation in the processes of psychological development and to integrate it, both theoretically and methodologically, with social representations. the return to wundt’s theses occurred precisely in the context of the discussions related to the possibility of integrating psychological and sociological data, and they were discussed primarily in books dealing with social psychology (doise & mugny, 1981), social cognition (forgas, 1981; farr, 1981) and social representations (farr, 1984), with emphasis on his völkerpsychologie. it was clear that this work, consisting of ten volumes published between 1900 and 1920, had been rejected for decades as a result of what danziger (1979) called the positivist repudiation. for example, the historian of psychology boring (1929), while devoting around 700 pages to wundt’s work, wrote just ten lines on the völkerpsychologie, which wundt himself defined as “the natural history of man”, apt to provide scientific answers to questions regarding the higher mental processes, including reason, beliefs, myths, thought and language. according to wundt, these belong to a sphere that cannot be reduced to intra-individual processes (mueller, 1979, p. 13). for this reason, farr (1981) considers wundt to be a forerunner of the theses of george mead and vygotsky, which will guide us towards a multiand interdisciplinary approach to the theses of other authors such as bahktin and lotman and to social representations theory. george herbert mead, an american philosopher who frequented wundt’s laboratory between 1889 and 1890, is regarded as one of the most significant thinkers of the 20th century in relations to the integration of individual and collective phenomena. his arguments clearly reflect the influence of darwin, dewey and the volkerpsychologie, although he regarded wundt’s theory of gesture to be inadequate because it began with the individual as a unit of analysis, explaining sociability as something added on to that individual identity (see feffer, 1990). arguing that the reflexive consciousness implies a social situation which has been its precondition, mead proposes a thesis according to which the mind emerges in the course of interaction with others such that the person’s self awareness is developed in social experience, gestures being “the early stages in the overt social act to which other forms involved in the same act respond”, and the vocal gesture being “the medium of social organization in human society” (2002, p. 193). mead proposed a broad definition of gesture, referring to “that part of the act or attitude of one individual engaged in a social act which serves as the stimulus to another individual to carry out his part of the whole act”, and illustrating this definition by means of: attitudes and movements of others to which we respond in passing them in a crowd, in the turning of the head toward the glance of another’s eye, in the hostile attitude assumed over against a threatening gesture, in the thousand and one attitudes which we assume toward different modulations of the human voice, or in the attitudes and suggestions of movements in boxers or fencers, to which responses are so nicely adjusted. … and include expressions of countenance, positions of the body, changes in breathing rhythm, outward evidence of circulatory changes, and vocal sounds (mead, 2002, p. 192). he therefore defends a dialectical relationship between individual and society (see feffer, 1990), such that the classical dichotomies of mind / body, individual / collective, thought / language and cognition / emotion lose their meaning: human society as we known it could not exist without minds and selves, since all its most characteristic features presuppose the possession of minds and selves by its individual members; but its individuals members would not possess mind and selves if these had not arisen within or emerged out of human social process in its lower stage of development – those stages at which it was merely a resultant of, and wholly dependent upon, the physiological differentiation and demands of individual organisms implicated in it (mead, 1992, p. 227) we can therefore say that mead’s position, first expressed at the beginning of the 20th century, is compatible with what bruner (1986) called the profound revolution in the definition of human culture, superseding structuralism through the adoption of the idea of culture as “implicit and only semiconnected knowledge of the world from which, through negotiation with others, we arrive at satisfactory ways of acting in given contexts” (bruner, 1986, p. 17). this endorses the anthropological theses of geertz (1973), according to which culture and meaning are described as processes of interpretative apprehension by individuals of symbolic models. these models are both ‘of’ the world in which we live and ‘for’ the organization of activities, responses, perceptions and experiences by the conscious self. for geertz, meaning is a fact of public life, and the cultural patterns – social facts – provide the template for all human action, growth and understanding. as rosaldo (1980) states, “culture so construed is, furthermore, a matter less of artifacts and propositions, rules, schematic programs, or beliefs, than of associative chains and images that tell what can be reasonably linked up with what; we come to know it through collective stories that suggest the nature of coherence, probability and sense within the actor’s world” (p. 6). from the point of view of psychological analysis, it is this vision of culture that permeates the thesis of bruner (1986, 1990) when he defends that “it is precisely in the negotiation of intended meaning that the self is formed in such a way that we can relate ourselves not only to the others immediately around us – particularly to the family (and its myths about social reality) – but also to the broader culture into which we must eventually move. it is in this process that we create the internal scripts with which we interpret the transactional world in which we move as socialized human beings” (1986, p.14). it is also present in the thesis of wertsch: “mental functioning and socialcultural setting are to be understood as terms referring to dialectically interacting moments, or aspects of human action” (1995, p. 88). for this author, action can be either external or internal, produced by groups, large or small, or by individuals: “this is not to say that action does not have a psychological moment, or dimension. it clearly does. the point instead is that we should think of this as a moment of action rather than as a separate process or object that somehow exists in isolation” (ibid, p. 89). by revisiting these authors, we are therefore affirming the importance of semiotic mediation in psychological development, preliminarily defined by wertsch (1995) as human action, carried out by an individual or group, that employs a cultural tool or mediational means and is implicit, as we see in mead. semiotic mediation and social representations from an epistemological point of view, we defend the position that the comprehension of mediated activity presupposes an active subject and recovers the cognisant subject, in the sense of habermas (1987), without losing sight of the sociocultural context. in other words, “it is in man’s participation in culture and the realization of his mental powers through culture that make it impossible to construct a human psychology on the basis of individual alone” (bruner, 1990, p. 12). to admit that human activity is mediated is not, however, something trivial, given that, as werstch (1995) demonstrates, mediation presupposes that we are never free from the difficulties imposed by cultural instruments or, as we prefer to express it, by their implicit or explicit meanings. we concur with werstch (1995) that it is a change in these meanings that transforms the organisation of the cultural instruments, which in turn alters the meaning of the difficulty itself. if we accept the idea that the difficulties are altered, we admit that the human activity itself is transformed. this is compatible with the proposal of lawrence and valsiner (1993), which defends internalisation as transformation, that is, as a phenomenon inherent to the active subject (see also von glasserfeld, 1985; 1996). once again, it is clear that there is no room in this perspective for the classical dichotomies mentioned above. in other words, we could state, as does lotman (1990), that experience is entirely a construct of the individual intellectual world of human beings, developed in constant interaction with the functioning of the semiotic space or intellectual world within which humanity and human society exist. within this semiotic or cultural space are generated different means of mediation for communication within human interactions, such that the interaction between the form of each type of means of mediation and the mediated content constitutes “a text within a text” (lotman, 1988, p. 32). in his last works, lotman proposed the concept of the semiosphere, analogous to the concept of the biosphere. as we shall see below, this brings him very close to bahktin, as regards the analysis of the processes of semiotic mediation. we will cite his work here as did umberto eco (1990), when he prefaced one of his books: imagine a museum hall where exhibits from different periods are on display, along with inscriptions in known and unknown languages, and instructions for decoding them; there are also the explanations composed by the museum staff, plans for tours and rules for behaviour of the visitors. imagine also in this hall tour-leaders and visitors and imagine all this as a single mechanism (which in a certain sense is it). this is an image of the semiosphere. then we have to remember that all elements of the semiosphere are in dynamic, not static, correlations whose terms are constantly changing. we notice this specially at traditional moments which have come down to us from the past (lotman, 1990, cited by eco, 1990, p. xii). for lotman, therefore, conscious human life, that is, cultural life, also demands a special spatio-temporal structure so that the culture can organise itself in the form of a space and a time, without which it cannot exist. this organisation is realised in the form of a semiosphere, given that the individual human intellect does not have a monopoly in the work of thinking and that the semiotic systems, both separately and together as a integrated unit of semiosphere, both synchronically and in all the depths of historical memory, carry out intellectual operations, preserve, rework and increase the store of information: “the same with thought: it is both something engendered by the human brain and something surrounding us without which intellectual generation would be impossible” (lotman, 1990, p. 273). in our view, lotman’s theses is compatible with the concept of social representations as defended by moscovici (1988), provided the active human subject is not lost. social representations, as i have already mentioned, concern the contents of everyday thinking and the stock of ideas that gives coherence to our religious beliefs, political ideas and the connections we create as spontaneously as we breathe. they make it possible for us to classify persons and objects, to compare and explain behaviours and to objectify them as parts of our social setting. while representations are often to be located in the minds of men and women, they can just as often be found ‘in the world’, and as such examined separately. ….representations that shape our relations with society are in turn a component of social organization (p. 214). we can, therefore – and this is the position which we defend –, take the semiosphere, or the functioning of the semiotic space, as the contents of social representations, which, in turn, mediate our relationship with the world. the concept of semiotic mediation has a strong and important intellectual tradition, as shown by mertz (1985), who proposes that it be studied in terms of a special emphasis on the distinct paths by means of which signs acquire and, more specifically, mediate meanings. this author thus defends the sign as a point of departure for the analysis of semiotic mediation, given that it exists in the creation of a representation relation, which can be understood as a connection established by the sign vehicle (or representamen) between a certain object (that which the sign represents) and an interpretation (the “mental cognition” or mental representation created by the sign in its representation of the object). the idea of mediation is therefore inherent to the notion of the sign and presupposes an active human subject in interaction with it. mediated activity and human development from the point of view of developmental psychology, this leads to the consensus that sees human interaction as an exchange of meanings, a consensus that is compatible with the semiotics of barthes (1992) and lotman (1990) and, as we will see, with the linguistics of vion (2000). this consensus leads us to consider the effects of sign systems in developmental psychology and in the cognition of individual communications. this was, evidently, the great contribution of vygotsky, who defended the thesis that semiotic mediation is the instrument that creates the types of activity that are truly human. these differ from animal activity because of the human consciousness of a plan of actions based on means of production that are historically transmitted and socially constructed (cole, 1985; 1997). we are therefore proposing the compatibility of the notion of semiotic mediation with the theory of social representations, which in turn is compatible with the amplification proposed by wertsch (1985) of the notion of semiotic mediation defended by vygotsky (1978). by means of the reflections of bakhtin (1977, 1981, 1984, 1986) on the nature of discourse and the structure of social institutions, wertsch (1985) suggested the need to consider how social institutions interact with the mental functioning of the individual (see also wertsch, 1985b). as we know from bakhtin, there are utterances and voices, each with its own ideological perspective, which are sociologically defined and are realised – and, up to a point, created – by discourse. in this way, it is possible to classify the different types of social language in broad categories based on the stratification of professions, social groups, generations, eras, and so on. it seems that this was exactly what moscovici (1961) intended by analysing the discourses regarding psychoanalysis that were produced and mediated by different social and political groups in french society. it is on this basis, in fact, that this author defends the use of the plural: social representations. we can therefore understand that it is essential to bear in mind that, just like physical objects, human actions have sociocultural meanings such that both the objects and the actions function, in and of themselves, as vehicles in the mediation of these meanings or, as we intend to demonstrate, of social representations. this is compatible with the thesis of mead and his statement that language, in which our meanings almost exclusively arise in consciousness, “is but a highly specialized form of gesture and that in the presentations of others’ attitudes and our own we have the material out of which selves are constructed, and to the fact that consciousness of meaning is so intimately bound up with selfconsciousness” (mead, 1964, p 132). let us take fashion as an everyday example: it defines a trend and uses different kinds of fabric and styles – that is, a technology –, in order to realise it, such that, in the final analysis, we can say that that trend is the content of this particular production. as barthes states: the set of meanings of a system (already formalised) comprises a major function: that is, it is probable that, from one system to another, the major semantic functions do not only communicate between themselves, but also partly recuperate themselves; the form of the signifiers of fashion is, without doubt, in part, the form of the signifiers of the alimentary system, both articulated around the great opposition between work and play, between activity and leisure; we must, therefore, presuppose a total ideological description, common to all systems of the same synchrony (1992, p. 49. in other words, we are dealing with what has often been indicated by moscovici (1988): the relationship between social and cognitive phenomena, between communication and thought. “we all realize how much social reality, f.i., drug use, differs depending on whether it is viewed and represented as a genetic defect, a sign of family breakdown, a cultural tradition or a substance required for a group ritual. the long and short of it is that all behaviour appears at the same time as a given and a product of our way of representing it” (moscovici, 1988, p. 214). social representations and personal paradigms given this, we can move on: in the final analysis, this active human being constructs, in his/her interaction with social representations and given sociocultural practices, what we have called, as in the post-modern approach of young (1997), the personal paradigm, which, while not isolated from the collective, preserves the unique and particular individual identity of the subject, if we consider the notion of internalisation as transformation, as mentioned above. so, from the point of view of intervention aimed at changes to developmental psychology, which implies a process of polysemous reconstruction, and bearing in mind our arguments, the importance of becoming familiar with social representations is clear: they give us clues regarding the basis of this paradigm. “if i ask my boyfriend to use condoms, he will think that i am sleeping around or that i don’t trust him”, said one teenager in a survey on pregnancy. or “you use condoms in casual relationships, when you are with someone who isn’t your girlfriend. when it’s serious, you don’t use them”. in other words, condom use is not merely a question of information about contraception or disease prevention, but is an externalisation of a fundamental paradigm, in which we can identify the social representations of dating, which, in turn, are related to the social representations of romantic love and of male and female roles, and especially sexual roles (fávero and mello, 1997; fávero, 2001). following the rationale described above, if we accept that the personal paradigm is constructed by an active subject, it is therefore possible to stimulate the internal activity of that subject by means of mediated activity in a situation of social interaction involving conversation, seeking to facilitate the exploration and synthesis of contradictions and the creation of a new basis for the transformation of meanings. so, accepting, as does bruner (1991), that “doing and saying constitute an inseparable functional unit” and that “the relation between the act and the word is interpretable” (p. 34), we defend the view that a change in thinking and beliefs, that is, a change in personal paradigm regarding a given subject and a given social practice, can alter the practice itself. in other words, we defend an interactional context for the psychological interventions that aim, in a final analysis, to reconstruct the subject’s mental world. the terms “psychological interventions” and “intervention research” are used in this article in the same sense as in previous studies related to psychological community intervention (musitu, 1999), intervention for children with learning problems (tunmer & al., 2002), intervention and school psychology (ktatochwill, 2004), public health oriented promotion of leisure-time physical activity (schmidt, budtz-jørgensen & avlund, 2006) and countless others related to quality of life and coping with cancer (penson, talsania, chabner & lynch, 2004; ross, boesen, dalton & johansen, 2002; stanton, 2005; etc.). the literature on intervention research covers a vast and diverse field and demonstrates a great challenge: when aiming to produce some kind of change or transformation, the methodological issue is precisely that of the procedures for evaluating effects and effectiveness. staton (2005), for example points out that “the next generation of psychological intervention research requires increasingly careful a priori consideration of the nature of the samples, interventions, and outcomes involved, as well as theory-guided examinations of mechanisms for the obtained effects” (p. 4819). bearing in mind both the challenge described above and our theoretical arguments, three foundations are essential for our methodological proposal: the focus group, the speech acts and the grasp of consciousness in the piagetian, developmental sense. in the following section, we will deal with each of them, with the aim of demonstrating the interconnections between them and their articulation with the theoretical and conceptual foundation described above. an alternative methodology although most qualitative studies, both in psychology and other areas, focus on interactive processes, this explicit use of interaction is not always evident in the approaches to analysis and the reporting of findings in many research reports, argue reed & payton (1997). kitzinger (1994) comments that “reading some such reports it is hard to believe that there was ever more than one person in the room at the same time” (p. 104). thus, despite the argument of morgan (1988) and others in a similar vein, to the effect that focus groups are characterized by the explicit use of the group interaction to produce data and insights that would be less accessible without the interaction found in the group, we can say that the literature on focus groups in qualitative research has also been criticized for its neglect of group dynamics (kitzinger, 1994). group dynamics is essential for the articulation of theory and method that we are proposing. thus, returning to the expression of farr and tafoya (1992), that, as a discussion group, the focus group “has something of a thinking society in miniature” (in marková, 2003, p. 223), we made use of focus groups in a way that is more than a procedure for demonstrating people’s opinions and social representations and what they do with them, as, for example, in myers (1998), kitzinger (2000) and seymour et al. (2002). they were used, rather, as an interventional strategy based on the thesis that personal paradigms are constructed by active subjects and that it is therefore possible to stimulate the subject’s internal activity with the aim of forming a new foundation for the creation and transformation of the meanings that sustain and are sustained by them. for us, the focus group is thus a situation not merely for treating and developing the themes about a subject, but for rethinking them. we therefore sought to adopt a model of analysis of the dynamics of the group as expressed in speech, thereby showing the process of the development of the grasp of consciousness of the subjects in relation to the social representations of a specific object and its relation to their own personal paradigms, and their processes of cognitive regulation on the path to transformation. this also demonstrates the specificity of the actual psychological intervention procedure developed in the interactive situation. for this reason, three key questions were considered. firstly, for the analysis of interactions, we adopted the analysis of speech acts as proposed by chabrol and bromberg (1999) and established in vion (2000), according to the thesis that “the interaction is partially determined by the existence of subjects that are already socialised and a social context that is already structured. but, to the degree that the subject and the social context result from the interaction, these pre-existing categories are updated and modified in and through their functioning. the interaction, therefore, is the locus for the ongoing construction and reconstruction of the subject and the society” (vion, 2000, p. 93). thus, according to chabrol & bromberg (1999), “for social actors, speech acts are the interactive means of facing and resolving ‘concrete’ or symbolic problems, and of co-creating a social reality” (p. 296). those authors propose five spheres to found a classification of speech acts: 1. informative (any speech act that seeks to describe, classify, define or examine objects in the world and their relations in a non-evaluative manner); 2. evaluative (any speech act that expresses a value judgement or appreciation); 3. interactive (any speech act that seeks the joint elaboration of the identities of the participants and the joint management of their relations); 4. active (any speech act that proposes action, or that incites or exhorts action or engagement); and 5. contractual (any speech act that has the function of generating or regulating communication in terms of its aims, sets of actions and communicative contract). each of these spheres includes specific categories of speech act. for example, the informative sphere includes the categories inform, exemplify, confirm, negate, correct, explain and quote. it should be noted that a speech act is categorised in a given sphere in terms of its meaning in relation to another speech act. in this way, it can be shown who agrees with whom, who disagrees with whom, who approves of what and from whom, who proposes something new with a view to transformation, how this is proposed, and so on. this categorisation therefore gives us clues regarding both the predominance of a given sphere of speech acts in the group and in this or that individual and, which is more important, how this predominance is altered. thus, and this is our second key point, adopting the analysis of speech acts produced in the focal group means defending the view that “to analyse speech acts is to take into account the contributions offered by each social actor in the interaction, together with the processes of co-construction and attribution of meaning” (chabrol & bromberg, 1999, p. 296). it would therefore be possible to reveal each subject’s grasp of consciousness, as well as their processes of cognitive and metacognitive regulation – as proposed by flavell (1976) and revisited by allal and saada-robert (1992) – in the acquisition of new competencies by means of the communicative processes of the interactions. allal and saada-robert (1992), use the term “cognitive” for the regulatory mechanisms considered, especially in piagetian theory, under the structural and conceptual aspects of general development, while “metacognitive” describes in the functional regulations, activated according to varied degrees of conscience in a learning situation and serving in the management of the procedures developed by the subject. for piaget, the grasp of consciousness “appears in all its aspects as a process of conceptualisation, reconstructing and then overtaking, on the plane of semiotisation and representation, what has been acquired on the plane of the action schemes” (piaget, 1974, p. 271). in terms of its functional development, it occurs first in relation to the aims and results of the action. as piaget says, the grasp of consciousness(…)proceeds from the periphery to the centre. (…) we do not define the periphery either in terms of the object or of the subject, but of the most immediate external reaction of the subject to the object: to use it according to an aim, and to take action on the result obtained. the grasp of consciousness, starting from the periphery (aims and results), is focused towards the central regions of the action, as it seeks to reach its internal mechanism: recognition of the means employed, reason for its choice or its modification, etc. (piaget, 1974, p. 263). in other words, it is a movement of internalisation based on action, which leads, in the words of piaget (1974), “to the reflected plan of action, to an awareness of the problems to be resolved and from there, to the cognitive (and no longer material) means employed to resolve them” (p. 263). adopting the analysis of speech acts produced in the focal group and considering that it would be possible to reveal each subject’s grasp of consciousness, as well as their processes of cognitive and metacognitive regulation, by means of the communicative processes of the interactions, is not incompatible with the process of semiotic mediation discussed above. on the contrary, as martí (1996) demonstrated, an analysis of the processes of internalisation and externalisation in the theories of piaget and vygotsky demonstrates an important set of epistemological and methodological principles held in common by the two authors. for both, the relationship between internal and external (internalised and manifest actions, for piaget; intrapsychological and interpsychological functions, for vygotsky) is in constant mutation through development. for both, internal and external reality are not two distinct, static entities, defined once and for all, but are constructed and their boundaries are unstable. for piaget, the dialectical nature of knowledge was therefore based on progress in two directions: internalisation and externalisation. this is compatible with vygotsky’s formulation which, far from considering internalisation as a simple transposition of the properties of interpersonal functioning to the internal plane, regarded it as an internal reconstruction which, in turn, modifies the interpsychological function. in other words, both defended the view that the internal plane is not given but constructed, articulating this idea with the conscience. this is also clear in leontiev, as cited by wertch, (1985). given this, it is time to clarify the third key issue in our methodological proposal: given that we are defending a methodology of intervention – that is, one that leads to transformation – so, the focus groups should take place in sequential sessions, such that the aim of each one is clearly defined in relation to the analysis of the recordings and the transcription of the speech acts produced in the previous session. as a consequence, each session must be guided by the researcher according to a general procedure that brings the group of subjects face to face not only with their own conceptions but with alternative conceptions, creating a situation of socio-cognitive conflict in the sense used by doise & hanselmann (1989). it is, therefore, a longitudinal proposal. a number of authors have defended the research value of analysing conversation (see, for example, kitzinger, 2000 and her references), but here we have developed a theoretical and methodological proposal for the analysis of changes in the social conceptions and representations of adults in relation to a specific object, according to which, by means of verbal exchanges treated as speech acts, we are able to evaluate the actual process of mediation as it happens and analyse the process of change by means of the internal regulations of adult subjects in interaction and their connection with the communicative processes of that interaction. we have obtained significant results according to this perspective in different research situations, such as a group of teachers at the school (fávero, 2004) or a group of carers at an institution for aged people (fávero & gutteres, 2005). both cases demonstrated the convergences and divergences that mark the personal paradigms and form the basis of the practice of each teacher or carer; 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(1997). adult development, therapy and culture. a post-modern synthesis. new york: plenum press. biographical note maria helena fávero teaches at the instituto de psicologia at the universidade de brasília, in brasília, df, brasil. she obtained her doctorate in 1984 from the université de toulouse – le mirail, france and carried out her post-doctoral work in 2001 at the “cognitions et activités finalisées” research unit, coordinated by professor gérard vergnaud, of the université paris viii, paris, france. contact e-mail adress:faveromh@unb.br to be or not to be a psychologist? vlad-petre glaveanu ejop assistant editor to be or not to be a psychologist? this is the question, or, in other words, “who isn’t a psychologist nowadays”? not very far can we find that, from the magazines filled with “tests”, that we like to read, the “practical” books full of good intentions and advices about how to live our lives, the news that make a “fashion” out of psychological portraits, and up to the discussions made with a lot of psychological delicacy by our parents at home, every setting, every space and each one of our contacts “suffers” the influence of psychology (as science, as art, as hobby, or – and this is the worse possible thing – as amusement). each and every day, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, loudly or quietly, we stumble over what has become “ the psychology of our everyday life ”. in this kind of environment, that troubles us by its diversity, we try to transform a project into reality. what is “europe’s journal of psychology”? in itself, it represents a challenge, but also a call. the challenge consists in our attempt to publish only those articles that respect high standards of quality, with regard to the information offered. the call is made for all those who love psychology, i.e. teachers, professionals or even amateurs and (especially) students, to study and to share, to participate and to communicate, to cooperate at a national scale and collaborate at a higher level, a european one. now we are facing a beginning. what we want is, in a near future, to demonstrate that “not everyone we meet is a psychologist and not everything we read is psychology”. the understanding of the human soul is more than a simple curiosity, it is an activity that requires abnegation, talent and responsibility . prospects of research in south america: the case of colombia editorial prospects of research in south america: the case of colombia lilian patricia rodríguez-burgos*a [a] facultad de psicología, universidad de la sabana, chía, colombia. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 208–214, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.799 published (vor): 2014-05-28. *corresponding author at: facultad de psicología, universidad de la sabana, campus universitario del puente del común, km 7, autopista norte de bogotá, chía, cundinamarca, colombia. e-mail: liliam.rodriguez@unisabana.edu.co this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. “so it is” sighed the colonel. “life is the best thing that has ever been invented.” (gabriel garcía márquez, 1961, p. 46) south america is a mine of opportunities for research in different fields. its social, political, educational and economic situation and constant transformation offer a privileged stage for reflection and for the development of proposals to understand the complexity of phenomena that are transforming this part of the world. this calls for permanent contributions from all disciplines, psychology included, to improve the quality of life for individuals and communities. in this context, the efforts of some governments and academic communities to strengthen funding for research, training researchers and increasing international networks have advanced research considerably. there are countless studies that have been conducted by researchers in south america. in mentioning only a few below i am taking the risk of not including them all, so my focus will be primarily on the area of humanities and social sciences in brazil, chile, argentina and, of course, colombia, mainly in relation to socio-cultural and developmental research. brazil has a very sound system of research. this is reflected, for example, in recognized works by branco (2007, 2012), oliveira and branco (2010) related to social development and culture, guimarães’ (2010, 2011) research on cultural transmission processes within an amerindian context, as well as lyra’s (2010, 2011) studies of communication processes and change in infants. in chile we find notable works by cornejo (2007, 2011) on cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics and theoretical psychology. in argentina, mario carretero conducts extensive research on education, learning and identity formation (carretero & borrelli, 2008; carretero & castorina, 2010; carretero & gonzález, 2008; gonzález & carretero, 2013). with respect to colombia, it is important to mention that a lot of research has revolved around the social situation found here. colombia is a country of wealth but also of contrasts. for over half a century it has suffered from an europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ armed conflict that has had a large psychosocial impact. among the causes of this situation we find poverty, inequality and unemployment. what created the rise of groups functioning outside the law (guerrillas and para-military) was initially the ideal of defending the population, but then these groups lost their vision by accepting money for kidnapping and drug trafficking to finance their activities. both groups have committed massacres and human rights have been violated. this was coupled with the lack of leadership of rulers, many of whom were irresponsible, corrupt, or with little commitment to social problems (guzmán, borda, & umaña, 1962; ospina, 1997, 2013). consequently, much of the research tries to respond to problems caused by the conflict. we can therefore identify a few trends in colombian research. one is represented by a growing body of research focused on understanding the phenomenon of war in cases such as the ones involving children, young people and their participation in the armed conflict (calle, 2011; montoya, 2008; moreno, carmona, & tobón, 2010; torrado & vargas, 2009), the phenomenon of peasants’ displacement in the cities (ibáñez as cited in leal & herreño, 2011; ochoa & orjuela, 2013), and reconstruction of memory and identity setting (molina, 2010; patiño & patiño, 2012). a second trend is represented by the work of researchers who focus on children, their teachers and families from rural, urban and indigenous communities in order to understand their emotional, cognitive and social processes so as to recover many of their practices and traditions. an example of this is the research by amar and collaborators (amar, 2000; holgado et al., 2014) related to child development in conditions of poverty. otálora (2010) explores the everyday practices of teachers in rural and urban areas. puche (2009) works on the cognitive development in children. sierra (2011) and sierra & gerald (2013) study issues of sustainability in the context of indigenous cultures. córdoba (córdoba, verdugo, & gómez, 2006; lumani & córdoba, 2014) focuses on issues of social inclusion and quality of life for children with disabilities and their families while rodríguez (rodríguez, 2011a, 2011b; rodríguez et al., 2014; rodríguez, díaz, rodríguez, izquierdo, & nassar, in press) explores everyday activities of children living in rural and indigenous communities. in what follows i will describe briefly some of the research related to development, family and culture conducted in colombia by the research group i coordinate at the universidad de la sabana. broadly speaking, our work is based on two premises: first, the need to contribute to understanding our social problems and, second, to elaborate a new approach to the study of human development. with regards to the latter, we conceptualize development as a complex process, dynamic in nature, whosemain characteristic is the emergence of novelty; this then becomes also our main analytical focus (see also lewis, 2000; molenaar & valsiner, 2005; rodríguez, 2011a; thelen & smith, 1998; sato & valsiner, 2010; valsiner, 2006; van dijk & van geert, 2007). this view has three particular implications: first, development is a process that takes place at different intervals of time (minutes, seconds, years). therefore, to capture its non-stationary nature micro-longitudinal studies are highly relevant. second, given that development is a process, we must ask what are the moments, actors, scenarios and paths that people construct during the emergence of new skills. third, but not least, we believe that the study of development must surpass the aspect of chronological stages and stop questioning what the subject ‘does’ to move up to another stage. the goal of development researchers should be to identify the cognitive, emotional and cultural wealth of people, how they become manifest in everyday life and how people develop in spite of difficult life circumstances. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 208–214 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.799 rodríguez-burgos 209 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one line of investigation we developed asks the question of how infants use everyday objects and how they solve problems from the very early stages of their development. in this sense, we conducted a micro-longitudinal monitoring of young children for six months with observations every 10 days. the participants in this study were a group of 9-month old infants living in an urban area of cali, a city in valle del cauca near bogota. the results were analyzed qualitatively and we aimed to determine the paths an infant builds in a given time in his or her interaction with objects. these paths helped us build three main profiles characterized by the infant’s own dynamic moments of conquest, transition, regression and stability, which show the variety and cognitive wealth infants have at their disposal as well as argue for the nonlinear nature of their development (rodríguez, 2011b). we have also identified the objects used by children in their play. since it is difficult for children in conditions of poverty to have barbie dolls or other similar toys, they used available objects creatively. a lid of a pot, for instance, became a tambourine to keep up with the rhythm of a song. in a second line of investigation we examined the daily life activities that contribute to the development of the cognitive ability for planning. we worked with 5-year old pre-school children and their parents. the results allowed us to identify their everyday activities and discover that colombian children have very active and participatory roles within their homes. the social and economic conditions of our country require children to help with housework or help their parents with their jobs. for example, we found children who help their parents sell roses at traffic lights or sell shoes in a store. other children do activities at home, which include looking after their siblings, running errands, washing dishes and cooking. but beyond analyzing how children work, we have also examined their ability to plan and solve problems. our results show how daily interactions between children and their families contribute to the cognitive, social and emotional development of children (rodríguez et al., 2014). finally, in a third investigation we worked with the indigenous women from sierra nevada de santa marta in colombia, who belong to the arhuaco tribe. we analyzed the history, process, meaning and significance of their daily activity of bag (mochila) knitting. this is an exclusive activity of women, which they have inherited from their ancestors. it is a responsibility that has several particular implications: it is a way to perpetuate their cultural identity as older women teach 4-year old girls to weave and, while teaching them, also transmit the origins, myths, legends and traditions of their culture as well as their love and respect for nature. it was very interesting to find out that creating the mochila is not merely an integration of wool, colors and figures related to the elements of heaven, earth or aspects related to gender in order to produce a creative and beautiful bag. this activity goes beyond these associations and, while creating this object, stories and meaningful symbols are exchanged. our study also allowed us to learn how some women perceive this activity of weaving. for some the activity has lost its meaning. it has become a way to survive economically. for other women, this activity is linked to tradition and is part of "being a woman" in charge of preserving local culture (rodríguez et al., in press). in the end, i will conclude this brief editorial with a few proposing possible directions for future research in the colombian context. during this period, all the key players of the prolonged conflict in the country (government, guerrillas) have been meeting in cuba in an attempt to sign a peace treaty. in this post-conflict context, new projects can be envisioned, for example "children and young people after the war, historical memory, forgiveness, reparation and reconciliation". at the same time, wemust also continue working on the issues of everyday life that involve the recovery of cultural practices, development issues, family, inclusion, creativity, work and cultural identity, which will continue to be high up on research agenda. for just as gabriel garcía márquez, the late nobel prize winner in literature, quoted by berrutti (2008), once said: europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 208–214 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.799 prospects of research in south america 210 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “we have to cast a bottle of sidereal shipwrecks into the oceans of time so the universe may know about us what the cockroaches that will outsurvive us cannot tell: that here existed a world where suffering and injustice had prevailed, but in it we got to know love and we were able to imagine happiness” (p. 1). colombia is a country that combines magic and reality, we are not doomed to live a hundred years of solitude, we want to rediscover our wealth and understand our problems; this requires an interdisciplinary and multicultural approach. european and other international colleagues are invited to walk with us on this path through the magical land of yellow butterflies. funding the elaboration of this paper was supported by the research 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(in press). knitting of meaning: understanding the origin, the history and preservation of the arhuaca indigenous community’s traditional cultural practice. culture and psychology. rodríguez, l., giraldo, j., obando, d., romero, d., mojica, a., & rodríguez, j. (2014). cognitive planning and everyday practices: a case study. in y. omi, l. p. rodríguez, & m. c. peralta (eds.), lives and relationships: culture in transitions between social roles (pp. 235-252). charlotte, nc: information age publishing. sato, t., & valsiner, j. (2010). time in life and life in time: between experiencing and accounting. ritsumeikan journal of human sciences, 20(1), 79-92. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 208–214 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.799 rodríguez-burgos 213 http://dx.doi.org/10.7440/res36.2010.06 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1413-73722010000300015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s0102-71822012000300005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12124-010-9151-6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sierra, z. 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"deshaciendo futuro: voces de niños y niñas en situación de desplazamiento" ["undoing future: voices of children in situations of displacement"] (vol. 1). bogota, colombia: consultoría para los derechos humanos y el desplazamiento. valsiner, j. (2006). developmental epistemology and implications for methodology. in w. damon & r. m. lerner (eds.), handbook of child psychology: vol. 1. theoretical models of human development (6th ed., pp. 166-209). new york, ny: john wiley & sons. van dijk, m., & van geert, p. (2007). wobbles, humps and sudden jumps: a case study of continuity, discontinuity and variability in early language development. infant and child development, 16, 7-33. doi:10.1002/icd.506 about the author lilian patricia rodriguez-burgos. has a phd in psychology from the center for psychological research, cognition and culture at univalle university (cali, colombia). her research focuses mainly on cognitive child development, education and cultural practices. in this last field she has collaborative work in progress with york university (canada). she is also a recurrent visiting scholar of clark university (usa). currently, she is professor of psychology at the department of psychology universidad de la sabana (chia, colombia). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 208–214 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.799 prospects of research in south america 214 http://www.entrelugares.ufc.br/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=file&id=143:universidad-y-pueblos-indigenas-obstaculos-y-alternativas-para-el-dialogo-de-saberes&itemid=12 http://www.entrelugares.ufc.br/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&view=file&id=143:universidad-y-pueblos-indigenas-obstaculos-y-alternativas-para-el-dialogo-de-saberes&itemid=12 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/icd.506 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en prospects of research in south america (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author cultural psychology: a once and future discipline michael cole cambridge: harvard university press; 2003 (sixth printing) reviewed by vlad-petre glăveanu ejop editor undoubtedly we are now witnessing the dawns of a new era in the theory and practice of wundt’s “second psychology”, an era of re-discovery and re-assessment of all key issues that concern the maturation of a discipline. at such times proposing integrated and viable approaches to the study of mind and culture is both daring and praiseworthy. michael cole, professor of communication and psychology at the university of california, san diego, has successfully undertaken such a task and by this offered us an exemplary textbook of “contemporary” cultural psychology. his book “cultural psychology: a once and future discipline”, awarded harvard university press’s annual prize, is the product of cole’s lasting preoccupation for topics such as cognition and human development and decades of research in the field. as the author clearly states, his goal in writing the book was “to describe one principled way to create and use a culture-inclusive psychology” (p.2). he found this way in a restructured cultural-historical psychology, a complex theoretical framework that combines ideas from the russian cultural-historical school of psychology, american pragmatism, and related social sciences. in order to fully appreciate his new standpoint, cole describes (chapters 1 and 2) the vast array of contradictory positions that seemed intrinsic to the understanding of cultural psychology: culture is generally recognized as important but almost ignored in empirical research, cross-cultural studies are performed but their methodology is contested, experimentation is the favourite method of science but its application to cultural psychology is doubtful, knowledge is universal (platon) but culturally embedded (herodotus). all these apparently insurmountable paradoxes led wundt to separate, ever since the scientific birth of psychology, his “physiological psychology” from his “völkerpsychologie”. cole’s “reform” started with his involvement in multidisciplinary and cross-cultural research projects on cognitive development in the 60s and 70s in liberia and the yucatan peninsula (chapter 3). he and his colleagues attempted to experimentally model everyday experiences (using “native tasks” instead of standard procedures) but in spite of their efforts the cross-cultural approach soon revealed its theoretical and methodological weaknesses. consequently, a new framework was needed, a return to the “second psychology” this time understood as a cultural psychology (chapter 4). in a nutshell cole’s cultural-historical psychology asserts that culture is the species-specific medium for humans and that artifacts, with their dual ideal / material nature, are the basic elements of culture mediating all subject-object relations. further, all social interactions are “surrounded” or “waved together” by a context (environment, situation, practice or activity). finally, culture promotes human development since it creates “an artificial environment where young organisms could be provided with optimal conditions for growth” (p.143) (chapter 5). the theme of “genesis” is central in any form of cultural psychology (chapters 6 and 7). cole’s proposed phylogeny takes into account data from both comparative psychology and paleoanthropology about the 4 m.y. evolution of human beings from australophithecus to homo sapiens sapiens. faced with the debate between the darwinian (genetic) and lamarckian (cultural) evolution, the author rejects the idea of a “first come” factor and points to the different rates of change. his account, this time discussed in terms of modularity versus context, is stated clearly with respect to human ontogeny: “one cannot say that first comes the phylogenetic part and then comes the cultural part and the individual part. all are there from the outset” (p.214). a newborn never enters a culturally void world; on the contrary, family members surround him/her with a world of artifacts (clothes, toys, words etc.), with already structured activities and with a set of expectations that make adults act accordingly to their culturally shaped image of the child’s future (the mechanism of prolepsis). another significant step for the author in the process of validating his cultural-historical approach concerns the methodology of the discipline (chapter 8) and its utility (chapters 9 and 10). the research on literacy and schooling (liberia), the study on children cognitive performance in different settings or the “question-asking-reading” activity are all example of good practice in what the author himself calls “applied cultural psychology”. they all stand as a proof that highly formalized experiments are not always the answer and that human cognition must be studied in the context of everyday experiences. but maybe the most impressive project of all, the “fifth dimension” (5thd), employed computer-mediated learning activities that engaged children, undergraduates and researchers. importantly, 5thd groups activated in different settings (bgclub, library etc.) and by this allowed a comparative analysis of the results. in the final chapter (11) cole adopts luria’s concept of “romantic science” and his ideal therefore becomes that of transcending current dichotomies like material / ideal, nomothetic / idiographic, experimental / ethnographic, theoretical / practical and anchoring his understanding in the real life experiences of actual persons. through his exercise of cultural-historical psychology cole has for the most part achieved this ideal. his book has the incontestable merit of presenting a firm, coherent and useful framework that will surly influence the next generations of cultural psychologists. his extensive use of both past and recent sources, his propensity to present conflicting paradigms and openness in affirming a personal point of view recommend this book as a key contribution to the field. cole’s original approach has led him to challenge at least three “false” contradictions in cultural psychology: material vs. ideal, genetic evolution vs. cultural evolution and modularity vs. context. in the first case by emphasizing the dual nature of artifacts cole has located culture “in the middle” and not outside or inside the individual. once the interior-exterior debate has been put aside cole turned to the nature-nurture controversy (both pylogenetically and ontogenetically). here his solution of articulating opposing positions has unintentionally led to a new set of questions about the biology-culture interaction. who determines and who conditions human development? this inquiry stresses the differences between factors that “decide” and factors that “facilitate” evolution (even if they go together “from the outset”) and is brought to the surface by one of the metaphors cole uses when referring to language acquisition. “children are born with a rich supply of linguistically relevant aspects, or seeds of language (…). what then are the conditions under which these seeds will sprout and flower?” (p.201). they are, of course, the conditions offered by the environment. the consequences of such a view annihilate almost all that was gained by promoting the equal importance of nature and nurture in the child’s development. is the role of the cultural context just a facilitating one? biology (in this case modularity) would seem to stand as a “more equal” among equals… cole’s studies in cognitive development are a landmark not only in social and cultural but also in developmental and educational psychology. the methodology he used in several of his projects offers valuable guidelines for future research in cultural psychology: always study psychosocial phenomena in their cultural context, use a flexible multi-method design, focus on everyday activities and tasks, adapt your testing scales, be both the participant and the analyst, always aim to translate theory into practice and help people “grow”. still, in his examples the author seems sometimes to contradict his own principles. for example, after the reader is introduced to the importance of understanding the broad cultural and historical context of everyday activities in designing intervention programmes it cannot be but puzzled by the apparent lack of interest for exactly this aspect in the presentation of the fifth dimension project. vital aspects are scarcely addressed: how children were selected, how their particular socio-cultural context was taken into account, how specific activities were established. in spite of the significant cultural dimension of the 5thd, it seems that the educational purposes and the problem of sustainability prevailed. just briefly is the fifth dimension theorized as a cultural system / ideoculture and this, to some extent, distracted even more the attention from the larger social, educational and familial settings in which the participants live and develop. perhaps a shift in focus would have been much more evocative in the context of the cultural-historical psychology. nevertheless, apart from these shortcomings the book “cultural psychology: a once and future discipline” has imposed a multilevel approach that will stand as an example for many years to come. the lively style of the author, although sometimes too academic for the general public, makes this book a captivating reading, compulsory not only for social and cultural psychologists but for social scientists in general. it opens the door for stimulating debates and by this helps us all further our knowledge in what concerns the complex and dynamic relation between culture, mind and life experiences. offering final theoretical models in this respect may well be a utopia since, as cole and luria agreed, goethe was right in his claim that “grey is every theory, ever green is the tree of life”. emotional expressions in grandparent-infant grandchild interaction in the course of the first year of life research reports emotional expressions in grandparent-infant grandchild interaction in the course of the first year of life anastasia pratikakia, theano kokkinaki*b [a] εxperimental high school, heraklion, greece. [b] department of psychology, university of crete, rethymnon, greece. abstract this longitudinal and naturalistic study aims to describe and compare grandparent and infant emotional expressions that precede, accompany and follow spontaneous imitation in the course of their dyadic interaction. sixteen greek, cretan infants were video-recorded in the course of spontaneous dyadic interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers at home from the 2nd to the 10th month of their life. microanalyses of grandmothers’, grandfathers’ and infant grandchildren’s emotional expressions within well-defined units of interaction provided the following evidence: (a) grandparents increased pleasure-interest expression while single pleasure and interest decreased in the course of imitation. grandparent neutral expression remained stable, at low levels, before, during and after imitation. grandfathers were more interested than grandmothers and grandmothers expressed more pleasure-interest towards their infant grandchildren, compared to grandfathers; (b) similar patterns of infant grandchildren’s emotional expressions in interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers provided evidence that infant interest predominated over the remaining expressions before imitation, it decreased in the course of it and it increased after it. infant pleasure remained stable before and in the course of imitation and decreased slightly after it. infant pleasure-interest expression increased and neutral expression decreased in the course of imitation. infants were more neutral in interactions with their grandfathers, compared to grandmothers, particularly in the course of the first age level (2 to 3.5 months); (c) infant age correlated with certain infants’ and grandparents’ emotional expressions. this evidence reinforces the view that grandparents are communicative partners to their infant grandchildren. keywords: imitation, emotional expressions, grandfathers, grandparents, inter-generational relations europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 received: 2012-11-16. accepted: 2013-04-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: university of crete, department of psychology, 74 100 rethymnon – gallos, crete, greece. e-mail: kokkinaki@uoc.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the aim of this study is to describe and compare grandparent and infant emotional expressions that precede, accompany and follow spontaneous imitation (the reproduction of an expressive behavior) in dyadic grandfatherand grandmother-infant grandchild imitation in the course of the first year of life. this study may advance our understanding of the way in which infants, without being able to speak, share an understanding of what they, and first-generation significant others, mean by what they do and say (trevarthen, kokkinaki, & fiamenghi, 1999; waldrop, weber, herald, pruett, cooper, & juozapavicius, 1999). one of the main theoretical perspectives aiming to explain the reasons and the ways through which grandparents contribute to their grandchildren’s lives comes from evolutionary psychology (coall & hertwig, 2010, 2011). the grandmother hypothesis suggests that grandmothers may be the most motivated helpers for their reproductive daughters and their grandchildren. in this way, maternal grandmothers improve their grandchildren’s health and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ chances of survival, while a negligible impact has been evidenced for the maternal grandfather in the first two years of life (hrdy, 1999, as cited in coall & hertwig, 2010; sear & coall, 2011; sear, mace, & mcgregor, 2000). another kin-based explanation is paternity uncertainty which refers to the risk that a male is not the biological father of his children. because the maternal grandmother is certain of her relationship with her daughter and her daughter’s relationship with her grandchildren, it is predicted that maternal grandmothers will invest the most (coall & hertwig, 2010). in urban greece (modern western society), maternal grandmothers were rated as more caring than grandfathers. nevertheless, it is assumed that similarly to fathers, grandfathers care for their grandchildren but our evolutionary history has shown male care to be considered less essential than female care (pashos, 2000). within an alternative darwinian view, the proximate cause for why grandparents care for the welfare of their grandchildren may lie in their capacity for empathy. empathy constitutes a rapid emotional connectedness mechanism, through which an organism gains access to the subjective state of another organism. empathy alerts grandparents to their kin’s needs, helps them to identify emotionally with them and provides them with psychological benefits by giving support (coall & hertwig, 2010); for a review of other theoretical perspectives (such as economic and sociological), see coall & hertwig (2011). recently, coall and hertwig (2010, 2011) suggested that the beneficial effects of grandparental investment (resources that grandparents transfer to their grandchildren) may be found in dimensions such as psychological adjustment, cognitive and verbal ability, mental health and well-being (sear & coall, 2011). one dimension of grandparental resources is the “…emotional support provided by a listening ear…” (coall & hertwig, 2011, p. 93). sear and coall (2011) adopt hrdy’s speculation (2009) according to which changing patterns of kin association and childcare may lead to a decline in our ability to empathize with and cooperate with others, or: “compassion and the quest for emotional connection will fade away…” (hrdy, 2009 (p. 293), as cited in sear & coall, 2011, p. 104). in order to expand our understanding of grandparental help, “…one key moderating variable is the quality of the grandparent-grandchild emotional relationship in general and the quality of their face-to-face interactions in particular” (coall & hertwig, 2011, p. 96). the motives behind an affectionate partner interacting with an infant, and vice versa, are further discussed in the framework of the theory of innate intersubjectivity (trevarthen 1993, 1997, 1998, 2005). within this theoretical framework, culture is propagated by learners’ (e.g. infants) and teachers’ (e.g. grandparents) active mimicry and constitutes a generation-to-generation conversational, intersubjective process in which the learners make an active contribution (trevarthen et al., 1999). there is evidence that imitation in infant-significant other interaction constitutes an example of innate intersubjectivity. this is a dynamic process that allows emotions to be transferred between (inter-subjectivity) and within minds (intra-subjectivity) (kokkinaki, 1998, 2003; kugiumutzakis, kokkinaki, markodimitraki, & vitalaki, 2005; trevarthen, 1993, 2005). the limited number of studies on the grandmother-grandchild relationship focus on 0 to 59 month old grandchildren and examines the effect of the maternal grandmother on child health improvement and survival probabilities (sear, mace, & mcgregor, 2000). these studies also look into the relationship between the grandmother’s involvement and infant attachment behavior (myers, jarvis, & creasey, 1987), the grandchild’s social adjustment (barnett, neppl, scaramella, ontai, & conger, 2010), anger (brook, tseng, whiteman, & cohen, 1998), independence and adaptive responding (tomlin & passman, 1989). meanwhile, the grandfather’s role has been documented based on generalized descriptions of certain aspects of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren (demographic profile, conditions that led them to take on the parental role, stresses and satisfactions) (thomas, sperry, & yarbrough, 2000). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 532 http://www.psychopen.eu/ within the framework of the theory of innate intersubjectivity, there is evidence that greek, cretan grandmothers, as well as grandfathers, offer infants a sense of partner stabilitywith similar and predictable actions and inter-actions while, at the same time, they also offer a variety of challenging communication. it has been assumed that grandfathers are as capable and sensitive as imitators and communicative partners as grandmothers and parents are (kokkinaki, germanakis, & pratikaki, 2012; pratikaki, germanakis, & kokkinaki, 2011). markodimitraki’s (2003) case study provided evidence that in the course of spontaneous imitation in dyadic twin infant-parent/grandparent interactions (1st to 10th month of infants’ life), pleasure and pleasure-and-interest expressions (see coding) increased, while interest and neutral expressions decreased. this study does not provide information on similarities/differences in interactions between infants and maternal grandmothers and grandfathers since descriptive analysis was carried out for adults’ emotional expressions. tinsley and parke (1987) observed grandparents and parents in individual five-minute dyadic play sessions (with toys provided by the experimenter) with their 7-month-old infants in the parents’ homes. results indicated that both grandmothers and grandfathers are active, interactive support agents with a pattern of similarities and differences in interactive style across generation and gender. grandchildren of grandparents who engaged in more stimulating behaviour and infants who had more contact with their grandparents achieved higher bayley mental development index scores. with no intention to underestimate the value of these studies, tinsley and parke’s study (1987) lacks the longitudinal investigation of interactional dynamics of spontaneous infant-grandparent interaction in the course of infancy. generalizing markodimitraki’s (2003) evidence to other dyads is limited, because this was a case study in which the longitudinal development of all partners’ emotional expressions was descriptive rather than statistically analyzed. kokkinaki et al. (2012) and pratikaki et al.’s studies (2011) would benefit from the systematic investigation of grandparents’ and infants’ spontaneous emotional expressions. the current study makes a range of improvements on the methodology of the previous studies. using a sample from greece (heraklion in northern crete), the aim of this study was to describe and compare grandparents’ and infants’ facial expressions of emotions that precede, accompany and follow spontaneous imitation in dyadic grandfatherand grandmother-infant grandchild imitation from the 2nd to the 10th month of the infant’s life. in this study, imitation was identified when an individual’s expression (vocal, kinetic, facial expression or any combination of these), in a form that had not been expressed by either partner in the immediately preceding 10 seconds, is reproduced by his or her partner within a 10-second interval (kokkinaki, 1998, 2003; pratikaki, 2009). this study addresses the following hypotheses: • hypothesis (1): (1a) grandparents’ and infants’ positive expressions (pleasure, interest and pleasure-interest) will predominate over neutral and negative expressions; (1b): infants’ and grandparents’ pleasure and pleasureinterest expressions will increase, while neutral emotions will decrease in the course of imitation. τhese hypotheses are based on the findings from dyadic interactions between a pair of twin infants and their maternal grandmother and grandfather (kugiumutzakis et al., 2005; markodimitraki, 2003). • hypothesis (2): there will be similarities and differences in grandmothers’ and grandfathers’ emotional expressions towards their infants, and vice versa, before, during and after imitation. certain aspects of imitation reinforce its intersubjective function according to which imitation constitutes the dynamic process that allows emotions to be transferred between minds (kokkinaki, 1998, 2003; trevarthen, 1993, 1998). this hypothesis indirectly arises from the evidence of similarities and differences in certain aspects of imitation, found in the interactions between europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 533 http://www.psychopen.eu/ infants and their maternal grandmothers and grandfathers (kokkinaki et al., 2012; pratikaki, 2009; pratikaki et al., 2011). • hypothesis 3: infant age will correlate with grandparents’ and infants’ emotional expressions before, during and after imitation. markodimitraki’s (2003) descriptive analysis provided evidence that from the 1st to the 10th month of the infants’ life, there was a steady increase in the pleasure and pleasure-interest expression and a decrease in neutral expression. furthermore, from the 2nd to the 6th month of the infants’ life, the developmental course of infant pleasure and interest during vocal imitation correlated with the infant’s age (kokkinaki, 2003). if these hypotheses are confirmed, they will reinforce the evidence that, early in life, both grandparents constitute communicative partners in relation to their infant grandchildren (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013a, 2013b; kokkinaki et al., 2012; pratikaki et al., 2011). studying emotional expressions in grandparent-infant grandchild interactions in a greek, cretan sample is important because: (a) grandparent-grandchild relationships serve a crucial function in the well-being of all generations (coall & hertwig, 2011). with increasing longevity, grandparents and grandchildren have more of a shared lifespan than ever before (murphy & grundy, 2003, as cited in coall & hertwig, 2011). thus, the need for grandparents to invest their affection in their grandchildren may actually be stronger than ever (coall & hertwig, 2011). giving and receiving affection from younger generations and the process of sharing life experiences can help grandparents maintain internal continuity and create a sense of integrity and purpose in life – a key element in preserving an internal balance needed for successful aging (atchley, 1989, 1992, as cited inwaldrop et al., 1999). recent research outside the grandparenting context suggests that extended contact of this kind may be particularly influential in intensifying interpersonal intimacy (harwood, 2000); (b) the grandparental role is a culturally relevant phenomenon and different social environments not only affect grandparental caregiving but largely determine it (lou & chi, 2012; pashos, 2000). greece fits the western economic development model and, since the early 1980s, lifestyle practices in northern crete seem to be susceptible to a transformation in favour of an urban, western culture. cretans suggest that traditional gender stereotypes may be breaking down, though they appear to expect more traditional behavior of older women (and probably men) than they expect from the younger generation (terkenli, bellas, & jenkins, 2007). despite the fact that the older generation is gradually disappearing (legg & roberts, 1997, as cited in terkenli et al., 2007), grandmothers often care for grandchildren if daughters or daughters-inlaw are employed. the extended family unit still holds strong as the central point of reference, and extended families ensure that their rural and urban components remain in regular contact, thus preserving the ties between the two at all costs (terkenli et al., 2007). the maintenance of strong and long-standing family ties creates mutual trust and understanding with special emphasis on inter-generational continuation (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013a, 2013b). design and method subjects participants included grandparents with their infant grandchildren involved in a longitudinal and naturalistic study. the aim of this study was to investigate basic aspects of spontaneous imitation in early dyadic grandfatherand grandmother-infant grandchild interaction (pratikaki, 2009). following the study’s approval by the faculty of philosophical and social studies, university of crete (reference number 5/19-12-01), sixteen infant-grandmother and sixteen infant-grandfather pairs from heraklion (northern crete, greece) of middle-class families took part in europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 534 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the study (n = 48) [for details on subject recruitment and inclusion criteria see pratikaki (2009)]. in 13 cases, maternal grandparents lived within the same building as the family. in the remaining three cases grandparents lived in close proximity (< 1km distance). in all families, both grandparents had a minimum contact of three hours three times a week with their grandchild. at the beginning of the study, the grandfathers’ mean age was 64.1 years (range 51-82 years) and the grandmothers’ mean age was 56.8 years (range 50-67 years). thirty five percent of grandfathers had a higher academic education, an equal percentage had twelve years of education, twenty percent had nine years of education and one grandfather had only completed primary school. twenty five percent of grandmothers had a higher academic education, forty four percent had twelve years of education, nineteen percent had nine years of education and two grandmothers had primary school education. at the beginning of the study, of the 16 grandparent pairs, 9 grandfathers and 6 grandmothers were already retired. seven grandfathers and five grandmothers were employed and five grandmothers were housewives. pregnancy, duration of labour, and perinatal factors were within normal limits. all the 16 infants [seven (7) girls and nine (9) boys] in the study were full term and healthy with normal mean birth weight and height according to the pediatricians’ measurements. ten infants out of the 16 were first-born, four were second-born and two were third-born (maternal grandmothers and grandfathers will be referred to from here on as “grandmothers” and “grandfathers”). procedure when both parents and grandparents gave their informed consent for the planned video-recordings, scheduled visits were arranged by the researcher according to the study protocol. the visits were arranged at a time suitable for the infants, this being half an hour following feeding time, when the infant was most likely to be relaxed and alert for interpersonal interaction (kugiumutzakis, 1993), while the grandparents were taken into consideration as well. video-recordings were made at 15-day intervals, starting when the infant was 2 months old until he/she was 10 months old. each recording lasted 7 minutes, while a short pause of five minutes was allowed before the second grandparent interacted with the infant. in the course of the first visit, half of the infants interacted with the grandfather and half with the grandmother. in the course of the second visit, the sequence of video-recordings with the grandparents was counterbalanced, switching the order in each successive visit. the only instruction given to the grandfathers and the grandmothers was: “please play as you normally do with your grandchild.” [see pratikaki (2009) for details on the recording conditions]. according to the design of the present study, the data collection consisted of 17 visits for each of 16 infant-grandfather and infant-grandmother dyads (one visit at a 15-day interval from the 2nd to the 10th month of the infants’ life), that is, 544 seven-minute recordings (16 families x 17 visits = 272 visits x 2 grandparents = 544 recordings). by the end of the study, we had made 262 visits and 524 recordings (4% data loss, due to grandparents’ and infants’ indisposition) [see pratikaki (2009) for details related to data loss]. coding within each sample of infant-grandparent interaction, given that an imitation had occurred, units of interaction were defined and the emotional context was analyzed within each imitative episode. each unit of interaction was characterized by a temporal continuity and consisted of the period that preceded, accompanied and followed each europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 535 http://www.psychopen.eu/ imitative episode. the temporal and qualitative description of the unit of interaction depended on the type of communication before and after the imitative episode. in other words, the type of communication was categorized in one of the following two mutually exclusive and exhaustive types: (a) communicative (“protoconversational”) in which the infant and the grandparent interact in a mutually attentive manner, coordinated emotional states, eye contact, oral expressions and body movements, either in alternation or overlapping; (b) non-communicative which consisted of periods in which the infant did not join the interaction because he/she was directing interest to the environment or was fully absorbed by his/her psychological mood (kokkinaki, 1998, 2003). within a temporal period of 10 seconds, before the beginning and after the end of each imitative episode, the categorization of the type of communication was made according to 50% of this temporal period. in other words, if the quality of interaction was “protoconversational” for at least 5 seconds before the beginning of the imitative episode, then the type of interaction was categorized as communicative. within each unit of interaction, an imitative episode was defined as a period from the moment that the model’s first expressive act started until the completion of the imitator’s last imitative activity. imitation was identified when one individual’s expression (vocal, kinetic, facial or any combination of these), of a form that had not been expressed by either partner in the immediately preceding 10 seconds, is reproduced by his or her partner within a 10-second interval. the response period of 10 seconds has been deemed to be adequate for imitation tests with infants (heimann & ullstadius, 1999; kokkinaki & kugiumutzakis, 2000). within each unit of interaction, both infants’ and grandparents’ emotional expressions before, during and after the imitative episodes were coded. coding of the emotional states was continuous, the onset time of any change in emotion also being the offset time of the previous emotion. continuous coding of a pair of subjects yielded two separate records of emotional expressions and their shifts, one for each communicative partner, throughout the unit of interaction. the coding of the emotional expressions was based on observation and microanalysis (at the level of the second) of five types of facial expressions: pleasure, interest, pleasure-interest, neutral and negative. the pleasure facial expression was coded when the eyes are open, focused and attentive to the partner and the mouth is elongated – closed, slightly open or open in the horizontal plane. the corners of the mouth are slightly pulled back and/or drawn upwards. the lips are slightly or more distinctly stretched causing wrinkles on each side of the mouth and the cheeks are slightly drawn upwards or raised (darwin, 1872/1965; field, woodson, greenberg & cohen, 1982; gerwirtz, 1967, as cited in dunkeld, 1978). the interest facial expression was defined according to eye contact, gaze or orientation to the other partner’s face or body. when one partner is gazing at the other partner’s face or body, interest was signaled by an unsmiling face, with open eyes. the lips are usually open or at other times loosely closed. when the lips are open, the corners of the mouth are slightly downward, with the upper lip in a reversed-u shape, and the lower lip is relaxed or slightly stretched. the infant’s fixed gaze on the partner’s eyes is often accompanied by a shift of gaze from eyes upwards to the hair, down to the mouth (darwin, 1872/1965; dirks & gibson, 1977, as cited in exline, 1982; eibl-eibesfeldt, 1989; tomkins, 1980; trevarthen 1977, 1979). in addition to gaze behavior, one or a combination of the following facial, vocal or body expressions may occur: (a) raised eyebrows; (b) knitted eyebrows; (c) blinking; (d) cooing (for the infant) or other vocalizations (infant, grandparent); (e) pre-speech mouth movements (infant); (f) sequences of intense limb movements followed or preceded by motionless and stretched hand and leg postures (infant), or change of body posture that signifies alertness (grandparent) . the pleasure-interest expression was coded when combinations of expressions of pleasure (1) and interest expressions (2) were evident. for example: (1) facial expression of pleasure was evident at the same time as one europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 536 http://www.psychopen.eu/ or a combination of the following interest expressions: (2a) momentary intense limb movements or sequences of intense limb movements followed or preceded by motionless and stretched hand and leg postures (infant) or change of body posture which indicates alertness [e.g. grandfather is sitting on a chair, or is leaning to the infant, and then he is standing upright, see figure 1.1 to 1.6]; (2b) the infant is looking intently at the partner with wide open eyes and raised eyebrows; (2c) cooing and/or pre-speechmouthmovements (markodimitraki, 2003; pratikaki, 2009). figure 1.1. hand movement imitative episode in grandfather-infant grandchild (girl-7.5 months old) interaction: in the course of eye contact, the grandfather is looking at his infant grandchild with a pleasure-interest expression (smile with raised eye brows) while he is leaning towards her and the infant is grinning to him. figure 1.2. the infant grandchild is raising her right hand while she is looking intently at her grandfather who is still leaning towards her and is focused on her with a facial expression of pleasure. the definition of pleasure-interest expression was based on the following evidence: a) gaze plays a fundamental role in the processing of facial expressions from birth and, at the same time, facial expressions are essential in the encoding of gaze direction (rigato & farroni, 2013); b) oster (1978, as cited in trevarthen, 1985) observed that as the infant orients to a speaking mother’s face in the second month, there is a cycle between an intensely focused “knit brow” expression while the infant fixes the mother’s eyes, and a smile in which the brows relax; c) eye-contact becomes more sustained at 4 to 6 weeks after a full term birth, at the same time as smiles become europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 537 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1.3. the infant grandchild is raising her right hand higher and stretching her fingers while smiling and looking at her grandfather. the grandfather is making a preparatory head movement in order to imitate her with a pleasure-interest expression. figure 1.4. the grandfather is orienting his torso, head and right hand, and is changing his body posture to an upright position, in order to imitate his infant grandchild’s hand movement while he is still smiling. the infant is keeping her right hand up while she is focused on him. stronger and more regular (wolff, 1959, 1963, 1969, as cited in trevarthen, 1985); d) from about 6 weeks infants show positive affective expression linked to maintained eye contact (trevarthen 1977, as cited in trevarthen, 1985); d) “a bright and sparkling eye is as characteristic of a pleased or amused state of mind, as is the retraction of the corners of the mouth…” (darwin, 1872/1965, p. 204). a neutral expression was identified when a partner had an indifferent expression in relation to the other partner’s solicitations to engage in interaction. in other words, one partner was not looking or orienting him/herself to the other partner’s face or body and his/her expression was that of an unsmiling, relaxed face, with no signs of body movements or vocalization or intent to vocalize (such as pre-speech mouth movements). in another situation, neutral was coded when the infant showed signs of self-absorption (looking passively at their own body/parts of the body) or sleepiness (yawning, rubbing eyes). looking away from the partner has been correlated with a europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 538 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1.5. the grandfather is imitating his infant grandchild’s hand movement (see note 1) while he is smiling and has now changed his body posture from leaning to his infant grandchild to standing upright. the infant grandchild is still keeping her right hand up and she is looking intensely at her grandfather. figure 1.6. at the end of the imitative episode, in the course of mutual eye contact, the grandfather is expressing a relaxed “pleasure” emotional state. neutral expression, relaxed brows and closed mouth (murray & trevarthen, 1985). with the neutralization of emotion the “…facial muscles may be relaxed, or they may be held tensely but without any obvious sign of contraction…” (ekman & friesen, 1975, as cited in saarni, 1982, p. 137). neutralization of emotion has been defined as a voluntary attempt to maintain little or no display of emotion (ekman & friesen, 1969, as cited in masters & carlson, 1984). an infant’s negative facial expression was signified by a furrowed brow (lines on the forehead), wrinkles around the eyes and the nose, tight and somewhat protruded lips. the mouth is either open or closed, the corners of the mouth are slightly downward or pulled downward, while the infant is gazing at or away from the parent’s face or europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trunk (field et al., 1982). the denotation of grandparents’ emotional states as “negative” was extremely rare and it was signified by signs of disappointment expressed by verbalization rather than by facial expression. intraand inter-observer reliability measurements were made in reference to the quality and duration of all emotional categories (pratikaki, 2009). to check intra-observer reliability, the first researcher (anastasia pratikaki) analyzed 100% of the recorded data and she re-scored a random sample of 33% of the material after an interval of 2 months following the first coding session and the agreement was assessed using cohen’s kappa. intra-observer reliability scores ranged from 0.82 to 0.89. the mean value of k for all categories was 0.84. given that fleiss (1981) characterizes kappa over 0.75 as excellent, inter-observer reliability was checked in order to overcome the primary researcher’s familiarity with the coding scheme and the hypotheses of this study. towards this aim, an undergraduate student of the faculty of philosophical and social studies was trained in the microanalysis of data and she scored a random sample of 33% of the material. inter-observer reliability between the researcher’s first analysis and the student’s analysis ranged from 0.79 to 0.86. the mean value of k for all categories was 0.82. an “agreement” was counted when the same facial expression of emotion was recorded at times that either overlap, or when both scores were within one of the same three short temporal intervals (1 = 0-0.5 seconds, 2 = 0.51-1.0 second, and 3 = over 1.0 second). a “disagreement” was counted when: (a) one observer recorded one facial expression of emotion and the other didn’t (e.g. one observer scored a pleasure facial expression of emotion and the other didn’t); (b) one observer scored a facial expression of emotion of one valence (e.g. pleasure facial expression which is of positive valence) and the other recorded another facial expression of emotion of the same valence (e.g. pleasure-interest), or another emotional expression of a different valence (e.g. negative); (c) both observers scored the same quality of different durations of emotional expressions, if scores were within different temporal intervals. the difficulty of establishing high inter-observer reliability, when a complicated coding system is used, should be noted. the increased task demands on the rater and the multiple messages of a complex interaction are recognized as two factors that contribute to the difficulty of establishing high inter-observer reliability (bakeman & gottman, 1986). given these constraints, we consider the inter-observer reliability scores given above to be satisfactory. statistical analysis • hypothesis 1 will be tested through the descriptive analysis of grandparents’ and infants’ pleasure, interest, pleasure-interest, neutral and negative expressions before, during and after imitation. • hypothesis 2 will be tested through the chi-square analysis between infants’ and grandparents’ (grandmothers’ and grandfathers’) emotional expressions before, during and after imitation. • hypothesis 3 will be tested through the longitudinal analysis of the (grandparent gender*infant age) interaction effect [(infant age) and (grandparents’ gender) main effects] on emotional expressions along the age range of this study. for the needs of the longitudinal analysis, infant age-range of 2 to 10 months was grouped into three successive age levels: (a) 2 to 3.5 months; (b) 4 to 7.5 months; (c) 8 to 10 months. the selected age levels represent periods of infant development with common social, emotional and motivational features (trevarthen, 2005) corresponding to early, mid and late infancy. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 540 http://www.psychopen.eu/ chi-square tests were used to determine possible relationships between pairs of variables. longitudinal analysis output was carried out by using wilk’s lambda test and a p-value < .05 as the level of statistical significance. within-subjects factors were grandparent gender [two levels (grandfathers and grandmothers)] and infant age [three levels (2-3.5 months, 4-7.5 months and 8-10 months]. homogeneity controls of repeated measures was carried out using the mauchly test and in cases of significant deviation (sphericity problem), assessment of significance was carried out with the appropriate correction of degrees of freedom and the use of the greenhousegeisser correction. all analyses were performed using the spss statistical package (version 13, 2004). results descriptive analysis of grandparent and infant emotional expressions before, during and after spontaneous imitation before imitation, infants’ interest expression, in both interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers (37% in each interaction) (table 1, rows 2, 4), and grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ pleasure-interest expression (48% and 61%, respectively) (rows 1, 3) predominated over the remaining facial expressions of emotion. in the course of imitation, infants’ pleasure-interest expressions, in both interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers (42% and 43%, respectively) (rows 6, 8), and grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ pleasure-interest expressions (65% and 73%, respectively) (rows 5, 7) prevailed over the other emotional expressions. after imitation, infants’ interest expressions, in both interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers (34% and 31%, respectively) (rows 10, 12), and grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ pleasure-interest expressions (48% and 57%) (rows 9, 11) predominated over the remaining emotions. an overall descriptive view of table 1 provides the following evidence: (a) grandparents increased the pleasure-interest expression while single pleasure and interest decreased in the course of imitation. grandparents’ neutral expression remained stable, at low levels, before, during and after imitation. grandfathers weremore interested than grandmothers and grandmothers expressedmore pleasure-interest towards their infant grandchildren, compared to grandfathers; (b) similar patterns of infant grandchildren’s emotional expressions in interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers provided evidence that infant interest predominated over the remaining expressions before imitation, it decreased in the course of it and it increased after it. infants’ pleasure remained stable before and in the course of imitation and decreased slightly after it. infants’ pleasureinterest expression increased in the course of imitation. infants were less neutral in the course of imitation. relationship between infant / grandparent emotional expressions and grandparent gender infants’ emotional expressions were not found to differ significantly in interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers either before (x2 = 2.964, df = 4, p = .564) (table 1, rows 2 and 4), during (x2 = 5.009, df = 4, p = .286) (rows 6 and 8), or after imitation (x2 = 1.780, df = 4, p = .776) (rows 10 and 12). grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ emotional expressions were found to differ significantly before (x2 = 25.302, df = 4, p = .001) (rows 1 and 3), during (x2 = 17.343, df = 3, p = .001) (rows 5 and 7), and after imitation (x2 = 14.399, df = 4, p = .006) (rows 9 and 11), due to higher frequency of grandmothers’ pleasure-interest and grandfathers’ interest expression, compared to grandfathers and grandmothers, respectively. longitudinal analysis of grandparent and infant emotional expressions longitudinal analysis provided the following evidence (table 2): (a) before imitation: infants’ pleasure-interest expressions decreased at the age of 8 to 10 months and, across the age range, grandfathers’ interest expression predominated over grandmothers’ interest expression; (b) in the course of imitation: infants’ pleasure correlated significantly with infant age, even after the appropriate correction of degrees of freedom (greenhouse-geisser europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 541 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 frequencies (percentages) of infant, grandfather (gf) and grandmother (gm) emotional expressions before, during and after imitation totalnegativeneutralpleasure-interestinterestpleasure emotional expressions before imitation grandfather-infant interaction 1. gf (100%)703(0.1%)1(3.0%)21(48%)339(38%)264(11%)78 2. infant (100%)703(2.0%)16(27%)191(15%)107(37%)263(18%)126 grandmother-infant interaction -3. gm (100%)647(3.0%)17(61%)396(26%)170(10%)64 4. infant (100%)647(3.0%)20(24%)157(16%)105(37%)236(20%)129 emotional expressions in the course of imitation grandfather-infant interaction -5. gf (100%)703(2.0%)15(65%)455(26%)183(7%)50 6. infant (100%)703(3.0%)20(15%)103(42%)297(22%)154(18%)129 grandmother-infant interaction -7. gm (1.0%)9(73%)473(17%)111(8%)54 8. infant (100%)647(3.0%)21(11%)71(43%)279(22%)140(21%)136 emotional expressions after imitation grandfather-infant interaction -9. gf (100%)703(4.0%)31(48%)336(35%)249(12%)87 10. infant (100%)703(3.0%)21(27%)188(20%)143(34%)238(16%)113 grandmother-infant interaction 11. gm (100%)647(0.1%)1(2.0%)15(57%)367(31%)199(10%)65 12. infant (100%)647(4.0%)23(29%)187(20%)127(31%)202(17%)108 correction, df = 1.391, f = 7.681, p = .007). this correlation was due to a significant increase in infants’ pleasure at the second age level (4-7.5 months) (see figure 2). table 2 summary table of longitudinal analysis (wilk’s lambda) of grandparent (gp) and infant emotional expressions that preceded, accompanied and followed spontaneous imitation in dyadic grandfatherand grandmother-infant interaction gp gender effectinfant age effectinfant age*gp gender λ-value, f, p-valueλ-value, f, p-valueλ-value, f, p-value emotional expressions before imitation grandparent emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 3.75, .07.78, f(1, 14)= 2.42, .12.72, f(2, 13)= 0.96, .40.87, f(2, 13) interest = 5.71, .03.71, f(1, 14)= 1.50, .25.81, f(2, 13)= 0.34, .71.94, f(2, 13) infant emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 0.22, .64.98, f(1, 14)= 4.23, .03.60, f(2, 13)= 0.91, .42.87, f(2, 13) interest = 0.22, .84.99, f(1, 14)= 1.15, .34.84, f(2, 13)= 0.91, .35.85, f(2, 13) emotional expressions in the course of imitation grandparent emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 2.32, .15.85, f(1, 14)= 0.974, .40.87, f(2, 13)= 1.16, .34.84, f(2, 13) interest = 5.70, .03.71, f(1, 14)= 0.009, .99.99, f(2, 13)= 2.19, .15.74, f(2, 13) pleasure = 1.33, .26.91, f(1, 14)= 1.369, .28.82, f(2, 13)= 1.24, .31.83, f(2, 13) europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 542 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gp gender effectinfant age effectinfant age*gp gender λ-value, f, p-valueλ-value, f, p-valueλ-value, f, p-value infant emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 1.51, .23.90, f(1, 14)= 1.079, .36.85, f(2, 13)= 0.41, .66.94, f(2, 13) interest = 1.33, .08.91, f(1, 14)= 2.655, .10.71, f(2, 13)= 0.11, .89.98, f(2, 13) pleasure = 1.93, .18.87, f(1, 14)= 15.626, p < .001.29, f(2, 13)= 2.83, .09.69, f(2, 13) neutral = 5.98, .028.7, f(1, 14)= 0.79, .47.89, f(2, 13)= 0.30, .74.95, f(2, 13) emotional expressions after imitation grandparent emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 2.70, .12.83, f(1, 14)= 10.97, .002.37, f(2, 13)= 0.76, .48.89, f(2, 13) interest = 6.28, .02.69, f(1, 14)= 1.90, .18.77, f(2, 13)= 0.17, .83.97, f(2, 13) pleasure = 0.21, .64.98, f(1, 14)= 2.67, .10.70, f(2, 13)= 0.46, .63.93, f(2, 13) infant emotional expressions pleasure-interest = 0.08, .77.99, f (1, 14)= 4.76, .02.57, f(2, 13)= 1.76, .21.78, f(2, 13) interest = 0.69, .41.95, f(1, 14)= 2.18, .15.74, f(2, 13)= 0.24, .78.95, f(2, 13) pleasure = 1.82, .19.88, f(1, 14)= 4.74, .02.57, f(2, 13)= 1.24, .32.83, f(2, 13) figure 2. developmental curves of infant pleasure expression (frequency) in dyadic grandfather and grandmother-infant grandchild interaction across the 2nd to the 10th month of an infant’s life. the significant (grandparent gender) correlations with (a) grandparent interest and (b) infant neutral expression were due to the evidence that: (1) grandfathers were more interested in interaction with their infant grandchildren, compared to grandmothers, across the age range (see figure 3); (2) infants were more neutral in interactions with their grandfathers, compared to grandmothers, particularly at the first age level (2 to 3.5 months); (c) after imitation: infant and grandparent pleasure-interest expressions decreased at the age of 8 to 10 months though infant and grandparent pleasure increased across the age range of this study, even after the appropriate europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 543 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. developmental curves of adult (grandparent) interest expression (frequency) in dyadic grandfather and grandmother-infant grandchild interaction across the 2nd to the 10th month of an infant’s life. correction of degrees of freedom (infant pleasure: greenhouse-geisser correction, df = 1.46, f = 5.19, p = 0.02; grandparent pleasure: greenhouse-geisser correction, df = 1.32, f = 4.79, p = 0.03). across the age range, grandfathers’ interest expression predominated over grandmothers’ interest expression. discussion the aim of this study was to describe and compare grandparents’ and infants’ facial expressions of emotions that precede, accompany and follow spontaneous imitation in dyadic grandfatherand grandmother-infant grandchild imitation from the 2nd to the 10th month of an infant’s life. the results of this study can be summarized as follows: (a) grandparents increased the pleasure-interest expression while single pleasure and interest decreased in the course of imitation. grandparents’ neutral expression remained stable, at low levels, before, during and after imitation. grandfathers were more interested than grandmothers and grandmothers expressed more pleasure-interest towards their infant grandchildren, compared to grandfathers. (b) similar patterns of infant grandchildren’s emotional expressions in interactions with grandfathers and grandmothers provided evidence that infant interest predominated over the remaining expressions before imitation, it decreased in the course of it and it increased after it. infants’ pleasure remained stable before and in the course of imitation and decreased slightly after it. infants’ pleasure-interest expression increased while their neutral expression decreased in the course of imitation. infants were more neutral in interactions with their grandfathers, compared to grandmothers, particularly at the first age level (2 to 3.5 months). (c) infant age correlated with certain infants’ and grandparents’ emotional expressions. this evidence verified the first (for the most part), second and third hypothesis of this study. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 544 http://www.psychopen.eu/ evidence of infants’ pleasure stability before and during imitation did not verify part of the first hypothesis of this study and is not consistent with infants’ pleasure increase found by markodimitraki (2003). this inconsistency may be due to differences in the methodology (sample size, video-recording duration) and in the descriptive analysis. furthermore, infant interest expression before imitation confirms the evidence of experimental and naturalistic studies that the infant may become attentive before he/she makes a matching expression (field et al., 1982; heimann, 1989; heimann & schaller, 1985; kugiumutzakis, 1983, 1985; maratos, 1973; meltzoff & moore, 1983). after the model presentation, the pleasure expression of infants as young as 2 months old, is consistent with the first appearance of a smile in 2-day-old infants and at 15 days of age (kugiumutzakis, 1999).the evidence that infants and grandparents find imitative exchanges interesting and pleasurable extends to the first generation and confirms kugiumutzakis’ proposition (1999; kugiumutzakis et al., 2005) and kokkinaki’s (1998) findings that the prevailing emotions felt by the infant and parents before, during and after the intersubjective imitative game are those of interest and pleasure. the predominance of grandparents’ and infants’ positive emotional expressions over neutral/negative ones before, during and after spontaneous imitation seems to reinforce the empirical evidence that both grandmothers and grandfathers are communicative partners in relation to infant grandchildren (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013a, 2013b; kokkinaki et al., 2012; pratikaki et al., 2011; trevarthen, 1979). in particular, it has been assumed that: (a) after the presentation of the model and before the first correct imitative response, the infant has to try to perceive the model clearly (kugiumutzakis, 1999). this assumption integrates the infants’ interest expression in the course of imitation (see definition of imitative episode in coding), which indicates that an active readiness for sympathetic reciprocal involvement with another person is an essential component of the ability to imitate (trevarthen, 1997). the expression of interest, both by infants and grandparents, before and during imitation reinforces the view that interest is present and functional on an inter-mental level before and on an intra-mental level during imitation (kugiumutzakis, 1999). (b) the infant must also discriminate the self and the other as two separate persons coexisting in the same three-dimensional space, both involved within an interacting unit. in the course of imitation, in interactions between infants and grandmothers, infant pleasure, interest and pleasure-interest was expressed in 21%, 22% and 43% of all imitative episodes, respectively. grandmothers were pleased, interested or pleasedinterested in 8%, 17% and 73%, respectively. similarly, in interactions between infants with their grandfathers, infants expressed pleasure, interest and pleasure-interest in 18%, 22% and 42%, respectively, of all imitative episodes. grandfathers were pleased, interested or pleased-interested in 7%, 26% and 65%, respectively, of all imitative episodes (table 1). taking into account all the possible combinations between the infants’ and the grandparents’ emotional expressions, we may conclude (theoretically) that, in the course of imitation, when infants interact in dyads with their grandmothers and their grandfathers they either match their positive emotions (that is, both express pleasure, or interest, or pleasure-interest), or one completes the emotional expressions of the other (that is, one is expressing pleasure while the other is expressing interest, and vice versa, or one is expressing pleasure-interest while the other is expressing pleasure or interest). if this theoretical consideration is verified empirically, it would reinforce the evidence, and thus apply to grandfathers as well, that infants and grandmothers adjust the timing, form and energy of their expressions to obtain inter-synchrony (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013a, 2013b). (c) infants’ and grandparents’ interest expressions during and after imitation are integrated in the assumption that the recognition of the modelled movement and sounds as incomplete may evoke the emotion of interest. differences between the model and the reproduction, after the end of imitation, may constitute not errors but significant information in their cooperation (trevarthen et al., 1999). this is consistent with the view that imitation is the result of activity of an investigative motive system that seeks another who will complete or satisfy it in dynamic europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 545 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ways (trevarthen, 1997). grandparents’ and infants’ pleasure expressions verify the proposition that infant’s imitation is treated by an affectionate partner to be a signal of recognition of the other (like a smile) as a partner for intersubjective games that evoke the pleasure of being together (kugiumutzakis, 1999; trevarthen, 1997). these assumptions need further exploration through the analysis of the relationship between infants’ and grandparents’ emotional expressions depending the direction of imitation1 (who imitates whom). this study provided evidence that grandmothers’ pleasure-interest expression and grandfathers’ interest preceded, accompanied and followed imitation (longitudinally for grandfathers’ interest) more frequently than grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ respective expression. this evidence challenges the results that in rural and urban greece, grandmothers were more caring than grandfathers (pashos, 2000) and that in rural gambia male kin, including maternal grandfathers, have a negligible impact on the child’s nutritional status and survival (sear et al., 2000; sear & mace, 2008). furthermore, this evidence is not in accordance with the conventional profile of grandfathers according to which they have peripheral, distant or limited involvement with their grandchildren (baranowski, 1991; burly-cunningham, 1984, as cited in waldrop et al., 1999). at the same time, we provided evidence that infants were more neutral in interactions with their grandfathers, particularly at the first age level (2 to 3.5 months). it may be that grandmothers are more experienced, more composed and more familiar with the care giving needs of their infant grandchildren, thus better able to focus on and enjoy the “unfolding” of infant grandchildren’s expressions in a more relaxed and confident way. in contrast, due to embarrassment and anxiety, grandfathers (tinsley & parke, 1987) initially trigger infants’ neutral expression. furthermore, two cultural elements of crete, those being distrust towards outsiders (researcher) and the distinction between male and female roles (legg & roberts, 1997, as cited in terkenli et al., 2007), may cause a camera shot effect (real-time recordings) in the first video-recordings of grandfathers interacting with their grandchildren in the cretan society of heraklion. infants’ neutral expression in these initial interactions with grandfathers may be counterbalanced longitudinally with the intense attention of grandfathers to infants’ expressive behaviors and their (grandfathers’) eager imitation of infants’ expressions, with the intention of continuing interaction (pratikaki et al., 2011). the mean duration of the components of imitation (model, pause, imitation and total duration) reinforces this interpretation since the pause duration before imitation is shorter in grandfather-infant interaction (0.87 secs), thus grandfathers wait less, when compared to grandmotherinfant interaction (0.97 secs) (pratikaki et al., 2011). this evidence needs to be further investigated according to infant gender because it may be that grandfathers, similarly to fathers, use more cognitively challenging expressions with boys than with girls and encourage them, more than they do girls, to control their emotions (leaper, anderson, & sanders, 1998). this study brought evidence for correlations of infant age with certain infant emotional expressions that preceded, accompanied and followed spontaneous imitation in grandparent-infant interaction. the changes in the developmental curves of infant pleasure, in the course of imitation, and pleasure-interest expression, that preceded and followed imitation, are integrated in the assumption that imitation has dynamic intersubjective regulatory functions from the beginning of human interactive life. however, the message it conveys changes as the infant motives undergo age-related developments. the increase in infant pleasure at the age of 4 to 7.5 months may reflect the development in range and vigour of attending and acting in the period of games (4 to 8 months) when “teasing” provocations multiply compared to earlier weeks (trevarthen et al., 1999). the decrease in infants’ pleasure-interest expression at the age of 8 to 10 months may be attributed to brain development, under-structured by the emotional quality of motive interchanges that occur at the end of the games period, around the eighth month, and signify secondary intersubjectivity. the decrease in pleasure-interest expression may be counterbalanced by the most striking feature of this communicative perspective which is the systematic combination of infants’ interests in the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 emotions in grandparent–infant interaction 546 http://www.psychopen.eu/ physical world and their communicative acts addressed to other persons (trevarthen, 1993; trevarthen & hubley, 1978). in connection to this, the non-significant decrease in the frequency of infant imitations in the course of the 8th to 10th month (kokkinaki et al., 2012) further reinforces the assumption that imitation constitutes the most “dramatic” connection between endogenous motives (that take a recognizable form as emotions) and intentionality (expressive behaviors) (trevarthen, 1977, 1997). our conclusions are limited in a number of ways. these data describe the imitative exchanges in a restricted sample of greek white middle-class infants and their grandparents who are in close proximity to their infant grandchildren and adult children. these data are based on a relatively short time period with respect to the total interaction time spent between grandparent and infant grandchildren. obviously, generalization of these findings to a larger sample, observed for longer periods that would include interactions between grandparents and infants living at a distance and belonging to other socio-economic and cultural populations, is limited. moreover, given that a theory of grandparenthood per se has not been advanced (thomas et al., 2000), we interpreted our results based on a developmental perspective and we supported the inter-subjective nature of early imitation in the absence of statistical analysis of the relationship between infants’ and grandparents’ emotional expressions depending on the direction of imitation. in sum, this study has provided evidence that grandparents’ and infants’ positive emotional expressions, before, during and after imitation, imply an active readiness for sympathetic reciprocal involvement, adjustment of the timing, the form and the energy of their expressions. grandparents’ and infants’ emotional expressions that accompany spontaneous imitation provide evidence of an investigative motive system that seeks another who will complete or satisfy it in dynamic ways, and are a sign of recognition of the other as a partner for intersubjective games. acknowledgements the present study is based on data derived from the phd of the first author under the supervision of professor giannis kugiumutzakis. we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of professor giannis kugiumutzakis for his invaluable advice, associate professor giasemi sarafidou for the statistical analysis and assistant professor ioannis germanakis for his support. above all, we are deeply indebted to the infants and the grandparents for offering their time, cooperation and patience to participate in the study. notes 1) the direction of imitation (who imitates whom) has been assumed to contribute to grandparent-infant communication. there is evidence that, from the 2nd to the 10th month of an infants’ life, grandmothers and grandfathers tend to imitate the grandchild’s behaviors (61%) more than vice versa (39%) (pratikaki et al., 2011). it may be that infants compensate or counter balance for the predominance of grandparents over infant imitation by matching their emotional expressions to their partners’, more than vice versa. this is integrated in the assumption that human communication is regulated by an integrated system of equivalent expressions in which responses are complementary translations of the partners’ expressions (trevarthen, 1993). references bakeman, r., & gottman, j. m. 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(1999). what infants’ imitations communicate: with mothers, with fathers and with peers. in j. nadel & g. butterworth (eds.), imitation in infancy: progress and prospects of current research (pp. 127-185). cambridge: cambridge university press. waldrop, d. p., weber, j. a., herald, s. l., pruett, j., cooper, k., & juozapavicius, k. (1999). wisdom and life experience: how grandfathers mentor their grandchildren. journal of aging and identity, 4(1), 33-46. doi:10.1023/a:1022834825849 about the authors anastasia pratikaki received her phd in developmental psychology from the department of philosophy and social sciences, university of crete, under the supervision of professor giannis kugiumutzakis (2009). since 2007, she has held a permanent teaching position at the experimental high school of heraklion. she has previously published in early child development and care. theano kokkinaki received her phd from the university of edinburgh (1998) under the supervision of professor colwyn treavarthen. she is an assistant professor of developmental psychology in the department of psychology, university of crete (greece). her research interests concern the systematic study of interpersonal dynamics in infant-parent and grandparent interactions in several cultural contexts as well as twins interactions and triadic interactions between family members. she has 33 publications in greek and international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in books in the field of infant development and intersubjective communication. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 531–551 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.553 pratikaki & kokkinaki 551 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1022834825849 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions in grandparent–infant interaction introduction design and method subjects procedure coding statistical analysis results descriptive analysis of grandparent and infant emotional expressions before, during and after spontaneous imitation relationship between infant / grandparent emotional expressions and grandparent gender longitudinal analysis of grandparent and infant emotional expressions discussion acknowledgments notes references about the authors confidant relations in italy research reports confidant relations in italy jenny isaacs*a, francesca soglianb, edward hoffmana [a] department of psychology, yeshiva university, new york, ny, usa. [b] mib school of management, university of trieste, trieste, italy. abstract confidants are often described as the individuals with whom we choose to disclose personal, intimate matters. the presence of a confidant is associated with both mental and physical health benefits. in this study, 135 italian adults responded to a structured questionnaire that asked if they had a confidant, and if so, to describe various features of the relationship. the vast majority of participants (91%) reported the presence of a confidant and regarded this relationship as personally important, high in mutuality and trust, and involving minimal lying. confidants were significantly more likely to be of the opposite sex. participants overall were significantly more likely to choose a spouse or other family member as their confidant, rather than someone outside of the family network. familial confidants were generally seen as closer, and of greater value, than non-familial confidants. these findings are discussed within the context of italian culture. keywords: confidant, social support, social relations, italian culture, marital relations, family, disclosure europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 received: 2014-03-10. accepted: 2014-10-26. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, yeshiva university, 2495 amsterdam ave, new york, ny 10033. e-mail: jisaacs@yu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there is a long history of studying close relationships in humans. one of the most distinguishing features of a close relationship is a high level of self-disclosure (parks & floyd, 1996). the term confidant is often used to describe the select individual(s) whom one trusts in sharing important personal matters. indeed, self-disclosure is the key feature of a confidant relationship. over the past three decades, behavioral research has verified a measurable link between the presence of a confidant and individual wellness. the range of studies has been wide: from drug abuse and depression among american and canadian teenagers (nomaguchi, 2008) to condom use among young mexican men (maclean, 2005). indeed, a large body of empirical work has supported the notion that, starting at an early age, there are a plethora of negative psychological, behavioral, and social outcomes associated with friendlessness or poor quality friends (bagwell, schmidt, newcomb, & bukowski, 2001; hartup, 1996; hartup & stevens, 1999; ladd & troop-gordon, 2003; salmivalli & isaacs, 2005). research has demonstrated that people who report having a confidant have better overall health, and are less likely to suffer from a variety of chronic medical problems, such as cardiovascular impairment (dickens, 2004), hypertension (holt-lunstad, jones, & birmingham 2008; thomas, 1997; thomas, smucker, & droppelman, 1998), and asthma (wainwright, surtees, wareham, & harrison, 2007; see cohen, 2004 for a comprehensive view). the lack of a confidant is also associated with greater risk for addiction (farrell, barnes, & banerjee, 1995), both anxiety and depression (newton et al., 2008; vinokur & van ryn, 1993), deliberate self-harm (webb, 2002) and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ suicide (leverich, perez, luckenbaugh, & post 2002), and puts individuals at a disadvantage when trying to cope with life stressors (brown, 1980). in an investigation of british obesity and functional health, researchers estimated that the absence of a confidant reduced the functional capacity of women by five years and four years for men (surtees, wainwright, & khaw, 2004). in one of the few large cross-cultural studies published on confidants, von dem knesebeck and geyer (2007) investigated emotional support and health in 22 european countries. although a definite majority of individuals in every country reported having a confidant, the percentages varied considerably—from only 77% in italy to over 95% in germany, norway, and switzerland. across the atlantic ocean in canada, turner (1994) found that 90% of individuals reported having a confidant. this statistic was strikingly similar to what von dem knesebeck and geyer calculated for those living in the uk, whose ancestors settled canadamore than two centuries ago. similarly, we find that in countries as distinct as brazil and taiwan, the rates of men and women indicating they have a confidant ranges from 82% to over 98% (hoffman, nishimura, isaacs, & kaneshiro, 2013; hoffman, nishimura, resende, & isaacs, 2012). the current study focuses on confidants among italian adults. the mere presence of a confidant has been associated with better health outcomes among italians (von dem knesebeck & geyer, 2007). however, further identifying features of the confidant relationship in italy may shed greater light on the nature of this special relationship. gender and the confidant relationship results from a recent study of confidant relations among brazilians (hoffman et al., 2012) indicated that women were more likely than men to report having a current confidant, with both sexes being significantly more likely to have a female rather than a male as their primary confidant. it is not surprising that more women than men had a confidant and that females were the dominant sex of the confidants identified. these sex-related findings are consistent with developmental research from three separate but interfacing domains: 1) as early as preschool age, girls engage in more active help-seeking behavior than boys, and that help-seeking is a vital feature of maintaining a confidant bond (benenson & koulnazarian, 2008; garland & zigler, 1994); 2) by middle childhood if not earlier, girls demonstrate greater empathy than do boys, and that empathy is a key aspect of this close relationship (baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004; vaswani, 2011); and, 3) by late childhood, if not earlier, girls exhibit greater self-disclosure than do boys, and that self-disclosure is another salient feature of the confidant relationship (dindia & allen, 1992; vangelisti & caughlin, 1997). also, adulthood relationships between males tend to be less intimate than those between females (see reis, senchak, & solomon, 1985). further cross-cultural evidence can be drawn from the tendency of male, norwegian soldiers to prefer to confide in their female colleagues than their male counterparts, even though the military is a highly gendered institution (gustavsen, 2013), and from the role of west african women traders as communal confidant and advisor (lo, 2013). italian culture has been described as one of the more "masculine" societies in the world, characterized by strong expectations of gender differences, with females being deemed as the more nurturing of the two sexes (hofstede, 1983). thus, the discrepancy between males and females regarding the presence of a confidant, as well as the preference for female confidants, may be particularity salient among italians. relationship features and positive social outcomes there is evidence that it is honesty, rather than the sheer amount or depth of disclosure, that is predictive of friendship quality (brewer, abell, & lyons, 2013). across the lifespan, interpersonal trust is also regarded as a europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 isaacs, soglian, & hoffman 51 http://www.psychopen.eu/ critical facet of adults’ and children’s social relationships (rotenberg, 1991; rotter, 1980). the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships is thought to largely depend on the ability to trust the partner in a relationship. trust has been identified as one of the strongest predictors of friendship quality among children (jones, 1991) and both marital satisfaction and longevity among adults (kurdek, 2002). a lack of trust in close relationships with friends and family is associated with social anxiety and depressive symptomatology (starr & davila, 2008), as well as low self-esteem (wissink, deković, & meijer, 2009). the importance of close relationships may also play a central role in the positive outcomes associated with them. for example, the rather robust relation between close friendship and happiness is largely mediated by the notion that we are important to our friend (demir, özen, doğan, bilyk, & tyrell, 2011). in addition, proximity is another key feature that helps aid the formation and maintenance of relationships (preciado, snijders, burk, stattin, & kerr, 2012) and impacts the frequency of interpersonal exchanges (latané, liu, nowak, bonevento, & zheng, 1995; verbrugge, 1983). finally, the frequency of contact in friendships is predictive of more social trust, less stress, better health, and an increased chance of receiving help from a friend (van der horst & coffé, 2012). it may be important to explore relationship features such as trust, honesty, importance of the relationship, proximity, and frequency of contact, specifically within the context of the confidant relationship, in view of the positive outcomes associated them. confidants and the italian family italian families are often quite intimate. during adolescence italian children tend to maintain more frequent and longer contact with parents and siblings, and less contact with friends, compared to adolescents in other western countries (claes, 1998). in addition, compared to other adolescents, they are more likely to confide in members of their nuclear family about intimate matters and to name a parent (rather than a friend or romantic partner) as the person with whom they felt closest (claes, 1998). this finding suggests that even during the period of life thought to represent a period of transition away from the family and towards peers, the family continues to occupy a central, intimate role in the lives of many italians. there is evidence that this pattern is often perpetuated through early adulthood. many young adult children continue to live with their nuclear family for a protracted period due to costly and extended undergraduate study, limited vocational training opportunities, under and unemployment, and cultural customs that disproportionately affect young adults in italy (cook & furstenberg, 2002). these factors may induce a further strengthening of intimate ties among many italian families and extend well into adulthood. in addition, when adult children in italy do leave the home, it is often for the purpose of marriage, thereby transitioning from the family of origin to the marital family (see lanz & tagliabue, 2007). italian adults may therefore be more likely to choose a family member (including a spouse) as their primary confidant, and regard this bond as more intimate than if involving a non-familial confidant, due to the dynamics of italian familial life. the current study the focus of this study was to examine features of the confidant relationship among italian adults. given the previous literature examining confidant relations and gender differences in intimate relationships, it is hypothesized that a vast majority of participants will have a confidant but females will be more likely than males to have a confidant. furthermore, both males and females will be more likely to have a female confidant than a male confidant. based on the previous literature examining the central features of many close relationships, it is also hypothesized that confidant relationships will be seen as important and will evidence a high level of trust, honesty, mutuality, and frequent contact. furthermore, due to the intimate nature of familial relations in italy, it is hypothesized that europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 confidant relations 52 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants will be more likely to choose a family member as their confidant, compared to someone outside of the family. in addition, participants who choose a family member as a confidant will be closer to that person and value that person more compared to those who choose a confidant outside of the family. much of the current literature focuses almost exclusively on the correlates of having a confidant relationship and fails to uncover exactly who these confidants are. unlike other areas of study (e.g., childhood friendships, romantic relationships), the area of adult confidant relationships has not benefited from a history of rich descriptive analysis. furthermore, given that the nature of interpersonal relationships can be quite culturally imbedded, results from this study may help expand upon the meager literature that examines this intimate relationship from a specific cultural lens. method participants and procedure a total of 135 adults completed a structured questionnaire (79 females, 56 males), either electronically or on paper (95 and 40 participants, respectively). slightly over half of the participants (n = 70) indicated they we currently married. a vast majority of the participants resided in northern italy (132) and only three were from southern italy. their overall mean age was 41.97 years old (ranging from 19 to 75). participants were recruited electronically or in person by the second author. all participants were informed of the voluntary nature and purpose of the questionnaire prior to being completing it. the participants were kept anonymous and the questionnaire took approximately 10 to 20 minutes to complete. measures the survey administered was adapted from prior work examining confidant relationships (hoffman et al., 2012; hoffman et al., 2013). due to the fact that this was the first italian sample to ever complete this survey, it was translated from english to italian and then back translated independently by two persons proficient in both english and italian. the questionnaire opened with the following question, "do you have someone now in your life with whom you share important personal matters? if your answer was no, thank you for your participation. if you have more than one, think of the person you consider your closest or best confidant and answer these questions." those who reported having a confidant then proceeded to answer a series of questions. included in this questionnaire were questions about the participant's sex and age, the confidant’s sex and age, if he or she was a relative (and if so, the nature of the relation), if he or she lived within 15 minutes by car, and if the confidant also reciprocally shared personal information. participants were also asked when was the last time they spoke with their confidant and responses were coded as "today," "not today but within the week," and "more than a week ago." participants were asked to rate how important the relationship was using a three-point scale ranging from one (“not very important”) to three (“very important”). in addition, they indicated how much they trusted their confidant using a three point scale ranging from one ("50%") to three ("100%")". finally, they reported on how often they lied to their confidant on a four-point scale ranging from one (“never”) to four (“often"). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 isaacs, soglian, & hoffman 53 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results as anticipated, participants overwhelmingly reported the presence of a confidant (91.9%). although the results were marginal, italian women (94.9%) were more likely than men (85.7%) to have a confidant, χ2(1, n = 135) = 3.44, p = .06. table 1 displays the breakdown of confidant sex, based on the sex of the participant. as hypothesized, italian men were significantly more likely to have a female confidant rather than a male confidant, χ2(1, n = 48) = 21.33, p <.001. in contrast, females were significantly more likely to have a male confidant rather than a female confidant, χ2(1, n = 75) = 14.52, p < .001. the cross-sex preference may be accounted for by married individuals choosing their opposite-sex spouses. indeed, married males and females did show a significant cross-sex preference, χ2(1, n = 27) = 23.15, p < .001; χ2(1, n = 39) = 18.69, p < .001; respectively. single males and females did not show this preference, χ2(1, n = 21) = 2.33, p = .13; χ2(1, n = 36) = 1.00, p = .32; respectively. in addition, married individuals were significantly more likely to choose their spouse (70.1%) than someone who was not their spouse (29.9%); χ2(1, n = 77) = 12.48, p < .001. table 1 breakdown of confidant sex based on marital status and sex of the participant sex of confidant sex of participants % females% males all men .383.716 women .028.072 single men .766.333 women .741.358 married men .396.73 women .415.684 overall, the confidant relationship tended to have many positive features. it was generally viewed as personally important, high in mutuality and trust, and involving minimal lying. in fact, 96% of participants indicated that the confidant relationship was reciprocal. in addition, most individuals (91.9%) rated the relationship as "very important" to them, 8.1% rated it as "somewhat important", and no one rated it as "not very important", χ2(1, n = 123) = 86.3, p < .001. a substantial majority (78.9%) said they trusted their confidant 100%, 18.7% said they trusted them 75%, and only 2.4% said they trusted their confidant just 50%, χ2(2,n = 123) = 119.6, p < .001. finally, participants were significantly more likely to "never" or "rarely" lie to their confidant (90.2%), compared to "sometimes" or "often" lie (9.8%), χ2(1, n = 123) = 79.6, p < .001. confidants also tended to speak fairly frequently to one another. three quarters of individuals (74.4%) indicated they spoke with their confidant the same day as the survey, 24.5% had not talked today but had talked within the last week, and only 4.1% indicated that they had last spoken to their confidant more than a week ago, χ2(2, n = 99) = 70.12, p < .001. individuals who had spoken to the confidants the same day were significantly more likely to believe their confidant relationship was reciprocal, χ2(2, n = 98) = 22.80, p < .001; important, χ2(2, n = 98) = europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 confidant relations 54 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 11.62, p < .01; and based on 100% trust, χ2(4, n = 98) = 22.63, p < .001. the reverse pattern was also evident for individuals who had not spoken to their confidants for over a week. those who indicated that they had not had contact with their confidant for over a week disproportionally reported often lying to them, χ2(6, n = 99) = 14.09, p < .05. overall, this suggests that very frequent contact with a confidant is associated with more positive relationship features. significantly more people choose spouses or other family members (64.2%), compared to individuals outside of the family (35.8%), as their confidants, χ2(1, n = 135) = 9.96, p < .01. nearly 70% of familial selections were spouses, with relatively few choosing either a parent (10.4%) or a child (5.2%). compared to those who selected non-familial confidants, individuals who chose family members tended to be older, t(121) = 2.45, p < .05, and to have an older confidant, t(119) = 2.58, p < .05. those who chose familial confidants were also more likely to be married than single, with the reverse being true for those who had a non-familial confidant, χ 2(1, n = 128) = 6.22, p < .05. understandably, participants with familial confidants were more likely to live less than 15 minutes away by car from them, χ 2(1, n = 123) = 40.83, p < .001, more likely to have spoken to their confidant on the day of the survey, and less likely to have last spoken to them later on in the week or more than a week ago, χ 2(1, n = 98) = 15.62, p < .001. in addition to these potential markers of closeness, confidants who were family members were valued as significantly more important than confidants outside of the family, χ 2(1, n = 123) = 91.87, p < .01, and were trusted more, χ 2(2, n = 121) = 119.61, p < .01. see table 2 for comparisons of participants who did or did not choose a family member as their confidant. table 2 characteristics of participants who choose a familial or non-familial confidant non-familial confidantfamilial confidantcharacteristic marital statusa single .4%62.7%38 married .3%32.1%58 distance apart by car ≤ 15 minutes .1%26.5%64 > 15 minutes .9%73.5%35 importance of relationship not very .5%5.0%0 some-what .1%45.3%13 very .5%49.7%88 last time spoke today .2%51.0%86 this week .0%39.0%14 > a week ago .8%9.0%0 level of trust in confidant 50% .3%2.5%2 75% .1%34.1%10 100% .6%63.3%87 apercentages do not add to 100 percent because approximately 5% of participants chose a marital status other than married or single. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 isaacs, soglian, & hoffman 55 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in this study, a vast majority of italian adults (91%) identified a current confidant in their lives. as this percentage was higher than the number (77%) reported by von dem knesebeck and geyer (2007), it may reflect the fact that our investigation could have included a smaller percentage of elderly participants; this is a demographic at greater risk of lacking a confidant, partially due to death among the similar age individuals, especially spouses, that are often selected as confidants (sijuwade, 1994). confidant characteristics it is clear that the quality of confidant relations in italy was highly positive. participants generally seemed to maintain frequent verbal contact and overwhelmingly described the relationship as both reciprocal and personally important. they also reported high levels of trust and limited amounts of lying. such positive features are particularly noteworthy because relationship quality has been found to be a key factor in determining positive outcomes from a social relationship (bradbury, fincham, & beach, 2000; halford, kelly, & markman, 1997; walker, hart, & lajoie, 2007). for example, low quality, conflict-ridden relationships may actually have deleterious psychological effects on its constituents (hawkins & booth, 2005). not unexpectedly in the italian social context, we found that familial confidants were regarded as significantly closer emotionally than confidants from outside the family. this finding may reflect the strong ties that often still exist within the modern italian family (sgritta, 1988). even as marital instability becomes more pervasive in many areas of europe, italian marriages continue to be relatively more resilient (vignoli & ferro, 2009). however, in light of the strong parentchild bonds extant in italian culture (reher, 1998), it was somewhat surprising that neither parents nor adult children were often selected by our sample as the primary confidant. one explanation may be that a majority of participants were over 40 years old and had likely moved out of their parents’ homes. quite possibly, too, italian parental ability to withhold valuable emotional and financial resources from their adult children (rosina & fraboni, 2004) may discourage their disclosure of emotionally sensitive material, in order to avoid parental disapproval. furthermore, concerning the older participants, the added possibility exists that one or both parents were deceased. the fact that a majority of our sample were married and past the phase of young adulthood might have led to having more opportunities to view their grown child as a confidant, but this situation was rare. perhaps it would have been more pronounced in a more elderly sample, especially given that adult children are often chosen as confidants among widows (wenger & jerrome, 1999). as we predicted, females were somewhat more likely than males to report a confidant, and males were more likely to choose a female. however, females were not more likely to choose other females as their primary confidant. this finding seems to be partially due to the tendency of individuals to identify their spouse as primary confidant. female preference for female confidants might be more salient during either early adulthood (prior to marriage), or old age, when husbands are more likely to have significant mental or physical impairments or be deceased. consistent with their counterparts in wales (wenger & jerrome, 1999), married individuals in italy are far more likely to choose their spouse as their confidant. this finding is understandable given that self-disclosure to one’s spouse is a key feature of a successful marriage (clark & lemay, 2010; hendrick, 1981). family in italian culture although there has been a shift in the centrality of marriage in many countries over the last few decades, this shift may not be as pronounced in italy as it is in many other european countries (luciano et al., 2012; rosina & fraboni, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 confidant relations 56 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2004). for example, rosina and fraboni argued that although the age of marriage is shifting upward in italy, its crucial role as a major life transition is nevertheless still apparent among italians. for instance, the act of permanently leaving one’s parental home is more frequently associated with marriage in italy than in many other western countries. the role of family, in general, may be particularly important in the lives of italians. as reviewed in rosina and fraboni, not only do parents maintain strong emotional ties even after their children enter adulthood, they also often maintain both financial and residential closeness to their adult children. for example, it is not uncommon for parents to financial assist their child (e.g., purchase their first house) and often family members continue to live in close proximity to one another, even in adulthood. close familial relationships, coupled with the continued belief that marriage is a fundamental value, may explain why the italians in this study were more likely individuals from other countries, such as taiwan and brazil (hoffman et al., 2012; hoffman et al., 2013), to select a family member as their primary confidant. limitations and future studies the present study captured only a single snapshot in the lives of italian adults. future studies would benefit from following the role of the confidant relationship among italians over their lifespan. the changing dynamics of relationships may be especially salient in contemporary italy, where many people are making a slow transition away from a traditional family structure (luciano et al., 2012; rosina & fraboni, 2004). previous longitudinal studies, such as the bangor (wales) longitudinal study of ageing (wenger & jerrome, 1999), have revealed interesting developmental changes that occurred in confident relations among the elderly. moreover, a more detailed exploration among different age groups might yield a more developmentally sensitive understanding of the confidant relationship among italians. another possible limitation is the primarily descriptive nature of the current study. nevertheless, results from this study have the potential to advance the field in describing this valuable relationship. in light of the paucity of empirical information on the characteristics of confidants, we hope that this study will help serve as a springboard for more complex evaluations regarding the nature of this relationship and encourage exploration that is couched within varying cultural contexts. future studies may also benefit from utilizing more complex measurements that provide a greater range of coverage by including multi-item scales. despite these limitations, the current study helps to shed light on the confidant relationship among adults in italy. our findings reinforce the conception that its constituents regard their bond as both positive and important, and also affirm the centrality of the family in italian social life today. in contrast to cultures like china’s, in which emotional intimacy in marriage has traditionally taken a backseat to enqing, the practice of expressing gratitude and admiration between spouses (chen & li, 2007), contemporary italy seems to have retained the value of keeping the marital partner in particular as the primary target of trusted, intimate disclosure. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 isaacs, soglian, & hoffman 57 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bagwell, c. l., schmidt, m. e., newcomb, a. f., & bukowski, w. m. 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(1999). change and stability in confidant relationships: findings from the bangor longitudinal study of ageing. journal of aging studies, 13(3), 269-294. doi:10.1016/s0890-4065(99)80097-8 wissink, i. b., deković, m., & meijer, a. m. (2009). adolescent friendship relations and developmental outcomes: ethnic and gender differences. the journal of early adolescence, 29, 405-425. doi:10.1177/0272431608322945 about the authors dr. jenny isaacs received her phd in clinical psychology from st. john's university. after completing a post-doctoral research position in finland at the university of turku she joined the faculty at yeshiva university in new york city. she is currently an associate professor of psychology. she is an active researcher, with a general area of interest in psychosocial adjustment from childhood to adulthood. much of her previous and current work utilizes strong theoretical models to help explicate why some children flourish while others flounder and helps to move the field forward toward a richer understanding of why and how children develop in their social world. recently she has been able to apply her background to focus on adult populations. francesca soglian, m.b.a, is a certified professional of human resources management with over 17 years of training and development experience in the financial industry. her expertise includes communication, coaching, and change management. she received her b.a. in psychological sciences and techniques from the university of trieste (italy). mrs. soglian currently is a communication consultant, and designs learning experiences that help individuals to develop their communication skills. she is also active in the field of psychosocial research and social inclusion projects. dr. edward hoffman received his phd in education & psychology from the university of michigan-ann arbor, and his ba from cornell university. he is an adjunct associate clinical psychology professor at yeshiva university, and maintains a fulltime private practice as a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive assessment. dr. hoffman serves on the editorial boards of the journal of humanistic psychology and the indian journal of positive psychology. an active cross-cultural researcher in humanistic and positive psychology, he has published articles with colleagues in brazil, china, india, japan, and other countries. he is co-author with dr. william c. compton of positive psychology: the science of happiness and flourishing (cengage, 2013). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 50–62 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.741 confidant relations 62 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0890-4065(99)80097-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272431608322945 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en confidant relations (introduction) gender and the confidant relationship relationship features and positive social outcomes confidants and the italian family the current study method participants and procedure measures results discussion confidant characteristics family in italian culture limitations and future studies (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors affective style, humor styles and happiness research reports affective style, humor styles and happiness thomas e. ford*a, katelyn a. mccreighta, kyle richardsona [a]western carolina university, cullowhee, nc, usa. abstract the present study examined the relationships between dispositional approach and avoidance motives, humor styles, and happiness. in keeping with previous research, approach motives and the two positive humor styles (self-enhancing and affiliative) positively correlated with happiness, whereas avoidance motives and the two negative humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) negatively correlated with happiness. also, we found support for three new hypotheses. first, approach motives correlated positively with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles. second, avoidance motives correlated positively with self-defeating humor style, and third, the positive relationship between approach motives and happiness was mediated by self-enhancing humor style. keywords: affective style, humor styles, happiness, bis/bas, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 received: 2014-02-16. accepted: 2014-02-24. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: thomas e. ford, department of psychology, western carolina university, cullowhee, nc 28723 usa. e-mail: tford@wcu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. i, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. i can choose which it shall be. yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. i have just one day, today, and i'm going to be happy in it. — groucho marx, the essential groucho: writings for by and about groucho marx laugh whenever you can. keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. that and vodka. — jim butcher, changes happiness has been described as subjective well-being, that is, a person's judgment of life satisfaction and the balance of positive and negative affect experienced in day-to-day life (e.g., lyubomirsky, 2001; lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999; weiss, bates, & luciano, 2008). as seen in the first quote above, groucho marx understood that happiness is determined not only by our life circumstances but also by our dispositions or personalities. some people seem to have "sunny" dispositions that enable them to find happiness even in the midst of adversity. they are the people who are very adept at "making lemonade when life hands them lemons." others, by contrast, seem to have personalities that make happiness elusive no matter how great their fortune. furthermore, jim butcher suggested in the second quote above that a key to finding happiness and avoiding misery is to keep a humorous outlook on life. taken together, the folk wisdom of groucho marx and jim butcher raises the possibility that the fortunate people who have a sunny disposition use humor in a positive way in their daily lives as a strategy to find europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ happiness. accordingly, the present research examined the relationship between affective style, a dispositional variable that refers to how we experience or regulate emotions in response to environmental cues (davidson, 1998, 1992; hofmann & kashdan, 2010), and happiness. further, we determined whether people who have a certain affective style are happy, in part, because of the way they use humor in their daily lives. affective style theorists have proposed that two distinct self-regulatory motives underlie different affective styles, approach motives—motives to approach or seek appetitive stimuli or experiences, and avoidance motives—motives to avoid aversive stimuli or experiences (e.g., carver, 1996; davidson, 1998, 2000; gray, 1970, 1981; higgins, 1998). gray (1981, 1982, 1990, 1994), for instance, conceptualized the approach and avoidance motives as two motivational/neurological systems: the behavioral activating system (bas) and the behavioral inhibition system (bis). the bas regulates appetitive or approach motivation; it initiates potentially rewarding goal-directed behavior in response to an anticipated reward. the bis regulates aversive or avoidance motivation; it inhibits goal directed behavior that might have aversive outcomes. furthermore, the bas and bis systems differentially predict the experience of positive and negative affect (gray, 1990). specifically, bas sensitivity relates to the general experience of positive affect or happiness; whereas bis sensitivity relates to the experience of negative affect (carver &white, 1994; gable, reis, & elliot, 2000; heubeck, wilkinson, & cologon, 1998; sutton & davidson, 1997; updegraff, gable, & taylor, 2004). carver and white (1994), for instance, showed that participants scoring high on their bas scale reported greater happiness upon the anticipation of a reward than those scoring low on the bas scale (exp. 4). participants scoring higher on their bis scale reported greater nervousness upon anticipation of a punishment than those scoring low on the bis scale (exp. 3). in addition, gable et al. (2000) found that participants reported greater positive affect in their daily lives insofar as they were high in bas sensitivity, and greater negative daily affect insofar as they were high in bis sensitivity. similarly, sutton and davidson (1997) found that people who had a relatively high bas to bis ratio reported a higher level of positive dispositional affect. in contrast, people with a low bas to bis ratio reported a higher level of negative dispositional affect. finally, henriques and davidson (1991) found that depression was associated with a weak or insensitive bas. taken together, existing research suggests that a relatively sensitive bas contributes to an affective style that enables people to be happy; a sensitive bis contributes to an affective style that makes happiness harder to find. furthermore, the bas and bis systems appear to relate to affective experience through different psychological and behavioral processes. gable et al. (2000) found that participants high in bas sensitivity experienced more positive affect in their daily lives because they strategically or actively pursued positive emotional experiences compared to those low in bas. in contrast, people high in bis did not actively seek out more negative events than those low in bis. they experiencedmore negative affect in their daily lives because they weremore strongly affected by the negative events they did experience (gable, 2006; updegraff et al., 2004). humor styles humor style refers to a person’s habitual way of using humor in daily life, that is, one’s typical and stable pattern of humor behaviors and attitudes (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, &weir, 2003). martin et al. (2003) described four humor styles, two that are positive or beneficial to the self or others, and two that are negative or detrimental europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 affective style, humor styles and happiness 452 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to the self or others. martin et al. (2003) referred to the two positive humor styles as affiliative and self-enhancing, and the two negative humor styles as self-defeating and aggressive. people who have an affiliative humor style essentially use humor to attain interpersonal or social rewards. that is, they amuse and entertain others in order to enhance the quality of social relationships (e.g., to increase interpersonal cohesiveness and attraction). because the use of affiliative humor affirms both the self and others, it is associated with greater intimacy in interpersonal relationships (martin et al., 2003) and greater conflict resolution in dating couples (campbell, martin, & ward, 2008). people who have a self-enhancing humor style use humor to achieve intrapersonal rewards, that is, to enhance or maintain positive psychological well-being. they maintain a humorous outlook on life, coping with difficult circumstances by viewing them from a humorous perspective. those with an aggressive humor style use humor, not to make interpersonal relationships more rewarding for the self and others, but rather as a means of hurting or manipulating others. individuals high in aggressive humor tease and ridicule others to demonstrate their superiority without concern for the impact such humorous belittlement might have on others (martin et al., 2003). not surprisingly, the use of aggressive humor has been shown to be detrimental to interpersonal relationships (e.g., cann, zapata, & davis, 2011; kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). finally, people who have a self-defeating humor style amuse others by belittling themselves. they use humor as a means to avoid confronting problems and dealing with negative feelings. over the past several years, empirical research has accumulated showing consistently that specific indices of happiness or subjective well-being correlate positively with affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles, and negatively with aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. yue, hao, and goldman (2010) found that affiliative and selfenhancing humor styles correlated positively with optimism and negatively correlated with psychological distress (e.g., anxiety and depression). in contrast, aggressive and self-defeating humor styles correlated negatively with optimism and positively with psychological distress. similarly, martin et al. (2003) reported that the ryff (1989) measure of psychological well-being related positively to affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and negatively to self-defeating humor style. also, anxiety and depression correlated negatively with affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles but positively with self-defeating humor style. in addition, kuiper, grimshaw, leite, and kirsh (2004) found that affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles were associated with higher self-esteem, better coping abilities, and judgments of self-competence. aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, in contrast, were associated with lower self-esteem, greater depression and anxiety, and negative judgments of self-competence. recently, cann, stilwell, and taku (2012) further delineated the relationship between humor styles and the general emotion of happiness or subjective well-being. they suggested that the two self-directed humor styles (selfenhancing and self-defeating) are more strongly related to subjective well-being than the other-directed humor styles (affiliative and aggressive). cann et al. (2012) reported that when measures of subjective well-being were regressed onto all four humor styles simultaneously only self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles were significantly related to well-being. by viewing the stresses and difficulties of life from a humorous perspective, people with a self-enhancing humor style are able to maintain a positive subjective well-being even in the midst of adversity (martin et al., 2003; kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993). in contrast, those with a self-defeating humor style may be particularly unhappy because others tend to avoid interacting with them, leaving them feeling socially isolated and rejected (kuiper & mchale, 2009). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 ford, mccreight, & richardson 453 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present research in the present research we examined the relationships between bas and bis, humor styles, and happiness. in keeping with previous research, we expected that bas sensitivity would correlate positively with happiness, whereas bis sensitivity would correlate negatively with happiness. similarly, we expected that the beneficial humor styles, particularly self-enhancing humor style, would correlate positively with happiness, and that detrimental humor styles, particularly self-defeating humor style, would correlate negatively with happiness. in addition, we tested the following new hypotheses. first, because people use self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles to attain positive emotional and interpersonal experiences respectively, we hypothesized that bas sensitivity correlates positively with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles. second, because people use self-defeating humor to avoid the potentially aversive experience of confronting problems, we hypothesized that bis sensitivity correlates positively with self-defeating humor style. third, because bas has been shown to relate to happiness through the active pursuit of positive emotional experiences, we hypothesized that the relationship between bas sensitivity and happiness is mediated by self-enhancing humor style. that is, approach-oriented people are happier because they engage in self-enhancing humor—they maintain a humorous outlook on life, viewing adversity from a humorous perspective. bis sensitivity is thought to relate to negative affect, not because bis-sensitive people engage in specific strategies like self-defeating humor to deal with or avoid dealing with negative emotional events, but because they react more strongly to emotional events (gable, 2006; updegraff et al., 2004). therefore, we did not predict that selfdefeating humor style would mediate the hypothesized negative relationship between bis sensitivity and happiness. method participants and procedure data were collected via qualtrics, an online survey tool. a link to the study was distributed to 43 male and 66 female residents of the united states through mechanical turk, an on-line participant pool sponsored by amazon.com. participants were paid $0.40 to complete the study. it is noteworthy that mechanical turk has been shown to be equally reliable and trustworthy as other sampling methods for collecting survey data (buhrmester, kwang, & gosling, 2011). participants ranged in age from 18 to 71 years, with a mean of 37.09 (sd = 13.99). the mean age was 34.72 (sd = 13.79) for males and 38.64 (sd = 14.00) for females. there were 7 african-americans, 9 asians, 81 whites, 8 hispanics, 3 multi-racial people, and 1 person who indicated their race as “other.” upon clicking a link to the study, participants encountered the following instructions: “in this study you will be asked to complete three surveys, the affective style questionnaire, the humor style questionnaire, and the subjective happiness scale. we are interested in determining whether humor styles are related to affective styles.” after providing informed consent, participants first completed carver and white’s (1994) bis/bas questionnaire, followed by martin et al.’s (2003) humor styles questionnaire (hsq) and then lyubomirsky and lepper’s (1999) subjective happiness scale (shs). measures bis/basquestionnaire. carver andwhite's (1994) bis/bas questionnaire consists of 20 items designed to assess individual differences in bis and bas sensitivity. for all items on the bis/bas questionnaire, responses were made on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not true of me at all) to 5 (extremely true of me). bis sensitivity is coneurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 affective style, humor styles and happiness 454 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ceptualized as a single dimension consisting of 7 items that address concerns about the possible occurrence of negative events and sensitivity to such events (e.g., "if i think something unpleasant is going to happen i usually get pretty 'worked up.'"). we computed a bis score for each participant by averaging responses to the seven items. cronbach's alpha was .83. bas sensitivity is comprised of three dimensions: drive, fun seeking and reward responsiveness. the drive scale consists of 4 items that address the pursuit of desired goals (e.g., "when i want something i usually go all-out to get it."). the fun seeking scale consists of 4 items that address the "desire for new rewards and a willingness to approach a potentially rewarding event on the spur of the moment" (carver &white, 1994, p. 322; e.g., "i'm always willing to try something new if i think it will be fun."). the 5-item reward responsiveness scale focuses on positive responses to a reward (e.g., "when i get something i want, i feel excited and energized."). according to gray’s (1987) conceptual framework, the three bas subscales combine to form a unitary measure of bas sensitivity. others, however, have suggested that the drive and reward responsiveness scales most clearly reflect the critical concepts of bas; whereas the fun scale reflects both responsiveness to anticipated rewards (bas) as well as impulsivity (e.g., carver & white, 1994; smillie, jackson, & dalgleish, 2006). thus, before combining items to form an aggregate measure of bas, we examined the correlations among the bas subscales and the bis scale. see table 1. table 1 correlations among the total bas scale, the bis scale, the bas-drive subscale (basd), the bas-fun seeking subscale (basf) and the bas-reward responsiveness subscale (basr). sdm54321scale 1. bas .650.333 2. bis .810.433.16 3. basd .870.962.11-.77** 4. basf .830.063.47**.13.84** 5. basr .700.843.59**.39**.37**.81** *p < .05. **p < .01. as can be seen in table 1, all three bas subscales are highly correlated to the total bas scale and highly correlated with one another. also, consistent with previous research (e.g., smits & boeck, 2006), the bis scale and the total bas scale were unrelated. finally, the cronbach’s alpha for the total bas scale was .88; it was .83 without the items comprising the fun-seeking subscale. based on these analyses, and in accordance with gray’s (1987) conceptual framework, we averaged responses to all 13 items to form a global measure of bas sensitivity. humor styles questionnaire (hsq). martin et al.’s (2003) hsq consists of four 8-item subscales that measure the degree to which people habitually engage in affiliative humor (e.g., “i enjoy making people laugh”), self-enhancing humor (e.g., “even when i’m by myself, i’m often amused by the absurdities of life”), aggressive humor (e.g., “if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”), and self-defeating humor (e.g., “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh”). participants indicated their agreement with each item using a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). we averaged responses to the four items of each subscale for each participant. cronbach’s alpha was .88 for affiliative humor, .86 for self-enhancing humor, .73 for aggressive humor, and .83 for self-defeating humor. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 ford, mccreight, & richardson 455 http://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective happiness scale (shs). lyubomirsky and lepper’s (1999) shs consists of four items measured on 7-point scales designed to determine the extent to which people consider themselves to be happy or unhappy. for the first item participants completed the statement, “i consider myself:” by responding on a scale ranging from 1 (not a very happy person) to 7 (a very happy person). for the second item they completed the statement, “compared to most of my peers, i consider myself:” using a scale ranging from 1 (less happy) to 7 (more happy). the third item consisted of the question, “some people are generally very happy. they enjoy life regardless of what is going on, getting the most out of everything. to what extent does this characterization describe you?” participants responded on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a great deal). finally, the fourth contained the question, “some people are generally not very happy. although they are not depressed, they never seem as happy as they might be. to what extent does this characterization describe you?” again, participants responded on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a great deal). after reverse scoring item 4, we computed a shs score for each participant by averaging responses to the four items. cronbach’s alpha was .89. results correlations table 2 presents correlations among all of the measures along with descriptive statistics.iconsistent with previous research (gable, 2006), we found that bas sensitivity correlated positively with happiness (r = .21, p < .05), whereas bis sensitivity correlated negatively with happiness (r = -.47, p < .001). also consistent with research by cann et al. (2012), self-enhancing humor style correlated positively with happiness (r = .39, p < .001) as did affiliative humor style although not significantly (r = .13, p = .20). in addition, self-defeating humor style correlated negatively with happiness (r = -.26, p < .01), as did aggressive humor style (r = -.18, p = .06). table 2 correlations and descriptive statistics for the bas, bis, self-enhancing humor style (se-h), affiliative humor style (aff-h), self-defeating humor style (sd-h) and aggressive humor style (agg-h). sdm7654321scale 1. bas .650.333 2. bis .810.433.16 3. se-h .061.804.11-.42** 4. aff-h .101.355.58**.05.30** 5. sd-h .081.713.07.09.20*.15 6. agg-h .930.403.43**.05.06-.07-.047. shs .381.684.18-.26**-.13.39**.47**-.21* *p < .05. **p < .01. consistent with our first hypothesis, bas sensitivity correlated positively with self-enhancing humor style (r = .42, p < .01) and affiliative humor style (r = .30, p < .01). insofar as people are motivated to seek rewards (high bas) they tend to engage in humor in daily life in ways that facilitate the attainment of positive emotional experiences (self-enhancing humor) and positive interpersonal experiences (affiliative humor). the results also support our second hypothesis. bis sensitivity correlated positively with self-defeating humor style (r = .20, p < .05). to the extent that people are motivated to avoid potentially aversive experiences, they europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 affective style, humor styles and happiness 456 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tend to engage in self-defeating humor, which facilitates the avoidance of the negative emotional experience of confronting problems in daily life. mediation analyses to test our hypothesis that the relationship between bas and happiness is mediated by self-enhancing humor style, we performed a path analysis following the procedures described by baron and kenny (1986; see figure 1). figure 1. the relation between bas, self-enhancing humor style and happiness. we first regressed the criterion variable, happiness, onto the predictor variable, bas. this direct path was significant (β = .21, t = 2.16, p < .05). we then regressed the mediator variable, self-enhancing humor, onto bas. that path also was significant (β = .42, t = 4.78, p < .01). finally, we regressed happiness onto both bas and self-enhancing humor. the path from self-enhancing humor to happiness was significant (β = .37, t = 3.81, p < .01). however, the direct path from bas to happiness was no longer significant (β = .05, t = 0.49 p = .63). a sobel test revealed that the decrease in the direct path from bas to happiness when self-enhancing humor was included in the model (from .21 to .05) was significant, z = 3.00, p < .01. in addition, we tested our hypothesis using bootstrapping procedures described by preacher and hayes (2004). the bootstrapping analysis tests whether the indirect effect (i.e., the path from bas to happiness through selfenhancing humor style) is different from zero by providing a 95% confidence interval for the population value of the indirect effect (preacher & hayes, 2004). if zero is not in the 95% confidence interval the indirect effect is significant at p < .05. using preacher and hayes' (2004) bootstrapping macro for spss, we computed bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals for 5,000 samples with replacement and found that the indirect effect was significant, as indicated by a confidence interval that did not include zero, 95% ci [.01, .04]. taken together, our mediation analyses support our hypothesis suggesting that the relationship between bas and happiness was mediated by self-enhancing humor style. people high in bas are happier, at least in part, because they engage in self-enhancing humor in their daily lives. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 ford, mccreight, & richardson 457 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we conducted the same bootstrapping analysis to test whether the negative relationship between bis sensitivity and happiness was mediated by self-defeating humor. as expected, the confidence interval did include zero, 95% ci [-.03, .00]. people high in bis sensitivity reported being less happy but not because they use selfdefeating humor. this is consistent with research by gable (2006) and updegraff et al. (2004) showing that bis sensitivity relates to negative affect, not because bis-sensitive people engage in specific strategies to deal with or avoid dealing with negative emotional events, but because they react more strongly to emotional events. discussion the results of our study corroborate the findings of previous research (e.g., gable, 2006) showing that bas sensitivity predicted greater happiness, whereas bis sensitivity predicted less happiness. people are happy insofar as they have an approach-oriented affective style, and unhappy to the extent that they have an avoidance-oriented affective style. also consistent with previous research (e.g., martin et al., 2003) we found that people who engage in more selfenhancing and affiliative humor reported being happier, whereas people who engage in more self-defeating and aggressive humor reported being less happy. furthermore, consistent with cann et al. (2012), we found that the two self-directed humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating) related more strongly to happiness than did the two other-directed humor styles (affiliative and aggressive). the present research also demonstrated that approach-oriented and avoidance-oriented people use humor differently in daily life. approach-oriented people have developed beneficial, adaptive strategies of using humor. participants higher in bas reported using self-enhancing and affiliative humor to a greater degree. in contrast, people with an avoidance-oriented affective style appear to have developed a self-detrimental strategy of using humor. participants higher in bis reported using self-defeating humor more than those low in bis. finally, the present research contributes to our understanding of the processes that mediate the relationship between affective style and happiness. previous research has shown that people with an approach-oriented affective style are happy because they seek out positive experiences (gable, 2006), spend more time attending to positive stimuli (derryberry & reed, 1994), and place greater value on positive emotional experiences (updegraff et al., 2004). our study identifies a new mechanism by which approach motivation influences happiness. we found that approach-oriented people are happier because they engage in the adaptive habit of using self-enhancing humor in their daily lives; they maintain a humorous outlook on life even in the face of stress and adversity. approach-oriented people engage in goal-directed behavior to attain rewards or positive experiences. accordingly, perhaps they habitually maintain a humorous outlook on life as a deliberate strategy of regulating positive and negative emotions. these findings add to a growing body of research on the role that humor styles play in mediating relationships between personality traits and various emotional and interpersonal experiences related to psychological well-being (e.g., besser, luyten, & mayes, 2012; cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009; kuiper & mchale, 2009). kuiper and mchale (2009), for instance, examined the role of humor styles in mediating the relationship between self-schemas and psychological well-being and social self-esteem. they found that self-defeating humor mediates the relationship between endorsement of negative self-evaluative beliefs and low social self-esteem. people who disproportionately focus on their negative attributes engage in self-defeating europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 affective style, humor styles and happiness 458 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor to a greater degree and as a result experience lower social self-esteem. in addition, endorsement of positive self-evaluative beliefs was associated with greater use of affiliative humor, which in turn predicted higher levels of social self-esteem and lower levels of depression. similarly, besser et al. (2012) found that individuals with high levels of attachment anxiety—people who tend to intensify negative emotional experiences—and those with high levels of attachment avoidance—people who tend to avoid emotional situations—tend to engage in maladaptive humor styles (self-defeating and aggressive) which in turn predicted greater perceived distress in daily life. taken together, a clear picture is emerging showing that beneficial and detrimental humor styles are important mediators of the relationship between personality characteristics that guide the way people interact with others and the quality of their emotional and interpersonal experiences in social settings (cann et al., 2012). limitations and directions for future research although our study makes a new contribution to our understanding of the functions of humor styles in daily life, the scope of our study was limited to their impact on the emotional experience of happiness. our study thus raises interesting questions for future research. first, approach-oriented people habitually engage in affiliative humor, which itself is associated with greater relationship satisfaction (e.g., hall, 2013; martin et al., 2003). thus, it is possible that approach-oriented people find greater satisfaction in interpersonal relationships because they engage in affiliative humor. perhaps they engage in affiliative humor as a strategy to enhance the quality of interpersonal relationships. in addition, self-defeating humor did not mediate the relationship between bis and happiness in the present study. however, future research could address the possibility that avoidance-oriented people suffer in a variety of ways not addressed by the present research because of their tendency to engage in self-defeating humor. indeed, selfdefeating humor predicts less satisfaction with interpersonal relationships (cann et al., 2008), lower self-esteem (zeigler-hill & besser, 2011), and greater social rejection (kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). conclusion our study empirically supports the folk wisdom of groucho marx and jim butcher illustrated in the opening quotes. happiness is determined not only by our life circumstances but also by our dispositions or personalities. people tend to be more happy to the extent that they have an approach-oriented affective style and less happy insofar as they have an avoidance affective style. furthermore, the fortunate approach-oriented people use humor in a positive, self-enhancing way in their daily lives as a strategy to find happiness. notes i) the correlations and mediation analyses were nearly identical when bas was comprised of only the drive and reward responsiveness subscales. funding this research was supported by national science foundation grant bcs-1014567 awarded to thomas e. ford. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 ford, mccreight, & richardson 459 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references baron, r. m., & kenny, d. a. 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(2011). humor style mediates the association between pathological narcissism and self-esteem. personality and individual differences, 50, 1196-1201. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.02.006 about the authors thomas e. ford is a professor of psychology at western carolina university. his research interests include the social consequences of disparagement humor, humor and coping with stress, the relationship between religion and prejudice, and unintentional racism and stereotype threat in educational settings. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 affective style, humor styles and happiness 462 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/jrlp.143.4.359-376 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.56.3.239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1006824100041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00534-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03206553 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.10.012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00413.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.3.496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02068.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.02.006 http://www.psychopen.eu/ katelyn a. mccreight is a graduate student in clinical psychology at western carolina university. her research interests include humor and coping styles, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidality. kyle richardson is a graduate student in experimental psychology at western carolina university. his research interests include group processes, social influence, and the relationship between disparagement humor and discrimination. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 451–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.766 ford, mccreight, & richardson 463 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en affective style, humor styles and happiness (introduction) affective style humor styles the present research method participants and procedure measures results correlations mediation analyses discussion limitations and directions for future research conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the effects of eye-closure and “ear-closure” on recall of visual and auditory aspects of a criminal event research reports the effects of eye-closure and “ear-closure” on recall of visual and auditory aspects of a criminal event annelies vredeveldta, alan d. baddeleyb, graham j. hitchb a department of psychology, university of cape town, cape town, south africa. b department of psychology, university of york, york, uk. abstract previous research has shown that closing the eyes can facilitate recall of semantic and episodic information. here, two experiments are presented which investigate the theoretical underpinnings of the eye-closure effect and its auditory equivalent, the “ear-closure” effect. in experiment 1, participants viewed a violent videotaped event and were subsequently interviewed about the event with eyes open or eyes closed. eye-closure was found to have modality-general benefits on coarse-grain correct responses, but modality-specific effects on fine-grain correct recall and incorrect recall (increasing the former and decreasing the latter). in experiment 2, participants viewed the same event and were subsequently interviewed about it, either in quiet conditions or while hearing irrelevant speech. contrary to expectations, irrelevant speech did not significantly impair recall performance. this null finding might be explained by the absence of social interaction during the interview in experiment 2. in conclusion, eye-closure seems to involve both general and modality-specific processes. the practical implications of the findings are discussed. keywords: eyewitness memory, eye-closure, ear-closure, cognitive load, modality-specific interference europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 received: 2012-03-12. accepted: 2012-04-24. published: 2012-05-31. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. when eyewitnesses close their eyes during an investigative interview, they remember more about a witnessed crime than when they keep their eyes open (mastroberardino, natali, & candel, 2012; perfect et al., 2008; wagstaff et al., 2004). wagstaff et al. (2004) were the first to show that eye-closure during retrieval increased the amount of correct information recalled about a past public event (princess diana’s funeral), without inflating the report of inaccurate information. perfect and colleagues (2008) extended this finding to recall of everyday mundane events, and concluded that their experiments “collectively demonstrate that eye-closure can benefit both cued-recall and free-recall, for both visual and auditory materials, for events studied deliberately on video, and for incidentally encoded live interactions” (perfect et al., 2008, p. 321). subsequently, mastroberardino et al. (2012) showed that eye-closure could also help children to answer questions about a witnessed emotional event. thus, evidence is converging for the benefits of eye-closure on eyewitness recall. however, the question remains why eye-closure works. this question is not only interesting from a theoretical point of view, but is also relevant from a practical point of view. that is, if police officers are to implement this interview instruction, they will likely find it useful to know how it works. two explanations that have been contrasted in previous work (e.g., perfect et al., 2008) are the general and the modality-specific explanation of the eye-closure effect. the general explanation, also known as the cognitive load hypothesis, originates from glenberg’s (1997) embodied cognition account of memory, which construes --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ environmental monitoring and memory retrieval as two concurrent tasks competing for cognitive resources. disengaging from the environment (e.g., by closing the eyes) frees up cognitive resources, which can then be re-allocated to the memory retrieval task, resulting in an overall improvement in recall performance (see also glenberg, schroeder, & robertson, 1998). the modality-specific explanation, on the other hand, suggests that eye-closure will be more helpful for recall of visual information than for recall of auditory information. this explanation is based on the modality-specific interference effect, studied predominantly in the context of short-term memory (for reviews, see baddeley, 1986, 2007; logie, 1986). in one study of particular interest to the current paper, baddeley and andrade (2000) examined the role of modality-specific interference on cognitive processes involving long-term memory retrieval (i.e., mental imagery). they found that a concurrent visuospatial task (spatial tapping) interfered more with the vividness of visual imagery (e.g., “imagine the appearance of cows grazing”) than with the vividness of auditory imagery (e.g., “imagine the sound of a cat meowing”), whereas a concurrent auditory-verbal task (counting) interfered more with the vividness of auditory than visual imagery. these findings point to the possibility that distractions in the environment may disrupt retrieval from long-term memory in a modality-specific way. based on their own findings, perfect et al. (2008) concluded that there was more evidence in favour of a general explanation (i.e., concentration) than for a modality-specific explanation. they based this conclusion on their assertion that eye-closure in their experiments helped recall of both visual and auditory information—except in experiment 2, which was “clearly out of line with the subsequent studies” (p. 322). however, a closer look at their data suggests that this assertion may have been somewhat premature. that is, if we take the accuracy of the recalled information into account, only experiment 4 and 5 supported the conclusion that eye-closure improved recall of both visual and auditory aspects. experiment 1 did not bear on the modality issue, and experiment 2, as acknowledged by the authors, showed that eye-closure impaired both the amount and the accuracy of auditory recall. crucially, experiment 3 found that eye-closure increased the number of auditory details recalled, but significantly decreased the accuracy of the recalled auditory information. thus, taken together, their findings provided some support for a general effect (experiments 4 and 5), but also some support for a modality-specific effect (experiments 2 and 3). in follow-up research, perfect, andrade, and eagan (2011) combined the eye-closure instruction with the presentation of auditory distraction. neither eye-closure nor bursts of white noise during the interview had a significant effect on correct recall of visual or auditory information. however, noise significantly increased the number of errors reported by participants, and eye-closure significantly reduced these errors. perfect and colleagues took these findings as further support for the idea that the eye-closure effect is not modality-specific, since eye-closure helped participants to overcome the cross-modal memory impairment caused by auditory distraction. in another study, perfect, andrade, and syrett (2012) manipulated the complexity and predictability of visual distraction in the interview environment. they found that complex (as opposed to simple) visual distraction significantly impaired the accuracy, but not the number, of responses provided about a news bulletin. they did not find a significant interaction between eye-closure and modality of the recalled information, again bolstering their claim of a general effect. nevertheless, their data show that the eye-closure effect was somewhat more pronounced for recall of visual information than for recall of auditory information (see figure 1, perfect et al., 2012). in sum, although perfect and colleagues dismissed modality-specific interference as an explanation of the eye-closure effect, some of their findings suggest that there may be modality-specific processes at play. indeed, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 285 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vredeveldt, hitch, and baddeley (2011) found evidence for a combination of general and modality-specific interference caused by visual and auditory distractions in the interview environment. specifically, they found that meaningless visual or auditory distractions during recall (i.e., hebrew words popping up on a computer screen or being spoken via headphones, respectively) disrupted recall of both visual and auditory information compared to conditions in which participants looked at a blank computer screen or had their eyes closed. however, visual distractions had a greater impact on recall of visual information, whereas auditory distractions had a greater impact on recall of auditory information. experiment 1: eye-closure because the findings reported by perfect et al. (2008) were mixed with regards to the modality issue, experiment 1 was designed to shed more light on this issue. to enhance the ecological validity of the research, we examined the effect of eye-closure on recall of a violent event, instead of the mundane events used by perfect et al. (2008). following from baddeley and andrade’s (2000) findings, we predicted that looking at visual stimuli in the interview environment while trying to retrieve visual information would be more problematic than looking at visual stimuli while trying to retrieve auditory information. in other words, we hypothesized that eye-closure would have greater benefits for recall of visual information than for recall of auditory information. method participants— fifty-seven undergraduate psychology students from the university of york participated for course credit or a small monetary reward. one participant who had seen the video before was excluded from the analysis, leaving 56 participants. the sample consisted of 10 males and 46 females, with ages ranging from 18 to 26 (m = 19.75 years, sd = 1.60). all participants were native english speakers and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing. materials — participants watched a two-and-a-half-minute video clip taken from a tv drama. a crime scene containing moderate violence, blood, and injuries was selected, depicting a man who breaks into a woman’s house and tries to cut her with a knife. sixteen interview questions were drawn up about the event; half addressing uniquely visual aspects and half addressing uniquely auditory aspects of the event (see appendix). the questions were asked in the order in which the corresponding information appeared in the video clip; hence the different types of questions were mixed, and in a fixed order throughout. procedure — all participants were tested individually in a small laboratory. after providing informed consent, participants watched the video and engaged in a two-minute distracter task involving the backwards spelling of animal names (cf. perfect et al., 2008). subsequently, they were interviewed about the video. twenty-eight participants were assigned to the eyes-open condition and 28 to the eyes-closed condition, using a random sequence generator. those in the eyes-closed condition were instructed to keep their eyes closed throughout the interview, whereas those in the eyes-open condition received no instructions. if participants in the eyes-closed condition inadvertently opened their eyes (which happened infrequently), they were reminded to keep them closed. none of the participants in the eyes-open condition spontaneously closed their eyes; all of them were facing the interviewer throughout the interview. participants were encouraged to ask the interviewer to repeat the question if they did not hear it properly (which happened occasionally in both interview conditions). they were asked to remember as much as possible, but not to guess; a “do not remember” response was allowed. all interviews were europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 286 http://www.psychopen.eu/ audio-taped for subsequent analysis. after completing a demographic information sheet, participants were asked whether they had seen the tv series before, debriefed, and thanked for their participation. data coding — the audio-taped interviews were coded blind to interview condition. responses were coded as correct, incorrect, or omitted (“don’t know”), and all correct responses were coded for grain size (cf. goldsmith, koriat, & pansky, 2005; goldsmith, koriat, & weinberg-eliezer, 2002; yaniv & foster, 1995). thus, a correct response could be classified as coarse-grain (e.g., “the shirt was grey”) or fine-grain (e.g., “the shirt had a grey body with dark-blue sleeves”). examples of each type of response can be found in the appendix. incorrect responses were not coded for grain size, due to insufficient data. ten interviews (160 responses; 18% of the total sample) were randomly selected and coded independently by a second blind coder. inter-rater reliability (for the decision to score a response as fine-grain correct, coarse-grain correct, incorrect, or omitted) was high, κ = .92, p < .001. the scores of the first coder were retained for the main analysis. results and discussion figure 1 shows the number of fine-grain correct, coarse-grain correct, incorrect, and omitted responses about visual and auditory aspects of the witnessed event. it should be noted that any main effects of modality cannot reasonably be attributed to modality effects per se, because the interview questions differed in terms of content, and some were likely more difficult to answer than others (despite attempts to select questions of equivalent difficulty about visual and auditory aspects of the event). hence, the main focus of the present analyses is on potential main effects of eye-closure, and on potential interactions between eye-closure and modality. a 2 (interview condition: eyes open, eyes closed) x 2 (question modality: visual, auditory) mixed anova on fine-grain correct recalli revealed that participants provided significantly more fine-grain correct responses to questions about visual details than to questions about auditory details, f (1, 54) = 12.65, p < .001, η2 = .17. there was no significant main effect of eye-closure (f < 1), but there was a significant interaction between eye-closure and modality, f (1, 54) = 6.46, p < .05, η2 = .09. figure 1 shows that, in line with our predictions, eye-closure tended to increase the number of fine-grain correct responses to questions about visual aspects. at the same time, it tended to decrease the number of fine-grain correct responses to questions about auditory aspects. however, neither of these simple contrasts was significant (both ps > .08). a corresponding two-way anova on coarse-grain correct recall revealed that participants also provided significantly more coarse-grain correct responses to questions about visual details than to questions about auditory details, f (1, 54) = 13.68, p < .001, η2 = .20. furthermore, participants who closed their eyes provided significantly more coarse-grain correct responses than participants who kept their eyes open, f (1, 54) = 8.28, p < .01, η2 = .15, d = .77. there was no significant interaction between eye-closure and modality (f < 1). thus, in terms of coarse-grain recall, eye-closure had a general rather than a modality-specific effect. another two-way anova on incorrect recall revealed no significant main effects of modality, f (1, 54) = 2.09, p = .15, or eye-closure, f (1, 54) = 1.88, p = .18. however, there was a significant interaction between modality and eye-closure, f (1, 54) = 9.90, p < .01, η2 = .15. simple effects analyses showed that eye-closure significantly decreased incorrect recall of visual details, f (1, 54) = 8.91, p < .01, η2 = .14, whereas it did not significantly affect incorrect recall of auditory details, f (1, 54) = 1.05, p = .31. this finding is consistent with our prediction that eye-closure would be most beneficial for recall of visual information. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 287 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mean number of fine-grain correct, coarse-grain correct, incorrect, and omitted responses about visual and auditory aspects of the witnessed event in experiment 1. error bars indicate standard error. finally, a two-way anova on the number of omissionsii showed that participants responded “don’t know” significantly more often to questions about auditory details than to questions about visual details, f (1, 54) = 174.99, p < .001, η2 = .76. there was no significant effect of eye-closure (f < 1) and no significant interaction between eye-closure and modality (f < 1). experiment 2: “ear-closure” experiment 1 investigated one part of the modality-specific interference hypothesis, namely, whether eye-closure would improve recall of visual information more than recall of auditory information. experiment 2 was designed to investigate the auditory counterpart of this hypothesis, namely, whether “ear-closure” would improve recall of auditory information more than recall of visual information. as an auditory equivalent of eye-closure, participants in experiment 2 were provided with noise-cancelling headphones. this “ear-closure” condition was compared to a condition high in auditory distractions, in which participants were exposed to irrelevant speech in the participants’ native language. due to the absence of an “ears-open” control condition, the experimental design in experiment 2 was not an exact auditory parallel of the experimental design in experiment 1. for this reason, the findings will be discussed in terms of the impairment caused by irrelevant speech, rather than in terms of the benefits associated with “ear-closure”. most previous studies on irrelevant sound have focussed on its impact on short-term recall of simple stimuli. although irrelevant speech does not seem to disrupt tasks that rely on phonological processing, such as judgments of rhyme and homophony (baddeley & salamé, 1986), it has consistently been found to disrupt tasks that rely on phonological storage, such as recall of visually presented digits (e.g., colle & welsh, 1976; jones, 1993; jones & macken, 1995; salamé & baddeley, 1982, 1987). however, given that short-term storage relies primarily on a phonological form of coding, whereas long-term storage relies primarily on a semantic form of coding (baddeley, 1966), we cannot conclude from these findings that irrelevant speech will also disrupt long-term storage. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 288 http://www.psychopen.eu/ more recent studies have investigated the impact of irrelevant speech and other types of noise on long-term recall of prose passages. some of these studies have examined the impact of chronic noise exposure (e.g., banbury & berry, 2005; hygge, evans, & bullinger, 2002; matsui, stansfeld, haines, & head, 2004); others have examined the impact of noise during encoding (enmarker, 2004; knez & hygge, 2002); and yet others have examined the impact of noise during both encoding and retrieval (e.g., banbury & berry, 1998, experiment 2; hygge, boman, & enmarker, 2003). across these different conditions, noise has been found to disrupt long-termmemory for prose passages. although these studies examined long-term recall, they concerned memory for text passages, not memory for events as in the present experiment. furthermore, none of the studies investigated the impact of noise presented solely during retrieval. miles, jones, and madden (1991) found that short-term recall of digits was not disrupted when irrelevant speech was presented only during retrieval, but as explained above, this type of recall is not comparable to long-term recall of events. to the authors’ knowledge, the only previous study in which participants were exposed to auditory distractions during recall of an event was conducted by perfect and colleagues (2011). in their study, participants were interviewed face-to-face about a staged event; some in quiet conditions, while others were exposed to bursts of white noise in-between the interview questions. they found that bursts of white noise significantly increased the number of erroneous responses about the event, thus impairing recall accuracy. given that irrelevant speech typically disrupts performance even more than white noise does (e.g., salamé & baddeley, 1987), we expected that irrelevant speech in the current study would also impair recall of the witnessed event. perfect et al. did not find evidence for a modality-specific impairment caused by bursts of white noise, suggesting that the noise disrupted general concentration rather than the specific retrieval of auditory information. however, when baddeley and andrade (2000) exposed their participants to a more cognitively demanding auditory-verbal task (i.e., the instruction to count from 1 to 10, instead of exposure to bursts of white noise), the retrieval of auditory images from long-term memory was disrupted more than the retrieval of visual images. therefore, it is possible that exposure to irrelevant speech will also impair the retrieval of auditory information more than the retrieval of visual information. in sum, experiment 2 was designed to examine whether auditory distractions in the interview environment impair recall performance. following from perfect et al.’s (2012) findings that white noise impaired event recall, we hypothesized that irrelevant speech would also impair event recall (perhaps even more so than white noise; cf. salamé & baddeley, 1987). furthermore, in line with baddeley and andrade’s (2000) findings, we predicted that being exposed to irrelevant speech while trying to retrieve auditory information would be more problematic than being exposed to irrelevant speech while trying to retrieve visual information. put differently, we hypothesized that “ear-closure” would have greater benefits for recall of auditory information than for recall of visual information. method participants — fifty-six undergraduate psychology students from the university of york participated for course credit or a small monetary reward. the sample consisted of 16 males and 40 females, with ages ranging from 18 to 30 (m = 19.87 years, sd = 2.41). all participants were native english speakers and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing. materials — the videotaped event was identical to the video used in experiment 1. the headphones used were beyerdynamic dt 770 professional monitoring headphones (250 ohms), which exclude ambient sounds. the irrelevant-speech stimulus was a fragment of the english-language audio book “the power of now”, written and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 289 http://www.psychopen.eu/ narrated by eckhart tolle. the irrelevant speech was presented at approximately 70 db spl(a) on average, with a range of approximately 14 db. procedure — the first part of the procedure was identical to experiment 1. after completing the distracter task, participants were asked to put on the headphones. participants were randomly assigned to either hear no sound via the headphones (quiet condition) or hear irrelevant speech, which they were instructed to ignore (irrelevant-speech condition). they then wrote their answers on a paper sheet with questions about the video (see appendix). participants were instructed to remember as much as possible, but not to guess; a “do not remember” response was permissible. upon completion of the question sheet, participants removed the headphones and completed a demographic information sheet. at the end of the session, they were asked whether they had seen the tv series before (none of them had), and were thanked and debriefed. the completed answer sheets were coded blind to experimental condition, using a coding procedure identical to experiment 1 (see appendix for examples). results and discussion figure 2 shows the number of fine-grain correct, coarse-grain correct, incorrect, and omitted responses about visual and auditory aspects of the witnessed event. a 2 (interview condition: quiet, irrelevant speech) x 2 (question modality: visual, auditory) mixed anova on fine-grain correct recall revealed no significant effects of modality (f < 1) or interview condition, f (1, 54) = 1.61, p = .21, and no interaction between the two (f < 1). thus, the tendency for irrelevant speech to decrease fine-grain correct recall, shown in figure 2, was not statistically significant. a corresponding two-way anova on coarse-grain correct recall revealed that participants provided significantly more coarse-grain correct responses to questions about visual details than to questions about auditory details, f (1, 54) = 7.97, p < .01, η2 = .12. there was no significant main effect of interview condition (f < 1), but there was a significant interaction between condition and modality, f (1, 54) = 4.16, p < .05, η2 = .06. figure 2 shows that irrelevant speech tended to decrease the number of coarse-grain correct responses to questions about auditory aspects; whereas it tended to increase coarse-grain correct answers about visual aspects. however, simple effects analyses showed that neither of these contrasts was significant (both ps > .09). another two-way anova on incorrect recall revealed that participants provided significantly more incorrect responses to questions about visual details than to questions about auditory details, f (1, 54) = 4.61, p < .05, η2 = .08. there was no significant main effect of interview condition (f < 1) and no interaction between interview condition and question modality (f < 1). finally, a two-way anova on the number of omissionsiii showed that participants responded “don’t know” significantly more often to questions about auditory details than to questions about visual details, f (1, 54) = 42.91, p < .001, η2 = .43. there was no significant main effect of interview condition, f (1, 54) = 1.53, p = .22, and no significant interaction between condition and modality, f (1, 54) = 3.13, p = .08. thus, the observed tendency for irrelevant speech to increase the number of omissions in response to questions about auditory details (see figure 2) was not significant. contrary to our predictions, irrelevant speech caused neither an overall impairment in recall performance, nor a modality-specific impairment. unexpectedly, the effects of irrelevant speech on recall of visual aspects varied as a function of grain size: irrelevant speech tended to decrease fine-grain correct recall while increasing coarse-grain correct recall, leaving the total number of correct responses about visual details unaffected. it is difficult to interpret europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 290 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. mean number of fine-grain correct, coarse-grain correct, incorrect, and omitted responses about visual and auditory aspects of the witnessed event in experiment 2. error bars indicate standard error. this pattern of findings, because the number of fine-grain correct responses was not fully independent from the number of coarse-grain correct responses. for instance, it is possible that the significant interaction between condition and modality for coarse-grain recall was observed because participants in the irrelevant-speech condition replaced their (more informative) fine-grain correct visual responses with (less informative) coarse-grain alternatives. general discussion we found evidence for an asymmetrical modality-specific interference effect of distractions in the interview environment. thus, eye-closure had greater benefits for recall of visual information than for recall of auditory information. however, “ear-closure” had no significant effect on overall recall performance, nor specifically on recall of auditory information. in this section, we will first explore potential explanations for the non-significant “ear-closure” findings in experiment 2. subsequently, we will consider the implications of the significant eye-closure effect observed in experiment 1. given that the pattern observed in experiment 2 was in the expected direction, the non-significant findings may simply have been due to a lack of power. however, it is also possible that a more fundamental theoretical issue underlies the non-significant effect of irrelevant speech in the present study. in baddeley and andrade’s (2000) experiment 4 and 5, the vividness of auditory images retrieved from long-term memory was significantly disrupted by concurrent counting from 1 to 10. in the present experiment, the retrieval of auditory images from long-term memory (which was supposedly required to answer the interview questions about auditory aspects of the event) was not significantly disrupted by exposure to irrelevant speech. perhaps, the discrepancy is due to the nature of the auditory-distraction task. it is likely that counting involves different functional components of the phonological loop (e.g., subvocal rehearsal) than hearing irrelevant speech does (cf. baddeley & salamé, 1986). the components that are disrupted by counting, but not by irrelevant speech, may be involved in the retrieval of auditory images from long-term memory (see also baddeley & logie, 1992). to test this idea, future research could compare the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 291 http://www.psychopen.eu/ impact of concurrent counting with the impact of irrelevant speech on the retrieval of visual and auditory images from long-term memory. .from an applied perspective, one significant limitation of experiment 2 was the elimination of important social aspects of an eyewitness interview. because the written answer sheet required no social interaction between the experimenter and the participant, the retrieval environment lacked socially-based environmental distractions. it has consistently been found that attending to another person’s social cues demands a substantial amount of cognitive resources (doherty-sneddon & mcauley, 2000; doherty-sneddon, & phelps, 2005; glenberg et al., 1998; markson & paterson, 2009). indeed, wagstaff et al. (2008) found that recall performance in response to complex interview questions about a witnessed criminal event deteriorated as the number of observers in the interview room increased. thus, it is possible that the irrelevant, non-social auditory distractions in experiment 2 simply were not severe enough to disrupt recall performance to a significant extent. perhaps, if the interview in experiment 2 had involved social interaction, the added auditory distractions would have disrupted recall performance to a significant extent. support for this idea is provided by previous findings. in vredeveldt et al.’s (2011) experiment, participants who took part in a face-to-face interview (i.e., including social interaction) while being exposed to irrelevant speech in a foreign language indeed provided significantly fewer fine-grain correct responses about a witnessed event than participants who were not exposed to environmental distractions. similarly, in perfect et al.’s (2012) study, bursts of white noise interposed between the interview questions in a face-to-face interview significantly impaired the accuracy of event recall. social psychological research has also shown that looking at another person’s face is a cognitively demanding task (beattie, 1981; ehrlichman, 1981; kendon, 1967; markson & paterson, 2009). interpreted in this light, the eye-closure benefits observed in experiment 1 are consistent with baddeley and andrade’s (2000) finding that visual tasks (in this case, looking at the interviewer’s face) disrupt the vividness of visual images retrieved from long-term memory. that is, it seems likely that fine-grain correct recall requires a degree of visualization. for instance, by visualizing the witnessed scene, witnesses would have been able to report that the man was kneeling on the floor by the coffee table (fine-grain correct answer), rather than simply concluding from a gist-based memory that the man was on the floor (coarse-grain correct answer). this interpretation of the present findings is also consistent with previous findings showing that eye-closure facilitates visualization (caruso & gino, 2011; rode, revol, rossetti, boisson, & bartolomeo, 2007; wais, rubens, boccanfuso, & gazzaley, 2010). furthermore, the decrease in incorrect visual responses associated with eye-closure suggests that the increase in correct recall observed as a result of eye-closure was not merely the result of a criterion shift (koriat & goldsmith, 1996; see also perfect et al., 2012). in addition to the modality-specific benefit for fine-grain correct recall, eye-closure was associated with a modality-general benefit for coarse-grain correct recall. thus, eye-closure increased the number of correct coarse-grain responses irrespective of the modality of the to-be-remembered information. this finding is compatible with the idea that eye-closure reduces general cognitive load, thereby improving overall concentration (e.g., glenberg et al., 1998; perfect et al., 2011; perfect et al., 2008). thus, the present findings suggest that both modality-specific and general processes play a role in the eye-closure effect, in line with our previous findings (vredeveldt et al., 2011). which type of process is dominant will likely depend on a multitude of factors, including the nature of the recalled event. for instance, it is possible that eye-closure during the interview will be more beneficial for the recall of auditory information when the witnessed event does not contain any visual information. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 292 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to investigate this possibility, future research could study the eye-closure effect in an “earwitness” setting (cf. campos & alonso-quecuty, 2006; pezdek & prull, 1993; yarmey, 1992). an investigation of the cognitive mechanisms behind the eye-closure effect is not only interesting from a theoretical point of view, but also relevant from an applied point of view. first of all, it is useful for police interviewers to know what kind of recalled information can be enhanced by instructing witnesses to close their eyes, and what kind of information does not seem to benefit. moreover, police officers are unlikely to use an interview tool if they are not convinced of its benefits, as exemplified by the fact that certain interview instructions that are perceived to be ineffective (e.g., the reverse-order and change-perspective instructions) are rarely used in practice (e.g., dando, wilcock, & milne, 2009; kebbell, milne, & wagstaff, 1999; milne & bull, 2002). thus, an examination of the underpinnings of the eye-closure effect is important from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. the present findings add to the converging evidence (e.g., mastroberardino et al., 2012; perfect et al., 2008; vredeveldt et al., 2011; wagstaff et al., 2004) that eye-closure has the potential to become a valuable tool in eyewitness interviewing, particularly to facilitate recall of detailed visual information about the witnessed criminal event. funding this research was supported by a university of york departmental studentship and a vsb foundation scholarship awarded to annelies vredeveldt. acknowledgements we thank jodie davies-thompson for her help with double coding the interviews, and julian oldmeadow for his valuable feedback on earlier versions of this work. notes i) because the fine-grain correct recall data violated the assumption of homogeneity of variance (levene, 1960), non-parametric tests were also performed. these tests confirmed the reported findings. ii) because the visual omission data violated assumptions of normality, non-parametric tests were also performed. these tests confirmed the reported findings. iii) because the omission data violated assumptions of normality, non-parametric tests were also performed. these tests confirmed the reported findings. references baddeley, a. d. 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(2012). environmental visual distraction during retrieval affects the quality, not the quantity, of eyewitness recall. applied cognitive psychology, 26(2), 296-300. doi:10.1002/acp.1823 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 295 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00483 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.1.103 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10683169908414996 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0001-6918(67)90005-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.829 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.490 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14640748608401596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712608x371762 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10683161003801100 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.17.3.578 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.825 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022930 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1823 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perfect, t. j., wagstaff, g. f., moore, d., andrews, b., cleveland, v., newcombe, s., brown, l. 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(2010). neural mechanisms underlying the impact of visual distraction on retrieval of long-term memory. the journal of neuroscience, 30(25), 8541-8550. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1478-10.2010 yaniv, i., & foster, d. p. (1995). graininess of judgment under uncertainty: an accuracy-informativeness trade-off. journal of experimental psychology. general, 124(4), 424-432. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.124.4.424 yarmey, a. d. (1992). the effects of dyadic discussion on earwitness recall. basic and applied social psychology, 13(2), 251-263. doi:10.1207/s15324834basp1302_8 appendix: interview questions with example responses questions addressing visual aspects note: question numbers refer to the order in which the questions were asked. 1. the woman in the video was watching tv at the start of the clip. on tv, there was a lady talking to children. how many children were there? a. fine-grain correct: “four”. b. coarse-grain correct: “between three and five”. c. incorrect: “one”. 3. when the woman walked into the room, where was the man sitting? europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10979-007-9109-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350070404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000252936.54063.b0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(82)90521-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00140138708966007 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0098-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207140490889062 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09541440701469749 http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.1478-10.2010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.124.4.424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1302_8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a. fine-grain correct: “he was kneeling on the floor by the coffee table”. b. coarse-grain correct: “on the floor”. c. incorrect: “in a chair”. 4. what did the man’s shirt look like? a. fine-grain correct: “grey body with dark blue sleeves”. b. coarse-grain correct: “grey”. c. incorrect: “red”. 7. from where did the man pull his knife? a. fine-grain correct: “from his right jeans pocket”. b. coarse-grain correct: “from his jeans”. c. incorrect: “from his jacket pocket”. 8. what type of knife did the man have? a. fine-grain correct: “a stanley knife”. b. coarse-grain correct: “a knife you use for diy”. c. incorrect: “a pen knife”. 11. when the man said “i need to do it”, the woman ran to the door. what did the door look like? a. fine-grain correct: “a white frame with glass panes”. b. coarse-grain correct: “white”. c. incorrect: “brown”. 13. when the man held the woman to the floor, what did he do? a. fine-grain correct: “he ripped her dress, exposing the tattoo”. b. coarse-grain correct: “he exposed the tattoo”. c. incorrect: “he cut the dress open with the knife”. 15. how did the woman get the man off her? a. fine-grain correct: “she elbowed him in the face”. b. coarse-grain correct: “she hit him”. c. incorrect: “she kicked him”. questions addressing auditory aspects note: question numbers refer to the order in which the questions were asked. 2. what sound prompted the woman to walk to the living room? a. fine-grain correct: “breaking glass”. b. coarse-grain correct: “something breaking”. c. incorrect: “door slamming”. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 297 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 5. when the woman asked what the man was doing in her house, what did he say? a. fine-grain correct: “i know how to fix it”. b. coarse-grain correct: “i am going to sort it out”. c. incorrect: “i don’t know”. 6. for whom did the man say that he hurt himself? a. fine-grain correct: “for his sister”. b. coarse-grain correct: “for a woman”. c. incorrect: “for their father”. 9. what did the woman say when the man said that she had to cut her tattoo as well? a. fine-grain correct: “okay, give me the knife”. b. coarse-grain correct: “okay”. c. incorrect: “that she did not want to”. 10. the man and the woman talked about fictional characters: nathaniel and ...? a. fine-grain correct: “isabel”. b. coarse-grain correct: “something starting with an ‘i’ ”. c. incorrect: “janet”. 12. when the man held the woman to the floor, she shouted his name. what was his name? a. fine-grain correct: “billy”. b. coarse-grain correct: “the name started with a b”. c. incorrect: “john”. 14. when the man held the woman to the floor, he warned her. what did he say? a. fine-grain correct: “i’m warning you, this is going to hurt”. b. coarse-grain correct: “i’m warning you”. c. incorrect: “i will kill you”. 16. what did the woman say on the phone? a. fine-grain correct: “yes, hello, i need an ambulance”. b. coarse-grain correct: “something about an ambulance”. c. incorrect: “please help me”. about the authors annelies vredeveldt graduated from university college utrecht in 2007, after which she went on to do a masters in psychology and law at maastricht university. upon receiving her m.sc. degree, she moved to the university of york, where she conducted her ph.d. research with professors alan baddeley and grahamhitch. she completed europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 eye-closure and ear-closure 298 http://www.psychopen.eu/ her ph.d. thesis, entitled "the benefits of eye-closure on eyewitness memory", in 2011. annelies is now a postdoctoral research fellow at the university of cape town, working with professor colin tredoux. alan d. baddeley graduated from university college london in 1956, after which he went on to do a masters at princeton university. he then joined the mrc applied psychology unit (apu) in cambridge, where he completed his ph.d. after several years on the scientific staff of the apu he moved to the university of sussex in experimental psychology, then to a chair at stirling university, before returning to the apu as director, where he and graham hitch developed the multi-component model of working memory [baddeley, a. d. & hitch, g. j. (1974): working memory. in: g. h. bower (ed.), the psychology of learning and motivation: advances in research and theory (vol. 8, pp. 47–89). new york: academic press.]. some 21 years later, alan moved to bristol university for 8 years before joining the university of york as a professor in 2003. graham j. hitch completed his first degree in physics at the university of cambridge. he then completed a masters in experimental psychology at the university of sussex before he returned to cambridge to study short-term memory for his ph.d. since then, he has held posts at sussex, stirling, cambridge, manchester, and lancaster universities. during his postdoc with alan baddeley at the university of cambridge, they developed the multi-component model of working memory [baddeley, a. d. & hitch, g. j. (1974): working memory. in: g. h. bower (ed.), the psychology of learning and motivation: advances in research and theory (vol. 8, pp. 47–89). new york: academic press.], and both have continued to be concerned with the model and its evolution ever since. in 2000, graham moved to the university of york to take up a professorship. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 284–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.472 vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch 299 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eye-closure and ear-closure experiment 1: eye-closure method results and discussion experiment 2: “ear-closure” method results and discussion general discussion funding acknowledgments notes references appendix: interview questions with example responses questions addressing visual aspects questions addressing auditory aspects about the authors did curiosity kill the cat? relationship between trait curiosity, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity research reports did curiosity kill the cat? relationship between trait curiosity, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity maciej karwowski*a [a] academy of special education, creative education lab, warsaw, poland. abstract the main objective of the study presented in this article was to examine the relationship between trait curiosity and two self-concept constructs which are gaining popularity in the creativity literature – creative self-efficacy (cse) and creative personal identity (cpi). although the role of curiosity in creativity seems well established, in fact there is little empirical evidence of the relationship between curiosity treated as a trait and both cse and cpi. in a study conducted on a sample of middle and high school polish students (n = 284; 55% female, aged 13–18, m = 14.74, sd = 1.14), curiosity was measured by the curiosity and exploration inventory (cei-ii; kashdan, gallagher, silvia, winterstein, breen, terhar, & steger, 2009) and cse and cpi by the short scale of creative self (sscs; karwowski, lebuda, &wiśniewska, in press). confirmatory factor analysis revealed the existence of substantial correlations between measured constructs. latent factor of cse correlated strongly with a tendency to seek out new experiences (stretching, r = .72) and an acceptance of unpredictability (embracing, r = .67), while cpi correlated substantially with stretching (r = .62) and slightly less with embracing (r = .48) – all correlations were highly reliable (p < .001). hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis showed the existence of a strong relationship between the higher-order factor of curiosity (composed of stretching and embracing) and creative self (composed of cse and cpi): r = .75, which may indicate common basis of creativity and curiosity. the consequences of curiosity for the development of cse and cpi are discussed. keywords: curiosity, creative self-efficacy, creative personal identity, creative self, stretching, embracing europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 received: 2012-08-20. accepted: 2012-09-27. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: creative education lab, department of educational studies, academy of special education, szczesliwicka st., 40, 02-353 warsaw, poland, email: maciek.karwowski@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. although anecdotal evidence confirms that curiosity is one of the most natural characteristics of creative individuals (schmidhuber, 2006), there is far less empirical evidence that this is indeed the case. empirical studies of the relationship between little-c creativity (kaufman & beghetto, 2009) – understood as a potential rather than creative achievements – and curiosity are rare. although it has been demonstrated that creative content science tv programs positively influence children’s curiosity (rubenstein, 2000) and that curiosity may be positively connected with so-called “general restrained creativity” and “impulsive creativity”, it was also found that low curious people achieve higher scores on the “concrete creativity” factor (maw & maw, 1970). in the past it has also been argued that curiosity and intelligence are factors which are responsible for translating creative abilities into accomplishments (day & langevin, 1969), yet also this assumption was not empirically tested so far. there are several definitions of curiosity and ways of understanding this construct. a trait curiosity is a relatively stable disposition, whereas curiosity understood as a state is closely related to easily changing affects, influenced by emotions and stimulating the search for new sensations and experiences. for theoretical reasons it is important to distinguish curiosity from closely related constructs – embodied in the psychology of personality, motivation europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and emotion – such as openness to experience, intrinsic motivation and flow (csikszentmihalyi, 1997). in this article curiosity is treated as a trait – a (relatively) stable disposition to feel curiosity and be curious. kashdan and silvia (2009) defined curiosity as follows: curiosity can be defined as the recognition, pursuit, and intense desire to explore novel, challenging, and uncertain events. when curious, we are fully aware and receptive to whatever exists and might happen in the present moment. curiosity motivates people to act and think in new ways and investigate, be immersed, and learn about whatever is the immediate interesting target of their attention. this definition captures the exploratory striving component and the mindful immersion component. by focusing on the novelty and challenge each moment has to offer, there is an inevitable (however slight) stretching of information, knowledge, and skills. when we are curious, we are doing things for their own sake, and we are not being controlled by internal or external pressures concerning what we should or should not do. (p. 368) perceiving curiosity as a force that motivate “people to act and think in new ways” (kashdan & silvia, 2009, p. 368) makes it conceptually close to little-c creativity, understood as creative thinking and such personality and self-concept variables (feist, 1998), as openness, dynamism or intellect. hence not surprisingly curiosity is usually associated with openness to experience or is even regarded as its’ sub-trait (mccrae, 1987). kashdan, sherman, yarbro, and funder (in press) have made empirical arguments for distinguishing these two constructs one from another, thereby demonstrating their partial independence. the consistent and strong correlations with extroversion (kashdan, afram, brown, birnbeck, & drvoshanov, 2011; kashdan et al., 2009) and consistently negative associations with neuroticism suggest also that curiosity may be positively associated with the meta-trait plasticity: a higher-order personality factor composed of openness to experience and extraversion (deyoung, peterson, séguin, & tremblay, 2008); its associations with stability (a higher-order personality factor composed of emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness), however, are less clear. associations between curiosity and openness to experience (sometimes even considered a personality proxy of creativity, e.g., martindale, 1989) are well established. openness is associated with both stretching (seeking out new experiences) – r = .50 – and embracing (acceptance of unpredictability) – r = .43 (kashdan et al., 2009, p. 992). similarly, a relationship between intrinsic motivation and creative abilities, styles, and the creative personality is usually found (grant & berry, 2011; joy, 2004). on the other hand however, recent studies (gilson & madjar, 2011) demonstrated positive associations between intrinsic motivation and radical creativity (oriented toward changing paradigms, see also sternberg, kaufman, & pretz, 2002), while extrinsic motivation was positively associated with incremental, step-by-step creativity. hence, it may be speculated that curiosity (strongly connected with intrinsic motivation) plays a more important role for radical than incremental creativity. to date, the relationship between curiosity and creativity self-concept constructs, such as creative self-efficacy (cse) and creative personal identity (cpi) has not been established. as kashdan and fincham (2002, p. 373) have stated: “systematic investigation of the role of curiosity in the development of creative cognitive processes, creative personalities, and the production of creative works is urgently needed”. schweizer (2006) proposed the novelty generation model (ngm) which integrates the neuropsychological, personality and motivational aspects of novelty-seeking and creativity. she treats curiosity as the main factor that influences novelty-seeking, which then translates into creativity. this model also assumes an important role of such personality factors as openness to experience and extraversion. schweizer’s presuppositions were not tested in an original article however. the study presented in this article may – at least in part – answer this call and fill the gap observed in the literature. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 curiosity and creativity 548 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the creativity literature, cse, defined as an individual’s set of beliefs that she or he is able to solve problems requiring creative thinking and to function creatively, is becoming an increasingly popular area of research (beghetto, 2006; beghetto, kaufman, & baxter, 2011; choi, 2004; jaussi, randel, & dionne, 2007; karwowski, 2011; lim & choi, 2009; tierney & farmer, 2002, 2011). understanding the structure of the predictors of cse may have important practical implications for both education and counseling. previous studies have demonstrated that cse can be supported by the transformational leadership of a teacher (beghetto, 2006; karwowski, 2011a) or manager (tierney & farmer, 2002), and that it is associated with creative thinking (karwowski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, in press) and the big five factors of personality: positively with openness to experience, extroversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness and negatively with neuroticism (karwowski, lebuda, wiśniewska, & gralewski, in press). the purpose of this article is to extend existing findings and show the relationship between cse and curiosity, understood both as a general trait and a higher-order construct which consists of stretching and embracing (kashdan et al., 2009). jaussi et al. (2007) have suggested that cse develops under the influence of an individual’s belief that creativity is an important element of the individual’s functioning, and this belief – defined as cpi – may further enhance the positive effects of cse in task-specific situations. if the cse and the cpi develop as a result of an individual’s experiences, it is worthwhile to seek their correlates which are also responsible for the wealth and intensity of experience. to date, substantial and positive relationships between cse / cpi and extroversion and openness to experience have been demonstrated – although the big five personality factors explained only one-fifth of the total variance of these constructs. validation studies of a scale developed to measure cse and cpi (karwowski, lebuda, &wiśniewska, in press) have shown that both cse and cpi possess positive correlations with emotional intelligence, intrinsic motivation, and self-esteem. the possible associations between cse and cpi with trait curiosity have not been studied. cse and cpi are conceptually related, yet not synonymous. cse deals with the more dynamic perception of one’s creative abilities in a specific task or situation, whereas cpi defines the importance of creativity in one’s self-definition. both however are important creative self-concept variables, and both constitute the higher-order creative self factor. the present study the main aim of the present study is to examine the pattern of relationships between the trait curiosity and the creative self. the creative self is defined as a higher-order, self-concept factor composed of belief in one’s creative capacities (cse) and importance of creativity for self-identity (cpi). reliable and substantial correlations between sub-factors of curiosity – i.e., stretching and embracing – and cse and cpi were hypothesized (h1), as were strong associations between higher-order constructs of curiosity and creative self (h2). stronger associations between curiosity and cse than cpi were also hypothesized. this hypothesis stems from the characteristics of both creative self-concept variables, specifically the more dynamic and malleable nature of creative self-efficacy as compared to creative personal identity (jaussi et al., 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 karwowski 549 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants in total, n = 284 middle and high school students from warsaw, poland (55% females women, aged 13-18, m = 14.74, sd = 1.14) participated in the present study. measures creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity. the short scale for creative self (sscs; karwowski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, in press) was used to measure cse and cpi. the sscs is composed of 11 items – six which measure cse and five of which measure cpi. creative self-efficacy is described by the following statements on the sscs: (3) i know i can efficiently solve even complicated problems; (4) i trust my creative abilities; (5) compared to my friends, i am distinguished by my imagination and ingenuity; (6) many times i have proven that i can cope with difficult situations; (8) i am sure i can deal with problems requiring creative thinking; and, (9) i am good at proposing original solutions to problems. the statements describing cpi were: (1) i think i am a creative person; (2) my creativity is important to who i am; (7) being a creative person is important to me; (10) creativity is an important part of myself; and, (11) ingenuity is a characteristic which is important to me. each statement was measured on a 5-point likert scale where 1 = definitely not and 5 = definitely yes. the internal consistency of both scales was high: αcse = .81, αcpi = .90. in previous research, both scales had been characterized by high reliability and validity, as well. a two factor structure of this instrument was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (karwowski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, in press; karwowski, lebuda, wiśniewska, & gralewski, in press), as well as by exploratory structural equation modelling (karwowski, 2012). curiosity and exploration inventory-ii. an improved version of kashdan, rose, and fincham’s (2004) curiosity and exploration inventory, the cei-ii (kashdan et al., 2009) was used in its polish adaptation (kaczmarek, baczkowski, & baran, 2010) to measure trait curiosity. the cei-ii consists of 10 items, five of which measure the curiosity sub-trait stretching – i.e., item 1: i actively seek as much information as i can in new situations; and item 3: i am at my best when doing something that is complex or challenging – and five which measure the sub-trait embracing – i.e., item 2: i am the type of person who really enjoys the uncertainty of everyday life; and item 4: everywhere i go, i am out looking for new things or experiences. a 5-point likert scale was used, where 1 = very slightly or not at all and 5 = extremely. data presented in the original article which introduced the cei-ii showed this instrument to be highly reliable and valid, and item response theory analysis confirmed that trait curiosity is effectively measured at different levels of latent trait. in this study both scales were moderately reliable (stretching: cronbach’s α = .77, embracing: cronbach’s α = .74) and showed substantial correlation (r = .66; p < 0.001; cf. table 1). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations of variables used in the study 4321sdm 1. stretching .52***.57***.66***.77)(.75.273 2. embracing .41***.55***.74)(.77.453 3. creative self-efficacy .71***.81)(.68.513 4. creative personal identity .90)(.88.633 note. cronbach’s α on the diagonal in brackets. correlation coefficient is pearson r ***p < .001 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 curiosity and creativity 550 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure all participants were treated in accordance with the ethical guidelines set out by the american psychological association (2009). prior to data collection, written consent was obtained from each adult participant or each participants’ parents if the participant was under 18 years old. participants were not rewarded for participating in the study. they and their parents were informed that they could withdraw at any time. the questionnaires were completed in a counter-balanced order, individually in a group-administered session of 15–20 people, with each group lasting approximately 20 minutes. any further questions were attended to during the session. results data obtained in the study were analyzed in four steps. in the first step, descriptive statistics and inter-correlations between key variables used in the study were calculated (table 1). in the second, correlations between the latent sub-traits of curiosity and cse and cpi were calculated using confirmatory factor analysis. since the 5-point likert scale which was used in both inventories is an ordinal scale – and not, as is usually assumed, a continuous one – the analysis was repeated in the third step using parcels, or averaged items per each scale (coffman & maccallum, 2005). in the fourth step, correlations between latent higher-order factors of curiosity and creative self were calculated. lastly, an additional fifth step was devoted to the assessment of common method bias by fitting a one-factor model and comparing its fit to the fit of the models previously found. structural equation modeling was used to better deal with the measurement error. this set of techniques allow for effective modeling relations between latent variables, with correction for scales unreliability (mcdonald & ringo ho, 2002). descriptive statistics, correlations between scales and their reliability scores are provided in table 1. all scales were characterized by moderate-to-high internal consistency (cronbach’s α between .74 and .90); in the case of cse and cpi, the reliability was high; in the case of stretching and embracing, moderate. as expected, there were reliable and substantial associations between the sub-traits of curiosity and cse (r = .57 with stretching and r = .55 with embracing) and weaker associations with regards to cpi (r = .52 with stretching and r = .41 with embracing). both curiosity sub-scales were strongly correlated (r = .66) as was cse with cpi (r = .71). the structural equation model (sem), which consists of two confirmatory factor analyses, showed moderate fit (χ2[df = 183] = 477.45, p < .001; χ2 / df = 2.61; cfi = .88; rmsea = .07, 90% ci: .065–.081; figure 1). correction for measurement error, typical for sem, allows a more reliable estimate of the associations between constructs. the correlations between the two curiosity sub-factors increased significantly (r = .92) to a level similar to the correlation between cse and cpi (r = .82). creative self-efficacy correlated strongly with stretching (r = .71) and embracing (r = .72). creative personal identity was associated with both stretching (r = .62) and embracing (r = .52). the model with parcels was shown to be better-fitted (χ2[df = 21] = 38.30; p < .01; χ2 / df = 1.82; cfi = .987; rmsea = .052, 90% ci: .024–.078) than the previous one ( δχ2 = 439.15; δdf = 162; p < .001; figure 2). similar to previous examinations, there were stronger associations between cse and the curiosity sub-traits (r = .67 with embracing and r = .72 with stretching) than between cpi and curiosity (r = .62 with stretching and r = .48 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 karwowski 551 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the relationship between stretching, embracing, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity figure 2. the relationship between stretching, embracing, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity – model with parcels europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 curiosity and creativity 552 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with embracing). the strength of the cse / cpi correlation with embracing differed significantly (z = 3.41; p < .001); the difference in correlations with stretching were also notable (z = 2.16; p = .03). it may thus be concluded that curiosity plays a more important role in cse than it does in cpi, although associations with cpi are still strong and worthy of attention. this finding confirms the third hypothesis of this study. to estimate associations at a more general level, hierarchical analysis was conducted with two higher-order correlated latent factors: curiosity and creative self (figure 3). this model was well fitted to the data (χ2[df = 22] = 43.35; p = .004; χ2 / df = 1.97; cfi = .984; rmsea = .056, 90% ci: .031–.081) although not as well fitted as the model previously analyzed (δχ2 = 139.65; δdf = 1; p < .001). figure 3. hierarchical model of relationships between higher-order curiosity and creative self pertaining to the second hypothesis of this study, a strong and reliable association between the latent factors of curiosity and creative self was observed. almost 60% of the shared variance of these two constructs is able to be interpreted as the result of a large overlap and a very strong effect size.1 it may thus be concluded that an individual’s curiosity is closely linked to them perceiving herself or himself as a creative person. assessment of common method bias a very high correlation between higher-order latent factors might raise questions about the possibly artifactual nature of this finding, as the possibility of common method bias exists. as both cei-ii and sscs are short inventories, both of which use a 5-point likert scale, there is a risk that the similar format of these scales influenced the results obtained. there are several ways to examine whether common method bias occurred (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003), with the so-called “harman’s single factor test” (podsakoff et al., 2003, p. 889) – which examines the fit of a one-factor model when the factor is loaded by all variables used in the study – being among the most popular. confirmatory factor analysis with one factor loaded by separate parcels showed europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 karwowski 553 http://www.psychopen.eu/ poor fit (χ2[df = 27] = 303.30; p < .001; χ2 / df = 11.23; cfi = .79; rmsea = .18, 90% ci: .165–.202) thereby indicating that common method bias was not a problem in this study. discussion creativity helps make the world better and contributes to the development of a culture (tsai, 2012), economy (spencer, 2012) and individuals’ well-being (ishaq, 2006). the multitude of means by which to develop creativity is enormous (scott, leritz, & mumford, 2004a), and the effectiveness of many such methods has been confirmed (scott, leritz, & mumford, 2004b). people often find creativity to be an essential element of their own personality, in the form of their personal creative identity (karwowski, 2009, 2011), which suggests that they will not only engage in creative actions and processes, but also support them – for example, in their children, students and subordinates (plucker & makel, 2010). it is particularly important to understand the determinants of perceiving oneself as creative or not, as these determinants may play an important role in shaping the creative self-concept, understood as both cse and cpi. the aim of the study presented in this article was to determine the nature of the relationship between trait curiosity and its two sub-components – stretching and embracing – with cse and cpi. on the basis of previously established relationships between cse / cpi and intrinsic motivation (karwowski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, in press) and openness to experience (karwowski, lebuda, wiśniewska, & gralewski, in press) positive relationships on the part of both components with the cse and the cpi were expected. analysis of the relation of both self-concept variables to curiosity is worth attention, as previous studies have shown only moderate relationships of cse / cpi with the big five personality traits (karwowski, lebuda, wiśniewska, & gralewski, in press). in accordance with the distinction proposed by asendorpf and van aken (2003) (see also marsh, trautwein, ludtke, koller, & baumert, 2006), it may be argued that personality and cse / cpi belong to two different theoretical families, developed in two different traditions – the psychology of personality and social psychology. while the big five traits are “hard core” (asendorpf & van aken, 2003, p. 629) variables, strongly rooted in biology (deyoung, 2010), cse and cpi are self-concept variables, much more malleable and susceptible to environmental influences, environmental conditions and the personality itself. in this instance, attention was given to curiosity, assuming that this theoretical construct is more malleable and may be of particular importance to cse and cpi development. curiosity is not merely a component of openness to experience and an important covariate of intrinsic motivation, but is also an important trait in its own right. its importance in shaping the functioning of outstanding creators is well-established (kashdan & fincham, 2002), but little is known about its role in shaping the cse of people without creative achievements. the study presented in this article fills the aforementioned gap, showing a clear relationship between the constructs under investigation. the higher order factors of curiosity and creative self share nearly 60% of common variance – a sufficiently large percentage to consider them as clearly overlapping. at the same time, a more detailed analysis revealed subtle but interesting differences. creative self-efficacy correlated with both stretching and embracing more strongly than cpi did. this suggests that both dimensions of curiosity are important for convincing people of their creative abilities. although the correlational design does not allow for inferences regarding causality, it may be speculated that the acceptance of complexity (stretching) and a high demand for newness (embracing) make it possible to test an individual’s abilities in practice, thus giving her or him more chances to enhance their cse. the cpi was more strongly associated with the level of stretching than with that of embracing. given the nature of the cpi dimension, and particularly its relationship with overall identity, this result is not surprising. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 curiosity and creativity 554 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stretching is connected with the search for opportunities for self-development and learning – and is therefore important to find out something about the individual. in the studies which developed the cei-ii, stronger correlations of stretching than embracing were found in the case of constructs relevant to issues of identity (kashdan et al., 2009). stretching correlated with a positive affect (r = .38) more strongly than did embracing (r = .20); the same was observed in case of other identity sub-components (i.e., autonomy, r = .40 versus r = .23; personal growth, r = .54 versus r = .34; purpose in life, r = .45 versus r = .24; and, self-acceptance, r = .47 versus r = .24). the study presented in this article is not without limitations. the most important is the correlational design, which does not allow for inferences about causality. although it may be implicitly accepted that curiosity shapes both self-concept creativity variables, in fact the reverse cannot be excluded, nor can the existence of other dimensions which shape both the trait curiosity and the creative self – especially openness to experience. another limitation may be seen in the nature of both scales used in this study. while both were reliable and other studies have demonstrated their validity (karwowski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, in press; kashdan et al., 2009), it is worth remembering that both are short scales, and both are relatively new in the literature. further studies should therefore attempt to replicate these findings. replication of obtained findings on different samples – especially differing in age and creative achievements – is worthwhile. as this study was conducted among youths, for objective reasons without creative achievements, it is possible that both creativity self-concept variables (cse and cpi) and curiosity are in fact similar and form a common “creative potential factor”. studies among people with higher level of creative achievements would be helpful to further examine the relations between them. the conclusions from our study, however, are clear: curiosity is an essential component of the creative self. this is important news for all those who want to enhance their cse and cpi, and thus concerns teachers, parents and managers alike. notes 1) it is worth noting that an exploratory model with a higher order latent factor loaded by curiosity and creative self was not successfully identified. references asendorpf, j. b., & van aken, m. a. g. 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(2012). the interplay between culture and creativity. cross-cultural communication, 8, 15-20. about the author maciej karwowski is an associate professor and head of creative education lab at academy of special education in warsaw, poland. his main research interests include educational psychology of creativity, measurement of creativity and analysis of contextual factor influencing creative thinking. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 547–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.513 curiosity and creativity 558 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2000.tb01199.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540090600768658 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8691.2006.00383.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2004.tb01238.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400410409534549 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbr002 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3069429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020952 http://www.psychopen.eu/ curiosity and creativity the present study method participants measures procedure results assessment of common method bias discussion notes references about the author humor and resiliency: towards a process model of coping and growth theoretical contributions humor and resiliency: towards a process model of coping and growth nicholas a. kuiper*a [a] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada. abstract this article considers how humor may fit within a resiliency perspective. following a brief overview of resiliency approaches, including selected work on positive psychology, several lines of research that provide initial support for resiliency effects of humor on stress and trauma are highlighted. this work ranges from anecdotal case report descriptions of facilitative humor use in extremely traumatic situations (e.g., paramedics), to more rigorous studies examining moderator and cognitive appraisal effects of humor on psychological well-being. although these initial findings are quite promising, it is noted that some resiliency-based approaches to humor are limited by a sole focus on humor as a positive attribute. as such, a humor styles model, which acknowledges both the adaptive and maladaptive aspects of humor, is used to describe broader avenues of research within a resiliency perspective. this process orientation to humor use also highlights the importance of both negative and positive emotion regulation in modulating coping and growth. this model is then used to comment on limitations and potential extensions of current resiliency perspectives on humor, including programs and exercises that attempt to train humor use in a facilitative manner. keywords: humor, resiliency, stress, coping, challenge, appraisals, distancing, growth europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 received: 2012-03-07. accepted: 2012-05-19. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, room 309e, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7, email: kuiper@uwo.ca. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a resiliency perspective on humor psychological theory and research on well-being and quality of life has traditionally focused on the impact of negative factors. this has included the investigation of both adverse life stressors and dysfunctional personality attributes that may contribute to the deterioration of well-being, or even the development of psychopathology. in contrast to this traditional approach, however, the past twenty years have also witnessed the emergence of an alternative perspective that broadens this focus considerably. this alternative has its roots in development psychology, and studies the personal, environmental and contextual factors that can enhance psychological well-being and quality of life, particularly during times of adversity or stress (windle, 2011; zautra, hall, & murray, 2008). known as resiliency, this concept has been applied across the life-span, using amulti-disciplinary perspective, and has recently been defined as the “process of effectively negotiating, adapting to, or managing significant sources of stress or trauma. assets and resources within the individual, their life and environment facilitate this capacity for adaptation and “bouncing back” in the face of adversity.” (windle, 2011, p. 153). when focusing on the individual, one core characteristic of resiliency investigated thus far is the concept of personal hardiness, which is used to cope effectively with life’s stresses and strains. hardiness has since evolved into the --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ construct of mental toughness, which refers to the ability to maintain the control, commitment and confidence that allows one to view stressful situations as challenges rather than threats (veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010). in addition to focusing on these types of positive personality constructs, which facilitate personal growth in the presence of stress or trauma, the resiliency approach has expanded considerably over the past decade to also incorporate certain positive psychology perspectives. as championed by peterson and seligman (2004), positive psychology has catalogued additional positive character strengths of the individual, and then determined how these may interact with other environmental, personal and situational variables to facilitate growth, personal enhancement, and psychological well-being. over the past decade, positive psychology had guided the development of measures of character strengths and positive intervention exercises that can lead to a healthier life-style and greater psychological well-being (proctor, maltby, & linley, 2011; schueller, 2010). in this domain of research, 24 positive character strengths are measured via the values in action inventory of strengths (via-is), with the most commonly endorsed strengths being love, humor, kindness, social intelligence and open-mindedness (peterson, park, pole, d’andrea, & seligman, 2008; proctor et al., 2011). researchers have found evidence that several of these character strengths are significant predictors of well-being and life satisfaction, including hope, zest, humor, gratitude, love and curiosity (gillham et al., 2011; proctor et al., 2011). humor, which is defined in this domain as a general positive attribute (e.g., like to laugh and joke, bring smiles to other people), is one of the character strengths that contributes most strongly to life satisfaction (peterson, ruch, beermann, park, & seligman, 2007). of particular interest from a resiliency perspective is that several positive character strengths, such as kindness, humor, leadership, love and social intelligence, all showed significant increases in growth following experiences with major traumatic events, such as a life-threatening accident, attack, or illness (peterson et al., 2008). in addition, some of these positive character strengths are even better predictors of post-treatment recovery from depression than negative dysfunctional attitudes (huta & hawley, 2010). positive psychology has also contributed to the development of a number of distinct exercises or positive interventions that can foster growth, resiliency, and well-being. this includes such techniques as explicitly savoring and sharing good news, reviewing one’s blessings on a daily basis, and expressing gratitude via written testimonials. meta-analyses have indicated that these techniques are generally quite effective, with each of these exercises typically resulting in higher levels of positive affect, happiness, and life satisfaction; along with lower levels of depressive symptomatology (sin & lyubomirsky, 2009; schueller, 2010). in summary, a resiliency approach, including the positive psychology work described above, has led to a re-orientation of research on well-being and quality of life to also consider how individuals may grow in a positive manner, and becomemore resilient when facing life’s stress and strains. rather than just considering how adverse life events and dysfunctional personality characteristics impact negatively on well-being, this resiliency re-orientation has facilitated consideration of the potentially beneficial role of a number of positive personality attributes or characteristics, including humor. contemporary research on humor, coping and psychological well-being it is important to note that a quite different body of psychological literature on the role of humor in coping, quality of life, and psychological well-being has also developed over the past twenty years or so. this research, while often unfolding in parallel with the above cited work on resiliency and humor, has rarely been incorporated within europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 476 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a resiliency framework. this contemporary renaissance of psychological theory and research on humor has focused extensively on furthering our understanding of the facilitative or positive effects of humor (kuiper, 2010). thus, much of this work addresses such issues as how humor can facilitate coping with stress, or how humor can enhance personal and social relationships (martin, 2007). a variety of mechanism and processes have been advanced to account for these facilitative effects. these include emotion regulation of negative affect by using humor and cognitive re-appraisals to distance one’s self from stressful life events and circumstances (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993). this body of research, which is substantial, has proceeded in almost complete isolation of theory and research on resiliency, and associated constructs such as happiness (herzog & strevey, 2008). in light of the above, one aim of the present approach was to determine how prior work on the use of humor to cope with stressful situations or life events might also pertain to the personal characteristics aspect of a resiliency framework (windle, 2011; zautra et al., 2008). in this approach, sense of humor can be viewed as one of the important facets of personal resiliency that an individual can draw upon, when attempting to deal with high levels of adversity, trauma, or any other extremely stressful circumstance. the following section describes several lines of humor-related evidence relevant to this proposal. humor as a facet of personal resiliency initial evidence comes from anecdotal or case report studies that have documented the use of humor to cope with the extremely traumatic events typically encountered by emergency service personnel, such as police, firefighters, and those in medical settings. workers in these highly stressful occupations often employ cynical humor or “gallows humor” to relieve tension, vent their feelings, and cope with stress in settings such as the emergency room (rowe & regehr, 2010; van wormer, & boes, 1997) or as hiv service providers (kosenko & rintamaki, 2010). it has been suggested that humor is used adaptively in these adverse situations to help detach or distance the self and also foster group cohesion and social support, in order to ensure that personnel can act effectively under these traumatic circumstances. these observational studies are extremely rich in descriptive detail and high on ecological validity (being real-life high stress settings); but they also display little experimental control, thus limiting any firm conclusions. although many of these reports certainly describe the personal use of humor that would fit well within a resiliency framework, these case studies also refer to other uses of humor that are quite maladaptive for the individual, such as inappropriately masking emotions or pain, or alienating others by using cynical humor (kosenko & rintamaki, 2010). furthermore, longitudinal research with some service providers has found that police officers displaying greater levels of humor were actually at increased risk for cardiovascular disease, greater bodymass, and increased smoking (kerkkänen, kuiper, & martin, 2004), thus seriously challenging the humor and resiliency link. further evidence for viewing humor as a personal resiliency factor emerges from other naturalistic studies in high stress situations. as one illustration, gavrilovic et al. (2003) found that the use of humor was one of the coping strategies used by civilians subjected to bombing and air raids, and was related to lower levels of post-traumatic stress “intrusions” a year later. however, it was not clear how much of this effect could be attributed to humor use only, as the various coping strategies used by individuals were examined together (rather than separately), with all of these measures obtained retrospectively. in contrast, ong, bergeman, and bisconti (2004) used a more rigorous prospective longitudinal design, along with separate assessments of humor coping, perceived stress, positive affect, and depression, to examine conjugal bereavement in 34 older adult widows. these investigators europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 477 http://www.psychopen.eu/ found that increased humor use in the period following the death of one’s spouse helped promote greater emotional resilience. in particular, those using more humor to cope during conjugal bereavement were better able to keep their positive emotions distinct and separate from their negative emotions, resulting in fewer depressive symptoms. other research has examined how the personal use of humor may contribute, in a positive manner, to dealing with a broad variety of life situations across the life span. this work includes the innovative use of daily filming to document at-risk adolescents’ use of humor to enhance socio-emotional functioning during typical encounters (cameron, fox, anderson, & cameron, 2010); the examination of high school students’ use of humor to cope with stress during college preparation (shaunessy & suldo, 2010); and the use of humor by elderly women when making upsetting and painful self-disclosures (matsumoto, 2009). although the stressors in these studies are not always as extreme as those described previously, they are still of sufficient magnitude to demonstrate that the personal use of humor can be quite congruent with a resiliency model. as one example, intellectually gifted high school students used humor more effectively to help feel positive emotions when dealing with the stresses of college preparation, compared to non-gifted students. in a similar fashion, elderly japanese women conversing with friends about negative changes in their life circumstances, such as severe illness or the death of a spouse, were able to convert painful self-disclosures about these topics to more humorous comments that could then be shared appropriately with friends. similar humor-related benefits for coping with stressful life events have also been reported by elderly residents in assisted living (westburg, 2003). epidemiological research has also provided evidence congruent with the proposal that humor can serve as an important personal facet of resiliency. in one of these studies, norwegian patients with end-stage renal disease were tracked prospectively for survival rates across a 2 year period (svebak, krisoffersen, & aasord, 2006). here, those displaying a greater sense of humor also displayed survival rates that were 31% higher, on average, than experienced for those with a lower sense of humor. a more recent study by svebak, romundstad, and holmen (2010) expanded the scope considerably by tracking the links between sense of humor and survival rates for over 50,000 respondents in a county in norway, across a 7 year prospective time span. this research found that hazard ratios were significantly reduced for those with a greater sense of humor. this benefit of humor use was evident regardless of gender and current health (poor versus good), but became much less pronounced above the age of 65. additional evidence for resiliency effects for personal humor comes from moderator research examining stress-buffering effects. here, martin and lefcourt (1983) proposed that individuals with high levels of coping humor would be more resistant to the negative impact of life stressors than individuals with low coping humor. it was predicted that the former would use humor to distance themselves more fully from life stressors, thus reducing their negative personal impact. this interaction effect was evident, as high humor individuals showed little or no increase in negative mood when their number of negative life events increased from low to high. in contrast, those displaying low levels of coping humor showed a marked increase in negative mood, as their negative life events increased. this stress-buffering effect of humor has also been documented in other studies (e.g., nezu, nezu, & blissett, 1988). further research has helped clarified the processes involved in this stress-buffering effect, by focusing on cognitive appraisals. in terms of negative events, kuiper et al. (1993) found that individuals high on the use of coping humor provided more positive challenge appraisals regarding an upcoming examination than those low on coping humor. this finding is consistent with an “event-enhancement” function for humor, with more humorous individuals actively europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 478 http://www.psychopen.eu/ seeking out life experiences and viewing them in a positive challenging manner, rather than as a negative threat. in further accord with this event enhancement effect, a subsequent study by kuiper, mckenzie, and belanger (1995) found that higher levels of coping humor were associated with significantly more positive challenge appraisals for a laboratory-based drawing task (draw a person on a winter day); as well as lower threat appraisals prior to the first attempt on this task. furthermore, those with higher coping humor also displayed more positive affect, greater motivation, and more effort in completing this task. the above findings fit quite well into a personal resiliency model by suggesting that high levels of coping humor are associated with more positive challenge appraisals for various life events. in turn, these positive appraisals can also generate greater enthusiasm and enjoyment for dealing with these events, and are thus strongly associated with more positive affect. in further accord with this proposal, abel (2002) found that those with a high sense of humor reported less stress and current anxiety than those in a low humor group, despite group equivalence in both the number and type of everyday problems they experienced. this pattern was attributed to differences in the cognitive appraisal process, with high humor individuals appraising less stress in their lives and using more positive re-appraisals when encountering stressful life events. even more recently, geisler and weber (2010), found that the use of humor helped individuals cope more positively with poor performance on a self-threating task (a bogus intelligence test with many unsolvable items), by increasing both external appraisals for failure on this task and subsequent positive affect levels. much of the research described thus far has focused primarily on the facilitative or enhancement effects of humor when dealing with stressful events. in addition to coping effectively with stress, however, a resiliency approach would suggest that humor should also contribute significantly to the enhancement of positive life experiences and events. interestingly, several lines of evidence offer support for this positive enhancement effect of humor (kuiper & olinger, 1998). as one illustration, kuiper, martin, and dance (1992) found that more humorous individuals rated their most important personal roles as significantly more pleasant and satisfying than less humorous individuals. this study also found that as the number of positive life events increased, it was only the more humorous individuals who showed an increase in their positive affect levels. low humor individuals did not experience this heightened positive affect for more positive life events. finally, this study also revealed that high-humor individuals were much better able to maintain their positive affect in face of increasingly negative life events, whereas low humor individuals showed a significant drop. these findings, which are quite congruent with the findings of the drawing task study described earlier (kuiper et al., 1995), provide further clear support for a positive enhancement effect for sense of humor. thus, consistent with a resiliency perspective, a good sense of humor can add a degree of richness and fullness to one’s life, including enhanced enjoyment of positive life experiences, greater positive emotions, a more positive view of self, and greater psychological well-being and quality of life. another line of evidence for the proposal that humor can be considered one of the personal facets of resiliency comes from the positive psychology research described earlier. recall that this work by peterson and various colleagues identified humor as one of 24 positive character strengths measured by the values in action – inventory of strength (via-is); and then demonstrated how increased levels of personal humor can also predict greater psychological well-being and life satisfaction (peterson et al., 2007). researchers in this domain have also provided some preliminary evidence that personal humor may “grow” in character strength, following significant personal traumas (peterson et al., 2008). as such, this work has made several beneficial contributions to the investigation of how humor may relate to psychological well-being, quality of life, and resiliency. there remains, however, a europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 479 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fundamental concern with how the construct of humor that has been defined and measured in this domain of research. this issue is highlighted below, followed by several recommendations leading to the presentation of a more comprehensive theoretical model for future work on humor, and its potential linkages with resiliency and psychological well-being. from a positive psychology perspective to a humor styles approach in the positive psychology approach, sense of humor is construed as a general positive attribute (e.g., joking and making others laugh). theoretically, humor was originally conceptualized by peterson and seligman (2004) as one of several character strengths (e.g., gratitude, hope) that would fit within one of six broader virtues (e.g., transcendence the forging of connections to the larger universe and providing meaning). subsequent factor analytic work, however, has not supported this clear interpretation, with humor displaying considerable variability in its factor loadings. depending upon the study examined, humor as a positive character strength has loaded on such different virtues as interpersonal, humanity, or transcendence; or even simultaneously on several different virtues, such as leadership, temperance, and transcendence (gillham et al., 2011; peterson & seligman, 2004; peterson et al., 2007; ruch et al., 2010). compounding the factorial instability of the humor component of the via-is is the further concern that this measure does not capture the broad spectrum of humor. specifically, it only assesses the positive aspects of humor (e.g., using humor to enhance social interactions), while ignoring the maladaptive aspects (e.g., using sarcastic or aggressive humor to put down others). in the past decade, the humor literature has provided considerable evidence that the construct of humor is multi-faceted; and that any work on humor and well-being needs to clearly identify and assess both the positive and negative aspects of this construct (herzog & strevey, 2008; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). in this regard, beermann and ruch (2009) have provided strong empirical evidence that the via-is only taps into the positive aspects of the humor construct. when combined with factorial instability, this further limitation of via-is humor assessment may account for some of the failures to replicate previous findings in this domain. as one illustration, gillham et al. (2011) recently reported that via-is humor strength did not predict future subjective well-being in their longitudinal sample of 149 high school adolescent students, although this humor resiliency effect has been found in prior positive psychology research. in light of the above, it is suggested that any research examining humor from a resiliency or positive psychology perspective should first of all clearly define exactly what is meant by the construct of humor, including consideration of both its positive and negative elements. this work should also consider the possibility that various individuals may differ markedly in terms of the specific style of humor they display. for example, some individuals may typically use aggressive humor, which is generally maladaptive; whereas others may typically use affiliative humor, which is muchmore beneficial from a resiliency and growth perspective. thus, by carefully delineating the humor construct being examined, this work can more clearly distinguish facets of humor that might be viewed as positive strengths contributing to resiliency, from the facets of humor that are clearly negative and maladaptive. to help accomplish this goal, it is proposed here that martin et al.’s (2003) humor styles model can serve as a useful theoretical-empirical framework for providing a more detailed examination of how humor may (or may not) relate to resiliency. this model has now accumulated considerable empirical support (kuiper et al., 2004; kuiper, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 480 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2010; martin, 2007), and as described below, documents the various functions of both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles in a wide variety of life circumstances. overview of the humor styles model martin et al. (2003) have conceptualized sense of humor as a multi-faceted individual difference characteristic involving four main styles, namely, affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor. both the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles generally tap the positive or adaptive aspects of sense of humor; whereas the aggressive and self-defeating styles generally tap the negative or maladaptive aspects of this personal characteristic (see kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010; martin, 2007). in the humor styles approach, affiliative humor is a warm and benevolent style involving funny non-hostile jokes and spontaneous witty banter that serves to amuse others, but in a respectful and accepting way. affiliative humor is used adaptively to enhance social relationships, reduce conflict, and increase group morale. light-hearted jokes and funny banter maintain group cohesiveness and decrease interpersonal tensions, thereby facilitating interpersonal relationships in a manner that is accepting and affirming of both self and others. self-enhancing humor is also described in the humor styles model as being adaptive, self-accepting, and non-detrimental to others. self-enhancing humor involves the ability to take and maintain a humorous perspective on life, and is used to deal with personal stress by reducing negative emotional and cognitive responses to adverse life circumstances or events. as such, this humor style may be used to boost one’s self-esteem and guard against negative emotions. in other words, this humor style is used as a facilitative coping strategy to protect and buffer the self, but not at the expense of self or others. in contrast to these two adaptive humor styles, the maladaptive humor styles tend to be detrimental to either the self (self-defeating humor) or others (aggressive humor). individuals with an aggressive humor style employ teasing, sarcasm, ridicule, and disparagement, without consideration of its impact on others. aggressive humor has a strong negative effect on interpersonal relationships, as it is specifically intended to put down and insult others. those high on aggressive humor display little regard for others and use this humor style at the expense of others. as such, the consistent use of an aggressive humor style may ultimately serve to alienate other individuals, thus severely impairing one’s social and interpersonal relationships. finally, self-defeating humor is excessively critical and ridiculing of one’s self. individuals with this humor style often allow themselves to be the “butt” of jokes, and laugh along when they are disparaged by others, in the hopes of gaining others’ approval and acceptance. self-defeating humor is used in a futile attempt to enhance relationships with others, but at the expense of positive feelings about self. of further concern is that this ingratiating humor style may actually be used to hide negative feelings about the self, and avoid dealing with problems, such as low self-esteem and emotional neediness, in a more appropriate manner. these four styles of humor are typically assessed via the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). the hsq has now been used in a large number of studies to assess sense of humor in both adults and adolescents (kuiper, 2010; martin, 2007). this 32-item self-report scale has 8 items per humor style; with a sample item for each sub-scale being as follows: 1) affiliative humor “ i laugh and joke a lot with my close friends,” 2) self-enhancing humor “even when i’m by myself, i am often amused by the absurdities of life,” 3) aggressive humor “if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it,” and, finally, 4) self-defeating europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 481 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor “ i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh.” researchers have reported very good psychometric properties for the hsq, including different forms of reliability and validity. as one example, martin et al. (2003) found that affiliative humor was related to the tendency to joke with others, and subsequently to constructs such as extraversion, cheerfulness, and psychological well-being. conversely, aggressive humor was related to the tendency to criticize and manipulate others, and to constructs such as hostility and sarcasm. evidence is also strong that the four scales of the hsq are distinct from one another, with intercorrelations being in the low to modest range, and subsequent factor analytic work typically showing the expected four factors. a number of studies now provide evidence for the existence of these four styles across european, north american, middle eastern, and eastern cultures (kuiper, 2010; kuiper, kazarian, sine, & bassil, 2010; martin, 2007). there is also a growing body of research demonstrating differential relationships between the adaptive and maladaptive humor styles and psychological well-being (martin, 2007; kuiper, 2010). as one illustration, both kuiper et al. (2004) and martin et al. (2003) found that higher levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humor were linked to lower depression and anxiety, higher positive affect, and higher self-esteem; whereas higher levels of maladaptive self-defeating humor were associated with increased depression and anxiety, greater negative affect, and lower self-esteem. erickson and feldstein (2007) found similar results when examining adolescent populations, further supporting the idea that the adaptive humor styles facilitate psychological well-being, while self-defeating humor impedes well-being. the important role of humor styles in contributing to these aspects of psychological health has been further confirmed in work documenting various humor styles as significant mediators between both positive and negative self-schema evaluative standards and indices of psychological well-being, such as depression and self-esteem (dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009; kuiper & mchale, 2009). the four humor styles are differentially associated with relationship satisfaction, which can also have a strong impact on well-being. for example, campbell, martin, and ward (2008) found that individuals whose dating partners used more affiliative and less aggressive humor were more satisfied with this relationship. moreover, these individuals reported increased perceived closeness with their partners, and better problem solving resolutions following a discussion of a conflict. finally, cann and etzel (2008) found that greater use of self-enhancing humor was associated with higher levels of happiness, hope and optimism; whereas greater use of self-defeating humor was related to decreased levels of these positive personal qualities. of importance here is that these positive personality qualities also explain a significant amount of variability in perceived stress. overall, these studies offer considerable support for not only the humor styles model, but also its pattern of distinctive relationships with psychological well-being. incorporating the humor styles model in a resiliency approach to humor as described above, a major concern with some of the positive psychology work on humor and resiliency is the exclusive focus on a singular positive construct of humor. in contrast, the humor styles model bring with it considerable conceptual clarity by recognizing not only the positive or adaptive aspects of humor, but also the maladaptive or negative aspects. furthermore, in addition to its strong theoretical foundation, this model now has a considerable amount of empirical support, including strong psychometric evidence for the applicability and utility of the hsq. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ accordingly, it would be useful to integrate this humor styles model (and its accompanying measure, the hsq) into a resiliency approach to humor. this integration could be helpful in several ways. first, consideration of both positive and negative humor styles might help clarify some of the past work on humor and resiliency that has yielded conflicting or unexpected findings. as one illustration, gillham et al. (2011) did not find that increased levels of humor predicted future well-being or life satisfaction, in their adolescent sample. perhaps this failure to replicate the expected resiliency finding may pertain to how humor was defined and measured in their research. not acknowledging that sense of humor is a multifaceted construct, with both positive and negative elements, may have blurred any distinctive findings that may have been evident for each separate humor style. in particular, self-enhancing or affiliative humor may have yielded the expected resiliency effects, whereas self-defeating or aggressive humor may not. such a pattern would have shown how specific facets of sense of humor may have very different relationships with resiliency outcomes such as well-being or life satisfaction. the above concern is also applicable to any other resiliency studies that have yielded null or inconsistent findings for humor. the inclusion of the humor styles model in this domain would allow for a much more precise and detailed examination of the exact role of sense of humor. this inclusion could clearly separate out effects pertaining to positive psychology (i.e., adaptive humor styles), from the negative impact of the maladaptive humor styles. furthermore, there is a real need to combine such work with longitudinal research containing multiple testing points, as much previous work has been cross-sectional, limiting the inferences that can be drawn. this longitudinal work could be diary-based, for example, and include records of daily affect (both positive and negative), an assessment of the four humor styles, the daily use of each humor style, and the life experiences dealt with by the individual. research on humor and resiliency that incorporates the humor styles model should also keep in mind that individuals may differ in their typical use of the humor styles. as just one set of documented profiles, some individuals may consistently use self-enhancing and affiliative humor; whereas others may typically engage in self-defeating and aggressive humor (galloway, 2010). the humor styles model would generally expect that enhancement or facilitative effects would be associated with the former profile; but maladaptive effects with the latter. future research on humor and resiliency should also note that contemporary humor literature has shown that some of the detrimental effects of humor might emerge in different (and sometimes more subtle), manifestations that are linked to specific patterns of humor styles. one example is work by hodson, macinnis, and rush (2010) showing that individuals with higher reported use of both affiliative and aggressive humor also scored higher on measures of racial prejudice and social dominance. these individuals also showed amore cavalier and nonchalant approach to humor that minimized its potential harm to others, and also helped to mask the biases that were evident in their more favorable responses to disparaging jokes about mexicans (hodson, rush, & macinnis, 2010). perhaps the fundamental message evident in all of the above is that future humor research on resiliency needs to be much more cognizant of the fact that humor can also have negative or detrimental effects, in additional to positive. recall that some of these detrimental effects are described quite well in the case study reports included earlier in this article. kosenko and rintamaki (2010), for example, reported that hiv service providers also used humor in a maladaptive manner to mask emotions or pain, with the result being less effective working relationships. the major problem with this prior descriptive work is that these negative effects were often not given much further consideration, as most of these case reports emphasized how humor can benefit the individual in a resiliency-like europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 483 http://www.psychopen.eu/ manner. in short, these case reports did not have a theoretical model that could readily fit all of their descriptive data points for the effects of humor (i.e., both negative and positive). the humor styles model, however, provides a rigorous theoretical-empirical model that can easily incorporate all of these data points. in particular, the humor styles model would expect that detrimental effects would emerge when using negative humor styles. to illustrate, several studies have shown that individuals are less likely to want to engage in future interactions with a person displaying higher levels of self-defeating or aggressive humor, compared to a person displayingmore self-enhancing or affiliative humor (kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). interesting, these adaptive humor comments also made the recipient of this humor feel significantly more positive and less negative about themselves. further research has shown that some of these interpersonal effects of humor (but not all), are evident cross-culturally (kuiper, kazarian, sine, & bassil, 2010); and that affiliative humor use can also diminish some of the negative interaction affects associated with depression (ibarra-rovillard & kuiper, 2011). taken together, this work shows that the use of the humor styles model could also help guide cross-cultural research on humor and resiliency issues, as well as further work on the impact of humor on the relationships between various forms of psychopathology and reduced resiliency. humor’s impact on resiliency: clarifying the processes involved it is important that future research provides greater theoretical clarification and empirical testing of the processes or mechanisms that may underlie the obtained effects of humor on resiliency. when considering positive effects, one of the more common proposals is that humor use can promote distancing from the sources of stress (kuiper & olinger, 1998). this distancing stems from a cognitive shift that provides an alternate and less threatening perspective on the situation (geisler & weber, 2010; kidd, miller, boyd, & cardena, 2009; kuiper et al., 1993). this shift and subsequent increased detachment has been shown in several of the cognitive appraisal studies described previously, as participants who used coping humor were better able to distance themselves from stressful events, such as academic exams or drawing tasks (abel, 2002; geisler &weber, 2010; kuiper et al., 1993; kuiper et al., 1995). based upon this prior work, it would be worthwhile to continue with the theoretical elaboration and empirical testing of how and why humor use is linked to cognitive appraisals that may either facilitate or deter resiliency. some of this work might consider how the four humor styles may interact with the use of either challenge or threat appraisals for various life situations encountered by individuals. furthermore, at least some of this work should incorporate a process orientation across time, as various important processes may unfold quite differently over even short periods of time. to illustrate, the study by geisler and weber (2010), as described previously, found that greater humor use was associated with more external attributions for failure on a bogus intelligence test, and less negative and more positive affect. these effects obtained immediately after completing the task, and strongly supported a resiliency interpretation for humor use. of note, however, is that this same study also had further findings that were quite contrary to a resiliency model. in particular, those that used humor also spent less time and performed poorer on a subsequent test, thus demonstrating behaviors directly opposite to the notions of growth and bounce-back from adversity that would be predicted by a resiliency model (windle, 2011; zautra et al., 2008). as such, these negative findings illustrate quite clearly that, even in a very short time frame, the processes relating humor use to cognitive appraisals, affect, and actual performance may vary dramatically, supporting some aspects of a resiliency model, but not others. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 484 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an additional important avenue for resiliency research is to consider how humor use may relate to cognitive appraisals that enhance positive thoughts and emotions. this proposal maps onto both the savoring and gratitude aspects of positive psychology (schueller, 2010; sin & lyubomirsky, 2009); and has been discussed previously in the humor literature in terms of positive event enhancement (kuiper & olinger, 1998). as such, there is now considerable evidence that humor is linked to positive thoughts and feelings, as demonstrated by prior research in our lab (kuiper et al., 1992; kuiper et al., 1995), and elsewhere (e.g., aldridge & roesch, 2008; geisler &weber, 2010; herzog & strevey, 2008; ong et al., 2004; shaunessy & suldo, 2010). emotional regulation in a humor and resiliency model in exploring the links between humor, cognitive appraisals, and emotions, it would be useful to more fully integrate existing emotional regulation models into a humor and resiliency framework. geisler and weber (2010) have already begun to do so by incorporating an existing model of emotional regulation into their research on humor as a cognitive-change strategy that individuals can use to regulate or alleviate negative emotions. consistent with the processes described in previous humor research (e.g., kuiper et al., 1995), humor use is considered to be an antecedent-focused cognitive-change strategy that leads to more positive re-appraisals of a negative experience or situation; thus putting it in perspective, and helping the individual to distance themselves from the trauma or stressor. geisler and weber (2010) further suggest that humor differs from other cognitive-based emotional regulation strategies in that it does not deny the negative experience, but helps construe it as less threatening. in emotion regulation theory, these effects are termed down-regulating, as they help reduce the expression and repercussions associated with negative emotions. interestingly, geisler and weber (2010) have also proposed that some of the emotion regulation effects of humor, even when dealing with negative situations, may be up-regulating by introducing positive emotions to the situation. in particular, they suggest that the mirth associated with the humor used in a stressful context can also elicit positive emotions, which then have their own salutary effects (see also martin 2007). these include an overall reduction of the gravity of the upsetting situation, as well as a broadening of attention to also include more positive aspects of one’s environment, in addition to the stressful event. these types of up-regulating effects are considered in greater detail in an emotion regulation model that focuses exclusively on positive affect regulation (tugade & fredrickson, 2007). of particular interest here are the active and positive coping strategies (such as savoring and gratitude), that can maintain or increase the experience of positive emotions. other strategies, such as watching a comedy film, or smiling when feeling upset or sad, are also described in this model as positive strategies that elicit positive affect. according to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (fredrickson, 2006), this positive affect then provides the psychological “lift” and flexibility that allows the individual to engage in a broader range of life activities that are more inspiring, pleasant, and creative, thus building resilience to future negative or stressful events. humor use can clearly be thought of as one of these positive emotional regulation strategies, as it provides the basis for generating positive affect, either as part of a humorous re-interpretation of a traumatic event, or as part of the humorous savoring and enjoyment of a positive event. as such, future research should test the degree to which humor use in both of these types of situations is actually associated with the various processes described in emotional regulation and broaden-and-build theories. this hypothesized causal sequence would suggest that greater humor use would lead to greater mirth or positive affect, which, in turn, would lead to greater flexibility and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ broadening of life experiences, and, ultimately, greater resiliency. this proposed sequence could also be assessed separately for each of the four humor styles, as this would give an indication of how these four trait aspects of humor resiliency may differ. can effective humor use be trained? the notion that humor may function as one means of regulating both negative and positive emotions immediately begs the question of whether effective humor use can be trained (kuiper & olinger, 1998; tugade & fredrickson, 2007). over the years, much has been written about how humor can be used (and possibly trained) in a variety of domains, such as psychotherapy, education, work, and social settings. however, the majority of this work has been anecdotal, descriptive, and highly speculative; with a virtual lack of experimental control and rigor being the norm (for reviews and commentaries see both kuiper & olinger, 1998 and martin, 2007). of encouragement for a humor and resiliency perspective is that more sophisticated and rigorous evaluative studies are now beginning to emerge. one example is recent work by crawford and caltabiano (2011) that tested whether effective humor skills can be taught to community volunteers randomly assigned to one of three different experimental groups (i.e., a humor training group, a social control group, and a non-intervention group). using the broaden-and-build theoretical framework described previously, this longitudinal study found that humor skills could be enhanced across eight training sessions, so that individuals had more control over regulating daily positive affect, thus increasing emotional well-being. this pattern was evident in higher ratings of positive affect, self-efficacy, optimism, and control for the humor group alone; with these increases being maintained at a three month follow-up. furthermore this group also displayed decreases in perceived stress levels, depression, and anxiety. similar findings have been reported in a previous pilot study that trained humor skills use in a small group of clinically depressed individuals (falkenberg, buchkremer, bartels, & wild, 2011). this finding suggests that even those displaying psychopathology can benefit from both the down-regulating and up-regulating effects of effective humor use. considerable work is still required, however, to thoroughly investigate the role of humor use in resiliency, as many other parameters remain unexplored. one possible avenue of research could compare humor use training with training in the use of other positive psychology techniques that also promote increased positive affect, such as savoring or gratitude expression (sin & lyubomirsky, 2009). another extension could investigate how the four humor styles may differentially relate to the effective training of humor use. there may be considerable variation across and within individuals, in the degree to which humor is part of the arsenal for dealing with stress and trauma (aldridge & roesch, 2008). recall that some individuals may characteristically display maladaptive styles, whereas others may use more adaptive styles (galloway, 2010). however, it is unknown if those displaying aggressive and self-defeating humor can be taught not only to decrease the use of these maladaptive styles, but also replace these styles with the increased use of affiliative or self-enhancing humor. it is also unknown whether those characterized by a general lack of humor (i.e., those low on all four humor styles; galloway, 2010) would be good candidates for humor training. concluding comments the evidence reviewed here clearly suggests that there is an important role for humor in a resiliency approach to stress and trauma. case studies, moderator research, and cognitive appraisal work on humor all converge on the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 humor, resiliency, coping and growth 486 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notion that increased humor can often help an individual cope more successfully with traumatic situations. in further support of a resiliency approach, there is also considerable evidence that increased humor can contribute to the enhancement of positive life experiences, and lead to greater positive affect and psychological well-being. there is very limited empirical support, however, for the notion that greater humor use results in positive personal growth and a “bounce-back from adversity,” as would be predicted by resiliency models (e.g., windle, 2011). overall, however, these findings certainly encourage further research in this domain, as they suggest that humor may play a role in resiliency, but with some important limitations and associated boundary conditions. as such, further research efforts aimed at clarifying the effects of various styles of humor on resiliency to stress and trauma are clearly warranted. accordingly, any future work should be cognizant of the need to move beyond the single positive notion of sense of humor that has been so prominent in this domain, and instead adopt models which clearly acknowledge both adaptive and maladaptive styles of humor. further research using this multi-faceted model of sense of humor could then help disentangle any positive psychology effects of adaptive humor from the generally detrimental effects of maladaptive humor. furthermore, this work might also draw from other individual difference models of sense of humor (e.g., herzog & strevey 2008; 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(1997). humor in the emergency room: a social work perspective. health & social work, 22(2), 87-92. doi:10.1093/hsw/22.2.87 zautra, a. j., hall, j. s., murray, k. e., & resilience solutions group. (2008). resilience: a new integrative approach to health and mental health research. health psychology review, 2(1), 41-64. doi:10.1080/17437190802298568 about the author professor nicholas a. kuiper has been a faculty member in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time he has published extensively on topics such as self-schemata and information processing, social-cognitive aspects of depression, and social and personality aspects of humor. he has also been involved in a wide range of administrative duties, including a stint as associate dean of graduate studies and many years as the director of the clinical psychology graduate program at western. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 475–491 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 kuiper 491 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/hsw/22.2.87 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17437190802298568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor, resiliency, coping and growth a resiliency perspective on humor contemporary research on humor, coping and psychological well-being humor as a facet of personal resiliency from a positive psychology perspective to a humor styles approach overview of the humor styles model incorporating the humor styles model in a resiliency approach to humor humor’s impact on resiliency: clarifying the processes involved emotional regulation in a humor and resiliency model can effective humor use be trained? concluding comments references about the author the conceptualization, measurement, and role of humor as a character strength in positive psychology research reports the conceptualization, measurement, and role of humor as a character strength in positive psychology kim r. edwardsa, rod a. martin*a [a] university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract in positive psychology, humor has been identified as one of 24 character strengths considered ubiquitously important for human flourishing. unlike the other strengths, humor was a late addition to this classification system and its status as a strength continues to be somewhat controversial. therefore, the first purpose of this study was to explore the associations between humor and several outcome variables of relevance to positive psychology (happiness, routes to happiness, resilience, and morality). the second purpose was to explore how best to conceptualize and measure humor as a character strength by comparing the values in action inventory of strengths (via-is) humor scale with the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) in their ability to predict the outcome variables. a sample of 176 participants completed questionnaires assessing the humor and positive psychology constructs. the results indicated that the humor measures significantly predicted most of the outcome variables, supporting the importance of humor in positive psychology. furthermore, although the via-is humor scale and positive humor styles on the hsq showed considerable overlap, the negative humor styles added significantly to the prediction of outcome variables beyond these positive humor measures, supporting the importance of assessing maladaptive as well as adaptive uses of humor in research on positive psychology. these findings suggest that the hsq may be a more useful measure than the via-is humor scale in future research in this field. keywords: humor styles, positive psychology, character strength, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 received: 2014-02-02. accepted: 2014-02-21. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7. e-mail: ramartin@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. positive psychology may be described as the scientific study of what makes life worth living (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). one of the most influential and ambitious projects undertaken in this field was the development of the values in action classification of strengths and virtues (via-csv; peterson & seligman, 2004). the via-csv is intended to be a "manual of the sanities" by describing 24 character strengths that enable human flourishing, subsumed within six overarching virtues that are valued across cultures (wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence). to assess these strengths, peterson, park, and seligman (2005a) developed the via inventory of strengths (via-is), a questionnaire consisting of 24 subscales. humor has been identified as one of the 24 character strengths in the via classification. a humorous individual is defined by peterson and seligman (2004) as “one who is skilled at laughing and gentle teasing, at bringing smiles to the faces of others, at seeing the lighter side, and at making (not necessarily telling) jokes” (p. 530). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ while it is acknowledged that there are many ways in which humor can be used, the via-csv focuses on the types of humor that peterson and seligman believe serve a moral purpose by allowing people to directly confront challenges, by maintaining a positive outlook in the face of adversity, and by initiating and maintaining satisfying interpersonal relationships. the approach taken to measure individual differences in humor in the via-is appears to be similar to that of a number of self-report humor scales developed in the 1980s and 1990s to explore relationships between humor and well-being (e.g., multidimensional sense of humor scale, thorson & powell, 1993; situational humor response questionnaire, martin & lefcourt, 1984; sense of humor questionnaire, svebak, 1996). like these early measures, the via-is humor scale is based on the assumption that humor is inherently a positive personality trait. more recently, however, researchers have questioned whether these scales adequately capture the dimensions of humor most relevant to health and well-being. for example, kuiper and martin (1998) presented data from five studies examining the degree to which several of these early self-report humor scales correlated with dimensions of positive personality (e.g., optimism, self-esteem, psychological well-being). the results indicated that these humor scales were generally only weakly correlated with well-being, accounting for less than 6% of the variance in these outcomemeasures. thus, despite the popular assumption that a sense of humor is beneficial for well-being, these traditional sense of humor measures showed inconsistent and fairly weak correlations with psychological health. based on the limitations of these self-report humor measures, and influenced by the writings of earlier personality theorists such as allport (1961) and maslow (1954) who noted that some forms of humor may be healthy while others are unhealthy, martin and colleagues (2003) began working on a new conceptualization and measurement of humor for research on humor and well-being. they developed the humor styles questionnaire (hsq), a multidimensional measure that assesses four different uses of humor in everyday life. affiliative humor is characterized by sharing non-hostile witty comments, humorous anecdotes, and jokes to make others laugh and enhance relationships. self-enhancing humor involves the use of humor to cope with stress and maintain a cheerful outlook on life in the face of adversity. aggressive humor refers to teasing or witty sarcasm to make fun of others. finally, self-defeating humor consists of excessively self-disparaging humor to make others laugh at one’s own expense as a way of ingratiating oneself with others. although all of these humor styles involve amusement, wit, and mirth, only the first two were assumed to be beneficial to well-being, whereas the other two were seen as potentially detrimental. in contrast to the via-is humor scale as well as most of the earlier humor measures, the hsq defines humor as a strength not only by the presence of positive uses of humor but also by the relative absence of negative uses. this notion is supported by a considerable amount of subsequent research indicating that (1) the four humor styles together account for more variance in well-being than did the earlier self-report humor scales and (2) the negative styles (especially self-defeating humor) add to the variance explained by positive humor styles (e.g., cann & etzel, 2008; cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin, 2007). therefore, it appears to be important to examine negative as well as positive uses of humor when exploring relationships between humor and psychosocial functioning. although there is now a voluminous research literature in positive psychology on a range of topics such as gratitude, savoring, and resilience (snyder & lopez, 2009), the topic of humor has so far received very limited attention in this field (for exceptions, see beermann & ruch, 2009; müller & ruch, 2011; see also maiolino & kuiper, this issue). this seems unfortunate, given the potential significance of humor to key constructs in positive psychology (mcghee, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 humor as a character strength in positive psychology 506 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2010). the first general goal of this study was therefore to explore the associations between humor (as measured by both the via-is humor scale and the four subscales of the hsq) and several constructs that are generally seen as being particularly pertinent to positive psychology: happiness, routes to happiness, resilience, and morality. the second general goal was to compare the hsq and via-is humor scale as potential measures of humor as a character strength in positive psychology research. happiness happiness is often defined as an individual’s subjective sense of well-being, conceptualized in terms of high satisfaction with life, frequent positive affect, and infrequent negative affect (diener, 1994). measures of these three constructs were therefore included in the present study to assess the relationships between humor and happiness. consistent with previous studies (e.g., martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003), it was expected that the adaptive humor styles and via-is humor scale would correlate positively with measures of happiness (positive affect, satisfaction with life) and negatively with measures of unhappiness (negative affect), whereas the opposite pattern of correlations would be found with self-defeating humor. routes to happiness peterson, park, and seligman (2005b) have proposed three different routes to happiness: pleasure, meaning, and engagement. the pleasure route is based on the doctrine of hedonism (maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain). the meaningful route is consistent with the principle of eudemonia (living in accordance with one’s virtues). finally, the engagement route involves seeking out activities that produce the mental state of flow, which occurs when individuals are fully motivated and absorbed in an activity. to assess these proposed routes, peterson et al. developed the orientations to happiness questionnaire. past research has found that the via-is humor scale is most strongly correlated with the pleasure route to happiness (peterson, ruch, beermann, park, & seligman, 2007). however the hsq has not previously been examined in relation to this measure. resilience resilience has been defined as "positive adaptation or development manifested in the context of adverse experiences" (masten & gewirtz, 2006, p. 1). humor may be one resource within an individual that facilitates the ability to "bounce back" and effectively adapt in the face of stress by means of shifting perspective, distancing oneself from a problem, eliciting social support, increasing positive emotion and/or relieving tension through laughter (kuiper, 2012; lefcourt, 2001). we measured resilience in two ways: (1) the unidimensional connor-davidson resilience scale (cd-risc; connor & davidson, 2003); and (2) the mental toughness questionnaire (mtq48; clough, earl, & sewell, 2001), which assesses four components of resilience: confidence, control, commitment, and challenge. based on the conceptualization of self-enhancing humor as the use of humor to cope with adversity, as well as previous research findings (veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010a), we expected that self-enhancing humor would be most consistently correlated with the resilience measures. morality positive psychology researchers describe each of the 24 character strengths as morally praiseworthy, despite limited research evaluating whether the strengths do in fact correlate with moral constructs (peterson & seligman, 2004). beermann and ruch (2009) explored the association between humor and virtue, and found that items from a number of humor measures covered the whole range from virtue to vice, with most items being perceived as morally neutral. some past experimental research further suggests that humor may actually be negatively related to at least some aspects of morality. strohminger, lewis, and meyer (2011) found that participants who had been europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 507 http://www.psychopen.eu/ exposed to comedy tended to favor socially unconventional utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas in contrast to those in emotionally neutral and elevation conditions. for example, those exposed to comedy were more likely to say that one should push a person from a footbridge to stop a trolley car from killing five other people. the authors reasoned that humor involves a sense of diminishment whereby an object, person, or situation is seen as less important than it first appeared, which may cause one to adopt an attitude of disregard toward social norms. in the present study, we pursued this area further by including measures of moral identity and moral reasoning along with the hsq and via-is humor scale. based on the findings of beermann and ruch (2009), we expected that the positive humor styles and via-is humor scale would be unrelated to these morality measures. in contrast, we expected that the negative humor styles, and particularly aggressive humor, would be associated with lower levels of morality. this hypothesis was based on previous findings of positive correlations between the negative humor styles (particularly aggressive humor) and the “dark triad” traits of psychopathy and machiavellianism, both of which tend to be associated with lower levels of morality (martin, lastuk, jeffery, vernon, & veselka, 2012; veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010b). comparing the hsq and via-is humor scale as noted previously, the via-is humor scale, because it takes a unidimensional approach and assesses only positive humor, may not capture as much of the variance in positive psychology outcomes as the hsq.we explored this question by investigating whether the hsq scales, and particularly the negative humor styles, add to the prediction of the various positive psychology outcome measures beyond the via-is humor measure. based on previous research with similar types of humor measures, we expected that the via-is humor scale would correlate positively with the two adaptive humor styles but would be unrelated to the two maladaptive styles. furthermore, consistent with previous research indicating the importance of measuring maladaptive as well as adaptive styles of humor (e.g., martin et al., 2003), we expected that the negative humor styles would add to the via-is humor scale in predicting positive psychology outcomes. such findings might suggest that researchers should take into account negative as well as positive styles of humor when investigating the role of humor in positive psychology. method participants the sample was composed of 176 first-year undergraduate students (67% female) enrolled in an introductory psychology course at the university ofwestern ontario. participants were recruited through the department research participant pool and were compensated with partial course credit. the mean age of participants was 18.6 years (sd = 2.16). measures humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) — the hsq examines four dimensions corresponding to individual differences in the experience and expression of humor in everyday life. affiliative humor (e.g., “i laugh and joke a lot with my friends”) and self-enhancing humor (e.g., “if i am depressed i can usually cheer myself up with humor”) are the two adaptive styles. aggressive humor (e.g., “if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”) and self-defeating humor (e.g., “i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should”) are the potentially detrimental styles. the hsq consists of 32 items (eight for each scale) rated on a 7-point, likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). past research has demonstrated that the hsq is a reliable and valid measure (martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). in the present study, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 humor as a character strength in positive psychology 508 http://www.psychopen.eu/ internal consistencies (coefficient alpha) for the afilliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating scales were .83, .79, .66, and .84, respectively. values in action inventory of strengths – humor scale (via-is humor; peterson, park, & seligman, 2005a) — the 10-item humor subscale of the via-is self-report questionnaire was used to measure the character strength of humor. participants completed the entire via-is (240 items, 24 subscales) using an on-line administration provided by the test publishers. however, only the humor subscale was of interest in this study. respondents indicate the extent to which they endorse each statement on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not like me) to 5 (very much like me). an example item is “whenever my friends are in a gloomy mood, i tease them out of it.” peterson and colleagues have noted that each of the via-is subscales has good internal consistency and testretest stability over four months. reliability data for the present administration were not available from the via-is website administrators. connor-davidson resilience scale (cd-risc; connor & davidson, 2003) — in this widely-used measure of resilience, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with 25 statements on a scale from 0 (rarely true) to 4 (true nearly all of the time). example items include “i like challenges” and “i am able to adapt when changes occur.” the cd-risc has been found to have good psychometric properties (connor & davidson, 2003) and in this study the internal consistency (cronbach's alpha) was .90. mental toughness questionnaire (mtq48; clough, earl, & sewell, 2001) — this is a 48 item measure of the ability to effectively withstand stressors, pressures, and challenges in many different environments (e.g., workplace, sports). it contains four subscales assessing the core components of mental toughness: challenge (8 items), commitment (11 items), control (14 items), and confidence (15 items). commitment measures the extent to which people actively approach and persist with a goal or event they encounter (e.g., “i usually find something to motivate me”). control refers to the tendency to perceive oneself as having control over the outcomes of events (e.g., “i generally feel in control”). challenge is defined as an individual’s belief that challenge is a regular part of life and should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a threat (e.g., “challenges usually bring out the best in me”). confidence is defined as a belief in one’s own ability to complete difficult tasks (e.g., “however bad things are, i usually feel they will work out positively in the end”). participants rate each item on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). previous research has found good reliabilities for themtq48 scales. the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of challenge, commitment, control, and confidence in this study were .73, .75, .68, and .77, respectively. satisfaction with life scale (sls; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) — the sls comprises five statements which assess overall cognitive judgments regarding life satisfaction (e.g., “the conditions of my life are excellent”). participants rate each statement using a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). diener and colleagues found significant correlations between this measure and others assessing well-being. the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) in this study was .85. positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) — the panas provides separate scores for positive and negative affect. respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they experienced a number of different emotions during a specified time period (“past two weeks” in the present study) on a scale from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). examples of positive affect items include “interested”, “excited” and “inspired.” examples of negative items include “upset”, “ashamed”, and “irritable.” the panas is europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 509 http://www.psychopen.eu/ widely used in research and has been shown to have high reliability and good convergent validity with other measures of pleasant and unpleasant moods (watson et al., 1988). the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of positive and negative affect in this study were .85 and .84, respectively. orientations to happiness scale (oth; peterson, park, & seligman, 2005b) — the oth consists of 18 items (6 per subscale) measuring three different approaches to happiness: a pleasurable life, a meaningful life, and an engaged life (described previously). participants are asked to rate the extent to which they endorse each item using a scale from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (very much like me). example items include “i love to do things that excite my senses” (pleasurable life), “my life has lasting meaning” (meaningful life), and “regardless of what i am doing time passes very quickly” (engaged life). previous research has found that the subscales are reliable and empirically distinct (peterson et al., 2005b). the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of the pleasure, meaning, and engagement scales in this study were .78, .78, and .52, respectively. the self-importance of moral identity questionnaire (simiq; aquino & reed, 2002) — the simiq consists of two 5-item subscales designed to assess two dimensions of moral identity: internalization and symbolization. internalization relates to a more private moral identity rooted in the core of one's well-being, whereas symbolization assesses a more public moral identity expressed through one's actions and characteristics. respondents are asked to visualize someone (self or other) who embodies a set of nine moral characteristics (e.g., “caring”, “honest”, and “hardworking”). once they have conjured up a distinct mental image and/or social referent (e.g., "mother theresa", "big sister in mentoring program", fellow food bank volunteer), respondents then rate the extent to which they want to be like that individual using a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). example items include “being someone who has these characteristics is an important part of who i am” (internalization) and “i am actively involved in activities that communicate to others that i have these characteristics” (symbolization). previous research has found good reliability for both subscales (reed & aquino, 2003). the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of internalization and symbolization in this study were .78 and .81, respectively. moral scenario questionnaire (msq) — the msq consists of 12 scenarios to measure moral reasoning. each scenario involves a situation in which there is an opportunity to engage in morally questionable behavior. six situations were adapted from perugini and leone (2009) and the other six were created for the present study. participants were asked to rate whether they would engage in the behavior described in the scenario using a scale ranging from 1 (certainly not) to 4 (certainly yes). higher scores relate to less moral behavior. an example situation, created for the present study, is discovering that one has been given an extra 5 dollars in change by a grocery store cashier and asks whether the participant would keep the money. an example situation, adapted from perugini and luigi, is whether a participant would declare a lower personal income in order to receive a university scholarship for a larger amount of money. in this study, the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) for the original six situations and for the six scenarios created for the present study were .70 and .50, respectively. the internal consistency for the 12 scenarios combined in the total msq was .71. procedure participants were tested in groups of 10 to 20 in a room equipped with computer terminals. after signing informed consent, they completed the self-report measures on individual computer screens. the via-is was completed on a website using identification codes provided by the via institute on character, and the remaining measures were administered in randomized order either before or after the via-is, using a local computer program. scores for europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 humor as a character strength in positive psychology 510 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the via-is were subsequently obtained from the institute. completion of all the measures took approximately one hour, after which participants received a debriefing form describing the purpose of the study. results table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and ranges of all the measures used in this study. correlation analyses indicated that, as expected, the via-is humor scale was quite strongly positively correlated with the two adaptive humor styles (affiliative humor: r = .63, p < .001; self-enhancing humor: r = .58, p < .001). as for the two negative humor styles, the via-is humor scale was marginally positively correlated with aggressive humor (r = .16, p < .06), and unrelated to self-defeating humor (r = .13, ns). table 1 means, standard deviations, and ranges for all measures rangesdmmeasurecategory hsq affiliativehumor -5616.717.6945 hsq self-enhancing -5316.538.4535 hsq aggressive -488.407.9528 hsq self-defeating -569.699.7228 via-is humor -52.580.873 positive affecthappiness -4911.087.0634 negative affect -4210.257.6923 satisfaction with life -358.536.9124 pleasureoth -3012.564.5320 meaning -307.864.5119 engagement -269.493.1317 mtq challengeresilience -3816.534.1728 mtq commitment -5521.845.0438 mtq control -6227.236.5444 mtq confidence -7321.587.7750 cd-risc -10020.3013.0469 mi internalizationmorality -3517.813.6431 mi symbolization -335.046.2221 moral situation total -4618.135.7233 note. hsq = humor styles questionnaire; af = affiliative humor; se = self-enhancing humor; ag = aggressive humor; sd = self-defeating humor; via-is = values in action inventory of strengths; mtq = mental toughness questionnaire; cd-risc = connor-davidson resilience scale; oth = orientations to happiness; mi = moral identity. associations between humor and positive psychology outcomes to investigate the first general goal of this study, table 2 displays the correlations between the humor measures (via-is humor and subscales of the hsq) and each of the positive psychology-relevant outcome measures. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 511 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 simple correlations between the humor scales and positive psychology variables humor measures hsq sdhsq aghsq sehsq afvia-is humormeasurecategory positive affecthappiness .07-.08.34***.23**.45*** negative affect .36***.27**.03-.06-.10sat. with life .19*-.06.24**.11.43*** pleasureoth .03-.12.18*.24**.41*** meaning .06-.24**-.16*.05-.12 engagement .02-.10-.13.05-.07 mtq challengeresilience .03-.01.33***.26**.41*** mtq commitment .26**-.16*-.21**.05.17* mtq control .21**-.05-.28***.17*.28** mtq confidence .27***-.03.45***.30***.47*** cd-risc .12-.01-.49***.32***.45*** mi internalizationmorality .20*-.45***-.10.05.25** mi symbolization .11-.19*-.16*.09.09 moral scenarios .19*-.40***-.09.11-.02note. hsq = humor styles questionnaire; af = affiliative humor; se = self-enhancing humor; ag = aggressive humor; sd = self-defeating humor; via-is = values in action inventory of strengths; mtq = mental toughness questionnaire; cd-risc = connor-davidson resilience scale; oth = orientations to happiness; mi = moral identity. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. with regard to the measures of happiness, the via-is humor scale was found to be positively correlated with positive affect and satisfaction with life, but unrelated to negative affect. a similar but somewhat weaker pattern of associations was found with the self-enhancing humor scale on the hsq, while the affiliative humor scale was only correlated (more weakly) with positive affect. in addition, both the self-defeating and aggressive humor scales revealed positive correlations with negative affect, and self-defeating humor was weakly negatively correlated with satisfaction with life. with respect to the orientations to happiness, as expected, the humor measures (particularly the positive styles) were most consistently correlated with a life of pleasure, with the via-is humor scale showing the strongest correlation with this scale. additionally, self-enhancing humor was weakly positively correlated with a life of meaning, whereas aggressive humor displayed a somewhat stronger inverse association with this happiness orientation. none of the humor measures were correlated with a life of engagement. in relation to the resilience measures, consistent with predictions, self-enhancing humor appeared to be the most important of the four hsq humor styles. in particular, it was the only one to significantly correlate (positively) with all four mental toughness dimensions and with the general measure of resilience (cd-risc). the via-is humor scale also revealed a pattern of correlations with the resilience measures very similar to those found with selfenhancing humor. moreover, affiliative humor displayed positive, but somewhat weaker correlations with four of the five resilience measures. in addition, self-defeating humor was negatively correlated with the commitment, control, and confidence scales of the mtq, and aggressive humor was weakly negatively correlated with commitment. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 humor as a character strength in positive psychology 512 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the correlations with morality-related variables, of the four humor styles, aggressive humor was most consistently (negatively) correlated with these measures. the other negative humor style, self-defeating humor, was also negatively correlated with mi internalization and the moral scenarios, whereas self-enhancing humor was positively (although weakly) correlated with mi symbolization. finally, the via-is humor scale was positively correlated with the mi internalization measure of morality. comparing the hsq and via-is humor scale the second general goal of this study was to explore whether the hsqmay be more useful than the via-is humor scale as a measure of humor as a character strength. we therefore conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses to investigate whether the adaptive and maladaptive humor styles add to the via-is humor scale in the prediction of the positive psychology variables of interest in this study. for each of the outcome measures, the via-is humor measure was entered first as a predictor, followed by the two positive humor styles in a block, and finally the two negative humor styles in the third step. table 3 hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting positive psychology variables from via-is humor, positive humor styles, and negative humor styles step 3step 2step 1positive psychology category change in r2 when hsq sd & ag are added change in r2 when hsq af & se are added via-is humor r2 variables of interest positive affecthappiness .04*.02.20*** negative affect .19***.00.01 sat. with life .10***.04*.19*** pleasureoth .01.003.17*** meaning .06**.04*.01 engagement .01.03.01 mtq challengeresilience .02.01.17*** mtq commitment .12***.04*.03* mtq control .08**.02.08** mtq confidence .16***.04*.22*** cd-risc .05**.09***.20*** mi internalizationmorality .24***.02.07** mi symbolization .07**.01.09*** moral scenarios .18***.03.0001 note. hsq = humor styles questionnaire; af = affiliative humor; se = self-enhancing humor; ag = aggressive humor; sd = self-defeating humor; via-is = values in action inventory of strengths; mtq = mental toughness questionnaire; cd-risc = connor-davidson resilience scale; oth = orientations to happiness; mi = moral identity. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as seen in table 3, the positive humor styles generally do not add much to the via-is humor scale in the prediction of well-being, suggesting that the via-is humor scale and positive humor styles are conceptually similar. however, in a few cases, the positive humor styles did add significantly beyond the variance accounted for by the via-is humor scale. this occurred in the prediction of satisfaction with life, the meaning orientation to happiness, and resilience (i.e., cd-risc, mtqcommitment, mtqconfidence). more interestingly and consistent with our expecteurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 513 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ations, the negative humor styles continued to add significantly, beyond the via-is humor scale and positive humor styles, to the prediction of 11 of the 14 outcome variables: positive and negative mood, satisfaction with life, the meaning orientation, three dimensions of mental toughness (commitment, control, and confidence), cd-risc, and all measures of morality. discussion this study had two main objectives. the first was to explore the relationships between humor and a number of positive psychology outcomes. happiness with respect to happiness variables, the findings support the results of previous research using the hsq (see martin, 2007 for a review) indicating that self-enhancing and self-defeating humor are the styles that are most consistently linked (one positively and the other negatively) with emotional well-being. in contrast, affiliative and aggressive humor, as is typically the case, demonstrated somewhat weaker associations. the via-is humor scale showed a pattern of correlations similar to that of self-enhancing humor. both self-enhancing and self-defeating humor have a self-referent focus (martin et al., 2003). people high on selfenhancing humor tend to use this type of humor to protect the self and regulate emotions bymaintaining a humorous outlook on life during times of stress. however, those who use excessively self-disparaging humor to ingratiate themselves with others (self-defeating) may be hiding or denying underlying negative emotions, and may use humor to avoid dealing adaptively with problems. as a result, self-enhancing humor may be particularly beneficial whereas self-defeating humor may be particularly detrimental to well-being (martin, 2007). the relatively weaker correlations between affiliative humor and emotional well-being may be due to the fact that the primary purpose of this humor style is presumably to enhance relationships with others (e.g., by increasing cohesiveness, reducing interpersonal tension). although the resulting improvements in group morale may in turn increase levels of personal happiness, this association is more indirect and therefore, not surprisingly, weaker. similarly, aggressive humor has an other-referent focus, but in this case it is used at the expense of relationships with others. people who frequently use aggressive humor tend to lack empathy and social awareness for the potential impact this type of humor has on others (veselka et al., 2010b). as a result, this style does not appear to be particularly detrimental to personal well-being, but instead may be more problematic for interpersonal outcomes such as relationship satisfaction (e.g., cann & etzel, 2008). orientations to happiness regarding the orientations to happiness, consistent with previous research (peterson et al., 2007), humor (particularly the adaptive styles and the via-is humor scale) was positively correlated with the pleasure route to happiness. humor may be particularly relevant to this orientation to happiness since it focuses on achieving the pleasurable positive emotion of mirth through nonserious social-cognitive play (martin, 2007). previous research has suggested that humor is unrelated to the meaning route to happiness (peterson et al., 2007). while this conclusion is supported by the via-is humor scale, it is not consistent with the associations found using the hsq. in particular, our results indicate that the presence of self-enhancing humor and the absence of aggressive humor are particularly relevant to a life of meaning. perhaps the use of humor to cope with stress europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 humor as a character strength in positive psychology 514 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and avoidance of use of humor to make fun of others are most consistent with the quest for happiness through living a good and meaningful life. none of the humor measures were correlated with engagement, suggesting that humorous people are not more likely than others to experience flow, which involves becoming absorbed in a task and losing track of time (csikszentmihalyi, 1990; 1997). this lack of association may be because flow is associated with activities that are undertaken for some serious purpose or goal, whereas humor is a playful, nonserious activity that has no obvious goal other than enjoyment. resilience with regard to resilience, the results of the correlation analyses indicate that all mental toughness subscales and the cd-risc resiliency measure were significantly correlated with at least one humor scale. the via-is humor scale and self-enhancing humor appeared to be particularly important as they correlated positively with all resilience measures. these results are consistent with the conceptualization of self-enhancing humor as a means of coping with stress and regulating emotion, and also suggest that the via-is humor scale captures a similar resiliencerelated aspect of humor. on the other hand, our results also indicate that self-defeating humor is associated with lower levels of resilience, particularly the commitment, control, and confidence components of mental toughness. when used appropriately, humor may be a beneficial way of coping, due to the cognitive shifts inherent in humor which may allow for reappraisal of a stressful event (lazarus & folkman, 1984). morality finally, with regard to morality, aggressive humor appears to be the humor style that is most consistently (negatively) correlated with these variables. this finding is consistent with our expectations, and suggests that people who use humor to tease or manipulate others are less likely to define themselves by moral traits including fairness, kindness, and compassion. they are also less likely to respond in socially conventional and moral ways to scenarios placing a more moral response against a less moral option. these results may be explained by the personality traits associated with this humor style. for example, aggressive humor has been found to positively correlate with measures of psychopathy and machiavellianism (martin et al., 2012; veselka et al., 2010b). these traits are characterized by low empathy, high thrill-seeking behavior, and manipulativeness, and have been found to be associated with low levels of morality (koenigs, kruepke, zeier, & newman, 2012). on the other hand, the viais humor scale was positively correlated with the mi internalization measure of morality, indicating that this measure of humor does relate positively to a private moral identity rooted in the core of one's well-being. thus, the via-is humor measure does appear to capture aspects of humor that are morally praiseworthy, as conceptualized in the via classification of character strengths (peterson & seligman, 2004). comparing the via-is humor and hsq measures the second main objective of our study was to compare the utility of the via-is humor scale and the four subscales of the hsq as measures of humor as a strength in positive psychology. correlations between the via-is humor scale and the four hsq scales revealed that the via-is scale correlates positively with the adaptive humor styles, is somewhat contaminated with aggressive humor, and is unrelated to self-defeating humor. therefore, consistent with the positive humor styles, the via-is humor scale appears to capture forms of humor that are used to bond with others, reduce interpersonal tension, and cope with stress. however, this measure does not appear to capture the relative absence of excessively self-disparaging and avoidant humor as assessed by the self-defeating humor scale. in addition, although intended to measure only healthy uses of humor, this measure appears to assess europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 515 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some element of sarcasm, teasing, or put-down humor, as shown by a weak positive correlation with the aggressive humor scale on the hsq. consistent with our hypotheses, the results of our hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicate that, while affiliative and self-enhancing humor may not addmuch to the via-is humor scale in the prediction of many variables, in some cases they do seem to have additional predictive power. more interestingly and consistent with our expectations, the negative humor styles continued to add significantly, beyond the via-is humor scale and positive humor styles, to the prediction of most of the positive psychology variables: positive and negative affect, satisfaction with life, the meaning orientation, three dimensions of mental toughness (commitment, control, and confidence), cd-risc, and all measures of morality. these results support the view that the relative absence of negative humor may be just as important as the presence of positive styles in predicting well-being. moreover, important information pertaining to the relation between humor and well-being could be lost by failing to measure negative humor styles in addition to positive styles. therefore, with reference to the important outcomes in positive psychology, capturing both positive and negative humor appears to be a more fruitful approach to assessing humor as a character strength than capturing positive uses alone. limitations an important limitation of this study is the use of a correlational methodology. although it is generally assumed that humor has a causal effect on well-being, this approach does not permit researchers to determine the direction of causality between sense of humor and positive psychology outcomes. it is therefore unknown whether the use of various types of humor causes people to experience more or less well-being, or whether different types of humor use emerge as a consequence of one’s level of well-being, or indeed whether some third variable causes both of them. further research using experimental or longitudinal designs is needed to determine the direction of causality in the observed relationships between positive psychology outcomes and humor styles. another limitation of this study is that the assessment of humor and positive psychology outcomes relied exclusively on self-report questionnaires. this type of methodology is often subject to biases, such as the propensity to respond in socially desirable ways. as a result, desirable behaviors may be over-reported and unfavorable behaviors underreported by those with a high need for approval, potentially resulting in spurious correlations between variables. future research should make use of peer ratings or observational data to supplement this self-report methodology. conclusion in summary, the present findings suggest that the hsq may be a more useful measure of humor as a character strength than the via-is humor scale, because it assesses negative as well as positive styles of humor. the findings also provide support for the view that different styles of humor correlate in interesting ways with a number of variables that are relevant to positive psychology. although researchers in the field of positive psychology have tended to ignore humor in the past (mcghee, 2010), this study suggests that further research in this area is warranted. funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 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(2010b). relations between humor styles and the dark triad traits of personality. personality and individual differences, 48, 772-774. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.017 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scale. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 about the authors kim r. edwards is currently completing her residency in clinical psychology at the hospital for sick children in toronto, canada. she has recently defended her ph.d. on the role of humor as a character strength in positive psychology, under the supervision of dr. rod a. martin at the university of western ontario. rod a. martin is a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 505–519 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.759 edwards & martin 519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.1996.9.3-4.341 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199301)49:1<13::aid-jclp2270490103>3.0.co;2-s http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/twin.13.5.442 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor as a character strength in positive psychology (introduction) happiness routes to happiness resilience morality comparing the hsq and via-is humor scale method participants measures procedure results associations between humor and positive psychology outcomes comparing the hsq and via-is humor scale discussion happiness orientations to happiness resilience morality comparing the via-is humor and hsq measures limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors contemporary phenomenology at its best interview contemporary phenomenology at its best interview with professor dan zahavi dan zahavi*a, andrei simionescu-panaitb [a] director of the center for subjectivity research, university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark. [b] phd candidate, faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. abstract this time around, we have the chance of getting to know prof. dan zahavi of the university of copenhagen, one of phenomenology's top researchers, whose thought expresses a particular voice in the philosophy of mind and interdisciplinary cognitive research. today, we shall explore topics regarding phenomenology in our present scientific context, edmund husserl's takes on phenomenology, the influence of the history of philosophy on shaping contemporary cognitive research and the links and possibilities between phenomenology and psychology, in both method and practice. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 published (vor): 2014-05-28. *corresponding author at: university of copenhagen, njalsgade 140-142, dk-2300 copenhagen s. e-mail: dza@hum.ku.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. andrei simionescu-panait: prof. zahavi, firstly i want to ask you about the current projects and/or events that the center for subjectivity research has set in motion or is ready to do so within the next couple of years. can you tell us about the next project that you are working on?what will it be about? is it an individual or a collaborative endeavor? dan zahavi: i have just completed a new book entitled self and other: exploring subjectivity, empathy and shame. it will soon be out with oxford university press. by engaging with debates and findings in classical phenomenology, in philosophy of mind and in various empirical disciplines, i discuss whether you can be a self on your own or only together with others. is selfhood a built-in feature of experience or rather socially constructed? how do we at all come to understand others? does empathy amount to and allow for a distinct experiential acquaintance with others, and if so, what does that tell us about the nature of selfhood and social cognition? does a strong emphasis on the first-personal character of consciousness prohibit a satisfactory account of intersubjectivity or is the former rather a necessary requirement for the latter? more specifically, i argue that any theory of consciousness that wishes to take the subjective dimension of our experiential life serious must endorse a minimalist notion of self. at the same time, however, i also contend that an adequate account of the self has to recognize its multifaceted character, and that various complementary accounts must be integrated, if we are to do justice to its complexity. thus, while arguing that the most fundamental level of selfhood is not socially constructed and not constitutively dependent upon others, i acknowledge that there are dimensions of the self and types of selfeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ experience that are other-mediated. the final part of the book exemplifies this claim through a close analysis of shame. dan zahavi is professor of philosophy and director of the center for subjectivity research at the university of copenhagen. he obtained his ph.d. from katholieke universiteit leuven in 1994 and his dr.phil. (habilitation) from university of copenhagen in 1999. he has served as president of the nordic society for phenomenology in the years 2001-2007, and is currently co-editor in chief of the journal phenomenology and thecognitive sciences. in his systematic work, zahavi has mainly been investigating the nature of selfhood, self-consciousness and intersubjectivity. his most important publications include husserl und die transzendentale intersubjektivität (kluwer 1996), self-awareness and alterity (northwestern university press 1999), husserl’s phenomenology (stanford university press 2003), subjectivity and selfhood (mit press 2005), and together with shaungallagher the phenomenological mind (routledge 2008). correspondence: university of copenhagen, njalsgade 140-142, dk-2300 copenhagen s. e-mail: dza@hum.ku.dk i have been working on the book for five years, so it is good to finally being done with it. currently, i have two new projects on the table. the first is a book on husserl entitled phenomenology, metaphysics and transcendental philosophy: husserlian variations.rather than delving into a detailed exploration of some of husserl’s many concrete investigations of intentionality, temporality, embodiment, empathy etc., the aim of the new book will be to assess and clarify the very status of husserlian phenomenology and phenomenological analysis. the book will consequently pursue a more methodological and metaphilosophical objective. is husserl’s phenomenological analysis based on a refined form of introspection, and must it consequently be classified as a psychological contribution of some sort, or is it rather a distinct philosophical contribution, the outcome of a careful conceptual or transcendental analysis? is the kind of phenomenological analysis found in husserl primarily descriptive in character, is it supposed to capture how things seem to us, or is it also supposed to capture how things are? in short, what kind of metaphysical import, if any, does a phenomenological analysis carry? whereas this husserl project is one that i will be working on alone, the other new project is of a more collaborative nature. i recently received generous funding from the university of copenhagen’s excellence programme for interdisciplinary research for a research project that deals with the nature of collective intentionality, shared emotions and we-identity. as part of this project, i will not only investigate how the we-perspective relate to individual first-order intentionality and to what extent and in which way it presupposes self-consciousness, second-person perspective taking and empathy, but also investigate whether, to what extent and how, in the case of schizophrenia spectrum, instabilities of the first-person perspective (“self-disorders”) and disorders of empathy, lead to a disturbed and diminished capacity for entering and maintaining a we-perspective. i will be collaborating with colleagues from the center for subjectivity research on this project. andrei simionescu-panait: within ideas iii, husserl writes about the phenomenological-constitutive/kinetic method while he tries to clear out the fundamental difference between phenomenology and ontology. meanwhile, heideggerian inspired approaches of phenomenology (ricoeur, derrida, levinas, marion) always seem to mark a return to the classical ontological mode of consideration, rather than taking phenomenology forward by researching the emerging, constitutive nature of human experience. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 interview 216 http://www.psychopen.eu/ andrei simionescu-panait is a phd student at the faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, currently working on his thesis which aims to understand the role of imagination in both plato and husserl, using genetic phenomenology as a method. besides his academic activity, andrei is fond of artistic experience, dedication which received promising feedback when his 2013 short film diafan/lightly had its international premiere at the 66th festival de cannes, as part of the court metrage / short film corner section. correspondence: e-mail: tesimionescu@gmail.com what are your thoughts on this? in what aspects do you think that heideggerian modeled phenomenology would be relevant to consciousness studies and how would you conceive a bridge between these two? dan zahavi: the relation between ontology and phenomenology is complicated, and i don’t accept the standard reading of heidegger as one who in contrast to husserl realized that phenomenology had ontological implications. marion has claimed that husserl’s fundamental mistake was that he never understood that the true and innermost destination of phenomenology is to provide ontology with a proper method. i think it is marion who is mistaken here. not only does husserl repeatedly speak of the ontological dimension of phenomenology in works such as cartesianische meditationen, ideen iii, erste philosophie ii, and formale und transzendentale logik, but more importantly, one has to consider what heidegger means by fundamental ontology, and onmy interpretation, heidegger’s concern is fundamentally the same as husserl’s: both are doing transcendental philosophy. whereas marion is definitely more of a heideggerian than a husserlian, i don’t think the same can be said about rioeur, derrida and levinas. just consider, as an example, how levinas in totalité et infini criticizes heideggerian phenomenology for remaining too subservient to ontology. in any case, if you are asking whether a heideggerian approach to phenomenology can be of relevance to consciousness studies, i would certainly say yes. in the phenomenological mind, shaun gallagher and i didn’t draw as much on heidegger as on husserl and merleau-ponty, but we could certainly also have incorporated insights from heidegger. other people who have done so in the context of consciousness studies and philosophy of mind include sean kelly, steven crowell, john haugeland and michael wheeler. andrei simionescu-panait:husserl's somatology was conceived as the discipline that ought to study the dynamical aspects of the emergence of experience within the embodied consciousness – by following the ongoing generative constitution of rational acts from within the prerational transcendental realm of experience, and by stressing out the fundamental importance of that prerational net of possibilities of the lived body. do you think that 21st century scientific communities will be able to see the importance of the lived character of experience? do you think that all areas of science will eventually manage to integrate husserlian phenomenology into their research? dan zahavi: i think the scientific community is already far more receptive to the idea that the lived character of experience must be accounted for than it was just 30 years ago. this is all part of the well-known boom in consciousness research that happened in the early nineties. just consider how the study of phenomenal and subjective consciousness went from being a topic few dared touch because of its perceived “un-scientific” character to being a hot topic in cognitive and affective neuroscience. this, however, is certainly not to say that all is well. although mainstream science might currently be more attentive to the importance of subjective consciousness, the latter is still primarily considered a mere object of study rather than something with an essential impact on the very possibility of cognition. in short, transcendental considerations are still very far from being incorporated into the scientific outlook. hard to say whether this will ever change, but unless it does, i don’t think it is very likely that all areas of science will ever go husserlian. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 zahavi & simionescu-panait 217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ andrei simionescu-panait: the last decades have seen a revival of husserl's phenomenology within select scientific areas of study. thinkers such as varela, thompson, edelman, barbieri, t. deacon, sheets-johnstone have adapted phenomenology to biology, anthropology, neurology, linguistics and have generated new domains of research, such as biosemantics and neurophenomenology. what is your vision regarding the importance of interdisciplinary approaches on consciousness studies? also, what pheno-based recently emerged area (or areas) of research do you consider to be “the next big thing” in science? dan zahavi: i am firmly committed to the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration when it comes to the study of consciousness. consciousness is far too complex and complicated to be left to one discipline only. i consequently think it will be of paramount importance to integrate a variety of different empirical and theoretical perspectives if we are to make any serious progress. it is hard to predict what the next new area will be, but emotion research seems to be up and coming. but incidentally, some important areas are actually forgotten from your list. consider that psychiatry and psychopathology has a very long history for engaging with phenomenology. just think of the work of karl jaspers. and what about physics? consider the work of hermann weyl. andrei simionescu-panait: currently, the autopoietic character of life still is something to be discussed and propelled towards further research. for us, the way a living cell is experienced by itself is still a mystery and phenomenology would like to be able to give a full account of this, either on its own or with the help of some fore mentioned ways of applied inquiry. how do you conceive the relationship between ongoing studies related to the constitution of the experience of matter and those aimed at intersubjectivity? dan zahavi: here i have to refer to the work of evan thompson. it is not a topic that i have worked on myself. the only point i would like to make is that intersubjectivity is a relation between subjects, it is a subject-subject relation. but for me to relate to another as subject is for me to relate to somebody with a first-person perspective of his or her own. we encounter others as such when we encounter them as experiencing subjects, and this means as subjects that have a perspective not just upon the world of objects, but upon us too. insofar as this is the case, i would be suspicious of any investigation that highlighted the similarities rather than the differences between animate and inanimate matter. andrei simionescu-panait: let's have a look back at the history of western philosophy. some thinkers more or less follow in the heraclitean tradition by stressing out the notion of change, which is directly linked to the concept of stream – aristotle's studies of the body in the physics and thede anima, sparse perspectives concerning lifeworld acts from diogenes the cynic, hume's discussion of the perception of space in the treatise (which announces sections §36 to §41 from ideas ii), kant's transcendental aesthetics, some more transcendental in schelling's naturphilosophie and finally – nietzsche's own life, lived by the way of his custom made epoché. husserl came and gave life and rigorous contour to this fragmentary underlying tradition of thought by inventing phenomenology. given the fact that all those thinkers had intuitions regarding concepts like bracketing, emergence, the prerational (or prereflective) horizon of experience, etc. without having the technical means to study, let's say, the saccadic eyemovement (as a prerational act), i want to ask you if phenomenology can always be reconfigured as amethod, given the recurring invention of new tools of investigation. what is your perspective on this? dan zahavi: hmm. here is perhaps what might qualify as an answer: for husserl, phenomenology is not just one type of philosophy among many. phenomenology, and the phenomenological attitude, is the philosophical stance par excellence. this is in all likelihood also why husserl would claim that a philosopher who embraced naturalism would have ceased being a philosopher. if we just for a second assume that husserl is right and that europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 interview 218 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the reflective stance of phenomenology is really the stance of philosophy, then we also ought to recognize that husserl was not the first phenomenologist, but that others figures up through history have entertained similar ideas. likewise, whereas it is hard to predict whether there will self-avowed phenomenologists 100 years from now, i am quite confident that the basic insights found in phenomenology will continue to flourish though perhaps in new forms and guises. in fact, if we think there is some truth to phenomenology, then i also think we need to be confident that it will be able to renew itself. andrei simionescu-panait: let's take a brief detour to psychology. empathy was intensively studied by psychologists and philosophers since the 19th edward titchener ported “einfühlung” into english, after which theodor lipps defined the nature of aesthetic empathy as the “experience of another human’ (which may broadly be linked to husserl's aesthetic synthesis in §9 of ideas ii). it is known that husserl distinguishes between transcendental phenomenology and phenomenological psychology, and with that the whole meaning of empathy changes, along with the phenomenological context in which it is conceived.what is your advice for psychology students everywhere regarding the way empathy can be manifoldly conceived, given the fact that phenomenology theoretically enriches the psychological tradition? dan zahavi: this question very much speaks to topics i have been working on for the last 4-5 years. so quickly to get some of the historical facts right: the notion of empathy doesn’t have a long history. the german term einfühlung was first used in 1873 in the domain of aesthetics by the philosopher robert vischer, but was then taken over by theodor lipps, who introduced it into the field of social cognition and used it to designate our basic capacity for understanding others as minded creatures. it was lipps’ notion that edward titchener, the american psychologist, had in mind when he in 1909 translated ‘einfühlung’ as ‘empathy’. now, whereas lipps’ comprehensive criticism of the argument from analogy found approval among later phenomenologists, they were by and large quite critical of his own positive account. in fact, they all rejected his main claims, namely that empathy relies on a process of inner imitation and involves a component of projection. still, lipps’ ideas have remained influential and have a number of modern heirs, be it in philosophy, psychology or neuroscience. the phenomenological proposal, as articulated by husserl, stein and scheler, among others, constitute an important alternative. in my new book, i spend time articulating what is distinctive about this proposal. let me here just remark, that it differs in important ways from many of the contemporary accounts of empathy, especially in recognizing our basic sensitivity to the mindedness of others and by highlighting the extent to which we can be directly acquainted with the other’s experiences. to that extent, it ought to be of interest to psychology students who are concerned with the nature of social cognition. andrei simionescu-panait: jaspers once said that philosophy is an indispensable tool for psychopathology. it seems that 21st century psychiatry, regardless of extended clinical research on developing new drugs to alleviate symptoms of mental disorders like schizophrenia, has its shortcomings in explaining the phenomena of altered experience and oddly perceived lifeworld in his case. from this example, i want to ask you about your perspective on the communication between phenomenology and psychiatry. how can psychiatry receive the phenomenological framework and what are your thoughts regarding the practical success of such a marriage (finding causes and treatment)? dan zahavi: jaspers even wrote that “the psychiatrist’s competence is commensurate with how far his education and knowledge would qualify him to belong to the philosophy faculty”, but of course, he also had both qualifications himself. why did he write as he did? because he realized that psychiatry rather than simply facing a number of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 zahavi & simionescu-panait 219 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factual and empirical problems, also had to engage with conceptual and epistemological issues. in order to classify something as a delusion, a hallucination, an obsession, or self-disorder, the psychiatrist cannot avoid making assumptions about the nature of ‘reality’, ‘rationality’, ‘personal identity’ etc. that is, he must constantly reference philosophical issues, and since this is inevitably the case, why not benefit from the analyses that philosophy can provide. philosophy can offer a sophisticated conceptual framework and thereby enable the psychiatrist to address concrete psychopathological questions with a deeper understanding of the overarching issues such as time, space, mind, self, etc. i have been collaborating with the psychiatrist josef parnas for more than 15 years. we have long been advocating the idea that psychiatry can profit not only from engaging with philosophy, but also, and in particular, with phenomenology. why might phenomenology be particularly well suited to act as the philosophical ‘gesprächspartner’ of psychiatry? a crucial first step in dealing with a psychiatric disorder is to recreate its experiential dimension: if we wish to understand what depersonalization, perplexity or compulsion is, we first have to take the first-person perspective seriously. without a proper description of the central features of the disorder, any subsequent attempt at explaining it, will be doomed to failure. given a misdescription, the explanation will be either worthless or misleading. moreover, when looking at some of the central experiential categories that are afflicted in different psychopathological conditions, such as the structure of time and space, the experience of one’s own body, the question of unity and identity of self, the nature of intersubjectivity, the relevance of phenomenological resources only becomes even more obvious, since phenomenology has devoted extensive analyses to an understanding of precisely such issues. as for the issue of treatment, let me just mention that the psychometric tool ease (examination of anomalous self-experience) which has been developed by phenomenologically inclined psychiatrists to allow for the examination of various forms of self-disorders can also help identify first-admitted patients who have a significant risk for later developing schizophrenia. given that early treatment might improve the prognosis, this is a piece of phenomenological work with a quite significant, practical, relevance. andrei simionescu-panait: finally, i would like to ask you: what is your all-time favorite phenomenology topic? dan zahavi: ever since my dissertation in 1994 and my habilitation in 1999, i have been working on self and other and on how they are intertwined. as you can gather from the title of my recently finished book, this is still a topic that stands near to my heart. andrei simionescu-panait: thank you professor dan zahavi for the interview and the chance to discuss such important issues in contemporary phenomenology and correlated fields of research. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 215–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.810 interview 220 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments exposure therapy for phobias book reviews wilson, r. (2012). exposure therapy for phobias. mill valley, ca: psychotherapy.net. exposure therapy for phobias beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 406–408, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.616 received: 2013-04-17. accepted: 2013-04-17. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. wilson, r. (2012). exposure therapy for phobias. mill valley, ca: psychotherapy.net. reid wilson, ph.d. is a licensed psychologist who directs the anxiety disorders treatment center in chapel hill and durham, north carolina. he is also clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the university of north carolina school of medicine. dr. wilson specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders. he is the author of don't panic: taking control of anxiety attacks (harper perennial), now in its third edition, co-author of stop obsessing! how to overcome your obsessions and compulsions (bantam) and co-author of achieving comfortable flight, a self-help kit for the fearful flier. he designed and served as lead psychologist for american airlines' first national program for the fearful flier. dr. wilson served on the board of directors of the anxiety disorders association of america for twelve years. he served as program chair of the national conferences on anxiety disorders from 1988-1991. the whole dvd is conceived as a dialogue between victor yalom and reid wilson. the interviewer is victor yalom, ph.d, ceo and founder of psychotherapy.net, an online psychotherapy magazine targeted to therapists and practitioners of all psychotherapeutic approaches. reid wilson’s approach to treating anxiety disorders draws upon cognitive behavior therapy techniques to create a brief, aggressive, paradoxical treatment for people who suffer from anxiety disorders. research has shown that exposure therapy is by far the most effective way to get lifelong results in the treatment of specific phobias. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://www.psychotherapy.net http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ not many therapists had a chance to see live therapy sessions with real clients nor to access a good training specific for phobia. in the help of those trainee therapists eager to have rapid and long-lasting results with their clients comes the video in which reid wilson is giving step-by-step specific instruction to both trainee-therapists and client. reid conducts two sessions with a real client, mary, who experiences different phases and facets of claustrophobia: the fear of using elevators (especially crowded ones), the fear of traveling in tunnels without being able to see the light at the end as humorously dr. wilson noticed, the fear of parking in tight and dark parking structures and most of all, the fear of flying, which is the most invalidating for dr. wilson’s client. the goal of therapy, which is from the beginning disclosed by the therapist, dr. wilson, is to teach mary simple techniques that she can use in the most fearful situations, in order to leave her with a sense of self-efficacy, so that when time comes she can be her own agent of change. it is extraordinary to see how only in two sessions mary was able to get up in a plane and to minimize consciously her fear, using the techniques taught by dr. wilson in the office. it helped a lot the fact that the client followed the prescriptions ‘religiously’, herself being trained as a teacher who understands the importance of logic and structure in the process of learning. because above all, therapy is a learning process, a learning process about bodily functions, cognitive structures, mental processes and acknowledging with honesty what exactly works for each client, in the given moment. one step closer, exposure therapy is not only about using a purely cognitive approach, but about exposing their clients to their worst fears, in the hope that they will learn skills that they will use in the real world when confronting those fears. in the first session, before the actual treatment began, it was impressing to see how dr. wilson makes a thorough, structured, detailed assessment of mary’s moments of experiencing the fears. he asks when the first activating event has occurred, what happened differently that day, what were the cognitions behind the anxieties, an approach that may seem didactic at first sight and perhaps a bit unexciting, but which helps tremendously to put order in the client’s mind. wilson explains accurately what the process of habituation is, in the hope that the client will understand the importance of practicing in the office before practicing outside, in the real world. the use of props is also realistically used and continuously checked with the client, from the cocktail straws to the mask and scarf. scaling is done regularly, regardless of the subjectivity involved. each little step’s relevancy is checked with the client. at the end of first therapy session mary is given a task, which is correctly executed. more than that, in the second session of therapy, the client explains how she struggled to create an even worse situation than the real one, in the parking structure trying to close the window and putting her hands up as blinders. not only the client insisted on creating a worse environment than the one he already perceived as frightening, but she also kept giving herself instructions meant to modify her way of thinking from “i won’t be able to do this” to “i will be able to handle this”. in the second session the focus was on preparing her for flying in a very rapid timeframe. neuroscience is also used by explaining the way amygdala and emotional unconscious work in managing the fight and flight response to the actual threat. the video is a vivid example on how you may teach effective therapy techniques to a client with claustrophobia, especially cognitive behavioral ones, in order to help her achieve important results in therapy and increase her europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 406–408 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.616 popescu 407 http://www.psychopen.eu/ quality of life. dr. wilson empowers the client to use the techniques he explained also outside the therapist’s office, offering mary the wonderful opportunity to decrease the anti-anxiety medication to the point of complete cessation or extremely rare, occasional use. the dvd is also a rich resource for trainee therapists who did not came across a phobia case in their practice and did not have the chance to use exposure therapy. dvd $59.00 individual licence dvd $89.00 group licence more info at http://www.psychotherapy.net/video/exposure-therapy-phobias europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 406–408 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.616 exposure therapy for phobias 408 http://www.psychotherapy.net/video/exposure-therapy-phobias http://www.psychopen.eu/ exposure therapy for phobias the quality of the evidence: qualitative research in trauma psychology theoretical contributions the quality of the evidence: qualitative research in trauma psychology sandra mattara, eric b. vogel*b [a] kalmanovitz school of education, saint mary’s college of california, moraga, ca, usa. [b] john f. kennedy university, pleasant hill, ca, usa. abstract the efficacy of evidence-based practices with underprivileged groups and non-western cultures has been a subject of controversy in the trauma psychology and disaster mental health literature. there has been a debate as to whether evidence based assessments and interventions work equally well for diverse populations. resolving this controversy has been difficult in part because of the methodological challenges involved in the study of cultural mediation of psychological phenomena. the authors argue that adding qualitative research to the evidence base supporting trauma treatments, as a matter of standard practice, can fill this need. qualitative research can provide a rigorous research basis for the identification of cultural factors to be accounted for in quantitative outcome studies, as well as a rigorous means of understanding the real-world meaning of quantitative outcome findings. this would address evidence-based practices (ebp) advocates’ concerns about the unscientific nature of the multicultural literature’s critique, and multiculturalism advocate’s concerns about the lack of contextualism in ebp outcome studies of trauma treatments. keywords: qualitative research, trauma, culture, intersectionality, evidence-based practices europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 received: 2014-01-20. accepted: 2014-03-31. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: john f. kennedy university, 100 ellinwood way, pleasant hill, ca 94523. e-mail: evogel@jfku.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. as the evidence-based practice (ebp) movement has gained dominance in scientific discourse regarding psychotherapy in the united states, so too has its vision of what constitutes scientific evidence. however, there are those who question whether that vision is too narrow. in particular, there has been a debate in the literature as to whether many of the prominent ebps work equally well for diverse populations, and resolving this controversy has been difficult, in part because of the manymethodological challenges involved in the study of cultural meanings. after all, intersectionality theory (cole, 2009) suggests that culture is not simply a variable, but a large matrix of interrelated variables, too complicated for any quantitative method to truly analyze. we suggest that the best solution to this impasse is to integrate more qualitative research into the evidence base in a meaningful way. qualitative research can provide an inductive means for the identification of cultural factors, as well as a rigorous means of understanding the real-world meaning of quantitative outcome findings. it can examine cultural factors without the need to reduce their complexity down to isolated variables which lose all meaning because of their de-contextualization. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the evidence-based practice movement in trauma theory the newly established field of trauma psychology has increasingly adopted evidence-based practice guidelines (foa, keane, friedman, & cohen, 2009) in an effort to promote the treatment modalities that can best help patients seeking relief from the sequelae of traumatic experiences. increasingly, federal agencies in the united states are require the use of ebp’s as mandatory prerequisites for funding. the international society for traumatic stress studies (istss) has also identified several ebp’s for trauma treatments (foa et al., 2009). however, the efficacy of some of these evidence-based practices with diverse populations, such as clients from underprivileged groups and non-western cultures, has been a subject of controversy. sources in the multicultural literature question whether some of the evidence-based assessment strategies and interventions are suitable for these populations (sue & zane, 2006). in particular, helms, nicolas, and green (2010) draw attention to the outcome literature’s oversight of the role of racism and ethnoviolence in their understanding of ptsd symptomatology. likewise, the emerging field of disaster mental health now recognizes the inadequacy of older disaster intervention models with regard to their lack of understanding of diverse experiences of human suffering (see the inter-agency standing committee [iasc]guidelines on mental health and psychosocial support in emergency settings, 2007). similarly, indigenous and postcolonial social science movements in recent years have adopted new forms of inquiry that challenge the efficacy of traditional methodologies and epistemologies, mainly developed in the western world (lincoln & denzin, 2005). this critique has become more salient with western psychology’s increasing emphasis on evidence-based practices (ebp’s) and the exclusive use of randomized controlled trials (rct) to assess efficacy. one of the primary criticisms of ebp has been that the research community in the united states has tended to ignore cultural variables, and has consequently failed to recognize the distinctive clinical needs of underprivileged groups (brown, 2006; levant & silverstein, 2006; olkin & taliaferro, 2006; sue & zane, 2006). they have faulted ebp’s for perpetuating cultural inequities in the health care system, and have called for an increase in the use of effectiveness research, with interventions tested in real world settings as opposed to controlled settings, and the use of homogeneous samples (glasgow & emmons, 2007). the proponents of ebp in turn have suggested that the proponents of multiculturalism are pursuing a political agenda to the detriment of scientific understanding (morales & norcross, 2010), and have criticized the multicultural literature for a lack of scientific rigor. it is clear that what is needed to bridge this gap is a rigorous methodology, which is capable of examining complex, intersubjective phenomena in a less reductionistic manner. we argue that integrating qualitative research into the evidence base supporting trauma treatments, as amatter of standard practice, can fill this need. qualitative research can give diverse and neglected populations a voice in the research literature, by using their experience to inductively identify new hypotheses which need to be examined as part of the quantitative evidence basis for determining the efficacy of trauma treatments. this approach has the promise of identifying unmet needs, contraindications, and inconsistencies between theory and experience which are unlikely to be discovered through purely deductive approaches. this would address ebp advocates’ concerns about the unscientific nature of the multicultural literature’s critique, and multiculturalism advocate’s concerns about the lack of contextualism in ebp outcome studies of trauma treatments. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 quality of the evidence 364 http://www.psychopen.eu/ traumatology and its context psychology, qualitative research and culture: a brief history a brief review of the field of psychology’s history with regard to the topic of culture and qualitative methods will show some apparent parallel processes with regard to their acceptance in the field. both make their initial appearance, at the inception of scientific psychology, in the works of wilhelm wundt (diriwächter, 2004). in wundt’s folkpsychology, wundt linked the two by suggesting that culture and other higher-order human mental processes were best studied using qualitative approaches, like those used in cultural anthropology. when psychology turned away from structuralism to functionalism, and then to radical behaviorism, qualitative approaches were discredited and the subject of cultural difference was ignored as psychology focused on finding universal theories of human phenomena. historically, it was cultural anthropology that first raised awareness of the need to understand contextual descriptions of meaning and purpose in individual behavior (geertz, 1979; kirmayer, lemelson, & barad, 2007;westen, 2006). franz boas, the founding father of american cultural anthropology, was the first to recognize that human behavior can only be meaningfully studied in its normal context, particularly the context of its culture of origin (lewis, 2001). he recognized that a researcher can only come to a useful understanding of a culture different through her own through immersion in that culture, and participating in it over an extended period of time. he acknowledged that the members of any given culture are the true experts on that culture, and that outside researchers need to treat members of the culture as their teachers, as collaborators in the research. he also recognized that researchers are also cultural beings, just as research participants are, and that researchers need to be aware how their own cultural lenses shape their perceptions of their subjects. finally, boas was the first to suggest that social scientists must be activists, dedicated to the pursuit of social justice, particularly for the benefit of the populations they study. from its inception in the work of boas, as well as that of early sociologists like those of the chicago school (cavan, 1983), qualitative methods have been used to study the experience of minority, disenfranchised, and stigmatized groups. we would argue that overall, qualitative research has a better track record of service to these groups than quantitative research. from boaz onward, anthropology and sociology have recognized qualitative approaches, such as ethnographic fieldwork, as the means to work collaboratively with populations of interest, and through that interaction to develop the researcher’s cultural self-awareness, cultural sensitivity, and social consciousness. these ideas imply that the learning and doing of qualitative research fosters the very skill sets which are needed to address the underlying deficits identified by the cultural competence training literature in psychology. more recently, the qualitative research of the psychological anthropologist catherine lutz on the cultural mediation of emotion has inspired a new body of research and theory in psychology, challenging fundamental assumptions of emotion theory which date back to darwin (kitayama &markus, 1994; lutz, 1988). other contemporary cultural psychologists and psychiatrists (drožđek, 2010; kirmayer et al., 2012; kleinman & kleinman, 1999) have strongly argued in favor of emphasizing the significant role of cultural and contextual factors in mental health, as well as the cultural idioms of distress. sue (1998), for instance, argued for the importance of including what he termed “scientific mindedness” and “dynamic sizing” in the implementation of culturally competent practice. these skills, also reflected in the american psychological association’s guidelines onmulticultural education, training, research, practice and organizational change for psychologists (apa, 2003), can enable therapists and researchers to europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 mattar & vogel 365 http://www.psychopen.eu/ understand the delicate balance that needs to be struck, between generalizing research findings, and recognizing the limitations of these findings when creating treatment guidelines meant to apply to whole populations. by the end of the 20th century, we can see that psychology is at least making high-level efforts to address cultural diversity, as exemplified by the aforementioned apa best practice guidelines for a variety of diverse populations. apa’s policy statement on evidence-based practice in psychology (apa presidential task force on evidencebased practice, 2006) also highlighted cultural considerations in its definitions of ebpp by defining best practices as “the integration of the best available research with clinical expertise in the context of patient’s characteristics, culture and preferences” (apa presidential task force on evidence-based practice, 2006, p. 273). the ebpp policy statement proposes the incorporation of qualitative research as a culturally sensitive approach. a major challenge in implementing these apa guidelines is determining how cultural competence can coexist with evidencebased practice and how to ensure the cross-cultural validity of the evidence provided by research studies. “defining evidence, deciding what qualifies as evidence, and applying what is privileged as evidence are complicated matters with deep philosophical and huge practical consequences” (norcross, beutler, & levant, 2006, p. 7). to make matters more complicated, the broad definition of culture defined by the apa presidential task force on evidencebased practice (2006) emphasizes cultural meanings, not simply race and ethnicity, as well as the sociocultural context in which this meaning is created. this conceptualization creates methodological challenges with regard to the operationalization of cultural meanings. the need to account for variables such as power and privilege differentials within and between cultures further increase these challenges (la roche & christopher, 2009). indeed, over the last 30 years or so, psychology seems to have reached near-consensus that education, research and clinical work need to better account for the role of cultural factors in human nature. what a meaningful accounting for culture looks like, in practice, is a subject of greater debate. will psychologists minimally adapt existing approaches to pay lip service to cultural factors? or will they re-conceptualize their approaches from the groundup to build a new psychology which is derived from the acknowledgement that human nature is fundamentally culturally mediated? by the same token, as researchers scrutinize clinical practices to make therapy increasingly evidence-based, will they turn an equally critical eye upon the forms of evidence they themselves use, and consider whether they capture the true richness of human diversity? trauma psychology: cultural considerations the aforementioned questions are of particular importance to the developing field of trauma studies. while traumatic experience has been central to clinical psychology from its inception, traumatic studies as a distinct discipline is relatively new, and psychology’s increased recognition of the importance of culture has prompted traumatologists to make efforts to account for culture in their work. the cross-cultural shortcomings evident in some of the early, prominent disaster psychology efforts have also forced the field of traumatology to revise some of the etic assumptions inherent in much of earlier trauma theory (bhugra & van ommeren, 2006; murray-law, 2006). thus it is imperative that traumatology develop in a manner which is mindful of psychology’s past oversights, both theoretical and methodological. the complexity and the depth with which cultural factors involved in trauma will be addressed in research designs, assessments, therapy, and the training of the next generation of psychologists will determine whether trauma psychology will become a discipline of service to non-dominant communities. the current evidence on racial and cultural mental health disparities in the united states reinforces the need for this critical self-examination (see the u.s. department of health and human servicesnational health care disparities report, 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 quality of the evidence 366 http://www.psychopen.eu/ how can psychology go deeper with the subject of culture in both trauma research and clinical training?we would like to propose that the understanding generated by qualitative research, and the awareness fostered by the qualitative mindset applied in clinical and educational settings, can contribute significantly towards building a culturally competent traumatology. we further propose that there are two ways in which qualitative psychology can make such contributions: through the direct contributions of qualitative studies to the research literature, and through the skills fostered in clinicians by training in methods such as ethnography, descriptive phenomenology or grounded theory and the application of qualitative mindsets and skill sets to clinical work (corbin & strauss, 2008; giorgi, 2009). the process of cultural competence acquisition for therapists is also one that needs to be inductive, to generate ideas about client populations from direct interaction with the members of those populations, while simultaneously recognizing the therapist’s own standpoint relative to them. also, it is important to interact with client and research populations in an informed and skillful manner. zayfert (2008) stated that: a central challenge for culturally-competent treatment of ptsd does not appear to be whether to utilize empirically supported treatments for ptsd, but rather how to effectively engage individuals of various cultures in these interventions and how to address ethnocultural sources of avoidance in the maintenance of ptsd (p. 68). this supports the contention that addressing cultural mediation is a prerequisite for developing our understanding of ptsd. we already noted some ways in which boas’ work identified skills involved in qualitative research, which also had apparent utility for clinical training. it is worth noting that training in more recent qualitative research methods can likewise develop distinctive and useful skill sets for clinicians. for example, giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological methodology involves procedures for evaluating whether one’s assumptions and biases have intruded into one’s understanding of another person’s words. the technique of axial coding in grounded theory coding teaches a rigorous approach to creating predictive models of complex patterns in human behavior (corbin & strauss, 2008). however, the primary focus of this paper is the potential for direct contributions of qualitative findings to traumatology. before we can address that, we must take a more in-depth look at some of the limitations of the exclusive use of quantitative methodology. can culture be operationalized? culture has traditionally been treated as a nuisance variable in quantitative research, leaving little meaningful accounting for culture in scientific work (valsiner, 2009). one major reason for this is that culture, from a quantitative standpoint, appears to be a vast array of interrelated and difficult to operationalize variables. the complexity and ambiguity of culture makes the operationalization of cultural factors seem overwhelming, as noted by sue and zane (2006): because much of the research (with ethnic populations) touches on topics such as disparities, inequities, differential treatment, prejudice and values, investigators may be uncomfortable in initiating studies that systematically examine important ethnic and cultural variations. these problems involving sampling, research difficulties, de-emphasis on external validity, and focus on controversial topics reveal both the major challenges to conducting such research and the complexities in achieving rigorous research designs (p. 332) intersectionality theory (cole, 2009) is probably the most effective theoretical model to describe the complexity of cultural mediation. intersectionality describes how multiple categories of identity, difference and power depend europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 mattar & vogel 367 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on one another for meaning, intersecting to create a complex matrix of context-specific manifestations, each dependent upon its unique standpoint. it suggests, for example, that to recognize and understand ptsd symptoms in a refugee population, one would need to examine the interaction of acculturation variables, political affiliation, economic circumstances before and after immigration, the family’s developmental stage, religion, and a number of other factors which might be impossible for researchers to identify deductively. therefore, to isolate one of the many effects these factors produce through their interaction in the course of research is inherently to distort a correct understanding of how they operate. the value of qualitative methods for trauma psychology we suggest that quantitative methods, used alone, cannot fully capture the full nature of human suffering, because they cannot encompass the richness and nuance of its meaning. the predominant reliance upon quantitative methods has driven an oversimplified, de-contextualized approach to many research topics (arnett, 2009; gergen, 2001), especially those concerning underprivileged groups, who are also at greater risk for experiencing traumatic situations. quantitative approaches can miss the complexity of traumatic responses, especially when the precipitating stressor is ambiguous, such as in the case of racial and cultural microaggressions (helms et al., 2010). we also argue that qualitative approaches can remedy several methodological flaws that have caused evidencebased research to insufficiently address cultural factors. while we are not discounting the value of quantitative work, or of mixed-method approaches, we are arguing for the value of free-standing qualitative programs of study which can: suggest directions for quantitative work, enrich the understanding of quantitative findings, and explore phenomena which cannot feasibly be well-studied quantitatively. the quality of the evidence what factors do qualitative methods address that quantitative methods do not fully account for? first of all, qualitative methods are less reductionistic than quantitative methods (smith, 2003). it is not accurate to describe them as non-reductionistic, because scientific understanding is inherently reductionistic. it is reductionism which provides the clarity that gives scientific understanding its value. however, in quantitative research, data made up of human meanings which are linguistic or behavioral in their raw form, must be converted to numbers, analyzed in numerical form, and then turned back into meaning-encompassing language in the results section. often the task of converting the meanings into numbers is foisted upon the participants through the use of rating scales and the like. this approach requires that the researcher have a very thorough prior understanding of the structure of the phenomenon of interest, and thus of all the variables involved in it. the identification and isolation of these variables is often a rather arbitrary and nebulous task. the choice of which variables to study, which to control for, and which to ignore, is often driven by considerations of convenience as much as considerations of scientific value. in a qualitative method by contrast, language data remains in linguistic form, although the form is altered in the interests of clarity and conciseness (smith, 2003). certainly, meanings can be distorted by the qualitative analysis process, just as they can by the quantitative analysis process. however, the original meanings provided by the participants can be compared and consolidated without ever needing to be converted into a non-meaning encompassing form. this allows the researcher to approach the phenomenon of interest without a preexisting model of exactly how it operates, and lets the researcher decide how much to abstract the analysis from the obtained raw data. thus complexities can be encompassed and described easily, because they do not have to be broken down into specific, irreducible variables, determined in advance. a good example of how the non-reductionist nature of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 quality of the evidence 368 http://www.psychopen.eu/ qualitative findings can better capture the complex interaction between trauma and aspects of culture is weine et al.’s (2006) grounded theory study of how bosnian refugee familial beliefs regarding child-rearing adapt in the wake of immigration to the united states. weine et al. were able to model how pre-immigration family beliefs adapted in response to post-immigration contextual factors, producing specific parenting stances which could be adaptive or maladaptive in different contexts. the result is a theoretical model which offers direct guidance to clinicians in the selection of preventative family and child interventions with this population. it would have been exceedingly difficult for a quantitative researcher to have deductively framed a series of a priori hypotheses encompassing these factors, to have operationalized many of these factors, or to have designed a unified study that could track the complexity of the interrelationships between the varieties of pre-immigration attitudes and traumas, the post-immigration experiences, and the resulting adaptations and behaviors. this brings us to the second value of qualitative research, which is its inductive nature. qualitative research explores phenomena in an open-ended manner, rather than testing a priori hypotheses. it looks at phenomena, rather than for particular manifestations of those phenomena. to test a hypothesis, one needs to proceed from a thorough and operationalized understanding of the phenomenon of interest. where culture is concerned, such an understanding is quite difficult to obtain, and regardless of cultural factors, human meanings often do not correspond well to any given point on a likert scale. when using qualitative approaches, researchers need little pre-existing understanding of the phenomenon of interest, and indeed need to bracket the knowledge they have (giorgi, 2009). the qualitative researcher discovers an understanding of the phenomenon of interest through her examination of it. thus, the researcher does not need to know in advance which aspects of the phenomenon of interest are culturally mediated; rather that is precisely what the researcher hopes to discover. the value of this inductive approach for traumatology is exemplified by henry’s (2012) study of african refugees in egypt. henry found that participants experienced an interrelationship between how they mourned the loss of their culture of origin, how they coped with the traumatic circumstances that led to their refugee status, how they coped with political turmoil in their host country, and their acculturation stance towards egyptian culture. in this way, henry was able to examine how refugee trauma experiences intersected with themourning and cultural continuity phenomena addressed by existing theoretical models of immigrant experience (silverman & klass, 1996), without needing start from an a priori hypothesis as to precisely how they did so. the relationships henry discusses are not correlations, but the ambiguous relationships that exist in human being’s attributions of their own experience. a quantitative researcher might easily dismiss these as unscientific in nature, but that would be missing the point. people’s perceptions of relationships between aspects of their experience are the stuff of psychological research; the qualitative researcher is observing the existence of these as perceptions, rather than measuring them as behaviors. a third value of qualitative research is a product of an interaction between the previous two. because the original meanings of the participants are maintained to a greater degree, and because the inductive nature of the approach allows participants to express meanings that the researcher had no prior awareness of, qualitative approaches enable participants to have greater voice in how the findings of research reflect them. too often, the use of deductive approaches, in both theory and research, have created a situation in which dominant culture researchers characterize an underprivileged group without meaningfully consulting its members in any way. while the inclusion of population-community stakeholders in research design and review processes is helpful in this regard, such inclusion does not address the methodological issue of the form which the participant’s contributions take in the study. the isolation of variables in quantitative design, and the reduction of linguistic data to numerical values, both serve to de-contextualize human experiences. in qualitative approaches, the analyzed forms of the data remain europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 mattar & vogel 369 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experience-near. consider this passage from mohatt et al.’s (2008) study of recovery from alcohol abuse among alaska natives: in this active coping stage, many individuals often confronted their experiences with trauma. participants frequently identified healing from traumatic experience as one of the central features of stage i sobriety. although most described healing through finding meaning in their current lives, this process included culture-specific elements. healing often included discovery of what participants described variously as an identity, a role or a ‘voice’, that was at the same time theirs and also firmly grounded in their culture. along with this was the experience of new relationships with significant others that did not repeat the past in terms of recurring and repetitive traumatic experience. this process was quite transformative: “because i had come to, in my recovery—i continually came to realization after realization after realization about the why of things. and i realized that i felt like i was at home. and back at my grandpa’s house and hearing the language. and then i understood that the reason that i am confused about society is that i’m full-blooded tlingit. i think in tlingit and it’s okay.” (p. 5). the qualitative analysis is broadly similar in form to the participants’ original stories; it is a narrative, and typically contains direct quotations from the participant’s stories; it captures the essence of the participants’ unique knowledge of their own experience. untrained participants are able read the qualitative analysis of their own data, and judge for themselves whether it is a good reflection of what they said. thus qualitative methods enable underprivileged groups to portray themselves in a direct way that quantitative methods do not. to do this is equally in the service of social justice and good science, for to represent a group’s view of themselves promotes accuracy as much as fairness. we suggest that this is of particular importance to the field of traumatology, since non-dominant culture populations have historically been at the greatest risk for being misunderstood, mischaracterized, and harmed by social science (u.s. department of health and human services, 2001) while not all aspects of trauma are clearly cognitively mediated, it is clear that a variety of the aspects of ascribed meaning do mediate the extent to which experiences are traumatic for individuals; this meaning involves complex, interrelated beliefs which are rooted in core cultural beliefs (markus & kitayama, 1998). beliefs about such things as how much control one does or should have over life are part of the internalized form of culture, and also fundamentally construct the meaning of any traumatic experience. other social and contextual factors influencing an individual’s responses to trauma include: shame and stigma, notions of family, religion, culture-related stressors, acculturation, histories of trauma and violence and cultural discontinuity, as well as oppression (ancis, 2008). we would argue that some evidence-based treatments for trauma are rooted in theoretical assumptions about how traumatic experiences are interpreted, that are actually reflections of western core cultural ideas. for example, a therapist using cognitive processing therapy expects traumatized clients to hold beliefs like the just world theory, and conform to individualistic cultural norms regarding locus of control (resick & schnicke, 1993); the highly manualized nature of this treatment encourages a top-down search for such ideas. qualitative research suggests that the understanding of another person’s meaning inherently needs to be bottom-up, and approached with all assumptions thoroughly bracketed (giorgi, 2009), or one is at risk for simply seeing one’s own assumptions as the other’s ideas. the limitations of qualitative methods are generally better understood within psychology than their strengths. clearly, qualitative results cannot be generalized. that is, predictions cannot be made of the likelihood with which europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 quality of the evidence 370 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an inference about the population can be made on the basis of the findings in regard to the sample. however, the very recognition of the importance of culture is an acknowledgement that psychology has historically been overly ambitious in its efforts to create universal theories of human behavior. historically, it has been a tacit assumption of psychology that the virtues of quantitative research are preeminent, but the field must realize that to designate them so is to value external validity to the virtual exclusion of considerations such as ecological validity and relevance (westen, 2006). if we can value qualitative research’s strengths over its limitations, then in clearly has much to offer trauma psychology. towards a program of study for qualitative research in traumatology the specific qualitative studies we have discussed in this paper are good examples of the kind of research that we would like to see more of. to outline a proposed program of study for qualitative research in traumatology is a big task, however we can briefly provide a broad outline of what we would like to see done. studies of diverse population’s experience of trauma and its aftermath provide the best starting points for bodies of research looking at trauma in a population-specific manner. the more inductive such studies are the better, so methods such as descriptive phenomenology, (giorgi, 2009) which uses a non-directive interview, are ideal. studies yielding theoretical models of successful coping with trauma by diverse populations can provide building blocks for the creation of new interventions, and the selection and adaptation of existing interventions, to ensure that interventions are culturally syntonic. grounded theory (corbin & strauss, 2008) is most clearly suited to this, although consensual qualitative research (hill, thompson, & williams, 1997) may also be useful for this purpose. finally, studies examining diverse client’s experience of existing trauma treatments will provide a more nuanced understanding regarding how epb’s and other psychotherapies are working, in a culture-specific manner. this may be best done with conventional and directed content analysis (hsieh & shannon, 2005), although any of the aforementioned methods may be useful for this sort of clinical utility study. in each case, we would hope that complimentary quantitative and mixed-methods research would be used for follow-up studies. conclusion attention to culture in clinical research and work is clearly necessary given the increasing diversity and interconnectedness of our world. the challenge that multiculturalism presents to psychological research can best be answered by the increased use of qualitative methodologies, which are emic in nature and can therefore encompass subjective phenomena and contextual understandings that are not well-captured by quantitative designs. because of these strengths, qualitative studies often do a better job of giving underrepresented groups a voice in research. as trauma psychology attempts to develop best-practice guidelines, the field must first expand notions of scientific evidence and embrace those methodologies that historically have best addressed the needs of underprivileged, underrepresented and stigmatized groups. treatment guidelines that do not recognize the cultural differences between groups will ultimately fail with a majority of clients, and endanger the relevance of the field as a whole. funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 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(2008). culturally competent treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in clinical practice: an ideographic, transcultural approach. clinical psychology: science and practice, 15(1), 68-73. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2850.2008.00111.x about the authors sandra mattar, psy.d. is an associate professor in the graduate counseling program and the associate dean of the kalmanovitz school of education at saint mary’s college of california. her expertise focuses on culture and immigration, cultural issues in education and the psychology of trauma, disasters and crisis intervention. eric b. vogel, psy.d. is an associate professor in the doctor of psychology program at john f. kennedy university. his expertise focuses on qualitative research, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, and psychotherapeutic games for children. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 363–375 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.750 mattar & vogel 375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2850.2008.00111.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en quality of the evidence (introduction) the evidence-based practice movement in trauma theory traumatology and its context psychology, qualitative research and culture: a brief history trauma psychology: cultural considerations can culture be operationalized? the value of qualitative methods for trauma psychology the quality of the evidence towards a program of study for qualitative research in traumatology conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors sexual compulsivity comorbidity with depression, anxiety, and substance use in students from serbia and bosnia and herzegovina research reports sexual compulsivity comorbiditywith depression, anxiety, and substance use in students from serbia and bosnia and herzegovina dzanan berberovic*a [a] penitentiary correctional institution in tuzla, university of tuzla, tuzla, bosnia and herzegovina. abstract the main purpose of this study was to examine relationships between sexual compulsivity, depression (including level of self-esteem) anxiety, and the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs in a sample of 1,711 students from serbia and bosnia and herzegovina. sexual compulsivity, depression, and anxiety were measured with standardized scales and inventories (the sexual compulsivity scale – scs, the beck depression inventory – bdi, and the spielberger’s state-trait anxiety inventory-trait, stai-t, respectively), whereas specific questions about tobacco, alcohol, and drug use were modified for the purpose of this study. results indicated positive, significant but low correlations between sexual compulsivity and depression; sexual compulsivity and anxiety; and sexual compulsivity and substance use; whereas a low, negative but significant correlation was obtained between sexual compulsivity and self-esteem. the strongest predictor of sexual compulsivity was drug use; two other significant predictors were alcohol and depression. limitations of the study are discussed in the end. keywords: sexual compulsivity, depression, anxiety as a trait, self-esteem, substance use europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 received: 2013-02-23. accepted: 2013-06-10. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: dragodol 27, 75 000 tuzla, bosnia and herzegovina. e-mail: dzananberberovic@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction sexual compulsivity is a clinical syndrome, opposite to what is known as sexual aversion or hyposexual desire disorder. sexual compulsive behavior implies difficulties in regulation (decrease or inhibition) of sexual thoughts, feelings or behaviors, despite negative consequences to self and/or others, causing clinically significant levels of interpersonal distress, and it can include activities which are incongruent to personal goals, believes or values (reid & woolley, 2006). sexual compulsivity means any sexual behavior in an individual, persisting over time despite numerous repetitive attempts to stop it, causing clinically significant levels of stress to the individual (del giudice & kutinsky, 2007). sexual compulsive behavior can be determined as an individual’s preoccupation with sexual thoughts, desires and behaviors, resulting in subjective distress and interfering in social and work functioning. analyzing the existing literature, berberovic (2012) claims that sexual compulsivity is characterized by: obsessive thoughts about sexual behavior, loss of control over that behavior, and continuing such sexual behavior despite its negative consequences. sexual compulsivity was found to be highly correlated to other psychological problems and mental disorders, especially to anxiety and mood disorders, as well as to different impulse control problems (black, kehrberg, flumerfeit, & schlosser, 1997; goodman, 1993, 1998; grant & steinberg, 2005; kafka & hennen, 1999; raymond, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ coleman, &miner, 2003; schneider & schneider, 1996). many authors (i.e., carnes, 1983, 1991, 1996; goodman, 1993, 1998; kafka & hennen, 1999) argued that sexual compulsivity is very often comorbid with other addictions or substance abuse. sexually compulsive individuals can also have physical health problems caused by sexually transmitted diseases (i.e., coleman, 1992; dew &chaney, 2005) or theymay suffer from some personality disorders (carnes, 1991; finlayson, sealy, & martin, 2001; rickards & laaser, 1999). bipolar and psychotic disorders can also be related to sexual hyperactivity (finlayson, sealy, & martin, 2001). symptoms of depression, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder and substance abuse were found in adolescents who were likely to engage in risky sexual behavior (sussman, 2007). blankenship and laaser (2004) revealed several common characteristics in adhd persons and sexual compulsives. moskowitz and roloff (2007) proposed two sexual compulsivity etiology perspectives. the first one is based on the anxiety model and the second on the depression/mood model. according to the anxiety based model, sexual desire is activated by anxiety states (quadland, 1985) such as low self-confidence or loneliness, which are then constructed as a need for sex, meaning that they become the triggers to start looking for sexual encounters (moskowitz & roloff, 2007). anxiety reduction can be linked to sexual behavior through early learning processes, meaning that, when anxiety levels increase, a need to reduce it through some kind of sexual behavior or encounter becomes strong (gold & heffner, 1998). however, reduced anxiety is only temporary and when it reoccurs, previous sexual behaviors are not sufficient to reduce high anxiety levels, so additional sexual practices may occur (berberovic, 2012). moskowitz and roloff (2007) argue that sexual compulsivity is better explained by the mood or depression based model, because some individuals, when depressive, become less worried about the consequences of their behaviors, so they engage in more risky sexual activities (i.e., wright, 2012). sexual activity might then serve as an instrument to recover psychological equilibrium, since depressive states activate a search for satisfying the need (bancroft & vukadinovic, 2004). it was demonstrated that depression and sexual compulsivity were positively related, and that a higher prevalence rate of depression was found in males (weiss, 2004). however, we must consider the fact that depression is frequently comorbid with other psychological disorders (first, 2005), not only with sexual compulsivity. nelson and oehlert (2008) found significant comorbidity levels of depression, anxiety and substance addiction (especially cocaine addiction) with sexual compulsivity. this study aims to find whether sexual compulsivity is comorbid with depression, anxiety, and substance use in students from non-western countries (serbia and bosnia and herzegovina), since the sexual compulsivity phenomenon has not been the subject of research in the balkan area so far. on the other hand, higher rates of sexual compulsivity are expected in lower socio economic countries (marshall, marshall, moulden, & serran, 2008; mmidi & delmonico, 2001) such are serbia and bosnia and herzegovina. carnes, murray, and charpentier (2005) demonstrated that sexual compulsivity (named sexual addiction) simultaneously existed with sexual anorexia, explaining that these sexual behavior extremes are two dimensions of the same problem. addiction in one area can lead to addiction in another area (eisenman, dantzker, & ellis, 2004). males were more likely to report addictions to sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, while females were more likely to report chocolate, cigarette and food addictions (eisenman et al., 2004). carnes (1991) found that 42% of 932 sexually addicted individuals, were also addicted to other chemical substances, 38% of them had eating disorders; 28% reported that they worked compulsively and 26% reported compulsive buying. participants also mentioned addiction problems in their siblings, fathers and mothers (carnes, 1991). there is strong correlation between europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 sexual compulsivity comorbidity 518 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stimulant drugs and sex (brown, domier, & rawson, 2005). pathological gambling was also found to be highly correlated to sexual compulsivity, significantly higher in male than in female gamblers (grant & steinberg, 2005). the main purpose of this study was to explore the sexual compulsivity comorbidity with depression (including self-esteem levels), anxiety, and tobacco, alcohol, and drug use in students from serbia and bosnia and herzegovina (b&h). this study is the first of this kind to explore the sexual compulsivity phenomenon in its relation to depression, anxiety, and substance use in a young (student) population only. its importance lies in the fact that it explores only young people from 19 to 25 years of age, while previous studies used a broader age range (i.e., from 18 to 65) when exploring sexual compulsivity. on the other hand, the sexual compulsivity phenomenon has never been explored in any population in the balkans, so this study highlights the importance of one of the more acute problems of young people in these economically poor countries, where sexual behavior can serve as a coping mechanism to overcome stressful life events people from these countries encounter every day. this kind of study is particularly interesting since, in the balkans, such a phenomenon is not well recognized as problematic and uncontrolled sexual behavior is seen as extremely negative in females, but extremely positive in males, which is also the case in other cultures (caroll, 2007). emphasizing this problem among young students could motivate other researchers to broadly explore sexuality issues in young populations in these two countries on an even wider scale, especially since sexual compulsive behavior does not have a place in the current mental disorders classification systems. this study also emphasizes the importance of exploring the sexual compulsivity phenomenon in economically poor countries, because it can be ignored and neglected by mental health professionals when counseling clients who demonstrate problems with depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, and substance use. given the previous findings mentioned above, it was hypothesized that higher scores in sexual compulsivity would be (1) positively correlated to the higher scores in depression; (2) negatively correlated to the lower scores in selfesteem; (3) positively correlated to the higher scores in anxiety; (4) positively correlated to the substance use (cigarette smoking, alcohol, and drug use. the last hypothesis was that (5) depression, anxiety, self-esteem, and substance use, when considered together, would be good predictors of sexual compulsivity in a student population. method participants the sample of this study consisted of 1,711 students from four universities in serbia (n = 570) and b&h (n = 1,141); 649 males and 1,062 females, within the 19 to 25 age range, m = 21.88; sd = 1.67. a total of 896 students from both countries were from rural areas, while 894 students came from urban areas (one participant did not report her geographic location). no significant differences were found in any of the socio-demographic variables (sex, geographic location: urban/rural area; state: serbia/b&h, marital status, and family status). material four instruments were used in this research: the sexual compulsivity scale-scs, the beck’s depression inventorybdi-ii, the rosenberg’s self-esteem scale-rss, and the spielberger’s stait trait anxiety inventory – stai-t. a socio demographic questionnaire was developed for this study in order to obtain data about sex, age, year of study, faculty, department, state, geographic location (urban/rural area), monthly economic income (socio-economic status), as well as to obtain data about substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs) indicating consumption, daily quantity, type of substance used. no data about substance use frequency were obtained as part of this study. self-report of cigarette, alcohol, and drugs consumption were used as categorical variables in this research. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 berberovic 519 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were asked to note whether they smoke, drink alcohol, or use drugs (in the form of “yes/no” answers). if their answers were positive, they were asked to note how many cigarettes they smoked on a daily basis, which type(s) of alcohol they consumed, and which type(s) of drugs they used. only self-report data about the participants’ substance use were collected. the sexual compulsivity scale (scs, kalichman & rompa, 1995) was used to determine sexual compulsive participants. the scale was translated from english to serbian and vice versa to test whether there were significant changes in sense of the scale’s items when translated to the serbian language. no significant changes were found. beside high internal consistency of the scale mentioned above, the principal component analysis (pca) revealed one significant component (factor) explaining 66.89% of variance (kmo = .95) with significant bartlett’s test of sphericity (p = .000) (berberovic, 2012). it consists of 10 4-point likert scale items measuring tendencies toward sexual preoccupation and hypersexuality. participants who scored above the score of 32 (two standard deviations of the mean sample score) were classified into the “sexual compulsives” group. a total of 153 sexual compulsive participants were identified in this study (116 males and 37 females). alpha coefficients for internal consistency of the scale are from .85 to .91, with high levels of construct and criterion validity (mcbride, reece, & sanders, 2008). in this study, cronbach’s alpha of .943 indicates high internal consistency of this scale. this study was the first in using this scale for research purposes. the beck depression inventory – ii (bdi-ii; beck, steer, & brown, 1996) was used to assess depression. this form of the inventory was constructed in 1996 (beck et al., 1996), but was officially translated in serbian in 2008. its psychometric properties were explored in serbian student population, demonstrating good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent, and divergent validity (novovic, mihic, tovilovic, jovanovic, & biro, 2011). good psychometric properties were also found in clinical settings (i.e., bugarski, sakac, & vodopivec, 2007). bdi-ii form consists of 21 items regarding pessimism, sense of failure, feelings of guilt, punishment, self-hatred, selfaccusations, suicidal thoughts, crying, irritability, social isolation, etc. every item consists of 4 statements, which are scored between 0 (no depressive symptom) and 3 (severe state). the higher the score on this scale, the higher the depression level. this inventory showed also good internal consistency and test-retest consistency in clinical (.48 to .86) and non-clinical (.60 .90) samples (beck et al., 1996; beck, steer, & carbin, 1988). in the current study, the bdi-ii showed high internal consistency, with the cronbach’s alpha = .885. the rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rss; rosenberg, 1965) is the most frequently used instrument to measure global self-esteem. it consists of ten 5-point likert scale items. the higher the score, the higher the self-esteem level (negative items are scored reversely). metric characteristics of this scale were explored several times in different ex-yugoslavian populations. internal consistency of this scale is cronbach’s alpha = .85 (burusic & brajsa-zganec, 2005). test-retest reliability of this scale is from .82 to .88, depending on the sample, whereas internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) is from .77 to .88 (jelic, 2003). this research also revealed high internal consistency of this scale, cronbach’s alpha = .803, as it was indicated in the previous research (i.e., jelic, 2003). the spielberger’s state trait anxiety inventory – trait (stai-t, spielberger, gorsuch, rushene, vagg, & jaccobs, 1999) is self assessment questionnaire of anxiety as a trait. this scale was standardized first in croatian population in 2000 (spielberger et al., 1999). no other norms of this scale for other ex yugoslavian countries were made, but the scale is widely used and it metric properties were showed to be good. it consists of twenty 4-point likert scale items. higher scores indicate higher levels of anxiety as a trait. test-retest correlation of this inventory was .86, and good convergent validity was reported (spielberger et al., 1999; tilton, 2008), making this instrument europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 sexual compulsivity comorbidity 520 http://www.psychopen.eu/ very suitable for research issues. research in serbian samples (i.e., popov, 2004) indicated high internal consistency of the scale. in this study, cronbach’s alpha of .864 indicates very high internal consistency of the instrument. procedure all participants were approached during the spring semester of the 2010/2011 academic year at four biggest universities (two in each country): university of belgrade and university of novi sad (serbia); university of sarajevo and university of tuzla (bosnia and herzegovina). students of almost all departments of the four universities were approached during regular lectures (giving access to groups of 30 to 100 people); the main scope of the study was briefly explained to every group of participants. participants were told to complete the questionnaires, which were anonymous, being assured that the results would be used for this study (and related scientific purposes) only. students were also told that they can stop their participation at any time. the procedure of approaching participants was agreed with university members prior to collecting data. it took about 30 to 60 minutes to complete the questionnaires. the same procedure was administered at each university. since the distribution for the above variables was asymmetric, non-parametric statistical procedures were used. statistical analysis was performed with the help of spss for windows 12.0 one database for the whole sample was formed, giving every participant of the research his/her own code. results to test the first three hypotheses regarding sexual compulsivity comorbidity with depression, self esteem, and anxiety, spearman correlations were performed. the results in a form of correlation matrix are shown in table 1. table 1 sexual compulsivity comorbidity with depression and anxiety anxietyself-esteemdepressionsexual compulsivity sexual compulsivity .141**.175**-.142**.001 depression .568**.525**-.001.142** self-esteem .626**-.001.525**-.175**anxiety .001.626**-.568**.141** **p < .01, two-tailed. as it is indicated in the table, all the correlations were significant at the .01 level. correlation between depression and anxiety was positive and moderate (ρ = .568, p = .000, n = 1,704), whereas correlations between depression and self-esteem (ρ = -.525, p = .000; n = 1,708); and between anxiety and self-esteem (ρ = -.626, p = .000; n = 1,701) were negative and moderate. sexual compulsivity was positively correlated with depression (ρ = .142, p = .000; n = 1,711) and anxiety (ρ = .141, p = .000; n = 1,704), but negatively related with self-esteem (ρ = -.175, p = .000;n = 1,708). however, all the correlations of sexual compulsivity with depression, anxiety, and self-esteem, even when significant, were very low. results showed that the higher the sexual compulsivity, the higher the depression, the lower the self-esteem, and the higher the level of anxiety. of the 153 identified sexual compulsive subjects in this study, 37.9% (n = 58) reported they smoked cigarettes, while 24.4% (n = 380) of sexual non-compulsives reported smoking. smokers had significantly higher levels of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 berberovic 521 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual compulsivity (m = 18.57; sd = 8.68; mdn = 15; n = 438) than non-smokers (m = 16.12; sd = 7.47; mdn = 13; n = 1273), u = 224 632.5; p = .000. to test the fourth hypothesis, point-biserial correlations were performed to reveal the relations between sexual compulsivity and substance use. the point-biserial correlations were run because the substance use variables were all categorical and dichotomous. the results are shown in table 2. table 2 sexual compulsivity and substance use drug usealcohol consumptioncigarette smokingsexual compulsivity .345**.279**.136**1.00sexual compulsivity 1711171117111711n **p < .01, two-tailed. the results indicate significant correlations between sexual compulsivity and substance use (cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use). regarding their power, it could be said that all the correlations were relatively weak. the weakest correlation was obtained between sexual compulsivity levels and cigarette smoking (rpb = .136, p = .000, n = 1,711), whereas the strongest correlation was found between sexual compulsivity and drug use (rpb = .345, p = .000, n = 1,711), with correlation between sexual compulsivity and alcohol consumption in the middle (rpb = .279, p = .000; n = 1,711). all the correlations were positive, meaning that those who smoke cigarettes, consume alcohol drinks, and use drugs, have a greater probability to score higher in sexual compulsivity, comparing to those who do not smoke cigarettes, do not consume alcohol, or do not use drugs. a total of 79 subjects of those 81 who reported drug use, answered the question of which type of drugs they used. out of those 79 drug users, 29 (36.70%) reported using stimulant drugs, whereas 50 (63.30%) reported only use of marihuana. the mann-whitney u test revealed a significant difference in sexual compulsivity levels between the former (mdn = 34; n = 29) and the latter (mdn = 18; n = 50), u = 396; p = .001. the former drug users (those using stimulant drugs) had most frequently the score of 34 on the scs, indicating sexual compulsivity. out of the 29 stimulant drug users, 18 subjects (62.1%) were also identified as sexual compulsives, whereas only 22% of the sexual non-compulsives were prone to stimulant drug use. results demonstrated that sexual compulsivity was more prevalent in stimulant drug users group than it was the case with the marihuana users group, χ2(1, n = 79) = 11.02; p = .000, phi = .40. logistic regression was performed to test the fifth hypothesis regarding the prediction of sexual compulsivity when all the explored variables (depression, self-esteem, anxiety, and substance use) were considered together. the results are shown in table 3. logistic regression was performed to test the contribution of several factors on probability that the participants would be classified as sexual compulsives (or sexual non-compulsives). the model consisted of six independent variables (depression, self-esteem, anxiety, smoking, alcohol, and drugs). the dependent variable was sexual compulsivity. the whole model (with all predictors) was significant, χ2(6, n = 1711) = 146.87, p = .000, implying that the model discriminated sexual compulsives from sexual non-compulsives. however, the model explained between 8.2% (cox & snell r square) and 18.2% (nagelkerke r square) of variance, but it classified correctly 91.2% of the cases. as it is indicated in table 3, only three independent variables gave significant contribution to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 sexual compulsivity comorbidity 522 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 predicting the probability of being classified as sexual compulsive 95% c.i.for exp(b) exp(b)sig.dfwalds.e.b upperlower 1depression .1011.0551.0781.000.55646.011.075 1self-esteem .0001.942.971.053.7313.015.0291anxiety .997.951.974.030.7134.012.0271smoking .7151.774.1521.485.487.203.142 1alcohol .5553.5751.3662.000.18717.208.861 1drugs .4576.1032.6853.000.78420.286.3041 1constant .191.083.0043.955.655-1 note. variable(s) entered on step 1: depression, self-esteem, anxiety, smoking, alcohol, drugs. the model (depression, alcohol consumption, and drug use). drug use was found to be the strongest predictor in predicting probability of being classified as sexual compulsive (drugs as indicated in the table), with odds ratio of 3.68. it demonstrated that participants who used drugs were more than 3.5 times more likely to be classified as sexual compulsives than those who do not use drugs. those who consume alcohol drinks were more than 2 times more likely to be classified as sexual compulsives than their alcohol non-consumers counterparts. the odds ratio for depression was just a little bit above 1 but the result was also significant when all other factors in the model were controlled. discussion depression is the most frequently researched disorder among sexual compulsive individuals. this study also demonstrated that sexual compulsivity was positively and significantly correlated to more severe depressive states. positive correlation means that the higher the depression levels, the higher the sexual compulsivity levels and vice versa. the depression prevalence rate in this study was 16.3% among sexual compulsives, which is very similar to the results of weiss (2004) who found a 18.4% depression prevalence rate among sexual compulsives. the finding which confirms the positive correlation between sexual compulsivity and depression is congruent with results from other studies (chaney & chang, 2005; muench et al., 2007; nelson & oehlert, 2008), in which depression was a frequent characteristic of individuals who express sexual compulsive behavior. on the other hand, high depression levels are highly correlated to low levels of self-esteem. results from this study revealed that sexual compulsivity was significantly and negatively correlated to self-esteem levels. a negative correlation between these two variables explains that the higher the sexual compulsivity levels, the lower the self-esteem. this is congruent with another finding (muench et al., 2007), which confirmed that low self-esteem is one of the characteristics of sexual compulsives. this result was expected, since sexual compulsivity was positively correlated to depression, and depression was negatively correlated to high self-esteem levels. sexual compulsive behavior can result in high levels of tension or it can severely damage general mood and the well-being of the individual. young people may think that sexual activity can serve as a copingmechanism against everyday stressors. however, not staying in long-term relationship and constantly changing sex partners can fortify a negative self-concept, since this type of satisfaction (through sexual activity) is only temporary, not permanent, and the self-concept is a more permanent characteristic, which is hardly changed by temporary satisfactions, such as are sexual experiences with different sex partners. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 berberovic 523 http://www.psychopen.eu/ several studies found interesting relationships between depression and hypersexual behavioral patterns. for illustration, fielder and carey (2010) found that students, who had been more depressed at the beginning of the semester, were more likely to engage in casual sex at the end of the semester. in another study (grello, welsh, harper, & dickson, 2003) more depressive young people (adolescents) were more likely to engage in casual sex than their less or non-depressed counterparts. wright (2012) suggests that unhappy people can be indifferent to the negative consequences of uncontrolled sexual behaviors. it could suggest that depressed individuals are not likely to think about the long-term consequences of their behaviors, so they engage in sexual activities with the scope of “curing” themselves of their own emotional state dominated by unhappiness (wright, 2012). casual sexual encounters could be one of the temporary solutions to problems related to depression and low self-esteem. however, self-esteem level in this research was not found to be a significant predictor of sexual compulsivity, when all other variables were held constant. it should be noted that significant correlations between sexual compulsivity and depression, as well as those between sexual compulsivity and self-esteem, were obtained in a relatively big sample of students. when their magnitude is considered, they are both very low; even depression was demonstrated to be one of the three significant predictors of sexual compulsivity, which was not the case with self-esteem. a positive and significant, but also very low correlation was found between sexual compulsivity and anxiety, which means that sexual compulsivity levels rise as anxiety levels rise. however, the anxiety variable was found to be a significant predictor at the .05 (exactly .03) level of sexual compulsivity, when other variables in the model were held constant. however, its odds ratio was less than 1, indicating that there is even a probability of being classified as a sexual compulsive as anxiety levels decline. anxiety was found to be comorbid with sexual compulsivity in other research (i.e., nelson & oehlert, 2008). in the current study, sexual compulsives scored significantly higher on anxiety than their non-compulsive counterparts. this result could possibly be explained by coping mechanisms students in serbia and b&h use to overcome stress in everyday life, meaning that sexual activities might be used as coping strategies by students in these countries. on the other hand, both countries are considered as developing countries whose inhabitants have a low socio-economic status. research (marshall, marshall, moulden, & serran, 2008) suggests that sexual compulsivity could be considered as a more serious problem of people with lower socio-economic status, which means that higher sexual compulsivity rates are expected in developing than in more developed countries. this was confirmed by the findings of research among african males (mmidi & delmonico, 2001), reporting very high sexual compulsivity rate in african men who simultaneously belonged to lower socio-economic levels. those who belonged to low socio-economic groups might have little coping strategies that could be used in everyday life, which is the reason why sex could be one of the main activities employed to overcome everyday problems. however, further research is needed to explore the relationship between social class, economic status, and sexual compulsivity levels in student population. students who reported smoking, had higher average sexual compulsivity scores than their non-smoker counterparts. this result was congruent with other findings (eisenman et al., 2004; sussman, 2005, 2007). sussman (2005, 2007) claims that sexual compulsivity is expected to be positively correlated to smoking in young people because media models very often advertise cigarette smoking in sexualized ways, influencing vulnerable young people not only to start smoking, but also to behave sexually. those who start smoking earlier are more likely to start earlier to engage in sexual activities than their non-smoker peers, and are prone to a sexual risky behavior (sussman, 2005, 2007), possibly because of their tendency to “grow up” sooner and to behave congruently with adult models behavior. a positive correlation between sexual compulsivity and cigarette smoking and other addictions or substance abuse was also confirmed in another research (eisenman et al., 2004). in any case, it should europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 sexual compulsivity comorbidity 524 http://www.psychopen.eu/ be mentioned that, despite its significance, the correlation between sexual compulsivity and cigarette smoking obtained in the current study was very low, whereas cigarette smoking was not found to be a significant predictor of sexual compulsivity when other variables were controlled. however, as some authors claim (carnes, 1983, 1991, 1996; eisenman et al., 2004; goodman, 1993, 1998), people who are addicted to one substance are more likely to become addicted to another substance. this means that cigarette smoking can facilitate likeliness to consume alcohol or use drugs, which were shown to be significant predictors of sexual compulsivity in the current research. it was confirmed that sexual compulsives significantly differed from their non-compulsive counterparts in their proneness to alcohol drinking, meaning that the former were more likely to consume alcohol than the latter. significantly higher sexual compulsivity prevalence rate was found among those who drank alcohol than among those who did not. however, this result cannot be supported by another research (i.e. nelson & oehlert, 2008) in which no significant correlation between sexual compulsivity and likeliness to alcohol consumption was found. eisenman et al. (2004) showed that alcohol consumption was more characteristic for sexual compulsive males than for sexual compulsive females. further analysis is needed to test gender differences in alcohol consumption in relation to sexual compulsive behavioral patterns. cooper (2002) suggested that the relationships between alcohol use and sexual behaviors could not be explained simply by considering people who use or do not use alcohol. the relationship between sexual risky behavior and alcohol use is very complex, and it reflects various underlying processes, causal or non-causal in nature (cooper, 2006). alcohol is frequently used as a stimulant in sexual activities. even in the media, alcohol is presented through sexualized scenarios of intimate relationships between sex partners. however, alcohol consumption, as it is the case with the use and abuse of other substances, can serve as a coping mechanism to overcome depression, anxiety, or other inner negative emotional states. alcohol and substance use support a distorted self-image, meaning that they can be used due to the individual’s low levels of self-esteem and proneness to develop depression. some authors (i.e., carnes, 1983, 1991, 1996; eisenman et al., 2004; goodman, 1993, 1998) claim that sexual compulsivity is an addiction process, and that the development of one addiction (i.e., addiction to alcohol or drugs) can lead to the development of another (i.e., sexual addiction). alcohol consumption was found to be one of the significant factors in predicting sexual compulsivity in the current study. participants who self-reported alcohol consumption were found to be more than twice as likely to be classified as sexual compulsives compared to peers who did not report this type of consumption. it seems that alcohol could serve as a facilitator in engagement in a risky sexual behavior. on the other hand, it can be related to the positive reinforcement of sexual engagement, leading young people to participate in risky sexual behavior over and over again. the results of this research showed that sexual compulsive students were generally more likely to consume cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs more often and in bigger quantities than their non-compulsive counterparts. drug use was found to be the strongest predictor of sexual compulsivity when other variables in the model were controlled. drug users were more than 3.5 more likely to be classified as sexual compulsives than drug non-users. out of the 153 sexual compulsive individuals in this research, one fifth self-reported using drugs. furthermore, sexual compulsives were more likely to use stimulant drugs (such as cocaine, speed, ecstasy), which is congruent with the finding of another research (brown et al., 2005). men and women who use methamphetamines are more likely to participate in sexual activities while using these drugs, than when using some other types of drugs (brown et al., 2005). other authors also confirmed relatively strong correlation between substance use and sexual compulsivity (i.e., carnes, 1991; nelson & oehlert, 2008). carnes (1991) found that 42% of sexual addicts were simultaneously addicted to another chemical substance, claiming that those who are addicted to drugs are regularly addicted europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 berberovic 525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to alcohol as well. nelson and oehlert (2008) revealed sexual compulsivity comorbidity with substance abuse, especially cocaine, on a sample of veterans. conclusions it was hypothesized that sexual compulsivity would be positively correlated with depression, negatively with low self-esteem, positively with anxiety, as well as with substance use. results indicated the hypothesized significant correlations, but they all were very low. all the variables were considered in a model meant to discover whether it was possible to predict sexual compulsivity. only three variables were found to be significant: drug use, alcohol consumption, and depression. the strongest predictor of sexual compulsivity was drug use, given the probability of more than 3.5 for those who use drugs to be classified as sexual compulsives. alcohol consumption was also a significant predictor, making individuals who drink alcohol 2.37 more likely to be classified as sexual compulsives compared to their non-alcohol drinking counterparts. depression was shown to be a significant predictor of sexual compulsivity but its contribution was far less than the contribution of alcohol and drug use. similarly, anxiety was shown to be a weak predictor of sexual compulsivity, whereas smoking and self-esteem levels were not found to be significant. alcohol and drug use were the strongest predictors of sexual compulsivity in the serbian and bosnian student population, which leads to the conclusion that problems young people encounter in their lives may be attempted to be overcome through alcoholand drug-related (risky) behaviors, which then, in turn, might facilitate their likeliness to engage in risky sexual activities. these activities could serve as a strong risk-factor to develop more severe problems, such as sexual compulsivity, which is comorbid with other psychological disorders. this study has several limitations. first of all, the sample consisted of students, so results cannot be generalized to a broader young population. further research should include young people who work and are not involved in the process of higher education. second, questions about drug use refer to illegal behavior, which students are not likely to report. a higher number of drug users is expected than it was obtained in this research. further research could use more objective data to analyze relationship between sexual compulsivity and drug use and/or abuse. third, this study only shows correlations between sexual compulsivity and other psychopathological phenomena, meaning that we do not know the exact causal relations between each these variables. experimental research is needed to reveal whether sexual compulsivity leads to depression, low self-esteem levels, anxiety, and substance use or vice versa. references bancroft, j., & vukadinovic, z. 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(2005). the relations of cigarette smoking with risky sexual behavior among teens.sexual addiction & compulsivity, 12, 181-199. doi:10.1080/10720160500203732 sussman, s. (2007). sexual addiction among teens: a review. sexual addiction & compulsivity, 14, 257-278. doi:10.1080/10720160701480758 tilton, s. r. (2008). review of the state-trait anxiety inventory (stai). newsnotes, 48(2), 1-3. weiss, d. (2004). prevalence of depression in male sex addicts residing in the united states. sexual addiction & compulsivity, 11, 57-69. doi:10.1080/10720160490458247 wright, p. j. (2012). a longitudinal analysis of us adults‘ pornography exposure. sexual socialization, selective exposure, and moderating role of unhappiness. journal of media psychology, 24(2), 67-76. doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000063 about the author dzanan berberovic works as a psychologist for juvenile and young adult offenders in penitentiary-correctional institution in tuzla (bosnia and herzegovina). he previously worked as a teaching assistant at the university of tuzla (b&h) where he taught courses in developmental and personality psychology. he was awarded with doctoral degree diploma in psychological sciences at the university of novi sad (serbia) in february 2012. his main research area is focused in sexuality issues. he is the first author to explore sexual compulsive behavior in young europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 berberovic 529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720160701876609 http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/psi1103225n http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/psi0403375p http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00926238508406078 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-440x(03)00110-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720160600870786 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720169908400177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720169608400106 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720160500203732 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720160701480758 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10720160490458247 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000063 http://www.psychopen.eu/ people from serbia and bosnia and herzegovina. so far he published several scientific articles in local and international journals and one book in bosnian language explaining the sexual compulsivity phenomenon. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 517–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.595 sexual compulsivity comorbidity 530 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual compulsivity comorbidity introduction method participants material procedure results discussion conclusions references about the author perception and expression of emotional suffering in cancer patients: the role of somatic depressive symptoms research reports perception and expression of emotional suffering in cancer patients: the role of somatic depressive symptoms luca binaschi*ab, lorys castellic, antonella varettoa, paolo leombrunia, riccardo tortaa [a] clinical psychology and psycho-oncology unit, department of neuroscience, university of turin, turin, italy. [b] fondazione edo e elvo tempia, biella, italy. [c] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. abstract to date there is no agreement on the usefulness of physical symptoms to express a mood disorder diagnosis in psychoncology. the aim of this study was to evaluate the relevance of somatic, affective and cognitive clusters in mood disorders in oncological comorbidity. 151 consecutive in-patients of the surgical oncology unit of s. giovanni battista hospital (turin, italy) were evaluated for depression using the hads and the madrs. in addition, behavioural, somatic and cognitive clusters of the madrs were analysed, comparing depressed and non-depressed patients, subdivided according to the hads-d scores. since the hads does not consider the somatic symptoms of depression this comparison allowed us to evaluate the relevance of the three different clusters for depressive symptoms. according to the hads, 57.4% of patients scored above the cut-off (≥ 8) for depression and 47,3% scored above the cut-off (≥ 8) for anxiety. as for the madrs, 44% of patients scored between 0-9, indicating the absence of depression, 43.7% were found to have mild/moderate depressive symptoms and 12.3% showed severe mood depression. comparison between patients above and below the cut-off of hads-d showed significant differences in all the three clusters (p < 0.01). in addition, more relevant differences were observed in the affective and somatic clusters than in the cognitive cluster. results of the present study suggest the importance of somatic symptoms in the perception and expression of psychological suffering in cancer patients. keywords: depression, somatic symptoms, psychoncology, psychopathology, clinical psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 received: 2012-09-26. accepted: 2013-04-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: via cesare lombroso, 10093 collegno (to), italy. e-mail: l.binaschi@libero.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. at present there is no agreement in the scientific literature on the weight of somatic, cognitive and emotional clusters in a mood disorder diagnosis. in particular, according to clark and colleagues, the traditional emphasis on somatic and behavioural symptoms is insufficiently supported by empirical evidence (clark, beck, & alford, 2001). indeed, many studies have demonstrated that, in order to formulate a major depression diagnosis, subjective symptoms like depressed mood, desperation and self-devaluation are just as important, if not more so, as biological symptoms like weight loss or insomnia (coulehan, schulberg, block, & zettler-segal, 1988; lovibond & lovibond, 1995). anedonia is also considered a typical mood depression symptom (clark & watson, 1991). a research on day-hospital psychiatric patients (52%with clinically relevant mood depression) and healthy subjects demonstrated that items of the beck depression inventory (bdi) relating to cognitive and subjective symptoms saturate the depression factor in factorial analysis, whereas biological symptoms like the loss of weight, appetite or interest in sex do not show factorial significant weight (beck, 1967; clark, beck, & beck, 1994; steer, clark, beck, & ranieri, 1995). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ investigating the frequency of these symptoms in day-hospital patients with major depressive episodes, buchwald and rudick-davis demonstrated that sleep disturbances, as well as loss of energy and appetite, are detected in over 80% of cases, whereas psychomotor alterations and self-devaluation are relevant in less than 70% of depressed patients (buchwald & rudick-davis, 1993). overall, similar data show a general disagreement in the scientific literature over the importance of biological symptoms for the definition of a mood disorder diagnosis in the psychiatric population. in particular, there are two main opinions on the weight of somatic symptoms: that they should be considered an expression of the mood disorder (buchwald & rudick-davis, 1993) or that they are just a secondary expression of the disturbance itself (clark et al., 1994; steer et al., 1995). the question of somatic symptoms becomes very important for the comorbidity between mood depression and somatic diseases, when physical symptoms demonstrate both somatic and emotional pathogenesis, as is the case with pain and fatigue in oncological patients (duddu, isaac, & chaturvedi, 2003). in other words, there is at present an absence of agreement over the effective importance of the somatic cluster symptoms in the definition of a mood disorder diagnosis in oncological patients or in comorbidity with another severe organic pathology. in fact, although the traditional distinction of depressive clusters as affective, cognitive and somatic is more or less widely accepted by the scientific community for psychiatric patients, it is less welldefined as far as patients in comorbidity with other organic pathologies are concerned (akechi et al., 2003; reuter, raugust, bengel, & harter, 2004). indeed, in such patients the role of somatic symptoms (loss of appetite, weight or energy, fatigue, sleep disturbances) is much less clear, since it is possibly secondary to the pathology itself or its medical treatment (radio and/or chemotherapy) rather than due to a mood disorder. however, this aspect is extremely important when psychiatrically diagnosing or psychologically supporting oncological patients: by considering somatic symptoms from the perspective of a mood disorder diagnosis the risk is that of obtaining many false positive diagnoses, whilst by taking the opposite perspective, the risk is that of obtaining many false negative cases, with evident side effects on clinical practice. the role of physical symptoms in mood depression in comorbidity with organic pathologies has not yet been defined: some authors (cohen-cole, brown, & mcdaniel, 1993) hold that no somatic symptom should be used as a diagnostic criterion (exclusive approach); others (creed, 1997) consider that only those symptoms which cannot be ascribed to the pathology or its treatment (aetiological approach) should be considered. research, however, has clearly shown that these approaches produce a high number of false negative diagnoses advising against their clinical use. another approach has been proposed: the so-called “substituting approach”, which suggests the substitution of somatic symptoms by affective and cognitive ones (endicott, 1984). this approach guarantees better results, although the criterion of substitution on which the whole procedure is based has not yet been validated. moreover, even the most recent clinical studies do not agree on the usefulness of physical symptoms to express a mood disorder diagnosis in psychoncology (akechi et al., 2003; reuter et al., 2004). based on these considerations, the principal aim of this study is to investigate the weight of somatic, affective and cognitive symptoms in a mood disorder diagnosis in oncological patients. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 somatic symptoms and emotional suffering in cancer patients 598 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methods patients the sample consisted of 151 in-patients of the surgical oncology unit of s. giovanni battista hospital in turin, italy. the patients enrolled in the study were evaluated in the period september 2010 september 2011 by an experienced psychoncologist, after their first medical examination at the day hospital of the same department. before the psychological assessment, demographic data were collected through a semi-structured interview at the clinic, conducted by the same experienced psychoncologist. all the questionnaires were completed at the clinic. the sample consisted of 84 males and 67 females with a mean (sd) age of 49.3 (sd = 23.5) years. the patients were on the waiting list for surgical intervention and affected, respectively, by colon-rectal (32%), breast (26%), gastric (21%), ovarian (11%), or lung (10%) cancer (table 1). table 1 demographic and clinical characteristics of the patients sex 84male ,6%55 67female ,4%44 age 49,3mean 30-84range 23,5sd marital status 118married ,1%78 14widowed ,4%9 13single ,7%8 6divorced ,8%3 disease site 48colorectal ,0%32 39breast ,0%26 32gastric ,0%21 17ovarian ,0%11 15lung ,0%10 extent of disease 89local ,8%58 54loco-regional ,8%35 8methastatic ,4%5 materials and procedure the patients were evaluated with the following rating scales: hads (hospital anxiety and depression scale) (zigmond & snaith, 1983), a self-evaluating scale consisting of two seven-item sub-scales, assessing anxiety and depression. it is specific for patients with organic pathologies, since it does not consider somatic symptoms (cephalea, weight loss, insomnia, etc.) which could be confused with symptoms due to the disease or the treatment itself. this scale has been validated for a hospital environment europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 binaschi, castelli, varetto et al. 599 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and is widely used with oncological patients. total scores vary from 0 (no distress) to 42 (maximum distress). in the present study, a cut-off of ≥ 8 for both sub-scales was adopted, as in the case in most researches on depression in organic comorbidity, in order to detect also subsindromic depressive disturbances (castelli, binaschi, caldera, & torta, 2009). madrs (montgomery asberg depression rating scale) (montgomery & asberg, 1979), a hetero-evaluating scale for the assessment of depression, comprising 10 items with a score ranging from 0 to 6; it investigates symptoms such as depressed mood, inner tension, sleep disturbances, loss of appetite, difficulty in concentration, asthenia, anhedonia, pessimistic and suicidal thoughts. the sum of the scores is an expression of general pathology severity. several studies have focused on the issue of establishing the most appropriate cut-off rate for the presence/absence of depression in comorbidity: most agree that a cut-off of ≥ 10 can be considered appropriate (zimmerman, chelminski, & posternak, 2004). similarly, a cut-off of ≥ 35 is widely accepted for the detection of severe depressive syndrome, as suggested by the authors and confirmed by subsequent studies (müller, szegedi, wetzel, & benkert, 2000). according to the literature, three different sub-groups can therefore be defined: absence of depression (0-9), mild-moderate depression (10-34), severe depression (35-60). this scale suited our research particularly well since the ten items can be grouped following the somatic, affective and cognitive clusters, allowing separate statistical analyses. as already found in literature (reuter et al., 2004), the subdivision is made according to three clusters of items: • behavioural, referring to “apparent sadness”, “reported sadness”, “inner tension”, “inability to feel” (anhedonia) • somatic, including “reduced sleep” “reduced appetite” and “lassitude” (fatigue) • cognitive, including “difficulty in concentration”, “pessimistic thoughts”, “suicidal thoughts” the madrs, filled out by an expert psychoncologist was used together with the self-evaluative hads. statistical analysis means and standard deviations were calculated for the abovementioned rating scales.mean values were compared with the independent t test procedure (two-tailed), using the statistical package for the social sciences [spss 15.0]. p values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. results hads 57,4% of group scored above the cut-off (≥ 8) for depression and 42,6% below. 47,3% scored above the cut-off (≥ 8) for anxiety, while 52,7% showed no specific anxiety symptom. madrs at madrs global scores, 44% of patients scored between 0-9, indicating absence of depression; 43.7% scored between 10-34, indicating mild/moderate depressive symptoms; 12.3%were in the range 35-60, indicating severe mood depression. these data are shown in figure 1. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 somatic symptoms and emotional suffering in cancer patients 600 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. madrs global scores. to evaluate the diagnostic relevance of the affective, somatic and cognitive clusters, the global madrs score for each single cluster (obtained by adding all the cluster’s item scores) was considered separately for the group of patients above the cut-off at the hads-d and for the group below, because hads does not consider the somatic symptoms of depression (see figure 2). figure 2. madrs's clusters distribution according to hads-depression cut-off. *p < .001. the population with hads-d above cutoff (8) shows highermean values in all symptoms clusters of madrs than the population below cut-off (p < .001): affective (mean values 10 ± 2,98 vs. 4,4 ± 2,34), somatic (mean values 9,2 ± 2,12 vs. 4,5 ± 2,15), and cognitive (mean values 6,2 ± 1,85 vs. 2,3 ± 1,2). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 binaschi, castelli, varetto et al. 601 http://www.psychopen.eu/ following this, the score difference between the two groups was statistically analyzed. this analysis showed how scores at all three clusters on the madrs are significantly higher (p < 0.01) in the group of patients above the cut-off (≥ 8) on the hads-d subscale. the same procedure was used to evaluate the trend of the three clusters on the hads-a (anxiety) subscale (see figure 3). figure 3. madrs's clusters distribution according to hads-anxiety cut-off. the population with hads-a above cutoff (8) shows highermean values in all symptoms clusters of madrs than the population below cut-off: affective (mean values 8,4 ± 3,58 vs. 6,7 ± 4,20), somatic (mean values 7,8 ± 2,19 vs. 6,8 ± 3,07), and cognitive (mean values 5,1 ± 1,91 vs. 4,2 ± 1,97). in this case, however, the scores at each madrs cluster did not show statistically significant differences between the two hads-a groups. the data also show how the trend of clusters on madrs scores is not homogenous. comparing the madrs scores between the two groups (above and below the cut-off point of hads-d), more relevant differences were observed in the affective and somatic clusters than in the cognitive cluster (see figure 2). discussion the aim of this study was to evaluate the relevance of somatic, affective and cognitive clusters in mood disorders in oncological comorbidity. results suggest that somatic symptoms can actually be read as signals of mood disturbances also in patients with comorbidity. an analysis of madrs scores showed that: 44% of patients scored 0-9, thus showing no depressive symptom; 43.7% scored 10-34, thus satisfying the criteria for mild/moderate depression; and 12.3% scored ≥ 35, with severe depressive symptoms. overall, 56% of patients exceeded the madrs cut-off and 57.4 of patients exceeded the cut-off on the hads-d (depression) subscale, confirming our previous data on the reliability of hads as an effective screening tool (castelli et al., 2009). a hads cut-off score of 8, which is lower than the value used in psychiatric europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 somatic symptoms and emotional suffering in cancer patients 602 http://www.psychopen.eu/ population, was chosen in order to identify sub-syndromic mood disturbances that represent a high risk of development of clinical depression. as already mentioned, the evaluation of the relevance of somatic, affective and cognitive clusters in mood disorders in oncological comorbidity led to some interesting considerations. first of all, the three clusters showed significantly higher scores (p < 0.01) in patients with hads scores above the cut-off for depression, compared to patients below. this suggests that for oncological patients, too, all clusters are useful in the process of mood disorder diagnosis. furthermore, the relevance of each cluster is different. analyzing the single clusters, it could be noticed how the affective cluster showed the highestmean score among the group of patients with hads-d scores above the cutoff rate according to the literature. the somatic cluster is next in terms of relevance, demonstrating very high scores in patients with depressive symptoms and significantly lower scores in the “not depressed” group. whilst the cognitive cluster has lower scores than the first two, it shows a significant difference between the subgroups above and below the cut-off. however, the data nevertheless confirmed that both affective and somatic symptoms are relevant for mood disorder in oncological patients. indeed, if somatic symptoms were to be considered exclusively due to the cancer or its treatment, and were not linked to mood aspects, then the cluster scores should be similar in the two groups (scores above and below the cut-off rates). the data thus suggest that in this population physical symptoms are also linked to mood disturbances. physical symptoms should thus be considered the result of both organic and emotional components in oncological patients. in other words, appetite, pain, fatigue, sleep and sexuality obviously demonstrate a co-occurrence of emotional and somatic aspects that cannot be evaluated from a dichotomic organic or emotional viewpoint. this is clearly not to insinuate that, for example, reduced appetite in cancer patients is caused exclusively by mood disorder and is not a consequence of the disease or chemotherapy, but to affirm that such a disturbance is experienced more intensively by oncological patients who are depressed than by those who are not. the relevance of somatic symptoms of mood depression is also related to the question of systemic disease (torta, 2002): the pathogenesis of a mood disorder is due not only to neurotransmitter imbalance, but also to broader modifications in immune and hormonal systems (such as increased pro-inflammatory cytokines and cortisol). somatic symptoms thus demonstrate a pathogenetic component induced bymood depression itself. furthermore, patients with a chronic disease can find a somatic way to express their emotional disease instead of verbal or non-verbal communication (secondary alexithimia). mood disturbance seems to induce oncological patients to express somatic disturbances significantly more than “healthy” patients (secondary alexythymia); in practice, this means that somatic symptoms can be read as signals for mood disturbances in patients in comorbidity, too. according to recent literature, it could be hypothesized that alexythymic subjects have difficulty identifying and expressing internal emotional states and distinguishing between feelings and somatic sensations of emotional arousal (duddu et al., 2003). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 binaschi, castelli, varetto et al. 603 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this hypothesis is supported by the data on the trend of the same three clusters of the had – anxiety subscale. in fact, on the had-a subscale none of the three clusters shows significantly different scores in the groups of patients above and below the cut-off. whilst these data are more comprehensible with regard to the cognitive and affective clusters (less correlated to anxiety syndromes), they appear very revealing as far as the somatic cluster is concerned. if the expression of a somatic symptom in oncological patients were to refer exclusively to generic psychological distress and not directly to the depressive spectrum, we should be able to observe a similar trend in the anxiety subscale as well, that is, significantly higher scores in the group above the cut-off of the hads-a (anxiety) subscale with respect to the group below. the present results disagree with the exclusive approach suggested by other authors. wedding and colleagues concluded that somatic symptoms in depressed cancer patients have to be excluded from diagnostic criteria for depressive disorders, since they seem related not to depression but to the severity of the underlying disease (wedding et al., 2007). however, independently of our aforementioned considerations on the links between emotional and organic pathogenesis in somatic symptoms of depression, we partially disagree with the instrument used for the evaluation of somatic symptoms in the study performed by wedding and colleagues. in that study, indeed, the somatic symptoms were investigated by bdi, which shows some limits in the oncological population. the somatic cluster, in fact, includes cognitive symptoms of depression, such as change of body image and hypochondria. besides, bdi is mainly focused on the subjective perception of symptoms. moreover, the study compares depressive symptoms experienced by the healthy general population and by the oncological population, without considering that some cancer patients, who have difficulty identifying and expressing internal emotional states (secondary alexithymia) could express their psychological distress by an increase in the number of complaints related to physical symptoms. the present study is limited by the relatively small number of patients and the lack of a control group; 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(1979). a new antidepressant scale designed to be sensitive to change. the british journal of psychiatry, 134, 382-389. doi:10.1192/bjp.134.4.382 müller, m. j., szegedi, a., wetzel, h., & benkert, o. (2000). moderate and severe depression: gradations for the montgomery-asberg depression rating scale. journal of affective disorders, 60(2), 137-140. doi:10.1016/s0165-0327(99)00162-7 reuter, k., raugust, s., bengel, j., & harter, m. (2004). depressive symptom patterns and their consequences for diagnosis of affective disorders in cancer patients. supportive care in cancer, 12, 864-870. doi:10.1007/s00520-004-0694-2 steer, r. a., clark, d. a., beck, a. t., & ranieri, w. f. (1995). common and specific dimensions of self-reported anxiety and depression: a replication. journal of abnormal psychology, 104, 542-545. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.104.3.542 torta, r. (2002). parliamo di test in psiconcologia. po news psiconcologia, 1, 3-4. wedding, u., koch, a., röhrig, b., pientka, l., sauer, h., höffken, k., & maurer, i. (2007). requestioning depression in patients with cancer: contribution of somatic and affective symptoms to beck's depression inventory. annals of oncology, 18(11), 1875-1881. doi:10.1093/annonc/mdm353 zigmond, a. s., & snaith, r. p. (1983). the hospital anxiety and depression scale. acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 67, 361-370. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x zimmerman, m., chelminski, i., & posternak, m. a. (2004). review of studies of the montgomery–asberg depression rating scale in controls: implications for the definition of remission in treatment studies of depression. international clinical psychopharmacology, 19, 1-7. doi:10.1097/00004850-200401000-00001 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 binaschi, castelli, varetto et al. 605 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.100.3.316 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00005053-198805000-00006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(02)00440-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(94)00075-u http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.134.4.382 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0165-0327(99)00162-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-004-0694-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.104.3.542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdm353 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00004850-200401000-00001 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors prof. riccardo g. torta is an associate professor of clinical psychology and director of clinical psychology and psycho-oncology unit at the university of turin. he has published papers on a number of topics, including psychooncology and the psychological aspects of pain (email: riccardo.torta@unito.it). lorys castelli is a clinical psychologist, phd in cognitive science. he teaches in the school of psychology at the university of turin (email: lorys.castelli@unito.it). prof. paolo leombruni is an assistant professor of psychiatry in the department of neuroscience at the university of turin. he has previously published papers on several psychosomatic issues: these papers initially focused on eating disorders and later concerned psycho-oncology. he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses and has recently become interested in researching medical education (email: paolo.leombruni@unito.it). luca binaschi is a clinical psychologist and psychoterapist. he works as a psychoncologist in the clinical psychology and psycho-oncology unit at the university of turin. he has previously published papers concerned psycho-oncology and clinical psychology. antonella varetto is a clinical psychologist and psychoterapist. he works as a psychoncologist in the clinical psychology and psycho-oncology unit at the university of turin. she has previously published papers concerned psycho-oncology and clinical psychology (email: avaretto@molinette.piemonte.it). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 597–606 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.529 somatic symptoms and emotional suffering in cancer patients 606 http://www.psychopen.eu/ somatic symptoms and emotional suffering in cancer patients (introduction) methods patients materials and procedure statistical analysis results hads madrs discussion references about the authors evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory with a sample of australian women, demonstrating the centrality of gendered role expectations to their depression research reports evaluation of the shift-depression® inventorywith a sample of australian women, demonstrating the centrality of gendered role expectations to their depression helen c. vidler*a [a] school of social sciences and psychology, university of western sydney, sydney, australia. abstract to address the double fold incidence and prevalence rates of depression in women compared to men needsmore than symptommanagement. in primary health care where time does not normally allow for thorough assessments of what causes or maintains depression, using a brief questionnaire is warranted. a means must be found to address system level barriers to care and the poor quality of life so many women experience. using an online survey and mixed method design, initial evaluation of a measure developed to identify individual and contextual issues connected to depression in women, examined underlying factor structure. 266 depressed women aged 18 to 85yrs also completed the centre for epidemiological studies depression scale (cesd) and provided written commentary about any further issues. the shift-depression® inventory analysis revealed five reliable underlying factors explaining 59% of the variance. the factors identified were; 'diminished self/feels powerless/focused on other's care'; 'financial problems, lacks access to healthcare, healthy food, housing, exercise’; 'relationship difficulties, loss/betrayal/abuse’; ‘women’s problems’ and 'lack of social support/feels isolated'. analysis of participant’s comments found four groupings similar to the identified factors. this initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory showed evidence of the multiple issues impacting on depressed women spanning the physical, intrapsychic, relational, social and contextual areas. the inventory provides preliminary assessment which can identify when more extensive questioning and referrals to various services may be appropriate. it could be used in primary health care settings when consultation times are brief, or as an adjunct to assessment in the mental health setting. keywords: women, depression, caring, relational, social, emotion-work, mixed-methods europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 received: 2013-01-24. accepted: 2013-04-17. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: school of social sciences and psychology, university of western sydney, p.o. box 112, rozelle nsw 2039, australia. e-mail: h.vidler@uws.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ‘i need a partner who takes the time to understand and support me. this is not going to happen. i have a young child and i’m not in a position to leave this relationship. i feel trapped.’ participant’s comment introduction background it is well recognized that depression is a primary cause of disability and a priority public health concern (lopez, mathers, essati, jamison, & murray, 2006; who, 2001). also, it is well recognized that there is consistent reporting of higher rates of depression for women compared to men (australian institute of health and welfare, 1998; mclennan, 1998; who, 2000, 2004). this poor quality of life for depressed individuals and for women in particular, warrants urgent attention to what causes, maintains and can help reduce it. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ most people with unipolar depression present to their general practitioner with a combination of physical complaints which makes it more likely the focus of treatment will be on physical issues with the subject of depression not raised. as well, time-poor general practitioners in primary health care settings, even when they do diagnose depression, frequently only have the time to focus on biomedical aspects such as exercise and/or prescribing antidepressants. even though guidelines from theworld health organisation (who) and australia for themanagement of depression in primary health care recommend enquiry about recent losses or relationship difficulties and the provision of psycho-education, problem solving therapy or cognitive behaviour therapy (ellis & smith, 2002; who, 2010), the majority of busy general practitioners do not have the time or resources to focus on thorough assessments or provide such treatment. the option to refer to mental health practitioners for psychotherapeutic interventions varies depending upon a country’s funding arrangements. referrals to mental health professionals in australia are usually reserved for moderate to severe cases of depression. unfortunately therefore, many people who are depressed do not get diagnosed. as well, many who are diagnosed do not get adequate depression care management and this systemic problem increases the likelihood of an individual’s depression becoming chronic or reoccurring. this is of particular concern due to the higher rates of depression for women. estimates indicate that 50% of depression is undiagnosed and untreated according to marcus, yasamy, van ommeren, chisholm, and saxena (2012). in europe (berghöfer, hartwich, bauer, unützer, willich, & pfennig, 2012) as well as in the us (katon & ludman, 2003), it has been identified that there is a need for systematic management of depression in primary health care. griffiths and christensen (2008), from having conducted several systematic reviews of primary care models of depression management have identified the need for a reorganisation of the traditional model of general practice and, ‘in particular, the implementation of care management as well as enhanced care and guided self-help in these settings’ (griffiths & christensen, 2008, p. 81). these findings confirm the earlier work of wagner (1997) and yet it remains the case that there are exceptionally high rates of depression reported for women which are left unaddressed. apart from understanding that general practitioners are expected to perform the impossible in short consultation times, we need to understand if there are other factors impacting upon primary health care delivery that may make the double fold incidence and prevalence rates of depression for women more understandable? we may ask whether cultural views regarding the essential characteristics of womanhood demonstrated by sex role stereotypes (broverman, vogel, broverman, clarkson, & rosenkrantz, 1972), together with research from the biomedical area which attributes women’s fluctuating hormones, biochemistry and personality as causes for their depression, have ‘normalised’ depression in women. if health practitioners subscribe to sex role stereotypes that regard women as naturally emotional and sensitive (nicolson, 1992), and there is no reason why they would not, then it is easy to see how the high incidence and prevalence rates of depression amongst women may be regarded as ‘normal’. certainly biomedical research does not have a history of seeking the beliefs and viewpoints of women regarding their depression (dill & anderson, 1999; farmer, owen, & mcguffin, 2000; post, 1992). therefore, if causes for depression in women are seen to be fluctuating hormones, malfunctioning biochemistry and ‘emotional’ or ‘sensitive’ personality traits, then the primary health care sector may see depression in women as inevitable. unfortunately, such a ‘normalizing’ perspective of the experience of depression for womenmay preclude an inspection of the interpersonal, social and contextual issues that may be causing or maintaining depression. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 349 http://www.psychopen.eu/ if we look instead to research from the social sciences, it shows that during the reproductive years, when the rates of depression for women are highest, women are also more vulnerable and dependent due to their decreased ability to earn an income whilst also caring for children (belle & doucet, 2003). this makes women dependent upon their partner (if they have one) and necessitates that the relationship is stable and harmonious. yet we know from data regarding domestic violence that there are many relationships which are violent, controlling, or otherwise difficult (haggett, 2012; koss & heslet, 1992; resnick, acierno, & kilpatrick, 1997). during the reproductive years, women are frequently financially dependent and can feel trapped and defeated within difficult relationships. (brown, harris, & hepworth, 1995). this is hardly good for their mental health. reported high prevalence rates, although dipping after the reproductive years, peak again in later life (wu & anthony, 2000). later life, for many women who have not had the opportunity to accrue superannuation, or have been the recipients of lower wages due to gender pay gap issues (international trade union confederation, 2008; workplace gender equality agency, 2012), means limited choice in their living situations due to having limited financial means. once again, women may remain stuck in difficult relationships or affordable housing that they feel unsafe in. surely, these social contexts have much to do with why a woman became depressed or stays depressed and need to be included as a matter of course in any assessment and treatment plan. it is necessary to make a comprehensive assessment that includes not only individual biomedical and intrapsychic issues but also the psychosocial contextual areas, so that the circumstances impacting on a woman become clear. then appropriate referrals can be made to a mental health practitioner, social worker, accommodation services, domestic violence support, financial or employment counselling. but if there is not enough time in the primary health care setting to do this, and there is also a disconnect between the primary care and specialist mental health sectors, there is no opportunity to do this assessment. therefore, there is an urgent need for an efficient and brief way to conduct an assessment which can identify each of these areas and can inform the direction that treatment should take. this identified need underlies the purpose of the research reported here. this assessment would be helpful for all depression sufferers but particularly so for women when we consider their double fold incidence and prevalence rates of depression. there is nothing ‘normal’ about so many women experiencing such a poor quality of life. purpose of this study therefore, this research is based on an identified gap in the assessment and management of depression care for women that combines the individual and environmental issues. there is likely to also be a gap in mental health care settings where assessment and treatment may give preference to psychosocial/contextual issues and leave off enquiry about and referral for physical/ biomedical issues. if depression is experienced as an interaction between poor physical health including; lack of sleep, the use of alcohol and other drugs, inadequate or unbalanced diet, and inability to exercise; as well as the intrapsychic, interpersonal, and psychosocial/contextual issues, then asking questions about each of these areas forms the basis of a comprehensive assessment. katzelnick et al. (2000) identified that controlled studies on depression care management programs designed specifically to optimize the treatment of depression in high utilizers of primary care are rare. for a review of studies europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 350 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that have used various measurements and tools or algorithms for the treatment of depression in primary care see berghöfer et al. (2012). recent searching of the pubmed data base using the terms depression, assessment, management, treatment, tool, measure and women, returned no studies or measures that are concerned with depression management for women in particular (high utilizers of primary health care) that combine the physical, relational, social and contextual areas of women’s lives. the current research builds upon an earlier mixed methods study with a sample of 22 women who were recruited from the australian cohort of a large, longitudinal study as they exited that study. participants in the large longitudinal study had been recruited whilst waiting for the general practitioner in urban community health centres and had all been diagnosed as clinically depressed (herrman, diehr, fleck, simon, & patrick, 2002). the 22 women from the sample the current research builds upon, completed in-depth interviews as well as the centre for epidemiological studies depression inventory (cesd) (radloff, 1977), the silencing the self scale (stss) (jack, 1991), and the preliminary version of the shift-depression® inventory used in the current study. the inventory results showed there was a strong link between depression and the physical, intrapsychic, interpersonal, social, cultural and contextual factors for the women in that small sample. the interview transcripts from the in-depth interviews were examined from a hermeneutic phenomenological understanding and themes were identified that summarized the essential issues connected to being depressed for that small sample of women. the qualitative findings showed that those women who sacrificed their own needs and preferenced the needs of others in their significant interpersonal relationships continued to be depressed whereas those womenwho decided to rebalance the care in those important relationships and to care for themselves more, recovered from depression. for more detail regarding the initial development and psychometric properties of the 32 item form of the inventory, along with the method used to locate themes from the in-depth interviews the reader is referred to (vidler, 2005, 2006). the current work also used a mixed, quantitative and qualitative method. brannen (1992) argues for the combining of methods to best serve social groups or populations where one method alone may misrepresent them. while the qualitative approach may overcome some of the problems of giving a voice and language to such groups through which they may better express their experiences, the quantitative approach would serve to indicate the extent and patterns of their inequality at particular historical junctures (brannen, 1992, p. 22). using a mixed method approach in this way also enables a linking of the biomedical area, frequently associated with quantitative methods, with the social area usually associated with qualitative methods. design of the study the overarching design of the study was informed by a transformative-emancipatory approach together with a constructivist/interpretative paradigm. according to mertens (2007), the transformative-emancipatory approach provides a framework for a research process that can address social injustice and inequality because it makes apparent the research participant’s reality. it is acknowledged that this reality is constructed and shaped by social, political, cultural, economic and racial/ethnic values, power and privilege; which are important determinants of what will be privileged in the research context. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 351 http://www.psychopen.eu/ because this study was concerned with bringing to light contextual issues that have been shown to be connected to depression for women, but are not routinely addressed in biomedical research, it was important to use an approach that preferences the research participant’s contributions. the transformative paradigm can also involve the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods and considers it a given that participant’s perspectives inform the work. the 32 item multifactorial inventory developed for the earlier study to assist women to rank issues from the physical, stressful life experiences, thoughts and feelings, relationships with others, community and culture, and women’s problems areas (vidler, 2005, 2006) has been further developed for the current study. based upon comments women made during the in-depth interviews in the previous study, the 32 items were further modified and broadened into the current 38 item inventory. as a part of the development of the current inventory, the items were reviewed separately by five women who had knowledge of depression due to either, their work as a mental health professional, having suffered with depression in the past, or having had a family member who was depressed. the first of the five women was identified by the author and the remaining reviewers were identified by using a snowball sampling technique. it is important, according to worthington and whittaker (2006), to have an expert group with members who have similar characteristics to the group being studied to provide input about what methods or measures are being used. this ‘expert group’ provided valuable input regarding the meaning and grammar of various items. this resulted in the final version of the shift-depression® inventory which asked for a response to each item using a five point likert scale. this list of ‘things connected to your sadness or depression’ informed by depressed women, formed the basis for the online survey used in the current research. the two research questions for this current study were: 1. what is the underlying factor structure of the shift-depression® inventory? 2. does the factor structure of the inventory provide evidence of physical, psychological (intrapsychic), relational (interpersonal), social and contextual issues connected to depression for the women in the sample? the project had the approval of the human research ethics committee at the university. methods a decision was made to use an online survey method because it enabled immediate access to a large sample of women who self-identified as depressed that would otherwise be hard to reach. another benefit of this method was that it provided the potential for privacy and anonymity that would not be available if the inventory had been completed in the presence of another person. the sample a convenience sample of 266 women was recruited to the project from the community by advertising on the university web site, local and national newspapers and from radio interview. information was provided about the research, details of the hrec approval, and how to contact the principal investigator (pi) if they required further detail about the study. the two inclusion criteria imposed when recruiting women to the study were; they needed to be 18 years of age or older, and believe that they were sad or depressed. fricker (2008), in discussing various sampling methods for online surveys explained that unrestricted, self-selected surveys are useful because they leave it up to the individual to choose to participate or opt-in. they have advantages in their potential to reach a wide audience over a short time span and are very cost effective. nevertheless, this europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 352 http://www.psychopen.eu/ type of sampling also posed limitations to this study due to the inability of generalizing the results to all women. the study participants may not represent depressed women in general, or may over or under represent certain age groups particularly those who are more familiar than others with computers and accessing the internet. it is also possible, due to the anonymity available to participants that their responses may have been under or over exaggerated or misrepresented, or may be from men as well as women. therefore, this must only be considered an exploratory study. the online survey the survey began with an introductory page providing information about how to contact the ethics committee who had approved the study, how the information they provided was confidential and private and how their privacy would be protected, plus the email address for the pi for further information about the study. there was also a statement making it clear that there was no ability to respond to any person who was in a crisis and that the survey was not intended to provide an individual diagnosis or treatment plan. participants were informed that if they felt they may self-harm or felt suicidal that they should immediately go to their nearest hospital outpatient department by calling an ambulance or asking someone to take them there. also provided was the telephone number for an all hours support line. it was very important that the participant’s safety was considered due to a slight risk that the online inventory, with questions relating to sadness or depression, may make them feel worse. it is important to consider the level of risk when using online methods according to proudfoot et al. (2010), because the online survey lacks the level of control available when there is face to face contact. participants were also advised that if they provided a functional email address at the end of the survey, they would be emailed a copy of their completed survey and if they wished, they could take it to their health practitioner to assist with treatment planning. along with their completed survey, they would also receive an information sheet containing the names of a range of community and non-government agencies providing support with depression, and information about how to access support from the private health sector, plus several links to web sites that also provided information regarding depression. participants were advised that by clicking on ‘begin the survey’, they were providing their consent to participate. the survey was open between july and september 2009. after the introductory page participants were presented with the 20 item version of the centre for epidemiological studies depression measure (cesd) (radloff, 1977), using a four point likert scale. the scoring ranges from 0 (rarely or none of the time – less than one day of the week), 1 (some or a little of the time – one to two days of the week), 2 (occasionally or a moderate amount of time – three to four days of the week), to 3 (most or all of the time – five to seven days of the week). the cesd is routinely used in a research setting to provide an indication of a person’s level of depressive symptoms. it is not a clinical diagnostic tool. permission to adapt the measure into an online survey was gained from the copyright owners of the cesd, the national institutes of mental health (nimh). this measure was included to gauge the level of depressive symptomology of women even though women themselves had self-assessed as being sad or depressed. having a measure indicating the level of depressive symptoms provided a valuable cross check and a way of providing a level of data triangulation. the cesd contains a list of 20 symptoms drawn from items used in previously validated longer scales of depression. the major components of depressive symptomatology were identified as depressed mood, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, psychomotor retardation, loss of appetite and sleep europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 353 http://www.psychopen.eu/ disturbance. several items are included in the scale to reflect each component. response expectations for the general population suggest that many people would experience a few of the symptoms and a few people would experience many whereas expectations for a clinical sample are the reverse. with a clinical sample there is an expectation of higher item means, higher inter item correlations and very high internal consistency. it is common when using the full version of the cesd to use a cut point of 16, with a score of 16 or more indicating sufficient depressive symptomatology to suggest the presence of depression and a score of 15 or less indicating the absence of depression. after participants completed the cesd, the 38 item shift-depression® inventory followed with the question, ‘pleasemake a selection to indicate howmuch any of these things were connected with your sadness or depression over the past four weeks’. the relevance and level of importance to the participants of each item was measured using a five point scale. the possible scores ranged from 0 – 4 (0 = not at all, 1 = a little, 2 = moderately, 3 = quite a bit, and 4 = extremely). in this way, women indicated the relevance to them of the statements provided. immediately after completing the inventory, an open-ended question was asked to provide further information and some balance to the closed-ended questions in the questionnaires. this question had a text box provided for a response to ‘is there anything you wish to add?’ this was then followed by another question and text box ‘any further comments?’ the two text boxes gave women the opportunity to contribute information that was more detailed than the survey otherwise allowed for. leaving room for women’s comments provided a way for women to build upon their answers to questions in the measures they may otherwise have felt were rigid and did not apply to them or were difficult to answer. this detailed qualitative information made it possible to bring greater insight than would have been available from only having the measures completed. the final page of the survey asked participants for their age, gender, relationship status, and email address. finally, women were thanked for having taken part in the survey. data procedures quantitative the data from the inventory was deemed suitable for conducting an exploratory principal components analysis (pca) because (a) there were 266 completed data sets for all 38 items and this number represents a fair to good number for factor analysis according to henson and roberts (2006), and, (b) inspection of the correlation matrix revealed the presence of many coefficients of .3 and above. as well, the strength of the inter-correlation amongst items was confirmed from the kaiser-meyer-olkin value which was .868, exceeding the value of .6 recommended by kaiser (1974). as well, bartlett’s test of sphericity (bartlett, 1954) reached statistical significance at p < .000 supporting the factorability of the correlation matrix. initial principal components analysis (pca) revealed the presence of nine components with eigenvalues exceeding 1. a parallel analysis was performed on those components and, of the values exceeding the corresponding criterion values for a randomly generated data matrix of the same size (38 variables x 266 respondents), only six were retained. the oblique method was used to rotate the data and provide loadings on structure/pattern matrices together with communalities. values of less than .40 in the communalities matrix resulted in eight variables being dropped and further pca conducted. the final efa grouped the 30 variables into six components with eigenvalues greater than 1. these eigenvalues were scrutinized using parallel analysis. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 354 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a test of the correlation between the two measures, the cesd and the shift-depression® inventory was conducted using pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient and the internal consistency of both was examined. the data analysis was conducted using spss version 18. data procedures qualitative the naming of the factors after the final efa was an inductive, subjective process whereby the collective verbs and nouns from the factor items were synthesised to develop the inherent meaning, a procedure similar to that outlined by wei, russell, mallinckrodt, and vogel (2007, p. 190). there were 146 comments provided at the end of the measures in answer to (a) ‘is there anything you wish to add?’ (n = 56) and (b) ‘any further comments?’ (n = 90). responses ranged from a few words to several hundred words. because the two questions posed were essentially the same, a thematic content analysis was conducted on the combined comments (n = 146) to locate the meaning and the context for the participants, a procedure outlined by grbich (1999). results participants of the 266 participants who began the survey and completed the measures, 222 participants completed the final page and provided information about gender, age, relationship status and email address. all 222 participants identified as female, 117 (53%) were either married or in a defacto relationship and living together; 12 (5%) were in a relationship but not living together; 23 (10%) were either divorced, separated or widowed, and 70 (32%) were single. of the 222 participants, 40 (18%) were aged 18 – 24yrs; 61 (27.5%) aged between 25 – 34yrs; 45 (20.25%) aged 35 – 44yrs; 45 (20.25%) aged 45 – 54yrs; 27 (12%) aged 55 – 64yrs; and 4 (2%) were aged 65yrs or more. the majority of the sample (65.75%) was aged 44yrs or less, the age period when most women who will have children do so, followed by aged 45yrs and older (34.25%). quantitative data the mean cesd score for all participants was 31.79 (sd = 11.44) which shows a cesd score almost double the usual cut point of 16 generally applied in research settings. the mean inventory score for all participants was 55.66 (sd = 24.65). the relationship between items on the shift-depression® inventory and items on the cesdwas examined using pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. there was a strong, positive correlation between the two variables (r = .69, n = 266, p < .000), meaning a high score on the cesd was correlated to a high score on the shift-depression® inventory. cronbach’s alpha for the cesd was .900 and for the shift-depression® inventory .910. both of these results exceed the recommended reliability standard of .7 recommended by devellis (2003) for an effective scale and indicates that the inventory has good internal consistency. exploratory factor analysis after conducting the final pca on the 30 items of the shift-depression® inventory, six components explained 59% of the variance with 29.5% applied to the first component followed by 7.5%, 6.6%, 5.7%, 5.3%, and 4.4%. eigenvalues were compared using a parallel analysis showing that the sixth eigenvalue of 1.340 was weak when europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 355 http://www.psychopen.eu/ compared to the random eigenvalue of 1.3598. the kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy was .869 and bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at p < .000. examining the loadings in the structure/pattern matrices showed only one variable loading on the sixth component. because it also loaded on the first component and the parallel analysis suggested that component was questionable, the six components were reduced to five. only those variables with a value equal to or higher than .45 were retained to explain each factor. the five components or factors shown below are outlined with their factor loadings and the corresponding items from the shift-depression® inventory in the appendix. 1. diminished self, feels powerless, focused on other’s needs, 2. financial problems, lacks access to healthcare, healthy food, housing or exercise, 3. relationship difficulties, loss/betrayal/abuse, 4. women’s problems, 5. lack of social support, feels isolated. qualitative data a thematic content analysis of the comments provided by women to the two questions at the end of the measures resulted in groupings that were similar to the factors identified above. of the 134 comments provided, many were a ‘thank you’, or a comment about the ease or difficulty of completing the survey. some participants provided a narrative regarding their particular life circumstances which appeared to show an appreciation of the opportunity to provide information in an anonymous way. from the 134 comments provided, 48 were retained because they related closely to one or more of the five factors identified above. these comments were able to be grouped into; a. relationship difficulties, loss/betrayal/abuse, or discrimination (19 comments) for example; ‘i have had a lot of losses in the past couple of years and lost most of my family and friends within a short time of each other’, ‘i think one of the main reasons for feeling sad & depressed is a lack of an intimate, trusting and on-going romantic relationship’. ‘my current situation is related to my age and the feeling that society has branded me as useless solely because of my age (i am 60yrs)’. b. diminished self, feels powerless, focused on other’s needs (17 comments) for example; ‘with two small children, a busy job four days a week, running a household, a husband who is lovely but also very busy, there is just not enough time in the day to get everything done and to also put away some time for yourself’. ‘i’m chronically frustrated and overwhelmed with the sheer amount of 24hr work three children under three years involves’. c. lack of support and feeling isolated (8 comments) for example; ‘i love my partner very much but still feel lonely. i don’t have any friends close by and i avoid social situations as i am not good around people. i also won’t contact the friends i have’, ‘it would be good if there was some sort of support out there to help people before they get to the point of depression. this would be especially helpful to people who are isolated or have a small or non-existent social network’. d. lack of money and access to health care (4 comments) for example; ‘women are generally expected to do too much and often have poorer pay than men. this makes it difficult to get medicines’. ‘a doctor who cared and looked up from the computer screen would help’, ‘i felt like the doctor wasn’t interested’. discussion the final pca conducted with 30 items remaining from the initial 38 items, produced five components or factors. the majority of the variance (29.5%), of a total variance of 59.26%, was explained by the first factor ‘diminished europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 356 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self/feels powerless/focused on other’s needs’. most of the items in this factor describe the very experience of being depressed for this sample of women. the feelings of powerlessness, the self-criticism, the negative thoughts and feelings, feeling worried and anxious, and feeling stuck in an unhappy situation. these all speak of the essence of feeling depressed and are not novel. alongside of these items were also three items that showed that women’s behaviour was focused on the care of others or their responsibilities, and that this focus took precedence over their own self-care. t6. feeling overwhelmed and responsible for everything, t7. i don’t take the time or do what i need for myself, and r7. i feel i must attend to other’s needs before i look after myself. the importance of these three items was confirmed by the comments provided by women later on in the survey which showed that women felt overwhelmed with their caring responsibilities and were feeling completely alone in this role. this finding differs from a commonly held belief that a depressed person is passive or withdrawn, unable to fulfil their responsibilities or go to work, and unable to care for others. rather than this suggesting a low level of depression, it suggests instead that it is expected of women to continue on even though they are unwell. the second factor, ‘financial problems/lack of access to healthcare, healthy food, housing, exercise’, explained 7.5% of the total variance. depression was strongly linked to the experience of poor physical health and somatic complaints. as well, it was clear that many of these women also felt they could not access the care they needed or wanted. from women’s comments later on, the experience of financial hardship was linked to not being able to get the care they needed. they also experienced health professionals who seemed disinterested, or they experienced negative reactions to anti-depressants. the third factor, accounting for 6.6% of the variance, was concerned with ‘relationship difficulties, loss/betrayal/abuse’. the items here cover a broad range of situations where women experienced violations sexually, physically, or emotionally, or experienced loss or felt betrayed. several of the comments women provided at the end of the survey demonstrated that they did not receive any care or support from their significant others or families but instead endured relationships that left them feeling worthless, uncared for and depleted. the next factor ‘women’s problems’ explained 5.7% of the variance and contained two items ‘problems with my pregnancy’ and ‘problems with the birth of my baby’. it is unknown just from these items whether the problems with a pregnancy or birth of a baby meant situational problems, emotional problems or physical health problems and as with all of the other items on the inventory, these items would need further inquiry if conducting an assessment so that they can be better understood. the result does not provide evidence for post natal depression produced by hormonal fluctuations. going through a pregnancy and giving birth can be a difficult and life changing event and is enough to trigger a depressive episode by itself. most women do not receive a risk assessment before pregnancy for comparison during pregnancy and again after childbirth. depression after childbirth would be better understood generally if women were assessed for risk and monitored during the pregnancy. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 357 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the final and fifth factor ‘lack of social support/feels isolated’ provided further evidence for the interpersonal and social elements of depression for the women in this sample. being unable to get support, not knowing where to find it, feeling alone, feeling like an outsider in one’s community, not having social networks, lacking trustworthy, confiding relationships, or feeling people were judgmental or critical, would be felt by most as emotionally intolerable. this factor accounted for 4.4% of the variance and provided a window into the contexts in which these women lived their lives on a daily basis. experiencing a lack of support and feeling isolated can trigger depression as well as maintain it. there were eight items on the inventory which were dropped from the final analysis due to insufficient relevance for this sample of women. five were related to physical issues (problems with my sleep, using alcohol or drugs to try to feel better, premenstrual tension or other problems with my menstrual cycle, problems with menopause [before/during/after], and other women’s problems – ovaries, breast, uterus), two were concerned with relating to others (i have difficulty with my relationships with people at work or in my family, i try to fit in and be what others expect of me), and one was concerned with negative or stressful life situations (i don’t have a job/study/sport/career/hobby or vocation). levels of depressive symptoms according to the cesd scores were high. with research studies generally using a cut point of 16 on the cesd, this sample reached twice that rate with a mean cesd score of 31.79 (sd = 11.44). the women in this sample, who self-assessed as sad or depressed, were experiencing considerable depressive symptomatology. although the cesd was not designed for use as a clinical diagnostic tool, the scale is based on symptoms of depression as seen in clinical cases. therefore it is sensitive to levels of severity of depressive symptomatology. referring to the internal consistency estimate of reliability for the cesd scale in the original work of radloff (1977), coefficient alphas ranging from .84 to .85 for the three community samples and .90 for the clinical sample were shown. the coefficient alpha demonstrated in the current study is higher than these earlier community samples and closer to the clinical samples reported in that work. this sample quite accurately selfselected as sad or depressed and resembles more closely a clinical sample. conclusion the limitations produced with the sampling method and use of an online survey render the findings unable to be generalized to all women and are therefore merely exploratory. because of the need for a certain level of competence and familiarity with using the internet, the sample may over represent younger women or under represent older women and this may have skewed the results. the majority of the sample was of childbearing age. also because of the anonymity available through online survey completion, responses may have been under or over exaggerated or misrepresented. then again, a positive aspect of the online survey method could have been that the degree of privacy and anonymity offered, allowed women to feel safe and more likely to disclose sexual or relationship abuses in this way than if the questions were asked of them in person. by placing a difficult issue into an inventory, it may also make it easier for general practitioners and patients to have conversations about topics they may otherwise avoid. there were also limitations with some of the items on the shift-depression® inventory, as shown by the items regarding pregnancy and childbirth. if the inventory is being used as an assessment tool, the majority of the items require a deeper level of inquiry. there were also items on the inventory that did not prove to have a high relevance europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to the women in this sample, such as the item about use of alcohol, whereas many depressed individuals in the community do use alcohol to self-medicate. nevertheless, the results show that depression for this sample of women was connected to feeling overwhelmed with their responsibilities and caring for others, a lack of self-care, financial hardship, a lack of health care, enduring difficult relationships with significant others, isolation, and a lack of social support. it appears that the women in the study felt they should prioritize their time to the care of others, for example, family and/or work, and this was connected to a lack of self-care. it is hard to know just from this result whether the life situations being experienced by these women were the precursors to then becoming depressed, a result of being depressed, or an interaction between these. it is a social expectation that women prioritize the care of others (children, partners, elderly parents) and delay self-care. neglecting to self-care provides fertile ground for the emergence of depression. as well, women are socialized to do the ‘emotion work’ of relationships (fullagar, 2008; minnotte, pedersen, & mannon, 2010). this can produce a pattern in a relationship where women give care and others take it with this continued through a self-reinforcing feedback loop. the societal view, that it is in a woman’s nature to do the caring and the emotion work in relationships adds to its invisibility and it being taken for granted (lee & powers, 2002; maclean, glynn, & ansara, 2004). the caring role therefore, is seen as inherently female and would explain why men in particular do not identify with it. ways of behaving, expected because one is female or male are socially constructed and connected to identity (broverman et al., 1972). it is probable that socially constructed beliefs regarding caring and emotion work maintain what women experience as their responsibility to carry the caring load in significant relationships, a role that is not highly valued. if a pattern of receiving little or no reciprocal care from a significant other becomes the norm, this can be experienced as unfair and very likely leads to feelings of resentment. according to jack (1991), women’s responses to unfair treatment can be anger, resentment, self-silencing, protest, despair and depression. this trajectory to depression looks similar to attachment distress observed in infants described by bowlby (1969) and later described by hazan and shaver (1987) in regards to adult romantic relationships where one of the partners finds that they are unable to get their mate to respond or to acknowledge their need for emotional comfort. when considering heterosexual relationships and acknowledging that there may be societal reasons (sex roles) that explain why many male partners are unable to reciprocate the care they receive from their female partners, there would also bemany situations of dysfunctional relationships where reciprocating care was not a consideration. for women who have experienced childhood neglect or abuse and then find themselves in a dysfunctional intimate relationship it may feel as if they are reliving earlier trauma and this reactivation would produce intolerable levels of emotional pain. if also facing a lack of social support and isolation, the pathway to depression may be inevitable. added to this, there is considerable research that shows links between childhood sexual abuse and depression in adult women (beitchman et al., 1992). without the opportunity to undergo healing therapy, these girls and women are vulnerable to depression in their adult attachments. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 359 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is reasoned that no matter how well intentioned primary health care treatment geared to the symptoms of depression is, that treatment is only superficial if it does not include assessment of individual intrapsychic issues as well as other underlying causes such as the social and contextual inequities and relationship difficulties women are likely facing. a diagnosis of depression for a woman should receive the benefit of the doubt that interpersonal, social and contextual issues are involved and need to be addressed. these issues could be the causes of, or the consequences of, depression but nevertheless must be included in a depression management plan. this then would provide an avenue for treatment that is directed, according to astbury (2010) ‘towards the rectification of any humiliation and devaluation’ and would honour a woman’s contextual and lived experience in society. from the resulting factor structure of the shift-depression® inventory, it has been shown that this could be a useful and efficient tool to use in both primary health and the mental health sectors because it does tap into the real world of depressed women. primary health practitioners don’t currently have the time to conduct assessments that include interpersonal and relationship difficulties, abuse, domestic violence, loss, negative life events and so on (griffiths & christensen, 2008). using an inventory like this one, which can efficiently gather a woman’s rating of multiple issues, would address a current conundrum for the general practitioner who is expected to ask such questions but doesn’t have the time to unpack the often complex conversations that can result. the inventory could be handed to a woman at the end of a short consultation to take home to complete and return on a follow up visit. this would then provide an opportunity for a collaborative mental health treatment dialogue between women and their general practitioners, something that is currently missing. using an inventory such as this one as a depression management tool in the primary care setting would be in accord with one of the recommendation of griffiths and christensen (2008) for guided self-help. braeken, lechner, houben, van gils, and kempen (2011) have developed and tested a similarly time saving screening inventory for use with cancer patients in the primary care setting that quickly provides information about the experience of any psychosocial problems and whether or not there is a desire to discuss any identified issues with someone. whilst society continues to determine that it is a woman’s primary responsibility to provide the emotion work and care of children as well as other family members, and it follows from this that women continue to prioritize the care of others first and sacrifice self-care, the ground is fertile for women to become depressed. combined with sex role stereotyping that regards women as naturally sensitive and emotional and therefore depression prone, the current observation that twice as many women as men will experience depression over the life cycle seems inevitable. if a depression management tool such as the one evaluated in this study could be introduced as part of a routine assessment in both primary care and mental health care settings, some inroad may be made to changing current practices that do not prioritize or promote a woman’s enjoyment of optimal health and quality of life. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory 360 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix table 1 item and factor structure of the shift-depression® inventory factor loadings of itemsitem textitem no. factor 1: diminished self, feels powerless, focused on other´s needs .710feeling negative and thinking negative thingst3 .686not feeling in control of my life and feeling powerlesst4 .680feeling overwhelmed and responsible for everythingt6 .661being self-criticalt2 .627i don’t take the time or do what i need for myselft7 .603feeling i have disappeared or lost myselft5 .603i feel i must attend to other’s needs before i look after myselfr7 .578i feel stuck in an unhappy situations4 .558feeling worried or anxioust1 factor 2: financial problems, lacks access to healthcare, healthy food, housing, exercise .628not being able to do exercisep3 .602i have difficulty with my housing or transport issuess3 .554not being able to get the health care i needp8 .544reaction to or not having prescription medicinesp5 .544reaction to or not having complementary medicinesp6 .536ill health, injury, accident, headaches, virus, pain or disabilityp1 .517i don’t have sufficient money or can’t manage on the money i haves5 .491not eating healthy or nutritious foodp4 factor 3: relationship difficulties, loss/betrayal/abuse .681i’ve been betrayed by someone i trustedr5 .622i’ve lost something special to me, job/house/way of life/dreams2 .570i’ve lost someone special to me, partner/parent/child/sibling/friend/pet/otherr4 .547i’ve experienced emotional/physical/sexual abuse/bullyingr6 .507others treat me disrespectfully or do what they want without concern for mer8 factor 4: women’s problems .739problems with the birth of my babyw2 .673problems with my pregnancyw1 factor 5: lack of social support, feels isolated .709i feel like an outsider or like i don’t belong in my communityc1 .582i don’t have any social networks or groups i belong toc3 .562i cannot or do not seek support from othersr2 .534my neighbourhood/community is difficult/unfriendly/unsafec2 .524i’m isolated and don’t have a supportive confiding relationship/sr1 .470other people judge or criticize mer3 note. domains: p = physical, t = thoughts & feelings, s = stressfulsocialsituations, r = relationshipswithothers, c = community&neighbourhood, w = women’sproblems. eight items dropped from final efa: p2 problems with sleep, p7 using alcohol or drugs to try to feel better, s1 i don’t have a job/study/sport/career/hobby or vocation, r9 i have difficulty with my relationships with people at work or in my family, c4 i try to fit in and be what others expect of me,w3 premenstrual tension or other problems with mymenstrual cycle, w4 problems with menopause – before/after/during, w5 other women/s problems – ovaries/breast/uterus. funding there was no funding to declare. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 361 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests there are no competing interests to declare. acknowledgement i wish to thank the director of the social justice social change research group (sjsc), professor rosemary leonard, and dr. ron brooker, research officer, sjsc, for statistical support. i would also like to thank the women who participated in the study for taking the time to provide information that will hopefully help other women. references astbury, j. 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(2000). the estimated rate of depressed mood in us adults: recent evidence for a peak in later life. journal of affective disorders, 60, 159-171. doi:10.1016/s0165-0327(99)00176-7 about the author dr helen c. vidler is a practising psychologist and family therapist, a member of the australian psychological society, the australian association of family therapists, and registered with the australian health practitioners regulation agency. she has over 30 years clinical experience using evidence based methods with depressed women. over the past 12 years helen has combined her role as a researcher together with her clinical practice. one of the intentions of this research is to bring to the foreground the perspectives of depressed women and thereby influence the management of depression in health settings. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 348–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.577 vidler 365 http://www.eowa.gov.au/information_centres/resource_centre/satatistics/gender_pay_gap_fact_sheet_may_2012.pdf http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/gbd_report_2004update_full.pdf http://wholibdoc.who.int/publications/2010/9789241548069_eng.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011000006288127 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0165-0327(99)00176-7 http://www.psychopen.eu/ initial evaluation of the shift-depression® inventory introduction background purpose of this study design of the study methods the sample the online survey data procedures quantitative data procedures qualitative results participants quantitative data exploratory factor analysis qualitative data discussion conclusion appendix funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author “i knew it would happen ... and i remember it!”: the flashbulb memory for the death of pope john paul ii research reports “i knew it would happen ... and i remember it!”: the flashbulb memory for the death of pope john paul ii tiziana lanciano*a, antonietta curcia, emanuela soletia [a] department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, bari, italy. abstract flashbulb memory (fbm) has been defined as a vivid and detailedmemory for the circumstances under which one first learned of a consequential and emotionally involving event. the present study aimed to assess a fbm for expected events, i.e., the death of pope john paul ii, across four different religious groups (i.e., catholic, orthodox, no religion, and other religion). furthermore, the study addressed to test the extent to which the fbm features and the emotional and social fbm determinants vary as a function of the importance given to the event within each religious group. results showed that all participants, regardless of their religious affiliation, exhibited a consistent memory of the details related to the reception context of the expected news. additionally, the results emphasized the effect of the religious affiliation on the fbm features, and on the variables traditionally associated with fbm. compared to the other religious groups, catholic participants exhibited the highest fbm consistency for the pope’s death, and they were the most emotionally and socially involved in the event. implications for the fbm debate are discussed. keywords: flashbulb memories, emotional events, importance/consequentiality, religious affiliation europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 received: 2012-09-04. accepted: 2012-11-24. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: university of bari “a. moro”, department of education, psychology, communication, piazza umberto i, 1, 70121 bari, italy. e-mail: t.lanciano@psico.uniba.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. following an emotional public event, people can remember not only the event itself but also all the surrounding details at the time they discovered the news. thirty years have passed since brown and kulik (1977) first formally described this phenomenon, by giving it the label of flashbulb memory (fbm). fbms have been defined as vivid, and detailed memories for the context in which one first learned of a surprising, consequential and emotionally involving event. since then, for many years, researchers have been debating whether fbms should be considered as a special class of autobiographical memories (brown & kulik, 1977; conway, 1995; pillemer, 1984) or they suffer the same fate of ordinary autobiographical formations (christianson, 1989; larsen, 1992; mccloskey, wible, & cohen, 1988; neisser & harsch, 1992). the controversial debate concerning the existence of this special class of memories (curci & conway, 2013) reflects a challenge when studying both the fbm formation and maintenance (brown & kulik, 1977; conway, 1995; finkenauer et al., 1998; lanciano, curci, mastandrea, & sartori, 2013; lanciano, curci, & semin, 2010; pillemer, 1984), and the fbm measurement (curci, 2005, 2009; curci & lanciano, 2009; lanciano & curci, 2012; wright, 2009). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ brown and kulik (1977) were the first to conceive a theoretical model of fbm formation and maintenance. they suggested that, in order to initialize fbm formation, the original event must be new and unexpected so as to elicit surprise. a subsequent step refers to the assessment of the personal consequentiality. processes leading to the evaluation of surprise and consequentiality values are automatic and not under direct conscious control. high values of both surprise and consequentiality are required if fbms are to be formed. once the process of fbm formation is initiated, the actual degree of elaboration of a memory is determined by the level of consequentiality. brown and kulik (1977) postulated that fbms themselves could vary in clarity and detail, and that this variation is positively correlated with personal consequentiality, so that the greater the personal significance of an event for the well-being of the individual and of the group to which it belongs, the clearer and more detailed the memory. the intersection between surprise and consequentiality serves to initiate fbm formation, whereas the degree of consequentiality alone determines the elaborateness of the resulting fbm. since the original work by brown and kulik (1977), many studies on fbm confirmed the role of surprise and importance/consequentiality as two fbmmain determinants (bohannon, 1988; christianson, 1989; curci & luminet, 2006; kvavilashvili, mirani, schlagman, & kornbrot, 2003; mccloskey, wible, & cohen, 1988; neisser & harsch, 1992; smith, bibi, & sheard, 2003; talarico & rubin, 2003; tekcan, ece, & gülgöz, 2003). the appraisal of importance/consequentiality may be operationalized in different ways, some being more strictly related to personal emotional involvement, and others to the social group membership. regarding personal emotional involvement, in some studies this variable seems to be determined by the direct experience of the event (er, 2003; neisser et al., 1996), in others by the psychological distance (tekcan et al., 2003), or the emotional arousal (smith et al., 2003). studies on fbms for earthquakes (er, 2003; neisser et al., 1996), for example, demonstrated that participants who were in the areas affected by the disaster remembered their experiences more accurately than participants who merely heard about the disaster in the news. regarding social group membership, some authors compared groups of participants belonging to the nation where the target event happened, with others living outside (curci & luminet, 2006; tinti, schmidt, sotgiu, testa, & curci, 2009), where it is reasonable to assume that the event had a minor, or at least different, psychological and social impact. on the whole, although importance/consequentiality has been operationalized in very different ways and although different kinds of personal characteristics have been hypothesized as influencing this factor, studies on fbm formation have confirmed its fundamental role. the same cannot be said of surprise. some studies have assessed fbms for predictable events (bellelli, 1999; curci, 2005; curci & luminet, 2009; curci, luminet, finkenauer, & gisle, 2001; davidson & glisky, 2002; edery-halpern & nachson, 2004; neisser, 1982; ruiz-vargas, 1993; tinti et al., 2009; weaver, 1993; winograd & killinger 1983), by challenging the necessity of an event being appraised as novelty and/or unexpected to elicit a fbm. findings from these studies suggested that some events, although expected and predictable, can give rise to vivid and long-lasting fbms for highly involved people. novelty could be considered at the same time in terms of both unexpectedness and exceptionality. in other words, an event might be considered a novelty not only because it came suddenly and unexpectedly, but also in terms of its disruptiveness with respect to one’s ordinary routine. it follows that the appraisal of an event’s exceptionality, with respect to the everyday life schema and routine, would be considered a relevant predictor for autobiographical memory formation and its structuring (brown et al., 2009; curci & luminet, 2006). general aims the event considered for the present study was the expected death of pope john paul ii. this event was demonstrated to best trigger a fbm (lanciano & curci, 2012; lanciano et al., 2013; tinti et al., 2009). the pope europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 lanciano, curci, & soleti 221 http://www.psychopen.eu/ had been seriously ill for several weeks before dying in rome on saturday, 2 april, 2005, at 9.37 p.m. the cause of his death was listed as septic shock and cardio-circulatory collapse. the news of the pope’s death provoked an immediate and powerful resonance in the mass media and captured the attention of people worldwide. the media amplification of this event gave us a unique opportunity to assess its psychological impact soon after it occurred and the possible persistence of effects some months later. the current study aimed to test the formation of a consistent fbm for the expected event of the pope’s death. furthermore, it aimed to show that fbm features, and emotional and social variables traditionally associated with fbm, vary for different groups depending on the importance given to the event within each group. in the present study, group membership was operationalized through individuals’ religious affiliation (i.e., catholic, orthodox, no religion, and other religion). additionally, the present work focused on exploring the relationships between fbm features and the emotional and social determinants of fbm. method design the cross-national study adopted a between subjects design with the religious affiliation (catholic vs. orthodox vs. other religion vs. no religion) as a factor. dependent variables were: fbm consistency, exceptionality, surprise, novelty, importance, exposure to the news, attitude, negative emotions, and prior knowledge. participants the sample was composed of 285 participants selected by religious affiliation (33.3% catholic, 7.7%, orthodox, 41.4% no religion, 17.5% other religion). participants’ age ranged from 14 to 81 years (m = 25.81; sd = 12.80; 78.9% female). participants were university students, university faculty staff, and experimenters' acquaintances, invited to take part in a study on the emotional and social consequences of the pope’s death. measures and procedure fbm consistency. at the test phase, participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire concerning the death of pope john paul ii (lanciano & curci, 2012; lanciano et al., 2013; tinti et al., 2009). participants who had agreed to participate in subsequent phases of data collection were contacted again for the retest phase. the first data collection took place 9 days after the event on average (sd = 3.18). the second data collection took place 289 days after the first phase on average (sd = 4.55). the questionnaire used in both the test and retest phases is similar to the questionnaire adopted by luminet and colleagues (2004), and curci and luminet (2006). the consistency scoring procedure adopted standard criteria largely validated in the fbm research (see conway et al., 1994; curci & luminet, 2006; smith et al., 2003; van giezen, arensman, spinhoven, & wolters, 2005). items corresponded to five fbm attributes (bohannon, 1988; brown & kulik, 1977; finkenauer et al., 1998): a) date (date, day of the week, and time of the day) b) informant (family, friends, colleagues, media), c) location (country, city, room or other kind of location i.e., the car), d) other people present, and e) ongoing activity. in order to check the fbm consistency over time, for each item of the section we compared responses to the first data collection with those provided in the retest phase. score 2 was assigned to respondents who showed a completely consistent recall, that is, if they provided exactly the same answer at both test and retest (i.e., for other people question: “sister and father” at both test and retest). score 1 was assigned when the answers were basically but not entirely identical, that is, when a gain/loss of information europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 flashbulb memory for expected events 222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ occurred (i.e., “sister and father” at test, only “sister” at retest; or “sister and father” at test, no answer at retest). score 0 was assigned either when the answers were missing in both phases of data collection, or when the answers were totally different (i.e., “sister and father” at test, “boyfriend’’ at retest; or “sister and father” at the test and missing at the retest). the scores for each fbm category were summed up to get the fbm consistency index ranged from 0 to 10 (cronbach’s alpha = .68). exceptionality. participants rated the exceptionality of the event on a 11-point scale (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”). surprise. participants rated the intensity of surprise felt after the event on a 11-point scale (0 = “not at all”; 10 = very much”). novelty. respondents rated on two 11-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”) a) the novelty and b) the expectedness of the event. the scores of item b) were reversed. item scores for this section were averaged to get the novelty index. importance. participants rated on five 11-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”) a) personal importance, b) consequences on their own lives, c) consequences on the catholic church, d) national consequences, and e) international consequences. item scores for this section were averaged to get the importance index (cronbach’s alpha = .81). exposure to the news. participants rated on four 11-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”) the frequency with which they followed the news through a) press, b) radio, c) television, d) internet. item scores for this section were averaged to get the exposure to the news index (cronbach’s alpha = .64). attitude. participants rated on three 11-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”) a) how much they liked the pope as a person, b) their favourable attitude to the pope’s work concerning relations between nations, and c) their favourable attitude to the pope’s work for the catholic church. item scores for this section were averaged to get the attitude index (cronbach’s alpha = .88). negative emotions. participants rated on four 11-point scales (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “very much”) the intensity with which they felt a) anger b) sadness c) fear, and d) anxiety. items scores for this section were averaged to get the negative emotions index (cronbach’s alpha = .73). prior knowledge. participants answered nine questions about the pope’s life: a) when he was born, b) where he was born, c) when he became pope, d) years as pontiff, e) surgical operations, f) year of assassination attempt, g) last illness, h) secret of fatima, and i) how many saints he proclaimed. for each item, value 2 was assigned when the answer was totally correct (i.e., where he was born: “wadowice”), value 1 when the answer was partially correct (i.e., “krakow or poland”), and value 0 when the answer was totally incorrect or when it was not provided. item scores for this section were averaged to get the prior knowledge index (cronbach’s alpha = .89). results descriptive analyses descriptive analyses showed that generally all participants, regardless of their religious affiliation, produced a consistent memory of the reception context related to the pope’s death news (m = 5.04; sd = 2.77). with regards europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 lanciano, curci, & soleti 223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to the five fbm canonical categories (date, informant, location, others, activity), the results showed that the most consistent details were about informant and location (see figure 1) figure 1. fbm canonical categories consistency. religious affiliation effect a manova was run in order to assess the effect of religious affiliation (catholic vs. orthodox vs. no-religion vs. other religion) on the fbm consistency, and all emotional and social variables traditionally associated with fbm (exceptionality, surprise, novelty, importance, exposure to the news, attitude, negative emotions, and prior knowledge). the results showed that the main effect of religious affiliation was found to be significant for all measures except for exceptionality (see table 1): all participants, regardless of their religious faith, evaluated the news as moderately exceptional. compared to other groups, catholic participants exhibited a more consistent and stable fbm, they gave more importance to the event, they rehearsed the news more frequently, had a more favorable attitude towards the pope, they felt higher levels of negative emotions and they had a better knowledge of the pope’s life. additionally, both other religions or no religion groups evaluated the event as more surprising and unexpected, compared to catholic and orthodox groups. correlation and regression analyses the correlations between fbm consistency and the emotional and social fbm determinants are shown in table 2. generally, fbmconsistency had significant positive correlations with exceptionality, novelty, importance, attitude, negative emotions, and prior knowledge, and negative correlation with the evaluation of surprise. a stepwise multiple regression analysis was run as a stronger test of associations in order to test the role of emotional and social determinants on fbm consistency. the results showed that the consistency of the memory of the reception context appeared to be positively predicted by the positive attitude towards the pope and the prior knowledge about the pope’s life and his actions. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 flashbulb memory for expected events 224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 religious affiliation effect on all measures religious affiliation measures f(3,263)m other religionm no-religionm orthodoxm catholic η2(sd)(sd)(sd)(sd) n = 45n = 110n = 20n = 92 fbm consistency (range 0-10) .17*26.88a3.08a4.67a4.87a6 .23.46)(2.44)(2.82)(2.39)(2 exceptionality (range 0-10) .66.062.951.921.032 .01.59)(.59)(.64)(.54)( surprise (range 0-10) .51*26.84a, b4.20a, b5.80b2.03a2 .23.98)(2.76)(2.48)(2.45)(2 novelty (range 0-10) .17*16.31a, b3.38a, b3.28b2.67a1 .15.35)(2.14)(2.84)(1.19)(1 importance (range 0-10) .50*19.35a5.35a5.30a5.09a7 .18.87)(1.57)(1.95)(1.91)(1 exposure to the news (range 0-10) .91*28.63a2.57a2.48a2.86a4 .25.86)(1.77)(1.34)(1.17)(2 attitude (range 0-10) .70*46.23a, b6.32a, b6.87a, b7.24a9 .35.49)(2.06)(2.79)(1.31)(1 negative emotions (range 0-10) .18*33.61a, b1.40a, b1.93b2.73a3 .27.73)(1.57)(1.90)(1.94)(1 prior knowledge (range 0-2) .18*219.08a, b.07a, b.44a, b.00a1 .71.15)(.17)(.35)(.38)( note. means in a row sharing subscripts are significantly different at least at .001 alpha level. *p < .001. table 2 associations analyses between fbm consistency and emotional and social fbm determinants fbm consistency βapearson’s r exceptionality .05.15* surprise .01-.20**novelty .01.25** importance .02.29** exposure to the news .02-.25** attitude .20**.40** negative emotion .04-.23** prior knowledge .33**.45** ar2 = .23**, f(2,266) = 40.21, p < .001. *p < .01. **p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 lanciano, curci, & soleti 225 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the first aim of the present work was to demonstrate that people have fbms for an expected event, i.e., the pope’s death (bellelli, 1999; curci, 2005; curci & luminet, 2009; curci et al. 2001; davidson & glisky, 2002; edery-halpern & nachson, 2004; neisser, 1982; ruiz-vargas, 1993; tinti et al., 2009; weaver, 1993; winograd & killinger, 1983). results showed that all participants, regardless of their religious affiliation, provided a consistent memory of the reception context in which they first heard of the news. more specifically, the best remembered canonical category was the informant of the news, in line with other studies showing the remembered detail of mass media as crucial in defining fbms (curci, 2005). actually, the present study aimed to also show that fbmconsistency and social and emotional fbm determinants (exceptionality, surprise, novelty, importance, exposure to the news, attitude, negative emotions, and prior knowledge) varied across different religious groups depending on the importance given to the event within each group (curci & luminet, 2006; curci et al., 2001; luminet et al., 2004). as suggested by brown and kulik (1977) in their original fbm model, in the present study, the construct of importance was operationalized through two indices: the level of self-report importance attributed by individuals to the event, and their social group membership (curci & luminet, 2006; luminet et al., 2004). in line with hypotheses, the catholic participants exhibited the highest fbm consistency for the pope’s death, and they were the most emotionally and socially involved in the event: they gave more importance to the event, rehearsed the news more frequently, felt higher levels of negative emotions, and had a better knowledge of the pope’s life. the analysis of the relationship between the fbm consistency and the other variables, confirmed the role of the emotional and social determinants traditionally associated with fbm. the higher the levels of exceptionality, novelty, importance, attitude, negative emotions, and prior knowledge, the greater the levels of fbm stability over time. the regression findings underlined the key role of attitude and prior knowledge in predicting fbm consistency, in line with the fbm comprehensive model proposed by conway and colleagues (1994). the authors suggested that prior knowledge about thatcher’s government is of central importance for fbm formation for the resignation of the british prime minister, margaret thatcher. prior knowledge would facilitate the organization and assimilation of the incoming information, thereby leading to a more detailed and stable fbm (conway et al., 1994). the current work presents several merits. first, it provided a step forward in defining a fbm, by overcoming the classical definition of brown and kulik (1977). compared with the traditional studies on the topic, the present findings showed how it is possible to produce a fbm after an expected event, showing that the appraisal of novelty should be re-considered also in terms of both unexpectedness and exceptionality. second, the construct of importance/consequentiality has been operationalized through the religious affiliation of participants, whereas many studies have usually considered different groups of individuals based generally upon their national provenance (curci & luminet, 2006; tinti et al., 2009). from this perspective, our study highlighted the role of social groups in fbm formation, and specifically how they differently affect the rehearsal mechanisms (berntsen, 2009). in the present study, the concept of social group (and the subsequent indirect evaluation of importance within each group) has been conceived in terms of religious affiliation. third, the present study used four comparison groups, while, with the exception of a few studies (curci & luminet, 2006; tinti et al., 2009), other researches on social group differences in fbm formation were usually restricted to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 flashbulb memory for expected events 226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one or two comparison groups, thus limiting the inter-individual variability of the importance given to the event (bohannon, 1988; christianson, 1989; conway et al., 1994; curci et al., 2001; pillemer, 1984). however, the present research has some limitations. first, the present study could not directly test differences, on the basis of surprise or expectancy, by dividing samples of participants with higher than average surprise scores, and those with lower than average surprise scores. second, we recorded the canonical category informant without discriminating between source as person vs. source as media (bohannon, gratz, & cross, 2007). it is possible that this more detailed information would better explain how fbm consistency varies among religious participants: italians culture and religion, due to their proximity to the vatican, were more likely to tell others about their discovery of the pope’s death, whereas the other religious groups were more likely to get their discoveries from the media. third, in the preset study we only considered the religious affiliation sample, by omitting their nationality, hence it is difficult to conclude that differences between groups are based solely on religious affiliation and not also on cultural differences. references bellelli, g. 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(2009). flashbulb memory methods. in o. luminet & a. curci (eds.), flashbulb memories: new issues and new perspectives (pp. 33-50). london: psychology press. about the authors tiziana lancianophd is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, mental rumination, emotional intelligence, and latent-variable analysis. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 lanciano, curci, & soleti 229 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.117.2.171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/096582196388898 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(84)90036-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.981 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02453 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.985 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2005.04.011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.122.1.39 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.112.3.413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ antonietta curci phd is an associate professor at the department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence, forensic psychology, and multivariate data analysis. emanuela soleti phd is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are memory, forensic psychology and psychopathology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 220–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.521 flashbulb memory for expected events 230 http://www.psychopen.eu/ flashbulb memory for expected events (introduction) general aims method design participants measures and procedure results descriptive analyses religious affiliation effect correlation and regression analyses discussion references about the authors assessing the influence of sleep-wake variables on body mass index (bmi) in adolescents research reports assessing the influence of sleep-wake variables on bodymass index (bmi) in adolescents christoph randler*a, julia hauna, steffen schaalb [a] institute of science, geography & technology, university of education heidelberg, heidelberg, germany. [b] institute of science & technology, university of education ludwigsburg, ludwigsburg, germany. abstract recent work has established an association between overweight/obesity and sleep duration, suggesting that short sleep duration and timing of sleeping may lead to overweight. most of these studies considered sleep-length rather than any other aspects associated with the sleep and wake rhythm, e.g. chronotype, which is a measure of timing of sleeping (‘when to sleep’; based on the midpoint of sleep). the objective of this study was to assess the influence of different factors of the sleep-wake cycle and of co-variates on the body mass index in a cross-sectional questionnaire study. nine hundred and thirteen pupils (406 boys, 507 girls) from southwestern germany participated in this study. mean age was 13.7 ± 1.5 (sd) years and range was between 11 – 16 years. we found that chronotype (β = .079) and social jetlag (β = .063) showed a significant influence on body mass index (bmi), while sleep duration did not. social jetlag is the absolute difference between mid-sleep time on workdays and free days. further, screen time (in front of tv, computer, β = .13) was positively related with bmi. self-efficacy on nutrition (β = -.11), a psychological variable important in health-behaviour models, showed an influence with high scores on self-efficacy related to lower bmi. a high bmi was correlated with low fast-food consumption (β = -.12) suggesting that adolescents with high bmi may exert some control over their eating. keywords: adolescents, biological rhythms, chronotype, sleep duration, self-efficacy, screen time, overweight europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 received: 2012-11-30. accepted: 2013-04-11. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: institute of science, geography & technology, university of education heidelberg, im neuenheimer feld 561-2, d-69120 heidelberg, germany. e-mail: randler@ph-heidelberg.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recent work has established an association between overweight/obesity on the one side and sleep duration on the other, suggesting in general, that short sleep duration may lead to overweight (anic, titus-ernstoff, newcomb, trentham-dietz, & egan, 2010; baron, reid, kern, & zee, 2011; chaput, brunet, & tremblay, 2006; chaput, després, bouchard, & tremblay, 2012; chaput & tremblay, 2007; eisenmann, ekkekakis, & holmes, 2006; lumeng et al., 2007; roenneberg, allebrandt, merrow, & vetter, 2012; snell, adam, & duncan, 2007; taveras, rifas-shiman, oken, gunderson, & gillman, 2008). most of these studies considered some kind of sleep-length measure rather than any other aspects associated with the sleep and wake rhythm, such as chronotype or social jetlag (baron et al., 2011; roenneberg et al., 2012). chronotype describes the timing of sleeping (‘when to sleep’) rather than the length of sleep. assume, e.g. two persons both sleep eight hours, then sleep length is similar, but timing of sleeping may differ, e.g. in one person from 22:00 to 6:00 and in the other from 1:00 to 9:00. chronotype may be measured based on clock times (see methods), and it uses the midpoint of sleep, i.e. going to be at 24:00 and getting up at 6:00 reveals a midpoint of sleep of 3:00. in addition, social jetlag describes the difference between weekdays and weekend (or free) days, based on the assumption that humans live in accordance with their bioloeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ gical clock when they can awake spontaneous rather than by an alarm clock (wittmann, dinich, merrow, & roenneberg, 2006). however, there is an on-going discussion about measuring chronotype by questionnaires, either by a clock-based questionnaire or by a circadian preference scale (adan et al., 2012). recent studies showed that evening oriented adolescents (fleig & randler, 2009) and adults (kanerva et al., 2012) showed a more unhealthy diet. in this study, we assessed the relationship between sleep-wake variables and overweight in adolescents, but in addition, we focus also on psychological and social variables (magee, iverson, huang, & caputi, 2008). more generally, there may be different mechanisms involved in the links between sleep-wake variables and bmi in childhood, adulthood and adolescence, e.g. when considering parental influence on sleep timing (randler, bilger, & díaz-morales, 2009). there are some additional mediators or co-variates that might influence bmi, such as parental monitoring of eating behaviour, nutrition self-efficacy (delahanty, meigs, hayden, williamson, & nathan, 2002), screen time (li et al., 2010) and fast food consumption (fleig & randler, 2009). parental monitoring has been found to a significant predictor in sleep duration (randler et al., 2009), so we expected a similar influence on eating behaviour. in addition to these well-known aspects self-efficacy has become an emerging topic in obesity research. studies revealed a large body of evidence for the nutrition self-efficacy to enhance the motivation and the volition to change nutrition behaviour (contento, randell, & basch, 2002; luszczynska, tryburcy, & schwarzer, 2007). self-efficacy in general mediates whether health-related actions are initiated, sustained or persisted (schwarzer, 2008; ziegelmann & lippke, 2009). different facets of healthy eating self-efficacy show strong correlations with bmi (delahanty et al., 2002) and interventions aiming at eating self-efficacy showed effects on the bmi of the participating subjects (abusabha & achterberg, 1997; bas & donmez, 2009; roach et al., 2003). in this study, we focus on the relationship between sleep-wake variables and bmi, but we also take aspects of self-efficacy into account to expand previous work. we expect an influence of sleep-wake variables on bmi, but we further hypothesise that nutrition-related self-efficacy should be inversely correlated to bmi, that parental monitoring/control should be related to a lower bmi and that screen time and fast food consumption should be positively related to bmi. methods participants nine hundred and thirteen pupils (406 boys, 507 girls) from southwestern germany participated in this study. mean age was 13.7 ± 1.5 (sd) years and range was between 11 – 16 years. socioeconomic status was not measured but all participants were from middle schools (‘realschule’) with parents from the middle class. eight schools participated in the study but 44% of the data were from one single school. more than 95% of the participants were caucasian. participation was voluntary, unpaid and anonymous. participants were informed prior to the questionnaire that this study was carried out to seek information about the sleep-wake cycle and different aspects of adolescents’ life-habits, including nutrition. the completion of the questionnaire took between 30 and 55 minutes depending on the age of the children and was done during one regular school lesson. the study has been approved by regierungspräsidium stuttgart (az74 6499.2/101/1). written consent was obtained from all adolescents and from the parents. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 sleep and bmi in adolescents 340 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measurement instruments sleep-wake-variables — subjects were asked for rise time and bed time on weekdays and on the weekend (free days) to calculate proxies of sleep length and the midpoint of sleep on free days (adopted from roenneberg et al., 2004). the mid-sleep time on free days (msf) is calculated from the two questions sleep-onset time and wake time days on which there are no school or social obligations. msf is the mid-point between these two times. the measure differs from that in (roenneberg et al., 2004) because it uses rise times and bed times. to account for sleep debt acquired during the week, the algorithm proposed in (roenneberg et al., 2004) was used to calculate the midpoint of sleep on free days corrected for sleep debt. the algorithm is: corrected msf = msf 0.5*(sdf (5*sdw+ 2*sdf)/7) with sdf is sleep duration on free days, and sdw is sleep duration on weekdays. additionally, average sleep duration was measured by calculating (5 * weekday sleep length + 2 * free day sleep length) / 7. ‘social jetlag’ can be quantified by calculating the absolute difference between mid-sleep on workdays (msw) and mid-sleep on free days (msf) (wittmann et al., 2006). body mass index — weight and height were asked for to calculate body mass index (bmi). to assist pupils, a ruler and a weigh were present in the classroom. although this was based on self-report, studies showed that these self-report measures are highly reliable in adolescents but generally underestimate overweight (brener, mcmanus, galuska, lowry, &wechsler, 2003). however, as we did not classify our subjects into categories (where the underestimation of overweight could be considerable), we used the values for correlational analysis. bmi was transformed to z-scores for each gender and age group separately to remove the effects of age and gender from the relationship. psychological factors— self-efficacy related to the nutritional behaviour (nse) was measured with a questionnaire adopted from lach (2003) and schaal (2013). within the nutrition-related self-efficacy subjects responded to five likert-scaled items dealing with self-efficacy related to internal (e.g. ‘i am sure to eat healthy even if i have ravenous appetite for something special’) or external (e.g. ‘i am sure to eat healthy even if i am opposed to specific stressors (boredom, loneliness, too much work, conflicts, …)’) influences. responses ranged from 1 (‘i completely disagree’) to 4 (‘i totally agree’). the scale showed an acceptable internal consistency of cronbach’s α 0.70 in the present sample (see schaal, 2013). covariates — screen time was calculated by the mean of two items i) tv, video, dvd as one item and ii) computer/internet as the other item scaled from more than 4 hours daily, 3-4 hours daily, 1-2 hours/daily, 30 min daily, no min/day. fast-food consumption was assessed based on six-point scale from 1 = almost daily to 6 = never. parental monitoring was based on a 4-point likert scale ‘my parents take care that i am on a healthy diet’ from 1 fully disagree to 4 = fully agree. statistical analyses—all data were treated as continuous data in the calculations based on pearson’s correlations and multiple regressions. sleep duration, chronotype and social jetlag were inter-correlated and are calculated from the same basic data, thus two statistical approaches were used. in the first, each variable was tested singly and second, a principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation was applied to create one single response variable. the factors scores from (regression) from the pca were saved and used for further calculations. spss 19 was used for analyses. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 randler, haun, & schaal 341 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics are presented in table 1. weight ranged from 27.5 kg to 90.0 kg in girls (mean ± sd: 52.8 ± 10.3 kg) and from 28.8 kg to 100.0 kg in boys (57.2 ± 13.2 kg). in girls, bmi was on average 19.9 ± 3.1 (range 13.0 to 32.2), and 20.1 ± 2.9 (range 14.0 to 33.8) in boys. table 1 descriptive statistics of the sleep variables sdmean rise time weekday :250:136 rise time weekend :291:439 bed time weekday :560:4521 bed time weekend :351:4823 social jetlag :071:462 midpoint of sleep :181:154 average sleep length :550:538 screentime .680.642 fastfood consumption .101.243 nutrition related self-efficacy .750.163 parental control .800.163 less than 1% of the participants had average sleep duration below 6 hours and 2% had sleep duration below 6 hours on weekdays. 17.5% of the participants were considered as overweight (11.8% overweight, 5.7% obese). short sleep duration, late chronotype and high social jetlag were associated with higher bmi (table 2). table 2 correlation between bodymass index (bmi; z-transformed) and sleep-wake variables and co-variates body mass index bmi (z-scored) msfsc midpoint of sleep .095** social jetlag .078* average sleep length .071*screen time .118*** fastfood consumption .067*nutrition related self-efficacy .111**parental control .065**p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. social jetlag was correlated with midpoint of sleep (r = .847), and with average sleep duration (r = -.246). midpoint of sleep was correlated with average sleep duration (r = -.510). all three contributed to the factor solution (principal component with varimax rotation, based on the eigen-value > 1 criterion): midpoint of sleep loaded with .964 on the first component, sleep duration negatively with -.638, and social jetlag with .878. the four different regression models are depicted in table 3. in all four models, screen time, fast food consumption, and nutrition related self-efficacy had a significant influence. a high amount of screen time was related to a higher bmi. self-efficacy was negatively related to bmi, thus, children and adolescents that were confident to retain a europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 sleep and bmi in adolescents 342 http://www.psychopen.eu/ healthy diet even during adverse conditions or circumstances had a lower bmi. the extent to what parents exerted control about healthy eating was not related to bmi, but tended to be significant (p < .1) concerning social jetlag. interestingly, fast food consumption was inversely related to bmi. table 3 regressions of sleep-wake variables, screen time, fast-food consumption, self-efficacy and parental control on bmi (z-scored for age and sex) factor scoresleep durationsocial jetlagmidpoint of sleep sig.betasig.betasig.betasig.beta .032.017.172.127 sleep variable .020.084.102.057-.070.063.028.079 screen time .001<.137.001<.149.001<.146.001<.138 fast-food consumption .001<.131-.001<.123-.001<.127-.001<.129nutrition related self-efficacy .001.112-.001.113-.001.109-.001.111parental control .148.049-.107.054-.085.057-.137.050total model f .001<.3039.001<.7378.001<.8638.001<.1839 r2 .049.046.047.048 midpoint of sleep and social jetlag were also significant predictors, but average sleep duration was not. when composing the variables together in a single response variable, this variable also produced a significant effect. discussion the results presented here add to previous knowledge about sleep duration and overweight (anic et al., 2010; baron et al., 2011; chaput & tremblay, 2007; chaput et al., 2006; chaput et al., 2012; eisenmann et al., 2006; lumeng et al., 2007; roenneberg et al., 2012; snell et al., 2007; taveras et al., 2008) but suggest that chronotype and social jetlag – rather than average sleep duration – may be the more important statistical predictors of the bmi (roenneberg et al., 2012), and thus, should be incorporated in studies dealing with overweight and obesity in adolescents. moreover, it seems that not sleep duration alone may be the most relevant variable but chronotype as measured by the midpoint of sleep. however, the approach based on creating a single variable out of the three by a principal component analysis also showed a significant influence. thus it may be a better solution for further studies to calculate different variables and to unify them by a statistical method. as adolescent are strongly influenced by school start times (which remain rather similar during school life), the developmental change towards late chronotype during puberty inevitably results in sleep loss according to later bed times (dollman, ridley, olds, & lowe, 2007), which may have severe consequences for obesity. especially during adolescence, there is an abrupt change in chronotype from morning to evening types at around the age of 12-14 years (randler, 2011) suggesting that adolescents at this age are especially high at risk. further, the study shows that incorporating some additional variables is important because adolescents have not the full control over their eating, and parental monitoring might be a predictor of bmi. however, perceived parental influence seems weak, which might be related to the age group of our study when adolescents become increasingly independent from their parents. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 randler, haun, & schaal 343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ importantly, psychological aspects – in detail the self-efficacy – have an impact on the dietary behaviour and thus on the bmi. individuals who perceive themselves as self-efficient with respect to their dietary behaviour had a lower bmi. this stresses the importance of self-efficacy as a health-related behaviour in the relationship between sleep and overweight. interestingly, we found bmi inversely correlated with fast-food consumption. we suppose that individuals who are less satisfied with their weight may be more nutrition conscious in terms of not eating so much fast food. this engagement with dietary questions according to the personal self-perception would be stronger for individuals with a higher bmi than for subjects with a lower one who won’t care about it. this at the first sight confusing result is in line with findings of sabiston and crocker (2008) who reported similar effects also in adolescents. according to them research should also focus on longitudinal designs to follow the progression of bmi and diet. but also those adolescents that are underweight may have poorer nutrition and tend towards fast foods, which could also explain the inverse relationship. another aspect may be the circadian timing of hormone secretion, especially of leptin and ghrelin which are responsible for energy balance. hormones of the somatotropic and the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis are involved in sleep regulation (kluge, schüssler, zuber, yassouridis, & steiger, 2007), e.g. ghrelin administered around sleep onset increased slow-wave-sleep (kluge et al., 2007). also, in the morning, cortisol levels are higher in morning types than in evening given same wake and wake times (randler & schaal, 2010), and cortisol and ghrelin affect each other. further, ghrelin injected in the early morning did not alter sleep but enhanced cortisol (kluge et al., 2007). we know from melatonin that it is dependent on chronotype, i.e. late chronotypes have a later melatonin peak. therefore, it might be possible that hormones responsible for energy balance are also timeand chronotype dependent. this could explain why evening types often skip breakfast (meule, roeser, randler, & kübler, 2012). biological and endocrine changes during adolescence period may affect lipid metabolism, circadian preference, nutritional behaviours and sources of interests (screen time, physical activities…). these pubertal transitions occur principally between ages 10 to 16 which were the age of our study population. therefore, the study population may be very heterogeneous concerning age. perhaps in the future, studies might focus on a small age range or analyse age groups separately (given high sample sizes). limitations in general, this study was correlational and cross-sectional, thus it is limited and we cannot infer causality. in addition, the study was based on self-report which might be critical concerning some variables (bmi, see below) and others not (e.g. sleep variables). one limitation of the study is the self-reporting of weight and height which usually leads to an underestimation of bmi. this systematic under-reporting of weight may have affected the results and it may have reduced the power to detect an effect (because fewer children are at the heavier end of the bmi spectrum). however, we placed a ruler and a weigh in the classroom for the pupils which could have improved the self-reporting. the nse scale has been recently developed and seems an appropriate tool for adolescents but needs further evaluation to provide convergent and discriminant validity. further, we did not measure social deprivation. further studies should also collect data on other aspects like physical activity but epidemiological studies in schools always face the problem of time constraints and willingness to participate. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 sleep and bmi in adolescents 344 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions to advance the field further, chronotype 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(2008). short sleep duration in infancy and risk of childhood overweight. archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine, 162, 305-311. doi:10.1001/archpedi.162.4.305 wittmann, m., dinich, j., merrow, m., & roenneberg, t. (2006). social jetlag: misalignment of biological and social time. chronobiology international, 23, 497-509. doi:10.1080/07420520500545979 ziegelmann, j. p., & lippke, s. (eds.). (2009). theory-based approaches to stress and coping: emerging themes and contemporary research [special issue]. european psychologist, 14(1). about the authors dr.christoph randler is professor at the university of education in heidelberg and is mainly interest in biological rhythms. dr. steffen schaal is a professor at the university of education in ludwigsburg and works on biology and health behaviour. contact: institute of science & technology, university of education ludwigsburg, reuteallee 45, d71634 ludwigsburg, germany. julia haun is a secondary school teacher for biology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 339–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.558 randler, haun, & schaal 347 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.08.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00325.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.00999.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.162.4.305 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07420520500545979 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sleep and bmi in adolescents (introduction) methods participants measurement instruments results discussion limitations conclusions acknowledgments references about the authors humour use between spouses and positive and negative interpersonal behaviours during conflict research reports humour use between spouses and positive and negative interpersonal behaviours during conflict lorne campbell*a, sarah moroza [a]western university, department of psychology, london, ontario, canada. abstract the present research investigated the relation between the use of positive, negative and instrumental humour in the context of romantic relationships and relational well-being as assessed by positive and negative patterns of conflict resolution behaviour. a sample of 116 heterosexual married couples completed scales of relational humour use as well as conflict resolution behaviour. behaviour of couples while attempting to resolve a relationship based conflict was also coded by independent raters. actor-partner interdependence model (apim) analyses showed patterns of actor and partner effects for each type of humour use. specifically, positive humour use of both partners predicted more positive conflict resolution, whereas negative humour use of both partners predicted less positive conflict resolution. additionally, instrumental humour use of both partners seemed to predict greater apathy during conflict resolution. implications for considering couple humor use, assessed for both partners of the dyad, for understanding relational well-being are discussed. keywords: relational humour, conflict resolution, actor-partner interdependence model, relationship maintenance, marriage europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 received: 2014-02-12. accepted: 2014-02-21. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: western university, department of psychology, london, ontario, canada, n6a 5x2. e-mail: lcampb23@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. one quality that many people find attractive and look for in potential romantic partners is a sense of humour (feingold, 1992; sprecher & regan, 2002). indeed, showcasing a sense of humour is rated as the single most effective mate attraction tactic (buss, 1988), and it has been demonstrated that people use humour to express romantic interest (li et al., 2009). research focusing on partners in committed romantic relationships, however, suggests a more complex association between humour use and relationship well-being. depending on the type of humour that is exchanged between intimates (e.g., tinged with a positive or negative valence), humour can be linked to both positive and negative relationship outcomes (e.g., campbell, martin, & ward, 2008; howland & simpson, 2014; winterheld, simpson, & oriña, 2013). to date, however, only a small number of studies have assessed humour use and relationship well-being with both partners of romantic couples, limiting the ability to investigate the interdependence between partners’ humour use and relationship outcomes. additionally, the studies that have recruited romantic dyads typically focusedmore on how partners used different types of humour, and responded to their partner’s humour, when attempting to resolve a conflict (campbell et al., 2008; winterheld et al., 2013) or when seeking social support (howland & simpson, 2014). these studies have not addressed how the typical use of different types of humour within the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship that has developed over time may be systematically associated with the quality of these dyadic interactions (e.g., the different ways partners may attempt to resolve interpersonal conflict). in other words, are partners that typically use different types of humour when communicating to each other, for example, more or less likely to effectively resolve relationship conflict? in the present research we assessed different types of humour intimates typically use with each other in their relationships, and predicted that these patterns of couple humour use should be associated with quality of conflict resolution (both self-reported and observed) for both partners. humour and relationship well-being given that humour has been linked with the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships in the past (kuiper & mchale, 2009; lefcourt, 2001; li, griskevicius, durante, jonason, pasisz, & aumer, 2009; shiota, campos, keltner, & hertenstein, 2004; ziv & gadish, 1989), and that patterns of conflict resolution in romantic relationships are indicators of the current and future quality of the relationship (e.g., holmes & murray, 1996), it follows that humour use may play a role in conflict resolution as well. indeed, humour use has been identified as a means of communicating underlying affection in the face of conflict; it may also be used to defuse tension during conflict situations, or as a means of letting go of the conflict at hand (kane, suls, & tedeschi, 1977; long & graesser, 1988). partners may also use humour to soften the blow of mild criticism, or to approach a sensitive topic that appears threatening to both partners, by teasing each other (keltner, capps, kring, young, & heerey, 2001). certain types of humour, however, may be conducive to conflict resolution while others may be detrimental. indeed, dyadic analyses have shown that individuals whose partners use more affiliative (positive) humour while discussing a relationship based conflict reported greater resolution of differences and felt more satisfied in their relationship (campbell et al., 2008). past research has also shown that the use of affiliative humour in discussions with one’s partner is connected with decreases in negative mood (howland & simpson, 2014), and is generally more favorably received (winterheld et al., 2013). through such mechanisms, humour may function to stabilize relationships during times of conflict. however, humour can also be used in a negative fashion; for instance, more aggressive forms of teasing – such as ridicule, intimidation, or manipulation – may be used in an attempt to discredit the partner’s arguments or feelings (kowalski, howerton, & mckenzie, 2001; long &graesser, 1988). past research has noted that individuals who are exposed to aggressive humour may feel more rejected by their interaction partner, as well as sadder in mood and less willing to continue the interaction (kuiper, kazarian, sine, & bassil, 2010; winterheld et al., 2013). this could be especially detrimental in discussions of conflict, as partners who disengage from the interaction prematurely may leave conflicts unresolved. aggressive humour has also been linked with increased counter-arguing (bippus, dunbar, & liu, 2012), indicating that aggressive humour may be especially inflammatory in conflict scenarios. finally, humour could be used to dismiss the partner’s concerns, or to avoid constructive problemsolving behaviours in the relationship. in dyadic studies, individuals whose partners use aggressive (negative) humour have reported less effective resolution of differences, and also felt less satisfied in their relationship (campbell et al., 2008); and, similarly, individuals whose partners used more aggressive humour felt increased negative mood after a discussion with them (howland & simpson, 2014). conflict resolution behaviour as a marker of relationship well-being a great deal of research has shown that one important indicator of marital quality over time is the manner in which spouses communicate and interact with each other, particularly while discussing areas of disagreement (gottman, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 campbell & moroz 533 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1994). this is not surprising given that conflict interactions are considered ‘diagnostic’ situations for relationships (kelley et al., 2003), where partners’ verbal and non-verbal behaviour during these interactions should provide clear signals regarding how partner’s perceive each other and the relationship. it is not the existence of conflict in marriage per se that is detrimental to marital satisfaction or stability, but how spouses manage conflict when it occurs (holmes & murray, 1996). conflicts can be settled positively through discussion, but in some cases can result in the escalation of arguing without resolution, or with each spouse ignoring the area of conflict in an attempt to prevent negative marital interactions (e.g., gottman, 1994). the quality of the marriage suffers when conflicts remain unresolved. the quality of couples’ conflict resolution is therefore a good indicator of the well-being of the relationship. the relational humour inventory (de koning & weiss, 2002), which was used in the current study, identifies and measures three main types of humour: positive, negative, and instrumental. positive humour involves the positive aspects of humour, such as the attractiveness of humour in one’s partner, closeness to one’s partner, and humour appreciation. for instance, the items “my use of humor has brought me closer to my partner” and “i think that one of the attractive things about my partner is his/her sense of humour” both have high factor loadings (> .8) on the positive humour factor. negative humour, conversely, involves humour that is used in a manipulative or aggressive manner, with factor loadings of > .75 from items such as “sometimes i make my partner the butt of a joke” and “my partner uses humour to put me down”. finally, instrumental humour involves the use of humour to avoid tension or conflict. items such as “whenever i can, i prefer to use humour to avoid conflict between us” and “my partner can persuade me to do something by making me laugh” load highly (> .7) onto the instrumental humour factor. given these descriptions, we expected that positive humour use would likely foster more successful conflict resolution, with partners focusing on closeness and appreciation of each other. conversely, both negative and instrumental humour use seemed likely to create difficulties in resolving conflicts; particularly, individuals whose partners routinely use these humour styles may feel victimized or manipulated. the current study the current study sought to test hypotheses regarding the typical use of different types of humour between romantic partners and how these partners resolve relationship based conflict (both self-reported and observed). whereas prior research has established that the use of positive (i.e., affiliative) or negative (i.e., aggressive) forms of humour during actual couple interactions are associated with positive or negative outcomes respectively (e.g., feeling more, or less, close to one’s partner), this body of research has not systematically focused on the actual quality of conflict resolution behaviours displayed by each partner. in the present research we therefore assessed the different types of humour used by partners with each other using the relational humour inventory (de koning & weiss, 2002), a well validated scale targeting positive, negative, and instrumental types of humour use in relationships. we then assessed positive and negative forms of conflict resolution behaviours between partners, using both self and observational reports, as indicators of relational well-being. method participants one hundred and sixteen heterosexual married couples were recruited from the community of london, ontario to participate in a married couples survey by placing advertisements in various local community newspapers. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 couple humor use and conflict resolution 534 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the city of london is located in southwestern ontario, and is an urban community with population of approximately 348,000. individuals each received $50.00 as an honorarium for their participation. couples reported dating an average of 35.19 months (sd = 27.79) prior to marriage, and the average length of marriage was 120.23 months (sd = 127.12), meaning that the average amount of time couples had been together was 153.16 months (sd = 124.58). the average age of participants was 38.56 years for men (sd = 11.22) and 36.7 years for women (sd = 10.71). the majority of couples were caucasian, with an average household income per year of $55,000 $65,000 (cdn). sixty percent of the married couples reported they had children (m = 1.31 children per couple), ranging in number from 1 to 5.i this data set was used in study 2 of lackenbauer and campbell (2012), as well as campbell, overall, rubin, and lackenbauer (2013), but those investigations did not test the hypotheses that are addressed in the current research. procedure both members of each married couple were invited to attend a laboratory session in which they separately and privately completed a booklet of questionnaires that included measures of couple humour use, conflict resolution behaviours, and other relationship perceptions. after completing the questionnaires, couples made an appointment to return to the lab in 1-2 weeks to take part in a video-recorded discussion task. eleven couples opted not to return for this follow-up session.ii upon returning to the lab, participants were taken to a room containing a table and two chairs, and outfitted with a video camera housed in a small tinted dome mounted on the ceiling. a researcher provided each married couple with instructions on the discussion task. specifically, couples were instructed to select a problem area that frequently caused friction in their relationship that they would attempt to resolve in the discussion. participants were given 5 minutes to privately identify and agree upon a problem area in their relationship. the researcher then told couples that they may or may not be able to resolve the conflict, but to try their best to achieve this goal. couples were given 12 minutes for their discussion. following the discussion, spouses were asked to sign a video release form allowing the video-recorded discussion to be used for research purposes. one couple did not sign the release form, leaving the behaviours of 104 couples available for analysis. materials relational humour inventory — typical patterns of humour use between partners was assessed with the relational humour inventory (de koning & weiss, 2002), a scale that specifically measures dyadic humor use. three subscales assess different types of own humour use, including positive humour (e.g., “joking with my partner makes me feel closer to him/her”; α = .82 for men, α = .76 for women), negative humour (e.g., “sometimes i make my partner the butt of a joke”; α = .84 for men, α = .90 for women) and instrumental humour (e.g., “whenever i can, i prefer to use humour to avoid conflict between us”; α = .80 for men, α = .82 for women). items for the entire scale were anchored from 1 (total disagree – does not describe us at all) to 5 (total agree – describes us extremely well), and scores were averaged for each subscale. higher mean scores indicated greater reported use of each type of humour, respectively. kansas marital conflict scale — the kansas marital conflict scale (eggeman, moxley, & schumm, 1985), based on gottman’s (1979) model of stages of marital interaction and conflict, was used to assess self-reported conflict behaviours using three subscales representing the phases of marital conflict that distinguish distressed from nondistressed couples. the agenda-building subscale consists of 11-items that evaluate how issues are conveyed to each other from each person’s perspective. sample items from this subscale include: “is your spouse willing to really hear what you want to communicate?” and “do you both begin to understand each other’s feelings europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 campbell & moroz 535 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reasonably quickly?” higher average scores indicate that partners report they are able to listen to and understand each other’s perspectives (α = .86 for men, α = .90 for women). the manner in which each person’s point of view is discussed during a conflict is measured by the 15-item arguing subscale. sample items of the arguing scale are: “are you both able to express how the other feels about the issue?” and “are you able to identify clearly the specific things about which you do agree?” facial expressions and tone of voice are also assessed in the arguing scale (e.g., anger, hostility, frustration). higher scores on the arguing scale indicate that one is able to express his or her point of view to his or her spouse, as well as identify what the disagreement is about (α = .89 for men, α = .89 for women). the 11-item negotiation subscale assesses how couples come to a mutually satisfactory compromise. participants responded to items on the negotiation scale such as: “are you both willing to give and take in order to settle the disagreement?” and “are you able to completely resolve it with some sort of compromise that is okwith both of you?” higher mean scores on this subscale indicated participants reported better compromise and negotiation with their partners during a conflict (α = .87 for men, α = .89 for women). coding of interpersonal behaviour during conflict resolution five trained raters viewed each video-recorded discussion independently and rated the degree to which each partner engaged in eight interpersonal behaviours, four positive and four negative, using 7-point scales (anchored 1 = not at all, 7 = very much). interrater reliability was acceptable for each item for both husbands (mean α = .71, range .61 to .80) and wives (mean α = .72, range .60 to .81). the four items tapping positive behaviour were: to what degree did this person respond positively to his/her partner’s initiations? to what degree did this person appear happy? to what degree did this person appear positive? to what degree did this person use humour to make his/her partner feel better? scores on these items were averaged to calculate an index of positive behaviour for both husbands and wives (α = .87 and .88 for husbands and wives, respectively). the four items used to code negative behaviour were: how angry did this person appear to be with his/her partner? to what degree did this person respond negatively to his/her partner’s comments? to what degree did this person blame his/her partner for the conflict? to what degree did this person appear irritated with his/her partner? these items were averaged to calculate an index of negative behaviour for both husbands and wives (α = .89 and .91 for husbands and wives, respectively). results for descriptive purposes, table 1 presents the correlations between all of the study variables. in general, positive humour use was significantly positively correlated with ratings of conflict resolution behaviours at all three stages of an argument (agenda, arguing, and negotiation). negative humour use was significantly negatively correlated with conflict resolution behaviours at all three stages as well. significant correlations were noted between partners on all scales except for instrumental humour use, indicating that couples tend to use similar types of humour and display similar behaviours when interacting with each other. in light of this significant correlation, and in accordance with current dyadic research practices, the data analytic approach we adopted for testing our hypotheses was guided by the actor-partner interdependence model (apim; kashy & kenny, 2000). according to the apim, when individuals are involved in an interdependent relationship, their outcomes can be associated with both their own (i.e., an actor effect), and partner’s (i.e., a partner effect), characteristics and inputs. the inclusion of partner effects allows us to test for the mutual influence that can exist europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 couple humor use and conflict resolution 536 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between persons in a relationship, and also allows us to statistically control for partner effects when estimating actor effects and vice versa. table 1 correlations among study variables 87654321variable 1. positive humour .226*-.195*.304**.364**.392**.441**.002.250** 2. negative humour .153.253**-.286**-.340**-.253**-.440**.219*.1423. instrumental humour .082-.024.119-.185-.031-.012-.164.138 4. agenda .332**-.365**.744**.765**.504**.052-.310**-.389** 5. arguing .298**-.352**.710**.353**.649**.125-.233*-.313** 6. negotiation .345**-.398**.474**.728**.739**.112-.271**-.377** 7. positive behaviour .684**-.798**.384**.374**.362.136.195**-.269** 8. negative behaviour .586**.685**-.199*-.171-.281**-.119-.239**.130note. correlations above the diagonal are for women whereas correlations below the diagonal are for men. correlations between partners appear along the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. we tested all of the models reported below using multilevel modeling (mlm; also known as hierarchical linear modeling; kenny, kashy, & bolger, 1998; raudenbush & bryk, 2002) and following the suggestions of campbell and kashy (2002; see also kashy, campbell, & harris, 2006; kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006) regarding the use of mlm with dyadic data. in the dyadic case, mlm treats the data from each partner as nested scores within a group that has an n of 2. gender was effect coded (-1 for men, 1 for women), and all continuous predictor variables were centered on the grand mean. to test hypotheses, we ran models with each of the self-reported and observed conflict resolution behaviours as outcome variables (a total of five models), and with the actor and partner effects of each type of self-reported relational humour style as predictors. interactions of gender with the actor and partner effects were tested initially but removed from the models given the lack of significant interactions. the results from these analyses are presented in table 2. unique actor and partner effects for each type of couple humour use emerged across the analyses. specifically, individuals reporting a greater use of positive humour with their spouse also reported more effective problem solving behaviour, and were observed to display more positive interpersonal behaviours while discussing a relationship based conflict with their spouse. actor effects of negative couple humour use also emerged in each analysis, suggesting that the greater use of negative humour in the relationship was associated with less effective conflict resolution behaviour (both self and observer reported). a less consistent pattern of actor effects emerged for instrumental humour. when individuals reported using humour as a way to avoid problems in their relationship, they reported less effective conflict resolution with their spouse during the middle and end of arguments, and were observed to behave less negatively, but not more positively, toward their spouse. interestingly, a number of unique partner effects also emerged. individuals reported more effective conflict resolution behaviour at the beginning and (marginally) end of arguments with their spouse, as well as were observed to behave more positively and (marginally) less negative toward their spouses, when their spouses reported using more positive humour in the relationship. similarly, individuals reported less effective conflict resolution behaviour europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 campbell & moroz 537 http://www.psychopen.eu/ at all stages of an argument (marginal significance for the beginning of conflicts), when their spouses reported greater use of negative humour in the relationship. lastly, no partner effects for instrumental humour emerged. table 2 self-reported and observed behaviour while discussing relationship conflicts negative behaviour positive behaviournegotiationarguingagendapredictorstype of humour intercept .5823.0022.8002.7782.8001 gender .022.034.004.023.029actor effectpositive humour .088-.132*.229**.234**.270** partner effect .110†-.168**.076†.053.110* actor effectnegative humour .120**.136**-.066**-.061*-.086**partner effect .031.032-.057*-.064**-.052†actor effectinstrumental humour .115*-.096.089*-.111**-.051partner effect .048.052-.004.039.034 note. values from the multilevel models can be interpreted as unstandardized regression coefficients. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion this study contributes to the growing literature of humor use and relational well-being using dyadic analyses to examine conflict resolution behaviour among relationship partners. our results show unique actor and partner effects of the use of different humour styles on both reported and observed problem-solving behaviours. positive humour was linked with self-reports of more effective problem solving behaviour, as well as more positive interpersonal behaviours; the partners of those who usedmore positive humour also reported more successful problemsolving at the beginning and end of arguments, and were similarly observed to behave more positively toward their spouse during discussion of conflict. conversely, those who usedmore negative humour reported less effective problem-solving behaviour, and were observed to be more negative (and less positive) toward their spouse. again, distinct partner effects emerged, showing that those whose partners used more negative humour reported less effective conflict resolution at all stages of an argument. the pattern of effects for instrumental humor use was not as straightforward. for instance, an actor effect of instrumental humour emerged wherein those who used more instrumental humour reported less effective problemsolving during the middle and end of arguments, and were observed to behave less negatively (but not more positively) toward their partner. this pattern of results may imply a relatively high degree of apathy for individuals that use more instrumental humor in their relationships. that is, they may care less about resolving the conflict and more about withdrawing from the conversation. these effects suggest a more nuanced relation between this particular type of humor use and relational well-being compared to those for positive and negative humor use. the focus on dyadic behavior in this research represents an additional important contribution. previous studies of humour style have focused primarily on self-rating variables such as mood, feelings of rejection, and emotional distress (campbell et al., 2008; howland & simpson, 2014; kuiper et al., 2010). such information is certainly valuable, but the current study contributes uniquely to our knowledge of humour styles by examining how it can europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 couple humor use and conflict resolution 538 http://www.psychopen.eu/ predict behaviours. this focus on behaviour is also served well by the inclusion of both self-reported and observerrated conflict resolution behaviour measurement; without the observed behaviours, any link between humour use and problem-solving behaviour could potentially be attributed to levels of self-serving bias displayed by participants. the current study also takes into account the reciprocal nature of interactions between partners, using dyadic analyses to control for similarities between partners and differentiate clearly between actor and partner effects. broadly speaking, this research has several important implications. first, it speaks to the importance of mutual influence in dyadic interactions; the partner effects observed in this study indicate that individuals’ traits may not only, or primarily, predict their behaviour in relationship settings. rather, individuals’ traits can have a significant influence on their partner’s behaviour, and their partner’s traits can have an influence on their own behaviour as well. secondly, this research suggests that the influence of long-standing everyday behaviours (i.e., humour use) can be important to conflict resolution behaviours; that is, humour use is important not only as it is used within the context of the argument, but as it is used in partners’ everyday lives. finally, given that the management of conflict in intimate relationships may have an effect on marital satisfaction or stability (holmes & murray, 1996), the current research indicates that the use of different types of humour may have a significant impact on relationship wellbeing, through the mechanism of conflict resolution. the present research does have a few limitations. the correlational nature of the data does not allow for cause and effect conclusions to be drawn. longitudinal designs that assess the stability of relationship well-being, as well as experimental designs that expose participants to different types of couple humor use, may be useful to help establish causal connections. additionally, the self-reports of couple humour use are beneficial in that they reflect a pattern of humour use that has been established over time in the relationship, but it would be valuable to determine the link between self-reported and observed humour use of these different styles of humour in future research. conclusions the results of this research are consistent with prior research on humor use and relational well-being, but make a few novel contributions to this literature. for instance, the research focused more systematically on conflict resolution behaviors between intimates, using both self and observer reports, than past research. additionally, the dyadic analyses demonstrated the unique associations between one partner’s humor use and the other partner’s conflict resolution behaviors, suggesting the importance of the interdependence that exists between partners when considering the role of humor in relationship maintenance behaviors. overall, how partners use different types of humor in their relationships seems to be meaningfully associated with patterns of conflict resolution behavior for both partners. notes i) no significant differences emerged between couples with children and couples without children on the three subscales of the kansas marital conflict scale, the relational humour inventory, or observed positive and negative humour use. ii) no significant differences emerged between couples who returned for the follow-up session and couples who did not on the three subscales of the kansas marital conflict scale or the relational humour inventory. funding we gratefully acknowledge the support of a grant from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada awarded to lorne campbell to assist in the completion of this research. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 campbell & moroz 539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bippus, a. m., dunbar, n. e., & liu, s. j. 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(2013). it’s in the way that you use it: attachment and the dyadic nature of humor during conflict negotiation in romantic couples. personality and social psychology bulletin, 39, 496-508. doi:10.1177/0146167213479133 ziv, a., & gadish, o. (1989). humor and marital satisfaction. the journal of social psychology, 129, 759-768. doi:10.1080/00224545.1989.9712084 about the authors lorne campbell is an associate professor at western university. his research interests include interpersonal attraction, relationship formation, as well as the maintenance and stability of romantic relationships. sarah moroz is a graduate student at western university. her research interests focus on romantic relationships and sexual minorities. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 532–542 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.763 couple humor use and conflict resolution 542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167213479133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1989.9712084 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en couple humor use and conflict resolution (introduction) humour and relationship well-being conflict resolution behaviour as a marker of relationship well-being the current study method participants procedure materials coding of interpersonal behaviour during conflict resolution results discussion conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the impact of mathematics anxiety on primary school children’s working memory research reports the impact of mathematics anxiety on primary school children’s working memory marcus witt*a a bath spa university, bath, uk. abstract while there is little doubt that there is a connection between mathematics anxiety and poor mathematical performance, the direction and nature of this connection is less clear. some researchers (e.g., ma & xu, 2004) have contended that poor mathematical performance directly causes mathematics anxiety. others see a more complex relationship in which mathematics anxiety may, in part at least, cause poor mathematical performance. one possible explanation for the latter view is that mathematics anxiety leads directly to a disruption of cognitive processes such as working memory, which leads directly to poorer mathematical performance (hopko, ashcraft, gute, ruggiero, & lewis, 1998). the working memory component most consistently associated with mathematics anxiety is the central executive (ashcraft & krause, 2007), although there is evidence (miller & bichsel, 2004) that visual-spatial working memory is impaired by mathematics anxiety. this study sought to explore the suggestion (ashcraft & kirk, 2001) that the mere presence of digits might trigger an anxious reaction among children reporting high levels of mathematics anxiety, leading to a decrement in working memory performance. children of 9 and 10 years of age reported levels of mathematics anxiety and undertook two working memory tasks, one measuring central executive functioning and the other measuring visual-spatial working memory. each working memory task was completed twice, once using letters as the to-be-remembered stimuli and again using digits. the differences in performance between the two versions of the tasks were compared with the reported levels of mathematics anxiety. the findings suggest that the presence of digits as the stimuli caused a decrement in working memory performance commensurate with the reported levels of mathematical anxiety. keywords: working memory, mathematics anxiety, children europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 received: 2011-11-24. accepted: 2012-02-13. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: email:m.witt@bathspa.ac.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the phenomenon of ‘mathematics anxiety’ has been widely documented (e.g. hembree, 1990) over the past sixty years since its existence was first suggested in a paper in the 1950s (gough, 1954) in which a teacher wrote anecdotally about her pupils’ emotional difficulties with mathematics. dreger and aiken (1957) used the term ‘numerical anxiety’ and understanding was advanced considerably by a seminal article by richardson and suinn (1972). definitions of mathematics anxiety vary, but centre on a few central themes. for the purposes of this paper, mathematics anxiety is defined as: ‘feelings of tension and anxiety that interfere with the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a variety of ordinary life and academic situations.’ (richardson & suinn, 1972). research into mathematics anxiety has tended to focus on adults and older children; there is a lack of research into the phenomenon in primary school children (ashcraft & moore, 2009). primary school children who are anxious about mathematics are a highly important group, as it is likely that they will go on to underachieve mathematically during secondary school (ashcraft, 2002a), to give up studying mathematics as early as they can (brown, brown, --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ & bibby, 2008) and may carry their anxiety into adulthood, limiting their career opportunities (cockroft, 1982; smith, 2004) and pass their anxieties on to their own children (lazarus, 1974; beilock, gunderson, ramirez, & levine 2010). if young children are beginning to develop anxiety about mathematics in primary school, it may be possible to implement measures to counteract this development before they have developed entrenched attitudes about mathematics and their own mathematical ability (newstead, 1998). a meta-analysis of several studies on mathematics anxiety (hembree, 1990) provided evidence of higher rates of anxiety among females at all ages, with the difference becoming slightly more marked at the post-secondary school level, although this may be due to females being more willing to admit to feelings of anxiety (ashcraft, 2002b). a more recent study (ma & xu, 2004) found no gender differences in anxiety levels. it is possible that changing societal attitudes towards girls and mathematics have reduced or even eliminated the gender differences in levels of mathematics anxiety. commentators such as beilock (2008) however have posited that females are more vulnerable to mathematics anxiety. boaler (2009) suggests that females may be more at risk of developing an anxious reaction to ‘traditional’ mathematics teaching approaches such as rote learning, high-stakes testing and the memorization of rules and procedures. mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance: two perspectives the simplest explanation of the development of mathematics anxiety is that individuals, whose mathematical performance is already poor for other reasons, become increasingly anxious as they fall further behind their peers in their mathematical performance. if this is correct, anxiety about mathematics is caused by poor performance and is not, in itself a cause of poor mathematical performance. this position is supported by evidence from a longitudinal study (ma & xu, 2004) which used cross-lagged correlations to determine the causal direction of the relationship between mathematics anxiety and performance. they found that previous mathematical performance scores were a good predictor of later anxiety levels, but not vice-versa. they identified key periods, e.g. transition between schools, in which children seemed vulnerable to heightened levels of anxiety brought about by poor mathematical performance. another study (mcleod, 1993) identified the ages of 9 and 10 as being particularly important in the development of mathematics anxiety. newstead (1998) contends that attitudes formed at or by this stage will be hard to change and may well persist into adult life. poor mathematical performance might be perpetuated by mathematical anxiety. as mathematically anxious individuals are less likely to engage in mathematical activities and to take mathematics courses, their mathematical performance is likely to be poorer than their peers who are more mathematically active (ashcraft & moore, 2009). while having a role in perpetuating poor performance, there is no sense in which mathematics anxiety is a direct cause of poor performance. there is, however, some evidence to suggest that the situation is more complex. hembree’s (1990) meta-analysis included a review of programmes designed to address mathematics anxiety. the most successful of these reduced anxiety levels and improved mathematical performance without any specific mathematical instruction. faust, ashcraft, and fleck (1996) found no differences between groups of adults with identified high and low levels of mathematics anxiety in singleand double-digit addition andmultiplication problems when the task was administered as an un-timed pencil and paper exercise. the two groups had shown significant differences in the more complex of these calculations only when they were administered as timed tasks in the laboratory. carrying out the tasks in the timed condition appeared to trigger an anxious reaction that impaired their performance despite the fact europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 mathematics anxiety among primary school children 264 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that their mathematical performance in the un-timed condition had been unimpaired. there is therefore some suggestion that anxiety may be precipitated by the conditions in which the mathematics is carried out. there is considerable evidence to suggest that mathematics anxiety is not merely the projection of more general anxiety into mathematical situations. ashcraft (1995) found that physiological measures of anxiety (e.g. heart rate) increased for mathematically anxious individuals as they were askedmathematical questions of increasing difficulty. the same group showed no such increases in anxiety when asked other, non-mathematical questions. there was a negative linear relationship between the two measures, lending further support to the idea that all and any mathematics anxiety is damaging to mathematical performance (see also faust et al., 1996). taken together, these findings suggest that the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance is not uni-directional and that mathematics anxiety may result in poorer mathematical performance because of its effects on cognition this position finds some echoes in the definition given by richardson and suinn (1972) who defined mathematics anxiety in terms of its debilitating effects on cognition. this is evident in other definitions of mathematics anxiety e.g. tobias and weissbrod’s (1980) definition of mathematics anxiety as: ‘the panic, helplessness, paralysis and mental disorganisation that arises among some people when they are required to solve a mathematical problem.’ despite this, it is only relatively recently that researchers have considered in detail how mathematics anxiety may have a detrimental impact on mathematical functioning through the on-line disruption to the cognitive systems needed to support mathematical tasks. one cognitive system that has been shown in several studies (e.g. ashcraft & kirk, 2001; hopko et al., 2003; ashcraft & krause, 2007) to be disrupted by anxiety in children’s and adults’ mathematical processing is working memory. the study by faust et al. (1996) gave the first indication that mathematics anxiety might cause some interruption to on-line cognitive processing. anxiety appeared to cause a fall in performance on the questions that required carrying (i.e. those calculations where the sum of the digits in any column is more than 9 and therefore some of the value has to be transferred to the next column), but not on simple, single-digit questions. this led the authors to think that mathematics anxiety might be disrupting the central executive component of working memory. the central executive, which is thought to have a controlling and monitoring function, has been shown in a number of studies (e.g. imbo & vandierendonck, 2008) to play an important role in mathematical processing, particularly in calculations that require more complex processing and monitoring, such as those involving carrying. in a later study, ashcraft and kirk (2001) found that participants with high levels of mathematics anxiety were more disrupted by a concurrent working memory task when doing mental addition than were low anxiety subjects. the participants had to carry out mathematical calculations involving carrying while simultaneously retaining a string of letters in memory. the participants with higher levels of mathematical anxiety were more disrupted by the concurrent working memory task. the findings suggested that attention to their mathematical anxiety was competing for participants’ cognitive resources. the pattern of results suggested that it was the ability to hold information in workingmemory in the face of a competing cognitive task that was compromised in themathematically anxious patients. the component of working memory thought to be responsible for monitoring concurrent cognitive processing is the central executive. ashcraft and kirk then sought to extend the findings reported above to a situation where their participants were not involved in any explicitly mathematical processing. the participants undertook a number and a letter transformation task that was demanding of working memory and required counting. the highly mathematically europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 witt 265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ anxious participants performed more poorly on the task (under both letter and number conditions) suggesting that the process of counting was impaired under conditions of high working memory load. the same experiments also revealed that the more mathematically anxious participants performed more poorly on a computation span working memory task that involved simple calculations than their less anxious counterparts. this difference was not seen on a letter span working memory task. ashcraft and kirk surmised that highly anxious participants were using up working memory resources by attending to their anxious feelings causing a reduction in performance in the concurrent working memory task. this reaction was triggered in situations where the participants needed to count and when they were involved in simple calculations with a concurrent working memory demand. miller and bichsel (2004) looked at the impact of mathematics anxiety on verbal and visual working memory in adults. the study suggested that mathematics anxiety, unlike other forms of anxiety, disrupts the visual working memory system rather than the verbal. the study did not look specifically at the central executive component of the baddeley and hitch (1974) working memory model. this finding lent further support to the suggestion that mathematics anxiety is not simply the projection of general anxiety into mathematical situations. the causes of mathematics anxiety therefore appear to be complex. while there is some evidence that poor mathematical performance directly causes anxiety, and that children are particularly vulnerable to mathematics anxiety at key transition points in their schooling (ma & xu, 2004), the direction of the relationship between mathematics anxiety and poor mathematical performance has not been clearly established. there is, however, considerable evidence that mathematics anxiety has a potentially disrupting effect on working memory, which has been shown in many studies (e.g. gathercole & pickering, 2000; gathercole, pickering, knight, & stegmann, 2004) to be important in children’s successful mathematical processing. the study described here sought to understand more about the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance in primary school children by examining if there is any evidence that reported levels of anxiety correlate with observed falls in working memory performance in situations that involve digits, but no explicit mathematical processing. methods and procedure hypothesis the study reported here sought to test the hypothesis that the mere presence of digits is sufficient to trigger an anxious reaction, which will have a debilitating effect on working memory. in this way, there is a direct connection between mathematical anxiety as a cause of poor mathematical performance rather than simply being caused by it (as contended by ma and xu). if this alternative view is correct, then the presence of digits in a task that involves no mathematical processing should have no impact on working memory performance in children, irrespective of their level of mathematical anxiety. there are a number of factors, which affect a child’s working memory performance and therefore may lead to variation in performance among children. while anxiety may be one of them, there are many others, such as processing speed and strategy choice. in examining the possible disruption to working memory brought about by anxiety, absolute measures of working memory were deemed to be less informative than comparative measures in different conditions. the decision was therefore made to measure each child’s working memory capacity under two conditions, one with letters as the to-be-remembered stimuli and one with digits as the stimuli. if the hypothesis outlined above, that the presence of digits triggers an anxious reaction in mathematically anxious children the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 mathematics anxiety among primary school children 266 http://www.psychopen.eu/ difference in performance between the two conditions should be more pronounced among the highly anxious children compared to their less anxious peers. simply comparing absolute working memory measures would not control for the effects of other factors. research questions this study set out to explore the following questions: • do children who report higher levels of mathematics anxiety suffer a decrement in working performance when confronted with digits as stimuli? • if mathematically anxious children do suffer a decrement in working memory performance, which component of the baddeley and hitch (1974) working memory model is most disrupted? sample the sample consisted of 55 children, from 2 state primary schools in the southwest of england. all the children were in year 5 (mean age 10 years and 1 month, s.d = 3.4 months range 9 years and 9 months to 10 years and 7 months) at the time of testing. there were 18 males and 37 females. none of the children in the sample had identified special educational needs. all had normal, or corrected to normal vision. permission was sought from the headteacher in the respective schools and parental consent then requested through a letter home. only those children whose parents gave consent were permitted to take part. all the children were clearly informed that they were allowed to withdraw from the study at any time without then need to give a reason. they were also asked at the beginning of each round of testing whether they were happy to continue. working memory tasks the working memory tasks were all administered individually by the author in a quiet corner of the classroom. the class teacher and other children were present in the room, but the tasks were carried out in an undisturbed corner. the questionnaire was administered to the classes as a whole to minimise disruption to the children’s learning. there was no time limit for its completion. the working memory tasks were administered in a counterbalanced way, with half the children completing the digits version first and the other half completing the letters version first. again, to minimize anxious feelings, there was no time limit for the completion of the tasks. backward digit recall all the children were given the backward digit recall task from the working memory test battery for children (wmtb-c; pickering & gathercole, 2001). this is a widely-used task that measures central executive working memory functioning. the children heard strings of digits and were asked to recall the string in reverse order and to say their answers out loud. the strings were presented in blocks of six trials. if a child made a mistake in any three trials in a block the task was terminated. once a child had scored four correct trials in a block, he/she was automatically moved to the next block. all the children began with strings of just two digits. the digits were presented as to-be-remembered stimuli, but the task involves no mathematical processing. backwards letter recall the children were also given a ‘backwards letter recall’ task, which simply substituted letters for digits as stimuli. there was nothing in this task that required any literacy skills; the letters were simply stimuli to be recalled. the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 witt 267 http://www.psychopen.eu/ letter strings were chosen so that none of the letters in the string were phonologically similar (e.g. r, p, m, q rather than e, t, c, b). it is noted that recalling strings of digits is probably a more familiar task for all the children than recalling strings of letters. there was therefore some expectation that all the children would perform better on the digits version of the task. in order to explore the effects of anxiety, the difference in performance between the tasks was used as a measure. visual patterns digits the children were given a variation of the visual patterns task (della sala, gray, baddeley, & wilson, 1997). the children were shown a matrix. some of the cells in the matrix contained digits. the matrices were presented on a pc for two seconds. the children then saw a blank screen for a further two seconds after which they were invited to recall the matrix by entering the correct digits into the correct locations on a previously prepared answer sheet. the task was scored for both recall of location, and recall of the digit. the children scored one point for the correct digit in an incorrect location and one point for an incorrect digit in the correct location. the correct digit in the correct location scored two points. visual patterns letters this task was identical to the one above except that the stimuli were letters instead of digits. mathematics anxiety the children’s mathematics anxiety levels were measured using a 9 point questionnaire. the children were asked to rate 9 statements all relating to anxiety towards mathematics. the questionnaire was adapted from the mars-e (maths anxiety rating scaleelementary, suinn, taylor, & edwards, 1988), a 26 point questionnaire that itself was adapted from the original mars (richardson & suinn, 1972), a ninety-eight point questionnaire. test-retest reliability for both the mars and the mars-e are high (richardson & suinn, 1972; suinn, edie, nicoletti, & spinelli, 1972). the nine questions were selected as they seemed to relate specifically to primary school children. given the children’s relatively young age, we didn’t want to burden them with an overly long questionnaire. the statements were written so that higher levels of anxiety would be revealed by agreeing to some and disagreeing with others. the use of a questionnaire allowed each child to be given a mathematics anxiety ‘score’. high scores indicated high levels of anxiety. many studies looking at mathematics anxiety identify a small group of children who are highly anxious about mathematics. by asking a range of children to assess their anxiety about mathematics, it was possible to look at all levels of anxiety and to see whether lower levels of anxiety had any kind of detrimental effect on working memory performance and whether there was any correlation between the reported levels of mathematics anxiety and any disruption to working memory. results independent samples t-tests showed that there were no significant gender differences in mathematics anxiety or the working memory measures. there was no significant correlation between working memory performance, or anxiety, and the children’s age (for all correlations r < 0.4, p > 0.05). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 mathematics anxiety among primary school children 268 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the questionnaire revealed a wide spread of anxiety levels. the questionnaire could yield a minimum score of zero (indicating low levels of anxiety) and a maximum score of 36. the lowest score was zero and the highest was 35. the mean score was 12.8 and the sd was 7.87. there was no significant correlation between the levels of anxiety and performance on either the backward digit or backward letter recall tasks. there was no correlation between the children’s anxiety scores and their performance on the letters version of the visual patterns task. however, there was a statistically significant moderate correlation between their reported anxiety scores and their performance on the digits version of the visual patterns task (see table 1 below). table 1. correlations between mathematical anxiety and all working memory scores. vp digits (place) vp digits (content) vp letters (place) vp letters (content) ce (digits)ce (letters)anxiety -0.401**-0.328*-0.2280.053-0.1070.1231anxiety -0.2240.087-0.0430.417**0.784**10.123ce letters -0.0760.353*0.1150.436**10.784**-0.107ce digits 0.3320.482**0.370**10.436**0.417**0.053vp letters content 0.2600.415**10.370**0.115-0.043-0.228vp letters place 0.464**10.415**0.482**0.353*0.087-0.328*vp digits content 10.464**0.2600.332*-0.076-0.224-0.401**vp digits place *p < .05. **p < .01. the results show that there were weak to moderate negative correlations between the children’s levels of mathematics anxiety and their performance on all aspects of the digits version of the visual patterns task i.e. that as mathematics anxiety rose, performance on the task declined. the same was not true for the letters version of the task. there is no statistically significant correlation between the children’s level of mathematics anxiety and their performance on either the backward digit recall or backward letter recall tasks. although the correlations between anxiety levels and the central executive tasks were not significant, it was striking that the relationship was positive for the letters version of the task and negative for the digits task. as high working memory scores indicate better performance and high anxiety scores indicate high levels of anxiety, it was striking that the children with higher levels of anxiety performed better on the letters version of the task, but more poorly on the digits version of the task. as the initial hypothesis was that the presence of digits would disrupt working memory performance in anxious children, the difference between each child’s scores in the two versions of each working memory task was calculated. this was done by subtracting the score on the letters version of the task from the equivalent score using digits. this was done to try to isolate the differences caused by the presence of the digits and to eliminate other factors that might influence working memory performance. a positive score for the ‘difference’ measure indicates better performance with digits than with letters and vice-versa. this score was examined in relation to the reported levels of mathematics anxiety. the results (table 2) showed that there was a weak, but nonetheless statistically significant correlation between the children’s reported levels of mathematical anxiety and the change in their scores between the letters and digits version of the central executive working memory task (r=-0.359, p < 0.05). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 witt 269 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2. the correlation between mathematics anxiety and change in performance on the two versions of the working memory tasks. visual patterns (position)visual patterns (content)central executive -0.114-0.263-0.539**anxiety *p < .05. **p < .01. there was no statistically significant correlation between the change in the children’s scores on either version of the visual patterns task and their reported anxiety scores. in order to explore these results further, the sample was divided into ‘high’ and ‘low’ anxiety groups, by splitting it at the mean anxiety score of 12.8. this led to groups of 26 (high) and 29 (low) children respectively. the scores of these two groups and the differences between them are reported in table 3. table 3. working memory performance of the ‘high’ and ‘low’ anxiety groups. ptmeanngroup 4.5026high anxce digits 0.046*-2.0515.4629low anx 4.7526high anxce letters 0.801-0.2534.8929low anx -0.2926high anxce difference 0.014*-2.5410.5729low anx 27.026high anxvp digits place 0.096-1.69828.829low anx 31.026high anxvp digits content 0.012*-2.63132.729low anx 24.326high anxvp letters place 0.085-1.75626.129low anx 28.026high anxvp letters content 0.216-1.25829.229low anx 2.7026high anxvp place difference 0.968-0.4112.7529low anx 3.0226high anxvp content diff 0.482-0.7093.5729low anx *p < .05. **p < .01. the results show that the two groups’ performance differed significantly in the central executive digits task and in the difference in their central executive performance. in this case the ‘high anxiety’ group’s performance was worse on the digits version of the task than on the letters version. for the ‘low anxiety’ group, this situation was reversed. there was also a significant difference in performance on the content part of the visual patterns digits task. discussion there is mixed evidence in the literature about whether poor mathematical performance leads directly to mathematics anxiety, or whether the relationship between the two is more complex. the results from this experiment suggest that children who report higher levels of mathematics anxiety experience a decrement in central executive europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 mathematics anxiety among primary school children 270 http://www.psychopen.eu/ working memory (specifically the ability to store and process information concurrently) in situations that might trigger anxious feelings. this finding suggests that the relationship betweenmathematical performance and anxiety may be bi-directional, with anxiety leading to a fall in working memory performance, which would then lead to a decrement in mathematical performance. this finding does not refute the causal link between mathematical performance and mathematics anxiety, but hints at a more complex relationship than a simple uni-directional cause. moreover, the results from this study raise the highly interesting possibility that children who report higher levels of mathematics anxiety experience this disruption to central executive working memory in situations where they are dealing with digits, even if there is no explicit mathematical processing required. previous studies (e.g. ashcraft & kirk, 2001) suggested that simple counting could trigger an anxious response in some people. this study goes further and suggests that the mere presence of digits as to-be-remembered stimuli can trigger an anxious response that inhibits central executive functioning. the findings of this study may therefore be of interest to psychologists who routinely use working memory assessments that include digits as the to-be-remembered stimuli. this study suggests that these stimuli are not emotionally neutral and may cause children with anxiety about mathematics to attain lower working memory scores in relation to their less mathematically anxious peers than they might with other stimuli. an alternative explanation could be that the children who reported high levels of mathematics anxiety had poorer representations of numbers in working memory and therefore preformed less well on working memory tasks using digits as stimuli. however, there was no correlation between anxiety levels and overall performance on the central executive task using digits as stimuli. the correlation was with the difference in performance between the digits and letters versions of the same working memory task. on the other hand, the children who reported high levels of anxiety may have been more generally anxious and projected this anxiety onto the working memory tasks causing a reduction in performance. again, there is no suggestion in the data that there is a correlation between anxiety levels and general working performance. the findings from the visual patterns task are more difficult to interpret. unlike in the central executive task, there was no correlation between the levels of reported mathematics anxiety and the difference in performance between the two versions of the visual patterns task. this was true for both the positional score (where) and the content score (what). this would seem to refute the notion that the fall in working memory performance seen on the central executive task can be explained by weaker representations of digits in the long-term memory of more anxious children. the finding also suggests that high levels of mathematics anxiety disrupt the central executive component of working memory rather than the visual-spatial sketchpad. this broadly supports the findings of faust et al. (1996) who found that performance of mathematically anxious adults declined as the number of carries in a calculation increased (increasing the need to store and process information concurrently). these data do not support the findings of miller and bichsel (2004) that mathematics anxiety affects visual-spatial working memory. however, there was some evidence in these data that the most mathematically anxious of the children did experience disruption to their visual working memory compared to their less anxious peers. interestingly, this disruption manifested itself in a failure to remember the nature of the stimuli (i.e. the digits) rather than their position, suggesting that the working memory failure was not a visual one, but possibly more related to the central executive as the task could be seen as a dual processing task i.e. keeping track of the nature of the stimuli and their position. this is suggested by the correlation data, which show a moderate correlation between performance europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 witt 271 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the central executive task and the related visual patterns task for the content of the stimuli, but not for their position. if the ability to recall the nature of the stimuli in the visual patterns task is placing demands on central executive, the finding that the more mathematically anxious children showed a fall in performance when remembering the digits (but not their position), seems to corroborate the finding that the presence of digits caused an anxious reaction in the anxious children, which led to the fall in working memory performance. several studies (e.g. gathercole, tiffany, briscoe, & thorn, 2005; barrouillet & lépine, 2005) indicate that the central executive plays a key role in even the simplest mathematical tasks. even a relatively small disruption in central executive functioning could be sufficient to make a considerable difference to mathematical performance. the results of this study do not rule out the possibility that mathematics anxiety disrupts visual working memory, but they do suggest that if trying to alleviate the detrimental effects of anxiety on cognition, the central executive of working memory would be the best place to begin (see alloway, 2006). research into mathematics anxiety has tended to identify a group of ‘mathematics anxious’ children and has assumed that all the others are not anxious. however, interestingly, the findings from this study showed not only that those children who reported the highest levels of mathematics anxiety showed a statistically significant fall in central executive working memory performance compared to their less anxious peers, but also that there was a moderate, but statistically significant correlation between reported levels of anxiety and the fall in central executive working memory performance. this suggests that even children who are not especially anxious about mathematics do experience some fall in working memory performance in a mathematical situation. in conclusion, this study has begun to explore the phenomenon of mathematics anxiety among primary school children. the findings go beyond those of ashcraft and kirk and raise the possibility that an anxious reaction can be triggered by the mere presence of digits, even if no explicit mathematical processing is required. the anxious reaction causes a fall in central executive working memory functioning, something that has been shown in many studies to underpin successful mathematical processing. this suggests that the connection betweenmathematics anxiety and performance is not uni-directional, but may be complex and bi-directional, with anxiety indirectly causing decrements in performance, which in turn engender further anxiety. references alloway, t. p. 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(1972). the mathematics anxiety rating scale: psychometric data. journal of counseling psychology, 19(6), 551-554. doi:10.1037/h0033456 smith, a. (2004).making mathematics count: the report of professor adrian smith's inquiry into post-14 mathematics education. (report no. 4873). london: department for education and skills. retrieved from http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/4873/1/mathsinquiryfinalreport.pdf suinn, r. m., edie, c. a., nicoletti, j., & spinelli, p. r. (1972). the mars, a measure of mathematics anxiety: psychometric data. journal of clinical psychology, 28, 373-375. doi:10.1002/1097-4679(197207)28:3+<373::aid-jclp2270280320>3.0.co;2-c suinn, r. m., taylor, s., & edwards, r.w. (1988). mathematics anxiety rating scale for elementary school students (mars-e): psychometric and normative data. educational and psychological measurement, 48, 979-986. doi:10.1177/0013164488484013 tobias, s., & weissbrod, c. (1980). anxiety and mathematics: an update. harvard educational review, 50(1), 63-70. about the author dr. marcus witt works at bath spa university in the uk in the school of education. his doctoral thesis looked at the role of working memory in children’s mathematical processing. his current research interests include mathematics anxiety and the role of reflection in teacher education. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 263–274 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.458 mathematics anxiety among primary school children 274 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0887-6185(98)00019-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0887-6185(02)00240-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-007-0112-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.11.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2003.09.029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1003177809664 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0033456 http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/4873/1/mathsinquiryfinalreport.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(197207)28:3+<373::aid-jclp2270280320>3.0.co;2-c http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013164488484013 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mathematics anxiety among primary school children mathematics anxiety and mathematical performance: two perspectives methods and procedure hypothesis research questions sample working memory tasks backward digit recall backwards letter recall visual patterns digits visual patterns letters mathematics anxiety results discussion references about the author integrating turkish work and achievement goals with schwartz’s human values research reports integrating turkish work and achievement goals with schwartz’s human values suna tevrüza, tülay turgut*a, murat çinkob [a]division of organizational behavior, department of business administration, marmara university, istanbul, turkey. [b]division of quantitative methods, department of business administration, marmara university, istanbul, turkey. abstract the purpose of this study was to examine the integration of indigenous values developed in turkey to schwartz’s universal values. students (n = 593) from six universities in istanbul responded the value scale, which consists of 10 etic pvq items (each item representing one of 10 main schwartz values) and 23 emic wag items (representing work-achievement goals). proxscal, a multidimensional scaling method, was used to test whether etic and emic sets of values integrate and form the universal circular structure proposed in schwartz value theory. the motivational continuum of values as a circular structure was similar to pan-cultural results, but adding another value type to the openness to change pole. while some of the items in this region represent autonomy of thought, remaining items diverge. the principle of conflicting values on opposite poles was not supported in relation to openness to change-conservation dimension. these two poles had similar priorities, contrasting with pan-cultural results, and demonstrating a culture-specific aspect of responding to motivational goals. insights gained by emic studies will be functional in enriching understanding values, and contributing to the comprehensiveness and universality of schwartz value theory. keywords: basic human values, emic studies, work goal, achievement goal, intrinsic motivation europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 received: 2014-06-12. accepted: 2015-03-08. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: division of organizational behavior, department of business administration, marmara university, bahcelievler campus, 34180, istanbul, turkey. e-mail: tturgut@marmara.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. values are among the various influences affecting human behavior. they function as a guiding force, shaping our attitudes, and behaviors. although for decades, philosophers and social scientists were interested in values, no theory as comprehensive and integrative as schwartz’s emerged. influenced by kluckhohn’s (1949; kluckhohn & strodtbeck, 1961) and rokeach’s (1973) preeminent studies, and getting impetus from hofstede’s (1984) worldwide work, shalom h. schwartz developed his prevalent theory (schwartz & bilsky, 1987, 1990). the theory proposes the main human values as well as the underlying value structure as universals. with an etic approach it assumes that different cultures can be compared on generalizable grounds. this encourages researchers to test the goodness of fit of indigenous research data to schwartz’s universal values. the aim of this study is to search the degree of fit between an indigenous value research and schwartz’s universal values. first, let’s have a brief look at schwartz value theory. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ majority of schwartz’s studies are directed towards the universal structure of values. hemakes distinctions between individual and cultural level studies stating that, the dimensions underlying values at different levels are not the same. individual and cultural level approaches are independent from each other, because value priorities may show difference in two levels. at the individual level a person may give importance to self-direction, but at the cultural level the emphasized value may be obeying to authority (smith & schwartz, 1997). therefore, the dimensions he proposes for two levels are different. since the focus of the present study is on the individual, we’ll go over schwartz’s theory from the individual level perspective. individual-level values originate from universal requirements of human existence, which are 1) biological needs, 2) requisites of coordinated social interaction, and 3) demands for group functioning and survival. these requirements are represented cognitively in the form of values as conscious goals or values (schwartz & bilsky, 1987, 1990; smith & schwartz, 1997). sexual needs, for instance, may be transformed into intimacy or love values; need for coordinated social interaction may show itself as equality or honesty values; group survival may be represented as values for national security or world peace (schwartz & bilsky, 1987). schwartz defines values as; conceptions of the desirable that guide the way social actors (e.g. organizational leaders, policy makers, individual persons) select actions, evaluate people and events and explain their actions and evaluations. they are trans-situational criteria or goal, ordered by importance as guiding principles in life (schwartz, 1999, pp. 24-25). in this definition kluckhohn’s and rokeach’s views are combined, with the addition of the concept, “goal”. in his theory the concept goal is important because, it is the motivational goal, which distinguishes value types. distinct types of values were derived from the three individual-level universal requirements. from various sources (including world’s major religions, surveys developed in various countries, and rokeach values) 10 groups of values with distinct motivational goals are drawn. these are: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, selfdirection, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity and security (schwartz & bilsky, 1987, 1990; schwartz, 1992, 2012). in an earlier study spiritualism was included as the 11th value, but lacking consistency in meaning across cultures, it is not used. the above-mentioned ten value types are the basic human values of people in any culture (schwartz, 2012), related in a circular structure. it seems as if a basic principle is at work in ordering the values on a motivational continuum. in their self-determination theory, ryan and deci (2000) also propose motivation types, which are ordered on a continuum from controlled to autonomous regulation. introjected regulation seems to work for the motivating role of power and achievement, which have extrinsic contingencies like tangible rewards and evaluative comparisons by social standards. values at the conservation pole seem to fit motivation with identified regulation. wemay not personally own them, but our acceptance of them as important may motivate us. when identified regulations are assimilated to the self, the regulation becomes more autonomous, and motivation with integrated regulation occurs (gagné & deci, 2005; ryan & deci, 2000). benevolence and universalism seem to fit motivation by integrated regulation, since performing these values needs to assimilate and own them as personally important, although the activities themselves may not be so attractive. full autonomy or self-regulation comes with intrinsic motivation. individuals are intrinsically motivated when they derive satisfaction from the activity itself. intrinsically motivated individual wants to extend and use capacities, to look for novelties and challenges, to learn and to master. the underlying needs are autonomy and competence; values on the openness to change pole are such values. ryan and deci (2000, p. 70) state that, “perhaps no single phenomenon reflects the positive potential of human nature as much as intrinsic motivation”. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 260 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the circular arrangement of values represents a motivational continuum. the closer the values around the circle, the more similar their motivational goal is; so the correlation between them is more positive. the more distant they are, the more dissimilar they are consequently thus more negative the relationship. this means, when finding a certain relation between a specific value and some other variable, same relation with similar value types may be expected (schwartz, 2012). these ten value types are organized in two bipolar dimensions: 1) openness to change vs. conservation and 2) self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence. however, there are studies indicating that only eight out of 10 values reflect these polarized dimensions; the two peripheral values are tradition and hedonism (welzel, 2010). the most important aspect of the theory is the structure of values, which is formed by dynamic relations between value types (schwartz, 2012). the motivational goal of some values conflict and some are congruent with each other. for instance, universalism conflicts with hedonism while benevolence is congruent with universalism. conflicting-congruent relations create a continuum of related values in a circular structure (figure 1). figure 1. schwartz’s theoretical model of ten values (schwartz & sagie, 2000). besides congruence and conflict, schwartz (2012) suggests two other organizing principles. one being the interest values serve. do they serve self-interest, or the interest for others? for instance benevolence-universalism-traditionconformity is concerned with interest for others. these values form the social focus pole of this dimension. powerachievement-hedonism-stimulation-self direction on the other hand is concerned with personal interests, forming the pole of personal focus. this interest dimension resembles hofstede’s individualism/collectivism dimension. the second suggested principle is the relation of values to anxiety. some values serve to cope with anxiety while some others are free of anxiety. anxiety based values are also termed as prevention of loss goal and self-protection against threat. alternative terms used for anxiety-free values are: promotion of gain goals and self-expansion and growth (schwartz, 2012). anxiety based-anxiety free dimension calls to mind promotion-prevention concepts in higgins’ (1998) self-regulation theory. it also resembles principles of positive-negative reinforcement. schwartz (2012) outlines these three value-structuring principles as in figure 2. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 261 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. organizing principles of the value structure (schwartz, 2012). schwartz’s first instrument to measure values is known as schwartz value survey (svs) including 56 or 57 items. like rokeach value survey (rvs), some items are nouns of desirable end-states, and some are verbs of desirable ways of acting. respondents rate each value item as a “guiding principle in his/her life”. both in individual and culture level studies, multidimensional scaling analysis are used for the organization of values into dimensions. findings of individual level studies gave the same structure in samples of 67 nations. however, some studies done with svs in samples from less developed nations do not support the theory (schwartz, 2012). reasoning, that evaluation of specific value items in svs need abstract thinking, an alternative instrument, a more concrete one was developed known as portrait value questionnaire (pvq) (schwartz, 2012; schwartz et al., 2001). pvq measures values indirectly through judgments of similarity. the original pvq consists of 40 items describing 40 different people. each item describes the goal, aspirations or wishes important for that person. each description implicitly points to a value. for each item, respondents answer, “how much like you is this person?” pvq with 29 items was applied to populations in which the theory was not supported with svs (black south african university students and ugandan teachers). it was also administered to a national sample of a developed country (italians) where the theorized structure was confirmed by svs (schwartz et al., 2001). data collected from all these sources supported the theorized structure, indicating that pvq canmeasure the ten values (schwartz et al., 2001). european social survey used the 21-item short version of pvq and attained the same result (schwartz, 2012). in world value survey a shorter version (10-items) was used (welzel, 2010). the theory proposes the main human values as well as the value structure as universals. with an etic approach it assumes that different cultures can be compared on generalizable grounds. this encourages researchers to test the interlocking of indigenous value research data in schwartz’s universal values. this is exactly one of the objectives of the emic value survey applied to university students in turkey, the measuring device of which was developed through a series of studies. before going into the present study, development of the value scale is briefly explained. development of the value scale with turkish university students value scale construction passed through several preliminary research studies beginning with two open-ended questions, one for work-goali and the other for achievement-goal. question for work-goal was: “what do you think is the purpose for working? why do people work?” respondents were 239 university students and working people (tevrüz & turgut, 2004). after eliminating synonymous, overlapeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 262 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ping and unrepresentative responses, the remaining 79 work-goal terms were itemized and applied to 417 undergraduate university students and 438 adults from different professions. they rated the importance they give to the work-goals on a 6-point agree-disagree scale (tevrüz & turgut, 2004; turgut & tevrüz, 2003). the open-ended question for achievement-goal was: “what does being successful mean? which achievement of yours you consider as a success?” respondents were 71 university students and their parents (n = 142) (tevrüz, 1995). after eliminating synonymous, overlapping and unrepresentative responses, the remaining 75 achievement-goal terms were itemized and applied to 576 university students. instruction for the achievementgoal scale was: “assume that you have achieved the situations listed below how much would you say you really feel successful on each situation?” response scales ranged from 1 (none at all) to 6 (very much)ii. factor analyses for work-goal gave 12 (62% variance), and achievement-goal gave 11 orthogonal factors (63% variance). second-step factor analysis for each study distributed the factors into three groups. as can be seen on table 1 factors of both concepts are grouped in similar dimensions: 1) normative values, 2) enrichment values, and 3) worldly values. this result of second order factor analysis somewhat demonstrated the three functions values play in our lives as individuals. although taken from the individuals’ perspective, these functions call to mind schwartz’s universal requirements. worldly values remind biological needs; social or normative values meet coordinated social interaction and group functioning. on the other hand, intrinsic values seem to rise from a need of self-enrichment, which has no direct correspondence with schwartz’s universal requirements. table 1 factors and dimensions of achievement-goal and work-goal work-goalachievement-goal social/normative values to contribute to societyto be trustworthy to avoid misstepsto set up a proper family to fulfill religious dutiesto make arrangements for children’s future to set order in one’s lifeto be happya enrichment/ growth values to perform the desired professionbto go beyond one’s capacity to have integrity to be enriched in knowledge and to use it to have enthusiasm to have a meaningful life to be creative to have an active life to protect environment to have a pleasant life to be busy worldly/ extrinsic values to ensure livelihoodcto obtain position in society to gain money to gain status ahappiness is excluded in the present study. bstudents in turkey cannot directly choose the graduate program they prefer. instead, they make 25-30 choices and are expected to comply with the one, which coincides with their exam-score. mostly this is not what they mostly prefer. so, performing the desired profession becomes an important goal and motivation for university students. c“to ensure livelihood” is reconstructed as two items in this study: 1. family wellbeing, 2. livelihood. the similarity of dimensions made the authors assume that, these two constructs are interrelated in that, desire for goal includes a desire for success and that desire for success requires working for a goal. a study done with europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 263 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the reconstructed shortened form of the two scales supported the overlapping between the two constructs (tevrüz, turgut, & çinko, 2010). 1183 university students (undergraduate and graduate) from different regions of turkey participated. achievement goal was measured with 11 items, representing 11 factors. each item was a description of a person which resembled pvq items. the descriptions were formed with the achievement goal responses, which constituted the given factor. participants were asked to evaluate how important the described person’s success was and in whose place s/he would want to be. work goal scale was also reconstructed with the same procedure. participants rated how important it was to achieve the described work goal, and for which goal s/he was studying as a university student. items, of each concept were grouped in three factors. the high correlation and regression values between the two groups supported the overlapping nature of the two constructs (tevrüz et al., 2010). it seems in whichever content the goals are identified, their motivational function takes the same route. one of the routes takes the person to intrinsic or self-enriching values; another to extrinsic or worldly values; and the third one to social/normative values. combination of these two goal-sets gives an integrated value scale enriched in item variety, which we called wag (work-achievement goal) scale. this is the result of an emic study, using the method of factor analysis, which is different from the multidimensional scaling method (mds) used for svs and pvq. however, the above-mentioned three dimensions remind the dimensions of schwartz’s universal main values. self-enriching goals seem to reflect openness to change. worldly goals seem to reflect self-enhancement. social/normative goals resemble values of conservation. although there seems to have vacancy in wag values for the self-transcendence dimension, some emic values, given on table 1, such as “to protect environment” and “to contribute to society” may take place at self-transcendence dimension when analyzed with mds. the observation of nearly similar dimensions of an emic and the etic value studies made us to ask and inquire where these emic values take place in the etic value structure when analyzed with mds. so, whether the emic dimensions and the value types correspond with the motivational structure of schwartz’s value model was the main question of this present study. method participants and procedure a total of 593 undergraduate and graduate students from six universities in istanbul (348 females, 245 males) participated. students were invited to participate on voluntary basis, and asked to complete the questionnaire in class hours. it was emphasized that the participants should not write their names or any identifying marks on the questionnaire. instrument wag consists of 23 items. ten of them are from orthogonal achievement goal factors, each one describing a person with the goal-items constituting that specific factor. twelve work goal items are developed with the same procedure. however, the description terms of the factor “to ensure livelihood”, which was formed and used in the previous study as a single item was criticized as describing two different conditions: one related to gaining money and the other related to family well-being. so forming a separate descriptive “family wellbeing” item increased work-goal items to 13. including 10 items representing schwartz’s 10 main valuesiiimade a total of 33-item valuescale (items are given at appendix a). 10-items are mainly chosen from a turkish translation of 40-item pvq scale (demirutku, 2007) with minor changes on the turkish translation. the participants were asked to answer europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 264 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the question, “how similar is this person to you?” responses were given on a scale ranging from 1 (not a bit similar to me) to 6 (very much similar to me). briefly, the value scale used in this study consists of 10 etic pvq items (each item representing one of 10 main schwartz values) and 23 emic wag items (representing work-achievement goals). the purpose was to see if these two sets of values integrate and form the universal circular structure proposed in schwartz value theory. results arrangement of wag items using proxscal, which is a multidimensional scaling method in spss, we first looked at the spatial configuration of 23 wag items on the two-dimensionally structured value circle (figure 3), then analyzed the combination of the two scales with the same procedure (figure 4). the pearson correlation coefficients are used as similarity proximities. transformation proximity is interval and no restriction is given to common space. simplex is used as an initial starting configuration where stress convergence and minimum stress are 0.0001 and maximum iteration is 100. figure 3. configuration derived from wag items. the circular structural form repeats itself with the wag items. the three higher order factors found in workachievement study (tevrüz et al., 2010) given at table 1, are separated to four regions, which call attention to schwartz’s two bipolar dimensions with four higher order value types. worldly values correspond to self-enhancement, and normative values to conservation. what was called in the work-achievement goal study as enrichment values seem to be decomposed here as “openness to change” with self-focused values (such as enthusiasm, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ performing desired profession, being busy, to be knowledgeable, creativity, pleasure, being active, capacity use) and as self-transcendence with other-focused values (such as protect environment, contribute to society, meaningful life). on the normative region there are eight value items, four of which seem to be slightly separated from the others. these items (set up a family, an orderly life, welfare of children and family wellbeing) come closer together forming a value area related to “family” signifying family as a societal institution. the family wellbeing, and ensuring livelihood items which were rated as a single item in our previous study, took place in different regions in this study. family wellbeing moved to normative-values region, whereas livelihood preserved its place in the worldly-values region. arrangement of wag + pvq items addition of 10 pvq items into the analysis gave the form in figure 4. the ordering of the 10 pvq items (written with capital letters in figure 4) is according to the motivational goal they express. that is; they take place under the same dimensions and in the same compatible-conflicting order as stated in the theoretical model. wag items, which form a group within a particular higher order value, have conceptually the same meaning as that higher order value type. so even visually it is possible to discriminate them to four higher order value regions. however discrimination of the emic value items to schwartz value types is not as clear. in order to specify concomitant emic value items with schwartz value types, distances index (given at appendix b) is used, and the lowest distance score is applied as the discrimination criterion. as seen from figure 4, 33 items are distributed to nine distinct regions, one of which includes hedonism and stimulation together, both entailing a desire for pleasant arousal and the other, power and achievement together, both emphasizing social superiority and esteem (schwartz, 1992). universalism, on the other hand, is isolated; none of the emic values have correspondence with universalism. universalism, as a value type, denotes contact with outsiders and nature, but the emic items bearing just these meanings gather around benevolence (which denotes contact with close others) rather than universalism. examination of these items gives some insight into this somewhat inverse grouping. in all the items around benevolence (contribute to society, protect environment and even integrity) and in benevolence itself, the person is in action for others, for society, for environment or with the self (items 1, 21, 22, 25 in appendix a). whereas in the universalism item the person doesn’t do anything, s/he just informs a “should” belief. a universalism item with action terms would have demonstrated a different picture. on the conservation pole the separation between conformity and security zones was rather arbitrary, because the distance of child welfare from conformity and from security wavers. it is nearer to orderly life (.205), which is under conformity, but its lowest distance is with family wellbeing (.164), which has its nearest distance to security (.205). moreover, trying to provide a sound future for the off spring is more indicative of securing them than denoting the domination of social expectations. so, child welfare took its place at the security region. the same problem arose with the location of integrity. its distance from the values of conformity and benevolence were close (from avoid missteps and trustworthiness was respectively .322 and .389, and from contribute to society and benevolence was .387 and .384) (appendix b). although the distance scores were closer to conformity, the item description (“having principles and never giving them up”: item 22 in appendix a) seemed to represent a motivation type, which in terms of self-determination theory was more autonomous than conformity values and closer to integrated regulation rather than identified regulation. moreover as a value it was more anxiety free than the conformity values. so, integrity is located at the benevolence region. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 266 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. configuration derived from the combination of wag and pvq items (with capital letters). on the openness to change pole, stimulation and hedonism, as a single region, take-in the emic item pleasure with nearly equal distance (.156 for stimulation and .116 for hedonism). pleasure unites these two value types. a new value region being busy and being active join self-direction. self-direction signifies autonomy and is defined as independent thought and action (choosing, creating, exploring), and is derived from organismic needs for control and mastery (schwartz, 1992, 2012). two emic items fit this definition, as one is about being preoccupied mentally and physically and putting time to good use, the other is about having an active life using competencies (items 8 and 10 in appendix a). two recent studies (cieciuch, schwartz, & vecchione, 2013; schwartz et al., 2012) give results of a refined theory of basic individual values, and in this recent model self-direction is divided into two components: one is autonomy of action defined as capacity to attain self-chosen goals. the two emic-value items fit the actioncomponent of self-direction. the other component is autonomy of thought defined as developing and using one’s understanding and competence. three value items are proposed for autonomy of thought (schwartz et al., 2012, p. 25). these items operationally define this component. they are about creativity, forming own opinions-ideas, and learning for self-improvement. the emic values (items 5, 18, 20: creativity, capacity use and to be knowledgeable) are analogous to these etic values, and can be considered as self-direction-thought values. but they take place on the joint region; because the pvq self-direction item used in this study represents the action-component (item 30 in appendix a). on the other hand, emic items for meaning and enthusiasm (items 11 and 19 in appendix a) hold up features such as purpose in life, spiritual satisfaction, wisdom and enthusiasmiv. these features remind growth (maslow, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 267 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1968) or becoming concepts (allport, 1955). when taken together with the above three emic items they seem to be complementary, since knowledge-capacity-creativity (thought) possibly lead the way to meaning. altogether they signify an attribute of a broader scope. so, restricting ourselves with the results of this study we called this region “intellectualism”. further research is needed for clarification. in this study, as far as the motivational continuum assumption is considered, the arrangement of items at the twodimensional space supports this motivational continuum. the nine value types composed with 10 pvq and 23 turkish indigenous items have cronbach-alpha reliabilities between .574 and .843 (reliability and mean values are given on table 4). value structure another important aspect of the theory is the value structure referred as the principle of congruence and conflict. the closer the values are in either direction around the circle, the more similar their motivational goal, the more positive their correlation is. the more distant they are, the more dissimilar they are, the lower or negative their correlation. table 2 gives the correlations between value types. table 2 correlations between value types shsdintunbetrcoseap —ap —se .352** —co .628**.232** —tr .573**.311**.076 —be .312**.398**.220**.022 —un .241**.068.099*.028-.159**—int .101*.518**.128**.313**.262**.178** —sd .530**.064.403**.073.247**.204**.192** —sh .539**.325**.047.123*.050-.124**.204**.400** note. ap = achievement/power; se = security; co = conformity; tr = tradition; be = benevolence; un = universalism; int = intellectualism; sd = self direction; sh = stimulation/hedonism. *p < .05. **p < .01. the highest correlations are between values at the same region or the joint region. the correlations decrease with higher distances, but these changes are not so orderly. for instance security has higher correlation with ach/power (r = .352) than with tradition (r = .311) although security and tradition are of the same higher order value region. likewise, correlation of benevolence with intellectualism (r = .518) and self-direction (r = .403) is higher than with universalism (r = .241) of the samemotivation type. this may be because of the peripheral location of universalism in the dimensional space. in fact, universalism has the lowest correlations with every other value type. the theory proposes negative relation between opposite poles, because the poles of each dimension indicate different interests: individual interest opposing to collective interest. table 3 gives the correlations between higher order value types. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 268 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations between higher-level value types openness to changeself-transcendenceconservationselfenhancement —self-enhancement —conservation .247** —self-transcendence .211**.111**—openness to change .279**.233**.210** **p < .01. the negative relation between self-enhancement (individual interest) and self-transcendence (collective interest) supports this assumption (r = -.111). however, openness to change (individual interest) and conservation (collective interest) is in significant positive relation (r = .233). from table 2 it is seen that only tradition has non-significant relations with stimulation/hedonism (r = -.050) and with self-direction (r = .073) of the opposite pole. it is interesting to note that openness to change values and conformity-security share the highest mean scores, and tradition has the lowest (table 4). table 4 means and reliabilities of value types trunapbecosesdshint mean .194.664.774.834.015.145.145.215.265 sd .371.461.93.76.80.83.71.81.61 —aalpha .660.843.648.735.591.574.722.767 note. int = intellectualism; sh = stimulation/hedonism; sd = self direction; se = security; co = conformity; be = benevolence; ap = achievement/power; un = universalism; tr = tradition. asingle item value style. although conformity and tradition are positively correlated, their correlations with the opposite pole differ (table 2). this indicates that they are distinct values. while conformity includes interest in close others, tradition signifies interest in one’s culture or religion (schwartz & boehnke, 2004). however, just like the other two conservative values, tradition also has significant positive relation with intellectualism, contrary to its non-relation with the other openness to change values. this may be indicating some conditions when social interests are not opposed to individual interests. on the other hand, conformity and security have positive relations with the values at the opposite pole. both conformity and security include value items related to family, which points out to the possibility of family as a distinct value region as was previously inferred for the configuration of wag items in figure 3. discussion value arrangement turkish value studies done with schwartz value survey show agreement with the pan-cultural importance of values (bilsky, janik, & schwartz, 2011; schwartz, 1994; schwartz & bardi, 2001; schwartz & sagie, 2000). this study, on the other hand is done with value items, 2/3 of which are indigenous. these items are derived from responses europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 269 http://www.psychopen.eu/ given to two questions: “what is the purpose of working?” and “which achievement of yours you consider as a success?”. the responses are about the desirable end states. however, they are limited with work and achievement; they don’t grasp life as a whole. in spite of this limitation, and although the majority of the items are indigenous, connection between emic and etic items are semantically appropriate and the value arrangement is in agreement with schwartz value model. the order of values only with 23 emic items (figure 3) is also in accordance with this model, meaningfully forming the opposite poles of two dimensions. addition of intellectualism to the model does not violate the theoretical arrangement of values. the closeness of intellectualism to self-direction (r = .530) gives evidence for similarity as representatives of intrinsic motivation. however, formation of a distinct region may be pointing either to some cultural complexities in values, or to another type of self-direction or another region under openness to change. the relation of tradition with different types of openness to change values may also be reflecting a difference between self-direction and intellectualism. traditional values may assimilate values originating from enrichment needs but not those from autonomy, just because autonomy has threatening but enrichment has some safeguarding aspects for the anxiety-based tradition. culture-specific concepts kağıtçıbaşı (2005) proposes the concept of autonomous-related self as a feature of turkish culture. for turks autonomy is not seen from an individualistic perspective. there is an intersection between autonomy and relatedness. when the self-direction item is compared with emic value items, a difference in the connotation of autonomy is revealed. self-direction item implies an autonomous individual who distances self from others (item 30: “it is important for him/her to make own decisions; s/he likes to manage things as s/he wants”). emic value items, on the other hand (items 8 and 10) imply autonomy without denying or disowning relatedness. especially item 10 is a perfect example of autonomous-related self where the person is interested in active life and in using competencies together with establishing social relations. the importance of relatedness is also noticeable with the family notion, which embraces items of different value regions, like family wellbeing and child welfare (security), order in life and trustworthiness (conformity). repetition of family reminds and possibly gives hints about different cultural variations in responding to values. another cultural prototype is seen in a turkish value study on university students, which demonstrate that one of most important value that is expected from parents to teach their children is respect (erdem artan et al., 2005). smith, türk smith, and christopher (2007) also mention respect as a superordinate value for turks. in their study, it is seen that in describing the good person the most frequently used term is respectful. respect is used in a variety of context, and expressions used for respect are various. all these findings point to the fact that value types may be expressed differently within different cultures. these differences may express the same universal value but with a different connotation, which may lead to differences in behavior. deviation from pan-cultural estimations indicating further culture-specific concepts there is some dissimilarity between pan-cultural and indigenous value ratings. hedonism and stimulation, which are rated as the least important by 56 nations -turks included(schwartz & bardi, 2001) are the most important in this study. benevolence and universalism are rated the most important, whereas in this study the same values are rated as less important (6th and 8th) (table 4). why is this difference between etic and emic studies? smith, türk smith, and christopher (in press) answer this question by comparing it with the consensus of americans and turks on cuisine. americans invite a turkish family to a banquet. here a variety of dishes representing all europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 270 http://www.psychopen.eu/ major foods are served. turks are asked to sample among the dishes, and it is seen that turks prefer dishes that match the american’s favorites. this congruence does not demonstrate “that the same dishes would be the first to come to mind, when turks planned a meal at home” (p. 12). so, the similarity of ratings does not always mean that the concepts are similarly understood. for instance, in this study 10 of the emic items are derived from a study searching for achievement goal (table 1). however none of them formed a group specifically with the etic achievement item. schwartz (1992, 1994; bilsky et al., 2011; schwartz & sagie, 2000) describes achievement as personal success through demonstration of competence according to social standards. the achievement item (item 24) presents a person expecting admiration when s/he demonstrates abilities. yet, in the turkish culture, real feeling of success emerges when one makes the family and close-others proud of what s/he did. giving pride to others is more valuable than receiving admiration from others for achievement. expression of this kind of achievement item would possibly be rated as a more important value, and would not be united with power. another deviation is seen in the relation of opposite poles. contrary to the principle of conflict between the opposite value poles, this study points to a culture-specific aspect of responding to motivational goals. the results of this study show that for turkish university students, to be progressive is as important a value as preservative values. there are other turkish value studies with discrepant results. for instance in a study it was seen that questioning tradition is as important for turkish youth as respect for tradition (konrad adenauer foundation, 1999). another example comes from turkish teachers who also give discrepant value responses. in the study done with 56-item svs with additional 4 items, turkish teachers gave similar responses to autonomy and to in-group attachment (kuşdil & kağıtçıbaşı, 2000). several other studies gave evidence of conflicting values embodied by turks; like modesty and personal capability, being used equally desirable in self-descriptions (türk smith & tevrüz, 1996). rokeach (1973) states that values, especially the main ones, should predict behavior. empirical studies give behavioral inconsistencies with values (boyatzis, murphy, & wheeler, 2000). however there is evidence of joint structure of values and value expressive behaviors (bardi & schwartz, 2003). having in mind the opposite main values the subjects of this study hold as equally important, one becomes curious about the kind of behaviors to be predicted. an event in turkey, introduced by the media as taksim gezi park protests seems to give some interesting clues about this issue, where on the one hand, all the values of the openness to change, on the other hand the mostly repeated concept family of the conservation pole were on the scene. the protests began without any organizing leadership on may 2013 against the urban development plan for taksim gezi park in istanbul. it spread to many other cities throughout turkey, and even to turkish groups living in various foreign countries. however, events leading to protests were various. for example since 2011 the government became increasingly authoritarian and pan-islamic. restrictions on freedom of speech, on press and on the internet-use increased, while the opposition to environmental issues, which seemed to be threatening, was dismissed. what is so insightful, inspirational, and interesting is the humor, entertainment, music, dance, art and wisdom the young protestors put in their protesting behavior, side by side and hand in hand with their families, as if the two opposite values were operating together. unless empirically investigated, linking these behaviors to the mentioned values is questionable, but it is challenging for inquisitiveness! in order to establish more clear results about value-behavior link, the need for mediating factors is proposed. for example, operating philosophy (boyatzis et al., 2000), life style (brunsø, scholderer, & grunert, 2004) and mindsets (torelli & kaikati, 2009) are some of them. these variables also may have an effect on giving primacy to opposite poles. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 271 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion the results of this study support the motivational structure of values, but also results point to some cultural complexities, which should be taken into consideration. wag scale surely has a turkish cultural bias. it has culture specific items for culture understanding. for example, turkish understanding of autonomy does not link values like meaning and enthusiasm to self-direction; conservation-values becomemeaningful with the concept of family. emic studies seem to have the potential to expose some unexpected findings. on the other hand, the results of this study would not be as meaningful without a theory based on etic research, but new insights gained by emic studies are as functional. indigenous studies must be encouraged if new eras of complexities of values and cultures are to be discovered and understood. in fact, there are arguments for making etic and emic approaches complementary, and suggestions about methods to be used (lu, 2012). notes i) the reason for using “work goals” instead of “work values” lies in the fact, that work value is generally used as work preferences. the researchers, on the other hand, are interested in values as principles. ii) unpublished manuscript of a study done by tevrüz in 2001. iii) shortened forms of pvq are used widely in ess (21-items) and in wvs (10-items). morselli, spini, and devos (2012) compared them and found similar results, implying the representativeness of the 10-item measure. iv) the value performing-desired-profession, which is also in the same region, is omitted, because we don’t have an explicit explanation. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allport, g. w. 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(2010). how selfish are self-expression values? a civicness test. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 41, 152-174. doi:10.1177/0022022109354378 appendices appendix a: value scale items it is important to him/her to be worthwhile for society, to contribute to nation’s development and economy, and serve in shaping a peaceful country. s/he wants to leave a charitable future for the coming generation. 1. contributing to societya it is important for her/him to gain status, authority and power, to have a career and be respectful in society.2. statusa it is important to her/him to ensure her/his livelihood, guarantee her/his future, to gain money and reach better conditions for living. s/he wants to be able to buy anything s/he wants, and to be a rich person. 3. livelihooda it is important to her/him to ensure family wellbeing and to assure a better life for the offspring.4. family wellbeinga s/he wants to be knowledgeable, to bring out something using own capacities. it is important to her/him to learn new things, to improve self, and get insight about life. 5. to be knowledgeablea it is important to her/him to get god’s consent, to get ready for her/his hereafter and to fulfill religious duties.6. religiousnessa it is important to protect her/himself from alienation and to avoid an immoral life; to be committed to life, to be useful, peaceful and healthy. 7. avoid misstepsa it is important to her/him to have something to do, to be preoccupied mentally and physically, and to put her/his time to good use. 8. being busya s/he wants to satisfy personal pleasures and hobbies, and have fun. s/he gives importance to fulfill her/his dreams.9. pleasurea it is important to her/him to have an active life, to use competencies, build up social relations, and be of help to people.10. being activea it is important to her/him to find a purpose in life, accomplish something notable in life, and reach spiritual satisfaction.11. meaninga s/he wants to set up a proper family, to own a business and have her/his offspring. it is important to her/him to have an orderly life. 12. orderly lifea it is important to her/him to perform with enjoyment the profession s/he cares for.13. performing desired professiona it is important to her/him to have a good standard of life and a distinguished position in society. s/he wants to have a good career and get a good position, to work in a distinguished work environment and to have a respectful place in society. 14. positiona s/he wants to gain a lot of money and become economically comfortable and free. it is important to her/him to have a good job and position. 15. gaining moneya being a dependable person for her/his family is important to her/him. s/he wants to be a helpful, honest person who appreciates her/his place. 16. trustworthinessa s/he wants to see that her/his children get good education. it is important to her/him to make arrangements for children’s future and witness their achievement. 17. child welfarea it is important to her/him to be cultivated. s/he wants to use in daily life what s/he has learned, to be innovative and carry out things not yet achieved. 18. creativitya it is important to her/him to be a hardworking person, to use her/his wisdom, and to have enthusiasm in whatever s/he does. 19. enthusiasma europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 275 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022109354378 http://www.psychopen.eu/ s/he wants to use and get beyond her/his capacity, and to achieve what is difficult. it is important to her/him to reach the goals s/he aims. 20. capacity usea it is important to her/him to be useful for the environment, to be an environmentalist and a pacifist.21. protect environmenta it is important to her/him to have principles and never give up these principles.22. integritya it is important to her/him to get married and to set an order in life.23. set up familya it is important to her/him to show her/his abilities. s/he wants people to admire what s/he does.24. achievementb it’s important to her/him to be helpful to people around her/him. s/he works for their goodness.25. benevolenceb it is important to her/him always to show socially appropriate behavior.26. conformityb s/he seeks every chance s/he can to have fun. it is important to her/him to do things that give her/him pleasure.27. hedonismb it is important to her/him to be rich. s/he wants to have a lot of money and expensive things.28. powerb it is important for her/him to avoid things, which might endanger her/his safety.29. securityb it is important to her/him to make her/his own decisions about what s/he does.30. self-directionb it is important to her/him to have an exciting life. s/he likes surprises.31. stimulationb s/he believes it is best to do things in traditional ways; s/he has respect for tradition.32. traditionb s/he thinks it is important that every person in the world be treated equally and has equal opportunities.33. universalismb afrom wag scale. bfrom pvq scale. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 276 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix b: distances d is ta nc es 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1. co nt rib ut in g_ so ci et y .0 00 0 2. st at us .0 00 0 .4 48 1 3. liv el ih oo d .0 00 0 .0 76 0 .4 78 1 4. fa m ily _w el lb ei ng .0 00 0 .4 44 0 .4 74 0 .1 94 1 5. to be _k no w le dg ea bl e .0 00 0 .2 79 1 .3 42 1 .2 83 1 .7 16 0 6. re lig io us ne ss .0 00 0 .3 72 1 .7 28 0 .1 68 1 .1 87 1 .8 88 0 7. av oi d_ m is st ep s .0 00 0 .3 22 0 .0 51 1 .6 59 0 .0 50 1 .0 49 1 .6 30 0 8. be in gb us y .0 00 0 .0 79 1 .3 90 1 .3 76 0 .0 96 1 .0 51 1 .9 83 0 .9 61 0 9. pl ea su re .0 00 0 .4 13 0 .2 03 1 .4 72 1 .7 88 0 .9 72 0 .7 70 0 .6 94 0 .2 77 1 10 .b ei ng ac tiv e .0 00 0 .3 11 0 .1 60 0 .9 98 0 .2 97 1 .4 97 0 .9 48 0 .8 91 0 .8 24 0 .9 78 0 11 .m ea ni ng .0 00 0 .5 52 0 .8 57 0 .5 33 0 .6 89 0 .0 09 1 .3 67 0 .0 18 1 .1 89 1 .1 43 1 .4 29 0 12 .o rd er ly lif e .0 00 0 .9 47 0 .0 77 1 .1 94 1 .1 98 1 .3 70 0 .3 64 0 .2 76 1 .3 64 0 .8 05 0 .8 27 0 .9 88 0 13 .d es ire d_ pr of .0 00 0 .1 71 1 .3 68 0 .3 05 0 .6 02 0 .2 00 0 .9 94 0 .3 14 1 .1 92 0 .1 31 1 .1 61 1 .0 99 1 .7 83 0 14 .p os iti on .0 00 0 .0 01 1 .8 63 0 .0 72 1 .7 18 0 .5 78 0 .8 76 0 .0 47 1 .2 14 1 .1 87 1 .5 30 0 .1 92 0 .1 16 0 .3 99 1 15 .g ai nm on ey .0 00 0 .0 46 0 .0 47 1 .8 73 0 .1 15 1 .7 64 0 .6 19 0 .9 22 0 .0 71 1 .2 27 1 .2 34 1 .5 30 0 .1 55 0 .0 81 0 .4 37 1 16 .t ru st w or th y .0 00 0 .9 54 0 .9 24 0 .7 87 0 .4 58 0 .5 03 0 .7 91 0 .0 08 1 .8 68 0 .2 11 0 .5 27 0 .8 55 0 .6 36 0 .9 62 0 .9 46 0 .5 60 0 17 .c hi ld w el lfa re .0 00 0 .5 10 0 .6 70 0 .6 63 0 .1 06 1 .2 05 0 .9 42 0 .9 63 0 .0 38 1 .1 00 1 .5 04 0 .5 67 0 .2 36 1 .1 64 0 .6 01 0 .6 23 0 .0 69 1 18 .c re at iv ity .0 00 0 .1 67 1 .7 47 0 .2 47 1 .2 02 1 .2 73 0 .1 86 1 .2 44 0 .5 60 0 .8 68 0 .4 73 0 .9 32 0 .2 51 1 .1 53 0 .2 28 1 .3 42 1 .2 88 1 .5 63 0 19 .e nt hu si as m .0 00 0 .4 95 0 .6 90 0 .3 98 0 .8 03 0 .7 61 0 .4 23 0 .7 48 0 .3 15 0 .3 96 0 .6 47 0 .4 73 0 .6 08 0 .9 17 0 .5 47 0 .7 36 0 .8 74 0 .8 29 0 .6 64 0 20 .c ap ac ity _u se .0 00 0 .1 71 0 .3 51 0 .8 60 0 .5 40 0 .9 01 0 .8 56 0 .2 54 0 .9 18 0 .2 46 0 .3 15 0 .6 13 0 .3 39 0 .7 50 0 .0 67 1 .3 80 0 .8 98 0 .9 92 0 .9 39 0 .6 65 0 21 .p ro te ct _e nv iro nm en t .6 36 0 .6 59 0 .4 90 0 .1 22 1 .6 13 0 .4 50 1 .4 10 1 .7 27 0 .0 54 1 .3 92 0 .9 43 0 .2 48 1 .9 12 0 .7 04 0 .9 74 0 .6 42 0 .2 39 1 .5 00 1 .4 66 1 .0 94 0 22 .i nt eg rit y .8 00 0 .7 12 0 .8 55 0 .8 23 0 .3 89 0 .3 41 1 .3 12 1 .0 02 1 .6 88 0 .6 41 0 .1 00 1 .3 57 1 .1 37 1 .3 22 0 .5 12 0 .9 98 0 .9 74 0 .3 41 1 .3 31 1 .3 87 0 23 .s et up _f am ily .0 43 1 .8 74 0 .3 02 1 .3 03 0 .5 62 0 .9 69 0 .9 64 0 .2 97 1 .1 30 0 .0 60 1 .2 06 1 .3 19 1 .3 27 1 .4 36 0 .3 20 0 .3 97 1 .4 44 0 .8 87 0 .9 17 0 .0 66 1 24 .a c h ie v e m e n t .9 39 0 .8 83 0 .2 64 1 .9 02 0 .1 15 1 .2 48 0 .2 42 0 .0 28 1 .1 00 1 .1 76 1 .7 24 0 .4 90 0 .8 68 0 .2 58 1 .4 46 1 .2 20 1 .7 71 0 .3 88 0 .3 22 0 .5 44 1 25 .b e n e v o le n c e .4 35 0 .4 03 0 .4 68 0 .8 49 0 .3 47 0 .1 72 1 .1 34 1 .6 11 0 .8 04 0 .2 47 0 .7 49 0 .0 35 1 .7 61 0 .4 89 0 .7 98 0 .6 06 0 .9 58 0 .2 16 1 .1 85 1 .2 66 0 26 .c o n fo r m it y .7 65 0 .5 99 0 .0 24 1 .2 55 0 .2 95 0 .8 59 0 .8 42 0 .0 20 1 .1 63 0 .7 84 0 .9 48 0 .0 95 1 .0 59 1 .2 49 0 .3 85 0 .1 18 1 .4 12 0 .8 20 0 .8 28 0 .8 38 0 27 .h e d o n is m .6 95 0 .7 06 0 .9 70 0 .0 15 1 .0 43 1 .5 32 0 .4 95 0 .7 09 0 .1 84 1 .9 41 0 .4 10 0 .1 16 0 .5 25 0 .2 29 1 .4 82 1 .8 97 0 .9 33 0 .6 86 0 .6 10 0 .3 53 1 28 .p o w e r .2 01 1 .1 12 1 .5 43 1 .9 10 0 .2 55 1 .3 11 0 .3 51 0 .3 27 1 .1 14 1 .4 22 1 .0 30 1 .8 20 0 .1 81 1 .3 56 1 .4 77 1 .5 17 1 .7 51 0 .3 10 0 .3 09 0 .7 48 1 29 .s e c u r it y .0 99 1 .9 33 0 .4 22 1 .2 73 0 .7 83 0 .6 59 0 .6 71 0 .3 34 1 .4 00 0 .2 04 1 .1 52 1 .1 62 1 .3 01 1 .7 57 0 .7 38 0 .4 79 1 .2 05 0 .5 37 0 .5 89 0 .3 41 1 30 .s e lf _d ir e c t .5 30 0 .6 69 0 .5 85 0 .2 84 1 .0 64 1 .0 37 1 .9 92 0 .3 34 0 .3 90 1 .6 99 0 .3 22 0 .4 51 0 .1 96 0 .2 74 1 .5 86 1 .4 52 0 .2 69 1 .1 77 1 .1 05 1 .1 17 1 31 .s ti m u la ti o n .7 20 0 .7 78 0 .9 31 0 .1 93 1 .1 52 1 .7 41 0 .7 04 0 .6 58 0 .3 49 1 .9 56 0 .4 06 0 .1 56 0 .4 59 0 .3 50 1 .6 24 1 .8 30 0 .1 24 1 .8 95 0 .8 20 0 .3 83 1 32 .t r a d it io n .0 45 1 .9 05 0 .2 00 1 .6 46 0 .5 07 0 .2 90 1 .2 74 1 .2 85 1 .4 49 0 .9 62 0 .2 95 1 .4 90 1 .3 76 1 .2 97 0 .1 14 0 .3 28 1 .8 09 0 .2 42 1 .2 55 1 .8 01 0 33 .u n iv e r s a li s m .8 11 0 .9 10 0 .4 96 0 .4 90 1 .9 92 0 .7 07 1 .6 63 1 .7 65 0 .4 47 1 .5 95 0 .0 56 1 .3 63 1 .9 63 0 .1 10 1 .3 86 1 .5 96 0 .5 89 1 .7 84 1 .7 38 1 .5 01 0 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ d is ta nc es (c on tin ue d) 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 21 .p ro te ct _e nv iro nm en t .0 00 0 22 .i nt eg rit y .0 00 0 .4 78 0 23 .s et up _f am ily .0 00 0 .7 36 0 .1 38 1 24 .a c h ie v e m e n t .0 00 0 .2 04 1 .5 02 1 .5 42 1 25 .b e n e v o le n c e .0 00 0 .2 79 1 .9 02 0 .3 94 0 .2 86 0 26 .c o n fo r m it y .0 00 0 .6 43 0 .0 67 1 .2 80 0 .5 69 0 .8 99 0 27 .h e d o n is m .0 00 0 .0 99 1 .1 04 1 .3 80 0 .3 06 1 .4 06 1 .3 31 1 28 .p o w e r .0 00 0 .7 11 0 .1 30 1 .4 83 1 .3 31 0 .1 91 1 .6 40 1 .7 61 1 29 .s e c u r it y .0 00 0 .8 16 0 .1 15 1 .5 13 0 .1 21 1 .9 08 0 .4 20 0 .0 79 1 .3 95 1 30 .s e lf _d ir e c t .0 00 0 .4 73 1 .2 66 1 .5 65 0 .2 54 1 .9 37 0 .9 39 0 .5 19 1 .3 22 1 .0 59 1 31 .s ti m u la ti o n .0 00 0 .4 26 0 .3 12 1 .9 04 0 .2 10 0 .2 49 1 .1 52 1 .5 74 0 .4 75 1 .4 90 1 .3 47 1 32 .t r a d it io n .0 00 0 .6 40 1 .5 71 1 .8 37 0 .5 52 1 .5 08 1 .4 33 0 .7 37 0 .5 00 1 .4 25 0 .4 17 0 .8 90 0 33 .u n iv e r s a li s m .0 00 0 .3 01 1 .4 21 1 .0 45 1 .7 61 1 .0 11 2 .4 65 1 .2 87 1 .6 45 0 .7 48 1 .5 39 1 .8 87 0 .4 12 0 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 integrating turkish values with basic human values 278 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors suna tevrüz is an emeritus professor of social psychology at the organizational behavior section of the business administration department at marmara university in istanbul, turkey. she completed her phd in social psychology at hacettepe university, ankara, turkey. her areas of research interest include human values, motivation, self-concept and sociolinguistics. tülay turgut is currently an associate professor in organizational behavior at marmara university. she completed her ba in psychology at middle east technical university and her phd in organizational behavior at marmara university, turkey. her areas of research interest include work values, work engagement, psychological capital and organizational culture. murat çinko is currently an associate professor in quantitative methods at marmara university, turkey. he completed bs in statistics at middle east technical university and his phd in statistics at marmara university, turkey. his areas of research interest include statistical analysis, financial econometrics and multivariate analysis. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 259–279 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en integrating turkish values with basic human values (introduction) development of the value scale with turkish university students method participants and procedure instrument results arrangement of wag items arrangement of wag + pvq items a new value region value structure discussion value arrangement culture-specific concepts deviation from pan-cultural estimations indicating further culture-specific concepts conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendices appendix a: value scale items appendix b: distances about the authors the contact work primer pccs books ltd., 2 cropper row, alton road, ross-on-wye, herefordshire, hr9 5la, uk www.pccs-books.co.uk edited by pete sanders with contributions from catherine clarke, penny dodds, marlis portner, lisbeth sommerbeck and dion van werde reviewed by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor “much more than a primer … this is a superb practical introduction to pre-therapy and contact work that will be of value to all mental health professionals working with contact-impaired individuals” mick cooper professor of counselling, university of strathclyde pre-therapy as individual psychotherapy was born in the united sates and contact work for institutional settings was developed in europe. this book reflects the development of contact work with growing range of clients. professor garry prouty’s pre therapy is an approach which focuses on clients who are difficult to engage. it is applicable for clients who experience regression, psychosis, learning disabilities, special needs, dementia and alzheimer’s disease. making connections with clients successfully in order to engage in meaningful conversations has thwarted clinicians for decades. this has resulted in clients being psychologically isolated and trapped within their own being. however, prouty’s natural flair of reaching through in making contact with clients has been a major break through. following years of working with clients suffering from regressive behaviour and psychotic experiencing, prouty eventually formulated his expertise in 1994. pre therapy is a person-centered and deeply respectful approach, bringing alive the meaning of carl rogers ‘psychological contact’: this is the essential contact which is necessary for all people to engage in reciprocal relationships. over all apsychotic people are unaware of their individual functioning within psychological contact. pre therapy’ contact reflections are the skills which encourage psychotic clients who are out of touch with their own sense of self, in relation with other people and their surroundings to regain their essential contact; clients are increasingly able to engage in the daily activities of life and at the same time the tenacity of psychotic experiences begins to recede. in chapter 1 of the book, pete sanders analyses prouty’s work but not before inviting the reader to interrogate his own experiences, rather than rely on assumptions drawn from other’s experiences. he states that most of the readers will be involved in some sort of caring work as part of the job or with a friend or relative. the frequently asked questions when trying to explaining psychological contact to novices but even to professionals are: “is psychological contact a binary condition?”, “is psychological contact on a continuum?”, “what is the threshold of contact?” what evidence of contact do we use?” must psychological contact be reciprocical?” more questions than answers come to mind when asking those questions, since the theory is still in development. in chapter 2 of the book, pete sanders introduces pre-therapy history and concepts, he writes a critical essay on the current nature of research methodology for counseling and psychotherapy. most used applications of pre-therapy methods are in sander’s opinion used to help restore, strengthen or sustain contact of people in a state of severe psychotic withdrawal, catatonia and regression; people suffering for dissociative states, people with learning disabilities which impairs communication or contact, people with temporary contact impairment due to an organic condition or people suffering from a brain injury or damage. sanders determines some responsibilities of the practitioner of pre-therapy techniques: assumes full responsibility for contacting clients, validates the client’s experience (e/g psychotic), values the importance of the client expressions, recognizes hallucinations and delusions are meaningful, contributes to the client’s healing process. chapter 3 allows sanders to introduce the reader an other concept of pre-therapy, discovered by dion van werde: the grey zone. she introduced the grey zone to indicate the region where people oscillate sometimes almost imperceptibly between pre-expressive and expressive functioning. in the grey zone, a person’s contact functions are variable, moving in and out of contact in few seconds. depending on the person, the out-of-contact state can vary from mild dissociation to a fleeting florid hallucination or delusion. in the grey zone the therapist must be in full alert, shifting from primarily listening to looking. catherine clark’s experience is fully pictured in the chapter 4. catherine, a state registered nurse and a state certified midwife, who has written articles and given presentations at conferences on carer issues in mental health, invites us in the fascinating and rewarding experience of using pre-therapy work while caring for his son. lisbeth sommerbeck is a psychologist accredited as a specialist in psychotherapy and supervision by the danish psychological association. her special interest, reflected in chapter 5 of the book, are the application of the person-centered approach with staff and inmates in the backyards of psychiatry. she offers us two examples of individual, psychotherapeutic contact work in the grey-zone: one is with lilian, a client diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia who was motivated to attend psychotherapy of her own accord. the other is with sved, a client for whom the idea of psychotherapy was beyond of the grasp at the time, the therapist being the one who initiated the contact. in chapter 6, dion van werde looks back over 20 years of practice and tries to formulate the essentials of what constitutes a person-centered pre-therapy ward milieu. in this approach, the client isn’t reduced to either psychological process and behavior. therapists try to work with both aspects of the same reality. in chapter 7 “pre-therapy, contact work and dementia care”, penny dods gives us examples of approaches in dementia care. at early stages, cognitive behavioral approaches focusing on understanding, reframing and coping with the onset of dementia are helpful, while at more severe stages and at later stage, validation therapy, resolution therapy, sensory approaches are used. the application of pre-therapy to dementia is relatively new, van werde and morton (1996) first introduced it within an overview of person-centered approaches in dementia care, seeing that it has the potential to offer “emotional palliative care”. (morton, 1996). penny dods stresses the importance of the difference between contact work and pre-therapy. for people working in a counseling or psychotherapy role, the contact role may lead to further therapeutic work which aims at a more sustained engagement with the emotional world of the person with dementia. in chapter 8 “pre-therapy and contact work for people with learning and other mental disabilities, marlis portner reviews counseling approaches, enabling us to understand the integration process of pre-therapeutic elements into person-centered care: (1) offering life-conditions that strengthen contact functions instead of impairing them even more and (2) using contact reflections when the situation is appropriate. marlis exemplifies critical situations when a person who is hurting herself might stop doing so if carers use body reflections – whether verbally or by doing the same. self-mutilation for contact-impaired persons often represents a desperate attempt to establish some kind of contact. the last two chapters of the book (10 and 11), written by pete sanders, reveal research in pre-therapy and contact work and highlight future directions for development of pre-therapy and contact work in psychiatry, gerontopsychiatry and suggests introducing this type of approach in mental health nurse training curriculum. authors have come to some interesting conclusions from research studies they conducted: pre-therapy increase psychological contact, but this is also the client-centered theoretical approach, from where prouty started his thinking. secondly, any changes in behavior as a result of contact reflections are due to a learning and developmental process which result in more appropriate relationship behavior, and least but not last, we might speculate that contact reflections may distinctly affect linguistic ability. as for the future of pre-therapy and contact work, it is investigated the practice of pre-therapy in a range of settings, well established now in several institutions in european countries. saint camillus psychiatric hospital in gent, belgium is the best example of the contact milieu in action for people suffering of psychosis. there are encouraging signs of successful use of pre-therapy and contact work in europe: st. amandus psychiatric hospital, beemem, belgium, integrates pre-therapy in individual therapy by psychologists and group sessions for chronic psychotic and/or patients with mental disabilities. at the sans souci hospital in brussels the staff on two wards received training in pre-therapy and as a consequence of the influence of the training, staff were also invited to give suggestions on how to integrate the concept of contact into the architecture of a new pavilion. more encouraging news are from scotland, where pre-therapy is part of the curriculum of the mental health branch programme of nurse training at the university of paislay. czech organization “quality in practice” received european union funding to provide pre-therapy training, including the work of marlis portner (2002-2007) for representatives from a diverse range of institutions on care for a variety of mentally challenged people. introductory comments: special issue of ejop (may 2012) on memory editorial introductory comments: special issue of ejop (may 2012) on memory rhian worth*a a bangor university, bangor, uk. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 206–208, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.470 received: 2012-05-15. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: rhian.worth@hotmail.co.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. welcome to europe’s journal of psychology special issue on memory. this issue will focus entirely on research in the memory field and present a diverse range of studies within this area. research into memory, specifically, experimental research can traced back to the highly influential work of hermann ebbinghaus (1885,1913). originally published in german in über das gedächtnis, untersuchungen zur experimentellen psychologie (translated into english in 1913 asmemory. a contribution to experimental psychology) this piece of work has played a pivotal role in memory research ever since. over a century later since its initial publication and research into memory is thriving within psychology and not only. in the last year alone a search through psychinfo using memory as general search finds that over 400 memory articles have been published in peer reviewed journals on this topic. twenty years ago this figure stood at just 250. in addition, there are a large number of research laboratories which exist worldwide whose research is primarily focused on memory. articles on memory have long been a staple of the research submitted to ejop. given the above, the idea of putting together a special issue of ejop was suggested. the aim of this special issue is to showcase some of the interesting research currently taking place in memory studies. the articles included come from across the globe including iran, south africa, spain, the united kingdom, and the united states, and showcase research by researchers and academics from across the field. a full list of the authors and articles can be found in the content list for this issue and in table 1 further on in this introduction. a brief overview of these articles clearly demonstrates the diversity of topics included in this issue and this range is indicative of the field in general (see table 1). memory research employs different types of methods and techniques including case studies, behavioral methods, and neuroimaging to name but a few. research topics are also wide ranging, and cover research which is both theory-based and/or applied. this diversity is well reflected in our special issue. the special issue begins with an editorial written by eryn newman and elizabeth loftus which is based on a fictional conversation between the authors and hermann ebbinghaus. this is followed by two interviews which --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1. article titles and research areas research area/topictitleauthor(s) an editorial by newman and loftus update ebbinghaus. updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory. newman & loftus in this interview victoria williamson discusses past and present research on memory and music, and directions in her current research. music to our ears.williamson in this interview jacopo annese discusses research at the brain observatory, memory and h.m. brain observatory and the continuing study of h.m. annese estudillo considers the impact pre-existing knowledge of faces has on processing. facial memory: the role of the pre-existing knowledge in face processing and recognition. estudillo polage examines familiarity of false news stories and the impact on truthfulness, plausibility, and source. making up history: false memory of fake news stories. polage in this article hamidi and noorafkan roohi discuss their research on negative priming. manufacture and validation of new negative priming measurement for studying individual differences in working memory. hamidi & noorafkan roohi witt explores whether the presence of digits can trigger anxiety and the impact of the impact of mathematics anxiety on primary school children’s working memory. witt mathematic anxiety on working memory in primary school children. in this article perfect and stark look at unconscious plagiarism and the improvement effect. unconscious plagiarism in recall: attribution to the self, but not for self-relevant reasons. perfect & stark vredeveldt, baddeley and hitch examine eye-closure and “ear-closure” in this article the effects of eye-closure and “ear-closure” on recall of visual and auditory aspects of a criminal event. vredeveldt, baddeley, & hitch which also considers theoretical and practical implications. in this article brescó de luna and rosa discuss the socio-cultural dimensions of memory. memory, history, and narrative. shifts of meaning when (re)constructing the past. brescó de luna & rosa note: articles listed in table 1 appear according to the order they appear in the issue. discuss some aspects of ongoing and current research in memory. the interview with victoria williamson (lecturer and co-director of msc in music, mind and brain at goldsmiths, university of london) focuses on her past and present research on memory and music, somemain directions in current memory research and provides an insight into victoria’s sources of inspiration in her career. jacopo annese (director of the brain observatory, university of california, san diego) discusses research at the brain observatory, memory, h.m., and provides an insight into the future of project h.m. one line of research in this special issue is that of face processing. in the first research article in this issue alejandro estudillo examined ‘familiarity and face processing’ and his article explores behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence from this area. another line of research is false stories and memory. in ‘making up history’ danielle polage looks at false news stories and their impact on whether participants who had heard them during the study rated them as more truthful, and plausible compared to participants who had never heard the false story before. following this, farideh hamidi and nasim noorafkan roohi looked at reliability and the negative priming europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 206–208 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.470 worth 207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ effect with the findings of their research showing correlations between the variables and validating the measure of negative priming. in a study involving primary school children marcus witt explored the impact of mathematic anxiety on working memory and whether the presence of digits can trigger an anxious reaction. timothy perfect and louisa-jayne stark examined, in two experiments, unconscious plagiarism and sources or mechanisms for the improvement effect. following this annelies vredeveldt, alan baddeley and graham hitch present two experiments looking at eye-closure and “ear-closure” and discuss the practical implications. history, narratives and memory feature in ignacio brescó de luna and alberto rosa’s theoretical contributions article in which the authors discuss the socio-cultural dimensions of the phenomenon, particularly in narratives. concluding comments it is hoped that these articles demonstrate not only the diverse research taking place in the field at present but also how interesting and informative this research is. furthermore, it is hoped that this issue emphasises the richness of memory research and its importance in both theoretical and applied psychology. the articles here represent only a small fraction of what is taking place in this field and hopefully this issue will also inspire readers to consider memory as a research topic in their future work. to conclude this introduction, i would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the special issue for their hard work and co-operation throughout this process. without their contribution this issue would not have been possible. i would like to thank the authors for their contributions, their willingness to contribute to the issue and their patience and co-operation throughout the editorial process which has been essential in putting together this special issue. i would also like to thank the editor (vlad glaveanu) and the editorial team for their hard work on the special issue. we hope you all enjoy reading this issue as much as we’ve all enjoyed putting it together. references ebbinghaus, h. (1885).über das gedächtnis. untersuchungen zur experimentellen psychologie. leipzig: duncker & humblot. ebbinghaus, h. (1913). memory. a contribution to experimental psychology (h. a. ruger, & c. e. bussenius, trans.). new york: columbia university. about the author rhian worth is a teaching fellow at bangor university, wales. her interest in memory began while studying for a degree in psychology. this interest in memory has continued throughout her postgraduate studies. her previous research has primarily looked at retrieval-induced forgetting. this continues to be her main field of research although she also has a keen interest in other areas of memory particularly actions, eyewitness testimony and music. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 206–208 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.470 introductory comments 208 http://www.psychopen.eu/ introductory comments concluding comments references about the author dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction: a dyadic model research reports dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction: a dyadic model christine levesque*a, marie-france lafontainea, angela carona, jamie lyn flescha, sophie bjornsona [a] school of psychology, university of ottawa, ottawa, canada. abstract the purpose of the present study was to investigate a theoretical model specifying the direct and indirect associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction in a sample of 187 heterosexual couples. dyadic and structural aspects of mediation were tested using the actor-partner interdependence model. results revealed that greater levels of an individual’s own propensity for dyadic empathy (i.e., one’s ability to experience empathic concern and perspective-taking) significantly predicted greater levels of an individual’s own dyadic coping strategies among both male and female participants. moreover, increased levels of an individual’s own dyadic coping strategies significantly predicted a similar greater degree of an individual’s own relationship satisfaction. furthermore, results also provide support for the possible mediating role that an individual’s own dyadic coping strategies may hold in explaining the links between an individual’s own empathic concern and an individual’s own relationship satisfaction among male participants. with regard to the dyadic components of the study’s model, findings indicated that perspective-taking among males significantly improve their female partners’ propensity to employ positive dyadic coping strategies. moreover, empathic concern among female participants was found to improve their male partners’ dyadic coping strategies. findings suggest the potential utility of examining dyadic coping as a means to expand clinical and empirical insights regarding the links between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. keywords: couple relationships, dyadic coping, dyadic empathy, relationship satisfaction europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 received: 2013-10-10. accepted: 2014-01-26. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: school of psychology, university of ottawa, 136 jean-jacques lussier, ottawa, ontario, canada, k1n 6n5. e-mail: cleve045@uottawa.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. while dimensions of romantic relationships such as relationship satisfaction, empathy towards the partner, and dyadic coping strategies remained predominately uninvestigated until the early nineties, in recent years, the study of such constructs has become an emerging topic attracting a growing number of theoretical and research contributions (bodenmann, 2000; bodenmann, pihet, & kayser, 2006; story & bradbury, 2004). although prior investigations have been conducted which ascertain the impacts of both dyadic coping and dyadic empathy on relationship satisfaction, such streams of research have traditionally been conducted in parallel to one another (bodenmann & randall, 2012; péloquin & lafontaine, 2010). thus, there is a continuing need for research aimed at investigating links between these variables both through direct associations and through interactions between factors brought to the dyad from each member of the couple (davila, karney, hall, & bradbury, 2003). to date, no inquiry has been conducted on how dyadic coping and dyadic empathy may interact to shape the quality of couple relationships. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in an effort to address this lack of literature, the current research aims to investigate both the individual-level and dyadic associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction. moreover, we sought to explore and further understand the mechanisms by which dyadic empathy relates to relationship satisfaction between partners by examining the mediating role that dyadic coping might play in the relationship linking empathy and satisfaction. link between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction while historical definitions of the concept of empathy were divided between two theoretical conceptualizations, there now exists a general consensus that empathy is actually a two-dimensional concept that encompasses aspects of both early definitions (for a review see péloquin & lafontaine, 2010). some early theorists defined empathy as an emotionally-based concept (batson, fultz, & schoenrade, 1987; bryant, 1987; eisenberg & strayer, 1987), while others postulated that empathy is rooted in cognitive processes (hogan, 1969;wispé, 1986). such opposing theories were eventually unified, as the contemporary understanding of this concept postulates that empathy embodies both emotional and cognitive facets (davis, 1994; duan & hill, 1996; hoffman, 1984; strayer, 1987). the cognitive, or perspective-taking dimension of empathy involves the ability to understand the point of view of another person (hogan, 1969), while the emotional, or empathic concern dimension corresponds to the emotional reactions felt in response to another person’s emotional experience (davis, 1983). drawing from both cognitive and emotional components, empathy can be considered as one’s ability to understand and share in the emotions of others (cohen & strayer, 1996). such a definition encompasses a general conceptualization of empathy as applying to empathic tendencies experienced in general social interactions with others, and must be distinguished from dyadic empathy, which refers exclusively to empathy expressed toward a romantic partner (long, 1990). from a theoretical standpoint, attachment theory serves as the cornerstone to understanding the link between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. according to bowlby, one must first experience sufficient attachment security in order for their own caregiving system to be activated and responsive to the signals of distress exerted by their partner (bowlby, 1969; mikulincer & shaver, 2005). the caregiving system serves to alleviate distress and promote a sense of felt security in close relationships, and is particularly important in the context of couple relationships, as partners rely on one another for comfort, support, and protection in times of stress (bowlby, 1969). empathy is considered an essential component of the caregiving system, and serves as an important mechanism whereby signals of a partner’s distress can be recognized, and in turn, responded to (mikulincer & shaver, 2005). along with the rest of the caregiving system, one’s ability to express empathy is facilitated by feelings of attachment security, and can also be hindered or suppressed by attachment insecurity (feeney & collins, 2001). in a similar vein, suppressed caregiving abilities stemming from attachment insecurity may translate into a lack of empathy for one’s romantic partner. this lack of empathy may serve to keep a partner at a distance, and may inhibit intimacy and closeness. as such, effective romantic caregiving as demonstrated by a partner’s ability to experience and express empathy is closely tied to relationship quality and satisfaction, and is essential to fostering closeness and support during times of distress (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). an impressive body of literature attests to the impacts of both the emotional and cognitive facets of empathy on couple relationship satisfaction. previous studies indicate that general and dyadic forms of empathy play a role in predicting relationship quality and functioning (e.g., boettcher, 1978; busby & gardner, 2008; davis & oathout, 1987; franzoi, davis, & young, 1985; larned, 2006; long, angera, carter, nakamoto, & kalso, 1999). specifically, davis and oathout (1987) and franzoi and colleagues (1985) demonstrated that cognitive, or perspective-taking empathy is a significant predictor of couple satisfaction for both college-age males and females. their results also europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ revealed that while empathy predicted an individual’s own relationship satisfaction among both males and females, the empathic tendencies of female partners may also lead to increased relationship satisfaction among their male partners (davis & oathout, 1987; franzoi et al., 1985). moreover, previous research has determined that both cognitive and emotional facets of dyadic empathy contribute to relationship satisfaction by diffusing the negative impact of stressful life events on couple relationships (boettcher, 1978; busby & gardner, 2008; davis & oathout, 1987; long et al., 1999). in a similar vein, research conducted by larned (2006) demonstrated that both perceived expressed and received dyadic empathy are significant predictors of relationship satisfaction among both males and females in married, heterosexual couples. collectively speaking, the aforementioned studies provide convincing evidence for the important role held by both cognitive and emotional dimensions of empathy in fostering and sustaining romantic relationship satisfaction. the effect of dyadic coping on relationship satisfaction the study of dyadic coping has recently attracted a growing number of empirical contributions, as researchers have begun to acknowledge the importance of examining coping not strictly as a general construct pertaining to personal well-being, but within the context of romantic relationships (e.g., bodenmann, kayser, & revenson, 2005). whereas a more general conceptualization of coping pertains to the strategies employed to manage stressful life circumstances, dyadic coping involves both members of a couple and refers to the interplay between the stress signals of one partner and the coping reactions of the other (bodenmann et al., 2005). by strict definition, dyadic coping is conceptualized as a stress communication process which initiates both partners’ coping responses (bodenmann, 2005). this dyadic phenomenon is activated when one partner’s appraisal of stress is communicated to his or her partner. this partner then perceives and interprets the stress signal emitted and responds with either positive or negative coping strategies in an attempt to assuage his or her partner’s feelings of stress (bodenmann, 2005). bodenmann’s (2005) work describes a number of different dyadic coping strategies used within romantic relationships. negative dyadic coping refers to displaying overt disinterest or sarcasm toward the partner’s stress, employing coping strategies which are not authentic, and responding to the stress signal emitted in a reluctant manner, or not believing that the partner actually needs support. supportive dyadic coping involves one partner helping the other to manage the stressful event. delegated dyadic coping refers to one partner adopting additional tasks in order to relieve the burden of the other. finally, common dyadic coping refers to both partners jointly working to resolve the stressful situation together (bodenmann, 2005; bodenmann & cina, 2006). dyadic coping serves two primary functions: the reduction of stress for both partners, and the enhancement of relationship quality. in situations where one partner is faced with a significant stressor or both members of the couple are challenged by a shared stressor, enacting dyadic coping strategies should help to manage distress. in addition to its stress-reduction purpose, dyadic coping is considered to foster a sense ofwe-ness among couples (bodenmann, 2005). dyadic coping is considered essential to relationship quality and well-being, as positive dyadic coping fosters mutual trust, respect, relationship commitment, and a sense that the relationship is comforting and supportive (bodenmann, 2000). numerous recent studies attest to the impact of dyadic coping on couple relationship satisfaction (e.g., bodenmann, 2005; bodenmann et al., 2006; bodenmann, charvoz, cina, & widmer, 2001; bodenmann & cina, 2006; papp & witt, 2010; wunderer & schneewind, 2008). findings from a meta-analysis conducted by bodenmann (2000) provide convincing evidence for the positive relationship between dyadic coping and satisfaction among both europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 120 http://www.psychopen.eu/ community-based and clinical populations. of the numerous studies examined, bodenmann found greater positive dyadic coping among couples higher in relationship satisfaction compared with distressed couples, who reported more frequent use of negative dyadic coping strategies. moreover, the association between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction is considered long-standing, as evidenced by results from a longitudinal study indicating that couples high in marital satisfaction displayed more positive supportive dyadic coping and common dyadic coping than did couples who were separated or divorced by the 5-year follow-up (bodenmann & cina, 2006). findings from clinical intervention studies also provide further support for the key role held by dyadic coping in determining relationship satisfaction, as distressed couples participating in a treatment program aimed at enhancing dyadic coping strategies experienced significant increases in marital quality, and appraised their relationships as substantially improved even after one year (bodenmann et al., 2001). in addition to literature supporting a link between an individual’s own dyadic coping and their own relationship satisfaction among both males and females, research also suggests that for females, both their own and their partner’s dyadic coping influence their level of relationship satisfaction (bodenmann et al., 2006; papp & witt, 2010). the literature reviewed above both highlights the key associations between: a) dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction, and b) dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, in addition to emphasizing certain gaps in existing literature. given that empathy can be thought of as a trait, and dyadic coping is conceptualized as behavioral strategies employed to reduce stress, dyadic coping is more likely to be influenced by dyadic empathy than the opposite, and therefore, coping may act like a mediator in the relationship between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. however, despite the positive contributions of such constructs to romantic relationship satisfaction, in addition to theories suggesting that such variables are closely linked (e.g., bodenmann, 2005; o’brien, delongis, pomaki, puterman, & zwicker, 2009), and research confirming the profound roles held by dyadic empathy and dyadic coping in developing and maintaining romantic relationship satisfaction, no study has examined such a mediational model. in line with these considerations, the present study seeks to address such gaps in existing literature by investigating the associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction, in addition to exploring the possible mediational influence of dyadic coping on the link between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. objectives and hypotheses of the present study the primary objectives were to investigate: a) possible associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction within a mediational model; and b) to examine both actor and partner effects on each of the aforementioned variables (e.g., examining whether each partner’s dyadic empathy is related to his or her own perceptions of relationship satisfaction, and to the relationship satisfaction of the partner). drawing from existing research and theoretical contributions, it was hypothesized that: a) one’s own cognitive (perspective-taking) and emotional (emotional concern) dimensions of dyadic empathy would positively predict both one’s own and the partner’s dyadic coping processes and relationship satisfaction; b) one’s own dyadic coping would be positively related to one’s own relationship satisfaction, and to that of the partner; and c) both one’s own and the partner’s dyadic coping processes would mediate the association between one’s own dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 121 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants heterosexual canadian couples were invited to participate in this study. in order to participate, individuals had to satisfy the following eligibility criteria to ensure relational commitment between partners: a) be 18 years of age or older; b) have been involved in a heterosexual romantic relationship with their current partner for at least 12 months; and c) have cohabited with their partner for a minimum of six months. a sample of 187 couples was recruited for participation. the mean age of female participants was 30.25 years (sd = 9.55, range = 19.33 to 77.58), and the mean age of male participants was 32.52 years (sd = 10.69, range = 20.42 to 78.83). the average duration of current romantic relationships was 6.68 years (sd = 8.30) and the average duration of cohabitation was 4.78 years (sd = 7.82). of the couples, 30% were married and 14% had children with their current partner. the average annual income per individual was $45,157.60 ($49,070.12 for men and $40,991.93 for women). participants were primarily caucasian (78%) and were all english-speaking. procedure participants were recruited through various media outlets (i.e., advertisements in local newspapers, poster advertisements, and recruitment booths at pertinent events). participants registering for participation were informed that the purpose of the study was to examine couple relationship functioning. prior to scheduled appointments, participants were informed of the voluntary nature of the study, the particular experimental procedures involved, as well as their right to withdraw from the study at any given time, consequence-free. to ensure anonymity, participants were assigned identification numbers to appear on all documentation in lieu of revealing information (i.e., participants’ names). testing appointments required the attendance of both partners, and opened with the completion of an informed consent document followed by completion of a questionnaire package. participants were then provided with forty-dollars per couple as compensation. the present study has been approved by the university research ethics committee. measures demographic information — participants were asked to provide both personal information (e.g., age, gender, and annual revenue) and relationship information (e.g., length of relationship, length of cohabitation, marital status, and number of children). dyadic empathy — the interpersonal reactivity index for couples (iric; péloquin & lafontaine, 2010) is a 13item self-report questionnaire that measures cognitive and emotional aspects of dyadic empathy. cognitive aspects of dyadic empathy are measured by the dyadic perspective-taking scale, which evaluates individuals’ ability to consider their partners’ perspective. a sample item from this scale reads: “i try to look at my partner’s side of a disagreement before i make a decision”. emotional aspects are measured by the dyadic empathic concern scale, which evaluates individuals’ feelings of sympathy and concern for their partners. a sample item from this scale reads: “i often have tender, concerned feelings for my partner when he/she is less fortunate than me”. each questionnaire item is measured on a 5-point likert-type scale, with responses ranging from: (0) “does not describe me well” to (4) “describes me very well”. respective items are summed to obtain scales scores (scores range from 0 to 24 for the dyadic perspective-taking scale, and from 0 to 28 for the dyadic empathic concern scale). elevated scores represent greater dyadic perspective-taking and dyadic empathic concern. in a study examining various samples of couples, the iric demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency and adequate convergent, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 122 http://www.psychopen.eu/ concurrent, and predictive validity (péloquin & lafontaine, 2010). moreover, reliability coefficients calculated in the present study revealed alphas of .82 (.79 for men and .84 for women) for the dyadic perspective-taking scale and .69 (.69 for women and .69 for men) for the dyadic empathic concern scale. dyadic coping — the dyadic coping inventory (dci; bodenmann, 2008) is a 37-item self-report questionnaire that measures the degree to which couples support and actively help one another during times of stress. each questionnaire item is measured on a 5-point likert-type scale, with responses ranging from: (1) “very rarely” to (5) “very often,” used to rate individuals’ own coping processes (i.e., stress communication, supportive dyadic coping, delegated dyadic coping, and negative dyadic coping), their perceptions of their partner’s coping processes (i.e., stress communication, supportive dyadic coping, delegated dyadic coping, and negative dyadic coping), and their perceptions of their coping processes as a couple (i.e., common dyadic coping). while this measure consists of several subscales, only the dyadic coping by oneself was used in the present study, as it allows participants to self-evaluate their own dyadic coping processes. a sample item from this scale reads: “i take on things that my partner would normally do in order to help him/her out.” respective items are summed to obtain scale scores, ranging from 15 to 75. elevated scores represent increased experiences of positive dyadic coping. in an evaluation of its internal structure with a sample comprised of 709 english-speaking students involved in a couple, the dci has demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency and concurrent validity (levesque, lafontaine, caron, & fitzpatrick, in press). moreover, reliability coefficients calculated in the present study on the dyadic coping by oneself scale revealed an alpha of .81 (.77 for men and .84 for women). relationship satisfaction — the dyadic adjustment scale (das-4; sabourin, valois, & lussier, 2005) is a widely-used self-report measure of dyadic functioning used to evaluate the degree of couple relationship satisfaction experienced by individuals in romantic relationships. the das-4 is a brief four-item measure derived from the original 32-item das (spanier, 1976). a sample item from this questionnaire reads: “the descriptions on the following line represent different degrees of happiness in your relationship. the middle point, “happy” represents the degree of happiness of most relationships. please circle the number, which best describes the degree of happiness, all things considered, of your relationship.” the first three items in the questionnaire employ a six-point likert-type response format, with responses ranging from (0), “all the time,” to (5) “never”. these three items evaluate individuals’ perceptions regarding the quality of life shared with their partners. the fourth item measures individuals’ subjective experiences of happiness in their couple relationships, and employs a seven-point likerttype response format, with responses ranging from (0) “extremely unhappy,” to (6) “perfectly happy”. a total score is calculated by summing all items (scores range from 0 to 21). elevated scores represent increased relationship satisfaction. the four-item scale has been found to be as effective in predicting couple dissolution as the 32-item version, and demonstrates good internal consistency (sabourin et al., 2005). moreover, reliability coefficients calculated in the present study for the das-4 revealed an alpha of .77 (.83 for men and .71 for women). results preliminary analyses a total of 193 couples participated in this ongoing study. in order to optimize the sample size, missing values were estimated using expectation maximization. none of the items had more than 5% missing values, indicating that this option was appropriate for use (tabachnick & fidell, 2007). six couples were detected as multivariate outliers and subsequently removed from the analyses, leaving a total of 187 couples. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 123 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the means and standard deviations for the main variables (dyadic empathic concern, dyadic perspective-taking, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction) are presented in table 1, along with the results of an analysis of variance exploring gender differences betweenmale and female participants. results revealed a significant gender difference for dyadic coping, as women generally reported experiencing more positive dyadic coping than men. table 1 means and standard deviations for dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction f(1, 372) women (n = 187)men (n = 187) variables sdmsdm empathic concern .741.463.6923.453.2223 perspective-taking .230.214.0316.064.2316 dyadic coping .61**8.976.9261.356.8959 relationship satisfaction .010.802.1917.922.2117 **p < .01. correlations among main variables for men and women are presented in table 2. one’s own dyadic empathic concern was related to one’s own dyadic perspective-taking for both men and women participants, but not to that of their partners’. moreover, results indicated that both forms of one’s own dyadic empathy were related to greater one’s own dyadic coping and greater one’s own relationship satisfaction for men and women. while women’s dyadic empathic concern was related to their partners’ dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, men’s dyadic empathic concern was only linked to their partners’ relationship satisfaction. women’s dyadic perspective-taking was correlated with their partners’ relationship satisfaction, while men’s dyadic perspective-taking was correlated with their partners’ dyadic coping. results indicate that dyadic coping was associated with increased relationship satisfaction, both for oneself and between partners. results also revealed an association betweenmen and women’s dyadic coping. finally, one’s own relationship satisfaction was positively correlated with that of their partners. no correlation was found between partners’ dyadic empathic concern nor between partners’ dyadic perspective-taking. table 2 correlations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction among men and women 87654321variables -1. ec m -2. ec w .12 -3. pt m .05.44*** -4. pt w .06.36***.04 -5. dc m .12.43***.22**.43*** -6. dc w .31***.54***.15*.58***.09 -7. das m .26***.51***.17*.29***.18*.44*** -8. das w .40***.55***.33***.32***.12.47***.17* note. ec = dyadic empathic concern; pt = dyadic perspective-taking; das = relationship satisfaction; dc = dyadic coping; m = men; w = women. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 124 http://www.psychopen.eu/ structural equation modeling an actor-partner interdependence model (apim; kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006) using structural equation modeling (sem) was used to establish the mediating role of dyadic coping in the associations between dyadic empathy (cognitive and emotional dimensions) and relationship satisfaction. both intrapersonal (actor effect) and dyadic (partner effect) relationships between these variables were explored. the structural equation model (see figure 1) was conducted using the maximum-likelihood method available in amos (arbuckle, 2011). bias corrected (bc) confidence interval was used with bootstrapping (5000 samples) method in order to obtain more powerful confidence interval (ci) limits for indirect effects (preacher & hayes, 2008). the fit of the final model was deemed satisfactory (χ2(271) = 381.90, rmsea = .05, cfi = .94). figure 1. unstandardized coefficients for the structural equation model showing the mediating role of dyadic coping in the associations between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction for both partners. note.ec =dyadic empathic concern; pt = dyadic perspective-taking; das = relationship satisfaction; dc = dyadic coping; m = men; w = women. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in order to create stable indicators, items from the dyadic empathy scale and items from the dyadic coping scale were divided randomly to one of three parcels and subsequently averaged (little, cunningham, shahar, & widaman, 2002). as the relationship satisfaction questionnaire consisted of only four items, four indicators were used. to guarantee that concepts were assessed equivalently between men and women, and to assure the nonindependency of data in the model, all factor loadings of the indicators where constrained to be equivalent for women and men (kenny et al., 2006). furthermore, because the indicators for each latent variable were the same for both men’s and women’s portion of the model, correlation was permitted between the variance (error term) for europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 125 http://www.psychopen.eu/ men and women. for example, men’s first indicator of the empathic concern dimension of dyadic empathy was correlated with women’s first indicator of dyadic empathic concern. based on the results of the correlational analyses, men’s latent variables of dyadic empathy (empathic concern and perspective-taking) were permitted to correlate in the final model, as well as women’s latent variables of dyadic empathy (empathic concern and perspectivetaking). however, there was no correlational path between individuals’ dyadic empathy and their partners’ dyadic empathy, as no significant correlations were found in the preliminary analyses. moreover, the residuals of the endogenous latent variables of dyadic coping reported by men and women were allowed to correlate in the final model because preliminary results demonstrated significant correlations. the same procedure was used for relationship satisfaction. factorial invariance across gender was demonstrated by a non-significant chi-square difference (δχ2(9) = 12.19, p > .05) between a constrained measurement model (i.e., all factor loadings of the indicators where constrained to be equivalent for women and men) and an unconstrained model (i.e., freely estimated measurement model), indicating that concepts were assessed equivalently between men and women. actor effects — in the men’s portion of the model (the upper half of figure 1), dyadic empathy latent variables (empathic concern and perspective-taking) predicted greater dyadic coping. moreover, dyadic coping predicted greater relationship satisfaction. the direct link betweenmen’s dyadic empathic concern (but not dyadic perspectivetaking) and their relationship satisfaction was also positively significant. these findings were also duplicated for the women’s portion of the model (the lower half of figure 1), indicating similarity between men and women. partner effects — when examining the dyadic aspects of the model, different results were obtained between men and women. men’s dyadic perspective-taking (but not dyadic empathic concern) was positively linked to their partner’s dyadic coping. alternately, women’s dyadic empathic concern (but not dyadic perspective-taking) was positively linked to their partners’ dyadic coping. no significant links were found between one’s own dyadic coping and their partner’s relationship satisfaction and between one’s own dyadic empathy and their partner’s relationship satisfaction. indirect effects — using bias-corrected bootstrapping estimates, all possible indirect effects were evaluated (see table 3) and were decomposed into an actor’s effect (indirect effect running through one’s own dyadic coping) and a partner’s effect (indirect effect running through the partner’s dyadic coping). table 3 dyadic indirect effects of dyadic empathy on relationship satisfaction total indirect effectpartner effectactor effect outcomepredictor psebbb das_mec_m .044.157.240.003-.242 das_wec_m .852.155.027.036-.063 das_mpt_m .059.085.114.004.110 das_wpt_m .079.071.085.057.029 das_mec_w .450.332.168.144.025 das_wec_w .109.260.350.037.313 das_mpt_w .942.085.004.004-.008 das_wpt_w .143.086.095.001-.096 note. ec = dyadic empathic concern; pt = dyadic perspective-taking; das = relationship satisfaction; m = men; w = women. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 126 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results provided evidence for partial mediation of dyadic coping on the association between dyadic empathic concern and relationships satisfaction at the men’s individual (actor) level only. no other significant mediation was found, although the indirect effect of dyadic coping on the association between dyadic perspective-taking and relationship satisfaction at the men’s individual level was marginally significant. discussion the purpose of this study was to investigate a theoretical model specifying the direct and indirect associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction in a sample of community-based couples, as well as to examine both actor and partner effects on each of these variables. we expected that dyadic empathy would be associated with both dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, and that dyadic coping would also be associated with relationship satisfaction. moreover, we expected that both one’s own and the partner’s dyadic coping processes would mediate the association between one’s own dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. actor effects the present study’s hypothesis on the link between one’s own dyadic empathy and one’s own dyadic coping was confirmed. in men and women, one’s use of perspective-taking and emotional concern significantly improved one’s dyadic coping processes. as previously mentioned, dyadic empathy and dyadic coping play profound roles in developing and maintaining romantic relationship satisfaction (e.g., bodenmann, 2000; boettcher, 1978; busby & gardner, 2008; davis & oathout, 1987; long et al., 1999), and yet this is the first study to date to have examined the link between dyadic empathy and dyadic coping. in support of this association, this finding suggests that the ability to understand the point of view of and to share in the emotional experience of one’s romantic partner are related to the ability to communicate stress to one’s romantic partner. in other words, dyadic empathy is conducive to the resolution of stressful situations. the present study’s hypothesis on the link between one’s own dyadic empathy (cognitive and emotional) and one’s own relationship satisfaction was partially confirmed. the use of empathic concern significantly improved one’s relationship satisfaction. however, despite the importance accorded to perspective-taking in marital adjustment and dyadic well-being (long et al., 1999; rowan, compton, & rust, 1995), the expected relationship between perspective-taking and relationship satisfaction was not supported by our findings. instrument choice may account for this discrepancy as rowan et al. (1995) and long et al. (1999) used a measure of general empathy, whereas the present study used a measure of empathy expressed explicitly in romantic relationships. findings from the current study demonstrate a link between only empathic concern and relationship satisfaction, suggesting that perhaps the emotional component of dyadic empathy plays a more important role in relationship satisfaction than its cognitive component, at least when it is considered specifically within the context of romantic relationships. this pattern could arise because simply understanding another’s emotional state is not sufficient to transcend the intimate connection between partners that is required for marital well-being. it may be necessary to enhance intimate connections through actually sharing in the emotional experience of one’s romantic partner. consistent with hypotheses, an increase in one’s own dyadic coping significantly enhanced one’s own relationship satisfaction. several recent studies attest to the positive relationship between these two variables at the actor level (bodenmann et al., 2001; bodenmann & shantinath, 2004; papp & witt, 2010; wunderer & schneewind, 2008). however, given that much of the existing research has been conducted with clinical samples, this study europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 127 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extends past research by demonstrating a positive association between one’s own dyadic coping and one’s own relationship satisfaction in a community sample. partner effects in addition to the individual characteristics or personality traits that each individual brings to the relationship, the patterns of interactions and behaviours exchanged within a couple also play a fundamental role in determining the quality and outcomes of the relationship (kenny et al., 2006). although it was hypothesized that partner effects would be present in the associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction, results indicated only two significant partner effects in the association between dyadic empathy and dyadic coping. more specifically, empathic concern in women and perspective-taking in men was shown to improve their partners’ dyadic coping strategies. this partner effects may reflect findings that men are usually more comfortable if issues are negotiated from a rational, logical, and unemotional perspective, whereas women choose to focus on their emotional reactions to problems (ickes, 1993; kelley et al., 1978). in other words, there is a tendency for men to be more cognitive and for women to be emotional. so it is therefore possible that, when individuals act in a way that is consistent with their partner’s expectations (i.e., when men embody the cognitive component of empathy and women embody its emotional component), the partner will be more confident in their ability to cope with the stressful situation at hand. contrary to our hypotheses, no partner effect was found between dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, or between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction. this lack of partner effects is particularly unexpected given that one’s own dyadic empathy (davis & oathout, 1987) and one’s own dyadic coping (bodenmann et al., 2006; papp & witt, 2010) has previously been linked to the partner’s relationship satisfaction. these results suggest that one’s own dyadic coping and dyadic empathy do not seem to be good predictors of the partner’s relationship satisfaction. this tendency for more actor effects than partner effects could reflect the findings which suggest that an individual’s dyadic functioning is more strongly related to their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviours (in this case, their own dyadic empathy and coping; péloquin, lafontaine, & brassard, 2011), especially when contrasted with their partner’s relational factors (e.g., knobloch & theiss, 2011). mediating role of dyadic coping the hypothesis that both one’s own and the partner’s dyadic coping processes would mediate the association between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction was partially confirmed in men. the link between one’s own empathic concern and one’s own relationship satisfaction was only partially mediated by one’s own dyadic coping in men. this finding suggests that the emotional component of empathy generates increased relationship satisfaction in part because the intuitive capacity to share an emotional response one is feeling by putting oneself in one’s shoes acts directly on dyadic coping strategies and behaviours. the fact that the mediation was only significant in men suggests that the association between the emotional component of empathy and relationship satisfaction is mediated by different constructs in men and women. in addition, there was no evidence of the mediating role of dyadic coping in the associations between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction at the dyadic (partner) level. despite the fact that both dyadic empathy and dyadic coping have been associated with relationship satisfaction in their own way, it would seem that dyadic empathy does not work through dyadic coping to influence relationship satisfaction at the dyadic level. this suggests that either there is no overall effect to mediate or that the association between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction may be better explained by factors other than dyadic coping. for instance, an abundance of individualeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 128 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and relationship-level variables have been associated with relationship satisfaction, including affect and patterns of interaction (see gottman & notarius, 2000), as well as the content of cognitions (e.g., murray, holmes, & griffin, 1996). other potential mediators may include prosocial behaviours and interpersonal aggression as both have been associated with empathy (e.g., graziano, habashi, sheese, & tobin, 2007; miller & eisenberg, 1988). these variables may better explain how dyadic empathy could work through dyadic coping to influence relationship satisfaction at the dyadic level, as well as at the individual level for women. the present study contributes to knowledge on dyadic empathy and its link to dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction both on the individualand dyadic-level in a sample representative of the stable-couple community. from a clinical standpoint, the findings of the present study suggest working directly on tangible variables (i.e., dyadic empathy and dyadic coping) in order to improve one’s own relationship satisfaction, as well as increasing one’s own dyadic empathy in order to improve one’s partner’s dyadic coping. couple therapy approaches have become increasingly focused on such variables to gain insight into how coping and empathy impact the quality and stability of romantic relationships (bodenmann & randall, 2012; péloquin, lafontaine, & brassard, 2011). if future studies build upon the limitations of the current study by, for example, using a longitudinal design or a multimethod approach, such findings could inform prevention programs by raising awareness about and enhancing dyadic empathy and dyadic coping given their positive effect on relationship satisfaction. gender specific dyadic empathy enhancement programs, with a focus on increasing perspective-taking in men and empathic concern in women, could also be used to improve dyadic coping in one’s partner. limitations and future directions like all studies, some limitations need to be noted. first, results based on correlational analyses make it impossible to conclusively establish a causal relationship between the variables in question, or to rule out third-variable explanations (rempel, ross, & holmes, 2001). along these same lines, this cross-sectional design also limits the causal interpretation of the mediational results. longitudinal studies are needed to address such issues of causality. second, a multi-method approach that includes more objective measures than self-report questionnaires may provide a better understanding of the relevant concepts and further inform the nature of the associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction. for example, observational measures and interview methods would help to expand current conceptualization of the behavioural variables at play in such interactions. prospective studies should nevertheless seek to examine the broader applicability of this model to other dyads, including same-sex couples, which would provide evidence for its validity in a wider range of couples. future studies should also include additional mediators (e.g., social support, conflict resolution, and communication skills) of the association between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction, and examine these with longitudinal data from at least three time points in order to better verify the mediational process (brassard, lussier, & shaver, 2009). conclusion overall, our findings highlight the complex associations between dyadic empathy, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction within a mediational actor-partner interdependence model. more specifically, our findings replicate previous studies supporting the association between one’s own dyadic coping and one’s own relationship satisfaction. moreover, this study extends past research by demonstrating: 1) an association between one’s dyadic empathy and one’s dyadic coping, and 2) the mediating role of one’s own dyadic coping in the association between europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 129 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one’s own empathic concern and one’s own relationship satisfaction in men. this study also informed dyadic associations, whereby men’s perspective-taking and women’s empathic concern significantly improved their partners’ dyadic coping strategies. funding this study was funded by a social sciences and humanities research council grant awarded to marie-france lafontaine. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors thank all the graduate students at the couple research lab for their assistance with data collection. references arbuckle, j. l. 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(2008). the relationship between marital standards, dyadic coping and marital satisfaction. european journal of social psychology, 38, 462-476. doi:10.1002/ejsp.405 about the authors christine levesque is a current ph.d. candidate in experimental psychology at the university of ottawa, ontario, canada. her major research interests include self-injury, couple relationships, and romantic attachment. marie-france lafontaine is an associate professor at the school of psychology, university of ottawa, ontario, canada. her research and clinical interests include romantic attachment, intimate violence, self-injury, heterosexual and homosexual romantic relationships, and physical health. angela caron is a current ph.d. candidate in clinical psychology at the university of ottawa’s couple research lab, ontario, canada. her research and clinical interests lie in young adult attachment, romantic relationships, trauma, and sexuality. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 levesque, lafontaine, caron et al. 133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223890903510399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407510397988 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/brm.40.3.879 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.57 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1995.77.3.1011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.17.1.15 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2003.10.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.2.314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.405 http://www.psychopen.eu/ jamie lyn flesch, m.a., is a current ph.d. candidate in clinical psychology at the university of ottawa's couple research laboratory, ontario, canada. her research interests include communication, relationship satisfaction, and aggression in romantic relationships. sophie bjornson completed her education at the university of ottawa, ontario, canada. her interests include media relations, crisis communications, strategic communications, and public relations. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 118–134 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.697 empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction 134 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en empathy, coping, and relationship satisfaction (introduction) link between dyadic empathy and relationship satisfaction the effect of dyadic coping on relationship satisfaction objectives and hypotheses of the present study method participants procedure measures results preliminary analyses structural equation modeling discussion actor effects partner effects mediating role of dyadic coping limitations and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors relationship between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes: the impact of application conditions research reports relationship between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes: the impact of application conditions agustín echebarria echabe*a [a] department of social psychology, faculty of psychology, the basque country university, san sebastian, spain. abstract three experimental studies analyzed the extent to which correlations between implicit and explicit measures of (anti-arab) attitudes depend on the conditions in which these measures are applied. the first study revealed that the correlation increased when the explicit measure was applied in conditions of time-pressure and cognitive load. the second study showed that, under these conditions, both implicit and explicit measures predicted stereotypic attributions. the third study confirmed that the correlation between both measures increased when participants were previously familiarized with the logic that underlies the use of implicit measures. the theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed. keywords: attitudes, implicit and explicit measures europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 received: 2012-11-08. accepted: 2012-12-22. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: department of social psychology, faculty of psychology, the basque country university, tolosa avenue 70, san sebastian, e20009, spain. e-mail: pspeteta@ss.ehu.es this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. fazio and olson (2003) outlined the explosion of interest in implicit attitudes. by taking recent meta-analyses on this issue (greenwald, poehlman, uhlmann, & banaji, 2009; hofmann, de houwer, perugini, baeyens, & crombez, 2010; hofmann, gawronski, gschwendner, le, & schmitt, 2005) or a review of the literature on attitudes in the annual review of psychology (bohner & dickel, 2011) as indices of the interest aroused by the topic, this tendency has grown even more sharply during the first decade of the present century. fazio and olson (2003) find parallels between the evolution of this new domain of enquiry and the development of the study of attitudes during the last century (zanna & fazio, 1982). in a similar fashion to research on attitudes at the beginning of the 20th century, the first decade of interest in implicit attitudes has beenmarked by a strong empirical orientation.we have witnessed the proliferation of methods to assess this construct. some of these techniques are the implicit association test (iat) (greenwald & banaji, 1995), the affective priming task (fazio, sanbonmatsu, powell, & kardes, 1986), the semantic priming task (wittenbrink, judd, & park, 1997), or the affect misattribution procedure (amp) (the latter provides the procedure used in these studies). one of the first systematic findings of these studies was the low correlation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes. this evidence led some authors to consider the reasons for this low correlation. instead of focusing on the new measures themselves, some authors gave a theoretical answer. they concluded that both measures were tapping into different underlying constructs: implicit and explicit attitudes. thus, we would expect the existence of two attitudes instead of only one. dual-attitude models were proposed (devine, 1989; wilson, lindsey, & europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ schooler, 2000). people hold multiple attitudes towards a topic at the same time. when attitudes change, the new attitudes are layered on top of the older ones. when people introspect they report the most current attitudes. the older attitudes can be unearthed through implicit techniques (payne, burkley, & stokes, 2008). one of the most influential of these dual-models is the associative-propositional evaluation model (ape) developed by gawronski and bodenhausen (2006, 2007), see also gawronski & sritharan, 2010; peters & gawronski, 2011). the fundamental assumption of the ape model is that of the existence of two independent constructs, namely implicit and explicit attitudes. the former are affective automatic reactions aroused by encounters with an object. authors assume that implicit attitudes are shaped and changed via associative processes. evaluative conditioning (ec) has been postulated as one of these associative mechanisms that contribute to the formation and change of implicit attitudes. evaluative conditioning refers to “a change in the valence of a stimulus (here arabs) that is due to the pairing of that stimulus with another positive or negative stimulus” (hofmann, de houwer, perugini, baeyens, & crombez, 2010, p. 390; jones, fazio, & olson, 2009). in contrast, explicit attitudes are conscious evaluations of the attitude’s object. the fundamental mechanism that participates in their formation and change is the processing of available information about the object (propositional learning, pl). explicit attitudes are based on “syllogistic inferences about propositional information that is relevant for a judgment” (bohner & dickel, 2011, p. 398; gawronski & bodenhausen, 2006). the model also proposes a mutual influence between the two types of attitude, such that changes at one level can induce changes at the other level. most of these dual models are based on three assumptions, namely that (a) implicit measures reflect introspectively inaccessible representations, (b) implicit measures are less susceptible to social desirability concerns, and (c) implicit measures reflect more stable, older representations rooted in long-term social experiences. however, as gawronski, lebel, and peters (2007) show, data supporting these claims are equivocal. olson, fazio, and hermann (2007) found that, at least in the domain of implicit measures of self-esteem, the assumption that implicit measures assess associations that are not accessible to consciousness is contestable. for instance, gailliot and schmeichel (2006) found that people can estimate correctly the scores in implicit measures of self-esteem. some studies go a step further, questioning the validity of implicit measures. one example is the study conducted by cunningham, preacher, and banaji (2001) on the consistency, stability and convergent validity of implicit measures of attitude. this study has been quoted 480 times according to google-scholar. most of these citations refer to the study as one supporting the validity of implicit measures. however, as the authors recognized, “the inter item consistency of the implicit measures is indeed lower than that of most standard measures of attitudes” (p. 166) (0.78 for iat, 0.63 for response-window iat, and 0.64 for response-windows evaluative priming). their temporal stability (1 week) is low (iat = 0.46, response-windows priming = 0.68, and response-window iat = 0.36). as for as the bivariate correlations among the three measures, “it is surprisingly low” (p. 167) (mean r = 0.19). analyzing the predictive models of implicit and explicit measures, perugini (2005) points out to the low reliability of implicit measures. the problem of the validity of implicit measures is specially accentuated in the case of self-esteem. as bosson, swann, and pennebaker (2000) report, the different implicit measures of self-esteem do not correlate with each other, and they correlate only weakly with explicit measures. reviewing the evidence about the construct validity of the most commonly used techniques to measure implicit self-esteem (iat and the letter-name), buhrmester, blanton, and swann (2011) conclude, “the most troubling aspect of our review is the lack of evidence that either test measures self-esteem” (p. 375). in addition to the low correspondence between implicit measures of the same underlying construct, we must to point out to the inconsistency in the size of correlations between implicit and explicit measurements. focusing the attention on correlations between implicit and explicit measures of stereotypes and prejudice, the evidence shows that the correlation can be weak or strong depending on the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes 232 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attitude’s objects (lemm & banaji, 1999; nosek, banaji, & greenwald, 2002; wittenbrink, judd, & park, 1997, 2001). reinforcing the latter position, a recent meta-analysis conducted by greenwald and colleagues (2009) shows that correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes range from near .10 to .54 depending on the domains. moreover, this correlation increases as the importance of the attitude’s object increases (karpinski, steinman, & hilton, 2005).the evidence is troublesome for the dual-attitude perspective. we think that there is an alternative interpretation of the low correspondence between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes. the low correlation can be due to methodological factors. payne, burkley, and stokes (2008) propose that the low correlation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes can be explained by a question of “structural fit”. the demands that both types of measures put on the respondents are entirely different. in fact, the correlation between both measures increases in the extent to which their formats become more similar. in the same line, hofmann, gawronski, gschwendner, le, and schmitt (2005) have found that the correlation between the two measures increases to the extent to which the conceptual correspondence between implicit and explicit measures increases. the studies presented in this paper follow this path. the main assumption is that a factor that explains the low correlation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes is the different demands that both measures place upon respondents. a theoretical model which serves to support our reasoning is mode. fazio´s mode (acronym for motivation and opportunity as determinants of attitude-behavior relation) (fazio, 1990; fazio, chen, mcdonel, & sherman, 1982; fazio & towles-schwen, 1999) is perhaps one of the best known models that propose the existence of a single-attitude construct (bohner & dickel, 2011; fazio & olson, 2003). it assumes that there is a single construct – attitude – which can be manifested as behavior via spontaneous or deliberative processes. the author prefers to speak of implicit and explicit measures of attitude rather than implicit and explicit attitudes. the mode, designed before the emergence of the concept of implicit attitudes, seeks to explain when attitudes translate into overt behaviors – in other words, when there is a correspondence between attitudes and behaviors, and when there is not. the model proposes that attitudes are only one of the various determinants of behaviors. the presence of other factors such as social norms against the expression of certain opinions (a policy of political correctness), the desire to project a specific self-image, the need to be accepted by others, etc., also contribute to the shaping of behaviors. in fact, if anything has been characteristic of social psychology throughout its history, it is the recognition of the strong situational nature of human behavior. the mode assumes that sometime there are contextual pressures against the overt expression of certain attitudes. this is evident in the domain of prejudice. in these situations, the relation between attitudes and behaviors is weak. in other situations, there are not constraints against the overt expression of attitudes (ambiguity, presence of others with similar attitudes, noncontroversial topics, etc.). in the latter case, the correspondence between attitudes and behaviors is strong. applying this logic to the issue at hand, we can regard the measurement of attitude as a “context”. first, we must remember that attitudes are inner, private constructs, stored in long-term memory and ready to be activated when necessary. researchers have not direct access to these constructs. they can only assess them through their translation into an external response such as the expression of opinions in the instruments designed to measure attitudes. in other words, attitudes are not recorded themselves, but their translation into an overt response. taking up the idea of the measurements of attitude as context in which a judgment is requested, implicit measures can be thought of as contexts that differ in significant structural characteristics from those contexts in which explicit measures are applied. the two types of context differ in opportunity and motivational dimensions. we will start with contexts where attitudes are measured via implicit instruments. the first characteristic of these situations is novelty. for participants who face this measurement for the first time, the situation is a new one. they do not europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria echabe 233 http://www.psychopen.eu/ know what is being assessed (usually the objective of these measures is masked, being presented as measuring other constructs in an attempt to avoid social desirability bias). we might imagine what would happen if these same instruments were employed to measure attitudes amongst professionals with previous knowledge of these techniques, thus removing the uncertainty. moreover, many of these techniques use reaction-time, thus submitting participants to time-pressure. it is well known in many social-psychological domains, especially in that of social perception, that responses emitted below certain time thresholds (500 ms) reflect spontaneous responses because controlled and deliberate processes require more time to start working. in short, responses to implicit measures can be regarded as contexts where the meaning of the behavior is ambiguous, and there is no opportunity for controlled processes to start working. it is the prototypical context in which the mode predicts a strong correspondence between attitude and behavior (a response recorded by implicit measurements). as for the use of explicit measurements, the context is structurally different. here, the meaning of the behavior is clear and obvious, and participants have time to think it over before expressing their opinions. in other words, all the conditions that allow controlled and deliberate processes to start working are present. in these contexts, two things can happen. one is that the attitude’s object is not controversial. there are no social norms which constrain the expression of certain opinions. social desirability concerns do not exist. as recent meta-analyses confirm (greenwald, poehlman, uhlmann, & banaji, 2009; nosek, banaji, & greenwald, 2002), in this situation correlations between implicit and explicit measurements are strong. in the second type of situation, participants are asked to express opinions on controversial issues. here, participants risk being categorized as belonging to a group with undesirable positions (bigot, unpatriotic, prejudiced, conservative or radical depending on the context, etc.). social constraints are so strong that the mode predicts a low correspondence between attitudes and behaviors. the situational forces are strong enough to inhibit the expression of attitudes. in other words, the overt response (judgment or opinion) is shaped not only by attitudes but also by other situational factors. summarizing, we think that there are several structural differences in the application of implicit and explicit measures of attitudes that can explain the low correlation between both techniques. one is the explicitness of the objectives: obvious in the explicit and hidden in the explicit. the other is the condition in with the responses are requested: under time-pressure in most of the implicit measures and without time restriction in the explicit. we hypothesize (h1) that the correlation between implicit and explicit measures will increased when the latter ones are applied in time-pressure and cognitive load conditions. (h2) correlations are also expected to increase when participants are made familiar with the logic underlying implicit measures. three studies were designed to test these hypotheses. in all cases, the attitudinal object under scrutiny was a controversial issue: anti-arab prejudice. in the first two studies, participants responded to implicit and explicit measures of prejudice, but we manipulated the conditions under which explicit measures were applied. either they were answered under standard conditions or under cognitive-load and time-pressure conditions. in the third study, the conditions upon which the implicit measurement was applied were manipulated. participants filled it either under standard or under “familiarizing” conditions. we predicted that the correlation between implicit and explicit measures of anti-arab prejudice will be higher under cognitive-load and familiarity conditions than under standard application conditions. the studies reported below were approved by the deontology commission of the faculty in which this research was carried out. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes 234 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study 1 sample and procedure forty-two undergraduate students of psychology (29 women and 13 men, average age = 18.93, sd = 3.54) participated in the study in exchange for course credit. all of themwere submitted to the implicit measurement procedure developed by payne, cheng, govorun, and stewart (2005). the reason for choosing this technique instead off others was that we have previously used it in a number of studies on the same topic and it has provided good results. the procedure was based on the affect misattribution procedure (amp). the amp measures implicit attitudes through the evaluation of ambiguous items (chinese ideograms). when an ambiguous object is preceded by a pleasant or unpleasant picture, the latter alters the impression of the former. people tend to misattribute their affective reactions from the prime picture to the target ideogram. this effect is even stronger when subjects are warned to avoid any influence for the prime photos (payne, burkley, & stokes, 2008). participants were informed that the task was about aesthetic preferences and that they would be asked to judge how much they liked (format 1 = not at all and 10 = a lot) 26 chinese ideograms projected on slides. they were warned that a picture of a male adult would serve to refresh each ideogram and announce the presentations of the following one. they were instructed to avoid the influence that the picture of the male might have on their judgments and to concentrate on how much they liked each ideogram. half of the ideograms were randomly preceded by pictures of european adult male faces whereas the other half was preceded by pictures of arab adult male faces. primes were presented for 100 ms followed by blank screens for 100 ms and chinese ideograms for 100 ms. implicit anti-arab prejudice was computed as the mean of evaluation of the 13 ideograms preceded by the european faces minus the mean evaluation of the 13 ideograms preceded by arab faces. having completed this measure, half of the participants were randomly assigned to the “cognitive-load and timepressure” condition. they answered mcconahay’s (1986) modern racism scale (α = 0.87), adapted to assess anti-arab prejudice (echebarria echabe & fernández guede, 2006a, 2006b, 2007), under specific conditions: they were asked to retain in memory a cipher made up of numbers and letters (128xg756ghz) while responding to the questionnaire. they were informed that a memory test would be presented during the session. in addition to this, they were advised to answer each item with the first answer that came to their minds (a “guts reaction”), without reflecting upon each question because items would only be presented for 30 seconds. these instructions were expected to impair the functioning of controlled and deliberate processes (chun & kruglanski, 2006; dhar, nowlis, & sherman, 2000; dijker & koomen, 1996; drolet & luce, 2004; gilbert & hixon, 1991; gilbert, pelham, & krull, 1988; kruglanski & freund, 1983; shiv & fedorikhin, 1999). the other participants filled in the same scale under standard conditions (without time-pressure and memory task). results a mixed model anova was conducted with implicit and explicit measures as a within-subjects factor and the experimental conditions as between-subjects factor. the measure by condition interaction effects was significant, f(1,40) = 13.31, p = .001. as expected, the two groups did not differ in their level of implicit prejudice (standard condition:m = 2.09, sd = 1.94; cognitive-load condition:m = 2.33, sd = 1.68), f(1,40) = 0.18, p = 0.67. however, the difference in explicit prejudice was significant, f(1,40) = 12.72, p < .01. participants placed in the cognitiveload and time pressure condition revealed higher levels of anti-arab prejudice (m = 13.90, sd = 1.81) than those of the standard condition (m = 11.85, sd = 1.90). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria echabe 235 http://www.psychopen.eu/ two correlation indices between explicit and implicit measures were computed to obtain a more direct test of the hypothesis: one for participants under the standard condition and another for participants under the cognitive-load and time-pressure condition. while the correlation was significant in the cognitive-load condition (r = 0.62, p < .01), it was not significant in the standard one (r = 0.19, n.s.). conclusions the correlation between implicit and explicit measures of anti-arab prejudice depended on the conditions upon which they were applied. under standard conditions neither time limitation nor cognitive load the correlation between explicit and implicit measurements was low. this result changed under conditions that impaired the functioning of controlled-cognitive processes. in the latter, we found that the correlation between the two measures increased significantly. study 2 the second study was designed to analyze the relative predictive power of implicit and explicit measures of prejudice. the literature claiming the existence of two independent constructs presents as evidence for this assumption data that reveal that the two types of construct predict different types of behavior (bohner & dickel, 2011; fazio & olson, 2003; lambert, payne, ramsey, & shaffer, 2005; perugini, 2005). explicit measures are better predictors of deliberate behaviors. in contrast, implicit attitudes are stronger predictors of spontaneous, no deliberate behaviors. one’s behavior can be defined as non-deliberate, out of conscious control mechanisms not only because it is difficult to be controlled, but because the subject is unconscious of the relation between the provoking stimulus and its influence on subsequent behavior. uncontrolled behavior has been the target of many studies in a large variety of domains such as the terror management theory, influence of stereotypes on judgments and behaviors, stereotype threat, social perception and correspondence inference, etc. the lack of consciousness of the causal effects of the manipulated variable on subsequent dependent variables prevents conscious, deliberate, corrective cognitive mechanisms to start working. this is one of the prototypical situations that purportedly allows researchers access to stereotypes or attitudes “uncontaminated” by factors such as social desirability or self-presentation motives. we used the domain of social perception as a testing-ground for this hypothesis. the main models developed in the last decades have proven that the targets’ categorization plays a significant role in social perception. the categorization of a target distorts the perception of his/her behavior. moreover, many factors are believed to shape impressions of a target, such as stereotypes that work automatically, uncontrollably and outside the conscious control of observers (gilbert, 1989, 1998; gilbert & hixon, 1991; gilbert, mcnulty, giuliano, & benson, 1992; trope, 1986; trope & alfieri, 1997). for these reasons, this is a suitable domain to analyze the differential predictive power of implicit and explicit measures. we followed a modified version of the procedure used by lambert, payne, ramsey, and shaffer (2005) to test the predictive validity of implicit measures of attitudes (racial attitudes). this is a domain in which one might expect that implicit measurements will be better predictors than explicit ones. we argue that this would be the case under standard conditions. however, if explicit measures were applied in conditions impairing the working of deliberate and controlled processes, we expect that implicit and explicit measurements would have a similar predictive power. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes 236 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure and measurements fifty-four undergraduate students (40 women and 14 men, average age = 19.21 years, sd = 3.75) enrolled in introductory courses on psychology participated in the study in exchange for course credit. they were completely different to those used in study 1. the study was carried out in two sessions a week apart. in the first session, participants answered a large number of instruments used in social-psychological studies. the alleged objective was to familiarize themwith instruments used in the discipline and to collected data that would be used in the practical sessions of the course. amongst numerous other instruments, they filled in the two which we were interested in, implicit and explicit measures of anti-arab prejudice. the instruments used for this purpose were exactly the same as those described in the first study (the modern racism scale). the experimental manipulation was introduced in this first session. half of the participants answered the explicit measure under standard conditions while the rest were randomly assigned to the time-pressure plus cognitive load condition. this latter group filled in the explicit measure of prejudice under exactly the same conditions as those described in study 1. the second session took place a week later. it was presented as a continuation of the familiarization session. participants responded to a new battery of measures covering a number of constructs not measured in the first session. amongst other tasks, participants read a short description of the curriculum vitae of a candidate for a job in a multinational company in the domain of distribution of milk products across southern european countries. the information included in the cv was: the place of birth of the candidate (madrid); his current educational status (a diploma in sales); citizen status (spanish citizen); hobbies (mountain walking); marital status (married with two children); and holiday preferences (seaside resorts). the information used to activate the arab stereotype was the name of the candidate (omar adhulagid). participants were informed that the surname of the candidate was deleted to guarantee his anonymity. participants were told that studies in social psychology have shown that lay people are as efficient as psychologists at forming impressions of other people and that their impressions are close to those obtained from standardized instruments employed by professionals. they were then asked to describe the impressions they had formed of omar adhulagid. for this purpose, we presented a list of adjectives that mapped three trait domains: religiosity, sexism, and non-stereotypic traits. studies of arab stereotypes (dambrun & guimond, 2001; echebarria echabe & fernández guede, 2006a, 2006b, 2007; gordijn, koomen, & stapel, 2001; stangor, sullivan, & ford, 1991) reveal that sexism and religiosity are stereotypical dimensions attached to the image of arabs. participants were asked to express the extent to which they thought that the target was (format 1 = not at all and 6 = a lot): a believer (0.75); religious (0.69); pious (0.70); a devotee (0.76) (religiosity dimension, α = 0.86); sexist (0.65); misogynous (0.78); feminist (-0.67); gender-traditionalist (0.81); gender-egalitarian (-0.77) (sexist dimension, α = 0.77); loyal (0.62); understanding (0.59); trustworthy (0.65); friendly (0.59); and kind (0.69) (nonstereotypical dimension, α = 0.75). according to fiske, cuddy, glick, and xu’s stereotype content model (fiske, cuddy, glick, & xu, 2002), it could be argued that some of the traits included in the nonstereotypic dimension are in reality part of one of the two dimensions (warmth and competence) which describe the stereotype of any group. however, in this context, ‘non-stereotypical’ features are considered to be those not highlighted by previous research regarding common stereotypes of arabs in europe. a factor analysis grouped the traits in three dimensions (the factor loads of items in the corresponding factor are printed within brackets). the third factor included attributes that are not part of the stereotype attached to arabs according to the studies previously quoted that surveyed the specific issue of arab’s stereotype. three scales were created adding items grouped in the same dimension (after reversing the scores of items with negative europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria echabe 237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ loads) and dividing totals by the number of items that made up each scale. thus, the range of the scales remains from 1 to 6. results an initial mixed model anova with implicit and explicit measures as within-subjects factors and the experimental manipulation as a between-subjects factor was conducted in order to test the hypothesis about the influence of the application conditions. the measure by condition interaction was significant, f(1,52) = 3.81, p = .05. the experimental manipulation did not affect the implicit measure, f(1,53) = 0.75, p = .0.39, but it influenced the explicit one, f(1,53) = 5.81, p = .02. participants placed in the cognitive-load and time-pressure condition exhibited more explicit prejudice than those in the standard condition (m = 4.27, sd = 0.70 vs. m = 3.82, sd = 0.64). the correlation between implicit and explicit measurements of prejudice was significant in the cognitive-load condition (r = 0.58, p = .001) but not in the standard condition (r = 0.26, p = 0.18). three additional anovas were conducted in order to measure the influence of the manipulation on the three attributional dimensions. the manipulation did not affect the attribution of religiosity, f(1,53) = 1.99, p = .16, sexism, f(1,53) = 0.45, p = .65, nor non-stereotypic traits, f(1,53) = 0.16, p = .69. the implicit and explicit measurement of prejudice had significant correlations with the attribution of religiosity (r = 0.60, and r = 0.43, p < .01), and sexism (r = 0.32, and r = 0.31, p < .05), but not with non-stereotypic traits (r = 0.05, and r = 0.00). a second order factor analysis was conducted to explore whether one unique index of stereotypic attribution instead of two could be used in further analyses. the two stereotypic attributional dimensions where entered into the analysis. the analysis yielded a single factor (eigenvalue = 1.63) with both scales showing equally high cognitive loads in the factor (religiosity = 0.90 and sexism = 0.90). thus, both variables were combined into a single index of stereotypic attribution. two regression analyses were conducted with implicit and explicit measures as predictors and the stereotypic attribution as dependent variable. the first was performed including only participants placed in the “standard” condition. although the effect of the predictors was significant (r2 = 0.25, f(2,24) = 3.92, p = .03), only the impact of the implicit measure (β = 0.51, p = .01) was significant (β explicit = 0.13, p = .46). the situation changed in the time-pressure and cognitive-load condition. here, both implicit (β = 0.42, p = .01) and explicit (β = 0.56, p ≤ .01) measures had significant effects on stereotypic attribution. two mediational analyses were conducted to see whether there was any indirect effect of implicit measures on attribution through explicit measures and of explicit measures through implicit ones. bootstraps confidence intervals (cci) were used to conduct the analyses. bootstraps revealed an indirect effect of the implicit measure on stereotypic attribution through the explicit measure (cci: 0.1237, 0.6424) but not of the explicit measure on attribution through the implicit measure (cci: -0.1272, 0.0792). conclusions the results of this second study reinforced those of the first study. the correlation between implicit and explicit measures was significantly affected by the conditions in which they were applied. in standard conditions, the correlation was not significant, but it was significant in the cognitive-load and time-pressure conditions. furthermore, while under standard conditions only implicit measures predicted the application of stereotypic traits to the target, both implicit and explicit measures affected stereotypic attribution under cognitive-load and time-pressure conditions. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes 238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study 3 this study approached the topic from a different perspective.we have said above that if we regard themeasurement of attitudes as contexts in which an overt response is required, there are fundamental structural differences between contexts in which explicit or implicit measures are employed. whereas questionnaires and scales in general are familiar instruments for most participants, and they can easily guess which attitudes are under scrutiny, this is not the case when implicit measures are applied. in the first place, participants are unfamiliar with these techniques. in other words, uncertainty is the feature that can best define the situation. what would happen if participants were familiar with these techniques as they are familiar with questionnaires? this study was designed to answer this question. sample and procedure fifty undergraduate students (31 women and 19 men, average age = 19.1 years, sd = 3.54) took part in this study. they were completely different from those who participated in the previous two studies. they were randomly assigned to one of the two following conditions. in the standard condition, they filled in the two instruments used in the previous two studies under standard instructions. as in the two previous studies, we assessed attitudes towards arabs. the “familiarization” condition was different. the 25 students placed in this condition received a two-hour lesson about implicit attitudes. in the first hour, they were informed about current dominant theories of implicit and explicit attitudes, their formation and change, and their influence upon our thoughts, feeling and behaviors. the second hour lesson aimed at familiarizing participants with two techniques of measurement of implicit attitudes, the iat and the technique based on the misattribution effect (chinese ideograms). the logic underlying both methods was explained, and the instruments presented. after the explanation, they responded to two versions of the amp, one designed to measure implicit attitude towards old people (here ideograms were preceded either by pictures depicting an adult male or an old male), and towards gender (ideograms were preceded by pictures of white adult males or females). the evaluation session took place a week later without previous warning that this would happen. results a mixed model anova, with implicit and explicit measures as within-subjects factor and the experimental manipulation as a between-subjects factor was conducted. the measure by condition interaction effect was significant, f(1,48) = 4.10, p ≤ .05. the groups differed in the implicit measurement, f(1,49) = 8.16, p < .01, but not in the explicit one, f(1,49) = 0.02, p = .79. participants placed in the “familiarization” condition had lower scores in the implicit measure (m = 0.42, sd = 1.44 vs. m = 1.48, sd = 1.15). separate correlations between implicit and explicit measures for each condition were computed. the correlation was significant in the familiarization condition (r = 0.56, p = .009) but not in the standard condition (r = 0.24, p = .21). conclusions this third study supported and reinforced the findings of the two previous studies. we found that implicit and explicit measures did not correlate under standard conditions. however, this changed when the conditions of application were modified. the correlation between implicit and explicit measures becomes significant after familiarizing participants with implicit measures and the theoretical logic underlying their design. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria echabe 239 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion one of the topics of socio-psychological enquiry that has generated the most interest during the last decade is that of the implicit measures of attitudes (bohner & dickel, 2011; greenwald, poehlman, uhlmann, & banaji, 2009; hofmann, de houwer, perugini, baeyens, & crombez, 2010; hofmann, gawronski, gschwendner, le, & schmitt, 2005). spurred on by the development of techniques to assess unconscious structures, social psychology has witnessed the proliferation of these types of measures. amongst these, we can single out the implicit association test (iat) (greenwald & banaji, 1995), the affective priming task (fazio, sanbonmatsu, powell, & kardes, 1986), the semantic priming task (wittenbrink, judd, & park, 1997), or the affect misattribution procedure (amp). these studies found low correlations between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes. based on these findings, some authors concluded that measures tapped two independent constructs: implicit and explicit attitudes. dual-attitude models were proposed (devine, 1989; gawronski & bodenhausen, 2006, 2007; gawronski & sritharan, 2010; peters & gawronski, 2011; wilson, lindsey, & schooler, 2000). although appealing, these models are not exempt of contradictory evidence. this is especially true in the domain of implicit self-esteem (buhrmester, blanton, & swann, 2011). there is significant evidence that the relations between both measures are strongly affected by methodological factors (payne, burkley, & stokes, 2008). based on the concept of structural-fit proposed by payne, burkley, and stokes (2008) we hypothesized that the low correlation between implicit and explicit measures can be explained by structural differences in the way in which both are applied. explicit and implicit measurements of prejudice represent contexts that differ significantly in certain structural features, namely, clarity and time for responding. from the participants’ point of view, implicit measures are ambiguous: participants do not know what is being measured (the construct under scrutiny is masked) and respond under time-pressure. they have to answer faster than the threshold necessary for controlled and deliberate cognitive processes to start working. in these conditions, the potential effects of situational factors on the overt response are reduced almost to zero. the main determinants of behavior that are allowed to function are attitudes. explicit measures tend to be unambiguous and not time-limited. what is being measured is usually quite obvious and participants have time to think their responses over before translating them into an overt opinion. the condition is optimal for allowing situational factors such as social norms against the expression of certain opinions or self-presentation motives to affect responses in addition to attitudes. summarizing this thesis, what differentiates explicit and implicit methods of measuring attitudes is how they define the measurement context. going one step further, we surmise that if we redefine the structural characteristics in which explicit and implicit measurements are applied, constraining the intervention of controlled and deliberate cognitive processes through cognitive load and time pressure, or familiarizing participants with implicit techniques, then the results obtained by the two methods of measurement will be similar. the results of our studies supported our hypotheses. the first study showed that when measured under conditions that impair the functioning of controlled and deliberate processes, the correlation between implicit and explicit measures of anti-arab prejudice was significant, but the correlation was not significant when assessed under standard conditions that allow controlled processes to start working. the second study revealed that when measured under standard conditions, the implicit measure of prejudice, but not the explicit one, predicted the attribution of stereotypical traits. however, this changed when the explicit measure was applied under conditions designed to impair the functioning of controlled processes (time-pressure and cognitive load). here, the explicit measurement’s predictive power was equal to that of the implicit measure. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes 240 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results from the third study were consistent with the results from the first two studies. when the unfamiliarity inherent to implicit measures are abolished by informing participants about the theories that support implicit techniques and the scoring procedures, scores collected from implicit and explicit measures strongly correlate with each other. notwithstanding the popularity of dual-processes models in social psychology in general, and in the domain of attitudes in particular, evidence is accumulating that call thesemodels into question (bosson, swann, & pennebaker, 2000; buhrmester, blanton, & swann, 2011; cunningham, preacher, & banaji; 2001; gawronski, lebel, & peters, 2007; olson, fazio, & hermann, 2007; payne, burkley, & stokes, 2008; perugini, 2005). our results leave a question unanswered: are dual-attitude models theoretical ad-hoc constructions designed to explain empirical artifacts? the fact that familiarizing participants with theories about implicit attitudes and their corresponding measurement techniques strongly increases the correlation of the scores collected through both techniques support this interpretation. a characteristic of modern times is that scientific findings, sooner or later, are shared and become part of folk knowledge. the classic study of moscovici (1961) about the spread and use of psychoanalysis amongst lay french people illustrates this process of popularization. the third study can be regarded as a micro-representation of this process of popularization and its effect on the theoretical ground. it seems that an important condition for the support of dual-attitude models is participants’ ignorance of the constructs under scrutiny and the techniques used to measure them. however, what are now new theories about implicit processes, reserved only for specialists, will sooner or later become common knowledge. one of the advantages of single construct models is that they are more parsimonious. moreover, the model of attitudes that has been built up over a century or research can explain the divergences between different methods of measurement when the contexts of measurement differ without the need to introduce new constructs. in addition to this theoretical advantage, there is another practical consideration. most implicit methods have a restricted range of applicability. by their nature, they are difficult to export outside the laboratory. one limitation that can undermine our conclusions is the employment of a single measure to tap implicit attitudes in the three studies presented above. it is well known that there are several different measures to assess implicit attitudes such as the implicit association test (iat) (greenwald & banaji, 1995), the affective priming task (fazio, sanbonmatsu, powell, & kardes, 1986), the semantic priming task (wittenbrink, judd, & park, 1997), or the affect misattribution procedure (amp) (procedure used in our research). it has also been found that the structural characteristics of these techniques are so different that correlations between them are low, which is odd given that they are supposed to tap into the same underlying construct (bosson, swann, & pennebaker, 2000; fazio & olson, 2003). it is for this reason that replications of the studies presented in this paper are necessary which utilize other techniques to measure implicit attitudes in order to confirm the validity of these results. another potential limitation is that the order of presentation of implicit and explicit measures was not counter-balanced. the reason for this decision was that, while the objective of the implicit measures was hidden, except for the third study, this was not the case of explicit measures. thus, answering first the explicit measures could have provided participants with clues regarding the objective of the next implicit ones. given the small size of the sample, we took the decision of presenting first the explicit measures. however, counter-balancing the presentation will add additional strength to future replications of these studies. finally, another limitation of our studies is represented by the very small sample size that is biased in favor of women. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria 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(1997). evidence for racial prejudice at the implicit level and its relationship with questionnaire measures. journal of personality and social psychology, 72, 262-274. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.262 zanna, m. p., & fazio, r. h. (1982). the attitude–behavior relation: moving toward a third generation of research. in m. p. zanna, e. t. higgins, & c. p. herman (eds.),consistency in social behavior: the ontario symposium (vol. 2, pp. 283–301). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. about the author agustin echebarria echabe is professor of social psychology at the university of the basque country. teacher of social psychology since 1985, he is specialized on studies about stereotypes, prejudice, social representations, and gender identity. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 231–245 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.544 echebarria echabe 245 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/soco.1991.9.4.359 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.4.662 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.93.3.239 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.1.101 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jesp.2000.1456 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.2.262 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relation between implicit and explicit measures of attitudes (introduction) study 1 sample and procedure results conclusions study 2 procedure and measurements results conclusions study 3 sample and procedure results conclusions discussion references about the author evidence of an alternative currency for altruism in laboratory-based experiments research reports evidence of an alternative currency for altruism in laboratory-based experiments daniel farrelly*a, emma moanb, kristi whiteb, sarah youngb [a] institute of health and society, university of worcester, worcester, united kingdom. [b]department of psychology, university of sunderland, sunderland, united kingdom. abstract research shows that altruistic behaviours arise in varying social situations in line with different theories of causes of such behaviours. however most research uses financial costs only, which makes our understanding of altruism currently limited. this study presents findings of three experiments that use a novel and simple laboratory-based task that measures altruism based on the amount of time participants are willing to spend as a cost to help others. this task assessed two specific theories; altruistic punishment (experiments 1 & 2) and empathy-altruism (experiment 3). all experiments showed that the task was successful, as participants were more likely to altruistically punish violators of social contracts than other scenarios (experiments 1 and 2), and also incur more costs to behave altruistically towards others when feeling empathic than different emotional states (experiment 3). these results provide clear support for the use and value of this novel task in future research. keywords: altruism, cooperation, punishment, empathy, experimental europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 received: 2014-08-21. accepted: 2014-12-19. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: institute of health and society, university of worcester, henwick grove, worcester, wr2 6aj, united kingdom. tel: +441905 542345. e-mail: d.farrelly@worc.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction social behaviours such as cooperation or altruism in humans have been hard to explain, a fact that darwin (1859) recognised when he stated that its existence was problematic to his theory of natural selection. since this time however, different theoretical explanations of how altruistici behaviours could have evolved have been developed, such as kin selection (hamilton, 1964a,b), reciprocal altruism (trivers, 1971), indirect reciprocity (nowak & sigmund, 1998), competitive altruism (roberts, 1998), costly signalling (gintis, smith, & bowles, 2001) and altruistic punishment (fehr & gächter, 2002). these theories identify the social conditions under which altruism can be an adaptive behaviour in humans, and explanations such as the empathy-altruism hypothesis (batson et al., 1991) offer proximate mechanisms by which it arises. importantly, experimental research with humans has generally supported the above theories and thus helped our understanding of altruistic behaviour (e.g. burnstein, crandall, & kitayama, 1994; farrelly, lazarus, & roberts, 2007; fehr & gächter, 2002; gurven, 2004; sylwester & roberts, 2010; wedekind & milinski, 2000). however europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the vast majority of such studies rely on using economic games such as the prisoners dilemma and public goods games, with a willingness (or lack of) to incur financial costs being the main currency with which altruism is revealed. this narrow view of altruism ignores the fact that costs can be in different currencies and as a result most of the support for the above theories can only really conclude that such theories can explain financial altruism. therefore further examination of alternative types of costs in altruism is necessary for a fuller and detailed understanding. this will be particularly true for costs high in ecological validity, such as time and energy, which would have universal and equivalent understanding across all populations. previous research within the experimental social psychology literature have attempted to use measures of intention to help in a number of different ways, such as through willingness to volunteer or theoretically offering help (garcia, weaver, moskowitz, & darley, 2002; nelson & norton, 2005) or number of charity pamphlets taken to potentially redistribute (pichon, boccato, & saroglou, 2007). however there is a difference between the intention to help and actually incurring costs to help, which is particularly pertinent from an evolutionary perspective where the latter is the only reliable indicator of altruistic behaviour. some studies have successfully managed to assess real-life altruistic behaviour such as likelihood of helping others pick up dropped pens (macrae & johnston, 1998) or books (scaffidi abbate, ruggieri, & boca, 2013), using painful exercises (madsen et al., 2007), responses to email requests for help (oates &wilson, 2002), and hunting in different cultures (e.g. smith, bird, & bird, 2003). these novel approaches however can be difficult to replicate in more controlled laboratory-based experiments (because of issues such as costs, ethical content, and facilities). therefore there is a need to develop tasks that can be reliably used in future experimental psychology research to measure how willing a participant is to incur a cost, other than a financial one, to directly benefit another. as a result, we present here the results of three experiments that utilised such a task. these experiments used the task to see if participants’ altruistic behaviour supported predictions from altruistic punishment (experiments 1 and 2) and empathy-altruism (experiment 3). below we provide further details of each experiment separately, and also of the altruistic task that each used. experiment 1 fehr and gächter (2002) have shown that when given the ability, humans will incur a cost to punish another individual who has cheated in a public goods game. as a result, they suggest that the presence of ‘altruistic punishers’ in populations can increase overall levels of altruism in different social groups. furthermore fehr and gächter (2002) suggest that individuals are motivated to altruistically punish others due to negative emotions, as participants presented with imaginary scenarios of the game felt more anger towards imaginary cheaters than imaginary cooperators. according to fehr and gächter (2002), this emotional response is the proximate mechanism that leads to individuals willing to incur costs to punish cheaters. this is even true if they will not interact with the cheater in the future, and therefore would not directly benefit from the reforming power of the punishment, which can turn cheats into cooperators. as a result, this experiment aimed to see if the motivation individuals have to altruistically punish cheats extends to them incurring costs other than financial to punish in imagined scenarios. this was explored using a novel, non-financial altruistic task, to also examine its validity as a measure of altruistic behaviour in an experimental setting. in this task, hypothetical scenarios were presented to participants, and they were able to respond to this to affect the scenario’s outcome. the level of their response varied according to how much time and effort they europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 farrelly, moan, white et al. 101 http://www.psychopen.eu/ were willing to performii. as a result, it was predicted here that individuals would be more altruistic (i.e. would incur more costs through increased time and effort) to punish individuals in scenarios who had violated social contracts than when they violated in more neutral ways. methods participants — sixty-eight participants took part in this experiment. these participants and those in subsequent experiments were mainly undergraduate students who participated for course credit, and all experiments received ethical approval from the university’s ethics committee. materials — the altruistic task. this was a pen and paper task, where participants were presented with six scenarios that described a particular event where a negative outcome had occurred. three of these scenarios involved a violation of a social contract by an individual (e.g. “you see a person being pulled over by the police for using a mobile phone whilst driving”), and the other three did not (e.g. “you go to your local cinema and the details advertised about the films are incorrect”). after each scenario, participants were able to decide which actions they would like to happen in response to the scenario (e.g. the size of fine they driver received, or the length of time before returning to the cinema). each action varied on a ten-point scale (e.g. £0 £90 in £10 increments for the fine, and 0 – 9 months in 1 month increments before returning to the cinema), and participants could select which point (i.e. the size of the punishment) they wished to occur for each scenario. table 1 summarises the different scenarios and responses used in this experiment. table 1 details of the different scenarios and their response used in experiment 1 responsescenario social contracts length of time before the waiter serves this customer again (0 minutes – 9 minutes, 1 minute increments) observing a waiter being verbally abused by another customer in a restaurant size of fine driver receives (£0 £90, £10 increments)see driver pulled over by the police for using mobile phone number of places individual is put back in queue (0 – 9 places, 1 place increments) see individual pushing in front of queue to use cash machine neutral length of time before returning to cinema (0 – 9 months. 1 month increments) local cinema advertising incorrect details about film times length of time willing to stay with telephone company (9 – 0 months, 1 month increments) landline telephone broken due to bad weather length of time before returning to shop (0 – 9 months, 1 month increments) item of clothing incorrectly priced in sale, although shop accept labelled sale price in order for the size of response to be altruistic (i.e. incur a cost), participants were required to complete a short puzzle for each point on the scale up to their chosen response. these puzzles were simple but time-consuming, and were in six categories; writing numbers in word form (e.g. 39,444), listing countries beginning with a particular letter (e.g. c), making six-letter words using letters from a random string of letters, listing words with ‘oo’ in them, solving six-letter anagrams (e.g. curees), and mental arithmetic (e.g. 6+[8x9]). therefore, if for example in the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 an alternative currency for altruism 102 http://www.psychopen.eu/ driver/mobile phone scenario a participant wished the driver to be fined £40, they would need to incur the costs of completing five puzzles, as £40 is the fifth point on the scale of £0 £90. as a result, this task represents a reliable measure of altruistic behaviour as it is positively correlated to the amount of cost an individual is willing to incur (in terms of increased time completing the task) to punish. the total number of points (in other words, total number of puzzles completed) in the three scenarios for each condition (social contract, neutral) were then calculated. procedure — participants completed all parts of this experiment in a private cubicle. after information was presented and consent obtained, participants were told about the altruistic task, and presented with a brief example. they were also asked by the experimenter if they had any questions about the task, to ensure that they fully understood. they then went through the six different scenarios (the order of these was randomly allocated) and circled the point on each scale that was their response to the scenario. after this, participants were presented with a review of their decisions (which was completed by the experimenter), and then were informed of the total number of puzzles they needed to complete (this could be anywhere in the range of 0 – 60). participants were then free to select any of the puzzles from the six categories (see the altruistic task section for more details) to reach their total. once the correct number of tasks was completediii, the participant was debriefed and the experiment completed. results and discussion to assess the difference in amount of altruistic punishment between the two scenario types (social contract, neutral), a paired samples t-test was conducted. this revealed a highly significant difference, t(67) = 12.4, p < .001, r = .83, with social contract scenarios (m = 15.31, sd = 5.96) being punished more that neutral scenarios (m = 4.29, sd = 4.71). these results provide support for the prediction. overall participants did significantly vary the costs they were willing to incur in the tasks, and incurred more costs to punish violators of social contracts over violators of more neutral scenarios. this therefore offers very strong support for the use of the tasks in experimental altruistic research, as it shows that participants’ motivation to incur costs to punish others extends to hypothetical scenarios and beyond financial costs, and is also commensurate with predictions from altruistic punishment (fehr & gächter, 2002). experiment 2 although successful in showing participants respond differently in relation to the altruistic nature of the scenario task as predicted, the similarities between the social contract and neutral scenarios in experiment 1 were quite marked. would the large difference in altruistic punishment participants were willing to engage in remain when the scenarios were more similar? this we aimed to investigate in experiment 2, by varying the intention behind the violation of social contracts. in other words, different versions of the scenarios were again used in this experiment, and all were based on social contracts. the only difference here though was that violations of these contracts were either done intentionally or non-intentionally. as altruistic punishment is believed to be conducted with the aim of preventing cheats from cheating again (fehr & gächter, 2002), it was predicted here that individuals would incur more costs punishing intentional violators of social contract imaginary scenarios than non-intentional violators. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 farrelly, moan, white et al. 103 http://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, this experiment investigated differences in how much individuals respond to the emotions evoked by cheating behaviour with altruistic behaviour in this task in particular, this experiment explored how much participants’ abilities to regulate and interpret emotions could play an important role. therefore experiment 2 also took into account individuals’ emotional intelligence (ei) levels. in this burgeoning area of research, measures of emotional intelligence such as that of schutte et al. (1998) are based on the model of ei put forward by salovey and mayer (1990), which is partly based on the abilities we have to regulate and utilise emotions in everyday life. this will have important implications for how participants deal with the emotional response to the hypothetical scenarios, but how it will affect the punishment of violations of social contracts is debatable. on one hand, it could be predicted that ei will positively correlate with how much altruistic punishment an individual is willing to incur as this is a strategy to regulate emotions as fehr and gächter (2002) may predict (in other words, do individuals use the opportunity to punish cheaters to relieve the anger they feel?). however, this may not necessarily be the case as individuals high in ei may not need the opportunity to punish to regulate the negative emotions they are feeling, as they have other more successful strategies available. therefore the measure of ei will be used in an exploratory manner in experiment 2 to investigate how/if it relates to altruistic punishment in the scenarios task, and to further explore the reliability of the scenario task to elicit altruistic behaviour experimentally. methods participants — sixty-three participants took part in this experiment. materials — the altruistic task. this had the same layout as the task used in experiment 1. here though, three scenarios involved a violation of a social contract by a particular individual that was intentional, and the other three were violations of a social contract that were non-intentional (see table 2 for a summary of these scenarios, and the responses). another difference of the task in this experiment was that the scenarios and the puzzles to act as responses to them were included together and separately from other scenarios, so that participants would read the scenario and then need to make their response straight afterwards. additionally, for each scenario there was only one category of puzzle that participants could select from, and these were either mental arithmetic or anagram puzzles. for each scenario, participants had a total of eighteen puzzles from which they could freely select. table 2 details of the different scenarios and their response used in experiment 2 responsescenario intentional percentage deduction from their grade (0%– 50%, 5% increments)fellow student does not bring work to group sessions. size of fine company receives (£0 £50000, £5000 increments)company purposefully not paying enough tax number of places individual is put back in queue (0 – 10 places, 1 place increments) see individual pushing in front of queue to use cash machine non-intentional percentage deduction from their grade (0%– 50%, 5% increments)fellow student forgets to bring work to one group session. size of fine businessman receives (£0 – £2000, £200 increments)self-employed businessman accidentally fills out tax forms incorrectly size of fine this individual receives (£0 £20, £2 increments)see individual in rush to a job interview forgets to buy train ticket europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 an alternative currency for altruism 104 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional intelligence measure. the schutte emotional intelligence scale (seis; schutte et al., 1998) was administered to participants in pen and paper form. this is a 33-item self-report scale used to assess trait ei, and incorporates the following facets of ei: regulating emotions, regulating other’s emotions, perceiving emotions and utilising emotions. procedure — this was the same as for experiment 1. after participants had completed all the scenarios and made their responses, they then completed the seis. results and discussion again, to assess the difference in amount of altruistic punishment between the two scenario types (intentional, non-intentional), a paired samples t-test was conducted. this again revealed a highly significant difference, t(62) = 12.1, p < .001, r = .84, with intentional scenarios (m = 15.14, sd = 7.06) being punished more that non-intentional scenarios (m = 4.25, sd = 4.31). to assess the possible role of ei in punishing behaviour, pearson correlations were conducted between participants’ ei score and their levels of punishing. it was found that there was no significant correlation between ei and punishment levels for either intentional, r(63) = -.001, p = .99, and nonintentional scenarios, r(63) = -.14, p = .26. these results again provide support for the predictions. participants did incur greater costs to punish intentional violators of social contracts than non-intentional violators. however from the exploratory analysis, it was found that emotional intelligence had no significant influence on levels of altruistic punishment in this experiment. overall the results of these first two experiments clearly show that in a laboratory-based task that is not financially based and uses imaginary, hypothetical scenarios, individuals do exhibit very strong altruistic tendencies in social situations that fit the predictions of altruistic punishment (fehr & gächter, 2002). the final experiment included here looked at how the altruistic task used above can also be used to measure altruistic behaviour per se, using emotion priming. experiment 3 the aim in this final experiment was to explore whether the parameters of the task used in experiments 1 and 2 could also be used to directly measure an individual’s altruistic behaviour. in other words, could this laboratorybased task that uses non-financial costs be reliably used to show how willing an individual is to incur costs to help another? it was predicted here that this would be so. also, in response to the non-significant findings in relation to emotional intelligence in experiment 2, this experiment sought to examine if an alternative individual difference measure, that of an ‘altruistic personality’ (rushton, chrisjohn, & fekken, 1981), would be more suitable in accounting for behaviour in this version of the altruistic task, and also test the validity of the task as a measure of altruism. furthermore, this experiment examined whether inducing different emotions in individuals by means of priming would affect altruistic tendencies. this experiment aimed to do this by presenting different videos to participants to induce emotions. whereas anger is considered to be a necessary emotion to drive altruistic punishment, this will not be the case for actual altruism. therefore the choice of emotions was based on the empathy-altruism hypothesis (batson et al., 1991), which suggests that empathic concern is a necessary social-psychological state for altruism to occur, as individuals who feel this concern are motivated to incur costs to help others in need. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 farrelly, moan, white et al. 105 http://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore ‘empathy’ was an emotion/mood that was primed in this experiment, and this was compared to ‘anger’ and ‘neutral’ primes. it was therefore predicted that participants primed to feel empathy will incur more costs to be altruistic in the task than those primed to feel either anger or a neutral state. furthermore, it was predicted that altruistic personality (as measured by the sra) would positively predict individuals’ responses in the altruistic task. methods participants — seventy-two participants took part in this experiment. materials — the altruistic task. this followed the same format as in experiments 1 and 2, in that it involved the presentation of scenarios which were followed by a scale of responses that could be completed following incurring the cost of solving puzzles. however in this experiment these scenarios involved an opportunity for the participant to behave altruistically (e.g. sharing chocolates with work colleagues), and their response would positively correlate with how altruistic they were (e.g. complete more puzzles in order to share more chocolates). in total there were eight scenarios, see table 3 for a summary of these. as with experiment 2, a category of puzzle was linked directly to each scenario, and details of these are also included in table 3. table 3 details of the different scenarios and their responses, as well as the puzzle category for each scenario used in experiment 3 puzzle categoryresponsescenario anagramsnumber of places lady is moved forward in queue (0 – 9 places, 1 place increments) help lady in a hurry move up a queue mental arithmeticamount of money to give to child (£0 £2.00, £0.2 increments) child unable to afford new bus ticket price list different birdsnumber of days shared (0 – 10 days, 1 day increments) sharing days of holiday (won in competition) with work colleagues anagramsnumber of tourists door held open for (0– 10 tourists, 1 tourist increments) tourists in shopping centre struggling to get through door combine letter strings to make words (e.g. sco – oter) number of children that participant can transfer (0 – 9 children, 1 child increments) schoolchildren unable to go on trip as bus has broken down anagramspercentage of vets bill paid (0% 100%, 10% increments) stray dog in need of veterinary care list different plantsnumber of chocolates shared (0 – 10 chocolates, 1 chocolate increments) sharing chocolates with work colleagues mental arithmeticnumber of days helping out (0 – 10 days, 1 day increments) local community centre needs help running activities emotional prime – videos. brief videos (between 2 and 3.5 minutes) that are freely available on the internet were presented to participants. there were three emotion conditions (anger, empathy, neutral) that participants were randomly assigned to, and there was one video included with each condition to prime these. each of the videos were on a similar subject (dog care/ownership), but the content varied according to the emotion they were priming; the video in the anger condition was about a dog that had been wrongly shot and killed by police europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 an alternative currency for altruism 106 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (www.youtube.com/watch?v=biabnlknvao), the video in the empathy condition was about an abandoned dog that had been cared for and recovered in an animal shelter (www.youtube.com/watch?v=oozvksrq8cu), and the video in the neutral condition was about how to groom and brush a dog (www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb8pkrqtwi8). self-report scale (sra). participants completed the self-reported altruism scale (rushton et al., 1981). this is a 20 item self-report measure that includes a list of altruistic behaviours, such as “i have given money to a charity” or “i have donated blood”, and asks participants to respond on a 5-point scale from “never” to “very often.” procedure— to begin with, participants completed the sra online and then contacted the experimenter to arrange a later session to complete the remainder of the experiment in a laboratory. in this later session, participants were randomly allocated to one of the three emotion conditions and then were requested to watch the corresponding video in a private booth. after watching the video, participants then went on to complete the altruistic task. results and discussion a univariate anova was conducted with emotion condition (empathy, angry, neutral) as a between subjects factor on total amount of altruistic responses in the task. there was found to be a highly significant main effect of condition, f(1,69) = 36.62, p < .001, µ2 = .52. subsequent pairwise comparisons (bonferroni) found that participants primed with empathy made significantly more altruistic responses (m = 66.58, sd = 10.74) than those primed with anger (m = 34.63, sd = 14, p < .001, r = .8) and those primed with a neutral video (m = 44.54, sd = 14.66, p < .001, r = .68). also those primed with neutral videos made significantly more altruistic responses than those primed with anger (p = .035, r = .33). finally, a multiple regression analysis was conducted with sra score entered at step 1 and emotion condition (using dummy variables) entered at step 2 as predictors, with total number of points of altruistic behaviour across all scenarios as the outcome variable. at step 1, there was a near significant positive effect of sra score on altruistic responses, t = 1.97, p = .053. at step 2, it was found that being in the empathy condition positively affected altruistic responses, t = 5.59, p < .001, and being in the angry condition negatively affected altruistic responses, t = -2.57, p =.021. the final model was significant, f(1,71) = 24.07, p < .001, µ2 = .52, and explained 51.5% of the variance. these results support the predictions. firstly it was found that participants primed to feel empathy incurred more costs to be altruistic to hypothetical others in the laboratory-based task than those primed to feel either anger or no emotion. furthermore overall altruistic behaviour in the task positively correlated with sra, a measure of an altruistic personality, although not quite significantly. as a result, this experiment provides further support to the use of this novel laboratory-based task as a reliable measure of the costs an individual is willing to incur to help another. general discussion the aim of the experiments of this study were to examine whether the conditions of the altruistic task, outlined above in its different forms in the different experiments, could be used to reliably measure altruistic behaviours in a currency other than financial ones in a simple lab-based setting based on hypothetical scenarios. this aim was strongly supported throughout, as individuals were shown to behave more altruistically in response to these europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 farrelly, moan, white et al. 107 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biabnlknvao http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oozvksrq8cu http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb8pkrqtwi8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb8pkrqtwi8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypothetical scenarios, most importantly in manners that were explicitly predicted by different theories (altruistic punishment, empathy-altruism). also, there is evidence that altruistic behaviour in this task positively relates to a standard measure of altruistic personality (sra), further supporting its validity. as a result, there are clear reasons to believe that this task can be used to measure altruistic responses to social situations that would test other theories, such as altruism as a costly signal (gintis et al., 2001) or kin selection (hamilton, 1964a,b). also of particular interest would be to examine potential sex differences in altruistic behavior, as although this was not assessed in the current experiments, previous research has highlighted the importance of analyzing this (e.g. eagly & crowley, 1986; farrelly et al., 2007). furthermore, the results of experiment 3 show that altruistic behaviours in the task can be experimentally manipulated, in this case via the priming of different emotional states. this is a further quality of the task that has been revealed and presents a great deal of opportunities for future research. overall this suggests that research in human altruistic decision-making can now go beyond the standard and near-ubiquitous use of economic financial games in its experimental designs. a potential issue with the task used is the costs involved. the puzzles used were deliberately constructed to not be too demanding, as the aim was for them to be time-consuming rather than difficult. this meant that there was some compromise in the size of the cost they elicited, which could be argued means that they were not as costly as we suggest. however this does not explain why the simple puzzles were completed alongside different scenarios in patterns clearly predicted by the theories, rather than randomly. also, there was the possibility of demand characteristics occurring, with some scenarios less subtle than others. however this was possibly only in a minority of scenarios across the three experiments, and furthermore participants were still willing to incur costs, suggesting that demand characteristics, if they did exist, would not be powerful enough to fully explain our significant findings. a further consideration is the costs incurred in the task may not be subjectively equivalent across all participants. for example, a busy participant, whose time is very limited, will incur a greater cost when completing the same amount of puzzles as a less busy participant. however it is anticipated that such variation would be less of an issue than for costs in terms of finances, where variation could be much greater between participants (i.e. the difference between richest and poorest participant could theoretically be much greater than the difference between the busiest and least busy participant). furthermore, the pattern of results observed across the three experiments suggests that any effect of different subjective costs of time did not adversely affect our findings. however this raises an interesting potential area for future research, as any manipulation of time constraints may provide more rigorous and tighter findings with regards to altruistic behavior, for example such experiments could directly manipulate the time available to participants as macrae and johnston (1998) did with their ‘running late’ study, or by conducting experiments at different periods when participants’ available time will vary in value (e.g. during lunch breaks as oppose to at the start of lectures). conclusion these experiments highlight a novel task that can be used to measure altruistic behaviour in a simple and costeffective manner in future laboratory-based social psychology experiments. this can be beneficial for experimenters as it allows future research to expand our understanding of altruism beyond the rather restrictive costs in terms of mainly finances. furthermore as shown here, the details and conditions of the task can be easily altered to assess different theories and different predictions. it is therefore our aim for future research to use versions of this task in novel ways in different circumstances to allow a richer and clearer understanding of why humans are altruistic. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 an alternative currency for altruism 108 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) the term ‘altruistic’ or ‘altruism’ used in this paper refers to behaviours that are beneficial for the recipient(s) but may be costly to the actor. overall benefits to the actor as a consequence of any such act may be delayed until a future interaction (often with a third party), and is probabilistic rather than certain (west, griffin, & gardner, 2007). ii) 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(2007). social semantics: altruism, cooperation, mutualism, strong reciprocity and group selection. journal of evolutionary biology, 20, 415-432. doi:10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01258.x europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 an alternative currency for altruism 110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/soco.1998.16.4.400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712606x129213 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2004.08.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/31225 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2001.1875 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.416 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(81)90084-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1998.0312 http://dx.doi.org/10.2190/dugg-p24e-52wk-6cdg http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(98)00001-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/beheco/14.1.116 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/406755 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5467.850 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2006.01258.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors daniel farrelly is a senior lecturer in psychology at the university of worcester. his research interests involves using an evolutionary approach to understand the role of social influences on human altruistic behaviour, and the role of emotions in influencing both altruistic and punishment behaviours in social contracts. emma moan is a recent graduate in psychology from the university of sunderland. her honours research project involved exploring under what circumstances individuals will altruistically punish others. kristi white is a recent graduate in psychology from the university of sunderland. her honours research project examined how emotional priming can influence altruistic behaviours. sarah young is a recent graduate in psychology from the university of sunderland. her honours research project involved exploring the role of intentionality in individuals’ decisions to punish cheats in social contracts. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 100–111 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.855 farrelly, moan, white et al. 111 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en an alternative currency for altruism introduction experiment 1 methods results and discussion experiment 2 methods results and discussion experiment 3 methods results and discussion general discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the inner philosopher: conversations on philosophy's transformative power book reviews marinoff, lou, & ikeda, daisaku (2012). the inner philosopher. cambridge, ma: dialogue path press the inner philosopher: conversations on philosophy's transformative power beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 640–642, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.666 received: 2013-07-27. accepted: 2013-07-27. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. marinoff, lou, & ikeda, daisaku (2012). the inner philosopher. cambridge,ma:dialogue path press lou marinoff is professor and chair of philosophy at the city college of new york. he is founding president of the american philosophical practitioners association. marinoff has collaborated with global think tanks and leadership forums, including the aspen institute and the world economic forum in davos. he is the internationally bestselling author of plato not prozac, translated into 27 languages. daisaku ikeda is president of the soka gakkai international, a lay buddhist organization with twelve million members worldwide. he writes and lectures extensively on buddhism, humanism, and global ethics. more than fifty of his dialogues have been published, including conversations with mikhail gorbachev, linus pauling, and arnold toynbee. personal growth through philosophic practice is the subject of lou marinoff’s latest work, the inner philosopher, co-authored with renowned buddhist thinker and leader daisaku ikeda. students of western philosophy or buddhism who are exposed to the two scholars’ wisdom can witness they are determined to show that anyone can use valuable philosophical knowledge to improve their well-being. in the sixteen vibrant conversations using a dialogue format, dr. lou marinoff and daisaku ikeda delve passionately into the traditional questions of philosophy in a manner the readers find captivating and engaging. these essential yet entertaining conversations emphasize that philosophical questions are contested and open-ended. the characters in each dialogue advocate compelling answers to questions on religion, ethics, personal identity, opeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ timism, purpose and connection, process of healing, peace and humanism, life and death, suffering and joy. even though the answers may reflect personal opinions grounded in years of introspection, teaching, tutoring, mentoring, the two partners seem to share similar views on philosophy’s transformative power, either oriental or western. philosophic positions are presented with clarity and persuasiveness, so that readers can appreciate all sides of an issue and make their own choices. the inner philosopher provides the necessary background for further study while vividly portraying the back-and-forth argument that is essential to the philosophical method. the sixteen conversations, which began back in 2003, cover topics such as the distinction between life and death, healing, technological alienation of the consumer society, the practice of virtue or women’s involvement in the peace culture, while addressing many of the profound social problems that flood western societies: bullying, drug abuse, the worker exploitation. each of the inner philosopher‘s discussions includes references to ancient philosophers from both western and eastern traditions. despite the differences in their metaphysical worldviews, marinoff believes that both can contribute to the development of wisdom. marinoff states: “philosophy, notably buddhist and greek philosophy, is the remedy for what the japanese call ‘lifestyle maladies’—widespread cultural problems afflicting affluent nations. philosophy has a valuable role to play in treating culturally-rooted epidemics, including obesity, bullying, hedonism, and consumerism.” in conversation one, the role of philosophy in everyday life is emphasized. readers are advised not to look at philosophy as something divorced from their lives or the exclusive property of professional thinkers, but to apply it broadly in daily life as a source of ‘great life of hope illuminating the future of humanity’ as daisaku ikeda magnificently expresses. philosophy and psychology both can provide a source of robust optimism. (conversation four) optimism in martin seligman’s positive psychology is regarded as hope, not the absence of suffering. asmahatmagandhi, gorbatchev, or mandela, incorrigible optimists are people who encountered a lot of upheavals in their lives but despite circumstances they managed to cultivate hope and overcome all challenges with serenity. this is what marinoff regards as the ability to ‘convert poison into medicine’ revealed in nagarjuna’s teachings in the treatise on the great perfection of wisdom. epictetus, as a precursor of cognitive behavior therapy, has also acknowledged that men are disturbed not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. marinoff concludes rhetorically: “is this not positive psychology plus positive philosophy in a nutshell?” in ‘the healing power of dialogue’ (conversation nine), marinoff examines from philosophical viewpoint the therapeutic alliance, which is seen in psychotherapy as a key factor for a successful outcome. as dr. irvin yalom observed in the most of his case studies of existential therapy and as marinoff also noticed in his own philosophical practice, the power of dialogue itself, regardless of the method or the theoretical orientation, has the ultimate healing effect. “thus the essence of healing, whether philosophical or psychoanalytic, seems to reside in empathic dialogue” says marinoff. a particularly interesting view is shared by both dialogue partners on higher education. in conversation thirteen (the arts and the human spirit), daisaku ikeda criticizes the continuous strive of the twentieth century universities to produce ‘talented animals’ as nichiren buddhism identifies these products of a strictly pragmatic educational europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 640–642 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.666 popescu 641 http://www.psychopen.eu/ system. the current economic crisis may have even been, in marinoff’s view, the result of the educational systems that have failed to instill their students with humanistic virtues. through this lively and full of wisdom dialogue, lou marinoff and daisaku ikeda invite us to unlock our ‘inner philosopher’ in the quest to find answers to our most ardent questions, perhaps even to the ‘big questions’ of life. it is not the first time lou marinoff urges us not to accept victimhood as the by-product of a modern life. this book is another courageous attempt to teach his readers in an accessible and entertaining language how to use centuries of wisdom in order to answer these essential questions and increase their sense of wellbeing. while specialized philosophers in the academia may consider this book too philosophically simplistic, the book is targeted to literate individuals that seek guidance on a series of existential matters and may not need established forms of psychotherapy or psychological counseling. the inner philosopher is a precious self-help philosophical guide that should be read with a highlighter in hand by everyone interested in personal development. at the beginning of their dialogue, marinoff shares with ikeda: “our challenge is to reclaim philosophy from the hands of the pure theoreticians whose cogitations are abundant but whose applications are scarce and return it to ordinary people”. by writing this book they certainly faced up to the challenge, in equally thought-provoking and entertaining way as allain de botton does it in his essays. the inner philosopher is published by dialogue path press, the publishing arm of the ikeda center (http://www.ikedacenter.org/). the ikeda center, founded by daisaku ikeda, is an institute for peace, learning, and dialogue located in cambridge, massachusetts. the center’s books have been used in more than 800 college and university courses. in addition to the inner philosopher, dialogue path press’s titles include creating waldens: an eastwest conversation on the american renaissance and into full flower: making peace cultures happen. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 640–642 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.666 the inner philosopher 642 http://www.ikedacenter.org/ http://www.ikedacenter.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the inner philosopher the development of the sense of humor questionnaire and its applications europe’s journal of psychology, 6(3), pp. 288-310 www.ejop.org the sense of humor questionnaire: conceptualization and rev iew of 40 years of findings in empirical research sven svebak department of neuroscience, faculty of medicine, the norwegian university of science and technology, trondheim, norway abstract this paper presents the background for developing the sense of humor questionnaire (shq), including ideas that guided the ambition to design a tool for assessment of indiv idual differences in sense of humor that was relatively neutral to variations in culture, content and technique. the test was first organized into three dimensions of items, based on face validity of content, with items oriented to openness to ambiguity, preference for humorous situations and emotional suggestibility. the first revision reduced items from twenty-seven to twenty-two. a second revision presented seven items on each of three dimensions that were theoretically founded on ideas of person-situation interactions. research found that items on meta-message sensitivity (m-items) and liking of humorous situations (l-items) yielded fair alphas, whereas those on mirthful expression (e-items) did not. a review of research is presented based on scores from the mand l-items of the shq. the shq-6 is a short form including three items from the mand the l-dimensions, respectively. this scale has proven effective in research across a v ide range of applications including the role of sense of humor in mood, coping, morbidity and mortality. an ultra-short version (shq-3) was included in a population health survey and provided descriptive evidence on the prevalence of sense of humor as well as the positive role for sense of humor in surviving into retirement. after age seventy this protective effect of sense of humor faded away. key words: coping, morbidity, mortality, shq, shq-6, shq-3. sense of humor has been assessed in various ways for almost one hundred years. thus, kambouropoulou (1926) recruited one hundred female students at vassar college to record instances of laughter throughout one week to prov ide estimates on indiv idual differences in sense of humor. she also included a survey on http://www.ejop.org/ europe’s journal of psychology 289 extraversion-introversion according to the distinction proposed by gustav jung, and documented more laughter among the extraverted students. in the 1940’s, several researchers proposed approaches to the assessment of indiv idual differences in sense of humor by asking people to assess the funniness of jokes (andrews, 1943; cattell & luborsky, 1947; eysenck, 1942; wolff, smith & murray, 1934). in this way, andrews observed differences along six types of sense of humor (derision-superiority, reaction to debauchery, subtlety, play on words and ideas, sex, ridiculous-wise-cracks). eysenck reported support for the idea that extraverted, aggressive and masculine personality traits were associated with a preference for emotional and sex-related jokes; whereas social shyness (introversion) was associated with a preference for cognitive and non-sex jokes. cattell and luborsky proposed thirteen dimensions along which indiv iduals differed in their appreciation of jokes. wolff et al. presented jokes about jews to jews and non-jews and observed higher appreciation of such jokes among the latter as compared to the former. thus, social identity and relations appeared to influence the appreciation of jokes above and beyond aspects of personality. all these brave pioneering approaches had several limitations including the biased focus upon appreciation of jokes, rather than being open-minded, like kambouropoulou was, in a neutral way to the whole range of forms, techniques and contents of humorous cognitive processes and utterances. i t appeared risky to collect a sample of jokes from within a particular cultural setting and present them as a reliable, objective, and valid test on sense of humor internationally. this concern provoked a somewhat more neutral orientation to the assessment of indiv idual differences in sense of humor, in the hope that assessment might be less sensitive to local culture, social identity and techniques in the appreciation of humor. i t also appeared risky to focus upon indiv idual differences in frequency of laughter, given the fact that a subjective state of mirth is not always reflected in overt laughter. an exploratory approach humor is a social phenomenon that had been extensively explored throughout centuries, whereas sense of humor is an aspect of personality that was hardly explored and defined around 1970. tentatively, and with a practical orientation to the need for operational assessment techniques, the first steps in the development of the sense of humor questionnaire (shq) were taken in the preparation for a master´s thesis at the university of oslo in 1969 (svebak, 1969). twenty-seven items were constructed within each of three proposed broad components of sense of humor to development and applications of the shq 290 explore the possibility for empirical assessment of indiv idual differences. these three components were (1) openness to ambiguity), (2) liking of humorous situations and others and (3) emotional suggestibility/permissiveness. ninety-six university students completed the survey. bivariate correlational findings revealed that the sum of scores in one group of items correlated significantly with the sum of scores in the two other groups of items (r = .74 to .78, p < .001). in this way, the three groups of items represented a broad conceptual approach to the assessment of potential aspects of sense of humor, rather than different orthogonal dimensions. also, twelve items were better than the remaining fifteen at discriminating between indiv iduals with high versus medium and low total scores. four of these were social attitude items, whereas three were affective items and five were openness to ambiguous meta-communication items. the distribution of total scores met requirements for being a normal distribution. toward a conceptual basis for the shq the first step in improving the unpublished shq from the master´s thesis focused on openness to ambiguity and emotional suggestibility. conceptually they were oriented to the appreciation of ambiguity, socio-emotional suggestibility and expressiveness as general aspects of personality. one apparent problem with these broad components was reflected in the high and positive correlations between scores on the three dimensions (see above). also, total items were reduced from twenty-seven to twenty-two. these selected items presented the participant with statements that addressed more specifically the content that was assumed to be of relevance to differences in sense of humor. a conceptual analysis guided the rev ision. a model was proposed (svebak, 1974a) for psychological components that might be of particular importance to describing indiv idual differences in humor appreciation, mirthfulness and related overt laughter. i t was presented as a “theory of sense of humor,” despite the fact that a theoretical analysis of the concept itself was not the focus of this model. however, i t proposed a cognitive process where any social phenomenon (identity, action, person, status, prestige, power, social system, ideology) is in some way presented and then redefined to cause diminishment through meta-communication. i t took several more years before a precise conceptual analysis of the cognitive structure in humorous experience was published (see apter, 1982). europe’s journal of psychology 291 the proposed model defined two complimentary sets of three variables that modulated the response output to any potentially humorous stimulus. one set addressed situational characteristics and included the explicitness of any humorous meta-message as a stimulus, whereas the two other counted interpersonal likings and socio-emotional permissiveness (e.g., being with friends in a playful context will increase likelihood of overt and shared laughter in response to an intended humorous remark from one of the inmates). moreover, the model proposed a related set of person-variables that would define the sense of humor of any particular indiv idual and, therefore, explain the range of indiv idual differences in response to any potentially humorous stimulus. the most important of these person variables was proposed to be the habitual sensitiv ity to humorous meta-messages that give rise to the experience of mirth. overt laughter will depend upon the strength of two more variables, one being habitual liking of comical situations and interactions, and the other being habitual overt laughter response permissiveness. thus, the latter three variables were proposed as dimensions of sense of humor related to their more or less activating situational equivalents, respectively. tests on humor appreciation, such as the humor appreciation test (o´connell, 1969) and the mirth response test (doris & fierman, 1956), appeared to be ignoring contextual social characteristics. in this way, the proposed model prov ided for a better understanding of indiv idual differences in overt mirthful behaviour than was possible in approaches where the potentially humorous material was presented as a stimulus with no attention given to other situational and indiv idual variables that might modulate any covert or overt response. i tems were organised along the three proposed dimensions of conceptual content (svebak, 1974b) based upon face validity to distinguish between (1) sensitiv ity to humorous content and meta-messages (m-items), (2) attitude toward humorous people and situations (l-items) and (3) openness to the expression of mirth (e -items). four-step scoring formats were given to all items. the first group of items is illustrated by: “when i go to the movies i prefer to know beforehand what kind of a story i am to see” (total agreement = 1; total disagreement = 4). i tems in the l-dimension are illustrated by: “fun is always aimed at hurting somebody” (total agreement = 1; total disagreement = 4). the expressiveness items are illustrated as follows: “do you at times laugh so much that it actually hurts?” (very seldom = 1; very often = 4). there were seven m-items, six l-items and nine e-items. i t soon became evident by face validity that the content of some items within one dimension could be seen as fitting well also into another dimension. one example development and applications of the shq 292 from the m-dimension is the item “do you easily laugh?” that might fit better within the e-dimension despite the initial idea that laughter often is the consequence of experiencing a cognitive meta-message. likewise, in the l-dimension, the item “i prefer to work according to fixed rules and arrangements” might better be seen as an ideal item for the e-dimension due to the inherent orientation to a lifestyle opposite to impulsiv ity and non-planning, despite the initial intention that people who agree to this item would likely avoid impulsive social interactions that provoke laughter. or it could equally well fit in with the m-items because of its orientation to the avoidance of ambiguity. and, finally, the e-item “i have noticed that those who tell the jokes laugh the most themselves” might better fit within the l-dimension, despite the initial intention that agreement might reflect habitual need for socioexpressive inhibition. alternatively, it might be seen as an item fitting within the m dimension due to agreement reflecting poor understanding of humorous metacommunication in general. the obvious dimensionality problems with the first published version of the shq came on top of the complicating fact that there were still uneven numbers of items in the three sections of the shq. in light of these problems, scores predicted surprisingly well the amount of laughter in a laboratory experiment with exposure to v ideo presentations of some of the most hilarious candid camera sequences from norwegian tv in the early 1970ies (svebak, 1974b). ninety-six university students completed the 22-item shq and thirty were inv ited to take part in the laboratory experiment. they were recruited from across the whole range of high to low total shq-scores, with ten from the highest, middle and lowest one third of the distribution, respectively, and they were balanced for gender. for the initial sample of ninety-six students, scores on the three dimensions correlated moderately positively with each other (r´s from .29 to .38). l-scores positively predicted amount of laughter among the males (<.05), whereas the e-scores positively predicted laughter for the females (p<.01). from a theoretical point of v iew, these findings were interesting for two reasons. first, they supported the assumption in the theoretical model (svebak, 1974a) that occurrence of laughter is strongly dependent upon the laughter inhibiting tendencies of an indiv idual (the l and e-components), and less dependent upon the m-component, which gives rise to the subjective experience of mirth even when mirthfulness is not displayed to others. secondly, the structure of the findings could be taken as confirmation of the contemporary sex role stereotypes, with males being relatively more strongly committed to the social context as opposed to females being more directly sensitive to the emotional consequence in their overt responses to humor. europe’s journal of psychology 293 the lack of predictions for the m-item scores, however, may not have reflected a structural relationship with the land e-components of the sense of humor concept. at a more triv ial level, it may have been due to a too broad orientation for the items included in this dimension, as items on general serious-mindedness were also employed here (e. g. item 7:“we live in a world filled with so many serious problems and challenges that we ought to spend less time on triv ial amusements” (svebak, 1974b). revision of the shq the next rev ised shq (svebak, 1974c) presented seven items on each sub-scale and kept the four-step scoring format from the initial shq. an example from the dimension of sensitiv ity to humorous messages (m-items) is item m-1: “do you easily recognize a hint like a twinkle or slight change in emphasis as a mark of humorous intent?” another example is item m -4: “would you say that you have much cause for amusement during an ordinary day?” whereas the first item may tap into perceptual sensitiv ity, the second example may be more oriented to assessing the degree of a playful humorous attitude to everyday life. the habitual liking of comical situations and humorous others dimension (l-items), is illustrated by item l-3: “persons who are always out to be funny are really irresponsible types not to be relied upon,” and by item l-7: “i t is my impression that those who try to be funny really do it to hide their lack of self-confidence”. notice the negative orientation to the l-items that is due to the fact that a wider distribution of scores was obtained with this orientation than with a positive one. the third set of items are oriented to the habitual tendency of an indiv idual to permit or suppress emotional impulses of mirthfulness and joy in general (e-items). these items are illustrated by e-2: “i appreciate people who tolerate all kinds of emotional outlets?” and e-4: “do you sometimes find yourself laughing in situations where laughter is quite out of place?” this rev ised shq was administered in an exploratory manner to seventy-one university students in physical sciences and ninety-one in social sciences, balanced for gender. results showed that the three sets of items contributed in a balanced way to the total score. only item e-5 presented a skewed distribution with low scores (“i f you had an unrestrained fit of laughing, would you later suffer from misgiv ings in case others think you were a bit of an exhibitionist?”). scores on the m -items correlated moderately with the scores on the land e-items (r = .34 and .27, respectively); development and applications of the shq 294 whereas scores on the e-items were unrelated to those on the l-items. this pattern of relations supported the point that overt laughter is a poor indicator of sense of humor, as there are many sources of laughter beyond humorous cognitive processes (see e.g. giles & oxford, 1970). in retrospect, there were also obvious content validity problems with some e-items that were carried over from the prev ious versions, such as e-7: “do you consider yourself to be of an impulsive nature?” despite these problems with the e-items, findings from the land e-items were consistent with social stereotypes that flourished in the 1970’s for gender and recruitment of psychologically somewhat different types of students into physical and social sciences. a more extensive series of validating studies of the rev ised shq came from rod martin and his collaborators and are presented in the book based upon his ph.d. (lefcourt & martin, 1986). generally, the internal consistency of the mand l-items were acceptable (alphas in the .60’s and .70’s), whereas it was poor for the e-items. one-month retest reliability was also good (m-items: .78; l-items: .58; e-items: .58). due to lack of internal consistency for the e-subscale, only the mand l-items were included in their further research. scores on these two subscales correlated significantly with scores on the humor coping scale (hcs); whereas only m -item scores correlated significantly with the situational humor response questionnaire (shrq). also, the mand l-scores correlated with peer ratings on sense of humor (responsiveness to humor), with slightly higher coefficients for the lthan for the mitems. humor production, however, yielded a significant correlation only with the litems. from a theoretical point of v iew, high sensitiv ity to humorous meta-messages should be expected in people who score high on the m -items and high or low on humor production. for the rev ised shq, several other studies have tested correlations of scores with other measures of sense of humor. the m and l-items have consistently come out with the highest coefficients (see ruch, 1998). shq, gender, self-esteem and personality deaner and mcconatha (1993) studied the association of sense of humor with depression and personality in thirty-eight male and ninety-one female college students. they all completed three questionnaires for the assessment of sense of humor, including the shq (svebak, 1974c), one depression scale and the eysenck personality inventory. results indicated that students scoring high on all humor scales also tended to score high on the extraversion and emotional stability scales, and lower on the depression scale. gender was of no significance to these associations. europe’s journal of psychology 295 franzini (1996) measured sense of humor with the shq (svebak, 1974c) and a self rated sense of humor estimate among 175 females who also completed femininity and attitudes toward women scales. the purpose was to evaluate the assumption that feminist women lack a sense of humor. her results stated that scores on the shq were positively correlated with scores on self-rated sense of humor as well as an item on how often others laugh at their humorous remarks. in this way, there was validating support to the shq, whereas no support was found for the idea that feminist women have a low sense of humor. two years earlier, franzini and haggerty (1994) compared sense of humor across mixed gender groups of program managers (n=34), humor seminar students (n=29) and undergraduates (n=26). results from one-way analyses of variance indicated that females scored higher than males on the l-items of the shq (1974c), suggesting that females, on average, tended to enjoy humorous interaction more than males. the greater salience of the social component of sense of humor among females appears to be a robust finding that has also been supported in studies of children, with a preference for hostile humor relatively more prevalent among boys (bergen, 2009). franzini and haggerty reported no other gender difference. for participant groups, humor seminar students scored higher than the other two groups on the m items and on the total shq, suggesting that the humor seminar students were particularly sensitive to potential sources of humor in everyday life. kuiper and martin (1993) investigated the association of sense of humor with self esteem in undergraduate students in london, ontario. these participants completed four scales on sense of humor including the mand l-item sub-scales of the shq. they also completed a series of sixty self-descriptive adjectives on actual versus ideal self. results indicated that students scoring high on the humor scales also scored low on discrepancy between ideal and real self. and those scoring high on the humor scales were less likely to reflect unrealistic, dysfunctional and perfectionist standards of self-image. the idea of an association of sense of humor with mental health, on average, has been moderately supported in empirical research. kuiper and martin (1988) compared results from five student samples to see how well sense of humor and dispositional optimism related to subjective wellbeing. the humor scales included the humor coping scale, situational humor response questionnaire and the m and lsub-scales of the shq. the findings revealed that scores on the humor scales were only moderately associated with optimism (r = .18 and .17 for the land m-items, respectively); and that they were only moderately associated with a number of development and applications of the shq 296 indicators of wellbeing, including self-acceptance, positive relations with others, mastery, autonomy and goals in life, in most of the samples (overall r = .28 and .39 for the land m-scores, respectively). in one sample (79 females, 57 males; mean age 19.7), scores on the land m-items correlated negatively with scores on a measure of social avoidance and distress (r = -34 and -.44, respectively), and so did scores on the coping humor scale and the situational humor response questionnaire. optimism turned out to be more strongly associated with these indicators of psychological wellbeing than were measures of sense of humor (see kuiper & martin, 1998). shq and moderation of stress the first stress-moderating study using the shq, was presented by lefcourt and martin (1986), and this study focused upon moods (profile of mood states: mcnair, lorr & droppelman, 1971) over the last month in fifty -six university students who also completed the shrq, chs, shq and the life events of college students scale (sandler & lakey, 1982). results confirmed a significant stress-moderating role for the l-items upon negative mood, due to the interaction of l-scores with negative life event scores. negative mood was less likely reported in students with high negative life events, prov ided they also scored high on the l-items. similar moderating effects were seen for scores on the shrq and chs, but not for the m -items of the shq. a few years later, martin and dobbin (1988) reported similar moderating effects of sense of humor upon consequences of daily hassles and their effects upon salivary immunoglobulin a (ig-a) in thirty participants who also completed the shrq, chs and shq. results confirmed the moderating effect of sense of humor when assessed by the shrq, chs and, most significantly (p<.01), for the m-scores of the shq. the shq and negative moods sense of humour is not a synonym for positive mood but, rather, an aspect of personality that may protect against dramatizing interpretations of everyday frustrations and mishaps that might otherwise facilitate negative moods. in this way, sense of humor has long been acknowledged as a form of defence mechanism that helps people cope with negative life events. this perspective on sense of humor has gained support in several studies, and some of them included the shq. as one illustration, kuiper, martin and dance (1992) tested the association of sense of humor with quality of life using a set of humor questionnaires (chs, shrq, shq) and measures of positive and negative life events. results confirmed a stress-buffering europe’s journal of psychology 297 role for sense of humor. significant interactions were found between stressful negative life events and sense of humor in predicting positive affect. under stressful negative life events, those indiv iduals scoring high on sense of humor reported more positive affect than those scoring low on sense of humor. of particular interest, this buffering role was most ev ident for scores on the m-items of the shq. the shq and subjective health sense of humor might reduce the risk of ill health in a number of potential ways. these were outlined in detail by martin (2007) and include potential beneficial effects of laughter, as well as more indirect effects of sense of humor such as the often defusing cognitive coping style in sense of humor, the interpersonal mechanisms that might prov ide increased social support in humorous indiv iduals, and promotion of a healthy lifestyle that may be associated with high sense of humor. generally, results from empirical studies offer very little direct support for any of these hypotheses. however, the findings obtained from seventy-one university students in a 1993 study by svebak supported a moderating role for sense of humor in prevalence of bodily complaints, when exposed to enduring stressful life events. participants completed the shq, the tension and effort stress inventory (tesi : see svebak, 1993) and the ursin health inventory (uhi : ursin, endresen & ursin, 1988). findings supported a stress-moderating effect of sense of humor upon musculoskeletal complaints (p<.03), upper as well as lower gastrointestinal complaints (p<.0001) and immunerelated complaints (p<.0006), with lower complaint scores under stress in participants with high scores than in those with low scores on the l-items of the shq. the stressmoderating effect of sense of humor (l-scores) accounted for a 7 % increase in the predicted variance for musculoskeletal complaints, more than a 20 % increase in the variance for gastrointestinal complaints, and a 19 % increase in the variance for immune-related complaints. the role of sense of humor in subjective health was also addressed in a sample of one hundred and thirty-two undergraduates who completed scales on sense of humor, including the mand l-items of the shq, and a broad range of questions on physical symptoms, health-related lifestyle, and fear of death and disease (kuiper & nicoll, 2004). results indicated a moderately reduced fear of death and disease among those scoring high on the mand l-items of the shq. these indiv iduals w ere also less preoccupied about bodily functions and states than were those scoring low development and applications of the shq 298 on these items, and scores on the l-items were high among students reporting reduced concern about pain and general worry about their health. from shq to shq-6 several concerns provoked a third rev ision of the shq from the master´s thesis. one was the need for a shorter scale. the ultimate goal of item reduction was to increase the possibility for inclusion of a short measure of sense of humor in a survey without reducing the motivation to comply or the percentage of participation. a second concern was the poor internal consistency of the e-items. the high number of different causes of laughter, beyond that of mirthful laughter due to experience of humor, meant that achievement of a culturally neutral sub-scale on humor causations of laughter might be difficult to achieve. in light of these two major concerns, the third rev ision aimed at developing a shorter scale with only items from the mand l-subscales included. this third rev ision was based on scores from more than one thousand high school students who completed the 21-item version of the shq (svebak, 1996). although this cohort was not a representative sample of the population, the completion rate was very high (above 90 %). the initial factor solution in this sample yielded a first factor with nine items loading above .65. there were three m -items, four l-items and two e-items in this factor. a second factor had three m -items with loadings above .62. in short, the pattern of findings supported a preference for one main factor composed of three m-items and three l-items, based upon particularly high factor loadings. these six items where then pooled together and subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis, with a resulting cronbach alpha of .85 (n=995). gender had no effect on this internal consistency measure (males:  = .83; females:  = .87). all six items presented unrotated factor scores above .69, with the rotated factor loadings clearly reflecting the distinction between mand l-items. scores were summed across the six items and tested for correlations with the original shqsubscale scores. as expected, high coefficients were obtained for the shq-6 with the mand l-scores (.74 and .80, respectively), whereas the e-subscale coefficient was lower (.59). also, high scores on the shq-6 were seen among students scoring low on depression (-.42) and high on life regard (meaningful frames in life: .24; goal fulfilment: .24). overall, it was concluded that the shq-6 emerged with good internal consistency and some indication of specificity. most of all, the short list of items promised high efficacy for the assessment of sense of humor in survey studies where high numbers europe’s journal of psychology 299 of total items reduce motivation and compliance among participants. further support for the reliability and validity of the shq-6 has come from many studies including the humor styles questionnaire (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray & weir, 2003). scores on the shq-6 correlated significantly with scores on the affiliative (r = .54) and self-enhanching (r = .45) sub-scales, but not with scores on the two hostile sub-scales (aggressive: r = .12; self-defeating: r = .16). as such, the shq-6 generally appears to be oriented toward measuring a friendly humor style. the shq-6 in adolescent health three studies have been published using the shq-6 in a sample of more than one thousand high school students in norway. a survey measure was distributed to 1,162 students and scored by 1,069 students in class (response rate of 92 %). they were split between 698 students in an urban setting and 372 in a rural setting; and represented a total of 524 girls and 545 boys balanced across the two settings. the first study was purely descriptive and uncovered a surprisingly strong difference in shq-6 scores between students liv ing in urban versus rural environments (naper jensen, svebak & götestam, 2004). the urban students scored, on average, around 19. this was opposed to the urban students who scored, on average, around 15 with no significant difference between males and females. the urban versus rural environments also showed highly significant differences in depression (zung self rating depression scale), dysphoric moods (eysenck neuroticism scale), meaningfulness in life (life regard index with sub-scales for goals in life and achievement of goals) and bodily complaints (more complaints among urban adolescents with highest scores among these females). highly significant correlations emerged for scores on depression w ith sense of humor (-.42, p<.00004) and overall meaningfulness (-.43, p<.00004). the overall pattern in these results clearly favoured the rural setting for adolescence. differences suggested better mental as well as bodily health and greater coherence in everyday life as compared with the urban setting that appeared to offer inferior conditions for the facilitation of meaningfulness and sense of humor. a second publication from this sample of adolescents focused upon bodily complaints and their relationships with the psychological variables of perceived stress, related efforts to cope, meaningfulness and sense of humor (svebak, götestam & naper jensen, 2004). confirmatory factor analyses of the two subscales of the life regard index suggested low internal consistencies ( = .62 and 63). a procedure of stepwise item deletion was therefore performed until the internal development and applications of the shq 300 consistency of the remaining items reached the recommended criterion of .70. one subscale was named meaning ( = .73) and the other was named i mportance ( = .76). the meaning scale reflected an overriding perspective on life, whereas the importance scale reflected degree of importance attributed to activ ities of everyday life. due to the higher complaint scores among females, effect of gender (p<.0004) was eliminated in hierarchical regression analyses. level of perceived stress was highly significant among adolescents scoring high on complaints (p<.0004). a direct effect of sense of humor upon bodily complaints was not confirmed. however, high scores on meaning were associated with low complaint scores (p<.009). furthermore, the scores on importance interacted significantly with sense of humor to explain significant amounts of variance in bodily complaints (p<.001). high complaint scores were seen among adolescents scoring high on importance and low on sense of humor or low on importance and high on sense of humor. there is no prev ious published research on these relationships for this age cohort. we therefore speculated that the buffering role for sense of humor upon bodily complaints among adolescents is moderated by the level of importance attributed to activ ities of everyday life. with low sense of humor low importance is to be preferred, and with high sense of humor high importance is to be preferred to reduce risk of bodily complaints. in this way, results confirmed previous findings from adult samples were complex relations have been reported for sense of humor with bodily complaints. shq-6 and personality recently, randler (2008) reported from a survey of one hundred and ninety seven students who completed a scale on morningness-eveningness, the short big five personality inventory and the shq-6. results supported a significant association of evening orientation with high sense of humor scores, and this association was significant after controlling for the personality dimensions. however, this association was significant only among the women and for the l-items. again, this association provides support to a gender difference where females appear to appreciate humorous social interaction more than males, and the females with an evening orientation may have found the best opportunities for such social interaction in the evenings. recruitment of employees often involves personality assessment to reduce turnover. lange and houran (2009) investigated the importance of personality traits among one hundred and eight managers and human resource professionals who rated the europe’s journal of psychology 301 perceived importance of thirty-one performance traits for line, middle and senior employees. strong consensus was found, and the importance of traits differed across the three groups of employees. non-social skills, ethical awareness, self-motivation, verbal ability, problem solv ing and creativ ity were rated as more important for higher level employees, whereas service orientation, communication style, agreeableness, sensitiv ity to diversity and sense of humor were rated as more important for lower level employees. age and gender of the respondents were not related to these findings. beermann and ruch (2009) compared scores on twelve survey measures of sense of humor to determine how humor may be related to v irtues and v ices. sixty female and sixteen male university students in psychology took part in the first study, with results showing a pattern for all six shq-items to be attributed to the positive v icev irtue end of the scale. in contrast, a scale on jokes and tricks had items where all fell in the negative end of the v ice-v irtue dimension. six male and eleven female students in philosophy and theology participated in the second study where items were assessed across all the six classical v irtues (wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence). results showed that most items did not load any particular v irtue, and that some items loaded slightly or moderately on wisdom, courage, humanity or transcendence. in conclusion, these results supported the position that items in current sense of humor scales reflect, to varying degrees, a sense of humor that is v ice and v irtuous; and that the shq-6 items are in the v icev irtuous end of the distribution. this finding is in accord with the positive correlation of shq-6 scores with scores on affiliative humor styles (see above). shq-6 in coping with life stress and bodily complaints the shq-6 was included in a controlled field study that tested effects of implementing school nursing in urban norwegian high schools (svebak, naper jensen & götestam, 2008). this report appears to be the first controlled study to test such effects and also included survey measures on perceived stress, efforts invested to cope, positive and negative moods, and health complaints. the survey was administered in class, at both baseline and one year later. one sample of students was offered school nursing and students in other classes were not (total n=104 balanced for gender). at baseline, there was no association between being or not being offered the school nursing serv ice and sense of humor. surprisingly, after one year, those without school nursing had significantly raised their sense of humor scores with no change in the experimental group. one might speculate that school nursing may take some of the burden of coping with adolescence off the students and that development and applications of the shq 302 those with no such serv ice had to invest more efforts in developing their own intrinsic coping skills, including sense of humor. this pioneering study calls upon replication on a larger scale and in a diversity of cultural settings. helv ik, jacobsen, svebak and hallberg (2007) studied the importance of sense of humour in coping with hearing impairments. consecutive patients (n=343) over one year at an outpatient hearing impairment clinic completed the shq-6, the communication strategies scale (css), with subscales for maladaptive behaviour as well as verbal and non-verbal strategies. the findings showed that high scores on sense of humor were associated with being female and a younger age. also, frequent use of maladaptive behaviour was related to younger age, long duration of hearing impairment and low sense of humor. furthermore, maladaptive behaviour, expressed as negative reactions to stressful events in communication, was negatively associated with sense of humour. these results tentatively suggested a role for sense of humor in the choice of communication strategies among people coping with hearing impairment. when corrected for age, degree of hearing impairment and duration of impairment, sense of humor still significantly explained the presence of adaptive behavioural coping strategies. one study tested the association of pain from gallbladder stones with scores on sense of humor (shq-6) and measures of positive coping resources (life regard index, sense of coherence scale), as well as negative coping resources (epqneuroticism, tension and effort stress inventory: svebak, søndenaa, hausken, søreide, hammar & berstad, 2000). twenty-eight patients with recent acute cholecystitis were recruited consecutively into the study at the haukeland university hospital. ultrasonography defined number and size of stones as well as degree of damage to the gallbladder wall. all patients completed a pain index of four items related to pain in the upper right abdominal quadrant. surprisingly, scores on the pain index were uncorrelated with objective indicators from ultrasonography on the severity of the gallbladder condition. instead, multiple regression analyses of explained variance in the pain index showed that the positive coping resource model with life regard index and shq-6 (the three l-items in particular) accounted for 40 % of the variance in pain. the higher these scores, the lower the reported pain, and both variables accounted for their equal share of the variance. conversely, the negative coping resource model with epq-n (dysphoric nervousness) and negative moods in general, accounted for 45 % of the variance in pain, most of this latter variance being accounted for by the epq-n variable. these results clearly indicated a role for psychological coping resources in everyday life for these patients, and sense of humor appeared to play a significant role. europe’s journal of psychology 303 aarstad, aarstad, heimdal and olofsson (2005) studied the importance of sense of humor for prognosis and quality of life among seventy-eight male patients with head and neck cancer (squamous cell carcinoma) and sixty-one male patients with benign head-neck diagnoses, excluding patients with cachexia and age above eighty. all completed the beck depression inventory, spielberger trait-state anxiety inventory, quality of life and the shq-6. the cancer patients, on average, reported higher anxiety and lower depression levels than the controls. sense of humor, but not level of anxiety or depression, at diagnosis predicted quality of life and depression at follow-up, with higher quality of life and lower depression among patients scoring high on sense of humor. shq-6 and mortality research on the role of humor in longevity is sparse. a well-known series of three studies were based upon a carefully selected cohort of bright children in california, eleven years old, initiated by lewis terman in the early 1920s (n=1,215). all adopted a prospective design and tested personality predictors of mortality over the lifespan. they included an index of sense of humor/cheerfulness as seen by teachers and parents. the first of these reports (friedman, tucker, tomlinson-keasey, schwartz, wingard & criqui, 1993) had a broad focus on personality and showed that low conscientious children were at higher risk of premature mortality than were highconscientious children, and children scoring low on the humor index were more likely than those scoring high to achieve an older age. this appeared to be a robust finding that was confirmed in a follow -up report (friedman, schwartz, martin, tomlinson-keasey, wingard & criqui, 1995): cheerful children tended to die early compared with less cheerfulness ones. in a 2002 report, cheerfulness was the exclusive focus in a third report from this pioneering study, and the positive relationship between childhood cheerfulness and increased mortality was again confirmed (martin, friedman, tucker, tomlinson-keasey, criqui & schwartz, 2002). in contrast, a positive relation between humor and longevity was reported in a more recent study of mortality among end-stage renal failure patients (svebak, kristoffersen & aasarød, 2006). these investigators assessed sense of humor among a county cohort (n=48) of renal failure patients using the shq-6. their study employed a two-year prospective design and included a number of other measures that might influence health outcome, such as biomedical indices of severity of the disease, duration of the renal failure, age, gender and quality of life. the strongest predictor of surv ival in this cohort was the sense of humor score, and those with higher scores development and applications of the shq 304 had around a 30 % reduced risk of dying, compared with those scoring in the lower half of the distribution on the shq-6. there were a number of striking differences between the above two research approaches, including the participant samples, the prospective time periods and the methods for assessing sense of humor. the friedman group estimated differences in cheerfulness based upon the social image of the child as seen by their teachers and parents, whereas the renal failure study assessed differences in sense of humor based upon self-image. both studies call upon replications with recruitment of broader populations in order to evaluate the importance of assessment by social image versus self-image of sense of humor. the ultra-short shq-3 the largest population health screening survey appears to have been in norway over the last 25 years. health screening has been performed of a county population, aged above nineteen, at three times with approximately ten years between screenings, starting in the mid 1980’s. the screening is referred to as the hunt-1, -2, and -3, respectively (county of north-trøndelag). in hunt-2 my primary responsibility was to uncover the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain and discomfort, which left little room for assessing sense of humor as w ell. the health survey included an extensive set of variables addressing health issues across a range of research interests. therefore, a need for overall brev ity in the survey was pivotal to ensure a high level of participation. thus, humor was assessed by one question from each of the three sets of items in the shq (svebak, 1996). i tem selection was based upon the highest factor loading for each of the three items within their dimension. these were as follows: “do you easily recognize a mark of humorous intent?” (m-item; n= 53,546; standardized item alpha = .91, item correlating .87 with sub-scale sum); “persons who are out to be funny are really irresponsible types not to be relied upon” (l-item; n=52,198; standardized item alpha = .91, item correlating .88 with sub-scale sum); and “do you consider yourself to be a mirthful person?” (e-item; n= 53,132; standardized item alpha = .74, item correlating .78 with sub-scale sum). the participants responded to 4-step scales (labelled for the three items respectively: very sluggishly – very easily; yes indeed – not at all; not at all – yes indeed). given the extreme brevity of this approach, scores were summed into one index of sense of humor. a detailed account of the shq-3 item scores and their distribution across age cohorts has been published (svebak, martin & holmen, 2004). results were based upon europe’s journal of psychology 305 responses from 26,850 males and 28,550 females across the whole age span from above age 19. total scores were slightly skewed toward the high end and declined slightly with increasing age after fifty and were slightly higher in males than females up to age fifty. above age seventy, females, on average, scored slightly higher than males. correlations with health parameters were triv ial. thus, health satisfaction was positively correlated with humor scores (r = .21). after controlling for age, only the partial correlation with health satisfaction remained above .10 (r = .12). very low coefficients were significant, due to the large number of participants, despite the fact that shared variance was very low. however, these survey findings clearly confirmed previous findings on lack of a direct and strong relationship for sense of humor with physical health parameters such as dyspepsia, indigestion, cardiorespiratory complaints, musculoskeletal complaints, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and body mass index. the ultra-short shq-3 has been used in a seven-year prospective study of surv ival among the participants of the hunt-2 and with the shq-3 index as predictor of allcause mortality (svebak, romundstad & holmen, 2010). the sum of scores given to the three items (m: n= 53,546; l: n= 52,198; e: n= 53,132) were tested as predictors of surv ival by cox surv ival regression analyses applied to gender, age and subjective health. findings indicated that hazard ratios (hr) were reduced with sense of humor (continuous scale: hr=0.73; high versus low scores by median split: hr=0.50). these findings were contrasted with an increased hr associated with a number of wellknown risk factors (cardiovascular disease: hr=6.28; diabetes: hr=4.86; cancer: hr=4.18; poor subjective health: hr=2.89). gender was of triv ial importance to the effect of sense of humor on surv ival. subjective health correlated positively with sense of humor. i t is therefore possible that subjective health could be the real cause of a spurious relation of increased surv ival with a high sense of humor. however, sense of humor proved to reduce hr both in indiv iduals with poor and good subjective health. interestingly, above age sixty-five the effect of sense of humor on surv ival became less ev ident, and beyond age seventy-five the caplan-meyer surv ival curves for the high versus low sense of humor groups were undistinguishable. therefore, sense of humor appeared to increase the probability of surv ival into retirement, and this effect appeared independent of subjective health. i t was not at all present after age seventy-five. we do not conclude that sense of humor is of triv ial importance to psychosocial quality of life after seventy-five. conclusion the present conceptual approach focused upon three components of sense of humor. i t took two rev isions to have a test with seven items on each sub-scale and development and applications of the shq 306 fair internal consistency for the mand l-items. the moderate internal consistency of the e-items was taken as due to the diverse sources of laughter beyond humor and, therefore, further rev ision has been discouraged. total shq-scores predicted amount of laughter when exposed to comedy in the laboratory. gender differences generally has not been supported for sense of humor, despite support for sex role stereotypes for different subscales. higher shq-scores have been found among adolescents liv ing in rural as opposed to urban settings. higher m and l-scores have been associated with greater self-esteem, extraversion, optimism, wellbeing, and lower neuroticism and depression. the studies using mand l-items also support a moderating role for sense of humor in effects of stress upon negative moods, bodily complaints and ig-a. research using the short shq-6 has supported a role for sense of humor in coping with bodily diseases. high scores have been associated with better coping and reduced complaints. pioneering support for the role of sense of humor in increased surv ival was reported in a prospective study of patients with endstage renal failure. this finding was supported by scores on the ultra-short shq-3 in a large-scale adult county population health survey where mortality after seven years into follow-up was approximately 30 % lower among those scoring high compared with those scoring low. the shq-6 and shq-3 are recommended when a short scale for the 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(1934). the psychology of humor. journal of abnormal and social psychology, 28, 341-365. about the author: sven svebak is professor of medicine (behavioural sciences in medicine) at the norwegian university of science and technology, trondheim, norway. he is a licenced psychologist and worked as research psychophysiologist until he resigned as full professor from the faculty of psychology, university of bergen, in 1994. his dissertation reported a series of experiments on psychophysiological differences between serious-minded versus playful motivational involvement in continuous perceptual-motor task performance. his research focus over fourty years has mainly been div ided between sense of humor (subjective health, morbidity, mortality) and musculoskeletal tension and pain (mechanisms, prevalence, interventions). he has worked for fifteen years as adjunct clinician and researcher in a multidisciplinary team for the rehabilitation of patients with chronic back pain and has published on prevalence of musculoskeletal pain from one of the largest public health surveys of the world (hunt-2) where he also initiated the pioneering population study on sense of humor and surv ival. address for correspondence: sven svebak, department of neuroscience, nevro øst 3. etg., no-7496 trondheim, norway. e-mail address: sven.svebak@ntnu.no or sven.svebak@yahoo.com mailto:sven.svebak@ntnu.no mailto:sven.svebak@yahoo.com integrating humor and positive psychology approaches to psychological well-being research reports integrating humor and positive psychology approaches to psychological well-being nadia brittany maiolino*a, nicholas a. kuipera [a] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract in this study we investigated how individual differences and personality constructs taken from the positive psychology and humor domains of psychology may play an important role in psychological well-being. participants completed measures assessing trait gratitude, savoring, and humor styles; along with several positive and negative indicators of psychological well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, positive affect, depression, and anxiety). we first examined the degree of empirical and conceptual overlap among the personality constructs from these two domains. here, we found that higher levels of gratitude and savoring were associated with higher levels of self-enhancing and affiliative humor, whereas higher levels of aggressive and self-defeating humor were primarily associated with lower levels of gratitude. subsequent regression analyses indicated that the positive psychology construct of gratitude was predictive of several different indices of positive and negative well-being, whereas savoring was most predictive of greater positive affect. in addition, these regression analyses also revealed that the humor styles of self-enhancing and self-defeating humor provided a significant increase in the prediction of several positive and negative indices of well-being, above and beyond the effects attributable to the positive psychology constructs alone. these findings were then discussed in terms of developing a broader and more integrated theoretical approach to the understanding of psychological well-being. keywords: humor, gratitude, savoring, life satisfaction, positive affect, depression, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 received: 2014-01-20. accepted: 2014-03-17. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, westminster hall, 3rd floor east, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7. e-mail: nmaiolin@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction considerable research in psychology has supported the proposal that individual differences in personality characteristics or styles can have a marked influence on psychological well-being. in the humor domain, for example, a number of studies have now identified how various humor styles are differentially associated with well-being. these four distinct humor styles, as initially proposed by martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003), include: (i) affiliative humor, or using humor to connect and foster relationships with others, (ii) self-enhancing humor, or using humor to cope effectively under stressful life circumstances, (iii) self-defeating humor, or using humor in a self-deprecating manner, and (iv) aggressive humor, or using humor to denigrate and bring down others. expected relationships between these four humor styles and constructs indicative of psychological well-being have been clearly documented in the humor research literature (kuiper, 2012; martin, 2007). as one illustration, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ martin et al. (2003) found that higher levels of affiliative and self-enhancing humor were associated with higher levels of self-esteem, and lower levels of both depression and anxiety. self-defeating humor was also associated with these well-being measures, but in the expected opposite directions. furthermore, both aggressive and selfdefeating humor were associated with greater hostility toward others. these findings, which have been replicated a number of times in the humor literature, support a major distinction between humor styles that may serve to enhance well-being (i.e., adaptive humor, such as affiliative and self-enhancing humor) versus humor styles that may be detrimental (i.e., maladaptive humor, such as self-defeating and aggressive humor). research in other domains of psychology has also explored the links between personality characteristics and psychological well-being. in the positive psychology domain, for example, considerable work has examined how individual difference characteristics have meaningful consequences for maintaining and enhancing overall wellbeing (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). substantial interest has been garnered around the construct of gratitude, when considered as a personality characteristic or trait, and how it may be involved in facilitating psychological well-being. this trait conceptualization of gratitude refers to individual differences in the frequency and intensity of grateful affect (mccullough, emmons, & tsang, 2002). research has demonstrated that trait gratitude correlates with measures of psychological well-being in the expected manner. as one example, a recent study found that individuals who pay more attention to feeling grateful for aspects of their lives report fewer depressive symptoms (lambert, fincham, & stillman, 2012). studies of gratitude more generally have shown that higher levels of gratitude are associated with a variety of positive indicators of wellbeing (e.g., life satisfaction, positive affect); with converse relationships evident between higher gratitude and negative indicators of well-being (e.g., negative affect, depression during a life transition) (emmons & mccullough, 2003; wood, maltby, gillett, linley, & joseph, 2008). in addition to gratitude, other constructs have been investigated within the positive psychology domain. for instance, researchers have also examined how individual differences in the savoring of positive experiences are meaningful for psychological well-being. bryant and veroff (2007) have defined savoring as the process of attending to and enhancing a positive experience through the use of various cognitive and behavioral strategies – for example, telling others about one’s experience. these researchers have also proposed that cognitive and behavioral responses to positive experiences reflect stable differences in personality. research has indicated that this trait conceptualization of savoring has significant bearing on well-being. to illustrate, one study reported that the savoring of positive events was important for the happiness individuals derived from the experience (jose, lim, & bryant, 2012). when taken together, the above research provides some initial empirical support for the proposal that individual differences in personality may have an effect on psychological well-being. what is still missing, however, is a more unified examination of how the various styles and characteristics identified in the humor and positive psychology domains may relate to psychological well-being. to date, almost all of the work in these two domains of psychology has proceeded independently. there has been very little integration of theory and findings between these two domains, although both focus on the same fundamental topic and issues, namely, the study of individual difference factors that shape how a person perceives, interacts with, and interprets the various experiences and events they encounter on a daily basis. thus, little is yet known about how individuals with high levels of trait gratitude, for example, may also use the various humor styles. nor is much known about how the positive psychology europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 558 http://www.psychopen.eu/ constructs, such as gratitude or savoring, may combine with humor styles to exert an influence of psychological well-being. accordingly, the present study was designed to provide a unified examination of these issues by integrating recent research and theory in both domains. in particular, we were interested in determining how a combined examination of some of the main individual difference constructs in both the humor and positive psychology domains would help us understand more fully how these personality characteristics and humor styles may then relate to psychological well-being. we did this by assessing individual differences in the four humor styles, along with levels of personal gratitude and savoring, in a sample of over 250 participants. in addition, we also assessed level of psychological well-being for each participant in our study by focusing on both the presence of positive indicators, such as subjective happiness, satisfaction with life, and positive affect; as well as negative indicators such as increased levels of depression, anxiety and stress. since little research has thus far combined these two domains of study, our initial focus was on the possible relationships between the positive psychology constructs of gratitude and savoring, and each of the four humor styles. in general, we expected that high levels of trait gratitude and savoring would be linked to a greater endorsement of the two adaptive humor styles. this pattern was expected as the more positive orientation to life exhibited by those higher on gratitude and savoring would also be reflected in their humor style preferences. thus, it was anticipated that higher levels of gratitude and savoring would be associated with greater use of affiliative humor, as this would be consistent with a positive orientation to make social interactions more enjoyable. likewise, we expected these two positive psychology constructs to be positively associated with self-enhancing humor, as this would be consistent with helping to promote and maintain a positive view of the self, particularly when dealing with various stressful situations. conversely, we expected that higher levels of trait gratitude and savoring would be inversely related to greater endorsement of maladaptive humor use. this pattern stems from the notion that the overall positive orientation towards life displayed by those individuals with higher levels of gratitude and savoring is basically incompatible with the negative focus of each of the two maladaptive humor styles. given their positive orientation, these individuals are much less likely to engage in self-defeating humor that puts down the self, and are also much less likely to use aggressive humor that is extremely harmful to others, and highly disruptive of social and personal relationships. the second major issue we examined in this study was the combined contribution of the positive personality constructs of gratitude and savoring, along with the four humor styles, to predicting levels of psychological wellbeing. here, we were particularly interested in determining whether the humor styles made a significant additional contribution to predicting well-being, above and beyond what could be predicted by just knowing an individual’s level of gratitude and savoring. although past research has looked at these constructs separately, there is very little research examining their combined contribution to psychological well-being. it could be the case, for example, that once gratitude and savoring are taken into account, there is little additional predictive variance in psychological well-being that can be attributable to the humor styles. this pattern would suggest that the conceptual degree of overlap between these constructs is of a sufficient magnitude to render humor styles redundant in the prediction of well-being (once an individual’s level of gratitude and savoring is known). on the other hand, if the humor styles still contribute significantly to well-being, above and beyond gratitude and savoring, this would suggest there are europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 maiolino & kuiper 559 http://www.psychopen.eu/ unique aspects associated with humor, distinct from gratitude and savoring, that still impact significantly on psychological well-being. we examined these possibilities by using multiple regression procedures to predict the various well-being outcomes (e.g., subjective happiness, depression), entering the two positive personality constructs as the first block of predictors and the four humor styles as the second block. overall, it was anticipated that there would be a unique role for both humor and positive psychology when predicting well-being. that is, given the different proposed functions of the humor styles and gratitude and savoring, it was expected that neither the roles of humor nor positive psychology would be entirely subsumed under the other. yet, at the same time, it was expected that some constructs would be more important for the prediction of certain outcomes. for example, given that the practice of savoring is uniquely tied to positive experiences, it was expected that savoring would account for more unique variance within the context of positive versus negative indicators of well-being (e.g., positive affect). method participants a total of 268 students enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the university of western ontario participated in this study. one case was excluded from any analyses, due to the substantial proportion of missing data. thus, the final sample was comprised of 267 students (212 females, 54 males, and 1 unidentified), who ranged in age from 16 to 43 (m = 18.35, sd = 1.98). ethics approval was obtained prior to data collection. measures humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) — the hsq consists of 32 items, with 4 subscales comprised of 8 items each. each subscale measures the extent to which a person typically engages in either selfenhancing humor (e.g., if i’m feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor), affiliative humor (e.g., i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends), aggressive humor (e.g., if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it), or self-defeating humor (e.g., i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should). ratings for each item are made on a 7 point scale, ranging from 1 = totally disagree to 7 = totally agree. the four subscales of the hsq have demonstrated appropriate internal consistency, with cronbach’s alphas ranging from .77 to .81 (martin et al., 2003). factor analytic work and relatively low intercorrelations between the subscales indicate that these measures tap humor styles that are relatively distinct from one another. the hsq has also demonstrated adequate construct validity, as peer ratings of sense of humor were positively correlated with hsq scores (martin, 2007). gratitude questionnaire-6 (gq-6; mccullough et al., 2002) — the gq-6 is a 6 item self-report measure of trait gratitude that is widely used in research (wood, froh, & geraghty, 2010). the gq-6 assesses individual differences in the frequency and intensity of grateful affect (e.g., i have so much in life to be thankful for), with each item rated on a 7 point scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. this measure of trait gratitude exhibits appropriate internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = .82); as well as discriminant validity with respect to related constructs, such as optimism, hope, and vitality (mccullough et al., 2002). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 560 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ways of savoring scale (wosc; bryant & veroff, 2007) — the wosc examines the extent to which an individual, in response to a recent positive event, engages in various cognitive-behavioral strategies pertaining to savoring. although the original wosc has 10 different subscales for assessing savoring, many of these subscales have only modest levels of internal consistency (lindberg, 2005). as such, the selection of items for the present study was based on recent factor analytic work which revealed the presence of an “amplifying savoring” factor (α = .80) that assesses the dispositional tendency to savor positive events (e.g., “i talked to another person about how good i felt”). the three items from the original wosc that loaded most strongly on this factor were used in the present study. each item was rated on a 7 point scale with 1 = definitely does not apply to 7 = definitely applies. thus, higher scores represented greater savoring. positive and negative affect schedule (panas;watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988)— the panas is composed of 20 items and yields two separate scores for positive and negative affect. using a 5-point scale, participants indicate the frequency with which they experience a variety of emotions, from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely) over the past week. examples of positive affect items are “interested”, “strong” and “enthusiastic”. negative affect items include “distressed”, “upset”, and “guilty”. the panas is a well-validated, commonly used measure of positive and negative affect. high reliability has been demonstrated, as well as good convergent validity with other measures of pleasant and unpleasant moods (watson et al., 1988). depression, anxiety, and stress scales-21 (dass-21; lovibond & lovibond, 1995) — the three subscales of the dass-21 assess depressive, anxious, and stressful symptomology. this self-report measure is composed of 21 items in which respondents are asked to rate their agreement with statements using a 4-point scale, ranging from 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much, or most of the time). in the present study, participants were instructed to rate the statements based on their experiences over the previous week. the dass-21 has demonstrated good internal consistency, with cronbach’s alphas ranging from .87 for anxiety to .94 for depression (antony, bieling, cox, enns, & swinson, 1998). acceptable concurrent validity has also been documented, with dass-21 scores correlating highly with other measures of depression, anxiety, or stress. the subjective happiness scale (shs; lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999) — the shs is a four-item self-report measure of subjective judgments regarding global happiness. using 7-point scales, participants first rated their own general level of happiness (1 = not a very happy person to 7 = a very happy person), and then rated their happiness compared to their peers (1 = less happy to 7 = more happy). the remaining two items provide respondents with a description of what characterizes happy people and unhappy people, and then asked the participant to assess how well this applies to them (e.g., some people are generally very happy. they enjoy life regardless of what is going on, getting the most out of everything. to what extent does this characterization describe you? 1 = not at all and 7 = a great deal). scores on each item are combined to yield a total happiness score, with higher scores representing increased levels of happiness. this scale has been used widely, and within the field of positive psychology, in particular. it has been shown to have good to excellent internal consistency, with internal reliability estimates ranging from .79 to .94. this measure has also demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability, as well as good convergent validity with other questionnaires measuring happiness (lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999). the satisfaction with life scale (swl; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) — the swl is another measure commonly employed within the domain of positive psychology, and assesses cognitive judgments regarding global life satisfaction. respondents are asked to rate their agreement with four statements, using a 7point scale ranging from 1 =strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. sample items include, “in most ways, my life europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 maiolino & kuiper 561 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is close to ideal” and “i am satisfied with life”. participants’ total scores range from 5 to 35, with a score above 20 thought to indicate adequate satisfaction with one’s life. excellent internal consistency has been demonstrated, with reliability estimates ranging from .86 to .90. with respect to convergent validity, moderate to strong correlations have been documented between the swl and other measures of well-being. procedure once participants viewed the description of the study on the psychology department website and then signed up for the study, they were randomly directed to one of four versions of the research questionnaire. these versions were created to help control for any possible ordering effects (i.e., a complete reverse ordering of scales; orderings which had scales positioned in the middle of one survey version being then placed at the beginning and end of other versions, and so on). regardless of the version of the research survey that participants were directed to, they were first presented with a letter of information and then gave their informed consent to participation before proceeding. after completing the study, participants received a debriefing form. results inspection of table 1 reveals that the means, standard deviations, and ranges for the humor, positive psychology and well-being measures are comparable to those reported in previous research. reliability coefficients were all quite acceptable for our set of measures, with cronbach alphas ranging from .75 to .89. table 1 means, standard deviations, range and reliabilities for all measures reliabilityrangesdmmeasure .837.1143.91affiliative humor -5622 .817.7034.34self-enhancing humor -5213 .777.8028.64aggressive humor -539 .838.7928.82self-defeating humor -5510 .835.5734.40gratitude -429 .753.4915.05savoring -213 .864.2812.30depression -267 .794.0112.27anxiety -267 .824.2814.45stress -287 .877.6923.04negative affect -4910 .877.1530.77positive affect -4911 .894.9718.67happiness -284 .896.2524.23life satisfaction -355 note. n = 267 for all measures. table 2 presents the correlations between each of the four humor styles and the two positive psychology constructs of gratitude and savoring. in accord with our expectations, greater levels of trait gratitude were associated with significantly higher levels of both affiliative and self-enhancing humor; and significantly lower levels of both aggressive and self-defeating humor. higher levels of savoring were also associated in the expected manner with greater endorsement of the two adaptive humor styles (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing). for the maladaptive styles, however, greater savoring was only associated with lower levels of aggressive humor. thus, in contrast to gratitude, savoring was not significantly related to self-defeating humor. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 562 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between the four humor styles, and gratitude and savoring self-defeating humoraggressive humorself-enhancing humoraffiliative humor gratitude .16*-.29**-.33**.33** savoring .01.13*-.43**.27** *p < .05. **p < .01. in order to explore the above relationships further, we conducted a principal components analysis on the measures of gratitude, savoring and four humor styles, using a varimax rotation. the resulting factor structure and loadings are shown in table 3. factor 1 represents a broad positive orientation towards dealing with life experiences and events, with the highest factor loadings being evident for the two adaptive humor styles (self-enhancing and affiliative), and the two positive psychology constructs (trait gratitude and savoring). in contrast, factor 2 primarily represents a negative orientation, as reflected in higher levels of both aggressive and self-defeating humor use, coupled with lower levels of gratitude. savoring was not included in this second factor, however, as the factor 2 loading for this construct was not substantive. taken together, these findings indicate that there are meaningful relationships between the various humor styles and the positive psychology constructs of gratitude and savoring. the adaptive styles of humor are clearly linked to higher levels of gratitude and savoring, suggesting some degree of conceptual overlap; whereas the maladaptive humor styles are associated with lower levels of gratitude, but not savoring. table 3 factor structure and loadings for humor styles and positive psychology constructs factor 2: negative life orientationfactor 1: positive life orientation gratitude .48-.69 savoring .19-.75 self-enhancing humor .17.76 affiliative humor .21.69 aggressive humor .76.07self-defeating humor .67.13 positive psychology and humor styles predicting well-being hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to determine the contribution of the two positive psychology constructs and the four humor styles to psychological well-being. each of these analyses also considered the degree to which humor contributed to the prediction of well-being, above and beyond gratitude and savoring. thus, for each well-being measure (e.g., happiness, anxiety), gratitude and savoring were entered as predictors in block 1, and the four humor styles were then entered as block 2. details of these analyses are described below, with a summary of all significant findings and the regression coefficients (b) shown in table 4. negative well-being when considering just the block 1 predictors of depression, the regression equation was significant, r2 = .21, f(2, 264) = 34.20, p <.001, with gratitude being the sole significant contributor (b = -.33). the subsequent inclusion of the block 2 predictors of the four humor styles resulted in a significant incremental change inr2 of .13, f-change europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 maiolino & kuiper 563 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (4, 260) = 13.00, p < .001. the regression equation for this overall model was significant, r2 = .34, f(6, 260) = 22.13, p < .001; and showed that gratitude was the largest significant predictor (b = -.27), followed by self-enhancing humor (b = -.18), and then self-defeating humor (b = .14). similar predictive patterns were observed for stress, negative affect, and anxiety. when considering just the block 1 positive psychology predictors, only a lower level of gratitude was predictive of higher stress, greater negative affect, and greater anxiety. as shown in the table 4 regression coefficients, savoring did not contribute significantly. however, adding in the block 2 humor styles resulted in a significant increase in the prediction for each negative well-being measure. in terms of stress, the final regression equation for this overall model was significant; with less self-enhancing humor, more self-defeating humor, and less gratitude all contributing significantly to greater stress levels (see table 4 for the individual regression coefficients). for negative affect, the overall regression model showed that less gratitude, less self-enhancing humor, more self-defeating humor, and less affiliative humor all contributed significantly to greater negative affect. finally, a slightly different pattern emerged for the overall model predicting anxiety, with less gratitude, more savoring, less self-enhancing humor, and more self-defeating humor, all playing a predictive role (see table 4 for coefficients). overall, the above patterns of findings support a role for positive psychology constructs (particularly gratitude) and humor styles (particularly self-enhancing and self-defeating humor) in the prediction of negative psychological well-being. furthermore, these findings indicate that the humor styles add significantly to the prediction of negative well-being outcomes, above and beyond what is known about an individual’s level of trait gratitude. the only peculiar finding in this set of analyses was that higher levels of savoring actually contributed to greater anxiety. this finding, however, should be considered in the context of the large set of significant predictors included in the overall final regression model for this specific negative well-being measure. positive well-being when considering only gratitude and savoring, the block 1 findings revealed that both of these positive psychology constructs played a significant predictive role. in particular, higher levels for all three positive outcome measures (happiness, satisfaction with life, and positive affect) were predicted by both higher levels of gratitude and higher levels of savoring (see table 4 for individual regression coefficients). thus, in contrast to negative well-being, savoring appears to play a much more prominent role in predicting positive well-being; and is actually a primary predictor for positive affect (with gratitude providing a much smaller contribution for this outcome measure). the addition of the block 2 humor styles to each regression model resulted in a significant increase in predicted variance for all three positive outcome measures (see table 4 for details). in the resulting overall regression models, greater self-enhancing humor and less self-defeating humor were significant predictors for all three positive outcome measures. aggressive humor also added significantly to the prediction of satisfaction with life; whereas affiliative humor added significantly to the prediction of positive affect. however, as evident by the individual regression coefficients shown in table 4, it was self-enhancing humor that appeared to be the most important humor style, in terms of predicting each of the positive well-being measures. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 564 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 summary of significant findings and regression coefficients for all regression analyses overall model and predictorsblock 2 changeblock 1 predictorswell-being measures f = 22.13***f-change = 13.00***f = 34.20***depression r2 = .34r2 change = .13r2 = .21 gratitude (-.33)***gratitude (-.33)*** self-enhancing (-.18)*** self-defeating (.14)*** f = 8.19***f-change = 7.89***f = 7.95***stress r2 = .34r2 change = .13r2 = .06 self-enhancing (-.13)***gratitude (-.19)*** self-defeating (.13)*** gratitude (-.11)* f = 10.90***f-change = 8.71***f = 13.66***negative affect r2 = .20r2 change = .11r2 = .09 gratitude (-.28)***gratitude (-.45)*** self-enhancing (-.23)*** self-defeating (.21)*** affiliative (-.15)* f = 12.08***f-change = 7.68***f = 18.94***anxiety r2 = .22r2 change = .09r2 = .13 gratitude (-.20)***gratitude (-.28)*** savoring (.19)* self-enhancing (-.12)*** self-defeating (.12)*** f = 37.82***f-change = 26.01***f = 44.57***happiness r2 = .47r2 change = .21r2 = .25 self-enhancing (.32)***savoring (.35)*** gratitude (.20)***gratitude (.30)*** self-defeating (-.10)*** f = 21.96***f-change = 5.47***f = 51.43***life satisfaction r2 = .34r2 change = .06r2 = .28 gratitude (.43)***gratitude (.44)*** self-enhancing (.32)***savoring (.38)*** savoring (.28)* self-defeating (-.10)*** aggressive (.09)* f = 22.63***f-change = 17.09***f = 27.09***positive affect r2 = .34r2 change = .17r2 = .17 savoring (.45)***savoring (.67)*** self-enhancing (.41)***gratitude (.18)* self-defeating (-.17)*** affiliative (-.16)** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. it is also important to note that, in the overall regression models, greater gratitude remained as a significant predictor for two of the three positive outcomes (i.e., happiness and life satisfaction), and appeared to be particularly europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 maiolino & kuiper 565 http://www.psychopen.eu/ important for predicting life satisfaction. in contrast, savoring was no longer a significant predictor for happiness, but remained as one of the predictors in the final overall regression equation for satisfaction with life. finally, as shown by the regression coefficients reported in table 4, savoring remained as the most important single predictor in the overall model of positive affect, followed closely by self-enhancing humor. overall, these results underscore the importance of both positive psychology constructs and humor styles when considering positive indicators of well-being. thus, just as was the case with negative well-being, the humor styles once again contributed significantly to the prediction of well-being, with the major emphasis being on self-enhancing and self-defeating humor. in a similar fashion, gratitude was also involved in predicting both positive and negative psychological well-being. perhaps the biggest distinction was that savoring appears to play much less of a role when considering negative well-being, but assumes increasing prominence in the prediction of positive well-being indices, such as positive affect. discussion previous work has demonstrated the separate roles that humor styles and positive psychology constructs, such as gratitude and savoring, have within the context of psychological well-being. to date, however, very little research has yet explored how these individual difference constructs may relate to one another, or work in conjunction to enhance or detract from well-being. as two rapidly growing and promising areas of study, it is important to know whether these constructs function as relatively isolated individual difference strategies that can impact on overall well-being, or whether a given construct or style is part of a broader network of adaptive or maladaptive strategies employed by an individual. furthermore, it is important to know whether the strategies within a given domain dominate or render other strategies less important, when considered together; or whether there appears to be a combined role for both humor styles and positive psychology constructs in predicting psychological well-being. we first addressed these theoretical and empirical issues by examining the basic relationships between gratitude, savoring, and the four humor styles. in line with our expectations, we found that higher gratitude and savoring were positively linked with higher levels of both adaptive humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing), along with lower levels of aggressive humor. higher trait gratitude was also associated with lower levels of the maladaptive style of self-defeating humor that has predominantly been implicated in negative well-being (martin et al., 2003). we also found that two more fundamental dimensions appear to underlie all of these relationships. the first dimension corresponds to a broad, positive orientation for perceiving, interpreting and reflecting upon one’s life situations and experiences. conversely, the second dimension, which captures more aggressive and self-defeating humor, coupled with lower levels of gratitude, appears to reflect a broad negative orientation to approaching and dealing with life events and experiences. overall, these patterns of findings clearly reinforce the interwoven nature of the various individual difference constructs examined in our study. in addition, they also highlight the need to consider constructs from these two domains of psychology in a more unified manner. in this integrated approach, each individual construct is acknowledged as part of a more fundamental positive or negative orientation for dealing with a wide variety of life circumstances and experiences. accordingly, future theoretical development and elaboration needs to take into account the exact nature of the combined contribution of these constructs to psychological well-being. our findings consistently indicated that the humor styles contributed to well-being, above and beyond the contributions of gratitude and savoring. for the negative indicators of well-being, we found that lower levels of gratitude and self-enhancing humor, along with europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 566 http://www.psychopen.eu/ higher levels of self-defeating humor, were the most consistent significant predictors of depression, anxiety, stress, and negative affect. overall, this pattern clearly highlights the important roles of gratitude and the self-focused humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing and self-defeating) in determining negative well-being. a similar pattern emerged for the positive indicators of well-being, which once again implicated gratitude and the self-focused humor styles as prominent predictors of higher levels of subjective happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect. in this case, however, there seems to be a much stronger role for savoring, with this individual difference construct being a significant predictor of two of the three positive indicators of well-being. it was particularly interesting that savoring played the predominate role in determining positive affect levels, in spite of humor’s traditional very strong association with mirth and positive affect (martin, 2007). if this pattern replicates in future studies, it might help elucidate some of the critical distinctions between savoring as a strategy and the role of adaptive humor styles, such as affiliative and self-enhancing humor. more generally, these findings point to a number of important conclusions. firstly, they indicate that although constructs within the humor and positive psychology domains are certainly related, they should not be thought of as completely interchangeable. this was illustrated by the significant relationships uncovered between the humor styles and gratitude and savoring, but with different combinations of constructs from both of these domains then being necessary to best predict the various indicators of well-being. as such, an important direction for future research would be to delineate why these constructs in the humor and positive psychology domains are related, and then uncover what is happening at a conceptual level, now that we have some initial documentation of what is happening empirically. here, the challenge for future research is to more fully map out the underlying theoretical processes and mechanisms that are differentially associated with these humor and positive psychology constructs, and then determine how they may impact to either facilitate or detract from psychological well-being. it may be the case, for example, that gratitude and the self-focused humor styles were most crucial for self-reported wellbeing in our study because these strategies have particular significance for coping effectively under adverse life circumstances (kuiper, 2012; martin et al., 2003; wood et al., 2010). this segues into our second important conclusion that when positive psychology constructs are investigated in the context of well-being, there is still a very important role for humor styles. our findings consistently implicated the self-focused humor styles (i.e., self-enhancing and self-defeating humor) as being particularly meaningful for well-being, even after trait gratitude and savoring were considered. furthermore, among the positive psychology constructs, gratitude emerged as being most critical for the prediction of well-being, even when the humor styles were taken into account. altogether, this study provides support for the argument that the humor styles and constructs within positive psychology, such as gratitude and savoring, should be conceptualized as belonging together, but as having different, important roles. the implications are that a combined approach to well-being, rather than an approach that solely stresses the predominant role of humor or positive psychology, is probably the most beneficial and accurate. in accord with this notion, research initiatives might consider various theoretical models of well-being that take into account individual differences and strategies from both these domains. to illustrate, future studies might examine the extent to which constructs from these two domains interact with one another, in terms of having a differential impact on psychological well-being (e.g., high/low levels of gratitude by high/low levels of self-enhancing humor). this type of extension could build upon many prior studies that have documented the moderating effects of humor on well-being, including such indicators as stress (lehman, burke, martin, sultan, & czech, 2001) and depression europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 maiolino & kuiper 567 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (hugelshofer, kwon, reff, & olson, 2006). at the same time, it would be important for future research to also consider how humor may play a mediating role in psychological well-being, as several studies have now provided support for this alternative theoretical perspective (see kuiper, klein, vertes, & maiolino, this issue; kuiper & mchale, 2009). clearly, there are a large number of research avenues that can be pursued here. in integrating these two domains further, it should be remembered that one aspect of sense of humor has already been included in positive psychology approaches. in particular, humor has been identified as one of 24 positive character strengths in the value in action – inventory of strengths (via-is; peterson & seligman, 2004). in this approach, humor is defined as a general positive attribute (e.g., likes to laugh and joke) and does contribute substantially to greater life satisfaction. one difficulty with this positive psychology approach, however, is that it virtually ignores a large body of contemporary humor literature which clearly shows the existence of both positive and negative humor styles, with each having very different implications for psychological well-being (edwards & martin, this issue; kuiper, 2012). as such, a further benefit of theoretically integrating these two domains is the clear acknowledgement that humor is a multi-faceted construct, with some aspects being of benefit to well-being and other aspects being quite detrimental. another promising extension of the current work might build upon contemporary research in both the humor and positive psychology domains that has aimed to capitalize on the benefits of these approaches by training individuals in humor and positive psychology exercises (e.g., crawford & caltabiano, 2011; sin & lyubomirsky, 2009). in light of our findings, it would be important for this research to contrast exercises from the different domains with one other, and investigate the value of being trained in a combination of the most impactful humor and positive psychology strategies. this might include, for example, learning how to decrease one’s use of self-defeating humor, while also learning to increase the use of positive strategies pertaining to the use of self-enhancing humor and gratitude. finally, it is important to point out the various limitations of the present study. these include the use of a university student sample and self-report measures, in a cross-sectional design, to draw causal inferences. given these limitations, a logical extension of this work would be to utilize diary-format measures and observational research to corroborate the present findings. furthermore, it would also be important to integrate experimental manipulations into this line of research, in order to draw more powerful causal conclusions, while also avoiding singular reliance on inherent trait characteristics. in our lab, we have just completed a study that does this by directly comparing different exercises for increasing psychological well-being that are modeled after humor and positive psychology approaches. in this study we were interested in pre to post exercise differences for various well-being measures such as feelings of control, life satisfaction, and negative affect. preliminary findings indicated that the humor, gratitude, and savoring exercises can exert varying degrees of benefit over a control-condition exercise. in addition, we also found some initial empirical support for the notion that trait differences in humor styles, gratitude, and savoring have further important implications for the benefits individuals derive from a given humor or positive psychology exercise. in general, such approaches will help disentangle the contribution of individual personality attributes from advantages that accrue as a function of strategies or exercises derived from the humor and positive psychology literatures. funding this research was funded by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references antony, m. m., bieling, p. j., cox, b. j., enns, m. w., & swinson, r. p. 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(2010). gratitude and well-being: a review and theoretical integration. clinical psychology review, 30, 890-905. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005 wood, a. m., maltby, j., gillett, r., linley, p. a., & joseph, s. (2008). the role of gratitude in the development of social support, stress, and depression: two longitudinal studies. journal of research in personality, 42, 854-871. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.11.003 about the authors nadiamaiolino is enrolled in the ph.d. clinical psychology graduate program at the university of western ontario. her research interests include personality characteristics and strategies that contribute to well-being. dr. nicholas kuiper has been a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, self-schema processing of personal information, and other topics of interest. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 557–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.753 humor, positive psychology and well-being 570 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(94)00075-u http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1006824100041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00534-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.1.112 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2007.11.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor, positive psychology and well-being introduction method participants measures procedure results positive psychology and humor styles predicting well-being negative well-being positive well-being discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mental models for the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions research reports mental models for the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions guillermo macbeth*ab, eugenia razumiejczykab, maría del carmen crivelloab, claudia bolzán c, carolina iris pereyra girardiad, guillermo campitellie [a]national scientific and technical research council of argentina, buenos aires, argentina. [b]department of education sciences, national university of entre ríos, paraná, argentina. [c] department of humanities, arts, and social sciences, autonomous university of entre ríos, paraná, argentina. [d] institute for research in cardiology, university of buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. [e] school of psychology and social science, edith cowan university, perth, australia. abstract this study investigates why reasoning that involves negation is extremely difficult. we presented participants with reasoning problems containing sentences with negation of conjunctions and disjunctions in order to test predictions derived from the mental models theory of human thought. according to this theory, reasoning consists of representing and comparing possibilities. different sentential forms would require different cognitive demands. in particular, responses to a sentential negation task would be modulated by working memory load. this prediction would hold for correct responses but also for the general pattern of responses that includes incorrect responses when the task offers different response options. a within-subjects experimental design with selection paradigmwas applied to test these predictions. experimental comparisons and a complementary descriptive study yielded evidence consistent with the theory-driven predictions derived from the mental models theory. the working memory load was critical for the modulation of correct responses and overall responses. we discussed alternative accounts, and suggested additional predictions for further evaluation of these phenomena. keywords: mental models, sentential reasoning, negation, conjunction, disjunction, working memory europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 received: 2013-10-08. accepted: 2014-01-22. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: department of education sciences, national university of entre ríos, alameda de la federación 106, e3100gno, paraná, entre ríos, argentina. e-mail: g.macbeth@conicet.gov.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. reasoning following the tenets of normative models such as logic, probability theory, and bayes´ theorem has proven to be difficult for humans (gigerenzer, 2000). when reasoning involves sentences with negation the performance is even lower (wason & johnson-laird, 1972). the present study investigates why this is the case. khemlani, orenes, and johnson-laird (2012a, 2012b) presented an extension of the mental models theory (mmt) of human thought (byrne & johnson-laird, 2009; johnson-laird, 1983, 2008) to account for the specific case of negation in sentences. the aim of this study was to test two hypotheses derived from such an account, and more generally, to shed light on the difficulties that humans face when reasoning with sentences containing negation. the first hypothesis is concerned with correct responses while the second deals with a possible generalized pattern of responses. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the article continues as follows. first, we present the core concepts of the mmt of human thought. then, we define sentential reasoning and describe how the mmt explains this kind of mental processing. then, we introduce comments on the mathematical logic of the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions. then, we derive two hypotheses from a recent extension of the mmt that is specifically concerned with the negations of interest. before presenting and discussing the experiment, we comment on the paradigm employed to test these hypotheses and introduce predictions derived from an alternative theory. mental models theory the mmt successfully explains a broad range of reasoning phenomena (johnson-laird, 2008, 2010a). deductive, inductive, and probabilistic reasoning are the main research fields covered by this analytic theory that emerged against the traditional theories of logical form (johnson-laird, 2010b). such tradition includes the mental logic theories (braine & o’brien, 1998), the psychology of proof (rips, 1994, 2011), and a number of accounts influenced by piagetian formalism (johnson-laird, 2008, 2010b). the mmt argues that the objects studied by logic are radically different than the representations and inferences of human reasoning. johnson-laird (1983) postulated that reasoning phenomena are semantically-driven instead of rules-driven. according to the mmt reasoning depends on envisaging possibilities that are consistent with some given information (johnson-laird, 2010b). such information comes from external sources through perception but also from internal sources like personal knowledge. in this context, mental models can be broadly defined as iconic representations of the world (johnson-laird, 2008). mental models are dynamic constructions that initially represent only what is true and may or may not flesh out fully explicit models that also represent what is false (garcía-madruga, gutiérrez, carriedo, moreno, & johnsonlaird, 2002). the mmt postulates that working memory has a critical importance for reasoning (johnson-laird, 1983). the simultaneous representation of a set of mental models would require the activation of working memory. the mmt argues that reasoning errors are the product of working memory overload. when the amount of representation increases, the working memory load is heavier. the probability of committing reasoning errors grows as the working memory load grows, according to the mmt (johnson-laird, 2008; johnson-laird & byrne, 1991). additionally, the mmt postulates that the human mind systematically tends to avoid working memory load (johnson-laird, 1983, 2008, 2010a). in a broad sense, the mmt suggests that lower mental efforts are preferable to higher mental efforts. this holds insofar as specific reasoning tasks are compatible with such economic behavior (johnson-laird, 2010b). sentential reasoning the general aim of the mmt is to account for the representation and inferential processing of human thinking. in particular, sentential reasoning is one of the central topics studied by the mmt. sentential reasoning can be defined as the cognitive processing of propositions (johnson-laird, 2008). a proposition or sentence can be defined in this context as an expression that can be either true or false, but not both (suppes & hill, 1992). if a truth value cannot be attributed to a given expression, then such expression is not a sentence even if it makes sense in a particular language (garnier & taylor, 1996). a question, for example, is not a sentence. several links between sentences can be established through connectives. these connectives are abstract logical functions that are represented in human language through words like and, and or to express conjunction and disjunction, respectively (springston & clark, 1973). the word not has also logical and psychological importance because it expresses negation. another important connective is the conditional that takes the form of if…, then… (byrne & johnson-laird, 2009; garcía-madruga et al., 2002). mathematical logic further postulates that an atomic sentence is one that lacks connectives and the operator of negation, whereas a molecular sentence is one that includes europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ connectives linking two or more atomic sentences and admits operators like negation (suppes & hill, 1992). for example, the expression “london is a city” is an atomic sentence, which can be represented by a small letter (e.g., p) (garnier & taylor, 1996). “africa is a continent” is another atomic sentence, which can be represented by another small letter (e.g., q). some operations can be performed between p and q to construct molecular sentences. for example, “london is a city and africa is a continent” is a molecular or compound sentence because two atomic sentences are brought together through the conjunction expressed by the word and. the conjunctive expression p and q represents an abstraction of the latter molecular sentence. working memory load in sentential reasoning the mmt provides a method to account for the working memory load in sentential reasoning (johnson-laird, 1983, 2008). this method postulates a correspondence between a given connective and the number of mental models needed to represent it psychologically (garcía-madruga et al., 2002). table 1 presents a summary of this assignation for the main connectives in sentential reasoning for any p and q atomic sentences. table 1 mental models for the main connectives. working memory loadmental modelssentential formconnective 1qpp and qconjunction 2pp or else qexclusive disjunction q 2+qpif p, then qconditional ... 3pp or q, or bothinclusive disjunction q qp note. the working memory load depends on the number of mental models needed to represent a given connective (johnson-laird, 1983, 2008). each mental model is represented by one row (byrne & johnsonlaird, 2009). given a sentence, the mmt abstracts its sentential form. for example, given the molecular sentence “london is a city and africa is a continent”, the sentential form would be p and q. this form can be represented through a single row that includes the letters p and q according to the mmt (byrne & johnson-laird, 2009). the working memory load for this case corresponds to one mental model because only one possibility is yielded by the conjunctive connective: a world in which both p and q are true. the working memory load increases for the exclusive disjunction, as shown in table 1. this connective needs two mental models to represent the situation in which p is true or else q is true. for example, the sentence “london is a city or else africa is a continent” requires the mental representation of two possibilities. in one possible world it is the true that london is a city. in the other possible world it is true that africa is a continent. each possibility excludes the alternative possibility in the exclusive disjunction case (suppes & hill, 1992). according to the mmt the psychological representation of conditionals is a special case (byrne & johnson-laird, 2009; schroyens, schaeken, fias, & d’ydewalle, 2000). only one case is explicitly considered, that is, the particular case of being p and q both true for sentences of the form if p, then q. mathematical logic states that a conditional is also true when the antecedent p is false (garnier & taylor, 1996), no matter the truth value of the consequent q. nevertheless, the mmt conjectures that only a tacit representation of these false antecedent cases is europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 137 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychologically represented (evans & over, 2004; garcía-madruga et al., 2002). for example, the sentence “if london is a city, then africa is a continent” promotes the mental representation of only one explicit possibility in which london is a city and africa is a continent. however, the conditional connective is compatible with other possibilities. if london were not a city, then the conditional would still be true. that is, a reasonable representation of a conditional admits a possibility in which p is false and q is true. the same situation occurs when p is false and q is false: the conditional is still true (schroyens et al., 2000). hence, the sentential form if p, then q yields three possibilities when the models are fully fleshed out. nevertheless, the mmt postulates that only one possibility is explicitly represented by humans (garcía-madruga et al., 2002). a second possibility is implicitly represented, that is, individuals figure out that some other cases would be acceptable, but only their eventual occurrence is considered. in sum, the conditional connective loads the working memory with two situations, one is explicit and the other is implicit. the implicit situation (see plus sign in row 3 of table 1) represents a set of possibilities. finally, the inclusive disjunction connective yields a working memory load of three mental models. one possibility is that p is true, another possibility is that q is true. the third possibility is that both p and q are true. demorgan´s laws two logical laws attributed to augustus demorgan (1847) state equivalences of interest for the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions based on mathematical proof (suppes & hill, 1992). two sentences are equivalent when they are interchangeable because both have the same abstract truth values distribution (garnier & taylor, 1996). demorgan´s law 1 state that not (p and q) is equivalent to (not p) or (not q). demorgan´s law 2 state that not (p or q) is equivalent to (not p) and (not q). an example for law 1 is the equivalence between the sentence “it is not the case that: london is a city and africa is a continent” and the sentence “london is not a city or africa is not a continent”. an example for law 2 is the equivalence between “it is not the case that: london is a city or africa is a continent” and “london is not a city and africa is not a continent”. according to demorgan´s laws the negation of a conjunction is a disjunction. the negation of a disjunction is, conversely, a conjunction. it is important to note that demorgan´s laws apply only to the inclusive case of disjunction, that is, the disjunction that admits the case of two true atomic sentences (garnier & taylor, 1996). the mental models theory of negation an extension of the mmt concerned with negation has been proposed by khemlani et al. (2012a). this theory defines negation as the operation that returns the complement of a given single argument. negation operates, for example, on a given sentence, atomic or molecular. this definition replicates in the context of the mmt the meaning of the mathematical function of complementation in set theory (suppes & hill, 1992). one of the main predictions formulated by this extension of the mmt states that the negation of conjunctions is psychologically harder to represent and to understand than the negation of disjunctions (khemlani et al., 2012a, prediction 5). this would happen because the former loads heavier on the working memory than the latter. the inclusive disjunction requires three mental models while the conjunction requires only one mental model, as is shown in table 1. the selection paradigm facilitates the working memory load evaluation two experimental paradigms have been historically applied for the study of sentential reasoning: the selection paradigm and the construction paradigm (wason & johnson-laird, 1972). the main purpose of the selection paradigm is to study inferences, whereas the construction paradigm aims to study representations (sevenants, dieussaert, & schaeken, 2011). in this context selection means that a set of response options is given, and exeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perimental participants have to choose one option. construction means, by contrast, that no options are given, and participants have to produce their own responses. one important aspect of the selection paradigm is the possibility to control the form of all the response options because such set can be closed by design. for example, the working memory load can be experimentally controlled and evaluated for each response option. on the other hand, in the construction paradigm the set of possible responses remains open. alternative theories theories of deduction based on formal rules like mental logic (braine & o’brien, 1998) or the psychology of proof (psycop; rips, 1994, 2011) predict different reasoning patterns than those of the mmt of negation (khemlani et al., 2012a, 2012b). the core assumption of psycop is that sentences entered into human working memory are scanned by a set of formal rules akin to those studied by logic. these rules can work forwards or backwards. the former applies when premises are given and a conclusion entailment is sought. the latter corresponds to tasks that also include the conclusion and require a coherence analysis between such conclusion and a given set of premises. hence, forward rules are concerned with production tasks while backward rules apply for evaluation tasks. when a selection paradigm is employed, the backwards case would be the appropriate theory to derive predictions. rules in psycop can be understood as inference routines (i.e. algorithms). the routine required for backward demorgan´s laws predict no difference in working memory load between law 1 and law 2. both rules need 4 steps including the construction of logical structures like domains, goals, and formulas that host the specific processes of compound negation. the backward steps for law 1 are: “a) set d to domain of current goal. b) if current goal is of the form (not p) or (not q), c) and not (p and q) is a subformula of a sentence that holds in d, d) then add not (p and q) to the list of subgoals” (rips, 1994, p. 118). the backward steps for law 2 are: “a) set d to domain of current goal. b) if current goal is of the form (not p) and (not q), c) and not (p or q) is a subformula of a sentence that holds in d, d) then add not (p or q) to the list of subgoals” (rips, 1994, p. 118). contrarily, when the task requires a conclusion entailment, the prediction of psycop for demorgan´s laws is that three forward steps are needed for law 1 (rips, 1994, p. 113) and five for law 2 (rips, 1994, p. 114). this is the opposite than that of the mmt of negation. other relevant studies concerned with negation have been conducted in linguistics. some authors argue that negation is pragmatically different than affirmation (horn, 1989) while others argue against such asymmetry (giora, 2006). more specifically, some experimental pragmatics studies contributed evidence concerned with scalar implicature (i.e. negation phenomena based on the modulation of different degrees of informativeness that can be observed in conversational contexts, katsos & cummins, 2010). for example, the expression “some professors are famous” admits the interpretation that not all the professors are famous (papafragou & musolino, 2003). nevertheless, the term some admits any case of a theoretical informativeness scale that includes all the professors in one side and only two professors in the opposite side. the accumulated evidence obtained in experimental pragmatics studies showed that the specific interpretation of such expressions is affected by developmental factors (papafragou & musolino, 2003), discourse goal, and the epistemic state of the subjects who take part in the conversation (katsos & cummins, 2010). in sum, a pragmatic approach to this communications suggests that scalar implicatures are context-dependent implicit negations. further research is needed to elaborate on the relation between negations of compound sentences like the ones proposed in this study and scalar implicature. to advance in such direction the experimental materials should be accommodated to include quantifiers that were omitted in this study like all, some, not all, not some. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 139 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses the aim of the present contribution is to test two hypotheses derived from the mmt for the particular case of the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions in a selection task that apply demorgan´s laws. hypothesis h1 states that the recognition of a logical equivalence for the negation of a conjunction (demorgan´s law 1) is harder to achieve than the recognition of a logical equivalence for the negation of a disjunction (demorgan´s law 2). hypothesis h1 follows the novel prediction proposed by khemlani et al. (2012a, 2012b) in the context of the mmt of negation. these authors argue that negating a conjunction is harder than negating a disjunction because the former requires more mental models and more working memory load than the latter. hypothesis h1 is concerned with correct responses. hypothesis h2 elaborates on the same conjecture but also considers incorrect responses. hypothesis h2 states that overall responses to the task of interest follow a psychological pattern configured by the working memory load such that the most frequent responses are those linked to lower loads. this conjecture is derived from the mmt principle that considers the human mind as computationally economic, that is, prone to avoid unnecessary efforts during reasoning (johnson-laird, 2008). method participants 79 undergraduate students were randomly recruited at a public university located at the city of paraná, argentina. all the participants were social sciences students who had no formal education in mathematics or logic. the mean age was 25.05 years old (sd = 4.56). female participants (n = 69) represented 87.3% of the sample. design a within-subjects experimental design was applied to compare the participant’s performance in tasks that require the recognition of demorgan´s laws. all participants were given a reasoning task of eight items, of which four applied law 1 and the other four applied law 2. the independent variable was defined as the logical form of the materials (law 1, law 2). law 1 condition defines operationally the equivalence for the negation of a conjunction, whereas law 2 condition corresponds to the equivalence for the negation of a disjunction. the dependent variable was defined as the number of correct responses. incorrect responses were also considered for further analysis. materials and procedure participants were given a paper and pencil task that required the recognition of a logical equivalence for the negation of a conjunction or the negation of a disjunction. table 2 presents an example of the experimental task. the task was to read first the sentence written in capital letters (see table 2), which was structured as the negation of a conjunction (4 items) or the negation of a disjunction (4 items). after reading that sentence, participants were asked to select one of the options written in small letters (see table 2). they were also instructed that one and only one of the given options was the logical equivalent of the sentence in capital letters. both the sequence of eight items and the sequence of four options within each item were randomized. the construction of atomic sentences was controlled by design to cover all the possible combinations of truth values. that is, the pairs of atomic sentences for law 1 were tt (true, true), tf (true, false), ff, ft, before randomization. the same strategy was applied for law 2. the aim of this materials design was to study the response patterns to this restricted universe of truth values and to complementary evaluate the possible occurrence of the belief bias, understood as the tendency to respond to logic tasks on the basis of world knowledge, rather than on the required formal criterion (evans & curtis-holmes, 2005). the psychometrical reliability was acceptable (fleiss, levin, & paik, 2004) for europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 140 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 experimental task example instructions: please find the sentence in small letters that is equivalent to the sentence in capital letters. two sentences are equivalent when they have the same abstract meaning. please note that the task does not require finding which small letters sentence is true, or false. the task requires selecting the sentence in small letters that expresses exactly the same idea as the sentence in capital letters. only one of the four response options is correct. it is not true that: london is a city and africa is a continent a. london is not a city and africa is not a continent. b. london is not a city or africa is not a continent.* c. if london is not a city, then africa is not a continent. d. either london is not a city or else africa is not a continent, but both things cannot be right at the same time. note. the asterisk shows the correct response. this sentence in english intends to translate the inclusive disjunction presented in spanish to the experimental subjects. the materials applied excluded the expression “or both” suggested by garcía-madruga et al. (2002), but were clear for the experimental subjects about the inclusive condition. the 4 items constructed for law 1 (cronbach´s α = 0.595) and for the 4 items corresponding to law 2 (cronbach´s α = 0.814). items structured after law 1 included response options for the exclusive disjunction, the conditional, and the conjunction, besides the correct response (inclusive disjunction). for law 2 the response options were the exclusive disjunction, the conditional, the inclusive disjunction, and the correct response (conjunction). the sessions lasted about 10 minutes. the sessions recruited groups of 20 to 30 students in regular courses at the beginning of a lesson, and were conducted with the corresponding institutional authorizations. before starting the experiment, the invited students received a brief explanation about the research and voluntarily signed a consent form. results measures recognition is operationally defined as the number of correct selections for each law per participant and fluctuates between 0 and 4 because four items for each law were included in the experimental task. this variable was applied to test hypothesis h1. response indexes are measures of responses that were applied to test hypothesis h2. four indexes were constructed: the surface-index, the scope-index, the transformation-index, and the correctindex. the surface-index is the sum of responses that negate the atomic sentences and preserves the connectives structure, within each participant. that is, the surface-index is the sum of the responses that have the abstract form of (not p) and (not q) to law 1 or (not p) or (not q) to law 2. this response is classified as superficial because it operates only on the atomic sentences, but does not modify the connectives structure. the scope-index is the sum of selections that have the abstract form of (not p) or (not q), within each participant. the same rule is applied for both demorgan´s laws to construct the scope-index. the name of the index was chosen because the difference between the inclusive disjunction and the exclusive disjunction is on their respective scope (suppes & hill, 1992), but only the former is compatible with demorgan´s laws. the transformation-index is the sum of selections of the conditional form with both the antecedent denied, and the consequent denied (i.e., if (not p), then (not q)), within each participant. this response option was included in the experimental task because a conditional can be europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 141 http://www.psychopen.eu/ transformed into a disjunction according to mathematical logic (garnier & taylor, 1996). a correct-index was also calculated for the sum of correct choices in each participant. this vector received 1 point if the response form to law 1 was (not p) or (not q), or the response to law 2 was (not p) and (not q). in sum, four indexes were calculated for each participant to test hypothesis h2, three for incorrect responses and one for the correct response. these indexes are vectors with values that range from 0 to 8 because the experimental task includes 8 items and each item includes response options for the 4 indexes of interest. the effect size estimator chosen was cliff´s δ, which yields real numbers between minus 1 and plus 1, with zero being the absence of an effect (macbeth, razumiejczyk, & ledesma, 2011). the plus 1 and minus 1 polarities are indicators of the maximum effect size. the sign depends only on which vector was entered first to the algorithm. hence, the polarity can be neglected without information lost. consequently, the absolute value for the cliff´s δ is given. a small cliff´s δ is around 0.147, a medium δ is around 0.33 and a large δ is around 0.474 (romano, kromrey, coraggio, skowronek, & devine, 2006). data analysis and discussion no statistical differences were found between male and female participants after mann-whitney u test for demorgan´s law 1 correct-index (z = -0.147, p = .883, |cliff´s δ| = .01), demorgan´s law 2 correct-index (z = -0.352, p = .725, |cliff´s δ| = .06), the surface-index (z = -0.429, p = .668, |cliff´s δ| = .08), the scope-index (z = -0.753, p = .452, |cliff´s δ| = .13), and the transformation-index (z = -0.862, p = .389, |cliff´s δ| = .11). the resulting lack of difference between male and female participants in demorgan´s reasoning tasks is consistent with previous studies on verbal reasoning (colom, contreras, arend, garcía leal, & santacreu, 2004). the observed response vectors were incompatible with the normality assumption after kolmogorov-smirnov´s test. consequently, non-parametric statistics were applied. tables 3 and 4 introduce descriptive statistics for overall responses to law 1 and law 2, respectively. figures 1 and 2 introduce visual statistics for the same results. demorgan´s law 1 (mean = 0.11; sd = 0.32) was harder to recognize than demorgan´s law 2 (mean = 1.28; sd = 1.49). this result is consistent with hypothesis h1 (sign test, z = -5.276, p < .001, |cliff´s δ| = .458, large effect size) and supports the theory of negation based on the mmt proposed by khemlani et al. (2012a, 2012b). this may occur because law 1 refers to an inclusive disjunction and law 2 refers to a conjunction. conjunctions have only one mental model while disjunctions have three mental models for the inclusive case employed in the present study as correct response for law 1 (garcía-madruga et al., 2002). processing three mental models is more difficult than processing only one mental model because the former loads heavier on working memory than the latter. these experimental results are inconsistent with the prediction of psycop both for backward and forward demorgan´s rules. the backward version predicts no difference between law 1 and law 2 while the forward version predicts more difficulty for law 2 than for law 1. the evidence contradicts both predictions. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 142 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 response pattern for demorgan´s law 1 working memory loadstandard deviationmeanresponse 0surface-index .171.253 2scope-index .910.420 2+transformation-index .650.220 3correct-index .320.110 note. the working memory load was operationally defined as the number of mental models linked to each index. the surface-index aimed to capture superficial responses and was consequently associated to the absence of mental models. the scope-index option took the form of an exclusive disjunction with 2 mental models. the transformation-index option was formulated as a conditional with 2 mental models (johnson-laird, 2008). the plus symbol means that one of these two models was tacit, which required additional processing. the correctindex was constructed as an inclusive disjunction with 3 models. this mental models description follows garcía-madruga et al. (2002) and was introduced in table 1. table 4 response pattern for demorgan´s law 2 working memory loadstandard deviationmeanresponse 0surface-index .611.781 1correct-index .491.281 2scope-index .211.730 2+transformation-index .510.200 note. the working memory load assignations were explained in the note of table 3. figure 1. general response pattern for law 1. error bars represent a 95% confidence interval for the mean. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 143 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. general response pattern for law 2. error bars represent a 95% confidence interval for the mean. the general response pattern was also modulated by the working memory load as predicted by hypothesis h2. a collective statistical test for the observed general response pattern presented in tables 3 and 4 and figures 1 and 2 was applied to evaluate h2. results suggest that the most frequent responses were those associated with fewer mental models for law 1 (friedman test, n = 79, df = 3, χ2 = 149.22, p < .001) and for law 2 (friedman test, n = 79, df = 3, χ2 = 43.28, p < .001). the most frequent response to both rules was the surface-index. this result can be interpreted as the product of a superficial processing analogous to the matching bias in the wason selection task (evans, 1998). the mmt of negation predicted this phenomenon for the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions. khemlani et al. (2012a) proposed that negation has a small scope, that is, its operation is spontaneously restricted to the atomic components rather than connectives. this might be the most frequent response because it requires the lowest working memory load among the response alternatives (macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello, fioramonti, & pereyra girardi, 2013). in sum, the working memory loadmodulated the processing of sentential negation for conjunctions and disjunctions. when fewer mental models were required by a response option, more selections were made for that option. this result is compatible with previous experiments that accounted for conjunctive and disjunctive inferences applying mmt predictions (garcía-madruga, moreno, carriedo, gutiérrez, & johnson-laird, 2001). general discussion sentential negations are psychologically difficult. wason and johnson-laird (1972) found that negative statements are harder to deal with than false statements and giora (2006) claims that negation depends on high-level cognitive machinery. such difficulty may stem not only from cognitive factors but also from structural conditions of negation europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 144 http://www.psychopen.eu/ per se. further research is needed to elaborate on the relation between implicit quantified negation of scalar implicature and the negation of conjunctions and disjunctions considered in this study. the mmt extension proposed by khemlani et al. (2012a, 2012b) to account for the negation operator includes a novel prediction for the processing of demorgan´s laws in sentential reasoning. such prediction states that the negation of a conjunction should be harder to process than the negation of a disjunction. this would happen because the negation of a conjunction is logically equivalent to an inclusive disjunction (demorgan´s law 1), which requires three mental models. the negation of an inclusive disjunction is logically equivalent to a conjunction (demorgan´s law 2), which requires only one mental model. processing three mental models is harder than processing one mental model because the former requires more working memory load than the latter. the results of the present study are consistent with this mmt prediction. this study has a number of limitations regarding the material. first, given that only concrete materials were used, further research is needed to test the same conjectures with abstract materials. this is because previous studies found differences in performance between concrete and abstract material in a variety of reasoning tasks (wason & johnson-laird, 1972). second, some sentences may have sounded awkwardi to the experimental participants and some sentences are counter-factual. the adjustment of these expressions to obtain more fluent or natural language sentences is recommended for further studies. the counter-factual condition of some sentences was controlled by design. the aim of this design was to test the possible contribution of the belief bias to the correctindex responses (evans & curtis-holmes, 2005). that is, participants may respond differently to sentences that contradict their world knowledge when compared to sentences that are consistent with their world knowledge. four given compound sentences were true and four were false. the true sentences were structured as “it is not true that:” “f or f”, “t and f”, “f and t”, “f and f”. the false sentences were structured as “it is not true that:” “t and t”, “f or t”, “t or t”, “t or f”. a true-indexwas defined as the sum of correct responses to the true sentences, whereas a false-index was the sum of correct responses to the false sentences. the comparison between these indexes for factual (true-index mean = 0.41, sd = 0.543) and counter-factual (false-index mean = 0.99, sd = 1.182) compound sentences yielded nonsignificant results (sign test, z = -3.843, p < .001, |cliff´s δ| = .221, small effect size). this result suggests that the belief bias did not affect the responses to the negations task. this expected effect was probably not found because the task in our experiment was to recognize equivalences, which are tautological biconditionals, while the belief bias has been observed in syllogisms. furthermore, our task did no employ quantifiers while the experiments of evans and curtis-holmes (2005) that increased the belief bias under time constraints were focused on quantifiers. a recent contribution found that belief bias is stronger when reasoning is more difficult (brisson, de chantal, forgues, & markovits, in press). hence, for future studies focused on the relation between negation and belief bias the experimental control of task difficulty is recommended. results support the conjecture that predicted an inverse relation between the number of mental models required to represent different connectives and the number of correct choices. the most selected options were those associated with fewer mental models. such tendency was observed for both demorgan´s laws. these findings are compatible with the mmt postulate concerned with the spontaneous dynamics of mental computations. according to this postulate, the human mind tends to avoid cognitive load insofar as the required task is compatible with such behavior. this view is compatible with an ecological approach to the study of human reasoning focused on environmental adjustment through low demanding mental computations (gigerenzer, todd, & abc research group, 1999). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 145 http://www.psychopen.eu/ another limitation of this study is the lack of chronometrical evidence. a response time analysis is needed to provide a further evaluation of the surface-index responses. if such responses are superficial and the other options are simultaneously neglected, then the response time for the surface-index responses should be shorter than the response time of other options. this evidence would give stronger empirical support to the proposed theorydriven construction of the surface-index linked to zero mental models. further research is needed to account for the conditions under which this kind of processing is activated. about this issue gilhooly (2005) proposed a general conjecture that predicts simpler processing strategies as reasoning tasks become more complex (stupple, ball, & ellis, 2013). in sum, the present contribution provides complementary evidence to the theory of negation proposed by khemlani et al. (2012a, 2012b) in the context of the mmt for the particular cases of conjunctions and disjunctions. additionally, this study provides novel evidence for the conjecture that predicts a general response pattern modulated by the working memory load for the negations of interest. both results are consistent with the mmt postulate of computational economy applied to the particular case of demorgan´s laws. notes i) for the english translation of the spanish sentences used in the experiment, we employed the expressions suggested by garcía-madruga et al. (2002) for the operational definition of connectives presented in table 1 with two exceptions. 1) these authors add the expression “or both” after the form “p or q” for inclusive disjunctions. we excluded such expression from table 2 because the spanish version we used was clear about the inclusive condition without adding “or both”. 2) garcía-madruga et al. (2002) use “or else” to express exclusive disjunction. we added “but both things cannot be right at the same time” to make the exclusive disjunction explicitly clear. funding the research reported in this paper was funded by the national scientific and technical research council of argentina through the project pip11420080100602 granted to the first author. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to sangeet khemlani for his helpful comments to a preliminary manuscript, to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive contributions, to an anonymous colleague from spain who suggested translations from spanish to english for the experimental materials, and to andrew patrick allen for his thorough handling editor work. references braine, m. d. s., & o’brien, d. p. (eds.). (1998). mental logic. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. brisson, j., de chantal, p. l., forgues, h. l., & markovits, h. 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(2013). matching bias in syllogistic reasoning: evidence for a dual-process account from response times and confidence ratings. thinking & reasoning, 19(1), 54-77. doi:10.1080/13546783.2012.735622 suppes, p., & hill, s. (1992). first course in mathematical logic. mineola, ny: dover publications. wason, p. c., & johnson-laird, p. n. (1972). psychology of reasoning: structure and content. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. about the authors guillermomacbeth is research scientist of the national scientific and technical research council of argentina. he is affiliated to the national university of entre ríos, argentina. his research interests focus on reasoning, judgment, and decision making. eugenia razumiejczyk is research scientist of the national scientific and technical research council of argentina. she is affiliated to the national university of entre ríos, argentina. her research interests focus on working memory, gustative perception, and cross-modal phenomena. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 negating conjunctions and disjunctions 148 http://dx.doi.org/10.11648/j.pbs.20130205.15 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-0277(02)00179-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.26.6.1713 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2011.569153 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(73)80070-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2012.735622 http://www.psychopen.eu/ maría del carmen crivello is research fellow of the national scientific and technical research council of argentina. she is affiliated to the national university of entre ríos, argentina. her research interests focus on reasoning, individual differences, and personality. claudia bolzán is professor of clinical psychology at the department of humanities, arts, and social sciences at the autonomous university of entre ríos, argentina. her research interests focus on systemic theory and cognitive psychology. carolina iris pereyra girardi is research fellow of the national scientific and technical research council of argentina. she is professor of cognitive psychology and is affiliated to the institute for research in cardiology at the university of buenos aires. her research interests focus on psychosocial factors of heart disease. guillermo campitelli is senior lecturer at the school of psychology and social science, edith cowan university in perth, australia. his research interests focus on problem solving, reasoning and decision making. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 135–149 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.696 macbeth, razumiejczyk, crivello et al. 149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en negating conjunctions and disjunctions (introduction) mental models theory sentential reasoning working memory load in sentential reasoning demorgan´s laws the mental models theory of negation the selection paradigm facilitates the working memory load evaluation alternative theories hypotheses method participants design materials and procedure results measures data analysis and discussion general discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the influence of gender and age in mock juror decision-making annik mossière university of calgary j. thomas dalby university of calgary abstract this study examines the influence of demographic variables on mock juror decision-making in a case of psychopathy. the gender of a fictitious criminal defendant who was labeled a psychopath was manipulated in order to examine the potential prejudicial impact on mock juror’s decision-making. additionally, juror demographics (gender, age, and education level) were used to identify the source of bias. participants read a fictitious manslaughter scenario followed by a psychologist’s expert testimony. participants were asked to make a decision regarding the guilt of the defendant, and if applicable, specify the sentence the guilty defendant should receive. findings from previous research looking at gender bias were not replicated, however, results showed a significant interaction between juror age and verdict/sentencing type. the youngest age group recommended a guilty verdict and a sentence of probation more often than the older age groups. in contrast, the older age groups were more likely than the youngest age group to give a verdict of not guilty, and sentence of incarceration (when a guilty verdict was given). these results raise concerns regarding views of the justice system when a designation of psychopathy is involved, as well as differences in cognitive processing that occur across ages. keywords: juror decision-making, biases, psychopathy, gender, age the canadian charter of rights and freedoms states that all persons accused of a crime have a right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. in determining fairness, it is essential that cognitive biases and prejudices do not interfere with juror decision-making. the jury system is predicated on the assumption that jurors are able to consider and evaluate the evidence presented at trial, and make rational decisions based on that information. in recent years, however, psychological research has suggested that people often take into account various factors outside of the content of relevant legal facts (such as testimony at a trial) when reaching decisions; therefore, unconsciously allowing biases to occur (bornstein & rajki, 1994; mazella & feingold, 1994; edens, desforges, fernandez, & palac, 2004; mckimmie et al., 2004; colwell, 2005; edens, 2006; porter & wrightsman, 2007). for example, research suggests that people rely on decisional shortcuts such as heuristics derived from peripheral cues, particularly when they do not have the ability or motivation to process complex information (mckimmie et al., 2004). heuristics can be explained as mental shortcuts that allow people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. although mental shortcuts can be useful in simplifying complex events, they are also unconscious tools that can lead to serious errors in logic and reasoning. this is especially true when they replace the deeper, more controlled processing that is required in certain decision-making contexts, such as that of court cases (colwell, 2005). in following, porter and wrightsman (2007) state: “a fundamental principle of social psychology is that each of us perceives the world in an idiosyncratic way”. two different jurors will interpret the same stimulus differently, based on their past experience or training. these discrepancies based on personal experience create wide discretion in the application of the law at every stage in the process (colwell, 2005). the phenomenon of juror bias refers to the assumption that each juror makes interpretations based on past experience and that these interpretations may influence verdicts (porter & wrightsman, 2007). certain stereotypes are made about typical criminal behavior, and this has led to biases towards gender, and the designation of psychopathy (guys & edens, 2003, 2006). psychopathy is a controversial psychological construct that is currently being used by expert witnesses to enlighten decision making within the court systems of the united states, canada, and europe (dematteo & edens, 2006; edens, colwell, desforges, & fernandez, 2005; zinger & forth, 1998). psychopathy is defined as a personality disorder characterized by a severe affective deficit, lack of respect for the rights of others and the norms of society (woodworth & porter, 2007). guy and edens (2003, 2006) identified that male defendants labeled as “psychopaths” are likely to be found guilty more often than female psychopathic defendants; and female jurors are more likely to find the defendant guilty more often than male mock jurors (guys & edens, 2003, 2006). one of the most essential tasks in the field of psychology and law is to recognize the common stereotypes held regarding criminals, and to identify the individuals or groups who have the potential to use these biases in court. forsterlee and colleagues (2006) state that the literature supports the contention that juror and defendant characteristics (such as race and gender) influence the information processing by jurors through social stereotypes, and that the reliance on these characteristics may have important implications for verdict outcomes. past studies have shown a gender difference in verdict decisions, with some studies finding women to be more conviction prone than men (forsterlee et al., 2006; mills, & bohannon, 1980). these studies demonstrated that females, relative to males, are more empathic and emotionally sensitive, tend to sympathize more with the victim, and hence render harsher penalties. males, on the other hand, are more evidence-driven in their evaluation of trial facts, identify more with the defendant, and allocate lenient decisions. as mentioned, much attention has been given to the gender of the defendant and of the jurors. to date, however, juror age has been widely ignored in the literature. the following questions draw much interest with regards to juror age: is there a difference in decision-making across age groups? can we identify which age groups are most likely to form biases? what are the underlying factors that lead some ages to be more biased than others? what can the justice system do to reduce biases? procedure participants a total of 239 participants (119 males and 120 females) drawn from a university and a community sample were used in this study. equal numbers of males and females fell in three age groups: 18-25 years, 30-45 years, or 46-60 years. there were no significant differences in age between males and females within each age group (all p > .05). measures participants were given one of two versions of a manslaughter scenario (non-intentional homicide); one had a male defendant (robert hill), and the other had a female defendant (rachel hill). the manslaughter scenario described an incident in which the defendant allegedly pushed the victim (no gender specified) during a heated argument, consequently leading to the victim’s death. accordingly, the defendant was being charged with manslaughter and was awaiting trial. following the manslaughter scenario, the participants were provided with a report made by a fictitious expert, appointed to the court to assess the mental status of the defendant. the expert testimony stated that the defendant had met the criteria for “psychopathy”. participants were also given definitions of pertinent terms, including “psychopathy”. please see appendix a for the complete manslaughter scenario, expert testimony, and definitions. participants were then given a question concerning the guilt of the defendant and asked: “based on the information supplied above, do you believe that the defendant is guilty of manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt?” participants were asked to decide between two provided answer choices “guilty” or “not guilty”, and were required to choose one. based on their answer on the first question, only participants who chose “guilty” were told to move onto the second question. this question asked: “should the defendant be convicted of manslaughter, what sentence do you believe should be given and how long do you think that sentence should be?” participants were provided with two options, “a term of incarceration” or “a term of probation” of which they were required to choose only one and specify the length of the term. additionally, participants were asked to provide some basic demographic information about themselves, including age, gender, education, and occupation. results forward logistic regression analyses were conducted using spss 15.0, in order to predict the probability of the defendant’s verdict being guilty versus not guilty, and the probability of sentencing type, incarceration versus probation. these analyses were done using four predictor variables (defendant gender, juror gender, education level, and age group). education was later removed from the analysis to combat the potential problems associated with low cell counts. the first analysis conducted was conducted to predict the probability of verdict, with 239 selected cases included in the analysis. this analysis identified that it could be correctly predicted 69.5% of the time that the youngest age group would be 2.31 times more likely than the older age group to give a verdict of guilty, b = .84, w = 2.2, p < .05. conversely, it could be correctly predicted 69.5% of the time that the older age group would be 2.31 times more likely than the youngest age group to give a verdict of not guilty, b = -.84, w = 2.2, p < .05. in addition, it could be correctly predicted 69.5% of the time that the middle age group would be 3.31 times more likely than the youngest age group to give a verdict of not guilty, b = -1.12, w = 3.22, p < .005. the second analysis conducted was formulated to predict, based on the guilty verdicts, the probability of sentencing, with 163 select cases included in the analysis (total of guilty verdicts). this analysis identified that it could be correctly predicted 63% of the time that the youngest age group would be 3.00 times more likely than the older age group to give a sentence of probation, b = 1.09, w = 2.72, p < .05. conversely, it could be correctly predicted 63% of the time that the older age group would be 3.00 times more likely than the youngest age group to give a sentence of incarceration, b = -1.09, w = 2.2, p < .05. the middle age group was not significant; however, it followed the same trend as the older age group, where it showed preference to a sentence of incarceration rather than probation. discussion although this study did not replicate findings from previous research, and did not find significant gender effects, the frequencies of judgments follow trends similar to that of previous research: male defendants were found guilty slightly more often and given harsher sentences than female defendants. additionally, female jurors were somewhat more likely to provide guilty verdicts than male jurors. for overall verdict and sentencing frequencies, see table 1. table 1. observed frequencies of guilty verdicts and sentences of incarceration overall, significant effects of verdict and sentence type were found – where jurors were more likely to say guilty than not guilty, and more likely to give a sentence of incarceration than probation. it is important to highlight that there was a significance interaction between decision-making and mock-juror age. results showed that the youngest age group would be most likely to assign a guilty verdict and that the older age groups would be most likely to give a sentence of incarceration. the decisions made by mock-jurors and the age effects found in this study could be explained by the composition of the sample. this study utilized a more representative sample drawn from the community, which seems to have had a significant influence on the findings. although findings from previous research were not replicated, this may be due to the fact that many of the previous studies were drawn from only a university sample, generally comprised of psychology undergraduate students. the significant differences in decision-making lay between the age groups. further research and exploration would be necessary in order to appropriately explain these results, however, one could conjecture that the differences between age groups could be due to a number of reasons: differing life experience, confidence, cognitive processing, or views of the justice system. by looking and the judgments made by the youngest age group, we can identify a sense of uncertainty or a lack of confidence in their decisions: younger jurors said guilty more often than the other age groups, but tempered their guilty verdict by choosing a sentence of probation more often than incarceration. this indicates that the younger mock jurors may have lacked the maturity and confidence to follow through with their convictions, demonstrating a more fluid, or fluctuating, view of the justice system. in contrast, when the older age groups chose a verdict of guilty, they were more confident and consistent in their sentencing, choosing incarceration more often than probation. this consistency demonstrates their more crystallized, or solidified, view of the justice system. these results support findings by boatright (2001) who asked citizens “do you feel you know enough about how the legal system works to be a fair and impartial juror?” and found that the youngest cohort was the least confident about their skills as jurors. in the same article, it was suggested that younger citizens also have an overall lower level of confidence in courts than do older citizens. it is important to identify the basis of differences in decision-making across ages because it could provide key information on the foundation of biases and can give insight into the types of education or interventions needed to combat biases in the courtroom. strategies to prevent biases could be uniquely developed depending on the root of the bias, for example, education could have an significant impact if the bias is rooted in a juror’s lack of experience, confidence, or in negative views of the justice system. further research identifying and explaining biases would be required in order to develop prevention and education strategies. although verdicts cannot always be predicted simply by knowing the demographic configuration of the jury, a demographic profile can be useful in understanding and predicting juror attitudes and group tendencies. findings from this type of research can provide key information on how to deal with biases. knowing that younger jurors are most likely to give a guilty verdict allows for opportunities to challenge pre-existing misconceptions that this age group may have towards people labeled as psychopaths, and the legal system in general. in addition, knowing that middle-aged men are the most likely to give a verdict of not guilty would most likely be of great interest to both the prosecution and the defense dealing with this kind of case. this type of research can have a great impact on society because it deals directly with the legal rights of people. research of this type is conducted with the goal of ensuring individuals’ right to a fair trial, and keeping judgments and rulings free of bias. the current study aimed to gain a greater understanding of the types of biases that occur in court. although gender biases were not found, age showed to play a significant role in the types of decisions made by mock jurors. decisions made by jurors under 25 years of age differed significantly from decisions made by jurors over the age of 30. findings from this type of research can provide key information to the courts on how to deal with skewed verdicts and on how to avoid potential biases. future directions a potential limitation to this study lies within the design. contrary to actual jury proceedings, our mock jurors did not have the opportunity to deliberate among themselves. whether the effects of gender would have been more pronounced when filtered through the discussions within group deliberations that appear to foster a division in opinions was not assessed, and would be interesting to explore qualitatively in future research. forsterlee and colleagues (2006) suggest that groups are more sensitive to biasing information than individuals, providing support for examination of this issue in future studies. the idea of using a group mock-design would allow researchers to discuss complex issues and to get extended feedback. the information that one receives from peers can be quite helpful in deciding issues around case strategy, and this could provide researchers with qualitative information identifying why participants chose certain verdicts and sentences. difficulties with group mock-trials occur in the sample and in the recruitment process. problems with mock trials in general include the fact that it is difficult to obtain a representative sample; the sample sizes are far smaller and it takes skill to develop an adequate script. another potential limitation of this study concerns the ability to generalize the results, given the stimulus materials. although the trial transcript used in this study was not very detailed in order to specifically examine juror bias, simulated jury research has been criticized because the trial materials are often brief relative to real trials. drawing from suggestions by forsterlee and colleagues (2006) and mills and bohannon (1980), as to why women may be more conviction prone than men, the answer may rest in the emotionality of the case. these studies demonstrated that females, relative to males, are more empathic and emotionally sensitive, tend to sympathize more with the victim, and hence render harsher penalties. males, on the other hand, are more evidence-driven in their evaluation of trial facts, identify more with the defendant, and allocate lenient decisions. the simplicity and lack of detail of the scenario in the current study may be an explanation for why no juror gender bias was found. the scenario provided no information that may trigger juror emotion, therefore leaving out the key factor that may be the source of juror gender judgment differences. while juror age, gender, and education were considered in this study, other factors that were not examined might have played an important role. additional demographic information such as race, religious affiliation, or political stance may be influential in the decision-making process. in addition to these demographic variables, it would be interesting consider qualitative data of mock-juror comments or thoughts, which may provide further insight into the rationalization and reasoning behind their decisions. participants often wanted to know additional details such as perpetrator aggression levels or rationale behind the incident. participants also often asked for further details, including situational context, personal history of the victim and/or defendant, and previous convictions of the defendant. while the researcher could not provide any supplementary information to such questions, participants were left to their life-experiences and heuristics to form conclusions. in the current study, it was not possible to know specifically the thought process of the participants considered, and the use of qualitative data may help to address this issue. conclusion the intent of this study was to examine the influence of defendant and juror demographics on juror decision-making. the significance of examining decision-making lies in recognition that biases do occur, and therefore can impede a person’s right to a fair trial. this study provided empirical results demonstrating that there are differences in decision-making across age groups. it has also shed some light on identifying those age groups most likely to form biases, and what the underlying factors might be (i.e. younger age groups, perhaps because of lack of education or experience). the significant age effect found in this study can contribute information in predicting verdicts based on demographics. results from this research suggest that we can predict in almost 70% of manslaughter trial cases when the defendant is a “psychopath”, that middle-aged men will be most likely to give a verdict of not guilty. the results of this study provide essential information for the courts by highlighting the importance of educating jurors on potential biases, and informing trial consultants hired by either the prosecution or the defence for the jury selection process. the findings from this study can provide key information to the courts when dealing with skewed verdicts and potential biases. the next step would be for the justice system to apply these findings, and develop ways in which we could reduce/avoid biases in court. references boatright, r. (2001). generational and age-based differences in attitudes towards jury service. behavioral sciences & the law, 19, 285-304 bornstein, b., & rajki, m. (1994). extra-legal factors and product liability: the influence of mock jurors’ demographic characteristics and intuitions about the cause of an injury. behavioral sciences & the law, 12, 127-1 47. colwell, l.h. (2005). cognitive heuristics in the context of legal decision-making. american journal of forensic psychology, 23, 17-41. dematteo, d., & edens, j.f. (2006). the role and relevance of the psychopathy checklist-revised in court: a case law survey of u.s. courts (1991-2004). psychology, public policy, and law, 12, 214-241. edens, j.f. (2006). unresolved controversies concerning psychopathy: implications for clinical and forensic decision-making. professional psychology: research and practice, 37, 59-65. edens, j.f, colwell, l.h., desforges, d.m., & fernandez, k. (2005). the impact of mental health evidence on support for capital punishment: are defendants labeled psychopathic considered more deserving of death? behavioral sciences and the law, 23, 603-625. edens, j.f, desforges, d.m., fernandez, k., & palac, c.a. (2004). effects of psychopathy and violence risk testimony on mock-juror perceptions of dangerousness in a capital murder trial. psychology, crime, & law, 10, 393-412. forsterlee, r., forsterlee, l., horowitz, i., & king, e. (2006). the effects of defendant race, victim race, and juror gender on evidence processing in a murder trial. behavioral sciences & the law, 24, 179–198. guy, l.s., & edens, j.f. (2003). juror decision-making in a mock sexually violent predator trial: gender differences in the impact of divergent types of expert testimony. behavioral sciences & the law, 21, 215-237. guy, l.s., & edens, j.f. (2006). gender differences in attitudes toward psychopathic sexual offenders. behavioral sciences & the law, 24, 65-85. mazzella, r., & feingold, a. (1994). the effects of physical attractiveness, race, socioeconomic status, and gender of defendants and victims on judgments of mock jurors: a meta-analysis. journal of applied social psychology, 24, 1315-1344. mckimmie, b., newton, c., schuller, r.a., & terry, d. (2004). jurors’ responses to expert witness testimony: the effects of gender stereotypes. group processes & intergroup relations, 7, 131-143. mills, c., & bohannon, w. (1980) character structure and jury behavior: conceptual and applied implications. journal of personality and social psychology, 38, 662-667. porter, s., & wrightsman, l.s. (2007) jury selection and research. in s. porter & l.s. wrightsman (eds.), forensic psychology, toronto, ontario: nelson. woodworth, m., & porter, s. (2007). “i’m sorry i did it . . . but he started it”: a comparison of the official and self-reported homicide descriptions of psychopaths and non-psychopaths. law & human behavior, 31, 91–107. zinger, i., & forth, a.e. (1998). psychopathy and canadian criminal proceedings: the potential for human rights abuse. canadian journal of criminology, 40, 237-276. appendix a definition sheet manslaughter: the unlawful killing of another person without premeditation or so-called “malice aforethought” (an evil intent prior to the killing). it is distinguished from murder (which brings greater penalties) by lack of any prior intention to kill anyone or create a deadly situation. psychopathy: a personality disorder that is characterized by severe affective deficit and a lack of respect for the rights of others and the norms of society personality disorder: an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that differs markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment. personality disorders are a long-standing and maladaptive pattern of perceiving and responding to other people and to stressful circumstances. beyond a reasonable doubt: part of jury instructions in all criminal trials, in which the jurors are told that they can only find the defendant guilty if they are convinced “beyond a reasonable doubt” of his or her guilt. probation: a chance to remain free (or serve only a short time) given by a judge to a person convicted of a crime instead of being sent to jail or prison, provided the person can be good. probation is only given under specific court-ordered terms, such as performing public service work, staying away from liquor, paying a fine, maintaining good behavior, getting mental therapy and reporting regularly to a probation officer fictitious manslaughter scenario and expert witness testimony on july 28th, 2005 at 12:37 am, calgary police were dispatched to the second block of 13th avenue s.w. for a report of a person found dead. the death of the victim was alleged by witnesses to have resulted from an altercation between the victim and robert hill, where it is said that a heated argument ensued. robert hill is alleged to have pushed the victim who subsequently fell down toward the pavement, resulting in the victim’s head hitting the curb. currently, robert hill has been charged with manslaughter and now awaits trial. the following is an excerpt from the written report made by dr. jansen, an expert appointed by the court to assess the mental status of the defendant: the psychopathy checklist – revised (pcl-r) was also used to assess robert hill. this assessment instrument is used to diagnose psychopathy – a personality disorder that is characterized by a severe affective deficit and a lack of respect for the rights of others and the norms of society. the pcl-r is composed of 20 items that are scored individually on a scale of 0 (not present) to 2 (definitely present), and ratings for each item are based on both an interview with the patient and supplementary information that has been obtained. furthermore, the checklist is comprised of two factors: the first assesses the callous disregard for the rights of others and the second assesses persistent antisocial behavior. after the completion of the pcl-r, i have come to the conclusion that robert indeed has a psychopathic personality disorder. in other words, robert meets the criteria of psychopathy, displaying an enduring, pervasive and stable pattern of behavior and experience that deviates noticeably from the expectations of our society. i have reached this conclusion because he received a score above the cutoff point of 30 for psychopathy. first, robert scored especially high on factor 1 items. more specifically, he demonstrated high scores on the following items of the pcl-r: glibness/superficial charm grandiose sense of self-worth pathological lying conning/manipulative lack of guilt or remorse shallow affect callous/lack of empathy failure to accept responsibility for own actions biographical notes annik m. mossière graduated from the university of calgary in 2007 with a ba in psychology. she hopes to pursue graduate studies in forensic psychology. her research interests include young offenders, competency to stand trial, children’s suggestibility, false confessions, and suicide motivations in delinquent youth. e-mail: amossier@ucalgary.ca j. thomas dalby is adjunct professor (psychology and clinical psychology) and adjunct associate professor (psychiatry) at the university of calgary. he is the author of over 100 professional publications including applications of psychology in the law practice (american bar association 1997). he has practiced in forensic psychology and neuropsychology for over 30 years and is a fellow of the canadian psychological association. updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory editorial updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory eryn j. newman*a, elizabeth f. loftusb a victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand. b university of california, irvine, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 209–216, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.453 received: 2012-04-11. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: psychology & social behavior, criminology, law & society, school of social ecology, university of california, irvine, 2393 social ecology ii, irvine, calif. 92697-7080 usa, email:eloftus@uci.edu. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. of all the higher mental processes, memory ranks up there as one of the most crucial. it helps us do rudimentary tasks such as turning on the toaster in the morning, grinding our coffee and meeting a friend at the right time. but it also helps us do more sophisticated things too: like solving complex problems, feeling love, reminiscing with family and telling stories about our lives. without memory, we wouldn’t be able to do these things very well, if at all. psychological scientists have been studying memory experimentally for a mere 150 years or so, a much shorter time than has lapsed since the beginning of experimental work in some other sciences such as astronomy or physics. one of the early pioneers in the field of memory was hermann ebbinghaus, a german psychologist who is well known for his discovery of the forgetting curve after conducting experiments on himself using nonsense syllables. although he died in 1909, his legacy lives on in introductory psychology lectures all over the world. you can imagine our shock when one day we received a letter from ebbinghaus asking us what had happened in the field of memory since his death over 100 years ago. we had so much to tell him, that we thought it would be more efficient to have a personal conversation. we located ebbinghaus and managed to arrange a quick skype conversation (readers, please suspend for a few minutes your natural skepticism about our ability to skype with those who have passed on). how we study memory these days it seemed appropriate to talk about the matter of how many subjects one typically sees in a memory study, so this was the first issue on which we updated ebbinghaus (who said we could call him hermann). we told him that we run experiments not on ourselves but with groups of subjects, and sometimes the groups are quite large. in fact, one recent study involved over 2000 subjects whose memories of the events of september 11th were tested (hirst et al., 2009). we added that subjects are often diverse; students of psychology and members of the public, young children, older adults and clinical populations including people suffering from depression and anxiety. “how --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ do you find such diverse groups to study?” he asked. we explained that you can find them in train stations and shopping malls (we had to explain that one), and other public places. but a great new source is to find the subjects online. “online?, is that in europe?” he wondered. after explaining to him, the best we could, what the internet was all about, we told him about one of its big advantages; researchers don’t even have to be in proximity of their research subjects in order to run studies; they can be sitting at their offices writing manuscripts and preparing teaching material and the study marches on. “that seems like a more efficient route to tenure” he quipped. in our memory experiments today we ask people to study words or stories, watch events presented as movies, and even have actors pretend to steal things during an experiment so we can study people’s memory for a crime. after they do these tasks we measure people’s memory just like you did, by asking them to recall what they have learned. but we can also do more sophisticated things too like measure how long it takes people to remember information and examine people’s eye movements while they watch an event to measure what information they attend to. we can also measure people’s heartbeat, and skin conductance (how much their hands sweat) to tell us how distressed they are when recalling certain memories. put simply, we have a sophisticated package of tools that are helping us to unravel the mysteries of human memory. “wow” hermann said, “what else can you measure?” we then explained that we can measure activity in the brain using electrodes that tell us when the brain responds to certain stimuli. “that is amazing.” he gasped. but we also have tools that allow us to look inside the brain. he looked baffled. we further explained that we can look inside the brain using technologies that allow us to measure which areas in the brain are involved in performing a particular mental task. using this technology, we now know that when people remember an event from the past, specific areas in the brain are recruited when we try to search for a memory, add details to it and relate the memory to ourselves (see cabeza & st. jacques, 2007 for a review). “how fascinating. it sounds like science fiction” he said. we told hermann that this technology has also helped us understand what people use memory for. they use it, for example, when they imagine their future. researchers have asked what happens in the brain when you imagine and insert yourself in future scenarios, like taking a vacation, graduating from university, or your wedding day. this research has told us that the act of imagining future events recruits similar brain regions to recalling past events (see addis, wong, & schacter, 2007; szpunar, watson, & mcdermott, 2007). hermann wondered out loud, “...so does that mean in 2012 scientists think that imagining the future is the same as remembering?” not quite, we told him. the idea is that people use memories from past events as the raw materials for future thinking, but they must go beyond just remembering past events (suddendorf & corballis, 2007). they must reorganize and reconstruct past details to create a novel future scenario—much like producing a counterfactual for the past where we recombine elements of a past event to consider how it could have happened differently (schacter & addis, 2007; suddendorf & corballis 1997; see szpunar, 2010 for a review; counterfactuals see byrne, 2002). “so....” hermann contemplated “...looking inside the brain can also tell you how people use memory in other tasks, like thinking about the future?” “what on earth is next?” we told him that these days we don’t just look inside the brain, we can also tweak the processes in the brain that are crucial to memory. advances in biotechnology have meant that we can look at ways to improve memory by targeting it at a biological level. one way to improve memory is to ask how we can remove unwanted memories. we suggested to hermann that he was probably aware that when people experience horrible events, sometimes they remember them too well. we now know for instance, that when people remember trauma too well, they can experience post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) where they are haunted by memories of a traumatic event via flashbacks, nightmares, and intense physical reactions such as elevated heart rate when they encounter europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 209–216 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.453 updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory 210 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reminders of the traumatic event (apa, 1994). these people wish they could forget and there might be a pill that can help them. there is growing evidence that giving people propranolol (a beta-blocker and “memory dampening drug”) after a traumatic event can lead people to remember the trauma less intensely—it can dull the emotion associated with that memory—and reduce the incidence of ptsd (brunet et al., 2008; cahill, prins, weber, & mcgaugh, 1994; pitman et al., 2002; reist, duffy, fujimoto, & cahill, 2001; see also schiller et al., 2010). “i don’t know if i like this idea...” hermann said....“should we be doing these things...what are the consequences of this so-called dampening of memory?” well we said, pundits, philosophers and legal scholars have asked the same question and pondered whether dampening negative memories would actually harm us (see kolber, 2006). indeed, the president’s council on bioethics (2003) raised many concerns about memory dampening drugs. they cautioned that deleting or dulling memories would affect our sense of identity—our memories make us who we are (president’s council on bioethics, 2003; see also conway & pleydell-pearce, 2000; james, 1890/1950; neisser, 1988; wilson & ross, 2003). in fact, hermann, the general public of today may share your sentiments, we said. in one study people imagined experiencing a traumatic event and considered whether they would want to take a memory dampening drug to help guard against the risk of developing ptsd. although people wanted the choice to take the drug, most said they would not take it themselves (newman, berkowitz, nelson, garry, & loftus, 2011). legal scholars have also expressed concerns about deleting or dampening memory and raised important ethical issues—should a victim of a serious assault have the right to be free from traumatic memory, or do they have a societal obligation to remember the crime so that perpetrators can be identified later (kolber, 2006)? this issue of memory dampening is one of many that comes up under the rubric of cosmetic neurology—the idea that we can craft the perfect brain, just like we can craft the perfect body through cosmetic surgery. there are drugs to dampen memory, but also ones to perfect it. if citizens start taking truly effective memory boosters or enhancers, perhaps to the point of having near perfect memories, what kind world would it be? “i don’t want to live in that world. ” hermann said. “...what would be the fate for my forgetting curve.” the malleability of memory well, you know what hermann, we responded. as much as these technologies would provide more fine grained control over what we remember, the brain is pretty good at editing events already. in fact, we are biased to remember aspects of our life as more positive and successful than they really were (see ross & wilson, 2002). for example, people remember gaining better grades than they really did in high school (bahrick, hall, & berger, 1996; see also gramzow & willard, 2006). “why would people do this?” he wondered. we explained that it might be that remembering the past in a rosy way is actually pretty good for us, in fact we tend to do it when we think about the future too (d’argembeau & van der linden, 2006; newby-clark & ross, 2003; see also szpunar, addis, & schacter, 2012). as we mentioned earlier there is a strong link between memory and the self and rosy remembering of our own lives can serve to maintain a positive sense of self (e.g. ross & wilson, 2002). recalling the past in a negative way, a pattern observed with depressed individuals, might serve to do the opposite (bradley, mogg, & williams, 1995; ridout, astell, reid, glen, & o’caroll, 2003; for a review see mineka & nugent 1995). that the brain edits our pasts in a positive light is healthy to the extent that it can promote a positive—though illusory—view of the self (see ross & wilson, 2002; newman & lindsay, 2009). what we told hermann next was even more surprising to him, namely, that when the human brain distorts memory in this way, these revisions often feel like a veridical version of the past. from our own experience we know that when we recollect the past it often brings with it a sense of being inserted back in time, as though we are europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 209–216 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.453 newman & loftus 211 http://www.psychopen.eu/ re-experiencing that moment (tulving, 1983, 2002). although often full with perceptual information and details about who was present and what happened, our memory for the past is not a rigid retelling of prior experience. rather, we have learned that memory is a story with a flexible narrative that can improve, sharpen and distort prior experience. we stressed to hermann that to recall the past is vastly different from playing back a mental videotape. we have learned that people can have the experience of remembering a real event—what comes to mind shares all the features of a real memory—when what they remember is wrong, full of incorrect details, and at times even completely inaccurate. for example, after learning about a shocking emotional public event like the death of a politician or the start of a war, people often have the subjective experience of remembering exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news (brown & kulik, 1977; hirst et al., 2009; neisser & harsch, 1992). but people are often wrong, initially reporting they first heard the news at school from a friend and later remembering that they first heard it at home while watching the television. moreover, people believe their inaccurate memories and are surprised when they see their initial reports (neisser & harsch, 1992; see talarico & rubin, 2003). we also noted that memory can deceive us in even more dramatic ways; asking people to review old photographs or imagine childhood events can lead them to have rich, detailed filled memories for entire events that never occurred (garry, manning, loftus, & sherman, 1996; hyman & pentland, 1996; lindsay, hagen, read, wade, & garry, 2004; loftus & pickrell, 1995). so we reiterated to hermann that when we try to remember something, we reconstruct, rather than playback; the information that comes to mind it not always what we are trying to retrieve—it can be a mix of prior knowledge, information from a number of related events and ideas or thoughts we have had about the event since it occurred (for a review of false memory research see garry & hayne, 2006; loftus, 2003; schacter, 2001). as noted in a recent book review covering the history of memory research: “the thing we feel sure makes us ourselves (no memory, no me) is also something we know to be treacherous, over-accommodating, fugitive: delightfully and fearfully unreliable.” (diski, 2012). although the brain can do a good job of editing without us detecting its revisions, there is also a category of revised memories that we know are completely false. out of curiosity, we asked hermann whether he had a memory that he knew was false. some of us “remember” fairytale events such as santa climbing down the chimney and some of us recall more realistic, but implausible childhood events such as feeding a family pet—that had died before we were born. people often do this, and sometimes it can be embarrassing. mitt romney, one of the 2012 candidates for the republican nomination to the u.s presidency described his memory of attending the automotive golden jubilee, a large public event in june of 1946. the problem is romney was born in march of 1947, so he couldn’t possibly have been there (potter, 2012, february 27). people have memories of all sorts of things that they know are completely false. in a recent study mazzoni, scoboria, and harvey (2010) found that 20% of their subjects had a rich recollection of an event they knew never happened. in fact these non-believed memories are so fascinating that they have become the subject of art. hermann said ”...well, artists have been intrigued by memory for a long time, but none knew of the perils that you describe.” we told hermann that alasdair hopwood and the with collective hope to depict these perils in their artwork. they have created a website for people to submit their non-believed false memories to display in an art exhibition.1 as of early 2012, alasdair had collected over 300 non-believed memories, that range from remembering losing a shoe in a river to remembering a family pet being hit by a car. as flexible as the memory system can be, it might be pretty difficult to get rid of some memories. what do people do when they have a non-believed memory? if it is about remembering santa they can entertain others with its implausibility. but what if that memory hurts the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 209–216 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.453 updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory 212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rememberer and it is about a more upsetting event? then it might cause harm. we have talked about research investigating how we can remove memory for real negative events, but perhaps, people will start to consider whether we should also be contemplating the same for known false events? after all, there is evidence that distressing memories, true or false, can produce the same psychophysiological stress response (mcnally et al., 2004). “well”, hermann said, “ you have made some pretty astonishing advances in the science of memory. but some old ideas still seem to ring true. a fellow academic of my time, friedrich nietzsche once said that without forgetting, it is quite impossible to live at all (nietzsche, 1980, p.10). indeed, it seems that even in your day, forgetting might be one of the most important attributes of human memory, but then again, i am biased.” notes 1) http://falsememoryarchive.com/ references addis, d. r., wong, a. t., & schacter, d. l. 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(2007). neural substrates of envisioning the future. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 104, 642-647. doi:10.1073/pnas.0610082104 talarico, j. m., & rubin, d. c. (2003). confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb memories. psychological science, 14, 455-461. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.02453 tulving, e. (1983). elements of episodic memory (vol. 2). new york, ny: oxford university press. tulving, e. (2002). episodic memory: from mind to brain. annual review of psychology, 53, 1-25. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114 wilson, a. e., & ross, m. (2003). the identity function of autobiographical memory: time is on our side. memory (hove, england), 11, 137-149. doi:10.1080/741938210 about the authors elizabeth loftus is distinguished professor at the university of california irvine. she holds faculty positions in three departments (psychology & social behavior; criminology, law & society; and cognitive sciences), and in the school of law. she has authored several hundred articles on the malleability of human memory, published 22 books and has been honoured with six honorary doctorates and election to the royal society of edinburgh, the american philosophical society, and the national academy of sciences. she is past president of the association for psychological science, the western psychological association, and the american psychology-law society. eryn newman is a graduate student at victoria university in wellington, new zealand. she is currently visiting the university of california, irvine as fulbright scholar. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 209–216 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.453 updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory 216 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611422237 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610082104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.02453 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/741938210 http://www.psychopen.eu/ updating ebbinghaus on the science of memory how we study memory these days the malleability of memory notes references about the authors on the freedom of speech and expression: interview with noam chomsky interview on the freedom of speech and expression: interview with noam chomsky noam chomsky, beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 received: 2013-01-18. accepted: 2013-01-18. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. beatrice popescu: professor chomsky, it is a great honor to talk to you; thank you for your precious time. it would be almost impossible to reduce all your work to one field or theme, and this is why i will try to touch on a few themes from the whole array of contributions you have made to science and human knowledge and spirit. you epitomized for years the freedom of expression for academics, media and the general public. how do you feel having such a distinctive tone in voicing the unspoken words of billions of people? does it come as a great responsibility or as an exceptional emotionally charged challenge? noam chomsky: to the extent that the tone is “distinctive,” that is a failure of the intellectual community, those who enjoy privilege and have the opportunity to defend such elementary values as freedom of expression, and much else, if they choose. beatrice popescu: as we all know, you are constantly deluged with interview requests from the media, especially on the latest international political issues, so dramatic that cannot suffer any delay. what convinced you to offer us an interview? noamchomsky: i do as much as i can, a fraction of what i would like. this seemed to me an unusual and attractive opportunity to engage in discussion with people with common interests whom i would very much like to meet in person, if i were able to arrange a visit to a part of the world where i have almost never been. beatrice popescu:we would be happy to invite you to bucharest. starting with psycholinguistics, i have noticed that a huge majority of academics never change their mind about anything, locking into a rigid position earlier in their careers, which they defend to the end of time. you, professor, in contrast, have never stopped critiquing your own theories with the same energy with which you have criticized those of others (skinner or shannon). for almost half a century, your search for linguistic truth has been uncompromising. looking at your prodigious career in psycholinguistics and especially at the newest perspective on “generative grammar”, the minimalist program, are there still any fundamental questions you did not consider in your research, are there any topics left out from the vigilant eye of the researcher? europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ professor noam chomsky was born in philadelphia and educated at the university of pennsylvania, where he received his phd. in 1955 he was appointed to the faculty of the massachusetts institute of technology (mit), where he has served as professor of foreign languages and linguistics. chomsky is credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar, often considered to be the most significant contribution to the field of theoretical linguistics in the 20th century. through his review of b. f. skinner's verbal behavior he helped spark the cognitive revolution in psychology, in which he challenged the behaviorist approach to the study of mind and language dominant in the 1950s. his naturalistic approach to the study of language has affected the philosophy of language and mind. he is also credited with the establishment of the so-called chomsky hierarchy, a classification of formal languages in terms of their generative power. chomsky taught courses and lectured at many universities throughout the world, including oxford university. besides his work in the field of psycholinguistics, chomsky is also well-known as a leftist activist and social critic. he was an outspoken opponent of the vietnam war and has remained critical of media coverage of politics. chomsky is an incisive critic of the ideological role of the mainstream corporate mass media, which, he maintains, "manufactures consent" toward the desirability of capitalism and the political powers supportive of it. noam chomsky: revision of one’s views is quite normal in a field that is alive and dynamic. are there fundamental questions that remain only a gleam in the eye? far too many to list: the more we learn, the more we discover that we do not understand. take just the most obvious of these questions. fifty years ago i quotedwilhelm von humboldt’s characterization of language as “infinite use of finite means.” a lot has been learned about the finite means, though there is still a great deal that is barely understood about these very difficult questions. but there has been very little progress in studying the use of these means – the “creative aspect of language use” that was a core feature of cartesian philosophy, and has remained largely a mystery ever since. beatrice popescu: steven pinker acknowledged you as a tremendous inspiration for his own research into the developmental psychology of children, especially in relation to language instinct, which is believed to be innate. could you please tell us who was your early inspiration for your own research, if this was the case? also, do you still believe that evolutionary psychology is not able to fully explain the human language instinct? should we worry that the “innate” theory strengthens supporters of extreme genetic determinism, leaving out completely the standard social science model? noam chomsky: i was, of course, greatly influenced by many people who i either knew personally or whose work i read, including some in the fields in which i have worked. but my main “inspiration” in my professional work has been the challenging problems that arise at once as soon as we allow ourselves to be puzzled by what seem to be obvious and simple facts – much as modern science really began when galileo and others were dissatisfied with the answer that had been accepted for millennia to simple question: for example, why do rocks fall while steam rises: they seek their natural place. i wouldn’t say that evolutionary psychology “is not able to fully explain the human language instinct.” rather, it has virtually nothing to say about it. there is no “innate” theory. everyone rational must recognize that there is some genetic element that distinguishes humans from cats, apes, birds, etc., with regard to language learning. the question is: what is it? the answer is an “innate” theory. it has been understood for a long time, of course, that innate properties typically must be triggered and shaped by experience, so there are invariably complex interactions. there is no reason to be worried about the results of such investigations, or to believe that what might be discovered would support conclusions with harmful human consequences. quite the contrary. we should hope that such discoveries might someday provide understanding of the nature of human freedom and the ways to enhance it, carrying foreurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 chomsky & popescu 215 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ward leading concerns of the enlightenment and since – and incidentally, perhaps approaching some understanding of humboldt’s observation. beatrice popescu: since you evoked one of the founders of classical liberalism, wilhelm von humboldt, i would also like to bring up adam smith’s name. his early view on corporations was that they were the principal architects of policy which consolidate state power and use it for their own interest. what do you think smith would say today about neocorporatism, if he was alive? noam chomsky: to be a bit more precise, smith did not refer to corporations, which were nothing like what they are today. rather, he referred to “merchants and manufacturers,” those who had the dominant role in the economy and society in his day, who he elsewhere called “the masters of the universe.” that is the role that is now played by megacorporations, increasingly financial in the west. if smith were alive today i presume he would be aghast, and would say the same thing about today’s far more powerful masters of the universe and their “grievous” impact on others, including the citizens of the states on which they crucially rely. beatrice popescu: we were all extremely impressed seeing you on the occupy event scene boldly taking a stand when state authorities have tried to minimize the impact of the movement. we have also seen that alain badiou has chosen to back the event. is occupy more of a philosophical paradigmatic change or a revolutionary movement as a reaction to the status quo? noam chomsky: i don’t think either term is accurate. the occupy movement is one of many reactions to the neoliberal assault on the populations over much of the world. the effects have generally been harmful, sometimes severely so, and they have elicited reactions. one of the most important was in latin america, which had been one of the prize pupils of the doctrine, lauded by the designers for adhering so dutifully to the precepts of the washington consensus. it had also, not surprisingly, suffered even more than most. about ten years ago latin americans reacted in a manner of true historical significance. the policies were rejected, in whole or in large part. for the first time in 500 years, latin america moved significantly to free itself from colonial domination, to integrate, and to face some of its incredible internal problems. by now the u.s. has been virtually excluded from south america, and its dominance elsewhere has also declined. the arab spring is another step in the same direction: one factor in the uprising was protest against the neoliberal programs, which, as almost everywhere, harmed the large majority of the population while providing enormous wealth to a tiny elite. the occupy movement in the u.s. was a similar reaction. it began with establishment of a tent city in zuccotti park new york, near the wall street financial district, the main perpetrators of the current financial crisis, and more generally of the neoliberal programs, in close collusion with the government, which has been increasingly dominated by financial institutions. it quickly spread all over the country, and far beyond. i have given talks to occupy activists from england to australia. it has also linked up with similar uprisings in europe: the indignados in spain and others. beatrice popescu: the 99% movie directed by celik kalayar, the story of anne page, which you endorsed, moved me to tears."the occupy wall street movement no longer occupies wall street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. a new pew research center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are ‘very strong’ or ‘strong’ conflicts between the rich and the poor – an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009." do you think rich and poor will reconcile their positions in the future? 99% could become an 80% at some point? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 on the freedom of speech and expression 216 http://www.psychopen.eu/ noam chomsky: one of the achievements of the movement was to bring the issues of extreme inequality and class conflict to the agenda of public discussion, concern, and activism. that is what accounts for the sharp increases in poll results to which you refer. just how such movements will develop, one can never predict, but they have already had quite a considerable impact, and they might carry far beyond. beatrice popescu: british democratic socialist george orwell was a strong influence in your youth; more than this, his work almost convinced you that an anarcho-syndicalist society was possible. having dealt for so many years with u.s. politics and trying hard to convince people to understand the true depth of u.s. leaders’ cruel treatment of the world’s nonpeople, don’t you feel sometimes like you share a common destiny with 1984’s protagonist, winston smith? can we draw parallels between the society we live in and the dystopian world imagined by orwell in 1944? noam chomsky: i did read orwell as a teenager, and was impressed mostly by his early work, like homage to catalonia. but it did not really influence my views much. i was committed to an anarcho-syndicalist vision well before i read his writings about it – and he himself, though quite sympathetic to the revolutionary workers in catalonia and what they were doing, did not really approve of the anarcho-syndicalist revolution in spain, which he also did not know much about, as he conceded. he was a member of the poum militia, a trotskyite offshoot. i don’t frankly find much value in the analogies to his book 1984, not one of my favorites. beatrice popescu: in many of your conferences held in university campuses, you advocate for the independence of academia and for the need to decorporatize the higher education institutions. can you please explain to our readers, in a few words, why is it so crucial that undergraduate and graduate schools need not rely heavily on money obtained from corporations? noam chomsky: corporate funding comes with strings attached. corporations are not dedicated to the general welfare, of course. and those constraints interfere with academic freedom, virtually by definition. perhaps there is no alternative, but if so, vigilance and resistance are required. beatrice popescu: in a discussion on education and democracy at a dutch university (2011), you were quoting from the report on the “crisis of democracy” by the trilateral commission, basically liberal internationalists from the u.s., europe, and japan. the concern of the book is that there is too much democracy and that the “institutions responsible for indoctrination of the young” (schools, churches, universities) have failed. could you please elaborate a little for our readers? noam chomsky: they were charging that there is “excessive democracy” and were calling for “moderation in democracy”. they criticized the schools, universities, churches for allowing too much freedom and independence, instead of attending to their responsibility for “indoctrination of the young” in passivity and obedience. exactly what we should be opposing, in my opinion. beatrice popescu: i am familiar with your views on liberation theology considered as a preferential option of the poor and it seems that your primary argument is not against religion or the belief in a higher power, but rather how this intrinsic phenomenon is distorted and manipulated to control and subordinate the masses, considering that man is obedient by nature. the power elite, here or elsewhere, acknowledges it and also exploits it. is there a solution for creating a world where humanist values deserve a better place? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 chomsky & popescu 217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ noam chomsky: the core doctrine of liberation theology was “the preferential option of the poor,” as in the gospels. i have no general argument against religion. it is not for me, but if others choose to accept beliefs in a divine spirit, the abrahamic deity, or some other form of extra-natural entity, that is their right, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. on creating a world dedicated to humanist values, there are innumerable ways to proceed. beatrice popescu: talking about the poor, we witness a huge increase in unemployment in western european countries, which translates as a social component in many attacks against immigrant communities. what is even more worrying than before, there are cases of unemployment and also homelessness amongst educated people, even postgraduates. do you have any comments on this? noam chomsky: there are many causes, among them the programs of austerity during recession, which have, predictably, intensified the crises of stagnation of western european countries. beatrice popescu: one of your favorite themes is propaganda. in the preface of your book “necessary illusions, thought control in democratic societies”, you say that your feeling is that “citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self-defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control” in order to create a more meaningful democracy. unlike totalitarian regimes, in democracy the “necessary illusions” may not be imposed by force and this is why they must be inculcated in people’s minds by more subtle means. who could teach us to become literate in self-defense strategies? should we expect that some of us have innate complex cognitive processes (or develop structures later in life) that protect us from being manipulated? noam chomsky: my feeling is that all normal people share the capacity to recognize and resist manipulation, though like other capacities, they have to be stimulated and exercised to become effective. beatrice popescu: you prefer to call yourself a libertarian socialist opposed to just libertarian. you also dislike ayn rand, whom you consider one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history. could rand’s objectivism be the philosophical foundation for the financial capitalism in its hideous shape and form we witness today? noam chomsky: rand’s “libertarianism”, apart from being morally grotesque, is basically a prescription for centralized control by unaccountable private power. it has no intrinsic relation to financial capitalism, though advocates of such social forms might (and sometimes do) appeal to randian conceptions to justify their practices. beatrice popescu: at the end of our talk, let’s get back to psychology, which is still as we are speaking, a young science struggling to hold its status in front of other well-established scientific domains. what do you think psychology needs more, except for structure, in order to become a more reputable science such as philosophy, logic, hermeneutics, metaphysics and medical science? does it need a multilevel type of reconstruction, from research methodology to the means of intervention? noam chomsky: psychology covers a very broad range. different branches have different needs. i do not see the domains you mention as obstacles. beatrice popescu: in this era full of controversy in almost every major area of our lives, what do you think could make us less vulnerable to current changing trends? i personally think that family values, passion in our work and a healthy form of activism could make our lives full of meaning and scope. do you share a different view? professor chomsky, do you regard the future with optimism? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 on the freedom of speech and expression 218 http://www.psychopen.eu/ noam chomsky: those seem to me good suggestions. whether we regard the future with optimism or not is a personal matter, of no general import as far as i can see. whatever our subjective and highly uncertain judgments might be about human prospects, we should be pursuing essentially the same course. beatrice popescu: professor chomsky, thank you again for your time. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 214–219 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.574 chomsky & popescu 219 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the freedom of speech and expression examining method effect of synonym and antonym test in verbal abilities measure research reports examining method effect of synonym and antonym test in verbal abilities measure wahyu widhiarso*a, haryantaa [a] universitas gadjah mada, yogyakarta, indonesia. abstract many researchers have assumed that different methods could be substituted to measure the same attributes in assessment. various models have been developed to accommodate the amount of variance attributable to the methods but these models application in empirical research is rare. the present study applied one of those models to examine whether method effects were presents in synonym and antonym tests. study participants were 3,469 applicants to graduate school. the instrument used was the graduate academic potential test (paps), which includes synonym and antonym questions to measure verbal abilities. our analysis showed that measurement models that using correlated trait–correlated methods minus one, ct-c(m–1), that separated trait and method effect into distinct latent constructs yielded slightly better values for multiple goodness-of-fit indices than one factor model. however, either for the synonym or antonym items, the proportion of variance accounted for by the method is smaller than trait variance. the correlation between factor scores of both methods is high (r = 0.994). these findings confirm that synonym and antonym tests represent the same attribute so that both tests cannot be treated as two unique methods for measuring verbal ability. keywords: method variance, confirmatory factor analysis, synonyms and antonyms test europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 received: 2014-09-17. accepted: 2015-05-25. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, jl. humaniora no. 1 bulaksumur, yogyakarta, indonesia. e-mail: wahyu_psy@ugm.ac.id this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. measurement process comprises a number of elements, including the attribute being measured, the instrument being used to measure, the methods of using the instrument, and the unit of measurement. in contrast to the physical sciences, which generally have established and consistent measurement methods, measurement in the social sciences is still evolving, and there is therefore no single exact method for measuring individual attributes (urbina, 2004). individual attributes such as, for example, intelligence, can be measured by using a number of different instruments and methods. to assess an individual's true psychological complexity, multiple instruments that employ a variety of methods for collecting data are used. for example, in assessing job performance, the primary instrument that measures employee performance may be supplemented by information from external sources such as peers and supervisors. in the field of measurement, method has a wide meaning, comprising all ways of measuring (kline, 2011). the method can refer to the source of information (e.g., self, others) (urbina, 2004) the format scale (e.g., likert, semantic differential) (kenny, 1976), the direction of the statements in the scale (e.g., positive or negative) (marsh, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1996), or the overall format of the instrument (marsh, asci, & thomas, 2002). for this reason, different instruments that measure the same construct (e.g., self-esteem)—such as rosenberg’s self-esteem inventory and coppersmith’s self-esteem inventory—could be perceived as different methods for measuring self-esteem. the existence of these various measurement methods inspired campbell and fiske (1959) to develop the multitrait multi-method (mtmm) analysis of construct validity. an instrument is assumed to attain high construct validity if there is a strong correlation between two instruments that measure similar attributes using different methods, while different instruments that measure different attributes have low correlations. this type of testing assumes that the method of measurement should not affect the scoring of the attribute of interest: if the obtained correlation is high, then both instruments can be assumed to be valid. this approach implies that methods of measurement are interchangeable. this concept of interchangeability of method was challenged by the discovery of the person specific method, meaning that individuals respond differently to different methods. for example, some individuals are likely to get lower scores on paper-and-pencil tests than on computer-based test, meaning that different methods may affect the individuals’ obtained score. the assumption that methods were completely interchangeable was also challenged by the discovery of method effects, meaning that using different methods may unintentionally require different skills. for example, a test of literacy may give very different results if administered in a paper-and-pencil form or on a computer. another crucial method effect was introduced by marsh (1996), who found that instruments for measuring selfesteem gave very different results if the items were worded positively (e.g., “i am proud of myself”) or negatively (e.g., “i am not proud of myself”). currently, in the scale development literature, different item stems with different intensities and emphases are used to minimize response style bias (e.g., acquiescence bias). for this reason, assessments of mood, for example, should not only include items that measure positive mood (e.g., “i feel happy”) but also negative mood (e.g., “i feel sad”). both items are parallel and interchangeable—individuals who truly have a positive mood state will endorse the first item but not endorse the second—this mix of positively and negatively phrased items should reduce response bias. however, this technique assumes that mood follows a bipolar continuum, which has not found to be strictly the case in bi-dimensional models, as happiness and sadness, for example, can occur simultaneously (steyer & riedl, 2004). mood is not the only example of this measurement-related concern; in many psychological measurements, attributes that theoretically stand on the opposite ends of a continuum can occur simultaneously. established examples of this include trust and distrust (lewicki, mcallister, & bies, 1998) as well as masculinity and femininity (udry, 2000). factor analysis conducted on such scales reveal the existence of item groups based on the type of item, as opposed to on the attribute of interest. these findings support marsh’s (1996) finding that items presented positively or negatively do not only function as a different measurement methods, but may also assess different attributes. clearly, different measurement methods may result in bias, which can sometimes only be detected after when the measurement instrument has been administered. when testing the construct validity of a new instrument, researchers must distinguish between method effects (differences due to the use of different methods) and construct effects (differences due to actual differences in the attribute of interest). method effects are often also referred to as method-related sources of variance, which help researchers to pinpoint what variance in the measure can be attributed to the methodology or other types of systematic measurement error (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). method variance is operationalized europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 method effect of synonym and antonym test 420 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as correlations among the uniqueness’s of variables measured by the samemethod (conway, 2002) that represents form of systematic measurement error that contaminates the validity of measurements. under mtmm construct validity testing, method-related variance is seen as a residual that must be minimized; this form of validity testing attempts to maximize construct-related variance and minimize method-related variance. method-related variance is seen as a residual that is unrelated to construct-related variance. this is similar to regression analysis, which also seeks to minimize residuals. the residuals in regression analysis are random, and not correlated with true score variance. this explains the effect of the predictor on the criterion. following the principle that residuals must be random and do not correlate to any variable, method-related variance must not relate to any variable, including the construct measured. a low correlation between the construct and method variance implies that the construct is independent from the selected method of measure; in this case, the method used is just one alternative among many alternative methods that could be used to assess the construct, and this method could be replaced by others. in contrast, a high correlation between the construct and method variance means that the construct must be assessed using the same method that was already used, as changing the method will reduce the information provided about the construct being measured. researchers seek to minimize the role of method effects due to conceptual and methodological constructs, so as to isolate the true underlying variance. recent literature suggests that using different methods can strongly impact the construct being measured (pace, 2010). for example, researchers may use twomethods, self-report and peer judgment, to measure social support. these methods are not parallel, and cannot replace each other, meaning that eliminating one of those methods will change the operational definition of social support. for example, removing the peer judgment in the preceding example will change the attribute being measures to perceived social support, as it is being assessed only through subjective self-report. this example illustrates how different methods sometimes cannot be eliminated or even separated whenmeasuring psychological attributes. researchers in this area therefore need an analytical procedure to assess the correlation between the constructs being measured and the methods being employed. synonym and antonym test tests measuring cognitive abilities usually focus on the ability involved in thinking (i.e., reasoning, perception, memory, verbal ability, math, and problem solving). such tests pose questions designed to assess test-takers’ potential ability to use mental processes to solve schoolor work-related problems. in the work-related context, cognitive ability testing can determine the extent to which an individual’s performance on the job is related to their learning, problem-solving and decision-making capabilities (allworth & passmore, 2008). verbal abilities tests usually measure verbal knowledge and verbal reasoning. there are many types of tests available to measure verbal abilities (e.g., synonym, antonym, analogy, reading comprehension, and sentence completion). all sub-types are not used in every test measuring cognitive abilities; two well-known examples of this are the scholastic aptitude test (sat) and the graduate record examination (gre). the selection of the types of sub-tests depends on the theory, purpose, and test-taker characteristics chosen by test developers. for example, in 1994 major changes in both content and procedures were implemented in the sat: antonym items were eliminated from the verbal section, reading comprehension items were made more complex, and sentence completion items were added (zwick, 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 widhiarso & haryanta 421 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study focused on two verbal abilities tests: synonyms and antonyms. although prior studies have assumed that synonym and antonym tests are substitutive methods that both measure verbal comprehension (e.g., ward, 1982), we believe that these two sub-tests measure different domains. two words are synonyms if they have similar meanings. in a synonym question, respondents must choose the word that is closest in meaning to the given word (e.g., happy–glad). individuals are instructed to look for the best match among the choices given, not necessarily a perfect match. antonyms are two words that have opposite meanings. in an antonym question, individuals must choose the word or phrase that most nearly means the opposite of the given word (e.g., happy–sad). synonyms and antonyms have paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships, respectively, between the two matched items. according to rapp (2002), words with a paradigmatic relationship are normally the same part of speech, whereas words with a syntagmatic relation can be (but need not be) the same part of speech. further, although the definitions of synonym and antonym are very similar, the strategy for handling antonym questions is different from that for answering synonym questions. synonymy and antonymy are semantic relations of a very different logical nature, opposition of meaning is not simply the extreme case of difference in meaning (lyons, 1968). the opposite of synonymity is heteronymy while the opposite of antonymy is lack of opposition (hermann, conti, peters, robbins, & chaffin, 1979). there are several considerations in assessing verbal abilities using word relationship questions: the key answer should be most similar in meaning or most opposite in meaning, excerpted text should not be used when one must analyze word relationships within answer choices, only grade-level appropriate words found within the text should be assessed, and the question should contain clear and sufficient context for determining the meaning of the assessed words (florida department of education, 2010). the clarity of word context differs between synonym and antonym questions, with synonym questions providing a clearer verbal context and more specificity than antonyms (freedle & kostin, 1990). antonyms questions is not merely described set phrases (e.g., long and short, thick and thin) but antonym pairs co-occur across a large range of different phrases (paradis & willners, 2011). the synonym and antonym tests are unique in measuring verbal comprehension. this uniqueness is associated with the differences in the skills individuals need to be able to take these two tests. at a certain level, individual only requires knowledge about vocabulary to successfully take the synonym test; however, individuals need both knowledge of vocabulary and reasoning to succeed with the antonym test, as the antonym test assesses one’s knowledge about vocabulary specific to the context and meaning of the word. this notion is supported by several authors. many tests employ synonym test purposed to measure breadth of vocabulary whereas antonyms measure analogical thinking (arjona-tseng, 1993). solving antonym questions require broad domain of cognitive skills (phillips, 2013), whereas solving synonym question require narrow domain of cognitive skills. a study conducted by jeon and colleagues (2009) examined different brain activity when individual solving synonym and antonym questions. solving synonym activated brain that associated with mental processes of searching and selecting target words that have similar features in certain dimensions. in other sides, solving antonym questions activated brain represent mental process of reversing the semantic meaning in one dimension and finding opposite features. as a consequence due to differences in measurement domain, items of both tests have different level of difficulty. antonym items may be easier to be processed than synonym items (sabourin, 1998). synonym and antonym test are non-substitutable methods, since they are both associated with different domain attribute of verbal abilities being measured. we therefore hypothesized that the synonym and antonym cannot be understood as interchangeable methods in measuring verbal ability, since both test measure different domain of verbal ability. to test our hypothesis, we employed several analyses: comparing model fit of cfa models that europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 method effect of synonym and antonym test 422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assuming synonym and antonym is the same versus different method and examining the correlation between true score of synonym and antonym test. method participants participants of the present study were 3,469 graduate school applicants (age range: 24–46 years) for universitas gadjah mada. data were taken between 2010 to 2011 in six cities in indonesia: yogyakarta, jakarta, balikpapan, makassar, mataram, and surabaya. instruments the instrument used in the present study was the academic potential test for graduate students (paps) form a1, developed by azwar, suhapti, haryanta, and widhiarso (2009). the paps aims to assess students’ potential to succeed in an academic setting, and consists of three components, with a total of 120 items: verbal, quantitative, and logical. the verbal component contains synonym, antonym, analogy, and reading comprehension items (azwar et al., 2009); however, the present study looked only at the synonym and antonym components. each subtest consists of 10 items, with five alternative answers for each item. for the synonym test, participants are instructed to choose the word that has most nearly the same meaning as the target word. for the antonym test, participants are instructed to choose the word that has the most nearly opposite meaning to the target word. for both of these tests, the total score is the total number of items that have been answered correctly. among the five possible answers, only one answer is correct. analysis procedure we hypothesized that these two tests represented two distinct methods and measured different domains of verbal abilities. analyses were performed using cfa, using models derived from the four models presented in figure 1. three models were tested: model 1 is a null model that involves a single factor simultaneously comprised of synonym and antonym items. model 2 consist of two factors; the first factor consists of all synonym and antonym items (verbal abilities factor), while second factor consists of only items from the same method either synonym or antonym (method factor). in the model 2(a), antonym items were selected as the reference method so that the model contains a non-reference (method) factor for the synonym items. in the model 2(b), synonym items were selected as the reference method so that the model contains a non-reference (method) factor for the antonym items. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 widhiarso & haryanta 423 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. path diagram of a ct-c(m–1) model for the verbal ability data. note. items 1-10 are synonym items, and items 11-20 are antonym. all loadings are freely estimated. a double-headed arrow on a single variable indicates its variance. for the sake of simplify, measurement error on each item is omitted. the model is identified by fixing the variance of the reference factor and the loading of one item on the non-reference factor to 1.0. we estimated chi-square (χ2) statistics representing the likelihood ratio (lr) that compares the relative fit of saturated model and restricted model (model being tested). smaller χ2 values indicate a slightly better fit than larger χ2 values. since this test is sensitive to sample size, it is important to rely on a multiple-index fitting strategy (jöreskog & sörbom, 1988). besides (χ2), there are many indices proposed by authors (see hu & bentler, 1999). this study used the comparative fit index (cfi) and the tucker lewis index (tli) with ranging from 0 to 1. high value of these indexes indicating a great degree of variance in the data accounted for by the model. this study also used the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), an index that represented represents the amount of variance not accounted for by the model. the rmsea value below 0.06 suggests satisfactorily model fit. results model testing and comparison mplus 6.12 (muthén & muthén, 2005) was used to analyze all models using weighted least squares means and variance adjusted (wlsmv). because empty answers were treated as incorrect answers, then there is no missing value available in the data. the results indicated that all models yielded acceptable fit. the rmsea values for all models were below .06, cfi and tli values were both above .90 (hu & bentler, 1999). since chi-square test is easily affected by sample size, the evaluation of model–data fit was based on these four goodness-of-fit indices (rmsea, cfi, and tli). analysis showed that the three tested models produced satisfactory fit-indices (see table 1). the results from test comparison between the model using the chi-square test for difference testing in mplus (i.e., difftest) foundmodel fit differences, the ct(cm-1) either use a synonym (∆χ2 = 44.389; p <. 01) or antonym europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 method effect of synonym and antonym test 424 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (∆χ2 = 69.690; p < .01) items as a reference, produces a better fit value. results from the model comparison showed that all alternative models (model-2) provided slightly a better fit than the baseline model (model 1). table 1 statistics for fit indices of the three tested confirmatory analysis models wrmrtlicfirmseapdfχ2model 1.2590.9500.9550.019 (0.016 0.021)170378.907one-factor modelmodel-1 1.1800.9550.9620.018 (0.015 0.020)p < 0.01160335.597ct-c(m-1) modelmodel-2a 1.1070.9640.9700.016 (0.013 0.019)p < 0.01160301.466ct-c(m-1) modelmodel-2b note. rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker lewis index; wrmr = weighted root mean square residual. factor loading a more precise assessment of trait and method-related variance can be established by examining individual parameter estimates (i.e., factor loading) (byrne, 2009). hence, this section will compare standardized factor loadings between trait and method factor. standardized loadings can be interpreted as correlations between indicators and factors in the cc(m-1) model, because the reference factor is uncorrelated with all method factors pertaining to the same trait-method unit in this model (geiser, eid, west, lischetzke, & nussbeck, 2012). in the ctc(m-1) model, one method is chosen as standard (reference) and the specific factors are treated as method factors. the factor loadings obtained when the antonym items (model 2a) and synonym items (model 2b) are used as reference method are shown in table 2. result from model 2a suggests that half of synonym items factor loadings are all smaller than the trait factor loadings. result from model 2b suggests that all antonym items factor loading are smaller than trait factor loadings. these imply that either for the synonym and antonym items, the proportion of variance accounted for by the method is smaller than the proportion of variance accounted for by the verbal ability. since in the ctc(m-1) model, the high factor loadings of the non-reference indicators on the reference factor show the degree of convergent validity between methods used for measure, our results suggests that synonym and antonym test have achieved convergent validity. results of analysis show that individual’s score of each test represents trait variance more than method variance. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 widhiarso & haryanta 425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 factor loadings for each tested cfa model model 2(b)model 2(a)baseline no. method factorverbal abilitymethod factorverbal abilityverbal ability (0.03)(0.06)(0.03)(0.027)i1 .340.190.360.340 (0.03)(0.06)(0.03)(0.026)i2 .470.07*0.480.460 (0.04)(0.06)(0.04)(0.037)i3 .350.10*0.380.370 (0.04)(0.08)(0.04)(0.035)i4 .03*-0.18*0.02*0.01*0 (0.03)(0.06)(0.03)(0.027)i5 .05*0.340.06*0.06*0 (0.03)(0.08)(0.03)(0.025)i6 .190.07*0.210.200 (0.03)(0.07)(0.03)(0.024)i7 .150.09*0.170.160 (0.10)(0.06)(0.10)(0.098)i8 .45-0.330.44-0.43-0 (0.03)(0.06)(0.04)(0.034)i9 .130.320.140.140 (0.02)(0.06)(0.03)(0.024)i10 .260.250.290.270 (0.05)(0.03)(0.03)(0.027)i11 .04*0.230.180.230 (0.05)(0.02)(0.03)(0.024)i12 .08*-0.320.320.320 (0.06)(0.02)(0.03)(0.024)i13 .330.470.460.470 (0.08)(0.03)(0.03)(0.027)i14 .470.910.890.910 (0.05)(0.02)(0.03)(0.022)i15 .11*0.410.340.410 (0.05)(0.03)(0.03)(0.026)i16 .200.830.840.830 (0.05)(0.02)(0.03)(0.024)i17 .130.700.700.700 (0.17)(0.02)(0.03)(0.023)i18 .21*0.470.390.460 (0.06)(0.02)(0.03)(0.024)i19 .09*0.380.310.380 (0.06)(0.02)(0.03)(0.021)i20 .330.410.350.400 note. standard errors for estimated parameters are shown in parentheses. *factor loadings are not significantly different from zero (p < .05). correlation between tests in order to test the correlation between individual’s latent score of synonym and antonym test, we fitted model that consists of two factors (synonym and antonym) to the data. the tested model yields a good fit to the paps data: χ2 (41, n = 3.469) = 379.098; p < .05; rmsea = 0.019 (0.016 0.021) cfi = 0.955; tli = 0.949. the correlation between synonym and antonym factor is very high (r = 0.994). this high correlation suggests that between synonym and antonym items have little uniqueness in addition to their shared construct of verbal ability. the cross plotting the person scores from the two test is depicted in figure 2. from this figure we can see that the points are scattered closely to a straight line and the correlation is high, thus it can be concluded that the two sets of items do indeed measure the same construct. using this model, we found that synonym items were more difficult (m = 0.070) antonym (m = -0.496). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 method effect of synonym and antonym test 426 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. scatter plot of factor scores from synonym and antonym test. discussion synonyms and antonyms are two test or methods for measuring verbal abilities (verbal knowledge and reasoning). the aim of the present study was to examine whether these two test measure different abilities. if the synonym and antonym measure different attributes then they can be seen as two complementary methods for measuring verbal ability. if both measure the same attributes then they have the possibility to be seen as two methods that can be interchangeable. our hypothesis was not supported, as the analysis confirmed that synonyms and antonyms are two the same methods that measure similar domains of cognitive abilities. although, measurement models that separated synonym and antonyms as distinct latent constructs yielded slightly better goodness-of-fit indices than the null model, a comparison of factor loadings across traits and methods suggests that the proportion of trait variance exceeds method variance in the most of the items. the null model in this study was a one-dimensional model and the alternative models were ctc(m-1). thus, although evidence of discriminant validity appeared to be fairly good at the matrix level since model fit comparison suggest ctc(m-1) model better than one factor model; a more in-depth examination at the individual parameter level reveals low method effect associated with synonym and antonym test. synonym tests follow the synonymy concept; two words are said to be synonyms if one can be used in a statement in place of the other without changing the meaning of the statement (jarmasz & szpakowicz, 2003). there are many strategies at how to choose the best answer, the most common being to interpret the distance between the nodes that correspond to the items being compared: the shorter the path, the more similar the items (resnik, 1995). our study findings were supported by the fact that synonym tests are more complicated than antonym tests, as finding an opposite meaning requires strong reasoning skills as well as synonym test. this was why separating the synonym and antonym tests produced the model with the best fit. synonym items are particularly easy to answer because they are modeled by preference materials of all kinds, in which a main word is paired europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 widhiarso & haryanta 427 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with the words similar to it. however, the relationships underlying antonym items are quite a bit more varied, and are not systematically compiled (turney, littman, bigham, & shnayder, 2003). the strategies for handling antonym questions are quite different than those for handling synonym questions, an opposite meaning can be found in several ways. the usual way is to instantly locate the opposite meaning directly, based on colloquial language. however, this method is hampered by the presence of distractor items in the possible responses, which are deliberately chosen to catch test-takers using this strategy. this example illustrates how the procedures needed to answer antonym-type questions require different cognitive effort than synonym-type questions. antonym question have different patterns than synonym questions. these patterns can be understood by people who have large vocabularies, good reasoning skills, and the ability to connect these two skills. testtakers then have to think of synonyms of quick, such as fast, and then find the antonym of that secondary word among the list of possible responses. when individuals are asked to articulate the relationship between the words broad and road, they might consider a number of possibilities. many possible relationships would need to be considered, depending on the context (turney et al., 2003), unlike for synonym questions. antonym items have limited verbal contexts (freedle & kostin, 1990), requiring individuals to interpret what context might be appropriate to connect the term in the question and possible answers. because this research found that variance associated with specific methods in synonym and antonym test do not exceed variance associated with attribute of interest (i.e., trait variance), we conclude that the unique variance proportion produced by the two tests is small. although synonym and antonym tests were found to be mutually substituted, using these types of tests in a measurement instrument should be done only after considering the different skills and attributes measured by these two types of tests. while both tests can be used to measure cognitive abilities—synonym and antonym tests are among the best measures of verbal reasoning, they are complementary. individuals learn most new words by inferring their meanings from the contexts in which the words are embedded, and then remembering and revising their understandings as they encounter the words repeatedly, in different contexts. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments wewish to thank prof. dr. saifuddin azwar, coordinator of paps development and dra. sri hartati, m.si, head of psychological test development unit (upap), faculty of psychology, ugm for supplying data set for this study. references allworth, e., & passmore, j. 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(1998). the interaction of suffixation with synonymy and antonymy (master's thesis, university of alberta, edmonton, canada). retrieved from http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/pqdd_0008/mq34411.pdf steyer, r., & riedl, k. (2004). it is possible to feel good and bad at the same time? new evidence on the bipolarity of mood-state dimensions. in k. van montfort, j. oud, & a. satorra (eds.), recent developments on structural equation models: theory and applications (pp. 197-220). dordrecht, the netherlands: kluwer academic publishers. turney, p. d., littman, m. l., bigham, j., & shnayder, v. (2003). combining independent modules in lexical multiple-choice problems. in n. nicolov, k. bontcheva, g. angelova, & r. mitkov (eds.),recent advances in natural language processing iii (pp. 101-110). amsterdam, the netherlands: john benjamins. udry, j. r. (2000). biological limits of gender construction. american sociological review, 65(3), 443-457. doi:10.2307/2657466 urbina, s. (2004). essentials of psychological testing. hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons. ward, w. c. (1982). a comparison of free-response and multiple-choice forms of verbal aptitude tests. applied psychological measurement, 6(1), 1-11. doi:10.1177/014662168200600101 zwick, r. (2007). college admission testing. arlington, va: national association for college admission counseling europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 method effect of synonym and antonym test 430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.4.810 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094428109351751 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/rcl.9.2.02par http://hdl.handle.net/11023/963 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879 http://dx.doi.org/10.3115/1072228.1072235 http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/pqdd_0008/mq34411.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2657466 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014662168200600101 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors wahyuwidhiarsowas born 1977 in pasuruan, indonesia. he did her undergraduate work at faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada (ugm) as well as his master degree in the field of psychometrics. currently he is lecturer in faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, starting from may 2005. he is one of the test author (paps) as tools for graduate student test admission in ugm. haryanta was born 1975 in klaten, indonesia. he did his undergraduate work at faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada (ugm) as well as his master degree in the field of psychometrics. currently he is lecturer in faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, starting from may 2000. he is also one of the test author (paps) as tools for graduate student test admission in ugm. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 419–431 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.865 widhiarso & haryanta 431 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en method effect of synonym and antonym test (introduction) synonym and antonym test method participants instruments analysis procedure results model testing and comparison factor loading correlation between tests discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors evaluating the psychometric properties of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale for cypriot senior high school efl students: the rasch measurement approach research reports evaluating the psychometric properties of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale for cypriot senior high school efl students: the rasch measurement approach panayiotis panayides*a, miranda jane walkera [a] lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. abstract the aim of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) for cypriot senior high school efl students, through rasch measurement. in doing so, the researchers clarified two discrepancies found in the literature: first the factor structure of the scale and second whether test anxiety is a component of flca. the greek version of the flcaswas administered to a sample of 304 senior high school efl students. results showed that after removing five items which fitted the rasch rating scale model poorly, the remaining 28 items formed a unidimensional scale, one component of which is test anxiety. the degree of reliability was high. semantic analysis of the items revealed that one of the reasons was the inclusion of many parallel items. the rasch person-itemmap showed that a second reason was the narrow coverage of the construct by the items. finally the 5-point likert scale was shown to be marginally optimal. suggestions are proposed for future research into the refinement of the scale. keywords: foreign language classroom anxiety scale, rasch, dimensionality, reliability europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 received: 2013-04-10. accepted: 2013-06-24. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: nikou kavadia 1, k. polemidia 4152, limassol, cyprus. e-mail: p.panayides@cytanet.com.cy this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. foreign language anxiety (fla) has been defined by horwitz, horwitz, and cope (1986) as “a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning which arise from the uniqueness of the language learning process” (p. 128). horwitz et al. (1986) suggest that it can be helpful to draw parallels between fla and three performance related anxieties: (1) communication apprehension, (2) test anxiety, and (3) fear of negative evaluation. macintyre and gardner (1989) tested horwitz et al.’s model of language anxiety and stated that these three dimensions do indeed contribute to language anxiety. it is important to investigate, understand and address fl classroom anxiety as anxiety contributes to an affective filter hindering the learner’s ability to absorb the target language and thus language acquisition fails to advance (krashen as cited in horwitz et al., 1986). to date, fla studies have not been conducted in cyprus but it is well documented that language anxious students often exhibit avoidance behaviours such as missing class and postponing homework (horwitz et al., 1986). some report problems such as the pace of the class being too fast and that they feel left behind (macintyre & gardner, 1991). at the output stage, anxiety may obstruct retrieval of previously learned information (tobias, 1986). indeed, although language-anxious students study more than their low-anxious counterparts, their level of achievement often does europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ not reflect that effort (horwitz et al., 1986; price, 1991; tsai & li, 2012). this negative correlation between anxiety and performance has been reported by many researchers (e.g., horwitz, 1986; macintyre & gardner, 1991). conversely, kleinmann (1977) reported a positive relationship between anxiety and performance. the foreign language classroomanxiety scale (flcas; horwitz et al., 1986) has been used in studies extensively over the past 27 years and has facilitated a tremendous development in the research into fl classroom anxiety. notwithstanding, instruments should always be piloted for new settings and new populations as “existing validity evidence becomes enhanced (or contravened) by new findings” (messick, 1993, p. 13). this study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to validate the flcas (horwitz et al., 1986) for cypriot senior high school students of english. literature review the foreign language classroom anxiety scale in 1986 horwitz et al. developed the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas) to measure anxiety specific to a foreign language classroom setting. according to horwitz (1986), in designing the instrument horwitz et al. (1986) drew on measures of test anxiety (sarason, 1978), speech anxiety (paul, 1966), and communication apprehension (mccroskey, 1970) as well as including five items from the french class anxiety scale (gardner, clement, smythe, & smythe, 1979). the flcas consists of 33 items and uses a five-point likert scale (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” with a neutral category in the middle). possible scores on the flcas range from 33 to 165. the higher the score, the higher the level of foreign language anxiety experienced. sarason defines test anxiety as “the tendency to view with alarm the consequences of inadequate performance in an evaluative situation” (as cited in aida, 1994, p. 157). aida (1994) and julkunen (as cited in aydin, 2009) found that test anxiety is a significant variable in the language learning process. factor structure of the flcas — in the original study, horwitz et al. (1986) reported a cronbach’s alpha of 0.93 (n = 108) and a test-retest correlation of .83 (n = 78). criterion related studies showed that flcas scores had the highest correlation with test anxiety, 0.58. since then the majority of studies have relied on alpha (e.g., truitt, 1995 as cited in kim, 2009; wei, 2007) and principal components analyses to investigate the validity of the flcas. studies so far have shown different factor structures for the flcas. it is of fundamental importance to establish whether the factors or dimensions comprising the scale are correlated between them for if they are not then the scale cannot be used to measure a single construct, namely “foreign language classroom anxiety”. horwitz et al. (1986) implied a three factor structure. tóth (2008) used the flcas on a hungarian sample and verified the three components suggested in horwitz et al. (1986) and confirmed that test anxiety is one of the components. tóth (2008) also claimed that the factors obtained were closely related thus confirming that flca is a unidimensional construct. on the other hand, aida (1994) found four factors for the flcas in a sample of 96 american students learning japanese. a few years later cheng, horwitz, and schallert (1999) extracted two factors as did matsuda and gobel (2004). they labelled the first factor general english performance anxiety and the second low selfconfidence in speaking english. it is noteworthy that the original three constructs that horwitz et al. (1986) posited in developing the measure did not emerge as factors of the flcas in three subsequent studies (aida, 1994; cheng et al., 1999; matsuda & europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 494 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gobel, 2004). in fact the latter researchers questioned whether test anxiety items should be included in the scale as, according to their findings, it did not emerge as a factor. apple (2011) states, “unfortunately the items of the flcas were never validated and the unidimensionality of the flcas was never examined, even though the originators admitted to deliberately including items from what they believed were three separate constructs” (p. 58). this is an important issue which must be addressed. he extracted the 11 items related to communication apprehension and validated these using rasch methods. bora and jongmin (2011) used item response theory (irt) to show that the flcas is unidimensional and reliable. they further reported that the flcas provides precise and reliable information for persons with low to medium levels of language anxiety whereas information becomes increasingly unreliable for individuals having high levels of anxiety. if the scale is found to be multidimensional this makes using one total score questionable and it would be advisable for future researchers to try three separate scores for the three components (or two or four depending on the number of factors extracted) and investigate them separately. reliability and length of a scale most studies on the flcas place, as mentioned earlier, heavy emphasis on cronbach’s alpha, the most popular measure of internal consistency. however, since alpha is influenced by the number of items and parallel repetitions of items, many scale designers fall into the trap of including too many items in an attempt to achieve high alphas. boyle (1985) argues that high values of alpha may be an indication of item redundancy and narrowness of the scale. lengthy scales can be cumbersome for respondents and “can result in an extended time to survey completion, a greater amount of missing data and lower response rates…. they may also increase random or systematic error associated with fatigue or boredom” (maloney, grawitch, & barber, 2011, p. 162). more importantly however, some lengthy scales may include items that relate weakly to the construct (increasing alpha at the same time), or items with high item total and inter-item correlations which cover a narrow range of the construct under investigation, causing construct underrepresentation and thus lowering the degree of validity of the scale. scale constructors should therefore consider looking for ways to reduce the number of items in an attempt to reduce the strength of the obstacles that threaten the validity of the scale. boyle (1991) suggests that items selected should have a high loading on the factor measured by the scale but at the same time should exhibit moderate to low item inter-correlations in order to maximise the breadth of measurement of the construct. merely including additional items in a scale ignores the error variance associated with each item and should be regarded as being an unsophisticated method of increasing scale reliability. boyle (1991) concludes his article by stating: “however, especially in the non-ability areas of motivation, personality and mood states, moderate to low item homogeneity is actually preferred if one is to ensure a broad coverage of the particular construct being measured” (p. 292). on a similar note kline (1979, p. 3) states that “each part of the test must be measuring something different … a higher correlation than 0.7 on the other hand suggests that the test is too narrow and too specific… if one constructs items that are virtually paraphrases of each other, the results would be high internal consistency and very low validity”. one approach to identifying items weakly related to the construct measured (with the use of the fit statistics) or parallel items (with the item statistics and item placement on the construct continuum) and to help reduce the scale length without loosing its psychometric properties is rasch measurement. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 495 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rasch measurement the rasch models — the rasch model asserts that a person with higher ability (in the case of this study, endorsability, i.e., higher position on the flca continuum) always has a higher probability of endorsing any item than a person with lower ability, and a more difficult (to endorse) item has a lower probability of endorsement than a less difficult item, regardless of person position on the flca continuum. the original breakthrough by rasch in 1960 has been developed and extended to address every reasonable observational situation in the social sciences (andrich, 1978; masters, 1982). if the test has a single type of item, with the same number of marks available (as with the likert scales), then the rating scale model (rsm) applies (andrich, 1978). according to the model the probability of a person n responding in category x to item i, is given by: where το = 0 so that βn is the person’s position on the variable, δi is the scale value (difficulty to endorse) estimated for each item i and τ1, τ2, . . ., τm are the m response thresholds estimated for the m + 1 rating categories. panayides, robinson, and tymms (2010) reported quite a few examples of applications of the rasch models, showing the diversity of social sciences situations in which they can be used productively, including construction and evaluation of psychometric scales. unidimensionality — an important issue in the validation of any psychometric scale is the investigation of its dimensionality. scales where single scores are used to position individuals on a latent trait continuum should be unidimensional. factor analysis (fa) is the statistical technique which is widely used in psychometrics to investigate the dimensionality of empirical data. the rasch model on the other hand, constructs a one-dimensional measurement system from ordinal data regardless of the dimensionality of the data. if the response patterns indicate the presence of two or more dimensions so disparate or distinct that it is no longer clear what latent dimension the rasch model defines, then unidimensionality is breached. fa “is confused by ordinal variables and highly correlated factors. rasch analysis excels at constructing linearity out of ordinality and at aiding the identification of the core construct inside a fog of collinearity” (schumacker & linacre, 1996, p. 470). linacre (1998) showed that rasch analysis followed by principal components analysis (pca) of standardized residuals is always more effective at identifying multidimensionality than direct fa of the original response-level data. an important issue for the presence of a second dimension is the choice of the critical value of its eigenvalue. researchers have suggested various critical values such as 1.4 (raîche, 2005; smith & miao, 1994) or 1.5 (smith, 2004). linacre (2005) however, argues convincingly that an eigenvalue less than 2 indicates that the implied dimension in the data has less than the strength of two items, and so, however powerful it may be diagnostically, it has little strength in the data. linacre explains with an example that perhaps more importance must be placed europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 496 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the strength of the factors and not on the magnitude of their eigenvalues. in concluding he gives some general rules of thumb; one concerning the eigenvalues is that in the unexplained variance a secondary dimension must have the strength of at least 3 items. if a factor has eigenvalue less than 3 (in a reasonable length test) then the test is probably unidimensional. therefore, in rasch analyses, where pca is carried out on the standardised residuals and not the original observations the first dimension has already been removed. one looks at the first dimension (or contrast) extracted. linacre (2005) suggests looking at the content of the items at the top (with the highest positive loadings on the contrast) and bottom (with the highest negative loadings on the contrast). the number of items to look at depends on the eigenvalue. for example if the eigenvalue is 3 then look at the top three items and the bottom three items. if these items are different enough, in content, to be considered different dimensions then split the data into separate analyses. if the items are part of the same dimension then no action is necessary. fit statistics — two mean square statistics are used in rasch analyses, the infit and the outfit. the fit statistics report how well the data fit the unidimensional framework that the rasch analysis has constructed. therefore, they report the degree to which the observations meet this vital specification of measurement. linacre and wright (1994) explain that the outfit statistic is dominated by unexpected outlying, off-target, low information responses. the infit statistic is an information-weighted sum, introduced to reduce the influence of outliers. it is dominated by unexpected inlying patterns among informative, on-target observations. this study setting — the cypriot educational system is highly centralised. teacher appointments, postings, promotions, curriculum and teaching materials are all dictated by the cypriot ministry of education and culture. schooling is separated into primary (six years), lower secondary (three years) and upper secondary (three years). upper secondary is optional and those students opting to stay on, have a choice between academic, technical and catering school. english-as-a-foreign-languageeducation in cyprus—english is themost commonly studied foreign language in many countries, including cyprus. ioannou-georgiou and pavlou (1999) map the history of the english language in cyprus. cyprus was a british colony from 1878 to 1960. english was introduced to the curriculum in the final two classes of the larger schools in 1935. following independence in 1960, emphasis was placed on the learning of a foreign language and due to the island’s close relations with britain, english was chosen. in 1965-66 the teaching of english became compulsory and pupils began learning english from the age of nine-ten with two periods a week and continued until they completed secondary education (at 18 years of age). in 1992 the ministry of education introduced the teaching of english in the fourth year of primary school (age eight to nine) with one 40-minute period a week. since 2002, english is now optional in the final two years of school. students are required to study any two of a choice of seven languages for a minimum of two periods each. five of these languages are “new” to them. students who select english in the final two years choose a course of either two periods a week (the core course) or six periods a week (the advanced course). in september 2011, english was introduced into the curriculum for first year primary school pupils (age five to six). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 497 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research questions the purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the flcas for cypriot senior high school students of efl with the use of rasch measurement. validations have hitherto concentrated on university students. since “teenagers are the most insecure people in the world, their lives vulnerable to a host of different pressures” (scheidecker & freeman, 1999 as cited in dörnyei, 2001, p. 87) it is pertinent that more attention be given to assessing and addressing flca in this age group. in this study the following research questions were investigated: 1. is the flcas a unidimensional scale? 2. does the flcas provide reliable measures? (the term “measures” is used rather than scores in order to emphasise the ability of the rasch models to provide linear measures as opposed to raw scores obtained from counting observed scores.) 3. is the 5-point likert scale psychometrically optimal? apparent inconsistencies in research findings such as those of macintyre and gardner (1989) and aida (1994) which found test anxiety not to be conceptually related to other components of fla, as horwitz et al.’s (1986) theory had proposed, and suggestions that items reflective of test anxiety could be eliminated from the flcas call for further research. rasch methods will clear up this discrepancy through the investigation of the dimensionality of the scale in the context of the first research question. methodology participants the present study involved a total of 304 randomly selected efl students (ages 16-18) from three senior high schools in limassol, cyprus. the students have all been studying english for a minimum of eight years. following comprehensive explanations of the purpose of the study, permission to administer questionnaires was attained from the relevant head-teachers. the instrument permission was also attained from dr. elaine horwitz for the use of the flcas for the purpose of this study. the flcaswas translated into greek by an official translator and edited by the researchers so as to carry the meaning of the original instrument. subsequently the greek version was given to two experienced efl teachers, who are native speakers of greek, to translate back into english to confirm that the meaning had not been altered. the scale contained 9 negatively worded items, the scores of which were reversed prior to analyses. the rasch measurement approach selection of the rasch rating scale model (rsm) — the rasch rsm was selected for the analysis of the flcas data because of the following advantages over other irt models. first, the rasch models are the only models that accept the raw scores of the respondents to be a sufficient statistic for the estimation of their position on the variable continuum thus maintaining the score order of students. since raw scores are the basis for reporting results in all previous studies on flca, the rasch models are consistent with practice. second, the rasch models involve fewer parameters and are thus easier to work with, to understand and to interpret. third, the raschmodels give stable item estimates with smaller samples than other more general irt models (thissen & wainer, 1982). fourth, the person measures and item calibrations have a unique ordering on a common logit scale (bond & fox, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 498 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2001, 2007; wright & masters, 1982) making it effortless to see relations between them. fifth, validity and reliability issues can be addressed through the use of the rasch models (smith, 2004). most importantly, the philosophy of the rasch model dictates the structure of the data including the fact that unidimensionality is necessary for themeasurement process. other models try to model all the characteristics observed in the data, regardless of whether they contribute to the measurement process. so, “the difference is between measurement and modelling. if the aim is to construct a good measure then the items comprising the scale should be constrained to the principles of measurement, thus the rasch model is highly appropriate” (panayides & walker, 2012, p. 333). estimation method —winsteps (linacre, 2005) was used for the analysis of the data. winsteps uses joint maximum likelihood estimation in preference to conditional maximum likelihood estimation or marginal maximum likelihood estimation “because of its flexibility with missing data. it also does not assume a person distribution” (linacre, 2005, p.11). any estimation bias is not a real concern as, except in rare cases where exact probabilistic inferences are to be made from short tests or small samples. selection of the fit statistics — the infit mean and outfit mean square statistics were preferred for this study, over a large number of fit statistics, for their exploratory nature (douglas, 1990). they can identify a wide range of potential sources of unexpected response patterns and this is an advantage in the sense that a fit statistic that focuses on a specific type of unexpectedness may not have enough power to identify other types, thus missing “bad” items. also, they have been used successfully to assess the fit of the rasch models for many years (e.g., curtis, 2004; lamprianou, 2006; panayides & walker, 2012; smith, 1990; wright & masters, 1982). furthermore, these statistics are computationally simpler and stand up well in comparison with possibly more precise tests, therefore there is no practical reason to use anything more complicated (smith, 1990). finally, they are utilized by most rasch software packages (e.g., quest, winsteps, facets) and are familiar to many researchers. critical values for the fit statistics — wright, linacre, gustafson, and martin-lof (1994) and bond and fox (2001, 2007) provide a table of reasonable item mean square fit values and suggest a critical value of 1.4 for scales, indicating 40% more variability than predicted by the rasch model. curtis (2004) and glas and meijer (2003) suggest using simulated data according to an irt model based on the estimated parameters and then determining the critical values empirically. however, lamprianou (2006) argues that misfit is not a dichotomous “yes”/“no” property but rather a matter of degree and as such it can be considered too large for one study and satisfactory for another depending on the aims of the researchers. for the purposes of this study, the widely used cut-off value of 1.4 was used as suggested by wright et al. (1994) and bond and fox (2001, 2007). reliability indices— the person reliability indicates the precision of the scale by showing how well the instrument distinguishes individuals. it can be replaced by the person separation index which ranges from zero to infinity and indicates the spread of person measures in standard error units (wright & masters, 1982). rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories— a critical component influencing the measurement properties of any self-reported psychometric scale is the rating scale. yet there is no general agreement regarding the optimal rating scale format. khadka, gothwal, mcalinden, lamoureux, and pesudovs (2012), in a study investigating 17 instruments, reported that scales with complicated question format, a large number of response categories or unlabelled categories tended to be dysfunctional. they developed guidelines on the design of rating europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 499 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scales, suggesting a maximum of five, clearly-labelled and non-overlapping categories. wright and linacre (1992) state that it is the analyst’s task to extract the maximum amount of useful meaning from the responses observed by combining (or even splitting) categories if necessary based on the results of careful analysis. furthermore, they advise researchers that in combining two or more categories they must be sure it is reasonable to do so, and that both the statistical and substantive validity of the results are improved. rasch analysis provides a strong tool in the assessment of the functioning of rating scales. linacre (2002) suggested the following guidelines for determining the optimal number of categories for a given scale. first, categories with low frequencies (lower than 10) are described as problematic because they do not provide enough observations for estimating stable threshold values. second, the average measures (the average of the ability estimates of all persons in the sample who chose a particular category) are expected to increase monotonically in size as the variable increases. this indicates that on average, those with higher scores on the flca variable endorse the higher categories. third, the thresholds, or step calibrations (the difficulties estimated for choosing one response category over another) should also increase monotonically across the rating scale. if they do not, they are considered disordered. fourth, the magnitudes of the distances between adjacent threshold estimates should indicate that each step defines a distinct range on the variable. linacre (2002) suggests that thresholds should increase by at least 1.4 logits (in the case of a 3-point scale), to show distinction between categories, but not more than 5 logits, so as to avoid large gaps in the variable. for a 5-point rating scale linacre suggests at least 1.0 logits distance between adjacent thresholds for a distinct range on the variable continuum. step disordering and very narrow distances between thresholds “can indicate that a category represents too narrow a segment of the latent variable or corresponds to a concept that is poorly defined in the minds of the respondents” (linacre, 2002, p. 98). finally, the fit statistics provide another criterion for assessing the quality of a rating scale. outfit greater than 2 indicates more misinformation than information, thus the category introduces noise into the measurement process. results preliminary analyses raw score comparisons with other studies — table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of this study together with four primary studies on the flcas. table 1 comparisons of this study with results from four primary studies this studybekleyen (2004)cao (2011)horwitz et al. (1986)aida (1994) 30411530010896sample size englishfive differentenglishspanishjapaneselanguage 16–18 yearsuniversity studentsuniversity studentsuniversity studentsuniversity studentssample age 0.960.900.950.930.94alpha 34 – 15355 – 145not reported45 – 14747 – 146range of scores 76.9not reportednot reported95.596.7mean score 25.9not reportednot reported21.422.1st. deviation extremely high alphas (greater than or equal to 0.90) were found in all four studies presented in table 1 as well as in this study. only one study reported alpha below 0.90, matsuda and gobel (2004), who reported 0.78. the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 500 http://www.psychopen.eu/ range of total scores was slightly larger in this study and so was the standard deviation. however, the mean score was significantly lower. there are two possible explanations for this difference. first, english is so widely used in cyprus (tv, computers, mobile telephones, advertisements, tourism) that students of this age have plenty of exposure to the language. second, the sample consisted of students who have been learning english for between eight and ten years. the preliminary reliability investigation — before commencing the rasch analyses a reliability analysis was carried out with the use of cronbach’s alpha to gain a first impression of the items. nunnally (1978) recommends that instruments used in basic research have reliability of about 0.70 or better. he adds that there is no reason for increasing reliabilities much beyond 0.80. on the other hand, where important decisions about the fate of individuals are made on the basis of test scores, reliability should be at least 0.90, preferably 0.95. alpha in this study was found to be 0.958 and that is an extremely high value of internal consistency for psychometric scales. it should also be noted that the corrected item-total correlation of items 2, 5, 6, 17 and 22 were 0.439, 0.236, 0.151, 0.321 and 0.407. these were the lowest correlations; all others were above 0.5 with 15 of them having correlations higher than 0.70. kline (1979) argued that correlations higher than 0.7 are not too desirable because this suggests that the scale is too narrow in construct coverage. “if one constructs items that are virtually paraphrases of each other, the results would be high internal consistency and very low validity” (kline 1979, p. 3). the rasch approach has the ability to clarify this point. rasch analyses first and second calibrations — the first calibration of the full dataset (33 items and 304 students) revealed five misfitting items, the same items noted above in the preliminary reliability analysis. four of these items were badly misfitting, with infit and/or outfit mean square statistics above 2.0. table 2 shows the misfitting items, their measure and standard error, their infit and outfit mean square statistics and their point measure correlation. table 2 misfitting items in misfit order pt.meas. correlationoutfitinfitst. errormeasureitems 5 .280.392.072.070.310 17 .370.202.731.060.31-0 6 .230.192.991.060.27-1 22 .440.152.581.060.41-0 2 .480.601.371.060.20-0 the misfit on the four badly misfitting items was mainly caused by unexpectedly high scores from students with estimated flcamuch lower than the item difficulty. for example student 56 with estimated flca of – 2.24 scored four on item 5 with difficulty estimate of 0.31, and student 171 (estimate of – 2.46) scored five on item 17 (difficulty – 0.31). further analysis of the content of the items was undertaken. none of the items refer to anxiety per se. item 5 (it wouldn’t bother me at all to take more foreign language classes) was a reversed item. it refers to language classes in general and not specifically english classes, as is the focus of this study, but more importantly it does not necessarily measure anxiety. the reason for not wanting to take more foreign language classes could be greater europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 501 http://www.psychopen.eu/ interest in other subjects, such as science subjects. item 17 (i often feel like not going to language classes) could be considered to be relevant to factors other than flca, such as lack of motivation, indifference or more interest and inclination for other subjects. item 6 (during language class, i find myself thinking about things that have nothing to do with the course) is again a general item that is not necessarily related to flca. it could be pertinent to lack of motivation or even indicative of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. finally, item 22 (i don’t feel pressure to prepare very well for language class) could be indicative of high ability, lack of challenge, interest or motivation. these four badly misfitting items were removed since infit or outfit values greater than two indicate that the items are introducing more noise than information into the measurement process. the data was calibrated again and this time item 2 had a much worse misfit (outfit 1.95 and infit 1.57). item 2 (i don’t worry about making mistakes in language class) is another reversed item which could refer to competence or indifference rather than anxiety. therefore, item 2 was also removed. third and final calibrations — the third calibration revealed 13 persons with infit and/or outfit greater than 3.0. the aberrant responses of these students were badly distorting the measurement process and were removed leading to the final calibration with 28 items and 291 students. reliability— the person reliability was 0.93 and this was still questionably high. such high reliabilities are possible when the item estimates are very widely spread with a large variance and targeted well at the distribution of person estimates. the person separation index was also high (3.64). dimensionality — table 3 shows the results of the pca of the standardised residuals. table 3 standardized residual variance (in eigenvalue units) modeled (%)(%)empirical total raw variance in observations .0100.0100.857 raw variance explained by measures .452.651.829 raw variance explained by persons .545.844.925 raw variance explained by items .96.86.93 raw unexplained variance (total) .647.0%100.448.528 unexplained variance in 1st factor .0%9.44.52 to judge the strength of the measurement dimension, the variance explained by the measures was found to be 51.6% of the total variance in the data. the first factor had an eigenvalue of 2.5 and the strength of less than three items. in an attempt to investigate the possible presence of a second dimension the content of the three items with the highest positive and the three items with the highest negative loadings on the first factor was compared. table 4 shows those six items with their corresponding loadings. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 502 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 content of items with highest positive and negative loadings on first contrast loadingitem descriptionitem no i can feel my heart pounding when i'm going to be called on in language class20 .580 i get nervous and confused when i am speaking in my language class27 .480 i feel more tense and nervous in my language class than in my other classes26 .420 i don't understand why some people get so upset over foreign language classes11 .50-0 i would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of the foreign language32 .47-0 i would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers14 .44-0 the two sets of items are not different enough in content to be considered different dimensions. the reason for this separation is simply the fact that the bottom three are reversely worded, and this is another strength of the rasch models, their ability to identify differences in the direction of the items even when they measure the same construct. furthermore, table 3 reveals that the variance explained by the first factor was 9.0% of the unexplained variance and only 4.4% of the total variance. also, the main dimension measured by the scale has approximately 12 times the strength of the first factor. item fit — three items were found to be misfitting, item 10 (outfit 1.84, infit 1.76), item 32 (outfit 1.60) and item 8 (outfit 1.51). the question arises as to whether these items should be removed and if so, when does one stop removing misfitting items? linacre (2010) suggests that if the removal of items is to improve the measures of persons to pursue the following strategy: estimate the person measures from the original analysis. remove all items (and/or persons) that are badly misfitting. then estimate the person measures again and cross-plot the measures from the two occasions. if there are no significant differences in the person measures (that is, points are closely scattered to a straight line and the correlation coefficient is high) then the items are acceptable, otherwise remove the items and repeat the procedure. following linacre’s suggestion the person measures were estimated using the 28 items and then the procedure was repeated with 25 items (removing items 10, 32 and 8). the person measures from the two different item sets were then cross-plotted and figure 1 shows the plot. the points are indeed very closely scattered around a straight line. the correlation between the two sets of measures is very high at 0.985. therefore, there is no negative effect of the inclusion of the three misfitting items on the person measures and these person measures can be considered statistically valid. is foreign language test anxiety (flta) a component of flca?— three analyses were conducted to clear up this discrepancy. prior to the rasch analyses two scores were calculated: the sum of the responses to the four remaining test anxiety items (item 2, a test anxiety item, was one of the five items removed after the first calibrations) and the sum of the responses to the remaining 24 items of the 28-item flcas. the correlation between the two scores was very high at 0.831 (p < 0.001). then, following linacre’s (2010) recommendation again, the person measures were estimated using the 28 items and the procedure was repeated with 24 items (removing the four test anxiety items, namely items 8, 10, 19 and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 503 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 21 in table 6). the person measures from the two different item sets were then cross-plotted and figure 2 shows this plot. figure 1. cross plot of two sets of person measures (25 items against 28 items). figure 2. cross plot of two sets of person measures (24 items against 28 items). the points are very closely scattered around a straight line and the correlation between the two sets of measures is very high (0.989). therefore, there is no negative effect of the inclusion of the four test anxiety items on the person measures and these person measures can be considered statistically valid. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 504 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the final analysis is an extension of linacre’s suggestion and very similar to the method suggested by smith (2002). since the interest is on the impact of the four test anxiety items on the validity of persons’ measures, the t-values for the difference between the two measures were calculated (t-values are simply the test statistics used for the very familiar t-test). the formula is where bi(28) and bi(24) are the estimates of the measures of person i from the 28-item flcas and the 24-item flcas respectively and s.e.i(28) and s.e.i(24) their corresponding standard errors. a 95% confidence interval for these t-values would be approximately from -2 to 2. therefore any values outside this range can be considered as indicating significant differences between the two person measure estimates. table 5 shows details of the distribution of these t-values. the range lies between -1.25 and 1.35 with a mean value of 0.198 and standard deviation of 0.344. table 5 descriptive statistics of the distribution of the t-values std. dev.meanmaxminn 0.3440.1981.35-1.25291t-statistic none of the t-values are outside the range from -2 to 2, indicating that all person estimates are statistically equivalent confirming the statistical validity of the measures. these three analyses, together with the good fit of the items to the rasch model and the results of the pca of the standardised residuals provide strong evidence that test anxiety is not a second dimension but rather a component of flca. item targeting and spread — figure 3 shows the person-item map. the figure reveals two important facts. the items, with a mean difficulty of 0, are targeted at the higher-scoring students, with measures above the average person measure (-1.06). furthermore there is a narrow spread of the item positions on the variable continuum, from just above the person mean measure to about one and a half standard deviations above it. figure 4 shows the implication of the bad targeting of the items and their narrow spread on precision. the figure depicts the relationship of the error of persons’ estimates (on the vertical axis) against the persons’ measure (on the horizontal axis). it is clear that the smallest error (and thus the most precise person estimates) lie between around -1.0 logits and +1.0 logits. large errors are reported for persons with measures below -2.0 logits and above +2.0 logits. further investigation was deemed necessary on this narrow spread of the items. table 6 shows the items in measure (difficulty) order, from highest to lowest together with the point measure correlations. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 505 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. item-person map. the item measures range from -0.76 to 0.68 logits, covering a rather narrow range of just 1.44 logits. the point measure correlations are all high (0.57 to 0.76). the items are very homogeneous and do not cover a wide range of the construct of interest. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 506 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. error of measurement against person measure. table 6 items in measure order ptmeasmeasuredescriptionitems i tremble when i know that i'm going to be called on in language class3 .600.680 i feel more tense and nervous in my language class than in my other classes26 .680.580 the more i study for a language test, the more confused i get21 .640.550 in language class, i can get so nervous i forget things i know12 .670.520 i am afraid that the other students will laugh at me when i speak the foreign language31 .670.390 even if i am well prepared for language class, i feel anxious about it16 .660.350 it frightens me when i don't understand what the teacher is saying in the foreign language4 .630.260 i can feel my heart pounding when i'm going to be called on in language class20 .700.260 language class moves so quickly i worry about getting left behind25 .680.260 i get nervous and confused when i am speaking in my language class27 .750.180 it embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class13 .690.170 i start to panic when i have to speak without preparation in language class9 .700.040 i feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students24 .680.030 i am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake i make19 .680.05-0 i never feel quite sure of myself when i am speaking in my foreign language class1 .630.06-0 i get nervous when i don't understand every word the language teacher says29 .720.06-0 i keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than i am7 .690.08-0 i feel confident when i speak in foreign language class18 .760.15-0 when i'm on my way to language class, i feel very sure and relaxed28 .630.15-0 i get nervous when the language teacher asks questions which i haven't prepared in advance33 .730.15-0 i feel overwhelmed by the number of rules you have to learn to speak a foreign language30 .670.17-0 i always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than i do23 .730.26-0 i get upset when i don't understand what the teacher is correcting15 .620.30-0 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 507 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ptmeasmeasuredescriptionitems i don't understand why some people get so upset over foreign language classes11 .610.36-0 i would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers14 .620.46-0 i am usually at ease during tests in my language class8 .620.52-0 i would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of the foreign language32 .610.73-0 i worry about the consequences of failing my foreign language class10 .570.76-0 a further examination of the semantics of the items revealed that quite a few items are semantically very similar, and this explains their narrow coverage. the most striking example is the following six items given in measure order from highest to lowest: item 20: i can feel my heart pounding when i'm going to be called on in language class. item 27: i get nervous and confused when i am speaking in my language class. item 9: i start to panic when i have to speak without preparation in language class item 24: i feel very self-conscious about speaking the foreign language in front of other students item 1: i never feel quite sure of myself when i am speaking in my foreign language class item 18: i feel confident when i speak in foreign language class these six items have similar measures from -0.15 to 0.26 and lie within a range of just 0.41 logits. also their point measure correlations are similar (0.63 to 0.76) with four of them being between 0.70 and 0.76. the above items cover the concept of uneasiness while speaking in the foreign language classroom. a final investigation on these items was the calculation of their inter-item correlations. table 7 shows the results of this analysis. table 7 inter-item correlations for six items 2724201891items 0.5450.4820.5190.4920.52111 0.6260.4980.6130.57719 0.6410.6670.556118 0.6890.458120 0.566124 127 all correlations lie between 0.458 and 0.689 and are highly significant (p < 0.01). another example of semantically similar items concerns items 14 (i would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers) and 32 (i would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of the foreign language). items 14 and 32 had measures of -0.46 and -0.73 and point measure correlations 0.62 and 0.61. finally the correlation between them was 0.533 (p < 0.01). both items refer to the comfort or nervousness of students in speaking to native english speakers and not in the classroom setting. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 508 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the researchers believe that the high homogeneity of the items expressed by the narrow coverage of the construct, together with the inclusion of semantically equivalent items led to the misleadingly high reliability (alpha 0.958) in the preliminary analyses and by the person reliability (0.93). category functioning— table 8 shows the results of the investigation as to whether the scale used was optimal. table 8 results of the likert scale investigation thresholdsoutfitinfitobserved averageobserved countlabelcategory none2602strongly disagree1 .990.970.32-2 2075disagree2 .39-1.780.940.01-1 1890neither disagree nor agree3 .63-0.930.860.35-0 990agree4 .530.530.071.150 350strongly agree5 .501.501.331.570 almost all criteria for optimal rating scale suggested by linacre (2002) are satisfied. there are high observed frequencies in each category, the average measure increases monotonically along the categories, infit and outfit for all categories are well below 2.0 and close to 1.0, and the thresholds also increase monotonically indicating that each category is the most probable for a specific range on the construct continuum. however, the distances between consecutive thresholds are not all large enough to describe distinct ranges on the variable. figure 5 shows the category probabilities. figure 5. category probabilities. each category peaks for some range along the continuum, however category 2 (disagree) is the most probable in a range of just 0.76 logits (from -1.39 to -0.63), category 3 (neither agree nor disagree) in a range of 1.16 logits europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 509 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (from -0.63 to 0.53) and category 4 (agree) in a range of 0.97 logits (from 0.53 to 1.50). the distance between the first and second thresholds is only 0.76 and is below 1.0 (linacre, 2002) and between the third and fourth thresholds is 0.97, just below 1.0. since all other criteria for optimal category functioning are met, and all categories peak at some range on the variable continuum the fact that one category peaks at a range of 0.76 (below 1.0 as suggested by linacre) is not a serious drawback thus the 5-point likert scale can cautiously be considered optimal. discussion the objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the flcas. the greek version was administered to a random sample of 304 students from three senior high schools in limassol, cyprus. rasch analyses suggested that five items do not fit the model (infit and outfit values well above the critical value of 1.4). they were removed and the remaining 28 items constituted the scale used for the final analyses. research question 1: is the flcas a unidimensional scale? for the investigation of the dimensionality of the 28-item flcas the following evidence was collected: • all item point measure correlations were high ranging from 0.57 to 0.76. • all but three items fit the rasch model very well. the three items were slightly misfitting. however, it was shown that the inclusion of those items does not affect the validity of the person measures. • pca of the standardised residuals showed that the major dimension measured by the scale explained more than 51% of the total variance in the data. more importantly however, the first factor extracted had an eigenvalue of 2.5, that is, the strength of two to three items. further investigation on this was undertaken by contrasting the content of the three items with the highest positive loadings on this factor against the three items with the highest negative loadings. the two groups of items were not different in content. the second group simply contained reversed items. furthermore, the dimension measured by the scale had approximately 12 times the strength of the first factor extracted and this factor explained only 4.4% of the total variance in the data. all the evidence collected supports convincingly the assumption that the scale is unidimensional. having established the unidimensionality of the flcas, three more analyses were undertaken to clear up the discrepancy regarding whether test anxiety can be considered a component of flca (horwitz et al. 1986; tóth, 2008) or not (aida, 1994; cheng et al., 1999; matsuda & gobel, 2004). first the flcas was divided into two subscales, the flta (four items) and the remainder of the flcas (24 items). the correlation between the total scores on the two sub-scales was 0.831, which is highly significant. second, person estimates were found using rasch calibrations on two separate sets of data; the responses of the students to the full 28-item flcas and the 24-item flcas (excluding the four test anxiety items). the cross plot between the two sets of person measures revealed a very linear pattern and the correlation coefficient between them was 0.989. finally, all the t-statistics for differences between the two different person estimates were found to lie well within the 95% confidence interval of -2 to 2, indicating no significant differences. these analyses show that test anxiety can be considered a component of flca. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 510 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research question 2: does the flcas provide reliable measures? the preliminary reliability investigation revealed a very high internal consistency for the scale (alpha = 0.958). this high alpha was comparable with four primary studies on the flcas; horwitz et al. (1986) found 0.93, aida (1994) 0.94, bekleyen (2004) 0.90 and cao (2011) 0.95. such high alphas for psychometric scales may not be desirable (boyle, 1985, 1991; kline, 1979) as they could be an indication of parallel items or a narrow coverage of the construct being measured. these consequences of high internal consistency lower the validity of the scale. rasch analyses revealed similarly high reliability indices (person reliability 0.93, separation 3.64). the personitemmap (figure 3) depicts the problem. all items were positioned from -0.76 to 0.68 and this represents a narrow range, of just 1.44 logits, on the flca continuum. also, the items are well targeted for persons with a measure above the mean (-1.06) and with a breadth of about one standard deviation of the person measures. bora and jongmin (2011) reported more precise and reliable person estimates for those in the low to medium anxiety levels. this study however shows the opposite, that items are well targeted (and thus giving more accurate estimates) for the medium to high anxiety students. a close investigation revealed the existence of parallel items. the most striking example is the case of six semantically akin items with similar statistics (item estimates from -0.15 to 0.26 logits and point measure correlations from 0.63 to 0.76). all six items cover the concept of uneasiness while speaking in the fl classroom. the correlations between them were also all highly significant (p < 0.01) ranging from 0.482 to 0.689. this use of repeated items has two undesirable effects. first the breadth of measurement of the given construct is narrow because of high homogeneity of the items, thus lowering the degree of validity of the scale. second, the scale may be contaminated by a bloated specific, where repeated coverage of semantically the same item leads to apparent high reliability and an unwanted common factor affecting the factor structure of the scale. boyle (1991) argues that moderate to low homogeneity should be preferred in order to ensure a broad coverage of the construct being measured. research question 3: is the 5-point likert scale psychometrically optimal? the 5-point likert scale satisfied all but one criterion for being optimal. the distances between adjacent thresholds were not all greater than 1.0 logits as suggested by linacre (2002). two out of the three ranges were 0.97 (which is close enough to 1.0 to be considered just satisfactory) and 0.76 logits, marginally unsatisfactory. perhaps by removing the neutral category and using a 4-point likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree) the problem will be solved. possible limitations of the study while the sample of 304 high school students can be considered sufficiently large for reliable results, generalization to the whole population of cypriot students is risky since the sample can only represent the population from which it was drawn, namely the students of limassol. sechrest, fay, and hafeez zaidi (1972) emphasised the importance of “equivalence in terms of experiences and concepts” (p. 41) when translating questionnaires. while every effort was made to produce an accurate translation of the instrument, slight semantic differences between the english and greek versions of the flcas cannot be ruled out. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 511 http://www.psychopen.eu/ unlike the majority of studies on the flcas the sample in this study consisted of high school students of 16 – 18 years of age who had been studying the foreign language (english) for most of their school lives. most studies have investigated (near) beginners. this difference could account for the poor item targeting found in this study, but not for the narrow coverage of the construct since with the use of the rasch models the item estimates are independent of the sample used. concluding remarks and suggestions this study fills two important gaps in research. it is the first to validate the full 33-item flcas using the rasch measurement and the first validation study, to the authors’ knowledge, to be conducted on a sample of high school students rather than university students. the use of the rasch approach clarified two discrepancies in the literature. first the factor structure of the flcas and second whether flta can be considered a component of flca. results, after removing five misfitting items, strongly indicated that the scale is unidimensional and flta is a component of flca, therefore items related to flta need not be removed. perhaps the two items (14 and 32) referring to the comfort or nervousness of students in speaking to native english speakers could be removed from the scale since they are not pertinent to the classroom setting. the reliability of the scale was found to be high, in accordance with most primary studies on the flcas. it is perhaps questionably high, which is undesirable in psychometric scales since it lowers their validity. the investigation revealed two reasons for such a high reliability. first the items covered a rather narrow range on the variable continuum. second, the scale includes many parallel items. further research into the refinement of the scale is strongly suggested, taking into consideration the following. first a careful semantic analysis of the remaining 28 items should be conducted in order to remove parallel or repetitive items. second new easier (to endorse) items should be added in an attempt to achieve a wider coverage of the construct and to improve item targeting. this would raise the degree of validity of the scale and give more reliable person measures for the whole student population. the refined scale should be analysed to verify that its psychometric properties are maintained, or better yet, improved. a final suggestion concerns the marginally optimal 5-point likert scale. the statistics of this study direct towards a possible collapsing of two of the central three categories, however the semantics are inhibitory. “neither agree nor disagree” cannot be collapsed with either “disagree” or with “agree”. it is suggested, with caution, that a 4point scale could be used instead by removing the neutral category. this way the distances between adjacent thresholds will most probably increase over the minimum desirable length of 1.0 logit thus covering distinct ranges on the construct continuum. references aida, y. 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(1994). reasonable mean-square fit values.rasch measurement transactions, 8(3), 370. retrieved from http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83b.htm wright, b. d., & masters, g. n. (1982). rating scale analysis. chicago, il: mesa press. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 panayides & walker 515 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt191h.htm http://rasch.org/rmt/rmt94k.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002202217200300103 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt34b.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02293705 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt63f.htm http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83b.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors panayiotis panayides holds a bsc in statistics with mathematics (queen mary college, university of london), an msc in educational testing (middlesex university, uk) and a phd in educational measurement (university of durham, uk). he is currently an assistant headmaster and head of the mathematics department at the lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. his research interests include educational and psychological measurement and research into mathematics education. miranda jane walker holds a ba in hispanic studies and modern greek (king’s college, university of london) a ba in english language and literature (university of cyprus) and an ma in education leadership and management (open university, uk). she is currently an edd candidate at the open university, uk. she teaches spanish, at the lyceum of polemidia in limassol, cyprus. her research interests include teacher and student motivation and anxiety in the foreign language classroom and educational leadership and management. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 493–516 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.611 evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas 516 http://www.psychopen.eu/ evaluating the psychometric properties of the flcas (introduction) literature review the foreign language classroom anxiety scale reliability and length of a scale rasch measurement this study research questions methodology participants the instrument the rasch measurement approach results preliminary analyses rasch analyses discussion research question 1: is the flcas a unidimensional scale? research question 2: does the flcas provide reliable measures? research question 3: is the 5-point likert scale psychometrically optimal? possible limitations of the study concluding remarks and suggestions references about the authors dialogical self in a complex world: the need for bridging theories editorial dialogical self in a complex world: the need for bridging theories hubert j. m. hermans*a [a] radboud university of nijmegen, nijmegen, the netherlands. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 1–4, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.917 published (vor): 2015-02-27. *corresponding author at: gagelveld 34, 6596 ca milsbeek, the netherlands. e-mail: hhermans@psych.ru.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. some decades ago, i lived, like many of my colleagues, in the illusion that the word was made up of two realities that were essentially different: a physical material world governed by deterministic laws and a psychological or ‘mental’ reality that centered around human beings who were blessed with a free will that liberated them from determination and predictability. gradually, however, i noticed that this dualistic perception was untenable as i became aware of the work of physicists—quantum physics and chaos theory in particular—who had created room for indeterminism and psychologists who acknowledged that even conscious decisions are, at least partly, determined by non-conscious processes preceding conscious awareness. in the last decades, we notice that psychology is more and more ‘infiltrated’ by the neurosciences, first in the form of cognitive neuroscience, but later in the shape of social neuroscience, affective neuroscience, and even cultural neuroscience. recent trends in the neuroscientific domain demonstrate that interest is moving downward, from cortical to sub-cortical levels (from slow conscious thinking to rapid, non-conscious determinants) and from leftbrain to right brain functioning (from analytic, step by step analysis to intuitive, imaginative, and holistic evaluation). what does this mean for the self? advances in psychology, neurosciences, sociology, and cultural anthropology, all interested in the self from divergent perspectives, result in the view that the self is highly complex as a social, societal, brain-based, and body-based construct. the question is then, how can we make theories extensive and flexible enough to create bridges between the different, highly specialized disciplines and sub-disciplines. i have the strong feeling that, given their limited specialized scope, not any of the existing psychological sub-disciplines is well-equipped to develop a self-theory broad enough to give an adequate answer to the complexities of the self. in my view, if such a theory is to be developed, it should profit from existing knowledge provided by the specialized (sub)-disciplines and, at the same time, to transcend their boundaries to construct a ‘broad picture’ view on the self as it is socially and culturally becoming more multi-faceted and complex as part of a globalizing and boundary-transcending world. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ together with my colleagues, i’m working on dialogical self theory (hermans & gieser, 2012) that we have presented as a ‘bridging theory’. such a theory is neither constructed as a grand theory, pretending to offer an all-comprehensive explanation of human behavior, nor as a mini-theory that is focused on a fairly narrow portion of human functioning. it is also not a theory that aims to combine or integrate two or more existing mini-theories in any synthesizing way. rather, it is bridging in the sense that a larger diversity of theories, research traditions, and practices meet, or will meet, in order to create new and unexpected linkages. the notion of bridging theory should not suggest that it exists of mediating channels only, linking existing insights or practices without providing an original and new view of the self. instead, it is a theory with an own identity, scope, and specific conceptual framework. at the same time, the conceptual framework is open enough to different, separated, or even contradictory conceptual systems and practices to provide a platform where they can meet in the service of their mutual enrichment and further development. such a theory needs a central concept that is flexible enough to be applied to a broad variety of phenomena and their mutual relationships. this concept, at the heart of the theory, is the ‘i-position.’ in this composite term two elements come together: ‘i’ and ‘position.’ inspired by american pragmatists, like william james and george herbert mead, the word ‘i’ refers to a subject-position, a first-person perspective, from which the world and the self is perceived, experienced, and evaluated. the notion of ‘position,’ inspired by mikhail bakhtin’s dialogical approach, emphasizes the spatial nature of the self. the self is always somewhere, placed towards other positions in and outside the self and establishing relationships with these other positions. moreover, dynamic as an i-position is, it can take the form of active positioning (e.g., as a critic, as cooperative, as looking for support) but also in the passive form of being positioned by others in social or societal contexts (e.g., as trustworthy or untrustworthy, as normal or abnormal). on its turn, the self is able to respond to these ‘determining’ influences, with an ‘answering’ position, agreeing or disagreeing with the way it is positioned by others. in this ways the process of positioning is an iterative and reciprocal way of participants placing themselves and others as part of social, cultural or societal forms of relationships. its spatial nature is expressed in the verbs positioning and counter-positioning while its temporal manifestations are expressed in the form of positioning and repositioning. as part of a transcendental awareness, the self can deposition itself, liberating oneself from being or becoming imprisoned within overly limiting boundaries. for the understanding of the notion of i-position, it is essential to abandon the idea of sharp, razor-like, boundaries between self and other. certainly, the other has an existence that can be distinguished from the self, but at the same time the other is part of the self, in the form of ‘the-other-in-the-self’. this view is in agreement with james who claimed that the other is part of the extended self and with bakhtin who considered the other as ‘another i,’ suggesting that the other occupies a subject position in the extended self. bringing together self and other is also foundational in martin buber’s vision who considers i and thou as a word-pair, suggesting that as components they essentially belong together and resist any separation in the form of isolated essences. along these lines, we have proposed a dialogical self as a composite term in which james’s extended self is brought together with bakhtin’s notion of dialogue. in this way, a between-concept (dialogue) is combined with a within-concept (self) so that a conceptual basis is created for the transportation of the internal constructions of the self to the social and societal world and vice versa. in this way, self and the social environment intrinsically belong together and may question, correct, enrich each other and contribute to each other’s development. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 1–4 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.917 dialogical self in a complex world 2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the embodied self and other are situated, localized, and positioned in a physical space in which they are continuously involved in interactions with each other. this physical space is the basis of the metaphorical space of the self in which a dynamic multiplicity of i-positions is continuously involved in a variety of dialogical (or monological) relationships. the dominance and power relationships in society at large are reflected in dominance and power relationships in the mini-society of the self. however, the self is not a pure ‘reflection’ of what is taking place outside and it is not simply determined by external factors. on the basis of its own agentic potentials the dialogical self is able to give, in the form of counter-positioning, any answer to the influences coming from outside. along these lines, the dialogical self has the potential to escape both determinism and self-other dualism. contributions from different fields of application reflect the boundary-crossing nature of dialogical self theory as a bridging theory: cultural psychology, educational psychology, philosophy, psychotherapy, personality psychology, psychopathology, developmental psychology, experimental social psychology, career counseling, brain sciences, psychoanalysis, social work, psychodrama, cultural anthropology, religion, literary analysis, philosophy, the psychology of the internet, and the psychology of globalization. i wrote this editorial, two days after the charlie hebdo drama in paris took place. i realized the enormous power of emotions that spread through the western world as an all-covering flood. i noticed in other people and also in myself how strong the emotional positioning was towards the perpetrators and, in a very different way, towards the victims. at the same time, i realized how important it is not to lose oneself in a war-like mood, but to find, difficult as it is, a counter-position in reason. a productive dialogue between emotional and reasonable positions is needed, particular in this tumultuous period and, certainly, also in its aftermath. i hope that ‘i’m charlie,’ emerging as a powerful collective i-position, will be a source of energy for transcending existing boundaries both in the self and the world. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references hermans, h. j. m., & gieser, t. (eds.). (2012). handbook of dialogical self theory. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. about the author hubert j. m. hermans is professor emeritus at the radboud university of nijmegen, the netherlands. he is best known as the creator of dialogical self theory. he wrote books like the dialogical self: meaning as movement (1993), co-authored by harry kempen, self-narratives: the construction of meaning in psychotherapy (1995), co-authored by els hermans-jansen, and dialogical self theory: positioning and counter-positioning in a globalizing society (2010), co-authored by agnieszka europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 1–4 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.917 hermans 3 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hermans-konopka. he is editor of the handbook of dialogical self theory (2012), co-edited by thorsten gieser. since 2002 he is president of the international society for dialogical science (isds) and editor-in-chief of the international journal for dialogical science (ijds). he is initiator and chair of biennial international conferences on the dialogical self, which are organized in different countries and continents. for his merits to society and science, he was, on behalf of the queen of the netherlands, decorated as knight in the order of the netherlands lion in 2002. one of hubert’s most impressive memories was when he looked, as a 6-year-old boy, in september 1944, at the passing soldiers of the american 30th infantry division “old hickory,” who liberated his place of birth, maastricht, from the german occupation. some months later, he survived a bomb attack which killed many neighbors living opposite his parents’ house. he describes such autobiographical events in his book between dreaming and recognition seeking (2012), in which he applies dialogical self theory to his own life. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 1–4 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.917 dialogical self in a complex world 4 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en dialogical self in a complex world (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author how adult attachment and personality traits are related to marital quality research reports how adult attachment and personality traits are related to marital quality the role of relationship attributions and emotional reactions parisa nilforooshan*a, ahmad ahmadia, maryam fatehizadeha, mohammad reza abedia, vahid ghasemia [a] university of isfahan, isfahan, iran. abstract the purpose of this research was to explore the role of general factor of personality (gfp) and adult attachment dimensions in marital quality through relationship attributions and emotional reactions. the sample consisted of 261 couples who were married at least more than one year and had no major stressful events in their lives up to the time of the study. in this study, the neo-five factor inventory (neo-ffi), the experiences in close relationships questionnaire-revised (ecr-r), the relationship attribution measure (ram), the geneva emotionwheel (gew), and the perceived relationship quality components (prqc) were used for collecting the data. structural equation modeling (sem) was employed to analyze the data. the results suggest that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance and gfp directly and indirectly, through relationship attributions and emotional reactions, were related to marital quality. in addition, relationship attributions are antecedent to emotional reactions. based on the findings, an intrapersonal-situational model of marital quality is suggested. keywords: general factor of personality (gfp), adult attachment styles, relationship attributions, emotional reactions, marital quality europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 received: 2012-11-14. accepted: 2013-09-30. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. *corresponding author at: department of counseling, faculty of education sciences and psychology, university of isfahan, hezar jerib street, zip code: 8174673441, isfahan, iran. e-mail: p.nilforooshan@edu.ui.ac.ir this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction marital quality is related to individual characteristics for example, karney and bradbury (1995) and holman (2001) developed models of marital quality. these models emphasize spouses’ individual characteristics that could be explained from the five-factor model of personality and attachment theory. the big-five personality traitsneuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousnessexplain interpersonal differences in personality (john & srivastava, 1999). the relationship between personality traits and marital outcomes was suggested in the literature. for instance, research has shown that neuroticism has a main role in predicting marital quality (e.g., ben-ari & lavee, 2005; bouchard, 1999, 2003; rogge, bradbury, hahlweg, engl, & thurmaier, 2006). holland and roisman (2008) found that extraversion and agreeableness are positively associated with marital quality. previous studies indicate weak relationships of conscientiousness and openness with marital quality (bouchard, 1999; holland & roisman, 2008). recently, researches (e.g., deyoung, 2006; musek, 2007; rushton & irwing, 2008, 2009) have supported the new hypothesis that the general factor of personality (gfp) europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ is at the top of the hierarchical structure of personality. it was revealed that the big-five factors are correlated with each other and they are not orthogonal factors (deyoung, peterson, & higgins, 2002; digman, 1997). musek (2007) showed that the personality structure is composed of three distinct higher-order levels: the level of the bigfive, the level of the big-two (plasticity and stability), and the level of the biggest one (gfp). stability includes emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. plasticity includes extraversion and openness to experience. musek (2007) argued that gfp is a mixture of positively valued aspects of personality. in other words, gfp integrates positive aspects of stability and plasticity. van der linden, te nijenhuis, and bakker (2010) believed that, in some cases gfp, as a compound measure, is more useful. in addition, john and srivastava (1999) argued that higher-level factors of personality are more useful for predicting general behavior models. in this present study, the highest level of the hierarchical structure of personality, i.e. gfp, was investigated. on the other hand, adult attachment theory (fraley & shaver, 2000; mikulincer & shaver, 2003, 2007) explains individual differences in close relationships. according to this theory, two dimensions are the basis of individual differences: attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety. four attachment styles are defined based on these dimensions for adults (including secure, fearful avoidant, dismissing avoidant, and preoccupied). based on attachment theory, less marital satisfaction is associated with attachment insecurity (mikulincer & shaver, 2003, 2007). recent empirical evidence suggests that adult attachment styles are significantly related to marital quality (benari & lavee, 2005; davila & bradbury, 2001; hollist & miller, 2005; noftle & shaver, 2006) moreover, many studies have shown the association between adult attachment and the big-five traits (e.g., noftle & shaver, 2006), and the relationship between personality traits and marital outcomes (e.g., rogge et al. 2006). noftle and shaver (2006) and donnellan, burt, levendosky, and klump (2008) emphasize for example the necessity of doing research on how adult attachment constructs and personality traits contribute to form social relationships, such as marital relationships. in general, adult attachment dimensions influence marital quality through the emotional dynamics (mikulincer & shaver, 2005). in reaction to a partner’s negative behaviors, attachment avoidance is related to the combination of suppressed anger and high hostility (mikulincer, 1998). in these situations, anxious attachment is related to uncontrollable anger (mikulincer, 1998), hostility, and distress (simpson, rholes, & phillips, 1996). moreover, the experience and expression of emotions are related to personality traits. for example, negative affectivity, which is “stable tendency to experience and express negative emotions”, is related to neuroticism (davila, bradbury, & fincham, 1998). besides, there is a direct relationship between agreeableness and automatic emotion regulation (haas, omura, constable, & canli, 2007). from another perspective, many researchers are interested in studying the role of cognitive factors in the evolution and maintenance of marital quality (e.g., bouchard, 2003; fincham, bradbury, & beach, 1990; pham & taylor, 1999). among these factors, research has shown that making positive attributions for a partner’s behavior leads to an increase in marital quality (e.g., cropley & reid, 2008; fincham & bradbury, 1992; karney, bradbury, fincham, & sullivan, 1994; miller & rempel, 2004). relationship attributions are conceptualized under two constructs: causal attributions (“the explanations a spouse makes for an event”) and responsibility attributions (“accountability or answerability for an event”) (fincham & bradbury, 1992, p. 457). more anxious and more avoidant attachment leads to more negative attributions to a partner’s negative behavior (collins, 1996; mikulincer, 1998). based on gallo and smith (2001) and sümer and cozzarelli (2004), adult attachment styles affect relationship satisfaction through relationship attributions. moreover, karney et al. (1994) suggested that personality traits determine the nature of relationship attributions. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality 784 http://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, exploring and explaining the antecedents of marital quality are important both theoretically and empirically. it seems that it is necessary to formulate and examine theoretical models in which different theoretical approaches are considered. the main goal of this investigation was to explore a model which could give an account of the relationships between general factor of personality (gfp) and adult attachment dimensions (attachment anxiety and avoidance) with marital quality. this research explored a portion of the mechanisms through which personality and attachment dimensions contribute together to perceived marital quality. since cognition and emotion are essential in studying marital quality (gottman, 1994), the role of relationship attributions and emotional reactions in negative situations (fincham & bradbury, 1992) were considered in the present study. actually, the current research was exploratory in its nature; it related variables which have not been previously reunited within a working conceptual model. in this study, it was hypothesized that gfp and adult attachment dimensions are related to marital quality directly and indirectly, through relationship attributions and emotional reactions. method participants the participants of this study were 261 married couples. the length of their marriage was at least one year or more. this was due to controlling for the “honeymoon effect” on marital quality, since marital quality tends to be high at the beginning of the marriage (bradbury, fincham, & beach, 2000; johnson & booth, 1998). according to family stress models (greenberg, 2004; mcgoldrick & carter, 2003), stressful events (i.e. unemployment, bankruptcy, severe financial problems, infertility, children’s death, each spouse’s sever illness, infidelity, abusing each member of the family, emigration, unexpected events, and death or illness of each spouse’s parents) are related to marital quality. for controlling these variables, only couples who didn’t encounter these events during the last year, up to the time of the study, were selected. the mean length of the marriage was 10.44 (sd = 8.82) years and the mean number of children was 1.28 (sd = 1.26).wives averaged 31.22 (sd = 7.80) years of age, and 14.5 (sd = 3.5) years of education. corresponding figures for husbands were 35.89 (sd = 8.47) years of age, and 13.6 (sd = 4.1) years of education. materials and procedure the selection of participants was based on convenience sampling. the couples who met the requirements for participating in the research were selected and informed consent was obtained from all participants before the study began. in order to explain the research procedure to participants and collect the data, four examiners were used. the decision was up to the respondents to the package of instruments whether to write their names on the package or not. questionnaires incompletely filled were omitted from the analysis. experiences in close relationships questionnaire – revised (ecr-r; fraley, waller, & brennan, 2000) — for assessing anxiety and avoidance in adult attachment, the persian version of ecr-r was applied which includes 36 items (18 items for anxiety and 18 items for avoidance). participants should answer based on their experience of current relationships. respondents used a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 = disagree strongly to 7 = agree strongly. the higher the scores, the higher anxiety and avoidance are. in the present study, the cronbach’s α was .88 for attachment anxiety and .89 for attachment avoidance. the two dimensions were modestly correlated (r = .26, p < .05). the 3-weeks test-retest reliability was .91 for attachment anxiety and .93 for attachment avoidance in this research. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 nilforooshan, ahmadi, fatehizadeh et al. 785 http://www.psychopen.eu/ neo-five factor inventory (neo-ffi; costa & mccrae, 1992) — the five domains of personality traits (i.e. neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) were measured by the persian version of neo-ffi which has 60 items; each domain is measured using 12 items. respondents indicated their agreement with each item using a 5-point likert-type scale (0 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree). the 3-week test-retest stability was .83 for neuroticism, .84 for extraversion, .75 for openness, .72 for agreeableness, and .89 for conscientiousness. in the present study, the cronbach’s α was .83 for neuroticism, .84 for extraversion, .75 for openness, .72 for agreeableness, and .89 for conscientiousness respectively. relationship attribution measure (ram; fincham & bradbury, 1992) — the persian version of ram was used for measuring marital attributions. this instrument consists of four hypothetical negative partner behaviors (e.g., “your spouse begins to spend less time with you”). ram focuses on negative events rather than positive events, because attributions to negative events seem to be more predictive of marital quality (fincham & bradbury, 1992). for each partner’s behavior, three statements measure causal attributions (locus, globality, and stability), and three statements measure responsibility attributions (intent, motivation, and blame). the respondents were asked to imagine each partner’s behavior and rate their agreement with the statements on a 6-points scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). statements about causal attributions measure locus (the extent to which the cause is attributed to the partner), stability (the extent to which the cause is likely to change), and globality (the extent to which the cause influences other realms of marriage). statements about responsibility attributions determine the partner’s intent (intentionally/unintentionally), motivation (selfish/unselfish), the extent to which a partner is to be blamed for his/her behavior. in the present study, the cronbach’s α was .73 for locus, .72 for stability, .83 for globality, .79 for intent, .88 for motivation, and .83 for blame respectively. 3-week test-retest stability was .88 for locus, .79 for stability, .89 for globality, .88 for intent, .96 for motivation, and .76 for blame. geneva emotion wheel (gew; scherer, 2005) — for measuring emotional reactions to partner’s negative behavior (coordinated with negative events described in ram), the persian version of gew was used. gew measures four classes of emotions: achievement emotions (e.g., interest, happiness, pleasure), approach emotions (e.g., relief, surprise, longing), resignation emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, worry) and antagonistic emotions (e.g., anger, contemn, envy). this instrument assesses a total of 20 emotions. the emotions are organized along two appraisal dimensions, high vs. low control/power, and pleasant/unpleasant, in a circular form. each emotion can be rated on five levels of intensity, on a scale from 1 (lowest intensity) to 5 (strongest intensity). respondents were asked to imagine an event in which their partner acts negatively and indicate the intensity of experienced emotions in that situation. since, in such events, the respondents didn’t experience achievement emotions, this category of emotions was omitted from data analysis. in this research, the 3-week test-retest stability was .99 for approach emotions, .96 for antagonistic emotions, and .93 for resignation emotions respectively. perceived relationship quality components (prqc; fletcher, simpson, & thomas, 2000) — the persian version of prqc was used to measure the marital quality. the prqc has 18 items which measures six facets of relationship quality: satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love. each facet is measured by three items. the prqc has a 7-point likert-type scale format ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = extremely. the respondents answered each item regarding the partner and the relationship. in the present study, the cronbach’s α was .97 for satisfaction, .79 for commitment, .96 for intimacy, .91 for trust, .93 for passion, and .94 for love. the 3-weeks test-retest stability was .95, .84, .91, .82, .92 for satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love respectively. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality 786 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analysis cfa was used to examine the factor structure of the measures. fraley et al. (2000) and sibley, fischer, and liu (2005) indicated a two-factor solution representing attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance for ecr-r. cfa, with amos 18, was used to examine this factor structure in which the items were considered as observed variables and attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance as latent variables (see figure 1). the results showed that this measuring model fitted the observed data well (rmsea = .05). based on the gfp hypothesis, a second-order confirmatory factor model was examined for the neo-ffi. in this model, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and agreeableness (as observed variables) were loaded on stability (as the first-order factor). extraversion and openness (as observed variables) were loaded on plasticity (as another first-order factor). stability and plasticity were loaded on gfp, as the second-order factor (see figure 1). the results of cfa showed that there is an acceptable fit of the model to the data (rmsea = .056). in the factor structure of ram, locus, globality, and stability were the observed variables which were loaded on the first-order factor i.e. causal attribution. intent, motivation, and blame were the observed variables of another first-order factor i.e. responsibility attribution. these two first-order factors were loaded on one second-order factor i.e. relationship attribution (see figure 1). the results of cfa showed this model provided a good fit to the data (rmsea = .049). using gew, three distinct emotional reactions (antagonistic, resignation and approach emotions) were measured as observed variables. for summarizing figure 1 and 2, they are shown in a square. cfa was used to examine the factor structure of the prqc. in this model, satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love were considered as observed variables which were loaded on a single latent variable, i.e. marital quality (see figure 1). the results showed that this measuring model fitted data acceptably (rmsea = .06). overview of the models firstly, it was predicted that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance and gfp (as exogenous latent variables) directly and indirectly, through relationship attributions and emotional reactions (including antagonistic, resignation, and approach emotions), are related to marital quality (as an endogenous latent variable). these relations are shown in figure 1. sem analysis (using maximum likelihood estimates) was conducted with amos 18. the results indicated that this model fitted reasonably well to the observed data (cmin/df = 2.91, cfi = .90, pnfi = .73, rmsea = .063, lo 90 = .059, hi 90 = .067). as shown in table 1, the direct relations of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance and gfp with marital quality were significant. attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance increased negative relationship attributions and gfp decreased these attributions significantly. the relationships between anxiety, avoidance, gfp, and emotional reactions were not significant. in addition, relationship attributions decreased marital quality, whereas emotional reactions increased marital quality significantly. the effect of relationship attributions on emotional reactions was significant, whereas the reverse path was not significant. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 nilforooshan, ahmadi, fatehizadeh et al. 787 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. direct and indirect relationships between attachment anxiety and avoidance, gfp, relationship attributions, emotional reactions, and marital quality. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality 788 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 standardized estimates of relationships between attachment anxiety and avoidance, gfp, relationship attributions, emotional reactions, and marital quality critical ratiostandardized estimatespaths attachment anxiety → antagonistic emotions .048-.06attachment anxiety → resignation emotions .01.002 attachment anxiety → approach emotions .81-1.10attachment anxiety → relationship attributions .99***6.41 attachment avoidance → antagonistic emotions .03-.003attachment avoidance → resignation emotions .72-1.48attachment avoidance → approach emotions .53-1.11attachment avoidance → relationship attributions .71***11.91 gfp → antagonistic emotions .38-1.11gfp → resignation emotions .83-1.15gfp → approach emotions .59.05 gfp → relationship attributions .55***-4.33relationship attributions → antagonistic emotions .13*2.55 relationship attributions → resignation emotions .98*1.42 relationship attributions → approach emotions .02*2.50 antagonistic emotions → relationship attributions .681.10 resignation emotions → relationship attributions .291.08 approach emotions → relationship attributions .421.09 attachment anxiety → marital quality .50***-5.48attachment avoidance → marital quality .72***-11.82gfp → marital quality .38***4.44 relationship attributions → marital quality .19***-7.75antagonistic emotions → marital quality .16**3.22 resignation emotions → marital quality .97***3.31 approach emotions → marital quality .42**3.27 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in the second model, it was hypothesized that gfp and attachment constructs are directly related to marital quality. moreover, the gfp and attachment constructs, through relationship attributions, are indirectly related to emotional reactions. furthermore, relationship attributions are, directly and indirectly, through emotional reactions, related to marital quality. this model is shown in figure 2. the results indicated that this model fitted well the observed data (cmin/df = 1.95, cfi = .91, pnfi = .64, rmsea = .044, lo 90 = .043, hi 90 = .046). as shown in table 2, the direct relationships between attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, gfp, and marital quality were significant. in addition, negative attributions increased the emotional reactions and decreased marital quality significantly. emotional reactions increased marital quality significantly. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 nilforooshan, ahmadi, fatehizadeh et al. 789 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the hypothesized relationships between attachment dimensions, gfp, relationship attributions, emotional reactions, and marital quality. table 2 standardized estimates of the paths for the hypothesized relationships between attachment dimensions, gfp, relationship attributions, emotional reactions, and marital quality critical ratiostandardized estimatespaths attachment anxiety → relationship attributions .28***5.31 attachment avoidance → relationship attributions .11***7.65 gfp → relationship attributions .78-2.12relationship attributions → antagonistic emotions .49**4.22 relationship attributions → resignation emotions .96**2.15 relationship attributions → approach emotions .29***5.26 attachment anxiety → marital quality .51***-3.17attachment avoidance → marital quality .26***-8.53gfp → marital quality .28***3.21 relationship attributions → marital quality .17***-7.64antagonistic emotions → marital quality .62***3.23 resignation emotions → marital quality .16*2.06 approach emotions → marital quality .99*1.06 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality 790 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion reviews of existing literature pinpoint the fact that adults’ personality and attachment can influence marital quality. theoretical and empirical findings suggest that couples’ relationship attributions and emotional reactions are related to marital quality. therefore, this study aimed at studying the relationship between relatively constant intrapersonal factors (personality and attachment) and interpersonal situational factors (attributions and emotional reactions) with marital quality. based on the results of this study, the general factor of personality (gfp) and attachment dimensions (attachment anxiety and avoidance) directly and indirectly, through relationship attributions and emotional reactions, were related to marital quality. the results reported here about the relationship between attachment dimensions and attributions are in line with findings from researches done by collins (1996), mikulincer (1998) and mcnulty and karney (2004). the significant relationship between the gfp and attributions is in convergent with poropat’s (2002) findings. in addition, the significant direct and indirect effects of relationship attributions on marital quality are in line with findings reported by other studies (e.g. cropley & reid, 2008; fincham & bradbury,1992; gallo & smith, 2001; johnson, rogge, karney, & bradbury, 2001; karney et al., 1994; miller & rempel, 2004). attachment insecurity, in which there is more access to negative working models (collins, ford, guichard, & allard, 2006), influences the interpretation of social experiences (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). this affects all the aspects of couples’ relationship. therefore, negative working models about one’s spouse will make causal and responsibility attributions more pessimistic. on the other hand, based on the model of attachment-system functioning and dynamics in adulthood (mikulincer & shaver, 2007), an increase in attachment anxiety, or anxious hyperactivation strategies, makes an individual biased towards the spouse’s negative behavior and vigilant against signs of threat in spouse’s behavior. this process increases pessimistic attributions. also, with an increase in attachment avoidance, or avoidant deactivation strategies, an individual experiences unsuccessful relationship with attachment figures which causes prejudice and bias toward the partner’s behavior. according to mikulincer & shaver (2007), attention is diverted away from a spouse’s behaviors and their causes, the signs of a partner’s support and love are disregarded, negative mental representations of the partner are strengthened, and pessimistic attributions of the partner’s behavior increase. avoidant individuals suppress their negative aspects (mikulincer & shaver, 2007), including their role in negative interactions, to save their self-worth and independency. as a result, their point of view toward their partner becomes more negative. in general, results indicated that attachment dimensions and gfp indirectly, through relationship attributions, affect emotional reactions. this is in line with past and present cognitive theories. in these theories, the main premise is that cognitions are the antecedents to emotional reactions. according to flowchart models of emotion the process (shaver, schwartz, kirson, & o’connor, 1987), one’s appraisal of events in relation to his/her goals, whishes, and concerns results in emotional reactions. the component process model (scherer, 2005) introduces evaluation and appraisal as cognitive components of emotion. meanwhile, teasdale (1997) pointed out that cognition can be seriously influenced by affective states and can be considered as the consequences of emotional state. it should be mentioned that, by emotional state, teasdale means mood. scherer (2005) distinguishes mood from emotion. mood is an affective state with long-standing duration, low to medium intensity, and little focus on stimulant events. nevertheless, emotion is a short time and fairly severe affective state which focuses heavily on the stimeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 nilforooshan, ahmadi, fatehizadeh et al. 791 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ulant events. regarding the difference between mood and emotion, it is expected that the effect of emotional reactions on cognition is less than that of mood, and the effect of cognition on emotional reactions is more. collins et al. (2006) suggested that the causal path between pessimistic attributions and emotional distress is significant. fitness (2006) argued that relationship attributions, along with spouse’s expectations from each other, lead to emotional reactions. the fact that which emotional reactions are experienced depends on how one assesses his/her control and power in that relational situation (scherer, 2005). a more interesting result of this research is that, although the increase in antagonistic and resignation emotions is the result of an increase in pessimistic relational attributions, expressing these two emotional reactions (antagonistic and resignation emotions) increases marital quality. this is in line with the results obtained by gottman and krokoff (1989) which suggests that anger exchange can improve marital functioning. relationships with rare emotional reactions are found in couples who are passive towards each other. although such couples are not satisfied, the relationship still continues. tseng and mcdermott (1979) named this pattern “disengaged marital dysfunction”. negative emotional reactions such as anger, depression, and anxiety can be applied as means of attracting the partner’s attention, concern, support, and care, and as a result, perceived marital quality will improve. even if they don’t lead to a partner’s behavioral reactions, emotional reactions are signs of a dynamic marital relationship which improve the situation. it can be stated that emotional reactions balance the negative effect of pessimistic attributions on the marital quality. limitations in this study, self-report instruments were used in order to measure the variables. using one single assessment method can be considered a limitation of the study. in the present research, only attributions related to the spouse were studied and self-relational attributions were not considered in order to avoid creating an overly complex model. future studies can study and compare the role of self and spouse’s relational attributions along with gender differences. theoretical and practical implications the intrapersonal-situational model of marital quality is illustrated in figure 3. according to this model, personality and attachment are two important constructs in the formation of marital quality and they should be considered simultaneously in explaining marital outcomes. because of the associations between these two constructs (e.g., donnellan et al., 2008; neyer & voigt, 2004), noftle and shaver (2006) have emphasized that both attachment and personality affect relationship quality. theoretically, by considering these two constructs, vast arenas about individual differences that affect marital quality are covered. on the other hand, this model takes into account the role of both intrapersonal and situational factors. based to this model, attachment dimensions and personality influence an individual’s explanation of marital situations. most likely, personality traits (such as neuroticism), anxious hyperactivation strategies, and avoidant deactivation strategies affect relationship attributions. this model emphasizes the study of both cognition and emotion in intimate relationships. according to our proposed, the intrapersonal-situational model of marital quality, couples’ explanations of relational situations affect their appraisal of those situations, which represents the cognitive element of emotion and determines one’s emotional reactions. in addition, relationship attributions are directly related to the appraisal of dimensions of marital quality. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality 792 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. the intrapersonal-situational model of marital quality. based on this model, relationship attributions can be the aim of intervention. seligman (2006) introduced learned optimism for avoiding depression. he considered attributions to be the basis of optimism and believed that the explanatory style can be modified. therefore, relationship attributions can be the goal of prevention and treatment programs. the skills that seligman listed can be used for changing causal and responsibility attributions. emphasizing the proposed theoretical model and the roles of relationship attributions and emotional reactions, designing integrative couple therapy based on emotionally focused couple therapy (johnson & denton, 2002), and learned optimism (seligman, 2006), can be considered achievable. it is suggested that further confirmatory studies should be done to test this proposed model. references ben-ari, a., & lavee, y. 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(2010). the general factor of personality: a meta-analysis of big five intercorrelations and a criterion-related validity study. journal of research in personality, 44, 315-327. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.03.003 about the authors dr. parisa nilforooshan is an assistant professor of counseling at the department of counseling, faculty of education sciences and psychology, university of isfahan, iran. her research interests includemarital dynamics, specially based on adult attachment theory. dr. ahmad ahmadi is a professor of family counseling at the department of counseling, faculty of education sciences and psychology, university of isfahan, iran. his research interests include family and marital counseling and adolescence problems. dr.maryam fatehizadeh is an associate professor of family counseling at the department of counseling, faculty of education sciences and psychology, university of isfahan, iran. her research interest includes family and marital counseling, specially based on solution-focused counseling. dr. mohammad reza abedi is an associate professor of career counseling at the department of counseling, faculty of education sciences and psychology, university of isfahan, iran. his research interests include career counseling techniques. dr. vahid ghasemi is an associate professor of sociology at the faculty of social sciences, department of literature and humanities sciences, university of isfahan, iran. his research interests include quantitative methodology in social and behavioral sciences. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 783–797 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.549 nilforooshan, ahmadi, fatehizadeh et al. 797 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.6.1061 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167205276865 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.5.899 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2004.00087.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0002-7138(09)60475-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.03.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en relation of adult attachment and personality traits to marital quality introduction method participants materials and procedure results preliminary analysis overview of the models discussion limitations theoretical and practical implications references about the authors the turkish version of the cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised research reports the turkish version of the cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised pelin d. catak*a [a] eastern michigan university, ypsilanti, usa. abstract the mindfulness approach to psychotherapy has become a topic of continuously growing scientific interest. in accordance with such interest, various self-report assessment tools have been developed to measure the mindfulness construct. the majority of the studies conducted to investigate the properties of these assessment instruments includedwestern populations. thus, themeasurement of mindfulness in non-western cultures still requires further research. based on this premise, the psychometric properties of the 10 item cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised (cams-r) were investigated in two different studies using two non-clinical turkish samples. in study 1, the psychometric properties of the 10 item cams-r were examined in an undergraduate student sample (n = 265). study 2 extended the examination of the psychometric properties of the cams-r to an adult community sample consisting of white-collar public employees (n = 88). the results of both studies showed that the turkish cams-r possessed acceptable levels of internal consistency and the scale displayed convergent as well as concurrent validity. statistically meaningful relationships were found between mindfulness as measures by turkish cams-r and depression, anxiety, well-being as well as perceived stress. the findings from both studies suggest cams-r retains its psychometric properties when utilized in a non-western culture and the turkish version of cams-r is a valid instrument which can be used to measure mindfulness in the turkish population. keywords: mindfulness, assessment, cams-r, perceived stress, well-being, depression, anxiety europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 received: 2012-04-16. accepted: 2012-10-08. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: eastern michigan university, ypsilanti, mi 48197, usa, email: pcatak@emich.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction mindfulness and acceptance based approaches to psychotherapy are the focus of regularly increasing scientific interest. the results of many review studies indicate that mindfulness-based approaches in the treatment of psychological dysfunction have promising implications (praissman, 2008; keng, smoski, & robins, 2011). however, said improvements in third-wave therapies do not come without cautions to be taken into consideration as put forward by cullen (2011): this emergent phenomenon is both promising and perilous as it is increasingly difficult to gauge, not only the quality and integrity of the program, but whether or not the content has anything to do with mindfulness, let alone which definition of mindfulness is operationally applied in and philosophically guiding the curriculum (p. 186). one way of overcoming this obstacle is to create psychometrically sound and conceptually accurate assessment instruments for mindfulness construct. this is a notion which emerged as a mainstream in the research related europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches. as a result, numerous assessment instruments were developed. each of the current mindfulness scales emphasizes different facets of mindfulness within their own theoretical framework. the reflection of these facets, also referred to as mindfulness skills, corresponds to substantially diverse structures found in mindfulness questionnaires. for example, mindful attention awareness scale (maas) developed by brown and ryan (2003) places a special emphasis on open and receptive awareness and attention to present moment experiences. the developers of the maas suggest that only present focused attention and awareness are fundamental to mindfulness. therefore, attitudional aspects such as acceptance remain peripheral to the measurement of mindfulness. accordingly, the scale measures mindfulness as a single-dimensional construct. the multi-dimensional mindfulness scales are at the opposite side of this continuum (baer, smith, hopkins, krietemeyer, & toney 2006; cardaciotto, herbert, forman, moitra, & farrow, 2008). multi-factor mindfulness scales include items specifically developed to measure attitudional components of mindfulness such as non-judgment and acceptance. thesemulti-dimensional instruments offer means of comprehensive assessment. on the other hand, a trade-off between brevity and detailed measurement occurs as a natural consequence of the inclusion of multiple factors. cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised (cams-r) is a 12 item self-report questionnaire developed by feldman, hayes, kumar, greeson, and laurenceau (2007). cams-r is a refined version of an earlier scale which had consisted of 18 items (kumar, 2005; kumar, feldman, & hayes, 2008). following this initial measure the developers of cams-r revised the previous instrument in an attempt to establish a brief self-report measure written in everyday language which can nevertheless capture the multi-faceted conceptualization of mindfulness. one of the purposes sought in the revised version of the scale was to create an assessment tool which could be comprehended by individuals without prior experience in mindfulness practice. after such revision, the final version of the cams-r which consisted of 12 items was formed. prior to the initiation of the present studies, the mindful attention and awareness scale (brown and ryan, 2003) was the sole mindfulness measure which had been adapted to turkish language (catak, 2012). it can be stated that mindfulness-based approaches are relatively novel for the turkish psychotherapy field. therefore, the adaptation of mindfulness measures to turkish requires further commitment. in order to introduce turkish clinicians with a practical and at the same time comprehensive mindfulness measure we opted to adapt cams-r to turkish. cams-r possesses several distinctive features which led us to its selection for adaptation. firstly, cams-r assesses mindfulness in a detailed fashion since the scale conceptualizes mindfulness as amulti-faceted construct. the items of the scale are designed to tap different facets of mindfulness including attention, present-focus, awareness, and acceptance. secondly, cams-r allows comprehensive assessment within a relatively brief structure which facilitates the questionnaire administration as well as the data collection. other multi-dimensional measures of mindfulness such as five facets mindfulness questionnaire (ffmq, baer et al., 2006) are relatively longer and less advantageous in terms of practicality. furthermore, cams-r items place a unique emphasis on mindful relating to thoughts and emotions. given the trans-diagnostic implications of thoughts and emotions, cams-r can be used to assess mindfulness in various diagnostic groups. finally, certain mindfulness questionnaires in the literature such as freiburg mindfulness inventory (walach, buchheld, buttenmüller, kleinknecht, & schmidt, 2006) and toronto mindfulness scale (lau et al., 2006) are intended for individuals who have experience in mindfulness meditation. on the contrary, the cams-r is designed for individuals with no prior experience of mindfulness practice allowing a wider range of application. based on these considerations we have decided to investigate the psychometric properties of cams-r in the turkish population. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 604 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the internal structure of cams-r consists of a second-order latent mindfulness factor that is inferred from four first-order latent factors. these first-order factors include attention, present-focus, awareness, and acceptance dimensions. each factor is represented by three items in the scale. the items under the factors are designed to convey mindful attitudes towards internal experiences with special relevance to thoughts and feelings. the authors of cams-r suggest computing a single total mindfulness score instead of four sub-scale scores since the internal consistency of the total scale is higher than the internal consistency of individual sub-scales. the developers of cams-r also suggest the utilization of the 10 item version of cams-r with the omission of 2nd and 7th items since these items may be potentially confounded with worry and rumination respectively. at the face validity level the contents of items 2 and 7 present significant overlap with worry and anxiety (i.e. “i am preoccupied by the future”, “i am preoccupied by the past”). in a recent discussion, the current state of mindfulness measures has been criticized for putting less than adequate emphasis on content validity (grossman, 2011). according to this perspective, the item contents that represent mindfulness by its relative absence or the presence of seemingly opponent constructs such as worry may fail to measure mindfulness. furthermore, such item contents may present a deviation from the origins of mindfulness construct. it should also be noted that the authors of cams-r conducted a series of multiple regression analyses in order to identify whether item 2 and 7 could be independently explained by the construct of mindfulness above and beyond worry or rumination. the results of the analysis showed that the variance in item 2 was uniquely explained by worry (b = .025, se = .004, p < .001) but not mindfulness (b = .010, se = .006, p = .13) while item 7 was uniquely predicted by rumination (b = .021, se = .004, p < .001) but not mindfulness (b = −.005, se = .006, p = .40). based on the considerations above and the results obtained by feldman et al. (2007), our concern was that the inclusion of item 2 and item 7 could weaken the content validity of the whole scale. it should also be noted that the magnitudes of the differences in the relationships between criterion variables (e.g. anxiety, depression, well-being, experiential avoidance and emotion regulation) and two versions of the scale were not statistically significant (feldman et al., 2007). therefore, in the present studies we have chosen to exclude these items from the adaptation procedure. the correlation between the 10 time version and 12 item version of the cams-r is highly significant (r = .97). both 12 item and 10 item versions of cams-r demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency (α = .77, α = .78, respectively, feldman et al., 2007). the scale also presented significant relationships with discriminative and convergent variables like depression, anxiety, well-being and emotion-regulation (feldman et al., 2007). schmertz, anderson, and robins (2009) have found that individuals scoring higher on cams-r had fewer scores of target omissions in a sustained attention task which assesses the participants’ subjective experience of being unaware of present experience. in a study by thompson and waltz (2007), significant relationships were found between cams-r and several personality dimensions. in this study it was seen that higher scores on cams-r were associated with lower levels of neuroticism (r = -.58, p < .01), higher levels of agreeableness (r = -.43, p < .01), and higher levels of conscientiousness (r = -.27, p < .01). the results of another study (thompson & waltz, 2008) demonstrated that higher scores on cams-r were significantly positively correlated with self-esteem (r = .50, p < .001) and unconditional self-acceptance (r = .45, p < .001). cams-rmeasuredmindfulness demonstrated significant positive associations with positive and accepting attitudes towards self (r = .39, p < .001) and others (r = .24, p < .001) (kraus & sears, 2009). furthermore, cams-r displayed significant correlations with other self-report measures of mindfulness. initial findings of feldman et al. (2007) showed that both 12 item and 10 item versions of the scale are significantly correlated with the mindful attention awareness scale (brown & ryan, 2003, r = .51, p < .001 for cams-r 12, r = .46, p < .001 for cams-r 10) and freiburg mindfulness inventory (walach et al., 2006, r = .66, p < .001 for cams-r 12, r = .69, p < .001 for cams-r 10). these results demonstrate europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 605 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the suitability of using cams-r for the assessment of mindfulness in its own account in addition to utilization of the scale for examining the relationships between mindfulness and other constructs pertaining to personality, well-being and psychopathology. the majority of the previous studies investigating the assessment of mindfulness involved american or european populations. at the same time, a recent trend for investigating the assessment of mindfulness in non-western cultures is observable. in two recent studies, the psychometric properties of the five facets mindfulness questionnaire (ffmq, baer et al., 2006) were examined in chinese and japanese samples (deng, liu, rodrigues, & xia, 2011; sugiura, sato, ito, & murakami, 2012). in both studies the psychometric properties of ffmq were comparable to those of the original version. moreover, mindfulness as measured by ffmq displayed similar relationships with related measures of well-being which was comparable to studies conducted with western samples. christopher, charoensuk, gilbert, neary, and pearce (2009) compared the psychometric properties of the kentucky inventory of mindfulness skills (kims, baer, smith, & allen, 2004) and maas (brown & ryan, 2003) across american and thai samples. interestingly, kims could not be revalidated in either american or thai samples in this study. however, maas displayed measurement invariance across samples. in another study christopher, christopher, and charoensuk (2009) compared the psychometric properties of kims and maas using three different samples consisting of theravada buddhist monks, thai college students and american college students. it was seen that american students had higher mean scores on kims observing and kims accepting without judgment sub-scales compared to thai students. no other differences in means scores of american students and thai students were reported. an important finding in this study was that the buddhist monks evinced similar associations between mindfulness and related variables and results were comparable to american validation study samples. two other studies conducted with turkish and iranian samples (catak, 2012; ghorbani, watson, &weathington, 2009) examined the psychometric properties maas in these cultures. the findings of these studies showed that maas presented similar psychometric properties comparable to its original version. furthermore, the associations between mindfulness as measured by maas and related constructs were comparable to those obtained in western cultures. as seen, the results of studies conducted with non-western samples generally suggest that the mindfulness construct displays a similar assessment pattern in these cultures. a difference in mean sub-scale scores seems to emerge whenmindfulness is assessed in amulti-dimensional fashion. independent of themindfulnessmeasure employed the relationships between mindfulness and related variables are comparable to the findings of the studies conducted with western samples. an important dimension delineating between eastern and western societies is their differential emphasis on collectivism and individualism respectively (triandis, 1993). according to hui and triandis (1986), collectivism is defined as “subordination of individual goals to the goals of a collective, a sense of harmony, interdependence and concern for others”. when there is a discrepancy between the goals of the individual and the society in a collectivist culture, group goals are considered to have priority over personal goals (schwartz, 1990). other types of meditational practices like loving kindness meditation or compassion meditation are more relational in nature since they aim to extend compassionate attitudes to one’s immediate and general circle of people. mindfulness meditation is more individualistic in the sense that the aspects and experiences of the self are approached as main practice targets. mindfulness practice involves focusing on the self with an accepting and non-judgmental europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 606 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attitude. the members of a society which places priority on the goals of the community over individual goals and values may be inclined to be less accepting and/or more judgmental of themselves. therefore, it may be possible to observe differences in certain facets of mindfulness such as acceptance or non-judgment when mindfulness is assessed in a collectivist culture. cross-cultural comparison studies are needed to provide more information about possible differences in mindfulness dimensions as a function of individualistic or collectivist cultures. in an attempt to extend the cross-cultural investigation of mindfulness we aimed to provide further data for the measurement of mindfulness by examining the psychometric properties of cams-r in turkish student and community samples. the second aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between mindfulness and related measures of psychopathology and well-being. study 1 methods participants—undergraduate students enrolled in four public universities and three private universities in turkey were the participants of this study. the participants consisted of caucasian individuals aged between 18 and 32. the mean age of the participants was 21.62 (sd = 2.06). ninety five participants were male which constituted 35.8% of the sample and one hundred and seventy participants were female which constituted 64.2% of the sample. fifty four students were at their first study year, which constituted 20.4% of the sample, forty eight students were at their second study year, which constituted 18.1% of the sample, seventy five students were at their third study year, which constituted 28.3% of the sample, and eighty eight students were at their fourth study year, which constituted 33.2% of the sample. the academic fields of the participants included engineering, architecture, urban planning, medicine, dentistry, biology, sociology and philology. measures and variables—cognitive and affective mindfulness scale revised (cams-r; feldman et al., 2007): in the present study the 10 item version of the original cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised was used. cams-r includes items like “i can usually describe how i feel at the moment in considerable detail” or “i try to notice my thoughts without judging them” which assess mindful attitudes towards internal experiences. the items of cams-r are rated on a 4 point likert scale from 1 (rarely/not at all) to 4 (almost always). item 5 is reversely scored. the total score of the cams-r is obtained by computing the sum of all items. higher scores on the scale suggest higher levels of mindfulness. the cams-r has been shown to possess acceptable levels of internal consistency (α = .81, n = 279, greeson et al., 2011, α = .77, n = 298, feldman et al., 2007). mindful attention awareness scale (maas; brown & ryan, 2003): maas is a commonly used 15 item self-report measure of mindfulness developed by brown and ryan (2003). maas assesses mindfulness as the open or receptive attention to and awareness of present events and experiences and includes items like “i find it difficult to stay focused on what’s happening in the present.” or “i do jobs or tasks automatically, without being aware of what i’m doing.” the items of maas are rated on a six-point likert scale from 1 (almost always) to 6 (almost never). higher scores on the maas indicate higher levels of mindfulness. the maas has been adapted to the turkish population by catak (2012) and the turkish version of the scale was shown to possess good psychometric qualities. in the present study the internal consistency of the scale was also good (α = 81, n = 265). perceived stress scale (pss; cohen, kamarck, & mermelstein, 1983): a major application field in mindfulness-based approaches is the mitigation of the adverse effects of stress on well-being. it has been shown europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 607 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that mindfulness training is associated with significant decreases in perceived stress levels (carmody & baer, 2008). a recent systematic review on mindfulness-based stress reduction (de vibe, bjørndal, tipton, hammerstrøm, & kowalski 2012) showed the positive effects of mindfulness training on stress. in line with previous literature we expected to find a negative relationship between perceived stress and mindfulness. perceived stress was measured using perceived stress scale (cohen et al., 1983) which assesses the level of stress perceived by the individual as response to one’s own life situations. pss includes questions like: “in the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?” or “in the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?” which assess the respondent’s stress levels in relation with recent stressful life events. the pss was adapted to turkish by erci (2006). in the present study the cronbach’s alpha value of the scale was .86. beck depression inventory (bdi; beck, 1961): it has been showed that mindfulness training is associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms (barnhofer et al., 2009; kenny &williams, 2007; kumar, feldman, & hayes, 2008). therefore, in the present study we expected to find a negative relationship between depression and mindfulness. depression was assessed using bdi which assesses various symptom domains of depression by 21 multiple choice questions. higher scores obtained on the scale indicate more severe depressive symptoms. the turkish version of the bdi used in this study was adapted by hisli (1988) and showed to possess good psychometric qualities. the internal consistency of the bdi in the present study was α = .91. beck anxiety inventory (bai; beck, epstein, brown, & steer, 1988): beneficial effects of mindfulness training on anxiety symptoms were shown in previous studies (farb et al., 2010; lovas & barsky, 2010; vøllestad, sivertsen, & nielsen, 2011). in line with previous findings we predicted that mindfulness will be negatively associated with anxiety levels. anxiety was measured using bai which assesses the severity of anxiety symptoms by 21 multiple choice questions. higher scores obtained in bai are indicative of more severe anxiety levels. the turkish version of the bai used in this study was adapted by ulusoy, şahin, and erkman (1998) and shown to possess good psychometric qualities. bai-turkish demonstrated a good level of internal consistency in the present study (α = .88). procedure prior to the study the first author of the development study of cams-r was contacted via e-mail and his consent on adapting the cams-r to turkish was acquired. translation of the scale— for the translation of the original version of cams-r into turkish language, guidelines of the stage model suggested by geisinger (1994) for the cross-cultural adaptation of assessment instruments were followed. in the first stage a bilingual individual fluent in both english and turkish who had extensive experience with mindfulness practice over 15 years translated the cams-r items into turkish. in the second stage, two bilingual individuals fluent in both english and turkish and experienced in mindfulness practice evaluated the first translation jointly. the evaluation was based on determining congruity of the translated items with original items as well as the comprehensibility of the translation. following the joint examination of the translation, the suggestions of the evaluators were conveyed to the translator in the third stage. accordingly, the translator revised the draft version of turkish cams-r in line with the suggestions of the evaluators. in the fourth stage, the author administered the draft version of turkish cams-r to a small convenience sample (n = 5) which had similar participant characteristics with final study sample (e.g. turkish undergraduate university students). as suggested by geisinger (1994), the participants in the convenience sample were interviewed by the researcher subsequently europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 608 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to discuss their experiences regarding understandability of the instructions, wording and comprehensibility of the items. as a result of these discussions, minor alterations were made to draft translation regarding suffixes of time adverb. after said alterations, the final version of turkish cams-r was formed. the recruitment of the participants — the participants were 265 undergraduates enrolled in the universities established istanbul, ankara and izmir. the participation into the study was performed via survey monkey online survey system. for contacting the participants, an online search was conducted among electronic mailing groups registered to a search engine. the turkish equivalents of the keywords “university” and “university students” were used in the search. initial results enlisted 107 e-mailing groups. in order to reach currently enrolled students, 34 actively used e-mail groups initiated within last 1 to 4 years were chosen among the initial results. subsequently, 34 groups were contacted by the author via an e-mail which requested voluntary participation into the study. the invitation e-mail conveyed basic information about the study by stating that the study was related to thoughts, feelings and stress levels of university students. information about the confidentiality of the participation and link of the survey page were also included in the e-mail. the test battery consisted of a consent form, demographics form, mindfulness questionnaires, and other self-report instruments related to anxiety, depression and perceived stress. the survey was kept open to access for 2 weeks. during this time interval 284 students logged to the survey site and 265 of them completed the test batteries. these 265 participants constituted the final sample. statistical analysis — prior to statistical analysis, continuous and non-continuous variables were examined for their skewness and kurtosis. it was seen that the demographic variables which included age and gender were normally distributed. the continuous variables were not skewed and met the assumptions of normality. the online survey system used in the study was designed to check for unanswered items and prompt the participant to answer the empty item before proceeding to the next page. therefore, no missing data was found in the completed test batteries. the data were analyzed using factor analysis, correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis, t-test and one way anova. results the mean score of the whole cams-r was 26.40 (sd = 4.92) and the item means varied between 2.35 (sd = 0.88) and 2.88 (sd = 0.88). means and standard deviations of cams-r items are presented in table 1. gender differences in cams-r score means was examined by computing an independent samples t-test. result of the t-test showed that the difference between cams-rmean scores of men and women was not statistically significant. a one way anova test was conducted in order to investigate possible differences in participants’ mean cams-r scores according to their study year. results of this analysis did not reveal any significant differences between the mean cams-r scores of the participants at different years of study. internal consistency and factor structure — the cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated to examine the internal consistency of cams-r. cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the whole cams-r was .77 which showed that the cams-r turkish version possessed an acceptable level of internal consistency. the corrected item – total coefficients for the cams-r items varied between .21 and .60 and the mean value of item-total coefficients was .44. item means, item deleted cronbach’s alpha values and corrected item-total coefficients are presented in table 1. in order to examine the internal structure of cams-r turkish version, a confirmatory factor analysis similar to the one employed by feldman et al. (2007) was conducted. the cfamodel based on a first-order latent mindfulness europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 609 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 m ea ns an d s ta nd ar d d ev ia tio ns fo rt he tu rk is h ve rs io n of th e c og ni tiv e a ffe ct iv e m in df ul ne ss s ca le r ev is ed fo rs tu dy 1 an d s tu dy 2 st ud y 2; sa m pl e 2 (n = 88 ) st ud y 1; sa m pl e 1 (n = 26 5) it c d k s sd m it c d k s sd m ite m s n o .6 1 .6 8 .6 7 .7 0 .7 0 .3 8 3 .5 4 .7 4 .5 8 .6.8 1 .7 1 2 ya pt ığ ım şe ye od ak la nm ak be ni m iç in ko la yd ır. 1. it is ea sy fo rm e to co nc en tra te on w ha ti am do in g. .4 6 .7 0 .9 8 .4 1 .0 3 1 .8 7 2 .3 0 .7 7 .9 1 .2 2 .9 7 .6 4 2 d uy gu sa la cı ya ta ha m m ül ed eb ili rim . 2. ic an to le ra te em ot io na lp ai n. .3 0 .7 3 .4 3 .0 9 .9 8 .4 2 2 .2 1 .7 8 .6 1 .2 5 .8 8 .3 5 2 d eğ iş tir em ed iğ im şe yl er ik ab ul le ne bi liy or um . 3. ic an ac ce pt th in gs ic an no tc ha ng e. .3 1 .7 3 .2 -1 .9 3 .9 3 .8 4 2 .3 9 .7 6 .9 2 .0 8 .9 4 .6 6 2 o an da na sı lh is se tti ği m ig en el de ol du kç a de ta yl ıo la ra k ta rif ed eb ili rim . 4. ic an us ua lly de sc rib e ho w if ee la tt he m om en ti n co ns id er ab le de ta il. .2 5 .7 3 .6 3 .7 6 .7 9 .0 2 3 .4 3 .7 5 .4 4 .1 4 .8 0 .5 3 2 d ik ka tim ko la yl ık la da ğı lır . 5. ia m ea si ly di st ra ct ed . .6 4 .6 8 .5 5 .6 0 .7 7 .2 3 3 .5 5 .7 4 .5 2 .0 9 .8 0 .7 4 2 d üş ün ce le rim iv e du yg ul ar ım ıt ak ip et m ek be ni m iç in ko la yd ır. 6. it’ s ea sy fo rm e to ke ep tra ck of m y th ou gh ts an d fe el in gs . .0 8 .7 6 .6 1 .5 5 .8 9 .0 8 3 .4 1 .7 5 .7 5 .0 3 .8 5 .6 8 2 d üş ün ce le rim iy ar gı la m ad an on la rın fa rk ın a va rm ay a ça lış ırı m . 7. it ry to no tic e m y th ou gh ts w ith ou tj ud gi ng th em . .4 0 .7 1 .3 1 .8 0 .9 0 .1 8 3 .4 9 .7 4 .7 1 .3 1 .8 8 .8 8 2 s ah ip ol du ğu m dü şü nc e ve du yg ul ar ık ab ul le ne bi liy or um . 8. ia m ab le to ac ce pt th e th ou gh ts an d fe el in gs ih av e. .5 1 .6 8 .0 2 .8 8 .7 4 .3 5 3 .6 0 .7 3 .4 2 .2 3 .7 9 .8 3 2 ş im di ki an a od ak la na bi lir im . 9. ia m ab le to fo cu s on th e pr es en tm om en t. .4 9 .7 0 .1. 28 .2 7 .7 7 .1 4 3 .4 9 .7 4 .7 3 .1 3 .9 0 .3 7 2 u zu n sü re bo yu nc a di kk at im it ek bi rş ey e ve re bi lir im . 10 . ia m ab le to pa y cl os e at te nt io n to on e th in g fo ra lo ng pe rio d of tim e n ot e. a da pt ed fro m c og ni tiv e a ffe ct iv e m in df ul ne ss s ca le r ev is ed ,f el dm an et al .( 20 07 ). m :i te m m ea n, s :s ke w ne ss ,k :k ur to si s, c d :c ro nb ac h’ s a lp ha if ite m de le te d, it :i te m to ta l c or re la tio n europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 610 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor and second-order latent attention (items 1, 5 and 10), present-focus (item 9), awareness (items 4, 6 and 7), and acceptance (items 2, 3 and 8) factors was tested in amos v.16 software using maximum likelihood estimation. chi-square test was significant (χ2 (30, n = 265) = 87.5, p =.000), thus indicating a non-fit. however, it should be recalled that chi-square statistic is known to be influenced by the sample size and the number of variables in the model. root mean square residual was 0.08 which suggested a marginal fit (browne & cudeck, 1993). goodness of fit index and comparative fit index were .94 and .91 respectively which indicated good model fit as suggested by byrne (1994). the model and standardized parameter estimates for the second-order cfa described above are depicted in figure 1. figure 1. standardized parameter estimates of the second order cfa for the turkish version of 10 item cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised. the relationships between mindfulness and related constructs — the correlations between cams-r scores and other psychological constructs are presented in table 2. the results of the analysis showed that all correlations between mindfulness and other variables were significant in predicted directions. a significant negative relationship was found between mindfulness, depression and anxiety levels (r = -.51, p < .001, r = -.33, p < .001, respectively). the perceived stress was also significantly negatively associated with mindfulness (r = -.51, p < .001). the previous findings related to the effects of mindfulness on anxiety and depression showed that perceived stress displays a significant mediation effect (weinstein, brown, & ryan, 2009). in line with these findings, we examined whether the magnitude of the relationship between mindfulness and related variables would attenuate when perceived stress was controlled for. accordingly, partial correlations were calculated between mindfulness, depression and anxiety controlling for perceived stress. the results of the analysis showed that the negative relationship between mindfulness, anxiety and depression remained significant. however, the magnitude of the correlation for both anxiety and depression decreased substantially after controlling for perceived europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 611 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between mindfulness and related constructs cams-r controlling for pssmaascams-rcsdmmeasures -cams-r .52**.001.77.924.4026 -maas .001.52**.82.68.963 -pss .42**-.51**-.86.917.8528 bdi .28**-.42**-.51**-.91.8210.1616 bai .18**-.34**-.33**-.88.169.6312 note. m: scale mean, sd: standard deviation, c: cronbach’s alpha **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) stress. the zero-order and partial correlations between mindfulness and other variables are presented in table 2. the criterion validity of cams-r was also examined using the bdi total scores of the participants. a total score of 17 or above on bdi is advised as the clinical cut-off score for bdi in the turkish population (hisli, 1988). accordingly, two groups were created based on the cut-off criteria. the cams mean scores of these groups were examined by conducting an independent samples t-test. we expected that mean cams-r scores of the groups above and below the cut-off would differ significantly and the participants above the cut-off score in bdi were expected to have significantly lower levels mindfulness. the results of the t-test showed that the difference between the mean scores of the group above the cut-off score (n = 78, m = 23.21, sd = 4.98) and the group below the cut of score (n = 187, m = 27.72, sd = 4.25) was statistically significant in the predicted direction (t (263) = 7.4, p < .001, d = .92). as expected, the participants whose bdi scores were above the clinical-cut off had significantly lower levels of mindfulness. discussion in study 1, the internal structure of the turkish version of 10 item cams-r as well as the relationship between cams-r measured mindfulness and other related constructs were examined in a sample of undergraduate students. the results showed that the turkish version of cams-r demonstrated accepted levels of internal consistency. the cronbach’s alpha value calculated for turkish cams-r was comparable to values reported by feldman et al. (2007). the results of the confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the internal structure of the turkish version of cams-r retained the second-order factor structure reported for the original version. all associations between mindfulness and related constructs were significant in predicted directions. there was a substantial reduction in the association betweenmindfulness and well-being when perceived stress was controlled. however, the relationship between mindfulness and related measures remained significant although its magnitude was reduced. this finding may indicate a partial mediation where the effects of mindfulness on well-being can be partially explained by the effects of mindfulness on perceived stress levels. this suggestion is also in line with the findings of weinstein et al. (2009) study where a significant mediation effect for perceived stress was reported. an examination of the item means showed that all acceptance items of turkish cams-r had lower mean values compared to those of original cams-r reported by feldman et al. (2007) in three samples. the results also showed that no gender difference was evident between the total cams-r scores for men and women. regarding the criterion validity, the cams-r demonstrated statistically meaningful associations with measures of perceived stress, depression and anxiety with the direction of the association being negative. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 612 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 study 2 was conducted in order to investigate the psychometric properties of turkish cams-r further in a community sample. methods participants and recruitment process — the community sample in the study consisted of eighty eight adults who worked white-collar public officers at a local municipality in istanbul city of turkey. the participation into this study occurred as part of another study conducted by the author within the same sample. the age of the participants varied between 18 and 51, and the mean age of the sample was 34.64 (sd = 7.4). 43.2% of the participants were men (n = 38) while 56.8% of the participants were women (n = 50). 63.6% of the participants were married, 34.1% of the participants were single and 2.3% of the participants were widowed. the job descriptions of the participants are as follows: 8% (n = 7) of the participants were accountants, 5.7% (n = 5) of the participants were architects, 40.9% (n = 36) of the participants were administrative clerks, 13.6% (n = 12) participants were engineers, 1.1% (n = 1) of the participants were lawyers, 1.1% (n = 1) of the participants were psychologists, 8% (n = 7) participants were public relations specialists, 14.8% (n = 13) participants were technicians and 6.8% (n = 6) participants were city planners. prior to recruitment of the participants, an official application was made to the municipality’s public relations department. the content, extent and procedures of the study were explained in the application. within three weeks an affirmative response was obtained from the institution. the participation into the study was on voluntary basis and research forms were administered to eighty eight participants who expressed their willingness to participate. the administration of the forms was carried out by the author in a group setting at the municipality conference hall. prior to filling out the research forms, all participants were briefed regarding the purpose of the study as well as confidentiality of their answers. following the signing and collection of consent forms the research forms were administered. the research forms battery included a short demographic form, mindfulness questionnaires and other questionnaires related to variables in question including well-being, perceived stress. following completion, all participants were thanked and debriefed. measures and variables — general health questionnaire 12 item version (ghq-12; goldberg, 1972). the positive association between mindfulness and well-being has been shown in numerous studies (bränström, kvillemo, brandberg, & moskowitz, 2010; howell, digdon, buro, & sheptycki, 2008; weinstein et al., 2009). in line with previous findings we predicted that higher levels of mindfulness would be associated with better subjective well-being. well-being was measured with the 12 item ghq (goldberg, 1972) which was adapted to the turkish population by kòlòç (1996). ghq includes questions like “have you recently felt constantly under strain?” or “have you recently felt you couldn’t overcome your difficulties?” which are designed to assess the respondent’s well-being levels in face of recent distress. a higher score on this questionnaire is accepted as an indicator of lower levels of well-being and presence of psychological distress. other variables of the study 2 including mindfulness and perceived stress were measured by the instruments presented in study 1. the predictions regarding the variables were as explained in study 1. statistical analysis — the skewness and curtosis of variables were examined prior to statistical analysis. this preliminary analysis showed that the demographic variables were normally distributed and all continuous variables met the normality assumptions. the missing answers constituted the 1.6% of the total data. according to widaman (2006), missing values which constitute less than 2% of complete data can be assumed to occur at random. the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 613 http://www.psychopen.eu/ missing data was imputed based on em algorithm using spss v.16missing value analysis software. subsequently, the data were analyzed using reliability analysis, t-test and correlation analysis. results the mean value of cams-r in this study was 30.60 (sd = 4.69) and item means ranged between 2.42 (sd = 0.98) and 3.38 (sd = 0.70). the mean cams-r scores of the participants were examined according to the gender using independent samples t-test. the results of this test showed that cams-r mean scores of men and women in the sample did not differ significantly. internal structure — the cronbach’s alpha was calculated in order to examine the internal consistency of the turkish cams-r. the cronbach’s alpha value found for the questionnaire was .73 which indicated that the cams-r turkish version possessed an acceptable level of internal consistency. the corrected item–total coefficients of cams-r items ranged between .08 and .62 and the mean value of item-total coefficients was .41. item means, item-total correlations and cronbach’s alpha values when item deleted are shown in table 1. the factor structure of the cams-r could not be examined since employing factor analysis is not recommended for sample sizes under 100 participants (gorsuch, 1983). relationships between mindfulness and other constructs — the associations between mindfulness and well-being as well as perceived stress were examined using correlation analysis. the results of the analysis showed that the predictions regarding the relationships betweenmindfulness and related variables were supported. the cams-r scores were significantly negatively associated with pss (r (88) = -.56, p < .001) which indicates that more mindful individuals perceived themselves as being less under stress. a significant negative relationship was also found between cams-r scores and ghq-12 (r (88) = -.36, p < .001) which indicates that lower levels of mindfulness is associated higher levels of psychological distress. discussion in study 2 we sought to investigate the psychometric properties of the 10 item turkish cams-r further in a community sample. in addition, we examined the relationships between mindfulness and well-being as well as perceived stress. similar to the results of study 1, the results of the analysis showed that the turkish cams-r demonstrated acceptable levels of internal consistency. no gender differences were found between the cams-r mean scores of men and women. the mean value of cams-r found for the community sample in the present study was relatively higher than the mean value obtained for the student sample in study 1. we conducted an independent samples t-test based on mean cams-r values of two samples. results of this test showed that the difference between the mean cams-r values of the participants in study 1 and study 2 was not statistically significant. mindfulness asmeasured by cams-r demonstrated statistically meaningful associations with perceived stress and well-being. higher level of mindfulness was significantly related with lower levels of perceived stress and psychological distress. general discussion in study 1 and study 2 the psychometric properties of the turkish version of the 10 item cognitive and affective mindfulness scale-revised were investigated in two non-clinical samples. the results of both studies showed that turkish cams-r possessed acceptable levels of internal consistency. the internal structure of turkish cams-r displayed a second-order factor structure which was comparable to the original version of the scale. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 turkish version of the cams-r 614 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the studies which included an analysis based on gender differences in mindfulness levels had reported that a significant effect of gender was not observed (feldman et al., 2007; brown & ryan, 2003; catak, 2012). we have identified a similar pattern which showed that no gender differences were found between the mean cams-r scores of women and men. the findings from both studies showed that mindfulness as measured by cams-r had statistically meaningful relationships with anxiety, depression, perceived stress and well-being. thus, we have obtained supporting evidence for the criterion validity of turkish cams-r. the turkish version of the cams-r was also significantly associated with the maas. the magnitude of the relationship between two mindfulness measures was statistically significant and comparable to results reported by feldman et al. (2007), thus further support for the concurrent validity of cams-r was assured. the findings from both studies were comparable to the results of previous studies conducted with western samples, thus further support was provided for the assumption that mindfulness possesses similar assessment patterns in non-western cultures. an important finding was that all acceptance items of turkish cams-r had lower mean values compared to those of original cams-r reported by feldman et al. (2007) for three samples. this result also overlaps with the findings of previous studies. in a study conducted by köse et al. (2004) it was seen that self-acceptance levels of the turkish participants were significantly lower than those of american participants. similarly christopher, christopher, and charoensuk (2009) also reported that american college students had higher acceptance scores than thai college students. present findings together with the previous findings may indicate a cultural difference with regard to the acceptance of inner experiences. as noted, the members of collectivist cultures may be prone to judge themselves less as acceptable as a result of placing higher priority on the goals and values of the society and letting go of their own in face of discrepancy. if members of a non-western culture have relatively lower self-acceptance it may be important to emphasize acceptance processes during assessment and treatment delivery. exploring the self-acceptance themes in the context of clients’ presenting problems and placing more emphasis on self-acceptance as a therapeutic process may have valuable implications when applying mindfulness-based interventions in collectivist cultures. certain limitations of the presents study need to be mentioned. first, the results presented are based on cross-sectional data therefore no causality can be inferred from these findings. also, in both study 1 and study 2, non-clinical samples were employed. in order to examine the relationship between mindfulness and related measures of psychopathology, replication of these findings in clinical populations is recommended. also, items 2 and 7 have been excluded from the adaptation procedure in the present studies which may constitute another limitation. furthermore, we have not assessed the participant’s prior experience in meditation or mindfulness practice. therefore, the possible influence of previous mindfulness experience on the results cannot be determined. it should also be noted that although we present a preliminary investigation of reliability and validity, a broader analysis including more diverse measures of personality is also warranted in order to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of turkish cams-r. finally, we have not examined the temporal reliability of turkish cams-r which leaves an open area of investigation for future studies. despite limitations described above, the findings of the present studies provide support for the validation of cams-r in the turkish population. the psychometric properties of the turkish version of cams-r are comparable to original version of the scale. furthermore, the pattern of associations found between cams-r measured mindfulness and other related constructs is consistent with previous studies. based on these findings, it can be concluded that the turkish cams-r is a valid assessment tool which can be utilized to measure mindfulness in the turkish population. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 615 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references baer, r. a., smith, g. t., & allen, k. b. 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(2006). missing data: what to do with or without them. in k. mccartney, m. r. burchinal, & k. l. bub (eds.), monographs of the society for research in child development: vol. 71. best practices in quantitative methods for developmentalists (pp. 42–64). doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.2006.00404.x. about the author pelin d. catak received her ma degree in clinical psychology from okan university, istanbul, turkey. currently she is a doctoral fellow of clinical psychology at eastern michigan university. her main research interests include self-conscious emotions, emotion regulation, trans-diagnostic processes, disordered eating, self-compassion, mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches in psychotherapy. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 603–619 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.436 catak 619 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2011.01.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.11.025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.12.008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2006.00404.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ turkish version of the cams-r introduction study 1 methods procedure results discussion study 2 methods results discussion general discussion references about the author the relation of marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women research reports the relation of marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women sajjad basharpoor*a, ali sheykholeslamib [a]department of psychology, university of mohaghegh ardabili, ardabil, iran. [b]department of educational sciences, university of mohaghegh ardabili, ardabil, iran. abstract given the immense importance of marital relationships in the quality of life, this research was conducted in order to investigate the relationships between marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women. the design of the current study was correlational. seven hundred and thirty women were selected randomly among all women living in the province of western azerbaijan (iran) and participated in this study. the sample responded to the family assessment device, dyadic adjustment scale and quality of life questionnaire, individually in their homes. collected data were analyzed by pearson’s correlation and multiple regression tests. the results showed that all dimensions of family functions and dyadic adjustment were positively correlated with quality of life in women. results of multiple regression also revealed that 33 percent of total quality of life can be explained by family functions and 24 percent of this variable can be explained by dyadic adjustment. our study demonstrated that women’s quality of life was affected by family functions and marital adjustment in family. keywords: marital adjustment, functions, family, quality of life europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 received: 2014-10-06. accepted: 2015-04-19. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of mohaghegh ardabili, ardabil, iran. e-mail: basharpoor_sajjad@yahoo.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction following the world health organization’s definition of health as physical, mental and social well-being, more researchers goes beyond attending the absence of symptoms in their assessments of health and recovery from diseases. one of concepts introduced in this context which has been considered in various studies is quality of life. quality of life is a holistic construct that views human health and well-being within the context of proximal and distal environments (lindström, 1992). the world health organization defines quality of life as individuals’ perceptions of their position in life in the context of the culture and value system in which they live and in terms of their goals, standards, and concerns (whoqol group, 1998). the definition includes six broad domains: physical health, psychological state, levels of independence, social relationships, environmental features, and spiritual concerns. this broad definition includes some aspects such as environment (housing, clothing, food etc.). trying to determine factors associated with people’s quality of life, researchers have revealed that the family and the interaction styles among its members is a prominent dimension related to people’s quality of life, happiness europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and well-being in all cultures. studies have accumulated strong evidence showing that family life affects happiness greatly (rodgers & bachman, 1988). chilman (1982) reviewed major national surveys from 1957 to the end of the 1970s and concluded that even though societal views of marriage and family have undergone dramatic and fundamental transformations, family life is still widely seen as central to life satisfaction and happiness; furthermore, married people have an advantage, on indices of anxiety and unhappiness, over those who are single, divorced or separated (lu & lin, 1998). low quality of life and marital distress co-occur frequently, particularly among women. studying psychosocial variables associated with depression, brown and harris (1978) found that the lack of a confiding relationship is a vulnerability factor in the development of depression in women. specifically, low intimacy with husband was associated with depression in women. in 1987, weismann reported that individuals in unhappy marriages are 25 times more likely than those in happy marriages to be diagnosed with clinical depression. examining the role of humiliating marital events, such as husband infidelity or threat of marital dissolution on the wife’s depressive symptoms, cano and o’leary (2000) found that after controlling for levels of marital discord, women who had experienced such severe marital stressors were six times more likely to be diagnosed with a major depressive episode. these findings remained even after controlling for lifetime and family histories of depression. depressed individuals in unhappy marriages also recover less quickly from a depressive episode (e.g., mclean, ogston, & grauer, 1973), and are more likely to experience a relapse of their depressive symptoms (fiedler, backenstra, kronmüller, & mundt, 1998). whisman (2001) found that marital dissatisfaction accounted for approximately 18% of the variance of wives’ depressive symptoms and 14% of husbands’ depressive symptoms. gabriel, beach, and bodenmann (2010) found that arital interaction behavior depends on gender, depression and marital distress. waite, luo, and lewin (2009) found general support for the hypothesis that emotional well-being tends to decline following marital disruption, across a range of dimensions of well-being. darvizeh and kahki (2008) reported that there are correlations between marital satisfaction and well-being in married female college students. regarding physical health, empirical examination indicates that marital quality and satisfaction are positively related to measures of global health (hetherington, 1993), as well as indices of better immune (antibody titers to various viral agents; kiecolt-glaser et al., 1988) and cardiovascular system functioning (ewart, taylor, kraemer, & agras, 1991). furthermore, a decline in marital satisfaction is associated with a decline in the self-reported health of both partners (levenson & gottman, 1985). lastly, marital satisfaction is related to pronounced cardiovascular reactivity during conflict, such that unhappily married individuals display faster heart rates and greater elevations in blood pressure than happily married individuals (ewart et al., 1991; whitson & el-sheikh, 2003). results of giannouli et al. (2012) showed that higher total qol in women could be predicted by being married, physical exercise and a good financial status. in this study, women with a better qol were more health conscious and more likely to utilize the public health preventive resources. results of alayi, ahmadigatab, and khamen (2011) suggested that spousal compatibility of those couples with strong communication skills in various aspects of spousal relationship was significantly higher than those with weaker communication skills. portes, kyle, and eaton (1992) found that the control of behavior and affective involvement plays an important role in facilitating socio-affective adjustment between couples. bahari (2000) showed that distressed couples perform weakly in affect impression, family roles and problem solving. in the study of assari et al. (2008), dyadic adjustment showed significant correlations with total scores of quality of life and with most of its sub-scores, affective expression was significantly correlated with role limitations, social functioning, general mental health, vitality, general health perceptions, physical composite score (pcs) andmental composite score (mcs). dyadic consensus was not correlated europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 basharpoor & sheykholeslami 433 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with any quality of life sub-scores. trudel and goldfarb (2010) found that satisfying marital functioning protects against the development of psychological distress but is also a factor related to depression and anxiety, in this study the link between marital distress and depression is particularly strong. results of peterson-post, rhoades, stanley, and markman (2014) on married couples from the community during their first year of marriage and at three time points over the next 10 years, revealed that initial marital adjustment predicts depressive symptoms for husbands and wives at all follow-ups significantly. overall, it appears that disruptions in the marital relationship and family functions may lead to weak quality of life, especially for women. considering women’s health and well-being as the important factors related to family health and ultimately society’s health, the purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationships of marital adjustment and family functions with quality of life in women. method participants and procedure the design of the current study was correlational. all women living in western azerbaijan province in 2011 made up the statistical society of this research. seven hundred and thirty women, selected randomly, participated in this study. it is necessary to note that the primary sample size of this study was 1000 women. however, at the time of data collection, 133 questionnaires were not returned and 137 questionnaires were answered by husbands, so, these questionnaires were excluded from the research. measures demographic questionnaire — this questionnaire was administered to gather demographic characteristics like age, educational status, employment status, monthly income of family and religion. collected data were used for descriptive purposes. family assessment device (fad) — the fad is a well-studied measure that uses a likert type scale to assess family functioning. the measure consists of numerous scales, among which are problem solving, communication, roles, affective regulation, affective involvement, general family functioning, and behavior control. though the subscales have demonstrated good internal consistency with cronbach’s alpha ranging from .72 to .92 (epstein, baldwin, & bishop, 1983), some have argued that overlap between 13 subscales warrants a complete reorganization of the measure (ridenour, daley, & reich, 2000). nonetheless, scores from the general family functioning scale and the behavior control scale are generally seen as measuring independent aspects of family functioning (ridenour, daley, & reich, 2000). revised dyadic adjustment scale (r-das) — the r-das is a measure of dyadic adjustment based on the scale developed by spanier (1976). the measure provides a total r-das score (range 0 69, α = .90), as well as scores for the following three subscales: consensus (α = .81), satisfaction (α = .85), and cohesion (α = .80) (busby, christensen, crane, & larson, 1995). of particular interest for this study is the established cutoff of 48 for the total score, which allows a distinction to be made between distressed and non-distressed couples (crane, middleton, & bean, 2000). rdas has been previously widely used among iranian subjects (fathi-ashtiani et al., 2007). in this study, cronbach alpha was between 0.70 and 0.80 for the different subscales of rdas. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 marital adjustment, family functions and quality of life 434 http://www.psychopen.eu/ world health organization quality of life assessment-brief (whoqol) (whoqol group, 1998) — the whoqol is a 26-items measure that assesses general quality of life. questions ask respondents to rate how they function in the domains of physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and the environment (e.g., the ability to function in one's physical environment). subscale scores as well as an overall score are obtained. items are rated on a 5-point likert scale with different anchors for different questions. previously reported cronbach's alphas for the scale for a sample of women and men were as follows: [physical health r = 0.80; psychological health r = 0.76; social relationships r = 0.66; environment r = 0.80]. according to the whoqol authors, the lower alpha for the social relationships scale is due to the fact that the scale comprises of only 3 items. cronbach's alphas for the total score for the current sample were 0.90 for women and 0.91 for men. test–retest reliability estimates for a combined sample of women and men were reported by the scale authors [physical health r = 0.66; psychological health r = 0.72; social relationships r = 0.76; environment r = 0.87]. validity has been demonstrated in the whoqol's ability to discriminate between individuals classified as ill and those classified as well (whoqol group, 1998). najatsafa, montazeri, holakuiy, mohamad, and majdzade (2006) found good reliability for all subscales of this questionnaire in iranian subjects (physical health: r = 0.77, mental health: r = 0.77, social relationship: r = 0.75 and environment health: r = 0.84). data analysis collecting data just began after receiving permission from the local authorities to visit the homes of the participants sampled for the study. the purpose of the study was explained to the women and after obtaining written consent, they were asked to respond to the demographic questionnaire, family assessment device, dyadic adjustment scale and quality of life questionnaire individually and in their house. collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the pearson’s correlation and multiple regression tests. results seven hundred and thirty women with the mean age (± sd) of 35.76 (± 9.66) participated in this research. table 1 shows the educational status of 43.1% of participations being under the diploma and 53.2% of them being between diploma and ba. 32.5% of participations were employed and 64.8% were unemployed. in terms of family income, 75.2% of participants had incomes ≥ 600$. 79.2% participations were shiee and 20.1% were sonny in terms of religion. table 2 results show that quality of life related positively to problem solving (r = 0.26; p < 0.001), communication (r = 0.23; p < 0.001), family roles (r = 0.37; p < 0.001), affective responsiveness (r = 0.29; p < 0.001), behavioral control (r = 0.16; p < 0.001), general function (r = 0.11; p = 0.01), dyadic consensus (r = 0.41; p < 0.001), dyadic expressions (r = 0.38; p < 0.001), dyadic satisfaction (r = 0.36; p < 0.001), dyadic cohesion (r = 0.17; p < 0.001) and the total score of dyadic adjustment (r = 0.49; p < 0.001). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 basharpoor & sheykholeslami 435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive characteristic of participants percentfrequencyvariable educational status 315under the diploma .243 388between diploma and ba .253 13between ba and ma .81 14not reported .91 employment status 237employee .532 473unemployed .864 20not reported .72 family income 549less than 600 dollar per month .275 107between 600 and 1000 dollar per month .714 47higher than 1000 dollar per month .46 2not reported .30 religion 578shiee .279 147sonny .120 3other .40 2not reported .30 table 2 pearson correlations of family functions and dyadic adjustment with quality of life 13121110987654321sdmvariables –1. problem solving .372.9114 –2. communication .45***.892.7514 –3. family roles .17***.21***.343.7420 –4. affective responsiveness .45***.30***.26***.202.4613 –5. affective involvement .47***.57***.08*.15***.304.8721 –6. behavior control .52***.47***.53***.26***.24***.863.6022 –7. general function .08*.01.04.15***.03.07.5135.9322 –8. dyadic consensus .16***.14***.19***.01.23***.22***.25***.713.0816 –9. dyadic expression .71***.14***.08*.18***.04.19***.20***.27***.202.857 –10. dyadic satisfaction .30***.31***.21***.25***.31***.23***.28***.13***.24***.144.5113 –11. dyadic cohesion .007.11**.10**.13**.13**.14***.08**.15***.07.24***.463.098 –12. dyadic adjustment .47***.66***.71***.78***.14***.24***.33***.13**.33***.23***.18***.728.6745 –13. quality of life .49***.17***.36***.38***.41***.11***.16***.29***.14***.37***.23***.26***.6812.9085 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 3 shows that 33 percent of the total variance in quality of life is explained by family functions. the set of seven family functions as a whole contributed significant prediction to quality of life (f = 24.64, p < 0.001). of the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 marital adjustment, family functions and quality of life 436 http://www.psychopen.eu/ various indices of family functioning, only problem solving, communication and family roles are predictive of the quality of life. table 3 multiple regression of quality of life on family functions collinearity statistics ptβb sebpfr2predictors viftolerance < .00124.640.33model 5.518.80(constant) .001<.6514 1.280.770.260.281.48problem solving .001<.215 1.290.770.210.220.93communication .001<.264 1.600.620.380.221.51family roles .001<.856 1.370.720.020.300.12affective responsiveness .68.410 1.660.600.090.170.28affective involvement .10.631 1.490.670.030.180.12behavior control .50.670 1.060.930.060.010.02general function .15.411 results of table 4 show that 24 percent of the variance in quality of life is explained by marital adjustment. the set of dyadic adjustment variables totally contributed significant prediction to quality of life (f = 41.17, p < 0.001). however, the total score on dyadic adjustment scale was able to predict quality of life positively. table 4 multiple regression of quality of life on dyadic adjustment collinearity statistics ptβb sebpfr2predictors viftolerance < .00141.170.24model 2.69(constant) .001<.6319.9452 3.340.290.25dyadic consensus .63.470.030.120 2.340.420.39affect expression .96.030.0020.010 1.700.581.730.18dyadic cohesion .08.080.320 4.770.210.12total score of dyadic adjustment .001<.656.560.830 discussion recently, the position of women in developing nations has been a subject of great interest to researchers (prorok & chhokar, 1998; riley, 1998). considering the crucial role of the family in women's quality of life, this research was conducted in order to investigate the relationships of family functions and marital adjustment with quality of life in women. the results of pearson’s correlation show that all functions of family and marital adjustment and its subscales were correlated with women's quality of life significantly. consistent with previous researches (e.g., alayi et al., 2011; bahari, 2000; brown & harris, 1978; chilman, 1982; peterson-post et al., 2014; portes, kyle, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 basharpoor & sheykholeslami 437 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & eaton, 1992; rodgers & bachman, 1988; trudel & goldfarb, 2010; waite, luo, & lewin, 2009; weissman, 1987), these results suggest that the family and quality of relations between its members are important factors which determine individual health and well-being. furthermore, since women, especially in our society, are dependent on their families and husbands, the stability within the family affects their health greatly. the results of multiple regression also showed that family functions, especially problem solving, communication and family roles were able to significantly predict quality of life in women. it means that, women who solve family problems well, have good relations with other family members, perform family roles well and have adjustment with husbands, have a better quality of life. corresponding to previous studies, such as those of alayi et al. (2011), bahari (2000), brown and harris (1978), cano and o’leary (2000), peterson-post et al. (2014), waite et al. (2009), weissman (1987), whisman (2001), and trudel and goldfarb (2010) on relating family backgrounds of women to their quality of life, these results support the importance of the effect of the family context and family factors on people’s health and their quality of life. in this study, functions such as affective responsiveness, affective involvement, behavior control and general function were significantly correlated with quality of life, but these functions could not predict the quality of life significantly. these results are not congruent with result of portes, howell, brown, eichenberger, and mas (1992). it seems that in comparison to women, these family functions are more effective for children. women attend more to how family members play their roles at home and how they solve problems that arise and what the quality of communication between family members is. ultimately, these factors affect their health and quality of life. furthermore, another result of the present study was that marital adjustment was able to predict 24 percent of the total variance in women’s quality of life. this finding is also consistent with the results of assari et al. (2008), darvizeh and kahki (2008), hetherington (1993), levenson and gottman (1985), peterson-post et al. (2014), and trudel and goldfarb (2010) in relation to the role of marital adjustment in individuals’ quality of life. based on scientific literature, it is apparent that characteristics of marriage, particularly marital adjustment have an impact on the health of individuals. well-adjusted women have less conflict with their husbands and solve their problems easily, and so have good quality of life. furthermore it can be claimed that marital maladjustment can weaken the immune system by creating stress and ultimately leads to low quality of life. the limitations of this study should be shortly summarized. due to the correlation design, causal relationships could not be identified; neither could the effect of family functions and marital adjustment on quality of life be evaluated. furthermore, all parameters assessed were self-reported, introducing the possibility of inconsistencies. on the other hand, the large size of sample is the strength of this study. conclusion in conclusion, the results of this study demonstrated that family functions especially, problem solving, communications and family roles as well as marital adjustment can explain more than half of the quality of life in women. therefore, it is suggested that any intervention in increasing women’s quality of life should take these aspects into consideration. funding this study was supported financially by the governor’s office of western azerbaijan. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 marital adjustment, family functions and quality of life 438 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors thank the governor’s office of western azerbaijan and all women who participated in this study. references alayi, z., ahmadigatab, t., & khamen, a. b. z. 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(2001). the association between depression and marital dissatisfaction. in s. beach (ed.),marital and family processes in depression: a scientific approach (pp. 3-24). washington, dc: american psychological association. whitson, s., & el-sheikh, m. (2003). marital conflict and health: processes and protective factors. aggression and violent behavior, 8, 283-312. doi:10.1016/s1359-1789(01)00067-2 whoqol group. (1998). development of the world health organization whoqol-bref quality of life assessment. psychological medicine, 28, 551-558. doi:10.1017/s0033291798006667 about the authors sajjad basharpoor is associate professor of psychology at the university of mohaghegh ardabili. his research interests are family problems in iran. he has authored over 50 publications, and is a member in iranian psychological association. cell: +98 914 351 8312 ali sheykholeslami is assistant professor of educational psychology at the university of mohaghegh ardabili. his research interests are the effects of training of parenting and social skills on family problems. he is a member of the iranian psychological association. contact: department of educational sciences, university of mohaghegh ardabili, ardabil, iran. a_sheikholslamy@yahoo.com psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 432–441 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.859 basharpoor & sheykholeslami 441 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2009.12.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2008.07.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.77.4.445 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s1359-1789(01)00067-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033291798006667 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en marital adjustment, family functions and quality of life introduction method participants and procedure measures data analysis results discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors how do children with mild intellectual disabilities perceive loneliness? research reports how do children with mild intellectual disabilities perceive loneliness? kalliopi papoutsakia, angeliki genab, efrosini kalyva*c [a]university of thessaly, volos, greece. [b] school of philosophy, department of philosophy pedagogy psychology, national and kapodistrian university of athens, athen, greece. [c] city college, international faculty of the university of sheffield, thessaloniki, greece. abstract the present study examined 154 children with mild intellectual disability (mid) attending special schools with regard to their reports of loneliness. semi-structured interviews revealed that more than half of the students with mid reported feelings of loneliness. they tend to have as friends children from their neighborhood, friends of their siblings, children of their parents’ friends and from their school. lonely children with mid tend to attribute their isolation to interpersonal deficits, lack of contact with peers and physical appearance, while one fourth cannot justify why they do not have any friends. children with mid report that they withdraw from social interactions, engage in solitary activities and actively look for friends to cope with their feelings of loneliness and rejection, while very few resort to physical or verbal aggression. moreover, boys and children living in smaller towns reported less feelings of loneliness than girls and children living in the capital. keywords: mild intellectual disabilities, loneliness, interview, coping strategies, quality of life europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 received: 2012-07-05. accepted: 2012-09-18. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: 24, proxenou koromila street, 546 22, thessaloniki, greece. e-mail: kalyva@city.academic.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. an individual’s quality of life is largely determined by his/her stable and supportive interpersonal relationships (kennedy & itkonen, 1996), which can act even as protective factors against psychological stress and illness (duck, 1991; guralnick, 2006). however, rejection from the peer group and loneliness could result to a sense of loss and to decreased opportunities for social and interpersonal interaction (cole & cillessen, 1997). children with mild intellectual disabilities (mid) face many deficits that affect their communication skills and therefore their ability to develop relationships and friendships, increasing thus their chances of peer rejection and isolation (hoza, bukowski, & beery, 2000). children with mid tend to exhibit more behavioral problems than their typically developing peers, which often result from multiple causes that are difficult to disentangle (guralnick, hammond, & connor, 2003). they are characterized as anxious, impulsive and irritable, with low self-esteem, low tolerance to frustration, and deficient social skills (kroustalakis, 2000; leffert & siperstein, 2002; polychronopoulou, 1997; tomporowski & tinsley, 1997). they have difficulty perceiving and interpreting correctly external stimuli, they may exhibit aggression, phobias or passivity. moreover, they have difficulties in their perceptive skills, their concentration, their memory, their language development, their generalization skills, and their eye-motor coordination (hodapp, 2003). children with mid lack higher cognitive functions, such as critical and creative thinking, as well as the processing of abstract concepts (richardson & koller, 1996). the awareness of their personal difficulties in combination with the lack of a friendship network contributes to their experience of loneliness (manetti, schneider, & siperstein, 2001). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies on the friendship patterns of children with mid are quite scarce and focus mainly on the relationships that are formed in the school setting. children with mid tend to experience limited acceptance and increased rejection from peers (manetti et al., 2001), while they report less satisfaction from their friendships and more intense feelings of loneliness than their typically developing peers (asher &wheeler, 1985; heiman &margalit, 1998; luftig, 1988). children with mid who have less developed cognitive and linguistic skills (berninger, 2001), as well as those with more social deficits such as lack of cooperative and successful communication and difficulties in problem-solving (freeman & alkin, 2000) tend to report more incidences of peer rejection and isolation. children with mid who experience peer rejection and isolation are likely to exhibit behavioral problems, such as aggressive and disruptive behaviors (siperstein & widaman, 1996), while their low academic performance is also linked to low social acceptance (gottlieb, semmel, & veldman, 1978). therefore, the low academic performance of children with mid in combination with their interpersonal and intrapersonal social deficits contributes to their rejection and isolation from their typically developing peers (weiss, 1973; williams & asher, 1992). the low sociometric status of children with mid in the peer group, the lack of friendships within the classroom setting or the minimal satisfaction from friendships contribute significantly to feelings of peer rejection and isolation, as well as loneliness and impaired quality of life (asher &wheeler, 1985; williams & asher, 1992). the experience of loneliness of children with mid derives usually from their lack of friends, their difficulty in forming close interpersonal relationships, and the disappointment and dissatisfaction with the friendships they have made in comparison to their typically developing peers (heiman & margalit, 1998). there is some research with adults with intellectual disabilities that emphasizes the adverse effect that loneliness has on their quality of life (amado, 1993; krauss, seltzer, & goodman, 1992), with the setting where they live playing an important role in their experiences of loneliness (emerson & mcvilly, 2004) – even greater than their personal characteristics. more specifically, adults with intellectual disabilities tend to engage in most friendship activities in public domain rather than in more private settings, such as home or supported accommodation. they choose to interact more with adults with intellectual disabilities than with adults without intellectual disabilities. however, there is no similar research conducted with children with mid, which is one of the aims of the present study. it is explored whether children with mid who live in the capital will report similar experiences of loneliness in comparison to their peers living in small towns. the structure of the family is different, since in small towns extended families offer more socialization opportunities, while in the capital the nuclear family has limited socialization (kataki, 2012). according to peplau and perlman (1982), loneliness is an unpleasant subjective experience that arises from insufficient social interaction and is not related to the quantity or the duration of the social interaction. andersson, mullins, and johnson (1987) defined loneliness along two separate, but inter-related dimensions – namely, the ‘social dimension’ that stems from an individual’s perceived deficits in his/her social network and his/her lack of social integration and the ‘emotional dimension’ that derives from the individual’s perceived lack of meaningful and rewarding socio-emotional bonding with others, on a more intimate level. research conducted with young children shows that they can adequately describe what lonely means (cassidy & asher, 1992; williams & asher, 1992). however, no study so far has explored the causes of loneliness according to children with mid, the strategies that they use to cope with their loneliness, and the feelings that result from their experiences of loneliness. mcvilly, stancliffe, parmenter, and burton-smith (2006) and o’day and killeen (2002) advocated the effectiveness of combining quantitative and qualitative to explore how individuals with disabilities perceive loneliness. questioneurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 children with mid and loneliness 52 http://www.psychopen.eu/ naires can be used to test theories, but are prone to researcher bias (avramidis & kalyva, 2006; rice & ezzy, 1999), while open-ended or semi-structured interviews can generate data that is rich but maybe difficult to interpret (biklen & moseley, 1988). qualitative techniques constitute the optimal means to listen to what people with intellectual disabilities have to say and how they make sense of the world around them in order to develop more effective intervention programs (brantlinger, klingner, & richardson, 2005; heenan, 2002; pearson, wong, & pierini, 2002). within the context, the present study employs both qualitative and quantitative means to look at differences in the experiences of loneliness of children with mid according to their age, gender, or place of residence, while exploring also their perceived causes of loneliness, the strategies that they use to cope with their loneliness, and the feelings that result from their experiences of loneliness. method participants the participants of the present study were 154 children with mid attending special schools in different parts of greece. the age of the participants ranged from 7 to 14 years old (mean age = 11 years and 3 months). this age group was selected because it represents the children with mid attending primary school in greece. out of the 154 students with mid there were 93 boys (60.4%) and 61 girls (39.6%). as far as the place of residence is concerned, there were 72 (46.8%) students living in the capital (athens) and 82 (53.2%) students living in smaller towns. there were 58 children (37.7%) attending preschool and primary school, while 96 students (62.3%) attended secondary school. these schools were randomly selected from a list of all the special schools in these areas. the researchers contacted the school principals and asked them to identify the children in the schools who were diagnosed with mid. all the children with mid who were selected for the present study met the following criteria: a) they attended special schools, b) they did not experience any kind of sensory problems or impairments, psychiatric or conduct disorder, c) they had a full scale iq of 50-75 according to wechsler intelligence scale for children (wisc-3, 1991) (wisc has been standardized into greek using a very large sample of schoolchildren aged between 6-17 in 1997 by georgas, paraskevopoulos, besevenkis, and giannitsas). the diagnosis was made either by local educational authorities or by public child psychiatric clinics. however, the researchers were not allowed access to the students’ wisc scores, because of school regulations regarding privacy protection. measures the participants completed first a questionnaire with 9 closed questions (see tables 1 and 2), which were adapted from a questionnaire by williams and asher (1992) and were used to measure loneliness in school-aged children with mid. since some children were too young or had low reading and comprehension levels, the researchers were reading out the questions to them to facilitate the process. the closed questions were answered with yes, no, or sometimes and the cronbach alpha reliability for these questions was very satisfactory (α = .89). the semi-structured interview included open-ended questions that were based on the questionnaire items, while the researchers added also some questions to explore the relationship between children with mid and their typically developing peers; the reactions of children with mid to the rejection of their peers; and the ways that children with mid deal with their loneliness. a pilot study with 10 children with mid was conducted to test that they could understand the questions. the children’s oral answers were recorded and rated by two independent raters – two researchers. the answers were rated independently and inter-rater agreement (i.e., number of agreements divided europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 papoutsaki, gena, & kalyva 53 http://www.psychopen.eu/ by number of agreements and disagreements) was very satisfactory. kappa reliability was .91 (generally a kappa >.70 is considered satisfactory). in the few cases were one of the two raters assigned an answer to a different category, the discrepancy was discussed with a third rater and the category agreed upon by all raters was the final one. procedure initially, a list of all the special schools in the capital and other towns in the lower half part of greece was obtained from the ministry of education and the researchers picked randomly a total of 20 schools (8 from the capital and 12 from other towns). the next step was to get permission to approach the schools from the local educational authorities, which was accompanied with an ethics approval to conduct the study in question. the children with mid were identified through the school records and a letter was sent to their parents from the school informing them about the basic principles and aims of the proposed study. out of the 254 parents of children with mid who were contacted, 154 (61%) agreed for their children to take part in the study. the researchers asked all the children with mid whether they wanted to participate in the study and they all assented. the data collection took place in the school in a separate room during the school day. all data were recorded live and were collected over a period of 3 months, through interviews with the children with mid. data collection with each child lasted for approximately thirty minutes and took place during the school day in a room that was allocated to the researchers. results descriptives children with mid tend to have as friends mainly children from their neighborhood (42.9%) and friends of their siblings (24.9%), while they do not have as friends children of their parents’ friends (20.6%) or from their school (12.3%). slightly more than half of the participants (51.9%) did not report feelings of loneliness, since they interact often with their peers, while almost one quarter (22.1%) expressed heightened feelings of loneliness and rejection from the peer group. these figures are drawn from a descriptive analysis of the answers provided to the first items of the questionnaire. data from interviews the researchers agreed on the categories presented in this section after following the methodology described in the procedure section. the vast majority of lonely and rejected children with mid feel miserable and unhappy (80.5%), some claim to feel indifferent (6.7%), while the rest (12.8%) cannot find a way to express their feelings. lonely children with mid tend to attribute their isolation to: interpersonal deficits (40.5%) that are linked to behavioral problems that often lead to problematic cooperation and unsuccessful communication (“children do not want to play with me, because i fight a lot and i swear”, “i tend to pull their hair and they walk away”); lack of contact with peers (17.6%) either due to the place of residence or due to constraints placed by parents (“there are no children near where i live”, “my parents do not let me go out in the street and play with other children”); physical appearance (16.2%) (“children make fun of me, because they do not like the way i look”, “they do not play with me, because of my big head”). it is worth noting that one fourth of these children (25.7%) cannot justify why they do not have any friends. children with mid tend to employ the following coping strategies to deal with their feelings of loneliness and rejection: withdrawal from social interactions (39%) (“i stay home, since the children in the street do not want to play with europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 children with mid and loneliness 54 http://www.psychopen.eu/ me”), which fosters the development of negative feelings, such as depression and sorrow; engaging in solitary activities (36.4%) that do not involve peers or adults, such as watching tv or listening to music (“i like it better to stay home and watch cartoons”); actively looking for new friends (16.2%) by approaching acquaintances or relatives(“i like to play with my cousins; their father tells them to play with me”); and engaging in physically or verbally aggressive behaviors (6.5%) (“i tell other children that they are stupid cause they make fun of me”). only 2% of the participants did not propose any coping strategy. data from questionnaires due to the nature of the data, χ2 was used to detect significant differences in the loneliness reported by children with mid. it was found that the experiences of loneliness that children with mid report vary according to their gender and their place of residence. initial analyses showed that age did not have any effect on experiences of loneliness, so it was excluded from further analysis. table 1 perceptions of loneliness of children with mild intellectual disabilities according to their gender χ2sometimes (%)no (%)yes (%)items do other children play with you in the neighbor or in the playground? .99*4 boys with mid .9a,b26.1b16.0a57 girls with mid .6a,b24.1b31.3a44 do you have friends out of school? .84*5 boys with mid .0a,b28.4b20.6a51 girls with mid .5a,b29.1b36.4a34 are your friends out of school from your school? .59 boys with mid .3a18.7a67.0a14 girls with mid .7a19.5a70.8a9 are your friends out of school from your neighbor? .563 boys with mid .4a34.5a21.1a44 girls with mid .6a24.4a34.0a41 are your friends out of school friends of your siblings? .39 boys with mid .6a36.3a33.1a30 girls with mid .1a36.7a37.2a26 are your friends out of school children of your parents’ friends? .51 boys with mid .3a18.1a59.6a22 girls with mid .1a18.9a63.0a18 do you feel lonely at home? .39 boys with mid .8a25.1a44.1a30 girls with mid .5a29.3a39.1a31 do your parents help you when you have a problem? .06 boys with mid .8a11.2a3.4a84 girls with mid .1a13.3a3.6a83 do you and your parents have a good relationship? .682 boys with mid .8a10.2a2.1a87 girls with mid .7a19.3a3.0a77 note. values with different subscripts are significantly different (p < .05) using two-sided z-tests with bonferroni adjustments for multiple comparisons. *p < .05. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 papoutsaki, gena, & kalyva 55 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gender affected the perception of loneliness of children with mid, as can be shown also in table 1. more specifically, more boys than girls with mid reported that other children would play with them in the neighbor or in the playground and that they had friends out of school. place of residence affected the perception of loneliness of children with mid, as is evident in table 2. more specifically, more children with mid who live in smaller towns reported that they are friends with children from their school, with friends of their siblings and with children of their parents’ friends in comparison to children with mid living in the capital. they also reported feeling less lonely at home and having a worse relationship with their parents. table 2 perceptions of loneliness of children with mild intellectual disabilities according to their place of residence χ2sometimes (%)no (%)yes (%)items do other children play with you in the neighbor or in the playground? .104 capital .3a29.9a15.9a54 smaller town .2a22.2a29.6a48 do you have friends out of school? .131 capital .8a26.4a24.8a48 smaller town .6a30.2a29.3a40 are your friends out of school from your school? .35*6 capital .7a,b20.2b73.1a6 smaller town .7a,b16.9b63.4a19 are your friends out of school from your neighbor? .342 capital .5a30.5a21.6a47 smaller town .6a30.9a31.5a37 are your friends out of school friends of your siblings? .83*5 capital .1c45.5b30.4a24 smaller town .4c26.3b40.3a33 are your friends out of school children of your parents’ friends? .58*11 capital .6b25.2a,b62.2a12 smaller town .7b9.7a,b59.6a30 do you feel lonely at home? .51*13 capital .4b35.3a46.2a,b18 smaller town .1b18.5a37.4a,b44 do your parents help you when you have a problem? .322 capital .2a12.2a1.6a86 smaller town .5a11.6a5.9a81 do you and your parents have a good relationship? .61*14 capital .9b4.2a,b1.9a93 smaller town .0b25.6a,b5.8a70 note. values with different subscripts are significantly different (p < .05) using two-sided z-tests with bonferroni adjustments for multiple comparisons. *p < .05. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 children with mid and loneliness 56 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion an optimistic finding was that slightly more than half of the children with mid who participated in the present study (51.9%) reported that they do not experience feelings of loneliness. most of these children reported that they have typically developing peers from their neighborhood as friends, while others formed friendships with friends of their siblings or children of their parents’ friends. boys reported that more typically children play with them in the neighborhood or in the playground and that they have more friends than girls. this finding may be attributed to the fact that boys engage mainly in physically active games (e.g., football) that do not require cognitive or interpersonal skills and do not have very strict rules. girls, on the other hand, usually create dual and close interpersonal relationships that require more advanced cognitive skills that they do not possess. it is also likely that boys characterize a peer as their friend easier than girls, since their relationships are less complicated (galanaki & bezevenkis, 1996). children with mid living in smaller towns reported that they have more friends in comparison to children living in the capital. physical proximity, more opportunities for interactions out of school, as well as more spaces for play (galanaki & bezevenkis, 1996; kataki, 2012) may account for this difference that was observed according to the place of residence. this finding is consistent with the observation made by emerson and mcvilly (2004) that the settings where individuals with disabilities live may impact the form and content of their friendships more than the personal skills and characteristics. the children with mid (22.1%) who expressed heightened feelings of loneliness and rejection from their typically developing peers were largely able to attribute them to interpersonal deficits, lack of opportunities for contact with peers and physical appearance. these findings are consistent with those of children with mid attendingmainstream schooling (heiman, 2000; williams & asher, 1992) and with typically developing children (gottlieb et al., 1978; siperstein & widaman, 1996). the literature review showed that the peer rejection of children with mid is linked to social problems (gottlieb et al., 1978; guralnick, 2006), as well as aggressive and disruptive behaviors (siperstein & widaman, 1996). it is important at this point to highlight that in the present study the children with mid provided their own explanations responding to open-ended questions and they were not guided by predetermined options. so, this is what they perceive as the reasons for their rejection and this explains why quite a few (25.7%) could not offer a reason for the peer rejection and isolation that they experienced, probably due to their identified cognitive or communicative deficits. further studies should try to find ways to overcome these communication barriers in order to explore their opinions and beliefs as well. it should also be stressed that some of the children with mid reported that their parents limited their opportunities for social interaction by keeping them restrained at home. this could be a cultural phenomenon that has to do with the perceived stigmatization of children with mid and the willingness of parents to protect their children by keeping them in a sheltered environment. more cross-cultural research could shed light to this finding. as expected, most children with mid who feel lonely and rejected report that they feel miserable and unhappy. this finding verifies that children with mid do want to develop friendships and are overwhelmed by the negative emotions that are created by the physical and emotional dimensions of loneliness (hymel, tarulli, hayden thomson, & terrell-deutsch, 1999). a very small percentage of children claimed to feel either indifference or did not report any feelings associated with peer rejection and isolation, either employing a defense mechanism or lacking the means to verbalize their feelings. the coping strategies that children with mid employ to deal with their feelings of loneliness and rejection are: withdrawal from social interactions, engaging in solitary activities, actively looking for new friends, and engaging europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 papoutsaki, gena, & kalyva 57 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in physically or verbally aggressive behaviors. some of these strategies are active and constructive, while others are more passive and deconstructive. it is very important for professionals working with children with mid to keep in mind that they may become aggressive in response to the rejection that they receive from their peers. so, they should try to promote more positive and constructive coping strategies that will help them develop some friendships and not become even more isolated. it is essential also to remember that the family is instrumental in the choice of coping strategies of children with mid, since they may reinforce certain patterns and discourage others. this is the first study that examined whether and how children with mid experience loneliness and how they react to it, taking into account also their attributions and the effect of their gender and place of residence and using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques. the main limitation of this study is that the sample consists of children with mid attending special schools, while children with mid attending inclusion classes in mainstream schools may have slightly different perceptions and experiences of loneliness. therefore, future studies could use more a diverse population of children with mid. it is also likely to find differentiations in the feelings and experiences of loneliness of children with mid according to their actual iq scores, but researchers were not allowed access to the data. more than half of the children with mid who were interviewed reported that they do not experience feelings of loneliness, although it 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(2002). the structure and content of social inclusion: voices of young adults with learning difficulties in guangzhou. disability & society, 17, 365-382. doi:10.1080/09687590220140322 peplau, l., & perlman, d. (1982). perspectives on loneliness. in l. peplau & d. perlman (eds.), loneliness: a source book of current theory, research and therapy (pp. 1–18). new york: wiley. polychronopoulou, s. (1997). noitiki isterisi: psicologiki koinvoniologiki kai paidagogiki prosegisi [mental retardation: psychological, sociological, and pedagogical approach]. athens: self-publication. rice, p., & ezzy, d. (1999). qualitative research methods: a health focus. melbourne: oxford university press. richardson, s. a., & koller, h. (1996). twenty-two years: causes and consequences of mental retardation. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. siperstein, g., &widaman, k. (1996). social behavior and the social acceptance and rejection of children with mental retardation. education and training in mental retardation and developmental disabilities, 12, 271-281. tomporowski, p. d., & tinsley, v. (1997). attention in mentally retarded persons. in w. e. maclean jr. (ed.), ellis' handbook of mental deficiency, psychological theory and research (3rd ed., pp. 219-244). mahwah, nj: erlbaum. weiss, r. s. (1973). loneliness: the experience of emotional and social isolation. cambridge: mit press. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 children with mid and loneliness 60 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0074-7750(02)80008-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01650250042000249 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-3148.2005.00261.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10442073020130010201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687590220140322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ williams, g. a., & asher, s. r. (1992). assessment of loneliness at school among children with mild mental retardation. american journal of mental retardation, 96, 373-385. about the authors kalliopi papoutsaki is a special education teacher and she had been working in primary general and special schools in athens for twenty four years. she was recently appointed as a school consultant of primary education by the ministry of education and religious affairs. she holds two masters degrees and a phd and she is a visiting senior lecturer in special education at the university of thessaly. she delivers speeches in seminars on the education of students with special educational needs. she has taken part in greek, european and international conferences and she has published her work in peer-reviewed journals on special education. angeliki gena is associate professor at the school of philosophy, department of philosophy pedagogy psychology, national and kapodistrian university of athens. she received her ba in psychology and sociology, her master’s degree in clinical psychology and her phd in the “learning processes” program of the psychology department of the city university of new york. she conducted her doctoral dissertation at the princeton child development institute, in princeton, new jersey. she worked in various institutes in the usa and became the director of the alpine learning group a prominent center for children with autism in alpine, new jersey. she also taught as an adjunct professor at the city university of new york. in greece she started her teaching career at the university of thessaly, was elected at the university of the dodecanese, and since 1998 teaches at the national and kapodistrian university of athens. she publishes predominantly in the area of basic and applied behavior analysis and its applications for pervasive developmental disorders. was general secretary of the association of behavioral research for 11 years, is an associate of the institute of behavioral research and therapy, and a founding member of the athenian center for child development and education. efrosini kalyva is a psychologist, practitioner, writer and academic specializing in education and treatment of individuals with special educational needs. she holds two masters degrees and two phds and she is trainer of professionals working with children with special educational needs in a variety of settings. she is currently based in thessaloniki (greece), where she is senior lecturer in psychology at city college, an international faculty of the university of sheffield. she is also a guest lecturer in public universities and delivers speeches and seminars on the education and treatment of individuals with special educational needs. she is the author of 6 books and several papers in international scientific journals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 51–61 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.489 papoutsaki, gena, & kalyva 61 http://www.psychopen.eu/ children with mid and loneliness (introduction) method participants measures procedure results descriptives data from interviews data from questionnaires discussion references about the authors no occasion for pleasure: the self-worth contingency of a setback and coping with humor research reports no occasion for pleasure: the self-worth contingency of a setback and coping with humor fay caroline mary geisler*a, vera loureiro de assunçãoa [a] department of psychology, university of greifswald, greifswald, germany. abstract whether or not one uses humor to cope with a setback may depend on the idiosyncratic relation of the setback to feeling of self-worth. all people pursue the higher order goal of self-validation, but people differ in what domains of life their self-worth is contingent upon and to what extent. in this article based on an incongruity theory of humor we argue that the use of humor in coping with a highly self-worth-contingent setback may be impeded by two cognitive-motivational processes: goal-driven activation and goal shielding. from the outlined theory we derived the hypothesis that the more a domain is contingent upon self-worth, the less likely a person will be to use humor to deal with a setback in that domain. we tested this hypothesis in two studies employing two forms of self-report, i.e., ratings of reaction likelihood to setbacks described at an abstract domain level (study 1), and ranking of reaction likelihood to concrete setbacks from different domains (study 2). the hypothesis was affirmed in different domains of self-worth contingency controlling for the influence of habitual coping with humor, coping by disengagement, and global self-esteem. keywords: self-worth, self-worth contingency, self-regulation, coping with humor europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 received: 2014-01-14. accepted: 2014-02-04. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of greifswald, franz-mehring-str. 47, 17489 greifswald, germany. e-mail: fay.geisler@uni-greifswald.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. on account of humor, the ego “refuses to be hurt by the arrows of reality or to be compelled to suffer. it insists that it is impervious to wounds dealt by the outside world, in fact, that these are merely occasions for affording it pleasure” (freud, 1928, p. 2). introduction humor is believed to be the strategy for coping with setbacks and failures. empirical research has backed this favorable view insofar as coping with humor appears to be an effective and functional strategy for regulating stress, negative and positive emotions, and self-threat and coping with trauma (geisler & weber, 2010; kuiper, 2012; for an overview, see martin, 2007). however, even though coping with humor has positive consequences such as more positive cognitive appraisals in the face of stress, greater positive affect in response to negative life events, a more positive personality (impression), and better quality in interpersonal relations (cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010; geisler, wiedig-allison, & weber, 2009; martin, kuiper, olinger, & dance, 1993; saroglou, lacour, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ & demeure, 2010), humor is unfortunately a rarely used strategy of coping (weber &wiedig-allison, 2007). being attached to so many psychological advantages, the question remains: what barriers prevent us from coping with humor? to shed light on this question we investigated coping with humor from the perspective of self-worth contingency theory (crocker & park, 2004; crocker & wolfe, 2001). a self-worth contingency describes the degree to which a person’s feeling of self-worth depends on meeting standards in a particular life domain, for example, being successful in academia or having appealing looks. we postulate that when people have to cope with a setback in a domain on which their self-worth is contingent (i.e., in which success and failure have an impact on the feeling of self-worth), then it is unlikely that they will use humor as a coping strategy. we base our proposition on an incongruity theory of humor (veatch, 1998) and empirical findings on cognitive processes related to goal pursuit (dijksterhuis & aarts, 2010; förster, liberman, & higgins, 2005; shah, friedman, & kruglanski, 2002). in our view, self-worth contingencies inhibit cognitive and motivational processes that underlie humor generation. humor incongruity theory according to a widely held assumption, coping with humor entails a specific cognitive shift with regard to a person’s construal of the aversive situation (abel, 2002; geisler & weber, 2010; kuiper, mckenzie, & belanger, 1995). rather than proposing an outright denial of a negative experience, a humor-specific construction re-construes the experience as acceptable. construing a situation as a negative experience on the one hand and as acceptable on the other hand is a form of incongruity. concepts of humor that are based on the idea of incongruity have a long tradition (for an overview see martin, 2007). a recent incongruity theory of humor was proposed by veatch (1998). according to veatch, humor is supposed to be experienced when a person evaluates a situation as a violation of a subjective principle to which he or she is committed (i.e., the situation is not the way it ought to be), but at the same time, the situation is viewed as acceptable and normal, with the latter view predominating. the three conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for humor to occur are v (for violation of principle), n (for normal or acceptable), and the simultaneity of v and n. in generating humor for the sake of coping, v is what turns a situation into a coping situation. in line with veatch´s theory (1998), in order to cope by using humor, it would be necessary to additionally construe the situation as acceptable (n). but under what circumstances can a setback be experienced as obviously not right (v) and acceptable (n) at the same time? in our view, the self-worth contingency of a setback is a pivotal factor for construing an event as acceptable and clearing the way for humor. self-worth contingency theory people want to experience the feeling of being valuable. a self-worth contingency describes the degree to which a person’s feeling of self-worth depends on meeting standards in a particular domain (crocker & park, 2004; crocker &wolfe, 2001). a high self-worth contingency in one domain indicates that success or failure in that domain will result in strong emotional reactions and thus will have impact on the person’s sense of self-worth (zeigler-hill, besser, & king, 2011). for example, for a person whose self-worth depends on approval from others to a great extent, not being invited to a party will have a high negative impact on the person’s feelings of self-worth. although people generally experience positive affect following success and negative affect following failure, when self-worth is at stake affect and self-esteem will both be effected (wolfe & crocker, 2003). thus, a contingent setback may be less tolerable or acceptable than a non-contingent setback and in turn, a person will be less likely to use humor to cope with the setback. in the present paper, we go beyond this common-sense argument by outlining goal-related cognitive processes that may explain why a self-worth contingency could make coping with humor unlikely. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 geisler & loureiro de assunção 521 http://www.psychopen.eu/ domains of self-worth contingencies in a domain with a high contingency of self-worth, a person will pursue concrete goals in order to meet standards and will thereby ultimately pursue the potent higher order goal of self-validation. for example, a student who needs to believe she is competent in order to see herself as having worth or value may have the goal of going to lectures regularly in order to do well in her exams. people differ in the domains on which they base their self-esteem on. possible domains with self-worth contingencies are the approval of others, appearance, doing well in competitions, competence, family support, virtue, and god’s love. crocker and wolfe (2001) derived these domains from the literature, validated their stable existence in a college student population, and constructed a self-report measure to assess trait self-worth contingencies. this measure assesses people’s perceived sense that their own judgments of self-worth are influenced by events in each domain. contingencies of self-worth have motivational consequences. they influence the selection of situations, endurance in goal pursuit, and response to success and failure (wolfe & crocker, 2003). the pursuit of self-esteem is judged to have its costs. for example, costs to autonomy, learning, relationships, and health (crocker & park, 2004). humor, self-worth, and goal-related cognitive processes empirical results support the close relation between humor and self-esteem. self-reported coping with humor was shown to be positively associated with global self-esteem and significantly negatively associated with self-rated actual-ideal discrepancies (kuiper & martin, 1993; martin et al., 1993). we propose that coping with humor and contingencies of self-worth are linked by cognitive and motivational processes that underlie self-worth contingency. contingencies of self-worth are hypothesized to guide attention to and interpretations of potentially contingencyrelevant events (crocker & wolfe, 2001). more precisely, cognitions that build the appraisal may stay activated and may therefore be highly accessible due to the potent higher order goal of self-validation that is linked to selfworth contingencies (crocker & park, 2004). the reason why the goal of self-validation may keep the interpretation activated is that goals direct attention and attention determines the activation of cognitions (dijksterhuis & aarts, 2010). furthermore, it is feasible to expect that an interpretation of an event as a failure will be more easily accessed and will be accessible for longer than a success interpretation because unfulfilled goals maintain the activation of goal-related cognitions (förster et al., 2005). additionally, we assume that the goal of self-validation not only makes a failure appraisal highly accessible but also makes it less likely that the person will appraise the situation as acceptable and will thereby thwart the person’s ability to use humor as a coping mechanism. our claim rests on the finding that goal commitment inhibits the activation of cognitions that are related to alternative goal representations (shah et al., 2002). in the context of contingency-related failure, this cognitive process of goal shielding protects the pursuit of self-validation from becoming the pursuit of alternative goals that actually could aid the person in appraising a situation as acceptable. an alternative goal that could aid a person in appraising a situation as acceptable might be the goal of increasing positive emotions or enhancing interpersonal closeness (sar-el, mikulincer, & doron, 2013). to conclude, we postulate that setbacks in a domain with a high contingency of self-worth will cause strong failure appraisals (v) and fewer appraisals of acceptability (n) due to goal-driven cognitive activation and goal shielding. thus, v and n, the necessary and sufficient conditions for humor according to the incongruity theory of humor (veatch, 1998) may be unlikely in the context of contingency-related failure. the present research the main aim of the present research was to test the hypothesis that the more a domain is contingent upon selfworth, the less likely a person will be to use humor to deal with setbacks. we tested our hypotheses in two studies. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 self-worth and humor 522 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in study 1 we assessed global self-esteem and self-worth contingencies at the trait level via self-reports and the self-judged likelihood of reactions to setbacks in domains with self-worth contingencies. the reactions we included were coping with humor and two disengagement strategies. humor and disengagement are two forms of coping that are associated at the state and trait levels (weber & wiedig-allison, 2007). as our focus was on the unique influence of the self-worth contingency on coping with humor, it was necessary to include disengagement strategies in the study. the question guiding our statistical analysis was: is self-worth contingency negatively associated with using humor as a copingmechanism after controlling for the influence of habitual use of humor, disengagement, and global self-esteem? additionally, we tested whether the proposed negative association between self-worth contingency and coping with humor was moderated by the level of global self-esteem. this could be the case as park and maner (2009) found that global self-esteem moderated the effect of contingent self-threat on coping behavior. in study 2 we exchanged ratings of reactions to self-worth contingent setbacks in different domains with a ranking order task. the task consisted of five concrete descriptions of setbacks. each setback belonged to a different domain of self-worth contingency. participants rank ordered the five setbacks according to the likelihood of reacting with humor. the ranking level of measurement drops from interval to ordinal by exchanging rating (study 1) with ranking (study 2). nevertheless we aimed at gaining validity by having the participant compare concrete setbacks and by averaging the likelihood of reacting with humor across different situations. the question guiding our statistical analysis was: is the self-worth contingency of a domain negatively associated with the average likelihood-of-reacting-with-humor rank? study 1 method participants and procedure—one hundred twenty undergraduates (mage = 22.25 years,sd = 5.18, 78%women) filled out a questionnaire package in return for course credit. measures — participants filled in following self-reports: • contingencies of self-worth. contingencies of self-worth were assessed with a german translation of the contingencies of self-worth scale (csws; crocker, luhtanen, cooper, & bouvrette, 2003). the domains were approval from others, appearance, competition, competence, family support, and virtue.i each domain included five items. participants rated how well each item described them on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (do not agree) to 7 (strongly agree). scale scores were computed by averaging. for descriptive statistics see table 1. • global self-esteem.global self-esteemwas assessed by the 10-item revised version of the german adaptation of rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rse; rosenberg, 1965; von collani & herzberg, 2003). scale scores were computed by averaging. descriptive statistics were: m = 2.26, sd = 0.54, α = .87. • reactions to self-worth-contingent events. reactions to self-worth-contingent events were assessed by describing a domain-specific failure with one sentence followed by nine items assessing reactions to that failure. the failures (and related domains) were (a) experiencing rejection from others (approval from others), (b) feeling that one does not look good (appearance), (c) performing poorly in a competitive situation (competition), (d) having a poor academic performance (competence), (e) realizing that one’s family doesn’t support what one does (family support), and (f) not acting according to moral standards (virtue). participants rated the likelihood of a reaction on a 10-point scale ranging from 0 (very unlikely) to 9 (very likely). four items taken from the coping humor scale (martin & lefcourt, 1983) assessed coping with humor; one item assessed putting things into perspective (“i tell myself there are worse situations”), one item assessed distraction (“i try to distract myself”), and the remaining three items were filler items. one scale score for coping with humor was computed by averaging. for descriptive statistics, see table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 geisler & loureiro de assunção 523 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for contingencies of self-worth and reactions to failure in domains of self-worth contingency: descriptive statistics and correlations with the rosenberg-self-esteem scale (rse) reactions to failure contingencies of self-worth scale domain distraction putting things into perspectivecoping with humor rrsesdmrrsesdmrrseαsdmαsdm approval .05-.042.60b5.16.182.64b5.07.82.811.04a4.81.191.514 appearance .05-.342.72a4.26**.262.85b5.21*.86.152.69a4.80.151.744 competition .18-.891.21c5.03-.112.96b5.05.84.811.56a4.84.101.874 competence .01-.442.31c5.08.362.65b4.01-.90.002.33a3.77.870.395 family support .03-.422.29c5.07-.372.57b2.04-.87.761.05a2.82.970.715 virtue .10.412.75b4.05-.512.37b4.03-.92.382.85a3.89.311.754 note. means that do not share a subscript are different at p < .05. *p < .05. **p < .01. results reactions to threats were relatively consistent across domains: coping with humor α = .75, putting things into perspective α = .59, and distraction α = .78, showing a habitual tendency to cope with failure, but leaving room for the influence of self-worth contingency. in all contingency domains, coping with humor was the strategy used least, f's(2, 118) between 6.78 and 49.31, all p's greater than .001, effect size (η2) between .10 and .46 (see table 1). coping with humor was correlated with the rse only in the domain appearance. the same held true for putting things into perspective. however, using humor to cope with threats to one’s appearance was not correlated with the rse when controlling for putting things into perspective, r = .11, p = .25, and putting things into perspective remained significantly correlated with the rse when controlling for coping with humor, r = .26, p < .01. to test our main hypotheses, we conducted five-step hierarchical regression analyses to predict coping with humor in the target domain from coping with humor in other domains (step 1), putting things into perspective and distraction in the target domain (step 2), rse (step 3), the self-worth contingencies of other domains (step 4), and the selfworth contingency of the target domain (step 5). a significant ∆r2 for step 5 confirms a specific association of self-worth contingency and reacting with humor to a threat above the effect of a general tendency to cope with humor (step 1), reacting by disengaging (step 2), global self-esteem (step 3), and other self-worth contingencies (step 4).we averaged scale scores of the domains approval and appearance, and competition and competence for the hierarchical regression analyses. the decision was based on the similarity of the domains’ contents. the same pattern emerged for all four hierarchical regression analyses; see table 2. coping with humor in other domains was significantly positively associated with coping with humor in the target domain (step 1). additionally, within the same domain, putting things into perspective was significantly positively associated with coping with humor (step 2). the rse was not associated with coping with humor (step 4). finally, confirming our main hypothesis, in all domains, self-worth contingency was significantly negatively associated with coping with humor (step 5). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 self-worth and humor 524 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 hierarchical multiple regression analyses predicting coping with humor (ch) in a self-worth-contingent (swc) domain virtuefamily supportcompetition/competenceapproval/appearance β∆r 2 β∆r 2 β∆r 2 β∆r 2 predictor step 1 .21***.21***.32***.30*** ch other domains step 2 .32***.22***.23***.15*** putting into perspective .58***.47***.48***.41*** distraction .03-.08.10.03 step 3 .00.00.00.01 rse .02-.03-.02-.12 step 4 .00.01.01.03 swc other domains step 5 .03*.03*.03**.06*** swc target domain .19*-.24*-.21**-.29***total adj. r 2 .51.42.56.52 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in order to test whether global self-esteemmoderated the influence of self-worth contingency on coping with humor, we conducted five two-step hierarchical regression analyses to predict the target domain coping with humor from (a) the rse and the target domain’s self-worth contingency (step 1) and (b) the interaction term computed from the rse and the target domain’s self-worth contingency (both centered by subtracting the mean; step 2). a significant ∆r2 for step 2 would have indicated an rse moderation effect. no interaction term was significant, ∆r2 < .03, f(1, 114) < 2.71, p > .10. study 2 method participants and procedure—ninety six non-psychology students (mage = 24.26 years, sd = 3.32, 65%women) were recruited via e-mail invitation and received 5 euro compensation for participating. on arrival in a seminar room the participant received a pack of papers containing detailed instructions, the ranking order tasks, questionnaires and a pen. participants were informed that anonymity is guaranteed, that the session would take about 50 minutes. nevertheless, participants were told to take the time they needed, thus avoiding time pressure. seated well apart from each other up to eight participants were tested at once a female investigator being present all the time. measures — participants filled in following self-reports: • the ranking order tasks. concrete descriptions of setbacks were formulated for the domains approval, appearance, competition/competenceii, family support, and virtue based on a pool of about 550 examples of setbacks in domains of self-worth contingency generated by 93 psychology students; for examples see table 3. each ranking order task consisted of five setbacks, one from each domain, and was presented on one page. the setback descriptions were bordered and distributed across the page. the placement of a description on the page from a domain changed with every task. participants were instructed to rank order the setbacks according to how likely they would react with humor and write the rank next to each setback. an average europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 geisler & loureiro de assunção 525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ likelihood-of-reacting-with-humor rank was computed for each domain by averaging (median) over the ten ranking order tasks. kendall’s coefficients of concordance for each domain across the ten ranking order tasks ranged from .14 (family support) to .31 (virtue). • contingencies of self-worth. contingencies of self-worth were assessed with the same scale as in study 1. for descriptive statistics see table 3. table 3 descriptive statistics for contingencies of self-worth and example setback descriptions from the rank order tasks employed in study 2 exampleαsdmdomain during a break i am talking with other students i know. they plan to meet in the evening, but i am not invited. approval .80.081.874 while riding to a party on my bike it starts to rain. when i arrive my hair is ruined and my clothes are dirty. i feel awkward due to the way i look. appearance .87.191.774 together with fellow students i prepared for an exam. as we receive the results i discover that i did worse than the others. competition/ .76/.01/1.80/4 competence .70.830.355 i took on a job i think pays well for the time i have to invest. my family does not approve of it. family support .92.221.635 in the supermarket the checkout clerk makes a mistake and hands me too much change in return. i don’t say anything and keep the money. virtue .87.211.165 results as kendall’s coefficients of concordance indicates the ten ranking task were far from redundant, i.e., concrete setbacks from one domain were not identically ranked in each task. the found consistency across tasks is in line with the well documented low consistency across situations in personality psychology (mischel & shoda, 1995). thus, we interpret the average likelihood-of-reacting-with-humor rank as a sound value of the likelihood of reacting with humor in that domain of self-worth contingency. like in study 1 we averaged scale scores for the self-worth contingency domains approval and appearance, and competition and competence. to obtain domain specific values of contingencies of self-worth we conducted regression analyses predicting the self-worth contingencies of one domain from all other remaining domains and saving the unstandardized residuals. to test our hypothesis we computed spearman’s rhos between the residual values of self-worth contingency and the average likelihood-of-reacting-with-humor rank for all domains, see table 4. confirming our main hypothesis, significant negative associations were found in the domains approval/appearance, competition/competence, and family support. the association in the domain virtue was in the hypothesized direction, but not significant. associations across domains were all non-significant, apart from the significant positive association between the self-worth contingency family support and using humor to cope with setbacks in the domain approval/appearance. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 self-worth and humor 526 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 spearmans rho between rank order of coping with humor and residual self-worth contingency values rank order of coping with humor in the domain residual self-worth contingency values a virtuefamily supportcompetition/competenceapproval/appearance approval/appearance .03.13.10.20*competition/competence .17.10.21*-.07family support .00.22*-.02.29** virtue .15-.00.19.08aregression analyses were conducted predicting the self-worth contingency of one domain from all other remaining domains and saving the unstandardized residuals. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion the results of the two presented studies support the hypothesis that people are unlikely to use humor to cope with a setback in a domain that is self-worth contingent (i.e., in which outcomes have an impact on feelings of self-worth). the negative association between self-worth contingency and coping with humor was found in different domains of self-worth contingency and when providing abstract situation descriptions and assessing global ratings of reaction likelihood (study 1) as well as when providing concrete situation descriptions and assessing ranking of reaction likelihood (study 2). we believe that the cognitive processes postulated to underlie the self-worth contingency can provide a plausible explanation for the negative association between contingencies of self-worth and coping with humor. based on the incongruity humor theory (veatch, 1998), we understand coping with humor to be a specific way of construing a coping situation as being not only aversive but also acceptable at the same time. in the case of self-worth-contingent failure, the goal of self-validation may prevent the construction of an appraisal of acceptance (dijksterhuis & aarts, 2010; shah et al., 2002) and may thus obviate the condition that is necessary for humor to occur. furthermore, the association between contingencies of self-worth and coping with humor was not moderated by global self-esteem and unlike the results of previous studies (e.g., kuiper & martin, 1993; martin et al., 1993) coping with humor was not associated with global self-esteem (study 1). the difference between these studies and our study is that we did not assess coping with humor via a trait measure but averaged humor reactions across different events. it is possible that in previous studies retrospective distortions may have added to the reported associations between global self-esteem and coping with humor in a trait-consistent direction (robinson & barrett, 2010). the association between coping with humor and the disengagement strategy of putting things into perspective when dealing with a self-worth-contingent threat in study 1 further supports the assumption that coping with humor entails a cognitive shift in construal of the aversive situation (geisler &weber, 2010; kuiper et al., 1995). however, the five-step hierarchical analyses we conducted in which contingencies of self-worth were shown to be associated with coping with humor after controlling for disengagement suggest that there is more to coping with humor than simple disengagement. in our present research we focused on self-worth contingency as a factor that may impede coping with humor. however, in study 2 we found a positive association between being self-worth contingent on family support and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 geisler & loureiro de assunção 527 http://www.psychopen.eu/ using humor to cope with disapproval and disfavorable appearance. further empirical data will have to show whether this positive association is substantial. specifically, the question remains to be answered whether the positive association is unique for the contingency with family support and coping with disapproval and disfavorable appearance association or whether it can be found for other domain combinations as well. five limitations of our present research need to be acknowledged. first, we did not assess different styles of humor (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004). it is plausible to expect that more variance between contingencies of self-worth and humor can be explained by differentiating between the use of the adaptive self-enhancing and the maladaptive self-defeating style of humor (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). second, it was not possible to test gender differences in the association between self-worth contingency and coping with humor in the two samples of the present research.iii we do not expect that the cognitive processes postulated to underlie the association to be gender specific. however, reported gender differences in contingencies of self-worth (crocker et al., 2003), and in styles of humor (martin et al., 2003) encourage to aim for a gender balanced sample in further research in order to address these two limitations of the present research. third, in the present research time course was not considered. the question is whether it is more likely to cope with humor when the time span since the setback increases, and more importantly whether the magnitude of the self-worth contingency of the setback interacts with a time course effect. based on the cognitive processes of goal activation, more precisely on the sustained activation of unfulfilled goal-related cognitions (förster et al., 2005), we would expect that if the higher order goal of self-validation remains unsatisfied in the mean time then the negative association between self-worth contingency and coping with humor remains, too. forth, in the present research affect was not considered. based on the incongruity theory of humor (veatch, 1998) we consider positive affect (and not necessarily negative affect) to be associated with coping with humor (cf. geisler & weber, 2010). thus, we expect that the experience of positive affect, for example due to being able to laugh at own inadequacies or engage in positive distraction, would moderate the association between self-worth contingency and coping with humor. finally, we did not directly assess the motive of self-validation and the cognitive processes we postulated would explain why a self-worth contingency would prevent a person from coping with humor. further research will have to directly investigate these processes with in the context of coping with humor. for example, the postulated association between the high self-worth contingency of a setback and fewer appraisals of acceptability (n) due to goal-driven cognitive activation and goal shielding could be tested by presenting participants with descriptions of setbacks from different domains of self-worth contingency together with the instruction to generate as many different ways as possible to think about the setbacks in a way that would make it acceptable (cf. weber, loureiro de assunção, martin, westmeyer, & geisler, 2014). we would expect a negative association between the self-worth contingency of a domain and the number of generated accepting appraisals for a setback in the same domain. to conclude, the results of our study support the view that self-worth contingencies (crocker & park, 2004; crocker & wolfe, 2001) impede the use of humor in coping with a setback. this may be due to goal-related cognitive processes (dijksterhuis & aarts, 2010; förster et al., 2005; shah et al., 2002). notes i) we did not include the self-worth contingency god’s love. ii) it was not possible to separate examples of concrete setbacks from the domains competition and competence from each other in an objective way. that is why one concrete setback represents the competition and competence domain. iii) in both studies patterns of findings for the female participants were the same as reported for all participants. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 self-worth and humor 528 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 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(2003). what does the self want? contingencies of self-worth and goals. in s. j. spencer, s. fein, m. p. zanna, & j. m. olson (eds.), motivated social perception: the ontario symposium (vol. 9, pp. 147-170). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. zeigler-hill, v., besser, a., & king, k. (2011). contingent self-esteem and anticipated reactions to interpersonal rejection and achievement failure. journal of social and clinical psychology, 30, 1069-1096. doi:10.1521/jscp.2011.30.10.1069 about the authors fay geisler holds a long-term appointment at the university of greifswald where she received her doctorate degree in psychology. she teaches personality psychology and psychological assessment and works as a cognitive-behavioral therapist. her research focuses on self-regulation, emotion regulation, and self-control. vera loureiro de assunção is a research assistant at the university of greifswald. she studied in lisbon and greifswald and received her diploma in psychology at the university of greifwald. her research focuses on the emotion regulation strategy reappraisal. she is currently writing her ph.d. thesis. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 520–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.743 geisler & loureiro de assunção 531 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2011.30.10.1069 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en self-worth and humor introduction humor incongruity theory self-worth contingency theory domains of self-worth contingencies humor, self-worth, and goal-related cognitive processes the present research study 1 method results study 2 method results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors humor styles and the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety research reports humor styles and the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety nicholas a. kuiper*a, dana kleina, jaclyn vertesa, nadia brittany maiolinoa [a] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract past research suggests that sense of humor may play a role in anxiety. the present study builds upon this work by exploring how individual differences in various humor styles, such as affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating humor, may fit within a contemporary research model of anxiety. in this model, intolerance of uncertainty is a fundamental personality characteristic that heightens excessive worry, thus increasing anxiety. we further propose that greater intolerance of uncertainty may also suppress the use of adaptive humor (affiliate and self-enhancing), and foster the increased use of maladaptive self-defeating humor. initial correlational analyses provide empirical support for these proposals. in addition, we found that excessive worry and affiliative humor both served as significant mediators. in particular, heightened intolerance of uncertainty lead to both excessive worry and a reduction in affiliative humor use, which, in turn, increased anxiety. we also explored potential humor mediating effects for each of the individual worry content domains in this model. these analyses confirmed the importance of affiliative humor as a mediator for worry pertaining to a wide range of content domains (e.g., relationships, lack of confidence, the future and work). these findings were then discussed in terms of a combined model that considers how humor styles may impact the social sharing of positive and negative emotions. keywords: humor styles, intolerance of uncertainty, worry, generalized anxiety, psychological well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 received: 2014-01-20. accepted: 2014-03-17. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: university of western ontario, department of psychology, westminster hall, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7. e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in this study we describe and empirically test several proposed relationships between an individual’s sense of humor and their level of anxiety. initial support for exploring these relationships has been obtained in several prior research studies in the humor domain. as one illustration, abel (2002) found that those with a greater sense of humor reported less anxiety and stress pertaining to everyday life experiences than those with less humor. drawing upon previous humor research by kuiper, mckenzie, and belanger (1995), abel attributed this distinction to differences in the cognitive appraisal process, suggesting that those with greater levels of humor also generate more positive challenge appraisals and fewer negative threat appraisals when encountering stressful life events. abel and maxwell (2002) also reported similar findings, with more humorous individuals coping better with stress and displaying less anxiety. furthermore, it has been found that individuals with a greater sense of humor generally report fewer worries on a daily basis (kelly, 2002). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in light of these findings, additional research has provided further investigations of possible relationships between sense of humor and anxiety. using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) to assess four distinct individual difference styles of humor (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating), investigators have found different patterns of relationships between these humor styles and anxiety (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin 2007; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). in particular, greater affiliative humor, which involves generating and sharing humor in a social context to improve relationships and make others laugh, has been associated with lower anxiety. in a similar manner, a higher level of self-enhancing humor, which involves using humor as an effective coping technique for dealing with life stressors, has also been linked to reduced anxiety. in contrast, a higher level of self-defeating humor, which involves the use of humor in a self-disparaging, negative manner to put oneself down, has been linked to higher levels of anxiety. finally, the remaining humor style of aggressive humor has generally been found to be unrelated to anxiety level. taken together, the above research clearly points to different types of relationships between various humor styles and anxiety. in particular, the two adaptive styles of affiliative and self-enhancing humor appear to be beneficial, as increased use of these styles helps to reduce anxiety levels. in contrast, the maladaptive self-defeating humor style appears to be detrimental, as increased use of this style is associated with greater anxiety. this prior research has also suggested several possible mechanisms that may help explain why the humor styles are differentially related to anxiety (kuiper, 2012; kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007). these proposed underlying processes include humor style differences in employing: (1) reframing strategies for stressful events (e.g., cognitive reappraisals and/or a change of perspective via self-enhancing humor); (2) distraction and distancing techniques (via affiliative humor), (3) emotion regulation strategies (via both self-enhancing and affiliative humor), and (4) the use of a self-degrading interpersonal presentation style (via self-defeating humor). overall, this research provides some initial empirical support for the intriguing notion that certain humor styles may actually contribute to increased anxiety, whereas other styles may help buffer the individual from anxiety. the present study builds upon this prior work by conducting a conceptually driven examination of the various relationships between humor styles and anxiety. although the research described above has certainly been informative, it has generally been conducted with only minimal consideration of contemporary theory-based models of anxiety. in other words, our conceptual understanding of the role of humor styles in anxiety has not yet been wellgrounded in the anxiety research literature. little regard has been given thus far to prominent theoretical models of anxiety, and their associated research findings, when attempting to understand the possible contribution of humor styles to anxiety. the present study directly addresses this issue by conceptually integrating the humor styles approach with an intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety (behar, dimarco, hekler, mohlman, & staples, 2009; dugas, marchand, & ladouceur, 2005). we begin by briefly describing this intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety. this is followed by a detailed consideration of how humor styles may also be involved in this model, to either reduce or enhance levels of anxiety. this combined model is then empirically assessed in terms of its utility in furthering our understanding of the role of humor in anxiety. the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety considerable research has now accrued to empirically support an intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety (behar et al., 2009; dugas et al., 2005; mcevoy & mahoney, 2013). generalized anxiety is a pervasive europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 544 http://www.psychopen.eu/ negative mood state, with the key feature being chronic and intense worry. this excessive worry can focus on a wide variety of life events and experiences, including relationships with others, safety and health concerns about one’s self or others, performance at school or work, financial issues, and what the future may hold (behar et al., 2009; dozois & westra, 2004). individuals experiencing generalized anxiety also display further cognitive, behavioral, physical, and emotional manifestations. these include disruptions in cognitive flexibility and concentration, a perceived lack of control and confidence in problem solving, heightened irritability, nausea, headaches, profuse sweating, and sleep disturbance. as such, generalized anxiety can be extremely debilitating and interfere significantly with daily functioning. in this model, generalized anxiety stems from a fundamental personality disposition to be highly intolerant of uncertainty (dugas et al., 2005; koerner & dugas, 2008; mcevoy & mahoney, 2013). this underlying cognitive vulnerability factor consists of a strong negative bias in perceiving and responding to daily life situations. routine life events and experiences are typically viewed as being ambiguous or uncertain, resulting in increased worry. heightened intolerance of uncertainty thus results in chronic and excessive worry that can span several major content domains, including concerns over relationships, finances, work, and the future. in order to provide a theoretical-empirical foundation for examining the role of humor in anxiety, we tested the predictive utility of the above model by using mediator analysis. here, we expected that excessive worry would serve as a mediator between heightened levels of intolerance of uncertainty and increased anxiety. such a pattern would be consistent with the basic premise of this model, namely, that heightened intolerance of uncertainty serves to increase worry, which then results in greater anxiety. humor styles in the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety in general, we propose that the certain humor styles may serve as additional mediators between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety. individuals with a greater intolerance of uncertainty typically exhibit greater levels of negative arousal and stress (koerner & dugas, 2008). in turn, we suggest that this detrimental impact of heightened intolerance of uncertainty also has a suppressing effect on the use of affiliative humor, which is typically interjected into light-hearted and spontaneous conversational banter. this chronic negative arousal and stress may also has a detrimental impact on cognitive and social information processing abilities, as it restricts cognitive flexibility and breadth of attention. these information processing restrictions then limit the ability to engage in beneficial cognitive reappraisals and/or changes in perspective, two of the primary processes underling effective coping via self-enhancing humor (kuiper, 2012). as such, the increased stress associated with heightened levels of intolerance of uncertainty may also suppress the use of self-enhancing humor. furthermore, in an attempt to alleviate this negative arousal and stress, we also propose that individuals with heightened intolerance of uncertainty would also favor the increased use of maladaptive coping strategies, such as self-defeating humor. further details of these aspects of our combined model of humor and anxiety are described below. affiliative humor— the nonhostile jokes, witty comments, and spontaneous lighthearted banter associated with affiliative humor can help enhance social relationships, reduce interpersonal tension and conflict, maintain group cohesiveness, and increase group morale (martin, 2007; samson, lackner, weiss, & papousek, 2012). however, for those with greater intolerance of uncertainty, the negative arousal and stress they chronically experience makes it more difficult to act in this spontaneous, carefree, and playful manner; and thus enjoy and benefit from innocuous affiliative humor with others. as such, we expected that heightened intolerance of uncertainty would have a considerable suppressing effect on affiliative humor. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 545 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in turn, this suppressing effect on affiliative humor use would limit the social sharing of both positive and negative emotions (rimé, 2009). affiliative humor generates enhanced opportunities for a variety of positive emotions to be expressed and shared, including mirth, amusement, joy and exhilaration (martin, 2007; samson et al., 2012). these emotions, which can contribute to the growth of a more positive and healthy self-concept (kuiper, 2012), are reduced, however, by the suppression of affiliative humor use by those with heightened intolerance of uncertainty. this reduction also limits opportunities to humorously share negative emotions of stress and arousal with others (in an attempt to emotionally regulate these undesired emotions), again resulting in greater levels of anxiety for those with heightened intolerance of uncertainty. thus, we expected that affiliative humor would also be a significant mediator in our model, with heightened untolerance of uncertainty leading to the suppression of affiliative humor, which, in turn, would contribute to greater anxiety. self-enhancing humor— individuals who use self-enhancing humor generally view their life circumstances and surroundings from a contemplative humorous stance, and maintain a positive perspective despite adversity and stress. self-enhancing humor is used as a coping strategy to both buffer the self against this stress and regulate negative emotions, but not at the expense of others (martin, 2007). the use of self-enhancing humor may be suppressed, however, by the chronic negative arousal and stress that accompanies intolerance of uncertainty. in addition, the reduced cognitive attention and flexibility that accompanies heightened intolerance of uncertainty interferes significantly with the ability to look at thoughts or ideas from a different perspective, making the generation and effective use of self-enhancing humor much more difficult and unlikely. this reduction in a particularly effective humorous coping strategy for dealing with stress and other negative emotions then leaves these individuals susceptible to increased anxiety. self-defeating humor— this maladaptive humor style is typically used in a misguided attempt to reduce stress, and also to try and gain the approval of others via ingratiating and self-degrading humorous comments (martin, 2007). as such, the use of this humor style ultimately serves to hide negative feelings about the self and avoid dealing with problems of emotional neediness. the end result is that self-defeating humor is related to less resilience in dealing with life’s problems, reduced satisfaction with social support, lower self-esteem, and greater depression (kuiper, 2012). the negative arousal and stress that accompanies heightened intolerance of uncertainty is quite aversive for the individual, resulting in various coping attempts to reduce this unwanted state. consistent with their cognitive bias towards negative interpretations of their own abilities, we propose that individuals with greater intolerance of uncertainty also favor a self-defeating humor style, as this style intersects well with their negative view of self. unfortunately, however, the increased use of self-defeating humor also leads to greater rejection by others, not only during social interactions, but also in terms of less willingness to interact with that individual in future situations (kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). this increasing social isolation reduces social support for the individual with heightened intolerance of uncertainty, thus limiting further opportunities for the social sharing of both positive and negative emotions (rimé, 2009). ultimately, this contributes to the enhanced levels of generalized anxiety exhibited by these individuals. aggressive humor — this humor style is used to put down others, with little concern for how they might subsequently feel or react (martin, 2007). aggressive styles of humor, such as teasing, ridicule, sarcasm, and disparagement tend to alienate other individuals; and thus impair social and interpersonal relationships. as such, aggressive humor use could ultimately limit opportunities for genuine and sustained social sharing of both positive europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 546 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and negative emotions (rimé, 2009), possibly resulting in an increase in anxiety. it is important to note, however, that past research offers no support for a relationship between aggressive humor and anxiety (kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). as such, we do not expect this particular humor style to be related significantly to anxiety. humor styles and the content domains of worry finally, we investigated the potential role of humor styles with regards to each of the five worry content domains in the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety (dugas et al., 2005; koerner & dugas, 2008). thus, in addition to our primary focus on excessive worry, as described earlier, we also examined how the humor styles may relate to each specific domain of worry in this model. these domains include worry about relationships, the future, amount of confidence, work issues, and financial matters (behar et al., 2009). here, we first considered the degree to which worry in each of these five content domains was associated with the possible reduction of affiliative and self-enhancing humor use, as well as the increased use of self-defeating humor. following this, we then tested the degree to which these three humor styles may also mediate the relationships between worry in a specific content domain and increased levels of generalized anxiety. by doing so, we could then determine more precisely the degree to which specific content domains of worry may also enter into our combined model of generalized anxiety. method participants ninety-one students (76 females and 15 males) enrolled in psychology courses at the university of western ontario participated in this study. participants ranged in age from 17 to 25 years (m = 18.62, sd = 1.13), and were recruited from the psychology department research participation pool, using standard sign-up procedures. participants received research credit for their participation. measures intolerance of uncertainty — the intolerance of uncertainty scale (ius; freeston, rhéaume, letarte, dugas, & ladouceur, 1994) consists of 27 self-report items, each rated on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all characteristic of me) to 5 (entirely characteristic of me). this scale investigates degree of apprehension towards uncertain future situations, reactivity to ambiguity, and responses to general uncertainty. example items are, “my mind can’t be relaxed if i don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” and “the ambiguities in life stress me.” the psychometric characteristics of the ius are very good, with strong internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and high construct validity (freeston et al., 1994). excessive worry — the penn state worry questionnaire (pswq; meyer, miller, metzger, & borkovec, 1990) consists of 16 items designed to assess excessive worry over time and across situations. participants rate each item on a 1 to 5 scale, with 1 indicating the item was not at all typical, and 5 indicating the item was very typical of them. examples items are “my worries overwhelmme,” and “i’ve been a worrier all my life.” the pswq displays good internal consistency and construct validity. generalized anxiety — the costello-comrey anxiety scale (ccas; costello & comrey, 1967) consists of 9 items that assess symptoms of anxiety in the general population. participants rate each item on a 1 to 4 scale; with 1 indicating that they had rarely or never experienced the symptom during the past week, and 4 indicating europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that they experienced the symptommost of the time during the past week. example items are, “i am a very nervous person,” and “i am a tense, ‘high-strung’ person.” there is good construct validity for the ccas, with scores correlating significantly with other measures of anxiety. reliability for the ccas is also quite acceptable. humor styles— the humor styles questionnaire (hsq;martin et al., 2003) consists of 32 self-report items, divided into four separate sub-scales (8 items each) measuring each humor style (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating). items are rated on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). example items are: “i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends” (affiliative humor); “if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor” (self-enhancing humor); “if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it” (aggressive humor) and; “i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should” (self-defeating humor). considerable research has shown that these measures of the four humor styles are distinct, reliable, and valid (kuiper, 2012; martin, 2007). worry content — the worry domains questionnaire (wdq; tallis, eysenck, & mathews, 1992) consists of 25 items used to assess the amount of worry across five major domains of everyday concern; namely, relationships (e.g., “i worry that i will lose close friends”), lack of confidence (e.g., “i worry that i feel insecure”), an aimless future (e.g., “i worry that i’ll never achieve my ambitions”), work incompetence (e.g., “i worry that i will not keep my workload up to date”), and financial issues (e.g., “i worry that i am not able to afford things”). participants rate each item on a 5 point rating scale, with 1 indicating no worry at all and 5 indicating extreme worry. the wdq shows high internal consistency, high reliability, and good convergent validity (stöber & joormann, 2001). procedure participants were tested in small groups of approximately 15 to 20. after completing an informed consent form, participants were administered a booklet of questionnaires. each booklet was in a different randomized order, and required approximately 30 minutes to fill out. after completion, each participant was given a debriefing form about the study and its purpose. results the correlations between each of the four humor styles and the three main components of the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety are shown in table 1, along with the means and standard deviations for these measures. as expected, greater intolerance of uncertainty was associated with reduced levels of both affiliative and self-enhancing humor. also as expected, increases in both of these adaptive humor styles were significantly correlated with decreases in excessive worry and generalized anxiety. for self-defeating humor, however, the sole significant correlation was the expected relationship between greater intolerance of uncertainty and increased levels of this maladaptive humor style. self-defeating humor was not significantly associated with excessive worry or generalized anxiety levels. finally, the pattern of non-significant correlations for aggressive humor is congruent with previous research demonstrating that this maladaptive style is not related to any of the components of anxiety. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 548 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlations between the humor styles and primary components of the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety. humor styles model component self-defeating m = 28.22; sd = 8.36 aggressive m = 29.25; sd = 7.75 self-enhancing m = 37.57; sd = 8.39 affiliative m = 46.71; sd = 6.64 intolerance of uncertainty m = 61.93; sd = 17.49 .25*.04.27**-.42**excessive worry m = 46.10; sd = 16.44 .19.01.29**-.31**generalized anxiety m = 17.81; sd = 5.28 .14.02.39**-.37***p < .05. **p < .025. ***p < .01. overall, the pattern of correlations shown in table 1 supports the proposal that certain humor styles do bear on the various components of the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety. in particular, it appears that adaptive humor may play a more prominent role (particularly affiliative humor), and that self-defeating humor may also be involved in this model of anxiety. aggressive humor, however, is not relevant to this model. accordingly, we next investigated how the two adaptive styles (affiliative and self-enhancing humor), along with self-defeating humor, may be involved as multiple mediators in a combined model of anxiety which also includes excessive worry as a mediator. we did not include aggressive humor in this analysis, given its lack of a relationship with any of the three primary components of the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety. as described by preacher and hayes (2008) multiple mediation analysis allows for the simultaneous significance testing of relationships between a predictor (intolerance of uncertainty in the current analysis), a set of mediators (excessive worry, affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor and self-defeating humor), and a criterion variable (generalized anxiety). these tests include determining the significance of: (1) the overall mediation model, (2) each of the four separate mediator paths between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety, and (3) the direct relationship path between intolerance of uncertainty and anxiety, after taking into account all significant mediator paths. multiple mediation analysis involves a bootstrap sampling procedure, in which 1000 random samples are taken from the data set with replacement. all of the path coefficients specified in the hypothesizedmodel (i.e., the proposed links between the predictor, each mediator and the criterion), are then assessed in each sample. following this, the mean direct and mediator effects are calculated, as well as their confidence intervals (set at 95%). all effects are considered simultaneously in the proposed model, with age and gender controlled for. the results of our multiple mediation analysis indicated that the overall model of intolerance of uncertainty for generalized anxiety was significant, f (5, 85) = 25.23, p < .001; adjusted r2 = .57. as shown in figure 1, there were two significant mediator paths in this model, out of the four possible paths tested. in support of the original model, higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty led to the expected increase in excessive worry (p < .001), which, in turn, resulted in greater generalized anxiety (p < .01). also as expected, higher levels of intolerance of uncertainty lead to a decrease in the use of affiliative humor (p < .001), which, in turn, resulted in greater anxiety (p < .05). neither self-enhancing nor self-defeating humor were significant mediators in this analysis. it should be noted europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 549 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that the direct effect path between intolerance of uncertainty and generalized anxiety remained significant (p < .001), indicating that both excessive worry and affiliative humor served as partial mediators in this model. figure 1. significant mediators in the combined model for generalized anxiety. **p < .025. ***p < .01. in other words, greater intolerance of uncertainty still had a significant direct effect on increasing anxiety, above and beyond the significant mediator effect that runs through both excessive worry and affiliative humor. overall, these findings support the proposal that a combined intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety should also include affiliative humor as a further significant mediator, in addition to excessive worry. these findings also indicate, however, that the two remaining humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating) do not play a significant mediating role in this combined model. humor styles and the worry content domains the correlations between each of the five worry content domains in the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety and the four humor styles are shown in table 2, along with the means and standard deviations for each worry content measure. higher levels of affiliative humor were associated with lower levels of worry for four of the five worry content domains, with the only exception being financial worry. in a similar fashion, higher levels of selfenhancing humor were also associated with significantly lower levels of worry, but in this case for all five worry content domains. for self-defeating humor the pattern was precisely opposite, with higher levels of this maladaptive humor style being associated with greater worry for all five worry content domains. finally, aggressive humor was generally unrelated to the worry content domains, with the one exception being financial worry. here, higher aggressive humor was related to greater financial worry. when taken together, the pattern of correlations shown in table 2 points to significant relationships between three of the four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating) and the five different worry content domains. as such, our final set of multiple mediator analyses investigated how the two adaptive styles (affiliative and selfenhancing humor), along with self-defeating humor, may be involved as multiple mediators between each of these five worry content domains (e.g., relationship worry) and generalized anxiety. we did not include aggressive humor in these analyses, given its lack of any significant relationship with almost all of the worry content domains. as such, the mediators tested in each analysis were the three humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating), whereas the criterion variable was always generalized anxiety. each analysis also controlled for age and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 550 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gender. however, a different predictor variable was used for each analysis, beginning with relationship worry content and then proceeding through all of the worry content domains listed in the left-most column of table 2. table 2 correlations between humor styles and worry content domains. humor styles self-defeatingaggressiveself-enhancingaffiliativeworry content domains relationship worry (m = 7.70 sd = 4.99) .32**.07.33**-.22*lack of confidence worry (m = 8.56 sd = 5.12) .32**.05-.33**-.35**aimless future worry (m = 8.24 sd = 4.92) .27**.15-.47**-.24*work incompetence worry (m = 10.60 sd = 4.49) .27**.12.33**-.25*financial worry (m = 6.76 sd = 4.92) .31**.27**.29**-.18*p < .05. **p < .025. ***p < .01. these analyses showed significant overall model effects for all five of the worry content domains, with f-values ranging from 10.76 to 13.64, all p’s < .001. as shown in table 3, adjusted r2 values ranged from .29 to .36 for the multiple mediator analyses associated with these worry content domains. it was only in the case of financial worry that the humor styles did not have a significant mediator effect on subsequent anxiety levels. table 3 significant humor style mediators for each worry content domain b path coefficienta path coefficient total adjusted r-squared significant humor style mediatorworry content domain affiliativerelationships .2637**-.3218*-.29*** affiliativelack of confidence .2082**-.4980***-.36*** affiliativeaimless future worry .2734***-.3583*-.30*** affiliativework incompetence .2475***-.4086**-.35*** nsnsnonefinancial .31*** *p < .05. **p < .025. ***p < .01. for the other four worry content domains, affiliative humor was the sole significant humor style mediator in all of these models. in particular, increases in worry about relationships, lack of confidence, an aimless future, and incompetence at work or school, all served to suppress affiliative humor use (all p’s < .001). in turn, these reductions in affiliative humor resulted in more anxiety (all p’s < .025). an illustrative example of one of these significant multiple mediation path analyses (for relationship worry content) is shown in figure 2. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 551 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. affiliative humor as a significant mediator between relationship worry and anxiety. **p < .025. ***p < .01. discussion previous research has provided some evidence for an association between sense of humor and anxiety (abel 2002; kuiper et al., 2004; martin, 2007). although informative, this initial work did not really consider how sense of humor might be integrated more fully with contemporary research on anxiety. as such, the main goal of the present study was to address this issue by providing a theory-based integration of the humor styles with an intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety. we began this integration by describing the key sequence of events in the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety (behar et al., 2009; dugas et al., 2005; mcevoy & mahoney, 2013). in particular, this model proposes that greater intolerance of uncertainty generates excessive worry, which, in turn, results in higher generalized anxiety. we then used this model as the theoretical-empirical foundation for assessing the possible additional role of humor in reducing or enhancing anxiety. this was done by including excessive worry and three of the humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating) as potential multiple mediators in a combined model. the findings from this multiple mediator analysis were clear. as expected, and in support of the original model, greater intolerance of uncertainty resulted in significantly more excessive worry, which in turn, increased anxiety. of particular interest in the present context, however, was that affiliative humor was also a significant mediator in this combined model. consistent with our expectations, greater intolerance of uncertainty also served to suppress the use of affiliative humor, which in turn, also contributed to increased anxiety levels. the significant mediating path for affiliative humor suggests that the chronic stress and negative arousal associated with greater intolerance of uncertainty may interfere with both the generation and enjoyment of this adaptive humor style. earlier, we proposed that this interference may be attributable to two factors. first, the chronic negative arousal and stress experienced by individuals with greater intolerance of uncertainty may be basically incompatible with the carefree and lighthearted positive state that facilitates affiliative humor use. in addition, however, this negative arousal may also impede the cognitive processes that underlie the effective use of affiliative humor, primarily by restricting cognitive flexibility and breadth of attention (kuiper, 2012). these cognitive processing deficits would then make it much more difficult to generate and benefit from the use of this adaptive humor style. it is still necessary, of course, for future research to document and test each aspect of this proposed causal chain. this might be accomplished, for example, by directly assessing stress and negative arousal levels for those with europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 552 http://www.psychopen.eu/ greater intolerance of uncertainty, as well as measuring any observed reductions in their degree of cognitive flexibility and breadth of attention. if documented, such changes would then need to be empirically linked in a direct manner to the suppression of affiliative humor, perhaps by using a longitudinal research design that also includes observational aspects, in addition to self-report measures. further research would also need to empirically test our notion that the suppression of affiliative humor use can then reduce its effectiveness as an appropriate social interaction tool for sharing both positive and negative emotions with others (rimé, 2009). although past research has generally supported the notion that affiliative humor use can enhance social relationships and reduce interpersonal tensions (kuiper, 2012; martin, 2007), the intrapersonal effects of affiliative humor on the individual using this adaptive humor style are much less well understood and documented. as such, future research should directly test our proposal that reductions in the positive emotions of mirth and joy that accompany the suppression of affiliative humor use would also impact negatively on positive self-concept growth, mastery, and resilience (kuiper, 2012). this future work should clearly document how any reductions in opportunities for the emotional regulation of negative emotions, via this adaptive humor style, may then lead to an accompanying loss of social support that buffers against disruptive emotions, such as anxiety. again, this would require a move towards research designs that observe and measure these various constructs across time, and in different real-life settings. further work in this domain should be cognizant of other possible aspects of intolerance of uncertainty that might contribute to the suppression of affiliative humor use. as one example, dispositional intolerance of uncertainty is marked by a fundamental aversion to ambiguous life situations, with these events being extremely stressful for the individual, and thus avoided or minimized (behar et al., 2009; koerner & dugas, 2008). notably, this intense fear of ambiguity is the antithesis of a fundamental component of humor, namely the enjoyment of ambiguity to cognitively play with ideas and interpretations from varying perspectives (martin, 2007). those who use humor most effectively also relish its ambiguity and accompanying suspension of certainty, making this a very difficult social and interpersonal tool to be used by those that fundamentally avoid and reject ambiguity. again, however, future research would need to precisely document how this fundamental component of humor would also contribute to limiting its effective use by those with greater intolerance of uncertainty. overall, our study also showed that the links between anxiety and humor appears to be strongest for the affiliative humor style, and virtually non-existent for aggressive humor. this pattern of findings was not surprising for aggressive humor, as past research has consistently shown that this maladaptive humor style is not related to anxiety (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). the analysis of our combined model of anxiety also revealed that, beyond affiliative humor, neither self-enhancing or self-defeating humor were significant mediators. the lack of a significant mediating path for self-enhancing humor in the combined model was somewhat unexpected; as the simple correlation pattern revealed that greater intolerance of uncertainty was indeed associated with significantly less self-enhancing humor use and that less use of self-enhancing humor was also associated with greater worry and anxiety. that these paths were not significant, however, in the subsequent mediator analysis, suggests that self-enhancing humor does not play a strong mediating role in our overall combined model of generalized anxiety. this failure to find a mediating effect for self-enhancing humor in the combined model may reflect, in part, the strong mediator path that was evident through affiliative humor. in addition, however, it may also reflect the possibility that self-enhancing humor may play a much more circumscribed role in anxiety. this may be the case, as self-enhancing humor also did not play a significant mediating role in any of the worry content domain analyses. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 553 http://www.psychopen.eu/ here, it was only affiliative humor that continued to show strong mediating effects. as such, the possible role of self-enhancing humor in generalized anxiety development and maintenance certainly requires further theoretical clarification and testing. this testing should also include the examination of humor styles use in actual life settings that are particularly problematic for the individual, as these may be more relevant to coping attempts which rely mostly on self-enhancing humor use, rather than affiliative humor. it is also interesting to note that self-defeating humor was not a significant mediator in our combined model; nor did it mediate any of the specific worry content domains in the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety. even the pattern of simple correlations showed that self-defeating humor use was only related to intolerance of uncertainty, and not to excessive worry or generalized anxiety. taken together, these findings are somewhat puzzling, as prior work has shown that increased use of self-defeating humor is associated with greater anxiety (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). as such, it is clear that future work should continue to investigate the possible role of self-defeating humor in anxiety. one possibility, for example, is this particular humor style may be more pertinent to the development and maintenance of specific forms of anxiety, such as social anxiety, rather than the generalized anxiety per se. consistent with this proposal, recent work in our lab has shown that individuals portrayed as being socially anxious are much more rejected by their peers when they use self-defeating comments that are either humorous or non-humorous (kuiper, aiken, & pound, in press). what is still required, however, is a demonstration that compares the use of self-defeating humor by socially anxious individuals with the use of this same style by those with generalized anxiety. this may then begin to elucidate more clearly the specific relationships that this maladaptive humor style may have with various forms of anxiety. conclusions and summary overall, our findings for affiliative humor make it quite clear that a decrease in the use of this adaptive style can exert a strong impact on increasing anxiety levels. this mediating effect was evident not only in our overall combined model, but also for most of the specific worry content domains associated with the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety. thus, in addition to excessive worry, increases in worry content across four specific domains (relationships, lack of confidence, an aimless future, and incompetent performance at work or school), all led to a suppression of affiliative humor use, with this reduction in adaptive humor then resulting in more anxiety. overall, this pattern of findings supports the notion that affiliative humor is the most important humor style with respect to generalized anxiety. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 554 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references abel, m. h. 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(2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. new york, ny: academic press. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 kuiper, klein, vertes et al. 555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.15.4.365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/jscp.21.2.165.22516 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2009.07.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1967.10544910 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2004.02.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)90048-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980209604826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-007-9125-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v8i3.464 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.2004.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v6i3.215 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(95)00072-e http://www.psychopen.eu/ martin, r. a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., & weir, k. 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(1992). a questionnaire for the measurement of nonpathological worry. personality and individual differences, 13, 161-168. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(92)90038-q about the authors dr. nicholas kuiper has been a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, self-schema processing of personal information, and other topics of interest. dr. dana klein completed her degree in the clinical psychology program at university of western ontario, and is currently in private practice as a clinical psychologist. jaclyn vertes completed her bachelor’s degree in psychology at the university of western ontario. she is currently completing her medical degree at trinity college dublin medical school. nadiamaiolino is enrolled in the ph.d. clinical psychology graduate program at the university of western ontario. her research interests include personality characteristics and strategies that contribute to well-being. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 543–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.752 humor styles and anxiety 556 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00534-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2013.01.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(90)90135-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/brm.40.3.879 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1754073908097189 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2011.08.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1026474715384 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(92)90038-q http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor styles and anxiety introduction the intolerance of uncertainty model of generalized anxiety humor styles in the intolerance of uncertainty model of anxiety humor styles and the content domains of worry method participants measures procedure results humor styles and the worry content domains discussion conclusions and summary (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors subjective well-being of children in the context of educational transitions research reports subjective well-being of children in the context of educational transitions cross-sequential results from two european countries with different school systems günter krampen*ab [a] department of psychology, university of trier, trier, germany. [b] université du luxembourg, luxembourg, luxembourg. abstract the objective of two empirical studies is the analysis of the development of subjective well-being in kindergarten and elementary school students in the context of the educational transitions (1) from kindergarten to elementary school and (2) from elementary to secondary schools in two different national school systems. semi-structured interviews on self-esteem and dysthymic mood (i.e., low spirits, feelings of depressiveness and of dejection) were administered in 5 cohorts (two kindergarten and the first three elementary school years). measurements were repeated three times each a year apart. samples refer to 312 german and 244 luxembourg children enrolled in educational systems with optional kindergarten, 4-year comprehensive elementary school, and educational placement thereafter (germany) versus obligatory kindergarten and 6-year comprehensive elementary school (luxembourg). timeand age-effects point to significant discontinuities in the development of subjective well-being. there are declines of self-esteem and increases of dysthymic mood just after school enrollment (“transition shock”) in the luxembourg sample, whereas quite similar developments are observed in the last elementary school year before educational placement for secondary education in the german sample. school enrollment and educational placement for secondary education are critical life events with significant impact on children’s well-being, which varies between different school systems. keywords: well-being, school transition, cross-sequential analysis, school enrollment, educational placement, national differences europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 received: 2013-07-28. accepted: 2013-09-14. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland. *corresponding author at: university of trier, 54286 trier, germany. e-mail: krampen@uni-trier.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction subjective well-being is a significant indicator and prerequisite of positive development throughout the whole life course including early and middle childhood. subjective well-being and mental health ensure freedom of action, acting out of curiosity, exploration, and learning, willingness for action, and—at least for some—risk taking, as well as self-confidence, attachment to significant others, and self-actualization (see, e.g., furlong, gilman, & huebner, 2009; krampen, seiger, & steinebach, 2012; peterson & seligman, 2004; rogers, 1961; seligman, 2002). besides feelings and mood (e.g., happiness, dysthymic mood, life satisfaction, etc.) self-esteem is conceptualized as a significant (normative) part and indicator of subjective well-being in the historically early humanistic approaches to optimal development and mental health (see, e.g., bühler, 1971; bühler & allen, 1972; maslow, 1954, 1962; rogers, 1961) as well as in the neo-humanistic approaches (e.g., positive psychology; peterson & seligman, 2004; seligman, 2002). self-esteem, defined by the judgment and feelings about the self, can be described normatively as being positive versus negative, while self-concept is defined by the information or cognitions europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ an individual has about himself or herself, which “can be characterized by its realism or unrealism, its completeness or incompleteness, or by the complexity of the concepts used to describe the self” (germain, 1978, p. 386). because both self constructs are interwoven, it is difficult to measure self-esteem and self-concept independently especially in school age children, whose self is in developmental differentiation with reference to their different life domains as well as to the separating of self-esteem and (e.g., academic) self-concept (see, e.g., germain, 1978). threats to individual well-being, that is—amongst others—self-esteem and (dysthymic) mood—result from nonnormative, historical, and normative critical life events, which are individually anticipated and/or experienced as stressful without possibilities of effective coping (e.g., lazarus & folkman, 1984). thus, such life events cannot be—at least at first—subjectively understood and conceptualized as challenges for one’s own development with the coping strategies at hand immediately or in the (near) future. nonnormative critical life events can arise for everyone at any time (e.g., sudden illness, accidents, sudden illness or death of a loved one), historical life events arise for members of a cohort at the same time (e.g., war, economic boom or economic recession, technological innovations, catastrophes), and normative critical life events are more or less strongly defined cultural and/or national social norms and laws in question (e.g., school enrollment, student college enrollment, females’ versus males’ typical marriage age, retirement age). state of research on educational transitions on children in schools normative critical life events have—in contrast to nonnormative and historical ones—the advantage that prevention is possible, because of their predictability within the cultural and/or national defined social norms and laws in question. referring to this potential of prevention, stewart, sokol, healy, chester, and weinstock-savoy (1982) presented the results of cross-sectional studies on adaption to life changes in children and adults, which are initiated by the normative critical life events of children’s school enrollment, students’ college enrollment, women’s marriage, and women’s first childbirth. stewart et al. describe the successful adaptation to all of these four different normative life events in different age stages very consistently, but quite generally by means of the stages (1) orientation and information acquirement, (2) striving for autonomy and assertiveness, and (3) integration. however, successful adaptation and coping can fail and subjective well-being can be affected negatively in each of these three stages. disorientation and gathering of incorrect information at stage i lead to a feeling of unease, low freedom of action, the risk to fail, and to be kept at this stage in confusion. very strong striving for autonomy and assertiveness in stage ii can result in social isolation and depressive mood and, on the other hand, tenuous autonomy and low assertiveness at stage ii can result in high conformity and feelings of social dependency and loss of control. disintegration at stage iii carries the risk of subjective failure in coping with ‘everyday’ life challenges, which subjectively are mastered by most—perhaps subjectively even all—others, with negative effects on self-concept, self-esteem, mood, and well-being. all of these risks at the different stages result in stress, impair subjective wellbeing, and can—in the worst case—facilitate the development of mental and/or somatoform disorders. besides school enrollment, educational placement for secondary education is another apposite and good example for normative critical life events in childhood, for both of which—at least in part—cross-national differences exist. especially the impact of school enrollment on childhood development has been investigated frequently with reference to children’s cognitive development and personality development as well. empirical results confirm more or less strong effects, which have been named in part by catchwords like “creativity slump” (e.g., kaufman & beghetto, 2009; krampen, 2012; torrance, 1968) or “transition shock” (entwisle, alexander, pallas, & cadigan, 1988) occurring after school entry. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 745 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there are fewer empirical studies on the impact of educational placement for secondary education (after finishing elementary school) on childhood development. this can be explained by the fact that only relatively few national educational systems provide for early educational placement after the 4th, 5th, or 6th elementary school grade in favor of long-term comprehensive schooling systems. an important exception are the studies of the eccles-midgley research group at the university of michigan at ann arbor on the negative effects of the transition from 6th grade elementary to 7th grade middle grade schools / junior high schools on student motivation, self-esteem as well as selfand task-related beliefs in mathematics (e.g., eccles, midgley, et al., 1993; eccles, wigfield, et al., 1993; feldlaufer, midgley, & eccles, 1988; midgley, feldlaufer, & eccles, 1989a, 1989b; wigfield, eccles, mac iver, reuman, & midgley, 1991). in a stage-environment fit model eccles, midgley, et al. (1993, p. 90) “advance the hypothesis that some of the negative psychological changes (…) result from a mismatch between the needs of developing adolescents and the opportunities afforded them by their social environments in the school and in the home.” students’ perceptions of their teachers’ supportiveness and teachers’ sense of efficacy seem to be crucial: “students who moved from highto low-efficacy math teachers during the transition ended the junior high year with the lowest expectancies and perceived performance (even lower than students who had low efficacy teachers in both years) and the highest perceptions of task difficulty” (midgley et al., 1989a, p. 247). teacher data and observations in classrooms showed that—in comparison to 6th grade elementary school teachers—junior high school teachers in general “controlled students more, provided them with fewer decision-making opportunities, and felt less efficacious” (eccles, wigfield, et al., 1993, p. 553). therefore, after the transition students were given fewer opportunities for input, interaction, and cooperation (feldlaufer et al., 1988) which can result in a “developmental mismatch (…) between maturing children and the classroom environments they experience before and after the transition to junior high school” (feldlaufer et al., 1988, p. 133). concerning educational placement for secondary education (after finishing elementary school) there are—in addition—empirical studies demonstrating the effects of mainstreaming, ability grouping, and educational placement in secondary and college education on the self-concept and achievement of children, adolescents, and young adults, which are explained by the change of the students’ reference group. originally, these studies refer to the classic ‘reference-group effect’ (see, e.g., schwarzer, lange, & jerusalem, 1982), which has been recently renamed in the research domains of giftedness and ability grouping by the catchword ‘big fish little pond effect’ (see, e.g., dai & rinn, 2008; marsh, 1987; marsh, trautwein, lüdtke, baumert, & köller, 2007; wouters, de fraine, colpin, van damme, & verschueren, 2012). research on school enrollment or on educational placement too mainly concerns institutional adaptation itself (e.g., entwisle et al., 1988; stewart et al., 1982) and—primarily—the prediction of academic achievement (e.g., dai & rinn, 2008; entwisle et al., 1988; garrison, earls, & kindlon, 1984; graue & diperna, 2000; keogh, 1986; klein, 1982; lee, 2010; maaz, trautwein, ludtke, & baumert, 2008; zakharova & tagieva, 1986). investigations refer less often to certain aspects of personality development (with the obvious focus on self-concept and on cognitive development, especially creativity development; e.g., cole et al., 2001; dai & rinn, 2008; eccles, wigfield, et al., 1993; kaufman & beghetto, 2009; krampen, 2012; torrance, 1968; wigfield et al., 1991; wouters et al., 2012; zakharova & tagieva, 1986), and even less to the subjective well-being of students (ederer, 1987) and to more prolonged developmental analyses of the transitions processes and their midand long-term effects. the last is in conjunction with the methodologically weak developmental design of many empirical studies, which make europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 746 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recourse to cross-sectional and to (rather short-term) longitudinal designs with limited time spans, that is, mostly, for a half or only one year. we are in need of developmental studies with (1) longer time spans (at least, e.g., for two, three years or even more) and (2) studies with methodologically more ambitious and meaningful developmental designs (beyond cross-sectional and longitudinal designs), that is, cross-sequential designs permitting the interpretation of cohort and time effects in development within one study. cross-sectional designs compare age groups at one time of measurement confounding age and birth cohort, longitudinal designs include different times of measurement (in one or more cohorts) confounding age and time effects. the advantage of cross-sequential design is the possibility to identify age effects in direct comparison to time effects and cohort effects (at least, when repeated measurement effects are controlled). a second methodological restriction of the existing empirical studies on educational transitions concerns their focus on descriptive developmental analyses within one given (national) school and educational system. because there is no possibility to compare the developmental processes under study between different school systems with different educational transition points, all observed developmental processes may refer to general, “natural” developmental processes of personality, achievement, and/or psychosocial development in childhood. of course, experimental randomization of students to different school systems and educational transitions is not possible for ethical reasons. however, a quasi-experimental, naturalistic research approach is possible, that is, one in which children’s subjective well-being and the development of their well-being is analyzed in the context of the specific transition characteristics of different existing national educational administration systems. present studies: objectives, design, and implementation in a cross-sequential study with the strong focus on creativity development in kindergarten and elementary school students from luxembourg and germany (krampen, 2012), data on two indicators of subjective well-being (i.e., self-esteem and dysthymic mood) were additionally obtained with a primary explorative research motivation. this exploratory motivation and concerns traces back to the problems in the measurement of self-concept and dysthymic mood in young children, at least, kindergarteners without reading and writing skills and without access to information from children’s reference persons (e.g., parents and/or teachers). thus, it was decided to make an attempt of measurement via semi-structured interviews of the children after individual creativity and intelligence testing. the study was implemented in two different educational systems in neighboring regions in western europe. the first educational system is in luxembourg. in this system, pupils are obligated to attend kindergarten for two years (last two years before elementary school enrollment), a six-year comprehensive elementary school, and educational placement for secondary education after the 6th school year. the second educational system is in germany, and consists of an optional kindergarten education, a four-year comprehensive elementary school, which is followed by the educational placement into secondary education. the difference between optional (germany) versus mandatory (luxembourg) kindergarten education do not result in selection biases, because dual working parents (58% in luxembourg vs. 61% in germany), traditional families with one spouse working and the other not (30% vs. 31%) and single parents (12% vs. 8%) are comparably represented in the samples of the two studies presented in the following. planning and design of the investigations in both countries are identical. however, due to differences in test administration in the two countries, statistical analyses were conducted separately and the results are presented here as two independent studies. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 747 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these differences result from the fact that luxembourg is a multilingual nation with three official languages (french, german, and lëtzeburgisch) and multilingual education. furthermore, approximately 40% of the inhabitants of luxembourg have amigration background and another primary language (mainly portuguese, italian, and english). it must be noted that these languages—to a great extent—are linguistically weakly related languages, because they belong to the romance versus proto-indo-european language families with different language histories including differences not only in semantics and morphology but in syntax and pragmatics too. therefore, inhabitant and migrant luxembourg college students carried out test administration and semi-structured interview in the luxembourg sample in the preferred language of the child. the german region (which is a direct neighbor of luxembourg in the open eu countries) is monolingual (german) with only approximately 5% of the inhabitants with a migration background. therefore, all kindergartens and schools are monolingual (foreign language learning starts in the 5th school year) and all the children were tested and interviewed in the german language by german college students. thus, multilingual data gathering in the luxembourg sample andmonolingual data gathering in the german sample require separate data analyses including within-sample test score standardizations. within sample standardizations (implemented separately for each complete national sample including all times of repeated measurement) lead to linear transformed standard values of equivalent terman-values (t-values). thus, the identity of the two countries is preserved, and the comparison of the results in the general discussion section is aimed to the crossnational comparison in which each national context presents some specificity in terms of language and educational system. the objective of the present studies is to explore the development of subjective well-being in children in the context of educational transitions concerning (1) school enrollment after either obligatory (luxembourg) or voluntary (germany) kindergarten education and (2) experienced (germany) or anticipated (luxembourg) educational placement for secondary education. assuring high standards of developmental psychology research (i.e., crosssequential design and control of retest effects in repeated measurements), a quasi-experimental approach (which refers to the given reality of two different national educational administration systems in neighboring european countries) was implemented. the research is necessary and different from existing studies on the topic, because of the above described limitations of the empirical state of the art in design as well as in methodology. study i: the german study method sample — corresponding to the study on creativity development in childhood (krampen, 2012), participants of the study were 312 kindergarten and elementary school students (some of them becoming secondary school students at the later times of measurement) living in southwest germany in the city of trier (approximately 100,000 inhabitants) as well as in surrounding towns and villages. this german region is located in the heart of western europe and is situated directly next to the open european border to luxembourg. children were selected randomly (controlling for sex) from five different educational cohorts: children were enrolled in the next to last kindergarten year (n = 62), last kindergarten year (n = 62) as well as in the 1st (n = 63), 2nd (n = 62), and 3rd elementary school year (n = 63). age span at initial test was 4 to 9 years (m = 6.8, sd = 1.61 years). the sample comprised 156 females and 156 males. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 748 http://www.psychopen.eu/ after a (suitable for the child’s age) description of the content and times of testing was provided, informed consent was obtained from each child participant. specifically, on a form depicting a child being tested by an adult, the older children provided their signature and the younger children drew a small individual drawing as substitute for a signature. before this, however, written consent for the investigation and data gathering was obtained from the educational administration authorities, the school principal, the child’s teacher, and his/her parents. of all individuals contacted, there were three refusals for participation: two from parents and one from a kindergarten child. procedure — the children were retested one year as well as two and three years after the initial test (t1). all tests were administered in the winter season after being in the (new) educational cohort, that is, in the kindergarten, elementary school, or secondary school grade level for approximately 10 weeks. thus, longitudinal data refer to four times of measurement within three years (t1, t2, t3, and t4). this builds up a cross-sequential design with 5 educational cohorts and 4 times of measurement. as a consequence, at t2 children were enrolled in the last kindergarten year up to the 4th elementary school year, at t3 to the 1st elementary up to the 5th school year (i.e., the 1st grade level of secondary education), and at t4 the data cover up the 2nd elementary school year up to the 6th grade level (i.e., the 2nd grade level of secondary education). age span at t4 was t1-age plus 3 years, i.e., 7 to 12 years (m = 9.7, sd = 1.62). because of continuous contact with the children and their teachers, dropout rates were low: retests could be administered at t2 with 310 (99%), at t3 with 307 (98%), and at t4 with 295 children (95%) of the initial sample tested at t1. dropout analyses did not indicate any biases with reference to the educational cohorts and to the dependent variables tested at the prior times of measurement. in addition, for the control of possible retest effects in test scores, at t2 n = 90 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school years) were tested for the first time. informed consent was obtained from the children in this additional sample as in the main sample described above. measures — after creativity and intelligence testing (for details, see, krampen, 2012; range of test duration: 4570 minutes with 10to 20-minute breaks taken by approximately 40% of the children), short semi-structured interviews were administered to the single child by the test administrator in the german language. eight items each concern self-esteem and dysthymic mood of the child equaling a total of 16 items in all. all items were adopted from ederer’s (1987) questionnaire scales for the measurement of “dysthymia, psychosocial dependency, and self-esteem in ten-year-old boys and girls”. item selection was oriented to (high) item-scale correlation and (medium-size) item difficulty in the original 10-year-old sample (ederer, 1987), but adjusted to kindergartener’s language and cognitive development and item understandability. the interviews were administered in a semi-structured manner similar to semi-structured clinical interviews. that is, the interviewer questions the child adaptively according to the child’s understanding of the question, and gives examples with reference to the item content, explores, enquires, requests, and talks with the child about the topic of the item. answer categories or rating scales are not presented to the child. instead of this, all information from the shared dialog about each item topic are condensed to a rating made by the interviewer that the child (a) agrees with the item topic (3 points), (b) is somewhat unclear in his/her statements (2 points), or (c) rejects the item topic for his own person (1 point). thus, by means of the semi-structured interview, diagnostic ratings (life-record data from observations and ratings, i.e., l’-data in the terminology of cattell, 1965) and not the answers of the child him/herself directly (answers to questions, i.e., q-data in the terminology of cattell, 1965) are obtained. item examples below refer to the beginning of the questions and not to the entire discourse about the questions between interviewer and child. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 749 http://www.psychopen.eu/ two of the eight items for the measurement of self-esteem (sel) each concern (1) self-evaluation of own competences and characteristics (e.g., “how good is your performance in singing, gymnastics, playing alone, or…?”), (2) satisfaction with own achievements and actions (e.g., “are you always satisfied with your drawings, paintings, and pieces of handicraft…?”), (3) self-evaluations of own competences in social comparison to peers (e.g., “is your performance in … much better, the same as, or worse that this of your peer friends?”), and (4) subjectively perceived evaluations by others (“does your teacher [mother] applaud you very often, often, or rarely when you perform in…?”). it must be noted that—explicated in the introduction with reference to germain (1978)—there is a mixture of (normative) self-esteem and subjective evaluations of own performances in the items of this scale, which—however—is adequate for the measurement of normative aspects of the self in school-aged children (see, e.g., germain, 1978). two of the eight items for themeasurement of dysthymic mood (dm) each refer to (1) the frequency of unexplainable dysphoric states subjectively experienced by the child (e.g., “are you sometimes, frequently, or seldom sad without knowing why?”), (2) desire for more emotional caring and affection of others (“how much would you like more caring and affection shown to you by other children [adults]?”), (3) unexplainable fears of being punished and disciplined (e.g., “are you sometimes, frequently, or seldom afraid to be punished without knowing why?”), and (4) cognitive perseveration with negative content (e.g., “do you sometimes, frequently, seldom, or never to think about bad things and can’t stop it?”). it should be noted that the term “dysthymic mood” is preferred as opposed to the diagnostic mental disorder terms “dysthymia” or “depressive symptoms” (ederer, 1987) to avoid psychopathological labeling and stigmatization of children with upper scale values. rather, in the focus of the items are feelings of depressiveness and dejection or—in general terms—low spirits. reliability of the self-esteem and dysthymic mood scores is evaluated by cronbach’s alpha for each of the four times of measurement (see table 1). the reliability coefficients are satisfactory for statistical analyses at the group level (sd: α > .74 and dm: α > .72). item parameters do not indicate the need for item selection or deletion, because the results on item-scale correlations and item difficulties are sufficient, but variable between the times of measurement. results of study i: germany test-retest effects — checks for retest effects on test scores utilize the data from the n = 90 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t2. comparisons of this new sample with the longitudinal sample retested at t2 did not result in statistically significant mean differences neither for the test scores on self-esteem [t(400) = 0.55; p > .10] nor for these on dysthymic mood [t(400) = 0.69; p > .10]. positional stability versus plasticity over time — relative (i.e., positional) changes examined longitudinally in the 4-year time span are low to medium in self-esteem and dysthymic mood. there is a slight, albeit nonsignificant tendency of positional stability to be higher for mood (see table 1). correlation coefficients of sel and dm scores, respectively, decline to less than 4% common variance between more distant times of measurement. thus, there is a low positional stability of the two indicators of subjective well-being in childhood development tested one to three years apart. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 750 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s α), intercorrelations and correlations with intelligence of self-esteem and dysthymic mood at the four times of measurement as well as coefficients of test-retest stability between the four times of measurement in the german sample rsel/dm scale n coefficient dysthymic mood (dm)self-esteem (sel)time of measurement internal consistency (α) 3121st measurement (t1) .14*-.74.76 3102nd measurement (t2) .10-.73.78 3073rd measurement (t3) .07-.73.75 2954th measurement (t4) .14-.77.76 correlation with intelligence (r) 3121st measurement (t1) .08-.12* 3102nd measurement (t2) .30**-.22** 3073rd measurement (t3) .32**-.28** 2954th measurement (t4) .42**-.27** test-retest-stability (rtt) 310t1 t2 .33**.25** 305t1 t3 .28**.21** 294t1 t4 .24**.20** 307t2 t3 .35**.32** 294t2 t4 .29**.27** 294t3 t4 .31**.34** *p < .05. **p < .01. correlations of self-esteem, dysthymicmood, intelligence, and creativity— intercorrelations of self-esteem and dysthymic mood for the four times of measurement (see table 1) are—as expected—negative, but—not as expected—very low and only reach statistical significance in two of the four times of measurement. common variance does not exceed 2%. in connection with the reliability coefficients (see above and table 1), this result points at a sufficient reliability of the differences of measurement between the scales on sel and dm. therefore, it can be concluded that self-esteem and dysthymic mood are two statistically relative independent, distinct indicators of subjective well-being, at least, in childhood. in part, this is confirmed by means of the correlations of both variables with general intelligence (standard progressive matrices, spm; raven, court, & raven, 1979; for details, see, krampen, 2012): at all four times of measurement, a significant positive correlation is observed between intelligence and self-esteem (at most, 8% common variance; see table 1). on the other hand, at t2-t3, the correlation of intelligence to dysthymic mood is significantly negative and the numerical values are slightly higher (at most, 18% common variance; see table 1). thus, intelligence test performance is connected somewhat more to dysthymic mood (and may be restrained by this) than it is connected to (positive) self-esteem (which facilitates performance less). however, this interpretation is contradicted by the result that neither self-esteem nor dysthymic mood shows essential correlations to ideational fluency and ideational flexibility, which are used as indicators of creativity and creativity development in childhood (for measurement details, see, krampen, 2012): correlation coefficients between dysthymic mood and the creativity indicators vary between -.08 < r < .01 (p > .10), the correlations between self-esteem and creativity vary between .00 < r < .12 (r > .11; p < .05). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 751 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 results of analyses of variance for self-esteem (sel) and dysthymic mood (dm) with the between factor educational cohort (5) and the repeated measurement factor time of measurement (4) in the luxembourg sample (n = 228) and the german sample (n = 294) dysthymic mood (dm)self-esteem (sel)manova effect german students cohort f(4/290) .34**15.63**13 effect size (f) .53.48 time f(3/870) .04**12.22**14 effect size (f) .48.52 cohort x time f(12/870) .111.940 effect size (f) .01.04 luxembourg students cohort f(4/224) .90**16.02**17 effect size (f) .60.61 time f(3/672) .70**15.59**16 effect size (f) .57.58 cohort x time f(12/672) .321.681 effect size (f) .01.04 **p < .01. absolute changes (mean-level): cohort and time effects — cross-sequential data analyses were computed by analyses of variance (anova) with the between-factor five educational cohorts and the repeatedmeasurement factor four times of measurement, each being one year apart from the other. results of the computed anovas are presented for the german study in the upper half of table 2. firstly, in agreement with the introduction (there is no such hypothesis), there are no statistically significant interaction terms. secondly, the main effects of the between (cohort) and repeated measurement (time) factors are statistically significant. following the terminology of cohen (1988), the effect sizes (f) of all anova main effects are located at the boundary between small and medium effect sizes. the cross-sequential results are presented graphically in figures 1 and 2. the overlap of cross-sectional and longitudinal developmental gradients is high for both indicators of subjective well-being. this illustrates and confirms the agreements of the anova main effects of cohort and time of measurement. the cross-sequential results on self-esteem (see figure 1) show a very steady trend from the next to last kindergarten year to the 2nd grade level of elementary school (post hoc single mean comparisons: p > .10), after this we find a slight (statistically nonsignificant; p > .10) decrease at the 3rd grade level, a strong decrease (statistically significant; p < .01) at the 4th grade level of elementary school (just before educational placement for secondary education), and a recovery in self-esteem at the 1st and 2nd grade level of secondary school (p < .05). in contrast, dysthymic mood is low at both kindergarten levels and at the 1st elementary school grade, shows an increase at the 2nd and 3rd grade level (p < .01), which intensifies at the 4th grade level (p < .05), and drops slightly at the first two grade levels of secondary education (statistically nonsignificant, p > .10; see figure 2). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 752 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. cross-sequential results on self-esteem (sel) in the german sample. figure 2. cross-sequential results on dysthymic mood (dm) in the german sample. short discussion of study i: germany longitudinal and cross-sectional data are in agreement for the development of subjective well-being in childhood. however, it has to be noted that the developmental gradients of the two indicator variables show some differences: self-esteem is high from kindergarten up to the 2nd elementary grade level, thus, there is no “transition shock” after school enrollment. hints for a decline in self-esteem are found at the 3rd elementary grade level and become strong at the 4th elementary grade level, just before educational placement for secondary education in the german educational system. on the other hand, dysthymic mood shows—after low scores from kindergarten up to the 1st elementary grade level—an earlier increase at the 2nd and 3rd grade level as well as reaching a maximum score at the 4th elementary grade level, with this last finding being in agreement with the lowest score in self-esteem. after educational placement for secondary education and the transition to a new reference peer group there are hints for a slight decrease in dysthymic mood, which—however—does not reach the mean score levels found at the kindergarten and 1st elementary grade levels. positional stability of both indicators of well-being is low, pointing europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 753 http://www.psychopen.eu/ at significant intraindividual differences in the developmental processes. cross-sectional and longitudinal data are—with reference to reliability as well as to the lack of hints on retest effects and dropout biases—sound. study ii: the luxembourg study method sample — corresponding to the study on creativity development in childhood (krampen, 2012) participants of the study were 244 kindergarten and elementary school students living in the capital city of luxembourg (approximately 90.000 inhabitants) as well as in the surrounding towns and villages. they were selected randomly (controlling for sex) from five different educational cohorts: children were enrolled in the next to the last kindergarten year (n = 47), last kindergarten year (n = 45) as well as in the 1st (n = 56), 2nd (n = 45), and 3rd elementary school year (n = 43). age span at initial test was 4 to 9 years (m = 6.7, sd = 1.57 years). the sample consists of 124 females (51%) and 120 males (49%). just as in the german study (see above), informed consent was obtained from each child after a (suitable for the child’s age) description of the content and times of testing was provided. before the children were approached, written permission for the investigation was obtained from the educational administration authorities, the school principal, the child’s teacher, and his/her parents. in this study, none of the approaches children, parents, or teachers refused participation. procedure — just as in the german study, the children were retested one year as well as two and three years after the initial test (t1). all tests were administered in the winter season after being in the (new) educational cohort, that is, in the kindergarten or elementary school grade level, for approximately 10 weeks. this builds up a crosssequential design with 5 educational cohorts and 4 times of measurement. as a consequence, at t2, children were enrolled in the last kindergarten year up to the 4th elementary school year, at t3 in the 1st up to the 5th school year, and at t4 the data covers the 2nd up to the 6th elementary school year. age span at t4 was t1 age plus 3 years, that is, 7 to 12 years (m = 9.6, sd = 1.55). because of continuous contact to the children and their teachers, dropout rates are low: retests could be administered at t2 with 235 (96%), at t3 with 232 (95%), and at t4 with 228 children (93%) of the initial sample tested at t1. dropout analyses did not indicate any biases with reference to the educational cohorts and to the dependent variables tested at the prior times of measurement. in addition, for the control of possible retest effects in test scores, at t2 n = 115 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year), at t3 n = 50 children (1st to 5th elementary school year), and at t4 n = 88 children (2nd to 6th elementary school year) were tested for their first time. informed consent was obtained from the children in this additional sample as in the main sample described above. measures — as in the german study, after creativity and intelligence testing (for details, see, krampen, 2012; range of test duration: 50-75 minutes with 10to 20-minute breaks taken by approximately 45% of the children), short semi-structured interviews for the measurement of self-esteem and dysthymic mood were administered to the child by the test administrator in the child’s preferred (primary) language. this change of the data-gathering technique must be done because of the multilingual culture in luxembourg and because of the different primary languages of children. for that, all 16-anchor items of the semi-structured interview applied in the german study (see above) were translated into french, lëtzeburgisch, portuguese, and italian by multilingual native speakers. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 754 http://www.psychopen.eu/ multilingual test administrators interviewed and talked to the child in his/her preferred language (t1-sample: n = 102 lëtzeburgisch, n = 64 german, n = 59 french, n = 16 portuguese, n = 3 italian). just as in the german study, reliability of the self-esteemand dysthymic mood scores is evaluated by cronbach’s alpha for each of the four times of measurement (see table 3). all reliability coefficients are low and only barely sufficient for statistical analyses at the group level (sel: .57 < α < .60 and dm: .49 < α < .58). because there are no distinct empirical hints for item selection and scale reduction, all statistical analyses were computed by means of these scores with weak coefficients of reliability, which is attributed to the unavoidable heterogeneous procedure of multilingual data gathering. this is confirmed by the results of separate reliability analyses in the t1-subsamples of 102 testing in lëtzeburgisch (sel: α = .86; dm: α = .79), 64 testing in german language (sel: α = .81; dm: α = .73), and 59 testing in french language (sel: α = .72; dm: α = .75), which are comparable to the reliability coefficients in study 1. however, the low reliability of the scales measuring the two indicators of subjective wellbeing must be kept in mind in the presentation and interpretation of all results obtained in the complete luxembourg sample. results of study ii: luxembourg test-retest effects — checks for retest effects on test scores were analyzed using the data from the n = 115 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t2, the n = 50 children (1st to 5th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t3, and the n = 88 children (2nd to 6th elementary school year) tested at t4 for their first time. comparisons of these new, independent samples with the longitudinal sample retested at t2, t3, and t4, respectively, did not result in statistically significant mean differences for neither the test scores on self-esteem [sel-t2: t(348) = 0.97; t3: t(280) = 0.95; t4: t(314) = 0.58; p > .10] nor the scores on dysthymic mood [dm-t2: t(348) = 0.99; t3: t(280) = 0.62; t4: t(314) = 0.87; p > .10]. thus, retest effects in the repeated measurements of the two indicators of well-being, which may be a result of learning by prior testing or recall of test responses, are improbable. positional stability versus plasticity over time — relative (i.e., positional) changes examined longitudinally in the 4-year time span are lower than in the german sample (see table 1 and table 3 for comparison), but it must be considered that lower cronbach’s alpha coefficients set limits to the possible coefficients of positional stability. the same argument must be considered in the interpretation of the statistically significant correlation coefficients of the sel and dm scores, respectively (see table 3). however, the results seemingly confirm the results of the german study, suggesting that the positional stability of the two indicators of subjective well-being in childhood development tested one to three years apart is low. correlations of self-esteem, dysthymic mood, intelligence, and creativity— intercorrelations of self-esteem and dysthymic mood for the four times of measurement (see table 3) are negative, but statistically nonsignificant. in agreement with the results of the german study, it can be concluded that self-esteem and dysthymic mood are statistically two relatively independent, distinct indicators of subjective well-being, at least, in childhood. just as in the german study, this is—in part—confirmed by means of the correlations of both variables with general intelligence (standard progressive matrices, spm; raven et al., 1979; for details, see, krampen, 2012): at all four times of measurement, a significant positive correlation is observed between intelligence and self-esteem (at most, 7% common variance; see table 3). on the other hand and as in the german study, at t2-t3 the correlation of intelligence to dysthymic mood is significantly negative and the numerical values are—at least two times—slightly higher (at most, 12% common variance; see table 3). again, the low reliabilities of the sel and dm scores must europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 755 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s α), intercorrelations and correlations with intelligence of self-esteem and dysthymic mood at the four times of measurement aswell as coefficients of test-retest stability between the four times of measurement in the luxembourg sample rsel/dm scale n coefficient dysthymic mood (dm)self-esteem (sel)time of measurement internal consistency (α) 2441st measurement (t1) .10-.50.59 2352nd measurement (t2) .09-.54.58 2323rd measurement (t3) .08-.55.58 2284th measurement (t4) .10-.57.58 correlation with intelligence (r) 2441st measurement (t1) .09-.15* 2352nd measurement (t2) .31**-.24** 2323rd measurement (t3) .15*-.26** 2284th measurement (t4) .35**-.24** test-retest-stability (rtt) 235t1 t2 .31**.28** 232t1 t3 .31**.27** 228t1 t4 .29**.25** 231t2 t3 .44*.37** 228t2 t4 .29**.31** 228t3 t4 .34**.32** *p < .05. **p < .01. be considered in their minimizing the numerical value of the coefficients possible. this is also true for the low correlations of self-esteem and dysthymic mood to ideational fluency and ideational flexibility, which are used as indicators of creativity and creativity development in childhood (for measurement details, see, krampen, 2012): correlation coefficients between dysthymic mood and the creativity indicators vary between -.13 < r < -.01 (r > |.11|, p < .05), the correlations between self-esteem and creativity vary between .00 < r < .14 (r > .11; p < .05). absolute changes (mean-level): cohort and time effects — just as in the german study, cross-sequential data analyses were computed by analyses of variance (anova) with the between-factor five educational cohorts and the repeated measurement factor four times of measurement. results of the computed anovas for the luxembourg study are presented in the lower half of table 2. in agreement with the introduction (there is no such hypothesis), there are no statistically significant interaction terms, but the main effects of the between (cohort) and repeated measurement (time) factors are statistically significant. following the terminology of cohen (1988), the effect sizes (f) of all anova main effects are medium. the cross-sequential results are presented graphically in figures 3 and 4. as in the german study (see above), the overlap of cross-sectional and longitudinal developmental gradients is high for both indicators of well-being. the cross-sequential results on self-esteem (see figure 3) show a marked decrease from the kindergarten years to the 1st to 4th grade levels of elementary school (post hoc single mean comparisons: p < .01), after this we find an increase (p < .01) at the 5th grade level, followed by the hint of a decrease at the 6th grade level (before educational placement for secondary education after the 6th grade level of elementary school) once again (p < .05). however, because of the study design, the last observation is grounded on longitudinal data only. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 756 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in contrast, dysthymic mood is low at both kindergarten levels, but increases significantly directly at the 1st and even more at the 2nd elementary school grade level (p < .01), remains high at the 3rd (p > .10) and shows some recovery at the 4th grade level (p < .05; see figure 4). during the last two grade levels of elementary school education, just before educational placement for secondary education in luxembourg, there is an increase of dysthymic mood once again (p < .05; see figure 4). figure 3. cross-sequential results on self-esteem (sel) in the luxembourg sample. figure 4. cross-sequential results on dysthymic mood (dm) in the luxembourg sample. short discussion of study ii: luxembourg just as in the german sample, longitudinal and cross-sectional data of the luxembourg sample are in agreement for the development of subjective well-being in childhood. in contrast to the results of the german study, the selfesteem of luxembourg children decreases and their dysthymic mood increases immediately after elementary school enrollment and remains at negative levels up to the 3rd elementary grade level. this finding points at an immediate, but three-year lasting “transition shock” in luxembourg children. this is an unexpected result, because europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 757 http://www.psychopen.eu/ most studies on transition effects in school environments are short lived (i.e., up to one school year) as in the german study described above. with reference to the model of stage-environment fit and mismatch for school transition of eccles, midgley, et al. (1993) it is hypothesized that the difference between a more supportive, less controlling kindergarten education (matching with kindergarteners’ needs and developmental stage) and a less supportive, more controlling elementary school education (mismatching with elementary students’ needs and developmental stage up to the 3rd grade level) is very large in luxembourg (e.g., larger than in the german educational system; see above). at the 4th elementary grade level the negative transition effect on subjective wellbeing attenuates, which may be explained either by students’ adaptation (developmental) processes or by changes in the educational behavior of the elementary teachers between the 3rd and the 4th grade level (which is rather implausible). however, there are some longitudinal data that show that this attenuation effect does not remain at the 5th and 6th elementary grade level: at the 6th grade level there are decreases in self-esteem, and at the 5th and the 6th elementary grade level increases in dysthymic mood are found once again, which may be related to the anticipation of educational placement for secondary education at the end of the 6th elementary grade level. positional stability of both indicators of subjective well-being is low, pointing at intraindividual differences in the developmental processes. with reference to the lack of hints on retest effects and dropout biases, cross-sectional and longitudinal data are sound, but show clear weaknesses in their reliability. cronbach’s alpha of both scales implemented as indicators for well-being are rather low in the multilingual tested complete luxembourg sample and barely sufficient for statistical analyses at the group level. general discussion the cross-sequential developmental results presented confirm the hypothesis of significant effects of educational transitions on the subjective well-being of elementary school students. this shows that children’s adaptations to such normative critical life events do not occur continuously and without problems in general stages, for example, of (1) orientation and information acquirement, (2) striving for autonomy and assertiveness, and (3) integration (stewart et al., 1982). to a greater degree and on average, these adaptive processes are connected to significant changes in self-esteem and dysthymic mood, which emerge in the context of the specific educational transition points within a given national school system. while results point to the fact that luxembourg children experience an immediate and an at least three-year lasting transition shock after enrollment to elementary school in their self-esteem and dysthymic mood as well, there is a more gentle transition from kindergarten to elementary school and no immediate transition shock after school enrollment in german children. in the german sample, significant negative changes in the two indicator variables of subjective well-being occur, however, slightly at the 3rd elementary grade level and very markedly at the 4th grade level. this may be interpreted as a delayed school enrollment effect, which is—however—hardly probable and theoretically implausible because emotional responses to life events rarely occur delayed after more than one or two years. instead, the hypothesis is offered that this impairment of subjective well-being is related to the anticipation of the upcoming educational transition by children, their parents, and their teachers. this upcoming educational transition concerns educational placement into secondary educational tracks with serious consequences for the educational and future occupational options of the children at the end of the 4th elementary grade level. this early educational placement is a special feature of the german educational system, and has recently become a topic of political and public discussion with no consensus having been reached yet. our findings concerning negative effects of the anticipation of upcoming educational transitions are new, but they correspond very well to theories and findings on the impact of critical life events, which must not be individually experienced, but can be europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 well-being of children in educational transitions 758 http://www.psychopen.eu/ anticipated without subjective possibilities of effective coping too (e.g., lazarus & folkman, 1984). this is beyond the results and hypotheses of eccles, midgley, et al. (1993; midgley et al., 1989b) on the effects during and after school transition (i.e., experienced critical life event). nevertheless, their hypothesis of the impact of stage-environment fit versus mismatch remains suitable, because 3rd and 4th graders are confronted with a more controlling, achievement-oriented and—perhaps of capital importance—much more competitive and selective educational environment in home and in school. this results from parents’ and teachers’ anticipations of the upcoming educational transition concerning selective educational placement into secondary educational tracks with serious consequences for the children at the end of the 4th elementary grade level. in consequence, the educational environment changes and mismatches the needs and developmental stage of the children. the luxembourg educational system implements an educational placement for secondary education later, that is, at the end of the 6th elementary school grade. this is in accordance with the finding that in the luxembourg sample—quite different from the german sample—recoveries of self-esteem and (dysthymic) mood are observed at the 4th and 5th elementary grade level. however, empirical evidence from the longitudinal data indicates that at the 6th grade level, self-esteem decreases markedly and dysthymic mood increases somewhat once again. with reference to the results on similar phenomena in the german sample before educational placement for secondary education at the 4th elementary grade level, this may be an effect of the upcoming educational placement for secondary education after the 6th grade level in luxembourg. at first glance, these results are convincing, particularly because the high standards of developmental psychology research are assured (i.e., cross-sequential design and control of retest effects in repeated measurements) and because a quasi-experimental approach was implemented that enabled the investigation of the given reality of two different national educational administration systems in neighboring yet distinct european regions. however, there are—at least—three limitations with reference to methodological problems of interpretation of the results presented. firstly, it must be noted that the quasi-experimental design was feasible only indirectly. this was necessary because of differences in test administration in a multilingual (luxembourg) versusmonolingual (germany) society, nation, and educational system. thus, the quasi-experimental approach resulted in convincing descriptive empirical confirmations of declines in subjective well-being after and before anticipated educational transitions which are strongly connected to specifics of the national educational administration systems studied here. thus, secondly, the exploratory power of the results remains low, because multilingual test administration in the luxembourg sample and monolingual testing in the german sample required separate data analyses including within-sample test score standardizations. this excluded the possibility of direct statistical tests of the described developmental differences between luxembourg and german kindergarten and school children. thirdly, difficult to handle is the low reliability of the scores on self-esteem and dysthymic mood deduced from the semi-structured interviews in the multilingual tested complete luxembourg sample. internal consistency coefficients (cronbach’s alpha) are good in the german sample and in the luxembourg subsamples tested either in lëtzeburgisch, german or french language, but low and only just sufficient for statistical analyses at the group level and far from being psychometrically feasible for psychological diagnostics in the complete luxembourg sample. this is attributed to the unavoidable heterogeneous procedure of multilingual data acquisition in luxembourg in contrast to germany, where all children were interviewed in the german language. however, the low reliability of the scales europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 759 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring the two indicators of subjective well-being must be kept in mind because measurement error is larger and the confidence intervals of the scores are larger as well. on the other hand, the measurement of self-esteem and dysthymic mood in kindergarten and elementary school students by means of semi-structured interviewing succeeded at least in the monolingual (german) administration as well as in the luxembourg subsamples tested either in lëtzeburgisch, german or french language. such semi-structured interview techniques are in line with piaget’s (1963, 1965, 1970) explorative diagnostic procedures in the research domains of cognitive development and the development of moral judgment in childhood, which are labeled as “clinical” experiments and interviews by piaget himself. the results of the german and some results of the luxembourg study confirm the feasibility and sufficient psychometric quality of the semi-structured interview on self-esteem and dysthymic mood, which certainly cost more time and resources than questionnaire data obtained in older children, their parents, and/or teachers. semi-structured interviewing requires individual administration with a duration of approximately 15-25 minutes per child. advantages concern the social, communicative aspects of data gathering (albeit with the danger of subjective biases), the explicit transformation of q-data to (“clinical”, diagnostic) l’-data (cattell, 1965; piaget, 1965, 1970), and—last, but surely not the least—the possibility to obtain data on indicators of subjective well-being in younger children. younger children, lacking the skills of reading and writing, are—up to now—rather rarely included in research on well-being and positive development, which focus mainly on older childhood, adolescence, and adulthood up to old age (e.g., furlong, gilman, & huebner, 2009; peterson & seligman, 2004; seligman, 2002; who, 1986). the youngsters should be not forgotten because subjective well-being and mental health are significant determinants of freedom of action, acting out of curiosity, exploration, and learning, willingness for action, and risk taking, as well as self-confidence, attachment to significant others, and self-actualization across the entire life course. summarizing, the message of practical relevance of the effects found is (1) to regularly screen self-esteem and dysthymic mood of children in the context of their educational transitions by school psychologists and health professionals, (2) to consider and implement this not only in the context of experienced critical life events during and after educational transition, but in the context of their anticipation as well, (3) to observe and evaluate transitions between different schools and within schools in the context of their stage-environment fit or mismatch, respectively, and (4) to inform teachers, parents, educational administration and educational policy on all occasions about educational “transition shocks” with reference to the specifics of the national school and educational system. furthermore, it should be routine to take self-esteem and dysthymic mood of children into account in child diagnostics as well as in child, parent, and teacher counseling, especially in the case of underachievers. funding the research project was supported by the ministère de l´education et de la jeunesse/luxembourg. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgements thanks to dr. joseph freilinger, dr. louis wilmes, joseph medernach, and the education students at the former institut supérieur d´etudes et de recherches pédagogiques (iserp) inwalferdange (luxembourg) as well as the psychology students at the university of trier (germany) for their valuable support in the data collection. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 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(1986). self-concept as a factor of psychological preparedness for school education. novye issledovaniâ v psihologii, 34(1), 41-43. about the author günter krampen is a professor of psychology at the university of trier (germany) and an associate professor of psychology at the université of luxembourg (luxembourg) with visiting professorships at universities in indonesia, switzerland, and germany. his research refers to applied psychology (clinical and educational psychology) as well as to basic research in developmental and personality psychology. science research, scientometrics, and history of psychology are other research and publication domains. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 744–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.668 krampen 763 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.6.1270 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.27.4.552 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0027732 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en well-being of children in educational transitions introduction state of research on educational transitions on children in schools present studies: objectives, design, and implementation study i: the german study method results of study i: germany short discussion of study i: germany study ii: the luxembourg study method results of study ii: luxembourg short discussion of study ii: luxembourg general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author item analysis of c, d and e series from raven’s standard progressive matrices with item response theory two-parameter logistic model nikolay georgiev abstract the present report is focused on the item response theory research methodology and descriptive potential. its purpose is to present the item analysis of c, d and e series from raven’s standard progressive matrices which were given to 506 bulgarian high school students. the basic concepts and underlying assumptions of irt are briefly reviewed. the latent variable is defined after a short check of some intelligence theories and a detailed examination of the used items. after the verification of irt assumptions, the two-parameter logistic model is selected for the analysis. the estimated item parameters are interpreted in accordance to suggested guidelines. item characteristic curves and item information functions are plotted and their features are also discussed. keywords: item response theory; two-parameter logistic model; standard progressive matrices; intelligence. introduction psychological measurement history knows great variety of conceptions concerning the most effective methods for assessment and evaluation. the characteristics to assess and evaluate are even more. however, one of these characteristics – intelligence, has been of greatest interest for the researchers for a very long period of time. enormous efforts have been devoted to experiments with hundreds or thousands examinees. many different assessment methods have been tested in order to obtain the best procedure. nevertheless, the disagreement about the nature and the structure of intelligence has been prevailing scientific knowledge for decades. the efforts however were not unprofitable. as a result from the ambition for better measurement methods of intelligence, a whole new measurement theory started to develop – item response theory. the explanatory potential of its methods spread over all behavioral characteristics that could be measured. item response theory – the modern theory for psychological measurement a brief history the conceptual foundation for item response theory was laid down by thurstone (1925) in his paper “a method of scaling psychological and educational tests” where a technique for placing the items of the binet and simon test for children on an age-graded scale is provided. thurstone’s colleagues and students continued to refine the theoretical bases of irt. lawley (1943) described maximum-likelihood estimation procedures for the item parameters. lord (1952) differentiated the latent variable from the observed test score. (according to reeve, 2004, p. 5-6). the rapid progress of item response theory starts in the 60s of 20th century and follows two separate lines of development. the first line is traced up to lord and novick and their classical textbook “statistical theories of mental test scores” (lord & novick, 1968) where original and precise measurement methods are presented. the textbook has become a manual for many people with interests in psychological measurement. the second line of development is traced up to the danish mathematician georg rasch (1960). he works out a whole family of models to develop measures of reading and to develop tests for use in the danish military. rasch’s work inspired two other psychometricians who extended his models. in europe, gerhard fischer (1974) from the university of vienna, extended the rasch model for binary data. during a visit to the united states, rasch inspired benjamin wright, an american psychometrician, to teach objective measurement principles and to extend his models. (according to embretson, 2000, p. 10-11) one of the contemporary authors with the biggest contribution to item response theory methods understanding is frank baker. according to him (baker, 2001) over the past century three people have contributed most for the development of item response theory: lawley from the university of edinburgh who showed that many of the constructs of classical test theory could be expressed in terms of parameters of the item characteristic curves; lord, whose work in the educational testing service developed the theory’s methods and many computer programs for their application; wright of the university of chicago who recognized the importance of the work of georg rasch and brought it to the attention of practitioners. “without the work of these three individuals, the level of development of item response theory would not be where it is today.” (baker, 2001, p. ii) essential concepts the fundamental peculiarity of the variables in behavioral and social sciences is that they are directly unobservable and, consequently, directly immeasurable or, in other words, latent. the primary objective of most psychological and social experiments is to assess the quantity of certain latent variables i.e. to give a value for these variables as a result obtained by the examinees on the test or tests. in order to measure a latent variable, a proper scale is needed in the first place. different people could have very different values of same latent variable. in each sample of examinees drawn from a population the latent variable has certain distribution which serves as a basis for the scale. in correspondence with the latent variable distribution and depending on their observable test result, examinees are differently scored and have different places on the latent variable scale. on every mention, the phrase ‘observable test result’ is firstly and most often associated with the total test score as a sum of all responses of the examinee. it is classical test theory that states that the total test score is the most eligible estimator of the latent variable. however, some examinees have equal total score but different responses to the test items. without fully rejecting the classical test theory’s claims, item response theory focuses on responses to different items separately, and on the particular response patterns. the purpose of item response theory methods is to explain and clarify the relationship between the latent variable and the item response. examinees possess several latent variable values. items, on the other hand, have different possible responses and each of them has corresponding probability. therefore, the relationship mentioned is a relationship between the latent variable value and the probability of certain response. to be more precise, it is a functional dependence between the latent variable value as an independent variable and the probability of the certain response as a dependent variable. for every test item this function is different and determined by the qualities of the item to measure the latent variable, quantitatively expressed as item parameters. the function itself is called item characteristic curve and is basic construct and a building block of all other constructs of item response theory. although every response category can be described by a characteristic curve, the probability of correct response is most recently used to characterize an item. an example of item characteristic curve is given in fig. 1. the latent variable is usually denoted ?, and the probability of correct response – p(?). fig. 1. item characteristic curve example and item information function example. item characteristic curve estimation through item parameters assessment makes possible the latent variable calculations. the estimated latent variable values are normally distributed with mean ? and corresponding variance s2 and standard deviation s (cramer, 1946). for each value from the latent variable interval, there is relevant amount of information that the model used for analysis with the item parameter estimations gives for the latent variable. the information shows how precise the item measures the latent variable. the smaller the standard error, the bigger the information the item gives about the latent variable is. the variability of the information between the levels of the latent variable forms the item information function. an example for item information function is shown on figure 1. assumptions the item characteristic curve can only be plotted if the responses of the examinees to the items are consistent to certain assumptions. for the unidimentional irt models these assumptions are unidimentionality, local independence and (normal) distribution. the assumption of unidimentionality of the latent variable states that each item measures a single continuous latent variable. “this assumption cannot be strictly met because several cognitive, personality, and test-taking factors always affect test performance, at least to some extent (…). what is required for the unidimensionality assumption to be met adequately by a set of test data is the presence of a “dominant” component or factor that influences test performance. this dominant component or factor is referred to as the ability measured by the test.” (hambleton, 1991, p. 9-10). according to the assumption of local independence of the items there is no direct relationship between the items and the only relationship among the item responses is a result by the conditional relationship of the items with the latent variable. “local independence means that when the abilities influencing test performance are held constant, examinees’ responses to any pair of items are statistically independent…” (hambleton, 1991, p. 10). the normal distribution of the latent variable in the population is assumed when the test score distribution approaches normal distribution. this assumption simplifies the presentation of the latent variable values as standard values with mean 0 and standard deviation 1. logistic models for dichotomous items the starting points of the development of various irt models are the models for dichotomous items. most effective among the diversity of those models are the logistic models that use logistic functions to describe the dependence between the latent variable and the probability of correct response. depending on the parameters used there are logistic models for dichotomous item, called respectively one, two, and three parameter logistic model. the one-parameter logistic model implies only the item difficulty parameter, denoted by b. the bigger the value of difficulty parameter, the smaller the overall observed probability of correct response is. the equation for the model is: (1.1) , where e is the constant , and d1˜702 is constant of the transformation between logistic and normal probability function. the units of measuring the difficulty of an item and the latent variable of an examinee are same so the difficulty parameters and the latent variable values are directly comparable. the difficulty parameter is the point on the latent variable scale at which the probability of correct response is 0,5. this point is also an inflection point of the item characteristic curve. the item information function for this model is: (1.2) where q(?)=1-p(?) is the probability for incorrect response. besides the item difficulty parameter, the two-parameter logistic model implies the item discrimination parameter, denoted by a. bigger values of item discrimination parameter mean that the item discriminates better examinees with different values of the latent variable. the equation for the model is: (2.1) . the value of the discrimination parameter reflects the steepness of the item characteristic curve. bigger values correspond to steeper curve which is best seen at the inflection point. mathematically, the one-parameter logistic model can be considered a variety of the two-parameter model with discrimination parameter equal to 1. the item information function for this model is: (2.2) . the extra parameter that is implied by the three-parameter logistic model is the guessing parameter, denoted by c. it represents the component of the probability of correct response that is due to guessing, or in other words, the probability of getting the item correct by guessing alone. the equation for the model is: (3.1) . the ordinate of the lower asymptote of the item characteristic curve is equal to the value of the guessing parameter, not equal to 0 as in the models presented previously. the meaning of the difficulty parameter is also different – the item difficulty is the point on the latent variable scale where the probability of correct response is not 0,5 but . the item information function for this model is: (3.2) . a successful theory and an adequate measurement instrument of intelligence contradictions and limitations of the factor approach having good analyzing methods is important but still not enough for the complete understanding of the latent variable of interest, especially for understanding a variable as complex as intelligence. the theory chosen and its postulates are essential for this purpose. for many years after the beginning of the serious studies on intelligence, two groups of theories have been dominating the scientific society – theories of unitary and theories of multiple structure of intelligence. the theories from the first group state that one factor dominates all cognitive abilities. in 1904, after many experiments and data analysis on intelligence spearman concluded “that all branches of intellectual activity have in common one fundamental function (or group of functions), whereas the remaining or specific elements of the activity seem in every case to be wholly different from that in all the others” (spearman, 1904, p. 284). later, cattell expanded that doctrine, suggesting that specific knowledge is the result of an investment of general cognitive ability into the formation of more specific abilities or knowledge and developing the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence (cattell, 1971). the other theories state that the intelligence consists of several independent but equipollent abilities. in 1938 thurstone presents the factor analysis results according to which there are seven primary mental abilities: verbal meaning, numbering, word fluency, rote memory, perceptual speed, spatial visualization and reasoning (thurstone, 1938). an extreme conception of the multiple structure of intelligence is proposed by guillford, who maintains that intelligence is constructed by 120 independent abilities, result of combinations of five types of operations, four types of contents, and six types of products (guilford, 1959). one of the most contemporary models, supporting the conception of multiple structure of intelligence, is developed by gardner. he claims that the intelligence is composed by at least seven frames of mind: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, body-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal (gardner, 1983). in spite of their fractional hits, these theories have some major disadvantages in explaining how the proposed intelligence structure works. multiple intelligence theories could hardly enlighten the often observed high correlations between the different factors considered to be relatively independent. by analogy, it is difficult for unitary intelligence theories to explain the individual differences in different test results by taking into account only one dominating factor. on the other hand, intelligence always operates with respect to some stimuli. it is slightly difficult for both sets of theories to completely explain the mechanism of this interaction. this deficiency is overcome by the information paradigm which considers intelligence more as a dynamic process then as a static structure. sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence according to sternberg the intelligence has to be viewed in terms of mental processes which contribute to the task performance. the focus of his work is not on the result of the performance but on the mental processes that contribute to it. therefore the intelligence should be examined in relation to: the structures and processes of intelligent functioning; the application of these structures in the external world; and the role of experience in forming intelligence and its application. (sternberg, 1985) in sternberg’s theory, intelligence is comprised of three kinds of information processing components: metacomponents, performance components, and knowledge-acquisition components. these components work together to facilitate the cognitive development. “the most important components are the metacomponents, which are used to (a) recognize the existence of a problem, (b) define the nature of the problem, (c) allocate resources to solving the problem, (d) mentally represent the problem, (e) formulate a strategy for solving the problem, (f) monitor solution of the problem while problem solving is ongoing, and (g) evaluate the solution to the problem after problem solving is done.” (sternberg, 2003). these components are related to the planning and decision making, not directly to actions. but they direct what actions should be used in solving the particular task. the performance components are the processes used to execute the problem solving strategy i.e. they are actually the actions. the performance components also include the weighing of the consequences of the actions in comparison to other options. the knowledge-acquisition components are the processes used to acquire new information, which is used in solving a potential problem. these processes are very abstract and not necessarily related to a current problem solving task. the extensive research and the deep analysis of the intelligence components and mechanisms and their relations make the triarchic theory a remarkable scientific achievement capable of putting an end on the contradictions of the factor models. it is evident that the intelligence has a modular structure and it only remains good measurement instruments to be adjusted and used for its assessment. matrix items in measuring intelligence. raven’s progressive matrices test there are lots of intelligence test that consist of different items – number sequences, anagrams, different object identification etc. for most types of items it is not difficult to identify the skills needed to get the item correct. when the items used are strongly connected only to one skill or to many completely different skills, the results can support the hypothesis about the multiple factor intelligence structure or the hypothesis about the unitary intelligence respectively. however, there are types of items with very structured stimuli material which require more than one dominating skill to be used. matrix items are such items. most frequently, a matrix item consists of nine fields situated in 3 by 3 square (fig. 2). a figure is placed in each field except the down-right one. there is a logical relation between the figures which could be seen most often but not only horizontally and vertically. the goal is to find this relation and choose a suitable figure among the given variants to be put in the last empty field. one of the best intelligence tests with matrix items is the standard progressive matrices developed by johns in raven and his colleagues. the test consists of 5 sets with 12 items in each set – 60 items in total. a and b sets are for children under 14 years of age, and c, d, and e sets are for over 14 years old persons. the author’s goal is to make every next item more difficult than the previous one. for the purposes of the present work the sets c, d, and e of the raven’s standard progressive matrices are used. each item of those sets has 8 response variants, one of which is correct. table 1 shows the logical relations between the figures in all items. fig. 2. matrix item example. as shown in table 1, the different items have different solving strategies that combine several skills. in order to give correct response to the item, the examinee should work out the logical relation between the figures and then find the figure which best complies with that relation. therefore a significant part of examinees’ abilities are involved in solving the item. the complicated solving strategy of each item unambiguously demonstrates that the items of this type do not only examine one or more basic skills, but the way that one acts deliberately and purposely to combine those skills. the results of those items hence should be interpreted in terms of sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence. when solving an item, the examinee first chooses the strategy to apply (metacomponents). it can involve rotation, moving, calculating etc. (performance components). after solving the item the examinee memorizes the strategy used independently from the stimuli material so it can be used for another item (knowledge-acquisition components). therefore, if the empirical data satisfies the assumptions of the item response theory, the latent variable should be defined as intelligence, and each response given by the examinees should be treated as a result of the interaction of its three hierarchically arranged components. table 1. logical relations in standard progressive matrices items. examination, analyses and results sampling and procedure a total of 506 students from two bulgarian high schools volunteered to participate in the examination. the students are between 14 and 18 years of age (8th to 12th grade). 203 (40.12%) of them are male and 303 (59.88%) are female. a crosstab for the sample by sex and age is shown on table 2. the examinees specified their sex and age at the back side of the answer sheet. they were asked to specify their age as an integer number indicating their complete age. the age average is 15.585 and the age standard deviation is 0.807. table 2. crosstab of the sample by sex and age. the test is given to the examinees with a standard instruction and an answer sheet on the front side of which they should specify their answers. the examinees have 40 minutes to complete the test. the responses are considered strictly and only correct or incorrect. when an item is omitted, the corresponding response is considered incorrect. the sum of the correct responses for each examinee is referred to as test score. hence, the minimum test score is 0, and the maximum test score is 36. irt assumptions verification unidimentionality. to examine the unidimentionality of the item set, its factor structure and internal consistency shall be studied. principal component factor analysis without rotation is used for factor extraction. the results are shown in table 3. the 11 extracted factors with eigenvalues over 1 are sorted in a descending order by their eigenvalues and respectively by the variation explained. the eigenvalues polygon is presented on figure 3. table 3. factor analysis results. figure 3. plot of eigenvalues. the explanatory potential of each factor shall be assessed in comparison to the explanatory potential of the other factors. the eleven factors with eigenvalues over 1.00 explain 55.91% of the variance. the first factor explains 19.62% of the variance. hence, there is one dominating factor in the factor structure of the item set. according to reckase (reckase, 1979) the necessary condition to assume unidimentionality is the dominating factor to explain round or more than 20% of the variance. the first factor satisfies that condition. according to the same author the sufficient condition to assume unidimentionality is the ratio between the eigenvalue of the first dominating factor and the eigenvalue of the second factor to be large enough, for example over 2. this ratio for the first two factors is 2.839 and therefore that condition is met as well. the satisfaction of the two conditions means that the assumption for the unidimentionality of the item set is reasonable and justifiable. local independence. when examining the dependence between items the stimulus material has key importance. the figures in the items are different. however, the logical relation between the figures in one item could be similar to the logical relation between the figures in other items. the suggestion that the response to one item could influence the response to other items is somehow sensible. nevertheless, as previously noted, the experience acquisition is related to knowledge-acquisition components and consequently it is a part from the latent variable. respectively, the influence of this experience on the overall performance is in actual fact a part of the influence of the latent variable. therefore the items are locally independent. normal distribution. the mean of the test scores is m=24.9328 and the standard deviation of the test score is s=5.6259. the histogram of the test scores is shown on figure 4. the normal distribution of the latent variable is taken for granted. figure 4. histogram of the test scores. data organization to be able to perform irt models analyses, the data should be strictly organized. first, the examinees who have responded correctly or incorrectly to all items shall be removed from the data set. the items which have been given only correct or incorrect responses should also be removed from the data set. there are no such items or examinees in the present data set. second, the examinees should be grouped in accordance with their test score. since there are mostly 35 different test scores, there could be at most 35 groups of examinees. there is a standard value corresponding to each test score. this standard value should be the initial and intuitive value of the latent variable of the examinees with certain test score. the intervals of the test score are transformed into latent variable intervals. third, for every item separately, for every interval of the latent variable the total number of examinees and the number of examinees who responded correctly shall be taken into consideration. the ratio of the correct responses to all responses is the observed probability for correct response. after calculating those probabilities for every latent variable interval, the item parameters could be estimated. graphical representation of the calculations for several items is shown on figure 5. each probability is shown as a point. after the model is built, the item characteristic curve shall be the curve that best fits to the points. figure 5. graphical representation of the probability of correct response for some items. irt model selection the decision about which item response theory model should be used is even more difficult to make than the assumption verification. the best way to do it is to analyze the data with all relevant models and to compare the chosen goodness of fit criteria for those models. however, even for the simplest models the item estimation involves many complicated calculations. for that reason the decision about the model that should be used is made on the basis of the specific features of the items and the descriptive statistics of the raw data. from mathematical point of view, the two-parameter logistic model is a particular variety of the three-parameter logistic model, when c=0, and the one-parameter logistic model is a particular variety of the three-parameter logistic model when c=0 and a=1. the three-parameter model should be used if it is assumed that the probability of guessing is big enough to significantly influence the results. the less the response variants are, the bigger the probability of guessing is. it is reasonable to use the three-parameter logistic model for items with less than 4-5 response variants. the items from the test however have 8 response variants each and it is not likely to gain efficient information using the three-parameter logistic model. the basic feature of the one-parameter logistic model is that all items are assumed to have equal discrimination among the examinees. it is reasonable to use the model when the items have approximately equal variance, which means that they discriminate the examinees almost equally. table 4 shows some descriptive statistics for the items. there is no need of statistical analyses to make the conclusion that the item variations are significantly different. hence, the best choice is the two-parameter logistic model which is also the most frequently used model for dichotomous items parameter estimation. table 4. mean and standard deviation of the items. estimation method and parameter values the item parameters difficulty (b) and discrimination (a) were estimated with maximum likelihood estimation method (baker, 2004, p. 38-43). the standard values of the examinees were used as initial latent variable values. the initial values before the first iteration for the parameters of every item were b=0 and a=1. the iteration process for every item ended when the absolute value of the difference between the parameter estimated in the previous iteration and the parameter estimated by the present cycle is less than 0.001 for both parameters at the same time. the parameters estimated in the previous iteration were then considered to be item parameters. the least square criteria was used as a goodness of fit criteria. after applying the estimation method for each item the difficulty parameter (b) and the standard error of its estimation (sb) ,the discrimination parameter (a) and the standard error of its estimation (s?), the least square criteria value and the count of the iterations needed to estimate item parameters are calculated. the results are shown in table 5. the average of the count of iterations needed for the estimation of item parameters is 5.19. table 5. parameter values, standard errors, average least square and iterations needed for the estimation. the item characteristic curves for each item are plotted in accordance to formula (2) by replacing the parameters with the estimated parameter values. figure 6 presents the item characteristic curves of the items described on figure 6 with charts of their discrete probability of correct response. figure 7 presents the item information functions of the same items. figure 6. item characteristic curves of the items from figure 5. figure 7. item information functions of the items from figure 5. discussion item characteristic curves and item information functions interpretation the item characteristic curves and item information functions give a lot of information about the items and are useful especially for item comparisons when showing up item differences. the item information function formula includes expressions and parameters which are also included in the item characteristic curve formula and the graphics of these functions are strongly related. the point of inflection of the item characteristic curve is where the latent variable is equal to the item difficulty. this is the point where the item discriminates the best. this is also the point where the item information function has a local maximum, i.e. the item gives most information for examinees with latent variable values which are near the item difficulty value. the item characteristic curve is the steepest at the point of inflection. the greater the item discrimination, the steeper the item characteristic curve is, and, the steeper the item information function is. this means that items with larger discrimination values give more information than items with smaller discrimination values. these relations can be easily illustrated with examples. item d08 is relatively easy, so the point of inflection of its item characteristic curve, and the curve itself, is situated in the left part of the chart. the maximum of the item information function is also situated in the left part of the chart. item d12 is relatively difficult, so the point of inflection of its item characteristic curve, and the curve itself, is situated in the right part of the chart. the maximum of the item information function is also situated in the right part of the chart. item d12 is more difficult than item d08 and its point of inflection is on the right side of the point of inflection of item d08. item e07 has relatively high discrimination value, so its item characteristic curve is relatively steeper, and its item information function is also relatively steeper. item e09 has relatively low discrimination, so its item characteristic curve is relatively flatter, and its item characteristic curve is also relatively flatter. item e07 has higher discrimination than item e09 which means that its item characteristic curve and its item information function are steeper at the point of inflection i.e.it gives more information at its point of inflection. item parameter values interpretation as previously noted, the difficulty parameter and the latent variable have similar units of measurement and those units are standard values. the items then could be grouped in accordance to their difficulty parameter value in the way that examinees could be grouped in accordance to their standard values. table 6 provides an example of such grouping criteria and the items that go in each group. table 6. guidelines for interpreting the difficulty parameter values. the discrimination parameter can not only take positive but negative values as well. items with negative discrimination are rarely used with specific purpose only because the negative value means that the examinees with larger latent variable value give more incorrect responses and the examinees with smaller latent variable give more crrect responses. an exemplary intervals for the positive discrimination parameter values are given by baker (baker, 2001). table 7 provides those intervals and the distribution of the items. table 7. guidelines for interpreting the discrimination parameter values. the given guidelines simplify rough interpretation and comparisons. for example, item d08 is an easy item with moderate discrimination, and item d12 is a difficult item with moderate discrimination. item e09 is an item with moderate difficulty and moderate discrimination, and item e07 is an item with moderate difficulty and very high discrimination. for more precise and simultaneous interpretation of the item parameters, the items shall be presented in a coordinate system which basis are the independent parameter scales (fig. 8). the item difficulty values are on the x-axis and the item discrimination values are on the y-axis. such presentation is very useful not only for item comparisons but also for identifying items with similar parameters, which could be shifted when creating similar tests or parallel forms. for instance, item e06(b=-0.4413, a=1.3311) and item c11(b=-0.4713, a=1.3169) have similar properties and are exchangeable. the same could be said about item d04(b=-2.0860, a=1.3624) and item d07(b=-2.1275, a=1.0726). fig. 8. distribution of all items in accordance to their parameters. conclusion the whole raven progressive matrices test has 60 items. the c, d and e series, which are suited for adults have 36 items. at least 30 minutes are needed for their completion of these series. on the other hand, different researchers have different purposes and needs. the ones who work with developmental disorders would prefer easy instruments, which will differentiate the patients with disorder from others. the ones who recruit people for important positions would prefer difficult instruments, which will differentiate the candidates with the brightest abilities from the others. in the present quickly developing world even 30 minutes are much to waste with large or non-goal specific instruments. in exchange for the long data collection process and the difficult analyses and interpretation are the opportunities for practical application of the results gained through item response theory methods. by virtue of those methods questions like “could a latent variable be examined with 10 times less items?” or “will a test which has 5 times less items be as good as the original one?” have long ago found their positive response. references baker, f. & kim, s. (2004). item response theory. parameter estimation techniques. second edition. marcel dekker inc. baker, f. (2001). the basics of item response theory. second edition. eric clearinghouse on assessment and evaluation. cattell, r. b. (1971). abilities: their structure, growth, and action. boston: houghton mifflin. cramer, h. (1946). mathematical methods of statistics. princeton, nj: princeton university press. embretson, s. e., & reise, s. p. (2000). item response theory for psychologists. london: lawrence erlbaum associates. gardner, h. (1983). frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences (2nd ed.). new york: basic books. guilford, j. p. (1959). three faces of intellect. american psychologist, 14, 469 – 479. hambleton, r., h. swaminathan, h. rogers (1991). fundamentals of item response theory, newbury park, ca: sage publ. inc. reckase, m. (1979). unifactor latent trait models applied to multifactor tests: results and implications. journal of educational statistics, 4, 207-230. reeve, b. (2004). an introduction to modern measurement theory. us national cancer institute. http://appliedresearch.cancer.gov.areas/ spearman, c. (1904). “general intelligence” objectively determined and measured. the american journal of psychology, 15, 201–293. sternberg, r. j. (1985) general intellectual ability. in: sternberg, r. j. et al. (ed.) human abilities. an information-processing approach. new york: w.h. freeman and company, 5 – 30 sternberg, r. j. (2003) a broad view of intelligence. the theory of successful intelligence. in: consulting psychology journal: practice and research (summer 2003) thurstone, l. l. (1938). primary mental abilities. psychometric monographs, 1. biographical statement nikolay georgiev has a bachelor degree in psychology from sofia university “sv. kliment ohridski” where he graduated in july 2007. before that he has studied mathematics and informatics in national high school of mathematics and science, sofia, bulgaria. currently, nikolay is studying statistics and financial econometrics in sofia university to obtain a master degree. e-mail: nickolay.georgiev@gmail.com social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and willingness to help addicted individuals: the role of responsibility judgments research reports social dominanceorientation, right-wingauthoritarianism, andwillingness to help addicted individuals: the role of responsibility judgments torleif halkjelsvik*a, jostein risea [a] norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research, oslo, norway. abstract we investigated how social dominance orientation (sdo) and right wing authoritarianism (rwa) were related to motivation to personally help addicted individuals and approval of public spending on addiction treatment. the study employs an attributional analysis based on weiner’s theory of social motivation. sdowas associated with less approval of public spending on treatment and lower motivation to personally help. rwa was associated with less approval of public spending but exerted a direct positive effect on motivation to personally help. however, the latter effect was cancelled out by an indirect negative effect from an attributional process where addicted individuals were perceived as more responsible for their condition. an association between rwa and judgments of responsibility was further indicated in an investigation of positive vs. negative outcomes of addictions. rwa correlated with ratings of personal responsibility across the valence of outcomes, whereas sdo did not. in conclusion, the relation between rwa and (lack of) motivation to help is partly explained by a greater emphasis on personal responsibility, and the relation between sdo and (lack of) motivation to help is independent of responsibility judgments. keywords: social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, attribution, addiction, helping europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 received: 2013-08-02. accepted: 2013-11-08. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: torleif halkjelsvik, sirus, pb 565 sentrum, 0105 oslo, norway. e-mail: th@sirus.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the right-wing authoritarianism (rwa) scale originates from altemeyer’s extensive line of research on “the authoritarian personality” (see altemeyer, 1996). this concept was based on earlier works of adorno and colleagues (adorno, frenkel-brunswik, levinson, & sanford, 1950). right-wing authoritarians are characterized by conventionalism, submission to authorities, and a desire to punish offenders and others that constitute a threat to law and order. we believed that such characteristics could be related to the perception of, and the motivation to help, people who are addicted to substances such as alcohol. another type of ideological orientation, as measured by the social dominance orientation (sdo) scale, reflects the approval of hierarchical order of groups in the society (pratto, sidanius, stallworth, & malle, 1994). those with a high level of sdo accept and even desire that other social groups are inferior and that some groups have less opportunities in life. since people who are addicted might constitute a subordinate group, we also believed that sdo would be of importance in people’s social motivation towards the addicted. both sdo and rwa are related to prejudice towards out-groups (e.g. sibley & duckitt, 2008), but likely through different motivational routes. duckitt (2006) found the effect of rwa on prejudice towards a given group to be europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ mediated through perceived threat from the group, that is, to what extent the group threatened social control, order, cohesion, and stability. sdo, on the other hand, motivated prejudice through the distribution of resources. those with high sdo scores were reluctant to distribute resources and reluctant to give influence to subordinate groups, which, according to duckitt (2006), were driven by competitiveness over relative dominance. two different worldviews might underlie rwa and sdo. a view of the world as a dangerous place to live, with high levels of crime and immoral behavior, leads to a higher level of rwa. a view of the world as a competitive place, with inequality and scarcity of resources, leads to a higher level of sdo (sibley, wilson, & duckitt, 2007). thus, sdo and rwa seem to constitute two measures closely linked to prejudice towards subordinate groups, but likely through different mechanisms. in the present study, we were mainly interested in how people’s judgments of responsibility for addictions and beliefs regarding help towards the addicted were affected by these two ideological orientations. attributions and helping to consider the effects of sdo and rwa on judgments of responsibility for addictions and consequences for helping, we will employ weiner’s (2006) general theory of social motivation. below we describe the theory and related research that may suggest how sdo/rwa can be linked to attributions and helping. a large body of research, summarized by weiner (2006), supports an attributional account of social behaviors such as help giving and aggression. the theory posits that judgments of responsibility for a condition or situation are based on internal and external attributions of causes, and whether the internal causes are controllable. in turn, the judgments of responsibility are consequential for the affective reactions of sympathy and anger towards another person, which again predicts behavioral intentions towards the person. according to the theory, if one believes that the causes of an addiction are related to controllable actions of the addict, and to a lesser extent uncontrollable factors like illness or external influences, the person is held responsible for his/her condition. when a person is perceived as responsible for an addiction, this would result in less sympathy and more anger towards the addict. in relation to aggression or punishment, more responsibility should lead to higher levels of aggression/punishment, mediated through the emotional reaction anger. in relation to helping behavior, more responsibility should lead to less willingness to help, mainly mediated through the emotional reaction sympathy, but perhaps also to some extent anger (see rudolph, roesch, greitemeyer, & weiner, 2004; weiner, 2006). kymalainen and weisman (2004) found that substance abuse was considered as more internally controllable than disorders like physicaland mental illness. accordingly, people reported more negative emotions and less positive emotions towards a hypothetical sibling who suffered from substance abuse, and were also less willing to help this sibling. similarly, weiner, perry, and magnusson (1988) found relatively harsh judgments towards a hypothetical person suffering from substance abuse. in the current paper we investigate judgments of responsibility and helping intentions related to addictions, and not drug abuse.we suppose that the former is more ambiguous as to whether the person is responsible or not, since addictions may imply a loss of control. a previous study on perceptions of addicts (rise, aarø, halkjelsvik, & kovac, 2013) found support for the basic mediating chain of weiner’s model of social motivation (weiner, 2006). that is, causal attributions predicted responsibility judgments and the effect of responsibility on helping was mediated through the emotional reaction sympathy. the question of the current paper is not how people in general attribute blame to the addicted, but rather how this varies as a function of individual differences on the two ideological orientations, and how these differences affect europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 28 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the attribution process and the willingness to help. previous studies have found relations between attributions, helping and political ideology suggesting that those with higher levels of sdo and rwa may blame the addict and be less willing to help. for instance, right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation are closely related to conservative political ideology (e.g., peterson, doty, & winter, 1993; van hiel & mervielde, 2002), and in a study of perceptions of poverty, zucker and weiner (1993) found that conservatism was systematically linked to less willingness to personally help and to judgments of deservingness to government assistance such as welfare. political conservatism influenced willingness to help and approval of welfare for the poor through a chain of causal beliefs, responsibility judgments, and emotional reactions in accordance with the theory of social motivation outlined above, but had no direct effect on willingness to help personally. on the other hand, political conservatism exerted a direct impact on welfare judgments, and there was also a direct path from judgments of responsibility, bypassing emotional reactions, to welfare judgments (zucker & weiner, 1993). a similar result was obtained by skitka (1999) in a study of deservingness of public assistance after a natural disaster. political conservatism positively predicted perceived responsibility, which, mediated through emotional reactions, predicted perceived deservingness of aid. as in the study by zucker and weiner, there was also a direct path from political orientation to perceived deservingness of public assistance. this direct effect was stronger than the indirect effects through attributions. skitka and tetlock (1992) found that conservatives withheld aid from hypothetical persons personally responsible for their needs, regardless of the severity of need and the likelihood of effective helping. in a later study, the same authors found that a factor reflecting a high rwa and low level of egalitarianism, the latter being closely related to sdo, was associated with generally less allocation of assistance, and particularly less assistance to claimants that were personally responsible for their situation (skitka & tetlock, 1993). as in the aforementioned studies, there were direct effects from political orientation to deservingness of help, but also indirect effects through responsibility and emotional reactions towards the person. in light of the above literature there are reasons to believe that sdo and rwa are related to attributions of causes for addictions, and that this has consequences for helping. however, because past research shows evidence of direct effects of conservative ideology on helping, and because addicted persons might be perceived as a subordinate out-group that violates social norms, we expect both types of ideological orientations to be associated with a reluctance to help—independent of people’s level of responsibility. this possibility is also suggested by results that link sdo and rwa to prejudice towards a range of different out-groups, many of which have no influence over their social category belonging (see duckitt & sibley, 2007). one interesting question is whether the two types of ideological orientations, sdo and rwa, take different routes to helping. as described above, the relation between prejudice and sdo seems to be based on a different process than the relation between prejudice and rwa. in addition, the two scales have been found to differ in prejudice towards various categories of out-groups (e.g. derogated vs. dangerous groups; duckitt & sibley, 2007). the present research we expect both sdo and rwa to be positively related to the degree of personal responsibility and internal attribution of causes for addictions. in turn, these attributions are expected to affect emotional reactions to the addict, followed by less motivation to help. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 halkjelsvik & rise 29 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we are interested in two different measures of helping. one that asks for willingness to personally help the addicted individual, and a less personal measure of motivation to help, namely the approval of public spending for treatment of the individual in question. since political ideology has been found to directly govern only the impersonal measure of helping (weiner, 2006), we suspected that the two measures of helping could be guided by different sets of predictors. in order to investigate the effect of sdo and rwa on attributions and helping, we presented two target persons, one addicted to heroin and another addicted to alcohol, and we assessed relevant variables to measure the attributional process (attributions of causation, responsibility and emotions) and its consequences for the two different measures of helping. in addition to the correlational approach outlined above, which we will refer to as part 1 of the study, we also employed an experimental design to further explore the importance of attributions in the social motivation to help addicted individuals. if the relation between the two ideological orientations and the social motivation towards the addicted are founded on the belief that people are more responsible for their actions, one should expect higher levels of judged responsibility also for positive outcomes by the addicted (e.g. breaking out of the addiction). following this line of reasoning, we compared judgments of responsibility for positive vs. negative outcomes regarding addictions (manipulated between groups). if individuals with higher scores on sdo and rwa selectively blame addicted persons for negative outcomes, and not for positive outcomes, their expected negative attitude towards helping cannot be justified through a stronger emphasis on personal responsibility. results from the experimental investigation will be presented under part 2. part 1: an attributional analysis method participants— participants were recruited through the online labor market amazonmechanical turk (see casler, bickel, & hackett, 2013; goodman, cryder, & cheema, 2013 for more information about this population) and paid $1 for completing the survey. eleven participants were excluded for not giving the correct response to an attentional test item that asked participants to select a specific alternative. nineteen participants were excluded because they spent less than 14 seconds on one of the survey pages, which was shorter than the minimum amount of required time to answer the page in a testing session. the remaining sample consisted of 367 respondents. the age ranged from 18 to 72, m = 33.7, sd = 11.6, and 52% were female participants. procedure — a web page accessed through the mechanical turk interface informed potential participants about the study. by clicking the link to the survey people agreed to participate in the research project. the link opened a survey developed in the program qualtrics. first, we requested age and sex, then participants rated the items from the sdo and rwa scales, followed by one of two priming tasks and a manipulation check. the priming tasks involved explaining sentences related to situational constraints vs. free will. this manipulation exerted a weak effect on judgments of causality, but did not interact with the sdo or the rwa scales on any of the dependent measures, p > .05. we therefore do not discuss this task further. participants were then asked to imagine meeting “nicole”, a woman depicted in a photograph who suffered from an addiction to heroin. no other information about the person was given. the questions regarding causes, responseurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 30 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ibility, emotions towards the addict, and helping followed. a similar presentation and set of questions were given for “john”, a man addicted to alcohol. the order of john and nicole was counter-balanced across participants. materials — social dominance orientation. the sdo scale (pratto et al., 1994) consists of 16 items rated on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). the scale measures approval of inequality among groups (e.g., “to get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups”). right-wing authoritarianism. the rwa scale (altemeyer, 2006) consists of 22 items responded to on a scale from -4 through 4, with 0 labeled as neutral and the other scale points labeled slightly, moderately, strongly, and very strongly agree/disagree. sample item: “the only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers spreading bad ideas.” attributions, responsibility, emotional reactions. internal and external attributions were measured by asking to what extent the addiction is caused by the person himself, and to what extent the addiction is caused by external circumstances. responsibility was measured by asking to what extent the person should be held responsible for being addicted, and emotional reactions were rated by indicating the extent one felt sympathy for, and anger towards the addicted person. all questions above were answered on a scale with six incremental alternatives from “not at all” to “to a very great extent”. motivation to help. motivation to personally help was measured by the question: “to what extent are you willing to personally help [name of the addicted]?”, answered on the scale described in the previous section. approval of public spending was indicated by agreement with the statement: “the society should pay for the treatment of [name of the addicted]’s [name of substance] addiction”. there were six response alternatives from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” results the ratings across the two scenarios (heroin vs. alcohol) were highly correlated. we therefore computed an index for each rating. cronbach’s alphas and zero-order correlations between all aggregated measures can be found in table 1. as evident from table 1, the two types of ideological orientations demonstrated a similar pattern of zero-order correlations. the exception was that sdo correlated negatively with motivation to personally help, whereas rwa practically had no correlation with motivation to personally help. in addition, rwa seemed to have stronger correlations than the sdo with the variables internal causes, responsibility, and anger. to test how sdo and rwa affected the attributional process outlined in the introduction, we developed path models in ibm amos 20. the amount of missing data was low, maximum 1.9% for a single variable. we therefore performed only a single imputation (based on the markov chain monte carlo method), with all variables in the model presented below as predictors in the imputation model. indirect effects were computed with a bootstrap sample of 10000, confidence intervals and p-values were derived by the percentile bootstrap method and were not corrected for bias (see fritz, taylor, & mackinnon, 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 halkjelsvik & rise 31 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 zero-order correlations between sdo, rwa, and dependent measures across two judgments. 9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. sdo1. .95)( rwa2. .97)(.52** internal causes3. .84)(.22**.13* external causes4. .79)(.30**-.16*-.13*responsibility5. .86)(.30**.71**.21**.15* sympathy6. .86)(.32**-.25**.30**-.27**-.27**anger7. .87)(.22**-.24**.01-.24**.22**.12* personal help8. .88)(.03-.54**.14*-.16*.16*-.02-.21**public spending9. .94)(.37**.17**-.62**.44**-.25**.36**-.39**-.38**note. cronbach’s alpha in parentheses. n = 365-367. *p < .05. **p < .001. first, we fit a model that roughly corresponded to the one proposed in weiner’s theory of social motivation (weiner, 2006), with the addition of sdo and rwa as predictors of internal and external attributions, and as direct predictors of helping. the causal chain of the indirect effect was as follows: (a) sdo and rwa (allowed to correlate), (b) internal and external causal attributions (correlated residuals), (c) responsibility, (d) the emotional reactions anger and sympathy (correlated residuals), and (e) motivation to personally help and approval of public spending. the model provided a poor fit to the data, χ2 = 91,692, df = 17, p < .001; nfi = .905; cfi = .920; rmsea = .110, aic = 165.692. after inspecting the covariance matrix and modification indices (chi-square threshold = 4) we included several potentially relevant paths, then we trimmed the model for paths with p-values below .05 (starting with the lowest coefficient). the resulting model is presented in figure 1, χ2 = 19.783, df = 16, p = .230, nfi = .979, cfi = .996, rmsea = .025, aic = 95.783. if we first ignore the influence of the sdo and rwa we see that the model is relatively consistent with previous work on weiner’s model of social motivation (e.g., weiner, 2006). attributions of causality predicted responsibility judgments, responsibility predicted the emotional reactions, and sympathy predicted helping. there was no effect of anger on motivation for personal or public helping, but it is not uncommon to find small or no effects of anger on willingness to help (see weiner, 2006, table 2.5). there was also a direct path from responsibility to public spending, which is consistent with the results on welfare judgments in the study by zucker and weiner (1993). the direct path from external attributions to sympathy, bypassing responsibility, was not expected, but overall, the data behaved as in previous studies (see rise et al., 2013). motivation to personally help — the model predicted 31% of the variance in the measure of motivation to personally help. the strongest predictor was sympathy. rwa, but not sdo, was indirectly related to sympathy through attributions, and both rwa and sda were directly associated with lower sympathy towards the addicted. the total indirect effect of rwa on motivation to personally help was β = -.092, 95% ci [-.157, -.034], and the total indirect effect of sdowas β = -.085, 95%ci [-.147 to -.026]. the separate indirect effect of rwa via attributions was small, which is not surprising since the effect dilutes through the chain of variables, but the influence was statistically significant, β = -.034, 95% ci [-.055 to -.016]. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 32 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. model predicting motivation to personally help and approval of public spending for treatment of the addicted. sdo = social dominance orientation scale; rwa = right-wing authoritarianism scale; extern = attributions to external cause; intern = attributions to internal cause; resp = responsibility; symp = sympathy; personal = motivation to personally help; public = approval of public spending on treatment. as evident from figure 1, both scales also exerted a direct effect on willingness to help. it is noteworthy that sdo showed the hypothesized negative effect on motivation to personally help, β = -.173, 95% ci [-.274, -.070], whereas rwa exerted a positive effect on motivation to personally help, β = .210, 95% ci [.111, .308]. this means that when the impact of sdo and sympathy were partialled out, higher scores on the rwa scale were actually associated with more willingness to help, a pattern which was not apparent from the zero-order correlations in table 1. public spending — the model explained 50% of the variance on this measure. consistent with past research on welfare judgments (zucker &weiner, 1993), sympathy and responsibility predicted approval of public spending on treatment of the addict. the total indirect effect of sdo on public spending was β = -.076, 95% ci [-.133, -.022], and the total indirect effect of rwa was β = -.120, 95% ci [-.180, -.060]. the separate indirect effect of rwa on public spending through attributions was statistically significant, β = -.067, 95% ci [-.104, -.036]. as shown in figure 1, public spending was also predicted by direct effects from both sdo and rwa. higher sdo and higher rwa were independently associated with less approval of public spending for treatment of the addicted. contrary to our expectations, the results above revealed that attributions played only a minor role in the association between rwa and willingness to help, and no role in the association between sdo and willingness to help. rwa seemed to affect the attributional process at several stages, whereas sdo was only associated with lower levels of sympathy. however, the most substantial influence of the ideological orientations on both measures of help were direct effects that did not involve attributional cognitions or affective reactions. for motivation to personally help the effects of sdo and rwa went, surprisingly, in opposite directions, but for approval of public spending, the influences of both scales were negative. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 halkjelsvik & rise 33 http://www.psychopen.eu/ part 2: responsibility for positive and negative outcomes method part 2 was given in the same survey and with the same respondents as reported in part 1. participants were randomly divided to one of two conditions. one group was asked to assign responsibility for negative outcomes regarding alcohol and heroin addiction (becoming addicted to alcohol and heroin, respectively) and the other group were asked to assign responsibility for a positive outcome (breaking out of heroin and alcohol addictions, respectively). level of responsibility was assigned on a scale from 0 (not responsible at all) to 10 (completely responsible) to the following parts: 1) the society, 2) local, state and/or federal governments, 3) family/friends, 4) the person himself/herself. after completing the above judgments, participants were randomly divided into two groups again, independent of the first random allocation. one group judged responsibility for a positive outcome of treatment through public health services (breaking out of the addiction), and the other group judged responsibility for a negative outcome of treatment through public health services (remaining addicted). levels of responsibility (from 0 to 10) were assigned to the same parts as listed above. participants were debriefed, thanked, and on the last page of the survey they were given an individual code required for submission of the work on the mechanical turk web site. results the judgments of responsibility for heroin and alcohol addictions were quite similar. we therefore computed aggregated ratings, cronbach’s alphas = .83 to .95. mean ratings of responsibility for the four different parts, along with rank correlations between ratings and the two ideological orientations, can be found in table 2. the ratings of personal responsibility (labeled as “personal”) were highly skewed. for all items regarding the responsibility of the addict himself/herself, between 40-50% of the respondents chose response alternative 10 (“completely responsible”). for this reason kendall’s tau b correlations are reported in table 2. table 2 rank-correlations (kendall’s tau b) between judgments of responsibility and the two ideological orientations for negative and positive outcomes, with means and standard deviations for ratings of responsibility (scale from 0 to 10). outcome positive (n = 182 to 189)negative (n = 174 to 182) sdm τb sdm τb rwasdorwasdo heroin/alcohol addiction society .32.03.083-.087-.12.03.127*-.126*governments .22.62.035-.045-.91.81.100-.095family/friends .22.95.029-.049-.52.83.058-.021personal .51.88.072.021-.81.48.179**.069 outcome of treatment society .52.93.109*-.027-.32.62.171**-.111*governments .62.64.154**-.110*-.32.52.104-.085family/friends .52.35.004-.056-.72.43.094-.043personal .12.38.032.037-.02.58.209**.073 *p <.05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 34 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 reveals that the ideological orientations correlated negatively with assigned responsibility to the society and governments. regarding ratings of the personal responsibility of the addict, it looks like sdo was unrelated to responsibility judgments, whereas rwa was positively related to the level of personal responsibility. judged by the magnitude of the correlations, it seems like right-wing authoritarians selectively assigned more personal responsibility to negative outcomes than to positive outcomes. in order to statistically test this pattern, we divided participants into four groups according to their ratings: (a) complete personal responsibility (m = 10); (b) very high personal responsibility (m = 9 to 9.5); (c) high personal responsibility (m = 8 to 8.5); and (d) medium to low personal responsibility (m < 7.5). this was done as a measure against the problematic distribution of the variable. we performed a hierarchical linear regressioniwith the new personal responsibility variable as dependent, and the following predictors in the first block: outcome (negative vs. positive), sdo, and rwa (continuous measures were based on z-scores, and outcome was recoded -1 and 1). there was a main effect of rwa, β = .158, p = .009, and outcome, β = .162, p = .002, indicating higher ratings of personal responsibility for those scoring high on the rwa scale and higher ratings of personal responsibility in the positive scenario. in the second block we entered the two interaction terms rwa x outcome and sdo x outcome. the r2 change (.007) was not statistically significant, p = .263. a similar procedure was performed with the personal responsibility ratings of the positive vs. negative outcome of treatment scenario (single-item ratings). we first tested for sequence effects from the first random assignment, but found no main effect or interaction with the second random assignment, p > .6. the r2 change (.003) after including the interaction terms was not significant, p = .572, and suggested that assignment of responsibility was not dependent on valence of outcome. the only significant predictor was the main effect of rwa, β = .177, p = .004. the two regression analyses above showed that those with higher scores on rwa rated the addict as more responsible across the valence of the outcomes, whereas sdo seemed to be unrelated to the judgments of personal responsibility. discussion in the present paper we found that rwa and sdo were associated with two different forms of helping, willingness to personally help and approval of public spending for treatment. although we found indirect effects on helping through attributions for the rwa scale and indirect effects through sympathy for both rwa and sdo, the relation between the two scales and helping was largely direct. a test of differences between judgments of responsibility for positive and negative outcomes further showed a relation between rwa and responsibility judgments across different types of outcomes, but not a relation between sdo and responsibility. this suggests that the negative attitude towards public spending among high rwas is partly explained by a greater emphasis on personal responsibility. on the other hand, sdo was not related to judgments of responsibility, and not related to attributions in the path analyses described in part 1 of the study. thus, the negative influence of sdo on both willingness to personally help and approval of public spending cannot be justified by a stronger emphasis on the individual as a causal and responsible agent. the results on motivation to personally help were puzzling. in the path analysis, when the influence of sdo and sympathy were controlled for, there was a significant and positive relation between rwa and motivation to personally help. this positive effect of rwa was partly counteracted by a negative indirect effect of rwa through europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 halkjelsvik & rise 35 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attributions and sympathy, but only to a small extent. the positive impact of rwa on motivation to personally help might be related to the moral aspect of rwa. a higher score on the rwa scale is associated with endorsement of religious standards and social norms (altemeyer, 1996, pp. 31-33), which may include helping those in need. however, the zero-order correlation revealed that high rwas were not more likely to be motivated to personally help. accordingly, one might speculate that even if high rwas think it is right to help the needy, they may also show contempt towards the addict. in figure 1 the latter effect may work through attributions and a lower level of sympathy towards the addict, whereas the direct path from rwa to personal helping could be an expression of moral duty. such an inconsistency would be in line with other results on rwa that indicate a disposition towards double standards and contradictory beliefs (altemeyer, 1996, p. 144). the negative association between rwa and endorsement of public help indeed suggests that high rwas do not think that the addict deserves help, but instead may feel a moral responsibility to personally help. the finding that sdo negatively predicts all forms of helping is in line with previous research. those scoring high on sdo accept that some people are worse off than others. the path analyses presented in part 1 and the experimental study in part 2 suggest that attributions and judgments of responsibility has no role in high sdosmotivation to help. those scoring high on the sdo scale do not want to help, and they are not sympathetic towards the addicts. the most notable difference between the measures of sdo and rwa may be linked to previous results on the role of conservative political ideology (see weiner, 2006). only rwa paralleled these results in terms of having a direct negative effect on public spending and indirect effects on both types of motivation to help through the attributional sequence. this was not the case for sdo bypassing the attribution process and entering the motivational sequence through a low level of sympathy and having direct effects on the two helping measures. methodological issues would our conclusions be different if we started with a different attributional model? bäckström and björklund (2007) investigated the antecedents of generalized prejudice, and proposed a model where reduced empathy precedes sdo and rwa (but see sidanius et al., 2013). applied to our case, empathy could drive both sdo and rwa, as well as sympathy, with consequences for helping. if this was the case we believe that the associations between sympathy, which is likely to be closely related to empathy, and the sdo/rwa scales would have been stronger. and the fact that sdo and rwa exerted direct effects on helping when sympathy was controlled for, may indicate that the bäckström and björklund model is not transferrable to motivation for helping. furthermore, recent work by sidanius et al. (2013) suggests that the effect of sdo on empathy is slightly larger than the effect of empathy on sdo. mcfarland (2010) also found empathy to have explanatory power in amodel of generalized prejudice. in mcfarland’s study, sdo predicted prejudice directly, but also indirectly through reduced empathy. in addition, rwa predicted prejudice directly, but also through principled moral reasoning. this, along with our results connecting rwa to attributions and responsibility judgments, might suggest that the influence of rwa on social motivations towards out-groups originates from cognitive processes rather than immediate affect. it may however be questionable to compare previous models of prejudice to our results on helping. we did not include measures of prejudice and empathy in the current study, but the inclusion of these measures in future studies may be helpful in mapping potential paths from ideological orientations to helping. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 36 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there are at least two indications that the current data diverges somewhat from previous studies on the sdo and rwa scales. first, the cronbach’s alphas were very high (see table 1), suggesting that people did not differentiate much between various types of statements. however, we do not believe this is a major problem. both sdo and rwa are balanced scales with inversely framed items and would therefore produce low alphas if people were inattentive or if they responded similarly on all statements. another characteristic of the current data was the high correlation between sdo and rwa. often, these scales are only weakly or moderately correlated (see van hiel & mervielde, 2002). this complicates the results of analyses involving both sdo and rwa as predictors. what is left of rwa when controlling for sdo and vice versa? although specific details in the models might be unstable, the main results are also evident from the zero-order correlations in tables 1 and 2. furthermore, we also tested the model separately for sdo and rwa and obtained similar results as in the combined model. the framing of the target person might have affected the responses in the current study. research on donation to charity have shown that it may matter whether the target person is represented as an identifiable or a statistical victim (small & loewenstein, 2003; small, loewenstein, & slovic, 2007), although the direction of the results sometimes are unpredictable (small et al., 2007). in the present study we used pictures of addicts, whereas in a different study that employed weiner’s social motivation model on judgments of addicted persons (rise et al., 2013), the target of judgments was a hypothetical person. still, both studies found support for the basic mediating chain of the weiner model, and despite the different framing of targets and the different samples (american mechanical turk participants vs. representative sample of the norwegian population) the strength of the associations between components in the models were strikingly similar. this suggests that the current results are not limited to the particular sample. practical implications before discussing practical implications it is important to note that actual behavior was not measured in the present study. we asked for willingness to personally help addicted individuals, which in many cases would not give a true picture of actual helping behavior. this is less of a problem with helping through public spending, where people’s opinion is the object of interest. nevertheless, we consider it of value to understand willingness to personally help as a type of social perception, and as expressions of attitudes that should be somewhat related to actual helping behavior (e.g., ajzen & fishbein, 1977). according to the zero-order correlation and the amount of variance explained for the two outcome measures in the path model, impersonal helping (public spending) was more predictable (r2 = .50) than personal helping (r2 = .31). this may be related to the notion that the latter constitutes a vague measure of willingness to perform a target behavior which may be effortful and highly dependent on the context, while the former presumably reflect degree of support for a public policy measure. it follows that interventions aimed at the variables in figure 1 might be more successful in changing support of public spending than for changing attitudes towards personal helping. if one has a goal to decrease the negative effect of sdo and rwa on support for public assistance, only small gains are likely when targeting perceptions of responsibility. perhaps the level of sympathy is a slightly better target, but the results suggest that other unknown factors affect the relation between sdo/rwa and approval of public assistance. it may bemore promising to change the level of sdo and rwa directly. when high authoritarians learn about their score and characteristics, they presumably want to change it towards the average, and secular education seems to lower the level of rwa (altemeyer, 1996, pp. 303-304). targeting the underlying worldviews of rwa and sdo should also be able to produce a change (sibley et al., 2007). if people feel that the world is europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 halkjelsvik & rise 37 http://www.psychopen.eu/ safe, they would probably lower their levels of rwa (see also sales, 1973), and if they perceive the world as less competitive, they would score lower on sdo. consistent with research on high-status career tracks and racism (sidanius, pratto, martin, & stallworth, 1991), guimond, dambrun, michinov, and duarte (2003) found that sdo increased during law studies, and decreased during psychology studies. identification with superior in-groups seems to be associated with a higher level of sdo (schmitt, branscombe, & kappen, 2003). furthermore, identifying with the nation or making the personal identity salient have been found to decrease the relation between rwa and racism (reynolds, turner, haslam, & ryan, 2001). the above literature suggests that it is possible to lower the levels of sdo and rwa, and the correlational results of the current study suggests that this might be a way to increase people’s motivation to help. notes i) we also performed ordinal regressions with similar results. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adorno, t. w., frenkel-brunswik, e., levinson, d. j., & sanford, r. n. 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(2006). social motivation, justice, and the moral emotions: an attributional approach. mahwah, nj: erlbaum. weiner, b., perry, r. p., & magnusson, j. (1988). an attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas. journal of personality and social psychology, 55(5), 738-748. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.55.5.738 zucker, g. s., & weiner, b. (1993). conservatism and perceptions of poverty: an attributional analysis. journal of applied social psychology, 23(12), 925-943. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01014.x about the authors torleif halkjelsvik is a senior researcher at the norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research. among other topics he is interested in addictions, self-regulation, and attitude change. jostein rise is a senior researcher at the norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research. his main research areas include social cognition models, addictions, attitudes, and effects of media campaigns. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 27–40 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.669 authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping 40 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12008 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3791552 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025007003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(92)90043-j http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.6.1205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1022299422219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.01.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2002.tb00250.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.5.738 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01014.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en authoritarianism, responsibility, and helping (introduction) attributions and helping the present research part 1: an attributional analysis method results part 2: responsibility for positive and negative outcomes method results discussion methodological issues practical implications notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors “i like my body; therefore, i like myself”: how body image influences self-esteem—a cross-sectional study on italian adolescents research reports “i like my body; therefore, i like myself”: how body image influences self-esteem—a cross-sectional study on italian adolescents elena gatti*a, chiara ionioa, daniela traficantea, emanuela confalonieria [a] department of psychology, catholic university of milan, milan, italy. abstract puberty is a very important process for adolescents. physiological changes and body modifications lead to great vulnerability. this vulnerability is connected to the adolescent’s perceptions of the uncertainty of outcomes due to the transformation of their infant body into an adult one. this cross-sectional study aims to better understand whether body image perception and satisfaction influence self-esteem in a sample of italian male and female adolescents. a total of 242 adolescents (120 male and 122 female individuals) aged 11 to 17 years (m = 13.33; sd = 1.7) completed the study measures. quantitative and qualitative instruments were used. in particular, adolescents completed self-report questionnaires to assess their pubertal status (pubertal developmental scale, peterson, crockett, richards, & boxer, 1988), their body esteem (body esteem scale, mendelson, mendelson, & white, 2001), their body image (body image satisfaction questionnaire, rauste-von wright, 1989), and their self-esteem (rosenberg self-esteem scale, rosenberg,1965). adolescent were also invited to depict themselves to assess their body representations by completing the drawing me test (confalonieri, 2011). results from manovas confirm that gender and age are two factors that influence body image perception and satisfaction. sem analyses show that good self-esteem is reached through good body satisfaction following different trajectories in male and female individuals. data from adolescents’ body representations obtained via drawings confirm that females are more concerned about their body changes and about the appearance of secondary sexual features than males. this research, stressing the influence of various individual factors and highlighting the psychological distress and dissatisfaction of adolescents, especially females, confirms the importance of studying this topic in order to generate preventive measures to help adolescents through this developmental task. keywords: body image, self-esteem, puberty, adolescence europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 received: 2013-10-15. accepted: 2014-04-12. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, catholic university, l.go gemelli, 1, 20123 – milan, italy. e-mail: elena.gatti@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. adolescence is a period of life during which many important body changes take place that are determined by pubertal development. physical and psychological changes can influence perceptions of and satisfaction with body image, both of which are key elements in the development of self-esteem and social adjustment among adolescents (alsaker & flammer, 2006; mitchell, petrie, greenleaf, & martin, 2012; williams & currie, 2000). many studies have focused on the relationship between body image and self-esteem during adolescence (arim, shapka, & dahinten, 2006; bell & dittmar, 2011; grieve, 2007; hutchinson, rapee, & taylor, 2010). most of these studies suggest that girls are more vulnerable than boys to physical changes; this vulnerability tends to turn into a greater level of body and weight dissatisfaction, which reflects low self-esteem (brunet, sabiston, dorsch, & mccreary, 2010; rajchert, 2010; shaw, stice, & springer, 2004). this dissatisfaction seems less overwhelming europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in male samples (davison & mccabe, 2006; ramos, rivera, moreno, & jimenez-iglesias, 2010). age is another factor that influences body satisfaction and self-esteem. on average, those in their early adolescence are more satisfied with both their physical appearance and their weight, as is shown by their achievement of higher selfesteem scores than those in the middle of their adolescence (ciuluvica, mitrofan, & fulcheri, 2010; gatti, confalonieri, ionio, & traficante, 2007; holmqvist & frisén, 2012). even though age and gender are two widely studied factors in adolescents’ perceptions of their own bodies, other individual variables, such as the level of pubertal development and the body mass index (bmi), could also influence one’s perception and representation of one’s body and one’s self-esteem (carlson jones & crawford, 2005; fenton, brooks, spencer, & morgan, 2010; meshkova, nikolaeva, & kopnina, 2010). delayed or advanced pubertal development is commonly agreed to be a somewhat risky factor for adaptation and psychological wellbeing (graber, brooks-gunn, & warren, 2006; van jaarsveld, fidler, simon, & wardle, 2007). the theory called the “off-time hypothesis” considers the deviation from the normative pubertal timing (being “off time”), whether early or late, to be a source of difficulties in adolescents’ adaptations (alsaker & flammer, 2006; canals, vigil-colet, chico, & martí-henneberg, 2005; graber, brooks-gunn, & warren, 2006; susman & rogol, 2004). according to the off-time hypothesis, girls who mature early are less satisfied with their own bodies and more concerned about physical appearance. moreover, they show low body esteem and high stress levels. therefore, these girls tend to engage in more physical activities that are often associated with weight-loss diets (van jaarsveld et al., 2007). body dissatisfaction among early maturing girls is often accompanied by teasing from peers, especially at the beginning of their pubertal development. in contrast, the effects of early pubertal maturation in boys are associated more with alcohol abuse, aggressive behavior, or deviance (arim, shapka, & dahinten, 2006; rose, 2002; van jaarsveld et al., 2007; weichold, yao, & silbereisen, 2010). other studies emphasize that boys who mature early are more problematic in terms of peerreported school adjustment, self-reported bullying, overt delinquency, and conflicts with authority (scholte, 2010). these effects tend to persist in adulthood (smith, 2010). therefore, the main consequence of early pubertal development in girls is less satisfaction with their own body images; in boys, this consequence is shown in their behaviors, which leading to more difficulty in social adjustments. late-maturing girls seem to be at less risk than early maturing girls even though they show lower self-esteem. also, young adults report more internalized problems, while late-maturing boys seem to be teased by peers and are perceived as emotionally nervous, feeling victimized and isolated (biehl, natsuaki, & ge, 2007; fasche, weichold, & silbereisen, 2010; graber, brooks-gunn, & warren, 2006; scholte, 2010). it is important to consider the fact that growth occurs earlier in female individuals than in male individuals. therefore, at 11-12 years old, the females have already begun pubertal development, and height and weight are greater than they are in the male individuals. this implies that girls who mature earlier will perceive themselves differently not only by comparison with female peers (who have not developed early) but also in comparison with males (who naturally develop later than females). this double confirmation of their precocity can make them doubly vulnerable and therefore more at risk. although numerous studies have been conducted on the pubertal development roles of body image and self-esteem, the results are not yet fully clear and shared (nouri, hill, & orrell-valente, 2011; williams & currie, 2000). it has become evident that problematic development pathways associated with early and late maturation in puberty lead to internalized or social adjustment problems that seem to last until early adulthood (weichold & fasche, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents 302 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition, most studies are mainly based on female samples and are conducted in the united states. studies have only recently been conducted in europe on pubertal maturation consequences in male and female samples taking into account this issue (fasche, weichold, & silbereisen, 2010; scholte, 2010). bmi is another factor that could affect self-perception and body satisfaction during pubertal development (grogan & richards, 2002; petrie, greenleaf, & martin, 2010). carlson jones and crawford (2005) have identified bmi as being directly related to body dissatisfaction among adolescents, and shroff and thompson (2006) have similarly detected the impact of the bmi on body dissatisfaction among female individuals, dissatisfaction that is derived from the endorsement of the media’s and peers’ messages. this cross-sectional study aims to better understand whether body-image perceptions and satisfaction influence self-esteem in a sample of italian male and female adolescents. the procedure used in this work is innovative in some ways. first, it considers a sample of both males and females, and secondly, it considers and holds together more traditional variables (such as age and gender) and less frequently studied variables (such as pubertal development and bmi). finally, in this work we use both self-reports or quantitative instruments and qualitative instruments. in particular, this study aims to analyze how pubertal development and bmi impact body image perception and representation as well as self-esteem in male and female adolescents. body image was studied both through self-reporting measures (to assess body perception) and through drawing (to assess the mental representation of the body). more precisely, we are interested in exploring: 1. which factors that influence the body image are considered to be a composite construct; in particular, how gender (male and female), age (early adolescents and adolescents), pubertal status (petersen et al.’s five categories, 1988), and bmi (global index; weight and height, separately) impact body perception and body satisfaction 2. whether body image influences self-esteem 3. whether a relationship exists between body image and body representation (drawings) method participants a total of 242 adolescents (120 male and 122 female individuals) between 11 and 17 years old (m = 13.33; sd = 1.7) completed all study measures. according to literature (blos, 1967; finlay, jones, & coleman, 2002; mccabe & ricciardelli, 2005; mendelson, mendelson, & white, 2001), the sample was divided in two groups: 134 early adolescents (males = 67; females = 67) aged 10–13 years (m = 11.93; sd = 0.7) and 108 adolescents (males = 53; females = 55) aged 14–17 years (m = 15.07; sd = 0.8). participants were recruited from grades 6 to 11 from the metropolitan area of milan, italy. they had italian backgrounds and came from upper-middle socioeconomic classes. ethical approval was gained through the university’s research ethics committee, which required informed consent from each of the participants’ parents. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 303 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures and procedure psychological assessment procedures and data collection of anthropometric clinical features (weight, height, and bmi) were performed by researchers. questionnaires and drawings were completed by adolescents during one class period (50 minutes) in a group setting. researchers monitored the processes and ensured that the students completed the questionnaires independently and in a silent and private context. each student was free to withdraw from the research at any time and to express any doubts or feelings of discomfort to the researchers. 1) anthropometric features — bmi is used to estimate a healthy body weight based on a person’s height. it is the most widely used diagnostic index to identify weight problems, usually to estimate whether individuals are underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. the formula universally used was kg/m2. 2) pubertal status — the pubertal developmental scale (pds; petersen, crockett, richards, & boxer, 1988) assessed the effects of sex-specific development on five characteristics and was structured to provide a measure of pubertal status. it measures characteristics including growth spurts, skin changes, and body hair growth for both boys and girls; breast development and menarche in girls; and voice change and facial hair growth in boys. subjects had to answer each characteristic (five items on the female version and six items on the male version) on a four-point scale (1 = no development to 4 = development already completed). the categorical pds scale also took into account specific combinations of pubertal characteristics (presence or absence of menarche and reported breast and body hair development in girls as well as facial, body hair, and voice change in boys) in an effort to classify youths into five categories of development: pre-puberty, early puberty, mid-puberty, late puberty, and post-puberty. 3) body esteem — the body esteem scale (bes; mendelson, mendelson, & white, 2001; italian version by confalonieri, gatti, ionio, & traficante, 2008) consisted of 14 items, and the respondents had to indicate their degrees of agreement on a five-point likert scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (always). in addition, seven negative items were reverse-scored. the authors found a three-factor solution: attribution (the evaluations of one’s own body and appearance attributed to others), weight (weight satisfaction), and appearance (an overall feeling about one’s appearance). for these data, the three subscales had adequate reliability (appearance: alpha = .76; attribution: alpha = .68; weight: alpha = .84). 4) body image — the body image satisfaction questionnaire (bis; rauste-von wright, 1989; italian version by alparone, prezza, & camarda, 2000) measured the level of satisfaction regarding one’s own body image. it included 26 items that described all of the body parts (arms, legs, nose, feet, and so on). respondents provided answers about their satisfaction levels on a four-point likert scale; higher scores indicated lower levels of body satisfaction. two subscales had been identified: face (concerning the parts of the face) and figure (accounting for body parts). the italian version of the bis had an adequate reliability (cronbach’s alpha = .88) and a good test-retest stability (r = .85). for these data, internal consistency was very good (cronbach’s alpha = .91). 5) self-esteem — the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1965; italian version by prezza, trombaccia, & armento, 1997) is the most widely used measure of global self-esteem and has been determined to be valid and reliable among students (rosenberg, 1979). responses to the 10 items were rated on a four-point likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree) yielding scores between 10 and 40. the scale showed high internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = .84) and a good test-retest correlation (r = .76). for the present study, internal consistency was good (cronbach’s alpha = .76). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents 304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 6) body representation — the drawing me test was originally created by witkin, dyk, faterson, goodenough, & karp (1962) for adults and then it was modified and rearranged for adolescents (confalonieri, 2011). we decided to use drawings consistently with a good deal of research literature that suggested the utility of incorporating drawings into assessment practices. the drawing method, in fact, offers the opportunity to obtain qualitative information that may not be easily retrieved through conventional paper-and-pencil verbal tests and, as such, may broaden the range of available information (matto, 2006). the aim of the adapted measure was to identify, through a graphic representation (a self-made drawing), what an adolescent thought about his or her body: perceptions, attributions, satisfaction, or personal orientation toward any body part or the self-perception of the integration of body parts. the instruction was as follows: “please try to depict yourself by drawing the way you would want to present yourself to a person who was interested in you but did not know you. you are free to represent yourself in the most appropriate way, trying to communicate to the other person who you are and what your characteristics are”. three scales were evaluated: formal level, details level, and sexual characterization level. each one was structured in three different subscales, which were scored from 1 to 3 (1 = low level; 2 = medium level; 3 = high level). the formal level subscales measured the similarity between the drawing and a realistic body shape. in particular, the “form” analyzed the shape of all body parts, the “integration” analyzed the link among different parts of the body (i.e., the link between arms and hands; legs and feet; and head, neck, and shoulders), and the “proportion” analyzed the proportions of the human figure. the detail level’s subscales measured the number of bodily, facial, and clothing details represented in the drawings. in particular, “body details” analyzed the number of elements that composed the figure; “face details” analyzed the number of face elements represented (i.e., eyes, nose, and lips); and “clothes details” counted the number of clothing items represented (i.e., top, t-shirt, pants, skirt, accessories, and hat). the sexual characterization level subscales measured the presence/absence of secondary sexual features. in particular, “body sexual characterization” analyzed the accuracy of self-representation of sexual features (i.e., breast or hips for girls; body hair or muscles for boys); “face sexual characterization” analyzed the presence of sexual features of the face (i.e., makeup, eyeliner, and lipstick for girls; beard and square-jaw for boys); and “clothes sexual characterization” analyzed the articulation of gendered wear (i.e., skirts and tops for girls; pants and sweatshirts for boys). after the training period, three blinded independent examiners rated every drawing. the accordance between judges, measured by cohen’s κ coefficient, was .84. to estimate the inter-rater reliability, cohen’s κ was carried out instead of cronbach’s alpha because the scores on the single subscales were not expected to be consistent with each other. in fact, a drawing can be rated with a high level of “proportion”, but a low level of “integration” even though both indexes refer to the scale “formal level”. this is the reason why the analyses were carried out on the scores of the single subscales and not on the global scales that are to be considered only descriptive macro categories. data analyses the following data analyses were performed: a. descriptive analyses of the study sample were generated. data were expressed as mean ± standard deviations or absolute frequencies where appropriate. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 305 http://www.psychopen.eu/ b. multivariate and univariate analyses. a multivariate analysis (manova) was carried out with three bes subscales (appearance, attribution, and weight satisfaction) and two bis subscales (face and figure) as dependent variables as well as two fixed factors: gender (male and female) and age (early adolescents and adolescents). pubertal status (measured by petersen et al.’s categories, 1988) was not considered in this kind of analysis because the sample distribution according to this variable is strongly unbalanced (see table 1). c. structural equation models were carried out to assess the relationship among bmi, pubertal status, and body image along with their effects on self-esteem. d. the relationship between drawings and body esteem was analyzed using spearman’s rho correlation coefficient. results descriptive analyses sample characteristics for each instrument are presented in table 1, which shows the pubertal status distribution for gender and age. table 1 pubertal status distribution for gender and age females (n = 122)males (n = 120) pubertal status % adolescents (n = 55)%preadolescents (n = 67)% adolescents (n = 53)%preadolescents (n = 67) pre-pubertal .00.54.00.03 beginning .00.09.75.832 mid-pubertal .00.337.737.756 advanced pubertal .080.847.852.57 post-pubertal .020.51.83.00 the data showed an unbalanced pubertal distribution by gender and age. in particular, no adolescents and a small number of early adolescent girls were in premenarche statuses (pre-pubertal and beginning). during the past few years, the trend of menarche age has been lower than it was in the past, and our sample followed this trend (bernasconi, 2009; sartorio & buckler, 2007). male distribution showed a more linear development trend according to the literature (pompper, 2010; smolak & stein, 2010). as shown in table 2, the data suggests that during preadolescence, female individuals’ bmis were higher than those of male individuals because male adolescents’ “growth spurts” occurred later. when we compared the value in kg for the genders at each age, we found that the margin of discrepancy between male individuals and female individuals was very great in early puberty. during pubertal development, the weight of male adolescents grew by about 20 kg while the weight of female adolescents grew by only about 6 kg. height followed the same trend (table 2). the growth in female individuals occurred earlier than it did in male individuals, so at 11-12 years old, female individuals had already begun pubertal development, and their heights and weights were higher than those of the male adolescents. obviously, in adolescence, male individuals reached greater weights and heights because the development of muscles and bone was greater in them than it was in female individuals. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents 306 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 bmi means by gender and age femalesmales adolescentspreadolescentsadolescentspreadolescents sdmsdmsdmsdm bmi .302.3019.003.2919.902.5120.502.4218 height (m) .060.651.080.551.600.751.100.531 weight (kg) .706.9052.2010.8446.6011.0263.408.7143 multivariate and univariate analyses in accordance with the findings in some of the literature (ata, rojas, ludden, & thompson, 2011; graber, brooksgunn, & warren, 2006; van jaarsveld et al., 2007), we wanted to test the roles of gender and age as two factors that influenced body image. we conducted a manova with three bes subscales (appearance, attribution, and weight satisfaction) and two bis subscales (face and figure) as the dependent variables along with two fixed factors (gender and age). for body image (bes and bis scales), a multivariate analysis showed that a main effect existed for gender (pillai’s tr.: f[3,236] = 11.18, p < .001) and age (pillai’s tr.: f[3,236] = 6.53, p < .001), and an interaction effect existed too (gender x age: pillai’s tr.: f[3,236] = 2.72, p < .005). as for the bes scale, univariate post hoc analyses showed significant differences between the scores by gender (f[1,238] = 28.58, p < .001) for appearance (males: m = 12.85; females: m = 9.93), by age (f[1,238] = 12.63, p < .001) for attribution (early adolescents:m = 9.57; adolescents:m = 11.41), and in the interaction effect for weight satisfaction (f[1,238] = 4.11, p < .005). the older male individuals were more satisfied with their weight than their younger peers; the opposite was true for female adolescents (see table 3). table 3 body image (body esteem and body satisfaction) and self-esteem means for gender and age femalesmales adolescentspreadolescentsadolescentspreadolescents sdmsdmsdmsdm body esteem (bes) appearance .524.519.414.3610.463.7412.354.9612 attribution .213.2211.792.968.663.0611.853.1910 weight .804.278.804.169.593.1112.953.7310 body satisfaction (bis) face .925.4535.615.4933.967.0233.556.7531 figure .414.2716.413.3414.813.3613.093.5812 self-esteem (rse) self-esteem .784.4229.574.6730.514.6432.314.9730 as for the bis scale, the results of univariate post hoc analyses showed significant effects between the scores by gender (f[1,238] = 6.13, p < .005) on face (males:m = 32.38; females:m = 34.47) as well as by gender (f[1,238] = 24.24, p < .001) on figure (males:m = 12.97; females:m = 15.3). in addition, a significant effect by age (f[1,238] = 8.12, p < .005) on the figure subscale (early adolescents: m = 13.46; adolescents: m = 14.81) was found. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 307 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the rosenberg self-esteem scale, the anova showed a gender difference (f[1,238] = 7.34, p = .007) and an interaction effect by age (f[1,238] = 6.20, p = .013). in particular, the female adolescents were shown to have the lowest self-esteem of all of the groups (see table 3). the results suggested that gender and age were two factors that influenced body perception and body satisfaction. in particular, female adolescents had low body esteem and great concerns about their weight, reflecting great dissatisfaction with their body parts and low self-esteem compared to their male peers. due to the differences between males and females, we decided to carry out further analyses, splitting the sample by gender. structural equation models the eqs 6.0 (byrne, 2006) was employed to conduct the sem analysis. two different models were tested (see figure 1 and figure 2). figure 1. females: standardized structural coefficients for weight, and presence of menarche on body esteem and general self-esteem. note. statistics significant at the 5% level are marked with *. figure 2.males: standardized structural coefficients for height and figure satisfaction on body esteem and general self-esteem. note. statistics significant at the 5% level are marked with *. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents 308 http://www.psychopen.eu/ several goodness-of-fit indexes were used to evaluate their adequacy: according to hu and bentler (1999), the confirmatory fit index (cfi) should be higher than .95, the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) should be lower than .06, the standardized root mean square residual (srmr) should be lower than .08, and the chi-square/df ratio should be lower than 3 (corbetta, 1992) (see table 4). as for female adolescents, the structural path in figure 1 fitted adequately (see table 4) and showed that a low bmi along with the absence of menarche led to higher body esteem and to a good level of self-esteem (see figure 1). as for male individuals, the best model (see figure 2) showed the main effects of height and figure satisfaction on body esteem. the final outcome of positive body esteem was high self-worth (figure 2). table 4 indices for males’ and females’ models χ2/dfdfχ290%cirmseasrmrcfiagfigfimodels 6females .7621.57210.160.082.045.968.894.970 3males .1043.3129.237.135.60.946.842.968 drawing me due to the differences between male and female individuals founded in quantitative analyses, we split the sample into two groups for the drawings analyses. drawings were analyzed using spearman’s rho correlations among body image measures (bes and bis scales), physiological indices (age in years, bmi), pubertal status, and menarchal status (only for girls) on one side and “drawing me” on the other side. the results were shown separately for each group. female group spearman’s rho correlations among self-report measures, age, physical indices, pubertal status, and “drawing me” scales and subscales were shown in table 5. table 5 spearman rho correlations: significant results for females pρdrawing me subscalevariable clothes detailsbody image – appearancea .029.202proportionsage .014.228 body detailsage .002.279body sexual characterizationage .003.267 clothes detailsbmi .020.221 proportionsheight (meter) .014.228 body detailsheight (meter) .024.211body sexual characterizationheight (meter) .037.194 clothes detailsweight (kg) .003.277 clothes detailsmenarchal status .008.241body sexual characterizationmenarchal status .012.229 clothes detailspubertal status .008.242body sexual characterizationpubertal status .028.201 abes subscale europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 309 http://www.psychopen.eu/ by observing table 5, it was possible to identify seven variables that influenced female drawings. the first was body image. the inverse correlation between appearance (bes subscale) and clothes’ details reinforced the fact showed that the girls who showed low body esteem tended to cover their bodies with clothes (harriger, calogero, witherington, & smith, 2010). the second factor was age. adolescent females drew themselves with many body details, many sexual characterizations, and adequate body shape and proportions. they had probably already mentalized their body shape, and they were able to draw it in an articulate and more comprehensive way than preteens were. physical indices and pubertal statuses seemed to influence the drawings too. first, there was a significant correlation between bmi and clothes’ details. when the weight criterion was analyzed, it was observed that in overweight girls’ drawings, clothes’ details were richer: these girls probably wanted to cover their bodies’ perceived “out of proportion” states. height was important too: taller girls were more focused on proportions and less focused on body details than shorter girls were. taller girls began to draw a “personalized body,” marking pubertal changes through a high number of secondary sexual characteristics and good proportions. finally, the relationship among the pubertal status, menarche, and sexual characterization level reinforced the link between physical and psychological development. in advanced pubertal statuses, the girls drew themselves as women, underlining their belonging to the female gender. their drawings were rich in sexual body features: breasts, large hips, and long legs. makeup, double lips, lipstick, eyeliner, and eyebrows appeared on their faces as well. this emphasis was evident from the inverse correlation to the clothes’ details: the representation of themselves as “women” appeared less in clothes and more in bodily and physical details. male group spearman’s rho correlations among self-report measures, age, physical indices, pubertal status, and “drawing me” scales and subscales were shown in table 6. table 6 spearman rho correlations: significant results for males pρdrawing me subscalesvariable face detailsbody image – facea .038.193total detailsbody image – facea .048.184body sexual characterizationbody image – facea .035.196face sexual characterizationbody image – figurea .037.194body detailsage .045.186clothes sexual detailsage .026.206body detailsheight (meter) .040.194clothes detailsheight (meter) .025.211clothes sexual characterizationheight (meter) .037.197clothes detailsweight (kg) .023.214clothes sexual characterizationclothes details .013.234abis subscale europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents 310 http://www.psychopen.eu/ males’ drawings were influenced by body satisfaction (bis questionnaire), age, and physical indices (weight and height) (table 6). boys who were satisfied with their bodies and faces (bis subscales) represented themselves with a great number of secondary sexual characteristics. it is likely that muscles and body shape seemed to be very important for boys, so they focused on these aspects in their drawings. age was the second factor to enforce these correlations. early adolescents drew many bodily details and covered their bodies with many signs and adult clothes. their body was probably still childish, so they hoped to show their manhood through these external details. weight and height supported these data too: taller and more muscular boys were not interested in representing themselves with many details and fine clothes but rather chose to show their adulthood directly through their bodies. discussion this study showed that body development in adolescence affected the work of representations of one’s own body, especially in females. girls perceived themselves as dissatisfied with their weights and sensitive to their pubertal development statuses by being on or off time. males appeared influenced by their height and by the opinion that others judge them based on their bodily appearances. the literature indicated that puberty was a stressful event for adolescents and “off-time maturation” often related to negative consequences for boy and girls (ata, rojas, ludden, & thompson, 2011; burke, schaefer, & thompson, 2012; petrie, greenleaf, & martin, 2010). the broad set of outcomes of the off-time pubertal maturation was analyzed by many authors, but only a few of the studies focused on the impacts of pubertal development on body image perception and satisfaction. in particular, pubertal maturation was very different in boys and girls, and many authors emphasized the great impact of maturation on girls (carlson jones, 2004; flament et al., 2012; peterson, tantleff-dunn, & bedwell, 2006). girls appeared more dissatisfied with their bodies and seemed to be at more risk of engaging in dysfunctional eating behaviors than boys (ramos, rivera, moreno, & jimenez-iglesias, 2010; scholte, 2010). boys externalized their dissatisfactions or difficulties integrating pubertal changes via antisocial behavior, delinquency, and substance abuse (fasche, weichold, & silbereisen, 2010). in general, few studies had investigated whether the level of pubertal development could influence body perception and body esteem in both groups: boys and girls. the aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore the factors that influenced body image and self-esteem by considering and comparing male and female groups. the first results carried out with manova showed that gender was the most important factor that influenced body perception; thus, the two groups were considered separately, and eqs analyses were carried out for boys and girls. sem analyses seemed to confirm that the aspects that lead to body and self-esteem were different in girls and boys. the girls’ self-esteem levels weremore influenced by weight, appearance, and presence/absence of menarche than by pubertal status. in fact, bmi and menarche were the most important aspects identified by the eqs model that led to good body esteem in females. also, girls who showed low satisfaction with their bodies, as a consequence of the struggle to accept and to provide a mental integration of these pubertal changes, also had low self-esteem. the sole physical factor that influenced body esteem in male adolescents was height. in addition to height, peers’ opinions and appearances (bes subscales) and concerns about appearing tall and brawny (bis subscale) also influenced self-esteem according to a recent study of flament and colleagues (2012). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 311 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the drawings supported these data, which were obtained via self-reporting measures. in fact, through the drawings, it was possible to analyze themental representations of their own bodies along with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction they felt about their bodies. as for female individuals, when menarche appeared, drawings reached a more precise representation of secondary sexual features, making the body evenmore “personalized.” the “personalized” body was very important for reaching a body identity that would be integrated into a global identity at the end of adolescence (alsaker & kroger, 2006). male individuals’ drawings were characterized by good proportions, but few facial and clothing details. for boys, showing their body shapes seemed to be important. boys who were more satisfied with their bodies drew a small number of clothing details. this study seemed to confirm that male and female groups enabled us to understand that reaching a body identity followed different trajectories; males were worried about appearing tall and brawny to their peers in order to show their strength. the girls worried more and suffered much more than boys in this developmental trajectory (berger, weitkamp, & strauss, 2009). in male adolescents, physical power assured good body satisfaction and self-esteem, so they welcomed all visible body changes while female adolescents did not. in other words, the visibility of physical changes in male adolescents’ bodies was an aspect that made them more satisfied with their bodies and, consequently, with themselves. however, the opposite happened in female individuals. for female adolescents, in fact, pubertal changes such as menarche, weight increases, and larger hips led to constantly decreasing satisfaction with their bodies. the final outcome of this body dissatisfaction was low self-esteem. this work had several strong points. first, we took into consideration both males and females. this allowed us to understand how tiring puberty can be for both genders and how this varies and has different outcomes, which are more or less dysfunctional and critical. secondly, the model allowed us to keep multiple variables together and confirm that during puberty more elements acted with different weights. this allowed us to better understand the underlying process. to complete the picture that had emerged, drawings confirmed the quantitative data, giving us a better idea of the process. important limitations of this study must be mentioned. first of all, the sample was not balanced for pubertal status. in fact, most of the female individuals were collocated in the “advanced pubertal” and “post-pubertal” levels. during the past few years, the age of menarche had lowered, so many early adolescents, even those who were younger, had just passed menarche (austin, haines, & veugelers, 2009; bernasconi, 2009). secondly, this study was cross-sectional because it compared two different groups, but it would be useful to investigate these eqs models over time through a longitudinal study. despite these limitations, the data were promising. it could be interesting to replicate this study with a larger and more balanced sample (including subjects from lower socioeconomic classes) and using longitudinal measures to explore how, during development, body perception and self-esteem changed in the two groups and what factors influence these perceptions. this study stressed the influence of various individual factors (more or less investigated to date) in both males and females and highlighted the psychological distress and dissatisfaction of adolescents, especially in females. it confirmed the importance of studying this topic in order to generate preventive measures to help adolescents through this developmental task. reinforcing skills such as self-esteem and the abilities to withstand social 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(1962). articulation of the body concept. new york, ny: wiley. about the authors elena gatti, phd. her major research interest are: the impact of pubertal changes in adolescence; physical and body developmental perception in pre-adolescent and adolescent; school psychology. contact: elena.gatti@unicatt.it chiara ionio, phd, is researcher in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since june 2006. her major research interests are: the impact of traumatic events on children and adolescents; drawings as a mean of communication; the impact of post-traumatic stress symptoms after childbirth on early mother-child interactions. contact: chiara.ionio@unicatt.it daniela traficante, phd, is researcher in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since 2002. her major research interests are: qualitative and quantitative research methods applied to child developmental; typical and atypical trajectories in language development. contact: daniela.traficante@unicatt.it emanuela confalonieri, phd, is associated professor in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since march 2004. her major research interests are: typical and atypical issues in adolescence and self-construction; physical and body developmental perception in pre-adolescent and adolescent; pregnancy as life critical events both for selfconstructions and for mother-child interactions; school psychology. contact: emanuela.confalonieri@unicatt.it psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 301–317 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.703 gatti, ionio, traficante et al. 317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0272431600020002002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en how body image influences self-esteem in italian adolescents (introduction) method participants measures and procedure data analyses results descriptive analyses multivariate and univariate analyses structural equation models drawing me female group male group discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors investigating the predictive role of social self-efficacy on authenticity in turkish university students research reports investigating the predictive role of social self-efficacy on authenticity in turkish university students seydi ahmet satici*a, ahmet rifat kayisa, ahmet akinb [a]department of psychological counselling and guidance, anadolu university, eskisehir, turkey. [b]department of psychological counselling and guidance, sakarya university, sakarya, turkey. abstract the aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between social self-efficacy and authenticity. the perceived social self-efficacy scale and the authenticity scale were administrated to a sample of 308 university students. the research data were analysed by correlation and linear regression analysis. social self-efficacy is positively related to authentic living, and is negatively related to accepting external influence, and self-alienating. the linear regression analysis showed that social self-efficacy was a significant predictor of authenticity. the significance and limitations of the results are discussed. keywords: authenticity, social self-efficacy, linear regression europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 received: 2013-01-27. accepted: 2013-05-08. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: graduate school of education science, anadolu university, yunusemre campus, 26470, eskisehir, turkey. e-mail: sasatici@anadolu.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction self-efficacy, based on bandura’s (1977) theory, has influenced psychology over the past few decades and can be defined as individuals’ beliefs in their sufficiency to be successful in a task (bandura, 1997). researchers have suggested four factors which have an important role in the development of self-efficacy: personal performance accomplishments, vicarious learning or modelling, emotional arousal, and social persuasion and encouragement (smith & betz, 2000). bandura (2000) found that people with high self-efficacy tend to have greater cognitive resourcefulness, strategic flexibility and effectiveness in managing their environment, and set motivating goals for themselves. while people with high self-efficacy can be successful in complex tasks, people with low self-efficacy avoid difficult tasks (bandura, 1986, 1993). self-efficacy which is mostly related to interpersonal relationships is called social self-efficacy and was defined by smith and betz (2000, p. 286) as “an individual’s confidence in his/her ability to engage in the social interactional task necessary to initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships”. gecas (1989) noted that individuals with social self-efficacy are capable of initiating social contact and developing new friendships. self-efficacy is formed by previous accomplishment, social modelling, social persuasion, mastery experiences and psychological and emotional situations (mcauley & courneya, 1993). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ social self-efficacy is important not only in its possible relationship to effective social behaviour but also in psychological adjustment and mental health. previous studies have consistently demonstrated that higher levels of social self-efficacy are related to higher levels of self-esteem (caprara & steca, 2005; connolly, 1989; hermann & betz, 2004, 2006; smith & betz, 2000, 2002), social confidence (anderson & betz, 2001; fan &mak, 1998; matsushima & shiomi, 2003; smith & betz, 2000), and problem solving skills (bilgin & akkapulu, 2007; di giunta et al., 2010; matsushima & shiomi, 2003). other researchers suggested that higher levels of social self-efficacy are related to lower levels of depression (anderson & betz, 2001; bandura, pastorelli, barbaranelli, & caprara, 1999; hermann & betz, 2004, 2006; smith & betz, 2002), social anxiety (connolly, 1989; fan, meng, gao, lopez, & liu, 2010; sherer & adams, 1983; smith & betz, 2000), and shyness (anderson & betz, 2001; hermann & betz, 2004) and social self-efficacy skill mediates the relationship between stressful life events and depressive symptoms (maciejewski, prigerson, & mazure, 2000). moreover, recent research has indicated that lower levels of social selfefficacy are related to higher levels of internet addiction (i̇skender & akin, 2010) and game addiction (jeong & kim, 2011). authenticity during interpersonal relationships, those individuals who express themselves in a clear and honest manner have been accepted as psychologically adaptive persons (harbus, 2002). in this respect kernis (2003) proposed that “authenticity can be characterized as reflecting the unobstructed operation of one’s true, or core, self in one’s daily enterprise” (p. 13). authenticity is a life-long discovery process including an individual’s awareness of his/her personal potential and behaving based on his/her potential (starr, 2008). according to sheldon (2009), authenticity comprises being emotionally sincere, self-attunement, and having psychological depth, and being authentic is essential for individuals to experience optimal levels of psychological well-being (deci & ryan, 2000; rogers, 1961). kernis (2003) suggested that authenticity had four discriminable components: awareness, unbiased processing, action, and relational orientation. kernis and goldman (2004) defined awareness as the realization of an individual’s own emotions, desires and information about himself, and to trust them; unbiased processing as the individual perceiving his/her inner and external experiences without any dismissal, distortion or exaggeration; action as consistency between one’s behaviours and needs; relational orientation as individuals’ clear and honest behaviours in their close relationships. wood, linley, maltby, baliousis, and joseph (2008), inspired by barrett-lennard’s (1998) authenticity definition based on individual-centred counselling, explained authenticity as including self-alienation, accepting external influence and authentic living. wood et al. stated that these components interact with each other. for example, people who submit to external influence more quickly draw away from themselves and become self-alienated. in contrast, people who submit to external influence less live a more authentic life. in this context, it is possible to regard self-alienation and authentic life as two end-points. rae (2010), similarly, emphasized that the concept of alienation would help to gain significant insight into human existence. there are, however, different types of authenticity, such as personal authenticity (neri & sabbadini, 2008), subjective authenticity (wood et al., 2008), distortional authenticity (goldman & kernis, 2002; kernis, 2003), emotional authenticity (salmela, 2005) and psychological authenticity (sheldon, ryan, rawsthorne, & ilardi, 1997). in neff and harter’s (2002) research, about how married couples solve conflicts between them, it was found that, while resolving the dispute, men and women who prioritise their personal needs and behave in an agreeable europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 satici, kayis, & akin 573 http://www.psychopen.eu/ manner act more authentically than those who ignore personal needs. it was also concluded that men act more authentically than women. in a study in which he examined the relationship between authenticity and depression, theran (2011) found that authenticity was negatively associated with depression in both male and female groups. moreover, white and tracey (2011) indicated in their study on relationships between authenticity and career indecision that individuals who have high authenticity live with less indecision whereas those who have low authenticity live with more indecision. also, it is stated that authenticity is related to variables such as leadership (avolio & gibbons, 1988; dillon, 2001; hannah, walumbwa, & fry, 2011), well-being (ménard & brunet, 2011; wood et al., 2008), self-esteem (goldman & kernis, 2002), and the big-five personality traits (fleeson &wilt, 2010; sheldon et al., 1997). the present study although there is an abundance of studies investigating social self-efficacy and authenticity, studies that investigate directly the relationship between these two concepts are limited. in this respect, this study will provide theoretical insights to both the social self-efficacy and authenticity literatures. additionally, studies on social self-efficacy have mostly been conducted with children and adolescents (e.g., connolly, 1989; dinç, 2011; wheeler & ladd, 1982). recent studies have also demonstrated that lower levels of social self-efficacy are related to higher levels of depression (hermann & betz, 2004; smith & betz, 2002). similarly, theran (2011) demonstrated that authenticity is negatively related to depression symptomology. also social self-efficacy has been widely applied to psychological adjustment and mental health (hermann & betz, 2006; smith & betz, 2002) as well as authenticity (deci & ryan, 2000; goldman, 2004; goldman, kernis, piasecki, hermann, & foster, 2004; rogers, 1961). goldman et al. (2004) found that authenticity was linked with interpersonal adjustment and attachment security. consistently mallinckrodt and wei (2005) found that individuals with high levels of both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance showed lower levels of social self-efficacy. authenticity is a self-discovery process that continues throughout the life and, as a result of this process, there is agreement in relations with self and others (starr, 2008). in other words authenticity has an important role in social relationships. social self-efficacy is directly related to social life. therefore, it can be hypothesised that social selfefficacy may be a significant predictor of authenticity. thus the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between social self-efficacy and dimensions of authenticity. based on the relationship presented above, this study poses the following hypotheses: hypothesis 1: social self-efficacy is negatively associated with accepting external influence. hypothesis 2: social self-efficacy is negatively associated with self-alienating. hypothesis 3: social self-efficacy is positively associated with authentic living. method participants participants were 308 volunteer undergraduate students (166 [54%] women and 142 [46%] men) studying various subjects (biology, economics, geography, mathematics, science education, social science education, primary school education, psychology, and sociology), at sakarya university. of the participants, 83 (27%) were freshman, 81 (26%) were sophomores, 74 (24%) were juniors, and 70 (23%) were seniors. their ages ranged from 17 to 23 year-old (m = 18.9, sd = 1.1). convenience sampling was used in the selection of participants. convenience europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 social self-efficacy and authenticity 574 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sampling is a non-probability sampling technique where subjects are selected because of their convenient accessibility and proximity to the researcher (bryman, 2004). for this reason, it is not suitable to use the results of this study to make inferences about the entire population. measures perceived social self-efficacy scale (psse). social self-efficacy was measured using the perceived social selfefficacy scale (smith & betz, 2000). the scale contains 25 items (e.g., “put yourself in a new and different social situation” and “find someone to go to lunch with”) on a 5-point likert-type scale (1 = no confidence at all to 5 = complete confidence). the scale items are related to making friends, social assertiveness, pursuing romantic relationships, performance in public situations, groups and parties, and receiving and giving help. smith and betz (2000) reported that the psse scale had a single-factor structure. a sum of all scores yields a total score that ranges from 25 to 125; higher scores indicate higher levels of social self-efficacy. a turkish adaptation of this scale has been devised by palanci (2004). the internal consistency coefficient of the adapted turkish form was .89. for test–retest reliability, the scale was administered to 100 undergraduate students twice in 4 weeks. the pearson correlation coefficient was .68. in the present study, cronbach alpha coefficient was α = .73. authenticity scale (wood et al., 2008). the authenticity scale contains 12 items on a 7-point likert scale (1 = does not describe me at all to 7 = describes me very well). the scale has three sub-dimensions: accepting external influence (aei, four items, e.g., “other people influence me greatly”), self-alienating (s-e, four items, e.g., “i don’t know how i really feel inside”), and authentic living (al, four items, e.g., “i live in accordance with my values and beliefs”). a turkish adaptation study was carried out by akin and dönmezogullari (2010). according to their findings, three factors explained 57% of total variance. internal consistencies were .73, .72, and .75 and three-week testretest reliability estimates were .89, .86, and .79 for aei, s-e, and al, respectively. according to results of their study, self-alienating and accepting external influence were positively correlated with stress (r = .54 and r = .22), and anxiety (r = .43 and r = .16), and negatively correlated with happiness (r = -.55 and r = -.16), self-esteem (r = -.59 and r = -.20). authentic living was positively correlated with happiness (r = .26), and self-esteem (r = .36), and negatively correlated with anxiety (r = -.18), and stress (r = -.20). in the present study, the cronbach alpha coefficients were α = .79, .76, and .80 for aei, s-e, and al, respectively. procedure researchers obtained permission for the participation of students from the relevant chief of the department. selfreport questionnaires, in counterbalanced order, were administered in a quiet classroom setting, during spring term 2011. completion of the questionnaires was anonymous and there was a guarantee of confidentiality. data were collected by the researchers and questionnaires were completed in approximately 15 minutes. pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression were applied to assess statistical significance for the relations of social self-efficacy with authenticity. analyses were carried out with ibm spss statistics 20. results descriptive data and intercorrelations table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and pearson correlation coefficients for the variables. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 satici, kayis, & akin 575 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, sds, and pearson intercorrelations of the variables 4321variable 1accepting external influence1. 1self-alienating2. .46* 1authentic living3. .51*-.30*1social self-efficacy4. .40*.43*-.34*m .2288.6423.9711.9913 sd .7413.034.265.745 *p < .01. correlations between social self-efficacy and authenticity were statistically significant. social self-efficacy correlated negatively r = -.34 (p < .01) with accepting external influence, and r = -.43 (p < .01) with self-alienating. however, social self-efficacy correlated positively r = .40 (p < .01) with authentic living. is social self-efficacy a predictor of authenticity? social self-efficacy was an independent variable and dimensions of authenticity were dependent variables. table 2 shows the results of linear regression analysis for each variable. table 2 linear regression of social self-efficacy on dimensions of authenticity ptβstandard error of bbdependentpredictor accepting external influencesocial self-efficacy .001<.39-6.343-.022.143self-alienating .001<.37-8.432-.020.165authentic living .001<.627.399.015.117 according to the results of the regression analysis, social self-efficacy, β = -.34, p < .001, significantly predicted accepting external influence. adjusted r squared indicated that social self-efficacy predicted 11.5% of the variance in accepting external influence. the results of the second linear regression indicated that social self-efficacy, β = -.43, p < .001 was a significant predictor of self-alienating. according to the adjusted r squared, social self-efficacy predicted 18.4% of variance in self-alienating. in the third, social self-efficacy, β = .40, p < .001, significantly predicted authentic living. adjusted r squared indicated that social self-efficacy predicted 15.7% of the variance in authentic living. discussion this study investigates the relationship between social self-efficacy and authenticity. correlations and regression analysis confirm the hypotheses and show that social self-efficacy is negatively associated with accepting external influence and self-alienating and is positively associated with authentic living. there are only indirect studies that investigate relations between social self-efficacy and authenticity which support the results of the present study. for instance, as the result of research on authenticity, researchers found a positive relationship between wellbeing and authenticity (ménard & brunet, 2011; wood et al., 2008). furthermore, results regarding the relationship between social self-efficacy and well-being indicated a positive relation between the two concepts (di giunta et europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 social self-efficacy and authenticity 576 http://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2010). therefore, the positive relationship between social self-efficacy and authentic living is reasonable. in parallel with this study’s findings, goldman and kernis (2002) examined authenticity’s relationship with self-esteem. they suggested that authentic people had high levels of self-esteem. there are many studies investigating the relationship between social self-efficacy and self-esteem and the results of these studies indicate consistently that individuals who have high social self-efficacy also have high self-esteem (e.g., caprara & steca, 2005; connolly, 1989; hermann & betz, 2004, 2006; smith & betz, 2000, 2002). consequently, it can be said that results of the study are consistent with previous findings. there are some limitations of this research. firstly, the sample presented here is limited to university students. for that reason, it is questionable whether the findings can be generalized to different age groups. secondly, the data reported here for authenticity and social self-efficacy are limited to self-reported data. besides, although the regression analysis approach is used to estimate the proposed model, it is difficult to give a full explanation related to causality among the variables examined in the research, since only correlational data was collected. finally, it can be mentioned that the participants were selected using convenience sampling in this study and therefore this may limit the generalization of findings of this study to the general population in turkey. references akin, a., & dönmezogullari, c. 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(2009). authenticity. in s. j. lopez (ed.), the encyclopedia of positive psychology (pp. 75–78). west sussex, united kingdom: wiley-blackwell. sheldon, k. m., ryan, r. m., rawsthorne, l. j., & ilardi, b. (1997). trait self and true self: cross-role variation in the big-five personality traits and its relations with psychological authenticity and subjective well-being. journal of personality and social psychology, 73(6), 1380-1393. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1380 sherer, m., & adams, c. h. (1983). construct validation of the self-efficacy scale. psychological reports, 53, 899-902. doi:10.2466/pr0.1983.53.3.899 smith, h. m., & betz, n. e. (2000). development and validation of a scale of perceived social self-efficacy. journal of career assessment, 8, 283-301. doi:10.1177/106907270000800306 smith, h. m., & betz, n. e. 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(2008). the authentic personality: a theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the authenticity scale. journal of counseling psychology, 55(3), 385-399. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385 about the authors seydi ahmet satici is a research assistant at the division of guidance and psychological counselling, anadolu university. his current research interests are vengeance, forgiveness, and authenticity. ahmet rifat kayis is a research assistant at the division of guidance and psychological counselling, anadolu university. his current research interests are achievement goals and authenticity. contact: anadolu university, graduate school of educational science, 26470 eskisehir, turkey. arkayis@anadolu.edu.tr ahmet akin is an associate professor at the department of educational science, sakarya university. his current research interests are self-compassion, self-handicapping, and scale development. contact: sakarya university, educational faculty, 54300 sakarya, turkey. aakin@sakarya.edu.tr europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 572–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.579 social self-efficacy and authenticity 580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.2005.00273.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.73.6.1380 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1983.53.3.899 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/106907270000800306 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.49.4.438 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6198.2008.00096.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.04.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.18.6.795 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2010.09.015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social self-efficacy and authenticity introduction authenticity the present study method participants measures procedure results descriptive data and intercorrelations is social self-efficacy a predictor of authenticity? discussion references about the authors troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond editorial troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond lene tanggaard*a [a] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract this present paper troubles and literally ‘shakes’ the idea of methods as the founding ground of qualitative inquiry. it does so by addressing the real-time messiness of research and the retrospective character of research reports. while the paper is not as such opposed to methods, it does suggest that many actual research practices do not follow defined and regular plans as the terminology of methods inclines. however, rather than seeing the messiness as a bias to be eliminated, a more constructive approach is suggested. with the intention of inviting more creative and thought-provoking research within qualitative inquiry, three specific ‘messy’ research strategies are suggested in the paper. these are: 1) searching for associations between actors, of both human and non-human kinds, 2) following the traces of many kinds of actors and 3) doing a theoretical re-working of materials. the overall suggestion is that these open-ended and flexible strategies allow for an innovative approach to the development of a qualitative psychology while also serving to trouble (at least for a moment) the current popularity of methods in research. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 received: 2013-06-19. accepted: 2013-06-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: kroghstræde 3, dk-9220 aalborg ø, denmark. e-mail: lenet@hum.aau.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. “i cannot explain how deconstruction happens, but it does if one has read enough and puts it to work” (st. pierre, 2011, p. 620) introduction the aim of the present paper is to trouble and literally ‘shake’ the idea of methods as the founding ground of qualitative inquiry. in these days, qualitative inquiry usually involves rather fixed and taken for granted concepts like ‘data’, ‘coding’, ‘analysis’ and ‘methods’. in courses on qualitative work, we teach students what methods to use for collecting data, how to code data and how to do an analysis. however, each of these concepts can or must sometimes be troubled, questioned, critiqued or even replaced with a more fitting terminology if this is what is needed to keep the field developing. in the present context, i intend to do so with the concept of methods, generally defined as: “a way of doing anything, esp. according to a defined and regular plan; a mode of procedure in any activity, business, etc.” (the oxford english dictionary, 2008, p. 963). my trouble is that i have never myself conducted research according to a defined and regular plan – or rather my plans and the realized research are seldom identical constructs and any description of methods in my writing is at best retrospective and a kind of subsequent rationalization of what was done. consequently, even if i do have a research-plan (as i carry a map or a gpswhen travelling); unexpected things always happen, newly constructed roads turn up and research paths which could not be foreseen surface. and why is this so?well, as bent flyvbjerg notes, following his qualitative case-based research on mega-projects (such as building a new infrastructure in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ modern day cities): “predictive theories and universals cannot be found in the study of human affairs. concrete, context-dependent knowledge is, therefore, more valuable than the vain search for predictive theories and universals” (flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 224). likewise: predictive methods cannot be found in researchers’ studies of human and social affairs which are what most qualitative researchers are up to. the rules of research, often formulated in many research-guide books, are good to know, especially for the novice researcher, but they are not identical with the concrete, realized research. the latter requires experience-based researcher skills (observing, describing, and listening, reading, writing) which are accumulated and embodied over the years. the above are the main reasons why my research reports are always a backward reading of how my empirical material came into being rather than a (blind) result of following the prescribed rules of a method (ingold & hallam, 2007). in an attempt to take this seriously, this presentation aims at exploring possible alternatives approaches to do qualitative research which are, to my knowledge, not very frequently described in qualitative methods textbooks. accordingly, i have found three kinds of research practices: 1. searching for associations between actors, of both human and non-human kinds 2. following the traces of many kinds of actors 3. doing a theoretical re-working of materials. if the above may not be themes of general interest, they have at least come to represent what i tend to do when conducting qualitative research and i hope they can serve as inspiration for other researchers alike. however, before explaining these concepts in more detail, we will have to study why methods became so popular in the first place. why did research methods become so popular? a short story as a university teacher in psychology for the last 15 years, i have noticed that we tend to teach students research methods more intensively than we did just a few years ago. as part of our local psychology education at aalborg university, in denmark, students are obliged to conduct two major research studies already while at the bachelor level. that is: one major qualitative project and one major quantitative project, each lasting one semester. they are taught how to do so in separate methods courses, and they carry out their empirical projects in groups, with a supervisor helping them. only five or six years ago, they also wrote projects, but they did so without having to conduct empirical work and without being examined as intensively in research methods as they are these days. there are a number of reasons, i believe, why this increased focus on teaching research methods is occurring. the performative role of research methods one consequence of the local prioritization of research methods in teaching is that there is now less ‘innocence’ concerning research methods among students than just a few years ago. they learn to define phenomenology, grounded theory and analysis already from the second semester, and empirical work is valued to a higher extend than ever before, which is a relief for those who believe in empirical work as that which ensures progress of the discipline. on the other hand, theoretical work is facing a hard time, and while students’ projects formerly tended to concentrate on the particular subject matter of, say, social and/or personality psychology, some of them are now more obsessed with the methods than with the actual subject of their research. furthermore, methods are increasingly seen as more or less content-independent tools with which to handle almost everything. consequently, many of our students conduct an ipa (interpretative phenomenological analysis) of almost everything ranging from childhood suffering to elderly joy and happiness. they do so because we teach them to do it, and ipa is indeed europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond 410 http://www.psychopen.eu/ very instructive in its delimitation of the possible concrete steps to follow in a phenomenological-interpretative type of analysis. accordingly, ipa is really popular among our students as it represents an easily applicable and also very useful analytical approach, but the problem might be that it is over-inclusive and seems to be perceived by the students (and also the teachers!) as immediately useful almost everywhere regardless of the content of the project, even if this is actually not always the case. at least, this is what we discuss at the lunch-table in the teacher’s room, without really having found ways to tackle this issue other than encouraging students to also do something else. onemay speculate why researchmethods have taken such a superordinate position. at an analytical level, lyotard’s (1984) analysis of the performative role of knowledge as a circulating and easily exchangeable entity in a postmodern world would be one way to look for an explanation. “be performative or die” is the dictum of the postmodern condition, and methods are surely playing a performative role when they show their applicability almost everywhere, independent of particular content. according to the analysis of lyotard, knowledge is increasingly seen as a circulating entity and not as embodied, connected to expertise, and context-bounded. that is: instead of spending years as an apprentice among experienced researchers, scholars today often learn the tools of research from research methods courses, not integrated into particular fields, as researchers did years ago. the former practice carried the risk of being misguided or suffering from the exploitation of ‘master’ figure, but also offered students the change to learn from experts in the field rather than from the cookbook of science as embodied by many research books (kvale, 1999). that is, along with the apparent democratization of research practices, with methods books and courses offering a relatively easy, fast-food approach to the world of science, there is also a real risk of compartmentalization of research into easy digestible bit(e)s, not lasting long. nevertheless, being unsure about the value of ‘truth’ in knowledge construction in the postmodern condition, research methods seem to be one of the more secure anchors when faced with the postmodern flood. meanwhile, the content, or the craft of research, tends to slip away, critics would claim. legitimization crisis? another way to understand the popularity of research methods today, not just generally, but also in relation to qualitative inquiry, is related to an overall legitimization crisis within research and science. in the moment of performance, when knowledge does not seem to be an end in itself, deeply ingrained in realization of the idea or the empowerment of people, control slips away from all, including the researcher. accordingly, the whole idea of a research method, by which data can be handled with reference to specific guidelines and procedures, represents an attempt of systematization, formalization and maybe a kind of semi-control of the whole research process which can be a relief for a discipline trying to legitimatize itself as a science and still recognizing the value of qualitative work. for example, giorgi’s (1975) description of the phenomenological approach to the analysis of interview data did play a major role for psychologists striving to turn psychology into a human science. it represented a systematics with which to make sense of often complex qualitative data. the initial formulation of grounded theory by glaser & strauss (1967) did a similar job in the social sciences. furthermore, the growing number of books concerning qualitative methods is also an indication of the apparent need for reference-points and typologies of data-handling in order to make research publishable (or whatever the goal of the researcher might be). on the other hand, this practice risks locking the researcher into using only ascribed methods while more creative thinking, digressions and the simple following of the object of the research at the expense of procedure are not happening and/or are seen as something to hide. the reader is thus made to believe that data were analyzed using the prescribed and familiar steps. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 tanggaard 411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ according to valsiner (2012), one consequence of the streamlining of methodology, taking the discipline of psychology as an example, is that psychology has been in a conceptual limbo over the last century: “as an aspiring science, it has found its methodology to resemble that of ’the real sciences’, in which theories are accepted as finished and immutable conglomerates of thoughts. thus, much of psychological discourse has been devoted to issues of the following key thinkers of the past – jean piaget, lev vygotsky, b. f. skinner, to mention a few, rather than transcending their legacies in new directions. following in science indicates an inferiority complex” (valsiner, 2012, vii). this critique is interesting in light of the fact that psychology has been an extremely productive discipline with new journals, peer-reviewed articles and books coming up in a fast accelerant tempo, but without remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the psyche. and the streamlining tendency is not only a phenomenon within psychology. considering the popularity of methods books, it might be the time to look at them in a more critical vein. as stated by elizabeth st. pierre: “my critique is not that qualitative inquiry is unscientific, my critique is that, to a great extent, it has been so disciplined, so normalized, so centered – especially because of recent assaults by sbr – that is has become conventional, reductionist, hegemonic, and sometimes oppressive and has lost its radical possibilities to produce knowledge differently” (st. pierre, 2011, p. 613). according to st. pierre, the many textbooks advising researchers to organize their empirical material in categories like research design, data, data collection, data analysis, interviews, observations and representations convince researchers that these are suitable for organizing and getting a hold on the material. the failure is that this is maybe not always true and that new inventions and the discipline of science in itself risks being under threat because these categories may work restrictively at the expense of the invention of new categories with which to handle empirical material more in line with the material at hand. st. pierre’s inspiration comes from derrida’s deconstructionism, meaning “the overturning and displacement of a structure so that something(s) different can be thought/done”. without seeing myself as a deconstructivist per see, i will, in the following, trouble the concept of methods when this implies the following of a linear and regular plan which can, beforehand, determine the ways of the researcher in the empirical field. i think something else can and is actually done within qualitative inquiry. i do so by introducing three different concepts i have found useful for describing my own empirical work and which can maybe not overturn the popularity of methods, but at least trouble our conceptions of what qualitative inquiry is in the 21th century. qualitative inquiry as searching for associations one of the claims and points of critique voiced by st. pierre in the above is that qualitative inquiry is presently locked in the image of the humanistic ‘i’ taking control over the research process, with the appropriate codingtools (methods) in hand. is qualitative inquiry a matter of the ‘i’ of the researcher conducting research according to a regular and linear plan, asks st. pierre? my claim in the following is that this is seldom the case, and that the role of the qualitative researcher is much more one of searching for associations between humans and between humans and things revealing themselves as part of the inquiry. let me develop this point a bit further. one of the assumptions in st. pierre’s text cited above is that deconstruction concerns the challenging of taken for granted concepts. in qualitative research, these concern for example many concepts based on the basic assumption of a humanistic ‘i’, e.g. the participant, the self, voice, lens, subjectivity, objectivity, dialogue, reflexivity europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond 412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ or identity. working with the idea of entanglement inspired from deconstructionism and quantum physics, st. pierre believes that everything is entangled with everything else and with everyone and that our individuality is, rather than a stable and defined unity, more akin to a chain of events and more about becoming than about a defined beginning and end. accordingly, it is indeed hard to determine exactly where the ‘i’ of the researcher begins and ends. am i for example the same ‘i’ after having conducted a piece of empirical research? was the piece of research done according to the plan of the ‘i’ of the researcher or were there many other i’s (eyes) present? the changeability of the field and the entanglement of everything with everything else make these distinctions hard to find out there. taking entanglement as the ontological point of departure, it does indeed become problematic to assume that we can then still stand on the shoulders of the ‘i’ invented by humanistic psychology when we do qualitative inquiry. the ’i’ as a concept or category in the world is for st. pierre closely coupled with the ideal of the transparent researcher who is able to make distinctions between the i and the world, the subjective versus the objective, the researcher versus the researched, but these distinctions do become blurred when the field is moving you, the researcher, in unexpected directions and when the groupings of participants in the field encountered yesterday turn into something else the next day. even if it is hard to write oneself out of the ‘i’ or the above distinctions, a moremoveable, entanglement approach would be preferable in these cases. it would furthermore help accounting for the experience mentioned in the introduction of the present text, namely that the actual research practice is so moveable and dependent on the events in the fields studied that it can be hard to determine beforehand what is going to happen and even harder to explain what guided the concrete steps along the way. the field can literally move the researcher in unexpected directions. what i (sic) suggest instead is that qualitative inquiry is a matter of searching for associations between humans (the many participants and also the researcher) and between humans and things in the field, and that it is the change in associations between these entities that shows us what the field is made of, what happens and what changes are interesting. rather than beginning with pre-determined concepts and looking for assembles out there, ‘in the real world’, we do, co-construct, associate and make empirical material as we go along. for example, within a field study approach, it is very often the reactions among participants towards the researcher and vice versa that show what the values, the norms and the habits of the field are, e.g. how they use to welcome strangers, what they emphasize, leave out or don’t focus upon. and as the participants guide the researcher around, he or she learns what to look for, where to go and what there is to know. and as the traveling goes along, it becomes evident how abstract most theoretical constructs can be, and how they can actually be redefined along the way as associations are found and (re)changed. one example of this can be found in my descriptions of how i had to change my conception of learning confronted with apprentices in vocational education who objected to the researcher (me) trying to describe them during research interviews as learning subjects – subjects of learning (tanggaard, 2007). instead they wanted to be seen as becoming professional mechanics and they believed that the term learning and its associated educational discourse made it difficult for them to describe themselves as craftsmen and that it furthermore, at least metaphorically, kepting them on the school bench, something they did not want. indeed, in research interviews, the interview itself is the site of empirical production, a space of co-production and a social practice in which the field is spoken and re-spoken – to and about – in new ways (see also tanggaard, 2009; tanggaard & szulevicz, in press). finding a way to describe this co-production approach to research, which radically critiques the idea of the researcher as the sole i or knowledge-producer in research, i have not only consulted st. pierre, but also the ant europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 tanggaard 413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ approach of latour. in the words of latour: “for the sociologists of associations, any study of any group by any social scientist is part and parcel of what makes the group exist, last, decay, or disappear” (latour, 2005, p. 33). accordingly, it is no longer enough to limit actors to the role of informers offering cases of well-known types. we have to grant them back the ability to make up their own theories of what the social is made of, and we have to follow the actors themselves. as such, the researcher is not following a method understood as a linear and regular plan, but must follow the actors themselves and learn from their objections. indeed, we should not impose metanarratives on the stories of the actors themselves, but let the movements, the words, the events and the actors speak for themselves, as much as possible. in this way, you are constantly searching for associations, between actors you did not know of before, stories which you did not know could be told, but which show themselves as important. that is, we cannot begin with more or less empty concepts such as the ‘social’ and the ‘psyche’ and then expect to find these categories out there. again, in the words of latour: “the word social cannot replace anything, cannot express anything better, cannot be substituted – in any form or guise – for anything else. it is not the common measure of all things, like a credit card widely accepted everywhere. it is only a movement that can be seized indirectly when there is a slight change in one older association mutating into a slightly newer or different one” (latour, 2005, p. 37). accordingly, searching for associations implies letting the stories, the words and the concepts of the actors themselves stand out. there is no ‘on top’ researcher defining what is wrong or right or whose voice is to determine the conclusions. rather, the aim is to follow, describe and be part of the associations of the field. qualitative inquiry as following the traces of many kinds of actors my second claim in this paper is that qualitative researchers must follow the traces of many kinds of actors. much qualitative research, and not least interview projects, has as its aim the study of the subjective experience of something (kvale & brinkmann, 2009). there is nothing wrong per see with subjective experiences, but what we may tend to forget, if action is limited a priori to what is subjective, intentional and human, are the many other things that may modify the state of affairs in a given situation. even if we are still interviewing persons and not things, wemay risk counting out these other materials in our stories. in a recent study of creative activity this became very evident to me. many psychological treatments of the phenomena of creativity define it as the ability to think in novel and valuable ways (craft, 2005; glăveanu, 2010, 2011). a central component of this is often perceived to be the divergent thinking of the individual person. however, what became evident while interviewing 25 persons about their creative practices was that they continuously referred to things, events and materials in their stories. one of the interview persons which did this was the russian born painter andreas golder. as i was interviewing him, we were wandering through one of his exhibits. at one point, a number of particularly lovely works catch our eyes: miniature people on miniature easels on a shelf. i asked andreas how he got this idea in particular and his story of the miniature easels brilliantly captures the importance of materials and non-human actors in the process of creative painting: “well, i was walking around in a big store with painting supplies and that sort of things. then, i saw these little easels, and i thought, well, i need to make someminiature works. because all works of art are getting bigger and bigger, so why not go the other way and make something really little?” andreas continues, “i have around 20 books of sketches or photos i’ve taken with my mobile phone. it could be anything i come across. before, i sometimes just got straight to work on the painting, but this caused a lot of mistakes, which meant that i had to paint the whole thing over again. now, i test at least three or four colours before europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond 414 http://www.psychopen.eu/ i get started in earnest on the actual canvas. other times, i just go around searching. for example, i walked around my friend’s workshop. there were all sorts of junk— modern things and things from the middle ages. so i went there and got a lot of ideas” (tanggaard & stadil, 2012, p. 80, my translation). it seems that inspiration for andreas’ work processes comes from many sources and that andreas samples ideas from all of the materials and sources of inspiration that he has at hand. “i once did a show for the white cube. it was a really compact show, and all of the paintings were closely linked. it was very dark andmemento mori, catholic pictures and so on, but it was more of a hodgepodge of all sorts of things” (tanggaard & stadil, 2012, p. 80, my translation). which methodological implications follow from the above examples?well, they point to other elements than intentional, human actors, showing an interest in what might turn up; the cellar room, the notes blocks, the mobile phone, the canvas. as such, we follow the actors’ own ways and begin our travel by the traces left behind by their activity of forming and dismantling everyday life. the researcher needs to describe these movements, lines, traces and must engage in a kind of backward reading of how the final product came into the world. similarly, we are not beginning with pre-determined and frozen concepts like social class, gender, ethnicity, personality trait or other known and rather abstract concepts taken almost for granted in the human and social sciences, but we are searching for the traces leaving boundary markers which can re-materialize in new forms as soon as the researcher leaves. qualitative inquiry as theoretical re-working of materials the inspiration for the last point in my paper comes from having considered how i myself conduct the analysis of a given empirical material and how my students do this. consulting the literature, the inspiration came from the writings of st. pierre (2011), kvale and brinkmann (2009), and brinkmann (2012). it concerns the work researchers do when they are writing up their empirical material in research papers and books. while we sometimes distinguish empirical and theoretical work, my point is that both kinds of activities are ordering materials, either on paper, in notes-books or whatever media is used, very often in words, pictures or figures. this is, in my viewpoint, not done to present a better ordering than what the actors in a given field may establish themselves, but it is done to give examples of a particular reading of a field, which may, considering the point of departure, either inform, propose a critical reading, de-stabilize or help re-form, rebuild or just simply do something to a given practice. theoretical work is definitely a kind of re-working and re-collection of a material, done from a particular standpoint, which literally informs the reading of a field. describing qualitative inquiry in everyday life, brinkmann (2012) proposes six steps of research, e.g. 1) choose a topic, 2) collect materials, 3) consult the literature, 4) continue collecting materials, 5) do analytic writing and 6) publish your text. considering qualitative inquiry as a theoretical re-working of materials, it is phases three and five which are presently most interesting. consulting the literature means considering if, for example, a given theoretical framework like butler’s gender analytic may inform amaterial concerning gender issues or if something else might be relevant. it is my own experience that writing blocks often result from having read too little or not knowing how to infuse energy into the text. categorizing or condensing empirical material is certainly one way to go, but it is often described in methods books as a rather technical affair of ‘cut and paste’. however it can be theoretical concepts which help unpack a given material, because theories represent a way of looking at a phenomenon, which can serve as inspiration. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 tanggaard 415 http://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, as stated by brinkmann: “what brings rigor and scientific quality to small-scale projects is a disciplined and analytic awareness informed by theory” (brinkmann, 2012, p. 4). informing this view of theories as helping tools in the writing process is the pragmatic standpoint that theories are tool with which we make sense of and grasp the world. as such, it is theories which may help us moving from a personal to a social analysis using what mills (1959) famously called social imagination. all in all, this calls for images of scientific craftsmanship which destroy distinctions between theory and methods and brinkmann cites ingold stating “that there is no division, in practice, between work and life. [an intellectual craft] is a practice that involves the whole person, continually drawing on past experience as it is projected into the future” ingold, 2001, p. 240, as cited in brinkmann, 2012, p. 4). this echoes elizabeth st. pierre arguing that: “data are collected during thinking and, for me, especially during writing” (st. pierre, 2011, p. 621). and what st. pierre furthermore suggests is that analytical writing is not only informed by theory, dry as it may be, but also by all kinds of transgressive data, emotional data, dream data, sensual data, that is data which might not be visible and which might challenge our usual distinctions between mind and body, reflection and action, and so forth. however, until one begins to think, one cannot know what one will think with. i guess there is no other proper way to summarize this argument, for the moment, than to cite st. pierre again on writing before moving on to the conclusion: “that work about subjectivity (an inadequate concept) required a simultaneity of living, reading, and writing. i needed living (experience is inadequate) for which humanist individuations no longer worked (me with the woman in space-time simultaneously), theories that provided language to think living differently (the ‘posts’ and theories of space-time and memory), and the setting-to-work of writing that forced the rupture and demanded i move on. when writing the next word and the next sentence and then the next is more than one can manage, when one must bring to bear on writing, in writing, what one has read and lived, that is thinking that cannot be taught. that is analysis” (st. pierre, 2011, p. 621). conclusion this paper has been devoted to troubling methods. i (or the paper) did so by suggesting three kinds of research practices: 1. searching for associations between actors, of both human and non-human kinds 2. following the traces of many kinds of actors 3. doing a theoretical re-working of materials. all three research practices were described and serve to trouble the idea of the (rational) researcher conducting research according to a defined research plan predicting each research step. rather than following plans, i argue that plans are often re-written during research and that many descriptions of research practices are of a retrospective kind being a post-rationalization of what was actually done during the process. to avoid the often boring and superficial character of such descriptions, i argue for the insertion of more flesh and blood in research reports, using the words of everyday actors, re-working and engaging in dialogue with them. the three kinds of research practices or procedures are based on the idea of scientific craftsmanship challenging distinctions between mind and body, human and non-human, theory and method. instead, research practice is conceived of as something we live everyday day and research is understood as an activity in which we follow the traces of many kinds of actors and order material in new ways as we write it up. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond 416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references brinkmann, s. (2012). qualitative inquiry in everyday life. los angeles, ca: sage. craft, a. (2005). creativity in schools: tensions and dilemmas. london, united kingdom: routledge. flyvbjerg, b. (2006). five misunderstandings about case-study research. qualitative inquiry, 12(2), 219-245. doi:10.1177/1077800405284363 giorgi, a. (1975). an application of phenomenological method in psychology. in a. giorgi, c. fischer, & e. murray (eds.), duquesne studies in phenomenological psychology ii. pittsburgh, pa: duquesne university press. glaser, b. g., & strauss, a. l. (1967). the discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. chicago, il: transaction publishers. glăveanu, v. p. (2010). principles for a cultural psychology of creativity. culture and psychology, 16(2), 147-163. doi:10.1177/1354067x10361394 glăveanu, v. p. (2011). children and creativity: a most (un)likely pair? thinking skills and creativity, 6, 122-131. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2011.03.002 ingold, t., & hallam, e. (2007). creativity and cultural improvisation: an introduction. in e. hallam & t. ingold (eds.), creativity and cultural improvisation (pp. 1-24). oxford, united kingdom: berg. kvale, s. (1999). forskere i lære. in k. nielsen & s. kvale (eds.), mesterlære – læring som sociale praksis [apprenticeship – learning as social practice] (pp. 178-197). copenhagen, denmark: hans reitzels forlag. kvale, s., & brinkmann, s. (2009). interviews: learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. latour, b. (2005). reassembling the social – an introduction to actor-network-theory. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. lyotard, j. f. (1984). the postmodern condition: a report on knowledge. manchester, united kingdom: manchester university press. mills, c. w. (1959). the sociological imagination (40th anniversary ed.). oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. the oxford english dictionary. (7th ed.). (2008). oxford: oxford university press. st. pierre, e. (2011). post qualitative research: the critique and the coming after. in n. k. denzin & y. s. lincoln (eds.), the sage handbook of qualitative research. los angeles, ca: sage publications. tanggaard, l. (2007). the research interview as discourses crossing swords: the researcher and apprentice on crossing roads. qualitative inquiry, 13, 160-176. doi:10.1177/1077800406294948 tanggaard, l. (2009). the research interview as a dialogical context for the production of social life and personal narratives. qualitative inquiry, 15(9), 1498-1515. doi:10.1177/1077800409343063 tanggaard, l., & stadil, c. (2012). i bad med picasso: sådan bliver du mere kreativ [showering with picasso: how to spark your creativity]. copenhagen, denmark: gyldendal. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 tanggaard 417 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800405284363 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354067x10361394 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2011.03.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800406294948 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800409343063 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tanggaard, l., & szulevicz, t. (in press). sociale læreprocesser som analytisk strategi [social learning processes as an analytical strategy]. copenhagen, denmark: psyke & logos. valsiner, j. (2012). series editor’s preface: semiotic freedom for the social sciences: inquiry in a new key. in b. wagoner, e. jensen, & j. a. oldmeadow (eds.),culture & social change: transforming society through the power of new ideas. charlotte, nc: information age publishing inc. about the author lene tanggaard is professor at the department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark and co-director (with vlad glaveanu) of the international centre for the cultural psychology of creativity (iccpc) and co-director (with svend brinkmann) of the center for qualitative studies. she has held visiting positions at berkeley and the university of technology, sydney. her research focuses on the situational and contextual dimensions of creativity vis-à-vis real-life problems. recent publications include: fornyelsens kunst: at skabe kreativitet i skolen [the art of change: creating creativity in schools]. copenhagen, denmark: akademisk forlag, 2010; towards an epistemology of the hand. studies in philosophy and education, 29(3), 243-257 (with s. brinkmann, 2010); apprenticeship re-habilitated in a postmodern world? journal of vocational education and training, 63(4), 563-573 (with k. nielsen); stories about creative teaching and productive learning. european journal of teacher education, 34(2), 217-230 (both 2011) and tanggaard, l. (2013). the socio-materiality of creativity. culture and psychology, 19(1), 20-32. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 409–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.647 troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond 418 http://www.psychopen.eu/ troubling methods in qualitative inquiry and beyond introduction why did research methods become so popular? a short story the performative role of research methods legitimization crisis? qualitative inquiry as searching for associations qualitative inquiry as following the traces of many kinds of actors qualitative inquiry as theoretical re-working of materials conclusion references about the author manufacture and validation of new negative priming measurement for studying individual differences in working memory research reports manufacture and validation of new negative priming measurement for studying individual differences in working memory farideh hamidi*a, nasim noorafkan roohib a department of education, shahid rajaee teacher training university, lavizan, tehran, iran. b atieh neuropsychologic center, tehran, iran. abstract the negative priming task is widely used to investigate attention inhibition observed in some variations of a selective attention task. this study was designed to measure the reliability of a negative priming effect as a prerequisite for conducting this research. the sample included 100 university students whose ages ranged between 18 to 36 years. they completed two tasks: an identification task and a localization with episodic retrieval tasks. subjects were asked to perform a simple mental operation on each stimulus, and to use the end product of this operation when deciding on a response. the subjects' task was to respond yes to a fixed set of three target items (e.g., numbers 2, 5, and 7) in two interval trials. to achieve the factor structure model validity, the data method and varimax rotation was applied. results showed high correlation between variables and also six factors as the clusters were considered: 1) target identification accuracy; 2) location error; 3) two seconds right error; 4) three seconds right error; 5) three seconds left error and 6) two seconds left error. the reliability of the components were acceptable. keywords: negative priming measurement, inhibition, working memory, validity, reliability europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 received: 2011-10-26. accepted: 2012-03-17. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: shahid rajaee teacher training university (srttu), lavizan, tehran, iran. p o box 16785-163 postal code 16788, email:fhamidi@srttu.edu. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. computerized neuropsychological assessment has integrated slowly into research and practice since the introduction of the personal computer. by the mid-1980s, neuropsychologists had transferred paper-and-pencil measures to a personal computer platform and were exploring the equivalence of these measures to traditional tests (eckerman et al., 1985). numerous specialized tests are either used individually or as part of a battery. in addition, these tests are appropriate for different age groups ranging from infants to elderly people. (goldstein & beers, 2004). age and education where significantly related to neuropsychological performance. but gender, however, was a moderating variable only for the elderly group. some neuropsychological assessment tasks can assess cognitive dysfunction in humans which show unusual negative priming effect in tasks that can measure the negative priming effect. there is a large body of research establishing the np (negative priming) effect. however, there are disagreements over interpretation of the findings. theories attempting to explain np include: selective inhibition; feature mismatch; episodic retrieval; and temporal discrimination. the selective inhibition and episodic retrieval accounts have received the most support. (hsieh & tori, 2007) the negative priming task is widely used to investigate attentional inhibition. a critical review of the negative priming literature considers various parameters of the task, the review suggests that negative priming can be --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ produced by 2 mechanisms: memory related and inhibitory. with respect to inhibition, the review suggests that (a) there are 2 systems, one responsible for identity and the other for location information, and (b) inhibition is a flexible, post-selection process operating to prevent recently rejected information from quickly regaining access to effectors, thus helping to establish coherence among selected thought and action streams. (may, kane, & hasher, 1995 ). the former account attributes np to the inhibition of distracting information in the prime display and has been the preferred theory to explain np findings in clinical research. on the other hand, the episodic retrieval account attributes np to slowed processing of a probe target that was encoded in the previous processing episode (i.e., prime display) with conflicting response information (e.g., ‘‘do-not-respond’’ tag) (amir, cobb, & morrison, 2008). negative priming consists of slowed reaction times and/or less accurate responses when people have to respond to a target that was ignored on a previous trial. on the basis of available data two main theoretical views have been proposed in order to explain negative priming. inhibition-based models postulate that negative priming is due to the inhibition of irrelevant information after prime presentation that results in an impaired processing when such information becomes relevant during probe presentation. the episodic retrieval account proposes that the presentation of a stimulus leads to the automatic retrieval of information attached to the most recent episode related to that stimulus, including whether to make a response or not. when a distractor in the prime trial is presented as a target in the probe trial a conflict between the present and the past status of the stimulus arises. the resolution of this mismatch causes a delay in response. an attempt to integrate inhibition and retrieval perspectives was made by tipper (2001, cited in hinojosa et al., 2007). many negative priming paradigms are used in the study of attention and inhibition (mulligan & wiesen, 2003). over the last fifteen years, numerous research has focused on inhibition and its function in various cognitive processes such as selective attention (neill, valdes, & terry, 1995), memory (anderson & spellman, 1995) and lexical access (simpson & kang, 1994). when referring to inhibition, we mean a mechanism that reduces the activation of stimuli that are extraneous to the ongoing mental processes (hasher & zacks, 1988). the main reason for the great interest in this subject is because of its powerful role in explaining individual differences. a deficiency in inhibition has been reported both in children and older adults, in alzheimer, schizophrenic and depressed patients and in patients with frontal lobe brain disorders (harnishfeger & bjorklund, 1994; may et al., 1995; bestgen & dupont, 2000). the available literature on inhibition is paradoxical. on the one hand, research on the negative priming effect stresses that the function of inhibition, as evidenced by negative priming, is not to help interference resolution and that there is no consistent relationship between them. on the other hand, psychometric research that focuses on the role of inhibition as a mediator of aging, disregards negative priming measures and uses interference scores (kwong see & ryan, 1995; salthouse & meinz, 1995). the plausible and useful function of inhibition in selection tasks that involve the active inhibition of the distractor can be seen to prevent stimuli in irrelevant locations to gain control of action (tipper, 1985; tipper & cranston, 1985). inhibition can be observed in schizophrenic patients (minas & park, 2007) and lower negative priming in adhd demonstrate higher levels of interference and lower negative priming effects in comparison with age – matched peers. (pritchard et al., 2007). poor performance on a negative priming test can be an indicator of cognitive disorder. this test can assess multiple cognitive performances simultaneously. in most existing tests, the individuals face a distracter while the present test makes the individuals think of three things and react to them simultaneously. since tests of memory and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 new negative priming measurement 252 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive performance are scant in iran, developing new and up–to-date tests will contribute to the academic studies in this field. compared to dependable studies done on similar tests, it seems that the present test can simultaneously assess multiple cognitive performances. in most existing tests, the individual faces a distracter but the present test makes it possible for the individuals to simultaneously focus on three stimuli and react to them. through this test, it is possible to estimate the time needed for an ordinary individual to show proper reaction in the brain. therefore, the major research question is to examine the reliability and validity of the negative priming task for probing into the attention inhibition and brain functions including working memory, speed of information processing, selective attention and concentration. methodology the present study aimed to design a prototype of and develop a cognitive measure for normal people and examine its psychometric characteristics. research participants the population is students of humanities and mathematics studying in shahid rajaee teacher training university located in tehran/iran in the academic year 2011-2012. the sample consists of one hundred students, fifty males and fifty females, ranging between 20 and 36 years of age selected as an available sample. also 52 participants studying in math education and applied math were also selected from in school of science, and 48 students in instructional management, curriculum, english language and educational psychology were selected in humanity school. volunteers participating in the test were ensured that information will remain confidential. procedure the subjects sat relaxed in an armchair in front of the computer monitor. on the screen, there randomly appeared 60 numbers; 20 on the right, 20 in the middle and 20 on the left. for example, two numbers may appear on the right, one on the left or one on the right and /or three or four in the middle. the test material is presented in random. if an individual decides to sit for the test immediately after the first attempt, the arrangement of the numbers differs from the previous administration. the test is administered in two steps with 3 second and 2 second intervals. before taking the test, a practice test is introduced. the responses (correct, wrong, no response) are recorded in the table, designed in the test, that appears at the end of the test. the responses and the demographic information of the respondents are recorded separately in a file for every participant. they were told to add +1 to get the numbers right, numbers that appear in the middle of the monitor are neutral (not add, not subtract) and the numbers on the left you see a minus one. if the answer was 2, 5 or 7, click the right button. for example you can see on the right of screen number 6 (the instruction was adding 1), in this case number 6 plus 1 equals 7. one of the target numbers was 7, so you should click the correct number. on the left hand of the screen, if you see number 3 (the instruction was minus 1), and in this case 3 minus 1 equals 2. numbers in the middle side of screen remain the same without any changes and just three target numbers (2, 3, and 7) should be clicked. also in order to get concurrent validity, paced visual serial addition test (pvsat) which is performed in 2 and 3-second tries was performed. the interval between stimuli in the first try was 3 seconds and in the second try was 2 seconds. the participants should add up each number with the preceding number and vocalize the result. then they have to add up the last number displayed on the screen with the coming number and then announce the result. the test goes on like this. the maximum number of correct and incorrect answers is 60. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 hamidi & roohi 253 http://www.psychopen.eu/ instrument 1) negative priming test: various negative priming tests assess individuals’ cognitive abilities such as selective attention, speed of information processing and working memory through imposing some distracters. priming paradigm is a commonly practicable instrument for assessing the internal representation of the newly introduced stimulus. this test makes it possible to measure the reaction time for the ordinary people to do the tasks. in present negative priming tasks there are some inhibitors for attention such as doing some simple arithmetic operations like adding or subtraction of numbers with different randomize appearance locations on the monitor screen (on the left, middle and right location) without any orders. the test makes it possible to assess the reaction time for correctly performing mental activities such as adding or estimating the fraction of numbers appearing on the screen by different groups of people including the retarded, those with mental disorders such as multiple sclerosis, alzheimer’s, hyperactivity, mentally suffering people and normal individuals of different social classes, gender, educational background and in special circumstances, for example stressful states because this test can assess the speed of reaction in 1 up to 10 seconds. 2) paced visual serial addition task (pvsat): in order to estimate concurrent validity of np test, pvsat a measure of cognitive function applied. pvsat specifically assesses auditory information processing speed and flexibility, as well as calculation ability. this test proves a demanding test, which pasat is an audio version of the paced serial addition test (pasat) that was first used as a measure of health and performance of the brain of the individuals whose head had been stricken and later the test was used as a classic measure of concentration and information processing. research has shown that pasat has been utilized as a measure of working memory, speed of information processing. keeping and dividing the concentration (spreen and strauss, 1998). pasat and pvsat also are applied for both clinical and research purposes. these tests had originally been developed for assessing the change of efficiency of brain during the recovery period of head injuries, for example brain damage that leads to unconsciousness. at the present time, however, the test is used with various clinical diseases such as brain injuries (brooks, fos, greve, & hammond, 1999; gronwall, 1977), multiple sclerosis (deluca, chelune, tulsky, legenfelder, & chiaravalloti, 2004; miller, rudick, cutter, baier, & fischer, 2000), tuberculosis (shucard et al., 2004) aching disorders (sjøgren, thomsen, & olsen, 2000), cancer (sjøgren, olsen, thomsen, & dalberg, 2000, hypoglycemia (schächinger, cox, linder, brody, & keller, 2003), and asthma (weersink, van zomeren, koeter, & postma, 1997). the present test exhibits sensitivity to cognitive disorders accompanying multiple sclerosis (diamond, deluca, kim, & kelley, 1997). the visual version of concentration level test, developed in 1956 by sampson who developed the audio version of pasat in the same year, is introduced as pvsat. since various studies have proved the pasat exhausting (e.g., fos et al., 2000), in recent years developments in technology have brought about new versions of visual tests (pvsat) in which personal computers are used for displaying the stimuli (nagels et al., 2005). fos, greve, south, mathias, and benefield, h. (2000) have predicted that interference between input and output data in pvsat is less than pasat. that is why the patients see pasat tougher than pvsat. the visual version (pvsat) is administered like the audio model, through the figures appearing on the computer monitor. also, in the two trials, time for the presentation of figures has marginally changed. that is to say, instead of 2/4 seconds, the time lapse of figure presentation is 3 seconds and instead of 1.6 second of display, the figures are displayed for 2 seconds. studies have reported the reliability of pvsat to be more than 0.90 (egan, 1988) and internal consistency and test–retest reliability between .97 and .93 (mccaffrey et al., 1995). the reliability of the present test, estimated through test-retest method, turned out to be 0.91 (hamidi & noorafkan, 2011). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 new negative priming measurement 254 http://www.psychopen.eu/ data collection first, the computerized test was developed using the existing protocols then it was administered to 100 students. the subjects were interviewed over their demographic status and were given a sensory nerve disorder test followed by the present test. the data were recorded in a table. after a one month interval, the test was re-administered to thirty subjects, 15 males and 15 females of the same sample to estimate the reliability of the instrument. paced auditory serial addition test (pasat), an already established test, was administered in order to estimate the validity of the test. results in order to estimate the validity of the negative priming test, use was made of construct validation procedure. to determine the factors of the instrument, exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation was applied. it has been proved that among methods of rotation, varimax is more robust and reliable (hair, anderson, tatham, & black, 1990). the results show seven factors (see table 1 below). table 1. total variance explained rotation sums of squared loadingsextraction sums of squared loadingscomponent cumulative %% of variancetotalcumulative %% of variancetotal 20.36620.3663.66621.39221.3923.8511 35.49715.1312.72439.53118.1393.2652 45.77910.2821.85151.84012.3092.2163 55.7499.9701.79561.3069.4661.7044 64.9199.1701.65168.6497.3421.3225 73.3098.3901.51075.3046.6551.1986 81.5628.2531.48681.5626.2591.1277 extraction method: principal component analysis. the table presents the eigen values, variance and cumulative variance, sum of squares of the loading, before and after the rotation, of the components. since the variables of the first factor are more than other factors, the highest eigen value relates to the first factor. as it can be seen in table 1, seven factors with eigen values higher than 1 are produced. it should be noted, however, that eigen value is not sufficient for factor determination. therefore, the variance that can be accounted for by each factor and the scree plot are needed (see figure 1). it should be stated that the seven factors, before rotation, could account for 21.392, 18.139, 12.309, 9.466, 7.342, 6.665 and 6.25, percent of the variance, respectively. as it can be visualized in the slope of the scree plot below, seven factors are identified. based on the findings of the preliminary factor analysis, it was decided to extract seven factors through varimax rotation, which produces independent factors. the findings are displayed in table 1, table 2 and table 3. table 2 displays the factor loadings of the variables (trials) before the rotation. as it can be seen, four variables converge on one factor and their loadings are considerably high while following factor 1, bipolar factors appear which have positive and negative loadings that make the interpretation of the factors complicated. hence rotation is necessary. the results of varimax rotation are presented in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 hamidi & roohi 255 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. scree plot of component number table 2. rotated component matrixa component 7654321 -.094.041.044.008-.026-.054.966m3t -.091-.010.030-.043.059-.047.962m2t -.157-.073-.092-.022.009.107-.942m3n -.200.049.144.032-.015-.085-.910m2n -.187.146-.150.149-.159.799.028r2f -.113.347-.297-.107-.360-.653.140l2t -.258-.025.046.402-.127-.636.071r3t .119-.100.022-.144.951-.166.023r2n .045-.021.101.020-.778-.488-.057r2t .074-.056.008-.965.117.171-.003r3n .151.071-.037.752-.011.392-.055r3f .156-.059.927.023.032.090-.004l3n .254.005-.643.168.198.483-.131l3f .049-.813.238-.049.262.319-.087l2n .090.807.127.091.110.355-.035l2f .744.103.151.044.049-.166.061m3f .632-.121-.252-.117-.020.320.147m2f -.437.003-.251-.152-.168-.426.093l3t extraction method: principal component analysis. rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization. a. rotation converged in 11 iterations. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 new negative priming measurement 256 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3. reliability statistics of components cronbach's alphacomponent .960target identification accuracy .573location error .786two – second right error .775three-second right error .665three-second left error .563two – second left error 0.650total as it can be seen in table 2, eigen values of factors before the rotation are 3.851, 3.265, 2.216, 1.704, 1, 322, 1.198 and 1.127, respectively while after the rotation the eigen values are 3.666, 2.724, 1.851, 1.795, 1.651, 1.510, and 1.486, respectively. the results of varimax rotation showed that m3t, m2t, m3n, m2n having loadings of more than .91 belong to the first factor named ‘target identification accuracy’ whose reliability turned out to be α =.96. factor loadings of r2f, l2t, and r2n were .63. these variables constitute the ‘location error’ factor the reliability of which is α= .57. factor loadings of r2n & r2t amount to .77. these variables make up the ‘two – second right error’ factor. the reliability of this factor was estimated to be α=.78. factor loadings of r2t and r2n were more than .77. these variables constitute the ‘three-second right error’ factor the reliability of which is .77. factor loadings of l3n and l3f were more than .64. these variables make up the ‘three-second left error’ factor. the reliability of this factor turned out to be α=.66. factor loadings of l2n and l2f were more than .8. these variables constitute the ‘two – second left error’ factor the reliability of which was α= .56. factor loadings of m3f and m2f were more than .63. these variables make up the ‘target identification error’ factor. the reliability of this factor turned out to be α= .65. as it can be seen in table 3, the reliability of the test is .65. moreover, the lowest reliability index is that of the ‘two – second left error’ (α= .56) and the highest index relates to ‘target identification accuracy’ factor (α= .96). discussion demonstrating the reliability of a negative priming effect is a prerequisite for conducting such research. however, this information is hardly ever provided, this raises questions about the confidence one can place in the conclusions reached in these studies. the available literature on inhibition conceals a paradox. on the one hand, research on the negative priming effect stresses that the function of inhibition, as evidenced by negative priming is not to help interference resolution and that there is no consistent relationship between them. on the other hand, psychometric research that focuses on the role of inhibition as a mediator of aging, disregards negative priming measures and uses interference scores (kwong see & ryan, 1995; salthouse & meinz, 1995). the key to this paradox is reliability. in negative priming research, reliability is not a topic, whilst in psychometric research, it is. as it was mentioned earlier, the purpose of the present study was to develop and validate a new measure for assessing the effect of negative priming in the performance of the working memory, the speed of information processing and selective attention in iran. the effect of negative priming, in a combinatorial manner, on incidental retrieving, through time and place differentiation of the stimulus of the subjects was assessed. this was done in europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 hamidi & roohi 257 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one-trial target identification which was neutral and distracter-free and two different but simultaneous and chance incidence of the primary stimulus in right and left location with two and three seconds time interval. to examine the validity of the test, exploratory factor analysis with principle axis factoring and varimax rotation was utilized. in factor analysis because the number of the first factors is more than other factors, especially the highest, will be the first factor. but the only criterion used for the extraction of eigen values greater than one factor is very misleading, because so many factors to be extracted by each factor and specially to chart the amount of variance. the eigen values of the six factors, before rotation, were 3.851, 3.265, 2.216, 1.704, 1.322 and 1.198, respectively while the values after rotation turned out to be 3.666, 2.724, 1.851, 1.795, 1.651 and 1.510, respectively. the final decision about the number of extracted factors, the scree plot of component number was considered. the cut-off point for the rotation is where the slope changes. the numbers of factors for rotation using this method as the amount of variance were 6 factors. the extracted factors were: target identification accuracy, location error, two – second right error, three-second right error, three-second left error and two – second left error. the cronbach's alpha reliability of each factor were .96, .57, .78, .77, .66, .56, respectively and the reliability of the whole test turned out to be .65. also the results of pearson correlation for concurrent validity between np components and pvsat tests were directly significant relation with correct answers (0.24 and 0.42,p≤0.05) and was inversely and significantly (-0.37 and -0.24,p≤0.05) . so the new test has concurrent validity with pvsat. since tests for assessing mental disorders are scarce in iran, developing a new measure would be very helpful. this test can simultaneously assess a multiplicity of cognitive performance in different age groups. in most existing tests, the individuals face a distractor while the present test makes the individuals think of three things and react to them simultaneously. nerve psychology data and studies on individual differences show that identifying and locating an object are processed via two inhibition systems (may et al., 1995). as to the reliability and validity of such tests, no study is reported in iran. in other countries, however, some studies have been done with tests of brain performance with negative priming. nonetheless, the validity and reliability of these instruments seem problematic. having done empirical studies, kane et al. (1997) reported the inadequacies of reliability and validity of tests of memory with inhibiting stimuli. moreover, bestgen and dupont (2000) failed to achieve satisfactory reliability of three measures of the effect of inhibiting stimuli on working memory. these measures, to be named, are retrieval model, locating model and norton’s paradigm. in a study on symbolic and non-symbolic coding to assess the effect of negative priming on the working memory, found that only non-symbolic coding measure was reliable. tests of the effect of negative priming on cognitive performance relate to individual differences, particularly the age. the present study done with two-second interval between trials showed no significant difference between the young and the adult subjects, while in target identification (distracter-free) there is significant difference between age groups. the results, here, are in line with the study of little and hartley (2000) on the effect of negative priming on the memory of different age groups. in a study with stroop color-word tasks, they found no significant difference between young and adult subjects. kieley and hartley (1997) also found that negative priming and inhibiting stimuli affected adults, due to the effect of selective attention, more than youngsters. for example, three studies on word retrieval tests showed that target identification more than negative priming inhibits the adults. gamboz and russo (2002) have reported similar findings. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 new negative priming measurement 258 http://www.psychopen.eu/ osorio, fay, pouthas, & ballesteros (2010) reported the negative effect of negative priming in reaction and cognitive performance of different age groups. however, they showed that adults had a better performance on exhibited robust priming and addition frontal activity was observed. in a meta-analysis on individual differences of age in tests of the effect of negative priming on working memory (twenty one studies on retrieval and eight on locating objects), verhaeghen and de meersman (1998) claimed that negative priming is significant with all age groups. the effect of age on the repetition of primary stimulus and the effect of individual differences in intentional learning and working memory have been studied by lawson, guo, and jiang (2007). the effect of primary repetition as a priori and posteriori inhibiting factor was carried out with young subjects. the results showed that posterior effect is not influenced by intentional learning. moreover, adult subjects unlike young subjects exhibited the value of communication model more than the value of time model in the interference of negative priming, that is, adults are careful with the relationship between primary and secondary stimuli. mclaughlin et al. 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(2. ed.). new york, ny: oxford university press. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 hamidi & roohi 261 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archneur.57.9.1319 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appsy.2007.09.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0087422 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.clineuro.2004.11.016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2009.09.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-8286.2007.01695.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geronb/50b.6.p297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0091-3057(03)00167-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1355617704101057 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0304-3959(00)00248-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0885-3924(99)00143-8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tipper, s. p. (1985). the negative priming effect: inhibitory priming by ignored objects. the quarterly journal of experimental psychology: a, human experimental psychology, 37, 571-590. doi:10.1080/14640748508400920 tipper, s. p., & cranston, m. (1985). selective attention and priming: inhibitory and facilitatory effects of ignored primes. the quarterly journal of experimental psychology: a, human experimental psychology, 37, 591-611. doi:10.1080/14640748508400921 verhaeghen, p., & de meersman, l. (1998). aging and the negative priming effect: a meta-analysis. psychology and aging, 13, 435-444. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.13.3.435 weersink, e. j., van zomeren, e. h., koeter, g. h., & postma, d. s. (1997). treatment of nocturnal airway obstruction improves daytime cognitive performance in asthmatics. american journal of respiratory and critical care medicine, 156, 1144-1150. about the authors farideh hamidi obtained phd in psychology from the tarbiat modares university in 2003 and is assistant professor at the department of education, shahid rajaee teacher training university, since 2002. published several books and more than 50 papers in academic journals and international conferences in the area of attention and concentration, cultural intelligence, decision making styles, teacher's classroommanagement, attachment styles, emotional intelligence, coping styles, mental health, life skills, etc. nasim noorafkan roohi has ma in general psychology from iran rudden azad university, in 2009. she worked in iranian national center for addiction studies as a research assistant and her ma thesis was about the application of paced visual serial addition test (pvsat) for comparing three groups (stimulant addicts, opioid addicts and normal people) in 2009. at present, since 2011, she is a neurotherapist in atieh (a neuropsychological clinic in tehran/iran). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 251–262 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.457 new negative priming measurement 262 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14640748508400920 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14640748508400921 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.13.3.435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ new negative priming measurement methodology research participants procedure instrument data collection results discussion references about the authors direct and indirect effects of iq, parental help, effort, and mathematics self-concept on mathematics achievement research reports direct and indirect effects of iq, parental help, effort, and mathematics self-concept on mathematics achievement maher abu-hilal*a, intisar nassera [a] sultan qaboos university, muscat, oman. abstract this study examined the structural relationships among cognitive constructs (intelligence and achievement) and affective constructs (perceived parental help, effort and self-concept). it was proposed that the relationships are not invariant across gender. the sample consisted of 219 boys and 133 girls from elementary and preparatory public schools in al ain in the united arab emirates. intelligence (iq) was measured by the test of non-verbal intelligence (toni) and parental help was measured by 4-likert-type items. effort was measured by 4-likert-type items. self-concept (sc) was measured by 8-likert-type items taken from the sdq i (abu-hilal, 2000). mathematic achievement was the scores of students in mathematics from school records. the structural model assumed that iq would have an effect on parental help, effort, sc and achievement. parental help would have an effect on effort, sc and achievement. also, effort would have an effect on sc and achievement. finally, sc would have an effect on achievement. the structural model was tested for invariance across gender. the measurement model proved to be invariant across gender and so was the structural model. the non-constrained model indicated that the structural relationships among the variables do vary according to gender. for example, boys benefited from parental help by exerting more effort while girls did not. boys with high iq exerted more effort than boys with low iq; but girls with high iq exerted the same amount of effort as girls with low iq. the model explained 45% and 39% of the variance in math scores for boys and girls, respectively. keywords: iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept, math achievement, uae europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 received: 2012-07-28. accepted: 2012-10-07. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: p.o. box 32, college of education, dept. of psychology, sultan qaboos university, muscat 123, oman, email: mhila@squ.edu.om this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction there has been a proliferation of research and models that have attempted to understand achievement behavior. the focus of researchers on the correlates of achievement has varied from social and demographic factors to personal and psychological factors. previous research has drawn on various psychological and educational hypotheses and theories (e.g., self-worth theory, social cognitive theory, expectancy-value theory, and attitude behavior relations, etc.). among the personal and psychological variables used to predict academic achievement is ability (intelligence). it has been well documented that intelligence and academic achievement are positively correlated (jensen, 1980; kraft, 1991; lavin, 1965). parental involvement and effort are two other factors used to explain variances in achievement. fantuzzo, tighe, and childs (2000) indicated that family has the most important influence on children's development. keith, reimers, fehrmann, pottebaum, and aubey (1986) and astone and mclanahan (1991) found that increased parental involvement led to children spending more time doing homework. whether parental involvement -perceived or europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ actualhas an effect on children's achievements is debatable. abdel-rahim and al-khelaifi (1992) found a significant effect for parental involvement on academic performance with qatari students, while abdel-rahim (1991) found no significant effect for parental involvement on achievement among egyptian students. furthermore, abu-hilal (2001) found a negative effect for parental help on mathematics achievement. researchers also found that the more time spent on homework the better achievement would be (e.g., abu-hilal, 2000; cooper, valentine, nye, & lindsay, 1999). in fact, effort has been hypothesized to compensate for ability (cooper et al., 1999). cooper et al. found that homework improved achievement significantly especially for children in high school. however, using multiple regression, abu-hilal (2001) found no significant partial effect for effort (time spent on studying and doing homework) on mathematics achievement. self-perceptions and achievement previous research has documented that self-concept and self-efficacy in a specific domain influence one’s effort expenditure, activity choice and persistence (e.g., bandura, 1997; pajares, 1996). effort is important for success. however, high effort may mean low ability to some students (dweck, 2000). students vary on their perception of effort and ability. to some students ability is fixed while to others it is malleable. also, effort to some is valued while it is not to others. dweck (2000) argued that students who believe in malleable ability tend to believe that success requires effort, while those who believe that ability is fixed have little faith in the effectiveness of effort. social cognitive researchers (e.g., cleary, 2009; eccles & wigfield, 2002; schunk, 1981; schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2008; wigfield, 1994) argue that students' achievement behaviors are influenced by both environmental factors (e.g. school environment, parental involvement, teachers feedback, etc.) and personal processes such as self-concept, self-efficacy, task value, goal orientation and attribution; and they assert that self-motivation beliefs including task interest and perception of ability must be closely evaluated (ames, 1992; zimmerman, 2000). reciprocal-effects modeling with longitudinal data indicate that math-ability beliefs predict later standardized-test performance much more strongly than test scores predict competence beliefs (marsh, craven, & debus, 1999; marsh, trautwein, lüdtke, köller, & baumert, 2005). individuals' perceptions of ability (competence) and their willingness to engage in academic activities or tasks are two crucial and complementary aspects of academic motivation. the two aspects are related to various academic outcomes such as persistence, dropout, engagement and achievement (bandura, 1997; nicholls, 1990; skaalvik & rankin, 1995; wigfield, 1994). different researchers have given different labels to this kind of perception, but "all are concerned primarily with students' perceptions of how well they do in academic subjects and of their likelihood for future success in those subjects." (randel, stevenson, & witruk, 2000, p. 190). for example, self-efficacy was used by bandura (1997), perception of competence by harter (1981), and perceptions for success by eccles and her associates (e.g., eccles & wigfield, 2002; wigfield & eccles, 2000). both perceived ability and self-efficacy target perceived capabilities, hence, are considered to be similar (cleary, 2009). however, they differ in that students use normative and self-evaluative criteria in the former, while they use only self-evaluative criteria in the latter. within the context of an expectancy-value framework, eklöf (2006) indicates that "the expectancy component in the model can be operationalized in terms of the individual's general ability beliefs as well as his or her self-efficacy beliefs" (p. 644). cleary (2009) indicates that perceived ability is isomorphic to self-concept beliefs. the results of eklöf support the argument of wigfield and eccles (2000) that self-efficacy and ability beliefs are theoretically distinguishable but are hard to empirically distinguish. it seems europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept 574 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that the relationships between self-perceived ability and achievement and between self-efficacy and achievement depend on how each of the constructs is operationalized and measured and probably on other factors such as culture, gender, grade level, etc. therefore, we don't make the distinction here between the two constructs but only treat perceived ability within the self-concept theory. also, although important, we don't distinguish between competency and affect components but deal with academic self-concept as a global construct despite the fact that the self-concept construct contains competency and affect items. gender and achievement for researchers in the west, ethnicity and gender have been assumed to be among the most influential factors that explain individual differences in achievement (cooper, valentine, nye, & lindsay, 1999). western researchers in the sixties and seventies looked for explanations to gender differences in mathematics (maccoby & jacklin, 1974). at that time boys outperformed girls in these subjects. of all of the gender differences in cognitive abilities, differences in quantitative abilities have received the most attention in research (abu-hilal, 2000; dhindsa & chung, 2003; hyde, fennema, ryan, et al., 1990; randhawa & gupta, 2000) and media (halpern et al., 2007). some attributed the differences to genetic factors while others pointed to social factors such as the fear of success hypothesis (fennema & sherman, 1978). others (e.g., halpern et al., 2007 for review) employed spatial ability to explain gender differences in quantitative abilities. halpern et al. indicated that male advantage occurs when mathematical concepts require more reasoning and are more spatial in nature which happens frequently in secondary school. also, they explained that males' performance is more variable than that of females in quantitative and visual and spatial abilities. as such, the average difference in performance between females and males for most assessments is smaller in the middle than it is at the highand low-ability tails of the distribution. fennema and peterson (1985) attributed the gender differences in mathematics performance to independent learning experiences. they believe that self-beliefs about oneself and mathematics as well as feedback from significant other (e.g., teacher, parents and peers) determine the learning experiences a student has in school. it should be noted, however, that selection of learning experiences is not available to students in the preparatory school. recently, a new variable has been introduced to the issue of gender differences in achievement. the new variable is the type of schooling: single-sex vs. coeducation (dhindsa & chung, 2003; halpern et al., 2007). marsh et al. (in press) found that gender is significantly related to cognitive (achievement) and affect variables (self-concept and subject value) differently between arab (single sex setting) and anglo-saxon (coeducational setting). despite the attention this issue has received among researchers, the gap between boys' and girls' performances in mathematics has narrowed significantly. from the last decade of the 20th century onwards researchers have reported small or no gender differences in mathematics performance (hyde, fennema, & lamons, 1990). hedges and nowell (1995) meta-analyzed studies and concluded that "average sex differences in most measured abilities are small, with the possible exception of science, writing, and stereotypical vocational aptitudes" (p. 45). researched gender differences have not been confined to cognitive abilities, but included other variables like attitudes, self-concept, task value and motivation (abu-hilal & aal-hussain, 1997; dhindsa & chung, 2003; frenzel, pekrun, & goetz, 2007; hyde, fennema, & lamons, 1990; lee & bryk, 1986). in their meta-analyses, hyde, fennema, and lamons (1990) indicated that gender differences in mathematics attitudes are small, but cautioned that this should not be taken to mean that attitudes have no influence on gender differences in mathematics performance. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 abu-hilal & nasser 575 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the educational system in the united arab emirates is single-sex, it is interesting to explore: how boys and girls fare in mathematics achievements, self-concepts, perceived effort and perceived parental help; and if the relationships among these variables are affected by gender. the present study the purpose of this study was to test the predictive power of iq, parental help, perceived effort and self-concept in mathematics achievement. particularly, we wanted to know if iq had an effect on perceived parental help, perceived effort, self-concept and achievement. also, we wanted to examine if iq had any direct or indirect influence on achievement via parental help, perceived effort and self-concept. furthermore, we wanted to investigate the predictive power of perceived parental help, perceived effort and math self-concept in explaining variance in mathematics achievement. according to some researchers, these variables reflect a pattern of cognition and affect which is more favorable for boys in terms of learning and practicing mathematics (frenzel, pekrun, & goetz, 2007; hyde, fennema, ryan, frost, & hopp, 1990; randhawa & gupta, 2000). hence the relationships among the aforementioned variables will be tested across gender. thus, we proposed a model (see figure 1) that discerns these relationships. method sample the sample for this study consisted of n = 352 [boys n = 219 (62.2%) and girls n = 133 (37.8%)] preparatory school students from al-ain school district in the united arab emirates. the average age of the students was 14.08 and the standard deviations was .81. they represent classes 6 (n = 37), 7 (n = 92, 8 (n = 86), 9 (n = 77), 10 (n = 60). the data is part of a larger study. however, the variables included in this study were measured among 574 of which 222 cases had incomplete data. many of those missing cases did not take the iq test. hence, the analyses in this study were performed on cases with complete data. data and variables intelligence (iq). intelligence was measured by the test of non verbal intelligence (toni). the test is made of 50 pictures with one missing part in each picture. the toni scores range between 0 and 50. each student was individually asked to choose one of six alternatives located below the picture. the test administrator directly registered the student responses on the answer sheet. the test measures students' abilities to identify similarities, contrasts, relations, omissions, classifications, and fine observations. reliability as estimated by cronbach's alpha was 0.90 (abu-hilal, 2001). factor analysis of the responses produced one factor which justified the derivation of a single score for iq. the loadings on the factor ranged between .31 and .70. parental help (ph). four items – as part of a questionnaire designed to collect data about various variables related students' academic life such as parents’ help, effort, subject importance, etc. – were used to measure perceived parental involvement. the verbatim items were "to what extent does your father/mother follow up you progress in school?" and "to what extent does your father/mother discuss with you or help you in your homework?" coefficient alpha was computed for the present sample (α = .75). responses were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from not at all (1) to always (5). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept 576 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. structural model of simultaneous gender analysis. note. rectangles are observed variables, ovals are latent. iq: intelligence; ph: perceived parental help; pe: perceived effort; masc: math self-concept; mach: math achievement; e: error; d: disturbance. p < .05 for thick arrows, thin is not significant. all factor loadings are significant, p < .001. perceived effort (pe). effort was defined as the amount of time spent on studying. the construct was part of the abovementioned questionnaire and measured by two items which evaluated students' perceived effort in usual times and during examinations. responses to these questions were rated on a 6-point scale ranging from no time at all (1) to more than three hours a day (6) (α = .47). self-concept in mathematics (masc). mathematics self-concept was defined as general feelings of doing well or poorly in mathematics. this construct was measured by 8-item scale (α = .94 adapted from the self-description europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 abu-hilal & nasser 577 http://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire-i (marsh, 1988). factor analysis produced one factor for the eight items. four indicators (parcels) were computed by summing two items for an indicator. mathematics achievement (mach). for the purpose of the present study, mathematics grades were obtained from the official school records. those grades are aggregate scores of assignments, quizzes, and exams at the end of the academic year. the maximum score is 100 and the lowest is zero. structural model and data analysis with the use of structural equation modeling (sem), several models were developed: the measurement models and the structural models. the structural models are very effective in data analysis since they are capable of analyzing regression equations concurrently. as such many variables can be used as independent variables and dependent variables at the same time. the model in this study encompasses three parts. the first part is made of one exogenous observed variable (iq). the second part is made of three endogenous latent constructs that were assumed to be influenced by iq. perceived parental help was assumed to be influenced by iq and at the same time to influence perceived effort, math self-concept and math achievement. perceived effort was assumed to have influence on math self-concept and achievement. math self-concept was assumed to influence math achievement. each of the three latent constructs was hypothesized to have effects on the observed variables that measure the construct. this model was tested by the sem with amos 16. the specifications just outlined are depicted in figure 1. results descriptive statistics table 1 presents the zero correlations, means and standard deviations of the study variables. indicators of the mathematics sc were all significantly positively correlated. also, the parental help indicators were significantly positively correlated. intelligence was moderately correlated with mathematics achievement (r = .34 for girls and .49 for boys) but weakly correlated with all other variables. mathematics achievement correlated with most of the variables positively and significantly except with two of the parental help indicators (parhelp7 and parhelp8). factorial structure of the scales before testing the invariance of the hypothesized model across gender, we examined the pattern of relations among constructs separately for each gender. the maximum likelihood method was used to analyze the data. because the χ2 statistic is widely known to be sensitive to sample size, we also evaluated model fit using the comparative fit index (cfi) and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) that have been recognized to be least affected by sample size (dimitrov, 2010). according to hu and bentler (1999), a good model fit is indicated by cfi values close to or above .95, and when the rmsea value is ideally below .10. we tested the full model with observed and latent constructs all in one model (as explained earlier and as shown in figure 1) for boys and girls separately. examination of the hypothesized model showed a poor fit: χ2 (46) = 146.82, p < .001; cfi = .905; rmsea = .100, for boys; and χ2 (46) = 119.90, p. < .001; cfi = .898; rmsea = .110, for girls. inspection of the modification indices suggested that allowing the residual terms of some observed variables to correlate would improve the fit of model significantly for both boys and girls. the fit indices are as shown in table 2. the fit indices improved significantly whereas the χ2 statistics dropped from 146.82 to 82.36 (δχ2 (3) = 64.46, p < .01). also, the cfi indices jumped from .905 to .963 for boys, and from .898 to .965 for girls. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept 578 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 zero correlations, means, and standard deviation of the observed study variables sdm121110987654321 ----1. iq .956.8726.16-.24-.01.05-.16.31.13.22.49.17.09 ----2. pe1 .251.045.21.21.09.21.41.29.31.33.21.37.07 ----3. pe2 .84.665.16.21.16.24.18.19.20.20.26.22.03----4. mach .1522.4869.01.07-.18.09.37.47.37.51.15.30.34 ----5. msc1 .671.317.19.18.21.22.73.83.74.48.16.30.17 ----6. msc2 .471.547.14.20.25.30.83.75.69.34.19.27.05 ----7. msc3 .561.487.14.11.18.22.78.64.72.51.21.26.25 ----8. msc4 .371.377.12.18.26.28.73.76.37.36.19.33.11 ----9. ph1 .131.953.41.56.56.16.26.26.17.17.13.21.11 ----10. ph2 .501.613.42.33.55.14.28.20.16.20.03.04.18 ----11. ph7 .421.173.62.26.46.18.13.19.08.08.04.13.06----12. ph8 .461.073.61.29.30.30.21.24.15.07.07.13.00 m .203.213.793.753.437.457.597.137.6272.525.624.0526 sd .491.531.311.401.472.252.302.232.7718.021.381.299 note. boys’ statistics above diagonal, girls’ statistics below diagonal. pe: perceived effort; mach: math achievement; msc: math self-concept; ph: perceived parents’ help. r > .14 (for boys) and > .17 (for girls) is significant at p < .05. table 2 fit indices of the basic model for each gender rmseacfipdfχ2model/gender basic model/boys .100.905.00046.82146 basic model/girls .110.898.00046.90119 basic + 3 error correlations were allowed/ boys .065.963.00043.3682 basic + 3 error correlations allowed/ girls .067.965.00043.4668 the hypothesized model with gender invariance the next part of the analysis was to discern the extent to which the hypothesized revised model was invariant across gender. a series of progressive steps outlined by bentler (1995) were followed. table 3 presents the fit indices for the nested models. as can be seen in table 3 the goodness-of-fit indices of the model constraining loadings to be equal across gender (model 2: χ2 (94) = 145.73, p < .001; cfi = .971; rmsea = .040) are close to those of the unconstrained (model 1: χ2 (140) = 134.45, p < .000; cfi = .972; rmsea = .041). even the most restricted model (model 8) revealed an acceptable fit with cfi = .946 and rmsea = .046. therefore, the hypothesis that factor loadings, covariances, structural weights and disturbances, measurement residuals are invariant across gender is tenable. figure 1 shows the path coefficients, loadings and correlations among residuals. the correlation between the residuals (est2) and (esc4) is not shown in the model in order to keep model simple and readable. the correlations among residuals ranged from -.44 to .51. significant correlations between residuals indicate that the variables or constructs have common variance that is unaccounted for in the model. direct effects. as can be seen in figure 1 and table 4, intelligence (iq) had direct positive effects on all endogenous constructs except for perceived parental help. the path coefficient linking intelligence to perceived europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 abu-hilal & nasser 579 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 fit indices of invariance across gender rmseacfiχ2/dfpdfχ2model 861. unconstrained .046.964.7541.000.858150 962. measurement weights .044.963.6801.000.299161 1073. measurement intercepts .044.960.6721.000.897178 1144. structural weights .045.955.7061.000.533194 1155. structural means .045.955.6991.000.415195 1166. structural covariances .048.948.7971.000.491208 1197. structural residuals .047.949.7701.000.674210 1308. measurement residuals .049.938.8451.000.871239 132independence model .000.49614.000.5201913 note. cfi: comparative fit index; rmsea: root mean square error of approximation. parents’ help is barely significant (β = -.15, p < .05). consistent with previous research (jensen, 1980) the largest coefficient was the one connecting intelligence and mathematics scores (β = .32, p < .01). intelligence had a significant positive effect on perceived effort (β = .22, p < .01). also, more intelligent students had more positive self-concepts (β = .188, p < .01). as for perceived parental help, students who thought they received more parental help, expressed more perceived effort (β = .362, p < .01) and had more positive – though not significant– self-concepts (β = .129, p > .05). however, there was no effect for perceived parental help on math achievement. perceived parental help did not seem to help achievement directly but its effect on math achievement was rather indirect (mediated). perceived effort had a significant direct effect on both math self-concept (β = .44, p < .01) and math achievement (β = .17, p < .05). that is, the more the exerted effort the more positive is the self-concept and the higher the achievement in mathematics. finally, math self-concept had a positive direct effect on math achievement (β = .369, p < .01). indirect effects. intelligence had positive indirect effect on math achievement (β = .127) but small indirect effect on math self-concept (β = .055). parental help had substantial indirect effect on both math self-concept (β = .159) and math achievement (β = .168). finally, perceived effort had a significant indirect effect on math achievement (β = .162). the explained variance in perceived parents’ help was very small (2%) indicating that most of the variance is error variance. the model explained about 16% of the variance in perceived effort, 30% of the variance in math self-concept and 40% of the variance in math achievement. discussion the present study produced interesting results that have theoretical and practical implications. the overall results of this study show that the measurement part as well as the structural part of the structural equation model was created successfully and they were invariant across gender. with invariance in the intercepts, one can make a comparison of construct means across populations (e.g., sex, nationality). also, as the measurement residuals are invariant, it is possible to compare manifest variables across groups such as gender. as for the relation between intelligence and perceived parents’ help, students who had high iq scores indicated that they didn't have much parental help, while those with low iq scores indicated more parental help. this is europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept 580 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 direct, indirect and total effects of variables on math achievement math self-conceptperceived effortparents’ helpiq direct effect parents’ help .149perceived effort .362.222 math self-concept .440.129.188 math achievement .369.170.058-.324 indirect effect parents’ help perceived effort .054math self-concept .159.055 math achievement .162.168.127 total effect parents’ help .149perceived effort .362.168 math self-concept .440.288.243 math achievement .369.333.110.451 probably because intelligent students were more confident of their intellectual abilities, and believed they didn’t need the help in the first place. however, students with high iq scores indicated more exerted efforts both regularly and during exams. also, students with high iq scores had high math scores and more positive math self-concept. more positive math self-concept was associated with high math scores. this result is consistent with previous research that self-concept has a positive effect on achievement in the same subject (e.g., abu-hilal, 2005; abu-hilal, abdelfattah, shumrani, abduljabbar, & marsh, in review; papanastasiou & zembylas, 2004; randel et al., 2000; randhawa & gupta, 2000). using logistic regression, for example, ismail (2009) found significant effects for self-efficacy and mathematics value on mathematics achievement among malysian students. randel et al. (2000) reported a significant effect for self-rating of ability on mathematics achievement for german and japanese students. similarly, randhawa and gupta (2000) reported a significant and positive effect for mathematics self-efficacy on mathematics achievement for canadian and indian students. our results and those of previous research imply that, in order for teachers to improve achievement in mathematics, they should work on students’ self-perception of ability both cognitively and affectively. also, the more the students expended effort, the more positive their self-concept and consequently the better their achievement was. although perceived parents’ help did not have an impact on achievement, it seemed to have improved students perception of effort and self-concept that both mediated the effect of parents’ help and math achievement. the implications of these results are that apart from intelligence, parental help did contribute significantly to improving other motivational constructs such as effort and self-concept. although it did not directly and positively influence achievement, perceived parental help was crucial in encouraging students to perceive themselves as exerting more effort and boosting their self-concepts that in turn positively influenced achievement. therefore, any intervention programs should include parental involvement as a basic component in bolstering academic achievement, especially for difficult subjects like mathematics. citing henderson and berla (1994), gonzalez-dehass, willems, and holbein (2005) stated that "efforts to improve student outcomes are more effective when the family is actively involved." (p. 100). in support of our results, gonzalez-dehass et al. reported that several studies assert that parental involvement was positively related to time spent on homework. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 abu-hilal & nasser 581 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-enhancement is another important component in any achievement behavior model. self-enhancement can be achieved by encouraging students to exert more effort and spend more time on schoolwork. exerted effort proved to be instrumental to both self-enhancement and achievement. after controlling for parental help and intelligence, perceived effort had substantial effect on achievement both directly and indirectly. gender differences are a particularly interesting aspect of the present investigation especially considering that, in most arab countries, schools are gender-segregated. as presented in table 1, girls outscored boys in mathematics but both genders expressed an equally positive self-concept. the relationship between math achievement and the other variables is further complicated in the arab countries, due to educational settings being single-sex (see also lee & bryk, 1986), so that the frames of reference are specific to each gender (i.e., boys have little opportunity to compare their performances with girls, or vice versa). abu-hilal’s (2001) and abu-hilal and bahri's (2000) research suggests that the socialization process in the school and family leads arab students—particularly boys—to be less critical of themselves, so that they have higher self-concepts than might be expected from their objective achievements. also, the arab society has changed – somewhat– its attitude towards females taking on jobs that have been considered ‘male jobs’, therefore gender-role socialization can be used to explain gender differences in math achievement that favor girls. girls no longer have low expectations for success in mathematics. arab parents still favor boys over girls; however, success rates and high achievement among girls have changed parents’ attitudes towards girls’ education. this in turn bolsters girls’ self-concept, though more realistically than boys (abu-hilal, 2001). the present study is not without limitations, however. future research should include more sources of information about parental help such as reports from parents. also, parents may provide more reliable data about their children's school efforts. future research may include other subjects like language, science and social studies to test hypotheses about the effects of parental help, effort and self-concept on academic achievement. experimental designs may be utilized by future researchers to establish actual cause and effect relations between achievement and other constructs such as parental help, effort and self-concept. references abdel-rahim, a. 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(2000). attaining self-regulation: a social cognitive perspective. in m. boekaerts, p. r. pintrich, & m. zeidner (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13-39). san diego, ca: academic press. about the authors maher abu-hilal graduated from the university of california at riverside. he is a member of the self research center, apa and aera. he has published articles in international journals and presented papers in international, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 abu-hilal & nasser 585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00853.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950069022000038277 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/016502500383313 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/082957350001500205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.73.1.93 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02209024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1015 http://www.psychopen.eu/ regional, and local conferences. his research interest is in self-concept, attitudes, achievement, motivation, anxiety, and teacher burnout. he spent 19 years as a faculty member at the united arab emirates university, and two years as the dean of education at al ain university of science and technology. currently, he is a professor at the college of education at sultan qaboos university in oman. he is the editor-in-chief of the journal of educational and psychological studies at squ. intisar h. nasser is the editorial assistant of the journal of educational and psychological studies at sultan qaboos university. she has been in jobs related to higher education and educational research for the past fifteen years. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 573–586 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.504 achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept 586 http://www.psychopen.eu/ achievement, iq, parents’ help, effort, self-concept introduction self-perceptions and achievement gender and achievement the present study method sample data and variables structural model and data analysis results descriptive statistics factorial structure of the scales the hypothesized model with gender invariance discussion references about the authors behavioral correlates of coping strategies in close relationships research reports behavioral correlates of coping strategies in close relationships claude bélanger*abc, stéphane sabourind, ghassan el-baalbakiab [a] university of quebec, montreal, canada. [b]mcgill university, montreal, canada. [c] douglas mental health university institute, montreal, canada. [d] laval university, quebec, canada. abstract the main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between specific coping strategies and problem-solving/communication behaviors in close relationships. the sample consisted of 72 couples who completed the dyadic adjustment scale and the marital coping questionnaire and who also participated in a filmed 30-minute discussion where they had to solve a relational problem. observed behaviors were coded using a macroscopic coding system for dyadic interactions. for both men and women, results show significant relationships between coping strategies, marital interaction, and marital adjustment. for women, coping strategies and behavioral dimensions independently accounted for observed fluctuations in marital satisfaction scores. theoretical implications of these results are discussed. keywords: marital distress, marital adjustment, coping strategies, behavioral measurement europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 received: 2012-07-16. accepted: 2012-07-20. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: département de psychologie, université du québec à montréal, c.p. 8888 succursale centre-ville, montréal (québec), h3c 3p8, email: belanger.claude@uqam.ca. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in modern western societies, marriage occupies a preponderant role in the social organization. the partners involved in a marital relationship are usually devoting time and energy to develop a satisfying relationship. through life, couples will be challenged by various types of stressors, and stress has been shown to affect marital communication and marital satisfaction (bodenmann, pihet, & kayser, 2006). for most people, the quality of their marital relationship is an important predictor of their general life well-being (menaghan, 1982; hertzog, 2011). because of the centrality of this engagement, when facing stressors, partners use joint efforts in problem-solving interactions and other dyadic coping strategies in order to reestablish satisfaction and maintain marital adjustment. a failure in these cognitive and behavioral adaptational mechanisms will often lead to marital distress and, in some cases, to separation. coping strategies are a set of cognitions and behaviors aimed at managing and reducing the consequences of a situation appraised as stressful (folkman & lazarus, 1980). in couples, dyadic stress refers to any internal or external stressful situation that affects directly or indirectly both partners and the relationship (bodenmann, 2005). partners facing dyadic stress will use both individual and dyadic coping strategies in order to reduce its level. in their landmark study on specific coping efforts, pearlin and schooler (1978) divided coping strategies in marriage into three categories. the first type of coping is defined as a direct attempt at changing the stressful situation. trying to negotiate with the partner in order to find a fair compromise is such a response. however, in some instances, the situation cannot be changed directly. the person can then resort to a second type of coping --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ response, in an attempt to change his or her view of the problem. here the person is trying to control the meaning of a particularly stressful event. such strategies would imply, for example, to positively compare his or her situation to that of other couples, or to selectively ignore the more negative aspects of the relationship. this type of strategy seems to be the most common way of coping (pearlin & schooler, 1978), and has proved to be a powerful predictor of marital adjustment (menaghan, 1982; sabourin, laporte, & wright, 1990). the third type of coping defined by pearlin and schooler (1978) is aimed at the management of unpleasant feelings aroused by a particular situation. this helps the person to tolerate stress without being overwhelmed by it. emotional discharges like shouting at the partner, or resignation in regard to marital problems are examples of such passive ways of coping. as synthesized by papp andwitt (2010), dyadic coping includes positive and negative components both comprising verbal and non-verbal responses conveyed by the partners. dyadic coping is considered positive when it is (a) supportive (e.g., communicating empathy, showing solidarity, helping etc.), (b) collaborative (e.g., joint problem solving efforts, showing and sharing feelings and commitment) and (c) delegated (e.g., when the partner asks his counterpart to provide support in order to reduce the level of stress); whereas dyadic coping is considered to be negative in presence of (a) hostile behaviors (e.g., criticism, sarcasm, insults, minimizing the problem etc.), (b) ambivalence (unwillingly providing support to the partner) and (c) superficial coping behaviors (e.g., being detached, withdrawn, showing low interest in understanding and solving the problem). bodenmann et al. (2006) report several studies showing that positive dyadic coping significantly correlates with a better quality of marital relationship, lower level of experienced stress and better physical and psychological well-being, and in some studies these correlations are stronger for women than for men. given that coping strategies, individual or dyadic, encompass both cognitive and behavioral components that influence marital satisfaction, it is necessary to understand the relation between both the cognitive strategies and the social conducts that partners will adopt during problem-solving interactions. is there a link between how the partners cope with marital difficulties and how effective he or she is at solving problems in the relationship? if there is such a link, what is the exact nature of this interrelation, and in what ways do these cognitive and behavioral strategies influence marital satisfaction? this preoccupation to understand cognitive and behavioral determinants of marital adjustment can be found in a limited number of studies that have addressed these particular issues (baucom & kerig, 2004). epstein, pretzer, & fleming (1987) have examined how irrational beliefs explain the association between marital communication and marital distress. their results showed that both communicational and cognitive measures explained unique variance in marital satisfaction measures. in the same vein, an investigation of the respective contribution of attitudinal and behavioral variables on marital adjustment by broderick and o'leary (1986), found cognitive variables to account for more unique variance in marital satisfaction than did behavioral variables. davis and oathout (1987) have tested a model linking cognitive factors, the dispositions of the person for empathy and the capacity to put problems into perspective, relational competence and ultimately marital satisfaction. their results suggest that behaviors mediate the observed relationship between empathy and marital satisfaction (o’brien, delongis, pomaki, puterman, & zwicker, 2009). even if those results are opening fruitful research avenues, some limitations are attached to the fact that their measured behaviors were obtained with verbal reports of how the partners perceived their social conducts. the inclusion of an objective assessment of the partner's behaviors in a problem-solving interaction, using observational coding systemsmight be a fruitful avenue in that matter (baucom & kerig, 2004; heyman, 2001). observational systems used to code partners’ behaviors during marital europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 behavioral correlates of coping strategies 450 http://www.psychopen.eu/ problem-solving interactions, proved to be very useful in predicting dyadic adjustment and marital satisfaction (woodin, 2011). behaviors are generally divided into two categories (a) negative or hostile behaviors and (b) positive or supportive behaviors. more interestingly they allow to avoid the limitations of partners’ self-report assessments due to attributional biases and selective attention and add critical information on presence or absence of behaviors partners are not aware they have and hence do not mention in self-report measures (heyman, 2001). a better understanding of the complex interplay between the coping strategies that partners believe they have on an individual level and the ones they actually resort to, when dealing together with a dyadic stressor is therefore paramount to our understanding of the marital dynamics involved in their attempts to effectively maintain marital satisfaction and adjustment. coping behaviors and strategies have been linked to personality traits (arntén, jansson, & archer, 2008; ficková, 2001; mallinger, 1981; milligan, 2004). this led some investigators to study the potential role of personality in the relationship between communication behaviors and couple stability (lazaridès, bélanger, & sabourin, 2010a) and the long-term adjustment of partners (lazaridès, bélanger, & sabourin, 2010b). miller, lefcourt, holmes, ware, and saleh (1986), reported covariations between marital locus of control, quality of solutions, and the tendency to adopt straight forward attitudes in a problem-solving interaction. the quality of solutions produced by the partners to solve problems was furthermore associated with marital satisfaction. however, these authors did not investigate the precise (viz., moderating or mediating) role of behaviors in the relationship between locus of control and marital satisfaction. the same limitations are attached to studies conducted by fincham and bradbury (1988, 1990), in which they analyzed the connection between attributions, the frequency of behaviors adopted by spouses in their interactions, and marital adjustment. their results suggest that causality and responsibility attributions are positively related to the frequency of negative behaviors and are inversely correlated to the frequency of positive behaviors adopted during a problem-solving exchange. kurdek (1991) presented the results of an integrative study investigating the respective values of three conceptual models of marital adjustment: contextual, investment and problem-solving models. his results confirm that relationship satisfaction does covary with variables from each of the three models. more interesting however are his findings about the mediation links between cognitive variables, represented by the contextual and investment models on one hand, and the behaviorally oriented problem-solving model on the other hand. his results support a mediation model in which problem-solving variables modify the relationship between cognitive variables and marital satisfaction. however, in this study, the problem-solving assessment taps appraisals made by the partners of their behaviors in the interaction. no objective evaluation of the problem-solving behaviors was undertaken. here, again, this pitfall limits the scope of the conclusions that can be drawn from those results. objectives and hypothesis our main goal, in the present study, is to investigate the mutual contributions of self-reported coping strategies, observed problem-solving behaviors, and marital adjustment. it is hypothesized that the specific coping strategies partners say they resort to, in order to deal with marital stressors, are related to the quality of his or her problem-solving behaviors, and that both the coping efforts and the problem-solving behaviors will be related to marital satisfaction. we believe that partners reporting negative coping strategies will present higher negative problem solving behaviors and lower marital satisfaction, while those who report positive coping strategies will present higher positive problem solving behaviors and better marital satisfaction. we will verify also how these correlations present themselves for men and women independently. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 bélanger, sabourin, & el-baalbaki 451 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is also hypothesized that the effect of the specific coping efforts on marital satisfaction will be moderated or mediated by communication/problem-solving behaviors. communication/problem-solving behaviors will play a moderating role if they affect the direction and/or strength of the relationship between coping skills and marital adjustment. for example, a moderator effect may be said to occur if the relationship between the capacity to negotiate as a coping strategy and marital adjustment was much stronger when the partner is also using support in his or her problem-solving interactions with the partner. communication/problem-solving behaviors will act as mediators to the extent that they account for the relationship between certain coping strategies and marital adjustment. for example, withdrawal would act as a mediator if, when its effects on marital adjustment are controlled, the previous relationship between resignation and marital adjustment would drop significantly. the stronger the drop, the more potent would the influence of this mediator be. method participants the sample consisted of 72 french speaking heterosexual couples. they had been living together an average of 13 years (sd = 9.3), the majority (76%) was legally married, and they had an average family income of $39,000. (sd = $16,000) in canadian dollars. the mean ages for female and male subjects were respectively 38 years (sd = 8.7) and 41 years (sd = 9.5). they had an average of 14 years (sd = 3.0) and 15 years (sd = 3.7) of formal education. procedure subjects were recruited through advertising in various medias to participate in marital counseling groups. couples were briefed on the nature of the program and, if they did agree to participate, were given an appointment. during their intake interview, all couples completed different questionnaires, which included a demographic questionnaire, the dyadic adjustment scale and the marital coping questionnaire. all partners completed the questionnaires independently, in the presence of a research assistant who was blind to the research hypotheses. subjects were also reassured in regard to the confidentiality of their responses. after completion of the questionnaires, couples were also filmed during a 30-minute problem-solving interaction by the same research assistant. the subject for the discussion was selected according to the results on the potential problem checklist. a theme with a middle level of difficulty is selected for the problem-solving interaction. measures the dyadic adjustment scale (das; spanier, 1976) is a 32-item self-report questionnaire of marital satisfaction. it yields an overall score as well as a number of factor scores. in the present study, the partner's total score was used as the index of marital distress. the das was selected because past research indicates that it possesses good reliability and discriminant validity in both english (spanier, 1976) and in french (baillargeon, dubois, & marineau, 1986; sabourin, lussier, laplante, & wright, 1990). the marital coping questionnaire (mcq; fleishman, 1984; menaghan, 1982; pearlin & schooler, 1978) is an 18-item self-report questionnaire designed to evaluate how frequently respondents use different individual coping strategies when facing dyadic stressors. exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the mcq (fleishman, 1984; menaghan, 1982; pearlin & schooler, 1978) produced six reliable coping factors (alpha ranges from .71 to .91): (a) seeking advice (e.g., "how often do you ask for the advice of relatives about getting along in your marriage"); (b) emotional discharge (e.g., "how often do you yell or shout to let off steam"); (c) positive comparison europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 behavioral correlates of coping strategies 452 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., "how do you compare your marriage to that of most other people like yourself"); (d) negotiation (e.g., trying to find a fair compromise in marriage problems) ; (e) resignation (e.g., keeping hurt feelings to himself or herself); and (f) selective ignoring (e.g., trying to ignore difficulties by looking only at good aspects of the relation). the potential problem checklist (ppcl; patterson, 1976) is a self-report questionnaire that assesses the degree of agreement and disagreement in 26 areas of a marital relationship (e.g., relationshsip with in-laws, financial planning, sexuality etc.). each spouse is asked to respond individually by rating the degree of discord/accord that each topic causes for the couple. the psychometric qualities of the french-canadian translated version have been demonstrated with a standardized cronbach’s α of .90 (gendreau & wright, 1981). the global couple interaction coding system (gcics; bélanger, sabourin, laughrea, dulude, & wright, 1993b; bélanger, dulude, sabourin, & wright, 1993a), is a macroscopic system for coding both verbal and nonverbal marital interactions in a problem solving/communication situation. this coding system is based on the evaluation of five dimensions of marital interactions (three negative dimensions and two positive ones): 1) withdrawal; this dimension evaluates the tendency for the individual to avoid discussion. 2) dominance; this is measured by the non-symmetrical control of the conversation; stubbornness, which can be viewed as a passive manifestation of dominance (gottman & krokoff, 1989), was also included in this dimension. 3) hostility/ conflict; this dimension evaluates the tendency for the individual to resort to hostile behaviors such as criticism, sarcasm, attack, insults, blame or put down the partner. this includes the expression of non-verbal hostility, negative mind reading, threats, and negative escalation; 4) support/validation; this category is defined as the capacity for the person to listen, to validate, or to reinforce the statements of the partner. 5) problem solving; this dimension is measuring the capacity for the individual to recognize the presence of a dyadic problem and to find appropriate ways of solving it. each dimension is coded on a nine point likert scale. a global positive score is obtained by summing the scores of the support/validation and problem-solving categories and a negative global score is obtained by summing the scores of the withdrawal, dominance and criticisms categories. two experienced coders rated independently the video-taped interactions; inter-rater reliability assessment was done on twenty couples . reliability indexes were computed using intra-class correlations (shrout & fleiss, 1979): withdrawal (.85 for women and .70 for men), dominance (.76 for women and .79 for men), critic (.80 for women and .73 for men), support/validation (.57 for women and .51 for men), and problem solving (.64 for women and .50 for men). results coping strategies and marital satisfaction an inspection of correlations between all variables for men and women reveals, for women, significant relationships between coping strategies and marital satisfaction in all but one case (viz., seeking advice). positive comparisons and negotiation are positively associated with marital adjustment whereas emotional discharges, resignation, and selective ignoring are negatively correlated with marital adjustment. for men, positive comparisons and negotiation are positively correlated with marital adjustment. selective ignoring is negatively related to marital adjustment. correlations of self-report coping strategies of one partner to the reported marital satisfaction of the other show that husbands report a higher marital satisfaction score when their wives (a) report using more positive comparison of their marriage to those of other people, and (b) report resorting less to blunt emotional discharges as a way of managing the problems. the same observation appears for wives reporting higher marital satisfaction score when their husbands report using more positive comparison and less blunt emotional discharges. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 bélanger, sabourin, & el-baalbaki 453 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to determine the unique contribution of coping strategies to marital adjustment, two multiple regression analyses were conducted (the data were analyzed separately for each gender). for women, results show that the largest part of the variance in marital satisfaction scores is explained by their own resignation and selective ignoring strategies (r2 = 35%, β = -.59, f = 34.3, p < .0001). their husbands’ capacity to resort to positive comparisons accounted for another 12% (r2 = 47%, β = .35, f = 14.2, p < .0001) of the variance. finally, women’s propensity to seek advice and to formulate positive comparisons account respectively for 6% (r2 = 53%, β = -.24, f = 7.7, p < .001) and 3% (r2 = 56%, β = .22, f = 4.6, p < .03) of the variation in their marital satisfaction scores. for men, their capacity to positively compare their own couple to others explained the largest part of their marital adjustment (r2 = 41%, β = .64, f = 43.9, p < .0001). another 6% of the variance in their satisfaction could be attributed to their own resignation when dealing with marital problems (r2 = 47%, β = -.25, f = 6.7, p < .01). behavioral correlates of coping strategies we also examined the correlations between individual self-reported coping strategies and both partners’ problem-solving/communication behaviors a form of dyadic problem-focused coping strategy as coded with the gcics. all significant correlations are in the predicted direction. for women, seeking advice about their marital relationship is negatively related to healthy dyadic problem solving and overall positive behaviors. for men, selective ignoring is negatively related to healthy dyadic problem-solving and overall positive behaviors. in addition, resorting to positive comparisons in men is positively correlated to wives’ support/validation, problem-solving and global positive behaviors and negatively associated with wives’ criticism. the use of emotional discharge by men is also positively linked to criticisms made by wives. finally, resignation in men is associated with poor problem solving in wives, whereas selective ignoring is related to low support/validation and less positive behaviors on the part of women. coping strategies, problem solving/communication behaviors, and marital satisfaction to determine the possible role of problem-solving/communication behaviors as an intervening variable in the relationship between coping strategies and marital adjustment, two multiple regression analyses (one for men and one for women) were conducted. because no theoretical framework could justify the entry of variables in a predetermined order, a stepwise approach was adopted (cohen & cohen, 1975; pedhazur, 1982). two stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed: coping strategies that proved to be non redundant (see the section on coping strategies and marital satisfaction) and problem-solving/communication behaviors for both men and women were considered as independent variables. for women, resignation (r2 = 35%, β = -.59, f = 34.3, p < .0001), criticism (r2 = 39%, β = -.20, f = 4.2, p < .04) and overall negative behaviors (r2 = 47%, β = -.26, f = 4.1, p < .03) were stable predictors of marital adjustment. for men, problem-solving/communication behaviors add nothing to cognitive variables to explain marital adjustment. in cases where both self-report coping strategies variables and coded behavior variables were entered in the equations (viz., for women), we conducted stringent tests in order to verify the possible moderator or mediator role of behaviors in the relation between coping strategies and marital adjustment. the moderating functions of coded behaviors in the relationship between coping strategies and marital satisfaction are tested with a multiple hierarchical regression analysis (baron & kenny, 1986; cohen & cohen, 1975; pedhazur, 1982). self-report coping strategies variables are first entered in the equation, coded problem-solving/communication behaviors are europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 behavioral correlates of coping strategies 454 http://www.psychopen.eu/ then introduced in the equation, and the interaction variables between the first two components are last filled in. when the test for moderation is conducted, results show that the interaction terms never reach significance. problem-solving/communication behaviors does not seem to moderate the relation between individual coping skills and martial satisfaction. three multiple regression analyses were performed in order to test the mediating function of problem-solving/communication behaviors (baron & kenny, 1986). in the first step, the contribution of coping strategies to observed variance in behavioral variables is evaluated. in the second step, the contribution of coping strategies to marital satisfaction is determined. in the last phase, the mutual contribution of both coping strategies and behaviors to observed variance in marital satisfaction scores is measured. in order to confirm the presence of a mediating function for problem-solving/communication behaviors, in each of these three analyses the predicting variables had to explain variance in the criterion variable. the last condition necessitates that when problem-solving/communication behaviors are added to self-report coping variables, the contribution of these self-report coping variables should decrease in a significant manner. the mediating function for behaviors would be optimal if coping strategies did not contribute anymore to the variance in marital satisfaction when these behaviors are entered in the regression analysis (baron & kenny, 1986; pedhazur, 1982). the last condition was not met for any of the problem-solving/communication behavioral variables. problem-solving/communication behaviors do not seem to mediate 1) the relation between his or her specific coping skills, 2) his or her marital adjustment, 3) his or her partner's satisfaction. discussion the main purpose of the present study was to identify problem-solving/communication correlates of self-report coping strategies in close relationships. we also sought to determine the precise functions (moderators, mediators, or direct effects) of problem-solving/communication behaviors in the relationship between self-report coping strategies and marital adjustment (bélanger, sabourin, & wright, 1993; lazaridès, bélanger, & sabourin, 2010b). our results generally support the hypothesis that specific self-reported coping strategies are related to marital adjustment. for women, positive comparisons, negotiation, resignation, selective ignoring, and emotional discharge were consistently associated with relationship satisfaction as hypothesized. for men, positive comparisons, negotiation, and selective ignoring are markers of marital adjustment. these findings corroborated the results of previous studies (bowman, 1990; menaghan, 1982; pearlin & schooler, 1978; bélanger, sabourin, & wright, 1993). however, our results extend these findings in demonstrating the presence of a complex interplay between specific coping strategies and marital interactions in a problem-solving task. in certain cases, self-reported coping variables appear to be interconnected with specific problem solving behavioral variables. for example, women who frequently seek advice to cope with marital conflicts are less effective problem solvers. this passive coping approach might be associated with a deficient behavioral repertoire or with a lack of confidence, which interfere with the emission of effective problem-solving behaviors. for men, selective ignoring plays a similar role. these results dovetail with other results obtained from our laboratory where we found that personal variables would play a moderating role in the link between communication behaviors and long-term dyadic adjustment (lazaridès, bélanger, & sabourin, 2010b), and marital stability (lazaridès, bélanger, & sabourin, 2010a). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 bélanger, sabourin, & el-baalbaki 455 http://www.psychopen.eu/ more strikingly, the use of specific coping strategies as reported by one partner, seems to vary with the type of behaviors adopted by the other partner. for example, we are more likely to find that wives are more supportive, more effective problem-solvers and less critical when their counterparts report using more positive comparisons. menaghan (1982), underlined that optimistic appraisals, by reducing feelings of discouragement and by generating positive expectations, might lead one's partner to adopt more positive problem-solving/communication behaviors. this is precisely what our results suggest. coping strategies can generate positive feedback loops which reverberate on the behavioral repertoire of one's partner. emotional discharge, resignation, and selective ignoring do seem to prompt negative feedback loops in marital interaction because they are associated with less effective problem-solving/communication behaviors in men's partner. this pattern of results applies exclusively to coping strategies adopted by men. women's coping strategies do not seem to be linked to men's problem solving behaviors. are women more sensitive observers of coping processes exhibited by men? is it possible that men disclose the content of their cognitive processes more frequently or more effectively thereby influencing the behavioral repertoire of their wives more directly? these questions await an empirical response; duplication studies using longitudinal designs will shed light on these problems. what are the functions of the problem-solving/communication variables in the relationship between specific coping strategies and marital adjustment? to answer this question, three models have been examined: a moderator model, a mediator model, and a model where the effects of self-perceived coping strategies and actual behaviors on marital adjustment are direct and unmediated. our results suggest that the self-reported strategies the person resorts to in order to cope with marital conflicts have a direct and unmediated relationship to marital adjustment. for women, problem-solving/communication behaviors have an independent contribution to marital adjustment. for men, these behaviors do not account for a significant portion of the variance over and above what is explained by their coping strategies. thus, self-perceived variables seem to be more potent predictors of marital adjustment than behavioral variables. these findings could well be the result of a methodological artifact that can be attributed to the fact that marital adjustment and coping strategies are measured through similar channels. it is to be mentioned that this study is exploratory and that the measurement of individual coping vs dyadic coping is much more complex than what we were able to achieve. moreover a clear distinction between cognitive coping strategies and behavioral ones might shed a new light on the understanding of the complex interplay of coping variables and marital satisfaction. also, in part of our analysis we measured the marital adjustment concurrently or prior to coping strategies. given that coping strategies may well be influenced by marital satisfaction, the direction of effects should be interpreted with caution. to conclude, present findings underline the need to adopt an integrative approach to marital adjustment (markman, 1991; krokoff, 1991; sayers, baucom, sher, weiss, & heyman, 1991). however, this approach should also study the effects that cognitive variables adopted by a partner have on the behavioral repertoire of the other partner. the study of couple communication and marital distress within such a paradigm represent a fruitful avenue for a better understanding of the interface between what the partners think and what they do in order to foster a sense of well-being in their relationship. an exploration of this avenue in french and non-french speaking countries would also be of 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(2011). a two-dimensional approach to relationship conflict: meta-analytic findings. [meta-analysis]. journal of family psychology, 25(3), 325-335. doi:10.1037/a0023791 about the authors dr. claude bélanger is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of marital therapy at the university of quebec at montreal, as well as assistant professor in the psychiatry department at mcgill university. he is also involved as a clinician and researcher in the anxiety clinic at douglas mental health university institute. his primary research interests focus on determinants of marital distress as well as predictors of efficacy for treatment of panic disorder. dr. stéphane sabourin is a full professor and director of the laboratory for the study of couples at laval university in quebec city. his primary research interests include predictors of marital adjustment, as well as personality disorders and their relationship to marital functioning. dr. ghassan el-baalbaki is an assistant professor at the university of quebec at montreal. he is also an adjunct professor at mcgill university faculty of medicine, oncology department and involved as a researcher at the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 bélanger, sabourin, & el-baalbaki 459 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.14.1.18 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020836 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2136319 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.2.3.333 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.1990.tb00048.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.2.420 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0023791 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trauma study center part of louis-h. lafontaine hospital’s fernand-seguin research centre. his research interests include the study of personality traits in different clinical contexts, hypnosis, couples and health psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 449–460 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.499 behavioral correlates of coping strategies 460 http://www.psychopen.eu/ behavioral correlates of coping strategies objectives and hypothesis method participants procedure measures results coping strategies and marital satisfaction behavioral correlates of coping strategies coping strategies, problem solving/communication behaviors, and marital satisfaction discussion references about the authors why we laugh and what makes us laugh: the enigma of humor editorial why we laugh and what makes us laugh: the enigma of humor arthur asa berger*a [a] broadcast and electronic communication arts at san francisco state university, san francisco, usa. abstract humor (and related concerns such as the nature of comedy and of laughter) is an enigmatic subject that has perplexed our greatest thinkers from aristotle’s time to the present. there are four competing theories that explain humor, each of which argues that all humor is based on: superiority, incongruity, cognitive problems in processing humor and psychoanalytic perspectives (such as masked aggression). europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 210–213, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.599 received: 2013-03-06. accepted: 2013-03-06. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: 118 peralta avenue, mill valley, ca 94941 usa. e-mail: arthurasaberger@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. aristotle explained that comedy is “an imitation of men worse than average; worse, however, not as regards any sort of fault, but only as regards on particular kind, the ridiculous.” (mckeon, 1941, p. 1459). hobbes wrote in his leviathan “the passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” (as cited in koestler, 1949, p. 56). the use of terms such as “passion” and “sudden glory” suggest there are psychological underpinnings to the superiority theory. the most widely accepted theory of humor is the “incongruity” theory which argues that humor is based on the difference between what we expect and what we get. schopenhauer explained incongruity in humor writing, “the cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real objects which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.” kant, another incongruity theorist, described laughter as “an affection rising from the sudden transformation of a strained expectation into nothing.” the phrases “sudden perception” and “sudden transformation” suggest that there are also psychological aspects to incongruity theory. a third theory is the “cognitive” theory which suggests that our minds haven’t evolved enough for us to understand humor but that it involves paradox, play frames and metacommunications of one kind or another. thus, william fry jr., a psychiatrist, explained in his book sweet madness (1968, p. 153), “during the unfolding of humor, one is suddenly confronted by an explicit-implicit reversal when the punch line is delivered. the reversal helps distinguish humor from play, dreams, etc…but the reversal also has the unique effect of forcing upon the humor participants an internal redefining of reality. inescapably the punch line combines communication and metacommunication.” the fourth theory is the freudian psychoanalytic theory of humor, which ties humor to masked aggression and other forces in the unconscious. as freud wrote in his jokes and their relation to the unconscious (1963, p. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 101), “and here at last we can understand what it is that jokes achieve in the service of their purpose. they make possible the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or hostile) in the fact of an obstacle that stands in its way.” let me move now to one of the most important kinds of humorous texts—jokes. a joke can be defined as a short story, with a punch line, that generates mirthful laughter. with our understanding of the four most important theories of humor in mind, it is instructive to see how representatives of each of these theories might analyze the following joke: a man goes to miami for a vacation. after four days he notices he has a tan all over his body, except for his penis. so the next day he goes to a deserted area of the beach early in the morning, takes his clothes off and lies down. he sprinkles sand over himself until all that remains in the sun is his penis. two little old ladies walk by on the boardwalk and one notices the penis. "when i was 20," she says, "i was scared to death of them. when i was 40, i couldn’t get enough of them. when i was 60, i couldn't get one to come near me....and now they're growing wild on the beach." superiority theorists find this joke is amusing because we feel superior both to the man, who has elements of narcissism in his personality and his behavior—he wants to be tanned on every part of his body—and to the little old lady who revealed her problems with penises as she matured. incongruity humor theorists would see this joke as an example of a remarkably incongruous event—a penis sticking out of the sand on a beach. the punch line is what creates this incongruity. after the little old lady’s revelations about her relations with penises at twenty, forty, and sixty, we are surprised by her statement “and now they’re growing wild on the beach.” cognitive theorists would explain that the joke assumes a play frame (as all jokes do) so we do not really believe the little old lady thinks that penises are growing wild on the beach, and why we laugh at the this joke (and all jokes and all humor) is something we cannot explain. for psychoanalytic theorists, the joke is a reflection of the power of sexuality in human development and is based on the man’s narcissism and the revelation of the little old lady’s repressed longing for sexual relations. now that she’s over sixty, she can’t get a penis (with a man attached to it) to come near her, but wouldn’t it be wonderful for her if penises actually were growing wild on beaches…or anyplace else. in my research on humor, i couldn’t figure out which of the “why” theories of humor was best, so i decided to investigate what makes us laugh. i got the idea of looking for techniques that generate mirthful laughter from freud, and found forty-five techniques that, i suggest, are found, in various combinations, in all forms of humor. i explained these techniques in my book the art of comedy writing and then used them to analyze the following humorous plays: miles gloriosus, twelfth night, the school for scandal and the bald soprano. i was able to show, to my satisfaction at least, how plautus, shakespeare, sheridan and ionesco used these techniques in their comedies. my list of these techniques follows: europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 210–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.599 berger 211 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 31. parody 32. puns 33. repartee 34. repetition 35. reversal 36. ridicule 37. rigidity 38. sarcasm 39. satire 40. scale, size 41. slapstick 42. speed 43. stereotypes 44. theme & variation 45. unmasking 16. embarrassment 17. exaggeration 18. exposure 19. facetiousness 20. grotesque 21. ignorance 22. imitation 23. impersonation 24. infantilism 25. insults 26. irony 27. literalness 28. mimicry 29. mistakes 30. misunderstanding 1. absurdity 2. accident 3. allusion 4. analogy 5. before & after 6. bombast 7. burlesque 8. caricature 9. catalogue 10. chase scene 11. coincidence 12. comparison 13. definition 14. disappointment 15. eccentricity we can use these techniques to find out how the joke i’ve just analyzed generates humor. we find, at a minimum, the following: technique 29, mistakes. the woman who sees the penis thinks (and probably hopes) that penis can grow wild on a beach. technique 15, eccentricity. the man must have every inch of his body tanned. perhaps, also, technique 37, rigidity, in more ways than one? technique 18, exposure. the man exposes his penis to the world and the woman exposes her sexual hunger. we do not, as a rule, expose our private parts in public spaces or our sexual desires. if we were to reduce this joke to a formula, it would be: 29/15/18. reducing a joke to a formula may be seen as humorous. i’ll leave it for my readers to decide which techniques explain why turning jokes into formulas might be funny. what we learn from this exercise if that jokes are more complex than we might imagine and the best ones use a number of different techniques to achieve their goal—mirthful laughter. laughter is also something of an enigma. although most of us laugh many times during a typical day, i doubt that many people are able to define laughter in a satisfactory way. this task has been done for us by a psychologist, robert provine. in an article in american scientist (1996, p. 39) he writes, ”a laugh is characterized by a series of short vowel-like notes…each about 75 milliseconds long that are repeated at regular intervals about 210 milliseconds apart. a specific vowel sound does not define laughter, but similar vowel sounds are typically used for the notes of a given laugh. for example, laughs have the structure ‘ha-ha-ha-ha’ or ‘ho-ho-ho-ho’ but not ‘ha-ho-ha-ho.’” he also points out that most of our laughter comes from banal remarks we make to one another rather than jokes. humor, i would suggest, is an important and somewhat neglected subject and one that psychologists would do well to investigate. it is all pervasive, it is fearless, it deals with every aspect of our lives and deaths, it varies from class to class and country to country in terms of the subjects that people find funny and the techniques they use in their jokes and other forms of humor, and it has the capacity to reveal all kinds of interesting things about people who create humor and those who delight in it. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 210–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.599 the enigma of humor 212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references freud, s. (1963). jokes and their relation to the unconscious. new york, ny: w.w. norton. fry, w., jr. (1963). sweet madness: a study of humor. palo alto, ca: pacific books. koestler, a. (1949). insight and outlook. new york, ny: macmillan. mckeon, r. (ed.). (1941). the basic works of aristotle. new york, ny: random house. provine, r. (1996, january/february). laughter. the american behavioral scientist, 84, 38-47. about the author arthur asa berger is professor emeritus of broadcast and electronic communication arts at san francisco state university. he is the author of more than sixty books and one hundred articles on humor, media, popular culture and related concerns. he has written the following books on humor: li’l abner: a study in satire, an anatomy of humor, the art of comedy writing, blind men and elephants: perspectives on humor, the genius of the jewish joke, and jewish jesters. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 210–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.599 berger 213 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the enigma of humor references about the author changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses in the case of first and fourth generations of turkish migrants in germany research reports changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses in the case of first and fourth generations of turkish migrants in germany jan ilhan kizilhan*a [a] baden-württemberg cooperative state university, villingen-schwennigen, germany. abstract this study examines to what extent subjective illness concepts and symptoms of turkish patients in germany have changed over 40 years. two groups of patients of turkish origin from psychosomatic clinics in germany took part in the study, the first group made up of 690 patients from the “first generation” of migrants and the second group comprising 350 patients from the “fourth generation“. the study was conducted using standardised interviews (the sociodemographic questionnaire, ipq,cope, bdi, scl-90-r). differences were found in essential aspects of subjective illness perception and illness coping strategies as well as in the diagnosis of psychological illness. the fourth generation of turkish patients that were born and have grown up in germany showed more problem-oriented behaviour regarding their coping strategies and less use of dysfunctional strategies for treatment than patients of the first generation. the findings of the present study are important for treating turkish patients and patients of turkish origin suffering from psychological disorders since they indicate that their disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses undergo changes in the course of generations. hitherto these differences were not taken into account in treatment; in the future we should be moving towards customised treatment in order to achieve better therapeutic effects. keywords: subjective illness beliefs, migration, turkish patients, culture, illness coping strategies europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 received: 2012-01-12. accepted: 2012-05-28. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: institute for psychology, department of rehabilitation psychology and psychotherapy, workgroup migration and rehabilitation, university of freiburg, germany, cooperative state university bw, schramberger str. 26, 7054 villingen-schwennigen, germany, email: kizilhan@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the medical-psychological perspective on migration is dominated by our conception of modern societies and recent, post-wwii migration causing individual and collective strains (sluzki, 2010). migration results in significant shifts in the psycho-social structure of any society and influences its socio-economic stratification, politics, culture, and public health system (kizilhan & bermejo, 2009). this change in a person’s life has an influence on individual and collective identity as well as on the way the past is “digested” and on whether or not integration into one’s host society is successful. the shaping of this new phase in life is dependent on individual and collective coping strategies and on the ability to make use of social networks (sluzki, 2010). establishing a new network of relationships in a culturally, ethnically and socially different context demands new social resources, a new orientation and new competences to take action (kizilhan, haag, & bengel, 2011). for example, in turkey, traditional notions on family and responsibilities of the individual within this network were clearly defined and compliance with the given rules and norms controlled by the collective. on the other hand, attitudes towards these standards and values have changed in various ways with subsequent generations through migration; this also applies to the perception and treatment of illnesses (özbek, 2006). however, in psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment, this aspect is not being taken into consideration sufficiently (franz et al., 2007), --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ although it has been shown that notions on health differ significantly across cultures and generations (barnes et al., 2004). the connection between attitudes on health and illness, on the one hand, and cultural norms, on the other, are particularly strong, which also means that any statement about an illness is culture-specific to a certain degree (thomas et al., 2003). the association of religious and magic notions (such as the existence of spirits, jinn, symbols or rituals) on the one hand and illness on the other is still of great relevance to many first generation migrants of turkish origin (heine & assion, 2005). leventhal, meyer, & nerenz (1980) assume a general process leading to the development, change and medical consequences of subjective illness concepts. according to a perceptual-cognitive model (leventhal, leventhal, & cameron, 2001) there are cognitive and emotional illness representations that are significant for compliance, the course of an illness, and the effectiveness of its treatment. in past studies exploring the subjective illness concepts of patients of turkish origin, the cultural aspect was considered to be a relatively stable factor. thus, the pilot study by franz et al. (2007) among turkish and german patients concluded that patients of turkish origin tend to have more pessimistic notions of illnesses and, in contrast to german patients, would rather attribute them to external causes. significant differences in coping behaviour between german and turkish patients were also uncovered by özelsel (1994): german patients preferred “emotional retreat” or “further mental digestion”, while patients of turkish origin tended to “play down” or “minimize” an illness. patients who managed to “further mentally digest”, were prepared to acknowledge information about their illness; patients who played it down were unable to cope with it. another comparative study between german patients on the one hand and turkish patients of the first and second generations, on the other, also showed that turkish patients more often attribute their illnesses to external causes such as “fate” or “god’s will”, they feel that they have less personal control over their treatment and have a significantly poorer understanding of their illness (bircheneder, 2010). unlike german patients, in order to cope with their illness, they do not apply a systematic long-term strategy, but try to act in a short-term, problem-oriented manner (bircheneder, 2010, kizilhan & haag, 2011). the study by bircheneder (2010), which was conducted at the same psychosomatic clinics as the present research, gave us to the idea of comparing a german sample with first and fourth generations of turkish patients in germany. the “first generation” of turkish patients was defined as persons who had been socialised in their home country and had migrated to germany as adults. the “second generation” was born in their home country and migrated as children to germany. the “third” and “fourth generation” are made up of people born and raised in germany. for a better difference and comparability we choose to compare the first and fourth generation in this study; for the latter, parents had migrated to germany as children (up to the age of 12). due to our experience in psychosomatic clinics with german and turkish patients, we expected a difference in illness conceptions, coping strategies and diagnoses between the first and the fourth generation of turkish patients. further we expected that the fourth generation of turkish patients would show similar illness conceptions, coping strategies and diagnoses to a german group of equivalent age. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 kizilhan 353 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method sample and data collection we investigated patients of turkish origin in three psychosomatic hospitals in bavaria and baden-württemberg. in all three hospitals they were treated using single and group therapy sessions in conjunction with psycho-educative seminars. data collection in three psychosomatic hospitals was conducted between june 2007 and july 2011. we selected this long period of time because despite the clinics’ capacity, patients of turkish origin accounted only for a small share of the total number of patients treated by these clinics. for the first generation group, patients of turkish origin were chosen who had been born and raised in their country of origin and had migrated to germany as adults (i.e. above 23 years of age). the fourth generation group comprised patients of turkish origin who had been born and raised in germany and whose parents had migrated to germany as children (i.e. at up to 12 years of age). patients with war experiences, traumatisation or other extreme burdens, unclear residence status and severely suicidal patients were excluded from the investigation. due to the expected differences between the two groups with respect to gender, age, level of education and diagnosis, the two samples were parallelised in order to ensure comparability and to enhance the inner validity of the study. thus, patients under 21 and older than 60, who were more frequent in the first generation group, were excluded. due to noteworthy generational differences, average age was significant (f=7,209, p <.008) in the first group. furthermore, all patients who were illiterate, had a university degree or had been treated in a psychosomatic hospital in the year of the study were excluded as well. finally, we excluded patients who had been diagnosed with ptsd due to torture or displacement, as the fourth generation group barely showed this syndrome. overall, 720 patients of the first generation group and 372 of the fourth generation group participated in the survey. due to missing data and incorrectly filled-in questionnaires, a final 690 first generation and 350 fourth generation participants were considered for analysis. as mentioned in the introduction, we also compared these two groups to a sample of german patients (n=34) concerning their illness concepts, coping strategies and diagnoses. demographics average age for the first generation group was 57.9 years, and for the fourth generation group it was 27.9 years. gender distribution was 40%men and 60% women for both groups. patients of the first generation group showed a significantly lower level of education (χ2=36.00, p<.001), a lower percentage of gainful employment (χ2=3.933, p<.047), and they were on a lower income level than their fourth generation counterparts. persons of the first generation group were also married more often (χ2=10.394, p<.015) and had more children (p<.003). while this group had an average of 3.5 children, the mean value for the fourth generation participants was only 1.7. measures the following test instruments were used in the turkish version: the sociodemographic questionnaire by koch (1997): this questionnaire has been in use in various surveys (koch, 2005). it generates important background information about a person (e.g. place of origin, religion, migration history, family, work, financial situation, duration of illness, treatment, etc.). religious affiliation and practice were europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses 354 http://www.psychopen.eu/ examined using specific questions on “religion and belief”, an autonomous category integrated into this questionnaire. illness perception questionnaire (ipq-r): for the operationalisation of the subjective illness concept, we used the turkish translation (armay, 2006) of the revised version of the "illness perception questionnaire“ (moss-morris et al., 2002) and expanded it according to the modification proposed by lujic (2008) by adding the factors “fate”, “environment” and “personal”. it consists of eight sub-scales showing the components of illness perception as postulated by leventhal et al. (1980). overall, the turkish translation of the ipq-r is of satisfactory psychometric quality with respect to the reliability of the sub-scales (cronbach-α between .68 and .89). cope-inventory: cope was designed to cover a wide range of both functional and dysfunctional coping strategies (carver et al., 1989). with the exception of two scales, the range of reliability values was between good and very good (cronbach-α between .75 to .96). for the collection of coping strategies, we used the turkish translation of cope (ağargün, beşiroğlu, kıran, özer, & kara, 2005), whose validation resulted in high internal consistency values of around 0.79. beck depression inventory (bdi): the degree of depressive symptoms was registered with the beck depression inventory (beck et al., 1961) in this case its turkish version (hisli, 1988; hisli, 1989). the validation of the questionnaire resulted in a high internal consistency of the turkish version, with values of around .85. there is a range of validation studies for this version, assuming a very valid and reliable record of the construct “depression” with patients of turkish origin (aktürk et al., 2005). the cut-off values of 11 and 18 also apply to the turkish version. symptom checklist (scl-90-r): the symptom checklist (derogatis, 1977) measures the subjectively perceived impairment of a person through physical and psychological symptoms within a timeframe of seven days. the turkish version of scl-90-r, previously tested for its reliability and validity by dag (1991), was used for this research. statistical analyses the data was analysed with spss 15.0.1 for windows (2006). patients of the first and fourth generation were compared with regard to their illness perception (ipq-r) and coping strategies (cope) by calculating χ2 tests, t tests and with the help of a univariate, factorial analysis of variance (anova). the correlations between ipq-r and cope, on the one hand, and between ipq and strain (bdi and scl-90-r), on the other, were calculated separately for each group. the modified cause scale of the ipq-r (lujic, 2008) was checked using reliability analysis. results psychological syndrome as presented in figure 1, significant differences could be found for somatoform disorders, with the first generation group being more highly affected (28.6%) compared to 9.2% for fourth generation migrants (χ2=10.28, p<.036). the relationship was reversed for the diagnosis of personality disorders (χ2= 4.374, p<.001) and eating disorders (χ2= 8.162, p<001), which were present more frequently in the fourth generation group. diagnoses of schizophrenia tended to be more frequent for the fourth rather than the first generation. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 kizilhan 355 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. diagnoses for the groups “first and fourth generation” stress symptom table 1 shows average differences in depressiveness (bdi) and in psychological stress symptom (scl-90-r). all nine sub-scales of scl-90-r, plus the overall stress value (gsi) show significantly higher values for the first generation group (p<.001). table 1 comparing means (t tests) of both groups with regard to depressiveness (bdi) and stress symptom (scl-90-r) total sample (n=1040) group “fourth generation” (n=350) group “first generation” (n=690) variable p<tsdmeansdmean .001bdi .798-3.5712.6120.4112.4536 scl-90-r .001somatisation .387-4.7212.1965.119.4175 .001obsessiveness .516-5.6812.6365.525.1076 .001insecurity in social interaction .111-4.6213.2962.6710.0774 .001depressiveness .489-4.7812.7866.527.3476 .001anxiety .069-4.5511.1965.559.2175 .001aggressiveness/ hostility .989-4.3511.8158.2212.8371 .001phobic fear .894-4.6312.0262.979.9773 .001paranoid thinking .518-4.6312.4859.0111.7971 .001psychoticism .303-6.9411.6062.967.9075 .001gsi (global symptom index) .335-4.5911.7057.337.7679 .001suicidal tendency .671-5.790.480.481.032 first generation participants also reported much higher values for depression (bdi value at 36.4 points) than their fourth generation counterparts (bdi value at 20.6 points). with a t value of -3.746, this difference can be considered highly significant (p<.001). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses 356 http://www.psychopen.eu/ concerning the relation between depression and gender, women of the first generation group showed the highest value (56.6%) (figure 2). among men of the same group, 52.3% also featured high values. in the younger group, 29.7% of women and 24.8% of men reached higher values. figure 2. depressiveness, classified into “first and fourth generation” as well as gender, measured with bdi. causes of subjective illness figure 3 show that first generation patients of turkish origin attribute their illnesses to external causes much more frequently than fourth generation patients. the turkish patients of the first generation believe to have less control above their illness (“destiny factor”; f=16.044, p<.001) and less influence on the treatment (“environmental factor”; f=8.408, p<.005). both groups often perceive stress and exhaustion, but also their personality and family affairs, as causes of their illness. the results of the fourth generation group are consistent with the ones of the german groups in the 2010 study discussed above (bircheneder, 2010). compared to fourth generation patients, first generation participants feel they have no control over their illness (f=17.183, p<.001; d=1.2) and little control over its treatment (f=17.214, p<.001; d=1.05). using the sub-scale "coherence" of the ipq-r, we examined to what extent the patients have an understanding of their illness. there is a noteworthy difference between the two groups in this aspect (f=4.874, p<.015; d=0.54): first generation patients were significantly less capable of understanding their illness (f=4.874, p<.015; d=0.54). illness coping strategies table 2 shows that the coping strategies “planning” (f=5.652, p<.022) and "active coping” (f=10.316, p<.002) were applied significantly more often by the members of the fourth generation group. these individuals tended to think more about their illness and develop strategies and plans of action in order to overcome the problem. the strategies “patience” and “instrumental support” showed no significant differences between first and fourth generation respondents. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 kizilhan 357 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. overview of illness cause attributes of the two groups of turkish origin and of german patients. the significant differences determined with two-factorial analyses of variance are highlighted. (annotation: 1 = not matching at all; 5 = matching absolutely) table 2 f values and significance of the two-factorial analyses of variance conducted on the 15 coping scales of cope. socialisation x educationeducationcountry of socialisation scale p<fp<fp<f .1801.748.2510.785.022planning .6525 .1352.305.2141.579.002active coping .31610 .0256.382.1272.497.029suppression of alternative activities .8563 .6180.354.4521.151.591seeking social support (emotional) .8761 .4500.705.7381.242.545seeking social support (instrumental) .5911 .2512.320.9371.206.370focus on and abreaction of emotions .4391 .2802.412.5632.475.010denial .6415 .0324.540.1420.920.005behaviour-oriented escape .7638 .2072.632.2872.788.386mental give-up .1612 .2341.450.7250.125.828acceptance .4470 .9420.005.2821.182.654patience .2041 .0344.733.4840.496.788positive reinterpretation and growth .0731 .5670.189.0155.088.544humour .2161 .5010.458.0942.904.008religion .12010 .5920.499.4143.580.352use of alcohol and other drugs .8411 in their efforts to cope with their illness, patients of the first generation group were more likely to turn to religious belief (f=10.120, p<.008; d=0.12) than their fourth generation counterparts. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses 358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the factor “education” also generates a strong effect (d=0.18) and it is exclusively significant for the coping strategy “humour” (f=5.088, p<.015; d=0.12). patients in both groups with a high level of education try to tackle their illness with humour. the strategy “denial” is applied more often by the fourth generation group members (f=5.641, p<.010; d=0.21). the interaction between the two factors religion and education is significant (f=4.913, p<.022): highly educated member of the fourth generation as well as patients of the first generation with strong religious bonds resort to this coping strategy more frequently. the coping mechanisms “behaviour-oriented escape”, “mental give-up”, “use of alcohol and other drugs” as well as “focus on and abreaction of emotions” are seen by fourth generation as particularly dysfunctional for successful coping with illnesses. “behaviour-oriented escape” as a strategy is applied more often by the fourth generation group (f=8.763, p<.005; d=0.52). also noteworthy is the interaction of the factors religion and education (f=5.530, p<.021). in particular, fourth generation patients with strong religious bonds apply this coping strategy, while first generation patients who make use of it tend to have a lower level of education. discussion the present study examined 650 patients of the first generation and 350 patients of the fourth generation of turkish migrants and occasionally compared them also to 34 german patients in the same age range as fourth generation members hospitalised at psychosomatic clinics in germany for possible differences in illness perception, in coping with illness and with regard to psychological disorders. the results of this study indicated that patients of turkish origin of the first generation have a lower level of school education and lesser proficiency in german than the fourth generation group. they practise religious rituals and behaviour much more often in everyday life than their younger counterparts. further, the traditional and family-oriented first generation of patients perceive the causes of their illness more often to be the result of external influences such as “destiny” or “god’s will”, i.e. they attribute their illness more often to external causes in general, feel that they have significantly less personal and treatment control, and have a much poorer understanding of their illness. in particular, the “fate factor”, measured using ipq-r, was found to be more significant (f=16.044, p<.001) than the “environment factor” (f=8.408, p<.005). in order to cope with their illness, fourth generation patients are more likely to apply the planning strategy (f=5.652, p<.022) and try to respond actively (f=10.316, p<.002) and in a problem-oriented way. fourth generation patients resemble german patients in the way they tackle illness (bircheneder, 2010). while no notable eating or personality disorders could be identified among first generation illness syndromes, fourth generation patients reported illnesses similar to those of german patients. in other studies in the field of cross-cultural psychology, including the study on schizophrenia carried out by al-issa (1995) and cantor-graae and selten (2005), it was assumed that psychological disturbances undergo changes in different generations of migrants. backed by studies on schizophrenia andmigration (al-issa, 1995; cantor-graae & selten, 2005), our findings show that the risk of schizophrenia is higher for the fourth than the first generation group. the possibility that the differences in illness perception, illness digestion and varying diagnoses are due to the age of respondents alone was already ruled out in the study by nickel et al. (2006). they reported for instance that patients of turkish origin of different ages with similar cultural backgrounds and length of stay in europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 kizilhan 359 http://www.psychopen.eu/ germany showed no significant differences with regard to the frequency of depression, anxiety, somatoform disorders, eating disorders or personality disorders (nickel et al., 2006). the findings of this study have significance for the treatment of patients of turkish origin of different generations in psychiatric and psychosomatic hospitals. we found that first, due to their specific cultural background, first generation patients of turkish origin develop a different understanding of their illness and different ways of coping with it, and second, they undergo change over generations in conjunction with different cultural influences. while somatisation disorders and depression are predominant among first generation patients in psychosomatic hospitals, eating and personality disorders, among others, are more prevalent among patients of the fourth generation. as yet, these differences have not been considered yet and will probably be dealt with prospectively with regard to group-oriented treatments in order to get better therapeutic results. as for the limitations of our study, it should be noted that despite distinct differences between the two generations in terms of age and socialisation, due to their common origin, it was not possible to exclude all cultural factors. as such, respondents came from different ethnic and religious groups in turkey. also, the study was conducted only at psychosomatic clinics and there are no data here about ambulatory patients. in future studies, it would be important to compare respondents of different generations from turkey with those living in germany. references ağargün, m. y., beşiroğlu, l., kıran, ü. k., özer, ö. a., & kara, h. 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(2006). behandlungsergebnisse stationärer psychosomatischer rehabilitation bei türkischen migranten: eine prospektive studie. gesundheitswesen, 68, 147-153. doi:10.1055/s-2006-926548 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 kizilhan 361 http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-2007-971015 http://geb.uni-giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2009/7004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870440290001494 http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-2006-926548 http://www.psychopen.eu/ özbek, t. (2006). autonomieentwicklung und identität im transkulturellen alltag. in e. wohlfahrt & m. zaumseil (eds.), transkulturelle psychiatrie – interkulturelle psychotherapie (pp. 96-109) heidelberg: springer. özelsel, m. (1994). die „andere mentalität“. eine empirische untersuchung zur sekundären krankheitssicht türkischer mitbürgerinnen. verhaltenstherapie & psychosoziale praxis, 3, 349-356. sluzki, c. e. (2010). psychologische phasen der migration und ihrer auswirkungen. in: t. hegemann & r. salman (eds.), handbuch transkulturelle psychiatrie (pp. 108-123). berlin: psychiatrieverlag. thomas, a., kinast, e.-u., & schroll-machl, s. (eds.). (2003). handbuch interkulturelle kommunikation und kooperation (vol. 1). göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. about the author prof. dr. jan ilhan kizilhan is a psychologist and psychotherapist. his expertise is in psychotraumatology, social medicine (rehabilitation and retirement), forensic and ethnological studies. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.473 changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses 362 http://www.psychopen.eu/ changes in disease perception, coping strategies and diagnoses method sample and data collection demographics measures statistical analyses results psychological syndrome stress symptom causes of subjective illness illness coping strategies discussion references about the author organizational emotional intelligence and top selling research reports organizational emotional intelligence and top selling gabriele giorgi*a, serena mancusoa, francisco javier fiz pereza [a] human sciences department, european university of rome, rome, italy. abstract the purpose of this study is to explore emotional intelligence in association with effective sales performance. the participants involved in this study were sellers in a home furniture company and completed a new tool measuring emotional intelligence at the beginning of their employment with the company. after four months, their volume of sales was calculated and compared with other results. briefly, evidence from this study indicates that emotional intelligence skills are relevant in association with job performance, particularly relationship management and self-management. the final results support the main hypothesis. subsequent implications for sales organizations and researchers are discussed. keywords: emotional intelligence, sales, organizational intelligence, emotional competencies, sales performance, employee performance, italy europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 received: 2014-01-24. accepted: 2014-10-13. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: maria kakarika, neoma business school, reims, france *corresponding author at: human sciences department, european university of rome, via degli aldobrandeschi, 190 00163 roma, italy – tel.: +39 06.665431. e-mail: gabriele.giorgi@unier.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the concept of emotional intelligence has attracted significant scientific interest in the last decade. emotional intelligence (ei) is defined as the capacity to understand our emotions and manage them effectively as well as to understand and effectively manage the emotions of other employees (giorgi, 2013; goleman, 1995). a number of models have been developed to measure various domains of ei. two ei models are specifically recognized by literature: the mental ability model and the mixedmodel. themental ability model focuses on aptitude for processing affective information. thus, ei is viewed as a related set of cognitive abilities for processing emotional information and the adaptive regulation of emotion (salovey &mayer, 1990). the mixed model conceptualizes ei as a complex construct, including some aspects of personality, and the ability to perceive, assimilate, understand and manage emotions, as well as emotional competencies (boyatzis, 2008; goleman, 1998). in addition, the trait emotional intelligence model recently captured research attention. in this model, ei consists of four components: well-being, sociability, self-control and emotionality (petrides, pita, & kokkinaki, 2007). although, the presented models have been the subject of rigorous debate for many years as a challenge to the validity of ei (ashkanasy & daus, 2005; davies, stankov, & roberts, 1998), accumulated research findings have europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ shown the validity and utility of emotional intelligence in predicting workplace performance across a variety of settings. indeed, previous researchers have suggested that ei is associated with stress resilience (slaski, 2001), performance under pressure (lam & kirby, 2002) and teamwork skills (moriarty & buckley, 2003). moreover, ei has been correlated with overall job performance (dulewicz, young, & dulewicz, 2005) and sales performance (wong, wong, & law, 2004). accordingly, through meta-analytic techniques, o’boyle, humphrey, pollack, hawver, and story (2011) indicated that ei presents an important association with job performance. recently, another meta-analysis by joseph and newman (2010) tested the incremental validity of ei measures to explain job performance. it found that mixed and ability-based ei measures demonstrate incremental validity over and above the big five personality traits and cognitive ability. these two studies particularly confirm that ei is important in job performance (boyatzis, good, & massa, 2012), which has often been considered the ‘holy grail’ of outcomes in management literature. o’boyle’s study particularly pointed out the importance of the mixed model in predicting performance. indeed, mixed model reported the largest incremental validity beyond cognitive ability and the big five. accordingly, ashkanasy and daus (2005) acknowledged that mixed models may predict good performance. cherniss (2010) also reported that mixed models may have greater predictability on performance because they use self-report measures that may better capture the emotions that employees are actually feeling in the workplace. consequently, in light of o’boyle et al. (2011)’s study, we wanted to test the relationship of a new ei with sales success. however, the present research builds upon extant research in three ways. first, we try to identify those particular emotional dimensions that predict sales success. consequently, we not only test the assertion that emotional intelligence is related to top selling, but we also try to describe different ei domains by which this is likely to happen. indeed, although it is becoming clearer that researchers of ei should make distinctions among the components of ei, researchers have partially accomplished the task of adequately accounting for the relations between the ei domains and performance. second, we complement prior research that has investigated the relationship between employees’ emotional intelligence and sales success with the use of self-report or supervisors’ estimates of performance rather than the metrics of actual performance. indeed, the tendency to use subjective evaluations rather than real performance metrics has obscured the importance of the actual performance in the workplace (greenberg, 1991). the third way in which the present research expands the literature is by using a new mixed model of emotional intelligence called organizational emotional intelligence. in this model, emotional intelligence is linked to the workplace and not to the general life. in previous existing models some ei dimensions appeared to be generally defined and might be applied in different domains of life. in addition, items of ei measures were also too broad and not specific to work. a specific analysis of emotional intelligence, exclusive of the workplace, is also consistent with the literature (johns, 2006) that stress the necessity to take into account the context wherein emotions occur. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 713 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional intelligence and sales job types with potentially strong ei implications include sales, since job performances are linked to the sales personnel’s ability to understand the client’s needs, to manage various kinds of selling problems and to deal with possible emotional troubles (sojka & deeter-schmelz, 2002). having emotional skills and abilities in oneself and in dealing with others is therefore necessary for sales jobs. accordingly, emotional competencies appear fundamental. it can be argued that a seller with high ei should be better able to finalize sales and to create a positive emotional experience with regards to customer care and satisfaction. indeed, mayer, salovey, and caruso (2004) found that ei is associated with customer relations. sojka and deeter-schmelz (2002) pointed out a significant relationship between sales performance and ei. higgs (2004), in a uk-based call center study, and heffernan, o’neill, travaglione, and droulers (2008) found similar results. moreover, cage, daus, and saul (2004) revealed that expressing negative emotions is inversely associated with actual sales performance. janovics and christiansen (2001) observed how higher ei scores are associated with better supervisor ratings, even after controlling for the effects of cognitive intelligence, particularly in jobs involvingmore direct contact with customers. in addition, ei might be particularly important in sales, where salespeople have to cope with particularly difficult customers (weitz, castleberry, & tanner, 2000). some studies have further hypothesized that ei in sales might be more necessary than general mental ability (gma). although sales people can have a high gma, they might not be satisfactory as sales performers, if they lack ei competencies (verbeke, belschak, bakker, & dietz, 2008). even though the meta-analytic study of hunter and hunter (1984) showed that gma predicts salespeople’s performances particularly well, another study reported an insignificant or very weak relationship between gma and job performance (ceci & liker, 1986). domains of emotional intelligence and sales there may be specific domains of ei which strongly associate with sales. in their study conducted among 1100 sellers, bar-on, handley, and fund (2006) pointed out the role played by self-awareness and social awareness. assertiveness, empathy, optimism, self-reflection and problem solving were the key ei domains for success in sales. accordingly, employees with higher social skills should report higher levels of empathy and sensitivity which impact on their customers’ satisfaction (lopes, salovey, cote, & beers, 2005). in addition, sellers with a high level of self-management are expected to successfully manage their own feelings and emotions. the competence of self-management should be reflected in a more flexible focus of attention and a broader capacity for self-control (lopes et al., 2005). thus, it should also be easier for highly competent employees in self-management to sell in difficult or demanding situations (e.g. with demanding customers). accordingly, in a research among call-center agents, totterdell and holman (2003) pointed out a positive relationship between self-management and the use of positive refocus strategies (e.g., thinking about pleasant things) during difficult deals with costumers. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 organizational emotional intelligence and top selling 714 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, in most sales settings, good relationship management plays a crucial role. the theory of the satisfaction mirror (heskett, sasser, & schlesinger, 1997) has shown that capable and productive employees can enhance both internal and external clients’ satisfaction contributing to organizational success. in most sales jobs, one of the central tasks for the employee is to create a positive affective atmosphere with their colleagues. such a positive atmosphere with colleagues ensures a successful interaction with the customer while making positive outcomes more likely. aim the main aim of this study is to identify the differences in the ei domain scores obtained by “successful” salespersons, as compared to “less than successful” representatives. more specifically, we hypothesize that emotional intelligence is related to sales success, particularly via the domain of relationship management. according to cherniss (2010), certain social and relational ei components may be stronger predictors of performance than classical ei domains (such as self-awareness). indeed, influencing colleagues’ emotions is necessary for employees to develop high quality interpersonal relationships with them (salovey & mayer, 1990) and might contribute to the development of a good “climate for sale”. accordingly, as noted earlier, giorgi (2013) pointed out the importance of relationship management competence for success at work. method there were 112 participants who worked for a new megastore of a large furniture company. their age range was 18-28 years. the research was commissioned by their employer and the results were used to take personnel decisions. this study utilizes the giorgi andmajer (2009) emotional intelligence test, the organizational emotional intelligence questionnaire (org-eiq), in order to measure ei, and utilizes data on sales volumes in order to measure sales performance in participants. the sales performance variable was referred to the real sales performance of subjects involved in the study, based on business goal standards established in the company: 200.000 euros or more; sales between 100.000 and 200.000 euros; sales below 100.000 euros. the org-eiq was completed by 112 sellers in non-managerial positions, meaning a 100% response rate. participation was compulsory. the orgeiq was an entry test. hence, the group was dominated by people with little sales experience in the company. all the sellers worked in the frontline, presumably requiring high levels of ei. for example, their work activities included communicating and establishing interpersonal relationships with customers, as well as working for, or directly with, clients. they had recently started working for the company at the time of the study. to be able to carry out a correct analysis, those subjects that exceeded the 95° percentile in the positive impression scale were eliminated. the “positive impression” scale indicates the subjects who created a better impression of themselves by lying in the questionnaire. for this reason, the final sample was formed of 106 sellers (47% males, 53% females) of the 112 initially tested. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 715 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures the organizational emotional intelligence questionnaire (org-eiq) was administered to assess ei (our independent variable). the org-eiq (giorgi & majer, 2009) consists of 99 questions that assess emotional and organizational competencies using a self-report methodology. the org-eiq has been validated in a sample of more than 1700 italian employees. cronbach's alpha internal reliabilities were assessed for each scale. most scales had acceptable reliabilities, with alphas close to or above 0.70 (vogt, 1999), with the exception of the emotional change catalyst and organizational awareness, which only included three items (alpha 0.60 and 0.65, respectively). the confirmatory factor analysis performed by giorgi and majer (2009) showed good validity for all the instruments and for each scale. the first competency of org-eiq is self-awareness, which involves emotional self-awareness, intrapersonal awareness and self-confidence (giorgi & majer, 2009). the second competency of org-eiq is self-management, which includes emotional self-control, adaptability and eagerness (ibid). the third org-eiq competency is social awareness, which involves empathy, organizational awareness and service orientation (ibid). the last org-eiq competency is relationship management, which involves leadership, the ability to catalyze change and foster collaboration and teamwork (boyatzis, 2008). all items of the questionnaire org-eiq, developed by giorgi and majer, relate to emotional job competencies and not emotional competencies in general life. indeed, all items are connected exclusively to the workplace. we measured sales success using the participating salespeople’s sales volumes (in euros) four months after administering the questionnaire. the sales performance variable (the dependent variable in our study design) was based on objective data, with reference to the salesperson’s ability to meet individual sales goals. consistent with the business performance standard, a “successful performance” was defined as meeting a goal by 100% or by exceeding it: a sale of 200.000 euros or more; “average performance” was defined as meeting a level of sales between 100.000 and 200.000 euros; “failure” was defined as a level of sales below 100.000 euros. the sales performance variable is considered as a categorical variable with three categories ranging from one (top performing) to three (failure). procedure an italian company selling home furniture opened a new department store in northern italy and agreed to participate in the study. the final sample focused on 106 salespeople, who had been recently hired in the megastore. the org-eiq administration took an average of 20 to 25 minutes and none of the participants had any trouble understanding it. the survey was administered on site by the company’s human resources specialist. four months after the survey was administered, the official organizational records were accessed in order to acquire data on sales volumes and to get sales performance measures for each participant. the considered sales volumes represented the first actual performance of these salespeople in the company. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 organizational emotional intelligence and top selling 716 http://www.psychopen.eu/ data analysis the descriptive statistics and frequencies were calculated. correlation coefficients were then used between the variables considered. furthermore, in order to assess the association of the top sales group with ei, an roc curve was used. receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve analysis is an analytical technique with origins in statistical decision theory and which quite effectively isolates the effects of the observer's response bias, or decision criterion. this capability provides a relatively pure measure of the discriminability of different stimuli and of the capacity of organisms to discriminate (swets, 1973). the roc also treats quantitatively the response, or decision, aspects of choice behavior; the roc promises a more reliable and valid solution to some practical problems and enhances our understanding of the perceptual and cognitive phenomena that depend directly on these fundamental processes. it is, in essence, a plot of sensitivity against specificity over all possible choices of cut-off values (yang & carlin, 2000). in several problem areas in psychology, effects that were supposed to reflect properties of the discrimination process have been shown by the roc analysis to reflect instead properties of the decision process. the roc analysis has been applied in the areas of attention (broadbent, 1971), learning (grice, 1968), conceptual judgment (ulehla, canges, & wackwitz, 1967), personality and speech (green & swets, 1966). roc curves are used in medicine to determine a cut-off value for a clinical test: the roc curve is a graph of sensitivity (y-axis) vs. 1 – specificity (x-axis). maximizing sensitivity corresponds to a large y value on the roc curve. maximizing specificity corresponds to a small x value on the roc curve. thus, a good first choice for a test cut-off value is that value which corresponds to a point on the roc curve nearest to the upper left corner of the roc graph. the area under the curve (auc) is one way to quantitate the “goodness”, or accuracy, of a test. an roc curve that passes through the upper left corner means that predictor sensitivity and specificity might be significant. therefore, the closer the roc curve is to the upper left corner, the higher the test’s overall accuracy (zweig & campbell, 1993). we established a cut-off (cut-point, threshold) of 200.000, corresponding to “successful performance” for salespeople, and aimed to evaluate this cut-off value in order to verify whether emotional competence was associated with the topperforming employees. results a frequency analysis was used to test how sellers achieved the performance goal. in this study, 24.5% reached the top goal, 57.5% had an average sales volume (between 100.000 and 200.000 euros) and 18% had a low sales performance. the average sales volume in the three groups was as follows: € 226.759, € 143.684 and € 85.442, respectively. firstly, we examined the relationship between ei and the salespeople’s performances. table 1 shows the relationship between the salespeople’s total emotional intelligence and ei scores for the four main skills with the sales variable (first group, more than € 200.000 – second group, between € 100.000 and € 200.000 third group, less than € 100.000). as shown in table 1, the salespeople’s total emotional intelligence positively correlated with their performance (.19, p < .05). although the correlation appears to be low, this finding suggests that those salespeople with high ei are likely to achieve a greater sales volume. it is interesting to observe how self-awareness and social competence do not europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 717 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correlate with sales. on the other hand, self-management and relationship management correlate to sales more than the global emotional intelligence measurement does (.20, p < .05) (see table 1). table 1 correlations between the main study variables 654321variables -1. self-awareness .03.78**.49**.50**.60** -2. self-management .20*.88*.68*.68** -3. social competence .17.85**.70** -4. relationship management .20**.84** -5. total emotional intelligence .19* -6. sale performance *p < .05. **p < .01. in addition, an roc curve analysis was conducted for the four ei dimensions, with reference to global ei, in order to determine whether emotional competence was associated with the top-performing employees (see figure 1). we tested the cut-off sales volume of 200.000, corresponding to successful performance. figure 1. the roc curve. an roc curve may be interpreted by simple visual assessment, because information about the test’s accuracy is reflected by the position of the curve on a plot. the closer a method’s curve lies to the diagonal passing from europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 organizational emotional intelligence and top selling 718 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (0, 0) to (1, 1), the poorer its performance. as shown in figure 1, with the exception of self-awareness and social competence, the other two dimensions of org-eiq significantly associate with top sales performance (p < .05). emotional intelligence also relates significantly to sales performance (p < .05). since the accuracy of the test increased as the curve moved toward the upper left corner, it is evident that the auc (area under the curve) for self-management, for relationship management and for emotional intelligence counts are greater than the others from the roc curve analysis. the roc curve for the self-management, relationship management and emotional intelligence counts are closer to the y-axis; this result indicates a good choice for the test cut-off value. the roc curve analysis suggests that org-eiq scores are able to fairly accurately identify high performers, demonstrating a relationship between org-eiq and occupational performance in the study sample. discussion and conclusions the final results show a significant relationship between ei competencies and top sales. however, the importance of distinguishing between the respective contributions of ei domains in the prediction of sales success, rather than treating ei as unitary construct, is suggested. the current results and literature discussed here emphasize that the relationships between each ei domain and sales performance are different, suggesting numerous avenues for future research. firstly, self-awareness does not positively associate with sales as expected. it can be argued that being capable of identifying emotions, and recognizing one’s strengths and weaknesses, is not a core competence for a seller. although understanding how sellers think about, and are aware of, their emotions in everyday life is growing in importance (goleman, 1998), in the present study it is possible to hypothesize that sellers in the early stages of work need to assimilate technical skills rather than basic emotional experiences, such as weighing emotions against one another and against other sensations and thoughts. this study also assumes that a high score on the social awareness org-eiq scale does not necessarily imply sales success. surprisingly, interpreting people’s feelings or nonverbal cues, and comprehending the implications of interacting with clients, are important competencies, but are not associated with top selling in this specific setting. indeed, in many studies, emotional intelligence provides an important key for understanding how sales professionals interact with customers (e.g. kidwell, hardesty, murtha, & sheng, 2011). it could be argued that social awareness is strongly emotionally demanding and, consequently, might consume more resources than other competencies (giorgi, 2013), especially for sellers in the early stages of work. consequently, this competence might not be related to sales success. in addition, in the particular sample studied, the need to develop longer-term relationships with the customers might not be as strong as in other companies, attenuating the importance of social awareness for sales success. however, these findings that do not yield statistically significant results appear important. on the one hand, this research attenuates the “file drawer problem” (rosenthal, 1979), a publication bias that favours statistically significant results over null results (edwards, 2008). on the other hand it confirms that dealing with distinct competencies may provide more accurate evidences for research and practical purposes. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 719 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in contrast, the results of this study demonstrate that self-management positively relates to top selling. those who display good self-management are more likely to be responsible for personal performance, continue with commitments and engage in their work with clients with a relaxed and organized approach. this result follows existing literature (e.g. kidwell et al., 2011). sellers who are able to keep their composure (i.e. manage their emotions) are likely to perform better. indeed, sales professionals who manage their emotions more effectively will know better which emotions to display and will, therefore, increase the chance of sales success. in addition, the results indicate that relationship management positively relates to top selling. accordingly, relationship management emerges as an important characteristic in this study. leading work activities, as well as the engagement in groups and teams at work, appear to be very important factors for sales success. it is, therefore, possible to argue that sellers often find themselves in contact with other colleagues or their supervisors, and that they also have to know how to manage relationships well in their job. thus, they not only have to create stimuli for their customers, but also for the people with whom they work. in addition, with high relationship management skills, sellers can better succeed in introducing products, in negotiating and interacting with colleagues and in enhancing an harmonious climate for sales. this finding is broadly consistent with previous studies that have linked global ei to better performance on a wide range of leadership measures (antonakis, ashkanasy, & dasborough, 2009). the essential role played by relationship management, however, stands in contrast with previous studies that pointed out the necessity of social skills for top selling. the present findings might be interpreted to suggest that different aspects of emotional intelligence are useful in different organizational contexts (cherniss, 2010). therefore, we might look more closely at the relationship between job characteristics and the effectiveness of emotional competencies. in addition, it seems likely that this result reflects the use of a different measure of sales. it can be hypothesized that with actual sales there is probably less chance for social awareness competencies to become effective. briefly, relationship management and self-management can be considered key competences for sellers. the current findings suggest that sellers with higher relationship management and higher self-management skills may increase sales in comparison to those having lower skills. such evidence is already relevant with regards to a single seller (around 21.000 22.000, by comparing a top performer with a low performer), but may also assume an extremely elevated economic value when we consider differences across all groups. the findings in this study are relevant and have important implications for practitioners. ei may be a critical skill that offers practitioners the potential to improve salespeople’s performance (abraham, 1999). in particular, relationship management and self-management appear to be essential antecedents to sales performance and, consequently, it is important to train sales professionals to use emotional intelligence. these findings have the potential to help organizations in shaping ei competencies in ways that may increase sales. sellers should be aware of the ei concept and how they can improve the various ei elements. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 organizational emotional intelligence and top selling 720 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition, organizations might select sellers with high emotional intelligence. consequently, many selection procedures that only test cognitive ability could add an ei assessment, with a stronger focus on relationship management and self-management competencies. furthermore, this study is an important first step that presents an innovative hypothesis from which future research can be developed. first, we used the org-eiq to identify unique emotional competencies that focus on making individuals more effective at work and not merely in general life. this is also consistent with literature (johns, 2006) that stresses the necessity to take into account the context wherein emotions occur, as well as wherein individual differences are developed. second, examining the impact of specific ei competencies on sales performance, we have explained the association of ei and sale volumes more clearly. objective data were also useful in this respect. by using an objective performance measure, we negated concerns about common method variance (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). consequently, even if weak, the emerged relationships seemed to capture the essence of the associations derived from the actual performance data. however, considering the limited strength of the association of emotional intelligence competencies with sales, we hypothesize that further psychological variables might impact on top selling. for instance, sales success depends not only on ei competencies, but also on dispositional affectivity (rozell, pettijohn, & parker, 2004) or organizational commitment (rozell, pettijohn, & parker, 2006). in future studies, further organizational and personal determinants of top selling should be considered in association with emotional intelligence. third, the associations of relationship management and self-management with sales are confirmed by using a particularly accurate methodology such as the roc analysis. roc methodology has reached a level of maturity at which it can be trusted broadly (zhang & mueller, 2005). we conclude that organizational emotional intelligence impacting on performance is significantly associated with sales performance. self-management and relationship management competencies seem particularly predictive in the sample studied. however, this study is not without its limitations. our study has examined the relationship of emotional intelligence with sales performance within a single organization and industry. consequently, it is uncertain to what extent the present findings could be generalized to other organizations and industries. to address this issue, we advocate additional studies to determine if the present results hold in other organizational and industry contexts, where selling strategies and products are different. furthermore, the objective performance data considers a four-month period, which appears to be short in regards to the elimination of fluctuations in performance. an additional limitation of this study is that there is a range restriction, given that the participants were already selected as employees of the organization. therefore, the participant recruitment method has limitations. as documented in depth in numerous social researches, the obligation to compile the questionnaire limits the interpretive results and cautions the wider applicability of research findings to the general population (podsakoff et al., 2003). in addition, the participants’ age was low (under 30) and sales were only measured after the first four months in the job. consequently, those who were not top sellers might not yet have possessed the technical skills to perform the job well. to address this issue, future studies should measure the link between emotional intelligence and top selling in employees europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 721 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with higher job seniority. further, additional demographic data (such as job experience) should be investigated in future studies. in conclusion, a greater understanding of the role played by ei in sales performance can be developed most effectively by conducting investigations programmatically. it would therefore be interesting to observe the extent to which findings such as the present are replicated in future research using different research methods and measures (e.g. performance-based measures) as advocated by the literature (e.g. antonakis & dietz, 2010; breso, ferrer, & giorgi, 2013). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abraham, r. 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(1993). receiver-operating characteristic (roc) plots: a fundamental evaluation tool in clinical medicine. clinical chemistry, 39, 561-577. about the authors gabriele giorgi, is a full researcher in industrial and organizational psychology at the european university of rome. prior to this, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the tokyo gakugei university and at the university of florence and he received his phd at the university of verona. his research has been published in international journal of workplace health management, journal of managerial psychology, psychology of violence, industrial health, international journal of organizational analysis. his current research interests are focused on emotional and organizational intelligence, emotional competencies, workplace bullying, mobbing and work-related stress assessment. serena mancuso is phd student in cognitive psychology and clinical evaluation at the european university of rome, italy. her current research interests are focused on industrial and organizational psychology and positive psychology, particularly on emotional and organizational intelligence, workplace bullying, resilience, intervention strategies for the promotion of psychological well-being. francisco javier fiz perez is full professor in developmental and education psychology at european university of rome, italy. prior to this, he was academic visitor at the institute for the psychological sciences, washington d.c., usa and at the blackfriars hall, university of oxford; he is member of the american psychological association (apa) and he received his phd at the pontifical athenaeumregina apostolorum. his current research interests are focused on bioethics, emotional intelligence, coping and resilience, work-related stress. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 712–725 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.755 giorgi, mancuso, & fiz perez 725 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.8.1.55 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03331631 http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.72.4.44 http://dx.doi.org/10.1081/bip-100101021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11336-003-1119-8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en organizational emotional intelligence and top selling introduction emotional intelligence and sales domains of emotional intelligence and sales aim method measures procedure data analysis results discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors promoting mentalization in clinical psychology at universities: a linguistic analysis of student accounts research reports promotingmentalization in clinical psychology at universities: a linguistic analysis of student accounts maria francesca fredaa, giovanna esposito*b, teresa quaranta c [a] department of humanities, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] sinapsi center, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [c] psychologist. abstract this study investigated the structure of mentalization (bateman & fonagy, 2012) in a training context. the dual purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of practicum student training and whether the linguistic inquiry method (pennebaker, 2000) could be used to evaluate the three dimensions of mentalization— relational, cognitive, and emotional. the training utilized the groups and their accounts as devices and mediators to conceptualize the relationship between self-mentalizing training, the academic context and the practicum experience. accounts from 38 italian students pursuing master degree in clinical, dynamic, and community psychology were analyzed by liwc software. the wilcoxon test showed a significant increase in mentalizing words during the middle and end of the term, as compared with the beginning. the results displayed a need to promote mentalization within academic settings and indicated the value of this competence for clinical psychology. keywords: account, mentalization, linguistic inquiry, practicum, university training europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 received: 2014-05-16. accepted: 2014-11-12. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: sinapsi (servizi per l’inclusione attiva e partecipata degli studenti), via giulio cesare cortese, 29, 80133 napoli, italy. e-mail: giovan.esposito@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction recent studies on training and assessment of psychological competence within the well-known competence movement (rodolfa et al., 2005) highlight a reflective feature of competence: a competent performance is only possible with reflective and critical behavior, which allows individuals to understand when, where, and how to arrange and move their own resources. pursuant with the international clinical psychology training debate (spruill et al., 2004), we believe that reflective competence is not only a transverse competence, but that it is a core competence (schweitzer et al., 2014). consequently, we explored the types of formative devices that would be useful to promote reflective competences in the university setting. it is well known that this transversal university training-processes aims to encourage the development of reflective and methodological competences to teach reflective practice in clinical training (burgess, rhodes, & wilson, 2013). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ as recalled by bion (1962), every path of knowledge represents an emotional undertaking, as it implies the concept of “being in relation with”, which is immersed in emotional and affective dynamics. if the trainees enact these emotional processes and are able to recognize and elaborate upon them with reflective thinking, then these dynamics can become a functional resource for the education of clinical psychologists. studying to be a clinical psychologist necessitates learning skills for clinical assessment and intervention, as well as acquiring reflective competences. these reflective competences are an integral part of the university training relationship, in which a student will be able to effectively put these skills to use in future work scenarios. the specificity of clinical psychology can be etymologically traced to the greek word klinè, which describes the concept of relation, emotion, and reflective thinking on relationships (freda, 2011; salvatore & freda, 2011). therefore, we strongly believe that non-classroom experiences, like practicum (supervised practice), enable students to understand the emotional dimensions that course through relationships and allow them to confront the image of themselves as psychology students and their future identities and roles as psychologists (hatcher & lassiter, 2007; laidlaw & gillanders, 2011; nel, pezzolesi, & stott, 2012; reid, dahlgren, petocz, & dahlgren, 2008). it is within this context that the clinical competence of mentalization becomes a functional competence to train capable clinical psychologists. in fact, mentalization is a reflective process that defines the behavior of individuals as the consequence of intentional mental states (allen & fonagy, 2006), thereby necessitating the ability to use different cognitive skills (e.g., reflection, interpretation, mirroring) to signify relationship affective dynamics. nevertheless, mentalization shares a common aspect with the core of clinical psychology, namely, the significance of relationships and the need to develop reflective thinking regarding the emotions that arise from relationships. interest in mentalization to treat clinical pathologies is now soaring in psychotherapy settings (bateman & fonagy, 2012), yet on the other hand, interest is also deepening in normative settings, such as formative contexts. data from research studies conducted in different schools (bragin & bragin, 2010; slade, 2007; twemlow, fonagy, & sacco, 2005) has shown that the competence of mentalization is a supportive learning tool, because it serves as a scaffolding function in student learning (freda, esposito, martino, & gonzález-monteagudo, 2014; padykula & horwitz, 2012). in contrast, there are only a few studies that investigate mentalizing competence in an academic context with a non-psychotherapeutic perspective. according to fonagy (fonagy et al., 2009), the importance of mentalization is not just for the psychopathologic field; it can more broadly be applied to support individuals who are adapting to different community settings throughout life. our research intends to foster mentalization competence among university students through a reflective practicum group (rpg). first, we describe the rpg and its principal devices, “account” and “group”. next, we focus on how such devices can be considered media for the promotion of mentalization in the learning process. we finally discuss the linguistic inquiry method, which indicates an increase in mentalization competence. research context for a master's degree in clinical, dynamic, and community psychology, practicum activities for students in the first and second year of university cover a total of 200 hours: 124 with different traineeship institutions that are affiliated europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 35 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with the university and specialized in offering different types of psychological services to users; 60 with individual work, and 16 in reflection practicum groups (rpg). rpgs, which are carried out at the university, require attendance at eight sessions each lasting two hours, and are made up of 15-20 students and led by a clinical psychologist. rpgs halt productive action, related to both learning and participation, in praxis (freda, 2008; mälkki & lindblomylänne, 2012). the reflection group works as an “in-between” exploration of the relationship between universities and the institutions or services of psychological practice. in other words, it eases the transition between the theoretical models learned during the university experience and the psychological praxis carried out for the first time during the practicum. the rpg is a training device that allows students to analyze the anxieties connected with the crossing of a boundary line between the university and the world outside, between the role of student and that of a future clinical psychologist. the aim of the training is to allow students to constantly work on the relationship between emotional dynamics enacted within the rpg university group setting and the isomorphic dynamics enacted within the external experience in the practicum facilities. during rpgs, students are asked to write up different types of accounts. according to carli and paniccia (2005), accounts should depict a description-interpretation of events deriving from each author’s interpretative criteria. critical reflection of an account with the members of the working group enables recognition of certain criteria and the related emotional experiences. each member of the group is asked to give three different kinds of accounts, or “practicum accounts”, that progressively extend the individual’s point of view during the practicum. first, a significant personal impact is recounted from the student’s service experience, second, the individual describes a meaningful event experienced during practicum, and the student finally is required to give a summary of the experience as a whole. moreover, at the end of each session a volunteer transcribes an account of the rpg session, the so-called “group accounts”, and the narrative input is always the same (“write an account about the last rpg group session”). the subsequent session opens with reading and group discussion about this last type of account. the volunteer students who wrote the account may even become spokesmen (kaes, 1976) for the emotional and representational dynamics elicited by the working group. formative devices to promote mentalization the narrative device has often been used in psychotherapeutic and formative contexts. narrative has been shown to simultaneously act as a promoter and an indicator of the efficacy of a mentalizing intervention (allen & fonagy, 2006), as it offers a wide range of input that is linked to facilitator creativity (bateman & fonagy, 2012). therefore, mentalization has a circular and bidirectional relationship with narration, since it is a narrative form, itself, (oral or written). individuals who constantly mentalize create stories about the mental states of themselves and of others (freda, esposito, martino, & valerio, 2014). pennebaker extensively researched the function of narration (pennebaker, 2000; pennebaker & seagal, 1999) and concluded that text is also a physical product of the working interaction between the clinician and the patient (martino, freda, & camera, 2013). as a collaborative effort, it represents a mentalizing process in which the clinician and the patient keep their own and each other’s mental state in mind (bateman & fonagy, 2012). the rpg account is a type of narration that may offer valid support for the comprehension of emotional dynamics created in the hic et nunc of the formative and clinical relationship; furthermore, it also represents a device with which individuals can evaluate the development of their own mentalizing competence (rizq & target, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 36 http://www.psychopen.eu/ through an account, one can share and verbalize emotional experiences, thereby facilitating explicit mentalization (allen & fonagy, 2006), which turns into a group narrative. the more experiences that are subjected to a group mentalizing process, the richer and more complex these narratives become (karterud, 2011). members of a group offer a plurality viewpoints and different representations of the same experience. for example, the facilitator becomes a creative-social-mirror (fonagy & target, 1997) who keeps in mind the mental states of others, represents them, and translates them into a comprehensive language. this suggests that the “other” exists, as it is remembered and because it exists in another’s mind (fonagy & target, 1997). at the same time, group members are a reflective mirror for themselves and for the other members, as one both narrates and is narrated by others (freda, de luca picione, & esposito, in press). an individual who is not considered in another’s mind cannot, then, develop personal mentalizing potential (bateman & fonagy, 2012; karterud, 2011). as a consequence, the group reproduces and amplifies historical and evolutionary situations, in which mentalization is normally developed. in karterud’s opinion (karterud, 2011), “the group is a training arena for mentalization”. thus, when a subject recounts a personal experience, associations with other members of the group are formed and the process of symbolization is activated. in order to further the development of mentalization, it is necessary to use a process-oriented approach, wherein the training and relationship of group members is an object for reflection (karterud, 2011). this is possible as transferred phenomena lead to the reenactment of emotional dynamics. “mentalizing the transference” refers to the mentalizing process where participants reflect on the interactions that occur in the hic et nunc of the group setting and focalize on others’ minds during mentalizing interventions. hence, it becomes possible to redefine one’s own perceptions through the way in which other group members, or the facilitator, apply meaning to the mental states of others (karterud & bateman, 2012). therefore, the group labels emotions, placing the aporetic (unrefined and vague) in basic emotional categories, which permits implicit mentalization and exploration to create meaning. the process becomes more complex and complete the more these emotions are reconsidered in relation to how they are enacted. this process will most likely lead to mentalized affectivity (bateman & fonagy, 2012), whereby individuals, in empathy with others, become conscious of their own emotions and begin to fully understand the meaning of the affective state during the mentalizing process (allen & fonagy, 2006). nevertheless, it is difficult to measure the progress of mentalization in the intervention experiences and there are different methods for its analysis (esposito, rainone, & de luca picione, 2014). the most important is represented in the reflexive function scale (fonagy & target, 1997) and its revisions (fonagy & ghinai, 2008). studies that measured specific dimensions have also been conducted. though not exhaustive, it is worth mentioning the analysis on the construct of empathy and on the reading of non-verbal cues (padykula & horwitz, 2012) and more recent surveys on mentalizing tasks (beaulieu-pelletier, bouchard, & philippe, 2013). in this paper, we use linguistic inquiry of language (pennebaker, 2000) to measure mentalization development. this methodology has been widely tested in many contexts, with the purpose of demonstrating the usefulness of the narrative device in improving mental and physical health. yet, we hypothesize that this method is also useful to analyze the development of mentalizing competence. according to pennebaker, words reflect, but do not cause, mental states; they act as an epiphenomenon that speaks and informs about psychological and emotional processes. the lexical analysis of language thus enables the dynamic interpretation of mental and emotional processes and the ability europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 37 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to follow transformative and evolutionary changes, which are also reflected with language (tausczik & pennebaker, 2010). goal our main objective was to analyze the effectiveness of the reflective practicum group (rpg) in promoting mentalization. we analyzed the group accounts written by volunteer students through lexical analysis with liwc 2007 (linguistic inquiry and word count) software. we hypothesized that the word analysis used in the accounts could provide information about the level and quality of the mentalization. another objective was to show whether and, if so, how the liwc can be adjusted to be a useful method for the evaluation of mentalizing competence. in particular, we assume that lexical analysis highlights any changes concerning the three dimensions that constitute mentalization—cognitive, emotional, and relational (bateman & fonagy, 2012). these dimensions can be traced to specific lexical categories of the software. method the analysis was performed on the corpus of group accounts. the decision to analyze such accounts was threefold: 1) these accounts can be considered a kind of group narrative, in which every single group member is a spokesman (kaes, 1976), 2) it is assumed that voluntary accounts are not perceived as compulsory tasks to be completed, 3) there was the same narrative input for every group account. we analyzed a total of 38 accounts from six rpgs during the academic year 2008/2009i. accounts were collectively analyzed and we identified different phases: • phase i contains the accounts from the first and second session, for a total of 13 accounts, • phase ii includes accounts from the third, fourth, and fifth session for a total of 13 accounts, • phase iii includes accounts from the sixth and seventh session for a total of 12 accounts. this triphasic grouping reflects the three main periods characterizing the rpg term. moreover, it mirrors the logic with which the “practicum accounts” were fulfilled. in particular, the software counts the words in a text by comparing those recognized with its own internal dictionary. it then counts the percentage frequency that selected words appeared in the text (pennebaker & francis, 1996). the dictionary consists of six macro-categories, which in turn are divided into categories and subcategoriesii. procedure the first step in our analysis was to expand the software dictionary to make it more functional for this specific context, since the liwc had not previously been used for investigations in educational contexts, such as reflection groups. since the software does not provide specific categories for the structure dimensions of mentalization, the next step was the identification of liwc categories and subcategories that could be useful in exploring mentalizing processes and could represent its cognitive, emotional, and relational dimensions. therefore, within the macrocategory of psychological process, we identified the following categories and subcategories that we then defined as "mentalizing" dimensions: europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 38 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. the cognitive processes refer to the cognitive and meta-cognitive dimension pertaining to mentalizing (e.g., “causes”, “knowledge”, “thought”). in particular, among the various sub-categories that constitute cognitive processes, we identified two,causation and insight,which are considered the most representative of the cognitive processes (pennebaker & francis, 1996). the first includes lexemes that refer to dimensions of understanding, explanation, and connection of mentalizing (e.g., “because,” “effect”, “hence”). the insight subcategory refers to cognition (e.g., “think”, “know”, “consider”). 2. the affective processes more properly outline the emotional dimension of mentalization (e.g., “happy”, “sad”, “anger”), which is defined in the software through different sub-categories. specifically, among others, we identified the positive-negative polarity via the subcategories positive emotion (e.g., “love”, “nice”, “sweet”) and negative emotion (e.g., “hurt”, “ugly”, “nasty”), which are considered the most exemplificative of the affective processes (pennebaker & francis, 1996). 3. the social processes define relational and intersubjective mentalization (e.g., “mate”, “together”, “share”). the extension and adaptation of the liwc dictionary was based on the same criteria adopted by the inventor pennebaker (2000). specifically, we used an italian dictionary to pinpoint the literal meaning of each wordiii. we then performed a lexical analysis of the 38 group accounts, divided them into three phases, and applied the wilcoxon test, in order to analyze relevant changes over time. moreover, we used some accounts extracts to exemplify data interpretation. for this reason, parts of these texts are displayed in the discussion section. results in total, the accounts had 33.686 mentalizing words, which tended to increase in number in the transition between the phases (phase i: 9.019; phase ii: 12.150; phase iii: 12.517). figure 1 displays the change in the number of words for each category and subcategory and within each phase. figure 1. number of words from mentalizing categories and subcategories in the three phases of rpgs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 39 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from figure 1, we can see that, compared to the emotional and social categories, words from the cognitive processes category are the most frequent and show a high frequency of lexemes already in phase i. in addition, there is an increase of word numbers for each "mentalizing" category and subcategory from phase i to phase ii, while, in the transition from phase ii to phase iii, there is a further increase in words in the affective processes category and its subcategories "positive emotion" and "negative emotion", as well as in the social processes category. in contrast, the cognitive processes category and its subcategories "causation" and “insight" again show a decrease in the number of words in phase iii (without reaching the levels of phase i). therefore, we applied the wilcoxon test for multiple comparisons between pairs of phases to calculate the significance of such changes. in the following three tables, we report the output of thewilcoxon test for each of the three mentalizing dimensions (table 1, 2, and 3). table 1 wilcoxon test for the emotional dimension of mentalization asymp. pwilcoxon zmean rankword numberphase 658iaffective processes .700.385-0.0814 888ii .9212 658i .046.999-1.859 914iii .6415 888ii .034.116-2.699 914iii .8215 45ipositive emotion .101.642-1.0911 52ii .9215 45i .005.809-2.818 82iii .8616 52ii .020.331-2.429 82iii .1416 236inegative emotion .697.389-0.0814 308ii .9212 236i .014.468-2.239 382iii .3616 308ii .003.990-2.548 382iii .1817 note. boldface indicates significant results. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 40 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 wilcoxon test for the cognitive dimension of mentalization asymp. pwilcoxon zmean rankword numberphase 1298icognitive processes .043.026-2.4610 1982ii .5416 1298i .885.145-0.6912 1902iii .2712 1982ii .111.543-1.6214 1902iii .0010 299icausation .174.361-1.4611 528ii .5415 299i .155.421-1.6210 514iii .7314 528ii .977.029-0.5412 514iii .4512 554iinsight .472.718-0.4212 850ii .5814 554i .155.421-1.6210 826iii .7314 850ii .685.406-0.9611 826iii .1413 note. boldface indicates significant results. table 3 wilcoxon test for the relational dimension of mentalization asymp. pwilcoxon zmean rankword numberphase 895isocial processes .258.130-1.8111 1102ii .1915 895i .019.348-2.389 1129iii .1816 1102ii .020.319-2.209 1129iii .1416 note. boldface indicates significant results. analyses show a significant increase in the number of emotional words from phase i to phase iii, and from phase ii to phase iii. this shows that the final sessions are characterized by an increase in the emotional dimension of mentalization. with regard to cognitive lexemes, there was a significant increase only in the transition from phase i to phase ii for the cognitive processes category, while there were no significant changes in the lexemes belonging to subcategories "causation" and "insight". the cognitive dimension of mentalization, although not represented by europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 41 http://www.psychopen.eu/ subcategories in which mentalization has been operationalized, thus showed a greater increase in the core of the training sessions. the same trend that was observed for the affective categories was also found for the social process category: the final sessions accounts are characterized by an increase in the relational dimension of mentalization. discussion in comparing descriptive data, it is most noticeable that phase i had the lowest use of mentalizing words. moreover, by analyzing what happens internally during phase i, it can be noted that, in comparison with the emotional and social categories, there was a large number of words related to the cognitive dimension of mentalizing (cognitive processes). the high frequency of cognitive words allows for the assumption that this dimension is more easily "narrable" for students already in the early sessions of the training experience. instead, during phase i, it is more complicated to narrate about the processes of social sharing within the interpersonal context of rpg and the practicum, and even more so to talk about emotions, especially the positive ones. below are a few examples extracted from accounts written during phase i (first and second sessions). these excerpts show how many accounts still move according to a predominantly descriptive logic, without reference to mental states of an emotional or relational nature: “university is a very ‘removed’ institution, it only teaches theoretical models, which are not linked with what happens in ‘real’ psychological practice” (first session). “i don’t learn anything at practicum! i learned more if i remain at home and study for the exam!” (second session). the descriptive style is also evident from the use of the word “report”, instead of “account”: “this report concerns the 1st rpg session. on monday the 19th, the rpg experience started and we defined goals and purposes of these sessions” (first session). in the transition to phase ii the accounts began to be characterized by increasing numbers of mentalizing words that related to all the three dimensions in which the mentalization had been operationalized. students narrated more about positive and negative emotions spent (in person or by others) during the rpg experience and practicum; they started to make more references to what they or other figures believed in relation to the experiences in which they were involved, and, finally, told more about sharing, comparison, and often conflicting processes, implemented within their own educational contexts. below are other examples from accounts of phase ii (third, fourth, and fifth sessions): “what i notice, while i am writing this account, is that, like my colleagues, i feel strongly inadequate. i have felt the need to take the floor to describe my point of view” (fourth session). “having thousands of doubts helps us to carry on and drives us to make meaning out of events with the purpose of always having a more complete vision of how we live. i believe that this dynamic should be a subject for reflection, in order to grasp the functional behavior of the practicum experience and the university” (third session). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 42 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “i realized that it is easy to get angry with others: my tutor, [home] university, and my colleagues. i think that this anger could help me, but it will not solve my problems over time” (fifth session). students, from the third, fourth, and fifth sessions, began to use the accounts as tools for reflection. the increasing and significant trend in cognitive words reflects a new skill in assuming different points of view within the same account and, in particular, the possibility of recognizing the active role of the “self-agent rule” in orienting their own actions in formative settings. we suggest that the significant increase in the use of cognitive and metacognitive words in phase ii expresses the achievement of a more analytical reading of the training process, a greater involvement, and a more active investment in the practicum experience. the soaring numbers of cognitive words in phase ii highlights the students’ ability to think about the "formative self" as an actor, rather than a spectator, of events (freda, de luca picione, & esposito, in press). this is equivalent to the assumption of an "i" position, or that of agency (caston, 2011), in order to work on emotional dimensions. we believe that agency is an important aspect of mentalizing competence (bateman & fonagy, 2012), as it represents the ability to choose for oneself and take on responsibilities, taking into account possibilities and drawbacks of a situation (caston, 2011). moreover, we speculate that the central sessions represent a sort of transitional area (winnicott, 1971), a creative mental and relational space in which members of the group can engage in research and construction of meanings in the form of creative stories, in the form of an imaginative activity that allows for the creation of new meanings of experience (bateman & fonagy, 2012). the group, at this phase, becomes a buffer zone and a land of dual membership in which thoughts and feelings are played with as if they were real, and where reality can be deconstructed as if it were fantasy. we believe that gradually students began to experience the group as a relational and holding space (winnicott, 1971), in which it became possible to share, exchange, and unburden issues. in phase iii, there was a significant increase in the use of emotional and social words, as if, by the end, the rpg account would become the holding environment within which to amplify the emotional and social mentalizing processes. in particular, the significant increase of words in the sub-category "negative emotion" is interesting, as it is in our opinion, an indicator of the development of mentalizing. in contrast to pennebacker’s studies, we believe that the increase of lexemes in this category shows that students are learning to name and understand different mental states. in fact, the mentalizing competence involves awareness in recognizing and labeling both positive and negative life experiences. sometimes they can be so painful that it seems impossible to give them a name and reflect on them at the beginning of a formative or therapeutic experience. however, labeling negative emotions can have a double function; it represents fruitless venting and, at the same time, causes an evolution in awareness and knowledge of an emotional state. nevertheless, the descriptive data reveal a slight difference between mentalized lexemes between phases ii and iii. the following examples display the co-presence of affective, cognitive, and social lexemes, which expresses the abilities of the trainees to connect the three mentalizing dimensions and link different poles of the formative experience: “i believe that wondering aloud, exploring, and making sense of questions has spurred the reflective processes. what allowed this kind of process to come out is the account. l.'s account is an example of this reflective effort and a search of a meta-perspective. this kind of perspective lets us reflect on complex experiences like the practicum” (sixth session). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 43 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “i realized that we all share a sense of uncertainty and a feeling of ‘being in-between’, which i think is one of the characteristics of a psychologist. moreover, i believe that ‘being in-between’ is not a boundary, but, on the contrary, may become a resource” (seventh session). “i am realizing that frustration, anger and the sense of impotence are all linked to the apprenticeship and perhaps also to the idealization of the practicum experience and the career of professional psychologists” (fifth session). an analysis of the trends highlighted in phase iii led us to hypothesize that, by the end of the training experience, the rpgwould have encouraged the development of mentalizing affectivity. mentalizing affectivity is characterized by a balance between thought and emotion; we believe that these emotional, cognitive, and relational dimensions are in a circular relationship to one another and evolve simultaneously. the group learns to reflect and make new meaning of the feeling of “being in-between”. in fact, during this phase of their university career, students are in a middle point between being students/trainees and professional psychologists, between university contexts and the practicum. this frustrating and doubtful feeling of being on the “border” between groups is converted into a privileged position of knowledge; metaphorically, it is like being in a fjord where rivers converge and pass through the relationships that clinical psychology wishes to protect. conclusion normative-formative contexts are innovative environments in which the mentalization theory could be applied. nevertheless, we think that rpgs have many clinical characteristics and that university and practicum settings can be useful to promote mentalization. in light of this evidence, we assert that mentalization is not a psychopathologic construct, but a developmental one: it is a context-specific and relation-specific competence that can be promoted in each subject and in every context (bateman & fonagy, 2012). the caregiver (parent, psychotherapist, or facilitator), who plays the role of keeping in mind the other's mind (fonagy & target, 1997), and the relationship of this caregiver with the subject are the condicio sine qua non to promoting mentalization. this person must be trained to direct reflective processes about the “formative self” and the relationships that the students entertain exclusively within formative contexts, without going into other personal dimensions that should be treated in psychotherapeutic settings. unlike psychotherapeutic settings, rpgs occur only eight times. on the one hand, this may represent a limitation in building a complex competence like mentalization. on the other, however, it makes the rpgmore “goal-oriented”, in part due to facilitating tools, such as the group itself and accounts. the group setting feeds the circular processes of meaning, wherein the individual takes and gives to the group in a bidirectional movement, or "me-us" (karterud, 2011). the account, in its dual role as a methodological tool and narrative, amplifies these processes; it creates order in the narrative of the group and, at the same time, activates thought processes. we believe that the account can play the role of an interpersonal interpretative function (iif) (allen & fonagy, 2006), which allows students to mentalize the relationships that psychologists experience. to return to the international debate on competence in clinical psychology, we posit that mentalization is one of the core competences that should be promoted within universities for the purposes of providing future professional psychologists with useful tools, with which they will be able to face complicated and unpredictable realities. in clinical practice, psychologists constantly have to mentalize and, according to fonagy and colleagues (allen & europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 44 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fonagy, 2006), it is a tool for the psychologist, because it is only in the experience of one’s own humanity that scientific knowledge can be effectively applied in a clinical setting. our results lead us to conclude by highlighting both the limits of this study and related implications for the research on mentalization in academic settings. our study, although based on group and narrative devices, can only offer a hypothesis on how these devices can promote mentalizing competences. in order to overcome these limits, we could use autoand hetero-evaluation tools in the future to measure the influential strength of devices on the efficacy of rpgs. other methods for analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, could compare the results and then use data, so as to provide helpful feedback to students. for example, it would be interesting to also include the trainer’s assessments about trainees’ mentalization competences in future research, and to evaluate the effectiveness of rpgs, considering the role of facilitator as a variable. this is in response to the need to measure the weight of subjective variables that relate to the different expertise of the facilitator in mentalizing, identifying mentalizing processes in the hic et nunc, and in being able to support others in the acquisition of such a complex competence as mentalization. one more limit is linked to the analytical strategy. in fact, though innovative, the lexical categories that were identified and chosen from among those of the liwc’s dictionary may be not sufficient. for example, the cognitive processes category is composed of other sub-categories (e.g., discrepancy, tentative, certainty, inclusive, etc.) that may have contributed to the significant increase of the "cognitive processes" category in phase ii. this means that the choice of analyzing certain categories and not others is a complex methodological passage that affects the process of analysis of the three mentalizing dimensions. specifically, future studies should take the complexity of the mentalizing processes of a cognitive nature into account, not only those related to the processes of causation or insight, but also those that refer to the ability to make inferences, to adopt conjunctive rather than disjunctive ways of thinking, or to highlight discrepancies and differences of opinion. moreover, it is necessary to integrate the lexical analysis with a qualitative-interpretative analysis of the accounts, in order to avoid losing the dynamics of developmental stages. we believe that a qualitative analysis is also needed to interpret an increase in the use of mentalizing words. in fact, the intense reference to mental states is not always a good index of effective mentalizing competence, but, as with certain psychopathologies, it can also be an expression of dysfunctional hypermentalizing. in this sense, future research should focus on the possibility of articulating the relationship between "word" and "context", that is, between the types of lexemes used and the processes that have made the textual expression possible. notes i) the total number of rpg sessions is 8, but the last is not reported, since there was not a subsequent session to reference. there were 42 potential analyzable accounts, but only 38 students gave consent to use data for research purposes. ii) the liwc 2007 dictionary categories are: • 4 general descriptor categories (word/sentence, dictionary word, word> 6 letters, tot. function words) • 22 standard linguistic dimension (e.g. pronouns, articles, preposition, conjunctions, negations) • 32 word categories tapping psychological processes (e.g., affective processes, cognitive processes, social processes, perceptual processes, biological processes, etc.) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 45 http://www.psychopen.eu/ • 7 personal concerns categories (e.g., work, home, money, leisure) • 3 paralinguistic dimension (e.g., nonfluence) • 12 punctuation categories (e.g., apostrophe, exclamation). these categories were each identified by a number and have some sub-dimensions that generally cause a multi categorical assignment for a large number of words and stems words (www.liwc.net). iii) an example is provided with the word “realize” in order to elucidate all the steps followed in the methodological procedure of word allocation. the dictionary defines the word "realize" as: “1. notice, realize, render real or apparent something to itself. 2. understand and explain clearly something to themselves” (zingarelli, 2005). this literal definition refers to both cognitive and reflective processes. as a consequence, we assigned the word to the macrocategory “psychological process”, in particular “cognitive processes” and its subcategory “insight.” furthermore, it is also allocated to the subcategory “causation”, as it identifies and builds isomorphisms. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we wish to thank dr. anna rosa donizzetti for her helpful comments and suggestions on the statistical analysis. references allen, j. g., & fonagy, p. 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(1971). playing and reality. london, united kingdom: tavistock. zingarelli, n. (2005). lo zingarelli 2005: vocabolario della lingua italiana [dictionary of the italian language]. naples, italy: zanichelli. about the authors maria francesca freda (fmfreda@unina.it), phd, is an associate professor of clinical psychology at humanities department, university of naples federico ii, italy. her research interests regard clinical psychological intervention within the institutional europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 mentalization in a university setting 48 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aps.312 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lm.2000.0011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/026999396380079 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1097-4679(199910)55:10<1243::aid-jclp6>3.0.co;2-n http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075070802457108 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2010.503699 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.36.4.347 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2010.06.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cp.12025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07351690701310698 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0261927x09351676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/bumc.2005.69.4.282 http://www.psychopen.eu/ framework, narrative methods, the combined medical and psychological interventions in the health sector, trauma elaboration during illness, promotion of inclusion processes for disadvantaged students, training in clinical psychology. giovanna esposito (giovan.esposito@unina.it), phd, is a post doc researcher at the center for active and integrated inclusion of students sinapsi university of naples federico ii, italy. her research concerns the study of reflective competences in training contexts and of psychological clinical competences, the promotion and evaluation of mentalization, and the use of multimodal narrative devices in clinical psychology interventions. teresa quaranta (teresa.quaranta87@gmail.com), psychologist. her research interests are centered on the training and assessment of clinical psychological competences within university and supervised practical training. she works in many formative contexts to prevent disadvantaged students’ drop-out. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 34–49 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.812 freda, esposito, & quaranta 49 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en mentalization in a university setting introduction research context formative devices to promote mentalization goal method procedure results discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors cross-sequential results on creativity development in childhood within two different school systems: divergent performances in luxembourg versus german kindergarten and elementary school students research reports cross-sequential results on creativity development in childhood within two different school systems: divergent performances in luxembourg versus german kindergarten and elementary school students günter krampen*a [a] department of psychology, university of trier, trier, germany, and université du luxembourg, luxembourg, luxembourg. abstract the aim of the study is conducting methodologically sound, cross-sequential analyses of the creativity development of children attending different school systems. culture-free tests of creativity (ideational fluency and flexibility) and intelligence were administered in 5 cohorts (two kindergarten and first three elementary school years), which were retested in three consecutive years. samples include 244 luxembourg and 312 german children enrolled in educational systems with obligatory kindergarten and 6-year comprehensive elementary school versus optional kindergarten, 4-year comprehensive elementary school and educational placement thereafter. results demonstrate (1) linear increases in intelligence, (2) declines of divergent performances after school enrollment in both samples, (3) increases in divergent performances up to the 5th elementary school year in luxembourg and up to the 3rd elementary school year in germany (i.e., the next to last school year before educational placement) followed by a second creativity slump. cross-sequential results confirm discontinuities in the development of divergent productions in childhood. keywords: childhood development, creativity, intelligence, school transition, cross-sequential analysis, divergent thinking europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 received: 2012-05-21. accepted: 2012-07-10. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: universität trier, 54286 trier, germany, email: krampen@uni-trier.de. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction empirical results on creativity development are up to now restricted largely to cross-sectional and longitudinal research designs. this is the case for creativity development in childhood as well as in adolescence and adult development with one exception: mccrae, arenberg, and costa (1987) administered six measures of divergent thinking to 825 males aged 17 to 101 years and repeated test administration in a subset of 278 males initially aged 33 to 74 after a 6-year interval. while their cross-sequential results point at a general decline in divergent thinking for all cohorts tested at a later time, cross-sectional and longitudinal (repeated measures) analyses suggested curvilinear trends, with an increase in scores for men under 40 years and a decline thereafter. divergent performances refer to open problems with only a few restrictions, for with very many alternative and good solutions are principally possible. since guilford (1950, 1967), divergent thinking (i.e., open-mindedness in the arts, inventions, etc.) is contrasted to convergent thinking, which refers to narrow problems with many restrictions and rules, for with the one and only right solution is searched for in problem solving. --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ curvilinear developments in divergent thinking are postulated in the 50-year-old hypothesis of torrance (1963) for childhood as well. torrance hypothesized creativity development to covary with developmental transitions, for example, the transition from kindergarten education to elementary school education. torrance developed this hypothesis on the basis of a combination of the results from independent cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on divergent productions of kindergarten and elementary school students. specifically, he hypothesized that the transition from early childhood (kindergarten) to middle childhood (elementary school) is related to the greater demands on social adjustment and conformity in children’s behavior as well as demands on their acceptance of authorities and the requests for convergent thinking, which is frequently thought to be a necessity for the learning of cultural skills like reading, writing, mathematics, etc. state of research in succession, numerous cross-sectional studies (e.g., jaarsveld, lachmann, hamel, & van leeuwen, 2010; klausmeier &wiersma, 1964; pickard, 1979; smith & carlsson, 1983) and many longitudinal studies (e.g., claxton, pannells, & rhoads, 2005; gaspar, 2001; howieson, 1981; torrance, 1968, 1981a) found “the creativity slump” in connection with educational transitions, that is, after school enrollment, in the 4th grade. the hypothesis postulated by torrance (1963) is plausible, empirically supported, and―therefore―its extensive coverage in psychological and educational contexts and publications began very early (e.g., getzels & elkins, 1964), has remained continuous (e.g., sternberg & lubart, 1991) and is current even now (e.g., kaufman & baer, 2006; kaufman & beghetto, 2009; paris et al., 2006). however, three arguments must be considered. the necessity of using cross-sequential studies firstly, solid and convincing empirical support for the hypothesis of discontinuities in creativity development in childhood is missing until today―at least, empirical evidence is weak because there are only cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. more methodologically complex and meaningful developmental study designs (than cross-sectional and longitudinal designs) should be implemented, that is, cross-sequential designs permitting the interpretation of cohort and time effects in development within one study. cross-sectional designs compared age groups at one time of measurement confounding age and birth cohort, longitudinal designs include different times of measurement (in one or more cohorts) confounding age and time effects. the advantage of cross-sequential design is the possibility to identify age effects in direct comparison to time effects and cohort effects (at least, when repeated measurement effects are controlled). thus, for childhood creativity development we must empirically test whether the cross-sectional and longitudinal data results on the creativity slump can be replicated and validated by cross-sequential data. for adulthood, mccrae et al.’s (1987) results show that cross-sectional and longitudinal (repeated measures) analyses suggested curvilinear trends (with an increase in scores for men under 40 years and a decline thereafter), findings which, however, do not hold up in their cross-sequential analyses. the cross-sequential results point to a general, rather linear decline in divergent thinking for all cohorts aged initially 33 to 74 years tested six years later. in addition, cross-sequential analyses should extend the test of the torrance (1963) hypothesis of a creativity slump following the transition from kindergarten to elementary school education on the transition from elementary school education to secondary school education. this is of particular interest for those national education systems that practice educational placement at the end of elementary school because this soon coming selective educational placement is anticipated by the children, parents, and teachers in the final two years of elementary school education. the anticipation of educational placement is waiting to be managed, it is on the agenda of parents, teachers, and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 424 http://www.psychopen.eu/ children. this results in more or less stress, because (convergent) academic achievement and educational degrees are strongly in the focus. in addition, repeated measurement (longitudinal) data should be controlled for retest effects, which is neglected frequently in longitudinal as well as cross-sequential studies. the necessity of using quasi-experimental designs secondly, with only a few exceptions, the studies on creativity development in childhood were implemented in only one educational system without any control group. of course, randomization of children to different educational systems has to be ruled out. however, a quasi-experimental approach comparing childhood cognitive development in different educational systems is possible. there are only a few studies following this research strategy; however, these are restricted to comparisons of school systems and do not refer to different educational administration systems. early on, kogan and pankove (1972) analyzed creativity development longitudinally over a 5-year span in small samples of 29 versus 72 5th graders (final assessment in 10th grade) enrolled in “two separate school systems” (kogan & pankove, 1972, p. 428), which are characterized narrowly as a smaller school system a (with individual testing in the sample) and a larger one b (with group testing in the sample). they found “substantial stability in ideational productivity and uniqueness scores” (kogan & pankove, 1972, p. 428) over the 5-year period for males in school system a and for females in school system b, however, low developmental stability was found for the females in setting a and males in setting b. thus the results of kogan and pankove (1972) remain unclear. more recent, besançon and lubart (2008, p. 381) presented the results of a “semi-longitudinal study” during two consecutive years with 210 elementary school children with traditional and alternative educational approaches (i.e., de facto a cross-sectional study). their results point to some positive influences of alternative pedagogy on creative development mainly for the montessori school system, which focuses on discovery teaching methods and self-regulated learning in the tradition of the italian pediatrician and special education teacher maria montessori (1870-1952). heise, böhme, and körner (2010) also compared the development of creativity (as well as intelligence and school achievement) of 98 elementary school children, half of them enrolled either in traditional classrooms or at a montessori school. their longitudinal results (4-year time span) reveal a more positive creativity development in the montessori school children, while the development of intelligence and of school achievement (geometry, arithmetic, and orthography) is very similar in both groups. thus, there is some quasi-experimental evidence for differences in creativity development in children enrolled in different school systems. however, still missing are quasi-experimental studies comparing childhood cognitive development in different educational systems, which would allow direct interpretations of discontinuities (“creativity slump”) versus continuities in creativity development in childhood dependent on specific transition characteristics of the national educational administration systems under study. the necessity of using culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tests thirdly, the torrance (1963) hypothesis refers mainly to tests of ideational fluency, ideational flexibility, etc. as indicators of divergent thinking, which are dominantly verbal not only in test instructions, but in subjects’ answers and their scoring as well. because of themedium-size correlations between verbal tests of divergent and convergent thinking (both being confounded by language development and social status), they may be interrelated a priori in the domain of crystallized intelligence (at least in the low to middle intelligence range; e.g., getzels & jackson, 1962; hasan & butcher, 1966; magnusson & backteman, 1978; schubert, 1973), which itself is highly dependent on education and socialization. therefore, culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tests should be administered. these tests are, however, dominantly verbal in test instructions (and their understanding), but their advantage is that subjects’ test reactions do not require language, because they can be done nonverbally. such testing allows europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a more powerful empirical test while avoiding, to a large extent, confounding biases with reference to language development and social status. another advantage of culture-free tests is that the correlations between culture-free, predominantly nonverbal intelligence and creativity scales are low and close to zero (e.g., jaarsveld et al., 2010; krampen, 1996; wallach & kogan, 1965; wechsler, oliveira nunes, schelini, ferreira, & pascoal, 2010). in addition, results of longitudinal studies point to rather low to medium developmental positional stability of various indicators of creativity in childhood and early adolescence (.29 < r < .46; e.g., gaspar, 2001; howieson, 1981; magnusson & backteman, 1978; sparfeldt, wirthwein, & rost, 2009) in contrast to a higher developmental stability of intelligence (e.g., r = .75; magnusson & backteman, 1978). positional stability versus positional plasticity is the terminus technicus in developmental psychology for high versus low correlative stability between different times of measurement. the comparable high developmental (positional) plasticity of divergent thinking in childhood and adolescence indicates relevant interindividual differences in the intraindividual developments. to sum up, in light of the empirically weak (supported only by cross-sectional and longitudinal, but not cross-sequential data), yet “often cited 4th grade slump in creativity test scores” (torrance, 1968, p. 195), the necessity of conducting cross-sequential studies becomes apparent. the 3-level model of creativity it should be mentioned that within this primarily descriptive research on creativity development (not only in childhood, but across the whole life span), the longstanding normative approach to creativity is refreshed by the conceptualization of positive psychology (seligman, 2002; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). creativity is conceptualized normatively as a one of 24 personal strengths listed in the values in action classification of strengths (via-is; peterson & seligman, 2004). therefore, creativity is in the focus of positive psychology in general (see, e.g., krampen, seiger, & steinebach, 2012; simonton, 2000) and especially within the context of school education (kaufman & beghetto, 2009). this renewal of the normative view on creativity grounded in the research tradition of conceptions, evaluations, and empirical analyses of educational objectives and developmental goals. in this normative context, it must be reflected that all the indicators of divergent thinking and action, which are used mainly in research on childhood development, are the very basics of creativity, but are not identical with creativity: divergent thinking is a good and necessary, but is not a sufficient prerequisites of creativity. this is explored in a 3-level model of creativity, which was introduced by treffinger (1980; treffinger, isaksen, & firestien, 1983) and is shown in figure 1 in its extended modification by krampen et al. (2012, p. 80). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 426 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. integrative 3-level model of creativity with attached cognitive and personality characteristics (krampen et al., 2012, p. 80; extended modification of the proposal by treffinger, 1980). level i of this 3-level model of creativity (krampen et al., 2012) refers to divergent performances which are related to specific cognitive features, that is, test indicators of ideational fluency and flexibility, relative originality (newness of ideas in comparison to peers), reasoning, and memory, as well as to basic personality variables, that is, openness to new experience, willingness to take risks and action, tolerance of ambiguity, and self-confidence. in developmental research on childhood creativity, it is level i that is the topic of study. level ii (complex thinking and personality processes) and level iii (involvement in real innovations) with their higher-order cognitive features and personality characteristics (see figure 1) exceed markedly the basic level i. level ii and especially level iii refer mainly to the high developmental goal and the personal strength of creativity proposed by positive psychology. however, level i must be evaluated positively as a necessary, albeit not sufficient prerequisite of higher-order, “real” creative productions and innovations. thus, it is appropriate to analyze the development of divergent thinking skills as early indicators of creativity in children. the present studies: objectives, design, and implementation based on the three arguments stated above on the state of research concerning the hypothesis of creativity slumps in childhood development, a cross-sequential study was conducted. culture-free, predominantly nonverbal psychometric tests on ideational fluency and ideational flexibility as well as intelligence were administered to make powerful empirical tests possible, which avoid the confounding of divergent and convergent test scores with language development and social status of the children. this is especially important because the study was europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 427 http://www.psychopen.eu/ implemented in two different educational systems in neighboring regions in western europe. the first educational system is in luxembourg. in this system pupils are obligated to attend kindergarten for two years (last two years before elementary school enrollment), a six-year comprehensive elementary school, and educational placement for secondary education after the 6th school year. the second educational system is in germany, and consists of an optional kindergarten education, a four-year comprehensive elementary school, which is followed by the educational placement into secondary education. the planning, design, and implementation of the investigations in both countries are identical. however, due to differences in test administration in the two countries, statistical data analyses were conducted separately for each case and results are presented as two independent studies. these differences result from the fact that luxembourg is a multilingual nation with three official languages (french, german, and lëtzeburgisch) and multilingual education. furthermore, approximately 40% of the inhabitants of luxembourg have a migration background and another primary language (mainly portuguese, italian, and english). therefore, test administration was implemented in the luxembourg sample by inhabitant and migrant luxembourg college students in the preferred language of the child. this refers to the verbal test instructions and general communication, but not to children’s test answers, because culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tests were used. the german region (which is a direct neighbor of luxembourg in the open eu countries) is monolingual (german) with only approximately 5% of the inhabitants with a migration background. therefore, all kindergartens and schools are monolingual (foreign language learning starts at the 5th school year) and all the children were tested in the german language by german college students. thus, the multilingual test administration in the luxembourg sample and the monolingual test administration in the german one require separate data analyses including within-sample test score standardizations. within sample standardizations lead to linear transformed standard values of equivalent terman-values (t-values; mccall, 1939). thus, the identity of the two countries is kept and the comparison of the results in the general discussion is aimed to the cross-national comparison in which each national context presents some specificity in terms of language and educational system. the objective of the study reported here was to put the hypothesis of torrance (1963) to a stringent empirical test, assuring the high standards of developmental psychology research (i.e., cross-sequential design and control of retest effects in repeated measurements), implementing a quasi-experimental approach (which refers to the given reality of two different national educational administration systems in neighboring european countries), and using culture-free, predominantly nonverbal psychometric test indicators of divergent and convergent thinking (for powerful empirical tests avoiding, to a large extent, confounding biases with reference to language development and social status of the children). study i: the luxembourg study method sample — in total, 244 kindergarten and elementary school students living in the capital city of luxembourg (ca. 90.000 inhabitants) as well as surrounding towns and villages participated in the study. they were selected randomly (controlling for sex) from five different educational cohorts: children were enrolled in the next to the last kindergarten year (n = 47), last kindergarten year (n = 45) as well as in the 1st (n = 56), 2nd (n = 45), and 3rd elementary school year (n = 43). there was no refusal for participation, neither from children nor from their parents and teachers. age span at initial test was 4 to 9 years (m = 6.7, sd = 1.57 years). the sample consists of 124 females (51%) and 120 males (49%). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 428 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the children were retested one year as well as two and three years after the initial test (t1). all tests were administered in the winter season after being in the (new) educational cohort, that is, kindergarten year or elementary school grade level, for approximately 10 weeks. thus, longitudinal data refer to four times of measurement within three years (t1, t2, t3, and t4). this builds up a cross-sequential design with 5 educational cohorts and 4 times of measurement. as a consequence, at t2, children were enrolled in the last kindergarten year up to the 4th elementary school year, at t3 in the 1st up to the 5th school year, and at t4 the data covers the 2nd elementary school year up to the 6th. age span at t4 was t1 age plus 3 years, that is, 7 to 12 years (m = 9.6, sd = 1.55). because of continuous contact to the children and their teachers, dropout rates are small: retests could be administered at t2 with 235 (96%), at t3 with 232 (95%), and at t4 with 228 children (93%) of the initial sample tested at t1. dropout analyses did not indicate any biases with reference to the educational cohorts and to the dependent variables tested at the time(s) of measurement before. in addition, for the control of possible retest effects in test scores, at t2 n = 115 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year), at t3 n = 50 children (1st to 5th elementary school year), and at t4 n = 88 children (2nd to 6th elementary school year) were tested for their first time. measures — divergent thinking was tested with a combination of six culture-free, predominantly nonverbal subtests on ideational fluency and flexibility, which were originally developed by guilford (1964), mainberger (1977), torrance (1981b), as well as acharyulu and yasodhara (1984) for the assessment of ideational fluency in kindergarten and elementary school students. all subtests were modified for individual test administration without time limit and in scoring for ideational fluency and ideational flexibility by independent test scorers. subtests are: (1) ovals: black ovals on a white page, which should be completed “to do as many different little drawings as possible, which other children will not draw” (at maximum 16 ovals). this instruction invites the child to do something other, more original compared to other children. ten colored pens are given to the child without time limit for the drawings, which “doesn’t have to be nice, correct, or complete”, but should be denoted by a name/title by the child him/herself in his/her preferred language. mainberger (1977) constructed this subtest for group testing with time limits for the culture-free, predominantly nonverbal assessment of ideational fluency in elementary school students following the tradition of the well-known “sketches: circles” (guilford, 1964). subtest ovals was modified for individual test administration with additional picture titling, but without a time limit. (2) picture guessing: children were presented with a white page with the beginning of one simple drawing (an uneven, wavy black line in the middle of the page surrounded by a black square). the child is encouraged to guess as many possible completions of this drawing as possible (without a time limit). mainberger (1977) developed this subtest for group testing with time limit to measure ideational fluency as well. although it is verbally biased, the child is given the chance to complete the drawing roughly as often as he/she would want to do. subtest picture guessing was modified for individual test administration, but presented without a time limit as well. (3) free drawings: the child is instructed to put “as many different little drawings as possible, which other children will not draw” in 24 different fields (squares) on a white page. this instruction invites the child to do something other, more original compared to other children. again, ten colored pens are given, and it is again emphasized that the drawings “don’t have to be nice, correct, or complete”, but should be denoted by a name/title provided by the child him/herself in his/her preferred language. in the original test by acharyulu and yasodhara (1984), these spontaneous drawings are collected from preschool children using clean white pieces of paper (without separated fields) in group testing and with a time limit of 40 minutes. because our pretests had shown that especially younger europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 429 http://www.psychopen.eu/ children tend to draw spontaneously only one large picture, the page was structured by marked fields to make the instruction clearer and to encourage children to draw many little pictures. the time limit in individual testing was set to 10 minutes, because pretests indicated that some children (the “painters”) go on drawing for up to 30 minutes or even longer while most of them stopped drawing and were bored within 10 minutes. however, time limit was not communicated explicitly to the children, but (with informal control of time) after a maximum of 10 minutes the child was told that he/she has drawn a lot of pictures and that it is time to change to another game (task). (4) body movements: this subtest refers asks the child to move “in many different ways” the three-meter distance from point a marked on the floor with red tape to point b marked with blue tape and vice versa. similar to a subtest of the test battery thinking creatively in action and movement (tcam; torrance, 1981b), the child is motivated in individual testing to present many possibilities to bridge the distance by any movement and action. movements can refer to human ones and to imitations of animals, robots, machines, or work of fiction or fantasy as well. movements and action should be carried out, but can be verbally described and simulated too. most children move actively and describe verbally very few and short (e.g., imitations of animal sounds). there is no time limit in individual testing. (5) alternatives actions: the task is to put plastic cups into a basket “in many different ways, such ways other children will not do” (torrance, 1981b). actions must be realized (but may fail); however, they can be additionally described verbally. there is no time limit in individual testing. (6) alternative uses: the task is to show alternative uses for a beer-mat (beverage coaster). the child gets one and only one beverage coaster each time and is motivated to use it in an alternative, new way. he/she is allowed to do what he/she wants to do with the beverage coaster, for example, snapping, creasing, folding, unpicking, stamping on, smashing, tearing to pieces, etc., but without any aids. alternative uses of the beverage coaster must be demonstrated (but may fail); however, they can be additionally described verbally. there is no time limit in individual testing. the subtest alternative uses is in the tradition of the well-known “brick uses/utility tests” (guilford, 1964). test administration and child’s responses were kept in the test record in full detail. test scoring was done independently by scorers experienced in the creativity testing of children on the basis of the test record. test scores refer to ideational fluency and ideational flexibility: flu: ideational fluency is the total number of all ideas presented by a child in all six subtests. all ideas presented in action, movement, and drawings are accepted, independent of verbal comments made by the child. however, simple repetitions of an idea were excluded from scoring as ideas with minimal variations (e.g., subtest ovals: drawings of a cheese pizza, ham and pineapple pizza, salami pizza, etc. are scored together with 1 point only, but pizza margarita, scaloppine milanese, and burger with 3 points; e.g., subtest body movements: movements like a dog, like a white dog, like a black dog, etc. are scored with 1 point, but dog, fox, elephant are scored with 3 points). fle: ideational flexibility is the number of different categories which the ideas presented by a child within each subtest belong to. subtests flu-scores are added to obtain the total flu-scale score. the ideas presented in each subtest are classified by the help of inductively constructed categorical systems (krampen, 1996), which include 7 (alternative actions), 11 (alternative uses), 12 (body movements), or 18 (ovals, picture guessing, free europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 430 http://www.psychopen.eu/ drawings) exclusive and exhaustive categories. for example: categories for ideas demonstrated in the subtest body movements refer to human movements without aids (e.g., walking, running, creeping, swimming, hopping), human movements with sport aid (e.g., ski, sledges, ice skates), human movements with playthings (e.g., bicycle, scooter, skateboard), movements of animals living on the land (e.g., ape, dog, elephant), movements of birds and other flying animals (e.g., eagle, stork, wasp), movements of animals living in the water (e.g., dolphin, whale, octopus), movements like road vehicles (e.g., automobile, bus, motor scooter, motorcycle), movements like construction plant/machinery (e.g., excavator, crane, bulldozer), movements like rail traffic (e.g., subway, train, streetcar), movements like air traffic (e.g., plane, jet, balloon, rocket), movements like water traffic (e.g., ship, submarine, steamer), and movements in fiction and fantasy (e.g., superman, batman, robots, witch, r2d2). the total number of different categories to which the ideas presented by a child belong, is summarized for the six subtests and builds up the fle-scale-score. inter-coder reliability of the fluand fle-scorings was tested by comparisons of independent scorings for the records of the total sample tested at t1 (n = 244) and of randomly selected subsamples of n = 40 tested each at t2 and t3, respectively. inter-coder reliability was confirmed by the correlations between two independent scorers for flu (r > .97; p < .01) and fle (r > .87; p < .01) as well as by the nonsignificant mean differences between the two independent scorings of flu (t(242) = 0.74 and t(38) < 0.75; p > .20) and of fle (t(242) = 0.75 and t(38) < 0.69; p > .20). reliability of the fluand fle-scores is evaluated by cronbach’s alpha for each of the four times of measurement (see table 1). the reliability coefficients of flu and fle are satisfactory for the intended statistical analyses on the group level (flu: α > .83 and fle α > .74). intelligence is measured by two subsets of the standard progressive matrices (spm; raven, court, & raven, 1979), a culture-free, predominantly nonverbal test on inductive reasoning. because all spm-tasks require the selection of the one and only correct answer out of wrong alternatives, it is an operationalization of convergent thinking aiming at the single correct solution without any alternatives. in individual testing no time limits were set. in the present study, inter-coder reliability (analyzed by two independent scorers as above), is r = 1.00 without any mean differences (t(xx) = 0.00). reliability coefficients for all four times of measurement are very good ranging from .88 < α < .94 (see table 1). data on the total test duration and on personal characteristics of the child (e.g., age, sex, family size) were also documented in the test record. test time varied between m = 64 (sd = 6.4) minutes at t1, m = 59 (sd = 6.5; t2), m = 63 (sd = 6.2; t3), and m = 61 (sd = 5.9; t4) without significant differences between the repeated measurements [f(3/672) = 2.38]. there are nonsignificant anova effects of the educational cohort [f(4/224) = 1.85] and its interaction with time of measurement [f(12/672) = 3.37]. however, there are significant, but rather low correlations of test time with the test scores on ideational fluency (flu: .21 < r < .45; p < .01) and ideational flexibility (flu: .19 < r < .26; p < .01), but only two significant correlations out of four correlations with the spm-scores on intelligence (t2 and t4: .14 < r < .19, p < .05; t1 and t3: r < .12). thus, common variance of the scores on divergent thinking with test duration is at maximum 19%, and the common variance of the scores on convergent thinking with test duration is a maximum of 3%. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 431 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s α) at the four times of measurement and coefficients of test-retest stability between the four times of measurement in the luxembourg sample scale ntime of measurement intelligenceflexibilityfluency internal consistency (α) 2441st measurement (t1) .91.76.84 2352nd measurement (t2) .89.75.86 2323rd measurement (t3) .92.80.88 2284th measurement (t4) .93.79.85 test-retest-stability (r) 235t1 t2 .64**.49**.49** 232t1 t3 .54**.31**.32** 228t1 t4 .48**.28**.30** 231t2 t3 .53**.45**.48** 228t2 t4 .59**.27**.29** 228t3 t4 .61**.27**.27** **p < .01. results of study i: luxembourg test-retest effects — checks for retest effects on test scores were analyzed using the data from the n = 115 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t2, n = 50 children (1st to 5th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t3, and n = 88 children (2nd to 6th elementary school year) tested at t4 for their first time. comparisons of these new, independent samples with the longitudinal sample retested at t2, t3, and t4, respectively, did not result in statistical mean differences for neither the test scores on ideational fluency [flu-t2: t(348) = 1.15; t3: t(280) = 0.85; t4: t(314) = 1.03; p > .10] and flexibility [fle-t2: t(348) = 0.74; t3: t(280) = 0.81; t4: t(314) = 0.98; p > .10] nor for intelligence [spm-t2: t(348) = 0.55; t3: t(280) = 1.01; t4: t(314) = 0.73; p > .10] in statistical significant mean differences. therefore, retest effects in the repeated measurements of divergent and convergent thinking, which may be a result of learning by prior testing or recall of test responses, can be excluded. while children do remember the prior test taking situation, inspection of the contents of random samples of individual test records on flu and fle from different times of measurement confirms that children very seldom simply replicate their test reactions (i.e., drawings, movement, actions) presented at prior tests. rather, children produce new ideas or substantial variations of their prior test responses. a time span of one year between the test administrations seems to be very long for children (for time perception of children see, e.g., ben baruch, bruno, & horn, 1985; rattat & droit-volet, 2005) and very much happens during one year of a child’s life. therefore, memory for specific test responses and their recall one year late are low. positional stability versus plasticity over time — relative (i.e., positional) changes examined longitudinally in the 4-year time span are low to medium in ideational fluency and flexibility, but they are markedly higher in intelligence (see table 1). correlation coefficients of intraclass fluand fle-scores, respectively, decline to less than 9% common variance between more distant times of measurement, while common variance of spm-scores between all different times of measurement exceed 22% and range up to 41%. thus, high positional stability is confirmed for culture-free tested convergent thinking skills from kindergarten up to the 6th grade level of elementary school education in luxembourg. on the other hand, positional stability of culture-free tested divergent thinking europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 432 http://www.psychopen.eu/ skills in childhood development tested one to three years apart is low. this result cannot be explained by general low retest reliabilities of nonverbal creativity tests: for example, zachopoulou, makri, and pollatou (2009) confirmed high retest reliabilities and nonsignificant mean differences of the scales of torrance’s thinking creatively in action and movement (tcam; torrance, 1981b) in children for a time interval of two weeks. intercorrelations of divergent and convergent thinking scores at and between times of measurement — intercorrelations of ideational fluency and flexibility as well as intelligence at the four times of measurement and between them are presented above the main diagonal in table 2 for the luxembourg sample. cross-sectional correlations (computed with the data from one time of measurement, printed in bold in table 2) are generally higher than the longitudinal correlations (computed with the data of two different times of measurement). this difference is, on average, statistically significant at p < .05. the two nonverbal scales on divergent thinking (flu and fle) correlate statistically significantly, with a common variance up to 42%, which confirms earlier results (e.g., torrance, 1981b; zachopoulou et al., 2009). the nonverbal test score on convergent thinking (spm), however, is correlated much lower with flu and fle, and the correlations lose, in part, their significance in time-lagged analyses (see table 2). the trend seems to indicate somewhat slightly higher correlations of convergent thinking (reasoning) with ideational flexibility (fle) in comparison to ideational fluency, but the common variance of culture-free, predominant nonverbally tested creativity and intelligence in children does not exceed 8%. this is in agreement with results which show that correlations between culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tested intelligence and creativity scales are low and close to zero (e.g., jaarsveld et al., 2010; krampen, 1996; wallach & kogan, 1965; wechsler et al., 2010). absolute changes (mean-level): cohort and time effects — cross-sequential data analyses were computed by analyses of variance (anova) with the between-factor five educational cohorts and the repeatedmeasurement factor of four times of measurement, each being one year apart from the other, thus a 5 x 4 design with repeated measurement of the second factor. results of the anovas computed for ideational fluency (flu), ideational flexibility (fle), and intelligence (in) are presented for the luxembourg sample in the upper half of table 3. firstly, it should be noted that there are no statistically significant interaction terms. secondly, all main effects of the between (cohort) and repeated measurement (time) factors are statistically significant. in addition, following the terminology of cohen (1977), for all of these significant anovamain effects, large effect sizes (f) are documented, which are even “very large” (almost approaching themaximum f-value of 1.00) for the spm-test score on intelligence. the cross-sequential results, including the absolute mean differences between the five cohorts (cross-sectional data) as well as these between the four times of measurement (longitudinal data), are shown graphically in figure 2 for ideational fluency, figure 3 for ideational flexibility, and figure 4 for intelligence. at first glance the good overlap of cross-sectional and longitudinal developmental gradients is visible for both indicators of divergent and the indicator of convergent thinking skills. this illustrates and confirms the agreement of the anova main effects of cohort and time of measurement. the cross-sequential results on intelligence (reasoning; see figure 4) show a very continuous increase from the next to last kindergarten year to the 6th year of elementary school. there are no obvious developmental plateaus, accelerations or delays, increases or decreases. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 433 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 intercorrelations of ideational fluency (flu), ideational flexibility (fle), and intelligence (in) at (in bold) and between the four times of measurement in the luxembourg sample (above the main diagonal) and in the german sample (below the main diagonal) t4t3t2t1 variable inflefluinflefluinflefluinfleflu 1st measurement (t1) flu .11.16*.30**.10.23**.32**.08.41**.49**.19**.64**.001 fle .14*.28**.28**.17**.31**.31**.16*.49**.36**.26**.001.60** in .48**.12.08.54**.15*.10.64**.18**.09.001.24**.14* 2nd measurement (t2) flu .07.24**.29**.22**.52**.48**.27**.65**.001.11.30**.44** fle .12.27**.28**.11.45**.35**.28**.001.61**.16**.44**.47** in .59**.10.11.53**.10.05.001.23**.19**.66**.20**.71** 3rd measurement (t3) flu .12.31**.27**.21**.59**.001.07.36**.45**.07.27**.39** fle .14*.27**.30**.26**.001.54**.15**.43**.45**.17**.32**.36** in .61**.14*.27**.001.24**.19**.64**.09.60**.55**.21**.65** 4th measurement (t4) flu .20**.55**.001.26**.28**.25**.10.29**.25**.10.26**.31** fle .27**.001.48**.23**.23**.22**.14*.28**.25**.06.15**.30** in .001.31**.18**.65**.21**.69**.59**.03.67**.51**.12*.62** *p < .05. **p < .01. table 3 results of analyses of variance for ideational fluency (flu), ideational flexibility (fle), and intelligence (in) with the between factor educational cohort (5) and the repeated measurement factor time of measurement (4) in the luxembourg sample (n = 228) and the german sample (n = 294) intelligenceideational flexibilityideational fluencymanova effect luxembourg students cohort f(4/224) .57**36.60**28.35**25 effect size (f) .77.61.53 time f(3/672) .44**59.49**37.82**33 effect size (f) .89.57.44 cohort x time f(12/672) .892.074.806 effect size (f) .01.09.06 geman students cohort f(4/290) .11**38.90**27.18**27 effect size (f) .79.60.59 time f(3/870) .31**61.89**38.05**49 effect size (f) .92.65.67 cohort x time f(12/870) .013.795.427 effect size (f) .02.05.05 **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 434 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. cross-sequential results on ideational fluency in the luxembourg sample. figure 3. cross-sequential results on ideational flexibility in the luxembourg sample. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. cross-sequential results on general intelligence in the luxembourg sample. in contrast, both indicators of creativity show marked, discontinuous developmental gradients: after a steady increase, ideational fluency drops from the 1st to the 2nd grade level of elementary school and, again, from the 4th to the 5th and 6th grade level (see figure 2). evaluated by post hoc single mean comparison tests (scheffé test), both declines of fluency are statistically significant (p < .05). very similar declines are present in the transitions of the 1st to the 2nd and of the 4th to the 5th/6th grade level in the luxembourg elementary school children for ideational flexibility (see figure 3). post hoc single mean comparisons confirm the statistical significance for both transitions points (p < .05). short discussion of study i: luxembourg a double “creativity slump” is apparent in the luxembourg sample of children who are schooled in an educational system with obligatory two years of kindergarten and 6-year comprehensive elementary school education: longitudinal and cross-sectional data are in full agreement for a first decline in ideational fluency and flexibility in the transition from the 1st to the 2nd and a second decline in the transition from the 4th to the 5th/6th elementary school grade level, which is connected to the anticipation of educational placement for secondary education after the 6th elementary school grade level. the soon coming selective educational placement is anticipated by the children, parents, and teachers in the final two years of elementary school education. the anticipation of educational placement is waiting to be dealt with, it is on the agenda of parents, teachers, and children. this results in more or less stress, because (convergent) academic achievement and educational degrees are strongly in the focus. in contrast, the development of intelligence is increasing very continuously. positional stability of intelligence score is high, positional stability of scores on divergent thinking is much lower. this points towards large interindividual differences in the intraindividual development of creativity in childhood. cross-sectional and longitudinal data europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 436 http://www.psychopen.eu/ are—with reference to reliability and scoring inter-coder reliability as well as to the lack of hints on retest effects and dropout biases—sound. however, the results refer to only one specific educational administration system, and therefore, the question of whether similar, other, or no “creativity slumps” can be seen in another educational system with different transition points is still open. study ii: the germany study method sample — participants of the study were 312 kindergarten and elementary school students (some of them becoming secondary school students at the later times of measurement) living in southwest germany in the city of trier (approximately 100,000 inhabitants) as well as in surrounding towns and villages. this german region is located in the heart of western europe and is situated directly next to the open european border to luxembourg. children were selected randomly (controlling for sex) from five different educational cohorts: children were enrolled in the next to last kindergarten year (n = 62), last kindergarten year (n = 62) as well as in the 1st (n = 63), 2nd (n = 62), and 3rd elementary school year (n = 63). there were three refusals for participation, two from parents and one from a kindergarten child. age span at initial test was 4 to 9 years (m = 6.8, sd = 1.61 years). the sample comprised 156 females and 156 males. just as in the luxembourg study, the children were retested one year as well as two and three years after the initial test (t1). all tests were administered in the winter season after being in the (new) educational cohort, i.e., kindergarten year, elementary school or secondary school grade level, for approximately 10 weeks. thus, longitudinal data refer to four times of measurement within three years (t1, t2, t3, and t4). this builds up a cross-sequential design with 5 educational cohorts and 4 times of measurement just as in study i. as a consequence, at t2 children were enrolled to the last kindergarten year up to the 4th elementary school year, at t3 to the 1st elementary up to the 5th school year (i.e., the 1st grade level of secondary education), and at t4 data cover up the 2nd elementary school year up to the 6th grade level (i.e., the 2nd grade level of secondary education). age span at t4 was t1-age plus 3 years, i.e., 7 to 12 years (m = 9.7, sd = 1.62). because of continuous contact with the children and their teachers, dropout rates were small: retests could be administered at t2 with 310 (99%), at t3 with 307 (98%), and at t4 with 295 children (95%) of the initial sample tested at t1. dropout analyses did not indicate any biases with reference to the educational cohorts and to the dependent variables tested at the time(s) of measurement before. in addition, for the control of possible retest effects in test scores, at t2 n = 90 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year) were tested for the first time. measures — the same culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tests on divergent and convergent thinking as well as scoring procedures as in the luxembourg study (see section: luxembourg study) were administered in individual testing. inter-coder reliability of the fluand fle-scorings was tested by comparisons of independent scorings for the records of the total sample tested at t1 (n = 312) and of randomly selected subsamples of n = 40 tested each at t2 and t3, respectively. interscorer agreement was confirmed by the correlations between two independent scorers for flu (r > .96; p < .01) and fle (r > .89; p < .01) and by the nonsignificant mean differences between europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 437 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the two independent scorings of flu (t(310) = 1.53 and t(38) < 0.63; p > .20) and of fle (t(310) = 0.97 and t(38) < 0.77; p > .20). reliability of the fluand fle-scores is evaluated by cronbach’s alpha for each of the four times of measurement (see table 4). the reliability coefficients of flu and fle are satisfactory for the intended statistical analyses at the group level (flu: α > .82 and fle α > .73). inter-coder reliability of the spm, analyzed by two independent scorers as above, in the present study is r = 1.00 without any mean differences (t(xx) = 0.00). reliability coefficients for all of the four times of measurement are very good ranging from .89 to .93 (see table 1). table 4 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s α) at the four times of measurement and coefficients of test-retest stability between the four times of measurement in the german sample scale ntime of measurement intelligenceflexibilityfluency internal consistency (α) 3121st measurement (t1) .90.75.83 3102nd measurement (t2) .93.74.87 3073rd measurement (t3) .91.78.90 2954th measurement (t4) .90.77.91 test-retest-stability (r) 310t1 t2 .71**.47**.44** 305t1 t3 .65**.36**.39** 294t1 t4 .62**.30**.31** 307t2 t3 .60**.40**.45** 294t2 t4 .67**.25**.25** 294t3 t4 .69**.22**.25** **p < .01. data on the total test duration and on personal characteristics of the child (e.g., age, sex, family size) were also documented in the test record. test time varied between m = 62 (sd = 7.1) minutes at t1, m = 60 (sd = 6.9; t2), m = 61 (sd = 6.3; t3) andm = 62 (sd = 6.5; t4) without significant differences between the repeatedmeasurements [f(3/870) = 1.84]. there are nonsignificant anova effects of the educational cohort [f(4/290) = 0.89] and its interaction with time of measurement [f(12/870) = 2.55]. there are significant, but rather low correlations of test time with the test scores on ideational fluency (flu: .19 < r < .35; p < .01) and ideational flexibility (flu: .17 < r < .20; p < .01), but only one significant correlation out of four correlations with the spm-scores on intelligence (t4: r = .20, p < .01; t1, t2, t3: r < .08). thus, common variance of the scores on divergent thinking with test duration is at maximum 12%, and the common variance of the scores on convergent thinking with test duration is at maximum 4%. results of study ii: germany test-retest effects — checks for retest effects on test scores use the data from the n = 90 children (enrolled in the last kindergarten year and 1st to 4th elementary school year) tested for their first time at t2. comparisons of this new sample with the longitudinal sample retested at t2 did not result in statistical significant mean differences for neither the test scores on ideational fluency [t(400) = 0.83; p > .10] and flexibility [t(400) = 1.04; p > .10] nor for intelligence [t(400) = 0.75; p > .10]. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 438 http://www.psychopen.eu/ positional stability versus plasticity over time — relative (i.e., positional) changes examined longitudinally in the 4-year time span are low to medium in ideational fluency and flexibility, but they are markedly higher in intelligence (see table 4). correlation coefficients of fluand fle-scores, respectively, decline to less than 6% common variance between more distant times of measurement, while common variance of spm-scores between all different times of measurement exceed 36% and range up to 50%. thus, high positional stability is confirmed for culture-free tested convergent thinking skills from kindergarten up to the 6th grade level of school education in germany. on the other hand, positional stability of culture-free tested divergent thinking skills in childhood development tested one to three years apart is low. intercorrelations of divergent and convergent thinking scores at and between times of measurement — intercorrelations of ideational fluency and flexibility as well as intelligence at the four times of measurement and between them are presented below the main diagonal in table 2 for the german sample. cross-sectional correlations (computed with the data from one time of measurement, printed in bold in table 2) are higher than the longitudinal correlations (computed with the data of two different times of measurement). this difference is, on average, statistically significant at p < .05. the two nonverbal scales on divergent thinking (flu and fle) correlate at a statistically significant level, with a common variance up to 37%. the nonverbal test score on convergent thinking (spm), however, is correlated much lower with flu and fle, and the correlations lose in part their significance in time-lagged analyses (see table 2). the trend seems to indicate somewhat slightly higher correlations of general intelligence (reasoning) with ideational flexibility (fle) by comparison to ideational fluency, but the common variance of culture-free, predominant nonverbally tested creativity and intelligence in children does not exceed 10% in the german sample. absolute changes (mean-level): cohort and time effects— just as in the luxembourg study, cross-sequential data analyses were computed by analyses of variance (anova) with the between-factor five educational cohorts and the repeated measurement factor of four times of measurement, each being one year apart from the other. results of the computed anovas are presented for the german sample in the lower half of table 3. there are no statistically significant interaction terms. the main effects of the between (cohort) and repeated measurement (time) factors are statistically significant. following the terminology of cohen (1977), the effect sizes (f) of all anova main effects are large. the cross-sequential results are presented graphically in figures 5 to 7. the overlap of cross-sectional and longitudinal developmental gradients is high for both indicators of divergent and the indicator of convergent thinking skills. this illustrates and confirms the agreements of the anovamain effects of cohort and time of measurement. the cross-sequential results on intelligence (reasoning; see figure 7) show a continuous, very steady increase from the next to last kindergarten year to the 6th grade school level. there are no developmental plateaus, accelerations or delays, increases or decreases. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 439 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. cross-sequential results on ideational fluency in the german sample. figure 6. cross-sequential results on ideational flexibility in the german sample. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 440 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 7. cross-sequential results on general intelligence in the german sample. in contrast, both indicators of creativity show marked discontinuous developmental gradients: after an increase, ideational fluency drops from the 1st to the 2nd grade level of elementary school and, after a strong increase in the 3rd grade level, there is a second drop from the 3rd to the 4th grade level and a steady increase thereafter (see figure 2). evaluated by post hoc single mean comparison tests (scheffé test), both declines of fluency are statistically significant (p < .05). very similar declines are present in the transitions of the 1st to the 2nd and of the 3rd to the 4th grade level in the german elementary school children for ideational flexibility (see figure 3). post hoc single mean comparison confirms the statistical significance for both transition points (p < .05). short discussion of study ii: germany a double “creativity slump” is apparent in the german sample of children who are schooled in an educational system with optional kindergarten and a 4-year comprehensive elementary school education, which is followed by educational placement into secondary education: longitudinal and cross-sectional data are in agreement for a first decline in ideational fluency and flexibility in the transition from the 1st to the 2nd school year and a second decline during anticipation of educational placement after the 4th school grade level in the transition from the 3rd to the 4th elementary school grade level. in contrast, development of intelligence is very continuous. positional stability of intelligence scores is high, positional stability of scores on divergent thinking is lower. cross-sectional and longitudinal data are—with reference to reliability and inter-coder reliability as well as to the lack of hints on retest effects and dropout biases—sound. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 441 http://www.psychopen.eu/ general discussion the cross-sequential developmental results presented confirm significant “creativity slumps” in the domain of ideational fluency and flexibility in strong connection to educational transitions and—in older children—to the anticipation of transitions by children, their parents, and teachers, findings which are significant for educational placement (here, e.g., educational placement into secondary educational tracks with consequences for the educational and future occupational options of the children). these results are convincing, and more importantly, they are a powerful empirical confirmation of the hypothesis of torrance (1963) (1) because high standards of developmental psychology research are assured (i.e., cross-sequential design and control of retest effects in repeated measurements), (2) because culture-free, predominantly nonverbal psychometric test indicators of divergent and convergent thinking are administered in individual testing (i.e., thus to a large extent avoiding confounding biases with reference to language development and social status of the children), and (3) because a quasi-experimental approach was implemented investigating the given reality of two different national educational administration systems in neighboring yet distinct european regions. the fact that the reliability of the tests on divergent thinking are slightly lower than that of the intelligence measurement applied can be neglected, because the differences between the reliability coefficients are statistically not significant (p > .20; feldt, woodruff, & salih, 1987). however, it must be noted that the quasi-experimental design was feasible only indirectly. this was necessary because of differences in test administration in a multilingual (luxembourg) versusmonolingual (germany) society, nation, and educational system. thus, the quasi-experimental approach resulted in convincing descriptive empirical confirmations of declines in divergent thinking after and before anticipated educational transitions which are strongly connected to specifics of the national educational administration systems under study. however, exploratory power of the results remains low, because multilingual test administration in the luxembourg sample and monolingual testing in the german one required separate data analyses including within-sample test score standardizations (within sample standardization resulting in t-values; mccall, 1939). this excluded the possibility of direct statistical tests of the described developmental differences between luxembourg and german kindergarten and school children. further on, the identity of the two countries is kept and in the cross-national comparisons each national context presents some specificity in terms of language and educational system. at the very least, the results point to the fact that mccrae et al.’s (1987) findings that cross-sectional and longitudinal (repeated measures) analyses suggesting curvilinear trends in divergent thinking in adult men do not hold up in cross-sequential analyses (which point to a general, rather linear decline in divergent thinking for all cohorts aged initially 33 to 74 years tested six years later) cannot be generalized to childhood development in educational contexts. the presented results of two independent studies agree completely in the confirmation of creativity slumps in childhood development which have only been empirically described before in cross-sectional (e.g., jaarsveld et al., 2010; klausmeier & wiersma, 1964; pickard, 1979; smith & carlsson, 1983; torrance, 1968) or longitudinal studies (e.g., claxton et al., 2005; gaspar, 2001; howieson, 1981; torrance, 1968, 1981a). in the focus of the present studies are critical educational transitions and their anticipation by children, their parent, and teachers in face of important educational placements. empirical evidence for a first decline of divergent skills is given for school enrollment after kindergarten education, which can be attributed to the rising demands on children’s social adjustment, conformity, and acceptance of authorities as well as their requests for convergent thinking styles, which is frequently thought to be necessary europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 442 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the learning of cultural skills like reading, writing, mathematics, etc. however, these (traditional) demands are dependent of educational theory, teaching methods, and didactics applied in elementary education. for example, cross-sectional results of besançon and lubart (2008) and longitudinal results of heise et al. (2010) confirm empirically more positive developments of creativity in montessori schools in comparison to traditional elementary schools. montessori school education focuses on discovery teaching methods, individualized learning plans, and self-regulated learning, which is in contrast to traditional elementary school education characterized by more directed teaching methods in small group learning and teacher-centered teaching with general learning objectives for all students in the class, etc. being the widespread educational reality in luxembourg and germany. however, both countries were struck by the so-called “pisa and timss shock” in the 1990s, because both had to face the fact that their elementary and secondary school education rankings in worldwide comparisons of school achievement were quite low (see, e.g., masters, 2007; organization for economic cooperation and development oecd, 2009; rindermann, 2007). this shock motivated both public and political discussions of reforms in the national teacher education, teaching methods, and educational administration in favor of educational systems and individualized teaching methods administered in countries like finland, canada, and new zealand. this discussion is ongoing to date without any convincing, wide-spread educational reforms taking place, because these are hindered by very different political positions and—in germany—by the federal structure. in addition, these public and political controversies refer to the early educational placement strategies after the 4th elementary grade level in germany and after the 6th grade level in luxembourg as well. there have been some attempts and educational experiments to extend comprehensive education (at least in germany), but there is no political and public consensus about this as well. this refers immediately to the second decline of creativity described in the two studies presented above: however, this second creativity slump is located before educational placement in secondary education, which is anticipated by the children and their parents and teachers in germany at the 3rd grade level and in luxembourg at the 5th and 6th grade level. both creativity slumps refer to the overstressing convergent, general teaching methods as thought to be only necessary in teaching culture skills like reading, writing, mathematics, etc., which can be taught and learned in more divergent educational settings added to the teaching methods as well (see, e.g., kaufman & beghetto, 2009; krampen & freilinger, 1996; renzulli & reis, 2001). however, “creativity in the schools is sometimes seen as a footnote, afterthought, or as an extra-curricular activity (…)” (kaufman & beghetto, 2009, p. 175). beginning in the 1960s, demands for more creativity promotion in schools by divergent teaching methods, creativity techniques, creativity-promoting educational settings, and school/classroom climate (see, e.g., getzels & elkins, 1964; sternberg & lubart, 1991; torrance, 1963, 1968, 1981a) must be repeated incessantly until they finally are taken into consideration in educational politics, educational administration, society, and schools. at least, the results of some multilevel model analyses on the predictive power of creativity indicators for general academic achievement provide some hope: freund and holling (2008) as well as gralewski and karwowski (2012) showed empirically that in some schools or classrooms, respectively, the relations of creativity to scholastic achievement were positive and statistically significant, while in others (the majority) they were negative or insignificant. gralewski and karwoski’s results show that the role of creativity is greater in larger schools and in these located in big cities, freund and holling attribute their result that the predictive power of creativity changes across classrooms to the hypotheses that some teachers value creativity in their students more than others. interindividual differences in teachers’ evaluation of students’ creativity and their teaching methods may be one reason for these findings, other reasons may refer to interindividual differences in parents’ educational attitudes and/or students’ characteristics, more liberal educational and more innovative attitudes in larger cities, etc. as europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 443 http://www.psychopen.eu/ well. however, it must be considered that both studies are cross-sectional, neither longitudinal nor cross-sequential and therefore the interpretation of their results is limited, because there is no consecutive testing of creativity and academic performances in longer time intervals. divergent thinking and action of children must be seen consensually as highly significant for their own personal development and for societal development as well. the de-evaluation of creativity and its forerunners in divergent skills (see figure 1) as not relevant, as not appropriate to educational practice, and as viewed to be potentially disruptive and negative must be overcome widely in educational politics, educational administration, society, and schools, e.g., in the majority of teachers, parents, and students. perhaps the spreading of positive psychology in schools (furlong, gilman, & huebner, 2009) can be a revival of the older demands. the cross-sequential developmental results presented here complete these argumentations empirically with reference to high developmental research standards. last, but not least, two other patterns of results should be mentioned. firstly, our 4-year longitudinal data on the development of divergent thinking skills confirm prior results on the low positional stability of ideational fluency and flexibility at kindergarten and elementary school age (e.g., gaspar, 2001; magnusson & backteman, 1978; sparfeldt et al., 2009). this is in sharp contrast to the very high positional stability coefficients observed for intelligence and indicates the developmental plasticity of creativity development in children that gives a lot of space and possibilities to promote positive individual development. secondly, our results from two independent studies confirm prior results on low correlations of divergent and convergent thinking skills, at least, when both are measured in culture-free, predominantly nonverbal ways (jaarsveld et al., 2010; wallach & kogan, 1965; wechsler et al., 2010). thus, the general hypothesis about the existence of significant correlations between intelligence and creativity (or only below a certain intelligence threshold) may be true for their verbal subfacets and measurements (getzels & jackson, 1962; hasan & butcher, 1966; magnusson & backteman, 1978; schubert, 1973). it should be considered that both verbal subfacets are biased by language development and social status and, therefore, may be interrelated a priori in the domain of crystallized intelligence. thus, culture-free, predominantly nonverbal testing of divergent and convergent thinking skills is not only an optimization of test fairness (especially for the disadvantaged), but it also points to the possibilities of creativity promotion in all children independently of their intelligence level. funding this research project was supported by the ministere de l´education et de la jeunesse/luxembourg. acknowledgments thanks to dr. joseph freilinger, dr. louis wilmes, joseph medernach and the teacher students at the former “institut superieur d´etudes et de recherches pedagogiques” in walferdange (luxembourg) as well as the psychology students at the university of trier (germany) for their valuable support in the data collection. references acharyulu, s. t., & yasodhara, p. 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(2009). evaluation of children’s creativity: psychometric properties of torrance’s 'thinking creatively in action and movement test'. early child development and care, 179, 317-328. doi:10.1080/03004430601078669 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 krampen 447 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.634 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1024/1010-0652.23.1.31 http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000277029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/001698628102500203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1983.tb00970.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1965.tb01391.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1413-294x2010000300003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430601078669 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the author günter krampen is a professor of psychology at the university of trier (germany) and an associate professor of psychology at the université du luxembourg (luxembourg). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 423–448 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.468 creativity development in childhood 448 http://www.psychopen.eu/ creativity development in childhood introduction state of research the necessity of using cross-sequential studies the necessity of using quasi-experimental designs the necessity of using culture-free, predominantly nonverbal tests the 3-level model of creativity the present studies: objectives, design, and implementation study i: the luxembourg study method results of study i: luxembourg short discussion of study i: luxembourg study ii: the germany study method results of study ii: germany short discussion of study ii: germany general discussion funding acknowledgments references about the author religious sentiment as peripheral: cross-cultural study of religious orientation by multidimensional scaling sergej flere university of maribor, department of sociology miran lavrič university of maribor, department of sociology bojan musil university of maribor, department of psychology rudi klanjšek university of maribor, department of sociology abstract the relation between intrinsic and extrinsic orientations was studied in four samples of believing affiliates (bosnian muslims, serbian orthodox, slovenian catholics and us protestants). by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and by multidimensional scaling (mds), differences in patterns of religious orientations were discerned in the various cultures. by efa, in the two european settings a closeness between intrinsic (i) and extrinsic personal (ep) orientation was noted. beside that extrinsic other (eo) items, indicating peripheral nature of the religious sentiment, appeared as a separate dimension. the cfa produced slight differences in this direction, still allowing for a four component finding. the two dimensional presentation in mds also indicated a similarity in pattern of the dimensions of religious orientation. in all four cases a pattern in the distribution of items appears allowing for naming the vertical axis as indicating the variation between centrality and periphery, and the horizontal one as indicating the variation between social and personal dimensions in religious sentiment. keywords: religious orientation; extrinsic orientation; intrinsic orientation; extrinsic other orientation; multidimensional scaling problem behind varied religious behaviours, deeds, often paradoxical and contrary to religious teaching itself, there are also motives, which are often inseparable from substantial religiosity itself. this was the approach taken by g. allport: to find the »orientation«, the motives behind the actions in order to comprehend the variety of deeds, including the seemingly contradictory prejudice on the part of many christian believers. starting from the notions of immature and mature religiosity, he arrived at a typology involving intrinsic (i) and extrinsic (e) religiosity (allport & ross, 1967). extrinsic religiosity was of an instrumental nature, described as immature and utilitarian, whereby a person uses religiosity to achieve extra-religious (psychological and social) ends. in i religiosity, the motive for religiosity would be autonomous and ‘overarching’. allport summarized this distinction: »the extrinsically motivated individual uses his religion, whereas the intrinsically motivated lives his« (allport & ross, 1967, p. 434). separation gave more robust results when observing the relationship between religion and mental health; while e religious orientation (ro) was negatively correlated to mental health, i ro was generally positively correlated with mental health (james & wells, 2003). however, additional studies have proven that results were not uniform in confirming that i religiosity would always be psychologically »healthy«. it has been shown that it may also be linked to prejudice (griffin et al., 1989; mcfarland, 1989), to authoritarianism (kahoe, 1977), to closed mindedness, dogmatism and might even be contaminated by social desirability (batson & ventis, 1982). ro has become the dominant paradigm in the study of religious motivation and of the psychological study of religiosity in general. this is so despite the reservations, which originate, from american scholars themselves. thus, hill and hood (1999) write that ‘allport’s uncanny popularity among psychologists of religion may have more to do with his apostolic reputation than with the conceptual soundness of his ro framework or the instruments used to assess it.’ (hill & hood (eds.), 1999, p. 120). the necessity for many improvements to and expansions of the notions and instruments, starting from allport and ross’s original need to reinterpret the analytical framework of data findings, because of the appearance of indisicriminate pro-religious orientation, creating a need to analyze the relationship within an orthogonal framework and not as a continuum, all the way to supplementing the original division into intrinsicness and extrinsicness (i-e) by quest on the part of of batson and schoenrade (1991), are indicative of the problems with the framework’s soundness. the study of ro was mainly limited to the united states and to protestantism in the us. most cross-cultural investigations with different conceptions of ro have been limited to english-speaking environments (e.g., griffiths, dixon, stanley, & weiland, 2001; hills & francis, 2003; hunsberger, 1995; maltby, 1999; 2002; maltby & day, 2003; struempfer, 1997). recently, however, efforts to assess the applicability of the ro constructs to diverse populations have been made: some asian religions (gorsuch et al., 1997), egypt (gallab & el disoukee, 1994), germany (zwingmann, hellmeister, & ochsmann, 1994; zwingmann, moosbrugger, & frank, 1991), iran (ghorbani, watson, ghramaleki, morris, & hood, 2000; watson, ghorbani, davison, bing, hood, & ghramaleki, 2002), japan (kaneko, 1990), korean immigrants (park, murgatroyd, raynock, & spillett, 1998), malaysia (ali, 1998), the netherlands (derks & lans, 1986), norway (kaldestad, 1992, 1995; kaldestad & stifoss-hanssen, 1993), palestine (elbedour, ten bensel, & maruyama, 1993), poland (socha, 1999), russia (mcfarland, 1989), sweden (hovemyr, 1997), and thailand (tapanya, nicki, & jarusawad, 1997). following the work of socha (1999), whose findings, although generally supporting the essential replicability of the religious orientation scale (ros) scales in polish, also suggested that e items had confounding loadings on both i and e dimensions, brewczynski and macdonald (2006) set out to investigate a direct replication of the three-factor structure of the original allport and ross instrument, which had been confirmed by several previous studies with american participants (e.g., genia, 1993; gorsuch & mcpherson, 1989; kirkpatrick, 1989). their research confirmed the overall adequacy of the three-dimensional structure of (ros). on the other hand, their findings were consistent with socha’s (1999) observation that the e and i dimensions in the polish samples appear to partially overlap. the problem of the cross-cultural validity of the i-e framework will be addressed in this paper, considering only a number of religions in situations where they are autochthonous, where they are also major religions, not considering variety in the official status of the religion. we will compare american protestants, bosnian muslims, the serbian orthodox, and slovenian catholics. we will focus on the articulation of these dimensions of ro in varied cultural environments, and will focus particularly on the eo dimension (gorsuch & mcpherson, 1989). this is admissible owing to a doctrine-free nature of the scale (donahue, 1985). tiliopoulos, bikker, coxon, & hawkin have recently published a multidimensional scaling analysis of data (2007, forthcoming) on the subject of the allportian analysis of (i/e) ro (allport & ross, 1967), using the gorsuch & mcpherson scale of extrinsicness and intrinsicnes (i/e-r) (1989) on a sample of british christians. we are following their examples by applying this procedure in a cross-cultural study. method procedure the instrument applied was a questionnaire containing varied items, concentrated on religiosity and its possible correlates. the completion of the questionnaire under controlled circumstances took 40-50 minutes. it was carried out in spring of 2005. the questionnaires were translated from slovene into the other languages and rechecked. some wording needed to be adjusted in the cases of the muslim sample, such as mosque or religious community instead of church and paradise instead of heaven. otherwise, the instrument was of a uniform type. sample data were collected from respondents who were undergraduate university students, primarily in the social sciences in environments with predominant and traditional religions in the surrounding population. the sample was limited to affiliates of major religions with at least a medium interest in religion (the sample was limited to those answering 3 and above on a 1 – 5 point pro-trait likert format belief in god scale): maribor, slovenia (n = 297, roman catholic), sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina (n = 390, muslim), niš, serbia (n= 358, serbian orthodox), auburn, usa (n = 290, protestant majority). the mean age for the slovenian sample was 20.3 years (sd=1.3), 20,4 years (sd=1,5) for the serbian sample, and 20,7 years (sd=1,8) for the bosnian sample. in all of the samples females formed the majority. the number of males varied from 33.9% in the bosnia and herzegovina sample to 41.7% in the slovenian sample. in all of the analyses only affiliates with the major religion were taken into consideration, comprising a high percent in all cases: 76,8% for the slovenian sample, 89,8% for the bosnian sample, and 92,7% for the serbian sample. measures the questionnaire contained items on i and e ro, taken from gorsuch and mcpherson’s intrinsic-extrisnic/revised (i-e/r) scale (1989). although the cronbach alphas for the e items at the level of all affiliates in the three surroundings was high (α= .814), we later decided to separate the social ep, es and eo scales into two separate scales, because they functioned differently within the analysis of total ro. this was, firstly, in line with kirkpatrick’s (1989) and trimble’s (1997) suggestion on separating extrinsicness into two scales. secondly, we decided not to recode the 3 eo items (later titled as i owing to raising reliability this way, by gorsuch & mcpherson, 1989). gorsuch and mcpherson enter them into the i scale on the basis of these 3 items elevating the reliability of the i scale (1989, 351). in our study, this was not the case in any of the samples. see table 1. in table 1, the i ro scale diminishes in reliability when eo items are entered. we thus decided to retain the eo items as a separate scale, in spite of their sub-optimal reliability, because of gorusch and mcphersons’s findings and instruction (1989, 351) and because of the focus on the limitation of the religious sentiment to periphery in this paper. a five-point likert-type pro-worded scale was used for all statements. plan of analysis initially, descriptive findings were computed in the form of means and standard deviations. to assess the psychometric properties exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was employed. in the latter, for each of the three samples, we tested the goodness of fit for a two-factor model, distinguishing i and ep items as one dimension and es items as another, and for a three-factor model, distinguishing items i, ep and es items as three separate dimensions. no error terms were allowed to correlate. next, mds was applied, by the proxscal routine (in spss). mds has the ability to generate a visual representation of the latent structure of the data in low two-dimensional space (shepard, 1962). mds has fewer and less strict assumptions than factor analysis and can be applied to any kind of data (bartholomew, steele, moustaki & galbraith, 2002). the classic metric mds configuration and the interval model (due to the likert format of the items) were used. we applied proxscal study of euclidian distances (dissimilarities) with a primary approach to ties. in the sample of slovenian catholic affiliates, stress1 amounted, for two dimensional representation, to .083, which is good fit (cox & cox, 2001, 77) (optimal scaling factor = 1,007, normalized raw stress =.007). the raising of the number of dimensions from 1 to 2 signified an improvement of .21 in normalized raw stress, whereas further rise did not signify significant improvement (.01 in the first following step). in the sample of bosnian muslim believing affiliates, stress1 amounted for two dimensional representation to .080 which is good fir (cox & cox, 2001, 77), (optimal scaling factor = 1,007), normalized raw stress = .006. the raising of the number of dimensions from 1 to 2 signified an improvement of .22 in normalized raw stress, whereas further rise did not signify significant improvement ( .01 in the first following step). in the sample of the serbian orthodox affiliates, stress1 amounted, for two dimensional representation, to .093 which is good fit (cox & cox, 2001, 77) (optimal scaling factor = 1,009, normalized raw stress =.009). the raising of the number of dimensions from 1 to 2 signified an improvement of .24 in normalized raw stress, whereas further rise did not signify significant improvement (less than .01 in the first following step). in the sample us protestant affiliates, stress1 amounted, for two dimensional representation, to .054 which is good fit (cox & cox, 2001, 77) (optimal scaling factor = 1,003, normalized raw stress =.003). the raising of the number of dimensions from 1 to 2 signified an improvement of .23 in normalized raw stress, whereas further rise did not signify significant improvement (.01 in the first following step). the appropriateness of combining factor analysis with mds pursues from the prior’s indicating interindividual differences, while being possibly under the influence of acquiescence, while mds at the most marginally under the influence of acquiescence and lacking indication of interindividual differences, it represents relations between items (fontaine, durize, luyten & hutsebaut, 2003, 508-9). findings descriptive findings if we focus on i scale (table 2), it pursues that we are basically confronted with the slovenian catholic and serbian orthodox samples as being of low scoring, lagging behind the normative mean, in contrast to the other two samples. if personal extrinsicness is considered, the situation is somewhat different the us protestants scoring behind the serbian orthodox, indicating a complexity in the situations. slovenian catholics attain the highest score with the eo dimension, the serbian orthodox do so with the ep one, as do bosnian muslims, at an exceptionally high level, whereas american protestants attain their highest level with the i dimension. as to the eo dimension the two samples found being strong in religious i sentiment indicate averages below the normative means and vice versa, suggesting a form of low commitment religiosity. factor analysis the factor matrices in table 3 indicate good functioning of the gorsuch & mcpherson scale (1989) in this cross-cultural study, even though the fit is not perfect. the fall of the eigenvalue total below the restrictive kaiser rule in the fourth factor in three samples is within the allowed range (field, 2000, 437). there are significant crossloads between i and ep items in the non-american samples which are not an accident, dealt with elsewhere (flere & lavric, forthcoming). this is the way to explain the appearance of the ‘divine presence’, an i item in the ep factor only in the bosnian muslim sample, as well. the eo item ‘it doesn’t much matter…’ in the serbian orthodox sample does not reach a requested loading level for presentation in any factor. conditionally, one may say that the scale functions best in the american protestant environment with very few crossloads, particularly all eo items appearing in the es factor and one item even having the highest value there. the variety in the strength of the dimensions is interesting, the i dimension appearing strongest in the us protestant and bosnian muslim settings, whereas two different e dimensions appear first in the other two environments. eo items appear weakest in all environments, except for the us protestant one. in this last case this relative strength derives from the significant cross-loads from the i items. the basic substantial finding is that in all environments a meaningful four factor structure appears. this structure includes beside the three dimensions usually noted (kirkpatrick 1989; gorsuch & mcpherson, 1989), a distinct eo dimension. the clarity of its appearance is somewhat obfuscated in the us protestant case, but it is, in this case as well, a factor separate of the i one, albeit contaminated by i loadings. this dimension was entered into the scale by authors because it raised the reliability and not for theoretical reasons, although it allows for theoretical explanation. this structure casts doubt in this respect, even in the american protestant case and tempts for a substantial standing of this dimension. eo items all indicate a peripheral position, a limited nature of the religious sentiment. in order to further explore these findings, confirmatory factor analysis was employed. we studied separately the situation with e items and the situation for the entire scale. see tables 4 and 5. validity of the three factor solution pertaining to e dimension was tested with cfa and compared with one factor solution, as presented in table 4. cfa indicated that one factor model including all of the nine e items did not meet the usual fit criteria for a model, regardless of which sample was used. the three factor solution, conceptualized as noted above (the e dimension was split in to three separate dimensions ep, es, eo) fared much better. although the model did not meet usual fit criteria – rmsea for slovenian and serbian sample was above the recommended value of .05 – it indicated that separation of e scale in to three dimensions proved to be a warranted one in all of the samples observed as the three factor solution fitted data significantly better than one factor solution. in addition, analysis of the modification indices indicated that model could be improved further if one would allow error terms to correlate. results presented in table 5 indicated that four factor solution, where all hypothesized dimensions of ro were separated, fitted data better than three factor-model (supposing for i and ep items as single dimension). consequently, compounding of i and ep dimensions, in spite of item-cross loadings did not prove as a meaningful as efa might indicated. nevertheless, it is important to note that this separation between i and ep scales yielded best improvement in the fit when us sample was used, meaning that separation of i and ep is less warranted when non-protestant samples are used. thus, the above findings point to a difference between the protestant and the non-protestant structuring of orientation components, although it cannot be asserted that ep and i elements have blended into a single one in either of the non-protestant samples. the separates of eo items was not questionable at all. non-metric geometrical presentation may assist in clarifying the issue. multidimensional scaling it was possible and made sense to conduct the analysis as a two dimensional representation, with a view to the relation between the three orientation dimensions. see figures 1 through 4. a basic uniform pattern is discernible at visual inspection of figures 1 4. in all cases each of the four groups of items populates one of the four quadrants of the quadrangular. the distribution is particularly ‘perfect’ in the slovenian case, where each of the groups is leaning towards one angle of the quadrangular. on the other hand, in the serbian case, there is no clear visual separation between the intrinsic and ep items. as the ep and i items always populate the same vertical half, while the ep and es items were distributed horizontally into clusters, we were tempted to title the horizontal axis as the one pertaining to the personal – social dimension; the vertical axis always contained the i and the eo items in separate space, tempting us to title the vertical axis as indicating a variation between periphery and centrality. the fact that in the slovenian catholic sample (fig. 1), the vertical distribution is directed oppositely than in the other samples is without relevance in this type of analysis. all of the three eo items speak of the lack of relevance or impact of religion in one’s life. one might say that at least eo2 and eo3 pertain to (lack of) consequentiality (glock & stark, 1968). in all cases, eo items are closer to the bottom/top of the quadrangular (interpreted as irrelevance) than the other group of items populating this half, indicating eo items are more peripheral (in comparison to ep items). es items are never peripheral, in fact they are central, but always in vertical relationship to ep items. at closer inspection, one finds in all 4 figures that intrinsic items pertaining to relevance of prayer (i_2) and to religion holding central position in one’s outlook (i_5) (the one considered the most indicative by gorsuch & mcpherson, among the i items, 1989, 352), being vertically in locations closest to the axis in all figures. by way of contrast, the i_1 reading item holds a low position in the american protestant sample only, as to be expected owing to the special relevance of reading the holy scriptures within protestantism. this supports the suggestion that we are dealing with the centrality – periphery dimension. the findings pertaining to reliability to the factor structure observed explanatorily and confirmatorily and particularly the two dimensional representation suggest that there are no problems as to equivalence of meaning in the different, although abrahamic religions. discussion the above findings allow for a number of conclusions: firstly, it is admissible to allow for the application of the gorsuch & mcpherson (1989) scale to some non-christians, lending further support to the endeavors of ghorbani, watson, ghramaleki, morris & hood (2000) and watson, ghorbani, davison, bing, hood and ghramaleki (2002) and questioning tiliopoulos et al. (2006) contentions to the opposite effect. secondly, there is a slight difference in the findings for us protestants, suggesting further study whether intrinsicness as a separate dimension might not be peculiar to them; stark and bainbridge consider intrinsicness a protestant peculiarity (1985, 13), while strickland and weddell (1972) opined that intrinsicness expressed ‘southern baptist theology’. thirdly, mds appears as a particularly fruitful methods in the study of conceptual differences within the i-e/r framework, as four groups of items, indicating four dimensions appearing in a very similar patterns in four rather different religious environments, although all within the abrahamic religious traditions. fourthly, our findings lend support for a contention of extrinsic otherness being a special, distrinct although not potent dimension of ro, indicative of a limited strength of this sentiment and of its expulsion from most other areas of life. this dimension appears particularly strong among the slovenian catholics, believing ones, otherwise low on intrinsicness. this dimension appears particularly clearly by two dimensional presentation, which is to do away with acquiescence, always appearing in a separate angle, always appearing closest to a horizontal axis, tempting us to title the axis as indicating periphery. the entire depiction of religious orientation as indicating two dimensions, including centrality and periphery, on the one hand, and a personal and a social component, on the other, should not come as a surprise to those working in the allportian schema, since personal and social motivations are universal and as allport was driven by an urge to differentiate between those who ‘live’ and those who ‘use’ their religion (allport & ross, 1967). the ‘use’ component has emerged more complex than might have been expected originally. beside the ‘use’ being personal and social, it pursues that we may also analyse whether the ‘use’ may be limited in nature. references ali, m. 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(1994). intrinsische und extrinsische religiöse orientierung: fragebogenskalen zum einsatz in der empirisch-religionspsychologischen forschung. zeitschrift für differentielle und diagnostische psychologie, 15, 131–139. zwingmann, c., moosbrugger, h., & frank, d. (1991). religiöse orientierung and ihre bedeutung für den zusammenhang zwischen religiosität und lebenszufriedenheit. zeitschrift für pädagogische psychologie, 5, 285–294. corresponding author sergej flere university of maribor, department of sociology e-mail: sergej.flere@uni-mb.si, tel. 386 51 349 971 the therapy for the sane how philosophy can change your life by lou marinoff bloomsbury usa review by ben mulvey, phd in his gorgias plato has socrates explain that his philosophical discussion concerns “a matter in which even a man of slight intelligence must take the profoundest of interest–namely, what course of life is best.” in the apology socrates justifies his mission by claiming “life without this sort of examination is not worth living.” thus, there is little doubt that from its earliest recorded history the discipline of philosophy has been deeply concerned with how people are to best live their lives. this is also the concern of the nascent philosophical counseling movement, of which lou marinoff is a leading light. marinoff’s the big questions: how philosophy can change your life is the third in a series of books on this subject. the first, plato, not prozac! applying philosophy to everyday problems (harpercollins, 1999), was reviewed in metapsychology on august 11, 1999. the second, philosophical practice (academic press, 2001), was also reviewed in metapsychology on march 11, 2002. the big questions might best be placed in the “self-help” section, as opposed to the philosophy section, of your local bookstore. the book is clearly targeted at a general audience and is meant to show that audience that philosophy has something of value in that it addresses “the concrete problems of living” (5). there have been a number of books published in the last decade or so recently that target not academic philosophers, but the lay public, which their authors believe can benefit from the application of important philosophical ideas to people’s lives. consider the relevance of philosophy to life, by lachs; the art of living, by nehamas; philosophy as a way of life by hadot; to mention but a few recent titles. the book is divided into four parts of varying length and purpose. part one consists of one chapter and sets the stage for what is to follow. those familiar with marinoff’s earlier works will see a recurring theme here, i.e., a certain disdain for the “business” of contemporary therapy, that “isn’t science; it’s business.” accoring to marinoff, managed health care demands “diagnoses, or health insurers will not reimburse them for their services. so they’d better find some disease if they want to earn a living” (7). the primary insight of the big questions is to make a distinction between what marinoff calls dis-ease and disease. dis-ease is a troubling concern regarding a concrete problem of living that any of us can have from time to time. if “our beliefs cause you to feel dis-ease, and if you lack the philosophical guidance to deal with your dis-ease constructively, then you are liable to suffer unnecessarily yourself and possibly to spread your dis-ease destructively to others, like some virulent contagion of the mind” (15). much dis-ease, claims marinoff, can be alleviated simply by “modifying one’s beliefs, disowning one’s prejudices, and altering one’s habits.” and this, he says, “amounts to philosophical practice” (21). thus, the big questions is designed to assist people in avoiding two sorts mistake. “treating disease as though it were dis-ease is one kind of mistake; treating dis-ease as though it were disease is another” (7). “you can’t always change your circumstances, but you can change the way in which you interpret them” (9). the role of philosophy, philosophical counseling, and the big questions, then, is to assist in interpreting those circumstances. part two is divided into ten chapters, each of which addresses one sort of common concern or another that seems to trouble a number of people. the “therapeutic” response to these concerns is to first understand it as a manifestation of some sort of simplistic dichotomous thinking and then to achieve some insight and, it is hoped, relief through a more sophisticated understanding of that dichotomy, usually with the help of a well-known philosopher or philosophical idea. part two, making up the bulk of the book, in one way or another deals with the following dichotomies: pain/suffering, need/want, offense/harm, reason/passion, appearance/reality, universals/particulars, war/peace, competition/cooperation, individual/group, male/female, mechanisms/organisms, matter/spirit, and change/constancy. part three consists of one concluding chapter, “building your philosophical house.” this chapter is designed to help the reader get his or her philosophical house in order. in other words, as marinoff puts it, “the important question is whether your philosophy of life is working for you or against you, or not at all” (319). to make this assessment marinoff offers what he calls a “blueprint or a design to follow.” he labels it the means method. “the means i’m suggesting is an acronym. i will walk you through moments of truth, expectations, attachments, negative emotions, and sagacious choices…” (320). if one has some knowledge of the basic tenets of stoicism and buddhism one will likely find this “method” somewhat familiar. part four, “additional resources,” consists of four appendices. the full title of appendix 1 is “hit parade of ideas: ninety-nine useful thinkers in philosophical counseling.” here marinoff includes brief entries of philosophers from aristotle to zeno of elea. each entry includes a one sentence or so “theme” capturing the spirit of the philosopher, a well-know “refrain” or quotation or idea for which the philosopher is known, a brief listing of the philosopher’s “greatest hits” or most famous works, and a brief summary of the philosopher’s importance and or biographical/intellectual context. appendix 2, “organizations for philosophical practice,” offers contact information for philosophical counseling movements in the united states, canada, finland, germany, israel, the netherlands, norway, slovakia, and the united kingdom. appendix 3, offers a “directory of appa-certified philosophical practitioners.” appendix 4 consists of a helpful listing of “further reading.” the book contains no index. as i said at the outset, the big questions is meant for a general audience, not for specialized philosophers. professional philosophers will likely consider this book too philosophically simplistic and an example of philosophy lite. certainly philosophy has always been about advice for living, in part. professional philosophers will likely think this a trivialization of their chosen field regardless of whether a general audience may benefit. the big questions is about giving advice. but as a method of counseling, it is not clear how it represents a distinct method, as distinct from schools of psychotherapy. the general advice making up the theme of each chapter quickly wanders from a specific philosophical idea, author, text, into simple advice-giving. it’s not that the advice offered is wrong-headed or bizarre. my concern is that there is no clear foundational methodology, marinoff’s means method notwithstanding. the means “method,” it seems to me, is more of an organizational tool than a foundational method. priests, rabbis, and ministers, give advice and counsel. they may not employ a particular method or school of psychotherapy either. for them it may well come down to an interpretation and application of scripture. the extent to which this is accepted and proven helpful to members of the congregation is the extent to which the therapeutic “method” is validated. the humanistic psychology of carl rogers and his followers provides a similar situation. rogers pulled from a number of sources, eastern religio-philosophical sources among them. and perhaps that was its strength and appeal. should professional psycho-therapists be concerned with the position that the big questions represents? not in my opinion. as marinoff says, “we are not trying to replace or supplant psychiatry or psychology. we are simply restoring philosophy to its rightful place, in partnership with other helping professions” (11). there seems to me to be room for a self-help book targeted at literate individuals that seek insight into their concerns and who may not need more established, accepted forms of psycho-therapy. ben mulvey, phd is an associate professor of philosophy and director of the division of humanities of the college of arts and sciences at nova southeastern university. he received his doctorate in philosophy from michigan state university specializing in political theory and applied ethics. he teaches ethics at nsu and is a member of the board of advisors of the florida bioethics network. © 2005 ben mulvey metapsychology mental help net’s bookstore five dimensions of european identity: a contribution to the italian adaptation and validation of the in-group identification scale research reports five dimensions of european identity: a contribution to the italian adaptation and validation of the in-group identification scale francesco la barbera*a, vincenza caponeb [a] department of political science, university of napoli “federico ii”, naples, italy. [b] department of humanities, university of napoli “federico” ii, naples, italy. abstract recent approaches define collective identity as a multi-component construct. nonetheless, there is a lack of research about the dimensionality of in-group identification in relation to european identity. leach and colleagues (2008) proposed a framework of in-group identification, in which they distinguish five main components integrated into two higher-order dimensions. in two studies we examined the validity of the italian version of the in-group identification scale by leach et al., with a focus on european identity. confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the hierarchical model of in-group identification fitted the data well (study 1); the measure was shown to have satisfactory convergent and divergent validity. in study 2, the relations between european identification and several possible antecedents and outcomes were examined. keywords: in-group identification, multi-dimensional identity, european identity, italian adaptation, sem europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 received: 2015-10-15. accepted: 2016-05-10. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: panagiotis gkorezis, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece *corresponding author at: dipartimento di scienze politiche, università degli studi di napoli federico ii, via rodinò 22, 80100 napoli (na), italy. ph./fax: 00390812538108. e-mail: francesco.labarbera@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there are several major theories in social sciences which address the topic of the individuals’ identification with a collective entity, such as a group or a social category; collective identity has been shown to have huge implications for people attitudes and behaviour (ashmore, deaux, & mclaughlin-volpe, 2004; cartwright & zander, 1968; tajfel & turner, 1979). the degree to which an individual identifies with an in-group determines the degree to which that membership is psychologically and socially influent (ellemers, spears, & doosje, 1999). therefore, many scholars, in the last decades, have devoted their work to the conceptual definition and measurement of in-group identification (see ashmore et al., 2004; capozza & brown, 2000). in social psychology, tajfel’s influential approach defines social identity as “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (tajfel, 1978, p. 63). hence, social identity has been originally proposed as a multi-dimensional construct, with a cognitive, an evaluative, and an affective dimension (tajfel, 1978, 1981). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ nonetheless, identification has been often intended as a general connection to an in-group and measured by a mono-dimensional scale, yet this approach has been criticized (leach et al., 2008). consistent with tajfel’s original definition, recent approaches propose social identity as amultidimensional construct, and a number of conceptualizations and measures have been elaborated (cameron, 2004; jackson, 2002; leach et al., 2008; luhtanen & crocker, 1992; obst & white, 2005). research has shown that individuals identify themselves to a different degree in relation to different identity dimensions; in addition, social identity dimensions have been found to be differently predictive of attitudes and behaviour (ellemers, kortekaas, & ouwerkerk, 1999; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012). however, as underlined by ashmore and colleagues (2004), the number and characteristics of the in-group identification dimensions are still unclear; the proliferation of theories and measures has determined a somewhat confusing scenario, in which “the same label can be used to refer to different concepts, or similar concepts are used with different labels” (p. 82). to address this issue, leach and colleagues (2008), on the basis of a wide review of the existing conceptualizations and measures of in-group identification, have proposed a new theoretical framework, in which they distinguish five main components integrated into two more abstract, higher-order dimensions: group-level self-definition and group-level self-investment. the five components are: 1) individual self-stereotyping, 2) in-group homogeneity, 3) solidarity, 4) satisfaction, and 5) centrality. as lovakov, agadullina, and osin (2015, p. 3) state: “individual self-stereotyping is the degree to which an individual perceives herself as similar to an in-group prototype. in-group homogeneity is the degree to which an individual perceives her in-group as relatively homogeneous and distinct from relevant out-groups”. individual selfstereotyping and in-group homogeneity are, in turn, two dimensions of the group-level self-definition factor. the group-level self-investment factor organizes the remaining three components. solidarity refers to “a sense of belonging, a psychological attachment to the in-group, and coordination with other group members. satisfaction refers to the positive evaluation of the in-group. centrality is the salience and importance of in-group membership” (lovakov et al., 2015, p. 3). leach and colleagues (2008) operationalized the hierarchical model proposed by a 14 item scale—the in-group identification scale. this measure gives a complete view of group identity, and has robust psychometric properties. recently, roth and mazziotta (2015) adapted and validated the scales on a german large sample, in relation to three different identification targets (gender, nation, organization). results confirmed the good psychometrics quality of the instrument. the current study primarily aims to evaluate the validity of the italian version of the in-group identification scale, examining the structure, reliability, convergent, divergent, and construct validity. in addition, we choose to conduct our analyses with a focus on a more challenging identity, namely the european identity. in two studies, indeed, participants were asked about their identification as europeans. there is a huge interest among social scientist about european identity (castano, 2004; herrmann & brewer, 2004; hooghe & marks, 2004; lubbers, 2008; thomassen & back, 2008; vetik, nimmerfelft, & taru, 2006), which has been shown to have a significant effect on relevant outcomes, such as group-based trust, willingness to cooperate, attitudes towards eu deepening and widening (la barbera, 2015; la barbera, cariota ferrara, & boza, 2014; zielonka, 2005). moreover, there is a growing interest about the dimensionality of european identity, and few theoretical conceptualization has been proposed (bruter, 2003; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012), yet the topic needs a deeper investigation (la barbera et al., 2014). leach and colleagues’ (2008) approach could be particularly interesting and useful in this europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 289 http://www.psychopen.eu/ context, to open up a research line aimed to clarify the number, quality, antecedents and effects of the different dimensions of european identity. therefore, our study aimed to give a first contribution in this direction, examining the psychometric properties of the italian version of in-group identification measure by leach and colleagues (2008) in relation to european identity (study 1), and exploring how the different dimensions of european identity are correlated with established antecedent and dependent variables (study 2). study 1 leach and colleagues (2008) identified five different components of in-group identification integrated into two more abstract, higher-order dimensions: we expected to confirm the same hierarchical structure in the italian sample. we also hypothesized the five subscales of the italian in-group identification scale to have a high internal reliability, similar to earlier findings in the leach and colleagues’ samples. we hypothesized that our studies would have confirmed the convergent and divergent validity of the italian ingroup identification scale, with its subscales correlating with corresponding measures. thus we expected all five sub-dimensions of the scale to be correlated with a general measure of in-group identification (doosje, ellemers, & spears, 1995). on the other hand, for testing divergent validity, we needed a construct that could be supposed to be in contrast with all the five identity dimensions. previous research has steadily shown a positive relationship between ingroup identification and positive affect towards the ingroup (e.g. brewer, 1999; cameron, 2004). therefore, we hypothesized the five components of in-group identification to correlate negatively with a measure of in-group negative affect we build ad hoc for the eu context. method participants privacy information and consent to the processing of personal data in accordance with the international ethical standards were asked to participants. as a guarantee of anonymity, each questionnaire was marked by an alphanumeric identification code, previously assigned to each participant. a total of 210 pencil-and-paper questionnaires were distributed, and 195 were returned (response rate: 92.9%). the participants were italian university students in political science, between the ages of 18 and 48 (m = 21.52 years old; sd = 4.46), with 62.8% identifying as female. all participants indicated that they were born in italy and that their native language was italian. the data were provided by students in italy within the context of their university. items were presented in a single random order. measures the italian in-group identification scale — the group identification scale by leach and colleagues (2008) was used; the scale consists of 14 items organized into five sub-scales: individual self-stereotyping (iss, 2 items), in-group homogeneity (igh, 2 items), satisfaction (4 items), solidarity (3 items) and centrality (3 items). example of items are: ‘i feel a bond with europeans’; ‘i am glad to be european’. the italian translated in-group identification scale was back-translated to ensure translation equivalency. two bilingual phd researchers were involved in the translation process. one of the researchers who translated the original tool to italian had a phd in social psychology from a university in italy. the other translator, who had europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 290 http://www.psychopen.eu/ been educated in the united states and had a phd in psychology, translated the italian in-group identification scale back to english, without any discussion with the first translator. adjustments were provided for ensuring understandability, psychological equivalence, and the correctness of the translation from english to italian. the original and back-translated english versions did not differ appreciably as judged by the translators. participants were asked to indicate their agreement on a scale from 1 (totally disagree), to 10 (totally agree). group identification scale — the group identification scale by doosje and colleagues (1995) was used. this measure consists of 4 items (e.g. ‘‘i see myself as an european’’). participants were asked to rate each item on a scale from 1 (totally disagree), to 10 (totally agree). the whole scale had a reliability of .71. negative affect scale — drawing on previous studies (boomgaarden, schuck, elenbaas, & de vreese, 2011; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012), five items were used for measuring participants’ negative feelings about eu (e.g.: “i feel threatened by european union”). participants indicated their agreement with each item on a scale from 1 (totally disagree), to 10 (totally agree). the internal coherence proved adequate, α = 0.82. results and discussion in the first study, the items of in-group identification scale were evaluated with regards to variance and frequency distribution, in order to select the items for the factor analysis. the kaiser–meyer–olkin (kmo)measure of sampling adequacy and bartlett’s test of sphericity were considered to test whether the dataset was suitable for factor analysis. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted, using the maximum likelihood estimation method, to evaluate the underlying structure of items. in order to evaluate the solution we took into account the goodness of fit indexes. the chi-square (χ2) was used to indicate the difference between observed and expected covariance matrices, testing the null hypothesis of ideal model fit where the residual covariance equals zero.we also considered adequate: comparative fit index (cfi) and the tucker–lewis index (tli) values above 0.90 (bentler, 2005; byrne, 1994), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) values below or equal to 0.06, and root mean square residual (rmsr), values equal to or below 0.09 (hu & bentler, 1999). to compare models on the basis of the same data matrix compare models fit, we used the akaike information criterion (aic) index (kline, 2000; byrne, 2011). in order to test the reliability of the scale, we computed the internal consistency using cronbach’s alpha. an internal consistency greater than 0.70 is thought to be necessary for a valid psychological scale (nunnally & bernstein, 1995). for the analysis of the internal consistency of the scale, the corrected correlation between the score of the item and the second order dimensions of in-group identification scale was computed. relations between the measures were examined using the pearson product–moment correlations. statistical significance was set at p-value < 0.05. analyses were computed with spss 15.0 and mplus 5.0 for cfa. in order to analyze internal consistency of the italian in-group identification dimensions, we calculated the corrected correlation between the score of the items and each of second order dimensions. maximum likelihood estimation was used in all the analyses. for “self-definition” coefficients ranged between 0.51 (item 1) and 0.73 (item 4) and were considered adequate since they were greater than 0.30 (nunnally & bernstein 1995). the means of the items ranged from 4.97 (item 4) to 5.57 (item 1). the standard deviation was higher than 1 for all items, ranging between 1.92 (item 2) and 2.34 (item 3). skewness and kurtosis showed a normal distribution in items’ response: skewness ranging between -0.32 (item 1) and 0.30 (item 4), and kurtosis ranging between -0.63 (item 2) and 0.23 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 291 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (item 1). for “self-investment” coefficients ranged between 0.57 (item 10) and 0.82 (item 14). the means of the items ranged from 3.41 (item 6) to 6.66 (item 13). the standard deviation was higher than 1 for all items, ranging between 2.06 (item 6) and 2.63 (item 13). skewness ranging between 0.18 (item 5) and -0.62 (item 13), and kurtosis ranging between -0.97 (item 10) and -0.78 (item 5). to test how well the measurement model fit the 14 items of in-group identification we performed cfas, following the procedure used by leach et al. (2008, p. 149) “to examine how well the proposed measurement model fit the 14 items of in-group identification. items were permitted to load only on the component they were expected to indicate, and no item errors were allowed to correlate. the five components of in-group identification were specified as indicating second-order factors of self-definition (individual self-stereotyping and in-group homogeneity) or self-investment (satisfaction, solidarity, centrality). although the five components were not allowed to correlate, the second-order factors of self-definition and self-investment were allowed to correlate” (see figure 1). table 1 shows the fit of this proposed measurement model: it fit the data well for identification as european. figure 1. proposed measurement model for european identification. note. iss = individual self-stereotyping; igh = in-group homogeneity. for all coefficients p <.001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 292 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as shown in figure 1, all standardized item loadings exceeded .45, with many above 0.80, and differed significantly from zero (p < .001). each of the five components loaded onto the expected second-order factor. these loadings exceeded 0.60, and differed significantly from zero (p < .001). the second-order factors of self-definition and selfinvestment were strongly and significantly related (.81 p < .001). all these parameters confirm that the model, with five components and two second-order factors, fitted well. table 1 fit of competing (measurement) models of in-group identification in study 1 aictlicfisrmr rmsea p ≤ .0590% cirmseaχ2(df); pmodel 10743.572.96.97.037.206.040, .077.059119.029(71); p = .0003 five-component/two-dimensional (figure 1) alternative models 10757.645.95.96.043.056.049, .084.067135.102(72); p = .00001 model a. five-component/one-dimensional 10918.250.83.86.085.000.110, .139.124303.707(76); p = .00001 model b. two-component: self-definition and self-investment 11052.773.74.78.079.000.142, .170.156440.230(77); p = .00001 model c. one-component: identification 11158.625.66.72.291.000.163, .191.177546.081(77); p = .00001 model d. two-component: cognitive/self-categorization and affective ties/social identity 10759.645.95.96.043.047.050, .085.068135.101(71); p = .00001 model e. alternative five-component/two-dimensional in a second step, we estimated the fit of the five alternative models suggested by leach et al. (2008). the first alternative model (model a, see table 1) specified the five components as indicating one second-order factor of in-group identification. this model provided only marginal fit to the data. in addition, it produced aic values higher than the proposed model. a second alternative model (model b, see table 1) posited that: 1) the items of individual self-stereotyping and in-group homogeneity saturated on self-definition factor; 2) the items of centrality, satisfaction, solidarity saturated on self-investment factor. this model fit the data poorly. a third alternative (model c, see table 1) specified all of the items as indicating a general factor of in-group identification. as well, this model fit the data very poorly. a fourth alternative model (model d, see table 1) posited that: 1) the items of individual self-stereotyping, in-group homogeneity, and centrality saturated on a cognitive/self-categorization factor (see leach et al., 2008; jackson, 2002); 2) the items of satisfaction and solidarity saturated on an affective ties/social identity factor. this model fit the data poorly. the last alternative model (model e, see table 1) specified the component of individual self-stereotyping, in-group homogeneity, and centrality as saturating on the self-definition dimension, whereas the items of satisfaction and europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 293 http://www.psychopen.eu/ solidarity as saturating on the self-investment dimension. although this model tended to fit the data satisfactorily, in line with leach et al.’s (2008) study, its aic values tended to be higher those of the proposed model, such as rmsea. furthermore the probability rmsea is significant. reliability and descriptive statistics given the confirmation of the five-component measurement model, we computed scale scores for each component. all five scales were of moderate or high reliability, cronbach’s α were: iss, α = .72; igh, α = .90; satisfaction, α = .81, centrality, α = .79, solidarity, α = .79. table 2 summarizes the descriptive and correlational statistics obtained on the in-group identification subscales. table 2 study 1: descriptive and correlational statistics 54321sdmscale –1. iss .761.365 –2. igh .53**.232.844 –3. satisfaction .48**.53**.152.096 –4. centrality .69**.51**.50**.204.204 –5. solidarity .64**.61**.41**.47**.112.625 **p < .001. convergent and divergent validity tables 3 and 4 illustrate the correlations between the five components of in-group identification and the established measures. table 3 convergent validity: bivariate correlations with group identity scale (study 1) igs (pr)igsscale iss .40**.63** igh .32**.55** -satisfaction .74** cetrality .51**.76** solidarity .54**.74** note. satisfaction controlled in partial r (pr). **p < .001. for the sake of comparability with leach et al. (2008), we calculated also the partial correlations which control for satisfaction, because satisfaction is a general and strong component of in-group identification and tends to correlate most highly with the different scales. as we expected, all five dimensions of in-group identification scale were significantly interrelated with igs, either controlling or not for satisfaction. this supported the convergent validity of the scale tested. on the other hand, consistent with our hypothesis, the correlations between the five components of in-group identification and negative europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 294 http://www.psychopen.eu/ affect were significant and negative; controlling for satisfaction, correlations remained negative, yet dropped in significance, except for individual self-stereotyping, whose negative correlation with igis was significant and low. overall, results suggested divergent validity of the five scales. table 4 divergent validity: bivariate correlations with group identity scale (study 1) negative affect (pr)negative affectscale iss .26**-.47**igh .04-.28**-satisfaction .53**cetrality .07-.32**solidarity .12-.40**note. satisfaction controlled in partial r (pr). **p < .001. study 2 in second study, our aim was to expand on the leach et al. (2008) studies exploring the relation between in-group identification and some of its possible antecedents and outcomes. indeed, the (empirical) validity of distinguishing between different dimensions of a constructs is corroborated by finding that relevant variables are differently interrelated with them (see la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2010). in addition, in second study we had a keen interest to several variables relevant to the eu context. in recent years, several studies have addressed the relationships between people’s identification as europeans and psycho-social factors such as cooperation and pro-european attitudes (la barbera, 2015; la barbera, cariota ferrara, & boza, 2014). nonetheless, the identification as europeans has almost been measured by uni-dimensional scales (for an exception, see la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012). therefore, our second study provides an early exploration of the complex issue of relationships between different dimensions of european identity and their possible antecedents and consequences. we expected the gender of participants to affect the solidarity dimension of in-group identification, considering that gender research suggests that women excel in the relational domain (brands & kilduff, 2014), in part because social activity matches prevailing stereotypes concerning women as communal and warm human beings (spence & buckner 2000). women tend to rate themselves more highly than men on self-related dimensions concerning interdependence; in terms of conversational norms, they prefer talking about relationships when describe themselves (cross & madson, 1997). for women, the significance of the group results from the degree to which the group fulfills their relational needs (maddux & brewer, 2005). on the contrary, we expect perceived interdependence to affect all five dimensions. indeed, previous research has shown that interdependence feeling affects either group level self-definition and group-level self-investment (henry, arrow, & carini, 1999; leach et al., 2008; lewin, 1948; see also capone, petrillo, & romano, 2013). as dependent variables potentially affected by participants’ identification with eu, we focused on two dependent variables which have been the target of an emergent research (boomgaarden, schuck, elenbaas, & de vreese, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 295 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2011; la barbera, 2015; schuck & de vreese, 2006): the attitudes towards eu integration and eu enlargement. eu integration (“deepening”) and enlargement (“widening”) have been considered as two different variables (karp & bowler, 2006), taking into account that in countries such as the uk, eu enlargement is supported, whereas eu integration is not (lubbers & scheepers, 2010). the attitude towards eu integration is the orientation towards the increase of eu power, even in substitution of national sovereignty, and it is related to eu legitimacy (castano, 2004). the eu widening addresses the issue of demarcation: who is a group member, and who is not (maier & rittberger, 2008)? however, either the attitude towards eu deepening and the attitude towards eu widening have been found to be positively correlated with identification with eu (boomgaarden et al., 2011; de vreese & boomgaarden, 2006; fuchs & schlenker, 2006; la barbera, 2015). nonetheless, as we already stated, there is a lack of research about the different dimensions of european identity and, in our best knowledge, any research has addressed the issue of which dimension of identification with eu would affect those attitudes. therefore, in second study we provided an early exploration of that issue. taking into account that the eu deepening recalls the comparison between memberships at different levels (local, national, supra-national), we hypothesized that centrality would be correlated with that attitude more than the other dimensions. as for eu widening, we expected instead the satisfaction to play a significant role. the less individuals are satisfied with their in-group experience and status, the less likely they are willing to welcome new members (tajfel & turner, 1979), who could represent a threat for the group. method participants the second study sample consisted of 89 undergraduate college students (50 women) enrolled in a course of agricultural at the university “federico ii” of naples. the mean age for this group was 24.41 years, sd = 3.77, range from 20 to 40. as in study 1, research participation complies with the international ethical standards. the data were provided by students in italy within the context of their university. items were presented in a single random order. measures interdependence— participants were asked to indicate their agreement (on a scale from 1 to 10) with the following statement: “the member states of european union share a common fate”. attitude towards eu deepening — five items (see appendix 1) were used for measuring participants’ attitude towards eu deepening (la barbera, 2015). participants indicated their agreement on scales from 1 (totally disagree) to 10 (totally agree). the measure had adequate internal coherence (α = .72), and a mean score for the whole scale was computed, with higher values corresponding to a more favourable attitude towards eu deepening. attitude towards eu widening — three items (see appendix 1) were used for measuring participants’ attitude towards eu enlargement (la barbera, 2015). participants indicated their agreement on scales from 1 (totally europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 296 http://www.psychopen.eu/ disagree) to 10 (totally agree). the whole scale had good internal coherence (α = .81), and an average score was computed, with higher values corresponding to a more favourable attitude towards eu enlargement. results and discussion table 5 provide males’ and females’ mean scores on the identification scales. as we hypothesized, the effect of gender was significant only for the solidarity component of identification, t(87) = 2.05, p < .05 (for the other components, ts < 1, ps > .10). table 5 study 2: identification scores by gender and interdependence level interdependence levelgender scale highlowfemalemale iss .524.723.254.933 igh .484.323.953.873 satisfaction .105.244.734.584 cetrality .613.672.103.223 solidarity .794.693.464.893 using a median split procedure, we divided participants in two groups with relatively high vs. low scores on the interdependence item. then we compared the mean scores of the two groups on the five identification scales (see table 5). as we expected, the identification mean scores of participants in the high interdependence group, compared to those in the low interdependence group, were higher on all five dimensions, ts > 3, ps < .01. finally, table 6 shows the interrelations between the five identification scales and the attitudes towards eu deepening and widening. table 6 intercorrelations between identification and attitudes towards eu deepening and widening wideningdeepeningscale iss .225*.135 igh .319**.170 satisfaction .369**.171 centrality .326**.247* solidarity .203.084 *p < .05. **p < .01. as for eu deepening, we found a significant correlation only with the centrality subscale, which support our hypothesis. further, as we expected, satisfaction was significantly correlated with attitude towards eu widening; eu widening was also significantly correlated with centrality, self-stereotyping and in-group homogeneity. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 297 http://www.psychopen.eu/ general discussion the central aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the italian version of in-group identification measure by leach et al. (2008). in meeting this goal, we conducted two studies. in study 1, the cfa shown that the hierarchical model of in-group identification, which included the second-order factors of group-level self-definition (individual self-stereotyping and in-group homogeneity) and group-level self-investment (satisfaction, centrality and solidarity) fitted the data well and showed a better fit than the alternative models. we examined the construct validity and reliability of the italian version of in-group identification measure: findings highlight that these scales have good psychometric properties. all items showed their highest factor loadings with the dimensions, suggesting that the 14 items of the italian version of the leach and colleagues’ measure of in-group identification are adequate. the measure was shown to have satisfactory convergent and divergent validity. in addition, the current paper contributes to extend the leach et al. (2008) study in several ways, apart from being the first study of an italian sample. first, we used different validation measures than the previous study, especially including measures for negative affect to test the divergent validity. second, the likert-type response scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) used in the original study was considered useful, yet not much discriminating. therefore, we preferred a rating scale with 10 response categories; the psychometrics properties of the original scale do not seem weakened. the results of our first study provide solid support for leach et al. (2008) concept of in-group identification as a multidimensional construct: the hierarchical model of in-group identification can be a useful tool in future research. in study 2, we explored the interrelations of the five identification scales with several antecedent and outcome variables. although limited by the small sample, findings offer some interesting points. the five scales appear to be differently interrelated with several (independent and dependent) variables, namely the participants’ gender and their attitudes towards eu deepening and widening. these results support leach et al. (2008) scale’s construct validity, also providing further insight into the advantages of using a multidimensional measure of in-group identification rather than a uni-dimensional measure. recent studies have proposed measures of identification which consist of a single item (postmes, haslam, & jans, 2013; reysen et al., 2013). as the authors state, these simple measures could be very useful, especially in research contexts with limited resources in terms of time and dataprocessing costs; nonetheless, “multidimensional measures are recommended for researchers interested in the associations between a phenomenon and specific dimensions of in-group identification” (reysen et al., 2013, p. 469). however, the idea of measuring identification with a single item relies on the proposed homogeneity of the psychological construct, which should be well represented by a uni-dimensional model. this is not supported by our findings, showing that leach et al. 2008’s hierarchical model fit the data better than a uni-dimensional model (see also leach et al., 2008; roth & mazziotta, 2015). although results for the italian version of the measure by leach and colleagues (2008) are promising, there are some limitations to the present research. the italian versionmeasure of in-group identification has been investigated only in one type of in-group. moreover, identification with europe refers to a social group with a low degree of interaction between group members. hence, the model of in-group identification needs to be validated with different groups (e.g. task-oriented, primary groups). the concurrent and divergent validation of in-group identification is not complete: there are a number of different constructs that could have been measured in order to test the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 298 http://www.psychopen.eu/ validity of the measure. the sample of study 2 is quite small, although similar sized sample have been previously used for testing scales’ predictive validity (e.g., reysen et al., 2013, study 3). increasing the sample size and heterogeneity could give more opportunity to detect significant relationships between the identification dimensions, their antecedents, and the relevant psycho-social variables they affect. finally, a longitudinal design could be employed in future research to investigate test-retest reliability, which has not been explored either in the original or in the adapted version. as regards the eu context, present research provide a first contribution to the exploration of the dimensionality of european identity, a crucial topic on which there is a growing interest (e.g., bruter, 2003; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012), yet there is not a significant empirical evidence on the number and quality of european identity dimensions. leach et al. (2008)’s studies could provide a framework to better understand the structure of citizens’ identification with eu. for example, as we hypothesized, our results show that only the centrality dimension is correlated to attitude towards eu deepening. indeed, eu further integration involves comparisons and sometimes contrasts between peoples’ memberships at different levels (local, national, supra-national). therefore, individuals’ identification with eu plays a significant role in fostering their attitude towards eu deepening when the european membership plays a significant role in their identity hierarchy. in a similar vein, using leach and colleagues’ theoretical framework and instruments, future research could fruitfully investigate the interrelation between the different components of identification with eu and other variables relevant to the eu context. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ashmore, r. d., deaux, k., & mclaughlin-volpe, t. 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(2005). europe unbound: enlarging and reshaping the boundaries of the european union. london, united kingdom: routledge. appendix: scales used in the study strength of identification with eu (adapted from spears, doosje, & ellemers, 1997) i think about myself as a european citizen. i feel i am deeply tied to other european citizens. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 five dimensions of european identity 302 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1465116508089087 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f13576500444000182 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fbjso.12006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027%2f1864-9335%2fa000243 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0267323106060987 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167297235009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1471-6402.2000.tb01021.x http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/8287/sps_2008_02.pdf?sequence=1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1468-5965.2006.00674.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the whole, i am glad to be a european citizen. being a european citizen fully represents me. attitude towards eu integration (la barbera, 2015) eu should be a single country. i am in favor of a centralized management scheme of the european economy to replace the economic powers of individual states. i see positively a more immediate action in applying european norms. i would be in favor of the creation of one single european army to replace national armies. i would be in favor of giving a greater political power to the eu, greater than the power of each single country. attitude towards eu enlargement (la barbera, 2015) i see positively the enlargement of the eu beyond the countries that have joined from the beginning. i think that eu enlargement represents an opportunity for all of us. eu enlargement scares me. about the authors francesco la barbera holds a ph.d. in psychology of cognitive processes and dynamic processes of development and socialization. he is an assistant professor of social psychology at the university of naples federico ii, italy. vincenza capone holds a ph.d. in health psychology. since 2010 she is temporary professor of work and organizational psychology at the degree course in psychological sciences and techniques (university of naples federico ii). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 288–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1058 la barbera & capone 303 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en five dimensions of european identity (introduction) study 1 method results and discussion study 2 method results and discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: scales used in the study about the authors psychometric validation of the toronto mindfulness scale – trait version in chinese college students research reports psychometric validation of the toronto mindfulness scale – trait version in chinese college students pak-kwong chung*a, chun-qing zhanga [a] department of physical education, hong kong baptist university, hong kong, china. abstract the toronto mindfulness scale (tms; lau et al., 2006) has been widely used to assess the state mindfulness of participants after practicing mindfulness. recently, a trait version of the toronto mindfulness scale was developed and initially validated (tms-t; davis et al., 2009). we further examined the psychometric properties of tms-t using three hundred and sixty-eight chinese college students (233 females and 135 males) from a public university in hong kong. we found that factor analyses failed to support the existence of two-dimensional structure of the chinese version of the tms-t (c-tms-t). themodel fit indices indicated a marginal model fit, and the concurrent and convergent validities of the c-tms-t were not confirmed. the moderate item-to-subscale fit of the decentering subscale indicated that its structural validity was not satisfactory. in addition, the internal consistency coefficient of the decentering subscale using composite reliability (p = .61) was under the acceptable level. based on the results, we concluded that the application of the c-tms-t to the chinese population is premature. further validation of the c-tms-t using another sample of participants is recommended, in particular, individuals with meditation experiences. keywords: toronto mindfulness scale, mindfulness, reliability, validity, meditation europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 received: 2014-03-24. accepted: 2014-07-27. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: department of physical education, hong kong baptist university, 224 waterloo road, kowloon tong, hong kong. e-mail: pkchung@hkbu.edu.hk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction mindfulness is a key concept in buddhist teachings concerning the significance of consciousness (r. p. hayes, 2003). during the past decade, a surge of interest in mindfulness-based applications has been witnessed in western psychology (williams & kabat-zinn, 2011), particularly in clinical psychology research and practice. mindfulness has been integrated into several mindfulness and acceptance based therapies which closely resemble the buddhist traditions of mindfulness (cardaciotto, herbert, forman, moitra, & farrow, 2008), includingmindfulnessbased stress reduction (mbsr; kabat-zinn, 1982, 1990), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (mbct; segal, williams, & teasdale, 2002), dialectical behavior therapy (dbt; linehan, 1993a, 1993b), acceptance and commitment therapy (act; s. c. hayes, strosahl, & wilson, 1999), as well as variations of these approaches. although methodological rigor varies in applied practice (baer, 2003; bishop, 2002; grossman, niemann, schmidt, & walach, 2004), mindfulness-based interventions have received increasing support in research related to improving positive aspects of psychological functioning, such as mindfulness, emotion intelligence, acceptance, subjective europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ well-being, empathy, and hope, as well as reducing a variety of medical and psychological symptoms, including depression, depressive relapse, anxiety, substance abuse, chronic pain, disordered eating, psychosis, panic disorder, borderline personality disorder, suicidal behavior, and so on (see baer, 2003; choi, vickers, & tassone, 2014; grossman et al., 2004; s. c. hayes, luoma, bond, masuda, & lillis, 2006; hofmann, sawyer, witt, & oh, 2010; keng, smoski, & robins, 2011; soons, brouwers, & tomic, 2010). as mindfulness andmindfulness-based interventions gain more andmore attention, a widely recognized definition and operationalization of the mindfulness construct is urgently needed (bishop et al., 2004; brown & ryan, 2004; kabat-zinn, 2003). the most cited definition of mindfulness is “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (kabat-zinn, 2003, p. 145), which is built on buddhist philosophy. alternatively, rooted in the theories and research of social psychology, langer (2000) defined mindfulness as “a flexible state of mind in which we are actively engaged in the present, noticing new things and sensitive to context” (p. 220). compared to the nonreactive awareness and nonjudgmental acceptance of the present-moment experiences emphasized by kabat-zinn (1990, 2003), langer’s (1989, 2000) definition of mindfulness is focused on active processing of present-moment new information frommultiple perspectives, which is to understand various points of view that are situation dependent. although langer’s (1989, 2000) definition of mindfulness is not associated with meditation, a common base for these two different perspectives is that both of them include the component of paying attention to the present moment on purpose. given that various definitions have been developed from a variety of theoretical and applied backgrounds, consensus on a definition of mindfulness, among a variety of descriptions, is difficult to achieve (bishop et al., 2004; brown, ryan, & creswell, 2007). brown and ryan (2004) argued that mindfulness consists of a single factor described as attention to, and awareness of, what is taking place in the present. people who are high in mindfulness are believed to be aware of and attentive to present-moment experiences in daily life (brown & ryan, 2003). however, some researchers support the view that mindfulness is a multidimensional construct (e.g., baer, smith, hopkins, krietemeyer, & toney, 2006; bishop et al., 2004; cardaciotto et al., 2008; chadwick et al., 2008). based on varying but similar definitions, reliable and valid measures for examining the process and effectiveness of mindfulness-based training have also been developed accordingly, including the freiburg mindfulness inventory (fmi; buchheld, grossman, & walach, 2001; walach, buchheld, buttenmüller, kleinknecht, & schmidt, 2006), the mindful attention awareness scale (maas; brown & ryan, 2003), the kentucky inventory of mindfulness skills (kims; baer, smith, & allen, 2004), the cognitive and affective mindfulness scale–revised (cams-r; feldman, hayes, kumar, greeson, & laurenceau, 2007), the southampton mindfulness questionnaire (smq; chadwick et al., 2008), the five facet mindfulness questionnaire (ffmq; baer et al., 2006), and the philadelphia mindfulness scale (pmq; cardaciotto et al., 2008). these scales have been translated and validated in many languages (e.g., catak, 2012; deng, liu, rodriguez, & xia, 2011). although mindfulness is described more often as a trait-like or dispositional variable (i.e., a general tendency to be mindful in daily life), bishop and colleagues (2004) view mindfulness as a mode or state-like quality, namely, an intentionally cultivated attention to experience with an open, nonjudgmental orientation. they proposed an operational definition of mindfulness that focuses on two components: sustained attention to present experience, and an attitude of openness, curiosity, and acceptance. this definition has been adopted and supported by many researchers (e.g., cardaciotto et al., 2008; lau et al., 2006; thienot et al., 2014) when developing their own mindfulness measures. based on this definition, the toronto mindfulness scale (tms; lau et al., 2006) was developed to include curiosity and decentering as two separate factors. while curiosity is defined as “awareness of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 chung & zhang 727 http://www.psychopen.eu/ present moment experience with a quality of curiosity”, decentering is conceptualized in line with teasdale et al. (2002) as “awareness of one’s experience with some distance and disidentification rather than being carried away by one’s thoughts and feelings” (lau et al., 2006, p. 1452). unlike most self-report mindfulness measures which were originally designed to assess the trait-like or dispositional mindfulness, the tms was designed to examine state mindfulness immediately after a meditation practice (lau et al., 2006). although the tms has been widely used in mindfulness-based interventions and training, it has not been translated and validated in other languages. this may be due to the fact that tms was originally designed to measure state mindfulness after meditation practice (lau et al., 2006); it would be difficult for researchers to recruit enough qualified participants (i.e., meditators) who would meet the testing requirements. in addition, assessing the single-function role of state mindfulness might limit its application to non-meditation and non-mindfulness practice context. recently, a trait version of the toronto mindfulness scale (tms-t) was developed and initially validated by davis, lau, and cairns (2009), in which they converted the original state version (i.e., items described things that people just experienced) of the tms (lau et al., 2006) to a trait measure of people’s day-to-day experiences through rewording each item from the past tense into the present tense. this work has extended the use of tms from ameasure of state mindfulness to a measure of trait-like general tendency mindfulness, making the tms-t a useful tool to be further translated and validated, and applied to non-meditators without mindfulness experiences. although the feasibility of tms-t in college students has been examined, the initial validation of the tms-t (davis et al., 2009) has only confirmed the internal consistency reliability and convergent validity, but not the structural and concurrent validities (davis et al., 2009). thus, a further examination of structural and concurrent validities of the tms-t is warranted. secondly, although participants without meditation experiences were mixed with experienced meditators in davis et al. (2009), the results from this study did not distinguish the contribution of the college students from the experienced meditators. considering the growing interest of mindfulness in a chinese context, validation of the tms-t (davis et al., 2009) that is based on a widely-accepted theoretical framework can make significant contributions to the area. a validated tms-t could help researchers make better choices when investigating the relationship of trait-like mindfulness with other key concepts (e.g., well-being, emotion regulation, and emotion adjustment), and evaluate the effectiveness and mechanisms of mindfulness-based training. the purpose of the current study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the tsm-t in a sample of chinese college students in hong kong who are without meditation experiences. the structural validity was tested by conducting confirmatory factor analysis while the convergent and concurrent validities were tested by examining the relation between trait mindfulness and its criteria-related variables. to be in line with previous studies (davis et al., 2009; lau et al., 2006), both the subscales of curiosity and decentering were expected to be positively associated with mindfulness and subjective well-being, but negatively correlated with anxiety. method participants and procedure the participants were 368 hong kong chinese college students (233 females and 135 males) who attended physical education (pe) classes at a public university in hong kong. the average age of the students was 20.3 years (sd = 1.2; range = 18–25). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 toronto mindfulness scale – trait version 728 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with permission of the researchers who developed the tms-t (davis et al., 2009), the instrument was translated into chinese by two bilingual experts through a committee approach. a back translation from chinese to english was completed by another two bilingual experts. the steps for the transcultural validation of psychometric instruments were followed (hambleton, 2001, 2005). six hong kong native chinese college students were invited to complete the chinese translated tms-t (c-tms-t), and minor modifications were made based on the suggestions of the students on the wording and syntax to enhance item clarity. the packages of questionnaires were administrated in classrooms of pe classes which took approximately 15 minutes to complete. the students were given a written introduction to the study and informed of their voluntary role in completing the questionnaires. four pe classes, with 85 participants, were randomly selected from 17 pe classes to repeat the c-tms-t after a one-month interval in the same classrooms under similar conditions to assess test–retest reliability. measurements the chinese toronto mindfulness scale – trait version (c-tms-t) consists of 13 items under a two-factor structure, namely curiosity (6 items) and decentering (7 items). all the items are rated on a 5-point likert scale, from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much). given its wide application as a multidimensional mindfulness measure with satisfactory reliability and validity, the 39-item five facet mindfulness questionnaire (ffmq; baer et al. 2006) was selected to examine the convergent validity of c-tms-t. the ffmq includes five facets: observing (8 items, e.g., “when i’m walking, i deliberately notice the sensations of my body moving”), describing (8 items, e.g., “i’m good at finding words to describe my feelings”), acting with awareness (8 items, e.g., “when i do things, my mind wanders off and i’m easily distracted”[reversed]), non-judging (8 items, e.g., “i criticize myself for having irrational or inappropriate emotions”[reversed]), and non-reactivity (7 items, e.g., “i perceive my feelings and emotions without having to react to them”). items are scored on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (never or very rarely true) to 5 (very often or always true). the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of the subscales of ffmq ranges from .75 to .91. a chinese translated version of the ffmq demonstrated satisfactory validity and marginal and acceptable reliability among a chinese student sample (deng et al., 2011), with internal consistency reliabilities (cronbach’s alpha) of the subscales ranges from .45 to .84. in the current study, the internal consistency reliabilities of all the subscales are above .75, except for the non-reactive subscale which is .56. the satisfaction with life scale (swls; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) is selected to examine the concurrent validity of c-tms-t. the swls is a 5-item measure which is widely used to represent the cognitive evaluation of subjective well-being. all items on the swls are scored on 7-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). the swls was translated into chinese and validated in a chinese community population (xiong & xu, 2009). the internal consistency reliability (cronbach’s alpha) of the chinese version swls is .78. lastly, the state-trait anxiety inventory (stai; spielberger, gorsuch, lushene, vagg, & jacobs, 1983) is also selected to examine the concurrent validity of c-tms-t. the stai is a 40-item self-report instrument which consists of a 20-item state anxiety scale and a 20-item trait anxiety scale. it has long been used to measure both state and trait anxiety using a 4-point likert scale (1 = not at all to 4 = very much so). a chinese translated version of the stai demonstrated adequate reliability and validity in a sample of chinese college students (li & qian, 1995). given that we were aiming to examine the relation between trait mindfulness and its criteria-related variables, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 chung & zhang 729 http://www.psychopen.eu/ only the trait anxiety scale (tai) was used in the current study. the internal consistency reliability (cronbach’s alpha) of the tai is .88. data analysis descriptive and standard psychometric analyses were performed using spss 18 to evaluate the structural and substantive validity of the c-tms-t. a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted to test the factor structure of the c-tms-t using mplus 7 (muthén & muthén, 1998-2012). to evaluate the model fit, the following fit indices were assessed: (1) chi-square to df ratio (χ2/df), wherein a value of no more than 3 indicates a good fit (carmines & mciver, 1981); (2) the comparative fit index (cfi); (3) the tucker-lewis index (tli); (4) the root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea); and (5) the standardized root mean square residual (srmr). generally, values of the cfi and tli exceeding .90 indicate a good fit (hu & bentler, 1999). for the srmr and rmsea, the criterion for a good model fit is < .05, and .05 ≤ rmsea < .08 indicates a reasonable fit (browne & cudeck, 1993; hu & bentler, 1999). the intraclass correlation coefficient (icc) was used to estimate the test–retest reliability index of each c-tms-t subscale score. results structural validity explorative factor analysis, using principal component analysis and promax rotation, was conducted on the 368 cases. although four latent factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 were revealed, scree-plot analysis clearly suggested a two-factor solution (see figure 1). figure 1. factor components for the chinese toronto mindfulness scale – trait version (n = 368). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 toronto mindfulness scale – trait version 730 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to confirm the number of latent factors, we further employed the parallel analysis maximum likelihood method (pa-ml) using mplus 7. based on the average eigenvalue, the two-factor solution was confirmed, but only a singlefactor structure could be confirmed based on the 95% eigenvalue. a two-factor solution was preferred by adopting a less strict method. subsequently, a second analysis was conducted, which specified two factors to be identified using principal component analysis and promax rotation. the total variance explained by this two-factor solution was 40.82%. the results of the kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of sampling adequacy and bartlett’s test of sphericity were .859 and 1090.21 (df = 78, p < .001), respectively. table 1 summarizes the factor loadings of the 13 items categorized according to the latent factors and the c-tms-t item–subscale structure. items 4 and 7 (under the decentering subscale) were found to load on to factor 1 (the curiosity factor). items 1 (under the decentering subscale), 3 and 10 (under the curiosity subscale) appeared to be cross loading onto both scales, although items 3 and 10 still primarily loaded onto factor 1. table 1 factor loadings obtained from exploratory factor analysis (efa) results factor loadings factor 2factor 1items curiosity .32.403 -.835 -.876 .35.4310 -.6812 -.7013 decentering .21.211 .66-2 -.484 -.427 .37-8 .72-9 .72-11 note. curiosity refers to factor 1 and decentering refers to factor 2. skewness and kurtosis ranged between −1 and 1, indicating that the data were univariately, normally distributed. therefore, we conducted a further confirmatory factor analysis using mplus maximum-likelihood to confirm the existence of the two-factor structure of the c-tms-t. model fit indices indicated a marginal fit, where χ2(64) = 170.53, χ2/df = 2.66, cfi = .90, tli = .87, srmr = .049, rmsea(90%ci) = .067(.055, .079). the standardized factor loadings of each item from the original tms (lau et al., 2006), and 13-item c-tms-t are included in table 2. curiosity subscale factor loadings were statistically significant, and moderately large in magnitude, ranging from .54 to .72, and composite reliability (cr) was p = .82. however, the decentering subscale factor loadings were not satisfactory, ranging from .34 to .53, with composite reliability of .61. with the purpose of refining the ctms-t, we reviewed the contents of the three items (1, 2 and 4) with factor loadings below .40, and all three items were removed. another confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. the revised two-factor structure of the ctms-t showed a much better model fit, χ2(34) = 87.97, χ2/df = 2.59, cfi = .94, tli = .92, srmr = .041, rmsea europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 chung & zhang 731 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (90%ci) = .065 (.049, .082). the standardized factor loading with items of the revised c-tms-t (item 1, 2 and 4 deleted) are included in table 2 (10-item model). although the model fit improved in the revised 10-item c-tmst model, the reliability of the decentering subscale decreased below .60. the composite reliability for the curiosity and decentering subscales, in the 10-item c-tms-t, were .82 and .56, respectively. taken all of this into consideration, we decided to retain these three items in order to keep it consistent with the original 13-item scale. table 2 comparisons of the standardized factor loadings obtained from lau et al. (2006) with the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) results of the current study current study 10-item model 13-item model lau et al. (2006)c-tms-t factors and items curiosity .53.54.76i am curious about what i might learn about myself by taking notice of how i react to certain thoughts, feelings or sensations.3 .66.67.77i am curious to see what my mind is up to from moment to moment.5 .73.72.62i am curious about each of my thoughts and feelings as they occur.6 .63.63.77i remain curious about the nature of each experience as it arises.10 .68.68.77i am curious about my reactions to things.12 .69.69.82i am curious about what i might learn about myself by just taking notice of what my attention gets drawn to.13 decentering -.34.56i experience myself as separate from my changing thoughts and feelings.1 -.39.72i am more concerned with being open to my experiences than controlling or changing them.2 -.36.69i experience my thoughts more as events in my mind than as a necessarily accurate reflection of the way things ‘really’ are.4 .57.53.59i am receptive to observing unpleasant thoughts and feelings without interfering with them.7 .48.44.76i am more invested in just watching my experiences as they arise, than in figuring out what they could mean.8 .49.49.78i approach each experience by trying to accept it, no matter whether it is pleasant or unpleasant.9 .42.42.63i am aware of my thoughts and feelings without overidentifying with them.11 note. adapted from toronto mindfulness scale – trait version, davis et al. (2009). the 10-item model refers to two-factor tms-t model with items 1, 2 and 4 deleted. substantive validity descriptive statistics for the subscales of curiosity and decentering of the c-tms-t are shown in table 3. the correlations between the items and subscale scores were moderate for the curiosity subscale and low for the decentering subscale. the internal consistency reliabilities derived from the exploratory factor analysis (efa) using cronbach’s alpha were high at .82 for the curiosity subscale, and low (at .60) for the decentering subscale, suggesting good and moderate item homogeneity, respectively. table 3 subscale statistics of the chinese translated toronto mindfulness scale – trait version (c-tms-t) and test-retest reliability 95%citest-retest reliability c cronbach’s α b item-subscale correlationssdm a subscale .73.82.802.09curiosity , .826.587.65.47 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 toronto mindfulness scale – trait version 732 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 95%citest-retest reliability c cronbach’s α b item-subscale correlationssdm a subscale .66.60.662.06decentering , .781.479.38.25 note. ci = confidence interval. athere are 6 items in the curiosity subscale, 7 items in the decentering subscale; mean of all item scores. bthe alpha coefficients were derived from exploratory factor analysis. cintraclass correlation coefficient. test-retest reliability the test–retest reliability of c-tms-t using intraclass correlations (icc) is presented in table 3. the reliability coefficient was .73 for the curiosity subscale and .66 for the decentering subscale, indicating adequate test-retest reliability for both of these two subscales. concurrent and convergent validities in addressing the concurrent and convergent validities, the correlations between the scores of the two subscales of c-tms-t and both the ffmq, tai and the swls are summarized in table 4. the curiosity was significantly and positively correlated with subjective well-being, however, the correlation between decentering and subjective well-being was not significant. both the correlations between curiosity and trait anxiety as well as between decentering and trait anxiety were not significant. both the curiosity and decentering were significantly and positively correlated with observe and non-reactive in the ffmq. although the curiosity was significantly and positively correlated with describe in the ffmq, the correlation between decentering and describe was nearly zero. both the curiosity and decentering were found to be negatively correlated with acting with awareness and non-judging in the ffmq, and all of the correlations were significant except for the one between curiosity and acting with awareness, which was not significant. table 4 correlations of the chinese translated toronto mindfulness scale – trait version (c-tms-t) with swls, tai and the subscales of ffmq ffmq taiswlsc-tms-t subscale nonreactnonjudgeactawaredescribeobserve curiosity .198**.249**-.086-.104*.404*.027-.123* decentering .257**.217**-.165**-.010-.261**.003.071 note. swls refers to the satisfaction with life scale; tai refers to the trait subscale of the state-trait anxiety inventory; ffmq refers to the five facet mindfulness questionnaire; actaware refers to the acting with awareness subscale. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion the aim of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties of the c-tms-t using a sample of chinese college students in hong kong. factor analyses failed to support the existence of two-dimensional structure of c-tms-t, with goodness-of-fit indexes marginal at best for the original 13-item c-tms-t. although amodified 10-itemc-tms-t reached an acceptable model fit, the reliability of the subscale of decentering decreased to an unacceptable level. the evidence for the substantive validity of the subscale of decentering indicates that europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 chung & zhang 733 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it retains poor to moderate item quality and internal consistency. although both subscales were found to have moderate to good test-retest stability, they failed to receive support for concurrent and convergent validities. given the lack of support for the construct validity and reliability of the c-tms-t, the current findings reflect that the understanding of the same mindfulness items may be different for experienced and naive meditation practitioners (grossman, 2008, 2011), especially in the dimension of decentering. in other words, it is possible that differential item function issues exist between meditators and non-meditators (e.g., van dam, earleywine, & danoff-burg, 2009). although the toronto mindfulness scale (tms) was originally developed for experienced meditators, to assess state mindfulness after meditation practice, it may not be applicable to college students with no previous meditation experience, despite the trait version of tms having been preliminarily supported in western college students. the inconsistent item factor loadings, found as a result of the exploratory factor analysis, provide useful information in this respect. the findings of the current study corroborated a recent study by belzer and colleagues (2013) demonstrating that individuals with no prior meditation experiences may have a different cognitive understanding of the items of the freiburg mindfulness inventory. in addition, as the mean age of the total respondents in davis et al. (2009)’s study was higher than the mean age of participants in the current study (m = 36.5 vsm = 20.3), and davis et al. (2009) found better convergent validity values compared to the current study, it is possible that age may be instrumental in the understanding of these items to some degree. however, in order to contextualize this criticism more accurately, future studies should investigate the numbers or proportions of college students in hong kong who regularly engage in mindfulness meditation practice, as well as the influence of age difference. as low to moderate item-to-subscale fit in the subscale of decentering was found, we speculate that possible reasons are based on the item contents. three items were found to not load onto their original decentering factor (see table 1). specifically, although item 1 is supposed to be in the decentering subscale, it was found to load on neither of these two factors. the wording “i experience myself as separate from my changing thoughts and feelings” could possibly be difficult for the students to follow, as they might not have relevant experience of clearly or purposely differentiating/separating the self from the changing thoughts and feelings. accordingly, they may not be able to fully understand the meaning of experiencing themselves as separate from changing thoughts and feelings. similarly, the wording of items 4 “…thoughts more as events in mymind…” and 7 “…receptive to observing unpleasant thoughts and feelings…” could be considered more as a curiosity-oriented item by the students, as they may not have awareness of this frequently in their daily lives, and these two items are therefore rated more closely with other items in the curiosity subscale. this result is consistent with the results of the confirmatory factor analysis, in which the factor loadings of the decentering items were poor to moderate. concurrent and convergent validities were identified by calculating the correlations betweenmindfulness measured by the two subscales in the c-tms-t, and subjective well-being measured by the swls, trait anxiety measured by the tai and mindfulness measured by the ffmq. however, the significance and direction of some correlations were not as expected. the insignificant correlations between decentering and subjective well-being implies that the concurrent validity of c-tms-t cannot be established. both the curiosity and decentering were negatively correlated with act with awareness and non-judging in the ffmq, and the decentering was negatively correlated with describe in the ffmq. therefore, the convergent validity of the c-tms-t cannot be confirmed as they were supposed to measure similar concepts. correlations between state anxiety, subjective well-being and five subscales of ffmq were further examined to exclude possible reasons for the poor concurrent and convergent validities caused by these criteria-related instruments. as a result, all subscales, except describe, in the ffmq demonstrated europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 toronto mindfulness scale – trait version 734 http://www.psychopen.eu/ significant and positive correlations with subjective well-being, and significant and negative correlations with state anxiety. taken all these into consideration, it can be concluded that the c-tms-t also lacks concurrent and convergent validities. this study has a few shortcomings, therefore, researchers should be cautious when interpreting and generalizing its results. firstly, the cross-sectional design might limit interpretation of the results. secondly, the participants in this study were college students whose age, living conditions and meditation experiences are different from the samples used in previous studies. it is therefore worthwhile to conduct further studies to explore this sample variability. future studies could also involve individuals with various meditation experiences in interpretations of wording of the items so as to refine the c-tms-t (e.g., chinese meditators). thirdly, the low factor loadings and cross-loadings of a few items revealed in this study suggest that the wording and content of these items may not be commonly used or easily understood by college students. further studies should be conducted to review and revise these problematic items, and illustrate how these changes may improve item-to-factor loadings. fourthly, we conducted the efa and cfa using the same sample of participants. ideally, the efa and cfa should be tested in two different samples following a step-wise method. further studies aiming to examine the psychometric properties of the c-tms-t can adopt such an approach. despite the abovementioned limitations, the current study has revealed some strength. the test-retest reliability of the scale has been examined beyond the test of internal consistency reliability. in addition, the concurrent and structural validities were examined beyond the test of convergent validity. although we failed to support the psychometric properties of the scale, rigid translation and backtranslation procedures were followed and feedback from some chinese college students was sought. furthermore, we compared the factor loadings and model fit indices of both the 13-item model and the 10-item model with the original model (lau et al., 2006) for the purpose to generate the best solution. to summarise, even though the current study failed to support the construct validity of the c-tms-t, we cannot confirm that the c-tms-t is an invalid instrument to measure the trait mindfulness of chinese college students. additional studies should be conducted to provide more validity and reliability evidence for the tms-t by using different populations, especially to those who have meditation or similar meditative experiences. researchers are reminded that future validation studies should be conducted before using the tms-t in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies for the populations without meditation experiences. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the contribution of colleagues at the department of physical education, hong kong baptist university during the data collection stage is gratefully acknowledged. references baer, r. a. 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[in chinese] china journal of health psychology, 17, 948-949. about the authors pak-kwong chung is a professor of department of physical education, hong kong baptist university. his research interest is in sport psychology, physical activity, as well as health and fitness. chun-qing zhang is a doctoral candidate of sport & exercise psychology at department of physical education, hong kong baptist university. his current research interests include mindfulnessand acceptancebased therapies, emotion regulation, self-control, and exercise behaviour. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 726–739 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.776 chung & zhang 739 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en toronto mindfulness scale – trait version introduction method participants and procedure measurements data analysis results structural validity substantive validity test-retest reliability concurrent and convergent validities discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors european identity: objectifying the ideal andreea enache psychology bsc university of bucharest introduction having an issue intensely publicly debated or heavily investigated by scientific means tells us that there is still a long way to go before actually knowing and understanding it; that this dubitative tension around it keeps it permanently in our focus of interest and research, and forces us towards its clarification. european identity is probably one of the most frequently discussed topics in the social sciences arena nowadays, but also one of the most fluid and insecure concepts that politicians, scientists or the civil society are trying to get a grip on. there is a lot controversy with respect to both its existence and contents: public talks and scientific inquiries take on a very large spectrum of colors, from idealization and reification to utter denial. given such a varied menagerie of attitudes, one cannot help asking oneself: is there a european identity? and, if yes, how does it look and sound? what is it made of? where does it stem from? what is it that nurtures it and helps it gain such large spaces in the fields of our social consciousness? bearing these questions in mind, we will try to find some answers that will take out of the shadows the issue of european identity, in terms of its existence and its forms. this enterprise is one that calls for an extensive investigation and a multi-dimensional study, for which reason it would be rather unrealistic to expect this single article to answer (even if partially) the whole range of questions mentioned above. this is why we decided to embark on a long term project aimed at clarifying these issues by means of continuous and in-depth research. thus, this essay will be the first out of a series especially dedicated to the understanding of european identity, its development and its final aims. a state without a nation far away from being a finite concept or even one that we could relatively exhaust in a systematic description, the european identity is a construct on its way of being built up, a process that is actively going on both on the top-down axis and the bottom-up one. the stake is not at all negligible: the extremely broad objectives of the european union and the complexity of the institutional and legislative apparatus meant to ensure their accomplishment cannot be backed up simply by formal mechanisms, no matter how efficient they may be. the eu enjoys at present the comfort of legitimacy and identity in having a flag, a hymn, an europe’s day, a constitution, a parliament, an aquis communautaire, common objectives and strategies for all member countries that seem to be dedicated to making europe a space of prosperity, security, peace, law, liberty, democracy and human rights’ rule. it obviously tends to become a super-state, reiterating many of the principles of functioning of a nation-state, but denying the appreciation of its ontological philosophy: the nation. in this sense, the eu is very much of a political paradox, lacking the consistency that such an ambitious construction would require in order to gain trust and credibility for its purpose and possibility of being. it is this very aspect of its development towards a super-state structure (with the preservation of some of the traits of the traditional state) that puts forward the acute issue of the rapport between this new european identity and national identities. it is obvious that contemporary society is moving extremely fast towards new forms of existence and organization. one could of course see in this a strategic change that stems from new challenges and is aimed to face and hopefully solve new problems in new socio-economic and political contexts. however, these challenges do not differ too much from those that the classic authors in political philosophy have outlined some centuries ago. and, if we concede that the fundamental challenges are the same, we should try to find the answer for these “surface” transformations (organizational, institutional and administrative) somewhere else. what the eu lacks nowadays is a political philosophy able to confirm its rationality and reason for being. the top cannot give up the concept of nation because it is more than obvious that such a political enterprise is doomed to die of heart-attack within seconds from its public birth. at the same time, this concept is no longer of use and no longer used in the european project. the eu is thus trying to reduce nation to culture and to equal state with economy and law. in other terms, it aims to break the couple without sacrificing any part. needless to say that such an attempt resembles too much a lobotomy of the social brain. however, if we go back to present challenges (economic and political, mainly), we are somehow forced to concede that the nation-state and its highly egotistic style of functioning is no longer able to answer them in an elegant and efficient manner. still, this new approach and this necessary social schism (between politics & economics and society & culture), must be communicated adequately and rooted in a very solid argumentative basis. enlargement and integration: the linguistics of globalization a second paradox of the european identity is that it claims to be an identity of some, while aiming to be the identity of all, and thus, a non-identity. it is impossible to avoid (however euro-optimistic one may be) the evidence that the eu’s development (by means of successive enlargements and integrations) is just as good or bad as any form of globalization. here again, the eu pledge for an innocent globalization, able to offer us all the benefits of such a process without calling for any payback. either motivated by naivete or political communication strategies, this type of denial is highly detrimental for the credibility of the whole project, cutting down its resources for self-criticism and self-adjustment. when speaking of identity in the context of our contemporary world (marked by pluralisms, diversity, alternatives and relativisms) a major problem that we stumble over is that “multiple identities”, hybrid, dual identities highlight, after all, an acute present identity crisis – of whatever nature this may be (from psychological, spiritual to collective and political). this is first of all a crisis of our consciousness of belonging; it is, also, a crisis of the power that this act of belonging has on our act of defining ourselves; it is, implicitly, a crisis of our identity landmarks and the values that feed each and every act of identity affirmation o denial. what does it mean to be european at the beginning of the xxi century? if we take the official discourse as measure, to be european does not mean much more or less than to be american, i.e. democrat, free, prosperous, supporter of human rights and law obeying; the only major difference remains the geographical one, which, by virtue of being utterly external, intrinsically stays peripheral. funnily enough, the language used to put in motion the development of the european union highly resembles the rhetoric of the usa. after all, the eu was some time ago supposed to become the use, wasn’t it? european identity: but where is the alter? commonsensical philosophy usually superposes the space of the real with the space of identity, and allocates the remaining projections and phantasms to the jurisdiction of the alterity. however, we and they are very similar in terms of real/imagined ratio. moreover, identities engage in quite precarious relations with the real, while being highly significant in terms of what a person’s or group’s projections, ideals, phantasms, and aspirations are: “every affirmation of the type “we…” should be seen rather as a partial declaration of intention than as a description of reality” (grillo, 1980, apud. wintle, 2005). the projection can be planned, facilitated or spontaneous, as well as all three at the same time, in different proportions. the most surprising aspect of identities is that they have a tremendous power, even if their legitimacy is restricted to the convocation of very few criteria of membership. this power, many times surprisingly well designed for conflict and destruction (take, for example, the ideology of the gentile race), is the intricate outcome of the projections and phantasms that are consubstantial with each and every identity formation. most social psychology and psychoanalytical researchers (from tajfel, the great authority in social identity, back to freud, with his theory of group formation) claim that at the basis of social identity we have the mechanism of identification. this hypothesis does not remain consequence-less: it ultimately says that social identity is built on the reality of common traits, attitudes, behaviors or beliefs. the social dynamics of group identity formation usually calls for some “material” basis, but this is nothing more than a pretext for projection and fancying. groups, just as individuals, cannot stay sane unless they preserve a sense of their own self; i.e. unless they do not construct and imagine themselves as identities. this is where and why the quest for the alter begins as a perpetual counterpart for identity formation. one cannot build an identity without tracing a separation line between what is self and what is non-self. every identity is, thus, an act of segregation. frustrating this logic of identity formation, the european identity subscribes to the “logic” of multiculturalism (which is nothing but a precarious solution for the much too disturbing cultural relativism), and pretends to be able to forge an identity without the back-up of alterity. how can the european discourse remain both politically-correct and internally-consistent is a question that will probably take rather long before getting any satisfactory answer. european identity: real or imagined? modern thought has already got past the belief that identity discourses are descriptive; almost no one with some basic knowledge of social sciences would allow themselves to see social identity as realistic narration or monographic depiction of a group’s behavior, attitudes or beliefs. however, at a commonsensical level of understanding, identities are the real essence of a person’s or a group’s being. scientifically speaking, identities are prescriptive models of existence and recipes for identification processes that allow the individual to belong and to affiliate. but how does a group subjectively and collectively experience identity? how much of this identity is felt as being part of them, or how much is it experienced as an external firm, meant to signal the existence of an artificial social construction? i ask these questions because validity in science can sometimes turn out to be unsustainable in “real” life, i.e. at an experiential level (which comes down after all to saying that it is only a laboratory concept or theory that becomes utterly useless in terms of ecological efficiency). european identity comes across two times the problem “real or imagined”: first, when it is asked to say how much it is rooted in reality (are there facts and behaviors consistent and continuous enough so as to allow us to place them under the same name), and, second, when it has to answer whether it is experienced as such (i.e. whether it can be socially and ecologically validated). and this brings us to a pivotal issue: is identity a matter of conscious representation, or can we reify it, objectify it and give it right of existence beyond or outside the europeans’ social consciousness? instead of conclusion obviously enough, all the masked and explicit question marks above do not fancy a rapid resolution. we have outlined some of the most important challenges for the european identity project, with the conviction that each such enterprise should start from asking the fundamental questions about its object of interest, the first of these being, of course, the ontological one: does it exist? if we admit identity to be an act of conscious representation and representation a system of knowledge about a real or imagined object, then we can answer a radical yes. european identity already inhabits our minds, being part and parcel of the social and public dialogue in most countries in europe. it is, therefore, just as real as any other object in our social reality and can also be legitimately taken as an object of study. the psychology of eyewitness identification: essays in cognitive psychology book reviews lampinen, j. m., neuschatz, j. s., & cling, a. d. (2012). the psychology of eyewitness identification: essays in cognitive psychology. psychology press the psychology of eyewitness identification: essays in cognitive psychology rhian worth*a a bangor university, bangor, uk. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 311–314, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.471 received: 2012-05-13. accepted: 2012-05-14. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: email:rhian.worth@hotmail.co.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. lampinen, j. m., neuschatz, j. s., & cling, a. d. (2012). the psychology of eyewitness identification: essays in cognitive psychology. psychology press ‘the psychology of eyewitness identification’ was written by james michael lampinen (professor of psychology at the university of arkansas), jeffrey s. neuschatz (associate professor and chair of the psychology department, university of alabama in huntsville) and andrew d. cling (professor and chair of the department of philosophy at the university of alabama in huntsville) who combined have published well over a 100 book chapters and journal articles. the three authors have a large amount of experience in the field and of publishing scholarly work. ‘the psychology of eyewitness identification’ discusses in detail research and issues relating to eyewitness identification, accuracy and reliability. also included is a discussion of how research has impacted on practical aspects of life for example with social practice, police practice and legal practice. it is not only a book on the theory behind the topic but also an insight into practical aspects of theory – the best of both worlds. the back cover notes that “the volume takes the perspective that research on eyewitness identification can be seen as a pragmatic example of how psychological science can be successfully applied to real world problems” – and the book clearly demonstrates that eyewitness identification is an excellent example of how theory in psychology can be applied in ‘real life’. research has played an important role in developing techniques to --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ try to ensure that eyewitness identifications are accurate and reliable, and in identifying factors which may impact on how reliable and accurate those identifications are – as a field it not only has theoretical value but also has practical value as well. the book begins with the chapter ‘twenty-seven years’ – an intriguing title for an intriguing chapter. twenty-seven years is the length of time michael green spent in prison. michael green was convicted of a crime despite that eyewitness identification featured heavily in the evidence and the issues that exist with eyewitness identification. twenty-years years later dna evidence found that michael green was innocent – and as the authors note “michael green will never get those years back” (lampinen, neuschatz, & cling, 2012, p. 2). this example clearly indicates how important eyewitness identification is and the role it can play in court cases – additionally the role it can play when innocent individuals are convicted. furthermore this example and those of other similar cases highlight the importance of accurate and reliable eyewitness identification and testimony and appropriate techniques of interviewing and gathering information from the eyewitness – something which psychology has and can continue to play a key and significant role in. in this first chapter the authors note several factors which are involved in eyewitness identification – for example, line ups and foils. this is a concise introduction to some of the key aspects of eyewitness identification. the second chapter moves on to consider ‘theoretical approaches to eyewitness identification’ and includes relevant theories to the area including a look at different types of memory (e.g. sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory), signal detection theory, and dual process theories. it is a good overview of all the relevant theories. this is followed by a look at face processing and memory. this chapter provides an important introduction to the theories involved and their connection to eyewitness identification. as the first two chapters demonstrate the theory behind eyewitness identification is of course crucial to the field and theory plays a very important role as well in developing more practical aspects. following this the next few chapters turn to consider the practical aspects in addition to the theory. this look at practical issues begins in chapter three which looks at issues such as the factors and variables which can have an impact on eyewitness identification, reliability and accuracy. one of these factor is illumination (see also johnson, 1976) – what impact does less or more illumination have on eyewitness identification, although the authors note that most of the research in this particular area has focused on photographs and that more research will be required to look at illumination in other situations. another factor noted is distance (see also loftus & harley, 2005) – the amount of distance between the eyewitness and the person can impact on whether the eyewitness can reliably and accurately identify this person. an additional factor is the length of time (see also memon, hope, & bull, 2003) the eyewitness saw the persons for. another important and very interesting factor mentioned in this particular chapter is the weapon focus effect which suggests that if a weapon is present this may also impact on eyewitness identification and memory (loftus, loftus, & messo, 1987; kramer, buckhout, & eugenio, 1990; pickel, 1999). characteristics of the witness are also discussed in the chapter, for example whether the witness was the victim or was a bystander (see also kassin, 1984; hosch, leippe, marchioni, & cooper, 1984), intoxication (see also yuille & tollestrup, 1990) and characteristics of the perpetrator, for example, appearance (see also cutler, penrod, & martens, 1987). a number of other factors including some other interesting factors such as glucose and also own-age bias are also discussed. the whole chapter is a very comprehensive look at factors and variables affecting eyewitness identification. this theme is continued in the following chapter (‘system variables’). the accuracy and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 311–314 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.471 the psychology of eyewitness identification 312 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reliability of eyewitnesses not only involves aspects related to the individuals involved themselves or the situation but also to what occurs after the event such as questioning, line-ups and so on. the chapter includes a discussion of postevent information (loftus, 1979), the cognitive interview (fisher, mccauley, & geiselman, 1994), and line-ups. these two chapters provide an excellent account of the factors and variables which can have an impact on eyewitness identification, reliability and accuracy. an understanding of these variables and factors and how they affect eyewitness identification can be very beneficial in terms of understanding eyewitness identification and also in developing techniques to ensure that eyewitness identification is both reliable and accurate. the chapters in the book as mentioned previously in this review are a great look at the theory of the area but also of the practical aspects of this field. this is shown throughout the book, and chapter 6 (‘field studies of eyewitness identification’) discusses a number of field studies in the area including work by tollestrup, turtle, and yuille (1994), wright and mcdaid (1996), and klobuchar, steblay, and caligiuri (2006) among others. each study’s methodology and results are mentioned and then there is a comparison of the study’s field findings with laboratory results. this chapter not only includes examples of research in the field, but also provides an insight into some of the issues involved in the area. it is certainly a very interesting chapter which concludes with a consideration of the problems, challenges and future directions in field research which is a thought provoking section. it is a great addition and aspect of the book. the final two chapters consist of a conclusion (chapter 8) and afterword (chapter 9). eyewitness identification can be a complex field with a number of factors able to impact on reliability and accuracy however it is a field which can have large theoretical and practical implications which are also clearly demonstrated in throughout the book. to conclude the authors have provided an exhaustive overview of the issues involved in eyewitness identification. this includes previous research including more recent research in the field and also key pieces of research which are highly influential in the area. knowing the background to the field is also an important aspect in being able to continue with future research. throughout the authors also consider future directions. therefore the book can inform knowledge of the area but it also can also promote thinking about future research. the ‘essays in cognitive psychology’ series always produces high quality books and ‘the psychology of eyewitness identification’ continues that tradition. furthermore, it is suitable for students and researchers alike as it is an accessible text that is very enjoyable to read and also very informative – two great qualities and a book which is well worth reading for individuals interested in this kind of area. references cutler, b. l., penrod, s. d., & martens, t. k. (1987). the reliability of eyewitness identification: the role of system and estimator variables. law and human behavior, 11, 233-258. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01044644 fisher, r. p., mccauley, m. r., & geiselman, r. e. (1994). improving eyewitness testimony with the cognitive interview. in: d. f. ross, j. d. read, & m.p. toglia (eds.), adult eyewitness testimony: current trends and developments (pp. 245-269). new york, ny: cambridge university press. hosch, h. m., leippe, m. r., marchioni, p. m., & cooper, d. s. (1984). victimzation, self-monitoring, and eyewitness identification. journal of applied psychology, 69, 280-288. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.69.2.280 johnson, c. a. (1976). effects of luminance and stimulus distance on accommodation and visual resolution. journal of the optical society of america, 66, 138-142. doi:10.1364/josa.66.000138 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 311–314 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.471 worth 313 http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01044644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.69.2.280 http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/josa.66.000138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kassin, s. m. (1984). eyewitness identification: victims versus bystanders. journal of applied social psychology, 14(6), 519-529. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02257.x klobuchar, a., steblay, n. k. m., & caligiuri, h. l. (2006). improving eyewitness identifications: hennepin county’s blind sequential lineup pilot project. cardozo public law, policy, and ethics journal, 2, 381-414. kramer, t. h., buckhout, r., & eugenio, p. (1990). weapon focus, arousal, and eyewitness memory: attention must be paid. law and human behavior, 14(2), 167-184. doi:10.1007/bf01062971 lampinen, j. m., neuschatz, j. s., & cling, a. d. (2012). the psychology of eyewitness identification. new york: psychology press. loftus, e. f. (1979). the malleability of human memory. american scientist, 67, 312-320. loftus, e. f., loftus, g. r., & messo, j. (1987). some facts about “weapon focus”. law and human behavior, 11, 55-62. doi:10.1007/bf01044839 loftus, g. r., & harley, e. m. (2005). why is it easier to identify someone closer than further away? psychonomic bulletin & review, 12, 43-65. doi:10.3758/bf03196348 memon, a., hope, l., & bull, r. (2003). exposure duration: effects on eyewitness accuracy and confidence. british journal of psychology, 94, 339-354. doi:10.1348/000712603767876262 pickel, k. l. (1999). the influence of context on the “weapon focus” effect. law and human behavior, 23, 299-311. doi:10.1023/a:1022356431375 tollestrup, p. a., turtle, j. w., & yuille, j. c. (1994). actual victims and witnesses to robbery and fraud: an archival analysis. in d. f. ross, j. d. read, & m. p. toglia (eds.), adult eyewitness testimony: current trends and developments (pp. 144-160). new york, ny: cambridge university press. wright, d. b., & mcdaid, a. t. (1996). comparing system and estimator variables using data from real line-ups. applied cognitive psychology, 10, 75-84. doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199602)10:1<75::aid-acp364>3.0.co;2-e yuille, j. c., & tollestrup, p. a. (1990). some effects of alcohol on eyewitness memory. the journal of applied psychology, 75, 268-273. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.75.3.268 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 311–314 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.471 the psychology of eyewitness identification 314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02257.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01062971 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01044839 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03196348 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712603767876262 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1022356431375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199602)10:1<75::aid-acp364>3.0.co;2-e http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.75.3.268 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the psychology of eyewitness identification references depression and body image disturbances among females seeking treatment for obesity in saudi arabia moataz m. abdel-fattah phd, epidemiology and research unit, department of preventive medicine, al-hada armed forces hospital, taif, saudi arabia abdel-rahman a. asal md, department of psychiatry, al-hada armed forces hospital, taif, saudi arabia tamer hifnawy phd, epidemiology and research unit, department of preventive medicine, al-hada armed forces hospital, taif, saudi arabia mohamed m. makhlouf phd, department of family medicine, al-hada armed forces hospital, taif, saudi arabia abstract hypothesis: obesity is an increasingly prevalent disease around the world and is becoming one of the main public health problems in developed countries. the relationship between obesity and psychological distress continued to be debated by researchers and clinicians. this study aimed to assess depression and body image disturbances in obese patients seeking treatment for obesity. method: a case-control design was adopted in the study. total of (236) obese women, self-referred to a residential weight-loss facility for weight control, were invited to participate in this study. obese women were compared with (296) of an age-matched control group. all participants completed the beck depression inventory for depressive symptoms, multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire for body-image satisfaction and the body image avoidance questionnaire. results: revealed that obesity were more common among older than younger females, among married than single females, and among those with lower level of education than those with higher level. obese women as compared with non-obese reported significantly more symptoms of depression and significantly more negative body image. conclusions and significance: our results indicate a high frequency of depressive symptoms, and concern with body image among obese patients. therefore, obese women who seek treatment should be screened for depression and body image dissatisfaction. keywords: depression, obesity, body image, saudi arabia introduction obesity is an increasingly prevalent disease around the world and is becoming one of the main public health problems in developed countries. (1) the rate of obesity has doubled since 1900 (2) in the united states, obesity reached epidemic proportions, affecting approximately one-quarter of the american population (3). the same trend was also found in developing countries. (4) obesity rates are consistently higher in urban compared with rural areas in many countries, including china (5) in countries of the eastern mediterranean region (emr), health professionals similarly caution against a major surge in obesity rates. (6) the prevalence of obesity among women in kuwait was found to be 40% in 1999, which placed the country among the highest rates in the world (7). a higher figure was found among saudi arabian females, where 26.8% were overweight, 41.9% were moderately obese and 5.1% were morbidly obese (8) emotional factors contribute incisively for the development of obesity, and may be originated from it, aggravating the condition of the affected subject and making the treatment more difficult. (9) studies of non-clinical samples of obese persons have been consistently showing that obese individuals do not differ from their non-obese counterparts in psychological symptoms, psychopathology, or overall personality. (10) on the other hand, individuals seeking treatment for weight loss have consistently demonstrated a higher prevalence of distress than their counterparts who are not seeking treatment. for instance, it has been found that obese treatmentseekers show elevated levels of depression (11), and body image distress. (12) it was also found that high levels of body dissatisfaction in treatment-seeking obese individuals are associated with elevated depression and decreased levels of self-esteem. (13) to our knowledge, no studies have been reported to investigate depressive symptoms and body image disturbance in saudi arabia patients who undergo several treatments to lose weight. so the aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms and problems associated to body image, among obese saudi females who sought a dieting service for treating their obesity. subjects study design a case-control strategy was adopted for this study. target population females aged 15 to 49 years, attending spontaneously the dietitian clinic at prince sultan hospital, ksa for weight control were treated as cases. females attending the same hospital as visitors were considered as controls; provided that they were in the same age range (15-49 years) and their body mass index was normal (18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2). sampling all females fulfilling the above-mentioned criteria for cases, and attended the specified clinic during the study period (from 1st may to 31st october 2005) were included. a comparable number of females considered, as controls were also included in the study. females with chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes, hypothyroidism, and asthma) and those taking medications regularly (except for oral contraceptives; amounted 27 obese and 33 control subjects) were excluded. the protocol of this study was approved by the research and ethic’s committee of al-hada armed forces hospitals program, taif, saudi arabia and all participants provided written consent to participate in this study. methods all females (cases and controls) were subjected to the following: 1-interviewing questionnaire including sociodemographic data as age, educational level and marital status. 2-multidimensional body self relations questionnaire (mbsrq) (14) this scale has 69 items and assesses self-evaluation and orientation toward appearance, health, and fitness. this scale is a well-validated self-report inventory for the assessment of body image. the mbsrq is intended for use with adults and adolescents (15 years or older). mbsrq subscales the factor subscales: appearance evaluation: feelings of physical attractiveness or unattractiveness; satisfaction or dissatisfaction with one’s looks. high scorers feel mostly positive and satisfied with their appearance; low scorers have a general unhappiness with their physical appearance. appearance orientation: extent of investment in one’s appearance. high scorers place more importance on how they look, pay attention to their appearance, and engage in extensive grooming behaviors. low scorers are apathetic about their appearance; their looks are not especially important and they do not expend much effort to “look good”. fitness evaluation: feelings of being physically fit or unfit. high scorers regard themselves as physically fit, “in shape”, or athletically active and competent. low scorers feel physically unfit, “out of shape”, or athletically unskilled. fitness orientation: extent of investment in being physically fit or athletically competent. high scorers value fitness and are actively involved in activities to enhance or maintain their fitness. low scorers do not value physical fitness and do not regularly incorporate exercise activities into their lifestyle. health evaluation: feelings of physical health and/or the freedom from physical illness. high scorers feel their bodies are in good health. low scorers feel unhealthy and experience bodily symptoms of illness or vulnerability to illness. health orientation: extent of investment in a physically healthy lifestyle. high scorers are “health conscious” and try to lead a healthy lifestyle. low scorers are more apathetic about their health. illness orientation: extent of reactivity to being or becoming ill. high scorers are alert to personal symptoms of physical illness and are apt to seek medical attention. low scorers are not especially alert or reactive to the physical symptoms of illness. overweight preoccupation: this scale assesses a construct reflecting fat anxiety, weight vigilance, dieting, and eating restraint. mbsrq scale also assesses other areas as person’s satisfaction about different parts of his body and how he perceives and labels his own weight (not included in the analysis). 3the body image avoidance questionnaire (biaq) (15) it is 19-item self-report questionnaire on avoidance of situations that provoke concern about physical appearance, such avoidance of tight-fitting clothes, social outings, and physical intimacy. in particular the questionnaire measures the avoidance behaviors and grooming habits associated with negative body image the questionnaire uses a 6-point scale to rate frequency of behavior: never, rarely, sometimes, often, usually, and always. total score and four subscales are computed for: clothing, social activities, eating restraint and grooming/weighing; the authors reported it to have adequate psychometric properties. 4beck depression inventory (bdi) (16) it is a structured instrument composed of 21 categories of symptoms and attitudes, and describes behavioral manifestations of depression. it assesses the intensity of depressive symptoms. scores range from 0 to 63, and intensity categories vary from absent or normal (0 to 9), mild (10 to 15), mild to moderate (16 to 19), moderate to severe (20 to 29), and severe (30 to 63). the cutoff point used in this instrument to consider the patient as having depressive symptoms and, therefore, with greater probability of having clinical depression, was 20 points. 5anthropometric measurements: a registered nurse measured participant’s height on a standard wall height-measuring device and weight on a digital computerized scale. body mass index (bmi) was calculated by dividing the weight in kg by the square of the length in meter. participants were categorized, based on their bmi values into four subgroups; normal (bmi from 18.5 to 24.9 kg/m2), overweight (bmi from 25 to 29.9 kg/m2), obese (bmi from 30 to 39.9 kg/m2), and extremely obese (bmi ≥ 40 kg/m2). statistical analysis (17, 18) data were analyzed using spss; version 13 (chicago, il).the associations between the body mass index and sociodemographic characteristics (age, educational level and marital status) was assessed by using chi-squared test. comparison of studied psychological scales between normal and abnormal subjects based on their bmi was done using non-parametric statistical tests: the mann-whitney test for comparing scores of two sub-groups. the correlation between beck depression inventory and body image avoidance questionnaire with subscales of multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire in obese group was performed using non-parametric spearman correlation coefficient. in non-parametric tests, the ranks of the data rather than their raw values were used to calculate the statistic. data were ranked by ordering them from lowest to highest and assigning them, in order, the integer values from 1 to the sample size. ties were resolved by assigning tied values the mean of the ranks they would have received if there were no ties. accordingly, the mean rank score was calculated for each group by dividing the sum of the ranks by the sample size of that group. results the present study included 532 women; 236 cases and 296 controls. table 1 revealed that the majority of obese and extremely obese (61.3 and 83.3 % respectively) were older in age (≥ 36 years) while the majority of controls (76.4%) were younger in age (≤35 years), and this was statistically significant (x2 =155.7, p< 0.001). regarding educational level, there was a statistical significant association between educational level and body mass index (x2 =71.1, p< 0.001) as high educational level (university) was more prevalent among controls (33.8%) compared to obese and extremely obese females (16.9% and 16.7% respectively). table 1: distribution of the participants in the study according to their body mass index and sociodemographic data (n=532). *illiterate or read and write it was also shown that more single females (36.1%) were found among control group (with normal weight) than among overweight, obese or extremely obese (15.4, 21.3, 16.7% respectively) and this was statistically significant (x2 =43.6, p< 0.001). table 2 shows a comparison between cases subgroups and normal control group using different psychological scales. the table revealed that, overweight, obese and extremely obese had statistically significant higher beck depression inventory scores as compared to normal (z value= 6.78. 5.92 and 6.63 respectively; p table 2: comparison of studied psychological scales between normal (n=296), overweight and obese subjects based on their bmi (using mann-whitney test). the three subgroups also showed statistically significant higher scores in the appearance orientation (z= 5.68, 4.72, 4.29; p < 0.001) fitness orientation (4.77, 10.67, 2.72; p moreover, obese and extremely obese had higher scores than normal in body image avoidance questionnaire, and this was statistically significant (z=8.62, 3.22 respectively; p overweight and obese subgroups showed statistically significant higher scores in the fitness evaluation subscale (z= 2.29, 9.44; p from table (3), it was obvious that beck depression inventory bdi, had positive significant correlation with the body image avoidance questionnaire (r=0.385, p table 3: correlation between beck depression inventory and body image avoidance questionnaire with subscales of multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire in obese group* using spearman correlation coefficient “r (p)” (n=184). it was also obvious that the body image avoidance score is negatively correlated with appearance evaluation, appearance orientation, fitness evaluation, health orientation, illness orientation, overweight preoccupation and (r=0.241, p discussion obesity has become an epidemic problem worldwide, and in the eastern mediterranean region the status of overweight has reached an alarming level. (19) in agreement with others (20, 21), our study proved that obesity rate among females is higher with increasing age.this was also previously found in ksa. (22) physical inactivity may partially explain increasing obesity with increasing age. another study in saudi arabia (23) revealed that physically inactivity was higher among middle aged, less educated and married saudi males. one fourth of this sample was inactive because of lack of space and facility. the problem may be higher for females due to cultural and environmental factors. in addition, the present study also demonstrated that obesity is more prevalent among married than non-married females. this result is also congruent with other studies. (8, 20) one of the explanations of increasing obesity among married females is related to pregnancy and multiparity. the fertility rate of the women in the gulf region is very high and the spacing between pregnancies is short, resulting in accumulation of fat in the body. (8) also our study proved that obesity rate is increasing among females with lower education. this finding is congruent with the study of musaiger, 2003 (21) who related this observation to physical inactivity. another explanation may be related to less information about healthy diet. the relationship between obesity and depression continues to be debated by researchers and clinicians. some studies did not find any association between bmi and psychological disturbances. (24, 25) however, more recent studies (26, 27) have shown an association between obesity and depression. in a study (28) conducted on a large, nationally representative sample of more than 40,000 people in usa , it was found that obese females were 37% more likely than their average-weight peers to have experienced major depression in the past year. obese women were also 20% more likely to report suicidal ideation and 23% more likely to have made a suicide attempt in the past year. the relationship between obesity and depression is even more obvious in studies underwent with obese patients seeking weight reduction. obese patients who sought weight reduction reported significantly greater psychological distress than did comparably obese individuals who did not seek treatment. (29) in their meta-analytic review, friedman and brownell; (30) 1995 concluded that obesity was moderately and consistently related to depression in studies that compared obese individuals who sought treatment with people in the general population. these findings are consistent with the results of the present study, which revealed that, overweight, obese, and extremely obese individuals presenting for clinical weight reduction treatment had statistically significant higher beck inventory score as compared to normal. depression is more prominent in those who seek treatment because their weight is at least partially motivated by negative evaluations of their body. the severely obese person certainly suffers stigmatization and discrimination that may cause or aggravate a depressive illness. (31, 32) symptoms of depression correlate significantly with reported body image dissatisfaction. (13, 33) it was also revealed that body dissatisfaction increased vulnerability to depression. (34, 35) another study (36) demonstrated that symptoms of depression were affecting severely obese subjects and those with a poor body image. the problems associated with negative body image have received substantial attention in the research literature. recent research has suggested a multidimensional structure to body image. it was reported that body image includes at least two components: perceptual body image (i.e., estimation of one’s body size) and attitudinal body image (i.e., affective, cognitive, and behavioral concerns with one’s body size). (37) in our study body image, satisfaction was measured with the multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire. this scale assesses evaluation and orientation toward appearance, health, and fitness. it is obvious in our results (table2) that that overweight, obese and extremely obese had higher statistically significant scores than normal in most of the subscales of mbsrq. this means that, with variable degree according to their bmi, they place more importance on how they look, pay attention to their appearance, and engage in extensive grooming behaviors .they value fitness, are actively involved in activities to enhance or maintain their fitness and regard themselves as physically fit. they are health conscious, and feel that their bodies are in good health. they are alert to personal symptoms of physical illness and are apt to seek medical attention. despite of that, most of them, with the exception of the extremely obese, are unsatisfied with their body image as appears from the appearance evaluation subscale. they are trying to lose weight and seek medical advice for that reason. this may make them frustrated and had significantly higher symptoms of depression as appears from bdi (table 2). failure of repeated attempts to lose weight may be accompanied by thoughts of guilt, hopelessness, and poor self-esteem. (38) these findings are congruent with many studies underwent with obese patients seeking weight reduction. for instance, it has been found that obese treatment seekers show body-image distress. (12) moreover, it was revealed that 68% of obese individuals who sought weight reduction (bmi =35.6 ± 4.3 kg/m2) and 33% of non-obese controls (bmi = 23.8 ± 3.2kg/m2) reported moderate to extreme dissatisfaction with their overall appearance. (13) body-image dissatisfaction was also found to be a potential mediator of the relationship between dysphoric psychological states (e.g., depression and low self-esteem) and obesity in a treatment seeking population. (30) obese individuals overestimate or distort the size of their body more, are more dissatisfied and preoccupied with their appearance, and tend to avoid more social interactions because of their appearance than normal weight individuals (39) the present study revealed that obese and extremely obese had higher scores than normal in the biaq which were statistically significant . this finding is consistent with the findings of others. (39, 40) the present study also revealed that bdi had a significantly positive correlation with biaq (table 3). obese individuals tend to avoid more social interactions because of their appearance than normal weight individuals. this avoidance may lead to social isolation and make them vulnerable to depression. obesity may affect health not only through physiological changes in blood pressure, lipids, and the like, but also through body image, which itself is important because it affects quality of life. body image is one area where distress occurs, and therefore deserves attention in the field. limitations of this study 1this study utilized obese individuals who presented for treatment at a residential center for weight reduction. as noted previously, obese persons seeking weight-loss treatment may differ from obese individuals in the community. for instance, it would be informative to comparatively study obese individuals in the community who are not seeking treatment as well as individuals who are seeking different modalities of treatment. 2the sample did not include males. 3the sample was composed primarily of certain age group (15-49). thus, the study was limited to that age group. 4the current study focused on body image and depression. also the relationship between bmi and many psychological aspects should be taken in consideration (e.g., anxiety, self-esteem, and binge eating…). 5finally, the design of our study was cross-sectional; a temporal relation between obesity and depression and body image distortion could not be inferred. conclusion the results of our study show significance statistical symptoms of depression and a high degree of preoccupation with body image in obese individuals presenting for clinical weight-loss in comparing to normal weight persons. the researchers propose that depression and body-image dissatisfaction may be a factor that should be evaluated with obese patients seeking residential weight-loss treatment, and when evident, should become one target of intervention efforts. one could readily imagine that ability to lose weight would be improved by relief of depression, anxiety, poor self-esteem, or body image distress. recommendations 1it is recommended in the next researches to examine: (a) the interaction of predictor variables (e.g., age of onset of obesity, teasing, and stigma experiences); (b) factors that explain how important body image is to health and well-being of individuals; (c) how body image problems in obese individuals are best remedied; and (d) how body image problems can be prevented. 2an approach that included education about the biological and psychological determinants of body weight, weight loss, and weight regain in highly indicated. 3it is important to evaluate and treat depression in persons who seek medical treatment for severe obesity, and it may be that routine screening for depression should be formulated as the standard of care for these patients. 4body-image treatment programs designed for obese clients are highly indicated that overweight individuals can develop more positive feelings and beliefs about their appearance, regardless of weight loss. directly addressing body-image dissatisfaction may decrease psychological distress and facilitate weight reduction and improved eating behaviors. 5further studies on community basis, including both male and females are highly required to examine depression and body image dissatisfaction of obese individuals. references 1 stunkard aj, wadden ta. psychological aspects of severe obesity. am j clin nutr 1992; 55: 524s-32s. 2kuczmarski rj. prevalence of overweight and weight gain in the united states. am j clin nutr. 1992 ; 55:495s–502s. 3flegal km, carroll md, kuczmarski rj, johnson cl. overweight and obesity in the united states: prevalence and trends, 1960–1994. int j obes relat metab disord 1998; 22: 39–47. 4popkin bm. the nutrition transition and obesity in the developing world. j nutr 2001; 131: 871s-83s 5stookey jd, adair l, stevens j, popkin bm. patterns of long-term change in body composition are associated with diet, activity, income and urban residence among older adults in china. j nutr 2001; 131: 2433s40s. 6gezairy, ha (2002): message on the occasion of world health day 2002. ” move for health.” available on line on http://www.emro.who.int/whd2002/rdmessage.htm. accessed 27/ 7/2006. 7kandela p. the kuwaiti passion for food cannot be shaken.lancet 1999; 353: 1249-50 8al-shammari sa, khoja ta, al-maatouq ma, al-nuaim la. high prevalence of clinical obesity among saudi females: a prospective, cross-sectional study in the riyadh region. journal of tropical medicine and hygiene 1994; 97(3):183– 8. 9hsu lkg, benotti pn, dwyer j, roberts sb, saltzman e, shikora s, rolls bj, rand w. non-surgical factors that influence the outcome of bariatric surgery: a review. psychosomatic med1998; 60: 338-46. 10stunkard aj, sobal j. psychosocial consequences of obesity. in: brownell kd, fairburn cg, 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17feinstein ar, editors. principles of medical statistics. london: champan and hall press co.; 2002.p.251-257. 18norman gr, streiner dl, editors. biostatics the essential. london: bc decker inc.; 1998.p.171-174. 19musaiger ao.. overweight and obesity in the eastern mediterranean region: can we control it? eastern mediterranean health journal 2004; 10 (6) 789 – 93. 20musaiger ao, mistery n. obesity in the arab gulf countries: an annotated bibliography. bahrain, bahrain centre for studies and research; 2000. 21musaiger ao. socio-cultural factors affecting obesity in the arab countries. bahrain, bahrain centre for studies and research; 2003 (technical report). 22-. warsy as, el-hazmi ma. diabetes mellitus, hypertension and obesity-common multifactorial disorders in saudis. east mediterr health j. 1999; 5(6):1236-42 23al-rafaee sa, al-hazzaa hm. physical activity profile of adult males in riyadh city. saudi medical journal; 2001; 22 (9):78–9. 24-sansone ra, sansone la, fine ma. the relationship of obesity to borderline personality symptomatology, self-harm behaviors, and sexual abuse in female subjects in a primary medical care setting. j pers disord1995; 9: 254-65. 25lapidus l, bengtsson c, hallstrom t, bjorntorp p. obesity, adipose tissue distribution and health in women: results from a population study in gothenburg, sweden. 1989; 12: 2535 26roberts re, kaplan ga, shema sj, strawbridge wj. are the obese at greater risk for depression? am j epidemiol 2000; 152:163–70. 27roberts re, strawbridge wj, deleger s. are the fat more jolly? ann behav med 2002; 24:169–80 28carpenter km, hasin ds, allison db, faith ms. relationships between obesity and dsm-iv major depressive disorder, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts: results from a general population study. am j public health 2000 ; 90(2):251-7. 29fitzgibbon ml, stolley mr, kirschenbaum ds. obese people who seek treatment have different characteristics than those who do not seek treatment. health psychol 1993; 12:346-53. 30friedman ma, brownell kd. psychological correlates of obesity: moving to the next research generation. psychol bull 1995; 117:3– 20. 31kaminsky j, gadaleta d. a study of discrimination within the medical community as viewed by obese patients. obes surg 2002; 12: 148. 32rand csw, macgregor amc. morbidly obese patients’ perceptions of social discrimination before and after surgery for obesity. south med j 1990 ; 83:1390-5. 33friedman ke, reichmann sk, costanzo pr. body image partially mediates the relationship between obesity and psychological distress. obes res 2002; 10:33–41. 34mccarthy, m. the thin ideal, depression, and eating disorders in women. behavior research and therapy 1990 ; 28, 205–15. 35joiner te , wonderlich sa, metalsky gi, schmidt n.b. body dissatisfaction: a feature of bulimia, depression, or both? journal of social and clinical psychology 1995; 14, 339–55. 36dixon jb, dixon me, o’brien pe. depression in association with severe obesity: changes with weight loss. arch intern med 2003; 163: 2058–65. 37rucker ce iii, cash tf. body images, body-size perception, and eating behaviors among african-american and white college women. int j eat disord 1992; 12:291–9. 38wooley sc, garner dm. obesity treatment: the high cost of false hope. j am diet assoc 1991; 91: 1248-51. 39cash tf, prunzinsky t. body images: development, deviance, and change. new york, ny: guilford press. 1990. 40gardner rm, martinez r, sandoval y. obesity and body image: an evaluation of sensory and non-sensory components. psychol med 1987; 17:927–32. correspondence address dr. moataz abdel-fattah, phd head and consultant of preventive medicine department al-hada armed forces hospital taif, saudi arabia e-mail: mezo106@yahoo.com, mezo106@gmail.com tel: 00966508741383 fax: 00966027541238 robust cultural pluralism interview robust cultural pluralism an interview with professor richard a. shweder richard a. shweder*a, séamus a. powera [a] department of comparative human development, university of chicago, chicago, usa. abstract in this wide ranging interview, professor richard a. shweder from the department of comparative human development at the university of chicago, discusses whether it is or is not possible to be a robust cultural pluralist and a dedicated political liberal at the same time. in this discussion, professor shweder offers his insights based on over 40 years of research on issues related to the history and re-emergence of cultural psychology; moral anthropology and psychology; the experimental method in psychological investigation and its philosophical basis; contemporary and historical cultural collisions – most notably conflicting representations of female genital surgeries; cultural diversity and inequality; and the dissemination of ideas through open access publishing and twitter. professor shweder ends by offering valuable advice to young researchers in the field of cultural psychology as well as a glimpse into the larger themes of his forthcoming book, which seeks to provide answers to the question of what forms of political liberalism are most compatible with robust cultural pluralism and which are not. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 published (vor): 2013-11-29. *corresponding author at: department of comparative human development, university of chicago, 5730 s. woodlawn ave, chicago, il, 60637, usa. e-mail: rshd@uchicago.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. séamus power: professor shweder, thank you for making time to be interviewed by me for europe’s journal of psychology. over the years you have contributed a lot to the field on cultural psychology, in terms of both empirical research and theoretical insights. what essays that you have written have had the most impact and why? richard shweder: i am not really a fan of trumpeting one’s accomplishments. as the expression goes one stands on the shoulders of giants. i say this not just because there is much to be said for the virtue of humility in academic circles or because it is inherently egocentric to comment on one’s own importance for an entire field of study but also because i am not even sure i can answer the question with any accuracy. in recent decades there have been many voices around the world proselytizing on behalf of the field and i have been fortunate to have many brilliant students and colleagues who have contributed as much as i to the revival of interest in cultural psychology. if i don’t name names here it is only because the list is long and i would not want to leave anyone out. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ professor richard a. shweder is a cultural anthropologist and the harold h. swift distinguished service professor of human development in the department of comparative human development at the university of chicago. he received his ph.d. degree in social anthropology in the department of social relations at harvard university in 1972, taught a year at the university of nairobi in kenya and has been at the university of chicago ever since. he is author of thinking through cultures: expeditions in cultural psychology andwhydomen barbecue? recipes for cultural psychology (both published by harvard university press); and editor or co-editor of many books in the areas of cultural psychology, psychological anthropology and comparative human development. his recent research examines the scope and limits of pluralism and the multicultural challenge in western liberal democracies. he examines the norm conflicts that arise when people migrate from africa, asia and latin america to countries in the “north”. he is currently writing a book provisionally titled customs control: un-american activities and the moral challenge in cultural migration. correspondence: department of comparative human development, university of chicago, 5730 s. woodlawn ave, chicago, il, 60637, usa. e-mail: rshd@uchicago.edu that said i will try my best to answer your question. or at least i will try to make some comments about a few essays of mine that readily come to mind. one thing i do know is that my 7th grade science teacher was pretty astonished when twenty-five years later i met him at a reunion and told him he had given me the first real thought i had ever had (the concept of infinity). he had no idea of his impact on my intellectual life, although he was pleased to learn it was so, just as i will feel pleased if some of my work has made a difference or inspired creative work in others. so what comes immediately to mind? first of all the interdisciplinary social science research council conference that robert levine and i organized in the early 1980s, which resulted in the publication of a book titledculture theory: essays on mind, self and emotion. secondly two interdisciplinary conferences at the university of chicago that james stigler, gilbert herdt and i organized in the late 1980s, which resulted in the publication of a book titledcultural psychology: essays on comparative human development. during that era in the last decades of the 20th century the field of cultural psychology was reborn. it happened through efforts on many fronts, for example at the university of michigan where hazel markus, richard nisbett, shinobu kitayama and phoebe ellsworth took an interest in psychological pluralism and created a forum on the topic, inviting in speakers from anthropology and psychology. it happened as well at the university of california campuses at los angeles and san diego in two famous person-centered psychological anthropology programs and in a very active cultural psychology program at ucsd led by michael cole. these were not necessarily unified visions of the field but taken together they signaled something important – that the study of human psychology should not be isolated from historical and cultural context. looking back, the essays ‘cultural psychology –what is it?’ and the three part earlier publication “rethinking culture and personality theory” provoked a conversation that in some measure may have contributed to that ongoing revival of the interdisciplinary study of differences in what people think, know, feel, want and value by virtue of membership in different historical traditions and cultural groups. that first essay in particular started a lively conversation about cultural psychology’s relationship to other fields like cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthropology and general psychology. cross-cultural psychologists and some psychological anthropologists certainly reacted to the “cultural psychology: what is it?” formulation, and not always with pleasure. a subsequent essay, titled “cultural psychology: who needs it?”, may have had some impact too, because it was published in the annual review of psychology; and as you probably know that publication outlet tends to draw institutional attention and validates fields of research in american psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 672 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one might also point to the essay titled “does the concept of the person vary cross culturally?”. it received the annual social psychology prize by the american association for the advancement of science and was followed up in creative ways by joan miller’s very important developmental research in india and the usa which precipitated debates about whether the fundamental attribution error was universal. that essay on the concept of the person, based on research i conducted in orissa, india and research conducted by ed bourne in the usa, was an early empirically grounded examination of multiple psychologies and was part of the return of interest among anthropologists and psychologists to the study of cultural variations in conceptualizations of the self, of the sort (egocentric v sociocentric; independent v interdependent) later made famous by hazel markus and shinobu kitayama in their now classic essay “culture and the self.” some of the essays i wrote in the area now called “moral anthropology” have been important too, at least to my own intellectual development. happily the investigation of moral judgments and the moral foundations of customary practices have recently re-emerged as a sub-field in anthropology, although moral anthropology has been a constant interest among students in my own department since i first arrived at the university of chicago four decades ago. alan fiske, for example, who was one of my first students, has long been a grand theorist and first rate field worker in this area; and his work on the logic of four fundamental types of interpersonal relationships deserves to be seminal. in any case, the essay titled “culture and moral development” which i wrote in the 1980s with my oriya indian friend and anthropological colleague manamohan mahapatra and with my then postdoctoral student joan miller ended up providing empirical evidence which provoked a set of generative debates. we questioned the supposed universality in folk psychology of the distinction between conventionality and morality as proposed by elliott turiel, larry nucci, and judith smetana. the debate is ongoing and productive of much research. that essay, plus the empirical research and theoretical formulations presented in the co-authored publication (with manamohan mahapatra, nancy much and lawrence park) titled ‘the big three of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the big three explanations of illness as well’ argued that the moral domain was broader than liberal values and should not be restricted to the study of the ethics of autonomy (or limited to a discourse focused exclusively on liberal moral concepts such as harm, rights, justice and equality). “the big three” essay defined three clusters of moral goods and linked them to cultural variations in conceptions of the self, while suggesting that the illiberality of a cultural custom (for example, with regard to gender relations or parental authority) was not necessarily a measure of its immorality. that formulation ended up having an impact on the work of several younger scholars, some of whom were once pre-doctoral or post-doctoral students at the university of chicago. i have in mind for example lene jensen’s important work on moral development, which was one of the early attempts to apply “the big three” approach to culture war issues in the united states. i would include jon haidt’s writings, which are influential and widely read expressions of the general approach. haidt eventually partitioned the ‘big three’ into five (and now six) domains and focused his attention on the culture war and political faction issues in the usa. his work (for example his popular and very readable book “the righteousmind”) examines splits and divides between liberals and conservatives in the u.s. ushamenon's recently published book "women, well-being and the ethics of domesticity in an odia hindu temple town" is another brilliant application of the general approach, in her case in the form an ethnographically based critique of some of the universalizing assumptions of global feminism. so from an impact point of view “the big three” essay did turn out to be fairly significant. off the top of my head i also think of ‘who sleeps by whom revisited’, a co-authored essay based on comparative research i had done in india with parallel work done by lene jensen in the united states (and with collaboration europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 673 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from bill goldstein). that particular piece became a kind of methodological model for studying the moral foundations of customary practices. in recent years my work in cultural psychology has turned to the study of the cultural collisions that surface when people migrate from ‘third world’ sites into liberal democracies in europe and north america. it examines the scope and limits of tolerance for robust cultural pluralism within nation states of various kinds, with special attention to customary practices (such as polygamy, animal sacrifice, and male and female genital modifications) that members of dominant ethnic groups in ethno-national states in europe and even in liberal pluralistic states such as canada or the united states don’t like. one very recent example is the essay titled “the goose and the gander: the genital wars”, which is available open access to a global audience at this website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.811923 here is the abstract: "should there be gender equity in genital cutting? in germany (and much of europe), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both should be proscribed. in sierra leone (and several other countries in africa), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both should be permitted. in the united states, the native inhabitants tend to argue against moral equivalence, permitting customary circumcisions for boys while proscribing them for girls. who has the better of the argument? and what are the implications of the argument for jews and other circumcising ethnic groups living in europe, africa, and north america?" séamus power: in terms of looking at cultural psychology now and before you wrote the books – thinking through cultures andwhy do men barbecue – that contain some of the essays you have discussed, what changes have you seen in the field of cultural psychology because of your work and those books in particular? richard shweder: it is important to remember that cultural psychology, by one name or another, whether it was labeled folk psychology or indigenous psychology or named otherwise, has been something that researchers, scholars and reflective intellectuals have thought about for hundreds if not thousands of years. so i view cultural psychology now as a renewal or return of interest in studying mental differences between members of different cultural groups. if you go back to the 1960’s there was an inter-disciplinary conference that was published in a special edition of the american anthropologist called the ‘transcultural studies of cultural cognition’ edited by a. kimball romney and roy d’andrade which brought together eminent psychologists, linguists and anthropologists. in my view that is an early example of a return of interest to cultural psychological kinds of issues and the recognition that local systems of meaning, cultural codes, are not so easily separated from intellectual processes and they make each other up; as the expression goes. i think the work that i have done is one of many streams that have resulted in a return of interest to psychological differences between human populations. psychological anthropology has always been defined by the study of both similarities and differences in psychological functioning across cultural groups. what the psychological tends to mean for psychological anthropologists is what human beings know, think, feel, want and value as good or bad. there, in talking about what one means by the psychological domain or the domain of the mental, i used terms that come from anna wierzbicka’s natural semantic meta-language. these are all concepts (to think, to know, to want, to feel, to judge as good or bad) that she argues are lexicalized in all human europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.811923 http://www.psychopen.eu/ languages and which i think provide a meta-language for defining the psychological. with the return of interest in cultural psychology the main focus turned to the study of the psychological differences. this is sometimes perceived as a denial of universals, which is definitely not the aim or message of cultural psychology as an intellectual enterprise. to study differences you have to predispose lots of likenesses; it’s just that cultural psychology specializes in trying to understand the differences; their origin and their consequences. séamus power: where do you think themis-perception comes from – that cultural psychologists are only concerned with differences? richard shweder: it may come from – and here i am just speculating – the reaction of people in general psychology who believe that psychology studies basic or fundamental processes. when a critique of the privileging of universals or deep structures is put forward it may be mistakenly perceived to suggest that there are no universals. but that is not what cultural psychology is about as a field. and that mistake appears in surprising places. i mentioned wierzbicka’s claim that in all languages to think, to know, to feel, to want, to value as good and bad are universal concepts – those are universal features of human mentalities. i think one should also acknowledge that the boost for cultural psychology as a field of study probably came from a number of sources, some internal to the discipline of the sort mentioned earlier, but also from several external sources too. so, for example, there was the boost from activists in the united states who were interested in the diversity agenda and so-called multiculturalism. multiculturalism is a word which means many different things and can be quite misleading – indeed, years ago (before the head scarf controversy) when i gave a series of lectures in paris i can recall being discouraged from using the word in the title of one of my presentations because according to my french host “multiculturalism” was then viewed as an american concept with little relevance to politics or society or academic culture in france. i will come back to some of the problems with the concept later. in any case there were a variety of people, for a variety of reasons, some of them political, who were interested in promoting diversity agendas and cultural psychology fit into that agenda in some ways. there were institutional boosts, for example, government funding agencies in the usa started to require all research proposals to sample minority groups and diverse populations and undertake more comparative research. u.s. immigration policy changed sometime in the mid 1960’s. so the issue of immigrants coming into the united states and the issues and problems associated with cultural collisions became prominent. similar immigration issues were emerging in europe, especially in former colonial first world powers, which began absorbing large numbers of peoples who were coming from former colonies. eventually in 1989 the berlin wall came down and that set off ethno-national movements of one sort or another. so, as the former soviet union and its empire collapsed or weakened, ethnic groups who in the past had their desire for self determination or autonomy suppressed by authoritarian rulers, were all of a sudden active again and they had modern aspirations to turn themselves into ethno-national states. globalization also had the effect of weakening, or making more porous boundaries of various kinds which also lead to transnational migrations. so there was a variety of things happening where the ‘culture concept’ and the reality of cultural difference couldn’t be avoided, which in a way was a boon for those of us who study cultural psychology. it wasn’t all that long before cultural psychology was labeled as a subfield. within the united states prominent departments of psychology (the university of michigan, stanford university, ucla) were interested in developing it, and even started thinking about hiring people who were calling themselves cultural psychologists. another thing that was more internal to the academy had to do with the reductive move in mainstream north american and european psychology to go down to micro units or so-called lower levels of analysis. it’s ironic that one effect of themove towards neurology – neuroscience in psychology – was to weaken the sub-field in mainstream europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 675 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology that had been a prototype of “hard science”, namely cognitive psychology. all of a sudden cognitive psychology started looking soft and mystical because they didn’t have a non-symbolic thing to point to like a neuron. because of technological innovations in looking at and mapping the brain, many psychologists started going micro and spent much of their time trying to keep up with the new technologies. well, in response or even protest, other psychologists decided they needed a new unit of analysis too – and they went more macro and started looking at higher order levels of analysis “outside the skin.” so the move to the micro prompted, i think, or stimulated a return of interest to things like race, stereotyping, culture; these became more plausible as topics of investigation. if social psychology was not going to simply become a branch of neuroscience the field was going to need a new higher order unit of analysis. social psychologists started doing comparative work and thinking about larger units – the study of group processes started to have some sex appeal and returned to the academic scene. within anthropology, which was an academic discipline that had been somewhat psycho-phobic and didn’t want to study the individual person, certain intellectual trends made it possible to look at anything if it was just treated as an example of “ideology” or “discourse”. consequently it became acceptable to look at the self as ideology or at emotion as ideology. that turn towards ideology and discourse at least brought mental predicates into the conversation and those topics becamemore commonly talked about and researched. all of those separate trends, in their own ways, assisted in the revival of interest in cultural psychology. séamus power:my background is at the universities of cork and cambridge, where i studied social and cultural psychology, before coming to work here at the university of chicago. i think the european flavour of cultural psychology does not place the same emphasis on the experimental method in psychological research, unlike in the united states. here, it seems as though top universities want to see job applicants publishing experimental psychological work. in your commentary to the famous article by joseph henrich, steven heine and ana norenzayan, titled ‘the weirdest people in the world?’, or the w.e.i.r.d. paper for short, you suggest that experimental tasks might not translate well across cultural boundaries. i wonder how you can reconcile those two positions – between top universities requiring researchers to publish experimental work but at the same time the experimental method being somewhat incapable of answering all cultural psychological questions. richard shweder: i think the experimental method should not be confused with conducting laboratory experiments. there is a basic logic to experimental reasoning which is terribly important for any disciplined researcher who is interested in developing a causal theory. so i am not against the logic of experimental method. i think j.s. mill’s laws of agreement and difference are terribly important. they are not always easily applied in real world contexts or to complex multivariable processes and once you start applying them you have to follow the logic completely and worry about unmeasured background variables, co-varying confounds, how to go about sensibly doing causal analysis. even famous anthropologists (fred eggan for example who developed the notion of controlled comparison in anthropological fieldwork) have adhered to the logic of experimental reasoning when comparing societies. eggan was not doing lab experiments. he tried to look for naturally occurring groups or societies where many things (kinship structure, gender relations, political organization, subsistence activities) were the same, and then studied what happened when one of those things changed in one of those societies. that is an example of the application of the logic of the experimental reasoning. the w.e.i.r.d. paper effectively and dramatically makes a point which has been made time and time again over the decades about rushing to generalizations about so-called fundamental or basic psychological processes and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 676 http://www.psychopen.eu/ not being aware of the boundaries conditions around the findings of your own particular study done with a very particular population (typically in mainstream psychology with college students in western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic societies) which does not adequately represent all of human kind. cultural psychologists are well trained in this type of caution. in the early 20th century margaret mead made the point in a classic critique of jean piaget’s claims about animistic thinking in swiss children. titchener’s highly critical response (a response which should be studied and addressed as part of the basic training of any cultural psychologist) to the experimental findings on cultural variations in sensory acuity produced by the interdisciplinary university of cambridge torres straits expedition (which was conducted over 100 years ago) is all about this issue. but the point i was making in my comment was not against doing comparative research, or even doing comparative experiments. my comment was a call to become aware of the incommensurability in meaning that arises when stimulus materials travel across cultural boundaries. it was a call to turn the study of the ways the “same” stimulus event or experimental situation is not really “the same” (or not really so readily translated into another language or cultural context) into a topic of cultural psychological investigation. so, it’s not that there is some kind of inherent opposition between doing experimental work and studying differences in intellectual processes across cultural groups. the point is that once you recognize that from a subjective point of view the same objective stimulus is not really subjectively the same the many ways it is not the same, from the subject’s point of view, becomes the grist for studying psychological differences. the noise for experimental psychologists who think their stimulus materials must be commensurate for all subjects is really the signal for a cultural psychologist. the psychological differences studied by cultural psychologists are tied up with all of the ways people understand the so-called objective stimulus materials in different ways, producing different judgments, goals, values, wants or so forth. the example i gave in that commentary had to do with so-called experimental economic games like the dictator game in which you might find that in some parts of the world, like new guinea, the majority of people who played the dictator game behaved in ways you never see among american college students. if they were given resources equivalent to 100 dollars they might offer most of it to a supposedly “anonymous other”, who would refuse to take it, and then, given the basic rules of the dictator game (which one presumes the “natives” understood) no one neither the giver nor the receiver would walk away with anything. (the game is played this way with these rules: make an offer to the “anonymous other” who can either accept or reject the offer; if accepted both parties walk away with what they have left or received but if the offer is not accepted both parties receive nothing). this is a kind of behavior you don’t see among american college students. american college students typically offer about half of their resource, which the other person typically accepts. one possible explanation for the way the new guinea participants play the dictator game is that in their minds they are not playing with an ‘anonymous other’. they import into the experimental stimulus event local ideas and ideals and have some concept of a person with whom you form long term alliances and have a potential political relationship. if you accept the offer of a gift it may incur obligations over the long term which you may not want. that local belief system may explain why the behavior of the new guinea subject is different from the behavior produced by the belief system held by the american college student when they are in the “same situation;” except from a cultural psychological point of view it is not really the same situation. and all the reasons that the situation is not de facto the same situation (not the same stimulus event) is what differences in cultural mentalities are all about. so my comment was about a method for studying cultural differences, namely by focusing on the incommensurability in your stimulus materials. i was not suggesting that you stop doing experimental research until everything can be made exactly equivalent in the minds of your subjects. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 677 http://www.psychopen.eu/ séamus power: that is an interesting answer to my question. i spoke with professor david nussbaum in the booth school here at the university of chicago and he wanted to ask how an experimental method can best be used to complement a cultural ethnographic approach? richard shweder: i don’t think there is a general formula for this. you have to understand the question you’re trying to address. john lucy, one of my first ph.d. students and now colleague here at comparative human development, when he did his phd thesis on the whorfian hypothesis, would not administer an experiment until he had learned the language well enough to understand how to formulate questions in the first place and until he understood how the whole question/answer interview process might work with his local informants. no experiments were designed until he had done a substantial amount of fieldwork and understood the local scene, ‘thickly’ as clifford geertz might put it, so that he could design an appropriate set of stimulus materials to test a particular notion he had about the way in which language influenced thought. i’ve certainly done experimental tasks in the field including the paper ‘who sleeps by whom, revisited’ in which various cognitive experiments were undertaken. it’s hard to see why someone would simply rule out on principle any method that might work or be appropriate. there are deeper, philosophical issues about methods, of course, involving quantitative/qualitative arguments. it seems to me these are somewhat misguided if they are at the level of epistemology. the issues are deep and profound, however, if you turn them into questions about ontology or metaphysics – that is questions about whether you are investigating qualia or studying quanta. if you are studying quanta you are studying things you believe are part of the fabric of the real world that are independent of our involvement with them. if you are studying qualia you are studying real things that exist by virtue of someone’s involvement with them and they are not typically the kinds of things you can point to or that you can best understand by bleaching them of meaning or subjective value and turning them into mathematical or structural formulations. and then the question arises: what are the appropriate methods for studying qualia and are they the same as the methods for studying quanta? and there you can plausibly argue that there is not a unity to science or if you are a strict empirical scientist who believes the methods of science were designed with the study of quanta in mind then you might argue that it is impossible to have a science of qualia because it doesn’t fit the way you should go about studying quanta, which allows you to point to and measure things that exist regardless of perspective, interpretive community or who the observer is. mathematical formulations don’t become true by virtue of someone believing they are true, logic is not about how people think – logic is about logic. certain things have that kind of objective status. they have a special status as ontological and metaphysical objects and may require distinctive methods if you are going to try and study them. that’s why we have the famous humanities versus science so-called two cultures split and so forth. in any case as far as designing an experiment to see if you have an adequate understanding of something based on your field experience or your observations – i think it is a perfectly legitimate and important thing to do. when i went ahead and designed an experiment for asking residents of a temple town in india to sort members of a hypothetical 7 person family into sleeping arrangements under different kinds on constraints – how do you sort this particular 7 person family into two, three, four sleeping spaces i had already had some idea of the kinds of variations that might exist and even some ideas through interviewing about the kinds of principles (for example, a lack of concern about exclusive husband-wife co-sleeping or what we called “the sacred couple”) that might be revealed in the choices people made. the experiment wasmeant to systematically see what would come up under a very controlled type of task. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ séamus power: you have already talked about some of the issues in cultural psychology in terms of migration. what are the significant contemporary questions that cultural psychology can answer? richard shweder: i certainly think that one kind of question that ought to be asked if you are concerned with issues of cultural diversity and if you are concerned with issues of equality and inequality has to do with what some of us refer to as the equality-difference paradox. by which i mean there is a trade off between the amount of diversity and the amount of equality you can have within a society. this is evident in some initial pilot research that a number of us have done. i was involved in a research planning group in which we looked at over a hundred countries and the relationship between income equality and cultural diversity. there is something called the gini index which is used to assess how equal or unequal income distributions are within a country and one can also look at measures of cultural and linguistic diversity in those countries. the basic finding is that the most egalitarian societies in the world are also among the most culturally homogenous. so, it would appear that if you really want redistribution of wealth and relative equality within your society one way to do it is to press for cultural homogeneity, either by means of partition, deportation or as a result of conflicts resulting in so-called ethnic cleansing or alternatively through the forced or voluntary assimilation of minority groups to a relatively uniform set of mainstream customs. that’s a pretty startling discovery and an astonishing kind of conclusion, but, nevertheless it does appear to have some kind of plausibility. on the other hand if you value diversity – and if you want to preserve that diversity in a complex society – then it would appear that making space for some amount of inequality is going to be the consequence of it. slovenia is a relatively egalitarian place, right now, rwanda is too. places that have had histories of partition, ethnic cleansing or top down pressures toward assimilation tend to get together groups of like-minded people, so people feel they are of the same family and there is a sense of primordial identification and fellow feeling they have with each other. one speculates such identifications and feelings provide the basis for government policies that promote redistributing wealth and maintaining relatively high degrees of income equality. i’d say that is a pretty significant problem for the field of cultural psychology to think about. if you are a robust cultural pluralist you do not think that “difference” is something one ought to eliminate in the world. if you are a robust cultural pluralist you find it strange when the united nations appoints a committee to define what a normal family will look like and universalizes that notion or declares to the world “here’s the best way to bring up children.” if you find something problematic in that then i think one needs to think hard about the consequences of cultural diversity. one of those consequences may well be that there are different kinds of things that are valued, different kinds of skills and occupations that are valued, different kinds of ‘cultural capital’ that different groups have, and the outcome of those cultural differences is not necessarily going to be equality in wealth. if you want to preserve cultural diversity in your society, it is likely that there may well be a division of labour between different groups and highly unlikely that every kind of labour is going to be rewarded equally in financial terms, even if it plays a necessary role in the overall functioning of society. so, that is one kind of problem: the dynamics associated with the equality-difference paradox. there are many others. we live in a world that is globalizing, boundaries are coming down and we are faced with cultural collisions of one type or another as people move into common territorial spaces. cultural psychologists have a very important role to play in promoting human understanding of cultural differences which, at least in principle, might support a more tolerant live and let live attitude, especially if you can get over your initial reactions of indignation or disgust at what other people are doing when we encounter unfamiliar practices. that responsibility arises in part because europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 679 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the technologies associated with media. these days you can stick a camera in someone else’s valley and show a very provocative or even incendiary image which gets people to want to react very quickly, even before they necessarily understand what they are seeing. i can see how cultural psychology might have a part to play in the world of journalism, for example. so, those are two examples. wherever cultural difference questions arise, either in terms that imply that “difference” is a social problem and thus should be eliminated or in terms that imply that “diversity” should be valued there is a role for cultural psychology. in passing i mentioned multiculturalism earlier. it is curious that the concept gets used to talk about opposite things. the ‘sovereignty’ agenda of native americans in the united states (there are now hundreds of such sovereign territories) is basically an attempt to have self-determination and to restore or revive a distinctive way of life. it is sometimes referred to with labels such as multiculturalism but so too is the ‘inclusion agenda’ for mainstreaming african americans, which looks entirely like an assimilation program. so the label “multiculturalism” gets used whether you are assimilating to the mainstream or withdrawing from the mainstream. there are people who use multiculturalism to imply that all difference is a result of vicious discrimination. that type of multicultural analysis of difference basically attributes all cultural differences to vicious discrimination, the implication being that if there was no discrimination in the world the cultural differences amongst ancestral groups would become attenuated or disappear. and at the same time there are theorists who think multiculturalism is all about promoting cultural difference. séamus power: where do you stand on the issue of multiculturalism? richard shweder: i think where i stand is that multiculturalism has become a useless concept because of its multiple meanings and people often talk past each other. it has become a banner without much specific substance. it is a good idea to go beyond the label and specify what it is you actually mean. if the question is “where do you stand with regard to cultural difference?” i am a robust cultural pluralist. i believe that given the nature of human beings as situated creatures with our kind of cognitive capacities, cognitive limits and affective attachments, cultural differences between members of different groups is an inevitable feature of being human. i think that where there is vicious discrimination we should oppose it. on the other hand, i don’t think cultural differences are primarily a result of vicious discrimination. i think they are a result of some combination of the existential nature of human life and the fact that any person or any social order has to address and try to answer certain questions which don’t have a single rational answer; like who is up and who is down, like how should burdens and benefits be distributed, like what’s male and what’s female, what’s mine and what’s not mine, what’s me and what’s not me. those are universal questions that have to be faced for the sake of personal identity and social existence they are unavoidable. but it’s not as though science or logic is going to provide a definitive answer binding on all; and different historical traditions have developed different kinds of answers and built different types of institutions around those answers. there is not a single way to trace group inclusion or kinship affiliation. there is not a single universally binding conception for gender relations, one that all rational and morally sensitive human beings must abide by. morally sensible and reasonable people can disagree without being involved in error, ignorance, or confusion. or if there is error or ignorance that may be a concomitant of the ultimate limits of human reason. there are some questions that can’t be decided solely using rational procedures and some truths that are just unknowable. séamus power: in terms of your recent publications on cultural clashes, you focus on “the practice that can’t be named”. why is this topic of such great interest to you? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 680 http://www.psychopen.eu/ richard shweder: the ‘practice that can’t be named’ refers to a practice some people call female circumcision, some call female genital cutting, some call female genital modification, some call female genital mutilation and some call female genital beautification or vaginal rejuvenation. i sometimes call it “the practice that can’t be named” – because any way you name it presupposes a moral attitude and runs the risk of foreclosing critical reasoning, dispassionate empirical research, argument or discussion. if you refer to something as ‘genital mutilation’ it’s roughly the same as starting the conversation about abortion by asking “are you in favour of the murder of innocent life?” i don’t, however, just focus on “the practice that can’t be named” when it comes to investigating cultural collisions. there are many different types of cultural collisions in the world, and i have written about several of them. i have written about whether the amish should have to send their kids to school – where there was a culture clash where amish parents were prosecuted for not sending their kids to school after 8th grade. i’ve written about polygamy and about animal sacrifice, court decisions evaluating whether santeria people in florida can sacrifice animals as part of their religious worship. i’ve written about several aspects having to do with gender relations. i’ve written about male circumcision, and different images of the body. so, the attention i have given to the topic of female genital surgeries is in the context of a much broader consideration of the scope and limits of robust cultural pluralism. however, it is true that i think “the practice that can’t be named” is an important topic for all thoughtful people to examine, even if it is the kind of topic most people are not inclined to think about. why do i think about such a sensitive, provocative and even taboo topic at all? originally, i learned about the practice when i was in graduate school at harvard university, when i was preparing to go to teach at the university of nairobi in kenya for a year. anyone in anthropology in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s who learned about any part of east or west africa was going to learn about the history of colonial interventions including efforts in the 1920’s and 1930’s to eradicate female, but not male, genital surgeries. when i taught at the university of nairobi in 1972/73 it was before the period associated with the emergence of contemporary global feminism.when the international women’s movement became really active it picked female genital operations in africa as one of the things to eradicate – that was the term used “eradication”, as though the customary east and west african practice was a disease. and, in the early 1970’s when i was in africa probably about 50% of the ethnic groups in kenya had as a customary practice both male and female genital modifications. i had students who came from some of these groups and there was a kind of ‘live and let live’ attitude in kenya at the time. it was well known that jomo kenyatta the first president of kenya and a nationalist who was one of the leaders of the uprising against british rule, had written a ph.d. thesis in anthropology at the london school of economics in the 1930’s in which he described kikuyu male and female genital surgeries and articulated a rationale for them while noting that educated opinion in kenya viewed that custom as legitimate. kenyatta analogized the custom to jewish circumcision, although he politely avoided the question “why aren’t jewish women circumcised?” (which by the way is the title of an eye-opening book by the harvard scholar of jewish literature shaye cohen). with the rise of global feminism, starting roughly in the early 1980’s, this custom was put on a list of abominations along with lynching’s and the holocaust and rape. that was startling, at least for some anthropologists of african societies, who knew about the history and who were familiar with the practice through fieldwork or through reading about it. it felt like a return to a certain kind of “dark continent” colonial perception. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 681 http://www.psychopen.eu/ but there are other reasons i became interested in the topic. if you are a jew and familiar with jewish history the accusation that parents are mutilators of their own children is not new in history and anyone familiar with jewish history will be aware that jews have been called mutilators of infant boys because of the practice of male circumcision. indeed, the holiday of hanukkah is a celebration of the maccabees' victory over an attempt to use the power of state to eradicate torah based practices and male circumcision was one of those practices. so jews with an historical consciousness ought to be wary when those who are powerful start describing minority groups as mutilators of their children. i was surprised that highly educated secular jews i knew, and who i generally thought of as eager to engage in debates about almost any topic, seemed to turn off their critical reasoning when it came to this practice and readily accepted the mutilation discourse. when i finally examined the empirical claims that were often made about sexuality and health consequences of female genital surgeries they seemed hyperbolic and almost fanciful in relation to the actual evidence. so, one stream of interest in the “practice that can’t be named” flowed from my learning about colonial history. one stream came from my own experience of living in africa. one stream came from being astonished by the level of affect and passion unleashed by the mutilation discourse or when people read about african parents “torturing” their children and the disinterest in engaging in further inquiry. although critical reason has its limits – i’ve already said it can’t take you all the way to a single answer about many existential issues nevertheless, it seems to me, this was an example of people being motivated by their gut feelings. one of the reasons jon haidt (whose book on “the righteous mind” i mentioned earlier) is interested in gut feelings is because they are so powerful and motivating and this seems to be a clear example of it. those were some of the things that motivated me to be interested in the topic. there is one other reason i should mention. there is an essay of mine on this topic, which i probably should have mentioned when you asked about mywritings, titled ‘what about female genital mutilation? andwhyunderstanding culture matters in the first place’. the title of that paper comes from an experience i often had when lecturing about moral and cultural pluralism. it was not uncommon for someone to raise their hand and say “what about female genital mutilation?” the question was often asked as though it was some sort of argument-ending trump card where the mere asking of the question was the end of the conversation. for me it was the beginning of the conversation. séamus power: in terms of the global discourse around f.g.m. – how does it feel to be in a minority of people who think it is a legitimate cultural practice? richard shweder: of course it is not a minority view in at least seven african countries where 80-90 percent of women would feel excluded if only men were permitted to engage in the practice (and one should note and consider the significance of the fact that virtually in any society where it is customary to engage in female genital surgeries it is also customary to engage in male genital surgeries). gender equity in genital cutting is the norm in those societies. but i suppose you might well of asked, how did it feel to be a jew who circumcised males in the 19th century in europe where the dominant population thought (and still does think) that male circumcision is a mutilation and a form of child abuse? how did it feel to be a homosexual in the united states during the long period of time when the vast majority of the country felt homosexuality was a crime or a disease and certainly didn’t feel it was legitimate to permit gay marriage? but what really is the point of this question? one is interested in “the practice that can’t be named” for all the reasons i mentioned earlier. being a researcher or an academic is not a process whereby you look around and see what the majority thinks and says ‘oh that’s what i’m going to believe’. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 682 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one “follows the argument where it leads.” being willing to upset apple carts and question dogma is one of the responsibilities we have as scholars and intellectuals in the academy. it’s one of the reasons i occasionally give a seminar called ‘if someone asserts it, deny it, if someone denies it, assert it’. the socratic tradition is partly about what it is like to be in a minority – that’s what questioning received wisdom implies – it comes with the territory. so when people who are genuinely admiring of socratic skepticism lose sight of their skeptical capacities it is worrisome and becomes something to be examined. perhaps the feelings i have are those stimulated by seeing so many typically self-reflective critical intellectuals, surrender their critical reason when it comes to this highly emotive and provocative topic, which i believe is potentially consequential for all circumcising minority groups, including jews. séamus power: i wanted to speak about the dissemination of ideas. the last paper you published ‘the goose and the gander: the genital wars’ was published in an open access journal, and this interview is in europe’s journal of psychology, which is also peer-reviewed and freely available. i am on the editorial board of psychology & society, which is another popular open access journal from the university of cambridge. what are your thoughts on open access publishing and the increased potential of the dissemination of ideas to a broad audience? richard shweder: well, the article you mentioned which was published in global discourse, and as you said is called ‘the goose and the gander: the genital wars’ is the first one i have published that way. i elected to do it when the option was presented because i wanted there to be as broad a conversation about the issues as possible and largely because i am aware that in many places in the world, including africa, which of course is one of the most relevant regions of the world for this discussion, universities are not necessarily going to be subscribers to journals. under those circumstances students are not necessarily going to have access, non-subscribers won’t have access. so it was a way to make the essay available for free to anyone who was interested in getting involved in the conversation and i thought that was a plus. séamus power: i think that’s wonderful. richard shweder: with open access publication i do think it remains important that each piece is vetted by a set of reviewers or by some editors, but in general i think open access is a real plus, and broadens the conversation – and the broader the conservation around a published article the better. so, that’s the reason i did it. séamus power: do you think it’s something you are going to do again? richard shweder: yes, i suspect open access is going to be the way of the future one way or another. the question is who pays for it because whoever is doing it still has to stay in business. the way open access publishing operates, the authors are, in one way or another, subsidizing or paying for the publishing which makes it possible for the publisher not to be too reliant on subscribers. the business model is going to have to be worked out. but, if you just take the journal global discourse it appears the articles that are getting read most widely are those that are open access. this is not terribly surprising – it makes sense. séamus power:when i looked at your article in comparison to others in the journal i noticed it was downloaded over 2,600 times, which was a lot more than the other articles in that edition. i noticed too that professor steven pinker tweeted it to his substantial following and i speculated that’s where a lot of the views came from. i wanted to ask your views on social media, in particular twitter, in the dissemination of academic ideas. it seems to me it goes hand in hand with open access publishing. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 683 http://www.psychopen.eu/ richard shweder:well, a couple of comments. it was nice of steve pinker to tweet it and he does have a large following. he also tweeted and made public the fact that he and i have a five year old bet about the future of male circumcision in the united states among non-orthodox jews which he also announced in a tweet which perhaps raised some interest in the essay – i think those two tweets probably came out the same day if i remember correctly. and i was fortunate as well that john tierney, who was a former ny times columnist and is a free thinking journalist in the socratic tradition, also tweeted it and he has a substantial following as well. it’s a little hard to pin down exactly why that particular article has gotten the attention it has gotten, there are other potential sources too, but i’m sure those two had an important impact. i, of course, sent the essay to a network of scholars and researchers who work on “the practice that can’t be named” and they themselves may or may not have sent it to other people. there are also some discussion sites that are africa based that might have picked it up and so that’s possible as well. but i think you are right we are now in a transition away from journals that are hard copy to other modes of communication. i don’t yet really know how i feel about tweeting. i’m open on that score. i recognize that it is a way of becoming your own journal, or having your own circle of people you are writing to, or publicizing your work, which can be a benefit. i do worry that it becomes a form of self promotion. based on my rather limited experience reading tweets, 95% of them seem pretty mindless, so you can spend a lot of time generating and reading words like “awesome” and “fantastic” which, frommy point of view, are not fostering careful thinking. i suspect people actually read books and full essays less and less these days – i have not looked at the data on this and i hope i am wrong. nevertheless it is my guess that more and more readers just look at bullet points or the abstract of an article, or a one line tweet, which become substitutes for actually sitting down and doing the hard work of thinking through an argument and collecting evidence and reading a careful critical discussion of something. and in that sense i worry that it’s a kind of erosion, or has a corrosive influence on critical reason. but it certainly does seem to work well as a global stage for a popularity contest. the signal to noise ratio in social media is not all that great and as far as i can tell all sorts of misinformation (and even slander) very easily goes out into these forums. i’ve imagined a one act play with two characters – god and the devil – having an extended conversation about who is happier with the internet and all of these social media sites. my guess is that overall the devil is happier than god. there are of course wonderful things we all do with the new technologies, like being able to send articles out and receive things from other people quickly, but it’s not obvious to me that the light side is winning out over the dark side when it comes to these new modes of communication. we seem to have managed to empower the gossip and it is now very easy to put people in the cyber-stocks as a social control mechanism that sort of stuff happens very quickly and powerfully. how is one to feel when journalists stop doing investigative field work and spend most of their time looking at tweets and blogs? how should one feel about dinner party conversations where everyone around the table is looking at their iphone much of the time? one day i may put up a sign for dinner guests at my home that says leave your guns and your iphone at the door. so i don’t yet know how i feel about tweeting and i am in the process of deciding. séamus power: great, that’s interesting. one question that interviewers in this journal ask of senior academics is what advice do you have for up and coming researchers in the area of cultural psychology? richard shweder: first of all, i think it is very hard to be interdisciplinary. being interdisciplinary isn’t a matter of learning one discipline and then tinkering in the others. you really need to try and train yourself so you are pretty sophisticated in all of the disciplines you are doing. if not that, then you have to develop long term relationships europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 684 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with people in these other disciplines and develop the capacity to really understand each others discourses and methodologies and focus on questions that can really be advanced with collaborative research. kuo-shu yang, the chinese cultural psychologist who actually is the father of what is called indigenous psychology in east asia, has a list of advice for budding indigenous or cultural psychologists. one recommendation is to start your research by really immersing yourself in the phenomenon of interest. he has in mind something like engaging in what anthropologists call participant observation. for the budding cultural psychologist i would recommend finding a way after your first year of graduate school, especially if you are in disciplines where field work or language learning is not part of the training, to get into the field, whether it is in the united states or somewhere else. try to understand the local social norms of the people you study. get to know these people in the contexts where they live their lives. later you can try to isolate a phenomenon of interest and see if you can manipulate it in a lab. but let it be something that has enough reality that it is not just a process created by the context and demands of lab research. one of the reasons stanley milgram’s experiments on obedience to authority were as important as they were – i view that research as the ultimate example of significant social psychological lab research whatever you feel about the ethics that were involved – is that he was building on hannah arendt’s analysis of the nazi experience and the banality of evil concept. so, we had wwii and the nazi experience, we had in hand a rich historical analysis by a political philosopher before milgram moved into his lab. something like that is a useful process for developing significant cultural psychological research. i would advise people to get to know some group well. the very attempt at language learning, even if you don’t fully succeed or ever get fluent, is a deeply instructive exercise. translation as a process is something that is a huge challenge and i sometimes think that many of the apparent disagreements that exist between different peoples turn on the failure to recognize everything that gets lost in translation. when you actually go through the process of really understanding what someone else means and really understanding their view of the world, and the constraints in which they live, eventually you get to the point when you say, well actually i would do the same thing if that were my world. that’s some of my advice. and of course follow your curiosity. i think that what you don’t want to do is lose your critical capacity or feel that you have to do some research just so you can have a minimal publishable unit show up on your vita as fast as possible. one of the hazards in academia, especially for graduate students, is the rush to publish. also, look for a generative project. when you are young you want to define a project that you could easily imagine working on for the next ten years, a project that has the capacity to lead to other interesting questions. séamus power: is there anything else you would like to talk about – your future work or new book? richard shweder:well, the question that is on my mind and maybe you can put this on the list of what i view as significant questions for cultural psychology is ‘is it possible to be a robust cultural pluralist and dedicated political liberal at the same time, or not?’ in other words, what forms of political liberalism are most compatible with robust cultural pluralism and which ones aren’t? there are varieties of liberalism which are hostile to robust cultural pluralism and aim to liberate people from their cultural traditions. they define the idea of “agency” as resistance to culture. they hope to cleanse the world of those cultural customs they view as illiberal. the question – under what kinds of political orders will cultural pluralism thrive – is also on my mind. it is a question that has led some scholars to be interested once again in the structure of the ottoman empire. twenty-two different peoples speaking different languages – at least for some period of time – managed to have a lot of local control and autonomy and to co-exist in the ottoman empire. so those questions – how do you organize cultural diversity and what types of political systems are most compatible with it, and what kinds of intellectual frameworks and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 shweder & power 685 http://www.psychopen.eu/ philosophies are compatible with it are important agenda items for cultural psychology. my project right now is to try to conceptualize a big tent view of the united states, its ethical and legal traditions and to ask how much space can there reasonably be within those ethical and legal traditions for robust cultural pluralism. what are the limits on tolerance? what is and ought to be on your un-american cultural activities list, if anything? and how should you construct such a list? séamus power: and when should we expect to read this book? richard shweder: as for the book i’m working on it. it may take some time. but most of the things i write these days are in one way or another addressing those questions, including theglobal discourse piece. this publication on the genital wars and the recent court ruling in cologne, germany, where the appellate judge ruled that male circumcision, as practiced by jews and muslims, was unconstitutional in germany is a specific example of this larger project. séamus power: fantastic. well, thanks very much for your time, we appreciate it. richard shweder: my pleasure. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 671–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.718 interview with richard a. shweder 686 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview with richard a. shweder (article body) the development of the brief social desirability scale (bsds) rahman haghighat mbchb, mrcpsych, phd (ucl) independent consultant psychiatrist, psychotherapist and sociologist, uk (work done at the department of psychiatry, university college london medical school) jessie holding a mask by martin dace www.dace.co.uk abstract topic: the objective of this work is to devise a brief, practical, reliable and valid social desirability instrument for use in contexts where a short scale is useful for example in the assessment of social desirability factor in psychiatric patients. hypothesis: social desirability factor which is the tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner to attitudinal questionnaires affects the validity of attitudinal questionnaires. method & participants: a five-item social desirability factor was devised using themes from a written record of patients’ conversation and cross-validated on 61 subjects. reliability was computed using cronbach alpha method. the result is a brief reliable and valid 4-item social desirability scale. conclusion & significance: the brief social desirability scale (bsds) has the advantages of brevity and practicality. it can be used before administering attitudinal surveys in order to factor in the effect of the social desirability on attitudinal questionnaires. bsds is preferred in many test situations where the administration time is limited or subjects are unable to bear lengthy questionnaires and the related drop in reliability due to brevity of the scale remains tolerable. keywords: social desirability, attitudinal questionnaire, stigmatization note the questionnaire, scoring manual, procedure for its administration and permission for use can be requested from the author at r.haghighat@lycos.com [the author requested to add this note post-publication on july 4th, 2013.] introduction social desirability factor, which is defined as participants’ tendency to give ‘desirable’ answers in response to attitudinal questionnaires in order to put forward a more socially acceptable self-image is likely to take on pivotal importance when another questionnaire probing sensitive areas of private feelings and behaviour for example related to discrimination and stigmatisation is used. respondents may answer in a socially desirable way because, for example, there is no flesh-and-blood psychiatric patient asking to rent a room in their homes. this tendency in pencil-and-paper surveys is likely to be a defence to present oneself as a ‘good’, ‘fair’ and ‘impartial’ citizen against the ‘threat made by questions’ or to comply with the experimenter by responding in such a way as to confirm the hypothesis tested. for example, in relation to attitudes to people with mental illness, there are at least two sets of data which support that people tend to respond in a socially desirable manner when asked questions about their attitudes towards patients with mental illness. the first is the fact that those variables that generally predict higher tolerance and positive attitudes such as higher social class, higher education and occupational status and income also typify communities that, in effect, resist the establishment of mental health facilities in their neighbourhoods (segal et al, 1980). also, participants interviewed about their attitudes towards a mental patient’s ‘need to find a place to live’ were significantly less willing to take part in a similar interview in future (compared with participants interviewed about a medical patient’s similar need) even if they asserted that they would welcome such patients. this means that people may indeed find it disagreeable to think about a mental patient moving into their neighbourhood (farina, 1998, p. 252) even when they verbally respond that they would be tolerant. though neither segal nor farina have looked at the above from a social desirability point of view, their findings support the idea that people tend to resort to social desirability in their responses to sensitive questions. what attitudinal questionnaires measure is therefore likely to be distorted by the social desirability factor. this means that the corruptive effect of this factor is likely to affect the validity of these questionnaires in that what is being measured is not strictly speaking what is meant to be measured but a mixture adulterated with attempts to present ‘desirable’ feelings and actions in order to ‘satisfy’ the research team. thus the administration of a social desirability scale along with questionnaires scrutinizing personal feelings and behaviour is necessary to ensure that what is being measured by the questions is nearer to what is supposed to be measured. existing social desirability scales such as the marlowe-crowne inventory (1960) have the disadvantage of being relatively lengthy and as a result lead to lack of participants’ co-operation especially when administered along with another lengthy attitudinal questionnaire. there are reports indicating that several of its 33 items contribute little to the overall measure (strahan & gerbasi, 1972) so the latter authors devised shorter scales, one with 10 items. one example of the usefulness of the shorter forms of sd scales can be found in riedera & ruderman (2007). nevertheless, none of the shorter scales has been designed for use in psychiatric patients. the idea of the need for such a scale came up when an attitudinal questionnaire on the stigmatization of schizophrenia by patients was given to patients with schizophrenia (haghighat, 2005) and it was necessary to eliminate those with high social desirability scores from the computations. the briefer versions of marlowe-crowne social desirability scale are unsuitable for use in patients with schizophrenia or depression, and in general in psychiatric patients. some items in the shorter versions such as “there have been times when i felt like rebelling against people in authority even though i knew they were right” is rather heavy for people with poverty of thought and other negative symptoms of schizophrenia such as apathy to conceptualize and answer in a socially desirable or undesirable manner. other items such as “there have been occasions when i felt like smashing things” are unsuitable for use in people with schizophrenia with a history of agitation as an affirmatory response to such questions (taken as evidence of a lack of social desirability) is more likely in people who tend to be habitually stimulated or agitated, and so liable to acting out and outbursts. also, apathy, poor concentration and lack of motivation, etc. are likely to reduce their co-operation with these scales when they are used with other still lengthier questionnaires. method it is widely recognized that reducing the number of items in a questionnaire may reduce its reliability. the common variance would have a tendency to be low and, as a result, the measure might be unstable. an objective was set to produce a 4 to 5-item social desirability scale suitable for use in psychiatric patients of which the reliability equals at least the minimum reliability of the 10-item version of marlowe-crowne social desirability scale. this figure was taken as a standard to achieve in the development of the brief social desirability scale (bsds). a preliminary scale for bsds was built composed of five questions (table 1) based on a record of daily conversation of patients and their relatives in their homes in the context of a wider study of patients and relatives’ attitudes described elsewhere (haghighat, 2007). each question has two possible answers: yes or no and only one of them was considered to be a socially desirable one. for example, in response to the question: do you always practise what you would preach?, ‘yes’ is supposed to be a socially desirable answer and gets a score of 1 while ‘no’ is not a socially desirable answer and gets a score of 0. in order to compensate for the effect of response sets, the questions were designed such that two needed ‘no’ as an answer, and three needed ‘yes’ in order to mark a score on the social desirability scale. the aim was to devise a brief measure of social desirability that, given possible length of other questionnaires concurrently administered, is practically acceptable to participants, and, at the same time, allows screening out those with an uncomfortably high tendency to give socially desirable answers. as some culturally sanctioned ideas such as “always practice what you preach” is common in the general public including patients, it is not surprising that the relevant item in the bsds replicated that in the marlowe-crowne social desirability scale. table 1. the preliminary list of questions assessing the social desirability factor. the first four of these questions proved to be valid in both genders on cross-validation and constitute the final version of the scale. the questions were asked in conjunction with a questionnaire on stigmatization towards a man with schizophrenia, and the word ‘people’ in the original questions was formulated as ‘this man or other people’. computations indicated that the reliability coefficient (cronbach alpha) for the items 1 to 4 of the social desirability scale for all participants was 0.6 which is moderate in magnitude yet acceptable for practical purposes (minimum reliability of the 10-item version of marlowe-crowne social desirability scale). the items of the questionnaire were scrutinised for face validity and it was estimated that they seemed to ‘make sense’ on the surface as valid measures of social desirability. the content validity was examined by systematically scrutinising whether each item covered an aspect of social desirability. the assumption underlying the construction of a social desirability scale is that those participants who get a high score on the scale are expected to get a lower score on a questionnaire which measures an undesirable trait such as the predisposition to stigmatize others. a measure of the construct validity of the social desirability scale would then be to examine if there is a negative correlation between the social desirability score and the score on an attitudinal questionnaire. for this, the stigmatization questionnaire (haghighat, 2005) was used. a priori one would expect a moderate negative correlation as the social desirability factor is not the only factor determining the response of the participants to the questionnaire on stigmatisation. there was indeed a moderate and significant, negative correlation (spearman rho) of -0.372 at 0.01 level between the social desirability scores and stigmatization scores of the group of thirty patients and thirty relatives which is an indication of the construct validity of the social desirability scale. this means that those who tended to get higher scores on the social desirability scale also presented themselves in a way as to get lower scores on their predisposition to stigmatize. a subsequent cross-validation of the social desirability scale proved the validity of the majority of the questions. an assessment of validity by comparison with the marlowe-crowne social desirability scale or a shorter version could be done yet this meant using a scale which was originally considered unsuitable for use in psychiatric patients. therefore an alternative method was used to cross-validate the questionnaire by asking a group of participants to answer the questionnaire in a socially desirable manner. seventy university students were approached based on a random number table, and 87% accepted to participate. the scale was cross-validated on 31 female and 30 male undergraduates. they were asked to answer the above questions from the point of view of someone who would answer in a socially desirable way. the aim, they were told, was to find out what people generally judge as a socially desirable answer to questions. previous research has shown that gender acts as a variable in at least some social desirability items in the sense that a given item might not be discriminative of one or the other gender’s tendency towards social desirability (goldfried & mckenzie, 1962) so it is necessary to consider this variable in the cross-validation. the participants were given the above questions and were asked to answer the questions not from their own point of view but from the point of view of someone who has decided to give responses that are most socially desirable. in other words, they were asked to decide, for each item, which responses people would give if they wished their replies to be seen as socially desirable rather than undesirable. as such, one expects a significantly higher number of participants to respond in the scored (socially desirable) direction for each item if what that item really measured were social desirability. this was actually the case for the first four items, i.e., they actually measured social desirability (p < 0.0005). the only exception was question number five (p = 0.249, ns) (table 2). table 2. differences between the proportions of the participants recognizing as socially desirable the scored versus unscored responses to the questions on the sd scale. for questions 1 to 4 there is a significantly higher number of participants responding in the scored direction as such confirming that the corresponding item measured social desirability. chi square test. there were no significant differences between proportions of male and female students’ responses in the socially desirable versus socially undesirable direction, i.e., all these questions were suitable for testing social desirability equally well in both genders except for the fifth question (p < 0.02). (table 3). table 3. differences between male (n = 30) and female (n =31) undergraduate students in their recognising as socially desirable, scored versus unscored responses to the questions on the sd scale. there are no inter-gender differences for the majority of the questions on the scale. cross-tabulation. fisher’s exact test; two-sided. it is interesting to notice that the fifth question was a good measure of social desirability in the male students (p < 0.01). most these participants said they would consider ‘yes’ to be the socially desirable response to question 5 as one is supposed to laugh at such a joke in order to save the face of the person who has tried telling it. but this was not the case for females (p < 0.369) who did not show a significant preference in either direction. for some female participants the socially desirable response was like that of the majority of males, and for other females the opposite: the socially desirable behaviour would be not to laugh at a dirty joke. this confirms that cultural norms that delimit the behaviour of women are at times different from those guiding the behaviour of men (goldfried & mckenzie, 1962). result and conclusion the brief social desirability scale (bsds) has four questions, is valid and reliable and free from gender specificity. the significance of the scale became more evident subsequently in the factor analysis of the questionnaire on stigmatization (haghighat, 2005) in that retaining those participants with high social desirability scores in the computation disrupted derivation of stigmatisation factors. bsds has the advantages of brevity and practicality. it can be used before administering attitudinal surveys and the results of the survey compared including and excluding those with high social desirability scores. the cut-off score can be set from anything > 1 (more than one socially desirable answer) to > 2 (more than two socially desirable answers) to exclude people with a high tendency towards social desirability from the computation. the exact cut-off level will depend on how important it is to get results of the other questionnaire from people who answer more transparently about their personal attitudes. as is the case with all brief scales, the bsds is preferred in many test situations where the administration time is limited or subjects are unable to tolerate lengthy questionnaires and the related drop in reliability remains tolerable. references crowne, d. p. & marlowe, d. (1960). a new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. journal of consulting psychology, 24, 349-54. haghighat, r. (2005). the development of an instrument to measure stigmatization: factor analysis and origin of stigmatization. european journal of psychiatry, 19 (3), 144-154. haghighat, r. (2007). a discourse for hope: on defenses against despair and suicide in people with schizophrenia. in m. pompili et al. (eds.), suicide and schizophrenia. new york: nova publications. farina, a. (1998). stigma. in k. mueser & n. tarrier (eds.), handbook of social functioning in schizophrenia (pp. 247-79), needham heights. ma: allyn & bacon. goldfried, m. r. & mckenzie, j. d. (1962). sex differences in the effect of item style on social desirability and frequency of endorsement. journal of consulting psychology, 26, 126-8. riedera, s. & ruderman, a. (2007). the development and validation of the weight management support inventory. eating behavior, 8, 39-47. strahan r. & gerbasi, k. c. (1972). short homogeneous versions of the marlowe-crowne social desirability scales. journal of clinical psychology, 28, 191-193. segal, s. p., baumohl, j. & moyles, e. (1980). neighborhood types and community reactions to the mentally ill: a paradox of intensity. journal of health and social behavior, 21, 345-59. biographical note rahman haghighat studied french civilization at sorbonne university in paris and graduated in medicine from the university of birmingham, uk. he did his internship in clinical medicine at cambridge, got his specialties in psychotherapy from the tavistock clinic, london, psychiatry from university college london (ucl), and a phd in sociology from ucl. his research project was graded as alpha by the british economic and social research council. he is the author of several papers and book chapters on the origin of stigmatization, hope and defences against despair and suicide in people with schizophrenia, preventive strategies in schizophrenia, and models for enhancing self-esteem and social integration of users in mental health. his contribution to psychology includes the development of scales for measuring stigmatization and social desirability. his most important contribution to sociology is his unitary theory of stigmatization which is a construct for understanding the root cause of discrimination in human societies. e-mail: r.haghighat@lycos.com perceived social support and academic achievement in argentinean college students research reports perceivedsocial support andacademicachievement in argentineancollege students guadalupe de la iglesia*a, juliana beatriz stovera, mercedes fernández liporacea [a]consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas, facultad de psicología, universidad de buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. abstract this research aimed at describing perceived social support and its relation to academic achievement in a sample of 760 argentinean college students. perception of social support was assessed in terms of four possible sources: parents, teachers, classmates, and boyfriend/girlfriend or best friend. academic achievement was measured using three different indicators: the rate of passed, failed and dropped classes in the time since the academic career was initiated. the main hypothesis posed was that a higher perception of social support would be related to a better academic achievement (a bigger rate of passed classes, and a smaller rate of failed and dropped classes). findings showed that women perceived significantly more support than men from all sources, except from teachers. both males and females perceived more support from best friends or boyfriends/girlfriends, and identified teachers as the less supportive source. a higher perception of social support was associated with better academic achievement but only for females. limitations of the study and implications for the set in motion of different interventions in the academic field, which could be specific to certain type of students, are discussed. keywords: perceived social support, academic achievement, college students, buffering model europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 received: 2014-03-26. accepted: 2014-07-02. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: gral. juan lavalle 2353, c1052aaa, buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: gdelaiglesia@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. concern about academic achievement is commonplace in argentina. though difficulties are present at every educational level, the strive to pass classes and get a degree is mostly present in college students (e.g. bassi, busso, urzúa, & vargas, 2012). thus, identifying factors associated to students’ performance has become an interesting challenge for argentinean researchers since it entails the chance of intervention and improvement of academic achievement. the study of non-intellectual factors has taken the lead as an alternative to studies that seek cognitive variables related to academic performance (grimm, steele, burchinal, mashburn, & piana, 2010; tripicchio, 2011). social support, for instance, has been pointed out as a variable related to students’ achievement in every educational level. therefore, it should be useful to describe the way students perceive social support, determine if it is related to academic achievement and if so, how. social support twomain perspectives can be outlined when conceptualizing social support (cohen &wills, 1985): themain-effect model and the buffering model. the first model considers the concept as a coping strategy, and emphasises searching and the actual use of the support (carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989; frydenberg & lewis, 1993; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ lazarus & folkman, 1984; moos, 1993). the second one emphasises the perception of support and its role as a coping resource to prevent and reduce the negative effect that different adverse situations might cause on the individual (malecki & demaray, 2002). even though trying to determine what social support entails involves a large amount of diverse definitions, there is a great consensus on what the concept of perceived social support involves (barrera, 1986). cobb (1976) described it as the perception that a person has about being cared, loved and appreciated, and also about the fact of belonging to a network of people that the individual can count on in case of need. the perception of support is a cognitive and subjective appraisal that allows a person to have the confidence of depending on someone else’s help under given circumstances (barrera, 1986). several authors stress the importance of the perception of support instead of the support actually received (antonucci & israel, 1986). for instance, the study carried out by wethington and kessler (1986) confirmed that when analysing the impact of social support on stressful situations, the perception of support was more relevant than the received support itself. when talking about perceived social support the focus is placed on the potential availability – the buffering model – and not on the support actually received – the main-effect model – (lakey & cassady, 1990; streeter & franklin, 1992). accordingly, the buffering model prevails in current research, and assessment of social support is usually based on the perception about the potential support available. gender and developmental differences in perceived social support perception of support is different in males and females. women report wider use of social networks since they tend to identify more people as significant to them. on the other hand, though men are able to establish close relationships, they search support from fewer people than women do (caetano, silva, & vettore, 2013). studies reported that in general, child and adolescent girls perceive more support than boys (demaray & malecki, 2002; talwar, kumaraswamy, &mohd fadzil, 2013). even when analysing every particular source, girls generally perceive more support from friends, classmates, parents and teachers than their male peers (brookmeyer, henrich, cohen, & shahar, 2011; vitoroulis, schneider, cerviño vasquez, soteras de toro, & santana gonzáles, 2012). only few research results do not follow with the trend described before. for instance, malecki and demaray (2003) found no differences between boys and girls regarding parents and teachers support, and vitoroulis et al. (2012) concluded that compared to girls, boys found more support in fathers. moreover, when comparing the frequency of support perceived as given by different sources, it was found that girls describe friends as the more supportive ones, while for boys their friends were, conversely, the less supportive element (rueger, malecki, & demaray, 2008). in order to examine developmental differences, a longitudinal study with college students was conducted, which showed that the perception of support from friends decreased according to the age, while the role of mentors increased (bordes-edgar, arredondo, robinson kurpius, & rund, 2011). authors assumed that this could be due to the fact that at this stage of life a role model ormentor is more important, since in may help them prepare for future professional challenges. social support in the academic field: its association to academic achievement academic development is considered as having a close link to social development (konishi, hymel, zumbo, & li, 2010). the reason why a high perception of social support is related to a better academic achievement lies on both conceptions of social support: the main effect model and the buffering model (cohen & wills, 1985). the academic scene has been repeatedly identified as a source of stress (casullo & fernández liporace, 2001; europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 social support and academic achievement in college students 638 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fernández liporace, contini de gonzález, ongarato, saavedra, & de la iglesia, 2009; lohman & jarvis, 2000; richaud de minzi, 2006; shokri, farahani, nouri, & moradi, 2013; wrzesniewski & chylinska, 2007). the search and actual use of support as well as the perception of its potential availability are considered elements that can reduce the stress involved in the pursuit of education. they function as protective factors that prevent low achievements and school disengagement (mackinnon, 2012; perry et al., 2010). as stated above, searching social support is a commonly employed coping strategy: different studies found that a high perception of support favours academic achievement. in elementary students, for example, academic performance was better when perceived support from parents, teachers, friends and social support in general was higher (chen & rubin, 1992; dubow & tisak, 1989; elias & haynes, 2008; garcia d’avila-bacarji, marturano, & dos santos elias, 2005; levitt, guacci-franco, & levitt, 1994; murray & zvoch, 2011; rosenfeld, richman, & bowen, 2000). these same types of analyses conducted with high school students, showed improved academic accomplishments when the perception of support from all sources was higher (crean, 2004; domagała-zyśk, 2006; jun-li chen, 2005; konishi et al., 2010; lee & smith, 1999; malecki & demaray, 2003; perry, liu, & pabian, 2010; rosenfeld et al., 2000). despite of the scarcity of research with college students, similar results were found: a better academic achievement was linked to a higher perceived support from teachers and parents (bordesedgar et al., 2011; cutrona, cole, colangelo, assouline, & russell, 1994). interventions to increase the perception of social support in students stands out as concrete proposals with positive outcomes (lamothe et al., 1995; mattanah, ayers, et al., 2010; pratt et al., 2000). however, it must be pointed out that these studies focused on academic adjustment, a much more complex and encompassing variable that will not be analysed here. nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that academic performance would run in the same direction as academic adjustment. as a matter of fact, the improvement of academic performance by the enhancement of social support has also been found in a recent study (mattanah, brooks, brand, quimby, & ayers, 2012). taking this into account, strategies of this kind would benefit students who could have access to resources that may help them navigate academia. as initially pointed out, the argentine educational system as a whole is concerned with the low achievement of students at all levels (bassi et al., 2012; garcía de fanelli, 2005; gazzola & didriksson, 2008; ministerio de educación de la nación, 2010; organización para la cooperación y desarrollo económico, 2009; premat, 2011). considering this, detecting factors related to academic performance on which professionals could intervene, comes up as a challenge for pursuing its improvement (di gresia, porto, & ripani, 2002). these variables would allow actors involved in education to design ad hoc interventions that would certainly derive in a better administration of resources. following these lines of reasoning, the goal set forth here is to describe the perception of social support of college students by analysing: in first place whether females and males differ in their perception of support from different sources – parents, teachers, classmates and best friend or girlfriend/boyfriend – ; secondly, if the amount of perceived support differs in each source; and finally, if the perception of social support is significantly linked to academic achievement in argentinean college students and if so, in which way. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace 639 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses based on previous research were: h1: women will perceive more social support from parents, teachers, classmates and best friend or girlfriend/boyfriend when compared to men. h2: when comparing the amount of perceived support from each source, friends will be the most important source for women and the less important source in the case of men. h3: students with better academic achievement will show a higher perception of social support. method participants a non-randomized sample of 760 argentinean college students aged between 17 and 53 (m = 23.80, sd = 4.04) was analysed. they attended different careers at public universities in buenos aires: psychology 59.4%, public accounting 16.4%, computer engineering 3.5%, business administration 3.2%, arts 3%, medicine 2% and various others 12.5%. most of them (74.3%) were females. also, the majority described themselves as belonging to the medium socioeconomic level (76.8%). participants were volunteers who did not receive any payment. they were evaluated in their own classrooms after signing an informed consent, which explained the goals of the research and guaranteed confidential treatment of the data provided. psychologists properly trained in research activities gathered the data. materials and procedure student social support scale (fernández liporace, castro solano, & contini de gonzález, 2006; fernández liporace & ongarato, 2005; nolten, 1994). the argentinean short version of this instrument measures perceived social support in the academic field from four possible sources: parents, teachers, classmates and best friend or girlfriend/boyfriend. it includes 15 items with a 4-point likert scale with the following choices: never or almost never, sometimes, frequently and always or almost always. this version was a result of a translation/back translation process and the linguistic adaptation of items, instructions and answers for local idioms – pilot study –, an analysis of evidences of content validity – expert judgment – and a construct validity study – exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses –. reliability was tested using corrected item-total correlations to valuate homogeneity aspects, and cronbach’s alphas for assessing internal consistency – values varied from .70 to .80 –. in this sample, cronbach’s alphas were .86 for parents, .71 for teachers, .87 for classmates, and .85 for boyfriend/girlfriend or best friend. a confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit for a 4-factor model (gfi = .963; agfi = .947; nfi = .958; ifi = .974; srmr = .032; rmsea = .046). academic achievement. defining academic achievement can constitute a difficult task. usual measures of the academic achievement that aim to represent the results of learning processes are of dubious value. in fact, no single measure can accurately quantify the success or failure of learning. often, grade point averages are used as indicators of performance. while they can be a respectable measure, in argentina averages differ largely by career, a situation also found in other countries (mcguckin & winkler, 1979). this constitutes a source of error since, for instance, a grade point average of 6 may represent an excellent performance in some careers and poor one in others. consequently, researchers use other methodologies to quantify degrees of success in education. analysing the rates of passed, failed and dropped classes, presents itself as a fine measure already used in argentina (e.g. di gresia et al., 2002). to obtain this information, an ad-hoc survey for gathering data regarding europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 social support and academic achievement in college students 640 http://www.psychopen.eu/ academic achievement was used. it asked about how many classes the subjects passed, failed or dropped in the period the student attended the university. with this information, three academic rates were calculated: 1) the rate of passed classes; 2) the rate of failed classes; and 3) the rate of classes dropped out. in all cases, this was calculated in the time since initiated the career. time was measured in semesters. for example, if a student has been in college for six semesters and passed 15 classes, his rate of passed classes would be 2.5. results firstly, a within-subjects analysis of variance taking gender as a factor was carried out in order to test a possible interaction between gender and the sources of social support. the choice of this analysis was based on the fact that previous research indicated that social support behaves differently in males and females. a statistically significant interaction between gender and the source of perceived social support was found (f = 5,883; p = .016). since a significant interaction was found, principal effects could not be interpreted. to contemplate this, two within-subjects anovas were calculated to analyse the second hypothesis and test differences in the amount of support perceived from each source in males and females separately (see table 1). in the case of males the model was significant, wilk’s λ = .655; f(3, 190) = 33.429; p = .000; η2 = .345. follow-up comparisons using bonferronni correction showed that they perceived significantly more support from their best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend in comparison to parents and teachers, and more support from their classmates in comparison to parents and teachers. no differences were found between the support of classmates against that provided by best friends or boyfriend/girlfriends, and between teachers and parents. the model was also significant for females, wilk’s λ = .448; f(3, 556) = 228.109; p = .000; η2 = .552, and differences were found in all measurements. the order of importance of support sources was the following: best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend, classmates, parents, and teachers. see figure 1 for an illustration of the results – the y axis corresponds to the mean obtained by the group in the social support subscale. table 1 within-subjects anovas for males and females: follow-up comparisons with bonferronni correction. vs. best friend or boyfriend/girlfriendvs. classmatesvs. teachersvs. parentsm(sd)group males .000.000.308-parents (0.82)1.81 .000.000-teachers (0.67)1.68 1.000-classmates (0.69)2.08 -best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend (0.71)2.16 females .000.000.000-parents (0.75)2.06 .000.000-teachers (0.62)1.66 .000-classmates (0.61)2.34 -best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend (0.58)2.50 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace 641 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. perceived social support in college students. student’s t tests were carried out in order to test the first hypothesis that stated that women would perceive more social support from all sources when compared to men. comparisons showed that women perceived more support than men from all sources (all p = .000), except for the perceived social support from teachers (t = 0,314; p = .754), where no differences were found (see table 1 for means and standard deviations for each group). effect size in the case of parents was d = .31 (t = -3,951; p = .000), for classmates d = .39 (t = -4,948; p = .000) and for best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend d = .52 (t = -6,487; p = .000). taking into account these results, the analysis of the possible prediction of academic achievement through the perception of social support was conducted separately for females and males (see table 2). multiple linear regression analyses served to test the third hypothesis which specified that students with better academic achievement would show a higher perception of social support. in the case of women, models were significant for the rate of passed classes (r̄2/ω2= .064; p = .000) and classes dropped out (r̄2/ω2= .031; p = .000), but not for the rate of failed classes (p > .05). the perception of support from parents (p = .010), classmates (p = .001) and best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend (p = .020) were significant predictors of the rate of passed classes. in the case of classes dropped out, best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend was the only source that significantly predicted academic achievement (p = .001). no significant models were found for males regarding any of the academic performance indicators considered (p > .020). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 social support and academic achievement in college students 642 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 multiple regressions on academic achievement. classes dropped outfailed classespassed classes group pβpβpβ males parents .416.071-.724.031.419.071 teachers .443.067-.081.152.157.128classmates .226.108.102.145-.696.036 best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend .989.001-.620.044-.180.119 -.011 (p = .726).004 (p = .329).003 (p = .348)r̄2/ω2 females parents .063.086-.182.062-.010.121 teachers .349.042-.353.042-.327.044classmates .515.030.178.064.001.152 best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend .001.151-.621.023-.020.108 .031 (p = .000).000 (p = .380).064 (p = .000)r̄2/ω2 discussion this study intended to enhance knowledge about the role of social support in college students. the goals here were to describe it and analyse its capacity to predict students’ performance. firstly, results showed that, when compared to men, women perceived more support from all sources except from teachers, where no differences were found. this is not surprising in view of former studies, which reached similar conclusions (brookmeyer et al., 2011; demaray & malecki, 2002; malecki & demaray, 2003; rueger et al., 2008; vitoroulis et al., 2012). these findings are in line with the first hypothesis and the assumption that women's support networks are wider since they give an important role and dedicate time an effort to establish and maintain relationships characterized by contact and intimacy (caetano et al., 2013). men, on the other hand, despite being able to engage in this type of relationships may not consider them as necessary as they are to women. this difference may have both cultural and biological correlates (flaherty & richman, 1989; sherman, kim, & taylor, 2009). however, it differs from some results reported by demaray andmalecki (2002), who found that child and adolescent girls also scored higher in perception of support from teachers, as well as part of the research of vitoroulis et al. (2012), who concluded that adolescent boys got higher values than girls regarding this source. the difference found in this study could be due to the fact that in this case the students analysed attended college and those authors assessed younger students. however it replicates the result found by malecki and demaray (2003) where no differences in teacher support were found between girls and boys and. also, the expected difference on perceived support based on gender that most researches usually find was replicated. in the second place, when comparing perceived support from each source – parents, teachers, classmates and best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend – both females and males reported recognising more support from best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend. and the source perceived as less supportive, also in both cases, was that related to teachers. this replicates what h2 posed in the case of women, such as the findings of rueger et al. (2008) who stated that friends were the more supportive source for adolescent girls. nevertheless it differs from results reported europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace 643 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the same study for males, where friends were the source identified as less supportive. this contradicts the assertions of elias and haynes (2008) who indicated that students might think that their classmates do not have the skills needed to help them to achieve success in school and, therefore are not perceived as an important source of support. also, the fact that teachers were the less supportive source goes in the opposite direction of the conclusions by bordes-edgar et al. (2011) who specified that as time goes by, the role of mentors becomes more relevant than peers’ support. once again, different findings in the case of males may be due to the fact that students who participated in this study were older: it seems that their best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend play a more important role than they did in high school. as for the possible prediction of academic achievement through the perception of social support, significant models were only found for females and in passed and dropped out classes: higher perception of support was linked to a higher rate of passed classes as well as less classes dropped out. that is, h3 was only true in the case of females since no significant predictors were identified for males. this brings up several arguments. on one hand, as reported before, the perception of social support appears to be linked to a better academic achievement (e.g. bordes-edgar et al., 2011; cutrona et al., 1994). on the other, this seems to apply primarily to female students, leading to specific implications for designing interventions in these matters. this may be explained by the suggestions of flaherty and richman (1989) who theorise that women appear to be more influenced by the lack of or support since it plays a more significant role in their lives. by this theory, perception of support in women is closely related to their well-being because females are more sensitive to support, and variations in it may have a higher impact because they are more dependant on it. programs aimed at addressing support for male college students may not be useful, and a waste of human, financial and time resources. conversely, strategies to enhance perception of support in their female peers seem more accurate and efficient. according to these data, interventions should be directed specifically to females since this seems to be the population in which perception of social support has an impact. also, these interventions should not be focused on the support from teachers, who do not seem to play a relevant role but in the support from parents, classmates and best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend. because the variable here analysed was perceived social support, interventions to promote the increment or consolidation of sources constituting the students’ networks arise as a concrete and feasible action. for instance, students could be trained in expressing to their parents their need for support in clear terms and in searching for new sources of support in college. the creation of programs to provide a common area for the promotion of supporting groupsmade up by peers may increase the bonding between classmates, possibly generating new comrade relationships or even friendships among them. but, of course, these proposals should be tested in the field. also, since the relation between perceived social support and academic achievement was null for males, other variables assumed to explain academic achievement must be identified and analysed in depth. some limitations of this study should be mentioned. firstly, non-significant results in the case of males could find an explanation in the small sample size (n = 100). statistical power might be increased using a wider sample. also, no college students from private schools were included, something which could affect the results obtained. in addition, the sample was mostly composed by middle-class students, a variable that has been identified to interact with the perception of social support and its effects on academic performance (malecki & demaray, 2006). the measure used for assessing academic achievement, though appropriate for this sample, differs from the most commonly used when studying this variable in other cases (grade point averages). this has a direct correlate in europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 social support and academic achievement in college students 644 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the difficulty for comparing results with other investigations. nevertheless, h3 was partially verified. and finally, most of the participants were females, a proportion that may be judged as non-representative. however a female prevalence actually represents accurately what happens in argentinean colleges (lopez cleip de sosa & amoroso de maza, 2007). despite these limitations, results are interesting, especially considering the fact that perceived social support appears as a variable where interventions are possible, can be designed specifically for certain type of students, and implies simple actions, that may be available for most institutions. new studies should provide new research lines to be developed for males, in order to detect related factors reactive to specific interventions. funding this work was supported by the national council for scientific and technical research (conicet) under a phd scholarship and by the university of buenos aires under grant ubacyt 20020100100553. competing 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(2012). perceived parental and peer support in relation to canadian, cuban, and spanish adolescents’ valuing of academics and intrinsic academic motivation. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 43(5), 704-722. doi:10.1177/0022022111405657 wethington, e., & kessler, r. c. (1986). perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. journal of health and social behavior, 27, 78-89. doi:10.2307/2136504 wrzesniewski, k., & chylinska, j. (2007). assessment of coping styles and strategies with school-related stress. school psychology international, 28(2), 179-194. doi:10.1177/0143034307078096 about the authors guadalupe de la iglesia has a phd in psychology (university of buenos aires) and a degree of specialization in statistics for social sciences (university of buenos aires). currently is a professor at the university of buenos aires. juliana beatriz stover has a phd in psychology (university of buenos aires) and a degree of specialization in statistics for social sciences (university of buenos aires). currently is a professor at the university of buenos aires. mercedes fernández liporace has a phd in psychology (university of buenos aires). currently is a professor at the university of buenos aires. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 637–649 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.777 de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace 649 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1007535930286 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1045-3830.23.4.496 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0079-6123(09)17816-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/104973159200200107 http://www.clarin.com/sociedad/sinonimo-exito-academico_0_461354029.html http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022111405657 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2136504 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0143034307078096 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en social support and academic achievement in college students (introduction) social support gender and developmental differences in perceived social support social support in the academic field: its association to academic achievement method participants materials and procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the relationship between physical health and meaning in life among parents of special needs children research reports the relationship between physical health and meaning in life among parents of special needs children janna bekenkamp*a, hinke anita klasina groothofa, wim bloemersa, welko tomica [a] open university, department of psychology, heerlen, the netherlands. abstract whereas former research has studied the psychological health of parents raising a special needs child (a child with a disability or chronic disease), the present study focused on their perceived physical health in relation to meaning in life. specifically, it was investigated whether physical health is positively related to the meaning in life dimensions self-actualization, self-acceptance and self-transcendence. visitors of dutch internet forums (n = 115) completed the existential fulfillment scale and an inventory of subjective health, the voeg-21. parents of special needs children were found to suffer more health problems than the average population. in addition, self-actualization and self-acceptance were positively related to their perceived physical health. for self-transcendence, however, a negative relationship was established. the perceived poor health of these parents raising a special needs child implies a need for interventions for this group. the existential fulfillment scale appears to be a useful instrument for identifying those parents in need of such interventions. self-actualization and self-acceptance seem to be relevant subjects for therapeutic interventions and further research. keywords: meaning in life, self-acceptance, self-actualization, self-transcendence, physical health, caregiving parents europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 received: 2013-08-13. accepted: 2013-11-29. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: open university, department of psychology, po box 2960, 6401 dl heerlen, the netherlands. e-mail: jannabekenkamp@casema.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the physical health of parents of a special needs child (a child with a disability or chronic disease, who requires health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally (mcpherson et al., 1998) has been relatively neglected in social research, yet this is an important issue. not only because of the health problems in themselves, but also because of the effect less optimal health has on the daily functioning of the parents (arafa, zaher, el-dowaty, & moneeb, 2008) and the adverse effect on their children (barlow & ellard, 2006; bromley & blacher, 1991). the ‘meaning in life’ concept was introduced by frankl (1962), to explain why some people cope better than others under enduring circumstances. he believed that finding and fulfilling ‘meaning in life’ helps one to cope with suffering. a life full of meaning and purpose leads according to frankl to existential fulfillment; the opposite he called ‘existential vacuum’ (frankl, 1962; frankl, 2004). the ‘meaning in life’ concept has not been thoroughly investigated among parents of special needs children. a literature search into the subject of beliefs and disabilities resulted in one publication which deals with the subject of spiritual beliefs and disabilities (treloar, 2002). the author states that there is a lack of literature that explores how people respond to living with a disability using their beliefs. exploring ‘meaning in life’ in relation to the physical health of parents europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of special needs children extends the limited literature on the subject of beliefs and disabilities and may help in understanding why some parents do better than others when faced with the challenge of bringing up special needs children. it may help to identify those caregivers most at risk and to provide suitable interventions. a survey conducted in 2000 in the us reported prevalence figures of special needs children in the us of 12.8% (allen, 2004). mokkink et al. (2006) calculated the percentage of dutch children with a chronic disease to be at least 14%. caring for these special needs children creates extra demands on the parents. barlow and ellard (2006) have listed issues such as coming to terms with the diagnosis and prognosis, coping with physical symptoms, disruptions to the daily routine, isolation and difficulty in balancing the needs of healthy siblings. other authors (kenny & mcgilloway, 2007; murphy, christian, caplin, & young, 2007) report the unpredictability and uncontrollability of day-today-events, lack of time, problems with the caregiver’s health, limited energy, emotional stress and anxiety, uncertainty about the future, financial issues, handling problem behavior and frustration at the general lack of understanding. health effects on parents raising a special needs child demonstrated psychological health effects on parents of special needs children include depression (olsson & hwang, 2001) and both clinical and subclinical post-traumatic stress disorder (guðmundsdóttir, guðmundsdóttir, & elklit, 2006). physical health problems reported are general poor health, chronic fatigue and sleep deprivation, lower vitality and role limitation due to physical health problems (arafa et al., 2008; hatzmann, heymans, ferreri-carbonell, van praag, & grootenhuis, 2008; murphy et al., 2007; oelofsen & richardson, 2006). health problems can potentially affect almost every aspect of daily life adversely. functioning and coping can be affected (hatzmann et al., 2008) and problems may occur at work and in daily activities (arafa et al., 2008). these affected areas may further increase the existing health problems. degraded functioning of the parents is likely to have an influence on their children and especially on special needs children as they depend even more on their parents for upbringing and support than healthy children. parents have indicated that perceived daily stress was an important factor in the decision to place the child out of the home (bromley & blacher, 1991) and mental health problems in mothers have predicted behavioral problems in their children (barlow & ellard, 2006). ‘meaning in life’, mental and physical health frankl (1962) in his psychology of meaning speaks of ‘existential vacuum’ to denote a way of living without meaning and purpose, which according to him could lead to neuroticism. finding ‘meaning in life’ may explain why some people do better than others in difficult circumstances and are able to endure suffering. it is likely that ‘meaning in life’ may in difficult circumstances provide the motivation to carry on and to deal effectively with the situation, and some protection against physical health problems in a similar way as related concepts such as ‘sense of coherence’ and hardiness do. sense of coherence refers to “a generalized orientation towards the world which perceives it, on a continuum, as comprehensible, manageable and meaningful (antonovsky, 1996, p. 15). it can be considered as a major factor in facilitating the movement towards both physical and mental health by facilitating coping with stressors. following kobasa (1979), clark (2002) describes hardiness as commitment to life, viewing change as challenge, and having control over one’s life. hardiness reduces negative outcomes in stressful situations. the construct is characterized by a proactive approach in handling stressful situations, perception of some control over outcomes, and a collective view of change as advantageous in stressful situations (mccubbin, mccubbin, & thompson, 1991). hardiness has been shown to form a protection against physical and mental illness by helping to transform events into less stressful forms (ouellette kobasa, maddi, puccetti, & zola, 1985). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 physical health and meaning in life 68 http://www.psychopen.eu/ several empirical studies have found support for a relationship between ‘meaning in life’ and mental health. the construct was found to differentiate between clinical and non-clinical groups, with clinical individuals experiencing less ‘meaning in life’ than the control group (debats, 1999). longitudinal studies have demonstrated higher pretreatment levels of meaning to be related to less overall psychological distress, more happiness and higher selfesteem post-treatment (debats, 1996). higher ‘meaning in life’ was also related to less depressive symptoms two months later (mascaro & rosen, 2005). ‘meaning in life’ was found to have a direct negative relationship with depression as well as to exert a buffering effect on the positive relationship between stress and depression (mascaro & rosen, 2006). there was a strong relationship between depression and stress for people with a low level of ‘meaning in life’, but no such relation for individuals with high levels of meaning. all these empirical results are consistent with the view that ‘meaning in life’ has a positive relationship with mental health, although they do not clearly lead to a conclusion whether ‘meaning in life’ influences health by acting as a (stress) moderator in distressing circumstances and/or whether ‘meaning in life’ has a more direct influence on health. it is possible that the ‘meaning in life’ concept has a similar relevance for physical health. a strong sense of ‘meaning in life’ may provide motivation in times of stress as well as energy to effectively deal with stressful circumstances. positive concepts such as a strong sense of ‘meaning in life’ may influence physical health through two routes, a biological and a behavioral one. various positive concepts have been studied in relation to biological functions. self-affirmation can buffer the neuro-endocrine and sympathetic nervous system responses to stress (sherman, bunyan, creswell, & jaremka, 2009). positive illusions may be related to lower hypothamic pituitary-adrenocortical axis levels in rest and lower autonomic responses to stress (taylor, lerner, sherman, sage, & mcdowell, 2003). positive affect may increase immune functions (futterman, kemeny, shapiro, & fahey, 1994). it is conceivable that ‘meaning in life’, by providing one with the positive motivation to deal with stress effectively, influences the biological system in a similar way. positive concepts may also influence physical health through behavioral processes (aspinwall & tedeschi, 2010). optimism has been linked to health-promoting behavior (giltay, geleijnse, zitman, buijsse, & kromhout, 2007). finding religious or spiritual meaning has been linked to greater preventive health behavior adherence (leaf, aspinwall, & leachman, 2010). ‘meaning in life’ may likewise influence health behavior, and consequently physical health. operationalization of ‘meaning in life’ ‘meaning in life’ or existential fulfillment refers to a way of life that is full of meaning and purpose and reveals an existential psychological approach to life (längle, 2003). the first notion related to existential fulfillment is selfacceptance. self-actualization is the second notion. the third concept connected with existential fulfillment is selftranscendence (loonstra, brouwers, & tomic, 2007). self-acceptance refers to having a realistic awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, understanding one’s potential and one’s limitations. it is the opposite of rejection of the self and reliance on others. self-actualization is held by maslow to be the pinnacle in the hierarchy of human needs. he defines the concept as the desire for self-fulfillment, or, the tendency to become more and more who one is (maslow, 1943). self-transcendence, the third notion, is the recognition that one is part of a larger whole, the feeling that there is a meaning in life, and the rising above one’s own interests. studies using the existential fulfillment scale developed by loonstra, brouwers, and tomic (2007, 2009) have supported the use of the three separate dimensions of ‘meaning in life’. among secondary school teachers (loonstra et al., 2009), all three ‘meaning in life’ dimensions were positively related to the burnout component self-efficacy, whereas both selfeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 bekenkamp, groothof, bloemers et al. 69 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acceptance and self-actualization were negatively related to the other two burnout components, exhaustion and cynicism. it is expected that these dimensions of ‘meaning in life’ will have a similar effect on the physical health of parents of special needs children, who experience a larger amount of stress than the average parent, with an expected positive relationship between the ‘meaning in life’ components and the subjective physical parental health. in particular, it is hypothesized that people who have a realistic view of their own potential, who rely less on others for acceptance and approval, and suffer less frustration when they fail to reach this (high on self-acceptance) develop a better physical health. this is also hypothesized for people who achieve personal growth and who demonstrate more self-efficacy (high on self-actualization), as well as for those who are able to rise above their own interests (high on self-transcendence). it is expected that people who are high on self-acceptance, self-actualization and self-transcendence suffer less frustration and spend energy more efficiently, and as a result have less physical health complaints. to summarize, the purpose of this study is to gain insight into the physical health of parents of special needs children and to explore the relationship between ‘meaning in life’ and their physical health. the hypotheses will be tested after controlling for demographic variables such as age, education, number of children and number of special needs children. they will be investigated among parents of special needs children that visit dutch internet forums. most dutch people have access to a computer; in 2011 96% had access to one and 93% had actually used one during the last three months (centraal bureau voor de statistiek, 2012). the use of internet forums is nowadays widespread but particularly important for parents of children with an illness or handicap (plantin & daneback, 2009). caregivers of special needs children were found to visit these type of forums for a combination of information and emotional support (baum, 2004). accessing parents on the internet appears to be a cost and time effective method which allows for flexibility and makes it possible to access hard to reach respondents. additionally, the respondents are motivated and unlikely to suffer from survey fatigue. drawbacks, however, are a sample and selection bias (sackmary, 1998), so no firm statements can therefore be made about response rate and generalization. nonetheless, if this study is regarded as an exploratory study into the relation between ‘meaning in life’ and physical health, the ensuing results can be viewed as preparations for further research into this topic. the theoretical importance will be to expand on the limited previous quantitative research on the ‘meaning in life’ of parents of special needs children and to broaden the scope of this concept to include the physical health of these parents as well. furthermore, this research may help in understanding why some parents do better than others when faced with bringing up special needs children. the practical importance lies in the potential use of ‘meaning in life’ to help recognize which parents are most in need of help and to identify possibilities for intervention using the ’meaning in life’ concept. it may help to identify and strengthen parental attributes, leading to a better health and the avoidance of long-term treatment or assistance. method participants the participants were parents who visited dutch internet forums aimed at parents of special needs children. a total number of 188 people accessed the survey, 110 people answered all the survey questions and an additional five answered all except for the demographic questions, making a total of 115 participants. for the record, the following survey is based on 115 participants. most were women (93%) and about half the participants were in the 35-44 age range (55%). only 1% was younger than 25, 22% was in the 25-34 range, 18% in the 45-54 range europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 physical health and meaning in life 70 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and 4% in the 55-64 range. the majority was living with a partner (88%). the total number of children per family ranged from 1 to 8 with half the families having two children (51%). most parents had one special needs child (68%), some had two (26%) and the remainder had three (6%). a large proportion (45%) had an university education, which is a much larger proportion than the average 32% in the general dutch population (verweij, sanderse, & van der lucht, 2011). of the remainder, 14% had a lower educational level and 41% an intermediate level (the general dutch averages are 27% and 41% respectively). instruments the survey consisted of subjective physical health and existential meaning scales. for the background questions, respondents were asked to fill in their age, gender, marital status, number of children and number of special needs children, paid work and education level. subjective physical health: subjective physical health was measured with the voeg-21, a short version of the vragenlijst onderzoek ervaren gezondheid (inventory of subjective health; joosten & drop, 1987). the voeg was originally designed as a stress diagnostic procedure in industrial settings but has since been used in numerous surveys to measure subjective physical health. it is well-known for being an adequate and valid measure of individual subjective health status (visser, 1983). the voeg has proven to be a reliable questionnaire to distinguish healthy persons from those in poorer health (van der horst, muris, & nijhuis, 1993). joosten and drop (1987) and janssen, bakker, and de jong (2001), among others, reported satisfactory internal consistency coefficients of .85, .88 and .93 in three different studies. the short 21-item version of the voeg measures complaints in four main areas: the digestive system, breathing apparatus, muscular-skeletal function and fatigue. an example question is “did you suffer an upset stomach over the last month?” the respondent is supposed to indicate whether he or she suffered from a particular complaint over the last month with a dichotomous yes/no answer to give a total number of complaints. meaning in life: meaning in life was measured with the existential fulfillment scale (efs; loonstra et al., 2007). the efs was developed out of längle’s existence scale (längle, orgler, & kundi, 2003). the 15 item efs consists of three separate scales, containing five items each. an example of a self-acceptance item is “i find it very hard to accept myself”, of a self-actualization item “deep inside i feel free” and of self-transcendence “i feel i am part of a meaningful entity”. the answers are measured on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (fully). the summed score for each dimension was used in the current study, a high score reflects a higher sense of meaning. the factorial validity of the efs was tested among 812 dutch students, the results showed an adequate fit of the three-factor oblique model. the alpha’s reported were .74 for self-acceptance, .71 for self-actualization and .88 for self-transcendence (loonstra et al., 2007). the scales have acceptable reliability for this kind of research (nunnally & bernstein, 1994). procedure an invitation to answer an on-line questionnaire in dutch was published between september 2010 and april 2011 in dutch internet forums aimed specifically at dutch parents of special needs children with a wide range of conditions, varying from well-known conditions such as autism to rare syndromes such as prader willi or fragile x syndrome. the forums were selected to cover all special needs, i.e. physical handicaps, somatic diseases, development disorders, intellectual disability. the length of time the invitation was published on the forums allowed for also the less frequent visitors to these forums to participate. the invitation included a direct link to the survey. participants remained anonymous. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 bekenkamp, groothof, bloemers et al. 71 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results the mean values, standard deviations and cronbach’s alphas are reported in table 1. the reliabilities of the ‘meaning in life’ subscales self-actualization, self-acceptance and self-transcendence are moderate to high and comparable to those found by loonstra et al. (2007). the reliability of subjective physical health is high (.85) and equal to one of the consistencies found by joosten and drop (1987). the average number of health complaints is remarkably high compared to the dutch population; the dutch central statistics office lists 3.3 average complaints for men and 4.5 for women in 2000 (centraal bureau voor de statistiek, 2010) whereas the respondents in the current study report 6.1 (sd = 4.0) and 7.9 (sd = 4.8) respectively. as the voeg does not appear to have been used to measure health complaints of special needs parents in other studies, it is not possible to make comparisons with other such parents. people with paid work reported less health problems (m = 6.96, sd = 4.44) than those without (m = 9.23, sd = 4.94). table 1 means, standard deviations, internal consistency coefficients and correlations between the variables (n = 115) 654321αsdmvariable 1 sex femalea 2 age .21*-.787.4140 3 paid workb .11-.14 4 self-acceptance .17-.30**.18-.76.82.502 5 self-actualization .23*.15-.09-.02-.70.73.762 6 self-transcendence .53**.06-.09-.07-.22*.88.091.812 7 physical health .11-.23*-.47**.23*-.24*.10-.85.734.707 note. variables 4–6 are the dimensions of ‘meaning in life’. an=102 (93%). bn=70 (64%). *p < .05. **p < .01. the correlations between the variables are also shown in table 1. of the demographic variables, only paid work was found to relate to the dependent variable health. a hierarchical regression analysis was performed in order to determine the relationship between the ‘meaning in life’ variables self-actualization, self-acceptance and self-transcendence and subjective health. the relevant demographic value paid work was statistically controlled by including it in the first step (coded 1 for people with paid work and coded -1 for people without paid work). the results are displayed in table 2. table 2 results of hierarchical regression analysis for the relationship between the meaning in life variables and subjective health (n = 115) βse bbindependent variable model 1 (r2 = .05, r2 adj = .05) paid work .23*-.92.27-2 model 2 (r2 = .29, r2 adj = .26, r 2 change = .24*) paid work .15-.82.47-1 self-actualization .24*.13.300 selftranscendence .23*-.09.19-0 self-acceptance .38*.10.430 *p < .05. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 physical health and meaning in life 72 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in model 1, paid work was found to be significantly related to subjective health (β = -.23, p = .02). in model 2, the three ‘meaning in life’ variables self-actualization, self-acceptance and self-transcendence were added, resulting in 24% additional variance explained (r2change = .24; f(3, 105) = 11.70, p < .001). the contribution of paid work in this model was insignificant. self-actualization was positively related to health (β = .24, p = .02), indicating that a higher degree of self-actualization was related to a better health as hypothesized. self-transcendence was negatively related to health (β = -.23, p = .03), contrary to the hypothesis, indicating that a higher degree of selftranscendence was related to worse experienced health. self-acceptance was positively related to health (β = .38, p < .001), indicating that a higher degree of self-acceptance was related to a better health as hypothesized. discussion the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived physical health of parents raising special needs children and to determine whether a relationship could be found with ‘meaning in life’. the parents in this study reported a large number of health complaints. ‘meaning in life’ was found to contribute significantly to explaining the variance of perceived health. as predicted, a higher sense of self-actualization and of self-acceptance were related to a better perceived physical health. contrary to the hypothesis, a higher sense of self-transcendence was related to more perceived health problems. the subjective physical health of the parents in this sample turned out to be considerably worse than the health of the general dutch population. the continuing stress of raising a special needs child may be responsible for these health problems. this highlights the need to pay more attention to these parents, although it must be born in mind that the high number of health complaints may also be accounted for by the fact that especially the more troubled parents seek support and recognition from an internet forum. the present findings corroborate with previous research into the relationship of ‘meaning in life’ with psychological health. ‘meaning in life’ was found to relate positively with hope and negatively with depressive symptoms (mascaro & rosen, 2005, 2006). it was also shown to be related to three major dimensions of well-being, positively to happiness and self-esteem and negatively to psychological distress (debats, 1996). various studies (loonstra et al., 2007, 2009), including the present one, lend support to the self-acceptance and self-actualization dimensions of ‘meaning in life’ as relevant constructs in relation to health. for self-transcendence, on the other hand, sometimes no significant relationship is found (loonstra et al., 2009) or the relationship is in the opposite direction as in the present study. correlation analysis showed that the three dimensions are significantly related to each other, except the relationship between self-acceptance and self-transcendence. the question remains what its theoretical rationale is. is there any interdependence, for example one dimension being a necessary but not sufficient condition for another? it is recommended to investigate the inter-relationships between the three concepts that make up existential fulfillment in further detail. that kind of research can support the theoretical development of a model, which describes the growth process of attitudes toward a more existential fulfilling live (loonstra et al., 2007). the fact that higher degrees of self-acceptance and self-actualization were found to be positively related to better health suggests that these dimensions offer some immunity to health problems. the way they do this may be either through a biological or through a behavioral route, as described above. as for the reason why self-transcendence is negatively correlated with physical health, one explanation may be that self-transcendence involves rising above one’s interests. people high on self-acceptance and self-acceptance have a realistic view of their own strengths and weaknesses and are focused on personal growth. this may provide them with better resources to cope with the stress involved in dealing with their children’s needs, whereas those who rise above their own interests may europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 bekenkamp, groothof, bloemers et al. 73 http://www.psychopen.eu/ use less effective ways of coping and may be more susceptible to burnout from getting overtly involved with their caregiving. limitations and strengths several limitations may have influenced the results of the current study. first, our study was limited by its crosssectional design, i.e., data were all collected at one time period. this feature precludes any definite conclusion about causality. the relationships shown do not reveal the causal direction. second, the direction of causation requires further investigation. further research using a longitudinal design is needed to clarify this issue, i.e., to evaluate the possibility of a causal relationship between perceived physical health and ‘meaning in life’. longitudinal research design would shed light on the effects of perceived physical health on ‘meaning in life’. likewise, by applying a longitudinal design, the possible common method bias can be reduced. this methodological artifact occurs when the instruments employed affect the scores that are being collected (doty & glick, 1998). third, the measurements in this study were based on self-reports. consequently, the extent to which these selfreports accurately reflect perceived physical health and ‘meaning in life’ is not clear. naturally, the results of the present study for the association between perceived physical health and ‘meaning in life’ should be interpreted with caution, but there are no indications that these findings solely reflect biased respondent reporting. combining self-report data with data obtained in a more objective manner is recommended for further research so that powerful statistical techniques can be applied for hypothesis testing. the findings of the present survey could be used to generate hypotheses for further research. fourth, the fact that well-educated parents were overrepresented may make it difficult to generalize these findings. educational level was taken into account, however, and no relation was found with perceived physical health. in spite of its limitations, our study has several important strengths. first, the current study ventured into a novel domain of perceived physical health and ‘meaning in life’. second, measurement error was contained since the study employed established instruments with known psychometric properties. reliability analysis shows that the measurements satisfy psychometric standards. in the study validated metrics were used to measure perceived physical health and ‘meaning in life’, allowing for the comparison of findings with the general population and across studies. both internal and external validity was guaranteed. third, an appropriate multivariate data-analytic strategy was applied, i.e., hierarchical regression. fourth, the theoretical framework that was adopted may help to organize research findings across investigations. fifth, the observed association between perceived physical health of parents raising special needs children and ‘meaning in life’ were not only statistically significant, but also interesting and meaningful. the fact that parents of special needs children seem to experience more physical health problems than the general population implies that they deserve more attention from health care workers. as the results of this study support the use of the efs, this instrument can help health care providers to identify those parents with a low level of ‘meaning in life’, who may be especially vulnerable to health problems and who may benefit from interventions. several therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, humanistic psychotherapy or counseling, or existential-integrative therapy may be useful to enhance self-acceptance, selfactualization and well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 physical health and meaning in life 74 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the current study contributed to the knowledge in this domain despite the limitations. however, speculations about the practical relevance of the study are premature. this work is only a first step, and future studies are needed in this area. it might be of interest, for example, to explore ways through which ‘meaning in life’ could possibly influence physical health. a likely subject could be stress management through coping, as it is conceivable that a higher sense of ‘meaning in life’, especially its dimension self-acceptance, is related to more effective ways of coping behavior. in addition, targeting parents of lower educational background will enable the results to be generalized to a wider population. the self-actualization and self-acceptance dimensions of ‘meaning in life’ have proven to be useful concepts for exploring the physical health of parents of special needs children in a way consistent with prior research into ‘meaning in life’ and related concepts such as ‘sense of coherence’ and hardiness. the parents of special needs children reported more health complaints than the average population, suggesting the need to pay more attention to this group. it appears that higher values of self-actualization and self-acceptance are related to better perceived physical health. this highlights the potential for various cognitive therapies to improve the well-being of these parents. the efs can be a useful tool for identifying those caregiving parents most in need of help and for conducting further research. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allen, p. l. j. 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(1983). de betekenis van de voeg: enkele gegevens over de begripsvaliditeit [the meaning of the subjective health questionnaire: findings on content validity]. gezondheid & samenleving, 3, 177-188. about the authors janna bekenkamp was, at the time of writing this article, a student clinical psychology in the last phase of her master study at the open university. hinke groothof is assistant professor psychology at the open university. she teaches a broad range of courses from introduction in psychology to the master theses, including clinical interviewing. she obtained her phd on a thesis on the effects of social comparison. her current research interest is on social and clinical psychological subjects such intimate relationships, partner preferences, jealousy and meaning in life. wim bloemers, nip, eawop, siop member, is assistant professor industrial psychology at the open university. he teaches professional interviewing and testing skills. he’s currently working on a book helping people to improve their assessment skills. welko tomic is a former faculty member at the open university of the netherlands, department of psychology. he has published extensively on issues related to teacher behavior, transfer, and burnout. his current work focuses on creativity, existential fulfillment, work engagement and psychosocial disorders. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 67–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.674 physical health and meaning in life 78 http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2788.2001.00372.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(85)90086-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-10-34 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014663 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.4.605 http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2002.02417.x http://dx.doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.1485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en physical health and meaning in life (introduction) health effects on parents raising a special needs child ‘meaning in life’, mental and physical health operationalization of ‘meaning in life’ method participants instruments procedure results discussion limitations and strengths (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the transformational qualities of dramatic arts interview the transformational qualities of dramatic arts an intercultural dialogue from two lives and three continents laura gardner salazara, zayda sierra*b [a] professor of communications (retired), grand valley state university, allendale, mi, usa. [b] tenure professor, universidad de antioquia, medellin, colombia. abstract during the international drama and education association (idea) congress in kenya in 1998, the life of two educators crossed roads. although both are from different geographical contexts (colombia and the united states), they have shared the same passion: to encourage in their societies the implementation of dramatic arts in different educational settings (schools, universities, communities) so children and adults could develop to their fullest, thus enabling them to participate actively in building a more democratic society. fifteen years after this encounter, they met again in the 2013 idea congress in paris to reflect on their efforts during their life spans. through examining their drama practices, they discuss how this human expression functions as a critical thinking art form, changing players, audiences, and communities. lessons derived from their experiences might be useful for a new generation of transformational drama leaders. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 published (vor): 2014-05-28. *corresponding author at: facultad de educación, universidad de antioquia, a.a. 1226 medellín, colombia. e-mail: zsierra.udea@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. formative journeys into creative drama playing in a supportive atmosphere laura: i was born in gilbert minnesota in 1935 during the height of the depression. we moved to wisconsin to the farm where my mother grew up. as a child, theatre meant pretend and acting. i put on little plays for my great aunt mame when she came to visit. the blanket went up on the clothes line and our humble front yard on a little farm in wisconsin became anywhere i wanted it to be through the magic of theatre. aunt mame paid me five cents per performance. i told my mother when i was seven that i wanted to become an actress when i grew up. in high school i devoted myself to music but always kept my interest in acting. zayda: i was born in 1957 close to medellin and grew up in a farm where we did not have television. contrary to what young people might think today, we were not bored. with siblings, cousins or neighbors, i spent weekends or vacations creating stories, using my mother’s sheets and clothes as our costumes and the house furniture as our imaginary scenery. at that time, we had long school days, so some classmates and i had a good time at recess improvising stories and performing them in special occasions. this is very different from what students experience today: at home, they spend hours and hours in front of the television and rarely have opportunities to play with friends at school because of the drastic reduction of recess time. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ playing and learning as young adults laura gardner salazar, a professor emerita in communications, grand valley state university, allendale, michigan, usa, served as the president of the american alliance for theatre and education from 1993 to 1995. dr. salazar received awards from aate for her book teaching dramatically: learning thematically and her dissertation tracing the development of professional children’s' theatre in the usa. other books include making performance art and youth take the stage. she represented the usa at the origin of idea in portugal, and was president of theatre usa, a part of iata. at grand valley state university, she founded the theatre program and its shakespeare festival. dr. salazar incorporated the ngo fabulous african fabrics in 1999, which is devoted to raising funds for aids orphans and widows in kenya--a direct result of her experience at idea in kisumu. correspondence: e-mail: salazarfaf@hotmail.com laura:when i went to undergraduate studies i found out what music had to offer me and i should not deny my natural calling to be in theatre. theatre matched my personality. in theatre i could be anyone. i could study history, literature, psychology, music, the visual arts, throw myself into any passion—all in the name of work. and i would always be with other interesting people drawn to this art. i learned how to make costumes, sets, do lighting, loving every aspect of the art. my first goal was to become a high school english and theatre teacher, which i did for 6 years. i learned to love my students and after directing about 15 plays, i was getting skilled at it. the work of viola spolin (1963) became important in my own work, and i found improvisation challenging and useful as i worked with everyone from pre-schoolers to senior citizens. zayda: when doing my studies in b.a. in education, i was uneasy with the traditional role of what was expected of me as a teacher: one who plans the contents and activities of a class while children obediently follow his or her orders. i saw in theatre an opportunity to develop creative alternatives for education. lacking schools of dramatic arts at that time i got involved in some theatre troupesi, which were part of the latin america theatre movement of the late 1970s based on collective creation: the actors’ active participation in the research, creation and production of the plays and the audience involvement during the performance (garzón céspedes, 1978; luzuriaga, 1978). independent theatre was also one of the few alternatives young people had to engage in critical analysis of political situations in the search for social transformation of a very unequal society. thinking about education through theatre laura: in the early 1960's, after i had taught english and speech in high schools for seven years and had earned my ma degree, i took a course in creative dramatics at a nearby university. i had always delighted in children and wanted to learn how i could combine pretend and theatre with them. the course i took was dissatisfactory. i had been working with children for many years. it was obvious that the male professor had not taught the drama he was trying to teach us. i decided to find out about how to do creative dramatics through my own experiments. i came to understand creative drama as an improvisational art form led by an adult for children, young people, and adults. it is characterized by action, character, thought or theme. often the leader and the participants have a goal they hope to reach in the acting out of the theme. i acknowledge that other terms are often used to describe this activity: child drama, creative dramatics, and improvisational theatre are a few. i feel more comfortable with the term creative drama. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ zayda sierra received her ph. d. from the university of georgia, usa. at universidad de antioquia, medellin, colombia, where she is tenure professor, she has led different initiatives such as the children’s theatre bambalinas, a masters and doctoral program in education and intercultural studies, and the research group diverser in pedagogy and cultural diversity, which she was the director from 1999 to 2011. through different educational research projects in partnership with communities from diverse cultural contexts (indigenous, afrodescendent, campesino, urban), she has included dramatic play as a qualitative participatory inquiry strategy. she is the recipient of two fulbright research awards (1995, 2007) and the 1999 aate award for her doctoral dissertation: “play for real: understanding middle schoolaged children’s dramatic play”. correspondence: facultad de educación, universidad de antioquia, a.a. 1226 medellín, colombia. e-mail: zsierra.udea@gmail.com shortly after that i was hired to teach at grand valley state university and soon developed a course in child drama. i began reading everything i could find on the subject and attending workshops throughout the region on theatre and education. within the university course i brought children into the classroom and the university class went to the schools. i read the works of englishmen brian way (1967) and peter slade (1973). these practitioners provided a way of working that gave the children more freedom of expressing their own emotions and interests than i had been exposed to before. in the work of american creative dramatics, play was usually based on children's literature and lead by a teacher with a strong hand. i regret that i did not think to make a record of these experiments in children's performance, development and problem solving, contrasting various methods. i know of no one who was doing that at the time. now our field is much more research based and there is work studying these questions. i needed to know more so i earned a ph.d. in theatre at the university of michigan where shakespeare was the central emphasis. i was lucky to learn to write well there and wrote an award winning dissertation on the beginnings of professional theatre for children in the united states (salazar, 1984). at grand valley state university i developed the theatre program. i also married and had two children. their love of pretend mirrored mine. i continued playing and experimenting with varied groups in schools and my community. zayda: when invited to marginalized urban and rural localities, our theatre troupe had to perform outdoors, in playgrounds or plazas, because there were not proper auditoriums; therefore children were the first audience that came to see us. however our plays were too serious and boring for them to enjoy so we decided to stage theatre plays specially oriented to them. gilberto martínez, one of the new theatre leaders in colombia, introduced us to viola spolin’s work on improvisation, which helped us to recover the playful part of ourselves. we kept exploring social content in our plays, adding music, color and humor as well as having children participate during and after performances. i never enjoyed my work more as an educator interacting with these young audiences. what we were doing is what is known as theatre for children; still i wondered how can children themselves express through this art form and how should we as educators enhance self-expression? this brought me to the world of creative drama. experiencing and experimenting laura: in the 1960’s as a teacher of young men who could be called up to go to vietnam at any time, i was shocked and horrified at what my beloved country was doing to others and its own. i was young, too, and i wanted to have my teaching and work with young people reflect their deepest feelings. anti-war demonstrations were going on throughout the country. i lead my students to create happenings and sit-ins and symbolic acts across the campus, bringing attention to this problem. i discovered what moved audiences and what pushed the university administration to their limits. i believed that war was futile, an idea i had held since my dear second grade teacher went off to the pacific to fight in world war ii, and my fourth grade teacher lost her brother to the war. in the fourth europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ grade my teacher found me crying in the cloak room. “why are you crying, laura?” she asked. “i hate this terrible war,” was my answer. theatre was a potent way to express this belief and i directed my students in a production of lysistrata, as well as improvised pieces. i started a professional children’s theatre and began to understand how to appeal to children as an audience for theatre. ever interested in learningmore, i became active in professional organizations which expandedmy interests and skills through workshops and lectures. travel broadened my understanding of humanity and i marveled at our similarities and the clever ways other peoples solved the same problems facing all of us. i learned from seeing the practice of theatre in its many forms. i sponged it all up, anxious to hurry home and try out new ideas. as a result of learning, reading and travel, i developed a method on how to use theatre/drama in the classrooms and a university course teaching future teachers through giving them experiences in drama—attempting to pass on the joy of play as well as a respect for its serious content. somehow it all worked together to make me the practitioner i became: director, acting teacher, child educator, professor, and human being –open to all things that might be shared through the dramatic arts. zayda:when finishing my undergraduate studies, i asked the welfare office at universidad de antioquia to support an experimental children’s theatre group, which they did. teatro bambalinas, as this children’s project came to be known, differed radically from what was practiced as “theater” in the traditional school environment: students’ rote learning of a script to be performed to an audience in schools’ special events, in which the teacher as the director made all decisions. instead, i invited bambalinas’ participants to initially engage in social games to help them to interact better with each other and then to improvise play episodes from storybooks or their own ideas, which helped me structuring the script and mise-en-scène. some artist friends assisted me with the props, music and choreography, always sharing decision making with the children; among them my two own, whom i was lucky to raise in this creative atmosphere while the country was going through a very violent time during the 80sii. the original plays we developed were about situations that were of deep concern for these children, like how to create a more sensitive school environment open to children’s needs and expectations, and how to develop a more just societyiii. observing how lively and securely these young actors expressed themselves, teachers began to ask me for workshops on children’s expression through this art form. i decided to begin a masters’ studies in child psychology and continue self-study in creative drama to develop better teaching experiences. because of my pioneering work in this field i was invited to be part of the academic committee of the newly created b.a. in childhood education at universidad de antioquia, where i began my life as a professor and wrote my first book: children’s integral development through creative theatre (sierra, 1985); expressing all my hopes in contributing to a more peaceful and creative country for all our kids, a dream i’m still pursuing. on their experience in teatro bambalinas, here some participants’ comments: i like to be in theatre for the way they teach us to express ourselves and unveil our imagination (diana, age 12). i like to dream, laugh and sing, and in our improvisations can do those things. here my ideas are taken into account, where in other places only adults rule (alejandra, age 13). i like to be in theatre because i have more friends to talk with, because i like to work in a group and because i feel in a good environment (felipe, age 9). in each rehearsal we learn new things and grow in hopes to make a happier world. it is a work we do with much love and spirit (natalia, age 12). we arouse creativity, construct new fascinating worlds, experience new sensations, and develop corporal expression (isabel, age 13). it is europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ good to know that we always have here a support, a big support, where we can express through improvisations the things we care about, feel and live (tania, age 14).iv maturing and transforming careers exploring methods and styles in dramatic arts laura: in the early 1980s i met dorothy heathcote and went to several of her workshops, learning to use some of her techniques, combining them with my ideas in creative drama. i admired heathcote’s ability to jump into the drama herself, making herself a part of the drama, someone the children could play with instead of playing for. her mental agility matched the children’s, and she was able to put them into fascinating situations, drawing out their solutions. heathcote included conflict and the resolution of conflict in her work. there were no more little bunnies hopping around the field or historical pageants. she used all of the elements of dramatic literature: character, plot, conflict and resolution, with a good bit of aristotle’s action, language, music and spectacle. she played with time as well. the children became respected makers of serious drama, solving adult problems while keeping the conflict within children's understanding. on the other hand, she might turn to comedy and bring the children into a hilarious farce. most of all she committed to the drama, making it a serious study of character and action (see heathcote, 1992). i wanted to be able to do that. my book on this method, teaching thematically, learning dramatically (salazar, 1995) became the result of my quest. zayda: wondering about children’s ability to engage in improvising stories from different stimuli, i found out that what we referred to as improvisations in theater is very close to what psychologists describe as children’s symbolic, make-believe, representative, pretend, or dramatic play (piaget, 1962; rosenberg, 1987). the element of dramatic play appeared to be the magical clue. dramatic play seemed to be the link connecting theatrical improvisations and creative drama with the early play of childhood. however, i noticed a huge gap, a kind of a black hole in studies documenting the evolution of dramatic play from preschool to school-aged children. there were many assumptions in the literature that an interest in dramatic play declines as children matured. however, grown-up children, even adults, when offered a socially accepted environment still liked to dress up and create improvised characters and situations, as i was witnessing them doing in the theater bambalinas. why is it necessary to stimulate corporal expression and improvisational skills in older children and adults when younger children were so confident at expressing themselves when playing pretend? if i were ever going to be more effective in sharing with teachers the enormous potential of dramatic play, i realized that i needed to improve my research skills to learn how to follow up and evaluate children’s processes when engaging in this activity. not having graduate studies in childhood education or creative drama at home, i applied for a fulbright scholarship, which brought me to the torrance center for creative studies at the university of georgia in the united states in 1995. dramatic play as the source for any dramatic arts laura: i was asked by the american alliance for theatre and education to do a meta-study of dramatic play in order to flesh out our understanding of theatre and children. this evolving national organization in the united states purposely tied what it does in creative drama or child play or whatever name you give it, to the theatre, hoping it would give stature to the field. we hoped universities would include it in their study of theatre, community theatres might begin offering creative drama classes for children, and professional theatres would do the same. we hoped to develop a continuum from infant play to participation in and appreciation of theatre in adults. at the same time, we hoped to connect our field to education, psychology and sociology where children’s play and creeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 225 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ativity was being studied. therefore i and three other writers attempted to review all of the important papers written about social pretend play by child development specialists which had been published in professional journals during a ten year period (salazar, berghammer, brown, & griffin, 1993). as i looked at this large amount of literature, i kept coming back to my understanding of classical theatre. these scientists were describing the very things aristotle had found in theatre: plot, character, action, thought, music and spectacle. zayda: if dramatic play was considered a leading source of cognitive, linguistic, emotional and creative development by major psychologists, why is this activity not encouraged after the preschool years? during my research i found that despite the importance given to the role of play in children’s development, psychologists agreed in affirming its decline as children mature, explaining this decline as inhibition and transformation into daydreams because of the repressive role of culture (freud, 1908/1958), children's thinking becomes more adapted to reality (piaget, 1946/1962), and play evolves into imagination and interiorized thinking (vygotsky, 1930/1990; vygtosky, 1933/1976). a contextual reading of these theories into western concepts of child development provided me a different view. these influential theorists interpreted as "natural" that children went to school at a certain age and engaged less and less in symbolic play as they got older. they took for granted the role and features of schooling in a modern society, in which children (especially children from the working class) are negatively influenced by the many institutional regulations that isolate their time to play from their time to work. different studies show that in elementary and secondary education, the curriculum emphasizes academics while playgrounds are more oriented to physical activity than to imaginary play (pellegrini, 1995). another prejudice against including dramatic play in elementary and secondary education is the cultural bias that play does not contribute to serious learning (glickman, 1984) and the misconception of play as only entertainment (lópez quintás, 1977; montaña, 1972). laura: i concluded that even three and four year old children were dealing skillfully with theatre elements, solving problems and understanding their place in society through their play. dramatic play had power to help children become better people and create groups to work together well. why could not dramatic play be used for these purposes with adults? role-play shares some characteristics with dramatic play, although most adults think role play is rather silly and do not take it as seriously as young children would. it was not until i discovered augusto boal (1979) that i found the end of the continuum of play. boal gave ordinary adults the freedom to solve problems through drama. my book youth take the stage (salazar, 2010) provides a way for teenagers to use drama to the same purpose and with the same seriousness as a small child might have in his play. zayda: i also concluded that contrary to the assumptions that dramatic play declines as children get older, observations from my research in colombia and the united states showed that older children still enjoy engaging in dramatic play whose complexity and variability grows in relation to: (1) the nature of the interactions among the participants; (2) the nature of the metacommunicative strategies used by participants to suggest and negotiate ideas; (3) the nature of the ideational process involved in the creation of the play-stories; (4) the nature of the content of the play-stories configured through dramatic play (sierra, 1998). finding a place in the field for creative drama laura: i was fortunate to be one of the participants at the organizing meeting of the american alliance for theatre and education (aate) and continued to be a leader in that organization for the following ten years—1987-1997, serving as its president from 1993-1995. i was also very active in the international association for theatre for youth (assitej) and the international amateur theatre association (aita/iata) and served as its united states president from 1991-1993, editing its newsletter of the americas for ten years. i also participated in the initial ineurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ternational drama and education association (idea) congress in portugal as it struggled to create a worldwide theatre society—one that would not be eurocentric. each one of these organizations in their own way has made me who i am. such groups are essential to the development of our field. even in a large country such as the united states, there are a small number of people scattered over a vast area devoting themselves to the study and practice of theatre for young people. being active in drama organizations can help us self-correct our practice and remove doubts about the validity of our work. making contacts and keeping track of colleagues alleviates the loneliness of working in isolation. professional organizations can provide a unified front to face administrators and politicians who do not understand the value of creative drama and drama’s way of teaching and learning. in the early 1990’s the congress of the united states passed an educational reform act called no child left behind. this led to the development of national standards and a universal curriculum for all subjects taught in american public schools. states could accept the standards, modify them or not accept them at all. i served on that committee with great hopes. we did develop a curriculum for drama and even a way to assess student progress. i would like to say that all these efforts drove schools to include drama in their curriculum, but it did not happen. the pendulum swung away from the arts, and today, the struggle to include drama in schools in the united states continues. zayda: i learned about the importance of educational associations to impact educational policies when doing my doctoral studies. this gives me the opportunity to honor my major professor, dr. mary frasier, an afro american leader in the field of gifted education, who devoted her research career toward recognizing and enhancing the gifts and talents of african american children and other underrepresented groups by using alternative approaches to standardized tests, among them dramatics. through her i became more sensitive in understanding and making visible the needs, interests and expectations of non-dominant groups in my country (afro, indigenous, and peasants), an endeavor i assumed as soon as i went back to my home country. crossroads in kenya laura: i came to kenya full of broad experiences in theatre, creative drama, improvisation, and shakespeare, with a love for humankind. my passion at that time was in performance art and it was in this area i gave a talk and a workshop, hoping at the same time to sponge up anything kenya might have to offer. performance art provided a new way for me to think about the power of player and audience. performance art crept into my work, as i experimented with fusing creative drama into it. i sought opportunities to test my theories and skill. events were designed to give the hesitant courage, to bring out feelings long buried inside, to provide opportunities for physical and mental freedom, to move people from isolation into community. performance art comes out of visual art and therefore provides a more subtle and broad way of thinking about the communication aspects of performance. instead of speaking directly or even symbolically, performance artists hope to give the observer the kind of experience one would get in an art gallery or a dream. a performance artist might take a situation and move it around so it could be seen from all sides. in a gallery an observer would walk past a painting or around a sculpture and think, "that reminds me of my girlhood home," or it might call up a dream where one was very frightened. that is the same result the performer expects from the audience, only that the audience will personalize the performance piece and move it into his own daydream, creation, or memory bank. in my work i created situations using props, visions, actions, sounds, and characters that would make memories and daydreams and raise questions about contemporary issues. my book, making performance art (salazar, 1999) records that journey. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 227 http://www.psychopen.eu/ zayda: i went to present the results of my doctoral research project in the 1998 idea congress in kenya. there i learned about dr. laura salazar’s work. she also attended my presentation and suggested that i submit it to the best dissertation award sponsored by the american alliance for theatre and education, an organization i did not know at that time. i followed her advice and one year later i flew from colombia to the 1999 aate conference in chicago to receive this award (sierra, 2000). laura: while in kisumu, the city of the idea congress, zayda sierra and i went with a group to the countryside to spend an overnight in a village, staying at a home of a kind young drama teacher. there we met aids face to face. four orphaned teenage relatives lived with the couple. the husband was very thin and very ill. i found out later that he died of aids a month after the congress. in kisumu my colleague shirley harbin and i sat in front of two rows of lively children from a theatre group in nairobi. they had come to the congress to perform their play. their director told us that that they lived at the good samaritan children’s home in nairobi’s mathare slum. all week we talked and laughed with each other. a sweet ten year old girl named margret liked to sit close to me. back in the united states, i found out more about the home and the way these healthy intelligent orphans of aids were being raised. i thought about margaret and how i could help them. zayda: local theatre groups were invited to perform during the ideacongress. a group of maasai men were invited to perform in an open space in kisumu. with their traditional red capes, they sang and did some storytelling in their tribal tongue, while dancing major events of their life as hunters and shepherds. another local theatre was a group of teachers who created a collective play to reach rural areas audiences and talk about the risk of hiv/aids, an epidemic that had been killing african population at a very fast rate. i was very moved to see theatre as an educational tool in areas where information through tv and radio did not go; similar of what i had experienced in colombia. one of the local teachers invited laura and me to his simple home some hours away from kisumu where we met his wife and two sweet pre-school girls. we tour the isolated country school where his wife taught and we shared a meal with the family. the following morning, after laura and i slept together in a small bed, we teased each other on how this experience strengthened our bonds forever. the idea congress also offered us to visit a village of “cultural houses” (that’s how locals call an indigenous community) where elderly women in colorful dresses welcomed us with an impressive chorus, strengthening the rhythm with their batons. during the long walk to reach this village, children were happily running like butterflies all around, curious about us, which made a canadian teacher exclaim: “how is it possible that these children, who are unsupervised, behaved so well while our students don’t, if we stop looking at them a single minute?” from my own experience in colombia, particularly in rural areas, i observed that the children from the village we were visiting were not really “unsupervised” because every neighbor was paying attention and elders were interacting with everybody all the time. i just thought about this as an example of the role of schooling in western society, where intergenerational relationships get lost and how much we still need to learn from indigenous cultures where “the village is an educator,” as current literature supports (kanu, 2006; sarangapani, 2003). laura:when i went to kenya i was developing a theatre book for the 4h (head, heart, hands and health) — an international club for young peoplev. the organization began in the early 1920’s for isolated rural youth in the united states. i had been active in 4h as a young person. our small club won the state prize for the best play when i was sixteen. in the last two decades 4h has expanded to include boys and girls in inner cities, moving far beyond livestock and home making. my goal for the book was to write a manual for an adult leader who was new europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 228 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to theatre. it would be a guide to develop a youth troupe that would be able to explore problems in their community through theatre. the book would include many improvisational techniques that i had used for years in teaching acting. the community part of the book would be based on augusto boal’s theories with a variety of dorothy heathcote’s drama techniques. zayda: seeing the complex cultural diversity in kenya reaffirmed my conviction on the importance of dramatic play, not only as a pedagogical but also as a qualitative research interpretive practice to understand children’s lives in different cultural contexts. i had already learned that children use dramatic play not only to represent events from reality as they are (as if), but to play with possible worlds, that is, the representation of non-existing, dreamed, or wished realities (what if) (bretherton, 1984). thus, through dramatic play children not only learn to reconstruct what exists, but also to envision transformations of reality. learning how children portray characters, actions and their relations through dramatic play could also be understood as an interpretive practice: “through which reality is apprehended, understood, organized, and represented in the course of everyday life” (gubrium & holstein, 1997, p. 114). from the idea congress i came back determined to learn more on how children from diverse contexts represent their world (real and dreamed) through pretend play. new transformations laura: at the time of the congress i was facing a turning point in my life. i would be retiring in 1999, transforming from being a leader in my field to a housewife. i felt a sense of relief and freedom as i would not have so many obligations, and yet there was a void before me and i wondered where i would find a challenge equal to my energies. i found that challenge. in 1999 i founded and have been working for an organization called fabulous african fabrics, an international non-governmental organization that grew directly out of my experiences at the kenya ideavi. i had purchased some beautiful african textiles i used in the performance art piece at the congress. these i took home and made christmas presents for friends, the first step in developing an organization that is thriving today. this new mission changed my life, and the lives of hundreds of others. based in michigan with members in the united states, canada, trinidad and tobago and the uk, faf has raised $99.000 for women fighting aids in kenya and the good samaritan children's home. in 2010 we became a part of an international organization of organizations, global giving, which helps small ngos raise funds on line. in the beginning our central method of raising money was through making items of african textiles sewn into contemporary patterns. these we sold at craft fairs throughout the united states. fundraising now takes many forms, but the central method of supporting the orphans is through direct donations. my love for children changed from playing with them, to changing their lives physically. i settled into new hobbies: watercolor and silk painting; care for my autistic grandson; playing the steel drum, and knocking on doors for my favorite political candidates. both of the books i was working on when i was in kenya have been published: making performance art (salazar, 1999) and youth take the stage (salazar, 2010) which can be accessed on line. zayda: getting back to my country after i finished my doctoral studies –and concerned by the non-existent articulation between colombian school life and students' realities–, i founded diverserresearch group (in pedagogy and cultural diversity) at universidad de antioquia, which i led from 1999 to 2011. through different grants we developed participatory projects with teachers, students, and community leaders from diverse cultural contexts (afro, native, mestizo, rural, and urban). some of the initiatives were the semilleros de investigaci6n (young researchers program) (sierra, rojas, & lópez, 2010), the creation of an m.a. in pedagogy and cultural diversity europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 229 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and a ph. d. in education and intercultural studies and several projects to unveil the situation of indigenous students in colombian universities (sierra, 2004), which in turn lead us to the creation of a b.a. in pedagogy of mother earth in partnership with the indigenous organization of antioquia (oia). decolonial theories and emancipatory pedagogy from latin america –as the ones from paulo freire and augusto boal–, have served me to deconstruct dominant oppressive perspectives in my society and envision new possible worlds in education (sierra, 2010). through each project i have been looking at developing curricula more sensitive to communities' needs, recognizing class, gender and ethnic prejudices in daily interactions. dramatic play has also shown to be a very suitable way to capture children's voices on how they envision life in their community, as well as an active learning process that stimulates their cognitive, creative, and social development (sierra & romero, 2002). laura:my latest transformation through drama came last winter at age 78. i joined a group of senior citizens who stage short plays for the community. i was astonished to discover at my first meeting that these actors have great talent, heart and dedication. the theatre experience is not just about some vapid, ego-centric pastime as i thought it would be. their drama experiences lift them from a life of repetition and decline, and transform them to the thick of the human comedy and tragedy. drama provides purpose to their existence. about 15 years ago a nation-wide movement began to encourage senior citizens to develop their own theaters. groups write and perform their own plays and musical theatre and the growing body of plays written for senior citizens. the group i have recently joined is located at a senior center in san jose, california. the ten women and two men are led by a volunteer director who is also a senior citizen. in this group almost all of the people have been active in community, professional, and university theatre throughout their adult lives. i am directing the reading club written by patricia callan, based on her narrative poem about a group of educated women in 1880s who form a reading group to help them keep their minds active while they are engaged with families and homemaking. our actors like to portray characters who are younger than they are as well as elderly characters. the play will tour to churches, libraries and community groups in san jose. next year my goal is to work with the players as they dramatize scenes from their own lives. zayda: currently i am working at universidad de antioquia on the design of a project titled "toward sustainable rural communities with equity and diversity"vii, which i hope will contribute developing higher education programs in this field in colombia. i also keep using dramatic play as an enjoyable qualitative research strategy when working with participants from diverse cultural contexts to unveil and interpret problematic situations that affect their communities and to look toward alternatives, while at the same time strengthening their leadership and communication skills. learning from this dialogue; some questions and new challenges going back to what each one of us wrote, re-structuring (and abbreviating) the paper each time after our dialogue via skype, we want to underline several aspects we found in common, more as questions and new challenges than final remarks. 1. why telling our story? isn’t it an egotistical exercise? well, we assumed that if it was good for us to learn from other people’s efforts, some others could find it interesting to learn about our own searches toward opening creative spaces for all children and adults –not just gifted ones– at a time when being critical and creative was not widely accepted in our societies, especially through dramatics. this open dialogue is a way to pass the torch of a very enjoyable and worthy life activity. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 230 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. we decided to explore the educational potential of dramatic arts for everybody, not only for those who want to be professionals in theatre or the entertainment industry. here is where we find the transformational core of any dramatic arts: its playful and free nature. teachers, leaders and players need to learn how to negotiate their points of view and creatively motivate each other to get actively involved in the dramatic arts because play does not unfold if forced or in any authoritarian setting. see figure 1 below: figure 1. the transformational qualities of dramatic arts. 3. an authoritarian approach provides people few options to communicate their understanding of the world as usually happens in most school environments, where students are expected to repeat what pre-defined official curricula says, without regarding the context where they interact and live. social transformations are not going to occur if students are taught to be passive and submissive. participative democracy is impossible if citizens are not allowed to think for themselves or are afraid to speak out their ideas. therefore, we strongly believe that dramatic arts from a playful approach contributes to transform children and adults into open-minded thinkers, which in turns contributes to building a more pluralistic and democratic culture. 4. for us, any dramatic art needs a playful atmosphere to unfold to achieve the active involvement of participants and leaders. play enriches and gives meaning to common people’s lives, helping everybody to change perspectives and grow socially. we believe that this educational potential of dramatic arts contributes to transform children from being passive consumers of the entertainment industry to being active builders of possible worlds. from our experiences in different contexts (colombia, kenya, united states) we have seen how dramatic expressions contribute to build a sense of community, largely lost in a consumerist and individualist society. 5. dramatic arts also encourages a better understanding of cultural diversity and what it means to have a pluralistic society via facilitating participants to explore different situations, characters, stories, plots, scenarios, and historical times. as koste (1978) said, pretending is a perfect “rehearsal for life.” future studies should be devoted to understanding cultural diversity through pretend play and any other dramatic arts. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 231 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 6. working in organizations, educational institutions and our universities toward opening spaces to include dramatic arts in the curricula has also been part of our lives. although difficult, we feel that it has been worthy; we are part of a global social movement to transform the compulsory aspect of schooling toward more democratic and creative educational processes, either in formal or non-formal settings. 7. finally, why did we, as academic women, become devoted to motivate people’s expression through dramatic expressions? we both witnessed in our different environments how young men get involved in aggressive wars they do not ask for. is it possible to build a better world through creative means? as many women and mothers in the world, we want our children and grand-children to grow up in societies that teaches them to find peaceful ways to deal with conflicts. as first women in our families to reach doctoral studies, we decided to put our expertise into this endeavor. notes i) teatro antorcha, director álvaro cadavid (1974-1975); teatro el bululú, directors gilberto martínez and álvaro cadavid (1976-1978); teatro la mojiganga, director álvaro cadavid (1978-1980). ii) during the 80s, we saw the emergence of drug traffickers who got allied with extensive land owners, extreme right politicians and the state army against any expression for more democracy and social justice in colombia. several professors and students from universidad de antioquia –who lead the human rights office or belonged to social movements–, were assassinated. iii) “un milcentenario en el país sin tiempo” [a thousand centennial of the country without time] (1983) and “el país pequeñito de los sueños perdidos” [the little country of the lost dreams] (1985) were two of teatro bambalinas’ original plays. iv) teatro bambalinas’ brochure. medellin, colombia: universidad de antioquia, 1994. v) see: http://4h.msue.msu.edu/about/mi_4h_faqs vi) see: http://www.globalgiving.org/donate/5160/fabulous-african-fabrics/ vii) this project is an international collaborative effort with dr. gerald fallon and colleagues from the school of education, university of british columbia (canada) and local organizations and universities from colombia (asociación orewa, ceam, cocomacia, fundación universitaria claretiana, universidad tecnológica del chocó y universidad de antioquia). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. notes paper presented in the 8th international drama & education association (idea) congress, paris, july 8-13, 2013. references boal, a. (1979). theatre of the oppressed. london, united kingdom: pluto press. bretherton, i. (1984). representing the social world in symbolic play: reality and fantasy. in i. bretherton (ed.), symbolic play: the development of social understanding (pp. 3-41). orlando, fl: academic press. freud, s. (1958). the poet and day-dreaming. in s. freud (ed.), on creativity and the unconscious. new york, ny: harper and brothers. original work published 1908 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 232 http://4h.msue.msu.edu/about/mi_4h_faqs http://www.globalgiving.org/donate/5160/fabulous-african-fabrics/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ garzón céspedes, f. (ed.). (1978). el teatro latinoamericano de creación colectiva. la habana, cuba: casa de las américas. glickman, c. (1984). play in public school settings: a philosophical question. in t. yawkey & a. pellegrini (eds.), child's play: developmental and applied (pp. 255-271). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. gubrium, j., & holstein, j. (1997). the new language of qualitative method. new york, ny: oxford university press. heathcote, d. (1992). collected writings on education and drama. evanston, il: northwestern university press. kanu, y. (2006). reappropriating traditions in the postcolonial curricular imagination. in y. kanu (ed.), curriculum as cultural practice: postcolonial imaginations (pp. 202-222). toronto, canada: university of toronto press. koste, v. (1978). dramatic play in childhood: rehearsal for life. new orleans, la: anchorage press. lópez quintás, a. (1977). estética de la creatividad: juego, arte, literatura. madrid, spain: cátedra. luzuriaga, g. (ed.). 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(2010). youth take the stage: an introduction to interactive theatre. east lansing, mi: 4-h youth development, michigan state university. retrieved from http://4h.msue.msu.edu/uploads/resources/4h1608_youthtakethestage.pdf salazar, l. g., berghammer, g., brown, v., & griffin, h. (1993). social pretend play (technical report #2). tempe, az: american alliance for theatre and education, international center for studies in theatre education. sarangapani, p. m. (2003). indigenising curriculum: questions posed by baiga vidya. comparative education, 39(2), 199-209. doi:10.1080/03050060302552 sierra, z. (1985). el teatro creador: hacia un desarrollo integral de nuestros niños. medellín, colombia: universidad de antioquia. sierra, z. (1998). que tú eras una tortuga y que yo era un diablo: aproximaciones al juego dramático en la edad escolar. santafé de bogotá, colombia: colciencias-universidad de antioquia. sierra, z. (2000). "play for real": understanding middle school children's dramatic play. youth theatre journal, 14, 1-12. doi:10.1080/08929092.2000.10012513 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 salazar & sierra 233 http://4h.msue.msu.edu/uploads/resources/4h1608_youthtakethestage.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060302552 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08929092.2000.10012513 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sierra, z. (ed.). (2004). voces indígenas universitarias: expectativas, vivencias y sueños. medellín, colombia: grupo diverser—universidad de antioquia et al. sierra, z. (2010). pedagogías desde la diversidad cultural: una invitación para la investigación intercultural.revista perspectiva, 28(1), 157-190. doi:10.5007/2175-795x.2010v28n1p157 sierra, z., rojas, a., & lópez, g. (2010). el semillero de investigación: un espacio de vida. in luis f. molineros (ed.),orígenes y dinámica de los semilleros de investigación en colombia: la visión de los fundadores (pp. 58-88). popayán, colombia: universidad del cauca y universidad de antioquia. retrieved from http://es.calameo.com/read/000444020ca36c46a6b36 sierra, z., & romero, l. a. (2002). ¿investigar o construir nuevas realidades escolares? reflexiones a propósito de un proceso formativo e investigativo con docentes. revista colciencias: colombia ciencia & tecnología, 20(4), 19-32. spolin, v. (1963). improvisation for the theater. evanston, il: northwestern university press. slade, p. (1973). child drama: with a foreword by dame sybil thorndike [b. way, ed.]. london, united kingdom: university of london press. vygtosky, l. s. (1976). play and its role in the mental development of the child. in j. bruner, a. jolly, & k. sylva (eds.), play: its role in development and evolution (pp. 537-555). new york, ny: basic books. (original work published 1933) vygotsky, l. s. (1990). imagination and creativity in childhood. soviet psychology, 28(1), 84-96. way, b. (1967). development through drama. new york, ny: humanities press. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 221–234 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.787 the transformational qualities in creative drama 234 http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-795x.2010v28n1p157 http://es.calameo.com/read/000444020ca36c46a6b36 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the transformational qualities in creative drama formative journeys into creative drama playing in a supportive atmosphere playing and learning as young adults thinking about education through theatre experiencing and experimenting maturing and transforming careers exploring methods and styles in dramatic arts dramatic play as the source for any dramatic arts finding a place in the field for creative drama crossroads in kenya new transformations learning from this dialogue; some questions and new challenges notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments notes references evaluation of the psychometric properties of the internet addiction test (iat) in a sample of cypriot high school students: the rasch measurement perspective research reports evaluation of the psychometric properties of the internet addiction test (iat) in a sample of cypriot high school students: the raschmeasurement perspective panayiotis panayides*a, miranda jane walkera [a] lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. abstract as greek cypriot senior high school teachers, the researchers believe that instruments assessing internet addiction should be developed and validated for use wherever there are adolescents (the most at-risk population) and internet access. the purpose of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the internet addiction test (iat). a sample of 604 randomly selected high school students from five high schools in limassol, cyprus participated in the study. the rasch rating scale model was used for the analyses of the data collected. results suggested the modification of the iat in two ways. first, the 5-point rating scale was replaced by a 3-point scale, which was found to be optimal in the pilot study. second, item 8 was replaced by a self-rating item because it was found to be identical to item 6 both statistically and semantically. the respondents’ reliability was satisfactory (0.86) and item reliability very high (0.99). all 20 items were sufficiently spread out and describe distinct levels along the variable and do define a linear continuum of increasing difficulty. all the evidence collected supports the unidimensionality and the high degree of construct validity of the scale. finally four recommendations for the modification of the scale and future research are proposed. keywords: internet addiction, internet addiction test, high school students, rasch measurement, psychometric properties, unidimensionality europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 received: 2012-01-02. accepted: 2012-05-30. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: nikou kavadia 1, k. polemidia, 4152, limassol, cyprus, email: p.panayides@cytanet.com.cy. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. kandell (1998) defined internet addiction as “a psychological dependence on the internet, regardless of the activity once logged on” (p.12). shaw and black (2008) stated that internet addiction is “characterized by excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges or behaviours regarding computer use and internet access that lead to impairment or distress” (p.353). internet related dependency has been termed internet addiction disorder (e.g. goldberg, 1996), internet addiction (e.g. chou & hsiao, 2000; scherer & bost, 1997; young, 1998a), internet dependency (e.g. lin & tsai, 2002; scherer & bost, 1997), internet pathological use (e.g. davis, 2001; morahan-martin & schumacher, 2000) and problematic internet use (davis, flett, & besser, 2002; odacı & kalkan, 2010). despite the lack of universal agreement in terminology and definition, common indicators concerning this disorder can be found in the literature such as excessive time on the internet, distress or irritability when the internet is not available and the feeling of needing to spend more time online (young & rodgers, 1998). griffiths (2000) observes the scepticism among the academic community regarding the concept of ‘internet addiction’ but points out the acceptance of pathological gambling as an addiction has created a precedent for --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ other excessive behaviours, such as internet addiction. in addition widyanto and griffiths (2006) state that internet addiction has frequently been conceptualised as a behavioural addiction, operating on a modified principle of classic addiction models, but further note that the validity and clinical worth of these claims has been questioned. they emphasise the lack of theoretical basis for the construct despite the number of studies which have been undertaken on internet addiction. davis (2001) proposed a model of the etiology of pathological internet use, the main assumption of which is that it arises from “problematic cognitions coupled with behaviours that intensify or maintain maladaptive responses” (cited in widyanto & griffiths, 2006, p.45). internet addiction and adolescents various studies accentuate the importance of examining the impact of problematic internet use on the most vulnerable to this, adolescents (ferraro, caci, d’amico, & di blasi, 2007; johansson & götestam, 2004). in general, adolescents are at a critical period of addiction vulnerability, based on their social and also neurobiological factors (jang, hwang, & choi, 2008; lam-figueroa et al., 2011; pallanti, bernardi, & quercioli, 2006). with regard to the internet they are more vulnerable and at risk as they have easy access to the internet and flexible timetables (moore, cited in widyanto & griffiths, 2006). furthermore they tend to be less self-regulative (fu, chan, wong, & yip, 2010), and also have less ability to control their enthusiasm for internet activities (yen, ko, yen, chang & cheng, 2009). more specifically, research indicates internet use is highest in the 16-24 age groups (kandell, 1998; öztürk, odabasioglu, eraslan, genç, & kalyoncu, 2007). odacı & kalkan (2010) suggest this implies a potential risk of internet dependence among this age group. internet addiction has been reported to be negatively correlated with academic performance including poor grades, tardiness and procrastination (chang & law, 2008; chou & hsiao, 2000; scherer & bost, 1997; yen et al., 2009). furthermore it has been linked to time distortion (odacı & kalkan, 2010) and shown to adversely affect sleep habits (choi et al. 2009; kesici & sahin, 2010). internet addiction scales many scales have been developed to identify the level of internet addiction in users. goldberg (1996) developed the internet addictive disorder (iad) scale, with seven diagnostic criteria, mainly adapted from the 1994 edition of the american psychiatric association’s diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv). young (1998a) suggests pathological gambling is the most akin disorder to the pathological nature of internet use. she stated that “by using pathological gambling as a model, internet addiction can be defined as an impulse-control disorder which does not involve an intoxicant” (p.238). young (1998a) introduced a diagnostic questionnaire (ydq) for ‘internet addiction’, with eight dichotomous items, adapted from dsm-iv, from the criteria used for pathological gambling. she suggested a cut-off score of five, arguing that this cut off score is consistent with the number of criteria used for pathological gambling and is seen as an adequate number of criteria to differentiate normal from pathological addictive internet use. brenner (1997) developed the irabi (internet-related addictive behavior inventory) scale, with 32 true-false items addressing excessive internet use. in 1998 young expanded on her ydq and developed the 20-item internet addiction test (iat). respondents are asked to answer the 20 items on a 5-point likert scale (scored from one to five) indicating the degree to which internet usage affects their daily routine, social life, productivity, sleeping pattern, and feelings. the higher the score, the greater the problems caused by internet usage. young extended the cut-off score of five out of eight criteria of the original 8-item ydq to the iat. she suggested a score of 20-39 indicated ‘no problems’; 40-69 ‘frequent problems’; 70-100 ‘significant europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 328 http://www.psychopen.eu/ problems’ for the user. morahan-martin and schumacher (2000) introduced their pathological internet use (piu) scale, with 13 items, largely based on the dsm-iv criteria for gambling. factor structure the overwhelming majority of internet addiction scales developed have been shown to be multidimensional. the factorial complexity of the measures from these scales varies widely ranging from one (siomos, dafouli, braimiotis, mouzas, & angelopoulos, 2008) to as many as seven factors (caplan 2002). there are several reasons for such diverse factor structures for internet addiction. first, the construct has not been consistently defined across the various studies. jia and jia (2009) argue that a critical step towards discovering the true factor structure of internet addiction is achieving a consensus definition. this definition would determine the domain of the construct and the item pool. second, there are several instruments with varied lengths (from eight to 36 items) in the literature that appear to be measuring the construct. jia and jia (2009) also argue that the factor analytic techniques and the decision heuristics used in developing these scales have a direct impact on the structure obtained. finally confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was used in some studies to confirm the factor structures. kline (2000) points out some of the problems associated with this method and emphasises that “the fact that a model is confirmed, … means only that this particular model fits the data. it does not mean that other models might not fit and fit better” (p. 183). the noticeable inconsistency of various studies related to the factor structure is not always a result of the different scales used. even in studies where the iat (young, 1998b) was used, different factor structures were reported. a 3-factor structure of the iat was reported by law and chang (2007) and chang and law (2008). widyanto, griffiths, and brunsden (2011), in comparing the iat with the irps, also extracted 3 factors for the iat using exploratory factor analysis (efa). however, in a study a few years earlier, widyanto and mcmurran (2004) reported six factors as did ferraro et al. (2007) with the italian version of the iat. if all the scales mentioned in this study, including the iat, are multidimensional then the following question arises: can the scores on the individual items be summed to give a total score which will be used to identify the severity of the internet addiction of any respondent? some of the studies that used the iat did report significant inter-factor correlations, perhaps implying (but not stating) the possibility of a unidimensional scale, and this would justify the use of a total score for measuring internet addiction (e.g. chang & law, 2008; widyanto & mcmurran, 2004). other studies, however, did not report such correlations (e.g. choi et al., 2009; law & chang, 2007) various instruments are proposed for studying internet addiction but it is crucial to establish the validity and reliability of these instruments. “good measurement is a pre-condition for building up knowledge in the research area of internet addiction” (law & chang, 2007, p.8). rasch measurement the rasch model asserts that a person with higher endorsability (i.e. higher position on the internet addiction continuum) always has a higher probability of endorsing any item than a person with lower endorsability, and a more difficult (to endorse) item has a lower probability of endorsement than a less difficult item, regardless of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 329 http://www.psychopen.eu/ person position on the internet addiction continuum. the original breakthrough by rasch in 1960 has been developed and extended to address every reasonable observational situation in the social sciences. if the test has a single type of item, with the same number of marks available (as with the likert scales), then the rating scale model (rsm) applies (andrich, 1978). according to the model the probability of a person n responding in category x to item i, is given by: where το = 0 so that βn is the person’s position on the variable, δi is the scale value (difficulty to endorse) estimated for each item i and τ1, τ2, . . ., τm are the m response thresholds estimated for the m + 1 rating categories. panayides, robinson, and tymms (2010) reported a selection of applications of rasch measurement showing the diversity of situations in the social sciences in which the rasch approach can be used productively, including construction and evaluation of psychometric scales. for example, prieto, roset, and badia (2001) have used the rasch dichotomous model to assess the metric properties of the spanish version of the assessment of growth hormone deficiency in adults and to confirm its unidimensionality and construct validity. massof and fletcher (2001) have used the model to evaluate the validity of and to improve the visual functioning questionnaire which is designed to assess health-related quality of life of patients with visual impairment. chen, bezruczko, and ryan-henry (2006), have used rasch analyses to describe mothers’ effectiveness in caregiving for their adult children with intellectual disabilities and myford and wolfe (2002) examined a procedure for identifying and resolving discrepancies in examiners’ ratings. unidimensionality the rasch model constructs a one-dimensional measurement system from ordinal data regardless of the dimensionality of the data. however, more than one latent dimension will always contribute to empirical data. multidimensionality will become a real concern when the response patterns indicate the presence of two or more dimensions so disparate that it is no longer clear what latent dimension the rasch dimension operationalizes. factor analysis is widely used in psychometrics to investigate the dimensionality of empirical data. however it “is confused by ordinal variables and highly correlated factors. rasch analysis excels at constructing linearity out of ordinality and at aiding the identification of the core construct inside a fog of collinearity.” (schumacker & linacre, 1996, p.470). linacre (1998) showed that rasch analysis followed by pca of standardized residuals was always europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 330 http://www.psychopen.eu/ more effective at both constructing measures and identifying multidimensionality than direct factor analysis of the original response-level data. a key issue in the identification of a second dimension is the choice of the critical value of the eigenvalue. researchers have suggested various critical values. smith and miao (1994) and raiche (2005) suggested 1.4 whereas smith (2004a) 1.5. linacre (2005) however, argues convincingly that an eigenvalue less than 2 indicates that the implied dimension in the data has less than the strength of two items, and so, however powerful it may be diagnostically, it has little strength in the data. fit statistics the rasch model “analyzes the data as though they are unidimensional, and then the fit statistics report how well the data match the mathematically unidimensional framework that the rasch analysis has constructed” (linacre 2011, para. 6). therefore, the fit statistics report the degree to which the observations meet this vital specification of measurement. smith (1996) emphasises that items (or persons) that do not fit the model “are not automatically rejected, but are examined to identify in what way, and why, they fall short ... then the decision is made to accept, reject or modify the data” (p.516). linacre and wright (1994) explain that the outfit statistic is dominated by unexpected outlying, off-target, low information responses and is outlier-sensitive. the infit statistic is an information-weighted sum, introduced to reduce the influence of outliers. it is dominated by unexpected inlying patterns among informative, on-target observations and is inlier-sensitive. this study research has shown that internet use is highest among adolescents making this age group the most at risk of internet dependence. also, internet addiction has been reported to be negatively associated with academic performance and grades (chang & law, 2008; chou & hsiao, 2000; scherer & bost, 1997; yen et al., 2009). the internet is nonetheless an important teaching and learning resource in education when used properly, and “an indelible feature of modern life” (young, 1998b, p.1). as greek cypriot senior high school teachers, the researchers believe that instruments assessing internet addiction among this specific student population should be developed. furthermore, many of the studies that have investigated internet addiction reported a multi-factor structure for the construct. there is however, no universal agreement on the number of factors, or if indeed the factors identified were highly correlated possibly resulting in considering the scales used as unidimensional. if the factors are indeed highly correlated so that they could work together to form a single meaningful scale that measures internet addiction, then the rasch model would develop an equal-interval measure that would remain invariant (within standard error) for diagnosing the various levels of internet addiction. according to koronczai et al. (2011) there are very few psychometric data on the iat, the most widely used internet test. therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the iat for a sample of cypriot adolescents through the investigation of the following four research questions: 1. is the 5-point rating scale psychometrically optimal? europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 331 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. does the iat provide reliable measures? (the term ‘measures’ is used rather than ‘scores’ to distinguish between linear measures obtained from using the rasch models and ordinal raw scores obtained from counting observed scores) 3. do the 20 items define a theoretical linear continuum of increasing difficulty? 4. do the 20 items define a single construct of internet addiction? young’s iat can be found online at: http://www.netaddiction.com methodology participants the present study involved a total of 604 second and third grade senior high school students (ages 17-18) from five lyceums in limassol, cyprus. four of the lyceums were selected at random (from a total of 10), the fifth being the one where both researchers are members of staff. following comprehensive explanations of the purpose of the study, permission to administer questionnaires was sought and attained from the relevant head-teachers, all of whom were willing to offer their assistance. the instrument permission was also sought and attained from dr. kimberly young for the use of her iat for the purposes of this study. the researchers drew up a questionnaire comprising of 28 items. these were the original 20 items from young’s iat; a self diagnostic question; and a further seven questions of a personal nature such as gender, grades and sleep habits. the self diagnostic question asked students to rate the extent to which they thought they were addicted to the internet on a 5-point scale (1 = none, 2 = a little extent, 3 = a moderate extent, 4 = a fair extent and 5 = a great extent). widyanto et al. (2011) showed significant correlations of such a question with two internet addiction scales and argue that "participants are fairly accurate at evaluating their own level of problems with the internet" (p. 148). the questionnaire was translated from english into greek by the researchers, and subsequently back into english by an independent and experienced english language expert who had not previously seen the original questionnaire. the two english versions were then compared by the researchers who concluded that the meaning of the items had not been altered in the translation. oral explanations related to the questionnaire were given to the teachers whose classes had been randomly selected. the researchers also explained the purpose of the study to the students and the voluntary basis for participation. selection of the rasch rating scale model (rsm) the rasch rsm was selected for the analysis of the iat data for the following reasons. first, the rasch models are the only models that accept the raw scores of the respondents to be a sufficient statistic for the estimation of their underlying position on the variable continuum thus maintaining the score order of students. since raw scores are the basis for reporting results throughout all the studies on internet addiction, the rasch models are consistent with practice. second, the rasch models are easier to work with, to understand and to interpret, because they involve fewer parameters. third, there are fewer parameter estimation problems than with the more general models. the rasch models give stable item estimates with smaller samples than other models (thissen &wainer, 1982). fourth, the person measures and item calibrations have a unique ordering on a common logit scale (bond europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 332 http://www.netaddiction.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ & fox, 2001, 2007; wright & masters, 1982) making it easy to see relations between them. the item-person map provided by the rash software is very attractive to users. fifth, validity and reliability issues can be addressed through the use of the rasch models (smith, 2004b). most importantly however, the rasch model is based on a different philosophy from other approaches. this philosophy dictates the structure of the data including the fact that unidimensionality is a must for the measurement process. other models are driven by a desire to model all of the characteristics observed in the data, regardless of whether they have any contribution to the measurement process. so, the difference is between measurement and modelling. if the aim is to construct a good measure then the items comprising the scale should be constrained to the principles of measurement, thus the rasch model is highly appropriate. selection of the fit statistics the infit mean square and the outfit mean square have been used to estimate the degree of misfit of the items in this study. these two fit statistics were preferred over a large number of fit statistics for their exploratory nature (douglas, 1990). they can identify a wide range of potential sources of unexpected response patterns and this is an advantage in the sense that a fit statistic that focuses on a specific type of unexpectedness may not have enough power to identify other types, thus missing ‘bad’ items. also, the infit and outfit mean squares have been used successfully to assess the fit of the rasch models for many years (e.g. curtis, 2004; smith, 1990; wright & masters, 1982), and this encourages their use in the context of the rasch models. furthermore, these statistics are computationally simpler and they stand up well in comparison with possibly more precise tests, therefore there is no practical reason to use anything more complicated (smith, 1990). finally, they are utilized by most of the available software packages for rasch calibrations (e.g. quest, winsteps, facets) and are familiar to many researchers. critical values for the fit statistics wright, linacre, gustafson, and martin-lof (1994) provide a table of reasonable item mean square fit values and suggest infit and outfit values of 0.6 – 1.4 for scales. values of 1.4 indicate 40% more variability and values of 0.6 indicate 40% less variability than predicted by the rasch model. bond and fox (2001, 2007) suggest the same values aswright et al., whereas curtis (2004) and glas and meijer (2003), suggest using simulated data according to an irt model based on the estimated parameters and then determining the critical values empirically. however, lamprianou (2006) argues that misfit is not a dichotomous ‘yes’/’no’ property but rather a matter of degree and as such it can be considered too large for one study and satisfactory for another depending on the aims of the researchers. therefore, for the purposes of this study, the researchers decided to consider items with infit or outfit greater than (the widely used cut-off value) 1.4 as ones needing re-examination before deciding to maintain or remove them from the scale, as suggested by wright et al. (1994) and bond and fox (2001, 2007). pilot study the administration of the questionnaires was divided into two phases. in the first phase, the pilot study, the researchers investigated the appropriateness of the number of categories in the likert scale used in the original iat by administering 290 questionnaires to second and third grade senior high school students. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 333 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories rating scale categories should be well defined, mutually exclusive and exhaustive. in practice the categories of a scale inevitably contain an element of arbitrariness and depend on whether the scale designer has done a good or poor job of the scale definition. the respondents may use the scale effectively (in an informative way) or ineffectively (in an uninformative way) according to their own understanding of the category labels. wright and linacre (1992) point out that it is the analyst’s task to extract the maximum amount of useful meaning from the responses observed by combining (or even splitting), if necessary categories as suggested by the results of careful analysis. furthermore wright and linacre (1992) advise researchers that in combining two or more categories they must be sure it is reasonable to do so and that both the statistical and substantive validity of the results is improved. royal, ellis, ensslen, and homan (2010) echo wright’s and linacre’s points and, even though they warn readers that sometimes collapsing categories can alter the meaning of the rating scale, in their study they did so thus improving rating scale optimization, the researchers followed the rasch measurement diagnostics suggested by linacre (2002) and bond and fox (2001, 2007) for determining the optimal number of categories. first, categories with low frequencies (linacre recommends 10 as the minimum number) are described as problematic because they do not provide enough observations for estimating stable threshold values. second, the average measures (the average of the ability estimates of all persons in the sample who chose a particular category) are expected to increase monotonically in size as the variable increases. this indicates that on average, those with higher scores on the internet addiction variable endorse the higher categories. third, the thresholds, or step calibrations (the difficulties estimated for choosing one response category over another) should also increase monotonically across the rating scale. if they do not, they are considered disordered. fourth, the magnitudes of the distances between adjacent threshold estimates should indicate that each step defines a distinct range on the variable. that is, the estimates should be neither too close together, nor too far apart. linacre (1999) suggests that thresholds should increase by at least 1.4 logits, to show distinction between categories, but not more than 5 logits, so as to avoid large gaps in the variable. step disordering and very narrow distances between thresholds “can indicate that a category represents too narrow a segment of the latent variable or corresponds to a concept that is poorly defined in the minds of the respondents” (linacre, 2002, p. 98). finally, the fit statistics provide another criterion for assessing the quality of a rating scale. outfit greater than 2 indicates more misinformation than information, thus the category introduces noise into the measurement process. second phase in the second phase 314 questionnaires were administered giving a total of 604. eight classes were selected from the researchers’ school (with a population of 574 second and third graders) and five classes from each of the remaining four schools (with corresponding populations varying from 336 to 407) thus giving a proportional sample from the five schools. the total number of second and third graders in the five schools was 2093 and the sample was 28.9% of the population. approximately 48.1% of the respondents were male and 51.9% female. combining the two samples the scoring on the 20 items of the first 290 questionnaires was changed to 1 to 3 (as explained in the results section), thus changing the total scores. themeans and standard deviations of the total scores of the questionnaires collected in the second phase were then compared with those from the changed scores of the first. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, the correlation between the rasch item calibrations from the two samples was calculated. both investigations justified the combination of the two sub-samples into one larger sample thus giving more reliable results, smaller standard errors and more stable item estimates. unidimensionality the dimensionality of the data was investigated through various studies, as suggested by linacre (1998). first item correlations with the total scores were calculated; second, dimensionality was examined through principal components analysis (pca) of the standardised residuals; third, fit statistics were calculated. the meaningfulness of the item ordering was investigated through comparisons with the item ordering as derived through the opinions of four experts (three high school student consultants-career advisors, all with psychology degrees or training and one independent psychologist). the experts had to rate the difficulty of each iat item on a scale from 0 to 4, where 0 was the easiest item and 4 the hardest. comparisons were carried out with the use of two correlation coefficients, the product moment correlation coefficient (r) and spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (rho). rho assesses how well the item order is maintained among the two orderings. the stability of the item ordering was investigated through comparisons of item calibrations from two groups of students, the higher and lower scorers. reliability indices the person estimate reliability (rp) is an indication of the precision of the instrument and shows how well the instrument can distinguish individuals. it can often be replaced by a person separation index (gp) which ranges from 0 to infinity and indicates the spread of person measures in standard error units. another useful calculation is that of strata calculated by [(4gp + 1)/3]. strata are used to determine the number of statistically distinct levels, separated by at least 3 errors of measurement, of person ability that the items have distinguished (wright & masters, 1982). finally, the item estimate reliability shows how well the items that form the scale are discriminated by the sample of respondents. wright and masters (1982) argue that good item separation is a necessary condition for effective measurement. all rasch analyses were performed on winsteps (linacre, 2005). results pilot study – rating scale functioning the data collected from the 290 questionnaires were analysed with emphasis, at this stage on the rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories. table 1 shows these diagnostics for the original scale with the five categories. there is a large number of observations in each category (minimum 420, in category 5), the average measure increases monotonically (-1.58, -0.92, -0.35, 0.02 and 0.53 for categories 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively) and the outfit values are all close to 1 (from 0.85 to 1.20). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 335 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 summary of category structure step calibrationsoutfit mnsqinfit mnsqaverage measureobserved count (%)category labels none2446 (43%)1 .161.061.58-1 1194 (21%)2 .51-0.800.850.92-0 1036 (18%)3 .51-0.890.900.35-0 643 (11%)4 .300.111.990.020 420 (7%)5 .720.201.131.530 however, categories 2 and 3 are disordered. the threshold between categories 1 and 2 is the same as between categories 2 and 3 (-0.51). also the distance between the first and the last thresholds is only 1.23 logits which perhaps indicates that the scale should have only 3 categories. one visual and perhaps easier method of inspecting the distinction between thresholds is to examine the probability curves. these curves show the probability of endorsing a given category for every ‘person agreeability minus item endorsability’ (ability-difficulty) estimate. figure 1 shows the probability curve for the original scale. figure 1. category probability curves each category should have a distinct peak in the probability curve graph, illustrating that each is indeed the most probable response category for some portion of the measured variable. in this case category 2 never emerges and categories 3 and 4 only peak for a very small range of the variable. this pattern suggests the need to reconsider both the number of and the corresponding labels of the response options. this led to the collapsing of categories and the use of two different models, first the 12234model (collapsing categories 2 and 3) and then the 12334 model (collapsing categories 3 and 4). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 336 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the 12234 model, category 3 did not peak at all and the thresholds were again disordered (-1.41, 0.71 and 0.70). similarly, in the 12334 model, category 2 did not peak and the thresholds were also disordered (-0.69, -0.94 and 1.63). the above findings led to further collapsing the 4 categories into 3. the final model used was the 12223 model, where categories 2, 3 and 4 of the original model were combined into 1 category. figure 2 shows the probability curve of this final analysis. figure 2. category probabilities, model 12334 there is a large number of observations in each category, the observed average measure is monotonically increasing (-2.68, -0.88 and 0.86) and the outfit values for all categories are all very close to 1 (1.04, 0.94 and 1.03). most importantly however, the thresholds are not disordered. they are now monotonically increasing (-1.91 and 1.91) and there is a distance of 3.82 logits amongst these thresholds and this distance is well inside the optimal range. furthermore each category peaks in a distinct range illustrating that each is indeed the most probable response category for that distinct range of the measured variable. finally, table 2 shows the reliability estimates for each of the models investigated. there are no differences in the reliability indices among the four models. however, the first three models have disordered categories. these analyses suggest that the original 5-point likert scale (rarely, occasionally, frequently, often, always) is not optimal for this sample. instead, a 3-point likert scale (rarely, frequently, always) should be used. it seems that the distinction between “occasionally”, “frequently” and “often” was not clear in the minds of the respondents and therefore the three categories were combined into one labelled “frequently”. such combinations of categories can be found in the survey of perceived fears by stone and wright (1994). they showed that combining five ordered categories into three increased the test reliability for the sample. in another study, on the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 337 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 reliability estimates for each model. models 12223123341223412345 0.870.880.870.87person reliability 2.542.692.612.61separation 3.723.923.813.81strata ordereddisordereddisordereddisorderedcategories evaluation of the diabetes self-care scale, lee and fisher (2005) found that a 3-point rating scale was optimal instead of the original 6-point rating scale. similarly schulman and wolfe (2000) found that the seven original categories represented more levels of the self-efficacy variable than the respondents were capable to distinguish and decided that the optimal number was five. comparing the data collected from the two phases table 3 shows the results of the statistical tests for differences between the means and standard deviations of the iat scores from the two phases. table 3 comparisons between total addiction scores meansstandard deviations n p-valuetmeanp-valuefs.d. 32.806.65290pilot study 0.1601.40731.980.0663.4057.58314phase 2 the f-test revealed no differences between the standard deviations (p = 0.066) and the t-test no differences between the means (p = 0.160). furthermore, the two sets of rasch item calibrations had a correlation of 0.983 (n = 20, p < 0.005). the non-significant statistical tests and the highly significant correlation between the item calibrations justify the combination of the two samples into one (as in lee & fisher 2005). investigating the dimensionality of the scale table 4 shows the item statistics of the rasch analyses in misfit order. all item-total correlations are positive and significant ranging from 0.43 to 0.65. at the same time all the items fit the rasch model very well (except from item 7 which has a marginally higher outfit value of 1.48). table 5 shows the results of the pca of the standardised residuals and figure 3 the resulting plot of the first factor extracted. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 338 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 item statistics in misfit order correlationoutfit mnsqinfit mnsqmodel s.e.item measureitems 7 .430.481.391.080.21-0 9 .470.291.231.080.380 4 .450.241.191.080.320 3 .450.221.091.100.541 5 .600.181.021.080.77-0 12 .590.161.171.080.63-0 10 .520.101.001.080.22-0 18 .550.950.081.090.860 17 .550.051.061.080.06-0 19 .510.001.041.100.601 6 .590.930.980.080.210 20 .580.800.950.090.141 15 .590.910.940.090.021 13 .630.900.920.080.28-0 14 .610.900.910.080.40-0 16 .620.880.880.070.39-1 8 .610.840.870.080.200 11 .650.810.810.080.63-0 1 .590.800.790.070.83-1 2 .630.780.790.070.84-0 mean .011.011.080.000 s.d. .190.150.010.900 table 5 standardized residual variance (in eigenvalue units) modeled (%)(%)empirical total raw variance in observations .0100.0100.833 raw variance explained by measures .940.840.813 raw variance explained by persons .626.626.09 raw variance explained by items .214.214.84 raw unexplained variance (total) .159.0%100.259.020 unexplained variance in 1st factor .2%9.55.81 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. standardized residual-factor 1 plot to judge the strength of the measurement dimension, the researchers looked at the variance explained by the measure. it was found to be 40.8% of the total variance in the data (eigenvalue 13.8). the first factor has an eigenvalue of 1.8 and the strength of less than two items. also the variance explained by the first factor is 9.2% of the unexplained variance and only 5.5% of the total variance. the figure shows the item loadings on the first factor against item measures. the two items with the highest loadings on this factor, items 6 and 8, are very close together. further investigation was undertaken on these items and table 6 shows their statistics. table 6 item 6 – item 8 statistics item 8item 6statistics 0.600.581st factor loading 0.200.21item measure 0.080.08standard error 0.610.59item-total correlation the statistics of the two items are almost identical. further inspection revealed that the wording of the two items was semantically indistinguishable for the students. the two items were: item 6: how often do your grades or school work suffer because of the amount of time you spend on-line? item 8: how often does your performance or productivity suffer because of the internet? europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 340 http://www.psychopen.eu/ item 6 was, in the researchers’ opinion, clearer. performance and productivity in the minds of high school students relates to school work. item 8 was therefore removed and rasch analyses were performed on the 19-item iat. after these analyses the item “to what extent do you think you are addicted to the internet?” was added to the scale making it into a 20-item scale again. to be consistent, the 5 categories of the likert scale of this item were changed into three by combining, as with the other items, categories 2, 3 and 4 into one thus changing the scoring from to 1 to 3. therefore the final iat consisted of 20 items each with three options. the extra item was added to the scale for three reasons. first, its correlation with the total score of the original 20 items was high (r = 0.658, p < 0.01). second, there was no question in the scale requiring the respondents to self-rate the extent of their possible internet addiction level, and third to make the results of these analyses comparable with results from other studies. table 7 shows the results of the analyses of the three different versions of the iat used: the original 20-item, the 19-item and the modified 20-item scale. table 7 results of analyses of the three scales. modified 20 items19 itemsoriginal 20 items 0.860.850.86person reliability 2.482.402.47separation 3.643.533.63strata 14 (41.1%)13.3 (41.1%)13.8 (40.8%)variance by measures 20 (58.9%)19 (58.9%)20 (59.2%)unexplained var. 1st factor 1.71.71.8eigenvalue 8.5%8.9%9.2%% of unexplained var. 5.0%5.2%5.5%% of total variance item 7: 1.411.371.39infit 1.481.471.48outfit the three versions of the scale are almost identical statistically. the researchers decided that the modified iat was the most favourable because it does not include two items with the same content and a 20-item scale is more preferable than a 19-item one for the purpose of comparisons with other studies. more importantly perhaps the dimensionality investigation is slightly more convincing for the last scale. even though the eigenvalues of the first factor extracted in all cases are less than 2 (showing strength of less than two items and suggesting no presence of a second dimension) the percentages of variance explained by the first factor are slightly smaller (8.5% of the unexplained and only 5.0% of the total variance). finally, the ratio of variance explained by the measures to variance explained by the first factor was 8.2:1. the fit of the items to the model were very good (infit mean value = 1.01 and outfit mean value = 1.01) with only item 7 having infit = 1.41 and outfit = 1.48. item 7 was “how often do you check your email before something else you need to do?” further investigation revealed that the marginal misfit was caused by unexpectedly high responses by four low scorers. once the responses of those four students were removed from the dataset the infit and outfit values of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 341 http://www.psychopen.eu/ item 7 dropped to 1.36 and 1.37 respectively, under the cut-off value of 1.4. the item was therefore not removed because it was only marginally misfitting and its misfit was caused by only four unexpected responses. reliability indices the person reliability was high at 0.86 (cronbach’s alpha was 0.89) and the separation was 2.48. this separation indicates that the instrument identifies approximately four (3.64) statistically distinct strata of internet addiction levels. furthermore the item reliability was 0.99 indicating that the items are discriminated very well by the sample of respondents and the item separation was 11.07 meaning that the spread of items is about 11 standard errors. item person map figure 4 shows an item-person map slightly different from the winsteps output map. figure 4. item-person map on the right of the continuum (the logit scale) the item hierarchy is displayed. item calibrations range from -1.80 to 1.70 logits and they are evenly spread with nine of them above the average item measure (0.0) and 11 below. this spread of items shows a good coverage of the construct under investigation. the item hierarchy shows that the items relating to preferring the internet over going out (item 19, measure 1.70) or being intimate with their partner (item 3, measure 1.64) are the most difficult to endorse. the items about staying, (item 1, measure -1.80) or wanting to stay (item 16, measure -1.35) longer than intended, together with their rating of their own level of internet addiction were the easiest to endorse. the order of the items is in good agreement with the ordering of the experts who rated item 19 and item 3 as the most difficult (mean difficulty 3 and 2.75 respectively) and item 16 as the easiest (mean difficulty 0.5) and item 1 as the third easiest (mean difficulty 1). the correlation coefficient between the experts’ ratings and the item difficulties was 0.89 (p < 0.005) and rho was 0.92 (p < 0.005). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 342 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the right of the continuum the percentages and cumulative percentages of the students with various addiction levels are displayed. thirty percent of them have a measure below -2. the two percentages are displayed for every 0.5 logits. for example, 15.1% of the students have a measure between -1.0 and -0.5 and 74.5% of them have a measure of -0.5 or lower. the spread of person measures varies from -6.06 to 6.08 (mean -1.31 and s.d. 0.49). one important result is that approximately 84% of the students have a measure below 0 logits and only 16% above. this indicates that the 20-item scale is a little off-target. however, the researchers believe that this is not a disadvantage of the instrument; this result was expected by the researchers because the scale is designed to identify internet addicts and the percentage of students addicted to the internet is low (as reported in other studies). the spread of items however is very good on the continuum of the construct which seems to be well defined by the items. to investigate the stability of the item ordering the respondents were divided into two equal-sized groups, the 302 students with the highest measures and the 302 students with the lowest measures. the item estimates of the two groups were then plotted. figure 5 is the plot of the two estimates. figure 5. plot of item estimates the correlation between the two item calibrations was 0.94 (p < 0.005) and rho was 0.93 (p < 0.005), both very high and supportive of the invariant structure of the iat. investigating the correlation of person measures with other variables table 8 shows the correlation of person measures with other variables. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 correlations of variables with person measures p-valuecorrelation 0.000iat total score .9720 0.557monthly family income .0260 0.001average grade .134-0 0.000hours of sleep – weekdays .236-0 0.003hours of sleep – weekend .121-0 there is a very high correlation (0.972) between the person measures and the raw scores. there is no association between person measures and monthly family income and significant negative correlations between person measures and average grade (the academic performance variable), hours of weekday sleep and hours of weekend sleep. discussion the main objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the iat with the use of the rasch rsm. the translated version of the iat (into greek) was administered to a random sample of 604 students from 5 (out of the ten) lyceums in limassol, cyprus. sechrest, fay, and hafeez zaidi (1972) emphasised the importance of “equivalence in terms of experiences and concepts” (p. 41) when translating questionnaires. despite the researchers’ efforts to achieve this, statistical analyses suggest that items 6 and 8 were impossible for the students to semantically differentiate. retaining items with identical statistics, and in this case identical meaning too, entails the risk of inflating reliability. therefore item 8 was removed and the subjective item “to what extent do you think you are addicted to the internet?” was added. this modified version of the iat was used for the final analyses. research question 1: is the 5-point rating scale psychometrically optimal? the 5-point rating scale was not found to be psychometrically optimal. results from the pilot study showed that the students were unable to distinguish between the greek equivalents of the original iat categories “occasionally”, “frequently” and “often”. therefore, analyses showed that collapsing the three middle categories into one, labelled “frequently”, gave the optimal number of categories which was three. the researchers cannot tell whether this change from a 5-point to a 3-point rating scale was necessary as a result of possible semantic obstacles encountered through the translation, as suggested by sechrest et al. (1972), or due to problems with the original construction of the 5-point scale. research question 2: does the iat provide reliable measures? findings of this study support the high degree of the reliability of the measures produced by the iat. reliability indices for the modified 20-item version of the iat were 0.86, 2.48 and 3.64 for person reliability, person separation and strata respectively. furthermore item reliability was 0.99 and item separation 11.07. this good item separation is supportive of effective measurement. research question 3: do the 20 items define a theoretical linear continuum of increasing difficulty? europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 344 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the 20 items were evenly spread along the linear continuum with a range of difficulties from -1.80 to 1.70 logits. the item hierarchy created by the item calibrations forms a ladder with even steps of easier to endorse items on the bottom and harder to endorse on the top. this item hierarchy was meaningful and in agreement (highly significant correlations) with the item ordering resulting from the experts’ opinions. also, the stability of the item hierarchy was supported by the highly significant correlations between the item calibrations from two equally sized distinct groups: the higher scorers and the lower scorers. finally the highly satisfactory item reliability of 0.99 indicates a good separation of the 20 items along the variable which they define. it is therefore safe to conclude that indeed the item calibrations are sufficiently spread out to define distinct levels along the variable and the 20 items do define a linear continuum of increasing difficulty. research question 4: do the 20 items define a single construct of internet addiction? for the dimensionality and the construct validity investigation of the scale the following evidence was collected. • item-total correlations were all highly significant (0.43 to 0.65). • all items fitted the rasch model well with infit and outfit mean square values below the cut-off score of 1.4. • pca of the standardised residuals showed that the variance explained by the measures was 41.1%. • more importantly however, the first factor extracted after the contribution of the measures to the data had been removed, had an eigenvalue of 1.7 and this shows the strength of less than two items. • the variance explained by the first factor was 8.5% of the unexplained variance and only 5.0% of the total variance. • the ratio of variance explained by the measures to variance explained by the first factor was 8.2:1. • the item hierarchy was in agreement with the order derived through the experts’ opinions. • the correlations of the item calibrations derived from the analyses from two distinct groups of respondents were highly significant supporting the invariant structure of the iat and the fact that the construct has the same meaning across the two groups. finally significant negative correlations of the person measures were found with students’ average grade (as a measure of academic performance), as reported by chang and law (2008), lay (1988), chou and hsiao (2000), scherer and bost (1997) and yen et al. (2009) and with the number of hours of weekday and weekend sleep, as reported by choi et al. (2009), kesici and sahin, (2010). all the evidence collected support the unidimensional structure of the iat and its high degree of construct validity. limitations the sample of 604 high school students is large enough for reliable results but generalization to the whole population of cyprus is risky since the sample can only be representative of the population from which it was drawn, namely high school students of limassol. furthermore, despite the efforts of the researchers for an accurate translation of the instrument, they cannot rule out the possibility of problems with the “equivalence in terms of experiences and concepts” (sechrest et al., 1972, p. 41). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 345 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recommendations based on the results and limitations of this study the following five recommendations are made: • to remove item 8 “how often does your performance or productivity suffer because of the internet?” and to add “to what extent do you think you are addicted to the internet?” • to replace the 5-point rating scale with a 3-point one since the latter was found to be psychometrically optimal. • to further evaluate the modified iat with a more representative sample of the overall population of cypriot high school students. • to evaluate the psychometric properties of the original iat, in english, using the rasch model, with emphasis on the number of categories of the rating scale. the researchers maintain that the three middle categories may not be clearly distinguishable in the minds of high school students in other countries too. • to transform the person logit measures into a more convenient, easier to interpret and with non-negative values scale. they could be transformed to a scale from 1 to 20, the widely used grading scale in the educational system in cyprus or to a scale from 1 to 100, the most widely used scale internationally. concluding remark the successful fit of the modified iat data to the rasch model, the model of fundamental measurement, provides support that internet addiction is a rigorously quantitative and unidimensional variable and that the iat has a high degree of validity. references andrich, d. 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(1998). internet addiction: personality traits associated with its development. poster presented at 69th annual meeting of the eastern psychological association. boston, ma. about the authors panayiotis panayides holds a bsc in statistics with mathematics (queen mary college, university of london), an msc in educational testing (middlesex university, uk) and a phd in educational measurement (university of durham, uk). he is currently an assistant headmaster and head of the mathematics department at the lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. his research interests include educational and psychological measurement and research into mathematics education. miranda jane walker holds a ba in hispanic studies and modern greek (king’s college, university of london) a ba in english language and literature (university of cyprus) and an ma in education leadership and management (open university, uk). she teaches spanish, at the lyceum of polemidia in limassol, cyprus. her europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective 350 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83r.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02293705 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11469-006-9009-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2010.0151 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt63f.htm http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83b.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2009.01969.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research interests include high school students’ internet habits and attitudes; teacher and student motivation in the foreign language classroom and educational leadership and management. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 327–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.474 panayides & walker 351 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychometric properties of the internet addiction test: the rasch perspective internet addiction and adolescents internet addiction scales factor structure rasch measurement unidimensionality fit statistics this study methodology participants the instrument selection of the rasch rating scale model (rsm) selection of the fit statistics critical values for the fit statistics pilot study rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories second phase combining the two samples unidimensionality reliability indices results pilot study – rating scale functioning comparing the data collected from the two phases investigating the dimensionality of the scale reliability indices item person map investigating the correlation of person measures with other variables discussion limitations recommendations concluding remark references about the authors undoing forgetfulness: chiasmus of poetical mind – a cultural paradigm of archetypal imagination nicoletta isar associate professor at the institute of art history, department of arts and cultural studies university of copenhagen karen blixens vej 1, 2300 copenhagen s, denmark office: +45-35329294; private: +45-60948308; e-mail: isar@hum.ku.dk abstract this paper tries to investigate the problem of memory through one of its most intriguing patterns – chiasmus – reflected in old poetry, sacred texts, philosophy and theology, visual arts, as well as biology. it aims to search for some provisory explanation of why man was able once to acquire such excellence in memorizing internally thousands of lines of poetry, whereas now memory is expelled outside the human body and mind in a mere digital file. contrasting the so-called “wish-dream for immortality” of the contemporary post-human body, this paper takes another path and looks into some old cosmologies and visions in which chiasmus constantly emerged as an enduring cultural paradigm with ontological relevance. spanning from plato to christian theology, up to the contemporary neo-platonism of archetypal psychology, this paper hopes to put forth, if not a theory, at least a vision about man and cosmos, cosmos and man, a chiastic epiphany in which the body and the material world partake both of the sacred. keywords: memory; chiasmus; image; imagination; archetypal psychology; dna. introduction with the invention of writing, human being and memory took a dramatic shift, culminating in the most recent transformations in informatics. memory turns into a digital entry of the virtual body that could at any time store the information one needs to know, thus giving the modern literate “licence to forget.” why mankind chose to forget, while it was once possible to memorize thousands of lines of poetry, and whether memory itself had always had the same meaning as we now attribute to remembering things – these are just rhetorical questions. this paper will not be able to answer them all, but at least to formulate. meanwhile, the humanity moves slowly and decisively from humanism to what has been recently called “the era of the post-human.” all we can now contemplate is mere expanding memory, now reaching a cryptic and pseudo-mystical stage labeled “noocytes,” which looks as a kind of reversed ancient nous or noosphere – the network of intersubjectivities of the new post-human body. why was the ancient poet able to remember things or to never forget them? what is actually the true nature of human being, and how was such thing as memory approached before these cultural anthropological transformations took place? this paper attempts to deconstruct and reconstruct yet again the anatomy of memory, and hopefully to undo forgetfulness with the assistance of the ancient poet; it will search for the origins of the poetical mind, the primeval state of homo poeticus, and hopefully for something perennial beyond time. the guide in this quest is levinas’ vision, and the intimate hope that, indeed: “our period is not defined by the triumph of technology for technology’s sake, as it is not defined by art for art’s sake, as it is not defined by nihilism. it is action for a world to come, transcendence of its period-transcendence of self which calls for epiphany of the other.” in their book information through the ages: literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolution, michael hobart and zachary s. schiffman offer a broad picture of the phenomena with a special chapter (“orality and the problem of memory”) devoted to the problem of memory in orality, in contrast to our notion in the era of technology: the term ‘memory’ evokes the image of a thing, a container for information, or the content of that container. thus, from our literate viewpoint, the iliad preserves the knowledge of the trojan war. but in jumping to this conclusion, we lose sight of the iliad as an oral phenomenon, as the singing of a song. it is not so much a thing as an act, a gestalt, uniting bard and audience in a shared consciousness. this phenomenon has little in common with that desiccated thing we literates call “memory.” in the world before writing, memory is the social act of remembering. it is commemoration. commemoration is at the heart of oral culture and ritualized societies; it underlines the very mechanism of memory. as the etymology points out, commemoration is a sort of join “memorization” of things, a “holistic” event. commemorative ritual gives wholeness and structure (relationships) to community. the poet plays a crucial role in this respect. he creates an image so immediate and so powerful in the consciousness of his audience, so that it is impossible to separate oneself from the actual experience. everyone partakes in the experience of the world revealed by the poet. “commemoration binds together the community as a living entity rather than passively storing information about it.” but what made so effective the discourse of the poet? what gave such power to his words to work upon consciousness and bind people together as a living chain, a living tradition – the collective memory? as i hope to illustrate further in this paper, the poetical meters of his song were thus constructed, and the sequences so linked together, as to form patterns that were congenial to the human mind and the structure of memory. one of these patterns that informed the mythical mind was chiasmus, found in old poetry (epics or lyrics). chiasmus was an intimate part of the world experienced and shared as collective reality, an experience that was translated into the collective consciousness and memory. chiasmus – a visual and acoustic image turning around its centre “chiasm or chiasmus, the anglicization of the greek chiasma, technically designates the disposition of two lines crossed like the letter x (chi), which refers to cross-shaped sticks, to a diagonally arranged bandage, or to a cruciform incision. chiasmus is a rhetorical figure, which corresponds to inverted parallelism, so that the order of words in one of two balancing clauses or phrases is inverted in the other, which has the effect to produce a crisscross effect. chiasmus is frequent in ancient cultures, especially in near east, but also is to be found in more recent times in greek and latin literature. homeric chiasmus to take the classical example of the homeric poetry, both illiad and odyssey contain a series of questions which is answered in exactly reversed order: antinous’ three questions to noemon (od. 4.642-56); hecabe’s several questions to hector (il. 6. 254-85); and, in the most elaborate example of this device, odysseus’ seven questions to his mother anticleia in hades (od. 11. 170-203). here is an example quoted in diagrammatic form from steve reece (213): this mnemonic poetic pattern, a most elaborate so-called hysteron-proteron, is one of multiple examples of the kind from the homeric epics, a poetical figure by which the poet creates a most powerful image imprinted on memory and easily remembered by the audience. scholars have noticed homer’s fondness for having his characters answer questions in a reverse order. chiasmus assists the narrator to hold the attention of his listener with a minimum of effort; it works upon mind as a psychological device. but if the procedure abba is perceptible to the audience in a small “compass,” the question arises when the pattern expands over many thousands lines, like in the vast architectonic scheme of homeric epic. on this point, cedric h. whitman, the homeric scholar, had this to say: “the mind is a strange organ, and one which perceives many things without conscious or articulate knowledge of them, and responds to them with emotions necessarily and appropriately vague.” this kind of intricate relationship established between the poet and his audience was metaphorically defined in plato’s dialogue ion in the image of the magnet. the poets and their interpreters are compared to a chain of magnetic rings suspended from one another to form a magnet. the magnet is the muse, and the ring which immediately follows is the poet himself; from him are suspended other poets; there is also a chain of rhapsodists and actors, who also hang from the muses, but are let down at the side; and the last ring of all is the spectator. the poet, like homer, is the inspired interpreter of the god; and the rhapsodist is the inspired interpreter of the poet, like ion. through this living chain animated by the sacred discourse of the poet, the entire community was permeated by the vitality of hieros. the community was one living memory, ritually “ensouled” by the commemorative/performative body. chiasmus was a means of imaginary binding, a most effective psychological device. there was – as emmanuel levinas put it – “a pleasure of contact at the heart of the chiasm.” chiasmus formed a most conspicuous geometric design, which could be visualized as a “ring composition,” “the acoustical analogue of the visual circle.” analyzing the mnemonic patterns in the iliad and odyssey, whitman demonstrates how after the middle of the epic the composition repeats the topics in a reversed order sequence, the symmetrical format of the chiasm taking a geometric structure of the most amazing virtuosity, a “fearful symmetry.” ring composition is pregnant with stylist possibilities, says whitman, because “it returns to its point of origin and effects circularity of design, while the inverted elements may also be spread out to include as a centrepiece a whole scene or scenes, as in a frame.” the combined structure of the homeric chiasmus and ring composition suggests not only circularity, but also framing and balance, which were typical of geometrical period in ancient greek art, especially in dipylon vases. biblical chiasmus yet it was not only the greek mind that structured the things in a chiastic manner, but also the biblical world. the chiastic disposition of the biblical text extends the archetypal vocation of the chiasmus. the bible owes much to the chiastic device. in his book, the shape of the biblical language, fr. john breck provides ample evidence for the chiastic disposition of the biblical text, pointing out to a way of reading the sacred text, of actually “seeing” it. the literate of the ancient time were long time trained for this sacramental task to grasp the hidden vision. they were taught not properly to read, but to “see” the text; they were taught how to look at it in a chiastic manner, by approaching it “from the center outward and from the extremities towards the center.” vision of the text was thus structured around a center, the shape of chiasmus being properly a “helix.” this disposition of the text was compared by c. lock with typology, both typology and chiasmus being structured around a centre. in the process of reading the text, a space of some kind apparently emerged, rather than being a mere surface on which words were displayed in linear succession. the sentence spiralled from a to b, and the eyes moved inwards and upwards, to the centre of the conical helix, describing an invisible sacred space. a few examples will illustrate this phenomenon, yet in an imperfect manner, due to their linear (modern) transcription: chiasmus – a form of thought. chiastic cosmologies – doing and redoing totality chiasmus was employed not only with respect to specific visual or acoustic cultural events, but to thought as well, primarily giving “structure to the thought pattern” (john w. welch). according to r. gasché, grammatical, rhetorical, or psychological explanations cannot exhaust the role of chiasm. especially when employed in order to draw together and connect juxtaposed terms in opposition, this literary form exceeds rhetoric. “chiasm, then, is no longer a merely ornamental or psychological device but, rather, reveals itself as an originary form of thought, of dianoia.” old cosmologies, like for example, those described by heraclitus and plato, disclose a paradigmatic vision: this vision reveals chiasmus as a powerful form of thought and structure in the organisation of the cosmos. as gaché points out, in heraclitus (fragment 51), through chiasmus the opposites are linked together into pairs of parallel and inverted oppositions, which manifest them as an inverted unity. the result is “that what is in opposition is in concert, and from things that differ comes the most beautiful harmony.” chiasmus allows oppositions to be bound into unity. the unity (tauto) and the totality of the universe are made of chiastic reversals. in heraclitus’ cosmology chiasmus is no longer an ornamental device, “it becomes dependent of content,” “(it) is a true form of thinking.” heraclitus’ cosmology centred on the unity of opposites is basically chiastic, a form of balance by opposition, which from homer on existed in the classical mind, shaping its artistic and philosophic approaches to experience. as whitman has argued, plato too reflected this principle when he finished off his cosmology with the two spheres of sameness and difference, which revolve in opposite directions. but plato’s cosmos reached its completion only with the creation of the soul. then it became a “blessed god.” the cosmic soul was created even before the creation of the body. it is “the best of things created” because it partakes of reason and harmony, and because is made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures. most importantly, “the one and only existing thing which has the property of aquiring thought is soul” (46d). therefore, the demiurge had to place him in a special disposition. this disposition was chiastic. the lines of the equator and the ecliptic, symbolizing the cosmic soul, cross each other to form the greek letter chi (x) (fig. 1): ”this whole fabric, then, he split lengthwise into two halves; and making the two cross one another at their centres in the form of the letter x, he bent each round into a circle and joined it up, making each meet itself and the other at a point opposite to that where they had been brought into contact.” (36b-d) plato describes the stuff out of which the cosmic soul is made, a sort of fabric or veil, interwoven from the centre everywhere: ”when the whole fabric of the soul had been finished to its maker’s mind, he next began to fashion within the soul all that is bodily, and brought the two together, fitting them centre to centre. and the soul, being everywhere inwoven (diaplakeisa) from the centre to the outmost heaven and enveloping the heaven all round on the outside, revolving within its own limit, made a divine beginning of ceaseless and intelligent life for all time.” (36d-e) the vision of the world in byzantine culture, following the classical antiquity, was marked by the christian theology. with the incarnation of christ and his sacrifice it was possible to restore again the cosmos and aspire to the restoration of man as well, which in theological terms is known as the deification of man (theosis), the primordial state lost after the fall. fathers of the church recognized the cross symbolism in the cosmic structure of the universe. according to philo, de somniis, 6 (iii, 266), the creator impressed the logos as his divine seal upon the cosmos. this was the cross of his sacrifice that sealed the world (philo, de somniis ii, 6). it marked the whole world, both its length and breadth and height and depth, as the son of god was also crucified in these dimensions. the cross was the ground and the means by which the universe was re-dimensioned. it was even believed (justin the martyr) that what plato himself meant when he said that the demiurge placed him (the cosmic soul) in the form of the letter chi (echíasen autón) in the universe, it was the son of god. this vision, shared both by the platonic cosmology and byzantine theology (with the addition of the biblical dimension), is a paradigm of sacred space generated by the agency of chiasmus. this paper does not allow me to embark myself on further discussions on this matter, which i largely developed somewhere else. yet one thing must be stressed, and this is that chiasmus was not a stable structure, but a dynamic pattern; chiasmus has always translated its motion over the text it structured, or the space it generated. the platonic chôra space, the matrix or nurse of generation, the cosmogonic night that moved from chaos to cosmos, becomes the space of the incarnation in byzantine theology. the byzantine chôra was a kenotic space, mystically eraced and “crossed through” by christ’s sacrifice. the platonic chôra becomes a “true cosmos” only after the chiastic veil is spread over the universe; then, the world’s body was finally fitted to its soul. as it comes out from these old cosmologies, the discourse of chiasmus is the discourse of the totality’s irreducible reference. indeed, one could say that chiasmus is “the primitive matrix of dialectics in its hegelian form.” yet chiasmus has continued to challenge not only some of the greatest thinkers of contemporary thought (de man), but even one, most reputed for his systematic deconstruction of totality. in derrida’s archeology of the frivolous, “the chiasm folds itself with a supplementary flexion.” the supplementary fold makes the chiasmus an unequal fork; it is “neither constitutive nor simply disruptive of totality.” chiasmus is explored by derrida in two other essays on maurice blanchot: “the law of the genre” and “living on: border lines.” here he coins the term “chiasmic invagination,” an expression of his concern with the unthought of “totality.” this is the movement that constitutes and deconstitutes the border, the limit of a closure. as gaché explains: “the chiasm in derrida is to be understood as the form of that exceedingly strange space within which the philosophical form of chiasm makes its incision, in order to cross-bandage, by analogy and dialectics, the same wound.” and further: “the doubly invaginated chiasm is what both makes possible and deconstitutes dialectics. it is an a priori counterlaw to the unifying role of chiasm, a counterchiasm, so to speak, within which the totalizing function of dialectics is rooted. this counterchiasm does not anihilate dialectics; it does not destroy it but ‘merely’ shows it to its ‘proper’ place.” all these phenomena describing an enduring persistence of chiasmus over time could be perhaps better explained if we look at it from another perspective. archetypal psychology may have something important to say around this subject. archetypal psychology – a cultural movement archetypal psychology was created by the american psychologist james hillman in an effort to re-vision psychology’s approach to soul, or self. his theory is a critique of psychology’s traditional means of confronting the imagination. taking as a point of departure jung’s concept of archetype, hillman departs from him, and replaces the notion of archetype as inherited pattern with the archetypal image as autonomous. hillman’s theory is informed also by edward casey, from whom he takes a phenomenology of the imagination, and by henry corbin, from whom he adopts the notion of the mundus imaginalis, the imaginal world. archetypal psychology postulates the organization of the imaginary as the basis of cultural anthropology, which is also the basis of psychological meaning in all consciousness. archetypal psychology is, according to hillman, “psychology of archetypes,” where archetypes are “the primary forms that govern the psyche.” but as the archetypes manifest as well in various spiritual modes, such as linguistic and aesthetic, they cannot be contained only by psyche. that’s why archetypal psychology’s first links, says hillman, are with culture and imagination, which is a “cultural movement.” particular events are “always imagistic and therefore ensouled,” and for this reason “it (archetypal psychology) would resonate with soul.” the soul, as well as the imagination, play a special role and assume to be primordially patterned into typical themes or motifs. archetypal images are in fact the means by which the world is imagined. these patterns form and inform the psychic and cultural life. the main concern of archetypal psychology is that it “restores to images their primordial place as that which gives psychic value to the world.” “every psychic process is an image and an ‘imagining’, otherwise no consciousness could exist…” this concern of archetypal psychology with the image is highly relevant for this subject, and for any subject that would touch upon human creativity. the relevance of archetypal psychology resides at least in two points. first, it concerns the relation between imagination and the structure of the soul, which is, according to hillman, structured much like poetic language, dreams and images. second, it provides an ontological location of the archetypes of the psyche, which is a field of images, or, in corbin’s words, a mundus imaginalis. hillman meets plato, and the neo-platonists, as well as the theology of the greek fathers, and it comes as no surprise that his theory was labeled as phenomenological neo-platonism. but it is exactly this dimension of his theory that i found so congenial with this subject, particularly those aspects in his research related to the power of image, and the cosmic perspective in which the soul participates in the archetypal image. mundus imaginalis. the imaginal field – a space in between the idea that the imagination is the primary activity of the soul is crucial for archetypal psychology. the soul is the source of images and poetic response, and in response images return back to the soul. at the same time, the images are, according to hillman, autonomous like the gods, timeless and transcendent, yet phenomenal rather than instinctual as jung’s archetypes. but most importantly, as hillman insists, “the mind is in the imagination rather than the imagination in the mind.” such assertion, as strange as it may sound, encapsulates the very specificity of vision in archetypal psychology. the mind is located in the imagination means that there is more to it than our imaginative experience, that imagination is not primarily and exclusively subjective. as casey argues, our imaginative experience is rooted “outside of human consciousness,” it is “another world” and “another reality.” imagination is both subjective and transpersonal. the “imaginal field,” a concept elaborated by corbin and adopted by archetypal psychology, is the “space” where the personal encounters the transpersonal; it is an intermediary between the personal and the transpersonal, a space in between – a “topography of interworlds” – a term presumably adopted by corbin from the same mazdean source. in marc fonda’s interpretation, the mundus imaginalis or the imaginal as a space, recalls the tripartite model of human agency developed by hillman, where the soul is an intermediary between mind and body. the imaginal operates as a tertium between the person’s unconsciousness and the person’s consciousness, between the personal and the impersonal, between the person and the world, the anima mundi. at the same time, the imaginal is the space, which is already present when images are produced, and where images emerge and present themselves to human apprehension. therefore, the fact that the mind is located in the imagination means that the mind is something constructed by the images (like myths) and presented to us through some connection with anima mundi. this connection between the human imagination (read it the human soul) and the anima mundi may be the ultimate ground and meaning of man in the world, and his relationship to the cosmos. archetypal psychology advocates the perspective that self (properly the soul) communes with and is connected to the things and beings of the world. indeed, according to hillman, the soul is something connected to anima mundi through an affective relationship, which plato calls the cosmic soul. according to avens, hillman’s notion of the soul as transhuman refers to a “realm of between or metaxy,” which has the function of connecting “the human with the non-human world or, in the terms of the later heidegger, to integrate earth and sky, the gods and mortals.” one aspect remains however to be inquired, and this is that which could enable this communication between the upper world and the human soul. to clarify this aspect we may now look back into plato’s text. chiastic breath – recollection and soul-union the idea of likeness pervades the entire dialogue of timaeus, in respect to the making of man, as well as of the cosmos, both created in the image and likeness of the demiurge. there is one particular episode however where the imitation becomes meaningful for this subject, and this concerns the description of the vital function of the human organism: the respiration process. the respiration is a double “circular motion swaying to and from”, inspiration-expiration, and it is interlaced or interwoven (diaplakeisa) throughout the whole body. it is vital because it “takes place in order that the body, being watered and cooled, may receive nourishment and life.” (78d) therefore, the function of the respiration demands that it must imitate the motion of the universe, and indeed, it does: “the process of repletion and evacuation is effected after the manner of the universal motion by which all kindred substances are drawn towards one another.” plato originates the movement of respiration in a place, fountain of fire, which he describes as a network (plegma) of a creel, woven of fire and extended through the whole body: respiration is “a circular motion swaying to and from” and is “produced by the double process, which we call inspiration and expiration.” the origin of this movement “it is in a manner on internal fountain of fire, which we compare to the network of a creel (kurtou plegmati) been woven all of fire and extended through the centre of the body, while the outer parts are composed of air.” (72d-81e) plegma, from the greek plekô, which means to twine or braid a plait, could be a sort of fabric, which vividly evokes the constitution of the veil of the cosmic soul, which was said to be woven (diaplakeisa). there is a constitutional kindredness in terms of the stuff out of which the human breath and the cosmic soul are made (veil, plegma), as well as a similarity in the disposition of their motion. yet there is another thing, which connects the two together, and this is the fire factor. the origin of the respiration, says plato is fire, “fire and breath rising together and filling the veins” (80d); at the same tine, the divine and archetypal soul is the cosmic fire. this is the premise and the condition of their connection. in like manner, the movement of the cosmic soul takes a similar disposition, which is said to be “interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference.” the connection between the soul and the world, and the soul and memory gains more clarity by reading jean-pierre vernant’s essays ‘aspects mythiques de la mémoire’ and ‘le fleuve “amélès” et la “mélétè” thanatou’. anamnesis or recollection is a strain of the soul for plato, and empedocles associates it with the term prapides (prapur, in romanian), which is a bodily organ and a psychic faculty; prapídes is nothing but the diaphragm, by which respiration is controlled. the relation between the soul and the breath was known in archaic thinking, and the spiritual exercises of recollection were intimately related to old techniques of respiration, which allowed the soul to achieve extasis. for this reason, memory was considered such a power in ancient time that could permit the soul to exit from time and return to the divinity. memory, it was believed to be divine. the exercises of recollection, based on breathing exercises, followed the cosmic soul’s movement in its disposition. certain similarities of this phenomenon may be found in the christian world, and this is not only in terms of formal denomination. byzantine hesychasm (from the greek hesuchia = silence) is a monastic movement, which practiced in 14th c. the so-called prayer of the heart or the prayer of jesus. this consisted in a repetitive intonation of a short, yet complete, prayer of recollection of the name of christ. there is a circular movement within the prayer, explains father kallistos, a sequence of ascent and return. the breathing is to be made slowly and coordinated with the rhythm of the prayer. the first part of the prayer (“lord jesus christ, son of god”) is said while drawing in the breath, and the second part (“have mercy on me a sinner”) while breathing out. this alternating internal movement of respiration (inspiration and respiration), described by plato as well, medicine defines it as somatic rhythm: all somatic process takes place in rhythmic, cyclical patterns (diastole/systole/expansion/contraction etc.). yet somatic alone cannot give full account of human being, but merely of its body. but the final goal of the hesychast prayer is the union with god, vision of light of the uncreated divine energy. the union of the soul with god in prayer is based on the power of the name (ic xc), a chiastic anagram of the name of christ, formed of the two first letters of the name in greek, x and p, chi-ro (fig. 2). “the name of god is numen praesens, god with us, emmanuel. to invoke god’s name is to place oneself in his presence, to open oneself to his energy, to offer oneself as an instrument and a living sacrifice in his hands.” the flowing movement of the hesychast prayer is like a gently murmuring stream (starets parfenii of kiev, the art of prayer, p. 110). prayer of the heart is prayer of the body as well as the soul, since the heart has a twofold aspect, at once visible and invisible. here, christian theology meets archetypal imagination, and they both meet mystical experience in byzantine hesychasm and sufism. they all speak about the poetics of the soul and its imagining capacity, about the soul as something connected to the world beyond, or in between, to which man has access but grace (the hesychast) or by the cultivation of the soul (where the soul is via regia in the world, says hillman). epílogos in a paper under the historical title “molecular structure of nucleic acids. a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid,” published on april 25, 1953 in the journal nature no. 4356, the molecular biologists james d. watson and francis h. c. crick came to inform the whole world about their discovery, which was “the molecule of life.” they put forward what they described as “a radically different structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid. this structure has two helical chains each coiled round the same axis (see diagram).” (fig. 3) “both chains follow right-handed helices, but owing to the dyad the sequences of the atoms in the two chains run in opposite directions.” the structure is an open one, and this specific pairing, they say, “suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” the event was rewarded with a nobel price, and few years later, in 1956, world health organization (founded in 1948) adopted at havana conference as its own emblem the symbol of asclepius (god of medicine) as its own emblem, a kind of caduceus (1 snake and 1 staff). the snake and the bowl is the symbol of pharmacies in europe. (fig. 4) the resemblance between the double helix that spirals around each other in the dna pattern of life and the pattern of chiasmus discussed in this paper may be just mere coincidence. this remains, of course, to be thought over and established by a concerted mind of scientists and cultural anthropologists. one thing is however sure that the scientists did not invent the dna pattern, rather they unveiled the code which has been already there, an image, like the archetypal theophanic image of hillman. no doubt, this relatively recent discovery in the history of mankind has opened up the door to a new understanding of life in general, and genetics in particular. but one should hope that it will not take too long until its yet unexplored cultural implications will be revealed. the implications concerning the structure of thinking and creativity, of memory and imagination, might unveil ultimate answers. fifty years after the discovery, bruno j. strasser rhetorically asks himself in a paper significantly entitled: “who cares about the double helix? collective memory links the past to the future in science as well as history.” in searching for his answer, strasser takes the double helix as a symbol of “the values and ideals that make science itself what it is today.” quite relevant for this paper are his remarks on how “our collective memories of the past play a crucial contemporary role,” “we witness collective memory in the making.” the iconicity of the molecule of dna is evoked recently in the book of dorothy nelkin and m-susan lindee: “dna – the invisible, eternal, and fundamental basis of human identity – has acquired many of the powers once granted to the immortal soul. like the sacred texts of revealed religion, dna explains our place in the world: our history, our social relations, our behaviour, our morality, and our fate.” “dna in popular culture functions, in many respects, as a secular equivalent of the christian soul.” i would like to end this essay on chiasmus – a cultural paradigm, and, possibly, a genetic model – with an emblematic image inspired by mircea eliade’s mystic story rejuvenation by lightning. the rejuvenation of dominic matei after being struck by lightning is a genetic mutation, manifested as “youth everlasting” and hypermnesia, a mystical return of memory, lost and recovered epiphanically the night of the resurrection. as doina rusti interprets eliade’s symbolism, the hypermnesia of dominic matei doesn’t represent a path only for personal salvation, but for the salvation of the collective memory. the character lives christ’s experience (death and resurrection) and becomes the saviour of the world, where memory is a sort of ark (like noah’s ark), a container storing information and samples of human civilisation (from “dead languages” to most recent scientific discoveries) that will allow the universe to be born again after the apocalypse. notes this is a larger version of the paper presented at the conference “the cultural heritage of medieval rituals iii: confronting the heritage,” at the centre for the study of the cultural heritage of medieval rituals, copenhagen, 10th-13th december 2004. i would like to thank the readers and the editors of europe’s journal of psychology, beatrice popescu si andreea enache, for their positive response and support, as well as to my brother aurelian isar for assisting me in preparing the text-images of chiasmus inserted in this article. 2 “we need first to understand that the human form – including human desire and all its external representations – may be changing radically, and thus must be re-visioned…five hundred years of humanism may be coming to an end as humanism transforms itself into something we must helplessly call posthumanism.” (ihab hassan, “prometheus as performer: towards a posthumanist culture?” in performance in postmodern culture, madison, wisconsin: coda press, 1977, p. 212). 3 katherine hayles, how we became posthuman. virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics (the university chicago press, 1999), p. 254. 4 michael hobart and zachary s. schiffman, information through the ages: literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolution (baltimore: johns hopkins university press, 1988). 5 ibid., p. 15. 6 ibid., p. 16. 7 rudolphe gaché, introduction to andrzej warminski, readings in interpretation: hölderlin, hegel, heidegger theory and history of literature, vol. 26 (university of minnesota press, minneapolis, 1987), p. xvi. 8 steeve reece, “the three circuits of the suitors: a ring composition in odyssey 7-22,” oral tradition 10/1 (1995): 207-229. 9 cedric m. whitman, homer and the heroic tradition (cambridge, mass: harvard university press, 1958), p. 256. 10 m. clarke, “the wisdom of thales and the problem of the word ieros,” classical quarterly 45 (ii) 296-317 (1995). 11 whitman, “geometric structure of the illiad,” homer and the heroic tradition, pp. 249-84, espec. 253-4. see also reece, “the three circuits of the suitors: a ring composition in odyssey 7-22.” 12 whitman, p. 253. 13 whitman, p. 255. 14 whitman, p. 254. 15 whitman, p. 256. 16 john breck, the shape of biblical language (crestwood, ny: st. vladimir’s seminary press, 1994). 17 “seeing” is to be understood here as theoria – the mode of contemplation of the sacred in ancient world. greek metaphysics conceives the essence of theoria in terms of what it is contemplated. but theoria means also true participation, sharing in the total order itself, namely being purely present to what is truly real, being totally involved in and carried away by what one sees. the beholder is a theoros, the spectator in the proper sense of the word, since he participates in the sacred act of contemplation. see h-g gadamer, truth and method, second, revised edition, sheed&ward, london, 1993, pp. 124-5; 454; j. daniélou, “la teoria chez grégoire de nysse,” studia patristica, v. xi (1972), 131. 18 c. lock, ”some words after chiasmus,” afterword to j. breck, the shape of biblical language, p. 362. 19 breck, the shape of biblical language, p. 57. 20 gaché, p. xvii. 21 kathleen freeman, ancilla to the pre-socratic philosophers (cambridge university press, 1983), p. 25. 22 whitman, p. 254. 23 ibid. 24 “and in the centre he put the soul, which he diffused throughout the body, making it also to be the exterior environment of it; and he made the universe a circle moving in a circle…he created the world a blessed god.” (34b) 25 irenaeus, demonstration (34 p. 69f) is referring back to plato, perhaps via justin. see g. q. reijners, the terminology of the holy cross in early christian literature (dekker & van de vegt n. v. – nijmegen, 1965), p. 196. 26 n. isar, “the dance of adam: reconstructing the byzantine chorós,”byzantinoslavica lxi (2001): 179-204. 27 reijners, the terminology of the holy cross in early christian literature, p. 195, note 8. 28 n. isar, “chorography (chôra, chôros, chorós) – a performative paradigm of creation of sacred space in byzantium,” in hierotopy: studies in the making of sacred space (forthcoming 2005). 29 from kenosis, the sacrifice of christ on the cross. 30 gaché, xviii. 31 jaques derrida, archeology of the frivolous, trans. john p. leavy (pittsburg: duquesne university press, 1980), p. 134. 32 gaché, xix. 33 gaché, xxii. 34 ibid. 35among his major works: james hillman, re-visioning psychology (new york: harper & row, 1975); archetypal psychology: a brief account (dallas: spring publications, 1983) (reprinted 1985, 1993). 36 corbin himself must have been inspired by mazdean concept of image and imagination, and mundus archetypus (al-‘âlam al-mithâlî), the world of the archetypal image. see more in “da ‘ud qaysari (d. 751/1350) mundus archetypus”, in henry corbin, spiritual body and celestial earth from mazdean iran to shi’ite iran, princeton university press, 1977, pp. 144-147. 37 hillman, archetypal psychology: a brief account, 1993, p. 12. 38 ibid., p. 13. 39 ibid., p. 1. 40 ibid., p. 2. 41 ibid., p. 13. 42 ibid. 43 c. g. jung, the collected works 11, & 889, apud. hillman, 1993, p. 12. 44 hillman, archetypal psychology, p. 7. 45 edward casey, “towards an archetypal imagination,” spring 1974: 23. 46 casey, ”towards an archetypal imagination,” 27. 47 corbin, spiritual body and celestial earth from mazdean iran to shi’ite iran p. 145. 48 marc fonda, examining the new polytheism: a critical assessment of the concepts of self and gender in archetypal psychology, a doctoral dissertation. (unpublished) 49 marc fonda. 50 robert avens, “heidegger and archetypal psychology,” international philosophical quarterly 22 (1982), 185. 51 first published in journal de psychologie, 1959, pp. 1-29, and republished in jean-pierre vernant, mythe et pensée chez les grecs études de psychologie historique, paris, 1966, pp. 51-78. 52 this essay was first published in revue philosophique, 1960, 1960, pp. 163-179, and republished in mythe et pensée chez les grecs études de psychologie historique, pp. 79-94. 53 vernant, « aspects mythiques de la mémoire, » mythe et pensée chez les grecs études de psychologiehistorique, p. 52. 54 humans of the golden race were called, according to vernant, hesuchoi (see vernant, mythe et pensée chez les grecs, p. 27). 55 archimandrite kallistos ware, the power of the name the jesus prayer in orthodox spirituality, oxford,1974, p. 8. 56 this is also known as the sign of constantine, in which he was told that will win: “in hoc signo vinces” (in this sign thou shalt conquer). 57 p. 10. 58 corbin, “man’s prayer and god’s prayer the method of theophanic prayer,” creative imagination in the sufism of ibn ‘arabi, london, 1969, pp. 246-257. 59 james d. watson and francis h. c. crick, “molecular structure of nucleic acids. a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid,” nature no. 4356 april 25, 1953, p. 737. 60 ibid. 61 ibid. 62 bruno j. strasser, “who cares about the double helix? collective memory links the past in the future in science as well as history,” nature v. 422 (2003), 803. i would like to use this opportunity to warmly thank bruno j. strasser for his kindness to send me his paper on this great subject. 63 ibid. 64 the dna mystique: the gene as a cultural icon (the university of michigan, 2004). 65 mircea eliade, mystic stories. the sacred and the profane (inspired by the romanian folk tale tinerete fara batranete si viata fara de moarte, in english youth everlasting and life without end), translated by ana cartianu, bucharest, 1992, pp. 218-302. 66 hypermnesia, from the greek hyper + mneme (memory), is an enhancement of memory function as compared to hypomnesia and amnesia (forgetting). hypermnesia is a condition in which the person has an absolutely exceptional, perfect, detailed, vivid memory. first, it was demonstrated scientifically by ballard (1913), although it was present in 19th c. novelistic. eliade wrote his story in 1936. 67 doina rusti, dictionar de symboluri din opera lui mircea eliade, ed, coresi, 1997. references hobart, michael & schiffman, zachary s. (1988). information through the ages: literacy, numeracy, and the computer revolution. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. gasché, rudolphe (1987). introduction to andrzej warminski, readings in interpretation: hölderlin, hegel, heidegger. theory and history of literature, 26, minneapolis: university of minnesota press. reece, steeve (1995). the three circuits of the suitors: a ring composition in odyssey 7-22. oral tradition, 10(1), 207-229. whitman, cedric m. (1958). homer and the heroic tradition. cambridge, mass: harvard university press. breck, john (1994). the shape of biblical language. crestwood, ny: st. vladimir’s seminary press. lock, charles. ”some words after chiasmus,” afterword to j. breck, the shape of biblical language. p. 361-367. isar, nicoletta (2001). “the dance of adam: reconstructing the byzantine chorós”,byzantinoslavica lxi, 179-204. derrida, jaques (1980). archeology of the frivolous, trans. john p. leavy, pittsburg: duquesne university press. hillman, james (1975). re-visioning psychology. new york: harper & row. hillman, james (1983). archetypal psychology: a brief account. dallas: spring publications (reprinted 1985, 1993). jung, c. g. (1968). the collected works of c. g. jung. in herbert read, the archetypes and the collective unconscious, no.9. casey, edward (1974). towards an archetypal imagination. spring, 1-32 vernant. jean-pierre (1959). aspects mythiques de la mémoire. journal de psychologie, 1959, pp. 1-29 (republished in jean-pierre vernant, mythe et pensée chez les grecs études de psychologie historique, paris, 1966, pp. 51-78). vernant, jean pierre (1960). le fleuve “amélès” et la “mélétè” thanatou. revue philosophique, pp. 163-179 (republished in mythe et pensée chez les grecs études de psychologie historique, pp. 79-94). corbin, henry (1969). creative imagination in the sufism of ibn ‘arabi, london. corbin, henry (1977). spiritual body and celestial earth from mazdean iran to shi’ite iran. princeton university press. watson, james d. & crick, francis h. c. (1953). molecular structure of nucleic acids. a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. nature, 4356, 737. strasser, bruno j. (2003). who cares about the double helix? collective memory links the past in the future in science as well as history. nature, 422, p. 803. nelkin, dorothy & lindee, m-susan (2004). the dna mystique: the gene as a cultural icon. the university of michigan. on the media examination of the mental health of political figures by john barry city university wouldn’t it be great if we could identify and help people at risk of serious mental health problems before the onset of illness? in fact the british medical journal has reported on president george w bush’s proposal to screen the american population for mental illness (lenzer, 2004). there are obvious pros and cons to this sort of programme – people of the former ussr will no doubt have fears regarding civil liberties – but it has occurred to me that perhaps the president of the us himself might not be given a clean bill of health, if the claims about his mental health are to be believed. in the past few years there have been suggestions that george w bush might not be the epitome of psychological health, and for critics of bush there is a certain appeal to such claims. during the 1980’s britain’s channel 4 television station broadcast spitting image, a politically satirical puppet show, that included a storyline called ‘the president’s brain is missing’, in which ronald reagan’s brain had escaped from his body and was on the run in america (spitting image, 1984 –1996). according to the plot reagan’s body continued through the motions of government, but in a predictably ‘brainless’ fashion. this story was very popular with the british public at that time, though our subsequent knowledge of reagan’s dementia puts the story in a less comic light. in recent years some mental health professionals have suggested that there are subtle but worrying signs in the words and behaviour of the current president of the us, george w. bush. the concerns are various, but the first to receive public attention was the claim that bush’s words and actions are reminiscent of those of people who are suffering from what known in alcoholics anonymous circles as ‘dry drunk syndrome’. this observation was first made by political journalist alan bisport (2002). bisport suggested that although bush had ended 20 years of heavy drinking in 1986 after being “rescued by god” (bisport 2002, para.5), alcoholism had left bush with permanent cognitive limitations. professor of social work and author on addiction treatment karen van wormer amplified this view, asserting that the pattern of thinking shown by bush is often identified in recovering alcoholics attending alcoholics anonymous or substance abuse counselling. the ‘dry drunk’ is someone who exhibits the following symptoms: exaggerated self-importance and pomposity grandiose behavior a rigid, judgmental outlook impatience childish behavior irresponsible behavior irrational rationalization projection overreaction van wormer suggests that bush exhibits all of these traits apart from the first (being the president of the most powerful country in the world leaves little room for the exaggeration of your importance!). she cites several examples from his speeches to illustrate. for example, regarding his rigid & judgmental outlook, she cites his comments regarding attacks against israel: “…look my job isn’t to try to nuance. i think moral clarity is important… this is evil versus good” (itv, 2002). van wormer gives an illustration of the trait of impatience shown by bush regarding needing proof of iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction before war was waged: “if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long” (office of the press secretary 2002, para 18). erosions of freedom of speech under the bush administration (reilly, 2004) probably straddle several of the above symptoms, but as we know science does not progress simply by searching out instances supporting our hypotheses, but by instances that contradict our hypotheses. if we are to ‘diagnose’ bush on the basis of interviews and speeches we need only one instance of a time when he has shown patience or an ability for being flexible & non-judgemental for the entire ‘diagnosis’ to require reassessment. however, another explanation is that the rigidity of thinking etc are simply part of the conservative mindset, a mindset shared with bush by all who voted for him. in their meta-analysis of 88 samples from a wide range of sources (including experimental studies, surveys, and statements by politicians), jost et al. (2003) found that political conservatism is related to several psychological variables including: death anxiety (r = .5); system instability (r = .47); dogmatism–intolerance of ambiguity (r = .34); openness to experience (r = –.32); uncertainty tolerance (r = –.27); and needs for order, structure, and closure (.26). they give an example of dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity from george w bush: “i know what i believe and i believe what i believe is right” (sanger, 2001, cited in jost et al. 2003, p.353). however, such traits are not necessarily fixed, and can be influenced by events. regarding ‘death anxiety’: “high profile terrorist attacks such as those of september 11, 2001, might simultaneously increase the cognitive accessibility of death and the appeal of political conservatism” (jost et al. 2003, p.364). this might go some way to explaining the appeal of conservatism to us voters, and could imply that – ironically – the more salient death is made as a result of the backlash against us conservative foreign policy, the more likely voters are likely to be frightened into supporting the very policies that have provoked such dangers. jost et al’s work implies that people are politically conservative for different reasons, perhaps some due to nature and others due to nurture, so even if bush were suffering from an organic cognitive impairment his condition might be ameliorated by his environment. is everyone who voted for bush a dry drunk? obviously not, despite the fact that they may share similarities in cognitive style. another attack on bush’s mental credibility comes from justin frank, director of psychiatry at george washington university. in his book bush on the couch: inside the mind of the president he agrees with bisport’s and van wormer’s view that alcoholism may have left bush with a tendency to black & white thinking, but franks goes much further. using the technique of ‘applied psychoanalysis’ to assess bush (without ever actually meeting him) the picture frank paints of a young boy scarred by the death of his younger sister seems only tangentially relevant to the actions of george w bush, the adult and president. frank’s method of assessment has been used by the cia to profile foreign leaders though autobiographical sketches, and clearly falls short of the dsm in terms of diagnostic validity. in conclusion, why do we need to argue that someone whose opinions and actions are ones we disapprove of is necessarily insane? other leaders have had drug or alcohol problems (e.g. j.f. kennedy) or mental health issues (e.g. winston churchill) and this has not stopped them from being great leaders. the tendency to pathologise everyday behaviour is an impulse we need to curb; sometimes a excitable and energetic child is just that, and not a case of adhd in need of urgent treatment. as for bush, perhaps in the end it is just more comfortable to think that his behaviour couldn’t be that of someone sane, as it implies that we all might behave in that way if they were in the same situation. it is obvious that attempting diagnosis without having direct access to the patient has its limitations and dangers. on the other hand, while we were laughing at spitting image’s portrayal of a bumbling and forgetful reagan in the 80’s, little did we realise that these public gaffs were likely to have been the early signs of alzheimer’s. but in the end, mental illness is no laughing matter, nor a matter for political point-scoring. references altman, l.k. (2004, june 15). the doctor’s world; a recollection of early questions about reagan’s health. new york times. retrieved oct 10, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9d0de5d61030f936a25755c0a9629c8b63&sec=health&pagewanted=print bisport, a. (2002, 24th sept). dry drunk: is bush making a cry for help? american politics journal. retrieved oct 8, from http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924bisbort.html frank, j.a. (2004). bush on the couch: inside the mind of the president. new york: harpercollins. goldenberg, s. (2004, june 11). the guardian profile: nancy reagan. retrieved oct 9 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1236101,00.html hallmark, c.l. (2004). photos show george w. bush seriously ill physically. houston independent media centre, dec 21st. retrieved oct 8, from http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/35839.php itv (2002, 4th april), tonight with trevor mcdonald. retrieved oct 8, from http://www.usembassy.it/file2002_04/alia/a2040709.htm jost, j.t., glaser, j., kruglanski, a.w., and sulloway, f.j. (2003). political conservatism as motivated social cognition. psychological bulletin, 129, 3, 339-375. retrieved oct 8, from http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/consevatismasmotivatedsocialcognition.pdf#search=%22glaser%20kruglanski%22 lenzer, j. (2004). bush plans to screen whole us population for mental illness. bmj, 328: 1458. retrieved oct 8, from http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458?maxtoshow=&hits=10&hits=10&resultformat=1&title=bush+to+screen&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&firstindex=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=hwcit macaskill, e. (2005, oct 7). george bush: god told me to end the tyranny in iraq. retrieved oct 9, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1586978,00.html office of the press secretary (2002). president bush delivers graduation speech at west point, june 1st 2002. retrieved oct 8, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html reilly, w. (2004, may 27). free speech zones in the usa? baltimore chronicle. retrieved oct 8, from http://baltimorechronicle.com/052704freespeechzones.shtml sanger, d. e. (2001, july 25). on world stage, america’s president wins mixed reviews. the new york times, p. a1. van wormer, k. (2002). addiction, brain damage and the president. “dry drunk” syndrome and george w. bush. retrieved oct 8, from http://www.counterpunch.org/wormer1011.html spitting image (1984 -1996). in wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. retrieved oct 9, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/spitting_image note the editorial expresses the opinion of the author and does not represent the views of the editorial team. thinking outside the box of individualism: creativity in light of a socio-cultural approach vlad glăveanu ejop co-editor london school of economics v.p.glaveanu@lse.ac.uk as in the previous decades it is with great hope that researchers in general and psychology researchers in particular turn to the study of creativity. the hope rests primarily in the enormous relevance of the topic for most segments of any society from scientists to practitioners, from politicians to artists, from teachers to economists, from specialists to lay people. current changes at the macro level, challenges that threaten the economic stability of so many, wars that disrupt the lives of many others, all require solutions, transformations and innovation. to a great extent, all require creativity. one of the most basic definitions of creativity within psychology looks at the creative product (material or conceptual) and emphasizes its novelty / originality and its utility. this “double criteria” is useful since it should put some boundaries to all that one could call “creative”. nonetheless, new interrogations soon arise: for whom is the creative outcome novel or original? for whom is it useful? creativity assessment may have found criteria to follow but forgot the people who answer and replaced them with “experts”, an easy solution that cuts creativity away from the everyday contexts of its emergence and isolates only some forms of expression, usually in the field of the artistic, the scientific, the technical etc. in all these areas creative outputs stand easier apart than in the “messy” contexts of everyday life and so do their authors. the image of the creative individual, the genius, is probably one of the most pervasive cultural representations, at least in the west. millennia of philosophical thought traceable as far back as ancestral myths of creation and discovery chain creativity to the individual. of course it is not any individual. the genius for example is defined by singularity, by isolation, by solitude. it is an image of “disconnection”, of detachment from all that is common, known, shared and… social. the birth of psychological research on creativity has been marked by a rejection of this image, however partial that was. creativity gained universality (everyone is creative in a myriad of different ways) but not sociality. the creative person is from this perspective everyone, but taken separately. even in group creativity the framework of analysis usually isolates individual contributions and fails to locate creativity in the “in between”, in the actual interactions. it is one of the reasons why the third main approach to creativity (beside the one based on product and the one focused on person), envisioning creativity as a process, also pays little attention to contextual or social factors. either by proposing stages of the creative process or, more practically, suggestions for creativity enhancement, it continually looks nowhere outside the individual “box” of creativity theory and research. recent decades have nevertheless seen an increasing number of social psychological studies of creativity. alimented by previous questions about the role of the “environment” in the creative process this line of research looks primarily at the social conditioning of creativity. how social is in the end the social psychology of creativity? the answer to this question depends on how “the social” is understood and theorized. if one thinks of social psychology as the branch that focuses on the social influence – of others, of groups, of society – upon human behaviour (in this case creative behaviour) than the social psychology of creativity is as social as any other related area (for example social cognition). if on the other hand social psychology is understood as the study of the social roots of our knowledge and behaviour than the social psychology of creativity still endorses the individualistic stance that dominates our theories. this individualism encourages studies that look at the social environment as an organized set of stimuli (more or less different than any other input received by the individual from the environment, such as physical stimuli), a particular stimulation that has the power to facilitate or inhibit a person’s creativity. it is the perfect illustration of exterior forces shaping the creative process, forces that may even be decisive at times especially when properly understood and controlled or manipulated. typical examples of this are the countless schematic models of creativity that include the social environment as a “rectangle” among others and of course depict a series of arrows starting from it and showing how and where in the creative process is the social more influential. certainly one may ask what is actually wrong with such a vision, and, even if some of its assertions may be flawed, how can it be corrected? the individualistic and pseudo-social view on creativity fails to consider the social and cultural nature of the phenomenon. it aims to make universalistic assumptions about how creativity “works” and struggles to control social factors in empirical research rather than consider their true role and dynamics. therefore it is generally unequipped to offer any valuable insights into how creativity takes place in the everyday, how it is deeply connected to the identities and practices of different communities (from neighbourhoods to scientific or artistic communities), how it uses cultural artefacts and current knowledge to generate new artefacts and to further this knowledge. from a socio-cultural perspective the social is “inside” every creative act, even those performed in complete isolation, since all our tools for creativity (our knowledge, our abilities, our techniques, our assessment criteria etc.) come from our life as a socialized member of a human society and the multiple communities within it. a socio-cultural perspective is fundamentally a contextual perspective, one that links the judgements about a creative outcome’s novelty and utility to the knowledge, experience and interests of different communities, one that understands the creative person as a social actor and the creative process as situational. in terms of research the socio-cultural perspective argues for studies with increased ecological validity, sometimes obtained at the price of a less rigorous manipulation of variables but with the gain of a more comprehensive view of why, when and how persons or groups generate the “new”. in this framework the meaning of “cultural” does not imply the study of different cultures (as in cross-cultural investigations) but calls for a careful consideration of the worldview and cultural “toolkit” specific to different groups and communities even within the same society. it is a call for increased sensitivity towards the contexts of creation and also towards the systemic interdependence between self and others, between groups and societies, between societies and cultures. only through these we may come to realize that creativity does not exist in the “self” or in the “other”, but “in between self and other”, that it is a highly interactional and intersubjective process. further more, we can consequently start looking for creativity outside of scientific laboratories, of artists’ studios, of advertisers’ meetings or inventors’ gatherings and look more to the streets, to the meeting places, to the normal homes, to the regular life of most people. as a unified and unifying framework the socio-cultural approach bridges the instances of path-breaking creativity (in science, art etc.) with instances of the “everyday-life” creativity and treats them as equally valuable and social in nature. this editorial stands as an invitation. it is first of all an invitation to think about our personal beliefs about creativity. secondly, it is an invitation to question the deeply-rooted assumptions psychologists hold about creativity. without advocating that the socio-cultural approach is the only suitable way forward for theory and research on creativity it tries to problematize the suppositions of an individualistic view and to point to their consequences. thus, for the most part, it is an invitation to open up the box of individualism and think outside it. that is, after all, the fundamental quality of all creativity. migration status, familial risk for mental disorder, and schizotypal personality traits correction migration status, familial risk for mental disorder, and schizotypal personality traits odin van der stelt, dounia boubakri, max feltzer note please note that in the results, the two group means given in the main text for the fourth statement on perceived discrimination should be m = 2.3 and m = 1.5 (as correctly reported in table a4), not m = 3.3 and m = 2.5. [the authors requested to add this note post-publication on 2014-07-11.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ research reports migration status, familial risk for mental disorder, and schizotypal personality traits odin van der stelt*a, dounia boubakria, max feltzera [a] department of developmental and clinical psychology, tilburg university, tilburg, the netherlands. abstract markedly raised incidence rates of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders have been observed in several migrant and ethnic minority groups. to contribute to a better understanding of the elevated risk for psychotic disorders that is conferred by migration status, the present study examined effects associated with migration risk status on schizotypal personality traits, which are thought to reflect an underlying vulnerability to psychotic disorder. effects of migration status were also compared to effects associated with a family history of psychopathology, which represents a robust nonspecific risk factor. we assessed schizotypal traits, using the schizotypal personality questionnaire (spq), in a community-based sample of 62 moroccan migrants and 41 dutch nonmigrants, who were classified by the presence or absence of a family history of psychopathology. overall, moroccan migrants obtained higher spq scores than dutch nonmigrants. however, migrants who had been classified as having a familial load of psychopathology displayed higher spq scores than migrants without such a family history, who in turn did not differ from dutch nonmigrants. furthermore, migrants with a familial load, relative to migrants without such a family history, reported higher levels of substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression, and perceived more often ethnic discrimination, which closely paralleled their spq scores. these findings indicate that primarily those migrants who are both intrinsically vulnerable and chronically exposed to social adversity, particularly ethnic discrimination, are at elevated risk for psychotic and other disorders. the results add to the evidence that migration status and perceived discrimination are associated with mental health. keywords: mental health, schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, ethnic minority, high-risk, individual differences, perceived discrimination europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 received: 2013-05-03. accepted: 2013-06-26. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: science & education, p.o. box 92035, 1090 aa amsterdam, the netherlands. e-mail: ovdstelt@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. schizophrenia is believed to be mediated largely by genetic risk factors, but environmental risk factors also have a critical role to play in its etiology (ayalew et al., 2012; harrison & weinberger, 2005; mcgrath & murray, 2011; o'donovan, craddock, & owen, 2009). one factor that has received much scientific interest is migration or ethnic minority status.1markedly raised incidence rates of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders have been observed in several migrant groups, as compared to “native” nonmigrant groups, in various countries, including the usa (bresnahan et al., 2007; cowan, weber, fisher, bedno, & niebuhr, 2011; ødegaard, 1932), the united kingdom (coid et al., 2008; fearon et al., 2006), denmark (cantor-graae, pedersen, mcneil, & mortensen, 2003), and the netherlands (selten et al., 2001; selten, laan, kupka, smeets, & van os, 2012; veling, selten, mackenbach, & hoek, 2007; veling, selten, susser, laan, mackenbach, & hoek, 2007). according to a meta-analysis of 18 incidence studies of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders (cantor-graae & selten, 2005), the risk ratio for migrants, as compared to the risk for native nonmigrant populations, is approximately 2.9. another meta-analysis of incidence rates in england over a sixty-year period (1950-2009) reported similar risk ratios for several ethnic minority groups, with the highest risk ratio of 5.6 found for black caribbean migrants (kirkbride et al., 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the overall risk for psychotic disorders conferred by migration status is substantially larger than the risks associated to date with most other postulated environmental factors (e.g., prenatal exposure to infection or nutritional deficiencies, winter/spring birth, obstetric complications, substance use) (cannon et al., 2003; jones & tarrant, 2000; kirkbride et al., 2012; mcgrath & murray, 2011; weiser, davidson, & noy, 2005) and genetic factors (e.g., neuregulin 1, nrg1; catechol-o-methyltransferase, comt) (ayalew et al., 2012; harrison & weinberger, 2005; o'donovan et al., 2009). consequently, the elevated rates of psychotic disorders observed in many migrant populations constitute a major public health problem. however, this issue remains contentious and has, so far, not received much attention from the general public, policy makers, and health care professionals (morgan & hutchinson, 2010). several possible explanations have been suggested for the elevated rates of psychotic disorder observed in migrant and ethnic minority populations (morgan, charalambides, hutchinson, & murray, 2010; ødegaard, 1932; selten & cantor-graae, 2005; sharpley, hutchinson, murray, & mckenzie, 2001). these explanations include elevated rates of psychotic disorders in the birth country, selective migration of pre-psychotic individuals, disproportionate referral to services, cultural-diagnostic bias or misdiagnosis, and increased frequencies of putative risk factors, such as pregnancy or birth complications, urban living, or substance use. however, none of these explanations, alone or in combination, can fully account for the findings (morgan et al., 2010; selten & cantor-graae, 2005; sharpley et al., 2001). a more plausible explanation could be that socio-environmental factors, in particular chronic exposure to adverse social environments, including social disadvantage, ethnic discrimination, and marginalization, mediate the relationship between migrant status and risk for psychotic illness (collip, myin-germeys, & van os, 2008; morgan et al., 2010; morgan & hutchinson, 2010; raine, 2006; selten & cantor-graae, 2005; sharpley et al., 2001). this interpretation is supported by a meta-analysis (cantor-graae & selten, 2005), reporting that the risk for psychotic disorders is highest among migrant groups either from developing or non-western countries or from countries where the population is predominantly black. furthermore, ethnic discrimination experienced bymembers of migrant groups has been linked to an increased risk for both psychotic and mood disorders (noh & kaspar, 2003; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007), as well as to a greater severity of psychotic symptoms (e.g., paranoid ideation) and affective symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression) (berg et al., 2011). accordingly, it has been hypothesized that migrants’ chronic exposure to social adversity and environmental stress, also conceptualized as social defeat (selten & cantor-graae, 2005), facilitates a cognitive “paranoid” processing bias (garety, kuipers, fowler, freeman, & bebbington, 2001), especially in genetically vulnerable individuals and in combination with substance use. the chronic exposure to environmental stress operating upon an already biologically and cognitively vulnerable individual is thought to induce a “sensitization” of mesolimbic dopamine neurotransmission (lieberman, sheitman, & kinon, 1997), thereby increasing risk for developing a fullblown psychotic episode (collip et al., 2008; selten & cantor-graae, 2005). this conceptualization is consistent with vulnerability-stress models of psychotic disorder (cannon et al., 2003; lenzenweger, 2006; meehl, 1962, 1990; morgan et al., 2010; raine, 2006; tsuang, stone, & faraone, 2002; zubin & spring, 1977), and with the hypothesized involvement of gene-environment interactions and epigenetic mechanisms in schizophrenia and related phenotypes (cannon et al., 2003; petronis, paterson, & kennedy, 1999; rutter, moffitt, & caspi, 2006; van os & linscott, 2012; van os, rutten, & poulton, 2008). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 553 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the observed association between migration status and psychotic disorder is robust and relatively strong, but the underlying mechanisms through which migration status confers elevated risk for psychotic disorder remain poorly understood (collip et al., 2008; morgan et al., 2010; rutter et al., 2006). accordingly, in an effort to contribute to a better understanding of the increased risk that is associated with migration status, the present study examined individual differences in schizotypal personality traits in a community-based sample of moroccan migrants and dutch nonmigrants. schizotypal traits refer to relatively stable personality characteristics that resemble, but represent attenuated forms of, the clinical symptoms of schizophrenia, such as altered perceptions, paranoid ideation, odd beliefs, and restricted affect. it is believed that individual differences in schizotypal personality traits reflect differences in the latent, unexpressed genetic or biological vulnerability to schizophrenia (lenzenweger, 2006; meehl, 1962, 1990; raine, 1991, 2006; tsuang et al., 2002; van os & linscott, 2012; zubin & spring, 1977). therefore, we sought to determine, first, whether moroccan migrants, who are at increased risk for psychotic disorders, as well as for mood disorders (selten et al., 2001, 2012; veling, selten, mackenbach, et al., 2007; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007), would show elevated, more pathological levels of schizotypal traits as compared to a dutch nonmigrant group. moreover, we examined the effects associated with migration risk status in relation to the effects conferred by a family history of a psychiatric or substance use disorder, which has a significant relationship to psychotic disorder (arendt, mortensen, rosenberg, pedersen, & waltoft, 2008; mortensen, pedersen, & pedersen, 2010; van os & linscott, 2012), and represents a robust risk factor for psychopathology in general (mclaughlin et al., 2012; van der stelt, 1999). in line with vulnerability-stress models of schizophrenia (cannon et al., 2003; lenzenweger, 2006; meehl, 1962, 1990; morgan et al., 2010; raine, 2006; tsuang et al., 2002; zubin & spring, 1977), we hypothesized that those moroccan migrants who have a pre-existing familial load of psychopathology are at highest risk and, hence, would manifest the highest levels of schizotypal traits. furthermore, we evaluated the hypothesis that increased perceptions of ethnic discrimination among the moroccan migrants would co-occur with higher levels of schizotypal traits, in light of the reported associations between perceived discrimination and clinically diagnosed psychotic and mood symptoms and disorders (berg et al., 2011; noh & kaspar, 2003; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007). finally, we examined the separate and combined effects associated with migration risk status and family history risk status on levels of substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression, which also have been linked to psychotic and mood disorders (ayalew et al., 2012; cannon et al., 2003; garety et al., 2001; jones & tarrant, 2000; mcgrath & murray, 2011; sharpley et al., 2001; van os & linscott, 2012). the present study should contribute to a better understanding of the association between migration status and risk for mental disorder, so that this information may contribute to future risk assessment, early intervention, and public health policy. method participants study participants consisted of a community-based sample of 62 moroccan migrants and 41 dutch nonmigrants (table 1). moroccan migrant status was assigned to persons with parents who were both born in morocco and who have migrated to the netherlands.2 the migrant group included 8 “first-generation” migrants, who were born in morocco, and 54 “second-generation” migrants, who were born in the netherlands. dutch nonmigrant status was assigned to individuals who were born, as were both of their parents, in the netherlands. individuals who reported on a questionnaire to have one or more family members with a psychiatric or substance use disorder, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 554 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hereafter referred to as psychopathology, were classified as having a “positive” family history of psychopathology (fhp). individuals who reported to have no family members with psychopathology were classified as having a “negative” family history of psychopathology (fhn). accordingly, each participant was classified as belonging to one of four groups defined by migration status (moroccan migrant or dutch nonmigrant) and fh (fhp or fhn) (table 1). table 1 age and gender of study participants as a function of migration status and family history (n = 103) dutch nonmigrant (n = 41)moroccan migrant (n = 62) fhn (n = 24)fhp (n = 17)fhn (n = 38)fhp (n = 24) 28.3a ± 6.4 [21-38]25.9ab ± 6.5 [18-40]23.5b ± 3.7 [18-33]26.3a ± 4.8 [18-37]age (years) 11 (46%)a5 (29%)a19 (50%)a11 (46%)amale, n 13 (54%)a12 (71%)a19 (50%)a13 (54%)afemale, n note. data are given as mean ± sd [min, max], unless where indicated otherwise. fh = family history of psychopathology dichotomized as present or positive (fhp) and absent or negative (fhn). migration status and family history are not significantly associated, as assessed by a chi-square test of independence. group means in the same row that share a letter in their subscripts do not differ significantly from each other, as assessed by independent-samples t tests and chi-square tests. holm’s sequential bonferroni procedure was used to control for type i error across the six pairwise group comparisons at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. participants were recruited individually over a period of several months (2011-2012) in a few larger cities located in the southern parts of the netherlands. they were recruited from public areas, high schools, community colleges, club houses, and mosques by the second author (d. b.), who was highly familiar with the language, culture, and religion of the moroccan community, an ethnic minority population which is usually difficult to reach. the second author recruited the participants and collected the data as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree in psychology at tilburg university. there were no exclusion criteria, except that participants had to be younger than 40 years of age and to possess sufficient proficiency of the dutch language to understand and fill out the questionnaires. all participants were community volunteers, who did not receive any compensation for their participation. materials and procedure migration status and family history of psychopathology — each participant was asked to fill out a questionnaire, which typically took no longer than 30 minutes to complete. the questionnaire was constructed by adapting and modifying the health questionnaire used by one of us in previous research (van der stelt, 1999). the questionnaire included questions about the person’s age, gender, date of birth, birth place, birth places of mother and father, and the occurrence of psychiatric or substance use disorders among his or her family members. considerable care was taken to assure each participant that his or her answers will be kept strictly confidential, absolutely not shared with third parties, and only be used for scientific purposes in aggregate form, omitting any identifiable information. the study was approved by institutional review. written informed consent was obtained from each participant. as described in the prior section, these data were utilized to classify the participants by migration status and fh (table 1). schizotypal personality traits — a dutch translation of the full-length schizotypal personality questionnaire (spq) (raine, 1991; vollema & hoijtink, 2000), involving a self-report 74-item questionnaire with a dichotomous response format (yes/no), was utilized to assess schizotypal personality traits. each "yes" response on the spq europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 555 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scores one point, so that the total raw score can range from 0 to 74. the spq is a self-report multidimensional measure of schizotypy, which was developed not only as a clinical tool to assist in the diagnosis of schizotypal personality disorder, but also as a screening or research tool for the detection of subclinical pathology or the evaluation of inter-individual differences in schizotypal traits in the general population. the reliability and validity of the spq have been well-established (calkins, curtis, grove, & iacono, 2004; raine, 1991; vollema, sitskoorn, appels, & kahn, 2002). the spq consists of nine subscales (tables a1 and a2). factor analytic studies have demonstrated that the spq can be subdivided, in both community and clinical samples, into three distinct factors (calkins et al., 2004; raine, 1991, 2006; raine, reynolds, lencz, scerbo, triphon, & kim, 1994; vollema & hoijtink, 2000; vollema et al., 2002), referred to as: (1) cognitive-perceptual deficits (spq1), related to the “positive” clinical symptoms of schizophrenia (e.g., delusions, hallucinations); (2) interpersonal deficits (spq2), close to the “negative” symptoms (e.g., blunted affect, lack of motivation) and social impairment; and (3) disorganized (spq3), related to the disintegration of thinking and behavior in schizophrenia (e.g., disorganized speech, bizarre behaviors). measures of these three factors of schizotypy were derived by summation of the subscale raw scores for the relevant factors. in addition to the nine subscale scores and three factor scores, a total spq score was computed by summation of all the raw scores. substance use, feelings of anxiety or depression, and perceived discrimination— the questionnaire also contained questions asking to provide information, using a 4-point likert-type response scale (“never”, “sometimes”, “often”, “always”), about the participants’ frequencies of: (a) use of alcohol (beer, wine, or other alcohol-containing drinks); (b) tobacco smoking; (c) use of cannabis (marijuana or hashish); (d) use of hard drugs (e.g., heroine, cocaine, amphetamines/speed/pep, xtc, or hallucinogenics); and (e) feelings of anxiety or depression in daily life. for moroccan migrants, four questions were also included asking to indicate the degree to which he or she agrees or disagrees, on a 5-point likert scale (“strongly disagree”, “disagree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “agree”, “strongly agree”), with the following statements about feelings and experiences of ethnic discrimination, hereafter termed perceived discrimination, (1) “i do not feel accepted by native dutch”, (2) “i have been bullied or insulted due to my ethnic background”, (3) “i have been threatened or attacked due to my ethnic background”, and (4) “i feel others have behaved in an unfair or negative way toward my own ethnic group”. in addition to using the raw data distributions, the responses were scaled to obtain quantitative measures, using a scale of 1 to 4 for the data on substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression, and a scale of 0 to 4 for the data on perceived discrimination. additionally, both the three scores obtained for substance (excluding alcohol) use and the four scores obtained for perceived discrimination were summed to derive measures of the overall levels of substance use and perceived discrimination. also, the percentages of users of each class of substance in each group were employed as dependent variables. note that we anticipated that the number of hard drug users among the participants would be small, as use of these substances is uncommon in the general population, and that alcohol use among the moroccan migrants, almost all of whom would describe themselves as muslim (the netherlands institute for social research, 2005), would be limited due to cultural and religious factors. statistical analysis to assess the separate and combined effects of migration status and fh on the spq measures, we conducted a two-way univariate analysis of variance (anova), including migrant status (moroccan migrant and dutch nonmigrant) and fh (fhp and fhn) as between-subjects factors. pairwise group comparisons on the spq and categorical (nominal and ordinal) data were performed using one-way anovas, pearson chi-square (χ2) tests or fisher exact tests, and mann-whitney u tests. for moroccan migrants, the pearson product-moment correlation europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 556 http://www.psychopen.eu/ coefficient (r) was computed to examine the relations between the overall measure of perceived discrimination and the spq measures. holm’s sequential bonferroni procedure was used to control for type i error across the six pairwise group comparisons at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. although we are fully aware of the interpretative difficulties that may arise when ordinal data are converted to interval data, it seems reasonable to endorse a pragmatic orientation to the relation between level of measurement and type of statistical analysis (pedhazur & pedhazur-schmelkin, 1991). correspondingly, we believe that the parametric tests on the ordinal data are useful here because: (a) they provide additional information about the direction of the average answer; (b) the underlying scale and measured variable can be thought of as if continuous; and (c) they enable the assessment of interactions between factors, as well as allowing statistical control of other, potential confounding variables, particularly age. preliminary data inspection showed that significant age-related differences existed among the groups (table 1) and that age exerted a modest, though significant, effect on the spq and substance use measures. therefore, we took possible age-related effects on between-group differences into account by entering age as a covariate in the anova and by partialling age-related effects out from the computed pearson r. as statistical control of “nuisance” or potential confounding variables is by no means trivial (meehl, 1970; pedhazur, 1997), we present the results on both the raw, uncorrected data and the age-adjusted data, as recommended (simmons, nelson, & simonsohn, 2011). results schizotypal personality traits significant main effects of fh were observed for the total spq score, spq1 (cognitive-perceptual deficits) factor score, and spq2 (interpersonal deficits) factor score (tables 2 and 3), reflecting that participants who had been classified as fhp, averaged across both migrant groups, displayed higher scores than participants who were classified as fhn (e.g., total spq score: m = 20.2, sd = 11.6 vs. m = 11.6, sd = 9.4). a significant main effect of migration status was also found for the spq2 (interpersonal deficits) factor score (table 3), reflecting that moroccan migrants, averaged across both fh groups, showed a higher spq2 factor score than did the dutch nonmigrants (m = 8.4, sd = 5.6 vs. m = 5.5, sd = 5.2) (table 2). table 2 schizotypal personality questionnaire scores as a function of migration status and family history (n = 103) dutch nonmigrant (n = 41)moroccan migrant (n = 62) dependent variable fhn (n = 24)fhp (n = 17)fhn (n = 38)fhp (n = 24) 10.7b ± 6.5 [0-28]15.8b ± 10.2 [4-44]12.2b ± 10.8 [1-52]23.3a ± 11.7 [2-48]total spq (raw score) 5.3b ± 3.7 [0-12]7.6ab ± 4.8 [2-17]5.1b ± 5.1 [0-23]11.2a ± 5.9 [1-23]spq1: cognitive-perceptual deficits (factor score) 4.2b ± 3.8 [0-16]7.3ab ± 6.5 [1-24]7.0b ± 5.3 [0-25]10.8a ± 5.3 [0-19]spq2: interpersonal deficits (factor score) 2.7ab ± 2.7 [0-13]2.5ab ± 2.8 [1-14]2.2b ± 2.9 [0-14]5.0a ± 4.0 [0-14]spq3: disorganized (factor score) note. data are given as mean ± sd [min, max]. fh = family history of psychopathology dichotomized as present or positive (fhp) and absent or negative (fhn). spq = schizotypal personality questionnaire. group means in the same row that share a letter in their subscripts do not differ significantly from each other, as assessed by pairwise comparisons using one-way anovas and one-way ancovas including age as a covariate. holm’s sequential bonferroni procedure was used to control for type i error across the six pairwise group comparisons at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 557 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 results of statistical analyses of migration status and family history on schizotypal personality questionnaire scores (n = 103) ancovaanova effectdependent variable ηp 2pf(1, 98)ηp 2pf(1, 99) mtotal spq (raw score) .034.067.443.045.033.684 fh .137.001<.5715.133.001<.2515 m x fh .029.093.892.020.159.012 mspq1 (factor score) .026.110.592.027.099.782 fh .146.001<.8116.146.001<.9816 m x fh .031.077.193.033.070.363 mspq2 (factor score) .061.013.336.081.004.688 fh .103.001.2911.098.001.7010 m x fh .007.418.660.001.737.110 mspq3 (factor score) .015.222.511.023.134.292 fh .042.040.334.041.043.204 m x fh .063.012.586.052.022.425 note. statistical analyses involve two-way (migration status and family history of psychopathology) univariate analyses of variance (anovas) and covariance (ancovas) including age as a covariate. spq = schizotypal personality questionnaire. spq1 = spq factor 1 (cognitiveperceptual deficits). spq2 = spq factor 2 (interpersonal deficits). spq3 = spq factor 3 (disorganized). m = migration status. fh = family history of psychopathology. m x fh = two-way interaction between m and fh. additionally, a significant fhmain effect was seen for the spq3 (disorganized) factor score, along with a significant two-way interaction with migration status (table 3). the interaction reflects that moroccan migrants who were classified as fhp manifested a higher spq3 score than did moroccan migrants who were considered fhn (table 2). as indexed by the effect size estimate (ηp 2), fh made a greater independent contribution to the total variance in the spqmeasures (from about 4% of spq3 variance to 15% of spq1 variance) than did migration status (from about 3% of spq1 variance to 6% of spq2 variance), irrespective of the exclusion or inclusion of age as a covariate (table 3). table 4 results of statistical analyses of family history on schizotypal personality questionnaire scores for moroccan migrants (n = 62) ancovaanova dependent variable ηp 295% cipf(1, 59)ηp 295% cipf(1, 60) total spq (raw score) .196-17.9][5.5.001<.4214.194-16.9][5.2.001<.4014 spq1 (factor score) .231-9.3][3.3.001<.6817.235-8.9][3.3.001<.4818 spq2 (factor score) .141-7.4][1.6.003.679.115-6.6][1.1.007.797 spq3 (factor score) .132-4.7][0.9.004.998.146-4.6][1.1.002.2710 note. statistical analyses involve one-way (family history of psychopathology) univariate analyses of variance (anovas) and covariance (ancovas) including age as a covariate. spq = schizotypal personality questionnaire. spq1 = spq factor 1 (cognitive-perceptual deficits). spq2 = spq factor 2 (interpersonal deficits). spq3 = spq factor 3 (disorganized). ci = confidence interval for mean difference [lower bound, upper bound]. pairwise comparisons support the aforementioned results, but also indicate that in particular the moroccanmigrants who were classified as fhp displayed significantly higher scores, not only on the spq3, but on all spqmeasures when compared directly to the moroccan migrants who were considered fhn (table 4), who in turn did not differ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 558 http://www.psychopen.eu/ markedly from the dutch nonmigrant groups (table 2). similarly, at the spq subscale level (tables a1 and a2), fh main effects were found for most of the subscales, whereas effects of migration status (except for the main effect on no close friends) were significant only in interaction with fh and were restricted to the odd/eccentric behavior, odd speech, and suspiciousness subscales. correspondingly, elevated scores on these subscales were seen only among moroccan migrants who were classified as fhp (table a1). substance use as anticipated, the percentage of alcohol users among moroccan migrants was significantly lower than seen among dutch nonmigrants (21% vs. 88%; tables 5 and a3). moroccan migrants also reported to use alcohol less frequently than dutch nonmigrants. no significant overall differences in the percentage of alcohol users, or in the frequency of alcohol use, were found as a function of fh. the percentages of tobacco smokers, cannabis users, and substance users in general did not vary significantly as a function of migration status or family history (tables 5 and a3). only 6 participants reported to use “sometimes” hard drugs, which precluded statistical group comparisons. yet, it is noteworthy that moroccan migrants who were classified as fhp included the highest proportion of hard drug users (table 5). moreover, moroccan migrants with a fhp tended to include higher percentages of users of alcohol and cannabis, as well as reporting to smoke tobacco more often, than did the moroccan migrants with a fhn (table 5). however, these fh-related differences approached (ps ranging from .023 to .057), though did not exceed, strict bonferroniadjusted levels of significance and, for tobacco smoking, became no longer significant when age-related effects were taken into account (table a3). nonetheless, a significant two-way interaction effect was detected on the overall level of substance use, irrespective of age (table a3). moroccan migrants who had been classified as fhp reported to use substances significantly more often as compared to moroccan migrants who were classified as fhn, f(1, 60) = 11.63, p = .001, ηp 2 = .162; f(1, 59) = 7.59, p = .008, ηp 2 = .114, who in turn did not differ from the dutch nonmigrant groups (table 5). to assess whether the observed fh-related group differences among the moroccan migrants in the overall level of substance use contributed to the differences between these groups in the spq measures, we carried out an additional ancova, including both age and the overall level of substance use as covariates. it was found that the differences between the fhp and fhn migrant groups in the spq measures became smaller, yet remained large and significant after group differences in age and the overall level of substance use were taken into account (e.g., total spq score: f(1, 58) = 9.06, p = .004, ηp 2 = .135). feelings of anxiety or depression no significant overall differences were found as a function of migration status, but individuals who were considered fhp reported, across migrant groups, a higher frequency of feelings of anxiety or depression than did individuals with a fhn (tables 5 and a3). also, moroccan migrants who had been classified as a fhp reported to experience feelings of anxiety or depression more often than did moroccan migrants with a fhn, but they did not differ significantly from the dutch nonmigrant groups (table 5). perceived discrimination moroccanmigrants who were classified as fhp reported a higher overall level of agreement with the four statements on ethnic discrimination than did the moroccan migrants classified as fhn (table a4), in particular in relation to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 559 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression as a function of migration status and family history (n = 103) dutch nonmigrant (n = 41)moroccan migrant (n = 62) dependent variable fhn (n = 24)fhp (n = 17)fhn (n = 38)fhp (n = 24) 21 (88%)b15 (88%)b5 (13%)a8 (33%)aalcohol users, n frequency of use 2 [1, 3]2 [1, 3]1 [1, 3]1 [1, 4]median [min, max] 74b38amean rank 21b21b29a35amean rank 2.3b (0.7)2.3b (0.7)1.2a (0.4)1.5a (0.8)response average (sd) 7 (29%)a4 (24%)a4 (11%)a9 (38%)atobacco smokers, n frequency of use 1 [1, 3]1 [1, 3]1 [1, 4]1 [1, 4]median [min, max] 54a51amean rank 22a20a28b37amean rank 1.5ab (1.0)1.4ab (0.8)1.2aab (0.5)1.8a (1.1)response average (sd) 4 (17%)a3 (18%)a2 (5%)a6 (25%)acannabis users, n frequency of use 1 [1, 3]1 [1, 3]1 [1, 2]1 [1, 4]median [min, max] 54a51amean rank 21a21a29a35amean rank 1.3a (0.6)1.3a (0.7)1.1a (0.2)1.4a (0.8)response average (sd) 1 (4%)1 (6%)0 (0%)4 (17%)hard drug users,b n 6 (25%)a4 (24%)a6 (16%)a10 (42%)asubstance users,c n frequency of use 3 [3, 7]3 [3, 8]3 [3, 6]3 [3, 10]median [min, max] 55a50amean rank 22a20a28b37amean rank 3.8ab (1.2)3.8ab (1.5)3.2b (0.6)4.3a (1.9)response average (sd) frequency of feelings of anxiety or depression 1 [1, 2]2 [1, 2]1 [1, 2]1.5 [1, 2]median [min, max] 57a49amean rank 19a25a27b39amean rank 1.3ab (0.5)1.6a (0.5)1.1b (0.3)1.5a (0.5)response average (sd) note. fh = family history of psychopathology dichotomized as present or positive (fhp) and absent or negative (fhn). data values in the same row that share a letter in their subscripts do not differ significantly from each other, as assessed by pearson chi-square tests, mannwhitney u tests, or one-way anovas and one-way ancovas including age as a covariate. response categories are scaled as: never = 1, sometimes = 2, often = 3, always = 4. mean rank values in the upper rows are derived from one mann-whitney u test assessing the effect, across both fh groups, associated with migration status; mean ranks in the lower rows are derived from two mann-whitney u tests assessing the effect, separately for moroccan migrants and dutch nonmigrants, associated with fh. holm’s sequential bonferroni procedure was used to control for type i error across the pairwise group comparisons at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. abold subscript at the response average value of tobacco smoking indicates the result of the one-way ancova with age as a covariate. bhard drugs refer to heroine, cocaine, amphetamines/speed/pep, xtc, or hallucinogenics. the limited number of participants who reported to use these drugs precluded formal pairwise comparisons. csubstance users refer to individuals who reported to smoke tobacco, use cannabis and/or use hard drugs. the fourth statement (mean rank: 38 vs. 27, mann-whitney u = 290, z = 2.49, p = .013; m = 3.3, sd = 1.1 vs. m = 2.5, sd = 1.3, f(1, 60) = 6.12, p = .016, ηp 2 = .093; f(1, 59) = 4.53, p = .037, ηp 2 = .071); the data in relation to the first three statements did not differ significantly as a function of fh (table a4). these findings indicate that europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 560 http://www.psychopen.eu/ migrants with a fhp reported, as compared to migrants with a fhn, to perceive more often ethnic discrimination, particularly discrimination against members of their own ethnic group in general, as opposed to direct personal experiences of ethnic discrimination. significant correlations were seen in the data from the moroccan migrants who were classified as fhp between the overall measure of perceived discrimination and the total spq score, r(22) = .507, p = .011, pr(21) = .506, p = .014, spq1 factor score, r(22) = .445, p = .029, pr(21) = .445, p = .033, spq2 factor score, r(22) = .461, p = .023, pr(21) = .470, p = .024, and spq3 factor score, r(22) = .482, p = .017, pr(21) = .488, p = .018, such that higher levels of perceived discrimination were associated with higher spq scores (figure 1). no significant (partial) correlations (ps > .267) were observed in the data from the moroccan migrants who were considered fhn. figure 1. scatter plot and least-squares regression line relating the overall scores of perceived discrimination to the total schizotypy personality questionnaire (spq) scores observed among moroccan migrants who had been classified by the presence of a family history of psychopathology (n = 24). discussion as a group, moroccan migrants were found to display a higher interpersonal deficits (spq2) factor score than did the dutch nonmigrants, whereas no significant overall group differences were observed in the scores on the total spq, cognitive-perceptual deficits (spq1), and disorganized (spq3) factor. to our knowledge, these results are new, and support the hypothesis that higher levels of schizotypal traits, especially those related to social-interpersonal impairment, are prominent personality characteristics among moroccan migrants, which potentially contribute to the markedly raised risk for psychotic and mood disorders observed in this ethnic minority population in the netherlands (selten et al., 2001, 2012; veling, selten, mackenbach, et al., 2007; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007). this conclusion, however, should be qualified because not all individuals within the moroccan migrant group showed elevated interpersonal deficits scores, but primarily those migrants who had been classified as having a family history of a psychiatric or substance use disorder. these findings underline that moroccan migrants cannot be considered as a homogenous group, but that great heterogeneity exists within one ethnic minority group. moreover, moroccanmigrants who were characterized by a pre-existing familial load of psychopathologymanifested substantially higher scores on the total spq, cognitive-perceptual deficits, and disorganized factor. similarly, they reported higher levels of substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression than did the moroccan migrants europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 561 http://www.psychopen.eu/ without such a family history, who in turn did not differ markedly (except in alcohol use) from the dutch nonmigrant groups. furthermore, moroccan migrants with a familial load reported, as compared to moroccan migrants without such a family history, to perceive more often ethnic discrimination, which closely paralleled, in a dose-related manner, their spq scores. the latter finding bears a strong resemblance to the reported associations between perceived discrimination and psychotic and mood symptoms and disorders (berg et al., 2011; noh & kaspar, 2003; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007). the present findings are in line with vulnerability-stress models of psychotic disorder (cannon et al., 2003; collip et al., 2008; lenzenweger, 2006; meehl, 1962, 1990; morgan et al., 2010; raine, 2006; tsuang et al., 2002; zubin & spring, 1977). the results support our hypothesis that primarily those moroccan migrants who have a pre-existing familial load, along with relatively high levels of substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression, and enhanced perceptions of ethnic discrimination, are most vulnerable (and/or most susceptible to adverse environments, see rutter et al., 2006; van os et al., 2008) and exhibit the highest levels of schizotypal traits. it seems even plausible to assume that a small number of moroccan migrants who exhibited the highest spq scores fulfilled already, at study entry, formal clinical diagnostic criteria for schizotypal personality disorder (spd), given that highly elevated spq scores in community samples have a well-established relationship to spd (raine, 1991, 2006). alternatively, the moroccan migrants who had a familial load and who displayed the highest spq scores were functioning in the pre-onset or prodromal stage of illness. this stage is characterized by subclinical and nonspecific symptoms, or an “ultra-high risk” mental state, which herald the onset of a full-blown clinical psychotic or depressive episode (mcgorry, killackey, & yung, 2008; van der stelt, lieberman, & belger, 2005; van os & linscott, 2012). however, as the present study employed a cross-sectional design, longitudinal followup data are required to examine the latter hypothesis. family history was associated with generalized and moderate-to-strong effects on the spq measures, whereas migration status was associated with relatively specific and small-to-moderate effects. furthermore, family history and migration status made independent contributions to the variance in the interpersonal deficits scores, indicating that the effects of these two variables on this factor of schizotypy are mediated by partially distinct mechanisms. family history, but not migration status, showed a significant association, not only with the level of anxiety or depression experienced in daily life, but also with the cognitive-perceptual deficits factor, which has been linked specifically to the latent, unexpressed genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia (vollema et al., 2002; but see raine, 2006). it may be hypothesized, then, that the effects conferred by family history are largely mediated by familial-genetic factors, which may affect all spq factors, yet may be most closely linked to cognitive-perceptual deficits, along with effects on risk for psychopathology in general. by contrast, the effects conferred by migration status may be determined primarily by socio-environmental factors, which may be reflectedmost strongly by interpersonal deficits. additionally, the interaction effects between family history and migration status may be manifested specifically in the disorganized factor. this interpretation seems compatible with the distinction between two postulated clinical subtypes, namely “neurodevelopmental schizotypy” which is mediated mainly by genetic and early biologic risk factors and is linked to schizophrenia, and “pseudo-schizotypy” which originates primarily from later psychosocial adversity (raine, 2006). in a similar vein, it has been hypothesized that there exists both a neurodevelopmental pathway and a sociodevelopmental pathway to psychotic disorder (morgan et al., 2010). thus, it is conceivable europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 562 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that a familial-genetic vulnerability and the chronic exposure to adverse social environments, particularly ethnic discrimination, together with substance use, all contribute, in both a simple additive and an interactive synergetic fashion (van os et al., 2008), to the markedly higher levels of schizotypal traits seen among the moroccan migrants with a family history of psychopathology. the present study has several strengths and limitations that require consideration. initially, a strategic advantage is that we utilized the “high-risk” design and examined community volunteers, and not clinically diagnosed patients. it is unlikely, therefore, that the obtained results are confounded by treatment, hospitalization, acute psychosis or other factors related to clinically expressed psychiatric illness (lenzenweger, 2006; raine, 2006; van der stelt, 1999; van der stelt et al., 2005). similarly, we evaluated only migrants from morocco, and not migrants from other non-western countries (e.g., suriname, turkey), which facilitates statistical conclusion validity, yet may limit external validity. indeed, differences in incidence rates of psychotic disorder observed betweenmigrant groups (coid et al., 2008; fearon et al., 2006; kirkbride et al., 2012; selten et al., 2012; veling, selten, mackenbach, et al., 2007; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007) have been related to the operation of additional risk factors (e.g., pregnancy or birth complications, disrupted family structure) or protective factors (e.g., socio-ethnic support, ethnic group identity) that are specific for a given migrant population (kirkbride et al., 2012; morgan et al., 2010). alternatively, migrant groups with the highest rates of psychotic disorder may have been exposed to comparatively greater social adversity and higher levels of ethnic discrimination, which actually apply to firstand second-generation moroccan migrants who live in present-day dutch society (the netherlands institute for social research, 2005; roes 2008; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007). in any case, it is difficult to assess the external validity of the present results; additional research is required to determine whether the findings generalize to the moroccan migrant population as a whole and whether they generalize to other migrant groups. additionally, we employed a nonexperimental design, which cannot definitely exclude potential bias or confounding (meehl, 1970; pedhazur, 1997). literacy, cultural or ethnic-specific factors, however, do not seem to have confounded the results because enhanced levels of spq scores were found mainly among the moroccan migrants with a family history of psychopathology, and not among the moroccan migrants without such a family history. also, most participants were born in larger cities and the four groups did not differ by season of birth, making it unlikely that these postulated risk factors acted as confounding variables. despite these observations, in nonexperimental research it is difficult to identify and rule out all potential confounding or “nuisance” variables (e.g., prenatal adversity, birth complications, urban living, impaired family environment) other than the independent variables as possible alternative explanations for observed results, particularly in the absence of a theoretical and conceptual framework that specifies the nature (e.g., exogenous vs. endogenous, mediator vs. moderator), magnitude, and direction of the relationships among all variables involved (meehl, 1970; pedhazur, 1997). accordingly, one should be cautious when interpreting the present findings until they have been replicated, refined, or refuted. another potential study limitation is that we collected all the data through self-report questionnaires instead of interviews. a more thorough assessment using a personal interview could have provided more accurate and detailed information. however, it has been shown that a multidimensional paper-and-pencil self-report measure as the spq is reliable and valid to characterize schizotypal features in community and clinical samples (calkins et al., 2004; raine, 1991, 2006; raine et al., 1994; vollema & hoijtink, 2000; vollema et al., 2002). yet, the self-report measure of substance usemay have underestimated the extent of substance use among the participants. however, we emphasized the confidentiality of the obtained data and, relative to a direct interview, a self-report questionnaire europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 563 http://www.psychopen.eu/ offers participants a stronger feeling of anonymity (evans & rooney, 2008). furthermore, the attitude towards substance use is fairly liberal and tolerant in the netherlands. this and our emphasis on the protection of privacy make it unlikely that the answers given by the participants are confounded by social desirability. even if social desirability or some other kind of response bias did occur, this may not have affected the observed between-group differences as long as there is no differential misreporting between the four groups. additionally, our self-report measure of family history risk status was not focused on a diagnostically specific psychiatric or substance use disorder, but on psychopathology in general. the reasons behind this choice were that a family history of psychopathology holds significance for psychotic illness (arendt et al., 2008; mortensen et al., 2010; van os & linscott, 2012), and represents a robust nonspecific risk factor (mclaughlin et al., 2012; van der stelt, 1999). another reason was related to practical limitations and the fact that we should have examined substantial larger sample sizes if we had focused solely on a family history of psychotic disorder because such a family history is uncommon in the general population. similarly, from a public health perspective, there may be more widespread benefits involved to identify risk factors for psychopathology in general because the base rates are substantially higher in the general population (jones & tarrant, 2000; weiser et al., 2005). nonetheless, an important goal for future research is to determine whether the effects associated with migration status and family history on schizotypal traits as reported herein are different in nature or magnitude when diagnostically more specific disorders are assessed among family members. these study limitations notwithstanding, we observed that moroccan migrants, primarily those with a familial load of psychopathology, display highly elevated levels of schizotypal traits. moreover, higher levels of schizotypal traits seen among moroccan migrants with a familial load paralleled their enhanced perceptions of ethnic discrimination, along with higher levels of substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression. we hypothesize that all these risk factors may contribute to the markedly raised incidence rates of psychotic and mood disorders found in this ethnic minority population in the netherlands (selten et al., 2001, 2012; veling, selten, mackenbach, et al., 2007; veling, selten, susser, et al., 2007). more broadly, the present results add to the evidence that migration status and perceived discrimination are associated with mental health. acknowledgement the authors are grateful to meinte g. vollema, phd, for providing us with the dutch translation of the spq, and to laurentz dekkers, msc, for performing a pilot study. notes 1) the termmigrants is used in this text in a broad sense to refer to individuals who belong to migrant, immigrant and/or ethnic minority groups. 2) in the netherlands, the proportions of non-western migrant or ethnic minority groups have substantially increased during the past 40 years, from 1-2% of 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reference ± 1.9 [0-5]2.3b± 2.2 [0-7]3.1ab± 2.3 [0-8]2.2b± 2.5 [0-8]4.2a excessive social anxiety ± 1.4 [0-5]1.0ac± 2.7 [0-8]2.5ac± 1.5 [0-7]1.2ab± 1.7 [0-6]2.2a odd beliefs or magical thinking ± 1.2 [0-4]0.8a± 1.9 [0-6]1.6a± 0.5 [0-2]0.2b± 1.5 [0-4]1.3a unusual perceptual experiences ± 0.9 [0-3]0.7b± 1.5 [0-4]1.3ab± 1.5 [0-8]0.6b± 1.9 [0-7]2.0a odd or eccentric behavior ± 1.1 [0-5]0.6ab± 1.2 [0-4]0.5ab± 1.0 [0-5]0.5ab± 1.6 [0-5]1.5a no close friends ± 1.1 [0-4]1.0b± 2.3 [0-8]1.9ab± 1.8 [0-9]2.5a± 1.8 [0-6]3.2a odd speech ± 1.8 [0-8]2.1a± 2.0 [0-8]2.0a± 2.1 [0-9]1.7a± 2.8 [0-9]3.5a constricted affect ± 1.0 [0-4]0.6b± 1.4 [0-4]1.2ab± 1.4 [0-6]1.3ab± 1.1 [0-3]1.7a suspiciousness ± 1.3 [0-4]1.5b± 1.4 [0-5]1.6b± 1.9 [0-7]2.0b± 2.1 [0-8]3.7a note. data are given as mean ± sd [min, max]. fh = family history of psychopathology dichotomized as present or positive (fhp) and absent or negative (fhn). spq = schizotypal personality questionnaire. group means in the same row that share a letter in their subscripts do not differ significantly from each other, as assessed by pairwise comparisons using one-way anovas and one-way ancovas including age as a covariate; for group means where the results of the anova and ancova differ from each other, an additional bold subscript indicates the result of the ancova. holm’s sequential bonferroni procedure was used to control for type i error across the six pairwise group comparisons at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. table a2 results of statistical analyses of migration status and family history on schizotypal personality questionnaire subscale scores (n = 103) ancovaanova effectspq subscale ηp 2pf(1, 98)ηp 2pf(1, 99) mideas of reference .009.355.870.011.293.121 fh .086.003.229.085.003.249 m x fh .017.193.721.015.220.521 mexcessive social anxiety .005.468.530.001.805.060 fh .117.001<.9712.109.001.0812 m x fh .001<.944.010.004.523.410 modd beliefs or magical thinking .018.178.841.031.078.183 fh .118.001<.1713.117.001<.0713 m x fh .001<.919.010.004.550.360 munusual perceptual experiences .010.327.970.012.284.161 fh .094.002.2210.094.002.2810 m x fh .015.223.501.014.237.421 modd or eccentric behavior .021.154.072.028.094.862 fh .041.043.194.040.046.104 m x fh .064.011.746.055.018.815 mno close friends .106.001.6011.123.001<.9413 fh .053.021.535.052.022.385 m x fh .001<.909.010.001<0.847.040 modd speech .009.344.910.015.227.481 fh .033.072.313.031.076.213 m x fh .047.030.854.038.051.903 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 569 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ancovaanova effectspq subscale ηp 2pf(1, 98)ηp 2pf(1, 99) mconstricted affect .029.092.902.046.032.744 fh .037.054.813.034.065.483 m x fh .001<.960.001<.001<.616.250 msuspiciousness .111.001.2112.123.001<.8313 fh .063.012.636.062.012.606 m x fh .051.024.255.047.030.864 note. statistical analyses involve two-way (migration status and family history of psychopathology) univariate analyses of variance (anovas) and covariance (ancovas) including age as a covariate. spq = schizotypal personality questionnaire. m = migration status. fh = family history of psychopathology. m x fh = two-way interaction between m and fh. table a3 results of statistical analyses of migration status and family history on substance use and feelings of anxiety or depression (n = 103) ancovaanovamann-whitney u test effectdependent variable ηp 2pf(1, 98)ηp 2pf(1, 99)vpu / z mfrequency of alcohol use .369.001<.2757.361.001<.9455.688.001</ 6.61380 fh .029.176.861.018.184.791.176.166/ 1.391084 nananam x fh .016.217.551.010.322.990 mfrequency of tobacco smoking .001.785.010.001<.991.01<0.076.527/ 0.631202 fh .019.169.931.020.162.991.336.080/ 1.751079 nananam x fh .030.084.513.044.035.564 mfrequency of cannabis use .006.431.630.003.616.250.203.510/ 0.661211 fh .045.109.622.025.117.502.190.079/ 1.761111 nananam x fh .023.132.312.014.233.441 mfrequency of substance usea .001<.986.01<.001<.920.010.198.293/ 1.051145 fh .038.054.823.038.051.893.303.107/ 1.611077 nananam x fh .041.042.234.048.028.964 mfrequency of feelings of anxiety or depression .027.104.702.023.126.372.164.097/ 1.661072 fh .133.001<.0715.132.001<.0515.377.001</ 3.81815 nananam x fh .005.488.490.003.583.300 note. statistical analyses involve mann-whitneyu tests to assess the overall effects of migration status and family history of psychopathology, and two-way (migration status and family history of psychopathology) univariate analyses of variance (anovas) and covariance (ancovas) including age as a covariate. v = cramer’s v. m = migration status. fh = family history of psychopathology. m x fh = two-way interaction between m and fh. na = not applicable. asubstance use refers to tobacco smoking, cannabis use and/or use of hard drugs (e.g., heroine, cocaine, amphetamines/speed/pep, xtc, or hallucinogenics). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits 570 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table a4 perceived discrimination as a function of family history moroccan migrants (n = 62) item fhn (n = 38)fhp (n = 24) (a) i do not feel accepted by native dutch 1 [0, 4]1.5 [0, 3]median [min, max] 30a34amean rank 1.3a (1.0)1.5a (0.8)response average (sd) (b) i have been bullied or insulted due to my ethnic background 0.5 [0,3]1 [0, 4]median [min, max] 30a34amean rank 0.9a (0.9)1.1a (1.0)response average (sd) (c) i have been threatened or attacked due to my ethnic background 1 [0, 3]2 [0, 3]median [min, max] 29a35amean rank 0.6a (0.8)0.9a (0.8)response average (sd) (d) i feel others have behaved in an unfair or negative way toward my own ethnic group 2 [0, 4]3 [0, 4]median [min, max] 27b38amean rank 1.5b (1.3)2.3a (1.1)response average (sd) overall level of agreement (a + b + c + d) (total score) 5 [0, 10]6 [0, 12]median [min, max] 28b38amean rank 4.3a (2.7)5.8a (3.0)response average (sd) note. fh = family history of psychopathology dichotomized as present or positive (fhp) and absent or negative (fhn). data values in the same row that share a letter in their subscripts do not differ significantly from each other, as assessed by mann-whitney u tests, one-way anovas and one-way ancovas, including age as a covariate, at the .05 level (two-tailed) of significance. response categories are scaled as: strongly disagree = 0, disagree = 1, neither agree nor disagree = 2, agree = 3, strongly agree = 4. mean rank values are derived from mann-whitney u tests assessing the effect associated with fh. about the authors odin van der stelt, phd, has extensive experience in teaching and research in the areas of psychology, psychiatry, addiction, and the clinical and cognitive neurosciences. dounia boubakri, msc, holds a master’s degree in developmental and clinical psychology and has specific expertise in the area of cross-cultural psychology. max feltzer, phd, has extensive experience in teaching and research in the areas of developmental psychology, clinical psychology, health psychology, and neuropsychology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 552–571 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.623 van der stelt, boubakri, & feltzer 571 http://www.psychopen.eu/ migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits (introduction) method participants materials and procedure statistical analysis results schizotypal personality traits substance use feelings of anxiety or depression perceived discrimination discussion acknowledgments notes references appendix about the authors 623-2006-1-ce_van_der_stelt_ex_correction.pdf migration, familial risk, and schizotypal traits note predictors of social and educational mobility in mexican recipients of a governmental welfare program: a psychosocial approach research reports predictors of social and educational mobility in mexican recipients of a governmental welfare program: a psychosocial approach joaquina palomar-lever*a, amparo victorio-estradaa [a] universidad iberoamericana, mexico city, mexico. abstract the aim of this study is to identify the factors predicting social and educational mobility in persons living in extreme poverty in mexico by analyzing a broad set of personal, familial, educational and social variables. a total of 913 adults were interviewed, 65.2 percent of whom were women, with an average age of 43.71 years. a regression analysis has identified depression, religiosity, locus of control, verbal skills, social support, and age as predictors of intra-generational social mobility, while parents’ educational attainment and parenting style as well as individuals’ intelligence, school grades, time spent on homework, and age predicted inter-generational educational mobility. the results are discussed in terms of their implications for this segment of the population. keywords: poverty, social mobility, educational mobility, psychological resources, resilience, social support europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 received: 2012-05-03. accepted: 2012-07-10. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: email: joaquina.palomar@ibero.mx. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mexico can be regarded as a middle-income country in latin america. however, the economic figures for 2009 show a 28 percent decline in the per capita gross domestic product (gdp) in relation to the previous year, a drop that had not been observed since 1995, according to data from the national institute of statistics and geography, inegi (ordaz, 2007). a similar phenomenon occurs in other latin american countries such as paraguay, venezuela, honduras and bolivia. this provides fertile ground for a significant increase in poverty indicators. at the same time, according to the inter-american development bank, iadb, on the basis of mexico’s income distribution, economic structure and political map, it is practically two different countries. the north of the country accounts for 85 percent of the wealth produced, with 38 percent of the population living below the poverty line, whereas the south produces less than 15 percent of the wealth and has 56 percent living in poverty (inter-american development bank, 2009). this makesmexico a highly unequal country, and is similar to what happens in european countries like spain and italy. in the broadest sense, poverty is defined as a condition in which a person has a low or no income, difficulty gaining access to the goods and services provided by the state (such as social security and health, among others), does not own property or any other type of assets, has no or low educational attainment or training and does not have enough free time for educational or recreational activities or rest, which leads to a lack of autonomy and non-existent or limited family and social networks (arriagada, 2005). in mexico there are no measurements corresponding to a poverty line based exclusively on income; instead, the national council for the evaluation of social development policy (coneval) in mexico defines three types of poverty: asset poverty (lacking the resources to obtain housing, --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ clothing, and transport, among other things), skills poverty (lacking resources for health and education) and food poverty (total per capita monthly income of less than 949 mexican pesos in urban areas and 707 pesos in the rural area). coneval recently reported that asset poverty, skills poverty, and food poverty rose to 47.4 percent, 25.1 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively, between 2006 and 2008 (national council for the evaluation of social development policy, 2009). this may be due to a lack of labor opportunities and poor administration of public resources, among other reasons. overcoming poverty is therefore a pressing problem, together with reducing inequality in access to services, particularly in view of the progressive reduction of economic growth and the high degree of international financial instability. overcoming poverty implies social mobility. the absence of social mobility generally leads to inter-generational poverty, which occurs when children born into families with poor parents do not improve their economic status during adulthood to a significant and persistent enough degree to allow them to escape from poverty for the rest of their lives (aldaz-carroll & morán, 2001). the purpose of this study is to determine the psychosocial factors that can predict social mobility in persons living in conditions of extreme poverty. it also seeks, separately, to identify the possible psychosocial predictors of educational mobility. in addition, it is important to clarify that this study is not aimed at evaluating the degree to which educational mobility predicts social mobility. social mobility social mobility is a process whereby social actors, individuals and groups shift from one position to another within set times and spaces, according to the variables constituting the social structure (sánchez, 2009). in general, social mobility is defined as the way in which persons or social groups increase or decrease their status or position from one class to another within the social hierarchy. two key elements of social mobility are intensity and generality. intensity is defined as vertical social distance, in other words, the number of layers an individual moves up or down. conversely, generality refers to the number of individuals who change their social position in a vertical direction within a set period (orihuela, 2005). also, inter-generational mobility is the difference in status achieved between parents and offspring, or between generations, while intra-generational mobility refers to the difference in status achieved by the same individual or group over a period of time. in relation to inter-generational mobility, the term status of origin is used to refer to the parents’ economic, educational or social conditions, while status of destination is used to refer to the offspring’s conditions, and thus mobility can be measured by comparing the status of origin and status of destination. social mobility is usually considered in terms of displacement between social classes or occupational groups. the iadb stressed, however, that although social class can provide a good general approximation of social mobility, it should not be reduced to this, since social class definitions may lack precision and lend themselves to perceptual biases (inter-american development bank, 2008). it is therefore recommended that objective indicators such as educational attainment, income and occupation, to mention a few, be incorporated into the measurement of social mobility. surveys like the national survey of household income and expenses (enigh), undertaken by the national institute of statistics and geography (inegi), and the national survey on households’ living standards (ennvih), conducted by the iberoamerican university and the center of research and teaching on economics (cide), are examples of the efforts to use more objective indicators to measure social mobility. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social mobility in mexico has been studied through poverty reduction, labor mobility and educational mobility. a recent study showed that the significant poverty reduction experienced between 1950 and 1980 ceased in the early 1980s, increased sharply after the 1995 crisis and has remained constant ever since (torche, 2008). a comparison of social mobility in mexico with that of countries such as chile, the united states and sweden showed that mexico has greater inter-generational poverty reproduction: long downward mobility (from the richest down to the poorest quintile) is virtually non-existent in mexico, while long upward mobility (ranging from the poorest to the richest quintile) is also scarce, making mexico a highly unequal country. there is, however, some mobility in the middle: approximately 26% of those in the poorest quintile move to the second quintile, 22% move to the third and fourth quintiles, and only 4% reach the wealthiest quintile (fundación esru, 2008). on the other hand, in a comparison of labor mobility patterns over the past three decades, cortés and escobar (2005) showed that, since 1988, mexico has seen a considerable reduction in the opportunities to move up a class or to remain in the same class across all occupational strata, as well as a steady decline in labor opportunities since 1988. paradoxically, in a society in which women’s participation in the labor force is less than men’s, women have experienced a substantial improvement in opportunities, followed by a significant drop, yet less so than in the case of men (cortés & escobar, 2005). this does not mean that the disparity in labor participation between men and women has disappeared, and rather, the authors attribute this increase in women’s participation to the fact that the female labor force is less expensive. currently, the differentiation between “male” and “female” occupations has become less clear, probably because women now have higher educational levels. examples of occupations that used to be typically female and are now also performed by men are cooks, hair stylists and nurses, to mention a few. and in the opposite case, that is, women performing occupations that were typically filled by men, two examples are police officers and business executives. the female labor force is less expensive since women accept lower wages for the same type of job. social mobility is closely associated with educational achievement, since higher education makes better wages possible. consequently, another way to study social mobility is through educational mobility. according to ordaz (2007), one of the factors that can drive social mobility is education, and thus even completing elementary education or better still, completing junior high education, makes a person less likely to suffer from food, skills or asset poverty. inter-generational comparisons showed that most mexican adults have more education than their parents. specifically, 68 percent of mexicans aged 30 to 64 have higher educational attainment, 27 percent have the same level and only 5 percent have less. according to the last census in 2010, 37.12 percent of the population with six years of age or more completed elementary school, 12.28 percent completed college, and approximately 1 percent has studied at the graduate level. the large part of the population falls between junior high and senior high school in their level of education. the average education of the population of 15 years of age or more in 2010 was 8.6 years, i.e., junior high (national institute of statistics and geography, 2011). although the proportion of individuals with extremely low educational attainment is declining, there is still a strong link between origin and educational destination. the relative likelihood of gaining access to higher education for different categories of social origin varies from 2 percent for those with parents with no schooling, to 70 percent for those with parents with higher education (fundación esru, 2008). comparatively speaking, inter-generational educational mobility is lower than in the united states but relatively high compared with other latin american countries (behrman, gaviria, & székely, 2001). this could be because educational services have become increasingly available in mexico during the last 50 years, and as a result, new generations are achieving higher levels of schooling. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 404 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an analysis of the 1998 retrospective demographic survey concludes that the educational expansion (understood as the increase in the population’s educational level as a result of public spending) that occurred during the so-called neoliberal transformation of the 1980s was not paralleled by an increase in labor opportunities. this means that intra-generational mobility towards better jobs and downward mobility increased, even for those with high educational attainment (parrado, 2005). this has been compounded by the fact that poverty, i.e., shortage of family income, forces children and teenagers of both sexes to obtain jobs that are largely characterized by precariousness, instability and low wages. moreover, these children and youth end up dropping out of school, ultimately reducing their opportunities for achieving upward social mobility as adults (piedra, 2007). the recent available data on social mobility in mexico, whether in the form of poverty reduction, or labor or educational mobility, suggest that it is stagnant. this situation is worrisome, considering that the literature suggests that social mobility increases the efficiency of society, social integration within the latter and social equity; while, on the other hand, an immobile society that fails to provide opportunities for persons from low socio-economic strata will not optimize the use of human resources or use all the available talent, thereby achieving a poor balance among its inhabitants (torche, 2008). in other words, the lack of mobility reduces social legitimacy and integration, perpetuates the unfair and undesirable influence of social origin in individual well-being and may therefore cause social conflict. it is thus important to study the factors that facilitate mobility. in this study, positive social mobility was considered to be poverty reduction, as measured in terms of individuals’ living conditions such as housing and available resources, during a period of time, or in other words, in intra-generational terms. since previous research has identified education as an important factor in poverty reduction, we analyzed inter-generational mobility, defined as the difference between parent and offspring education, considered separately. unlike other studies focused on the effects of socio-economic variables, such as unemployment, inflation and public spending on social mobility, the present study focused on the predictive power of psychosocial variables. certain individual characteristics, such as intelligence, achievement motivation, self-control, optimism, sense of humor, locus of control, and strategies for resolving problems and coping with stress, are considered to potentially facilitate social mobility, and thus the variables that have been empirically associated with these concepts were analyzed. in addition, it is predicted that educational mobility is determined by family and school conditions during childhood. consequently, the present study focused on the relative importance of parental styles in the family of origin, as well as factors associated with educational processes and school infrastructure, in predicting educational mobility. regarding the effect from the country’s structural mobility on the intra-generational mobility under study, it is important to consider the following aspects. this study focused on personal characteristics that affect individual mobility, not the country’s structural mobility. this study did not analyze the general population, but rather only one segment of the population, specifically those living in extreme poverty. all the participants in the study have in common the characteristic of being extremely poor when the initial measurement is taken. a secondmeasurement was taken three years later in order to observe social mobility. the country’s structural mobility is considered to affect all participants in a similar manner, and thus differences among the participants were attributed to their individual characteristics. in the case of inter-generational educational mobility, structural mobility was expected to have a greater influence, since younger generations have better educational opportunities. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 405 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychosocial variables associated with mobility for some authors, social mobility is related to individuals working harder, longer or more efficiently than others, although this effort may be affected by other factors such as those linked to the measurements and perceptions of the observers themselves (márquez, chong, duryea, & ñopo, 2008). it is therefore important to determine which variables are related to the extraordinary effort that drives mobility. within the psychosocial variables affecting social mobility, the positive effect of intelligence appears to be the same across the entire range of classes of origin and the entire scale of classes achieved. nettle (2003) found that intelligence was the strongest factor that has been identified as the reason behind class mobility in contemporary societies. nevertheless, the concept of intelligence is controversial. the debate on how to define intelligence began in the early years of the last century, and it continues today without any agreement reached. discussion of this matter is extensive and certainly beyond the scope of this article, however interested readers may consult the literature focusing on this topic. with respect to evaluating intelligence, most verbal measurements of intelligence are based on knowledge acquired through schooling, even though intelligence is not determined exclusively through schooling. in contrast, non-verbal measurements evaluate diverse facets of non-verbal intelligence, such as the processing of visual information, the speed of processing, spatial and non-verbal reasoning, and aspects of fluid intelligence (kellogg & morton, 2003). for this reason, and because individuals living in extreme poverty have very limited schooling, intelligence was measured in this study through a non-verbal standardized test, the beta iii test (kellogg & morton, 2003). the personality trait associated with the search for excellence is achievement motivation. the need for achievement can be defined as the desire and tendency to do things rapidly and to do the best possible, to better oneself, to surpass others, and to improve one’s self-concept by the successful use of one’s talent (deckers, 2009). according to revelle, wilt, and rosenthal (2010), the behavior of individuals who seek mastery is based on their own needs, and not on external demands; they attribute their success to their abilities; they demonstrate a greater degree of self-awareness; they tend toward self-actualization and ego development; their goals are learning-oriented; and they have great confidence in their own abilities and intelligence. another important trait is self-control, which refers to one’s capacity to ignore or inhibit impulses that are socially undesirable or unacceptable, and to modify and regulate one’s own behavior, thoughts and emotions (finkenauer, engels, & baumeister, 2005) in a way that involves conscious efforts to avoid or postpone certain behaviors. individuals with low self-control do not necessarily deviate from the norm, but simply have a stronger tendency toward risky behaviors. in addition, some research has shown that having an optimistic disposition is a strong predictor of successful adjustment to stressful situations and is related to positive adaptation (ben-zur, rappaport, ammar, & uretzky, 2000). one type of optimism is known as dispositional optimism, i.e., a disposition that encompasses expectations of generally positive results. when an individual has a positive disposition regarding the expectation of the fulfillment of his objectives, this boosts his motivation in terms of the amount of effort used to achieve them (ben-zur, 2003). a characteristic that is associated with optimism is a sense of humor, something that allows individuals to appreciate, create, and use humor in a vital way in their daily activities. a sense of humor has long been considered as a mechanism for confronting life’s problems. humor can be used in coping, and at the same time, it contributes to europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 406 http://www.psychopen.eu/ enhancing both physical and psychological well-being (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsch, 2004). it is also a self-protection and adaptation tool. at the same time, locus of control and coping strategies are useful tools for individuals’ adaptation (leontopoulou, 2006). in this respect, having an internal locus of control is linked to better coping skills, since individuals are certain they are making use of their own abilities (núñez chávez, 2003). an internal locus of control is also related to high efficiency, since individuals engage in problem-solving tasks as a means of increasing their opportunities of achieving goals and the possibilities of achieving a better standard of living (salas-auvert, 2008). the term resolving social problems refers to a self-directed, cognitive-behavioral process in which the person attempts to discover adaptive solutions to situations confronted in daily life, including interpersonal, family, community, labor and economic problems (vera-villarroel & guerrero, 2003). this resolution model is composed of a motivating element referred to as problem-oriented and also specific abilities and skills, including the definition and formulation of a problem, generation of alternatives for a solution, decision-making, implementation and verification (vera-villarroel & guerrero, 2003). on the other hand, worrying too much about problems may be associated with believing that difficulties cannot be resolved and negatively assessing one’s abilities for resolving problems (belzer, d’zurrilla, & maydeu-olivares, 2002). excessive worrying also prevents a positive orientation toward problems. thus, factors such as a lack of money, poorly remunerated employment and a less than promising future lead to a negative orientation toward problems, and consequently, to solutions that are less adaptive and less efficient. accordingly, it has been found that the main causes of the lack of social mobility in extremely poor populations are, on the one hand, victimization, since this limits the hope of success in the future, and on the other hand, an external locus of control. this tends to reinforce the idea that external factors influence the circumstances one lives in and encourages resignation (palomar-lever, 2005). thus, those who believe that social mobility depends on their personal efforts and skills are more likely to experience upward vertical social mobility than those that attribute it to the social setting in which they live (palomar-lever, 2006). the fact that the use of passive, emotional and evasive strategies for coping with stress are more common among persons living in conditions of poverty further reduces their outlook for success (palomar-lever & lanzagorta, 2005). other psychological variables that may have an effect on social mobility are emotional intelligence, depression, stress and religiosity, as well as factors in social and family environments. emotional intelligence involves processing that includes an assessment of one’s emotions and those of others, and their appropriate expression and adaptive regulation, and promotes intellectual and emotional growth (salovey, woolery, & mayer, 2001). some studies have pointed to predictive relationships between emotional intelligence and indicators of psychological well-being, life satisfaction and mental health (ciarrochi, chan, & caputi, 2000). for poor individuals, chronic stressors (such as serious financial difficulties, crowded housing, marital problems, continuous unemployment, mental illness in the family, and discrimination, to mention a few) represent situations that are constantly demanding and difficult to resolve, and this frequently generates high levels of depression and anxiety (willner, 2002). although depression is not exclusive to marginalized classes, when individuals feel poor or are poor, they are more susceptible to experiencing depressive disorders. this is because when individuals are poor, they are more likely to have fewer psychological resources for overcoming obstacles, and not only does this hinder moving up the social scale, but it can also lead to moving down the social scale (palomar-lever, 2006). szabó (2011) found that stress contributes to depression and anxiety, and the latter in turn generate stress, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 407 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thereby creating a vicious circle that is difficult to break. lastly, the situation of vulnerability generated by poverty can be identified as a risk factor that predisposes individuals to disorders involving stress, anxiety and depression. some research showed that there is an increase in the religious participation of persons undergoing a difficult event and that on the basis of this, they achieve emotional growth, prosper and find benefits, thereby producing a positive adjustment. thus, religiosity may increase the meaning of life, adaptation to difficulties and having a structured belief system (shaw, joseph, & linley, 2005). however, another study reported that for many individuals from low socio-economic strata in mexico, poverty is perceived as part of a divine plan beyond their control (garcía & corral-verdugo, 2010; székely, 1995). it is essential to determine whether religiosity acts as a factor that promotes social mobility or in fact hampers it. social groups use collaborative strategies that enable them to promote strength through a sense of collectivity or connectivity provided by everyday patterns of coexistence, which could be tools for encouraging upward social mobility (landau, 2005). in this respect, social groups might be expected to be a source of support and assistance. the environment in which a child grows up is also a very important factor, since an inadequate parenting style, the loss of family ties, poverty and other adversities all tend to compromise effective socialization, and may lead to limited self-control (de li, 2005). many of the reactions of parents living in poverty have a significant impact on their children’s quality of life. there is a risk that parents react to stress in their environment by demanding constant obedience, placing their trust in physical punishment, denying affection and failing to response to children’s needs. it is important to recognize the parenting practices immersed in these parenting styles, to then examine how the interaction between parents and offspring determine the development of children and adolescents. three basic strategies of parental control that are qualitatively different have been proposed: democratic, authoritarian and permissive strategies (mcginn, cukor, & sanderson, 2005). an authoritative style is positively correlated with appropriate cognitive and social functioning, high academic achievement, and high self-esteem and social competence, in comparison with individuals who come from authoritarian, neglecting families (zhou, eisenberg, wang, & reier, 2004). in short, the mechanism that is assumed to underlie individual variables associated with social mobility means that adequate self-esteem and an appropriate self-concept usually act as protective factors, since they strengthen the expectations of self-efficacy in coping with various situations, which affects the motivation to achieve, reducing the tendency towards fatalism and avoiding problems. ultimately, upward social mobility depends largely on solving everyday problems effectively. it would also be useful to determine the extent to which other variables such as a sense of humor and self-regulation affect social mobility, through their link with self-concept and problem solving. stress and depression, on the other hand, are cognitive and affective disturbances that hinder and even paralyze an individual’s efforts to resolve problems, making it important to consider the effect of such disturbances on social mobility. factors predicting educational mobility when factors associated with educational mobility are studied, it is necessary to explore the elements associated with “school backwardness” and school desertion, since these two variables are those preventing students from remaining in the educational system. in the mexican school system, students are required to repeat a school year, if they do not pass the first time. in this context, school backwardness means that a child has not accomplished his or her education in the expected time, due to repeating school years. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 408 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when, to the contrary, the conditions generated by school backwardness and school desertion are not present, students continue to advance through the school system and reach higher levels of educational attainment. according to some studies (e.g., muñoz, 2009), the educational attainment of the father, mother and brothers/sisters explains to a significant degree the academic performance of students, and their continuation in the school system. according to muñoz (2009), the educational attainment of the mother and brothers/sisters has a greater impact than the father’s educational attainment for students in rural schools. in contrast, the educational attainment of both parents has the same importance for students in urban schools. greater educational attainment on the part of parents favors the development of personality characteristics and attitudes that assist students in their own educational development, especially intellectual development. children’s intelligence is strongly determined by socioeconomic background and family environment, since it is determined to a significant degree by the nutritional status of these children. low nutritional levels and intellectual limitations in children will hinder their progress in school. school factors that have an impact on school achievement and work in favor of educational mobility include the quantity and quality of teacher interactions with students associated with basic pedagogic activities (correcting homework, reviewing and correcting exercises, conducting activities that stimulate children’s participation, and evaluating children’s abilities, skills and knowledge). some authors have been able to establish that children who live in low-economic contexts can confront situations of extreme adversity, and teachers can help them to establish appropriate relationships and affective bonds with others. this is particularly relevant when parental models are inadequate, since teachers can help students to resolve conflicts and compensate for deficiencies, and can provide the necessary support, including strategies for survival and for overcoming difficulties (namo de mello, 2005). seccombe (2002) explained that children benefit from their relationships with teachers when they are able to establish positive relationships with them, and when teachers serve as models, friends or confidants, providing a source of support for children (dass-brailsford, 2005; silas casillas, 2008). lastly, it is important to point out that school desertion occurs after diverse situations of school backwardness have already presented themselves. school backwardness is a phenomenon that finds fertile ground when students confront disadvantageous family, adverse personal and undesirable school factors. in fact extreme poverty is a breeding ground for these types of factors to come together, and the probabilities of school failure are enormously greater. consequently, when children or youth from low socioeconomic levels manage to achieve educational mobility and surpass their parents’ educational attainment, it can be assumed that their efforts to achieve this have also been enormous. the purpose of this study was to determine the psychosocial factors that can predict social mobility and educational mobility in persons living in conditions of extreme poverty. to this end, a survey was conducted of the beneficiaries of the oportunidades program. oportunidades is the government program for alleviating poverty, the mission of which is to help families living in extreme poverty to emerge from this situation, by providing direct support for health, nutrition, and education (de la torre, 2004). this program uses a measure of poverty known as the single score model (ssm) which is an index that summarizes demographic, educational, health, household equipment and regional location characteristics (regalia & robles, 2006), making it possible to distinguish those who are extremely poor from those who are not. it basically evaluates the poverty level of the program’s beneficiaries (de la torre, 2004). according to regalia and robles (2006), the ssm is effective in identifying the extremely poor households with precision; however, not europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 409 http://www.psychopen.eu/ all the extremely poor households are included in the program. one of the reasons is that the money transfer is conditioned on the child’s attendance at school and passing each school year, in the case of households with children. in the present survey, the effect of a broad range of personal, academic, familial, and social variables in the prediction of social and educational mobility was considered. in this survey household, social mobility was evaluated using the ssm, whereas educational mobility was measured as educational achievement in comparison with that achieved by parents. the main contribution made by this research is to better explain the impact of psychological variables on social mobility and therefore on improving the living conditions of the poorest, since studies on social mobility do not generally include psychological aspects and this topic is rarely addressed in psychological research. material and methods participants the sample was selected from a universe of 5,512 households that were active and had been admitted to oportunidades since 2002, the year when the application of the ssm began. households that were given an ssm score when they were admitted to the program and recertified three years later were selected from the list of beneficiaries. within this group, households were selected from seven of the 32 states in the country, from semi-urban and urban areas, half of which had no or negative mobility while the other half had positive mobility. in the end, 1,257 households were available, of which 700 were randomly selected, with 600 constituting the study sample and 100 constituting the replacement sample. a total of 603 households with 913 persons were interviewed, including 603 program beneficiaries and their spouses. a total of 65.2 percent of the respondents are women. averagemonthly family income is $2284 (sd=1408) mexican pesos, the average number of person living off the family income being 4.62 (sd=1.87), while the average number of children living off the family income is 1.67 (sd=1.56) children per household. a total of 29.1 percent of the sample have had no schooling, 28 percent have not finished elementary school, 21.6 percent have completed elementary school and 21.3 percent have had some instruction beyond elementary school. measures factorial reduced scales were used after having been previously validated on populations living in conditions of poverty, together with complete standardized scales for measuring the various constructs: intelligence (kellogg & morton, 2003), verbal comprehension (thurstone & thurstone, 1999), optimism (scheier, carver, & bridges, 2001), negative self-concept (goñi, ruiz de azúa, & rodríguez, 2005; rosenberg, 1965), depression (zung, 1965), stress (holmes & rae, 1967), locus of control (la rosa, 1986), motivation to achieve (la rosa, 1986), lack of self-regulation (evans, cullen, burton, dunaway, & benson, 1997;wiebe, 2006), problem-solving strategies (d’zurilla, nezu, & maydeu-olivares, 2002; heppner & petersen, 1982), coping styles (folkman & lazarus, 1985), emotional intelligence (bar-on, 1997), sense of humor (thorson & powell, 1993), resilience (connor & davidson, 2003; friborg, hjemdal, rosenvinge, & martinussen, 2003), religiosity (grulke et al., 2003; pargament, smith, koenig, & perez, 1998), parenting styles (arnold, o’leary, wolff, & acker, 1993; robinson, mandleco, olsen, & hart, 1995), social support (milburn, 1987; zimet, dahlem, zimet, & farley, 1988) and social identity (nario-redmond, biernat, eidelman, & palenske, 2004). the reliability data (cronbach’s alpha) for the scales or europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 410 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the factors of which they are comprised is provided in table 1. age, school grades and gregariousness, defined as the amount of time spent with a group, were also measured. table 1 shows only the scales and factors included in the regression analysis. some of the measured scales factors were excluded from the analysis because of multi-collinearity. table 1 psychometric properties of the instruments sdmαpevitemsscalefactor 8self-conceptnegative self-concept .62.092.83.6346 3optimismoptimism .59.123.74.8551 10self-regulationlack of self-regulation .60.611.89.5751 20depressiondepression .4212.3837.94 43stressstress .34.30.84 268intelligenceintellectual coefficient .639.9868.91 10problem solvingevasive impulsive .63.302.85.5517 7problem solvingstagnation .66.562.80.976 4locus of controlexternality .80.892.91.2950 5locus of controlinternality .59.273.85.1821 7copingdirect .55.842.82.0919 5copingdenial .54.083.84.6211 11emotional intelligenceimpulsivity .69.022.91.7514 7emotional intelligenceempathy .65.133.87.675 9emotional intelligenceinsecurity–insensibility .62.112.83.834 3emotional intelligencefaulty sense of reality .68.621.85.783 28religiositypositive religiosity .57.223.97.1949 4religiositynegative religiosity .80.302.77.487 9achievement motivationmastery .55.353.94.7548 4achievement motivationcompetitiveness .87.632.88.3220 9sense of humoursense of humor .61.782.89.7248 8resiliencesocial competency .66.962.90.185 6resiliencepersonal strength .60.083.84.394 5resiliencepersonal structure .59.093.83.813 50verbal skillsverbal comprehension .477.929.88 5parenting stylesauthoritative .85.742.88.8925 5parenting stylesauthoritarian .75.592.80.6123 4parenting stylespermissive .73.981.73.5211 12social supportsocial support .63.163.90.2351 3social supportfriends’ support .63.153.95.985 6social identitysocial identification .60.283.90.0563 8teacher–student relationshipsatisfaction with school .72.113.92.4634 7teacher–student relationshipadvice and emotional support .82.252.90.6816 5teacher–student relationshipnegative relationship .73.831.80.3312 note. pev = percentage of explained variance. α = cronbach’s alpha. social mobility was defined as the transition of an individual from one social position to another at a different level. in this study social mobility was measured according to the ssm scores on recertification three years later. the cut-off point for extreme poverty was .69, which divided the sample into two groups, those above the poverty line (ssm scores ≤ .69) and those below it (ssm scores > .69). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ educational mobility refers to the educational achievements of one generation in comparison to a previous generation of reference, or in other words, the comparison between the educational level of offspring and that of their parents. depending on the direction of the movement, educational mobility can be classified as upward or downward. in the first case, the transition is from a lower to a higher position, and in the second, from a higher to a lower position. educational mobility was measured by subtracting the average educational achievement of both parents from the respondent’s educational achievement. positive scores indicate greater educational progress on the children’s part. for this analysis, the following variables were measured: intelligence (kellogg & morton, 2003), teacher–student relationship (ang, 2005), and parenting styles (arnold et al., 1993; robinson et al., 1995). the reliability data (cronbach’s alpha) for the scales or the factors of which they are comprised is presented in table 1. school grades, the number of hours spent on homework and school infrastructure were also measured. infrastructure was measured by combining the scores of a factor comprising two questions: type of building and type of classroom where classes were taught at elementary school. high scores indicate better school conditions. with the exception of the intelligence tests and the socio-demographic questionnaire, the answer choices on the psychological scales were standardized to frequency, intensity or likert scales, where appropriate, with four points, from 1 to 4. the values of the items were added up and, with the exception of the depression scale, averaged. high values imply a greater presence of the characteristic measured. it is important to note that the instrument used to measure non-verbal intelligence was the beta iii (kellogg & morton, 2003), which is a standardized test. it was designed for the general population beginning at 16 years of age, for individuals who do not speak the language fluently, are illiterate or have language difficulties. the total application time is approximately 25 to 30 minutes. each sub-test has a time limit on responding. it is a self-applied test. the five sub-tests are: 1) coding, 2) picture completion, 3) clerical checking, 4) picture absurdities, and 5) matrix reasoning. as for the beta iii’s validity, it correlates to a significant extent with theweschler scale iii (wais) of intelligence for adults, and with raven’s progressive matrixes test, among others. general reliability is .91. the instrument used for measuring depression was developed by zung in 1965, and adapted to mexico by calderon (2001). the scale is designed to be self-applied or applied by an interviewer. it is a clinical questionnaire for diagnosing depression, and consists of 20 items that correspond to frequent symptoms of depression in adults. scores allow for classifying individuals as having “normal levels of depression” to having a “profile of severe depression.” according to the author, the scale’s reliability is .86. procedure the survey took approximately two months, after the interviewers had been trained. the interviews were individual, face-to-face and conducted in the homes of the respondents selected. in each case, the program beneficiary and his or her spouse were interviewed (with the exception of single or widowed beneficiaries or in the event that they were outside the locality). the interviews lasted approximately two hours, during which time the questionnaire was applied orally, or in other words, the interviewer read the questions to the respondents and wrote down their responses. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results according to the criterion used in the oportunidades program to determine the cut-off point for extreme poverty, the sample was divided into two groups according to their ssm scores, those above the poverty line and those below it. logistic regression was used to identify a set of variables that can predict belonging to either of these groups. a previous analysis allowed for excluding predictors with high collinearity. the correlation coefficients among the predictors included in the analysis have absolute values ranging from .000 to .348. the results indicate that the equation with variables can correctly classify 96.8 percent of those who did not rise above the poverty line, 21.1 percent of those who managed to rise above the poverty line and 77.4 percent of the total. approximate variance explanation is 17 percent, with a suitable goodness of fit. [x2(8) = 5.43, n = 425, p = .711]. according to the results, persons who are more likely to belong to the group that escaped from extreme poverty are persons who are older, tend to suffer less from depression, and have less external locus of control, fewer religious convictions, greater verbal comprehension and more social support. with everything else equal, the odds of belonging to the group that rose above the extreme poverty line increased by 3.5 percent for each additional year of life, by nearly 5 percent for each increased unit of verbal comprehension, and by 103 percent for each increased unit in the social support score. meanwhile, the odds of belonging to the group that rose above the extreme poverty line are reduced by 3 percent for each increased unit in the depression score, by 35 percent for each increased unit in the external locus of control score, and by 49 percent for each increased unit in the religiosity score. conversely, variables such as intelligence, optimism, sense of humor, self-concept, stress, self-regulation, motivation to achieve, problem solving strategies, emotional intelligence, resilience, social identity, sex, and average grades were not significant as predictors of social mobility (p > .051). table 2 shows the regression quotients, corrected exp (b) proportion ratios (odds ratios) and confidence intervals. at the same time, a multiple regression analysis to explain educational mobility included parents’ average educational attainment, age, sex, intelligence, teacher–student relationship, average grades, school conditions, time spent on homework, and parenting styles as predictors, and educational mobility as the criterion. a previous analysis allowed for excluding variables with collinearity. none of the variables included in the analysis surpassed a variance inflation factor (vif) of 2, indicative of multi-collinearity. the results indicate that the equation predicts 44.4 percent of the variance in educational mobility. the strongest predictors show that the lower the parents’ educational attainment, the greater the educational progress. moreover, those with higher iq scores, higher average grades, who spent more time on their homework and had less authoritarian parents also had greater educational mobility. conversely, variables such as the relationship with teachers, school conditions and gender, were not significant predictors of educational mobility (p > .08). furthermore, any relationship between social mobility and educational mobility is practically non-existent [r (840) = .037, p = .282]. regression and confidence intervals are shown in table 3. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 predictors of social mobility ci 95% exp(b)exp(b)bscalepredictor –age , 1.060]**[1.011.0351.034 –sex(1) , 2.748][.917.5881.462 self-conceptnegative self-concept , 1.384][.514.843.170optimismoptimism , 1.966][.622.1061.101 self-regulationlack of self-regulation , 2.393][.795.3801.322 depressiondepression , .996]*[.942.969.032stressstress , 4.292][.944.0132.699 intelligenceintellectual coefficient , 1.010][.947.978.023problem solvingevasive impulsive , 1.573][.539.921.083problem solvingstagnation , 2.099][.809.3031.265 locus of controlexternality , .953]*[.442.649.432locus of controlinternality , 2.464][.727.3381.291 copingdirect , 1.925][.622.0941.090 copingdenial , 1.806][.655.0871.084 emotional intelligenceimpulsivity , 2.331][.885.4361.362 emotional intelligenceempathy , 1.542][.604.965.035emotional intelligenceinsecurity–insensibility , 1.463][.506.860.150emotional intelligencefaulty sense of reality , 1.939][.775.2251.203 religiositypositive religiosity , .918]*[.281.508.677religiositynegative religiosity , 1.847][.851.2541.226 achievement motivationmastery , 1.407][.404.754.282achievement motivationcompetitiveness , 1.697][.875.2181.198 sense of humoursense of humor , 1.481][.598.941.061resiliencesocial competency , 1.977][.735.2051.186 resiliencepersonal strength , 1.289][.413.729.316resiliencepersonal structure , 2.650][.753.4131.346 verbal skillsverbal comprehension , 1.098]*[1.001.0481.047 –school grades , 1.016][.999.0071.007 parenting stylesauthoritative , 1.339][.750.0021.002 parenting stylesauthoritarian , 1.755][.854.2241.202 parenting stylespermissive , 1.243][.577.847.166groups affiliationgregariousness , 1.000][.974.987.013social supportsocial support , 3.773]*[1.094.0322.709 social supportfriends’ support , 1.585][.646.0121.012 social identitysocial identification , 1.295][.494.799.224–––r2 nagelkerke .172 note. n = 425. ci = confidence interval. sex: feminine = 0, masculine = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 3 predictors of educational mobility ci 95% bbscalepredictor –parental educational attainment , -.705]***[-.931.818–age , -.025]***[-.069.047–sex , .810][-.044.383 intelligenceintellectual coefficient , .127]***[.078.103 –school grades , .057]**[.009.033 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 414 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ci 95% bbscalepredictor teacher–student relationshipsatisfaction with school , .329][-.347.009teacher–student relationshipadvice and emotional support , .106][-.463.179teacher–student relationshipnegative relationship , .002][-.609.303parenting stylesauthoritative , .291][-.250.021 parenting stylesauthoritarian , -.009]*[-.619.314parenting stylespermissive , .415][-.248.084 –school conditions , .415][-.007.204 –time dedicated to homework , .142]**[.029.085 ––r2 adjusted .444 ––f .93***22 note. n = 319. ci = confidence interval. sex: feminine = 0, masculine = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the present study sought to contribute elements that will develop knowledge of the aspects of individuals and their environments that favor educational and social mobility, with the understanding that the latter is determined to a great extent by the capacities of individuals to take advantage of opportunities, overcome adversities and function in a healthy manner, despite the violent or threatening conditions in which they live. these capacities of individuals make it possible to achieve successful results through programs such as oportunidades, which is aimed at improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable population and moving out of extreme poverty. this study has analyzed the relative influence of a set of personal, family, scholastic and social variables on both social and educational mobility. the results indicate that personal (depression, external locus of control, religiosity, verbal comprehension), social (social support) and demographic variables (age) are important for social mobility, whereas parents’ educational attainment, and demographic (age), personal (intelligence), scholastic (time dedicated to homework) and familial (authoritarian parenting style) variables are significant in educational mobility. age is the only variable that has a significant effect on both types of mobility, however inversely. those who are older experience greater social mobility and those younger experience greater educational mobility. one of the predictors regarding social mobility is depression, which is understandable, since one of the characteristics of depression is paralysis of the will (beck & alford, 2009), which prevents the motivation and effort required to accumulate assets and resources that characterize social mobility. a tendency to attribute control to external causes decreases the likelihood of belonging to the group that managed to rise above the poverty line. this result is consistent with others that associate poverty with a trend towards an external locus of control (palomar-lever, 2005). religiosity also decreases the likelihood of belonging to the group that rose above the poverty line. this is consistent with other studies documenting a certain propensity to assume poverty as destiny and to leave life in the hands of divine will (garcía & corral-verdugo, 2010; székely, 1995), which reflects an inclination to have an external locus of control. within the variables that promote social mobility, social support increases the likelihood of belonging to the group that emerged from poverty. this suggests that mobilizing social resources in the event of difficulty enables persons to progress economically. however, it involves depending on others to resolve difficulties. also, greater verbal europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 415 http://www.psychopen.eu/ skills increase the possibilities for social mobility, suggesting that when individuals are able to better use language, they can take advantage of opportunities that will benefit them economically. lastly, the positive effect of age suggests that older persons make better use of available resources, thereby increasing their possibilities of social mobility. as for educational mobility, the fact that lower educational attainment on the parents’ part predicts greater mobility is linked to the fact that it is easier for offspring to exceed their parents’ level of schooling if the latter's educational attainment is low. it is also evident that the younger generations have had greater opportunities to study more. this last result is consistent with the educational expansion observed in mexico (fundación esru, 2008), as well as census data showing a constant increase in mexicans’ average educational attainment (national institute of statistics and geography, 2007). at the same time, the positive effect of intelligence, academic competence and time spent on homework on educational mobility is understandable, since all these factors encourage a person to remain within the education system and to continue moving up through it, thereby promoting educational progress. the effect of parenting styles is somewhat less expected. an authoritarian parenting style would seem to hamper educational progress. however, unlike other results that suggest that the authoritative style encourages meticulousness, which in turn fosters academic performance (heaven & ciarrochi, 2008), in this study, an authoritative parenting style was not observed to have a significant effect on educational mobility. since an authoritative parenting style tends to be more prevalent among people with a higher education -which was not the case with this sampleit is possible that an authoritative parenting style was very uncommon, and therefore has insufficient explanatory power. no gender difference in educational mobility was observed, suggesting that both women and men are advancing in the educational sphere. this result is consistent with census data from 1960 to 2005, showing relatively similar average educational attainment by gender, with a half year advantage for men (national institute of statistics and geography, 2007). it is interesting that in the prediction of social mobility, half of the quotients are negative; thereby showing the characteristics a person should not have if he or she wishes to achieve social mobility. the prediction is much better for the group of poor persons as a whole than for the group that rose above the poverty line, according to the measurement used by oportunidades. poverty is more effectively explained as being dependent on factors such as depression, external locus of control and religiosity, which contribute to increasing it and on verbal comprehension, social support and age, which contribute to reducing it. it is also noteworthy that parenting style is a significant predictor in educational mobility. this underlines the importance of the family of origin, particularly child-raising styles, as a transmitter of behavior models that have a subsequent effect on the individual's life. in contrast, the low influence of intelligence is striking, since it was considered to be an important factor in class mobility (nettle, 2003). this study makes it possible to identify predictors of social and educational mobility, by taking into account a wide array of personal, scholastic, familial and social variables. one of the limitations of this analysis, however, is that it is limited to persons in extreme poverty included in the government support program. one should also consider the fact that only a small number of mexican states were included in the study sample. the results obtained can therefore not be generalized to other persons in extreme poverty who are not in the program nor can they be generalized to the beneficiaries of the program in states other than those sampled. this analysis would have to be extended to a national sample to determine the extent to which the relations found still hold. while the number europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of households and individuals interviewed can be considered high enough for making generalizations, caution is recommended. as mentioned earlier, the selection of cases was random, but the list from which cases were selected only included households with recertification scores, and did not include rural communities. this limits the generalization of results to only non-rural households that are beneficiaries of the oportunidades program in the seven mexican states included from 2002 to the time interviews were conducted, and to households in which an economic assessment was conducted, and through which a recertification score was obtained. identifying and measuring the personal and social characteristics associated with educational and social mobility may assist those who formulate policies in determining what should be taught, improved or promoted in individuals considered to be at high risk (e.g. those extremely poor). in this case the formulation of social policies would be directed toward the objective of facilitating, shaping or promoting individual and environmental characteristics that are associated with educational and social mobility. in other words, strategies for building capacities in overcoming poverty should be implemented, by adding new and perhaps previously under-used protective factors to the repertoire of resources. such efforts should be focused on at least four levels: individual, school, family and community (ebrahim, heller, & reynolds, 2009; varis & keskinen, 2003). some examples of channels of intervention at the four levels could include: programs focused on improving family relationships and parenting styles (e.g. establishing limits for children, ways for parents who are separated to become involved in their children’s education, ways to prevent familial violence), programs focused on reaching agreements (conflict resolution and communication skills), programs that assist 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(1965). a self-rating depression scale. archives of general psychiatry, 12, 63-70. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1965.01720310065008 about the authors joaquina palomar-lever, obtained her phd in psychology at the national autonomous university of mexico (the program is registered at the excellence’s programs of the national counsel of science and technology in mexico). currently she is a professor at the psychology department of the iberoamerican university in mexico city. amparo victorio-estrada, studied psychology at the national autonomous university of mexico and obtained her doctoral degree in natural sciences at the university of cologne, germany. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 402–422 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.447 predictors of social and educational mobility 422 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199301)49:1<13::aid-jclp2270490103>3.0.co;2-s http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0790062032000089374 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10683160500254953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.40.3.352 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1965.01720310065008 http://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of social and educational mobility social mobility psychosocial variables associated with mobility factors predicting educational mobility material and methods participants measures procedure results discussion references about the authors are differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition due to the use of different cognitive strategies? research reports are differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition due to the use of different cognitive strategies? catherine brandner*a, cédric devauda [a] laboratory for the experimental research in behavior (lerb), institute of psychology, university of lausanne, lausanne, switzerland. abstract a recursive hypothesis suggests that gender differences in spatial abilities, including mental rotation tasks, are the result of differences in the strategies that men and women use to process information. to address this issue, we systematically explored men and women’s performance for rotated patterns by assessing recognition, confidence rating and response time, thought to be fundamental to spatial processing, with classical methods, and with signal detection theory (sdt) parameters (d-prime and c-bias). among our findings, we highlight d-prime as the most robust parameter to assess gender differences and predict group membership. furthermore, we conclude that better performance by men is due to their strategy of transforming a mental rotation task into a simpler task comparing the alignment of test stimuli to the surrounding experimental environment. keywords: sex differences, visuo-spatial cognition, discrimination, mental rotation, visual sensitivity, clockwise and counterclockwise rotations europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 received: 2013-04-06. accepted: 2013-07-16. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: lerb, ip, ssp faculty, anthropole, ch-1015 lausanne, switzerland. e-mail: catherine.brandner@unil.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the basic mechanisms supporting spatial ability have received a great deal of attention from experimental psychologists (nyborg, 1983; smith & chatterjee, 2008; tommasi, chiandetti, pecchia, sovrano, & vallortigara, 2012). amongst their many findings, consistent gender differences in tasks requiring manipulations and transformations of geometric figures and forms like mental rotation tasks, remain one of the most intriguing (for reviews, see coluccia & louse, 2004; linn & petersen, 1985; voyer, postma, brake, & imperato-mcginley, 2007; voyer, voyer, & bryden, 1995). when considering the potential factors thought to support gender differences in spatial abilities, including mental rotation tasks, a recursive general hypothesis suggests that they are the result of differences in the strategies used to process information. however, since strategy differences are directly related to underlying cognitive functions, we define here the various cognitive functions thought to influence performance in mental rotation tasks. performance on mental rotation tasks may be influenced by gender differences in information processing. mental rotation tasks based on comparison – where participants are asked to decide whether a pair of objects are identical or not – show consistent performance differences in favour of men. findings from these kinds of tasks are the basis for the hypothesis that men employ a holistic, global approach to mental rotation in which they rotate europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the entire stimulus as a whole and then compare it to the target, whereas women employ a local, piecemeal approach in which individual features or parts are rotated and compared separately, piece by piece, to the target (e.g., heil & jansen-osmann, 2008; kail, carter, & pellegrino, 1979; rilea, 2008). investigations varying the number of figures that subjects need to match have provided additional data regarding the different strategies that men and women use. these studies suggest that men rely more on a match-jump strategy: for example, once men have identified the matching target, they jump to the next problem without verifying the remaining stimuli, which presumably do not match, and thus progress through the test more quickly and have a chance to respond to more questions. in contrast, women tend to match every single figure to the target, even after identifying a match, and thus do not advance through the test as quickly, and often are unable to finish tests that have a fixed time limit (e.g., glück & fabrizii, 2010; hirnstein, bayer, & hausmann, 2009). in addition to a slower speed of responding, examination of the relations between self-reported confidence, performance and guessing behavior on mental rotation tasks indicates that men have a more accurate perception of their performance and were significantly more confident in their responses than women (e.g., blough & slavin, 1987; cooke-simpson & voyer, 2007; delgado & prieto, 1996; goldstein, haldane, &mitchell, 1990). this difference in confidence betweenmen and women was similarly observed using self-assessment questionnaires of orientation skills (coluccia & louse, 2004; schmitz, 1997), as well as in a study of exploratory behaviour (brandner, 2007). performance on mental rotation tasks may be influenced by differences in the reference frame used by men and women. the differences between men’s and women’s use of global vs. local strategies have also been shown in experimental studies of orientation and navigation. for example, studies have shown that men’s use of a euclidean strategy improved their performance (e.g., astur, tropp, sava, constable, & markus, 2004; moffat, hampson, & hatzipantelis, 1998; sandstrom, kaufman, & huettel, 1998) whereas positional or landmarks strategies improved the performance of women (e.g., astur et al., 2004; levy, astur, & frick, 2005; saucier et al., 2002). further examination of the correlations among spatial abilities has revealed a significant relationship between mental rotation ability and the ability to use euclidean information. however no similar significant relationship has been observed with the ability to use landmark information (astur et al., 2004; saucier et al., 2002). performance on mental rotation tasks may be influenced by differences in spatial perception. if men do employ a global strategy based on euclidean information, then the difference between sexes might result from differences in the perception of the vertical and horizontal axes of the figures. it has been shown that, compared with men, women are worse at judging where the water level should come to rest in a titled container, and less good at judging the gravitational vertical position of a rod inside a tilted frame (e.g., linn & petersen, 1985; robert & ohlmann, 1994). the perceptual influence of coordinate axes was also shown in a paper and pencil task that required estimating the position and orientation of target lines by matching each to an identical line from a semicircular array of choices. the performance difference (approaching the magnitude of that observed on the mental rotations test) in favour of men has been correlated with the use of the vertical and horizontal axes of the page frame (collaer & nelson, 2002). finally, performance on mental rotation tasks may be influenced by gender differences in memory. if women do indeed employ a local approach in which individual features or parts are rotated and compared separately, then the differences between sexes might result from the differing amounts of information necessary to encode and hold in memory (i.e., memory load) when using global versus local strategies. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 608 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it has been argued that better spatial performance in men (as compared to women) is due to a larger visuospatial working memory (coluccia & louse, 2004 for an overview). although, depending on the study, researchers have found sex differences in favour of both women and men in spatial working memory (e.g., duff & hampson, 2001; vecchi & girelli, 1998), these studies did not show a specific relationship between working memory and spatial ability. other investigations suggested that a small but significant female advantagemay exist for general episodic memory (e.g., andreano & cahill, 2009; herlitz, nilsson, & bäckman, 1997; herlitz & rehnman, 2008). for instance, episodic memory has been shown to vary as a function of gender and the type of material to be remembered. women performed at a higher level than men when remembering words, objects, faces, and object positions while men outperformed women when remembering routes both with and without environmental information (herlitz & rehnman, 2008). although these spatial tasks support the general hypothesis that gender differences in performance are the result of differences in the strategies used to process information, they are not equivalent and therefore probably do not assess the same abilities in the same way. thereby, the difficulty to get a clear picture of what really differs with respect to spatial abilities between men and women remains. a key step might be to clarify how cognitive functions affect information processing, and thus influence strategies. onemanner to approach the problem is to distinguish cognitive processes thought to be fundamental to spatial abilities (e.g., usher & mcclelland, 2001; van zandt, 2000; yonelinas & parks, 2007) and to test them systematically. to this end, we have developed a task that requires participants to discriminate between memorized targets and lure geometric patterns that had been rotated in a clockwise or counterclockwise manner. gender differences in discrimination performance, response time and confidence rating were analysed. in addition, we used signal detection theory (sdt) to dissociate a sensitivity parameter (d-prime) involved in the discrimination process from a response criterion parameter involved in the decision-making process (c-bias) (green & swets, 1966). finally, discriminant function analyses were used to determine the set of variables that allowed us the highest level of discrimination between the two genders. methods participants participants were 30 right-handed volunteers (15 males and 15 females) recruited from the campus of the university of lausanne (switzerland). the age range was between 18 and 30 years. after having obtained extensive study information, participants provided written informed consent prior to beginning the study. the study was approved by the local ethics committee, and the nih guidelines for the use of human participants in research were respected. stimuli an original 2-d visual stimuli was created by combining three black, two-dimensional geometric shapes (square, circle and hexagon) of about 13 mm2 each (figure 1.a) using the e-prime software (version 1/2, psychology software tools, inc) and displayed on an ibm pentium 100 mhz computer equipped with 16 mb of ram and a 14-inch monitor. the square and the circle were aligned on the y-axis while the hexagon was placed 35° below the x-axis. three additional target stimuli (s) were created by three 90° trigonometric rotations of the y-axis. these four stimuli (s1, s2, s3, s4) were used as target-preserved canonical references with both a vertical (s1 and s3) and a horizontal (s2 and s4) dimension (figure 1.a). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 609 http://www.psychopen.eu/ twenty-four additional non-target stimuli were created by counterclockwise (ccw) and clockwise (cw) rotations of the canonical references axes of each target stimulus according to three amplitudes (10°, 20°, 30°, figure 1.b). figure 1. a. the 4 target stimuli of the learning phase. b. the 24 non-target stimuli of the discrimination phase. procedure instructions were given to each participant in written form displayed on the screen and were followed by 16 training trials with 4 similar targets but with different geometric shapes to familiarize the participants with the task. this training was followed by the learning phase where participants were asked to memorize each of the four target stimuli, displayed sequentially in the following order: s1, s2, s3, s4, presented for 5000 ms and followed by a blank screen for 3000 ms (figure 2). the learning phase was immediately followed by a discrimination phase where participants attempted to discriminate as quickly and as accurately as possible, the targets from the rotated lure stimuli according to a "yes or no" forced-choice paradigm (yes = target; no = rotated lure). each participant received 112 trials (16 target and 96 lure stimuli), and target and lure stimuli were randomly presented. the display remained visible until the participant responded and response was followed by a 1000 ms blank screen, which was then followed by a screen asking participants to assess their level of self-confidence (from 0% “do not know” to 100% “absolutely sure”) by clicking on the mouse with their right hand. after participants had rated their self-confidence, another blank screen would appear for 1000 ms, followed immediately by another stimulus presentation. participants were not given any feedback regarding their performance during the task. results global performance a one-way anova on the proportion of correct recognition revealed a statistically significant effect of gender (f [1, 28] = 4.62, p = .04; η2 = .14). as compared to women, men more often correctly identified target and lure stimuli (women: m = 0.74, se = 0.04; men: m = 0.89, se = 0.03; 95% ci [-0.29, -0.01]). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 610 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. a. outline of the learning phase. b. outline of the discrimination phase. in contrast, neither the average confidence rating (f [1, 28] = 2.69, p = .11; women: m = 0.76, se = 0.01; men: m = 0. 85, se = 0.01; 95% ci [-20.17, -2.22]) nor the correct response time across responses (f [1, 28] = 1.98, p = .17; women:m = 2861.62, se = 263.47; men:m = 2340.265, se = 260.27; 95% ci [-237.26, 1279.98]) differed between men and women (figure 3.a). figure 3. a. correct recognition (r), confidence rating (c), and correct response time (rt) during the discrimination phase. b. visual sensitivity and response criterion calculated on the full set of stimuli. a multivariate anova on d-prime and c-bias calculated on the full set of stimuli (figure 3.b) revealed a higher dprime for men as compared to women (f [1, 28] = 8.42, p = .01, η2 = .23; men: m = .28, se = .13; women: m = europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 611 http://www.psychopen.eu/ .13, se = .14; 95% ci [-2.54, -0.44]) while no difference between men and women was observed in c-bias (f [1, 28] = .75, p = .39; men: m = .19, se = .34; women: m = .33, se = .48; 95% ci [-0.18, 0.44]). assessment of gender differences as a function of targetand lure-specific performance as our task differed from the traditional tasks of mental rotation because it required both reference memory (learning phase) and working memory (discrimination phase), the responses of participants to target and lure stimuli were analyzed separately. target stimuli (s1, s2, s3 and s4)— the averages for correct recognition, confidence rating and correct response time across responses for each target stimuli, s1, s2, s3 and s4, were respectively subjected to 2-way repeated measures (s1-s4) anovas with a between–subject factor of “gender” and the mean of each of the dependent variables. across all target stimuli, recognition memory did not differ (f [3, 84] = .50, p = .69). nevertheless, recognition of the target stimuli was statistically significantly better for men than for women (f [1, 28] = 9.17, p = .01 ; η2 = .25; 95% ci, [-0.45, -0.09]) while no statistically significant interaction between gender and target stimuli (f [3, 84] = .97, p = .41) was observed (table 1). table 1 correct recognition (r), confidence rating (cr) and correct response time (rt) by women and men for each target stimuli (s1, s2, s3, s4) standard errormean rtcrrrtcrrtarget women (n = 15) s1 .84472.050.100.723545.770.600 s2 .30248.050.090.693016.790.720 s3 .41387.040.120.642672.770.530 s4 .34536.040.100.993317.770.630 men (n = 15) s1 .10339.040.070.402203.810.880 s2 .10339.040.070.372621.850.880 s3 .70292.040.050.752139.810.920 s4 .03223.040.070.032393.800.880 the same analysis on the average confidence rating (target stimuli: f [3, 84] = 1.94, p = .13; gender: f [1, 28] = .46, p = .50; target x gender: f [3, 84] = .28, p = .84) and on the average correct response time (target stimuli: f [3, 60] = .58, p = .63; gender: f [1, 20] = 2.78, p = .11; target x gender: f [3, 60] = 1.16, p = .34) revealed no other statistically significant difference (table 1). lure simuli — a 2-way anovawith multiple repeated measures (stimulus orientation s1-s4 x direction of rotation cw-ccw x amplitude of rotation 10°-30° x gender) for the average percentage of correct recognition revealed no statistically significant main effect (gender: f [1, 28] = 2.96, p = .10; stimulus orientation: f [3, 84] = .94, p = .42; direction of rotation: f [1, 28] = .01, p = .93; amplitude of rotation: f [2, 56] = .92, p = .40). this analysis did, however, detect a statistically significant interaction between gender and the direction of rotation (f [1, 28] = 5.95, p = .02, η2 = .18) as well as between gender, the stimulus orientation and the direction of rotation (f [3, 84] = 4.4, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 612 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p = .01, η2 = .14). pairwise comparisons of the interaction between gender and the direction of rotation revealed a male advantage over females in the correct recognition of lure stimuli that were rotated in a clockwise direction (f [1, 28] = 4.87, p = .04, η2 = .15; women: m = 0.74, se = 0.05; men: m = 0. 91, se = 0.05; 95% ci, [-0.32, 0.01]) whereas no difference between genders was detected in the counterclockwise direction of rotation (f [1, 28] = 1.31, p = .26; women: m = 0.78, se = 0.05; men: m = 0. 87, se = 0.05). pairwise comparisons of the interaction between gender, the stimulus orientation and the direction of rotation revealed that women’s identification was poorer for the lure stimuli derived from target stimuli 1 and 2 and rotated in the clockwise direction (s1: f [1, 28] = 5.50, p = .03, η2 = .16; women: m = 0.78, se = 0.07; men: m = 0. 94, se = 0.03; 95% ci, [-0.32, -0.02]; s2: f [1, 28] = 5.90, p = .022, η2 = .17; women: m = 0.63, se = 0.10; men: m = 0. 90, se = 0.04; 95% ci, [-0.50, -0.04]) and for those derived from target stimuli 4 rotated in the counterclockwise direction (f [1, 28] = 4.52, p = .042, η2 = .14; women: m = 0.67, se = 0.10; men: m = 0. 90, se = 0.05; 95% ci, [-0.46, -0.01]). the same analysis on the average confidence rating across responses revealed no statistically significant main effect of gender (f [1, 28] = 3.03, p = .09), stimulus orientation (f [3, 84] = 1.18, p = .32) or direction of rotation (f [1, 28] = 3.13, p = .09), but a statistically significant effect of amplitude of rotation (f [2, 56] = 4.98, p = .01, η2 = .15). pairwise comparisons between the amplitudes of rotation revealed less confidence in the recognition of lure stimuli rotated by 10° as compared to lure stimuli rotated 20° and 30° (10° vs. 20° p = .012; 95% ci, [-4.07, -0.54]; 10° vs. 30° p = .041; 95% ci, [-4.02, -0.09], table 2). table 2 confidence rating by women and men for each amplitude of rotation standard errormean menwomenmen (n = 15)women (n = 15)amplitude 0.040.040.840.7410° 0.040.040.860.7720° 0.040.040.860.7630° this analysis did not detect statistically significant interactions between gender, stimulus orientation and direction of rotation. the same analysis on the mean correct response time revealed no statistically significant main effect of gender (f [1, 21] = .41, p = .53), stimulus orientation (f [3, 63] = .91, p = .44), amplitude of rotation (f [2, 42] = 1.40, p = .26), or direction of rotation (f [1, 21] = 80, p = .38). this analysis did not detect statistically significant interactions between gender, stimulus orientation and direction of rotation. a manova on d-prime and c-bias calculated on clockwise and counterclockwise lures, respectively, revealed a statistically significant effect of gender for d-prime in both the clockwise condition (f [1, 28] = 12.00, p = .002, η2 = .30; women: m = 1.14, se = .40; men: m = 2.82, se = .281; 95% ci, [-2.67, -0.69]) and the counterclockwise (f [1, 28] = 6.19, p = .02, η2 = .18; women: m = 1.43, se = .33; men m = .2.62, se = .34; 95% ci, [-2.17, -0.21]) conditions. no gender effect was observed for c-bias in the clockwise condition (f [1, 28] = .03, p = .87, women: m = .22, se = .13; men: m = .19, se = .08) whereas a gender effect was nearly statistically significant for c-bias in the counterclockwise condition (f [1, 28] = 3.88, p = .06, η2 = .12; women: m = .37, se = .11; men: m = .10, se = .08; 95% ci, [-0.01, 0.55], figure 4.a). further paired comparisons between men and women revealed a statistically significant improvement in the women’s sdt parameters in the counterclockwise condition (d-prime/ceurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 613 http://www.psychopen.eu/ bias cw vs. ccw t(14) = -2.30, p = .04; 95% ci, [-0.57, -0.02]) due to a decrease in their false alarm rate (figure 5.a) whereas no statistically significant difference was observed for men (d-prime/c-bias cw vs. ccw t(14) = 1.56, p = .14; 95% ci, [-0.07, 0.46]; figure 4.b). figure 4. a. d-prime and c-bias values calculated on clockwise and counterclockwise subsets of stimuli. b. fa: false alarm; cr: correct rejection. discriminating between genders— discriminant function analyses were used to determine the set of variables that allowed for the best discrimination between genders and also to evaluate the extent to which multiple predictor variables were related to group membership (i.e., women vs. men). they were performed on the full set of target stimuli, as well as on the subsets of clockwise (+10 °, +20 °, +30 °) and counterclockwise (-10 °, -20 °, -30 °) rotated lure stimuli, respectively. predictor variables were d-prime, c-bias, recognition, confidence rating and correct response time. on the full set of stimuli, analyses showed significant mean differences for d-prime (f [1, 28] = 8.42, p = .08) and recognition (f [1, 28] = 4.64, p = .04) whereas no difference was observed for the remaining variables (c-bias: f [1, 28] = .75, p = .39; confidence rating: f [1, 28] = 2.70, p = .11; correct response time: f[1, 28] = 1.98, p = .18). box’s m indicated that the assumption of equality of covariance matrices was respected (m: 24.97, f (15,3156.63) = 1.34, p = .17) despite the small sample. the discriminate function analysis revealed that the association between groups and all predictors failed to be statistically significant (χ2: 9.82, p = .08) and accounted for only 32% of the variability between men and women. this might be due to the fact that the d-prime score (.800) had the largest load of the function while the other variables were poor predictors. the cross validated classification showed that overall, 67% of the cases were correctly classified (figure 5.a). the same analysis performed on the subset of clockwise–rotated lure stimuli yielded similar results: (d-prime (f [1, 28] = 12.04, p = .002; recognition (f [1, 28] = 9.17, p = .005; c-bias: f [1, 28] = .30, p = .87; confidence rating: f [1, 28] = 3.48, p = .07; correct response time: f [1, 28] = .94, p = .34). the discriminate function analysis between groups and all predictors (χ2: 10.92, p = .05) was almost statistically significant, but accounted for 34% of the variability between men and women, and 73% of cases were correctly classified (figure 5.b). finally, the discriminate function analysis performed on the subset of counterclockwise-rotated lure stimuli revealed a statistically significant association between groups and all predictors (χ2: 12.95, p = .02), accounting for 40% of the variability between men and women. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 614 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this result was due to changes in the structure matrix where the significance of the d-prime predictor decreased (.58) and that of c-bias increased (-.46), whereas the other predictors remained weak. accordingly, the correctly classified cases increased to 73% (figure 5.b). figure 5. distribution of the discriminant function scores and box plots for: a. full set of stimuli; b. the clockwise and c. counterclockwise subsets of stimuli. experiment 2 although one would assume that our task should be solved by performing a mental rotation of the target and/or lure stimuli, it is also possible that participants solve the task by simply noticing and remembering the alignment of the geometrical axes of the target stimuli. for example, all 4 target stimuli had the central circle and distal square aligned on either a vertical axis (i.e., at 0° for target s1 and at 180° for s3) or a horizontal axis (i.e., at europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 615 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 270° for s2 and 90° for s4). the cardinal alignments of the target stimuli may be particularly salient as participants can compare the axes of the stimuli with the frame of the computer screen that is visible in all trials (collaer & nelson, 2002). thus, in order to solve the task, participants only needed to have recognized that the target stimuli always had a circle and a square that aligned with one of the four cardinal axes, and then determine whether for the presented stimuli the square and circle aligned with a cardinal axis: if yes, the stimuli is a target stimulus; if no, the stimulus is a lure stimulus. we thus tested participants using a new boomerang-shaped stimulus as a target in order to further investigate this possibility (figure 6). figure 6. a. the 4 boomerang-shaped target stimuli of the learning phase. b. the 24 non-target stimuli of the discrimination phase. importantly, the arms of the stimulus never aligned with cardinal axes. non-target stimuli were created by counterclockwise (ccw) and clockwise (cw) rotations of this target stimulus at two different amplitudes (5° and 10°, figure 2). immediately following the testing with the four target stimuli (s1-s4) and their lures, participants were tested with the boomerang-shaped stimuli (figure 6) following the exact same procedure. each participant received 24 trials (8 target and 16 lure stimuli), and target and lure stimuli were randomly presented. boomerang-shaped stimuli global performance — separate one-way anovas on the proportion of correct recognition (f [1, 28] = .06, p = .80; η2 = .002, women: m = 0.81, se = 0.05; men: m = 0.79 se = 0.07), the average confidence rating (f [1, 28] = .05, p = .83; η2 = .002; women: m = 0.72, se = 0.03; men: m = 0.70, se = 0.05) and the correct response time (f [1, 28] = .07, p = .79; η2 = .003, women: m = 2461,88, se = 292.14; men: m = 2574.43, se = 292.14) revealed no statistically significant effect of gender (figure 7.a). a multivariate anova on d-prime and c-bias calculated on the full set of boomerang stimuli (figure 7.b) revealed no effect of gender for d-prime (f [1, 28] = .05, p = .83, η2 = .002) or c-bias (f[1, 28] = .002, p = .97, η2 = .0001). lure stimuli — a 2-way anova with multiple repeated measures (direction of rotation cw-ccw x amplitude of rotation 5°-10°x gender) for the average percentage of correct recognition revealed no statistically significant main effect of gender (f [1, 28] = .0001, p = .99) nor of direction of rotation (f [1, 28] = 1.64, p = .21) but a statistically significant main effect of amplitude of rotation (f [1, 28] = 25.70, p = .0001; η2 = .48; cw:m = .36, se = .04; ccw: m = .65, se = .04; 95% ci, [-.41, -.17]). this analysis did not detect statistically significant interactions between gender and the direction of rotation (f [1, 28] = .01, p = .92) nor the amplitude of rotation (f [1, 28] = .34, p = .56), but a statistically significant interaction between the direction of rotation and the amplitude of rotation (f [1, 28] = 4.7, p = .04, η2 = .14). pairwise comparisons between the direction of rotation and the amplitude of rotation revealed higher levels of correct recognition when 10° lure stimuli were rotated clockwise than counterclockwise (5° cw vs. ccw: p = .60; 5° cw: m = .39, se = .07; 5° ccw: m = .33, se = .07; 95% ci, [-.16, -.27]; 10° cw vs. ccw: p = .08; 10° cw: m = .76, se = .06; 10° ccw: m = .54, se = .08; 95% ci, [-.03, .45]). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 616 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 7. a. correct recognition (r), confidence rating (c), and correct response time (rt) during the discrimination phase. b. visual sensitivity and response criterion calculated on the full set of stimuli. the same analyses on the average confidence rating across responses and on the mean correct response time revealed no statistically significant main effect and no statistically significant interaction of gender (confidence rating: sex f [1, 28] = .06, p = .81; rotation f [1, 28] = .00, p = 1. 00: amplitude f [1, 28] = 1.43, p = .24; correct response time: sex f [1, 3] = .991, p = .393; rotation f [1, 3] = .05, p = .83; amplitude f [1, 3] = .01, p = .91). discussion the aim of this study was an attempt to synthesize and better understand gender differences in mental rotation tasks, specifically, and in overall spatial abilities, in general. to this end, data were analysed with classical statistical methods, but also with sdt parameters to dissociate perceptual from decision-making process. finally, we assessed whether or not there are statistically significant multivariate differences between men and women on the specific variables of interest, including d-prime, c-bias, recognition memory, confidence rating and response time. global performance the average higher recognition performance in men, despite the fact that participants were given unlimited time to respond, is consistent with previous reports in mental rotation tasks (coluccia & louse, 2004 for reviews; lawton & morrin, 1999; linn & petersen, 1985; voyer et al., 1995). in contrast to previous studies however, we found no differences between men and women in their overall confidence ratings or their correct response times (cooke-simpson & voyer, 2007; delgado & prieto, 1996; goldstein et al., 1990; peters, 2005; voyer, 1997; voyer, rodgers, & mccormick, 2004). more sophisticated analyses (sdt parameters) of the processes involved in recognition showed that the male advantage in recognition memory resulted from higher visual sensitivity compared to women rather than a difference in the response criterion between men and women. these results indicate that, in this task, the differential performance between men and women is due to perceptual processes, whereas decision-making processes (c-bias) were equally biased by uncertainty. the results of our sdt analyses enable us to reject several hypotheses often europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 617 http://www.psychopen.eu/ evoked to explain gender differences observed in mental rotation tasks. first, the idea that women performed the task more carefully than men was not confirmed (goldstein et al., 1990). the results of women and men were similar both with respect to confidence rating and response criterion. it is important to note that these two processes differ. confidence rating was measured after each decision response (i.e., tapping the “yes” or “no” keys representing recognition of the presented stimulus as a target or not), whereas response criterion is calculated from each response and thus includes the process of selecting among several alternatives. second, we can also reject the hypothesis that women, in general, take more time to solve the task and respond, which under limited time conditions, results in them guessing more often (cooke-simpson & voyer, 2007). guessing would bias responses and thus alter the response criterion of women, but our analyses did not show any difference in c-bias between men and women. instead, our findings indicated that in this task, the differential performance of men and women was a result of differential visual sensitivity. this finding might be supported by others studies showing that, on average, men outperform women in spatial perception tests such as the rod and frame and water level tests that require participants to locate the gravitational upright despite the presence of distracting perceptual information (e.g., rilea, 2008; rilea, roskos-ewoldsen, & boles, 2004; tremblay, elliott, & starkes, 2004; for a meta-analysis see voyer et al., 1995). however, just knowing that women exhibited poorer visual sensitivity does not allow us to determine whether this sensitivity varies according to the stimuli used. further insight into this question might help to evaluate the hypothesis that the differential use of global and local strategies by men and women accounts for gender differences in mental rotation tasks (e.g., heil & jansen-osmann, 2008). recognition of target and non-target stimuli although men exhibited a greater ability to recognize target stimuli that had been viewed during the learning phase than women, no gender difference was observed in the ability to recognize stimuli viewed only during the discrimination phase. this finding was unexpected. it has been argued that better spatial performance in men is due to a larger visuospatial working memory, whereas in women a small but significant advantage may exist for general episodic memory capacities (andreano & cahill, 2009; herlitz et al., 1997; herlitz & rehnman, 2008). reference memory is thought to correspond to the ability to recall or recognize the earlier-presented information while working memory is thought to require the simultaneous storage and processing of information. according to these definitions and the above hypotheses, recognition of the studied target stimuli, presumably implicating reference memory, should be relatively better in women, whereas recognition of non-studied lure stimuli, presumably implicating working memory, should be relatively better in men. further investigations including the other dependent variables manipulated in this study revealed other subtle differences between genders. differences in recognition memory between men and women appeared to vary according to rotation direction. first, women exhibited poorer recognition for lure stimuli that were clockwise rotations of targets 1 and 2 and for those that were counterclockwise rotations of target 4 (see figure 1). this unexpected result cannot be explained by our design because no difference was observed in the recognition of different target stimuli across genders. thus, this difference cannot be due to particular characteristics of these target stimuli, for example, or to a serial effect of learning (targets 1 and 2 were presented first and target 4 last). second, when boomerang-shaped stimuli were used (experiment 2) participants showed a better rate of correct recognition for clockwise rotation than counterclockwise rotation, and when the amplitude of the rotation was 10° as compared to 5°. although effects of the direction of rotation are difficult to define, an eeg investigation of two potential strategies for determining the rotation of an object has shown that mental rotation of alphanumeric characters is more difficult europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 618 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a counterclockwise than in a clockwise direction (liesefeld & zimmer, 2011). although the effect of rotation could be related to task difficulty, it could also be related to differences in cognitive strategy. an earlier study provides a theoretical background to investigate this issue (just & carpenter, 1985). according to these authors, one strategy would be based on rotation of mental representations around canonical axes while the second one would rely on mental representations encoding spatial relationships between objects. accordingly, the first strategy is not invariant with respect to the object’s orientation and position and thus involves the use of mental rotation to solve the task. by contrast, the second strategy would offer the advantage of being invariant with respect to the object’s orientation and position and thus allowing comparison or recognition without any mental rotation. if participants had used a strategy consisting of mentally rotating displayed stimulus toward the canonical references (a vertical or horizontal virtual axes), the shortest way would entail rotating lure stimuli tilted clockwise in a counterclockwise direction, and rotating lure stimuli tilted counterclockwise in a clockwise direction. according to this hypothesis, stimuli rotated clockwise should be more difficult to recognize than those rotated counterclockwise. this is consistent with the results of our sdt analyses showing that, for women, counterclockwise rotations resulted in an improvement in their visual sensitivity due to a decrease in their false alarm rate. as making false alarms is due to a tendency to not discriminate between target and lure stimuli, the hypothesis would be that, for women, clockwise rotation is more difficult than counterclockwise rotation. in contrast for men, their ability to distinguish between lure and target stimuli (d-prime) was not altered by the direction of rotation. an alternative explanation, more consistent with previous research, would be that women rely on the first strategy of mentally rotating the displayed stimulus toward the canonical references of the memorized target until the two angles coincide. accordingly, lure stimuli tilted clockwise are more difficult than those tilted counterclockwise. would this mean that men rely on the second strategy? the answer is probably no because if men were biased toward the second strategy, sex differences should be maintained when boomerang-shaped stimuli replaced geometric-shaped stimuli while they disappeared. an explanation may be found by considering that, in general, men lend more attention to the geometry of the environment whereas women lend more attention to environmental landmarks. because stimuli are displayed on a computer screen, perhaps men simply established whether the main axis of the displayed stimulus was aligned with the frame of the screen, indicating that the stimulus was a target. this suggestion is supported by an elegant study showing that when geometric cues (the page frame geometry) were eliminated, differences in performance between women andmen disappeared (collaer & nelson, 2002). in accordance with this hypothesis, verbal reports from our participants at the end of the task indicated that men predominantly used this strategy, whereas women reported trying to recall stimuli from memory. in conclusion, previous research suggests that women employ a local “piecemeal strategy”, while men rely more on a global one. better spatial ability in men has been attributed to a greater visuospatial memory capacity despite its contradiction with local (involving larger amounts of information to encode) vs. global (involving a higher information compression) processing. the present results suggest that gender differences in strategies used to solve mental rotation tasks might be related to the ability of men to perceive and transform the problem into a simple task requiring pattern discrimination. although, these results provide a base to tackle what really differs from the spatial abilities between men and women, they cannot yet be firmly validated because of the small sample size. thus, further studies with larger sample sizes are needed. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 619 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgements we wish to thank dr. pamela banta-lavenex (lerb, lausanne university) for her careful reading of the manuscript and her helpful comments. references andreano, j. m., & cahill, l. 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(2002). are sex differences in navigation caused by sexually dimorphic strategies or by differences in the ability to use the strategies? behavioral neuroscience, 116(3), 403-410. doi:10.1037/0735-7044.116.3.403 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 brandner & devaud 621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00547.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2008.11.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.92.2.137 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03199867 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1018830401088 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.119.4.853 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2010.10.012 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1130467 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s1090-5138(97)00104-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0146-6402(83)90019-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2004.08.052 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2008.01.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2004.09.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/p231321 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0926-6410(98)00002-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7044.116.3.403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ schmitz, s. 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(1995). magnitude of sex differences in spatial abilities: a meta-analysis and consideration of critical variables. psychological bulletin, 117(2), 250-270. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.117.2.250 van zandt, t. (2000). roc curves and confidence judgments in recognition memory. journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition, 26(3), 582-600. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.26.3.582 yonelinas, a. p., & parks, c. m. (2007). receiver operating characteristics (rocs) in recognition memory: a review. psychological bulletin, 133(5), 800-832. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.133.5.800 about the authors catherine brandner is associated professor at faculty of ssp, lausanne university. she studied ceramic at fine arts school of geneva, psychology and biology at lausanne university. her current research interests, conducted in the laboratory for experimental research on behavior (lerb), include analysis of behavior, brain functions, cognitive strategies, sex differences, and research methodology. cédric devaud received the master of advanced studies in experimental cognitive psychology from geneva university. he is currently a phd student in the lerb at lausanne university. his current research focused on sex difference in cognitive strategies used to solve mental rotation tasks. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 607–622 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.610 differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition 622 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jevp.1997.0056 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archneur.65.10.1284 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.12.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/p5209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.108.3.550 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0001-6918(97)00052-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1423717 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03194024 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03195821 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.117.2.250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.26.3.582 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.5.800 http://www.psychopen.eu/ differences between men and women in rotated pattern recognition introduction methods participants stimuli procedure results global performance assessment of gender differences as a function of targetand lure-specific performance experiment 2 boomerang-shaped stimuli discussion global performance recognition of target and non-target stimuli acknowledgments references about the authors ethics and psychology iuliana denisia-olaru radu gheorghe assistant editors the psychologists are talking every day about diversity and universality in psychology. is diversity a hindrance or an element which helps the development of psychology? but what is, in fact, the ideal of psychology? psychology is a science who proposes to discover the entire human diversity and to integrate this diversity into its own methods. but for this, there must be founded the causes of these differences between human beings. and these causes derive not only from the differences between the singular identity of each human being, from the professional or social identity, but also from the cultural identity. the psychologist must therefore take into account the reactions of his clients, like people labeled by a culture that can or cannot have the same culture as his. these reactions send to history, sociology, ethics, myths, to the familiar or the personal history of the patients or even of the psychologist, and, sometimes, to stereotypes and implicit ideologies, which we have to know to desconspirate and because of that, first of all, we must accept to recognize them. some of us have the inclination to deny these implicit differences, on behalf of one’s abstract universality. but psychology and every psychologist should adapt his own methods and the manner of approach to the ethical code applied to each client. there are lots of psychology associations in the world, and most of them have their own ethical code. we may see quite some differences between these codes, since every large organization has its own philosophy, its own culture. so when you get to the question “is this action ethical or not?”, people with different backgrounds will come up with different answers. we suppose there are general guidelines that should be taken into account whatever the culture or field of psychology. we are talking here about values such as respect for the client, colleagues and for oneself. but when it comes to differences, you may not be able to say which one is “better”. that’s because the efficiency of one method or another depends a lot on the context. practitioners from different cultures have different views on ethics, and bringing them together is very important. we are sure that all these views have their own advantages and disadvantages, but here comes ejop’s role of facilitating communication. the actual ethical codes may be less important than being able to see different approaches on the same subject, depending on the culture. determinants of depression among poor elderly women: findings from refugee and non-refugee communities in the outskirts of beirut, lebanon bassem r. saab md, associate professor faculty of family medicine, american university of beirut p/o.box 11-0236. riad el solh, beirut 1107 2020 lebanon e-mail: brsaab@aub.edu.lb, tel no: +961 3 771889, fax no: + 961 1 744464 (corresponding author) zana el-roueiheb mph, research assistant department of epidemiology and population health. faculty of health sciences, american university of beirut p.o.box 11-0236. riad el solh, beirut 1107 2020 lebanon e-mail: ze02@aub.edu.lb, tel no: + 961 3 592108, fax no: + 961 1 744470 monique chaaya dr. ph, associate professor department of epidemiology and population health. faculty of health sciences, american university of beirut. p.o.box 11-0236. riad el solh, beirut 1107 2020 lebanon e-mail: mchaaya@aub.edu.lb, tel no: + 961 3 458143, fax no: + 961 1 744470 abla mehio sibai phd, associate professor department of epidemiology and population health. faculty of health sciences, american university of beirut. p.o.box 11-0236. riad el solh, beirut 1107 2020 lebanon e-mail: ansibai@aub.edu.lb, tel no: + 961 3 646688, fax no: + 961 1 744464 abstract background. depression among elderly females is an important public health concern. the present study aims at examining factors associated with female elderly depression in three underprivileged communities in lebanon, one of which is almost solely inhabited by palestinian refugees. methods. four hundred and twenty-two women age 60-93 years were interviewed. depression was assessed using the geriatric depression scale (gds). results. probable and definite depression was diagnosed in 74.5% and 29.6% of the women respectively. following multivariate analysis, factors significantly associated with definite depression were palestinian nationality, dissatisfaction with household income, lack of physical activity, and disability. conclusion. findings highlight the need for greater efforts to provide a suitable environment for exercise for elderly. policy makers need to improve the living conditions of the underprivileged communities in lebanon, particularly palestinian refugees. keywords: elderly women; depression determinants; underprivileged communities; lebanon. introduction depression is a mental disorder characterized by a cluster of symptoms including prevailing sad mood, fatigue, and anhedonia (reduced interest in and pleasure from normal activities). in the year 1990, depression ranked fourth among the ten leading causes of the total worldwide disease burden, measured in disability adjusted life years (lopez & murray, 1998a). depression is projected to rank second by the year 2020, accounting for 5.7% of the total disability-adjusted life years, compared to 2.6% for hiv (lopez & murray, 1998b). furthermore, depression is expected to become the number one cause of disease burden among females in developing countries (lopez & murray, 1998c). in addition to being a major factor in disability, depression increases the risk of suicide and mortality (neugebauer, 1999). it is estimated that 60% of all suicides are attributable to depression and the much less prevalent diagnosis of schizophrenia (who fact sheets, 2004a). females constitute a group that is particularly vulnerable to depression as reflected by the difference in female and male prevalence rates (beekman et al., 2001), (federal interagency forum on aging-related statitics, 2004). approximately 9.5% of women experience depression within a given year, compared to 5.8% of men; this gender differential is continued across the lifespan (who fact sheets, 2004b). older age is established as a major predictor for depression with 45.2% of women and 26.9% of men afflicted by age 70 (gottfries cg & karlsson i, 2004). while several studies have documented the prevalence of elderly depression and its determinants, few have been conducted in the middle-east region, and to our knowledge none have focused on depression among poor community-dwelling elderly women. furthermore, this study is the first of its kind in lebanon to shed light on the problem of depression among underprivileged elderly women. the main objectives of the study are (a) to determine the prevalence of depression among elderly females residing in underprivileged communities in lebanon, and (b) to examine the determinants of depression in such a setting. methods the data used in this paper is part of a large study that was conducted by the center for research and population health (crph) of the american university of beirut. the study was cross-sectional in design and consisted of a survey of 3,300 households from three poor communities in metropolitan beirut, namely, hey el sellom, burj el barajneh, and nabaa. hey el sellom is located in southeast beirut, and is mainly inhabited by a majority of muslims who migrated to the city from south lebanon and bekaa for better employment opportunities. burj el barajneh is a palestinian refugee camp located in the vicinity of hey el sellom. nabaa is a poor, densely populated eastern suburb of beirut that has grown as a result of christian displacement from mount lebanon during the lebanese wars (1975-1990). for the purpose of data collection, each community was divided into blocks. sampling was conducted through a stratified two-stage design, where a size-proportional sample of blocks was chosen, followed by selection of a final sample of households from each block. during the first stage (may – july 2002), data were collected from the selected 3,300 households by means of a “household questionnaire” that provided information about control variables including demographics, socio-economics, general health, and insurance coverage. in the second phase (december 2002 – march 2003), data were collected from 3 separate age groups: adolescents, women, and elderly. the data for the present study was derived from the elderly survey. from the 3,300 households selected for the study, 969 individuals were age 60 years or older. of these elderly individuals, 740 (76.3%) successfully completed face-to-face interviews conducted by nine trained interviewers. reasons for non-response included: refusal (4.1%), and unavailability (19.6%) due to death, or change of domicile. out of the 740 interviewed, 422 (57%) were females and were considered for the present study. the interviewed women had an age range of 60 to 95 years; 202 women came from nabaa, 164 from burj el barajneh, and 57 from hey el sellom. the questionnaire used during the interviewing measured demographic, socioeconomic, and health variables. demographic variables included in this study were gender, marital status, nationality, religion, number of children, and age. socioeconomic factors included: (i) education measured as literate vs. illiterate, because the majority did not continue beyond primary school; (ii) working status measured as ever worked vs. never worked; (iii) marital status represented as currently married vs. currently not married, and (iv) social support. the latter was computed from four items; each respondent was asked whether there is anyone that she can rely on if she needed (i) non-financial support, (ii) financial support, (iii) emotional support, and (iv) company in case she wanted to go somewhere. respondents who gave less then 3 affirmative answers were classified as having poor social support, and those who gave 3 or more affirmative answers were classified as having strong social support. socioeconomic variables also included questions about the subjects’ satisfaction with household income, and whether the respondents had progeny who lived with them at home. health variables examined, related to current practice of any physical activities, and presence of disability. a respondent was considered to be disabled if she was unable to perform one of the activities of daily living (katz, ford, moskowitz, jackson, & jaffe, 1963) or the instrumental activities of daily living (lawton & brody, 1969). the dependent variable, definite depression, was computed from the short version of the geriatric depression scale (gds) that was developed in 1986 by sheikh and yesavage (fountoulakis et al., 1999a). the gds questionnaire has been tested in multiple settings and countries where it yielded a sensitivity of 70.6 % to 92.2% and a specificity of 70.1% to 95.2% (fountoulakis et al., 1999b), (fernandez-san martin et al., 2002), (chan, 1996). furthermore, the gds is the most popular depression scale used in elderly. a score of less than five positive responses indicates the absence of depression, a score of 5 to 10 indicates probable depression, and a score of more than 10 indicates definite depression (allen et al., 1994). data was analyzed using spss 10.0 for windows. bivariate data analysis was performed and the chi square test was used to test for the association between the presence of depression on one hand, and selected demographic, socio-economic, and health factors on the other hand. the second step of analysis consisted of a logistic regression, where significant variables from the bivariate analysis, and other important covariates (age and education) were included in the model as independent variables and where the dependant variable was presence vs. absence of definite depression. results the mean age of our sample was 68.3 years, with a standard deviation of 6.3 years. the majority 267 (63.2%) was lebanese, 152 (36.0%) were palestinian, and only 3 (0.8%) subjects did not report their nationality. table 1: baseline demographic characteristics of the study participants across the three communities a not all numbers (n) add up to 57, 164, and 202 respectively due to missing observations. the geographical separation of the three communities was paralleled by substantial differences in baseline characteristics of the sample (table 1). for example, while burj el barajneh was mainly inhabited by palestinians (90.9%), hey el sellom and nabaa were almost exclusively lebanese (100.0% and 98.5%, respectively). while hey el sellom and burj el barajneh were entirely muslim communities, 85.1% of the respondents in nabaa were christians. families in the muslim communities had significantly more children; 87.0% and 83.8% of the women interviewed in hey el sellom and burj el barajneh respectively had 4 children or more, compared to 69.5% of the women living in nabaa. probable depression was diagnosed in 315 (74.5%) of the women while definite depression was diagnosed in 123 (29.6%) women. table 2: distribution of study sample by presence of definite depression, and demographic, socio-economic and health factors. a p value computed based on chi square test table 2 shows the association of definite depression among the women with demographic, socio-economic and health factors. nationality of the participants was significantly related to definite depression, where 41.6 % of the palestinians had definite depression compared to 23.3 % of the lebanese (p < 0.001). elderly women’s perception of satisfaction with household income was also significantly associated with depression where 39.2% of those who stated that their household income was insufficient were depressed, compared to only 21.8 % of those who thought that their income was sufficient (p < 0.001). definite depression was significantly associated with decreased physical activity where 37.0% of sedentary women and only 20.2% of women who engaged in regular bodily exercise were depressed (p < 0.001). disability was also significantly related to definite depression with 40.7% of the disabled women suffering from depression compared to only 16.9% of non-disabled women (p < 0.001). table 3: risk factors of definite depression among elderly women using logistic regression a controlling for age and education b odds ratio c confidence interval table 3 presents the results of the logistic regression model for definite depression, and the 4 independent variables that were significantly related to it on bivariate analysis, controlling for age and education. the association between definite depression and nationality (or = 2.1, 95% ci: 1.3-3.4), satisfaction with household income (or = 2.1, 95% ci: 1.4-3.4), practice of physical exercise (or = 2.0, 95% ci: 1.2-3.3), and disability (or = 2.4, 95% ci: 1.4-4.0) all remained significant. discussion depression among the elderly in general, and elderly women in particular, is an important public health concern because it is a major factor of disability and mortality. the prevalence and consequences of depression may be more profound in third world countries. this study revealed a high prevalence of definite depression among elderly women living in three diverse, underprivileged communities in the suburbs of beirut, lebanon. this study is only one of very few that investigated determinants of depression among elderly women in the middle east region. the prevalence rate (29.6%) of depression among elderly women from under-privileged communities in lebanon is similar to findings from other countries in the eastern mediterranean region, where depression among elderly females reached 27.7% in saudi arabia (abolfoutouh ma, daffallah aa, khan my, khattab ms, & abdulmoneim i, 2001) and 33% in turkey (bekaroglu, uluutku, tanriover, & kirpinar, 1991). like this study, abolfoutouh employed the gds scale to assess depression, but classified the elderly as depressed if they scored only 5 points or more, which clearly led to an over estimation of depression. by contrast, depression among elderly women in the present context is much higher than that reported in a general county population study of the united states (4.4%) (steffens et al., 2000), and that reported among women in a survey of 35 communities that used the gds scale in bangkok, thailand (9.63%) (thongtang et al., 2002). the higher prevalence of depression among elderly women in the middle east may be linked to women’s rights and social roles. the united nations development program (undp) report on arab human development showed that gender inequality in employment was too high in the arab world as compared to other islamic, east asian, and sub saharan african countries (united nations development program (undp), 2003). despite some advances in women’s rights in the arab countries, women are still expected to perform all domestic chores and to be the main caregivers for the children and the husband. of course, the stress in the lives of the women in our study is greatly aggravated by their poverty, thus being “the poor of the poor.” in the present study, one of the important variables that correlated significantly with depression was nationality. elderly palestinian women were at higher odds of being depressed than the lebanese women. this may be attributed to social and political factors. the lebanese government policy is to prevent the integration of palestinian refugees in lebanon. in march 2001, a law was passed that denies palestinians the right of buying property on lebanese territory, a right given to other expatriates. not possessing a house has been linked to increase morbidity (kind, dolan, gudex, & williams, 1998) and mortality (breeze, sloggett, & fletcher, 1999). furthermore, palestinians are denied work in more than 60 occupations that mostly constitute white-collar jobs (ajial center for statistics and documentation, 2004). palestinians in lebanon do not have any retirement benefits, and have minimal access to good quality health care services, schools and universities (u.s committee for refugees, 2002). during the last decade there were cuts in the budget of the united nations relief and works agency (unrwa) for palestinian refugees. the fate of the refugees is neither self-determined nor clear. they do not know whether they are going to return to their homeland, remain in lebanon, or end up in another country. many elderly palestinians who escaped during the 1948 war still carry the key to their houses in palestine with the dream of returning home one day. it has been documented that uncertainty about the future may result in increased psychological distress among women (ritsner, ponizovsky, nechamkin, & modai, 2001). historical dispossession, lack of current opportunities, and extremely harsh living conditions are all likely to play major roles in increasing depression among palestinian refugees in lebanon. in addition to any depression-specific intervention, the general living conditions and prospects of palestinian refugees in lebanon need to be improved in order to prevent and alleviate depression among this sub-population. depression has always been linked to poverty (yen & kaplan, 1999); our findings are not different in this respect. the significant association between depression and satisfaction with household income strongly suggests that financial difficulties are affecting the participants’ mental health. this is more true in lebanon, a country with an unsteady economy where 28% of families live below the poverty line (saab, damluji, lakkis n, & usta j, 2003), and where the government does not provide all the elderly with sufficient pension plans (sibai, sen, baydoun, & saxena, 2004). the majority of the elderly therefore depend either on their own savings or on their progeny to make ends meet. as shown in other studies (strawbridge, deleger, roberts, & kaplan, 2002b), the elderly women who declared practicing some kind of physical activities were less likely to be depressed. of the 3 factors that proved to have a significant association with depression, physical activity is the one that can be most easily addressed as a focus for intervention. introducing exercise programs may be a useful intervention to reduce depression. policy makers should work on providing accessible and affordable exercise programs for the elderly. in view of the limited financial resources, one suggestion is to utilize the school premises within each community off the school hours as a place where the elderly can get together and participate in age-appropriate physical exercise programs 4 to 5 times a week. in addition to exercise, this gives the elderly the chance to socialize and meet new people. one can also employ women from the community to prepare and serve a hot meal to the elderly after their exercise session. this may help in reducing the financial hardships faced by these marginalized females in the communities studied. serving a meal, besides its nutritional value, may encourage some elderly to attend the exercise sessions. a significant relationship was found between depression and disability. this finding underlines the serious nature of elderly depression where it can lead to incapacity of performing the simple activities of daily living. although this causality cannot be established by the present cross-sectional study, other longitudinal studies have recognized it (beekman, deeg, braam, smit, & van tilburg, 1997). such an alarming association calls for increased efforts to detect and treat depression among the elderly. another problem arises when it comes to detection of depression, and that is stigmatization. due to stigmatization, depressed elderly tend to conceal their condition and when they seek professional help, they are more likely to present with somatic symptoms. this usually leads to improper diagnosis by the primary care physician, (kessler, lloyd, lewis, & gray, 1999). stigma has been strongly associated with mental health problems (sadavoy, meier, & ong, 2004) (ertugrul & ulug, 2004). furthermore, the world health organization classified stigma as a major difficulty related to managing mental health in the arab countries and called for the need of stigma reduction campaigns (the regional comittee for the eastern mediterranean, 2004). neither age nor marital status were significantly linked to definite depression in the present study. this is interesting because the literature reports that geriatric depression increases in the older age groups (mueller et al., 2004), and in elderly with no spouse (lai, 2004). this difference may be due to the role that the extended family plays in oriental cultures in general and lebanon in particular. unlike western countries where elderly of older age groups tend to live in nursing homes, it is almost a disgrace for a lebanese family to place an elderly in a nursing home. in lebanon, the nuclear and/or extended family has the duty of taking care of their elderly. the strength of these family bonds might prevent the older, and the unmarried lebanese elderly from being more depressed. the principal limitation of the present study resides in its design. being cross-sectional, one cannot infer causal relationships. for example, there is considerable evidence in the literature indicating that a sedentary life style increases the risk of depression (strawbridge, deleger, roberts, & kaplan, 2002a). nonetheless, lack of physical activity can be a product of depression, rather than a contributing factor. another limitation is that only a small portion of the study sample (13.5%) came from hey el sellom. this is because the elderly in this area, who are originally from south lebanon and bekaa, move back to their original hometowns once they can no more work. this study, along with other similar ones, will serve as a basis for some action; indeed, research activities are underway to develop appropriate interventions targeted at improving the life quality of these poor community-dwelling elderly. in the light of the discussed findings, efforts to improve the living conditions of these poor populations, especially of palestinians, are needed. involving the elderly in age-appropriate physical exercises may be a good intervention measure. general practitioners should be well trained to “think depression” in order not to miss the diagnosis, which would lead to a poorer prognosis and higher morbidity. acknowledgments this work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the wellcome trust, which is an independent research-funding charity that aims to improve human and animal health. references abolfoutouh m.a., daffallah a.a., khan m.y., khattab m.s., & abdulmoneim i. 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(1999). poverty area residence and changes in depression and perceived health status: evidence from the alameda county study. int.j.epidemiol., 28, 90-94. microsoft word 3. emotional intelligence and psychological distress.doc europe’s journal of psychology 4/2009, pp. 20-39 www.ejop.org emotional intelligence and psychological distress: testing the mediatory role of affectivity jahanvash karim cergam iae d’aix-en-provence, france abstract the study tested the extent to which positive and negative affect at work mediate emotional intelligence effects on psychological distress. participants were 200 middlelevel managers who completed the wong and law emotional intelligence scale, 20item affectivity scale, and a measure of psychological distress. results using covariance based structural equation modeling indicated that only negative affect fully mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological distress. furthermore, the direct effect of emotional intelligence was stronger for positive affect as compared to its influence on negative affect. finally, negative affect had a significant direct influence on psychological distress, whereas the relationship between positive affect and psychological distress was insignificant. keywords – emotional intelligence; affectivity; distress; mediation. one area of emotion research that has received considerable scholarly attention in recent years is “emotional intelligence (ei)” (goleman, 1995; salovey & mayer, 1990). the popularity of ei concept during the last decade has lead organizational behavior researchers to examine its applicability within work settings. for example, empirical studies have demonstrated that ei is related to stress (miklolajczak, menil, & luminet, 2007), performance (slaski & cartwright, 2003), conflict and innovation (suliman & al-shaikh, 2006), job satisfaction and organizational commitment (carmeli, 2003; kafetsios, 2007). there is accumulating evidence that ei influences psychological distress within work setting (besharat, 2007; dulewicz, higgs, & slaski, emotional intelligence and psychological distress 21 2003; tsaousis & nikolaou, 2005). while the role of ei in predicting psychological distress is well established, the mechanism through which ei predicts psychological distress is little researched. to my knowledge, there is no study testing the extent to which affective experiences may mediate the relationship between ei and psychological distress. affective events theory (aet: weiss & cropanzano, 1996) proposes that antecedent events at work (with dispositions) lead to affective states that in turn, lead to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. this study sought to test a model of ei that includes positive affectivity (pa) and negative affectivity (na) in the ei-psychological distress relationship. psychological distress is a serious problem faced by many employees within work setting. an understanding of the relationship between ei, affectivity, and psychological distress will help managers to take care of problem of distress in workers. furthermore, most of the previous studies relating ei to psychological distress have been conducted in the west raising the questions about the extent to which these findings are generalizable to the east. this study adds to the literature by testing the proposed model in the south asian context, thus providing some empirical cross-cultural validity of ei-psychological distress relationship. conceptual background and hypothesis emotional intelligence salovey and mayer (1990) were first to utilize the term “emotional intelligence”. they drew on relevant evidence from previous intelligence and emotion research and presented the first model of ei. their model included three distinct components: appraisal and expression of emotion, regulation of emotions, and utilization of emotional information in thinking and acting. later, mayer and salovey refined their 1990’s model, and defined ei as, “ the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotions; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (mayer & salovey, 1997, p.10). since salovey and mayer’s (1990) conceptualization, a considerable amount of theoretical and empirical research has been done on the conceptualization of ei (e.g. bar-on, 1997; goleman, 1995; mayer & salovey, 1997; petrides & furnham, 2001), as well as, its measures (e.g., emotional quotient inventory: bar-on, 1997; mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test: mayer et al., 2003; self-report europe’s journal of psychology 22 emotional intelligence test: schutte et al., 1998; trait emotional intelligence questionnaire: petrides, pérez-gonzalez, & furnham, 2007). the plethora and diversity of ei models and measures in the field give rise to the need for a way to classify them. currently there are mainly two approaches to conceptualizing and measuring ei: ‘ability ei’ and ‘trait ei’ (petrides & furnham, 2001). ability models have been identified as those that define ei as ‘intelligence’ in the traditional sense (e.g., mayer & salovey, 1997; salovey & mayer, 1990). proponents of ability ei conceive ei as an ability to process the information contained in emotions to determine the meaning of emotions and their connections to one another; and to use emotional information as the basis for thought and decision making (e.g., salovey & mayer, 1990). ability ei is measured through performance tests with correct and incorrect answers, for example, mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test (msceit) (mayer et al., 2003). on the other hand, trait ei is defined as “constellation of behavioral dispositions and self perceptions concerning one’s ability to recognize, process, and utilize emotion laden information” (petrides & furnham, 2001, p. 426). basically, the trait ei construct encompasses two kinds of variance: variance covered by personality dimensions (big five & giant three) and variance that lies outside these dimensions (petrides, pita, & kokkinaki, 2007). in contrast to ability ei, the trait ei is measured via self-reports. in short, the distinction between ability ei (cognitiveemotional ability) and trait ei (trait emotional self-efficacy) is mainly based on the method of measurement (self-report versus performance based) and should not be confused with mayer, salovey, and caruso’s (2000) distinction between ‘ability ei models’ and ‘mixed ei models’ . in contrast to petrides, and furnham’s (2001) distinction, mayer, salovey, & caruso (2000) conceive mixed models of ei (e.g., baron, 1997; goleman, 1995) as those which “mixes” cognitive abilities with other characteristics. in line with petrides and furnham’s (2001) approach (trait ei vs. ability ei), the present paper seeks to find the relationships between trait ei, psychological distress, and affectivity. ei and affectivity affectivity is a general tendency to experience a particular mood or to react to objects in a particular way (lazarus, 1993). affectivity is split up into two distinct dimensions: positive affect (pa) and negative affect (na). pa refers to tendency of experiencing good feelings such as enthusiastic, active, and alert, whereas, na refers to having bad feelings such as anxiety and disgust (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). research has documented that pa and na are two independent separate constructs (morris & feldman, 1996; watson & clark, 1984; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). emotional intelligence and psychological distress 23 according to lopes et al. (2006), people are usually motivated to seek pleasant feelings and avoid unpleasant ones. the ei abilities can help people to identify and interpret cues that inform self-regulatory action to nurture positive affect and avoid negative affect (lopes et al., 2006; mayer & salovey, 1997). various researches have documented a positive relationship between ei and pa and negative relationship between ei and na (e.g., kafetsios & zampetakis, 2008; lopes et al., 2006; sevdalis, petrides, & harvey, 2007). thus, it is expected that trait ei will be positively associated with pa and inversely to na at work. hypothesis 1a: there is a positive relationship between ei and pa. hypothesis 1b: there is a negative relationship between ei and na. psychological distress most of theorists look at a broader definition of psychological health containing two factors: psychological well-being (positive mental health states like life satisfaction) and psychological distress (negative mental health states like anxiety and depression) (massée et al.,1998; veit & ware, 1983; wilkinson & walford, 1998). although psychological distress has been a topic of interest to psychologists and social scientists (bruch, rivet, & laurenti, 2000; massée, 2000), the study of this construct has garnered attention within the work setting during the past few years (e.g., besharat, 2007; dulewicz, higgs, & slaski, 2003; tsaousis & nikolaou, 2005). the theoretical structure of the construct of psychological distress and its operationalization has been subjected to extensive research (e.g., goldberg, 1978; massée et al., 1998; ridner, 2004). ridner (2004) after extensive review of literature pointed out that, psychological distress is often embedded in the context of stress, strain, and distress and is seldom treated as a distinct concept. she differentiated between strain, stress, distress, and psychological distress and defined the construct of psychological distress as, “the unique discomforting, emotional state experienced by an individual to response to a specific stressor or demand that results in harm, either temporary or permanent, to the person.” (p. 539). psychological distress is a complex and multidimensional construct (massée et al., 1998; ridner, 2004; veit & ware, 1983, wilkinson & walford, 1998). in its simplest form psychological distress is viewed as a construct that represents aspects of negative functioning. for instance, according to massée et al., (1998), psychological distress is usually operationalized by measures of self-depreciation, irritability, anxiety, depression, and social disengagement. europe’s journal of psychology 24 affectivity and psychological distress it has been argued that affectivity may affect perceived level of psychological health by influencing perceptions of self or environment (oliver & brough, 2002). individuals with high levels of na are more likely to appraise events as threatening (gallagher, 1990), tend to view their environment more negatively (spector et al., 2000), report more negative interpretations of trivial problems (watson & pennebaker, 1989), and encode more negative information (larsen, 1992). this highly negative view of their objective environment lead them to rate stressors as highly aversive experiences, which in turn leads to poorer psychological well-being outcomes (e.g., anxiety & depression) (oliver & brough, 2002; spector et al., 2000). thus, it is expected that pa will be negatively associated with psychological distress and na will be positively associated with psychological distress. hypothesis 2a: there is a negative relationship between pa and psychological distress. hypothesis 2b: there is a positive relationship between na and psychological distress. ei and psychological distress in their review of psychological well-being research, diener and colleagues (diener et al., 1999) assert that, “personality is one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of subjective well-being” (p. 279). in this nexus, there are several reasons why trait ei may influence psychological distress. research suggests that ei abilities and traits contribute to good physical and psychological health (salovey et al., 1999; salovey et al., 2000; tsaousis, & nikolaou, 2005). emotionally intelligent individuals have good physical and psychological health because they are better able to cope with life’s challenges and can control their emotions more effectively (taylor, 2001). in literature, various empirical studies have well documented the significant negative relationship between trait ei and psychological distress (e.g., besharat, 2007; dulewicz, higgs, & slaski, 2003; tsaousis & nikolaou, 2005) and between trait ei and sub dimensions of psychological distress, such as, depression and anxiety (bauld & brown, 2009; extremera & fernàndez-berrocal, 2006; fernandez-berrocal et al., 2006). recently, researchers have argued that affective states at work, might serve to be the linking mechanism through which ei affects a variety of employee behavior and organizational outcomes (e.g., kafetsios, 2007; kafetsios and zampetakis, 2008). the study of affective states at work is an important area of organizational behavior research (ashkanasy, hartel, and zerbe, 2000) and help in understanding the emotional intelligence and psychological distress 25 processes underlying the effects of various working conditions, work events and personality dispositions on various work attitudes, behaviors and individual’s psychological states (kafetsios, 2007; kafetsios & zampetakis, 2008; weiss & cropanzano, 1996). affective events theory (aet) (weiss & cropanzano, 1996) proposes that antecedent events at work with dispositions lead to affective states that in turn, lead to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. relevant to current study, aet suggests that dispositions (personality) may directly influence the employees’ affective reactions. thus, it is important to understand specific information about different dispositions in addition to work events in order to make predictions about individual’s behavior. individual differences influence reactions to the same work event, and these differences in reactions lead to different types of behaviors and attitudes (weiss & cropanzano, 1996). various studies have supported the idea that affective states mediate the effect of work events and/or dispositions on outcomes (e.g., fisher, 2000; kafetsios, 2007; kafetsios & zampetakis, 2008; weiss, nicholas, & daus, 1999). thus, hypothesis 3: pa and na mediate ei effects on psychological distress. method participants the sample for this study consisted of 206 middle level managers from three public sector organizations situated in pakistan. 95 participants of the total sample (46 percent) were males and 111 (54 percent) were females. the mean age for this sample was 31.48 years (sd = 8.10).the sample was collected using non-probability purposive sampling method in order to obtain the appropriate number of participants for the study. purposive sampling involves collecting any cases that contain the most representative attributes of the population (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2000, p.99). before distribution of questionnaires, permission was obtained from each of the organization. attached to the survey instrument was a letter that explained the objective of the survey in general terms, assured respondents of the confidentiality of their responses, and notified them that participating in the survey was voluntary. all participants were treated in accordance with the “ethical principles of psychologists code of conduct” (american psychological association, 2002). administration of the questionnaires was carried out by post graduate students who acted as research assistants and no monetary incentive was provided. europe’s journal of psychology 26 instruments wong and law emotional intelligence scale (wleis: wong & law. 2002). wleis consists of 16 items and taps individuals’ knowledge about their own emotional abilities rather than their actual capacities. specifically, the wleis is a measure of beliefs concerning self-emotional appraisal (sea) (e.g., “i have a good sense of why i have certain feelings most of the time”), others’ emotional appraisal (oea)(e.g., “i always know my friends’ emotions from their behavior”), regulation of emotion (roe) (e.g., “i always set goals for myself and then try my best to achieve them”), and use of emotion (uoe) (e.g., “i am able to control my temper and handle difficulties rationally”). the response scale has been seven point likert-type scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree). coefficients alphas for the four dimensions were: sea: .80; oea: .82; roe: .81; uoe: .82. affectivity. affectivity was measured by 20 items positive and negative affect schedule (panas) (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). panas is composed of two tenitem mood scales one to measure positive affectivity and the other to measure negativity affectivity. the higher scores on both pa and na items indicate the tendency to experience a positive and negative mood. the ten positive affective states were: motivated, excited, feel strong, enthusiastic, proud, alert, inspired, determined, attentive, and active. the ten negative affective states were: distressed, upset, guilty, scared, hostile, irritable, ashamed, nervous, jittery, and afraid. research has demonstrated the sound reliability of panas (i.e., morris & feldman, 1996). respondents were requested to rate the statement on a 5-point scale (not at all to extremely) by comparing themselves during the past 2 weeks with their ‘usual selves’. in this study, the positive and negative affect parts of panas had good internal consistency (alphas .71 and .85 respectively). psychological distress. psychological distress was measured by chan’s (2005) twenty item scale. this scale measures psychological distress in terms of current nonpsychotic symptoms in the five symptom areas represented by scales of health concerns, sleep problems, anxiety, dysphoria, and suicidal ideas. respondents were requested to rate each symptom statement on a 5-point scale (not at all to extremely) by comparing themselves during the past 2 weeks with their ‘usual selves’. coefficients alphas for the five dimensions were: health concerns: .75; sleep problems: .68; anxiety: .60; dysphoria: .86; and suicidal ideas: .78. emotional intelligence and psychological distress 27 statistical analysis prior to hypothesis testing data were tested for missing values and deviation from normality. model fitting was performed with the help of amos (arbuckle, 2006). covariance based structural model (cbsem) was analyzed and interpreted in two stages: the measurement model and the structural model. the measurement model relates to the relations between manifest variables (observed items) and latent variables. the measurement model is tested by assessing the discriminability of the constructs in the model. this ensures that only valid constructs’ measures are used before assessing the nature of relationships in the overall model. for testing the measurement model (discriminant validity of four constructs), chi-square difference test was employed (anderson & gerbing, 1988; bagozzi & phillips, 1982). the chisquare values for unconstrained model and the chi-square value for fully constrained model (all correlations constrained to 1) were determined. according to anderson and gerbing (1988, p.416) and bagozzi and phillips (1982, p.476), if the χ2 for the first model is significantly smaller than second model, discriminant validity is achieved. this is because the better fitting model is the one where the two dimensions/constructs are viewed as distinctly different or not perfectly correlated. structural model specifies relations between latent constructs. the structural model is tested by estimating the paths between the constructs. structural model was tested by computing path coefficients (ßs). a bootstrapping procedure using 1000 subsamples was performed to evaluate the statistical significance of each path coefficient. amos (arbuckle, 2006) performs parametric bootstraps to find an approximate confidence interval for any model parameter under normal distribution theory. steiger’s power anlaysis (statsoft, 2001) was used to estimate sem modellevel power. various fit indices were used to assess the fit of the model to the data, i.e., χ2/df, cfi, gfi, agfi, rmsea, and aic. according to hair et al. (2006), multiple indices should be used to assess a model’s goodness of fit. the fit indices should include: the chi-square value and associated degree of freedom; one absolute fit index (like the gfi, rmsea, or srmr); one incremental fit index (like cfi or tli); one goodness of fit index (like gfi, cfi, or tli); and one badness of fit index (like rmsea, srmr). a χ2/df value close to 2 indicates an acceptable fit (bentler & bonett, 1980) and the value close to 0.90 for cfi and gfi indicates a good fit (schumacker & lomax, 1996). the value below 0.08 for root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), a measure that takes into account the error of approximation in the population, indicates good fit (browne & cudeck, 1993). regarding aic, the model with smallest aic value is considered to be the best model (schumacker & lomax, 1996). europe’s journal of psychology 28 results missing value analysis, data cleaning, and item parceling prior to hypothesis testing, the validity of participants’ responses was examined. in order to make data entry errors unlikely, the data was entered twice and comparison was made between two entries for data entry mistakes (barchard & christensen, 2007). little’s (1988) missing completely at random (mcar) test revealed that the missing data were missing completely at random (χ2 = 810.72. df = 935, p > .05). when the missing data is mcar, any imputation method can be used (hair et al., 2006). expectation–maximization (em) method was employed to impute missing values. values of skewness and kurtosis below the absolute value of 1 can be considered as acceptable (miles and shevlin, 2004). with the exception of 5 items, all items showed skewness and kurtosis smaller than 1 and these exceptions were close to the criterion. as well as, a visual check of qq-plots and histograms also revealed unimodel distribution for all items. three cases with extremely low z scores were found to be univariate outliers and three cases were identified through mahalanobis' distance as multivariate outliers with p < .001. these six cases were removed from subsequent analysis. table 1 presents means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among variables. ei was significantly related to psychological distress (r = -.15, p < .05), positive affect (r = .41, p < .001) and negative affect (r = -.28, p < .001). furthermore, psychological distress was significantly related to negative affect (r = .53, p < .001). table 1 descriptive statistics and inter-scale correlations m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. gendera 2. age 31.48 8.10 0.23** 3. ei 5.63 .89 -.14 -.06 (.89) 4. psychological distress 1.97 .68 -.16* -.07 -.15* (.88) 5. positive affect 3.69 .56 -.17* -.11 .41** -.11 (.71) 6. negative affect 1.83 .74 -.09 -.06 -.28** .53** -.18* (.85) note : n = 200. internal reliabilities in parenthesis. a gender is coded 0 = female 1 = male. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 emotional intelligence and psychological distress 29 the practice of item parceling (combining items into small groups of items within scales or subscales) is much popular for reducing data analysis problems e.g., nonnormality and small sample sizes (e.g., bandalos, 2002). thus, in order to allow robust statistics, the size of the model was reduced by creating item parcels for 20 items panas (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). based on factor loadings (exploratory factor analysis) for each panas i.e., ten item’s pa scale and ten item’s na scale, two 5-item parcels were created. coefficient alphas for two pa scales were: pa1: .64; and pa2: .71. and coefficient alphas for two na scales were: na1: .70; and na2: .80. measurement model table 2 presents the fit statistics for measurement model. results indicate that, the hypothesized measurement model fit the data well than a single factor model, both in terms of various fit indices and chi-square difference test. table 2 fit statistics for measurement models χ2 df χ2/df ∆χ2 gfi cfi rmsea aic four-factor 171.62** 60 2.90 .92 .91 .081 (90% ci: .07.10) 235.62 one factor 456.16** 65 7.01 284.54** .69 .55 .17 (90% ci : .15 .18) 508.16 ** p < 0.001. figure 1. structural model. sea = self emotion appraisal; oea = others emotion appraisal; uoe = use of emotion; roe = regulation of emotion; pa = positive affect; na = negative affect; hc = health concerns; sp = sleep problems; a = anxiety; dy = dysophoria; si = suicidal ideas. ** p < .01. europe’s journal of psychology 30 structural model the structural model revealed a good fit to the data: χ2 (60, n = 200) = 172.65, p < 0.001; gfi = .92; cfi = .91 and rmsea = .081 (90% ci = .07 – 0.10). steiger’s power analysis (statsoft, 2001) suggested a power of .83 for the model (ε1 = .08, α = .05, n = 200, df = 60). the results indicated that the effect of ei on psychological distress was partially mediated by pa and na. the standardized direct effect of ei on psychological distress was .08 (95% percentile confidence interval:(-.08) – (.30), p > .34). ei had significant direct effects on na (-.34, 95% percentile confidence interval:(-.52)-(-.15), p = .003) and pa (.56, 95% percentile confidence interval: (.42)(.73), p < 0.05). indirect effect of ei on psychological distress was (-.28, 95% percentile confidence interval: (-.52)-(-.09), p < .01). in sum, the standardized total effect of ei on psychological distress was -.19 (95% percentile confidence interval: (-.36) – (-.03), p < .10). finally, negative affect had a statistically significant direct effect on psychological distress (.78, 95% percentile confidence interval :(.63)-(.94), p < .01) and the relationship between positive affect and psychological distress was insignificant (-.03, 95% percentile confidence interval: (-.23)-(.14), p > .05). the proportion of variance in psychological distress explained by all constructs was 58% (95% percentile confidence interval: (.40)-(.79), p < .001). in sum, the direct effect of pa on psychological distress was insignificant, pa did not mediate the relationship between ei and psychological distress, and na fully mediated the relationship between ei and psychological distress (table 3). table 3 standardized direct and indirect effects predictor outcomes positive affect negative affect psychological distress direct direct direct indirect ei .56** [(.42)-(.73)] -.34** [(-.52)-(-.15)] .08 [(-.08) –(.30)] -.28** [(-.52)-(-.10)] positive affect -.03 [(-.23)-(.14)] negative affect .78** [(.63)-(.94)] note: the confidence intervals (ci) are based on the findings from bootstrapping analysis (1000 samples). ** p < .01. emotional intelligence and psychological distress 31 discussion this study investigated the associations between ei and variables theoretically linked to it: pa, na, and psychological distress. in line with previous studies (e.g., kafetsios & zampetakis, 2008 ; lopes et al., 2006 ; sevdalis, petrides, & harvey, 2007) the results demonstrated that ei is an important predictor of work affectivity. ei was positively related to pa and negatively to na (h1a & h1b). furthermore, the effect of ei was stronger for pa as compared to na, which demonstrates the important role of ei in generating positive moods in the work setting. positive emotions appear to broaden individual’s momentary thought-action repertoires (widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind) that promote the building of physical resources (e.g., better health), social resources (e.g., friendship), intellectual resources (e.g., expertise), and psychological resources (e.g., optimism) (broaden-and-build theory: fredrickson, 2001). accroding to tugade and fredrickson (2001), “emotionally intelligent individuals proactively cultivate positive emotions as paths toward development and growth….. positive emotions are key resources that should be recognized for their worth….. they appear essential for effective and optimal personal and social functioning”. in sum, emotionally intelligent employees are better able to apply these broad and build strategies in work settings (kafetsios & zampetakis, 2008) in order to successfully regulate their negative emotional experiences, which in turn produces beneficial consequences to their psychological and physiological well-being (tugade & fredrickson, 2002). the results of this study confirmed the assertion that people high on negative affectivity are more vulnerable to poorer psychological well-being outcomes (e.g., anxiety and depression) (oliver & brough, 2002; spector et al., 2000). this is because, they rate stressors as highly aversive experiences, and ruminate about their negative feelings often, which in turn amplify and increase in number of depressive episodes. the results of this study support key assumptions of affective events theory (aet) (weiss & cropanzano, 1996) which proposes that antecedent events at work with dispositions lead to affective states that in turn, lead to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. partial support was found for the mediating role of pa and na in the relationship between ei and psychological distress. only na fully mediated the relationship between ei and psychological distress. results suggest that ei helps in the formation of affective states at work, which in turn influence employee’s psychological health. europe’s journal of psychology 32 implications the results of current study suggest following strategies to manage the issue of psychological distress in work setting. first, special attention should be given to ei during the selection process. second, intervention strategies should be introduced to enhance ei among current employees. literature provides us evidence that ei can be improved via various strategies (goleman, 1995; slaski, 2003). third, based on fredrickson’s (2001) broaden-and-build model of positive emotions, it is suggested that intervention strategies should be introduced within work setting that cultivate positive emotions among employees. according to fredrickson’s (2000, p. 1), positive emotions (such as joy and contentment) broaden an individual’s momentary thought –action repertoire, and help in eradicating the hold of negative emotions on an individual’s mind and body. enhancement of positive emotions help in preventing and treating problems such a psychological distress, deeply rooted in negative emotions. fredrickson’s (2000), suggested many intervention strategies that may help in preventing and treating psychological health related problems, as well as, help in building personal strengths, resilience and wellness of people. these intervention strategies include, (a) relaxation therapies (e.g., imagery exercises, muscle exercises, mediation exercises), (b) decreasing the intensity of unpleasant events and increasing the rates of engagement in pleasant activities, (c) cognitive therapies, (d) training employees in finding positive meaning in daily life, (e) building empathy between people and groups. finally, giving feedback to individuals about their own ei levels might give them greater awareness of their own resources, which might help in lowering psychological distress. limitations and recommendations the findings of this study are subject to several limitations which are common in this type of research. first, the results are specific to organizations in one geographical area and may or may not be generalizable to other areas. second, the crosssectional data precludes any inference of causality. the direction of causality (in cross-sectional studies) cannot be established and will have to be examined using longitudinal data. third, all our respondents were full-time employees and these findings may not be applicable to part-time employees. four, since all measures were self report based measures; 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(2002). the effects of leader and follower emotional intelligence on performance and attitude: an exploratory study. the leadership quarterly, 13, 243– 274. emotional intelligence and psychological distress 39 about the author: jahanvash karim the author is currently enrolled as a phd scholar at cergam, institute d’administration des entreprises d’aix-en-provence, france. in his research he focuses on the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and ability emotional intelligence with particular reference to cultural influences. his work has been published in euro asia journal of management and the icfai university journal of organizational behaviour. making up history: false memories of fake news stories research reports making up history: false memories of fake news stories danielle c. polage*a a central washington university, ellensburg, usa. abstract previous research has shown that information that is repeated is more likely to be rated as true than information that has not been heard before. the current experiment examines whether familiarity with false news stories would increase rates of truthfulness and plausibility for these events. further, the experiment tested whether false stories that were familiar would result in the creation of a false memory of having heard the story outside of the experiment. participants were exposed to false new stories, each portrayed by the investigator as true news stories. after a five week delay, participants who had read the false experimental stories rated them as more truthful and more plausible than participants who had not been exposed to the stories. in addition, there was evidence of the creation of false memories for the source of the news story. participants who had previously read about the stories were more likely to believe that they had heard the false stories from a source outside the experiment. these results suggest that repeating false claims will not only increase their believability but may also result in source monitoring errors. keywords: illusory truth, source, false memory, familiarity europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 received: 2011-11-24. accepted: 2011-12-29. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, ms#7575, central washington university, 400 e. university way, ellensburg, wa 98926. email:polaged@cwu.edu. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the main purpose of this study was to determine whether repeated exposure to fictitious stimuli would cause participants to develop a false memory for having heard about the false news stories from a source outside of the experiment. in addition, the current study attempted to replicate the finding that exposure to false information changes the perceived truthfulness and plausibility of that information. many studies have demonstrated that repeating statements of uncertain truth tends to shift their truth-value ratings toward the true end of the scale. the “illusory-truth effect” was first observed by hasher, goldstein, and toppino (1977), who found that subjects rated repeated statements as more true than new statements. in arkes, hackett, and boehm (1989), participants were exposed to a 108-statement list in the first week and a second list of the same length one week later. this second list was comprised of some of the statements seen earlier plus some statements seen for the first time. results suggest that repeated statements were rated asmore valid than non-repeated statements. the authors concluded that familiarity was a basis for the judged validity of statements. according to begg, anas, and farinacci (1992), a statement will seem true if it expresses information that feels familiar. increased familiarity is an automatic consequence of exposure and its influence on rated truth is unintentional. even when subjects were warned that the source may not be credible, it did not seem to influence the rated truth. in bacon (1979) subjects were explicitly told at study and at test that half of the statements they were exposed to in the experiment were true and half --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ were false, so they knew that statements they had previously heard were no more likely to be true than new ones. even with this explicit information available, repeated statements were rated as more true than new statements. jacoby, kelley, brown, and jasechko (1989) examined the false-fame effect, which occurs if repeated non-famous names are called famous more often than new non-famous names. they proposed that old names are called famous because they feel familiar. the problem is that the familiarity reflects prior exposure in the experiment and this familiarity gives no objective basis for fame. jacoby et al. told the subjects that all of the old names were actually non-famous. in this case, recollection of the source of an old name would lead to it being called non-famous, even though the feelings of familiarity alone would lead to it being called famous. this information eliminated the false-fame effect on immediate, but not delayed (24-hour) tests. this “sleeper effect” shows source memory and familiarity are affected differently by the passage of time. source monitoring refers to one’s ability to correctly identify the origins of specific information or memories and make correct attributions to that source (johnson, hashtroudi, & lindsay, 1993). several studies suggest that participants use familiarity to develop a source for their memory. marsh, meade, and roediger (2003) investigated how people learn and integrate information from fictional sources with their general world knowledge. participants read true and false “facts” and then after a short delay, took a general knowledge test. subjects used both the true and false information from the stories to answer general knowledge questions. in addition, subjects were aware of using story information, but interestingly, story exposure also increased belief that the facts had been known prior to the experiment, even for misinformation answers that were rarely produced without story reading. fragale and heath (2004) also demonstrated that familiarity can affect memory for source. their studies showed that participants who read repeated statements were more likely to believe them; in addition, those statements that were more believable (due to exposure) were believed to come from a more credible source, for example from the reputable consumer reports instead of a tabloid magazine such as the national enquirer. potts, st. john, and kirson (1989) suggest that memory for facts becomes incorporated into semantic memory and that general knowledge does not focus on specific conditions of encoding that would help a person decide when and where this information was learned. a person may have knowledge about an event (such as one’s birth), but not remember the event. according to frost (2000), remembering refers to memories that are associated with an encoding episode and for which a person has explicit memories for the event. knowing, however, refers to memories that are not associated with an encoding episode and are not explicitly remembered. for the purpose of this experiment, the distinction is an important one. participants in the current experiment who were exposed to the stories should have knowledge of the fictitious stories, but the important question was whether they remembered or developed an explicit memory of how they found out about this information. the current experiment examines whether the “illusory truth effect” will extend to false news stories and attempts to integrate the source monitoring literature with the illusory truth literature. the goal of the current study is to determine the effect of exposure on story believability and the effect of that exposure on memory for source. method participants participants were 44 undergraduate psychology students who participated in exchange for course credit. six participants did not return for session two resulting in 21 participants in group 1 and 17 participants in group 2 (see materials and procedure section for an explanation of the groups). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 making up history 246 http://www.psychopen.eu/ design the experiment was a two factor mixed design. the between subjects independent variable was whether the participants were exposed to false target stories during the experiment. the within subjects repeated measures variable was the topic of the false news stories. materials and procedure participants read excerpts from supposed news stories and were asked to indicate the likely publication source of each story (newspaper, magazine, journal/periodical, textbook, or tabloid), create a headline for each story, and estimate the date of publication. each participant received five true stories from a variety of media sources, many of which covered well-known global and national events (see appendix a for sample story); the five true stories were the same for all participants. in addition, all participants were exposed to five false stories; but only half of the participants were exposed to the five critical false stories and the other half were not (see appendix a for a sample story). the goal of the experiment was to determine the influence of exposure to false information on memory for that information. ratings from the control participants would serve as the baseline responses to which participants exposed to the stories would be compared. one false story (about a newly discovered mammal) was excluded from analyses due to an average rating of “definitely true” from participants who were not exposed to this story during the experiment, suggesting it is likely that they actually heard about a similar story from an outside source. therefore, five critical false stories were used in the final analysis. participants returned five weeks later and answered questions about the stories presented to the experimental group on day one, in addition to new true and false filler stories. participants rated the perceived plausibility and truth of each story and their level of knowledge of the story on an eight point likert scale (1 is not at all plausible/true/knowledgeable and 8 is very plausible/true/knowledgeable). participants also rated on a scale of one to eight (1 is not sure at all and 8 is very sure) their confidence in their memory for hearing about the story from a source outside of the experiment such as on the news, hearing people talk about, or reading about it in a publication. results the ratings given on day 2 by participants who had read about the false news stories on day 1 were compared to the ratings given to the same false news story by participants who were not exposed to the story on day 1. the results of the mixed anova showed no significant main effect of stories on plausibility for the news events (f(4, 144) = .968, p = .43, η2 = .03), indicating that the particular stories the participants read did not significantly influence their pattern of responses. there was a significant main effect of exposure, indicating that the plausibility ratings from the participants who had read about the false news event in the experiment (m = 5.43, sd = 1.12) were higher than the ratings from the participants who had not previously read about the events (m = 4.129, sd =1.30; f(1, 35) = 100.44, p < .01, η2 = .74; see figure 1). there was no significant interaction effect between the stories and prior exposure (f(4, 144) = 2.25, p = .07, η2 = .06). results show that there was a significant effect for story on rated truth, indicating that some stories were rated as more true than other stories (f(4, 144)= 4.62, p < .01, η2 = .11). there was not a significant interaction (f(4, 144)= 1.14, p = .34, η2 = .03) between exposure and story which suggests that although the particular stories varied in perceived truthfulness, the effect was consistent between exposure levels. there was a significant main effect for previous exposure (f(1, 36)= 9.79, p < .01, η2 = .21) in that participants who read about the stories in the experiment were more likely to rate the stories as true (m = 5.15, sd = 1.16) than participants who were not previously exposed to the stories (m = 3.93, sd = 1.25; see figure 1). results show that there was no significant europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 polage 247 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. average false story ratings of plausibility, knowledge, truthfulness, and memory for outside source given by the control and previous exposure groups. likert scale ratings range from 1 (none) to 8 (very). effect of story type on knowledge of the events (f(4, 132) = .73, p = .58, η2 = .02) or interaction between story and exposure(f(4, 132) = .46, p = .76, η2 = .01). as expected, there was a main effect for previous exposure on knowledge (f(1, 33) = 20.71, p < .01, η2 = .39); participants who had not been exposed to the stories during the experiment reported having no knowledge of the stories (m = 1.08, sd = .18), whereas participants who had read about the false stories in the experiment reported knowing slightly more about those events (m = 2.03, sd = .79; see figure 1). participants who were exposed to the false news stories in the experiment were also significantly more likely to have a strong memory of hearing about the stories from a source outside of the experiment (m = 6.16, sd = 1.45) than were participants who were not previously exposed to the stories (m = 2.05, sd = .94); f(1, 35) = 100.44, p < .01, η2 = .74; see figure 1). there was no main effect of story (f(4, 140) = .97, p = .43, η2 = .03) or story by exposure interaction (f(4, 140) = 2.25, p = .07, η2 = .06). discussion results from the current study show that exposure to false stories increased the perceived plausibility and truthfulness of those stories. this suggests that simply exposing participants to false information will increase belief in the false information. these results add to the vast literature demonstrating “illusory-truth effects” (hasher et al., 1977), in which repeated statements are viewed as more true than new statements, and also demonstrates that the effect extends to longer narratives. the results also suggest that although participants may have been aware that they were exposed to the story during the course of the experiment, they also believed that they had heard or read about the story from somewhere else, which is evidence of source misattribution. therefore, this experiment demonstrated that repetition of false information can result in increased belief in the false information, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 making up history 248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition to source errors, which occur when participants mistakenly attribute a memory to an incorrect source (johnson et al., 1993). it is important to note that the control group and the exposed group rated the same false stories; the only difference between the control and experimental groups was whether they had heard about the false stories during the experiment. it seems possible then that familiarity may lead to a source monitoring errors and lead participants to believe that they had heard of these news stories outside of the context of the experiment. according to johnson et al., if effort is made to actively integrate information, which participants likely did while trying to create headlines for the stories, then the participants are more likely to exhibit confusion over fictional versus factual information. the effect is even more pronounced at long time delays, and in the current experiment, the 5 week time delay was significant. these results suggest that repeating false claims will not only increase their believability but may also result in the false belief that they had been heard about previously and from more than one source. fragale and heath (2004) also suggest that the more familiar the information seems, the more credible the source from which it is assumed to have originated is perceived. these findings have many real world applications. during elections, opposing parties often engage in slander campaigns in which false information about a candidate is repeated. these results suggest that as the public becomes more familiar with the false information, they may come to believe it; in addition, according to fragale and heath’s research, people may end up believing that they heard about the false information from a highly credible source which may increase the rate of transmission and subsequent belief in the information by others. false advertising often involves unfounded claims about products which may boost sales if participants believe they heard the claim from a less biased source, such as a friend or neutral third party. finally, one can imagine how the introduction of evidence that is later stricken from the record could be confused with admissible evidence, resulting in injustice in the courtroom. future research should manipulate the retention interval between exposure and source test and determine the duration of the effect. in addition, the effect of repeating the false information should be examined to determine whether the believability ratings will continue to increase as the number of exposures increases. finally, it is important to assess the impact of a variety of sources on belief to determine whether the credibility of the source plays a role in rated truth. this research study is a first step in understanding how repeated false information can not only come to be believed, but also be misremembered as originating from an incorrect source. references arkes, h. r., hackett, c., & boehm, l. (1989). the generality of the relation between familiarity and judged validity. journal of behavioral decision making, 2, 81-94. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960020203 bacon, f. t. (1979). credibility of repeated statements: memory for trivia. journal of experimental psychology. human learning and memory, 5, 241-252. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.5.3.241 begg, i. m., anas, a., & farinacci, s. (1992). dissociation of processes in belief: source recollection, statement familiarity, and the illusion of truth. journal of experimental psychology. general, 121, 446-458. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.121.4.446 fragale, a. r., & heath, c. (2004). evolving informational credentials: the (mis)attribution of believable facts to credible sources. personality and social psychology bulletin, 30, 225-236. doi:10.1177/0146167203259933 frost, p. (2000). the quality of false memory over time: is memory for misinformation “remembered” or “known”? psychonomic bulletin & review, 7, 531-536. doi:10.3758/bf03214367 hasher, l., goldstein, d., & toppino, t. (1977). frequency and the conference of referential validity. journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 16, 107-112. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 polage 249 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bdm.3960020203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.5.3.241 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.121.4.446 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167203259933 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03214367 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1 http://www.psychopen.eu/ jacoby, l. l., kelley, c. m., brown, j., & jasechko, j. (1989). becoming famous overnight: limits on the ability to avoid unconscious influences of the past. journal of personality and social psychology, 56, 326-338. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.56.3.326 johnson, m. k., hashtroudi, s., & lindsay, d. s. (1993). source monitoring. psychological bulletin, 114, 3-28. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3 marsh, e. j., meade, m. l., & roediger, h. l., iii. (2003). learning facts from fiction. journal of memory and language, 49, 519-536. doi:10.1016/s0749-596x(03)00092-5 potts, g. r., st. john, m. f., & kirson, d. (1989). incorporating new information into existing world knowledge. cognitive psychology, 21, 303-333. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(89)90011-x appendix sample true story a survey of 1,900 heart attack survivors found that those who reported drinking the most tea were least likely to die by the follow-up study. the team suspects that antioxidants known as flavonoids, which are abundant in green and black teas, may explain the link between tea consumption and survival. sample false story the california state legislature is expected to pass a law limiting the number of credit cards a person ‘seriously indebted’ may obtain. the system would work by placing a ‘red flag’ on the credit history of anyone who has $5,000 or more of debt per monthly income. removal of the flag would require a verified meeting with both a credit counselor and a representative from the credit company. about the author dr. danielle c. polage is currently an assistant professor at central washington university. her research interests are memory, lying, and psychology and the law. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 245–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456 making up history 250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.56.3.326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0749-596x(03)00092-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(89)90011-x http://www.psychopen.eu/ making up history method participants design materials and procedure results discussion references appendix sample true story sample false story about the author metaphorical representations of the consultancy and the consultant in romania (1) dragos iliescu phd in i/o psychology lecturer snspa and partner in d&d research daniela stoian msc in "managerial communication and human resources" communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania maglina filimon msc in "managerial communication and human resources" communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania mihaela păunescu msc in "managerial communication and human resources" communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania vasilica trandafir msc in "managerial communication and human resources" communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania alexandra haralambie msc in "managerial communication and human resources" communication and public relation faculty national school of political sciences and public administration (snspa), bucharest, romania with the participation of: introduction methodological preliminary the present study was conducted on constructivist analytical frame and it concentrated on the metaphorical representations of the hr specialists about the hr consultants and, generally, about the consultancy process. the study has been developed during january february 2005, by d&d research, with the participation of hr-romania. the methodology was mostly quantitative, based on the deployment of 188 questionnaires by face-to-face administration, but, also, by the respondent’s self-evaluation. the interest for this study appeared due to the need to know the type of role played by the consultancy act in the romanian reality and the consultant occupation. the romanian market, not having a large history regarding this domain, has not benefit from instruments to depict its main aspects, the specific characteristics of this domain (field). we consider that the results of this study will become a valuable instrument both for the consultancy firms (companies) and for the firms which require consultancy. inevitably, the study provides new information, it represents a coordinating element for those who will come in contact with it and we consider that the impact will be proportional, due to the fact that the study illustrates the image as a whole, the social imagery the people that have come in contact with the consultancy firms have. once one is aware of their perception, things become much easier and the approach of the interactions aspects between the customer and the consultant becomes much more flexible and direct. on this account, this study represents a guide both for consultants and for their customers. we’ll notice aspects that are no big news and were to be expected, but we’ll also notice conclusions, rather unexpected and sometimes even against the positions overtly stated by the consultants or by their customers. we would wish that all of these positions should be taken into consideration as simply existing, they are free from any negative connotation they could receive from some of us and none of this have ever been intended in this study. chapter 1: the metaphor and its representations in the consultant's activity organizational change and the psychological representations starting even from two decades ago, change has become one of the main themes in the study of the organization. applied studies, dedicated to the process of managing organizational change, are more than enough and we can state, without mistake, that they brought forth a whole connected industry in organizational consultancy: the one focused on one or the other form of organizational change. although, from the practical point of view, the concept is continuously growing in importance, as yet there are not enough daring developments to be noticed in terms of real knowledge. we do also agree with many other important researchers of the domain who state that the understanding of the concept of organizational change is limited and continues to pay tribute to some wrong postulates, both about changing and about the nature and the life of the organizations. many authors of the domain have suggested, more than once, that one of the many ways in which we can achieve a more profound understanding over the phenomenon of organizational change could be by exploring the symbolical aspects of the organizational life (alvesson, 1995; jones, 1996; smircich, 1983, 1985; trice & beyer, 1984). the reasoning that recommends such a symbolical approach are based on the depth of the organizational cultural aspects and on their omnipresence, both demonstrating the ability of the cultural symbols to influence all the organizational process and, especially, those connected with the change (czarniawska, 1997a; rosaldo, 1989; wilkof, brown, & selsky, 1995). the understanding of the change in its symbolic context makes it possible to identify some tacit barriers in its way and makes it possible to approach the plans of changing in such a manner in which to reflect the cultural build interpretations regarding this process. the cultural interpretations and constructions always reflect not only on the organizational change process in its whole, but, also on all the important actors that are part of this process. as one of the most important participant actors in the change process, the organizational consultant always has his part of labeling perceptual constructions and tacit barriers. even when it’s not about labels, but about non-verbalized and unconscious presumptions, postulates or nonverbal frames, existing within the target-organization (sometimes among its rank-and-file, some other times even among the top level employees), these psychological representations influence all the interactions of the organization with the consultant – from the easiest to the most complicated ones. based on the psychological representations and on the symbolical frames (constructions) mentioned here the consultant receives his or her research brief and the consultancy contract, the client defines the target-area, both together sets the frame of analysis and the conceptual patterns, the consultant is selected or rejected, he/she is given or is denied some freedoms and margins in the consultancy project, his/her work is evaluated in the end and so on. metaphors in the study of organizations one of the most obvious ways in which the cultural or individual representations that influence the interaction between the organization and the consultant may be speculated in the organizational study is the metaphor. social researchers, like any man in his daily life, tend to continuously work, at an unconscious level, with metaphors. they’re caught in their own perspectives and their own assumptions, they build, understand and interpret the social reality in partial and sometimes incorrect ways, but which have a strong functional and adaptive dimension: they are practical and, to a practical (concrete) level, they hit the mark. through the fact that they work continuously with representations that change their own image about reality, and exactly because they are aware of those, researchers in the social sciences are more skillful that others regarding the identification of such psychological representations when these are used by the people surrounding them. metaphors are legitimate ways of knowledge (radman, 1995); they are heuristic symbols and mechanisms for expressing these symbols (pugh, hicks, & davis, 1997). metaphors are wordless (tacit) ways of behavior and verbal transmission of some meanings which are either non-verbalized and non-conscious, or either too complicated in order to be verbally transmitted – or, most of the times, both of these. under these conditions, we consider that fundamenting the study of organizations on metaphors is not a possibility, but a must. it is important to understand that, although endless in their possibilities of articulation, metaphors are grouped around some occupations in certain favorite, usual forms. most of the professional occupations have their own dedicated metaphors and a part of these have been explicitly studied in the past. the metaphors, the representations, parables and symbolical verbalizations used in psychology where addressed by leary (1990), those in human resources management by dunn (1990), those related to informational systems by kendall & kendall (1993), those related to learning and pedagogy by cortazzi & jin (1999) etc. related to epistemology we must mention argyris’, putnam’s & smith’s (1985) study and in the study on organizations and management we must mention morgan’s (1997) very famous study. we have met, in our activity as consultants not just once but plenty of times, reified metaphorical representations, succeeding in subtly managing the interaction of the organization as a whole or of some of its segments, in its interaction and relationship with us, as consultants. using metaphors in organizational research – and especially in practice, in consultancy – is considered by some authors (grubbs, 2001; daley, 2001) as being a third methodology, which passes above the qualitative and the quantitative. the metaphor is, as we think, an extension of the qualitative, narrative approach. it combines the purity of the objective positive approach which the insightfulness and practical spectrum the qualitative approach has generally in the study of the organizations and especially in the work of some consultant. it provides a predominant concentration, not on what the subject says, but on what stands at the base of his/her verbalizations. any gesture and especially any word of the subject – whether he is the client or just an ordinary member of the target-organization reflects the respective person’s subjective impressions about external facts (brink, 1993). examples of punctual metaphors used in the organizational environment (but not only) would be: the music: the conductor and the instrumentalists, all singing by the conductor’s directions and by the musical part, all being virtuosic and playing, of course, a particular and artistic interpretation of his own role; the family: a strong metaphor regarding the organizational behavior, the borders, the distribution of power, the roles etc.: with maternal roles and fatherly ones, with brothers or step brother, with family moments etc. the sport: for example „all in a boat”, suggesting the group share for a difficult task and, also, the team members’ shared destiny; the tree: a strong metaphor used by consultants in order to force the client to concentrate on the whole cycle of planning a problem, not to focus on only one branch (for example the results) and ignore the roots, the block, the other branches, the leaves etc. general metaphors used in the environment of the organization and in consultancy are more general, more inclusive and, in this way necessarily, more vague from certain points of view. they have, however, major meanings for approaching the consultancy process. examples of such metaphors are those identified by morgan (1997), who treats organizations like machines, organisms, brains etc., or those of argyris & schön (1978), of the organization as an army. difficulties in using metaphors the use of metaphors, although we consider it necessary, also brings out some serious and, sometimes, not possible to over-come problems. the research conducted on the metaphors obeys to the logical, procedural and analytical design difficulties which are generally inherent to the research of speech, dialogue and text (short, 2001; keenoy, marshak, oswick & grant, 2000). because in this investigation area quantitative research can’t have a serious point of view, the only research possibility is the qualitative one, which, of course, it is, often speculative, ambiguous, it lacks the experimental stringency, it lacks the ability of prevalence and the positivism which should animate scientific approach. the major difficulty may not be found in epistemological viewpoints, but in the fact that exactly the potential the metaphors have in order to make us uniformly and profoundly understand a situation, it is, in the same time, the biggest researcher’s enemy. from this point of view, the biggest attempt is to discover the real signification of metaphors for the individuals that use them or who are receptive at them. the same phrase, the same metaphor may have different meanings for different individuals or different groups from the same organization. therefore, even the researcher may not coherently understand it, may not completely understand it or may use it in the wrong way. synthetically stated, there are the following inevitable difficulties for the organizational research based on metaphors: (a) incorrect interpretation of the metaphors. in 1989, sackmann strongly drew attention to the fact that different individuals may interpret the same metaphor in different ways, and this fact could lead to different and sometimes unintentional results for each of them. daley (2001) also indicates a few convincing cases of misinterpreted metaphors in the educational, psychological, marketing and organizational research. indeed, the misinterpretation of one metaphor by the employees for whom it’s addressed, related to the organizational change process, may easily destroy the whole process. the clearness (clarity) and the accuracy of the used metaphors are, therefore, necessary characteristics – although, difficult to achieve in the metaphor area. (b) the desire to unify. generally, metaphors are uniformly presented in the domain literature, although they actually appear in a much larger diversity and with many facets and angles which every time deforms and directs their intimate signification to other areas. there are some pressures for unification in the field of study, but the researcher must understand that metaphors generally presented in the studies of the domain – and in this research – are unitary generalizations and verbalizations which may really appear in more or less modified ways. (c) influence of the dominant metaphors. the importance of applying the metaphors on the research comes from the fact that a relatively small number of metaphors are dominant, therefore closing the path of appearance for other metaphors. for instance, the metaphor “organization” as an organism and the one of organization as a mechanism is so dominant that the first repartee for a metaphor for any individual can be found in 90% of the cases in one of these two solutions (kraemer, 2001). according to this, abilities in the quantitative study are needed, in order to overcome the lifted up barriers of the dominant metaphors. (d) the attitudes, the opening towards the metaphor in the research. the quantitative research, especially when it is so speculative and so opened to personal and subjective interpretations, still remains a suspicious and repudiated method by the majority of the theoreticians’ circle (shindell & willis). practitioners, who agree with such methodological options, do not have strong opinions in the domain and they generally use by intuition the metaphor and in this way feeding up, even more, the aura of abstract subjectiveness of the metaphorical research. chapter 2: the methaphor and its representations in human relations in romania. quantitative marks. methodology. extraction of the used representations/metaphors 1. qualitative investigation. the technique of critical incidents the first step in selecting the investigated metaphors in this study was made on qualitative bases, after shindell & willis’ model (2001). it was a qualitative exploring study, based on not structured interviews and on the critical incidents technique belonging to flanagan (1954). the purpose was to extract practical examples of utilizing the metaphors in situations of factual consultancy. interviews were taken through the work of 4 consultants and 11 individuals working in medium or top managerial positions, from companies which have applied for consultancy for various aspects related to the human resources field, for the last three months. virtually, the speech and the interviewed individual’s verbalizations were aimed in order to find metaphors or subjective representations about the consultancy process, without using prompting techniques for various devoted metaphors. anyway, when a certain metaphor appeared, questions were used in order to block its meanings like, for example, why the interviewed thinks the used metaphor is strong or stimulating for the actual case or how can be explained the fact that this metaphor has so powerful meanings. 2. conceptual map the second step was to chart a conceptual map related to the so chosen metaphors and to their meanings. the map focused on assigning the differences and establishing the resemblance between the various metaphorical representations and it was useful for the following discussions between the experts. 3. the delphi method the third step was the discussions between the experts. a number of six experts on the problem of metaphorical treatment of the organizational representations have had 4 consecutive meetings, two hours each, in order to make the metaphors and to make the identified meanings from the above step work. in this way, they created 14 metaphors about the consultant and consultancy and they made them operational. they were grouped, in order to be evaluated, into 7 areas of significance. the 14 metaphors, in this way identified and made operational, are related to the consultant as a: (1) doctor, (2) police officer, (3) psychologist, (4) astrologer, (5) teacher, (6) fireman, (7) captain, (8) mechanic / engineer, (9) churchman / ordinee, (10) farmer, (11) designer / aesthetician, (12) coach, (13) guide, (14) architect. the areas that were considered to be important for the explanation of the mentioned above metaphorical representations are: (1) the common vision about his/her own organization („i generally see my organization as”); (2) the common vision about his/her own organization, when a consultancy demarche is needed („the most accurate analogy representing a comparison for my organization, when it needs consultancy….”); (3) the vision about the difficult situations experienced by the organization („the situations that force me to ask consultancy, i see them as …”); (4) the vision about the consultant’s activity („what the consultant does …”); (5) the vision about the consultant’s contribution (“ i expect the ideal consultant to come with the following in a project…”); (6) the vision about the consultant’s time spent in the organization („i expect the consultant to spend time in the organization, as follows …”); (7) the vision about the finality of the consultancy („for me the finality of the consultancy is …”). the questionnaire realized by following these steps was called ocmq (organizational consultant metaphor questionnaire). ocmq contains 112 items on 7 dimensions and it needs from the respondent for each dimension a designation (nomination) for the three items which he/she considers to represent him/her and a designation for the three items which he/she rejects the most. the internal consistency of the questionnaire was calculated by an index of alpha=.61, which is considered to be satisfactory. explaining the used metaphors 1. the consultant as a doctor the individual who asked for the consultancy sees his/her organization as a sick organism which the consultant has to cure. he does not deeply implicate himself in the new problem, but he asks for the complete specialist’s help, whose competence and superior experience he/she unconditionally recognizes. the doctor interferes in the organizations when there is a symptom some where. he brings in the organization much knowledge about its “sicknesses” and it is enough to ask “were does it hurt” in order to set a diagnostic and to evaluate where the situation stands; in this way, the participation of the individual who receives consultancy is minimum, he/she only has to be present and to follow exactly the prescribed treatment. the doctor comes in the organization, establishes the diagnostic, he prescribes the recipe and walks away, and he will come again just for a few times only to see the evolution and to check if the treatments were correctly administrated. the finality of the whole process is to restore or to maintenance an important attribute of the organizational life and this is either functional -specific or, most of the times, it is generally done: the health of the organization. 2. the consultant as a police officer the organization is an institution which is governed by strict norms, and observing these norms is vital. the organization is extremely dependent of the legal frame in which it activates. the procedures and regulations are the essence of a continuous a correct flux. the identification of the individuals who are guilty of deflection from the normal path and their disposal are the consultant’s purpose. the officer is the person who intervenes when one of the laws is strained. it is necessary to identify the person who strained it, to find out the moment when this happened and the cause for it. he knows all about the ways in which one could steal, how one could hide the mistakes, how one could cover the ineffectiveness, he knows about research and interrogation techniques, about legal systems from the organization (internal procedures) and from the outside, systems which the organization has to respect. he has to read, to watch, to be a detective. sometimes he stays for a little while in the organization in order to assist the infliction of the punishment. he will stay to set the new procedures in such a way that this kind of not observing the rules will not take place anymore. the consultant as a police officer is a model who is mainly used in accidental situations in the ru component (industrial accident, ecological accident) or for other similar legally related situations. 3. the consultant as a psychologist the organization where the psychologist intervenes is compared to a sick brain. this model is also used even when there are no symptoms but developing possibilities: the organization has potential, but it is not confident enough in its own forces, it does not have the predicted performances because it does not sees its aces; therefore, it needs to be backed, advised in order to fructify its qualities. the symptoms of the organization are usually not related to physical problems, to affections that may justify the calling up for the doctor, but are related to strange actions under an apparently perfect physical health. the psychologist has a significant role in terms of experience in such “mental” affection. but, it is important for the organization to wish to change and the psychologist helps it to internalize this problem – he doesn’t prescribe drugs, like the doctor, he doesn’t make interventions (operations), he is a mediator who wants to help the organization to reach a superior level of articulation, according to its interests, representations, possibilities, wills. 4. the consultant as an astrologer/actuary the organization where an astrologer / actuary intervenes is an entity which evolves in a very tumultuous and dynamic economical and social environment. the organization has to anticipate it in order to have an active behavior on the market; in the same time, the space where the organization gravitates is a vaguely shaped one where the incertitude rules. the organization needs a map from the consultant, a prognosis on the future, an analysis of the environment where it activates and predictions about the path the organization will follow in the future. only this kind of consultant is able to provide such important information. therefore, by asking help from an astrologer / actuary, the organization wishes information, predictions for optimizing the activity. the consultant brings along, in the organization, his statistic and mathematic knowledge of prevision together with experience in that field, flair and empathy; some of them may come with the “crystal globe”, the “horoscope” and some other esoteric and divine methods, through which they can read the future. at first, the consultant collects the necessary data for the analysis and than he arranges them and shows the results. his role in the organization is to show the future, which becomes clear and there is something sure that brings some cognitive comfort. 5. the consultant as a teacher the organization where the teacher acts is an entity which is continuously learning and which needs to be permanently evaluated. a brain that assimilates continuously. the efficiency of the organization is seen as intervening only when the organization has all the possible knowledge in order to face the challenges from the environment. the organization is preoccupied with evolution. the essence is the assimilation, the organization looks for perfecting, for training. the ideal consultant must track down the needs for training or evolution and he completes them. the consultant may intervene at some definite times or when the education of employees does not meet with the requirements of the technology or it’s behind the requirements of the market and he intervenes in the situation when the organization focuses on employees’ continuous learning for their professional evolution. the consultant brings his theoretical knowledge in the organization, his flair and charisma, all gathered along his career. the time spent by the teacher in the organization will be short or long corresponding to the difference that needs to be covered by training, which may be too big or too small. the time spent in the organization by the consultant also depends on the “students’ “ability to familiarize with the knowledge; in the situation where there are some negative results, the teacher will stay longer and will apply some punishments. the teacher-student relationship is usually intense. the consultant comes to train, comes and teaches others, gives homework, evaluates, gives marks, grounds those who haven’t done correctly their homework, those who have not familiarized with the knowledge presented during the training. 6. the consultant as a fireman the organization on which the fireman intervenes is like a building on fire. the consultant intervenes in full crisis, when the catastrophe has happened and, therefore, he must use all his resources to fix this incident, he risks his “life” ( meaning his reputation and career) and those affected will give him full credit as he is the only person who knows what must be done. his entrance in the organization is tumultuous, he intervenes and repairs the catastrophe and when he has established the cause he packs his bags and leaves the organization, leaving behind a “devastated” territory. his intervention is a primary one; the final intervention will be to extinguish the fire, adjusting the catastrophe. after his intervention devastated areas and sequels remain, but the organization has overcome the danger and it is saved from extinction. the measures for repairing that will be taken are not necessarily the fireman’s. 7. the consultant as a strategist/captain the organization is an army that needs a captain, a strategist for spreading a certain vision, for imaging the plans of battles and wars from the market. the captain is called into the organization when it changes the “acting direction” and it needs a strong hand to guide it; he also intervenes when the organization is not facing a change but a crisis and, in such moments, he is able to show the strategy to be followed; he is also called in when a war, a battle is prepared and when there is the need to establish and coordinate the strategies, the fight tactics, the way to set the troops. he may come by himself in the organization but he may be accompanied by the whole general headquarters, in this way bringing in the organization all the knowledge from the wars and battles that have happened and the techniques from the battle field. when the organization engages into a long war, the strategist may spend a long time in the organization. he directs the organization, decides, gives orders, he lets others to implement because, in some situations, the authority rules. 8. the consultant as mechanic/engineer the engineer is the person who intervenes in the organizations seen as mechanical entities, which, in order to function and achieve performances, need to have all the functional components. he intervenes when one “little wheel is broken” it will affect the others. the vision about organization says that it can be repaired and made functional anytime it is broken. everything is very well calculated and the consultant already knows the insides of the organization, so he will go directly to the broken chain and he doesn’t need to disturb the rest of the compounds. the mechanic/ engineer intervenes in the organization when one of the components does not function at the established parameters, when it wishes to design/redesign a component and to assure the maintenance of all the compound elements. he knows the plans of the “vehicle”, he has the knowledge to assure the repairing and maintenance (when it is the case of the maintenance), he has the substances to “oil” the wheels so they function and will not brake anymore. after his intervention the result is a vehicle which works according to the standards, with few and short interruptions. 9. the consultant as a priest/ordinee the organization needs a priest, in order to seek the right path and the correct and virtuous way for achieving its goals. it needs only the supervising of a known, superior authority, whose opinion is supreme. the vision about the organization is a humanistic one and it takes many times into account aspects related to the corporate responsibility. the consultant’s authority is recognized without raising rational or argumentative problems: his knowledge is superior and relevant. the consultant is a guru, he remains little time in the organization, and sometimes he even doesn’t come in but he is visited from time to time for the weekly or monthly dose of wisdom and guidance. the consultancy is a continuous process because the relationship between the organization and the consultant becomes quickly a relationship of dependence. 10. the consultant as a farmer the farmer acts in an organization that looks like a field which, if it is not ploughed, planted, watered, cared after and reaped on time, it will not produce. he intervenes when some vital activities have not been planned and, therefore, unpleasant events happened. he brings with him the necessary tools for planting and caring after the crop. in order to get good results he must have the ability to anticipate the next phase of the process and to plan the “rotation of the crop”, as well as the knowledge about news in the domain of fertilizers used for the stimulation of some crops. he rests in the organization at least for a cycle of production in order to cover all the steps of the cycle and afterwards he comes back to analyze if the rotation of the crops has had the wanted effect. 11. the consultant as a designer/aesthetician he intervenes into a public exposure environment which and which needs to be attractive. the organization is full-grown a functional, it only needs adjustments related to image, “needs to be in fashion”. the designer/aesthetician intervenes when the exterior, the image is hurt. through his knowledge about the intervention manner over the look of a company and the solutions of rebuilding the initial image or an amelioration of the organization aesthetics, he saves the image. his intervention does not stop only at a very detailed adornment of the company but also he proposes this adornment. 12. the consultant as a coach the organization is like a team in which every person should know very well his/her role and “the whole” works only because the collaboration of all the members exists. the consultancy is necessary when the organization neither does nor reaches anymore the standards of performances and the consultant must know all the motivation tactics, the ones to bring the company back on the field together with the competitive teams. the coach intervenes when the players loose some of their abilities but, also, when it appears the need of adjustment according to the news in the field, in order to face the battle with the competition. he is characterized by charisma, he has some psychological knowledge through which he motivates the team members but, also, knowledge in the field of training and strategies through the game techniques. 13. the consultant as a guide the organization is at the beginning of a road or at the beginning of a new start. it needs guidance, orientation. the consultant is, therefore, the most appropriate person to indicate the options and he is the person to walk with along the road until the end. the consultant brings, therefore, a map of the destination but he, also, describes the itineraries that can be followed, he stands beside the organization all the way and helps it to overcome the difficult parts of the road, through his experience in such situations and due to the fact that he has already taken this itineraries before. 14. the consultant as an architect the organization is a building, with foundation, structural strength, walls, windows, facet, working rooms etc. it is a building which needs consolidation from time to time; certain fissured areas demand periodical reconstruction or painting. this type of consultant acts on the “outside” but also on the inside of the organization. his purpose is to assort the new constructed parts with the rest of the building, but also to cement the whole complex. he intervenes in the organization when he is called in, he is sure about his good taste and flair and, also, about calculations on resistance and his decisions (solutions) may be questionable regarding the flair and the aesthetics, but not regarding the structural strength. the next construction is not his responsibility. it may be, but in few cases and this will happen in a limited manner. applying the questionnaire ocmq was completed after selecting the phrases; it was applied to the target-group by e-mail, by mail or by interview operators. the target-group was formed by high or medium level specialists from romanian companies, who were involved at least once for the past 12 months in the consultancy activity as the clients of it. of course, the questionnaire was anonymous, asking exclusively for correlative and orientate statistics, for data about the size of the company and the industry it activates in. on the whole, there were 188 valid questionnaires accumulated (with all the necessary data completed), and 71 supplementary questionnaires, completed by persons who, although they work in the human resources field, they were not involved in consultancy projects in the specified period. these 71 questionnaires have not been taken into account, but can be used in order to make a comparison about perceptions and representations of the two groups described in this way, which will probably differ in terms of professional experience regarding the interaction with the consultant. the questionnaires were applied through the three mentioned above methods, as follows: 28 questionnaires applied through face-to-face interviews, by an interview operator, at the respondent’s headquarter; 11 questionnaires applied through mail, together with stamped envelope and self-addressed ones in order to facilitate their remittance from the client back to us; 149 questionnaires applied through e-mail, with the help, especially, of the hr-romania human resources. the „superposed profile” of diplomatic requirements and expectations in view of romania’s adhesion to nato and the eu (a comparative study 1994/2004 on two groups of foreign affairs ministry officials) dr. ruxandra rascanu phd university of bucharest abstract foreign affairs – as a practical activity, science or/and a form of arts – ask for solid interdisciplinary knowledge, as well as a series of inter-relationship abilities that are to be displayed inside and outside the country. the author has created some tests (answer/response) that she has used in 1994 and 2004, on two groups of subjects working for the foreign affairs ministry of romania. their answers have been decoded „in mirror” (for comparison purposes). some other tools have been used: vat, a semi-structured interview, brainstorming etc.; their purpose was to re-direct the options, decisions, motivation and abilities for team-work; they are all self-projections for two groups of specialists-actors who try to help in romania’s efforts toward adhesion to the eu and nato. keywords: preventive diplomacy, globalism and europeanism, „condense-items”, exteriorized projection. introduction human society – continuously growing more complex as structure, role and group projection – is nowadays intrinsically linked with phenomena of security, globalization, adhesion, geopolitics, integration, protection, federalisation, ethnicity, terrorism, significant minorities, public education, identity and so on. all this could constitute virtual challenges for some deep investigations from a managerial psychology perspective, as they could also be considered „invented notions”. only the future developments of society will prove their realism and, eventually, their legitimacy, as well as their global implications. the evolution of our society usually determines deep changes in the structure of national and international systems and institutions, but also in some concepts, ideologies, philosophies that underlie the phenomenological perspective. a series of problems as those regarding national and international security, boundless war, with diffuse, hardly identifiable and unpredictable aggressors, have long ago stopped being of a solely military nature (apud mihailescu, 2002, p.7). even since the 50’, the swedish diplomat dag hammarskjold (former secretary general of onu) introduced in a political science dictionary the term of “preventive diplomacy”, considering that, after the end of the second world war, it would be convenient if states, nations and the humankind in general had started preventing conflicts instead of waiting for misunderstandings – even minor – to appear and then starting wars in order to solve them. it may be possible that, starting with the period of the cold war, but especially today, when some socio-political changes can influence peaceful decisions and treaties, psychologists and sociologists could be the most likely people to positively change and influence behaviours, attitudes and decisions. even if the cold war had ceased and the great powers of the world perceive the present as a period of detention and mutual relaxation, we also witness the appearance of new and sophisticated ways of understanding democracy, systems and norms that regulate the relationships between states. likewise, we see the manifestation of influences that bring about conflicts degenerating into wars because of a raw interpretation of religions and cultures that create internal conflicting identities (which is nigeria’s case, just to give one of many examples). one can nowadays hear the voice of politicians talking of a “total war” that they describe as an outcome of the ethnic factor prevalence in internal strategies aimed at “ethnical purification”. the necessary ingredients for this total war are readily available: mixed civil populations, the apparition of military actors from “non-states”, extended conflicting areas, the diversification and multiplication of all types of weaponry in almost all regions of the world. more than 10 million civilians in the world have been afflicted by this kind of internal conflicts since 1990 (rascanu, 2003, p. 158). when confronted with this kind of changes of political and diplomatic views, the traditional methods targeted at softening the crises are ignored; instead, we are now talking of crisis management. the voices of psychologists should make themselves better and more distinctly heard when it comes to conflict prevention, which tends to become a practical problem and not just a puzzle to solve in the classroom. a broad and adequate vision in politics and diplomacy could facilitate the anticipated perception and understanding of the future. considering this aim and the current international context, the political and diplomatic goals should be made up of a set of organisational (governmental) objectives that would effectively help to carry out missions, to design strategies in a way that goes beyond large departmental or social processes, and is backed up by lines of activities specified at an individual and behavioural level. the professionals’ work, including psychologists, should be directly targeted at the accomplishment of such objectives. consecrated authors – diplomats, politicians, sociologists – are unanimous in accepting that we should place on the same level these objectives and those concerning the development of human resources. human resources in the foreign affairs ministry are and probably will be designed in such a manner as to allow the employees, by the very nature of their structure, to stay continuously informed, to take initiatives, to feel motivated for performance, providing at the same time objective indicators for evaluation of these organisational variables. only such a system of evaluation could offer us the necessary basis for drawing conclusions that will help us achieve an adequate use of human resources. security, national identity and conflicts after the end of the cold war (a pledge for a culture of prevention) it is certain that conflicts between states will happen in the future as well. in trying to get in tune with changes in the international environment, specialists will focus on the “new” internal conflicts. further on, we will name some of the general and viable norms and rules (applicable in any country on the globe), that we have selected from different opinions on which should be the priorities regarding the optimization of the relationship between diplomacy and organisational-managerial psychology in view of conflict prevention and activities specific to the 21st century (pascaru, 2002, pp. 202-216). a. in order to control violence, one should act in time. every leader has always the possibility to choose before turning to violence. if external pressures from the exterior are made on due place and time, one can obtain a positive result, and maybe even one vital for the prevention of an escalating conflict. this is what makes violence prevention imperiously necessary, which, in turn, has lead to the conception of systems able to identify signals that appear before an outburst of violence. this is the way one usually acts in case of food shortage, floods or earthquakes. even if these signals are ambiguous, they give decision factors the possibility to avoid crises, to change their direction or to alleviate them. governments can rely on onu and regional organisms for consultation and the leaders of the two conflicting factions can be identified and contacted. b. few conflicts blow up unpredictably. proof of imminent violence usually gathers as ‘storm clouds’ do. we now know that the genocide in rwanda (1994) was nothing but unpredicted. onu and nongovernmental agencies had sent rapports signalling the state of growing tension and the extremist discourses. this is why it is crucial that we initiate a learning process. the onu rapports and those issued by different commissions dealing with the role of onu and other external actors in the catastrophe that took place in rwanda or in the massacre in srebrenica (former yugoslavia) should constitute, from a critical perspective, an important reference point for the future. the meaning of this process is learning. diplomats, politicians, psychologists, sociologists are almost unanimous in accepting that, at the present moment, there is a fundamental dilemma in the world linked to the answer that should be given to signals of imminent violence that are to be decoded with extreme accuracy. although the onu charter is based on the experience with interstate conflicts in the second world war, the document does not stipulate any difference between a threat to peace and security. therefore, this charter has proved to be amazingly broad in its applicability to internal conflicts. dag hammarskjold even said that onu represents ‘a lively organisation, capable of adapting its constitutional norms to various needs’. if maslow’s inspired pyramid of needs (motives) has become a landmark in social sciences, in the same way, the stipulation and observance of rules becomes the condition sine qua non in agreements, negotiations and diplomacy. c. the importance of norms. given the cruelty of civil wars, and the role of the ethnic factor in the outburst of conflicts, efforts to defend human rights have gained an ever increased importance. since its beginnings, onu has adopted the principle according to which this protection should be achieved through observance of universal systems of norms. d. the mediation and the problem of ineffective leadership. we now again witness limitations and dilemmas in conflicts and negotiations that are linked to the fact that the characteristics of civil wars make them harder to solve than interstate wars. first of all, some of the actors involved in local wars could obtain a profit on them; therefore, they sustain the prolongation of the war, and examples of these species of behaviour are to be found in both europe and africa. secondly, it is highly probable that parties involved in a conflict will not give up the pursuit of their incompatible objectives. under these conditions, an ineffective leadership – that some name “pathological” (castro, 2004, pp.17-18) based on some well-known contemporary examples – becomes a factor seriously afflicting the process of forging a compromise. this kind of leadership has sometimes raised the level of unpredictability and sufferance beyond any imagination. e. peace agreements must be observed. in general, there are numerous obstacles confronting the maintenance of a peaceful resolution after the negotiation of an agreement. the discourses in favour of the war and the ideas that the enemy wants to rule the country can still inhabit some people’s minds. the distance between fear and a minimum of trust seem to be insurmountable. “we” and “them” are sometimes worlds apart (mihailescu, 2002). democracy is considered at the same time a favourable environment and an instrument in the appeasement of conflicts. however, the political and economic transition represents a veritable touchstone in the way of stability. there are numerous examples of different parts of the world that demonstrate that, in the incipient stages of democratisation, the ethnic and religious grounds are those on which political mobilization and loyalty are built (in this sense, a typical example would be the former yugoslavia). f. reconciliation should be an objective on the long term and should rely on change. the long duration of conflicts is a sufficient reason for insisting on finding some strategies of reconciliation – a phenomenon that is more and more customary in our contemporary society, and also in the process of becoming a condition sine qua non of all negotiations. in a world that is going trough a continuous transformation, there is nothing more stable than change, which is an objective process that can no longer be ignored. therefore, it is highly important that we can predict change and act for it (apud cornescu, mihailescu, stanciu, 2001), that we insure a proper leadership of the transformation process so that it will eventually be reflected in positive results. change management at the organisational level is dealing precisely with these aspects. for every organisation and for the “actors” in the foreign affairs ministry as well, a manager’s approach to change should also include other aspects such as: trust, in oneself and in the subordinate personnel, adaptation capacity, which they should also cultivate in other members of the organisation, willingness to evolve and develop. a management favourable to change at the organisational level is usually sensible to challenges that society, as a whole, raises at one stage or another. for example, in nowadays society, the transition to the market economy pressures organisations to undergo deep changes in order to adapt to the new environment. the organisation and management of romanian diplomatic activity: comparative aspects (1994/2004) in different cultures and states, more or less explicitly, it has been customary to investigate and know in depth the requirements for carrying out various diplomatic activities (including negotiations), as well as the expectations that employees had with regard to diplomatic management. although already practising modern diplomacy for some time, romania having put lots of efforts in this direction, similar to those made in developed countries, some results are still in the “experiment” phase, or, in any case, not able to claim the consistency and penetration that are currently needed. being well aware of the fact that, by any attempt to offer at least a “flash” into a very painstaking and important activity, we would take a great risk, we tried to approach the complex reality of diplomacy by means of investigating mainly attitudes. as any rigid attempt to classify or to strictly rank human behaviours would be doomed to failure, we tried to compare the results of some investigations we made in 1994-1995 with those obtained through the psycho-social investigation of the same aspects in 2003-2004. in our former research, as well as in the latter one, we had first broadly documented our research with general information so as not to “work” with emotional states or to force the given framework into the wrong direction on the pressure of our respondents’ social, professional and economic status. specifically, we imagined a “face to face” presentation of data obtained after using a series of questionnaires on two groups of employees of the foreign affairs ministry. the whole procedure focused on the ideas, approaches and perspectives that are relevant in the romanian diplomatic activity, which is already part and parcel of the european system of security and terrorism prevention. the 1994-1995 study was made on a group of 100 subjects of both sexes, with an age range of 33 to 64 years. in order to carry out this investigation, we imagined and applied a questionnaire based on free answers, with a focus on the following themes: the ranking of characteristics necessary in the diplomatic activity; ways of perceiving the problems of romanian diplomacy abroad and its possible challenges; team-relationships between people in the embassies, consulates, foreign partners and romanians living abroad. the questionnaire was answered by 25 women and 75 men, with a mean age of 47 years, all subjects having graduate education; out of these, only 6 of them were doing or had already obtained their phd, while 12 of them had benefited from scholarships abroad. as far as the range of qualities necessary to the diplomatic employee, the subjects that we investigated believed that this is made up of the following psychological traits: firmness, flexibility, ability to adjust to reality, ability to take responsible and deeply thought decisions, permanent and serious documentation, feeling motivated and observing codes of loyal conduct toward one’s country, proactive and peaceful attitude in the team involved in a diplomatic mission, psychological insight, patience and tolerance, general abilities for good cooperation. as our investigation is rather more prone to become subject of a qualitative approach, we should mention that we succeeded though in obtaining statistical indicators such as ranks and means, as well as the central tendency of most relevant psychosocial phenomena. we added to the questionnaire designed in 1994 a question that has highlighted a strong appetite for the quality of human interrelationships among those involved in diplomatic activities, especially when working abroad. we should mention that this item that required a personal listing of qualities necessary in diplomatic activities was the most loaded with answers in the whole series. it is also highly interesting the way our subjects have ranked the problems dealt with in diplomatic activities and the necessary social qualities. on the first position we find “the consistent need to deeply inform oneself” with regard to the problems confronting the given country they work in. the second was the consolidation of relationships with foreign partners, and the third – “openness” to socio-cultural and economical issues active in the region they carry out their diplomatic activity. on the fourth position our respondents placed the negotiating role, which includes general and specialised knowledge, abilities and experience in the field. if we attempt to superpose the themes highlighted in the two questionnaires (1994-1995 and 2003-2004), we notice that we obtained answers that can be decoded “in mirror”, which in turn allows for a comparison of the dynamics of phenomena in the diplomatic activity. in our recent study (2003-2004) we investigated 64 subjects, 15 men and 49 women, with an age range of 23 to 50 years (the mean age of the group being 32 years). we would like to underline here the personnel strategies that the foreign affairs ministry applied in the meantime: in this group, the number of those that had benefited from a scholarship, as well as the number of those having post-graduate studies at the master’s or phd level was much bigger than that registered in 1994-1995.the structure of answers to our questionnaire (completed by the semi-structured interview and a projective test of a verbal-associative test) shows us that some general problems are still to be encountered and also puts forward some new aspects. this is why we consider the complex and general changes that took place in our country as well as those happening at the european or even international level (from a socio-economic or geopolitical point of view) are the main variables able to explain both the new attitude toward diplomacy, and the change in the employees’ motivational basis. they tend to project some of the socio-economic and political priorities in their own activity, as well as in that of the foreign affairs ministry or romania. globally, we noticed, after classifying the results obtained after the administration of the questionnaire on the latter group, that there appear some items of great complexity and responsibility. synthetically, these items appear on many answers that we chose to condense as it follows: the link between foreign policy – internal policy; being aware of the “urgencies” in the external policy in 2004; romania’s integration in the eu; the necessity for solid professional formation of people active in the romanian diplomacy area. we should also underline the fact that the general tone of the approach in the second investigation (2003-2004) is a more alert, more dynamic, more adequate one. the “condense-items” that were present in both investigations refer to: a. the series of qualities (both physical and psychosocial) necessary to diplomatic activity; b. the “traps” in diplomatic activity; c. the need for concrete initiatives in this area; d. the determinant factors of romania’s image abroad; e. team-work, dialogue and communication: f. inside the mission (colleagues, superiors and subordinates); g. with the foreign affairs ministry, the presidency, the government, the ngos; h. with romanians living abroad; i. with different representatives from the country where the diplomatic activity is carried out. even if we had in mind a prevalently qualitative presentation of options and expectations of diplomatic employees, we can still outline some general concepts useful in the diplomatic management. in full consensus with more or less recent studies of organisational psychology, social psychology, sociology and even political psychology, our cognitive conducts always have an emotional dimension, both at the individual and the group level. the situation is the same with the two groups we investigated at an interval of 10 years, and this allows us to say that the series of requirements in the diplomatic activity were each time projected in an ideal manner (quantitatively and qualitatively). these projections at the level of the self are exteriorized, in our case, through expectations toward the image romania would have in the future, tending to colour the individual qualitative evaluations. if the romanian diplomacy hadn’t anticipated the difficulties that appeared in the adhesion process to nato and ue, we should say that it is precisely from the acceptance of this level of difficulty that we are to gather the suggestions for our diplomacy in the future (one that should be of a preventive type). the superposition of the condense-items that resulted after the two investigations opens up the possibility for some suggestions and proposals, out of which some have already been put into practice by the foreign affairs ministry. we want to stress that this listing is suggestive as long as it offers an opening toward psychosocial phenomena that are responsible for the decisions, conducts, emotions, interests of those involved in a diplomatic activity wherever it may be. this is why we argue that the future years will be rather difficult for romania, because of all the efforts that are to be made both in the interior and in the exterior, through diplomacy. if informal communication is easier to achieve in small organisations, one cannot state the same for larger ones. this is why the concerns of leaders in the foreign affairs ministry, as well as of those engaged in diplomatic missions, could be clarified by their very experience-based proposals: well-structured objectives should be coupled with communication abilities, active listening skills, observance of decisions already made and ability to make new decisions. thus, workshops, micro-sessions of scientific communications (inspired by practice), brainstorming, the delphi technique etc. can effectively help forming and enhancing organisational skills, diplomatic and political abilities, whether in the ministry, or in the romanian embassies and consulates all over the world. conclusions the sociology and political psychology studies draw attention not only the necessity to continue internal and external efforts to sustain romania’s adhesion or to continue the reforms (especially at the institutional level), but mainly to the need for a mentality change, based on the present globalising trend. the following are the most general ideas that are to be drawn from our investigation of two groups: a. the willingness to receive responsibilities targeted at a good insertion into the external structures of nato, ue and other international bodies (onu, unesco etc.); b. the building up of an attitude of maturity and innovation, of interest for present activities, for the individual and institutional future of romanian diplomacy; c. receptiveness (as a general attitude) for current problems (economic, political, social) based on solid information gained through postgraduate education, master and phd programmes etc. d. trying to identify the right solutions, the present or future problems (through role-play, micro-experiments, attitude scales etc) is still an deficient area when compared with the projected area of qualities necessary for the future diplomat; e. the relatively low level of the proposition of practical solutions for the diplomatic activity in the future should not be decoded as mere self-censure, but as a deficiency in shaping solutions and decisions likely to be put into practice or to have a theoretical impact; f. the persistence of an old-fashioned mentality, even among young people, that assumes that one should prefer not to get involve in the romanian political life; g. the presence of some kind of disgust or disappointment among the young generation (students or graduates of humanist studies – law, history, psychology, sociology) when it comes to the perspective of making a career in diplomacy or politics. a deeper explanation of these attitudes and social representations is that put forward by a series of psychosocial micro-studies that have highlighted a rather negative profile of the romanian politician; this one is generally supposed to display the following characteristics: inability in social relationships, arrogance, incompetence, corruption (usually very heavily documented). in the future, we should stress the need for the development of a system of stimulation of change initiatives regarding institutions, mentalities and, implicitly, inter-human and inter-group relationships, in areas such as health, education, defence, or external affairs. this transformation “project” can become functional only through permanent information, multiplication of r&d activities, creation of consistent documentation, introduction of postgraduate studies, with a concentration in the socio-human sciences (such as the master’s programme and the courses organised by the diplomatic academy of the foreign affairs ministry), a concerted effort directed at the continuous evaluation of both employees and activities in the ministry. on the whole, we are confronted with the evidence that it high time we implemented a macro-system for adjusting to the new and to change – a compulsory ingredient of the future, of the system that will anticipate the reforms and will make possible their adaptation to functional european, nato and other international standards. references badesccu, i., mihailescu, i., sava, n. (2003). “globalizare, mondialism, integrare”. geopolitica integrarii europene. bucuresti: editura mica valahie. castro, dana (sous la direction) (2004). les interventions psychologiques dans les organisations. paris: dunod. cornescu, v., mihalescu, i, stanciu, sica (1997). management (editia a-iii-a). bucuresti: editura actami. mihailescu, i. (2002). securitatea europeana. probleme in dezbatere: identitate, migratie, terrorism. bucuresti: institutul social roman. pascaru, daniela (2002). “identitate europeana: intre euro-optimism si euro-scepticism”. in i. badescu, i. mihailescu (coord). geopolitica integrarii europene. bucuresti: editura universitatii din bucuresti. rascanu, ruxandra (2003). psihologie si comunicare (editia a ii-a). bucuresti: editura universitatii din bucuresti. moving on reviewed by beatrice popescu ejop founding editor roz d’ombraine hewitt is a journalist, a broadcaster and a talented interviewer for the independent, telegraph and other publications in uk . she has wide experience of writing on health issues and especially mental health and well-being. “moving on” is a straightforward, accessible and inspiring guide offered by roz d’ombraine hewitt to the public providing information on the myths and misconceptions surrounding schizophrenia, the possible causes and how the illness is diagnosed, medication and other treatment options, sources of support, improving health and well-being, employment-paid and voluntary, complementary therapies, counseling and psychotherapy. about one person in a hundred will be diagnosed with schizophrenia at some time in their life. the condition can be severe and debilitating with symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations and the loss of concentration, motivation and social skills. but schizophrenia is not a degenerative or life-threatening condition and in the recent years improved knowledge and understanding, psychological treatments and more tolerable medication have greatly increased people’s ability to manage their symptoms and live a “normal life.” the guide also includes the latest research findings and personal accounts of recovery by people with the diagnosis. journalist and broadcaster roz d’ombraine hewitt, a member of the british psychological society (bps), argues that the most effective treatment is not by “dosing up” patients, but through effective support, work opportunities and the provision of day centers. “medication isn’t the only story. there’s so much that can help people, not just the chemical cosh.” the author argues. according to roz d’ombraine hewitt, of cromwell avenue, highgate, there is now strong research from psychologists showing that alternative treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, can play a vital role in preserving quality of life. with a controversial new mental health bill advocating greater powers for forced treatment currently being debated in parliament, the bps has lobbied the government to take its findings into account. they want health chiefs to reduce the focus on compulsory treatment orders – where patients are forced to take medication against their will – in favour of other means of treatment and support. schizophrenia affects about one in a hundred people at some point in their lives, which can be a time of great uncertainty and fear. yet to this day there are widely held misconceptions about the causes and consequences. the disorder, which comes from the greek word for “split mind”, is a psychiatric diagnosis typically characterized by problems with the sufferer’s perception of reality. schizophrenics also demonstrate disorganized thinking and can often experience delusions or hallucinations. roz d’ombraine hewitt recently written book, moving on: a guide to good health and recovery from schizophrenia, aims to dispel some of the misconceptions around the condition and offer practical support to sufferers and their families. although there are some academic and self-help books on the subject, the author believes there were no books giving concrete guidance on how to continue living a fulfilling and healthy life. “one of the contributors to the book, for example, was absolutely terrified when she was first diagnosed. she thought she’d have a split personality and would start doing things she was unaware of.” the book is based on research and advice from those who work with diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia, and from people who know what it is like to live with the condition. it also provides all the information – such as sources of support and counselling and state benefits and legal rights – that is invaluable in coming to terms with a diagnosis. while schizophrenia can be a severe and debilitating disorder, it is not degenerative or life-threatening and in recent years, a combination of improved knowledge, better psychological treatment and more tolerable medication have greatly increased people’s ability to manage their symptoms and their life. d’ombraine hewitt opinionates that lots of people don’t actually know what schizophrenia is. that was a great starting point to dispel misconceptions – start with the basics and build up from there.” chapter one and two introduce us in a large context of defining schizophrenia and etiology issues. apart from presenting the dsm criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia, thoughts and speech disturbances are highlighted when trying to produce a valid diagnosis. special attention is given to the importance of diagnostic. “generally psychiatrists are sensitive to the problems that may result from a diagnosis of a mental illness. for example, it may hamper someone’s chances of getting a job, or insurance cover. the psychiatrist may also hope that someone will have just one episode of illness and, meanwhile, it is better not to “label” the person.” patient’s experiences are relevant to the author, this is why she includes them in the book. the author believes that because of the stigma and misconceptions that surround schizophrenia, receiving diagnosis may be disturbing. liz p explains. “when i was told by my gp that i’d been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, it was a real shock. i my mind it meant that i had a split personality, a dr. jekyll and mr hyde personality, and that there was an evil side to me that would come out. at the time i was working at a university and had access to the library so i read up on schizophrenia and how lots of people don’t even think it exists. “ in chapter two the causes of schizophrenia are examined and all the myths are being put under scrutiny: bad parenting, inheritance, stress, viral infections, birth and pregnancy complications, brain damage, illegal drugs, biochemical imbalance. chapter three examines medication and other treatments options and allows us to enter the challenging world of john, a person with schizophrenia who undergoes changes in treatment with antipsychotics. soteria approach is largely explained and testimonials of patients are given. the guide’s fourth chapter includes sources of support, particularly important to people or families in crisis. traditional sources such as mental health professionals, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, cmhns, families are quoted, and new sources are presented, such as advocates. liz s’s story: “ i was in the hospital, ill, confused, definitely not stupid, although there were days when i didn’t have the confidence to realize it. i felt that the people around me wouldn’t listen to me. the first thing my advocate did was listening to me. he also assured me that he was independent, which made me feel safe about saying exactly how i felt.” this chapter has looked at the sources of professional, personal and voluntary support which may be helpful to people’s recovery. the next chapter describes some of the ways in which individuals can improve their physical and psychological health and well-being: chapter six looks into employment options, paid and voluntary. “eighty-five percent of people with a long-term mental illness are unemployed and in the uk they have the highest unemployment rate of any group of people with disability. yet work can be a valuable coping mechanism, and provide a sense of purpose and value and returning to work after a period of absence due to illness may be a confirmation to someone that they have recovered. complementary therapies and psychological therapies are examines in the following chapters. emphasis is placed on the second group and valuable advice is given on how to find a therapist, how to make a selection, cognitive behavioral therapy (cbt) is presented as a successful therapy for shuresh: “cbt has meant that i can challenge my persecutory voices or not listen to them at all. i used to think that i was the devil or mahatma gandhi. i got nervous when i went to the shops and i thought everyone was speaking about me.” moving on is an exceptional collection of patient’s experiences with this devastating illness and more than this: a brilliant guide for recovery. reading this book you not only feel that there is hope for people diagnosed, but you are left with a sense of confidence in the system. moving on is an excellent book with a wealth of references and full of information for patients, families and care-givers. a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 4–7 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.582 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 the study of quality of life: interview with konstadina griva konstadina griva, paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to the interviewer (paraskevi theofilou) violating good publication practice and not complying to ejops's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. the misconduct is not related in any way to the person of the interviewee (konstadina griva). http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf the predictiveness of achievement goals research reports the predictiveness of achievement goals a 2 × 2 framework analysis from a social cognitive perspective huy p. phan*a [a] school of education, university of new england, armidale, australia. abstract using the revised achievement goal questionnaire (agq-r) (elliot &murayama, 2008), we explored first-year university students’ achievement goal orientations on the premise of the 2 × 2model. similar to recent studies (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010), we conceptualized amodel that included both antecedent (i.e., enactive learning experience) and consequence (i.e., intrinsic motivation and academic achievement) of achievement goals. two hundred seventy-seven university students (151 women, 126 men) participated in the study. structural equation modeling procedures yielded evidence that showed the predictive effects of enactive learning experience and mastery goals on intrinsic motivation. academic achievement was influenced intrinsic motivation, performance-approach goals, and enactive learning experience. enactive learning experience also served as an antecedent of the four achievement goal types. on the whole, evidence obtained supports the agq-r and contributes, theoretically, to 2 × 2 model. keywords: achievement goals, 2 × 2 model, intrinsic motivation, enactive learning experience, social cognitive theory europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 received: 2013-06-03. accepted: 2013-08-27. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: rhian worth, bangor university, bangor, united kingdom. *corresponding author at: school of education, university of new england, armidale, nsw 2351, australia. e-mail: hphan2@une.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008) has emerged as an important focus of research inquiry in the field of educational psychology. over the past couple of years, for example, researchers have explored the dimensional structures and predictiveness of the four achievement goal orientations in educational settings (e.g., alkharusi & aldhafri, 2010; elliot & murayama, 2008; van yperen, elliot, & anseel, 2009). the mastery-avoidance goal type, in particular, is relatively unknown and has, to date, remained elusive in clarity and explanation. clarification of the characteristics and operational nature of the four achievement goal types is integral in terms of effective pedagogical practices. on this basis, differing from previous research studies that are based on the trichotomous model (elliot, mcgregor, & gable, 1999; fenollar, román, & cuestas, 2007; liem, lau, & nie, 2008), we conceptualize a 2 × 2 framework for investigation and statistical testing, using structural equation modeling. our conceptualization, situating within the contexts of university learning and involved 277 (151 women, 126 men) first-year students, entails the use of the revised achievement goal questionnaire (agq-r) (elliot & murayama, 2008). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ antecedents and consequences of achievement goals the conceptualization for the present study, illustrated in figure 1, is significant, theoretically, for its emphasis on the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals. we situate this model within a social cognitive framework (bandura, 1986, 1997) and include, in particular, enactive learning experience (e.g., repeated failures in a subject matter) as a potential antecedent. furthermore, similar to the work of elliot and murayama (2008), we consider intrinsic motivation and academic achievement as positive and negative consequences of the four achievement goal types, depending on their characteristics. the study of achievement goals has undergone an evolution, starting off with the dichotomous model (dweck, 1986; dweck & leggett, 1988; nicholls, 1984) whereby twomain goal types were proposed:mastery categorization emphasizing the development of competence versus performance categorization, whereby the focus is on a demonstration of competence (pekrun, elliot, & maier, 2009). this mastery-performance distinction was limited, and consequently, a trichotomous model entailing a bifurcation in the performance categorization was included (elliot & church, 1997; elliot & harackiewicz, 1996): performance-approach (i.e., focusing on individuals acquiring positive possibilities) versus performance-avoidance (i.e., focusing on individuals avoiding negative possibilities) (van yperen et al., 2009). again, similar to the dichotomous model, the trichotomous model of achievement goals has limitations and does not, according to some researchers, explain the varying patterns in individuals’ cognition, motivation, and learning outcome (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008). more recently, an extension of the trichotomous model has been conceptualized (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001), which entailed a bifurcation in the mastery goal type so that, in total, four distinct goal possibilities may exist: (i) amastery-approach orientation where individuals seek to achieve mastery or improvement, (ii) amasteryavoidance orientation where individuals seek to avoid failing achievement of a task mastery, (iii) a performanceapproach where the main focus is for individuals to accomplish and outperform others, and (iv) a performanceavoidance where one seeks to avoid doing worst than others in given tasks. despite its inception more than a decade ago, the 2 × 2 model remains relatively modest in terms of research progress and development. some researchers have even raised questions about its validity and/or inclusion within the achievement goal theory (deshon & gillespie, 2005). an examination of the empirical literature would also seem to discount its acceptance, given that the majority of research studies have been based on the trichotomous model of achievement goals (e.g., fenollar et al., 2007; harackiewicz, barron, tauer, & elliot, 2002; harackiewicz, durik, barron, linnenbrinkgarcia, & tauer, 2008; liem et al., 2008; pekrun et al., 2009; phan, 2009; senko & miles, 2008; wolters, 2004). given research into the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals is limited at present, we do not know much about the bifurcation of the mastery goal orientation. a few research studies within the last couple of years, for example, have focused specifically on analyses of the mastery-approach (hulleman, durik, schweigert, & harackiewicz, 2008; sins, van joolingen, savelsbergh, & van hout-wolters, 2008) and/or mastery-avoidance (van yperen et al., 2009) goal orientations. in terms of the four achievement goal types tested within one conceptual framework, the work of elliot and colleagues (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010) has been relatively prominent, detailing some major findings pertaining to their definitions and characteristics. other researchers, since then, have also underpinned the 2 × 2 model as a focal inquiry for emphasis and advancement (alkharusi & aldhafri, 2010; cury, elliot, da fonseca, & moller, 2006; van yperen, 2006). we concur with this empirical examination, and contend that the 2 × 2 model may yield merits in terms of applications and educational practices. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 698 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a conceptual model for investigation the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals has, to date, received less considerations and research development than the trichotomous model. even within the last couple of years alone, comparing with the trichotomous model of achievement goals, as we explained, very little is known about the bifurcation of the mastery goal orientations. furthermore, of the four achievement goal types, there is limited information at present about themastery-avoidance goals (elliot & murayama, 2008; van yperen et al., 2009). there are, in this instance, a few major questions that remain elusive and unanswered – for example, to what extent do the four achievement goal types share similar antecedents? do the consequences of the four achievement goal types differentiate into adaptive and maladaptive outcomes? how effective and explanatory is elliot andmurayama’s (2008) revised achievement goal questionnaire (agq-r)? antecedents of achievement goals —we use elliot and colleagues’ previous work (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010) as a premise for our own conceptual model for investigation. this conceptualization, in particular, entails a process of antecedent, achievement goals, and their consequences. social cognitive theory (bandura, 1986, 1997) suggests that enactive learning experiences, authentically and experientially-based are notable in the formation of cognitive appraisal of capability. personal self-efficacy, defined as a belief in one’s capability to executive required courses of action, is formed predominantly from personal performance accomplishments. repeated successes in a subject matter, based on mastery and/or performancebased criteria assist and strengthen one’s efficacy towards learning and resolve to deal with obstacles, setbacks, etc. (bandura, 1997). a weakened sense of self-efficacy, in contrast, is gauged and formed from one’s repeated failures in a subject matter. in the context of achievement goals, similarly, we query the extent to which enactive learning experiences could serve to enhance and predict individuals’ achievement goal orientations. would ongoing successes in mathematics learning, say, orientate university students to adopt mastery-approach and performanceapproach goals?would preference for mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals depend, in contrast, to failures and academic struggles? the premise pertaining to the potency of enactive learning experience is based on previous research studies, which reported the positive effects of personal performance accomplishments on personal self-efficacy (britner & pajares, 2006; hampton, 1998; lent, lopez, & bieschke, 1991; liem et al., 2008; lopez & lent, 1992; pajares, johnson, & usher, 2007; phan, 2012b). some studies have reported students’ prior academic grades (matsui, matsui, & ohnishi, 1990; phan, 2012b), whereas others used likert-scale (e.g., “i received good grades in high school mathematics class”, lent et al., 1991) to gauge into the effectiveness of enactive learning experience as a source of information. both methodological approaches have yielded comparable findings, indicating the potency of this informational source on the formation of personal self-efficacy. in the area of achievement goals, in contrast, elliot and murayama (2008) found statistical significant effects of two major antecedents: the impact of a need for achievement on both mastery-approach (β = .34, p < .01) and mastery-avoidance (β = .21, p < .01) and performance-approach (β = .22, p < .01) goals, and the impact of a fear of failure on both performance-approach (β = .24, p < .01) and performance-avoidance (β = .31, p < .01) and mastery-avoidance (β = .15, p < .01) goals. elliot and thrash’s (2010) study, similarly, showed the effects of approach temperament on mastery-approach (β = .28, p < .05) and performance-approach (β = .16, p < .05) goals, and the effects of avoidance temperament on masteryavoidance (β = .22, p < .05) and performance-avoidance (β = .20, p < .05) goals. it is interesting to note that high school gpa, however, did not regress on the four achievement goals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 699 http://www.psychopen.eu/ consequences of achievement goals — apart from the study of antecedents, it is also of considerable interest for us to consider the consequences of the four achievement goals. research into the 2 × 2 model, for example, has yielded some evidence that accentuates the effects of performance-approach (β values ranging .19 to .46) and performance-avoidance goals (β values ranging -.16 to -.48) on exam performance (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010), and the effects of mastery-approach (β = .28, p < .01) and performance-avoidance goals (β = -.15, p < .05) on intrinsic motivation (elliot & murayama, 2008). this evidence, preliminary at present, would seem to support previous theoretical tenets (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008), whereby there is a clear demarcation in predictive effects on adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. other studies, more recently, have reported the effects of various goal types, based on the 2 × 2 model, on achievement-related outcomes. sins et al. (2008), for example, found that a mastery-approach goal orientation influenced deep processing strategies for learning (β = .33, p < .05). van yperen et al.’s (2009) study, in contrast, noted the deleterious effect of mastery-avoidance goals on performance improvement in academic learning. in the context of our research investigation, we regress the four types of achievement goals on intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. this conceptualized approach is similar to those of elliot and murayama’s (2008) and elliot and thrash’s (2010) research, which detailed the importance of cause-and-effect of achievement goals. their findings are inconclusive, at present, and require further clarification and validation. for example, despite the inclusion of both intrinsic motivation and exam performance in the statistical testing, we note that elliot and murayama (2008) did not confirm an association between the two constructs. we expect to find an inversed relationship, given the characteristics of intrinsic motivation (ryan, 1992; schunk, pintrich, & meece, 2008) and performance outcomes that are based, in part, on high stake assessments. we contend, in this case, that performancebased outcomes, such as formal examinations themselves serve as a portal of extrinsic motivation (e.g., obtaining social recognition) and entail more emphases on performance-approach goals. in totality: antecedent, achievement goals, and consequences — in total, the proposed model for investigation and statistical testing in this study is of theoretical significance. structural validation of the proposed relations depicted in figure 1 may, in particular, strengthen the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008) in terms of its applicability with students from a different cultural context. analysis of our conceptualization indicates a central role for achievement goals, mediating between enactive learning experience (antecedent) and intrinsic motivation and academic achievement (adaptive outcomes). furthermore, in contrast to elliot and murayama’s (2008) study, we stipulate a direct association between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. the characteristics of intrinsic motivation would suggest that an inversed relationship, whereby a heightened sense of intrinsic motivation may exert both negative and/or positive effects on academic achievement. students who prefer and exhibit intrinsic motives for learning may achieve, academically, in their studies, depending in our view on the subject matter hand. by the same token, intrinsic motivation may relative negatively with academic achievement, especially if the latter is based on normative evaluation criteria. this situational positioning of intrinsic motivation may, similarly, mediate between the four achievement goals and academic achievement. in summation, drawn from existing theoretical tenets and in part previous empirical evidence, the theoreticalconceptual model proposed for examination in the present study details a number of hypotheses, for example: hp1: enactive learning experience would exert positive effects on academic achievement, intrinsic motivation, and mastery-approach and performance-based goals, and negative effects on performance-avoidance and mastery-avoidance goals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 700 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hp2:mastery-approach and performance-approach goals would exert positive effects on intrinsic motivation and academic achievement, whereasmastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals would exert negative effects on these two variables. hp3: intrinsic motivation would exert a negative effect on academic achievement. in total, there are 15 hypothesized structural paths for statistical testing. evidence obtained from this investigation would contribute, theoretically, to the tenets of achievement goals, especially the 2 × 2 model (cury et al., 2006; elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008). figure 1. a conceptual model of antecedents and consequences of achievement goals. method sample and procedure two hundred seventy-seven university students (151 women, 126 men) from australia enrolling in education courses participated in this study. the students were enrolled in the academic subject educational psychology and took part in the answering of the questionnaires in the first week of march, 2013. university approval was granted and we followed ethical protocols, such as the assurance of anonymity and confidentiality. participation in this investigation was voluntary and no remuneration was given. the questionnaires were administered in tutorial classes, lasting approximately 35 minutes, with the assistance of two postgraduate students. instrument the likert-scale inventories used for this investigation, rated on 7-point rating scales (e.g., 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)), have been adapted from existing measures. where appropriate, we asked the students to consider and situate their responses within the context of educational psychology. similarly, for relevancy and to facilitate better understanding of the items, we modified some wordings to suit the australian learning and cultural contexts (e.g., the word ‘course’ is changed to ‘unit’). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 701 http://www.psychopen.eu/ achievement goals — to advance our understanding of the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals, we used the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008) inventory which contains 12 items. each subscale consists of three items, for example: “my aim is to completely master the material presented in this class” (mastery-approach subscale), “my aim is to avoid learning less than i possibly could” (mastery-avoidance subscale), “my aim is to perform well relative to other students” (performance-approach), and “my aim is to avoid doing worse than other students” (performanceavoidance). enactive learning experience — situating within the framework of social cognition (bandura, 1986, 1997), we adapted our previous scale, validated and published (phan, 2012a, 2012c), for the contexts of university learning in educational psychology. the six items, measuring students’ learning experiences, included, for example: “i always get good marks from my lecturer for this subject, educational psychology” and “i have always done well in assignments for this subject, educational psychology”. intrinsic motivation— intrinsic motivation was measured using an adapted version of elliot and church’s (1997) eight-item scale, rated on a 7-point rating scale (1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)). five of the items were worded positively (e.g., “i am enjoying this class very much”), three were worded negatively (e.g., “i don’t like this class at all”). for our subsequent analyses, however, the three negative-worded items were reverse scored (i.e., converting to positive valence). confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) (byrne, 1998; kline, 2011) performed for this inventory yielded an appropriate correlated two-factor solution (e.g., cfi = .973, rmsea = .080), with factor loadings ranging from .411 to .856 (mdn = .634, sd = .223) for the negative valence items, and .811 to .893 (mdn = .849, sd = .030) for the positive valence items. the two factors that defined the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ intrinsic motivation items also correlated positively with each other (α = .539, p < .001). academic achievement — academic achievement was measured by collating students’ unit mark at the end of the semester. the unit that the students enrolled does not have a formal final exam, but rather entailed continuous assessment tasks (e.g., reading response task). there is, however, an end-of-semester quiz (20%), which consists of multiple-choice, true/false, and matching questions for answering. results structural equation modeling (sem) (bollen, 1989; byrne, 1998; loehlin, 2004), in contrast to other multivariate statistical techniques, is appropriate and may enable us to trace and discern the direct and indirect relations between antecedent, achievement goals, and adaptive outcomes. consisting of both latent factors and measured indicators, which assume to have true errors (e ≠ 0) sem is sound as it allows the statistical testing of competing a priorimodels. modification indices (mis) may also provide an advisory basis for the testing of a posteriorimodels. per stipulated protocol, we use aggregated scores to represent measured indicators that define a latent factor. the use of aggregated scores or parcel items, usually averaging two or more items per aggregate-level indicator, according to marsh and yeung (1997), is advantageous as this statistical technique: “(i) results in more reliable and valid indicators, (ii) decreases the effects of idiosyncrasies associated with individual items, and (iii) reduces the computer resources required for the analysis” (marsh & yeung, 1997, p. 46). in total, for our subsequent analyses, we have six latent factors (i.e., enactive learning experience, the four achievement goal types, and intrinsic motivation) and 19 measured indicatorsi (i.e., three individual or parcel items defining each latent factor; note that we treated academic achievement as a measured indicator). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 702 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we used spss 20 and spss amos 20 software packages in the structural equation analyses. correlational matrix has been known to cause some major problems, such as producing incorrect goodness-of-fit and standard error values (byrne, 1998; jöreskog & sörbom, 2001). consequently, we chose to use covariance matrices with maximum likelihood (ml) estimation procedures. various goodness-of-fit index values are available to assist in the determination of a model fit, but in this case, we used the following: comparative fit index (cfi) (cfi ≥ .90), the non-normed fit index (nnfi) (nnfi ≥ .90), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) (rmsea ≤ .080). structural validity descriptive statistics and cronbach’s alpha values are presented in table 1, whereas table 2 presents the correlations among the variables. sem analyses, according to researchers (byrne, 1998; loehlin, 2004), depend on the distribution of scores, characterized in part by kurtosis and skewness values approximately to the vicinity of zero. some researchers have provided a recommendation, suggesting that scores of kurtosis and skewness are considered as being within the range of normality if they range from 0 to ± 2.00 (byrne, 1998; curran, west, & finch, 1996). our initial screening yielded multivariate normality (e.g., kurtosis and skewness values ~ +/2.00) of the data, permitting us consequently to use maximum likelihood procedures. in our subsequent structural equation analyses, we tested a number of a priorimodels, which are also shown in table 3 for viewing. a comparison in the goodness-of-fit index values and the ∆χ2 tests are used to assist in the ascertainment of the best model fit. table 1 descriptive statistics (mean scores and standard deviations) and cronbach’s cronbach means instruments total (n = 294)women (n = 143)men (n = 151) .831enactive learning experience (1.126)2.808(1.144)2.797(1.109)2.820 .947mastery-approach (1.465)5.421(1.453)5.464(1.482)5.370 .955mastery-avoidance (1.730)5.350(1.722)5.382(1.746)5.312 .915performance-approach (1.266)4.835(1.283)4.894(1.247)4.765 .948performance-avoidance (1.389)5.605(1.369)5.625(1.417)5.582 .899intrinsic motivation (0.939)5.810(0.961)5.777(0.913)5.849 note. standard deviations are presented in brackets. table 2 the correlations among variables in the model (n = 277) 7654321variables —enactive learning experience1. —mastery-avoidance2. .10* —mastery-approach3. .83**.12* —performance-avoidance4. .79**.78**.11* —performance-approach5. .78**.76**.75**.06* —intrinsic motivation6. .05.06.10**.05*-.21** —achievement7. .09*-.08*.03.02.03.70** note. all the variables above are latent variables, with the exception of academic achievement. *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 703 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 goodness-of-fit index values for a priori models tested rmseacfinnfi∆χ2comparisondfχ2description .205.770.7231421786.057model m1 basic model with structural paths freed from: • enactive learning experience to achievement goals • enactive learning experience to intrinsic motivation • enactive learning experience to academic achievement • achievement goals to intrinsic motivation • intrinsic motivation to academic achievement .136.902.877m1 m2137838.789model m2 model m1 with specified errors added .268***947 .137.903.877m2 m3a135831.850model m3a model m2 with the deletion of structural paths from performance-avoidance andmastery-avoidance goals to intrinsic motivation .939*6 .136.903.877m2 m3b135827.611model m3b model m2 with the deletion of structural paths from performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals to intrinsic motivation .178**11 .136.903.878m2 m4133826.133model m4 model m2with the inclusion of structural paths from achievement goals to academic achievement .656*12 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the methodological approach that we undertook in this process of analyses is rather structured, in this case, involving a progression in different a priorimodels. we used procedures that have been noted and used previously by researchers (bandalos, yates, & thorndike-christ, 1995; byrne, 1998) – notably, as mentioned in the preceding sections, the modification of a priori models, where appropriate, was based on the provided mi values (byrne, 1998). apart from validating the hypotheses made, we anticipated that this statistical testing (i.e., comparing different a priori and a posteriori models) would enable us to refine existing theoretical tenets (e.g., achievement goals). in our initial model for testing, model m1, we specified the freeing of 11 structural paths from: (i) enactive learning experience to the four types of achievement goals, intrinsic motivation, and academic achievement, (ii) the four types of achievement goals to intrinsic motivation, and (iii) intrinsic motivation to academic achievement. the goodness-of-fit index values are less than optimal, and modification indices suggest the freeing of four paths between the variances of the four achievement goal types, and an error path between two items of the performanceapproach scale (i.e., items “my aim is to perform well relative to other students” and “my goal is to perform better than the other students”). correlated variances between the four achievement goals are possible and expected, as previous research studies have yielded similar patterns in findings (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008). on this basis, for model m2, we freed a path between the two mentioned items of the performance-approach achievement goal subscale, and the four variance paths of the four corresponding achievement goals – that is, mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance and performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (i.e., the valence dimension), and mastery-approach and performance-approach and mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals (i.e., the definition dimension). the goodness-of-fit values for this model, model m2, reflect europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 704 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an improvement in model fit (e.g., cfi = .902, nnfi = .877) and the chi-square difference test is indicative of this (δχ2 = 947.268, p < .001). one notable aspect of sem analyses, of course, entails the importance of refinement in model fit in order to facilitate in theory building (byrne, 2010; kline, 2011). some researchers in psychology and social sciences research are more inclined towards the progressive addition of structural paths, based on goodness-of-fit index and/or mi values. recommendations, similarly, have also been offered in terms of deletion of paths and the use of δχ2 statistics to validate this a posteriori positioning in order to improve model fits (bandalos et al., 1995; byrne, 1998; helmke & van aken, 1995). we acknowledge this statistical approach (i.e., the addition and/or deletion of paths) is ‘exploratory’, in part, but it does assist researchers in their quest to refine theoretical tenets. consequently, on this basis, we extended model m2 and tested three a posteriori models, whereby a refinement was made in terms of both deletion and addition of structural paths. existing research, at present, has reported inconclusive findings in relation to the associations between achievement goals and intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. for example, the recent work of elliot and murayama (2008) has recorded only the statistical significant effects of mastery-approach and performance-avoidance goals on intrinsic motivation. a similar pattern is also attested for the achievement goals-achievement relationships, whereby some predictive effects (e.g., performance-approach goal → academic achievement) are more pronounced than others. we progressed from model m2 with the following specifications: (i) the deletion of structural paths from performance-avoidance and mastery-avoidance goals to intrinsic motivation (model m3a), (ii) the deletion of structural paths from performanceapproach and performance-avoidance goals to intrinsic motivation (model m3b), and (iii) the inclusion of structural paths from the four achievement goals to academic achievement (model m4). the testing of model m3a and model m3b is based on the theoretical premise that the definition and/or the valence dimensions could have non-significant effects on intrinsic motivation. the goodness-of-fit index values for the three models are relatively modest (e.g., cfi = .903 and nnfi = .878 for model m4), and chi-square difference tests indicate the appropriateness of model m4 over model m3a and model m3b (δχ 2 (m2 – m4) = 12.656, p < .05). on this basis, we decide to retain model m4 as the final solution for discussion. illustratively, the final solution for model m4 is shown in figure 2. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 705 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. a final solution for antecedents and consequences of achievement goals. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. for clarity, we have omitted associations between variances and errors and non-statistical significant paths. factor loadings from the measured indicators to their respective latent factors are significant at p < .001, and ranged from .571 to .903 (mdn = .790, sd = .189) for enactive learning experience, .823 to .902 (mdn = .873, sd = .044) for intrinsic motivation, .926 to .951 (mdn = .941, sd = .013) for mastery-approach goal, .946 to .963 (mdn = .952, sd = .010) for mastery-avoidance goal, .830 to .964 (mdn = .916, sd = .074) for performance-approach goal, and .947 to .952 (mdn = .949, sd = .003) for performance-avoidance goal. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 706 http://www.psychopen.eu/ direct, indirect, and total effects a decomposition of effects, shown in table 4, indicates 12 total statistical significant effects. in terms of direct effects, the four hypothesized paths from enactive learning experience to achievement goals were confirmed: .156 (mastery-approach), .150 (mastery-avoidance), .147 (performance-approach), and .154 (performance-avoidance). enactive learning experience, as an antecedent, also influenced intrinsic motivation (β = .202, p < .01) and academic achievement (β = .794, p < .001). for the four achievement goal types, performance-approach goal influenced academic achievement (β = .343, p < .01) whereas mastery-approach (β = .424, p < .05) and mastery-avoidance (β = -.381, p < .05) influenced intrinsic motivation. intrinsic motivation also exerted a small, but negative effect on academic achievement (β = -.085, p < .05). for indirect effects, in contrast, enactive learning experience influenced intrinsic motivation (β = .011, p < .05) and academic achievement (β = -.033, p < .05) via mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals. similar to enactive learning experience, both mastery-approach (β = -.036, p < .05) and mastery-avoidance (β = .033, p < .05) influenced academic achievement via intrinsic motivation. finally, the total effects for both mastery-approach (β = -.171, p < .05) and mastery-avoidance (β = -.043, p < .05) on academic achievement were statistically significant. table 4 decomposition of effects: direct, indirect, and total totalindirectdirectoutcomepredictor mastery-approachenactive learning experience .156*.000.156* mastery-avoidanceenactive learning experience .150*.000.150* performance-approachenactive learning experience .147*.000.147* performance-avoidanceenactive learning experience .154*.000.154* intrinsic motivationmastery-approach .424*.000.424* mastery-avoidance .381*-.000.381*performance-approach .224.000.224 performance-avoidance .202-.000.202enactive learning experience .213**.011*.202** academic achievementintrinsic motivation .085*-.000.085*mastery-approach .171*-.036*-.135mastery-avoidance .043*-.033*.076performance-approach .324**.019-.343** performance-avoidance .194-.017.211enactive learning experience .764***.033*-.794*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion of results the present study involved an examination of students’ achievement goal orientations, based on the 2 × 2 model (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001), and situated within the subject educational psychology. drawing from the recent studies (alkharusi & aldhafri, 2010; elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010), in particular, our investigation explored the interrelated process of antecedent and consequences of achievement goals. what has been reported in the literature of late is rather inconclusive and requires continuing research development. for example, in relation to the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals, one notable emphasis for exploration is the study and validation of the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008). what is important, in this analysis, is the illumination in predictive effects of the agq-r. similarly, in the context of the agq-r, we know very little about the nature and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 707 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characteristics of the mastery-avoidance goal type (elliot & murayama, 2008; van yperen et al., 2009). consequently, on this basis, we articulated three major hypotheses for examination that reflected some inconclusive relationships – for example, does a mastery-avoidance goal orientation relate to intrinsic motivation, negatively? does intrinsic motivation relate to academic achievement? there are implications for applied teaching practices, especially when we consider the potent effects of different achievement goal types, (e.g., based on the trichotomous model) (elliot & church, 1997; elliot & harackiewicz, 1996). finally, there is credence to study the 2 × 2 model given there have been questions raised recently about the appropriateness and justification of the four goal types (deshon & gillespie, 2005). the findings we obtained, in general, support the hypotheses outlined previously. in this section of the article, we discuss the importance of our evidence and how this may assist in research advancement and educational practices. the importance of enactive learning experience students’ responses of the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008) emphasize the distinctive dimensional structures of the four subscales. the four latent factors, reflecting the four corresponding achievement goals are well defined, as reflected by the factor loadings. enactive learning experience, proposed as an antecedent, is reported to exert positive effects on the four achievement goals. enactive learning experience, based on social cognitive theory (bandura, 1986, 1997), reflects repeated and ongoing successes and failures (e.g., “i always get good marks from my lecturers for this subject, educational psychology”) that may subject to both mastery and performancebased criteria. theoretical tenets (bandura, 1997) and previous research studies (britner & pajares, 2006; hampton, 1998; lent et al., 1991; liem et al., 2008; lopez & lent, 1992; pajares et al., 2007; phan, 2012b) have noted the potency of enactive learning experiences in the formation of personal self-efficacy. ongoing successes in a subject matter (e.g., mathematics), in this analysis, may strengthen one’s resolve to approach other similar learning tasks with a sense of confidence. upon reflection of their successes, for example, some students may also partake in other cognitive learning strategies to assist in comprehension and understanding of unit contents. in the context of this investigation, the statistical significant effects of enactive learning experience emphasize how this informational source could assist in students’ achievement goal orientations. this evidence differs relatively to the findings that elliot and thrash (2010) obtained, which showed a null impact for students’ high school gpa scores. our findings, however, share a similar pattern to those of elliot andmurayama’s (2008), whereby the authors found the significant effects of a need for achievement (→mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, and performanceapproach) and fear of failure (→ mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) on achievement goals. a closer inspection of a need for achievement (e.g., "i enjoy difficult work": jackson, 1974) and fear of failure (e.g., "when i am failing, i worry about what others think about me": conroy, 2001) would seem to suggest the sharing of similar attributes that emphasize and encourage enactive learning experiences. characteristics defining one’s fear of failure and/or need to achieve in a subject matter would, in this sense, mobilize both cognitive and motivational processes – a student, for example, may feel compelled to resort to necessary means in educational settings to learn and excel, academically. our theoretical contention indicates that enactive learning experience may, perhaps, coincide with these two constructs, dynamically, to influence students’ achievement goal orientations. in a similar vein, however, an alternative positioning may also exist, whereby a need for achievement and fear of failure influence students’ learning experiences and performance accomplishments. from an educational perspective, structural validation of the positive impact of enactive learning experience has some major implications for educators and researchers to consider. we know from the empirical literature that europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 708 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the social milieus (e.g., classrooms, schools) often impart specific messages that emphasize the saliency of certain goal types (e.g., a preference for mastery and deep learning) (ames, 1992; anderman & midgley, 1997; urdan, 2004; urdan, kneisel, & mason, 1999). schools may, for instance, design and structure instructional policies and pedagogical practices that devalue the importance of normative evaluation practices, competitions, and achievements (e.g., reducing individualized tests and quizzes). our findings, similarly, suggest the possibility of using enactive learning experiences as a premise to emphasize and/or encourage certain goal orientations. a preference for students to orientate towards mastery-approach goals would stipulate a requirement in learning tasks and activities that draw in mastery criteria. a performance-approach goal orientation, in contrast, would require an emphasis on cultivation of normative evaluation standards. in essence, from daily classroom settings, there is credence to foster and encourage the saliency of positive learning experiences and personal accomplishments as these also influence students’ intrinsic motivation for learning. this finding, enactive learning experience → intrinsic motivation, is not unexpected, given that enactive learning experiences serve as a focal point for continuing cognitive andmotivational processes. repeated successes in an academic subject (e.g., first-year educational psychology), for example, may instill an appreciation, positive task values (e.g., perceived usefulness), and intellectual curiosity for learning. bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory and previous findings (e.g., britner & pajares, 2006; lent et al., 1991; liem et al., 2008; pajares et al., 2007; phan, 2012b) would also suggest a heightened sense of personal self-efficacy beliefs, resulting from positive learning experiences and academic achievements. this self-belief for learning, coupled with the notion of personal interest and intellectual curiosity, is likely to orientate students towards intrinsic motives. the potency of achievement goals and intrinsic motivation the findings we obtained, in part, reflect the recent studies in achievement goals, using the 2 × 2 model as a basis for conceptualization. we found from sem that both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals exerted positive and negative effects on intrinsic motivation, respectively. elliot and murayama (2008), in contrast, reported the positive effect of mastery-approach and negative effect of performance-avoidance goals on intrinsic motivation. considering this line of evidence, collectively, there is clearly a demarcation in the valence dimension of achievement goals in terms of consequences. it would seem to suggest, in this analysis that the approach aspects (e.g., mastery-approach) relate positively to intrinsic motivation, whereas the avoidance aspects (e.g., masteryavoidance) relate negatively to intrinsic motivation. what is interesting, however, as a point of comparison, is that there is a null association between performance-approach goals and intrinsic motivation. this lack in statistical significance, again, may not be of surprise, given the dichotomous characteristics of the two constructs. in terms of consistency, comparing the four achievement goal types, we note that only performance-approach goals influenced academic achievement. this finding is consistent with those of elliot and murayama’s (2008) and elliot and thrash’s (2010), whereby the authors also found positive associations between the two constructs. in contrast, however, we reported a lack in association between performance-avoidance goals and academic achievement, whereas elliot and colleagues’ (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010) findings indicated negative effects of performance-avoidance goals (e.g., β = -.48: elliot & murayama, 2008). a notable consistency, too, is the lack in associations between the mastery goal types and academic achievement. this non-statistical significance, again, is not unexpected given the nature and characteristics of mastery goals. academic achievement and exam performances, as inferred from previous studies (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010), entail or may entail more emphases pertaining to social comparison and performanceeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 709 http://www.psychopen.eu/ based criteria. academic excellence, as reflected by exam performances, say, may not necessarily detail interesting contents and aspects for mastery learning. messages informing students the importance and value of academic achievements, based normative evaluations, consequently motivate a preference for performance-approach goals. our finding and those of elliot and murayama’s (2008) and elliot and thrash’s (2010), in general, emphasize and discern the definition dimension of achievement goals. the performance type goals, drawn from the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008), are more likely to predict achievements that are non-mastery based. differing from the elliot and murayama (2008) study, we noted a negative association between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement. the tenets and characteristics of intrinsic motivation are as such that we would negative predictive effects, given that achievements are also defined by performance-based and social comparison criteria (e.g., periodic quizzes in a semester). quality learning based on mastery criteria, in contrast, is more likely to relate positively with intrinsic motivation, and negatively with extrinsic motivation. the negative impact of intrinsic motivation on academic achievement from our investigation differs from elliot and murayama’s (2008) conceptualization, which detailed a non-association between the two constructs. from an educational perspective, recognizing the potency of intrinsic motivation has implications for educators and students, alike. structuring contents and subject activities that instill interest, authenticity, and curiosity could serve to motivate students, intrinsically, with a view to study and learn for non-achievement purposes. in totality: antecedents and consequences of achievement goals a key finding from the present study, as depicted in figure 2, is the ascertainment in trajectories from enactive learning experience to academic achievement, via the two mastery goal types and intrinsic motivation. this tracing in cognitive and motivational processes of learning is important, theoretically, and has received considerable traction from researchers, recently (elliot & murayama, 2008; fenollar et al., 2007; harackiewicz et al., 2008; liem et al., 2008; simons, dewitte, & lens, 2004). overall, for example, the trajectory that details enactive learning experience → mastery-approach goals → intrinsic motivation → academic achievement illuminates the central roles of achievement goals and intrinsic motivation. what is interesting perhaps, arising from this structural validation is the fact that students’ learning operates in a system of change. longitudinal examination with multiple occasions in data collection may provide fruitful information into the temporally displaced effects of the variables under investigation. the conceptual model that we proposed and tested could, for example, be replicated to encompass a longitudinal design. this methodological approach, used more recently in motivational research (e.g., bong, 2001; durik, lovejoy, & johnson, 2009; harackiewicz et al., 2008; phan, 2012b), could provide insights into the temporally displaced and lasting effects of achievement goals. how lasting is the predictive effect of mastery-approach goals? in totality, from figure 2, the present study has validated the ‘consequent-and-antecedent’ of achievement goals. this depiction in relationships is consistent with previous studies (e.g., elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010; fenollar et al., 2007; harackiewicz et al., 2008; liem et al., 2008), which highlight the central roles of achievement goals. more importantly, from a global perspective, our integrated model enabled an understanding of antecedents and how various achievement goal types, in combination, predicted the enhancement of academic achievement. this integration, detailing the situational placement of the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals provides a premise for researchers to include other variables for examination. apart from intrinsic motivation and academic achievement, say, it would be of considerable interest for researchers to identify other adaptive outcomes (e.g., effort expenditure) of the four achievement goal types. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 710 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion in general, the use of the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008) in the present study has yielded some empirical evidence, detailing the characteristics of the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals. significantly, our investigation has provided grounding, in part, for the continuation in cross-cultural study of the agq-r and elliot and colleagues’ (e.g., elliot &murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010) articulation of the antecedent-achievement goals-consequence theoretical model. there have been very few studies, to date, that have explored the four types of achievement goals within one theoretical-conceptual model of academic learning. one notable aspect entailed in this investigation, in particular, involved our attempts at refinement in theory building, with the use of statistical testing of a priori and a posteriori models. it is important to recognize that there are some major limitations in this study, which require further research development. we acknowledge, in the first instance, that the goodness-of-fit index values for the final solution were relatively average and less than optimal, from expected methodological standards (e.g., cfi value > .95, rmsea < .080). the complexities of the models tested (e.g., model m4) could have, in this case, accounted for the ‘average’ solutions observed. mi values, indicative of potential improvement, were available for us to consider. having said this, though, we opted not to refine model m2 with the inclusion of other paths, as there was very few, if any, theoretical justification. on this basis, our final model for acceptance and discussion may not necessarily define or reflect the intricacy in relationships between the variables. we encourage researchers to consider replicating the final solution that we discussed with other cultural samples of different educational levels. questions could also be asked about the agq-r (elliot & murayama, 2008) and whether this measure, at present, is definitive and methodologically sound. a refinement in measurement is a possibility, especially given that we also found some correlated errors between the items. the cross-cultural validation of our conceptual model with other samples, including enactive learning experience as an antecedent is another possibility for consideration. expanding our conceptual model, especially given the findings that we have obtained, researchers could also include other variables for statistical testing. for example, the non-statistical significant effects of mastery goals on academic achievement may compel the inclusion of quality learning outcomes that reflect mastery and non-competitive criteria. does a mastery-approach goal orientation explain and enhance understanding of authentic and dailyrelevant learning tasks? at a more global aspect of educational practices, researchers could focus on academic engagement and disengagement towards schooling. academic engagement, as a theoretical orientation, has currency given its potent effects on non-academic, achievement-related outcomes (e.g., anti-social behaviors) (fredricks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004; salamonson, andrew, & everett, 2009; willms, 2003). similar to our previous questioning, for example, does a mastery-approach goal orientation relate positively with academic engagement? is academic disengagement a manifestation of performance-avoidance goals? finally, from a methodological point of view, our research investigation was limited for its cross-sectional nature. one major caveat that we made in this article is our usage of the term ‘effect’ to describe the relations between the variables. this terminology, from the perspective of sem (marsh & yeung, 1997; rogosa, 1979), is rather erroneous and may, in fact, misconstrue the patterns in relationships between the variables under investigation. as a point of justification, our mentioning of the ‘effect’ terminology is drawn from sem procedures that enable us to identify and decompose direct, indirect, and total effects (byrne, 1998; chou & bentler, 1995; loehlin, 2004). having said this, however, we contend that it would bemore appropriate andmethodologically sound for researchers to consider using multi-wave panel designs (e.g., marsh & yeung, 1997; martin, colmar, davey, & marsh, 2010; europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 phan 711 http://www.psychopen.eu/ phan, 2011). longitudinal examination, analyzed within the framework of sem, is more advantageous as this methodological approach would allow us to explore the issues of causality and causal predominance (marsh & yeung, 1997, 1998). one avenue of inquiry, for example, may entail the possible impact of intrinsic motivation on mastery-approach goals. intrinsic motives for learning may initiate and stimulate students to orientation towards mastery-approach goals. in a similar vein, the inclusion of extrinsic motivation may also account and predict performance-approach goals. notes i) per recommendation from previous researchers (lent, brown, & gore, 1997; lent, lopez, brown, & gore, 1996), we formed aggregated scores by utilizing the following steps (see lent et al., 1997, pp. 309-310): (i) single-factor solutions were fit to each scale (e.g., mastery-approach goal) by using exploratory factor analyses (efas), (ii) item-factor loadings from efas were then used to form composite items, (iii) for each latent factor, depending on the number of items per scale (e.g., four items for each of the achievement goals subscales), items with the highest and lowest loadings were averaged to form the first indicator, items with the next highest and lowest loadings were averaged to form the second indicator, etc. given we 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(2004). advancing achievement goal theory: using goal structures and goals orientations to predict students' motivation, cognition, and achievement. journal of educational psychology, 96, 236-250. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.96.2.236 about the author huy p. phan is associate professor in educational psychology at the university of new england, australia. his research interests are related to cognition, motivation, and noncognitive processes in sociocultural settings. his current research focuses on theoretical and empirical multilevel examinations of learning processes. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 697–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.640 the predictiveness of achievement goals 716 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2007.12.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/0007099041552314 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2006.12.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.9.4.222 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167206292093 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.590 http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/33689437.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.96.2.236 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the predictiveness of achievement goals introduction antecedents and consequences of achievement goals a conceptual model for investigation method sample and procedure instrument results structural validity direct, indirect, and total effects discussion of results the importance of enactive learning experience the potency of achievement goals and intrinsic motivation in totality: antecedents and consequences of achievement goals conclusion notes references about the author values and knowledge education (vake) – can they be combined? concept, philosophical bases, experiences and evaluation sieglinde weyringer department of educational science / university of salzburg, akademiestr. 26, a – 5020 salzburg, austria sieglinde.weyringer@sbg.ac.at jean-luc patry department of educational science / university of salzburg, akademiestr. 26, a – 5020 salzburg, austria jean-luc.patry@sbg.ac.at paper presented at mosaic moral and social action interdisciplinary colloquium annual conference “the moral and religious challenges facing education in europe” university of konstanz 20.-22. juli 2005 questions when watching the mainstream in the media, values seem to be a “best seller”. new technologies have widened the possibilities for communication and in a consequence these innovations have increased the speed of the developmental process in society, economics, science etc. but where do we go to? values are serving as points for orientation. people are united by the traditions of shared interpretation of specific religious and cultural principles. the present period of “high-speed-change” forces the individual and the public mind to turn the focus on these points for orientation and to ask how the new elements affect the stability of the traditional interpretation. the actuality and popularity of talking about values is guided by the necessity of the trial to assimilate these new elements into a valid new interpretation, which is the base for the construction of a stabile community. how does education in school contribute to the orientation? discussions about ethics and values mostly take place in special lessons. although teacher attribute an enormous importance to ethical and moral education they complain the lack of competence in teaching values and the lack of time to work with this area (patry & hofmann 1998). the main emphasis is put on teaching knowledge as it is led down in the curriculum and with the aim to meet the standards. although in any area the process of decision-making consists of the two components knowledge and values, this second component is never picked out as an explicit part. in school the students learn facts. the curriculum answers the question “what can i know?” in the sense of which knowledge might be useful for life. but the importance of special knowledge is exposed to the process of cultural development and to the personal decision of getting involved in this change. so the question “what can i know?” is followed by the question “why might this knowledge be useful?”. education in school has not only to provide knowledge, but also has to stimulate the reflective thinking about the viability of this knowledge when sharing responsibility in a future social community. so the role of values within the decision-making process has to be brought into the awareness of any individual person. knowledge supports the quality of argumentation pro or contra a possible action. therefore school education has not only the responsibility for learning but also for the debate on an active participation in the social development. the current splitting of values education and teaching knowledge in separate lessons has too less efficacy in reaching this aim. concept of vake the vake-approach (values and knowledge education) lays claim to be a practicable way to combine values education and knowledge acquisition in a teaching-learning situation. the concept was developed by patry (e.g. 2001) on the basis of the principles of constructivism: • the values education follows the tradition of kohlberg (1981, 1984), blatt (blatt & kohlberg, 1975) and oser & althof (1992), based on dilemma discussions; • for the knowledge acquisition a constructivist teaching approach, deduced from glasersfeld (e.g. 1981, 1991) or gerstenmaier & mandl (1995), gives the didactical orientation. the principles of the vake -approach are: • learning is not a passive absorption of information; it is done as an active process: the new information is checked for its viability. learning is creating an individual reality. the learning person is constructing his / her knowledge according to his/her experience (glasersfeld 1995) • cognition is an adaptive process: learning is not a striving for objective knowledge and a finding of the ontological reality; it is the construction of a personal and individual world. (glasersfeld 1991) • knowledge acquisition or learning is happening in situations, when people are confronted with conflicts and problems, which they cannot solve with the knowledge they have. (piaget 1976) • the learning process is linked to a target which is in a close relationship to the learner. so the answer of the question “for what reason do i learn?” has an enormous effect on learning: the quality of the learning process depends on the extent to meet this target. (patry 1999) • the gauge for the learning process is the applicability or “viability” of knowledge in a specific situation and for a certain purpose. (glasersfeld 1981) • to be able to review the viability of the knowledge learning has to run as an interactive process. (glasersfeld 1995) • the teacher has to create learning situations, which provoke cognitive conflicts for the students. • the role of the teacher is to accompany the students in their very personal process of knowledge acquisition followed by the viability-check of the knowledge. the guidelines for this role are to give support and to provoke the knowledge acquisition “as less as necessary – as much as possible”. • main elements of this learning-process are searching for relevant information and the agreement about rules of discussion and of conduct, which are based on the principle “companionship – not rivalry”. • to evaluate which argument is better, the personal solution of the problem will be compared with all the other arguments and solutions. it can happen that as a consequence of the new information the first decision is discarded, because the opposite argument is more appropriate and convincing. viability-check one of the central elements of the learning process in the vake approach is the viability-check. according to the principles of constructivism a learning situation must provide possibilities to test whether knowledge can be applied successfully to reach a certain target. in the vake lesson not only information and knowledge are proofed by the viability-check , also the arguments posted in the dilemma-discussion and also their subjective theoretical background, the effective individual ability to moral judgement, are proofed for their applicability in the definitive situation. five different types of viability-checks are identified (patry 2005): 1. experience: a concept is used in a certain context, and this use is either successful or not. 2. simulating viability-check: the person imagines the use of a concept and how successful it is. 3. representative viability-check: the person is watching another person who is using a certain concept. 4. communicating viability-check: the person is taught which concept is most successful in a certain context 5. reflective viability-check: after the use of a concept the person is evaluating the process. prototypical course of vake in an extension of the prototypical course presented in oser & althof (1992, pp. 105-109) the following steps are appropriate for a vake -lesson (patry & weinberger 2004): table 1: steps in a prototypical approach to teach both values and the subject matter; in italics: values education elements. experience with vake vake has been applied in a variety of different learning environments, for example • in the regular classroom: patry & weinberger 2004; weinberger 2005; hofer (forthcoming); unpublished papers of a project-seminar 2004 / department of education at the university of salzburg • vake in special learning environments:     lecture for kids at the children-university of salzburg 2004 / patry & weyringer 2005     in the education of gifted students: kriegseisen et.al. 2003, patry & furlan 2005 vake and high ability research and practical experience have shown that students with high abilities need special learning environments (for example: cronbach & snow 1981; renzulli & reis 1997; eyre 1997; weinert 2000). in our context giftedness is defined according to the three-ring-concept by renzulli (1986) and its extension by mönks (1992): this concept describes three personal factors and three social factors and their interdependence: • personal factors: above average ability, task commitment, creativity. • social factors: family, school, peers. the studies about the cognitive development of children with high abilities have also shown that sensitivity for ethical problems is very high and can be found already in the early childhood. the decision-making process is determined by the aptitude of critical thinking and reasoning; as a consequence discussions about components of moral judgement is obligate. research about the moral development of gifted children is rare but very important (tannenbaum 2000; andreani, o.d., & pagnin, a. 1993, 2000) research project at the department of science of education at the university of salzburg since 2004 a research – project is running at the university of salzburg / department of science of education, supported by the jubiläumsfonds of the austrian national bank (project-number: 10946; project-leader: jean-luc patry). the aim of the study is to show that with the vake approach it is possible to do values education without neglecting the information and knowledge acquisition as a part of teaching, or even to increase the teaching effectiveness of the latter. the target-group are highly gifted adulescents. the research is done within in special international summer-camps, which are organized for the purpose of the study. special evaluation-instruments are created focussing components of the decision-making process, which are related to values clarification and to knowledge acquisition. in a pre-post design the expectations of the participants concerning the challenge in several aspects like learning, social behavior amongst a relatively homogenous group of gifted, self perception, effects on personal development, and the assessment of personal abilities are ascertained. for the process-evaluation a questionnaire is used daily in each workshop according to the lesson interruption method (patry 1997). the focus of questionnaire is put on situational aspects, which are appropriate for gifted students, for example amount of challenge, emotional and cognitive aspects of interest, controlling of the teacher, understanding the content, social climate in the group. also analysis of sociogramms are done. • study 2004: archimedes – summer-campus in the summer camp 2004, called “archimedes-campus”, 45 students, age 12 to 15 years, from seven different central-european countries participated in five workshops with different topics: european values (civil rights), history (french revolution), science (cloning of human beings), communication (rfid technique) and the baselines for activities of the international committee of the red cross (interventions in a country at war). the campus-language was german, so all participants with other mother-language had to have a high level of performance in the german language. for the knowledge acquisition the participants also had to have competences in internet-enquiry. • study 2005: platon youth forum the summer-camp 2005 was organized according to the experience of archimedes-campus. the program offered workshops dealing with topics like differences between europe and u.s.a., vaccination for public versus personal health, observation and data protection, politics for peace, responsibility of famous historical persons. 35 students between 15 and 18 years, coming from austria, germany, poland, italy, and hungary worked on these topics, discussing special personal decisions, which were presented to them as the solution of the main actor in a story. additional to the evaluation-instruments of 2004 also the mjt was used in a pre-post design. the results of the study support the assumption that the vake-approach offers an appropriate challenge for gifted students: they like these learning environments very much; they develope a sensitivity for the power of arguments based on knowledge; they improve their ability to find solutions through reasoning and argumentation; when having and defending an own opinion they can build stabile social relationships within a very heterogeneous group. the experiences of the two studies with gifted students encourages to plan similar camps for young students with a special focus on the european citizenship. references: andreani, o.d., & pagnin, a. (1993). nurturing the moral development of the gifted. in: heller, k.a., mönks, f.j., & passow, a.h. international handbook of research and development of giftedness and talent. oxord: pergamon, pp. 539-553. andreani, o.d., & pagnin, a. (2000). new trends in research on moral development in the gifted. in: heller, k.a., mönks, f.j., sternberg, r.j., & subotnik, r.f.: international handbook of giftedness and talent. oxford: pergamon, pp.467-484. blatt, m., & kohlberg, l. (1975). the effects of classroom moral discussion upon children’s level of moral judgement. journal of moral education, 4, 129-161. cronbach, l.j., & snow, r.e. (1981). aptitudes and instructional methods: a handbook for research on interactions. new york: irvington. eyre, d. (1997). able children in ordinary schools. london: fulton. gerstenmaier, j., & mandl, h. (1995). wissenserwerb unter konstruktivistischer perspektive. zeitschrift für pädagogik, 41, 867-888. glasersfeld, e.v. (1981). the concept of adaption and viability in a radical constructivist theory of knowledge. in: sigel, i., glinkoff, r., & brodzinsky, d. (eds.): new directions in piagetian theory and their application to education. hillsdale, nj. glasersfeld, e.v. (ed.) (1991). radical constructivism in mathematics education. dodrecht: kluwer. glasersfeld, e.v. (1995). radical constructivism. a way of knowing and learning. london: the famlers press. hofer, r. (forthcoming). vake and intercultural learning. mastertheses / dept. of education at the university of salzburg. kohlberg, l. (1981). essays on moral development. vol. 1: the philosophy of moral development. moral stages and the idea of justice. san francisco: harper & row. kohlberg, l. (1984). essays on moral development.vol. 2: the psychology of moral development. the nature and validity of moral stages. san francisco: harper & row. kriegseisen, g., loch, a., weinberger, a., & wingelmüller, p. (2003). vake-gs: values and knowledge education for gifted students, dargestellt am thema: ist woyzeck schuldig? unpublished paper / dept. of education at the university of salzburg. mönks, f.j. (1992). ein interaktionales modell der hochbegabung. in: hany, a., & nickel, h. (hrsg.) begabung und hochbegabung. bern: lang, pp. 17-23. oser, f. & althof, w. (1992). moralische selbstbestimmung. modelle der entwicklung und erziehung im wertebereich. ein lehrbuch. stuttgart: klett-cotta. patry, j.-l. (1997). the lesson interruption method in assessing situation-specific behavior in classrooms. psychological reports, 81, 272-274. patry, j.-l. (1999). unterrichtsqualität, offener unterricht und erwachsenenbildung. beitrag in: astleitner, h., & sindler, a., pädagogische grundlagen virtueller ausbildung. wien: universitätsverlag, 78-96. patry, j.-l. (2001). die qualitätsdiskussion im konstruktivistischen unterricht. in: schwetz, h., reiter, a., & zeyringer, m. (hrsg.) konstruktivistisches lernen mit neuen medien. innsbruck: studienverlag, 73-94. patry, j.-l. (2002). science is not values-free – neither in research, nor in school. salzburger beiträge zur erziehungswissenschaft, 6, 1. patry, j.-l. & furlan, n. (2005). poppers theorien und die arbeit mit hochbegabten. in: schmid, g. (hrsg.) wege zur begabtenförderung. symposium an der sir-karl-popper-schule. wien: eigenverlag. patry, j.-l. & hofmann, f.b. (1998). erziehungsziel autonomie – anspruch und wirklichkeit. psychologie in erziehung und unterricht, 45, 53-66. patry, j.-l., & weinberger, a. (2004). kombination von konstruktivistischer werterziehung und wissenserwerb. salzburger beiträge zur erziehungswissenschaft, 8, 2, 35-50. patry, j.-l& weyringer, s. (2005). piaget, j. (1976). piagets theory. in: inhelder, b. & chipman, h.h. (eds.) piaget and his school. new york: springer. renzulli, j. (1986). the three-ring conception of giftedness:a developmental model for crearive productivity. in:.sternberg, r.j., & davidson, j.e. (eds.) conceptions of giftedness. new york: cambridge university press, 53-92. renzulli, j., & reis, s. (1997). the schoolwide enrichment model. connecticut: creative learning press. tannenbaum, a.j. (2000). giftedness: the ultimate instrument for good and evil. in: heller, k.a., mönks, f.j., sternberg, r.j., & subotnik, r.f.: international handbook of giftedness and talent. oxford: pergamon, pp.447-465. weinberger, a. (2005). der viabilitätscheck als strukturierungsinstrument von unterricht. weinert, f.e. (2000). lernen als brücke zwischen hoher begabung und exzellenter leistung. paper presented at the congress needed the gifted, salzburg 2000. the value structure in socioeconomically less developed european countries still remains an ellipse research reports the value structure in socioeconomically less developed european countries still remains an ellipse micha strack*a, henrik dobewallb [a] georg-august-university of göttingen, göttingen, germany. [b] university of tartu, tartu, estonia. abstract based on the 21-item human values scale of the european social survey (ess, 2002–2006), bilsky, janik, and schwartz (2011) concluded that the quasi-circular model of schwartz’s value theory “fits somewhat less well in less developed societies” (p. 16). this article focuses on their mitigating quantifier “somewhat” and proposes an impartial measure to evaluate schwartz’s universality claim. european social survey data of four rounds 2002–2008 (33 countries, 98 samples) were analysed. applying restricted confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), we partitioned the 21 items’ variance into an acquiescence part and the two diagonal axes of growth-protection and social-personal focused values. the variance in the growth–protection axis varied between 22.0% (austria, in 2002) and 2.0% (samples from romania, turkey, ukraine, hungary, and slovakia remain below 5%). within rounds across countries (respective df = 94), the growth–protection axis’ variance strongly correlates (r = .76) with an index of socioeconomic development, aggregated from five indicators adopted from theworld bank. it also strongly correlates (r = .81) with a sample’s mean member’s location on the growth vs. protection value dimension. we interpret these results as a strong effect and conclude that in socioeconomically less developed countries the value structure remains elliptical or even one-dimensional. the discussion relates the results to klages’ value synthesis theory. keywords: universality of the value structure, european social survey (ess), restricted confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 received: 2012-07-29. accepted: 2012-10-08. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: georg-elias-mueller institute for psychology, georg-august-university of göttingen, gosslerst. 14, 37073 göttingen, germany, email: mstrack@uni-goettingen.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in the past, values have gone in and out of fashion in various disciplines of the social sciences (hitlin & piliavin, 2004, for a review). according to smith, bond, and kagitcibasi (2006), there are, however, two dominant approaches to cross-cultural research: emic and etic. the former searches for cultural specifics and makes no assumptions about the generality of the findings. the latter assumes that studied phenomena are comparable and universal. schwartz and bilsky (1987; schwartz, 1992) introduced a quasi-circular structure of personal values and proposed the model’s universality across cultures. the model, presented in figure 1, defines compatibilities and conflicts among ten proposed value types. their motivational concerns are listed below (schwartz, 2006a): • universalism (un). understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of the welfare of all people and of nature; • benevolence (be). preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ • conformity (co). restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms; • tradition (tr). respect, commitment and acceptance of the customs and ideas that the traditional culture or religion provide for the individual; • security (se). safety, harmony and stability of society, of relationships and of the individual; • power (po). social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources; • achievement (ac). personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards; • hedonism (he). pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself; • stimulation (st). excitement, novelty, and challenge in life; • self-direction (sd). independent thought and choice of action, creation, exploration. those values that are located close to each other are also preferred jointly as guiding principles in individuals’ lives, whilst opposing values were perceived as conflicting and complementary. therefore, the value types are grouped into two orthogonal higher-order dimensions. figure 1. the value circle (structure of value types according to schwartz, 1992, and diagonal axes according to schwartz, 2006a). schwartz (1992) proposed the main axes of self-transcendence–self-enhancement and openness (to change)–conservation. in a circle, dimensions are allowed to rotate. the labels of diagonal axes were coined by europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 588 http://www.psychopen.eu/ schwartz (2006a) as personal vs. social values and protection vs. growth values (see also fontaine, poortinga, delbeke, & schwartz, 2008; fischer, milfont, & gouveia, 2011). numerous papers confirmed the fit of the structure across different countries, value questionnaires and statistical procedures (e.g. lindeman & verkasalo, 2005; schwartz & boehnke, 2004; schwartz, 2006a; strack, 2005; vecchione, casconi, & barbaranelli, 2009). a comparably smaller set of papers has criticized the model’s fit to particular data sets (e.g. hinz, brähler, schmidt, & albani, 2005; mohler & wohn, 2005; mohler, rammstedt, & wohn, 2006; perrinjaquet, furrer, usunier, cestre, & valette-florence, 2007). davidov (2008) and knoppen & saris (2009) demonstrated the weakness of the short human values scale (pvq21, schwartz, 2003) used in the european social survey (ess, jowell & central coordinating team, 2003ff) for fitting the ten value types (the segments in figure 1). the continuous dimensions are not affected by the segmentation problems. however, steinmetz, isidor, and baeuerle (2012) recently conducted a meta-analysis based on 318 studies from around the globe, which used the pvq or the full schwartz value survey (svs). they identified eight clusters of countries, out of which two – 'eastern european ess studies' and an 'ambiguous cluster' – clearly fail to fit the quasi-circular structure. a graphical presentation of these clusters showed universalism, benevolence, conformity, tradition, and security on one side of the structure and power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, and self-direction on the other. the two country clusters showed a one-dimensional structure. we want to explore this unexpected finding systematically. we found, that within contemporary research on cross cultural assessment of values, a less perfect fit of the dimensionality of the values’ structure in socioeconomically less developed countries, is a matter of serious debate: fontaine et al. (2008) analysed the 55 schwartz value survey items in twofold samples (students / teachers) of 38 countries, using a multidimensional scaling procedure to test for structural equivalence. the configuration deviations per sample yielded a strong relation of β = -.879 to the developmental state of the country (controlled for sample type and the interaction term), which was even stronger for the teacher samples. an eyeball test showed that higher socioeconomically developed countries accentuated both diagonal axes of the circular structure, the person vs. social focus axis and the protection vs. growth axis. to control this interpretation with the raw data, fontaine et al. (2008) constructed ad hoc scales. for the growth–protection diagonal axis they correlated the mean of 11 ipsated growth value items (e.g. broad minded) with the mean of 15 ipsated protection value items (e.g. preserving image). this growth–protection conflict within sample correlation ranged from r = -.7 to -.2 across samples and was strongly related to the country’s development index (β = -.765, controlled for sample type and the interaction term). bilsky, janik, and schwartz (2011) analysed the shortened portrait values questionnaire (pvq21, schwartz, 2003) data from three rounds of the european social survey (2002–2006) “with a focus on the universals in the content of human values and their structural organization”; applying confirmatory multidimensional scaling. they found, again, a strong relation of r = -.649 between a manually counted number of configuration deviations per country and the country’s development index. following the approach of fontaine et al. (2008) of ad hoc scales, they chose five ipsated growth value items (e.g. listen to and understand different people) and seven ipsated protection value items (e.g. respect from others). the range of the growth–protection conflict was smaller within european samples (ad hoc scales within country correlations r = -.7 to -.4). nevertheless, the within country growth–protection correlations were strongly related to a country’s development index: r = -.852. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 589 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the results of the two studies set up the critical hypothesis that the less socioeconomically developed a culture is, the lower the fit of the two-dimensional structure of values, and especially the growth–protection values conflict. but, how severe might this relation be? already in the year 1995, schwartz and sagiv disclosed that the frequency of structural deviations depends on the geographical area from where the participants were pooled (schwartz & sagiv, 1995). that the structure is affected by socioeconomic development, nevertheless, is meanwhile repeatedly replicated with independent value instruments (fischer, vauclair, fontaine, & schwartz, 2010; fischer et al., 2011; van de vijver & poortinga, 2002). the current debate, as we understand it, should focus on a consensual evaluation of the strength of the systematic deviances for socioeconomically less developed countries, because a value structure without a substantial growth–protection conflict would become mere one-dimensional. although fontaine et al. (2008) called the variation in the growth-protection conflict their “most important finding” (p. 362), in the abstract they nevertheless concluded, in support of the model, that “the higher the level of societal development of a country, the greater the contrast between protection and growth values”. bilsky et al. (2011) once acknowledged that “the circular model fits somewhat less well in less developed societies” (p. 16) but, in the same manner, they concluded in the abstract: “deviations […] are fewer and the contrast between protection and growth values is sharper in more developed societies”. the affirmative wording seems inconspicuous. but, in our view, the reported findings and the conclusions drawn concerning the strength of the systematic deviances do not match. in other words, strong associations were found, but not more than a “somewhat” less fit was summarized. therefore, if the growth-protection axis is indeed less important or even unimportant in socioeconomically less developed countries, than the quasi-circular value structure would lose its universality. to evaluate this possibility, a quantitative measure of the growth-protection axis is needed, which leaves no room for doubt regarding the interpretation of its absolute size. aim of the study our study first and foremost wants to propose a more direct measure for the fit of the two-dimensionality of schwartz's value structure across countries. the strength of the contrast between protection and growth values was measured by fontaine et al. (2008) as well as by bilsky et al. (2011) using a within-country correlation (fisher’s z transformed) of the mean of some ipsated protection value items with the mean of some ipsated growth value items. the correlations are conclusive but the potential of a confirmatory approach was not exhausted. additionally, an artificial negative correlation can be expected for ipsated items and thus immunize a judgement on the general existence of the growth protection axis in socioeconomically less developed countries. given the large body of collaboratively collected knowledge on the structure of values, a more direct measure of the growth vs. protection axis’ variance (as well as the person focused vs. social focused axis’ variance) could be found. we propose the estimation of the variance of both diagonal axes of the model in figure 1 applying a restricted confirmatory factor analysis. variance measures are commonly used and intelligible, facilitating a prospective consensual evaluation of the strength of the structural deviances for socioeconomically less developed countries. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 590 http://www.psychopen.eu/ based on the results of the reviewed studies, we set up the critical hypothesis that the person focused vs. social focused values conflict is universal, but the growth vs. protection values conflict is not: the lower the socioeconomic development, the less pronounced the growth–protection axis variance within that culture (h1). society’s socioeconomic development tends to encourage people to pursue growth (bilsky et al., 2011; schwartz & sagie, 2000; inglehart & baker, 2000). from the relation of the growth-protection axis’ variance to the mean location of the country’s citizens on the growth-protection axis, a potential confounding factor emerges. taken together, the variance of the growth-protection axis within a country could also be regressed on the mean location of the country`s participants on that growth-protection axis. furthermore, the members’ mean location on the growth-protection axis might mediate the path from socioeconomic development to the growth-protection axis’ variance (h2). method data and samples data from four rounds of the biannual european social survey (jowell & central coordinating team, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009) were downloaded from the data archive and distributor of the ess data, the norwegian social science data services (nsd) (http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/). the full sample includes 33 countries. as we had merged the ess data files prior to the publication of the cumulative dataset ess1-4e01 in february 2011 (ibidem), our file also includes data from croatia (round 4), iceland (round 2), latvia (round 4), and romania (rounds 3 and 4). the 33 countries times their participation rounds results in 98 samples. weighting procedure for analyses within samples, the design’s weights were used. according to ganninger (2007), computation of estimators of multiple rounds andmultiple countries necessitates aggregation of the population weights by averaging them per country. we accounted for population weights and participation frequency when estimating the overall within samples pvq21 correlation matrix. the latter was needed to estimate the overall empirical dimensions of the value circle, and to locate the samples’ mean location on the main axes or on the diagonal axes. to account for the varying participation of the countries, the product of design weight and population weight was multiplied by a participation weight of 1/numbers of rounds a country participated in the pvq21 assessment. to a country participating only once (e.g. croatia, iceland, and, regarding the pvq21, also italy and luxembourg) a participating weight of 1.0 is assigned. a country participating twice (e.g. bulgaria, romania) receives a participating weight of 0.5. for three-round participation, the weight is 0.33 and a fully participating country receives 0.25. this weighting results in a net sample size of 65.753 cases, as would have been the case if one round with 33 countries had been conducted. measures the pvq21 (schwartz, 2003) is a short version of a portrayed value questionnaire (pvq), which was introduced to measure values in a less abstract way than the svs (schwartz, 1992). therefore, it is also applicable to respondents not used to answer questionnaires. the respondent rates how much each presented person does or does not like him or her. the wording of the 21 described portraits is adapted to the sex of the respondent (see table a1). the rating ranges from 1 = “is very much like me” to 6 = ”is not at all like me”. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 591 http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ country members’ mean importance of growth values in order to estimate the mean importance of growth values per sample, and to avoid the debate about the 21 pvq items’ fit to a ten or to a seven segments structure (davidov, 2008; knoppen & saris, 2009), we conducted an exploratory factor analysis of the correlation matrix of the adequately weighted data of the ipsated 21 items (similar to dobewall & strack, 2011). figure 2 depicts the factor loadings (documented in the appendix table), which follow the theoretical model (figure 1). the two factors were saved and the means for each sample were plotted in figure 3. to compute the sample members’ means on the diagonal axes (social focused vs. person focused and growth vs. protection values), the extracted main dimensions of conservation and self-transcendence were rotated 45° via a respective ±.707 multiplier. figure 2. factor loadings of the ipsated pvq21 items. the index of socioeconomic development to differentiate between the relatively homogeneous european countries, we selected five indicators from the world bank indicators (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator), for each of the four years the european social survey europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 592 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. location of the mean member of a sample in the value circle. mean values per sample; axes from figure 2; 98 samples from 33 countries; filled markers indicate ess round 4, year 2008. was conducted in: (1) gross domestic product (gdp) per capita (current us$) (2) proportion of vulnerable employment (unpaid family workers and own-account workers as a percentage of total employment) (inversed), (3) proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments, (4) fixed broadband internet subscribers (per 100 people), and (5) positions in research and development (per million people). a common factor accounted for 62.11% of the total variance of the five indicators across the 98 samples; remaining eigenvalues amounted to less than 0.72. z-standardization allowed for a consistent index of socioeconomic development (cronbach’s alpha = .846). it ranged from z = -2.01 (turkey in ess round 2, in 2004) to z = 2.12 (sweden in ees round 4, in 2008). the development index correlated r = .779 with the mean members’ importance of growth vs. protection values across samples (n = 98; and r = .761 within rounds, df = 94). a small correlation of r = .177 with the years of the survey validates the developmental content of the index. to account for this developmental trend, correlations of the dependent variables with the socioeconomic development index were additionally computed within the ess rounds (df = 94). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 593 http://www.psychopen.eu/ amount of axes variance estimated by a restricted confirmatory factor analysis in order to estimate the variance explained by a confirmatory model with three latent variables and restricted loadings, lisrel (jöreskog & sörbom, 1993) was used. the first latent variable assesses acquiescence applying fixed loadings of 1.0 for all 21 pvq items. the coefficients for the loading restrictions of the second and third latent variables were derived from the correlations of the ipsated pvq items with the models axes (figure 2): firstly, the loadings were rotated to match the diagonal axes and, secondly, projected onto the mathematical unit circle (see annexed table). with these fixed equations (df = 207) the amount of variance in each of the three latent variables was estimated from the raw correlations of the pvq21 items for each of the 98 samples separately weighted by the design weight. maximum likelihood estimation was used and the sample sizes were set equal to 2000. the model satisfactorily fits the 98 correlation matrices with an average rmsea = .078 (sd = .009). results the confirmatory analysis estimated within sample acquiescence variance ranging from 12% (belgium in ess round 3, in 2006) up to 32% (turkey in round 4, in 2008). the variance of the person focus vs. social focus value diagonal axis ranged from 10% (turkey in round 4) to 29% (slovakia in round 4). the variance of the growth vs. protection values diagonal axis reached a maximum of 22% for austria in ess round 1 (2002), but remained at a minimum of 2% for turkey in round 4 (2008). less than 5% of variance of the growth vs. protection axis was found in nine samples from five countries: in hungary (round 1 and 4), romania (round 4), slovakia (round 4), turkey (both participating rounds), and in ukraine (all three participating rounds). the three variance sources, although restricted to orthogonality within samples, correlated across samples: samples with a large acquiescence variance established only sparse variance on the critical growth-protection axis (r = -.709, see table 1, and r = -.694 across countries within rounds; the person–social focus diagonal axis was unaffected, r < .10). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations (countries times rounds, n = 98 samples). 7654321sdm development index1 .0001.780.000 growth-protection location2 .0001.779.420.220 personal-social location3 .0001.001-.128-.170.03-0 mean rating (6: not at all)4 .0001.196.414.462.180.772 ess round (1-4, 2002-08)5 .0001.100-.049-.181-.177.101.612 cfa acquiescence6 .0001.190.296-.037-.663-.600-.813.8218 cfa growth vs. protection7 .0001.709-.227-.292.052-.819.688.534.9010 cfa person vs. social focus8 .258-.009-.088.225.389.413-.167-.094.3619 both within sample variance sources, the acquiescence as well as the growth vs. protection diagonal axis variance, were strongly related to the socioeconomic development index (r = -.600 and r = .688 across the 98 samples, and r = -.657 and r = .761 across countries within rounds, df = 94), as well as with the members’ mean location on the growth–protection diagonal axis (pooled r = -.663 and .819, and within rounds r = -.652 and .813). therefore, the less socioeconomically developed a country is and the closer its inhabitants are located towards the protection pole, the higher the acquiescence part in the answers to the 21 pvq items and the less variation of members on the growth-protection axis. we accepted thus hypothesis h1. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 594 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 impressively visualizes the dependence of the variance sources on the index of socioeconomic development as well as on the mean members’ growth vs. protection location. figure 4. plot of variance sources from cfa per sample with the mean location on the growth – protection values diagonal axis (left) and the socioeconomic development index (right). concerning the mediation hypothesis h2, the results are less clear. the sobel ratio was significant (z = 6.48, se = 0.38, p < .001), a mediation was proven. but, in a hierarchical regression of the cfa variance in the growth-protection axis with the inclusion of the growth-protection location in the first step, the development index tended to add a further 0.6% of explained variance (f of change (1,95) = 1.90, p = .171). thus, the mediation of the path from socioeconomic development to the growth-protection axis variance by the country’s mean location within the circle was merely partial. discussion this paper contributes to a debate on the universality of the value circle proposed by schwartz (1992, 2011; schwartz & bilsky, 1987). we build on studies by fontaine et al. (2008) and bilsky et al. (2011) who found the conflict between growth and protection values to be less pronounced in socioeconomically less developed countries. contrary to ours, both papers interpreted their findings as non-hazardous for the universality claim. the confirmatory europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 595 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis presented in this paper allows no doubt about the absolute (un)importance of the growth-protection dimension in the participating european countries with a lower level of socioeconomic development. we analysed the 21-item human values scale (pvq21) in four rounds (2002 – 2008) of the european social survey across 98 samples from 33 countries. the model directly estimates the variance of both diagonal axes as well as acquiescence. the results evidence a strong dependence of the growth–protection axis variance on the socioeconomic development index across samples (see table 1). the person–social focused axis is not affected. nine of the 98 samples, or five of the 33 countries, reached less than 5% of variance on the growth-protection axis. given 21 items, 4.76% of variance equals an eigenvalue of 1.0. thus, nearly a tenth of extended europe – these samples are from hungary, romania, slovakia, turkey and ukraine – studied by the ess appear to miss a two-dimensionality of their value structure according to kaiser’s criteria. we played this game of numbers merely to sharpen the discussion about either the insignificance or the strength of the value structure’s one-dimensional appearance in socioeconomically less developed countries. the results suggest that the conflict between social and personal focused values is indeed universal, whilst the distinction between growth and protection values is not. whereas consensus concerning the strength of the effect and, therefore, the rejection of the universality claim of the value circle are one outlook, the possible explanations seem less controversial. fontaine et al. (2008) applied schwartz’s (1992) theory of underlying human problems that a society needs to solve. they tentatively interpret that inhabitants of less developed countries experience the conflict between individual growth and security values less frequently and less intensely as due to the proportion of agricultural and industrial labour force. economically less developed, agricultural countries may not urge their members to ascertain their personal identity in between security and tolerance, or protection and growth. also, bilsky et al. (2011, pp. 15f) considered the value structure within a culture to be a consequence of opportunities and obligations to make and justify autonomous choices. fischer et al. (2011) argued that growth values (e.g. preserving nature) would be interpreted, by people with limited individual resources, according to the instrumental importance in their lives (e.g. private health). these functionalist views bring to mind a maslowian means-motives linkage. on the one hand, a lack of socioeconomic development directly relates to lower mean importance of growth values for citizens of such countries (schwartz & sagie, 2000; davidov et al., 2012), and lower country values of intellectual autonomy (schwartz 2006b, 2011). the european countries with low means of growth value importance (right hand bottom of figure 3), mostly pair a communist past with a weak civil society (e.g. howard, 2002). public participation needs inhabitants pursuing growth values. on the other hand, within the socioeconomically lesser developed countries, the heterogeneity on that diagonal axis remained low too. therefore the variance in the growth–protection dimension could be successfully regressed on the sample members’ mean location on that axis. the associations were even stronger than for the socioeconomic development index (table 1). the mean importance of growth vs. protection values was not used in the studies of fontaine et al. (2008) and bilsky et al. (2011), but both authors discussed the lesser importance of growth values on the cultural level as an explanation for the within countries’ value structure. furthermore, schwartz (2007) explicitly used cultural level dimensions (e.g. egalitarianism) to predict the narrowness of “people’s moral universe” (from universalistic over social focus values to security values). consequentially, we applied the country member’s mean of growth–protection values as a mediator of the socioeconomic development effect. a significant but incomplete mediation occurred. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 596 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, the mean and variance relation still provides some uncertainty concerning hidden artefacts. firstly, the growth–protection location was derived from the same data source as the axes’ variance measures. we computed the location of each sample (figure 3) based on 21 ipsated pvq items by averaging the members' factor scores (figure 2). visually analogue cultural level country plots were derived by using multidimensional scaling procedures (schwartz, 1999, pp. 36, 39; 2006b, p. 156). thus, the differences between multidimensional scaling and factor analytical procedures should not be overrated. similar to our approach, vecchione et al. (2009) fitted a quasi-circular model to the ten scales of the pvq40. they reported goodness of fit but did not look at the variance explained by the estimated latent variables. secondly, mean and variance relations often result from a ceiling or bottom effect. a simulated dummy respondent who always ‘picked’ the same numbers throughout the questionnaire is thereby located at a self-enhancement position of the value circle (conservation axis: -0.25, self-transcendence axis: -0.98, a similar location to the mean participant from israel, latvia, and turkey in figure 3). that region is inhabited by individuals from samples with a low socioeconomic development index. in samples with low socioeconomic development and low variance in the growth-protection axis, a large part of variance was explained by acquiescence (table 1). schwartz and sagie (2000) did not separate the acquiescence, when they related sample means and sample standard deviations of the ten value types. acquiescence expresses itself in homogeneous and positive correlations of the 21 items, due to participants with the tendency to rate most items equally (some respondents always pick a high, others a low number). acquiescence reminds of the ‘lack of test wiseness’ hypothesis introduced by fontaine et al. (2008) and resumed by bilsky et al. (2011). as test wiseness is related to socioeconomic development, acquiescence additionally restricts the item variance explained by the growth-protection axis. the within subject differentiation between – per definition positive – values may become another indicator of development. socioeconomic development (or democratization in the analysis of schwartz & sagie, 2000) allows some countries’ members the rejection of security and protection values (see the correlations with the mean rating, row 4 in table 1). pursuing growth values requires disentanglement from social desirability in the sense of schwartz et al. (1997). however, the path from socioeconomic development to growth-protection variance was stronger than that to the mean rating (table 1). therefore, we return our thoughts to the model (depicted in figure 5) with an elliptical or mere one-dimensional structure in socioeconomically less developed countries, and with the mean members’ preference located near the protection values pole of the value circle, opposite to a two-dimensional structure in socioeconomically higher developed countries, and with the mean members’ location near the pole of growth values. acceptance of this model challenges the universality of the value circle (see also steinmetz et al., 2012; fischer et al., 2011). moreover, a theory might emerge, which will propose cultural pluralism as a consequence of development; pluralism not only concerning the importance of a single value type, as schwartz and sagie (2000) showed for a democratization index, but pluralism also in the sense of the numbers of dimensions respecting which members of a culture differ. in economically less developed countries, post-materialism seems to be, yet, needless (van de vijver & poortinga, 2002). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 597 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. schematic representation of the dimensionality of the value structure within a sample as a function of its mean location in the value circumplex. after the historical societal segmentation became permeable and media influence homogenized world views, a newmilieu differentiation based on values seems to be the result of modernization. of the theorists studying value change, the german sociologist helmut klages (1984) applied this abstract rule and proposed a model of change by value synthesis. in the wording of the schwartz’s model, klages’ theory claimed that within western cultures, some people have synthesized formerly complementary social focus values (e.g. justice) and personal focus values (e.g. self-direction). or, when following the argumentation of davidov et al. (2012), nature protection, as a formerly mere health related matter (protection), was synthesized with tolerance and equity values towards a universalism value cluster. a qualitative change in the value domain has occurred (cf., fischer et al., 2011); the value synthesis is held responsible for the emergence of a second dimension in the value structure, resulting in the advent of a new region of growth values. simultaneously, the so called third sector or civil society emerges. if this synthesis approach establishes itself, the next meander in cultural development might indeed be a synthesis of values which are, presently, still complementary in the schwartz value circle. in some countries, a sphere of values will result. therefore, the debate about the strength of the effect of socioeconomic development on the existence of the growth–protection axis and its consequences on theory building can become evenmore fascinating in future times. references bilsky, w., janik, m., & schwartz, s. h. 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(2009). assessing the circular structure of the portrait values questionnaire: a confirmatory factor analysis approach. european journal of psychological assessment, 25, 231-238. doi:10.1027/1015-5759.25.4.231 appendix table a1 loadings of ipsated items on the diagonal axes growth (vs. protection) and social (vs. personal) focus values and derived intersections of the unit circle used as restrictions in the cfa. projection onto the unit circle rotated loadings of the ipsated items social focusgrowthsocial focusgrowth .63.78-.294.362-1. thinking up new ideas and being creative is important to him / her. he / she likes to do things in his / her own original way (sd). .78.62.501.4012. it is important to him / her to be rich. he / she wants to have a lot of money and expensive things (po). .79-.61-.380-.291-3. he / she thinks it is important that every person in the world be treated equally. he / she believes everyone should have equal opportunities in life (un). .84.54.459.2954. it is important to him / her to show his abilities. he / she wants people to admire what he / she does (ac). .76-.65.399-.3415. it is important to him / her to live in secure surroundings. he / she avoids anything that might endanger his safety (se). .79.61-.453.352-6. he / she likes surprises and is always looking for new things to do. he / she thinks it is important to do lots of different things in life (st). .67-.74.362-.3977. he / she believes that people should do what they’re told. he / she thinks people should follow rules at all times, even when no one is watching (co). .64-.76-.356-.422-8. it is important to him / her to listen to people who are different from him / her. even when he disagrees with them, he / she still wants to understand them (un). .99-.10-.557-.054-9. it is important to him / her to be humble and modest. he / she tries not to draw attention to him/ herself (tr). .86.50-.521.303-10. having a good time is important to him / her. he / she likes to ‘spoil’ him/ herself (he). .39.92-.133.318-11. it is important to him / her to make his / her own decisions about what he / she does. he / she likes to be free to plan and not depend on others (sd). .75-.66-.401-.351-12. it is very important to him / her to help the people around him / her. he / she wants to care for their well-being (be). .83.55.485.32313. being very successful is important to him / her. he / she hopes people will recognize his / her achievements (ac). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 strack & dobewall 601 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.25.4.231 http://www.psychopen.eu/ projection onto the unit circle rotated loadings of the ipsated items social focusgrowthsocial focusgrowth .82-.58.425-.29914. it is important to him / her that the government insures his / her safety against all threats. he / she wants the state to be strong so it can defend its citizens (se). .96.28-.642.184-15. he / she looks for adventures and likes to take risks. he / she wants to have an exciting life (st). .88-.48.541-.29316. it is important to him / her always to behave properly. he / she wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong (co). .13.99.066.52217. it is important to him / her to get respect from others. he / she wants people to do what he / she says (po). .74-.68-.381-.351-18. it is important to him / her to be loyal to his / her friends. he / she wants to devote him/ herself to people close to him / her (be). .92-.40-.484-.212-19. he / she strongly believes that people should care for nature. looking after the environment is important to him / her (un). .83-.56.459-.31020. tradition is important to him / her. he / she tries to follow the customs handed down by his / her religion or his / her family (tr). .88.48-.538.294-21. he / she seeks every chance he / she can to have fun. it is important to him / her to do things that give him / her pleasure (he). note. for item’s abbreviation see figure 1 and 2. about the authors dr. micha strack, 1990 diploma psychology, 1998 phd., 2003 habilitation. research on values, social and organisational psychology, and psychological methods. henrik dobewall, 2009 diploma in social science, phd candidate at the department of psychology, tartu. research on values and subjective well-being over time and across perspectives. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 587–602 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.505 elliptical value structure 602 http://www.psychopen.eu/ elliptical value structure introduction aim of the study method data and samples weighting procedure measures country members’ mean importance of growth values the index of socioeconomic development amount of axes variance estimated by a restricted confirmatory factor analysis results discussion references appendix about the authors (no) empathy for the monkey? book review of “the cultural origins of human cognition” book reviews tomasello, michael (1999). the cultural origins of human cognition. london, united kingdom: harvard university press. 256 pp. isbn 9780674000704. (no) empathy for the monkey? book review of “the cultural origins of human cognition” constance de saint-laurent*a [a] university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 363–368, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.990 published (vor): 2015-05-29. *corresponding author at: institut de psychologie et education, faculté de lettres et sciences humaines, espace louis-agassiz 1, 2000 neuchâtel, switzerland. e-mail: constance.desaintlaurent@unine.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. tomasello, michael (1999). the cultural origins of human cognition. london, united kingdom: harvard university press. 256 pp. isbn 9780674000704. about ninety years ago, lev vygotsky stated that most of our higher mental functions are culturally derived, and therefore that the uniqueness of humanity was in our ability to create history (vygotsky, 1934/1997). although he was more interested by how phylogeny and culture merge during ontogeny, he nevertheless left us with one important question: what happened in the evolution of the human race that allowed the development of culture, and our inscription into history? in 1999, michael tomasello presented in his book ‘the cultural origins of human cognition’ more than ten years of research he did on the subject, comparing young children’s cognition and the abilities of great apes. he came to the conclusion that the only significant cognitive difference is our capacity to share and understand intentions – or at least our willingness to do so (tomasello, carpenter, call, behne, & moll, 2005), a capacity that is essential for the development of cumulative cultural evolution i. however, it will be argued here that tomasello overlooked important findings in the mechanisms of evolution as well as in the cognition and socialisation of great apes, making his theory stand on arguable foundations. by understating the social skills of other hominids and simplifying the relation between culture and theory of mind, the importance of other cognitive abilities in this debate is often forgotten. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ although tomasello’s book has now been published some 16 years ago, this review was motivated by the recrudescence of social and cultural arguments based on the comparison between humans and great apes. from education (e.g., bruner, 1996) to sociology (latour, 2007), no field of the human and social sciences seems to escape the need to compare us with our closest relatives, concluding that we have greater social and empathic skills. however, recent research has shown that such results are often biased, using definitions of society and culture tailored to exclude non-humans (king, 2002) and ignoring the fact that experimental contexts may not tell much about great apes’ abilities in the wild. because of the importance of tomasello’s book on psychologists’ discourses about great ape cognition, its review is still relevant today. however, to do justice to the author’s body of work, recent alterations he made to his theories in the meantime have also been taken into account. tomasello’s experiments on nonhuman primates and young children led him to the conclusion that if all hominids can understand the other as an intentional agent, only humans can share intentionality (tomasello et al., 2005). if great apes have, in theory, the ability to share intentionality, they do not show any interest in doing so, and tend to present an understanding of others’ intentions only when rewarded with food. the ability to ‘co-act’, through the coordination of two agents’ goals, allows not only for the apparition of culture, but also for cumulative cultural evolution. indeed, it appears that a few animal species can produce culture, even though it largely depends on howwe define it (boyd & richerson, 1996), but only humans can produce what tomasello calls the “ratchet effect”: individuals not only produce new behaviours, but these behaviours are maintained by the group to be later improved by another individual. it is this unique spiral process that allows us to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ and develop knowledge that could not be produced by a single individual. tomasello’s starting point is that evolution, on a short period of time that is two million years, could only produce one main difference – that his book aims to find – between homo sapiens and the other hominids, especially if we consider that we share around 99% of our dna with bonobos, our closest relatives. however, three objections can already be made. first, evolution can be accelerated by processes such as niche construction (odling-smee, laland, & feldman, 2003) or group selection, undermining tomasello’s timescale argument. second, sharing almost all our genome with other primates is not as meaningful as it appears: we share, for instance, 50% of our genomes with bananas… indeed, what matters when considering genotypes are the genes responsible for global organisation (marks, 2003), which means that a minimal genotypic difference can lead to the expression of completely different phenotypes. moreover, the exclusive use of statistical inferences in genetics limits the conclusiveness of the obtained results (kupiec & sonigo, 2000). third, the strongest competition in evolution is between close species, as they fill the same place in nature (darwin, 1859/2004). other hominans do not seem to have been especially inscribed in cultural evolution (foley & lahr, 1997), although showing signs of a theory of mind (e.g., burial of the dead, painting, etc.) therefore, if we are to share all of our characteristics but one with other hominids, it is more likely to be with other hominoids that are now extinct. in order to determine this unique difference between humans and other primates, tomasello compares how children and great apes react to different cognitive tasks involving socialisation and intentionality. that is, apes and children are faced with a seemingly incompetent experimenter and are required, to “successfully” pass the experiment, to read the intentions of the researcher and to help him in his (rather simple) task. and, here, the conclusion is clear: if children start extremely early on – around 6 months – to enthusiastically help the experimenter, apes do so only when rewarded with food. thus, humans have a predisposition towards socialisation that allows them to share intentionality. why, then, can apes in captivity and under certain other conditions understand intentions and yet are not very willing to do so? the effects of enculturation are often pointed to in this case, and it has been argued europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 363–368 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.990 the cultural origins of human cognition 364 http://www.psychopen.eu/ either that treating apes as intentional agents may lead them to see others as being so as well (tomasello & call, 1996, 2004), or that it provokes a simple behavioural change (bering, 2004). nevertheless, two other possibilities have been overlooked. first, displaying the same ability does not necessarily mean that it is possible through the same processes and it is indispensable to look at how the ability evolves during ontogeny (vygotsky & luria, 1934/1994). however, if much data is available for the early stages of development, it is increasingly difficult to separate ontogenesis and sociogenesis when getting to later stages (featherman & lerner, 1985), and no study includes longitudinal data on the socialisation or enculturation of great apes. therefore considering, as tomasello does, that we understand the intentions of others through the same process as apes, but that we only showmore interest in doing so, seems to overlook the fact that drawing conclusions from behavioural observations must be carefully done, and that further data is necessary. second, recent experiments done in natural settings – that is, in the wild – and experiments with enculturated apes have shown a quite different picture of great apes’ socialisation. they can evaluate the knowledge of others (crockford, wittig, mundry, & zuberbühler, 2012), intentionally transmit information to them (schel, townsend, machanda, zuberbühler, & slocombe, 2013), integrate contextual elements to understand others (arnold & zuberbühler, 2013), show empathy (pruetz, 2011), for instance. what motivates them, in the wild, to adopt collaborative behaviours seems to be friendship and kindship (schel et al., 2013). is it possible, then, that great apes simply do not want to collaborate with the experimenter yet would be able to do so? tomasello’s final assumption is that the necessary and only condition for the apparition of cultural evolution is the emergence of theory of mind, as they both depend on socialisation. this theory, with little modifications, is widely shared in psychology (e.g., mead, 1930/1977 and freud, 1915/1968 to quote only a few key thinkers) although a careful study of the socialisation and cognition of great apes shows the necessity of some alterations. it is certainly not our aim here to deny the social origins of the theory of mind or cultural evolution but to illustrate that the relation that binds them is not as simple as presented in tomasello's work and that the importance of other cognitive abilities should not be that easily disregarded. it has been clearly shown that apes dispose of highly developed social skills, which involve understanding the intentions of others (tomasello et al., 2005), the use of signs (king, 2002), and resilience in the socialisation process (burks, bloomsmith, forthman, & maple, 2001). they also show a positive reaction to the mirror test (patterson & cohn, 1994), and display empathy (patterson & gordon, 1993). if this does not mean that apes are self-aware in the way humans are, or that their social skills match ours, it suggests at least that apes might have access to a primitive theory of mind. and this without being able to develop any kind of cultural evolution, which cast a serious doubt on how straightforward the relation between selfawareness and other uniquely human abilities really is. one suggestion has been that although great apes have culture, they are not aware that they do: what they are missing, then, is a metalevel of understanding of their cultural ability (gruber, zuberbühler, clément, & van schaik, 2015). this points towards an alternative explanation of our differences with great apes. indeed, if most of the experiments on great apes tend to demonstrate how skillful they are, little attention is given to how long it takes the experimenters to make them achieve a task (see schroeder's (1978) documentary, for instance, for some footage of patterson's work with gorillas). it has often been considered as an effect of apes' 'laziness', and their little interest in non-rewarded exercises. however, when put in relation with what has been presented here, it seems that the importance of purely cognitive abilities has been overlooked. it is not only necessary to have a theory of mind or to be enculturated to point objects to others, but also to be able to be intentionally attentive. in order to speak a language or develop a 'generalised other', one needs to understand concepts. finally, understanding intentions cannot be europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 363–368 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.990 de saint-laurent 365 http://www.psychopen.eu/ done without a context, which requires a plethora of cognitive abilities to apprehend the cultural interpretation of the 'here and now'. but, already when lev vygotsky was demonstrating in 1934 that most of our capacities are culturally developed, he insisted upon the fact that unspecific abilities, such as formation of concepts or logical memory, had been selected during phylogeny and it was these which were the building blacks of our cultural evolution. to conclude, tomasello’s work provides extremely interesting data and stimulating hypotheses. however, although his book is well argued and raises some valuable points, other important findings and theories that have been overlooked cast a shadow on a key part of his argument. it cannot be denied that socialisation is a cornerstone of the evolution of our species. comparing how eager children brought up in isolation are to communicate (cadland, 1993)ii with the aggressiveness of apes in the same situation (burks et al., 2001) leaves little doubt on this point. and there seems to be a little jump from here to the very comforting conclusion that, maybe, what makes humankind stand out from animal kind are our social and empathic skills. however, existing findings do not allow us to rule out just yet that we may be, after all, just very clever apes. notes i) this specific terminology is taken from boyd and richerson (1996). even though most tenants of tomasello’s theory would simply talk about culture, distinguishing between culture (“variation acquired and maintained by social learning” p. 77) and cumulative cultural evolution (“cultural change [that] accumulates over many generations leading to the evolution of behaviours that no individual could invent” p. 78) seems necessary to clarify the debate about animal cultures, without altering the author’s views. ii) see also the documentaries by garmon (1994) and matthews and christenson (2007). funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank alex 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(original work published 1934) about the author constance de saint-laurent is a phd student and teaching and research assistant at the university of neuchâtel in switzerland. her doctoral thesis centres on collective memory, meaning making and reflexivity. she currently teaches seminars on collective memory and pragmatist epistemology and her latest publication is the article “i would rather be hanged than agree with you!”: collective memory and the definition of the nation in parliamentary debates on immigration’ (outlines. critical practice studies, 2014). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 363–368 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.990 the cultural origins of human cognition 368 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10164-010-0244-y http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0227-x http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x05000129 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the cultural origins of human cognition (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author workaholism components and perceptions of negative organizational acts (1) ronald j. burke york university stig b. matthiesen university of bergen stale einarson university of bergen lisa fiksenbaum york university summary accumulating research findings on work addiction and work addicts has shown that individuals scoring higher on work addiction also report more negative affects and poorer psychological health. this study extends this research by examining the relationship of work addiction to perceptions of negative acts or bullying in a large sample of norwegian oil rig workers. spence and robbins (1992), based on an extensive review of the workaholism literature identified and developed measures of three workaholism components; work involvement, feeling driven to work because of internal pressures, and work enjoyment. profile analysis using these measures were undertaken in a large sample of social work professors in the us produced three workaholic types and three non-workaholic types based on high or low scores on the three workaholism components. the former were: work addicts (was), enthusiastic addicts (eas), and work enthusiasts (wes); the latter were: unengaged workers (uws), relaxed workers (rws) and disenchanted workers (dws). researchers have found that was report higher levels of negative affect and poorer psychological health than one or both of the other workaholic types (see burke, 2000; burke & matthisen, 2004; mcmillan-o’driscoll & burke, 2003, for reviews), and that the feeling driven component is the most strongly and consistently related with those negative outcomes. was also have more negative work attitudes, more stress at work and more problematic relationships with colleagues (porter, 1996; 1998;2001). galperin and burke (2006), in a study relevant to the present research, considered the relationship of the three spence and robbins’ workaholism components and measures of both constructive (e.g., developed creative solutions to problems, best to break the rules to better perform the job) and destructive deviance (e.g., making fun of someone at work) taken property from work without permission. individuals scored higher on work involvement indicated lower levels of organizational destructive deviance, individuals scoring higher on work enjoyment second higher on innovative constructive deviance, while individuals scoring higher on feeling driven scored lower on innovative constructive deviance. this study considers the relationship of workaholism components with perceptions of negative organizational acts or bullying in the workplace. workplace bullying has received significant attention during the past decade particularly in scandinavia and the uk. salin (2003a) defines bullying as “repeated and persistent negative acts towards one or more individual(s), which involve a perceived power imbalance ad create a hostile work environment” (pp. 1214-1215). she develops a model of organizational antecedents of bullying classifying structures and processes into three groups: enabling structures or necessary antecedents (e.g., low perceived costs, dissatisfaction and frustration), motivating structures or incentives (e.g., internal competition, reward systems and expected benefits) and precipitating processes or triggering circumstances (e.g., organizational crises, other organizational changes). sales (2003b) argues that workplace bullying can also be a form of organizational politics. she reported a correlation between a politicized and competitive climate and bullying. thus her description of the structures and processes that precipitate, enable and motivate bullying resemble those that support workaholism (burke, 2000; killinger, 1991; robinson, 1998; schaef & fausel, 1988; fasell; 1990). thus the general hypothesis underlying this research proposes relationships between the workaholism components, particularly feeling driven to work because of inner pressures, and perceived negative acts or bullying behaviors. method procedure data were collected from norwegian oil rig workers using an anonymous questionnaire. questionnaires were distributed by mail to 1800 randomly selected offshore workers representing various companies and installations. all were members of either nopef (norsk olje-og petrokjemisk fagforbund) or ofs (oljearbeidernes fellessammenslutning ) – later renamed safe (sammenslutingen av fagorgoniserte: energisektoren), the major unions for offshore workers in norway. a total of 1017 individuals returned completed questionnaires to the research team in pre-stamped envelopes that were provided, a 59% response rate. respondents most respondents were male (86%), between 35 and 55 years of age (70%), were about equally represented by the two unions, were employed by the installation operator (54%), had non-supervisory jobs (71%), had long offshore and platform tenure (66% had 11 or more years of offshore tenure and 52% had 6 or more years of platform tenure), most worked 100% offshore (95%), were permanent employees (86%), worked the same work schedule – 2 weeks on and 3-4 weeks off (93%), and worked in maintenance, drilling or catering (26%, 19% and 16%, respectively). measures workaholism components three workaholism components proposed by spence and robbins (1992) were measured by scales they developed. work involvement was measured by seven items (α = .56). one item was “i like to use my time constructively, both on and off the job”. feeling driven to work was assessed by an eight item scale (α =.82). an item was “i seem to have an inner compulsion to work hard, a feeling that it’s something i have to do whether i want to or not”. joy in work was measured by seven items (α = .81). one item was “most of the time my work is very pleasurable”. respondents indicated their agreement on a five point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = strongly agree). negative acts the negative acts questionnaire developed by einarsen, rakner, matthiesen and hellesoy, 1994) examined how frequently individuals had experienced negative acts in the workplace on a five point scale (1 = never, 3 = mostly, 5 = daily). the scale had 22 items (α =.91). sample items were: “being ridiculed or humiliated in connection with your work”, “being shouted at or being the target of spontaneous anger”, and “spreading of gossip or rumours about you”. results comparing workaholism types table 1: workaholism components and negative acts the top half of table 1 shows the comparisons of the six workaholic types on the measure of perceived negative acts or bullying. was reported significantly more negative acts than did wes, uws, and rws; dws also reported more negative acts than did wes, uws, and rws. the bottom half of table 1 presents the results of a hierarchical regression analysis in which perceptions of negative acts were regressed on three blocks of predictors entered in a specified order. the first block consisted of personal demographics (e.g., age, sex, marital and parental status). the second block consisted of work situation characteristics (e.g., years of off-shore experience, unit size); the third block of predictors consisted of the three workaholism components. when a block of predictors accounted for a significant amount or increment in explained variance or perception of negative acts (p discussion these findings extend our understanding of the work experiences of was and the key role played by feeling driven to work because of inner pressures in predicting these experiences. as hypothesized, was reported a more hostile, bullying and toxic work environment. these results offer another possible explanation for the lower levels of job and career satisfaction of was noted by others (see burke, 2000; mcmillan, o’driscoll & burke, 2003, for reviews). footnotes (1) preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by york university, and the department of psychology, university of bergen. we thank the two unions that participated in the data collection. louise coutu prepared the manuscript. references burke, r.j. & matthiesen, s.b. (2004) workaholism among norwegian journalists: antecedents and consequences. stress and health, 20, 301-308. burke, r.j. (2000) workaholism in organizations: concepts, results and future research directions. international journal of management research, 1, 1-19. einarson, s., raknes, b.i., matthiesen, s.b. & hellosoy, (1994) bullying and personified conflicts: health endangering interactions at work. bergen, norway: sigma forlag. fassel, d. (1990) working ourselves to death: the high costs of workaholism the rewards of recovery. san francisco, ca: harper collins. galperin, b.l., & burke, r.j. (2006) uncovering the relationship between workaholism and workplace deviance: an exploratory study. international journal of human resource management, 17, 1-17. killinger, b. (1991) workaholics: the respectable addicts. new york: simon & schuster. mcmillan, l.h.w., o’driscoll, m.p., & burke, r.j., (2003) workaholism: a review of theory, research and new directions. in c.l. cooper & i.t. robertson (eds) international review of industrial and organizational psychology. new york: john wiley. pp. 167-190. porter, g. (1996) organizational impact of workaholism: suggestions for researching the negative outcomes of excessive work. journal of occupational health psychology, 1, 70-84. porter, g. (1998) can y ou trust a workaholic? how work addiction erodes trust throughout the organization. journal of contemporary business issues, 6, 48-57. porter, g. (2001) workaholic tendencies and the high potential for stress among co-workers. international journal of stress management, 8, 147-164. robinson, b.e. (1998) chained to the desk: a guidebook for workaholics, their partners and children and the clinicians who treat them. new york: nyu press. salin, d. (2003a) ways of explaining workplace bullying: a review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment. human relations, 56, 1213-1232. salin, d. (2003b) bullying and organizational politics in competitive and rapidly changing work environments. international journal of management and decision making. 4, 35-46. scaef, a.w. & fassel, d. (1988) the addictive organization. san francisco, ca: harper row. spence, j.t. & robbins, a.s., (1992) workaholism: definition, measurement and preliminary results. journal of personality assessment, 58, 160-178. “does community make any sense?” a semantic analysis of the term “community” among albanian immigrants and italian majority residents research reports “does community make any sense?” a semantic analysis of the term “community” among albanian immigrants and italian majority residents terri mannarini*a, alessia rochiraa [a] department of history, society, and human studies, university of salento, lecce, italy. abstract bridging community psychology and the theory of social representations, the study was aimed at exploring how the concept of community and sense of belonging to various communities vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups (namely, immigrant and native-born groups) and how the meanings and the experience of community affect or are affected by the relationships that each group establishes with the other group. participants were 30 native-born italians and 30 immigrants from albania living in an area located in the south-east of italy. they participated in an open-ended semi-structured interview, which was analysed using t-lab software. results indicated that the concept of community and sense of belonging to multiple communities do vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups and that each group is cross-cut by multiple axes of differentiation, one of which is linked to the experience of inter-cultural relations. furthermore, the findings indicated that the functions served by the diverse communities affect the representations shared by the distinct sub-groups and that the simultaneous orientation of individuals toward multiple communities stimulate the development of a compound and even conflicting sense of attachment towards them. implications for acculturation processes are discussed. keywords: community, minority immigrants, social representations europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 received: 2014-04-10. accepted: 2014-08-03. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of history, society and human studies, university of salento, via stampacchia 45, 73100 lecce, italy. phone: ++390832294706. fax: ++390832294723. e-mail: terri.mannarini@unisalento.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the concept of community and the construct of sense of community (soc) can have a great heuristic valence in the investigation of the wide range of intercultural encounters in modern plural societies. viewed through the lens of ethnic relations, communities are social phenomena that capture the psychosocial complexity of immigrant settlements in host societies; in particular, communities conglomerate contextual and group factors, encompassing social, historical, political, religious, and economic characteristics, as well as social structures, institutions, and cultural practices. all of these elements are at the core of the acculturation process (berry, 2005). ethno-cultural groups of immigrants represent relational communities that are based on shared components such as symbols, languages and history (sonn & fisher, 1996). these communities are important insofar as they provide identity, social support and opportunities for socialization, thereby facilitating the psychological and social adaptation of immigrants in the new context (rivas-drake, 2012). the sense of community captures the psychoeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ logical experience of being part of a community. such a belonging is decisive for immigrants to keep their personal consistency and the day-to-day continuity of their self-identity, that is, the feeling of being the same person throughout different life stages and across different cultural contexts (grinberg & grinberg, 1975, 1984). throughout the challenging processes of immigration and acculturation, immigrants can preserve the continuity of their cultural identity (phinney, 1990) by virtue of their sense of belonging to relational communities, despite the transition from the community of origin to a new area of settlement. recently, the concept of multiple psychological sense of community (mpsoc) (brodsky, 2009; brodsky & marx, 2001; mannarini & fedi, 2009) has been introduced in community psychology to account for the fact that people experience many diverse communities in their lives (pretty, andrewes, & collett, 1994). the multiplicity of the communities of reference has a noticeable role in the acculturation challenges, which press immigrants to reorganize their social identities, either the social identity that derives from their being a part of the host cultural community or the identity related to their community of origin (i.e., ethnic identity) (ward, bochner, & furnham, 2001). however, acculturation is not a one-way process. notably, acculturation requires members of the host society to confront the increasing cultural diversity of the social environment (berry, 2008). referring to the host culture, acculturation theorists (e.g., bourhis, moïse, perreault, & senécal, 1997; van oudenhoven, prins, & buunk, 1998) have highlighted the fact that dominant groups within a host society have a leading role in enforcing or promoting certain modes of acculturation (hofstra, van oudenhoven, & van der zee, 2009; van oudenhoven & hofstra, 2006), so that the sense of attachment or identification of native-born groups with the larger society represents a pre-condition to positive acculturation outcomes (berry & kalin, 1995). community psychologists and acculturation theorists seem to agree on the multiple benefits of social support networks and group memberships (berry, 1984; vieno, santinello, pastore, & perkins, 2007); more interestingly, they also seem to converge on the possibility that community memberships can generate potential negative effects by fuelling separation or conflicts between the minority immigrant groups and the majority resident group or by fostering ethnic prejudice in the host society (as attested to by decades of empirical research on social categorization and group identification processes, see abrams, 2010). nevertheless, studies on soc and inter-ethnic exchanges (castellini, colombo, maffeis, & montali, 2011; mannarini, rochira, & talò, 2012) show divergent findings, which suggest that the relation between community belonging and the attitude towards those who are perceived as being outside the community boundaries (e.g., immigrants) is far from being linear. some studies have concluded that the coexistence of different ethnic groups in the same territorial area does not affect the feelings of belonging and attachment that people have established with their community of residence (prezza, zampatti, pacilli, & paoliello, 2008). however, other studies have claimed that the ethnic heterogeneity does make a difference depending on the degree of familiarity among the immigrants and the host group (hombrados-mendieta, gómez-jacinto, domínguez-fuentes, & garcía-leiva, 2013). these controversial findings suggest that the relationship between the soc and the acculturation process can be context-dependent and highly influenced by local dynamics. despite this fruitful interconnection, the constructs of community and soc have received relatively little consideration in the broad field of acculturation studies. furthermore, though the literature suggests that acculturation is not a uniform process (berry, 2008, 2006; navas et al., 2005), the frequent use of large-scale surveys has not hitherto allowed for an in-depth comprehension of the local meanings or of the differences between and within various ethno-cultural groups. consistently, the present study focuses on the peculiar and contextual connotations of the concepts of community and soc as well as to the notable variations in content and meaning that these notions may undergo. in the background of the social representations theory, our investigation intends to explore how the concepts (i.e., the representation) of community and sense of belonging to a variety of possible communities vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 673 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (namely, immigrant groups and host groups) and how the meanings and the experience of community affect or are affected by the relationship that each group establishes with the other group. theoretical framework community and sense of community the academic debate contests the actuality of the “community” despite the fact that it represents a significant part of people’s everyday life (howarth, 2001). specifically, it has been argued that community is an antiquated concept that has lost its explicatory valence and become “a backward looking notion” (puddifoot, 1995). contrarily, though urbanization, migration, and globalization have enfeebled the spatial and geographical side of the community, this keeps on playing a pivotal role in people's socialization process (cohen, 1995). the increase in complexity, mobility, technological changes, and the variety of lifestyles has affected and changed the meanings of community (brodsky & marx, 2001), but its importance has remained unchallenged. therefore, while the significance of community as a territorial phenomenon has declined, the significance of community as a relational phenomenon has grown (royal & rossi, 1996). the centrality of the concept of community lies primarily in the feeling of belonging that it elicits (crow & allan, 1994); community is one of the anchors for the development of individuals’ and groups’ social identities. as cohen (1995) argued, “people construct community symbolically, making it a resource and repository of meaning, and a referent of their identity” (p. 118). precisely, scholars generally agree on the prominence of community but not on its univocal significance. indeed, an extensive variety of diverse meanings can be found that are based around shared commonalities and common experiences, the feeling of belonging, the exclusion of ”non-members,” and the practical descriptors such as location and interests. additionally, people belong to diverse psychological and social communities, some of which are place-based, that is to say settled in a physical space, and others are relational, precisely converging around common experiences, interests or ideas (fisher & sonn, 2002); furthermore, some communities are ascribed, such as family or ethnicity and race, and others are achieved, such as the communities of interests or of ideas such as clubs, associations, etc. (obst, zinkiewicz, & smith, 2002). comprehending how persons make sense of the diverse communities they experience helps to penetrate into their sense of identification with these communities. furthermore, comprehending how individuals from diverse cultures engender a sense of attachment towards some communities allows for a better understanding of the symbolic place held by the various communities in people’s mental life and well-being (bishop, colquhoun, & johnson, 2006). these specific aspects are further captured by the construct of sense of community (sarason, 1974). soc is a milestone concept of community psychology originally defined by sarason as a pivotal dimension for human functioning, “the sense that one was part of a readily available, mutually supportive network of relationships upon which one could depend and as a result of which one did not experience sustained feelings of loneliness” (sarason, 1974, p. 1). the notion of soc was operationalized by mcmillan and chavis (1986) about ten years after its first appearance. the theorists proposed a multidimensional model, which applies to a variety of communities and is comprised of four components: membership, mutual influence, fulfillment of need, and shared emotional connection. accordingly, soc is fed by salientmembership, which is one’s acknowledgment of being amember of the community and an inclusiveness/exclusiveness descriptor;mutual influence is the perception of having an impact on community life and being affected by the community as a whole and by its members; needs fulfillment is the confidence of having one’s personal needs met by community resources; and shared emotional connection is the feeling of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 674 http://www.psychopen.eu/ being connected to the community and community members, which is nourished by a common heritage of shared history and symbols. more recently, scholars have focused on the investigation of multiple sense of community (mpsoc) to capture the sense of attachment connected to diverse communities (brodsky & marx, 2001). precisely, mpsoc uses mcmillan and chavis’ (1986) framework to account for the fact that individuals’ experience is not limited to one community (i.e., the primary community). on the contrary, individuals relate tomultiple communities, each meeting crucial needs and serving social functions, and each providing the ground for developing multiple psychological senses of community. additionally, scholars’ interest has been recently focusing on exploring the way in which multiple senses of community intermingle between each other’s, so that in people’s psychological experience significant communities are not always perceived as separate but somehow overlap. hunter and riger (1986) argued that people live in a series of nested communities organized on the basis of a hierarchy of symbolic communities. as highlighted by brodsky andmarx (2001), “people participate in any number of distinct communities at any one time. each of these distinct communities is also comprised of multiple, nested sub-communities, defined by individual and group roles, experiences and identities” (p. 176). according to such a perspective, variations exist not only between communities but also within communities, so that as a consequence “individual […] subcultural and intra-group differences” (wiesenfeld, 1996, p. 339) can emerge. hence, the idea of multiple senses of community entails the co-existence of both commonalities and diversities. the focal point is how such commonalities and diversities are symbolically organized to preserve the coherence of the individual self. “macro-belonging” is the sense of community that incorporates multiple communities and their members beyond their specific discrepancies. conversely, “micro-belonging” is the sense of community that enhances the diversity between subcommunity memberships and keeps them separate (wiesenfeld, 1996). following nowell and boyd (2010), the link between the individuals and the communities they belong to can be accounted for on the basis of needs theory. according to this perspective, each component of mcmillan and chavis’ (1986) construct (i.e., membership, needs fulfillment, influence, and shared emotional connection) is linked to a specific subjective need, whose fulfillment feeds individual psoc. assuming that psychological sense of community is a need-based construct and people experience diverse communities in the course of their life, the functions served by each of these communities are understood as key elements to grasp the way multiple sense of community operates. ultimately, community psychologists (rappaport, 1995) have suggested that sense of community is a community narrative and emphasized the importance of shared collective narratives in building communities, i.e., sense of belonging, feelings of interconnection and cohesion. the connection between narratives and the creation of communities as socially constructed objects requires us to consider the theory of social representations. this theory conceptualizes knowledge as a process of the personal construction of meanings at the crossroads in-between the individual sphere and the social sphere. it also emphasizes the interconnection between symbolic knowledge and multiple systems of belonging. the theory of social representations the social representations theory (srt) (moscovici, 1981, 1984, 2005) is an extensive theoretical paradigm and a framework for inquiring into the flow of social knowledge in contemporary societies. specifically, knowledge is conceptualized as a dynamic process that encompasses both cognitive and social functioning. in fact, the question at the very core of the srt is “what is the relation between society in general, or social relations in particular, and psychological function”? (gillespie, 2008, p. 3). in the primary literature, jodelet argued that social representations are portrayed as “practical and communicable ways of thinking” (as cited in bergmann, 1999, p. 4.2) and tools europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 675 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that people “use to make sense of their worlds, to interpret the novel, the unfamiliar, and the strange” (howarth, 2001, p. 12). social representations are dynamic, cohesive and consistent systems of knowledge; they are meanings, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, practices, and behavioral repertoires, all of which feature the social understanding of objects relevant to a given social milieu. two ideas are at the core of this definition. the first is the existence of “certain patterns of thinking, actions and interactions” that are associated with the concerted creation of relevant social objects (wagner, valencia, & elejabarrieta, 1996); the second is the development of an intersubjective reality that works as a code for the communicative and social exchanges between individuals, groups and communities (jovchelovitch, 2002). social representations imply a form of consensus that enables people to make sense of their social and material world and to use this to master these worlds. the notion of positioning (doise, 2003) accounts for the co-existence of variances among persons. individuals cognitively adjust the elements that form a given social representation in accordance with the positions they hold in their relational context (viaux, 2000). accordingly, sharedness is not a general and unchallenged form of agreement but rather it accounts for the fact that social representations are set on a common basis. social representations are amalgams of collective memory and personal history with a key identity function. collective memory “generates the signification of the representation and determines its organization [while personal history] allows adaptation to concrete reality, content differentiation and protects the continuity and consistency of the representation” (abric, 1993, p. 76). more specifically, the actual organization of the various components of a social representation results in practical meanings (duveen, 2007), and these are interrelated with the intragroup and intergroup dynamics reflecting the symbolic positioning of social actors, groups, and communities in a given social field (doise, 1992). language is a vehicle for the study of social representations as they are formed through communication. indeed, words can be taken as indicators of social representations, but the theory does not posit a linguistic approach to the study of social knowledge (flament & rouquette, 2003). rather, there is a line of research that studies social representations through the analysis of semantic configurations (bauer & gaskell, 2008; lahlou & abric, 2011). the basic idea is that social representations are characterized both as processes and contents (lahlou & abric, 2011), and these contents can be examined through the analysis of the semantic elements and their reciprocal relations. hence, semantic maps can be interpreted as core elements of social representations. more specifically, because the process of representation is both social and personal, the actual meanings attached to given objects derive from the adaptation of shared social representations to concrete realities. hence, semantic structures can be considered to be “particular instantiations of larger repertoires” (e.g., social representations) (veltri, 2013). in line with the general principles of social representations theory and following a method of analysis that is widely used in this strand of research, we investigated the social representations of community as transmitted by individual accounts by means of a semantic analysis of actual organization (e.g., meanings). study rationale this study was intended to explore the personal elaboration of social representations of community by means of an in-depth analysis of the meanings that are produced and attached to a variety of possible communities and of the variances and differences thesemeanings can have across various cultural groups. two assumptions supported our investigation. first, we posited that meanings are transmitted through the social representations of social objects (i.e., community, whose psychology is captured by the construct of sense of community) that are relevant to groups of people. second, in line with a cultural approach to collective processes, we assumed that sense of community is a context-dependent shared narrative (i.e., a social representation) whose particular meanings vary across diverse europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 676 http://www.psychopen.eu/ groups. accordingly, our investigation focused on three main research questions. first, what are the core semantic elements (i.e., the main features) of the representation of the community/communities that distinguish two different ethno-cultural groups, namely, a minority immigrant group and the majority host group? second, do these elements shed light on the function served by the different communities in terms of identity, belonging, social support and emotional connection (theoretically: in terms of a sense of community)? third, are there detectable differences within the immigrant group and the host group in terms of the meanings and the experience of communities according to the relationship each group establishes with the other group, namely contact? in line with the srt, it was expected that by virtue of their positioning, the immigrant and the host groups would refer to different visions of the community and that more than one perspective would emerge within each group, possibly according to the degree and type of inter-group contact. method participants and procedures this study was conducted in a territorial community named salento, which is located in apulia, the south-eastern region of italy. in this region, international migration initially appeared in the eighties, but it was only in the early nineties, as the “great exodus” from nearby albania began, that the region experienced its initial massive immigration flow. however, immigrant communities still represent only a small portion of the resident population and are mostly concentrated in the urban area of lecce, a medium-sized city of 95,520 inhabitants. in 2011, the foreign population was 2.3% of the total population (istat, 2011). the participants were selected from two groups, which therefore resulted in two sub-samples: native-born italian residents in salento and immigrants from albania who settled in the same area. people with an albanian ethnicity were chosen according to two main sampling criteria: (a) the albanian group was a long-term settled immigrant community; and (b) this group was also the largest foreign community in salento (16.7% of foreigners officially registered, istat, 2011). participants were selected according to a quota sampling. the population was segmented into mutually exclusive sub-groups based on two theoretical criteria, namely, nationality (native-born italians vs. people of albanian descent) and high vs. low contact with the out-group (i.e., people of albanian descent for the italian sub-sample and people with italian nationality for the albanian sub-sample). “contact” was operationalized differently for the two sub-samples. within the italian sub-sample, “contact” was operationalized as self-reported face-to-face relationships. individuals who declared that they had no contact or only occasional and superficial contact with the immigrant group (low contact sub-group) and individuals who reported habitual and repeated contact with them either because they were friends, co-workers, neighbors or clients (high contact sub-group), were included in the sample in nearly equal numbers. within the albanian sub-sample, contact was operationalized by means of a proxy variable, i.e., first or second generation. this decision was based on two assumptions. the first assumption is that the quantity and quality of relationships that immigrant groups establish with the host society is a crucial component of the acculturation process (berry, 2005). the second assumption is that, as shown by research on immigrant second generations in italy (ambrosini & molina, 2004), second generations are generally more integrated in the host society than the first generation. specifically, through the mediating agencies of school and peer-groups, they have more relationships, and more significant relationships, with native-born italians than their parents. firstgeneration immigrants (i.e., participants who left their country as adults correspond to the low-contact sub-group) and second-generation immigrants (i.e., those born in italy from albanian parents or settled in during a very early stage of their lives, correspondent to the high-contact group) were included in the sample in nearly equal numbers. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 677 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the participants in the study included 30 native-born italians living in salento (17 women between the ages of 22 and 72, mage = 31.11, sd = 13.59) and 30 immigrants from albania (13 women between the ages of 23 and 61, mage = 29.29, sd = 11.08). among the native-born italians, 16 were low-contact participants (between the ages of 22 and 72, mage = 31.02, sd = 14.71) and 14 were high-contact participants (between the ages of 22 and 59, mage = 31.21, sd = 12.27). on the albanian side, 16 were first-generation immigrants (between the ages of 23 and 61, mage = 34.44, sd = 11.58) and 14 were second-generation immigrants (between the ages of 14 and 30, mage = 22.15, sd = 4.38) (see table 1). table 1 participants’ nationality and gender gendernationality contact totalfmtotalalbaniansitalians 321715321616low/first-generation 281315281414high/second-generation 603030603030total they were all recruited using a snowball design. the immigrant participants (both first and second generation) were contacted via two local associations, namely a group of albanian college students and a local immigrant advocacy group. the high-contact local residents were contacted via community associations providing targeted services to immigrants, families and small firms who employed immigrants and among neighbors of immigrant families. nonetheless, none of the respondents worked as professionals (i.e., social worker, lawyer, translator, etc.) with immigrant clients. the low-contact residents were contacted via informal social networks. all of the participants who were contacted in the initial phase of the recruitment served in turn as recruitment agents, who provided the interviewers with tips for contacting new participants. the participants were asked to take part in an open-ended, semi-structured interview and were informed about the topic of investigation. the interviews lasted from 40 to 90minutes, were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. the length of the interview sessions varied randomly among the sub-groups of participants and, though the timeduration of the interviews may correlate with the variety and quantity of contents, the primary focus of our study was to detect the differences in meaning production among the sub-groups of participants, and no significant difference was found between them. all of the interviews were conducted in italian because the albanian participants showed good or excellent mastery of the language. instruments an open-ended, semi-structured interview was used to elicit a general narrative on the communities of reference on the topic of inter-ethnic encounters. after an introductory section focused on the immigration experience that was excluded from the analysis, the respondents were asked to describe what they had in mind when they thought of “community” and to specify which communities they were referring to in their descriptions such as, for example, the ethnic community, the local community in which they were currently located, the community of the fellow countrymen, the personal community made up of informal social networks, etc. the participants were then prompted to elaborate on “what makes a community what it is, to me.” based on their subjective experiences, they were encouraged to verbalize their perception of the “community,” precisely the activities that take place in it and the persons, groups and objects they think it is composed of and the functions of community. in particular, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the four components of mcmillan and chavis’ (1986) model were used to identify the basic needs/functions that were met/served by the diverse communities referred to by participants. interviewees were specifically asked to express their views on the value of being part of a community, the feelings of attachment and connection, the possibility of having their needs met by the community and the opportunity to be an active part of the community life (i.e., the four components of soc, according to mcmillan and chavis’ 1986 model). finally, interviewees were asked to describe their relationships with the other members of the community and other ethnic groups within it. all of the topics were covered in depth, but the order of presentation of the questions and the probing questions varied across the interview sessions. all interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed with the respondents’ permission. analysis the analysis aimed at identifying the core themes interwoven in the narratives of community, covering both the meaning of community and soc, and at highlighting the differences within the sub-group narratives. theme identification is one of the most fundamental tasks in qualitative research, and many methods and techniques can be used to achieve it (ryan & bernard, 2003). we used the word co-occurrence technique, an approach that comes from linguistics and that is based on the idea that a word’s meaning is related to the other words’ meanings and that there is a connection between these meanings. specifically, semantic analysis considers how words relate to each other to connote the concepts, thus allowing the detection of the meanings as the system of relations between them (veltri, 2013). this mixed-methods approach, which applies statistical analyses to qualitative data, mainly correspondence and cluster analysis, enables researchers to find answers to questions such as “which words are important in distinguishing the groups, and what are the relationships between them?” hence, a computeraided content analysis was conducted with the t-lab software (lancia, 2004). t-lab is a software package that provides statistical and linguistic tools for text analysis. the logic underlying the principal analyses performed by t-lab is based on the assumption that signs (expressions/contents) are related to objects through the mediation of a cognitive process, and that words and their reciprocal relations within a text stand for the concepts they denote (veltri, 2013). before running the analysis, the transcribed interviews were merged into a single text composed of 146,786 occurrences and 10,126 different lexical units (average frequency = 14). the occurrences are quantities that result from the computation of how many times (frequencies) a single lexical unit occurs within a corpus. the lexical units are words or multi-words (two or more words that stand for just one meaning) as they appear in the corpus. the words with a frequency of less than 5 and “meaningless” words such as pronouns, articles, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions were removed. verbs, nouns and adjectives were reduced to their common lexical root. nonetheless, because denotative meanings result from word associations within the textual strings, words with similar forms such as friends (individuals) and friendship (value or notion), people of albanian descent (population), albanian (the prototypical character), and albania (the country) can acquire different meanings depending on their specific instantiation. accordingly, we decided to preserve their original forms to prevent the loss of relevant information. once these procedures were completed, the resulting text was composed of 1,223 lexical units and 2,318 segments (strings of words into which the text was divided). for this purpose, the participants’ responses were grouped through a descending cluster analysis. this technique is based on lexical co-occurrences within strings of words (or segments) and permits semantic classes, each of which is characterized by a distinctive vocabulary, to be distinguished. through this technique, we were able to identify a variety of semantic universes, which were shared by groups of participants. these semantic universes europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 679 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correspond to the core semantic elements of the social representations of the community. specifically, a cluster analysis was used to obtain semantic classes including both words and textual fragments that are put together as they contain the same patterns of words (co-occurrences). a semantic trait (i.e., a word) can be typical in more than one cluster but its occurrences vary among the clusters because each word is considered solely with reference to its relationships with other semantic traits within each cluster. in other words, the same word can have a high occurrence value by being central to a cluster and have a low occurrence value by being peripheral to another cluster, depending on its particular semantic associations with the other words of the same cluster. we analyzed the most salient words, i.e. those with the highest chi-square value, and the textual segments composing each cluster according to a qualitative approach, which aimed at extracting the underlying core theme. the association between clusters and particular sub-groups of participants were also tested. the sub-groups were selected according to nationality (native-born italians | people of albanian descent), gender (m | f), age (<25 | 26-45 | >45 years) and inter-group contact (native-born italians high | low contact; people of albanian descent 1st generation | 2nd generation). a parallel correspondence analysis of the contingency table “lexical units x clusters” was performed to explore the relationships among the clusters. like all factorial analysis techniques, a correspondences analysis allows for the extraction of new variables (i.e., the factors) through an organized summary of the significant information. in geometrical terms, each factor sets up a spatial dimension that can be represented as an axis line whose center is the value “0” and that develops in a bipolar way towards the negative (-) and the positive (+) ends, so that the objects placed on the opposite poles are the most different. the correspondence analysis accounts for the actual organization of the meanings within the representational field, as the relationships among clusters of words and textual fragments are represented on a two-dimensional space. results cluster description the cluster analysis resulted in four clusters. no difference was found among the clusters for the gender or age of the participants. each cluster was characterized by a set of distinctive words and strings of words (referred to as “elementary context units”, ecus), which identified its main feature. we labeled each cluster according to the meaning expressed by the most significant ecus, the words with the highest chi-square value (see table 2), and the global meaning expressed by the whole set of distinctive words and ecus. the excerpts from the interviews that have been included in this section correspond to significant ecus, and have been translated in english by the authors. a comprehensive view was therefore granted. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 680 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 c lu st er s: ty pi ca lw or ds pe rc lu st er ,p er ce nt ag e of e le m en ta ry c on te xt u ni ts (e c u s) g ro up ed ,c hi s qu ar e va lu es ,o cc ur re nc es w ith in c lu st er s, to ta lo cc ur re nc es an d su bg ro up s of p ar tic ip an ts a ss oc ia te d to ea ch c lu st er c lu st er 4: c om m un ity of or ig in 25 ,4 % of ec u s c lu st er 3: in te rc ul tu ra lr el at io ns 30 ,7 % of ec u s c lu st er 2: tr ad iti on s 21 % of ec u s c lu st er 1: r el at io na lc om m un ity 22 ,6 % of ec u s n in to ta l n w ith in cl us te r χ2 w or ds n in to ta l n w ith in cl us te r χ2 w or ds n in to ta l n w ith in cl us te r χ2 w or ds n in to ta l n w ith in cl us te r χ2 w or ds 29 5 24 3 a lb an ia 48 7 45 0 im m ig ra nt 14 1 11 1 tra di tio ns 38 1 20 9 fri en d .9 9 47 9 .3 5 86 5 .3 8 29 1 .2 3 24 6 11 5 10 3 go ba ck 82 76 re la tio ns 36 3 18 8 im po rta nt 38 9 20 7 ta lk to .0 3 23 7 .3 0 14 5 .1 0 21 7 .0 7 22 7 25 2 16 7 ye ar s 12 3 91 ch oi ce 99 68 id en tit y 87 74 fu lfi ll .8 0 20 7 .7 8 10 5 .8 1 13 9 .3 2 20 4 77 68 gr an dp a 62 53 in flu en ce 97 64 tie s 64 49 ne ed s .3 0 15 2 .6 2 85 .9 7 12 1 .5 5 11 2 55 5 26 5 liv e 16 7 10 7 de pe nd on 10 7 68 pl ac e 11 4 68 un de rs ta nd .4 2 13 2 .9 8 84 .5 5 12 0 .8 6 95 66 57 un cl e 75 60 at tit ud e 36 33 bi rth 12 7 71 fo re ig ne r .4 2 12 2 .7 6 83 .9 1 11 0 .7 3 86 67 57 fa th er 18 2 10 9 re la tio ns hi p 14 4 78 ita lia n 46 35 tu rn to .9 9 11 8 .6 3 70 .1 3 99 .4 6 79 16 5 10 2 pa re nt s 28 28 ge nu in e 62 44 bo nd 49 35 st ud en t .1 0 10 7 .0 1 62 .9 7 95 .7 3 70 18 7 11 0 ho m e 12 9 81 so ci et y 95 55 cu ltu ra l 49 34 in te re st .7 9 10 1 .5 7 60 .6 4 80 .0 3 65 58 49 br ot he r 49 40 im pa ct 11 4 60 m ai nt ai n 12 4 64 a lb an ia ns .9 1 10 0 .4 0 58 .3 9 71 .6 8 64 14 1 87 st ay 42 9 20 5 ita lia ns 82 47 hi st or y 74 44 co lle ge .8 6 90 .2 6 56 .4 4 67 .5 3 61 60 48 of fs pr in g 23 9 12 7 pe rs on 57 36 re co gn iz e 16 1 74 ne ce ss ity .9 1 88 .4 1 54 .9 5 62 .2 0 55 64 50 m ot he r 13 7 81 he lp 29 23 re lig io us 86 46 fri en ds hi p .3 3 88 .3 0 50 .9 5 60 .6 3 50 51 9 22 7 ita ly 28 26 av oi d 41 27 ha bi t 20 16 em ot io na l .6 1 81 .8 2 49 .1 9 51 .6 8 39 36 32 co us in 37 31 es ta bl is h 71 39 ch ar ac te ris tic 60 33 38 ,7 5 a lb an ia n .4 5 72 .9 1 47 .0 2 51 38 32 ge tm ar rie d 59 41 fe ar 13 13 fe st iv ity 18 8 76 yo ut h .4 6 65 .5 8 40 .9 7 49 .3 0 38 58 40 re la tiv es 62 42 et hn ic 19 5 79 a lb an ia n 19 15 ac ad em ic .2 0 54 .8 5 38 .2 1 47 .3 4 36 12 5 68 ex pe rie nc e 14 2 78 in te gr at e 71 38 so ut h 21 1 81 pr ob le m s .6 6 50 .6 9 37 .9 1 46 .1 1 34 a ss oc ia te d su bgr ou p fi rs t-g en er at io n im m ig ra nt s (χ 2 = 87 .8 3) lo w -c on ta ct na tiv es -b or n ita lia ns (χ 2 = 70 .8 1) h ig hco nt ac tn at iv ebo rn ita lia ns (χ 2 = 65 .5 8) s ec on dge ne ra tio n im m ig ra nt s (χ 2 = 27 .9 4) europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 681 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cluster 1, which was statistically associated with the second-generation immigrant interviewees (χ2 = 27.63) but which also included young italian respondents, grouped 524 ecus that covered 22.6% of the whole text. this cluster illustrated a representation of a community based on peer relationships and friendships that are able to fulfill the individual personal needs. the terms friend (χ2 = 246.23), talk (χ2 = 227.07), fulfill (χ2 = 204.31), need (χ2 = 112.55), and understand (χ2 = 95.86) were among the terms with the highest chi-square value. in this cluster, for example, two interviewees referred to this community of relationships as follows: “i have italian friends, i often hang out with them because we’re all college students. i’ve been making friends at the dorm, where i’ve been living for six years, and also because i live in this context, i live in italy, in lecce, and so i have a network of friends who live here”. additionally, “my community, at least the most intimate, is made by people with whom i share my everyday life and my hopes, basically my friends”. another participant affirmed that “in these cases [satisfaction of emotional needs] first of all i turn to my friends… friends are really important to me, their opinion is really important to me”. satisfying personal needs by turning to the personal community of significant relationships emerged as a central psychological function of the community, that was experienced as being mostly relational. this experience of the community was shared by both young italians and young people of albanian descent. consistently, friends were the exemplary community members regardless of their nationality. the needs for comprehension, as denoted by the semantic trait “understand,” seemed crucial to the youth, who appear to be mainly oriented towards the primary community of peers. cluster 2 grouped 21.1% elementary contexts units of the whole text and was associated with the italian highcontact subgroup (χ2 = 65.57). the most typical words of this cluster were tradition (χ2 = 291.38), important (χ2 = 217.10), identity (χ2 = 139.80), tie (χ2 = 121.97), birth place (χ2 = 110.91), cultural (χ2 = 80.63), and history (χ2 = 67.76), all of which emphasize the connections and bonds that keep the individuals together within their community, which is experienced as a source of shared identity. several of the italian interviewees mentioned the local traditions within their primary community and emphasized their attachment to them. as stated by a participant: “the traditions in this land are always traditions that connect those who belong to this community. they are very important, they help to overcome the problems that concern the community and the relationships between its comembers”. another interviewee explained that “traditions are deeply felt, they unite the local communities and the folklore is a common property, it is shared. there is a strong identity linked to the food and the way of eating and cooking local products”. the meaning of community constructed by the italian group of high-contact interviewees was exemplified by the reference to traditions, common symbols, and significant places, and suggested that community was intended as a vehicle for collective identification and connection with others. traditions were perceived as having a strong symbolic valence insofar as they kept individuals together and fostered their sense of belonging. as clarified by another participant, “[traditions] are all things that make us feeling close, we meet more often and we work together”. interestingly, common symbols and traditions referred both to the local (i.e., salento) and the national community (i.e., italy), which suggests a common ground for the two communities. in cluster 3, which grouped the highest number of elementary context units (30.7%), the low-contact italian subgroup was overrepresented (χ2 = 70.81). in this cluster, the core theme revolved around intercultural relations, as suggested by the most distinctive words: immigrants (χ2 = 877.50), relationships (χ2 = 145.30), choice (χ2 = 105.77), influence (χ2 = 85.61), depend on (χ2 = 84.98), attitude (χ2 = 83.75), society (χ2 = 60.57), help (χ2 = 50.30), avoid (χ2 = 49.81), and fear (χ2 = 40.58). the notion of community was not directly addressed, but the notion of the national community (i.e., italy and the italian population) emerged as the background of the general attitude toward immigrants, who were perceived as “non-italian.” the general attitude towards immigrants appeared to fluctuate europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 682 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between suspicion and fear, based on a stereotypic vision of diverse groups. overall, negative or ambivalent feelings were reported in this sub-group of participants. the following excerpts (i.e., elementary contexts units) are examples of contrasting views. an interviewee stated that “there’s too much fear, our culture is too grounded in our traditions, we are not open-minded, and to me, unless we change our mentality, we won’t really accept immigrants one-hundred-per-cent”. another participant expressed her opinion using these words: “it’s not easy to achieve integration in a new country. there are enormous difficulties, the language for example… i do really understand their difficulties so i try to make them feel at home”. interestingly, when the respondents directly addressed issues related to the their national identity, they clarified that the italian country is far from a cohesive community; on the contrary, fragmentation and internal divisions were mentioned as denoting its internal dynamics. as a respondent affirmed: “[the italian community] can be meant as a community just in a very general sense, it’s neither homogeneous nor organized. my country is characterized by a huge gap among north and south, there is a cultural gap among regions and above all among cities”. to put it in different words, people with italian nationality were perceived as members of a collection of individuals who lack internal unity. in such a collection the reciprocal interdependence and the possibility of providing social support and sharing symbols and values cannot be taken for granted. as attested by an interviewee, “[italians] mind their own business. they are not united”. in conclusion, in this cluster, the concept of community remained in the background even though the respondents were inclined to use the nationality as the main category for positioning themselves and the immigrants. cluster 4, which is associated with the albanian first-generation immigrants (χ2 = 87.83), covered 25.4% of the whole text of the interviews. in this cluster, community was mainly identified with the origins and was meant as the symbolic primary community fromwhich the immigrant participants came from. the use of terms such asalbania (χ2 = 479.99), the act of going back (χ2 = 237.02), time/years (χ2 = 207.79) and many words referring to family members (grandpa χ2 = 152.30; uncle χ2 = 122.41; parent χ2 = 104.10; brother χ2 = 100.91; offspring χ2 = 88.90) indicated that the country of origin was perceived as a community. mixed feelings were expressed in this subgroup of respondents who were torn between the past and present. they acknowledged their ties with their country while at the same time stressing how different their life had become in the new context, and how they had set a growing distance between themselves and what was once their home. some of them took this distance to an extreme degree, as this participant who stated: “i was ten years old when i came here and i’ve never gone back to albania. my husband and my children live here and my parents are dead. it’s been such a long time since i have seen my albanian relatives that i don’t even remember their faces… they burned bridges when my family moved from albania, so i don’t see why i should make it up with them”. as a general trend, the primary community (i.e., the family) and the country of origin were perceived by this group of respondents as a repository of meanings and a source of identity, but their attachment to the albanian community was expressed in contradictory terms. as stated by an interviewee, “i don’t see as i could move back to albania…i could go back, but not remain there forever. i mean, i got used to live far from my parents, far from my country, far from my loved ones, this is not essential to me anymore. i don’t see albania as a place to go back to and settle down”. table 3 summarizes the main findings hitherto described. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 683 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 synoptic view of the communities of references and the functions served by the communities in each cluster people of albanian descentnative-born italians first-generation (cluster 4)second-generation (cluster 1)low contact (cluster 3)high contact (cluster 2) national community (“albanian”) + family of origin relational community (friends and peers) national community (“italian”)local community (place of birth, i.e., salento community) main communities of reference ambivalent membership (acknowledging the importance need fulfillment (the personal community of relationshipsmeets negativemembership (being part of a community that lacks positive membership (feeling proud of being part of the functions served by the communities of being albanian while feelingmaterial, social and emotional needs) support, cohesion and shared values) community) + emotional connection (feeling connected to detached and not as albanian any more)the place and the fellow residents) relationship among clusters the two-dimensional graphic representation engendered by the correspondence analysis shows similarities and differences among the clusters in terms of proximity and distance (figure 1). the first axis (i.e., factor) explained 42% of the inertia (i.e., variance in the correspondence analysis), and the second explained 32% of the inertia. as indicated by the position of the clusters, cluster 4 and cluster 3 were the most distant (= different) on the first factor, with cluster 1 positioned almost half-way in between the two but closer to cluster 3, and almost as close to the “neutral” point corresponding to the origin of the axes. figure 1. correspondence analysis on words x clusters table. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 684 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the main difference between the representation of community expressed in cluster 4, which was positioned on the left half of the horizontal axis, and clusters 1 and 3, both of which were positioned on the right half of the horizontal axis, lays in the types of community and societal relationships they evoked. while in cluster 4 community was the realm of primary ties that were mainly symbolized by family ties, the notion of community emerging in cluster 1 emphasized the relational networks outside the family (mainly friends). cluster 3 took this tendency to the extreme by moving from primary, intimate and familiar relationships, to secondary relationships, distancing and unfamiliar relationships such as those involving the outsiders (i.e., the immigrants). overall, these three clusters were positioned on a continuum whose extremes were labeled according to the classical tönnesian categories of “community” (left pole) vs. “society” (right pole). on the second factor, cluster 2, which was positioned on the inferior half of the vertical axis, was opposed to all the others, which were positioned on the superior half of the axis. the most striking difference between the concept of community represented in cluster 2 and the concept of community emerging in the other clusters lays in the possibility of the communities to provide a foundation for identity. whereas in cluster 2 the local community membership was fed by traditions and clearly served as an anchorage for cultural identity, in cluster 4 (the most distant from cluster 2), the community of origin was perceived as no longer having this function. as highlighted in the cluster description, the first-generation immigrants acknowledged the importance of being albanian while feeling detached and not identifying with the albanians any more. in a different way, the community of peers drawn by cluster 1 was not meant to be a source of identity because it was rather focused on the instrumental function of meeting the individuals’ needs and was experienced in the “here-and-now.” in contrast, the ambivalent and almost differentiated national community sketched in cluster 3 was not intended as a basis for a strong and positive identity but emphasized the fragmentation of a contradictory community. based on these considerations, the extremes of this continuum were labeled as “strong” (inferior pole) vs. “weak” (superior pole) cultural identity. discussion the goals of our study were to (a) identify the core semantic elements of the representation of the community/communities in a minority immigrant group and in the majority host group, (b) shed light on the functions (i.e., identity and belonging, social support, emotional connection, and influence) served by the different subjectively important communities, and (c) detect the differences within the immigrant and the host group according to the relationship each group establishes with the other group. the results indicated that the meanings of community and sense of belonging to multiple communities vary across diverse ethno-cultural groups and that each group is cross-cut by multiple axes of differentiation, one of which was taken into consideration in our study and is linked to the experience of inter-cultural relations. following doise (1992), we can consider the variations among individuals as anchored in both the different socio-cultural group positions and the personal experience of inter-ethnic encounters. the various representations of community and its function appeared to have few mutual overlaps across the italian and the albanian group. indeed, though each of the narratives drawn from the interviews was not totally exclusive of one sole sub-group, each sub-group was characterized in a peculiar way. in line with the srt, we found that the members of the two ethno-cultural groups considered in this study shared an in-group common set of references. we also found that the strength of the individual adherence to the various aspects of the shared representation of the community reflected the way in which interviewees of albanian descent and native-born italians interviewees perceived the social relations between diverse ethno-cultural groups and more generally the social structure they were embedded in (i.e., their socio-psychological anchoring). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 685 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in detail, the analysis of narratives highlighted that the albanian participants viewed community as either their ambivalent community of origin or their everyday friendly and supportive community of friends and close personal networks. the first-generation immigrants mostly contributed to shape the former meaning, and the younger second-generation contributed to form the latter. although both of these memberships were perceived to be important, neither of the two appeared to serve the psychological function of anchoring a clear cultural identity. in the albanian immigrants who settled in the area in the nineties, as in the case of the majority of our first-generation interviewees, the country of origin evoked memories of childhood and the awareness that cultural heritage could not be escaped, but it also activated the need for putting some distance between the actual self and the community of origin, which is criticized by some for being traditionalist, sexist, and frozen at a pre-modern stage. according to the conceptualization of sense of community proposed by mcmillan and chavis (1986), membership was the core dimension that emerged in this representation. among the first-generation immigrants, membership appeared to be accepted in its consequences as an ascribed membership to a country and its national culture, but not always subjectively valued. in some cases, the distancing attitude suggested that the participants were experiencing a negative multiple sense of community, meant as a centrifugal force that drove them away from the community (mannarini, rochira, & talò, 2014). for this group, the country of origin and the family were the two overlapping communities of reference, and both were described as having similar features and elicited similar feelings. in the mind and the discourse of these participants, talking about albania and talking about their family was talking about the same mental object. for the participants of albanian descent who arrived in italy when they were children and who initiated and completed their socialization process and schooling in the new country, the notion of community and membership turned out to be somehow “liquid,” loose, focused on the present time, and sufficient for providing emotional and material support but not for sustaining what might be defined as a cultural identity. following mcmillan and chavis’ (1986) model, need fulfillment emerged as the central component of sense of community, thus emphasizing the support that in its various forms could be provided by community members. this finding suggested that sense of community might be a resource (for second-generation immigrants) that goes beyond an adaptation to promote social integration. the category of ethnicity, defined as the combination of the myth of the common lineage, shared inter-generational memories, shared values and distinctive symbols (smith, 1986), appeared to be less conspicuous in the definition of identity among the second-generation immigrants. indeed, they sometimes used categories such as those of students, youngsters and friends as superordinate categories including both italians and albanians, thus sharing a common group identity (gaertner, dovidio, anastasio, bachman, & rust, 1993). therefore, we argue that the different socio-psychological experiences of migration held by the firstand the second-generation immigrants can be regarded as the anchorage for the organization of the social representations of community. with various nuances, all of the immigrant interviewees were aware that they had a cultural heritage that made them different from the host society (i.e., the consciousness of diaspora, see hannerz, 1992), but they were also aware that the immigration experience made them different from their fellow countrymen. ultimately, as for the symbolic organization of themultiple communities of reference, the community of origin and the community of settlement seems to be kept distant, thus putting “micro-belonging” first (wiesenfeld, 1996). participants with italian nationality too offered two narratives of their community. one narrative was shaped mainly by those participants who did have relationships with immigrants and emphasized the importance of membership and the distinctiveness of the local community, which was experienced as a common cultural ground and the basis for collective identity. a highly valued membership, along with shared emotional connection (one more component included in the proposal by mcmillan and chavis, 1986), stood out as the main dimensions of the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 686 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sense of community characterizing this group. the emphasis on the positive in-group identity was combined with an increased contact with the immigrant groups, as if the contrast or the sheer comparison activated by the intergroup contact was likely to make the cultural identity of the local residents more salient. however, despite what could be expected on the basis of social categorization research, there was no sign in this narrative of a clear connection between the salience of cultural identity and negative attitudes towards the out-group, nor traces of emotional negative reactions triggered by the immigrants. cautiously, this investigation suggests that sense of community within the local community does not necessarily prevent residents from accepting cultural and ethnic diversity. on the contrary, fear, ambivalence and concern were more present in the narrative proposed by the italian participants who did not have a personal and ongoing experience of immigrants. in this sub-group, the in-group, i.e., the community of reference, was only seldom overtly addressed, but the “we” was mostly meant as “we italians.” feelings of belonging were left in the background, and the difficulties of the encounter with diverse ethnic groups were brought to the foreground. this specific sub-group overused stereotypes to account for these difficulties but did not appeal to the out-group to affirm the in-group’s positive identity. following moliner (1996), it can be argued that this sub-group of participants reduced the vagueness of the object of representation through the overuse of stereotypes and dominant ideas. these results confirmed that contact is an effective strategy for enhancing intercultural relations (as attested to by decades of research, see pettigrew & tropp, 2006) and that the positive effects of contact do not imply that groups engage in de-categorization processes, even though a dual identity has been related to both decreased bias (gaertner, dovidio, & bachman, 1996; hornsey & hogg, 2000) and increased bias (mummendey & wenzel, 1999; waldzus, mummendey, wenzel, & boettcher, 2004). on the other hand, our findings suggested that when there was no direct contact with immigrants, not only were the immigrants viewed in more stereotypical terms but also that the distinctiveness of the in-group did not clearly emerge. in this case, common sense supplied participants with stereotypical representations of both the host and the immigrant group. in both cases, it was apparent that the reference to the out-group (either directly experienced or perceived through the media discourses) was to some extent entailed in the definition of identity and community. to conclude, multiple communities at various scales (family, group of peers, local community, country) and multiple belongings variously important, shaped the experience of both the native-born italians and the albanian immigrants. the psychological side of being part of one or more communities, i.e., the subjective meaning, was articulated in terms of membership, shared emotional connections, and needs fulfillment. influence, i.e., the fourth component posited by the theoretical definition of sense of community of mcmillan and chavis (1986), did not emerge as a clearly defined theme. as a speculative hypothesis, it could be argued that influence, meant either as the feeling of being able to make a contribution or as being aware of being influenced by the larger society, is less likely to be experienced by the generality of the individuals than it is by a specific category of individuals, i.e., those who are actively engaged (or willing to engage) in the community life or have at least developed a global vision of the relationships between themselves as individuals and the groups they belong to and the overall community. conclusions our study, positing that culture accounts for the situated nature of meanings entailed in the living experience of community and that these meanings can in turn shed some light on the unfolding of inter-cultural relationships, provides an initial basis for understanding the role of community and the sense of community in the study of interethnic encounters and the relationship between multiple senses of community and acculturation processes. the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 687 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variability with which acculturation can take place (berry, 2008) has recently captured the interest of scholars (navas et al., 2005) who have argued that “the adaptation strategies in them may not be uniform either. on the contrary, in some cases a person will follow the patterns of their heritage culture and in others will open up to the novelties and contributions of the host society culture” (p. 28). precisely, the analysis of variability and differences calls for a tighter connection between culture and cognition and for in-depth and situated explanations that are in line with a cross-cultural psychology approach that views human thought and behavior as interacting with the cultural context within which they occur. our study precisely examines the variability of the individual and the collective socio-cognitive processes in inter-cultural encounters. the notion of psychological sense of community has received scarce attention in the broad field of acculturation studies despite the profitable interconnection between these two constructs (berry & kalin, 1995). in particular, we argue that the concept of a multiple sense of community can advance the study of variability of the acculturation process because it captures the simultaneous orientations of individuals toward several communities and the corresponding development of a compound sense of attachment towards them. indeed, positive outcomes of the acculturation process can derive from the symbolic integration of the multiple communities that inhabit the symbolic world of each culture. moreover, our study sheds light on the variations of the meanings of sense of community between and within groups. at the same time, there are some limitations that have to be acknowledged and addressed by future research. one limitation concerns the method of analysis, which enables the exploration of the explicit or denotative meanings of social representations but leaves the implicit meaning in the background (veltri, 2013). additionally, the semantic analysis captures the content of social representations but it cannot be used to make conclusions about the process that generates social knowledge (lahlou & abric, 2011). to investigate these processes, groups should be studied in the natural contexts of their daily interactions. largely, as the srt is not a linguistic theory, the semantic analysis of textual production is not sufficient for grasping the complexity of the construct of social representations. nonetheless, because we were interested in the investigation of the denotative meanings of community, the methodological approach of this study was consistent. however, our results are far from complete and require further research. onemore limitation concerns the number and the characteristics of the respondents. the sample was quite small (n = 60), and though this size is not unusual in qualitative research, a larger sample would have certainly increased the soundness of the results. furthermore, our sample included only acculturated albanian immigrants with a proficient level of the italian language. however, because the study was based on an emic perspective and aimed at an in-depth examination and understanding of the local dynamics, the generalization of the findings was not in the scope of the study. a third limitation lies in the methodological expedient of using self-report measures of the inter-ethnic contact for the host group, and immigrant generation as a proxy variable for the inter-ethnic contact. we acknowledge that this methodological artifact limits the validity of our findings. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians 688 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 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(1996). the concept of ‘we’: a community social psychology myth? journal of community psychology, 24, 337-346. doi:10.1002/(sici)1520-6629(199610)24:4<337::aid-jcop4>3.0.co;2-r about the authors terri mannarini is associate professor of social psychology at the university of salento, lecce – italy. her research interests cover political, social and community psychology. her most recent work focuses on intervention strategies in community settings, community development and the psychology of collective action. most recently, she has been researching on intercultural relationships and acculturation processes. alessia rochira is phd in community psychology at the university of salento (lecce – italy) and phd of the “european doctorate on social representations & communication” at the university ‘la sapienza’ (rome – italy). her research interests cover culture, social and community psychology. she has been focusing on the study of justice and compliance with the law. she is interested in the theory of social representations and recently, she has been investigating the theme of inter-ethnic exchanges and intergroup dynamics in the background of acculturation field of studies. address: university of salento, department of history, social sciences and human studies via stampacchia 45 -73100 lecce, it. email address: alessiarochira@gmail.com psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 672–693 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.788 mannarini & rochira 693 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9095-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1996.tb01101.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/0144666042037944 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1520-6629(199610)24:4<337::aid-jcop4>3.0.co;2-r http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en meaning of community among immigrants and native-born italians introduction theoretical framework community and sense of community the theory of social representations study rationale method participants and procedures instruments analysis results cluster description relationship among clusters discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors romanian children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in a narrative story stem technique research reports romanian children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in a narrative story stem technique loredana apavaloaie*a, timothy pageb, loren d. marksb [a] department of human services, western carolina university, cullowhee, nc, usa. [b] school of social work, louisiana state university, baton rouge, la, usa. abstract this research uses children’s story-stem play narratives to investigate dimensions of negative emotional expression. fifty-one romanian children between 6 and 11-years old participated in the study. children’s narratives were coded for three basic negative emotions and five self-conscious emotions. parents completed a general questionnaire for demographic data and the amount of time they spent with their children. differences were found for frequencies of negative emotional representations in relation to the specific story-stems in which they occurred. girls were more likely than boys to enact in their narratives guilt feelings coupled with apology following some wrongdoing. children who spent more time with parents enacted significantly less anger and fear. simultaneous expressions of multiple negative emotions were observed in the narrative responses of these middle childhood-aged romanian children. while findings should be viewed with caution, owing to the small and homogeneous sample, new directions for future research with this assessment method are indicated. keywords: story stems, representations, negative emotions, self-conscious emotions, middle-childhood europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 received: 2013-10-18. accepted: 2014-03-08. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: western carolina university, college of education and allied professions, department of human services, birth-kindergarten program, 218b killian building, usa. e-mail: lapavaloaie@wcu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. young children’s experience and expression of specific negative emotions have been a growing focus in the developmental psychological literature. by negative emotions, we refer to emotional responses to unpleasant circumstances, including the specific emotions of anger, disgust, guilt, fear, sadness, and shame (colombetti, 2005). a specialized sub-set of this literature is the study of how children represent emotional experience through creative expression in various forms such as the stories they tell. young children’s developing capacities for the representation of experience provide researchers with opportunities for understanding complex phenomena that would otherwise be very difficult for children to communicate directly. studies have linked children’s representations of negative emotions to physiological and behavioral indicators (e.g., kochanska, 2001; wan &green, 2010), patterns of language usage (e.g., melzi & fernández, 2004), and parenting (e.g., lagacé-séguin & d’entremont, 2006). many characteristics of children’s representations of negative emotions have also been studied. within this literature, associations between children’s verbalized representations of negative emotions and attachment security and their emotional understanding have been the most studied (fivush &wang, 2005). taken together, the existing europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ evidence supports the contention that children’s representations of negative emotionality as expressed in relationship contexts can be reliably assessed. basic negative emotions paul ekman, one of the most influential researchers in the field of emotional facial expression and the theory of basic negative emotions, has identified three specific negative emotions, also called primary aversive emotions, anger, fear, and sadness (ekman, 1992, 1999). these are expressed universally in all humans via facial expressions, regardless of race, culture, sex, ethnicity, or national origin (ekman, 2003). for this reason, they are known as basic negative emotions (johnson-laird & oatley, 1989). basic negative emotions appear within the first nine months of life (campos, barrett, lamb, goldsmith, & stenberg, 1983). they have a significant role in children’s social development (izard, 1992) in that understanding their expression is always dependent on the social relational contexts in which they occur. as reactions to disagreeable circumstances, the basic negative emotions also stimulate preparation for action to improve such circumstances (rutherford, chattha, & krysko, 2008). self-conscious emotions in addition to the basic negative emotions, children develop self-conscious emotions (lewis, 1994) as they move into the pre-school years. self-conscious emotions emerge from how children evaluate their actions in connection to social norms or how they think others will evaluate their actions. thus, self-conscious emotions are a unique class of emotions because they involve more complex perceptions of motivation and appraisal (bretherton, fritz, zahn-waxler, & ridgeway, 1986). lewis (1994) identifies the specific self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt. whereas basic negative emotions occur when children react more directly to external circumstances (russell & mcauley, 1986), self-conscious emotions occur when children evaluate themselves in relation to some perceived normative social standard (lewis, 2000). the expression of negative and self-conscious emotions at extreme levels may be indicators of persistent problems with emotion regulation which could be associated with deleterious effects on a child’s development. in simple terms, emotional and/or behavioral problems corresponding to these dimensions have long been associated in the developmental literature with externalizing and internalizing problems (achenbach & edelbrock, 1981). the fact that a child may express these emotions, however, should not be equated with simply good or bad. children’s capacities to express a range of emotions, especially those associated with disturbing experiences, are a hallmark of good mental health, as long as this does not overwhelm the child or reflect persistent problems in emotion regulation (boris & page, 2012). concern should arise, therefore, when extreme levels of negative and self-conscious emotions are observed. children appear to learn to modulate and regulate emotional expression in their early caregiving relationships (kopp, 1982). long-standing dysregulated emotion may be evidence of persistent problematic interactions with caregivers. the study of young children’s experience of self-conscious emotions has been increasing during the past three decades due to the development of new assessments. unlike the basic negative emotions, the expressions of self-conscious emotions are not as easily identifiable through facial expressions (izard, 1977), thus, it is difficult to assess them directly (tangney & dearing, 2002). the most widely used assessments for measuring self-conscious emotions are child-report assessments, global adjective checklists, scenario-based assessments, statementbased assessments, and researcher-report assessments of children’s nonverbal behavior (tracy, robins, & tangney, 2007). these methods rely on either direct questions or researcher observations. in contrast, projective and representational assessments attempt to assess children’s perceptions indirectly by tapping into their europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 319 http://www.psychopen.eu/ schematic memories of familiar experiences (hodges, steele, hillman, & henderson, 2003). a presumed advantage of such methods is that they may mitigate the obstacle of limited self-reflective capacities commonly found in young children. among recent developments in representational assessments for children, narrative story-stem techniques have acquired an extensive empirical literature (see emde, wolf, & oppenheim, 2003). narrative story stem techniques narrative story stem techniques are representational assessments primarily designed to assess young children’s internal working models of attachment, caregiving, or other close relationships (bretherton, ridgeway, & cassidy, 1990). bowlby’s (1973) concept of internal working model refers to the extracted and synthesized assumptions and expectations children have formed about the availability and supportiveness of caregivers, as well as their own worthiness to receive care. the organization of these memories serves as an unconscious “lens,” or cognitive filter, through which the young child views himself/herself, others, and relations with others. the emergence of language and symbolic play in early childhood indicates new capacities for representational thought, including more complex organizations of internal working models (appelman, 2000). as the maturing child develops greater sophistication in autonomous capacities, the nature of represented experience with caregivers becomes increasingly influential for the achievement of emotional security. because of the significance of these qualitative changes in cognitive and emotional capacities in early and middle childhood, assessments of children’s perceptions and well-being should target their represented experience (main, kaplan, & cassidy, 1985). accumulated evidence has established that narrative story stem techniques are an important method to access children’s internal working models and accomplish this aim (emde, 2003). narrative story-stem techniques present children aged approximately 4 through 10 with brief story-stems that depict highly emotional, moral, and/or relationship-oriented scenarios. each story-stem typically features a familiar, mild conflict, enacted with the aid of props and family figurines to facilitate their comprehension (page, 2001). each story is begun by the interviewer by moving the family figurines and props. once the story-stem has been presented, the child is asked by the interviewer, “please, show and tell me what happens next!” in order to indicate that the child should continue or end the story, the interviewer uses standard prompts throughout the protocol (e.g., “does anything else happen in the story?” or “is that the end of the story?”). indications of the end of each story occur when the child addresses the main point, signals that s/he ends the story, or does not continue the story after the prompts. narrative story-stem tasks have demonstrated validity as assessments of young children's representations of attachment and parent-child relationships. a substantial literature has demonstrated associations between young children’s narrative responses and their current attachment security to their mothers as reflected in the strange situation assessments of attachment in infancy (bretherton, ridgeway, & cassidy, 1990; cassidy, 1988) and middle childhood (moss, bureau, béliveau, zdebik, & lépine, 2009). children’s narrative responses have also been shown to be associated with qualities of parent-child interactions observed at home (bretherton et al., 2013; dubois-comtois & moss, 2008). a number of story-stem protocols have been developed to access children’s experiences and perceptions (bettmann & lundahl, 2007). the most widely applied of these are the macarthur story stem battery (mssb; bretherton, oppenheim, buchsbaum, emde, & the macarthur narrative working group, 1990), the attachment story completion task (asct; bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990), and the manchester child attachment story task europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 320 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (mcast; green, stanley, smith, & goldwyn, 2000). many researchers have also adapted story-stem protocols to coincide with the topics of their studies and research questions (e.g., pass, arteche, cooper, creswell, & murray, 2012). according to hodges and colleagues (2000), the narratives children create in response to story stem assessments are more than a simple copy of their experiences of parent-child relationships. they may elicit how children reflect upon reality or how they create imaginary situations about the realities of their family life. thus, through representational methods such as story stem protocols, children can explore and express their understanding of family roles and personal family experiences that may transcend their literal reality (hodges, steele, hillman, henderson, & neil, 2000). the representational nature of story-stem protocols may also provide a sense of detachment from the direct recall of emotionally intense experience, which can allow children a sense of control and safety. administrators, therefore, must be trained to be sensitive to this potential dimension of some children’s experience, and assist them to engage in the protocol, or not, as they may choose. negative emotionality in narrative story-stem research the research to date with narrative story-stem techniques has involved primarily western samples, though the study of non-western children has been growing in recent years, notably in south korea and japan (e.g., see katsurada, 2007). cultural variations in the ways in which children make use of this method are an important and on-going focus for research, to which this study contributes. approaches to coding children’s narratives tend to vary with the interest of researchers. however, all approaches involve at some level assessment of qualities of emotional expression enacted in the narratives, with particular attention to negative emotions. for example, wan and green (2010) used the manchester child attachment story task (mcast; green et al., 2000) with a sample of 77 clinically-referred children in the uk. they assessed associations between the negative and atypical story content themes and child disruptive behavior and maternal depressed mood. children’s narrative responses were coded with a new procedure developed by the first author, a classification of negative and atypical story content themes (e.g., maternal/child anger, maternal/child sadness, maternal/child fear). the results of the study indicated that 83% of the children displayed at least one negative and/or atypical story content theme. representations of children as aggressive or angry, however, were rare. children’s representations of negative story content themes were associated with severe behavioral symptoms reported by their mothers. children in the clinical range of behavior disorders had a tendency to represent more maternal sadness, as well as role-reversal and maternal injury. compared to boys, girls with depressed mothers enacted fewer total negative representations. toth and colleagues (2000) also investigated associations between story-stem representations and children’s behavioral problems. they coded story-stem representations of moral-affiliative (e.g., guilt) and conflictual themes (e.g., aggression) in the macarthur story stem battery (mssb; bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990) in a sample of 65 preschoolers (43 maltreated and 22 non-maltreated). they drew their story-stem coding protocol from the macarthur narrative coding manual (robinson, mantz-simmons, macfie, & the macarthur narrative working group, 1992) and the narrative emotion coding manual (warren, mantz-simmons, & emde, 1993). the findings of the study indicated that maltreated children, in comparison with non-maltreated children, represented fewer moral-affiliative themes and more conflictual themes. warren, emde, and sroufe (2000) investigated the play narratives of 35 nonclinical children in relation to mother ratings of child anxiety when the children were 6 years of age. their study demonstrated that children’s negative story endings, typified by fear or other negative emotion, significantly predicted separation anxiety, overanxious, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 321 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and avoidant disorder symptoms at a 12-month follow-up. their coding of children’s negative story endings was based on the narrative emotion coding system (nec;warren et al., 1993), which has been a particularly significant contribution to the study of anxiety symptoms in young children’s story stem narratives. using the nec, warren (2003) demonstrated associations between negative emotions, narrative incoherence, and children’s inability to resolve the central problems of the story stem narratives. consistent with these findings in younger children, von klitzing, kelsay, emde, robinson, & schmitz (2000) used the macarthur story stem battery (bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990) and coding system to code content themes and coherence in the narrative responses of a nonclinical sample of 652 same-sex twins. the findings indicated that child’s emotionally incoherent responses and dysregulated aggression were positively associated with parent ratings of externalizing symptoms with the child behavior checklist (cbc; achenbach & edelbrock, 1981). some limited research with story-stem methods has included analyses of representations of social emotions. aksan and goldsmith (2003), for example, investigated associations between maternal reports of temperament and children’s guilt representations in two affectively-focused narratives presenting peer transgression and stealing scenarios. this study involved a nonclinical sample of 114 five-year-old girls. four components (i.e., confession, punishment, repair, and withdrawal) reflected children’s guilt in the narratives, coded on a 5-point scale. the findings indicated that components of temperamental characteristics were associated with more confession representations but fewer withdrawal representations. in contrast, none of the temperamental characteristics was associated with punishment representations or repair representations. similar to the aksan and goldsmith study, luby and colleagues (2009) also used narrative story-stems to specifically measure children’s expressions of self-conscious emotions. in their study, 4 story-stems taken from the mssb were used with a sample of european-american depressed preschoolers between 3 and 5 years of age. representations of shame and guilt, as coded with themacarthur narrative codingmanual (robinson, mantz-simmons, macfie, kelsay, & themacarthur narrative working group, 2002), were significantly associated with preschool depression. although studies on representations of negative emotionality in early childhood have received growing interest in story stem research, questions remain about the extent of variability of such expressions. in addition, there has been relatively little attention paid to variations in representational expressions of emotion in middle childhoodaged children. furthermore, much remains to be learned about how such expression may vary cross-culturally. gender and age differences in children’s responses to narrative story stems — previous findings indicate gender differences in analyses of children’s narrative representations in story-stem protocols, including the use of negative themes. the luby et al. (2009) study referenced above also examined gender differences in positive and negative emotional reactivity. they found that, in contrast to comparison groups, boys within the depressed/at risk groups displayed a predominance of reactive anger. on the other hand, girls showed a predominance of reactive sadness. earlier studies with typically developing children also indicated boys displaying higher levels of manifestations of anger than girls (zahn-waxler, shirtcliff, & marceau, 2008). these studies also found girls displaying higher levels of fear, sadness, and guilt than boys (carter, briggs-gowan, jones, & little, 2003; zahnwaxler et al., 2008). similarly, boys’ narrative responses have been shown to be characterized by more aggressive and fewer prosocial themes than girls’ (hodges, steele, hillman, & henderson, 2003; hodges et al., 2000; page & bretherton, 2001). furthermore, luby and colleagues (2009) found that girls used more shame and guilt representations than boys on the mssb. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the middle childhood years bring more sophisticated abilities to understand and interpret basic and self-conscious emotions (denham, bassett, & wyatt, 2007). emotional expression is more pronounced with increasing age. growing socialization pressures require ever more complex dimensions of communication of intention and need (chaplin & aldao, 2013; kopp, 1982). luby et al. (2009) revealed that older children represented more frequent expressions of shame than younger children. drawing on the literature on gender and age differences, we anticipated gender and age influences on narrative qualities. boys’ tendencies to express more aggression and less fear, sadness, shame, and guilt than girls at this age have been documented (gillian, 1982). amount of time parents spend with their children and children’s expression of negative emotionality in narrative stems —we originally intended to examine the children’s story-stem responses in relation to an index of relationship qualities in their families. however, due to restrictions we faced in time and resources, we were extremely limited in the amount of data we were able to gather from families. we therefore decided to ask only one simple question regarding the amount of time parents spent per day with their children. we focused on this one simple dimension in the assumption that the busy lives of middle-class parents where both parents work outside the home are likely to present fewer opportunities for positive interactions for many young children. this may have negative consequences for their emotional lives. while admittedly a crude measure, we assumed that total amount of time spent could, for most children, capture an important dimension of needed parental contact. we therefore expected that a measure of time spent with parents would vary negatively with children’s representations of negative emotions. purpose of the study— based on attachment theory and previous lines of work, the present study was designed to investigate children’s narrative representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in middle childhood. this age period has not been studied extensively despite its theoretical significance. it is among the first studies in the literature on children’s narrative representations, along withwan and green (2010), to systematically examine these dimensions of emotional expression simultaneously. the study is also unique in that, for the first time, narrative representations among a sample of romanian children were studied. the first goal of the study therefore was to describe the frequencies of children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in relation to the specific story-stems in which these occur. we expected that the emotional valences presented in the storystems themselves would influence the emotions the children expressed in their narratives, essentially a priming effect. such correspondences could have important implications for the ways in which narrative protocols are presented and the conclusions drawn from them. we also examined the child characteristics of gender and age, and the amount of quality time typically spent with parents, in relation to the expression of negative and self-conscious emotions in narratives. we hypothesized that boys would be more likely to represent anger than girls, whereas girls would be more likely to represent fear and sadness than boys in their stories. regarding gender differences in children’s representations of self-conscious emotions, we hypothesized that girls would be more likely to represent shame and guilt than boys. we also hypothesized that older children would represent higher frequencies of negative emotions. older children have advanced understanding and capacities for communication, such as conveying requests for help, comfort, or support and for addressing social wrongdoing in relation to significant social partners. finally, we hypothesized that the more time children spend with their parents, the lower frequencies of negative emotions they would represent in their narratives. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 323 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the first author recruited a sample consisting of 51 children (32 boys/19 girls) and their parents from richard wurmbrand collegei, in iasi, romania. the age of participants ranged from 6 to 11 (m = 8.47, sd = 1.10). the children were recruited from the school’s four firstthrough fourth-grade classes. eight children were in the first grade, 15 children were in the second grade, 15 children were in the third grade, and 13 children were in the fourth grade. there were 16 to 28 children in each class. measures representations of negative and self-conscious emotions— children’s representations of negative and selfconscious emotions were assessed with the narrative story-stem task (nsst). this is a generic term we use for the basic method underlying story stem protocols. ten specific story-stems were employed in the reported study (see table 1 for a short description of the stories). a beginning story, birthday party, is used so that the child can become familiar with the protocol. an ending story, family fun, is used to detach the child from the protocol. both beginning and ending stories are positively emotionally charged, and are not included in coding or data analyses. coding the story stem task responses — children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions were coded in the following procedure. the first author transcribed all of the children’s story-stem completions and identified all instances of the children’s enactments of the three basic negative emotions. each of the 10 storystem narratives was then scored for frequencies of each of the 3 negative emotions for each child on 3-point scales. zero (0) represented none (i.e., there was no indication of a representation of negative emotion), 1 representedminimal (i.e., there was one indication of a representation of negative emotion), and 2 represented elaborate (i.e., there was more than one indication of a representation of negative emotion). three summary content theme scores were derived by summing the scores for each emotion theme across all the stories; the score for each summary content theme, therefore, had a potential range of 0 to 20. the coding of children’s representations of self-conscious emotions followed the same sequence as that for negative emotions. the five self-conscious themes shame-self, shame-others, guilt-repairing, guilt-apologizing, and guilt-feelings were adapted from luby et al. (2009). shame-self was identified when the child was described as experiencing negative self-evaluation and global self-worth (e.g., “being ashamed”). shame-others was identified when the child was described as experiencing global negative remarks about another character in the narrative (e.g., “shame on you!”), in effect blaming others for shameful behavior. guilt-repairing was identified when the child was described as having guilt feelings following some wrongdoing and trying to repair it physically or verbally (e.g., “i’ll fix it.”). guilt-apologizing was identified when the child was described as having guilt feelings following some wrongdoing and therefore, trying to apologize (e.g., “i’m sorry!”). guilt-feelings were identified when the child was described as having guilt feelings following some wrongdoing, but without repair or apology (e.g., “i felt bad.”). the scoring procedure was the same as for representations of negative emotions. five summary content theme scores were derived with potential values of 0-20. reliability analyses of children’s representations of negative emotion codes and self-conscious emotion codes were conducted on 20% of the sample (10 transcripts translated into english). coding reliabilities of 0.90, 0.90, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 short descriptions of the story stems story descriptionstory stem warm-up: the mother calls everyone to the table to have a birthday party. the younger child has a birthday (not coded).birthday party the family of four (a younger sibling, an older sibling, a mother, and a father) is sitting around the dinner table, and the younger sibling reaches across the table for some juice and accidentally spills the pitcher of juice.a spilled juice the two siblings and the parents go to the park. the younger sibling sees a rock and wants to climb it. on the way up, the child falls down and cries out that he has hurt his knee.b hurt knee the mother tells the older child that it is time to go to bed. the child goes into the bed room and reports seeing a monster.b monster the parents tell the children that they are going on a trip over night and that the grandma will stay with them. the child is asked to physically make the car, which carries the parents, drive away.b departure the investigator drives the car back onto the table, and leaves the parents in the car and says that the parents are back from their trip over night.a reunion the mother and younger child are sitting on the couch with the tv on. mother turns off the tv and asks for quiet, saying she has a headache. the child’s friend comes and asks to play inside.c headache the mother goes briefly to the neighbor’s, telling both children not to touch anything on the bathroom shelf while she is away. after the mother leaves, the younger child cuts his/her finger on the toy box and asks the older for a band aid.c bathroom shelf the mother is sitting on the couch, crying. the mother tells the younger child that she is sad because uncle peter has died.d uncle peter the older child and friend are playing in the wagon. when the younger child enters the scene and asks to join them, the friend tells the older child that if (s)he allow the younger child to play, (s)he will not be his/her friend anymore.c three’s a crowd the older sibling and his friend are playing with the ball. suddenly, the older sibling cries, “ouch! that hurt my hand!”eball play wind-down (not coded)family fun afrom the attachment story completion task (asct; bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990). bfrom the attachment story completion task (asct; bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990) revised by granot and mayseless (2001). cfrom the macarthur story-stem battery (mssb; bretherton, oppenheim, et al., 1990). dfrom zahn-waxler et al. (1994). eadapted from warren, emde, and sroufe (2000). 0.79, and 0.77, respectively, were attained using the kappa statistic. the second coder was unaware of the children’s demographic data and the study hypotheses. all interrater disagreements were resolved by discussion. children’s demographic information and time spent with parents — the information to assess the children’s ages, grades, and how many hours per day they spend with their parents was collected from the parent consent form and a general questionnaire. the exact wording of the question pertaining to time spent per day was, “how many hours per day do you spend with your child?” the amount of time children spent with their parents ranged from 2 to 12 hours (m = 4.68, sd = 1.61). the consent form included both the description of the study and children’s demographic information. procedure the study’s use of human subjects was approved by the university internal review board. permission to conduct the study was obtained from the local school board in iasi. parent consent forms and the parenting questionnaires europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 325 http://www.psychopen.eu/ were distributed to teachers during a regular faculty meeting. teachers gave the consent forms and the parenting questionnaires to the parents of all first through fourth graders. interested parents returned the consent forms and the parenting questionnaires either to the teachers or to the first author. the first author, a native speaker of romanian, had previously translated the story stem task from english into romanian. a second native romanian speaker checked the translation of the script for accuracy. the first author administered the story stem task. she spent several hours in the participating classrooms before administering the protocol so that the children could become familiar with her. she administered the nsst at the school, during their regular school hours, in one session per child. she invited each child out of the classroom to an experimental psychology laboratory where she sat across a little table from the child to administer the story stems. each individually videotaped session lasted about 40 minutes. the first author also transcribed the children’s responses to the story stems verbatim, in romanian, from the videotapes. she also included a summary of all nonverbal actions that the children made with the bear family figurines. finally, she translated the romanian transcripts into english. a second native romanian speaker also fluent in english checked the transcripts and translations for accuracy. data analysis statistical analyses were performed using spss version 19. frequency distributions were used for analyzing the occurrence of children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions. in the second step of the statistical analysis, pearson correlations coefficients were computed to analyze associations between emotions, children’s age, and the amount of time children spent with parents. a chi-square test of independence was performed to examine the relation between gender and each of the emotion variables. finally, generalized linear models with poisson distribution (mcgullagh & nelder, 1997) were used to test the association between the frequency of each emotion response, examined as dependent variables, and children’s age, gender, and amount of time typically spent with parents as independent covariates. missing data for children’s age and time spent with parents reduced the sample size for the multi-variate analyses to 38. poisson models are often known as log-linear models and are used for frequency data (coxe, west, & aiken, 2009). square-root data transformations were performed to improve normality for the emotion variables. log transformation was performed for the amount of time children spent with their parents. an alpha level equal to 0.05 as criterion for significance was used. results frequencies of children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in relation to specific story-stems representations of the negative and self-conscious emotions identified a priori were found in the children’s narratives (see figure 1). the most frequently represented negative emotion was sadness (112 occurrences). the second most frequently represented negative emotion, fear, occurred approximately half (50 occurrences) as often as sadness. representations of sadness were followed by representations of anger (22 occurrences). five stories, monster in the bedroom (28 occurrences), uncle peter (27 occurrences), spilled juice (27 occurrences), three’s a crowd (21 occurrences), and bathroom shelf (21 occurrences) elicited the most negative emotions. they were followed by departure (16 occurrences), headache (14 occurrences), ball play (13 occurrences), hurt knee (12 occurrences), and reunion (5 occurrences). in terms of the specific stories that elicited the greatest number of specific negative emotions, the uncle peter story (26 occurrences) elicited the most representations of sadness. the monster story (20 occurrences) was the most powerful in eliciting fear. the spilled juice story (7 occurrences) europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 326 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was the most powerful in eliciting anger. these emotional responses closely match the emotional valences of the story stems. the uncle peter story-stem portrays the mother crying over the death of uncle peter. the monster story-stem presents the child calling out in fear of a monster in the bedroom. finally, the spilled juice story presents the child accidentally spilling juice at the supper table. figure 1. frequency of emotion responses. with respect to self-conscious emotions, the most frequently represented self-conscious emotion was guilt-apologizing (122 occurrences). it was also the most frequently represented emotion overall. the second most frequently represented self-conscious emotion was shame-others (81 occurrences). it was followed by guilt-repairing (69 occurrences), which occurred approximately half as often as guilt-apologizing, and shame-self (58 occurrences). there were few representations of guilt-feelings (14 occurrences). five stories, spilled juice (75 occurrences), headache (58 occurrences), bathroom shelf (56 occurrences), three’s a crowd (47 occurrences), and ball play (33 occurrences) elicited the most self-conscious emotions. with reference to the specific stories that elicited the greatest number of specific self-conscious emotions, spilled juice elicited the most representations of guilt-apologizing (28 occurrences), guilt-repairing (36 occurrences), and guilt feelings (4 occurrences). three’s a crowd elicited the most occurrences of shame-others (17 occurrences). bathroom shelf (14 occurrences) elicited the most representations of shame-self (14 occurrences). headache also elicited 4 occurrences of guilt-feelings. descriptive results and bi-variate analyses between study variables the bi-variate analysis results between study variables are presented in table 2. as expected, the basic negative emotion variables, anger, fear, and sadness, were intercorrelated; these were, in fact, the strongest found, suggesting a qualitative difference between this group of emotions compared to the others. furthermore, fear and sadness were extremely intercorrelated (.82), indicating a specific and distinct association of these dimensions of emotional expression compared to others. the two shame-based self-conscious emotion variables were also intercorrelated. two of the guilt-based emotions were correlated, guilt-repairing and guilt feelings. among the self-conscious emotion variables, shame-self and shame-others were also correlated with anger. guilt-feelings was also correlated with fear and sadness. contrary to our hypothesis, our bi-variate results did not find an age distinction for children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions. one marginally positive association at the 0.10 probability level was found for children’s expression of guilt combined with an effort to repair, where older age was associated with more frequent representations of this emotion. the amount of time children spent with their parents was negatively related to children’s representations of anger and europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics for emotion variables and correlations between emotions and child-related variables (n = 51) correlations timeage87654321actual rangesdmemotion variable 0-21. anger .39*-.06-.18.07-.01.35**.35**.50***.59***.58.31 0-22. fear .18-.01-.34*.16.12.33*.27+.82***.77.64 0-33. sadness .20-.10-.28*.25+.18.34*.26+.061.051 0-34. shame-self .41**-.12-.10-.05-.13.36**.85.68 0-35. shame-others .18-.22-.04.06.22.97.82 0-26. guilt-repairing .18.27+.32*.17.80.85 0-37. guilt-apologizing .14-.01-.16.91.281 0-28. guilt-feelings .03.13.50.18 note: anger variable was non-normally distributed, after square root transformations, with skewness of 1.51 (se = .33) and kurtosis of .61 (se = .66). guilt-feelings variable was also non-normally distributed with skewness of 2.58 (se = .33) and kurtosis of 5.17 (se = .66). +p ≤ .1. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. *** p ≤ .001. shame-self. children whose parents reported spending more time with them were rated as displaying fewer expressions of these emotions. no other significant associations were found between the amount of time and emotion variables. the only significant gender distinction was found for guilt combined with an apology, χ2 = 15.12 (n = 51; p < .05). consistent with our hypothesis, boys were less likely to express guilt combined with an apology than were girls. multi-variate analyses: child characteristics in relation to representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in story-stems the multi-variate analysis results are presented in table 3. table 3 coefficient estimates from poisson regressions and associated significance tests for effects of child gender, child age, and time child spends with parents on basic negative emotions and self-conscious emotions in the narrative story stem technique (n = 38) likelihood ratio χ2 timeagegender emotion variable wald χ2bwald χ2bwald χ2b anger .19**12.54**9.73-.371.26.171.71 fear .88**12.94**6.46-.18**7.44.181.36nssadness .94*4.22-.88.10.34.13shame-self .43+7.45*4.32-.11.05-.20.16 nsshame-others .65.06.04*4.23-.071.28 nsguilt-repairing .45.06.75*3.24.08.08 guilt-apologizing .58+7.622.13-.052.14.90*3.40nsguilt-feelings .01.02-.93*3.56.02.10 +p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. two of the multivariate equations were only marginally significant, those predicting shame-self and guilt-apologizing. the significant independent variables in each of these, time spent with parents and child gender, respectively, were also found to be significantly related to these emotion variables in the bi-variate analyses. two other equations were significant at the .01 level, those predicting anger and fear (likelihood χ2 ratios of 12.19 and 12.88, respecteurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 328 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ively). significant independent variables in these equations were time spent with parents and child age. time spent with parents was associated, negatively, with frequencies of anger (b = -.73, χ2 = 9.54) and fear representations (b = -.46, χ2 = 6.94). child age was positively associated with fear representations (b = .44, χ2 = 7.18). discussion and conclusions based on attachment theory and previous lines of work, the current study investigated children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions with a narrative story stem technique. our findings contribute to the important and on-going focus of cross-cultural story-stem research by investigating dimensions of negative emotional expression in romanian children in middle childhood. in addition, differences were found for frequencies of negative emotional representations in relation to the specific story-stems in which they occurred. as expected, the emotional valences presented in the story-stems themselves were associated with the emotions the children expressed in their narratives. for example, the uncle peter story was the most powerful story in eliciting and representing sadness, very likely because it presented a scenario of the death of a family member. these findings thus provide evidence for a priming effect in nsst protocols whereby specific story stems are likely to evoke specific emotional responses. it may be that such a priming effect is particularly potent for children who have sensitivities to the emotions in question (e.g., prior exposure to sadness or grief). as such, researchers and practitioners working with story-stem protocols would be well-advised to select story stems based on their interest in the evocation of specific emotional responses and their understanding of their subjects’ prior exposure to significant emotional experience. with respect to gender differences in children’s expressions of negative and self-conscious emotions, girls were more likely than boys to have guilt feelings coupled with apology following some wrongdoing, as hypothesized and previously found (luby et al., 2009). differences in socialization of gender roles have been discussed as explanations for similar findings, particularly girls’ heightened risk for internalizing emotional problems (luby et al., 2009). the use of narrative methods such as the nsst to identify these tendencies should be a continuing focus for research. our results did not confirm other differences in emotional expression between genders, however. this may have been a characteristic of our sample. past research has found tendencies for girls to include more sadness, fear, and shame themes (luby et al., 2009) and fewer anger themes in their narratives (zahn-waxler et al., 2008). the romanian children in our study, however, did not conform to this patternii. future research with culturally diverse samples should consider this question. the finding that the highest bi-variate correlation was found for fear and sadness is consistent with theory and assessment in that these two emotions are regarded as uniquely “internalizing” emotions (achenbach & edelbrock, 1981). it is also interesting to note that representations of anger were associated with the highest number of other emotions, including the two shame-based emotional representations, but not the guilt-based representations. this is also consistent with theory in that the experience of guilt is distinct from shame; guilt involves more of a sense of responsibility to others. the correlation of guilt feelings with fear and sadness and not anger, may be an indicator of a constellation of internalizing emotions. furthermore, the relative differences in magnitudes of the intercorrelations between the basic negative emotions (anger, fear, and sadness) and the self-conscious emotions (the shame-based variables and guilt-feelings) provide evidence for qualitative differences between these classes of emotion variables. that such differences are discernible at the representational level supports the theoretical assertion of developmentally-based differences in the origins and function of these emotions. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 329 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perhaps the most surprising of our findings involve the measure of the time children reportedly spent with their parents. the data obtained from this single, simple question yielded the study’s most potent findings. in particular, children who reportedly spent more time with parents enacted significantly less anger and fear, and to a lesser extent sadness and shame-self, in their narrativesiii. children’s age also contributed significantly to the obtained variation in enactments of fear, suggesting a greater level of familiarly with fear in narratives among older children. we have no data to show that extreme expressions of negative or self-conscious emotions in these narrative responses are associated with actual emotional or behavioral regulatory problems. there have been ample demonstrations of such linkages, however, in prior studies. hill, fonagy, lancaster, and broyden (2007) point out that associations between children’s “dysregulated aggressive responses” to narrative story-stem protocols and externalizing behavioral problems are among the “most robust” findings of the story-stem literature. our findings suggest that narrative representations similar to what in other studies has been strongly associated with behavioral dysregulation may vary with this simple index of the parent-child relationship. replication of this is needed with other samples, and future studies would be greatly enhanced by the addition of independent assessments of children’s behavior. we were also limited by our sample size to explore potential complexities within this finding. for example, it is conceivable that the actual relationship of the measure of time spent with parents and children’s representations of negative emotions is not linear. future research on this issue should explore such a possibility. overall, the results of the present study support the idea that children’s responses to this narrative measure reflect their capacities for a wide range of specific emotional expression (bretherton, prentiss, & ridgeway, 1990; oppenheim, emde, & warren, 1997). the present study extends research on representations of negative emotionality with the nsst to middle childhood. this age period has not been studied extensively in this regard despite its theoretical significance. it is among the first studies in the literature on children’s narrative representations to systematically examine dimensions of negative emotional expression simultaneously. it is also the first study to examine these representations among a sample of romanian children. limitations and future research although the study allowed for investigating children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in a romanian cultural context using the story-stem task, the sample size was small and homogenous, hence findings are not generalizable to other populations. it is also likely that the small sample size limited the statistical power of the bi-variate and multi-variate analyses. as a next step, it will be important to examine children’s expression of these emotions in larger and more diverse samples. the study is also cross-sectional in design, thereby precluding claims about long term implications of findings from this investigation alone. future researchers will need longitudinal studies in order to assess changes in representations of negative emotionality over time. despite the limitations of the current study, the results add an important dimension to the research field of children’s narratives. nsst methods can elicit a surprising range of emotional expression from children, which provides unique opportunities to understand their emotional lives. future research should continue to explore linkages of these expressions of emotion with the circumstances within which children live. important social and developmental indices of their adjustment and well-being should also be considered for future research. notes i) richardwurmbrand college is one of the first private christian k-12 schools in romania. according to the romanian ministry of education and research (2001) statistics, less than 2% of elementary school students attend private schools in romania. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 negative and self-conscious emotions 330 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ii) previous research has documented important differences between u.s. and eastern european (including romanian) cultural ideals for children and parents (nesteruk & marks, 2009; nesteruk, marks, & garrison, 2009). iii) qualitative and theoretical work indicates that parents are also beneficially impacted in myriad ways by time spent with children (palkovitz, 2002; palkovitz, marks, appleby, & holmes, 2003). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank all participating students, their families and their teachers, and especially mr. cristian lucaci, director of richard wurmbrand college, for his enthusiasm to participate in the research and with helping organize data collection. we would also like to thank dr. greg adkison with helping 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(2008). disorders of childhood and adolescence: gender and psychopathology. annual review of clinical psychology, 4, 275-303. doi:10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.3.022806.091358 about the authors loredana apavaloaie is an assistant professor in the department of human services, birth-kindergarten program at western carolina university. her research interests involve narrative story stem techniques with young children and the power of the early parent and caregiver-child relationship on the young children’s social and emotional competence. timothy page is an associate professor in the school of social work at louisiana state university. his research interests involve child and family treatment, vulnerable children, narrative methodologies with young children, and clinical practice. loren d. marks is an associate professor in the school of social work at louisiana state university. his research interests involve the influence of religious faith on marriages and families. he is also interested in african-american marriages and families. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 318–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.704 apavaloaie, page, & marks 335 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15374424jccp2903_2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200008000-00017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2010.02239.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200001000-00022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.3.022806.091358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en negative and self-conscious emotions (introduction) basic negative emotions self-conscious emotions narrative story stem techniques negative emotionality in narrative story-stem research method participants measures procedure data analysis results frequencies of children’s representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in relation to specific story-stems descriptive results and bi-variate analyses between study variables multi-variate analyses: child characteristics in relation to representations of negative and self-conscious emotions in story-stems discussion and conclusions limitations and future research notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy: a three generation inter-familial study research reports exploringspontaneous imitation in infancy: a threegeneration inter-familial study theano kokkinaki*a, elena vitalakib [a] department of psychology, university of crete, rethymnon, greece. [b] department of social and philosophical studies, university of crete, rethymnon, greece. abstract with the aim to advance our understanding regarding the role of the extended family interactional context for early mother-infant communication, we compared spontaneous early imitative exchanges in dyadic interactions between mothers and infants (group 1, n = 26) who had no frequent contact with maternal grandmothers, to imitations in two familial subgroups (group 2, n = 48): (a) dyadic interactions of infants with their mothers, and (b) with their grandmothers–persons who had frequent contact with the infant. spontaneous dyadic interactions of infants with their mothers and grandmothers were video-recorded at home from the 2nd to the 10th month of their life. both comparisons provided evidence of similar frequency of imitative exchanges and developmental trajectories of infant imitations, but also differences in the structure of imitation, the kinds of imitated behaviors and the temporal patterns of imitative components. in the frame of the theory of innate intersubjectivity, we assume that differential early family interaction may be related to variations in three fundamental dimensions of infant-significant other communication: “kinematics” (temporal patterns), “physiognomics” (spatial patterns or forms) and “energetics” (force or effort). these variations may affect the child’s ability for regulation and negotiation of interpersonal challenges within and outside the family context. keywords: imitation, infancy, grandmothers, three generation, temporal patterns, spatial patterns, intensity europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 received: 2012-07-30. accepted: 2013-01-21. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: university of crete, department of psychology, 74 100 rethymnon – gallos, crete – greece. e-mail: kokkinaki@uoc.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the aim of this study was to compare spontaneous early imitative exchanges in dyadic interactions between mothers and infants who had no frequent contact with maternal grandmothers, to imitations in two familial subgroups: (a) dyadic interactions of infants with their mothers, and (b) with their grandmothers–persons who had frequent contact with them. this study may advance our understanding of the role of the extended family interactional context on early mother-infant communication and, in turn, provide a window onto the child’s ability to manage future meaningful social interactions. most research examining the grandmother-grandchild relationship focuses on high-risk, multigenerational adolescent-mother and maternal grandmother families (oberlander, black, & starr, 2007). there is a surprisingly little research on the way in which grandmothers’ involvement is related to the child socio-emotional development in less-risky contexts. the limited number of three generation familial studies focuses on 1to 4-year old grandchildren and examines the relationship between grandmothers’ involvement and infant attachment behavior (myers, jarvis, & creasey, 1987), grandchildren’s social adjustment (barnett, scaramella, neppl, ontai, & conger, 2010), anger europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ (brook, tseng, whiteman, & cohen, 1998), independence and adaptive responding (tomlin & passman, 1989). although the value of these studies can in no way be denied or underestimated, it is felt that they lack the systematic investigation of interactional dynamics of inter-generational relations in the course of infancy. in the existing literature, agreements and disagreements on basic aspects of imitative phenomena in dyadic mother-infant (kokkinaki, 1998; kokkinaki & kugiumutzakis, 2000; kugiumutzakis, 1993; moran, krupka, tutton, & symons, 1987; papousek & papousek, 1989; pawlby, 1977; trevarthen, 1977; uzgiris, 1984) and grandmotherinfant interaction (pratikaki, 2009; pratikaki, germanakis, & kokkinaki, 2011) come mainly from non-comparative studies since there are only two three-generation familial studies available (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013; markodimitraki, 2003). these studies provide evidence that there is an agreement on: a) the non-linear developmental trajectory of imitation, and b) the linguistic nature of vocal imitation (vowel imitations predominated over consonant and vowel-consonant combinations). nevertheless, there is no consensus in the literature on the following: • the frequency of imitation: whether the mean number of imitations is high (2.53-6.02 imitations in 7-minute interaction), as in mother-infant interaction (kokkinaki, 1998; kokkinaki & kugiumutzakis, 2000; kugiumutzakis, 1993; pawlby, 1977), or relatively low (1.3-3.7 imitations in 5 to 7 minute interactions), as in grandmother-infant interaction (markodimitraki, 2003; pratikaki, 2009; vitalaki, 2002). alternatively, the mean number of imitations does not differ in interactions between infants and their mothers and grandmothers (3 imitations in 10-minute interactions) (vitalaki, 2002), • the structure of imitation: imitation occurs in turn-takings and co-actions, with no or rare occurrence of multiple exchanges (markodimitraki, 2003), or turn-takings and coactions predominate over multiple exchanges (pratikaki, 2009). alternatively, multiple sequences with turn-taking(s) and co-action(s) and simple co-actions were more frequent than the other types of imitative structures (vitalaki, 2002). • the direction of imitation: mothers and grandmothers imitated their infants and infant grandchildren, respectively, more than vice versa (markodimitraki, 2003; pawlby, 1977; pratikaki, 2009; vitalaki, 2002), or maternal and infant vocal imitations were equally frequent (papousek & papousek, 1989), • the kinds of imitated behaviors: vocal imitations predominated over the remaining categories (kokkinaki, 1998; markodimitraki, 2003; pawlby, 1977; pratikaki, 2009; uzgiris, 1984), or body movement imitation occurred more frequently-to a non-statistically significant extent-in grandmother-infant girl interaction (markodimitraki, 2003), and • the temporal patterns of imitative sequence: differences have been evidenced in the durations of imitation sequence in both motherand grandmother-infant imitation (kokkinaki, 1998; kokkinaki & kugiumutzakis, 2000; kugiumutzakis, 1993; markodimitraki, 2003; pawlby, 1977; pratikaki, 2009; vitalaki, 2002). in this exploratory study, the general expectation was that there would be differences in the basic aspects of imitative exchanges between interactions of mothers and infants who had no frequent contact with their grandmothers, and two intra-familial subgroups: (a) interactions of infants with their mothers, and (b) interactions of the same infants with their grandmothers-persons who had frequent contact with the infant grandchild. as no studies truly similar to this one exist, our hypotheses were speculative rather than definitive. this study expands a three generation, intra-familial, longitudinal and naturalistic investigation on spontaneous imitation in dyadic interactions between infants and their mothers and grandmothers (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013) and adds new analyses. one of the more prominent theories of imitation is that by meltzoff who considers imitation to be a process that is intentional, goal corrected and mediated by memory. during the course of this process, the infant has the capacity to detect correspondences between his own actions and those of a model through two kinds of available information: temporal contingency (infants recognize that another moves when they move) and structural congruence europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 260 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (infants recognize that another moves in the same manner as they do) (meltzoff, 2007; meltzoff & moore, 1992, 1998). the infant encodes the visual–spatial–temporal events of human actions of self and other in a non-modalityspecific representational code (meltzoff, 2007). at the core of meltzoff’s theory of the origins of intersubjectivity and representation, the other is accessible to the self through cross modal correspondences. the recognition of self-other equivalences is the starting point for social cognition-a precondition for infant development, not the outcome of it (meltzoff, 2007; meltzoff & brooks, 2007). the theoretical consideration that the neonate brain senses corresponding movements and expression in a human conversational partner through temporal and morphological markers is very similar to that of colwyn trevarthen. this study has been carried out within the frame of the theory of innate intersubjectivity (trevarthen, 1993), according to which imitation has a dynamic intersubjective regulatory function. imitation constitutes the process in which mental activity-including motives and emotions-is transferred between minds but the message it conveys changes according to age-related developments of infant’s motives (trevarthen, kokkinaki, & fiamenghi, 1999). imitative intersubjective encounters with infants reveal coordination withinand between-subjects in three essential dimensions of communication that motivate learning in a human community: “kinematics” (the temporal patterns of movements), “physiognomics” (changes in the shape of the body, organizing postural, gestural, facial or vocal settings in distinct categories related to the subject’s changing interest and purposes) and “energetics” (variations in the intensity, force or power of actions) (trevarthen, 1986). both meltzoff and trevarthen attempt to conceptualize the origins of a theory of mind in infancy. for each, mind begins with a shared mind, a highly pre-symbolic representational intelligence and the central question is, for both, how can an infant sense the state of the other? both theories posit that the motivated and intentional infant’s perception of correspondence is the central mechanism in the creation of intersubjectivity (beebe, sorter, rustin, & knoblauch, 2003). two points of difference stand out: the definition of correspondence/matching and the theory of mind underlying infant intersubjectivity. regarding the first point of difference, for meltzoff, the definition of correspondence rests on form, while for trevarthen, correspondence is defined by behavioral similarities in timing, form and intensity. despite the fact that meltzoff acknowledges the importance of parent-infant imitation games, he studies the behavior of infants within an experiment, one-person view, and his concept of correspondence is more static than trevarthen’s who studies face-to-face two way communication. trevarthen construes the dyad to be the unit of study and he operates within a mutual regulation model of communication, in which each partner affects the other, in the sense that each partner is predictable to the other, moment-by-moment. regarding the different theories of mind, for meltzoff, the origin of mind begins at birth with the perception “you are like me”. the key mechanism is the perception and production of similarity. trevarthen sees the origin of mind in the interactive process itself. patterns of movement, transferred from subject to subject through form, timing and intensity, permit the intercoordination of inner psychological states (beebe et al., 2003). the recent discovery of “mirror neurons” (pally, 1999; rizzolatti, camarda, gallese, & fogassi, 1995, as cited in beebe et al., 2003) seems to validate key ideas of these two theorists, long after they had the insight that infants appreciate correspondences between their own actions and those of the partners. the discovery of mirror neurons and our understanding of how the correspondences, described by meltzoff and trevarthen, may work at the neural level is further extended by the recent work of saby, marshall, and meltzoff (2012). saby and colleagues (2012) employed a socially interactive protocol and recorded electroencephalographic (eeg) signals taken from 14 -month-old infants while they were observing the experimenter’s actions that either matched or lacked the same imitative connection to the infant’s own actionswhile still being temporally contingent on the infant’s act. desynchronization (i.e. a decrease in band power relative to the baseline) of the eeg mu rhythm (an alpha-range eeg oscillation that is most salient over central electrode europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 261 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sites) was greater when infants observed an action that matched their own most recently executed action. this effect was stronger when the infant had just carried out the same action than when he or she had just carried out a different action. this is consistent with recent ideas about the predictive processes activated by temporal patterns of brain activity during action observation. given that imitation constitutes an index of intersubjectivity (pratikaki, 2009), systematic comparison of spontaneous early imitative exchanges in dyadic interactions of mothers with their infants (who had no frequent contact with maternal grandmothers) to imitations in two familial subgroups (dyadic interactions of infants with their mothers and their grandmothers-who had frequent contact with their infant grandchildren) in a greek, cretan sample, is important because: • surprisingly little research has looked into the ways in which grandmothers and infant grandchildren interact or their importance in each others’ lives (myers et al., 1987). this is possibly because, theoretically, under optimal childrearing conditions, grandmothers’ involvement may provide a nice addition to family life, but their roles are redundant to parental roles (lavers & sonuga-burke, 1997), • grandmother-grandchild relationships serve a crucial function in the well-being of all generations. on the one hand, emotional attachment to one’s grandmother is a fundamental and unique component in a child’s development. with that attachment comes the experience of being loved, accepted, a sense of security and warmth, a sense of self through their interaction, an historical sense of self, and the gift of a role model for one’s future aging (barranti, 1985; waldrop, weber, herald, pruett, cooper, & juozapavicius, 1999). on the other hand, the grandmother’s involvement in the grandchild’s care represents a very intense psychological experience, related to strong social and personal expectations as well as involving profound modifications in her selfimage as an aging person. giving and receiving affection from younger generations and the process of sharing life experiences seems to increase the self-esteem of the grandmothers (gattai & musatti, 1999), and helps themmaintain internal continuity while creating a sense of integrity and purpose in life-a key element in preserving an internal balance needed for successful aging (atchley, 1989, 1992, as cited in waldrop et al., 1999). while caring for the grandchild, the grandmother accepts her children’s parenthood and re-establishes links with her own children (gattai & musatti, 1999), • research in communication and aging is only just beginning to take into account the fact that intergenerational communication does not occur in a relational vacuum (harwood, 2000b). the grandparent-grandchild relationship may be a place in which future intergenerational competencies are learned. individuals (old and young) who are able to negotiate a successful intergenerational relationship within the family may stand a better chance of doing the same elsewhere (kornhaber & woodward, 1985, as cited in harwood, 2000a). recent research, outside the grandparenting context, suggests that extended contact of this kind may be particularly influential in intensifying interpersonal intimacy, given that both parties (grandchildren and grandmothers) may experience an intergenerational relationship that extends over a long period of time (harwood, 2000a), and • greece constitutes one of the european countries that rely considerably on grandparent care (hank & buber, 2007). despite crete’s long history as part of modern greece, cretans conceive their communities as a kind of a small state, thus sustaining a long tradition of defiantly independent ways of life. this strong sense of identity associated with physical location has obvious psychological and emotional consequences on individuals and on the community as a whole. besides strong emotional attachment to place, that fosters a feeling of belonging and a sense of sharing a community (terkenli, bellas, & jenkins, 2007), the maintenance of strong and long family ties create mutual trust and understanding with special emphasis on intergeneration continuation. on this basis, we believe that exploration of the grandparent-infant grandchild communication in a cretan context would make an important contribution to the cross-cultural literature on grandparenting. this investigation would give researchers a better understanding of the impact of the intergenerational relationship on individual, family and society well-being in a context that emphasizes family obligations and intergenerational exchange (du, 2007; szinovacz, 1998; vanwilligen & lewis, 2006, as cited in lou & chi, 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 262 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants seventy four greek, cretan, middle-class subjects (n = 74, 29 infants, 29mothers and 16 grandmothers), distributed in two groups, took part in this study. group 1 (n = 26) consisted of thirteen mother-infant pairs. group 2 (n = 48) consisted of sixteen mother-infant and sixteen maternal grandmother-infant pairs. all infants (group 1: 8 girls and 5 boys, group 2: 7 girls and 9 boys) were full-term and healthy and they were delivered at a maternity hospital in rethymnon, crete. pregnancy, duration of labour, and perinatal factors were within normal limits. written records and regular discussions with the mothers and the pediatricians, concerning the infants’ development, confirmed that all the infants were developing according to typical developmental curves, with no identifiable developmental handicaps. all mothers were married to the infants’ fathers. participants in group 1: the infants’ mean birth weight was 3,475 gr (range = 2,400-3,800) and the mean birth weight height was 50 cm (range = 48-55). at the beginning of the study, the mothers’ mean age was 26 years (range = 18-34 years). thirty one percent of the mothers had 12 years of education and the remaining had 16 years of education (seven had a university degree and two had a degree from a technological education institute). all maternal grandmothers lived either outside crete, in villages of the province of rethymnon or in the greater area surrounding the town of rethymnon (at a distance exceeding a 5 to 10 km radius of the infants’ and adult children’s residence). maternal grandmothers interacted with their infant grandchildren once to 2 times per 15 days. paternal grandmothers who were alive (n = 10), lived in rethymnon and interacted with their grandchildren once to 4 times a month. participants in group 2: the infants’ mean birth weight was 3,200 gr (range = 2,400-3,800) and the mean birth weight height was 50 cm (range = 48-55). at the beginning of the study, the mothers’ mean age was 28 years (range = 22-35 years). sixty two percent of the mothers had 12 years of education and the remaining had 16 years of education (four had a university degree and two had a degree from a technological education institute). the maternal grandmothers’ mean age was 62 years (range = 50-75 years). fifty percent of the grandmothers had six years of education, forty four percent had 12 years of education and one grandmother had 16 years of education. sixty nine percent of the grandmothers were housewives, eighteen percent were housewives with rural occupation and the remaining were occupied in a family business. all maternal grandmothers had daily contact with their grandchildren and lived either in the same building, or within a 5-kilometer radius of the infants’ and adult children’s residence. in interviewing adult mother-daughter pairs, we noted the closeness of their relationship. of all paternal grandmothers who were alive, twelve lived in rethymnon and interacted with their grandchildren once to 4 times a month and the remaining four lived in villages within the province of rethymnon at a distance exceeding 25 kilometers (maternal grandmothers will be referred to from here on as “grandmothers”). procedure the mothers and grandmothers were approached after birth in the maternity clinic or at home through the obstetricians and pediatricians who offered the researchers access to birth and pediatric records. after mothers and grandmothers agreed to participate in the study, an introductory discussion took place at the infants’ homes. the first visit was arranged at a time when the infant was likely to be fed, relaxed and alert, and at a time usually amenable to social games (kugiumutzakis, 1993). if the infant was unwell or became distressed, or the mothers felt that the visit should be postponed for some reason, or the grandmothers were taken ill, the visit was rescheduled to a later date soon thereafter. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 263 http://www.psychopen.eu/ videorecordings were made at 15-day intervals, starting when the infant was 2 months old until she/he was 10 months old. the recording with each partner lasted 10 minutes. in group 2, the recording with the first partner (mother/grandmother) was followed as soon as possible by the recording with the other partner so that a change in the infant’s mood would be less likely. the order of videorecordings with the mother and the grandmother was counterbalanced, beginning in the course of the first visit, for 3 girls and 5 boys, with the mother and then with the grandmother; for the remaining infants (4 girls and 4 boys) the first videorecording was made with the grandmother and then with the mother. during the second visit, the order of interaction was switched, and this continued in the next visits. over the course of the study, 17 videorecordings were made for each infant with her/his mother and grandmother. in group 1, a total of 221 videorecordings [13 infants x 17 visits], lasting 2.210 minutes of spontaneous interaction, were made for the entire sample. in group 2, a total of 544 videorecordings [16 infants x 17 visits x 2 partners (mother/grandmother)], lasting 5.440 minutes of spontaneous interaction, were made for the entire sample; 272 (2720 minutes of interaction) with the mothers and 272 (2720 minutes of interaction) with the grandmothers. the instruction given to the mothers and grandmothers was: “please, play as you normally do with your baby/infant grandchild”. the recording took place in a room and a position chosen by the mothers/grandmothers, prohibiting any third-party intervention. at the end of the study, partners were given a short debriefing interview. none of the mothers/grandmothers was aware that imitation had been the focal point of interest in this study. one point worth making is that when investigating imitation in infants, particularly young ones, it is critical that testing conditions be highly sensitive to the infant’s state, e.g. infants do not imitate well when models are presented with mechanical regularity and insensitive insistence, as can be the case in “well-controlled” experiments that aim to reduce the factors that might be involved in triggering a matching response (kugiumutzakis, 1993; murray & andrews, 2000). when infants are observed responding to caregivers with calm and affectionate mutual concern, they demonstrate active emotional initiative in a great variety of expressions, and they show communicative purpose (trevarthen et al., 1999) (this study was conducted in accordance with all ethical standards for research, see notes and acknowledgements). coding an imitative sequence was defined as a period from the moment that the model’s expressive behavior (vocal, motor or a combination) started, until the completion of the imitator’s last imitative behavior. imitation was defined as an exchange in which one partner made a certain type of expressive behavior that had not been expressed by either partner in the immediately preceding 10 seconds, and in which the other partner reproduced this behavior within a 10-second interval and with no intervening expressive behaviors. the response period of 10 seconds has been judged to be adequate for imitation tests with infants (heimann & ullstadius, 1999; kokkinaki, 1998; kokkinaki & kugiumutzakis, 2000). in this study, the following aspects of imitation were analyzed: • the frequency of imitation as an entire sequence across the age range of this study (2nd to 10th month after infants’ birth), • the structure of imitative sequences, which indicates the timing between the model’s and the imitator’s expressive behavior. imitative sequences were categorized in three types: turn-taking, simple co-action and multiple exchange. in turn-taking, the completion of the model’s expressive behavior and the beginning of the imitator’s response are separated by a pause of no longer than 10 seconds. the number of pause(s) between each of the model’s and the imitator’s expressive behavior determined the simplicity or complexity europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 264 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the turn-taking. for instance, simple turn-taking was coded in the following example: [mother (model)-pause-infant (imitator)]. a simple co-action occurs when the beginning of the imitator’s expressive behavior occurs before the completion of the model’s expressive action. in instances in which this pattern was repeated successively more than once, the co-action was coded as multiple. when the imitative exchanges were complicated in a way that could not be categorized in either of the two basic types of imitative sequences, they were coded as multiple exchanges consisting of turn-taking(s) and co-action(s), • the kind of imitated expressive act, which was classified within one of the following categories: vocal imitation (vowels, consonants, vowel-consonant combinations), non-speech sound imitation, facial expression imitation, imitation of hand movements and combinations of the above four categories [for the detailed definitions of the imitated expressive acts see kokkinaki & vitalaki (2012)], • the direction of the imitative episode, which indicates who the initiator of the modeled behavior is and who gives the first imitative response (for example, the infant expresses a behavior and the mother imitates the infant), and • the temporal patterns of simple turn-taking imitative exchanges, that is, the duration of model, pause, imitator response and the total sequence. we did not analyze the temporal patterns of co-actions and multiple exchanges due to their complexity which makes it difficult to determine who imitates who in a sequential order. inter-and intra-observer reliability measurements were calculated for the structure, the kinds, the direction and the durations of imitative sequences. to check intra-observer reliability, the second researcher (elena vitalaki) analyzed 100% of the recorded data and re-scored a random sample of 33% of the material after an interval of one month following the first coding session; agreement was assessed using cohen’s kappa. intra-observer reliability scores for all categories ranged from 0.73 to 0.91. the mean value of k for all categories was 0.81. to check inter-observer reliability, an undergraduate student at the department of philosophical and social studies was trained in the micro-analysis of data and she scored a random sample of 15% of the material. “αn agreement” was counted when the two observers recorded the same aspect of imitation [for example, the kind of imitation: vocal imitation (vowels, consonants, vowel-consonant combinations), non-speech sound imitation, facial expression imitation, imitation of hand movements and combinations of the above four categories] at times that either overlap or are separated by no more than two seconds. “a disagreement” was counted when: a) one observer recorded an aspect of imitation and the other didn’t (in the same example, one observer recorded a vocal imitation and the other didn’t), b) one observer recorded a category of a certain aspect of imitation (e.g. vocal imitation) and the other recorded another category of this aspect (e.g. a non-speech sound imitation), or c) when both observers agreed that a certain category of imitation was to be scored (e.g. vocal imitation) but disagreed on the subcategory of it (e.g. one observer scored a vowel sound imitation while the other scored a vowel-consonant combination). inter-observer reliability between the researcher’s first analysis and the student’s analysis ranged between 0.68 and 0.84. the mean value of k for all categories was 0.74. the difficulty of establishing high inter-observer reliability, when a complicated coding system is used, should be noted. the increased task demands on the rater and the multiple messages of a complex interaction itself are recognized as two factors that contribute to the difficulty of establishing high inter-observer reliability (bakeman & gottman, 1986). in particular reference to sequential analysis, the establishment of inter-observer reliability is evenmore difficult due to the fact that any disagreement can result in lack of synchrony and thus prevent subsequent matching of comparisons (hollenbeck, 1978). given these constraints, it is felt that the inter-observer reliability scores given above are satisfactory. fleiss (1981) characterizes kappas of 0.60 to 0.75 as good and over 0.75 as excellent. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis for the statistical analysis, loglinear models (everitt, 1977) were used to determine possible relationships between categorical variables, and chi-square test was used to analyze significant relationships. a loglinear model is a linear model for the logarithms of level combination frequencies of the categorical variables under investigation. the term linear means that the expected values of observations are given by a linear combination of a number of parameters. a loglinear model can be useful in determining simple or interaction effects between categorical variables (everitt, 1977). the z-values, that appear in the loglinear models, are used for testing the significance of differences between model coefficients. when loglinear model analysis gave a significant relationship between categorical variables, chi-square tests were used in order to analyze this relationship since one use of the chisquare test deals with the situation in which we have two variables and want to determine whether these variables are independent of one another (howell, 1987). for each analysis, the p-value that represents the greatest zvalue appearing in the loglinear model and the chi-square test value will be presented. this experiment, by its nature, generated data with relatively strong dependencies between them since repeated observations are obtained on a relatively small number of individuals. these longitudinal dependencies were not taken into account in the analysis because of their complexity, and this would also tend to increase the number of significant results. for this reason, the significance level for chi-square tests and loglinear models was set at 1%, as a safeguard against false rejections of the null hypothesis. in cases where proportions of two-outcome analyses were assessed (i.e. direction of imitation), binomial tests were used to test equality of outcomes. the significance level for the binomial test was set at 5%. all analyses were performed using the spss statistical package (version 17.0, 2008). results frequency of imitation the frequency of imitative sequences was not found to differ between: a) mother-infant pairs of group 1 (n = 583, 3.7 imitations in 10-minute interaction) and group 2 (n = 561, 3.0 imitations in 10 minute interaction) (p = .55, two-tailed binomial test), and b) mother-infant pairs of group 1 and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 (n = 597, 3.1 in 10-minute interaction) (p = .68, two-tailed binomial test). in group 1, the total number of imitative sequences in each of the 13 pairs (across the 8 months of the study) ranged from 20 to 106, while the number of imitative sequences for each age level ranged from 12 to 63. in group 2, the total number of imitative sequences in each of the 16 mother-infant and grandmother-infant pairs ranged from 17-76 and 13-80, respectively, while the number of imitative sequences for each age level ranged from 12 to 70 and 9 to 60, respectively. structure of imitative sequences loglinear model and chi-square test analysis showed a significant difference in the structure of imitative sequences between: (a) mother-infant pairs of group 1 and mother-infant pairs of group 2 [loglinear model (z = -5.23, p < 0.0001), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 37.96, df = 3, p < 0.0001)]. this is due to the high frequency of turn-taking imitative sequences in the mother-infant pairs of group 1 compared to the mother-infant pairs of group 2 (40% and 23%, respectively) and the low frequency of simple co-actions (26% and 35%, respectively) and multiple exchanges with turn-takings and co-actions (28% and 36%, respectively), and (b) mother-infant pairs of group 1 and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 [loglinear models (z = -4.78, p < 0.0001), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 38.03, df = 3, p < 0.0001)]. similarly to difference (a), this is due to the high frequency of turn-takings in the mother-infant pairs of group 1 compared to the grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 (40% and 23%, respectively) europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 266 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and the low frequency of simple co-actions (26% and 35%, respectively) and multiple exchanges (28% and 34%, respectively). kinds of imitated behaviors statistical analysis showed significant differences in the kinds of imitated behaviors between the mother-infant pairs of group 1 and the mother and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2. in particular, significant differences were found between: • the mother-infant interactions of group 1 and group 2 [loglinear model (z = 4.21, p < 0.01), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 46.97, df = 4, p < 0.0001)]. this difference is due to the evidence that vocal imitation and non-speech sound imitation were more frequent in mother-infant pairs of group 1, compared to mother-infant pairs of group 2 [vocal imitation (80% and 75%, respectively), non-speech sound imitation (8% and 4%, respectively)], while hand movement imitations were more frequent in the mother-infant interactions of group 2 compared to group 1 (12% and 3%, respectively), and • the mother-infant interactions of group 1 and grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 [loglinear model (z = 5.38, p < 0.0001), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 63.14, df = 4, p < 0.0001)]. similarly to (a), this is attributed to the evidence that vocal imitation and non-speech sound imitation were more frequent in the mother-infant interactions of group 1, compared to the grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 [vocal imitation (80% and 73%, respectively), non-speech sound imitation (8% and 5%, respectively)], while the reverse was found for hand movement imitation (3% and 15%)]. direction of imitative sequences loglinear model and chi-square test analysis showed: • a significant difference in the direction of imitative sequences between the mother-infant pairs of groups 1 and 2 [loglinear model (z = 4.85, p < 0.0001), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 23.97, df = 1, p < 0.0001)]. this difference is due to the high frequency of maternal imitations of infant behaviors in group 1, compared to group 2 [(460, 79%) and (371, 66%), respectively], or reversely, the low frequency of infant imitations of maternal behaviors in group 1 (123, 21%), compared to group 2 (190, 34%), • a non-significant difference in the direction of imitative exchange in the mother-infant interactions of group 1 (460, 79%) and the grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 (419, 70%) [loglinear model (z = 2.82, p = 0.08), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 30.02, df = 1, p = 0.03)]. temporal patterns of imitative sequences the descriptive comparison of the temporal patterns of imitative sequences between the mother-infant pairs of group 1 and the motherand the grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 provides evidence that: • model duration was shorter in the mother-infant pairs of group 1 (mean = 1.44 secs, sd = 1.10, min: 0.44 and max: 7.36) compared to the mother-infant (mean = 1.86 secs, sd = 1.78, min: 0.56 and max: 12.20) and grandmother-infant pairs (mean = 1.63 secs, sd = 1.57, min: 0.52 and max: 13.48) of group 2, • the mothers and infants of group 1 waited longer (mean = 0.74 secs, sd = 1.03, min: 0.03 and max: 5.92) before they imitated each other, compared to the grandmothers and infants (mean = 0.54 secs, sd = 1.11, min: 0.03 and max: 8.84) and mothers and infants (mean = 0.62 secs, sd = 0.88, min: 0.03 and max: 6.00) of group 2, • the imitator’s duration lasted almost the same in the mother-infant interactions of group 1 (mean = 1.96 secs, sd = 2.04, min: 0.03 and max: 14.92) and the motherand grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 [mean = 1.99 secs (sd = 1.43, min: 0.48 and max: 6.52) and mean = 2.06 secs (sd = 1.59, min: 0.14 and max: 9.60), respectively], and • the total duration of the imitative sequence was longer in the mother-infant interactions of group 2 (mean = 5.62 secs, sd = 4.25, min: 1.32 and max: 29.48) compared to the mother-infant pairs of group 1 (mean europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 267 http://www.psychopen.eu/ = 5.38 secs, sd = 5.54, min: 1.16 and max: 51.76) and the grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 (mean = 5.11 secs, sd = 4.28, min: 1.28 and max: 29.64). infant age effect on the developmental trajectory of imitation statistical analysis showed a non-significant effect of infant’s age on infant imitations in the mother-infant interactions of group 1 [loglinear model (z = 1.65, p = 0.1), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 24.22, p = 0.08)] and mother [loglinear model (z = 1.24, p = 0.22), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 14.59, p = 0.55)] and grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 [loglinear model (z = 1.83, p = 0.06), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 28.98, p = 0.02)] (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013). descriptive comparisons provide evidence that the developmental trajectories of infant imitative behavior did not differ significantly between the mother-infant pairs of groups 1 and 2 and the mother-infant pairs of group 1 and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 across the age range of this study, although infant imitations in the motherinfant interactions of group 2 showed a non-significant increasing trend at 9.5 months. statistical analysis showed a non-significant effect of the infant’s age on maternal imitations in groups 1 [loglinear model (z = 1.96, p = 0.04), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 22.45, p = 0.12)] and 2 [loglinear model (z = 1.52, p = 0.12), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 26.68, p = 0.04)] while the infant’s age was found to significantly affect the grandmothers’ imitations [loglinear model (z = 2.97, p = 0.002), chi-square analysis (χ2 = 45.38, p = 0.0001)] (kokkinaki & vitalaki, 2013). this effect is attributed to a significant increase in grandmothers’ imitations after the 7th month of infants’ life. this descriptive comparison provides evidence that the developmental trajectories of maternal imitative behavior did not differ significantly between mother-infant pairs of groups 1 and 2 across the age range of this study (figure 1). figure 1. developmental trajectories of maternal imitations of group 1 and maternal and grandmother imitations of group 2. discussion with the aim to advance our understanding of the role of extended family interactional contexts on early motherinfant communication, we compared spontaneous early imitative exchanges in dyadic interactions between europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 268 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mothers and their infants (group 1) who had no frequent contact with maternal grandmothers, to imitations in two familial subgroups (group 2): (a) dyadic interactions of infants with their mothers, and (b) with their grandmothers–persons who had frequent contact with the infant grandchild. both comparisons provided evidence suggesting similar frequency of imitative exchanges and developmental trajectories in infant imitations, while outlining differences in the structure of imitation, the kinds of imitated behaviors and the temporal patterns of imitative components. the direction of imitation was found to differ between mother-infant pairs in groups 1 and 2 along with the developmental trajectories of maternal imitations in group 1 and grandmothers’ imitations in group 2. imitation serves a dynamic intersubjective regulatory function, that is, it constitutes the process in which mental activity–including motives and emotions–is transferred between minds but the message it conveys changes according to age-related developments of infant’s motives (trevarthen et al., 1999). similarity in the frequency of imitative exchanges and the developmental trajectories of infant imitations implies that the extent of direct intermotive attraction in interactions between infants and their significant others (mothers/grandmothers) does not differ, totally and longitudinally, according to early extended family interactions. imitative intersubjective encounters between infants and significant others reveal coordination in: “kinematics” (temporal patterns), “physiognomics” (spatial patterns or forms) and “energetics” (force or effort) (kokkinaki, 1998). we assume that differences in the structure and direction of imitation, the kinds of imitated behaviors and the temporal patterns of imitative components provide evidence of variations in “kinematics”, “physionomics” and “energetics” between the mother-infant pairs of group 1 and the motherand grandmother-infant pairs of group 2. in particular, differences in the structure of imitation (according to the definition of it, see coding section, the structure of imitative sequences), along with variations in the temporal patterns of imitative components, presuppose that mothers, grandmothers and infants make different timing adjustments, to obtain inter-synchrony. the motherinfant pairs of group 1, structured their imitative exchanges more frequently in turn-takings than co-actions and multiple exchanges, compared to themother and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2, in which imitations “unfolded” more frequently in multiple exchanges and co-actions, than in turn-takings. the alternating expressions and predictable timing features of the infant-adult turn-taking imitative exchanges indicates that: “…perhaps they have matching cycles of motivation leading to regular sequences of active expression (assertion) and attentive reception (apprehension)” (trevarthen et al., 1999, p. 147). it seems that even in these assertion (model)–apprehension (imitator) cycles, the mothers, grandmothers and infants of group 2 manifest behavioral expressions (model) and imitations longer in duration, although they seem to be more eager to imitate each other, as shown by the shorter pauses taken, compared to the mother-infant pairs of group 1 (see results, the section temporal patterns of imitative sequences). frequent multiple exchanges of expressive behaviors (which presupposes patterns of synchronization and alternation) in both the mother and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 may imply that, through a systematic motivated negotiation, all partners work to make their timing finely adjusted in a mutually controlled and extended process (trevarthen, 1988). furthermore, the differences in the kinds of imitated behaviors between groups 1 and 2 showed that vocal imitations were more frequent in the mother-infant pairs of group 1, compared to the motherand grandmother-infant pairs of group 2. these differences may be integrated by the supposition that: “… voices, emerging from within moving human bodies, like all movements, make time...” and “vocal exchanges involves confluence of ‘fluxes of inner time’ ” (trevarthen & gratier, 2005; schutz, 1951, as cited in gratier & trevarthen, 2007, p. 170) in order to reinforce our assumption for variations in “kinematics” between the two groups. moreover, our hypothesis regarding the predictable timing features of the infant-adult europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 269 http://www.psychopen.eu/ turn-taking imitative exchanges is further reinforced by the recent evidence that desynchronization of the infant’s eeg mu rhythm was greater when the infant had just carried out the same action–during the 500-ms epoch preceding the experimenter’s matching action than when he or she had just carried out a different action (saby et al., 2012). despite the fact that, in this study, the coding of imitation did not include fine-grained measurements of muscle activity, variations in the kinds of imitated behaviors indirectly imply differences in “physiognomics”, that is, adjustment of spatial patterns or forms of muscle activity between groups 1 and 2. different imitated behaviors between groups 1 and 2 may show consistent differences in form according to which organs of display (facial, vocal or gestural) are transformed into shapes of expression in distinct categories related to the subject’s changing interest and purposes (trevarthen, 1986). this is further reinforced by: • our informal observation that the significant increase of grandmothers’ imitations after the 7th month may be attributed to the frequent use of playful expressive hand games (clapping) and conventional gestures (waving, pointing), in conjunction to • the speculation that the non-linear developmental trajectory of imitation from the 2nd to the 10th month of infants’ life might be due to periodic reorganizations in the infant’s motivational system. these infant motivational reorganizations may lead either to corresponding motivational changes in grandmothers and/or to changes in significant others’ perceptions of the infant’s interests and emotions (kokkinaki, 1998; kugiumutzakis, 1993; trevarthen, 2005). vocal and non-speech sound imitations imply different adjustment of the spatial patterns between mothers, grandmothers and infants' facial muscle activities. this may be related to the supposition that: “the human facial communicative system is described as having ....1. a highly differentiated facial anatomy comprising a forward-facing, bony frame covered by skin in which is attached a bisymmetric set of muscle units that are differentially excitable...” (trevarthen, 1985, p. 22), and that “...the discrete facial muscle actions visible in the adult can be identified and finely discriminated in newborns” (oster & ekman, 1978, as cited in field, 1982, p. 284). differences in “energetics” are provided by the structure of imitation and the kinds of imitated behaviors. based on the speculation that co-actions constitute: “…an index of the intensity of affective arousal, regardless of quality” (beebe, 1982, p. 194), we assume that the frequent manifestation of simple co-actions, along with their systematic presence in multiple exchanges, in the mother and grandmother-infant pairs of group 2 compared to the motherinfant pairs of group 1, provide evidence of differences in “energetics” between groups 1 and 2. the frequent expression of vocal imitations in group 1, compared to group 2, further reinforces our assumption. infant vocal imitative efforts have the characteristics of effort vocalization. the behavior of infants during the emission of maternal sounds has been characterized by gradual localization of the sound, with head turning and eye widening, while the brows were held high–amovement which occurs in attention listening (keller & scholmerich, 1987; rinn, 1984, as cited in kugiumutzakis, 1993). it has been assumed that human communication is regulated by an integrated system of equivalent expressions (trevarthen, 1993). in connection to this, the difference in the direction of imitative exchanges between the mother-infant pairs in groups 1 and 2 may reflect variations in the integrated system of equivalent expressions. in particular, in the context of the stable and systematic presence of a complementary caretaker (their own mother), the mothers of group 2 may enrich their improvisation in interaction with their infants with more complementary “translations” of infants’ expressions than imitations. the intrinsic relation to others that infants feel preverbally and this “felt connection” have a profound effect on infants’ first interactions and interpretations of the social world and constitute the foundation for human communication and development (meltzoff & brooks, 2007). it may be that this interaction style provides evidence of the way in which past experiences and present interpreteurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 270 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ations of these experiences influence current interactions (cohler, 1982; elder, caspi, & downey, 1986, as cited in whitbeck, hoyt, & huck, 1993). in sum, this study provided evidence that differential early family interaction histories may be related to variations in three fundamental dimensions of infant-significant other communication: “kinematics” (temporal patterns), “physiognomics” (spatial patterns or forms) and “energetics” (force or effort). these variations may affect the child’s ability for regulation and negotiation of interpersonal challenges within and outside the family context. our conclusions are limited in a number of ways. these data describe the imitative exchanges in a restricted cretan white and middle-class sample of grandmothers of close proximity to their grandchildren and adult children. our observations are based on a relatively short time period with respect to the total interaction time spent between grandmothers and grandchildren. generalizing these findings to other populations is limited because: • grandparents in greece are actively involved in and contribute to the family’s well-being by socialising with grandchildren, helping with household chores and providing financial help (svensson-dianellou, smith, & mestheneos, 2010), and • it may be that in crete, the grandmaternal role represents a powerful psychological experience, full of emotional implications, and abounding in consequences for the relations between the grandmother and the other members of the family (gattai & musatti, 1999). • mother-infant and grandmother-infant dyads of group 2 were also homogeneous in terms of the positivity of the relationships. unfortunately, grandmother-mother dyads who do not like each other or do not get along well are not the ones who volunteer to take part in a research study together (myers et al., 1987), • it would be remiss not to mention other qualitative and quantitative intervening factors that possibly had a different effect on the mother-infant interactions of group 1 and the mother and grandmother-infant interactions of group 2 such as: family relationship histories, individual styles and stages of grandmotherhood, the age of the grandmothers themselves, their educational level, the social status and the status of their health as well as their satisfaction with life (krasnova, 2002; whitbeck, hoyt, & huck, 1993). hence, it is possible that we have uncovered variables that differentiate extremely satisfying relationships from those that are more neutral (harwood, 2000b). despite these shortcomings, the present study adds to a growing body of literature that shows how the early extended family interactional context may set in motion different behavioral patterns that affect family members’ (grandchildren’s, mothers’ and grandmothers’) interaction styles to manage future meaningful social interactions throughout their lives. additional research directed at the systematic analysis and comparison of interaction patterns between the first, the second, the third (to include great grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers, respectively) and fourth generation would help to further elucidate the nature of inter-generational relations in infancy. this assumption is integrated in bråten (1991)’s evidence of “…gradual 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(1993). the function of emotions in early infant communication and development. in j. nadel & l. camaioni (eds.), new perspectives in early communicative development (pp. 48-81). london: routledge. trevarthen, c. (2005). action and emotion in development of cultural intelligence: why infants have feelings like ours. in j. nadel & d. muir (eds.), emotional development (pp. 61-91). oxford: oxford university press. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy 274 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0163-6383(87)90015-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9087-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272378900900603 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2010.523784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2012.691429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15350770.2010.498737 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.4.1.119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trevarthen, c., kokkinaki, t., & fiamenghi, g. (1999). what infants’ imitations communicate: with mothers, with fathers and with peers. in j. nadel & g. butterworth (eds.), imitation in infancy: progress and prospects of current research (pp. 127-185). cambridge: cambridge university press. uzgiris, i. (1984). imitation in infancy: its interpersonal aspects. in m. perlmutter (ed.), parent-child interaction and parent-child relations in child development (pp. 1-32). hillsdale, nj: erlbaum. vitalaki, e. (2002). i anaptixi tis mimisis stin allilepidrasi giagias-vrefous [the development of imitation in grandmother-infant interaction (unpublished doctoral dissertation). university of crete, rethymnon, greece. waldrop, d. p., weber, j. a., herald, s. l., pruett, j., cooper, k., & juozapavicius, k. (1999). wisdom and life experience: how grandfathers mentor their grandchildren. journal of aging and identity, 4(1), 33-46. doi:10.1023/a:1022834825849 whitbeck, l. b., hoyt, d. r., & huck, s. m. (1993). family relationship history, contemporary parent-grandparent relationship quality and the grandparent-grandchild relationship. journal of marriage and the family, 55, 1025-1035. doi:10.2307/352782 about the authors theano kokkinaki received her phd from the university of edinburgh (1998) under the supervision of professor colwyn treavarthen. she is an assistant professor of developmental psychology in the department of psychology, university of crete (greece). her research interests concern the systematic study of interpersonal dynamics in infant-parent and grandparent interactions in several cultural contexts as well as twins interactions and triadic interactions between family members. she has 30 publications in greek and international peer-reviewed journals and chapters in books in the field of infant development and intersubjective communication. elena vitalaki is a visiting assisting professor in the department of education at the university of crete (20022012). her current research emphasis focuses on school and family relationships and she has participated in projects concerning communication within the family and school settings. she has papers published in oxford university publications and in international and greek scientific journals. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 259–275 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.506 kokkinaki & vitalaki 275 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1022834825849 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/352782 http://www.psychopen.eu/ exploring spontaneous imitation in infancy introduction method participants procedure coding statistical analysis results frequency of imitation structure of imitative sequences kinds of imitated behaviors direction of imitative sequences temporal patterns of imitative sequences infant age effect on the developmental trajectory of imitation discussion acknowledgments note references about the authors a psychometric analysis of the workplace forgiveness scale a psychometric analysis of the workplace forgiveness scale itsara boonyarit*a, wiladlak chuawanleeb, ann macaskillc, numchai supparerkchaisakulb [a]division of psychology, chiang mai university, chiang mai, thailand. [b] behavioral science research insititute, srinakharinwirot university, bangkok, thailand. [c] psychology research group, sheffield hallam university, sheffield, united kingdom. abstract though there are measures of forgiveness published in the behavioural science literature, very few scales are available to measure forgiveness in workplace relationships. the workplace forgiveness scale aimed to measure forgiveness of a specific offense. data from 348 professional nurses in thailand were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis (efa) and the psychometric properties of the scale were examined. results from efa suggested retaining four underlying factors of the forgiveness construct: overcoming negative thought and feeling toward the offender, seeking to understand the offender’s reasons, fostering positive approaches towards the offender, and belief in the benefits of forgiveness. reliability coefficients for the total scale and subscales were adequate. evidence of construct validity is presented. scores on the forgiveness scale were positively associated with other related forgiveness constructs. nomological validity analysis supported the theoretical networks of the forgiveness construct. forgiveness played the complete mediating role in the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and willingness to reconcile, and played a partial mediating role in the relationship between rumination and seeking to revenge the offender. bootstrap analysis on the parameter estimates of the sample results revealed satisfactory level of internal replicability and stability of the results across the samples. implications for future research are discussed. keywords: forgiveness, scale development, work context, construct validity europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 received: 2012-11-15. accepted: 2013-04-07. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: division of psychology, faculty of humanities, chiang mai university, chiang mai, thailand 50200. e-mail: dr.itsara@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. forgiveness is one of the constructive ways of moderating workplace conflict and encouraging more positive cooperative behaviours (butler & mullis, 2001). an individual who practises forgiveness as a problem-solving strategy can reduce anger, revenge, and negative judgment towards the offender (mccullough & worthington, 1994). forgiveness should be addressed by organizational theorists and practicing managers as it is important for individuals to be facilitated in order to repair broken relationships with work colleagues (aquino, grover, goldman, & folger, 2003). forgiveness is also associated with better health and personal well-being at the individual level (mccullough &witvliet, 2002) and, at the organizational level, forgiveness essentially encourages a more nurturing and fulfilling workplace climate (stone, 2002). although the theoretical concept and empirical basis of forgiveness have been investigated substantively since the 1980s (mccullough, pargament, & thoresen, 2000), within the management and organizational literature, there is very little research on forgiveness within the workplace (aquino et al., 2003; cameron & caza, 2002). to understand forgiveness in the work context is a complex undertaking, and questions remain to be investigated (madsen, gygi, hammond, & plowman, 2008). mccullough et al. (2000) mentioned that many aspects of forgiveness cannot be examined empirically because the measuring scales have not yet been constructed in many sociocultural contexts, such as work and organizational settings which include specific cultural factors. this study aimed to address this by developing a workplace forgiveness scale within thai culture, beneficial for allowing further study of forgiveness in workplace relationships. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the current study to achieve a good quality scale to measure forgiveness within the work context, as advised by kline (1986), we used knowledge derived from the research literature on forgiveness in a work context and empirical evidence in the form of definitions of the forgiveness process collected from a previous qualitative study of forgiveness among thai nurses in their workplace (boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill, & supparerkchaisakul, 2012). these sources were used to produce the initial items for the workplace forgiveness scale. the pool of items was then subjected to exploratory factor analysis to determine the underlying factor structure (costello & osborne, 2005; fabrigar, wegener, maccallum, & strahan, 1999) and the internal replicability was investigated to establish the invariance of the factors across samples (timmerman, kiers, & smilde, 2007; zientek & thompson, 2007). finally, construct validation was employed to determine the convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity of the forgiveness construct using other related constructs (cronbach &meehl, 1955; hair, black, babin, anderson, & tatham, 2006). construction of the initial workplace forgiveness scale the concept of forgivenesswithin theworkplace. forgiveness is a willingness to discard one’s right to revenge and instead to show mercy to the offender (enright & coyle, 1998). it is a motivation to reduce avoidance of the offender, as well as to abandon any anger, grudge holding, or revenge towards the offender; conversely, it helps to increase conciliation when the moral norms can be re-established (worthington, 1998). mccullough et al. (2000) concluded that forgiveness is an intraindividual, prosocial change toward the offender that occurs within a specific interpersonal relationship. in the organizational context there are several definitions of forgiveness. aquino et al. (2003) suggested that interpersonal workplace forgiveness is a process where the individual, who was hurt by his or her colleague, attempts to overcome negative feelings such as resentment and anger toward the offender and to stop himself or herself from causing the offender harm even if he or she believes it is ethically justifiable to do so. while aquino et al. (2003) focused on the individual level of the forgiveness process, cameron and caza (2002) defined forgiveness more broadly at an organizational level. they presumed that organizational forgiveness is the capacity to encourage collective abandonment of justified resentment, hurt, and blame. moreover, it is the fostering of constructive, forward-looking ways in response to broken relationships. this process requires a transformation resulting in the organization becoming more virtuous. previous qualitative research in a work context with thai nurses (boonyarit et al., 2012) identified five dimensions defining forgiveness. these were: • overcoming negative approaches towards the offender, where the individual attempts to cut off or control their potential oppositional acts towards the offender by overcoming negative thinking and emotions; • abandonment of negative judgment, where the individual seeks to understand the offender’s reasons, does not categorize the offense as a wrongful act, accepts the offender’s mistake, takes the offender's perspective, and abandons negative judgment; • fostering positive approaches and loving-kindness towards the offender, where the individual promotes or motivates positive responses to the offender by fostering positive thinking, fostering positive emotions such as empathy and good feeling, and continues to act in a friendly manner towards the offender; • awareness of the benefits of forgiveness, the individual is aware that forgiveness leads him/her to happiness and forgiveness would potentially lead to forgiveness in return from the offender; • forgiveness as buddhist beliefs, where the individual believes in the buddhist teachings that forgiveness is the higher-order merit of giving and is good karma. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 320 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characteristics of the workplace forgiveness scale. while there are several psychometrically sound scales measuring forgiveness such as wade’s forgiveness scale (wade, 1987), transgression-related interpersonal motivation (trim: mccullough, rachel, sandage,worthington, brown, & hight, 1998), and the enright forgiveness inventory (efi: subkoviak, enright, wu, gassin, freedman, olson, & sarinopoulos, 1995), these have all been developed with north american samples and their applicability to different cultures is debatable. the aim here is to develop a psychometrically sound scale that would measure forgiveness within a buddhist culture, specifically incorporating buddhist concepts such as loving kindness, higher-order merits and karma. all of these concepts were shown to be relevant to forgiveness in previous research on work place conflict in a sample of thai nurses (boonyarit et al., 2012). items and rating scale. the pool of initial items was designed to measure forgiveness towards a specific offender within a work-related offense. a forty-item scale was developed based on the five dimensions of forgiveness (boonyarit et al., 2012); it conceptualized forgiveness as the individual’s cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses towards the offender. the scale instructed the respondents to choose the answer that best described their thoughts towards the person who has hurt or mistreated them in the past by using a likert-type format with response. higher scores on this scale represent greater forgiveness towards an offender. content validity. the three content experts chosen included a scholar in behavioural science research, an expert in industrial and organization psychology, and an expert in nursing science. they were briefed on the purpose of the workplace forgiveness scale and were asked to provide feedback on the initial forgiveness scale items. the criteria for item revision included: a) congruence with the relevant definition of the forgiveness from boonyarit et al. (2012), b) item clarity, c) relevance for the intended population of thai nurses and their work setting. we then revised the scale in light of the feedback received before data collection began. method participants the sample was drawn by cluster random sampling from professional nurses who work in three hospitals located in the bangkok metropolitan and the surrounding area of about 100 kilometres in thailand. we collected data in various clusters of operational units. the directors of the hospital and the supervisors of the nursing departments gave permission for data collection. questionnaires were sent to the participants with an introductory covering letter. returning the questionnaire was accepted as providing informed consent. sample size was determined by using five times the number of scale items as suggested by gorsuch (1983). with 40 items in the initial at least 200 participants were required. the participants were 348 full-time nurses in thailand and consisted of 305 (87.64%) female, 20 (5.75%) male, and 23 (6.61%) no response. the age included 67 (19.25%) less than 25 years old, 104 (29.89%) between 25 and 29 years old, 86 (24.71%) between 30 and 35 years old, 35 (10.06%) between 36 and 40 years old, 20 (5.15%) between 41 to 45 years old, 12 (3.45%) over 45 years old, and 24 (6.50%) no response. the breakdown of participants by unit was 67 (19.25%) surgery, 61 (17.53%) general medicine, 51 (14.66%) inpatient service, 28 (8.05%) intensive care unit, 21 (6.03%) obstetrics and gynecology, 17 (4.89%) outpatient service, 16 (4.60%) emergency, 14 (4.02%) psychiatry, 13 (3.74%) pediatrics, 11 (3.16%) health promotion, 9 (2.59%) eye, ear, nose and throat, 4 (1.15%) orthopedic, and 36 (10.34%) no response. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 321 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures measure for exploratory factor analysis. the initial 40 items of the workplace forgiveness scale measured forgiveness towards a specific offender within a specific work-related offense that participants were first asked to describe. the scale then instructed respondents to choose the answer that best described their thoughts, feelings, and actions towards the person who had hurt or mistreated them in the past using a likert-type scale with responses ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). higher scores on this scale represent greater forgiveness towards the offender. measures for convergent validity analysis. here the aim is to ensure that the questionnaire does measure relevant forgiveness constructs and therefore other standard measures of these constructs were included to examine whether our forgiveness measure correlates with these other similar measures. the presence of moderate to high correlations is taken as evidence of construct validity (cronbach &meehl, 1955). offense-specific forgiveness was measured by the forgiveness scale (rye, loiacono, folck, olszewski, heim, & madia, 2001). the scale consists of 15 items with two subscales, the absence of negative response and the presence of positive response to wrongdoer. participants were scored on a likert-type scale with five rating points from strongly disagree to strongly agree. higher scores on this scale indicate a greater level of forgiveness towards a specific offender. the alpha coefficient for this scale in the present study was .83. dispositional forgiveness was measured by six items of the heartland forgiveness scale (yamhure-thompson & snyder, 2003). this scale intends to capture the likelihood of forgiving others. items were rated on a 7-points likert scale from almost always false to almost always true. a higher score on this scale indicates being more likely to forgive the other. the alpha coefficient for this scale in the present study was .67. state forgiveness was measured by a single item developed by the researchers. the scale asked the participants to rate “how much do you forgive the specific offender in your work relationship conflict”. the item was rated from 1 (i haven’t forgiven at all) to 5 (i have completely forgiven). higher score on this item indicates a state of forgiveness towards the offender. measure for discriminant validity analysis.we examined the discriminant validation of theworkplace forgiveness scale with respect to measure of individual’s current feelings. ten items of the international positive and negative affect schedule (panas) short form (i-panas-sf: thompson, 2007) were included to assess the positive and negative emotional responses by the individual to certain events. items were rated on a 5-points likert scale never to always. higher scores in the negative items indicate higher negative feelings of the individual, and higher score on positive items indicate higher positive feelings. measures for nomological validity analysis. here the aim is to include items which will allow assessment of how developed items and scale relate to other constructs. this was to confirm that our forgiveness scale behaves in a theoretically expected way, as evidence of construct validity (viswanathan, 2005). willingness to reconcile was measured by two items from the willingness to reconcile relationship scale (tomlinson, dineen, & lewicki, 2004). these items were “what is the likelihood that you would continue a relationship with him/her?” and “to what degree are you willing to let him/her try to reconcile the relationship with you?.” the participants responded on a five-point likert scale from 1 (least) to 5 (most). higher scores indicate stronger willingness to reconcile with the offender. the alpha coefficient for this scale in the present study was .86. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rumination was measured with the rumination about an interpersonal offense scale (rio: wade, vogel, liao, & goldman, 2008). six items were used to capture state or situation-specific rumination reflecting repetitive cognitive rehearsal about the specific past transgression. items were assessed on five-point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. higher scores on this scale indicate strong mental attention to negative experience and the outcome of the event. the alpha coefficient for this scale in the present study was .88. seeking revenge was measured with the revenge subscale of the transgression-related interpersonal motivations inventory (mccullough et al., 1998). five items of the revenge subscale were rated using five point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. higher scores on this scale indicate higher levels of revenge seeking. the alpha coefficient for this scale in the present study was .95. two scales from the convergent validity tests were included in the model examining the nomological network of the forgiveness construct and its related variables. these were the forgiveness scale and dispositional forgiveness. data analysis we implemented various data analyses to assure the psychometric of the workplace forgiveness scale. the initial items of the scale were submitted to exploratory factor analysis (efa) using principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation to investigate the underlying factor structure (costello & osborne, 2005; fabrigar et al., 1999). the internal replicability was investigated through a bootstrap method to indicate the invariance of the factors across the samples internally. bootstrapped eigenvalues provided by the bootstrap factor analysis proposed by zientek and thompson (2007) was conducted to determine the internal replicability of the number of factor to retain and bootstrap procrustes confidence interval (timmerman et al., 2007) was conducted to reveal the replicability of factor loadings. assessment of reliability through cronbach’s alpha coefficient (cronbach, 1951) and composite reliability (raykov, 1997) were examined. three measures of construct validity (cronbach & meehl, 1955; hair et al., 2006) were implemented, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and nomological validity, to examine the theoretical related properties of the forgiveness construct derived from scale development. results the preliminary analyses revealed the characteristics of the work-related offensive event. participants reported almost half of the offenders were their colleagues (49.43%), other professions (21.26%), doctors (12.64%), and their supervisors (8.05%), respectively. the most common causes of work-related conflict were role conflict (20.40%), misunderstanding (17.82%), injustice of workload (12.64%), performance error (10.92%), being new to the task (9.48%), personal bias (7.76%), difference in profession and work status (5.75%), and other causes, such as the offender implying professional incompetence, miscommunication, and offender's improper behaviour (8.91%). exploratory factor analysis to begin to develop a psychometrically sound measure, an efa with varimax-rotation was computed on the initial 40-item workplace forgiveness scale to identify the number of factors to retain and to examine the quality of the items. bartlett’s (1954) test of sphericity produced a significant chi-square at the .0001 level (chi-square = 7507.98, df = 780) and the measure of sampling adequacy (kaiser, 1974) was equal to .93, indicating that the correlation matrix from the initial 40-items scale is appropriate for conducting efa. parallel analysis (horn, 1965) was conducted to provide an objective criterion for determining the number of factors to retain. to achieve this analysis, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 323 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we implemented macparallel (watkins, 2006) to compute the table of random data eigenvalues using the 40 observed variables and 348 participants as being equal to the sample data. the program generated eigenvalues for a random data set that was compared with eigenvalues from the sample’s pca. a parallel analysis plot of 40 items showed the eigenvalues of the sample data were larger than the eigenvalues from the random data before the fifth factor. as a result, we concluded that four factors should be retained for the initial 40-items of the forgiveness scale. to attain interpretable factors, we applied varimax rotation aiming to find the factor loadings which maximize the higher variance on their primary factors and are lower on the other factors (tabachnick & fidell, 1996). with regard to the four factors extracted on the initial 40-item scale, the rotated factor loadings loaded thirteen items on factor i, four items on factor ii, fourteen items on factor iii, and nine items on factor iv. the results showed several items aligned on the different factors and were incongruent with the concept of the initial item construction. to maintain both statistical and substantial significance for the new forgiveness scale, the problematic items were eliminated using the following criteria: a) factor loading on the primary factor should be equal or more than .30 (fabrigar et al., 1999), b) there is no high cross-loading (factor loadings loaded on the other factor should not be more than .30) (fabrigar et al., 1999), c) the items loaded on the same factor should be similar with regard to the theoretical concept. due to the nature of multivariate analysis, after eliminating each item, the values of factor loadings changed. therefore, we had to be careful about each item removed; subsequently efa was conducted until the criteria of factor interpretation were satisfied. after the seventeenth elimination of poorly performing items, 23 items were retained. we conducted further efa on the final 23-items of the workplace forgiveness scale. the correlation matrix of 23-items onworkplace forgiveness scale had good factorability, bartlett’s test of sphericity showed the chi-square was significant at the .0001 level (chi-square = 3987.88, df = 253) and the index of kaiser-mayer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy was equal to .89. results from a parallel analysis indicated a dominant four-factor solution of the retained 23-items of the workplace forgiveness scale, with factor i, ii, iii, and iv explaining 32.04, 12.79, 8.19, and 6.94 percent of the variance, respectively. the four factors accounted for 59.95 percent of the variance in the workplace forgiveness scale. finding from varimax rotation showed that the factor loadings belonging to each factor were satisfied, see table 1. the labelled numbers of items were re-arranged (f1 to f23). the variables linked to factor i were named overcoming negative thought and feeling towards the offender (on; 6 variables labelled as f1 to f6), variables linked to factor ii seeking to understanding the offender’s reasons (sr; 4 variables labelled as f7 to f10), variables linked to factor iii fostering positive approaches towards the offender (fp; 8 variables labelled as f11 to f18), and variables linked to factor iv belief in the benefits of forgiveness (bb; 5 variables labelled as f19 to f23). as shown in table 2, the total workplace forgiveness scale correlated significantly at .01 level with its four subscales, these correlation coefficients were .75, .45, .87, and .66 respectively. the mean scores of the total forgiveness scale and its four subscales were high. the highest subscale’s mean was belief in the benefits of forgiveness and the lowest among the subscales was seeking to understanding the offender’s reasons. the intercorrelations between the workplace forgiveness scale, its subscales, and other variables in this study are presented in table 2. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 fa ct or lo ad in gs fr om s am pl e an d b oo ts tra p a cr os s 1, 00 0 r es am pl es fa ct or iv fa ct or iii fa ct or ii fa ct or i ite m s b oo ts tr ap pr oc .c i sa m pl e lo ad in g b oo ts tr ap pr oc .c i sa m pl e lo ad in g b oo ts tr ap pr oc .c i sa m pl e lo ad in g b oo ts tr ap pr oc .c i sa m pl e lo ad in g [.0 2, .2 9] .1 7 [.1 2, .4 4] .2 8 [-. 17 ,. 26 ] .0 8 [.3 0, .6 5] .5 2 in o lo ng er ho ld an y gr ud ge ag ai ns th im /h er . f1 ) [-. 01 ,. 23 ] .0 9 [.0 1, .2 3] .1 2 [-. 14 ,. 11 ] -.0 2 [.6 9, .8 2] .7 6 ic an no ts to p th in ki ng ab ou th ow he /s he ha d w ro ng ed m e. () f2 ) [-. 07 ,. 12 ] .0 2 [.1 2, .3 1] .2 3 [-. 07 ,. 13 ] .0 3 [.7 5, .8 5] .8 0 ia m st ill fe el in g re se nt fu la th av in g be en m is tre at ed by hi m /h er .() f3 ) [.0 8, .3 5] .2 1 [.0 9, .3 8] .2 3 [-. 03 ,. 27 ] .1 1 [.4 6, .6 9] .6 0 ic an le tg o of m y an ge rt ow ar ds hi m /h er . f4 ) [-. 10 ,. 08 ] -.0 1 [.0 2, .2 7] .1 6 [-. 22 ,. 05 ] -.0 6 [.7 2, .8 3] .7 8 if ee la ng ry ev er y tim e it hi nk ab ou th ow he /s he ha d w ro ng ed m e. () f5 ) [-. 05 ,. 17 ] .0 3 [.1 6, .3 7] .2 7 [-. 18 ,. 03 ] -.0 7 [.7 2, .8 3] .7 8 if ee lu ps et ev er y tim e is ee hi m /h er or ev en w he n it hi nk ab ou tw ha th ad ha pp en ed .() f6 ) [-. 12 ,. 11 ] -.0 1 [-. 10 ,. 35 ] .0 4 [.5 8, .7 7] .6 9 [-. 41 ,.1 4] -.2 8 it ry to th in k ab ou tw hy he /s he ha d w ro ng ed m e. f7 ) [.0 7, .3 0] .1 7 [.0 6, .3 8] .1 9 [.5 2, .8 0] .7 3 [-. 15 ,. 09 ] -.0 2 ia tte m pt to un de rs ta nd th e re as on be hi nd hi s/ he ra ct io ns . f8 ) [-. 04 ,. 22 ] .0 9 [-. 02 ,. 35 ] .1 5 [.4 1, .6 9] .5 8 [.1 1, .3 7] .2 6 it hi nk he /s he m ig ht ha ve hi s/ he ro w n re as on s fo rw ha th e/ sh e ha d do ne to m e. f9 ) [.0 3, .2 4] .1 4 -.1 7, .0 8] -.0 5 [.7 1, .8 3] .7 7 [-. 09 ,. 16 ] .0 3 it ry to lo ok ba ck on th e in ci de nt to se e if ih ad do ne so m et hi ng to up se th im /h er fir st an d th at m ig ht be th e re as on w hy he /s he w an te d to hu rt m e ba ck . f1 0) [-. 19 ,. 05 ] -.0 7 [.3 1, .5 6] .4 5 [.0 2, .3 6] .1 8 [.1 1, .4 2] .2 9 ic on tin ue to th in k ab ou th ow he /s he ha d w ro ng ed m e be ca us e he /s he is a ba d pe rs on .() f1 1) [.1 2, .4 2] .2 8 [.3 0, .5 3] .3 6 [.0 6, .4 7] .2 7 [.0 3, .3 5] .2 0 it hi nk he /s he is ju st an or di na ry pe rs on w ho is lik el y to m ak e a m is ta ke . f1 2) [.1 3, 34 ] .2 3 [.5 0, .7 2] .6 3 [.1 3, .4 0] .2 7 [.1 9, .4 0] .2 9 it hi nk he /s he is a go od pe rs on al th ou gh he /s he ha d hu rt m e in th e pa st . f1 3) [.1 0, .3 0] .2 0 [.6 5, .8 0] .7 5 [.1 1, .3 7] .2 2 [.1 4, .3 3] .2 3 ic an se e th e go od si de of hi m /h er . f1 4) [.0 1, .1 7] .0 9 [.7 6, .8 6] .8 2 [-. 11 ,. 13 ] .0 4 [.1 4, .3 4] .2 6 a lth ou gh he /s he ha d hu rt m e be fo re ,i st ill ha ve a go od fe el in g to w ar ds hi m /h er . f1 5) [.1 2, .2 9] .2 1 [.7 9, .8 7] .8 3 [-. 11 ,. 11 ] .0 2 [.0 5, .2 4] .1 4 ia m no w fri en dl y to hi m /h er . f1 6) [.0 8, .2 6] .1 7 [.8 1, .8 9] .8 6 [-. 09 ,. 13 ] .0 4 [-. 01 ,. 18 ] .0 9 if he /s he ne ed s he lp ,i w ill no th es ita te to of fe rm y as si st an ce . f1 7) [-. 06 ,. 17 ] .0 6 [.5 5, .7 5] .6 7 [-. 19 ,. 09 ] -.0 8 [.1 8, .4 3] .2 9 w he n ir un in to hi m /h er ,i try to ac ta s if id id no ts ee hi m /h er .() f1 8) [.3 0, .6 1] .4 8 [.1 5, .4 2] .2 9 [.0 7, .4 5] .2 5 [.1 0, .3 7] .2 2 it is no tb en ef ic ia li fi st ill re m ai n un fo rg iv in g an d ho ld a gr ud ge ag ai ns th im /h er . f1 9) [.7 9, .8 8] .8 4 [.0 7, .2 8] .1 7 [-. 12 ,. 01 ] .0 0 [-. 02 ,. 12 ] .0 5 ib el ie ve th at fo rg iv in g to w ar ds hi m /h er is a hi gh es tm er it. f2 0) [.7 8, .8 9] .8 5 [.1 5, .3 4] .2 4 [-. 00 ,. 20 ] .0 9 [.0 3, .1 9] .1 1 ib el ie ve th at th e be st gi vi ng is to fo rg iv e hi m /h er fo rw ha th e/ sh e ha d do ne to m e. f2 1) [.7 5, .8 6] .8 1 [.0 4, .2 4] .1 4 [.0 6, .2 8] .1 6 [.0 2, .2 0] .1 1 ib el ie ve th at by fo rg iv in g hi m /h er ,i w ou ld fin d w ho le so m e th in gs in m y lif e. f2 2) [.7 2, .8 7] .8 1 [-. 16 ,. 07 ] -.0 3 [-. 01 ,. 20 ] .0 9 [-. 13 ,. 07 ] -.0 2 ib el ie ve th at fo rg iv en es s is do in g a m er it to m ys el f. f2 3) n ot e. (-) in di ca te s a ne ga tiv e ite m ,f ac to rl oa di ng s la rg er th an 0. 3 in sa m pl e da ta ar e in bo ld ,o ve rc om in g n eg at iv e th ou gh ta nd fe el in g to w ar ds th e o ffe nd er (f1 to f6 ), se ek in g to u nd er st an d th e o ffe nd er ’s r ea so ns (f7 to f1 0) ,f os te rin g p os iti ve a pp ro ac he s to w ar ds th e o ffe nd er (f1 1 to f1 8) ,a nd b el ie fi n th e b en ef its of fo rg iv en es s (f1 9 to f2 3) . europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 325 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlation coefficients, reliability, mean, and standard deviations of measures 13121110987654321variables overall wfs1. .89)( on2. .85)(.75** sr3. .68)(.04.45** fp4. .87)(.24**.55**.87** bb5. .85)(.42**.29**.27**.66** specific-offense forgiveness6. .83)(.40**.53**.12*.63**.64** dispositional forgiveness7. .67)(.64**.46**.52**.25**.49**.63** (-)state forgiveness8. .49**.56**.33**.53**.08.50**.56** positive affect9. .91)(.21**.22**.25**.25**.06.14**.12*.18** negative affect10. .70)(.12*-.10-.21**-.32**-.08-.09-.01.25**-.17**willingness to reconcile11. .86)(.05-.11*.41**.38**.43**.22**.62**.16**.37**.54** rumination12. .88)(.14**-.35**.17**-.40**-.40**-.64**-.22**-.26**-.07.50**-.37**seeking revenge13. .95)(.59**.41**-.21**.16**-.47**-.62**-.63**-.32**-.50**-.13*-.43**-.53**mean .132.482.043.302.903.903.075.403.015.154.324.923.304 sd .890.790.830.630.720.930.880.500.790.820.800.920.600 note: cronbach’s alphas were shown in parentheses, state forgiveness has one item. wfs = workplace forgiveness scale. *p < .05. **p < .01. bootstrapping the results from exploratory factor analysis bootstrapping is an effective statistical method for examining the stability and replicability of results (guthrie, 2001). several researchers proposed bootstrap methods to confirm the results from factor analysis (raykov & little, 1999; timmerman et al., 2007; zientek, 2006; zientek &thompson, 2007).we first aimed to investigate the internal replicability of the number of factors and whether the bootstrapped result yielded four factors. hence, the bootstrapped eigenvalue employed by zientek and thompson (2007) was conducted to assure the correct number of factors to retain. using a thousand resamples of bootstrapping, we generated the mean eigenvalues for each factor and created a distribution resulting in the standard deviations being the estimated standard error of the eigenvalues (thompson, 1996). consequently, the estimates can determine whether the mean of bootstrapped eigenvalues is greater than 1 and whether the ses of mean bootstrapped eigenvalues are large or small (zientek & thompson, 2007). bootstrapped ses provide the researchers with the concept of stability of the eigenvalues over a thousand times of resampling (guthrie, 2001), representing the internal replicability of the number of factors to retain. figure 1 showed the plots of empirically estimated sampling distributions for the eigenvalues. the first eigenvalue was 7.43, ranging from 6.27 to 9.03 (95% ci [6.61, 8.32]). the second eigenvalue was 2.99, ranging from 2.38 to 3.64 (95% ci [2.60, 3.39]). the third eigenvalue was 1.98, ranging from 1.50 to 2.67 (95% ci [1.66, 2.38]). the fourth eigenvalue was 1.59, ranging from 1.25 to 1.99 (95% ci [1.37, 1.83]). of particular notice was the ambiguous result from the fifth eigenvalue. the sample estimate showed the fifth eigenvalue was lower than 1 (0.97) but the mean bootstrapped estimate was 1.05, raising uncertainty about this factor. zientek (2006) suggests using the range of estimates to decide on factor extraction. the fifth eigenvalue ranged from .86 to 1.40. of the 1000 resampling results, 23.80 percent of the fifth eigenvalue were smaller than one. moreover, 95% percentile confidence interval was .92 to 1.96 indicating the lower level of confidence interval was less than 1. therefore, we were not confident with the fifth factor and concluded that a four factor model of forgiveness was more stable. consequently, the bootstrap findings confirmed the results from efa, representing good replicability of the four factors model of the 23-items of the workplace forgiveness scale. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 326 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. empirically estimated sampling distribution of the 23 eigenvalues. procrustes rotation of factor loading matrix was then implemented to obtain cis for loadings in efa, generalizing the sample results across samples as zientek and thompson (2007) suggest that any other rotation solutions may show incorrect results. the optimal interpretability of the procrustes approach using a target matrix in order to conduct the bootstrapping on the component loading, resulted in better cis performance (timmerman et al., 2007). for the present study, the target matrix was created, as a prior given loading matrix, from the sample factor loading matrix of 23-items. we followed the approach obtaining bootstrap procrustes confidence interval from timmerman et al. (2007). each bootstrap loading matrix was rotated using orthogonal procrustes rotation (cliff, 1966) with fixed four components. results from 1000 bootstrappings achieved an empirically estimated distribution, where cis were estimated. the coverage of bootstrap cis on sample factor loading determined the stability of the sample estimates across the samples. results revealed all of the sample’s factor loadings were covered by the corresponding lower and upper ends of 95 percent bca procrustes confidence intervals, and the lower cis of bootstrapped factor loadings are all over .30, indicating replicability and stability of the results of interpreted items from the sample efa (see table 1). moreover, with the four factors structure, bootstrapped 95% confidence interval for the proportion of explained variance ranged from .56 to .62, covering the explained variance from the sample (.5995). as a result, we concluded that the 23 items of the forgiveness scale would be stable if a new sample was obtained, yielding good internal replicability of the scale. reliability analyses two types of reliability analyses were implemented as recommended by gu, little, and kingston (2009). first is the internal consistency of alpha reliability coefficient (α; cronbach, 1951) and the second is raykov’s composite reliability (ρ; raykov, 1997), which structural equation modelling was used to provide more precise reliability estimate (fan, 2003). the reliability coefficients for the overall workplace forgiveness scale (α = .89; ρ = .88), factor i (α = .85; ρ = .86), factor iii (α = .87; ρ = .88), and factor iv(α = .85; ρ = .86) yielded good reliability. reliability europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ coefficient for factor ii was lower than .70, (α = .68; ρ = .69), nevertheless, it was deemed satisfactory (α between .60 .70) as mentioned by aiken (2000). evidence of construct validity construct validity of a scale refers to the extent to which the scale measures a particular construct or psychological concept (aiken, 2000). to examining construct validity requires a complex process, determining a variety of evidence to assess the extent to which scores on quantitative scales reveal the respondent’s standing on the construct of interest (hoyt, warbasse, & chu, 2006). convergent validity. campbell and fiske (1959) suggested that evidence of convergent validation should be employed to reveal construct validity. when the score on the given scale correlates moderately or highly with score on the theoretically concerned construct, this identifies as convergent validity. in the scale development process, it is important to demonstrate convergent validity of a measure with other instruments that have known properties (anastasi, 1988; cronbach & meehl, 1955). we would like to answer thus the question of whether the 23-items of the forgiveness scale correlate or converge with other standard measures of the forgiveness construct. to assess this validity, we created the mean of the composite score of 23-items representing the workplace forgiveness scale. this score is then expected to be positively correlated with three other forgiveness measures, specific-offensive forgiveness (rye et al., 2001), dispositional forgiveness (yamhure-thompson & snyder, 2003), and the single item of state forgiveness. results revealed satisfactory evidence of convergent validity for the workplace forgiveness scale. scores from the workplace forgiveness scale were positively associated with specific-offensive forgiveness (r = .64, p < .01), indicating that participants rating themselves highly on theworkplace forgiveness scale tend to forgive on the specific-offensive scale as well. the workplace forgiveness scale was positively associated with dispositional forgiveness (r = .63, p < .01), indicating that the person who has a high score on this scale is likely to forgive others in general. theworkplace forgiveness scale was positively correlated with state forgiveness (r = .56, p < .01), indicating that individuals who have a high score on the forgiveness scale tend to rate higher on their decision to forgive their offender within their specific work relationship conflict. moreover, the bootstrapped correlation coefficients of 2,000 resamples revealed that all the empirical estimates of standard error were small (ranged from .03 to .04) and the bca 95% confidence interval analysis yielded the moderate positive correlations between the workplace forgiveness scale and specific-offensive forgiveness (.57, .71) for the workplace forgiveness scale and dispositional forgiveness (.55, .70), and for the workplace forgiveness scale and state forgiveness (.47, .63). these bootstrap results revealed the stability of convergent validity of the workplace forgiveness scale across the samples. the findings provide initial evidence of the convergent property of the workplace forgiveness scale with two psychometrically sound instruments measuring forgiveness and a single item of state forgiveness representing the consistency between the score on multi-items measure of forgiveness and specific decision on forgiveness towards the offender, yielding similar results to those found bymccullough et al. (1998). discriminant validity. as mentioned by churchill and iacobucci (2002), we predicted that the score on the workplace forgiveness scale would not be highly correlated with the panasmeasure, based on previous research. small correlations were found with the measure of positive affect (r = .18, p < .01) and the measure of negative affect (r = -.17, p < .01). the bootstrapped correlation coefficients 2,000 resamples revealed that all the empirically estimates of standard error were small (.05 and .06, respectively) and the bca 95% confidence interval analysis yielded the small correlations between theworkplace forgiveness scale and positive affect (.05, .31), theworkplace forgiveness scale and negative affect (-.27, -.07). the finding of discriminant evidence is consistent withmccullough europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 328 http://www.psychopen.eu/ et al. (1998), who examined the discriminant validity of the offense-specific forgiveness scale (trim) with positive and negative affect. nomological validity. researchers must achieve a nomological network linkage between the construct intended to be validated and other variables, which have been proven theoretically related (cronbach & meehl, 1955). “nomological validity”, as presented in viswanathan (2005) and hair et al. (2006), refers to the structural relationship model of the specified construct and related variables. we would like thus to answer the question of whether the forgiveness construct behaves in a theoretically expected way. two mediation models were proposed to examine the theoretical network of the forgiveness construct and other psychological constructs. the first mediationmodel hypothesised that dispositional forgiveness would be positively associated with forgiveness for the specific-offensive event (koutsos,wertheim, & kornblum, 2008;wade &worthington, 2003) and the increase of forgiveness would then contribute to a willingness to reconcile with the offender (aquino et al., 2003). we conducted mediation analysis following the steps suggested by frazier, tix, and barron (2004), conducting three regression analyses. in the first analysis, willingness to reconcile was regressed on dispositional forgiveness achieving the coefficient corresponding to path c in table 3. the unstandardized regression coefficients of path c was .36 (p < .01). the second step was that forgiveness, as the mediator variable, was regressed on dispositional forgiveness to obtain the regression coefficient for path a. the unstandardized regression coefficients for path awas .43 (p < .01). in the third step, willingness to reconcile was regressed simultaneously on both forgiveness and dispositional forgiveness. this analysis provided the unstandardized regression coefficients for path b and path c′. these were .69 (p < .01) and .06, respectively. the unstandardized regression coefficients were divided by the standard error yielding a z statistic that could be used for statistical significance in the normal theory approach (frazier et al., 2004). results shown path a, b, and c were satisfied, critical ratio values were 15.32, 8.66 and 7.10, respectively. however, the regression coefficient of c′ was relatively small and did not reach significance due to the critical ratio being 1.05. table 3 evidence of nomological validity by testing two mediation models with forgiveness as a mediator bootstrapbca95%confidence intervalbootstrap estimatesample regression result path/effect upperlowerseb first mediation model (dfg → fg → reconcile) c (dfg → reconcile) .45.26.05(.38).35.05(.38).36** a (dfg → fg) .49.36.03(.63).43.03(.63).43** b (fg → reconcile) .88.49.10(.50).69.08(.50).69** c′ .20.07-.07(.06).06.05(.06).06 a x b .40.20.05(.32).30.04(.32).30** second mediation model (rumi → fg → revenge) c (rumi → revenge) .78.54.06(.59).67.05(.59).67** a (rumi → fg) .19-.37-.05(-.37)-.28.04(-.37)-.28** b (fg → revenge) .36-.72-.09(-.36)-.53.06(-.36)-.54** c′ .65.39.07(.46).52.04(.46).52** a x b .22.10.04(.13).15.03(.13).15** note. standardised estimates are in the round brackets, dfg = dispositional forgiveness, reconcile = willingness to reconcile, rumi = rumination, revenge = seeking revenge, fg = forgiveness (as measured by the workplace forgiveness scale in this study). **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 329 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to examine the indirect effect of dispositional forgiveness on willingness to reconcile, the unstandardized regression coefficient of a was multiplied by b resulting a x b was .30 and the standard error of a x b was calculated followed by baron and kenny (1986) using where sa was the standard error of a and sb was the standard error of b. using this formula, standard error of a x b was .04. the critical ratio of a x b was 7.62 indicating statistical significance and that mediation had occurred. on the basis of this method, we concluded that the indirect effect of dispositional forgiveness on willingness to reconcile was mediated by forgiveness. finally, to investigate the mediator role of forgiveness, the regression coefficient of c and c′ were compared (frazier et al., 2004). the relation between dispositional forgiveness and willingness to reconcile (c′) did not differ from zero, or was not significant, after forgiveness was included in the model. this result yielded the fully mediating role of forgiveness on the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and willingness to reconcile. in order to examine the internal replicability of the sample results, we conducted the bootstrap method of mediation analysis described by mallinckrodt, abraham, wei, and russell (2006), using the amos program. the bootstrap option was selected requesting 2,000 resamples with bca 95% percentile confidence interval. the result showed that the means of bootstrapped estimates ( ) slightly differed from the sample estimates (see table 3). the means standard error of estimates based on 2,000 empirical samples were relatively small. the means of estimate (and means of standard error) of the bootstrapping were â = .43 (.03), = .69 (.10), ĉ = .35 (.05), and ĉ′ = .06 (.07). the bootstrap 95% confidence interval excluded zero for a, b, and c, achieving statistically significance by conventional standards (shrout & bolger, 2002). the 95% confidence interval for a x b ranged from .20 and .40, indicating that the indirect effect was occurring. the 95% confidence interval of c′ was around -.07 to .20 with the range of ci including zero, showing forgiveness played a fully mediating role in the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and willingness to reconcile. results from the bootstrapping supported the stability of themediation analysis results across the samples. investigating the second nomological network of the forgiveness construct, we hypothesised that rumination would be negatively related to forgiveness for the specific-offensive event (burnette, davis, green, worthington, & bradfield, 2009; greenberg, 1995; mccullough, bono, & root, 2007) and that it is this lack of forgiveness that contributes to the intention to seek to take revenge on the offender (mccullough, bellah, kilpatrick, & johnson, 2001). a mediation model with forgiveness as a mediator between rumination and seeking revenge was tested (see table 3). in the first analysis, seeking revenge was regressed on rumination achieving the coefficient corresponding to path c. the unstandardized regression coefficient of path c was .67 (p < .01). the second step was that forgiveness, as the mediator variable, was regressed on rumination to obtain the unstandardized regression coefficient for path a, which was -.28 (p < .01). in the third step, seeking revenge was regressed simultaneously on both forgiveness and rumination. this analysis provided the unstandardized regression coefficients for path b and c′. these were -.54 (p < .01) and .52 (p < .01), respectively. results shown path a, b, c, c′ were statistical significance, critical ratio values were -7.36, -8.52, 13.36, and 10.79, respectively. regarding the indirect effect of rumination on seeking revenge, the unstandardised regression coefficient of a x bwas .15 and the standard error of a x bwas .03. the critical ratio of a x bwas 5.56 indicating statistical significance and indicating that mediation had occurred. on the basis of this method, we concluded that the indirect effect of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 330 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rumination on seeking revenge was mediated by forgiveness. to investigate the mediator role of forgiveness, the relation between rumination and seeking revenge (c′) was smaller with statistical significance at .01 level, after forgiveness was included in the model. this result yielded the partial mediator role of forgiveness on the relationship between rumination and seeking revenge. bootstrapping the secondmediationmodel was undertaken and the results show that themeans of the bootstrapped estimates ( ) slightly differed from the sample estimates. the means of the estimate (and means of standard error) of the bootstrapping were â = -.28 (.05), = -.53 (.09), ĉ = .67 (.06), and ĉ′ = .52 (.07). the bootstrap 95% confidence interval excluded zero for a, b, c, and c′ achieving the statistical significance by conventional standards. the 95% confidence interval for a x b ranged from .10 and .22, indicating that the indirect effect was occurring. the 95% confidence interval of c′was around .39 to .65 which excluded zero, showing forgiveness played a partial mediating role in the relationship between rumination and seeking revenge. results from the bootstrapping yielded the stability of mediation analysis results across the samples. in conclusion, results from two mediation analyses yielded empirical evidence representing the good nomological validity of the scale. using both the convergent validity evidence and nomological validity evidence, we could be confident that the forgiveness construct measured by the 23-items of the forgiveness scale developed in this study is psychometrically sound, achieving construct validity. moreover, results from the bootstrapping also showed internal replicability thus assuring the stability of the results across samples. discussion achieving a psychometrically sound scale designed to measure forgiveness in workplace relationships within a buddhist culture will provide the means for further research in this context. a four-factor underlying structure of forgiveness emerged from an exploratory factor analysis as representing the forgiveness construct empirically identified by thai professional nurses within their work situation. these are overcoming negative thought and feeling towards the offender, seeking to understand the offender’s reasons, fostering positive approaches towards the offender, and belief in the benefits of forgiveness. this finding confirms the definition of forgiveness that emerged from boonyarit et al. (2012) where forgiveness was seen as an individuals’ readiness to overcome their negative thoughts and emotions, attempting to relinquish their negative judgment, and instead offering more positive views, feelings, and acts towards the offender. the first factor, overcoming negative thought and feeling towards the offender is consistent with the concept as described in the existing literature (aquino et al., 2003; enright & coyle, 1998; mccullough et al., 2000;worthington, 1998) in that, when individuals forgive people who hurt them, they try to overcome their destructive thoughts and let go of their negative feeling such as resentment, anger, hostility towards the offenders. fostering positive approaches towards the offender is also consistent with ideas from previous literature (enright & coyle, 1998; hargrave & sell, 1997; mccullough et al., 2000; worthington, 1998) which infer that forgiveness is a prosocial change in one’s view, feeling, and action towards an offending relationship partner. the individual offers more positive thoughts and feelings, empathy, and continues to act in a friendly manner with their offender. furthermore, the factor identified as seeking to understand the offender’s reasons is consistent with a step within the work phase of forgiveness mentioned by enright, freedman, and rique (1998). after being hurt, individuals attempt to understand the offender’s reasons such as their personal issues and present pressures. this factor is an instrumental dimension of forgiveness, involving relinquishing blame towards the offender. the final factor, belief in the benefits europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 331 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of forgiveness, is a combination of awareness of the benefits of forgiveness and forgiveness as buddhist beliefs, as found in boonyarit et al. (2012). this factor is seen to be salient representing both the prosocial motivation of forgiveness as suggested by mccullough, worthington, and rachal (1997) and the influence of buddhist culture on the forgiveness concept among the participants (rye et al., 2000). it demonstrates that individuals foresee the positive consequences of forgiveness as being a good choice in dealing with their relationships, and it is consistent with buddhist beliefs about individuals forgiving others as doing a good merit or positive karma (phra brahmagunabhorn, 2007). evidence of nomological validity from the two mediation analyses revealed the theoretical network of forgiveness. specific offensive forgiveness, as measured by the 23-items scale, was positively related to dispositional forgiveness, consistent with findings from wade and worthington (2003), and koutsos et al. (2008). moreover, it was positively correlated with willingness to reconcile. this result confirms the concept of forgiveness and its consequences in the workplace suggested by aquino et al. (2003): increasing forgiveness would contribute to maintain work relationships. the fully mediating role of specific offense forgiveness on the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and willingness to reconcile reveals the systematic interplay between dispositional forgiveness, specific offensive forgiveness, and reconciliation as theorised by mccullough et al. (1998). according to their proposition, dispositional or trait forgiveness is the distal determinant facilitating forgiving towards the offender in casual chains, then forgiving in relational offenses might contribute to restore the relationship between conflicting partners, being as identified as a willingness to reconcile in this study. the distal role of dispositional variables in the forgiveness mediation process (mccullough et al., 1998; shrout & bolger, 2002) yields answers as to why the relationship between dispositional forgiveness and willing to reconcile becomes smaller and not significant after including specific offensive forgiveness in the model. the second nomological network evidence shows the negative relationship between rumination and forgiveness in the specific offensive event, being consistent with previous findings from burnette et al. (2009), greenberg (1995), and mccullough et al. (2007) that rumination is negatively related to an individual’s decision to forgive the offender. forgiveness was negatively related to the intention to seek revenge against the offender. this is consistent with the correlation results found from mccullough et al. (2001). the partial mediating role of specific offense forgiveness on the relationship between rumination and seeking revenge reveals the linkage between rumination, specific offensive forgiveness, and seeking revenge. in the causal chain described by mccullough et al. (1998), rumination is the social-cognitive determinant of forgiving specific relationship partners. repetitive thought about the offensive event is the most proximal predictor of forgiveness, more rumination results and less forgiveness towards the offender. moreover, individuals who cognitively ruminate about the event also maintain their motivation to seek revenge towards his or her wrongdoer. the proximal relationship between rumination and forgiveness, and rumination and seeking revenge might yield the partial mediating role of forgiveness in this model. implications the findings from this research provide a deeper understanding of workplace related forgiveness. the efa revealed that four factors related to workplace forgiveness can be established. factor i, ii, and iii seem to be consistent with the forgiveness’ subscales in the western measures. however, the last factor, belief in the benefits of forgiveness, demonstrated buddhist thai views of forgiveness as having benefits and positive gains for the individual granting forgiveness. the motivational concept of workplace forgiveness thus revealed the role of culture in the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 332 http://www.psychopen.eu/ forgiveness process within a work context. further research should clarify how culture and buddhist belief shape people’s cognition and behaviour regarding forgiveness and coping with conflict at work. the practical implication is that the workplace forgiveness scale can be used by counselors or human resource coaches as a tool whenever they consider forgiveness a constructive way of coping with an interpersonal conflict. this measure illustrates clients’ cognition, affects, and behavior towards the offenders and gives them a measure of the current level of forgiveness. by using this measure coupled with forgiveness counseling, the clients’ progress towards forgiveness can be assessed. moreover, the results of the present study have implications for future research. confirmatory factor analysis should be implemented in order to validate the underlying structure resulting from the exploratory factor analysis, confirming the construct validity of the four factors model of forgiveness derived from the scale. given the limitation of a single sample analysis of the results, research in additional healthcare or other work contexts should be conducted. further studies with different work populations are required to assess the generalizability of the measure. moreover, in the present study, we conducted an internal replicability using the bootstrap method. this provides evidence of the stable psychometric properties of the forgiveness scale; however, it is not a true replication analysis. further external replicability (thompson, 1994) should be implemented by collecting data from a new sample. this notwithstanding, to extend the nomological network of the forgiveness construct within the work context, future research should include more work-related variables. for instance, further research should examine the role of work related socio-cultural factors such as seniority and the status of the offender in the decision to forgive, the constructive or non-constructive behaviours related to forgiveness or un-forgiveness, the work outcomes resulting from forgiveness such as performance, cohesiveness, and team climate. a final limitation of this research is that participants were mostly female nurses; future research should compare the differences in granting forgiveness between female and male employees. funding the authors would like to thank the office of the higher education commission, thailand, for supporting by grant fund under the program strategic scholarships for frontier research network for the joint ph.d. program, thai doctoral degree, for this research. references aiken, l. r. 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(2007). applying bootstrap to the multivariate case: bootstrap component/factor analysis. behavior research methods, 39(2), 318-325. doi:10.3758/bf03193163 about the authors dr. itsara boonyarit is a lecturer at division of psychology and postgraduate committee in industrial and organizational psychology program, faculty of humanities, chiangmai university. his research interests include applying positive psychology to work context, buddhist psychology, psychology of risk, psychometrics, and organizational psychology. dr.wiladlak chuawanlee is an assistant professor (retired) and former director, behavioral science research institute, srinakharinwirot university, thailand. her primary interests focus on both psychology of work and educational psychology. dr.annmacaskill is a professor of health psychology and head of research ethics at sheffield hallam university. she is a registered practitioner health psychologist with the health professions council, uk, a qualified psychotherapist, and a principal fellow of the uk higher education academy. her research interests are in individual differences mainly in health and well-being, positive psychology and psychometrics. she has published over fifty peer reviewed journal articles, eight book chapters, a widely used textbook on individual differences, and a selfhelp book on forgiveness. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 boonyarit, chuawanlee, macaskill et al. 337 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jm.2003.01.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.419 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2003.tb00261.x http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03193163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dr. numchai supparerkchaisakul is a chair of doctoral program, behavioral science research institute, srinakharinwirot university, thailand, where he mainly teaches research methodology and statistics. his research interests include multilevel analysis of leadership and corporate image through societal marketing. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 319–338 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.551 workplace forgiveness scale 338 http://www.psychopen.eu/ workplace forgiveness scale (introduction) the current study method measures results discussion implications funding references about the authors exploring the relationship between honesty-humility, the big five, and liberal values in swedish students research reports exploring the relationship between honesty-humility, the big five, and liberal values in swedish students petri j. kajonius*a, anna m. dådermana [a] department of social and behavioural studies, division of psychology and organizational studies, university west, trollhättan, sweden. abstract previous research on the five-factor model (big five) reports a relationship between personality traits and liberal values, and the trait agreeableness has demonstrated the strongest relationship. the hexaco model offers a complement to the five-factor model with an additional sixth trait of honesty-humility. previous research on the honesty-humility trait has reported mixed results with liberal values, and this study set out to resolve this. the work presented here explored the relationship between the honesty-humility trait on facet-level (sincerity, fairness, greed-avoidance and modesty) and liberal values (equality for women, minorities, and socio-economical groups). data from swedish students (n = 202), known for their individualistic and liberal mindset, were sampled. there was an overall positive correlation between honesty-humility and the strength of liberal values (r = .36), and honesty-humility predicted liberal values beyond agreeableness. we discuss these results in terms of the significance of traits and values in a culture that promotes both individualism and equality. keywords: honesty-humility, hexaco, big five, greed-avoidance, liberalism europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 received: 2013-08-05. accepted: 2014-01-19. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: division of psychology and organizational studies, department of social and behavioural studies, university west, sweden, se 461 86. e-mail: petri.kajonius@hv.se this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. sweden is among the highest-ranking nations in the world when it comes to both cultural individualism and social mobility, being placed before the us and the uk (hofstede, 2001; jäntti et al., 2006). this relates to a strong focus on equality, which is a core value in liberalism. one of the manifestations of individualism is putting oneself before others, while equality is the political value that sets the limits of individual freedom (hofstede, 2001). parallel with the increase of individualism and equality in europe, research on individual personality traits has been undergoing a ‘renaissance’ in the 21st century, and many psychologists have taken a new interest in the field (mischel, 2009). the predictive value of individuals’ personality traits on occupational success and income is, in an individualistic society, even stronger than that of the most used measures, socio-economic status (ses) (roberts, kuncel, shiner, caspi, & goldberg, 2007). personality traits not only predict behavior but also consistently overlap with values such as political orientations (sibley, osborne, & duckitt, 2012). the most well-known and widely used model in personality research is the big five model with its dimensions of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (costa & mccrae, 1992). the big five predicts outcomes and values (paunonen & ashton, 2001), and is a useful way of categorizing personality. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ leikas, verkasalo, and lönnqvist (2013) reported reasonable accuracy when comparing the big five scores of people with others’ evaluations of them, just by studying photographs. however, the predictive value of the big five on specific behaviors and attitudes is often found to be weak (paunonen & ashton, 2001). hexaco is a similar model to the big five, also constructed through psycho-lexical research and established by factor analysis (ashton & lee, 2005). it is quickly becoming widely recognized in high ranking psychology journals in the field of personality research (aghababaei & arji, 2014). hexaco is the acronym for honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. notably it differs from the big five by its additional sixth trait, honesty-humility (ashton & lee, 2008a). the sixth factor, honestyhumility, has been found lexically in several languages, including german, hungarian, korean, polish, and italian (ashton, lee, & son, 2000). different studies show that the hexacomodel adds 5 15%more explained variance than the big five on various behaviors (ashton & lee, 2008a). however, honesty-humility generally correlates with behaviors that involve deceit, self-monitoring and individualistic gains (ashton et al., 2000). personality-related scales manifesting exploitative behaviors such as machiavellianism or psychopathic personality traits are known to correlate negatively with agreeableness and honesty-humility (jakobwitz & egan, 2006). the difference between agreeableness and honesty-humility has been studied by hilbig, zettler, leist, and heydasch (2013) who suggested that honestyhumility is a more active trait, such as taking initiative to exploitation or cooperation, while agreeableness is a more reactive trait. seeing its predictive validity in relation to a large array of behaviors (ashton & lee, 2005), honesty-humility is suggested to capture an active, egotistical part of personality, which the big five misses (de vries, de vries, de hoogh, & feij, 2009). we argue that honesty-humility captures a more conniving and selfpromoting trait than the everyday behaviors towards others captured in agreeableness. honesty-humility: a key-trait in modern society this line of research is important for understanding how the structure of personality is organized and for increasing the knowledge of how traits interact with values and behaviors. this is particularly interesting to understand in an individualistic culture, such as the swedish one. research in social psychology has consistently shown, through meta-studies over the past century, that personality-traits and individual differences grow in importance with increase in individual freedom (richard, bond, & stokes-zoota, 2003). judge, hurst, and simon (2009) reported that personality traits in students are a better predictor of their future income and finances than their educational achievement. the honesty-humility trait is of particular interest seeing how deceit and ambition are an intricate part of our personal and professional careers. image-management is a more important skill than ever and people generally are no better than chance in exposing deceit (bond & depaulo, 2006). a culture of individualism will only accentuate the impact of personality (strenze, 2007). we thus suggest that honesty-humility in the swedish culture is an important measure of personality. honesty-humility is a one dimensional scale with four facets, hypothesized to capture additional variance for behavioral effects of personality (ashton & lee, 2008b). sincerity indicates the tendency to be truthful and non-manipulative, fairness the tendency to follow principles of integrity with everyone’s best in mind, greed-avoidance the prioritizing of luxuries and the comforts of life, and modesty indicates sentiments of entitlement and superiority. each facet is scaled on a continuum, and scores on these facets are normally distributed (ashton & lee, 2008b). the research shows that people who score low on honesty-humility tend to exploit other people; their actions often involve deceiving, cheating, and manipulative self-promotion (lee, ashton, ogunfowora, bourdage, & shin, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 kajonius & dåderman 105 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2010; marcus, lee, & ashton, 2007). they tend to flatter, to cut corners, and to make sure that their efforts are seen. further research proposes that ambitious and seemingly arrogant individuals have an advantage and perform well in individualistic and competitive environments (feist, 1993). certain types of performance correlate well with low honesty-humility. batey and furnham (2006) presented in a review a negative correlation between individual creativity and traits similar to honesty and humility. we suggest, together with ashton and lee (2005), that even though honesty-humility correlates well with the big five-dimension of agreeableness (r = .54) it does not capture the tendency to exploit others or indulge in adroitness, nor the disposition for pleasure and materialistic comfort, and we also propose that these dispositions correlate with various values and behaviors in many of today’s societies, due to increased individual freedoms (richard et al., 2003). this sixth trait relates more to what is known as the “dark triad” of personality, which consist of narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy (paulhus & williams, 2002). there is evidence that low honestyhumility is the key-trait overlapping all three dimensions of the dark triad (lee, ashton, wiltshire, et al., 2013). de vries and van gelder (2013) reported for instance that honesty-humility was the most consistent predictor of delinquency. also, lighter behavior such as sarcastic and aggressive humor has a negative relationship with this trait (veselka et al., 2010). the premise is that a further investigating of this trait would expand our understanding of how personality traits predict life outcomes. honesty-humility and liberal values sibley and duckitt (2008) reported that people in western europe generally prefer liberalism over conservative values. liberalism in this regard is the striving for equal rights and equal opportunities for all individuals and groups in society. one of the most prominent features of the individualistic culture in sweden is its striving for equality (hofstede, 2001). these values emphasize individuals’ rights, and stress the importance of equality in opportunities between sexes, between ethnic groups, and equality between socio-economic groups. this cultural value of equality is considered the key component of liberalism in this study. this is the opposite of holding traditional, conservative values, and liberalism is especially common among young people (jäntti et al., 2006), which should make swedish students an appropriate sample to study. if the honesty-humility trait captures the tendency to focus on self, this should be evident when correlated with liberal values, and consequently students low on honestyhumility should have lower liberal values. such a finding among swedish students would strengthen previous research results considerably. altemeyer’s (1981) right-wing authoritarianism (rwa) was shown to correlate negatively with honesty-humility (chirumbolo & leone, 2010). the core value captured by the rwa is the disposition towards traditional (nonprogressive) values, being submissive to authority figures, and acting aggressively towards outgroups. a metaanalysis (k = 31) carried out by sibley and duckitt (2008) showed that rwa is predicted by the big five, particularly by showing a negative relationship with openness. it is possible that honesty-humility reveals a personality-type that is open or closed, caring or non-caring to the experiences of others, and that this in turn translates into liberal values. note that liberalism is a sub-facet of openness in the goldberg’s ipip (1990). another scale that ties into values of liberalism is the social dominance orientation-scale (sdo; pratto, sidanius, stallworth, & malle, 1994). characteristic of someone scoring low in sdo is the general opposition to social hierarchies and the dislike for having privileges at other people’s expense. sdo has also been reported to correlate negatively with honestyhumility (lee et al., 2010; sibley, harding, perry, asbrock, & duckitt, 2010). in the very few scandinavian studies carried out with swedish university students, only the big five has been used (ekehammar, akrami, gylje, & zakrisson, 2004). they found that tender-mindedness, which is a sub-facet of agreeableness in the big five, was europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 honesty-humility and liberal values 106 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the most strongly correlated (r = -.60) with sdo. they also confirmed the often found gender-differences in the big five, with women scoring higher on agreeableness. furthermore, sdo and rwa correlate with each other and heaven and bucci (2001) determined the strength of the relationship to be moderate (r = .38). another study by van lange, bekkers, chirumbolo, and leone (2012) reported that non-liberals have a more individualistic and competitive personality, which should be expressed in higher sdo, and thus lower honesty-humility. sibley et al. (2010) argue, however, that honesty-humility correlates positively with rwa, given the motivation of high honesty-humility people to look after social cohesion and collective security, thus holding conservative values. with the swedish sample, we expect that the motive to look after and to be tolerant towards weaker groups in society will be more prevalent than the motive of looking after social cohesion. we thus support a hypothesis of honesty-humility correlating positively with liberal values. research purpose the first aim of this study was to determine whether honesty-humility personality facets are positively correlated with liberal values. research on this has shown conflicting results (chirumbolo & leone, 2010; sibley et al., 2010). the second aim was to investigate whether honesty-humility is a better predictor than agreeableness of liberal values (lee et al., 2010). no previous examination of the relationship between honesty-humility and liberal values in a swedish sample has been published. furthermore, no recent study has compared the impact of honestyhumility and agreeableness on liberal values such as equality, in an increasingly individualistic culture such as the swedish one. personality factors are an important key to understanding values (e.g., heaven & bucci, 2001; van hiel, cornelis, & roets, 2007). the main hypothesis was that liberal values are positively correlated with the honesty-humility trait. the second hypothesis was that honesty-humility is a better predictor of liberal values than agreeableness. method participants the participants consisted of swedish university students (n = 202) representing an age-span of 18 56 years (m = 25.1, sd = 7.2). the group consisted of 59% women and 41% men. all were freshmen and none had any previous experience with higher education (university or college). measurements seeing how the focus was particularly the honesty-humility factor and its impact among students, the complete, original 40-item version focusing on the honesty-humility factor (ashton & lee, 2005) was administered (all six traits in the hexaco-pi make up 200 items). this was a preliminary swedish version, created straight from the original items in english with the help of a professional translator. the items were modified only by removing negations in all items that in the original english scale were reversed, thus aimed at simplifying the questionnaire for the participants. this modification procedure resulted in 0 numbers of reversed items in this swedish version. a small pilot interview tested the questionnaire on five students, and no items were changed after inquiring about the informants’ understanding. the items were presented with a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). low values indicate the negative side of the facet. example statements for each of the four facets were: i pretend to be more than i am (sincerity), i would take things that are not mine (fairness), i love luxury (greedavoidance), and i think i am better than other people (modesty). an example of a removed negation among these europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 kajonius & dåderman 107 http://www.psychopen.eu/ statements was: i don’t love luxury. descriptive statistics of the honesty-humility scale are presented in the result section. due to the rwaand sdo-scales being constructed primarily for us politics and rapidly growing obsolete in a changing modernity among young students, the swedish liberal values scale was constructed by the first author, inspired by yarkoni (2010). this was indexed by questions concerning values towards social equality for which swedish and european politics are renowned (sibley & duckitt, 2008). three areas and three corresponding items of focus were constructed, due to their prominence in swedish public debate: support for feminism (equality between sexes), support for minority groups (equality for ethnic groups), and support for resource distribution (equality between socio-economic groups). the following three statements comprise the swedish liberal values scale (see appendix): “i want to support the cause of feminism” (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree); “i think equality is among the most important political issues” (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). “i think distribution of resources is important” (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). low values of the scale indicate negative liberal values. the scale’s mean was 12.5 (sd = 3.5). cronbach’s alpha was .64 on the three items from the swedish liberal value’s scale (n = 195). seven participants did not complete this scale. skewness was -0.29 (se = 0.17), and kurtosis -0.20 (se 0.35). because the reliability in terms of internal consistency was poor and the number of items was below the number of eight, the mean inter-item correlations (briggs & cheek, 1986) were calculated. the mean inter-item correlation was .38 (values above .20 are considered acceptable). a pca factor analysis showed only one factor, explaining 58.6% of the variance. also, a short five-item version of the big five (single item per scale) was used (denissen, geenen, selfhout, & van aken, 2008; gosling, rentfrow, & swann, 2003). the purpose of this was to enable analysis of possible additional effects of honesty-humility on agreeableness. this short big five-version (fipi) had been validated and used in sweden before (juslin, liljeström, laukka, västfjäll, & lundqvist, 2011). procedure the students were registered for four different courses in introductory psychology, and were invited to voluntarily participate as part of regular classes and to experience taking a psychometric questionnaire. the data were collected at four different times and places, each time at the beginning of a class. the only information that was given was that they were to be presented with an anonymous personality test, and that they answer as candidly as possible for research-purposes. full anonymity was guaranteed in line with ethical concerns related to the sensitivity of answering honesty-humility items. afterwards, the participants were debriefed; the trait of honestyhumility and its sub-facets were discussed. results descriptive statistics of the honesty-humility scale in the present study, the honesty-humility-scale (n = 188) had a strong cronbach’s alpha of .88. skewness (s) was within the accepted boundaries, with a se of 0.18 on all facets, and kurtosis (k) had an se of 0.36 on all facets. the correlations between the facets and the total honesty-humility-trait is found in table 1. furthermore, facetlevel statistics for the mean values (m), standard deviations (sd), skewness, kurtosis, as well as values of cronbach’s alpha (α), are shown in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 honesty-humility and liberal values 108 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive analysis of honesty-humility and its facet 4321ksαsdm 1 sincerity .08.35-.67.94.335 2 fairness .46***.47-.31-.74.65.639 3 greed-avoidance .30***.36***.48-.05.73.75.027 4 modesty .46***.30*.26*.43-.03.84.76.429 5 honesty-humility .75***.74***.67***.66***.55-.09.88.04.832 note. see text for the description of variables. *p < .05. ***p < .001. honesty-humility and liberal values honesty-humility was positively correlated with liberal values (r = .36, 95% ci [.23, .47], p < 0.001), confirming the first hypothesis. after correction for attenuation, the value was .48. all facets of honesty-humility correlated positively with the liberal values scale, while the “facets” of this scale (feminism, minorities, and resources) showed varying effects in their relationships with honesty-humility, as reported in table 2. ‘resources’ was the facet of liberal values that had the strongest correlations with honesty-humility facets, and fairness was the factor in honesty-humility that had the strongest correlations with facets of liberal values (see table 2). table 2 correlations between honesty-humility and liberal values honesty-humilitymodestygreed-avoidancefairnesssincerity liberal values .36***.30***.21***.34***.19* feminism .12.07.02.23*.10 minorities .30***.19*.24***.18*.17* resources .46***.44***.26***.39***.20* note. see the text for the description of variables. *p < .05. ***p < .001. in order to further investigate the effects of the four facets of honesty-humility, a multiple linear regression was performed with liberal values as the dependent variable. the regression model reported f(4,181) = 8.22, p < .001, adjusted r2 = .14. the main predictor of significance on liberal values was fairness (β = .25, p = .002), followed by modesty (β = .20, p = .01), greed-avoidance (β = .04, p = .59) and sincerity (β = .03, p = .67) had no significant impact. the big five and liberal values as expected, only agreeableness in the big five had a positive correlation with all facets of honesty-humility, as seen in table 3. agreeableness had also a positive correlation with liberal values. in addition, conscientiousness showed a positive correlation with two facets of honesty-humility (sincerity and fairness), as well as with liberal values (table 3). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 kajonius & dåderman 109 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations between the big five, honesty-humility, and liberal values naeco sincerity .02-.19*.05-.16*.04 fairness .07.29***.12-.28***.11greed-avoidance .24***-.30*.22*-.04-.09modesty .03-.17*.03.02-.08honesty-humility .11-.31***.09-.09.06liberal values .06.23***.02-.16*.01 note. see text for the description of variables. o = openness; c = conscientiousness; e = extraversion; a = agreeableness; n = neuroticism. *p < .05. ***p < .001. does honesty-humility add to big five? a standard hierarchical two-step linear regression with the “enter” method was performed with the big five (step 1) and honesty-humility facets (step 2) as independent variables, and liberal values as the dependent variable. the independent variables were entered in two “blocks” in the order presented in table 4. the variables of the first block were facets of the big five. the first regression model reported f(5,172) = 3.01, p = .012, r2 change = .08. the only statistically significant predictor of liberal values was, as expected, agreeableness. the variables of the second block were facets of the honesty-humility; these were added to the first block. the second regression with both the big five and the honesty-humility facets reported f(9,168) = 5.00, p < .001, r2 change = .13. the only statistically significant predictors of liberal values were modesty and fairness, both considerably stronger than agreeableness. no multicollinearity were found (vif = 1.12 – 1.73, tolerance = 0.58 – 0.98). the second hypothesis that honesty-humility and its facets are more important predictors of liberal values than agreeableness was confirmed. see table 4 for a summary. table 4 summary of a hierarchical regression analysis of the big five and honesty-humility facets on liberal values block 2block 1 βsebβseb block 1 (big five) openness .01.29.03.04-.31.16conscientiousness .07.22.22.10.23.32 extraversion .01.28.05.09.29.05 agreeableness .09.32.39.23**.32.98** neuroticism .11.21.31.09.21.27 block 2 (honesty-humility) sincerity .03.06.02 fairness .22**.05.14** greed-avoidance .05.05.03 modesty .23**.04.12** note. see text for the description of variables. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 honesty-humility and liberal values 110 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sex differences no hypothesis was formulated around sex-differences and therefore an exploratory analysis was performed on all ten study variables. sex did not have a significant effect on liberal values, t(190) = 1.57, p = .12; however, women scored higher (m = 12.8, sd = 3.4) than men (m = 12.0, sd = 3.7). only statistically significant differences (p < .05), corrected with bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (.05/10 = .005), are reported below. an independent t-test revealed a significant sex difference in the greed-avoidance facet, t(186) = 4.72; women scored lower (m = 25.4, sd = 5.4) than men (m = 29.3, sd = 5.4), d = .95, 95% ci [0.47, 1.10]. another way to report this effect is that approximately 80% of the women had a lower greed-avoidance than the average man in the sample. women scored higher (m = 3.94, sd = 1.0) than men (m = 3.39; sd = 1.2) on conscientiousness, t(191) = 3.42, d = .47, 95% ci [0.18, 0.77], as well as on neuroticism (m = 3.39, sd = 1.2; m = 2.73, sd = 1.2), t(191) = 3.89, d = .72, 95% ci [0.43, 1.04]). discussion summarized, the results of this study showed that honesty-humility has a positive correlation with liberal values, which is in line with most previous research (chirumbolo & leone, 2010; lee et al., 2010; paunonen & ashton, 2001). people who score high on honesty-humility generally shun social hierarchies and put others before themselves; the correlations between the facets reflect this relationship. the results suggest that students that are set on making money and making a life for themselves (expressed in lower greed-avoidance) also have a lower concern for liberalism (equality). the study also suggests that people with high dispositions towards fairness and modesty tend to concern themselves with equality between social classes in particular. the inclination to share resources in a society depends on one’s disposition or personality traits. however, the lower correlations found between honesty-humility and rights for minorities could be seen as hesitancy to share resources with foreigners. this would be a confirmation of the previous conflicting research findings by sibley et al. (2010), who discuss the motive behind high rwa to be the protecting of existing social structures. the lowest correlations in our study were found between honesty-humility and feminism. this could be due to equality between sexes being interpreted as a non-issue by participants (an issue already solved by society), or that the concept of feminism comes with a slightly antagonistic connotation. personality and values agreeableness (and openness) has in previous research demonstrated to be significant for predicting political values (ekehammar et al., 2004; sibley & duckitt, 2008). this was also confirmed in our study (see table 3). we have additionally, with the regression analysis, shown that honesty-humility is an even more significant predictor of liberal values than the big five. there was a positive relationship between agreeableness, honesty-humility and liberal values. the results showed that agreeableness had no longer a significant correlation with liberal values when honesty-humility was introduced, which suggests a mediation effect. this relationship was not further analyzed using mediation analysis due to a lack of a reasonable solid theoretical ground to expect mediation (baron & kenny, 1986); that is, it was hard to argue that agreeableness causes honesty-humility. we did not test the mediational model, but the finding has an important theoretical implication suggesting that honesty-humility is a very important trait for understanding the link between personality and liberal values. the traditional view on this relationship is that political values are impacted by personality. this view is partly based on the observation that traits develop early in childhood (ackerman & heggestad, 1997; mccrae & costa, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 kajonius & dåderman 111 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1997), while political values arise later in adolescence. convincing longitudinal research has provided evidence that personality in early childhood predicts values later in life (deary, whalley, & starr, 2008). the participants who possessed strong liberal values in this study can therefore be expected to have formed this type of personality earlier in life. however, as argued here, the prevalent swedish culture might also have had an effect on the honestyhumility factor of the participants’ personalities, especially on the value-laden facets of fairness and greedavoidance. this young student sample with an average of 25 years has grown up in a cultural environment characterized by individualism and feminism. a prospect for future research would be a cross-cohort study that may reveal how age and generational factors moderate the influences between honesty-humility and values. modifying values by cultural environment seeing how honesty-humility has a considerable overlap with values, it is of importance for society to discuss whether these values can be manipulated. swedish institutions such as the educational authorities have an expressed interest in socializing students into being tolerant and generous citizens. eaves et al. (1997) showed in a large twin study that the effect of environment on political values is overwhelmingly greater than the effect of genetics up to the age of twenty, and that genetic factors play a greater role after that, increasing with age. this is in line with one of the main findings within behavioral genetics from the last thirty years, that the impact of a shared environment substantially decreases with increasing age (plomin, 2013). agreeableness, which bears a resemblance to honesty-humility, also has the weakest genetic base of the big five, according to cleveland, udry, and chantala (2001). values are more likely to be influenced by the cultural environment than by personality, according to taras, kirkman, and steel (2010). could honesty-humility also be influenced by current culture and values? honesty-humility and gender equality one example of change of values comes from our study and concerns greed-avoidance and sex. low greedavoidance characterized female students, which can be seen as somewhat surprising. it has been a classic masculine venture to strive for wealth and power, and men do generally score higher on assertiveness and traits related to ambitions in the big five (schmitt, realo, voracek, & allik, 2008). it might be that the current culture, especially in sweden (sibley & duckitt, 2008), encourages women to look after their own interests. the socialization of equality between genders (the social construction of gender roles) is given great attention in swedish schools and in society at large, and sweden ranks highest in the world in feministic values (hofstede, 2001). this could very well have had an effect on scores of greed-avoidance in swedish female students. another explanation of the lower greed-avoidance is that women might always have had a strong disposition for money and power, but the big five does not capture sex difference in this area (schmitt et al., 2008). there was no significant difference between the genders with respect to liberal values, which conflicts with previous research (heaven & bucci, 2001). this could also be an effect of the modern culture of equality (hofstede, 2001). young women of today might not concern themselves with the welfare of others the way they used to. concluding thoughts on honesty-humility the results of this study suggest that honesty-humility is one of the key traits to understanding how individuals feel about their own rights in a competitive and progressive society. concerning itself with other people’s welfare is one of the characteristics of cultural equality. honesty-humility has demonstrated to be positively related with job performance in professions that deal with people (johnson, rowatt, & petrini, 2011), and could therefore be a desirable trait to cultivate among students in school. on the other hand, research suggests creativity is negatively europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 honesty-humility and liberal values 112 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correlated with honesty-humility (silvia, kaufman, reiter-palmon, &wigert, 2011). it is believed that this relationship is a consequence of non-conformity, which is one of the important characteristics of an individualistic culture. the question is which of these cultural expressions we should cherish the most, equality or individualism? we argue that understanding honesty-humility is one of the best ways of capturing individuals’ personality-based values concerning self and others. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments this research was supported by university west. the authors thank all the participants for volunteering their time and effort to complete the tests required for the investigation. references ackerman, p. l., & heggestad, e. d. 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(2010). the abbreviation of personality, or how to measure 200 personality scales with 200 items. journal of research in personality, 44(2), 180-198. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.01.002 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 honesty-humility and liberal values 116 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.741 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.7.4.331 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00047.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1088868308319226 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.750 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2012.08.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.09.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0018938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.618 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/per.845 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v6i3.206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.01.002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix: the swedish liberal values scale 1. i want to support the cause of feminism (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) 2. i think equality is among the most important political issues (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). 3. i think distribution of resources is important (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). about the authors petri kajonius is a doctoral candidate in psychology at the gothenburg university and a lecturer at university west. his main research interest centers on personality, intelligence, and individual differences. annamaria dåderman is an associate professor in psychology at stockholm university. she is employed as a senior lecturer in psychology at university west, where she supervises students and teaches primary in methods and statistics at advanced level. her interests focus on personality tests, psychometrics, cognitive functions, self-esteem, and empathy. she is also interested in work integrated learning with a focus on leadership and well-being. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 104–117 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.672 kajonius & dåderman 117 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en honesty-humility and liberal values (introduction) honesty-humility: a key-trait in modern society honesty-humility and liberal values research purpose method participants measurements procedure results descriptive statistics of the honesty-humility scale honesty-humility and liberal values the big five and liberal values does honesty-humility add to big five? sex differences discussion personality and values modifying values by cultural environment honesty-humility and gender equality concluding thoughts on honesty-humility (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: the swedish liberal values scale about the authors differential effects: are the effects studied by psychologists really linear and homogeneous? theoretical contributions differential effects: are the effects studied by psychologists really linear and homogeneous? johannes beller*a, dirk baierb [a] institute of psychology, technische universität braunschweig, braunschweig, germany. [b] criminological research institute of lower saxony, hannover, germany. abstract linear regression and its variants like analysis of variance are arguably the most widely used statistical techniques in psychology. by using linear regression it is merely assumed rather than empirically tested that the effects of the predictor variables are linear and homogeneous across the distribution of the dependent variable. this is problematic because it biases a scientist’s reasoning and hinders possible practical and theoretical insights. thus an important question to ask is: are the effects studied by psychologists really linear and homogeneous? generalized additive models (gams) and quantile regression can be used to pursue this question. benefits of complementing linear regression with these approaches include the ability to tailor actions on the specific individual in practice and the opportunity to gain more advanced scientific knowledge, for example about non-linear effects. the use of gams and quantile regression is furthermore empirically demonstrated in an analysis of risk-seeking and criminal peer networks as predictors of violent crime in a representative sample of german youth (n = 44.610). practical and theoretical consequences of the results are discussed. psychological science could immensely benefit from studying non-linear and heterogeneous effects. keywords: differential effects, non-linear, heterogeneous, linear regression, quantile regression, generalized additive models, violent crime europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 received: 2012-09-26. accepted: 2013-01-21. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: technische universität braunschweig, institute of psychology, spielmannstraße 19, 38106 braunschweig, germany. e-mail: johannesbeller@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction by using linear regression it is merely assumed rather than empirically tested that the effects of the predictor variables are linear and homogeneous1 across the distribution of the dependent variable (koenker, 2005; wood, 2006). this is problematic because it hinders possible practical and theoretical insights (wilcox, 1998). thus an important question to ask is: are the effects studied by psychologists really linear and homogeneous? we discuss linear regression, its linearity and effect homogeneity assumption and possible consequences if these assumptions are violated. two techniques are suggested which can be beneficially applied when the linear regression assumptions are not met. lastly we will second these arguments with an empirical analysis of two classical predictors of violent crime in a representative sample of german youth (n = 44.610). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ linear regression linear regression and its variants like analysis of variance are arguably the most widely used statistical techniques in psychology. in linear regression, the conditional mean of the dependent variable is modeled as a linear function of some predictor variables. linear regression is regularly used by psychologists for two tasks: (a) the prediction of y, the dependent variable, given observed x values, the predictors, and (b) to gain insight into the linear dependencies between variables. however, for the predictions to be accurate and the insights to be correct several assumptions must be met (berry, 1993). linear regression has several assumptions. among them are: linearity, it is assumed that the relationship between the dependent variable and the predictor variables is linear, independence, the errors are independent of each other, normality, conditional on the predictors the dependent variable is normally distributed, and homoscedasticity, conditional on the predictors the variance of the dependent variable is constant. if these assumptions are fulfilled the linear regression function provides an accurate summary of the linear dependencies between variables: it is obvious that there is no non-linearity to detect, because linearity is explicitly stated in the assumptions above. additionally, if the assumptions of normality and homoscedasticity are fulfilled it does not matter where in the distribution of the dependent variable one analyses the effect of the predictors on the dependent variable the effect will always be the same. this means that the effect is homogeneous across the distribution of the dependent variable. if the linear regression assumptions are, however, not met the researcher could be biased in that for example existing effects are not found and information inherent in the non-linearity and effect heterogeneity is lost (wilcox, 1998). figure 1 shows hypothetical examples of a linear vs. a non-linear continuous effect (upper panels) and a homogeneous vs. a heterogeneous dichotomous effect between two groups, where “heterogeneous effect” means that the effect for the mean and other measures of location differ across the distribution of the dependent variable (lower panels). as an example, the upper panels could depict the relationship between risk-seeking and the amount of violent crime. the top left panel would thus indicate that the more risk a person seeks, the larger the number of violent incidents is. the top right panel on the other hand shows an inverted-u relationship: the highest amount of violent crime would thus result from a moderate risk-seeking value (e.g. because high risk-seekers tend to participate in a lot of sport activities, which may promote health behavior in general). the lower panels contain two distribution curves each, which might represent the amount of violent crime for people with and without drug dependence: in the bottom left panel one can see a shift effect, i.e. the amount of violent crime is higher for individuals with drug dependence and this applies to every part of the dependent variable distribution (as indicated by the two arrows, which are of the same length). however, this holds not true for the bottom right panel, which depicts a heterogeneous effect. here drug dependence increases the amount of violent crime for the highly violent individuals (upper part of the distribution) but diminishes it for slightly violent criminals (lower part of the distribution). thus, though there is no effect for the mean (indicated by the “x”), there is a large effect for, for example, the 85% quantile (indicated by the arrow). it is clear from figure 1 that undetected non-linearity or effect heterogeneity can severely bias a scientist’s reasoning. in both the top and bottom panels by using linear regression one could conclude that the predictor has no effect on the dependent variable: for the top right panel the predictor will be insignificant and the model will have europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 beller & baier 379 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the linearity and effect homogeneity assumption and possible violations of these assumptions, which might bias a scientist’s reasoning. top left: linearity assumption is correct. top right: linearity assumption is violated. bottom left: effect homogeneity assumption is correct, i.e. the effect is the same for every part of the distribution. bottom right: effect homogeneity assumption is violated, i.e. the effect is not the same for every part of the distribution. an overall low r2 because the regression line doesn’t describe the data well. in the bottom right panel there is simply no effect for the mean to detect (dotted lines) because the means of the two groups are identical. there is however a rather large effect for the 85% quantile (dashed lines), which cannot be discovered by the usual statistical techniques like linear regression. thus in the case of the bottom right panel the researcher might falsely conclude there to be no effect when in reality the effect might be rather large for some participants like those corresponding to the 85% quantile. additionally, besides not finding an existing effect, the researcher might also be biased in that an effect’s magnitude is overestimated, underestimated or a non-existing effect is erroneously assumed to exist. furthermore a violation of these assumptions might be the norm rather than the exception in original as well as meta-analytical research (kliem, beller, & kröger, 2012; micceri, 1989). this also fits with our every-day observations that social phenomena exhibit a high variability across individuals and contexts. thus there is a need to go beyond the usual linear regression analyses in psychological research. alternatives to linear regression generalized additive models. the generalized additive model (gam) is a statistical technique which combines traditional linear models with additive models (hastie & tibshirani, 1990; for a recent introduction see e.g. wood, 2006). it differs from ordinary linear regression in that the linear terms are replaced by non-parametric smooth functions of the predictor variables to give β0 + f1(x1) + f2(x2) + … + fm(xm). a “sum-to-zero” constraint on each fj ensures identifiability. these non-parametric functions automatically adapt to non-linearities in the data. furthermore, because the linear effects are nested in the gam specification one europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 linear and homogeneous effects in psychology? 380 http://www.psychopen.eu/ can also statistically test whether the effects are significantly non-linear. controlling for over-fitting via cross-validation no a priori assumptions regarding the form of non-linearity must be made. thus gams can answer questions regarding the possible non-linear effects of predictor variables: for example, is there a certain amount of alcohol consumption which must be breached in order for alcohol consumption to become an increasingly important risk factor for violent behavior? quantile regression. quantile regression (koenker & bassett, 1978; for a recent introduction see e.g. koenker, 2005) is a statistical technique, which enables the researcher to not only model the conditional mean but also the median and other quantiles of the dependent variable. thus via quantile regression two questions can be answered: do the predictors have an effect across the distribution of the dependent variable? and if so, do these effects differ across the distribution of the dependent variable? for example, quantile regression might be beneficially applied when one is not most interested in the mean but in extremes such as the 90%-quantile. educational psychologists might, for example, be interested in the heterogeneous effects of an after-school achievement program, which inherently should work most for extreme cases such as highly disadvantaged children. benefits. the use of gams and quantile regression has many advantages: for the practitioner it is important to know whether the effect is non-linear or varies with the distribution of the dependent variable. such knowledge could help social workers to adapt their intervention strategies on the concrete person and context rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all “mean” effect. additionally it is theoretically important to establish whether an effect is non-linear or varies across the distribution of the dependent variable. this finding might, for example, uncover the generalizability of effects. example: do two classical predictors for violent crime exhibit non-linear and heterogeneous effects? in the following the possible practical and theoretical benefits of going beyond the usual linear regression analysis are exemplified. we utilize gam and quantile regression separately for ease of interpretation although these two techniques might also be combined (koenker, 2011). the dataset consists of a representative survey of youths in the 9th class in germany from 2007 and 2008 (n = 44.610). the survey was conducted by the criminological research institute of lower saxony. the participants had to indicate how much incidents of actual bodily harm, grievous bodily harm, robbery, extortions and sexual violence they caused in the last 12 months; the sum of these incidents is used as the dependent variable. two of the most important and most studied predictors of violent crime are risk-seeking and criminal peer networks. regarding risk-seeking gottfredson and hirschi’s (1990) general theory of crime posits that low self-control is the main driving factor behind crime. risk-seeking is one major aspect of low self-control meaning that individuals with high risk-seeking tend to favor the immediate gain of the moment instead of foregoing the currently available pleasure for long-term benefits. risk seeking was measured via four four-point likert items of a questionnaire. the predictor risk-seeking was operationalized as the mean of this scale. criminal peer network denotes the number of criminal friends. for example, rabold and baier (2011) recently showed that friendship networks play a major role in explaining ethnic differences in crime rates. participants were asked to indicate how much criminal friends they had regarding two different aspects of violent crime on two six-point likert scales. the mean was taken as the second predictor. missing values were imputed via the missforest algorithm (stekhoven & bühlmann, 2012). prior to the analyses the covariates have been standardized. all analyses were conducted in r (r core europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 beller & baier 381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ team, 2012): themgcv package was used for the gams analysis (see e.g. wood, 2006); for the quantile regression analysis the quantreg package was used (see e.g. koenker, 2005). results and discussion. the linear regression analysis replicates risk-seeking and the number of criminal friends as significant predictors for the amount of violent crime; risk-seeking: b = 0.43, se = 0.02, p < .001; criminal peer network: b = 1.34, se = 0.02, p < .001. figure 2. non-linear effects of risk-seeking and criminal peer network. the gam analysis indicates both coefficients to be significant predictors of violent incidents, both p-values < .001, seconding the linear regression results. testing for non-linearity the gam analysis additionally shows that these coefficients are significantly non-linear, f(15, 44592) = 218.07, p < .001. figure 2 displays the nonlinear regression coefficients of the predictors on the scale of the linear predictor (x-axis). from the figure it can, for example, be seen that after about half a standard deviation above the mean (0.5) the effect of risk-seeking increases steadily. this corresponds to a value of about > 2.5 in our risk-seeking scale. the effect of criminal peer networks on the other hand increases in an exponential fashion from the beginning on (the dips most possibly occur here because two likert scales were used to measure the number of violent friends). analyzing the same dataset via quantile regression yields the following complementary results, which are summarized in table 1. the coefficients are highly heterogeneous across the upper part of the distribution of the dependent variable, f(8, 223042) = 88.59, p < .001 (see also table 1). in general, the coefficients increase with higher quantiles. this means the more violent crimes are done, the more influence is exhibited by the predictors. or, equivalently, the predictors are most meaningful in modeling highly criminal individuals but less so in slight violent criminals. both analyses are practical and theoretical important. for example, imagine a social worker, who knows which factors are truly risk-factors for his specific clients: based on our gams analysis this might for example be a predominant criminal peer network or an especially high amount of risk-seeking. additionally by modeling different quantiles it has been shown that risk-seeking is not a general risk factor for crime (as suggested by proponents of the general theory of crime): contrary, only the 5% most violent offenders are slightly affected by risk-seeking europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 linear and homogeneous effects in psychology? 382 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 quantile regression results for the 0.85, 0.9, 0.95, 0.99 and 0.999 quantile 0.9990.9900.9500.9000.850predictors risk-seeking .16*6.92*1.15*0.000.000 (0.06) .25)(1.79)(0.05)(0.07)(0 criminal friends .85*15.64*12.49*5.96*2.85*1 (0.14) .64)(1.83)(0.15)(0.15)(0 note. standard errors are depicted in parentheses. *p < .05. in their crime rate. thus important practical and theoretical implications can be discovered when going beyond the usual linear regression analysis. conclusion it was shown that the usual linear regression assumptions might bias a scientist’s reasoning if these assumptions are not met. furthermore we introduced and exemplified two complementary approaches, gams and quantile regression. both techniques are able to detect interesting patterns in the data, which would have typically been obscured by linear regression. thus both techniques should be used more often in psychological research. so, which effects of psychology are non-linear and heterogeneous? it is difficult to speculate on this, but for the advancement of psychological science we think it is of utmost importance to find out. notes 1) by “effect homogeneity” we refer to the assumption that the slope of the predictor variable should be constant across the distribution of the dependent variable. references berry, w. d. (1993). understanding regression assumptions. newbury park, ca: sage. gottfredson, m. r., & hirschi, t. (1990). a general theory of crime. stanford, ca: stanford university press. hastie, t. j., & tibshirani, r. j. (1990). generalized additive models. new york, ny: chapman and hall/crc. kliem, s., beller, j., & kröger, c. (2012). methodological discrepancies in the update of a meta-analysis [letter to the editor]. the british journal of psychiatry, 200, 429. doi:10.1192/bjp.200.5.429 koenker, r. (2005). quantile regression. new york, ny: cambridge university press. koenker, r. (2011). additive models for quantile regression: model selection and confidence bandaids. brazilian journal of probability and statistics, 25, 239-262. doi:10.1214/10-bjps131 koenker, r., & bassett, g., jr. (1978). regression quantiles. econometrica, 46, 33-50. doi:10.2307/1913643 micceri, t. (1989). the unicorn, the normal curve, and other improbable creatures. psychological bulletin, 105, 156-166. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.105.1.156 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 beller & baier 383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.200.5.429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-bjps131 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1913643 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.105.1.156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rabold, s., & baier, d. (2011). why are some ethnic groups more violent than others? the role of friendship network’s ethnic composition. journal of interpersonal violence, 26, 3127-3156. doi:10.1177/0886260510390944 r core team. (2012). r: a language and environment for statistical computing [computer software]. vienna, austria: r foundation for statistical computing. retrieved from http://www.r-project.org/ stekhoven, d. j., & bühlmann, p. (2012). missforest non-parametric missing value imputation for mixed-type data. bioinformatics, 28, 112-118. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btr597 wilcox, r. r. (1998). howmany discoveries have been lost by ignoring modern statistical methods? the american psychologist, 53, 300-314. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.53.3.300 wood, s. n. (2006). generalized additive models: an introduction with r. boca raton, fl: chapman and hall/crc. about the authors johannes beller received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the technische universität braunschweig, germany in 2011. since 2011 he pursues a master’s degree of psychology at the technische universität braunschweig, germany. his main research topic is the application of statistical methods in psychological science. he is supported by the german national academic foundation. dirk baier, ph.d., is a research associate at the criminological research institute of lower saxony in hannover, germany. his prior employment history encompasses positions as a research associate and as a lecturer in the department of sociology at chemnitz university of technology, germany. his research interests are crime, youth delinquency and right-wing extremism. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 378–384 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.528 linear and homogeneous effects in psychology? 384 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0886260510390944 http://www.r-project.org/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btr597 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.53.3.300 http://www.psychopen.eu/ linear and homogeneous effects in psychology? introduction linear regression alternatives to linear regression example: do two classical predictors for violent crime exhibit non-linear and heterogeneous effects? conclusion notes references about the authors psyched out by numbers: altruism and the dangers of methodolatry alexa ispas university of edinburgh email: alexa.ispas@ed.ac.uk try to remember the last time you helped someone. it may have been a relative, a friend, or a stranger on the street. helping may have been easy, or may have involved considerable effort. the question is: why did you help? was it to benefit the other person, or to benefit yourself? ‘of course i helped to benefit the other person’, most people would say. if this is what you think, you believe in altruism – a term coined by comte (1851), referring to the motivation to help others without personal gain. but now, think again: could it be that you helped simply to avoid the consequences of refusing to help? maybe your real motive was to avoid feelings of guilt, or being seen by others in a bad light. indeed, the view that all human behaviour is selfishly motivated has dominated disciplines such as politics, economics and biology since the times of hobbes, machiavelli and darwin (monroe, 1996). following the same trend, all major psychological theories from freud’s psychodynamic theory onwards have interpreted helping others as ultimately motivated by some form of self-benefit (batson, 1987). the phrase “scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed” (gheslin, 1974, p.247) seems to describe the consensus. not everyone agrees, though. over the past few decades, a number of researchers have started to question the old assumption that our capacity to care is limited to ourselves, and to argue for the need to investigate altruistic motivation. should altruism really exist, understanding its underlying mechanisms is essential if we want to promote a more caring social attitude across the world. according to batson, ‘without such knowledge, our efforts to encourage more care and concern will be shots in the dark, quite likely a waste of time, or worse’ (1995, p.335). altruism by numbers but how can we know someone’s true motives for helping, and distinguish between an altruistic act and a clever attempt to gain praise? the solution suggested by batson (1995) is to investigate altruism in the laboratory. this would allow us to tease apart altruistic from selfish motives by using statistical measures and highly controlled experimental studies. however, there are some problems with this proposal. statistical measures can only give us an indication of group averages. therefore, any individual instances of altruistic motivation remain inaccessible with such measures. moreover, experimental methods cannot fully simulate the complex interactions that lead to altruistic behaviour outside the laboratory. indeed, batson’s only justification for not complementing his laboratory-based findings with other kinds of data is that experimental methods ‘have become the trade-mark of social psychology in the last 50 years’ (batson, 1995, p. 356). the limitations of experimental methods were apparent from the very beginning, as batson had to reduce the intricate concept of altruism to a single testable prediction: namely, that altruistic helping is motivated by empathy (batson et al, 1981). to test this idea, batson’s studies typically placed participants in situations where avoiding to help a victim was either easy or difficult. initially, batson appeared to have struck gold with his prediction: the studies consistently showed that participants who did not feel empathy only helped when escape from the situation was difficult. in contrast, participants feeling empathy helped regardless of how easy or difficult it was to avoid doing so. these findings, batson argued, suggest that altruistic helping does exist and is motivated by empathy (batson et al, 1997). but is this the only possible interpretation? another group of researchers, led by cialdini, suggested an alternative explanation: participants experiencing empathy are also the ones who are more likely to feel distressed when witnessing the plight of the victim (cialdini et al, 1987). therefore, participants might be motivated to help by the need to reduce this negative feeling (egoistic explanation), rather than by their concern for the victim (altruistic explanation). batson and his colleagues responded to this challenge by demonstrating that the help offered by participants feeling empathy is not due to the egoistic desire to reduce negative emotions such as guilt (batson et al, 1988), shame (batson et al, 1988) or sadness (batson et al, 1989). through more than twenty-five studies, they succeeded in defending the existence of altruistic motivation against almost every new alternative explanation proposed by their critics (cialdini et al, 1997). even though batson may have won a few battles, he has lost a war. ruling out the influence of one egoistic motive (e.g. the need to escape guilt) does not rule out egoism due to other factors in that specific situation (e.g. the need to feel good about oneself). as experiments can only test a limited number of egoistic alternatives at a time, batson will never be able to compare altruism and egoism as whole constructs (cialdini, 1991; maner et al, 2002). more importantly, the endless debate about whether findings can provide conclusive evidence for the existence of altruistic helping has killed off any fundamental investigation of the mechanisms underlying such behaviour. the human face of altruism if experimental methods have so many drawbacks for this area of research, how else can we investigate altruistic motivation? the alternative proposed by monroe in her award-winning book the heart of altruism (1996) is to combine a range of different methods of enquiry that focus on individuals rather than on group averages. in order to overcome the difficulties faced by batson in teasing apart altruistic from egoistic motivation, she interviews people who most of us would agree provide unusual exemplars of altruism: rescuers of jews during the holocaust. through the way rescuers make sense of their lives during the interviews, the reader learns about the kind of things that are important to them and the kind of people they are. unlike the statistical measures presented by batson, the interview extracts selected by monroe provide direct dramatic and emotional contact with altruism and convince readers of its existence. monroe can then move on to the main task of investigating its underlying aspects. she does this by interviewing people from three other groups placed along the egoism-altruism spectrum: entrepreneurs, philanthropists and heroes. as might be expected, the first group is situated towards the egoistic end of the spectrum, with the other two groups closer to the rescuers, towards the altruistic end. this conceptualisation of altruism and egoism as opposites on the same spectrum, rather than as distinct categories, allows monroe to detect subtle differences in the array of behaviours labelled altruistic. in contrast to batson, monroe chooses the methods she draws on according to her research questions, rather than the other way around. for example, in order to understand how participants differ in the way they organise, process and interpret information, she uses unstructured interviews, in which she simply asks participants to tell their life story. having gained an insight into the way participants make sense of their experiences in their own words, monroe then asks them to answer a structured questionnaire designed to test specific hypotheses on altruism. due to her strategic use of methodology, monroe’s work is full of insights about the nature of altruism, and has important practical implications. for example, the closer they are to the altruistic end of the spectrum, the more participants interpret events from what monroe calls the ‘altruistic perspective’: a way of seeing themselves as one with all humankind. in the words of irene, a polish rescuer, ‘we all belong to one human family’ (as cited by monroe, 1996, p. 197). on the basis of her study, monroe concludes that it is this perception of shared humanity that we need to promote if we want to encourage more people to help others, especially those living in vastly different circumstances to themselves. instead of only helping fellow workers, fellow nationals or fellow christians, we need to learn to help fellow human beings. the dangers of methodolatry ‘when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind’ (as cited in thompson, 1910/1976, p.64). although these words were taken from a speech addressed at the institution of civil engineers by lord kelvin in 1883, they seem to capture the dominant view in psychology today. indeed, in a recent psychology paper, the author cites them uncritically in the opening sentence (wright, 2003). in this context, research on altruism illustrates the dangers psychology faces by endorsing a narrow view of what constitutes acceptable ‘knowledge’. nevertheless, it is still with great difficulty that studies using qualitative methods such as discourse and conversation analysis make their way into mainstream psychology journals (reicher, 2000). however, as the example of research into altruism illustrates, it is precisely on using diverse methods that the health of our discipline depends. without adapting our methods to suit the research area we are investigating, we run the risk of only producing ‘neat’ experimental findings that do not reflect the ‘messiness’ of the outside world. the object of our enquiry, not doctrinaire attachment to a particular method, should determine the methodology we use. references batson, c. d., duncan, b., ackerman, p., buckley, t.,& birch, k. (1981). is empathic emotion a source of altruistic motivation? journal of personality and social psychology, 40, 290-302. batson, c. d. (1987). prosocial motivation: is it ever truly altruistic? advances in experimental social psychology, 20,65-122. batson, c. d., dyck, i. l., brandt, j. r., batson, j. g., powell, a. l., mcmaster, m. r., & griffitt, c.(1988). five studies testing two new egoistic alternatives to the empathy-altruism hypothesis. journal of personality and social psychology, 55, 52-77. batson, c. d., batson, j. g., griffitt, c. a., barrientos, s., brandt, r., sprengelmeyer, p., bayly, m. (1989). negative-state relief and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. journal of personality and social psychology, 56(6), 922-933. batson, c. d.(1995). prosocial motivation: why do we help others? in a. tesser (eds.), advanced social psychology. new york: mcgraw hill. batson, c. d. (1997). self-other merging and the empathy-altruism hypothesis: reply to neuberg et al. (1997). journal of personality and social psychology, 73(3), 517-522. cialdini, r. b. (1991). altruism or egoism? that is (still) the question. psychological inquiry, 2,124-126. cialdini, r. b., schaller, m., houlihan, d., arps, k., fultz, j., & beaman, a. l. (1987). empathy-based helping: is it selflessly or selfishly motivated? journal of personality and social psychology, 52(4), 749-759. cialdini, r. b., brown, s. l., lewis, b. p., luce, c., & neuberg, s. l.(1997). reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: when one into one equals oneness. journal of personality and social psychology, 73(3), 481-494. comte, a. (1851). system of positive polity (vol.1). london: longmans, green. gheslin, m. t. (1974). the economy of nature and the evolution of sex. berkeley: university of california press. maner, j.k ., luce, c. l., neuberg, s. l., cialdini, r. b., brown, s.,& sagarin, b. j. (2002). the effects of perspective taking on motivations for helping: still no evidence for altruism. personality and social psychology bulletin, 28(11), 1601-1610. monroe, k. r. (1996). the heart of altruism: perceptions of a common humanity. princeton: princeton university press. reicher, s. (2000). against methodolatry: some comments on elliott, fischer, and rennie. british journal of clinical psychology, 39, 1-6. thompson, s. p. (1976, originally published 1910). the life of lord kelvin. vol. 2 (2nd ed.). new york: chelsea publishing company. wright, d. b. (2003). making friends with your data: improving how statistics are conducted and reported. british journal of educational psychology, 73, 123-136. context-dependence, visibility, and prediction using state and trait individual differences as moderators of esp in a ganzfeld environment research reports context-dependence, visibility, and prediction using state and trait individual differences as moderators of esp in a ganzfeld environment josé miguel pérez-navarro*a, katharine coxa [a] university of greenwich, london, united kingdom. abstract in this paper we present a method for participant classification, based on trait and state, in the experimental evaluation of esp (extrasensory perception). we conducted three ganzfeld experiments with a sample of 237 participants. in experiment i (n = 60) twenty participants ranked the target stimulus in the first position, achieving a non-significant rate of correct guesses of 33.3% (z = 1.48, p = .07, one tailed). in experiment ii (n = 90) only 26.6% of the participants’ guesses were correct (z = .35, p = .36, one tailed). weighting trials in the second experiment on the basis of the most successful predictors of the participants’ performance in the first experiment increased the rate of correct guesses from 26.6% to 36.4%. results in a confirmatory experiment (n = 87) were not significant (32.7%, z = 1.32, p = .09, one tailed). however, overall results in this study were consistent with the effects sizes data reported in previous meta-analyses. keywords: ganzfeld, sensory attenuation, esp, parapsychology, perception europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 received: 2012-08-07. accepted: 2012-09-27. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: university of greenwich, department of psychology and counselling, school of health and social care, avery hill road, eltham london, se9 2ug, united kingdom, email: josemiguel.navarro@unir.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a diversity of explanations has been put forward in response to traditional claims of ostensible paranormal experiences. sceptical researchers explain experiences like extrasensory perception (esp) in terms of ‘normal’ psychological mechanisms such as misinterpretation of statistically infrequent events and coincidences (blackmore & trościanko, 1985; wierzbicki, 1985), illness (goulding, 2004; williams & irwin, 1991), or mere lying or fantasising by the individual (russell & jones, 1980). however, there are also researchers who argue that some of these reports might actually reflect a genuine human capability of communication that appears in a subtle, sporadic, and uncontrollable manner (bem & honorton, 1994; parker, 2000; utts, 1991). these contrasting views have stimulated intense debate in the area, like the hyman and honorton debate in the eighties and nineties (bem, 1994; bem &honorton, 1994; honorton, 1985; hyman, 1985, 1994; hyman & honorton, 1986), or the more recent psi-ganzfeld debate (bem, palmer, & broughton, 2001; hyman 2010; milton &wiseman, 1999, 2001, 2002; storm & ertel, 2001; storm, tressoldi, & di risio, 2010a,b). the experimental procedure most commonly used nowadays in parapsychological research is the ganzfeld technique, a sensory monotonisation technique originally used for the study of perception by gestalt psychologists (e. g. avant, 1965). the adoption of this paradigm in the area derives from thenoise reduction theory (honorton, 1977, 1978). in this theory, esp is conceptualised as a weak signal that is frequently masked by internal somatic europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and external sensory ‘noise’. reducing the signal-to-noise ratio should therefore help detect any esp signal, and this can be achieved by reducing internal and external stimulation. ganzfeld experiments commonly involve two participants (one in the role of a telepathic sender and the other of a receiver) located in separate rooms. the receiver is placed in a sensory attenuation environment. the individual lies back in a comfortable reclining chair listening to white noise through headphones during all the session. visual attenuation is achieved by placing translucent acetates (normally ping-pong ball halves) on the individual's eyes. the participant is asked to keep his/her eyes open all the time looking at the light so that all he/she can see is a homogenous pink field in front of him/her. the individual is asked to try to relax and report spontaneous mental images, feelings, and subjective impressions that come into his/her mind. in the meantime, the sender, in a separate room, is shown a target stimulus such as a picture, postcard or video clip that has been randomly selected from a large pool of possible targets. the sender is asked to “silently communicate” this target to the receiver. then, a randomly ordered target set containing the actual target and three decoy stimuli are shown to the receiver, who is asked to rate the degree to which each matches the thoughts, feelings, and images he or she experienced during the response period. using the direct-hit measure of scoring, as opposed to the sum-of-ranks measure, the receiver scores a hit if he or she chooses the actual target and a miss if he or she selects a decoy. by chance alone, receivers should select the actual target 25% of the time. a statistically significant deviation above this baseline is taken to indicate a communication anomaly. previous studies based on this technique vary widely in their degree of support for the esp hypothesis. certainly, impressive results have been reported using selected populations, such as art students (e. g. morris, cunningham, mcalpine, & taylor, 1993; morris, dalton, delanoy, & watt, 1995; schlitz & honorton, 1992), and meta-analyses show a small, highly significant effect of information transfer between sender and receiver that cannot be explained by any form of sensory communication. in one of the first meta-analyses conducted on a set of ganzfeld studies, honorton (1985) reports an overall significant rate of 38% correct guesses (stouffer’s z = 6.6, p = 2,1 x 10-11). following a series of criticisms and methodological recommendations jointly agreed between honorton and skeptical researcher ray hyman (hyman & honorton, 1986), honorton conducted a second major meta-analysis on a series of autoganzfeld studies that followed a more strict procedure (bem & honorton, 1994) reporting a significant hit rate of 32.2% (stouffer’s z = 3.8, p = 5 x 10-5). storm and ertel (2001) also report a significant effect size of 0.138 (stouffer’s z = 5.59, p = 1,14 x 10-8) in a meta-analysis of 79 ganzfeld studies. however, some researchers have criticised the lack of robust replication of successful results across laboratories and this is, nowadays, the most daunting problem in this area of research (milton & wiseman, 1999). along this line, bem, palmer, and broughton (2001) observed that those studies that adhered to the standard ganzfeld protocol achieved a significant hit rate of 31% while those other that used nonstandard protocols obtained near-chance results (24%) in the examination of a database of studies up to 1997. in a more recent paper, storm, tressoldi, and di risio (2010a) report a meta-analysis on three types of study: those that used the standard ganzfeld technique, studies that used non-ganzfeld, noise reduction techniques (such as meditation, relaxation, or hypnosis), and other non-ganzfeld, no noise reduction studies. the authors report that the mean effect size value of the ganzfeld database (mean es = 0.14, 95% ci: 0.07, 0.02; stouffer's z = 5.48, p = 2.13x10-8) was significantly higher than the mean effect size of the non-ganzfeld no noise reduction (mean es = -0.029, 95% ci: -0.07, 0.01; stouffer's z = -2.29, p = 0.98) but not significantly higher than non-ganzfeld, noise reduction database (mean es = 0.11, 95% ci: 0.01, 0.21; stouffer's z = 3.35, p = 2.08x10-4). they also found that studies with selected participants (e. g. those who believed in the paranormal, had regularly practiced a mental discipline, etc.) showed higher hit rates than studies with unselected participants, but only in the ganzfeld condition. in a reply, hyman (2010) criticises europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 560 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the methodology of the authors and accuses them of making a largely heterogeneous database appear homogeneous. hyman remarks that evidence in parapsychology has not reached yet a level of consistency to meet scientific criteria. however, storm et al. (2010b) followed the standard meta-analytic procedure of finding outliers and trimming the heterogeneous databases of these outliers so that they were homogeneous. some authors go further and argue that near-chance or non-significant hit rates in a given experiment do not necessarily imply absence of the phenomenon. in theory, some participants could use esp unconsciously to underscore, cancelling out any above-chance scoring of the rest of the sample. this has been called the psi-missing effect (carpenter, 1971; kennedy, 1979, 2001). the literature is filled with studies that report different scoring patterns upon manipulation of experimental conditions, personality traits, or belief. an impressive example would be what has been called the sheep-goat effect, by which those participants who believe in the possibility of esp tend to score significantly above chance expectation while those who feel more sceptical tend to score, also significantly, below. along this line, lawrence (1993) reports a meta-analysis of 73 published studies exploring this peculiar effect. having found a small (r = .029) but rather significant effect size (stouffer’s z = 8.17, p = 1.33x10-16), lawrence concludes that the evidence for the sheep-goat effect is clear. traditionally, researchers have also explored a large number of personality traits, mood, situational, and interpersonal variables in participants and experimenters in an effort to outline a robust experimental protocol for successful esp testing. however, the findings have not been clear. in a previous study (pérez-navarro, lawrence, & hume, 2009a), we explored a wide range of predictors of participants’ scores in a ganzfeld test. however, despite the large number of variables included in our study we were unable to identify a set that predicted our participants’ performance robustly across all experimental conditions. instead, we observed that, curiously, the predictors varied significantly from one condition to another, and concluded that, if esp exists, it might not be a trait-like individual ability, but could appear, instead, as an interaction of personal, interpersonal, and environmental factors. thus, different participants may require different experimental environments and different researchers may achieve different results with different participants. the lack of replication of findings in previous research, therefore, could have been due to the heterogeneity of experimental environments and techniques used. in the present study we do not intend to demonstrate esp unequivocally but to present a classification method for participants, based on trait and state, to show how weighting sessions is a sophisticated means of predicting performance within a fixed experimental context. for this, we ran three experiments. in the first experiment (n = 60), we explored personality traits, mental state factors, and other individual differences that had previously appeared in the literature. we conducted a logistic regression analysis to find out which of these variables predicted best our participants performance in a ganzfeld esp test. the second experiment (n = 90) was run under similar conditions. we used the equation derived from the first experiment to predict participants' performance in this second series. the value of this practice is that participants could be pre-selected or sessions could be cancelled when the mental and/or emotional states of the participants that predict a hit are not present. in a third confirmatory experiment (n = 87) we tested the practical value of this method to find out whether its application would increase the hit rate. thus, we tested a total of 237 volunteers. in the first experiment we selected traits from the literature that had correlated with the participants’ performance in previous studies, like extraversion (honorton & ferrari, 1989), openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (kanthamani & rao, 1972); prior psi-laboratory testing and practice of mental disciplines (bem & honorton, 1994); or artistic pursuit (e. g. dalton, 1997). similarly, some indicators of the participants´ mental state during the period of ganzfeld stimulation, like absorption (irwin, 1994), altered state of consciousness (stanford, 1979), sensory adaptation, concern about the external environment europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 pérez-navarro & cox 561 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (palmer, khamashta, & israelson, 1979; stanford & angelini, 1984) and expectancy of success (taddonio, 1976), have been reported in association to the participants´ esp scores in previous studies. neuroticism (braud, 1977) and emotional states like anger and frustration (e. g. schmeidler, 1950, 1954) have been shown to be negatively associated with the experimental outcome (haraldsson & houtkooper, 1991). we also included in our design four variables from our two previous studies (pérez-navarro, lawrence, & hume, 2009a, 2009b). these were internal awareness, empathy, energetic arousal, and post-session confidence of success. on the basis of results reported in previous meta-analyses, it was hypothesised that the overall hit rate of the three experiments would be significantly above chance expectation (one-tailed). due to multiplicity of contrasts alpha levels were kept at .01. in experiment i and ii alpha levels were reduced to .005 for correlation analyses conducted between the variables and the participants’ scores in the ganzfeld session. these latter analyses were two-tailed. experiment i method design— the association between the predictor variables and the participants’ performance in the espganzfeld test were explored through correlation and logistic regression. the session outcome (dependent variable) was defined using a nominal scoring method for each participant. the individual simply indicated, on a ‘blind’ basis, the one of four choices of stimuli that resembled most closely his/her mental imagery and subjective impressions during the period of ganzfeld stimulation. if the stimulus chosen was the one that the sender participant was trying to communicate, the individual scored a hit. if it was not, he/she scored a miss. participants— sixty participants were recruited through advertisement of the study amongst the student population around the university campus. the study was advertised as an esp study, though no further information about the characteristics of the experiment was provided at this stage apart from its estimated duration. student participants were enrolled in a variety of courses, thoughmost of themwere psychology students. a minor number of university staff also took part in the study voluntarily. approximately half of the participants took part in the study in exchange for research participation points. individuals were encouraged to come along with a friend or relative so that one could play the role of receiver and the other of sender. there were 14 males and 46 females. the age of the participants ranged from 18 to 57, with a mean of 25.8 and a standard deviation of 4.2. measures, apparatus, and materials — we used the software cooledit to create a thirty-minute white noise mp3 track. this was played through a pc, via headphones, to the receiver participant during the session in order to provide a homogeneous auditory environment as described in the ganzfeld technique. visual attenuation was achieved by projecting a red lamp on translucent acetate eye covers from approximately 40 cms from the individual’s face. we also used a wireless radio transmitter system, a clip-on microphone and a pc in order to feed back the receiver’s report to the sender. questionnaires: the following questionnaires were used for the assessment of the individual differences and state variables. the revised neo personality inventory (neo-pi-r; costa & mccrae, 1992): this is a measure of five major dimensions or domains of personality. the instrument has been shown to be appropriate for both males and females and for all ages. the five domain scales and thirty facet scales allow a comprehensive assessment of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 562 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adult personality. form s (self-report), which was used in this study, consists of 240 items answered on a five-point scale. the five domains are as follows: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. each domain is composed of six facets. to avoid multiplication of variables and comparison, only the domains were analysed in the present study. the self-consciousness scale (scs; fenigstein, scheier, & buss, 1975): this scale consists of twenty-three items, ten measuring private self-consciousness, seven for public self-consciousness plus six social anxiety items. only internal awareness, from the private self-consciousness subscale, was analysed in this study. participants were asked to rate themselves from zero (extremely uncharacteristic) to four (extremely characteristic) on each statement. uwistmood adjective checklist (matthews, jones, & chamberlain, 1990): this scale consists of twenty likert-type items to assess energetic arousal, tense arousal, hedonic tone, and anger/frustration and was used to assess the participants’ mood prior and during the ganzfeld session. the impulsiveness, venturesomeness and empathy questionnaire (ive; eysenck & eysenck, 1991): this is a 54-item questionnaire measuring three personality traits: impulsivity, venturesomeness and empathy. the items are self-report and answered as yes or no. a pre-session questionnaire was constructed to assess the participants’ prior laboratory research participation experience, practice of mental disciplines, artistic pursuit, and expectancies of success in the experiment. similarly, a post-session questionnaire was used in order to assess the participants’ subjective experience during the sensory attenuation period. this explored absorption, altered state of consciousness, sensory adaptation, feelings of frustration, and concern about the sender during the sensory attenuation. target stimuli: a pool of 32 objects was organised into four sets of four pairs each (4 x 4 x 2). these objects were selected by the experimenter so that they could be interesting and attention-catching for the participants. they consisted, above all, of small toys, souvenirs, christmas decoration, and some other common utensils like a key ring, a piece of soap, a hat, a small ball, etc. each pair of objects was placed into a plastic bag, and each set (of four bags) was kept in a small box. bags were labelled with the set number (a number from 1 to 4) and a letter from a to d for later random selection. the four boxes were labelled each with the set number they contained. a duplicate pool was used for judging in order to avoid sensory leakage from the sender to the receiver participant (palmer, 1983). procedure — a standard ganzfeld procedure (as described in the introduction) was used in this experiment. when prospective participants approached the experimenter they were asked to fill in the individual differences questionnaires and were then scheduled for a ganzfeld session that would normally take place within a week. two experimenters were involved in the study: the first author of this article (experimenter a) and a co-experimenter (experimenter b). at the time of the session, experimenter a accompanied the receiver participant to the laboratory and asked him/her to fill in the pre-session questionnaire. meanwhile, experimenter b gave the instructions to the sender in a distant room. experimenter b then opened an envelope containing a randomly generated code for set and target selection, and gave the corresponding stimuli to the sender participant. at the same time, experimenter a, in the laboratory, gave the instructions to the receiver in a standard manner and started the session. in order to feed back the receiver's report to the sender a wireless radio transmitter system was set up europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 pérez-navarro & cox 563 http://www.psychopen.eu/ at the receiver room. the system received the input from a clip-on microphone through the pc and transmitted it to the sender’s headset. experimenter a remained in a room next to the receiver’s room listening to the individual’s report through headphones and writing down his/her comments. in 30 minutes from the commencement of the session experimenter b let experimenter a know the set number (but not the target number a, b, c, or d) that contained the target stimulus via sms (text message). experimenter a ignored this until the period of ganzfeld stimulation was completed. the experimenter then reviewed the individual’s report adding any further clarifications and comments from the participant. then, the participant filled in the post-session questionnaire while experimenter a displayed on a table (in randomised order) a duplicate of the set of objects previously revealed by experimenter b to contain the target pair of objects. the individual was then asked to examine these four choices, named a, b, c and d, and try to indicate which one resembled most closely his/her mental imagery and subjective experience during the ganzfeld stimulation, ranking the stimuli from 1 to 4. at this time, experimenter a was only aware of the set of stimuli that contained the target pair of objects, but kept blind to which of these choices was the right one. it was a requirement of the protocol, at this point, that the experimenter would not help the individual in his decision in any way. nobody at all was allowed to enter the laboratory until the participant’s response had been registered. finally, when the judging process had been completed, the experimenter accompanied the participant to the sending room to find out the identity of the targets. results target selection was tested for equiprobability of target, set number, and order of presentation of the target in the judging sequence. using an alpha level of .01, the distribution of targets for the 60 sessions proved to be random for the four target alternatives (i. e. a, b, c, d; χ2 = 2.4, p = .49) and set number (1 to 4; χ2 = 3.32, p = .34). the position of the target stimulus and decoys in the judging sequence was also random (χ2 = 1.72, p = .63). this rules out the possibility that participants could have chosen the right stimulus due to position preferences or that more 'attractive' items had been selected as target more frequently. twenty of the 60 participants pointed at the target stimulus as the most similar to their spontaneous mental images and subjective experience during the ganzfeld sensory deprivation, achieving a non-significant hit rate of 33.3% (z = 1.48, p = .07, one tailed). the power of this analysis, for an expected effect size1 of approximately 0.15 (as suggested from previous meta-analyses), would be 0.08 with an alpha level of 0.01 and the sample size used in this study. the distribution of ranks of the target stimulus, displayed in table 1, reveals an interesting increasing pattern of scoring by the participants. sixty-three per cent of the individuals ranked the correct stimulus either first or second (z = 2.06, p = .019, one-tailed), while only 37% did as either of their last two choices. this difference is significant (z = 2.55, p = .005, one tailed). in this case, the power of the analysis was .25. table 1 expected and observed frequencies for each target rank. ranks total4th3rd2nd1st 6015151515expected 608141820observed europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 564 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variable concern about the sender (.38) during the ganzfeld correlated significantly with the participants’ performance at an alpha level of .005. absorption (-.46) and altered state of consciousness (-.39) also showed p-values smaller than .005. a stepwise forward logistic regression analysis was performed on the predictors that showed correlation coefficients with p-values of .05 or less. after four steps, a four variable solution was reached. the form of the equation was as follows2: according to this model, the probability for a right guess {prob (hit)} is accounted by four variables. in the equation, md and sc mean “practice of mental disciplines” and “concern about the sender (during the period of ganzfeld stimulation)” and contributed to the session outcome with a positive coefficient in the equation of 2.43 and .90 respectively. sa and ab mean “sensory adaptation” and “absorption”, contributing negatively to the session outcome with coefficients -.35 and –1.74 respectively. ε is the error term. the equation classified correctly 86.2% of the cases, predicting accurately 89.5% of the hits and 80% of the misses. a test of the model against the constant-only model was statistically significant (χ27.22 = 36.9, p < .001), which means that the set of variables predicted reliably the outcome of the session. the model accounted for 34% of the variance as indicated by the hosmer & lemeshow’s goodness of fit statistic, rl 2 (.34), an analogue of r2 in multiple regression. a χ2 test run on the remaining variables shows that addition of new variables would not increase the predictive power of the model (χ2 = 2.3, p = .12). the amount of unexplained information that remains in the model is indicated by a –2 log likelihood statistic (–2ll) of 42.9 (a perfect solution would be associated to a –2ll of 0). the wald’s statistic, used to test the significance of the β coefficient for each predictor, reached statistical significance for all variables included in the equation. the correlation between the observed values and the ones predicted by the equation, another indicator of the accuracy of the model, was also high and significant (rxy = .78, p < .001, one tailed). experiment ii method design and participants — the same experimental design used in experiment i was used for this second series (n = 90). participants were also recruited through advertisement of the study among the same population four months later. the age range of the participants was from 18 to 62, with a mean of 24.3 and a standard deviation of 5.1. there were 23 males and 67 females. measures, apparatus, and materials — the set of questionnaires described in experiment i was used, in turn, in this second series. an additional pc was used to display the target stimuli (videoclips, instead of objects) to the sender participants. we used a pool of 16 videoclips of one minute length as target material. these were selected by the experimenter from tv movies, commercials, cartoons, etc. so that they could be appealing and attention-catching for the participants, and organised into four sets of four clips. videoclips were managed and displayed to the sender participants through the software superlab 4.0. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 pérez-navarro & cox 565 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure — in experiment ii we followed the same procedure as in experiment i, with the only exception that video clips were used, instead of objects, as target stimuli. the randomly selected video clip was played to the sender on a 17” tft screen six times, once every four minutes from the commencement of the session. in this study we also provided real time feedback of the receiver's report to the sender via radio transmitter. after the 30 minutes of ganzfeld stimulation, the target video clip was played with three controls to the receiver participant so that he/she could judge the degree of correspondence between his/her mental experience during the sensory attenuation and each videoclip. results the distribution of targets for the 90 sessions proved to be random for the four target alternatives (i. e. a, b, c, d; χ2 = 4.30, p = .23) and set numbers (1 to 4; χ2 = 3.06, p = .38). the position of the target stimulus in the judging sequence was also random (χ2 = 5.51, p = .13). from the 90 participants who took part in the study, 24 (26.6%) pointed at the correct videoclip as the most similar to their subjective experience during the ganzfeld stimulation. the difference between this rate of successful guesses and the one expected by chance alone (25%) is not statistically significant (z = .35, p = .36, one tailed). only two of the seven variables that were included in the logistic regression analysis in the first experiment were significantly associated with the participants’ performance at α = .005 in this second experiment. these were sensory adaptation (-.32) and absorption (-.35) during the ganzfeld stimulation. the other three variables, neuroticism, practice of mental disciplines, and altered state of consciousness, showed correlation indices in the same direction as in the first experiment, though these were not significant (table 2). table 2 correlation coefficients and p-values (< .05) of esp predictors in experiments i and ii. experiment iiexperiment ivariable neuroticism .11 (n. s.)-.21 (p = .048)empathy .01 (n. s.).22 (p = .046)practice of mental disciplines .13 (n. s.).26 (p = .040) sensory adaptation .32* (p = .002)-.32 (p = .012)concern on the sender .10 (n. s.)-.38* (p = .002) absorption .35* (p = .002)-.46* (p = .000)altered state of consciousness .25 (p = .018)-.39* (p = .002)note. *means significant at α = .005. in order to assess the practical value of the logistic regression equation obtained in experiment i, trials in the second experiment were given a weighting of zero when the logistic regression equation predicted a miss. this increased the rate of correct guesses in experiment ii from 26.6% to 36.4%, although significance was still not achieved (z = 1.51, p = .06, one-tailed). the power of this analysis was left at .05 due to the reduction of the sample from 90 to 33 as a consequence of knocking out trials. twenty-one participants selected the target in the first or second position (z = 1.56, p = .06, one-tailed). the power of the analysis in this case was .13. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 566 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment iii method design and participants — in experiment iii (n = 87) we used the same design as in experiment i and ii, with the exception that participants were selected. we screened a pool of 316 individuals, selecting 87 who reported having practised a mental discipline (the only pre-session variable in the logistic regression equation derived from experiment i). there were 29 males and 58 females. the age range of the participants was from 18 to 55, with a mean of 22.4 and a standard deviation of 7.9. measures, apparatus, and materials — in order to select our participants we used an item from the pre-session questionnaire in experiment i that asked the individual whether they had ever practiced a mental discipline such as yoga, meditation, relaxation, biofeedback, etc. on a regular basis. we also used questions from the post-session questionnaire used in experiment i to assess the variables sensory adaptation, concern about the sender, and absorption during the ganzfeld stimulation. as in experiment i we used a thirty-minute white noise sound track that was played to the receiver participant through a pc and headphones. we also used translucent acetate eye covers and a red lamp approximately 40 cms away from the individual’s face. a wireless radio transmitter system together with a clip-on microphone and a pc were also used in order to fed back the receiver’s report to the sender participant. the system received the input from a clip-on microphone through the pc and transmitted it to the sender’s headset. target stimuli: we used a pool of 40 objects selected from previous studies and from the first experiment. we selected colourful, unusual, and attention catching objects. they consisted, above all, of small toys and souvenirs. the 40 objects were randomly organised into 10 sets of 4 and kept in a box labeled with a set number. each object in every set was also randomly labeled with a letter from a to d for later target selection. a duplicate pool was used for judging in order to avoid sensory leakage from the sender to the receiver participant (palmer, 1983). procedure— in experiment iii we followed the same procedure as in experiment i and ii, using standard ganzfeld and objects as target stimuli. we also provided the sender feedback of the receiver report via radio transmitter. eighty-seven participants were recruited, in first instance, from a population of 316 individuals on the basis of one single variable: having practised a mental discipline. at the end of the ganzfeld stimulation, these individuals were asked to fill in a post-session questionnaire assessing the other three variables in the equation (i. e. sensory adaptation, absorption, and sender concern). at this stage, their probability of succeeding in the experiment was computed using the logistic regression equation derived from the first experiment. when the scores of a participant predicted a miss, the session was automatically aborted and this participant was never asked to make a guess about the target. otherwise, the experiment was continued as usual. this intervention left us with 55 participants who completed the experiment. results randomization tests showed that the 10 different sets were selected in the experiment with the same frequency (χ2 = 2.91, p = .96). similarly, each object, within each set, was also selected as target with the same frequency (χ2 = 2.07, p = .56). the position of the target stimulus in the judging sequence was also random (χ2 = 2.22, p = .53). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 pérez-navarro & cox 567 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eighteen participants (32.7%) chose the target stimulus as the most similar to their spontaneous mental images and subjective experience during the ganzfeld. although this hit rate was observed in the hypothesised direction, it did not reach statistical significance at a .01 alpha level (z = 1.32, p = .09, one tailed). the power of this analysis, however, was .07 due to the reduction of the sample. thirty-three participants (60%, z = 1.48, p = .07, one tailed) ranked the correct stimulus either first or second, while only 22 did as either of their last two choices. this difference is not significant either (z = 2.09, p = .02, one tailed). the power of the analysis in this case was .23. if we pool the data of our three experiments, including experiments i and ii with unselected participants, in total, we conducted 205 ganzfeld trials, where we observed 62 direct hits (30.2%, z = 1.73, p = .041, one tailed) and 122 binary hits where participants ranked the target either first or second (59.5%, z = 2.71, p = .003, one tailed). applying the logistic regression equation in experiment ii discharges 57 sessions, leaving us with exactly 50 direct hits (33.7%, z = 2.44, p = .007) and 92 binary hits (62%, z = 2.92, p = .0017) in 148 trials across the three experiments. the power of these analyses are .18 and .61 respectively. discussion experiment i produced a non-significant rate of 33% correct guesses. however, a more sensitive analysis revealed that the number of participants that ranked the target stimulus in the first or second position was significantly higher than the number of participants who did in the third or fourth position. variable feeling concerned about the sender during the period of ganzfeld stimulation was significantly, and positively, associated with the participants’ performance. this could reflect an effort by the participants to focus on the relevant source of esp information. it was surprising to observe that some variables that in theory would be associated with decreased internal noise, like sensory adaptation, altered state of consciousness, or absorptionwere negatively associated with the session outcome. this, together with the fact that several individuals reported having fallen asleep or "nearly asleep" during the sensory attenuation, makes us wonder whether the sample of participants was underaroused. this could have been due to characteristics of our testing environment like the lighting, temperature in the laboratory, or the fact that the participants laid back in a comfortable reclining chair during the 30minutes of sensory attenuation. those individuals who experienced sensory discomfort, or were more alert, might have kept a level of activation more appropriate to completing the task. a logistic regression analysis in experiment i produced an equation that predicted the probability of a right guess on the basis of one stable trait (practice of mental disciplines) and three mental state indicators (absorption, sensory adaptation, and concern about the sender). this does not constitute a robust ´recipe´ for successful replication of esp across laboratories. in our previous studies we concluded that different experimental contexts, protocols, and even experimenters might require different characteristics of the tested sample and vice versa. however, we used this equation to predict scores in experiments ii and iii as these were conducted under similar conditions, by the same researchers and on the same population. experiment ii provided no evidence in support of the esp hypothesis with a non-significant rate of correct guesses of 26%. when we used the equation derived from experiment i to discharge the trials where a miss was predicted, the hit rate increased from 26% to 36%. nevertheless, these results were not conclusive due to the reduction of the sample to only 33 participants deteriorated markedly the power of the analysis. experiment iii was designed to screen a larger sample of participants. the selected sample, after applying the equation from the first experiment as a filter, achieved a non-significant hit rate of 32.7%. this procedure, however, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ proved useful to achieve a rate of correct guesses comparable to the ones reported in meta-analytic work (32.2% reported by bem & honorton, 1994; 31% by bem, palmer, & broughton, 2001; 31.6% by storm & ertel, 2001; and 32.2% by storm, tressoldi, & di risio, 2010a,b). furthermore, if we pool the data of our three experiments and apply the logistic regression equation in experiment ii, we observe encouraging results, with a highly significant percentage of 33.7% correct direct guesses and 62% binary hits. nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that a problem of visibility remains in the area. even if we assume that meta-analysis has proven esp, the effect size found in the laboratory keeps being small, and this, together with the fact that the field also lacks an integrative theoretical framework where the experimental data can live in consonance with the currently accepted scientific paradigm, is nowadays the main obstacle in the development of this area in terms of financial support, interdisciplinary co-operation, and effective dissemination and acceptance of findings. we wonder whether we are still far from understanding the underlying mechanisms of esp that would help us to unfold a fully visible version of the phenomenon in the laboratory or, in contrast, we are simply dealing with a very weak effect. nevertheless, we encourage researchers not to feel constrained by the ganzfeld protocol and explore more creative ways to show clearer results in the laboratory. the method outlined here is portable and 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(2010a). meta-analysis of free-response studies, 1992-2008: assessing the noise reduction model in parapsychology. psychological bulletin, 136(4), 471-485. doi:10.1037/a0019457 storm, l., tressoldi, p. e., & di risio, l. (2010b). a meta-analysis with nothing to hide: reply to hyman (2010). psychological bulletin, 136(4), 491-494. doi:10.1037/a0019840 taddonio, j. l. (1976, june). the relationship of experimenter expectancy to performance on esp tasks. the journal of parapsychology, 40(2), 107-114. utts, j. (1991). replication and meta-analysis in parapsychology. statistical science, 6, 363-378. doi:10.1214/ss/1177011577 wierzbicki, m. (1985). reasoning errors and belief in the paranormal. the journal of social psychology, 125, 489-494. doi:10.1080/00224545.1985.9713529 williams, l. m., & irwin, h. j. (1991). a study of paranormal belief, magical ideation as an index of schizotypy and cognitive style. personality and individual differences, 12(12), 1339-1348. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(91)90210-3 about the authors josé m pérez-navarro, phd, is working as a researcher at the school of heath in the university of greenwich, london, uk, where he has previously worked as a senior lecturer. his areas of interest are the psychology of exceptional human experiences, paranormal belief, and the scientific evaluation of paranormal claims. he is currently working on the development of an experimental protocol for successful esp testing. address for correspondence: dr. josé m pérez navarro, department of psychology and counselling, school of health and social care, university of greenwich, avery hill road, london, se9 2ug, united kingdom. email: josemiguel.navarro@unir.net katharine cox has worked as a research assistant at the school of health in the university of greenwich. her areas of interest are paranormal belief and the psychology of exceptional human experiences. address for correspondence: katharine cox, department of psychology and counselling, school of health and social care, university of greenwich, avery hill road, london, se9 2ug, united kingdom. email: katharinecox@hotmail.com europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.507 context-dependence, visibility, and prediction 572 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1950.tb01254.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.3.424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019457 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019840 http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/ss/1177011577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1985.9713529 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)90210-3 http://www.psychopen.eu/ context-dependence, visibility, and prediction experiment i method results experiment ii method results experiment iii method results discussion funding notes references about the authors social desirability and self-reports: testing a content and response-style model of socially desirable responding research reports social desirability and self-reports: testing a content and response-style model of socially desirable responding arta dodaj*a [a] department of psychology, university of mostar, mostar, bosnia and herzegovina. abstract personality assessment as a pre-employment screening procedure receives great interest from both researchers and practitioners. one key concern for selection specialists is represented by the response distortion among job applicants completing personality inventories. there are different operationalizations of socially desirable responding. one of the most accepted operationalizations was provided by paulhus who distinguished between two social desirability factors (the egoistic and moralistic bias) as well as their conscious and unconscious aspects (management and enhancement). the aim of the study reported here is to test the basic assumption of the paulhus model of socially desirable responding. a convenience sample of 200 students (n = 21.61; sd = 1.46) completed the comprehensive inventory of desirable responding (paulhus, 2006) and the international personality item pool questionnaire (goldberg, 1999; by goldberg et al., 2006). questionnaires were applied in three conditions: honest responding, responding as an ideal manager job applicant, and as an ideal teacher applicant. results give partial support to the existence of egoistic and moralistic bias. however, conscious and unconscious aspects of distortion were not found. in conclusion it could be said that paulhus’ model doesn’t provide a full answer to the problem of the nature of socially desirable responding. keywords: impression management, self-deception, egoistic bias, moralistic bias, personality europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 received: 2012-05-15. accepted: 2012-10-26. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of mostar, matice hrvatske bb, 88 000, mostar, bosnia and herzegovina, email: artadodaj@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction most hiring psychologists realize that creating a good match between a job and a job candidate involves not only determining the candidate's knowledge and skill related to the job, but also whether he/she has a good personal "fit" with the job and the company. therefore, many industrial and organizational psychologists during personnel selection consider identifying job candidates who have the "right" personality characteristics. results of empirical investigation support the importance of personality traits in predicting various aspects of organizational behavior, including job performance, work motivation, leadership and team effectiveness, as well as counterproductive/deviant workplace behaviors (such as absence, theft, abuse against others, and sabotage) (judge, klinger, simon, & yang, 2008; tett, jackson, & rothstein, 1991). however, despite the fact that personality traits predict various aspects of work behavior, there is some skepticism about their validity and applicability in selection due to observed low correlations between personality traits and job performance (see morgeson et al., 2007). one of the sources of low correlations is represented by the low validity of personality measures and weak job performance criteria (judge et al., 2008). moreover, the ability of participants to distort their responses in personality europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaires is considered to be themain cause of low correlations between personality traits and job performance (goffin & christiansen, 2003; luther & thornton, 1999; morgeson et al., 2007). however, this conclusion contradicts other researches on the topic of socially desirability. ones, viswesvaran, and reiss (1995) analyzed the cumulative literature on response bias to assess the impact of faking on the criterion-related validity of the big five personality factors. their analyses presented evidence that correcting for faking with social desirability scales does not improve the criterion-related validity of personality scales. peterson and griffith (2006) went further and asserted that faking might provide superior results. in their review, they acknowledge that the ability to fake on personality questionnaires is indicative of approval motivation which could contribute to a better job performance. one of the research strategies to reduce response distortion on personality questionnaires relies on the use of scales of socially desirable responding. these scales include a number of either desirable but false statements (e.g., "i will always tell the truth"), or undesirable but true statements (e. g., "sometimes i talk about things which i know little or nothing about"). total scores on these scales are an indicator of deliberate response distortion. consequently, results serve to identify candidates who give excessively positive self-descriptions. it is assumed that identification of fakers will improve the predictive power of the instruments used (salgado, 2005). however, the concept of socially desirable responses as ameasurement error which is to be controlled or eliminated during the assessment of personality is faulty. even some earlier studies showed that this response distortion does not occur only in selection situations, but also in the situation of anonymous responding (paulhus, 1991; paulhus & john, 1998), and it is associated in fact with certain personality traits such as extraversion, emotional stability, intellect, agreeableness (paulhus, 2002; stöber, dette, & musch, 2002). these findings suggest that the scales of socially desirable responding, except in cases of deliberate positive self-presentation, partly involve some permanent personality traits. paulhus’ model of socially desirable responding one of the most accepted definitions of socially desirable responding is paulhus’ (1984) formulation. paulhus (1984) split socially desirable responding into a dimension of self-deception, which is the unconscious tendency of a person to see him or herself in a favorable light, and a dimension of impression management, which is a deliberate distortion of self-presentation. according to this model, self-deception does not include socially desirable responding because it is a distortion that is both honest and unconsciously motivated. self-deception refers to any positively biased response that participants actually believe to be true, thus giving additional information about the candidate’s personality. on the other hand, impression management refers to the proportion of variance which reduces our objective assessment of the candidate’s personality traits in situations with strong motivation to give socially desirable answers, and therefore it must be controlled in research. from this perspective it can be concluded that the function of self-deception is the enhancement of a subject's personality, while impression management is a conscious attempt to create a favorable impression of self for some audience. however, the results of numerous studies have not provided support for this model. it has been found that self-deception increases gradually with the motivation for positive self-presentation (galić & jerneić, 2006), and impression management shows a consistent pattern of correlations with personality traits even in the situation of anonymous responding (paulhus, 2002; paulhus & john, 1998; pauls & stemmler, 2003). respectively, a positive relationship between self-deception and dimensions of extraversion, emotional stability and intellect was noticed. also, a positive relationship was found between impression management and the dimensions of agreeableness europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 652 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and conscientiousness. these results suggest that, at least in a situation of anonymous responding, both self-deception and impressionmanagement include some permanent characteristic of the individuals: self-deception is associated with emphasizing one’s own adaptation and competence, and impression management with the need for social approval (galić & jerneić, 2006). further research has shown that self-deception is not a homogenous construct, and it actually consists of self-deceptive enhancement and self-deceptive denial (paulhus & reid, 1991). self-deceptive enhancement refers to the unconscious promotion of one’s own positive qualities, while self-deceptive denial represents the unconscious denial of negative characteristics. paulhus and reid (1991) found that self-deceptive denial highly correlates with impression management. in addition, it was found that both components of self-deception (self-deceptive enhancement and denial) and impression management (agency and communion management) correlate with substantially different personality traits (pauls & stemmler, 2003). self-deception positively correlates with scores on emotional stability, extraversion, and openness, while impression management is positively related to scores of agreeableness and conscientiousness. these results point to the conclusion that both scales measure unconscious and conscious aspects of socially desirable responding. results such as the above have led paulhus (2002) to revise his model of socially desirable responding (figure 1). according to this revised model, there are two content components of socially desirable responses – the egoistical and moralistic bias – and each of these involves both a self-deceptive style and an impression management style. the first content component, egoistical bias, is a tendency to exaggerate one's social and intellectual status, the "superhero" quality. this tendency leads to unrealistically positive self-perceptions on agentic traits such as dominance, fearlessness, emotional stability, intellect, and creativity. on the other hand, the moralistic bias is a tendency to deny socially-deviant impulses and claim sanctimonious, "saint-like" attributes. this tendency is played out in overly positive self-perceptions on traits such as agreeableness, dutifulness, and restraint. egoistic and moralistic biases can be determined by the constellations of traits and biases that have their origins in two fundamental values: agency and communion (paulhus & john, 1998). agency is a social value that is based on individuality, success, fight and development, while communion is characterized by interpersonal relationships, intimacy and helping others (paulhus & john, 1998). these values are related to two main motives: power and approval. agency is associated with the prominence of the need for power which is connected to a tendency towards egoistic distortion. on the other hand, communion is associated with the prominence of the need for approval which is related to the moralistic bias. if a person appreciates reputation and status (i.e., agency), this will facilitate the need for power and the tendency of egoistic response distortion leading to an overly positive perception of one own’s intellectual and social status. this will also be reflected in higher scores on scales of extraversion, intellect and emotional stability. if a person appreciates cooperation and obedience (i.e. communion), this will activate the need for approval and a tendency towards moralistic distortion, to the excessive denial of socially undesirable impulses. this will be reflected in higher scores on conscientiousness and agreeableness. individual motives are the results of situational demands, i.e. motivational context such as a selection situation, which determine what value is activated. however, apart from the content level, as noted above, the model includes a process level as well, at which one can distinguish between unconscious self-deception and conscious impression management (figure 1). so, egoistic bias is further divided into unconscious self-deceptive enhancement and conscious agency management. moralistic bias includes unconscious self-deceptive denial and conscious communion management. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 653 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. paulhus’ model of socially desirable responding (2002). recently, galić, jerneić, and belavić (2009) have tested paulhus’ (2002) new two-level model for the first time. three different motivational situations were involved: anonymous responding, egoistic response distortion and moralistic response distortion. a dependent groups design was used, in which one group was induced to egoistic and another group to moralistic distortion. the authors tried to induce egoistic and moralistic distortion by instructing participants to represent themselves as either the best candidate for a business manager (egoistic distortion) or a class teacher job (moralistic distortion). these occupations were selected in accordance with previous studies (pauls & crost, 2005) and with the assumption that the requirement of efficacy for manager professions is related to egoistic distortion, while the competencies required for the class teachers are associated with moralistic distortion. both groups completed the comprehensive inventory of desirable responding (cidr, paulhus, 2006) and the goldberg’s personality questionnaire (1999; by goldberg et al., 2006) based on the five-factor model of personality. the results of this study gave partially support to the model. in both situations of response distortion, similar changes in scales of self-deception and impression management were found. contrary to expectations, in the situation of anonymous responding, a correlation between scales designed to measure deliberate distortion and personality traits was found. also, in the situation of induced distortion, an equal increase in correlations between scales of impression management as well as in scales of self-deception and personality traits was noticed. the authors concluded that their results confirm the existence of different forms of socially desirable responses at the content level but not at a process level since it was not possible to separate intentional from unintentional socially desirable responses. however, one of the limitations of this study is that it was conducted on independent samples making it not possible to conclude with certainty that the obtained differences are solely resulting from the characteristic of the situation, and not from differences in subjects' characteristics. also, the dichotomous scoring system of items, offering assignment points only for the most extremely desirable types of responding, resulted in a relatively low coefficient of reliability – especially considering that it is a scale with a relatively large number of items – which again could affect the results. paulhus recommends a dichotomous scoring procedure because it eliminates the distinction europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 654 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between low and moderate range responses and emphasizes instead the distinction between typical responses and the ones indicating extreme claims of confidence. according to him, this scoring provides some assurance that over-confidence rather than confidence is being tapped into. stöber et al. (2002) highlight that continuous scoring generates higher cronbach’s alpha coefficients, higher correlations with other measures of socially desirable responses and higher correlations with personality traits expected to be associated with socially desirable responding. thus, continuous scoring gives better reliability and convergent validity for measures of socially desirable responses, as well as results that are largely consistent with assumptions about the relationship between socially desirable responses and personality traits. therefore, stöber et al. (2002) proposed the use of continuous rather than dichotomous scoring. it is quite logical that increased reliability and convergent validity using continuous scoring may result from the fact that more variance associated with personality traits (rather than purely overconfidence respectively social desirability) is captured following this procedure than in the case of dichotomous scoring. following these recommendations, in the present study continuous scoring was employed. the aim of the following study is to test paulhus’ model of socially desirability. it is assumed that, if paulhus’ model is accurate, the prominence of a particular form of impression management should depend on the motivation of respondents for self-presentation, while both types of self-deception, self-deceptive enhancement and denial, should show stability between different test situations. these assumptions should be reflected in the relationship between components of social desirability and personality traits. specifically, the scales of egoistic distortion should be in relationship with agnetic traits such as extraversion, emotional stability and intellect, while the scales of moralistic distortion should relate to personality traits that indicate a value of communion such as conscientiousness and agreeableness (paulhus & john, 1998). methods participants the study involved a sample of 200 students from different departments of the faculty of philosophy in mostar, bosnia & herzegovina and was conducted in the croatian language. students of psychology were excluded from the research because they are familiar with measuring instruments which could have an influence on the results of the study. the total sample included 166 female and 34 male participants, 19 to 26 years of age. mean age was 21.61 with a sd of 1.46. quite large differences in the gender composition of the sample are taken into account in data analysis by using gender as a covariate. since the study included a within subject design, the structure of the subgroups regarding gender, age and type of study units was the same in all situations of completing the questionnaires (anonymous / honest responding and the situations of instruction-induced distortions). instruments social desirable responding was examined using the comprehensive inventory of desirable responding (cidr, paulhus, 2006). its use in this study was approved by the authors of the questionnaire. cidr was translated into the croatian language using the back-translation technique and was reviewed by three experts in the field of social desirable responding (jerneić, galić, & parmač, 2007). the final version of the translated scale was adopted europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 655 http://www.psychopen.eu/ after the experts had achieved consensus about the applicability and appropriateness of the tool within a croatian sample. the questionnaire has four subscales: self-deceptive enhancement, agency management, self-deceptive denial and communion management. each of the scales consists of 20 items. respondents were asked to rate their agreement with the items on a 7-point scale (from 1 = "not true" to 7 = "completely true"). paulhus (2002) recommends dichotomous scoring as the optimal strategy for evaluating the participant’s responses. however, as noted earlier, stöber, dette, and musch (2002) found that continuous scoring results in a higher cronbach coefficients, higher correlations with the other measures of socially desirable responses and higher correlations with personality traits that are expected to be associated with socially desirable responding. so, in light of this, it was decided to use a continuous instead of dichotomous scoring of the results. the total score on each of the subscales is represented by the sum of recoded answers on all 20 items of the subscale. alpha coefficients of internal consistency obtained in this study showed a reliability ranging from 0.64 to 0.90 (table 1). the size of the coefficients is considered acceptable because it exceeds the minimum level for research purposes of .60 (carmines & zeller, 1979). similar results were obtained in other studies (galić, jerneić, & belavić, 2009; stöber, dette, & musch, 2002). table 1 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) for four subscales of comprehensive inventory of desirable responding in three situations "teacher""manager"honestsubscales of social desirable responding .81.90.70agency management .78.83.64self-deceptive enhancement .86.82.80communion management .78.72.66self-deceptive denial personality dimensions were explored with the international personality item pool questionnaire (ipip, goldberg, 1999; by goldberg et al., 2006), which assesses extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness, agreeableness and intellect. the questionnaire consists of 50 items, and respondents rate their agreement with the items on the 7-point scale (from 1 = "not true" to 7 = "completely true"). the total score on each dimension is calculated by adding up all the items that belong to a particular dimension. the range of possible results for each dimension ranges from 10 to 70. alpha coefficients of internal consistency for the subscales of goldberg’s personality questionnaire range from .79 to .87 (goldberg et al., 2006). in this study, the reliability of subscales and alpha coefficients of internal consistency in all three situations were also examined and showed an acceptable reliability with values between 0.62 and 0.85 (table 2). finally, for the purpose of this study a short questionnaire to collect demographic data was constructed. it included questions regarding the student’s sex, age, year of study and field of study. procedure data were collected in the summer semester of 2011 during the lectures. questionnaires were applied to groups of participants and their completion was not timed. all questionnaires were filled in during one session; considering that, on average, completing the instruments lasts approximately one hour, the respondents were given breaks between each questionnaire. each participant was asked to complete a scale of socially desirable responding europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 656 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 coefficients of internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) for five subscales of the international personality item pool questionnaire in three situations "teacher""manager"honestpersonality traits .71.79.79extraversion .85.76.62agreeableness .85.85.73conscientiousness .74.75.75emotional stability .76.79.69intellect and personality questionnaire under three different conditions: (1) as honestly-as-possible, (2) as a manager job applicant and (3) as a teacher job applicant1. items of the personality questionnaire and scale of socially desirable responding were randomly mixed into a single questionnaire for simplicity and for preventing participants from noticing that questionnaires have scales that measure distorted responses. after completing this newly generated instrument under three different conditions, participants filled out the questionnaire regarding demographic data. the instructions for honest responding were as follows: "the aim of the research you are participating in is to test the quality of a personality questionnaire. validation of a questionnaire is central for considering it for future uses and for a variety of practical purposes such as careers consulting, classification procedures for admission to colleges and selection of employees within work organizations. in order to obtain valid questionnaire scores, your cooperation is very important. please fill out the entire questionnaire as honestly as possible. responding to this questionnaire is anonymous and your answers cannot be connected with you. in this questionnaire there are statements that describe some usual behaviors of people. describe yourself in terms of how you consider yourself to be now, not what you would like to be in the future. describe yourself as sincerely as you can in relation to other people you know, people who are the same gender and approximately the same age as you". in a situation of induced egoistic distortion, participants were asked to represent themselves as ideal candidates for a management job. instructions offered in this situation were as following: "the aim of the research in which you are participating is to learn to what extent people can identify personality traits that are necessary for success in different professions. therefore, please fill out the entire questionnaire in a way that shows yourself as an ideal candidate for a job as the manager of a large enterprise. in order to make this task easier for you, you can imagine that the selection for this position you really want depends on the results of this study. this means that you will not answer questions completely honestly, but in a way which shows yourself as the most suitable candidate for your employer. in this questionnaire there are statements that describe some usual behaviors of people. describe yourself in relation to other people you know, people who are the same gender and approximately the same age as you." the second situation of induced distortion was one of moralistic distortion where participants were asked to represent themselves as ideal candidates for classroom teaching. the instruction for this situation was the same as the instruction for egoistic distortion except for differences in the sentences that were specifically related to the teaching position: "... please fill out the entire questionnaire in a way which shows you as an ideal candidate for classroom teaching. (...) this means that you will not answer questions completely honestly, but in a way in which you will show yourself as the most suitable candidate for teaching." europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 657 http://www.psychopen.eu/ after completing the questionnaires, respondents were offered contact information in case they had questions regarding the study or the results. during the entire procedure of filling the questionnaire, the researcher was present to ensure that the participants follow the order of the questions and do not consult with others, as well as to provide answers for any questions. data analysis the analysis of the results included testing the difference between components of socially desirable responding in the three situations of questionnaires application. also, it included a correlation analysis for determining any significant relationships between the components of socially desirable responding, as well as between these components and personality traits. statistical analyses were performed using statistica 7.0 (statsoft, inc., tulsa, ok, usa). results in order to compare and interpret results obtained in different motivational contexts, the relationship between the components of socially desirable responding was studied first. this relationship is defined by intercorrelations between test scores on the cidr. pearson correlation coefficients obtained for the examined variables in the neutral situation and in the situations of both "ideal teacher" and "ideal manager" are shown in table 3. table 3 pearson correlation coefficients between components of social desirable responding in the three situations "teacher""manager"honest sdcmseamsdcmseamsdcmseam agency management .43*.59*.74*.30*.55*.75*.04-.04.53* self-deceptive enhancement .50*.67*.74*.40*.62*.75*.18*.29*.53* communion management .75*.67*.59*.72*.62*.55*.63*.29*.04 self-deceptive denial .75*.50*.43*.72*.40*.30*.63*.18*.04note. am = agency management; se = self-deceptive enhancement; cm = communion management; sd = self-deceptive denial. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the neutral situation scores showed significant correlations between the management agency subscale and the self-deceptive enhancement subscale, but not between the agency management and moralistic bias (communion management and self-deceptive denial). these correlations suggest directional effects of instructions on socially desirable responding. furthermore, in situations of responding as a manager and as a teacher, all components of socially desirable responding were in significant correlation with each other, which suggests a socially desirable distortion of responses in all the four components. in all three situations, the highest correlations were found between components referring to the same content domain – i.e. among the scales that measure egoistic bias (agency management and self-deceptive enhancement) as well as among the scales that measure moralistic bias (communion management and self-deceptive denial). in order to test the differences between socially desirable responses in the three different situations, a multivariate analysis of covariance was used. insertion of a covariate was done to gain control over an eventual influence of gender on differences in socially desirable responding in the three situations. the results showed that, despite controlling for gender, significant differences were found between scores of the subscales of social desirability europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 658 http://www.psychopen.eu/ among the three motivational contexts (pillai trace f = 31.21, df = 6 / 1791, p < .001). the results of univariate analysis of covariance, partial eta-squared, as well as the mean and standard deviation for each component of socially desirable responding in the three situations of applying the questionnaires are shown in table 4. the univariate analysis of covariance indicates that differences in subscales scores between situations are statistically significant for each of the four components of social desirability. the tukey hsd test showed that all comparisons between situations were statistically significant (p < .001), except for self-deceptive enhancement subscales between situations of induced distortion "management" and "teacher" (p = 0. 17). furthermore, partial eta-squared values, calculated as a measure of effect sizes for mean differences in socially desirable responding, indicated a mainly large effect. table 4 mean scores on the comprehensive inventory of desirable responding and f ratios for each of the subscales of socially desirable responding in the three situations partial eta squareddff "teacher""manager"honest mean±standard deviation mean±standard deviation mean±standard deviation 0.292/3984.55±0.855.01±1.153.62±0.68agency management .45***171 0.172/3984.68±0.814.89±0.964.01±0.68self-deceptive enhancement .76***94 0.162/3985.03±1.084.75±0.983.97±0.97communion management .30***87 0.122/3984.84±0.924.42±0.824.07±0.75self-deceptive denial .92***68 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. results showed that in situations of induced distortions, respondents achieved higher scores on scales of impression management compared to their results on the same scales in a situation of honest responding. specifically, the highest score on the agency management subscale was in the situation of intended manager selection and, respectively, the highest score on the communion management subscale, in a situation of intended selection for a teacher. furthermore, significant changes were also observed on the scales of self-deception (self-deceptive enhancement and denial), which suggest the same pattern of results as the impression management scales. these results are not in agreement with our initial expectations because the scales of self-deception are unconscious components of paulhus’ model that should be "resistant" to manipulation through instruction. for a more precise comparison of differences and consideration of their implications in real selection situations, effect sizes have also been calculated. effect sizes expressed by the cohen d-index are shown in table 5. table 5 effect sizes (cohen d-index) on subscales of socially desirable responding between the three situations "manager" vs. "teacher""teacher" vs. honest"manager" vs. honest agency management .41-0.091.201 self-deceptive enhancement .20-0.820.910 communion management .280.980.790 self-deceptive denial .510.830.420 moderate/large effect sizes have been noticed between the situation of honest responding and the situation of intended dissimulation as a manager job applicant (table 5), while in the situation of responding as a teacher europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 659 http://www.psychopen.eu/ applicant, large effect sizes were found. differences between the two situations of "faking good" (situations of responding as a manger and as a teacher) on subscales of socially desirable responding have in turn low to medium effect sizes. furthermore, the effect sizes for the scales of egoistic bias (agency management and self-deceptive enhancement) are the largest when comparing the neutral situation and responding as a manger job applicant. however, for the scales of moralistic bias (communion management and self-deceptive denial), the largest effects have been noticed in comparisons between the neutral situation and responding as a classroom teacher. the large differences between honest responding and responding as a manager job applicant on the scales of egoistic bias compared also to the differences between honest and as manager job applicant responding on the scales of moralistic bias, and indicate that the scales of moralistic bias are more sensitive than those of egoistic bias to the instruction for pretending to be a manager job applicant. however, observing the differences in socially desirable responding between the situation of honest responding and the situation of responding as a teacher applicant, it is evident that larger differences exist in components of moralistic bias (communion management and self-deceptive denial), as well as in components of egoistic bias. this suggests that, on the basis of an induced selection situation, we cannot clearly distinguish between egoistic and moralistic bias. nevertheless, a comparison of the results on subscales of social desirability in the situation of responding as a manager and as a teacher job applicant shows that, in accordance with our expectations, in the situation of responding as manager, participants exaggerated their own effectiveness and, in the second situation of responding as a teacher, they emphasized communion. overall, effect sizes on subscales of socially desirable responding between the three situations supported the model assumptions according to which the components of social desirable responding may differ on the content level of self-presentation, egoistic vs. moralistic bias. however, a distinction on the process level was not found. these results could be partially attributed to the research methodology explained in detail above. multivariate analysis of covariance, controlling the variable gender, showed statistically significant differences in responses on personality dimensions between the three situations (pillai trace f = 16.41, df = 8 / 2388, p < .001). univariate analysis of covariance showed significant differences on all personality traits between the three conditions of responding (table 6). partial eta-squared values, calculated as a measure of effect sizes, showed mostly moderate to large effect, except for the agreeableness where a small effect size was found (table 6). tukey's hsd test showed that, in a situation of fictive selection for a manager compared with the situation of honest responding, participants showed themselves as being more extroverts, emotionally stable, conscientious, as well as displaying broader intellect. however, in this distortion situation, no statistically significant increases in the results for the dimension agreeableness were found. according to these results, within the ideal manager situation, respondents changed their answers mostly towards an egoistic distortion mode, but there was also a small part of moralistic distortion in scores of conscientiousness. on the other hand, in the ideal teacher situation, compared to the neutral situation, participants represented themselves more positively on all five personality dimensions. specifically, they showed themselves as more extrovert, emotionally stable, agreeable, conscientious and as having a broader intellect. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 660 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 mean scores on the international personality item pool questionnaire and f ratios for each of the dimension of personality trait in the three situations partial eta squareddff "teacher""manager"honest mean±standard deviation mean±standard deviation mean±standard deviation 0.112/3984.91±0.965.30±1.104.43±1.11extraversion .96***53 0.022/3985.57±1.195.30±1.015.25±0.80agreeableness .79***9 0.152/3985.48±1.195.73±1.144.64±1.04conscientiousness .37***99 0.132/3984.91±1.054.97±1.054.07±1.06emotional stability .11***75 0.092/3985.08±1.065.40±1.064.63±0.88intellect .54***51 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the effect size on a personality questionnaire between situations of responding as a manager job applicant and honest responding are similar to the results of the analysis of covariance where the largest effect sizes were found for dimensions of extraversion, conscientious, emotional stability and intellect (table 7). the larger differences between the situations of honest responding and responding as a teacher job applicant were found on dimensions conscientiousness and emotional stability (table 7). table 7 effect sizes (cohen d-index) on the personality questionnaire between the three situations "manager" vs. "teacher""teacher" vs. honest"manager" vs. honest extraversion .350.500.790 agreeableness .22-0.260.040 conscientious .210.700.950 emotional stability .050.800.850 intellect .300.420.720 a pearson correlation was also performed between personality dimensions and the components of socially desirable responding. from table 8 it can be seen that the correlation analysis showed significant results between the scales of social desirability, in all three situations of responding, and multiple dimensions of personality. in situations of "faking good", correlations between components of socially desirable responding and personality dimensions were higher than in the situation of honest responding. however, all correlations followed generally the same pattern higher results on scales of socially desirable responding were associated with higher results on extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and intellect. a comparison of egoistic distortion in a situation of responding as manager and teacher job applicant indicates that there are larger correlations between personality traits and scales of egoistic distortion in the former (except for the dimension of agreeableness). on the other hand, comparing correlation coefficients on the scales of moralistic distortion in these two situations of responding, larger correlations between personality traits and scales of moralistic bias were found in a situation of responding as a teacher. these results are consistent with our assumptions. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 661 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 pearson correlation coefficients between components of socially desirable responding and five personality dimensions in the three situations "teacher""manager"honest sdcmseamsdcmseamsdcmseam extraversion .46*.58*.64*.55*.34*.44*.68*.73*.28*-.25*-.30*.39* agreeableness .57*.59*.56*.35*.34*.28*.31*.17*.16*.09.00.16*conscientiousness .63*.75*.71*.59*.46*.57*.75*.70*.26*.32*.29*.12 emotional stability .57*.68*.63*.54*.45*.59*.73*.65*.22*.25*.37*.03 intellect .53*.62*.62*.58*.38*.50*.67*.68*.22*-.09-.32*.48* am = agency management; se = self-deceptive enhancement; cm = communion management; sd = self-deceptive denial. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion socially desirable responding is typically defined as the tendency to give positive self-descriptions that match with current social norms and standards (paulhus, 2002). one of the most influential models of socially desirable responses is paulhus’ model of social desirability (1984, 2002, see morgeson et al., 2007). according to paulhus (2002), socially desirable responses occur at both content and process level. on the content level we can distinguish between an egoistic bias (which refers to the exaggeration of one's social and intellectual status) and a moralistic bias (which refers to the denial of socially-deviant attributes). each of these content components is further divided into conscious and unconscious distortion when we add a process element. thus egoistic bias is divided into unconscious self-deceptive enhancement and conscious agency management, since it is a component that results out of the value of agency. on the other hand, moralistic bias is a kind of distortion motivated by the evaluation of community, and hence has an unconscious component of self-deceptive denial, and a conscious component of communion management. if paulhus’ model is accurate, the prominence of a particular form of impression management should depend on the motivation of respondents for self-presentation, while both types of self-deception, self-deceptive enhancement and denial, should show stability between different test situations. however, data analysis showed that scores on scales of impression management, but also on scales of self-deception, increased with the increase of motivation for favorable self-presentation. this means that changes in the motivational context had an influence not only on the results of the scales that measure conscious distortion of responses, but also on the results of the scales that measure unconscious distortion of responses and that should be in fact insensitive to the manipulation through instruction. motivation situations differed with regard to the content of instruction in which participants were asked to represent themselves as an ideal manager job applicant or teacher job applicant. therefore, response distortion was adapted to situation requirements. in a situation of intended selection for a manager, respondents offered a high assessment of their social and intellectual status and therefore increased the results on scales of egoistic distortion. in a situation of intended selection for a classroom teacher, participants were more likely to assert their social attributes and denial deviant impulses by which they increased the results on the scale of moralistic distortion. this is also supported by the effect sizes shown as d-index, where sizes of the difference for the scales of egoistic distortion were larger when comparing the situation of honest responding to a situation of responding as manager applicant europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 662 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in relation to the comparison of honest and teacher applicant responding. for the scales of moralistic distortion, effects were larger in honest responding by comparison to a situation of responding as a teacher applicant. correlations between components of social desirability and the five dimensions of personality are in accordance with the above. specifically, comparing the scales of egoistic distortion in a situation of responding as a manager and a teacher applicant, it was found that larger correlations between personality traits and scales of egoistic distortion were present in a situation of responding as a manager applicant. on the other hand, comparing the correlation coefficients on the scales of moralistic distortion in these two situations, larger correlations between personality traits and scales of moralistic bias were found in the situation of responding as a teacher applicant. these results are consistent with existing assumptions. they suggest that socially desirable responses can be distinguished at a content level into two types, egoistic and moralistic distortion, and occur in the case of motivation for positive self-presentation, which is consistent with the results of numerous studies (pauls & crost, 2004; stöber et al., 2002). however, the comparison between neutral and ideal teacher situations on the components of socially desirable responding indicates that, in addition to the large effect size for moralistic distortion, a strong effect size on the scale of agency management is also found. also, the results for personality traits suggest that the scale of moralistic distortion could measure egoistic distortion because, beside the dimensions conscientiousness and agreeableness, it also includes features characteristic for egoistic distortion (extraversion, emotional stability and conscientiousness). therefore, with a predominantly moralistic response distortion in a situation of responding as teacher applicant, participants also resort to egoistic distortion. in a situation of egoistic distortion it was found that respondents showed themselves as more extravert, emotionally stable, having a broader intellect and being more conscientious. the differences obtained in the multivariate analysis of variance and the effect size on the dimension of conscientiousness in a situation of responding as a manager suggest that scales of egoistic distortion measure also some aspects of the moralistic bias. these results are in agreement with findings from numerous other studies (e.g., pauls & crost, 2004; galić & jerneić, 2006; galić et al., 2009). the possible explanation is that conscientiousness includes two content facets. according to wiggins and trapnell (1996), facets of striving for achievement, competence and self-discipline theoretically should be associated with value of agency, and facets of orderliness, dutifulness and cautiousness with value of communion. in conclusion, our results provide little support for the paulhus model of socially desirable responding. the scales of self-deception, unconscious components of social desirability have been shown to be sensitive to changes in the motivational context and this does not provide support for the model on the level of consciousness. numerous studies did not lend support to the separation between conscious and unconscious socially desirable responses (galić & jerneić, 2006; lönnqvist, paunonen, tulio-henriksson, lönnqvist, & verksalo, 2007; pauls & crost, 2004). themain reason for the failure of differentiation between conscious and unconscious distortions of responses is the fact that scales of social desirability, beside the measurement of conscious dissimulation, measure also some personality traits. this is why the two types of socially desirable responses also appear in the anonymous condition, the situation of honest responding, which therefore implies that scales of socially desirable responding do not measure only forms of distortion, but also some personality characteristics. also, the instruction related to realistically imagining the situation of applying for a teacher or manager position could activate both conscious and unconscious biases. more precisely, it could be postulated that a conscious induction procedure influenced unconscious processes. in the reverse case, when unconscious priming is used, there is no reason to assume europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 dodaj 663 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that conscious processes influenced. in order to establish discriminant validity of the conscious vs. unconscious components of model, it would be important to experimentally manipulate conscious vs unconscious priming as an independent variable2. moreover, assumed content differences in the model are partially supported since the scales of moralistic distortion also include concepts of egoistic distortion. however, when we imagine the ideal candidate for a certain position we expect that the person characterizes him or herself as having high skills. we have learned from experience that intelligent, resourceful and socially dominant individuals are also very successful. therefore, when we are motivated to show ourselves as the best applicant, regardless of the position that we compete for, we will always try to emphasize our own high abilities. on the other hand, we will not always try to give the impression that, like paulhus (2002) says, we are "saints" because to be "good" and to blindly follow a social norm is not in thewestern culture universally desirable. thus, if the respondents "embellish" the responses in the direction of egoistic distortion, this raises the question of whether we can even induce a moralistic distortion in the selection situation. it is also possible that, in the present study, the instruction was inappropriate for inducing different motivational contexts, and possibly unadjusted to the student population. therefore, it could be said that the "fake good" instruction encourages the presentation of respondents in the best light in terms of exaggeration of own intellectual and social competence. in addition, the model was tested on a sample that was not balanced by gender. given the fact that egoistic and moralistic distortions are consistent with traditional gender roles (paulhus and john, 1998), the dominant presence of female participants in the study could influence the difference in the components of social desirability between different motivations situations of responding. one of the limitations of the study is also that the questionnaires were not used in naturalistic conditions of increased motivation for socially desirable responding i.e. in situations of actual selection for the job of managers or teachers respectively. that is why it is possible that results are distorted more than they would be under normal circumstances. in fact, in the actual job selection situation, respondents are asked to describe themselves in a credible way, but in this study they were asked to describe themselves in an ideal way. in short, social desirability scales that differ in process as well as content levels, are correlated with each other in a situation of honest responding, as well as in situations of induced distortion i.e. they share a part of their variance which implies the relative similarity of items or, better said, of the general social desirability of the items. therefore, it is obvious that these scales do not measure distinct constructs and do not provide a clear distinction between components of social desirability, which is why it can be concluded that the cidr is not a valid operationalization of paulhus’ model, and not that the this model of social desirability is necessarily wrong. a major contribution of paulhus is that he recognizes that there are various domains in which participants can distort their self-presentation. our results suggest that, when motivated, participants may recognize the social desirability of items and change their response in a socially desirable direction, regardless of what type of items we are talking about. in general, the results of this study indicate the need to find new solutions in order to maximize the criterion validity of personality questionnaires in situations of selection. one possible suggestion is to use some "subtle" social desirability scales that can contribute to a better assessment of "sincerity" of respondents, but also to refer back to the model when it comes to content aspects of socially desirable responding in different domains (e. g., exaggeration in communion, an increase in agency etc.). in job selection, using "subtle" social desirability scales could represent an ad-hoc control applied to moderate or at least detect the negative effects of motivated responding. an alternative solution for job selection, and for all other situations where demand characteristics and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 664 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social desirability in responding are anticipated, is to abandon self-report scales and use performance-based measures of personality. performance-based personality measures are assessment techniques that require the respondent to perform a task and are designed to uncover or elicit information or insight into the personality "in action". this alternate method of assessing personality could be more resistant to faking because it represents indirect assessment that reveals personality traits and motives which are unconscious. future research should determine the validity and reliability of alternate methods in different selection situations2. notes 1) mcfarland and ryan (2000) reported that order effects on the level of faking is not a concern, which suggests that there is not need to control which situation of responding (honest responding or incuded response distrotion) is given first. 2) the author would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue. references carmines, e. g., & zeller, r. a. 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(1991). personality measures as predictors of job performance: a meta-analytic review. personnel psychology, 44, 703-742. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00696.x wiggins, j. s., & trapnell, p. d. (1996). a dyadic-interactional perspective on the five-factor model. in j. s. wiggins (ed.), the five-factor model of personality: theoretical perspectives (pp. 87-162). new york: guilford press. about the author arta dodaj studied psychology at the university of mostar (graduated in 2009). at the moment she is working at the department of psychology at the university of mostar. her main research interests are social desirable responding, motor movement, and lateralization of brain functions. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 651–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.462 social desirability and self-reports 666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2003.11.018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.01.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(02)00187-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.598 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.2.307 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa7802_10 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00696.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ social desirability and self-reports introduction paulhus’ model of socially desirable responding methods participants instruments procedure data analysis results discussion notes references about the author the archetypal female in mythology and religion: the anima and the mother of the earth and sky dr. joan relke honorary associate studies in religion school of classics, history, and religion university of new england photo 1: gaia (1) abstract for decades, carl gustav jung treated many thousands of patients and explored many of the world’s mythologies and religions. his empirical and scholarly research led him to conclude that all humanity shares an instinct to produce images and concepts based on universal themes. these themes he termed archetypes, and the commonly shared instinct he called the collective unconscious. of these many themes, two female archetypes, the anima and the mother, are explored in this two-part discussion. part 1 (relke, 2007) appeared in vol 3, no 1 of europe’s journal of psychology, and part 2 appears below. part two as detailed in part 1, the anima and mother figures feature in various mythologies over time and distance. the anima, in orthodox jungian terms, is the image of woman in the male unconscious, and its counterpart in women is the animus, a male figure. the anima often appears as a part animal, part human creature – a therianthropic figure – signifying its mediation between the human and otherworldly dimensions. it appears in cultural mythologies and personal dreams and fantasies as a compelling force which seeks to unite the conscious ego with the unconscious forces of the wider self. part 1, explains how the anima can be active in both men and women, and concurs with james hillman (1985, pp.53-55) that the anima can operate in the personal and archetypal unconscious of both sexes and that perhaps the animus is something completely different and co-existent with the anima (hillman 1985, pp.89-91). the mother archetype, to jung relevant for both men and women, is far easier to understand, and expresses itself culturally and personally in the roles of the real mother and various mother goddesses and spiritual figures. often the anima and mother archetypes conflate into one mythological character, such as sedna, the inuit fertility goddess, and eve, the ‘mother of all living’ from the hebrew testament. this study divides the anima and mother archetypes into three realms, each with its own characteristics: underworld, earth, and sky. part one discussed the anima and the mother archetypes as they manifest as underworld figures, concerned primarily with the non-rational forces of the unconscious – supernatural knowledge, sexuality, the enthralling mother, and the anima’s personification of the “chaotic urge to life”. these underworld figures often take the forms of snakes or serpents and fish or sea creatures, such as sedna, tiamat, the pythia, and eve. part two moves on to the animas and mothers of the earth and sky. here, in jungian terms, we enter the realm of consciousness – the corporeality of life on earth and the spirituality and transcendence of the sky. here it is daylight; the sun shines and the air is clear. mothers and animas of the earth are often both creative and destructive, such as kali and gaia, while mothers and animas of the sky, such as isis, mary, ishtar, and athena, are often saviour goddesses, mediating between the high gods and humanity. but however benign the sky goddesses might be, they still have an intimate relationship to the underworld, and this is explored in relation to athena, inanna/ishtar, and isis. the earth while the snake is possibly the most provocative symbol associated with female archetypes, for its suggestive shape and its association with death and rebirth, the underworld, the supernatural, and the generative powers of nature, other common forms taken by the anima and mother archetypes are the feline and the bird. with the feline, we depart from the stygian depths of the unconscious or underworld of the mind, and inhabit the terrestrial surface in daylight. the most enigmatic of the feline projections is the sphinx of greek myth, a therianthropic creature with a woman’s face, a lion’s body, a serpent’s tail, and a bird’s wings. “the sphinx is a fear-animal…and shows clear traces of a mother derivative” (jung, 1952b, p.181). its intimidating and monstrous appearance is a manifestation “of the ‘terrible’ or ‘devouring’ mother whom the sphinx personified” (jung, 1952b, p.181). in the oedipus myth, the sphinx presents a riddle which, if answered correctly, would free the people of thebes from her strangle-hold, for literally her name, sphinx, means “the strangler” (guirand, 1968, p.305). the king of thebes offered the crown to anyone who could solve the riddle. the sphinx asks, “what is it that has one name that is four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed?” oedipus answers, “man…for as an infant he does upon four feet; in his prime upon two; and in old age he takes a stick as a third foot”. he answers correctly, causing the sphinx to release the theban acropolis, of which oedipus then becomes king as promised (graves, 1960, narrative 105e; guirand, 1968, p.305). jung says that oedipus’ tragic fate, to kill his father and marry his mother, results from his inability to realise that “the riddle of the sphinx can never be solved merely by the wit of man” (jung, 1952b, p.182). this suggests that the riddle is like zen koan – a non-logical puzzle which, when solved, opens one to the deeper meaning of life. oedipus’ answer is a buddhist-like teaching. the nature of life inevitably passes through three stages, the last comprising old age, infirmity, and death, three of the four passing sights that led the buddha to renounce family and riches and seek the true meaning of life. in jungian terms, the deep realisation of one’s impending mortality at about age 40 precipitates the mid-life crisis. prior to that, human beings usually feel immortal, death is an intellectual concept, and the end of life is not yet visible. answering the riddle is a conversation with the anima, not just being strangled in the enthralling grip of the negative mother. the sphinx is a chaotic figure (human, animal, and bird), with a superior knowledge of life’s inexorable laws (jung, 1954a, pp.30-31), in this case the inevitability of death. while the lion also often manifests as a symbol of male power, as in the egyptian sphinx with a man’s head and a lion’s body, it frequently assumes female form, as a lioness, as in the above example of the sphinx of the oedipus myth. four significant goddesses, sometimes mother, sometimes anima figures, come to mind: inanna, durga, cybele, and sekhmet, lioness goddesses of ancient mesopotamia, india, anatolia, and egypt, respectively. inanna tames a lion and uses it as her mount. in the form of a lioness, inanna slays a great demon serpent, and at times is herself the great serpent or dragon (bardi, 1997; jacobsen, 1976, p.136). sometimes she is the coy, sexual, provocative anima; at other times, she is the destructive or, alternatively, loving, mother, and refers to herself as the mother of humanity, even noting the contradiction in herself over her role in bringing about the great flood, in which she laments having destroyed her own children (sandars, 1972, p.110). durga also rides a feline – a tiger or a lion. as the virgin warrior goddess of india, she slays the great buffalo demon, mahishasura, and saves the entire assembly of gods and the world from destruction. durga is called ‘the mother’, but in some myths she is formed by the cumulative power of all the male gods – a collective anima – whom they equip with their own weapons (doniger o’flaherty, 1975, pp.238-249). she is also depicted holding a snake, with which she strangles the demon. cybele, a mother goddess from anatolia, sits on a throne flanked by two lionesses. she is reputed to have sprung from the earth. she loves the god, atis, and drives him to such madness that he castrates himself and dies. she is most famous for her priests, who reputedly castrated themselves in a wild trance while worshipping her (morford & lenardon, 2003, pp.179, 364), and for her initiates, who were washed in the blood of a sacrificed bull and thereby born into a new life (morford & lenardon, 2003, pp.180, 364). according to morford and lenardon, the myth “depicts the destruction of the subordinate male in the grip of the eternal and all-dominating female, through whom resurrection and new life may be attained” (2003, p.180). sekhmet, alter ego of the egyptian birth goddess, hathor, is the destructive side of the mother archetype. hathor, identified with the cow, is the gentle mother, the lover of horus, and protector of women in childbirth. when women die, they go to hathor, while men go to osiris (bleeker, 1973, p.45). the opposite of gentle, bovine hathor, is the lioness sekhmet. fond of the taste of blood, she is used by re to destroy humanity in his fit of pique. when he becomes appalled at her bloodthirsty rampage, he changes his mind, and orders the preparation of red beer, on which she gets drunk, mistaking it for blood, and forgets her mission. there is no shortage of information about the antics of these various goddesses, as easily demonstrated by a quick search on the internet. what is significant about them is their ambivalence towards humanity: at one time loving, protecting, and inviting; at another fierce, destructive, and violent. the ambivalent mother archetype is projected in infancy onto the actual mother, who is both loving and protective, and at the same time, all-powerful, and this relationship endures until the end of life: the mother is the first world of the child and the last world of the adult. we are all wrapped as her children in the mantle of this great isis. (jung, 1954c, p.94) the “parental imago” develops in the first four years of life, and at this stage, the parents are elevated to a divine level, later to become a source of disappointment (jung, 1954b, p.66). should the mother fail to nurture and protect, as she invariably does to a lesser or greater degree when she feels the need to punish, the demonic side of the archetype is activated. in order to mature, an individual eventually must withdraw the projection of the archetype from the living and fallible mother in order to be released from her encompassing influence, or her “thrall”, as jung describes it (1954c, p.95). for jung, men in particular must overcome their oedipus complex, and ‘kill’ their mothers in order to become fully mature: in the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights. always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself – a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown in his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the mothers. his life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. (jung, 1952a, p.355) the oedipus complex is most starkly mythologised in the story of the earth mother gaia (see photo 1) (1) and her son, cronus. gaia’s husband, uranus, imprisons their children, and cronus devises a plot to castrate his father during sexual intercourse with gaia. by hiding within gaia’s body, he is able to castrate his father during the act. here the son ‘kills’ his father for possession of his mother (morford & lenardon, 2003, p.63). for jung, this son needs to find a life of his own, to tear “himself loose from”, or ‘slay’, his mother. photo 2: gaia (2) for jung, the transition from unconscious life to conscious life in the development of humanity and the individual is mirrored in the separation of the child from the mother: “the first creative act of liberation [of the unconscious] is matricide” (jung, 1954c, p.96). for art and mythology, this means the projection of this “first creative act” into the slaying of the dragon, the symbol of the unconscious and animal sides of our nature, and to some extent the control of the “chaotic urge to life”, the anima. this stygian beast takes the forms of leviathan, the behemoth, the chimaera, the great serpent, tiamat. any association of the anima/mother with these creatures demonises or transforms them into something evil, for example the biblical serpent, the pythia, and medusa. jung confesses that he gives far more time to the mother complex in men, claiming that the mother archetype in men is always mixed with the anima, and hence never “pure” (jung, 1954c, p.94). but disappointment with the projection of the divine mother onto the actual mother is inevitable for daughters, too. one pitfall for women, according to jung, is the overdevelopment of the eros, creating a marriage wrecker, resulting largely from a: reaction to a mother who is wholly a thrall of nature, purely instinctive and therefore all devouring. such a mother is an anachronism, a throw-back to a primitive state of matriarchy where the man leads an insipid existence as a mere procreator and serf of the soil. (jung, 1954c, p.95) on the individual level, for women, too, the separation from the mother is necessary in order to become independent adult women and mothers, themselves. since no mother is perfect, the influence of negative mother is always present, and in maturation, is the “thrall” from which women must extract themselves (woodman, 1982, pp.34-45, 60-69, and passim). even persephone must leave her mother in order to fulfil her mature function as spring, emerging from the underworld annually. even the great mother goddess, demeter, like all mothers, must learn to let her child go. so for jung, the archetypal mother represents something that we must pull away from, something with which we were once united, allowing us no individual identity. the necessity of separating from the real mother and moving into independent consciousness is projected into myths about the destruction of the divine mother, who, if not destroyed, as a “thrall of nature” threatens to devour and destroy us by keeping us unconscious. in jung’s world, the divine mother, and to some extent, the anima, tie us to our unconscious origins: to our animal instincts for bodily survival and procreation. this bleak picture, understandably, the feminist movement has chosen not to adopt. it is also an outdated picture, for the myth of the matriarchal origin of civilisation has undergone some serious revision in the last thirty years or so. in anthropological and archaeological circles, it is seriously doubted; in feminist circles, it is regarded as superior, not primitive and inferior, to the patriarchal system that replaced it. feminists emphasise the great goddess in her benevolent, nurturing, caring aspect, and would see in jung’s attitude a reflection of the patriarchal fear of the feminine, which they claim prevailed as prehistoric matristic cultures succumbed to the authoritarian, war-like patriarchal cultures of the historic ancient world, doing a great disservice in recasting the goddesses in a negative light. politics aside, the mother archetype in myth does display an ambivalent or dual nature. demeter rages, cursing the earth with drought until persephone is released. kali drips with the blood of her devoured children. gaia, through her son, castrates her spouse; the priests of cybele castrate themselves in a religious frenzy; isis curses and nearly kills the great god re; the sphinx strangles thebes. however, nothing is so tender as the image of the madonna and child in the forms of mary and jesus, isis and horus, or parvati and ganesha. the great mother delivers and cares for us all, even though in the end, she destroys and subsumes us into her “thrall”. the fearsome aspects of the goddesses are left behind when we ascend from the underworld and the terrestrial spheres to the air and sky and encounter the therianthropic goddesses combining human and bird attributes. the sky many animas and mothers combine celestial attributes with human and animal earth-bound forms: the wings of the sphinx, isis in bird form as a kite, winged inanna as ishtar or astarte, and the fairies and angels of nursery rhymes and folktales. or they can depart entirely from the earth, as does the holy ghost of christianity. in the form of a white dove it is sometimes conceived as female, from rûah (spirit) in hebrew, which is female (sheridan, 2006). here, in the sky, we are more likely to encounter less terrifying forces, leave the world of death and fear, and find ourselves protected and comforted by the shielding owl wings of athena and the enfolding hawk wings of isis and her sister, nephthys. yet, we find that however remote from the unconscious/underworld these sky goddesses appear to be, many of them have an intimate relationship with the underworld, without which they would not be complete. this demonstrates that the unconscious, instinctive nature can never be eliminated or transcended. the following discusses three goddesses – athena, isis, and inanna/ishtar – in their roles as sky goddesses, each with a unique relationship to the underworld. if any greek goddess conforms to the classical anima archetype, present in the male unconscious, it is athena, who, as described in homeric hymn 28 (homeric hymns, 2004, p.59), sprang fully formed from the head of zeus. athena is the anima of the high god, who is born directly from the male psyche without having to go through the intermediary and polluting experience of birth from a female body. her birth is divine, not sullied by the mess, indignity, and pain of mortal birth. she does not even have to endure the humiliation and dependency of infanthood and childhood – spewing and mewling. much like jesus and buddha, who display adult wisdom and abilities early in childhood, she is spared the indignities of dependency, and emerges into myth as an adult: powerful, wise, and masculine (morford & lenardon, 2003, p.158). as war goddess, she is born fully formed, and fully armed, and is the protector of heroes (homeric hymns, 2004, p.59). in her first appearance in the iliad, she descends from the sky to stay the hand of achilles, who is about to slay agamemnon (homer, 1951, 1: 194-222). in the odyssey, she is odysseus’ constant guide and counsel. she is a-sexual, a companion to her father, interested in ships, chariots, horses, and war (homeric hymns, 2004, 5.8-14, pp.42-43; morford & lenardon, 2003, p.167). she is the ideal anima/daughter as she is a faithful companion to her father. she will not leave him for another man and shares the stereotypical masculine interests – war, sport, and cars. she protects all heroes without undermining their masculine power through sexual attraction and conquest. she is most certainly a male fantasy – no sidelong glance from her feminine eyes can drag a man into the murky, uncontrolled depths of his unconscious libido, unlike the glance of the nixie or lorelei. rather she protects men when at their most threatened – in battle. but, there is another, darker side to athena, although i don’t know how much darker one can get than war. athena’s mother is thought (metis) and she herself is wisdom, having sprung from the head of the high god. however cerebral, she is deeply disturbed by medusa, one of the three gorgon sisters, a beautiful mortal woman with lovely hair, who is seduced in athena’s temple by poseidon, athena’s rival (ovid, iv 791-803). so outraged by the desecration of her temple, athena curses medusa, turning her beautiful hair into snakes. (why she attacks medusa rather than the offender, poseidon, is puzzling.) thus she turns medusa into an underworld figure, and thereafter, should a man glance at medusa, he turns to stone. medusa, as did kore, becomes an anima of the underworld (see photo). photo 3: medusa not satisfied with turning beautiful medusa into a feared and ugly monster, athena then sends perseus to behead this gorgon and bring back her head. to avoid looking at medusa, perseus sights her in athena’s polished bronze shield, using it as a mirror. he cuts off medusa’s head and takes it back to athena, who puts the snaky head on her aegis (goatskin shield) in order to ward off enemies. perseus, a heroic figure who slays the demon, can be interpreted also as athena’s animus, in that he mediates between her conscious ego and the underworld of her unconscious. using athena’s bronze shield as a mirror turns medusa into a mirror image of athena – the looking glass image, or the opposite. athena is consciousness (the mind, thought); medusa is the unconscious (instinct, feeling, body). medusa’s qualities are non-rational, not within the control of the conscious mind, and can threaten to destroy/disturb the integrity of or paralyse the conscious mind if not incorporated in the right way. looking straight into the face of the opposite is crippling, as psyche finds out when she turns on the light and looks at eros (morford & lenardon, 2003, p.195). psyche and eros get along well until she shines a light on the unconscious drive, and then it becomes crippled, or at least wounded, and the relationship founders. these myths imply that the non-rational has a life of its own and cannot be controlled by the conscious intellect without negative results, but should be left alone to complement the conscious attitude. the configuration of athena with medusa’s head on her aegis suggests the conjunction of the conscious with the unconscious, of intellect or ego with the feeling, intuitive, instinctive, hidden aspect of the psyche. athena was born fully formed and fully armed from the head of zeus. she is the daughter of metis, thought. she is therefore the product of the mind or intellect. “medusa” means “female wisdom” (de vos, 2003), and traditionally, “female wisdom” means the wisdom of the body, instincts, emotions: the anima’s “chaotic urge to life” and wisdom of “a hidden purpose which seems to reflect a superior knowledge of life’s laws” (jung, 1954a, pp.30-31). the myth of athena and medusa suggests that athena, the masculine war goddess, has an anima – medusa. together they form a whole. medusa can be seen in a compensatory relationship to athena: athena is the ultra-conscious, intellectual, rational sky goddess; her unconscious counterpart is the snaky-haired, sexually-charged “monster” goddess of the underworld – her thwarted, wounded anima, or soul (2). many contemporary jungians are not so kind to medusa as i am. therapist marion woodman sees medusa in her female analysands as the unconscious cravings of addiction (woodman, 1982, pp.8-9), the negative mother (woodman, 1982, pp.67-69), a petrifying force creating within a negative masculinity (woodman, 1982, pp.178-181). michael vannoy adams is kinder, but still sees her as a negative force which terrifies (petrifies) men (adams, 2001, pp.25-26). if we accept that the sky gods of the nomadic indo european herders, who migrated into the middle east and mediterranean between 3000 and 2000 bce, usurped and subjugated the pre-indo european agricultural deities of greece which were predominantly female (3), then we might see medusa as an agricultural goddess of fertility (snakes), and athena’s appropriation of her head as an attempt to integrate and liberate her own unconscious, pre-patriarchal femininity (shearer, 1996, pp.60-73). the curse on medusa is not medusa’s doing, but the curse of an ‘animus-ridden’ woman. athena, identified with her patriarchal, indo-european father, zeus, tries to recapture what zeus, the masculine principle, in her has denied and destroyed. in our contemporary society, athena can be interpreted as a highly masculinised woman who curses and mutilates her own femininity and then wears it on her chest to repulse male advances. or in pan-religious iconic terms, athena as an owl captures and devours medusa as a snake. the bird and snake relationship is archetypal in itself, and forms the basis of many myths about the union or complementary/compensatory relationship of opposites (mundkur, 1983, pp.95-109). in china, the dance between the stork and the snake forms the inspiration behind the moves of tai chi (4). in teasing out multiple meanings of the athena vs. medusa myth, medusa seems to be a kore, demonised by the intellect’s rejection of feminine beauty and sexuality, and persecuted by the conscious intellect, with its a-sexual, non-instinctive, ideals – the apollonian as opposed to the dionysian principle (paris, 1986, pp.25-32; 1990/2003, pp.22-24). in the ancient world, apollo represented the pagan logos, dionysus the instincts. athena, therefore, is a female version of the apollo principle – logos, mind, reason, intellect. these are the qualities of the sky, divorced from the chthonic world of instinct and non-rational human nature – without soul, hence athena’s struggle with and ambivalent relationship to her own anima, medusa. the goddess isis of egypt is far removed from the battle-loving or sex-denying athena. first, she is a wife, then a mother, and then a universal mother who nurtures and protects her son, horus, and her human devotees. she suffers along with all women, as they nurse and protect their children from snakes, scorpions, and life’s vicissitudes. her wings and hawk image place her in the sky, as a mediating deity between humanity and the highest god, re, over whom she has considerable influence, having cured him of snakebite in exchange for knowing his name. in a sense, she can be seen as re’s anima – conniving, tricky, imperious, powerful. while isis fiercely defends her son horus, as demeter fiercely protects persephone, isis does not inflict suffering on humanity, as the earth goddesses often do. isis protects, heals, and intervenes with fate and the actions of higher, often hostile powers (corrington, 1989, p.397). she is renowned for healing snake and scorpion bites, curing her young son of bites, scalds, burns, other afflictions, and defending him against threats to his person and status. isis lactans, the nursing mother, is portrayed in sculptures, and was worshiped in shrines, and petitioned by suffering and worried mothers (5). c.j. bleeker describes her as a saviour goddess – one who bridges the cleft between the human and remote divine worlds, suffers with them, exhibits human feelings, and offers victory over death (bleeker, 1963). where sky goddess athena protects warriors, isis protects the common people: “it was assumed that isis knew every spell which could avert danger and make life prevail over death” (bleeker, 1963, p.5). like athena, though, isis has another dimension, and like athena, this dimension is her involvement with the underworld. isis gives birth to horus, who is the infant king – the human egyptian king is the incarnation of horus on the throne. unlike athena, she does not deny her sexuality, but like athena, the locus of her sexuality is in the underworld. for isis, the source of her power also comes from the underworld. isis’ husband and brother is osiris, who contests seth for the egyptian throne. seth wins the battle and dismembers osiris, strewing his body parts across the land. grieving isis, supported by her sister nephthys, gathers up her husband’s remains, puts them back together, brings them back to life in the embalming chamber, and positioning herself above him, impregnates herself on his erect phallus, engendering their son, horus. osiris, however, never returns to the world of the living, and instead, remains king, but king of the underworld or afterlife. isis spends her remaining days defending the right of horus to his father’s throne against the claims and attacks of seth. isis is a mother goddess, but a mother goddess of the sky. she displays no anima sexuality; she is devoted to her husband and couples with no being, divine or human, after he dies. in many ways, she can be compared to the christian mary, a mother with a divine child, but not a sexually-charged being. although isis is a sky goddess, she mediates between humanity and the underworld – consciousness and unconsciousness. looking at the isis story in this light brings a fertile flood of possible meanings: the conscious and unconscious energies united in horus, who governs humanity; isis defends this union against the attack of the ambitious ego as personified by seth; isis represents wholeness, the union of opposites, victory over unconsciousness but the integration of conscious and unconscious forces. like the earth mothers, she is uncompromising and ferocious in defence, but unlike the earth mothers, she does not catch the innocent in her fury. mesopotamian inanna/ishtar represents another kind of sky anima/mother. while in the epic of gilgamesh she claims to be the mother of humanity (dalley, 1989b, p.113), she is anything but a mother. she never has a child, seduces many lovers, bringing about their deaths, and renews her virginity every year. her most known image is an akkadian winged war goddess with horns, although the earliest sumerian images of her depict her as an agricultural deity – an earth rather than sky goddess. but even as an earth goddess of fecundity, she is no mother. she is more the seductive anima, luring men to their demise, like the lorelei or nixies of the underworld, and as the akkadian sky goddess of war, she is even more lethal. in the epic of gilgamesh we learn that inanna expects to marry this future king. however, he knows her character, refuses her, comparing her to “a draughty door”, a leaky “waterskin”, “a shoe which bites into [the foot]” (dalley, 1989b, p.78). he goes on to list the men she has married and destroyed, one way or another. insulted and enraged, she goes to her father, an, the sky god, to demand that he release the bull of heaven in order to destroy gilgamesh, otherwise she will smash the doors of the underworld and let out the dead (dalley, 1989b, p.80). one can understand why gilgamesh turned her down. she is the ultimate femme fatal – the ultimate anima. however, she is the queen of heaven and a sky goddess, and as such, she has a benign side that ensures the fertility and fecundity of life. each new year, she regains her virginity, couples with the king and renews life. after the great flood and the destruction of humanity, she promises never to allow such a catastrophe to happen again, and gives her lapis lazuli necklace (rainbow) as proof of her promise (dalley, 1989b, p.114). in this myth, she seems to undergo a transformation from the unpredictable, chaotic anima to the protective, caring mother. after she completes this transformation, gilgamesh returns from his adventures to marry her. they have both matured, and together they rule their people: he as the terrestrial king, she as the nurturing, fecund sky mother. like the other two sky goddesses we have discussed – athena and isis – inanna/ishtar also has an intimate relationship with the underworld. it seems these goddesses just cannot do without it. not satisfied with being queen of heaven and mistress of all things, inanna decides to visit her sister ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, some say with the intention of usurping her position and taking control of the underworld as well. the famous poem, “inanna’s descent to the nether world” (kramer, 1961 [1944], pp.83-96), describes inanna’s visit to her sister(6). unexpectedly, inanna is forced to undress in seven stages until she reaches her sister, completely naked. ereshkigal, outraged at the intrusion, hangs inanna on a meat hook and refuses to release her until she supplies a substitute. in some versions of the myth, inanna is allowed to return to the world of the living to obtain this substitute, and when she finds her husband, dumuzi, enjoying himself rather than lamenting her loss, she sends him to the underworld in her place. in other versions of the story, dumuzi’s grief-stricken sister offers to replace dumuzi for six months of the year. this is another example of the frequently found myth of the dying agricultural god, but told in a way which can be interpreted as the fateful engagement with the archetype of the anima – the relationship gilgamesh initially refused. in engaging with the underworld, inanna also connects the underworld to the world of the living. like demeter, she establishes the rhythms of the seasons, in which the world of fecundity renews itself annually. every year she renews her virginity, and the power of the king, expressed as her counterpart, dumuzi, is renewed annually. inanna’s character is complicated by her dual anima/mother role. while she displays the typical ambivalence and ‘bi-polar’ nature of the anima, in her role as mother, she matures from a fearsome, unpredictable earth-type mother goddess, who destroys her children, into the nurturing, protective sky goddess, who jointly rules with the king, and like isis, exercises much of her motherly power through the throne. the common theme in these stories of sky goddesses who appropriate the underworld is jung’s union of opposites: not so much as a syzygy (jung, 1954b, p.59; 1959), through their union with entities of the opposite sex, for athena is an eternal virgin, but through their embrace of the underworld by appropriating an underworld entity, such as medusa, coupling with an underworld king, such as osiris, or trying to usurp an underworld deity’s throne, such as that of ereshkigal. the most conscious of the deities unites with the unconscious or subconscious to create a whole. this union can be symbolised by the union of male and female, the syzygy, but takes place within the individual, where unconscious contents are brought into consciousness and incorporated – the union of the rational with the non-rational, the intellect with the emotions and instincts, for jung, the process of individuation which results in wholeness. the union of opposites is an archetypal theme played out in the lives of individuals and the mythical behaviour of the gods. conclusion i feel i have barely touched the surface of this subject. every culture has its myths, legends, and religious stories, and this study, both part 1 and part 2, draws from a limited group of mythologies in order to illustrate briefly the application of jung’s categories of the archetypes of the anima and the mother. dividing the archetypes into three realms – those of the underworld, the earth, and the sky – is convenient but encounters the usual problems with categories, that is, they often overlap. but in this case, the overlaps parallel the permeability of the three levels of consciousness explored by jung – the unconscious, the ego, and the self, the self being the whole mind rather than the limited, conscious ego. in exploring these female archetypes, we see the interrelation of the three realms. the mother is both conscious protector, spiritual guide, and nurturer, while at the same time the unconscious forces of birth and death, life and destruction. the anima lurks in the unconscious, wielding her supernatural power to drive our lives either towards mystical knowledge, consciousness and individuation, or towards oblivion in sensual urges. the sky mothers and animas can transcend the body and ego, but in so many myths, they crave balance through the experience of the underworld, the unconscious drives of the instincts and the non-rational, and through this unity, express a balanced whole. for jung, these myths and entities express the complex reality of the individual self, incorporating the unconscious mind and the conscious ego, mediated by archetypal soul forces in the psyche, which try to unite them. the interrelationships between the archetypes represent the unity and interdependence of the parts of the self that make up a whole. notes (1) all sculptures and photos are by the author. more examples can be seen on: http://www-personal.une.edu.au/~rrelke (2) jungians will also see medusa as athena’s shadow, an archetype which personifies in the unconscious as a figure of the same gender. it contains the opposite qualities to the ego, especially those qualities that the ego sees as unattractive or negative. the ego casts a shadow, made up of repressed negative qualities, which are then projected onto the eternal world as undesirable or evil people, ideas, or objects. or medusa may be the shadow of athena’s anima, in a similar manner to adam’s suggestion that the “terrible” mother is the shadow of the great mother (adams, 2001, p.210). (3) the discovery of thousands of neolithic figurines, predominantly female, in this and other areas of the near and middle east, suggest rituals focused on women or the belief in important female spiritual entities (relke, 2002, pp.69-81). (4) anyone familiar with tai chi will know the movements of “snake creeps down” and “stork spreads its wings”. (5) for a succinct summary of the myths of isis, see anthes (1961, pp.68-85) and watterson (1984, pp.89-131). (6) also translated as “the descent of ishtar to the underworld” (dalley, 1989a, pp.154-162). references adams, m. v. (2001). the mythological unconscious. new york, london: h. karnak (books) limited. anthes, r. (1961). mythology in ancient egypt. in s. n. kramer (ed.), mythologies of the ancient world (pp. 15-92). new york: anchor books. bardi, u. (1997). chimaera: the origins of the myth. http://www.unifi.it/unifi/surfchem/solid/bardi/chimera/origins.html accessed 8 sept, 2006. bleeker, c. j. 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(1952b). the origin of the hero (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), symbols of transformation (2nd ed., vol. 5 (1956), pp. 171-206). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1954a). archetypes of the collective unconscious (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 3-41). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1954b). concerning the archetypes, with special reference to the anima concept (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 54-72). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1954c). psychological aspects of the mother archetype (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), the archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed., vol. 9(i) (1959), pp. 75-100). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. jung, c. g. (1959). the syzygy: anima and animus (r. f. c. hull, trans.). in s. h. read, m. fordham & g. adler (eds.), aion: researches into the phenomenology of the self (2nd ed., vol. 9(ii) (1959), pp. 11-22). princeton, new jersey: princeton university press. kramer, s. n. (1961 [1944]). sumerian mythology. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. morford, m. p. o., & lenardon, r. j. (2003). classical mythology (7th ed.). oxford: oxford university press. mundkur, b. (1983). the cult of the serpent: an interdisciplinary survey of its manifestations and origins. albany, n.y.: state university of new york press. ovid. metamorphoses. (m. m. innes, trans. 1955). london: penguin books. paris, g. (1986). pagan meditations: the worlds of aphrodite, artemis, and hestia. putnam, connecticut: spring publications, inc. paris, g. (1990/2003). pagan grace: dionysos, hermes, and goddess memory in daily life. putnam, connecticut: spring publications, inc. relke, j. (2002). women’s religious experience in prehistoric and small scale societies. australian religion studies review, 15(2), 69-81. sandars, n. k. the epic of gilgamesh. (n. k. sandars, trans. rev. ed. 1972). london: penguin books. shearer, a. (1996). athene: image and energy. london: penguin books. sheridan, m. c. (2006). gender issues attendant upon the transition from the feminine sophia to the masculine logos: part 1. theandros: an online journal of orthodox christian theology and philosophy, 4(1). http://www.theandros.com/sophialogos1.html accessed 1 february 2007. watterson, b. (1984). the gods of ancient egypt. london: b.t. batsford. woodman, m. (1982). addiction to perfection: the still unravished bride. toronto, canada: inner city books. theory of mind development in adolescence and early adulthood: the growing complexity of recursive thinking ability research reports theory of mind development in adolescence and early adulthood: the growing complexity of recursive thinking ability annalisa valle*a, davide massaroa, ilaria castellia, antonella marchettia [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. abstract this study explores the development of theory of mind, operationalized as recursive thinking ability, from adolescence to early adulthood (n = 110; young adolescents = 47; adolescents = 43; young adults = 20). the construct of theory of mind has been operationalized in two different ways: as the ability to recognize the correct mental state of a character, and as the ability to attribute the correct mental state in order to predict the character’s behaviour. the imposing memory task, with five recursive thinking levels, and a third-order false-belief task with three recursive thinking levels (devised for this study) have been used. the relationship among working memory, executive functions, and linguistic skills are also analysed. results show that subjects exhibit less understanding of elevated recursive thinking levels (third, fourth, and fifth) compared to the first and second levels. working memory is correlated with total recursive thinking, whereas performance on the linguistic comprehension task is related to third level recursive thinking in both theory of mind tasks. an effect of age on third-order false-belief task performance was also found. a key finding of the present study is that the third-order false-belief task shows significant age differences in the application of recursive thinking that involves the prediction of others’ behaviour. in contrast, such an age effect is not observed in the imposing memory task. these results may support the extension of the investigation of the third order false belief after childhood. keywords: recursive thinking, theory of mind, adolescence, adulthood, third-order false-belief task europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 received: 2014-06-20. accepted: 2014-12-19. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: università cattolica del sacro cuore – casella 586. l.go gemelli, 1, 20123, milano, italy. e-mail: annalisa.valle@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction theory of mind is the ability to understand mental states (intentions, emotions, desires, beliefs), and to predict one’s own and others’ behaviour on the basis of these states (premack &woodruff, 1978). theory of mind research has traditionally been conducted in children and has identified the key moments of its development using false belief tasks. the first-order false-belief task evaluates recursive thinking of the first level (i.e. ‘i think that you think’), which appears around 4 years of age (wimmer & perner, 1983); the second-order false-belief task measures recursive thinking of the second level (i.e. ‘i think that you think that she/he thinks’), which is evident at around 8 years of age (perner & wimmer, 1985). in recent years, there has been increasing interest in theory of mind abilities beyond childhood, which are investigated through the use of a wider and more variable set of tasks that differs from the false-belief task (henry, phillips, ruffman, & bailey, 2013; miller, 2012). indeed, studies of non-infant subjects show that theory of mind is often related to other significant social competences (filippova & astington, 2010; massaro, valle, & marchetti, 2013; massaro, valle, & marchetti, 2014) and that it evolves also europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ after infancy and childhood (apperly, samson, & humphreys, 2009; dumontheil, apperly, & blakemore, 2010; sommerville, bernstein, & meltzoff, 2013). a particularly interesting period is adolescence, since it is characterized by major changes in the cognitive, socio-emotional, and relational domains (eccles, templeton, barber, & sotone, 2003). moreover, the increasing importance of interpersonal relationships in adolescence (kenny, dooley, & fitzgerald, 2013), especially among peers, requires the frequent and accurate use of specific social skills, such as the ability to understand one’s own and others' minds. the study of theory of mind in adolescence and early adulthood constitutes a methodological challenge, because it requires the creation of new theory of mind tasks in order to capture age differences (henry et al., 2013; moran, 2013). despite the fact that the literature has provided a discrete number of tasks to test theory of mind after childhood, it may be interesting to notice that the construct of false belief, so relevant to study theory of mind in infancy and childhood, has been mostly neglected and replaced by other measures which evaluate mainly social and emotional-affective aspects of theory of mind. as regards the social aspects of theory of mind, the tasks that have been created consist of stories or cartoons about various types of social situations, where subjects have to detect the reasons for a character’s behaviour. for example, in the strange stories (happé, 1994), the subject has to provide a mentalistic explanation of the behaviour of a character in situations of misunderstanding, white lie, irony, persuasion and so on. in the faux pas task (stone, baron-cohen, & knight, 1998) the subject has to recognize the presence of a “gaffe” in a social interaction. finally, in the social understanding tasks devised by bosacki and astington (1999) the subject has to answer some questions regarding a social situation, referring to conceptual role-taking, empathetic sensitivity, person perception, and so on. similar measures to the strange stories and the faux pas task are those devised by vetter, leipold, kliegel, philips, and altgassen (2013) and altgassen, vetter, phillips, akgün, and kliegel (2014). as regards the emotional-affective aspects of theory of mind, a widely used task is the reading the mind in the eyes test (baron-cohen, wheelwright, hill, raste, & plumb, 2001), where the subject has to choose the best label for the description of the emotional mental states from a character’s eye gaze. other tasks evaluate the ability of perspective-taking (see for example choudhury, blakemore, & charman, 2006), trying to distinguish between a cognitive and an affective component of theory of mind: this is the case of the perspective-taking task devised by shamay-tsoory, harari, aharon-peretz, and levkovitz (2010) and of the cartoons used by sebastian et al. (2012). referring to themore broad construct of mentalization, different types of measures are used, such as thementalising stories for adolescence (vrouva & fonagy, 2009), the social cognition and object relation scale – scors (westen, lohr, silk, gold, & kerber, 1990), in particular the two sub-scales about mentalizing (rothschild-yakar, levy-shiff, fridman-balaban, gur, & stein, 2010), the levels of emotional awareness scale for adolescents aleas (pratt, 2006), the masc movie for the assessment of social cognition (dziobek et al., 2006). it may be interesting to underline that in the general overview provided so far, the tasks evaluate the socio-relational components of theory of mind, that belong to the implicit aspects of theory of mind reasoning (ruffman, 2014), thus neglecting the evaluation of the increasing complexity of meta-representational recursivity. in our view, the only tasks that try to evaluate the recursive thinking in adolescents and young adults, are those devised by dumontheil et al. (2010) and by bernstein, thornton, and sommerville (2011). in the first case, participants observed a series of objects put on a set of shelves: they had to move the objects following the instructions of a “director of communication”, knowing that the latter could see only some of the objects. the subjects have to act europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 valle, massaro, castelli et al. 113 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the basis of their ability to disentangle their own knowledge of the reality and the director’s knowledge, a cognitive operation similar to the one involved in the resolution of the false-belief task. in the second case, bernstein et al. (2011) proposed a continuous false-belief task that differs from the classic dichotomous false-belief task. in this new task, the subject is required to predict where a character in the story will look for a target that was moved to a different location inside the same box. this task is the only one that measures the false-belief understanding, with a new method of answer that allows a continuous and more detailed measurement. we think that it is worth continuing to study the understanding of false-belief beyond childhood and to create new tasks for this purpose for two reasons. first, although in the history of theory of mind research, it has been conceived as the “litmus-paper” of the meta-representational ability, there is a lack of knowledge about its development after childhood. second, the false-belief task evaluates the pure cognitive mechanism that underlies theory of mind reasoning, which may not be fully caught by the social and emotional-affective tasks. in these last tasks, people may answer correctly mainly thanks to other strategies, such as the reference to a familiar social context, or to heuristics (keysar, lin, & barr, 2003; massaro, castelli, 2009). in order to outline the development of the cognitive dimension of theory of mind till early adulthood, we analyse different levels of recursive thinking. we developed and contributed to the validation of a third-order false-belief task following the classical structure of the unexpected transfer task (wimmer & perner, 1983) increasing the meta-representational level of recursivity until the third embedded belief (‘i think that you think that he/she thinks that another person thinks…’). this ability has been explored along with the evaluation of general cognitive abilities. in fact, there is consistent evidence that theory of mind development, from its onset to its decline, is related to cognitive abilities such as language, memory and executive function (apperly et al., 2009; german & hehman, 2006; mutter, alcorn, & welsh, 2006). thanks to their more sophisticated cognitive abilities, adults are generally faster and more accurate than children when completing both simple and complex experimental tasks. however, even adults show some limitations in responding to theory of mind tasks (epley, keysar, van boven, & gilovich, 2004; keysar et al., 2003). this seems to support the hypothesis that complex tasks require substantial cognitive engagement, which interferes with theory of mind reasoning (apperly et al., 2009). however, it is also interesting to notice that, in their examination of theory of mind in people aged 7 to 27, dumontheil et al. (2010) found that perspective-taking ability continues to improve in late adolescence, even if executive function and working memory have already reached adult levels. aims and hypotheses given the evidence we have discussed that theory of mind and corresponding recursive thinking ability continue to develop after childhood, this study explores these abilities in subjects aged 14, 17, and 20 years. in addition, this study proposes a contribution to the validation of a new third-order false-belief task (structured as an unexpected transfer task). we aim to explore the development of two types of recursive thinking and their possible link from adolescence to adulthood. in the first type, the subject must interpret the thoughts of the characters (the imposing memory task; kinderman, dunbar, & bentall, 1998). the second requires the subject to predict the character’s behaviour on the basis of her/his mental state (the new third-order false-belief task). each of the two types of recursive thinking is in turn articulated in different levels of increasing complexity. so, they measure the same construct (theory of mind) but with different operationalizations: in the first case the subject has to recognize the correct mental state of the character; in the second case the subject has to attribute the correct mental state in order to predict the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 recursive thinking in adolescence and adulthood 114 http://www.psychopen.eu/ character’s behaviour. we also assess the relationships among working memory, language ability, and executive function and the two types of recursive thinking. we hypothesize that the two types of recursive thinking correlate at least when they evaluate the same level of meta-representation; we predict that the role of these cognitive abilities will be more prominent in the more complex recursive thinking. we also hypothesize a stronger age effect on behaviour prediction than on mental state recognition after controlling cognitive abilities, showing a greater complexity of the former capacity. method participants one hundred and ten subjects participated. of these, 47 were 14-year-olds (young adolescents; m = 14.8 years, sd = 0.49 years, females = 22), 43 were 17-year-olds (adolescents; m = 17.8 years, sd = 0.33 years, females = 18), and 20 were 20-year-olds (young adults;m = 22.8 years, sd = 1.7 years, females = 10). all participants were italian. the two groups of adolescents were recruited in high schools, and the young adults were recruited from the university. they were neither referred to social services, nor reported for learning and socio-relational difficulties. informed consent was obtained from each participant, and informed parental consent was obtained for the two groups of adolescents. the research was conducted according to apa ethical standards and was approved by the local ethics committee. materials and procedure theory of mind tasks — recursive thinking ability was assessed by two tasks: the imposing memory task and a third-order false-belief task, which was specifically devised for the present research. the imposing memory task (imt; kinderman et al., 1998) is an advance theory of mind task composed of a series of five stories: four mentalistic stories that describe a complex social situation, and one control story that involves one character. each mentalistic story requires the subject to apply recursive thinking to understand the perspective and the intentions of the characters: the subject is required to answer a questionnaire about the characters’ mental states (recursive thinking questions) or about information in the story (memory questions). the response format for each question is a forced choice between two alternatives: one correct and one incorrect. the questions collectively assess different levels of recursive thinking, ranging from the first level of complexity (about a character’s mental state; for example ‘sam wanted to go to the post office to buy a stamp/a tax disc’) to the fifth level of complexity (involving different characters’ minds; for example ‘john thought that pamela thought that he, john, wanted that pamela discovered what sara wanted to do because john wanted to go out alone with pamela’). since not all stories include questions that assess the fifth level of complexity, we calculated one score for each level of recursive thinking and proportioned these scores (the range is 0–1). the range of the total score, obtained by the sum of the score of all levels, was similarly proportioned (range 0–1; see appendix a for an example of the task). the third-order false-belief task (fbt3) follows the classical structure of firstand second-order false-belief tasks, in which subjects have to attribute a cause to a character's behaviour on the basis of her/his mental state. the fbt3 consists of a brief story about three brothers involved in an unexpected transfer, followed by a questionnaire pertaining to the characters’ mental states. the questionnaire consists of one second-order false-belief question and two third-order false-belief questions (closed-ended questions), each followed by a respective justification question (open-ended questions). all false-belief answers are scored as either correct (1) or incorrect (0); for the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 valle, massaro, castelli et al. 115 http://www.psychopen.eu/ justification questions, a 0 is given for incorrect answers, a 1 is assigned when the answer concerns a behaviour of the character, and a 2 is given when the answer concerns the characters’ mental state. the range of the fbt3 total score was proportioned and was from 0 to 1.50 (see appendix b for the complete versions of the task). working memory and executive function tasks — working memory was assessed through the listening span test (daneman & carpenter, 1980; pazzaglia, palladino, & de beni, 2000), which consists of two groups of sentences. each group is composed of a sequence of sentences increasing from two to six; the sentences are tape-recorded and listened to by the subjects. at the end of each sentence, the subject must decide if it is true or false; this additional task was included to control for the fact that participants may have just concentrated on the final words rather than processing the entire sentence. each sequence of sentences is presented in ascending order, starting with the two-sentence sequence and continuing to the six-sentence sequence; at the end of each sequence, the subject must recall the last word of each sentence. the score is based on the total number of words correctly recalled in the correct order and ranges from 0–40. executive function was assessed by the clock test (fabio, antonietti, & pravettoni, 2008; moron, 1997, as cited in fabio et al., 2008). this task evaluates the access to automation and the return to voluntary control through the presentation of four tables, each filled with 400 watches (among which there are 40 targets). in the first, second, and third table, the subject has to identify all the clocks showing 04:00, which activates automation processes. in the last table, the participant has to identify the clocks that show 05:00, which requires a return to voluntary control. the time required to complete each table is three minutes. we calculated the following indices to evaluate the subjects' performance: 1. inaccuracy index: the sum of the number of incorrect answers and omissions (range 0–160) 2. automation index: the number of correct answers in the third table minus the number of correct answers in the first table (range -40–40) 3. rigidity index: the number of correct answers in the third table minus the number of correct answers in the fourth table (range -40–40) language tasks— to control for verbal skills, we administered the vocabulary and the comprehension subscales of the wisc-iii (under 16 years [wechsler, 1991]) and the wais-r (over 16 years [wechsler, 1982]). the vocabulary subscale of the wisc-iii and wais-r is composed of 30 and 35 words, respectively, that subjects must define. a score of 0 (incorrect answer), 1 (partially correct answer), or 2 (correct answer) is given for each definition, and total score is weighted according to the scoring manual. the total score ranges from 1–19. the comprehension subscale is composed of 18 (for the adolescents) or 16 (for the adults) sentences that the subject is asked to explain. a score of 0 (incorrect answer), 1 (answer partially correct), or 2 (correct answer) is given for each answer, and total score is weighted according to the scoring manual (range 1–19). subjects completed the tasks, which were presented in the italian, in a quiet room in the school or at the university. the tasks were completed in two group sessions: the listening span test, imt, and vocabulary task were completed in the first session; and the clock test, fbt3, and comprehension task were completed in the second session. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 recursive thinking in adolescence and adulthood 116 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results table 1 reports the descriptive statistics for the explored variables, namely the total scores of each task that were used in the subsequent analyses. first, a preliminary evaluation of subject performance on the two theory of mind tasks is presented. second, the possible links between these tasks, as well as between theory of mind tasks and cognitive variables are explored. finally, a general model that evaluates the impact of gender, age, and cognitive variables on theory of mind performance is presented. table 1 descriptive statistics of task performance total sample (n = 110)young adults (n = 20)adolescents (n = 43)young adolescents (n = 47) sdmmaxminsdmmaxminsdmmaxminsdmmaxmintasks (score range) fbt3-lev2 (0/1.50) .44.87.501.00.40.001.501.00.44.91.501.00.45.78.501.00 fbt3-lev3(0/1.50) .51.40.501.00.66.74.501.00.44.29.501.00.47.36.501.00 fbt3 (0/1.50) .39.55.501.00.43.82.501.33.34.50.331.00.38.50.331.00 imt-lev1 (0/1) .05.99.001.75.00.001.001.001.05.99.001.75.06.98.001.75 imt-lev2 (0/1) .10.97.001.67.00.001.001.001.07.98.001.67.13.94.001.67 imt-lev3 (0/1) .17.84.001.20.10.89.001.80.14.87.001.40.19.79.001.20 imt-lev4 (0/1) .15.87.001.50.13.87.001.75.16.85.001.50.14.88.001.50 imt-lev5 (0/1) .35.85.001.00.22.95.001.00.39.81.001.00.36.85.001.00 imt (0/1) .08.90.001.64.05.93.001.82.08.91.001.65.08.89.001.71 listening span test .284.9933.0040.0020.254.2033.0039.0025.433.6535.0040.0028.574.8132.0040.0020 inaccuracy (0/160) .4620.0747.00118.007.0218.5546.0082.0013.6414.2839.0077.007.4623.4254.00118.0017 automation (-40 / 40) .366.203.0025.00-12.444.401.008.00-8.136.024.0015.00-9.167.213.0025.00-12 rigidity (-40/ 40) .365.04-2.0010.00-19.067.65-.0010.00-19.644.02-2.008.00-16.155.64-2.008.00-16 vocabulary (1/19) .992.0113.0019.004.503.4013.0017.004.991.9514.0019.0010.262.0611.0015.005 comprehension (1/19) .882.1312.0017.001.502.4012.0017.009.002.6513.0017.009.982.6210.0017.001 a general linear model for repeated measures was employed to compare participants’ performance at the five levels of recursive thinking investigated by the imt. the model reveals a main effect of the levels (f(4, 106) = 35.144 p < .001, ηp 2 = .570, θ = 1). more specifically, pairwise comparisons (sidak correction) show that participants comprehend the first and second levels of recursive thinking (respectively m = .989, m = .970) significantly better than the third, fourth, and fifth levels of recursive thinking (respectivelym = .840,m = .868,m = .855). furthermore, regarding fbt3 performance, a paired sample t-test showed that second-order false belief is understood significantly better than third-order false belief (t = 7.741, df = 108, p < .001; respectively m = .872, m = .404). with regard to the link between the two recursive thinking tasks, fbt3 performance and the third level of recursivity of the imt are positively associated (r = .198, p = .039). however, this association disappears after controlling for working memory and language comprehension (r = .142, p = .143). the links among recursive thinking abilities, working memory, language competency, and executive function in the entire sample were also investigated. results show a significant correlation between total imt score and working memory (r = .252, p = .008). both the third-order false belief understanding (assessed through the fbt3) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 valle, massaro, castelli et al. 117 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and the third level of recursivity of the imt positively correlate with the comprehension task (respectively, r = .233, p = .015; r = .314, p = .001). univariate anovas revealed an age effect on the third level of recursivity and total imt score (respectively, (f(2, 107) = 4.441 p < .05; f(2, 107) = 3.128 p < .05), as well as on the fbt3 (f(2, 106) = 5.862 p < .01; f(2, 106) = 6.157 p < .01). as for the third level of recursivity of the imt, young adolescents’ performance (m = .787) was significantly worse than that of other participants (m = .874,m = .890); for imt total score, the difference persisted only between young adolescents (m = .886) and young adults (m = .935). as for the third-order false belief of the fbt3, young adolescents (m = .364) and adolescents (m = .290) performed significantly worse than young adults (m = .737); this difference was also observed for fbt3 total score (m = .503 and m = .496 vs. m = .825). on the basis of these results, we constructed a multivariate general linear model in order to explore the effect of gender and age on the total score and the third level of recursivity of the imt, as well as on fbt3 performance, controlling for working memory and comprehension. the model shows a main effect of age (f(6, 200) = 3.460, p < .01, ηp 2 = .094, θ = .942). more specifically, tests for between-subjects effects show that age differences only affect fbt3 performance (f(2, 101) = 6.712, p < .01, ηp 2 = .117, θ = .909): young adults (m = .810) perform significantly better than young adolescents (m = .557) and adolescents (m = .443) (see figure 1). discussion the present research investigates recursive thinking ability in adolescence and in early adulthood. furthermore, we collect some evidences as contribution to validation of a new third-order false-belief task. our results suggest that the first and second levels of recursive thinking in the imposing memory task are better understood than the other levels. considering performance in the third-order false-belief task, second-order false belief is understood significantly better than third-order false belief. these data highlight the importance to study the third level of recursive thinking during adolescence and early adulthood. in fact, the lower levels are well understood in both tasks, while the third level seems to require a leap of reasoning that was reflected by the greater difficulty subjects experienced in providing correct answers. furthermore, performance on third-order false-belief task is associated with the third level of recursivity of the imposing memory task. this result suggests that both tasks measure the same construct of theory of mind, operationalized in a different manner. the correlation between the performance on this level of recursive thinking and language comprehension seems to support the hypothesis that the third level of recursive thinking represents an important step in theory of mind development. adolescents and adults exploit their language skills in order to respond specifically to this level. these skills seem unnecessary for the previous levels, which are well understood, and for the subsequent ones, which are probably so difficult that good language skills do not help. a correlation between working memory and performance on the imposing memory task was found. two characteristics differentiate the imposing memory task from the third-order false-belief task, and these may explain this result. first, the imposing memory task demands that one keeps in mind the perspective of multiple characters involved in numerous situations, while the third-order false-belief task requires one to remember a single story with only three characters. second, the imposing memory task asks subjects to identify the correct answers among a set of alternative couples, which requires one to remember the perspective of multiple characters and make inferences afterwards about their thoughts. conversely, the third-order false-belief task requires the subject europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 recursive thinking in adolescence and adulthood 118 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. age effect on third levels and total scores of imposing memory task and false-belief task. to make only one inference about the behaviour of two characters. thus, it can be assumed that when completing the imposing memory task, subjects use working memory more than in the third-order false-belief task. results show an age effect on both the total score and the third level of recursive thinking for the imposing memory task and the third-order false-belief task. the multivariate general linear model shows that after controlling for working memory and linguistic comprehension, the age effect persists only for third-order false-belief understanding, specifically that young adults perform significantly better than young adolescents and adolescents. performance on the imposing memory task remains unchanged. the already described difference of operationalization between the two tasks may explain this result. this difference concerns the type of cognitive activity required to process the recursive thinking involved in the two tasks: the imposing memory task requires one to recognize different levels of recursive thinking, whereas the third-order false-belief task requires one to make a causal attribution regarding the character’s behaviour, that is to make behaviour prediction after attributing a mental state. the age effect on the imposing memory task disappeared when general cognitive functions are controlled. this may be explained hypothesizing that the variability of the performance to this task across ages mainly depends on the general cognitive components of the task itself. on the contrary, the age effect on the third-order false-belief task persists despite controlling for general cognitive abilities. in other words, this last task seems able to detect in a more direct way the peculiarity of the meta-representational mechanisms implied in the attribution of mental state and in the prediction of behaviour on the basis of this attribution. this evidence is consistent with the hypothesis of an increasing dissociation between theory of mind and cognitive skills starting during adolescence that is characterized by a greater propensity to consider the perspective of others (dumontheil et al., 2010). this dissociation becomes evident in early adulthood in the present study. it is conceivable that, beginning at this age, the accuracy in the application of recursive thinking does not depend on cognitive abilities, which have now reached a high level, but rather depends on the individual’s richer social experience and more sophisticated ability to verify inferences on the basis of behaviour. from this perspective, the classic false-belief tasks, considered as the core task to test theory of mind acquisition, but criticized and considered ineffective for studies with adults, may be re-evaluated (birch & bloom, 2004; bloom & german, 2000). our results show that this task may be able europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 valle, massaro, castelli et al. 119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to better detect developmental differences in the application of recursive thinking towards behaviour prediction than the imposing memory task. the latter seems to be more strictly linked to the general cognitive demand, although it explores a wider range of levels of recursivity. several limitations of the present study warrant consideration. first, given the importance of the third recursive level of thought, the use of only one specific task (the third-order false-belief task) may have limited the validity of the results obtained, although the correlation between the two tasks used provides support to the commonality of the construct measured. in the future, it will be important to use a greater number of tasks to assess third-order recursive thinking. furthermore, although the tasks used here propose daily life situations, it would be interesting to apply tasks with higher ecological validity with regard to both content and answer mode (for example, the imposing memory task imposes reasoning on a multiple-choice response platform, which is generally not the case). in conclusion, we believe that our results highlight two key points: the first concerns the possibility that the third level of recursive thinking represents an important step in theory of mind development from adolescence to adulthood; and the second concerns the revaluation of the classical false belief tasks, since they are able to capture some aspects of the application of theory of mind in adulthood that might not otherwise emerge. future research will further test whether the false belief task, alongside the most advanced and recent tasks, could still provide useful evidence about the use of theory of mind within a life-span perspective. funding this research received financial support from the ministry of education, universities and research (miur) as a research program of national interest in 2008. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are grateful to the director of the school, to the teachers, to the parents and especially to adolescents and young adults who participated to this research. notes conceived and designed the experiments: av dm ic am. performed the experiments: av ic. analyzed the data: dm. wrote the paper: av dm ic am. references altgassen, m., vetter, n. c., phillips, l. h., akgün, c., & kliegel, m. 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(1983). beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception. cognition, 13(1), 103-128. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5 appendices appendix a: imposing memory task: example ‘where’s the post office?’ taken from kindermann et al., 1998, appendix sam wanted to find a post office so he could buy a tax disc for his car. he asked henry if he could tell him where to get one. henry told him that he thought there was a post office in elm street. when sam got to elm street, he found it was closed. a notice on the door said that he had moved to new premises in bold street. so sam went to bold street and found the new post office. when he got to the counter, he discovered that he had left his mot certificate at home. he realized that, without an mot certificate, he could not get a tax disc, so he went home empty-handed. following the story, subjects were presented with questions similar to the example below (the score associated with each response option is shown in parentheses): a. henry thought sam would find the post office in elm street (1) b. henry thought sam would find the post office in bold street (0) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 valle, massaro, castelli et al. 123 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsr023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/089892998562942 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2012.718324 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.2.4.355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix b: third-order false-belief task mark, james, and luke are three brothers. mark is playing with a ball in the bedroom while his brother james is playing on the computer. after the game, mark decides to go to the kitchen to eat a snack and puts the ball in a closed box. james and luke see mark put the ball in the box. while mark is in the kitchen, james and luke enter the bedroom. james takes the ball to play, puts it in the closet, and returns to the computer. at this point, luke takes the ball and plays with it. james goes to the bathroom. meanwhile, luke hits the ball with his foot awkwardly, and the ball drops behind a large wardrobe. luke is unable to recover the ball, so he climbs onto the bed and starts reading. james meets mark in the hallway and tells him that he put the ball in the wardrobe. after several minutes, the two brothers enter in the bedroom. james goes to the computer, and luke makes an unequivocal gesture to tell mark that the ball is behind the wardrobe. james does not see this gesture. mark wants to play again with the ball. the questionnaire was as follows (the score attributed to each closed-ended answer is shown in parentheses): 1. 2-order false-belief question: where does luke think that james will seek the ball? (in the wardrobe = 1; other = 0) 2. justification question: why? 3. 3-order false-belief question:where does luke think that james thinks that mark will look for the ball? (in the box = 1; other = 0) 4. justification question:why? 5. 3-order false-belief question: where does james think that luke thinks that mark will look for the ball? (in the box = 1; other = 0) 6. justification question:why? about the authors annalisa valle: researcher in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. member of the theory of mind research unit, main interests: theory of mind development in a life-span perspective, irony understanding in children, emotional development in children and adolescents, mentalization in a life-span perspective. davidemassaro:researcher in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. member of the theory of mind research unit, main interests: theory of mind development, irony understanding in children, decision making, outcome and hindsight bias in children, art perception in a life-span perspective. ilaria castelli:researcher in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. member of the theory of mind research unit, main interests: theory of mind development in typical and atypical (autism spectrum disorder) conditions, theory of mind development across the life span in typical aging and dementia (mild cognitive impairment and alzheimer’s desease), the neural basis of theory of mind, the relationship between theory of mind and decision making. antonella marchetti: full professor of developmental and educational psychology, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. head of the theory of mind research unit, coordinator of the phd programme in person and formation sciences. main interests: theory of mind development in typical and atypical conditions, the emotional development, decision making, the link between theory of mind and the reasoning biases, art perception in children and adults, language and figurative language, the irony understanding in children, the neural basis of theory of mind. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 112–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 recursive thinking in adolescence and adulthood 124 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en recursive thinking in adolescence and adulthood introduction aims and hypotheses method participants materials and procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments notes references appendices appendix a: imposing memory task: example ‘where’s the post office?’ appendix b: third-order false-belief task about the authors a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 204–206 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.425 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 the integrated self: a holistic approach to spirituality and mental health practice paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejop's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf if stigmatized, self-esteem is not enough: effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration research reports if stigmatized, self-esteem is not enough: effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration angela fedia, chiara rollero*b [a] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [b] faculty of psychology, university ecampus, novedrate, italy. abstract ambivalent sexism hasmany pernicious consequences. since gender stereotypes also affect leadership roles, the present research investigated the effects of ambivalent sexism on envisioning oneself as a leader. our studies tested the influence of sexist attitudes (toward women – study 1 – and men – study 2) on leadership aspiration, taking into account the interaction among ambivalent attitudes, personal characteristics (e.g. self-esteem), and group processes (e.g. level of identification with gender). specifically, the current study used a 3 (sexism: hostile, benevolent, control) x 2 (social identification: high, low) x 2 (self-esteem: high, low) factorial design. 178 women participated in study 1. results showed that, although sexism was not recognised as a form of prejudice and did not trigger negative emotions, in sexist conditions high-identified women increase their leadership aspiration. in study 2 men (n = 184) showed to recognise hostility as a form of prejudice, to experience more negative emotions, but to be not influenced in leadership aspiration. for both men and women self-esteem had a significant main effect on leadership aspiration. keywords: ambivalent attitudes, leadership aspirations, self-esteem, social identification europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 received: 2015-04-16. accepted: 2016-06-06. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: maria kakarika, neoma business school, reims, france *corresponding author at: university ecampus, faculty of psychology, via isimbardi 10 – 22060 novedrate (co) – italy. e-mail: chiara.rollero@uniecampus.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction although women have gained access to almost sectors of work-life, substantial disparities in the career achievement of men and women persist, higher status jobs remaining predominantly a male prerogative (eagly & carli, 2004; eagly & karau, 2002). gender disparity in leadership roles is neatly represented as the “leadership labyrinth” (eagly, 2007; eagly & carli, 2007; hoyt, 2010a, 2010b; hoyt & chemers, 2008), the unsanctioned barriers obstructing women from reaching higher status job positions. gender disparity in reaching leadership positions has been explained from different theoretical perspectives (e.g. hoobler, lemmon, &wayne, 2014), taking into account personal, social, organizational and cultural factors. some studies underlined the importance of leadership aspirations – conceived as the desire of and the possibility to perceive oneself in a power position (boatwright & egidio, 2003) – in influencing the tangible possibilities of career achievement. women aspiring to leadership roles are target of negative stereotypes and prejudices which can impact their thoughts, feelings and emotions, behaviours and aspirations (hoyt & blascovich, 2007, 2010; hoyt europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ & simon, 2011). among these social and psychological barriers, ambivalent sexism plays a relevant role because of its apparently positive dimension resulting even more harmful than explicitly hostile attitudes (barreto & ellemers, 2005). classically, research deepened the detrimental effects of sexism on performance in a specific domain; only recently, scholars have highlighted the impact of gender stereotypes on self-perception and, in turn, on leadership aspirations (simon & hoyt, 2013). however, at best of our knowledge, no study has evaluated the effects of ambivalent sexism on the perception of oneself as a leader, together with the interaction among personal characteristics (e.g. self-esteem) and group processes (e.g. the level of identification with gender). the two studies here presented (involving both women – study 1 – and men – study 2) aimed at addressing this gap, investigating the influence of ambivalent sexism – along with the influence of self-esteem and social identification with gender – on leadership aspiration. in the following sections, we review leadership aspirations, the social and personal factors influencing them, and the gender gap in reaching leader job positions. next, we draw from ambivalent sexism theory, social identity theory and self-categorization theory to formulate the hypotheses of the two studies. leadership aspirations and gender stereotypes career aspiration refers to individuals’ desire to choose a specific occupation (e.g. farmer, 1985; gray & o’brien, 2007; nauta, epperson, & kahn, 1998). it can be considered a construct of three related items: job aspirations, job expectations, and educational aspirations (creed, tilbury, buys, & crawford, 2011). in parallel, leadership aspirations can be defined as the desire of and the possibility to perceive oneself in a power position. they are influenced by social, organizational and psychological factors (boatwright & egidio, 2003). many studies (for a review, see watson & mcmahon, 2005) underline the early impact of gender on the way preschool and elementary school aged children think about their career options. classically, the assessment of women’s career choice was based on the dichotomy between homemaking versus job orientation (betz & fitzgerald, 1987) and just in the 90’s scholars added the traditional versus non-traditional career choice and the prestigious versus non-prestigious job dichotomies (o’brien & fassinger, 1993). more specifically, in 1996, o’brien defined career aspiration as “the degree to which women aspire to leadership positions and continued education within their careers” (as cited in gray & o’brien, 2007, p. 318), moving beyond traditional measures of employment choice. despite women have gained access to lower-level management positions, substantial differences in manager composition and difficulties for women in being recognised and accepted as legitimate leaders persist (catalyst, 2012; eagly & carli, 2004; eagly & karau, 2002; ridgeway, 2001). moreover, research demonstrated that women do not aspire to leadership role as often as men (rollero & fedi, 2014; skrla, reyes, & scheurich, 2000) or anticipate more problems than men when asked to envision themselves in powerful roles (lips, 2001). leadership aspiration is recognised as one of the internal factors playing a role in determining the so-called “leaky pipeline” (eagly & carli, 2007; shapiro et al., 2015), namely the diminishing number of women up in leadership position notwithstanding their better educational performances than men. also the personal conflicts experienced by women and the internalization of values requested to aspire high position, poor self-image or self-esteem, socialized role expectations as well as modest career goals can deflate the possibility to reach powerful job positions (e.g. fitzgerald, 2003; gardiner, enomoto, & grogan, 2000; wojtalik, breckenridge, gibson hancox, & sobehart, 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration 534 http://www.psychopen.eu/ among the external barriers to career advancement for women, gender stereotypes have been hugely considered in the psychosocial literature. the link between stereotypes and gender gap in leadership can be analyzed from different perspectives (e.g. socialization and role development, eagly & karau, 2002; shapiro et al., 2015; wojtalik, breckenridge, gibson hancox, & sobehart, 2007; the development of gender-related social status, ridgeway, 1997, 2001; ridgeway & balkwell, 1997; the gendered positioning, katila & eriksson, 2013). particularly, since lips’ (2000, 2001) research, several studies assessed the gender differences in vision of power and in possible selves (markus & nurius, 1986) linked to power roles. recently, an interesting meta-analysis (koenig, eagly, mitchell, & ristikari, 2011) confirmed a strong tendency in considering leadership as culturally masculine. with few exceptions (e.g. schoon & polek, 2011), results underline the higher difficult for women to imagine themselves as leaders: even young women are less optimistic than men about holding leadership positions (e.g. diekman, goodfriend, & goodwin, 2004; hoyt & simon, 2011; killeen, lópez-zafra, & eagly, 2006; lips, 2000, 2001). as bosak and sczesny (2008) demonstrated, this can occur because usually women associate traditional agentic (male) traits to leadership roles and view themselves as possessing less of these (supposed) required characteristics than men do. in sum, two stereotypes are at stake: one referring to themasculine leader; the other referring to the communal women (see eagly & karau, 2002). ambivalent attitudes toward women and men literature about gender stereotypes has shown that stereotypes and prejudices do not need to be openly negative to be effective in their detrimental consequences. according to the ambivalent sexism theory, three specific factors characterise structural relations between men and women in societies: a) patriarchy, as men are accorded more power than women; b) gender differentiation, as men and women are ascribed different traits and social roles; and c) sexual reproduction, that creates dependencies and intimacies between the sexes. these three factors together create both hostile and benevolent attitudes toward the other sex (glick & fiske, 1996, 2001). specifically, ambivalent sexism theory (glick & fiske, 1996, 2001) highlights the benevolent and hostile components of traditional attitudes towards both sexes. referring to women, hostile sexism explicitly communicates antipathy, whereas benevolent sexism conveys an apparently positive portrait of women, although, similarly to hostile sexism, it relies on gender stereotypes and contributes to perpetuate gender inequalities. concerning male gender, hostility toward men refers to overtly negative attitudes in response to sex power inequalities, while benevolence toward men represents positive or affectionate attitudes, based on recognising their dependence on women depicted as “pure” creatures who need male protection. research on sexism toward women has largely shown that the consequences of benevolent sexism can be even more pernicious than those exerted by explicitly hostile attitudes: indeed, benevolent sexism is not clearly recognisable as a form of prejudice and thus it is more difficult to combat than hostile sexism (barreto & ellemers, 2005; rollero & fedi, 2012; woodzicka & ford, 2010). specifically, many studies demonstrate that benevolent sexism leads to: legitimating domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape (fiske &glick, 1995; sakall, 2001), decreasing self-esteem and performances (dumont, sarlet, & dardenne, 2010; rollero, 2015), maintaining of gender discrimination (boasso, covert, & ruscher, 2012; glick et al., 2000; overall, sibley, & tan, 2011; rollero, 2013). sexism toward men has been less studied. similarly to benevolence toward women, benevolence toward men seems not to be recognised as prejudiced (rollero & fedi, 2012). concerning the effects, glick and whitehead (2015) underlined that the endorsement of benevolence toward men predicts legitimacy of gender hierarchy, whereas hostility toward men is a significant predictor of perceived stability of the status quo. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 535 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, few studies considered the impact of sexism on affective states. among them, barreto and ellemers (2005) and rollero and fedi (2012, 2014) found that both men and women primed with ambivalent sexism experienced more anxiety and anger than those in the control condition. although the judgemental process concerning the recognisability of sexism seems to be relatively independent from affective states, the salience of gender stereotypes can significantly foster negative emotions (barreto & ellemers, 2005). self-esteem, social identity and gender gap in leadership sexism and its effects need multiple levels of comprehension. indeed, if some personal characteristics (e.g. selfesteem) can be involved in the perception of and reactions to discriminatory attitudes, stereotypes are an intergroup phenomenon which also requires a collective frame (e.g. social identity theory, tajfel, 1978; self-categorization theory, turner, 1978). recently, simon and hoyt (2013; hoyt & simon, 2011) deeply explored the relation between gender stereotypes and leadership aspirations, underlining the impact of social comparison (with other female leaders or with women’s images from the media) on self-perception, and, in turn, on aspirations toward leadership roles of women. among indicators of self-perception, self-esteem, namely the individual level of self-worth or self-acceptance across situations (rosenberg, 1965), seems to play an important role in the relationship between people and power, either real or potential. a consistent amount of empirical results reports a positive association between self-esteem and leadership (e.g. atwater, dionne, avolio, camobreco, & lau, 1999; li, arvey, & song, 2011) and between selfesteem and leadership aspirations (boatwright & egidio, 2003). shortly, bass and bass (2008) stated that leader’s self-esteem can bolster leader’s motivation and self-acceptance, close work relationships and independence. moreover, whereas low self-esteem people are particularly sensitive to negative feedback, a high level of selfesteem can protect people from stress and negative experience or feedback (velsor, moxley, & bunker, 2004). in a similar way, as hypothesized by stress-buffering theories (e.g. brown & harris, 1978), self-esteem can play a protective function against the pernicious effects of stereotypes and discrimination (corning, 2002). on the social side, social identity theory and self-categorization theory can be usefully applied to sexism and gender gap. the social identity approach to intraand inter-group processes underlines the importance of the collective attributes of the group people belong to in order to define themselves in terms of social identity (hogg & abrams, 1988; turner, hogg, oakes, reicher, & wetherell, 1987). more, self-categorization theory (turner et al., 1987) assumes that the extent to which a social category can be identity-defining depends on the salience of the category itself (oakes, 1987): the social comparison with other categories of the social context is one of the factors strengthening the salience of a membership (brown & turner, 1981; hoyt & simon, 2011). historically – and currently – women belong to a low-status group and face stereotypes and discriminatory exclusion from power, resulting stigmatized (hoyt & simon, 2011; major & o’brien, 2005). negative stereotypes can provide the main framework to interpret the behaviour in a given domain. consequently, stigmatized people can be treated or judged on the basis of the prejudiced attitudes, and they can experience the situational predicament termed “stereotype threat” that can deeply undermine their performance or aspiration (davies, spencer, & steele, 2005). as hypothesized by the stereotype threat paradigm (steele & aronson, 1995; steele, spencer, & aronson, 2002), not all people are equally susceptible to the effects of the stereotypes, but only individuals whose social identity is targeted by the stereotype are vulnerable to the stereotype threat. talking about gender stereotype, only women should be affected by the negative effects of the priming (davies et al., europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration 536 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2005). nevertheless, according to social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1979), it is necessary to distinguish between the objective category membership and the subjective belongingness to that category: that is not all women experience the same sense of belonging to gender category. consistently with the social identity theory, women more vulnerable to the stereotype and to its negative effects are those who strongly identify themselves with their gender category. as above described, many studies have investigated sex differences in envisioning oneself as a leader (e.g. bosak & sczesny, 2008; davies et al., 2005; hoyt & simon, 2011; killeen et al., 2006; lips, 2000, 2001). however, at best of our knowledge, no study has examined the effects of ambivalent sexism on the perception of oneself as a leader, taking into account the interaction among sexist attitudes, personal characteristics (e.g. self-esteem), and group processes (e.g. the level of identification with gender). the current research the two studies here presented aimed at investigating the influence of ambivalent sexism (toward women – study 1, and toward men – study 2) on leadership aspiration. the effect of sexism was tested along with the influence of self-esteem and social identification with gender. before examining the effect on leadership, we tested: a) whether sexism was recognised as a form of prejudice; and b) the emotions participants experienced facing sexism. in study 1, since high-identifiers are likely to be more sensitive to stereotype threat, we expected that, when facing sexism, high-identified women would recognise both hostile and benevolent sexism as a form of prejudice (hypothesis 1) and would experience more negative emotions (hypothesis 2) than low-identified women. about the possibility of envisioning oneself as a leader, we hypothesized a main effect of self-esteem and an interaction among experimental condition, identification and self-esteem. specifically, we suspected that – in the sexist conditions – high identification would make women more sensitive to stereotype (hypothesis 3), but high self-esteem would protect them against such stereotypic beliefs (hypothesis 4). in study 2, we expected that high-identified men would consider the sexist sources more prejudiced (hypothesis 5) and would experiencemore negative emotions (hypothesis 6) than low-identifiedmen. however, since ambivalent attitudes toward men do not threaten their leadership abilities, we hypothesized that only self-esteem would play a significant role in envisioning oneself as a leader (hypothesis 7). study 1 method participants a convenience sample of 178 women participated in the study. they were recruited via students’ assistance, according to the technique of convenience sampling. their mean age was 42.95 years (sd = 11.05). the majority was high school graduated (46.63%) or had a lower level of education (31.46%), but there were also college graduated (21.91%). most of the participants (84.27%) were still working, followed by housewives (10.11%), and a small percentage of retired people (2.80%) and unemployed people (2.80%). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 537 http://www.psychopen.eu/ materials and procedure independent variables — participants completed a questionnaire. first, social identification and self-esteem were assessed. three itemsmeasured their level of identification with the category of women: “i have lot in common with other women”, “i feel a strong sense of being connected to women”, “being a woman is an important part of my self-image” (cronbach’s alpha = .71) (mael & tetrick, 1992). self-esteem was assessed with the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1965) (cronbach’s alpha = .80). manipulation — then participants were primed either with benevolent sexism (n = 61), hostile sexism (n = 62), or no sexism (control condition,n = 55). they read a description summarizing the results of a research concerning opinions about women in society. following barreto and ellemers (2005), type of sexism (hostile vs benevolent) was manipulated in describing the results of such research, reporting statements based on glick and fiske’s (1996) subscales of hostility or benevolence toward women. in the control condition participants read that the research had demonstrated that women and men are similar. specifically, in the benevolent sexism condition women read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about women in society. participants agreed that many women have a quality of purity that few men possess and that women – compared to men – tend to have superior moral sensibility. moreover, participants in the study agreed that no matter how accomplished he is, a man is not truly complete as a person unless he has the love of a woman, that women should be cherished and protected by men, and that men should be willing to sacrifice themselves in order to provide financially for the women in their lives”. in the hostile sexism condition women read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about women in society. participants agreed that women are too easily offended and interpret innocent remarks as sexist, and that women seek to gain power by getting control over men. moreover, participants in the study agreed that women exaggerate problems they get at work, that when women lose to men in a fair competition they typically complain being discriminated, and that most women do not appreciate fully what men do for them”. in the control condition, women read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about contemporary society. participants in the study agreed that both men and women exaggerate problems they get at work, are too easily offended and seek to gain power by getting control over others. moreover, participants in the study agreed that both men and women tend to have the same moral sensibility and are not truly complete as persons unless they have the love of a partner”. participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups (hostile sexism, benevolent sexism, control condition). no significant difference emerged among the groups about age (f = 1.13, n.s.) and educational level (f = 1.84, n.s.). dependent variables. following previous studies (barreto & ellemers, 2005; rollero & fedi, 2012), participants were asked to what extent they thought that people who held the above opinions were prejudiced against women (perception of sexism) and to what extent they experienced different negative emotions (anger, indignation, irritation, disappointment, and frustration). finally, participants rated the possibility of being a chief executive officer (ceo) of a company, regardless of their educational level and profession. all dependent measures were scored on 7point rating scales ranging from (1) “not at all” to (7) “very much”. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration 538 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results hypothesis testing for the current study used a 3 (sexism: hostile, benevolent, control) x 2 (social identification: high, low) x 2 (self-esteem: high, low) factorial design. in the first analysis of variance (anova) the perception of sexism was the dependent variable: no independent variable had a significant effect. in the following anovas, we tested the effects of the independent variables on each negative emotion. only in the case of disappointment type of sexism was significant, f(2, 162) = 3.89, p < .05. in the hostile condition, women were more disappointed (m = 3.09, sd = 2.27) than in the benevolence (m = 2.12, sd = 1.73) and in the control (m = 2.20, sd = 1.68) conditions. finally, the perception of being potential leaders was assessed. this anova revealed a main effect of self-esteem, f(1, 161) = 4.50, p < .05, and a significant interaction between type of sexism and social identification, f(2, 161) = 3.46, p < .05. women with high self-esteem were more likely to perceive themselves as potential leaders (m = 3.86, sd = 2.14) than women with low self-esteem (m = 2.97, sd = 2.19). high-identified women were more confident about the possibility of being a leader in both the sexist conditions than in the control condition, f(2, 91) = 2.91, p < .05, whereas low-identifiers showed similar scores across all the experimental conditions, f(2, 80) = 1.08, n.s. (figure 1). figure 1. interaction between experimental conditions and identification on women’s perception of being potential leaders. discussion both benevolent and hostile sexism were not recognised as a form of prejudice, as women report similar scores across the experimental and the control conditions. moreover, sexism did not trigger negative emotions, with the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ only exception of disappointment. this last was more experienced by women who faced hostility. contrary to our hypotheses 1 and 2, identification had no influence. self-esteem, as expected, increases women’s leadership aspiration (hypothesis 4). also type of sexism played a key role, along with identification. both hostility and benevolence do not change the self-perception of low identifiers, but they do foster the perception of high identified women as leader. therefore, prejudice seems not to threaten all the members of the targeted category, as only female participants for whom gender identity is more relevant are vulnerable to stereotype threat. however, the reaction to stereotype threat was in part unexpected (hypothesis 3): regardless their levels of self-esteem, high-identified participants increase their leadership aspiration, so that gender identification seems to be a key factor in fostering reactance to stereotype threat. in gender studies, the importance of reactance has been discovered about performance (e.g. dardenne, dumont, & bollier, 2007; kray, thompson, & galinsky, 2001) and self-perception (rollero & fedi, 2012). present findings seem to reveal a sort of unawareness of the reactance effect, as prejudices are not recognised neither foster negative emotions. in general, findings about women are only partially in line with previous studies. this is due to the different variables considered: indeed, research has investigated either sex differences in envisioning oneself as a leader (e.g. bosak & sczesny, 2008; davies et al., 2005; hoyt & simon, 2011; killeen et al., 2006; lips, 2000, 2001) or the recognisability of ambivalent sexism (barreto & ellemers, 2005; rollero & fedi, 2012). the effort made in the present study was instead assessing the effects of ambivalent sexism on the perception of oneself as a leader, taking into account the interaction among sexist attitudes, personal characteristics (e.g. self-esteem), and group processes (e.g. the level of identification with gender). study 2 method participants a total of 184 men were enrolled into the study. the average age was 40.58 years (sd = 10.99). about the education, the majority was high school graduated (46.84%), the 36.96% had a lower level of education, and the remaining (16.20%) were college graduates. most of the participants were workers (94.65%), followed by retired people (3.80%) and a small percentage of unemployed people (1.55%). materials and procedure independent variables — participants completed a questionnaire very similar to that reported in study 1. the identification with the category of men (cronbach’s alpha = .69) and self-esteem (cronbach’s alpha = .81) were assessed. manipulation — then participants were primed either with benevolence toward men (n = 61), hostility toward men (n = 60) or no sexism (control condition,n = 63). they read a description summarizing the results of a research concerning opinions about men in society. type of attitude (hostile vs benevolent) was manipulated in describing the results of such research, reporting statements based on glick and fiske’s (1999) subscales of hostility or benevolence toward men. in the control condition participants read that the research had demonstrated that women and men are similar. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration 540 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specifically, in the benevolence toward men condition men read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about men in society. participants agreed that, in emergencies, men are less likely to fall apart than women are, and that men are more willing to put themselves in danger to protect others. moreover, participants in the study agreed that men are mainly useful to provide financial security for women”. in the hostility toward men condition men read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about men in society. participants agreed that even men who claim to be sensitive to women’s rights really want a traditional relationship at home, with a woman performing most of the housekeeping and child care. moreover, participants in the study agreed that men usually try to dominate conversations when talking to women and that they will always fight to have greater control in society than women”. in the control condition men read the following story: “a recent study investigated the opinions about contemporary society. participants in the study agreed that both men and women usually try to dominate conversations when talking to others and that they will always fight to have greater control in society than others. moreover, participants in the study agreed that both men and women are willing to put themselves in danger to protect others and are mainly useful to provide financial security for their partner”. they were randomly assigned to one of the three groups (hostility toward men, benevolence toward men, control condition). no significant difference emerged among the groups about age (f = 1.09, n.s.) and educational level (f = 1.51, n.s.). dependent variables— as in study 1, perception of sexism and experience of negative emotions were assessed first. then participants rated the possibility of being a chief executive officer (ceo) of a company, regardless of their educational level and profession. all dependent measures were scored on 7-point rating scales ranging from (1) “not at all” to (7) “very much”. results hypothesis testing for the current study used a 3 (attitude toward men: hostile, benevolent, control) x 2 (social identification: high, low) x 2 (self-esteem: high, low) factorial design. in the first anova the perception of sexism was the dependent variable and type of attitude had a main effect, f(2, 172) = 5.66, p < .01: participants considered the benevolent source less prejudiced (m = 3.05, sd = 2.10) than the hostile (m = 4.46, sd = 1.67) and the control (m = 4.05, sd = 2.11) ones. in the following anovas we tested the effects of the independent variables on each negative emotion. the main effect of type of attitude was significant for all emotions. in respect to benevolence, hostility toward men increased the experience of anger, indignation, irritation, disappointment, and frustration (table 1). finally, the perception of being potential leaders was assessed. this anova revealed a main effect of self-esteem, f(1, 171) = 7.70, p < .01. men with high self-esteem were more likely to perceive themselves as potential leaders (m = 4.50, sd = 2.27) than those with low self-esteem (m = 3.46, sd = 2.01). attitude toward men played no significant role on this dependent variable. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 541 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sexist attitudes toward men and the experience of negative emotions post hoc (bonferroni)f m (sd) emotion control (c)benevolence (b)hostility (h) h-b**1.92 (1.48)1.46 (0.86)2.34 (1.83)anger .73*4 h-b**1.96 (1.33)1.54 (0.93)2.50 (1.89)indignation .62*5 h-b**2.21 (1.63)1.56 (1.05)2.48 (1.87)irritation .55*4 h-b**2.39 (1.72)1.93 (1.44)2.95 (1.97)disappointment .20*4 h-b**1.80 (1.51)1.36 (0.76)2.21 (1.84)frustration .37*4 *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion if hostility toward men is recognised as prejudiced, benevolence not only is not recognised as prejudiced, but it is considered less sexist than the control condition. indeed, facing the control condition (i.e. men and women described as similar), men’s perception of sexism is analogous to that reported in the hostility condition. only benevolence seems to men not to be prejudiced. attitudes toward men also have an impact on each investigated emotion. in respect to benevolence, when men face hostility they become angrier, more indignant, irritated, disappointed, and frustrated. contrary to expectations (hypothesis 5 and 6), identification plays no role on recognisability and emotions. these findings may be connected to the content of sexist prejudice, as benevolence toward men expresses a positive evaluation of the power differentiation between genders (glick & fiske, 1999). in this sense, men may perceive as positive attitudes underlying their right to dominance and power. however, although men recognise hostility as a form of prejudice, and although they experience more negative emotions, they are not influenced when they have to think about holding a leadership position. thus, sexism has an impact on emotional responses, but not on the perception of being potential leaders (hypothesis 7). again, this might depend on the contents of prejudiced attitudes toward men since both attitudes foster a representation of men as well-suited for leadership positions, but since hostility is negative in tone, it enhances negative emotions and seems more prejudiced. general discussion our research aimed at investigating the influence of ambivalent sexism on the possibility of envisioning oneself as a leader. the effect of sexism was tested along with the influence of individual dimensions (e.g. self-esteem) and social processes (e.g. identification with gender). moreover, before testing the effects on leadership, we have investigated whether both men and women recognise sexist attitudes and which emotions they experience. concerning recognisability of sexism, findings show different results between men and women. indeed, women do not recognise either benevolent or hostile attitudes as prejudiced, reporting similar scores across the experimental and the control conditions. men, on the contrary, define the hostile and the control conditions as more sexist than the benevolent one. in line with these results, women dealing with sexism have almost no negative emotional reaction (they only feel disappointed in the hostility condition), whereas men facing hostility become angrier, more indignant, irritated, disappointed, and frustrated. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration 542 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when leadership becomes a salient topic, men and women show again different patterns. men’s envisioning is affected only by self-esteem. this last is significant also for women, consistently with studies about the positive association between self-esteem and leadership aspirations (boatwright & egidio, 2003). however, in the female sample, both sexism and identification play a key role. indeed, hostility and benevolence foster the perception of high identified women as potential leaders. in other words, although high identified women do not recognise sexist attitudes as a form of prejudice and do not experience significant emotional reactions, they perceive the stereotype threat when a counter-stereotypical role, i.e. leader, becomes salient. on the contrary, men do consider hostility as a form of sexism, do report negative emotions, but do not feel threatened by sexist attitudes when leadership is relevant. this might depend on the content of sexism toward both genders. both men and women are targeted by some sexist attitudes (glick & fiske, 1996, 1999). however, since sexism is based to the endorsement of traditional gender roles, attitudes toward women discourages those who aspire at holding leadership positions, whereas attitudes toward men emphasize their power. indeed, if benevolence expresses a positive evaluation of the power differentiation between men and women, hostility, although negatively toned, presumes that men will always have a power advantage (glick et al., 2004). in line with other theoretical and empirical works (e.g. brewer & kramer, 1985; costarelli & callà, 2007; turner, 1978), our findings highlight the importance of the level of in-group identification for the meaning people give to an intergroup situation and the need for high-identified ones to maintain a more positive view of their group. indeed, high social identification with the gender category seems to have a “protective” role for women, allowing them to envision the possibility of a power position despite the sexist situation. since high identifiers are more sensitive to the stereotype threat, we can consider their enhanced possibility of becoming a ceo as a sort of “reactance”. reactance theory (brehm, 1966; brehm & weinraub, 1977) states that when a restriction is seen as unfair, people can get an unpleasant feeling that can play as an intense motivational state to get around the restriction. as above discussed, the importance of reactance has been investigated about performance (e.g. dardenne, dumont, & bollier, 2007; kray, thompson, & galinsky, 2001) and self-perception (rollero & fedi, 2012). if this perspective can satisfactory held here, wemust underline the unaware – both cognitive and emotional – nature of the reactance effect, since the prejudiced beliefs are not explicitly recognised neither arouse emotional reactions per se. however, the study confirms the importance of approaching stereotypes in a group perspective: social processes are particularly relevant when involving groups targeted with negative stereotypes and when inequalities embedded in the status quo are at stake. of course, the present study shows some limitations, as some central constructs could be operationalized in multiple ways. since literature is focusing on different kinds of leadership roles and styles (e.g. eagly & johannesenschmidt, 2001; eagly, johannesen-schmidt, & van engen, 2003; killeen et al., 2006), further inquiries should deeper investigate the influence exerted by ambivalent attitudes on the possibility of holding other power positions (e.g. scientific or political leadership). similarly, self-esteem could be considered as a global measure or as a domain-specific self-evaluation, for example in terms of leadership effectiveness (chemers, watson, & may, 2000). despite this, the present research bears implications for theoretical issues both on effects of ambivalent attitudes and on gender gap in leadership, even representing one of the rare studies on adult sample. moreover, since the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 543 http://www.psychopen.eu/ effects of ambivalent attitudes on men are largely ignored in the literature, 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(2010). a framework for thinking about the (not-so-funny) effects of sexist humor. europe's journal of psychology, 6(3), 174-195. doi:10.5964/ejop.v6i3.217 about the authors angela fedi, ph. d., is an associate professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy), where she teaches social psychology and group psychology. her current research focuses on intergroup relations, social justice and citizen participation. chiara rollero earned her phd in social psychology at the university of turin (italy). her research interests deal with gender issues, stereotypes, objectification processes, mass media and well-being from a gender perspective. she has more than forty international research publications on these topics. currently, she is an assistant professor at the faculty of psychology of the university ecampus (italy), where she teaches social psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 533–549 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.984 fedi & rollero 549 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jvb.2004.08.011 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/jwel/47/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v6i3.217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en effects of sexism, self-esteem and social identity on leadership aspiration introduction leadership aspirations and gender stereotypes ambivalent attitudes toward women and men self-esteem, social identity and gender gap in leadership the current research study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.546 published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark, email: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. british psychological society, division of clinical psychology annual conference 5-7 december, 2012 oxford, united kingdom conference theme: “wellbeing and distress: clinical psychology from cradle to grave” following on from the success of the 2011 conference in birmingham we are delighted to invite you to the 2012 conference taking place in oxford. this year's event will incorporate the faculty of clinical health psychology (fchp) across thursday and friday & the faculty of the psychology of older people (fpop) on thursday. also joining dcp for this year's event will be sigopac (special 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interest that advance the study of brain health and disease in childhood, adolescence, and aging, and interventions to promote brain health. visit the website for more information: http://www.the-ins.org/41st-annual-meeting-hawaii europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4) doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.546 global psypulse http://www.the-ins.org/41st-annual-meeting-hawaii http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2nd annual international conference on cognitive and behavioral psychology (cbp 2013) 25-26 february, 2013 singapore going beyond the study of the human mind, academics and professionals working in the field of psychology now play a pivotal role in promoting the development as well as recovery of mental health on a global scale. this is even more so with the global shift in focus of mental healthcare services from traditional methods to community-based and family-focused practices. psychology professionals now more than ever are being called upon to respond to the needs of society and individuals 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information: religion psychology – a perspective on human beliefs and emotions hai nguyen first, we define the notion “creator” as it is used in this article. from there, we discuss two important and contrary human beliefs. next, we present the situation of people who deal with troubles. from analyzing the change in their feeling, we withdraw a psychological mechanism describing the struggle between two contrary beliefs and the role of this struggle in dealing with troubles. in fact, this struggle is separated by two basic notions of time in our mind: the past and the future. in addition, we discuss the mutual relationship between the troubles relating to the past and the troubles relating to the future. at last, we conclude about the importance of acknowledging and controlling these two contrary beliefs. the notion “creator” in this article doesn’t refer to the existence and nature of god in a particular religion. each person has his or her personal image of god and this is not the subject of the present article. we will generally refer to the idea of the creator as “someone or something that is directing the history and lives of humans”. this is not by far a definition but an example of conceptualization or, in a larger sense, a type of belief many of us have. every belief tends to have an opposite. the opposite belief in this case is the faith in our capability to guess, choose and decide our life and destiny by the power of our free-will. this belief is based on the assumption that humans have the ability of solving difficult problems and deciding for themselves. we introduced by this two contrary and important beliefs, both related to the religious views of each person: 1. the belief in the prearrangement or predestination of our life, in destiny and the absolute power of the creator. we can simply call it “the first belief”. 2. the belief in our capability to act, choose and decide for ourselves. we can simply call it “the second belief”. why do we consider these beliefs as important? we will understand their importance after considering the two cases below: situation 1: being in a bad temper, a man raises his hand and slaps his wife on the face while they are arguing severely. the wife bursts out crying and runs out of the room. the man still stands there with a listless face. finally he sits down slowly and thinks of all that has just happened. he begins feeling regret for his crude action. obviously he had better choices than acting like he did. he could have restrained his anger and avoided making the argument become more serious. he could have decided to get out of the room. but he didn’t. he had an unacceptable behavior. now he blames himself. he hardly can forgive himself for what has happened. he is experiencing a difficult moment in his life. situation 2: a couple has two children, a boy and a girl. the children always lived happily with their parents and the family’s life was very blissful. until one day when the couple was numbed with the doctor’s conclusion that the wife suffered from a serious cancer. in spite of feeling very sorrowful, they decided not to tell their children the truth. however, the truth can’t be forever concealed. day by day, the children realized that their mother’s health became worse. when they knew the truth, their mother became weaker than ever. they cried a lot in the mother’s arms. the mother passed away the next day. the mother’s death changed the family’s life. the father tried his best to take care of both children. but he always felt powerless when he saw their ever-growing sadness. they gradually kept aloof from everybody (*). they didn’t want to go out of the house and play with neighboring children (**). they only wanted to stay at home and sit alone with their toys. little by little, they lost all their friends. the father felt more sorrowful each time he saw his daughter with tears on her face embracing her mother’s portrait. the family was experiencing a tremendous crisis. what can we make of the troubles of the man in first case and of the children in the second case? where is the origin of the troubles in their spirit? does the man’s fatal mistake cause his regret? does the mother’s death cause the sadness of the children? the answer here is no. many children in this world witnessed the decease of their father or mother. and many people used to make mistakes like loosing their temper. but not all those people feel so depressed. the troubles of the man and children in this article don’t originate directly from the events they met in their life. those events are only the indirect conditions for the appearance of their troubles. their troubles originate directly from their beliefs: in the first case, the man was obsessed by the thought that he is really a very crude person. he never had such a violent behavior with his wife before. he couldn’t believe he behaved like that. he assumed he was completely capable to restrain his temper and control his action. he could have avoided this difficult situation if he had tried his best to control himself. but after all, he didn’t. now he can only blame himself. it is not a matter of how serious his mistake is. a mistake is always a mistake. but what is important here is that his belief made that mistake become a burden. he would have felt comforted if he had believed that everything that happened is just the prearrangement, the predestination of the creator and that he didn’t have any capability to change those things since the past can’t be changed. we are not debating whether this is a right belief or not but we emphasize the effect such a belief would have on the person’s state of mind. it is also not considered here whether the relief is a short or long term one. the second case reflects the opposite situation. the children were nursed, sheltered in their mother arms since they were born. the mother always helped them. she also cheered them up, encouraged them each time they cried. their mother was like a bright torch guiding their steps early in life. now, when their mother was no longer beside them, they faced a new type of life ahead. a tragic event which they never expected seems to be prearranged or predestinated. in this new situation, they feel lost and insecure. everything around them seems to be strange, unfriendly, empty and possibly dangerous. this made them feel sad, worried, lonely, scared and weak. they always felt the presence of their mother in their house. they only wanted to live again the former period when their mother was still alive (***). they didn’t want to accept any change in their house after their mother’s death. that’s why they kept aloof from everybody and chose a remote life. the troubles we see in the children’s life originate directly from their beliefs. after the mother’s death, they believed their living is prearranged or predestinated. they easily believed a living like that will be very bad, very difficult and scary because their mother was no longer around to help and protect them. they could have felt more self-confident if they would have bravely believed in their own ability to choose and decide their own life. they could have appreciated the love offered by close relatives, especially their father – the person who sacrificed a lot for them. they could have found consolation and the necessary strength to continue. the two cases we have just presented above are typical for many other which reflect an important psychology mechanism describing the struggle between two contrary beliefs in our mind. this struggle is divided by two basic notion of time: the past and the future. this is why we distinguish between two types of troubles: the troubles relating to the past. the troubles relating to the future. in the troubles relating to the past, while “the second belief” is the origin of the troubles, “the first belief” will help release the inner tension. we can have another example for this case: imagine that you are a private teacher of a family. your job is to teach mathematics to a little boy. that job really isn’t easy because the pupil seems not to be very bright. it takes an hour for you to help him understand a lesson. you feel quite tired and annoyed. then, you give him a problem which you believe is easy. but he can’t solve the problem although you gave him a lot of time. now, you get irritated, the class ends early and you go home angry. in this case, your trouble also originates from your belief. you believe the boy is completely capable to understand your explanation, that he seems to be teasing you on purpose by pretending not to understand what you say or solve the problem. why don’t you believe all that happened is not the fault of the child? the truth is that the boy really doesn’t want to make you angry and these difficulties are an unavoidable part of your job as a teacher. now, let us go on with the troubles relating to the future. in this case, while “the first belief” is the origin of the troubles, “the second belief” will be help release the inner tension. i think there’s no example better than the situation of disabled persons. their situation is very unfortunate. many of them feel they can’t have a normal life. they want to be left alone and are exposed to extreme anxiety. they seem condemned to accept their harsh destiny. however, there are persons in this situation that don’t think like this. they don’t want to accept such a destiny. they want to work and have families like any other person. they want to rise, to strive for their wishes and be valuable members of their community. some of them try learning carpentry, other persons learn sewing (most of them are women) or train their intellectual capacities. as an example: close to me is a man who lost both of his arms and uses his toes to draw very beautiful pictures showing his thirst to make the most of his talent. in the end we want to present a regularity which acts almost as a “law” in most cases. that is: the troubles relating to the past tend to cause troubles relating to the future and vice versa. for example: in the case of the man at the beginning of this article, if he continues blaming himself for all that happened he will easily lose the belief in his capacity to do something to change his difficult situation (****). he could have apologized to his wife. he could have made more efforts for their relationship to become better. but he didn’t. instead he thought of doing something to help him release the inner tension and started drinking. at last, he got back home drunk, met his wife right at the door and started another fight. i have already presented the effect of these two important and contrary beliefs (that are connected to our religious views) on the troubles in our life. the control of these beliefs has an important role in balancing our inner state of mind. it can help us avoid the troubles we meet so often and make our life better. notes (*),(**),(***): “…a vicious circle begins when the environment provides fewer rewards for the person. as depression intensifies, such people feel so badly that they to stop doing the things that ordinarily give them pleasure, depressed people complain a good deal, seek excessive reassurance and support from others, and generally become less likeable. these behaviors eventually begin to alienate others, and cause them to shy away from the depressed person… (lewinsohn et al, 1985 ; nezlek et al, 2000).” (in passer and smith, 2001, pg. 30). (****) : “…depressed people can find the black cloud that surrounds every silver lining. they tend to blame themselves for negative things that occur while taking no personal credit for the good things that happen in their lives, and they generally feel that the world, the self, and the future are bleak and hopeless (beck, 1991).” (in passer and smith, 2001, pg. 29). reference passer, m.w. & smith, r.e. (2001). psychology , frontiers and applications, mcgraw-hill. biographical note the author studied physics in vietnam national university ho chi minh, the natural science college, from 2000 to 2002, and information technology at the same university from 2004 to 2006. his interests in psychology: beliefs and attitudes, memory, emotion. e-mail: hai8805@yahoo.com. biased judgements of euro coins’ sizes: stimuli-specific and interindividual suggestive effects dr. günter molz lecturer for methodology, personality research and cognitive psychology wuppertal university, germany. abstract suggestibility regarding the biased estimations of euro coins from alleged different countries was examined. it was predicted that images regarding different nations would affect these estimations. in an experimental between-subjects design, 160 german participants had to rate the size of the image of a euro coin. across all conditions it was the same image, but the background information about the coin’s origin was different: participants were told that this coin was dutch, french, german or portuguese. significant differences for the resulting estimates were identified across experimental conditions and in regard to participants’ age. the alleged portuguese coin was rated to be relatively small; older participants estimated this coin to be smaller than younger participants did. for the supposed german coin, this correlation was reversed. implications for future research are discussed. keywords: cultural biases, euro, euro marketing, image, judgements, non-reactive-measurement the introduction of the euro released both hope and fear. on january 1st, 1999, the euro became the official currency in most states of the european community (ec). for the majority of the population however, this expressed itself only in fixed exchange rates between the participating currencies, since cash money was not changed immediately. broad public discussions started a few months before the introduction of the new cash money in twelve european country on january, 1st, 2002. the next countries introducing the euro will be malta and cyprus on january, 1st, 2008. in germany, the pessimistic attitude was predominant to more optimistic outlooks (müller-peters, pepermans, kiell, battaglia, beckmann, burgoyne, et al., 1998). many germans doubted that the euro was going to have the same stability, i.e. low inflation rate, as the old currency, the “german mark”. as a result of the launch, a slackening of the german economy down to the level of weaker economies in southern europe was feared. these expectations have been assessed by numerous researchers (e.g. müller-peters et al.). additionally, biased evaluations for a country would have an impact on the marketing of that country’s products in germany. even though that country has the same currency, its products would not be perceived as being from the same or home market. however, measuring the attitude concerning countries joining the euro by direct interviews or questionnaires with explicit verbal responses bears the risk of prompting responses driven by social desirability. for this reason the social psychological phenomenon of social accentuation was referred to in this study. social accentuation the estimation of physical dimensions is frequently influenced by variables with a social meaning. for example, bruner and goodman (1947) found that the perceived diameter of cash coins (physical dimensions) is influenced by the subjectively perceived value: poor children, usually associating coins with a relatively high purchase value, estimated coins to be larger than rich children. though this study never has been convincingly replicated, it triggered much work on the phenomenon that the estimation of physical stimuli with a relevant social meaning is biased (e.g. bruner and postman, 1948). this paradigm has not only been applied to physical dimensions (like length or size), but also to other aspects, such as ethnic features of faces (corneille, huart, becquart, and bredart, 2004), or national stereotypes as correlations between trait dimensions and national affiliations (diehl and jonas, 1991; tajfel, 1959). regarding recent theoretical frame work these studies as well as the present one are a matter of affective priming (musch and klauer, 2003; strack and deutsch, 2004). thereafter information like ethnic or national background can be suggestive and has an impact on intuitive perception and judgement. suggestibility and social accentuation the construct of suggestibility refers to affective priming applied in different contexts (e.g. pohl, 2004), such as interrogations (e.g. ceci, crossman, gilstrap, and scullin (1998); loftus (1997), gudjonsson (2003), perception (e.g. gheorghiu, koch, fialkowski, pieper, and molz (2001) or product evaluations based on price tags (e.g. molz and gielnik, 2006). regardless of whether authors use the term “affective priming” or the term “suggestibility”, in both cases it is suggested that behaviour, emotions, thoughts or judgement are adopted on non-reflective or non-voluntary basis. the latter feature of suggestibility made it possible to assess participants’ evaluations not biased by reflections with regard to social desirability or political correctness. therefore the methodological approach is in the tradition of non-reactive measurement which has been used e.g. by forgas (1976) to study national stereotypes in four european countries. hypothesis according to social accentuation theory, the image of a country should bias estimations of objects’ physical dimensions. in this study participants had to assess coins’ diameters and the overall subjective evaluations of a country. these evaluations would not necessarily bias the diameters’ estimations. but the country’s attractiveness according to its economy would probably bias the ratings of the coins’ sizes. this hypothesis seems plausible because of earlier findings: molz and hopf (2002) showed that right before the introduction of euro cash money in germany (december 2001) diameters of euro coins were relatively underestimated whereas german mark coins were relatively overestimated. in this period the image of the euro was quite low, because many people feared that a loss of the german mark would mean a loss of economic power (e.g. traut-mattausch, jonas, frey and greitemeyer, 2005). using a statistical metaphor like tajfel (1959), we predicted a correlation between the estimated physical coin size and the perceived economic strength of its country of origin. in order to test this claim we selected the netherlands, being considered a country with a strong economy in the e.c. at the time the study was conducted (january 2003). portugal, on the other hand had a more negative image. therefore the following hypothesis was put forward: the estimations for the alleged portuguese coin’s` diameter are smaller than those for the alleged dutch coin. for exploratory reasons it was decided to measure estimations of coins from germany and france, which are (according to the population size) the two biggest countries in the ec. in order to identify particular facets which are accountable for biased diameter estimations, all four countries were assessed by means of a semantic differential consisting of fourteen bipolar dimensions measured on seven-point-scales. method data were collected by means of a questionnaire. first, an introductory text about any of the four countries was given. afterwards – on the following page – four simple questions were asked concerning the information in the introductory text. as for fifty percent of the questionnaires, participants were asked to give their assessment of this country by means of the fourteen bipolar adjective scales of the semantic differential. later the estimations of the coins’ diameters were obtained as follows (compare figure 1). a black and white jpeg-image of a 1 euro-coin was presented. this image showed the coin’s front side, which is the same for all countries participating in the euro. beneath the coin-image was a claim stating that this was a dutch / french / german respective portuguese 1-euro coin. it was decided to present the non-country specific front side of the coins to ensure intern validity. if the country-specific back-side of the coin had been presented and if there were substantial differences of size estimations, these effects might have been attributed to the different nation specific symbols that might appear to be relatively big or small. it was the participants’ task to estimate the coin size as presented in the picture. in the picture the coin was slightly oversized. this was done because some persons might have known the actual size of the coins and simply might have reproduced this knowledge. in order to limit the variance of possible answers, 24 tick boxes were provided, each one representing an estimation between 12 and 35 millimetres. to allow control of possible sequential effects in the other fifty percent of the questionnaires the task to guess the coin’s diameter was presented first and the fourteen polarities scale was presented afterwards. this resulted in a 2×4-design (see table 1): the first factor refers to the design variation ’diameter estimation before adjective polarities versus diameter estimation after adjective polarities’, the second factor reflects the experimental independent variable with the four countries involved. each condition was administered to twenty participants. since this was a complete between-subjects-design the size of the sample was n = 160. 93 participants were female, 67 were male; the age ranged from 14 to 74 years. the questionnaires were distributed by chance in public by eight students. each student distributed only one of the eight possible conditions. this was done in order to avoid any suggestive hypothesis-confirming influence, which might have been exerted if the same student had distributed questionnaires e.g. with the dutch coin as well as with the portuguese one. results anova analysis of variance showed no effect for the potential sequence effect regarding whether the bipolar adjective scale or the diameter estimation was applied first [f(1, 158) = 4,23, p =0.,67]. therefore in the following statistics this variation in sequence is omitted. table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of the diameter estimations. the average estimations for the french coin are the biggest, next are assessments for the dutch coin followed by judgements for the german coin. the estimations for the portuguese coin were the smallest ones. the hypothesized difference between estimations for the dutch and portuguese coins were significant. the other exploratory five t-tests failed to reach a two-sided significance, except the comparison between the french and the portuguese coin (table 3). principal component analysis with a subsequent varimax-rotation was performed on basis of the fourteen bipolar adjective scales. the so-called epa-structure (evaluation, potency, and activity) could not be identified. secondly, the same analysis was performed including the diameter estimations as a fifteenth variable. the results are presented in table 4. it is striking that the variable diameter estimation is the only one out of fifteen variables having a substantial factorload with only one of the five components (r = 0,789). finally, another unexpected result was identified (cp. table 2). the overall correlation between the participants’ ages and size of diameter estimation is close to zero. the same is true for the age variable and the estimations for the dutch and french coin. in case of the german coin this correlation is moderately positive, i.e. the older the participants were, the higher the probability was that they assessed the coin’s diameter to be relatively big. for the portuguese coin this correlation was moderately negative, i.e. the older the participants were, the higher was the probability that they assessed the coin’s diameter to be relatively small. according to z-statistics, the difference between these two different signed correlations is highly significant (z = 2,99; p = .001). discussion the hypothesis that the dutch coin’s` diameter is estimated to be bigger was supported, but one has to concede that the underlying reasoning for establishing this hypothesis has to be questioned: thereafter the economic strength of a country should be decisive for the overrespective underestimation of a coin’s size. the fact that the economic data of france, which were given to the participants, even exceeded the data for the netherlands seems to support this hypothesis. but principal component analysis revealed that the variable diameter estimation and the bipolarity ‘strong – weak’ do not have their highest loads on the same components; additionally their bivariate intercorrelation is only –0.102. these findings question the idea that economic strength of a country is the decisive variable for differences in coins’ size judgements in general. maybe this is a reasonable explanation regarding a subsample of our four coins or our 160 participants. the results concerning the age effect regarding the german and the portuguese coin suggest that a differential psychological perspective is appropriate. here, age specific positive stereotypes about one’s own country (germany) as well as negative prejudices about a small and in recent decades underdeveloped country (portugal) obviously were decisive. this explanation is supported by an analysis of the bipolar adjective dimensions. poles reflecting negative evaluations (e.g. ugly, bad) were preferred by younger participants in the case of germany. contrarily, elderly subjects judged germany to be relatively positive and portugal to be relatively negative. this suggests that future marketing related research on this topic has to consider interindividual differences as well as country specific effects. which conclusions can be drawn from these results for the introduction of the euro in malta and in cyprus? these conclusions have an effect on economic as well as on more general issues. as for the economic aspects positive or negative evaluations of a nation are not limited to biased estimations of coins’ sizes. they should also affect evaluations of products from different nations. the resulting biases are likely to have an effect on purchase decision. of course this hypothesis must be proved with data that have direct relations to purchase decisions. regarding more general aspects it is notable that the fast and complete exchange of cash money provides a unique laboratory setting for research. in everyday-life people have to adapt to new cash money. if these people are suggested to associate with these new coins e.g. some beliefs about the coin’s country of origin they are likely to do so. the longer they are familiar with these coins the weaker are the effects of these associations. we replicated this experiment two years later (january 2005, three years after the introduction of the euro). the effects reported above were still there but much smaller. hopefully this paper is stimulation enough for delineating some ideas for social research associated with the introduction of the euro in malta and other future euro countries. references bruner, j. s. & goodmann, c. c. (1947). value and need as organizing factors in perception. journal of abnormal and social psychology, 42, 33-44. bruner, j. s., & postman, l. (1948). symbolic value as an organizing factor in perception. journal of social psychology, 27, 203-208. ceci, s. j., crossman, a. m., gilstrap, l. l. & scullin, m. h. (1998). social and cognitive factors in children’s testimony. in c. p. thompson, d. j. herrman, j. d. read, d. bruce, d. g. payne & m. p. toglia (eds). eyewitness memory: theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 15-30). mahwah: erlbaum. corneille, o.,huart, j.,becquart, e. & bredart, s. (2004). when memory shifts toward more typical category exemplars: accentuation effects in the recollection of ethnically ambiguous faces. journal of social psychology, 86, 236-250. diehl, m. & jonas, k. (1991). measures of national stereotypes as predictors of the latencies of inductive versus deductive stereotypic judgements. european journal of social psychology, 21, 317-330. forgas, j. p. (1976). an unobtrusive study of reactions to national stereotypes in four european countries. journal of social psychology, 99, 37-42. gheorghiu, v. a., koch, e., fialkowski,h., pieper, w. & molz, g. (2001). factors influencing the illusion of warmth. contemporary hypnosis, 18, 21-31. gudjonssson, g. (2003), the psychology of interrogations and confessions. a handbook, chichester: wiley. loftus, e. (1997). creating false memories. scientific american 277, 70-75. mueller-peters, a., pepermans, r.,kiell, g.,battaglia, n., beckmann, s.,burgoyne, c., et al. (1998). explaining attitudes towards the euro: design of a cross-national study. journal of economic psychology, 19, 663-680. molz, g. & gielnik, m. (2006). does the introduction of the euro have an effect on subjective hypotheses about the price-quality relationship? journal of consumer behaviour, 5, 204-210. molz, g. & hopf, a. (2002). the euro – a social accentuation experiment. economic sociology, 3, 26-31. musch, j. & klauer, k. c. (eds.) (2003), the psychology of evaluation: affective processes in cognition and emotion. mahwah: erlbaum. pohl, r. f. (ed.) (2004). cognitive illusions: a handbook on fallacies and biases in thinking, judgement, and memory. hove: pschology press. strack, f. & deutsch, r. (2003). the two sides of social behavior: modern classics and overlooked gems on the interplay between automatic and controlled processes. psychological inquiry, 14, 207-213. tajfel, h. (1959). quantitative judgement in social perception. british journal of psychology, 50, 16-29. traut-mattausch, e., jonas, e., frey, d. & greitemeyer, t. (2005). was lange waehrt … – verlauf, ursachen und folgen der euro-skepsis in deutschland [course, causes, and effects of skepticism toward the euro currency in german]. wirtschaftspsychologie-aktuell, 12, 57-62. biographical note dr. günter molz is currently a lecturer for methodology, personality research and cognitive psychology at wuppertal university, germany. his main research topics address the influence of personal presumptions (like expectancies, subjective probabilities and hypotheses) on human judgement and behaviour. he has conducted both basic and applied research on this field. prediction of scholastic performance by psychophysical indicators of temporal resolution power stefan j. troche institute for psychology, university of bern, bern, switzerland petra bellmann-knieps institute for psychology, university of bern, bern, switzerland thomas h. rammsayer institute for psychology, university of bern, bern, switzerland abstract the temporal resolution power hypothesis postulates that temporal acuity of the brain is an important mechanism underlying psychometric intelligence. evidence for this notion can be derived from studies reporting a close association between temporal resolution power and psychometric intelligence. the present study was designed to investigate whether scholastic achievement as a real world correlate of psychometric intelligence can also be predicted by temporal resolution power. for this purpose, the relation between temporal resolution power, assessed by two timing tasks, and scholastic achievement was examined in 40 second-graders, 40 fourth-graders, and 50 sixth-graders. for all three samples, structural equation modelling revealed a reliable positive relationship between a factor “temporal resolution power” and a factor “scholastic performance”. our findings support the view that temporal resolution power of the brain is not only associated with general psychometric intelligence but also reflects a fundamental mechanism involved in scholastic achievement. keywords: temporal resolution power; scholastic performance introduction the mental speed approach to human intelligence has produced converging evidence for a functional relationship between speed of information processing in so-called “elementary cognitive tasks” (ects) and psychometric intelligence. various measures of speed of information processing, such as simple and choice reaction time following the rationale of hick (1952; for a review see jensen, 2006), inspection time (brand & deary, 1982), short-term memory scanning (sternberg, 1966), or long-term memory retrieval (posner & mitchell, 1967) have been found to be associated with higher psychometric intelligence. coefficients of correlation between such measures of speed of information processing and psychometric intelligence were reported to be rather moderate, typically in the range of .20 to .40 (for reviews see deary, 2000; jensen, 1982, 1987, 1998; juhel, 1991; neubauer, 1997; vernon, 1987). in case that multiple regression analyses were carried out, in order to predict psychometric intelligence with a battery of various ects, the relationship was observed to be increased up to r = .60 (neubauer, 1995). critizing those results, süß (2001) emphasized that it is the speed rather than the capacity component of psychometric intelligence which can be explained by speed-related ects. this assumption is supported by the finding of neubauer and bucik (1996) who reported that speed of information processing in a battery of ects was highly correlated with the intelligence component processing speed (r = .75) as assessed by the berlin intelligence structure test (bis, jäger, süß, & beauducel, 1997). limiting the critics of süß (2001), however, also the relationship between response times on ects and the component of processing capacity of the bis was fairly high (r = .50). most recently, helmbold, troche, and rammsayer (2007) reported that the relationship between response times in the hick paradigm and psychometric intelligence is mediated by temporal resolution power. temporal resolution power refers to the notion of a general timing mechanism within the central nervous system that controls speed and efficiency of information processing (rammsayer & brandler, 2002, 2007). the higher the oscillation rate of this timing mechanism the more mental operations can be performed in a certain frame of time (see also jensen, 1982, 2006). additionally, in case that a mental operation is completed faster, the probability of interfering incidents is decreased (lindenberger, mayr, & kliegl, 1993; rammsayer & brandler, 2002; salthouse, 1991). thus, higher information processing rate and decreased probability of interfering incidents should lead to faster response times in ects as well as to superior performance on tests of psychometric intelligence. rammsayer and brandler (2002, 2007) suggested that psychophysical measures of timing accuracy and temporal sensitivity represent the most direct psychophysical measure of temporal resolution power of the cns. empirical evidence for this assumption has been derived from the finding that a compound measure obtained from a broad range of psychophysical timing tasks explained 31% of total variance of a general factor of psychometric intelligence referred to as psychometric g (rammsayer & brandler, 2007). similarly, helmbold et al. (2007) found a direct path coefficient of .57 from a factor representing temporal resolution power to psychometric g. since this path coefficient also accounted for the major portion of the correlational relationship between response time measures derived from the hick paradigm and psychometric g, temporal resolution power has been suggested to represent a general concept underlying the relationship between speed-related ects and psychometric intelligence. furthermore, unlike traditional speed-related ects (cf., neubauer & bucik, 1996), temporal resolution power has been shown to be closer related to capacity-related than to speed-related aspects of intelligence (helmbold & rammsayer, 2006). from a diagnostic point of view, ects provide the opportunity to assess intelligence largely unaffecterd by the impact of knowledge, personality, and cultural background. furthermore, these tasks are so easy that there is no room for intelligent strategic variations. thus, differences in performance can only be attributed to differences in the speed and accuracy with which stimuli are processed and simple decisions are made (e.g., anderson, 2001; jensen, 1998). süß (2001) urged that, until today, little effort has been made to investigate the construct validity of intelligence measures derived from ects. more specifically, if tests are required to measure intelligence, it is not sufficient to demonstrate an association with standard tests of psychometric intelligence. rather, a similar relationship has also to be established to real-world performances such as scholastic, academic, or job performance. the few available studies addressing this issue emphasize a possible relationship between speed of information processing and scholastic performance (rindermann & neubauer, 2001, 2004; kranzler, whang, & jensen, 1994; luo & petrill, 1999). applying structural equation modelling, rindermann and neubauer (2004) found an indirect effect of β = .39 from speed of information processing on scholastic performance which was mediated by psychometric intelligence. furthermore, luo and petrill (1999) compared the predictive validity of psychometric g derived from several batteries of intelligence tests and of ect response-time measures on performance on the metropolitan achievement test battery (mat). their results indicate that ects were able to reliably predict mat performance as well as psychometric intelligence. proceeding from the assumption that temporal resolution power represents a basic concept underlying psychometric intelligence and speed of information processing (cf., helmbold et al., 2007), temporal resolution power should also be able to predict real-world correlates of intelligence. thus, the present study was designed to investigate whether a small set of psychophysical indicators of temporal resolution power would be able to reliably predict scholastic performance. for this purpose, two timing tasks were applied in a sample of second-, fourthand sixth-graders. using structural equation modelling, the relationship between a factor of scholastic achievement and a factor of temporal resolution was investigated. method participants participants were 19 male and 21 female second-graders ranging in age from 7.4 to 9.8 years (mean ± standard deviation: 8.1 ± 0.49 years), 17 male and 23 female fourth-graders ranging in age from 9.1 to 11.3 years (mean age: 10.1 ± 0.51 years), and 24 male and 26 female sixth-graders ranging in age from 11.6 to 13.5 years (mean age: 12.3 ± 0.44 years). all participants were screened for the presence of neurological, developmental, or learning disorders. four of the second-graders and two of the fourth-graders were reported to suffer from dyslexia. since there is evidence for the notion that dyslexics exhibit impaired temporal information processing (farmer & klein, 1995; rousseau, hébert, & cuddy, 2001; tallal, stark, & mellits, 1985), these children were excluded from analyses. scholastic performance as indicators of scholastic performance in the present study, marks for mathematics, german language, and general knowledge were recorded from last school record. marks ranged from 1 (very good) to 6 (insufficient) with intermediate grades of ± .3. marks of 1.0 and 6.0 could only be incremented and decremented, respectively. duration discrimination tasks as a psychophysical indicator of temporal resolution power, performance on duration discrimination in the range of milliseconds and seconds was assessed (cf., rammsayer & brandler, 2002, 2007). an experimental session consisted of one block of duration discrimination in the range of milliseconds and one block of duration discrimination in the range of seconds. the millisecond task contained auditory intervals with a base duration of 50 ms, the second task contained auditory intervals with a base duration of 1,000 ms. when participants are asked to compare time intervals, many of them count out the required number of seconds. since explicit counting becomes a useful timing strategy for intervals longer than approximately 1,200 ms (grondin, meilleur-wells, & lachance, 1999), the “long” base duration was chosen not to exceed this critical value. the auditory intervals consisted of white-noise bursts presented binaurally through headphones (vivanco sr85) at an intensity of 67 db spl. the order of the two tasks was counterbalanced across participants. prior to each task, six practice trials were presented. each task contained 32 trials, and each trial consisted of a constant standard interval (= base duration) and a variable comparison interval. the order of presentation for the standard interval and the comparison interval was randomized and balanced, with each interval being presented first in 50% of the trials. the two intervals were presented with an interstimulus interval of 900 ms. the duration of the comparison interval varied according to an adaptive rule, the weighted-up-down-procedure (kaernbach, 1991). ‘adaptive’ means that stimulus presentation on any given trial is determined by the preceding set of stimuli and responses. therefore, the comparison interval is varied in duration from trial to trial depending on the participant’s previous response. correct responding resulted in a decrease of the duration of the comparison interval and incorrect responses made the task easier by increasing the duration of the comparison interval. participants were not informed that there was a constant standard interval on every trial. each participant was seated at a table with a keyboard and a computer monitor in a sound-attenuated room. the participant’s task was to decide which of the two intervals was longer and to indicate his or her decision by pressing one of two designated keys on the computer keyboard. one key was labeled “first interval longer” and the other was labeled “second interval longer”. the instructions to the participants emphasized accuracy; there was no requirement to respond quickly. after each response, visual feedback (“+”, i.e., correct; “–”, i.e., false) was displayed on the computer screen. the next trial started 900 ms after offset of the feedback. an experimental session lasted approximately 15 minutes. as a measure of performance, 75% difference thresholds were determined in relation to the 50and 1,000-ms standard intervals, respectively. with this measure, better performance on duration discrimination is indicated by smaller threshold values. results descriptive statistics of school marks and performance on the psychophysical timing tasks are given in table 1 for second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders, respectively. the 75% difference thresholds for durations in the range of milliseconds were found to be significantly higher in second-graders compared to fourth-graders [t(78) = 2.74; p < .01; d = .61] and sixth-graders [t(68.97) = 4.53; p < .001; d = .98] as well as in fourth-graders compared to sixth-graders [t(88) = 2.16; p < .05; d = .46]. these differences indicate a continuous improvement of time perception in the range of milliseconds with increasing age. it should be noted that levene’s test of equality of variances indicated larger variability of the 75% difference threshold in the range of milliseconds for secondcompared to sixth-graders [f = 4.54; p < .05]. therefore, the respective t value and degrees of freedom were adjusted accordingly. also for duration discrimination in the range of seconds, the 75% difference threshold was higher in second-graders than in fourth-graders [t(78) = 3.66; p < .001; d = .82] and sixth-graders [t(88) = 2.15; p < .05; d = .46]. the difference between fourthand sixth-graders, however, did not yield statistical significance [t(78) = -.87; p = .39; d = -.19]. hence, performance improved just from second to fourth grade whereas from fourth to sixth grade there was no further performance increment. intercorrelations among marks in mathematics, german language, and general knowledge were of statistical significance (see table 2) indicating a common latent variable referred to as “scholastic performance”. similarly, 75% difference thresholds for duration discrimination in the range of seconds and milliseconds were significantly correlated in all three samples providing evidence for the existence of a latent variable constituting “temporal resolution power” (see table 2). proceeding from these results, structural equation models (sems) were calculated to investigate the prediction of the factor “scholastic performance” by the factor “temporal resolution power”. the factor “scholastic performance” was obtained from marks in mathematics, german language, and general knowledge. the factor “temporal resolution power” was derived from the 75% difference thresholds for duration discrimination of intervals in the range of milliseconds and seconds, respectively. within sem, the regression from “temporal resolution power” on “scholastic performance” was calculated (see figure 1). sems were based on z-standardized variables. in a first step, data of second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders were analysed separately. finally, data of all three groups were combined for a more comprehensive view on the relation between scholastic performance and temporal resolution power. this resulted in a total sample size of 130 participants. as can be seen from see table 3, for second-graders, the theoretical structural equation model suited the empirical data rather well as indicated by statistically insignificant χ² value and a high comparative fit index (cfi). although the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) did not yield statistical significance, the lower bound of the 90% confidence interval for rmsea included 0. according to this model the regression coefficient from “temporal resolution power” on “scholastic performance” was β = .45 (p < .01; r2 = .20) in second-graders. even somewhat better was the model fit for fourth-graders. the χ² value was again statistically insignificant, the cfi was 1.00 and the rmsea was of statistical significance (see table 3). the regression coefficient from the factor “temporal resolution power” on the factor “scholastic performance” was .42 (p < .01) indicating that 18% of total variability in “scholastic performance” could be explained by “temporal resolution power”. for sixth-graders, fit of the structural equation model was not as good as for fourth-graders (see table 3). nevertheless, χ² value did not yield statistical significance, cfi exceeded .90 and lower bound of the 90% confidence interval for rmsea included 0. also in sixth-graders, the portion of variance of “scholastic performance” explained by “temporal resolution power” (r² = .15) was of statistical significance (β = .38; p < .01). finally, the three groups were combined to investigate the relation between “temporal resolution power” and “scholastic performance” in the total sample consisting of 130 participants. also for the combined sample, the theoretical model was supported by the empirical data with the χ² value being statistically insignificant, cfi very close to 1.00 and rmsea of statistical significance (see table 3). the regression coefficient from the factor “temporal resolution power” on the factor “scholastic performance” was again statistically significant (β = .35; p < .01; r2 = .12). figure 1. structural equation model for the relationship between the factor “temporal resolution power” derived from performance on duration discrimination in the range of milliseconds (dd1) and seconds (dd2) as indicated by 75% difference thresholds and the factor “scholastic performance” obtained from grades for mathematics (maths), german language (german) and general knowledge (gen. knowl.). the respective values for the factor loadings (fl), residual variances (res) and the regression coefficient β are given in table 4. discussion the present study was designed to investigate whether temporal resolution power as a predictor of psychometric intelligence has construct validity with respect to real world criteria measured as scholastic performance. the outcome of the present study indicates a reliable relation between temporal resolution power and scholastic performance in second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders. the results obtained for the three age-groups were corroborated by a sem on the total sample. these findings support the assumption that temporal resolution power is not only involved in performance on intelligence tests as indicated by previous studies (helmbold & rammsayer, 2006; helmbold et al. 2006, 2007; rammsayer & brandler, 2002, 2007) but also in real world performances. the fact that total time to complete the duration discrimination tasks was only about 15 minutes emphasizes that these psychophysical tasks are not only valid, but also highly efficient in predicting scholastic performance. although latent variables of temporal resolution power and scholastic performance were reliably associated, coefficients of simple correlations between 75% difference thresholds and marks were much smaller and less consistent across the three samples. low reliability of the psychophysical tasks and/or school marks can be considered a likely reason for low correlations between the manifest variables investigated in the present study. reliability of the duration discrimination tasks used in this study has been investigated by rammsayer (1992; 1994) and found to be adequately high. therefore, it seems to be rather unlikely that unreliability of 75% difference thresholds accounted for the low correlations. for school marks and teacher judgments, however, low objectivity and reliability were reported frequently (e.g., carter, 1952; finley, 1966; gipps, 1994; ingenkamp, 1989; kleber, meister, schwarzer, & schwarzer, 1976; murphy, 1982). this weakness of school marks could be responsible for the low correlations with 75% difference thresholds. the factor “scholastic performance” derived from the common variance of school marks does not comprise the error variance of school marks. as a consequence, the regression from the latent variable “scholastic performance” on the latent variable “temporal resolution power” had a better chance of becoming higher and more consistent than the correlations between manifest variables which were much more prone to error variance. although the correlations between psychophysical measures and school marks were inconsistent and rather low at the level of manifest variables, a considerable relation between marks in german language and performance on duration discrimination was obtained in secondand fourth-graders but not in sixth-graders. it should be noted that in elementary schools learning of reading and writing are central aspects of the school subject german language. mechanisms underlying the acquisition of reading and writing are impaired in individuals suffering from dyslexia. most interestingly, previous studies pointed out that dyslectic persons have significant deficits in temporal resolutions tasks (e.g., farmer & klein, 1995; rousseau, hébert, & cuddy, 2001; tallal, stark, & mellits, 1985; wolff, 1993). against the background of these results, the association between marks in german language and temporal resolution power in secondand fourth-graders can be assumed to be based on the crucial role which temporal resolution plays in the acquisition of reading and writing skills. in higher classes, interpretation of texts becomes a more important topic whereas reading and writing represent more or less overlearnt skills which do not considerably contribute to interindividual variability in scholastic performance on german language among students. therefore, it can be assumed that the relation between marks in german language and temporal resolution power was less pronounced in sixth-graders compared to secondand fourth-graders due to a shift of the contents of the subject “german language”. the relation between marks in mathematics and performance on duration discrimination was somewhat inconsistent with reliable relations in secondand sixth-graders but weaker association in fourth-graders. in neither group, marks in general knowledge were reliably associated with psychophysical measures of temporal resolution power. this latter finding provides evidence for the notion that temporal resolution power is related to fluid rather than crystallized intelligence (rammsayer & brandler, 2002). furthermore, performance on duration discrimination was better in fourththan in second-graders and, for duration discrimination of intervals in the range of milliseconds, better in sixththan in fourth-graders. on the one hand, this finding is in line with previous studies demonstrating improved temporal information processing with increased age (e.g., droit-volet, clement, & wearden, 2001; mccormack, brown, maylor, darby, & green, 1999; mccormack, wearden, smith, & brown, 2005; pouthas, 1993). on the other hand, the age-dependent improvement of temporal resolution power found in the present study bears amazing resemblance to the finding that fluid intelligence increases during childhood until the age of about 15 years (e.g., fry & hale, 2000; raven, court, & raven, 1983). thus, the similar time course in the development of temporal information processing and fluid intelligence may indicate that temporal resolution power represents a fundamental mechanism underlying fluid intelligence. this statement, however, is highly tentative as fluid intelligence has not been directly assessed in the present study. further research, therefore, should aim on investigating the significance of temporal resolution power for the development of fluid intelligence. at the level of latent variables, we demonstrated reliable associations between “scholastic performance” and “temporal resolution power” ranging from β = .35 to β = .45. the tasks applied in the present study to assess temporal resolution power were discrimination tasks and our finding that sensory discrimination tasks are correlated with scholastic performance is in line with early results of spearman (1904). spearman reported surprisingly high correlations between performance on pitch discrimination and “school cleverness” in two samples of children at an english village school. for boys from a high-class preparatory school, spearman (1904) observed correlation coefficients between performance on several school subjects and pitch discrimination as high as r = .89. mean age of these boys was about 11 years so that this sample is comparable with the sample of fourth-graders in the present study. since there is evidence for the notion that performance on discrimination of durationand frequency-related information has almost the same power to predict psychometric intelligence (helmbold, troche, & rammsayer, 2006), the β coefficients found in the present study seem to be within a plausible range. finally, construct validity of temporal resolution power with regard to scholastic performance seems to be in a similar range as the relation between scholastic performance and speed of information processing which has been reported to be β = .39 (rindermann & neubauer, 2004). neubauer and bucik (1996) found speed of information processing to be more strongly related to the intelligence component “processing speed” than to the component “processing capacity”. the results of helmbold and rammsayer (2006), however, indicated that temporal resolution power is more closely associated with capacitythan speed-related components of psychometric intelligence. given that scholastic performance is rather determined by capacitythan speed-related components of intelligence (süß, 2001), temporal resolution power accounts for a qualitatively different aspect of scholastic achievement than speed of information processing. to sum up, in second-, fourth-, and sixth-graders a functional relationship between temporal resolution power and scholastic achievement could be established. the relatively small sample sizes are an obvious limitation of the present study. although analyses on the total sample consisting of 130 students confirmed the results obtained for each group of students separately, we caution against a premature overestimation of the relationship between temporal resolution power and scholastic performance. nevertheless, the results may have a strong heuristic value encouraging further research on the construct validity of temporal resolution power as a psychophysical indicator of general intelligence. especially, the concurrent application of psychometric intelligence tests, temporal information processing tasks, and tasks assessing speed of information processing could reveal to what extent these measures account for unique and shared portions of variance of scholastic performance. references anderson, m. 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(1987). speed of information processing and intelligence. norwood, nj: ablex. biographical notes stefan troche is doctor of psychology at the university of bern, switzerland. he received his degrees from the university of göttingen, germany. his main research interests are relations between intelligence and sensory information processing. further topics are inhibition processes in elderly adults and patients suffering from parkinson’s disease. petra bellmann-knieps holds a diploma degree in psychology. she is currently undergoing counselling training at the clinic of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the university of göttingen, germany. thomas rammsayer is professor of psychology at the university of bern, switzerland. he is trained in experimental, biological, differential, and clinical psychology and received his degrees from the universities of tübingen and giessen, germany. his research interests lie in experimental and biological psychology, including temporal information processing, pharmacopsychology, the biological basis of individual differences, and research on intelligence. correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: dr. stefan troche institute for psychology university of bern muesmattstr. 45 ch-3000 bern 9, switzerland phone: +41 31 631 40 33 email: stefan.troche@psy.unibe.ch the conceptual roles of negative and positive affectivity in the stressor-strain relationship research reports the conceptual roles of negative and positive affectivity in the stressor-strain relationship leif w. rydstedt*a, svein-åge k. johnsena, monica lundhb, jason j. devereuxc [a] lillehammer university college, asv, lillehammer, norway. [b] chalmers technical university, department of shipping and marine technology, gothenburg, sweden. [c] university college london, unit of business psychology, london, uk. abstract the purpose of this study was to compare the data/model fit for two competing theories of the conceptual roles that negative affectivity (na) and positive affectivity (pa) play in the stressor-strain relationship. in the ‘trait model’, na is understood to be a confounder that inflates the perceived work-related stressor-outcome relationship, while pa is unrelated to either stressors or strain. alternatively, the ‘situational model’ assumes that na and pa are directly affected by stressors and are thought to mediate the stressor-relationship. the sample consisted of 731 swedish engine room officers. role stress was used as a stressor indicator, perceived stress was the outcome measure, and the panas was used to assess levels of affectivity. the path analysis gave strong support for the work situational model (rmsea = 0.034) while no support was found for the trait model. no moderating effects from affectivity were found. keywords: negative affectivity, positive affectivity, role stressors, mediators, perceived stress europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 received: 2012-10-15. accepted: 2012-12-21. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: lillehammer university college, asv, postboks 952 no-2904 lillehammer, norway. e-mail: leif.rydstedt@hil.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over the last decade, there has been an ongoing debate on the conceptual role of negative affectivity (na) in the stressor-strain process. according to watson (1988), most emotions can be classified as falling under either positive or negative affectivity. while positive affect (pa) refers to pleasurable engagement with the environment, na “is a general factor of subjective distress and subsumes a broad range of aversive mood states” (watson, 1988, p. 1020). furthermore, it was initially suggested by watson and colleagues (watson, 1988; watson & clark, 1984; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988; watson & pennebaker, 1989) that affectivity was a two-dimensional construct where pa and nawere independent and thus uncorrelated. however, in light of further empirical evidence, watson, wiese, vaidya, and tellegen (1999) later modified the independence assumption and acknowledged a small but persistent negative relationship between pa and na. the relationship between negative affectivity, perceived working conditions and health several authors (e.g. brief, burke, george, robinson, & webster, 1988; burke, brief, & george, 1993; watson & clark, 1984; watson et al., 1988; watson & pennebaker, 1989; watson et al., 1999) suggest that na is a dispositional trait, independent of actual situational or environmental conditions. individuals high in na are thought to perceive and report their health as bad and environmental/situational conditions as unfavourable, regardless of actual health status or “objective” quality of their surrounding, e.g., their working conditions. according to watson and clark (1984, p. 465), individuals with high na are “more likely to experience discomfort at all the times and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ across situations, even in the absence of overt stress”. in accordance with the dispositional the trait model these authors suggest that na may contribute to artificially high stressor-strain relationships in studies based exclusively on self-reported data. therefore, the proponents of the trait view recommend controlling for the influence of na in occupational health studies, particularly for studies with cross-sectional design and self-reported data (e.g., brief and colleagues, 1988; burke et al., 1993). other authors have questioned the conceptual role of na as a confounder that artificially inflates the stressorstrain associations. negative emotions have been shown to be accompanied by various physiological responses, (fredrickson & levenson, 1998; fredrickson, mancuso, branigan, & tugade, 2000). a replication of the study by brief et al. (1988) basically failed to support the confounding effects of na (jex & spector, 1996). in a longitudinal study of students preparing to become school teachers, schonfeld (1996) found that nameasured pre-employment (just after graduation from college) did not have any substantial influence on the relations between later self-reported work environment factors, depression or job satisfaction. in a longitudinal study by spector, chen, and o’connell (2000), with a sample of university students, trait na was initially measured during their studies, while work-related stressors and strain were measured when the participants had joined the workforce. the results from this study indicated that the later work-related stressor-strain relationships were not significantly affected by prior trait na (spector, chen, et al., 2000). the results from several epidemiological studies also raise doubt about the assumption that na is unrelated to actual health outcomes. after adjusting for a number of established risk factors, jonas and lando (2000) found high baseline negative affectivity (measured by self-reported depression and anxiety) to be a significant predictor of future hypertension in a large population-based epidemiological study. similarly, after adjustment for established risk factors, wilson, bienias, mendes de leon, evans, and bennett (2003) found that na significantly predicted mortality in a sample of elderly. based on a thorough review on the conceptual role of na, spector, zapf, chen, and frese (2000) concluded that “na can play a variety of substantive roles in the job stress process” (p. 79) and should therefore not a priori be considered as a confounder. controlling for na may lead to the elimination of true variance, and thus, an underestimation of the impact of job stressors on health/wellbeing. as one of several possible mechanisms of na in the stressor-strain relationship, spector, zapf, et al. (2000) suggested a causal/mediational link between job stressors and na, i.e., job stressors may in part explain na and mediate the effect of stress exposure to strain outcomes. this theory was supported by a cross-sectional study by höge and büssing (2004). furthermore, spector, zapf, et al. (2000) suggested an alternative moderating role of na, the so called hyper-responsivity assumption, suggesting that high na persons may show elevated reactivity to stress exposure. while some studies have found support for the hyper-responsivity assumption (fortunato & harsh, 2006; moyle, 1995; parkes, 1990), höge and büssing (2004) failed to verify this assumption when testing the different conceptual roles for na that were suggested by spector, zapf, et al. (2000). the relationship between positive affectivity and health watson and colleagues (1999) claimed pa to be unrelated to perceived stress and to health outcomes. the activation of positive emotion appears to undo or counteract the physiological responses activated by distress reactions (fredrickson & levenson, 1998; fredrickson and colleagues, 2000). according to a review by isen (2004), an activation of positive emotions makes people better and more creative at solving problems, and may also improve europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 roles of positive and negative affectivity 94 http://www.psychopen.eu/ their handling of interpersonal conflicts. fortunato and harsh (2006) found pa positively related to perceived sleep quality. it has also been shown that individuals who are better at coping with stress may handle stressful situations by activating or maintaining positive emotions (tugade, fredrickson, & barrett, 2004). on the whole, it would appear that positive emotions can act as a buffer against distress. a possible reason for the shortage of evidence for a relation between stress and pa may be that these relations do not appear in low stress situations (pressman & cohen, 2005). a thorough literature review by pressman and cohen (2005) also found evidence for an association between pa and lower morbidity. purpose of the present study the purpose of this exploratory study was to compare two competing models underlying the assumptions of the role of na/pa in the work-related stressor-strain relationship: (1) a trait model where na is assumed to act as a confounding agent to inflate the true stressor-strain relationship, while pa is assumed to be unrelated to perceived stressors as well as to the outcomes; and (2) a work situational model where na as well as pa are treated as mediators in the stressor-strain relationship. the hypothetical models of conceptual roles for affectivity in the stressor-strain relationship the constructs of role conflict and ambiguity has been used extensively in the literature as a model for explaining work-related stress and strain. it is assumed that role stress can occur both when the responsibilities of an employee are unclear and when the employee must handle conflicting interests. an important theoretical consideration is whether positive and negative mood should be considered to be trait-like concepts that influence perceived role stress, or whether pa and na can be influenced by work role conflict and role ambiguity. while the associations between mood and personality are apparent (e.g. costa & mccrae, 1980; watson et al., 1999), it is important to illuminate whether pa and na can be influenced by factors in the work environment. the hypothesized model in figure 1.a is thus in accordance with the conclusions of, e.g. watson, pennebaker, and folger (1987), and conceptualizes na as a confounder that artificially inflates the relationship between workrelated stressors and strain outcomes, while pa is expected to not influence the stressor-strain relationships. on the other hand, the work situational model depicted in figure 1.b predicts work-related stressors to have a direct impact on strain as well as to affect na and pa which in turn affect the strain outcomes. in this model negative as well as positive affectivity are thus assumed to in part mediate the impact of work-related stress on strain outcomes. method procedure a survey was distributed to all engine crew members affiliated to the labour union swedish merchant marine officers association who holds the only reliable address register over the target group. a requirement from the labour union was that the participants were guaranteed complete anonymity therefore the researchers could not keep any records on individual participants. the labour union administrated the questionnaires. two reminders were sent mainly to the home addresses of all participants. participants the participants consisted of 1383 machine room engineers, and a total of 731 (54%) of them completed the questionnaire. themean age of the sample was about 47 years (sd = 11.6), where the vast majority 719 individuals europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 rydstedt, johnsen, lundh et al. 95 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1.a. trait model: na as causal agents to perceived work-related stressors and strain outcomes (the dashed lines indicates that no impact from pa should be expected). figure 1.b.work situational model: the impact of role stress in part mediated by pa/na to perceived strain. were men (two participants failed to report sex); 99% were scandinavian citizens; 76% of the participants were married/had a partner; and 41% had children. the mean number of years in their current position was about 13 years (sd = 10.5) and their total experience at sea was on average about 24 years (sd = 12.8). the positions on board represented in the sample were chief engineer (44.5%), second engineer (29.5%), third engineer (14.0%) and electrical engineer (11.5%). even though the participants were not asked about their education level, the swedish regulation on qualification requirements for sea-personnel (sjöfartsverket, 2007, p. 37) requires at europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 roles of positive and negative affectivity 96 http://www.psychopen.eu/ least a bachelor degree in engineering for most of the maritime engineering positions. the few female engine room officers participating in the original study were excluded in order to obtain a more homogenous sample. the final sample for this study thus consisted of 719 persons. instruments as indicators of job stressors, a slightly shortened version of the role conflict and ambiguity scale from niosh generic job stress questionnaire was used (national institute for occupational safety and health, 1988). initially developed by rizzo, house, and lirtzman (1970) (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workorg/), the scale has been extensively used to study chronic role stress (e.g. fried, shirom, gilboa, & cooper, 2008; king & king, 1990). it contains in all 12 items, 8 on conflict (cronbach α .76), e.g., “do you receive incompatible requests from two more persons?”, and 4 on ambiguity (cronbach α .78), e.g., “do you feel certain about how much authority you have?”. the scale has five likert-type response alternatives and was coded so that a higher numerical value means a higher degree of role stress. an earlier study on the same sample of engine officers showed that role stress was the job stressor that had the strongest impact on perceived stress and mental health (rydstedt & lundh, 2010). to measure na and pa, the well-established panas scale (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) was used. the scale consists of 20 adjectives in all, ten related to na and ten to pa, with 5 likert-type response alternatives. the α coefficients were .85 for na and .90 for pa, respectively. as an indicator of stress, the 10 item version of the perceived stress scale pss10 (α .84) was used (cohen & williamson, 1988). the time frame referred to was “the last month”, and each item has five response alternatives (0 never 4 very often). example of items in the scale are: “in the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that were outside your control” “in the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?” statistical analyses path analysis, as implemented in amos 16 (arbuckle, 2007), was applied to test the fit between the theoretical models depicted in fig. 1 and fig. 2 and the current sample. maximum-likelihood estimation was used. missing values were estimated by the use of a maximum likelihood procedure. in addition to regression weights and the amount of variance explained by predictors, several fit statistics are reported. the chi-square statistic represents the difference between the covariance matrix restricted to the path model and the unrestricted covariance matrix (byrne, 2010). a significant p-value here is an indication that the model should be rejected, however in practice this may be too strict a criterion (see byrne, 2010). the comparative fit index (cfi), with values that range from zero to 1.00, is reported. for a well-fitting model this value should be greater than 0.95 (hu & bentler, 1999). the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) should not be greater than 0.10 for models with acceptable fit, and for well-fitting models it should be between 0.0 and 0.6 (hu & bentler, 1999; maccallum, browne, & sugawara, 1996). the tucker-lewis index (tli) is also reported and it is similar to cfi in range and cut-off value (hu & bentler, 1999). to analyze the moderator assumptions of na/pa, linear hierarchic regression analysis was used. the four multiplicative interactions between the stressors (conflict, ambiguity) and pa/na were initially calculated. each combination of stressors and na/pa were entered in the first step of the equations while the actual interaction term was entered in the second step – as the indicator of a possible moderating effect. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 rydstedt, johnsen, lundh et al. 97 http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workorg/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ results in table 1, the descriptive measures and inter-correlations for the variables in the study are presented. all the inter-correlations were of significant magnitude, and as could be expected, the two aspects of role stress were highly related. table 1 inter-correlations (pearson’s rxy) for the variables in the study 4321sdm positive affect1 .520.433 negative affect2 .12-.550.731 role conflict3 .43.34-.520.452 role ambiguity4 .53.32.32-.640.042 stress5 .39.56.54.33-.590.7981 note. all inter-correlations p < .01. n = 719. all the scales in this study were also used in a nationwide survey among british job holders (devereux, rydstedt, kelly, weston, & buckle, 2004). a comparison between the sea farers and data from the 254 male participants in the sub-major occupational group (office for national statistics, 2000) “engineering professionals” showed that the ero’s reported significantly higher pss (t = 8.96; p < .001; df = 968) and na (t = 8.29; p < .001; df = 927) than the shore-based professional engineers but at the same time also reported a significantly higher pa (t = 5.12; p < .001; df = 929). while there were no significant differences between the groups with regards to perceived role conflicts, the ero’s reported significantly lower role ambiguity than the british engineering professionals (t = -8..85; p < .001; df = 970). initially the degree of fit between the theoretical model and the sample data was examined. the resulting path model is shown in figure 2. all regression weights are statistically significant at the level of 0.01, except for the weight from role ambiguity to perceived stress (p = 0.165). this model could account for 45% of the variance in perceived stress, the predictor variables role conflict and role ambiguity accounted for 20% of the variance in na and 15% of the variance in pa. the fit of this model was excellent (χ2 = 1.8, df = 1, p = 0.175, cfi = 0.99, tli = 0.99, rmsea = 0.034). the next step was to attempt to fit the trait version of the model to the current sample (figure 1.a not including pa). the trait model suggested above showed an unacceptable model/data fit (χ2 = 163.4, df = 1, p = 0.000, cfi = 0.788, tli = -1.124, rmsea = 0.476). the hierarchical regression analyses failed to significantly support any moderating effects from the influence of either negative affectivity (*conflicts r2 = .002, n.s; *ambiguity r2 = .001, n.s) or positive affectivity (*conflicts r2 = .001, n.s; *ambiguity = r2 = .000, n.s) on the stressor-strain relationship. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 roles of positive and negative affectivity 98 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the best fitting structural model of the relations between role stressor, na/pa, and perceived stress. discussion while the dispositional model of the role of positive and negative affectivity exhibited an unsatisfying fit to the data and failed to conceptualize the relationships between the construct of the suggested model, the work situational model showed a very good model-data fit and revealed several significant pathways in the stressor-strain process. the work situational model gave an explained variance of 45% in the outcome variable – perceived stress. thus, the results from this study strongly support the work situational model in favour of the dispositional model. it can sometimes be the case that small adjustments to a model with fit statistics that are close to being acceptable lead to the discovery of models that fit the data significantly better. the statistics reported here were considered to indicate such a bad fit with the data that there was no reason to consider entering an explorative phase with the testing of revised models. the models presented here were constructed within two theoretical frameworks, both of which have some merit. thus, it is fair to say that the theoretical frameworks correspond to competing models. the possibility of testing competing hypothetical models is one advantage of structural equation modeling and the present research demonstrates one way of approaching this, that is, the alternative models approach suggested by jöreskog (1993). thus, similar to the study of höge and büssing (2004), this study also offered support for the causal/meditational mechanism (spector, zapf, et al., 2000) between na and perceived stress. the third assumption tested in this study, the moderator role of na/pa, is less feasible for sem analyses and was therefore tested by linear hierarchic regression analysis. as in the study by höge and büssing (2004), this assumption was not given any empirical support in the present study. an earlier study based on the same sample, where the associations between the working conditions and mental wellbeing were analysed, found role conflicts to be strongly related to mental wellbeing (rydstedt & lundh, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 rydstedt, johnsen, lundh et al. 99 http://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, a study from the swedish merchant fleet revealed that rapid technical development and increased requirement for efficiency and profitability have led to new role requirements, while the social work organization has not been adjusted to properly meet these new work tasks (lützhöft, ljung, & nodin, 2008). the seafarers also felt that they had not achieved any proper training or complementary education to handle new systems, e.g., digital system control. nonetheless, despite higher na and higher perceived stress, the seafarers reported lower frequencies of role conflicts than the british engineering professionals. a possible explanation for this may be that a generic scale like the role conflict and ambiguity scale does not fully capture the more occupation specific stressors among seafarers. as one alternative role of na, spector, zapf, et al. (2000) suggested a selection function. workers with high na may be less competitive on the labour market and therefore end up in lower andmore strenuous positions. selection may possibly offer a feasible explanation in some occupations but this hypothesis seems unlikely to explain the elevated na in this sample of highly qualified professionals. job type and qualification levels of the participants may be one possible reason to explain the discrepant findings regarding the role of na in the stress process, as previously reported in the literature. another source of constant conflict associated with mental wellbeing was the interference between work and family (rydstedt & lundh, 2010). the relatively weak albeit significant correlation between na and pa (rxy -.12) offers support for dependence between those two constructs as proposed by watson et al. (1999). on the other hand, in this study pa was significantly negatively influenced by role stress and, in turn, mediated some of the impact from this environmental stressor to perceived stress. this contradicts the suggestions by, e.g. watson et al. (1987) that pa is unrelated to the perception of either strenuous environmental factors or subjective wellbeing and adds to empirical support of the influence of pa in relation to health (e.g., pressman & cohen, 2005). since the full anonymity requirement only made it possible to use a cross-sectional study design, na was initially used as a control variable for the relations between workload and perceived mental well-being, as recommended in the literature. according this tradition, na/pa are considered to be traits and therefore the time frame was set at “in general/usually”. during the data analyzes, it was although noticed that the ero’s reported comparatively high levels of na. the time frame given for reporting na/pa thus favoured the trait mechanism. the cross-sectional design is another obvious limitation of the present study and precludes conclusions regarding causal relationships. the sample was restricted to males with relatively high average age and education levels, which may restrict the possibilities to generalize the findings to other groups of wage earners. it should also be kept in mind that the work-related stressors as well as the outcome variable were self-reported and it would be of interest for future research to find out whether the mediating role of na would also be supported by objective indicators of the working conditions and/or psycho-physiological strain indicators. conclusions in the occupational health literature, na has often been conceptualized as a relatively stable trait that artificially inflates the stressor-strain relationship since individuals high in na tend to report their working conditions negatively, as well as their health, regardless of objective conditions. the findings in the present study suggest that na may in fact be affected by the working conditions and act as a mediator between exposure and reactivity. furthermore, the findings presented in this study indicate that pa may also play a crucial role in the stressor-strain relationship by buffering the impact of stressor exposure on health reactivity. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 roles of positive and negative affectivity 100 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references arbuckle, j. l. 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(2003). negative affect and mortality in older persons. american journal of epidemiology, 158(9), 827-835. doi:10.1093/aje/kwg224 about the authors dr. leif w. rydstedt is professor in work and organizational psychology with special interest in health consequences of long-term stress exposure, recovery from work stress and the role of personality factors in the stress process. cand. psychol. svein-åge kjøs johnsen is a certified clinical psychologist and currently a doctorate student in environmental psychology, specifically environment-focused emotion regulation. most of his interests are in the intersections between environmental psychology, emotion research, and personality psychology. dr. monica lundh has a background as a marine engineer in the swedish merchant navy. her research within engine room ergonomics is mainly dealing with different aspects of the work environment in the engine department on board merchant ships. the work is focusing on creating a design which supports the tasks to be performed. dr. jason devereux is a registered member of the institute for ergonomics and human factors, and has provided research and consultancy services across sixteen countries. he has an extensive publication record in work organisational issues affecting worker productivity and ill-health. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 93–103 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.537 rydstedt, johnsen, lundh et al. 103 http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/classifications/archived-standard-classifications/standard-occupational-classification-2000/index.html http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00294.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.96.3.465 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.96.2.234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/j075v08n02_09 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.5.820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwg224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ roles of positive and negative affectivity (introduction) the relationship between negative affectivity, perceived working conditions and health the relationship between positive affectivity and health purpose of the present study the hypothetical models of conceptual roles for affectivity in the stressor-strain relationship method procedure participants instruments statistical analyses results discussion conclusions references about the authors a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 1–3 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.583 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 special edition of ejop (february 2013) on quality of life in social science and clinical medicine: an introduction paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejop's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf anti-individualism and perceptual representation interview anti-individualism and perceptual representation interview with tyler burge tyler burge*a, carlos muñoz-suárezb [a] faculty of philosophy, university of california, los angeles, ca, usa. [b] logos research group in analytic philosophy, perps project, university of barcelona, barcelona, spain. abstract tyler burge's anti-individualism – the view that individuating many of a creature's mental kinds is necessarily dependent on relations that the creature bears to the physical, or in some cases social, environment – backs his theory of perceptual representation, i.e. perceptual anti-individualism. perceptual anti-individualism articulates a framework that, according to burge, perceptual psychology assumed without articulation. in this interview, burge talks about the main tenets and underpinnings of perceptual anti-individualism in relation to classic representational theories of perceptual experience, reductive theories of mental content, theories of phenomenal consciousness, and other associated topics. keywords: perceptual representation, anti-individualism, psychological explanation, philosophical psychology, psychology of perception europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 published (vor): 2014-11-28. *corresponding author at: faculty of philosophy, university of california, los angeles, united states, box 951451, dodd 321 los angeles, ca 90095. e-mail: burge@ucla.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. carlos muñoz-suárez: professor burge, thanks for accepting the invitation to be interviewed. opening up the subject, as far as i've seen, one of the most relevant sectors of your theoretical work about the mind is what you have called anti-individualism. could you introduce the main tenets of this view? tyler burge: a lot of what i have written on mind is informed by anti-individualism. but much of my work is not specifically about anti-individualism. still, anti-individualism is the general doctrine for which i am best known. i hope that my work on perceptual representation will come to have co-equal status with the work on anti-individualism, in transforming the way philosophy thinks about the relevant subject matter. anti-individualism is the view that the natures of most representational mental (or psychological) states depend constitutively on relations to a wider environment (cf. burge, 1979, 1982, 2007a; 2010, ch. 3). representational mental states are those – like beliefs, intentions, desires, hopes, perceptions, memories, imaginings, and so on – that function to be about something and that are accurate or inaccurate. sensations like pains and tickles are not, in themselves, accurate or inaccurate. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ depending constitutively is depending for what it is to be a given mental state. the idea is that mental states like a belief that dolphins are mammals depend on relations that the individual bears to a wider environment to be the kinds of states that they are. tyler burge is a professor of philosophy at university of california, los angeles. since the 1970's decade, tyler burge has published influential papers in epistemology, philosophical psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and logic and history of philosophy. his published books include truth, thought, reason: essays on frege (2005), foundations of mind (2007), origins of objectivity (2010) andcognition through understanding: self-knowledge, interlocution, reasoning, reflection (2013). martin hahn and bjørn ramberg have edited a festschrift mainly devoted to tyler burge's anti-individualism. correspondence: faculty of philosophy, university of california, los angeles, united states, box 951451, dodd 321 los angeles, ca 90095. e-mail: burge@ucla.edu there are various forms of relations to a wider environment that help make mental states the kinds of mental states that they are. many are causal relations to the physical environment – either in the individual’s learning history or in the evolution of representational systems that the individual inherits. these causal relations to the physical environment underlie the natures of perceptual states and perceptual beliefs. hence they often figure in the natures of other cognitive states, because so much of our mental life depends on perception. some relations to the wider environment are social-communicational relations to others whom we rely on for connection to the environment. these relations underlie some of our understanding of concepts – especially concepts expressed through language. some relations to the wider environment are relations of veridicality or successful representation of a subject matter. these relations are dominant in determining the natures of our beliefs in logic and mathematics. anti-individualism opposes views that maintain that the mind is self-contained – that representational states are what they are independently of relations to an environment, and either match the environment or not, even though the terms of the match are completely independent of one another. anti-individualism also opposes views that maintain that the nature of the mind is what it is purely by virtue of its relation to the brain. the identities of mental states depend on the identities of types of things in the environment, with which the individual interacts, beyond the individual’s mind and brain. carlos muñoz-suárez: one of the dominant traditional views about perception is what might be called classic representationalism. according to this old-fashioned view, perception is a relation between subjects and things (representations) inhabiting their own minds. so, for instance, to perceive the blue of the sky consists, broadly speaking, in being aware of a representation of a color shade, presented within one’s mind. according to this view, the subject matter of a visual perception is a mental representation of a color shade. in this sense, classic representationalism is an internalist view, i.e., a view according to which perception is grounded in an inner sensory awareness relation. this internalist representationalism about perception was part of the background, on the one hand, for important physiological and psychological theories of perception in the 19th century (e.g., fechner, 1860; mach, 1886; weber, 1851) and, on the other hand, for one of the most seminal philosophical theories of perception in the early 20th century (e.g., broad, 1925; russell, 1912, ch. 1). which is the main turn that your anti-individualism imposes on this classical view about perception? europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 interview with tyler burge 590 http://www.psychopen.eu/ carlos muñoz-suárez, is a doctoral student member of the persp project and the logos research group in analytic philosophy at the university of barcelona. he has been professor and researcher of philosophy and psychology at some universities in colombia and for the colombian government. he earned a ba in philosophy, a ba in psychology and a mphil in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. his research areas are philosophy of mind, neurosemantics, vision science, and experimental philosophy. he is mainly dedicated to the study of the meta-theoretical basis for a new theory of vision, visibility, and visuality. correspondence: spain, barcelona, 08001. carrer montalegre, 6-8, off. 4009. e-mail: carlosmariomunozsuarez@gmail.com tyler burge: classic representationalism derives from empiricist views (of locke, berkeley, and hume) in the early modern period. it influenced, as you say, early work in psychology. and it inspired the 20th century philosophical theories of perception by russell, moore, and broad, that took perception to be fundamentally a relation to sense data. i think that this view is now thoroughly discredited. its fall began well before i came on the scene. in philosophy it was criticized successfully by austin, strawson, and others in the 1950s. in perceptual psychology it has come to be largely ignored, because of the success of explanations that take perception to be fundamentally a matter of representing the physical world, not a matter of relation to non-physical qualia. anti-individualism is certainly in accord with the direction of modern science of perception. it provides a framework that is presupposed, i think, by modern perceptual psychology. the framework shows how the representational content of perceptual states derives partly from the physical environment that they function to represent. the attempt to understand perception by arm-chair, phenomenological methods drove early philosophical developments of classic representationalism. it is now known that perception cannot be understood from the armchair, even though many philosophical theories – even ones not committed to classic representationalism – persist in trying. too much of what goes on in perception occurs unconsciously, and is much too fast for introspective access. a central, further problem with classic representationalism is that it underplayed the function of perception: to provide perceivers with detailed information about the physical world. carlos muñoz-suárez: one of the most heated contemporary debatesi is based on clarifying the necessary and/or sufficient conditions of perceptual representations (cf. dretske, 1999; fodor, 1990; millikan, 1984; papineau, 1993; tye, 1992). in searching for those conditions, researchers have tried to explain how perceptual representations take place within the natural order (i.e. within the actual world as described by some empirical sciences, for instance: physics, cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience). according to your perceptual anti-individualism the nature of all perceptual states depends constitutively on relations – including non-representational causal relations – between individuals in those states and features of the physical environment (including sometimes the individual’s own body). could you tell us how your perceptual anti-individualism explains that perceptual representation takes place within the natural order? tyler burge: the attempts to “naturalize” representation that you refer to had the good effect of trying to situate our understanding of perception within a broader context of scientific understanding. but the attempts were driven, i think, by too narrow a view of science, by a completely unsupported philosophical ideology, and by a lack of real understanding of the relevant science – perceptual psychology. none of the participants in this movement whom you cite had (or has) a deep grip on what is going on in that science. no detailed discussion of the science appears in any of these philosophers’ works in connection with their “naturalizing” projects. the narrow view of science consisted in assuming that all science had to confine itself to the theoretical terms used in the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), or at least explain how other terms are place-holders europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 burge & muñoz-suárez 591 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the “real” explanations in terms of the natural sciences. the philosophical ideology consisted in the dogma that psychological terms like ‘representation’ or ‘perception’ were not fit in themselves to be scientific terms, and had to be explained – or “naturalized” –in terms that were already being used in the natural sciences. these philosophers took from quine the idea that distinctively psychological representational vocabulary was prima facie dirty or suspect, and in need of some philosophical cleansing or philosophical vindication. the narrow view of science and the “naturalistic” philosophical dogma have been overturned by the development of perceptual psychology – pre-eminently the development of vision science. this development accelerated and became impressively rigorous in the 1970s. the acceleration was driven by the introduction of computers into the study of perception. it was also driven by the development of an agreed upon and well-articulated scientific methodology. the methodology situated psychological explanation in the context of closely associated – but different – explanations of the neural activity that underlies perception. perceptual psychology systematically uses representations or representational content in its most basic scientific explanations. the representations or representational content constitute conditions for accuracy of perception. they entail a capability of the relevant perceptual states to enter into semantical relations to perceived particulars and to properties and relations that are attributed to those particulars. the science is more rigorous and more explanatorily powerful than many theories in biology and neuroscience, which do not use distinctively psychological, representational terms in their explanations. there is no reason to believe that the distinctively psychological, representational terms that are used in perceptual psychology need explanation or vindication, by philosophers, in the terms of the natural sciences in order to be genuinely scientific. psychological explanations that use these distinctively psychological, representational terms show all the signs of rigorous, successful scientific explanations. the explanations explain how we accurately perceive the world (when we do) and under what conditions we fall into illusions. psychology does not need to be propped up, or made scientifically respectable, by the natural sciences – much less by philosophy. my work differs from the “naturalizing” programs from the 1980s and 1990s that you cite. my view is that perceptual psychology is “naturalistic” not in being explicable in the terms of the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology), but in not invoking miracles and in adhering to rigorous scientific methodology. i think that representational content is a scientific notion that earns its place in science through its role in successful scientific explanation. so i believe that my work is in accord with the actual practice of the science of perceptual psychology, whereas i believe that the work of millikan, dretske, and fodor – insofar as that work attempted to explain psychology in functionalist or informationalist terms or in terms from the natural sciences – is not in accord with known science. my work relates perceptual explanation to explanation in the natural sciences by pointing out that perceptual psychology is carried out in a framework that assumes that at least some perceptual states figure in non-representational, biological explanations of action that is (earlier in evolution) pre-representational (burge, 2010, chs. 3 and 8). i have in mind generic types of action such as eating, mating, navigating, and so on. the idea is that the kinds of physical properties and relations in the environment that figure in pre-representational, ethological explanations of such animal activities are prima facie the sorts of properties and relations that will figure in determining perceptual content. this is a very generic constraint on perception. it tends to rule out, as perceptual representata, categories of entities (such as sense data, proximal stimulations, and odd philosophically contrived properties, such as aggregates of undetached rabbit parts) that did not figure so prominently in pre-representational animal activity. on the other hand, this generic constraint does not generate any specific perceptual representational contents. thus one cannot assume that if a property figures in biological/ethological explanations that it will be indicated by a perceptual content. moreover, the constraint does not by itself rule out specific candidates for pereurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 interview with tyler burge 592 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ceptual representata. it only rules out, prima facie, whole categories of candidate representata, if alternative categories played more central roles in pre-representational biological explanations. specific representational contents are determined by further considerations. for example, the representata of perceptual contents must be discriminable by the perceiver. and the relevant discriminations must be embedded in perceptual capacities, basically perceptual constancies. thus one cannot rule out a specific representatum because it does not figure in pre-representational action. one must both include and rule out candidates for perceptual representata and representational contents by checking for perceptual discriminability. these are tests for perceptual content that are actually used by the science. still, the fact that perceptual psychology tries to accord with pre-representational explanations in zoology and ethology plays an important role in the overall shape of the science. perceptual anti-individualism explains how perception is “embedded in nature” by showing that this general connection between properties that animals interact with pre-representationally figures in the very nature of perceptual representational contents – which are themselves perceptual kinds. that is, those physical entities that animals can discriminate, and that they tended to interact with pre-representationally, mark the very nature of perceptual contents and perceptual kinds. perceptual kinds are ultimately molded, and determined to be what they are, by physical kinds in nature – the physical kinds that the individuals interact with and discriminate. there are further factors that determine specific perceptual contents. but these are the basic ones. anti-individualism shows how deeply dependent psychological kinds are on physical nature. but it respects the distinctiveness of psychological kinds. they are not themselves kinds that are specified in the natural sciences. carlos muñoz-suárez: you have advocated in favor of the idea that representational explanations are necessary to understand what a psychological state is. in this way, you have suggested that we will get to comprehend the mind if we structure philosophical theories on the basis of a science of mental representation, i.e., on the basis of perceptual psychology. could you present your main reasons to reject the reduction of psychological representational explanations to neurobiological functional descriptions? tyler burge: science is always open, in principle, to scientific reductions. but none of the reductions that have been floated by philosophers provide even close to the explanatory specificity or explanatory power of the explanations in representational terms that actually occur in the science. functional explanations and informational explanations are too unspecific to capture the explanations of the formations of states that can be accurate or inaccurate. such explanations are fundamental to perceptual psychology. explanations in terms of biological functions are fundamentally explanations of practical capacities – whereas perceptual states are never themselves exercises of a merely practical capacity. their representational job is to get something right, not to get something done. of course, the perceptual states can and do help in getting things done. only packages of perceptual states and actional or reactional states are practical capacities: capacities for fitness. neural explanations by themselves are inherently individualistic. they show nothing about how neural activity is related to the wider environment – which is what perceptual psychology is all about. a combination of neural and informational explanation is again too unspecific to reduce explanations of accurate and inaccurate perception (cf. burge, 2010, ch. 8). carlos muñoz-suárez:… what do you take to be your main input to perceptual psychology? tyler burge: i think that perceptual anti-individualism articulates a framework that perceptual psychology assumed without articulation. i believe that i have also provided the clearest, most accurate explanation of the distinction europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 burge & muñoz-suárez 593 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between sensing and perceiving, a standard distinction in psychology. i have provided a detailed constitutive explication of what perception is (cf. burge, 2010, ch. 9). i am working on an account of the main forms of perceptual content – something analogous to detailed explanations of the basic syntactical and semantical forms in language use (cf. burge 2010, chs. 10 and 11; 2011a, 2011b). carlos muñoz-suárez: if i have understood correctly, perceptual anti-individualism is a view specifying the constitutive conditions that must be fulfilled by any psychological state to be perceptual. moreover, we can distinguish between theories about the nature of perceptual content (e.g., dretske, 1999; fodor, 1990; tye, 2000) and theories about the nature of perceptual states. the former theories have tried to account for crucial cases. for instance, the case supporting the inverted spectrum hypothesis. this case includes two individuals functionally identicalii: one of them has a perceptual representation as of red while the other has a perceptual representation as of green and, ex hypothesi, both individuals are in visual sensory contact with the same environmental item. do you think that perceptual anti-individualism could help us to clarify this case? in particular, would you agree that perceptual anti-individualism might help us either to reject or support the inverted spectrum hypothesis? tyler burge: what you say about perceptual anti-individualism is right, except that it states some constitutive conditions for perception not “the” (or all) conditions. i am not sure that i understand your distinction between accounting for the nature of perceptual content and accounting for the nature of perceptual states. i think perceptual anti-individualism concerns both, but it is fundamentally about the nature of perceptual states. contents really just are kinds of states or events. i think that if two individuals (and their species’ ancestors) bear the same relations to their environments, then one cannot perceive the same things as red that the other perceives as green. what one perceives as depends on the pattern of interactions that one has to environmental properties. i think that if both individuals (and their ancestors) normally went into parallel states when they interacted with red things, then they will both perceive those things as red. so that form of the inverted spectrum seems to me impossible. on the other hand, if the two individuals’ underlying physical constitutions were relevantly different, i think that one individual could perceive something as red while having the same qualitative character of the perception (of something as red) that the other individual had in perceiving something as green – and vice versa. in this case, both would perceive the “something” as red. but they would do so in different ways. in other words, the ways in which the two individuals perceive something as red could differ qualitatively. similarly, the ways in which they perceive something as green could differ qualitatively. what color one perceives something as is not determined by what the what-it-is-like, qualitative aspect of the experience. it is determined by patterns of causal relations to the environment. but that what-it-is-like, qualitative aspect can affect the way one perceives something as (say) red. you and i could both perceive a fire engine as red. it would look red to both of us. but the look of red – the qualitative nature of our experiences – could differ. what qualitative natures one has depends mainly on underlying brain states (though we certainly do not understand how to explain this dependency relation). perception-as depends mainly on patterns of causal relations to the environment (cf. burge 2007b, 2010, ch. 9). carlos muñoz-suárez: broadly speaking, one could think that an individualist view about the phenomenal content of perceptual experiences (e.g., chalmers, 1996, 2006; jackson, 1982; shoemaker, 1994; strawson, 1994) is compatible with your anti-individualist theory of the nature of perceptual states. according to this individualism, the phenomenal or experiential content of perceptual experiences is wholly determined by the individual’s noneurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 interview with tyler burge 594 http://www.psychopen.eu/ representational, non-functional features. in other words, the phenomenal content of perceptual experiences is not – essentially – of a representational or functional kind. one could accept the causal and representational dependency of perceptual states on relations between individuals and their physical environments – as it is claimed by your perceptual anti-individualism – but, even so, one could also reject this dependency as determining the phenomenal content of those states. in this vein, one could claim that some constituents of contents of perceptual states (namely, the phenomenal ones) are wholly individuated in virtue of the individual's non-representational, nonfunctional features. what do you think the fundamental tenets that a theory about perceptual phenomenal content must include in order to be compatible with your anti-individualist theory about the nature of perceptual states? tyler burge: i think it better not to think of the purely qualitative aspects of the mind as types of content. i think that in themselves, they don’t represent anything. and speaking of them as content just invites confusion. yes, i accept an individualist view of phenomenal qualities, considered in themselves. i think that the nature of such qualities depends on the underlying brain states, not on their relations to a wider environment. i think that most phenomenal qualities are, however, co-opted by representational states – for example, perceptual states. then they become aspects of modes of presentation – of representational contents. they are like inthemselvesmeaningless sounds that becomemeaningful through being used to represent something. in themselves, i think they represent nothing (cf. burge, 1997, 2007b). i do not know what the fundamental tenets of such a view of phenomenal qualities are. i hold the view. i certainly believe that it is, already as stated, compatible with antiindividualism! looking at the huge body of philosophical and scientific work on phenomenal qualities over the last few decades, i do not see a lot of progress. i think that our understanding of phenomenal qualities is vastly behind our understanding of representational states and representational contents. i conjecture that it will be a long time before genuine philosophical insight into the qualitative aspects of the mind will catch up with philosophical insight into the representational aspects. this prospect does not disturb me, however. the representational aspects of mind are overwhelmingly the dominant aspects. they form the primary ground for psychology, and hence, i think, for philosophy of psychology. philosophy of mind is a larger topic. but it too has plenty to do in understanding representational aspects of mind. carlos muñoz-suárez: professor burge, many thanks for the interview! tyler burge: thank you for your interest in my work. notes i) mainly woven in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. ii) broadly speaking, identical in terms of the causal relations between their environments and their mental architectures and behavior. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 burge & muñoz-suárez 595 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this interview derived from an academic visit of professor burge to the faculty of philosophy and the logos research group in analytic philosophy at university of barcelona during the spring of 2012. the interviewer thanks to their corresponding financial support. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references broad, c. (1925). the mind and its place in nature. london, england: kegan paul. burge, t. (1979). individualism and the mental. midwest studies in philosophy, 4, 73-121. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.1979.tb00374.x burge, t. (1982). other bodies. in a. woodfield (ed.), thought and object: essays on intentionality (pp. 97-120). london, england: clarendon press. burge, t. (1997). two kinds of consciousness. in n. block, o. flanagan, & g. güzeldere (eds.), the nature of consciousness (pp. 427-434). cambridge, ma: mit press. burge, t. (2007a). introduction. in foundations of mind: philosophical essays (vol. 2, pp. 1-31). oxford, england: oxford university press. burge, t. (2007b). reflections on two kinds of consciousness. in foundations of mind: philosophical essays (vol. 2, pp. 392-419). oxford, england: clarendon press. burge, t. (2010). origins of objectivity. oxford, england: clarendon press. burge, t. (2011a). origins of perception. disputatio, 4(29), 1-38. burge, t. (2011b). steps toward origins of propositional thought. disputatio, 4(29), 39-67. chalmers, d. (1996). the conscious mind. oxford, england: oxford university press. chalmers, d. (2006). perception and the fall from eden. in t. gendler & j. hawthorne (eds.), perceptual experience (pp. 49-125). new york, ny: oxford university press. dretske, f. (1999). naturalizing the mind. cambridge, ma: mit press. fechner, g. (1860). elemente der psychophysik. leipzig, germany: breitkopf & härtel. fodor, j. a. (1990). a theory of content, i: the problem. in a theory of content and other essays (pp. 51-88). cambridge, ma: mit press. jackson, f. (1982). epiphenomenal qualia. the philosophical quarterly, 32, 127-136. doi:10.2307/2960077 mach, e. (1886),die analyse der empfindungen und das verhältnis des physischen zum psychischen. jena, germany: verlag von gustav fischer. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 interview with tyler burge 596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1979.tb00374.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2960077 http://www.psychopen.eu/ millikan, r. (1984). language, thought and other biological categories. cambridge, ma: mit press. papineau, d. (1993). philosophical naturalism. oxford, england: blackwell. russell, b. (1912). appearance and reality. in the problems of philosophy (ch. 1). london, england: williams and norgate. shoemaker, s. (1994). phenomenal character. noûs, 28, 21-38. doi:10.2307/2215918 strawson, g. (1994). mental reality. cambridge, ma: mit press. tye, m. (1992). naturalism and the mental. mind: new series, 101(403), 421-441. doi:10.1093/mind/101.403.421 tye, m. (2000). consciousness, color and content. cambridge, ma: mit press. weber, e. (1851). die lehre vom tastsinn und gemeingefühl – auf versuche gegründet. braunschweig, germany: verlag friedrich vieweg und sohn. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 589–597 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.767 burge & muñoz-suárez 597 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2215918 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mind/101.403.421 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview with tyler burge (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references coming to terms with permanent involuntary childlessness: a phenomenological analysis of bulletin board postings research reports coming to terms with permanent involuntary childlessness: a phenomenological analysis of bulletin board postings sumaira h. malik*a, neil s. coulsonb [a] atlantis healthcare uk, london, united kingdom. [b] institute of work, health and organisations, university of nottingham, united kingdom. abstract little is known about the role that online support communities play in the lives of women faced with permanent involuntary childlessness. to understand the experiences of these women, this study conducted a thematic analysis of messages downloaded from an online community for permanent involuntary childlessness. four central themes were identified: feeling like an “outsider”, a whole lifetime of loss, coming to terms with childlessness and finding a safe haven online. these findings show that the online community appeared to empower women to move on with their lives and discover a new sense of self-worth and identity beyond that of motherhood. keywords: infertility, online support, involuntary childlessness, social support, internet, psychosocial well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 received: 2012-10-09. accepted: 2012-12-10. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: atlantis healthcare uk, building 5, chiswick park, chiswick high road, london, uk, w4 5ya. e-mail: sumaira.malik@atlantishealthcare.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. infertility defined as the inability to conceive after two years of regular unprotected sexual intercourse, is estimated to affect approximately 72.4 million people worldwide (boivin, buntin, collins, & nygren, 2007). a review of the infertility literature suggests that men and women faced with infertility will often experience a strong need for psychosocial support and guidance; a need which is not always adequately met by existing sources of support (alesi, 2005; malik & coulson, 2008a; schmidt, 2009). recent research has explored the potential role of the internet and in particular online support communities, in helping to address these unmet support needs (epstein, rosenberg, grant, & hemenway, 2002; epstein & rosenberg, 2005; himmel, meyer, kochen, & michelmann, 2005; malik & coulson, 2008a). an online community can be described as a social network that is created and supported by electronic media (wellman, 1997). online support communities are typically facilitated through bulletin boards, which allow users to communicate with one another by posting and replying to messages on a discussion board. some websites may include additional features such as a chat room or private messaging option. these online communities are unique in that they allow individuals to engage in either synchronous or asynchronous written communication with people from all over the world and access a dynamic source of peer and/or professional support, advice and information at virtually any time of the day (braithwaite, waldron, & finn, 1999; ferguson, 1996). research across a range of different health conditions has shown that online support communities can offer individuals a unique and valuable source of social support (braithwaite et al., 1999; bunde, suls, martin, & barnett, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2006). in addition, participation in online communities has been linked to several positive psychosocial outcomes including a sense of empowerment, improved quality of life and reduced depression (bartlett & coulson, 2011; evans, donelle, & hume-loveland, 2012; mo & coulson, 2010; van uden-kraan et al., 2008; van uden-kraan, drossaert, taal, seydel, & van de laar, 2009). in relation to infertility, several studies have shown that the anonymity of the internet and online communities offers individuals a novel opportunity to express their feelings and experiences without fear of embarrassment or stigmatization (malik & coulson, 2008a; malik & coulson, 2008b). furthermore, research reveals that online infertility support communities can offer many of the therapeutic and self-help processes that occur in face-to-face support networks and can create a strong sense of camaraderie among participants (malik & coulson, 2010a). the benefits of accessing online infertility support communities have been shown to be experienced by both individuals who actively post messages to online communities as well as those individuals who simply access the community to read messages posted by others (malik & coulson, 2011). key psychological benefits of participation include reduced feelings of isolation, informational and emotional support, a sense of hope and positivity and tips/advice on how to cope with the effects of infertility on interpersonal relationships (gold, boggs, mugisha, & palladino, 2012; hinton, kurinczuk, & ziebland, 2010; malik & coulson, 2008b; malik & coulson, 2010a; malik & coulson, 2011). as such it appears that online support communities offer a viable and beneficial alternative source of support for many people affected by infertility. however, online infertility support communities are not without their disadvantages. several studies indicate that online communities may not always fulfill the support needs of people facing permanent involuntary childlessness. research has shown that women who had experienced treatment failure and were facing permanent childlessness, found it difficult to hear about treatment success from other members of the online community. reading about other people’s pregnancies resulted in feelings of immense grief, anger, and jealousy and appeared to heighten infertility-related stress (malik & coulson, 2008b; malik & coulson, 2010b; malik & coulson, 2011). thus, it appears that while women may initially benefit from accessing a network of similar others, there is a risk that those women who do not fall pregnant will become increasingly depressed and isolated overtime, particularly if fellow members have become pregnant while they are facing the prospect of potential permanent childlessness (verhaak, smeenk, van minnen, kremer, & kraaimaat, 2005; verhaak, smeenk, nahuiis, kremer, & braat, 2007). estimates suggest that around 4.2% of women wishing to conceive between the ages of 40 and 55 years remain childless due to unresolved infertility (oakley, doyle, & maconochie, 2008). these women may be at risk for developing depression and long-term emotional problems (verhaak et al., 2005, 2007). moreover, a number of studies utilizing both qualitative and quantitative approaches; have indicated a general dissatisfaction with the level of information and support provided by clinics in relation to the decision to end treatment and alternative options such as adoption (peddie, van teijlingen, & bhattacharya, 2005; schmidt, 1998; souter, penney, hopton, & templeton, 1998). for example, a qualitative study by peddie et al. (2005) found that women felt the information provided at their final consultation was inadequate and expressed a need for ongoing support from the ivf unit. in light of this, it is important to ensure that individuals making the transition from fertility treatment to permanent childlessness are able to access adequate support and guidance both online and offline. to date, much of the research focusing on online support and infertility issues has been conducted in online communities that are dominated by individuals undergoing investigation or treatment for infertility. consequently, comparatively little is known about the role that online support communities can play in the lives of women faced with permanent involuntary childlessness. more in depth research in this area may help health care professionals gain an insight into how they can create positive online and offline environments, in which women feel they can europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 78 http://www.psychopen.eu/ access the support that they need. to help address the gaps in our understanding of online women’s support needs at this stage of their infertility journey, we conducted a qualitative analysis of messages posted to an online community dedicated solely to individuals facing permanent childlessness. it was felt that a qualitative approach would allow for a more in-depth and richer insight into the experiences of women using the online community. consequently, through the qualitative analysis, we sought to understand the “lived” experience of women accessing an online community for unresolved infertility and to explore the role that online support plays in the lives of these individuals. to the best of our knowledge, the current study is one of the first to focus specifically on online communication among women facing permanent involuntary childlessness. methods sample and data collection the data for this study were messages obtained from the archive of a peer-moderated online community designed solely to support individuals dealing with permanent involuntary childlessness. the online community was identified through conducting a google search of online support for permanent infertility and selected as it appeared to be one of the largest and most active online communities of this nature. at the point of data collection the online community consisted of one bulletin board, which contained just over 1000 messages in its archive, with new messages being posted on a regular basis (around 5-10 messages per week). to begin with, the 40 most recent discussion threads in the archive were downloaded on 15/12/10. this resulted in 224 messages for data analysis. following the analysis of these messages, it was felt that the point of data saturation (i.e. no new themes or relevant insights coming to light) had been reached therefore no further messages were collected. the length of the messages ranged from 2-956 words (mean = 122 words). messages identified the date and time of posting and the senders name and gender followed by the message text. from this information it appeared that all the messages were posted by women and a total of 49 unique sender names were identified. due to the anonymous nature of an online support community, further personal/demographic data about the sample was not available. data analysis messages were analyzed using a thematic analysis, which drew on principles of phenomenological research to understand the “lived” experiences of the senders. phenomenological research is concerned with gaining a deeper and richer insight into the lived experiences of individuals and understanding the meanings that individuals attach to events and phenomena (beck, 1994). a phenomenological analysis was thus considered an appropriate and ideal method for describing and interpreting the meanings that women attach to their experiences of involuntary childlessness and accessing an online support community. the practical steps involved in the data analysis process, broadly followed the generic thematic analysis guidelines set out by braun and clarke (2006) and involved a collaborative process between the study authors. in the first instance, the lead author read the discussion threads several times to become familiar with the dataset. following this, salient and interesting features of the data were coded. in the final stage, similar codes were grouped together to form overarching conceptual themes, which captured the women’s experiences as expressed through their bulletin board postings. the data and thematic conceptualization was then reviewed by the second author for validity. following discussions between the two authors, an agreement was reached around the final thematic framework. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 malik & coulson 79 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ethical considerations ethical approval was obtained from the university research ethics committee, in accordance with the ethical guidelines for internet research published by the british psychological society (bps, 2007). for the present study, issues concerning informed consent, privacy and confidentiality were considered particularly relevant. in light of recommendations from previous authors (e.g. bps, 2007; eysenbach & till, 2001), a relatively large and open access online community (i.e. one that does not require any form of registration or subscription to access and read messages) was selected for research purposes. since the online support community could be considered “public” in nature, informed consent from individual members was not sought. however, in accordance with the british psychology society ethical guidelines, to further protect the privacy and confidentiality of individuals using the online community, the name of the support community and address of the website from which data was collected has not been disclosed in any dissemination of the work. in addition, all quotations used in the reporting of the results were anonymised and entered into a search engine to ensure the quotes could not be traced directly to an individual posting. in instances where quotes were traceable to the original posting, the quote was paraphrased when reporting the results to ensure privacy and anonymity. results the results of the analysis revealed four emergent themes related to the experiences of women accessing an online support community for permanent involuntary childlessness. these themes were labeled as: • feeling like an “outsider” • a whole lifetime of loss • coming to terms with childlessness • finding a safe haven online feeling like an “outsider” a common experience among women posting to the online bulletin board was a sense of isolation from the “fertile world” and the feeling that they were somehow “different” to other women. many women talked about how not having children of their own meant that they were forever “on the outside looking in” on their peers becoming mothers and raising families. the knowledge that they would never be admitted into this “mum’s club” evoked a range of strong negative emotions in members of the online community. emotions commonly expressed in the postings included intense feelings of grief and anguish at the loss of their opportunity to become biological parents, as well as anger that this role had been denied to them. “i constantly feel like an outsider in this world. wherever i go or whatever i do, i feel like the odd one out. i work in a female dominated environment with either younger girls having babies or the older women becoming grandparents. there are always happy family photos being passed around, so i do feel 'different' to everyone else.” several women also described how being unable to conceive a child of their own, appeared to have changed their outlook on life in general, which served to further separate them from other women around them. for example: “one of the things i find hardest to deal with is people with a child talking about the next or one planning their first as if they are going to order one and the universe will deliver, at particular age gap, what sex they want and that be most convenient after their holiday so they can enjoy a drink!! but the reason it europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 80 http://www.psychopen.eu/ bothers me so much is that i've had to learn that life isn't like that when it appears others don't have that lesson taught. it can make me feel singled out for some hardship and it’s so unfair.” hearing about other people’s pregnancies appeared to be a particularly painful experience for women in the online community and served as a poignant reminder that they were unable to conceive themselves. for many women, receiving news that a friend, colleague or family member was pregnant resulted in a mixture of joy, despair and feelings of jealousy. such news often prompted members to access the online community, in order to vent their frustration and express these conflicting emotions to people who could empathize with their experiences. in this context, the online community served as a unique environment in which women could alleviate their sense of isolation and connect with other women in similar situations. “i went over to see a friend yesterday to 'mourn' the breakup of my relationship and she announced that she is pregnant. i wouldn't wish this feeling of isolation and hopelessness on anyone, especially a close friend but it felt like a kick in the gut non-the-less….” some women also described feelings of distress when they heard stories in the media about motherhood or attended family gatherings, where there were young children present. these experiences heightened their feeling of being “the odd one out” and once again brought home the realization that they would never experience motherhood. “tv personalities seem to get pregnant at the drop of a hat or they have fertility treatment and it just seems to work first time for them. reading these stories makes me really upset and angry”. to protect themselves against reminders of their infertility and feeling like an outsider in social situations, several women reported avoiding certain family gatherings or cutting themselves off from friends who were pregnant or had children. although this coping strategy was effective in avoiding painful feelings in the short-term, in the longterm it appeared to create a vicious cycle with members feeling more isolated and alienated from society as time went by: “i have had an in built safety mechanism for years in which i distance myself from any friends/work colleagues/family of child bearing age, hence i was left with very few friends of my own age and have gradually felt more and more isolated.” “i always dreaded family gatherings and made excuses not to go because i hated feeling like the odd one out whilst everyone around me had children or were expecting them. i tried to protect myself because i found it all too painful but at the same time i have found the feeling of isolation really painful and difficult too”. one environment in which the women found it more difficult to avoid pregnancies and discussions about children was within the workplace. several members reported that they had gone to great lengths (e.g., changing jobs) to create a “safe” working environment for themselves. however, this safe haven was often short-lived, for example as one woman describes: “hi folks, well here i am again after my few months away whilst i am ‘coping’ (haha) its that wave again.....after moving job to escape the many pregnancies around me i find 2 of my colleagues are pregnant very unexpectedly. one being in her forties with 2 grown up children and the other on her 4th. my safe space has now crashed!” europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 malik & coulson 81 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this posting elicited a surge of responses from other members of the online community who had also been through similar experiences: “i do really know what you mean about how that sinking feeling grabs you...and then stays for a length of time. it is seems so unfair that you have changed jobs and thought you were in a safe place...only to have to it thrust upon you again. it happened to me last year too and i remember that blow.” these messages were used to share common experiences and empathy, and also offer reassurance to the poster that the pain and anguish would lessen with time. in this way, members of the online community created a safe and supportive environment in which infertile women could reach out to one another, every time they felt down or experienced a new wave of negative emotions. a whole lifetime of loss members of the online community described multiple losses as a consequence of infertility. first and foremost, there was the loss of an unborn child and the accompanying loss of their hope of becoming parents. furthermore, for some members permanent childlessness also seemed to challenge their core identity as women; with several posters questioning their role in a society, which they perceived to be obsessed with childbearing. for example: “i keep thinking i am moving on as my life has changed so much since we stopped the ivf treatments but i just feel like i am slipping backwards when i want to keep looking forwards with as much of a positive way as i can. living in a society that expect women to have children”. as this quote illustrates, a key challenge that many women accessing the online community were faced with was the struggle to create a new identity for themselves following their lost hopes of becoming a mother. the online community provided an accessible forum in which these challenges could be shared and discussed anonymously. several women expressed the view that although they might learn to live with their loss, they would never fully recover from the grief that came with it. as one woman describes, unresolved infertility seemed to instigate a “whole lifetime of losses” that she would have to encounter at each stage of her life: “does anyone else ever get really angry about not having children? it washes over me every so often and i get really cross and hurt, even after all this time. not only do we miss out on the babies but it's a whole lifetime of experiences too. sorry, just feeling a bit sorry for myself. xx”. a key advantage of accessing the online community for many women was receiving validation for these powerful emotions. for example, this feeling was reciprocated by other members of the online community, with another woman posting: “i do get where you are coming from about missing out on things: first birthdays, 18th birthdays / 21st birthdays, first day at school, learning to drive, passing exams (or not), meeting boyfriends / girlfriends for the first time, christmases of course!, seeing them ride a bike for the first time, perhaps going to college or university, weddings of course (and hopefully), grand children of course (and hopefully), birthday parties etc, etc, etc. it is so difficult and i too try to think of the lovely husband i have and my dog, harvey, and my home and the fact i have a car and occasionally have a lovely holiday, but sometimes that just doesn't do it does it!” another life event that appeared to be particularly distressing for members was the realization that they would never become grandparents either. several members discussed their emotional reactions to news that their peers europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 82 http://www.psychopen.eu/ were becoming grandparents. these reactions seemed to parallel the pain and jealousy they had initially felt when they heard of other women falling pregnant. however, as some women described, the loss of their opportunity to become grandparents not only served as a reminder that they didn’t have children but was almost like a “second wave” of infertility, where they grieved anew for their unborn grandchildren and were again pushed to seek support and consolation online, which for many women was the only forum in which they could access and communicate with other women living with permanent infertility. “i could not help observing the sign grandchild on board in the rear window of a car the other day. i have noticed lots of baby/child/princess etc etc on board but never the grandchild one before. it just made me think that it does not matter what age we are or how we feel there is always something or someone to remind us that not only are we not parents but are never to be grandparents either..” “found out last night that my partners sisters daughter has just become pregnant and as i am now in the grandmother age thought i had got past all these feelings but once again i spent all last evening feeling i should be over this by now and then feeling like crying.” thus it seems that for this group of women, involuntary childlessness was experienced as a major and recurring loss throughout their life course. coming to terms with childlessness most of the people posting to the online community had been through the “emotional rollercoaster” of several unsuccessful cycles of infertility treatment; before they went from “trying to conceive” to facing the prospect of permanent infertility. prior to this, these individuals had been wholly consumed with the goal of resolving their infertility crisis, but now suddenly found themselves searching for new life goals that did not involve parenthood. “it’s funny that when things don’t go according to plan, you just want to hide away and be as invisible as possible. then it’s incredibly hard to re-emerge and reinvent yourself”. “i have found that i really struggle to come to terms with it all …the fact that you can do nothing to change it, is very disempowering. i have achieved many things in recent years…yet i often feel that this all is nothing because i cant have a child..” many women accessing the online community expressed a strong desire to learn to “accept” their infertility and move on with their lives. however as the quotes above suggest, members generally agreed that this was a long and difficult process, particularly with the constant external reminders of their loss (e.g. seeing other women become mothers or grandmothers). there was also a distinction made between “coping” with infertility and achieving “closure”. for example, several women described how they had experienced periods of “calm” where they were able to temporarily move on with their lives, only to find their emotions spiraling downwards again when they were hit with the reality of permanent childlessness. “i feel i have lots of stuff that i need closure with and i ache for a time when i can get on with my life without this affecting me all the time….it’s that old chestnut again and i’m fed up of it. thanks for listening”. “it comes out of nowhere and knocks you flat. i am currently in a calm period but i know that the wave will hit again”. “really thought i'd come to terms with not having children but when i see my sisters/brother and friends with grandchildren, it hits home again. it's not easy.” europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 malik & coulson 83 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a number of women appeared to experience a sense of guilt that they were still dwelling on their infertility years later and were unable to achieve permanent closure. “i don't know where i am going and everything seems so pointless, my hubby is fantastic and is so supportive so i should be grateful for what i've got..” “i thought i had got past all these feelings but once again i spent all last evening feeling i should be over this by now and then feeling like crying.” counseling was frequently discussed as one means of achieving closure. the online community was used as a forum in which to share both good and bad experiences of counseling. members also sought advice from one another about the type of counseling they should have and shared some of their anxieties about the process: “it is a big step to say those inner thoughts out loud and to someone who may have children has always put me off, so i have found a counselor with experiences in this area and i can only hope that if she has children she does not tell me. will let you know honestly how i get on. i am very positive about counseling and know it can work wonders if you get the right person at the right time so fingers crossed.” as this quote highlights, most women posting to the online community seemed to consider seeing a counselor as a positive and cathartic process and actively encouraged other members to explore counseling. however, women also expressed the view that finding the “right” counselor and ensuring that they were ready to openly talk about their infertility issues was crucial. “i found the process challenging sometimes draining and exhausting, but deeply cleansing too. the therapist was very clever and found ways to push my buttons and get me in touch with my feelings because i’m soo good at pasting a big smile on and telling myself i’m doing great when i’m not”. the use of self-help strategies was also evident within the messages. women frequently shared inspirational quotes and poetry with one another and described using cognitive strategies to help change negative thought patterns surrounding their infertility. for example: “i don’t know about anyone else but i have a collection of inspirational quotes which i read from time to time and find that they really help…i thought it maybe would be good if we could share some of our favorites. so here are three things i find inspirational. i hope you do too.” “it’s easy to think that others have it easy especially with their made to order kids and feel like the grass is always greener. it’s easier to say than do but i’m working on making my little patch as green as possible so that i can stop and admire it rather than looking longingly at someone else’s patch. there are already times i notice theirs looking a bit rough when they are knackered and close to tears with screaming kids fighting around them”. in addition, some women spoke of the need to “reinvent” themselves through seeking out new activities and social groups as well as finding a new sense of purpose and meaning to their life. this appeared to be a central part of the process of coming to terms with childlessness and accessing the online support community was often viewed as a first step in this process. “i’ve found it really helpful spending time with friends i’m making who are in a similar position to me and doing things i enjoy that aren’t child-oriented so i give myself more of a chance to notice what’s positive for me. it’s more of a test faced with poster advert scenes of happy families and at those times i just have to accept it makes me feel sad”. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 84 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finding a safe haven online accessing the online community appeared to play an integral role in helping this group of women cope with permanent childlessness. through using the online community, women discovered a “safe haven” free from pregnant women and families; which was not so easy to find offline. this, coupled with the shared experiences of group members, created a unique environment in which they felt they could openly discuss their experiences and release any negative or confusing emotions surrounding infertility. “the online community is a life saver for me having somewhere to 'feel' what i'm feeling – safely…” although members of the online community were often unable to offer tangible support or advice in response to such postings, they readily provided an empathic “listening ear”. for example, women would often frame their response to messages with phrases like: “wish i could say something more useful but take care and we are thinking of you” or “i’m sorry if i cannot help much but i am thinking of you. that’s the great thing about this place people really do know how hard it is.” the opportunity to simply vent in a supportive environment was experienced as a cathartic and empowering event. as one woman wrote: “i feel better already just posting and apologise for having displaced on you guys. thank you again.” receiving empathic responses from other members and reading their experiences of similar issues was also perceived as beneficial. learning that there were others women who went through the same emotions and experiences served to validate the sometimes confusing and conflicting feelings that member’s experienced as a consequence of childlessness. many women felt unable to talk about their infertility with friends and family, as it was felt that only people who had experienced it firsthand could fully understand their pain and anguish. consequently, being able to connect with other women who faced permanent childlessness also helped to alleviate some of the isolation and separateness that women felt in their day-to-day lives. “this online community is the only place that i feel can come to where i am amongst people who truly understand and i feel able to share my difficult moments”. “i have been a member of this online community for a long time and am pleased to say that time and the friendship of the members has helped heal my wounds”. “i know what you mean about being on the outside looking in but with this online community i’m beginning to feel a bit more like i belong somewhere…maybe in time we can say that we are on the inside looking out”. as these quotes suggest, for most individuals the online community created a sense of belonging that was absent in other areas of their life. indeed, many of the messages posted within the bulletin board conveyed a strong sense of universality and camaraderie between groupmembers. several members described the online community as a “family” and regularly posted messages praising one another’s coping efforts and offering words of support and encouragement. “i can promise you, you will get through this and live to be happy again. you’re not at all hopeless and you are a very brave lady. what i read in your post as i read in soo many of the posts on here is the human spirit kicking away under all the misery, refusing to a accept the suffering and fighting to come out of the pain. very best of luck to you and a massive hug to you”. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 malik & coulson 85 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “thank you for being brave enough to put your feelings down here. it’s true that we do feel on the outside looking in. i feel that everytime i have contact with my brother who has three children”. “…here’s to all of us here. we may not be mums and das but we are aunties, uncles, step parents, doting pet parents, teachers, carers and role models to the young people in our lives…” the online community also appeared to play a huge part in women’s efforts to build new lives for themselves post fertility treatment. some women actively used the online community as a way of a building a new social circle for themselves. where women were unable to meet face-to-face due to geographical distance, the bulletin board was used to strike up friendships with other regular posters. for instance, several women regularly posted off topic messages and conversed with one another about other aspects of their life. “i would like to meet with other members but every time there has been an event close enough for me to get to i have been working or not free to go. i live in west essex”. “i would love to exchange feelings and thoughts if you would like too. i am not living in england at the moment but can easily exchange emails and other messages”. “for me it’s been really important to start building a new network of friends who are childfree…this online community is obviously a big part of that which is why as much as possible i’ve thrownmyself into meeting newmembers and getting to know them better socially, as well knowing that i have people who understand”. discussion the current study is one of the first to focus specifically on online communication among women facing permanent involuntary childlessness. through a phenomenological analysis of bulletin board postings, this study provides a novel insight into the “lived” experience of individuals who access an online support community for permanent infertility. moreover, the study demonstrates the important role that online communities can play in the lives of these individuals and in their efforts to come to terms with childlessness. in line with previous qualitative studies with this population (daniluk, 2001; johansson & berg, 2005; mccarthy, 2008; schwerdtfeger & shreffler, 2009; wirtberg, möller, hogström, tronstad, & lalos, 2007), the analyzed messages show that women experienced involuntary childlessness as a major and recurring loss that pervaded all aspects of their lives; threatening their core identity and sense of self, as well as the central values and meanings that they attached to their life. one theme that was particularly strong across the messages was the sense of immense grief and loss that characterized women’s experiences of permanent involuntary childlessness. the knowledge that they would potentially never become biological mothers appeared to instigate a grief reaction akin to that of bereavement. kübler-ross (1969) proposed a five stage model to describe emotional reactions to loss and the process through which individuals come to terms with the accompanying grief: denial, anger, bargaining (seeking in vain for a solution), depression, and acceptance (adapting to the loss and planning for the future). this five-stage model has been applied to a variety of significant life events such as job loss, divorce, terminal/ chronic illness and bereavement. however, although the theory captures many of the conflicting emotions that women experience in response to infertility, as volgsten et al. (2010) argue, the model does not adequately portray the complexities of accepting and adapting to permanent childlessness. indeed, our findings reveal that permanent infertility was typically suffered as a recurring loss that women felt in varying intensities throughout their life. for example, some europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 86 http://www.psychopen.eu/ women described times when they felt they had reached a level of acceptance, only to find the anger, grief and depression return when they were faced with an external reminder of their loss. the chronic and cyclical nature of their grief was particularly evident for women entering the “grandparent” stage of life. for these women, not becoming a grandmother like their peers was experienced as both a reminder of their infertility as well a secondary loss (i.e. that of a potential grandchild). these findings mirror the results of an earlier qualitative study with women 20 years after unsuccessful infertility treatment (wirtberg et al., 2007). the study found that these women were now at the age when their peers were having grandchildren and were thus having to deal with the concept of “grandchildlessness”. taken together, these findings highlight that although permanent infertility is in many ways similar to other major life crises, there are also several marked differences in the ways in which this grief manifests itself and is experienced by women. consequently, traditional models of grief and loss may not always be applicable when supporting women facing the prospect of permanent involuntary childlessness. in particular, it is important for counsellors and other health care professionals to be aware of the cyclic nature of women’s grief and the potential need for ongoing support throughout their lifespan. another dominant theme within the messages was the sense of isolation and difference that women experienced within their social networks and day-to-day lives. unsurprisingly, the women in this study found it extremely difficult to deal with talk of pregnancy and childbearing from friends, family and colleagues and often felt the need to isolate themselves from such reminders of their own childlessness. in this context, the online community became one of the only venues in which women felt that they could “safely” communicate and connect with other women. although similar themes have been identified in previous studies of online infertility support communities (e.g. malik & coulson, 2008b; malik & coulson, 2010a), the vast majority of people who access online infertility support communities are often pursuing some form of treatment for infertility and can thus be described as in a “not yet pregnant” state (throsby, 2001). while some of these individuals will become pregnant and make the transition to parenthood, others will have to come to terms with permanent childlessness (daniluk, 1997). the bonds and friendships that women form in online infertility support communities can therefore be short lived and dependent on the outcomes of their fertility treatment. furthermore, as previous research has suggested, accessing an online infertility support community may simply serve to increase the feelings of distress and anguish that individual’s experience as they lose hope of becoming biological parents (malik & coulson, 2008b; malik & coulson, 2010b). the findings of this study highlight the importance of also having online communities dedicated specifically to people faced with permanent infertility. as our results reveal, the ability to vent, seek support and share thoughts in a “safe” environment is perceived as a cathartic, unique and an invaluable experience, particularly for those women who are struggling to find a new sense of identity. previous research has demonstrated that dissatisfaction with social support among individuals dealing with permanent infertility is linked to higher levels of depression, anxiety, and grief (lechner, bolman, & van dalen, 2007). consequently, being able to access an online support community to bridge gaps in offline social support can be seen as a positive coping strategy and one that should be actively encouraged by professionals involved in infertility care. our findings further show that moving from “trying to conceive” to permanent childlessness presents a significant threat to women’s sense of self and in particular their gender role identity. for example, through their bulletin board messages many women described instances where they had questioned their identity as a woman and the purpose of their life now that the motherhood status was denied to them. even though these women expressed europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 malik & coulson 87 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a desire to establish a new personal identity for themselves that was distinct from motherhood, in reality many women struggled to find meaningful alternative life goals. this is perhaps unsurprising given that culturally, caring and nurturing for a child is often considered a social norm for a woman and seen as an integral part of her gender role identity (daniluk, 1997). hence, as evidenced in this study, the inability to conceive can carry a hidden stigma and create feelings of inferiority and being “different” (dyer, abrahams, hoffman, & van der spuy, 2002; glover, mclellan, & weaver, 2009; sandelowski, 1988; slepickova, 2009). in a similar vein, a qualitative study by kirkman (2003) suggested that the cultural dominance of the motherhood narrative was a significant barrier to infertile women revising their life goals. additionally, the absence of a clear and collective narrative of the “non-mother”, further complicated women’s ability to make sense of infertility. while, our study also highlights the complex and difficult nature of women’s struggles to come to terms with childlessness, the findings suggest that the online community may go some way towards helping this group of women create a new collective narrative for themselves. the current study’s results concur with previous studies of online support, which have found that the emotional and informational support exchanged within online communities can have an empowering effect on individuals (bartlett & coulson, 2011; mo & coulson, 2010; van uden-kraan et al., 2008; van uden-kraan et al., 2009). however, the messages in this study often went beyond the exchange of simple information and support, with members actively using the forum as a venue in which they could explore new collective identities for themselves and promote one another’s self-worth and sense of purpose in life. this pattern of findings suggests that for some individuals online communities can potentially play a positive and important role in the process of coming to terms with involuntary childlessness. further research is therefore warranted to examine the long-term outcomes of participation in an online community specifically for permanent infertility. importantly, future research should seek to explore and compare the adjustment and journey of both women who seek support online and those women who do not. limitations the current study has a number of potential limitations that should to be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings. importantly, although the study provides rich data for understanding the challenges and issues that this particular group of women face, these findingsmay not be representative of how all women cope with permanent infertility. for example, very little is known about the demographic profile of members and how representative these individuals are of infertile women in the wider population. also, it may be that those women who eventually resolve their grief discontinue their participation in the community, leaving behind those who continue to have trouble. thus, the results may only represent the experiences of a particular subset of infertile women who are struggling to cope with infertility. in addition, the analyzed messages were only a snapshot of discussions taken from a single online community, the extent to which these messages are representative of communications in other online support communities for permanent involuntary childlessness or the same community at other times remains unclear. future research should therefore seek to examine messages posted to multiple online support communities for permanent involuntary childlessness and over a longer period of time, in order to explore the extent to which similar patterns emerge. it is also noteworthy that the analyzed messages were all posted by women; consequently the study does not tell us anything about the online experiences of men dealing with permanent infertility. this mirrors the results of research examining other online infertility support communities, which were also found to be dominated by women (malik & coulson, 2010a). however, research has shown that male partners often feel the need to take on a supportive role in the couple and suppress their own grief, both during and after unsuccessful infertility treatment europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 88 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (malik & coulson, 2008a; volgsten, svanberg, & olsson, 2010). in this context, online communities could provide a welcoming environment in which men can anonymously and safely express their grief surrounding unresolved infertility. future research should therefore seek to understand the male partner’s perceptions towards online infertility support communities, in order to identify whether anything can be done to encourage men to make use of this novel source of support. practice implications the findings of this study highlight the potential valuable role that online communities can play in helping women come to terms with permanent involuntary childlessness. individuals struggling to cope with the prospect of permanent infertility can therefore be encouraged to access and seek support online. equally, given the increasing popularity and accessibility of the internet, it is important for health care professionals to ensure that there are adequate online support resources available to cater specifically for the needs of women with permanent infertility. women should also be made aware that not all online infertility communities will necessarily meet the support needs of women facing permanent childlessness. more broadly, the results of this study point to the need for health care professionals to be aware of the complex and recurring nature of infertility grief. individuals terminating fertility treatment should therefore be given details of available counseling and support services and encouraged to access these as and when they feel the need to. in particular, it is important to ensure that women are provided with the resources and support to help them deal with difficult situations (e.g., the workplace, family events, etc.) and build their self-esteem. conclusions in summary, this study provides a novel insight into communication within an online support community specifically for permanent infertility. the findings highlight the powerful and sometimes conflicting emotions experienced by women accessing the online support community and the cyclic nature of their grief. for this group of women the struggle to come to terms with their loss, find a new identity and sense of self-worth seemed to be key driving factors pushing them to seek consolation and support online. importantly, our results suggest that the online community played a pivotal role in empowering these women to move on with their lives and come to terms with infertility, through providing them with a unique source of emotional support and a comfortable, anonymous environment in which they could make sense of their feelings free from reminders of pregnancy. references alesi, r. 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(2007). life 20 years after unsuccessful infertility treatment. human reproduction, 22, 598-604. doi:10.1093/humrep/del401 about the authors dr sumaira h. malik has a phd in applied psychology from the university of nottingham and is currently a health psychology specialist at atlantis healthcare uk, where she is involved in designing and implementing the psychological components of programmes to support patients with chronic illness. dr neil s. coulson is an associate professor of health psychology at the institute of work, health and organisations, university of nottingham. he is a chartered psychologist with the british psychological society and registered health psychologist with the health professions council, uk. his research interests lie in the area of online communities and healthcare. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 77–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.534 online support for permanent involuntary childlessness 92 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15325020802537468 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/humrep/13.7.1831 http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/genderinstitute/pdf/noonewillevercallmemummy.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1049732307313429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2008.07.044 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/humrep/dei015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/humrep/del355 http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/00016349.2010.512063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/humrep/del401 http://www.psychopen.eu/ online support for permanent involuntary childlessness (introduction) methods sample and data collection data analysis ethical considerations results feeling like an “outsider” a whole lifetime of loss coming to terms with childlessness finding a safe haven online discussion limitations practice implications conclusions references about the authors excellence through diversity: interview with a prolific researcher alexandra ilie university of south florida dan ispas university of south florida broadly speaking, researchers can be classified into two groups: those that focus on one specific area of research and others that publish across many topics. for this issue’s interview, we talked to dr. timothy judge, professor and researcher in i/o psychology/business/organizational behavior that publishes across various areas from selection to work-family conflict. we interviewed dr. judge about research in general and about some of his interests. timothy a. judge is the matherly-mckethan eminent scholar, department of management, warrington college of business – university of florida. dr. judge holds a bachelor of business administration degree from the university of iowa, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the institute of labor and industrial relations, university of illinois at urbana-champaign. dr. judge published more than 100 articles in refereed journals; six of which received “best paper” awards from professional societies or academies. dr. judge serves on the editorial review boards of eight journals, including academy of management journal, british journal of management, international journal of selection and assessment, journal of applied psychology, personnel psychology, organizational behavior and human decision processes, journal of management, and european journal of work and organizational psychology. he is a fellow of the academy of management, the american psychological association, the american psychological society, and the society for industrial and organizational psychology. in 1995, he received the ernest j. mccormick award for distinguished early career contributions, society for industrial and organizational psychology, and in 2001, judge received the cummings scholar award from the organizational behavior division of the academy of management. in 1999, he was named to list of outstanding faculty in business week’s guide to the best business schools, and in 2004 received the teacher of the year award from the university of florida professional mba program. ejop: your research covers many different areas in i/o psychology, ob and business. what would be the advantages and disadvantages of covering a large number of research topics? what about the advantages and disadvantages of focusing on one main area? timothy a. judge: i think that depends a lot on the person. i think one should have a core area but i tend to believe in the benefits of being relatively broad. i was just reading an example about the american company proctor & gamble, which does business in 180 countries. they are sort of like a sponge – they get more than half of their ideas from outside the company, and they’re always trying new things. often, you don’t know how well a research area will progress until you try it, see what you think, and whether it fits you. i believe a lot in experimentation and openness. now, for some people this clearly will not work. some people much prefer to focus on a narrow area and i think if that works for them, that’s fine. there are many people in i-o psychology who have successfully implemented that model. i’m a big believer in naturalism (much of what happens in life is due to forces of nature, and expression of our genes) and i think the best thing someone can do is to discover what is natural for them, what works for them. ejop: you are a very prolific researcher and you have published a large number of articles in peer-review journals. what are your pieces of advice for those who want to become successful researchers? timothy a. judge: first, i think international researchers need to make sure their papers are prepared, in writing and format, exactly according to american (or british) standards, since those two countries tend to set the standard in i-o journals. to some degree, this isn’t really fair (that journal publications should be so u.s.-centric), but life often isn’t fair. one way to do that is to have english experts edit your work, or to share your work with american colleagues, or ask them to co-author. second, i would use culture to your advantage. i-o psychology is really globalizing. i’ve been more change in the past five years than in the previous 15. american researchers are becoming much more receptive to cultural differences, and i think european and asian i-o psychologists are becoming much more interested in american research. so, gradually, cultural boundaries are going to diminish, which i find exciting. at the same time, local cultures are different, and i think you can use our own lens to introduce new thinking into the field. ejop: researchers from the academic world are under a lot of pressure to publish their work (“publish or perish”). are there any possible negative consequences on research and science in general? timothy a. judge: surely. i think there are benefits to having clear, rigorous standards, but like anything, there are side-effects (what economists call externalities). one is the expectation to people establish “their” area of research too early in their career (before they learn what they are like, and what they’re good at). robert merton, the univ. of chicago sociologist, wrote about this when he described “the matthew effect.” another externality is the behavioral implications of counting – often great writers are known for their best work, not their worst. i worry that taking a county mentality too far discourages researchers from developing a singular, high risk project. ejop: there is a lot of research showing the divide between academics and practitioners in hr and management. what can academics do to bridge this gap? timothy a. judge: this is a real problem. i think some things are being done. for example, denise rousseau is leading an academy of management initiative on evidence-based management. whether such efforts will “pay off” i’m not sure, but it is a problem. i was a manager once, and the truth is, you can get by and even excel without knowing anything about the science of i-o or ob. is that situation changing? i’m not sure. ejop: your research shows that tall people enjoy higher prestige and income. what are the mechanisms involved? timothy a. judge: there are two possible mechanisms, each with their own sub-mechanisms. the two main mechanisms are (a) tall people are more self-confident, and therefore do better in their careers because they believe in themselves more; (b) others see tall people as more authoritative and leader-like, and therefore they are more effective because people defer to them. our study, and some other studies, suggest that the latter mechanism (the demand side, if you will) is more important than the former. ejop: in regard to the same topic, what are the societal consequences? what can we do to prevent this bias? timothy a. judge: it’s possible that there could be government regulation to protect the employment status of short people. however, i think it’s more realistic to think that managers can be made aware of their implicit biases and try to change them in that way. there are very few jobs for which height is a legitimate job requirement (within the range into which the vast majority of people fall), and the enlightened manager will realize this and try to overcome implicit biases. ejop: how generalizable are these findings to other cultures? timothy a. judge: we found that they did generalize to the uk. other studies have found similar results in germany. as for other countries, i’m not sure, but i suspect they do generalize, at least to other european cultures. ejop: you proposed a new construct called core self-evaluations. why are core self-evaluations important in organizations? timothy a. judge: because self-confidence is so fundamental – people who believe in themselves strive for more, try harder, persist longer, and overcome obstacles. it’s not magic – having self-confidence does not assure success, but it certainly helps. life is full of many difficulties and uncertainties, and those who have a self-positive inner dialogue tend to fare better. ejop: research shows that self-fulfilling prophecies can have powerful effects. what are some of possible benefits of the pygmalion and galatea effects for organizations? timothy a. judge: i think such effects can matter, though they tend to be short-lasting. in general, i think the dispositional aspect of self-confidence is more important than the situational part, because the dispositional part transfers from situation-to-situation. albert bandura, of course, disagrees strongly with this view. research on the role of humor in well-being and health interview research on the role of humor in well-being and health an interview with professor arnie cann arnie cann*a, nicholas a. kuiperb [a] university of north carolina charlotte, charlotte, nc, usa. [b] department of psychology, westminster hall, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract in this interview, dr. arnie cann discusses his research and views on the ubiquitous role of humor in psychological health and well-being. the interview begins with professor cann recounting how he originally became interested in studying humor. he then reflects on the main findings associated with the wide variety of humor-related studies he has conducted over the years. in doing so, dr. cann provides suggestions and ideas for further research investigating the role of humor in health and well-being. specific topic areas discussed include the use of humor in the workplace and other social domains, personality approaches to humor, humor and interpersonal processes, humor and psychopathology, and humor’s role in dealing with stress and well-being. one of the prominent themes in this interview is the clear recognition of sense of humor as a multi-dimensional construct that includes various components that may either be beneficial or detrimental to well-being. a further important theme is the major distinction between humor as an inherent personality construct versus humor that results from exposure to stimuli (e.g., a comedy film). comments are also provided by dr. cann on how the positive affect stemming from humor may be of particular benefit to the individual. also discussed is the recent move to more fully integrate contemporary humor research with positive psychology approaches. the interview concludes with dr. cann providing several recommendations regarding future theorizing and research on the role of humor in psychological well-being. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 published (vor): 2014-08-13. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, unc charlotte, 9201 university city blvd., charlotte, nc, 28223, usa. e-mail: acann@uncc.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. nick kuiper: first of all, i would like to welcome you to this interview for the special issue of ejop on humor, well-being and health. we appreciate you taking the time to provide us with some comments on the humor research you have conducted over the past 25 years or so, and also your insights on how you see the field moving forward in the next several years. perhaps we could begin by going back to the start. some of your earliest work on humor pertained to the workplace. what was it that first piqued your interest in examining the role of humor in this context? arnie cann:nick, thanks for the opportunity to be part of this special issue. it has been gratifying to see the interest in humor research grow over the years, and to see humor appreciated, based on research findings, as part of healthy living. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ dr.arnie cann is a professor of psychology in the department of psychology at the university of north carolina charlotte, north carolina. dr. cann graduated from indiana university in 1975 with a ph.d. in social psychology and a further interest in studying organizational behavior. since that time professor cann has had a long and illustrious career at the unc charlotte, with his research interests focusing on various aspects of health psychology, including humor, posttraumatic growth processes, gender roles and social relationships. dr. cann has been conducting psychological research on humor for well over two decades, with much of this work being quite relevant to the central topic of this special issue of ejop, namely, the role of humor in wellbeing and health. in this context, dr. cann, along with many collaborators in the psychology department, has produced research papers on humor in the workplace, humor and depression, the role of humor in interpersonal attraction, humor’s role in dealing with stress and negative life events, humor and person perception issues, humor and communication, humor, attachment and conflict styles, humor and relationship satisfaction, and humor’s role in risk perceptions and behaviors. correspondence: department of psychology, unccharlotte, 9201 university city blvd., charlotte, nc, 28223, usa. e-mail: acann@uncc.edu my own path to becoming a humor researcher was unplanned, but grew out of my early experiences as a faculty member at unc charlotte. i was fortunate to be part of a group of colleagues who shared my view of the value of humor in life and at work. as you know, there can be the occasional frustration associated with being an academic; maybe a difficult student, or perhaps an administrative decision that perplexes you. as i’m sure is the case in other departments, we intentionally shared humor we encountered; like amazing student responses to essay questions, or humor we found in memos detailing policy. this intentional sharing evolved into creating our own fake ‘memos’ to express frustrations. for example, a posted ‘memo’ on official letterhead about faculty leave policies indicated; “if faculty are not happy, they can leave!” eventually we turned to professional satire, and published a number of humorous articles in the now defunct journal of polymorphous perversity. all of these activities contributed to my own enjoyment of work and a high level of collegiality, so during a four year stint as chair of the department, i consciously tried to find a place for humor in my management activities. of course, these activities were simply an expression of the personal styles of my colleagues and me, without any data-driven foundation. this changed when my colleague, lawrence calhoun, was asked to develop a continuing education session on stress reduction strategies as part of a series of workshops designed for emergency response personnel. after delivering that session a number of times, he suggested to the organizers that a session on using humor at work might also be useful. he proposed that we develop the program together, so we were forced to dig into the actual empirical findings on humor for the first time. although we were able to put together a successful session, we both realized that the existing research on humor and psychological health was limited and lacking. our personal experiences suggested clear health benefits due to planned humor exposure, but the data were not convincing. thus, we began a secondary research program examining the potential benefits of humor. at that time we kept our regular research programs as well, so in the beginning the humor research was a side interest we returned to as new ideas took shape or we found students we could interest in humor research. then, about 10 years ago, the department made a decision to develop our first doctoral program and to create a program with an emphasis on health psychology. at that time i made the decision to focus my own research more specifically on health-related issues, and to make humor a major part of the program. in some sense, i have been searching for evidence to support what felt very true for me; that humor plays a part in maintaining my well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ nick kuiper: how do you see this early work addressing the broader issue of humor’s role in well-being and health? dr. nick kuiper has been a professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time, he has published numerous articles and chapters on the self-reference effect, depression and anxiety, psychological well-being, humor, and several other topics of interest. most of his current research pertains to various facets and implications of humor. this interest in studying humor began in the early 1990’s, with a special emphasis on personality and social psychological aspects of laughter and humor. much of this work has focused on individual differences in sense of humor, with implications for stress, coping, psychological well-being, physical health, and social interactions. further work has examined humor use in romantic relationships, the potential links between humor use and bullying in middle childhood, cross-cultural patterns in humor, the implicit theories of humor that individuals develop about themselves and others, and the potential links between various humor styles and different forms of anxiety. correspondence: university of western ontario, department of psychology, westminster hall, london, ontario, canada n6a 3k7. e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca arnie cann: although lawrence and i were initially led to examine humor in the workplace because of the opportunity to educate emergency response personnel to the potential value of humor in dealing with their highly stressful jobs; we never really saw our questions as limited to or particular to the workplace. given our personal journeys around humor and our systematic efforts to use humor in our own lives, we began by asking some very basic questions about how exposure to humor might provide a psychological boost or emotional advantage. we reasoned, as had others, that the positive emotions associated with successful humor could simply counteract the negative emotions associated with stress and depression. we also felt that the sharing of humor contributes to building relationships. obviously, dealing effectively with the stress that life brings you and developing a social support network you can rely on when you face threats are very basic elements in establishing and maintaining wellbeing in all aspects of life. in the first few studies on humor from our lab, we were asking questions about humor as an experience. we simply presented humor (or some control stimulus) to see if exposure to humor could counteract negative emotions associated with disturbing events. one of our first efforts (mussman, clontz, cann, & calhoun, 1993) compared two groups of borderline depressed individuals, one group watched videotaped humor for 20 minutes once a week for three weeks, while the other watched neutral videos. the humor group showed a greater decline in depression scores over time. from there wemoved to creating distress in the lab, and using humor to either inoculate against the stress or counteract the stress. in the end, the results all supported the value of humor to minimize the negative impact of the laboratory stressors. both humor before or after a stressor restored the participants to a better emotional place (cann, calhoun, & nance, 2000; cann, holt, & calhoun, 1999). it’s no surprise that humor makes you feel good, but carefully collected data still are required. in retrospect, i wish we had stayed focused on the impact of humor exposure as a strategy for promoting well-being, since it avoided many of the complications associated with an emphasis on sense of humor as the underlying factor. in my more recent work i have tried to return to these roots. at about the same time we were looking at humor exposure as a strategy to promote emotional well-being, lawrence and i also began a second line of humor research looking at humor’s role in relationships. even back then, the literature had consistently shown that a sense of humor was almost universally seen as a highly desirable quality. we assumed that most people would judge another’s sense of humor to be especially good based on how the other person reacted to their own humor efforts. after all, just about everyone believes they have an above average sense of humor, so their appreciation of a joke must mean it’s truly funny. we had participants in this study (cann, calhoun, & banks, 1997) indicate their attitudes on a series of issues and then select a joke they liked and share it with ‘another’ person in the next room, via an intercom. the other person did not exist, but europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 414 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a taped response indicated both laughter and an expressed appreciation of the joke or a neutral response. once the participant was given the opportunity to see the other person’s supposed attitudes, we asked for a rating of initial attraction. the other person who laughed was liked more even when other evidence indicated a lack of similarity on most attitudinal issues. given the extensive literature on how important attitude similarity is in first impressions, this seemed like a dramatic impact for a single joke. in our minds, this demonstrated how powerful shared humor appreciation could be in helping to form relationships. shared humor can help to form bonds even with people who are not like you, and those bonds should protect well-being. we saw these two lines of research as validating how humor can provide both intra and interpersonal benefits; humor to generate positive affect and humor to build relationships both enable greater well-being. nick kuiper: over the years you have followed up this early work on humor with more recent studies on humor in the workplace. as part of this work, you recently developed and published a humor climate questionnaire for assessing humor in the workplace. could you briefly describe what the goal of this questionnaire is, and why you saw a need to develop this instrument? arnie cann: once again, the recent notions about how humor affects outcomes in the workplace were partially the result of my personal work experiences. as i mentioned earlier, we had created a work environment in the psychology department in which humor was a common and salient part of our interactions and our culture. over time, and under different departmental leadership, however, the degree to which humor was supported and encouraged seemed to change. in my mind, the whole climate of the department felt like it had been affected, and the absence of regular humor seemed to be part of that unwelcomed shift. i began to explore how humor might be recognized as a factor in assessing organizational climate. it turns out that even though some existing instruments designed to measure organizational climate included as many as 17 separate factors, none of them considered humor to be a part of organizational climate worth capturing. while the notion of a humor climate, or culture, was mentioned in some qualitative studies of organizations, the focus of most of the research in organizations seemed to be on individual differences in humor styles or humor use. most studies tended to look at whether actual or perceived differences in how humor was used by employees or leaders were related to work variables? the only place i found a mention of humor as an element in the construct of organizational climate was in a measure looking more narrowly at the creative work climate; what type of climate fosters creative work ideas. i was convinced that differences in humor sharing and support were also a part of humor’s impact and that these extended beyond individual differences in sense of humor. of course, by the time we began looking at humor climate, research on humor had benefitted from the structure provided by martin and colleagues (2003) humor styles model; incorporating the adaptive and maladaptive humor uses and forms in a single model. in thinking about humor climate, we wanted to capture both the positive and negative presence of humor in an organization since the impact would likely be very different. although there has always been an awareness that some forms of humor could be detrimental to the individual experience and group process, rather than beneficial, the literature too often used measures that failed to distinguish good and bad humor. when humor was observed in the workplace, all humor was often assumed to be equivalent in its potential impact. in developing the humor climate questionnaire (hcq), we also wanted a measure that captured variance beyond that associated with individual differences, and an instrument that distinguished forms of humor that were likely to support versus detract from workplace well-being. the idea was to identify how a humor climate can vary based on how humor is shared and supported, and what forms the humor takes. after discussions with some colleagues in organizational science, the goal also became to create a brief measure, one that could easily be used in applied europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 415 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research. after a couple of iterations, the four factors we identified were positive in-group humor, humor shared to support each other within a work group, negative in-group humor, humor used to tease or make fun of others in the work group, negative out-group humor, insulting or demeaning humor directed outside the work group at upper management or authority, and supervisor support for humor, a sense that the leader of the group encouraged humor in the group. we’ve used the hcq in a couple of studies (blanchard, stewart, cann, & follman, 2014; cann,watson, & bridgewater, 2014), and the results are promising.when we controlled for the individual differences in participants’ humor styles, using the humor styles questionnaire, we found that the hcq explained additional variance in many job related variables (satisfaction, commitment, sense-making, identity, etc.). there also was evidence that positive and negative humor play very different roles and can have opposing effects, so attention to the styles of humor being shared, and the targets of the humor, are important. hopefully, now that the scale is published, others can see if humor as part of the climate helps understand other outcomes and how humor may be a factor in healthy workplaces. nick kuiper:what are some of the further uses you would see for the humor climate questionnaire? for example, how would you see it being used in future research on humor in the workplace to foster better health, interpersonal relations and communications in a business or work context? arnie cann:a question to address might be whether a humor climate characterized by positive humor is associated with greater creativity when other individual difference variables are controlled. we also could evaluate possible interventions to improve the humor climate by tracking scores on the hcq over time. going back to my desire to refocus on humor exposure as a variable, one way to enhance the humor climate may be to systematically bring more humor into the workplace. this type of intervention does not depend on any specific skill or quality associated with the leader or the employees, it could be a humor intervention focused on changing the climate by increasing exposure to humor from multiple sources. to the extent that a positive humor climate fosters greater commitment to and identity with the organization, and is predictive of job satisfaction, and that exposure to humor can counteract stress, these are all aspects of enhancing well-being in the workplace. a workplace with a positive humor climate should be a healthier place to work both in terms of lowered negative emotions and in terms of better interpersonal relationships. nick kuiper: when examining humor in the work place or in an organizational context, what would you see as the most important research findings that have emerged over the past decade? what kinds of issues do you think are still the most important to tackle, with respect to finding out more about how humor may impact on well-being and health in a work setting? arnie cann: i think there are areas where progress in understanding humor at work is being made. first, there is a growing appreciation for the distinctions that must be recognized about different uses of humor. positive uses of humor, to build relationships, to decrease stress, or to increase positive affect are not at all the same as humor used to criticize or to try to gain power or status within a work group. recent studies have been more likely to acknowledge the need to distinguish good and bad humor. a recent meta-analysis by mesmer-magnus, glew, and viswesvaran (2012), for example, specifically calls on researchers to be more aware of the good and bad humor that takes place at work and to pay attention to both forms. second, the range of outcome variables being considered also has been expanding. while early research tended to focus of work-stress, job satisfaction, or perceived leader effectiveness, recent studies have begun to consider broader effects like commitment, identity, sense-making, and well-being. these are all different ways in which psychological health might be impacted at europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work. third, there is a growing recognition that a structure or a theoretical model is needed to guide the research. almost all of the studies in the recent meta-analysis consider humor as an individual difference variable. either the participants report on their own humor styles or humor preferences, or they provide perceptions of others’, usually the leaders’, humor styles. in measuring these differences in humor styles, a wide variety of individual difference measures have been used across different studies, and they are quite variable in what they actually assess about humor styles. this issue is certainly not unique to the study of humor at work, but is does reflect a general vagueness in conceptualizing humor as a variable. the few studies that have looked at actual humor events at work have generally been in qualitative studies, usually focused on a specific work group. we need a theoretical framework for guiding the research that considers both the role of individual differences in humor styles and the impact of exposure to actual humor at work. nick kuiper: when talking about “sense of humor”, humor investigators have clearly shown that this construct is multi-dimensional and can be divided up in many different ways. one way, for example, has been to distinguish between humor appreciation (the ability to enjoy or appreciate humor in one’s environment) versus humor generation (the ability to generate humorous or witty comments in response to various interactions with one’s environment). another way is to consider different styles of humor, with some of these personal humor styles being more adaptive (e.g., affiliative or self-enhancing humor) and others being more maladaptive (e.g., aggressive or selfdefeating humor). could you provide some examples from your own work that has identified these different components of “sense of humor?” how do these different components make a substantial difference when thinking about how humor relates to health and well-being? arnie cann: i don’t think there is any question that any effort to define sense of humor as a one-dimensional construct will be destined to fail to adequately capture the construct. however, finding the single best model of sense of humor to use as the foundation for a measure may prove to be quite elusive. when we began our humor research in the late 80’s, we looked at the available measures designed to capture sense of humor and found all of them to be lacking in some way. we did include some of these measures in early projects, but they added little to our findings and in some cases produced counterintuitive results. we were in the process of trying to conceptualize a better way to get at sense of humor, one that incorporated good and bad humor uses, when i got a grant proposal to review for a funding agency. the proposal described the work that would ultimately result in the humor styles questionnaire. i was sufficiently impressed by the logic of the hsq that i decided to put aside my own efforts and wait for it to be available. although it still may not capture all the elements of a sense of humor, the hsq provided a model to distinguish humor uses in what seemed like valuable ways. the adaptive versus maladaptive dimension and the self versus other dimension seemed applicable to important distinctions i saw in the potential role of humor in well-being. our work on how sense of humor is related to the experience of stressors focused on the differences identified by the hsq (cann & etzel, 2008; cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010). for example, we found that only the self-directed humor styles were related to how people perceived stressors in their lives, both those stressors in the immediate past and expected future stressors, and how stressors were related to well-being. the other-directed humor styles explained little variance in the reports of stress. additionally, the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles was critical, since the tendency to use self-defeating humor was associated with higher perceived stress and lowered well-being, while self-enhancing humor was predictive of more optimistic perceptions of stress and higher well-being. at the same time, our research looking at sense of humor and relationship satisfaction found that only the other-directed styles were relevant (cann, zapata, & davis, 2009, 2011). once again, the adeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 417 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aptive-maladaptive styles had opposing relationships with satisfaction; higher satisfaction with affiliative humor and lower satisfaction with aggressive humor, supporting the importance of looking at the good and bad sides of humor. obviously, looking only at whether humor is used with high or low frequency would have missed these very critical differences. i think that developing easily used and meaningful measures of some of the other distinctions that may well exist is proving much more difficult. there have been a number of efforts to identify and capture differences in humor appreciation and humor creation, but those distinctions have not had nearly the same impact on understanding humor as a factor in health. it may well be that we want to revisit the ideas behind the situational humor response questionnaire (shrq), but without a focus on laughter. the shrq tried to quantify how likely a person was to laugh in a variety of situations. maybe there is a way to capture how much humor a person experiences across situations, whether they laugh or not. being someone who has a humor filled day may be the best indicator of how humor supports good health. nick kuiper: what are some of the major limitations, both conceptually and in terms of assessment, of current work on different facets or components of sense of humor? what kinds of issues need to be addressed in future work, particularly with respect to how these components of sense of humor relate to health and well-being? arnie cann: it’s interesting that you ask this question because my son, who has been a recent collaborator, and i have been having lengthy discussions about this issue. to really understand what it means to have a sense of humor may mean rethinking what we mean by ‘sense’. what we have been talking about is how there may not really be a useful simple distinction between adaptive and maladaptive humor that is meaningful. for example, when you look at the humor that is out there and is the common fodder of comics, the abundance and popularity of the so-called ‘maladaptive’ forms of humor imply that it must be the case that these styles of humor have some useful and adaptive role in social life. comics rely heavily on aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. in fact, as we have tried to develop materials for some of our studies, we have had trouble finding comics who tend to use more affiliative styles of humor. at the same time, the adaptive styles of humor may not always be socially or personally desirable and appropriate. to have a true “sense” of humor may require knowing how to match the context with the humor style. this is something others have noted as well, but the research has not emerged to validate these assumptions. in describing the foundation for the hsq, rod martin and his coauthors (2003) talked about the fact that aggressive humor can be adaptive when it is presented and perceived as gentle teasing. in the right context, humor that attacks or demeans can signal closeness between people that confirms a safe relationship. willibald ruch (2013) has recently identified a use of humor that he calls corrective, which involves ridicule to encourage positive change. e. o. wilson (2012), the sociobiologist, suggests a term ‘leveling’, to describe humor used to prevent an undesirable group member from gaining too much power in a social group. in these cases, aggressive humor is adaptive and can have positive consequences for the user and the group. the same arguments about context can be applied to the other humor styles. using self-defeating humor to present oneself in a self-deprecating manner can be highly adaptive. for those in power, the ability to engage in self-deprecating humor is likely to make them seem more ‘like the rest of us’ and more likeable. use this style excessively, or in the wrong context, and it’s maladaptive. affiliative humor is often highly adaptive, but using humor when the context calls for a serious consideration of issues can seem dismissive and might escalate rather than reduce conflict. some people may avoid dealing with serious interpersonal issues by trying to humorously deflect or redirect discussions. when dealing with potential europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 418 http://www.psychopen.eu/ personal threats, a self-enhancing humor style can allow for a creative and humorous reappraisal leading to less distress, but others have argued that using humor when assessing risks also could lead to a failure to take the risks seriously and, therefore, lead to decisions that expose you to greater risks. so, any style of humor can be used as an adaptive or a maladaptive response to a situation, and a true ‘sense’ of humor may involve recognizing what humor will be best for a given context. if this is to be a useful model for understanding humor, as a context-dependent response, then asking people to describe the frequencies with which they use each style or how well the style characterizes their typical humor uses may be missing important variability. the four humor styles still represent a valuable distinction, but they can only be judged as adaptive or maladaptive based on when they are used. does the humor fit the context in a way that is adaptive? is the person using humor in a way that makes sense for their own or others’ well-being? this approach obviously adds a layer of complexity to the study of humor, but a full appreciation for the ways that humor can enhance our lives, or diminish our lives, may require seeing humor in context to decide if it makes sense. some promising strategies that might allow for a better understanding of how the ‘sense’ in sense of humor plays a role involve the daily diary methods that have begun to be used. i know rod martin and his students have been exploring these strategies, and diary studies are becoming more prevalent in other research areas. these approaches should provide a richer context for understanding whether humor is being used adaptively or maladaptively to affect well-being. nick kuiper: let’s talk a bit about some of your other studies that pertain to the issue of how humor may be related to stress and personal well-being. underlying this work is a major distinction between humor that an individual might be exposed to (for example, watching a comedy film) versus humor that is a personality characteristic or trait (for example, having a “good sense of humor”). perhaps you could begin by commenting on the usefulness of this basic distinction in humor theory and research, while also highlighting some of your major findings in this domain. how has this aspect of humor been involved in your work on humor, health, and well-being? arnie cann: as i indicated earlier, i realized recently that i had strayed away from the initial focus of my humor research, which involved looking at the effects of exposure to humor. in considering humor exposure as a strategy, the logic was to take advantage of the positive affect, or mirth, which is the result of what most people would say, is successful humor. remember that our entry into humor research came out of our work with emergency response workers. in the workshops we were encouraging them to bring humor to work to share, and to find ways to make humor part of their daily activities. we were encouraging humor acts that anyone could participate in, regardless of their own sense of humor or skill at generating humor. it seemed like a good idea to check for ourselves if this humor exposure strategy was actually effective. the challenge with taking this approach to humor and health is finding a generally effective humor stimulus, since individual differences likely meant that the same humor was not always equally funny for all people. in those early studies, we developed the stimuli by using videos of standup comics, but sampling from a variety of comics and creating a compilation, to try to have instances of humor that would appeal to as wide an audience as possible. we reasoned that the humor generated positive affect would counterbalance negative affect associated with potential stressors and minimize the potential psychological harm. those early studies provided support for these ideas in that exposure to humor either before or after a stressor resulted in some emotional benefits and reduction of negative affect. the literature on the effects of positive affect, which has grown considerably since the time of our first studies, still often relies on exposure to humor to generate positive affect. based on the now quite extensive literature on positive affect, we know that inducing even temporary positive affect can have many beneficial effects beyond simply counteracting negative europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 419 http://www.psychopen.eu/ affect. those experiencing positive affect generate more positive thoughts, are more cognitively flexible, and can be more creative. in our article for this issue, we use the broaden and build process as a model for appreciating the role of humor in well-being. positive affect can be viewed as a resource, such that having a more stable positive affect can both protect and promote well-being. a good sense of humor would be one factor in helping to build that positive affect resource, but regular exposure to events generating mirth also could be an avenue worthy of serious attention. in a manuscript currently under review, we’ve returned to a consideration of the impact of humor exposure, but now with a greater appreciation for the different humor styles. in two studies we exposed people to humor that had been pretested to reflect either affiliative humor or aggressive humor. in the first study, people rated target people who revealed their favorite jokes or humorous statements. if being funny is the goal of humor, then the style of humor might not matter so long as you are being funny. however, there also might be valuable information revealed by apparent humor styles. so, we were asking, “would the style of humor used, or the funniness of the humor, be the relevant factor in affecting the perceptions?” what we found was that even though both sets of jokes, reflecting affiliative and aggressive styles, were rated as equally funny, the perceptions of the target varied based on the humor used. having a preference for aggressive humor, even funny aggressive humor, led to more negative evaluations. in the second study we returned to clips of stand-up comics as the humorous stimuli. we created clips that were pretested to be equally funny, but which were characterized by affiliative or aggressive styles. participants watched the video clips and then indicated their current affect and rated the videos. all participants rated the aggressive humor as more ‘disturbing’, and for women, they reported higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of positive affect after the aggressive humor. so, now we see how even humor exposure may require a nuanced appreciation of humor. not all funny humor has the same psychological impact. we hope to build on these findings in some of our next work. nick kuiper: how might humor as an event that someone is exposed to potentially interact with “sense of humor” as a personality trait, particularly in the context of psychological well-being and health? howmight such interactions be investigated in future work in this domain? arnie cann: this question really depends on understanding what is meant by sense of humor, or at least what aspect of sense of humor will be considered. as you mentioned earlier, some views of sense of humor include humor appreciation as a dimension, and earlier definitions have included dimensions like ‘metamessage sensitivity’ to suggest that a good sense of humor may make people more sensitive to potentially subtle humor they encounter. a recently published scale claims to measure the need for humor as a separate individual difference distinction. early research looking at personality and responses to humor also suggested that what type of humor you prefer may vary with other personality traits. so any possible interactions might be quite complex. logically, it seems that at a global level, having a good sense of humor across multiple dimensions would mean that you are more likely to find ways to make humor a part of your life and to take the time to acknowledge and enjoy humor. using the hsq, one would think that people who scored generally higher would be demonstrating a greater focus on humor as a part of their daily lives. consistent with this possibility, gil greengross and colleagues (2012) found that professional comics tended to score higher than a sample of college students on all 4 hsq dimensions. if this is the case, then those with a good sense of humor across multiple dimensions would be experiencing more humor and building up a more stable positive affect as a resource for facilitating well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 420 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a recent study by leist and müller (2013) that we cite in our contribution to this special issue used the hsq to see if they could identify clear humor profiles, based on patterns of responses across the four humor styles. they found some people who scored high across the board, and other who tended to score high on the adaptive, but not the maladaptive styles. however, when they looked at life satisfaction as an outcome, these two groups did not differ. obviously, this did not look at actual reactions to humor, but it does suggest that all humor styles may have some value and may allow you to appreciate more forms of humor. having said all this, research has not provided clear empirical bases for making predictions about reactions to humor and sense of humor. my son and i presented a poster earlier this year in which we looked at whether or not a person’s hsq scores would predict their ratings of jokes that had been pretested as reflecting affiliative, aggressive, or self-defeating humor (cann & cann, 2014). in other words, would your humor style predict the type of humor you enjoyed most, or would humor ratings be independent of style? overall, humor styles did not predict ratings of the jokes. there was evidence that aggressive jokes were rated funnier by those who reported a greater aggressive style, but an affiliative style actually was negatively related to ratings of the affiliative jokes. so the evidence is unclear at best and any interactions may require looking at humor types and specific dimensions of humor, or creating a truly global assessment of sense of humor. nick kuiper: as we learn more about how humor may play a role in well-being and health it becomes possible to think about potential ways to “teach” individuals how to use humor in a positive adaptive manner to manage stress. what is your take on the current state of empirically-based research on teaching individuals to use humor effectively? are we now at the point where such applications are justified? or is it still the case that we are relying too much on anecdotal evidence about the effectiveness of teaching humor as a coping technique? arnie cann: a theme that has run through my own research over the years, and to some extent through our conversation, is that sense of humor and humor exposure can both provide avenues for managing stress and strengthening relationships. when considering sense of humor, or humor style, the evidence suggests that the self-enhancing humor style, focused on using humor to cope, is the dimension of sense of humor worth training. even in our contribution to this special issue, it is the self-enhancing humor style that is related to building positive affect, resilience, and well-being. so, if we are going to teach a specific skill within the global construct of sense of humor, using humor to cope would be the target that makes the most sense. i am aware of only very limited research that has tested empirically the potential for teaching this skill. the interventions reported have usually been based on mcghee’s (1999) humor skills training program, originally proposed in the 90’s, which involves trying to help participants develop a playful attitude, but also to appreciate humor as a coping strategy. a recent study by crawford and caltabiano (2011) found evidence supporting the effectiveness of the humor training. they used mcghee’s program over an 8 week training period, and then did follow-up measures 3 months later. on most measures, the humor group appeared to be doing better. they reported higher positive affect, lower negative affect, higher optimism and self-efficacy, and lower levels of stress and depression. more research is still needed to replicate these results and look at even longer term outcomes, but these results are encouraging. one issue to be considered is whether it is the humor that matters in this training, or if learning any new skill for dealing with threats would be as useful as a cognitive behavior therapy intervention. a part of mcghee’s (1999) program also involves exposure to humor. in addition to including some humor in the exercises and as supplements to the exercises, participants are encouraged to seek out humor they especially enjoy. this advice is exactly what we were telling the emergency response personnel back at the beginning of our humor journey. the central idea behind this intervention strategy is to try to understand what humor you like europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 421 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and become an active seeker of that humor. rather than wait for the humor to find you, or rely on a personality trait that may be less than ideal, be a humor seeker. so, regardless of the specific skills associated with coping through humor, becoming aware of your own humor preferences, and actively seeking exposure to that humor, could be a strategy for helping to manage stress. while our initial logic was that the positive affect would temper any negative affect, we now know that regular experiences of positive affect can represent a resource that strengthens resilience in general, and promotes well-being. the broaden and build theory provides the framework for appreciating how regular humor exposure could be a strategy for managing stress independent of any specific skill in reappraising threats. in summary, i would say that we are ready to evaluate strategies for teaching people how to use humor to manage stress, build relationships, and enhance well-being. there are strategies that seem to make sense within existing theories; some supportive evidence for their effectiveness already exists, so let’s get more data to validate these promising ideas. nick kuiper: social relationships are also a very important aspect of well-being and health. in your research you have conducted several studies that have looked at various aspects of social relationships and communication that bear on humor, well-being and health. can you tell us a bit about this research and what you consider the major findings to be? arnie cann: sure, i’ve mentioned some of these studies in passing, and the same themes run through the research on humor in relationships and our research on humor and distress. we began just asking the question about how humor and sense of humor are perceived socially. one of our earliest studies revealed that discovering a shared appreciation for humor was a powerful factor in increasing attraction to a stranger, overwhelming even differences on many attitudinal issues. given the consistent findings over many studies that attitude similarity on social issues was a reliable predictor of initial attraction, the fact that having someone like a single joke you told overcame attitudinal dissimilarity on a majority of the issues presented was impressive. finding humor that can have general appeal, and sharing that humor, should be a valuable social lubricant. at the same time, another message from this research is, laugh at the humor of others and you becomemuch more attractive. this is probably of no surprise to most people with any social skills, but the strength of the effect is still impressive. like my joke and other differences can be forgiven! in a later study (cann &calhoun, 2001) we simply described someone as having a good, defined as above average, or bad, defined as below average, sense of humor, and found that an above average sense of humor led participants to assume the person would have many other highly desirable qualities. for example, believing someone has an above average sense of humor was associated with an image of a friendly, interesting, creative, imaginative, extraverted person who also was less likely to be neurotic. sense of humor clearly is assumed to have broad connections to other characteristics. as we began to focus our research on differences in humor styles, we wanted to see if the maladaptive styles, at least as general behavioral tendencies, were, in fact, dysfunctional or hazardous to relationship health. in a couple of different studies we looked at how your perception of your partner’s humor style was related to your relationship satisfaction. in each case, the distinctions captured by the hsq were critical. not all humor is good, and humor that is other-directed matters most in how other people close to you respond to your humor uses. affiliative humor predicts higher relationship satisfaction, while aggressive humor has a negative relationship with satisfaction. the two self-directed humor styles were essentially irrelevant to satisfaction. of course, now we also know, based on our later work, (cann & matson, 2014) that only affiliative humor is preeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dictive of global ratings of sense of humor, so an affiliative humor style is what people imagine when they think of a good sense of humor. in one of these studies we had both members of romantic couples participate (cann, zapata, & davis, 2011). this allowed us to see if one partner’s perceptions of the other’s humor style matched. do we see in our partner the humor styles they claim to be using? we also wanted to see which humor style ratings best predicted relationship satisfaction; our perceptions of our partner or our partners’ self-reports. in general, there was low agreement between your self-ratings and your partner’s ratings of your humor style; usually less than 10% shared variance across the humor styles. and in predicting relationship satisfaction, your perception of your partner’s humor style typically explained about twice as much of the variance in satisfaction than did you partner’s self-rated humor style. this is not surprising, since the relationships’ literature often finds that our perceptions of our partners are what seem to matter most in how we judge and experience our relationships. the message is that if you are perceived to have a positive humor style in your other-directed humor, your felt relationship satisfaction, and your partners’ reported satisfaction will be higher. good shared humor strengthens relationships and having strong social connections should support well-being. the study i mentioned earlier, that is under review right now, also suggests that being funny is not the key to using humor to build relationships. remember we found humor that was equally funny had very different effects on evaluations when it was affiliative rather than aggressive. funny aggressive humor associated with another person did not lead to positive evaluations. so when people claim that they like someone because he or she makes me laugh, it may be the case that they are remembering only the good humor, not the funny bad humor. i do think that humor as a relationship builder and supporter needs to be seen as a way to enhance resilience by providing social support. having someone there to help you manage stress may be as important as having an ability to cope at the individual level using humor. nick kuiper: to what extent has your recent work on post-traumatic growth processes also involved looking at humor use (either as an event experienced by the individual or as a personality attribute)?what types of extensions of this work can you see in the future that might relate to humor, well-being and health? arnie cann:up to this point the two research areas how remained mostly independent, although they both reflect our interest in positive psychology processes. one difficulty with doing research on the effects of traumas is that we have trouble getting the pre-trauma measures that would allow us to identify useful predictors of distress and growth. we would love to use the hsq to identify individual differences that exist before encountering the stressful event, to see if adaptive humor predicts greater growth or if maladaptive humor inhibits growth. we are beginning to look at transformative life events more broadly, to see if growth is experienced through the same processes after non-traumatic but transformative experiences. we are planning research that would target people who choose to experience challenging or similarly transformative events, like pilgrimages, so that we can follow them through the whole experience and track changes over time. although not exactly the same as an unexpected trauma, these chosen challenges still might be an avenue to recognizing qualities predictive of growth that otherwise might be missed. in that research, we will be including measures to identify differences in humor styles, as well as other qualities associated with resilience and positive perspectives. in an ongoing study, we do hope to determine if how humor might be present in the cognitive work used to process a trauma and determine if humor facilitates growth. for her dissertation, one of our current doctoral students is looking at expressive writing as a strategy for dealing with the emotions associated with highly stressful events. expressive writing has often been shown to assist in coping with stressful events by reducing the associated europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 423 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional distress. her goal is to see if a directed form of expressive writing can also be used to facilitate posttraumatic growth by encouraging attention to positive changes. since participants in this research will be writing multiple times about their thoughts concerning their stressful experience, we are hoping to examine the text for instances of humor. outcome measures will include psychological distress and posttraumatic growth, so perhaps we will be able to connect the use of humor and the style of humor with both symptom reduction and increased growth. as we refine the ptgmodel, we hope to identify where in the processes leading to growth humor could be especially beneficial. since we believe that intrusive thoughts about the stressful event interfere with the deliberate processing that can foster growth, humor could easily help to temper those intrusive cognitions. nick kuiper:one of the themes evident in several of the studies in the present special issue on humor and health is a move towards more fully integrating theory and research on positive psychology with work on humor. how might this additional focus on the strengths of the individual and notions of resilience add to our understanding of humor’s role in well-being and health? arnie cann: i think your recent article on humor and resilience, and i hope our article in this issue, (i have not seen the other contributions to the special issue, so there may be more examples) have begun to link together some of the areas of research that are relevant to defining the role that humor can play in supporting well-being. there are a number of streams of research that appear to be converging based on a foundation personal strengths, resilience and positive affect. in each of these broad areas of positive psychology, humor is obviously a factor worth examining. the emerging research on character strengths recognizes sense of humor as a relevant quality contributing to well-being. humor in this model is considered broadly, and includes liking to joke and also sharing humor with others. the research on the many psychological health benefits of stable happiness suggests a major place for humor either as an individual difference variable that allows you to maintain a happier perspective or as an event that one can choose to include in one’s life to help maintain higher levels of happiness. as we indicate in our contribution to this special issue, we see the broaden and build theory as a potentially useful framework for integrating these areas of research and for understanding how humor and sense of humor can both be a part of building and maintaining a stable positive affect that ultimately facilitates creative, flexible thinking, and contributes to building resilience for healthier responses to threats that might lower well-being. replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts, by developing a playful attitude that enables you to face threats with a bit of humor, or simply finding humor in everyday events, allows you to build up stable positive affect as well as prevent potential negative affect. learning to seek out humor that fits your style is a skill that is easily developed and could have significant benefits by enhancing happiness and supporting positive affect. extending the notion of resilience to an interpersonal resource, not merely an intrapersonal resource, is an important perspective to consider; share the good humor you find, and you are strengthening social bonds so that you will have the social resources and support when you need it. in many of these examples, there might not be a simple direct path from sense of humor or humor exposure to well-being; instead researchers need to look for the variables through which humor is mediated, or variables that moderate the effects of humor. a good sense of humor may help to build character strength that protects wellbeing. including humor in your life in a planned way could support happiness as a stable experience, and enhance well-being. employing humor to maintain positive affect can provide a resource that supports resilience, and indirectly support well-being. while at some level the role of humor in health seems obvious, the precise mechanisms still need to be identified. a quote often found in writings about humor is from proverbs: “a merry heart doeth good europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 424 http://www.psychopen.eu/ like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones”, but to appreciate the processes through which humor works to ‘doeth good like a medicine’, we need to consider the more complex connections among all of these different processes and variables that make humor potentially valuable in supporting psychological health. nick kuiper: in this interview we have talked about a number of different themes and issues that bear on the role of humor in well-being and health. are there any further themes or suggestions that you might wish to comment on, for readers interested in examining these issues from a psychological perspective? arnie cann: i think there are three recommendations or pieces of advice i would put on the table. first, i think we need to move beyond looking at sense of humor as a personality difference that can be assumed to capture the many ways in which humor is used in context. as i indicated earlier, it may not be sufficient to try to categorize humor uses or styles as adaptive or maladaptive, since any form of humor might be an adaptive or maladaptive response to a specific situation. the truly good sense of humor must include having a sense of when to use humor, when to avoid humor, and what style of humor is appropriate now. i hope that the diary studies or other methods that allow researchers to record humor as it is used in context will provide a better understanding of what constitutes a real ‘sense’ of humor. given that humor is typically used and enjoyed in social context, we need to be working toward understanding the real impact of humor in context. although we often assume that being funny and having a good sense of humor are virtually the same, i think the real definition of a good sense of humor and the ways in which humor can affect health are more complex. a second suggestion i would make is to look more carefully at how exposure to humor can be part of a plan for maintaining well-being. although there is clear value in looking at humor from a personality perspective, since stable individual differences will impact outcomes generally, we also need to see humor as an experience that can employed to provide benefits and contribute to health. building on the research on happiness, are their benefits that can be gained simply by making an effort to bring humor into your life on a regular basis. happiness researchers have shown that expressing gratitude, counting one’s blessings, and other small acts contribute to happiness, it seems likely that actively seeking humor and systematically exposing oneself to humor also could support happiness. while there are many examples of programs that claim humor therapies are useful, we need better data on just what impact humor exposure can have on psychological health when people are in control of their humor experiences. thirdly, we need to consider how humor can contribute to resilience at an interpersonal as well as an intrapersonal level. humor as a source of interpersonal resilience may be a bit more difficult to document, but it may be just as valuable. it is easy to see how using humor as a coping strategy can help individuals reappraise threats and more efficiently cope with challenges. the use of affiliative humor, to build stronger relationships, and the sharing of good humor to help others cope, may be equally as important in insuring well-being when faced with threats. in the early years of humor research, there was often a complaint that people were not taking humor research seriously. i believe we have moved past that point, so that people appreciate the potential benefits of humor both personally and socially. the next step is to provide a theory or broader framework for integrating humor with other variables that contribute to well-being. nick kuiper: i want to thank you for sharing your comments and views with us. i understand that you may be retiring in the next few years and then passing the “mantle of humor research” on to your son. can you briefly tell us what kinds of humor research your son is engaged in? europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 cann & kuiper 425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ arnie cann:my wife and i have joked in the past about feeling okay about retirement if we can replace ourselves first. my wife is a civil engineer and also was on the faculty here at unc charlotte. our younger son followed that career path as well. although he had no interest in a faculty position, he has finished his training and is employed as a civil engineer. my wife has now retired. our older son, adam, did not take a direct path to psychology, so i have had to be more patient, but he eventually found his way and, in the process, found humor research to be a real attraction. now i just have to wait for him to finish and take my place. adam and i have worked together on a couple of projects where i could take advantage of his skill in writing for a general audience. so, his first involvement in the psychology of humor field was as a coauthor of a chapter for a book applying psychology to the television show house. our chapter focused on the psychology of humor in house, and he made it much more readable. as a graduate student defining his own research agenda, his current interests include looking at how people use humor to achieve specific personal or social goals. as part of that, he has been studying how leaders might use humor in dealing with subordinates. he also is beginning some research on the subtle roles of humor in advertising. i am pleased that he will be part of a research era in which humor research is taken seriously and humor is appreciated as a valuable tool for achieving psychological health. i am working on staying out of his way, but also anticipating my retirement once my replacement is ready! nick kuiper: any final comments? arnie cann:well, i have found being interviewed a bit painful, but also very useful, since it has forced me to look back at my journey as a humor researcher and consider how i ended up where i am today. in thinking about some of your questions, i began to more fully appreciate how the field has grown since i first entered it. a lot of this is due to leaders in the field like you who promote humor research by taking on tasks like this special issue, so thanks! i have benefitted in my own research from the work of many people who helped make humor research a serious endeavor by approaching humor as a topic with important implications for health and well-being. thanks to all of them as well. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references blanchard, a., stewart, o. j., cann, a., & follman, l. (2014). making sense of humor at work. the psychologist manager journal, 17(1), 49-70. doi:10.1037/mgr0000011 cann, a., & calhoun, l. g. (2001). perceived personality associations with differences in sense of humor: stereotypes of hypothetical others with high or low senses of humor. humor: international journal of humor research, 14, 117-130. doi:10.1515/humr.14.2.117 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 426 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mgr0000011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.14.2.117 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cann, a., calhoun, l. g., & banks, j. s. (1997). on the role of humor appreciation in interpersonal attraction. humor: international journal of humor research, 10, 77-89. doi:10.1515/humr.1997.10.1.77 cann, a., calhoun, l. g., & nance, j. 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(1993). humor and depression: is laughter good medicine? paper presented at the meeting of the southeastern psychological association, atlanta, ga. ruch, w. (2013). benevolent and corrective humor. presentation at the 13th international summer school and symposium on humor and laughter, magdeburg, germany. wilson, e. o. (2012). the social conquest of earth. new york, ny: liveright publishing. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 412–428 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.818 interview 428 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references facial memory: the role of the pre-existing knowledge in face processing and recognition research reports facial memory: the role of the pre-existing knowledge in face processing and recognition alejandro j. estudillo*a a universitat de barcelona, barcelona, spain. abstract faces are visual stimuli full of information. depending upon the familiarity with a face, the information we can extract will differ, so the more familiarity with a face, the more information that can be extracted from it. the present article reviews the role that pre-existing knowledge of a face has in its processing. here, we focus on behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence. the influence of familiarity in early stages (attention, perception and working memory) and in later stages (pre-semantic and semantic knowledge) of the processing are discussed. the differences in brain anatomy for familiar and unfamiliar faces are also considered. as it will be shown, experimental data seems to support that familiarity can affect even the earliest stages of the recognition. keywords: familiar faces, unfamiliar faces, face processing, face recognition, face processing models europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 received: 2012-01-11. accepted: 2012-04-17. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: departamento de psicología básica, facultad de psicología, universitat de barcelona, 171 passeig de la vall d'hebron, 08035 barcelona, catalonia, spain, email:ajestudillo@gmail.com. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recognizing faces is one of the most common cognitive processes we carry out in our daily life. the efficiency of this process allows us to interact with others and therefore survive in our environment. it is so quick and apparently effortless that most people rarely consider either its importance or its complexity. imagine that you are walking along the street and you see somebody. with a quick glance at their face, you are able to extract information such as the person’s gender and emotional state. moreover, you can say whether the face is familiar or not and, if it is, you may retrieve additional information such as the person’s interests and hobbies, their occupation or name. in this sense, the information we can extract from a face varies depending on our experience and knowledge with that particular face. there are additional differences between familiar and unfamiliar faces. if we see a famous person robbing a bank, we will probably identify that person correctly in a subsequent eyewitness identification line-up. however, as previous research has shown, several problems arise when trying to identify a non-famous person (loftus, 1996). thus it seems that we are able to remember familiar people better than unfamiliar people. some researchers consider that the processes we use to explore familiar and unfamiliar faces are different in its nature (buttle & raymond, 2003; megreya & burton, 2006). according to them, processing unfamiliar faces, we would use a more featural strategy which involves the analysis of facial features, such as nose, eyes, etc. on --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ other hand, to process familiar faces we rely more on a configural or a holistic strategy1, which involve the analysis of the face as a whole (farah, wilson, drain, & tanaka, 1995). this argument is supported by the fact that we are able to recognize familiar faces in different poses or expressions, whereas we have problems to carry out this action with faces that have been encountered briefly. additionally, it has been suggested that for the recognition of familiar faces, internal features (such as nose, eyes and mouth) are more important than external features (such as hairstyle) (ellis, shepherd, & davies, 1979). on the other side, ellis et al. (1979) found that for unfamiliar faces both external and internal features are of equal importance (although see bruce et al., 1999). it is important to distinguish between face attention and perception and face recognition and identification. face attention and perception would constitute the firsts stages of the processing of faces. face attention refers to the way a face grabs the attention. on the other hand, face perception consists in perceiving a visual object as a face. as with other visual objects, attention and perception of faces would determine their storage in working memory. for its part, face recognition makes reference to recognize a previously seen face. it would not require semantic information about the face, but simply familiarity with it. finally, face identification makes reference to the activation of episodic and semantic information associated with the face. face recognition and identification would constitute the latter stages of the processing of faces. the present review tries to shed light on the role that the pre-existing knowledge with a face plays in its recognition. to accomplish this, we focus on behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging evidence. we first present two models of face processing. the assumptions these models make about the role of pre-existing knowledge in face processing are discussed. in the following section, the influence of familiarity in the early stages of processing (i.e. attention, perception and working memory) will be presented. in the third section, this influence is considered in later stages (pre-semantic and semantic knowledge) of face processing. in the fourth section, the brain anatomy of familiar and unfamiliar faces is reviewed. finally, some conclusions are drawn. two models of face recognition in this section, we are going to discuss two classic models of face processing: the bruce and young (1986) model and the interactive activation and competition model (burton, bruce, & johnston, 1990). these two models make different predictions about the role of previous knowledge in face processing. the bruce and young model of face processing the bruce and young model (1986), which is the most widely cited face processing model, suggests that previous experience with a face influences the middle and latter stages of recognition. this model is depicted in figure 1. the model is comprised of several modules, each of them representing a functional separate component (bruce & young, 1986). when we see a face, firstly, we form different representations of it. the structural encoding builds these representations. according to the authors, view-centered descriptions are used to analyze facial speech (campbell, 2011) and facial expressions (straube, mothes-lasch, & miltner, 2011). on the other hand, expression-independent descriptions are more abstract representations which are used for the facial recognition. both the view-centered and the expression-independent descriptions are linked with the directed visual processing. as it was said before, the expression-independent descriptions are used in the face recognition. this module provides information to the face recognition units (fru). this system could be considered the mental “lexicon” for faces, because it stores the faces we know, each of them being represented by one unit (bruce & young, 1986). fru are activated by any particular view of the face and the more activation, the more familiar the face europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 familiarity and face processing 232 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. bruce and young’s model. adapted from bruce and young 1986 becomes. however, the role that fru plays in the recognition is to tell us that the face we are looking at is familiar, but nothing more than that (hole & bourne, 2010). frus have bidirectional connections with person identity nodes (pins) which contain semantic information about the person (e.g., occupation, interest, etc...). as in fru, each person has his/her own pin. the bidirectional connections allow us to represent a face in our memory, for example, when a person gives us some semantic details about somebody. in this sense, pins can be accessed from faces, but also from voices, names, or any particular pieces of information. on the other hand, names can just be accessed through pin. lastly, the cognitive system makes reference to further procedures which may play a role in face recognition, such as associative or episodic information. how does previous knowledge influence the processing of faces? as can be followed from the different connections in the model, previous experience with a face will influence the middle and last stages of recognition; that is from frus and onwards. in this sense, this experience would not have any effect in the first stages of the processing of faces, that is in the structural encoding. the interactive activation and competition (iac) model the iac model (burton et al., 1990) could be considered the last version of the bruce and young model. in fact, both models make similar predictions, but the iacmodel is more specific regarding the running and the relationships between the different components. the main frame of the model is depicted in the figure 2. the main constituent of the model are frus, pins and semantic information units (sius). all these components are connected to each other. the model follows the connectionist logic. units within a pool compete with each europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 estudillo 233 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the iac model of face recognition. adapted from burton et al. (1990) other, so when one of these units is activated, the rest are inhibited. the frus have the same function as in the original bruce and young model. so when we see a familiar face, an fru for that particular face is activated. this would activate the pin for that person, although pins can also be activated by other information such as names (name input units, nius; hole & bourne, 2010). if a pin reaches a certain level of activation, that face would be categorized as familiar. in this sense, unlike the bruce and young model, familiarity decisions are considered to depend on the activation of pins (burton et al., 1990; herzmann & sommer, 2010). lastly, sius contains semantic information such as, interest, occupation, nationality, etc. unlike the bruce and young model, the iac model assumes that top-down feedback between subsequent stages aids the processing during the whole procedure. in this sense, person identity or even names can influence the first stage of the processing, that is in the structural encoding (herzmann & sommer, 2010). familiarity and early stages of the processing of faces attention, perception and working memory constitute these early stages. as we shall see, the evidence demonstrating the influence of familiar faces in early stages of the processing of faces comes from behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging data. one paradigm which allows studying the influence of familiarity in these stages is the attention blink paradigm. in this paradigm, stimuli are presented rapidly one at a time in the centre of the screen, and participants have to identify two subsequent targets (raymond, shapiro, & arnell, 1992). the attentional blink effect refers to a disadvantage to identify the second stimuli when the lag with the first one europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 familiarity and face processing 234 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is less than 500 msec (raymond et al., 1992). for example, jackson and raymond (2006) used an attentional blink paradigm to study the role of attention in face identification. they presented to their participants a rapid series of faces with one abstract pattern image imbedded. participants have to detect the abstract pattern image and one predefined face. jackson and raymond (2006) found attentional blink effects with unfamiliar faces but not with famous faces (highly familiar faces). these results suggest that we need less attentional resources to process familiar faces. tong and nakayama (1999) used a visual search procedure and participants had to detect a specific face among a heterogeneous array of other faces. the authors showed that when the participant’s own face was used, they were able to detect it more rapidly than a face which the participant was unfamiliar with. this study suggests that the processing for highly familiar faces, such as one’s own face, might be faster than for unfamiliar faces. one problem of tong and nayakama’s study is that they required their participants to make an explicit recognition, so it is not clear whether the facilitation with the own face is due to an improvement in perceptual processing or to explicit recognition (buttle & raymond, 2003). to explore this issue, buttle and raymond (2003) presented a pair of faces which were replaced rapidly by another display with two faces. one of the faces did not vary between displays, but the other one did. they observed that when the change between displays involved a famous face, performance was significantly better, but only when the change was presented in the left hemispace. note that the task was to detect the change, rejecting that the facilitation in the processing is due to the explicit recognition. this “superfamiliarity” effect supported that highly familiar faces produce an improvement in early stages of the recognition, in this case, in perceptual processing. further research seems to indicate that familiarity with faces aids their preservation in working memory (jackson & raymond, 2008; although see pashler, 1988). jackson and raymond (2008) presented to their participants a memory array of faces during a short period of time followed by a comparison test array. participants had to decide whether the comparison test array was the same or different from the memory array. concurrent with this task, participants had to repeat a couple of digits in order to suppress the use of verbal working memory. the authors showed that the working memory performance was better for famous than for unfamiliar faces. however, it is possible that in some situations working memory performance for unfamiliar faces may be better than for familiar faces. as it was noticed in the introduction, unfamiliar face recognition is highly affected by changes in pose or expression, so it is more difficult to match two photographs of an unfamiliar person than it is to match two photographs of a familiar person (bruce et al., 1999). on the other hand, some researchers have shown that visual similarity is inversely proportional to the retention in working memory (i.e. logie, della sala, wynn, & baddeley, 2000). in this sense, the working memory span for different pictures of the same unfamiliar person face should be bigger than for different pictures of the same familiar face. several brain event-related-potentials (erps) have been related to different stages of face recognition (for a review see schweinberger & burton, 2003): (1) the n170, which is involved in the initial detection of a face, (2) the n250r, which is related to face recognition, and (3) the n400, which reflects access to semantic knowledge about a person. erp studies have also proved the influence of familiarity in early stages of face processing (caharel, fiori, bernard, lalonde, & rebai, 2006; herzmann & sommer, 2010). some researchers have shown that the occipito-temporal n170 component is linked to late stages of structural encoding (eimer, 2000). this component, although initially was considered to be specific for faces, is evoked for any kind of visual object, however it is larger in faces (herzmann & sommer, 2010). it was considered to be familiarity-independent, but caharel et al. (2006), using personally familiar faces, showed an effect of face familiarity in the n170 component. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 estudillo 235 http://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, herzmann and sommer (2010) also showed modulation of the n170 component by familiarity. they ask their participant to learn intensively faces with semantic information, such as occupation, name, etc. one week later, participants were tested with learned faces, non-studied new famous faces and new unfamiliar faces. n170 amplitude was larger for learned and non-studied famous faces than for new unfamiliar. nessler, mecklinger, and penney (2005) presented to their participants familiar and unfamiliar faces. participants had to decide whether the face displayed was famous or not. they showed that the differences in erp waves between famous and non-famous faces started around 200 milliseconds. moreover, the differences in erp waves between first and second presentation of non-famous faces, which seems to indicate perceptual fluency, emerged after 300 milliseconds. these results suggest that familiarity has an influence before structural encoding processes is completed (nessler et al., 2005). in summary, behavioral and erp data seems to indicate that familiar faces affect early stages of the face processing, that is late stages of the processing have a strong influence in attentional and perceptual processes. the bruce and young (1986) model assumes independence between different modules, so these data cannot be explained by this model. on the other hand, they can be fitted better by the iac model (burton et al., 1990). this model assumes interactions between the different stages of the processing of faces, so top-down feedback aids during the whole processing. in this sense, familiarity and identity influence early stages of the processing of faces, such as attention and perception. familiarity and late stages of the processing of faces in this section, the influence of familiarity in pre-semantic and semantic knowledge with behavioral and erp evidence is discussed. pre-semantic and semantic knowledge constitute these later stages of the processing of faces. pre-semantic knowledge involves knowing that the face which is being looked at, is familiar, but nothing more. in terms of face processing models, it would coincide with the activation of frus (bruce & young, 1986) or pins (burton et al., 1990). on the other hand, the semantic information refers to the conceptual information about the person, such as occupation, interest, etc. in terms of these models, it would coincide with the activation of pins (bruce & young, 1986) or sius (burton et al., 1990). unfamiliar faces have scarce semantic information. if an unfamiliar face is presented, the semantic information for that face cannot be accessed, simply because it does not exist. on the other hand, for familiar faces, depending of their degree of familiarity, pre-semantic (frus) and/or semantic information (sius) will be accessed. as mentioned previously, the iac model was created to specify with more detail how frus and pins work. due to this specification, all data concerning these two modules are, in general terms, better explained for this model than for the bruce and young’s. boehm, klostermann, sommer, and paller (2006) presented to their participants upright and inverted familiar (famous) and unfamiliar faces. participants had to decide whether that face had been presented before. boehm et al. (2006) showed that inverted familiar faces primed upright familiar faces, however inverted unfamiliar faces did not prime upright unfamiliar faces. these results showed that familiar inverted faces are able to access frus, so the inversion effect must affect the structural encoding. if so, the inversion effect should have an effect in n170 erp component, which, as was said before, is considered to be linked with structural encoding, in both in famous and non-famous faces, but not in later components of recognition such as n250r or n400 (see below). to our knowledge, this issue has not been explored. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 familiarity and face processing 236 http://www.psychopen.eu/ burton, kelly, and bruce (1998) have shown that faces prime names but only in semantic tasks. in their first experiment, participants were presented in the first phase with different faces and they had to indicate whether the face was familiar. in a second phase, participants were presented with a series of written names; some of them belonged to faces displayed in the first phase. participants had to indicate whether the name was familiar. no repetition priming effects were found in the second phase. these results are easily explained by the iacmodel. face familiarity would strengthen the link between frus and pins. however, this does not have any consequence to recognize the name, because the link between nrus and pins has not been strengthened in the first phase. burton et al. (1998) conducted a second experiment. the design of the experiment was exactly the same, but participants made a semantic decision in both phases. in this case names were primed by faces. these results are also explained by the iac model: retrieval of semantic information from a face requires the activation of the fru, pin and sius for that particular face. in this sense, the links from fru to pin and from pin to sius are strengthened. in the second phase, retrieval semantic information from the name requires the activation of the nru, pin and sius for that specific name. in the first phase, the links pin to sius were already activated by faces, so priming will occur. these results have two important implications. in the first place, semantic priming for faces, but not episodic priming, seems to be cross-domain (i.e. face to name; see ellis, young, & flude, 1990). in the second place, previous experience with a face aids with the processing of semantic and name information. some erp components have been linked to these late stages of recognition. one of them is the n250r, which appears 250-300 millisecond stimulus onsets. this component consists of an increase of positivity at frontal electrodes and an increase of negativity at temporal sites. it seems to be related to the activation of presemantic information, because it is smaller or absent for unfamiliar faces (herzmann & sommer, 2010; schweinberger, pickering, jentzsch, burton, & kaufmann, 2002). tanaka, curran, porterfield, and collins (2006) presented to their participants two faces: the participant’s own face and that of one unfamiliar person (always the same). they observed that a clear n250r was evident at the beginning of the experiment for the participant’s own face. in the second half of the experiment, the n250r appeared for the unfamiliar (now familiar) person. this result shows that this component appears for newly learned faces. some researchers have shown that that the n250r does not appear in conditions of semantic priming (i.e. hillary clinton’s face precedes bill clinton’s), giving additional evidence that this component is associated with the pre-semantic activation, but not with additional semantic information (schweinberger, 1996). unlike the n250r, the n400 component does reflect semantic knowledge about the person. it is a general-domain component, which is elicited for any kind of stimuli with semantic information such as names and faces (schweinberger, 1996). for this reason, this component is considered to reflect the activation of pins (bruce and young, 1986) or sius (burton et al., 1990). it is reflected by increased in centro-parietal positivity at 300-600 millisecond stimulus onsets. as it might be expected for the amount of information provided, it is larger for familiar than for unfamiliar faces (paller et al., 2000; schweinberger et al., 2002). for example, paller et al. (2000) presented to their participants faces with and without semantic information. in a second phase, participants had to decide whether the face displayed had been presented in the first phase. the authors observed that faces learned with semantic information showed larger n400 potentials than faces learned without semantic information. further components, more related with explicit recognition memory processes, have been specified. these components are associated with old/new effects in recognition paradigms (see yonelinas, 2002) and, although they do not say anything about face processing mechanisms per se, they might inform about the processes europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 estudillo 237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humans use to retrieve faces. the fn400 component is considered to be related with familiarity process; that is not being influenced by the recollection of the study episode (rugg & curran, 2007). it appears around 300-350 milliseconds in anterior localizations. on the other hand, the late positive component (lp) is found around 400-800 milliseconds. this component is thought to reflect recollection processes. curran and hancock (2007) presented to their participant unfamiliar faces with information about their occupation. they observed that the fn400 effect was not affected by the occupation, but the lp was larger for faces remembered with their occupation. herzmann and sommer (2010) replicated these results but they also found a previous old-new effect starting around 250 milliseconds in familiar faces, but independent of the amount of biographical facts. in conclusion, behavioral and epr studies show an influence of previous knowledge in pre-semantic and semantic stages of recognition. moreover, it seems that either familiarity or recollection processes play an important role in the retrieval, depending of the amount of biographical knowledge associated with the face. unfamiliar and familiar faces in the brain between others studies, the aforementioned buttle and raymond’s (2003) told us about the lateralization of face processing. on the other hand, erp studies provide information about the time course of face processing. however, neither of them say anything about the different localizations of the information associated with familiar and unfamiliar faces. neuroimaging studies have provided information about the different processes involved in face recognition. some researchers have shown the involvement of two main areas during the encoding of faces: the occipital face area (ofa) and the fusiform face area (ffa). for example, miall, gowen, and tchalenko (2009) presented to their participants line-drawings of faces. they observed activity in both ofa and ffa during the encoding processes. andrews and schluppeck (2004) presented to their participants mooney faces, that is images without meaning which can be perceived like faces. interestingly, they found ffa activation but only when the stimuli was perceived like a face. this result suggests that the ffa is activated when stimuli are perceived as faces, or they have similar perceptual features (see gauthier, tarr, anderson, skudlarski, & gore, 1999). additional researches have shown that the ffa and the ofa are activated to the same degree in different view of faces (chen, kao, & tyler, 2007). this result seems to supports that both ffa and ofa process the invariant properties of faces (hole & bourne, 2010), however this result has not always been replicated (pourtois, schwartz, seghier, lazeyras, & vuilleumier, 2005; natu & o'toole, 2011 for a review). on the other hand, haxby, hoffman, and gobbini (2000) showed that these two areas are sensitive to familiarity (although see pourtois et al., 2005). passarotti, smith, delano, and huang (2007) found a decrease in activation of the ffa for inverted faces, which wasmore predominant in the right ffa. the inversion effect is considered to disrupt configural processing, leaving featural processing relatively preserved (see hole & bourne, 2010). moreover, as it was mentioned before, buttle and raymond’s (2003) found superfamiliarity effects but just in the left hemispace, which suggests that both cerebral hemispheres deal with famous and non-famous faces in a different way. this result is supported by tranel, damasio, and damasio (1997) who found that damage in the right anterior temporal cortex produced semantic recognition impairment in famous faces. interestingly, this impairment is not observed in people with damage in the left anterior temporal cortex. note that there is some evidence showing than famous faces would rely more on a configural strategy (megreya & burton, 2006). all these results are consistent with the hypothesis europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 familiarity and face processing 238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that the right hemisphere is specialized for configural information, whereas the left seems to be specialized for featural information. leveroni et al. (2000) studied the different patterns of activation for famous faces and new learned faces. they found that the recognition of famous faces produced a broader pattern of activation in medial temporal, prefrontal and lateral lobe than the recognition of recently encoded faces. it seems that this differential pattern was due to the additional information for famous faces (name, occupation, etc). interestingly, these areas are also activated during semantic tasks with other non-face objects (see leveroni et al., 2000). elfgren et al. (2006) studied the role of the medial temporal lobe (mtl) recognition of famous and unfamiliar faces. they presented to their participants famous and non-famous faces. in one condition, participants had to inform the face’s gender. in a second condition, participants had to decide whether the face was famous. in both situations, famous faces produced more activation in the mtl. moreover, when participants were asked to generate the name of the famous faces, an increased activity in the anterolateral left hippocampus was observed. turk, rosenblum, gazzaniga, and macrae (2005) conducted an interesting study which tried to dissociate identity and semantic information. they presented to their participants famous faces with either the name (identity task) or with the occupation (semantic task). participants had to indicate whether the information provided matched with the face. in the identity task, the activation was higher in the ffa. interestingly, there were not exclusively activated areas for semantic decision. this data suggests that semantic information is contained within the face recognition areas. although participants performed a matching task, it is possible that when a famous face is presented, participants automatically activate their name and occupation when they are not required (in the semantic and identity tasks, respectively), so it may be the case that the pattern of activation observed by turk et al. (2005) is contaminated by this information. one interesting point to avoid this would be to use a learning phase where participants would have to learn new faces with either name or occupation. the test phase would be as in turk et al. (2005)2. in conclusion, several anatomical areas in the brain have been involved in the processing of faces. moreover, it seems that the more information a face contains, the more areas are activated. interestingly, some results suggest that late stages of processing have an influence in the ffa, which is considered to be involved in the first stages of the recognition, although as previously noted this result has not always been replicated (see pourtois et al., 2005). conclusions although we are able to extract information from an unfamiliar face (sex, age, etc.), the amount of information we can extract from a familiar face is broader, but variable depending of our degree of knowledge about that face. cognitive models assume different roles of the previous knowledge. bruce and young’s model assumes that the previous experience with a face will influence in pre-semantic and semantic levels but not in perceptual processes. so knowing somebody’s occupation does not have any effect in structural encoding. on the other hand, the iac model proposes an interactive network in which top-down feedback between subsequent stages aids to the processing during the whole process of recognition. for that reason, semantic information or even names can facilitate the first stages of the processing of faces (see herzmann & sommer, 2010). behavioral, erp and neuroimaging data seems to support the iac model. in the case of behavioral data, it has been demonstrated that familiar faces are detected faster than unfamiliar. erp data has shown that perceptual europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 estudillo 239 http://www.psychopen.eu/ erp components behave in a different way under familiar and unfamiliar faces. lastly, neuroimaging data indicated that familiarity has a strong impact in perceptual areas. these data suggest that familiarity can affect even in the earliest stages of the recognition. some evidence seems to support a preference for configural processing in famous faces. this makes sense if we think that a person is not always seen with the same hairstyle, pose, etc. in this sense, to recognize somebody is more useful to rely in configural features of the face than in independent facial features. on the other hand, it must be noted that some studies have shown that inversion effect, which is considered to disrupt configural processing, affects familiar and unfamiliar faces to the same degree (yarmey, 1971). this may be considered to support that both familiar and unfamiliar faces rely to the same degree on configural and featural processes. however, caharel et al. (2006) did find that familiar faces are affected more by the inversion effect. the differences between both studies may be that caharel et al. (2006) used personally familiar faces, which are supposed to be strongly represented in the memory (tong and nakayama, 1999). furthermore, as goldstein and chance (1980) showed class familiarity rather than familiarity with a face may be the critical factor for the inversion effect. in any case, evidence suggests that right hemisphere might be specialized in processing familiar faces, whereas the left hemisphere would process faces, but in a different way: processing featural facial information rather than configural information. however, some questions remain unanswered. in this sense, an interesting question is what role the featural processes play in familiar faces. imagine a familiar person who has a beauty mark on the cheek. because, we know that person, that mark becomes something representative of that person, so it may be an important cue to recognize them. interestingly, greenberg and goshen-gottstein (2009) found that when we process our own face, we use featural processing. they did not replicate this in celebrity’s faces. this result leaves open the possibility that over-learnt faces, such as one’s own face or even personal familiar faces, in addition to holistic, featural processes would also be used. in this sense, it is possible that holistic and featural processes are, rather than opposite, complementary processes which do their utmost to recognize familiar faces. so the more familiar the face the more contribution both processes would have in recognition. future research should explore this issue. acknowledgements i wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms, suggestions, and comments on an earlier draft. notes 1) there are some differences between holistic and configural strategies. however to analyze them would imply to exceed the goals of the present review. for a recent discussion about this topic see bombari, mast, and lobmaier (2009). 2) we thank one reviewer for suggesting this point. references andrews, t. j., & schluppeck, d. 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(2002). the nature of recollection and familiarity: a review of 30 years of research. journal of memory and language, 46(3), 441-517. doi:10.1006/jmla.2002.2864 about the author alejandro j. estudillo is currently phd candidate at the university of barcelona. he has conducted research in face processing, mathematical cognition and motor control. he studied a master program in cognitive neuropsychology at the university of edinburgh, where he obtained a special recognition for his master dissertation, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 estudillo 243 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.10.038 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.18.3.849 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.04.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-9452(08)70071-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.22.6.1383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0926-6410(02)00142-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2011.02056.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2006.18.9.1488 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.25.4.1016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0028-3932(97)00085-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.10.032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2002.2864 http://www.psychopen.eu/ titled “becoming a familiar face: the effects of depth of encoding on the creation of a viewpoint-independent representation”. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 231–244 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.455 familiarity and face processing 244 http://www.psychopen.eu/ familiarity and face processing two models of face recognition the bruce and young model of face processing the interactive activation and competition (iac) model familiarity and early stages of the processing of faces familiarity and late stages of the processing of faces unfamiliar and familiar faces in the brain conclusions acknowledgments notes references about the author historical techniques of lie detection literature reviews historical techniques of lie detection martina vicianova*a [a] pavol jozef šafárik university in košice, košice, slovakia. abstract since time immemorial, lying has been a part of everyday life. for this reason, it has become a subject of interest in several disciplines, including psychology. the purpose of this article is to provide a general overview of the literature and thinking to date about the evolution of lie detection techniques. the first part explores ancient methods recorded circa 1000 b.c. (e.g., god’s judgment in europe). the second part describes technical methods based on sciences such as phrenology, polygraph and graphology. this is followed by an outline of more modern-day approaches such as facs (facial action coding system), functional mri, and brain fingerprinting. finally, after the familiarization with the historical development of techniques for lie detection, we discuss the scope for new initiatives not only in the area of designing new methods, but also for the research into lie detection itself, such as its motives and regulatory issues related to deception. keywords: lie, lie detection, medieval procedure, phrenology, brain-based lie detection europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 received: 2015-01-13. accepted: 2015-07-17. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: obrancov mieru st n. 376, 015 01 rajec, slovakia. e-mail: martina.vici@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. social psychology defines deception as: “a communicator’s deliberate attempt to foster a belief or understanding in others which the recipient considers to be untrue” (depaulo et al., 2003). similarly, dictionaries use these very features to define lying and deception. for example, according to the oxford dictionary of english (stevenson & soanes, 2010), deception is “a statement that deviates from or perverts the truth”. deception is a pervasive, and some would argue a necessary, phenomenon in human communication, yet its very action stirs up moral indignation and rage. as a result, for as long as there have been lies, there have been methods of lie detection. the concept of lying and the ability to do so have reached a new level with technological advances that have moved lie detection from the realm of fire and water to eegs, facs and functional mris. but the question remains as to whether human beings are better equipped to detect lying than centuries ago. are the public, legal and scientific communities’ obsessions with finding liars actually yielding better results, or are they merely sugarcoating the same techniques with fancy machinery? this article will attempt to provide a general overview of the literature and thinking to date about the concept of historical and contemporary detection of lying. this will provide an introduction for a historical and critical review of lie detection techniques primarily in, but not limited to, western culture. the purpose of this article is to contribute to scientific reflections on lie detection through analytic methods used until now and thus emphasize the need to advance the creation of new methods for the detection of fraud in which the psychological, spiritual and social variables (based on psychophysiological measures) are taken into consideurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ eration. moreover, the article aims to educate and stimulate the reader about the complex nature of lying, while raising questions about whether technology has really advanced the art of detecting deception and whether some of the techniques mentioned will ever consistently meet legal standards for scientific evidence. the reader should note that this subject is so vast that some topics are mentioned only briefly or even excluded. lie detection lie detection is a part of numerous criminal, medical or legal professions. police officers are challenged by deception especially in the determination of facts in crimes that have been committed. judges and lawyers seek justice in legal disputes and medical specialist demand the truth for accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment of patients. the following part is an overview of the most commonly used methods of lie detection. early methods of lie detection ford (2006) reported that one of the first methods to prove the veracity of a statement uttered by the accused was described in china circa 1000 bc. the person suspected of lying was required to fill his/her mouth with a handful of dry rice. after a while, s/he was to spit out the rice. if the expectorated rice remained dry, the suspect was found guilty of fraud. this method was based on the physiological principle and the assumption that experiencing fear and anxiety is accompanied by decreased salivation and a dry mouth. the works of contemporary authors (matsumoto, 2009; praško, 2011) imply that fear paralyzes us and is physically reflected in an increased heart rate and a mental sense of hopelessness. the somatic expression of anxiety and fear include changes in behaviour associated with the feeling of a dry mouth. the symptomatology is similar to manifestations of depression, panic disorder and the like (höschl, libiger, & švestka, 2004). given the fact that the aforementioned knowledge about the physiological manifestations of anxiety were not known at that time and thus not taken into account, the majority of prisoners, regardless of whether they had actually committed a crime or lied, were executed. several centuries later erasistratus, greek physicist and physician (300-250 b.c.), tried to detect deception by measuring the pulse. this same technique re-emerged as a part of testing with polygraph in 1921 (trovillo, 1939). the trial by ordeal method— the historical writings of various european countries more oftenmention a technique known as trial by ordeal or the judgments of god (apfel 2001; holák, 1974; sullivan, 2001). this was another method used by authorities in the interest of detecting lies and finding the truth. it was used to prove the truth of a claim of an accused person by a specific act that the person had to go through. based on its favourable or unfavourable outcome, the claim was accepted as true or false. the rationale (and hence the court’s argument) was based on the belief that god would not let a righteous man suffer and injustice prevail. for example, in the territory of present day slovakia, the first courts were established in the 11th century. they concerned either a one-sided substantiation of the truth by the accused person, or a double-sided one, when one was subjected to the judgment of god (holák, 1974). the one-sided judgment of god was conducted by a water test or a fire test. the water test was carried out by using either hot or cold water. when using the hot water test, the accused was ordered to place the hand into a cauldron with boiling water and hold it there for a specified time. if the hand in boiling water showed no traces of scalding or small blisters, it represented a sign of the accused person’s claim to be true. a variation of this test involved the accused retrieving a ring or stone out of the cauldron of boiling water. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 vicianova 523 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the test based on cold water included throwing the accused person into the water in a roped sack. if the tested person emerged at the surface in a short time, it signified that “not even water accepts him/her” – or more precisely – servants of the devil (hence liars too) rejected baptism and that is why water cannot accept him/her (sullivan, 2001, p. 213). regarding the hot water method, there were individuals who doubted the credibility of this procedure. in 1593, in the netherlands, the court turned to a university and asked for examination of the water test to determine its appropriateness as a lie detection technique. in this case, rationality won and the test was disapproved (apfel, 2008). however, application of the test with cold water remained popular until the 18th century as evidenced by court records in vojtka on the danube, when 70 women were subjected to this test (holák, 1974). in the case of using fire as a proving method, the accused was compelled to carry a hot piece of metal for a certain distance or walk across burning embers. the accused was considered innocent if either no wounds appeared or they healed quickly. sometimes the court turned to the use of consecrated meal. the examining person was a priest who, at the end of worship, gave the accused a piece of dry bread and a piece of hard sheep’s cheese. the accused was exhonorated if he or she managed to swallow in one bite without difficulty. however, if the person choked or suffocated, the test brought a guilty verdict. there are some similarities between this method and the chinese use of rice. in china, as well as in europe, people attempted to identify lies through methods using the mouth. however, the chinese method’s verification was based on objective knowledge of physiological manifestations of fear – in case of fear, the mouth stays dry. methods based on god’s judgment ceased to exist past the 15th century, and only the cold water test mentioned above remained. it was used mainly for the substantiation of witchcraft. people gradually realized that the guilt or innocence of a person could not be detected using various “experiments” based on magic or divine forces possessing the power to protect the innocent. the change in the assessment of truth and deception came gradually through the development of various scientific fields. phrenology and graphology — in 1870, franz joseph gall discovered a new possibility of detecting deception through recognition of emotions of the accused. the theory was elaborated and further improved in cooperation with his pupil spurzheim. the point of their interest was examination of specific areas of the brain assuming the existence of relations between different abilities and skull shape (rafter, 2005). the main ideas of their theory pointed to the brain as the central organ of the mind which can perceive individual emotions such as emulousness, ambition, destructiveness and, among the many others, the tendency to lie, and to engage in criminal behavior. the more active parts of the brain are well recognizable from the contour of the skull (these areas were more convex or concave). it was assumed that the relative size of each area can be enlarged or reduced by training and self-discipline. gall became a pioneer in mapping the human skull and this newly-created scientific discipline was named phrenology. gall often made public appearances demonstrating various criminals with shaved heads and emphasized the “anomaly” on the skulls. through phrenology, he tried to determine liars randomly chosen from the audience. his services were also occasionally used in legal disputes to determine which party was lying. in the field of criminology, phrenology helped to spread the belief that delinquent behavior (together with lying) should be the subject of scientific study. it strengthened the medical model of criminal behavior according to which the behavior of some perpetrators may be affected by brain malfunctions. by virtue of this idea, many crimes were europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 historical techniques of lie detection 524 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reassessed saving a multitude of mentally ill people from being unfairly sentenced (trovillo, 1939). although phrenology fell into oblivion and was discredited, gall’s work rendered an important service by reminding researchers that the human body is affected by environmental factors and together they build an entity of mutual relations (hall & lindzey, 2002). simultaneously with phrenology, graphology began to spread and in 1875 started to be considered a useful scientific method of lie detection (schönfeld, 2007). its origins are associated with an effort to detect forged signatures which led to the scientific analysis as we know it nowadays. its founder, j. h. michon, assumed that some peculiarities of handwriting may relate to certain personality traits. following the analysis of handwriting, graphology attempts to identify a personal writing movement through which the nature of the writer may be manifested (schönfeld, 2007). the excitement around graphology as a method of lie detection ended after the first world war. during the war graphology was deemed an appropriate means of verifying the authenticity of documents and signatures. however, graphology was not acknowledged as an appropriate tool for lie detection. nowadays, this method is used in various areas such as employment profiling (to do a personality profile) or psychological analysis (used alongside other projective personality assessment tools), (poizner, 2012; thomas, 2001). contemporary methods of lie detection the polygraph — after phrenology, in 1881, the first modern lie detection device called lombrosso’s glove was created by an italian criminologist, physician and anthropologist cesare lombrosso. he attempted to measure changes in the accused person’s blood pressure which were recorded on a graph or chart. this sophisticated technology was improved on during the first world war by william m. marston and was elaborated into its final version only after the war in 1921. this device served to record changes in blood pressure and changes in breathing while giving testimony (trovillo, 1939). a few years later, john larson and leonard keele designed a psychiatric device called “cardio-pneumo psychograph” also known as a polygraph or a lie detector (lewis & cuppari, 2009). this polygraph recorded respiratory rate, blood pressure changes, and changes in galvanic skin response (bioelectric reactivity of the skin). given the fact that studies (lewis & cuppari, 2009) point out to the ratio between thoracic and diaphragmatic breathing as a sensitive indicator of stress and emotional change (male and female breathing in these indicators usually differ), modern polygraphs measure respiratory rate of chest and abdomen separately which leads to a significant increase in the diagnostic value of measurement. the basis for evaluating the outcome of a polygraph is in the relationship between physiological changes which manifest when a person is not telling the truth. these changes can be observed and measured by the polygraph using skin conductance, blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. unfortunately, bodily changes can vary and are also produced by states other than lying (brewer & williams, 2005). in this kind of testing, two types of questions were used – the control questions test (cqt) and the guilty knowledge test (gkt). the standard polygraph is often the cqt since it is most often used in criminal investigations. the cqt often asks the suspect two types of questions – control questions and relevant questions. the control questions are related to the suspect’s crime investigation, but not specifically to the crime. this test measures the suspect’s detailed knowledge of a crime that he or she does not want to share. for example, the polygraph examiner might discuss with a suspect several different types of cars, one of which was actually used in committing the crime (lewis & cuppari, 2009). in the late 1990’s, the polygraph began to be used in the united states not only by the police but also for verifying the reliability of the public safety employees and managers (verifying the veracity of the information provided about themselves in the cv, previous employment, etc.). due to its growing popularity and recurring inaccurate results, the test of reliability was performed on polygraph. national academies of science (nas) indicated the reliability europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 vicianova 525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of polygraph as 81% 91% (national research council, committee to review the scientific evidence on the polygraph, 2003, p. 4). these results were supported by researchers such as fiedler, schmid, and stahl (2002), bartol and bartol (2004), grubin and madsen (2005), grubin (2008), lewis and cuppari (2009), ginton (2013). for example, the signs of nervousness, fear and emotional disturbances occur not only in people who reported false information, but also in people who tell the truth. in conclusion, it can be stated that the polygraph does not detect lies but instead measures physiological responses postulated to be associated with deception. none of these responses are specific to deception, nor are they necessarily always present when deception occurs. however, when used by well-trained examiners and in conjunction with other techniques, it appears to offer a useful adjunct in identifying those who attempt to deceive (national research council, committee to review the scientific evidence on the polygraph, 2003 p. 7). observation of nonverbal expressions and voice stress analysis. the desire to detect lies is not reflected only in the use of various technical equipment. observation and attention focused on some specific behavioral expressions have also played important roles. darwin (2002/1872) described duchenne’s work from 1862 which supposes the possibility of revealing the truth by observation of facial expressions. a smile which is the result of experiencing happiness is manifested by constriction of zygomatic major muscle (musculus zygomaticus major) causing the corners of the mouth to lift. in case of electrical stimulation of this muscle, the smile appears to be unnatural. similarly, this applies to the circular muscles in the eye (orbicularis oculi) which, when constricted, pull the face slightly higher and depress the eyebrows. these two muscles can reveal the true emotional state since their activity can be purposely controlled only with great difficulties, remarked charles darwin in 1872 (ford, 2006). by the mid-1960s, ekman initiated a series of cross-cultural studies focusing on face expressions, emotions and gestures. in addition to his basic research on emotions and their expression, he had also been studying deceit. in 1991, ekman conducted a study in which he focused on the ability to identify lies by individuals of various professions. it concerned mainly professions in which one encounters lies more frequently. the participants were members of secret services, psychiatrists, judges, policemen, personnel operating polygraphs, and a group of university students. the individuals were asked to describe the changes in behavior, in facial expressions, and in the voice intonation of a woman giving testimony, and, based on these clues, come to a conclusion as to whether her statement was true or false. the most successful group proved to be the group of secret service agents. the authors saw a relationship of this outcome in the fact that most of these agents had an experience with the protection of important statesmen where, during public displays, they had to rely on nonverbal expressions of people in the crowd. a negative correlation with age was discovered, in the sense that participants younger than 40 years scored better. the researchers assumed that junior colleagues have more actual experience in the field, whereas senior colleagues are more likely to be engaged in administrative work. kohnken’s experiment (1987; as cited in vybíral, 2003) with respect to age of the investigators reported the opposite results. in the course of the training of police officers, a positive age correlation with success to detect false eyewitnesses was found. senior investigators were more successful in detection. further results of ekman’s study give evidence of the poor success of judges and psychiatrists in the detection of lies. the judges’ failure was explained by pointing out that they do not see the face of a person giving a testimony because the witness often sits in a position where the judge cannot see the face. judges tend to focus their attention on listening and writing notes. psychiatrists did not consider it important to recognize the initial lies supposing that the lie would eventually come to the surface (ekman &o'sullivan, 1991). interpreting the results, it should be taken into consideration that the above-mentioned research work was predominantly focused on the ability of a trustworthy delivery of emotions (videotaped nurses) and the related specific type of lies – concealing emotions – which can greatly affect the possibility to generalize europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 historical techniques of lie detection 526 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the outcomes. ekman highlighted the difference between what people think and what they know. this difference is associated with the fact that people often overestimate their ability to detect lies (mcneill, 1998). craig, hyde, and patric (1991) conducted research to help clinicians identify distortions of the pain experience, such as willfully minimizing pain displays (masking) or exaggeration of such behaviors (simulating). authors identified the facial movements associated with masking and simulating, as well as genuine pain. in response to this study, galin and thorn (1993) conducted research which focused on the identification of false expressions of pain using the method called facs (facial action coding system). facs is a research tool useful for measuring any facial expression a human being can make. facs is an anatomically based system for detailed description of all observable facial movements. this method was invented by ekman in 1979. later, this method was improved and renamed as ekman micro expression training tool. manual for this method has been designed to be selfinstructional. that is, people would read the manual, practice with video images, and eventually take a final test for certification (ekman, 2015). in addition, ekman (1996) presented six interpretations as to why we are not successful in lie detection. one of the reasons is the evolutionary lack of facilities for authentic disguise as well as for the detection of lies. people in communities constantly lived close together and did not have many opportunities to cover cheating and, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, the discovery of lies lead to the application of extreme sanctions. living conditions have significantly changed and society provides more possibilities for lying, at times it almost encourages its members to lie or to use half-truths (e.g., advertising sector, trade and business). yet, we still possess little sensitivity to detecting lies (vybíral, 2003). an individual, according to ekman (1996), is generally predetermined to trust which also makes life simpler. as for the fourth factor, ekman (1996) mentions the desire to be deceived or not knowing the truth. it includes situations in which we do not want to know anything about some facts, thus we do not ask questions (e.g., in relationships). another of ekman’s explanations is based on the conclusions of goffman (1974, as cited in ekman, 1996) who states that it is important for us to be socially accepted – to be affable – rather than tell the truth (so-called courtesy lies). the last explanation directly concerns professionals who deal with detecting lies. as we have seen in the study of ekman (1996), none of these results showed the ability to accurately recognize lies. in this case, an appropriate method has proven to be the training by facs (facial action coding system) allowing successful lie detection by examining emotional expressions in 70% of cases (matsumoto, hwang, skinner, & frank, 2011). the manifestation of experienced emotions is related to another technique called voice stress analysis (vsa). voice stress analysis (vsa) is accomplished by measuring fluctuations in the physiological micro tremor present in speech. a micro tremor is a low amplitude oscillation of the reflex mechanism controlling the length and tension of a stretched muscle caused by the finite transmission delay between neurons to and from the target muscle. microtremors are present in every muscle in the body including the vocal chords and have a frequency of around 8–12hz. during times of increased stress, this microtremor shifts in frequency. this change in frequency transfers from the muscles in the vocal tract to the voice produced. on the basis of these findings, the vsa is regarded as a suitable means, for example, the detection of false statements. in a comparative study, patil, nayak, and saxena (2013) state that micro tremor frequency of voice stress analysis (vsa) technology can identify emotional stress better than the polygraph. patil et al. (2013) plans further reliability test of the vsa detecting false testimonies in the area of justice. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 vicianova 527 http://www.psychopen.eu/ brain-based lie detection — since the 1980’s and the onset of neuroscience, completely different views on the possibility of detecting lies at the highest level of mental processes have emerged through the medium of measuring brain activities such as transcranial magnetic stimulation – tms, functional magnetic resonance imaging – fmri, positron emission tomography – pet and brain fingerprinting (eegwave). at the time of this writing, papers on this topic have been published by bles and haynes (2008), ganis, kosslyn, stose, thompson, and yurgeluntodd (2003), langleben et al. (2002), lee et al. (2002), and spence et al. (2001). in our article, we describe the most frequently used methods: brain fingerprinting, pet, eeg and fmri. guevin (2002) described the first brain fingerprinting method invented by donchin and his student farwell in 1990. brain fingerprinting is a way of detecting a specific eeg (electroencephalograph) wave. the theory is that the brain processes known and relevant information differently from the way it processes unknown or irrelevant information (farwell & donchin, 1991). the brain’s processing of known information, such as the details of a crime stored in the brain, is revealed by a specific pattern in the eeg (farwell, 1994; farwell & smith, 2001). farwell's brain fingerprinting originally used the well-known p300 brain response to detect the brain’s recognition of the known information (farwell, 1995; farwell & donchin, 1986, 1991). later, farwell discovered the p300-mermer (“memory and encoding related multifaceted electroencephalographic response”), which includes the p300 and additional features and is reported to provide a higher level of accuracy and statistical confidence than the p300 alone (farwell, 1994; farwell, 1995; farwell, 2012; farwell & smith, 2001). in peer-reviewed publications, farwell and colleagues report less than 1% error rate in laboratory research (farwell & donchin, 1991; farwell & richardson, 2006) and real-life field applications (farwell & smith, 2001; farwell, 2012). in an independent research, iacono (1997, as cited in allen & iacono, 1997) confirmed farwell´s results (allen & iacono, 1997). despite of the results, the method of brain fingerprinting exhibits some disadvantages. for these techniques to be of use in the detection of criminal offenses, researchers must have a sufficient amount of information about the event and the perpetrator. this is necessary in order to be able to document the suspect´s eeg patterns when the correct answer is provided. it is also conceivable, especially with the intensity of media coverage, that a suspect may possess information about a crime without being the perpetrator. brain fingerprinting is much more expensive and requires more time and preparation than a standard polygraph; this, along with farwell´s patent, has limited the extent to which this procedure can be used. other possibilities of using the graphical brain imaging for the purpose of lie detection are functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri – functional magnetic resonance imaging) and positron emission tomography (pet), which focus on the activity of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and not the peripheral nervous system (neurons). in another study, langleben et al. (2002) used bold (blood oxygenation level-dependent) fmri in an attempt to localize changes in regional neuronal activity during deception. they studied 18 students and subjected them to a version of the gkt involving playing cards. they found a cluster, extending from the right anterior cingulate gyrus to the medial aspect of the right superior frontal gyrus that was significantly different between the two conditions of telling the truth and lying. this cluster has been reported to be associated with response conflict and open-ended responses, as well as some executive functioning tasks, such as decision-making and task performance (carter et al., 1998). the anterior cingulate cortex, more specifically, is involved in emotional processing and conflict resolution (tancredi, 2004). a group of researchers at harvard (ganis et al., 2003) used bold fmri to compare the brain activation in three scenarios: truth, spontaneous lies and memorized lies. they found that both types of lies elicited more activation in the anterior prefrontal cortices bilaterally, involved in retrieving memory (fletcher & henson, 2001). they also found that spontaneous lies preferentially activated the anterior cingulate cortex as compared with memorized europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 historical techniques of lie detection 528 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lies. this is consistent with langleben’s et al. (2002) findings in the study, and may be related to the conflict associated with inhibiting the truth. experiments continued whereas fmri focused on observation of the temporal lobes where a part of the cerebral cortex (ffa fusiform face area) becomes activated when a person looks at a human face. further in the front is an area (ppa parahippocampal place area) which activates once a person observes buildings and objects. during a random projecting of faces and different objects, it is possible to detect, with an 80% success rate, what was actually spotted (kahnwisher, 2009, as cited in koukolík, 2011). with this assumption, experiments were launched inducing situations in which respondents were asked to lie. investigation of the brain brought seven areas that were activated more than others when telling a lie. 90% of cases were identified correctly. koukolík (2011) draws attention to the fact that it is not an experiment that answers the question lie truth, but rather the question of which areas of the brain are active when a person is lying. it is most important that the experimenters knew who was really lying and who was not since the participants were asked to lie. the study of monteleone et al. (2009) analyzed the data of involved participants and the results showed that none of the parts of the cerebral cortex can be used for accurate lie recognition in individual cases. one of the alternatives seemed to be monitoring of the medial prefrontal cortex. this was successful in 71% of the participants. kozel, johnson, mu, grenesko, laken, & george (2005) obtained similar results. in his study, he attempted to explore the socalled simulated crime in which the participants were asked to steal an object. during the mri examination, he was asked to lie about this event. the misleading reply stimulated mainly the prefrontal cortex. in another study, a group was asked to shoot from a gun and consequently lie about this act. in this case, only the anterior part of the cerebral cortex and the left lateral visual area were activated. the source of these differences might be in the different nature of the lie. the alteration of the task meant processing of diverse stimuli, whether acoustic or visual. responses to the activity also differed; it incorporated either a verbal or a practical response – pressing the button, choosing the right card, playing the scenario. every given task is processed in a different way. all fmri studies on lie detection typically describe young and healthy adults. however, bold activity is known to be altered with age (buckner, snyder, sanders, raichle, & morris, 2000; d’esposito, deouell, & gazzaley, 2003), in patients with cardiovascular diseases (pineiro, pendlebury, johansen-berg, & matthews 2002; röther et al., 2002), and those suffering abuse (levin et al., 1998; sell et al., 1997). other published studies examining brain function during deception have demonstrated that the results of these methods are not sufficiently precise and lack strong empirical foundation (greely & illes, 2007; porter, ten brinke, & gustaw, 2010; spence, 2008; wolpe et al., 2005 as cited in vrij, mann, & leal, 2013). specifically, spence (2008) points to problems with replication, large individual brain differences, and unspecified brain regions associated with truth telling. also, brain activity when lying depends on the situation. another limitation of techniques in the field of lie detection is the human brain itself. it processes all that passes through the perceptual field not only from the outside, but also from inside. it is irrelevant to what extent this activity will penetrate into consciousness. the accusation, whether rightly or wrongly, brings the brain to the limit situation: energizes memory, attention, emotional level and decision-making ability. all of these changes can be recorded using functional magnetic resonance or through a polygraph. however, it is possible to “hide” what is going on in one’s brain during the task solution by occupying the brain with completely different activities (e.g., mathematical operations, memories), a technique called self-defense (koukolík, 2011). this is the first range of issues which discredits brain imaging methods. the second problem arises from experiments that are purely europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 vicianova 529 http://www.psychopen.eu/ laboratory and the participants are largely a specific sample of students (department of psychology or medicine). their results may not correspond with the results of other tested groups. as for the third problem, it arises from the fact that the experimenters are asked to deceive so this is not considered a spontaneous lie. the possibility to avoid this would be not to follow instructions. the experimenter should intervene only if the participant asks for it. the fourth issue relates to the diversity of situations and with different types of deception. different people with the same kind of fraud can have a different type of attitude. therefore, the personality and attitude of an individual need to be taken into account. conclusions in this paper we attempted to create an overview of techniques applied for lie detection from the available resources. our aim was to compose a chronological description of techniques for lie detection that have been most frequently used primarily in western culture. a relatively large part of this article has been devoted to unscientific methods from the middle ages called trial of ordeal or the judgments of god that were part of the judicial system for centuries and uncomplex, in some cases subjectively judging the lies (guilt – innocence) of prisoners. we intended to bring the reader closer to this site of the human desire for knowledge of the truth which often overlapped with the desire for power and control over others. in reference to the fact that the most develop methods to detect deception began to emerge in the 80s of last century, the main part of the article primarily focused on their description. we presented methods that are in the process of scientific examination such as functional magnetic resonance imaging – fmri, positron emission tomography – pet and brain fingerprinting (eeg wave), but also those which have already become available to the general public and are used, for example, in the business sphere for job interviews, such as voice stress analysis and facial action coding system. in addition to these methods, new ways are beginning to appear and various procedures so as to reveal liars; for example, “ways to catch the liar” (within the internet search engine, more than 10 million references are available about procedures for an effective lie detection). interest in this topic has an upward trend and the growing number of sources complicates the orientation in this area. our intention was to compose a concise and informative framework describing common methods used in lie detection and thus facilitate the reader’s general orientation in this field. furthermore, we point out the need to develop new alternative methods for the detection of deception that would be less dependent on external factors and would be based rather on psychophysiological measures (e.g., the expectation that lying may cause guilt and fear) reflected as a response in the autonomic nervous system. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author acknowledges the support and expertise provided by lubomira kanderova in the translation of this manuscript. the author thanks owen roberts for proofreading the article. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 historical techniques of lie detection 530 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references allen, j. j. b., & iacono, w. g. 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(2003). lies, half-truths and true in human communication. praha, slovakia: portál press. about the author martina vicianova – phd candidate, psychologist and psychotherapist. martina vicianova earned her master’s degree in social psychology from the university of pavol josef safarik in slovakia. her main theoretical research interests concern the psychology of deception and social norms. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 522–534 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.919 historical techniques of lie detection 534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1161/01.str.0000030109.12281.23 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0376-8716(97)00140-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00001756-200109170-00019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/135532507x251597 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1136489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11896-013-9125-y http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en historical techniques of lie detection (introduction) lie detection early methods of lie detection contemporary methods of lie detection conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author implicit organizational behavior: what employees aren’t aware of may be important! russell e. johnson university of south florida have you ever lacked an explanation for why you thought or did something? compelling findings from research conducted by social-cognitive psychologists suggests that human attitudes and behaviors sometimes occur implicitly. that is, they occur outside people’s awareness and control. for example, seeing an elderly person automatically elicits stereotypic attitudes (e.g., forgetfulness) and behaviors (e.g., slower motor movements) associated with old age (bargh, chen, & burrows, 1996). performance on knowledge tests has even been found to vary depending on whether people are primed with the concepts related to “intelligent” and “dumb” (dijksterhuis & van knippenberg, 1998). many attitudes and behaviors operate outside of our awareness because, as limited information processors, it does not take much for humans to experience excessive cognitive load. in a typical day, a person is forced to juggle numerous goals and responsibilities associated with her or his roles both within and between various settings, such as workand family-related ones. thus, it is advantageous when the pursuit of some goals is automatic, which require little attention and consume few cognitive resources. the attentional and cognitive resources that are saved can then be devoted to the most important goals and tasks at hand. as someone who studies industrial-organizational (i-o) psychology, i am particularly interested in the topic of motivation—that is, understanding employee behavior in organizational settings. until recently, most theories of motivation assumed that employees act based on controlled, calculative decision-making. for example, when deciding whether or not perform a behavior, employees first determine whether they are capable of performing the behavior and whether performing it will lead to desirable rewards (vroom, 1964). although existing theories of motivation have proven useful for predicting behavior, their emphasis on conscious, controlled processes cannot readily explain all employee attitudes and behaviors. fortunately, i/o psychologists have begun to explore implicit effects at work. for example, brief, butcher, and roberson (1995) showed that positive mood inductions (e.g., receiving a small gift) caused employees to report higher job satisfaction than those who were not exposed to the mood induction. as another example, johnson and chang (in press) found that a self-identity manipulation alters the importance that employed participants place on different types of organizational commitment. specifically, priming employees’ interdependent identities increased the salience of their affective commitment (i.e., commitment based on identification and internalization), whereas those whose independent identities were primed placed more importance on their continuance commitment (i.e., commitment based on economic exchange). in both studies, the observed effects on employees’ attitudes were implicit. in addition to attitudes, implicit effects on work-related behaviors have also been observed. for example, stajkovic, locke, and blair (2006) found that unconscious goals enhance the effects of conscious goals on task performance. thus, the well-known maxim of goal setting theory—that difficult, specific goals that are accompanied by feedback result in higher levels of performance (locke & latham, 1990)—extends beyond explicit goals. behaviors other than task performance are also influenced by implicit processes. johnson and lord (2007) showed that organizational justice-related experiences automatically activate different identities, which in turn affect discretionary behaviors. specifically, exposure to fairness elicited interdependent identities and caused participants to engage in more prosocial behaviors, whereas the receipt of unfair treatment activated independent identities and led to higher incidents of theft. in both studies, the mechanisms that affected their behavior occurred outside participants’ awareness. beyond academic curiosity, there are several reasons why we should care about implicit effects at work. first, they account for additional variance in work-related outcomes above and beyond explicit effects. for example, johnson and lord (2007) found that measures of implicit effects predicted twice as much variance than explicit measures. second, because implicit effects occur outside people’s awareness and control, they cannot be readily distorted (intentionally or otherwise). thus, the use of implicit measures may help resolve problems encountered during employee selection that are due to applicant faking. third, it may be possible to leverage automatic behaviors to increase efficiency. for example, straightforward tasks can be trained so that their completion requires little attention and depletes few cognitive resources, allowing employees to multitask and divert these resources to more difficult tasks. i believe that the study of implicit attitudes and behaviors in organizations is intriguing and provides a new avenue of exploration for psychologists. although there are some inherent difficulties with this approach (e.g., implicit effects are often assessed using reaction time measures, which are burdensome to use in field settings), part of the intrigue involves overcoming such impasses. furthermore, great dividends can be had by increasing our understanding of implicit phenomena because they potentially impact many facets of work organizations, from recruitment and selection to motivation and leadership. so the next time a colleague at work says or does something inexplicable, don’t fret—she or he may not know why either! references bargh, j. a., chen, m., & burrows, l. (1996). automaticity of social behavior: direct effects of trait construct and stereotype priming on action. journal of personality and social psychology, 71, 230-244. brief, a. p., butcher, a. h., & roberson, l. (1995). cookies, disposition, and job attitudes: the effects of positive mood-inducing events and negative affectivity on job satisfaction in a field experiment. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 62, 55-62. dijksterhuis, a., & van knippenberg, a. (1998). the relation between perception and behavior or how to win a game of trivial pursuit. journal of personality and social psychology, 74, 865-877. johnson, r. e., & chang, c.-h. (in press). relationships between organizational commitment and its antecedents: employee self-concept matters. journal of applied social psychology. johnson, r. e., & lord, r. g. (2007, april). the implicit effects of (un)fairness on self-concept: unconscious shifts in identity levels. in d. r. bobocel & r. e. johnson’s (chairs), the role of the self in organizational justice. paper presented at the 22nd annual society for industrial and organizational psychology conference, new york, new york. locke, e. a., & latham, g. p. (1990). a theory of goal-setting and task performance. engelwood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. stajkovic, a. d., locke, e. a., & blair, e. s. (2006). a first examination of the relationships between primed subconscious goals, assigned conscious goals, and task performance. journal of applied psychology, 91, 1172-1180. vroom, v. h. (1964). work and motivation. new york: wiley. biographical note dr. russell e. johnson is a professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of south florida. he received his ph.d.from the university of akron in 2006. dr. johnson’s research interests include employee motivation, leadership, and work-related attitudes. some of his recent work examines implicit processing and its effects on employee attitudes and behaviors. he can be contacted via email at rjohnson@cas.usf.edu. the paradoxical effect of praise and blame: age-related differences research reports the paradoxical effect of praise and blame: age-related differences kai kaspar*ab, helena stelza [a] institute of psychology, university of osnabrück, osnabrück, germany. [b] institute of cognitive science, university of osnabrück, osnabrück, germany. abstract blame and praise sometimes have a seemingly paradoxical effect: blame after failure sometimes leads to the impression that the recipient has a high ability. in contrast, praise after success can lead to an inference of low ability. several studies showed this effect and its relation to concurrent sympathy ratings as well as to cognitive schemas underlying these estimations. the present study is the first to focus on differences across the adult lifespan regarding peoples’ ability and sympathy estimations of praised or blamed individuals. in this context, the causal schemas underlying peoples’ judgments were also investigated. the results show that seemingly paradoxical ability estimations were independent of age in contrast to reversed ability estimations (i.e., a praised individual is perceived as more capable than a blamed individual) decreasing with age. moreover, age affected the estimation of a teacher’s sympathy for blamed and praised students in terms of a universal decrease with age. finally, exclusive ability-related causal schemas were primarily used by older people and facilitated the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations. the results provide a first base for future research on this largely neglected topic. keywords: praise, blame, paradoxical ability estimations, causal schema, age differences europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 received: 2012-10-23. accepted: 2013-02-05. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology & institute of cognitive science, university of osnabrück, seminarstr. 20, 49074 osnabrück/germany. e-mail: kkaspar@uos.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction evaluative behavior has an informative function since it provides data about how the ability of the recipient is perceived by the evaluating person (meyer, 1982). when someone is blamed after failure in a performance setting (i.e., someone finds fault in somebody’s performance), this can lead to an inference of high ability. in contrast, praise after success (in terms of expressing commendation for a good performance) can lead the recipient or an impartial observer to the impression that the ability of the recipient is estimated as low by the praising person. this effect might seem paradoxical at first sight and hence was labeled as the “paradoxical effect” on ability attribution that was shown by various studies (e.g., barker & graham, 1987; binser & försterling, 2004; hofer, 1985; meyer et al., 1979; miller & hom, 1996; möller, 1999; reisenzein, debler, & siemer, 1992). however, möller (1999) pointed out that this effect is not actually paradoxical, rather it only appears paradoxical. indeed, different models have been proposed which try to explain this effect: attribution model on the basis of two principles from attribution theory, we can explain such seemingly paradoxical ability estimations: on the one hand, the so called “effort schema” postulated by weiner and kukla (1970) says that praise and blame europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ are commonly used when the outcome of an action is obviously derived from the effort of the acting person. according to this principle, blame will more likely be expressed if the outcome of an action is linked to low effort. on the other hand, according to the “compensatory principle” (kukla, 1972) the evaluating person considers the degree of effort which is necessary for the specific outcome given a specific ability level. hence, success will be attributed to a high ability if the evaluating person assumes that the acting person made less of an effort to reach the positive outcome. however, if the positive outcome is attributed to high effort, the ability of the acting person will be estimated as low. in contrast, a negative outcome will be ascribed to low ability if it arises despite of high effort but the acting person’s ability will be estimated as high if the evaluating person supposes low effort. consequently, blame for failure can lead the recipient or an impartial observer to the conclusion that the blaming person estimates the ability of the blamed person as high but assumes low effort. language-psychological model grice (1975) postulated four maxims jointly expressing the general cooperation principle of conversation (for a detailed discussion of the maxims see schwarz, 1996). in short, according to this principle, the recipient of a message is entitled to expect that the speaker attempts to be informative, clear, relevant, and truthful, meaning that the speaker and the recipient communicate in an effective and economic way by means of cooperation. based on this assumption, groeben and blickle (1988) derived an alternative explanation of paradoxical ability estimations: they argue that the cooperation principle is violated when a teacher gives different verbal feedbacks (praise and blame) to students who behave identically. the students (or external observers) should recognize this violation as intended by the teacher and consequently they should try to infer the meaning of the teacher’s statements by considering the current circumstances (see blickle, 1993, p. 48). at the end, the students (or the external observers) may come to the conclusion that the teacher’s intention was to express an estimation of the recipients’ abilities. hence, based on language psychology seemingly paradoxical ability estimations can be reconstructed, whereby the central mechanism is the active construction of sense from the speaker’s messages. in contrast, the attribution model described above does not postulate such a communicative intention by the speaker. moreover, after reisenzein (1990) had claimed that the language-psychological model of groeben and blickle (1988) would suffer from several substantial shortcomings and obscurities, an empirical study of reisenzein et al. (1992) raised some doubts that this model is correct. they compared this model experimentally with the attribution model and only found support for the latter one. in reaction to this, groeben and blickle (1992) asserted that the study by reisenzein et al. (1992) suffered frommethodological problems. reisenzein and battmann (1992) in turn rejected this criticism and pointed out that no independent data supporting groeben and blickle’s model existed. finally, blickle (1993) softened the strict distinction between the attributional and language-psychological model by partially merging them (p. 45). correspondingly, reisenzein (1990) had previously proposed that the two models do not compete, but instead are rather integrable. expectation discrepancy model hofer (1985) criticized the attribution model since he believes that no effort calculation (i.e., effort schema) would be necessary to explain seemingly paradoxical ability estimations. according to the attribution model, the students (or external observers) must believe that the teacher expresses praise and blame as he (or she) perceived differences in the students’ efforts. otherwise, the second process (i.e., the compensatory principle) could not work. hofer (1985) performed a study in which two students were treated differently by a teacher (blame vs. praise) after failure. in addition to this classical scenario, the study participants received the information that both students had made the same effort. although the effort schema should not work in this case, hofer found seemingly paraeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 305 http://www.psychopen.eu/ doxical ability estimations. therefore, he supposed an alternative interference according to which the recipient (or an external observer) thinks in the following way: “when the teacher believes a pupil is capable of more than another pupil he expects a better result. if the achieved result is lower than expected the teacher expresses his disappointment as a blaming utterance” (p. 415). in line with this, a student should be praised if the achieved result is higher than expected by the teacher. consequently, this explanation model does not assume a mediating effort schema. rather, it assumes a more direct mechanism producing seemingly paradoxical ability estimations: when giving feedback in a performance setting, it is assumed that the teacher takes into account his beliefs about the students’ abilities, and these beliefs directly determine the valence of the feedback. to conclude, all three theoretical approaches describe a plausible mechanism that could produce seemingly paradoxical ability estimations, i.e., the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students is attributed to differences in the students’ ability. while the postulated processes differ, all three models converge to this point in the end. nonetheless, the majority of studies in the area of praise and blame referred to the attribution model. it is the one that has been validated more extensively also in the recent past (e.g., binser & försterling, 2004; möller, 1999). however, while we must note that there has been unsolved controversy about the mechanisms behind the seemingly paradoxical effect of praise and blame two decades ago, the existence of this effect is not questioned. paradoxical ability estimations revealed in the context of written vignettes describing classroom scenarios (e.g., binser & försterling, 2004) were replicated with videotaped scenes (barker & graham, 1987) and were shown in experimental studies with a more realistic setting (meyer, 1982; meyer, mittag, & engler, 1986). moreover, a longitudinal study by tacke and linder (1981) found that students who were not praised by their teachers, in contrast to students who were praised for the same responses involving memory, improved their self-concept, whereby the improvement was domain-specific. across twelve lessons non-praised students improved their selfestimated memory ability, but a generalization to other self-concepts such as creativity was not found. binser and försterling (2004) analyzed several studies and reported a mean frequency of 64% of subjects showing seemingly paradoxical ability estimations, while the frequency differed substantially between studies. the occurrence of this paradoxical effect of praise and blame depends on several factors which were revealed in the context of the attribution model: firstly, it is required that the praising and blaming person knows the ability of the blamed person (meyer & plöger, 1979). secondly, the probability of the effect is strengthened in the context of difficult tasks, since effort (and hence the effort schema) does not play a substantial role in simple tasks (meyer, reisenzein, & dickhäuser, 2004). thirdly, paradoxical interpretations of teacher-student interactions are boosted if the evaluating person is asked to think about the teacher’s possible attributions and his/her ability estimation (rheinberg & weich, 1988). however, paradoxical interferences also occurred when ability was not considered as a possible reason for the teacher’s behavior (meyer, bedau, & engler, 1988). fourthly, it must be known that the teacher uses a normative reference system focussing on social comparisons, instead of an individual reference system for reward (möller, 1999). fifthly, the effect is more likely to occur if subjects use an ability-related causal schema for the interpretation of the teacher’s behavior. in contrast, the paradoxical effect is less likely to occur when subjects perceive the blame and praise in terms of sympathy (binser & försterling, 2004; meyer et al., 2004). finally, the age of those individuals who evaluate the teacher-student interaction is a central factor for paradoxical ability estimations. previous studies considering the potential impact of age were limited to samples of children: results from a study by meyer (1978) indicate huge differences between younger and older children regarding the frequency of seemingly paradoxical ability ratings. león-villagrá, meyer, and engler (1990) systematically compared children europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 306 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of different ages and found that children under 9 years do not show seemingly paradoxical ability estimations. barker and graham (1987) suggest that children do not show such effects because they do not apply the compensatory principle. finally, rheinberg, and weich (1988) showed that the frequency of this seemingly paradoxical effect increases linearly with age when only considering a range from 13 to 18 years. however, it is still unclear whether this linear trend remains across the whole lifespan, whether it asymptotically approaches an upper limit, or if it even decreases at a certain age. the present study the present study was conducted in order to investigate the effect of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations across the whole lifespan. it is important to note that previous literature has completely neglected potential effects of age cohorts in the area of praise and blame. against this background, the present results would be of importance for our understanding of the mechanisms behind this seemingly paradoxical phenomenon. if the frequency of this effect increased across the lifespan, we would have to rethink the tacit idea (shared by the different theoretical approaches) that an age-invariant cognitive mechanism (with the exception of young children) mediates the seemingly paradoxical effect of praise and blame across the whole lifespan. although the level of cognitive development should not be the moderating factor in adult age, previous findings suggest age-related differences in social judgments across the adult lifespan (e.g., blanchard-fields, 1994, 1996; hess & follett, 1994). against the background of the attributional model it is important to note that older adults were found to use different schemas to explain social behavior (blanchard-fields, 1996). all three explanation models described above focus on ability differences as the cause constituting seemingly paradoxical ability estimations. binser and försterling (2004) broadened the view by also considering potential differences in the teacher’s sympathy for the students as responsible for the teacher’s praising or blaming remarks. in the present study, we will consider both potential explanations, hereafter referred to as “causal schemas”. in addition to the usage of different causal schemas, the degree and the quality of judgments are influenced by the type and content of social dilemmas presented to study participants: blanchard-fields (1996) found the variability in age differences in attributional responding as a function of the specific content domain in question. she demonstrated age and generational differences in the frequency of different schemas which were produced for different social dilemmas. for the present study this means we cannot simply derive conclusions from other research areas. no previous study addressed potential effects of age cohorts on the evaluation of the prototypical scenario that produces seemingly paradoxical ability estimations: a teacher treats students who behave identically unequally. hence, we currently have very little knowledge of the influence of age in the context of this seemingly paradoxical effect. therefore, the present study was conducted to scrutinize potential age effects on ability estimations by an external observer (in this case our study participants) when confronted with the classical classroom scenario (meyer et al., 1979). in this scenario one student (a) is praised by a teacher whereas another student (b) is blamed for equal test performances. as specific causal schemas might lead to different results in ability estimations, study participants’ (i.e., the external observers’) explanations for the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students was considered as well as a potential moderating effect of the observer’s age. in this context, binser and försterling (2004) showed that sympathy related causal schemas reduced the probability of paradoxical ability estimations, whereas differences in sympathy estimations increased. furthermore, in a study by hofer and pikowsky (1988) adults reported more often than adolescents that the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students was based on differences in sympathy. hence, the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 307 http://www.psychopen.eu/ teacher’s sympathy for both students from the perspective of an external observer was also considered. the procedure was closely modeled on previous studies to allow for comparisons. the hypotheses in the present study are: 1. in accordance with binser and försterling (2004), three subgroups are expected which differ in the direction of the estimated ability differences (ability rating groups: a < b (seemingly paradoxical effect), a = b, a > b). in addition to binser and försterling, we asked whether the strength of the corresponding ability ratings is constant across the entire lifespan. 2. the direction of the estimated ability difference is expected to be independent of the evaluator’s age. 3. the praised student is expected to receive higher sympathy ratings in all ability rating groups (as suggested by binser and försterling, 2004), whereby the amount of difference is expected to vary between the ability rating groups: the difference should be maximal in the group “a > b”. furthermore, we investigate whether the strength of estimated sympathy differences is independent of the evaluator’s age within each ability rating group. 4. subjects’ explanations (i.e., causal schemas) for the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students will trigger the signature of the subequent ability and sympathy ratings as previously shown (e.g, binser & försterling, 2004; meyer et al., 2004). in this context, we investigated whether the evaluator’s age influences the probability of a certain causal schema. results of a study by hofer and pikowsky (1988) suggest that differences in the teacher’s sympathy for both students would become a more prominent causal schema with increasing age of the evaluator. method participants 141 subjects with a mean age of 41.77 years (sd = 27,57; range: 11 96) participated. children under the age of 11 years were not included as they are not able to show paradoxical ability estimations (león-villagrá et al., 1990). we used a german sample and all subjects were native speaker so that they were able to read and understand the written vignette describing the classroom scenario. children were acquired via a convenient sample in two schools; young adults were recruited on the university campus. we got access to middle aged adults via snowball sampling. older adults and seniors were acquired from a senior sports club. in order to get access to very old subjects we visited two retirement homes. prior to the study, the home administration helped us to find a pre-selection of appropriate subjects (i.e., seniors with clinical mental disorders were excluded to prevent data biases). the study conformed with the code of ethics of the american psychological association, to the declaration of helsinki, and to national guidelines. the study was initiated and coordinated entirely by the authors. procedure and materials we used a standardized procedure for all participants. they all voluntarily participated in the study and did not receive incentives. at the beginning of a session, participants were introduced to the topic of the study, but we did not explain the actual purpose of the study at that time. then the participants provided some demographic information. afterwards, they were asked to carefully read a vignette describing the classical classroom situation in which a teacher treated two students who behaved identically unequally (e.g., binser & försterling, 2004; meyer et al., 1979): two students successfully passed an easy test, but the teacher praised only one of them (student a), whereas the second student (b) was treated neutrally. both students failed a difficult test, whereby only student b was blamed. student a was treated neutrally despite failure. as groeben and blickle (1988) discussed europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 308 http://www.psychopen.eu/ elaborately, sanctioning statements of a speaker (e.g., “good job” or “oh, not so great”) may be interpreted in different ways. also, hofer (1985) emphasized the ambiguity of verbal utterances, especially the potential divergence between the speaker’s actual intention to praise or blame on the one hand, and the recipient’s perception of the verbal utterances as praise or blame (or something else) on the other hand. for example, sarcastic communication can lead to quite different understandings of verbal utterances as illustrated in terms of “blame by praise” and “praise by blame” (anolli, ciceri, & infantino, 2002). hence, the recipient does not necessarily infer that specific utterances are signatures of praise or blame, respectively. in order to overcome this interpretation problem, we created a scenario in which we directly spoke of a teacher who is praising and blaming students (in german the corresponding verbs “loben” and “tadeln” are very unambiguous). in order to make the scenario more comprehensible, especially for the young participants, we introduced line-drawing figures depicting the conditions as done by león-villagrá et al. (1990). after they had read the scenario, participants were asked to report the reason that could explain the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students. these causal schemas underlying the observers’ subsequent judgments were investigated by open-ended questions (cf. binser & försterling, 2004; blickle, 1991; möller 1999; rheinberg & weich, 1988). this is important to mention because a closed item format may prime specific ability estimations. finally, participants answered two questions by rating on a scale from 1 (“very low”) to 9 (“very high”): “how high does the teacher assess the ability of student a/b?” and “how high is the teacher’s sympathy for student a/b?” (these are approximate translations of the original german wording). this single item format was selected in accordance with previous studies (e.g., binser & försterling, 2004; blickle, 1991; möller, 1999), and the 9-point scale was chosen to compare absolute rating values in the present study with those found by binser and försterling (2004). a small pre-test with some children showed, however, that it was mandatory to change wording for them because they had some problems to correctly understand the words “ability” and “sympathy”. we substituted these words and asked instead how smart/clever/intelligent does the teacher think the students are, and how much the teacher would like the students, respectively (the german wording we used was unambiguous). the sequence of ability and sympathy rating was counterbalanced across participants to prevent sequence effects. data analysis the reported explanations for the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students were categorized following a twostep procedure (kaspar, hamborg, sackmann, & hesselmann, 2010; kaspar & könig, 2011). this procedure first includes a categorization by two independent raters with the aid of a given category-system consisting of four categories: • “ability”: the teacher’s unequal treatment of students is attributed to ability: participants assume that the teacher treats the students unequally because they differ in their general ability. • “sympathy”: participants’ statements address sympathy but no ability aspects. • “ability/sympathy”: participants reported ability-related reasons as well as sympathy reasons. • “residual”: participants reported other reasons such as selective discrimination, pedagogical inability or more exotic explanations. the categories were selected following binser and försterling (2004) who, however, used an additional category for explanations which did not differentiate between ability and previous performance. this category did not provide a more specific result pattern but may have lowered the discriminatory power of the entire category system. the inter-rater-reliability in the present study was very high (cohen’s kappa = .95) and in the few cases of absent agreement a consensual categorization was forced in the second step to allow frequency analyses. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 309 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to statistically test our hypotheses, we focused on the ability and sympathy ratings and additionally took participants’ ages as well as the causal schemas into consideration. for this, a moderated regression analysis and variance analytic approaches were used.whenever important statistical assumptions were not fulfilled, reduced regression models or non-parametrical tests were applied. initially, we calculated difference values with respect to the ability and sympathy rating, respectively. the ability rating for the blamed student b (“how high does the teacher assess the ability of student b”) was subtracted from the corresponding rating for the praised student a. the same difference was calculated for the sympathy ratings (“how high is the teacher’s sympathy for student a/b”). results ability ratings (hypotheses 1, 2) in accordance with binser and försterling (2004) we found three subgroups differing in the signature of their ability ratings. a substantial subsample of 59 participants (43.2%) rated student b’s ability higher than student a’s ability (ability rating group: a < b), therefore showing the seemingly paradoxical effect. a second group of 65 subjects (46.8%) showed the reverse effect (a > b), and a third small group of 14 subjects (10.1%) showed no difference in the ability ratings (a = b). hence, the ability rating group was introduced as an additional factor in subsequent analyses. in order to clarify whether the strength of the corresponding ability ratings was constant across the whole lifespan, a moderated regression analyses was computed. the difference in the ability ratings (aminus b) served as criterion. the evaluator’s (i.e., participant’s) age was treated as a continuous predictor and the ability rating groups as a moderator in terms of dummy variables. each dummy coded level of the moderator was additionally crossed with age to test for a potential interaction between rating groups and age. for this, group “a > b” was selected as the reference group. in addition, the analysis was done without the ability rating group “a = b” due to problems of multicollinearity (vif > 10). both multiple regression analyses (bothr = 922, p < .001] revealed a significant predictive value of the evaluators’ age as depicted in table 1. the dummy variable for the group showing a paradox ability estimation “a < b” had a significant predictive value which was moderated by participants’ age. the group showing the reverse ability estimation “a > b” (reference group) differed by about eight rating points. the significant interaction term indicates that the slope of the ability rating on age in group “a < b” was .022 rating points greater than the slope of the ability rating on age in the reference group “a > b”. in order to illustrate this differential effect of age on ability estimations, bivariate regressions were computed separately for both groups (seemingly paradoxical effect “a < b”: r = .070, b = .004, p = .596; non-paradoxical effect “a > b”: r = -.276, b = -.018, p = .026) and depicted by scatter plots (figure 1, left side). also, rating group “a = b” differed significantly from group “a > b”. in summary, all groups differed significantly in their ability ratings, whereby the value of the seemingly paradoxical rating effect (a < b) remained constant across the whole lifespan in contrast to the value of the reversed effect (a > b) that decreased with age. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 310 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 result of the multiple regression analysis sympathy ratingability rating ptbptbvariable age .046*.016-2.026-.028*.228-2.018ability rating group "a < b" .016*.434-2.997-1.001***<.121-16.135-8 age x ability rating group "a < b" .660.441-.008-.050*.9781.022 ability rating group "a = b" .408.830.1052.006**.781-2.227-4 age x ability rating group "a = b" .152.441-1.051-.402.842.018 reduced regression analysis without group "a = b" age .047*.001-2.021*.337-2 ability rating group "a < b" .017*.416-2.001***<.907-16 age x ability rating group "a < b" .662.438-.040*.074-2 note. results of the multiple regression testing the moderating effect of the ability rating group (a < b, a = b, and a > b) on participants’ age regarding the ability rating and the sympathy rating. the moderator “rating group” was dummy coded, whereby group “a > b” served as the reference group. the t and p values for the reduced regression analysis (without group “a = b) are also depicted. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 1. scatter plots of participants’ ability and sympathy ratings depending on age, and depicted regarding the three ability rating groups (a < b, a = b, a > b). note. the difference between the ability ratings for students a and b is shown on the left side, the rating difference in the teacher’s sympathy for students a and b on the right side. regression lines for all three ability rating groups are marked (dashed line: a < b; dotted line: a = b; solid line: a > b). according to hypothesis 2, the direction of the rating effect was expected to be independent of the evaluator’s age. however, this was not the case: the mean age differed between the rating groups (kruskal-wallis test: χ2(2) = 19.385, p < .001). post-hoc pairwise comparisons by means of mann-whitney u tests showed no difference in age between groups “a < b” (m = 40.66, sd = 26.86) and “a > b” (m = 35.20, sd = 24.89; p = .222). however, both groups were younger on average than the ability rating group “a = b” (m = 73.35, sd = 21.32; both p < .001). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 311 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sympathy ratings (hypothesis 3) regarding the sympathy ratings, the same moderated regression analysis as above was computed: r = 515, p < .001. again, the regression analysis was also done without the ability rating group “a = b” due to problems of multicollinearity:r = 496, p < .001. table 1 depicts the results. as expected, higher sympathy ratings were observed for the praised student in all ability rating groups but the difference between both students decreased with participants’ age. this decrease was not moderated by the ability rating group. moreover, the difference in sympathy estimation was maximal in the ability rating group “a > b” which differed significantly from the group showing the paradoxical ability estimation (a < b). figure 1 (right side) depicts the corresponding scatter plots. analysis of causal schemas (hypothesis 4) finally, we focused on the reported explanations for the unequal treatment of the students by the teacher. in order to clarify whether these causal schemas primed the subsequent ability and sympathy ratings in a specific way, we analyzed the ratings regarding the four categories used to classify the schemas. with respect to the ability ratings, differences between categories were present (kruskal-wallis test: χ2 (3) = 12.779; p = .005) (figure 2, left side). post-hoc pairwise comparisons of schema categories bymeans of u-tests revealed a significant difference between those participants reporting ability reasons for the teacher’s behavior and participants reporting another reason (all u ≥ 288.500; all p ≤ .034). figure 2. participants’ ratings of the students’ ability (left side) and the teacher’s sympathy for the students (right side) depending on participants’ previously reported reason for the teacher’s behavior (praising student a, but blaming student b). note: categories: “ability” = participants’ statements addressed ability aspects but no sympathy aspects; “ability/sympathy” = sympathy and ability aspects were reported; “sympathy” = statements addressed sympathy but no ability aspects; “residual” = an absence of any ability or sympathy aspects. each participant was assigned to one of the four categories. significant group differences are drawn in (αadj = .008). vertical lines above bars indicate standard error of the mean. regarding sympathy ratings we also found differences between subjects using different causal schemas (kruskalwallis-test: χ2 (3) = 26.517; p < .001) (figure 2, right side). when only ability reasons were reported, the nonsignificant difference in sympathy ratings (t(19) = 1.522; p = .145) was significantly lower than when sympathy reasons were mentioned additionally (u = 144,500; all p < .001), or when sympathy reasons were reported exclusively (u = 173,000; all p < .001). hence, when sympathy reasons were mentioned the teacher’s sympathy for the praised student a was rated as greater than his sympathy for the blamed student b. moreover, participants who mentioned neither ability nor sympathy reasons (group “residual”) showed a significant difference in sympathy ratings (t(23) = 3.685; p = .001) which in turn was significantly smaller than in the two groups of participants mentioning sympathy reasons (both u ≥ 329.500; both p ≤ .025). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 312 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in summary, an ability-related causal schema facilitated the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations but diminished differences in perceived sympathy. the reversed ability rating was shown by those participants reporting sympathy but no ability reasons. moreover, we found differences in age between categories (kruskal-wallis-test: χ2 (3) = 22.381; p < .001) which were compared in pairs using u-tests. participants mentioning only sympathy reasons (mean age = 38.24, sd = 25.54) and those who additionally reported ability reasons (m = 29.27, sd = 21.64) differed nearly significantly (z = -1.960 p = .050). both groups were younger than participants who exclusively reported ability reasons (m = 53.55, sd = 26.86) (both z ≥ -2.125, both p ≤ .034) and also younger than those participants who did not mention any ability or sympathy aspects (m = 59.62, sd = 29.07) (both z ≥ -2.826, both p ≤ .005). finally, subjects belonging to the residual category group did not differ in age from those mentioning exclusive ability-related explanations (z = -.976, p = .329). in order to ascertain whether seemingly paradoxical ability estimations necessarily followed whenever participants’ ratings were based on an ability-related causal schema, we statistically compared the number of participants showing the seemingly paradoxical ability rating (a < b) with the number of participants showing the reversed ability rating (a > b) in each statement category by means of chi squared tests. participants using an ability-related causal schema showed the seemingly paradoxical ability rating more often than not (n = 15 vs. n = 4; χ2(1) = 6.368, p = .012). participants assigned to the sympathy category showed the reversed ability rating more often than not (n = 17 vs. n = 32; χ2(1) = 4.592, p = .032). regarding the other two categories, we did not find any differences (both χ2(1) ≤ 1.471, both p ≥ .225). consequently, the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations was primed by previously mentioned ability reasons which were sometimes, however, followed by nonparadoxical ratings. moreover, the seemingly paradoxical ability rating also occurred even when participants did not mention any ability aspects as relevant for the unequal treatment of students. discussion we found large differences in ability ratings in both directions on the level of subgroups (ability rating groups) as suggested by previous studies (e.g., binser & försterling, 2004; meyer et al., 2004; möller, 1999). thereby, the value of seemingly paradoxical ability ratings (a < b) remained constant across the whole lifespan, whereas the value of the reversed effect (a > b) decreased with age (hypothesis 1). hence, the linear increase of the frequency of this seemingly paradoxical effect found by rheinberg and weich (1988) did not continue across the adult age. moreover, the probability of both effect directions was independent of the evaluator’s age but a small third group estimating no ability difference between the students (a = b) was about 35 years older on average (hypothesis 2). consequently, the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability ratings did not depend on the age of adults, except very young children as previously shown (barker and graham, 1987; león-villagrá et al., 1990). interestingly, we found an overall trend with respect to sympathy ratings: in accordance with hypothesis 3, the teacher’s sympathy for the praised student was rated significantly higher than his sympathy for the blamed student in all ability rating groups, but the difference between both students decreased with the study participants’ age. this decrease was not moderated by the ability rating group, but the difference in sympathy estimation was maximal in the group “a > b” as previously found by binser and försterling (2004). with respect to hypothesis 4, an ability-related causal schema facilitated the occurrence of subsequent paradoxical ability estimations (a < b), but it diminished differences in perceived sympathy. participants who reported europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 313 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sympathy but not ability reasons for the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students showed the opposite direction in ability estimation (a > b) – on average. this non-paradoxical ability estimation was paralleled by larger differences between the teacher’s sympathy for both students. on average, the teacher’s sympathy for the praised student a was rated higher than his/her sympathy for the blamed student b, independent of the used causal schema. moreover, participants who expressed a sympathy related causal schemawere younger on average than participants who mentioned other explanations for the teacher’s behavior. this result pattern contradicts what hofer and pikowsky (1988) found over two decades ago. in their study, adults in contrast to adolescents reported more often that the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students would base on differences in sympathy. the present results suggest that older individuals are more ability-oriented when interpreting teacher-student interactions. in fact, age-related differences in schemas underlying social judgments have been found previously regarding several social situations (blanchard-fields, 1996). all in all, the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations was significantly primed by previously mentioned ability reasons. however, the occurrence of the reversed effect was also found on the base of ability-related schemas. moreover, seemingly paradoxical ability ratings also occurred even when participants did not mention any ability aspects as relevant for the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students. this result pattern suggests that seemingly paradoxical ability estimations are not completely determined by the causal schema used to explain the teacher’s behavior. this result does not favor one of the above-described explanation models, namely the attribution model, the model of language-psychological sense construction, or the expectancy discrepancy model. as outlined, in all three theoretical models, the teacher’s unequal treatment of the students is finally ascribed to the teacher’s belief that one student is more capable than the other. it should also be noted that we can exclude potential differences in the participants’ interpretation of the teacher’s utterances (the central point in the languagepsychological model), because we did not use specific verbal utterances to describe praise and blame. rather, we relieved our study participants from the interpretation process as we created a scenario in which we directly spoke of a teacher who is praising and blaming students. consequently, the cognitive mechanisms underlying paradoxical effects of praise and blame seem to be multi-factorial. the present results contradict a simple priming mechanism. an ability-related causal schema does not necessarily lead to seemingly paradoxical ability estimations but their value remained constant across the whole lifespan. against this background, we need a revision of the current explanation models. from our point of view, each of them has its value but none of them provide reliable predictions. perhaps it will be fruitful to create a more complex theoretical model instead to strive for less complexity as hofer (1985) did with his expectation discrepancy model. however, before we will be able to formulate an elaborated model, future research should systematically compare the existing models on the one hand, since there has been only little endeavour to systematically compare the models so far. on the other hand, we need much more insight in the constraints which determine the occurrence of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations. overall, the presented data show that seemingly paradoxical ability estimations occur in all age groups, whereby the value of the seemingly paradoxical ability estimation remains constant across the entire lifespan. thereby, older people show a preference for ability-related explanations when interpreting evaluative behavior. at the same time, sympathy differences between recipients of blame and praise, respectively, become less important with age. hence, the evaluating person (e.g., a teacher, a superior, or a teammate) should carefully weigh the use of praise and blame in performance settings. this becomes especially important when a normative reference system is used focussing on social comparisons instead of an individual reference system for reward (möller, 1999). indeed, we should remember that the phenomenon of seemingly paradoxical ability estimations is not only an interesting effect that is worth to be addressed by basic research. from our point of view, it is even more important to consider europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 314 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the motivational consequences which, for example, arise from the impression that a praising person believes that the recipient has a low ability in a certain domain. in this context, further studies should also scrutinize whether the presented results can be generalized to other social interactions beyond the classroom scenario. although most studies in the area of praise and blame have focused on teacher-student interactions in classroom scenarios so far, the results and implications can probably be generalized to other contexts in which performance and achievement motivation play a central role. therefore, it is also important to further scrutinize the specific ability dimensions which are sensitive to seemingly paradoxical effects of praise and blame. hofer (1985) did not find paradoxical effects with regard to students’ ability to concentrate, their diligence, or their forgetfulness. the majority of the previous studies focused on (partially unspecific) task performances. furthermore, it would be interesting to see whether the seemingly paradoxical effect of praise and blame is culturespecific, or whether the causal schemas used to explain this phenomenon depend on cultural features. perhaps we would find interactions between cultural specifics and certain ability domains. finally, we want to point out that most of the previous literature on praise and blame exclusively focused on verbal utterances. however, non-verbal cues also play a crucial role in communication, especially when interpreting ambiguous verbal messages. non-verbal cues are not limited to facial expressions and gestures, but also include bodily sensations. our evaluation of others significantly depend on incidental bodily sensations such as weight and texture (ackerman, nocera, & bargh, 2010; kaspar & krull, 2013), and on incidental bodily interactions with the environment: for example, kaspar (2013) recently showed that washing one’s hands after failure in a performance setting enhanced optimism but hampered future performance in the same task domain. perhaps, such incidental sensations also affect the way in which praise and blame are expressed and perceived. it could be very fruitful if research on praise and blame considered such variables to reveal the potential constraints of seemingly paradoxical effects and to build up a comprehensive theory. in the present study we presented a scenario description to our participants so that we exclude concrete verbal utterances and body language of the protagonists (except very rough line drawings). thus, we probably reduced the inter-subject variance in the understanding of the scenario, but we also reduced the 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(1992). anmerkungen zum “verstehensvorgang bei scheinbar paradoxen wirkungen von lob und tadel” nach reisenzein, debler und siemer (1992) [notes on „the interpretation process in the seemingly paradoxical effects of praise and criticism” by reisenzein, debler, and siemer (1992)]. zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte psychologie, 39, 684-688. hess, t. m., & follett, k. j. (1994). adult age differences in the use of schematic and episodic information in making social judgments. aging and cognition, 1, 54-66. doi:10.1080/09289919408251450 hofer, m. (1985). zu den wirkungen von lob und tadel [about effects of praise and blame]. bildung und erziehung, 38, 415-426. hofer, m., & pikowsky, b. (1988). wie jugendliche bei freier antwortmöglichkeit lehrersanktionen deuten. zeitschrift für pädagogische psychologie, 2, 243-250. kaspar, k. (2013). washing one’s hands after failure enhances optimism but hampers future performance. social psychological and personality science, 4, 69-73. doi:10.1177/1948550612443267 kaspar, k., hamborg, k.-c., sackmann, t., & hesselmann, j. (2010). the effectiveness of formative evaluation in the development of usable software: a case study. zeitschrift für arbeitsund organisationspsychologie, 54, 29-38. doi:10.1026/0932-4089/a000003 kaspar, k., & könig, p. (2011). overt attention and context factors: the impact of repeated presentation, image type and individual motivation. plos one, 6(7), e21719. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021719 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 316 http://dx.doi.org/10.1026/0049-8637.36.4.182 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199611)10:7<137::aid-acp431>3.0.co;2-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09289919408251450 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1948550612443267 http://dx.doi.org/10.1026/0932-4089/a000003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021719 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kaspar, k., & krull, j. (2013). incidental haptic stimulation in the context of flirt behavior. journal of nonverbal behavior. advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s10919-013-0154-0 kukla, a. (1972). foundations of an attributional theory of performance. psychological review, 79, 454-470. doi:10.1037/h0033494 león-villagrá, j., meyer, w.-u., & engler, u. 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(1992). zu einigen (scheinbaren) methodischen problemen bei der überprüfung von erklärungsmodellen der scheinbar paradoxen wirkungen von lob und tadel: antworten auf groeben und blickle [notes on some (seemingly) methodological problems in the validation of models explaining seemingly paradoxical effects of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 kaspar & stelz 317 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10919-013-0154-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0033494 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.6.888 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.71.2.259 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/soco.1986.4.3.293 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220973.1997.9943790 http://dx.doi.org/10.1026//0049-8637.31.1.11 http://www.psychopen.eu/ praise and blame: responses to groeben and blickle]. zeitschrift für experimentelle und angewandte psychologie, 39, 689-692. reisenzein, r., debler, w., & siemer, m. 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(1970). an attributional analysis of achievement motivation. journal of personality and social psychology, 15, 1-20. doi:10.1037/h0029211 about the authors kai kaspar is a research associate and lecturer at the university of osnabrück, germany. he is member of the institute of psychology and of the institute of cognitive science. in his research he focuses on bottom-up and top-down processes in human attention and perception, on mechanisms of embodied cognition, as well as on their relations to performance in everyday life and in human–computer interaction settings. the paradoxical effect of praise and blame – scrutinized in the present paper – is part of his research in the field of social interactions. helena stelz is an occupational psychologist at the education authority of lower saxony, germany. her thematic priority is the teachers’ health. she advises and supports state employees in primary, secondary, and vocational schools in recognizing health promotion of teachers as an important area of quality assurance in schools. topics are team development and cooperation, conflict resolution, supervision, coaching and peer counseling, stress-, timeand selfmanagement, as well as healthfull leadership. the aim of occupational psychological counseling is to make the working conditions in school so that typical psychological stressors for the teaching profession are reduced. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 304–318 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.540 the paradoxical effect of praise and blame 318 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0029211 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the paradoxical effect of praise and blame introduction attribution model language-psychological model expectation discrepancy model the present study method participants procedure and materials data analysis results ability ratings (hypotheses 1, 2) sympathy ratings (hypothesis 3) analysis of causal schemas (hypothesis 4) discussion references about the authors conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 published (vor): 2013-11-29. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 2nd international conference on sociality and humanities icosh 2013 8-9 december, 2013 sydney, australia icosh 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of sociality and humanities, and discuss the practical challenges encountered 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emotional intelligence and peace education 17 december, 2013 kathmandu, nepal the world has been transformed into a global village. due to the process of globalization and technological explosion business world in nepal & abroad are facing global challenges i.e. global market, global competition & global economic recession. the global business environment has become increasingly interdependent due to technological advancements in the field of information technology and communication, an increased global flow of investments and trade in recent decades. global corporations operate in an environment characterized by cross-cultural differences. the global economy and cross-cultural differences make the need for emotional intelligence & cross cultural transformation to achieve business sustainability & good corporate governance. recent studies indicate that emotional intelligence is a powerful key to cross cultural transformation effective leadership & good governance. business success and profitability will rely heavily on the emotional intelligence & cross cultural transformation. leaders who are not consciously shaping the culture of their organization run the risk of being driven by the culture. visit the website for more information: http://www.worldemotionalliteracy.org/nepal-conference-dec-17th/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 global psypulse http://www.worldemotionalliteracy.org/nepal-conference-dec-17th/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ international conference on behavioral and educational psychology icbep 2013 29-30 december, 2013 kuala lumpur, malaysia icbep 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of behavioral and educational psychology, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. the conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in behavioral and educational psychology and related areas. all papers for the icbep 2013 will be published in the ijiet (issn: 2010-3689) as one volume, and will be included in the engineering & technology digital library, and indexed by electronic journals digital library, ebsco, worldcat, google scholar, ulrich's periodicals directory, cross ref and sent to be reviewed by isi proceedings. one best paper will be selected from each oral session. the certificate will be awarded in the welcome banquet on december 30, 2013. visit the website for more information: http://www.icbep.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 glăveanu http://www.icbep.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ games of late modernity: homo ludens 75 years later 15-17 january, 2014 leusden, utrecht, netherlands the end of this year will be marked by the 75th anniversary of johan huizinga’s classic study of the homo ludens, possibly the single most important dutch contribution to the international scholarly field of the twentieth century. as the subtitle – a study of the play element in culture – indicates, huizinga inquires into a fundamental characteristic of human culture and society: the element of play is present and can be observed in all different aspects of culture, ranging from seemingly innocuous leisure activities to the uttermost serious and advanced systems such as legal or political institutions. the purpose of this three-day conference is to bring together experts in various disciplines, ranging from the social sciences, the arts, religious studies, philosophy, history, anthropology, psychology, economy, to media studies and gaming. all scholars are invited to shed their light on huizinga’s thesis, while paying special attention to the post-second world war and present-day situation. the four issues raised above function as focal points around which the experts from various disciplines come together. the idea is, following the wish expressed by huizinga himself, to create not only a multi-disciplinary but also a truly interdisciplinary scholarly exchange on one of the most important ideas for the understanding of contemporary society. visit the website for more information: http://www.gamesoflatemodernity.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 global psypulse http://www.gamesoflatemodernity.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ a meaningful life in a just society 30-31 january, 2014 utrecht, netherlands the university of humanistic studies aims to contribute to a meaningful life in a just society. in celebration of its 25th anniversary the uvh bestows honorary doctorates upon professors carol d. ryff (university of wisconsin) and joan c. tronto (university of minnesota) and organizes an international conference with keynotes from both professors. this conference will take place at the magnificently restored paushuize (papal house) – one of the most outstanding monuments in the medieval city centre of utrecht. with a maximum of only 150 participants this conference offers a unique opportunity to engage in an intimate setting with the latest research on some of today’s pressing topics. both theories, on psychological well-being and on care, are of the utmost importance to the further development of meaningful human lives in humane institutions in a just society. this conference aims at further exploring questions about the relationship between well-being and a meaningful life. the critical insights of competitive caring, unsympathetic disregard and privileged irresponsibility all point at the injustice produced by an insular concept of wellbeing. we will explore what this critical stance means for concepts of well-being; how institutions endorse, and possibly give shape to what it means to be first of all citizens; and which factors and conditions foster meaningful human lives in caring societies. visit the website for more information: http://www.uvh.nl/anniversaryconference europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 glăveanu http://www.uvh.nl/anniversaryconference http://www.psychopen.eu/ canadian international conference of social science and education 18-19 february, 2014 toronto, ontario, canada welcome to the canadian research center of humanities and sciences (crchs) we organize a series of conferences around the year under the name of canadian international conference of social science and education (cicsse) these conferences are for those, who are interested in presenting papers in all fields of social sciences and education and publish their papers in canadian international journal of social science and education. the conference topic areas especially focus on such disciplines as economics, business, corporate and public governance, political science, sociology etc. visit the website for more information: http://intconfsscienceeduca.wix.com/canada# europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 global psypulse http://intconfsscienceeduca.wix.com/canada# http://www.psychopen.eu/ iv international congress sport, doping and society 26 february 1 march, 2014 madrid, spain conference theme: looking to the future we have the pleasure to invite you to the iv international congress sport, doping and society, that is organized by the technical university of madrid (upm) and the spanish anti-doping agency. under the theme “looking to the future”, it will be presented the results of scientific researches and new methodologies in the field of doping in sport. from the specific perspective of social and human sciences, we believe that this initiative will contribute to identify the factors that influence the use of doping substances and methods. from this knowledge we hope to foster future prevention and doping control and to promote ethical behavior in sport. in addition, this congress will devote a special session aimed for young students, both high school and university levels, which will address issues related to prevention. visit the website for more information: http://www.deportedopajesociedad.com/modules.php?name=webstructure&lang=en&idwebstructure=6 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 glăveanu http://www.deportedopajesociedad.com/modules.php?name=webstructure&lang=en&idwebstructure=6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 21 international symposium about current issues andcontroversies in psychiatry 14-15 march, 2014 barcelona, spain conference theme: insight in psychosis. round tables and debates with first class international experts speakers: miguel bernardo (universitat de barcelona, spain), german e. berrios (university of cambridge, uk), jose manuel crespo (universitat de barcelona, spain), anthony david (king's college of london, uk), philippa a. garety (king's college of london, uk), guy m. goodwin (university of oxford, uk), philip mcguire (king's college of london, uk), jordi obiols (universitat autònoma de barcelona, spain), julio sanjuán (universidad de valencia, spain), jan scott (king's college of london, uk), jeffrey w. swanson (duke university, us), eduard vieta (universitat de barcelona, spain), joseph zohar (tel aviv university, israel). venue: hotel fira palace avda rius i taulet, 1-3 barcelona 08004. spain. visit the website for more information: http://www.controversiasbarcelona.org/en/index.php europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 global psypulse http://www.controversiasbarcelona.org/en/index.php http://www.psychopen.eu/ 7th global conference: interculturalism, meaning and identity 18-20 march, 2014 prague, czech republic interculturalism stands at the interface between the individual, local groups, societies and cultures. these compete, conflict, co-exist and trigger reactions and responses on a number of levels including the social, the economic, the political and the personal. these are reinforced through language, the media, cultural events, social institutions and migration policies. amidst all these dynamic and static forms of interaction, identities are built and consolidated. the previous meeting of this project recognised that identity is not something which is fixed and predetermined but rather is continuously created and recreated from the day-to-day flow of living in communities. with mobility not simply a commonplace factor in society but continuing to rapidly expand, people are faced with challenges to and changes in their own identity as a result of encounters with new cultures, new ways of living and new ways of thinking. people find themselves forging and reforging their identities through integration, assimilation, disintegration, reintegration…and so the pattern continues. the 2014 conference will build on the work of previous meetings in this series and examine the meaning and parameters of interculturalism, how it is studied and what it means. how can we talk meaningfully of interculturalism? what role does hybridity play in understanding the way cultures morph, adapt and become suited to their context? visit the website for more information: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/interculturalism/call-for-papers/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 glăveanu http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/at-the-interface/diversity-recognition/interculturalism/call-for-papers/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ acp2014 the fourth asian conference on psychology and the behavioral sciences 27-30 march, 2014 osaka, japan the international academic forum in conjunction with its global university partners is proud to announce the fourth asian conference on psychology and the behavioral sciences, to be held from march 27-30 2014, at the rihga royal hotel & the adjoining osaka international conference center, osaka, japan. 2014 conference theme: "individual, community & society: conflict, resolution & synergy" this international and interdisciplinary conference will again bring together a range of psychologists, medical doctors and a wide assortment of social scientists to discuss outside the traditional confines of narrow fields of specialism, and in new directions of research and discovery in psychology and the behavioral sciences. as with iafor's other events, and by bringing together a number of university scholars working throughout japan, asia, and beyond to share ideas, acp 2014 will afford the opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, and networking across higher education and beyond. visit the website for more information: http://acp.iafor.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 global psypulse http://acp.iafor.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 28th international congress of applied psychology 8-13 july 2014 paris, france dear colleagues, dear friends, on behalf of iaap, and in collaboration with the french federation for psychologists and psychology (ffpp) as well as french society of psychology (sfp), along with the french national committee of scientific psychology (cnfps), under the umbrella of the french consortium of psychology associations (a-cipa), i am pleased to confirm that the forthcoming international congress of applied psychology will take place in paris in early july 2014. applied psychology is living a stimulating scientific period, with considerable work in connection to the many societal crisis and events around the world. claude lévy-leboyer, who has played an important role in iaap, is our honorary president for this icap. the scientific program committee is composed of iaap members from all over the world, both french and english speaking. the icap was organized in paris the last time… in 1953, and never since did we get the opportunity to host iaap; therefore, we are happy to invite you all to join us for the 28th icap. paris, as a congress venue, offers an ideal place to organize a congress of such size, with easy connections from everywhere, a large choice of hotel accommodation, a practical centrally located convention centre and a wide range of cultural spots. the cultural background and historical landscape make paris one of the most attractive cities in europe, so, make sure to mark your calendar: july 8-13 2014. i warmly invite you to join this international congress of applied psychology, icap, in paris, and sincerely hope that you will help us to make this endeavor a success. we will do our utmost to make this scientific event a great meeting connecting practitioners and researchers, and we look forward to welcoming the entire world psychology community in france! prof. christine roland-lévy president of the 28th icap; president of the french consortium of psychology associations, a-cipa visit the website for more information: http://www.icap2014.com/ psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.719 glăveanu http://www.icap2014.com/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en global psypulse 2nd international conference on sociality and humanities icosh 2013 4th international conference on cross cultural transformation through emotional intelligence and peace education international conference on behavioral and educational psychology icbep 2013 games of late modernity: homo ludens 75 years later a meaningful life in a just society canadian international conference of social science and education iv international congress sport, doping and society 21 international symposium about current issues and controversies in psychiatry 7th global conference: interculturalism, meaning and identity acp2014 the fourth asian conference on psychology and the behavioral sciences 28 rumination, suicidal ideation, and the mediating effect of self-defeating humor research reports rumination, suicidal ideation, and the mediating effect of self-defeating humor raymond p. tuckera, laricka r. wingate*a, meredith l. slisha, victoria m. o’keefea, ashley b. colea, david w. hollingswortha [a] department of psychology, oklahoma state university, stillwater, united states. abstract research has demonstrated that a self-defeating humor style is related to indicators of psychopathology and interpersonal dysfunction, including depression, anxiety, loneliness, thwarted belongingness, and perceived burdensomeness. the current study continued this investigation by examining how self-defeating humor is related to suicidal ideation and a ruminative response style. analyses indicated that a self-defeating humor style was positively associated to rumination, brooding, reflection, and suicidal ideation. results of bootstrapping analyses indicated that self-defeating humor mediated the relationship between rumination and suicidal ideation. this same effect was seen for both brooding and reflection individually. results indicate that self-defeating humor may serve as an interpersonal means of ruminating as this humor style involves consistent focus on perceived flaws and weaknesses. the assessment of this humor style may provide additional information about the maintenance of suicidal thinking. keywords: suicide, suicidal ideation, rumination, self-defeating humor, humor styles europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 received: 2014-01-30. accepted: 2014-02-17. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: oklahoma state university, department of psychology, 116 north murray hall, stillwater, ok 74078. e-mail: laricka.wingate@okstate.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. suicidology research has demonstrated that interpersonal dysfunction plays a key role in why people desire death by suicide. specifically, there are two well-known theories of suicidal behavior that focus on interpersonal connection. early theoretical work by émile durkheim discussed social connectedness as a potential reason for societal suicide rates. this work was ground breaking as previous discussions of suicide focused on an individual’s internal drives and motivations for death. more recently, the interpersonal theory of suicide (its; joiner, 2005) sought to provide a framework for understanding suicide by placing theoretical and empirical focus on two interpersonal risk factors for suicidal desire. this theory posits that when feelings of thwarted belongingness (extreme feelings of social isolation and a lack of caring from others) and perceived burdensomeness (belief that one’s existence burdens others) are experienced in tandem, an individual is at-risk of developing the desire to die by suicide. additionally, research has supported loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for suicidal thinking and behavior (joiner et al., 2002; wyder, ward, & leo, 2009). although previous research demonstrates a strong association between interpersonal dysfunction and suicide, little work has investigated the role humor styles play in the experience of the desire for suicide. this is a key oversight, as humor styles have been associated with important interpersonal europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ constructs, such as isolation, social competence, and shyness (fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009; martin, 2007; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). self-defeating humor style may play a particularly pernicious role in suicidal thinking. martin and colleagues (2003) define a self-defeating humor style as the consistent use of self-disparaging humor employed to strengthen social bonds. the self-defeating humor style entails the highlighting of one’s perceived flaws and weaknesses through ingratiating humor within a social context. this is done in order to be perceived positively in social interactions and to facilitate social bonds. although its use is intended to be affiliative in nature, this particular humor style is related to various negative interpersonal and intrapersonal concerns. generally, research has supported a positive relationship between a self-defeating humor style and negative mental health outcomes. self-defeating humor has been positively associated with self-reported depression, anxiety, symptoms of social anxiety, feelings of hostility, and general bad mood (martin et al., 2003; tucker, judah, et al., 2013). similarly, martin and colleagues (2003) demonstrated a negative correlation between the humor style and self-esteem. this study also demonstrated that self-defeating humor is related to interpersonal dysfunction, including a lack of social intimacy and satisfaction. personality variables, such as sociotropy and autonomy, which increase susceptibility for depression and suicide, have also been linked to the use of a self-defeating humor style (frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008). although research has demonstrated a clear association between selfdefeating humor and known predictors of suicidal thinking, little work has focused on a potential relationship between self-defeating humor and suicidal ideation. to the authors’ knowledge, only one study has explicitly demonstrated a connection between self-defeating humor and suicidal thinking. in this study, the relationship between the interpersonal predictors of suicide, as outlined by the interpersonal theory of suicide (i.e., perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness; joiner, 2005), and suicidal ideation was strengthened in the presence of a self-defeating humor style (tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, et al., 2013). additionally, results illustrated positive correlations between self-defeating humor and suicidal ideation, thwarted belongingness, and perceived burdensomeness. tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, and colleagues (2013) theorized that this humor style may be affiliated with suicidal thinking because when a person is frequently disparaging themselves, their flaws and weaknesses are repeatedly identified in social situations. the laughter of others may be perceived as validating these flaws and weaknesses, and could create a sense of social disconnection. thus, self-defeating humor may be a means of ruminating in an interpersonal context as rumination encompasses consistent focus on one’s distress. although multiple definitions and theories of rumination exist, the response styles theory (nolen-hoeksema, 1991) of rumination is most often studied in relationship to suicide (for a review, see morrison & o’connor, 2008). the response styles theory posits that rumination involves the constant devotion of one’s cognitive efforts to the causes and consequences of current distress. although those who ruminate may utilize this cognitive style to understand their distress, nolen-hoeksema (1991) argues that rumination prevents these individuals from adaptively coping with and engaging in activities that will remedy their distress. a ruminative response style has been closely connected to suicidal ideation in studies employing both cross-sectional and longitudinal methodologies, as well as in clinical and community samples (eshun, 2000; fairweather, anstey, rodgers, jorm, & christensen, 2007; miranda & nolen-hoeksema, 2007; morrison & o’connor, 2008; smith, alloy, & abramson, 2006; tucker, wingate, o’keefe, mills, et al., 2013). given that both rumination and self-defeating humor have been related to negative outcomes including suicidal thinking, depression, anxiety, and interpersonal dysfunction, research is needed to europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 tucker, wingate, slish et al. 493 http://www.psychopen.eu/ elucidate the possible relationship between the humor style and cognitive style. although the use of self-defeating humor may be considered an interpersonal process while rumination is an intrapersonal process, both are conceptually related. rumination and self-defeating humor both serve the function of consistently focusing on current distress and negative self-focus with an emphasis on highlighting and presenting negative self-views. rumination, as defined by response styles theory, is comprised of two specific sub-components: brooding and reflection. brooding consists of dwelling on negative consequences of current distress (treynor, gonzalez, & nolen-hoeksema, 2003). it has been closely linked to symptoms of anxiety and depression (fresco, frankel, mennin, turk, & heimberg, 2002; treynor et al., 2003). importantly, brooding is also associated with suicidal ideation, and has predicted suicidal thinking prospectively (miranda & nolen-hoeksema, 2007; o’connor & noyce, 2008). the second component of rumination, reflection, consists of cognitive effort focused on understanding current distress. this style of thinking is enacted in order to evaluate methods of relieving distress (treynor et al., 2003). the relationship between suicidal thinking and reflection is unclear in the literature. some research has demonstrated a positive association between reflection and suicidal ideation (miranda & nolen-hoeksema, 2007; tucker, wingate, o’keefe, mills, et al., 2013). however, other studies suggest that reflection may be somewhat protective against suicide (crane, barnhofer, & williams, 2007). yet, other findings have demonstrated a nonsignificant relationship between reflection and suicidal thinking (o’connor & noyce, 2008). the current study investigated whether rumination and its sub-components, brooding and reflection, are related to self-defeating humor, as well as suicidal thinking. it may be that self-defeating humor serves as an interpersonal mechanism of focusing on negative views of the self and understanding and dwelling on current distress. individuals who use self-defeating humor keep their weaknesses and flaws (distressful concepts by nature) in focus when interacting socially. jokes and humorous anecdotes could potentially serve as vehicles for the constant focus and brooding on one’s current distress and perceived weaknesses. similarly, people may use this type of humor to understand their distress through the reactions of others. ruminators may seek either validation or disagreement in response to jokes about their weaknesses in order to help understand their distress, as well as to understand how others perceive their distress. thus, individuals who are likely to engage in the cognitive style of rumination may be predisposed, or more likely to use self-defeating humor as their dominant humor style. understanding this relationship may provide an avenue toward better understanding the impact of reflection and brooding on current distress during interpersonal interactions. the broad aim of the current study was to determine whether self-defeating humor style is associated with specific aspects of rumination and suicidal ideation. it was hypothesized that rumination, brooding, and reflection would individually positively predict self-defeating humor. additionally, it was hypothesized that self-defeating humor style would be positively correlated with suicidal ideation, as seen in previous research (tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, et al., 2013). finally, it was hypothesized that rumination and its sub-components (i.e., brooding and reflection) would be associated with suicidal ideation through the mechanism of self-defeating humor. the cognitive style of rumination would likely predispose individuals to use self-defeating humor and thus increase their risk for suicidal thinking. in other words, self-defeating humor would have an indirect effect on (i.e., mediate) the relationship between the rumination and suicidal ideation. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide 494 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure participants from a large midwestern university located in the united states were recruited through undergraduate courses and received course credit for their participation. all self-report questionnaires were completed in an online format. the sample consisted of 365 participants, 241 (65.6%) females and 124 (34.4%) males. participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 46 years, with a mean age of 19.61. two hundred and ninety (79.5%) participants identified as caucasian, 25 (6.8%) as american indian, 18 (4.9%) as african americans/black, 14 (3.8%) as asians/asian american, eight (2.2%) as hispanics/latino, eight (2.2%) as biracial, one (0.3%) who identified as other, and one (0.3%) who declined to state their ethnicity. measures demographics questionnaire— participants completed a demographics questionnaire that contained questions regarding age, sex, and ethnicity. humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) — the full hsq contains 32 items that measure four humor styles: affiliative, enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating. self-defeating humor was the central focus for this study. items such as “i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should,” and “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh” are rated on a 7-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). the self-defeating subscale of the hsq contains 8 items, and demonstrated acceptable internal consistency in the current study (α = .79). hopelessness depression symptom questionnaire-suicidality subscale (hdsq-ss; metalsky & joiner, 1997) — the hopelessness depression symptom questionnaire-suicidality subscale is a four item self-report measure designed to assess suicidal ideation. the questionnaire is part of a larger measure that was designed to assess hopelessness depression. items on the questionnaire assess the severity and frequency of suicidal ideation within the past two weeks. responses on the items range from 0 to 3 with each number representing a separate and varying item response. scores on the scale range from 0 to 12, where higher scores indicate elevated levels of suicidal ideation. previous research has found the subscale to have adequate reliability (joiner & rudd, 1996). the hdsq-ss demonstrated excellent internal consistency in the current study (α = .95). ruminative responses scale (rrs; nolen-hoeksema & morrow, 1991). — the rrs from the response styles questionnaire is a 22-item self-report measure of an individual’s overall tendency to ruminate as well as engage in specific sub-components of rumination such as brooding and reflection. responses are measured on a 4-point likert scale, and range from 1 (almost never), to 4 (almost always). the brooding subscale of the rrs consists of five items, such as, do you generally “think ‘what am i doing to deserve this?” the reflection subscale also consists of five items, such as, do you generally “go away by yourself and think about why you feel this way.” the overall rrs demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α = .95). the five-item subscale of reflection exhibited good internal consistency (α = .85), and the brooding subscale also exhibited good internal consistency (α = .85). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 tucker, wingate, slish et al. 495 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients of study variables are presented in table 1. results of correlation analyses provided support for the first hypothesis. namely, zero-order correlations demonstrated that self-defeating humor was positively associated with both suicidal ideation and total ruminative style. similarly, self-defeating humor was positively associated with the ruminative sub-components of brooding and reflection. total rumination, brooding, and reflection were also positively correlated to suicidal ideation, which was expected given previous research findings. table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients of study variables 54321variable -1. self-defeating -2. rumination .21* -3. reflection .86*.17* -4. brooding .72*.91*.19* -5. ideation .31*.30*.37*.17* m .214.189.058.7737.8327 sd .021.573.333.6813.578 note. self-defeating = humor styles questionnaire self-defeating subscale; rumination = ruminative response scale total; reflection = ruminative response scale – reflection subscale; brooding = ruminative response scale – brooding subscale; ideation = hopelessness depression symptom questionnaire – suicidality subscale total. *p < .01. the second hypothesis sought to examine if self-defeating humor mediated the relationship between rumination and suicidal ideation. for the mediation analysis, total ruminative style served as the independent variable (x), suicidal ideation served as the dependent variable (y), while self-defeating humor served as the mediator (m). the total, direct, and indirect effects were estimated using the nonparametric bootstrapping procedure described by preacher and hayes (2008) with 1,000 bootstrapping samples. for the current analysis, the indirect macro for spss was utilized (preacher & hayes, 2008). results for this hypothesis are displayed in table 2, and a pictorial display of the pathways for the analyses is displayed in figure 1. bootstrapping estimates revealed that self-defeating humor style had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between total ruminative style and suicidal ideation. more specifically, the total (path c) and direct effects (c’ path) of total ruminative style on suicidal ideation were .0255, p < .01 and .0238, p < .01, respectively. the difference between the total and direct effect was different from zero based on the point estimate of .0017 and a 95% bias corrected and accelerated (bca) bootstrap ci of .0005 to .0041. these findings are consistent with the interpretation that greater use of an overall ruminative cognitive style may lead to more usage of a self-defeating humor style which may, in turn, lead to higher levels of suicidal ideation. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide 496 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. model of the indirect effect of overall rumination on suicidal ideation through self-defeating humor. note.numerical values are the unstandardized regression coefficients and the number in parentheses represents the unmediated path. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 2 indirect effects of ruminative cognitive styles on suicidal ideation through self-defeating humor bootstrapping point estimatesindirect effects bca 95% cibc 95% cipercentile ciproduct of coefficients upperlowerupperlowerupperlowerzse model 1 .0041.0005.0036.0005.0161.00041.897.0009.0017rrs total model 2 .0163.0023.0152.0020.0136.00152.044.0032.0066brooding model 3 .0171.0023.0164.0021.0137.00162.022.0032.0065reflection note. confidence intervals containing zero do not represent a significant difference from zero. bc, bias corrected; bca, bias corrected and accelerated; 1,000 bootstrap samples. because total ruminative style consists of two sub-components (e.g., brooding and reflection), which have been linked to psychological dysfunction, it was important to determine if the constructs differed in their direct and indirect effects on suicidal ideation. therefore, two additional bootstrapping analyses were conducted to determine if either brooding or reflection was driving the effect for the above mediation analysis of total rumination, self-defeating humor, and suicidal thinking. in the second indirect effect analysis, brooding served as the predictor variable (x). following the mediational model described in the above analysis, self-defeating humor and suicidal ideation served as the mediator (m) and outcome variables (y), respectively. the total, direct, and indirect effects were again estimated using the nonparametric bootstrapping procedure. results for these follow-up analyses are displayed in table 2, and are pictorially depicted in figures 2 and 3, respectively. bootstrapping estimates revealed that selfdefeating humor style had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between brooding and suicidal ideation. more specifically, the total (c path) and direct effects (c’ path) of brooding on suicidal ideation were .0825, p < .01 and .0758, p < .01, respectively. the difference between the total and direct effect was different from zero based on the point estimate of .0066 and a 95% bias corrected and accelerated (bca) bootstrap ci of .0023 to .0163, yielding a significant indirect effect. these findings are consistent with the interpretation that greater use of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 tucker, wingate, slish et al. 497 http://www.psychopen.eu/ brooding ruminative style may lead to more usage of a self-defeating humor style which may, in turn, lead to higher levels of suicidal ideation. figure 2. model of the indirect effect of brooding on suicidal ideation through self-defeating humor. note.numerical values are the unstandardized regression coefficients and the number in parentheses represents the unmediated path. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 3. model of the indirect effect of reflection on suicidal ideation through self-defeating humor. note. numerical values are the unstandardized regression coefficients and the number in parentheses represents the unmediated path. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. for the final analysis, bootstrapping estimates also revealed that self-defeating humor style had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between reflection and suicidal ideation. more specifically, the total (c path) and direct effects (c’ path) of reflection on suicidal ideation were .0872, p < .01 and .0807, p < .01, respectively. the difference between the total and direct effect was different from zero based on the point estimate of .0065 and a 95% bias corrected and accelerated (bca) bootstrap ci of .0023 to .0171. these findings are consistent with the interpretation that greater use of a reflective ruminative style may lead to more usage of a self-defeating humor style which may, in turn, lead to higher levels of suicidal ideation. overall, analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of self-defeating humor style on the relationship between rumination and suicidal ideation, as well as the two sub-components of rumination (brooding and reflection) and suicidal ideation individually. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide 498 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion recent research has suggested a relationship between employing a self-defeating humor style and an increased risk for suicide (tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, et al., 2013). the current study further explored this relationship by investigating how self-defeating humor may relate to ruminative cognitive style, a common predictor of suicidal thinking (morrison & o’connor, 2008). because previous research has identified both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes as fundamental in the development of suicidality (joiner et al., 2002; smith et al., 2006; wyder et al., 2009), rumination and its relationship with self-defeating humor was conceptually important to investigate in relation to suicidal ideation. the current study proposed that utilization of both self-defeating humor and ruminative responses may behaviorally serve to create, reinforce, or refute intrapersonal and interpersonal distress, placing individuals who employ both self-defeating humor and a ruminative response style at high risk for suicidal thinking. correlational results supported study hypotheses. self-defeating humor style was positively associated with rumination and suicidal ideation. this supports previous findings on the relationship between self-defeating humor and suicidal ideation (tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, et al., 2013). self-defeating humor was also positively associated with brooding and reflection as well as the larger construct of rumination. while previous findings of the reflective component have been mixed, these results lend credence to the negative aspects of both brooding and reflective rumination styles. results also supported the hypothesis that rumination would be related to suicidal ideation indirectly through selfdefeating humor. results of a bootstrapping analysis supported an indirect effect for overall rumination and suicidal ideation through self-defeating humor style. this result supports previous research illustrating a significant direct relationship between the use of a ruminative cognitive style and suicidal ideation; however, there may also be an indirect effect between ruminative cognitive style and suicidal ideation when individuals utilize a self-defeating humor style. the cognitive style of rumination may predispose individuals to use more self-defeating humor and thus be at an increased risk for suicidal ideation. through both intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, individuals may maintain or exacerbate their suicidal thinking. because the results demonstrated a significant indirect effect for self-defeating humor, it was conceptually important to examine both brooding and reflection. both of the sub-components address important and theoretically different aspects of rumination, yet they remain part of the larger conceptualization of rumination. final results yielded a significant indirect effect for brooding and reflection. individuals who tend to brood may be more likely to engage in the use of self-defeating humor as an outlet for their distress. individuals who continually reflect on their distress may likely use self-defeating humor as a way of understanding the causes, consequences, and potentially the validity of their issues. in both of these processes, the analyses suggest that both brooding and reflection may lead to more usage of a self-defeating humor style which may, in turn, lead to higher levels of suicidal ideation. the results of the current study illustrate a close link between self-defeating humor and rumination. this relationship was expected as both self-defeating humor style and rumination have intrapersonal elements and entail, and likely exacerbate negative views of the self. consistent focus on distress and perceived weaknesses and flaws through both rumination and disparaging joke telling likely are influenced by and contribute to feelings of low selfworth and self-esteem. similarly, self-defeating humor style may serve as an interpersonal means of ruminating. those who use this humor style consistently recollect their weaknesses and faults through telling disparaging europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 tucker, wingate, slish et al. 499 http://www.psychopen.eu/ jokes about themselves. such disparaging jokes may be used as an interpersonal means to brood on and/or better understand their distress (a process which consumes their cognitive efforts) through the reactions of others. behaviorally, jokes elicit reactions and responses that might otherwise be masked by individuals, thereby providing bolstering or refuting information to the ruminating individual. similar to rumination, the use of self-defeating humor may then keep individuals frommoving into the active phase of coping. instead of seeking out social support or partaking in problem-solving and proactive behaviors that may decrease their thoughts of suicide, individuals prone to self-defeating humor use may continue to focus on perceived weaknesses and faults through their joke telling. this sustained cognitive effort toward flaws may then exacerbate or maintain their distress and thoughts of suicide. take for example a person making a self-defeating joke regarding his or her physical appearance. this individual may ruminate about the causes and consequences of his or her attractiveness. the self-defeating joke may have initially been intended to strengthen social bonds; however, it may actually increase distress through deploying more cognitive resources toward the concern. similarly, laughter from close others following this joke may be perceived as evidence that he or she should indeed be concerned about his or her appearance. this perceived evidence is akin to the reflection sub-component of rumination. specifically, the individual may have attempted an internal (turned external; joke) problem-solving strategy (to gain evidence of their control over their distress) which was refuted by the behavioral feedback from others after engaging in self-defeating humor. on the other hand, a close other who responds to this joke with a comment about how the ruminative individual’s appearance does not look “bad” may challenge the distress. through either the perceived validation of the distress (i.e., laughter) or the challenging of the distress (i.e., through a comment about the inaccuracy of the joke), the individual may continue to engage in the process of passively comparing their current situation with an unachieved standard. in this case, the individual broods over the unachieved standards of distress reduction after the use of a seemingly bond-strengthening initial joke. akin to the mediational results, the use of a ruminative cognitive style may be associated with increased distress (suicidal ideation) indirectly through the use of self-defeating humor. along with demonstrating a relationship between self-defeating humor and rumination, study results have potentially important theoretical implications for the broader depression symptomology literature. it may be that self-defeating humor and rumination not only contribute to suicidal ideation directly through each other but also through increasing the severity of symptoms of depression. like suicidal thinking, rumination and self-defeating humor have closely been linked to symptoms of depression (martin et al., 2003; michl, mclaughlin, shepherd, & nolen-hoeksema, 2013; tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, et al., 2013). it may be that the negative self-focus of both rumination and self-defeating humor encourages and exacerbates symptoms of depression in individuals who are not experiencing suicidal thinking. as depressive symptoms have been related to interpersonal consequences (joiner & metalsky, 1995), the increased incidence of depressive symptoms and their interpersonal consequences resulting from rumination and self-defeating humor use may place individuals at a heightened risk for suicidal thinking. additionally rumination and self-defeating humor may increase suicide risk through their contribution to and maintenance of interpersonal risk factors of suicide. recent research supporting the interpersonal theory of suicide (joiner, 2005) has indicated that the desire for suicide likely develops through feelings of extreme social disconnection (thwarted belongingness) and a belief that one is a burden to others (perceived burdensomeness; joiner et al., 2009). like suicidal thinking, the use of self-defeating humor has been empirically associated to feelings of loneliness and lack of social support (dyck & holtzman, 2013; hampes, 2005). it is reasonable to posit that the use of this humor style may also contribute to feelings of thwarted belongingness. self-defeating humor may lead europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide 500 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to increased suicidal thinking by way of increasing feelings of loneliness, social rejection, and thus thwarted belongingness. similarly, self-defeating humor and rumination may likely exacerbate feelings of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness and their influence on suicidal thinking. tucker, wingate, o’keefe, slish, and colleagues (2013) demonstrated that a self-defeating humor style strengthened the relationship between suicidal thinking and both thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. it may be that those with a ruminative cognitive style who are experiencing feelings of thwarted belongingness and/or perceived burdensomeness utilize self-defeating in an attempt to cope. however, this humor use conversely exacerbates the feelings of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness because self-defeating humor use entails a negative self-focus, consistent attention to perceived weakness and flaws, and possible social rejection. although the current study sheds light on the relationship between rumination, self-defeating humor, and suicidal ideation, no study is without limitations. the use of a cross-sectional study design is a limitation of the current study. due to this methodology, evidence for causal relationships and temporal associations of variables being examined cannot be inferred. a longitudinal design would allow for a better understanding of how self-defeating humor and rumination are related, and how these variables temporally relate to thoughts of suicide. another limitation is the use of an undergraduate convenience sample, where the base rate of suicidal behavior is relatively low compared to clinical or community samples. similarly, the sample was ethnically homogenous, and most of the participants identified as caucasian. future research would be prudent to include samples with higher base rates of suicidal ideation, such as a treatment-seeking population, as well as more heterogeneous samples with regard to ethnicity, age, and other demographic characteristics to determine improved generalizability of study results. clinical implications from the results of this study can be drawn and extended to clinical work and future research. primary clinical assessment of suicidal behavior in at-risk clients may be supplemented by a secondary assessment of engagement in ruminative cognitive styles and self-defeating humor. clinicians may target the use of a selfdefeating humor style and focus on rumination by engaging in empirically supported treatments, such as cognitivebehavioral therapy (cbt). focusing on identification of maladaptive behaviors, such as disparaging joke-telling and cognitions may help the client to reduce their psychological distress and suicidality. additionally, teaching clients alternative problem-solving strategies and social skills can help them strengthen interpersonal relationships and adaptive coping mechanisms. overall, the current study provides important knowledge about an additional aspect of an interpersonal dysfunction, self-defeating humor, in relation to rumination and suicidal ideation. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 tucker, wingate, slish et al. 501 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references crane, c., barnhofer, t., & williams, j. m. g. 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(2009). separation as a suicide risk factor. journal of affective disorders, 116(3), 208-213. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2008.11.007 about the authors raymond p. tucker is a third year graduate student in the clinical psychology program at oklahoma state university. raymond completed his undergraduate education at lawrence university in appleton, wisconsin where he received his b.a. degree in psychology. raymond earned his m.s. degree at oklahoma state university in 2012. his research interests include the interplay between cognitive and interpersonal risk factors for suicidal thinking, such as attention and memory biases, humor styles, thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and rumination. he is also interested in the study of indirect measures of suicide risk. dr. laricka r. wingate is an associate professor of psychology at oklahoma state university. she earned her b.s., m.s., and ph.d. degrees from florida state university. dr. wingate has authored 40 peer reviewed articles and six book chapter predominantly focusing on suicide risk in ethnic minority populations and related psychopathology dr. meredith l. slish earned her ph.d. in clinical psychology from oklahoma state university in july 2013 following the completion of her clinical internship with the missouri health sciences psychology consortium. her previous research has maintained a strong focus on risk and resiliency factors associated with suicidal behavior. her current interests include cognitive sequelae of traumatic brain injury, serious mental illness, and their influence on suicidal behavior. dr. slish is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the harry s. truman memorial veterans’ hospital specializing in serious mental illness/evidence based treatment. victoria m. o'keefe (seminole/cherokee) is a third year graduate student in the clinical psychology program at oklahoma state university. she received a bachelor of science degree in psychology from john carroll university in university heights, ohio and a master of science degree in psychology from oklahoma state university. she was awarded the ford foundation predoctoral fellowship in 2012 and was an american indians into psychology summer research fellow in 2009. her primary research interest is in american indian/alaska native suicide risk and resiliency. she is also interested in racial/ethnic minority health inequalities, microaggressions, american indian/alaska native historical trauma, and positive psychology. ashley b. cole (potawatomi) received her b.a. in psychology from the university of oklahoma in 2011. she was an american indians into psychology fellow in the summer of 2011 at oklahoma state university. she is currently a second year graduate student in the clinical psychology ph.d. program at oklahoma state university. ashley's research interests include risk and resiliency factors of suicide among various minority groups. david w. hollingsworth is a second year ph.d. student in the clinical psychology program at osu. he is from fayetteville, north carolina and received his bachelor of arts degree in psychology from morehouse college (atlanta) in may 2012. his research interests include investigating interpersonal risk and protective factors of suicide in young adults and african americans. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 492–504 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.758 self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide 504 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2008.11.007 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en self-defeating humor, rumination, suicide (introduction) method participants and procedure measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors nation states and cultural diversity andreea enache mrd. intercultural management – unesco department, university of bucharest mrd. communication and public relations – faculty of communication and public relations “david ogilvy”, national school of administrative and political studies ejop editor and founder i do not pretend to give here a totally impartial and unbiased account of the issue that i have proposed myself for analysis and evaluation. i could have, of course, put on the role of the “undecided” researcher, with no pre-conceived ideas haunting her conscious and unconscious minds, desperately willing to find out the “truth” by systematically and objectively studying a well defined portion of reality. instead, i will from the very beginning admit to being a supporter of the idea that nation states (as they were primarily defined and established, and as they are still functioning today) are real obstacles for authentic cultural diversity (i. e. not merely the coexistence of multiple cultures in a limited space and time, but also the mutual respect and its first-hand advocate – mutual accommodation, or, if you want, mutual integration). i have chosen a more relaxed approach of the topic not only out of preference, but also out of necessity: such a topic usually gives us very little room for a classical scientific methodology. therefore, i had to adjust my schemes of analysis to the very complex objects that i want to deal with in order to sustain the idea that nation states are an obstacle for co-existent cultural diversities. i will insist on this, for i find it crucial for the understanding of the stake of this discourse: nation states have been the most prominent producers of cultural diversity at a time when cultures had very strict, almost material borders, and when they were in the almost absolute possession of the state and nation that had engendered them. instead, nowadays, cultures journey and travel all the time, they move, they change, they talk with each other, they compete and challenge each other, they continuously change shape and content and limits. therefore, they escape their former possessor and gain a sometimes-disconcerting freedom of speech and of movement. cultures are more and more independent in relation with nations and states, and this is why they can no longer co-exist happily. the strongest argument for nation states being an obstacle to the recognition of cultural diversity is of historical nature, lying in the past. one needs nothing more but to look to their historical origins and their historical development in order to get a clear enough picture of the adversity relation between nation states and cultural diversity. the creation of a nation state is not only a unifying action; it is equally and sometimes more eventfully an act of segregation. let alone the multiple details of nation state formation, it is without difficulty that we can recognize in their claim for absolute unity the somewhat desperate quest for power, control and stability. all alterity is unsettling, producing collective headaches and troubling “collective minds”. unity, in return, is simple and, thus, much more likely to become subject to control and object to prediction. nation states rely on cultural, ethnic and religious homogeneity in order to exist. diversity can only be external for them, it can only inhabit the spaces beyond the nation’s high and broad (de)fence. “one nation, one state, one territory” is the death penalty for the possibility of existence of a respected and dignified other. in the best of cases, diversity is tolerated or accepted. but, accepting diversity is nothing else but saying that we agree to stand you on our territory under the condition that all of us are aware that there is a distance, never to be fully overcome, between we and you. the second argument lies in the future: one of the most acute dilemmas that we are about to face is how to preserve the nation state as a referential for social identities (very much still needed and wanted as public surveys go on proving it time after time), while it is clear that the only possible “nation state” of the future is the global market. however, i suggest not letting ourselves intimidated by the apparently dead end of the problem. there are some that already seem to have an answer: small, local communities based on trivial criteria (type of favorite movies, support for the cause of mentally disabled, preference for a certain football team and so on) should be in their view the new referential for social identity. national identities are dangerous, they have caused big wars and millions of deaths – this is what you will get as an answer when coming forth with the consideration that you feel, let us say, romanian, or danish, or portuguese … it is not safe anymore (for people around you) to declare and fully assume your belonging to a ethnic group or to a nationality. this clearly shows that nation states are already perceived as being very likely producers of fundamentalism and extremes. and it is not without great difficulty that we will be able to solve this issue, for, even if political analysts, historians, academics, in general, accept that nation states no longer suit this postmodern era and are by no means able to face its problems, one cannot ignore that the majority are still very much in love with their homelands, and their mother tongue and their people. it is again as though history is at least one big step ahead of us … the kind of fear i mentioned above is not without reason (i.e. cause), but it lacks a lot of reason because it misplaces guilt for ethnic fundamentalism on the territory of the nation state while the actual relation is quite the reverse. the nation state is itself the product of an extremist movement towards the affiliation of those sharing the same blood (or soil), the same language and history, that had its counterpart in the exclusion of those dissimilar. the very founding concepts of nation states do not leave any room for cultural diversity; it is only social practice (always more flexible and adaptable than social and political theory) that has softened the effects of these seemingly indisputable predicaments. at the moment of their creation, the label of extremist would have certainly sounded like a poor joke. and maybe it would have been so, indeed. nowadays, however, it really seems that we have to tell them goodbye unless we don’t want to get stuck in the trap of the unsolvable question mentioned above. all nation states, like all political realities, have a natural tendency to preserve their state of being and to escape, for as long as possible, an equally natural death. it would be unrealistic of any of us to expect them to die happily. but it is even more so to say that we can have the global village and integrate in the global market and still preserve our nation states as functional and efficient political structures. it is, of course, very hard and extremely unpopular to say that nation states and the global village cannot co-exist. it is, again, very hard to admit that the two political and social structures do not stand each other and that there is no midway between them. i would say that all the talking that is being done around the issue of globalization is a loss of time if we cling to debating whether globalization is good or bad, for it is none of them. globalization is only powerfully going on and mercilessly sweeping off everything that contradicts its logic of being. with all the respect, i say that nation states are dead or, in the best of cases, rapidly dying. and their dying was brought about precisely by their incapacity to sustain the ever-growing mobility and traffic of people, goods, services and, with them, of cultures. the nation state had its criteria of possibility of existence fulfilled in the 19th and 20th century, but the 21st one found it totally unprepared to deal with the new political and social realities. the proponents and supporters of globalization have a saying that still gives me shivers: “your home is where your work is”. people leave families, friends, communities, and countries in their search for a better (working)-place. and they also leave symbols, habits, customs, beliefs, ways of being and thinking and feeling; they leave cultures and they go with the mainstream. a third argument belongs to an extended concept of present and is of descriptive nature. nowadays europe is one of the most adequate examples one could use in order to sustain the idea that nation states are detrimental for a both culturally diverse and culturally integrated europe. in fact, nation states force us to choose between the two, and, more precisely, to choose the former option. i will, for the sake of brevity and clarity, refer only to the recent violence waves in france and surrounding countries. the events that started to shake france at the end of october, this year, are sad signals that europe as a cultural project is in a very poor state. and this is so because europe (and mainly its western part) has never given up its colonial dreams and its imperialistic claims. it has only changed their form from geographical to cultural, but it still behaves in the manner of one suffering from a superiority complex, that is best explained by the “civilizing mission” theme that has never stopped to influence its “global” attitude since the 16th century, when europeans re-invented the barbarians. the present situation in france has its roots in this european arrogance towards the other, that it can tolerate but cannot accept, that it can accept but not respect, that it can respect but not love … the shift from the concept of assimilation towards the one of integration in the ’70 was a political maneuver that lacked dramatically the public support and the social consciousness needed for this to be an authentic change of social-political paradigm for the issue of immigration. thus, france is now full of ghettoes and these ghettoes are full of anger. europe officially takes great pleasure in recording an ever greater diversity of peoples, while its own peoples have a very hard time dealing with what they find to be an invading, and even toxic diversity, running perfectly uninvited into their existence. and, to top all this, economic (negative) growth makes the financially fragile westerner look very unhappy towards the old and new waves of immigrants, that are the most probable scapegoats for the inescapable economic downsizing of the area. we have here a major gap between political and social views of things, a gap that calls for effective measures unless we want to become the witnesses of an ever escalating social conflict. diversity is embedded in the very texture of our world, be it natural or social, be it animal or human, animate or inanimate. it cannot be killed, it cannot be exterminated, but it can be “relocated”. diversity has no need for us to safeguard it, but it needs people to understand it and to understand the new mechanisms that produce it. once, these mechanisms were nation states, with their specific history, language, peoples and territories. now, these realities have lost their power to produce cultural differences, which does not mean that the world will be unified or uniform in the future. they will be replaced by another type of symbolic machinery that will generate cultural variance. what exactly this machinery will be and how exactly it will function, it is probably still too soon to predict. active use of the natural environment for emotion regulation research reports active use of the natural environment for emotion regulation svein åge kjøs johnsen*ab, leif w. rydstedta [a] lillehammer university college, faculty of social sciences, department of psychology, lillehammer, norway. [b] norwegian university of science and technology, department of psychology, trondheim, norway. abstract two studies on the use of nature for emotion regulation were conducted. study 1 (n = 35) ran over two weeks and was an experimental investigation. participants in the experimental condition were asked to use a picture of nature actively as environmental stimuli for emotion regulation in their everyday life, while two control groups simply looked at a picture of nature or a picture of balloons each evening. a significant effect of the manipulation was found on positive mood, but the effect was complex with an initial increase and then a decrease. there were no findings on negative mood. study 2 (n = 473) explored the motivational tendency to seek out nature when the participants were happy or sad. a novel concept (expectancy construct) was introduced to measure the perception of the emotion regulatory potential of different environments. the classical natural environment was rated highest on emotional potential of all environments tested here. perceiving a higher emotional potential in nature was related to a higher intention to seek out nature when happy or sad. personality and mood were also related to these concepts. higher positive mood was related to the intention to seek out nature when happy. conscientiousness was related to a more positive perception of nature. the studies support the notion that using nature may be an effective strategy for regulating one’s emotions. keywords: nature, emotion regulation, self-regulation, environment, mood, person-environment studies europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 received: 2013-05-29. accepted: 2013-10-28. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: maria kakarika, kedge business school, marseille, france. *corresponding author at: lillehammer university college, faculty of social sciences, department of psychology, n-2604 lillehammer, norway. e-mail: svein.johnsen@hil.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in contrast to many other strategies, actively using the environment for emotion regulation does not focus directly on altering the cognitive or emotional processes of the individual. historically, however, research in this area has been more focused on intrapsychological characteristics than on the environmental usage perspective. it may be timely to ask how important the environment really is in relation to cognitive and emotional processes; perhaps it is all too easy to forget this perpetual ground to the figure of mental life. related to this, philosophers have argued that cognitive operations may extend into the environment in ways that make the role of the environment a more active one (clark & chalmers, 1998). there is reason to believe that adaptive emotion regulation is beneficial to health and well-being (desteno, gross, & kubzansky, 2013), and strategies that involve the environment are particularly interesting because they may be considered strategies that take place earlier in the emotion generative process (gross & thompson, 2007). in addition, environmental emotion regulation strategies have the advantage that they may be easier to implement. but we need to know more about how such strategies are related to psyeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ chological health. one promising example of environment-focused emotion regulation entails seeking out or using nature (e.g., johnsen, 2011; korpela, 1995). the present work draws on two theoretical perspectives: firstly, the environmental self-regulation hypothesis, which states that one’s favourite places, may be, and in fact are, used for the purpose of self-regulation (korpela, 1995, 2003). the central idea is that favourite places have attributes that support self-regulation. the second theoretical perspective applied in this study, the process model of emotion regulation, states that emotion regulation may occur prior to or subsequent to the activation of an emotion, termed antecedentand response-focused regulation, respectively. in the process model of emotion regulation, environment-focused regulation would primarily be antecedent focused, and occur within the stages of situation modification and situation selection (gross, 1998; gross & thompson, 2007). emotion regulation can involve attempts to alter the magnitude, duration, onset, and offset of emotional responses (gross, 1998). one may regulate one’s emotions by manipulating the situation, or one may choose to seek out situations that increase or reduce certain emotions. using nature for emotion regulation would involve situationmodification, but theremay also be some overlap with another antecedent focused strategy, attentional deployment (i.e., distraction; see gross & thompson, 2007). equally important to the present study are theories and empirical findings about the relevance of the natural environment for emotion regulation. ulrich’s (1993) psycho-evolutionary theory states that human-beings have evolved restorative responses to nature. an exposure to nature, according to this theory, will reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions (affective restoration). and research supports this; being exposed to a natural environment after watching a frightening movie has been shown to improve moodmore than being exposed to a built environment (van den berg, koole, & van derwulp, 2003). attention restoration theory states that exposure to natural environments will restore cognitive function (kaplan & berman, 2010; kaplan & kaplan, 1989). in fact, it has been shown that pictures of nature presented for 15 seconds may restore attentional capacity (berto, 2005). recently the theory has been expanded to include the ego depletion perspective, indicating that an exposure to nature may also counteract ego depletion effects (kaplan & berman, 2010). the concept of ego depletion refers to the idea that the exercise of self-control on a task will reduce the resources for self-control one has available to use on a following task (baumeister, bratslavsky, muraven, & tice, 1998; baumeister, sparks, stillman, & vohs, 2008). this means that an exposure to nature should restore cognitive resources more quickly, and in turn enabling the processing of emotional information. although several studies have been able to demonstrate the positive effects on mood and attention of an exposure to nature (e.g., berman, jonides, & kaplan, 2008; bowler, buyung-ali, knight, & pullin, 2010; hartig, evans, jamner, davis, & gärling, 2003; van den berg et al., 2003), research has focused less on the everyday uses of nature in relation to emotion regulation. however, a few relevant studies have been conducted. the use of favourite places for self-regulation is highly similar to the use of nature for emotion regulation, and one experimental study showed positive effects (on restorative experiences) of prescribing visits to a favourite place once per day, although only one third of the visits in this study were to natural environments (korpela & ylén, 2009). there are a few nonexperimental studies that have studied the environmental usage perspective (e.g., korpela, hartig, kaiser, & fuhrer, 2001), but especially germane to the present work are two studies. one studied teachers’ place choices in relation to their levels and sources of stress, and the results indicated that teachers who experience higher levels of vocational stress may cope by seeking nature in order to get away (gulwadi, 2006). in the second study, korpela (2003) showed that negative feelings often precede people’s visits to their favourite places (mostly natural places) and positive feelings dominate after the visits. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 799 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the purpose of study 1 was to test whether using the natural environment to regulate emotions is an effective strategy, in particular that it can increase positive mood and decrease negative mood. in study 2, we wanted to investigate the perception of different environments (among them natural environments) with regards to emotion regulation, and the emotion-dependent motivational tendency to visit different environments. study 1 the purpose of study 1 was to investigate whether everyday use of nature for emotion regulation would be effective, and subsequently have an impact upon emotions and cognitive functions. an experimental design was used to investigate this. if this strategy for emotion regulation is effective we expected the following (within subjects) changes over time for those in the experimental group(s): reduced negative mood (hypothesis 1a), increased positive mood (hypothesis 1b), and a beneficial impact upon cognitive functions (hypothesis 2). in addition, over time, this might lead to between group differences, and accordingly we expected that the nature group would at end of treatment experience lower negative mood (hypothesis 3a), higher positive mood (hypothesis 3b), and higher cognitive functioning (hypothesis 4) than the control group. method participants— participants in this study were sixty four (mainly second year) psychology students at a norwegian college and 69% were females. most participants were recruited in the lecture hall during mandatory coursework, but a few were approached in the library. all participants gave their informed consent, and agreed to participate in the study. they received no monetary compensation or course credit for participating. sixty four questionnaires were handed in on the first day (at baseline). after one week, forty one participants handed in the questionnaire and at two weeks, thirty five participants handed in the questionnaire. there were no significant differences between those who dropped out after baseline and those that did not on positive mood, negative mood, or ego restoration (ps > .05). measures — to measure mood, we used the norwegian version of the positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). this measure has also previously been used in studies of exposures to nature (e.g., berman et al., 2008). the participants were instructed to rate, on a 1-5 scale, how they had been feeling the last couple of days, including today. the reliabilities (cronbach’s α) for time one, two, and three were pa: .83, .88, and .88, and na: .75, .76, and .77. for this study we also used the most recent version of the attentional function index (afi; cimprich, visovatti, & ronis, 2011). this scale measures perceived cognitive functioning in everyday activities that require working memory and executive attention. people are asked to rate their level of functioning on 13 items relating to remembering, planning, and maintaining focus, for example: “getting started on activities (tasks, jobs) you intend to do”. cimprich et al. (2011) conducted exploratory factor analyses with the scale, and divided it into three sub-scales, effective action (1), attentional lapses (2), and interpersonal effectiveness (3). previous versions of this scale have been used to study the cognitive effects of an exposure to nature (e.g., duvall, 2011). the instrument was translated into norwegian, back translated by a native english speaker (who is fluent in norwegian and has a degree in psychology), and then both translations were evaluated against the original. at baseline (n = 64), the reliabilities of the three part-scales of the afi were .78, .30, and .71, making factor one and three acceptable, and factor two unacceptable. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 800 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we also used the ego restoration scale (johnsen, 2012) to investigate possible effects of the nature exposure on cognitive functions. this three item scale is assumed to measure changes in the strength aspect of self-regulation (see baumeister et al., 1998). in theory, the restoration of attention should also restore self-regulatory strength (kaplan & berman, 2010), and the scale attempts to measure such changes through perceived changes in willpower. the scale is measured on a 1-7 scale (not at all to a high degree). previous research has found the scale to be highly related to the use of nature for emotion regulation and the concept has been termed ego restoration (johnsen, 2012). the reliability of this scale was good, the cronbach’s α’s for start, end, and middle were .90, .88, and .90. procedure — the study investigated whether using the natural environment for selfand emotion regulation would have any impact on mood and cognition. to this end, we included three conditions (ns at mid-point): one control group (n = 14), one experimental group (n = 14), and one experimental/control group with a softer manipulation (n = 13). the participants received envelopes which contained instructions, three questionnaires with dates of completion printed on them, and environmental stimuli in the form of a4 size pictures. the envelopes were in random order, unknown to the experimenter, and the envelopes were also distributed among the participants in a non-systematic way. the experiment ran over two weeks and the three questionnaires were identical, the first questionnaire was filled out on the first day, the second on the same weekday one week later, and the third one week after that. the instructions stated that the questionnaires should be completed approximately mid-day. the experimental group envelope contained two pictures of natural environments (figures 1 and 2). the instruction read: in this project we are interested in the use of art and pictures as distractions – and whether this has any effect. we want you to bring these pictures with you and use them actively in your daily life. if you need to think about something, reflect upon something that has happened, or if you are a bit sad/angry/annoyed or similar, then use these pictures actively. look at them while you are reflecting. or let your thoughts wander. we ask that you do this instead of what you would normally do if you need a distraction. common distractions may include watching tv, playing computer games, or using the internet. look at the pictures for as long as you feel you need to. the envelope for the experimental group (2) with the softer manipulation contained one of the pictures of a natural environment (figure 1). and the instruction read: in this project we are interested in the use of art and pictures as distractions – and whether this has any effect. bring this picture home with you, hang it in your room and look at it at least once every evening. the control group received an envelope which contained a picture of balloons, this was chosen among several alternatives, first because it was clearly not about nature, and second because it was a neutral picture, and yet somewhat positive (figure 3). the instructions were the same as the one for the second experimental group. this study was conducted during the spring, since during the summer the quality of the environment where the college is located in terms of greenness is very high, and during the winter we assumed that the large discrepancy between the environmental stimuli and the outdoor environment might have an impact in itself. we used pictorial stimuli to achieve some measure of control over the environments used. the participants were told not to discuss the study with anyone before the study had ended. results there were no significant findings (using between and repeated measures anovas, ps > .05) with the two reliable sub-scales of the attentional function index. summary statistics of the outcome measures are shown in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 801 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. experimental group and nature control group picture used in study 1. figure 2. experimental group picture used in study 1. to investigate whether using nature for emotion regulation had any impact on mood, we conducted two mixed between-within (3 × 3) repeated measures anovas. the three groups (experimental conditions) were entered as a between-group factor, and the mood measures (panas) at three time points (start, middle, and end) were entered as within-group factors. there was a main effect (of time) on negative mood, f(2,64) = 4.571, p = .014, partial η2 = 0.125, which we did not expect. the decrease in negative mood can be observed for all groups in table 1. in addition, the interaction was non-significant f(4,64) = 0.821, p = .517, partial η2 = 0.049. there was no main effect on positive mood, f(2,64) = 0.415, p = .662, partial η2 = 0.013. however, the group × time interaction was significant, f(4,64) = 3.314, p = .016, partial η2 = 0.172. this last result supports hypothesis 1b; there was an increase in positive mood in the experimental group(s). relative to baseline, positive mood increased in both europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 802 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. control group picture used in study 1. experimental groups, while in the control group, positive mood decreased (see table 1). it was also tested whether this effect on positive mood held when comparing the experimental group against the nature control group only, to compare the nature exposure effect with the use of nature effect. this analysis indicated a significant main effect of time (positive mood increased in both groups), f(2,44) = 3.239, p = .049, partial η2 = 0.128, but also a significant group × time interaction was found, f(2,44) = 3.543, p = .037, partial η2 = 0.139. that is, there was a main effect of nature exposure on positive mood, but there was also a difference between the two nature groups. in order to investigate this difference specifically, we considered the within-subject contrasts in an analysis of the experimental group alone. this analysis yielded a non-significant linear component, but a significant quadratic component for the main effect, f(1,11) = 11.421, p = .006. we also conducted a mixed anova with the ego restoration scale. the mauchly test showed that the assumption of sphericity was violated; therefore the greenhouse-geisser values are reported. the results indicated a nonsignificant main effect, f(1.557, 46.701) = 1.571, p = .221, partial η2 = 0.050. and the group × time interaction was non-significant as well, f(3.113, 46.701) = 1.304, p = .284, partial η2 = 0.080. in order to investigate between group differences, the groups must be similar at baseline. the results demonstrated no significant differences between the groups at baseline: negative mood: f(2,38) = 1.67, p = .202; positive mood: f(2,38) = 1.96, p = .155; ego restoration f(2,38) = 0.20, p = .823). but there were no differences between the groups at end of treatment either: negative mood: f(2,32) = 0.49, p = .618; positive mood: f(2,32) = 0.27, p = .763; ego restoration: f(2,32) = 2.61, p = .089. we also conducted analyses with the combined nature group compared with the control group; the groups were similar at baseline: ego restoration: f(1,39) = 0.17, p = .679; negative mood: f(1,39) = 1,11, p = .298; positive mood: f(1,39) = 3.96, p = .054. at end of treatment, there were no differences on mood (fs < 1, ps > .05), but a significant difference between the groups on ego restoration: f(1,33) = 4.795, p = .036. this last result supports hypothesis 4, but we found no support for hypothesis 3. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 803 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 summary statistics over time for experimental study summary statistics over time end of treatmentmiddle of treatmentstart of treatment sdmsdmsdm experimental group pa .690.423.650.593.550.303 na .370.511.370.491.580.811 ego restoration .870.444.820.394.181.644 experimental group 2 pa .640.603.720.433.580.353 na .340.401.440.481.350.551 ego restoration .321.834.301.514.181.414 control group pa .520.553.640.463.600.703 na .350.371.300.441.360.531 ego restoration .741.583.871.623.451.364 combined nature group pa .660.513.680.523.560.333 na .350.451.400.481.490.691 ego restoration .111.644.061.454.161.534 discussion the results gave a partial support for the idea that actively using nature for emotion regulation is an effective strategy. we found support for one of our hypotheses regarding active usage; using nature for emotion regulation had an effect on positive mood. in addition, the analysis of the combined nature group indicated that nature exposure in general may have an effect on positive mood. the effect on positive mood of using nature appears to be rather complicated. after the first week we observed an increase in positive mood, but towards the end of the experiment positive mood decreased (although remaining above the baseline level). one explanation is that the manipulation was too invasive; the participants were told not to do what they normally would do when experiencing negative emotions. in addition, the contrast analysis showed that the effect may be quadratic. accordingly, the present study indicates that relying exclusively on this strategy for emotion regulation is not recommended. while the experimental group reported slightly higher negative mood than the other two groups at baseline, the groups were not significantly different in mood at any time point. the higher negative mood in the experimental group at baseline may explain why there were no group differences at middle or end. low power (small number of participants) may explain why there were no between group differences when comparing the experimental group and the two control groups. moreover, we did not monitor whether the participants followed the instructions given, and some may have adhered less strongly to them. in addition, it is possible that the participants in the two control group used their pictures for emotion regulation as well, although this option would have been time-constrained. finally, as indicated above, the experimental instruction may also have been europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 804 http://www.psychopen.eu/ too invasive, because the participants were urged to exclude other strategies (effective or ineffective ones), which could contribute to statistical noise. using nature for distraction, or emotion regulation, may influence cognitive functioning. the results showed that the combined nature group experienced higher levels of willpower, termed ego restoration, at end of treatment, when compared with the control group. a tentative conclusion may be that indirect representations of nature have a beneficial impact on restoration of willpower. this study raises two important questions. first, what is the role of the other environments in which people find themselves? how important is the environment one moves away from when one seeks nature? environmental deprivation may play a role here. the present study was conducted during springtime and environmental deprivation may have been a factor, although it is difficult to say how important this was because nature was still present in the everyday environment of the participants. perhaps the results would have been stronger if the participants were living in an urban environment. a related question is whether the discrepancy between the two environments is important. within attention restoration theory, environmental change is acknowledged, but it is only indicated that the restorative environment should be in some way different from one’s everyday environment (kaplan & kaplan, 1989). the second question raised is whether using nature for emotion regulation becomes less effective over time. people may habituate to nature, and people may certainly habituate to still images of nature. nevertheless, it seems possible that nature exposure over time could have an effect on positive mood. although the active use of nature may not be a necessary condition in this regard. on the other hand, a clinical population might benefit more from this approach, because it is possible that using nature is more effective for those higher in negative mood, and/or those with some sort of cognitive fatigue (johnsen, 2011). strictly speaking, this study cannot answer the question of whether using a picture of nature to regulate one’s emotions is more effective than using any other picture. we can only conclude that after one week the experimental group seemed to benefit emotionally from using nature to regulate their everyday emotions. study 2 the purpose of study 2 was to investigate the perception of nature with regards to emotion regulation, and the intention to use nature for emotion regulation. specifically, we wanted to explore whether nature is perceived as an environment suitable for emotion regulation, and whether the intention to use nature for emotion regulation would have any impact on mood/affectivity. in addition, the relevance of individual differences (personality and gender) in this regard was explored. emotional potential and emotion regulation that some environments are better suited for certain activities is not a new idea. research on favourite places takes at its starting point that one can choose to spend time in environments that are well suited for reflecting upon (negative) feelings (e.g., korpela, 1995, 2003). korpela (2003) has found that individuals with higher levels of negative mood tend to choose natural environments as their favourite places, and that these favourite places may support emotion regulation. we suggest a relatively straightforward concept to measure the perceived relevance of an environment for emotion regulation. this concept is called the emotional potential of an environment. emotional potential may be defined as an expectancy construct, i.e., to what extent one expects emotional effects from (being exposed to) an envireurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 805 http://www.psychopen.eu/ onment. an environment with the emotional potential to increase positive and reduce negative emotions could actively be used for this very purpose. within the process model of emotion regulation, environment-focused emotion regulation would be viewed as a variation of situation selection and situation modification (see gross, 1998; gross & barrett, 2011). the essential point here is that one can choose to spend time in environments one believes will increase, reduce, or maintain a feeling (situation selection). and one may modify a situation once a feeling already has been activated (or if one anticipates a feeling). for example, one may engage the children in a game when stuck in traffic. expectancy constructs should be highly relevant in both cases because they guide our emotion regulatory choices. personality and emotion regulation meta-analytic and longitudinal studies have demonstrated the relevance of personality traits such as extraversion and neuroticism, but also conscientiousness, for positive and negative affecti (e.g., costa & mccrae, 1980; steel, schmidt, & shultz, 2008). and personality traits may be related to both emotions and moods (e.g., costa &mccrae, 1980; larsen & ketelaar, 1991) and strategies for emotion regulation (see john & gross, 2007 and ng & diener, 2009). the relationship between personality, environment, and mood may be highly complex. over time, personality could influence one’s mood by influencing what environments one seeks out, but it may also influence the emotional significance (impact) of these chosen environments (see diener, larsen, & emmons, 1984; lucas & diener, 2008). it is easy to envision self-affirming circles through the seeking of environments that are congruent with one’s personality. but it also seems likely that repeated exposure to “healthy” environments should have an impact upon one’s mood. summing up, personality traits may, to varying degrees, moderate the emotional impact of an environment, and mood and emotional well-being over time. in addition, environmental choices may, if they are systematic over time, partially mediate the effect of personality on mood, but this, and any direct effects of seeking environments onmood, must be an accumulation of emotional experiences. to conclude, given the relations between personality and affect, it is important to account for the variance in mood due to personality. similarly, gender differences in mood and emotion are also relevant to consider (e.g., grossman & wood, 1993), that is, emotion regulatory choice is likely to be influenced by type and intensity of experience. in this study, we developed a scale to measure the perceived emotional potential of nature (and other environments). it seems likely that this kind of scale, measuring the expected emotional effects of different environments, may be of interest and relevance in a variety of other contexts as well. for example, this scale could be used when emotional processes and well-being (in an environment) are relevant to consider, and not merely immediate reactions. previous research has demonstrated that natural environments receive higher ratings of positive affect than urban environments (e.g., van den berg et al., 2003; white et al., 2010). accordingly, we hypothesized that nature would be rated higher on emotional potential than the other environments (h1a), and moreover, that perception would be related to intention; those perceiving a higher emotional potential in nature should also be more inclined to seek out nature (h1b). in addition, we studied the intentions to seek out different environments (motivational tendencies), in order to explore the participants’ tentative orientation towards specific environments. we hypothesized that the motivational tendency to seek out nature when experiencing a negative emotion would be related to a more positive and less negative mood (the regulation hypothesis, h2), and that the motivational tendency to seek nature when experiencing a positive emotion would be related to higher positive mood and lower negative mood (the savouring hypothesis, h3). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 806 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to explore these hypotheses we analysed the participants’ reactions to a small sample of environments. in similar research, studies often compare natural environments with urban environments (velarde, fry, & tveit, 2007). the present study stands within this tradition, but we wanted to include a few indoor environments and one atypical natural environment as well. method participants — the participants in study 2 were 473 college students (17% studied psychology). 66.2% were female and the mean age of the participants was 22.6 years old. by using lists of active enrolled students we calculated that 57.4% of the population of students at this college participated in this study. environmental stimuli —we started with fifty six pictures in total that represented six different everyday environments: urban environments with people, urban environments without people, “unsafe or scary” natural environments, living rooms, shopping malls, and classical natural environments. a panel (n = 7) rated the pictures on the degree to which they were the typical examples of their environmental categories, and based on this six picture were selected (see figures 4-9). a focus group was recruited to check the validity of the six pictures, essentially to ascertain whether people think of these categories when seeing the pictures. the focus group (n = 12, six women) was asked to give their most basic associations to the six selected pictures. specifically, the participants were asked to give the first association that came to mind, and the researcher asked for more associations several times until it appeared that no new associations were reported. after the list for each picture had been produced the participants were asked to raise their hand if they agreed with each of the associations. the agreements on these associations were counted. in general, the results confirmed the original categories, but the highest concordance was for classic nature, urban environment with people, and the shopping mall. only the associations agreed upon by 50% ormore are reported. the "urban environment with people" produced the following associations and number of people agreeing: outside (12), street (11), people (12), and nice weather (12). the “classic nature“ picture produced the following associations: river (9), nature (12), landscape (12), the mountain (6), norway (12). and the “shopping mall“ produced the following associations: shopping mall (12), city (12), floors (12), oslo city (a shopping mall) (9), “lots of people” (12), glass ceiling (10), busy (11). “urban environment without people“: city (11), grey (8), bad weather (8), downhill (11), and blocks (10). “unsafe (atypical) nature“: forest (12), evening (9), dusk (10). “living room“: evening (12), living room (10), lamp (12), and reading corner (7). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 807 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. urban environment with people (study 2). figure 5. urban environment without people (study 2). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 808 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 6. unsafe/atypical nature (study 2). figure 7. classic nature (study 2). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 809 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 8. living room (study 2). figure 9. shopping mall (study 2). measures — extraversion and neuroticism was assessed with the norwegian version of the big five inventory (bfi-44; engvik & føllesdal, 2005; john & srivastava, 1999). positive and negative mood were measured using the positive and negative affect schedule (panas) (watson et al., 1988), with the instruction to indicate how you generally feel. the intention to seek out nature wasmeasured with two questions: “i would seek this environment if i was sad” and “i would seek this environment if i was happy”. the questions were verbally anchored from 1-7, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 810 http://www.psychopen.eu/ highly disagree to highly agree. it was assumed that these two items indicated a motivational tendency or an intention to seek out nature when happy or sad, and that this intention should be closely related to savouring happy feelings, and regulating negative feelings. emotional potential was measured by four items: “being in these surroundings would make me happier”; “being in these surroundings would make me less happy”; “being in these surroundings would make me sadder”; “being in these surroundings would make me less sad”. these items were submitted to exploratory factor analysis (principal axis factoring with promax rotation). the factor analysis extracted a total of seven factors, but the last factor seemed to be the result of over-factorisation, for example, most items loaded lightly on this factor, and unsystematically. in addition, it was apparent that the items that related to the six different environments (pictures) organised into the first six factors (one for each environment). therefore, a six factor solution was used which accounted for 55.16% of the variance (the seven factor solution accounted for 59.85%). the six factors consisted of items relating to the same picture. pattern matrix cross loadings were very low, typically below 0.10 (max 0.14), and factor loadings were typically very high, about 0.70 (min 0.43). moreover, the six factors formed a bipolar organisation, with negative loadings for the items “...less happy” and “...sadder”, and positive loadings for the items “...happier” and “...less sad”. thus, we reversed the negative items and calculated mean emotional potential scales for each environment. the reliabilities (cronbach’s α) of these scales were good. see table 2 for means, standard deviations, item ranges, and cronbach’s α’s for all measures. procedure— the pictures of the six different environments were presented in softly lit lecture halls using an image projector. the participants viewed the pictures and indicated their immediate reactions to them on the questionnaire. results pair wise comparisons were conducted using paired samples t-tests and all environments were tested against the classical natural environment on emotional potential and the intention to seek out the environments when happy/sad. hypothesis 1a stated that nature would be rated highest on emotional potential. the results supported this: classic nature obtained significantly higher score on emotional potential than the other environments: compared with the urban environment with people: t(465) = 11.197, p < .001, d = 0.71; urban environment without people: t(463) = 30.400, p < .001, d = 2.00; unsafe nature: t(462) = 34.566, p < .001, d = 2.15, living room: t(464) = 24.047, p < .001, d = 1.58; shopping mall: t(464) = 11.422, p < .001, d = 0.76. cohen’s d was computed by dividing the difference in means by the pooled standard deviation, as recommended for repeated measures designs (see dunlap, cortina, vaslow, & burke, 1996). according to hypothesis 1b, the perception of the emotional potential of nature should be associated with the intention to seek out nature. the results supported this, emotional potential correlated with the intention to seek nature when happy (r = .62, p < .01), and sad (r = .21, p < .01). the participants seemed to prefer seeking classic nature when happy (savouring) over the other environments. compared with urban environment with people: t(464) = 11.823, p < .001, d = 0.71, urban environment without people: t(463) = 25.165, p < .001, d = 1.61, unsafe nature: t(461) = 30.948, p < .001, d = 1.86, living room: t(463) = 16.272, p < .001, d = 1.04, shopping mall: t(461) = 3.836, p < .001, d = 0.25. in general, the participants did not report a particularly strongmotivational tendency to seek any of the environments when sad (see table 2). however, classic nature was rated higher than most environments on the intention to regulate sadness. compared with urban environment with people: t(461) = 13.641, p < .001, d = 0.78, urban environment without people: t(458) = 7.538, p < .001, d = 0.46, shopping mall: t(462) = 10.530, p < .001, d = 0.62, unsafe nature: t(461) = 0.892, p = .373, d = 0.06, living room: t(462) = -0.838, p = .403, d = 0.05. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 811 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 means, standard deviations, and item ranges of measures cronbach’s αitem rangestandard deviationmean 1-7extraversion .78.910.644 1-7emotional stability (n) .81.081.524 1-7conscientiousness .78.880.624 1-5negative mood .78.490.831 1-5positive mood .78.520.533 urban env. w/ people -1-7would seek if happy .461.264 -1-7would seek if sad .651.672 1-7emotional potential .76.041.964 urban env. w/o people -1-7would seek if happy .361.083 -1-7would seek if sad .521.263 1-7emotional potential .76.011.693 “unsafe” nature -1-7would seek if happy .511.592 -1-7would seek if sad .761.933 1-7emotional potential .86.311.193 classic nature -1-7would seek if happy .321.245 -1-7would seek if sad .811.044 1-7emotional potential .83.960.675 living room -1-7would seek if happy .411.823 -1-7would seek if sad .461.124 1-7emotional potential .81.051.094 shopping mall -1-7would seek if happy .641.874 -1-7would seek if sad .801.942 1-7emotional potential .85.351.784 there were gender differences in intention, but not in the perception of nature. seek out if sad, males (m = 3.81, sd = 1.77), females (m = 4.17, sd = 1.82), t(460) = 2.009, p = .045, d = 0.20. seek out if happy, males (m = 4.93, sd = 1.42), females (m = 5.40, sd = 1.25) t(460) = 3.620, p < .001, d = 0.36. emotional potential, males (m = 5.66, sd = 0.97), females (m = 5.68, sd = 0.96), t(461) = 0.234, p = .815, d = 0.02. we conducted regression analyses to test whether the motivational tendency to seek nature when sad or happy (emotion regulation) could predict positive and negative mood. personality traits (extraversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness) and gender were entered in the first step, and the intention items (happy/sad) with regards to classic nature were entered in the second step. the dependent variable was positive mood (pa from the panas scale). this resulted in a significant r2-change (f = 5.114, p = .006). all predictors were significant at the .05 level, except the “would visit if sad” item (p = .066). using negative mood (na) as dependent variable did not result in a significant r2-change (f = 1.015, p = .363). we assumed there might be gender differences and coneurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 812 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ducted separate regression analyses with males and females. as before, we entered conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability in the first step and the intention items in the second. the results from these analyses, with pa as dependent variable, are shown in tables 4 and 5. for males, the “would seek if happy” item was a significant predictor of pa, while for females, the “would seek if sad” item was a significant predictor of pa. summing up, the motivational tendency to seek the natural environment when happy was correlated with positive mood (see table 3), and predicted positive mood for males (see table 5).the intention to seek the natural environment when sad was found to be a significant predictor of positive mood for females (see table 4), but it was not correlated with positive mood (table 3). table 3 correlations between emotional potentials and intentions to seek different environments, and mood/personality conscientiousnessextraversionemotional stabilitynapa classic nature would seek if sad .02.10*-.05-.07.02 would seek if happy .22**.01.03-.02.13** emotional potential .17**.03.08.09*-.15** urban w/ people would seek if sad .03.05.00-.07.04 would seek if happy .04-.06.13**-.06.02 emotional potential .00.13**.01-.08-.04 shopping mall would seek if sad .03.04.01-.01-.01 would seek if happy .03.08.23**-.12**.05emotional potential .11*.09.14**-.00-.06urban w/o people would seek if sad .00.15**-.06-.12*.00 would seek if happy .05-.01-.03.05-.02emotional potential .09-.04-.09*.12**-.07unsafe nature would seek if sad .05-.09-.11*-.17**.02would seek if happy .03.06-.12**.00.05 emotional potential .03-.05-.21**.01-.04 living room would seek if sad .07-.01.07-.03.01 would seek if happy .05-.02.02-.01-.05 emotional potential .05-.05.04.07-.07 *p < .05. **p < .01. there were no significant differences in mood between the groups that reported that they would seek nature when sad/happy (agreement 5-7 on the likert-type scale) and the groups that did not (agreement 1-4), all ps > .15. however, when endorsement of savouring (positive emotion regulation) was higher (6-7), there was a significant difference between the high intention group and the low intention group (agreement 1-5) on positive mood (pa): high intention (m = 3.63, sd = 0.54), low intention (m = 3.45, sd = 0.49), f(1,463) = 13.688, p < .001, d = 0.35. but there was no difference on negative mood (na), high intention: (m = 1.81, sd = 0.45), low intention (m = 1.84, sd = 0.52), f(1,463) = 0.628, p = .428, d = 0.06. and interestingly, positive mood was higher among those with europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 813 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 hierarchical multiple regression of positive mood (pa) onto personality and the use of nature for emotion regulation (females, n = 313) model 2model 1 ptβptβ extraversion .001<.21110.47.001<.9749.46 emotional stability .001.2263.15.001.2283.15 conscientiousness .001<.9095.27.001<.2216.28 seek if happy .438.7760.04 seek if sad .030.1852.10 r2 .45.44 f change .419*3.877**78 *p < .05. **p < .01. table 5 hierarchical multiple regression of positive mood (pa) onto personality and the use of nature for emotion regulation (males, n = 155) model 2model 1 ptβptβ extraversion .001<.0807.49.001<.0797.49 emotional stability .374.8910.06.486.6990.05 conscientiousness .001<.2454.28.001<.7324.31 seek if happy .022.3102.16 seek if sad .901.125-0.01r2 .40.37 f change .8602.019**29 *p < .05. **p < .01. higher endorsement of the negative emotion regulation item, although the difference was not significant, high intention (m = 3.62, sd = 0.55), low intention (m = 3.51, sd = 0.51), f(1,463) = 3.438, p = .064, d = 0.21. the high endorsement group also reported higher negative mood, but the difference was not significant, high intention (m = 1.87, sd = 0.54), low intention: (m = 1.81, sd = 0.47), f(1,463) = 1.187, p = .276, d = 0.12. of course, this may not be about nature at all; any environment could be sought for the purpose of emotion regulation or self-regulation, and be effective. in order to test for this possibility, we compared responses to the classic natural environment with responses to all six environments. we conducted the same hierarchical regression analyses as with the natural environment, adding gender and personality traits in the first step and the intention items in the second. the results showed that adding the intention items resulted in a significant r2-change only in one analysis. for the “unsafe” natural environment, seeking if sad predicted negative mood (β = .11, p = .004), that is seeking this environment positively predicted negative mood when controlling for personality and gender. moreover, three of the intention items correlated positively with negative mood (see table 3). discussion the present study introduced a novel concept, emotional potential, to measure the perceived relevance of an environment for emotion regulation. this expectancy construct refers to the belief that an environment will increase positive and decrease negative emotions. emotional potential seems to be a reliable and coherent measure. the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 814 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived emotional potential of nature appears to be high. this supports previous research findings on the association between nature and positive affect (e.g., van den berg et al., 2003; white et al., 2010). however, this may not be true for all natural environments; the picture of the unsafe natural environment was rated significantly lower on emotional potential than the classical natural environment. we found some support for both the savouring and the regulation hypotheses. positive mood was associated with the intention to seek nature when happy (savouring). this could indicate that the strategy is effective in increasing or maintaining positive mood. on the other hand, it may be that people higher in positive mood are more outgoing, more oriented towards seeking environments in general. of course, then such associations should also be found with the other environments. both intentions, to seek out nature when happy, and sad, could predict positive mood in the regression analyses, but there was a gender difference here. for males, the intention to seek out nature when happy was a significant predictor of positive mood, while for females, the intention to seek out nature when sad predicted positive mood. the intention to seek nature was not associated with negative mood. this could indicate that the impact upon negative mood is more indirect (see below). when the participants were divided into groups based on endorsement of the items, perhaps indicating a stronger tendency to actually seek out nature when happy or sad, we found a higher level of positive mood among those showing a tendency towards savouring, and this difference was statistically significant. in addition, positive mood was higher among the participants showing a tendency towards negative emotion regulation. this difference was close to being statistically significant. the fact that this group also reported slightly higher negative mood indicates that people with higher negative mood may seek out nature to undo the impact of negative feelings, that is, they may perceive a need to use nature to buffer against their negative mood, and as a result may heighten their positive mood. this fits well with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, where the activation of positive emotions is thought to undo the sequelae of negative emotions (fredrickson, 1998). this could explain a hypothetical indirect effect on negative mood. there are two main objections that could be raised against this study; the choice to study only a small number of environments, and the choice to include only two emotions. one important reason for making these choices was the attempt to avoid fatigue among the participants. two common examples of emotions were selected, one positive and one negative. with regards to the selection of environments there was an additional reason for our approach. rather than controlling some relevant aspect of the environment, we opted for a more holistic approach and selected a few common everyday environments. we were looking for a representation of environments that people might be exposed to daily or weekly. to be useful, the environments should be representative exemplars of their category, and the focus group confirmed this representativeness. overall, the classical natural environment, the shoppingmall, the living room, and the urban environment with people may be judged to be adequate exemplars. the type of natural environment one seeks may be relevant. in the present context, a natural environment showing water and greenery was rated more positively than a natural environment showing a dark forest. the responses to the atypical natural environment could indicate a congruency perspective. that is, seeking a darker natural environment could be a way of validating one’s negative mood. and furthermore, this could indicate that it may be easier to project emotions onto nature, both positive and negative, than onto other environments. but it is also possible that we respond more readily to different natural environments, that is, the underlying relevance of natural environments may be clearer to us, as evolutionary analyses have suggested (e.g., ulrich, 1993). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 815 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the relation between the perception of the emotional potential of nature and conscientiousness confirms a previous finding that individuals with a higher score on conscientiousness may appraise nature as highly relevant for their well-being (johnsen, 2012). this is also in accordance with the idea that conscientious individuals orient themselves towards that which is socially prescribed (see john & gross, 2007), and have emotional responses accordingly. the finding that savouring happy feelings in an urban environment is weakly related to negative moodmight indicate that this is an inefficient strategy. on the other hand, it could simply mean that people with a more negative mood want to avoid public settings even when they are happy. nevertheless, the finding is intriguing and should be researched further. generally speaking, the relations between personality, the seeking of affect-congruent and affectincongruent environments, and emotional responses, should be researched further. there may be some interesting findings here, for example, seeking mood-congruent environments could moderate or mediate the relationship between mood and personality. only single items were used to measure intention in this study, it is possible that by using scales, and by including more emotions, the relations will be stronger. it should also be noted that the intentions only referred to a specific picture as a proxy for nature. while our approach made it possible to gather more immediate, and perhaps visceral, reactions to the different environments, asking about these environments in general would probably produce stronger associations. general discussion we have reported results from one experimental and one cross-sectional study of the use of nature for emotion regulation. taken together, the results from these two studies show that the use of nature for emotion regulation may have real and beneficial consequences for people employing this strategy. the evidence for an effect on positive mood from this strategy seems convincing, at least to some extent. the experimental study showed an initial increase in positive mood for the active usage group and a main effect on positive mood for the combined nature group, and the cross-sectional study showed that more usage of nature for emotion regulation was related to higher positive mood. it was more difficult, however, to demonstrate that this strategy has an effect on cognitive functions. the only finding of relevance was that, at the end of the experiment, ego restoration, which is assumed to measure an increase in willpower, was rated higher in the combined nature group than in the control group. this shows that being exposed to nature may over time have an effect on one’s perceived willpower. future studies might focus on whether using nature to regulate emotion is effective in increasing positive mood over longer periods of time, and whether this approach may be relevant in a clinical perspective. for example, using nature may be particularly effective for people who cope with their depression by seeking mood-congruent environments. moreover, further research might also consider the appropriateness of using different environments (e.g., the shopping mall) for emotion regulation. emotional potential may be a relevant concept to consider when studying relations between the physical environment (e.g., buildings and neighbourhoods) and well-being. in fact, the present findings indicate that people may perceive nature as highly relevant for emotion regulation. and therefore, taking steps that make the option of visiting nature available to people may contribute to increased well-being and better psychological health in the population. the results reported here show that it may be of importance which environmental stimuli one chooses for distraction. given this, one should take a closer and more specific look at what environmental distractions people use, or europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 nature and emotion regulation 816 http://www.psychopen.eu/ prefer. this may be particularly relevant in our modern society where environmental stimuli designed to distract is the rule rather than the exception. notes i) we use the term affect as a general term referring to both emotions and moods. and distinguish between emotions and moods in terms of duration and situational relevance. mood is a more lasting (days, months) emotional reaction. references baumeister, r. f., bratslavsky, e., muraven, m., & tice, d. m. 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(2010). blue space: the importance of water for preference, affect, and restorativeness ratings of natural and built scenes. journal of environmental psychology, 30, 482-493. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.04.004 about the authors dr. leif w . rydstedt is professor in work and organizational psychology with special interest in health consequences of longterm stress exposure, recovery from work stress and the role of personality factors in the stress process. cand. psychol. svein åge kjøs johnsen is a certified clinical psychologist and currently a doctorate student in environmental psychology, specifically environment-focused emotion regulation. most of his interests are in the intersections between environmental psychology, emotion research, and personality psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 798–819 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.633 johnsen & rydstedt 819 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2009.01.022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.61.1.132 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001.30.2.100 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.1.138 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0272-4944(02)00111-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2007.07.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.04.004 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en nature and emotion regulation introduction study 1 method results discussion study 2 emotional potential and emotion regulation personality and emotion regulation method results discussion general discussion notes references about the authors a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 33–50 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.387 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 sociodemographic and clinical determinants of quality of life and health representations in greek patients with multiple sclerosis paraskevi theofilou retraction notice this article has been retracted due to violating good publication practice and not complying to ejop's/psychopen's ethical guidelines on plagiarism and redundant or concurrent publication. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/documents/guidelines/publication_ethics_and_publication_malpractice_statement.pdf an integrated framework involving enactive learning experiences, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement research reports an integrated framework involving enactive learning experiences, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement a causal modeling examination huy p. phan*a [a] school of education, university of new england, australia. abstract situating within the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals, this short-term study examined the central roles of tasks values, mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, and academic engagement and disengagement in students’ future achievement outcome in mathematics. enactive learning experience was also considered as antecedent of the mentioned variables. a sample of 262 (139 boys and 123 girls) 12th grade students participated in the study. structural equation modelling analyses yielded some notable findings, such as temporally displaced effects of both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations on academic engagement and disengagement, respectively. the two types of mastery goals also influenced achievement in mathematics, whereas task values inversely related to academic disengagement. in general, from a decomposition of direct and indirect effects, it can be suggested that mastery goals exist in a central system that includes both antecedents and consequences. keywords: academic engagement, academic disengagement, enactive learning experience, mastery goals, task values europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 received: 2013-08-28. accepted: 2013-11-16. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: school of education, university of new england, armidale, nsw 2351, australia. e-mail: hphan2@une.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the study of quality learning in motivational contexts is an important focus of inquiry in the field of educational psychology. one notable emphasis that has been researched extensively is achievement goal theory (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, elliot, & trash, 2002; pintrich, conley, & kempler, 2003) and its applicability in educational settings. the bifurcation of a mastery goal orientation into an approach versus an avoidance dimension has attracted some considerable attentions of late (elliot & murayama, 2008; van yperen, elliot, & anseel, 2009). situating within the framework of achievement goals other theoretical constructs, similarly, also account for the overall variance of academic learning – for example, academic engagement-disengagement (martin & dowson, 2009; martin, malmberg, & liem, 2010; suárez-orozco, pimentel, & martin, 2009) and task values (eccles, 2005; hulleman, durik, schweigert, & harackiewicz, 2008). there is impetus then, from an educational psychology perspective, for us to consider the study of achievement goal orientations, academic engagement-disengagement, and task values in a secondary school setting. these europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological variables, in totality, may interact to explain quality learning and students’ performance outcomes. our short-term longitudinal design, encompassing the use of structural equation modelling (sem)(bollen, 1989; byrne, 1998; loehlin, 2004) is relatively unique and may provide informative evidence pertaining to temporally displaced relationships. more importantly, however, a decomposition of effects may also clarify the central role of academic engagement and task values. taking into consideration elliot and murayama’s (2008) study and the recent emphasis pertaining to the 2 × 2 model, we selectively focused on the potency of both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations in secondary school students’ learning of mathematics. theoretical overview of motivational variables the theoretical-conceptual model tested in the present study, as illustrated in figure 1, amalgamates four major theoretical tenets and their contributions in the prediction of academic achievement: (i) enactive learning experiences, (ii) task values, (iii) mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement. the structural relations that we hypothesize are based, in part, on empirical evidence derived from previous research studies. we contend that the research focus detailed in this investigation has theoretical significance and practical relevance, especially in the contexts of secondary school teaching and learning. in this section of the article, we overview the mentioned theoretical constructs in accordance with the hypothesized relations outlined in figure 1. enactive learning experiences, consonant with bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory, are authenticallybased and may be subject to both mastery (e.g., an individual piece of assessment that seeks mastery and personal improvement) and normative criteria (e.g., am i as good as my best friend, thomas, in algebra?). repeated successes in an academic subject matter, according to bandura (1997), may assist individuals in the formation of their personal self-efficacy beliefs for academic learning (hampton & mason, 2003; lent, lopez, & bieschke, 1991; phan, 2012b). self-reflection on previous performances, for instances, provide a basis for individuals to cognitively appraise their capabilities and for future improvement. individuals who are successful tend to have heightened self-efficacy beliefs, compared to those who are unsuccessful and have learning difficulties. consequently, on this basis, we contend that situating within the framework of social cognition (bandura, 1986, 1997), enactive learning experiences could predict and enhance other motivation-related attributes. in the context of this research investigation, we postulate that individuals’ personal learning experiences could exert varying predictive effects on task values for learning, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement. task values, similar to enactive learning experiences, have been featured prominently in cognition and motivation research. task values, situating within the expectancy-value theory (eccles, 2005; eccles et al., 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000), entail several types of subjective task values and thesemay explain individuals’ learning behaviours and achievement outcomes: attainment value or importance, intrinsic value, and utility value or usefulness of the task (see wigfield & eccles, 2000 for detail). task values, in this analysis, query the extent to which individuals feel that an academic task at hand (e.g., solving a set of problems involving algebra) is worth pursuing. we include task values in the present research investigation, as there is empirical evidence, derived from quantitative studies (e.g., harackiewicz, durik, barron, linnenbrink-garcia, & tauer, 2008; hulleman et al., 2008; liem, lau, & nie, 2008; meece, wigfield, & eccles, 1990; updegraff, eccles, barber, & o'brien, 1996), to show that these are integral to classroom learning. an identification of a learning task that has utility value (e.g, "i think the course material in this class is useful for me to learn": pintrich, smith, garcia, & mckeachie, 1991), say, may assist in the prediction of students’ motivation (e.g., adoption of mastery goals) and achievement outcomes beyond the immediate classroom. tasks with intrinsic value (e.g., "i am very interested in the content area of this course": pintrich et al., europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 42 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1991), similarly, are interesting and may stimulate appreciation and intellectual curiosities, enabling individuals to interact with others in their learning (hulleman et al., 2008). the positive effects of task values and their potentials on individuals’ achievement goals for mastery are based on existing theoretical tenets (eccles, 2005; eccles et al., 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000) and empirical evidence (cole, bergin, & whittaker, 2008; liem et al., 2008; phan, in press). we focus on mastery goals, given there is recent emphasis for the cultivation of mastery and deep learning (phan, 2013b). rather than to seek alternatives and strategies that could resolve deficits and maladaptive practices (e.g., an individual seeking to adopt a workavoidance goal), it has been suggested that educators use positive psychology theories to stimulate and encourage educational and adaptive outcomes. we emphasize, in this case, the potency of mastery goals and academic engagement for learning. figure 1. a conceptual framework of mastery goals, task value, and academic engagement-disengagement. note. ‘+’ denotes a positive relationship between the variables (e.g., the positive effect of task value on a mastery-approach), whereas ‘-’ denotes a negative relation (e.g., the positive effect of task value on a mastery-avoidance). we focus on both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008) for academic learning. these two types of mastery goals are part of the achievement goal theoretical tenets (ames & archer, 1988; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002; nicholls, cheung, lauer, & patashnick, 1989). as a definition, achievement goals are defined as “competence-relevant aims that individuals strive for in achievement settings“ (pekrun, elliot, & maier, 2009, p. 115). achievement goals, in educational contexts, enable educators and researchers to explain individuals’ patterns in cognition, motivation, thoughts, and behaviours (e.g., why does an individual adopt a deep cognitive approach to learning). in the field of educational psychology, educators and researchers have used achievement goal theoretical tenets to explain and predict individuals’ motivation and quality learning outcomes. in the earlier years, the dichotomous model was prominent and detailed two major achievement goal types: mastery, or task-involvement (e.g., emphasizes the development of competence), versus performance, or ego-involvement (e.g., demonstrate outward competence)(ames & archer, 1988; nicholls, 1984). this mastery-performance differentiation, according to researchers, is rather limited and simplistic in nature. individuals’ motivational patterns and their approaches to learning, in this analysis, cannot simply be explained by this mastery-performance distinction, alone. for example, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 43 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in earlier research studies, evidence yielded showed an inconclusive pattern for the adoption of performance goals: some researchers found negative effects for performance goals (elliot & church, 1997; elliott & dweck, 1988), whereas others full a null effect (elliot & harackiewicz, 1996; harackiewicz & elliot, 1993). elliot, harackiewicz, and others, on this basis, revised the two-factor model of achievement goals to include a trichotomous model (elliot & church, 1997; elliot & harackiewicz, 1996). this three-factor model stipulates a bifurcation in the performance categorization, wherein two distinctive components are recognized: approach and avoidance (elliot & church, 1997; elliot & harackiewicz, 1996). the approach orientation (i.e., performance-approach) focuses on individuals acquiring positive possibilities (e.g., attaining competence and demonstrating superiority)(van yperen et al., 2009), whereas the avoidance orientation (i.e., performance-avoidance) focuses on individuals avoiding negative possibilities (e.g., failure or looking incompetent, normatively). the trichotomous model, in totality, suggests that there are three major types of achievement goals: mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance. an examination of the literature (alkharusi, 2010; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002; senko, hulleman, & harackiewicz, 2011) indicates that there is a plethora of research, which has demonstrate the validity and utility of this trichotomous framework (elliot, mcgregor, & gable, 1999; fenollar, román, & cuestas, 2007; liem et al., 2008; phan, 2010). similar to the dichotomous model of achievement goals (ames & archer, 1988; nicholls, 1984), however, the trichotomous model was limited in its explanation of individuals’ motivation in terms of competence-based strivings. researchers, on this basis, proposed a bifurcation of mastery goals (i.e., mastery-approach andmastery-avoidance), resulting in a 2 × 2 framework (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002; pintrich, 2000). overall, this model suggests four major goal types: (i) a mastery-approach orientation where individuals seek to achieve mastery or improvement, (ii) a mastery-avoidance orientation where individuals seek to avoid failing achievement of a task mastery, (iii) a performance-approach where the main focus is for individuals to accomplish and outperform others, and (iv) a performance-avoidance where one seeks to avoid doing worst than others in given tasks. the 2 × 2 model, to date, has received less research attention than the trichotomous model. there has been some research within the past decade from scholars seeking to clarify the validity of the four types of achievement goals (cury, elliot, da fonseca, & moller, 2006; e.g., elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010; phan, 2013c). the last few years have seen researchers exploring the two types of mastery goals, in particular (ciani & sheldon, 2010; madjar, kaplan, & weinstock, 2011; phan, 2014; van yperen et al., 2009). one notable avenue of inquiry has, in this case, entailed the legitimacy and appropriateness of the 2 × 2 model, and whether mastery-avoidance goals actually exist in educational settings (phan, 2014; sideridis & mouratidis, 2008). our examination, in this analysis, may produce fruitful information and evidence pertaining, specifically, to the two types of mastery goals for academic learning. it is interesting to note that there has been mixed evidence in relation to the relationship between goal orientations and task values, depending on one’s own conceptualization of goals. goals, in the context the expectancy-value theory (eccles et al., 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000), differ in scope and content from the goals that are conceptualized in the achievement goal theory (e.g., ames, 1992; elliot, 1999; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002; pintrich et al., 2003). notably, according to wigfield (1994), the emphasis in goals from an expectancyvalue perspective connotes broader objectives and purposes for students (e.g., a student considering a particular career choice option). goals, in the spectrum of achievement goal theory, emphasize immediacy and narrow aims europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 44 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and objectives (e.g., "my aim is to completely master the material presented in this class": elliot & murayama, 2008). as previous research studies have reported (e.g., greene, miller, crowson, duke, & akey, 2004; harackiewicz et al., 2008; liem et al., 2008; simons, dewitte, & lens, 2004), individuals’ task values (e.g., task interest) relate closely to various types of achievement goals. harackiewicz et al.’s (2008) longitudinal study, for example, yielded consistent evidence, attesting to the impact of interest on various types of achievement goals (e.g., mastery). the contributing effects of enactive learning experiences, task values, and mastery goals on academic learning and achievement-related outcomes have been attested from existing research studies. one notable achievementrelated outcome, which has featured prominently in the empirical literature, is one’s engagement towards schooling and academic learning. academic engagement and disengagement, similar to achievement goals and task values, has been researched extensively and is integral to our understanding of individuals’ learning patterns, behaviours, and motivation (artino & stephens, 2009; fredricks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004; liem et al., 2008; martin & dowson, 2009; willms, 2003). academic engagement is multifaceted and diverse in its scope and coverage. as a definition, according to willms (2003), student engagement refers to “the extent to which students identify with and value schooling outcomes, and participate in academic and non-academic school activities” (willms, 2003, p. 8). considering it as a multifaceted construct, encompassing the behavioural (e.g., the idea of participation in academic and/or extracurricular activities), emotional (e.g., positive and negative reactions to teachers, classmates, and school), and cognitive (e.g., the idea of investment, such as effort expenditure to comprehend complex ideas) components (fredricks et al., 2004), willms’ (2003) theoretical view may be broad to include students’ attitudes towards schooling and their participation in learning and school activities. disengagement or the term “disengaged from school” (willms, 2003), in contrast, characterizes those students who withdraw from school activities and feel they do not belong at school. there is moderate research in the motivation literature, detailing the importance of engagement as a predictor of schooling outcomes (e.g., academic performance). research emphasis pertaining to academic engagement is rather interesting, inferring that this theoretical construct functions, in tandem with other attributes (e.g., school culture), as a deposition towards quality learning in educational settings (willms, 2003). from a maladaptive perspective, in contrast, there is also the inquiry that emphasizes the long-term detrimental effects of disengagement (henry, 2010; henry, knight, & thornberry, 2012; liem et al., 2008; offord & waters, 1983; salamonson, andrew, & everett, 2009). offord and waters (1983) found that, for example, adolescents who manifest and have behavioural problems (e.g., participating in anti-social and criminal activities) tend to experience disconnectedness and disengagement from school. henry et al.’s (2012) research with youths reported a similar pattern in findings, wherein school disengagement relates to student dropout and other serious behavioural problems. the current study: enactive learning experiences, task value, mastery goals, and academic engagement/disengagement integrating multiple theoretical tenets into the study of secondary school students’ motivation and learning has empirical merits and practical relevance for educators and researchers, alike. examination of the empirical literature, described in the preceding sections, indicates that both mastery goals could function as antecedents of academic engagement and disengagement. these variables may also, in turn, operate dynamically as proximal and distal predictors of quality and achievement outcomes. in the current study, consistent with bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory and existing evidence (britner & pajares, 2006; hampton, 1998; lent et al., 1991; phan, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 45 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2012a), we designed a theoretical-conceptual model that hypothesized enactive learning experiences as a focal point of origin. enactive learning experiences would, in turn, exert varying effects on three four outcomes: task values for learning, mastery goals, academic engagement-disengagement, and achievement in mathematics learning. the impact of enactive learning experiences enriched learning experiences, situated within the framework of social cognition (bandura, 1986, 1997), form the basis of intrinsic motivation, mastery goals, students’ academic engagement and their achievement outcomes. personal accomplishments in a subject matter, as we alluded previously, form the basis of intrinsic motivation, and may exert positive effects on task values, mastery goals, academic engagement, and achievement outcome. task values, in accordance with the expectancy-value theoretical model (eccles et al., 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000), as indicated from existing evidence (cole et al., 2008; liem et al., 2008; phan, in press), are expected to influence students’ adoption of mastery-approach goals. for example, we expect to find that perceived usefulness or intrinsic value of a particular learning activity to enhance students’ striving mastery and improvement of personal competence. task value, in totality, in this analysis, may reflect a sense of proactivity towards schooling, and instil positive beliefs that academic learning is worthwhile for consideration and pursuing. mastery goals and academic engagement-disengagement the impact of mastery goals, from 2 × 2 theoretical perspective (elliot, 1999; elliot &mcgregor, 2001), has relevance and educational importance in terms of applied practices. the positive effect of mastery-approach goals, in particular, has been noted in previous research (elliot & murayama, 2008; phan, 2013c; sins, van joolingen, savelsbergh, & van hout-wolters, 2008), and on this basis, we contend a similar pattern in results would extend to students’ academic engagement and achievement outcome. we posit that a mastery-approach goal orientation, for instance, would relate closely to academic engagement in schooling. willingness to seek mastery and improvement in key learning concepts of a subject matter may, of course, facilitate and motivate students to engage more proactively with the academic-social milieu for assistance. a mastery-avoidance goal, in contrast, may not necessarily translate to positive achievement-related outcomes. this type of mastery goals, as we mentioned previously, is still in its infancy in terms of research development and very little is known about its characteristics (ciani & sheldon, 2010; madjar et al., 2011; sideridis & mouratidis, 2008; van yperen et al., 2009). we query, for instance, whether the avoidance component of the valence dimension could, in fact, result in negative outcomes and maladaptive practices? does a mastery-avoidance goal orientation facilitate students to disengage and withdraw from school, altogether? evidence ascertained, say, between a mastery-avoidance goal and academic disengagement would inform us of the potential detrimental consequences of this goal type. academic engagement-disengagement in educational settings is an important notion for consideration, especially in terms of national policy development, workforce and social welfare planning. academic engagement-disengagement, as research has shown, entails both positive and negative consequences for students (fredricks et al., 2004; henry et al., 2012; salamonson et al., 2009). disengagement, for example, has been shown to result in detrimental outcomes, such as student withdrawal, participation in antisocial behaviours, etc. we need to consider, in contrast, the importance of academic engagement, given this facet has been noted to enhance student learning in achievement contexts. how do we foster a climate of school belonging, whereby students may feel inclined and motivated to engage in schooling and partake in academic and non-extracurricular activities?what preventive measures could we incorporate to ensure students do not experience a sense of isolation, stigmatization, etc.? this avenue of inquiry, from our point of view, has implications for educators and school, in general. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 46 http://www.psychopen.eu/ enhancement of academic achievement finally, we need to consider the enhancement of learning in achievement contexts. in this investigation, as depicted in figure 1, we amalgamate different strands of research inquiries and posit four possible predictors of achievement outcome: enactive learning experience, task values, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement. in many cases, for example, there is consistent evidence to support the hypothesized structural paths between the proposed predictors and academic achievement (e.g., the negative consequences of academic disengagement, such as early dropout and juvenile deliquency: henry, 2010; henry et al., 2012; moretti, 2005; rouse, 2005). what is preliminary and unclear at present, however, is the impact of the two types of mastery goals on learning and academic achievement outcomes. comparing to the trichotomous model of achievement goals, research pertaining to the 2 × 2model has beenmodest with some evidence attesting to the effects of both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals. consequently, our examination is in accordance with the 2 × 2 achievement goal model (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002), may provide additional support and clarification into the varying patterns of predictive and explanatory effects for both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations. in summation, in accordance with figure 1, the focus of our research investigation details four major research hypotheses: hypothesis 1. it is hypothesized that task values, a mastery-approach goal orientation, and academic engagement would exert positive predictive effects on academic achievement in mathematics. hypothesis 2. it is hypothesized that both mastery-avoidance goal orientation and academic disengagement would exert negative predictive effects on academic achievement in mathematics. hypothesis 3. it is hypothesized that both mastery-approach andmastery-avoidance goal orientations would exert positive and negative predictive effects on academic engagement and disengagement, respectively. hypothesis 4. it is hypothesized that task values would exert positive predictive effects on a mastery-approach goal orientation and academic engagement, and negative predictive effects on a mastery-avoidance goal orientation and academic disengagement. in totality: an integrated framework the significance of the present study then, as outlined in figure 1, entails a longitudinal examination of interrelations between different motivational and cognitive processes of learning. we focus on the bifurcation of mastery goals, an important focus in educational research that requires clarity and validation. furthermore, contributing to the study of student learning in achievement contexts, we also included both engagement and disengagement as potential adaptive and maladaptive outcomes of academic learning. this inclusion, we feel, is pivotal to the understanding of learning and achievement within a larger system of academia. the stipulation of academic engagement, for example, may provide evidence that spans beyond the individualistic trait perspective (phan, 2014). methods sample two hundred and ninety-two 12th grade students took part in this short-term longitudinal study, which was funded and approved by our university. the data, from three government schools in western sydney, was collected in europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 47 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both 2012 and 2013. western sydney, overall, is multicultural and the three schools involved were average in sociocultural status and diverse in ethnic and cultural compositionsi. many students from these three schools, first, second and third generation australians would be of european, asian, and middle eastern backgrounds. given the final two years of secondary schooling in australia are crucial, logistically, we had very limited, if any, opportunities to stipulate our own preference in time points in data collection. with the structured busy schedules of 12th grade classes, in particular, we managed to complete the questionnaires in less than 40 minutes, including instructions, administration, and clarification of questions that some students had for us. due to missing data, a final sample of 262 (139 boys and 123 girls) was included in the subsequent statistical analyses. the three time points of data collection in this study are as follows: (i) time 1 in early-december, 2012, with the collection of students’ 11th grade results in mathematics, (ii) time 2 in the first week of february, 2013, with the administration of the questionnaires for task values, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement, and (iii) time 3 in june, with the collection of students’ 12th grade school term 1 results in mathematics. this short-term longitudinal examination, with multiple time points in data collection, is advantageous, theoretically, and may provide fruitful information into the temporally displaced influences of psychological variables. there has been precedence, more recently, for researchers to explore and study cognitive and motivational variables in educational settings within a longitudinal framework (bong, 2001; durik, lovejoy, & johnson, 2009; harackiewicz, barron, tauer, & elliot, 2002; harackiewicz et al., 2008; phan, 2011a; wong & watkins, 1998). the educational course of one’s learning does not occur instantaneously, but rather progresses over a period of time. in the secondary schooling system, for example, 11th and 12th grades are predominantly the important years, prior to university studies. an undergraduate liberal arts degree, similarly, may take three to four years to complete. in this sense, from an educational perspective, an examination of temporally displaced relations between the variables (e.g., a mastery goal orientation at time 2 → academic achievement at time 3) would provide an in-depth understanding of the extent of potency of the mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, in particular. we administered three likert-scale inventories, as explained below, in classes with the assistance of a doctoral student. university protocols, including ethical procedures were explained and followed. for example, apart from the notion of anonymity, we also explained to the students that their participation was voluntary and why there their results for mathematics were needed. instruments one subject discipline that is important is mathematics, and many secondary school students in australia undertake this subject with a view to use it as a pre-requisite for university entry into various undergraduate courses. consequently, where appropriate, we asked the participants to situate their considerations and responses within the contexts of mathematics learning. cronbach’s alpha values for our study were: .92 and .95 for the mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance subscales, respectively, .88 for the task value subscale, and .95 and .90 for the engagement and disengagement subscales, respectivelyii. enactive learning experience —we used students’ previous 11th grade yearly results for mathematics as an index of prior mathematics achievement. this result index, for each participant, constituted in-class, periodic assessment tasks (e.g., a group project) and end-of-term examinations, and consequently, from our point of view, reflected enactive learning experiences. a number of researchers have used this methodological approach in self-efficacy studies (e.g., liem et al., 2008; matsui, matsui, & ohnishi, 1990; phan, 2012a) instead of self-reporting responses from likert-scale questionnaires (e.g., "i got a high grade in last year's math class": lent et al., 1991). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 48 http://www.psychopen.eu/ student self-reporting, commonly used in previous research (hampton, 1998; lent et al., 1991; usher & pajares, 2009), has been reasoned to provide inaccurate information about one’s own judgments and reflections of mastery experiences – for example, noting down the receiving of good academic grades when, in fact, this is not true (phan, 2011b). task values — we used the task value subscale of the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (mlsq)(pintrich, smith, garcia, & mckeachie, 1993) to measure task values. the subscale, containing six items measured on a 7-point rating scale (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)), describes values pertaining to interest (e.g., “i am very interested in the content area of this subject, mathematics”), perceived usefulness (e.g., “i think i will be able to use what i learn in this subject, mathematics, in other subjects”), and importance (e.g., “it is important for me to learn the subject material in this class”). mastery goal orientations — we used the two mastery goal subscales of the revised achievement goal questionnaire (acg-r)(elliot & murayama, 2008) to measure students’ mastery goal orientations. each subscale, containing three items each and measured on a 7-point rating scale (1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)), was modified slightly to fit in with the contexts of mathematics learning for secondary school students. the sample items included, for example: “my aim is to completely master thematerial presented in this class” (mastery-approach item) and “my aim is to avoid learning less than i possibly could” (mastery-avoidance item). academic engagement and disengagement — there are a number of inventories, which measure and assess students’ academic engagement (martin, 2001; martin & marsh, 2005; schaufeli, salanova, gonzález-romá, & bakker, 2002). we chose to use schaufeli et al.’s (2002) engagement scales, student version, as these have been found to demonstrate good construct validity, relevance, and applicability to classroom learning. the 17 items, answered on a 7-point rating scale (1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)), defined three distinct dimensions: vigor (e.g., “when i get up in the morning, i feel like going to class”), dedication (e.g., “to me, my studies are challenging”), and absorption (e.g., “when i am studying, i forget everything around me”). similar to the stipulation and procedure of personal self-efficacy (bandura, 1997; pajares, 1996), we asked the participants to rate their judgments for these items within the context of mathematics learning. for example, in relation to the absorption dimension, it would be, say: …. when i am studying [the subject mathematics], i forget everything around me. significantly, from our point of view, the inclusion of disengagement may also provide theoretical insights into its characteristics compared to academic engagement. can it be inferred that disengagement, as a negative valence, is simply a ‘reverse’ of academic engagement, as a positive valence? some researchers (e.g., salamonson et al., 2009) have, for example, made reference to these two theoretical terms casually and interchangeably without consideration of differences or similarities. rather than inferring logically that disengagement is a reverse of academic engagement, we reasoned that an actual measure would be beneficial, theoretically and methodologically. we used two items of martin and marsh’s (2005) research (e.g., “i often feel like giving up in this subject, mathematics”) and adapted nine items from artino and stephens’ (2009) version of wolters’ (2004)(e.g., “i often find excuses for not starting the work for this mathematics class”) research to measure students’ academic disengagement. of the 11 items, which were rated on a 7-point likert scale (1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), two items were worded positively (e.g., “i look forward to learning more about this subject, mathematics, in the future”) and nine negatively (e.g., “i often find excuses for not starting the work for this mathematics class”). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 49 http://www.psychopen.eu/ academic achievement in mathematics learning — we defined academic achievement in this investigation as a measure of two indexes: (i) course mark that is made up of periodic quizzes and other assessment tasks, and (ii) end-of-term examination. these two indexes, similar to our previous mentioning, reflect a measure of enactive learning experiences for mathematics. ideally, from the perspective of constructive alignment (biggs, 1999), we would have preferred to use a formal test and other in-class assessment tasks to gauge into participants’ learning and achievements in mathematics. having said this, however, the upper secondary school years in australia are relatively crucial (e.g., preparing for entry into university), and consequently, we did not have the flexibility to implement such course of action. results we decide to use structural equation modelling (sem) procedures (byrne, 1998; kline, 2011; loehlin, 2004), aided by the spss amos 20 software package, to test and validate the hypothesized relations mentioned in the preceding sections. this statistical technique, in contrast to other multivariate approaches for its emphasis on both latent factors and measured indicators, has been used in previous research to explore the relations between personal self-efficacy and other related motivational-related variables (e.g., fenollar et al., 2007; liem et al., 2008; phan, 2010; sins et al., 2008). sem is more advantageous at it assumes that measured indicators have errors (i.e., e ≠ 0), and that we can assess and evaluate both measurement and structural relationships simultaneously. furthermore, with the availability of modification fit index (mi) and goodness-of-fit index values, sem allows researchers to propose and test competing a priori models for acceptance. in relation to the latter, there are a number of goodness-of-fit index values available, but for this investigation, similar to previous studies, we chose to use the following: the ratio between chi-square statistics and degree of freedom (χ2/dƒ)(χ2/dƒ value ≤ 5.00), comparative fit index (cfi)(cfi value ≥ .90), the non-normed fit index (nnfi)(nnfi value ≥ .90), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea)(rmsea value ≤ .080). structural relations the descriptive statistics, involving the means and standard deviations for the total sample and individual groups (boys versus girls) are presented in table 1. in our initial data screening, we note that the data was normally distributed with kurtosis and skewness values for the variables falling within the +/2.00 (byrne, 1998). sem procedures stipulate, in particular, the forming of aggregate scores to represent multiple measured indicators for each latent factor (byrne, 1998; marsh & yeung, 1997). for each latent factor, for example, there is a requirement of more than one measured indicator. the use of aggregated scores, recommended and used in previous motivational and social sciences research (e.g., lent, lopez, brown, & gore, 1996; marsh & yeung, 1997; vispoel, 1995), is advantageous as these are more reliable and valid, decrease the effects of idiosyncrasies associated with individualized items, and reduce the computer resources required for complex analyses (marsh & yeung, 1997). on this basis, for the statistical analyses reported in this study, we used the procedures recommended by marsh and yeung (1997) to form our parcel items. there are, in total, five latent factors (sequencing from left to right in figure 1: task value, mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations, and academic disengagement and engagement), and 15 parcel items, with each latent factor defined by three items. furthermore, we treated both prior learning experience and achievement in mathematics as measured variables. overall then, there are 17 measured indicators used in the subsequent structural equation analyses. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 50 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics of means and standard deviations. means instruments total samplegirlsboys task values (1.029)2.305(1.052)2.328(1.012)2.285 mastery-approach (.861)5.337(.804)5.427(.903)5.257 mastery-avoidance (1.370)5.550(1.254)5.630(1.466)5.478 academic engagement (1.491)5.352(1.521)5.304(1.468)5.395 academic disengagement (1.022)2.277(1.043)2.307(1.005)2.250 prior learning experience (14.235)62.241(14.287)61.866(14.372)62.573 achievement in mathematics (6.767)69.243(6.307)69.648(7.153)68.885 note. standard deviations are shown in brackets. our statistical testing of the hypothesized model, model m0, as illustrated in figure 1, included the freeing of 17 structural paths: (i) prior learning experience to task value, mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, academic engagement and disengagement, and academic achievement, (ii) task value to mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, academic engagement and disengagement, and academic achievement, (iii) a masteryapproach goal to academic engagement and academic achievement, (iv) a mastery-avoidance goal to academic disengagement and academic achievement, and (v) academic engagement and disengagement to academic achievement. the goodness-of-fit values for model m0 indicated an excellent model fit, as reflected by the following: nnfi = .990, cfi = .998, and rmsea = .024. progressing on from the hypothesized model, we tested four competing a posteriori alternatives, as shown in table 2. model m1, model m2, and model m3 are an extension of model m0 with the exception of the following: (i) regression of a mastery-approach goal onto academic disengagement, (ii) regression of mastery-avoidance goal onto academic engagement, and (iii) regression of a mastery-approach goal onto academic disengagement, and a mastery-avoidance goal onto academic engagement. the goodness-of-fit indexes for the three models showed excellent model fits, with cfi, nnfi, and rmsea values satisfying the benchmark requirements (i.e., cfi and nnfi > .90, rmsea < .08). chi-square difference tests indicated, however, that there was no statistical difference between model m0 and model m1 (∆χ 2 = .357, p > .05), between model m0 and model m2 (∆χ 2 = 2.053, p > .05), and between model m0 and model m3 (∆χ 2 = 2.410, p > .05). the principles of parsimony would recommend the acceptance of a more simplistic model as a final solution (e.g., model m3). having said this, though, we decided to retain model m0, as the proposed a posteriori structural paths from a mastery-approach goal to academic disengagement and from a mastery-avoidance goal to academic engagement were statistically nonsignificant. model m4, in contrast, specified the fixing of the structural paths from task value to a mastery-avoidance goal and academic disengagement. this a posteriori statistical testing was based on the rationale that task values (e.g., intrinsic value of a learning task), as positive motivational beliefs, are dissonant with maladaptive practices such as an adoption of a mastery-avoidance goal orientation. the goodness-of-fit index values for model m4 (e.g., cfi and nnfi < .90), below the optimal values, showed a poor model fit. furthermore, a chi-square difference test indicated statistical significance at the p < .001, suggesting the acceptance of the less constrained model, model m0. a summary of the goodness-of-fit index values for the four models tested is presented in table 2. on this basis, with a preference for model m0, we depict the final solutions in structural relations in figure 2. for clarity, we have omitted the non-statistical significant paths. all standardized paths are significant at the p < .05 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 51 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and p < .01. in addition to figure 2, a decomposition in direct and indirect effects is shown in table 3. in total, there are six statistical significant structural paths. prior learning experience exerted a negative effect on a masteryapproach goal (β = -.18, p < .01), whereas task values exerted a positive effect on academic disengagement (β = .82, p < .001). both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals influenced academic engagement (β = .13, p < .05) and disengagement (β = -.08, p < .05), respectively. achievement in mathematics is also influenced by both mastery-approach (β = .13, p < .05) and mastery-avoidance (β = .13, p < .05) goal orientations. finally, for indirect relationships, only two small effects were observed: the indirect negative effect of prior learning on academic engagement (β = -.023, p < .05) and achievement in mathematics (β = -.022, p < .05), via a masteryapproach goal. table 2 goodness-of-fit index values rmseacfinnfi∆χ2comparisonχ2/ dƒdescription model m0 --***hypothesized a priori model with the freeing of 17 structural paths. .024.998.990.1511 model m1 m0 – m1***a posteriori analysis of model m0 with the freeing of structural paths from: .037.996.976.357.3491 • amastery-approach goal to academic disengagement model m2 m0 – m2***a posteriori analysis of model m0 with the freeing of structural paths from: .001.001.001.0532.926 • a mastery-avoidance goal to academic engagement model m3 m0 – m3***a posteriori analysis of model m0 with the freeing of structural paths from: .021.999.992.4102.1151 • amastery-approach goal to academic disengagement • a mastery-avoidance goal to academic engagement model m4 m3 – m0a posteriori analysis of model m0 with the fixing of structural paths from: .277.550.350.096141.97920 • a task value to a mastery-avoidance goal • a task value to academic disengagement ***p < .001. a posteriori analysis: gender differences we performed one-way between-groupsmultivariate analysis of variance to investigate gender differences between the variables. seven dependent variables were used: prior learning experience, task value, mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations, academic engagement and disengagement, and achievement in mathematics. the independent variable was gender. preliminary assumption testing was conducted to check for normality, linearity, univariate and multivariate outliers, homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices, and multieurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 52 http://www.psychopen.eu/ collinearity (pallant, 2007; tabachnick & fidell, 2007). we note that no serious violations were made. the results, in general, indicated no statistical significant difference between boys and girls on the combined dependent variables: f(7, 254) = .647, p = .717; wilks’ lambda = .982, partial eta squared = .018. figure 2. final model of mastery goals, task value, and academic engagement-disengagement. note. paths are statistically significant at *p < .05. **p < .01. and ***p < .001. for clarity, non-statistical significant paths have been omitted. scores for disengagement have been reversed, so that a high score reflects more inclination towards engagement. scores for academic disengagement (i.e., a participant less likely to disengage) have been reversed so that a positive relation for task value implies a student is more likely not to disengage. likewise, a negative association between a mastery-avoidance goal orientation and academic disengagement implies an inverse relation. discussion of results the focus of this research study is concerned with an examination of three major theoretical orientations within one conceptual framework: task values, mastery goals, and academic engagement-disengagement. situating within the framework of social cognition (bandura, 1986, 1997), in particular, we explored the impact of enactive learning experience on the three mentioned constructs and academic achievement. a few notable research questions relating to the bifurcation of mastery goals and their predictive and explanatory effects (e.g., alkharusi & aldhafri, 2010; elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; van yperen et al., 2009) on academic engagement-disengagement were considered. we used path analytical procedures to test the hypothesized structural relations depicted in figure 1, and to discern differences pertaining to adaptive and maladaptive practices. evidence ascertained from correlational data provides moderate support, which we discuss in this section of the article. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 53 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 decomposition of effects: direct, indirect, and total totalindirectdirectoutcomepredictor task valueprior learning .013.000.013 mastery-approachtask value .049.000.049 ****prior learning .174-.001.175mastery-avoidancetask value .010.000.010 prior learning .026-.000.026**academic engagementmastery-approach .132.000.132 task value .022-.006.028**prior learning .031.023-.054 **academic disengagementmastery-avoidance .075-.000.075******task value .822.001-.823 prior learning .052-.012.064achievement in mathematicsacademic engagement .012-.000.012academic disengagement .072-.000.072**mastery-approach .130.002-.132 **mastery-avoidance .131.005.126 task value .028.051-.080 **prior learning .099-.022-.077*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the role of mastery goals an examination of the empirical literature indicates that the trichotomous model of achievement goals has received considerable research attention (e.g., fenollar et al., 2007; liem et al., 2008; pekrun et al., 2009; phan, 2010) compared to the limited emphasis of the 2 × 2 model (elliot & mcgregor, 2001; elliot & murayama, 2008; sins et al., 2008; van yperen et al., 2009). the introduction of the bifurcation of a mastery goal in our study is significant, and yields empirical support for its structural validity. both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals influenced academic engagement and disengagement, respectively. this line of evidence, importantly, emphasizes a demarcation in consequences of both positive and maladaptive practices. previous research has shown, for example, the positive impact of a mastery-approach goal on deep processing of information and intrinsic motivation (elliot & murayama, 2008; phan, 2013c; sins et al., 2008). in the context of this investigation, a mastery-approach goal orientation entails an inclination for students to take part in school activities, social events, etc. a masteryavoidance goal orientation, similarly, exerted a small negative effect on disengagement. this finding seems to suggest that students who seek to avoid failing achievement of mastery tasks would incline towards disengagement (hence, the negative association with disengagement). they would likely, on this note, to withdraw from school and not take part in any learning and/or extracurricular activities. evidence highlighting the dichotomous effects of mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals (elliot & murayama, 2008; sins et al., 2008; van yperen et al., 2009) is significant, theoretically, and for applied educational practices. theoretically, for example, our examination emphasizes the consequences of both mastery goal types. the proximal effects of a mastery-approach goal orientation, say, would imply and suggest a number of long-term achievement-related outcomes. to what extent does a mastery-goal orientation influence students’ future time perspectives in professional growth and development? how lasting and detrimental is the effect of a masteryavoidance goal on academic disengagement? from an educational perspective, similarly, the identification of europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 54 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals as antecedents of academic engagement-disengagement suggests there are a number of considerations for educators and administrators, alike.wewould want to emphasize, in particular, the saliency of respect and identification with school ethos, values, and learning outcomes. we need to consider structuring a social milieu that encourages students to adopt a mastery-approach goal orientation. providing guidance in terms of future planning and career choices (e.g., a career day), for instance, may instil a mature mindset that enables students to consider seriously about their studies and professional trajectories. situating learning tasks and school activities within authentic contexts may, likewise, stimulate interests, intellectual curiosities, and appreciation for mastery. the importance of mastery goals on learning and achievement outcomes is also substantiated from our study. a mastery-approach goal orientation (e.g., striving to understand a subject matter), in this analysis, exerted a positive effect on academic achievement in mathematics. students who strive for mastery, such as a desire to improve personal competence are more likely to learn and achieve, academically. this finding, from our point of view, is rather interesting, as some previous research studies (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010; phan, 2013c) have reported a null association between the two constructs. one plausible explanation, we contend, may lie in the composition of the academic achievement measure. the measure for achievement that we used, for example, entailed assessment tasks that emphasized both mastery and normative criteria. assessment tasks that detail the saliency of competition and social comparison, in contrast, are more likely to encourage and elicit motives towards performance-based learning objectives. we note that mastery-avoidance goals also exerted a positive effect on academic achievement. this pattern in evidence is somewhat perplexing, as it seems to suggest that students who strive to avoid an incomplete understanding of a subject matter would learn and achieve in mathematics. we reason, in this case, that other internal processes and/or extraneous factors may be at play, operating in tandem to account and predict students’ achievements. the upper secondary school years are pivotal for many students, as they prepare for post-secondary decisions and courses of action (e.g., what should i after finishing school?). no doubt, from our point of view, students would encounter difficulties, family and peer pressures to succeed, and expectations from society and others to obtain good grades. at the same time, in school and classroom settings, students would receive substantial support from teachers and administrators to succeed, academically. this combination of personal endeavours, expectations, peer pressures, and teacher support may contribute to students’ motivation for academic learning. the impact of mastery-avoidance goals on academic achievement, as indicated, differs from previous research that showed either a null association (elliot & murayama, 2008; phan, 2013c) or a deleterious effect (van yperen et al., 2009) between the two constructs. we concur that emphasis pertaining to the bifurcation of the mastery goal construct, according to the 2 × 2 achievement goal model, is relatively new and requires a refinement in articulations (van yperen et al., 2009). the mastery-avoidance goal type, in particular, as a number of researchers have alluded (ciani & sheldon, 2010; elliot & murayama, 2008; madjar et al., 2011; van yperen et al., 2009), is untested and unknown in terms of its characteristics. what would of interest, in this analysis, is for researchers to consider the study of both performance-avoidance and mastery-avoidance goals. why this avenue of inquiry and what would the focus attribute to our understanding? an examination of the literature has shown that, similarly, the effect of performance-avoidance goals is inconclusive, with some research studies reporting a null association (fenollar et al., 2007; liem et al., 2008; phan, 2010; senko & miles, 2008; sins et al., 2008). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 55 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the importance of task values and prior learning experience it is rather interesting to note that task values only influenced academic disengagement. with the reverse in coding and subsequent statistical analyses, this inference suggests that task values influence students to engage and participate in their learning and schoolwork. learning tasks that have relevance or perceived usefulness for future reference and/or stimulate interest and curiosity, in this sense, may motivate students to partake in a myriad of school activities, social events, and other related tasks. difficult learning tasks that have little values and are beyond the repertoire of student knowledge, experiences, and/or interests may, in contrast, alienate and disengage students from school. this evidence contributes, theoretically, to the study student motivation, and supports the expectancy-value model of learning (eccles, 2005; eccles et al., 1983; wigfield & eccles, 2000). from an educational perspective, similarly, an emphasis on task values could be made to discourage academic disengagement. we could specifically emphasize and encourage the various types of subjective task values in classroom learning (e.g., perceived usefulness). focusing and explaining the potential relevance of a subject matter (e.g., mathematics) towards future time perspectives (e.g., a career choice) may, for example, stimulate and instil serious consideration from students. students may realize the importance and perceived usefulness of academic learning, thereby making more effort to participate in school activities, social events, etc. enactive learning experiences, consistent with social cognitive theory (bandura, 1986, 1997), influenced amasteryapproach goal orientation. interestingly, however, students’ previous performance accomplishments, subject to both mastery criteria and competitive evaluation and social comparison, were found to exert a negative effect on a mastery-approach goal orientation. academic success in mathematics, in this analysis, is more likely to result in students opting not to strive for in-depth understanding a mastery of this subject matter. we query whether this inversed association could have been the result of misalignment between students’ prior learning and their subsequent consideration of academic aims, motives, etc. the reporting of individuals’ self-ratings of likert-scale inventories and surveys in psychological and social sciences research has been observed to restrict to single method variance and other limitations (fulmer & frijters, 2009; podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012). the inaccurate judgements of students’ perceptions of their goals and subsequent reporting may inflate and cause erroneous responses. in the area of personal self-efficacy (bandura, 1977, 1997), specifically, researchers have coined the term ‘calibration’ (pajares, 1996; pajares & kranzler, 1995; pajares & miller, 1994), which depicts the state of overconfidence or underconfidence in one’s self-efficacy beliefs for academic learning. this inaccuracy, in turn, misaligns with one’s own actual capability to solve a set of problems, etc. in a similar vein, apart from prior learning experience and task values, there may be other extraneous factors and/or internal processes that could account for the overall variance of mastery goal orientations. elliot and murayama’s (2008) study, for example, showed that a need for achievement (e.g., "i enjoy difficult work": jackson, 1974) influenced both mastery-approach (β = .34, p < .01) and mastery-avoidance (β = .21, p < .01) goal orientations. the question then, taking into consideration this evidence, is whether enactive learning experience could co-exist with other motivational variables to influence mastery goal orientations. the social milieu at large, as indicated by a number of researchers (e.g., ames, 1992; anderman & midgley, 1997; urdan, 2004; urdan, kneisel, & mason, 1999), also features predominantly in students’ learning. structuring a classroom environment that emphasizes the saliency of a mastery goal orientation (e.g., mastery-approach goal type) may encourage a preference for this type of goal over the course of time. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 56 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the central role of mastery goals the decomposition of direct and indirect effects in this study highlights the central role of a mastery-approach goal orientation. this preliminary evidence is rather unique and aligns closely to the work of elliot and murayama (2008), which illustrated the central role of a mastery-approach goal between a need for achievement and intrinsic motivation. elliot and thrash’s (2010) recent study, in contrast, yielded a null central role for a mastery-approach goal between approach temperament (e.g., "thinking about the things i want really energizes me": elliot & thrash, 2010) and exam performance. for a mastery-avoidance goal, in contrast, we note that our findings, indicating a non-statistical significance, are similar to those obtained in previous studies (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010). elliot and murayama (2008) found, for instance, that there was a lack of a central role for a masteryavoidance goal between fear of failure (e.g., "when i am failing, i worry about what others think about me": conroy, 2001) and intrinsic motivation or exam performance. a performance-avoidance goal, however, served as potential mediator between fear of failure and intrinsic motivation and final exam performance. in relation to the trichotomous model of achievement goals, there is also consistent evidence to emphasize the central role of mastery goals (durik et al., 2009; greene et al., 2004; harackiewicz et al., 2008; liem et al., 2008; phan, 2009; e.g., simons et al., 2004). this evidence, in conjunction with recent findings on the 2 × 2 model (elliot & murayama, 2008; elliot & thrash, 2010), indicates the importance in relations between antecedents and consequences of achievement goals. this depiction acknowledges the fact that achievement goals, such as masteryapproach and mastery-avoidance do not exist in isolation. caveats and consideration for future research the current study, in general, has yielded some notable evidence worth considering for continuing research development and educational practices. the final solution reported for discussion, as depicted in figure 2, illustrates the intricate interrelations between the theoretical constructs that originate from students’ enactive learning experiences. we note, however, that despite the empirical validation of some hypothesized structural relations, there are also a few major limitations that warrant further examination. these limitations, from our point of view, establish grounding for continuing research development into this area of cognition and motivation of student learning. firstly, themethodological design adopted for this investigation has limited us frommaking sound statistical inference about the directions of causality between the variables involved (marsh & yeung, 1997, 1998). the task values – mastery goal relation, for example, is subject to different theorizations and interpretations. hulleman et al. (2008) found, for example, that a mastery-approach goal orientation was predictive of both intrinsic and utility values, which in turn influenced subsequent interest and final grade. this pattern differs from other findings (greene et al., 2004; harackiewicz et al., 2008; e.g., liem et al., 2008) that showed the impact of task values (e.g., task interest) on various types of achievement goals. with this dilemma in mind, it would be of considerable interest for educators and researchers to consider the use of multi-wave panel data (marsh & yeung, 1997; martin, colmar, davey, & marsh, 2010; rogosa, 1979), analysed within the framework of sem to provide empirical and theoretical insights into this causal predominance relationship. secondly, the longitudinal design used for this study was rather short-term, and does not provide detailed information about the possible changes that could take place in the upper secondary school years. a duration of 6 to 7 months across three time points, in our view, is too brief to detect and attest to major changes or causal, long lasting effects of variables. researchers could therefore consider longer time periods, in multi stages, with data europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 phan 57 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analyzed using latent growth modelling (lgm) procedures (bollen & curran, 2006; duncan, duncan, strycker, li, & alpert, 1999; mcardle & nesselroade, 2003). this complex methodological approach, increasingly being used in education and social sciences research studies (caprara et al., 2008; geary, 2011; gutman, sameroff, & cole, 2003; phan, 2013a), is more stringent and sophisticated, enabling researchers to explore and identify internal cognitive processes and/or extraneous factors that could account for the initial state and rate of change of psychological variables. thirdly, we limited our investigation to academic engagement-disengagement and achievement in mathematics. we contend, however, that adaptive outcomes espouse more than just academic achievement. researchers could, in this analysis, consider other non-academic outcomes, which may also contribute to personal makeup and the social fabrics of a nation. it would be of theoretical interest, for example, for us to explore the impact of academic engagement, say, on personal well-being and social relationship. for example, does disengagement influence an individual’s relationship with family members, etc.? in a similar vein, it would be of significance to explore the impact of the mastery-approach goal – engagement relation on other future achievement-related outcomes, such as career choices, civics citizenship, and social initiatives. the impact of academic engagement on students’ proactive relations with a local community, for instance, may provide fruitful information for educators to consider. the potential detrimental effects of academic disengagement (e.g., substance abuse) may, similarly, highlight the failings of school policies, pedagogical practices, etc. fourthly, the sample used in the present investigation was modest in size. consequently, this sample size limited us from exploring other theoretical constructs and interrelationships. the importance of the 2 × 2 model (elliot, 1999; elliot & mcgregor, 2001; harackiewicz, barron, pintrich, et al., 2002; pintrich, 2000), for example, has formed the basis for educators and researchers to consider different achievement goal orientations in educational contexts. future research could expand our theoretical-conceptual model and explore, comparatively, the effects of the four achievement goal types (e.g., mastery-approach versus performance-approach). one emphasis for consideration, in particular, involves the validation of structural relations between academic achievement and performance-avoidance and mastery-avoidance goals. finally, our focus of examination involved mathematics, an academic subject that features prominently in academia for a number of achievement and decision-related purposes (e.g., prerequisite to entry into a degree program). other academic subjects and disciplines may not necessarily espouse the same epistemological beliefs and/or thinking (becher, 1987, 1994). we ponder whether the theoretical-conceptual model outlined in the present study would apply and cross-generalize to other academic subjects. the importance of academic engagement in, say, english or history would be of an interest for educators to advance. this line of inquiry, from our point of view, may provide an in-depth understanding into facets that constitute a unit of study, and whether these would explain or enhance students’ engagement. in a similar vein, apart from subject domains of functioning, it is of relevance for future research to consider the impact of extraneous influences on students’ motivational beliefs and engagement. historical upbringing and sociocultural attributes and customs may, for example, influence students’ motives for learning and achievements. education may, in this instance, serve as a basis for social and economical mobility, motivating students to engage proactively in their academic studies. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 58 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) from the outset, the focus of diversity was not our intent; consequently, we did not seek to draw in specific information about the ethnic and cultural composition of each school involved. furthermore, with our modest sample size, the issue of statistical power had to be taken into consideration. ii) the existing inventories used have been shown to demonstrate consistent and sound psychometric properties. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references alkharusi, h. 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(1998). a longitudinal study of the psychosocial environmental and learning approaches in the hong kong classroom. the journal of educational research, 91(4), 247-255. doi:10.1080/00220679809597550 about the author huy p. phan is associate professor in educational psychology at the university of new england, australia. his research interests are related to cognition, motivation, and noncognitive processes in sociocultural settings. his current research focuses on theoretical and empirical multilevel examinations of learning processes. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 41–66 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.680 students’ academic engagement and disengagement 66 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.590 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.87.1.134 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02209024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1015 http://www.oecd.org/education/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/33689437.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220679809597550 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en students’ academic engagement and disengagement introduction theoretical overview of motivational variables the current study: enactive learning experiences, task value, mastery goals, and academic engagement/disengagement the impact of enactive learning experiences mastery goals and academic engagement-disengagement enhancement of academic achievement in totality: an integrated framework methods sample instruments results structural relations a posteriori analysis: gender differences discussion of results the role of mastery goals the importance of task values and prior learning experience the central role of mastery goals caveats and consideration for future research notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author at the roots of product placement: the mere exposure effect research reports at the roots of product placement: the mere exposure effect stefano ruggieri*a, stefano bocaa [a] department of psychology, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the present study aims to analyze the effect of product placement on attitude change and takes into consideration psychological models of the mere exposure effect. a sample of high school students watched an excerpt from two widely-distributed movies in which several products were shown by using the technique known as product placement. the results indicate that students who saw the commercial brand liked the products more than those who didn’t see it. this effect, in line with the literature on the product placement effect, seems to be independent from the recognition of the brand in the movie excerpt. this study also shows that, in the high involvement condition, one exposure is enough to produce a positive attitude toward the brand. keywords: mere exposure effect, product placement, attitude change europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 received: 2012-09-07. accepted: 2013-01-03. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of palermo, viale delle scienze, edificio 15, i-90128 palermo, italy. e-mail: stefano.ruggieri@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the product placement effect research in the field of advertising has evolved over the last fifty years and has developed increasingly innovative techniques aimed at producing specific purchasing behaviors. often however, the bizarre hearsay surrounding hidden messages – whose true effects on people’s behavior have not been demonstrated by empirical evidence – has managed to influence a great deal of advertising related to so-called “subliminal stimulation” (balasubramanian, 1994; d’astous & chartier, 2000). repeated exposure to a product in order to associate a positive affect to it is in fact the most common approach in advertising. one of the techniques based on this concept is known as product placement, where brands of cars, accessories, clothes, drinks, and other products appear clearly in video segments without however giving the impression of watching a commercial. brand placement offers advertisers a potentially successful alternative to traditional advertising because the advertiser’s message is integrated within the editorial content (roehm, roehm, & boone, 2004). apparently, the actors in a film are simply using a particular object, and often the presence of the commercial brand is not even noticed by the spectator. the products are placed in advantageous, natural, and credible contexts that offer advertisers an opportunity to add favorable associations to their brands (karrh, 1998). companies using this advertising approach exploit the cinema as a promotional showcase, sharing a portion of the production costs in exchange for adequate visibility of their products in the film. oddly, this approach europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ goes back to the beginnings of cinematography. the lumière brothers were the first to insert a detergent in one of their films back in 1895. at first, this approach developed greatly with the proliferation of cinema, then more so with television. among the most common examples are the films featuring agent 007, which over the years have become ever more crowded with watches, automobiles, and hi-tech products, that cast their image alongside that of james bond. despite the frequent use of product placement, there are few scientific studies which prove they are indeed effective. even marketing studies have not yet demonstrated clearly that mere product placement can guarantee sales, nor that it determines a more positive attitude towards the product. the most common measure of product placement effectiveness has been consumer memory, especially in regard to brand attitude, image and choice, but the evidence is inconclusive (balasubramanian, karrh, & parwardhan, 2006; law & braun, 2000; matthes, schemer, & wirth, 2007). studies on the effect of product placement have employed explicit and implicit memory tests. in explicit (or direct) tests, participants’ memory of recently viewed episodes (law & braun, 2000) is tested to evaluate the impact of product placement and, more specifically, free recall (asking them to recall brands seen in the film) (d’astous & chartier, 2000; gupta & lord, 1998), aided recall (asking them to recall a given product category cue) (auty & lewis, 2004; karrh, 1994; van reijmersdal, neijens, & smit, 2007) and recognition (asking them to judge whether they remember seeing a brand in the film) (babin & carder, 1996; gupta & lord, 1998; law & braun, 2000). in implicit tests participants are not asked to remember events, but simply to perform some task. here memory is measured as an increase in performance (relative to an appropriate baseline), such as greater accuracy in identifying items seen recently compared to new items, or by a decrease in the amount of time necessary to identify recently seen items (for an extensive review on implicit memory testing techniques, see schacter, 1987). many studies have shown that these two types of memory can be uncorrelated (auty & lewis, 2004; hang & auty, 2011; holden & vanhuele, 1999; law & braun, 2000; shapiro, macinnis, & heckler, 1997), suggesting that certain tests may be better than others for assessing different aspects of exposure, which would lend support to the idea that brand image and brand memory are processed differently (auty & lewis, 2004; law & braun, 2000; van reijmersdal, neijens, & smit, 2007). although there have beenmany studies on brand placement, the effects of brand image on attitudes has remained largely unexplored. this is surprising, because image change is often considered one of the benefits of brand placement for advertisers (delorme & reid, 1999; karrh, 1998). van reijmersdal, neijens, & smit (2007) found that the integration of a brand into the editorial content of a program had a significant effect on brand image. the mere exposure effect one of the most important variables impacting the effects of persuasive messages is exposure (krugman, 1972; zajonc, 1968, 2001). because brand placement is a kind of persuasive message, repetition is likely to influence placement effects as well. the change in brand image might reflect an overall positive change in brand evaluation regardless of the context in which the brand appeared (van reijmersdal, neijens, & smit, 2007). the vast literature on the theory of the mere exposure effect shows that repeated exposure to an object leads to an increased positive affect or a reduced negative affect toward that object (harmon-jones & allen, 2001; zajonc, 1968, 2001). these effects cannot be explained by memory and have even proved to be more pronounced under subliminal conditions than when subjects are aware of the repeated exposure (zajonc, 2001). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 ruggieri & boca 247 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in one of the most influential monographs in the history of social psychology, zajonc (1968) described the mere exposure effect as an increase in favor towards an object for which a positive attitude exists after the subject is exposed repeatedly to stimuli linked to the object of the attitude1 (moreland & zajonc, 1977; zajonc, 1968). this effect has been observed in various cultures (ishii, 2005; smith & bond, 1993), species (zajonc, 1971; zajonc, wilson, & rajecki, 1975), types of sensory stimulation (brentar, neuendorf, & armstrong, 1994; szpunar, schellenberg, & pliner, 2004; wilson, 1979), and even in a prenatal environment (rajecki, 1974). for a synthesis of the principal findings, consult the review by harrison (1977) and the meta-analysis of bornstein (1989). despite the vast amount of data gathered, there is still no complete explanation for the mere exposure effect. in early studies, the emphasis was placed above all on demonstrating the existence of the phenomenon (see harrison, 1968; matlin, 1971; stang, 1975). more recently, research (see kunst-wilson & zajonc, 1980; wilson, 1979) has delved into the premises and conditions on which it is based. it has been shown, in fact, that the effect occurs even when a person is unaware of having been exposed to stimulus, that is, when the stimuli introduced remain outside the person’s awareness (bonanno & stillings, 1986; bornstein, 1989; bornstein, leone, & galley, 1987; kunst-wilson & zajonc, 1980; mandler, nakamura, & van zandt, 1987; murphy, monahan, & zajonc, 1995; scaffidi abbate, & ruggieri, 2008, 2011; seamon, brody, & kauff, 1983), as is the case with product placement. cases such as this are referred to as a nonconscious mere exposure effect. kunst-wilson and zajonc (1980), for example, designed experimental situations in which the stimulus was represented by sets of irregular octagons. the participants in the experiment were asked to compare the affect and recognition of octagonal shapes, some of which had been presented previously (target) and others which had never been shown (distractors). the results indicated a clear preference for the octagons which had already been seen, even though no relation to recognition of that shape was found. later studies confirmed these results, indicating that subjects prefer stimuli they have already been exposed to, even without recognizing them (bonanno & stillings, 1986; bornstein, leone, & galley, 1987; seamon, brody, & kauff, 1983). two different hypotheses have been formulated to explain these results, and they are still being evaluated. according to the first hypothesis, the nonconscious mere exposure effect indicates the primacy of emotional processes over cognitive ones, in the sense that the former occur more rapidly than the latter and are independent from them (arcuri, castelli, boca, lorenzi-cioldi, & dafflon, 2001; murphy & zajonc, 1993; zajonc 1980, 1984). the alternative hypothesis maintains that the effect of repeated exposition is linked to the “perceptual fluency” of implicit memory, in the sense that the relative ease of recall of information can be heuristic in making affect judgments (bornstein & d’agostino, 1992; seamon et al., 1983, 1995). let us attempt to analyze in detail these different explanatory hypotheses. according to zajonc (1980), the nonconscious mere exposure is produced on the basis of a diverse elaboration of emotional and cognitive processes and, in particular, because emotional reactions precede cognitive reactions. more specifically, affect judgments are crude thoughts; they are generic entities which do not permit the recognition of stimuli, only their evaluation. on the contrary, cognitive processes are crucial to the analysis of the stimulus’ components, and they make possible the differentiation and recognition of the stimulus itself. neuro-anatomical and neuro-physiological studies (ledoux, 1996; zola-morgan, squire, alvarez-royo, & clower, 1991) have confirmed that cognitive and emotional aspects, though they both participate in the determination of behavior, are in reality quite different, both on a psychological and on a neurological level. zola-morgan et al. (1991), for example, in studies on primates, observed that lesions of the amygdala (an organ supervising emotional stimulation) influence affect, but do not alter cognitive aspects, while a lesion of the hippocampus (an organ fundamental to memory processes) will alter cognitive europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 mere exposure effect and product placement 248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ functions while leaving emotional functions undisturbed. other studies have shown that emotional processes can be induced without triggering awareness. elliott and dolan (1998) used pet (positron emission tomography) measures to show that the acquisition of preferences is a function of exposure to repeated subliminal stimuli and they evidenced certain neuroanatomical correspondences. in particular, the authors found that recognition judgments were localized in the frontopolar cortex and the parietal areas, whereas preference reactions showed right lateral frontal activation. the hypothesis that recognition and preference reside in different areas supports the hypothesis that emotional and cognitive systems act independently, at least in the early phases of elaboration of stimuli. given the independence of the two systems, it is possible to explain why the mere exposure effect is strong and clear when it occurs subliminally, rather than when subjects are aware. if the process was merely cognitive, different individuals would tend to attribute different qualities to the same content, and intra-participant variability would increase. on the contrary, when the contribution of cognitive processes is reduced, emotional influences tend to dominate behavior, producing a more uniform set of reactions (zajonc, 2001). in an alternative explanatory hypothesis, the mere exposure effect it is described as an expression of recognition memory based on perceptual fluency (bornstein & d’agostino, 1992; schacter, 1987; schacter, cooper, & delaney, 1990; squire, 1992). perceptual fluency can be considered the ease with which stimuli are re-codified after repeated codifications have already taken place (jacoby & dallas, 1981), while recognition memory is considered a nonintentional and non-aware process of recalling previously acquired information. several researchers have suggested that familiarity with the stimuli plays an important role in preference judgments (bornstein & d’agostino, 1992; klinger & greenwald, 1994; seamon et al., 1983). for example, seamon et al. (1983) have argued that the nonconscious mere exposure effect can be explained by mandler’s (mandler, nakamura, & van zandt, 1987) two process recognition model, which assumed that forced choice judgments are based on either stimulus familiarity or a memory search. having to choose between target and distractor stimuli in a preference task, participants preferred elements to which they had been exposed previously because they were familiar with the way to process that information. seamon et al. (1995, 1997) hypothesized that this ease of elaboration, or difference in the perceptual fluency of target and distractor, was essentially why the target stimulus was chosen. and in the same perspective, when familiarity judgments are made without the intervention of memory, participants prefer stimuli to which they have been previously exposed, even though they do not recognize them. consistently, the authors found that preferential affect tests also measure recognition memory. a meta-analysis of exposure and affect (bornstein, 1989) concludes that subliminal stimuli may be processed affectively without any concomitant cognitive processing. although not strictly subliminal, product placements may not be consciously encoded even by participants who are capable of doing so, but certainly the brand is processed affectively, since this reaction is spontaneous and does not require the allocation of attentional resources. few studies have focused on the effects of the frequency of exposure to brand placements and brand image. van reijmersdal, neijens, and smit (2007), for example, studied the effects of repeated exposure to brand placement on brand image and found that exposure frequency is an important variable that affects brand image. in their survey, two or more exposures were needed to produce an effect on brand image. auty and lewis (2004) found that reminding subjects of prior exposures had an effect on choice-related behavior: children who saw a film excerpt in which the brand pepsi-cola was present were more likely to then choose pepsi instead of coke. ferraro, bettman, and chartrand (2009) demonstrated that individuals are exposed to brands during their daily encounters with other consumers, and this may influence their choice of products. even if results like these seem europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 ruggieri & boca 249 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to bring irrefutable proof of the effect of product placement, they may be due to processes that leave the attitude toward the brand untouched. closer to the aim of the present study are the results of matthes, schemer, and wirth (2007), who found that after repeated brand exposures, participants with a high level of involvement and low persuasion knowledge (russell, 2002) develop a positive attitude toward the brand. the research the aim of the present experiment was to investigate if a single exposure to a product in a high involvement condition was able to affect attitudes toward a brand. the studies heretofore conducted on product placement and attitude change use repeated exposures to private brands to change brand image (matthes, schemer, & wirth, 2007; van reijmersdal, neijens, & smit, 2007). to test this hypothesis, researchers used natural stimuli. participants watched 20 minute excerpts of popular films in which various private brands were visible, thus reproducing in a controlled situation what commonly happens in film theaters. specifically, we will analyze the nonconscious mere exposure effect with the goal of replicating the effect of product placement on brand attitude with a single exposition, thus demonstrating at the same time that exposure awareness is totally absent. the effect of product placement is evaluated for all the brands that appear in the film excerpts. since so many commercials are directed at young people and since extremely popular films, especially, are watched mostly by teenagers, they represent the best sample group for testing our hypothesis. method participants 78 high school teenagers (40 males and 38 females) with ages 14 to 16 (m = 15.03, ds = 1.76) participated in this study. they were divided into two independent groups and randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions, each group functioning as control for the other. procedure after assembling in a film theater, having been told they would participate in a study of the language of young people, each of the two groups were shown a film made up of three film excerpts lasting 15-20 minutes each and designed to be particularly appealing to young people. two of the three excerpts had a masking function and no commercial brands were visible in them, while one was the target excerpt containing product placement. the target segment was always shown in the central position of the sequence. the first group viewed a portion of film in which adidas, umm, cremeria, volkswagen and nike brands were present. the second group viewed a portion of film in which guru, ray ban, coke, tim and samsung brands were present. brand exposure lasted from about one to about two minutes (at times brand exposures partially overlapped each other). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 mere exposure effect and product placement 250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the participants’ involvement was increased by telling them that they would answer a few questions about the content of certain scenes after viewing the film. the five participants who gave the most correct answers would be awarded two free tickets for watching a recently released film at the same film theater. to verify that the brands had indeed been noticed during the viewing of the film, each of the two groups completed a questionnaire containing questions about the non-target segments they had seen and other questions designed to investigate how the presence of brands in the target film was perceived. in particular, since each group was the control group for the other, subjects were asked to indicate whether all 10 brands were present in the target film, though only 5 were present in the target film for one group, and 5 in the other. subjects were then asked how well they liked each of the 10 brands, using a 7-point likert scale ranging from “i like it very much” to “i don’t like it at all”. results first we analyzed the level of affect for each of the brands presented as a function of exposure to that brand. the results, illustrated in figure 1, show significant differences between the two conditions (exposure to brand vs. non-exposure to brand) for all brands (15.86 < fs < 64.49; p < .01). it can be seen that subjects who were exposed to commercial brands clearly preferred those brands to others, regardless of the type of product. figure 1. level of affect. in subsequent analyses we explored whether this greater preference was linked to an aware recognition of the brand in the film excerpt. introducing the recognition of the brand as a variable in our analysis, we expected that if greater preference was linked to recognition, then we would find a significant interaction between exposition and preference. vice-versa, lack of interaction would signify that the increase in preference after exposure does not depend on an aware recognition of that brand. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 ruggieri & boca 251 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the results (shown in table 1) clearly illustrate that in none of the ten statistical tests was there any indication that the recognition of a brand had an effect on preference for that brand. table 1 effect of exposure and recognition of brand sig.f exposure brandadidas .0010.11215 recognition brand .6620.2730 exposure x recognition .2980.0981 exposure brandumm .0000.30739 recognition brand .0880.9832 exposure x recognition .9350.0070 exposure brandtim .0000.81524 recognition brand .0540.8253 exposure x recognition .0810.1303 exposure brandsamsung .0000.16717 recognition brand .7430.1080 exposure x recognition .3390.9270 exposure brandcremeria .0010.44711 recognition brand .8760.2540 exposure x recognition .6640.1900 exposure brandray-ban .0010.36412 recognition brand .7960.1080 exposure x recognition .6160.1790 exposure brandnike .0000.88020 recognition brand .7370.1130 exposure x recognition .9270.0080 exposure brandguru .0000.35422 recognition brand .4600.5520 exposure x recognition .6800.1620 exposure brandwv .0000.24226 recognition brand .6020.2750 exposure x recognition .5580.3470 exposure brandcoke .0120.6006 recognition brand .7860.0750 exposure x recognition .4450.5890 thus an extremely interesting aspect emerges – the mere placement of a brand in a film tends to generate a positive attitude in an immediate post-test designed to evaluate how well subjects like the product, regardless of whether the product is recognized or not. the mere exposure to the message in a context like this seems to lead to a positive attitude towards the brand. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 mere exposure effect and product placement 252 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion and conclusion the pervasiveness of the mere exposure phenomenon, as stated above, has been well-documented in over fifty years of research, rendering it one of the most stable and verified phenomena in all of social psychology. even though our understanding of the mere exposure effect is incomplete, the effect is so strong that it is studied quite frequently, even outside the sphere of psychological research, and is often considered a form of subliminal stimulation. things do not change in the case of product placement, given that these effects are complementary: mere exposure is strictly connected with psychology and product placement with marketing. results of this study showed that in the high involvement condition, one exposure is enough to produce a positive attitude toward the brand. mere exposure theory suggests, in fact, that the limited processing that occurs with a single product placement exposure is enough to produce a feeling of familiarity that is later mistaken as a preference for the stimulus (janiszewski, 1993; zajonc, 1980). in the case of brand placement, when high involvement gives rise to high levels of attention toward the film, even a short exposition time and a reduced number of repetitions are enough to produce an effect on brand image. the results of this study confirm yet again the heuristic capacity of this construct in advertising, especially in regard to product placement, which continues to proliferate in cinema and tv production. these results in fact explain the extensive use of product placement in the last decades. the data gathered have shown moreover, consistently with the most recent theories, that the effects of exposure do not depend on the awareness of having been exposed to stimuli. these conclusions are in line with those of auty and lewis (2004), law and braun (2000), and van reijmersdal, neijens, and smit (2007), who showed that brand placement effects on brand choice were unrelated to memory. results confirm that teenagers act like adults in relation to product placement and mere exposure effect. though this sample has many characteristics and variables that differ from adult samples, (pace & zappulla, 2009, 2011), it is nevertheless coherent with adult samples as far as the effects of exposure to commercial brands are concerned. as for the limitations of this study, let us mention first those related to the use of self-reported attitude measures unaccompanied by choice behavior assessment. the focus of the present experiment was on attitude change, but certainly a better understanding of the phenomenon will require future investigation of both attitude and behavior resulting from exposure to commercial brands. another critical issue is the delay between brand exposition and attitude assessment. the aim of product placement is that of changing consumer’s attitude and behavior for a relatively long period, certainly a period long enough to increase the likelihood of purchasing the advertised product. the present research evidences the effect of product placement immediately after the exposition to commercial brands. a delayed post-test is needed to test whether the expectations of the manufacturers with regard to product placement were met. product placement has often been incorrectly assimilated to subliminal advertising, which is a field of enquiry that is still nebulous and void of documented certainties, where myths and legends often obfuscate available empirical evidence. the observation of product placement in a controlled environment, the documentation of its persuasive capacity, and its placement within the framework of a detailed psychological model such as the mere exposure europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 ruggieri & boca 253 http://www.psychopen.eu/ effect, can increase our understanding of the phenomenon and lay the grounds for further and more complete investigations. notes 1) in reality the first data gathered concerned the evaluation, in the laboratory, of sets of stimuli for which no preceding attitude existed, such as geometric figures or chinese ideograms. later, more ecologically valid research concentrated on more familiar and common attitude objects. it was also shown that, under these conditions, the mere exposure effect was not produced by stimuli when there were clear pre-existing negative attitudes (bornstein, 1989). references arcuri, l., castelli, l., boca, s., lorenzi-cioldi, f., & dafflon, a.-c. 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(1991). independence of memory functions and emotional behavior. hippocampus, 1, 207-220. doi:10.1002/hipo.450010208 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 ruggieri & boca 257 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.9.3.544 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/bf03211292 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.3.711 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.99.2.195 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0076165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.30.2.370 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.20166 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.6.811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0025848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.35.2.151 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.39.2.117 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00154 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0003-3472(75)90059-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hipo.450010208 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors stefano ruggieri, phd, is a postdoctoral researcher at the university of palermo. stefano boca, is full professor of social psychology at the university of palermo. contact: stefano.boca@unipa.it europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 246–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.522 mere exposure effect and product placement 258 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mere exposure effect and product placement introduction the product placement effect the mere exposure effect the research method participants procedure results discussion and conclusion notes references about the authors automatic influences of priming on prosocial behavior research reports automatic influences of priming on prosocial behavior costanza scaffidi abbate*a, stefano ruggieria, stefano bocaa [a] department of psychology, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract literature on the automaticity of social behavior indicates that, in some circumstances, priming a concept automatically activates related behavioral schemas. previous research studies have used priming techniques to increase willingness to help, but most of these have simply measured intention to engage in prosocial behavior rather than real helping behavior. two different studies investigated the effect of priming the concept of prosocial behavior on real helping behavior. after priming prosociality through a scrambled sentences test, participants were shown to increase their donation rate after a direct request coming from an experimenter's confederate (study 1) and to spontaneously help to a greater extent a girl whose books had fallen on the floor (study 2). the implications of this automatic behavior priming effect are discussed within the theoretical framework of the automatic effect of social perception on prosocial behavior. keywords: prosocial behavior, automaticity, priming, helping, situational features europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 received: 2013-03-08. accepted: 2013-05-06. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, viale delle scienze edificio 15, university of palermo, 90128 palermo, italy. e-mail: costanza.scaffidi@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. social psychologists have conducted a vast amount of research over the past three decades demonstrating that social knowledge is automatically activated in people’s memory while they are exploring the social environment. this means that while people are seeing and listening to what is happening around them, social knowledge that corresponds to perceived stimuli may be spontaneously and immediately activated in memory without people’s awareness or intention. researchers have also shown that automatically activated information may then shape and guide people’s impressions, judgments, feelings, and intentions (bargh &chartrand, 1999; fazio, sanbonmatsu, powell, & kardes, 1986; ferguson & bargh, 2004). for example, zajonc, pietromonaco, and bargh (1982) randomly exposed participants to words that were either related to hostility or were neutral. the words were presented outside of the subjects' conscious awareness. in a second task, all subjects were asked to read an ambiguous story about a man and rate him on various measures. those subjects that were subliminally exposed to words related to hostility rated the man more negatively than those subjects in the control condition. it is now being demonstrated that such automatic affect need not be limited to social perception. indeed, over the past two decades, researchers have documented that attitude and other affective reactions can be produced automatically by the simple occurrence of pertinent objects and events. fazio, sanbonmatsu, powell, and kardes (1986) verified that subjects were capable of evaluating adjectives faster when adjectives were preceded by attitude objects of analogous valence, compared with when adjectives were preceded by attitude objects of opposed valence (e.g., a negative word preceded by a positive word). nevertheless, it has also now been verified that europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ stereotypes become active automatically in the mere presence of physical features associated with the stereotyped group (carlston & skowronski, 1994; devine, 1989; perdue & gurtman, 1990). researchers in social psychology have also proposed that social behavior is often triggered automatically in the mere presence of relevant situational features; this behavior is unmediated by conscious perceptual or judgmental processes (bargh, chen, & burrows, 1996). their argument builds on previous theory and research suggesting that behavioral representations can be automatically activated in memory during perception and, once activated, can guide actual behavior. for instance, just as a stereotype presumably becomes associated with a group after repeated group-stereotype pairings, a behavior that a person repeatedly performs in a particular situation or in response to a particular other person might become associated in memory with the features of that situation or person. in both cases, the mere perception of the group member or situation might automatically activate the respective stereotype or behavior (ferguson & bargh, 2004). several lines of research supporting this hypothesis have been discussed in the literature (for a review, see dijksterhuis & bargh, 2001). for example, the principle of ideomotor action is longstanding in this domain of research, dating back to james (1890) and earlier (carpenter, 1874): simply thinking about an action is sufficient to drive the appearance of that movement unless the person consciously interferes to avoid it (wegner, 2002). knuf, aschersleben, and prinz (2001) gave the example of people watching sports from their armchairs: they often move their limbs and tense their muscles in response to watching the sport. knuf et al. (2001) created a paradigm for testing ideomotor actions. they concluded that perceptual induction is possible from viewing the ball and that intentional induction can occur from both viewing the ball and previously learned actions. james's perspective is similar to the modern notions of accessibility, namely that the activation of a mental representation increases its accessibility and the likelihood that this representation will enter a subsequent process or behavior (tversky & kahneman, 1973; wyer & srull, 1989). the increasing accessibility — or likelihood of use of a concept— increases the likelihood of an associated behavioral response. cognitions about a type of behavior may come from both internal and external sources, as shown in the studies in which participants’ actions resulted from perceiving the same type of behavior enacted by others (knuf et al., 2001; thomaschke, 2012). another reason for postulating an automatic link between the representations used to perceive behavior and those used to engage in that behavior comes from literature on imitation. much contemporary work on human mimicry has suggested that the perception of certain actions can lead to the performance of those actions. there is abundant evidence that people exhibit imitative behavior from an early age, mimicking everything from facial expressions to the speech of their conversation partners (bock, 1986; smeets & brenner, 1995). the chameleon effect refers to the automatic imitation of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners. this phenomenon seems to indicate a direct-link mechanism between perception and behavior (chartrand & bargh, 1999). the behavioral schema model (carver, ganellen, froming, & chambers, 1983) proposed that the origin of automatic behavior can be explained via schemas. when one observes behavior, an interpretive schema is activated that makes the schema more accessible. if the schema contains action plans, they also become more accessible. action plans are information specifying when and how a specific behavior should be elicited. perhaps the best known studies about the influence of perception on behavioral tendencies are those by bargh, chen, and burrows (1996). in their first experiment, participants were primed with rudeness or politeness via a scrambled sentence test. the participants were then instructed to go find the experimenter in another room upon europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 480 http://www.psychopen.eu/ completion of the test. on the way to meet the experimenter, they all found him engaged in a conversation with another supposed participant (in actuality, a confederate). the amount of time it took for the participant to interrupt was taken as the dependent variable. results showed that significantly more of the rude-primed group interrupted the experimenter compared to the polite-primed group. in the second experiment, participants were again subjected to a scrambled sentence test. this time, they were either primed for old age or neutral. upon leaving the experiment, the time it took participants to walk down the hall was measured by a confederate. a significant effect was found wherein participants primed with old age took significantly longer to walk the length of corridor. priming helping behavior as discussed above, a growing subset of findings has indicated that subtle priming techniques can cause behavior without conscious regulation. priming has been shown to impact a wide range of behaviors, from intellectual performance (dijksterhuis & van knippenberg, 1998) to conformity (epley & gilovich, 1999) and walking speed (bargh, chen, & burrows, 1996). it seems reasonable to expect that even prosocial concepts and consequently prosocial behavioral schemas may be activated through priming. in this field, only a few studies have shown an impact of situational priming on helping behavior. garcia, weaver, moskowitz, and darley (2002) merged the priming paradigm with the bystander apathy literature and demonstrated that merely priming participants with a social situation in which either a single individual or a group of people was involved leads to more or less helping behavior on a subsequent, completely unrelated task. nelson and norton (2005) used priming techniques to modify commitment to and engagement in future helping behavior. however, these studies are problematic because of the operationalization of helping behavior used in the experimental setting. in fact, garcia et al.'s (2002) measure of helping behavior was the willingness to contribute an annual donation (study 1 and study 2) and to agree to participate in a second experiment (study 3). the authors assessed participants' behavioral intentions rather than actual behavior. there still may be a disconnection between willingness to help and giving help. nelson and norton (2005) operationalized helping by asking participants to evaluate their behaviors in some hypothetical situations (study 1a and study 1b)1 and by asking them to participate in a second experiment (study 2). in study 3, nelson and norton (2005) showed that initial commitment impacted volunteering behavior up three months after initial exposure (future behavior). in pichon, boccato, and saroglou’s study (2007), the aim was to provide evidence of the nonconscious influences of religion on prosociality. nevertheless, these authors have essentially tested the impact of subliminal priming of religious concepts on prosocial behavioral intentions, not on actual behavior. one of the exceptions is a study by macrae and johnston (1998) that used a measure of actual helping behavior. the authors, in fact, recorded howmany leaking pens participants picked up. in sum, we believe that these studies have highlighted that even prosocial concepts, and consequently prosocial behavioral schemas, may be activated through priming. in fact, through smart and elegant experiments, the impact of situational priming has also been verified on helping behavior. on the other hand, we believe that further efforts should be made to better operationalize the dependent variable helping behavior with a real helping behavior and not with a mere intention to help, since intended helping does not always result in actual helping (scaffidi abbate, isgró, wicklund, & boca, 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 abbate, ruggieri, & boca 481 http://www.psychopen.eu/ overview of the studies the aim of the present line of study was to test the effects of priming the concept of prosocial behavior on helping behavior. the purpose of our research was twofold. first, we explored the effect of priming on helping behavior assessing a real helping behavior, unlike most of the research on automaticity in the study of prosocial psychology that essentially tested the impact of priming on helping intentions (garcia et al., 2002; pichon et al., 2007; scaffidi abbate & ruggieri, 2008). in addition, unlike most research on priming helping behavior, in which participants were given the explicit goal of engaging in the behavior that was affected by the priming manipulation (garcia et al., 2002; greitemeyer, 2009; nelson & norton, 2005; pichon et al., 2007), in the second study we measured a spontaneous behavior triggered by priming. two studies we have described used a behavioral measure. in study 1, participants were primed with words of prosociality (or not) with srull and wyer’s (1979) scrambled sentence test and were given explicit conscious instructions to offer some money for a hypothetical student association. the act of making the donation and the amount of money given by the participants were recorded and used as the dependent variable. in study 2, the same priming procedure was employed, but the study involved a different assessment of helping behavior. participants were not given any explicit instructions, and the dependent behavioral measure was taken at times when participants believed they were not currently engaged in an experimental task at all. at the end of the experiment, when the participant was already out of the lab, a confederate who was walking along the corridor accidentally dropped some books she was carrying. we recorded whether participants helped the girl or simply walked away. thus, this time, spontaneous helping behavior was used as the dependent variable. study 1 method participants and design — a total of 110 undergraduate students (57 women, 53 men; mean age 24 years), who were not studying psychology, participated in the experiment as partial fulfillment of course requirements. students were randomly assigned to one of the two priming conditions (prime: help vs. control). stimulus material — the priming manipulation took the form of a scrambled sentence test (srull & wyer, 1979), presented to participants as a test of language ability. the test consisted of a series of trials. in each trial, the participant must build a sentence that makes sense using a set of words arranged in random order. some of the built phrases refer to the same concept. the reconstruction of the sentences, in reality, is just an expedient to ensure that the participant mentally develops content related to a certain construct without realizing that the researcher is interested in this construct. several studies have shown that participants in the experiments were unaware of the interest of researchers to construct critical issues and actually believed that it was a test of verbal ability (chartrand & bargh, 1996). the sentences proposed in the task are related to the construct to be activated. by virtue of this relationship, mental access to the meaning of the phrases or words in question may cause an increase in the rate of activation of the recurring concept in the mind of the participant. the mnestic activation of concepts thus obtained should persist for a certain amount of time, temporarily increasing the probability that they will also be used in different contexts for tasks other than those in which they have been activated (bargh, 1994; higgins & king, 1981). in our case, the phrases and words were related to the construct of “helping”. for each of the 30 items, the participants were instructed to use four or five words presented on a computer in a scrambled order to build a sentence as quickly as possible. two versions of a scrambled sentence were arranged europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to prime prosociality in the experimental condition and no particular construct in the neutral condition. in the experimental condition, 15 of the 30 items contained words related to prosociality (i.e., “to give,” “aid,” “to lend”); in the neutral condition, words unrelated to prosociality were used (i.e., “piano,” “to read,” “landscape”).2 procedure — participants took part in the experiment one at a time. they were informed that the purpose of the study was to investigate language proficiency and that, to fulfill this purpose, they had to complete a scrambled sentence test. after participants completed the test, they were approached by a confederate asking them if they were willing to offer some money to a student association that provides books for disadvantaged undergraduates. afterward, the confederate left the room. to avoid self-presentation bias, participants could leave money in an envelope on the table next to the computer screen.3 afterward, the experimenter caught up with the participant near the elevator and asked participants whether they thought the scrambled sentence test might have affected them in any way, and if they knew that the task contained help-related words. no participant noted the relationship between help-related words and the request for money, and no participant believed that the words had any impact on his or her own behavior. behavioral measure—as a dependent variable, we considered a dichotomous variable (whether or not participants offered money) and the amount of money offered. results and discussion we analyzed the frequency of participants giving a contribution as a function of priming condition, predicting that people would be more likely to help when primed with prosocial stimuli than when primed with neutral stimuli. as shown in figure 1, considerably more subjects in the priming condition (84.3% of the 51 participants) gave a donation than subjects in the neutral condition did (62.7% of the 58 participants), χ2 (1, 109) = 3.95, p < .05. figure 1. participants who helped in control and prosocial prime conditions. as mentioned above, we also recorded the amount of money offered under the two different conditions. given that 30 subjects did not give any money, we considered this event a zero-money offer instead of eliminating these subjects from analysis. a one-way anova showed that the difference was not significant: participants exposed europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 abbate, ruggieri, & boca 483 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to the prosocial priming condition (m pros. prime = .87, sd = .891) did not give more than subjects primed with neutral stimuli (m neut. prime = .62, sd = .697), f(1, 109) = 2.76, p = ns). the fact that the participants were all students who might have a similar budget range leads us to think that it is not the budget that affects the willingness to donate but most likely the kind of priming influenced the willingness to donate. in fact, the results indicated that participants were more likely to give when primed with help-related words. at the same time, we found no significant difference in the amount of money that people gave. perhaps the spontaneous helping behavior primed was making or not making a donation (yes/no), while how much money donated to the association is not an automatic behavior. how much people give depends on several factors taken into reasonable consideration by the subjects at the time. for example, someone may give more (or less) on the basis of how much change the giver has in his or her wallet. in addition, a giver might consider already planned activities such as getting coffee after the experiment. it must be noted that in this study, participants were given the explicit conscious instruction to engage in the behavior that was shown to be affected by the priming manipulation.4 this feature is common to several studies that analyzed the effect of priming participants with help-related words on helping behavior (garcia et al., 2002; greitemeyer, 2009; nelson & norton, 2005; pichon et al., 2007). in all these studies aimed at demonstrating the perception-behavior link, the target behavior was explicitly requested. the participants were explicitly invited to help, and their acceptance or refusal of the invitation was shown to be affected by the manipulation of priming.5 but to understand more deeply the extent to which participants’ responses are activated automatically by the mere presence of relevant features in the environment by the same mechanism that produces automatic trait attribution and automatic attitude activation (blair & banaji, 1996; fazio, jackson, dunton, & williams, 1995), participants should not receive any explicit conscious instructions about what to do. thus, as bargh et al. (1996) suggested, the behavior expected upon priming should emerge spontaneously. for this reason, we designed a second experiment to test the impact of prosocial priming on helping behavior produced spontaneously in the absence of an explicit request. as suggested by bargh et al. (1996), in the next study, participants were not given any explicit conscious instructions to act in line with any of the trait dimensions being primed or measured. study 2 method participants and design — a total of 67 undergraduate students (37 women, 30 men; mean age 23.5 years) who were not studying psychology participated in the experiment to fulfill course requirements. students were randomly assigned to one of four between-participant conditions. the experiment had a 2 (prime: help or control) x 2 (cognitive load: yes or not) between-subjects design. stimulus material and procedure — the priming manipulation was basically a replication of study 1 and took the form of a scrambled sentence test (srull & wyer, 1979). participants arrived at the laboratory individually and were randomly assigned to one of the experimental conditions. up until the completion of the scrambled sentence test, the procedure was identical to study 1 (i.e., helping prime vs. control prime). in addition, half of the participants of both conditions were instructed to memorize as many sentences as possible of the test. they were also told that once the task was completed, they should go to another lab room and write down all the sentences they could remember. we will call this condition the cognitive load condition. participants in the no-load (control) condition were not instructed to memorize any sentences. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 484 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when each participant indicated that he or she had completed the scrambled sentence test, the experimenter explained that the participant could leave the room and move to the exit or to the other lab room, depending on the experimental condition. the experimenter then opened the laboratory door so that the participant could leave. as the participant walked along the corridor, he or she encountered a girl (a confederate) who accidentally stumbled and dropped all the books she was carrying.6 the dependent variable was whether participants helped the girl to pick up the books. a series of pilot trials was carried out to identify that experimental situation so that the priming effect on prosocial behavior could be evidenced. in particular, we did not want to plug participants into a serious emergency situation, a situation that probably would have pushed most of the participants to intervene. when the urge to help is pervasive, the effect of the prime would be difficult to grasp because of a sort of ceiling effect. in fact, when an emergency situation occurs and people are alone, they were likely to help anyhow (fischer et al., 2011). at the same time, a very weak need for help would have been equally useless to our purpose: priming would not boost a behavior that is not required by the situation. we finally settled on a situation in which we had found that about 25-30% of people decided to intervene. this proportion seemed appropriate to detect any increase due to the effect of priming. upon completion of the experiment, participants were debriefed, thanked, and dismissed. no participant noticed the connection between the scrambled sentence test and the stumbling girl. behavioral measure — we had two dependent measures. the first was whether participants helped the girl or simply walked down the corridor without picking up any books. the second was the number of sentences correctly recalled (which could only be measured in the cognitive load condition). cognitive load would drain attention resources needed for a rational decision about whether to help, but would be ineffective if the link between situation appraisal and helping behavior is automatic. in light of this assumption, it could be interesting to observe whether cognitive load decreased helping behavior. furthermore, it is essential to control for whether actual helping behavior interfered with sentences recalled. results and discussion to evaluate our prediction, we analyzed the participants' helping rates as a function of priming condition and cognitive load. figure 2 reports the frequency of participants who helped the girls to pick up books she had dropped on the floor in all four conditions. considerably more subjects in the priming condition (51.5% of 33 participants) stopped and helped collect books than subjects in the neutral priming condition (18.2% of 33 participants), χ2 (1, 66) = 8.08, p = .004. as expected, considering only subjects in the prosociality prime condition, results did not reveal any significant difference due to cognitive load, χ2 (1, 33) = .029, p = ns. these effects clearly demonstrate the impact of priming manipulation on helping behavior. when a girl carrying a large pile of books dropped them on the floor, participants' helping rate was significantly higher in the prime than in the control condition. in addition, no main effect emerged for cognitive load manipulation. people rehearsing in their mind the sentences of the scrambled sentences test (cognitive load condition), walking europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 abbate, ruggieri, & boca 485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. percentage of participants who helped in all four conditions. to what they believed was a second experiment room, had the same probability of stopping and helping the girl as the participants who believed their task was over (no cognitive load condition). as mentioned above, it is crucial to observe the effect of helping behavior on memory tasks. a 2 (prime: help or control) x 2 (behavior: helping or not helping) between-subjects analysis of variance (anova) was carried out on the number of correctly recalled sentences. this analysis revealed a main effect of prime type f (1, 30) = 5.93, p < .05. sentences with helping-related words (m help prime = 3.35, sd = 1.06) were generally recalled better than sentences with neutral meaning (m neut. prime = 1.47, sd = .88). a significant prime x behavior interaction also appeared, f(1, 30) = 4.88, p < .05. sentences with helping-related words were recalled better, particularly by those who helped. in contrast, when participants were primed with neutral words, an insignificant effect of helping behavior on recall emerged, f(1, 30) =.49, p = ns. when the participants in the cognitive load condition exited the laboratory, they were all trying to keep in mind the phrases they had seen. when they met the girl in need of help, some of them gave that help and others did not. perhaps the helping behavior reminded the participants that they were behaving like the sentences they had seen earlier and, in turn, made it easier to retrieve the sentences and to report them successively. general discussion helping behavior has been often conceptualized by sociologists and economists as the result of a complex evaluation where individuals accurately weigh pros and cons before taking action (axelrod, 1984; lehmann & keller, 2006; nowak, 2006; olson, 1965; taylor, 2002). psychological models have described a wide number of steps between discovering that someone is in need and actual helping. the decision model of bystander intervention created by latané and darley (1970) proposed that whether or not a person helps depends on the results of a series of sequential decisions. there clearly are circumstances in which helping is the result of an accurate weighing of possible outcomes, such as when some people plan to make a donation to charity. a donor may evaluate whether or not make the donation, how much money to donate, and choose to whom the money is given. in this decision-making process, aspects such as tax deductions and the acquisition or maintenance of a positive public image are probably considered. on the contrary, interviews offered by people who actually helped in critical situations often reported an immediate, almost involuntary, urge to intervene. they often talked about an urge to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 486 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intervene. for instance, in september 2011, a motorcycle driver crashed and was trapped beneath a burning car. good samaritans jumped into action and were likely the sole reason the youngman survived. as anvar suyundikov said after he pulled the motorcyclist out from under the burning car, “i don’t not think i am a hero, i was just in the right moment to help him”7 . but also in less critical and less dangerous circumstances people often help instantly, without thinking (i.e. through a more automatic behavior). this puzzle can be disentangled by postulating the existence of a dual route between cognition and helping behavior. similar to the theories of other models (gawronski & bodenhausen, 2006; greenwald & banaji, 1995; strack & deutsch, 2004; wilson, lindsey, & schooler, 2000), we believe helping can be the result either of a planned action or of an activation of a strong link between cognitions activated by environmental features and behavior. if helping behavior can be automatically triggered by the mere presence of relevant situational features, the probability of helping may be experimentally increased through a priming paradigm. activating the opportune set of cognitions in someone's mind should influence the person to be more sensitive to requests for help coming from the social environment. activated cognitions become more accessible, more ready to play a role in a subsequent cognitive process. only a handful of studies have shown an impact of situational priming on helping behavior. nevertheless, it seems reasonable to expect that even prosocial concepts and consequently prosocial behavioral schemas may be activated through priming. the studies presented in this paper provide evidence of the existence of a direct link between cognition and helping, a link that can be experimentally activated by priming. in fact, the main finding of the present studies is that social behavior can be triggered automatically. similar to previous experiments on automaticity in social behavior (brown, croizet, bohner, fournet, & payne, 2003; dijksterhuis & bargh, 2001), a prosocial prime was introduced in experimental conditions, and its effect was evaluated on actual helping behavior. across two studies, the activation of help-related concepts produced an increase in helping rates in a subsequent apparently unrelated situation. in particular, the exposure to help-related primes affected the participants’ willingness to give to a student association upon a direct request from someone (study 1), and increased the percentage of participants who stopped and spontaneously helped the girl pick up books (study 2). it is also important to stress two aspects of these studies. first, the helping behavior observed here is an actual behavior and not simply behavioral intentions, unlike a large number of studies on automaticity. it is important to stress this difference since intended helping does not always result in actual helping (scaffidi abbate, isgró, wicklund, & boca, 2006). certainly, a wider use of behavioral measures of pro-social behavior would make data collection more complicated. nevertheless, this is a necessary option for attaining a better understanding of helping. second, the helping behavior measure we considered was not only the response to a direct request (study 1), but also spontaneous prosocial behavior in the absence of an explicitly given instruction (study 2). as bargh et al. (1996) posited, the hypothesis is that social behavior should be capable of automatic activation by the mere presence of features of the current environment as is the case of social perceptions and attitudes. by “mere presence of environmental features,” we mean that the activation of the behavioral tendency and response must be shown to be preconscious, that is, not dependent on the person's current conscious intentions (see bargh, 1989). in most of the research regarding the impact of priming on helping behavior, participants were given the explicit, conscious goal to engage in the behavior that was shown to be affected by the priming manipulation (garcia et al., 2002; greitemeyer, 2009; nelson & norton, 2005; pichon et al., 2007). thus, in attempting to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 abbate, ruggieri, & boca 487 http://www.psychopen.eu/ overcome these problems, in the present studies, we observed spontaneous helping behavior triggered by the situation. limitations and future research questions worthy of future investigation arise from these studies. as all the research conducted in the laboratory the findings reported in this paper could have limited generalizability. although the situations that have been created may seem to be situations that we may encounter in everyday life, further research testing the effects of priming on prosocial behavior in field experiments would be desirable. a matter to be explored more deeply is which types of activated knowledgemediate effects on behavior. assuming that the mere perception of a stimulus activates trait, context, goal, affective and behavioral information (ferguson & bargh, 2004), the types of knowledge that mediate the variety of effects shown in this research remain unidentified. questions now arise regarding the boundaries between automatic and conscious behavior and the possibility of overriding automatic behaviors or suppressing them (see macrae & johnston, 1998). bargh, schwader, hailey, dyer, and boothby (2012) described a set of possible moderators of the effect of activation of behavioral schemas. one among them could be particularly interesting in the field of automatic prosocial behavior: self-focused attention (duval & wicklund, 1972). they explained that increased self-focus, that is, increased attention to the self, is known to activate action tendencies (carver & scheier, 2000; duval & wicklund, 1972; gibbons, 1990). increased attention to the self can override external influences (priming) because it makes schemas for norms, behavioral standards, and important goals more salient and accessible. on the other hand, it is true that in the arena of prosocial action, self-awareness should move a person to help more, to manifest altruism, a thesis that has some empirical support (duval, duval, & neely, 1979; gibbons &wicklund, 1982; scaffidi abbate & ruggieri, 2008, 2011). therefore, future research into spontaneous helping behavior might investigate this phenomenon outside the laboratory to assess to what extent situational features can prime prosocial behaviors that occur in real life. notes 1) the critical measure of planned helping behavior was, “an elderly woman gets on a crowded subway on which you are riding. although all the seats are taken and many people are standing, you have a seat. relative to the average princeton student how likely is it that you would offer your seat to this woman?” (1: much less likely, 8: same, 15: much more likely). 2) to select the experimental material, a pre-test was conducted with 50 participants from the same population (they did not take part in the main experiment) who were asked to say instantly three words related to the concept of prosociality. the 15 words most frequently used were employed. 3) several tests were conducted before the experiment was carried out so that the entire procedure was standardized in a way that would not influence the participants’ responses. to do this, the confederate (who was the same person for the entire duration of the experiment) was trained to say the same identical phrase as he approached each participant. the words used by the confederate were: “my name is lucia and i am a volunteer for a students charity association. one of our aims is to provide books for disadvantaged undergraduates. i ask you if you want to contribute offering some money. thank you.” 4) this criticism has been pointed out by bargh et al. (1996): the authors noted that in berkowitz and lepage's (1967) and carver et al.'s (1983) studies, for example, participants were instructed to take the role of teacher and give shocks to a learner. accordingly, these studies showed that intentional behavior could be affected in intensity or duration by aggression-priming manipulation (the presence of guns or prior exposure to synonyms of aggression), but they did not show the behavior was produced automatically in the absence of that explicitly given intention. 5) as mentioned above, in studies by macrae and johnston (1998), the dependent measure in this experiment was whether or not participants helped the experimenter pick up any of the dropped items without any explicit instructions. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 488 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 6) as in study 1, various tests were conducted before the experiment was carried out to make sure that the entire procedure is nearly identical for all the participants. thus, the confederate who accidentally stumbled and dropped all the books she was carrying was the same girl for the entire duration of the experiment. in so far as possible, the girl always dropped the books in the same way and always at a distance of five meters after passing the participant. 7) source of information: http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/heroes-save-a-young-logan-man-trapped-beneath-a/vheh0js0l0iedgphdt0xfg.cspx references axelrod, r. 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(1982). independence and interaction of affect and cognition. in m. s. clark & s. t. fiske (eds.), affect and cognition: the seventeenth annual carnegie symposium on cognition (pp. 211-227). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. about the authors costanza scaffidi abbate, phd, is lecturer in the department of psychology of the university of palermo, italy. her research interests span in the area of helping behavior, with a focus on activation of prosocial behavioral schemas through priming techniques. stefano ruggieri, phd, is a postdoctoral researcher at the university of palermo, with special interest in persuasion and cyberpsychology. stefano boca, is full professor of social psychology at the university of palermo. his research interests are in prejudice and cyberpsychology. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 479–492 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.603 automatic influences on prosocial behavior 492 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.10.1660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0803_1 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00519 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.1.101 http://www.psychopen.eu/ automatic influences on prosocial behavior (introduction) priming helping behavior overview of the studies study 1 method results and discussion study 2 method results and discussion general discussion limitations and future research notes references about the authors research methods in social psychology: a comparative analysis vlad-petre glăveanu ejop editor research in social psychology would be inconceivable today without the use of questionnaires, interviews and focus groups. this essay will briefly present all three methods and compare their characteristics through an analysis of their importance for stereotype, identity and social representations research. both questionnaires and interviews / focus groups help researchers gather verbal data and all start from the same key-element: questions. this aspect is most obvious in the case of questionnaires that may resemble a “simple” set of questions. nevertheless, the hardest task for researchers is to establish the right questions, formulate and then order them. questionnaires need also to be completed by participants with certain characteristics in either a self-administered or staff-administered manner (babbie, 1998) although it is quite common to have a combination of the two where research staff offer questionnaire for completion to a large number of subjects, inform them about the testing and assist them only if necessary. if questionnaires, due to their structured nature, have come to symbolize (along with tests and experiments) the quantitative approach, interviews are often central to qualitative studies and involve a more or less guided dialogue between an interviewer and interviewee (where, unlike usual discussions, the roles of the two remain stable). the most common forms are dilemma-interviews, clinical and biographical interviews (hopf, 2004). but, despite this apparent antagonism questionnaires and interviews “glide” into one another quite frequently. not all interviews are qualitative and nondirective. in fact, the schedule-structure interview (frankfort and nachmias, 2000) is noting more than face to face application of a questionnaire. in their turn, questionnaires can include many open-ended questions that invite respondents to express their views in a completely unstandardized way. in the last decades the use of group interviews has been generalised well beyond its “traditional” areas of group dynamics, persuasive communication, and mass media (stewart and shamdasani, 1990). methodological developments have perfected focus groups as a method in its own right and not simply interviews applied in a group context. the name indicates how crucial it is for moderators to focus the group discussion on one specific topic of interest and stimulate members’ interactions (not their agreement). although within a focus group it is not uncommon for participants to complete / score certain scales, most data is idiosyncratic in nature and thus challenging to interpret and summarize. in order to understand the exact particularities, advantages and limitations of these three methods in a comparative manner it is best to take classic themes of study in social sciences as examples. in this case let us focus on the following three related topics – stereotypes, identity and social representations – standing at the heart of social psychology research. the study of stereotypes has traditionally been performed by designing questionnaires that solicit attribute generation and/or evaluation. one of the first benefits of using surveys was the capacity to collect data from large samples, ensure confidentiality and obtain quantitative responses that are easy to statistically test. despite these obvious benefits, many researchers started to doubt the capacity or willingness of respondents to “objectify” their stereotypes and more indirect approaches have been elaborated (e.g. gaertner and mclaughlin, 1983). such methods, largely based on cognitive and physiological principles, are also contested for failing to reveal social and motivational aspects in the elaboration and functioning of stereotypes. interviews could be one solution for overcoming these shortcomings and generally allowing a more in-depth analysis of this phenomenon. in this case though a limited number of subjects can be studied and there is always the risk of participants distorting their beliefs due to self-presentation biases. in what concerns focus groups, they wouldn’t be particularly appropriate if the discussion is centred on personal stereotypes but can prove to be useful in investigating how respondents understand and approach cultural stereotypes. research on identity, unless following an experimental design, has employed primarily a qualitative approach and the use of interviews. in this case the claimed “incapacity” of questionnaires to offer any valuable phenomenological insight and their standardized nature led to lesser usage. however, as argued before, questionnaires can include open-ended questions and seem to be particularly fit to assess aspects like self-esteem (although rarely to explain it). it is through interviews that social psychologists commonly address the problem of identity. recognized as representative for a “thematic, topic-centred, biographical and narrative approach” (mason, 2002), interviews allow respondents the necessary freedom to explore and express their self-identity. acknowledging the fact that identities are socially constructed and dependent on social interaction allows focus groups to be used almost to the same extent as individual interviews. focus group research on identity (howarth, 2002) has been helpful in observing how identities are generated, played out and transformed at the level of the community. finally, the social representations theory, that tried to surpass a rather individualistic view on stereotypes and identity and to “recover the social”, nowadays relies extensively on interviews and focus groups as means of investigation. although the capacity of these methods to explore both the individual and group level dynamics of representations is undeniable, many traditional studies in the field, especially those following a structural approach, used questionnaires and data that were straightforwardly quantified. maybe the peak accomplishment in this regard is that of guimelli and rouquette (1992), who turned their model of basic cognitive schemes into 28 questions. again questionnaires have proved to be very effective in collecting clear-cut responses and organizing them according to research purposes. in concluding, questionnaires, interviews and focus groups all have their special strengths and limitations. in order to surpass the disadvantages two basic recommendations can be formulated. the first is to consider the nature of the research topic and to make an informed and careful selection of method(s). second, to use whenever possible multiple methods in order to increase the chances of obtaining more types of data and a larger range of perspectives. nevertheless, this method triangulation should be thought of strategically and not just eclectically (mason, 2002) and always in relation to the particular research objectives. references babbie, e. (1998). the practice of social research, eighth edition. belmont: wadsworth publishing company. frankfort-nachmias, c. & nachmias, d. (2000). research methods in the social sciences, sixth edition. new york: worth publishers. gaertner, s.l. & mclaughlin, j.p. (1983). racial stereotypes: association and ascriptions of positive and negative characteristics. social psychology quarterly, 46, pp.23-30. guimelli, c. & rouquette, m.l. (1992). contribution du modèle associatif des schèmes cognitifs de base a l’analyse structurale des représentations sociales. bulletin de psychologie, 405, pp. 43-48. hopf, c. (2004). qualitative interviews: an overview. in u. flick, e. kardoff and i. steinke (eds.), a companion to qualitative research. london: sage, pp. 203-208. howarth, c. (2002). identity in whose eyes? the role of representations in identity construction. journal of the theory of social behaviour, 32(2), pp. 145-162. mason, j. (2002). qualitative researching, second edition. london: sage. stewart, d. & shamdasani, p. (1990). focus groups: theory and practice. newbury park: sage. biographical note the author has graduated from the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, university of bucharest, and is currently an msc student in social and cultural psychology at the london school of economics. his main interests are in: creativity, social representations, social and developmental psychology, qualitative methods. contact: v.p.glaveanu@lse.ac.uk imagery and emotion components of event descriptions about self and various others nicholas a. kuiper the university of western ontario london, ontario, canada jennifer kuindersma the university of western ontario london, ontario, canada abstract imagery and emotion have been identified as two of the main component systems of autobiographical events. it is not yet known, however, whether a primary focus on either the self or others may have an impact on these components. to investigate this issue, half of the participants in this study provide a real and made-up event description about themselves, and half provide descriptions about a well-known other. in addition, all participants generated a made-up event description about an unfamiliar other. in accord with predictions generated from a multiple-system model, real events received higher visual detail, imagability, and positive emotion ratings than made-up events. this pattern was also evident for a novel measure of imagery, in which real events were rated as being much more dynamic than made-up events. however, contrary to theoretical positions which postulate a special enhanced role for self-referent information processing, the self-descriptive events were not rated as being easier to imagine and did not have more positive emotions or visual detail, than descriptive events about well-known others. this pattern suggests that efficient cognitive schemata may be involved in the processing of information about both the self and well-known others. in contrast, descriptions of an unfamiliar other received lower imagery and emotionality ratings, suggesting that less well-differentiated cognitive structures are involved in component processing for these individuals. keywords: imagery, emotion, self-other, real made-up rubin (2005) has suggested that autobiographical memories are the product of distinct component systems that include, for example, visual imagery and the emotions associated with the described event. research investigating this multiple-systems model has determined the relative importance of these distinct components by having persons rate their autobiographical memories on the degree of visual imagery, spatial context, and how strongly the original emotions were reinstated (rubin, 2005). across several studies it has been found that the strength of recollection of an event was best predicted by the vividness of visual imagery, followed by emotions (rubin, schrauf, & greenberg, 2003; rubin, 2005). further research has examined how different types of memories or events may impact on the various components of the multiple-systems model. crawley and eacott (2006), for example, contrasted ratings of components for autobiographical memories based on personal recollections (i.e., the birth of a younger sibling) versus memories that were clearly based on second-hand sources (i.e., family stories about one’s own birth). congruent with predictions generated from the multiple-systems model, the autobiographical memories displayed higher ratings for visual detail, spatial location, and emotional feelings than did the memories generated from second-hand sources. using a different paradigm, kealy, kuiper, and klein (2006) had participants generate both real and made-up events about themselves. again consistent with the multiple-systems model, real events could be readily distinguished from made-up events, as the former had significantly higher imagery ratings of visual detail, location and time than the latter. in light of the above, one purpose of the present study was to explore a further important parameter that may also impact on key components of the multiple-systems model. in particular, we examined the extent to which a primary focus on either self or others, when describing events, may also bear on the imagery and emotion components of this model. although it is clear that we can have distinct memories about self and highly familiar others (kuiper & rogers, 1979; symons & johnson, 1997), little is yet known about the extent to which these memories can be distinguished in terms of the various components of the multiple-systems model. accordingly, we examined this issue by having participants in the present study provide both real and made-up event descriptions about themselves and a well-known other currently significant in their lives (e.g., a close friend). one possibility here is that the component ratings for self-referent event descriptions, when compared with descriptions about well-known others, may be richer in imagery and higher in emotionality. such a pattern would be consistent with the notion that the self provides for very elaborate processing of personally relevant information than is even more enhanced than the processing of information about well-known others (kircher et al., 2000). in turn, this greater elaboration would result in higher imagery and emotionality ratings for the self-referent events. furthermore, by including both real and made-up events, we could determine the extent to which such a self-referent enhancement pattern may be evident across both these types of events. alternatively, it is also quite possible that there will be no distinction between the component ratings for the self versus well-known other event descriptions. in contrast to the notion that self-referent processing is uniquely elaborate (kircher et al., 2000), several other investigators have highlighted the substantial similarities between self and well-known other information processing (gillihan & farah, 2005; kuiper & rogers, 1979; symons & johnson, 1997). some of these researchers have proposed that individuals also develop and employ very efficient cognitive schemata for processing personal information about significant others, thus resulting in quite similar elaboration for both self and well-known others (kuiper & rogers, 1979). if this is the case, then one would not expect differences between the component ratings for self versus well-known others. in other words, the self-referent event descriptions would not display higher imagery and emotionality ratings than those for well-known others. a further goal of the present study was to examine the potential effects of degree of familiarity of the other-referent target on imagery and emotion component ratings. thus, in addition to the well-known other condition, participants also provided a made-up event description about an individual they were just meeting for the first time, namely, the experimenter. previous research indicates that the processing of personal information about such unfamiliar individuals is relatively inefficient and is not schema-based (kuiper & rogers, 1979). thus, without any specific cognitive structure or knowledge base concerning this unfamiliar other, processing would lack the degree of elaboration evident for well-known others or the self. in turn, this suggests that it would be more difficult to image a made-up event about this unfamiliar other, and it would have significantly less emotionality, when compared to the made-up events about well-known others or the self. finally, given the central role of visual imagery in the multiple-systems model (rubin, 2005), we wanted to expand this component of the model to also include consideration of imagery dynamics. as described by enright (1997) this term refers to the movement characteristics associated with an image. thus, some events are imagined in a static fashion, like a still picture, whereas others may be more dynamic, like a slide show. finally, other events may be the most dynamic of all, and imagined more like a movie. in her research, enright found that real autobiographical memories were much more dynamic than made-up events about the self. accordingly, this additional component of imagery was assessed in our study by having participants provide an imagery dynamic judgment for each event description. here, we predicted that that real events would be more dynamic than made-up events. furthermore, to the extent that self-referent event descriptions are indeed more elaborate than event descriptions about a well-known other, they would also display more imagery dynamics. conversely, if self-referent and well-known other referent event descriptions are equally elaborated, we would not expect any imagery dynamic distinctions between these two conditions. finally, we expected that the made-up event descriptions for an unfamiliar other (i.e. the experimenter) would be much more static in terms of imagery dynamics than either the self or well-known other descriptions. such a pattern would reflect the lack of an efficient cognitive schema for processing personal information about an unfamiliar other. method participants ninety students (61 females and 29 males) enrolled in introductory psychology courses at the university of western ontario participated. the mean age was 19.43, with a range from 18 to 30. event descriptions and instructions. each participant provided a total of three written pleasant event descriptions, consisting of one real and one made-up event about either self or a well-known other; and one made-up event about an unfamiliar other (i.e., the experimenter). the real events were to have happened within the past 3 months. the made-up events were to be realistic and plausible, and were also to be written as if they had happened within the last 3 months. the instructions for each event description were as similar as possible, and each emphasized a focus on the specific target for that particular event (i.e., self, well-known other, and unfamiliar other). participants were instructed to write about the event without stopping, and to write from the feelings and sensations they experienced with the event. imagery ratings. participants rated the specific degree of visual detail evident for each event by using a 7-point scale, with 1 indicating “none at all”, 4 indicating “a moderate amount”, and 7 indicating “very much.” participants also rated how easy it was to imagine each event, with this imagability rating made on a 7-point scale, with 1 indicating “not at all”, 4 indicating “moderately”, and 7 indicating “very easily”. finally, participants also indicated how dynamic their images were by selecting one of the following descriptors for each event: (1) “still, like a photograph”; (2) “a series of still pictures, like a slide show”; (3) “moving, like a movie; or (4) “no image is present”. emotion ratings. participants used a 7-point scale to rate the degree to which each event contained positive feelings, with 1 indicating “not at all”, 4 indicating “a moderate amount”, and 7 indicating “very much.” an identically labeled second 7-point rating scale was used to provide a separate rating of the negative feelings associated with each event. selection of a well-known other target. specific well-know other targets were selected using a brief form that highlights three individuals currently important in each participant’s life (kuiper & rogers, 1979). participants indicated the extent to which each of these individuals was known to them, using a 5-point familiarity scale ranging from “moderately well” (1) to “extremely well” (5). participants also indicated how many hours per week they spent with each of these individuals, and the type of relationship involved (e.g., close friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, siblings, or parents). the individual with the highest rating on the 5-point scale was then selected as that participant’s well-known other target. the mean familiarity rating for the 46 well-known others selected as targets in the present study was 4.87 (sd of .34). if there was a tie in familiarity ratings, then the individual the participant spent the most time with per week was selected as the target. on average, participants spent 28.33 hours per week with their selected targets. twenty-two of the selected well-known others were close friends, 8 were boyfriends or girlfriends, 7 were mothers, 6 were siblings, and 3 were fathers. procedure participants were tested in groups of up to 4, with each session lasting approximately 40 minutes. alternating with each session, participants were placed in either the self or well-known other condition (n’s of 44 and 46, respectively). therefore, participants either provided one real and one made-up description about themselves, or one real and one made-up event description about a well-known other. each participant (regardless of self or well-known other condition), also provided a made-up event description about an unfamiliar other (the experimenter). the presentation order for these events was varied across sessions. after reading and signing an informed consent form, participants in the well-known other condition completed the brief form to select their own well-known other target. participants were then read the instructions for completing the real and made-up event descriptions for the self and other targets. after each event was written, participants completed the imagery and emotion ratings for that target. following completion of the final event description and ratings, each participant was given a debriefing form and credit for participation in the study. results real and made-up events: self versus well-known others the means and standard deviations for ratings of imagery and emotion components are shown in table 1. each measure was analyzed using a 2 (event: real, made-up) x 2 (target: self, well-known other) analysis of variance (anova). table 1: event component ratings: means (and standard deviations) by event type and target imagery. the anova for the visual detail rating revealed the expected significant main effect of event, f = 6.45, p < .05; with real events having significant higher amounts of visual detail than made-up events (respective main effect means of 5.75 vs. 5.20). in a similar fashion, the anova on the imagability ratings also revealed the expected significant main effect of event, f = 29.88, p < .001. here, real events were deemed to be easier to imagine than made-up events (with respective means of 6.33 vs. 5.44). for both of these imagery ratings, neither the main effects of target, nor the two-way interactions were significant, all f’s < 2. thus, self-referent events were not easier to imagine than well-known other events (with respective means of 5.80 vs. 5.98). nor did self-referent events contain more visual detail than events focusing on a well-known other (respective means of 5.63 vs. 5.33). furthermore, it was also not the case than any imagability distinctions between self and well-known others emerged as interactions involving event by target. table 2: distribution of imagery dynamic categories a) for real versus made-up events (combining self & well-known others) b) for made-up events only (self & well-known others versus unfamiliar other) table 2a shows the frequency distribution for the imagery dynamic categories for all of the real versus made-up events. as expected, a significant chi-square analysis, χ2 (3) = 8.93, p< .01 indicated that real events were considered more dynamic than made-up events. in particular, real event images were most often viewed as “moving” or being a “series” of images. in contrast, made-up event images were more often seen as being “still” or as a “series” of images; and less often as “moving.” this pattern supports a clear distinction between real and made-up events in terms of imagery dynamics. two further chi-square analyses were then performed to investigate whether the self or well-known other nature of the target had any impact on the imagery dynamics for either the real or the made up events. no significant relationships were found for either the real or made-up distributions. these findings indicate that the imagery dynamics associated with event descriptions about the self could not be reliably distinguished from those about a well-known other, for either type of event. emotions. in accord with prior research, a significant main effect of event was found for positive emotions, f = 23.46, p < .001, with the real events having more positive feelings associated with them than the made-up events (respective main effect means of 6.50 vs. 5.86). self-referent events, however, did not have more positive feelings than well-known other events (respective means of 6.18 vs. 6.17), f < 1; nor was the two-way interaction significant, f < 1. finally, the anova for the negative feelings rating revealed that none of the three sources of variance were significant, all f’s < 1. this non-significance may reflect the fact that only pleasant events were being described, and thus there may have been an overall paucity of negative feelings associated with these events. table 3: made-up event component ratings: means (standard deviations) and t-test p-values table 3 presents the imagery and emotion ratings for the made-up events only, for all three targets. two separate sets of paired-sample t-tests were performed on this data: one set for the group of 44 participants that provided made-up events about both themselves and an unfamiliar other (as shown in the left portion of table 3); and a further set for the remaining 46 participants that provided made-up event descriptions about both a well-know other and an unfamiliar other (right portion of table 3). self vs. unfamiliar other. the self-referent made-up events displayed significantly more visual detail than the unfamiliar other events, t (43) = 4.44, p< .001, and were significantly easier to imagine, t (43) = 4.17, p< .001. finally, greater positive emotions were also associated with the self-referent made-up events, when compared with the unfamiliar other made-up events, t (43) =3.86, p< .001. in summary, the made-up events about the self were clearly distinguishable from those about an unfamiliar other, with the only non-significant comparison involving negative feelings well-known other vs. unfamiliar other. the t-test results for these comparisons are shown in the right panel of table 3. well-known other events were rated as being easier to imagine, t (45) = 4.60, p< .001, but did not contain significantly more visual detail than the made-up events about an unfamiliar other. the well-known other made-up events also had significantly more positive emotions than the unfamiliar other events, t (45) = 4.46, p< .001, but did not display any difference in terms of negative feelings. overall, these findings suggest that although well-known other made-up events can still be distinguished from made-up events about an unfamiliar other, this distinction is not quite as clear as that found for self-referent versus unfamiliar other made-up events. imagery dynamics for made-up events. a preliminary chi-squared analysis revealed that the distribution of imagery dynamic categories for the made-up events was not contingent upon the self versus well-known other nature of the target. accordingly, table 2b presents the frequency distribution of imagery dynamic categories for the combined self and well-known other targets versus the unfamiliar other made-up events. a chi-square analysis on this distribution revealed a significant relationship, χ2 (3) = 12.55, p< .01, such that made-up events about the self and well-known other were much more dynamic relative to made-up events about an unfamiliar other. for example, participants reported considerably more “moving” images for the self and well-known other than for an unfamiliar other. conversely, there were almost twice as many “still” images for the unfamiliar other target (i.e., the experimenter) than for the combined self and well-known other targets. finally, it should be noted that participants had considerably more difficulty in generating images for the unfamiliar other than for the self or well-known other event descriptions (i.e., 12 vs. 4 “no images”). discussion employing the multiple-systems model of autobiographical memory (rubin 2005), the present study examined imagery and emotion component ratings for real and made-up events about self and various others. in doing so, we found that real pleasant events were easier to imagine and contained more visual detail and positive emotions than made-up events. this pattern is consistent with the findings reported by kealy et al. (2006) for both pleasant and unpleasant events about the self. these findings are also congruent with research demonstrating that real autobiographical memories can be clearly distinguished from memories derived from secondary sources, such as other family members (crawley & eacott, 2006). as such, these findings provide additional support for a basic tenet of the multiple-systems model, namely that different categories of memories or recollections are reliably distinct from one another in terms of associated imagery components and emotional feelings (rubin, 2005). the present findings also extend the multiple-systems model to incorporate consideration of imagery dynamics. several different qualities of imagery are already recognized in this model, including vividness, visual detail, spatial elements, and visual perspective (rubin, 2005; rubin et al., 2003). the present findings suggest that a further aspect of imagery, namely, its dynamic versus static quality, may also play an important role in distinguishing between various types of event descriptions and memories. in particular, our findings indicated that images of real events were viewed as being much more dynamic in nature, and thus have much more perceived movement (i.e., being like a movie) than images of made-up events (i.e., being like a still picture). interestingly, we did not find any distinctions in the various ratings for self versus well-known others. event descriptions for both of these targets were found to be equivalent in terms of imagability, visual detail, imagery dynamics, and positive emotions. this equivalence fails to support the notion that self-referent processing is distinct or unique (e.g., kircher et al., 2000; symons & johnson, 1997). if this had been the case, we would have expected the most elaboration for the self-referent condition, resulting in higher imagery and emotion ratings, when compared with well-known others. instead, the equivalence of findings supports the proposal that efficient cognitive schemata are involved in the processing of information about both the self and well-known others (kuiper & rogers, 1979). these rich cognitive schemata provide detailed background knowledge and well-organized structures for processing further information for both types of targets. differences between self and others only emerged when considering the comparisons involving made-up events about an unfamiliar other (the experimenter). here, the self-referent events had significantly higher ratings for all of the measures, except negative emotions. thus, participants viewed the made-up events about the self as having more visual detail, being easier to imagine, being more dynamic and being more positive, than their made-up events about an unfamiliar other. this pattern further supports the proposal that an efficient cognitive schema is involved in the elaboration of made-up events about the self; and that, in contrast, the processing of information about unfamiliar others is relatively inefficient and is not associated with a person-specific schema (kuiper & rogers, 1979; symons & johnson, 1997). thus, the dearth of specific background information about the unfamiliar target, coupled with the lack of a distinct cognitive structure for organizing and processing information about this individual, would limit the degree to which a made-up event about an unfamiliar other could be richly imagined or emotions could be relived. additional findings from our study speak even more directly to the issue of familiarity. in particular, several significant differences emerged between the two other-referent targets, with the well-known other event descriptions being rated as easier to image and having more positive emotions than the made-up event descriptions about an unfamiliar other. once again, this highlights the contrast between the use of efficient cognitive schemata for well-known others and much less efficient or elaborate processing for unfamiliar others. interestingly, however, there were no distinctions in terms of visual details. as such, there may be a certain degree of similarity in visual details for other-referent targets ranging across a wide range of familiarity. although the present findings are informative, there are several limitations which should be acknowledged and addressed in future research. to begin, the present study focused only on pleasant events. thus, it may still be the case that negative self-referent events may differ from negative events about a well-known other in terms of the various components and beliefs associated with the multiple-systems model. in particular, the increased stress associated with personally relevant events may foster enhanced imagery, along with greater negative emotions, when compared with unpleasant events about a well-known other. furthermore, it is not yet known if more distant past events (i.e., more than several years old: see sporer & sharman, 2006) would lead to self versus well-known other differences in the various components of the multiple-systems model. finally, it would also be of interest to move beyond a university sample to consider an older, community based sample that may also display a different pattern of self-other similarities and differences. references crawley, r.a., & eacott, m.j. (2006). memories of early childhood: qualities of the experience of recollection. memory & cognition, 34(2), 287-294. enright, c. (1997). imagery and narrative characteristics associated with autobiographical memories. unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of western ontario. gillihan, s.j., & farah, m.j. (2005). is self special? a critical review of evidence from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. psychological bulletin, 131(1), 76-97. kealy, k.l., kuiper, n.a., & klein, d.n. (2006). characteristics associated with real and made-up events: the effects of event valence, event elaboration, and individual differences. canadian journal of behavioural science, 38(2), 158-175. kircher, t.t., senior, c., phillips, m.l., benson, p.j., bullmore, e.t., brammer, m., et al. (2000). towards a functional neuroanatomy of self-processing. effects of faces and words. cognitive brain research, 10, 133-144. kuiper, n.a., & rogers, t.b. (1979). encoding of personal information: self-other differences. journal of personality and social psychology, 37, 499-514. rubin, d.c. (2005). a basic-systems approach to autobiographical memory. current directions in psychological science, 14(2), 79-83. rubin, d.c., schrauf, r.w., & greenberg, d.l. (2003). belief and recollection of autobiographical memories. memory and cognition, 31(6), 887-901. sporer, s.l., & sharman, s. j. should i believe this? reality monitoring of accounts of self-experienced and invented recent and distant autobiographical events. applied cognitive psychology, 20, 837-854. symons, c. s., & johnson, b.t. (1997). the self-reference effect in memory: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 121(3), 371-394. correspondence address nicholas a. kuiper, ph.d., c. psych. professor and director clinical psychology graduate program department of psychology room 309, westminster college 361 windermere road london, ontario canada n6a 3k7 kuiper@uwo.ca phone: 519661-2111 x84652 fax: 519-850-2554 acknowledgement of reviewers, 2013 correction acknowledgement of reviewers, 2013 vlad glăveanu note some names of reviewers were replaced by "anonymous" post-publication of this acknowledgement as requested by the respective reviewers. [the author requested to add this note post-publication on 2015-10-15.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ editorial acknowledgement of reviewers, 2013 vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 7–8, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.769 received: 2014-02-27. published (vor): 2014-02-28. corrected (cvor): 2015-10-15. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.co this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. we are grateful for the reliable and helpful support that we have received from the following colleagues, who provided us with valuable editorial help in the peer review process for europe's journal of psychology in 2013: handling editors maria kakarikaandrew p. allen maciej karwowskicherie armour nicholas a. kuiperbelinda bradley izabela lebudaalexandra ilie rhian worthdan ispas reviewers alejandro jose estudillogamze arman incioglu shainaz firfiraysavita bakhshi anand krzysztof fronczykclaude belanger anonymousjohn bohannon panagiotis gkorezisbelinda bradley vlad glăveanuandrea caputo susan g. goldbergmelissa care alessio gorijanine carroll nobuhiko gotowai sze chan jacek gralewskidavid coall jeffrey hallzoe dimitriades william peter hampesghassan el-baalbaki rebecca harrisstefan engeser europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ steven hertlerorlando espino rakesh pandeyman yee ho maria 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information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 7–8 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.769 acknowledgement of reviewers, 2013 8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en acknowledgement of reviewers, 2013 handling editors reviewers psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods editorial psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods rom harré*a [a] psychology department of georgetown university, washington, dc, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 315–320, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.493 received: 2012-07-09. accepted: 2012-07-11. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: psychology department, georgetown university, washington, dc 20057, email: harre@georgetown.edu. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the contrast between a psychological and a biological study of a superficially similar phenomenon can be illustrated with the ‘cough’. the word is used generically for an explosive expulsion of air that clears the pulmonary passages. but this common meaning is set into two radically different conceptual and empirical frameworks. imagine you are at a concert – yo yo ma is approaching one the most delicate passages in the elgar cello concerto and you become aware of a mounting discomfort in the chest and a well nigh irresistible pressure to cough – eventually you cannot control it any more. this is the ‘cough’ in a biological framework of mechanisms and concepts. consider this case – you are at the open door of colleague’s study and you see that she is earnestly advising an undergraduate. rather than barge in you cough discretely to attract her attention. in the first case you, the person, have lost control of a biological mechanism, while in the second case you, the person, used a biological mechanism for a psychologically intelligible purpose. in the first case the cough has no meaning. in the second case its meaning is or ought to be clear. note too, that different cultures may have different uses for the cough, just as different cultures have different uses for the smile. this parable has a larger import. human life consists of two radically different unfolding patterns. there are practices, procedures which people adopt to accomplish the tasks that confront them as they strive to manage their everyday lives. then there are biological processes of which people are only occasionally aware but which are necessary for the maintenance of life. digging the garden in the spring is a practice – a pattern of deliberate acts in conformity with a cluster of standards that may have become ‘second nature’ – the sod should be so many centimetres deep and the furrow should be straight and so on. so too displaying one’s displeasure at being ‘dissed’ by an angry response is a practice – in certain circumstances it would be appropriate and in others disastrous. like the cough an angry display has a meaning related to the meanings of what has gone on around the stroppy person. if i don’t realise that i have been treated unfairly nothing that i subsequently do could be an angry gesture. even digging has to be considered for its meaning – is it done to display my green credentials to a fossil fuel squandering neighbour? this example has extraordinary consequences for the development of a ‘psychology of the emotions’. there is surely a corporeal response to a situation depending on how the target reads it, that is what meaning is assigned --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ to it. what the person then does is also relevant by reason of the meaning that that display has in the context and in that culture. a display of jealousy is a complex semantic phenomenon, registering a certain interpretation of the fortunes of another person, a judgment as to whether this person’s good fortune is deserved relative to one’s own and so on. this introduces considerations of rights and duties, opening up the question of the nature of the local moral order. the tip of the ‘jealousy’ iceberg may be a forced smile, but the bulk of the phenomenon is semantic and embedded in cultural niceties. as a person becomes skilled in social life the display of jealousy may be entirely private. but why is there any need to emphasise the discursive character of psychological phenomena and psychological activities as meaning management? the puzzle of paradigm paralysis in psychology compared with physics jan valsiner’s admirable presentation of methodology for cultural psychology (valsiner, 2007). produces a strong feeling of deja vu for those of us who were actively trying to bring psychology forwards in the 1960s and 70s. for example the use of disruption of routines to bring to light the implicit rule systems that were implemented by social actors is very similar to ethnomethodology (garfinkel, 1967) and its use of account analysis. at that time there was a vigorous movement all over western europe to abandon the simple ‘experimental’ psychology of the american mainstream in favor of what we would now call qualitative/cultural studies. for example, at oxford there was michael argyle’s social psychology group producing studies such as marsh’s investigation of the social psychology of football ‘hooliganism’ (marsh, rosser, & harré, 1978) and jerome bruner’s (1986) work on the developmental dimension of intentionality; there was moscovici (1993) and jodelet (1991) in paris and their colony at the lse who were all involved in the extraction of social representations from the flux of everyday life; there was jan smedslund’s (1988) development of psychologic, the identification of semantic tautologies in the everyday language of psychology in oslo; there was nardone and salvini’s (2007) studies of the life of the street in rome; jose luis rodriguez-lopez’ (1988) historical analysis of the changing personal beliefs about ‘loyalty to the telephone company’ in madrid; mario von cranach’ studies of the planning and execution of complex goal directed activities in berne (von cranach & harré, 1982); tom luckmann’s (1983) work on the social distribution of bodies of knowledge in vienna; and so on. despite founding of journals and the success of harré and secord’s (1972) book, ‘the explanation of social behaviour’ when we now reflect on the state of psychology as exemplified in such conservative journals as the european journal of social psychology, the old paradigm still reigns, and tragically, young psychologists in many places now do second/third rate studies in that mode. during the crucial period the us was top nation. now the us is declining as top nation, yet the old paradigm that emerged from a marriage of the ghost of behaviorism with the imported viennese philosophy of logical positivism, continues on. here is the puzzle. the same thing did not happen in physics. throughout the 19th century britain was top nation and physics was dominated by newtonian mechanics, refined and extended to just about everything. but in 1905 a new physics developed in the german speaking world, by einstein, schrodinger, heisenberg and many others with a very different conceptual framework. very soon it displaced the old paradigm so much so that some of leading members of the new wave such as paul dirac were british. and this came about despite the catastrophe that overtook germany in the first world war. of course after that war despite coming out victorious britain gradually ceased to be top nation. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 315–320 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.493 psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods 316 http://www.psychopen.eu/ what was the difference? all along, the new paradigm (np) crowd in psychology have accused the old paradigm adherents (op) of violating the major tenets of scientific research and theorizing. but the op did not take any notice. in the period 1905 1935 while physics was changing, everyone agreed on what scientific research and the theorizing involved. in the period 1965 1975 in psychology there was no such agreement. why? the np psychologists were inspired by the actual methods of the physical sciences, such as iconic model building, the development of topic relevant taxonomies of phenomena and so on, but the op people were inspired by a bit of philosophy that was soon discarded by philosophers of science, namely logical positivism, especially that of ernst mach and the vienna circle. almost all the self-destructive features of the op can be traced to its influence, though by the time it had become the dominant research paradigm in the 1960s and 70s its protagonists had lost touch with its origins. here are a few examples in physics/chemistry ‘model’ means analogue, and it is usually models that one studies, rarely the real thing. in psychology ‘model’ seems to mean ‘idea’, ‘concept’, ‘interpretation’ even ‘theory’, but almost never ‘analogue’. from a clear methodological concept and procedure in physics and chemistry we enter a murky world of ambiguity in psychology. generalizing: in physics and chemistry does not mean making a statistical analysis and deleting the instances that do not fit, but rather by proposing a possible pattern and by using the intensive design construct or identify a range of similar cases, large or small! this chlorine sample produced in my lab is typical [but of course there are isotopes!]. this sample of conformity to the majority in my lab is only relevant if conjoined with a number of other instances and processed to reveal the typical case, which might be found nowhere (lamiell, 2003). in psychology there is generalizing by statistical analysis of the distribution of responses in a small sample 30 ann abor undergraduates stand in for the whole of humanity! this presumes a commonality of psychological practices that ought to be the end product of centuries of research rather a presumption of the beginning. we want to shift the focus of psychology from simplistic experiments, in which the meanings of the phenomena for participants (please – not subjects!) and experimenters are unknown, to a proper mix of psychoneurology and qualitative, that is cultural/discursive psychology. we are aiming at creating a human science that is in accordance with what physicists and chemists really do, not what a bunch of antiquated and flawed philosophers tell them they should be doing! can wittgenstein save cognitive neuroscience? at this moment neuropsychology is dominating the generosity of the grant giving agency despite the striking criticisms of the very idea of such a project. still much in the same position as the tiny mammals scuttling among the giant limbs of the dinosaurs a flourishing a program of cultural/discursive psychology already exists and is becoming more popular. must these programs stand in hostile opposition to one another? i believe that they can actually be shown to depend upon one another. the marriage of neuroscience and cultural/discursive psychology is based on the insights of many critics of the causal framework for psychology, but one philosopher in particular, was ludwig wittgenstein who came to it from disenchantment with simplistic ideas about meaning. his insights can be deployed as a basis for a working hybrid science, though this was not his intention. the fundamental principle of the many facets of the cultural/discursive approach that underlies qualitative and cultural psychologies of the present time is that the instruments of cognition are symbols. the meanings of these diverse entities are the uses to which people have, do and maybe will put them. hybrid psychology depends on europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 315–320 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.493 harré 317 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the intuition that while brains can be assimilated into the world of persons, as among the instruments people use for carrying out many of their projects, people cannot be assimilated into the world of cell structures and molecular processes. to suppose that they can be has been called the ‘mereological fallacy’ – ascribing attributes of wholes to some of their parts (bennett & hacker, 2003). people think. brains, parts of people, do not. however, unlike our biological ancestors, our instrumentarium is rich in symbolic tools, managed by the skillful use of bodily organs, the first order tools that training and practice have shaped into fitting instruments for the use of symbolic systems, such as words, hammers, tennis racquets, flags and so on (harré & moghaddam, 2012). the idea that we should extend this insight to think of our bodies as tools needs to be expressed with care. hands are tools for all sorts of tasks. should we say that brains and their components are also tools? we need to make clear the subtleties that have to be taken into account in proposing that we should think of our brains and their constituent organs instrumentally as tools, in the context of psychology as a science. whatever medium is being used at any moment and for any task the social origins of human cognitive practices, as vygotsky (1986) demonstrated, must not be forgotten. three wittgenstein insights are most important: (1) the private language argument – symbols are essentially social; (2) the rejection of age old but vicious dichotomies such ‘mind and body’ and developing alternatives, such as ‘private/public’, ‘individual/social’ to frame psychological investigations; (3) the idea of fields of family resemblance, in which we take account of the context dependence of the meanings of key terms such ‘intention’, ‘remembering, ‘grief’ and so on, rather than artificially inventing a common meaning and seeking in vain for a suitable referent. these are displayed by wittgenstein (1953/2001) in his great work, the philosophical investigations. detailed accounts of how these insights can be put to work in cultural/discursive psychology can be found in harré and tissaw (2005). what should empirical research look like? what are the phenomena? according to the cultural/discursive paradigm they are patterns of meanings, a flux every moment of which is modulating and transforming as meanings shift and change. what are the analytical and explanatory models? they are discourses, treated dialogically, and systems of implicit and explicit rules, cultural conventions and normatively disciplined practices. these are essential features of the formation and maintenance of persons as selves (hermans & hermans-konopka, 2010). what are the universals? we do not know, but we take care to add history and anthropology to our range of resources. what drives the processes thought, action, feeling and perception on? people are to be presumed to be active agents the unitas multiplex, of william stern (lamiell, 2010). research methods should be aimed at discovering the working lexicon of meanings in use among the people of a certain cultural group as they think, act, feel and perceive, primarily in social-public interactions and secondarily in private-individual activities that must bear the stamp of their dialogical vygotskean origins. the next step would be to identify the projects that people are likely to be undertaking and the goals intermediate and final that mark their progress. all of this is set in a matrix of rules, conventions, habits and other learned patternings of meaningful phenomena. only from a data base assembled from very many local research undertakings would it be legitimate europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 315–320 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.493 psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods 318 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to try to extract some discursive means that might be found among every human tribe. this raises a deep question – how it is possible for an outsider to understand the psychology of a remote culture – the paradox of translation. looked at from a wider perspective adopting the cultural/discursive paradigm involves abandoning the use of causal concepts in psychology in favour of concepts drawn from linguistic interactions as models for psychology generally. instead of trying to show that a sequence of events are linked causally, that is a prior event or state as the necessary and sufficient condition to the coming to be of the subsequent event or state, we should see patterns of thought, feeling, acting and perceiving as linked semantically. it is the meaning of a prior act or experience that leads on the subsequent act, thought or feeling as a contribution to a meaningful sequence. the meaning patterns of 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(original work published 1953) about the author rom harré is an illustrious philosopher and psychologist, currently distinguished professor in the psychology department of georgetown university and director of the centre for philosophy of natural and social science, lse. he began his career in mathematics and physics and later focused on the philosophy of science, completing a b.phil at the university of oxford (linacre college) under the supervision of j. l. austin. professor harré has published widely in a variety of psychological and philosophical fields including causality, realism, language and cognitive science. notable titles: ‘causal powers’ (with e. h. madden), ‘varieties of realism’, ‘modelling: gateway to nature’, ‘the explanation of social behaviour’ (with p. f. secord), ‘cognitive science: a philosophical introduction’. among his most recent books is ‘pavlov’s and schrodinger’s cat’, a study of the uses of animals and plants as scientific apparatus, as well as an edited volume (with fathali moghaddam) entitled ‘psychology for the third millennium’. professor harré held visiting professorships in many places, including australia, spain, and japan. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 315–320 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.493 psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods 320 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology’s recovery of its proper projects and methods the puzzle of paradigm paralysis in psychology compared with physics can wittgenstein save cognitive neuroscience? what should empirical research look like? references about the author workaholism types among turkish physicians: potential antecedents and consequences ronald j. burke york university mustafa koyuncu nevsehir university lisa fiksenbaum york university abstract this study examined potential antecedents and consequences of workaholism types among 431 male and female physicians in turkey. three workaholism types (work enthusiasts, work addicts, enthusiastic addicts) and one non-workaholic type (unengaged workers) previously identified by spence and robbins (1992) were compared. antecedents included personal and work situation characteristics and personality factors; consequences included work experiences, work outcomes and indicators of psychological well-being. unengaged workers were significantly different from the three workaholism types reporting less positive work experiences, work outcomes and psychological well-being. there were fewer differences among the three workaholism types than have been reported in previous research, but when type differences were present, work addicts were disadvantaged, consistent with earlier work. these findings highlight a need to further study the work and health consequences of disengagement from work among professionals. unengaged workers may be in greater distress than workers that are more heavily invested in their workplaces. individuals’ rate health care as an important priority in most countries and it is likely to become even more important as populations age. in response to this need, governments devote significant amounts of their budgets to funding the heath care system, this allocation typically being the largest budget item in almost all countries. increases in funding for health care have also generally risen faster than inflation rates highlighting both the importance and costs of health care. doctors, while not the largest group of employees in the health care system, occupy a central role in the delivery of health care in all countries, though countries may have different health care systems and methods of payment options for their services. some countries report an increasing shortage of doctors, often compounded by the fact that richer nations lure doctors away from poorer ones. the health care system has also undergone significant changes of the past decade stemming from the greater use of new technologies, off-shoring some services to developing countries, advances in medical knowledge, an aging population, more informed and critical users of the health care system, efforts by governments to control health care expenditures, and the entrance of more female physicians into the profession. it is not surprising then that considerable research has been undertaken in several countries to understand the work experiences of doctors, particularly as these relate to physician satisfaction and patient care (schaufeli, taris & bakker, 2008). doctors are well paid, hold prestigious positions, work long hours, experience various work stressors, and report varying degrees of satisfaction, burnout and psychological distress. this study examines potential antecedents and consequences of workaholism types among male and female physicians in turkey. although some research has examined work experiences and health among turkish physicians (ozyurt, hayran & sur, 2006), the relationship of workaholism types to the experiences of physicians in turkey has not been examined previously to our knowledge. we will set the stage for our research by providing a selective review of literature relating to (1) physicians and health care in turkey, and (2) work and health of physicians in general. physicians and health care in turkey according to the organization for economic development (oecd), based on 2007 data, turkey ranks low on health spending falling below the average across all oecd countries based on share of gross domestic product expenditures per capita; the us spending the most, followed by switzerland, france and germany. most of the funding for health care in turkey comes from the government or public sector. turkey is now, however, increasing health care spending above the oecd average. turkey has fewer doctors and nurses per capita than other oecd countries. life expectancy in turkey is still below the oecd average. infant mortality rates are higher in turkey, as are rates of smoking, but rates of obesity are lower. work and health of physicians physician well-being has received considerable research attention over the past twenty years. burnout among physicians, its antecedents and consequences, has been the subject of increasing interest and concern in several countries such as canada (boudreau, grieco, cahoon, et al, 2000; elit, trim, maud-bains, et al, 2004; grunfeld, whelan, zitzelsberger, et al, 2000; lloyd, streiner & shannon,1994), turkey (ozyurt, hayran & sur, 2006), south africa (schweitzer, 1999), and the us (keeton, fenner, johnson & hayward, 2007). other stressors and strains among physicians have also been the focus of research. for example, rout and rout (1994) considered workload and work-family conflict and job stress among physicians in the uk; and williams, et al, (2002) examined time pressure, workplace control, administrative responsibilities and co-worker support and job stress among physicians in the us. much of the research examining physicians has considered the relationship of work experiences, job stress and psychological well-being (burke, 1990; 1996). cooper, rout and faragher, (1989), in a sample of 1817 general practitioners in the uk, found that four job stressors were predictive of high levels of job satisfaction and lack of psychological well-being: demands of the job and patient’s expectations, interference with family life, constant interruptions at work and home, and administrative duties. a number of other researchers have examined work experiences, stress and well-being among physicians. chambers, wall and campbell, (1996) considered stresses, coping and job satisfaction in general practitioner registrars; golub, weiss, ramesh, ossoff and johns (2007) studied burnout in us residents in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery; garza, schneider, promecene and monga (2004) considered burnout of residents in obstetrics and gynecology; and burbeck, coomber, robinson and todd (2002) considered occupational stress in consultants in accident and emergency medicine. richardsen and burke (1991), in a large sample of canadian female and male physicians, reported that for both female and male physicians, high levels of occupational stress were associated with less job satisfaction and satisfaction with medical practice, and more negative attitudes about the canadian medicare system and health care in general, and high job satisfaction was related to fewer specific work stressors and more positive attitudes about the health care system. rout and rout (1994) compared measures of job satisfaction, psychological well-being and job stress among general practitioners in the uk before and after the introduction of a new government-physician contract. data were collected in 1987 and again in 1993 from 380 physicians. physicians reported higher levels of job dissatisfaction, psychological distress, and more stress in 1993 than in 1987. the new contract heightened stress, dissatisfaction, and distress. sutherland and cooper (1992) reported similar increases in dissatisfaction, psychological distress and job stressors following the introduction of the new contract in the uk in 1990 in a sample of 917 general practitioners. appleton, house and dowell (1998) reported significant increases in mental distress following the new contract in a study of 285 general practitioners, along with decreases in job satisfaction. their respondents also believed that their work had a negative effect on their physical health. job stress and dissatisfaction seems to be increasing among general practitioners in the uk (bailit, weisberger & knotek, 2005), and elsewhere (e.g., for canada, see burke, 1996; for germany, see janus, amelung, gaitanides & schwartz, 2007; for the us, see murray, montgomery, chang, rogers, innu & safran, 2001). in summary, much of the research on physicians has utilized a stressor-strain paradigm (simpson & grant, 1991). physicians work long hours (defoe, power, holzman, carpentieri & schulkin, 2001) and experience high levels of work-family conflict. they are concerned abut patient expectations, litigation from malpractice, and increasing amounts of paperwork. there is also accumulating evidence that physician dissatisfaction with their work and their profession has increased overt the past 20 years in several developed countries. but physicians tend to be generally satisfied with their relationships with their patients and their commitment to improving patient well-being. workaholism among physicians the term workaholic was coined by oates (1971), who equated work addiction or workaholism with other addictions such as alcoholism. oates depicted workaholics as unhappy, obsessive, tragic figures who were not performing their jobs well and were creating difficulties for their co-workers (see porter, 1996, naughton, 1987; killinger, 1991, for a similar viewpoint). machlowitz (1980), however, conducted a qualitative study of 100 workaholics and found them to be very satisfied and productive. it is possible though to reconcile these divergent viewpoints. some researchers have proposed the existence of different types of workaholics, each having potentially different antecedents and associations with job performance, work and health outcomes (naughton, 1987; scott, moore & miceli, 1997; spence & robbins, 1992).there has been considerable support for the notion of different types of workaholics, with type differences being observed on potential antecedents and work and health outcomes (see burke, 2007, for a review). naughton (1987) presents a typology of workaholics based on dimensions of career commitments and obsession-compulsion, identify four types of workaholics. scott, moore and miceli (1997) propose three types of workaholic behavior patterns: compulsive-dependent, perfectionist and achievement-oriented. spence and robbins (1992) identify three workaholic patterns based on their “workaholic triad” notion. the workaholic triad consists of three concepts, work involvement, feeling driven to work because of inner pressures and work enjoyment. work addicts score high on work involvement and feeling driven and low on work enjoyment; work enthusiasts score high on work involvement and work enjoyment and low on feeling driven to work; and enthusiastic addicts score high on all three components. schaufeli, taris and bakker (2008) have reported the only published study of workaholic types among physicians to our knowledge. they collected data from 2115 dutch medical residents using questionnaires. they used two scales to measure workaholism types: working excessively and working compulsively. four types were created based on high or low scores on the two scales: workaholics, hard workers, compulsive workers, and relaxed workers. there groups were then compared on 22 dependent variables (e.g., job demands, job resources, burnout, recovery after work, happiness, absenteeism, and self-rated medical performance). they predicted, and found, that workaholic medical residents would have more unfavorable scores on these measures. workaholic medical residents had the least favorable scores on 16 of the 21 measures that had a significant workaholic type effect. workaholic medical residents scored less favorably than the relaxed worker group on all 21 measures. the present study examined antecedents and outcomes of workaholic types among turkish physicians. three workaholic types, and one non-workaholic type, were considered using measures developed by spence and robbins (1992). based on previous research findings (burke 2000; 2007: schaufeli, taris and bakker, 2008) it was expected that work addicts would report less favorable work and well-being outcomes when compared with the two other workaholic types (work enthusiasts, enthusiastic addicts) with the non-workaholic type also being disadvantaged, but for different reasons. method respondents table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the sample. the sample had slightly more males than females (55%), were forty years of age or younger (68%), slightly more than half were married (56%), most married respondents had one or two children (62%), most worked in large cites (greater than 500,000, 49%), worked in medium-sized hospitals (125-400 beds, 65%), worked in group practices (70%), earned between us$12,000 to us $26,000 (65%), had less than 10 years of profession, job and hospital tenure (63%, 85%, and 87%, respectively), and worked between 41-60 hours per week (79%). procedure data were collected from 431 physicians using anonymously completed questionnaires. questionnaires were sent to about 1800 physicians working in three turkish cities (nevsehir, nigde and kayseri). thirty-nine were returned incomplete giving a response rate of twenty-six percent. the names of physicians were obtained from the directorate of health and excluded residents. this response rate is typical of studies of physicians, an occupation characterized by heavy workloads and paper-work. measures all measures were translated from english to turkish using the back translation method personal characteristics individual demographic characteristics were measured by single items and included: age, sex, marital status, number of children, and income. work situation characteristics several work situation characteristics, also measured by single items were included. these were: size of community in which they worked, years in present position, years in present hospital, years in profession, size of hospital, main form of payment, and hours worked per week. workaholism components spence and robbins (1992) derived three workaholism components based on an extensive review of relevant literature: work involvement, feeling driven to work because inner pressures and work enjoyment. their scales were used in this study. work involvement (α = .36) had eight items (e.g., “i get bored and restless and vacations when i haven’t anything productive to do”). this scale was dropped from further consideration based its low reliability. feeling driven to work (α = .91) had seven items (e.g., “i often feel that there’s something inside me that drives me to work hard”). work enjoyment (α = .90) had ten items (e.g., “my job is more like fun than work”). stable individual difference factors type a behavior two aspects of type a behavior, achievement striving (as) and impatience-irritation (ii) were assed using the revised jenkins activity survey (pred, helmreich & spence, 1987; spence, helmreich & pred, 1987). both scales consisted of six items. respondents indicated the alternative that best described them of their opinion on a five point likert scale. an item on the as scale (α = .90) was “how seriously do you take your work.”; an item on the ii scale (α = .86) was “do you usually get irritated”. beliefs and fears three measures of beliefs and fears developed by lee, jamieson and early (1996) were used. one, striving against others had six items (e.g., “there can only be one winner in any situation”). a second, no moral principles had six items (e.g., “i think that nice guys finish last”). the third, prove yourself had nine items (e.g., “i worry a great deal about what others think of me”). a total score was obtained by combining these three scales (α = .93) as they were all significantly and positively inter-correlated. proactive personality was measured by a seventeen items scale (α = .93) developed by bateman and crant (1993). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a seven-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = neither agree nor disagree 7 = strongly agree).an item was “i am good at turning problems into opportunities.” optimism was measured by an eight item scale (α = .81) developed by scheier and carver (1985, 1987). one item was “in uncertain times, i usually expect the best”. respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five point scale. gratefulness was assessed by a six items scale (α = .71) developed by mccullough, emmons and tsang (2002) and emmons and mccullough (2003). one item was “i have so much in my life to be thankful for.” respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a seven-point likert scale ( 1 = strongly disagree, 4 = neutral, 7 = strongly disagree). job behaviors perfectionism (α = .93) was measured by eight items (e.g., “i can’t let go of projects until i’m sure they are exactly right.”) developed by spence and robbins (1992). non-delegation (α = .87) was assessed by seven items (e.g., “i feel that if you want something done correctly you should do it yourself.” developed by spence and robbins (1992). job stress (α = .74) was measured by nine items (e.g., “sometimes i feel like my work is going to overwhelm me”) developed by spence and robbins (1992). extra hours worked (α = .66) was measured by six items. respondents indicated how frequently they did each item (e.g., “go to work early”) on a four-point scale. hours worked was measured by a single item: “how many hours do you work in the typical week?” work outcomes job satisfaction (α = .92) was measured by a seven item scale developed by kofodimos (1993). an item was “i feel challenged by my work”. career satisfaction was measured by a four item scale (α = .89) developed by greenhaus, parasuraman and wormley (1990). one item was “i am satisfied with the success i have achieved in my career. intent to quit ( = .69) was measured by two items (e.g., “are you currently looking for a different job in a different organization?”). this scale had been used previously by burke (1991). absenteeism was measured by a two item scale (( = .75). one item was “how many days of scheduled work have you missed in the past month?” work engagement three aspects of work engagement were measured using scales developed by schaufeli et. al. (2002) and schaufeli and bakker (2004). respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = strongly agree) vigor was measured by six times (α = .94). “at my work i feel bursting with energy”. dedication was assessed by five items (α =.92). “i am proud of the work that i do.” absorption was measured by six items (α =.81) “i am immersed in my work”. organizational life experiences six aspects of work life were measured by scales developed by maslach and leiter (1997). workload was measured by six items (α = .33). this scale was dropped from further consideration given its low reliability. control was measured by three items (α= .76). “i am my own boss when it comes to pursuing the tasks that i am assigned”. reward and recognition was assessed by four items (α= .87). “the recognition and reward people receive reflect their contribution to the organization”. support and community was assessed by five items (α = .85). “this organization does a good job of responding to the distinct cultural perspectives of its client population”. fairness was assessed by six items (α = .83). “respect is evident in relationships within the organization”. value-fit was measured by five items (α = .55). “this job provides me with the opportunities to do work that i feel is important”. this scale was also dropped from further consideration given its modest level of reliability. quality of life and psychological well-being three aspects of psychological well-being were included: work-family and family-work conflict, psychosomatic symptoms and life satisfaction. work-family and family-work conflict work-family and family-work conflict were each measured by five item scales developed by carlson, kacmar and williams (2000). one item for the work-family conflict scale (α = .94) was “the demands of my work interfere with my home and family life”, an item on the family-work conflict scale (α = .92) was “i have to put off doing things at work because of demands on my time at home”. extra-work satisfaction three aspects of life or extra-work satisfaction were included. family satisfaction was measured by a seven item scale (α = .64) developed by kofodimos (1993). one item was “i have a good relationship with my family members”. friends satisfaction was measured by three items (α = .69) developed by kofodimos (1993). an item was “my friends and i do enjoyable things together”. community satisfaction was measured by four items (α = .69) again developed by kofodimos (1993). a sample item was “i contribute and give back to my community”. psychosomatic symptoms was measured by nineteen items ( = .88) developed by quinn and shepard (1974). respondents indicated how often they experienced each physical condition (e.g., “headaches”) in the past year life satisfaction was measured by five items (α = .93) developed by diener, emmons, larsen and griffin (1985). one item was “in most ways, my life is closer to ideal”. respondents indicated their agreement with each item on a five point likert scale. results workaholism types spence and robbins (1992) derive workaholism types on the basis if either high or low scores on their scales. four workaholism types were examined here based on high and low scores on feeling driven to work because of inner pressures and joy in work.: work enthusiasts (wes), work addicts (was), enthusiastic addicts (eas), and unengaged workers (uwes). the sample sizes were 54, 48, 169 and 160, respectively. analysis plan the four workaholism types were compared on a number of potential antecedents and consequences using one-way anova. when a significant type effect was present (p personal demographic and work situation characteristics table 2 presents the comparisons of the four workaholism types on a number of personal demographic and work situation characteristics. significant type effects were present on eight of the eleven items (73%). the following comments are offered in summary. first, uws were significantly different from one or more of the three workaholism types (was, wes, eas) in all eight instances. they were older than the other three types, worked in smaller hospitals than did was, had longer professional, job and hospital tenure, earned more income and income from different sources, than did the other three workaholism types, and worked in larger cities. second, there were relatively few differences among the three workaholism types (wes, was, eas) . the latter findings is consistent with previous comparisons of these three types on personal demographic and work situation characteristics (burke, 2000, 2007; spence & robbins, 1992). stable individual difference characteristics table 3 shows the comparisons of the four workaholism types on various measures of stable personality and individual difference measures. significant differences among the four types were present on each measure. the pattern of difference among the types was similar to that observed on personal demographic and work situation characteristics. first, uws were significantly different from the three workaholism types on each measure: uws scored lower on achievement striving, impatience-irritation, proactive personality, optimism, gratitude) and higher on the measure of beliefs and fears. second, relatively few differences were observed among the three other workaholism types (was, wes, eas). but was scored higher on the beliefs and fears than did eas, consistent with previous findings (burke, 2000; burke 2007); was were less optimistic than eas, and was scored lower on achievement striving that did eas. a comparison of the four types on four measures of organizational life experiences is shown in table 4. first, uws scored lower than the three workaholic types on all four. second, eas scored lower than wes on two of the four organizational experiences (support, rewards and recognition). job behaviors, work outcomes and engagement table 5 shows the comparisons of the four types on various job behaviors, work outcomes and work engagement. once again, the pattern of differences here was similar to that noted earlier. first, significant type effects were present on all but one measure (hours worked). second, uws were significantly different from one or more of the workaholism types, but the direction of the differences varied. uws were less job and career satisfied, absent more, more likely to intend to quit, less work engaged, and worked fewer extra hours, and indicated lower levels of job stress, perfectionism and non-delegation. third, there were significant differences among the three workaholism types on about half the measures showing type effects (5 of 11, 45%). was has higher levels of job stress, perfectionism, non-delegation, less career satisfaction but worked more extra-hours than one of the two other workaholism types. again, this pattern has been noted previously (burke, 2000, burke 2007). quality of life and psychological well-being table 6 presents the comparisons of the four types on measures of quality of life and psychological well-being. significant type effects were observed on five of the seven measures (not work-family or family-work conflict). first, uws were significantly different from the three workaholism types. uws indicated lower family and community satisfaction, more psychosomatic symptoms (but not when compared to was), a lower life satisfaction, but more friends satisfaction than eas. second, there were few differences between the three workaholism types; was indicated more psychosomatic symptoms than did both wes and eas, and wes reported more friends satisfaction than did eas. discussion this research examined potential antecedents and consequences of workaholism types among physicians in turkey. it is possible to position the results of this study in both the larger body of workaholism research and the single study of workaholism among dutch resident physicians undertaken by schaufeli, taris and bakker (2008). our findings were consistent with previously reported conclusions on some fronts but only partially replicated other results in other areas. let us first consider areas in which our results replicated previous work. first, although most of the published work has focused on the three workaholism types, some research has also undertaken comparisons of workaholic and non-workaholic types (buelens & poelmans, 2004; burke, 2000;, 2007; spence & robbins, 1992). this research has shown that unengaged workers (uws)-low on work involvement, feeling driven to work, and joy in work-indicated low levels of job stress, perfectionism, hours worked, extra hours worked, job and career satisfaction and more psychosomatic symptoms. this group has unfortunately received little emphasis since the research addressed workaholism and not non-workaholism types. individuals who “go through the motions” at work also may be paying a price. schaufeli, taris and bakker (2008) found that their relaxed resident physicians were generally more satisfied and psychologically healthier than were work addict resident physicians. their relaxed resident physicians scored low on their two workaholism scales but no data on other aspects of their “work” involvement were addressed. it was not possible to compare their relaxed resident physicians with our unengaged physicians; these two are likely to be very different. our findings were only partly consistent with previous studies comparing the three workaholic types (burke, 2000, 2007). first, the three workaholism types were similar on personal and work setting characteristics, including hours worked (see table 2). second, we found relatively few differences between the three workaholism types on work and well-being outcomes, much fewer than others have reported. but when differences were found in the present study, was tended to be disadvantaged, findings commonly reported by others. phoning it in our results involving unengaged physicians (uws) were somewhat surprising. we had not expected the consistent pattern of findings that emerged. unengaged physicians were dissatisfied with their job, careers and lives and in moderate psychological distress. unengaged physicians were older, had longer job, hospital and professional tenure and earned more income, likely reflecting their longer careers. these physicians, rather than being leaders exemplifying enthusiasm and career success seemed to be “phoning it in”. it is not clear the effect being “unengaged” has in relationship with hospital staff and colleagues and the patient-physician relationship however. low engagement is likely to be associated with less satisfying work and well-being outcomes in most occupations. the consequences of low work engagement are likely to be more worrisome in some occupations (e.g., physicians, air traffic controllers) than in others (e.g., servers in restaurants). practical implications our findings indicate that particularly organizational experiences were more common among uws (see table 4). organizations might find it useful to first assess the levels of these and then make efforts to increase them. in addition, it is likely that providing these work experiences to physicians when they begin their careers with their hospitals might also lessen their becoming uws. limitations of the study some limitations of this study should be acknowledged to put the findings in a broader context. first, though the sample was large and the response fairly high, it was not possible to determine the representativeness of the sample. second, all measures were based on respondent self-reports raising the possibility of common method variance. third, a few of the measures had internal consistency reliabilities below the typically accepted level of .70. fourth, many of the work and extra-work outcomes were themselves moderately correlated. fifth, it is not clear the extent to which our findings generalize to physicians working under different fee arrangements or in other cultures or countries. future research directions our understanding of the relationship of workaholism types and work experiences, satisfactions and health of female and male physicians would be increased by incorporating additional measures in future research. first, the use of objective indicators of both absenteeism and psychological and physical health obtained from hospital records or independent sources would complement self-report questionnaire data. second, the antecedents of becoming unengaged warrant attention to better understand this condition. what are the processes or mechanisms through which over time a physician becomes unengaged? third, what are the effects of unengaged physicians on hospital staff, colleagues and their contribution to hospital functioning and patient care? fourth, interventions designed to build continuous work engagement need to be identified and evaluated. footnotes 1. this research was supported in part by nevsehir university and york university. we acknowledge the cooperation of our respondents. references appleton, k., house, a,., & dowell, a. 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(2002) physician, practice, and patient characteristics related to primary care physician physical and mental health: results from the physician worklife study. health services research, 37, 121-143. individual differences in work-related well-being: the role of attachment style research reports individual differences in work-related well-being: the role of attachment style tiziana lanciano*a, vanda lucia zammunerb [a]department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, bari, italy. [b]department of developmental psychology and socialization processes, university of padua, padua, italy. abstract integrating theories of adult attachment and well-being at the workplace, the present study tested the role of attachment style in predicting work-related well-being in terms of job satisfaction and job involvement, over and above dispositional trait measures (emotional traits and work-related traits). a sample of workers took part in a correlational study that explored the relationships among a) adult attachment, b) emotional traits, c) work-related traits, and d) work-related well-being indices. the results showed that both secure and anxious attachment style explained workers’ job involvement, whereas the secure and avoidant attachment styles explained workers’ job satisfaction. the current findings thus confirm and expand the literature's emphasis on studying the variables and processes that underlie people's mental health in the work setting, and have implications for assessing and promoting well-being in the workplace. keywords: attachment style, well-being, workplace europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 received: 2014-05-20. accepted: 2014-10-10. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: university of bari “a. moro”, department of education, psychology, communication, piazza umberto i, 1, 70121 bari, italy. e-mail: t.lanciano@psico.uniba.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, research on adult attachment has provided a new and fruitful theoretical approach to investigate individual differences in psychological health and well-being not explained by traditional measures of personality or dispositional traits (e.g., harms, 2011; mikulincer & florian, 2001). the present study extends this line of enquiry by examining the role of attachment style in predicting well-being at the workplace. nowadays, we witness an upsurge of interest in the predictors and correlates of the psychological well-being that we experience in relation to that part of life that we spend at work (danna & griffin, 1999; hartel, zerbe, & ashkanasy, 2005; harter, schmidt, & keyes, 2003). research approaches on workers' well-being arise from the idea that positive feelings and positive perceptions result in behavioral, cognitive, and health benefits (isen, 1987; warr, 1999). the presence of positive emotional states and positive appraisals enhance workers' performance and the quality of their work and life (harter, schmidt, & keyes, 2003). for example, workers experiencing poor health and well-being conditions in the workplace are more likely to be absent from work, be less productive, make bad decisions (boyd, 1997), and, overall, make consistently declining contributions to the organization (price & hooijberg, 1992). additionally, any physical, emotional, mental, or social experience that people live at work europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ surely affects them while they are at the workplace. however, since workers spend about one-third of their daily time at work, and, when they leave the work site, they don’t necessarily leave their job behind (conrad, 1988a), the impact of such work-setting experiences goes beyond the work domain. work-related well-being, job satisfaction and job involvement for many applied researchers, job satisfaction and psychological well-being are constructs that are closely linked together (bowling, eschleman, & wang, 2010; gechman & wiener, 1975; rahimnia & sharifirad, 2014; simon, judge, & halvorsen-ganepola, 2010). indeed the most common means of operationalizing the happiness or the psychological well-being components have been through the assessment of job satisfaction (rahimnia & sharifirad, 2014; wright & cropanzano, 2000). as much as about a fifth of the variation in adult life satisfaction as an index of psychological well-being can be accounted for by satisfaction with work (campbell, converse, & rodgers, 1976). job satisfaction can facilitate the experience of positive cognitions relevant to life satisfaction (bowling et al., 2010; simon et al., 2010). in the literature, satisfaction and felt emotions are typically construed as the end result of valenced events: when something pleasant happens, the person feels satisfaction, happiness and joy; when something unpleasant happens, the person experiences dissatisfaction, anger, depression or fear. applied to the work context, this means that employees will feel happy when work conditions are good and unhappy when work conditions are bad (lucas & diener, 2003). the equation of 'happy' or 'psychologically healthy worker' with 'satisfied worker' is implicit or explicit in several conceptualizations of job satisfaction. one of the most widely used definitions of job satisfaction in organizational research is by locke (1976), who defines it as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences" (p. 1304). a more recent definition is from hulin and judge (2003), who describe job satisfaction as an emotional feeling individuals have about their job, reflecting the degree of pleasure or happiness their job induces in general. the concept of job involvement too is viewed as strictly associated to work-related well-being (gechman & wiener, 1975; riipinen, 1997). despite differences in its conceptualization (kanungo, 1982; lodahl & kejner, 1965; saleh & hosek, 1976), job involvement is usually understood as referring to the psychological and emotional extent to which an employee is engaged in, and enthusiastic about, performing his/her work. it refers to the way a person looks at her job as a relationship with the working environment and the job itself. brown and leigh (1996) actually suggested an operational definition of psychologically healthy climate based on how employees perceive aspects of their organizational environment and interpret them in relation to their own well-being. an interesting area of work-related research focuses on individual differences in employees' health and well-being, investigating emotional dispositions and work-related traits, such as workers’ personality traits (burns & machin, 2013; judge, heller, & mount, 2002), workers’ attempt to regulate inappropriate felt and/or expressed emotions (i.e., emotional labor), i.e., when they conflict with internalized norms or job requirements (pisaniello, winefield, & delfabbro, 2012; zammuner & galli, 2005a, 2005b), workers’ specific dispositions and ways of dealing and managing emotions, hypothesized to differentially influence well-being (zammuner, 2011, 2012a, 2012b), or jobrelated variables and work orientation (rahimian, nouri, oreyzi, moulavi, & foroughi mobarakeh, 2006; zammuner & kafetsios, 2005; zammuner, lanciano, casnici, cappellato, & prencipe, 2011). in sum, according to the literature both job involvement and job satisfaction represent crucial indexes of work-related well-being. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 695 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adult attachment styles, workplace and work-related well-being although in recent years our understanding of the cognitive and emotional processes involved in psychological health and well-being has significantly been increased by adult attachment research (e.g., mikulincer & florian, 2001), few studies have focused on the role that attachment styles play as regards workplace situations and relationships (littman-ovadia, oren, & lavy, 2013). as a new research agenda emphasizes, working is intrinsically a relational act, performed within interpersonal contexts and relationships (blustein, 2011; bowen, siehl, & schneider, 1989). each decision, experience, or interaction within the work setting is understood, inclined, and bent by such relationships. as a consequence, blustein (2011) encouraged researchers to examine whether and how individual differences in relational functioning are predictive of work-related attitudes and behaviors (bowen et al., 1989; harms, 2011; hazan & shaver, 1990; kark, 2011; malach-pines, 2005; popper, 2004; richards & schat, 2011). attachment styles reflect internal working models of self, others, and relationships (e.g., bartholomew & horowitz, 1991) and express individuals’ motivations, abilities, and perceptions as regards relationships (harms, 2011). thus, conceptualizing work as a relational setting highlights how individual differences in relationship orientations are relevant for understanding individuals’ work attitudes and emotions. based on these premises, a growing body of studies has been showing the influence of attachment style in shaping people’s work-related behaviors, motivations, attitudes, and emotional responses (e.g., harms, 2011; hazan & shaver, 1990; richards & schat, 2011). studies have shown that secure attachment facilitates work-related exploration activities, being positively associated with career exploration (littman-ovadia, 2008), ability to negotiate (ketterson & blustein, 1997), adaptive workrelated adjustment (blustein, prezioso, & schultheiss, 1995), progress in career decision making (hazan & shaver, 1990), and confidence in receiving good evaluations by colleagues (blustein et al.,1995). conversely, insecure attachment orientations (both avoidant and anxious attachment styles) were shown to correlate with lower levels of organizational commitment, of pro-social and productive behaviours, and of organizational commitment (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). however, in the work setting avoidant individuals differ from anxious individuals in some important ways. avoidant individuals evaluate themselves as lower in job performance and in how attractive their colleagues judge them to be (hazan & shaver, 1990). avoidant individuals also exhibit more conflict with co-workers, more relational difficulties outside of work (hardy & barkham, 1994), stronger intentions to leave their job and their organization (mikulincer & shaver, 2007), lower levels of instrumental and emotional support-seeking, and greater use of surface acting as a means of regulating emotional displays at work (richards & schat, 2011). anxious individuals, on the other hand, expect to be undervalued by coworkers (hazan & shaver, 1990) and are anxious about relationships at work and job performance (hardy & barkham, 1994). attachment anxiety has a negative association with instrumental coworker-helping behaviors (geller & bamberger, 2009), and with higher levels of both instrumental and emotional support seeking (richards & schat, 2011). these findings may reflect anxious individuals’ insecurity and fear of rejection, which make it difficult for them to feel more emotionally committed and to provide unconditional assistance. their insecurity and low self-worth seem to affect similarly their relationships at work and other relationships (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). as regards work-related well-being, the literature provides empirical evidences about the direct or indirect role of adult attachment. to illustrate, in a broad survey of the workplace, hazan and shaver (1990) found that securely attached individuals reported significantly higher satisfaction with most aspects of their workplace (e.g., coworkers, job security, recognition, etc.). similarly, in a sample consisting mostly of computer software workers, securely europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 696 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attached individuals reported higher levels of satisfaction for their job and various aspects of it (krausz, bizman, & braslavsky, 2001). likewise, in a large sample of university employees, securely attached individuals reported higher levels of job satisfaction than anxiously attached individuals (sumer & knight, 2001). conversely, individuals higher on anxious and avoidant attachment were less likely to report being satisfied with various aspects of their jobs in a study by hardy and barkham (1994). rahimnia and sharifirad (2014) showed that attachment insecurity mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and employee well-being in terms of job satisfaction. schirmer and lopez (2001) found that the interaction of supervisor support and worker attachment orientation significantly predicted work stress intensity as well as job satisfaction. likewise, reizer (2014) showed that job satisfaction plays a mediator role in the association between adult attachment and workers’ well-being. ronen and mikulincer (2012) indicated that both managers' and subordinates' attachment insecurities predicted lower job satisfaction among workers. finally, rahimian et al. (2006), investigating the relationship between adult attachment styles and work orientation and work involvement in state hospital nurses of isfahan, showed that individuals with avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles exhibited less work involvement than subjects with a secure attachment style, highlighting the power of attachment style to predict work-related attitudes and behaviors in organizational contexts. jointly considered, the above cited results encouraged us to investigate the hypothesis that adult attachment style has an important role in predicting work-related well-being assessed in terms of job satisfaction and job involvement. aims and hypotheses the present study adopted a descriptive correlational design in order to examine the role of attachment style in predicting work-related well-being, over and above dispositional trait measures traditionally associated with it (emotional traits and work-related traits; pisaniello et al., 2012; rahimian et al., 2006; zammuner, 2012a, 2012b; zammuner & galli, 2005a, 2005b; zammuner et al., 2011). on the basis of the aforementioned literature, we operationalized the work-related well-being construct in terms of job involvement and job satisfaction (bowling et al., 2010; gechman & wiener, 1975; rahimnia & sharifirad, 2014; riipinen, 1997; simon et al., 2010). based on findings of the above quoted literature, we expected that: h1. secure attachment style will be positively associated with positive emotional traits, positive work-related traits, and with work-related well-being (job involvement and job satisfaction), and negatively associated with negative emotional traits and negative work-related traits. h2. both anxious and avoidant attachment styles will be negatively associated with positive emotional traits, positive work-related traits, and work-related well-being (job involvement and job satisfaction), and positively associated with negative emotional traits and negative work-related traits. h3. dispositional trait measures, assessed in terms of emotional traits and work-related traits, will be associated with work-related well-being (job involvement and job satisfaction). h4. attachment styles will explain a statistically significant increment of variance in work-related well-being (job involvement and job satisfaction), over and above emotional and work-related traits. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 697 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants we surveyed 527 italian volunteers (62% female; mage = 28.13; sd = 8.72) employed in a wide variety of jobs, obtaining a heterogeneous sample that however represents a range of occupations and spans the adult age range. the sample was a convenience sample, recruited through advertisements, and among friends and acquaintances of the researchers and their students and collaborators. procedure participants were individually administered a paper-and-pencil test battery containing all instruments detailed below. measures attachment style — the relationship questionnaire (rq; bartholomew & horowitz, 1991) was used to assess attachment orientations. it comprises a brief-sentence prototypical-description of each of four adult attachment orientations, i.e., secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissing; e.g., “i am comfortable without close emotional relationships. it is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and i prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me”. the four orientations are rated on a seven-point scale. following griffin and bartholomew (1994), the four adult attachment prototypes were converted into two insecure attachment dimensions representing anxious and avoidant attachment (lanciano, curci, kafetsios, elia, & zammuner, 2012). the anxiety dimension was computed by subtracting the sum of secure and dismissing scores from the sum of fearful and preoccupied scores. the avoidance dimension resulted from subtracting the sum of secure and preoccupied scores from the sum of fearful and dismissing scores. to meet the study aims, the a) secure, b) anxious, and c) avoidant attachment styles were considered in the statistical analyses. emotional traits— a twenty-three item scale, rated on 6-point false/true of myself, assessed optimism, emotional awareness and emotional expressivity as emotional traits. as the factorial structure of this scale and the reliability of its components was assessed in other studies (e.g., zammuner, 2011, 2012a, 2012b) involving a large sample of young adults, both students and workers (n = 2079; henceforth ls), we thought it advisable to test it anew for this workers sample. we thus run an item-level exploratory factorial analysis (efa), using the principal axis extraction method. examining the scree plot and retaining the factors corresponding to the first larger eigenvalues, until the slope of the graph changed from rapid to slow decline determined the number of factors. in the overall analysis oblique axes were determined using the promax rotation method. the first eigenvalues were: 3.57, 2.30, 1.84, 1.41, and 1.19, suggesting a four-factor solution. the first factor, loading on the first dimension, named optimism (2 items; e.g., i always look on the bright side of things), accounted for almost 15.50% of the total variance; cronbach’s α = .51 (ls α = .69; at re-test α = .74; zammuner, 2012b). the second factor, named emotional awareness (5 items; e.g., i am aware of non-verbal signals that i send to others), accounted for 10% of the total variance; cronbach’s α = .54. the third factor, named emotional unawareness (5 items; e.g., sometimes i feel emotions which i do not understand thoroughly) accounted for 8.02% of the total variance; cronbach’s α = .66. the fourth factor, named emotional expressivity (11 items; e.g., when i am angry, others can see it), accounted for 6.11% of the total variance; cronbach’s α = .74. (as regards the latter three factors, note that for the young adult sample ls, the factorial structure resulted in a 10-items awareness-unawareness dimension, cronbach’s α europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 698 http://www.psychopen.eu/ = .73; at re-test α = .77, and in a 10-item transparent-opaque expressivity cronbach’s α = .79; at re-test α = .82; zammuner, 2012a, 2012b). emotional labor — to assess frequency of emotion-expression regulation at work, participants rated how they usually expressed their emotions at the workplace on five 5-point items (1 = never, 5 = always). the scale measures emotional labor in terms of surface acting (or shallow regulation; grandey, 1998; zammuner & galli, 2005a, 2005b; cronbach’s α = .75). an item example is: “i fake a good mood”. orientation at the workplace — individuals’ orientation towards a variety of aspects of their work was assessed by eighteen 5-point scale items (0 = false, 5 = true). subjects judged how much the orientation described by each sentence generally described their own behavior or their attitude (zammuner & kafetsios, 2005; zammuner et al., 2011). the factorial structure of the scale was assessed through the efa, using the principal axis extraction method and the promax rotation method. the first eigenvalues were: 3,72, 2.60, 1.41, and 1.10, thus suggesting a two-factor solution. the first factor accounted for almost 20.67% of the total variance and loaded on the first dimension named work-management orientation (10 items; cronbach’s α = .76; e.g., “after i have made a decision, usually i go back to make sure i was right”). the second factor loaded on the second dimension, accounting for 14.44% of the total variance, named relationship orientation (8 items; cronbach’s α = .69; e.g., “i have a good relationship with my supervisor”). job involvement—workers’ involvement with their job was assessed by eight 5-point items (1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree (galli & zammuner, 2004; kanungo, 1982; zammuner & galli, 2005a, 2005b; cronbach’s α = .84). item examples are: “most of my interests are centered around my job”; “to me, my job is only a small part of who i am”. job satisfaction —workers’ job satisfaction was assessed by four 5-point items (1 = false of myself, 5 = true of myself; brayfield & rothe, 1951; cronbach’s α = .72). item examples are: “i find my job very enjoyable”; “very often my job is exciting”. data analyses as the emotional traits and work-related trait measures are scales for which empirical evidence is limited to unpublished manuscripts in relation to the italian context, factor analyses were performed on these scales to assess their dimensional structure; efa and reliability results (including previous unpublished reliability values) are reported in themeasures section. descriptive and reliability analyses were run on all measures. cronbach’s α values obtained in our study for each scale are reported above in the measures section. zero-order correlation analyses assessed a) the associations between attachment styles and emotional traits, work-related traits, and work-related wellbeing; and b) the associations between emotional traits, work-related traits, and work-related well-being. hierarchical multiple regression analyses tested a) the extent to which all measured variables predicted work-related wellbeing, and b) the role of attachment styles in explaining an incremental variance in work-related well-being, over and above dispositional traits measures. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 699 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive and correlation analyses table 1 displays the descriptive analyses outcomes of all measures. mean ratings showed that participants exhibited high secure attachment; as regards insecure attachment styles, participants exhibited higher avoidant than anxious tendencies (t = -4.00, p < .001). mean ratings furthermore showed that individuals reported high levels of positive emotional traits (including optimism, emotional awareness, and emotional expressivity), medium level of emotional labor, and higher levels of relationship orientation than work-management orientation (t = 13.15, p < .001). finally, participants overall reported medium to high levels of work-related well-being (job involvement and job satisfaction). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations among measures rowmoeleeeueaopavansesdmmeasures attachment style se secure .471.772 an anxious .932.35av avoidant .982.51 emotional traits op optimism .06.12**-.01-.93.063 ea emotional awareness .06-.01-.05.61.483 eu emotional unawareness .01.12**.17**.83.912 ee emotional expressivity .02-.14**-.14**.59.293 work-related traits el emotional labor .02-.10*.12**-.75.252 wmowork-management orientation .05-.11*-.18**.59.523 ro relationship orientation .13**-.04.14**.61.103 work-related well-being ji job involvement .20**.02.06.01-.06.06.04.11*-.07.20**.71.522 js job satisfaction .07-.07.05-.04.30**-.04.21**.03-.12**-.07-.78.453 *p < .05. **p < .001. table 1 also reports a) the results of the zero-order correlation analyses between attachment styles and emotional traits, work-related traits, and work-related well-being indices; and b) the results of the zero-order correlation analyses between emotional traits, work-related traits, and work-related well-being indices. the correlation results showed that secure attachment appeared to be positively associated with emotional unawareness, emotional expressivity, work-management orientation, relationship orientation, and job involvement, and negatively associated with emotional labor. instead, anxious attachment was negatively correlated with optimism, emotional expressivity, work-management orientation, and job satisfaction, and positively associated with emotional unawareness. avoidant attachment exhibited negative associations with relationship orientation and job involvement. furthermore, relationship orientation appeared to be positively correlated with job involvement, whereas optimism and emotional unawareness showed respectively a positive and a negative association with job satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 700 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the prediction of work-related well-being to test a) the extent to which the measured variables i.e., socio-demographic characteristics, emotional traits, work-related traits, and attachment styles predicted work-related well-being, and b) the attachment style’s increment of variance in work-related well-being over and above the other measures, we ran several hierarchical multiple regression model (hmr) analyses. in each hmr, the dependent variable was the examined work-related wellbeing index (job involvement and job satisfaction), with gender (male = 1; female = 2) and age entered at step 1, emotional traits at step 2, work-related traits at step 3, and attachment styles at step 4. for the job involvement index, as shown in table 2, at step 1 the model is significant (f = 3.19, p < .05) with gender as the only significant predictor. at step 2, when emotional traits are introduced, the model and the incremental change are not significant (f = 1.99, p = .07; r2 change = .01, p = .24). at step 3, when work-related traits are added, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 3.30, p < .001; r2 change = .03, p < .001), with gender and work-management orientation as significant predictors. at step 4, when attachment styles are introduced in the hrm, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 4.60, p < .001; r2 change = .04, p < .001), with gender, work-management orientation, and secure and anxious attachment styles as significant predictors. table 2 hierarchical multiple regression of job involvement step 4step 3step 2step 1 measures pβpβpβpβ age .04.09-.04.10-.01.13-.01.11gender .63.02-.65.02-.77.01-.78.01step 2 optimism .43.04.74.02.63.02 emotional awareness .50.03.58.03.21.06 emotional unawareness .79.01.14.07.07.08 emotional expressivity .91.01.75.02.97.00step 3 emotional labor .27.05.40.04 work-management orientation .41.04-.61.03relationship orientation .00.15.00.18 step 4 secure attachment .00.23 anxious attachment .01.14 avoidant attachment .55.03 r2 .00.08.00.04.06.01.04.01 δr2 .00.04.00.03.24.01 for the job satisfaction index, as shown in table 3, at step 1 the model is not significant (f = 2.54, p = .08). at step 2, when emotional traits are introduced, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 14.05, p < .001;r2 change = .13, p < .001), with gender, age, optimism, and emotional unawareness as significant predictor. at step 3, when work-related traits are added, the incremental change is not significant (f = 9.82, p < .001; r2 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 701 http://www.psychopen.eu/ change = .01, p = .27). at step 4, when attachment styles are introduced in the hrm, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 8.30, p < .001;r2 change = .02, p < .05), with gender, age, optimism, emotional unawareness, anxious and avoidant attachment styles as significant predictors. table 3 hierarchical multiple regression of job satisfaction step 4step 3step 2step 1 measures pβpβpβpβ age .02.10.04.09.01.11.50.03 gender .03.09.02.10.02.01.03.10 step 2 optimism .00.19.00.19.00.19 emotional awareness .69.02.66.02.70.02 emotional unawareness .00.26-.00.30-.00.30emotional expressivity .30.05-.41.04-.60.02step 3 emotional labor .71.02-.72.02work-management orientation .37.04.29.05 relationship orientation .10.07-.08.08step 4 secure attachment .06.10anxious attachment .00.15avoidant attachment .01.13r2 .00.14.00.13.00.13.08.01 δr2 .02.02.27.01.00.13 jointly considered, the regression analyses showed that emotional traits (especially optimism and emotional unawareness), work-related traits (especially work-management orientation) and attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment) play a role in defining the level of work-related well-being as assessed by job involvement and job satisfaction. as hypothesized, attachment style moreover explained a statistically significant increment of variance in work-related well-being indices. age overall induced in older participants, in comparison to younger ones, higher levels of job satisfaction. concerning the role of gender, women exhibited higher levels of both job involvement and job satisfaction than men did. discussion attachment theory, although it is generally explored in personality research, has received little attention from researchers investigating the role of individual differences in the work setting. as a review by harms (2011) points out, a few studies only have examined the role of attachment styles in relation to a variety of behaviors, attitudes, and experiences in the workplace setting, primarily addressing issues related to leader–follower dynamics, job attitudes and stress, and job performance outcomes. with the aim of integrating theories of attachment with workplace theories and findings, the present study investigated the role of adult attachment style in predicting work-related well-being, over and above dispositional trait measures traditionally associated with well-being in the literature (pisaniello et al., 2012; rahimian et al., 2006; zammuner, 2012a, 2012b; zammuner & galli, 2005a, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 702 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2005b; zammuner et al., 2011). work-related well-being was measured in terms of job involvement and job satisfaction (bowling et al., 2010; gechman & wiener, 1975; rahimnia & sharifirad, 2014; riipinen, 1997; simon et al., 2010). confirming hypotheses 1 and 2, correlation findings showed that secure attachment was positively associated with positive emotional and work-related traits, whereas insecure attachment styles (especially anxious attachment) were negatively correlated with dispositional trait measures. more specifically, both attachment styles – secure and anxious were positively associated with emotional unawareness. according to attachment theory (bowlby, 1969/1982, 1973), a secure attachment leads to constructive affect regulation and emotional awareness (berlin & cassidy, 2003; fonagy, gergely, jurist, & target, 2002). as regards anxious attachment, people with strong dependence have less difficulty recognizing and expressing their own affective experience. the higher distress level expressed by anxiously attached individuals, as well as their fear of abandonment and their need to solicit relationships to avoid abandonment representations, are linked to a greater awareness of their own feelings and to their expression in order to attract attention from others (fantini-hauwel, boudoukha, & arciszewski, 2012). for anxiously attached people, emotional awareness is a key feature for obtaining support and care from others (cassidy, 1994). concerning work-related well-being, in support of hypotheses 2 and 3, job involvement was positively associated with secure attachment and relationship orientation, and negatively associated with avoidant attachment, whereas job satisfaction was positively associated with positive emotional traits, and negatively associated with anxious attachment. confirming hypothesis 4, regression results showed that attachment styles explained a significant incremental variance in work-related well-being, over and above dispositional trait measures associated to well-being at the workplace. secure and anxious attachment explained the job involvement level experienced by workers: higher levels of security and lower levels of anxiety predicted workers’ greater involvement in their job. as any job requires interactions with others (colleagues, work team, clients, customers, employer, etc.), proximity and intimacy with others represent crucial and unavoidable aspects of a person's work life. it may thus be argued that individual (relational) differences in terms of attachment styles affect well-being at the workplace (e.g., harms, 2011; hazan & shaver, 1990; richards & schat, 2011). on the other hand, the work-role attachment theory (carter & cook, 1995) suggests that the degree to which individuals are committed to their work-role influences their desire to remain a member of the workforce. according to this theory, job involvement refers to an individual’s affective attachment to a particular job (carter & cook, 1995) and reflects the degree to which individuals view their job as a central part of their life (adams, prescher, beehr, & lepisto, 2002). this work-role attachment theoretical perspective might be integrated by arguing that secure and not very anxious workers are likely to exhibit higher levels of involvement and commitment in their job. anxiously attached individuals, on the other hand, have a negative view of the self, leading to an obsessive need for assurance from others, overdependence, hypervigilance to social and emotional cues from others, fear of rejection, and to general preoccupation and anxiety with and about relationships (fraley, niedenthal, marks, brumbaugh, & vicary, 2006; mikulincer & shaver, 2005, 2007). such features prevent them from being fully engaged and involved in their job. our study also showed that both anxious and avoidant attachment styles explained the degree of job satisfaction: lower levels of either anxiety or avoidance (or both) predicted higher levels of well-being in terms of job satisfaction. these findings might be partially interpreted recalling that individuals characterized by avoidant attachment view europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 703 http://www.psychopen.eu/ others as unavailable, unresponsive, or punishing (bowlby, 1973; mikulincer & shaver, 2005), and thus distance themselves from others, attempt to avoid emotional closeness and intimacy, and deny their need for proximity (mikulincer & shaver, 2005). avoidant individuals have furthermore a negative view of others, leading to obsessive self-reliance, independence, and difficulties in trust and dependence on others (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). however, that both insecure (anxious and avoidant) attachment styles negatively predicted job satisfaction seem to suggest that other variables may mediate these relationships, or are necessary to fully explain them. a supervisor’s emotional and/or instrumental support may be such a mediator candidate to explain how attachment style is related to this well-being index. for instance, harms (2011) argued that high anxiously-attached workers reported levels of satisfaction similar to those with low anxious attachment when supervisor’s support was available; when support was lacking, they reported significantly lower job satisfaction. interestingly, individuals high on avoidant attachment reported significantly higher job satisfaction when supervisor support was low. in sum, to fully account for such unexpected results it might be necessary to focus on the different behaviors and reactions that insecure individuals have in different work contexts. our study, in line with results obtained in previous studies (borys & perlman, 1985; clark, oswald, & warr, 1996), showed that age and gender too contributed to some extent to participants’ evaluation of their work-related wellbeing. our results showed that older workers experienced more job satisfaction compared to younger participants, and that women exhibited higher levels of work-related well-being than men did. finally, in accordance with our expectations, attachment explained a statistically significant increment of variance in work-related well-being in terms either of job involvement or of job satisfaction. in conclusion, the present study shows that the manner in which people experience interpersonal relationships affects their well-being, highlighting the importance of individual attachment-related characteristics to better understand several aspects of people's behavior and attitudes in the workplace. if we accept the premises that a person's attachment style influences her ability to deal with intimate relationships, and that the workplace is essentially a relational context, then we can argue that a person's attachment style plays a crucial role in her workplace too, with workers characterized by high-secure and low-anxious attachment being generally more involved in their job, and workers characterized by low-anxious and low-avoidant attachment being more satisfied in their job. our study is not however without limitations and several options are open for further investigation. first, our findings are based on a mostly correlational study, so caution should be taken when inferring conclusions. second, the adopted emotional-trait measures showed low reliability values for the sample in our study (especially optimism). third, some of our measures (emotional traits and work-related traits) were validated in the italian context only, making it difficult to compare results across studies. the findings obtained in our study thus need to be replicated both with other employee samples, and in studies that include other well-established emotional trait measures e.g., measures of emotional intelligence and competence, including emotion regulation abilities and empathy (gresham & gullone, 2012; kafetsios, athanasiadou, & dimou, 2014; lanciano et al., 2012; wei, liao, ku, & shaffer, 2011; zammuner, dionisio, prandi, & agnoli, 2013). fourth, a more exhaustive assessment of well-being at the workplace might be obtained by employing other measures, such as measures of job importance, job withdrawal, work burnout, occupational stress (littman-ovadia et al., 2013). fifth, a better prediction of well-being might be obtained by controlling or modelling other variables likely to be associated with it e.g., marital status, socio-economic status, and preferred coping styles or affect regulation strategies (e.g., lopez, mauricio, gormley, simko, & berger 2001; wei, vogel, ku, & zakalik, 2005), perhaps even including personal attachment-history europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 704 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variables, such as attachment in relation to parentand peer-interaction in adolescence (e.g., ma & huebner, 2008). sixth, when looking at the incremental validity of attachment styles at work, further interaction variables might be usefully controlled for, such as type of work (e.g., jobs requiring interactions vs. individual and independent jobs). finally, since gender has been shown to influence psychological well-being, with women reporting more symptoms of lower well-being than men (although the magnitude was fairly small; danna & griffin, 1999; harris, heller, & braddock, 1988; schaubroeck & jones, 2000), the relationship of attachment with well-being at work might be better explored by explicitly modeling gender differences too. in sum, although attachment styles have been studied across a variety of workplace phenomena, it is increasingly obvious that a large amount of work still needs to be done, many specific issues remain to be investigated. the present study is a (not exhaustive) attempt to address the issue of individual differences in work-related well-being from an attachment dispositional point of view, and, despite its limitations, adds to our knowledge of salient variables and processes that underlie well-being in work settings. funding the study was partially financed by grants of the european community (leonardo da vinci program, grant uk/03/b/f/pp-162_014) and fondazione cariparo to the second author. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we wish to thank n. internullo, m. guizzardi, e. milio, v. tornabene, and m. casnici who assisted in the project, as well as various students, for their help in recruiting study participants and in preliminary data analysis. references adams, g. a., prescher, j., beehr, t. a., & lepisto, l. 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(2012a, july). ways of dealing with emotions and their associations with psychophysical well-being: an integrated account [abstract of oral presentation at the symposium “individual differences in emotion regulation and well-being”]. in l. di blas, a. carnaghi, d. ferrante, & v. piccoli (eds.), book of abstracts: 16th european conference on personality, july 10-14, 2012, trieste, italy (pp. 97-98). retrieved from www.eapp.org/getmedia.php/_media/eapp/download/201208/1344372218-orig.pdf zammuner, v. l. (2012b, march). traits and abilities related to emotional intelligence and their relationships with well-being. invited oral presentation (main talk) at the international meeting “intelligenza emotiva: modelli teorici e prassi operative nei luoghi di lavoro e nelle scuole” firenze (i), italy, 9 march, 2012. zammuner, v. l., dionisio, d., prandi, k., & agnoli, s. (2013). assessing and training leaders' emotional intelligence, and testing its influence on leaders' employees. journal of management and change, 1-2(30-31), 145-165. zammuner, v. l., & galli, c. (2005a). wellbeing: causes and consequences of emotion regulation in work settings. international review of psychiatry, 17, 355-364. doi:10.1080/09540260500238348 zammuner, v. l., & galli, c. (2005b). the relationship with patients: "emotional labor" and its correlates in hospital employees. in c. e. j. härtel, w. j. zerbe, & n. m. ashkanasy (eds.), emotion in organizational behaviour (pp. 250-283). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. zammuner, v. l., & kafetsios, k. (2005). the inovicts method: evaluating career starters emotion and interpersonal skills. manuscript published in http://www.skills2work.com in 2004 & 2005, and on cd-rom. zammuner, v. l., lanciano, t., casnici, m., cappellato, r., & prencipe, g. (2011). workplace situations: the assessment of emotionally un/intelligent reactions. risorsa uomo: rivista di psicologia del lavoro e dell'organizzazione, 16, 1-16. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 attachment and work-related well-being 710 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.4.653 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00677.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.52.1.14 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.84 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25775-9_40 http://www.eapp.org/getmedia.php/_media/eapp/download/201208/1344372218-orig.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540260500238348 http://www.skills2work.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors tiziana lanciano, phd, is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology, communication at the university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion, memory, emotional intelligence, well-being, mental rumination, and latent-variable analysis. vanda l. zammuner is a full professor at the department of developmental psychology and socialization processes at the university of padua, italy. her main research areas include cognitive processes, emotions, language, gender issues, and data collection methods. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 694–711 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.814 lanciano & zammuner 711 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en attachment and work-related well-being (introduction) work-related well-being, job satisfaction and job involvement adult attachment styles, workplace and work-related well-being aims and hypotheses method participants procedure measures data analyses results descriptive and correlation analyses the prediction of work-related well-being discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? literature reviews defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? barbara barcaccia*a, giuseppe espositob, maria mataresec, marta bertolasoc, marta elvirad, maria grazia de marinisc [a] associazione di psicologia cognitiva, rome, italy. [b] university “tor vergata”, rome, italy. [c] university campus bio-medico, rome, italy. [d] iese business school, university of navarra, pamplona, spain. abstract in the last decades there has been a growing interest towards the concept of “quality of life” (qol), not only in the bio-medical field, but also in other areas, such as sociology, psychology, economics, philosophy, architecture, journalism, politics, environment, sports, recreation, advertisements. nevertheless qol does turn out to be an ambiguous and elusive concept – a precise, clear and shared definition appears to be a long way off. in this article an analysis of how qol is interpreted and defined in various scientific articles published in the last two decades, is offered. in addition, an illustration of how widespread the use of this concept is in different fields of knowledge, the difficulties in reaching a shared understanding of qol, the problems involved in stating clearly the construct, and a presentation of some of its conceptualizations, are provided. the importance of subjectivity in the definition of what qol is, emerges as a key aspect. this personal and subjective dimension could be the starting point for a more thorough and holistic understanding of this concept, in which standardized sets of valid, reliable and evidence-based measures of, e.g., psychological and spiritual dimensions, are encompassed in the person’s quality of life evaluation. keywords: quality of life, subjectivity, acceptance, multidimensionality, physical health, psychological health, ethics europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 received: 2012-06-25. accepted: 2012-08-31. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: viale castro pretorio n.116, 00185 rome, italy. e-mail: barbara.barcaccia@uniroma1.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction quality of life (qol) seems to be an obscure concept, or at least “a multi-level and amorphous concept” (brown, bowling, & flynn, 2004, p. 6), to the extent researchers are said not to know what they are talking about when mentioning qol. wemay have a vague idea, but its definition is very complicated, insomuch that in some scientific articles a definition of the concept is not even attempted, and qol is only measured and meant as an indicator. the purpose of this article is to contribute to the scientific reflection on qol, by analyzing how it is conceptualised and whether a definition is offered or not in various scientific articles which have been published in the last two decades. in addition, we shall provide an illustration of how widespread the use of qol is in different fields, highlight the difficulties in reaching a shared understanding of this concept, as well as pinpoint which articles attempt to define the concept of qol and which ones use it just as an indicator. as a matter of fact, only a minority of studies provide an original conceptualisation of qol, while others rely on other authors’ formulations, some do not even attempt a theoretical conceptualisation, some are more concerned with measuring reliably qol without defining it theoretically and many others consider qol as a determinant or an indicator of something else. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the preparation of this manuscript, the search for articles has been made electronically. publications were found through key word searches in psycinfo, ovid medline and scopus with search terms quality of life, wellbeing, life satisfaction (1990-2011). after having selected the papers (either in english, french, spanish or italian) – among ca. 6.600 articles – on the basis of their abstract, approximately 80 articles were read in full: only those articles which made a contribution to the conceptual definition of qol and to its understanding have been included. throughout the present article we have tried to maintain consistency in the use of the technical terms. however, as it has been rightly highlighted by galloway, bell, hamilton, and scullion (2006), in quoting the papers of other researchers the ambiguity existing in the literature over the concept of qol will inevitably appear. providing a definition of quality of life: mission impossible? in the last decades there has been a growing interest towards qol, since progress in treatments and in medical technology have contributed to increase survival rates, and the focus has shifted from quantity of life (longevity) to quality of life, in its many facets. the concept of “quality of life” is one of the most used in the bio-medical field, almost overworked, but its use has become widespread in many other fields as well, to the extent that in recent years it seems to have become ubiquitous, with the risk of turning into a trivial commonplace. in a way, qol suffers from an embarrassing richness of possibilities (scanlon, 1993): what is a good qol? what kind of conditions makes life good? when research focus on qol, what are they measuring? when a definition of qol is not provided in scientific articles, but it is just considered as an indicator, what do they mean by qol? and is it possible to decide the criteria which make a life valuable from an objective point of view? is qol measurable? can we reach a shared understanding of qol? it is not a matter of splitting hairs, it is instead ethically pivotal. as a matter of fact, it can be a question of life and death: let’s just consider how fundamental the concept of qol is in legal and ethical matters, and how a lack of distinctness in its definition can affect people’s lives. the criterion of quality of life is often used when decisions about severely disabled or otherwise ill patients have to be taken (barcaccia, 2013). it is, therefore, a crucial concept “when it is necessary to decide about a person’s life, that is, in the context of withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining medical intervention” (marcos del cano, 2001, p. 91). the author rightly questions about what is meant by qol in situations like the one above and whether it is possible to make this criterion objective. it is obvious that different interpretations of qol, different points of view, different definitions, will lead to different decisions on very important topics. in truth, ethical consequences stem from different qol definitions: health professionals often make quality of life judgments when making decisions about the care of patients and their perspective on expected quality of life is the crucial factor in deciding whether treatment for a life-threatening condition will be administered or not (addington-hall & kalra, 2001). in such cases, it seems very clear that trying to define qol is not a quibble, on the contrary it is an ethical issue, and robust research should be conducted in order to improve our knowledge of this field of study. so far scholars have not yet reached a shared understanding of what qol is, sometimes it is considered as the measure of subjective well-being, in other cases it is used as an indicator of physical health, etc. gasper explains the existence of many different conceptualisations of quality of life arguing that this concept “refers to an evaluation (an evaluative judgment) about selected aspects or the entirety of a life situation and that it doesn’t refer to one unitary or objective entity” (gasper, 2010, p. 351). this concept should be understood as an abstract noun, an europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 186 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “umbrella term” (gasper, 2010, p. 359), covering many different meanings. these evaluative judgments can be made in many different ways and the author distinguishes six dimensions which affect one’s evaluations: “focus of attention, values used, research instrument used, guiding purposes, standpoint adopted and theoretical framework employed” (gasper, 2010, p. 359). what should we do with these diverse conceptualisations? the author suggests to consider them as having different roles in different occasions and warns us to take care before trying to add them all together in an “eclectic heap” (gasper, 2010, p. 359) that seems to provide us with evident paradoxes rather than with a better understanding of the concept. therefore, one of the main problems to be faced is trying to provide a definition of qol; this attempt is made also more difficult by the spread of the concept’s use in so many different branches of research: it is a concept very much used in the biomedical area, but it has also mushroomed in various, and sometimes distant fields of study such as medicine, nursing, economics, geography, architecture, visual arts, literature, philosophy, recreation, transport, environment, etc. a lot of confusion has ensued as a consequence, since now the term “quality of life” lends itself to more than one interpretation and when used, it is not always meaning the same, but is affected by the context in which the qol consideration takes place. moons, budts, and de geest (2006), quoting feinstein (1987), state that “quality of life often seems to be an umbrella term, covering a variety of concepts, such as functioning, health status, perceptions, life conditions, behaviour, happiness, lifestyle, symptoms, etc.” (moons et al., 2006, p. 891). culture is also a dimension that cannot be disregarded in this search for what qol actually is. as a matter of fact, culture has a big influence on variations in perceptions of “health and sickness, interpretations of symptoms, the meaning of qol and expectations of care” (kagawa-singer, padilla, & ashing-giwa, 2010, p. 62). that’s why the authors propose the ashing-giwa theoretical model (ashing-giwa, 2005) that includes culture as a “macro component” of quality of life. this model accounts for the influence of cultural and socio-ecological context on qol, and the authors propose a conceptual definition of qol: “qol is a subjective, multidimensional experience of wellbeing that is culturally constructed as individuals seek safety and security, a sense of integrity and meaning in life, and a sense of belonging in one’s social network” (kagawa-singer et al., 2010, p. 59). cross-cultural comparisons are therefore necessary for a better understanding of what qol actually is. moreover, as already mentioned, it must be also considered that there are not many other concepts which have prospered as qol has in different fields. the price we pay for this success is having the term qol transformed in a sort of buzz word: it is in fashion talking about qol, its use is ubiquitous from television andmagazine advertisements to political speeches and newspaper headlines: the increasing appearance of the term 'quality of life' in these formats says something about its importance to us as a concept, or even an ideal. however, the term quality of life is not only used in everyday speech, but also in the context of research it is linked to various specialized areas such as sociology, psychology, medical and nursing science, economics, philosophy, history and geography (farquhar, 1995, p. 1439). the situation is quite different when we reflect upon just one feature of the qol construct, that is health-related quality of life, hrqol (barcaccia, 2013). benito-león et al. (2011) maintain that “hrqol is a concept that involves those aspects of quality of life or function, which is influenced by health status and is based on dimensions (i.e., physical, psychological, and social aspects), which can be measured” (benito-león et al., 2011, p. 676). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a brief history of qol in order to better understand the difficulties in providing a shared definition of qol concept, it is useful to record when and how the history of quality of life kicked off, and its domino effect on almost every field of human existence. the term “quality of life” started to disseminate after world war two. lyndon b. johnson1 is considered to be among the first ones who used it in a 1964 address, even though, as noticed by lelkens (2005), the expression “quality of life” could already be found in the socio-political literature of the 1950s. in his speech, johnson stated that the goals he was pursuing could not be evaluated in terms of money but had to be assessed in terms of “quality of life”2. from that time onwards, the notion “quality of life” began to spread and became commonplace in enormous amounts of writings, speeches and programs. wood-dauphinee (1999) highlights that in 1977, “quality of life” started to be a keyword in the medical subject headings of the us national library of medicine medline computer search system: following a medline search, albrecht (1994, p. 52) reported that between 1966 and 1974 there were 40 references related to quality of life and between 1986 and 1994 there were over ten thousand. this information demonstrates an exponential rise in research in which quality of life was at least mentioned if not measured (wood-dauphinee, 1999, p. 355). it should be noted that, among those research articles, some do provide a definition of the concept, but others do not, and some even attempt to measure the degree of qol in various types of people, patients, population, etc., without proposing a conceptual definition. whether or not a definition has been provided there has been, through the years, an increasing focus on qol, that has resulted in a huge number of relevant publications in the scientific literature: “a pubmed search of articles published from 1966 to 2005 identified 76,698 articles containing ‘quality of life’ as a medical subject heading or as a title or abstract term. since the mid-1960s, the number of publications on this subject has grown exponentially” (moons et al., 2006, p. 891). furthermore, speaking about qol has not been specific for medicine. as above mentioned, in the 1950s it was chiefly a notion of cultural and social criticism: the notion of quality of life vs. a materialistic perspective on human existence. the term “quality of life” was used to indicate the quality of existence or well-being and even the quality of being a human person, so that lyndon b. johnson’s speech was followed by various attempts to advance qol by focusing on social programs from education, to community development, housing, health, and welfare. in addition, qol has become a relevant concept in different phases of the life-cycle, and it has been considered crucial to children, adolescents and the elderly. through the years its importance has grown to such an extent that qol has become a desired outcome of service delivery in an enormous variety of fields, from education to politics (galloway et al., 2006). also the environment has emerged as another context where the concept of qol became very important: architectural design and the physical environment have an effect on the qol of the elderly in particular (barnes, 2002). burger (2003) agrees that the environment affects qol and personally seeks individuals’ opinions prior to restoring urban ecosystems. in her study, individuals stated that maintaining natural habitat, removing pollution, and providing educational signs all improved their qol. nowadays the expression “quality of life” is as well widely used in journalism, politics, sports, advertisements, governments, besides healthcare (holmes, 2005). all this dissemination of the qol’s idea “has resulted in a plethora of definitions” (holmes, 2005, p. 493), some of which we’ll try to examine in our review. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 188 http://www.psychopen.eu/ different perspectives on qol: attempts at defining the concept andmeasuring it it should be noticed that the change in the concept of health, which has occurred during the second half of the 20th-century, has deeply affected and modified the idea of qol, since they are so much related. the concept of health has undergone major changes, passing from the negative health measures like the “five d’s” — death, disease, disability, discomfort, and dissatisfaction — research, towards the evaluation of more positive domains and features (pais-ribeiro, 2004). world health organization’s (who) definitions of health and qol are allowedly positively-oriented: health is considered “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (whoqol group, 1995, p. 1403). and from this new perspective on health have stemmed new and more positive health measures aimed at assessing health and not disease. these new health measures have, in turn, affected the concept of qol, which is defined by the who as: individuals’ perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value system in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations and standards and concerns. it is a broad ranging concept affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, and their relationship to salient features of their environment (whoqolgroup, 1995, p. 1403). notwithstanding these wide-ranging definitions provided by the who, rosenberg’s (1995) statement that “there is no generally agreed definition of qol” (p. 1411) is still valid. as a matter of fact, trying to provide a conclusive and shared definition of the concept of quality of life and indicating how to best to measure it, are still true challenges. ravenek, ravenek, hitzig, and wolfe (2012) state the conceptual and methodological ambiguity on how to define and measure qol in general, and maintain that some definitions of this construct have been simplistic, while others tend to be complex, and to include an ample variety of factors to describe it. after having examined the available literature, one is tempted to endorse the provocative statement expressed by wulff (1999): “scientists may use rating scales and visual analogue scales to measure pain, and they may even invent scoring systems quantifying types of handicaps, but when they talk about measuring quality of life, they have gone too far” (p. 549). thus, is the concept of qol ineffable? is the subsequent idea of measuring it utopian? susan holmes concludes her interesting article on qol with some challenging, even provocative questions: are our attempts to reduce a complex experience to something that is simple and amenable to measurement trying to turn it into something that we can never really understand? … is describing the experience like trying to translate something for which there are no words? and, finally, if this is so, can we really define qol or measure it or are we truly trying to measure the unmeasurable? (holmes, 2005, p. 493). all these hurdles in the field of qol might leave those who want to reach a definition of this concept with a sense of discouragement. what is certain is that often, despite using the same expression – “qol” – we do not mean the same concept (happiness, subjective well-being, physical health, life satisfaction, living conditions, etc.). this lack of consensus about the meaning of qol has resulted in ambiguous definitions and, therefore, problems in its measurement along with the incapacity to define the components of this many-sided concept (holmes, 2005). the challenge seems so awkward that someone has invited the scientific community to give up: wolfensberger europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 189 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (1994) wrote in a book on qol a chapter whose title was: “let’s hang up ‘quality of life‘ as a hopeless term” (p. 286). qol seems to be a vague, ambiguous and difficult concept to define, widely used, but with little consistency (galloway et al., 2006). along these lines, holmes (2005) points out that, despite plenty of published literature, the concept of qol is still elusive. rapley (2003) argues that there are “serious ethical, conceptual and philosophical difficulties” (p. 81) involved in studying qol, which researchers must take very seriously. and in a certain sense, as a consequence of this vagueness, it seems as though the realm of studies on qol had been pulled apart for the weakness of scientific foundation in quality of life research (wood-dauphinee, 1999). nevertheless, providing a reliable definition and a subsequent reliable measurement of qol is absolutely pivotal whenever outcomes of any kind of treatment have to be assessed: whether a certain treatment has led to a certain degree of improvement, or not, will be the basis on which it is decided whether to prolong that type of treatment or not, to invest money on it or not, to continue administering it to other people or not, etc. (barcaccia, 2013). this is one of the important reasons why a valid and reliable definition and measurement of qol are needed. but will it ever be possible? another huge problem regards the fact that qol is a dynamic condition, since it is modified by the developments, experiences and changes that occur in life. that's why trying to evaluate qol can lead to errors, if assessments are conducted at different times in one's life, and that’s whymeasurements can sometimes be considered unreliable (holmes, 2005). hanestad (1990) had already went so far as to state that the qualities experienced may vary too quickly for them to be meaningful. holmes (2005), in her interesting article on qol, does not provide her own definition of the concept, highlights the many traps one might fall into when attempting it, mentions the various possible definitions of the concept (well-being, happiness, health status, functional status, etc.) but also reports that there is now a certain general agreement regarding some aspects of qol: most researchers maintain that qol is subjective and that it can only be understood from an individual perspective; qol ismultidimensional and comprises positive and negative features of life, depending in a complex way by “physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships and their relationships to salient features of the environment” (whoqol group, 1995, p. 347). in fact, many authors, instead of providing a conceptual definition of qol, use it as an indicator, or as a determinant. moons et al. (2006) again pinpoint the lack of consensus on the definition and measurement of quality of life. nevertheless, they do provide their own conceptualisation of qol, considering it as satisfaction with life, but in the sense of an indicator of qol: life satisfaction refers to a subjective evaluation of one's personal life. “overall satisfaction with life can be considered to be an indicator of quality of life, because one indicates how satisfied one is with one's life as a whole” (moons et al., 2006, p. 891). the authors endorse this definition also on the strength of its being quite constant over time, even though it may fluctuate. they consider satisfaction with life an indicator that can well represent what qol is, because, stemming from the field of “positive psychology”, it focuses on strengths and talents as opposed to shortcomings and weaknesses. therefore it is not a perspective focused on health/illness, and, according to the authors, corresponds to overall qol. kane (2001) is more concerned with the issue of measuring reliably qol, as a useful tool in assessing health services outcomes, even when acknowledging all the difficulties inherent to this task: “while focusing attention europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 190 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the centrality of quality of life (qol) in assessing the effectiveness of health care is a laudable goal, it may also be viewed as a promethean act of hubris …. there is no unanimously agreed upon definition of quality of life” (kane, 2001, p. 1079). the author, in his article on the problems related to the measurement of qol, in fact does not provide a specific definition of the concept, even though he encourages clinicians and researchers to expand their definition of clinical success and also considers other issues that affect a person's life – provided they are restrict to domains that can reasonably be influenced by health care, thus leading to a perspective of health-related quality of life. among the main problems in providing a reliable definition of the concept, the author admits that, on one level, qol is an immensely personal concept: “no stranger can determine what represents qol for me or what aspects of that construct are most important to me” (kane, 2001, p. 1079), thus resulting an extremely subjective concept. on the other hand, he highlights the importance of making efforts in understanding and defining it, since this can result in policy tools that employ a common metric to facilitate comparisons: if qol is considered only as a subjective feature, then it will never be possible to conduct research comparing different kinds of patients, of different age, etc. felce and perry do provide a definition of qol: “an overall general wellbeing that comprises objective descriptors and subjective evaluations of physical, material, social, and emotional wellbeing together with the extent of personal development and purposeful activity, all weighted by a personal set of values” (felce & perry, 1995, p. 51). these three elements are considered by the authors as being in dynamic interaction with each other, so that modifications in some objective aspect of life may affect satisfaction or one's personal values. correspondingly, modifications in valuesmay change satisfaction and deliver change in some objective aspect of life. and similarly, a modification in one’s sense of satisfaction may lead to reevaluation of values and lifestyle (see pallini, bove, & laghi, 2011). so, these three features influence each other, but can also change as a consequence of some external influence, such as genetic, social, material inheritance, age and maturation, developmental history, employment, peer influences, and other social, economic, and political variables. thus, according to the authors, all the three features which compose qol must be assessed in order to evaluate people’s quality of life, because the knowledge of just one among three elements cannot predict the level of the other two. problems in reaching a shared definition of qol are also portrayed by farquhar who argues that “definitions of quality of life are as numerous and inconsistent as the methods of assessing it” (farquhar, 1995, p. 1439). the author also notes that an attentive analysis of medical and nursing papers mentioning “quality of life” in their titles often shows professionals' limited perceptions of the qol concept, and also points out that many studies have avoided in the first place to define what they intend to measure. farquhar’ study has contributed to the understanding of qol, even though the research regarded a specific population – the elderly – by offering a clearer understanding of the concept, through a qualitative analysis. the findings, in particular, question the validity of the operationalisation of qol merely in terms of physical health measures and functional ability, because they show that social contacts emerge as an essential facet of a good quality of life. it follows that, as far as the elderly are concerned, measures of qol should also include measures of social contacts and activities, emotional wellbeing, life satisfaction, adequacy of material circumstances, suitability of the environment, besides physical health and functional ability. costanza et al. (2007) propose their own integrative definition of qol: qol is the extent to which objective human needs are fulfilled in relation to personal or group perceptions of subjective well-being. human needs are basic europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 191 http://www.psychopen.eu/ needs for subsistence, reproduction, security, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, spirituality, creativity/emotional expression, identity, freedom. subjective well-being is assessed by responses to questions about happiness, life satisfaction, utility, or welfare, and the relation between specific human needs and perceived satisfaction is influenced by mental capacity, cultural context, information, education, temperament. in addition, the relation between the fulfillment of human needs and overall subjective well-being is affected by the weights that individuals, groups, and cultures give to fulfilling each of the human needs relative to the others. it is of common knowledge that many different fields of study are interested in qol. therefore the descriptions provided of the various dimensions vary a lot, depending on the different perspectives. ruta, camfield, and donaldson (2007) consider the problem of a working definition of qol from their socio-economic point of view. they consider sen’s definition of qol: “qol … is not merely a matter of what a person achieves, but also of what options the person has had the opportunity to choose from” (p. 69). the authors subsequently propose a new definition in which qol is defined as “the gap between what a person is capable of doing and being, and what they would like to do and be; in essence it is the gap between capability reality and expectations” (ruta et al., 2007, p. 402). by introducing this notion of an expected or desired capability in the definition of qol, subjectivity is given a total supremacy, in the sense that only the single human being, living his/her life can actually evaluate its quality. in their interesting paper, the authors describe also some of the causal determinants of qol, like income, social relationships, religious and spiritual beliefs, political participation and life events. dijkers (2007) is one of the authors who endorses the idea of qol as life satisfaction. he highlights the ubiquity of the term “quality of life” and even levels harsh words to those who take advantage of qol, just because it is fashionable and lucrative and can further one’s career in the medical and nursing fields. “unfortunately, when it comes to research, many investigators do not bother to consider whether qol is a construct they need to measure, and if so, what they mean with it. it appears that typically they grab off the shelf the first instrument they see with ‘qol’ on the label or that is reputed to measure qol” (dijkers, 2007, p. 153). naturally, this harsh judgment should be considered in the context of a wider perspective: it is in fact well established that the motivational patterns implied in the choice of studies of nursing students are typically pro-social (amann gainotti & pallini, 2006). along the lines of moons et al. (2006), even though less “unshakable” in his position, dijkers provides a definition of qol, but admits of being among the ones who hold a particular point of view on qol’s definition, with no other reason than personal preference: the author believes life satisfaction as most deserving of the name qol, however, he does not corroborate this definition with any “evidence” proving the validity and reliability of this perspective. although having a predilection for this particular meaning of qol, dijkers (2007) believes that the conceptualisation and operationalisation of qol deserve more in-depth analysis and discussion. wood-dauphinee (1999) correctly points out that qol might be seen as “representing the widest range of human experience” (p. 355); she admits that theoretical work on the concept of qol has lagged behind instruments development and validation. from our perspective, this is truly surprising: measures have mushroomed, but with a complete lack of clarity on what they were intended to measure. the author leans explicitly towards the term health-related quality of life (hrql), a term which more specifically refers to the impact of disease and treatment on the lives of patients (lin, lin, & fan, 2012; barcaccia, 2013). wood-dauphinee does not provide an ultimate definition of the concept – the author acknowledges that there is disagreement on a single definition – but pinpoints the consensus on a concept which takes into account levels of physical, mental, social, and role functioning, and europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 192 http://www.psychopen.eu/ includes abilities, relationships, perceptions, life satisfaction, and well-being, patients’ satisfaction with treatment and its outcome, future prospects and the overall value a person attaches to living. malkina-pykh and pykh (2008) do define qol as a measure of how positively or negatively we perceive our lives, a measure of well-being; this measure is influenced by three main domains: built environment qol, social environment qol and economic environment qol. the built qol is where one lives: house, surroundings, available facilities, infrastructure (electricity supplies, telephone lines, running water and sewerage systems, etc). the social environment qol involves friends, family, entertainment, health and education level. the economic environment qol concerns money, how money is spent, employment/unemployment. but the authors add that, by definition, qol is a subjective concept, dependent on cultural perspectives and values. values, the features of our world that we believe are crucial, good from an ethical point of view or personally desirable, stem from our personal perspectives (pallini et al., 2011). age, gender, socio-economic status, education, health, religion, occupation, etc, all contribute to form our perspectives, and make us different one from the other. so these differences in personal experience and condition in life shape our beliefs and values about what is crucial, good, or desirable. eventually these values determine also which conditions of life constitute a qol problem (malkina-pykh & pykh, 2008). levasseur, st-cyr tribble, and desrosiers (2009) rightly note that “intervening to enhance qol definitively requires starting from the person's perception and fully considering his/her expectations” (2009, p. 91). we also endorse a “subjective” model that takes into account the importance of personal values in determining one’s qol: in our opinion one has to go beyond objective measures of health, and take into account people’s personal perspectives and values. although these variables are by definition personal and subjective, they should be assessed in a scientifically valid and reliable way, so that comparisons across populations/groups are made possible. levasseur, desrosiers, and st-cyr tribble (2008), in a study designed to evaluate quality-of-life predictors for older adults with physical disabilities, have provided a definition of qol as the sum of cognitive and emotional reactions that an individual experiences associated with his/her achievements, in the context of his/her culture and values, taking into account his/her goals, expectations, standards, and concerns. qol is affected by health condition, activity, participation, personal factors, and by their relationship to salient features in their environment. the findings of this study show that satisfaction with participation in social roles (more than participation in itself) and obstacles in the physical environment are the best predictors of qol. levasseur et al. (2009), in another study, conclude by highlighting the importance of multidimensional components of human functioning, and of an interdisciplinary team approach to improving qol of the elderly. this study analysed, using a qualitative design, the perceptions and lived experience of older adults about their quality of life. personal factors, such as health, inner life and behavioral abilities, emerged as crucial for qol; also being occupied, doing activities, good health habits were found important in determining the level of qol. some other authors tried, also, to measure to what extent the relationship between health and qol is replicated when health is measured objectively. blane, netuveli, and montgomery (2008) used objective measures of health and their change over time in the elderly, along with measures of qol as assessed with casp-19. according to the results, functional limitations, as falls or urinary incontinence, etc., could be responsible for the reduction in the qol of the elderly. the authors believe that objective health is related to qol in this population mainly through functional limitations (blane et al., 2008). nevertheless, this paper does not seem to provide a definition of the concept, a trend that is not rare in the scientific literature (meeberg, 1993). on the one hand, there have been europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 193 http://www.psychopen.eu/ many different attempts at defining qol, according to different disciplines, fields of study and research, using either definitions of the concept, or indicating domains, determinants and indicators. but on the other hand, there is also an opposite tendency, that is not to define the concept at all; this happens mainly within the medical literature (taillefer, dupuis, roberge, & lemay, 2003). as a matter of fact, many publications on qol have mainly focused on measures and psychometrics, rather than on theoretical and conceptual issues (moons et al., 2006). pais-ribeiro (2004) reminds us that, in fact, many articles addressing qol do not define the concept at all. he also maintains that “qol is recognised as a vague and ethereal entity, something that many people talk about, but which nobody knows very clearly what to do about” (pais-ribeiro, 2004, p. 121), so that there is not a single definition of qol considered appropriate both for practice and research which has become a common standard. in 1994, gill and feinstein stated that a conceptual definition of qol was included only in 15% of published articles regarding these issues (gill & feinstein, 1994). taillefer et al. (2003), in a systematic review carried out in 2003, noted that 16 out of 68 health-related qol models evaluated did not provide a definition of qol. this common failure to define what is being measured or, alternatively, to cite definitions used elsewhere without stating a preference, adds considerably to the sense of conceptual confusion. often researchers and clinicians will evade issues of definition by focusing on “approaches” or skipping forward to discuss “measures” which imply a type of definition. some authors do not even try to propose their own definition of qol and they just choose “internationally widely used” instruments to assess it, seemingly to avoid the well-known difficulties in the definition of this concept. koller, klinkhammer-schalke, and lorenz, (2005) do not provide a conceptual definition of qol, believing it to be counterproductive to get caught up in endless discussions on what quality of life (qol) is and whether it can be assessed. they believe it is much more important to focus on whatever it is in qol studies that can ameliorate clinical practice: “survival of the qol concept within the medical community will depend on its contributions to a better understanding of patients and to improving patient care” (koller et al., 2005, p. 186). the authors believe the definitions of qol based on who's perspective as being too encompassing and idealizing and, consequently, totally impractical from a clinical point of view. how can a doctor treat the patient’s social relationships, for example? so the authors focus much more on the importance of distinguishing between acceptable qol and unacceptable symptom burden; in particular, they underline the importance of detecting precise threshold values in order to assess a person’s quality of life. they report that a typical remark often expressed by qol skeptics is: “we are aware of these questionnaires, but they did not change anything” (koller et al., 2005, p. 186). indeed, qol scores usually are meaningless to clinicians. authors consider, for instance, how easy it is to detect high blood pressure and, conversely, how difficult it is to evaluate what a certain score in a qol questionnaire means. that’s why, they maintain, thresholds are necessary to allow such evaluations, and detect whether an individual’s qol is good / bad, low / high, acceptable / unacceptable. with this process, raw data gain meaning and may elicit corresponding interventions and treatments, while theoretical discussions on concepts are considered useless by the authors, who do not even provide their own conceptualisation of qol. some other authors have instead relied upon thewho’s perspective: fassino et al. (2002) have endorsedwho's definition of health, which does not simply stress the absence of disease, but considers as well the presence of physical, mental and social well-being, so that medical interventions must be meant not only to prolong life, but also to assure its quality. from the authors' point of view, three domains are crucial in the multifaceted concept of qol – psychological, functional and existential – and all of them must be evaluated together with the health status to reach a thorough understanding of the elderly's qol. more specifically, they highlight that the functional europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 194 http://www.psychopen.eu/ status is important in determining qol, but also that it is a dimension more strictly related to the health status. for this reason psychological and existential aspects can enrich the definition of qol and it is worthwhile assessing them. therefore it appears that the “qol oriented” therapeutic strategy should take into account more complex geriatric interventions, including also psychological ones. the authors underline that, unfortunately, despite the importance of the psychological dimension, only 5.4% of their sample was receiving psychological help. thus, there is a strong need for multidisciplinary medical teams, who hold a perspective on qol which goes beyond the mere measurement of objective physical conditions. we support this perspective, also considering that it is possible to evaluate in a scientifically valid and reliable way the psychological dimensions of qol. other authors as well have held an encompassing perspective onqol, in this case regarding elderly cancer patients: “the management of older cancer patients is better performed by an interdisciplinary team which would consider a holistic approach, looking not exclusively at the diagnosis of cancer, but also at other issues that are relevant to the general health status of the patient” (bernabei, venturiero, tarsitani, & gambassi 2000, p. 45). grant and sun (2010) highlight the importance of an accurate assessment of qol in oncology settings, particularly when the disease is incurable. they start from a multidimensional definition of qol to describe, then, the various qol measures that have been developed over the years, specifically those used to assess qol at the end of life (eol). they don’t provide an original conceptualisation of qol but consider it as multidimensional and including three different levels of measurement: overall qol, qol domains and individual items. they also specify that this definition “includes a focus on illness and is limited to the subjective assessment of the impact of disease and its treatment across the physical, psychological, social and somatic dimensions of functioning and well-being” (grant & sun, 2010, p. 27). spirituality (o’connell & skevington, 2005; whoqol srpb group, 2006) and relationship dimensions are also considered as two relevant factors of qol at the end of life. how important qol assessment is in oncology and, in general, in clinical practice, is also highlighted by varricchio and ferrans (2010). they address the value of qol assessment for the practicing clinician in order to improve care and outcomes for patients, even though they do not attempt to provide an original formulation of qol. they pinpoint the importance of evaluating qol, since it can improve the quality of care: scientific biomedical treatments are nowadays available for oncological patients but, sometimes, their psychosocial problems are not addressed at all, and this failure can negatively affect the effectiveness of health care, thus compromising, in some way, the health of oncological patients (varricchio & ferrans, 2010). in the last years, several new ways of gathering data on qol have been implemented. hacker (2010) discusses the impact of the technology explosion for researchers and clinicians: telephone, computers and web/internetbased technologies have undoubtedly improved the quality of data collection but the problem of too many definitions and instruments still remains. the author reminds us that “over 600 instruments are currently available to assess qol” (hacker, 2010, p. 47) and that “no gold standard exist for defining qol” (hacker, 2010, p. 48) even though, from her perspective, there are two important points of theoretical agreement: “1) the individual is the most suitable judge of his/her own qol; and 2) qol is multidimensional, encompassing all aspects of a person’s life” (hacker, 2010, p. 47). koller and lorenz (2002) do not provide a theoretical conceptualisation and refuse both wulff’s skepticism (1999) and who’s “romantic” perspective on qol. they propose a pragmatic view on qol, which is considered by the authors to be: assessed in disease; based on self-perception and self-report in 3 domains – somatic, psychological, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 195 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social; including health-related and therapy-related expectations and coping; influenced by psychosocial variables such as negative affect. another difficulty in providing reliable conceptual definitions, thus scientifically grounded and offering comparable values between subjects, stems from the importance of subjective interpretation of events: a good qol is generally considered, if casting just a cursory glance, as being connected to good health. that's why, if people have disabilities, they cannot be seen as being in good health, thus cannot be considered as having a good qol. but, as pointed out by albrecht and devlieger (1999), research evidence shows a much more complex picture: people's perceptions of their health, well-being and life satisfaction often diverge from objective measures of health status and level of disability. along these lines, xavier, ferraz, marc, escosteguy, and moriguchi (2003) have highlighted that qol depends on the interpretation the person gives to facts and events: “quality of life is increasingly acknowledged as an assessment strongly dependent on the person’s subjectivity” (xavier et al., 2003, p. 31). this perspective is very much “cognitivist”, i.e., focussing on the idea that people are not affected by events themselves, but by the interpretations and evaluations they give to what happens to them. one very important proof of how personal, idiographic evaluations of life do affect one's qol, is the so-called disability paradox: how come some people “with serious and persistent disabilities report that they experience a good or excellent quality of life when to most external observers these people seem to live an undesirable daily existence?” (albrecht & devlieger, 1999, p. 977). this leads our perspective on qol well beyond the assessment of physical health. the literature also shows for example that family members (partners, caregivers) of oncological patients can be highly distressed by the diagnosis of their dear one (segrin, badger, dorros, meek, & lopez, 2007) and, in some cases, their qol is worse than that of the patients (barcaccia, mismetti, & saliani, 2010; mismetti & barcaccia, 2011). sometimes, qol has been described as a composition of many different features. campbell and converse (1972), in a study designed to monitor the qol of american life with a national sample, identified 12 main domains of life: community, education, family life, friendships, health, housing, marriage, nation, neighbourhood, self, standard of living, and work. flanagan, in a study which began in 1972, designed to identify the major factors affecting the qol of adult americans, identified 15 domains: material comforts; health and personal safety; relationships with relatives; having and rearing children; close relationships with spouse or sexual partner; close friends; helping and encouraging others; participating in government and local affairs; learning, attending school, improving understanding; understanding yourself and knowing your assets and limitations; work that is interesting, rewarding, worthwhile; expressing yourself in a creative manner; socialising with others; reading, listening to music, or watching sports, other entertainment; participation in active recreation. to be noted, in both studies, health is only one of the domains of general qol. banister and bowling (2004) have explored what qol is focussing on the perceptions of elderly people about their own qol. the authors neither define the concept a priori, nor impose a framework for its analysis, but try to use the elderly's self-assessment in terms of their own priorities, needs and requirements. the authors indicate six main constituents of qol for the elderly: 1. peoples' standards of social comparison and expectations of life; 2. a sense of optimism and belief that “all will be well in the end”; 3. having good health and physical functioning; 4. engaging in a large number of social activities and feeling supported; 5. living in a neighbourhood with good community facilities and services (including transport); 6. feeling safe in one’s neighbourhood. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 196 http://www.psychopen.eu/ another interesting attempt to investigate what qol means for patients has been recently described by fagerlind, ring, brulde, feltelius, and lindblad (2010). the authors wanted to identify how patients with a specific disease, namely rheumatoid arthritis, understand and appraise the concepts of health and qol, through semi-structured interviews. patients often show different perspectives and interpretations of apparently univocal concepts; their understanding of concepts such as being healthy and being able to function normally is “ both individual and diverse” (fagerlind et al., 2010, p. 109). one of the key issues, in our perspective, is that of acceptance. “accepting” comprises two different levels: one related to “external” events and one to “internal” states (barcaccia, 2008; saliani, barcaccia, & mancini, 2011). external events could be, for instance, the loss of one’s physical health. internal events can be, in this case, the negative thoughts and emotions related to that event (hayes, luoma, bond, masuda, & lillis, 2006; barcaccia & petrocchi, 2011). the acceptance or not (or the different degrees of it) of both external aversive events and internal negative states, could have a key-role in future definitions of qol. as it has been shown above, qol can be defined in a theoretical fashion as a concept, it can be defined through its indicators, domains, determinants, its definition can be considered by some authors useless or much more important than the identification of reliable measures. conclusions qol appears as an ambiguous and elusive concept, widely used in all fields of knowledge and human existence. therefore, it would be of great importance to improve our understanding of this very popular construct. in order to analyse its use in the scientific literature, we selected a series of articles regarding quality of life, presented a brief history of the dissemination of this concept, highlighted the problems involved in describing clearly the construct, considered whether a conceptual definition was provided or not, and evaluated different conceptualisations of it. only a minority of these studies contained an original conceptual definition of qol. many more were either not defining the concept at all or endorsing who’s definition or someone’s else perspective, or using it as an indicator of physical health, material well-being, etc., or defined the concept simply through the description of the domains involved. overall, however, the importance of subjectivity in the definition of what qol really is, seems to be a key aspect. we argue that this subjective dimension could be the starting point for a more thorough understanding of qol. as the ancient philosopher epictetus stated “what disturbs men's minds is not events but their judgments on events” (prior, 1991, p. 211). the assessment of psychological, spiritual, social variables, as well as other variables not strictly related to physical health, should be an important part of how quality of life is evaluated in the future. most of all, our findings show the necessity for researchers and scholars to promote a clearer definition of the concept. so far, what is available is still unsatisfying, and risks leading us astray, especially considering the ethical consequences that different perspectives on quality of life can and do have. notes 1) american president from 1963 to 1969. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 197 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes 2) “we are rich and we are powerful, but that is not enough. we must turn our wealth and our power to a larger purpose. even the greatest of past civilizations existed on the exploitation of the many. this nation, this people, this generation, has man's first opportunity to create its great society. it can be a society of success without squalor, beauty without barrenness, works of genius without the wretchedness of poverty. we can open the doors of learning, of fruitful labor and rewarding leisure – not just to the privileged few, but we can open them to everyone. these goals cannot be measured by the size of our bank balance. they can only be measured in the quality of the lives that our people lead. millions of americans have achieved prosperity, and they have found prosperity alone is just not enough. they need a chance to seek knowledge and to touch beauty – to rejoice in achievement and in the closeness of family and community, and this is not an easy goal. it means insuring the beauty of our fields and our streams and the air that we breathe. it means the education of the highest quality for every child in the land. it means making sure that machines liberate men instead of replacing them. it means reshaping and rebuilding our cities to make them safe, and make them a decent place to live. yes, it means all of these things and more – much more”. 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(2003). elderly people's definition of quality of life. revista brasileira de psiquiatria, 25, 31-39. doi:10.1590/s1516-44462003000100007 about the authors barbara barcaccia, psyd., psychologist and psychotherapist, is adjunct professor of techniques of clinical interviewing, university of l’aquila, faculty of psychology, and professor of cognitive psychotherapy, specialisation school in neuropsychology, sapienza university of rome. she earned her master’s degree in psychology from the university of rome “sapienza” and her master’s degree in philosophy from the university of rome “roma tre”. she earned her specialisation degree in psychotherapy (psyd.), quadriennial post-graduate specialisation school in cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy. she is an accredited trainer in cbt at associazione di psicologia cognitiva apc-spc, and also an act (acceptance and commitment therapy) trainer. she is the chairperson of the eabct (european association for behavioural and cognitive therapies) s.i.g. on obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a sitcc (italian association for behavioural and cognitive therapy) delegate for international relations. she has conducted extensive educational activity, as a professor and a clinical supervisor in many continuing medical education (cme) courses. her main theoretical, clinical and research interests regard the clinical case formulation, the psychology of acceptance of aversive life events, doctor-patient communication, psychotherapy with patients affected by severe organic illnesses, management of acute and chronic pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, the process of forgiveness and its implications for the psychological well-being, the importance of rules in the upbringing of children as a fundamental tool to promote psychological resilience. giuseppe esposito, phd, university of rome “tor vergata”, rome, italy. he is lecturer in methodology of research and adjunct professor of nursing science at university of rome tor vergata. he has conducted research on quality of life and health-related quality of life. maria matarese is a researcher at university campus bio-medico, rome, italy. she is coordinator of the nurse sciences degree course, university campus bio-medico, rome, italy. she is lecturer in geriatric nursing, and co-director of the master course in geriatric nursing. marta bertolaso, phd, is a biologist, at university campus bio-medico, rome, italy. she has conducted research in molecular biology and genetics at the national institutes for cancer research in milan and turin. she is currently a visiting fellow at university of pittsburgh, usa, where she is exploring the relationships between contingency, hierarchy and causal complexity in the study of cancer. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? 202 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.08.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0895-4356(98)00179-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1516-44462003000100007 http://www.psychopen.eu/ marta elvira, phd, is a professor at iese’s department of managing people in organizations, iese business school, university of navarra, spain. she earned her ph.d. in organizational behavior & industrial relations at u.c. berkeley’s haas school of business. prior to joining iese, she served as academic dean at lexington college, usa. maria grazia de marinis is an associate professor of nurse sciences, university campus bio-medico, rome, italy. she is president of the degree course in nurse sciences, university campus bio-medico, rome, italy, and director of the specialization course in oncology nursing and palliative care in the same university. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.484 barcaccia, esposito, matarese et al. 203 http://www.psychopen.eu/ defining quality of life: a wild-goose chase? introduction providing a definition of quality of life: mission impossible? a brief history of qol different perspectives on qol: attempts at defining the concept and measuring it conclusions notes references about the authors europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder leo russell, duncan moss note a corrected version is available in ejop, vol. 9 issue 3 (2013). in the following, original version, some section headings have not been processed correctly during production. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 literature reviews a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder leo russell*a, duncan mossb [a]clinical psychology service, somerset partnership nhs foundation trust, taunton, united kingdom. [b]department of clinical psychology, university of plymouth, plymouth, united kingdom. abstract the purpose of this study is to review the current state of the literature reporting qualitative studies that depict the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. the method attempted to combine empirical and discursive approaches and was strongly influenced by guidance from paterson, thorne, canam, and jillings (2001) on conducting ameta-review. meta-data analysis was used to compare the studies and, subsequently, nine common themes emerged: ‘struggles with identity’, ‘loss of control’, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’, ‘negative view of self’, ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, ‘stigma’, and ‘acceptance and hope’. the meta-method explored and evaluated the qualitative methods that have been used to study this phenomenon, and the meta-theory considered the theoretical underpinnings and contributions of this research. the review concludes that an awareness of these themes could support clinical work with service-users and inform the development of relevant interventions such as interpersonal social rhythm therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. further qualitative research is recommended to extend this literature base and include a greater representation of men and people living in non-westernised countries. keywords: bipolar disorder, diagnosis, symptoms, qualitative, meta-study, mania, review europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 received: 2012-12-19. accepted: 2013-04-15. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: clinical psychology service, foundation house, wellspring road, taunton, ta2 7pq, england. e-mail: leo.russell@nhs.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction this study seeks to develop ways of understanding the experience of ‘symptoms’ associated with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and of the experience of diagnosis itself. the use of this diagnosis as a reference point is a practical solution to the problem of identifying literature that included participants with similar kinds of distress and experiences that are perceived to be unusual. however, as is discussed throughout this review, it is also a problematic solution as diagnostic systems and the application of diagnosis are contentious areas of questionable validity. background bipolar disorder as a psychiatric diagnosis — bipolar disorder is a commonly applied diagnosis of a mental health problem with prevalence rates between 1-1.5% (jones, 2004). according to the american psychiatric aseurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ sociation (1994), the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder require the presence of either ‘mania’ or ‘hypomania’ alongside an experience of ‘clinical depression’. unlike many other diagnoses, bipolar disorder appears to have no significant differences in prevalence rates across cultures, age groups or gender compared to culture, age and gender in the general population (newman, leahy, beck, reilly-harrington, & gyulai, 2001). people who have been labelled with this diagnosis report significant distress and suffering, poor quality of life, high levels of self-harm and approximately a third of these people attempt suicide at some point (jones, 2004; jones & bentall, 2006). the diagnosis is also associated with non-adherence to psychological interventions and medication and this is seen as negatively impacting the prognosis (gaudiano, weinstock, & miller, 2008). however, it should be noted that this epidemiological data is largely based on information gathered within westernised and developed countries such as the united kingdom and united states of america. many people who are given the bipolar disorder diagnosis prefer the original term, coined by emil kraepelin, of ‘manic-depression’ as this seems to reflect more closely the extremes of emotional experience they tend to report (critical psychiatry network, 2009; jamison, 1995). the term bipolar disorder was introduced by karl leonard in 1957 as a solution to the over-inclusiveness of ‘manic-depression’ due to the huge differences in the ‘symptoms’ reported by people given this diagnosis (bentall, 2003). this separated manic-depression into unipolar depression and bipolar depression. ironically, contemporary commentators observed that the construct of bipolar disorder has itself become an over-inclusive diagnosis in current diagnostic systems (critical psychiatry network, 2009). critique of psychiatric diagnosis— in drawing from studies where diagnosis is part of the criteria for participant selection, it is important to acknowledge from the outset some of the problems of psychiatric diagnosis. two of these problems are discussed below; lack of validity of diagnoses and ethical problems with diagnoses and its role in social power structures. the psychiatric diagnostic system fundamentally views emotional distress as arising from biological abnormalities that can be alleviated by biological interventions (moncrieff, 2007). diagnostic systems have been argued to be unjustified by research and unreliable in distinguishing aetiology, prognosis and outcome (boyle, 2007). this is perhaps not surprising given the historical context of diagnostic models and the fact that these have not been sufficiently updated to reflect the evidence of their invalidity (bentall, 2003). furthermore, it is clear that, despite service-users sometimes adopting diagnostic terminology to describe their experiences, they “tend to attribute their breakdowns not to illness, but to a variety of psychological and social reasons”, taking a contradictory position to the disease model of diagnostic systems (johnston, 2000, p. 35). the diagnosis of bipolar disorder has received particular criticism. the critical psychiatry network (2009) observes major discrepancies between the ‘diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders’ and the ‘international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems’. this lack of agreement between diagnostic systems undermines the validity of the construct of bipolar disorder. there has also been a concerning rise in reported prevalence rates of bipolar disorder since the 1950s and again more rapidly in recent years; this is difficult to account for using the disease model (healy, 2008). one commentator has suggested that this reflects the investment of pharmaceutical companies in medication for bipolar disorder, which again would threaten the validity of the diagnosis (healy, 2008). in addition to validity concerns about diagnosis, there have also been questions about the oppressive function of diagnosis in society. thomas szasz (1972, p. 275) described psychiatric diagnoses as “stigmatizing labels, phrased europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to resemble diagnosis, and applied to persons whose behaviour offends or annoys others”. this position has been further elaborated with some commentators perceiving a societal operation of power and interest in promoting a misinforming discourse of emotional distress as ‘illness’ that creates the illusion that the distress is the fault of the individual (smail, 2005). moreover, many service-users have described the burden and the stigma of diagnosis of mental illness as well as the subjugation of their views and opinions in professional discourses about diagnosis (campbell, 2007). research exploring this diagnosis— jones and bentall (2006) argue that people who been given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder have until recently been neglected in psychological research. the recent upsurge in research has contributed to the development of theory and intervention. this has been based mainly on the integration of quantitative research that has explored personal factors related to risk, patterns of thinking, neuropsychological characteristics, biological characteristics, and treatment outcomes (jones & bentall, 2006). there is also a body of qualitative research that has sought to explore more closely the experience of people who have been given this diagnosis. these studies offer alternative insights into ways of understanding the experiences associated with symptoms and receiving diagnosis. the current impact of this qualitative research is limited due to the absence of attempts to make connections and draw distinctions between the findings of these studies. aims the purpose of this study is to review the current state of the literature reporting qualitative studies that depict to the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this consists of two questions; what are the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who are given this diagnosis? what methods and theories have been used to explore this and how has this choice shaped the findings? the undertaking of this study has inevitably been shaped from conception to completion by my own background, assumptions and beliefs. i am amale in my mid-twenties and my professional background is clinical psychology1. i am of caucasian ethnicity and lived my whole life in england. initially, my interest in this area arose from conversations with clinical colleagues about the difficulties of developing interventions for people who suffer from the kinds of distress associated with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. furthermore, in undertaking this study, i have become aware that part of my curiosity may reflect an interest in ‘mania’ due to personal experience of noticing, on occasion, my own feelings and actions taking on a ‘hypomanic’ quality. this reveals my own assumption that experiences described as ‘mania’ and ‘depression’ are ways of understanding different kinds of distress that are along a continuum of human experience as opposed to representing symptoms of an illness. method meta-review methodology this meta-review uses an interpretive qualitative approach to compare and contrast qualitative research from the perspective of the insider. it is an attempt to combine analytical and discursive methods through a ‘radical relativist’ stance. this is a stance that rejects traditional notions of scientific ‘truths’ in favour of ‘truth’ as a social construction, whilst recognising the need to draw subtle links and connections between multiple perspectives of the ‘truth’ in order to make qualitative research useful (sandelowski, 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 387 http://www.psychopen.eu/ meta-data analysis — this is the “analysis of the results of previous analysis” (zhao, 1991, p. 378), performed in order to highlight the interrelationships between findings regarding phenomenon under study (paterson, thorne, canam, & jillings, 2001). in this manner, meta-data analysis is essentially an approach aimed at making sense of the findings of a series of related but independent investigations, in order to recognise shared and differing outcomes in a meaningful way. this meta-data analysis is guided by the meta-ethnographic approach of noblit & hare (1988), which is described below. primary research studies identified for the literature review are read several times. they are then re-read and notes are made of the phrases, metaphors, ideas and concepts described in the primary studies. the next stage is to organise the notes from each study to identify common themes, metaphors and concepts within each study. finally, the notes for all studies are compared to establish whether the studies offer similar ideas and concepts (demonstrating that they are ‘reciprocal’) or have conflicting ideas and concepts. based on this process, the studies we analysed were perceived as being reciprocal and the shared themes that emerged are presented in this review. meta-method— themeta-method provides an overview of the ‘epistemological soundness’ of the primary research studies (based on guidelines from yardley, 2000), and a consideration of how the application of methods may have shaped the findings emerging from this field of research (paterson et al., 2001). meta-theory — the meta-theory undertaken in this review considers the theories that have been used to understand the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the theories developed from that body of research. selection of primary research the initial searches attempted to identify any qualitative research papers that have studied the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. studies were identified through a literature search of csa psychinfo, csa psycharticles, science direct (elsevier), swetswise, web of knowledge, cinahl and medline. the following terms were used to locate the studies; ‘bipolar’ or ‘bipolar disorder’ or ‘manic depression’ or ‘bipolar depression’ or ‘mania’ and ‘qualitative’ or ‘interpretative phenomenological analysis’ or ‘discourse analysis’ or ‘phenomenology’ or ‘discursive’ or ‘grounded theory’ or ‘narrative’ or ‘social constructions’ or ‘exploration’ or ‘focus group’ or ‘grounded study’ or ‘constant comparative’. in addition, the reference section of each of the studies was then explored to identify any further relevant studies. inclusion and exclusion criteria — after the initial literature search, more stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to select appropriate papers: 1. the research data must be based mainly on the accounts of the persons who are identified with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. 2. the study must explore the person’s experiences connected to their diagnostic label of bipolar disorder as opposed to understanding it in relation to a specific intervention or domain of life. 3. the study must be based on an adult population. 4. the study must have undertaken an analysis of the raw data. 5. the study must be physically or electronically accessible through reasonable measures to enable the authors to include it in the review. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these criteria ensured that the studies relate to adults who have been given the diagnostic label of bipolar disorder. the choice of excluding studies without analysis of data was taken to provide a set of studies that also reveal something about the authors’ constructions of participants’ constructions. these strict criteria also provided a means for maintaining the number of studies below ten to enable this review to be comprehensive (sandelowski, docherty, & emden, 1997). overall, nine studies were identified for inclusion in this review (see table 1 below). for simplicity, this review refers to these studies by the code number in the table. table 1 studies identified for review 1code inder et al. (2008)study psychiatrydiscipline new zealandcountry therapy sessionsdata collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 15 people with primary diagnosis of bipolar disorder (i, ii, or ‘not otherwise specified’). age 15-35sample the effect of bipolar disorder on the development of ‘self’.focus the authors identified four core themes in the experience of bipolar disorder; effects on relationships, others definition of self, disrupting (impact of bipolar disorder on lives), and problems in the development of sense of self. main findings 2code jönsson, wijk, skärsäter, & danielson (2008)study nursingdiscipline swedencountry interview (semi-structured)data collection content analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 18 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder (i or ii). age 18-57sample how people with bipolar disorder understand their ‘illness’ and their view of the futurefocus the authors identified six themes; accepting the illness, being insecure in oneself, striving for understanding, managing the illness, an uncertain future and a hopeful future. the authors conclude this illustrates the ongoing process of moving back and forth toward acceptance. main findings 3code o’leary, page, & jenkins (1991)study applied psychologydiscipline united statescountry interview (semi-structured)data collection phenomenal analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 4 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder “manic type.” (adults). age not givensample what people experienced when they were in the ‘mania stage’ of bipolar disorderfocus thirteen categories were identified. the authors discuss five themes in detail; levels of awareness, personal behaviours, differences between manic phases, interpersonal behaviours and similarities between manic phases. main findings 4code proudfoot et al. (2009)study psychiatrydiscipline australiacountry email discussion between participant sample and informed supportersdata collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 12 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 12 months prior to study and accessing treatment. age 18-59sample the experience, issues and concerns of people following diagnosis of bipolar disorder.focus europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the authors identified seven themes; unwanted side-effects of medication, coping with unpleasant symptoms, positive and negative reactions to the diagnosis, identifying early warning signs and triggers of the illness, the main findings loss of a sense of self, uncertainty about their future and stigma. they conclude these issues can undermine effective treatment and attempts at self-management. 5code lim, nathan, o’brien-malone, & williams (2004)study clinical psychologydiscipline australiacountry focus group discussiondata collection the phenomenological approach (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 18 people with a bipolar i diagnosis. age 28-58sample the psychosocial issues and problems faced by people given a bipolar disorder diagnosis.focus three themes were identified: bipolar patients’ experience of life as chaotic and unstable, of circumstances as being out of their control, and as characterised by loss and deficits. the authors conclude that this may affect self-efficacy, which could negatively impact ability to manage the illness. main findings 6code michalak, yatham, kolesar, & lam (2006)study psychiatrydiscipline canadacountry interviews (semi-structured)data collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 35 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. age 21-68sample the impact of bipolar disorder on a person’s life with specific reference to quality of lifefocus the authors identified six themes; routine ‘order in chaos’, independence, stigma and disclosure, identity, social support, and spirituality. authors also described participants’ order of life priorities for quality of life contributing to the development of a quality of life questionnaire. main findings 7code goldberg (2007)2study psychology (clinical emphasis)discipline united statescountry interviews (narrative)data collection combination of grounded theory ideas (a form of interpretive theme analysis) with narrative & discursive approaches to analysis analysis method 6 people who had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. age 40-55sample deconstructing the experience of people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorderfocus the author found an apparent mutual interaction between individual experience and societal labels. participants had faced challenges to self and identity, with particular regard to developing a cohesive sense of self in the light of psychiatry and societal discourse about bipolar disorder. main findings 8code chapman (2002)study educational psychologydiscipline united statescountry interviews (semi-structured)data collection grounded theory analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 12 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (i and ii). age 22-62sample the experience of bipolar disorder with a focus on responding to challenges to identity.focus a central process in the experience of dealing with bipolar disorder is responding to challenges to identity. a model for understanding this process is developed and described. main findings 9code pollack & aponte (2001)study europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 390 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychiatric nursingdiscipline united statescountry interviews (structured)data collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 15 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder on an inpatient ward. age 21-52sample the perception of ‘illness’ in people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.focus the authors identified three themes; coming to terms with the diagnosis, the importance of personal metaphors, and dealing with the medical model. there was no apparent difference between themes with regard to ethnic groups. main findings overall participant sample— all the studies included in this review used the official diagnosis of bipolar disorder as a way of selecting participants although the studies ranged widely in terms of the functional difficulties experienced by participants, the severity of their symptoms and the length of time since diagnosis. overall, across all studies there were 135 participants. all studies, with the exception of one [5], stated the gender of participants and so overall data from these studies breaks down into the following percentages; 37.4% were men and 62.6% were women. the age of participants ranged from 15-68. only four studies reported the average age of participants [1,2,6,7]. the mean of these average ages was 37.2. the ethnicity and education of participants was not widely reported in these studies. given that bipolar disorder seems to be diagnosed with equal prevalence rates across different ethnic groups (newman et al., 2001), it could be assumed that participants may represent largely the cultural majority within the countries where the studies took place. therefore, this sample is likely to mainly represent white participants who live in the five specific countries where the research has been carried out, all of which would be considered to be ‘developed’ countries. the level of education of the participants indicates a range of educational backgrounds from school leave-takers before the age of sixteen to university graduates. results meta-data analysis the meta-data analysis revealed observable and striking commonalities between the data of the studies. the steps we took to undertake this process are detailed in the methodology above. nine major themes regarding the experience of ‘symptoms’ and having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder emerged. the quotations below are in bold for primary author’s observations and italics for the participants’ own words. “…like a reed in the wind…i feel like i’m going like this in the breeze and i’ve lost whatever it says what i am” (1, p. 129). all the studies with the exception of one [3] highlighted the struggles with identity faced by the participants. these struggles were described as complex and took multiple forms. two of the studies [1,2] reflected on a sense of confusion that comes from the discontinuity of moods experienced by people who are given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder; “i had different personalities all over the place that were out of character for the person who had been so happy a couple of months ago” (1, p. 129). in some of the studies, the participants referred to a strong sense of loss or absence of self [1,4,6,7,8]. one participant said “my biggest issue is coming to terms with the loss of who i am, and that i sometimes feel i cannot be the person i once was” (4, p. 125) and another noted that after europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a manic episode, “you don’t know how to become yourself again, it’s like someone hands you a drivers licence and you’re like, ‘well who is this person’?” (6, p. 32). participants and authors in several of the studies also recognised a sense of fragility and uncertainty about the self [1,4,7,8,9]. the authors of one study noted that “participants were not knowing whether or not to trust themselves” (4, p. 125), and a participant in another study described feeling like “…just a pile of pieces. and i didn’t have enough glue to put it together again” (7, p. 155). in contrast, four of the studies referred to ‘acceptance’ of identity as also being part of the experience of some people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [1,2,6,8]. one author commented “as people sort through observations about self and symptoms, and as they consider what they value about themselves, they make decisions about what they will and will not claim as part of themselves” (8, p. 101). “it’s like walking down the road and having a big hailstorm coming” (8, p. 152). seven of the studies reflected on the feeling of loss of control as a central part of experience for participants [1,3,4,5,7,8,9]. some of these studies commented that participants accounts of the internal experience of mania were partly characterised by a sense of fast motion and high speed thinking which felt out of control and scary [3,4,7,8,9]. this experience was powerfully communicated in the metaphors used by some of the participants. one person explained, “the mania terrifies me, the thoughts run through my mind like a speed train and i hate it.” (4, p. 124). one study described the experience of “very fast motion” as the only consistent characteristic of mania reported by participants (3, p. 45). in several of the studies, a frightening loss of control was also described by participants through the use of analogy to powerful and dramatic external events [1,5,7,8]. in particular, participants seemed to draw on metaphors from the natural world in communicating a sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming forces such as being in the path of hailstorms, tornados, quick sand and the waves of the ocean. “the fear is that your mood might soar or that you might become depressed and unable to do what you have to…you don’t dare to have long-term goals and dreams because you know that you are totally chaotic. you do not dare to dream.” (2, p. 1229) all of the studies in this review reported to some extent the participants’ reflections of the experience of disruption in their lives and most studies highlighted a sense of pervasive uncertainty and instability that accompanied this in participants’ accounts [1,2,4,5,6,9]. one study commented that, “there appears to be a constant struggle for stability and normality in their lives, and these are often elusive in the face of recurrent episodes and hospitalisation” (5, p. 813). this struggle for stability was described by the authors of another study as attempting to find “order in chaos” (6, p. 28). two studies commented directly on the shared experience among participants of uncertainty in terms of the future [2,4]. this uncertainty was seen as spanning all spheres of the person’s life. a number of participants explained that as a result of this uncertainty, they avoid making plans and goals for the future, one example was “i only think about one day at a time…tomorrow i plan to go to my boyfriend…but then i haven’t planned anything, it’s like a blank piece of paper” (2, p. 1229). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 392 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this uncertainty about the future was further allied to feelings of hopelessness in three of the studies [2,4,5]. one study hypothesised about the cognitive processes that lead to hopelessness, “if their future were predicted by their past and current circumstances, then it follows that they would perceive their future to be as uncertain or unstable as their lives at present. this often results in a sense of hopelessness…” (5, p. 815). “…saying inappropriate things would make me lose all my friends. and talking too fast, you know, all these things, acting weird, you know odd behaviour. my friends would ditch me of course and at the end i’d be alone” (6, p. 32). participants across all studies talked about the wide negative impact of symptoms on their social world and other domains of life. two studies in particular highlighted this as a central part of the experience of their participants [1,6]. one of these described that, “participant’s responses revealed that the onset of bipolar disorder…brings about changes that, for many patients, may last a lifetime. these changes include the break-up of relationships, loss of employment and financial status, and alienation from friends” (6, p. 814). this interpretation by the authors also reveals their alignment to the medical model in assuming that ‘bipolar disorder’ is an illness that happens to a person and then causes life changes as opposed to there being an interaction between a person’s distress and difficult life events. furthermore, it is not clear in the authors’ analysis whether this view is shared by the participants in the study. all the studies revealed participant stories of deficits and losses with the theme of loss being made explicitly clear in four of the studies [5,7,8,9]. one participant explained “our illness does cover loss. loss, i mean, we have loss, living with loss, to do with relationships, jobs, and family, and also with time” (5, p. 814). in one study, the author observed that many participants had experienced feelings of loss as they, “began to realise that they have suffered significant losses in their own lives that, in retrospect, they can attribute to symptoms of their bipolar disorder” (8, p. 99). in addition to experiencing loss about their current lives, two of the studies reflected on feelings of loss about the future [8,9]. these discourses contained a sense of grief and mourning for previously imagined futures now seen as unobtainable. one study summarised this loss as “not being able to fulfil their life dreams” [9, p. 175] and another extended this by observing that some of the participants realised “that, given their ongoing symptoms, their expectations and hopes for themselves are too high and need to be lowered to be more realistic” [8, p. 99). “thoroughly miserable week. i was having big issues about bipolar and how i hate the person i’ve become” (4, p. 126). a common thread across five of the studies was a negative view of self [1,4,5,8,9]. some participants expressed this directly through statements such as, “it can make you feel very, very bad about yourself,…you can just feel like the lowest form of life on the planet” [8, p. 70]. other’s expressed a sense of self-disgust though their use of metaphor; “in the beginning i hid it like, like leprosy.” (7, p. 202). for some of the participants it seemed that this sense of ‘self-dislike’ [1, p. 130] or “self-loathing” [1, p. 130] may have related to feeling like a failure, which was alluded to in two studies [1,5] with one observing that, “bipolar patients also view themselves as being defective. often, there is an accompanying sense of failure and loss of self-confidence” (5, p. 814). it is interesting that this sense of failure was expressed only in two of the studies, which used non-interview based methods of data-collection, namely excerpts from therapy and a focus group. these methods may create a context europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 393 http://www.psychopen.eu/ where talking about a sense of self-failure may be more socially accepted or even socially expected than in interviews. this highlights the problem of comparing studies where different methods of data-collection are used, which place the participants in different social contexts and roles, such as interviewee, group member or serviceuser. “because somehow, the manic juice gives you somehow, the ability to make friends like mad. great powers of conversation” (3, p. 45). four studies also described participants’ accounts of positive elements of the experience of ‘mania’ [2,3,4,7]. for some, these positive elements of experience were seen by participants as offering relief from depression [2], whereas three of the studies [2,4,7] described how some participants found ‘mania’ a desirable part of experience in its own right; “several of the participants commented on how they enjoyed their manic symptoms” (4, p. 124). one study developed this idea by eliciting a range of descriptions about the experience of ‘mania’ that indicated parts of this experience were positive, such as “… (feeling) very happy, feeling expansive, having high energy” [7, p. 113]. participants in two of the studies expressed particular difficulty in taking on the assumption of the psychiatric construct of bipolar disorder, that would entail accepting that positive elements of their experience as part of ‘an illness’ [4,7]. one study commented, “they understood that while they were depressed they were unwell, but they found it harder to comprehend that when they were ‘happy’ they were also unwell” (4, p. 125). one study described the risk of ‘pathologising exuberance’ illustrated by one participant who said of getting diagnosed that, “here’s someone telling me that the times in my life where i had felt any joy, any ecstasy, any sense of purpose or meaning-you know…that any of those things that i felt or thought were also pathology” (7, p. 180). “…you have to understand what a tremendous blow to my ego it was to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder…you cannot live the rest of your life like other people…the bottom line is, you’re not normal” (7, p. 133). participants in four of the studies described the significant impact of diagnosis and their subsequent responses and ways of finding meaning from this [2,4,7,9]. some of the participants talked about difficulty initially accepting the assumption of the psychiatric model of the construct of bipolar disorder as ‘an illness’; “accepting my illness was very difficult for me…due to the fact that there were so many years between (relapses)” (2, p. 1223). one study indicated that part of the difficulty with accepting the diagnosis at first was the meaning of bipolar disorder to participants, “the initial association of some participants to bipolar disorder was that bipolar disorder was a ‘crazy’ diagnosis, unlike depression, and that this meant they were crazy” (7, p. 134). the narrative offered within these studies seems to suggest that after the initial shock of diagnosis the participants went through a process of meaning-making that eventually led to the diagnosis becoming a more congruent part of their identity. this could be seen as a process of recognition that the construct of bipolar disorder closely resembled their experiences and matched their belief system, or alternatively the assimilation of diagnosis into their identity could be seen as enforced submission to assumptions of the psychiatric model due to the dominant influence of these discourses in society. “i guess they just think about what they see on tv…they just assume…that you’re crazy and you’re nuts and you’re psycho and you’re dangerous” (6, p. 30). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one of the strongest areas or reciprocity between the studies was participants’ experience of feeling stigmatised [1,2,4,5,6,7,8]. some of the participants’ accounts seemed to indicate two parts to their experience of stigma; being seen as ‘not normal’ [5,7] and being seen as ‘crazy’ or feared by other people [5,6,7,8]. the sense of ‘being seen as not normal’ was illustrated in participants metaphors in one study, with one man describing feeling like a ‘martian’, and another participant describing themselves as feeling like ‘the kid with the cooties’ [7]. the studies suggest that being seen as mentally ill and therefore not normal led to isolation from their communities. this discourse is summarised in one study, “they described being isolated from the community around them and their families, and view the community around them as rejecting them” (5, p. 814). these studies also revealed narratives about the fears of being seen as crazy, with ‘mania’ being perceived as a particularly ‘crazy’ form of mental illness. this was captured by a participant in one study who said, “it’s sort of like it’s ok to be depressed. it’s not ok to be manic. because, if you’re manic, then they’ll lock you up, or put a straight jacket on you, or something” (8, p. 63). “…it’s just something i grew from. like each experience is all a piece of me, bad or good, and i do remember them and i do know what happened but there’s nothing i can do about it and i know i’ve moved on and i can take that with me and it makes me stronger” (1, p. 130). another theme that seemed to be captured in some of the studies was a sense of acceptance and hopefulness [1,2,6]. the authors of the studies used phrases such as ‘self-acceptance’ (1, p. 130), ‘personal growth’ (2, p. 1227) and ‘a hopeful future’ (2, p. 1229) to describe this aspect of experience for participants. it was difficult to ascertain a consistent message from the studies about what acceptance involved. this could be due to the complicated and dynamic process of acceptance that was outlined by a participant in one study who described the process of acceptance as, “a whole bunch of different things (that) happen at different times, like physical acceptance of it, and the spiritual and emotional, and acceptance of the past and all the fears and things that go with it; it’s quite a complex process” (6, p. 32). meta-method: a methodological critique evaluating epistemological soundness — to assess the quality of these studies this review draws on the guidelines for good qualitative research developed by yardley (2000). these consist of three guiding principles discussed below. 1. sensitivity to context — almost all of the studies situated their research clearly within the context of previous literature and current theory [1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9]. most of the studies prioritised positioning the research in the context of literature on bipolar disorder specifically, whereas one study drew on the wider context of literature regarding the experience of illness [9]. two of the studies were able to place the research within the context of literature on bipolar disorder and wider understandings about the experience of diagnosis and people’s experiences of ‘illness’ described in the field of health psychology [7,8]. all of the studies with the exception of one provided a clear description of the recruitment procedures used [3]. the majority of studies used forms of convenience sampling, recruiting participants mainly from mental health services. only one study reflected on how these recruitment procedures may have influenced the range of experiences reported by participants [7]. two studies described an element of purposive sampling following initial recruitment with different intentions; one aimed to include participants who had covered issues pertinent to the reeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 395 http://www.psychopen.eu/ search question at the initial phase of data collection [1], whereas another aimed to provide a heterogenous sample [6]. however, one study did use purposive sampling to provide an equal representation of ethnic groups [9]. most of the studies gave some description of the participants’ demographics, although a major limitation in many of the studies was an absence of contextual information such as ethnicity [1,2,3,4,5,6], gender [5], and level of education [1,4,5,6]. the relationship of the researcher in relation to the participants was rarely considered in these studies. it was not always clear if the participants had any existing working relationship with the researchers and there was no reflection on the impact of the relationship on the information that was elicited from participants. one major limitation was that only one study provided a detailed description of the context of the researcher and how this may have influenced data-collection, data-analysis and subsequent findings [7]. in addition, the social role of the participants varied across these studies with some being interviewees [2,3,6,7,8,9] and others being service-users in therapy [1], members of a focus group [5] or email respondents [4]. these different social roles may have influenced the way participants responded to researchers, which may reduce the validity of directly comparing these studies. 2. commitment, rigour, transparency and coherence — the notion of commitment as used by yardley (2000) refers to prolonged engagement in the collection and analysis of data including a complete immersion in this data. the data collection stage was described with some clarity in all the studies. some of the studies showed greater commitment and rigour in eliciting detailed data through the use of multiple interviews, contacts, or mediums of data collection [1,4,5,7,8]. many of the studies used semi-structured or open interviews which took places over a period forty-five minutes of longer to ensure that participants had an opportunity to reflect extensively on the questions asked [2,6,7,8]. three of the studies [1,4,5] used innovative alternative methods for collecting data (excerpts from therapy sessions, email correspondents and focus groups). completeness of data-collection is an important part of undertaking rigorous research and this can be enhanced through the recruitment process (yardley, 2000). this process was limited in this research as the majority did not describe the rationale for the number of participants with only two studies selecting participants on the basis of ‘theoretical saturation’ [7,8]. the completeness of data collection may also have been undermined through the use of strict exclusion criteria, including co-morbidity with other mental health difficulties [1], alcohol or drug dependence [1] or accessing services [1,4], high probability of disengaging with services [1], and currently being hospitalised [2]. the completeness of analysis and interpretation also contributes to rigour and this appeared to vary across studies. most studies offered extensive and transparent evidence for the basis of analysis and interpretation through lengthy verbatim accounts that supported identified themes (1,2,4,5,6,7,8), whereas one study used very specific participant quotes as evidence with little context of the overall account being given [3]. in contrast, one study provided few examples of evidence for each emerging theme, whilst using longer accounts directly from participants, giving a clearer flavour of the context and meaning of these accounts [9]. a strength of these studies was the appropriate fit between the research question and the underpinning philosophy of the methodologies used. all the studies drew on some form of interpretive theme analysis which matched the research questions adequately as this form of analysis seeks to identify aspects of the participants’ experience europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 396 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from their own perspective, and in terms of their assumptions and constructs, which were seen as relatively stable over time (dallos & vetere, 2005). one study used mixed methods, drawing on three qualitative approaches: narrative analysis, interpretive theme analysis and discourse analysis, to identify themes, stories and discourses that run through participants’ accounts [7]. whilst the use of mixed methods can be criticised for lacking in coherence, this study was a good example of the important use of imagination and intuition in research (cooper & stevenson, 1996) and appeared to offer a coherent way of understanding the data. 3. impact and importance — the studies in this review fulfilled the criteria of making an important contribution to understanding of the experience of people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder with potential for having a wide impact on clinical work. whilst the qualitative methodology restricts the generalisability of the research conclusions, all authors attempted to consider the possible implications for clinical practice or future research. this included contributing to the development of practical tools and methods for guiding clinical work or further research [4,6,8], developing new theoretical understandings [2,3,9,5], and raising specific issues for consideration in clinical work and research with people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9]. two of the studies appear to have had a useful impact already as they have been part of research projects by the authors that were found to be widely cited as part of the literature review [6,9]. in contrast, two of the studies were dissertations projects, which at the time of our analysis had not been published and therefore would have at that point had little impact despite the potentially important contributions they offer to understanding the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [7,8]. overall appraisal of primary studies — as a whole, the studies reveal some interesting trends in the way the experience of bipolar disorder has been explored in qualitative research. it is notable that common themes emerged from research that span across five different countries. this may imply that there is a shared quality to the way in which different cultures socially construct and understand the psychological impact of being given a diagnosis of ‘bipolar disorder’. this could reflect something regarding the ‘international community of construction’ aided by technological advances in the 21st century. alternatively, these commonalities could be perceived as supporting the notion that the participants’ experiences reflect an ‘actual phenomenon’ that is less socially constructed and more inherent in ‘human nature’ itself. one striking feature of the research is that all the studies were undertaken in developed and westernised countries. furthermore, only one of the studies focused on a population whose first language was not english [2]. this may have contributed to the largely reciprocal nature of the concepts, metaphors and ideas expressed by authors and participants across studies. for example, the theme of ‘struggles with identity’ is perhaps a construction more consistent with the values and assumptions of westernised societies, and may not arise in research undertaken in more eastern cultures. it is also notable that with the exception of one study, the research was all undertaken in the last decade. this may reflect an increasing popularity of qualitative methods or cultural shifts towards person-centred practice, where the personal narratives of service-users are given greater value than within previously dominant expertpractitioner models of working. all these studies reflected a sense of person-centred practice in their sensitivity and respect towards participants. however, most of the studies stopped short of stepping outside a medical model in taking the notion of ‘bipolar disorder as an illness’ at face value and using ‘symptom-based’ language. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 397 http://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, the participants were not active parts of the research process following data-collection, with the exception of one study that sought participant feedback on the themes that emerged [6]. another important feature of this body of research is that in almost all the studies the chief investigator (first named author) was female [1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. furthermore, this is coupled with a participant sample where males are underrepresented, given the equal prevalence of the application of a bipolar disorder diagnosis among the genders (newman et al., 2001). it is possible that the paradigm of qualitative research fits more closely with dominant discourses available to women than the discourses available to men in western societies, which would lead both to women researchers being more interested in this method of study and womenmore likely to agree to participate in such research. the relative absence of male narratives in these studies may preclude developing understandings about how men who are given this diagnosis make sense of their experiences. it is interesting that the majority of studies chose a semi-structured interview as the data-collection method. the popularity of this approach may reflect perceived best practice for undertaking good qualitative research, cultural traditions or practical issues. it could also be argued that interviews are only a tentative and small move away from the quantitative methodology of questionnaires. some of the primary research studies used more diverse and creative methods of data collection (such as therapy sessions and group forums), which raises a question about whether it is valid to have compared these differing studies in our analysis. it is my hope that including such a variety of studies can provide the foundation for a wider repertoire of discourses to be drawn on, which may enhance the helpfulness of this review, whilst at the same time it is important to acknowledge that this limits the validity and reliability of conclusions drawn from these studies as a whole. similarly, the studies also take different positions with regard to perceiving bipolar disorder as representing an ‘illness’ [1,2,3,4,5,6,9] or viewing participants as a group of people who may have some shared experiences of distress that have contributed to them being labelled with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder [7,8]. on the one hand, this is problematic and undermines the cohesiveness of the findings but, on the other, it also perhaps usefully reflects the real world dilemma for practitioners who have to work alongside different models and find ways of communicating different ideas to service-users in respectful ways. one concern however, is that the majority of the studies do not even acknowledge they are taking a position within the disease model and as such create the illusion of an undisputed ‘truth’ that bipolar disorder is an illness. the use of interpretive theme analysis in these studies may reflect a compromise in the research community between quantitative empirical research and qualitative methods due to using an approach that shares a quantitative assumption that individuals hold knowable, stable and robust assumptions and constructs that can be identified and assessed. one study used a more ambitious form of interpretive theme analysis [8], that of grounded theory, aiming to develop understandings that are generalisable to wider groups of people (dallos & vetere, 2005). meta-theory theoretical perspectives used to understand the phenomenon — the studies explored the experiences of people who have been given the diagnostic label of bipolar disorder through the lenses of several theoretical positions. some of the studies drewmainly on one theoretical perspective [1,3,5] for understanding these experiences, whereas others offered more eclectic perspectives [6,7,8,9]. all of the studies with the exception of one [3] explored europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 398 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the experiences of participants drawing on social psychology ideas. this seems consistent with the focus of participants on the connection between their experiences and their social relationships. it is also possible however that this theoretical position may have impacted the framing and execution of the design, analysis and interpretation of findings towards an account convergent with social and psychological theories. in contrast, as discussed above, many of the studies were based firmly within a psychiatric ‘illness’ model of bipolar disorder that could be argued to be partly in contradiction with some of the social and psychological theories used to explain the findings. the application of social theory was clearly evident in these studies. in one study, the author took a clear position of social constructionism from the outset [7] and in others the authors were influenced overtly by psychosocial theories [1,5] and by social ideas about the impact of stigma [2,4]. in other studies, the specific use of social theory was less explicit but remained present [6,8,9]. two of the studies used specific psychosocial theories to explain their findings; erikson’s theory of identity diffusion in psychosocial development [1], and self-efficacy theory [5]. the absence of intrapsychic theories may account for the lack of explicit descriptions of emotional experience in these studies, becoming a subjugated discourse in the context of the more tangible social disruption experienced by the participants. three of the studies drew on theories derived from research into perceptions of illness and illness experiences in physical health practice [4,8,9]. this focus provided a useful comparison with similar literature that shared important experiential challenges with the accounts from participants in the studies, such as the experience of stigma and the challenge of identity. however, it could be argued that this reinforces the construction of these experiences as ‘an illness’ called ‘bipolar disorder’ that limits the authors’ ways of understanding the participants’ narratives. developments in theory derived from the research — all the studies in this review exercised caution in making extensive theoretical claims on the basis of their findings. instead, the studies opted to describe important themes that had been recognised by their participants, postulating that these may be useful to consider in clinical work or future research. however, some of the studies offered tentative theoretical developments on the basis of their findings. one study applied self-efficacy theory (bandura, 1995) to the understanding of the nature of bipolar disorder [5]. the authors reflected on ideas from self-efficacy theory in relation to their findings and concluded that a person’s lack of belief in their ability to control ‘moods’ and ‘symptoms’ may influence their ability to develop self-management skills in order to help them manage their difficulties. the authors discuss implications for addressing self-efficacy beliefs in clinical work and measuring these beliefs as part of future outcome research. one study attempted a more ambitious theoretical synthesis of its findings by proposing a new model for understanding the process of “responding to challenges to identity” [8]. the author suggests that an understanding of this model can enhance psychotherapeutic work with people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. discussion the accounts from authors and participants from the studies in this review illustrate the challenging journey of people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. some of the themes converge with quantitative research describing the ‘symptoms’ and characteristics of bipolar disorder. the theme of ‘loss of control’ shares europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 399 http://www.psychopen.eu/ similarities with the concept of ‘psychomotor acceleration’, which was one of five concepts identified as associated with manic of mixed symptoms in a study of people who have received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (cassidy, forest, murry, & carroll, 1998). in that study, they described ‘psychomotor acceleration’ as including ‘symptoms’ of increased motor activity, pressure of speech, flight of ideas and racing thoughts. the same study identified a factor named ‘increased hedonic function’, which has parallels with ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’ including increased humour, euphoria and increased interest in sexual activity. the presence of some positive aspects of mania is described further in autobiographies and single case accounts in academic journals (furman & cavers, 2005; jamison, 1995). however, all of these accounts also describe these desirable aspects of ‘mania’ in the context of the painful struggles experienced by people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. similarly, the theme of ‘negative view of self’ is synonymous with findings from quantitative literature on the cognitive style of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this literature suggests that people who receive a bipolar disorder diagnosis have low self-esteem and higher levels of self-criticism when ‘depressed’ or ‘euthymic’ than control groups of people who have not been given this diagnosis (alloy et al., 2006). in contrast, the remaining themes (‘struggles with identity’, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, ‘stigma’, and ‘acceptance and hope’) are not well represented in the quantitative literature and therefore may be absent in discourses about working with people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this may be a consequence of the different focus of researchers using quantitative and qualitative approaches. the former are more likely to align themselves with the medical model, and explore issues of medication compliance and professional or expert perspectives on bipolar disorder, whereas the latter are perhaps more drawn to understanding the experience of participants and being curious about non-medical ways of describing these experiences. however, some of the themes identified can lend themselves to be broadly applied to prevailing ideas about bipolar disorder recognised in the quantitative literature. the theme ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’ is alluded to through causal models of bipolar disorder, which speculate on the role of disruption of biological and social experience in the ‘relapse’ of ‘euthymic’ people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (luty, 2006). similarly, the issue of non-adherence to treatment for people given this diagnosis is widely described in research (gaudiano et al., 2008) and could relate to some of the identified themes, including ‘struggles with identity’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, and ‘stigma’. the theme of ‘acceptance and hope’ also appeared largely absent from the literature. this may reflect the tendency for clinical practice to focus almost entirely on the alleviation of suffering with little exploration of issues around positive wellbeing (duckworth, steen, & seligman, 2005). attempts to explore these issues may begin to address problems such as treatment non-adherence, struggles with identity and diagnosis, stigma, and the negative view of self. if people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder are going to find new ways of being in the world that are less emotionally distressing, there needs to be a discourse about opportunities for developing salience, vitality and hope in their lives that offers a welcome alternative to flight into ‘mania’. implications for clinical practice the themes that emerged from the reviewed papers can be used in clinical work by practitioners through offering opportunities for people to explore these in therapeutic work. this may involve directly discussing the themes or europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 400 http://www.psychopen.eu/ simply thinking about how these issues may shape service-users’ personal experiences and engagement with mental health services. these themes can also inform the development and applications of specific interventions for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’ and ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’ can be addressed through the use of interpersonal social rhythm therapy which is aimed at developing a self-monitoring programme to facilitate a lifestyle, “characterised by more regular sleep-wake cycles, mealtimes, and other social zeitgebers” (luty, 2006, p. 208). similarly, other practitioners are developing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder (williams et al., 2008). this may offer new ways for people who have been given this diagnosis to live alongside, and be in acceptance of, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘loss of control’, and the ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’, that could reduce the extent of resistance and judgement towards these experiences and therefore reduce the overall level of distress. future clinical practice could consider even more radical use of the philosophies underpinning mindfulness by offering new narratives of identity that embrace the human capacity to experience the self as a collection of conflicting parts instead of aspiring towards the integration and wholeness goal of western philosophies (epstein, 1998). ‘negative view of self’ and ‘loss of control’ can be explored through the use of cognitive behavioural therapy using techniques such as cognitive restructuring, positive datalogs and behavioural experiments (mansell & scott, 2006; newman et al., 2001). newman et al. (2001) also discussed how therapists can work on the issues of stigma, loss and acceptance, which could offer effective ways of tackling these themes in individual work. two of the themes that emerged; ‘stigma’ and ‘negative impact of symptoms on social relationships across life and the experience of loss’ imply an important role for clinical work beyond that of individual approaches. in addition, the diagnosis itself is likely to contribute to the experience of stigma by placing the person’s struggles entirely within the individual and presenting their distress as an illness. it could be argued that the most effective ways of tackling some of these difficulties is through challenging the use of illness terminology and diagnosis, raising public awareness and acceptance of people who are given this diagnosis and experience these kinds of distress, fighting discrimination and helping people to become and feel like a meaningful part of their community. implications for further research the themes that were identified in the process of this review represent a collection of concepts, metaphors and ideas that communicate different understandings of the distress and unusual experiences reported by people who have been given the label of bipolar disorder. future research could apply these themes using quantitative methods to explore their generalisability with larger numbers of participants. however, this relies upon this being a reliable and valid diagnostic category, and some have argued this is not the case with the diagnostic category of bipolar disorder (bentall, 2003; critical psychiatry network, 2009). the qualitative research into the experience of people who are given this diagnosis could be extended by undertaking studies with greater male representation or with people from non-western countries. it would also be useful to explore the same experience using alternative methods than interpretive theme analysis, such as more purely discursive methods or narrative theme analysis. this would contribute wider perspectives on the experience of people given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder through recognising the importance of individual, local and societal contexts, discourses and narratives in shaping this experience. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 401 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the identified themes also offer a variety of avenues for further elucidation and to explore in helping people suffering from similar kinds of distress to overcome these difficulties. one area where this could be particularly helpful is in exploring the theme of positive or desirable aspects of mania. the desire to retain these positive aspects of experience despite great suffering and distress may be undermining motivation to change and interventions to overcome these difficulties. this raises many questions about the nature, ideas and understandings about the experience of mania, pleasure, and happiness, for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and how this can be explored to make interventions more acceptable to service-users. limitations of review the specificity of the inclusion criteria may have limited the scope of this study to provide a comprehensive exploration of the experience of people who been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. the decision to exclude some studies on the basis of “understanding it in relation to a specific intervention or domain of life” inevitably relies on my own assumptions about what are important and central parts of experience for people given this diagnosis. as a result studies about ‘identity’ or ‘psychosocial issues’ were included, prioritising these parts of experience over that reported in excluded studies about ‘smoking cessation’ and ‘work functioning’. a possible limitation is the attempt to undertake both empirical and discursive analysis within the same study. this mixed methodology could be seen as being philosophically contradictory as the former assumes findings represent some form of reality and truth, whereas the latter analysis does not seek real truths but perspectives and ways of understanding. the stance of ‘radical relativism’ offered one way of resolving this issue where “inquiry is pursued with truth as a ‘regulated ideal’” (sandelowski, 2006, p. 13). however, this has proved highly challenging and the discursive influence within this review may have itself been subjugated by my own tendency towards a stance of empiricism. another possible limitation, from an empirical perspective, is that this meta-review is inevitably based on my interpretations of the primary authors’ interpretations (paterson et al., 2001). this will have been influenced by the popular discourses available to me as a british, white, middle-class, male, in the field of clinical psychology. however, from a discursive perspective this layering of constructions is an inherent and unavoidable part of undertaking a qualitative review. however, tracking the origin of interpretations proved difficult in these studies. this may have diluted the authenticity of original experience as sometimes it was unclear which interpretations were direct descriptions from participants and which were reflections on a series of ‘similar’ accounts from participants but made by the authors. i have attempted to address this through being transparent about whether quotes have come from participants or authors, however this is limited as the review only has scope to present some of the core evidence for each theme from the synthesis. notes 1) this paper uses ‘i’ as a first person singular to represent specifically the subjective position of leo russell as the lead researcher. 2) following the completion of this review, goldberg’s (2007) original dissertation has been published in an updated version of this work (goldberg, 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 402 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references alloy, l. b., abramson, l. y., neeren, a. m., walshaw, p. d., snezana, u., & nusslock, r. 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(1991). meta-theory, meta-method, meta-data-analysis: what, why, and how? sociological perspectives, 34(3), 377-390. doi:10.2307/1389517 about the authors leo russell is a principal clinical psychologist working for somerset partnership nhs foundation trust in adult mental health services. his research interests include the experience of service-users given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, working with males who suffer with eating difficulties, the use of positive psychology in the alleviation of emotional distress, and the clinical applications of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy. duncan moss is a senior lecturer on the clinical psychology programme at the university of plymouth, as well as a consultant and trainer in the areas of mindfulness meditation and reflective practice. his recent research interests have included a focus on exploring qualitatively the experience of ‘mindfulness’ meditation and looking at this in the context of broader reflective questioning of ‘research’ as discourse. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 385–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 russell & moss 405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2005.05.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1098-240x(199708)20:4<365::aid-nur9>3.0.co;2-e http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2007.08.022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870440008400302 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1389517 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 560_russell_deckblatt 560_russell_ex ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research introduction background aims method meta-review methodology selection of primary research results meta-data analysis meta-method: a methodological critique meta-theory discussion implications for clinical practice implications for further research limitations of review notes references about the authors north/south differences among italian emerging adults regarding criteria deemed important for adulthood and life satisfaction research reports north/south differences among italian emerging adults regarding criteria deemed important for adulthood and life satisfaction giovanni piumatti*ab, maria garroc, laura pipitonec, angela maria di vitac, emanuela rabagliettib [a] institute of social medicine, faculty of medicine, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. [b] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [c] department of psychology, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the main goal of this study was to compare northern and southern italian emerging adult university students, regarding the importance attributed to criteria for adulthood and the levels of life and education satisfaction. self-report questionnaires were filled by 475 northern and southern italian university students (age m = 22.91, 76% females, n = 359). multivariate analysis of variance revealed that southern emerging adults were more likely to place importance on family capacities, norm compliance, interdependence and role transitions as criteria for achieving adulthood than northern emerging adults. regarding gender differences, females were more likely to believe in the importance of norm compliance than males, while males were more likely to espouse the importance of legal transitions. finally, emerging adults from the north reported higher levels of life satisfaction than their southern counterparts. we interpreted these findings in light of socio-economical and gender socialization differences among northern and southern italian emerging adults. keywords: criteria for adulthood, education satisfaction, emerging adults, italy, life satisfaction, transition to adulthood europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 received: 2015-11-09. accepted: 2016-05-07. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi 10, 10124 torino (italy). tel.: +393335251387. e-mail: giovanni.piumatti@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the past, transition to adulthood in western cultures was marked by life events such as graduation, beginning a career and marriage (modell, furstenberg, & hershberg, 1976). nowadays, similarly to the rest of europe (eurostat, 2009), or the us and canada (arnett, ramos, & jensen, 2001; cheah, trinder, & gokavi, 2010), the mean age of first marriage for females in italy increased from approximately 24 in 1975 to 31 in 2011, and from 27 to 34 for males (istat, 2012). at the same time, each year, italian university students account for a good proportion of high school graduate students (istat, 2009), while youth unemployment (18-24) has recently reached a new all-time high of 41.2% (istat, 2014). in this current scenario, italian young adults have more time to experiment with different life possibilities and as a result experience an extended period of transition known as emerging adulthood (arnett & tanner, 2006). the construct of emerging adulthood is embedded in socio-cultural contexts that delay adult responsibilities, often through extended post-secondary education (arnett & galambos, 2003). this transition phase is shorter in cultures that encourage people to marry or make other life decisions, such as career choice, at a younger age (e.g., nelson, 2003; nelson, badger, &wu, 2004). on the contrary, in the absence of social safety valves, the transitions become europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ “a combined developmental undertaking” of parents and sons/daughters (scabini & cigoli, 2000, p. 142; cuconato, 2011). in particular, environments that have fewer career and educational options for emerging adults tend to give greater emphasis on family obligations, especially in strong collectivistic cultural contexts (fuligni & pedersen, 2002). in this sense, the north and the south of italy represent the opposite sides of a coin with regard to youth employability rates, higher education attainment, generational transitions and family formation process (istat, 2012). in the north, the higher youth employability and education attainment (especially among females) and a later transition to marriage with respect to the south, favor modern family behaviors (living alone before marriage, a large number of consensual unions) (avola, 2009; santarelli, 2011) and loose psychological and economical bonds with the family of origin at younger ages (piumatti, pipitone, di vita, latina, & rabaglietti, 2014). instead, in the south of italy, family represents not only the sphere of affections but also a safety valve, the “undisputed and beloved cradle of new generations” (bava, 2010, p. 92), a stronger institution than those in which other italian young people live. thus, emerging adults from the north of italy might experience this transition differently than emerging adults from the south on the basis of context-related circumstances regarding specific modes of family functioning and different socio-economical opportunities (scabini, regalia, & giuliani, 2007). these existing differences between the north and the south of italy can be outlined in the contraposition between individualistic and collectivistic societies’ values. the terms individualism and collectivism have been used to refer to value systems existing within and across cultural or national groups (rothbaum & trommsdorff, 2007). more specifically, according to triandis (1995), individualism is a social pattern that consists of loosely linked individuals who view themselves as independent of collectives and who give priority to their personal goals over the goals of others. on the other hand, collectivism is a social pattern consisting of closely linked individuals who see themselves as part of one or more collectives (family, coworkers, nation) and are willing to give priority to the goals of these collectives over their own personal goals (triandis, 1995). this conceptual and cultural framework has also been adopted to describe different traditions of transmission of norms and values from parents to children (e.g., tamis-lemonda et al., 2008). thus, reading from the research literature on individualism vs. collectivism, we can argue how in the north of italy family efforts may be especially centered on the realization of the individual in the society, reflecting parents’ beliefs about personal choice, intrinsic motivation, self-esteem and self-maximization as the fundamental requirements for children’s successful achievement of autonomy (walsh, 2012). conversely, in contexts such as the south of italy, parents may give greater emphasis to the promotion of relatedness and interdependence in their children, promoting in them values related to connection to close relationships, orientation to the larger community, respect and obedience of cultural and societal norms (triandis, 1995). despite all these contrapositions between northern and southern italy, there is little research on potential differences in the development of emerging adults from these two regional areas. in addition, although numerous studies in north (e.g., nelson & barry, 2005; cheah et al., 2010), and south (e.g., facio, resett, micocci, & mistrorigo, 2007) america as well as in north (kins & beyers, 2010) and west (nelson, 2009) europe have examined the criteria emerging adults (aged 18 to 28) consider important to achieve adulthood, less work has been done to examine what criteria are considered important to achieve adulthood among emerging adults in southern european countries such as italy (crocetti et al., 2015; petrogiannis, 2011). accordingly, this study examined potential north/south differences among emerging italian adults university students in significant developmental tasks as reflected in their beliefs about the criteria for adulthood, life, and educational track satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 north/south differences among italian emerging adults 272 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criteria for adulthood according to arnett (2001) – from a subjective point of view – adulthood is much more strongly defined by young people’s growing tendency to take responsibility for one’s actions, the capacity to accept family responsibilities and compliance with social norms. the endorsement of these and other criteria (e.g., going through legal and biological transitions involving age boundaries and physical growth respectively) among emerging adults would ideally describe a person who is facing the responsibilities of adult life. in particular, researchers (see arnett, 2003) have documented that contemporary emerging adults, consistently across cultures, tend to view the following four major criteria as necessary and important for adulthood: (1) being independent and self-reliant; (2) being able to form mature relationships; (3) being able to comply with societal norms; and (4) being able to provide and care for a family. thus, following the theory of emerging adulthood, positively adjusted emerging adults are in the process of becoming less self-oriented and ready to commit themselves to enduring relationships with others by showing a predisposition to be involved in relations and maintaining a strong focus on their actions and goals (e.g., arnett, 2003; isaacs, soglian, & hoffman, 2015; nelson & padilla-walker, 2013). the transition towards the endorsement of other-related criteria for adulthood would take place with ageing, earlier for females than for males, and with the increasing experiencing of independent living conditions, a certain degree of economic self-subsistence and long term relationships (e.g., cheah, trinder, & gokavi, 2010; kins & beyers, 2010; lanz & tagliabue, 2007; nelson & barry, 2005; piumatti, giannotta, roggero, & rabaglietti, 2013). concurrently, mainly transition-linked increases (e.g., leaving the parental home, finishing education, getting a job) may contribute to the endorsement of certain criteria (e.g., family responsibilities when getting married, interdependence when starting a new relationship, independence when getting a job) and accompany increases in psychological well-being such as positive life-satisfaction (galambos, barker, & krahn, 2006; galambos & krahn, 2008; kins & beyers, 2010). similarly to emerging adults in the united states, argentina, austria, greece and australia (facio et al., 2007; nelson & barry, 2005; petrogiannis, 2011; sirsch, dreher, mayr, & willinger, 2009; weier & lee, 2015), italian emerging adults have showed high levels of consent regarding the defining features for adulthood as described above (piumatti & rabaglietti, 2015). they seem to embrace the individualism of the western, north-european and american culture, and at the same time to reflect the more traditional cultural values of family obligations and consideration for others. such results evidence that different cultures share a common view regarding the markers of adulthood. nevertheless, these criteria also consistently appeared to vary according to group values, ideologies and socio-cultural environments, even within western societies (e.g., arnett, 2003; arnett & galambos, 2003). in sum, while the attention toward these criteria recur among emerging adults in many nations and cultures, sociopolitical and economic characteristics of a country as well as cultural beliefs and norms about social relationships may affect the importance addressed to specific criteria in any given context. however, one socio-cultural comparison that has received little attention is between emerging adults from different socio-economical contexts within the same country, such as the north and the south of italy. as subsequently discussed, different regional experiences regarding economical and available working opportunities within the same cultural context may lead to different attitudes with regard to emerging adulthood concerns. north/south differences it has been previously noticed how emerging adults from the north of italy gave particularly high importance to aspects of personal and professional growth (e.g., scopesi & bertani, 2003). in fact, they seemed more oriented to fulfill themselves in the profession for which they studied and to focus their attention more on individualistic goals such as self-realization at work rather than giving more weight to personal relationships. accordingly, by europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 piumatti, garro, pipitone et al. 273 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the means of satisfaction regarding life and study choice, young adults from the north have reported in previous studies (amerio, 2010) to appreciate their post-secondary study choices and to positively evaluate the fulfillment of future career plans. moreover, it would seem that northern italian young adults continue living with their parents until they have reached a stable position in the job market and a satisfactory economic independence (alfieri, sironi, marta, rosina, & marzana, 2015; briulotta, 2009). nonetheless, they also tended to value issues related to family life, love and friendship, confirming a “growing tendency toward the areas of restricted social relationships” (de lillo, 2007, p. 140). indeed, it is important to point out that the support received from the family of origin is a significant aspect also in the north of italy (piumatti et al., 2014). in addition, as noticed by paleari, rosnati, and lanz (2002) in a study conducted on entire family nuclei from the north (i.e., including immediate and extended family members), the support received from one’s family played an essential role in the psychological well-being of young adults. when facing a stagnant job market, young people especially in search of their first occupation are obliged to rely upon the support of their family or on their partner, with the risk of perpetuating social and economic inequalities. at this regard, palidda (2002) stated that most italian young southern residents consider young adulthood as an uncertain season in which to have low-qualified, badly paid and irregular job experiences. without concrete forms of support from their families young people are thus forced to curtail their aspirations or to postpone them instead of nurturing the hope to fulfill their future plans. in order to express a positive attitude toward their future independent lives, emerging adults from the south of italy have to leave behind part of their perception of being dependent on the support they receive in their parents’ household. as they find difficulties in moving forward along their pathway toward adulthood, they may keep investing more energy in strengthening those parts of their lives where they receive the greatest amount of support for their activities. in the case of southern italian emerging adults, this seems to be their families (inguglia, ingoglia, liga, coco, & cricchio, 2015). moreover, reading from musumeci (2009), for graduates from the south it is more complicated to plan and express preferences for a particular profession (and therefore appreciation for a university course that may lead to a specific type of profession) because the reality of a stagnant job market forces them to adapt to and accept whatever job they may find. in this socioeconomic climate, the family of origin represents one of the few certainties on which to base one’s everyday life and value system. more specifically, the role of the family is determinant for finishing education and subsequently finding a suitable job. in addition, for young adults from the south, investing in family relationships represents a resource for facing the dissatisfaction that the sphere of work may procure. in this way, the life of a couple and the investment in the relationship may allow young people from the south to compensate for occupational and economic instability (musumeci, 2009). overall, the striking differences in experiencing the transition to adulthood whether one is living in the north or in the south of italy have been previously documented by looking at individual psychological outcomes such as wellbeing, feelings of fulfillment in life or perceived support (see piumatti et al., 2014). drawing from such conclusions and in light of the still existing inequalities within the italian context, the current study aimed at further investigating how the perceptions of the criteria for adulthood may differ between northern and southern italian young adults. aims and hypotheses the main goal of this study was to compare northern and southern italian emerging adult university students, regarding the importance attributed to criteria for adulthood and the levels of life and education satisfaction. despite the merely descriptive nature of the study, and the fact that no previous research has examined the differences between emerging adults from the north and the south of italy specifically regarding their endorsement of the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 north/south differences among italian emerging adults 274 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criteria for adulthood, building upon the features of this time period as proposed in arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood we formulated the following hypotheses: (1) first, we predicted that italian emerging adults from the south would place more importance on interdependence, family capacities and more traditional and externally identified criteria (e.g., role transition) as important markers of adulthood, than their peers from the north; (2) second, as suggested by previous research (ciairano, rabaglietti, roggero, & callari, 2010; piumatti et al., 2014), we expected the latter to report higher levels of satisfaction in life also with regard to their post-secondary educational track than the former. moreover, a complementary goal of this study was to investigate gender-related differences in endorsement of adulthood criteria among italian emerging adults. accordingly, reading from past research (gilligan, 1982; josselson, 1996; mayseless & scharf, 2003; montgomery, 2005), socialization that emphasizes certain criteria for either men or womenmay lead to gender differences in criteria for adulthood, we further hypothesized that female participants would bemore oriented towards the consolidation of the relationships otheroriented than male participants and to place greater importance on criteria regarding interdependence and family capacities as well as norm compliance. method participants the sample used in the current study consisted of 475 italian native graduate and undergraduate university students (76% females, n = 359) recruited from the university of turin in piedmont a north-western region of italy and the university of palermo in the southern region of sicily. both universities are public institutions. the criteria to include participants in this research was age, in a range of 18 to 30 years old, the condition of university student at the time of data collection, and being born in the same macro-region where the university was located (i.e., north or south of italy). the mean age of the entire sample was 22.91 years (sd = 2.71; age ranged from 18 to 30). northern participants came from families where 44% of mothers and 55% of fathers had obtained at least a diploma of secondary education (high school or professional school diploma), compared to 44% of mothers and 47% of fathers of southern participants. all participants were unmarried and childless. most participants came frommiddle class families, with 56% of northern participants and 59% of southern participants considering the general economical conditions of their families of origin as belonging to the national average. procedure participants were recruited through an announcement of the study in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. they completed a questionnaire via the internet. informed consent was obtained online, and only after consent was given could the participants begin the questionnaires. the computer-administered questionnaire took approximately 30 minutes to complete at which point the purpose of the study and expected results were provided to the participants. the italian versions of the scales included in the questionnaire were created by translating and back translating them by english native speakers. measures importance of criteria for adulthood participants rated the importance of 36 criteria for adulthood (e.g., arnett, 1998, 2003) on their degree of importance on a scale of 1 (not at all important) through 4 (very important). based on previous research (e.g., arnett, 2001, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 piumatti, garro, pipitone et al. 275 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2003), the criteria were then grouped into six categories including interdependence (5 items; e.g., “committed to long-term love relationship”), role transitions (6 items; e.g., “have at least one child”), norm compliance (8 items; e.g., “avoid becoming drunk”), age/biological transitions (4 items; e.g., “grow to full height”), legal transitions (6 items; e.g., “have obtained license and can drive an automobile”) and family capacities (8 items; e.g., “become capable of caring for children”). the organization of the subscales was obtained through a theory based approach rather than by a quantitative statistical approach such as factor analysis (arnett, 2001). specifically, the items of the family capacities subscale were all drawn from the anthropological literature, which has identified genderspecific criteria used in many traditional cultures as criteria for the transition to adulthood (gilmore, 1996). similarly, the items on the role transitions subscale were drawn from sociological literature, which has long used a series of specific role transitions as the defining criteria for the transition to adulthood (goldscheider & goldscheider, 1999; hogan & astone, 1986). the analysis of internal consistency pointed out that subscales’ alpha levels in our sample were considerably better than in previous studies (e.g., arnett, 2003; nelson & barry, 2005; sirsch et al., 2009): interdependence, cronbach’s α = .60; role transitions, α = .82; norm compliance, α = .84; age/biological transitions, α = .71; legal transitions, α = .82; family capacities, α = .89. indeed, results of reliability analyses on these subscales have always been moderate or low in past researches (e.g., arnett, 2003; nelson & barry, 2005). nevertheless, these measures have been used in a variety of previous studies (e.g., arnett, 2003; nelson, 2009) indicating how researchers agree upon the fact that although statistical evidence for arnett’s conceptual model of criteria for adulthood might lack, this model shows high face validity (e.g., barker & galambos, 2005). thus, we considered our reliability results as acceptable. life satisfaction life satisfaction (α = .70) was assessed with an adaptation of the five-item satisfaction with life scale (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). the items (e.g., “i am satisfied with my life”, “in most ways my life is close to my ideal”) were rated on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (i totally disagree) to 4 (i totally agree). education satisfaction adolescents’ school satisfaction after the transition to post-comprehensive schooling (α = .73) was measured by the four-item satisfaction with educational track scale (nurmi, niemivirta, & salmela-aro, 2003). the items (e.g., “how satisfied are you with your educational track?”, “do you enjoy going to school?”) were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). results data analysis before proceeding to analyze the data, all the scores for the items for each subscale were examined for the accuracy of data entry, detecting and replacing missing values, identifying univariate and multivariate outliers. we also examined the data for detecting multicollinearity and non-normal distribution among dependent variables. the main analyses consisted in multivariate analysis of variance (manova) and post-hoc univariate analyses of variance (anova) were carried out to look at differences in importance addressed to the criteria for adulthood, life satisfaction and education satisfaction depending on participants’ provenience (north vs. south) and gender. in accordance with cramer and bock (1966), manova was first performed on the means for each criterion’s category to help protect against inflating the type 1 error rate in the follow-up anovas and post-hoc comparisons. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 north/south differences among italian emerging adults 276 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, prior to conducting the manovas, a series of pearson correlations were performed between all of the dependent variables in order to test the manova assumption that the dependent variables would be correlated with each other in the moderate range (i.e., .20 .60; meyers, gamst, & guarino, 2006). preliminary analysis no transformation of the distributions was found that can accommodate the model well. we considered acceptable values of skewness and curtosis between -1 and 1 (see muthén & kaplan, 1992). according to these general principles, the assumption of the normality of the distribution for the variables of our study was met, with values of skewness and curtosis ranging respectively from -.68 to .45 and from -.71 to .70. given the significant low rates of missing values on each item of the scales (less than 3%), the expectation-maximization algorithm was used for data imputation, a robust method to obtain maximum likelihood estimates (schafer, 1997). this decision was also made as no systematic correlation was detected between these missing values and the scores of other variables among these subjects (r < |.20|) (see raaijmakers, 1999). prior to the analysis, data were carefully examined for univariate outliers (classified as scores more than three standard deviations above or below the mean; see hoaglin & iglewicz, 1987). accordingly, no case was excluded from further analysis. as can be seen in table 1, a meaningful pattern of correlations was observed amongst most of the dependent variables, suggesting the appropriateness of manovas. these preliminary results should not indicate any problems in terms of dependent variables’ multicollinearity (field, 2009). additionally, the box’s m values of 92.82 and 14.41 were associated with a p value respectively of .02 and .11, which was interpreted as non-significant based on huberty and petoskey’s (2000) guideline (i.e., p < .005). therefore, the covariance matrices between the groups were assumed to be equal for the purposes of the manovas. correlations among subscales regarding criteria for adulthood were small to moderate in magnitude (ranging from r = .20, p < .01 to r = .60, p < .01) confirming that these domains in which adult status is expected to be demonstrated, reflect different facets or markers of adulthood. similar results were obtained in previous studies (e.g., piumatti et al., 2013; petrogiannis, 2011). the correlation between life satisfaction and education satisfaction was equal to .22, p < .01, confirming that these constructs were describing different facets of satisfaction. table 1 bivariate correlations among psychological study variables sdm7654321measure criteria for adulthood .533.27-1. family capacities .593.13-2. norm compliance .42* .463.01-3. interdependence .41*.47* .702.43-4. age/biological transitions .41*.28*.43* .682.80-5. role transitions .45*.44*.41*.49* .691.96-6. legal transitions .37*.60*.37*.20*.26** satisfaction .602.99-7. life satisfaction .06.06.12*.02.05.03 .673.668. education satisfaction .22*.02-.03.04-.19*.13*.01 *p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 piumatti, garro, pipitone et al. 277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results of manova and anovas two manovas were conducted to determine whether importance addressed to the criteria for adulthood and life satisfaction and education satisfaction differed as a function of sub-group membership (north vs. south) and gender. prior to this, t-test for independent samples and χ2-tests reported that the two sub-groups did not differ according to age and gender compositions. the first manova consisted of emerging adults’ ratings of the importance of criteria for adulthood (family capacities, norm compliance, interdependence, age/biological transitions, role transitions, legal transitions). to evaluate magnitudes of effect sizes we adopted cohen’s (1988) general guidelines (.01 = small, .06 = medium, .14 = large). results revealed a significant main effect of gender, pillais’ trace = .08, f(6, 465) = 6.77, p < .001, partial η2 = .08, and sub-group membership, pillais’ trace = .08, f(6, 465) = 7.13, p < .001, partial η2 = .08. according to these results of multivariate effect sizes, both gender and sub-group membership respectively explained 8% of the variance in the canonically derived dependent variable. prior to conducting a series of follow-up anovas, the homogeneity of variance assumption was tested for all the subscales. based on a series of levene’s f tests, the homogeneity of variance assumption was considered satisfactory. a series of one-way anova’s on each of the six dependent variables was conducted as a follow-up test to the manova. results determined that female participants (m = 3.17, sd = .57) placed greater value on norm compliance as a criterion for adulthood than males (m = 2.99, sd = .61). on the contrary, male participants (m = 2.19, sd = .74) were more likely to rate legal transition important for achieving adulthood than females (m = 1.88, sd = .65). southern participants emphasized the following criteria for adulthood more than the northern participants: family capacities, (south: m = 3.35, sd = .52; north: m = 3.22, sd = .53), norm compliance, (m = 3.31, sd = .53; m = 3.01, sd = .59), interdependence, (m = 3.07, sd =.45; m = 2.98, sd = .46), and role transitions, (m = 2.97, sd = .62; m = 2.97, sd = .62) (see table 2). table 2 one-way anovas with criteria for adulthood, life satisfaction and educational track satisfaction as dependent variables and sub-group membership as independent variable southnorthanovaslevene’s dependent variable sdmsdmη2pfpf criteria for adulthood .523.35.523.20.005.007.771family capacities .407.09 .533.31.593.01.045.000.142norm compliance .6929.162 .453.07.462.98.007.027.460interdependence .914.55 .702.43.702.43.001.959.777age/biological transitions .01.08 .622.97.692.70.034.000.160role transitions .9119.845 .691.97.691.96.003.959.195legal transitions .01.571 satisfaction .612.90.583.05.011.008.566life satisfaction .067.33 .613.70.713.63.003.268.381education satisfaction .221.031 note. n = 475; η2 = partial eta squared. the second manova consisted of emerging adults’ reports on life and educational track satisfaction. results revealed a significant main effect of sub-group membership, pillais’ trace = .02, f(2, 469) = 4.35, p < .05; partial η2 = .02, implying that 2% of the variance in the canonically derived dependent variable was accounted for by sub-group membership. also in this case, based on a series of levene’s f tests, the homogeneity of variance europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 north/south differences among italian emerging adults 278 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assumption was considered satisfied. no interaction effects were found to be significant. based on anovas post hoc analyses, it was determined that northern participants (m = 3.05, sd = .58) reported higher levels of life satisfaction than southern participants (m = 2.90, sd = .61) (see table 2). discussion we hypothesized that (1) emerging adults from the south of italy would placemore importance on interdependence, family capacities and more traditional and externally identified criteria (e.g., role transition) as important markers of adulthood, than their peers from the north; that (2) emerging adults from the north would report higher levels of satisfaction in life also with regard to their post-secondary educational track than their peers from the south; and that (3) females would be more oriented towards the consolidation of other-oriented relationships than males and would place greater importance on criteria regarding interdependence and family capacities as well as norm compliance. in sum, all our hypotheses were confirmed by our results, given the exception of the north/south difference regarding educational track satisfaction that was similar across groups. at this stage of their lives, northern and southern italian emerging adults attending university may indeed equally place hope on the fact that trough achievements in higher education they can fulfill their future aspirations. accordingly, they exhibit high levels of satisfaction for the education track they choose to pursue. north/south differences as expected, traditional and external markers such as transitional events and roles including being married or settling into a long-term career were considered as more important indicators of adulthood among emerging adults from the south, which may reflect a more conventional socialization regarding what it means to be an adult (arnett, 2001). the ages of marriage and childbearing among emerging adults in the south are lower than that found in the north, and are more likely viewed as important role transitions. similarly, southern emerging adults were also more likely to endorse family capacities, norm compliance and interdependence markers as important for having achieved adulthood. overall, these results confirm our hypotheses of deep differentiations between northern and southern italian emerging adults in the way that they perceive and depict adulthood. the former appear to embody a more individualistic approach to this transition phase and perhaps are more focused on self-related goals such as the acquisition of individual practical skills. comparatively, the latter evidence a marked predisposition towards multiple collectivistic facets of adulthood, regarding both personal relationships (e.g., committing to long term relationships, getting married, maintaining good relationships with parents) and respecting societal norms and values (avoid the use of alcohol and drugs). however, in line with our hypotheses, emerging adults from the north reported being more satisfied with their lives in relation with their southern peers. thus, despite the fact that in the south emerging adults seem to embrace the values and criteria for adulthood sooner than in the north, this condition does not imply they are also exhibiting higher levels of well-being. at this stage, other individual differences may count, for example reaching economic independence or better professional future perspectives. overall, we can read that among young southern adults there is a stronger appreciation of family and relationship values in light of their necessity to rely more on the informal, but functional, supporting network of family and relatives in the areas of work and education (palidda, 2009). in addition, given that most young adults have high expectations to find a steady job and reach economic stability (salmela-aro & tynkkynen, 2010) in contexts where it turns out to be more difficult to settle or to emancipate themselves from the family of origin, young adults may negatively suffer the impossibility to contribute to the economy of the household they share with their parents (manacorda & moretti, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 piumatti, garro, pipitone et al. 279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2006). a condition that could in turn represent a source of perceived stress for all family members as it precludes chances of future emancipation and realization of personal goals (togliatti, 1996). instead, young adults from the north of italy may envision their future in a more individualistic way, accepting to be either fully or partially beholden to their parents for receiving the support they need while they complete their education and build their position in the labour market (berlin, furstenberg, & waters, 2010). in sum, such results are aligned with previous research that highlighted how among emerging adults different perceptions of what are the important criteria for reaching adulthood can be explained by individualistic or collectivistic societies’ values (badger, nelson, & barry, 2006). gender differences the socialization explanation for the endorsement of criteria for adulthood seems to hold also with regard to gender differences found in this study. in fact, as expected, females reported a stronger inclination towards otherrelated criteria than males, namely complying with societal rules and norms. on the other hand, males gave more importance to the freedom and allowance of certain habits such as smoking and drinking. as noted previously, because of the competition to complete education and find a job, young men especially may be at risk of a period of emerging adulthood and adulthood filled with problematic behaviors (nelson, duan, padilla-walker, & luster, 2013; wilsnack, vogeltanz, wilsnack, & harris, 2000). instead, other-related criteria such as norm compliance are more relevant for young women in particular during the age period of emerging adulthood, in which they start to consider the possibility of forming a family sooner than their male counterparts (cinamon & rich, 2014). limitations and implications for future research this study was not without limitations. as noted previously, the descriptive nature of the analyses precludes causal inferences. specifically, longitudinal studies will evidence how in correspondence with crucial life events (e.g., leaving the parental home, getting married, starting a new job) emerging adults from the north and the south of italy will direct their individual transitions’ trajectories regarding adulthood’s self-perception and well-being. another limitation is that participants included only university students. more research is needed to increase knowledge about individual differences in young people who do not attend university after high school, especially on issues related to criteria for adulthood, attitudes and beliefs about marriage and family life and identity formation. finally, future work will need to include other important characteristics for this age period of transition – whether behavioral, relational, or intrapersonal – that might contribute to define context related features of the transition to adulthood. despite these weaknesses, findings from this study may have implications for future research. in particular, the specific effects of discrepancies between parents and emerging adults on the criteria deemed necessary for adulthood should be examined both in the north and the south of italy. in fact, research suggests that family conflict increases when young people do not conform with parental expectations for adulthood (roest, dubas, gerris, & engels, 2009; schnaiberg & goldenberg, 1989) and decreases as young people achieve child-endorsed criteria for adulthood (shulman & ben-artzi, 2003). furthermore, research has shown that the historically rooted industrial versus agriculture orientation of the north and south of italy, relates to the psychology of caregivers and to their socialization attitudes and behaviors (barni, alfieri, marta, & rosnati, 2013; bornstein, 1994; bornstein, venuti, & hahn, 2002; hoff, laursen, & tardif, 2002) and that italian’s living in these two different regions tend to differ in their general feelings towards family and society. therefore, in the contexts where the new timetable for adulthood has created a stronger sense of entitlement and a lingering pattern of dependency to the family of origin, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 north/south differences among italian emerging adults 280 http://www.psychopen.eu/ differences in parent–child values regarding criteria for adulthood may result in an increase in parent–child conflict during the emerging adult years (berlin, furstenberg, & waters, 2010; zarit & eggebeen, 2002). conclusions despite the limitations, this study makes several unique contributions. most notably, it is the first study that examines criteria for adulthood comparing participants from the north and the south of italy. thus, the findings provide a significant contribution to our understanding of how emerging adulthood may be structured differently in different socio-economical contexts present within the same national and cultural setting. in particular, it contributes to stress out how actual is from a developmental perspective the topic of identity formation during the transition to adulthood, giving credit once again to the theory of emerging adulthood as it has been elaborated by arnett (2001). the contraposition between northern and southern italian emerging adults is in fact a discrepancy between different ways of coping with adverse economical and structural conditions that are transversally present in italy although with local specificities. such conditions are very much similar to those experienced by young adults in other european countries where the backlashes of the economic crisis are still evident. at this regard, in order for us to understand from a psychological point of view how individuals go through these delicate periods of transitions, such as the one from education to work, and face challenges and opportunities in their environments at a large, the inclusion of context-related variables is fundamental. in this way we will grow our knowledge about positive and less positive young adults’ developmental pathways in terms of self-perceived well-being and identity construction. moreover, we may further contribute to shed light on the determinants of personal decisions regarding family formation processes, living habits and even migrations during this age period. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alfieri, s., sironi, e., marta, e., rosina, a., & marzana, d. 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(2002). parent-child relationships in adulthood and old age. in m. h. bornstein (ed.), handbook of parenting (2nd ed., pp. 135-164). mahwah, nj, usa: lawrence erlbaum. about the authors giovanni piumatti, phd, is a postdoctoral research fellow in developmental psychology and public health at the university of turin and at the university of belgrade. maria garro, phd, is a researcher in social psychology at the university of palermo. laura pipitone, ms, is a professional psychologist. angela maria di vita, phd, is a retired full professor in dynamic psychology at the university of palermo. emanuela rabaglietti, phd, is a professor in developmental psychology at the university of turin. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 271–287 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 piumatti, garro, pipitone et al. 287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1046%2fj.1360-0443.2000.95225112.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en north/south differences among italian emerging adults (introduction) criteria for adulthood north/south differences aims and hypotheses method participants procedure measures results data analysis preliminary analysis results of manova and anovas discussion north/south differences gender differences limitations and implications for future research conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a cross-sectional survey study about the most common solitary and social flow activities to extend the concept of optimal experience research reports across-sectional survey studyabout themost commonsolitary and social flow activities to extend the concept of optimal experience tímea magyaródi*a, attila oláha [a] department of personality and health psychology, institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract previous assumptions note that the most powerful experiences of engagement are shared with others. therefore, in the framework of positive psychology, to expand the dynamic interactionism-related flow theory, we have attempted to conduct an exploratory study about flow to reveal the most common activities that can trigger this experience during solitary or social situations. the study involved 1,709 adult participants from hungary (age: m = 26.95, sd = 11.23). they read descriptions about optimal experience in solitary and social situations and were asked to identify the activity from their life that is most typically followed by the described experiences. the social context was supplemented by other flow-related questions for a deeper understanding and to contribute to the research. according to the results the most typical solitary flow activities are found to be work, sports, creative activities and reading. the most common flow-inducing social activities are work and sports. the choice of the most frequent flow-inducing activities in both solitary and interpersonal situations is dependent on the gender of the respondent, and various demographical factors can influence the frequency of flow experiences in different contexts. analysis reveal that optimal experience during a social interaction is determined by the perceived level of challenges, the perceived level of cooperation, the immediateness and clarity of the feedback, and the level of the skill. our study may contribute to the broadening purpose of positive psychology as it focuses on the interpersonal level in relation to flow experience, which, in turn, may also support a higher level of well-being. keywords: solitary, social, flow, interactionism, demographic, induction, activity europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 received: 2014-09-18. accepted: 2015-09-09. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of personality and health psychology, institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university, 46 izabella street, budapest 1064, hungary. phone: +3614614500/5624; fax: +3614612695. e-mail: magyarodi.timea@ppk.elte.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction positive psychology, a science of the new millennium, aims to investigate positive experiences and personality factors that are embedded in social contexts (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). with regard to the effort on the part of positive psychology to not only establish research at the individual level, but also check the path towards well-being and growth at dyadic and group levels (sheldon, kashdan, & steger, 2011), the main task of the present paper is to focus on the social level of positive experiences, highlighting csikszentmihalyi’s flow concept (1990) in a social environment. when a person is totally involved in the perceived challenges of the activity at hand, his behavior becomes almost automatic as he enters the flow zone. the state of flow is universal and can be experienced in several situations (csikszentmihalyi, 1990) in everyday life. since csikszentmihalyi presented his flow theory in 1975, several research studies were published dealing with different activities in which people can exeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ perience flow (e.g., flow at school: rogatko, 2009; shernoff, csikszentmihalyi, shneider, & shernoff, 2003; at work: bakker, 2008; fullagar & kelloway, 2009; in sports: jackson, thomas, marsh, & smethurst, 2001). our work presents a description of the prevalence of activities that can induce flow in both solitary and social situations in everyday life, using a survey technique with a cross-sectional design, toward the exploratory study of the special flow-inducing acts and their characteristics in interpersonal contexts. when someone is fully engaged in a challenging task, the basic conditions of being able to enter the flow zone are satisfied (csikszentmihalyi, abuhamdeh, & nakamura, 2005). first, the individual should set clear, proximal goals (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002) that indicate the direction and aim of the activity. second, this task needs to be challenging, so that it can be performed by someone with high skills, and there is a balance between the perceived challenges and perceived skills (csikszentmihalyi et al., 2005). the third condition of flow is the presence of the clear and immediate feedback that addresses the changing environmental demands and the progress of the person in this context (csikszentmihalyi et al., 2005). when a person is already in the flow zone, some characteristics can describe the dynamics of flow (optimal) experience (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002): intense and focused attention on the activity; loss of reflective self-consciousness; a sense of control over actions; distortion of temporal perception; and viewing of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. therefore, one of the consequences of being in the flow zone during an activity is the desire to repeat it and find new challenges to overcome. as noted earlier, research has shown that several types of activities can satisfy the conditions of flow (e.g., rogatko, 2009; shernoff et al., 2003). csikszentmihalyi (1990) states that regardless of culture, social class, age, and gender, flow is described to have the same characteristics. although the experience of flow may seem to be a universal phenomenon (massimini & delle fave, 2000), some factors can vary the experience of flow in different groups. for instance, the findings of heo, lee, pedersen, and mccormick (2010) suggest that retirement status and location can contribute to the flow experience of elderly people. according to mannell, zuzanek, and larson (1988), canadian retirees felt flow mostly during activities chosen freely by them. some studies that identify the most common flow-inducing activities (csikszentmihalyi, 1998) mainly used experience-sampling methods (esm, hektner, schmidt, & csikszentmihalyi, 2007). it was found that among representative adults and teenagers, flow is common during work, studying, driving or transportation, talking, socializing, and sex, and it is the most typical quality of the experience while practicing hobbies, playing sports, and watching movies. among leisure activities, games, sports, and other hobbies induced flow the most, according to u.s. teenagers (csikszentmihalyi, 1998). we should highlight the potential importance of a study that aims to reveal the most common flow-inducing activities, both in solitary and in social contexts, as mostly interview-based (csikszentmihalyi & csikszentmihalyi, 1988), and esm-based studies have been carried out with regard to this question until now. in these esm-based studies, participants were asked about the quality of the experiences in terms of the different flow and anti-flow channels (csikszentmihalyi, 1990). the esm approach is illustrated by csikszentmihalyi and lefevre’s (1989) study, in which a majority of adults reported flow experiences during work and not during leisure activities (in this research, the biggest components of leisure activities were watching television and reading). flow is said to be universal (csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and we can also label it as being non-specific. the nature of the experience is the same, but the activity that can trigger it may differ among cultures, sub-cultures, groups, ages, or genders. it was found (hektner et al., 2007) that managers and engineers experience flow during their europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 633 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work more often than other workers. from a cultural perspective, according to a study, u.s. adolescents have a more optimal experience while studying than their italian peers (hektner et al., 2007). moreno murcia, cervelló gimeno, and gonzález-cutre coll (2008) found no meaningful differences between male and female adolescents in terms of general dispositional flow, but some results strengthen the hypothesis that activities which enhance flow may differ for males and females. for example, csikszentmihalyi and schneider (2000) found that girls achieve higher levels of flow during classroom activities than boys. it was revealed that women report more microflow experiences (allison & duncan, 1988) in everyday activities. in conclusion, flow experience has been studied mainly in solitary situations, as it is a subjective state of being completely involved in an activity (csikszentmihalyi et al., 2005). flow theory is strongly related to the concept of dynamic interactionism (magnusson & stattin, 1998), as the behavior is the result of persistent and bilateral interaction between the individual and the situation (reynolds et al., 2010). during the experience, the person and the context compose a dynamic system (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002), as the person tackles the challenges raised by the task in the environment, improving skills supported by feedback, and going toward the goal and reaching the optimal level of experience. the experience of flow is supported by emerging motivation as, during the activity, a growing level of challenges meeting a growing level of skills. this results in open-ended rewards that enable the person to find more challenges in order to stay in the zone (csikszentmihalyi & rathunde, 1993). there are several studies using esm and interview techniques (csikszentmihalyi & csikszentmihalyi, 1988) that strengthen the idea that social activities can also be the source of flow activities (hektner et al., 2007). during these interpersonal activities, the other person, as part of the environment, can support the maintenance of flow. csikszentmihalyi and csikszentmihalyi (1988) propose the concept of shared flow, a phenomenon in which the other person can be the source of the challenge or the feedback about the performance. there have been several remarkable hypothetical suggestions that describe the common flow experience, but these have not yet been confirmed by evidence-based studies (shared flow by csikszentmihalyi & csikszentmihalyi, 1988; relational flow by moore, drake, tschannen-moran, campone, & kauffman, 2005; group flow by sawyer, 2007; social flow by walker, 2010; networked flow by gaggioli, milani, mazzoni, & riva, 2011). csikszentmihalyi (1998) observes that talking, socializing, and sex can also be sources of optimal experience. therefore, it is important to identify the various types of interpersonal activities that can support flow and its synchronization and then to understand the characteristics of these experiences. in this paper, we aim to present the most common flow-inducing activities in solitary and social situations, as reported by the subjects. previously in flow research, social contexts were studied as just one source of the optimal experience; the focus was mainly on the individuals (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002) while extended questions were not analyzed. the use of the survey approach in flow research is appropriate when the aim is the measurement of flow dimensions or the exploration of differences in the occurrence of optimal experience between situations (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). as our main goal was to identify the most typical solitary and social flow activities, to measure the effect of demographic variables such as age, gender, and educational level on the frequency of the experienced flow in different contexts, and to compare our conclusions with the results of previous research, we carried out an exploratory cross-sectional study using the survey method on a bigger sample. another aim of this study is to broaden flow research with a social perspective by highlighting the special characteristics of the most frequently reported flow-inducing activities in interpersonal situations. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 634 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants a total of 1709 adult participants (nfemale = 1114; nmale = 595) took part in the study. they were recruited through a non-probability convenient sampling procedure. participation was voluntary and anonymous, no incentives were offered to the subjects. the mean age of the sample was 26.95 (sd = 11.23). table 1 specifies the demographic characteristics of the participants. table 1 demographic characteristics of the participants (n = 1709) %characteristic gender male .8034 female .2065 residence capital city .6038 city, town .6022 village .7027 abroad .0011 relationship status single .1044 in a relationship .9055 education elementary .603 secondary .7063 higher .8032 materials after answering the demographic questions (gender, age, residence, relationship status, and education level), participants were asked to fill in an online questionnaire about their flow experiences in a solitary and a social context. general flow description (gfd) — this item was used to introduce the participants to the nature of flow. this material was based on jackson and roberts’ (1992) general flow index. the description reads: people often report that they are going through a positive experience, when their attention to the task ahead of them is totally engaged and they are completely preoccupied in what they're doing. in a moment like this, they are just concentrating on the activity, which is being done by themselves. in this case, they feel they cannot escape from the actual task, and they may forget about eating or other obligations. they are so involved that other things are ignored; other feelings, problems, and tasks are forgotten. however, they are progressing well in the activity, they do not experience fatigue, and they do not think that the activity is demanding. the time spent doing the task passes in an almost unnoticed way. they know exactly europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 635 http://www.psychopen.eu/ what their purpose is and they progress towards their goals. looking back on the experience, they can feel that they have developed themselves during the activity. activities like these are good to do just for the sake of the experience. after reading the description, the participants answered questions about the frequency of the described experience in their everyday life, on a five-point likert scale (from “not at all” to “a great extent”). then the most typical activity was identified by each participant along with its duration in hours. the description was checked on a smaller sample (n = 20) before its use to make sure about its understandability and validity. general flow description in social interactions (gfsd)— based on the method of the gfd, we created similar documentation about the common flow experience during social interactions, supported by assumptions in the existing literature (e.g., csikszentmihalyi & csikszentmihalyi, 1988; walker, 2010). the description is as follows: people often report that they have a positive experience when they are working together on a task with someone. their attention is taken up by the common task and they are totally preoccupied by the activity at hand. they are just concentrating on what they are doing. during this time, they feel that they cannot break away from the action; they forget to eat and perform other obligations. though they are progressing quite well, they do not feel tired, nor do they perceive the activity as demanding. both partners play a role to meet the challenges ahead. they know the exact purpose and they have a common strategy to achieve this goal. the partners help each other, integrate with consistency, motivate themselves, and learn from each other. looking back on the experience, they realize how much they have developed during the activity and how they affected each other’s performance positively. after reading the description, the participants answered a question about the frequency of the described experience in their everyday life, on a five-point likert scale (from “not at all” to “a great extent”). then the most typical activity was identified by the participant along with its duration in hours. to get more information about the flow experience in social contexts, the participants were asked to evaluate the activities on a five-point likert scale (from “not at all” to “a great extent”) according to the perceived level of the challenge, their perceived skills, the clarity of the aim, and the continuity of the feedback. after evaluating the components of their flow experience, we asked the subjects to judge if the activity involved cooperation or competition, the level of which they had to evaluate on a five-point likert scale (from “not at all” to “a great extent”). this description was also checked on a smaller sample (n = 20) before its use to test its understandability and validity. flow state questionnaire (ppl-fsq) — the flow state questionnaire (ppl-fsq) (magyaródi, nagy, soltész, mózes, & oláh, 2013) aims to measure the basic dimensions of flow experience through 20 statements that have to be rated on a five-point likert scale (from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree"). the ppl-fsq has two scales. one of them (c-s) measures the balance between challenges and skills with 11 items. this scale refers to the basic conditions to get into the flow zone. the other one (a) measures the absorption in the activity with 9 items. this scale represents the inherent characteristics of the flow experience. the internal consistency of the scales is psychometrically acceptable (cronbach's αc-s = .92; cronbach's αa = .91). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 636 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the descriptive statistics, reliability scores and intercorrelations of the psychological inventories used in this study are described in table 2. table 2 descriptive statistics of the used variables with intercorrelations 13.12.11.10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.scales -1. gfd: frequency of flow -2. gfd: duration of the experience (hours) .08** -3. gfsd: frequency .06*.43** -4. gfsd: level of perceived challenges .30**.02.21** -5. gfsd: level of perceived skills .23**.23**.01.12** -6. gfsd: clear goal .44**.28**.24**.02-.11** -7. gfsd: immediate feedback .40**.36**.22**.24**.04-.09** -8. gfsd: level of cooperation .30**.37**.32**.22**.26**.01-.11** -9. gfsd: level of competing .23**-.02.01-.01-.18**.04.05*.07** -10. gfsd: duration of the experience (hours) .06*-.06*.02.03.04.09**.16**.24**.05 -11. ppl-fsq: balance between challenges and skills .02.07**-.22**.28**.33**.51**.04.21**.01-.13** -12. ppl-fsq: absorption in the task .36**.033.08**.26**.31**.28**.26**.29**.31**.01.25** -13. ppl-fsq: total score .80**.85**.03.00-.29**.36**.37**.47**.19**.31**.00.23** 1709170917091458170917091709170917091709170915361709n m .167.403.763.532.362.34.713.294.993.623.193.842.473 sd .76.43.5.682.171.82.94.84.79.97.94.632.86 ----------α .87.84.84 note. gfd = general flow description; gfsd = general flow description in social interactions; ppl-fsq = flow state questionnaire. *p < .05. **p < .01. procedure the ethical committee of the eötvös loránd university has supported the research. participants were recruited through university courses and social media sites. participants had to be at least 18 years of age and free from any psychiatric or neurological problems. subjects were asked to fill in an online questionnaire after they gave their informed consent. results we first provide an analysis about the overall study of the data with regard to the gender differences and demographic variables related to flow in solitary situations. figure 1 illustrates the distribution of the responses of the flow frequency variable during solitary activities. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 637 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. histogram of the frequency of solitary flow experience variable. according to the demographical analysis, the t-test of independent samples shows significant difference between male and female groups with regard to solitary flow experiences, t(1534) = 2.08, p < .05. men spend significantly more time working an activity in flow. we find no gender difference regarding the frequency of flow in individual activities. we have transformed the classifying variables (gender, education level, residency, and relationship status) into dummy variables. then, with the addition of the age variable, we have run a linear regression analysis using a stepwise method to identify the demographic factors that can predict the general frequency of solitary flow. in the model, it is the higher education degree, β = 0.06, t(1707) = 2.48, p < .05, that significantly predicts the general frequency of flow in solitary situations, r2 = 0.004, f(1,1707) = 6.13, p < .01. the subjects, by responding to an open-ended question, have indicated their most common solitary activity that induces flow. we find several labels for the most common flow-inducing activities, which we have classified into different categories based on their contents. two researchers have individually made the classification, following which the inter-rater reliability of the classification has been checked. there are no discrepancies related to the content of the categories. there are 16 categories and an additional category for the answers of those subjects who were not familiar with the given description of flow. as table 3 illustrates, 1,661 answers have been interpreted into categories, leaving 48 missing answers. the frequency results show that the majority of flow activities are experienced during work, reading, sports, and creative activities. all of these are above 10%, making a total of 71.80% altogether (n = 1266). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 638 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 the frequencies of the mentioned solitary flow activities in the whole sample %solitary flow activity work/studying/task solving .7031 reading .0014 sport .5013 creative activities .6012 housework, work in the garden .406 music .205 leisure activities .105 dance .202 communication, chatting .901 playing games .401 organizing tasks .201 playing video games .101 acting .700 dealing with the computer .700 love life .600 driving .300 no experience like this .301 as the four most frequent flow activities are analyzed (n = 1266), significant differences can be found in terms of both the frequency of flow, f(3,1262) = 3.17, p < .05, and the duration spent in flow, f(3,1144) = 19.10, p < .001. according to the lsd post hoc tests, work situations are mentioned as significantly more frequent solitary flowinducing situations than reading activities (p = .02). creative activities are mentioned as more frequently flow-inducing activities than sports (p = .05) and reading (p = .02). regarding the duration of the time spent in flow in the different activities, we can highlight, based on the results of lsd post hoc tests, that flow is longer during work activities, compared to sports, creative activities, and reading (p < .05). to evaluate the gender differences in the typical individual flow activities, we ran a chi square test, the results of which suggest the type of flow activities that are dependent on gender, χ2 = 30.99; df = 3; p < .001. however, this relationship is weak, φ = 0.16, p < .001. as this study has been executed with an explorative focus, in order to reveal the specific relationship between the demographic variables and the various frequently flow-inducing activities in an individual context, binary logistic regression analysis has been carried out by a forward stepwise method. our aim was to predict the most common solitary flow-inducing activities using the variables of gender and educational level (dummy variables: elementary, secondary and higher education), as well as the interaction between gender, education level, and age. whether work, studying, or task-solving is the most common flow-inducing solitary situation can be predicted by gender, education level, and age, as table 4 illustrates. women, higher education degree-holders, and older participants tend to choose these activities with more probability than men, subjects who do not have a higher education degree, and younger participants. additionally, the interaction between the elementary education level and gender has lower probability to choose work, study or task-solving situations as flow-inducing in individual context. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 639 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 binary logistic regression about the predictive variables related to the probability of experiencing flow in different individual activities. model 95% ciexp(b)pindependent variable dependent variable pdfχ2 neagelkerke r square .00453.170.06work, studying or task-solving [1.26, 2.04].00gender (1) .611 [1.01, 1.72].04higher education .321 [0.04, 0.70].02elementary education * gender (1) .160 [1.01, 1.03].00age .021 .00435.010.04sport [1.06, 1.91].02gender (1) .421 [1.15, 4.10].02elementary education .172 [0.44, 0.92].02higher education .640 [0.96, 1.00].02age .980 .00418.360.01creative activities [0.37, 0.85].01gender (1) * secondary education .560 .00328.860.04reading [0.32, 0.63].00gender (1) .450 [1.07, 9.75].04gender (1) * elementary education .233 [0.97, 1.00].04age .990 note. exp(b) = the change of the odds ratio. ci = confidence interval. gender and elementary education provide higher odds for the choice of sports. women, as well as people who have completed elementary studies, tend to choose this kind of activity, though a higher education level and age lower the odds for this choice. the choice of creative activities as flow sources can be affected by the interaction of gender and completed secondary studies; in case of such interaction, the odds for this choice become lower. women and younger participants tend to choose reading more than men and older participants. the interaction of gender and elementary education seems to augment the odds for this choice. with regard to analysis of the interpersonal flow contexts, distribution of the responses of the flow in a social context is presented by a histogram (figure 2). with regard to the results on gender differences, we observe that in the case of the female subjects, the clarity of goals, t(1707) = −3.90, p < .001, the immediateness of the feedback, t(1707) = −3.93, p < .001, and the level of cooperation, t(1707) = −4.21, p < .001, during social flow activities are significantly higher than in the case of male subjects, though the level of competition for males during social flow activities is significantly higher, t(1707) = 5.62, p < .001. gender differences also exist in the level of total flow experience, t(1707) = −2.27, p < .05, during these situations. the balance of the perceived challenges and skills, t(1707) = −2.04, p < .05, and the level of absorption in the task, t(1707) = −2.62, p < .01, are also significantly higher for women. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 640 http://www.psychopen.eu/ according to the linear regression analysis, one of the demographical variables, namely age, is a significant predictor for the frequency of social flow experiences. age, β = 0.06, t(1707) = 2.33, p < .05, predicts the higher frequency of flow experiences during social activities, r2 = 0.003, f(1,1707) = 5.41, p < .05. figure 2. histogram of the frequency of flow experience in social activities variable. the subjects have responded to an open-ended question to indicate their most common social activity that induces flow. as table 5 illustrates, the documented contexts of social flow experiences have been classified by the authors through a judgment procedure—for instance, with a qualitative content analysis in the case of solitary activities. there are 14 categories and an additional category for the answers of those subjects who were unfamiliar with the given description of social flow and flow synchronization. a total of 1691 answers have been distributed into categories, while 18 answers are missing. the results show that the vast majority of social flow activities are experienced during work and sports activities. all of these are above 10%, making a total of 59.60% altogether (n = 1168). analysis of the two most frequent social flow activities – i.e., work and sports (n = 1168) – shows that there are significant differences between them. during involvement in sports, the perceived level of challenge, t(1166) = −2.81, p < .01, the level of competition, t(1166) = −12.41, p < .001, and the absorption in the task t(1166) = −3.47, p < .001, are significantly higher than in the cases of working, studying, and task-solving situations. during work, the perceived level of the skills, t(1166) = 2.09, p < .05, the level of cooperation, t(1166) = 4.39, p < .001, and the perceived duration, t(1014) = 3.45, p < .001, are significantly higher than during sport activities. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 641 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to test the gender differences in the typical flow activities, we have run a chi square test, the results of which suggest that the type of flow activities is dependent on gender, χ2(3) = 7.24; p < .05; however, this relationship is weak, φ = −0.08, p < .01, as in the case of choosing the typical solitary flow activities. table 5 the frequencies of the mentioned social flow activities in the whole sample %social flow activity work/studying/task solving .4044 sport .2015 housework, work in the garden .706 leisure activities .505 playing music together .304 organizing tasks .104 communication, chatting .503 creative activities .203 dance .902 playing games .502 love life .302 acting (theater) .701 playing video games .201 reading together .400 no experience like this .202 in order to find the specific relationship between the demographic variables and the various frequently flow-inducing activities in social interaction, binary logistic regression analysis has been carried out by a forward stepwise method. our aim was to predict the most common flow-inducing activities in social contexts, using gender, educational level (dummy variables: elementary, secondary, and higher education), relationship status (dummy variables: single and in a relationship), as well as the interaction between gender, education level, and age. results of the binary logistic regression analysis (table 6) show that there is no significant relationship between the choice of the activities and relationship status. in case of gender, the odds of choosing work, study or tasksolving as a flow-inducing activity in a social context are lower in case of female subjects. another significant predictor of this dependent variable is having a higher education level, while age seems to augment the probability of choosing these kinds of activities for flow induction in a social situation. gender is a significant predictor in the case of choosing sports as the most frequent flow-inducing activity; women choose sport with a higher probability for finding optimal experience. higher education and age lower the odds of choosing sport activities. to establish a prediction model that can explain the frequency of social flow activities, we have run a linear regression analysis using a stepwise method. the question is whether the flow conditions – i.e., the perceived level of the challenges and skills, the clarity of the aim, and the clarity and immediacy of the feedback (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002), and the level of cooperation or competition – contribute to a higher frequency of flow during common social interactions. according to the result, a predictivemodel can be formed out of four components, r2 = 0.15, f(4,1704) = 76.30, p < .001. the predictive variables are the following: the perceived level of challenges, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 642 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 binary logistic regression about the predictive variables related to the probability of experiencing flow in different social activities model 95% ciexp(b)pindependent variable dependent variable pdfχ2 neagelkerke r square .00345.620.06work, studying or task-solving [0.51, 0.90].01gender (1) .680 [1.37, 2.94].00higher education .012 [1.01, 1.04].01age .021 .00345.620.06sport [1.11, 1.98].01gender (1) .481 [0.34, 0.73].00higher education .500 [0.96, 0.10].01age .980 note. exp(b) = the change of the odds ratio. ci = confidence interval. β = 0.22, t(1704) = 9.304, p < .001, the level of cooperation, β = 0.14, t(1704) = 5.94, p < .001, the immediacy and clarity of the feedback, β = 0.12, t(1704) = 4.66, p < .001, and the perceived level of skills, β = 0.10, t(1704) = 3.89, p < .001. discussion this investigation aims to explore the activities that can induce flow in both solitary and interpersonal situations most frequently, and to extend the knowledge about optimal experience during common social interactions, in order to continue studying this innovative field in positive psychology. our research aims to broaden the designs of earlier research, which mainly used the esmmethod, to investigate a broader sample to reveal the most typical flow-inducing activities in social interactions, along with their flow-related and demographical associations. in this study, we have used a direct survey technique to ask about the most common contexts in which flow experience can be observed as a subjective state during a solitary task and in social interactions. at first, we measured the most common situations that can induce flow without any social interaction. according to the original model of flow (csikszentmihalyi, 1975), these experiences can differ from each other based on their complexity, which has its roots in the level of the perceived balance of the challenges and skills of the person (moneta, 2012). less complex activities are labeled as micro-flow experiences, while the more complex ones are macro-flow experiences. micro-flow experiences mainly occur in and add meaning to daily life (csikszentmihalyi, 1975), while deep flow or macro-flow is less frequent. there is a significant difference between male and female subjects in this regard; men reported a longer duration of solitary flow experiences than women. another task is to investigate the factors that may promote these longer flow experiences. according to a review about gender differences (block, zakay, & hancock, 1999), several variables influence the differences in time judgment by men and women. as time gets distorted during flow, this result must be interpreted carefully. there is an altered sense of time (csikszentmihalyi et al., 2005) during an optimal experience. therefore, this result may give us information either about the gender differences in time judgment during this state or about the perception of the flow experience itself. for example, women are more likely to experience micro-flow situations (allison & duncan, 1988) than men. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 643 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in terms of the demographical analysis, we find that higher education can predict the general frequency of flow in solitary situations, though the explanatory power is moderate; it can predict 0.4% of the variances of flow frequency. as we have quoted before, csikszentmihalyi and lefevre (1989) found that managers experience flow mainly during their work, while clerks and blue-collar workers felt this optimal experience during their leisure activities. our result may strengthen this finding. higher education can possibly predict more complex and multifaceted tasks at work that can fulfill the requirements of flow (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). the classification and distribution of solitary flow experiences emphasizes four typical flow-inducing activities: work, study, task-solving, and leisure activities such as reading, sports, and creative activities. csikszentmihalyi (1990) emphasizes mainly work, sports, and leisure activities as flow-inducing. it is really important to note that the source of the flow theory lies in the study of creative people (csikszentmihalyi, 1975) who recognize this kind of optimal experience during their creative activities. however, according to our results, this kind of task can be found in people’s everyday lives. these activities took up almost 72% of the sample results. according to the results, we can find the main difference between these situations in terms of frequency of flow and the perceived duration of the experience during the activity (csikszentmihalyi & lefevre, 1989). work, study, and task-solving situations differ from the three other categories, as they induce the longest flow experience according to the evaluation of the subjects. sporting activities take the least time among the four types of activities. at the workplace, during the school day, or in a task-solving situation, there is a wide range of time that can be used, and as work is the most common context in which people experience flow, it also offers the widest range of time. specific demographic variables relate to the choice of the most typical flow activity in the case of solitary situations. women and those who have higher education choose work as a flow-inducing activity. age also has a significant influence; if someone is older, the choice of work situations is more likely. the interaction between elementary studies and gender has a lower effect on the probability of choosing work as a flow-inducing activity. therefore, the effect of gender cannot be interpreted in itself, but only in terms of the educational level, though the elementary group is the smallest education group in the sample (n = 61; nwomen = 22, nmen = 39). women and people who have completed elementary studies tend to choose sport as a source of flow experience, but a higher education level and age lower the probability for this choice. the choice of creative activities as flow sources can be affected by the interaction of gender and completed secondary studies; in case of such an interaction the odds for this choice are lower. women and younger participants tend to choose reading with greater probability than men and older participants. the interaction of gender and elementary education seems to augment the odds for this choice. we can surmise from these results that flow can be experienced independent of gender, education level, or culture (csikszentmihalyi, 1990), but the situations that may induce the experience can differ. earlier results suggest the frequency and quality of optimal experiences may vary at the individual level (collins, sarkisian, & winner, 2009). studies about the effect of age on flow (lawton, 1989) suggest that older adults may experience flow if the perceived challenges are slightly above the skills of the person. the probability of experiencing micro-flow experiences (csikszentmihalyi, 1975) is higher; therefore, the possibility of experiencing flow is also greater. research focusing on the prevalence of flow in activities in a social interaction has not been carried out yet, as previous studies have focused on flow as subjective states without describing the common context or the working mechanism of the shared experience. in terms of the gender differences, female subjects report higher levels of goal clarity, more immediate feedback, and higher level of cooperation than men; therefore, they can experience the flow components at a higher level, with a higher quality of experience (the main conditions for flow and the absorption in the task are significantly more satisfied in case of the female sample than the male one). previous europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 644 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies have focused on gender differences in goal orientation, and results consistently show that women have higher goal orientation than men (baser, bayar, & ghorbanzadeh, 2013). these results agree with the classification of morenomurcia et al. (2008) about the different gender preferences of taskand ego-oriented climates. regarding the special characteristics of flow in social contexts, men perceive a higher level of competition during these flowinducing social activities. out of the demographic variables, age predicts flow frequency in social situations. cornwell (2011) shows that older people spend less time actively in their personal networks, though our sample has a mean age of 26.95 years (sd = 11.23), people in the young adulthood phase in terms of the psychosocial theory of erikson, when partners in friendship, sex, competition, and cooperation are in the focus of connectedness of the person (karcher & benne, 2008). the age distribution related to this particular phase of life may explain the influence of age in this context. csikszentmihalyi (1990) proposed that the most intense and meaningful experiences in people’s life are the results of the relationships with their families. graham’s (2008) study suggests that in close relationships, the activity level affects the quality of flow which, in turn, can heighten the level of satisfaction with the relationship; thus, these factors may strengthen each other. according to the results, flow in social activities is most frequent during work and sports activities; about two-thirds of the sample gave answers that fall in these categories (59.6%). it is notable that in both solitary and social contexts, work is the activity most frequently given in response. this can be linked to the paradox of work (csikszentmihalyi, 1990). as work, studying, and task solving are good contexts to experience the ingredients of flow, these kinds of activities can provide major challenges that require development of skills. people report flow mostly during work situations where there are clear goals and probably immediate and clear feedback as well. in previous studies (moore et al., 2005; sawyer, 2007; walker, 2010), work or common learning situations and sport situations were considered as the sources of the common flow experience; consequently, our result may contribute to these earlier hypotheses. in this study, sport activities are accompanied by a higher level of the perceived challenges and competition, and the absorption in the task is also higher. however, during work, study, or task solving, the level of the perceived skills and cooperation is higher and the perceived duration of the experience is longer compared to sport activities. this finding is in accordance with the notion of egoand task-oriented activities (moreno murcia et al., 2008) that labels sport as a competitive, egooriented climate while work and studying are masteryand task-oriented climates. we might consider the note by jackson and csikszentmihalyi (1999), which claims that since sports is about testing the physical body, it makes these test conditions progressively difficult; thus, people who play some kind of sports can often meet challenging situations. different factors may contribute to a higher flow experience in different situations, in accordance with the previous findings. our data supports the earlier data (jackson et al., 2001) about the most critical components of flow in sports: it was found that the perceived skill component of the challenge-skill balance is a key factor in optimal sport experiences, while our result emphasizes that the higher level of perceived challenges and the factor of competition is also critical. several papers discuss the flow in social situations, but there has not yet been evidence-based consistency about the type of activities regarding their cooperative or competitive aspects. according to our results, the vast majority of the reported social flow activities are cooperative situations (86.7%) and the perceived duration and the level of the balance between the perceived challenges and skills in these cooperative tasks are significantly higher in cooperative situations. this finding corresponds withwalker’s (2010) assumption about social flow, as he suggested that in sport activities, which are the sources of this kind of common experience, people are interdependent and there is a high level of cooperation. according to previous findings, synchronization, which can make psychological europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 magyaródi & oláh 645 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and physiological reactions more intense (e.g. ackerman & bargh, 2010), is more frequent during cooperative activities than during competitive ones (delaherche et al., 2012). in the case of social flow experiences, there is a slight effect of gender on the choice of the social activities. men choose work, study or task solving as social flow inducing-situations while women are more likely to choose sports. from another perspective, this finding refers to the preferences of different orientation types (moreno murcia et al., 2008); boys perceive a competitive or ego-orientedmotivational climate while girls favor masteryor task-oriented situations. the authors note that the significant others play the key role—if they believe that winning and demonstration of physical ability in competition with others defines success, ego-oriented climate will be promoted (for example sports), but if they feel that the most important indications of ability are effort and improvement, then this attitude supports a task-oriented climate (for example, work). our results support this hypothesis, as sport in social flow situations is more competitive than work, while work, studying, and task solving are more cooperative than sports. regarding the other demographic factors, higher education level can predict work as a choice of flow source in social contexts, while during sport activities higher education and age predict its odds in an opposite way: it is probable that younger people with less education choose sport as a flow-inducing common activity. we aim to establish a prediction model that can explain the frequency of social flow activities through the flow conditions (the perceived levels of challenges and skills, the clarity of the aim, and the clarity and immediateness of the feedback) and the level of cooperative and competitive characteristics. in our results, the regression model explains the variance of the frequency of social flow activities and flow synchronization through the following four variables to a moderate degree (about 15%): the level of the perceived challenges, the level of cooperation, the immediateness and clarity of the feedback, and the perceived level of skills. except for the perceived level of skills and the clarity of the aim, every other flow condition (csikszentmihalyi et al., 2005) is in the model, so we may assume that the most important factors for a common flow experience are a high level of the perceived challenges (and here we note that these challenges may be set by the aim and direction of the activity, or perhaps the other person in the situation might be the source of the challenge—see the hypothesis of shared flow developed by csikszentmihalyi & csikszentmihalyi, 1988) with appropriate feedback about the progress, in the case of a cooperative task, as assumed by walker (2010). the conclusions that can be drawn from this exploratory study can be encouraging in the field of social flow experiences. however, there are several limitations to be considered; therefore, the results should be treated with caution. regarding the choice of the method, as self-administration can lead to a bias, in future studies the use of a non-survey technique—for example, an esm or interview method—should be used in order to reveal the specific occurrence and distribution of the daily experiences, but with the highlighted aim of focusing on flow-inducing social activities. the retrospective nature of the questions may have led the respondents into social desirability or retrospective bias, and although this approach is frequent in the literature (moneta, 2012; nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002) where methodology of flowmeasurement is highlighted, the recall of the memories based on a description can be distorted. this problemmay be corrected if we can establish a real-time data administration with the esm technique. regarding the sampling, the representative nature of the sample was not ensured; therefore, the results have to be considered cautiously and the gender and other demographical variables need to be more even in future studies. as this study examined a hungarian sample, we should consider generalizability of the results carefully. for future research, the possible cultural differences in specific flow-inducing activities may be interesting. though we have discovered some connection between the demographic variables and the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 646 http://www.psychopen.eu/ probable choice of flow-inducing activities, further studies should use a sample with a broader age range and more even distribution of demographic variables. during the documenting of the gfd and gfsd, we were intent on making full and understandable descriptions about the experiences, but even though their usability was checked during a pilot study, a different measuring tool might have been better. although the ppl-fsq (magyaródi et al., 2013) has acceptable internal consistency, since this questionnaire and the two other descriptive instruments are relatively new, each has to be refined in future works. in future works, we aim to conceptualize the mechanism of flow experience in a common task accompanied by social interaction. our future goal is also to clarify the different factors and personal characteristics that may contribute to the higher frequency of flow experience in interpersonal tasks by understanding its assumed accompanying mechanism (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002), which we labeled as flow synchronization. through expanding the dynamic system of the person and context with the factor of another person as part of the environment, the mechanism of a new systemmay be understandable during the common flow experience. the effect of another person on the experience as well as the significance and quality of the relationship and the role of the other person might be revealed by conceptualizing flow synchronization. in future studies, flow research can be broadened with experimental design that reveals the specific causal relationship between flow experience and its possible causes and accompanying factors during a social interaction. as noted in the beginning of the paper, it is an ongoing trend in positive psychology to conceptualize hypothesized phenomena that can contribute to a person’s mental growth, and then to operationalize it with an instrument in order to conduct evidence-based studies, on personal as well as dyadic or more complex social levels. in conclusion, this work about flow in social interactions and its presumed mechanism—i.e. flow synchronization—aims to contribute to study those factors that, in accordance to fredrickson’s (2004) broaden-and-build theory, can help people broaden their optimal experiences and build their own level of well-being. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we wish to thank our colleague, dr. henriett nagy, for her professional support related to the framework of the survey study of flow experience, and to the university students for their assistance with data collection. references ackerman, j. m., & bargh, j. a. 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(2007). group genius: the creative power of collaboration. new york, ny: basic books. seligman, m. e. p., & csikszentmihalyi, m. (2000). positive psychology: an introduction. the american psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 sheldon, k. m., kashdan, t. b., & steger, m. f. (2011). designing positive psychology: taking stock and moving forward. new york, ny: oxford university press. shernoff, d. j., csikszentmihalyi, m., shneider, b., & shernoff, e. s. (2003). student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. school psychology quarterly, 18(2), 158-176. doi:10.1521/scpq.18.2.158.21860 walker, c. j. (2010). experiencing flow: is doing it together better than doing it alone? the journal of positive psychology, 5(1), 3-11. doi:10.1080/17439760903271116 about the authors tímeamagyaródi is an assistant lecturer in the institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university. she studies flow experience in social contexts and its relationship with personality and well-being factors as her phd thesis topic. dr. attila oláh is a full professor at eötvös loránd university and the leader of the doctoral school of psychology. his main research topics focus on coping mechanisms and their background (like psychological immune system) and positive psychological constructs (for example global well-being). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 632–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.866 solitary and social flow activities 650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.782 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs10902-007-9069-y http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0003-066x.55.1.5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521%2fscpq.18.2.158.21860 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f17439760903271116 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en solitary and social flow activities introduction method participants materials procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors brain observatory and the continuing study of h.m.: interview with jacopo annese interview brain observatory and the continuing study of h.m.: interview with jacopo annese rhian worth*a, jacopo anneseb a bangor university, bangor, uk. b the brain observatory, university of california, san diego, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 received: 2012-05-29. accepted: 2012-05-29. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: rhian.worth@hotmail.co.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. rhian worth:what is the brain observatory? jacopo annese: the brain observatory was established in 2005 when i obtained my first faculty position at uc san diego (ucsd). the laboratory was originally envisioned as a hubble telescope for the human brain, in the sense that my long-term goal was to provide public access (for scientists and non-scientists) to views of brain anatomy, the latter created using different neuroimaging modalities including digital microscopy. the name also stems from the fact that many similarities exist, conceptually and technologically, between space exploration and investigation into the complexity of the brain’s structural architecture. after all, there is a continuum across the telescope and the microscope; these are two symmetrical instruments, the former probing into the infinitesimally large and the latter resolving the infinitesimally small. gradually, the brain observatory developed its own brain collection and increased its efforts toward engaging the public in the research that was being conducted in the lab. the fact that we were operating a brain bank and working with real brains actually encouraged participation of local schools in our outreach program. educational activities are now an integral part of our portfolio. rhian worth: what are the aims of the brain observatory – in general terms and in terms of psychology and memory? jacopo annese: the initial goals of the brain observatory were technical in nature. we focused on creating the equipment and technological infrastructure to produce maps of the whole human brain at cellular resolution, avoiding the limitations imposed by narrow tissue sampling. there were several reasons for investing start-up funds in protocols that would allow for processing the human brain histologically in one piece, first and foremost the advantage of being able to map neuropathological phenomena across the entire specimen. i was also personally frustrated by the fact that images of neurological disease viewed (or measured) with magnetic resonance imaging --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ (mri) and diffusion weighted imaging (dwi) could not be fully reconciled with follow-up neuropathology reports. this problem plagued the clinical neurosciences since the first mainstream clinical applications of mri; in fact, while mri provides low-resolution images of neuropathogenetic phenomena in the whole brain, the traditional postmortem neuropathological report only provides evidence for very few small pieces of tissue. the latter are sampled from one of the hemispheres (with no regard to the handedness of the patient), embedded in paraffin, cut into thin tissue slices, and stained to reveal specific markers of disease, such as neurofibrillary tangles in alzheimer’s disease. the problem is that sampling is very rarely informed by previous mri and therefore the true extent of damage in the brain could be overlooked. dr. jacopo annese obtained his bachelor degree in biology and zoology from the university of rome, “la sapienza”. he completed a master’s degree in neurological science from university college london (london, uk) with prof. semir zeki, and a ph.d. in cognitive neuroscience from dartmouth college (nh, usa) with prof. michael gazzaniga. jacopo annese is director and founder of the brain observatory, university of california san diego. at the observatory work is under way to develop a public atlas of the human brain and a digital brain library. this innovative project is mostly supported by new technology developed in-house and was featured as the world’s most innovative brain bank by the financial times (december 2011). in this interview jacopo discusses research at the brain observatory, memory, h.m., and an insight into future of project h.m. correspondence: jacopo annese, ph.d., director, the brain observatory, university of california san diego, 3510 dunhill street, ca 92121, usa, tel: 858-822-4465, lab: 858-534-3177. email:jannese@ucsd.edu another reason for wanting to examine the whole brain postmortem is that there could be distal effects of local lesions that are correlated based on anatomical and functional connectivity. for example, local patches of leucopathology (typically associated with de-myelination) in the deep white matter could produce, by wallerian degeneration, morphological changes in the cortex according to a very precise pattern of connectivity. likewise, a high degree of occipital damage in cases of posterior cortical atrophy, a form of dementia that affects primarily visual and visuo-motor functions, could produce effects in the frontal eye fields and the tectum (the superior colliculus). mri-neuropathology correlations are an important application of our methodology (annese, 2012), but the possibility of surveying the whole human brain at the cellular level is also extremely significant if not indispensable to elucidate the neurological basis of human behavior. in particular, where normal cognitive function is perturbed, the study of the brain postmortem has classically complemented neuropsychological tests conducted while the patient was living. this paradigm has been the methodological foundation of single-case brain lesion studies since paul broca. the difference is that now we can produce digital histological maps of the brain, combined with 3-dimensional (3-d) models representing anatomical relationships within the brain to assist follow-up examination of important clinical cases. this ought to greatly facilitate clinico-pathological interpretations of the results of behavioral testing, also because the digital maps are available for web-based remote collaboration. moreover, computer-assisted microscopy techniques can also provide quantitative measurements of histo-pathological features associated with cognitive impairment. potentially, the scores derived from neuropsychological testing can be directly related to mri-based neuroimaging markers (such as structural volumes). we know that memory is distributed across a network of grey and white matter structures that include, but are not limited, to the hippocampus, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 worth & annese 223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the mammillary bodies, the fimbria, and fornix. therefore, it is important to apply large-scale digital histology and multimodal analysis to cases where localized damage has produced complex patterns of memory impairment. rhian worth: researchers at the brain observatory are in touch with the donors for a great deal of time before the donor’s death – how important is that feature of the research? jacopo annese: originally, we were working with brain specimens that were obtained from autopsy services linked to hospitals and the department of pathology at the ucsd medical center. there were two main problems with this mechanism. firstly, we were seldom able to obtain the whole brain of a patient whose autopsy had been consented by the family or that was prescribed by the hospital. ordinarily, a brain is examined by a trained pathologist within a few weeks of fixation in formalin. this is a first gross evaluation of the case during which the brain is cut into thick slabs (typically along the coronal plane) and each slab is looked at for signs of gross pathology. subsequently, several small tissue blocks are then dissected and eventually processed histologically for the neuropathological evaluation. when the brain is donated to a tissue bank, then, as i mentioned earlier, the hemispheres are separated; one hemisphere is frozen fresh for molecular-level research and one is fixed in formalin for classical morphological or pathological studies. several pieces of brain are shipped to different labs that are involved in studies of diseases or functions that involvespecific brain structures. for example, a laboratory investigating the neuropathologic phenomena associated with parkinson’s disease will request samples from the striatum; i.e., the basal ganglia. the problem is that the tissue that is implicated in the most common neurological conditions (the ‘usual suspects’ like: basal ganglia, hippocampus, brain stem structures) are quickly extinguished and the rest of the brain remains in the bucket or in the freezer largely unconsidered. moreover, the results of the research that was conducted in different labs on different ‘chunks’ of the same brain is not coordinated; researchers at different sites don’t know that they are working on the same brain. at any rate, the request of the whole brain for one particular study is generally considered profane. therefore, i began working with organ procurement organizations (opos) and organizations supporting the teaching of medicine and tissue processing to obtain consent for brain donation directly from the families of the deceased. essentially, we established the observatory’s own brain bank, which is the backbone of the digital brain library (dbl). the other limitation with obtaining brain tissue obtained from indirect sources was that very little information was given about the patient or subject (i.e., a neurologically healthy donor) for reasons loosely tied to privacy rules applicable in clinical trials. an autopsy number (indicating the date of death), the cause of death, the age, gender, and condition were the only descriptors that characterized a brain. in most cases, the label on the specimen’s container would look something like “a#245/m/85/ad”. the fact is, in the predominant number of cases the families of those individuals who were enrolled in our brain bank did not wish that the donation remained anonymous. so, we started giving families the opportunity to stay involved in the posthumous work done on the brain. a consent mechanism was created by which the next-of-kin (nok) or power of attorney of the brain donor could contribute with detailed medical and even biographical information to better characterize the case. that is how we became acquainted with our brains, in some cases discovering that these had belonged to painters, musicians, or mathematicians. starting a registry of donors who would bequest their brain to research while they are alive was the natural next step. currently, as soon as a participant enrolls in the dbl project, we conduct a series of mri scans (if there aren’t any restrictions like claustrophobia or the use of a pacemaker) and neuropsychological tests. these are repeated every 6 months or europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 the continuing study of h.m. 224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ once a year. we also administer personality and iq tests; these supplement structured biographical interviews that are recorded and archived together with the neuroimaging data and scores of cognitive function. besides the obvious advantage of fully characterizing the brain with multiple individual metrics, the work has also become much more rewarding on a professional and personal level. rhian worth: the brain observatory also does some work with the brains of other animals such as dolphins – what is the aim or what do you hope to gain from that research? how do you think this might relate or connect to humans? jacopo annese: my background is in zoology, so the interest in animal cognition and comparative anatomy has deep roots. in the past, the observatory has collaborated with other laboratories on the study of the brain of several species of non-human primates and apes. the u.s. navy’s marine mammal program and sea world are both based in san diego; therefore collaborations were built to enhance research on the brain of marine mammals and dolphins in particular. dolphins are the focus of our comparative branch leveraging on equipment and expertise that was developed to study another equivalently large brain, that of humans. historically, the brains of cetaceans have been the subject of anatomical investigations seeking the structural determinants of their behavioral specializations, such as echolocation, communication, and even intelligence. the brains of cetaceans (dolphins in particular) show many similarities as well as radical differences in respect to the human brain; understanding how the dolphin brain leverages on typically mammalian, yet uniquely specialized and arranged components, is one of the great challenges of comparative neurobiology. so it is very exciting to be able to do some work in this field. in regards to memory, dolphins can retain learned skills (procedural memory) and can hold brief representations of events (working memory; herman, 1980). however, there isn’t to-date any clear experimental evidence, (most data was acquired working with bottlenose dolphins, tursiops truncatus) showing that dolphins can actually remember and act according memories of events. the hippocampus in the dolphin brain is greatly reduced in size, an evolutionary trend that is in stark contrast with the dramatic expansion of the neocortex in this and other cetacean species. such anatomical specializationmay support drastically different methods for long-term information storage and recall. however, it should be noted that dolphins are practically anosmatic, lacking olfactory bulbs and peduncles altogether; so it’s quite a riddle. another important motivation for advancing this research is that an intense debate is presently underway on whether dolphins should be granted the status of ‘persons’ on account of their alleged human-like cognitive functioning. the ethical, legal, and socio-economic implications of this debate are substantial, because a resolution would affect whaling, captivity, and the use of dolphins in entertainment. many of the arguments for and against treating dolphins as ‘non-human persons’ are based on different interpretations of neuroanatomical evidence; in reality, this evidence is extremely scarce and disorganized. i realized that our lab could contribute to this debate with its neuroimaging and atlasing resources, providing data that might support either argument. i have not yet developed strong views on the dispute above-mentioned; surely, i must concede that a great deal of what we know about the brain and cognition of dolphins stems from studies conducted in captivity. the advantage of the type of work that we conduct at the observatory is that the validity of scientific information that we create does not depend on theories or hypotheses that may be disproved in the future, so our data will always be valid and useful. decades from now the elegant histological glass slides that we manufacture may be examined, digitized, and explored by other researchers who will likely benefit from the availability of improved technology and better europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 worth & annese 225 http://www.psychopen.eu/ knowledge of brain function. the impartial approach that characterizes the work of an anatomist is also extremely opportune when working on the brains of amnesic patients, because as we know, expert opinions regarding the way human memory works have not yet been harmoniously reconciled into a unified theory, yet. rhian worth: moving onto project h.m., how did project h.m. come about and how did yourself and the brain observatory become involved with h.m.? jacopo annese: in 2007 i wrote a grant application addressed to the national science foundation (nsf) that was essentially a ‘manifesto’ describing a radical approach to the preservation and examination of rare brains that are particularly significant for understanding structure-function relationships. the proposal was meant to support the establishment of the conceptual and methodological foundations for the study of the brain of patient h.m., initials that stand for henry g. molaison (squire, 2009). the initiative was funded via a mechanism that was meant for high-risk, but potentially high-reward projects (the project was also supported partly by the dana foundation of new york, a contribution from the vicechancellor for health sciences at ucsd, and private donors). this project at its inception definitely fit the category. the technology for accomplishing the goals of the project had to be built from scratch; also, the fact that patient h.m. was alive at the time meant that the proposal didn’t really have a starting date. accordingly, the administration of the grant was tricky; sufficient funds would also be saved for the actual protocol anytime in the future. dr. suzanne corkin, who at the time was making arrangements with mr. molaison’s legal power of attorney for the consent for the brain donation, endorsed the plans. and so it goes. rhian worth:what are the aims of project h.m.? jacopo annese: the nsf proposal was almost directly in response to the mishaps that afflicted the study of another iconic brain, that of albert einstein. dr. thomas harvey was the pathologist who performed einstein’s autopsy; he fixed the brain and divided it into 240 parcels. over the years he gave away samples to different researchers until he surrendered the rest of the tissue to princeton university when he retired. several studies were conducted in different universities based on the few small samples received; sadly, a comprehensive report on einstein’s brain, one that is informed by modern knowledge, could at this point only be done by piecemealing published accounts of the studies. the most salient findings, published in the journal lancet (witelson, kigar, & harvey, 1999), were based on photographs made in 1955 by dr. harvey and not on the direct examination of the brain. our goal was to create a comprehensive archive containing a collection of anatomical images and histological slides from the brain of h.m., so that the plethora of behavioral and cognitive studies (resulting in over two thousand publications) could be revisited, validated, and interpreted in the light of the actual anatomical and pathological state of the brain. our prerogative was to provide a model of the brain in its entirety at cellular resolution and a central archive of information that would be available to researchers worldwide. instead of distributing tissue samples the brain would be ‘virtualized’ into a centralized imaging resource. the database would be stored in a unique repository that would support independent research probing different levels of complexity within the data. rhian worth:what stage is project h.m. at the moment and what is the next step? jacopo annese: in december 2009, on occasion of the first anniversary of henry molaison’s death, the brain was cut frozen into 2,401 histological slices during an uninterrupted procedure that lasted fifty-three hours. the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 the continuing study of h.m. 226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ brain of henry molaison is now a collection of finished stained histological slides (about 200) and unprocessed tissue slices that are preserved cryo-genically in a secured freezer. these will remain viable for many years; nevertheless, we are progressively processing new sections also based on the feedback from other researchers. the finished histological slides have been digitized using custom-engineered microscope scanners and have been converted into a format that can be accessed using any web browser at multiple levels of resolution. to-date, the neuroimaging program dedicated to the brain of henry molaison generated over ten terabytes of data. these data are extremely diverse, ranging from videos documenting the procedures to terapixel microscopy images and 3-d models derived from mri and blockface imaging (a tomographic technique that utilizes a digital camera mounted directly over the tissue block). a web site that organizes all the information is under construction and should enable efficient searches as well as ways to contribute to the project with the results of independent analyses and interpretations. this means creating a centralized repository not only for the data, but also for new scientific information that is progressively created by multiple investigators. we also collected extremely diverse material relative to the life history and neuropsychological profile of mr. molaison, as well as (digitized) personal photographs, audio files created from several interviews with psychologists and researchers, and anecdotal accounts from nursing staff and other individuals who met mr. molaison. our current archive also includes research notes, prototype development sketches andmodels, and formal and informal correspondence with collaborators, producers, and members of the public. the project had enormous resonance in the public and the media. dozens of news and feature articles were written, as well as tv programs, fictional pieces (several theatrical plays have been produced on the subject of patient h.m., his amnesia, and his brain; one specifically created in collaboration with the brain observatory), and web content. the main challenge consists in making all this information accessible at different levels of complexity to accommodate interest from different levels of expertise. rhian worth: the project and the website are very interactive with readers able to ask questions, view videos of the procedure, and very much able to keep up to date with what’s going. how important a part is that of the brain observatory’s work? jacopo annese:opening up the laboratory to peer review and public curiosity was necessary in my view, because the case was so high-profile and because it was interesting to a very wide and diverse audience. it was important that the radically new protocols that we were about to apply to the study of this brain were discussed beforehand. that is the reason why we shared our plans and documentation of many of our protocols on the web before continuing with the procedures. irrevocable choices had to be made on the techniques, ranging from processing the specimen in paraffin or frozen, section thickness, and the cryo-protecting solutions for long-term storage of the tissue slices. the protocol was fine-tuned working on other cases, so that eventually there were very few unknowns and only a few major calculated risks. the only truly unpredictable factor in the protocol was the eventuality that the brain would crack during freezing. having applied the same treatment to several other specimens did not guarantee the safety of the procedure one hundred per cent. each brain may contain structural weaknesses that contribute to creating the seed regions for cracks during heat transfer when the tissue expands. judging from the mri images that were acquired before the brain was prepared for histological processing, h.m. had severe white matter deterioration and lacunae that contained fluid. nevertheless, the brain had to be frozen to – 40°c as quickly as possible to minimize the formation of ice crystals that damaged the tissue, making it unusable for histological analysis. i remember this step as the most ‘dramatic’, feeling extremely apprehensive as we monitored the temperature of the chilled fluid contained in the freezing chamber. the public did not get a chance to see this europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 worth & annese 227 http://www.psychopen.eu/ particular phase of the procedure. the web cameras were turned on after the brain was attached to the microtome stage and cutting had begun. over the course of three days (from wednesday, december 2 to friday, december 4) over 400,000 viewers tuned in to watch the cutting procedure. because the procedure was mostly uninterrupted, we covered every continent’s time zones multiple times; thus, the messages that we received via twitter, facebook, and our own web site came in in many different languages. creating the opportunity for such a level of public engagement in the research on the brain of h.m. was an experiment within the experiment. rhian worth: is h.m.’s brain the only example of a brain from an individual with a memory disorder at the brain observatory or are there other examples as well? jacopo annese: before we began the work on patient h.m. we had collaborated with dr. larry squire on the examination of three of his patients, including patient e.p. (stefanacci, buffalo, schmolck, & squire, 2000), whose medial temporal lobe lesion, which wasmuchmore extensive than that of h.m. was produced by viral encephalitis. one of the main raison d'être for the digital brain library is the possibility of preserving (physically and digitally) the brains of important cases under the same roof and in the same ‘cloud’ in the form data that can be accessed remotely without restrictions relative to file size and bandwidth. crucially, all brains are processed exactly the same way, so that direct comparisons can be made across the brains of different patients. rhian worth:what do you think the project will add to research into memory? jacopo annese: this is hard to say at this stage. in my view, the computer-assisted postmortem examination produced two main findings that are likely to stimulate further studies and conjectures. when we examined the medial temporal lobe (mtl) in 3-d, working with a very high-resolution anatomical volume (built from blockface imaging data), it became apparent that a conspicuous portion of the posterior hippocampus was spared because it extended above the line of approach of scoville’s suction tubes. our length and volume measurements relative to spared hippocampal tissue are higher than those previously estimated from mri images acquired when patient h.m. was alive (corkin, amaral, gonzalez, johnson, & hyman, 1997; salat et al., 2006). furthermore, histologically this tissue does not appear sclerotic or atrophied, despite h.m.’s history of epilepsy and the fact that the entorhinal cortex and a large portion of the fimbria were indeed severed during the operation (no surprise there). it’s unlikely that these preliminary observations and the overall project will revolutionize our understanding of memory in the human brain. but i did not have expectations in this regard; i approached the project as an effort of digital preservation and in this respect i am confident that we will contribute to the history of neuroscience in a substantial way. we also hope that this project will introduce new standards in the way that brains of influential neuropsychology patients will be examined and preserved for prospective study. having said this, the brain of h.m. will be accessible to not only an elite group of scientists, but to the public at large; a student or a non-scientist may very well be discovering the most extraordinary clues contained in the anatomical images, perhaps on the account of the fact that they will be looking where experts don't think is important. there might be surprises in the future. rhian worth: also included in the brain observatory are the brains of ‘normal’, healthy individuals – what do you think the study of these brains can tell us about the brain and also memory? jacopo annese: perhaps the rarest anatomical and histological data available to collaborative research is data from normal brains. the terms ‘normal’, ‘normative’, or ‘control’ are relative when it comes to the morphology of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 the continuing study of h.m. 228 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the brain. we take the stance that there is a continuum of variability of form across the brains of different individuals; so, rather than attempting to establish a ‘template’ normative brain, we aim at creating the largest possible catalogue of unique brain maps, providing the information necessary to characterize each subject, radiologically and behaviorally. meaningful patterns of associations between structural and functional parameters can only emerge from the statistical analyses of potentially correlated variables conducted over a large number of cases. because formal memory tests are also included in the neuropsychological assessment battery (nab; stern & white, 2003) that we perform with our participants (tests include verbal explicit learning, visual explicit learning, verbal delayed free recall, and visual delayed recognition memory), at some point it will be possible to evaluate the correlation between specific memory functions and different morphological features. because the brain will eventually be examined microscopically, these features will range from mri-based measures of cortical thickness of subcortical volumes to estimates of neuronal number and size in specific compartments of the hippocampus and related mtl structures. rhian worth:what is the future of project h.m. and its research and the brain observatory both in general and in what the project might be able to tell us about memory? jacopo annese: the ultimate goal of project h.m. is to make all data transparent to the widest and most diverse utilization, and enable multiple representations of the extraordinary archive that preserves henry molaison as a person, a brain, and a project. the project will very likely acquire a life of its own. the outcomes are not easily predictable; but i am sure it will be successful in creating brand new connections between very different communities and fields. this is also the overall mission of the brain observatory where ideally the boundaries between (neuro) science, the arts, public engagement and education would eventually disappear. the digital brain library embodies these concepts; in fact, the ‘gallery’ of brains will contain more than just neurological and neuroimaging data. my goal in the next few years is to provide a comprehensive neuroimaging and digital curation service for brains that may have been already collected but that are deteriorating in their current storage conditions or cases that are still being studied by neuropsychologists or neurologists and who deserve being immortalized via an attentive and compassionate postmortem preservation plan. web links: http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu references annese, j. (2012). the importance of combining mri and large-scale digital histology in neuroimaging studies of brain connectivity and disease. frontiers in neuroinformatics, 6, , article 13. doi:. doi:10.3389/fninf.2012.00013 corkin, s., amaral, d. g., gonzalez, r. g., johnson, k. a., & hyman, b. t. (1997). h. m.’s medial temporal lobe lesion: findings from magnetic resonanceimaging. the journal of neuroscience, 17, 3964-3979. herman, l. m. (1980). cognitive characteristics of dolphins. in l. m. herman (ed.), cetacean behavior: mechanisms and function (pp. 363-429). new york: wiley-interscience. salat, d. h., van der kouwe, a. j. w., tuch, d. s., quinn, b. t., fischl, b., dale, a. m., & corkin, s. (2006). neuroimaging h.m.: a 10-year follow-up examination. hippocampus, 16(11), 936-945. doi:10.1002/hipo.20222 squire, l. r. (2009). the legacy of patient h.m. for neuroscience. neuron, 61(1), 6-9. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2008.12.023 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 worth & annese 229 http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2012.00013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/hipo.20222 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.12.023 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stefanacci, l., buffalo, e., schmolck, h., & squire, l. r. (2000). profound amnesia after damage to the medial temporal lobe: a neuroanatomical and neuropsychological profile of patient e. p. the journal of neuroscience, 20(18), 7024-7036. stern, r. a., & white, t. (2003). neuropsychological assessment battery. lutz, fl: psychological assessment resources, inc. witelson, s. f., kigar, d. l., & harvey, t. (1999). the exceptional brain of albert einstein. lancet, 353, 2149-2153. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(98)10327-6 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 222–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.475 the continuing study of h.m. 230 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(98)10327-6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the continuing study of h.m. references: how personality traits predict design-driven consumer choices research reports how personality traits predict design-driven consumer choices nils myszkowski*a, martin stormea [a] université paris descartes, paris, france. abstract to further understand why a consumer’s choices are influenced by the aesthetic value of products (hollins & pugh, 1990; bloch, 1995; schmitt & simonson, 1997), individual differences in design-driven consumer choices must be investigated. previous empirical work suggests that the extent to which one pays attention and is responsive to the aesthetic value of products (bloch, brunel, & arnold, 2003) and openness to experience (sharpe & ramanaiah, 1999) are both linked with materialism. this study aims to provide new elements to understand why consumers choose and value well-designed products, using the framework of the big five model of personality (john & srivastava, 1999; mccrae & costa, 1999), focusing more particularly on openness to experience. 158 adult participants completed the centrality of visual product aesthetics questionnaire (cvpa; bloch, brunel, & arnold, 2003), along with the big five inventory (bfi; john, 1990; john & srivastava, 1999). as hypothesized, personality significantly predicted the individuals’ tendency to prefer products with a superior design. more specifically, every subscale of the cvpa was significantly negatively correlated with openness to experience. implications, limitations and potential uses of these results in marketing are discussed. keywords: marketing, design, personality, five-factor model europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 received: 2012-09-10. accepted: 2012-10-23. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: université paris descartes (laboratoire adaptation travail-individu, lati – ea4469), 71, avenue edouard vaillant, 92100 boulogne billancourt, email: nilsmyszkowski@yahoo.fr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction as the quality and the reliability of the products increase, the choices of consumers tend to be more influenced by their aesthetic qualities (schmitt & simonson, 1997). undeniably, the visual aspect of a product is usually one of the most important connectors between the consumer and the product (hollins & pugh, 1990). moreover, greatly designed products help brands and their products acquire fame in a crowd of concurrent brands and products (bloch, 1995). furthermore, the buying impulse might often be closely connected to the aesthetic visual design and styling of products (rook, 1987). individual differences in design-driven consumer choices desmet’s (2003) model proposes that product emotions can be classified in five classes: instrumental emotions, surprise emotions, social emotions, interest emotions and aesthetic emotions. in this model, aesthetic emotions are the product of the appealingness of the product to an individual, which is produced by the interaction between both the characteristics of the stimulus (the product) and the individual’s dispositional likings (e.g. liking round shapes). however, as one may study which design triggers positive or negative aesthetic emotions, one might also consider studying the tendency to make (or not) consumer choices based on these aesthetic emotions. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ indeed, as suggested theoretically (loewy, 1951) and empirically (bloch, brunel, & arnold, 2003), one should consider individual differences in the importance that consumers hold for the visual aestheticism of the design of products. these differences can be efficiently measured, notably by aesthetic judgment tests, which invite subjects to see visual stimuli and record their preference/reaction/sensitivity, such as the graves design judgment test (graves, 1948), the meier art tests (meier, 1963), the visual aesthetic sensitivity test (götz, borisy, lynn, & eysenck, 1979; eysenck, 1983; götz, 1985) or the aesthetic judgement ablity test (bamossy, johnston, & parsons, 1985). individual differences in the significance that consumers hold for the visual aestheticism of the design of products may also be measured more explicitly by self-report scales, especially the centrality of visual product aesthetics scale (bloch et al., 2003), which differentiates valuing design in choosing products (“value”), skillfully evaluating product designs (“acumen”), and feeling the urge to buy products with superior designs (“response”). design-driven consumer choices and personality while not extensively supported by empirical studies, personality variables are often considered crucial for predicting consumer behavior, which is why marketers use them in order to help companies define market segments (haugtvedt, petty, & cacioppo, 1992; chan, 2001). however, concerning design, one’s ability to distinguish objectively harmonious and non-harmonious designs was found to be uncorrelated with personality traits (götz, borisy, lynn, & eysenck, 1979; frois & eysenck, 1995), which may lead to describing the sensitivity to harmony in design as an ability which is for the most part independent of personality. nevertheless, recent framework on aesthetic experience (leder, belke, oeberst, & augustin, 2004) suggests that aesthetic appreciation is not only the result of the cognitive processing of a stimulus, but it is also the result of affective processes, which implies that aesthetic appreciation might be influenced by dispositional variables, such as values or personality. according to the authors, such implications apply to the design of products. indeed, one’s response to design may not only depend on one’s cognitive understanding of design, but also on one’s tendency to be emotionally influenced by design. for example, previous results suggest that personal life values (desmet, hekkert, & hillen, 2003) and culture (desmet, hekkert, & jacobs, 2000) are correlated with emotional responses produced by automotive designs. concerning personality traits, the centrality of visual product aesthetics was notably found to be positively correlated with materialism (bloch et al., 2003), suggesting that, when it comes to choose products based on aesthetic value, one’s personality may have to be taken into consideration. although there is no study which explores the relation between the big five factor model of personality and the centrality of visual product aesthetics, earlier framework (bloch et al., 2003; sharpe & ramanaiah, 1999) allowed us to draw hypotheses concerning the relationship between the centrality of visual product aesthetics and personality. indeed, the openness personality trait was empirically defined by having wide interests and unusual thoughts, showing original behaviors, as well as having unconventional judgments (mccrae & john, 1992). because high openness individuals might tend to disregard the appearance of a product and to inquisitively focus on more various aspects of a product, it was hypothesized that openness is negatively correlated with the tendency to respond to superiorly designed products. besides, supporting this hypothesis, the authors of the cvpa scale showed that the centrality of visual product aesthetics is correlated with materialism (bloch et al., 2003), while previous research revealed that materialism is negatively correlated with openness to experience (sharpe & ramanaiah, 1999). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 personality and design-driven consumer choices 642 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample was composed of 158 adult students (138 females, 20 males) with ages between 18 and 49 years old (m = 21.15 ; sd = 4.89). all the participants were second-year psychology students, who did not have any course about self-presentation measures or consumer psychology during their university studies. measures personality. the big five multi-dimensional model of personality traits – conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion – provides a general overview of personality and it benefits from extensive empirical support (john & srivastava, 1999; mccrae & costa, 1999). in this study, the big five inventory (john, 1990; john & srivastava, 1999), a 44-item measure of the big five factors (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion) was used. although the most wide-ranging instrument to measure the big five personality factors is probably costa and mccrae’s (1992) 240-item neo personality inventory revised (neo-pi-r), the bfi has proven to be a good compromise between briefness and psychometric qualities (plaisant, srivastava, mendelsohn, debray, & john, 2005). in this study, the internal consistency of the different scales was satisfying, as cronbach’s alphas were .80 for conscientiousness, .77 for agreeableness, .79 for neuroticism, .74 for openness and .80 for extraversion. design-driven consumer choices. because visual aesthetic judgment measures (graves, 1948; meier, 1963; götz et al., 1979; eysenck, 1983; götz, 1985; bamossy et al., 1985) focus on general aesthetic judgment but not specifically on the individual’s response to a product’s design, design-driven consumer choices were measured using the centrality of visual product aesthetics (cvpa, bloch et al., 2003). the cvpa (bloch et al., 2003) is a five-point likert format 11-item self-report questionnaire which measures the “salience of visual design in a consumer’s relationships with products” (brunel & swain, 2008). it comprises three subscales, which allow to further understand how one responds to design. the subscale “value” measures the extent to which an individual values design in products (e.g. “a product's design is a source of pleasure to me.”). the subscale “acumen” measures the extent to which an individual skillfully assesses design in products (e.g. “being able to see subtle differences in product designs is one skill that i have developed over time.”). finally, the subscale “response” measures the extent to which an individual feels the urge to buy products that have an appealing design (e.g. “if a product's design really "speaks" to me, i feel that i must buy it.”). indeed, one may value design but may not necessarily feel competent at identifying superior design. likewise, one may value design but may not feel the urge of buying products with a superior design. the internal consistency of the cvpa, as estimated by previous research (bloch et al., 2003), is around .89. the external validity and the construct validity of the scale are also satisfying (bloch et al., 2003), allowing the use of both the subscale scores and the score of the whole scale. in addition, as the aim of this study is to examine the links between personality traits and the cvpa, it is important to note that previous results (bloch et al., 2003) suggest that the cvpa is not biased by social desirability. cronbach’s alphas of the subscales and the whole scale found in this study were satisfying, especially considering the conciseness of the cvpa, as they ranged between .74 and .80 (see table 1). the internal consistency of the whole scale was .87. procedure the participants were asked to complete two self-report questionnaires: the big five inventory (john, 1990; john & srivastava, 1999) was chosen in order to measure the big five personality factors, whereas the centrality of europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 myszkowski & storme 643 http://www.psychopen.eu/ visual product aesthetics questionnaire (bloch et. al., 2003) was used in order to measure of the tendency to value and choose products for their aesthetic properties. the order of the questionnaires was randomized. results descriptive statistics univariate descriptive statistics of all the tests and questionnaires are reported in table 1, along with bivariate correlation coefficients. table 1 univariate descriptive statistics, internal consistencies and bivariate correlation coefficients 7654321cronbach’s αs.d.mean bfi 1. conscientiousness .80.226.230 2. agreeableness .24**.77.945.133 3. neuroticism .79.276.626 4. openness .74.975.136 5. extraversion .30***.28***-.80.865.824 cvpa 6. value .19*-.19*.78.313.411 7. acumen .59***.26**-.18*.74.972.211 8. response .46***.53***.18*-.80.772.39 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. non-significant correlations are not reported. as expected, the results of this study suggest that the three subscales of the cvpa are moderately correlated. these results indicate that, as proposed by the authors (bloch et al., 2003) the centrality of visual aesthetic products, though allowing the use of a composite score, can also be considered as a multidimensional construct, which was done in this study. predicting the centrality of visual aesthetic products first, in order to test our hypotheses, bivariate correlations between each cvpa subscale and the predictors (the big five personality dimensions) were computed (see table 1). second, focusing on our hypothesis on differentiating the predictors of the dimensions of the cvpa, we used generalized linear modeling (glm) in order to compare the unique contribution of each predictor to individual differences in cvpa. to do so, for each cvpa subscale score, all possible combinations of level 1 predictors went through a process of model selection, using the glmulti r library (calcagno & de mazancourt, 2010). the glmultir library allows computing, comparing, and ranking an exhaustive list of models, using information criteria1. this methodology may be used both for exploratory and for confirmatory analyses. in this study, because previous results on the link between the cvpa and any of the big five personality factors were lacking, such a model selection procedure allowed us to make sure that the theoretical hypothesized model (openness predicts the centrality of visual product aesthetics) was the optimal model, among all other possible combinations of personality predictors. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 personality and design-driven consumer choices 644 http://www.psychopen.eu/ more precisely, in this study, for each cvpa subscale, an exhaustive list of all the possible models was computed. to avoid an incomputable combinatorial explosion (grafen & hails 2002; orestes cerdeira, duarte silva, cadima, & minhoto, 2009), the computed models did not include interaction terms. the fit of all the possible models was subsequently ranked using each model’s bayesian information criterion (bic). the bic-based optimal model was chosen for predictor selection, and for further interpretation. table 2, table 3 and table 4 report parameter estimates and fit indices for the full linear model, including all the predictors, and the bic-based optimal model. value. as shown in table 1, value was significantly (p < .05) negatively correlated with openness to experience, suggesting that, as hypothesized, the more one values the visual design of products, the less one is open to experience. moreover, value was unexpectedly positively correlated (r = .19 ; p < .05) with agreeableness, suggesting that extent to which one values visual design is related the extent to which one tends to be agreeable. confirming this, the bic-based model selection procedure lead to selecting an optimal model that included only openness (β = -.18 ; p < .05) and agreeableness (β = .18 ; p < .05) as predictors of value, accounting for 7% (r2 = .07 ; p < .01) of the variance of value (see table 2). table 2 regression results for predicting centrality of visual aesthetic products value, using glmulti to exhaustively fit all possible models bic-based optimal modelfull model beta estimates conscientiousness (bfi) .12agreeableness (bfi) .18*.19* neuroticism (bfi) .13openness (bfi) .18*-.17*extraversion (bfi) .11model fit index aic .12822.57822 bic .37834.01844 multiple r2 .07**.10** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. acumen. as reported in table 1, acumen was modestly significantly negatively correlated with openness to experience (r = -.26 ; p < .01), suggesting that, as hypothesized, the (self-reported) ability to evaluate design is related to low openness to experience. the bic-based model selection procedure lead to selecting an optimal model that included only openness (β = -.26 ; p < .001) as a predictor of acumen, accounting for 7% (r2 = .07 ; p < .001) of the variance of acumen (see table 3). response. as shown in table 1, response was significantly negatively correlated with openness to experience (r = -.18 ; p < .05), suggesting that, as hypothesized, the urge to buy that one may feel when in front of a greatly designed product is related to low openness. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 myszkowski & storme 645 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 regression results for predicting centrality of visual aesthetic products acumen, using glmulti to exhaustively fit all possible models bic-based optimal modelfull model beta estimates conscientiousness (bfi) .01agreeableness (bfi) .12 neuroticism (bfi) .17* openness (bfi) .26***-.25**extraversion (bfi) .06 model fit index aic .57786.15788 bic .76795.58809 multiple r2 .07***.11** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 4 regression results for predicting centrality of visual aesthetic products response, using glmulti to exhaustively fit all possible models bic-based optimal modelfull model beta estimates conscientiousness (bfi) .04 agreeableness (bfi) .04 neuroticism (bfi) .04openness (bfi) .18*-.18*extraversion (bfi) .02model fit index aic .33770.35777 bic .52779.78798 multiple r2 .03*.04 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the bic-based model selection procedure lead to selecting an optimal model that included only openness to experience (β = -.18 ; p < .05) as a predictor of response, accounting for 3% (r2 = .03 ; p < .05) of the variance of response (see table 4). total cvpa score.complementally, the same bic-based linear model selection procedure was applied to predict the total cvpa score. the procedure lead to selecting a bic-based optimal model that included only openness as a predictor of the centrality of visual aesthetic products (β = -.25 ; p < .01), accounting for 6% (r2 = .06 ; p <.01) of the variance of response (see table 5), and suggesting that, as hypothesized, the significance that design holds for an in his/her relationship with products is especially related to having a lowopenness to experience. however, though not included in the bic-based optimal model, the results also point to the fact that agreeableness may play a role in predicting the centrality of visual aesthetic products. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 personality and design-driven consumer choices 646 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 regression results for predicting centrality of visual aesthetic products (total score), using glmulti to exhaustively fit all possible models bic-based optimal modelfull model beta estimates conscientiousness (bfi) .04agreeableness (bfi) .15 neuroticism (bfi) .00openness (bfi) .25**-.24**extraversion (bfi) .03model fit index aic .261080.381084 bic .441089.821105 multiple r2 .06**.09* *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion as hypothesized, low openness significantly predicted the individuals’ tendency to prefer and respond to greatly designed products. more specifically, based on the regression results, the extent to which one values design (value), the (self-reported) ability to evaluate design (acumen) and the urge to buy products with a great design (response) were primarily predicted by low openness to experience. indeed, the results of this study suggest that individuals with a lowopenness to experience tend to have an increased intensity of the response to the appearance of a product, amplifying design-driven product choices. oppositely, high openness individuals may tend to focus more inquisitively on other aspects of products, leading them to disregard aesthetic characteristics. besides, agreeableness was found to be positively correlated with value, which was not expected. such a result could be explained by the fact that both agreeableness and valuing design imply taking into consideration specific common values such as harmony and balance. indeed, superiorly designed products may be more valued by agreeable individuals because such aesthetic characteristics would be regarded as an effort from brands to make their products more pleasant. though previous results indicate that the cvpa is not biased by social desirability (bloch et al., 2003), this result could also be explained by the fact that both agreeableness and valuing design could be part of a general strategic self-presentation. more generally, the results suggest that more empirical research is needed to further understand the relationships between agreeableness and design-driven consumer choices. this study has some limitations. in particular, it has been conducted on a sample of students, mostly female. further studies should focus on the replication of this result on other samples, such as more typical highly designed products consumers than students. moreover, personality and the tendency to make design-driven consumer choices were here measured using rather short – though psychometrically robust – self-report scales. further research might try to further investigate the link between personality and buying or appreciating well-designed products using other measures, notably more in-depth measures such as the neo-pi-r. as previous research indicates that a consumer’s behavior is related to the extent to which he/she is sensitive to social comparison information (netemeyer, bearden, & teel, 1992; bearden & rose, 1990; bearden, hardesty, & rose, 2001), further studies could also focus on the influence of other personality traits, such as self-esteem, conformity, self-presentation strategies, on the tendency to prefer well-designed products. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 myszkowski & storme 647 http://www.psychopen.eu/ because this studymight provide some useful elements to further understand and to further predict the design-driven consumer choices, the results of this research may lead to different field applications, particularly in the areas of advertising and marketing. indeed, here, preferring well-design products seems to be related to personality, and advertisers might focus on specific arguments when aiming at selling products with a superior design. future research could focus on the impact of using specific arguments to sell well-designed products. finally, this study could help marketers and advertisers identify the target markets of greatly designed products, which can help them better match the spending of time and money on design research and production, as well as how much is spent on design-focused advertising, with the characteristics of the target market segments. notes 1) another option that is commonly used is the use of stepwise backward or forward model selection. however, the results of stepwise model selection procedures depend on arbitrary decisions, such as the choice of the starting point and the stopping rules, may not always converge to the best model, and possibly lead to selecting different models (venables & ripley 1997; 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(1997). modern applied statistics with s-plus (3rd ed.). new york: springer verlag. about the authors mr. nils myszkowski is a phd candidate in creativity psychology. he works in the laboratory lati (université paris descartes, paris, france), which focuses on organizational psychology, creativity and individual differences psychology. he teaches people management in a business school and psychology at the université paris descartes (paris, france). his thesis, directed by pr. todd lubart and dr. franck zenasni, focuses on creativity, personality and aesthetics. mr. martin storme is a phd candidate in individual differences psychology. he works in the lati (université paris descartes, paris, france), which focuses on organizational psychology, creativity and individual differences psychology. his thesis, directed by pr. todd lubart, focuses on information integration in creativity judgment. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 641–650 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.523 personality and design-driven consumer choices 650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.4220090504 http://project.org/package=subselect http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amp.2005.02.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209105 http://www.psychopen.eu/ personality and design-driven consumer choices introduction individual differences in design-driven consumer choices design-driven consumer choices and personality method participants measures procedure results descriptive statistics predicting the centrality of visual aesthetic products discussion notes references about the authors emotional distress following childbirth: an intervention to buffer depressive and ptsd symptoms research reports emotional distress followingchildbirth: an intervention tobuffer depressive and ptsd symptoms paola di blasio*a, sarah miragolia, elena camisascab, angela maria di vita c, rosalia pizzod, laura pipitoned [a]catholic university of milan, milan, italy. [b] e-campus university, novedrate, italy. [c] juvenile court of palermo, palermo, italy. [d]university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract childbirth for some women is a negative experience associated with depressive and post-traumatic symptoms. the preventive actions focusing on helping mothers to cope with negative emotions experienced after childbirth are strongly recommended. it is also recommended both to intervene early and on all women to avoid the risk that these symptoms can worsen in the months after childbirth. the intervention described in the current study is focalized on the elaboration of post-partum negative thoughts and emotion through a writing task, with the purpose to help new mothers to reflect, understand, evaluate and, thus, reformulate the stressful situation with new beliefs and emotions. 176 women aged from 19 to 43 years (m = 31.55, sd = 4.58) were assessed for depression and ptsd in the prenatal phase (t1). in about 96 hours after childbirth they were randomly assigned to either “making sense condition” (ms: in which they wrote about the thoughts and emotions connected with delivery and childbirth) or “control-neutral condition” (nc: in which they wrote about the daily events in behavioural terms) and then reassessed for depression and ptsd (t2). a follow up was conducted 3 months later (t3) to verify depression and posttraumatic symptoms. the results showed that depressive symptoms decreased both at 96 hours and at 3 months as a result of making-sense task. regarding the posttraumatic symptoms the positive effect emerged at three months and not at 96 hours after birth. keywords: intervention, childbirth, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 received: 2014-03-31. accepted: 2015-02-25. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: ateka contractor, warren alpert medical school, brown university, providence, usa; department of psychology, university of toledo, toledo, spain *corresponding author at: largo gemelli 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: paola.diblasio@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. for some women the birth of a child is a critical key life transition associated with various symptoms. of all the perinatal affective disorders, maternity blues and depression are the most commonly known and, in research studies in the last few years, also post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) is beginning to be recognized as a relevant symptomatic disease. maternity blues (mb) occurs in the first few days after delivery with estimates of prevalence ranging from 30% to 75% (o’hara & swain, 1996). it is a transitory psychological disorder, characterized by mild depressive symptoms, tearfulness, sorrow/weeping, unstable moods, anxiety, and confusion (newport, hostetter, arnold, & stowe, 2002). this disturbance tends to disappear in many women within a couple of weeks. however, about 20% of women suffering from mb are diagnosed as having major depression in the first year following delivery (campbell, cohn, flanagan, popper, & meyers, 1992; o’hara, schlechte, lewis, & wright, 1991). some research, moreover, confirmed the stability of the symptoms in time, considering that the maternal mood europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ at one week can predict the postnatal depression at four and eight weeks, because of the persistence of the same risk factors (dennis, janssen, & singer, 2004). the major risk factors for developing postnatal depression (pnd), defined as an episode of depression within a year after the birth of a child, include depression and anxiety during pregnancy, postpartum mb and past history of psychiatric illness. the occurrence of stressful life events during pregnancy and the absence of social support networks increase a mother’s risk of developing pnd (beck, 2001; o’hara & swain, 1996; robertson, grace, wallington, & stewart, 2004). the pnd affects a significant number of women with prevalence rate about 19.2% in the first three months and 12.9% in the first year from birth (gaynes et al., 2005), with a mean estimated of about 13% in prenatal and postnatal phases (bennett, einarson, taddio, koren, & einarson, 2004). for some women childbirth can be, also, a critical or a severe traumatogenic event contributing to poor psychological adjustment. posttraumatic stress essentially involves three distinct clusters of symptoms: re-experiencing the event (flashbacks), persistent avoidance of any stimuli associated with the event, and increased arousal. in childbirth experiences, named atypical or “irregular” (for reviews: andersen, melvaer, videbech, lamont, & joergensen, 2012; olde, van der hart, kleber, & van son, 2006), characterized by risk factors as serious prematurity, health difficulties in the mother or/and the child and stillbirth, a prevalence rate of full ptsd is between 20%-25% and partial symptoms between 26% and 41%. also regular childbirth could be traumatic and, in this context, two principal factors are relevant: subjective emotional distress alone and subjective distress associated with others problems, above all depression. the prevalence rate of full ptsd in regular childbirth without medical complication ranges from 2.8% to 5.6% at six weeks post-partum (ayers & pickering, 2001; creedy, shochet, & horsfall, 2000; czarnocka & slade, 2000; wijma, soderquist, & wijma, 1997) and then decreases to 1.5% at six months after childbirth (ayers & pickering, 2001; wijma, soderquist, & wijma, 1997). moreover, approximately between 21.3% and 33% of women may experience the birth itself as traumatic with three or more traumatic stress symptoms at 4-8 weeks post-partum (creedy, shochet, & horsfall, 2000; davies, slade, wright, & stewart, 2008; soet, brack, & dilorio, 2003). elmir and colleagues (2010) in a qualitative review state that the negative emotions (fear, pain, helplessness, threat for one’s own life and the life of the baby, negative appraisal of the delivery, fear of losing control, etc.) explain well a large spectrum of problems connected with childbirth. the fear of childbirth was judge so relevant problem that in finland, salmela-aro and colleagues (2012) promoted among nulliparous pregnant women with an intense fear of childbirth, a preventive psycho-educative group therapy intervention, based on social cognitive theories on behavioral control and individual coping resilience, which was effective in increasing the mothers’ preparedness for childbirth and which was predictive of an increase in positive motherhood. negative feelings of birth could also be associated with other problems and, among these, depression is the strongest predictive variable of the full ptsd symptoms (denis, parant, & callahan, 2011). epidemiological research found a high degree of co-morbidity between depression and ptsd (davidson & fairbank, 1993) and a cohort study by seng and colleagues (2013) confirms that ptsd and depression symptoms overlap, and ptsd that is chronic and severe often is comorbid with depression. in summary, postnatal depression and ptsd are serious mental health problems and for these reason, in all studies the preventive actions focusing on helping mothers to cope with negative emotions experienced after childbirth are strongly recommended. efforts to prevent post-partum depression have beenmore common (o’hara, 2009; o’hara & mccabe, 2013) than those to prevent ptsd (lapp, agbokou, peretti, & ferreri, 2010), which is still an underestimated phenomenon. however there is little or mixed evidence for the effectiveness of pnd prevention programmes. two reviews (dennis, 2005; dennis & dowswell, 2013) on fifty-six and on twenty-eight trials, involving almost 17.000 women, treated with psychosocial and psychological interventions (such as antenatal europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 215 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and postnatal classes, professional interventions, home visits, debriefing, and interpersonal psychotherapy) showed that postnatal interventions were more beneficial than those that incorporated an antenatal component. in addition, the women who received a psychosocial or psychological postnatal intervention were significantly less likely to develop postpartum depression compared with those receiving standard care. the more promising interventions are: (1) intensive, individualized postpartum home visits, provided by public health nurses or midwives; (2) lay (peer)-based telephone support; and (3) interpersonal psychotherapy. the moderate effects of psychological treatments and the equal effectiveness of different types of interventions (cognitive behaviour therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and counseling, and also social support interventions) emerges both from the cuijpers, brännmark, and van straten (2008) meta-analysis on seventeen controlled and comparative research studies in postpartum depression and from a review of muñoz, cuijpers, smit, barrera, and leykin (2010) on major depression, which included several studies with postpartum. interesting results supporting universal prevention (i.e. directed at all the women after childbirth), are reported by brugha, morrell, slade, and walters (2011), in a prospective randomized cluster trial, on two groups of women with “subthreshold” depression scores (epds < 12 at six weeks postpartum) followed for eighteen months. women in the intervention cluster (which provided for person-centred counseling or cbt-based counseling from health visitors) were significantly less likely to become depressed than women in the usual care cluster. this research provides new evidence of a universal, enduring preventive effect for depression in women who screen negative for depression postnatally. the effectiveness of the intervention is explained both by the fact that the focus of care was on the mother’s psychological well-being, not just on the physical welfare of the child, and by the opportunity for mothers to recognize and openly communicate their emotions without the fear of being stigmatised (brugha et al., 2011). on the basis of the above studies and the results emerging from brugha et al. (2011), we decided to verify whether an universal early and “light” intervention of narration of childbirth experience (making sense task), focalized on the elaboration of negative thoughts and emotion, can improve women‘s welfare by opposing the distress symptoms. as mcadams’ (1993, 1996, 2001) studies on narration have demonstrated the identity itself takes the form of a story based on selectively appropriate aspects of biographical facts that make sense in the specific and cultural context. in this sense we think that the writing task about a crucial and transitional phase as a childbirth can favour both the continuation and the synchronically and diachronically integration of identity. we consider, in fact, that childbirth has the peculiarity to be an event both full of expectations, which can turn out to be disappointing and discrepant, and characterized by the co-presence of positive feelings about the child’s birth that are explicitly recognized, shared and self-aware along with negative emotions, neither admitted and recognized nor legitimated, due to the loss of control, pain and solitude, which creates an emotional disequilibrium and the perception of the extraneousness of oneself and of others (di blasio, ionio, & confalonieri, 2009; ionio & di blasio, 2014). to deal with the complex emotive condition related to childbirth, we chose to experiment with the efficacy of a cognitive-emotional restructuring and re-signification intervention of the childbirth experience, with the purpose to help new mothers, through the narrative, to reflect, understand, evaluate, and thus reformulate the stressful situation with new beliefs directed to coherent objectives (park, 2010; park & ai, 2006). this research hypothesis refers to the “meaning and meaning making model” which has received great attention in the last few years and has been applied to stressful life experiences in various contexts, among which health and clinical psychology. some research on bereavement and cancer survivors have reported that meaning-making is related to better adjustment, compared with not having to search for meaning. the cross sectional study by tolstikova, fleming, and chartier (2005), on seventy-two women and twelve men who lost their love ones in motor vehicle accident, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 216 http://www.psychopen.eu/ showed that the intensity of grief was significantly related to symptoms of trauma (avoidance, intrusive, dissociative experience, anxiety, and depressive mood) and that individual who failed to find meaning had greater intensity of grief feelings and more extensive trauma symptoms. in sample of one hundred ninety-one men and eleven women affected by life-limiting cardiac illness, meaning making was strongly related to better physical and mental quality of live, which in turn is important to reduce re-hospitalization and mortality (park, malone, suresh, bliss, & rosen, 2008) “meaning” can be defined as the “mental representation of possible relationships among things, events, and relationships which connects things” (park, 2010, p. 257). situational meaning, in particular, refers to meaning in the specific context and describes an ongoing set of processes and outcomes, including assignment of meaning to the event (appraised meaning), determination of discrepancies between appraised and global meaning, meaning making, meanings made, and adjustment to the event (park, 2010, p. 259). according to the meaning making model, the cognitive and emotional discrepancy between the appraised meaning of the event and the general individual’s global beliefs and expectations, underlies the level of distress experienced. the childbirth experience could be characterized precisely by this. in fact, the negative distress observed in many women after childbirth (see reviews: andersen et al., 2012; elmir, schmied, wilkes, & jackson, 2010) can be explained as the effect of a discrepant psychological condition due to both the concrete childbirth experience, more demanding, painful, long and stressful than expected, and to the simultaneous presence of the negative and positive emotions, described above. the purpose of intervention is to seek, through elaboration, to reduce this discrepancy between expectations and contrasting emotions since this could be a precursor to developing a coherent story of the stressful events which is also associated with better outcomes (boals, 2012; ramírez-esparza & pennebaker, 2006). objectives and hypotheses the objective of this study, based on a universal prevention intervention, is to verify whether giving meaning to stressful experience of childbirth can moderate the association between the antenatal depressive and post-traumatic symptoms (t1) and the same postnatal symptoms (t2 and t3). in particular, the first research hypothesis (h1) is that the making-sense task enables the reduction of depressive and post-traumatic (re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal) symptoms immediately after childbirth (96 hours; t2): more precisely, we expect that women assigned to the “making-sense group” (asked to write about childbirth) will show a significant reduction of depressive and post-traumatic symptoms, while women assigned to the “control-neutral group” (asked to write about neutral and behavioural events) have an increase in these symptoms or do not present differences compared to antenatal phase. we consider, in fact, that a making-sense task would set off reflective and restructuring mechanisms on childbirth experience, with a containing effect on the symptoms at 96 hours and we also think that such a result could have a protective value by reducing the risk that the distress can worsen in the three postpartum months. the second research hypothesis (h2) is that this positive effect lasts in time and that at the follow up at 3 months (t3) the women assigned to the “making-sense group” will present a significant reduction of depressive and posttraumatic symptoms, while women assigned to the “control-neutral group” (asked to write about neutral and behavioural events) will have an increase in these symptoms or do not present differences compared to antenatal phase. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants two hundred and twelve women between the 32nd and 40th weeks of pregnancy were recruited during the prenatal courses and at the hospitals (time 1, t1) of two large italian cities in the north and in the south (milano and palermo). the researchers explained individually to each pregnant woman the research protocol approved by the appropriate institutional review board and obtained their spontaneous and unpaid consent to participate in the study. the informed consent contained the description of all the phases of the research and of the instruments. regarding the making-sense task the participants were informed that, after childbirth, they would receive an envelope with the material necessary to carry out a writing task on events in her life. the difference between the two writing tasks (meaning making-task vs. neutral) has not been made explicit, to avoid an effect of influencing. the inclusion criteria to participate in the research were: an adequate knowledge of the italian language in order to understand the questionnaires, no psychiatric diagnosis in anamnesis, and age from eighteen years old upwards. 176 women out of 212 (refusal rate: 16.98%), aged 19-43 years (m = 31.55, sd = 4.58), participated in all three phases of the study. most of them were married or cohabiting (84.1%) and had a medium-high level of education: 2.2% with a phd (nineteen years of education), 35.8% with a degree (seventeen years), 46.6% with a high-school certificate (thirteen years), 15.4% with a middle-school certificate (eight years). the majority were employed (78.4%) and of italian nationality (96%). the new-born were 51.1% female and 48.9%male, andmost of the women were primiparous (61.9%). as regards the obstetric characteristics, 61.9% of the women participated in the antenatal course and the majority had full term pregnancies: 24.4% had a spontaneous natural childbirth without epidural analgesia, 50% spontaneous with epidural analgesia, 8% planned caesarean and 17.6% emergency caesarean. at birth, most of the babies were healthy: in fact in 89.2% the apgar score at minute one after delivery was normal, in 2.5% was moderately depressed, and in 8.3% of babies the data were missing. thanks to cooperation with medical and nursing staff, the women were re-contacted in the first week after childbirth (time 2, t2) to effect the second research phase. in this phase the 176 women were randomly assigned at one of the two groups: “making sense condition” (ms) and “control-neutral condition” (nc). the ms group was composed by 87 women, ranged from 22 to 43 year (m = 32.10, sd = 4.37), and the nc group by 89 women, ranged from 19 to 39 year (m = 31.00, sd = 4.77). the comparison between the two groups indicates no significant differences in age (t (174) = 1.60, p = .11), marital status (χ2(1) = 1.37, p = .30), parity (χ2(3) = 2.91, p = .41), baby gender (χ2(1) = .208, p = .18), participation in antenatal courses (χ2(1) = .65, p = .72), and birth condition (χ2(3) = 4.29, p = .23). three-four months later (time 3, t3) researchers re-opened the contacts and, by appointment, conducted a telephonic follow-up interview. procedure the first phase of this study took place during antenatal courses or medical checks between the 32nd and 40th week of pregnancy (t1). after each woman provided informed consent for her participation in the three phases of the research, she completed the questionnaires assessing demographic characteristics, depression (beck depression inventory ii, bdi; beck, steer, & brown, 1996) and ptsd symptoms (los angeles symptoms checklist, lasc; king, king, leskin, & foy, 1995). the second phase took place in at 3-4 days post-partum (t2). in about seventy-two hours, after having verified the absence of severe complications connected to labour and established the good health of mother and child, each participant was randomly assigned to either the “making sense condition” (ms), in which she wrote about the thoughts and emotions connected with delivery and childbirth, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 218 http://www.psychopen.eu/ or to the “neutral-control condition” (nc), in which she wrote about her daily event in behavioural terms. the content of making sense intervention was partially derived from pennebaker’s expressive writing paradigm (pennebaker, 1997). the instructions for the ms group were to write about deep emotions, expectations, and thoughts connected with delivery and childbirth, describing also the most secret feelings and thoughts which they have not told, nor would tell, to anyone. the women of the nc group were asked to describe the daily events, referring only to events and behaviours without mentioning thoughts and emotions. the instructions were given in a sealed envelope in which the women put their tasks. the writing session was about twenty minutes in duration. compared with pennebaker’s (1997) standard protocol, which recommended writing three or four essays, the participants of this study wrote on only one occasion. although pennebaker and the results of the more important meta-analyses (frattaroli, 2006; frisina, borod, & lepore, 2004; smyth, 1998) found that to improve mental and physical health benefits multiple writing occasions are needed, we here opted for a modified and simplified protocol, which we called “making sense”, to distinguish it from pennebaker’s standard protocol. the reason for this choice is that more writing sessions would have risked being too demanding for the new mothers, who were already weakened by the childbirth, occupied with the contact with the new-born, undergoing various medical checks and stressed by parents’ and friends’ visits. the decision to carry out the making-sense task in the first days after childbirth was another specific choice to intervene early and preventively on widespread and acute symptoms not yet chronicized and stabilized. in addition, coherently with the aims of this research, the purpose was to carry out a light intervention of making sense of negative and unexpected emotions and thoughts aroused by childbirth and not to verify in a strict sense the efficacy of the expressive writing standard procedure. at one-two days from the restitution of the written account (m = 96 hours after childbirth), all the participants completed the bdi and the ppq (perinatal ptsd questionnaire; callahan, borja, & hynan, 2006) to evaluate respectively the depression and the ptsd. in the third phase of the research, at three months after childbirth (t3), the women were re-assessed with the bdi and the ppq, through a telephone interview on the day and at the time of their choice. measures depression — to assess depression symptoms the beck depression inventory-ii (bdi; beck et al., 1996; italian validation by ghisi, flebus, montano, sanavio, & sica, 2006), was administered (at t1, t2, and t3). it includes 21 items asking about cognitive, motivational, affective and behavioural symptoms of depression. each item was scored on a 4-point scale with a total score of 63. based on the italian validation, a cut-off score ≥ 12 identify the presence or the absence of depression. we considered the scores of 13-19: mild depression; 20-28: moderate depression; and 29-63: severe depression. post-traumatic stress disorder — to assess post-traumatic stress symptoms two measures were employed: the los angeles symptom checklist (lasc; king, king, leskin, & foy, 1995), suitable for the general post-traumatic symptoms was used in the prenatal phase (t1); and the modified version of perinatal ptsd questionnaire (ppq; callahan, borja, & hynan, 2006), suitable for the specific symptoms connected to childbirth, was used in the two post-natal phases (t2 and t3). los angeles symptom checklist is a self-report measure of 43 items and includes 17 items that address symptoms related to re-experiencing, avoidance and numbing, and hyperarousal ptsd clusters. each item is made up of a word or phrase evaluated on the five-point likert scale from 0 (no difficulty) to 4 (very great difficulty). the sum of the 17 items scores (ranged from 0 to 68) permits the evaluation of the ptsd gravity (severity index) while the sum of all 43 items indicates difficulty in adaptation (distress index), as a consequence of traumatic experiences. in the present study the severity index that addresses the “core” ptsd symptoms was used. the lasc cutting score for ptsd severity index was 25.26 (king et al., 1995, p. 14). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 219 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the present study the α coefficient value for the 17 severity items was .90; a value comparable to those detected across three sample groups by king and colleagues (1995) ranged from .89 to .94. to assess the specific stress symptoms post-partum, the modified version of perinatal ptsd questionnaire was administered (t2 and t3). the ppq specifically developed for routinely identifying distressed mothers who are experiencing perinatal symptoms of post-traumatic distress, it is composed of 14 items on a five-level likert scale (scored 0 to 4) from 0 point (not at all or never) to 4 points (very often). the first three items describe symptoms of unwanted intrusions, the next six describe symptoms of avoidance or numbing of responsiveness, and the last five items symptoms of hyperarousal. the total possible score on themodified ppq ranged from 0 to 56. responses to the questions are summed for a total score. a score of 19 or higher on the ppq indicates clinically significant distress that merits referral of the mother to a mental health care professional (callahan & borja, 2008, p. 54). the ppq has demonstrated appropriate internal consistency (α from .85 to .90) and test-retest reliabilities (r = .92; callahan & borja, 2008, p. 53-54). in the present study internal consistency was from .85 to .88. strategy of analysis data analysis was conducted in several steps. firstly, we presented descriptive statistics regarding the percentages of women with clinical levels of depression and post-traumatic stress in the three research phases. secondly, a set of regression analyses was conducted to examine whether the making-sense task moderates the relationship between prenatal (t1) and post-natal depressive and post-traumatic (ptsd total score, re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal) symptoms after 96 hours (t2) and at 3 months (t3). we computed a multiple regression analysis (baron & kenny, 1986; holmbeck, 1997) using the prenatal score, the writing conditions (0 = control group; 1 = making sense), and the interaction products among these variables (koopman et al., 2005). given that to evaluate the post-traumatic symptoms, we employed different measures in prenatal (lasc) and in post-natal (ppq) phases, which give differing scores, we transformed the raw scores into z-scores for all ptsd variables with the purpose of making the results comparable. regarding the depression scores employed in regression analysis, all independent variables were “centered” to reduce collinearity among the variables. results descriptive statistics the descriptive statistics showed that at prenatal phase (t1), 5.68% (n = 10) of women present clinical level of ptsd severity (lasc) with a cut-off ≥ 25.26, and 3.9% (n = 7) reported levels of moderate and severe depression (bdi) with a cut-off ≥ 20. the check about the randomization of the two groups (see table 1) “making-sense” (ms) and “neutral-control” (nc) in the prenatal phase (t1) preceding the making-sense task, showed no significant differences in the mean scores for post-traumatic severity (ms: m = 10.94, sd = 6.35 vs. nc: m = 12.81, sd = 7.51; t(174) = -1.77, p = .08), while the women in the nc group have a higher scores in depression symptoms than women assigned to ms group (ms: m = 9.02, sd = 4.28 vs. nc: m = 10.97, sd = 4.99, t(174) = -2.76, p < .01). after childbirth (t2) and at 3 months (t3), the percentage of new mothers with clinical post-traumatic symptoms (measured with ppq, cut off ≥ 19) was respectively 4.6% and 1.1% in ms group and 6.7% and 5.6% in nc group. in the same times (t2 and t3) clinical depression was reported by 1.1% and 0% of women in the ms group and by 4.49% and 5.61% in the nc group. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 220 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for depression and ptsd symptoms at prenatal, 96 hours and 3 months after childbirth 3 months scores (t3)96 hours scores (t2)prenatal scores (t1) measures nc groupms groupnc groupms groupnc groupms group sdmsdmsdmsdmsdmsdm 5.9010.983.736.745.3210.184.587.844.9910.974.289.02total depression (bdi) 1.13.331.70-.3391.05.106.93-.1081.07.131.91-.134total ptsd (z-scores) 1.12.136.84-.1391.72.039.94-.0401.06-.073.93.075ptsd re-experiencing (z-scores) 1.11.263.78-.2691.00.066.99-.0671.14.175.79-.179ptsd avoidance (z-scores) 1.12.325.72-.3331.09.130.83-.1331.02.126.96-.128ptsd hyper-arousal (z-scores) outcome of making-sense task amultiple regression analysis conducted to verify the moderational effect of making-sense task on the association between antenatal depressive and post-traumatic symptoms (t1) and the same postnatal symptoms (t2 and t3). depression — at first, two distinct regression analyses were performed on the total scores of depression at 96 hours (t2) and at 3 months (t3) after childbirth (see table 2). results showed that the models are strongly significant and explained a certain amount of variance (t2: f(3,175) = 12.56, adjr2 = .16, p < .001; t3: f(3,175) = 24.80, adjr2 = .29, p < .001). table 2 regression analysis predicting depression scores at 96 hours (t2) and at 3 months (t3) 3 months (t3)96 hours (t2) βse bbβse bbpredictor variables constant .34.748.36.978 prenatal symptoms scores .33**.07.37.32**.07.35 writing condition .33**-.69.53-3.16*-.72.60-1 prenatal symptoms scores*writing condition .16*-.15.39-.07-.15.15note. *p < .05. **p < .001. at 96 hours (t2), both prenatal depressive symptoms (β = .32) and the writing condition were significant (β = -.16; see table 2). this result indicated that women assigned to ms group had a greater reduction in depressive symptoms compared to the nc group. after 3 months (t3), besides the significant effect of prenatal symptoms (β = .33) and the ms condition (β = .33), also the interaction product of these variables was significant (β = -.16). the direction of this interaction, verified with two regressions in the ms and nc groups (with independent variable the prenatal depression score and dependent variable the 3 months depression scores), is significant in the nc group (f(1,88) = 25.22, adjr2 = .21, β = .47, p < .001), but not in the ms group (adjr2 = .02, f(1,86) = 3.39, β = .19, p > .05). figure 1, in which are pictured the means of depressive symptoms, at prenatal (t1) and at 3 months (t3), show a decrease in the ms group and a substantial stability in the control-neutral group. the dashed line indicates non-significant association. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 221 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1.writing conditions and mean of depression scores at t1 and t3. post-traumatic symptoms — as regards post-traumatic symptoms (total score) the two distinct regression analyses demonstrated that both the model at 96 hours (t2; f(3,175) = 11.609, adjr2 = .154, p < .001) and at 3 months (t3; f(3,175) = 18.166, adjr2 = .29, p < .001) are significant (see table 3). table 3 regression analysis predicting ptsd scores at 96 hours (t2) and at 3 months (t3) 3 months (t3)96 hours (t2) βse bbβse bbpredictor variables constant .06.01-.07.02prenatal symptoms scores .38**.06.38.31**.07.31 writing condition .28**-.12.57-.09-.14.18prenatal symptoms scores*writing condition .17*-.13.35-.08-.14.39note. *p < .05. **p < .001. however, unlike the depression, for the post-traumatic symptoms immediately after childbirth (t2) the ms condition compared with nc condition did not show significant effect. at 3 months (t3) both the ms condition (p < .001) and the interaction with prenatal symptoms (p < .01) are significant. the direction of this interaction, verified with two regressions in the ms and nc groups (with independent variable the prenatal ptsd score and dependent variable the 3 months ptsd score) showed a greater influence of prenatal symptoms on nc group (f(1,86) = 33.88, adjr2 = .28, β = .53, p < .001) than on ms group (f (1,88) = 6.33, adjr2 = .58, β = .26, p < .01). figure 2, in which are pictured the means of ptsd symptoms, at prenatal (t1) and at 3 months (t3), show a decrease in the ms group and a increase in the nc group. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2.writing conditions and mean of ptsd total scores (z-scores) at t1 and t3. however, at 3 months, the contribution of three clusters of ptsd symptoms (re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal symptoms) is not the same. while the re-experiencing symptomsmodel was not significant (f(3,175) = 2.027, adjr2 = .01, p > .05); the avoidance was significant (f (3,175) = 8.65, adjr2 = .11, p < .001), due to the predictive effect of writing condition (β = -.23; p < .01); and also the hyperarousal model was significant (f(3,175) = 25.25, adjr2 = .29, p < .001), due to the effect of writing condition (β = -.28; p < .001) and of the interaction between writing condition and prenatal symptoms (β = -.19; p < .01). table 4 regression analysis predicting avoidance and hyper-arousal scores at 96 hours (t2) and at 3 months (t3) hyper-arousal (z-scores)avoidance (z-scores) predictor variables βse bbβse bb 96 hours (t2) constant .07.01-.07.02prenatal symptoms scores .31**.07.31.21*.07.25 writing condition .09-.14.18-.02-.14.04prenatal symptoms scores*writing condition .16*-.14.34-.13-.15.273 months (t3) constant .06.01-.07.01prenatal symptoms scores .39**.06.39.21*.07.21 writing condition .28**-.12.56-.23**-.14.46prenatal symptoms scores*writing condition .19**-.12.38-.07-.15.15note. *p < .05. **p < .001. table 4 shows only the key results. the main effect of ms task compared to nc task indicated that women assigned to the ms group showed lower avoidance symptoms compared to nc group. regarding hyperarousal, the product of interaction with prenatal symptoms confirmed a significantly greater influence of prenatal symptoms on nc group (f(1,89) = 31.57, adjr2 = .25, β = .51, p < .001) than on ms group (f(1,86) = 2.84, adjr2 = .03, β = .20, p < .05). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the purpose of our research was to evaluate whether giving meaning to stressful experience of childbirth could moderate the relationship between antenatal and post-natal depressive and post-traumatic (ptsd total score, re-experiencing, avoidance, and hyperarousal) symptoms, both at 96 hours post-partum and at 3 months postpartum. we expected that women assigned to the “making-sense group” would show a significant reduction of depressive and post-traumatic symptoms, both at 96 hours post-partum (h1) and at 3 months post-partum (h2), while women assigned to the “control-neutral group” would have an increase in these symptoms or would not present differences compared to antenatal phase. our data showed a statistically significant effect for the making-sense intervention on the trajectory of depression and posttraumatic stress. regarding depressive symptoms, the making-sense task had a predictive effect at 96 hours and a significant moderating effect at 3 months on the association between prenatal and postnatal symptoms; regarding posttraumatic symptoms, the making-sense task had a significant moderating effect only at 3 months. therefore, our hypothesis 1 (h1) is confirmed only for depressive symptoms, while our hypothesis 2 (h2) is fully confirmed. to comment on these data, we should immediately note that the adjusted r2 values for the models tested in our research, which included the making-sense task and prenatal symptoms, explained only a portion of variance between 16% and 29%. this could mean that the reduction of other risk factors, described in the introduction (for example, lack of marital and social support and stressful events), could be explicative predictors of the improvement observed. furthermore, we cannot exclude that, parallel to the ms intervention, the women expressed to other people negative emotions connected to childbirth. however, the immediacy of our intervention, and some sentences which emerged from written protocols, lead us to consider it highly improbable that these themes had been treated before. it is equally improbable that antenatal courses (attended by a large number of women equally distributed between the ms and nc groups) were opportunities for communicating and narrating. in fact, they were essentially dedicated to physical activities (gymnastics and yoga) and also to lessons on different types of childbirth, breastfeeding, and returning home with the child, and not to investigation of post-partum emotions. having clarified these points, we can explain the improvement in depressive and posttraumatic symptoms which emerged from our data, considering the comorbidity between the two disorders and the fact that there are some areas of overlap (czarnocka & slade, 2000; leeds & hargreaves, 2008; wenzel, haugen, jackson, & brendle, 2005; white, matthey, boyd, & barnett, 2006). depression shares with anxiety disorders feelings of fear for the future, sleep disturbances, and difficulties in concentration, which can entail a failing self-perception, a catastrophic vision of the world, and a hopeless perception of the future (beck, 2004; wijma et al., 1997). in particular, joiner et al. (1999) noted that physiological hyperarousal is a cohesive, discriminable, and valid construct for understanding the relation of depressive and anxious syndromes; and ayers, harris, sawyer, parfitt, and ford (2009), in a wide research study on 1,423 women assessed one year after childbirth, showed a strong correlation between depression and ptsd numbing and arousal symptoms. but also avoidance symptoms and avoidance coping perform an important role both in depression and in anxiety disturbances (barlow, allen, & choate, 2004). avoidance was identified by leventhal (2008) as one of the fundamental mechanisms common to mental disorder, and represents the principal factor in transformation of feelings of sadness into depression. our data confirmed that, in prenatal phase, all the women (n = 7) with clinical level of depression (cut-off > 20) presented a comorbidity with ptsd severity (cut-off ≥ 25.26). in addition, a strong europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correlation emerged, in the full group, between depression and hyperarousal (r = .645) symptoms and between depression and avoidance symptoms (r = .541). this overlap could explain why the intervention of making sense was particularly sensitive in reducing depressive and ptsd avoidance and hyperarousal symptoms, so that women assigned to this group compared to the control group showed, at 3 months, both less avoiding thoughts, feeling of detachment or estrangement from others and less irritability, inability to concentrate, fatigue, state of alarm, worry, and difficulty in falling asleep etc. however, from our data the positive effect of making sense on ptsd symptoms was noticed at three months and not early (96 hours). these results are in line with previous studies in which the beneficial outcomes were detected from one to five weeks after writing intervention (frattaroli, 2006; sheese, brown, & graziano, 2004). moreover, in a study by smyth, stone, hurewitz, and kaell (1999) on rheumatoid arthritis, positive changes were noted only at a distance of four months, but not at two weeks and at two months. it must be said that, more generally, pennebaker underlines that the links between writing and ptsd are still tenuous, also due to the fact that many (perhaps most) ptsd-prone individuals will not benefit from any simple interventions (pennebaker & chung, 2011). even koopman et al. (2005), in their research of expressive writing on depression and ptsd among women surviving intimate partner violence, concluded that it is harder to ameliorate ptsd symptoms than depression. we can hypothesize that writing about the experience of childbirth, particularly if it is stressful and characterized by ambivalent emotions, brings to light discrepant and contradictory thoughts and perceptions, which can activate avoidance mechanisms requiring time to be processed. some sentences taken from the making-sense task are examples of emotional complexity and of consequent difficulty in elaboration. a. wrote: “it was the most upsetting and unexpected experience of my life, of which i can’t talk to anyone. no matter how prepared one thinks one is, one is faced with an event for which there is no word. i wonder how it is possible that most women have undergone this experience and apparently their life appears unchanged as if it were a normal event (but, in fact it is, otherwise the world would have already stopped some time ago)». b. explained: «childbirth is a unique experience, in every sense, for better and for worse. a pain and a suffering, fortunately, never felt before, a desire to stay alone, non to see either my husband or the child, and everybody congratulating me. i was not prepared and did not expect what i have suffered and i wondered why it happened to me and if it was happening only to me, if i had done something wrong or failed to do something”. the tendency to avoidance thoughts and emotions like these is not without consequences, because it blocks learning, inhibits capacity to cope with requirements of the environment and with affectively near persons, and leads to a sort of mechanical and routine attitude, which is bored, cold, worried, and unaffectionate, together with a diminution of interest and positive reactivity to stimuli. the containment and elaboration of the automatic and unconscious processes of evasion, removal, and avoidance of negative thoughts, on the contrary, represent a protective factor that contributes to a better state of psychological health (barlow, allen, & choate, 2004; kernan & lepore, 2009). in line with these considerations, our data demonstrated the main effect of the making-sense task on avoidance symptoms (β = -.23; p < .001). the reduction of depressive and post-traumatic symptoms deeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 225 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tected in mothers of our study could also be explained by considering that the data of this research concern a majority of women with sub-threshold, light or mild distress levels (n = 169 with depression score ≤ 19 and n = 166 with pts score < 25.26) who we usually consider can improve spontaneously. this commonplace is disproved by the reminders of those studies which invite us not to underestimate the cases of sub-threshold depression (called sub-syndromal depression or minor depression), which are very prevalent in the general population and which can determine damage also for society, especially in the form of reduced productivity while at work (furukawa et al., 2012). symptoms which, even when they are minor or subthreshold, in a certain percentage of women could become chronic and stabilize (furukawa et al., 2012; reck et al., 2009). therefore, if we try to further the analysis of our data in a clinical perspective, we note that they confirmed the positive effect of ms intervention in opposing the chronicization and worsening of symptoms. the evolution of depressive symptoms in the majority of women, examined here, with subthreshold levels of depression in the prenatal phase (n = 169 with depression score ≤ 19, n = 166 with pts score < 25.26), indicated that none of the 86 women in the ms group presented clinical values for depression at three months, while 3 of the 83 women in the nc group were affected. also, the trajectory of pts in women with sub-threshold values (n = 166 with pts score < 25.26) showed that 1 out of 85 of the ms group presented clinical values for pts at three months, against 5 women out of 81 in nc group. encouraging results also emerge from the small subgroup of women with clinical depression scores (n = 7 with moderate-severe depression, cut-off ≥ 20) and pts (n = 10 with pts score > 25.26) in the prenatal phase. at three months from childbirth, depressive symptoms remained clinically significant (m = 21.50) in the three women of the nc group, while they decreased noticeably (m = 10.12) in the four women of ms group. similarly for pts, none of the four women of ms group presented clinical levels of pts, while 4 out of 6 women in nc group continued to present clinically significant pts scores (ppq: cut-off > 19). these clinical results, even though limited and partial, encourage us to think that universal preventive interventions, specifically if based on narration and attribution of coherent meanings to ambivalent or negative experiences, may be effective both in improvement of well-being of women with light levels of distress and in interception of critical situations which could become chronic. limitations and strengths the methodological limitations of this study, however, lead us to consider carefully the results and interpretations derived from it. a first limit of the research, already mentioned above, consists in the fact that the effects of risk factors, pertinent to this type of study, like social support by the family or by health service staff, and, in particular the type and level of interpersonal communication after childbirth, have not been verified. even if we consider that there have not been interference factors, it is important, in a later study, to verify better the effect of these risk factors also through administering a brief questionnaire to the women to understand if it received support, which type and from whom. this is also to monitor whether the support network in a natural setting favoured, in a natural path of exchange and communication, the narration of the negative aspects connected with childbirth that we introduced in our intervention a second and important limitation is the methodology employed here that theoretically relying on the model of meaning making has not then thoroughly analysed the content of the writing task with the appropriate categories. although the principal purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the making-sense intervention, it would have been useful – similarly to the methodology employed by boals (2012) in a study on undergraduate students invited to write about negative autobiographical events – to define an evaluation grid to analyse specifically the degree of meaning making (no search for meaning-making, little, moderate, or active search for meaning-making) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adopted by new mothers in distress elaboration. a third limit consists in the number of writing sessions which in this study was limited to one instead of three distanced from each other, necessary to obtain a greater efficacy of this protocol (frattaroli, 2006), above all in the case of ptsd symptoms which are more resistant to change than depressive ones. the reasons for this choice have been explained above and are coherent with the purposes of the current research. finally a further methodological doubt arises from some considerations by solano et al. (2007), who decided in their research not to have the patients in the control group waiting for a surgical intervention write about “neutral” or “trivial” topics. the authors maintain that for a person staying in the hospital waiting for an operation, it would be very difficult to find really “neutral” topics. the same problem emerged in our research, in the case of the new mothers of the control group, who sometimes did not really describe a typical and neutral day but reported the day of the birth of their child. it could be opportune in further studies to introduce a second control group with no performance of the making-sense task. a last limit of this study concerns the under-representation of women who are not partnered or from different cultures and, for these reasons, these results may have limited generalizability. furthermore all data collected in the study was based on self-reported information, and thus it prevented a deeper verification by many information sources. in spite of these limits we consider that writing a narrative about post-partum experience, adopted in this study for the first time, may be a helpful intervention, particularly in the immediacy of childbirth to allow this delicate transition phase to enter into the autobiographical life story in a coherent and unitary way (mcadams, 2001). also, in training for nurses who attend new mothers or in usual hospital practice it could be appropriate to train staff on the potential of the making-sense task, which permits free communication on themes and subjects which women could be reluctant to discuss verbally. we cannot exclude that even in the childbirth preparation courses, at present dedicated above all to the practical and concrete aspects, the use of written narrative may constitute a method of self-help to communicate to women to channel their attention onto the deepest psychological dimensions of stressful experiences. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andersen, l. b., melvaer, l. b., videbech, p., lamont, r. f., & joergensen, j. s. 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(2005). anxiety symptoms and disorders at eight weeks postpartum. journal of anxiety disorders, 19(3), 295-311. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2004.04.001 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 di blasio, miragoli, camisasca et al. 231 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11136-007-9279-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ni.16.1.26ram http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2008.05.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2004.02.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1359105311421050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-2011.2012.00237.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.23.5.457 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.66.1.174 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.281.14.1304 http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-536x.2003.00215.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20355 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2004.04.001 http://www.psychopen.eu/ white, t., matthey, s., boyd, k., & barnett, b. (2006). postnatal depression and post-traumatic stress after childbirth: prevalence, course and co-occurrence. journal of reproductive and infant psychology, 24(2), 107-120. doi:10.1080/02646830600643874 wijma, k., soderquist, j., & wijma, b. (1997). posttraumatic stress disorder after childbirth: a cross sectional study. journal of anxiety disorders, 11(6), 587-597. doi:10.1016/s0887-6185(97)00041-8 about the authors paola di blasio, phd, full professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan. she is also director of the research center for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, marital adjustment, and parenting stress. sarah miragoli, phd, assistant research in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan, italy. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, traumatic narratives, parenting stress, sexualized behaviours, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, and child legal involvement. camisasca elena, phd, associate professor in developmental psychology at the faculty psychology, e-campus university, italy. research interests: marital adjustment and marital conflict, parenting alliance, parenting stress, attachment, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, child abuse and maltreatment. angela maria di vita, phd, retired full professor in dynamic psychology, honorary judge at juvenile court of palermo, italy. research interests: parenting stress, perinatal clinical, migrant children and families, stalking, and domestic violence. rosalia pizzo, phd, clinical psychologist, psychological assessment specialist and volunteer researcher at the department of psychology, university of palermo, italy. research interests: psychological aspects of infertility and reproductive medicine, transition to parenthood, postpartum depression, child abuse and maltreatment, and school bullying. laura pipitone, phd, clinical psychologist and volunteer researcher at the department of psychology, university of palermo, italy. research interests: family support, transition to adulthood, identity achievement, school bullying, and postpartum depression. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 214–232 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.779 emotional distress following childbirth 232 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02646830600643874 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0887-6185(97)00041-8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en emotional distress following childbirth (introduction) objectives and hypotheses method participants procedure measures strategy of analysis results descriptive statistics outcome of making-sense task discussion limitations and strengths (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors poor physical environment & adjustment of adolescents c. p. khokhar department of psychology, gurukul kangari university, india brijesh kumar upadhayay department of psychology, gurukul kangari university, india present investigation is to compare the adjustment pattern of adolescents living in physically deprived environment. children who have insufficient fresh air to breath, open ground to play and healthy environmental surrounding are quite unable to promote social and psychological interaction and develop ultimately inferiority complex and a feeling of inadequacy in them. adolescent of hardwar, india residing under such unhealthy environmental surroundings are the universe of the present investigation. a total of 40 subjects 20 (10 boys & 10 girls) qualitatively deprived from physically enriched environment and 20 (10 boys & 10 girls) non-deprived from qualitatively enriched physical environment having similar socio-economic and educational background were taken to measure their self and peer-group adjustment. coefficient of correlation and “t” test is applied to find the relationship and significance of mean difference between the groups. the adolescents living in deprived physical environment were found to have poor self and peer-group adjustment in adjustment in comparison to noon deprived children. gender difference also has shown adjustment pattern differences in the same physical environment. a child deprived from qualitative physical environment suffers from physical privileges, such as good house under neat and clean surrounding, clean water and sufficient fresh air. these children differ in behavior due to neurosis and other psychological sufferings. manifestation of maladjustment occurs in the form of physical disabilities in children and that is only due to the deprivation from physical disadvantage. they haven’t sufficient neat and clean air neither at their home nor at the playgrounds as the surroundings generally is polluted up to far distant territories. no healthy social and physical interaction occurs that ultimately leads them to inferiority complex and the feeling of inadequacy (adler, 1961). deprived physical environment and uncomfortable living facilities adversely affect adolescents learning process and adjective behavior. it also hampers the physical and mental growth of adolescents. as a consequence children and adolescents develop poor muscular structure and nervous system links. physical environment deprived adolescent lacks in energy and mental stability. they generally find themselves unfit in performing typical physical and mental tasks. they ever do work below their capacity and ability even if their physical environment is improved. recent studies have shown that the attitude of people to children and adolescent living in deprived physical environment effect their self-respect, self-concept and self evolution (jain, c.p. 2003). another study by sahanaz, p. 1995 on environmentally disadvantaged children shows that they have poor adjustment in social, emotional and educational area as compared to the environmentally advantaged children. enrichment of physical environment in childhood leads to better health in old age is the general observation. study by holland et.al (2000) on disadvantage people exposed to hazardous environment during childhood for longer period found that exposure to health damaging environment during child hood may accumulate on top of health disadvantage during adult hood. method the present investigation is an ex-post-facto correlational study of adolescents of both genders living in qualitatively deteriorated physical environment. the study compares and correlates the groups living in qualitatively deprived and non-deprived from environmental facilities on peer group and self-adjustment. variables of the study 1. physically deteriorated environment: deteriorated means a qualitatively and quantitatively worst man made living conditions for the fulfillment of basic requirements for healthy development of psychological constitution of human being. the physical environment deprived adolescents are lacking good houses, sufficient food and clothing, neat and clean surroundings, clean water, sufficient sunlight and fresh air. two levels of physical environmental conditions for adolescents are (i) enriched physical environment (ii) poor physical environment 2. gender: gender of the adolescents (i) male (ii) female 3. adjustment: self-adjustment and peer group adjustment are taken as dependent measures under the influence of physical deprivation conditions and sex of the adolescence. tools for the measurement of environmental deprivation and adjustment of adolescents the following psychological tools were used. • deprivation scaledr. chander prabha jain (2003). • adolescents adjustment scaleragini dubey (2003) sample the present study focused on adjustment of adolescents living in physically deprived environment. the environmentally deprived elements lacking proper sanitary facilities in their houses and surroundings, play ground in the near by area, flooded with variety of loud noise of mechanical devices etc. were taken for the study from hardwar district. adolescent living in good environmental condition are taken as physically non-deprived adolescents. a total of 40 subjects – 20 deprived and 20 non-deprived subjects having similar socio-economic and educational background are taken finally. among them 10 were boys and 10 were girls. result and discussion table 1: shows coefficient of correlation ‘r’ of self and peer group adjustment with physical environmental deprivation of adolescents. result shows that the correlation coefficient between deprivation of qualitative physical environment and self-adjustment of adolescents is –0.81 higher than the table value 0.393 at .01 ls. with a df. of 38. it verifies that the physical deprivation and self-adjustment are inversely related to each other. the deprived adolescents from enriched environmental stimulation have lower self-adjustment. poor environmental surrounding such as lack of good houses, neat and clean water sunlight and fresh air deteriorate the self-adjustment of adolescents. adolescents deprived from essential physical environmental advantages are unable to enjoy an inner harmony. they develop the lack of self-confidence in doing and taking decisions and suffer with the feeling of insecurity and unable to evaluate their realistic self. in addition to this the correlation between physical environment deprivation and peer-group adjustment of adolescents is -0.84 at df. 38 crosses the table value of r that is .39 at .01 ls with 38 df shows that adolescents living in physically enriched environment enjoy physical privileges that bring in them extroversion, courtesy, cooperation, unselfishness, truthfulness and frankness in their behavior and personality. brought up under such physically enriched environment the adolescents are properly adjusted with their peer-group and stand popular that everyone like them and want to claim as friend. and contrary to this, adolescents brought up under the poor physical environmental conditions are found badly adjusted in their peer-group. they are unable to continue their relations for long with their peer mates. table 2: means s.d. and tvalues on self-adjustment of adolescents deprived and non-deprived from physical environmental privileges. a result from table-2 shows that the mean difference on self-adjustment between environmentally privileged and non-privileged (deprived) is significant and that is in favor of privileged (non-deprived) adolescents. environmentally privileged adolescents procure good health physical as well as mental. they posses high social acceptance, personal attractiveness, vitality and endurance which predispose a person to be active in group affairs in comparison to those who are deprived of all such privileges and facilities of environment. the second result of the table-2 shows that mean difference on self adjustment between the boys and girls living in deprived environmental conditions is not significant that confirms that self adjustment is independent of sex effect in deprived environmental conditions whereas in (the third result reveals) privileged physical environment self adjustment is better in boys than girls. forth result shows that significance of mean difference between deprived and privilege girls, is significant on self adjustment that is in favor of environmentally privileged girls and the fifth result is also fall in favor of environmentally privileged adolescent boys. it indicates that privilege environment independent of sex effect enriches the self-adjustment in adolescent boys and girls. table 3: means s.d. and tvalues on peer adjustment of adolescents deprived and non-deprived from physical environmental privileges. result 1 of table 3 shows that mean difference between deprived and privileged adolescent on self-adjustment is significant. privileged adolescents have better peer adjustment than non-privileged (deprived). the enriched physical environment provide fresh air to breathe, open grounds to play where as unhealthy and poor physical environment induces the unpleasant feelings, and develop lack of interest in social interaction. as a result of these adolescents faces social disapproval within the peer group where as adolescent brought up under healthy physical surroundings are found to have more social approval of their peer group. the social approval is the key of peer adjustment that is in favor of non-deprived adolescents from enriched physical environment. non-deprived adolescents remain happy, cheerful and feel secure. they have better self-confidence. they use social skill that facilitates a good relation and high level of participation in social activities. results 2, 3, 4, & 5 are also in favor of non-deprived both boys and girls. it shows the independence of sex effect in relation to peer adjustment. yet in result-3 of the table-3 shows that boys are more sensitive to environmental enrichment in relation to peer adjustment than the adolescent girls. it may be due to cultural bias that boys are more exposed to physical environment and surroundings than girls. references adler alfred (1928). understanding human nature. pp. 33-35 dubay, r. (2003). adolescent adjustment scale, arohi manovigyan kendra, jabalpur. holland, p. j, berney, l., blane, d., smith dayey, g., et.al. (2000). life course accumulation of disadvantage: childhood health and hazard exposure during adulthood. social science and medicine, 50 (9), 1285-1295. jain, c. p. (2003). deprivation scale, arohi manovigyan kendra: jabalpur. shahnaz, p. (1995). a study of adjustment among disadvantaged students. prespective in psychological research; 17 & 18 (1&2), 56-58. biographical notes dr. c. p. khokhar is presently reader and head of the dep. of psychology, gurukul kangri university, haridwar. prior to join g.k. university. he rendered his services in the institute of advanced studies, university of meerut and central jalma institute for leprosy csir, agra. india. he has published more than 50 papers in reputed journals, 3 books and 2 psychological tests. under his guidance 18 students have received phd degree and 7 students are currently enrolled for research under his guidance. dr. brijesh kumar upadhayay has completed phd in april2006 under the supervision of dr. c.p. khokhar from gurukul kangri university, india. still he has research scholar in g.k. university, india. he has published 6 research papers. his research worked on unemployed youth of india. author contact: up_brijesh@rediffmail.com factorial structure and psychometric properties of the sensation seeking scale – form v (sss-v) in a sample of italian adolescents research reports factorial structure and psychometric properties of the sensation seeking scale – form v (sss-v) in a sample of italian adolescents giovanna mannaa, palmira faraci*b, maria rosaria comoa [a] department of psychology, university of palermo, palermo, italy. [b] faculty of human and social sciences, kore university of enna, enna, italy. abstract the present study was designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the sensation seeking scale – form v (sss-v) for the italian-speaking population. the instrument was administered to 1,530 high school and college students. a second group of 268 high school students completed the sss-v and the impulsiveness questionnaire (ive). exploratory factor analysis highlighted a 2-factor structure, thrill and adventure seeking (tas) and disinhibition (dis). confirmatory factor analysis revealed an adequate model fit. internal consistency of the subscales wasmarginally supported using the alpha reliability measure. convergent validity was supported by significant positive correlations between venturesomeness ive subscale and both tas and dis. as a proof of discriminant validity, impulsiveness was found to be not related to tas and lowly correlated to dis. our results corroborated the outcomes of many previous studies suggesting the need to test the sss-v degree of factor invariance and factor structure stability. further analyses involving independent samples are required to confirm the present findings. keywords: sensation seeking, sss-v, factor structure, psychometric properties, dimensionality, adolescence, personality measurement europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 received: 2012-07-16. accepted: 2013-01-21. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: faculty of human and social sciences, kore university of enna, cittadella universitaria – 94100 enna, italy. e-mail: palmira.faraci@unikore.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction zuckerman (1979) defined sensation seeking as a biosocial personality trait characterized by “the need for varied, novel, and complex sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical and social risks for the sake of such experiences” (p. 10). sensation seeking is a multi-determined construct influenced by genetic, biological, psychophysiological and social factors, which affect behaviors and preferences (zuckerman, 1990, 1994, 1996). empirical evidence suggests that sensation seeking is often linked to risk taking. individuals high in sensation seeking seem more likely to engage in alcohol and illicit drug use (cicognani & zani, 2011; kopstein, crum, celentano, & martin, 2001; legrand, gomà-i-freixanet, kaltenbach, & joly, 2007; macpherson, magidson, reynolds, kahler, & lejuez, 2010; manna, casiglia, & faraci, 2010), reckless driving (curran, fuertes, alfonso, & hennessy, 2010; desrichard & denarié, 2005; heino, van der molen, & wilde, 1996), dangerous sports (diehm & armatas, 2004; hansen & breivik, 2001), and sexual risk behaviors (hoyle, fejfar, & miller, 2000). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in terms of the dimensional aspects of the construct, sensation seeking was initially assessed by zuckerman, kolin, price, and zoob (1964) as a single, general trait using the sensation seeking scale (form i and form ii). subsequent factor analyses conducted on both form i (zuckerman & link, 1968) and form ii (farley, 1967) suggested that the structure of sensation seeking comprised more than one dimension. zuckerman and link (1968) identified four factors for males (thrill sensation seeking, social sensation seeking, visual sensation seeking, antisocial sensation seeking) and only the first two factors for females. however, form i items did not clearly explain these factors. consequently, zuckerman (1971) developed an experimental form (form iii) of 113 items with the aim of further investigating factorial structure. the findings identified the following four factors for the new form iv (zuckerman, 1971): thrill and adventure seeking (tas); experience seeking (es); disinhibition (dis); and boredom susceptibility (bs). this last factor differed in the case of men and women but was nevertheless maintained. the general factor was not a satisfactory measure because did not contain any items from the disinhibition subscale. to overcome this limitation, the researchers developed form v (zuckerman, eysenck, & eysenck, 1978), in which the total sensation seeking score derived from the sum of the ten-item subscales. to develop form v, the 72-item form iv was administered to a large sample of british and american subjects, and the data were factor analyzed using an oblique rotation separately for males and females. to obtain an equal item distribution and to reduce the length of the test, a 40-item scale with ten items for each of the four factors was developed. the items with loadings greater than .30 on the specific factors were selected for the new form v scale. the same four-factor structure of form iv was found in all samples and produced both a total score and scores based on the four-factor, analytically derived subscales. the answer format for all forms of the zuckerman sensation seeking scales was a dichotomous forced choice, which is useful to reduce the influence of social desirability. however, in some studies, a five-point likert format was used (feij, van zuilen, & gazendam, 1982; gray &wilson, 2007) with the intention of offering more response choices. in form vi, zuckerman (1984) used a 3-point response scale, and the questionnaire presented the entire list of activities twice: the first section concerned actual experiences, and the second section concerned intentions for the future. besides, arnett (1994) noted many problems about the sensation seeking scale – form v: several items reflected the american and british culture at the time the questionnaire was devised, and the forced-choice response format might create problems for participants who find that either both or neither choices apply to them. a new sensation seeking scale was thus proposed – the arnett inventory of sensation seeking (aiss, 1994). nevertheless, at present, form v remains the standard and most frequently used form to assess the construct of sensation seeking. the sensation seeking scale v (sss-v; zuckerman et al., 1978) has been translated into many languages (andresen, 1986; birenbaum, 1986; öngen, 2007; ripa, skovdahl hansen, mortensen, sanders, & machover reinisch, 2001; wang et al., 2000), and many studies have investigated the presence of its fourfactor structure across cultures and genders. ball, farnill, andwangeman (1983) used a large sample of australian men and women and found a good correspondence for a four-factor solution, but they also identified several items that were inappropriate because they failed to load on the correct factor. a similar conclusion was reached by rowland and franken (1986), who factored sensation-seeking items using male and female canadian students. their results showed that two items for males and three items for females did not load significantly on the expected factors. in an israeli sample, birenbaum and montag (1987) found that only three of the four factors identified by zuckerman yielded factorial replicability, and the experience seeking items did not load on the expected factor. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 manna, faraci, & como 277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as regards age difference, many studies have thoroughly postulated that sensation seeking increases during early adolescence, and steadily declines thereafter (roth, schumacher, & brähler, 2005; zuckerman, 1979). the fact that sensation seeking tendencies intensify around pre-adolescence is linked to changes in pubertal maturation (martin et al., 2002). further contribution to this thesis was provided by neurobiological evidence, which supports the presence of two distinct systems, the socioemotional and the cognitive control system (steinberg, 2008). according to the abovementioned neurobiological model, the increase in sensation seeking around the time of puberty is linked to a rapid increase in dopaminergic activity within the socioemotional system, and precedes the structural maturation of the cognitive control system (steinberg et al., 2008). given the increased incidence of involvement in risk-taking behaviors by early adolescents and young adults (roberti, storch, & bravata, 2003), research must include psychometrically sound operational measures for predicting sensation-seeking traits in large-scale survey studies of behavioral problems. although many studies have been conducted in different cultures (aluja, garcia, & garcia, 2004; ferrando & chico, 2001; haynes, miles, & clements, 2000), a limited number of research studies have examined the psychometric characteristics of the sss – form v in the italian-speaking culture. salvadori, lazzeroni, and primi (2007) assessed the sss-v factor structure using explorative and confirmative factor analyses among a sample of 461 (400 females; 61 males) students from the university of florence. their results did not confirm the four factors structure of sss-v, but revealed a two factors model: tas (9 items) and dis (7 items) closely connected with the original dimensions. their data showed that the bs and es items did not load significantly on the expected factor, only two items of es are included in dis dimension. with the main aim to examine the factorial structure of the sss-v in the italian context, the present study investigates the psychometric properties of the italian version of the scale. this research tests the metrological qualities of the instrument by (a) examining the item distribution; (b) exploring the factorial structure of the scale; (c) confirming the identified factorial model; (d) describing reliability in terms of internal consistency; and (e) providing evidence of construct validity. methods participants this study involved 1,798 participants, divided into two groups. group 1 included 1,530 students, 38.8% males and 61.5% females, with a mean age of 18.16 years (sd = 2.75; range = 13-24), from different sicilian high schools (19.3% scientific high school, 14.4% classic high school, 4.4% artistic high school, 4.6% technical high school, 21.8% professional high school, and 5.4% language high school) and from several college courses (2%medicine, 17.6% psychology, 5.4% arts, 2.5% geology, and 2.6% math). group 2 included 268 students (52.6% males and 47.4% females), with a mean age of 16.3 years (sd = 1.49; range = 13-19), from several sicilian high schools (19.4% scientific high school, 25% classic high school, 55.6% technical high school). instruments and procedure in the present study, the following assessment instruments were used: europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 factorial structure of the sensation seeking scale v 278 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. the back-translated version of the sensation seeking scale – form v (sss-v; zuckerman et al., 1978), which was developed to measure individual differences in stimulation and arousal needs. this scale consists of 40 dichotomous forced-choice items, each belonging to one of the four 10-item subscales: a. thrill and adventure seeking (tas), characterized by a desire to engage in sports or other physically risky activities involving speed or danger (e.g., item 16 a: i would like to take up the sport of water-skiing; b. i would not like to take up water-skiing); b. experience seeking (es), referring to the need for novel personal or inner sensations and experiences through the mind and senses, travel, and a non-conforming life-style (e.g., item 10 a: i would not like to try any drug that might produce strange and dangerous effects on me; b. i would like to try some of the drugs that produce hallucinations); c. disinhibition (dis), referring to seeking sensation through social activities, such as parties, social drinking and variety in sexual partners (e.g., item 30 a:heavy drinking usually ruins a party because some people get loud and boisterous; b. keeping the drinks full is the key to a good party); d. boredom susceptibility (bs), representing an intolerance for routine or predictability and restlessness when things are unchanging (e.g., item 5 a: i get bored seeing the same old faces; b. i like the comfortable familiarity of everyday friends). 2. the impulsiveness questionnaire (ive; eysenck, pearson, easting, & allsopp, 1985), a dichotomous 54-item questionnaire consisting of three subscales: impulsiveness (i) (e.g., item 9: do you generally act and speak without thinking first?), venturesomeness (v) (e.g., item 30: do you like to do things that are a little frightening?), and empathy (e). in this study, the impulsiveness and venturesomeness scales were used in their italian adaptation (dazzi, pedrabissi, & santinello, 2004). the sss-v was administered both to groups 1 and 2. the ive was administered only to group 2. the data were collected in small group sessions with the anonymity of the participants assured. the administrations were conducted during class time with trained examiners. the respondents were asked to provide their personal details and were instructed to complete the questionnaires themselves. data analyses item analysis was used to select items for the italian version of the questionnaire. items representing more than 70% of respondents holding one of the two options were excluded based on their poor discriminative capability to discern the construct being measured (kline, 1999). the remaining items were subjected to exploratory factor analysis to reveal the underlying dimensional structure. generalized least squares, which is applicable for categorical variables, was selected as the method for factor extraction (muthén, du toit, & spisic, 1997). an orthogonal rotation criterion (varimax) was used to obtain a simple structure. we decided to extract the number of factors determined by random data parallel analyses (horn, 1965). the eigenvalues derived from the actual data were compared to the eigenvalues derived from the random data. factors were retained as long as the ith eigenvalue from the actual data was greater than the ith eigenvalue from the random data (o’connor, 2000). both kaiser’s (1961) criterion (items with eigenvalues greater than 1) and the scree test (cattell, 1966) were secondarily checked for agreement. the following three criteria were used for salience: (a) factor loadings with absolute values greater than .30 on the primary factor, ensuring a high degree of association between the item and the factor; (b) a difference of .30 between loading on the primary factor and loading on other factors, when an item loaded simultaneously on two factors; and (c) a minimum of three items for each factor, thus ensuring the meaningful interpretation of stable factors (tabachnick & fidell, 1996). factor analyses were performed using spss statistical packages for social sciences 17.0. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 manna, faraci, & como 279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a confirmatory factor analysis, using ml (maximum likelihood) robust estimation procedures, was performed using the eqs structural equation program version 6.1 (bentler, 2006). both orthogonal and oblique factor models were tested. to statistically evaluate the closeness of the hypothetical model to the empirical data, multiple goodness-of-fit indexes were used, including the ratio of the chi-square to degrees of freedom (χ2/df), the nonnormed fit index (nnfi), thecomparative fit index (cfi), the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). the satorra-bentler chi-square (s-b χ2) was not used as an evaluation of absolute fit because of its sensitivity to sample size. to test the model, each variable was allowed to load on only one factor, and one variable loading in each factor was fixed at 1.0. the remaining factor loadings, residual variances, and correlations among latent factors were freely estimated. the internal consistency of the scales, as a measure of the reliability of the questionnaire, was computed using the alpha coefficient. corrected item-scale correlations were examined for each of the scales. for the item selection, it was determined that the adjusted item-total correlations for each item of a scale should exceed .30, which is recommended as the standard for supporting item-internal consistency (de vellis, 2003). the pearson correlation coefficient was used to investigate the extent to which factor scores were correlated. to perform a construct validation, the correlations between our instrument and the impulsiveness questionnaire were analyzed. results item analysis based on the item analysis conducted on group 1, fourteen items were dropped from the original version of the instrument: items 10, 18, 19 and 37 from the subscale experience seeking; items 11, 17 and 38 from the subscale thrill and adventure seeking; items 30 and 36 from the subscale disinhibition; and items 2, 5, 7, 31 and 34 from the subscale boredom susceptibility. exploratory factor analysis the exploratory factor analysis of the remaining twenty-six items (using group 1) revealed a bi-factorial solution. fourteen items that failed to meet the retention criteria were not retained. in particular, items 4, 6, 8, 15, 24, 26, 27, 33 and 39 presented factor loadings lower than .30; items 1, 9 and 29 loaded simultaneously on both the dis and es factors; and item 22 resulted in a single item. the sum of the variance for the two dimensions accounted for 28.72% of the variance for the questionnaire. table 1 presents item factor loadings. the first factor, labeled tas (7 items), accounted for 17.52% of the total variance. it included items from the original tas subscale. the second factor, dis (5 items), accounted for 11.20% of the total variance. it included items from the original dis subscale. confirmatory factor analysis because the chi-square test is biased by the sample size, the number of variables and the degrees of freedom in a model, the statistically significant satorra-bentler scaled chi-square was not surprising: [chi]2(51, n = 1530) = 90.30; p = .000; χ2/df = 1.77. the confirmatory factor analysis performed on group 1 showed reasonable goodness-of-fit for a two-factor model. the fit indexes met the criteria for adequacy of fit for the model, indicating that the hypothesized factor structure europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 factorial structure of the sensation seeking scale v 280 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 exploratory factor analysis: rotated factor matrix distasitems .626item 23 .578item 3 .550item 16 .512item 28 .504item 20 .497item 21 .471item 40 .557item 12 .538item 13 .480item 32 .467item 35 .449item 25 note. tas = thrill and adventure seeking; dis = disinhibition. was plausible (nnfi = .98; cfi = .99; srmr = .04; rmsea = .02; 90% confidence interval = .015, .030) (faraci & musso, in press). the oblique solution provided a significantly better fit for the data than the orthogonal model (see table 2). table 2 fit indexes for the orthogonal and oblique bi-factorial models 90% cirmseasrmrcfinnfiχ2 /glpdfχ2model 52orthogonal -.039.026.03.09.97.96.592.000.44134 51oblique -.030.015.02.04.99.98.771.000.3090 all manifest variables loaded significantly (p < .05) on their hypothesized latent factors. figure 1 presents the standardized parameter estimates. the two-factor model was judged to be an adequate explanation of the data. this suggests that the instrument comprises two unidimensional subscales: tas and dis. internal consistency alpha coefficients for the two dimensions were calculated using group 1. internal consistency can be considered as acceptable for thrill and adventure seeking (α = .74 with corrected item-total correlation ranging from .41 to .53) and questionable fordisinhibition (α = .63 with corrected item-total correlation ranging from .36 to .42) (george & mallery, 2003). factors intercorrelation as expected, the dimensions were significantly (p < .01, two-tailed tests) but moderately (r = .42) intercorrelated, indicating that the questionnaire’s subscales measured several approaches to sensation seeking. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 manna, faraci, & como 281 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. confirmatory factor analysis: empirical model (standardized solution). construct validity evidence for convergent validity was provided by correlations between our instrument and the ive (subscales of venturesomeness and impulsiveness). the relationships between the two ive subscales and both the total score of the new adapted test and the dis subscale were significant and positive (p < .01). the subscale tas presented a significant and positive correlation with venturesomeness and no correlation with impulsiveness. these results are reported in table 3. table 3 correlations with the impulsiveness questionnaire (ive) sss-v total scoredistas ive venturesomeness .725**.456**.676** ive impulsiveness .212**.276**.097 discussion this study was firstly designed to evaluate the dimensionality of the sss-v in a large sample of italian adolescents by combining exploratory and confirmatory factor procedures. our findings replicate previous outcomes highlighting some significant problems with the factorial structure of the scale. the two-factor structure that emerged from europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 factorial structure of the sensation seeking scale v 282 http://www.psychopen.eu/ exploratory factor analysis – thrill and adventure seeking and disinhibition – appeared to be in line with the model derived from similar studies (salvadori et al., 2007). the items we removed have been shown to be problematic in earlier research, as well. most former studies aimed to replicate the structure of the sss-v in different countries and cultures have found that the psychometric properties of the scale could be improved. problems were identified with a number of items, including (a) multifactorial items; (b) high loadings on secondary factors; (c) items with loadings of absolute values of less than .30; (d) a low degree of variance accounted for by four factors; and (e) low reliability levels for the experience seeking and boredom susceptibility subscales. our study confirms that several items of the sss-v did not load on the expected factor, which may reflect cultural and generational influences on the original items. the factorial structure of the sss-v in non-english-speaking cultures has been found to be less replicable than the english version (birenbaum, 1986; eysenck, & haapasalo, 1989; terasaki, shiomi, kishimoto, & hiraoka, 1987). this finding may indicate that although the items may be culturally relevant for a country sample, this may not be the case for other populations or, as arnett argued, several items might reflect the culture at the time the questionnaire was devised. future research should attempt to develop a diverse bank of items to obtain the most replicable factor structure. according to the fit indexes from the confirmatory factor analysis (faraci & musso, in press), the 2-factor model seemed to offer an adequate explanation of the data. these outcomes provided evidence for the structural validity of the scale and confirmed the adequacy of the hypothesized factor structure. reliability analyses showed internal consistency measures close to the generally accepted least lower bound, perhaps suggesting heterogeneity in the measured subscales. however, although the value of .80 is appropriate for cognitive tests, for typical performance tests a cut-off point of .70 is more suitable. in particular, when dealing with personality tests and purpose of research, values below even .70 can, realistically, be expected (kline, 1999; nunnally & bernstein, 1994; traub, 1994). nonetheless, general guidelines need to be used with caution because the value of alpha depends on the number of items on the scale. more importantly, alpha coefficients should be interpreted as a statistical measure of how well a set of items are interrelated, and not as indicators of unidimensionality (hattie, 1985). the dimensions (tas/dis) appear to be moderately correlated, and may reflect distinct aspects of sensation seeking. regarding the construct validity investigation, in accordance with other studies (weyers, krebs, & janke, 1995; zuckerman, 1983), impulsiveness (i) is related todisinhibition (dis), whereas the venturesomeness (v) dimension seems to be more strongly associated with both the thrill and adventure seeking (tas) and disinhibition (dis) subscales. according to claes, vertommen, and braspenning (2000), the relationship between venturesomeness and thrill and adventure seeking is specifically related to the sense of adventure and the practice of extreme sports. this relationship does not include the impulsiveness dimension, which represents a “dysfunctional” aspect that refers to the inability to reflect on the consequences of one’s actions (eysenck, 1993), and denotes the lack of self-control or deficiencies in response inhibition (steinberg et al., 2008). gomà-i-freixanet (1991) used the impulsiveness and venturesomeness scales to investigate the personality of who engaged in dangerous sports. although the venturesomeness scale is able to discriminate individuals practicing extreme sports from nonpractitioners, the impulsiveness scale does not seem to distinguish these two groups. although promising, the current findings should be interpreted with caution, suggesting a careful use of this measure in the italian-speaking population. this research, in fact, is not without important limitations. despite this europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 manna, faraci, & como 283 http://www.psychopen.eu/ initial adaptation of the sensation seeking scale form v suggests that it seems both a reliable and a valid measure of sensation seeking, some important points indicate areas that require future research. first, the current study only examined the scale in relation to another self-report instrument and did not include behavioral or experimental correlates. for example, support for the construct validity of the questionnaire might include discriminant validity studies to explore the relationships between the sensation seeking domains and drug use, alcohol consumption, sexuality, extreme sports, driving and public transportation violations. second, the generalizability of our findings is limited by our recruitment of only university and high school students. thus, the next goal will be to obtain a relatively heterogeneous group of participants rather than only groups of students. in summary, the results of these studies suggest that the scale may be a viable version for future use or may at least be a starting point for further revisions of the measure. however, the psychometric properties of the instrument should be carefully examined across additional independent samples to confirm whether our finding is sample specific or more wide-ranging. older and non-student samples should be investigated in order to determine whether the instrument can be of greater general use. references aluja, a., garcia, o., & garcia, l. f. 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(1968). construct validity for the sensation seeking scale. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 32, 420-426. doi:10.1037/h0026047 about the authors giovannamanna is professor of theory and technique of test and psychodiagnostics at the faculty of formation sciences, university of palermo, italy. coordinator of master in “psychological assessment”, department of psychology, university of palermo. research interests: psychosocial risk indicators, personality assessment and test construction, child maltreatment. contact: department of psychology, university of palermo, viale delle scienze, ed. 15 – 90128 palermo, italy. palmira faraci, phd, assistant professor in psychometry at the faculty of human and social sciences, kore university of enna, italy. she was visiting scholar at uc, berkeley. she worked as a researcher at giunti o.s., florence, and as a statistical evaluator at the laboratory for psychosomatic disorders, lht, palermo. research activity is focused on psychological testing. maria rosaria como is ph.d. in public relations and research assistant at department of psychology, university of palermo, italy. research interests: personality assessment, child abuse and maltreatment, psychosocial risk indicators. contact: department of psychology, university of palermo, viale delle scienze, ed. 15 – 90128 palermo, italy. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 276–288 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.500 factorial structure of the sensation seeking scale v 288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.46.1.139 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0040995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0026047 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factorial structure of the sensation seeking scale v introduction methods participants instruments and procedure data analyses results item analysis exploratory factor analysis confirmatory factor analysis internal consistency factors intercorrelation construct validity discussion references about the authors the french vision of europe from victor hugo’s united states of europe to the no to the constitution michel viegnes centre de recherche sur l’imaginaire grenoble iii abstract victor hugo (1802-1885) is one of the few nineteenth century european writers and intellectuals who, during this very nationalistic epoch, expressed a consistent theory of european political and economic unification. the idea of the « united states of europe » is as far-reaching and, for most people, utopian today as it was in his time. nonetheless, some of hugo’s ideas have materialized, such as monetary union, and the disappearance of national borders within the schengen heartland. this paper tries to evaluate the complex interplay, in european integration, between utopia and realpolitik. charles de gaules said that he always had « a certain idea of france ». similarly, we could say that the french always had « a certain idea of europe », that is a french idea, to be more precise. although it is somewhat caricatural to say this, it is not without reason. as a nation that has already knowns its hay-days and that has gained a strong mythology of identity, france finds it difficult to accept its decline or, better say, its realistic adjustment to the world we live in today. its relationship with the european idea is complex for europe brings about for her, alternatively, the reminescence of her decline and the hope for the recuperation of her former status. all those that were surprised by the french no to the referendum on the the project of the constitutional treaty, written however under the supervision of a former french president, valéry giscard d’estaing – and comprising a certain number of already traditional preoccupations of france, could understand it in the view of this ambiguous and intricate relationship. if victor hugo had been alive, what would he have thought of this rejection ? it is, of course, absurd to want to make the dead speak, although hugo himself had no problem doing it in his spiritual experiences at guernesey. but we can, taking no significant risk, suppose that he would have been terribly disappointed as he never stopped promoting, for more than 30 years, an idea that might have passed as insane at that time, that of the united states of europe. this great idea of europe, hugo has publicly expressed it for the first time in the opening discourse at the first peace congress, held in paris, 21st of august 1849. these peace congresses were a privileged context his reflection on europe; he will have the occasion to came back to this theme in his speeches for the peace congress of lausanne (1869) and that of lugano (1872). let us say that the initiative for this first peace congress, gathering europeans and americans, belongs to an english economist, richard cobden (1804-1865), as well as to giuseppe mazzini (1808-1872), italian patriot and revolutionary, one of garibaldi’s allies in his fight for the italian unification, and also founder of a short-lived roman republic, that was dissolved by the intervention of french troupes. he will try, together with the french ledru-rollin and others, to found a universal republican alliance. this strange couple was thus the one that invited hugo to sustain the opening conference of the first peace congress. cobden, in the purest anglo-saxon tradition, thought that economic liberalism and free trade determined liberty and union of peoples. it is he the one to have convinced the british government, in 1846, to renounce to protectionism. he opposed colonialism and sought to promote the universal republic through commerce and the abolition of frontiers. mazzini et cobden, the italian jacobean and the british liberal, give a very good picture of the two poles of the european thinking of hugo, poles that we could consider, at least at first sight, contradictory. hugo, who, starting from 1850 will develop more and more towards the « left », believes however in the beneficial, liberating and civilizing power of free-exchange, without giving up, though, centralized and normative government, that had always been a part of the french historic tradition, since louis xiv until the modern republic, passing through the revolution in 1789, as alexis de toqueville has already remarked it. internal contradiction, or, rather, dialectical tension? as one of his interpreters, jean gaudon, said « hugo’s universe is not conceptual ». the author of the miserables is a visionary and a poet. he thinks primarily in images, giving flesh to his hallucinations; the words and the concepts, even the most abstract, become in his discourse springboards for the imaginary and vectors for utopia. still, what we should call the european imaginary of hugo develops in a gradual manner and is being built up on the foundation of a force-idea, that of peace. he invokes the united europe in 1849 in this particular sense, that of a guarantee for peace: « gentlemen, this religious thinking, the universal peace, all nations linked with each other through a common bond, the gospel as the supreme law, the mediation replacing war, this religious thinking, is it a practical one? this saint idea, is it one that we could achieve? many positive spirits, as we are used to say today, many political men, experienced in the field of business, say no. as for me, i say yes and i say it with you and without hesitation ». opening discourse at the first peace congress, paris, 21st of august, 1849. we can notice these days, following the 60th anniversary of the united nations, that hugo primarily justifies the idea of union of european states by the need to preserve peace, as the onu charter did in 1946; europe should first be a space without war, its genius should imagine nonviolent solutions for unavoidable litigation. in 1876, he pronounces a discourse that could seem entirely prophetic if we think back to the tragic events that have made so much blood-stained the ex-yugoslavia at the beginning of the nineties. what is going on in serbia shows the need for the united states of europe. the need for peoples united to replace disunited governments. let us put an end to the criminal empires. let us silence fanatism and despotism. discourse on serbia, 29th of august 1876. but let us remember that, at that time, the serbs were the object of a terrible repression from the part of the ottoman empire, from which they tried to liberate themselves, just like the bulgarians. nowadays, it is mostly against these internal conflicts that the eu tries to protect its member states. during those days, there was no question whether to consider turkey a part of europe, as turkey was not even established as a nation; there was only an ottoman empire, that stood for the absolute expression of despotism in the eyes the european intellectuals of the 18th century, justly or not. but hugo dreams even further than this alliance of sovereign nation-states, managing their conflicts through dialogue. the visionary poet that he wants to be, in the manner of the latin vates, and that he describes in « the function of the poet », envisages a union of states, that is a fusion of historic nations in a great european nation, whose destiny will be designed similarly to that of france. moreover, he uses the history of the unification of the regions of france under the central authority as a metaphor for this future european unification: « on that day you will feel like having a single thought, common interests, a common destiny : you will hug one another, you will recognize one each other as brothers of the same blood and race, on that day, you will no longer be some enemy populations, but a people ; you will no longer be burgundy, normandy, brittany, province, you will france. you will no longer bear the name of war, but the one of civilization! » peace congress, paris, 1849. we ask ourselves if ernest renan had not found inspiration in these formulations of hugo dating back to 1849 when he wrote his famous conference « what is a nation? » in 1872. one can find here actually the elements that constitute the unity of a « nation »: cultural unity, unity of historic destiny, and, also, ethnic unity, an idea that will become extremely dangerous during the 20th century. at the time that hugo was writing this « unity of blood and race » had no other meaning than the profound link between peoples that only the arbitrary decisions of the autocrats could stir them one against the other in fratricidal wars. however, what is ultimately obvious in this passage is that hugo cannot avoid thinking of europe through the historic schema of france. it is mirabeau, at the beginning of the revolution, that had defined the kingdom of louis the xvi as « an undefined unit of disunited peoples » that the new regime, founded on the idea of nation and of popular sovereignty, had to transform into a political body organically united. history thus flows naturally towards unification, and france, england, spain etc. should follow the same path as burgundy, normandy, brittany. this is precisely what engenders much of hugo’s ambiguity when it comes to his european vision, and this ambiguity can be found even today in the great project of the european construction: a europe of nations or a federal europe? hugo does not make the effort to describe the institutions that should manage this continental nation. he stays very artistic in his views, a thing that allows him to suggest, without saying it openly, that in the middle of this republican alliance of peoples of europe, it is precisely france that has, given its history, the vocation to serve as a guide and a model. hugo’s european dream, we can see, is closer to the 20th century vision of charles de gaulle, than that jean monnet or robert schumann. but hugo, again, does not fear to bring together two poles apparently contradictory. great friend and admirer of the young american republic, he adds to his being a european jacobean a conception that is typically anglo-saxon, that of the free circulation of goods and people, ideas that are still being promoted by the usa. hugo predicts at the same time the triumph of the normative government a la francaise and the introduction of the single currency, as well as, eventually, the globalization of the economy: civilization tends invincibly towards the unity of idiom, unity of measure, unity of currency and towards the fusion of the nations into the humanity, the supreme unity. understanding has as synonym: simplification. as well as richness has its own: circulation. the first servitude, that is the frontier. peace congress, lausanne, 1869. for hugo, the single guarantee of « inviolable peace » was « the normal state of work », that is « the exchange, the offer and the demand, the production and the consumption, the vast common effort, the attraction of industries, the circulation of ideas, the human flux and reflux ». indeed, this confidence in the rationality of the market, in what adam smith called « the invisible hand », this certainty that economic freedom engenders or consolidates civic freedoms are typically anglo-saxon. they are not part of the french tradition, although france had its own brilliant defenders, especially in the encyclopedic movement of the 18th century with quesnay and turgot. but we should remember that the former regime was extremely directive: today, each time the french state launches great initiatives in order to stimulate the economy, we speak of « colbertism ». traditionally, the french right is itself only slightly liberal; we witness today, in the perspective of future presidential elections of 2007, an internal conflict within the right itself between the « liberals », admirers of the anglo-saxon model, and the neo-gaulliens, supporters of a french « social model », in which the state preserves the role of judge of the economic field, even though it is a small one in comparison to the past. by tradition, the french spirit has no trust in the economic freedom: the left sees in it the enemy of the class, while a part of the right sees it as a danger of a type of internationalism that would eventually come to menace the sovereignty and even the identity of france. and it is precisely this coalition of these two mistrusts, of the right and of the left, that has caused the failure of the referendum on the « constitutional treaty » in may, this year. hugo will borrow happily the fundamental optimism of the anglo-saxon, that is american, liberalism. the devise e pluribus unum, marked on the one-dollar banknote, was quite convenient for his united states of europe, but with the sub-textual idea that this unum would be more or less french. the metric system, one of the most lasting contributions of the french revolution, for all the member states; as far as the unique idiom to be used for the federalization of the european family is concerned, one can easily imagine that it would be more likely to be that of moliere and not of shakespeare. moreover, the idea was not that pretentious in 1849, as it would be now. at the middle of the 19th century, the french language still enjoyed considerable international prestige, and english had not yet been imposed as lingua franca. hugo’s thought on europe does not develop in isolation, of course: it is organically linked to his general philosophy of history and human existence, that he developed in the legend of the centuries, this great epic in verse the first part of which had initially been published in 1859. we can summarize hugo’s philosophy of history as it follows: the universal progress is wanted by god, the latter had been betrayed by the institutional religions and all the diverse churches, that have petrified the truth in dogmas serving as a pretext for despots to maintain people in a state of servitude. the sense of the history, in accordance with the divine providence, is the progressive self-liberation of the human being from the chains of fatality, this ananke engraved, according to the prologue of notre-dame de paris, in the stone of the cathedral. in another prologue, that of travailleurs de la mer, a novel published in 1866, hugo attributes to the human being the task to liberate oneself from three ananké: that of dogmas (the institutional religion that has falsified the idea of god), the ananké of laws, that is the political oppression and the rule of tyrants, and, finally the ananké of nature. hugo confides in the progress of sciences and technology for the realization of the liberation of all humans, and the surpassing of material miseries. for him, the united states of europe would be the ideal historical instrument for the accomplishment of this triple liberation. the united europe is at the same time daughter and mother for the progress of technologies, and especially those of transport: how the matter lets itself be tamed more and more by humans! (…) how the distances become shorter! and closeness, this is the beginning of fraternity! due to its railways, europe will soon become no larger than france was during the middle ages! it is also the best hope for the disappearance of two other great historic fatalities that burden the human being. at the peace congress of lugano in 1872, on addressing those that he called ”my european compatriots”, hugo prophesized a bright future: we will have these great united states of europe, that are the crown of the old world just as the united states of america are the crown of the new one. we will have (…) a country without frontiers, a budget without parasitism, a commerce without duties (…) youth without barracks (…) justice without scaffold (…) truth without dogma peace congress, lugano, 1872 in other words: a united europe will put an end to nationalism, corruption, barriers to prosperity, militarism, clericalism, and finally, a new element, the abolition of the death penalty. we know that since the publication in 1829 of le dernier jour d’un condamné, hugo had always been fighting for this cause, a minority phenomenon during the 19th century. end to the nationalism, stopper of war. indeed, hugo does not want a european nationalism to replace the one of the nations. this is why, far from opposing the united states of europe to those of america, even in the form of a peaceful competition, as many of today’s french intellectuals would like it to be, he thinks of the two continents in terms of partners whose task is to disseminate in the world the benefits of civilization: one day, these two enormous groups, the united states of europe and the united states of america, placed one in front of the other, will stretch out their arms above the seas, exchanging goods, their commerce, their industry, their arts, their geniuses enlightening the world, colonizing the deserts, bettering the creation under the eyes of the creator, and combining together, for the well-being of all, these two infinite forces, fraternity of humans and power of god!” (1849) this atlantic “optimism” avant la lettre will be confirmed 27 years later, in a message towards the french workers delegates to the universal exposition in philadelphia, in 1876. the poet, fallen in love with words and symbols, insists on the signification of the name of the town that had been the federal capital of the usa for 10 years and whose name in greek stands for “fraternal love”. it is startling to see that hugo has a rather singular view on the european issue when compared with great authors and intellectuals of the 19th century. it is not until the next century and primarily not until the great catastrophe in 14-18, that one could hear in france important figures giving their opinion on the european idea. whether we should regret it or not, the perspectives on this are very dissimilar: for romain rolland, a pacifist traumatized by the first world war that he considered « a crime to europe » – that was, indeed, a veritable collective suicide of the continent – europe should first of all be an «intellectual and moral homeland », founded on the reconciliation between france and germany. at the other extreme of the political spectrum, some one like drieu la rochelle, who had been hesitating for a long time between communism and fascism, sees the national-socialism and the « new european order », promoted by the invader, the one and only hope for the continent. we know, however, that he lost this illusion and sank in cold despair before killing himself in 1943, thus escaping the execution that would have awaited him, just alike robert brasillach, on the day of his liberation. georges bernanos considers that europe existed already in the middle ages, through christianity, and that it had been forged in the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere of universities such as those of bologny, paris, tubingen, krakow, salamanca, and others. for the great french catholic writer, europe had nothing more to do than to regain its soul, that could only be a christian one. for paul valéry, whose mediterranean lucidity almost clarifies all issues that he deals with, europe can be defined as a land that has received three combined heritages og history : the political and judicial heritage coming from the romans, the moral one coming from the christians, and the intellectual one – due to the greeks. this is still one of the most frequently used criteria for defining the frontiers of what we call europe. however, these authors have reflected on a europe that they had not dreamt of, unlike the romantic « magus ». what has remained in the french consciousness now, 120 years after the death of hugo, of his european dream? we could be amazed that certain predictions of the poet, totally utopic at that time, have become real, such as the single currency or the almost complete disappearance of borders within the schengen space. it is also remarkable to notice that he was a visionary when it comes to the historical reconciliation of france and germany, that has been, grace to charles de gaulle and konrad adenauer, the engine of the european construction for a very long time. on the other hand, we have to admit that hugo’s european vision bears in it the contradiction that is about to re-enliven, at least for some time, the debate over the possibility of an authentic political unification of the continent. indeed, even if it is sometimes pretentious for the french to want to be the one and only model of civilization for europe, is is quite just to say that we have nowadays two models of europe confronting each other, that is the french and the anglo-saxon one. it is precisely this fracture, that hugo pretended to escape through an utopian synthesis, that endangers the dream of schumann and monnet. the french want a europe that would be sufficiently enough integrated on a political level that it would allow its existence in the world of the 21 century as a monolith or a block, facing other giants of the planet, such as the usa or china. there are, of course, nuances, between those french who embrace the united europe, starting from the convinced federalists, who are ready to give up an important part of their sovereignty to a european government based on democratically reinforced institutions, and those who think, along with de gaulle, that nations are the only historical realities, the only vectors of identity, and that we need a europe of reinforced cooperation between member states, that is a europe with a variable geometry. the former category is represented by the forces of the center of the political spectrum : christian-democrat centrists and the right wing of the socialist party ; the latter, by the neo-gaulliens that are more motivated by realpolitik than profound conviction in the european construction. but they are all convinced that this one has no meaning and no use if it doesn’t allow the continent to maintain its civilization model in front of the world, and especially in front of the american model. on the other side, we have countries, and especially governments, that admire the power and energy of the usa so much that they want to make europe a simple space of economic free exchange and free circulation of people, a space open for all the winds of the globalized economy, accepting as natural the laws of the global market, and supporting, more or less, the external policy of the usa. this is the english model, reproduced by a certain model of new member states from south-east europe. we remember that this division has been caricatured by the american defense secretary as the one between the « old europe » and the « new europe ». obviously, in this neo-conservative language, one can distinguish the pejorative meaning of « old ». this old europe, paradoxically, is more ambitious and more courageous than the new one, as, from the beginning, it all came down to recognizing the basis of what had made its past strength, that it had lost after the first world war. as some historians have already underlined it, it is not by chance that the original nucleus of europe, which is still at its core, that is the europe of 6 (france, germany, italy, the netherlands, belgium, luxembourg) covers almost exactly the territory of the former empire of charles the great. moreover, the reconciliation and the close alliance between france and germany was maybe also, in the historical unconscious of its craftsmen, a reminder of the time when the two countries formed a single one, francia orientalis in the east and francia occidentalis in the west. charles the great had almost managed to remake the unity of the western roman empire that was the first historical incarnation of europe. in their historical imaginary, the french saw themselves happily as the distant inheritors of the latin world, that had ensured the unity of the continent by the means of centralized administration and written law. the other great historical incarnation of europe is the medieval christianity, united by a common faith, but fractured by the schism in 1054. with the recent enlargement of the eu that accepted 10 more members in 2004, and plans to accept two more in 2007 (romania and bulgaria), the european union has amazingly succeeded in dressing this open wound caused by the recent cold war, but also by the former polarity between the roman empire and the byzantine one. if we were to use fernand braudel’s concepts, the former division dates back to our « recent history », but the latter has its roots in the « old history » of the continent. the reunification of the continent raises two major problems that are linked one to the other: that of borders and that of secularity. for the former one, there are two countries that seem to do the land marking : russia and turkey. the first does not want to enter the eu, and the idea of a great europe, that would spread, as de gaulle said, « from the atlantic to the urals », is for the moment totally neglected in the european debate. russia, too specific, too large, forming an euro-asian block by itself, still too haunted by its imperial past, is unanimously saw as foreign to europe, if not culturally, at least to a politically and economically. as for turkey, that wanted for the first time to be accepted by europe 40 years ago, raises again issues of territory and secularity. the opposition to turkey’s entering the eu is holding a majority in france. indeed, france is so attached to the idea of secularity, constitutive for its modern identity, that it comes to oppose the introduction, in the prologue of the constitutional treaty, of a single mention of the christian heritage of europe, thus frustrating not only the vatican, but also many member states such as italy, spain, poland, and others. it is this argument of secularity that it is used by those who oppose turkey’s accession, playing on the fear the islam has been causing for some years until now. but we know that secularity is also fundamental for the modern turkey, forged by ataturk, as it is for the republican france. in reality, all those that, in france, fear turkey’s accession – and the forces of the no at the referendum massively exploited this fear, towards the right – implicitly admit that even if europe is not a « christian club », humanism and all the values linked to it, making the basis for the common european identity, it is itself an heritage of the judeo-christian tradition. and from here stems the difficulty to admit in their « house » a culture with other historical and religious roots, may it be secular or not. finally, the french no at the referendum, that was a serious drawback for the construction of a real political europe, if not a lethal strike, has brought together distinct political forces, and even conflicting ones, as they suffered from a common fear : seeing the identity off europe dissolving in world that is always growing more and more globalized. for those who said no, whether they came from the right or the left, the counter-model is america, simultaneously fascinating and detested, religious and mercantile, the engine of this mondialism where historical identities seem to be brought into a planetary culture, consumerist and technological, where former powers of the old continent can no longer play, by themselves, a major role. england has found a solution in the « special relation » with the usa, that is giving it at least the illusion that it contributes to the american power. at the same time, the english imaginary has always been turned rather on the ocean than on the continent, as churchill, one day, said it to de gaulle. as for france, especially after the eu enlargement in the see, it finds itself in crisis although it is the one that created this europe, simply because it has only now understood that it had to give up an old dream of de gaulle, hypocritically covered but always present – that of using the construction of a united europe, in which it would play a major part, as a means to preserve and to safeguard its former power. the supporters of the yes have not succeeded in convincing their compatriots that new constitutional treaty will allow france to preserve, in the framework of a 25-member eu or even of 27 or more, the engine role that it had been playing for many years. after all, the difficulties of the european construction, in france and in other countries of the continent, england’s seemingly incurable euro-skepticism, the rather widely spread disaffection for this political project, even within younger generations, despite its being one of the most ambitious political projects in history, one that could naturally exalt and inspire people, all this shows that the political europe can not exist as long as the intellectuals, the artists, the creators, in one word – those who contribute the most in the making of the collective imaginary, do not succeed in forging a common dream, forceful and inspiring, able to be the basis of an authentic european identity and an authentic european culture, in which all peoples from the mediterranean sea to the arctic ocean, and from the atlantic to the black sea are able to recognize themselves and to feel at home. as the example of victor hugo proves it, europe should first live in the imaginary before becoming a political reality. analysis of identification accuracy: determining the accuracy of eyewitness identifications using statement analysis jennifer l. short university of calgary j. thomas dalby university of calgary abstract statement analysis has been used for years to determine the accuracy of statements. the judgement of memory characteristics questionnaire was revised in the current study to assess the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. participants watched a video of a theft then identified the perpetrator from a line-up. two statements were obtained: descriptions of the perpetrator and post-identification statements. the characteristics present in descriptions did not predict identification accuracy. however, analysis of the characteristics present in post-identification statements resulted in two predictive factors: quality of description and amount of detail. statement analysis of post-identification statements resulted in a 70% correct classification rate of identifications. further development of this measure and subsequent application of it to forensic investigations could help minimize the detrimental effects of inaccurate identifications. keywords: eyewitness identification, memory, accuracy, statement analysis eyewitness identification evidence in a criminal case may be perceived as overwhelming proof that a suspect committed the crime of which he/she is accused. when presented, these identifications are influential factors in the outcome of a case. unfortunately, inaccurate eyewitness identifications have historically been found responsible for more wrongful convictions than all other factors combined (huff, rattner, & sagarin, 1986; wells et al., 1998). the number of exonerations in the united states that occurred when dna analysis became available illustrates the poor accuracy of eyewitness identifications. of the 181 convictions reported by the innocence project that were overturned based on dna, more than 75% had been prosecuted based on inaccurate identifications (innocence project, n.d.). in one case, kirk bloodsworth was sentenced to death for rape and murder due to 5 eyewitness identifications and self-incriminating statements. the conviction was later overturned when dna proved his innocence (wells et al., 1998). therefore, it is essential that the forensic community increasingly recognizes the fallibility of eyewitness memory and takes measures to minimize the consequences of inaccurate identifications. differences between accurate and inaccurate identifications previous studies have examined the qualitative differences between accurate and inaccurate eyewitness identifications, including behavioural characteristics of witnesses and information provided by them. one consistent finding is that accurate witnesses report making more absolute judgments than inaccurate witnesses, indicating they immediately knew which photo depicted the perpetrator. conversely, inaccurate witnesses tend to reach a decision regarding the identification through a process of eliminating the other photos (dunning & stern, 1994; smith, lindsay, & pryke, 2000). as indicated by this finding, identification decisions made by accurate witnesses are affected by their own memory of the person while line-up photos affect inaccurate witnesses (dunning & stern, 1994). in addition to the differences between accurate and inaccurate eyewitnesses in the process of identification, differences also exist in the characteristics of their memorial reports. witnesses who make accurate identifications tend to report a clearer memory for the perpetrator’s face than inaccurate witnesses (smith et al., 2000). related to this clearer memory, accurate witnesses tend to report more distinct details when describing the perpetrator than inaccurate witnesses (sporer, 1992). finally, accurate witnesses are more confident in their identifications (dunning & stern, 1994; smith et al., 2000; sporer, 1992). these reliable differences in the behaviours and memory reports of eyewitnesses may provide information that can be useful for predicting the accuracy of identifications. in one study, raters predicted the accuracy of identifications based upon various differences including type of identification (automatic vs. elimination), impact of photos, and impact of memory (dunning & stern, 1994). raters informed of these differences were able to correctly classify the identifications as accurate or inaccurate 65.8% of the time. rater training on these differences increased the rate of correctly classifying inaccurate identifications as compared to non-trained raters. however, this training did not change the correct classification rate of accurate identifications. statement analysis the ability to correctly assess the accuracy of identifications would provide an important investigative tool that could potentially decrease the rate of wrongful convictions based on eyewitness identifications. although a measure for classifying identifications has not been developed thus far, similar procedures have been used for years to assess the veridicality of statements obtained in forensic settings. these statement analysis procedures are based upon the undeutsch hypothesis, which indicates that statements based on experience differ both in content and quality from statements based on invention or fantasy (vrij, edward, roberts, & bull, 2000). statement analysis involves examining the qualitative characteristics of statements and determining the veridicality of the statement based on the presence/absence of these characteristics. for example, accurate statements tend to contain more sensory information, time information, clarity/vividness, semantic information, spatial information, emotions/feelings, reconstructability of the story, and realism. inaccurate statements tend to contain more cognitive operations (sporer, 2004). the first of these measures to be developed was criteria-based content analysis (cbca), which was originally intended for use with children recalling sexual abuse (steller & koehnken, 1989). despite the original intent, cbca has been used and validated with adult populations. another form of statement analysis, reality monitoring (rm), was later developed (see masip, sporer, garrido, & herrero, 2005). rm allowed for increased ease of use, required less training, and had better inter-rater reliability compared to cbca. most recently, a form of rm labelled the judgment of memory characteristics questionnaire (jmcq; sporer, 2004) was developed based on the original memory characteristics questionnaire (johnson, foley, suengas, & raye, 1988). the jmcq provides specific questions related to 43 items. for example, “are details described only superficially or very precisely?” (sporer, 2004: p. 99). the statement being analysed will be rated on each of these items using a 7-point likert scale. as it is the form of statement analysis that requires the least amount of training, the jmcq may be the most practical version on which to train forensic investigators. however, all the incarnations of statement analysis have maintained the goal of veridicality assessment as determined by the examination of characteristics present in the statements. the application of statement analysis to true and fabricated statements has resulted in varied but good correct classification rates. the use of cbca in lab settings has resulted in correct classification of the veridicality of statements ranging from 65 to 73% (masip et al., 2005). overall correct classification of statements as accurate or inaccurate using rm range from 64 to 86% (masip et al., 2005; sporer, 2004). although these measures do not allow for perfect accuracy when assessing the veridicality of statements, the correct classification rates indicate valid instruments that can provide important information during forensic investigations. similarly, the application of statement analysis to statements relevant to eyewitness identifications could provide insightful information for investigations. when a witness is questioned and later identifies a person presented in a line-up, two statements may be obtained that can be analysed. first, the witness provides a description of the person who committed the witnessed crime. second, canadian guidelines recommend that witnesses explain what characteristics or overall impressions led them to identify the person chosen (brooks, 1983). the presence of previously discussed differences between accurate and inaccurate identifications (dunning & stern, 1994; smith et al., 2000; sporer, 1992) indicates that statement analysis procedures may be applicable to the assessment of identification accuracy. currently developed procedures contain some items that would be appropriate for use with identification statements, such as quantity of visual details and clarity of the memory (sporer, 2004). however, other characteristics that are assessed using statement analysis would not be present in statements related to the appearance of a person. for example, cbca examines contextual embedding (stellar & koehnken, 1989) and the jmcq examines temporal details such as day and season (sporer, 2004). therefore, adaptation of current statement analysis procedures may be a useful investigative tool for assessing the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. current study the current study was a preliminary investigation into the efficacy of statement analysis for determining the accuracy of eyewitness identification. the jmcq was adapted to become appropriate for analysis of eyewitness descriptions and post-identification statements. specifically, 8 of the original 43 jmcq items were applicable to these statement types: clarity, colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, thoughts, quality of remembering, and doubts about accuracy of remembering. in addition to the 8 original jmcq items, statements were analysed on characteristics examined in previous eyewitness identification studies. the pre-identification confidence provided by the eyewitnesses was analysed with the description (sporer, 1992). the post-identification statements were examined on type of identification (absolute vs. relative: dunning & stern, 1994; smith et al., 2000). the types of characteristics (dynamic vs. static) portrayed in the descriptions and post-identification statements were also examined. this item is included due to the potential impact of relying upon dynamic, changing characteristics when the identifications may occur after a considerable time lapse in a forensic situation. therefore, the primary goal of the current study was to determine if the development of a statement analysis procedure is appropriate for assessing the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. method participants participants were 113 undergraduate students at the university of calgary who participated in exchange for .5 credits toward a psychology course of their choice. seven participants were excluded because they did not choose a person from the photo line-up. a total of 106 participants completed the study. materials theft videotape. a 45 second video depicting a theft was shown to all participants on a 27-inch (68.58 centimetre) colour monitor. in the video, a man enters a hair salon and sits on a couch next to a woman reading a magazine. the woman forgets her purse on the couch when she leaves the scene. the man then looks around nervously and steals the purse. the video ends when the man leaves the scene with the woman’s purse. distractor task. participants were provided with a 2-minute distractor task in which they looked for the 18 differences between two cartoon pictures. this task was presented to allow a brief time lapse between the participant providing a description of the perpetrator and identifying the suspect in the line-up. a find the differences puzzle was chosen to focus the participants’ attention on contextual information irrelevant to the scene presented in the video. photographic line-up. although current guidelines recommend the use of sequential line-ups (fpt heads of prosecutions committee working group, 2004; manitoba justice, 2001), only 5 of 10 surveyed canadian police agencies surveyed use this procedure. the remaining 5 police agencies continue to use simultaneous line-ups (fpt heads of prosecutions committee working group, 2004). due to only partial adoption of the guidelines regarding line-up type, participants were presented with the more traditional simultaneous photographic line-up depicting 8 men. photos were 2.6 by 2 inch (6.8 by 5 centimetre) colour photographs labeled with the numbers 1 through 8. photographs showed a front view of the men’s heads and necks. the perpetrator was consistently shown in position number 7. the remaining seven photographs showed foils that had similar characteristics as the perpetrator. for example, foils and the perpetrator all had brown hair, had similar hairstyles, were caucasian, and were of a similar age. procedure participants viewed the theft videotape at the beginning of the test session. immediately after watching the video, participants were interviewed by the first author. this interview began by the participants describing in detail the person who stole the purse. following the free narrative description, mental images described by participants were probed until their recall of that image was exhausted (fisher & geiselman, 1992). each mental image described in the free narrative was similarly probed. if participants did not describe anything about the perpetrators hair, build, or face, the interviewer asked if they had noticed anything about that feature. all questions and probes were worded in a neutral manner that did not introduce misinformation and were not misleading. participants were then asked how confident they were that they could accurately identify the perpetrator if asked to do so. as recommended in the thomas sophonow inquiry (manitoba justice, 2001), this description was audio-taped and later transcribed for analysis. following this interview, participants were provided with a distractor task in which they were instructed to look for the 18 differences between two cartoon pictures. the interviewer left the room during the two minutes provided for the find the differences puzzle. after the two minutes allotted for the distractor task had elapsed, the interviewer returned with a photo line-up. participants were instructed to take their time to think back to the scene they had watched on the videotape, carefully look at each of the photographs shown in the line-up, and let the interviewer know when they were ready to identify the purse thief. participants who asked if the perpetrator was in the line-up or indicated they did not think he was in the line-up were told they could respond that the perpetrator was not present. consistent with canadian guidelines (brooks, 1983), participants who made identifications were asked what characteristics or overall impressions led them to choose the person indicated. this question and the interviewer’s response to identifications was worded to minimize post-identification feedback to participants, responding to the identification as follows: “can you tell me what characteristics or overall impressions led you to choose number x” as with the initial description, each mental image described in the post-identification statement was probed for further details (fisher & geiselman, 1992). if participants responded vaguely by naming a feature (for example, the hair), the interviewer asked what about that feature had led them to choose him. this post-identification statement was audio-taped (manitoba justice, 2001) and later transcribed for analysis. through discussion with the researcher, two independent raters were trained on the items present in the statement analysis used when analysing both statement types. they rated a practice description and post-interview statement on each of the relevant items using a 7-point likert scale. both types of statements were rated on clarity, colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, thoughts, quality of remembering, doubts about the accuracy of remembering, and description of features. descriptions were also rated on pre-identification confidence. post-identification statements were also rated on recognition type. discrepancies were resolved through discussion. any confusion about the items following the practice ratings was also resolved. following this practice and discussion, both raters expressed confidence in their ability to accurately rate the statements. each rater independently analysed the statements provided by participants. after completing the ratings, discrepancies were resolved by the two raters through discussion. results inter-rater reliability inter-rater reliability was determined by correlating the ratings assigned by the two raters on each item. the confidence provided by each participant was excluded from the analysis because that rating was a direct conversion from the percentage provided to a rating on the 7-point likert scale. the remaining 19 items were included. the analysis revealed moderate inter-rater reliability, r = .578, p < .001. accurate identification rate of the 106 participants, 34 (32%) correctly identified the perpetrator in the photo line-up. differences between accurate and inaccurate identifications statement ratings of accurate and inaccurate statements were compared for each of the 20 items analysed. the eyewitnesses’ thoughts were described more in the description for accurate identifications (m = 3.00) than inaccurate identifications (m = 2.25), t (104) = 2.04, p = .044. there was a marginally significant difference in the eyewitnesses’ confidence in their ability to identify the suspect. higher confidence ratings were present with an accurate identification (m = 5.24) than when the identification was inaccurate (m = 4.91), t (88.55) = 1.97, p = .052. the following items were not significantly different for accurate and inaccurate identifications in the description: clarity, description of colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, quality of remembering, doubts about accuracy of remembering, and description of features. the post-identification statement was rated higher on clarity when the identifications were accurate (m = 4.24) than when they were inaccurate (m = 3.82), t (104) = 2.03, p = .045. similarly, the quality of remembering in the post-identification statement was rated higher for accurate identifications (m = 4.00) than inaccurate ones (m = 3.54), t (104) = 2.65, p = .009. the following items were not significantly different for accurate and inaccurate identifications in the post-identification statement: description of colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, thoughts, doubts about accuracy of remembering, description of features, and type of recognition. prediction of identification accuracy common factor analyses using varimax rotations were conducted on the items that were used to analyse the statements. these determined the subscales that could be used to assess the accuracy of eyewitness identifications, as shown in table 1. factor analyses were conducted on: 1) the description items; 2) the post-identification statement items; 3) all the items used to assess both the descriptions and post-identification statements. scores were then calculated for each of the extracted factors by averaging the scores of the contributing items. logistic regression was conducted on factor scores to determine the extent to which the factors obtained could correctly classify the identifications as accurate or inaccurate. ideally, both types of statements would be obtained in an investigation. however, analysing the items for each statement type separately provides information about the utility of these items when only one statement is available for assessment. description. using an eigenvalue cut-off point of 1.0, factor analysis of the 10 items used to analyse the descriptions revealed 3 factors: quality of description, confidence, and description of colours. the communality cut-off point for inclusion of items in a factor was .30. therefore, 6 items loaded substantively on quality of description: clarity, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, quality of remembering, and description of features. this factor accounts for 38% of the variability in the original 10 items. the second factor, confidence, had 2 items load substantively: doubts about accuracy of remembering and confidence. the confidence factor accounts for 14% of the variability in the items. finally, one item loaded substantively on the description of colours factor: colours. this factor accounts for 12% of the variability in the original items. overall, the three factors extracted for analysis of the description account for 64% of the variability in identification accuracy. there is not a significant amount of unaccounted for variance remaining with this solution, χ2 (18) = 13.47, p = .76. when the three factors extracted from the description items are used to analyse the description, the overall rate of correctly classifying identifications as accurate or inaccurate was predicted at 68%. the predicted correct classification rate of accurate identifications was 0% and was 100% for inaccurate identifications. therefore, all identifications would be classified as inaccurate when analysing the description using quality of description, confidence, and colours. none of these subscales are significant predictors of identification accuracy, zs < 1.00, p > .05. post-identification statement. factor analysis of the items used to analyse the postidentification statement revealed three factors: quality of description, amount of detail, and confidence. six items loaded substantively onto quality of description: clarity, quantity of visual detail, vividness, precision of detail, thoughts, and quality of remembering. this first factor accounted for 28% of the variability in the original 10 items. the second factor, amount of detail, was composed of three of the original items: quantity of detail, vividness, and precision of detail. this factor accounted for 15% of the items analysed. two items loaded substantively onto the confidence factor: doubts about accuracy of remembering and recognition type. confidence accounts for 14% of the original items. overall, the three factors extracted in this factor analysis accounts for 57% of the variability in identification accuracy. there is not a significant amount of unaccounted for variance remaining with this solution, χ2 (18) = 19.70, p = .35. when analysing the post-identification statements using the three factors extracted, an overall correct classification rate of 70% is predicted. unlike the predictions made when analysing the description, these factors can be used to correctly classify both accurate and inaccurate identifications. the logistic regression predicts that accurate identifications will be correctly classified 15% of the time and the correct classification rate of inaccurate ones is 96%. quality of description significantly predicts the accuracy of identifications, z = 2.37, p = .018. with every one-point increase of this factor on the likert scale, it is 5.8 times more likely that the identification is inaccurate. therefore, eyewitnesses who make inaccurate identifications will also provide post-identification statements that received a higher rating on quality of description. the predictive ability of amount of detail is marginally significant, z = 1.92, p = .055. with every one-point increase on this factor, it is 3.0 times more likely that the identification is accurate. the final factor, confidence, does not significantly predict accuracy, z = .74, p > .05. therefore, a high rating on amount of detail and a low rating on quality of description will likely characterize the post-identification statement accompanying an accurate identification. description and post-identification statement. six factors were extracted when the items used to analyse the descriptions and post-identification statements were analysed together: overall quality, quality of the explanation, identification confidence, description confidence, description of thoughts, and description of features. ten items loaded substantively onto overall quality, eight of which are used to analyse the description: clarity, colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, quality of remembering, doubts about accuracy of remembering, and description of features. the remaining two items that loaded onto this factor are used to analyse the post-identification statements: clarity and thoughts. overall quality accounts for 20% of the variability in the original 20 items. all seven of the items that loaded substantively onto the second factor, quality of explanation, are used to analyse the post-identification statements: clarity, colours, quantity of visual details, vividness, precision of details, thoughts, and quality of remembering. this factor accounts for 19% of the variability in the items. the identification confidence factor has four items load onto it, all of which analyse the post-identification statement: clarity, quality of remembering, doubts about accuracy of remembering, and recognition type. identification confidence accounts for 7% of the item variability. description confidence has two items loading onto it, both of which are used to analyse the description: doubts about accuracy of remembering and confidence. this factor accounts for 6% of the variability in the original items. the fifth factor, description of thoughts, has the thoughts items for both the descriptions and post-identification statements loading onto it. this accounts for 6% of the variability. finally, the description of features item from both statements load onto the description of features factor. this factor accounts for 6% of the variability in the original items. overall, the six factors extracted account for 64% of the variability in the 20 items analysed. there is not a significant amount of unaccounted for variance remaining with this solution, χ2 (85) = 66.20, p = .935. analysing both the description and the post-identification statement using the 6 factors extracted from the original 20 items results in an overall correct classification of 70% predicted. the correct classification rate is predicted to be 21% for accurate identifications and 93% for inaccurate ones. however, none of the subscales significantly predict the accuracy of identifications, zs < 1.50, p > .05. discussion the correct identification rate obtained in the current study was particularly low (32%), potentially because of the temporal arrangement of the tasks. according to the verbal overshadowing literature (see schooler, 2002), providing a description of the perpetrator would have activated verbal processes for the participants. in turn, the nonverbal processes required for accurate identification may have been inhibited, resulting in poor accuracy when identifying the perpetrator. this verbal overshadowing effect has previously been found to affect facial recognition (clare & lewandowsky, 2004; schooler & engstler-schooler, 1990) and may have had a similar detrimental effect in the current study. although prior research has found that certain factors are predictive of identification accuracy (smith et al., 2000; sporer, 1992), an instrument had not been developed for this purpose. the present study attempted to revise a previously developed statement analysis procedure, the jmcq (sporer, 2004), for use with statements relevant to eyewitness identification. the eight appropriate jmcq items and two additional items related to the descriptions formed three factors potentially useful for determining the accuracy of identifications: quality of description, confidence, and description of colours. unfortunately, none of these three factors were predictive of identification accuracy. using them to classify identifications would likely result in all of them being classified as inaccurate. although incorrect eyewitness identification may occur often, as evidenced by a 32% correct identification rate in the current study, they are certainly not all inaccurate. therefore, the revised jmcq developed for analysis of descriptions is not useful for predicting the accuracy of identifications. these results are consistent with previous research that failed to find a relationship between descriptions and identification accuracy. for example, the accuracy of a perpetrator description is not related to the accuracy of later line-up identification (pigott & brigham, 1985; yarmey, 2004). in addition, eyewitnesses are often inaccurate in their descriptions. yarmey (2004) found that witnesses were very accurate in their recall of a person’s hairstyle and age with 92 and 97% correct recall respectively. however, they were quite inaccurate at recalling six other physical characteristics, such as eye colour and height. the correct recall rate for these characteristics ranged from 21 to 64%. dependence on an initial description is often necessary for narrowing down possible suspects. the combination of these studies indicates that the relationship between descriptions and identifications should be interpreted with caution. analysis of the eight jmcq items and two additional items used to analyse the post-identification statement revealed three factors: quality of description, amount of detail, and confidence. the first two factors listed are predictive of identification accuracy. an accurate identification will likely be accompanied by a post-identification statement with a low rating on quality of description and a high rating on amount of detail. application of these factor scores will result in correctly classifying identifications as accurate or inaccurate approximately 70% of the time. inaccurate statements will be correctly classified most of the time (96%) while accurate statements will often be misclassified. this indicates that the revised jmcq, the judgement of memory characteristics questionnaire – eyewitness (jmcq-e), has high positive predictive power. false negative classifications will result more often than false positives. therefore, classification of identifications as accurate would be particularly strong evidence for their accuracy. classification of identifications as inaccurate would necessitate the presence of strong corroborating evidence separate from eyewitness memory. the eyewitness identification procedures recommended in canada suggest that post-identification statements be obtained from witnesses, in which they indicate what led to their line-up choice (brooks, 1983). however, the standards developed in the united states do not make this recommendation (technical working group for eyewitness evidence, 1990). the potential benefits of analysing post-identification statements to determine identification accuracy suggests law enforcement agencies should endeavour to obtain these statements. they will provide additional evidence that will not only be a self-report measure but can be analysed systematically to provide insight into the identification itself. the benefits of analysing the post-identification statement disappear when the description is assessed concurrently. analysis of the 10 description items and 10 post-identification statement items together result in six factors: overall quality, quality of explanation, identification confidence, description confidence, description of thoughts, and description of features. however, none of these factors predict the accuracy of identifications. therefore, prediction of identification accuracy is impaired by analysis of descriptions both alone and in combination with the post-identification statement. overall, the results of this study indicate that statement analysis can be beneficial in investigations relying on eyewitness identification. further development of this procedure, the jmcq-e, can help investigators detect reliable identifications. the classification of identifications as accurate, in turn, may increase their influence on investigations due to the positive predictive power of the procedure. statement analysis would also indicate the necessity of more non-eyewitness reliant evidence when identifications are classified as inaccurate. the evidence provided by the jmcq-e would likely not be admissible in court because it goes to the question of guilt or innocence. however, the ability to assess the reliability of evidence will strengthen the investigations and potentially minimize the consequences of incorrect identifications. the jmcq-e is predictive of identification accuracy/inaccuracy. however, the overall correct classification rate of 70% indicates room for improvement. addition of other potentially predictive items may improve the rate at which identifications are correctly classified using this measure. for example, the u.s. supreme court has recommended that eyewitness identifications be evaluated based on five criteria: (1) certainty in the accuracy of the identification; (2) quality of the eyewitness’ view of the perpetrator; (3) amount of attention the eyewitness paid to the perpetrator; (4) how well the description matches the suspect’s appearance; and (5) the amount of time elapsed between witnessing the event and providing an identification (bradfield & wells, 2000). some potentially useful factors indicated by previous research are the time witnesses take to make the identification and post-identification confidence (smith et al., 2000; sporer, 1992). addition of these factors to the jmcq-e may increase the predictive utility of the measure when evaluating both descriptions and post-identification statements. development of the jmcq-e in a lab setting requires that this measure be tested using statements obtained in a forensic setting. an instrument valid for classification of identifications in a lab setting is not necessarily valid in a forensic situation due to the different environments in which the scene is witnessed and the statements obtained. for example, the witness’s attention may not be as focused on the details of interest in a natural setting compared to a lab. also, a more emotional response may result when a person witnesses an event in person rather than on a video. these disparities may result in differences encoding and recalling information about the experience. therefore, the effects of environmental influences in a natural setting on the utility of the jmcq-e need to be examined. in a forensic setting, eyewitnesses may make a number of choices when presented with a line-up. the current study investigated the possibility of classifying two types of identifications using statement analysis: inaccurate and accurate. inaccurate identifications were those in which the participant incorrectly identified one of the seven foils present in the line-up. accurate identifications were those in which the participant correctly chose the perpetrator from the line-up. however, eyewitnesses may choose not to identify any of the people presented in the line-up. such non-identifications can be accurate (the perpetrator is not present in the line-up) or inaccurate (the perpetrator is present in the line-up). as non-identifications are also likely to occur in forensic situations, it is important to examine the utility of statement analysis when classifying these as accurate or inaccurate. therefore, future research should be directed at validating the jmcq-e when all four identification types are analysed: accurate identifications, inaccurate identifications, accurate nonidentifications, and inaccurate non-identifications. another concern about the utility of the jmcq-e relates to line-up type. the presentation of photo line-ups can occur in two ways: simultaneous or sequential. the current study involved the use a simultaneous line-up. however, a shift to sequential lineups is occurring in some law enforcement agencies (gronlund, 2004; yarmey, 2003). this change is an attempt to improve accuracy of identifications by increasing the eyewitness’s dependence on absolute decision processes (gronlund, 2004; kneller, memon, stevenage, 2001). in addition to this shift in decision processes, differential presentation of photos in line-up procedures may affect other features of statements related to identification. for example, the use of an absolute decision strategy may result in the expression of more doubts about the accuracy of remembering. therefore, the use of sequential line-ups could affect the validity of the jmcq-e in assessing the accuracy of the identifications. future research should explore the efficacy of this measure when used in concert with sequential line-ups. in conclusion, the analysis of the jmcq-e indicates that statement analysis is useful for assessing the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. however, this utility is only present when post-identification statements are analysed. as the current study is the first one of its kind, future research is necessary to ensure the measure continues to be valid when assessing statements obtained in forensic settings and when identifications are made using sequential 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(1989). criteria-based content analysis. in j. c. yuille (ed.), psychological methods in clinical investigation and evidence (pp. 217-245). new york: springer. technical working group for eyewitness evidence (1999). eyewitness evidence: a guide for law enforcement. washington, d.c.: u.s. department of justice. vrij, a., edward, k., roberts, k. p., & bull, r. (2000). detecting deceit via analysis of verbal and nonverbal behavior. journal of nonverbal behavior, 24, 239-263. wells, g. l., small, m., penrod, s. malpass, r. s., fulero, s. m., & brimacombe, c. a. e. (1998). eyewitness identification procedures: recommendations for lineups and photospreads. law and human behavior, 22, 603-647. yarmey, a. d. (2003). eyewitness identification: guidelines and recommendations for identification procedures in the united states and in canada. canadian psychology, 44, 181-189. yarmey, a. d. (2004). eyewitness recall and photo identification: a field experiment. psychology: crime & law, 10, 53-68. biographical notes correspondence to: jennifer short 39, 9912 – 106 st. edmonton, ab t5k 1c5 canada phone: 780-428-9223 fax: 780-428-7061 e-mail: jlcolton@ucalgary.ca j. thomas dalby is a forensic psychologist and neuropsychologist and is adjunct professor (psychology and clinical psychology) and adjunct associate professor (psychiatry) at the university of calgary. he has over 100 professional publications including applications of psychology in the law practice (american bar association 1997) and mental disease in history (peter lang publishers, 1997). jennifer l. short has conducted research in the areas of false memories, eyewitness identification, and deception detection. she is currently working in private practice, focusing on forensic and clinical psychology. cross-cultural adaptation of research tools: a study on the cultural intelligence scale adaptation in slovenian research reports cross-cultural adaptation of research tools: a study on the cultural intelligence scale adaptation in slovenian eva boštjančič* a, r. boyd johnson b, urša belak a [a] department of psychology, faculty of arts, university of ljubljana, ljubljana, slovenia. [b] indiana wesleyan university, marion, in, usa. abstract the article examines the cross-cultural transferability of a widely accepted cross-cultural assessment tool – the cultural intelligence scale (cqs) – using research conducted in slovenia and insights from the american and slovenian researchers who translated the tool into slovene and adapted it for use in slovenia. in the context of a qualitative focus group based study, the researchers look at the specific characteristics of cqs perceptions within the slovenian sample (two focus groups – one in the capital and the other in the south of the country) and identify barriers to these perceptions and the specific characteristics of the perceptions of slovenian citizens regarding crosscultural interaction. keywords: adaptation, cultural intelligence, cross-cultural communication, cross-cultural interaction, bias europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 received: 2017-09-19. accepted: 2018-02-05. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; tiziana lanciano, university of bari "a. moro", bari, italy *corresponding author at: faculty of arts, aškerčeva 2, 1000 ljubljana, slovenia. e-mail: eva.bostjancic@ff.uni-lj.si this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the importance of cultural intelligence and testing the cross-cultural transferability of the cqs increasing globalisation and the mixing of cultures in various fields is leading to an increased focus on the ability to work effectively in an intercultural environment. in the scientific context, this manifests itself as a need for the systematic study of cultural intelligence, a concept that made its first appearance in 2003 and which is defined as "an individual's capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings" (ang & van dyne, 2008a, p. 3). in order to research this concept, a cultural intelligence scale (cqs; ang & van dyne, 2008b) has been developed to measure the four primary factors which represent distinct cultural intelligence’ capabilities: drive, knowledge, strategy and action. it is a 20-item, four-factor scale. ang et al. (2007) state that cultural intelligence examines specific spheres in intercultural settings. this multidimensional construct includes four dimensions of cultural intelligence: a. cognitive – "an individual's cultural knowledge of norms, practices and conventions in different cultural settings" (van dyne, ang, & koh, 2008, p. 16), europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ b. metacognitive – "an individual's cultural consciousness and awareness during interactions with those from different cultural backgrounds" (van dyne et al., 2008, p. 16), c. motivational – "an individual's capability to direct attention and energy toward cultural differences" (van dyne et al., 2008, p. 16), and d. behavioural – "an individual's capability to exhibit appropriate verbal and non-verbal actions when interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds" (van dyne et al., 2008, p. 16). while some researchers assume that the surveys can be used anywhere, irrespective of where they were developed, others (e.g. goh, 2009) warn that the concepts and theories are only transferable in cultures where cultural norms and values are similar. the purpose of adaptation is to better fit the needs of a new population, location language, or mood, or any combination of these (harkness, 2008; paulston & tucker, 2003). to narrow the gap of western assessments being used in eastern cultures (barnes, buko, johnson, & kostenko, 2012), this study is seeking through qualitative and quantitative research to determine what language must be used to ensure these. besides the adequacy of the translation of the cqs into slovene, we were interested in how slovenes understand the cross-cultural interaction and cultural intelligence and their attitude towards the latter. this, in fact, provides us with an insight into how people view the concept itself. two focus groups were organised in two municipalities where development is above average – the capital city ljubljana and koper in the south-western corner of the country, representing a rural environment. as the capital city, ljubljana represents a highly intercultural diverse centre in the middle of the country, while koper is a coastal town that forms part of a bilingual region since it lies very close to the border with italy. as already highlighted by goh (2009), the transferability of the tool depends on cultural values and norms. understanding of the cqs and the individual items in it is affected by a range of geographical, ideological, social, cultural and psychological factors. below, then, we set out some of the characteristics of slovenian culture that could potentially influence the perception of individual respondents. demographics of slovenia and diversity statistics as a small country with a population of just over two million (2.063.371) (statistični urad republike slovenije [surs], 2016a), slovenia represents an interesting example in terms of the mixing of different cultures. today the country is increasingly open to foreigners, both migrants and tourists, and a consequence of this is growing contact between slovenes and other cultures. on the other hand, a growing trend of people leaving the country to go abroad – be it because of economic conditions, to seek a better standard of living, or tourism – may be observed. slovenia's strategic position at the heart of europe, at a point of contact between various worlds, also plays its part. one of the smallest countries of the european union (20.273 km2; surs, 2016a), slovenia is also a transit country. the official and state language is slovene, while in the areas in which the italian and hungarian national minorities are concentrated, italian and hungarian respectively are also official languages. the percentage of foreign nationals in the population is 5.3%, which means that there are currently 104.197 foreigners living in slovenia (surs, 2016b). further statistics show that 15.420 people arrived from other countries in 2015, while 14.913 people left the country. this indicates positive net migration. the reasons for immigration vary (surs, 2016b): boštjančič, johnson, & belak 387 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • favourable economic conditions and increased demand for workers which in certain sectors (e.g. construction) slovenia's labour market was unable to meet; • slovenia's entry to the european union (eu), resulting in an increase in immigration to slovenia by citizens of some new eu member states; • family reunification (secondary immigration of family members of foreign nationals already resident in slovenia for whom slovenia has become an immigration target country). women account for 35% of foreign nationals and thus represent 3.4% of the total female population of slovenia. the larger share of male foreign nationals is the consequence of economic migrations. the most numerous groups among other nationalities in slovenia are citizens of the former yugoslavia, headed by citizens of bosnia and herzegovina (53.681) (rs, ministrstvo za notranje zadeve, 2016) and followed by those from kosovo, serbia, macedonia and croatia. these are economically less developed countries whose citizens frequently come to slovenia as a foreign workforce (recent economic immigrants from the countries of the former yugoslavia, in particular kosovo and macedonia). these immigrants are predominantly men (around 75%). since slovenia was part of a federal state with these nations 25 years ago, many migrations are also the consequence of the fact that families were forcibly separated by the new borders that appeared following the break-up of the country. this means that when they move to live with relatives they are no longer moving from one end of the country to the other, but migrating from one country to another. the second wave of immigrants from this region is represented by refugees from war zones (bosnia and herzegovina) (surs, 2016c). citizens of "third countries", i.e. countries that are not eu members, are strongly prevalent among foreign nationals in slovenia (81%), and in most cases these are citizens from the countries of the former yugoslavia. the largest number of foreign nationals from eu countries in slovenia are from croatia, followed by bulgarians, italians, germans and slovaks. impact of other cultures and regional peculiarities of slovenia in the past slovenia was an area of intersection between the germanic world to the north, italian influences to the west and the balkans to the south. these different influences have rendered more complex the task of shaping a uniform national identity and language. the national borders have changed frequently (which in practice means that slovenia has grown smaller, particularly in the north). slovenia's population has shown a constant fall, particularly in the twentieth century, for a variety of reasons, most notably economic migrations and the fascist dictatorship (1941-1945). the political boundaries have never corresponded exactly to national (ethnic) boundaries. despite slovenia's small size, considerable regional, spatial and economic divisions may be observed in the country. western and central slovenia have an above-average economic structure that is interrupted by individual belts of below-average development (kušar & nared, 2004). by contrast, large parts of eastern slovenia are characterised by strongly below-average economic structures, pointing on the one hand to a division into developed urban centres where the majority of economic activities are concentrated and, on the other, to social erosion that has mostly affected remote areas, in particular border areas and rural areas (pečar, 2002). peripheral areas are most limited in terms of development, as a consequence of their remoteness from centres of influence and the fact that borders have frequently formed in areas of natural barriers. it is precisely these natural barriers that significantly impede the more successful development of rural areas, since the cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 388 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ majority of businesses and employment are located in just a few centres, while the periphery experiences economic stagnation. little has been done to date in the field of cross-cultural research with regard to slovenia. since the country did not have extensive contacts with foreign markets until a few years ago (with the exception of the former yugoslavia, which in this case is hardly classified as a foreign market, in view of the powerful historical connections), the need for research of this kind was not very pressing. more recently, the most influenced and systematic cross-cultural study was conducted by hofstede (2001), and shows that slovenes score highly in the power distance dimension. they accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place and which needs no further justification. slovenia could be described as a feminine society, where the focus is on “working in order to live” and on well-being. people living in this country have a high preference for avoiding uncertainty, their daily behaviour is perceived as very well-organised, hard-working, and precision and punctuality are the norms. security is a crucial element in individual motivation. importance of bias testing in the survey’s adaptation process and earlier translations of cqs in slovenia the survey’s adaptation maximizes cultural appropriateness, and thereby minimizes bias. adaptation amounts to a combination of close translation of the parts of the instrument that are assumed to be adequate in the target culture, such as test instructions and items, and an adjustment of other parts when a close translation would be inadequate for linguistic, cultural, or psychometric reasons (hambleton & de jong, 2003; harkness, mohler, & van de vijver, 2003). malda et al. (2008) proposed five different types of adaptation for cognitive tests to help systemize the adaptation process and the choices made in this process. in the present cqs adaptation we took into account the language-driven adaptation (unavailability of semantically equivalent words across languages or from structural differences between languages), the cultural-driven adaptation (it results from different cultural norms, values, communication styles, customs, or practices), and the theory-driven adaptation (it involves changes that are required for theoretical reasons). the present adaptation was motivated by the need to fit the cultural, social, and linguistic dimensions. before the pilot study for the cqs among slovene university students was conducted (jakovljević, kodrič, prelog, & tumpej, 2016), the cqs had already been translated twice into slovene. the researchers used it to measure the connection between knowledge and cultural intelligence (gotnik urnaut, 2014), and to describe the role of cultural intelligence in creativity in a culturally diverse environment (bogilović & škerlavaj, 2016). in the slovene pilot study (jakovljević, kodrič, prelog, & tumpej, 2016) participated 527 students (114 males and 413 females, with a mean age 22.79 years, sd = 3.89) from the three biggest universities in slovenia. a majority of the sample had been abroad already (99.6%), 97.9% speak at least one foreign language on the communication level. we compared its results whit previous studies slovene studies (table 1). reliability analysis revealed that the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alphas) of all dimensions were acceptable (α > .70) to good (α > .80), and the cqs questionnaire is appropriate for further scientific use and development. boštjančič, johnson, & belak 389 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 previous slovene studies means (m), standard deviations (sd), and internal consistencies (α) for dimensions of cqs cqs dimension students of commercial science (n = 107)a employees in the adriatic region (n = 787)b students in the pilot study (n = 527)c m sd α m sd α m sd α metacognitive cq 4.89 1.31 4.78 1.49 0.92 5.06 1.08 0.76 cognitive cq 3.82 0.97 4.33 1.33 0.87 3.94 1.00 0.81 motivational cq 5.25 1.19 4.71 1.48 0.91 4.78 1.07 0.74 behavioral cq 4.76 1.19 4.34 1.41 0.89 4.52 1.15 0.79 cqs 4.63 0.95 4.52 0.88 0.90 agotnik urnaut, 2014. bbogilović & škerlavaj, 2016. cjakovljević, kodrič, prelog, & tumpej, 2016. to date many guidelines for test adaptation have been proposed, but there is still no agreement about standards to follow. we conceptualise our study by applying a systematic procedure (mohler, dorer, de jong, & hu, 2016) for cross-cultural scale adaptation. to avoid misunderstanding of some culturally based concepts that can threaten the validity of intergroup comparisons (van de vijver & hambleton, 1996) we also focused on item bias in the cqs. item bias refers to item-specific problems in cross-cultural comparisons, such as item ambiguity due to poor item translations or culture-specific elements (malda et al., 2008). aim and research questions the aim of the qualitative research (implementation of focus groups) was to establish the content validity of the cultural intelligence scale and adapt it to the slovenian population. the translation and the adaptation of the cqs were conducted through two separate international teams collaborating and working closely together. the slovenian-american group of researchers set the following objectives: 1. to describe general comprehension of the cqs on the basis of the responses and reactions of participants and further discussion among a slovenian public. 2. to establish the level of understanding, identify barriers in the perception of individual questions among slovenes, and recognise the characteristics of their attitude towards the topic of cross-cultural interaction. 3. to determine a suitable approach in order to supplement and shape the final translation of individual items, expressions and definitions in the slovenian version of the cqs. method participants two focus groups were conducted. the participants in the first group (table 2) were inhabitants of the capital city, ljubljana (urban environment), while the second group (table 3) consisted of individuals from koper (border region, rural area). all participants were university graduates, were in employment and were ethnic slovenes. cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 390 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 demographic characteristics of participants from the urban environment gender age employment marital status male 47 business consultant/economist cohabiting male 32 instructor working in an old people's home single female 35 adviser in commercial activities cohabiting female 55 development married female 46 administrative work cohabiting male 31 surveyor, computer operator cohabiting male 51 brokerage, commerce, consultancy divorced male 42 teacher cohabiting female 44 not employed cohabiting female 52 slovene language teacher, librarian divorced table 3 demographic characteristics of participants from the rural environment gender age employment marital status female 49 consolidated financial statements married female 48 accounts department cohabiting male 35 bank employee cohabiting male 33 banking consultant cohabiting male 41 accountant single female 28 university professor cohabiting female 37 healthcare engineer cohabiting female 44 tax administrator married female 29 administration/accounts single assessment and measures the self-reported cultural intelligence scale (cqs; ang et al., 2007), was used to measure person’s ability to function effectively in culturally diverse situations. the cqs measures four primary factors, which represent distinct cultural intelligence capabilities – drive, knowledge, strategy, and action. with 20 items it measures four dimensions of cultural intelligence: four items for metacognitive cq (e. g., i am conscious of the cultural knowledge i use when interacting with people with different cultural backgrounds.), six items for cognitive cq (e. g., i know the legal and economic systems of other cultures.), five items for motivational cq (e. g., i enjoy interacting with people from different cultures.), and five items for behavioral cq (e. g., i change my verbal behavior when a cross-cultural interaction requires it.). all items are scored on the seven-point rating scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). a good psychometric stability of the cqs across samples, time, counties, and methods has been provided (ang, van dyne, & tan, 2012). focus groups represent a qualitative method of data collection and fall among non-standardised techniques that are not highly structured (kitzinger, 1995). they are also widely used in cross-cultural psychology that also require interaction between the researcher and cultural informants (smith, fischer, vignoles, & bond, 2013). they give answers to the questions what, how and why, but not how much, and attention is focused on the mental process that takes place in the participants when they discuss and reflect on the topic of discussion boštjančič, johnson, & belak 391 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (morgan, 1997). they can be used to discover views, opinions and justifications regarding certain phenomena. for this reason, focus groups serve to give deep insight into the research problem. participants can be chosen on the basis of a common characteristic connected to the topic of the focus groups or the research question (flick, 1998; krueger & casey, 2000; willig, 2001). in the case of this research the characteristic is their belonging either to the urban group or to the rural group. as mohler et al. (2016) suggests, in the phase of reviewing the translated survey we need to check suggestions made by the adaptation team with groups formed from other locations and adjust the adaptation proposals accordingly. the focus group method was chosen because discussion helps to define understanding of the issue of cross-cultural interaction among participants, and also allows to discover their interpretations of the items in the cqs. at the same time, however, within the groups, participants formulate answers on the basis of their own personal convictions, and also on the basis of dominant cultural standards and models. procedure the focus of our research was the implementation of two focused groups. to begin with, a moderator asked the participants to complete the cqs, and then explained to them the aim of our research and began the discussion. the procedure took place in this order so that spontaneous answers to the questions in the scale from the participants could be obtained before they were aware of the aim of the research. the discussion began with the moderator asking the participants to try and explain the importance of crosscultural communication and define its benefits. the participants returned to an exchange of opinions on this topic later on in the discussion. their observations and answers helped highlight the arguments, justifications and positions that served as a basis for the later adaptation of individual scale items. both focus groups were recorded (video and audio), and the material obtained later served in the production of a transcript of the discussion. in writing up the transcript a code was used to indicate which of the participants was responsible for an individual quotation. after this all the quotations relating to a specific item were grouped, and the quotations of both groups were combined. the next step consisted of a content analysis based on the data obtained in the focused groups. the observers’ notes were used as the sampling unit (krippendorff, 1980) and the missing information was later added by listening to the recordings. units of analysis are the smallest units of content referring to a specific topic. they include experience and ideas that the participants described during the discussion about the individual item. the unit of context usually refers to several units of analysis; in our study, the thematic sequence of an individual dimension (metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioural) was used as a unit of context. in the final step the documentation of changes and their rationale was made available by authors. the documentation taken by the research team forms a basis for the use of the cqs in the future, as mohler et al. (2016) suggested. results generally speaking, the response to the cqs was good. the participants from the urban environment had a more positive opinion and felt that the scale was not too difficult, but that completing it required a considerable cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 392 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ amount of thought. they felt that it was suitable for all levels of education and all ages, but that previous contact with other cultures was a precondition for being able to complete the scale. the participants from the rural environment pointed out that some of the questions were difficult. during the discussion it was possible to observe that the latter participants were less familiar with this topic and had not yet formed a clear opinion about it. as a consequence, they also found it more difficult to complete the scale. both groups noticed that some of the questions were very similar or were repeated with slightly different wording, while the meaning remained the same. they themselves said that this was probably to do with the psychological method of asking the questions. metacognitive dimension the participants took most time over this unit. it was not clear to them what the aim of the items was, or what the authors of the scale wanted to find out from them. the items seemed quite complex to them and they said that they would like them to be simplified. they were also of the opinion that the items in this unit are repeated: that they refer to the same things but in different words. the participants thought that the first item ("i am conscious of the cultural knowledge i use when interacting with people with different cultural backgrounds") was unnecessary. they saw this sentence as broad, too general, long and relative. they compared it to the third item ("i am conscious of the cultural knowledge i apply to cross-cultural interactions"), which they considered to be identical or very similar, for which reason they felt it did not make sense to use both. subsequent examination revealed that the participants had answered those questions in the same or a very similar way. the item "i adjust my cultural knowledge as i interact with people from a culture that is unfamiliar to me" appeared contradictory to the participants. if we are talking about an unfamiliar culture, this means that a person do not have knowledge about it, and consequently cannot adjust it. they agreed that it would be more suitable to say "when i interact with people from a culture with which i am unfamiliar, i try to adjust my behaviour, conduct, knowledge". the participants said they would like to see more consistency in the phrases used in the individual items. this is a reference to the phrases "interact with people from a culture that is unfamiliar to me", "interacting with people with different cultural backgrounds", "cross-cultural interactions". in all cases, they understood this to be talking about the same thing but were bothered by the fact that the phrases are subtly different and thus give the impression that they are referring to something else. as one participant from the focus group said, this was presumably a psychological method of putting statements, where they ask the same thing in several different ways – which provokes resistance among the participants. regarding the item "i check the accuracy of my cultural knowledge as i interact with people from different cultures", the participants stated that an individual does not check his or her cultural knowledge. rather, this is an automatic process that happens inside us, in every individual, and not out loud. this checking thus does not take place at the conscious level, but unconsciously. for the same reason the participants objected to the phrase "i am conscious of the [cultural] knowledge" and wished to replace it with, for example, "i apply [cultural] knowledge." boštjančič, johnson, & belak 393 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants compared the phrase "different cultural backgrounds" to the phrase "other cultural backgrounds". "different" can have a negative connotation, so they agreed that the expression "other cultural backgrounds" was more suitable. cognitive dimension this set of items was clear and comprehensible to the participants and easier to answer. they gave a large number of examples for each item and knew exactly what the author of the scale wanted to find out from them and what was important in an individual item. since understanding was better, this discussion unit took the least time. in all the items from this unit, the participants were bothered by the phrase "i know [specific characteristics] of other cultures", which suggests that the respondent should know all the characteristics of all other cultures and not only of specific, individual cultures. the statement "i know the legal and economic systems of other cultures" seems excessively self-confident for a slovenian public. such an entire category causes many individuals to fear that they are accepting responsibility and self-confidently assessing their own knowledge, since this phrase implies an absolute category; in this case, knowledge of all the characteristics of all cultures. the participants therefore proposed amending the phrase to read "i know specific characteristics of some other cultures", which would be easier for them to fulfil. in the case of the item "i know the marriage systems of other cultures", it would be more suitable to say "i know the marriage customs". this opinion was expressed by the majority of participants, while a participant who has a background in slavic languages added – citing the reference dictionary of standard literary slovene. when discussing legal and economic systems, language and art, the association is very frequently associated with countries rather than with cultures themselves. the participants therefore wondered whether it would be a good idea in this case to replace the word "cultures" with the word "countries". they discussed the laws of a country, the economy and the language that is present in a specific country or nation. the phrase "cultural values and religious beliefs of other cultures" bothered them since the adjective "cultural" seemed superfluous. when talking about the values of other cultures, it is enough simply to say "i know the values of other cultures", since all values are in this case cultural. the word "cultural" can also appear superfluous in that the emphasis on the word "cultural" narrows its meaning, with the result that the individual more frequently thinks merely about cultural forms such as art, music, etc., which are the usual associations with the phrase "cultural values". once again, the participants expressed the desire that the item "i know the rules for expressing non-verbal behaviours in other cultures" should be made consistent with those items reading "i know [specific characteristics] of other cultures". in other words, instead of the phrase "in other cultures", to simply use "of other cultures" and in this way avoid additionally burdening the mental capacities with new phrases which mean the same thing. cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 394 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ motivational dimension the third unit or set of items was well understood by the participants. the items seemed sufficiently concrete to the individual participants, who were therefore able to give some examples for each sentence. they did, however, propose some improvements. the sentence "i am confident that i can socialise with locals in a culture that is unfamiliar to me" was translated as "pri socialnih stikih z ljudmi iz meni neznanih kultur sem samozavesten" [literally: "i am confident in social interactions with people from cultures unfamiliar to me"]. the participants felt that the word socialnih (social) was unnecessary here, since it could be associated with social networks or an individual's online interactions, which gives an entirely different view of the situation. they all agreed that it would be better to leave this word out. the sentence "i am sure i can deal with the stresses of adjusting to a culture that is new to me" was considered by the participants to be too long. they felt that the phrase "deal with the stresses" was inappropriate, too strong and somewhat negative. they proposed rephrasing the sentence to read "i am capable of adjusting" or "i am able to adjust". they also pointed out here that another critical factor is whether the individual is willing to adjust. they gave numerous examples of where individuals are capable of adjusting but do not wish to, a situation in which the participants see a more significant problem. the sentence "i enjoy living in cultures that are unfamiliar to me" was in their view unsuitably formulated. if a culture is unfamiliar to you, you cannot be living there; the sentence is therefore contradictory. you cannot know whether you enjoy living in a culture that is unfamiliar to you because you are not familiar with it and do not know what it is like to live there. you can only know this once you are already living there. not only that, but the concept seemed a little "cowboyish", as one participant from the first focus group put it, "as though this happens goodness knows how many times, from one day to the next." they proposed several alternative ways of formulating the sentence, for example: "i enjoy travelling to unfamiliar places", "i enjoy exploring", "i enjoy getting to know", "i would like to live in", "i would be willing to live in cultures that are unfamiliar to me". the sentence "i am confident that i can get accustomed to the shopping conditions in a different culture" was considered by the participants to be adequately comprehensible. they did, however, point out a stylistic incongruity in the slovene translation, since the word/root form navad appears twice in the sentence. it would be grammatically better to replace the word navadim ("get accustomed to") with a different word meaning "adjust to" or "accept". behavioral dimension the last set of items caused more confusion in the participants than the previous two. again, it was not entirely clear what specific items were asking, while in the participants' opinion the meaning of some items overlapped. the word "cross-cultural" (interaction) was translated as večkulturna (literally: "multicultural"). in their opinion it would be better to replace this with the word medkulturna (literally: "intercultural"). "multicultural" assumes that a large number of cultures are involved. the participants wondered how many cultures were meant by večkulturna. as one of the participants put it: "there must be at least five of them". "intercultural", on the other hand, merely assumes that there are two or more cultures. boštjančič, johnson, & belak 395 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to the item "i use pause and silence differently to suit different cross-cultural situations", the participants wondered about the difference between pause and silence. they discussed the meaning of each of the words and it turned out that each participant had his or her conception of what they mean. owing to the difficulty of distinguishing between them, it was proposed that only one should be used. they also drew attention to the use of the plural in the slovene translation of this sentence (literally: "use of pauses and silences"), which in this case is unnecessary and it would be more appropriate to use the singular. the item "i vary the rate of my speaking when a cross-cultural situation requires it" was considered unnecessary, since its meaning is also covered by the earlier item "i change my verbal behaviour", where the rate of speaking is merely one type of verbal behaviour. in the case of the item "i change my non-verbal behaviour when a cross-cultural situation requires it", the participants pointed out that this seemed to them to be the same as "i know the rules for expressing non-verbal behaviours", a fact that demonstrates that they do not distinguish between knowledge (cognitive unit) and behaviour (behavioural unit). they unanimously agreed that the two items were asking the same thing, meaning that one of them should be omitted. they saw the item "i alter my facial expressions when a cross-cultural interaction requires it" as part of the item "i change my non-verbal behaviour when a cross-cultural situation requires it", since changing facial expressions is part of non-verbal communication. they felt it would be more suitable to use the slovene expression obrazni izraz (facial expression) than the current izraz na obrazu (literally: "expression on the face"). since we are constantly changing our facial expressions (not only in cross-cultural situations), the participants felt it would be better to say "i adjust my facial expressions" – given that adjustment is something that is important in a cross-cultural situation. definitions of cqs by slovenian participants at the end of the discussion of the items, the moderator asked each participant to give their definition of cultural intelligence. their answers were interesting and diverse, since each of the participants tried to add something of their own and to present their own view. even so, it was evident that this worked well in the first group, while in the second group (rural area) the opinions of the individuals appeared to be conditioned by the opinions of the other members who had already given a definition before them (something already evident during the earlier discussion). it turned out that each participant in the first group had their own view or an already formed opinion about the topic, while in the second group the majority of individuals had never thought about the topic at a conscious level before this discussion – this was effectively their first contact with it – and were therefore more easily swayed by the opinions of others. their group behaviour on some points can be described as typical for nations with a high score in the power distance dimension (hofstede, 2001) where subordinates expect to be told what to do, or in our study what to think about the topic of cultural intelligence. it could be observed during the discussion that the participants from the urban focus group were aware that they were more in contact with different cultures that they lived in a more intercultural environment in comparison to the participants from the rural environment. one man from the rural environment made the following comment about the importance of cultural intelligence: "it depends on where you live. if it's a multicultural environment, you need it, but if you live somewhere in koper it is rarely an issue." meanwhile, a participant from the urban environment commented: "the fact is, we live in an intercultural environment." cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 396 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ similar themes emerged in both focus groups. the participants began by pointing out that cultural intelligence is about knowledge of one's own and other cultures and awareness of the existence of other cultures, which overlaps with the first and second dimensions of the scale. they also drew attention to the importance of knowledge of foreign cultures, while at the same time knowledge of one's own culture represents the basis for getting to know a foreign culture. as a participant from the rural group put it: "this is one stage of knowledge of the individual – knowledge of the habits, customs, the historical background of one's own country, and then understanding and adjustment to other countries." those participants who described cultural intelligence as knowledge believe that it can be changed and acquired, depending on how much the individual is prepared to learn. we can acquire it in various fields: "...from television, in newspapers and magazines, in the library, at the theatre, in all cultural institutions." in connection with knowledge, familiarity and behaviour, a male participant from the first group described cultural intelligence as a ladder: "i see cultural intelligence as a ladder. if we know, accept and understand, we are higher up this ladder of cultural intelligence." the most common topic, present in the majority of the definitions provided by the participants, was cultural intelligence as a willingness to accept the foreign. a man from the first group neatly described this: "the fact is, we live in an intercultural society, this is something we must admit. it depends on us how we accept this." participants highlighted as extremely important the personal view that each individual has of foreign cultures, the attitude towards the foreign and a positive attitude towards others: "...it's about having a positive attitude towards other cultures and a willingness and openness to get to know other cultures." this, for them, represents the foundation of cultural intelligence. without this positive basis, the elements that follow on from this are not possible. it is therefore not so much a question of the individual's abilities and knowledge, but of attitude. they underlined the importance of being tolerant, of respecting what is foreign, of desiring to get to know and adapt to and finally accept the foreign: "...a curiosity, a desire to get to know new, different, other cultures. moreover, the desire and openness to adapt to others." they see the basis for a positive attitude towards other cultures as having, in the first place, a positive attitude towards your own culture, since this enables you to have a positive attitude towards other cultures and at the same time to maintain a balance, so that other cultures do not become dominant. this can be illustrated by the statement "love your own and respect the foreign." one participant from the urban environment made the following comment about cultural intelligence: "[the culturally intelligent person] will not allow themselves to be overwhelmed by another culture. they will always find a consensus and seek compromises – just as happens today in society, so that we can live." a positive attitude towards others, respect and tolerance also require a certain degree of emotional intelligence, which allows you to cultivate positive feelings towards others. it could also be described as a feminine society (hofstede, 2001), where people strive for consensus, value equality and solidarity. thus, the participants also mentioned emotional intelligence as one of the conditions for cultural intelligence. the category that appeared most frequently was that of the willingness and desire to accept and adapt to the foreign, which coincides in the scale with the unit containing motivational items. as can be seen from the answers of individuals, this dimension of the scale represents for them the foundation of an individual's cultural intelligence and the basis for all the other units (the individual's awareness, knowledge and behaviour). boštjančič, johnson, & belak 397 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion limitations of the study and recommendations for further research the findings obtained indicate the need for specific changes to the cqs in the event of it being used for a slovenian public. despite the small sample size and the two focus groups, the findings can be used to develop hypotheses for a large-scale national survey. they also show a good overview of the definitions of cultural intelligence offered by the participants – what cross-cultural interaction and cultural intelligence mean to them, and what attitude they have towards the latter – which gives an insight into the way people think about the concept itself. the next step could be a slovenia-wide study using an adapted cqs, followed by analysis of how the results differ by region, gender, education and age of respondents. the context in which the present focus groups were run was also special from the sociological point of view, since this was a period in which a large number of migrants from the middle east were arriving in and passing through slovenia. as a result, it was possible to sense a universal belief that it is necessary to accept other nations, but at the same time a general (media-fuelled) fear of the cultures that these refugees bring. their answers confirmed hofstede’s findings (2001) about the high uncertainty avoidance result in this country, which could be perceived as rigid codes of belief and behaviour, and also the need for personal security. terrorism was also mentioned a few times, and it was apparent that this topic was actively present "in the air", although the participants tried to avoid it. perhaps a consequence of this is the underlining (by some of the participants) of the importance of knowing which foreigners and other nations we are talking about, where it was possible to sense slightly more respect and consideration for northern cultures (e.g. germans and scandinavians) in comparison to those foreigners who come to slovenia to seek a better life (the countries of the former yugoslavia, refugees from the middle east). it is also recommended that the same research be conducted in the other former yugoslav republics (e.g. bosnia), which would enable appropriate comparison. this is specifically relevant due to the previously mentioned historical connection of these countries, where slovenia used to be in the same country with them and therefore shares some of their cultures, but on the other hand, there is much more “western” influence present in this small country, because of its connection with the german sphere to the north and italy to the west, which enabled slovenia to be more developed than other yugoslav republics. understanding of the cqs and the individual items therein by the participants was influenced by various geographical, ideological, social, cultural and psychological factors, which may have acted as motivators or as barriers to active participation in this study and the further presentation of cultural practices and predispositions. the participants' understanding of the scale was interesting, sometimes surprising, and represented a mixture of their psychological, cognitive and cultural responses. they see some barriers also. the perceived difficulty of some of the items, particularly in the metacognitive dimension, where the participants could not entirely understand what kind of metacognitive processes were involved. they had doubts about the logic of the items themselves, since, as they pointed out, awareness involves automatic, subconscious processes, which made it hard for them to think about them and rank them on a scale of 1 to 7. a further difficulty was that they did not have a clear idea of what the authors of the scale cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 398 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wanted to find out from them in this dimension, or what the goal was. similarly, the fact that the metacognitive dimension appears at the beginning makes their work even more difficult. it would therefore be easier to place the dimension later, once individuals are already a little more familiar with the scale and the topic. the apparently large number of items which participants considered to have the same or a similar meaning. they claimed that phrases were slightly altered or placed in a different order to give the impression that they were referring to something else. this caused resistance among participants and the feeling that this was a "psychological method of asking questions". their attitude to this was somewhat negative, since they felt that the same thing was being asked in several different ways. they also felt that the content of some items was already included in other items. a desire to simplify the cqs is obviously evident here. as the participants themselves pointed out, the scale is difficult and long – a judgement that reflects their negative attitude towards the structure of the scale. they would prefer a transparent, shorter and more efficient structure, since the average individual from the slovenian public is not used to thinking in such depth about a specific issue or problem. the scale undoubtedly surpassed their usual quantity of rational reflection on such topics. this was particularly evident in the case of the group from the rural environment. the phrase "i know [e.g. the legal systems] of other cultures" seems excessively confident to slovenian participants. such an absolute category causes many individuals to fear that they are accepting responsibility and self-confidently assessing their own knowledge, since this phrase implies an absolute category; in this case, knowledge of all the characteristics of all cultures. this may be a consequence of modesty – defined as self-restraint from excessive vanity that can possess moral and/or ethical dimensions – a cultural virtue that is strongly present among slovenes (71.6% of slovenia’s population in 1991 were roman catholic, and 57.8% in 2002; surs, 2002), and the reason why they feel it would be more appropriate to slightly tone down such absolute expressions. gradišek (2014) confirmed this in the study of slovene teachers’ virtues, where modesty was placed higher compared to the usa or switzerland (park, peterson, & seligman, 2006). highlighting the importance of the individual's willingness and desire to adapt to other cultures. individuals perceive that this is the basis for all other processes described by the behavioural and metacognitive dimensions. if an individual does not have this willingness, the other components are unimportant. the strong emphasis on the latter is the consequence of the participants' frequent interactions with individuals who have immigrated from the countries of the former yugoslavia, whom they perceive as capable and culturally intelligent, yet in whom this willingness does not find expression, since their lack of motivation to adapt is a more powerful stimulator. among such individuals (e.g. those from the countries of the former yugoslavia), cultural adaptation is perceived as unnecessary, since they join together in large groups, form a subculture and maintain their language – which slovenes can understand. for these reasons, they are not willing to adapt. these listed suggestions – the language-driven (mostly observed in all four dimensions), the culture-driven (mostly found in the cognitive dimension and in the motivational dimension), and the theory-driven (presented mainly in the metacognitive dimension and in the behaviour dimension) observations presented valuable information for the preparation of the final version of cqs. the language-driven adaptation was based on many different suggestions and solutions given by the participants, and it required elaborate piloting to evaluate the success of adaptation. on the other hand, the theory-driven adaptation was more focused and less responsive to disagreement based on widely investigated and documented bases. boštjančič, johnson, & belak 399 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present qualitative research has helped define specific aspects within the perception of the cqs using a slovene sample. a good understanding of the cultural context of the target version is crucial for adapting multicultural surveys. 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(2001). introducing qualitative research in psychology: adventures in theory and method. new york, ny, usa: open university press. about the authors eva boštjančič is associate professor in work and organizational psychology at the university of ljubljana, slovenia. her research interests are in leadership, burnout, cultural intelligence, trust, and other positive approaches in organizations. she is also a business advisor – she advises, conducts workshops, and gives lectures for employees in the economy and the public sector. cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia 402 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 http://doi.org/10.1080/17439760600619567 http://www.mnz.gov.si/si/mnz_za_vas/tujci_v_sloveniji/ http://www.stat.si/popis2002/en/rezultati/rezultati_red.asp?ter=slo&st=8 http://www.stat.si/statweb/pregled-podrocja?idp=104&headerbar=15#tabpregled http://www.stat.si/statweb/glavnanavigacija/podatki/prikazistaronovico?idnovice=4430 http://www.stat.si/popis2002/si/rezultati/rezultati_red.asp?ter=slo&st=8 http://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.1.2.89 https://www.psychopen.eu/ r. boyd johnson is a professor in the ph.d. program in the department of leadership studies at indiana wesleyan university, usa. he has written a book on global issues and change, and edited four others on international business, intercultural ministry, and other subjects. dr. johnson has over 35 years of experience in international development and higher education, has lived in seven countries, and has carried out teaching, training, consulting, and research in over 60 nations. he teaches courses on research methods and a course on critical inquiry in the doctoral program in organizational leadership. urša belak is a psychologist working on the field of organizational psychology. boštjančič, johnson, & belak 403 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 386–403 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1527 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ cross-cultural perceptions in slovenia (introduction) the importance of cultural intelligence and testing the cross-cultural transferability of the cqs demographics of slovenia and diversity statistics impact of other cultures and regional peculiarities of slovenia importance of bias testing in the survey’s adaptation process and earlier translations of cqs in slovenia aim and research questions method participants assessment and measures procedure results metacognitive dimension cognitive dimension motivational dimension behavioral dimension definitions of cqs by slovenian participants discussion limitations of the study and recommendations for further research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism editorial europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism claudia postelnicescu*a [a] university of tübingen, tübingen, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 published (vor): 2016-05-31. *corresponding author at: str. poet andrei muresanu nr. 33, sector 1, bucuresti, romania. e-mail: claudia.postelnicescu@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe is nowadays at a crossroad, divided between the need to remain faithful to its core democratic values and freedoms, maintaining an area of freedom and justice and the need to protect its citizens against the new terrorism and the rise of nationalistic leaders and parties that require less europe and more power back to the nation states. we are witnessing a return of the politics of fear; in hobbes terms, convincing people that there is no other alternative and that politics has been exhausted; it remains the fear (furedi, 2005). in the age of the war on terror, fear was a necessary argument to be brought on for justifying the us foreign policy in the middle east (robin, 2004). nowadays, in the middle east radical islamism is justifying the war on the west through its faceless jihadist warriors spread across europe, on the new hybrid terrorism that replaced wars on the ground. hence, the enemy is becoming present and imminent, so the protectors arise justifying, once again, the language to legitimate new policies or public choices (robin, 2004). the rise of extremism, radicalization and populism are facets of the same politics of fear. when the refugees arrived, the protectors against the identified enemy emerged. in the following article the mechanisms used to prepare the society for the arrival of the populist messiah will be demystified from a political science perspective and also analyzed from a legal point of view; the only bonding agent to a real european identity through various political disagreements is throughout law and the guiding common values. however the most critical factor in the success or failure of this type of leadership and in the seductive appeal of extremism is the emotional factor, the tactics employed to trigger the raw emotions present in the human nature particularly in crises. beyond politics of fear we also need to look at and understand the politics and policies that took us here: the multicultural discourse with its policies of integration, assimilation and tolerance partially produced the adversary effect: a generation of young people who do not feel they belong, who do not wish to assimilate and who are not embracing either being tolerated or tolerate. they are the european jihadists, who took policy makers and politicians by surprise. to understand the psychology of these people will enable us to properly fight against the root causes of extremism, radicalization and terrorism; moreover, might lead us to understand what should be the adhesive of a genuine european identity. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ europe has always struggled with conflicting visions of its identity, of a unifying idea that will erase national particularities, a generous idea with such irreducible values (hazard, 1989). we are witnessing now, after a long process of integration, a return to instinctive national sentiments. in the face of fear, people want to feel safe; hence a leader who can promise security and protection is gathering the popular support: we see it in the recent austrian elections, where the far-right party of norbert hofer gained the upper hand and determined the resignation of the chancellor amid huge debates over the refugee crisis. nationalism is a crisis of identity (smith, 2003), the response to the irregularities of modernity by taking pride in your own nation. the exhaustion of politics and modernity refuels the seduction of a puritan ideology, ready to sacrifice anything for the idea; the so-called islamic state with its political religion in the name of certain purity opposed to modernity proved to have a terrible impact on the european youngsters joining by hundreds a foreign jihad. puritanism and politics are not new in islam and fundamentalist wahhabism is the weapon against modernity and thewest, a deadly one, using religion as the community aggregator against the identified enemy. however, marginal youth and a romantic version of nationalism appeared first in europe in the creation of the nation states and later were exported as such in the european colonies (kedourie, 1960/1993); from the clash between cultures and the shattered sense of self emerged generations of immigrants in europe. nonetheless we are observing now the same divided self and a confused identity in the third generation immigrants, young people becoming terrorist fighters, but at the same time a diverging vision about what is precisely to be european. the dilemma, from a legal point of view, is profound, as the eu cannot function unless the eu law is implemented in the member states and creates a common ground for policies and legal measures in the face of crisis. the refugee crisis emphasized precisely the lack of common legal procedures. although the dublin agreement, revised a third time, was decided and agreed upon the member states in 2013, by the peak of the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015, the european commission requested to a significant number of member states to make the necessary steps in order to translate the dublin agreement into the national legislation. however, the current crises over a new dublin, the forth, is just one issue where the divergent visions about the future of europe come cross: the supranational, overly legalized and bureaucratic european union that demands the national jurisdictions to harmonize with the eu law or a federal system where each state joins some of the agreements and refuses other. europe’s internal conflict the refugee crisis, with its millions of people fleeing war and conflicts, let aside the ones migrating to europe for economic reasons, triggered the acceleration of an underlying conflict of visions among the european member states and even states outside the european union, such as iceland who dropped the plan of joining the european union. there is suddenly a sense of urgency in dealing with all kinds of pressures inside the eu: some of those are old issues with new developing patterns, others are new: the inapplicability of the dublin iii agreement that underlined the minimal common rules on asylum-seekers and migrants failed implementation in several eu states in the summer of 2015, the financial crisis, the greek debt crisis, the crimeea/ukraine crisis, the brexit crisis, the terrorism crisis, with attacks or threats in brussels, paris or anywhere else in europe. on the other side there is the rise of extremist parties in many european countries; the radicalization among european citizens who are becoming foreign terrorist fighters; the rise of hybrid terrorism and cyber terrorism; the end of schengen area and the future of a more integrated eu. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism 204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the debate over these pre-existing aspects acquired more heat in the refugee crisis, when angela merkel went forward with an open gate approach, while other european countries refused to follow suit. the most prominent opponent of germany’s vision is hungary, through its prime-minister viktor orban, who refused any solidarity and proclaimed the demise of schengen. the gap between germany and other european states is widening also on a number of other issues, such as the greek debt crisis and the euro zone. the failure to narrow this gap might mean the disintegration of eu. at the same time, the incapacity of the european leaders to prove solidarity by voluntarily taking in refugees generated a huge amount of pressure on the few countries that had no other choice. greece and italy are some of the main entry points in the eu and were put in the impossibility of facing the waves of refugees alone; in fact greece did not manage to keep the dublin requirements in place and large numbers of people went unregistered across europe giving rise to criticism and anti-immigration phobias. from here to a full revival of nationalism and extreme right parties was only a step further. what all these new leaders claim? they justify the return to the nation state and the national identity and the rejection of the union. what europe claims? divided visions, no common european identity and going from a crisis to another with no rational solution in sight. the situation is rapidly deteriorating with the success of nationalist leaders riding the wave of instability and fear of the future among huge migrants’ waves and imported terrorism in europe via isil. in the background looms also the involvement of russia’s president, vladimir putin, who is more than happy to see the european union crumbling into pieces. extremism and the rise of the populist messiah the european union is divided. recently a new phenomenon is contributing to the division: radicalization and terrorism. the disregarded youngsters are a source of unrest that obliged france to take measures for their reinsertion in society in an attempt to avoid and prevent future terrorist attacks organized by nationals; paris with its 193 victims is looming over each european capital. de-radicalization programs are thought over and implemented also in uk, denmark, germany, sweden, netherlands, in order to change the narrative that drives so many young europeans to the deadly ideology of political islam and jihad, offering their life to a foreign cause. why are they seduced by such a simplistic worldview while often leading wealthy lifestyles? the suicide bombers are sometimes from wealthy families: young people looking to belong, searching for a certain identity, for something to fill a vacuum that their society, community or family cannot offer. this ideology and its success is plaguing europe and is a deadly internal weapon that is challenging the very core of european values. there are also themarginal youngsters left out by the system who, despite all the opportunities of a westernized lifestyle, they cannot fully engage in it, and then the resentment, anger and hate are ripe for being used by the preachers of jihad. at the opposite side of the spectrum are those who radicalize their discourse against immigration, refugees or anyone who is foreign. the psychology involved in this is simple: you turn outwards your own frustrations with the way things are as an emotional coping mechanism. in this air of tension both extremists and populist false messiah thrive: an apparent revolutionary that will change the way things are. people are asking for solutions and a radical change and they will promise unscrupulously anything. the discourse is simple: appealing to national values, national identity, national borders, and national interests. viktor orban in hungary, who built a wall against refugees and triggered a collapse on the balkans’ borders, miro cerar in slovenia who said that his country will europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 postelnicescu 205 http://www.psychopen.eu/ only accept christian refugees and that europe is going to drown, norbert hofer, the far-right leader in austria that promised he will protect austrian borders against the refugees. the all have a palpable enemy: the refugee. what is then the difference between the hostility towards the refugee and hitler’s anti-jewish hate? hate is a unifying factor in all mass movements (hoffer, 1951), is the common denominator capable of putting together the most different people. the fear factor and the profile of radicals the evocation of fear and pointing to a real or imagined enemy that must be hated and fought against is common among both radical islamists and populist demagogues in the united states and europe. the ground being set for a change in politics, the hate speech is the most powerful vector: from the disillusioned second or third generation of young immigrants in the west to the youngsters of the middle east, the hate against the identified enemy fuels a dangerous war, a non-conventional war, with insidious hybrid means of proliferation: cultural, cyber, social media, and lone wolf terrorism. while donald trump rages against the mexican immigrants alike with muslims, in europe the enemy has rapidly become the refugee, while in the middle east the enemy is the cultural west with its decadent lifestyle and its christian religion. we may call this an ideology of fear, as it contains forms of other ideologies: islamism, fascism, anti-semitism, all ideologies based on exercising violence as a political tool. the appeal to emotions and the facility of creating a persona through media renders democracy extremely vulnerable to populism and nationalism. it is what plato (380 b.c./2010) identified centuries ago that despots arise from later stages of democracy when equality abolishes all limitations and liberties are at their peak. strategic opportunism in a democracy poses fundamental challenges and sets the ground for tyranny (ostrom, 1997). the tough abrasive leader that offers solutions to all problems of society and exploits the potential of fear to its maximum should not be difficult to be identified. they appeal to the masses and speak their language using emotions and empowered them with their persona. we have seen recently how trump’s supporters took violence to make their point against the dissenters. trump himself has no shame in spreading violent messages against muslims, women and others, endorsing torture and promising to solve jihadist terror once and for all; anything goes once you got the popular endorsement with emotions, not rationality. in europe, popular militias of extremeright are hunting down immigrants and muslims, justifying their actions through the idea of security and protection for fellow citizens and christians. media reports about migrants’ assaults or attacks generate, in a mirror effects, the violent response for the other extremists, arising conflict and changing the public perceptions in the lack of governmental solutions. possible outcomes in the european union in the recent european elections the far right has risen with populist slogans and an anti-immigration and antieuropean discourse. in austria the far right party, fpő won the first round of presidential elections, which places norbert hofer, their leader in top position of becoming the president. in poland, the extreme conservative party won the elections and drove large mass protests recently; the discourse is the same, anti-immigration and the pride of national identity. in france, marine le pen is openly pro russia and expressing a strong anti-european europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism 206 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sentiment. the idea of being proud of your nation against the abstract bureaucracy of brussels is exploiting also against whoever is not a citizen. not only that some europeans are against others, but the openness and humanity that stood as core european values are strained now in the new political climate dominated by fear and lack of security. the terrorist threats and the attacks in the heart of europe, in paris and brussels, augment the seducing power of a messianic leader or party. all the populist new leaders are talking about protecting nationals against foreigners, refugees and other europeans alike, and about the abuses in the european union. suddenly the union is not appealing and is not a unifying force, which renders germany as the main motor of further integration, with france on its side. however the fracture between eastern andwestern europe revives. unfortunately there is an ongoing talk about two-speeds europe or, even worse, a la carte europe, where any member states gives and takes as much as it wants. as a consequence of this approach, common legal standards among european states will be extremely difficult to set in place and that is the case with the dublin agreement. nationalist, anti-liberal and anti-european parties are gaining ground all over in the european union member states. the impasse with the schengen agreement is pointing into a rather stressful european future: the german change of tone towards the central and eastern european states that refused to show real solidarity in the refugee crisis reflects a deeper divergence that will echo on the common european security agenda and migration policy. the difficulty of reaching an agreed plan with solutions for the current migration crisis, despite a series of several meetings in the european council, reveals profound discrepancies in internalizing core european values and a different degree of attachment to the european project and idea. in europe, the debate about a democratic deficit within european union is pretty old; the commission developed a series of programs and open consultations with citizens in order to cover the gap between the political elite and the electors. despite these efforts, there is a sustained trend in europe against the classical political parties; people are organizing their own parties, representing a certain community (local or a community of interests, such as the pirates party, who managed to get their representatives in the european parliament). also many outsiders, either from civil society, entrepreneurship or business join politics as independents and getting the popular vote. there seems to be a strong rejection against full-time politicians, particularly those active for a long time. citizens tend to favor more and more a new generation of leaders, people with a clean background, uncompromised in entanglements of corruption accusations or political failures. hence, the rise of a populist, messianic leader that speaks with the precise scope of seducing the electors with false promises of solving all their problems is already notable. in the us preliminary elections of the candidate that will remain in the presidential competition, to anyone’s surprise donald trump outweighed his conservative opponents through blatant populism, racism, fear-mongering and irreverence, using the politics of fear to gain electoral profits. concluding remarks europe needs to find its identity and unique voice, not many independent and divisive voices if wants to survive in the new european and global environment: it needs to stand united against putin’s russia and his gambling in ukraine, middle east and syria. europe’s voice should include all citizens and the new comers alike, as being a refugee is respected through international and european standards. europe is already intercultural and it will remain so, but the fear and hate need to be kept out of the public discourse. however, until now, europe did not europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 postelnicescu 207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ manage to offer a sense of common identity beyond the common values and an idea of europe, which maintains its “mixed identity” (said, 1995). if europe decides to move on in two speeds or even worse to compromise on a brexit, the whole castle will crumble; the long process of integration will disintegrate. europe, in the context of many geo-political and hybrid threats cannot afford that and each member state will remain weak on its own. however, to remain united, compromises must be agreed and implemented, and this had become increasingly difficult. the major challenge for europe is to find the proper balance between all these conflicting needs: security, freedom and unity. the crises are also an opportunity and the much need deeper integration should counter-balance the existing choices. the war is already inside: it is first and foremost a war of visions and a war for dominating power in the international arena for the coming years; former alliances are shifting and new players arrived. russia has gained new force as a strategic global power in the syrian conflict and by getting away with the infringement of international law when invaded ukraine. isil is the new tool of many states for maintaining war and chaos in the middle east and also in keeping a refugee crisis for europe. the war is on and is involving not only political disagreements but cultural crises, and resuscitates the old hate against occident and modernity with its ideological fiction. at the same time, the war is inside of us, europeans, for now knowing truly who we are and who we are ought to be. future interesting research might look at this very tricky psychological contraction that is pulling us, europeans, to negate our heritage, our christianity, our lifestyle, our freedoms in order to accommodate and make home for those who are not born europeans, yet we fail: we fail us and we also fail them, the others; there seems to be no escape. perhaps, in our quest to celebrate diversity we didn’t first answer a few crucial questions: who we are and what are we, europeans, stand for and how? what makes europe strong and what makes europe weak? why our young europeans feel depressed and abandoned and are they so easily seduced by an ideology of death and destruction? how can europe welcome others when among us, europeans, we are so divided? the solutions to our crises are not only political or legal, but within us, in the way we internalize our identity, particularly in the meeting with the other, enemy or not and that is certainly an old dilemma. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references furedi, f. (2005). politics of fear: beyond left and right. london, united kingdom: continuum. hazard, p. (1989). la crise de la conscience européenne, 1680-1715. paris, france: fayard. hoffer, e. (1951). the true believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements. new york, ny, usa: harper collins. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism 208 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kedourie, e. (1993). nationalism (4th ed.). london, united kingdom: wiley-blackwell. (original work published 1960) ostrom, v. (1997). the meaning of democracy and the vulnerability of democracies: a response to tocqueville’s challenge. ann arbor, mi, usa: the university of michigan press. plato. (2010). republic (d. vanghelis, trans.). bucharest, romania: antet. (original work published ca. 380 b.c.). robin, c. (2004). fear: the history of a political idea. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. said, e. w. (1995). orientalism: western conceptions of the orient. london, united kingdom: penguin books. smith, a. d. (2003). nationalism and modernism. london, united kingdom: routledge. about the author claudia postelnicescu studied law and political science. she is a phd candidate at the university of tübingen, germany. her research focuses on european identity and law. she works as a lawyer and consultant in bucharest, romania. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 203–209 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1191 postelnicescu 209 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en europe’s new identity: the refugee crisis and the rise of nationalism (introduction) europe’s internal conflict extremism and the rise of the populist messiah the fear factor and the profile of radicals possible outcomes in the european union concluding remarks (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author unconscious plagiarism in recall: attribution to the self, but not for self-relevant reasons research reports unconscious plagiarism in recall: attribution to the self, but not for self-relevant reasons timothy j. perfect*a, louisa-jayne starka a university of plymouth, plymouth, uk. abstract previous research has shown that if people improve other’s ideas, they subsequently unconsciously plagiarise them at a dramatically higher rate than if they imagine them, or simply hear them again. it has been claimed that this occurs because improvement resembles the process of generation, and that these are confused during retrieval. however, an alternate possibility is tested here: plagiarism may increases because improvement increases personal relevance of the ideas. two studies were conducted in which there was an initial generation phase, followed by an elaboration phase in which participants imagined the previous ideas, improved them for their own use, or improved them for an older adult’s use. one week later, participants attempted to recall their own ideas, and generated new solutions to the previous problems. in both studies, improvement of doubled the rate of subsequent plagiarism in the recall own task, but this effect was not mediated by whether people improved ideas for their own use, of for use by someone else. improvement had no effect on plagiarism in the generate-new task. these studies therefore rule out personal relevance, or personal semantics as the source of the improvement effect in unconscious plagiarism. keywords: source memory, unconscious plagiarism, self europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 received: 2012-03-26. accepted: 2012-04-13. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: university of plymouth, drake circus, devon, pl4 8aa, uk, email:tperfect@plymouth.ac.uk. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the creation and ownership of ideas is core to the professional activity of academic researchers in all disciplines. as teachers, we strive to teach our students the importance of citing previous work where appropriate, and as researchers we endeavour to be scrupulous in acknowledging the work that has gone before. however, in order to publish and make a contribution to the literature, we must demonstrate originality in our methods, findings, or ideas. but how do we know if we have been genuinely novel, and that we haven’t failed to acknowledge the work of others? fortunately, the peer-reviewed publication system offers some protection, and so consequently public disputes about the origin of ideas are rather rare. however, in our experience, private disputes and resentments about the source of an idea are rather more common. it is rare that someone works entirely alone, without discussing ideas with colleagues or students, and even such academic isolates they will have read the work of others or heard talks at conferences. given the broad literature on source memory errors it is inevitable that there will be occasions on which we are mistaken about the source of our ideas and risk unconsciously plagiarising others. the experimental literature on unconscious plagiarism began with brown and murphy (1989), who developed the now-standard three-stage paradigm. initially, groups of participants take turns to generate solutions to a problem. subsequently, participants attempt to recall their own solutions, avoiding those generated by others (the recall-own --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ task). finally, participants attempt to generate new solutions avoiding those mentioned in the first session (the generate-new task). in both tasks, brown and murphy (1989) reported significant rates of plagiarism. that is, when attempting to recall their own ideas people recalled the ideas of others, and when generating new ideas they plagiarised old ideas, including their own. subsequent research has explored many of the factors that exacerbate or mitigate the magnitude of these plagiarism errors. however, rather than review that literature here we refer the interested reader to a recent review (perfect & stark, 2008a). instead, we focus here on one finding that has emerged from this literature – the idea-improvement effect. in a series of studies, we have investigated the impact of different forms of elaboration of ideas during the retention interval between the initial idea generation and the subsequent recall-own and generate-new tests (perfect, field, & jones, 2009; perfect & stark, 2008b; stark, perfect, & newstead, 2005; stark & perfect, 2006, 2007, 2008). our rationale for investigating the impact of thinking about the ideas during the retention interval was that real-world cases of plagiarism are unlikely to have resulted from a single exposure to an idea, without the accused having given considerable thought to the development of the idea under dispute. in our studies we have contrasted two forms of idea elaboration: idea imagery, which requires participants to form mental images of the ideas, and idea-improvement which requires participants to improve the ideas that they heard previously. across many studies, the results have been remarkably consistent. compared to control, both forms of elaboration improve correct recall equally, whilst neither affects the rate of plagiarism on the generate-new task. idea imagery also has no impact upon the rate of plagiarism on the recall-own task. however, idea-improvement dramatically increases rates of plagiarism in the recall-own task. in absolute terms, improving ideas once can result in three times the base rate level of plagiarism (e.g. stark et al., 2005) whilst improving ideas twice can result in up to 13 times the number of plagiarised ideas (stark & perfect, 2008). this idea-improvement effect survives financial inducement to avoid plagiarism (stark, perfect, & newstead, 2005), and the use of a source-monitoring test in place of a recall test (stark & perfect, 2007). it is also magnified by increasing the delay between idea generation and final test (stark & perfect, 2007). in contrast, neither repetition, nor delay impact upon the rate of plagiarism following imagery (stark & perfect, 2007, 2008). we have sought to explain the differential effect of imagery and idea-improvement on plagiarism rates in terms of the source-monitoring framework (johnson, hashtroudi, & lindsay, 1993). we have argued that improving ideas requires a process of generation, similar to the original phase of idea generation itself. thus, when participants try to recall an original idea they may rely on records of generative processes as a cue to source, and so confuse original ideas with improved ideas. in contrast, imagery elaboration creates records of visual (or other sensory) records, which are readily distinguished from originally generated ideas. however, both generative processes, and imagery processes are cues to oldness, and so both forms of idea elaboration are equally useful cues in the generate-new task, where the focus is on avoiding familiar responses. thus, we have argued that a source monitoring account can explain the differential outcomes of the two forms of elaboration across the recall-own and generate-new tasks. whilst we have favoured a process-oriented account of the idea-improvement effect, we also acknowledge that improvement and imagery result in very different ideas. imagining an idea does not alter the fundamental nature of the idea itself: it merely changes a verbal proposition into a visual image. however, improving an idea alters the nature of the proposition itself. thus, one possibility is that people plagiarise not because of the process applied to those ideas, but because the content of those ideas has changed. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 unconscious plagiarism in recall 276 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we have previously tried to address the issue of memory content in two ways, and we introduce a third in the present work. the first such attempt looked at whether it was the amount of information about an idea that was the cause of plagiarism. in all our earlier studies, participants generated 3 improvements to an idea. thus, improved ideas were considerably richer in detail than unimproved ideas, and thus we reasoned that it might be this richness that led to plagiarism in the recall-own task. we explored this issue by having participants imagine ideas that had been improved by someone else (stark & perfect, 2006). in this manner, the content of improved and imagined ideas wasmatched. however, there was no evidence that imagining these already-improved ideas led to plagiarism at any greater rate than control items that were neither imagined nor improved in the interval. another possibility is that it is not the richness of the ideas that causes plagiarism, but rather the valence, or quality. if participants are genuine in their attempts to improve the ideas then perhaps they later plagiarise those ideas because the ideas are somehow better. perfect and stark (2008b) explored this possibility. participants generated ideas in the standard manner. however, prior to the elaboration phase, participants were led to believe that their ideas had been evaluated by a panel of judges. they were told that some ideas were judged excellent, and required no further elaboration. other ideas, judged very good required one improvement, whilst ideas judged merely good required three improvements. finally, ideas judged to be satisfactory did not merit further improvement. in fact, the assignment of the original ideas to these ratings was entirely arbitrary. thus, in this design we manipulated both the perceived quality of the ideas and the amount of improvement they received. what we found was that for recall-own plagiarism the number of improvements predicted the rate of plagiarism, whilst rated quality of the ideas had no impact. this was not because the rated quality of the ideas had no impact. for the generate-new task, plagiarism was influenced by rated quality but not by number of improvements. this pattern was replicated by perfect, field, and jones (2009). they had participants generate ideas with a partner who was an expert or a novice in the topic under discussion. in fact, the partner was a confederate who generated identical ideas whatever their putative expertise. subsequently, there was an improvement phase for half the ideas, before participants recalled their own ideas, or generated new ones. source credibility had no impact upon plagiarism in the recall-own task, but was associated with generate-new plagiarism. conversely, improvement had no impact on generate-new plagiarism, but increased recall-own plagiarism. thus, the pattern across these studies, with respect to the idea-improvement effect on recall-own plagiarism is that it is not caused by the perceived quality of the ideas. here we focus on a third potential outcome of idea-improvement, namely self-relevance. one possibility is that when asked to improve an idea, participants make improvements that they would wish, in order to fit their own aesthetic sense or personal semantics. imagine a participant asked to improve the idea of using a brick as a doorstop. they might think that the brick could be carved, painted, and mounted on cork to prevent scratching the floor. but what shape would they mentally carve it, what colour would they mentally paint it and where would they mentally place it? it is plausible that participants might imagine a brick-doorstop in their own home, and improve it to fit their own taste or decor. later, when they attempt to recall the original ideas, thinking of the doorstop in the context of their home, with personally relevant details, might lead them to erroneously conclude that the idea must have been their own. thus, it may not be the process of improvement that leads to plagiarism, but the self-relevance of the outcome. we present two studies investigating the role of self-relevance in unconscious plagiarism. experiment 1 utilises the same task at generation as we have used in the majority of our previous work, namely the alternate uses europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 perfect & stark 277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ test (christensen, guilford, merrifield, & wilson, 1960). this task requires participants to generate alternate uses for common objects such as a shoe, a paperclip or a brick. experiment 2 replaced the alternate uses test with a more real-world task based on the lives of our undergraduate participants, but was in all other respects identical to the first experiment, and so we report them together. the use of real-world problem solving tasks has successfully generated unconscious plagiarism in a number of studies (marsh, landau, & hicks, 1997; perfect, field, & jones, 2009; perfect, defeldre, elliman, & dehon, 2011). in both experiments, participants were asked to generate ways of improving the ideas either for themselves, or an older adult. the aim of each study was to determine whether the idea-improvement effect is the result of the process of generation of improvements to ideas, or occurs because improved ideas are more self-relevant to the participants. a difficulty in testing this hypothesis is that we cannot know what aspects of the idea are under consideration when a person improves an idea, or when they mistakenly recall the idea as their own. for this reason, we rejected use of self-report scales to determine the self-relevance of improved or imagined ideas. instead we altered the nature of the improvement instructions to focus on either self-relevant improvement, or other-relevant improvement. in the self-improvement instructions, we asked participants to improve the ideas presented to them so that they were more likely to use the idea in their lives. in the other-relevant instructions, we asked participants to improve the idea for everyday use by an older adult. we chose this group as the “other” category because it is a well-understood category, but not one we thought our younger participants would identify with. the effects of these two forms of idea-improvement (self-relevant and other-relevant) were contrasted with idea imagery and a no-elaboration control condition, as in our previous studies. our expectation was that we would replicate the idea-improvement effect, and that the extent to which plagiarism of ideas subject to selfand other-relevant improvement differ would reflect the role played by self-relevance in the effect. method participants experiment 1: thirty undergraduate students were tested for the idea generation phase. however, 3 participants failed to attend the second testing session and so only 27 participants completed the experiment. experiment 2: thirty-two undergraduate students were tested the initial generation phase. however, three participants failed to attend the second testing session and so only 29 participants completed the experiment. additionally, 1 participant failed to complete the generate-new phase in the second session, and so data for only 28 participants were analysed for that task. for both experiments, participants were undergraduates from the university of plymouth and participated either to achieve partial fulfilment of a course requirement or for payment of £8. procedure experiment 1: participants were tested in groups of 4. members of each group were told they would be presented with object names, and they would have to think of novel uses for those items. as an example, they were told that they might hear an object like a newspaper, and a novel use might be making it into a fan. the experimenter then read out the first object name (brick, shoe, paper-clip or button depending upon counterbalancing condition), and participants were instructed individually by the experimenter to generate an idea for the group to hear. the order that participants were asked for their idea was randomised, such that participants did not know when they would have to speak. participants were told to listen to the ideas from the group, to avoid repeating previous ideas. once europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 unconscious plagiarism in recall 278 http://www.psychopen.eu/ each participant had provided an idea, participants were asked for their next idea, again in randomised order. this process was repeated until each participant had generated 4 ideas for each of the 4 objects. the elaboration phase immediately followed the generation phase. of the previously generated ideas, a quarter (one idea from each participant, from each category) was then subject to the following condition treatments. for the self-relevant idea-improvements participants had to write down 3 ways that the ideas could be improved such that they would be more likely to use the idea in their own lives. for the other-relevant idea-improvements participants had to write down 3 ways that the ideas could be improved such that an older adult (65 years or older) would be more likely to use the idea in their daily lives. for imagery items, participants rated how easy it was to imagine the idea, and how effective that idea would be. control ideas were not re-presented at this stage. the order that participants performed these tasks was counterbalanced. this task completed the first session, which lasted approximately 60 minutes. one week later, participants returned as a group to complete the recall-own and generate-new tasks, in that order. in the recall-own phase, participants were given a response sheet with the 4 object name cues on, with 4 blank spaces under each. participants were asked to recall their own ideas for each object that they had generated during the first session. they were instructed not to guess, and that they could leave blank spaces if they could not remember all their ideas. immediately following the recall task, participants were given a second response sheet, with the same object name cues, again with 4 blank spaces under each. for this task, participants were asked to generate 4 new ideas for each object, with instructions not to use any of the ideas from the previous session, from any of the objects. for this task, participants were required to generate 4 ideas. experiment 2: the procedure was identical to experiment 1, except that the alternate uses task was replaced with a task of generating ideas to enhance: 1) their university course, 2) their university’s facilities, 3) the city centre and 4) their student life. participants were presented with the first topic and instructed one at a time to share their idea with the group. during the elaboration phase, we replaced the term “older adult” with “mature student aged over 65”, to ensure the relevance of the improvement task to older adults. results in each study, there were three dependent measures: level of correct recall of own ideas, plagiarism of other’s ideas in the recall-own task, and plagiarism of ideas in the generate-new task. inspection of the data for these measures in table 1 reveals the standard pattern we have reported previously for both experiments. for recall, all forms of elaboration improved correct responding relative to control. for the generate-new task, there was an overall effect of elaboration on plagiarism, with control ideas plagiarised more often than other ideas, which did not differ. however, for the recall-own task, plagiarism was inflated following idea-improvement, as in our previous studies. below we report the statistical analyses for both experiments. correct recall experiment 1: a within-subjects anova a significant main effect of elaboration status f(3,78)=11.52, p<.001, mse = 9.52. sidak-adjusted tests for multiple comparisons revealed that ideas that were subject to any type of elaboration (imagery, selfor other-relevant improvement) were recalled at a significantly higher rate than control, but the different forms of elaboration did not differ from one another. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 perfect & stark 279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1. mean rates of correct recall and plagiarism within the recall-own (ro) & generate-new (gn) phases for control ideas, ideas that were subject to imagery-elaboration, self-relevant and other-relevant elaboration. elaboration status other-relevant improvementself-relevant improvementimagerycontrol sdmeansdmeansdmeansdmean experiment 1 .882.371.112.37.962.81.891.41recall 1.261.351.551.37.71.50.53.26up (ro) .87.73.57.38.76.54.951.23up (gn) experiment 2 1.072.281.212.241.052.381.231.69recall 1.351.591.591.59.77.66.86.62up (ro) .63.43.58.54.63.39.74.57up (gn) notes: up (ro) = unconscious plagiarism during the recall-own task. up (gn) = unconscious plagiarism during the generate new task. experiment 2: ideas that were subject to elaboration of any kind to any (imagery, selfor other-relevant improvement) were recalled at a numerically higher rate than control but a within-subjects anova revealed that this difference did not reach statistical significance f(3,84)=2.12, p=.10, mse 2.79. unconscious plagiarism in the recall-own task in this task, participants were required to remember as many of their own initial ideas as possible, but recall was not forced. unconscious plagiarism occurred when participants recalled someone else’s idea as their own. a plagiarised idea was only counted once. experiment 1: a within subjects anova revealed that there was a significant main effect of elaboration status on plagiarism in the recall-own task, f(3, 78)=9.40, p<.001, mse = 9.25. sidak-adjusted multiple comparisons across conditions were revealed that the rate of plagiarism following selfor other-relevant improvements ideas did not differ, but both exceeded the rate seen in the imagery and control conditions, which did not differ. experiment 2: a within subjects anova of plagiarism errors in the recall task revealed that there was a significant main effect of elaboration status f(3, 84)=6.52, p<.001, mse = 8.70. mean plagiarism levels across conditions were compared using sidak-adjusted multiple comparisons. these revealed that the rate that improved ideas, whether self-or other-relevant, were plagiarised at a greater rate than imagery or control ideas. no other comparison was significant. unconscious plagiarism in the generate-new task experiment 1: a within subjects anova was conducted on plagiarism errors in the generate-new task revealed a significant main effect of elaboration status on plagiarism errors f(3,75)=6.19, p<.05 mse = 3.52. sidak-adjusted multiple comparisons demonstrated that plagiarism of control ideas significantly exceeded the rate for imagined ideas and other-relevant improved ideas, but not self-relevant improved ideas. there was no evidence of a difference between self-relevant and other-relevant improvement on generate-new plagiarism. experiment 2: a within-subjects anova revealed that elaboration status did not affect the rate of plagiarised errors, f<1. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 unconscious plagiarism in recall 280 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the results of the experiments were clear, and consistent with previous research. as with previous studies (perfect, field, & jones, 2009; stark, perfect, & newstead, 2005; stark & perfect, 2006, 2008) we found evidence of a dissociation between the two forms of elaboration, with respect to the two measures of unconscious plagiarism. three results were consistent with previous work. both forms of elaboration increase correct recall, relative to control. they also both numerically reduce plagiarism in the generate-new task relative to control, a trend that is seen in our previous studies, though not always reaching statistical significance. finally, and most crucially, we found that on the recall-own task, improvement of an idea led to increased plagiarism relative to control, but imagery did not. across the two studies, as a proportion of ideas output, improvement roughly doubled the rates of plagiarism. for control ideas 15.6% of ideas (experiment 1) and 26.8% of ideas (experiment 2) were plagiarised. a similar pattern was observed for imagined ideas (experiment 1, 15.6%; experiment 2, 21.7%). these rates increase to 36.6% (experiment 1) and 41.5% (experiment 2) of self-relevant improved ideas, and 36.2% (experiment 1) and 41.1% (experiment 2) of other-relevant improved ideas. thus, despite having demonstrated reliable levels of plagiarism in the recall own tasks, we found no evidence that the size of this effect is modified by the self-relevance of the improvements that participants generated. rates of plagiarism following selfand other-relevant improvements were almost identical, and since recall was matched across conditions, this meant that the proportion of plagiarised ideas was also very similar. thus, it appears that that self-relevance does not play a causal role in plagiarism in the recall-own task. the studies were also consistent with our earlier work in showing that neither improvement nor imagery increases the propensity to plagiarise in the generate-new task. the lack of an effect on the generate-new task is not unexpected, and fits with a strength-based account of plagiarism errors in the generate-new task (c. f. marsh & landau, 1995). at test, when participants try to generate new ideas, old ideas may intrude. if participants recall any form of improvement, whether for their own use, or for an older adults use, then they are likely to use this information to judge an idea as being old, and thus avoid plagiarising it. our previous explanation of the idea-improvement effect in recall plagiarism has centred on a source-monitoring account, arguing that the process of idea-improvement resembles that used in initial idea generation (stark, perfect, & newstead, 2005: stark & perfect, 2006, 2007, 2008). however, the notion of participants using personal relevance as a cue is also compatible with a source-monitoring account: the essence of a source-monitoring account is that memories are multi-dimensional and people weight the evidence from different dimensions to make attributions about source (johnson, hashtroudi, & lindsay, 1993). we believe that there is an account that can simultaneously explain the presence of an idea-improvement effect, and an absence of a self-relevance effect. this pattern would follow if participants made automatic judgements of source based upon the cognitive processes associated with a memory, rather that the content of the memory itself. in particular, we argue that the process of improving ideas, whether for oneself or someone else, requires generative processes, which resemble the original process of generating ideas. whilst the initial phase of idea generation might not have involved personal relevance, it did involve generation, which is consequently a useful cue to idea ownership at retrieval. however, the use of this cue is compromised by the presence of the improvement phase, which also associates a process of generation with the ideas, but does so for both own-ideas and ideas from others. from the participant’s perspective, another person’s idea that has been improved will have records of both the perceptual details associated with hearing the idea initially, plus the generative processes associated europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 perfect & stark 281 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with improving it. if the perceptual details are unavailable, or weighted less than the generative processes, participants may erroneously attribute the origin of the idea to themselves. thus, in summary, we argue that participants when attempting to recall their own ideas make automatic judgements of source, based upon the qualitative aspects of the memory trace, rather than the contents of the memory. such an account is consistent with the original source-monitoring framework claim that source monitoring is achieved through heuristic processes operating in tandem with systematic processes (johnson, hashtroudi, & lindsay, 1993). in the original framework, systematic checking processes based upon the contents of the memory can be used to verify the output of the heuristic system, but if participants fail to engage in such systematic checking, perhaps because the ongoing tasks demands are too high (landau, thomas, thelen, & chang, 2002) then errors based upon heuristic judgements will occur. our argument is that either the checking processes are uninformative in the present context, or participants do not engage in them at all, instead relying on automatic judgements based on generative cues to idea ownership. although our main focus in this study has been the comparison of selfand other-relevant improvement, it is worth commenting on the relative effects of improvement and imagery across the two studies reported here. as in all our previous demonstrations, improvement increases plagiarism relative to control and imagery. this is despite the fact that imagery increases correct recall to the same degree as improvement, and despite the fact that imagery and improvement have indistinguishable effects on generate-new plagiarism. it is this pattern that we have argued rules out memory strength as an account of why people plagiarise other people’s ideas when they recall. people do not misattribute other’s ideas to themselves because they are associated with a general sense of fluency, familiarity, or oldness. the current data also suggest that they don’t make this mistake because the idea contains details that are personally relevant. instead, the current data strongly suggest that people misattribute other people’s ideas that they have improved because of the generative nature of the improvement process. funding this work was funded by the economic and social research council in the form of a project grant to both authors (r000221647). references brown, a. s., & murphy, d. r. (1989). cryptomnesia: delineating unconscious plagiarism. journal of experimental psychology. learning, memory, and cognition, 15, 432-442. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.15.3.432 christensen, p. r., guilford, j. p., merrifield, r. c., & wilson, r. c. (1960). alternate uses test. beverly hills, ca: sheridan psychological service. johnson, m. k., hashtroudi, s., & lindsay, d. s. (1993). source monitoring. psychological bulletin, 114, 3-28. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3 landau, j. d., thomas, d. m., thelen, s. e., & chang, p. (2002). source monitoring in a generative task. memory (hove, england), 10, 187-197. doi:10.1080/09658210143000326 marsh, r. l., & landau, j. d. (1995). item availability in crytpomnesia: assessing its role in two paradigms of unconscious plagiarism. journal of experimental psychology. learning, memory, and cognition, 21, 1568-1582. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.21.6.1568 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 unconscious plagiarism in recall 282 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.15.3.432 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.114.1.3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210143000326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.6.1568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ marsh, r. l., landau, j. d., & hicks, j. l. (1997). contributions of inadequate source monitoring to unconscious plagiarism during idea generation. journal of experimental psychology. learning, memory, and cognition, 23, 886-897. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.23.4.886 perfect, t. j., defeldre, a.-c., elliman, r., & dehon, h. (2011). no evidence of age-related increases in unconscious plagiarism during free recall. memory (hove, england), 19, 514-528. doi:10.1080/09658211.2011.590503 perfect, t. j., field, i., & jones, r. (2009). source credibility and idea-improvement have independent effects on unconscious plagiarism errors in recall and generate-new tasks. journal of experimental psychology. learning, memory, and cognition, 35, 267-274. doi:10.1037/a0013936 perfect, t. j., & stark, l.-j. (2008a). tales from the crypt…omnesia. in j. dunlosky and r. a. bjork (eds.). a handbook of memory and metamemory (pp. 285-314). new york: psychology press. perfect, t. j., & stark, l.-j. (2008b). why do i always have the best ideas? the role of idea quality in unconscious plagiarism. memory (hove, england), 16, 386-394. doi:10.1080/09658210801946501 stark, l.-j., & perfect, t. j. (2006). elaboration inflation: how your ideas become mine. applied cognitive psychology, 20, 641-648. doi:10.1002/acp.1216 stark, l.-j., & perfect, t. j. (2007). whose idea was that? source monitoring for idea-ownership following elaboration.memory (hove, england), 15, 776-783. doi:10.1080/09658210701643042 stark, l.-j., & perfect, t. j. (2008). the effects of repeated elaboration on unconscious plagiarism. memory & cognition, 36, 65-73. doi:10.3758/mc.36.1.65 stark, l.-j., perfect, t. j., & newstead, s. (2005). when elaboration leads to appropriation: unconscious plagiarism in a creative task. memory (hove, england), 13, 561-573. doi:10.1080/09658210444000232 about the authors tim perfect is professor of experimental psychology and director of the centre for brain, cognition and behaviour at the university of plymouth. louisa-jayne stark was a phd student and postdoctoral researcher at the university of plymouth, but has now emigrated to canada, where she is taking a career break to raise a family. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 275–283 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.459 perfect & stark 283 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.23.4.886 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2011.590503 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013936 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210801946501 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1216 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210701643042 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/mc.36.1.65 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658210444000232 http://www.psychopen.eu/ unconscious plagiarism in recall method participants procedure results correct recall unconscious plagiarism in the recall-own task unconscious plagiarism in the generate-new task discussion funding references about the authors self-therapy made easy book reviews mccain, marian van eyk (2012). self-therapy made easy. john hunt publishing self-therapy made easy beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 686–688, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.547 received: 2012-11-09. accepted: 2012-11-09. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292, email: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mccain, marian van eyk (2012). self-therapy made easy. john hunt publishing marian van eykmccain is bsw (melbourne), ma, east-west psychology (c.i.i.s. san francisco) is a transpersonal psychotherapist and health educator and is currently enjoying her time as a freelance writer on a range of subjects, including psychology, women’s health, aging, wellness, simplicity, green spirituality, environmental issues, organic growing, downshifting and alternative technology. marian is the author of eight books (www.marianvaneykmccain.com), co-editor of the magazine ‘greenspirit’ and also a blogger, columnist and book reviewer. a lover of all things green, she lives, very simply, in rural devon with her soul mate and partner, sky mccain. she welcomes visits to her books’ website (above) and to her primary website at www.elderwoman.org in this era of confusing proliferations of therapies and extreme boom of spirituality books and trainings promising instant relief and gratification, it is refreshing to find a book designed for the neophyte which is highly stranded in the long-established tradition. the book is a rare combination of simple and accessible wisdom, professional expertise, and wit and humour, the writer achieving the difficult task of offering serious support without taking herself too seriously. “self therapy made easy” is written for normal people empowered to solve their own problems and deal with their own issues and who are fully capable of doing so. written by a highly qualified psychotherapist and based on many years of clinical expertise and personal practice, the book is an informative, inspirational and easy-to-read guide to understanding how the normal, human mind works and how we can all take charge of our own europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://www.marianvaneykmccain.com http://www.elderwoman.org http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological, emotional and spiritual health. by suggesting to try out the various practices and techniques in her book, the author hopes the reader will soon find the ones that suit him/her best. the book is divided into three parts, each one dedicated to a different emotional growth stage. part one deals with understanding your inner world, is about self-knowledge and is a prerequisite for part two, which reveals the art, skills and techniques of self-therapy while part three is having a close look at the transpersonal self. the author herself is warning us that this is a book intended to be read in the order in which it is written, rather than “dipped into randomly”. in part one music metaphors and terminology are used in order to make the reader more aware about the unconscious and the conscious mind. it is emphasized again, for the unaware reader, that the unconscious dictates a large part of what we feel, think, react and behave in our daily life. “the puppet master, the unconscious mind, influences us in choosing our careers, our homes, our friends and even our life partners. it influences pretty much everything we think and say and do and feel. so it is probably a good idea to get more familiar with its contents.” the idea is not new, shamans, spiritual healers, meditators, and other “primitive” people have always known that the unconscious is a powerful storehouse of resources and ideas. sigmund freud considered the unconscious the place where you repressed memories from childhood and all the other junk you do not want. jung, one of freud’s disciples insisted on the novel idea of “collective unconscious” of the culture we live in. thus, the unconscious became a touch less dingy, and a lot more of a “spiritual” component. next comes milton erickson, who saw the unconscious as a massive storehouse of resources and memories that has the ability to help you change whenever you want, and will help you get what you want. a rather novel view of marian is the one of full orchestra, composed by the triad: the observing self, the virtual therapist and the unconscious mind. a particularly careful look is taken to the motivations one has in order to turn to a therapist and also the model that separates the social worker’s activity from a psychotherapist’s work. prior to becoming a therapist in private practice, the author has spent many year in training and working as a social worker, a special outlook is taken to the model used: client has a problem -client seeks help -client receives help problem solved -client discharged. marian acknowledged that this model works just fine for practical problems like finding accommodation, sorting out household finances, but not all the problems were practical, most of the people who turn to a social worker for supports have been for long period s of their life in stressful situations like: eviction, divorce, etc. then the psychotherapist enters the scene, dealing with the emotional issues the client has. the author notices with extreme subtlety that a vast majority still perceives psychotherapy as a service that people are ashamed to be related to probably because of the and stigma associated to mental health in our culture. this is why visiting a coach seems to be much more desirable in our era, coaching being associated with sports, entertainment, performance and less with pathology and illness, especially life coaching. “at the same time, any model that focuses only on your future and your goals without taking a good look at how and why your unconscious mind might be sabotaging those goals, is working with only half the tools in the toolbox.” a valuable assertion, since the holisticity in theory and method is the princeps treatment choice. part two is concerned with the self-therapy topic and induces the feeling that everybody can master the art of self-therapy providing he/she has some basic training. even though this might be possible for the majority of us, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 686–688 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.547 popescu 687 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there are still human beings afraid to perform any kind of self-therapy other than bibliotherapy and even so, reading books that enhance their self-knowledge is still an exception rather than the norm. a particular look is given to the shadow, in the jungian paradigm and to the interpretation of dreams, in the same fashion. also, individuation process is clearly explained in few paragraphs. the “observing self” term has been used by some authors, such as arthur deikman in this paradigm: the reader is invited to try and locate that self to establish its boundaries. the task is impossible; whatever we can notice or conceptualize is already an object of awareness, not awareness itself, which seems to jump a step back when we experience an object. unlike every other aspect of experience — thoughts, emotions, desires, and functions — the observing self can be known but not located, not ‘seen’. marian imagines the observing self as “a third level of mind which we can deliberately cultivate in order to observe in a totally neutral way—i.e. without blame, judgment or interference—our behavior, our thoughts, our feelings and moods and all the workings of our own minds.” she is very close to deikmen when stating that though total objectivity is impossible for the human mind to achieve and developing a strong and capable observing self is probably the closest we can ever get to it. also, this observing self is probably the best state of mind to achieve when in therapy. part three helps the reader to achieve a change in consciousness, by revealing him the transpersonal self, not in a structured manner as kim wilber does it, but having a more personal approach, using several landmark-concepts such as: quantum universe, worlds unseen, reinterpretation of time, sense of oneness and secret truth of relationships. lots of examples accompany the descriptions of these concepts, making the journey so much easier and pleasant for the reader. finally, the author invites everyone to live his/her life by using ‘nothing in excess’ and reminding everyone to relax, kick back and have fun as well and not to be too hard on yourself if you sometimes fall back into old ways of thinking and behaving, because “changing patterns is not always easy”. the book ends with common sense advice expressing a simple life philosophy, basically accessible information for the intuitive and empathic reader who is not afraid to speak his mind, experiment and access new information in a delightful and entertaining way. a captivating mix of spirituality, transactional analysis and gestalt concepts comprised in several case studies from her own clinical practice as a social worker and psychotherapist make the book a fascinating read for both trainee therapists and the novice readers receptive to psychological topics. “self therapy made easy” fully justifies its own title, offering the type of information promised in an honest and subtle way, without aiming the goal to touch the analytical minds of all experienced practitioners in the world. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 686–688 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.547 self-therapy made easy 688 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-therapy made easy conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the 14th international congress of the ifpe 5-8 june, 2013 leipzig, germany conference theme: “the uses of psychiatric epidemiology in improving population mental health” ifpe is an international organization devoted to the pro-motion of epidemiological and health services research on mental disorders. founded in 1985, it is an independent, non-profit association relying entirely on annual subscription fees. there are corporate, individual, and associate members. corporate members include national associations of psychiatric epidemiology in canada, france, italy, nordic countries, spain and switzerland, and the section of epidemiology, institute of psychiatry, london. individual or corporate membership applications should be made in writing to the president, professor johannes wancata. the 14th international congress of ifpewill held in cooperation with the german association for psychiatry and psychotherapy (deutsche gesellschaft für psychiatrie, psychotherapie und nervenheilkunde – dgppn) and the german society for epidemiology (deutsche gesellschaft für epidemiologie – dgepi). visit the website for more information: http://ifpe2013.org/ifpe.html europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ifpe2013.org/ifpe.html http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2nd international conference on psychological sciences and behaviors icpsb 2013 15-16 june, 2013 colombo, sri lanka icpsb 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of psychological sciences and behaviors, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. the conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in psychological sciences and behaviors and related areas. all papers for the icpsb 2013 will be published in the ipedr (issn: 2010-4626) as one volume, and will be included in the engineering & technology digital library, and indexed by ebsco,worldcat, google scholar, cnki, ulrich's, cross ref and sent to be reviewed by isi proceedings. one excellent paper will be selected from each oral session the certificate for excellent papers will be awarded in the welcome banquet on june 16, 2013. english is the official language of the conference. visit the website for more information: http://www.icpsb.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 global psypulse 2 http://www.icpsb.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ creative minds: cognitive sources of art and discovery 26-28 june, 2013 montréal, canada cognitio is a young researcher’s conference held every other year at the université du québec à montréal, under the auspices of its cognitive science institute. over the past several years at cognitio, many facets of the human mind were explored: decision making (2005), situated minds (2006), social cognition (2007), the evolution of minds and cultures (2009), and nonhuman minds, including animal, artificial and group minds (2011). this time around, we will be focusing on the cognitive aspects of art and creativity. we aim to look at the cognitive nature of creativity and the brain processes that generate it or that are involved in its expression. we are interested in knowing to what extent creativity is controlled, spontaneous or unconscious, whether one has control on her own creative impulse and the impacts of training and practice on art production and on creative performance. of course, art is an important form of human creative expression and it is an interesting project for cognitive scientists to find out if it involves the same parts of the brain or similar processes for each type of art (visual, oral, written, etc.) and if the creative processes in art share more than the name with creativity in other domains. moreover, creativity occurs in many domains of human activity from industrial innovation to paradigm shifts in science; from coming up with better ways to carve stones to chiseling the perfect haiku. presentations including or about an artistic performance or production will be more than welcome, provided that there is a clear link with cognitive science. visit the website for more information: http://cognitio.uqam.ca/2013/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 glăveanu 3 http://cognitio.uqam.ca/2013/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ understanding employee dishonesty behaviours in the workplace 15-17 july, 2013 dijon, france employee dishonesty and relevant behaviours in the workplace have drawn academic andmedias’ attention recently. researchers and empirical studies reveal that employees may engage with dishonest conducts (e.g., lying, cheating) in order to gain unlawful benefits (herrman, 2005; hitsch et al., in press). at the corporate level, employee dishonesty has accounted for $600 billion annual loss in the us and relevant tax evasion leads to $353 billions government loss (mazar et al., 2008). it becomes evident that employee dishonesty behaviors have generated salient reputation damage as well as monetary costs to employers, organisations and local government. hence, understanding the mechanism of employee dishonesty to develop intervention strategies becomes an urgent issue. the workshop will be an opportunity to construct multiple bridges between different ways of understanding employee dishonesty and of doing, communicating and publishing relevant research. this workshop aims at gathering researchers from different disciplines around a common topic in order to foster discussion and scientific collaboration. key research themes may include, for instance, what psychological, social or cognitive mechanisms may exist and/or operate underlying dishonest behaviours? how individual motivators and organisational characteristics may help explain dishonest behaviours? and, how can organizational managers and hr practitioners tackle with employee dishonesty more proactively? the workshop warmly welcomes researchers from various disciplines and backgrounds to discuss employee dishonesty, issues and further implications in the workplace. research from economics, psychology, marketing or business is welcome. visit the website for more information: http://www.escdijon.eu/recherche/conferences-internationales/workshop-understanding-employee-dishonestybehaviors-in-the-workplace/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 global psypulse 4 http://www.escdijon.eu/recherche/conferences-internationales/workshop-understanding-employee-dishonesty-behaviors-in-the-workplace/ http://www.escdijon.eu/recherche/conferences-internationales/workshop-understanding-employee-dishonesty-behaviors-in-the-workplace/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ action – a limit of psychoanalysis? 29 july 5 august, 2013 ulsteinvik, norway psychoanalysis and politics is a conference series that aims to address how crucial contemporary political issues may be fruitfully analyzed through psychoanalytic theory and vice versa – how political phenomena may reflect back on psychoanalytic thinking. the series is interdisciplinary; we invite theoretical contributions and historical, literary or clinical case studies from philosophers, sociologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, group analysts, literary theorists, historians and others. perspectives from different psychoanalytic schools are most welcome. we emphasise room for discussion among the presenters and participants, thus the symposium series creates a space where representatives of different perspectives come together and engage with one another’s contributions, participating in a community of thought. we aim to be non-discriminatory and egalitarian. disrespect or discrimination towards the forum or any of its participants on the basis of nationality, skin colour, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexuality will not be tolerated. we aim to disseminate the knowledge produced in these fora by means of publications. visit the website for more information: http://www.psa-pol.org/?p=222 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 glăveanu 5 http://www.psa-pol.org/?p=222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the international congress on clinical and counselling psychology 6-9 august, 2013 istanbul, turkey i am honoured to chair the 2013 international congress on clinical and counselling psychology (cpsyc). i enthusiastically invite you—clinical and counselling psychology students, educators, researchers, and practitioners from around the world—to attend the congress. we have a talented and committed team of cpsyc scientific committee and board of reviewers who are working hard to make the 2013 congress another resounding success. the 2013 international congress on clinical and counselling psychology will take place in istanbul, turkey, on august 06th-09th, 2013. this congress will not only build on the success of previous c-crcs conferences and congresses, but will also seek to raise the bar in international exchange of ideas, collaborations, and cooperation among academics, clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists, and other practitioners. the 2013 congress will provide unrivalled opportunities for participants to rub minds and bounce off ideas with each other. it will seek to facilitate discussions including challenges to clinical and counselling psychology internationally, providing a forum for scientific debate and constructive interaction in a multicultural environment such as istanbul. the congress will provide a platform for educators, researchers, students, and practitioners to present their work; to exchange knowledge, ideas, and experience; and to identify solutions to existing challenges in clinical and counselling psychology globally. doctoral candidates are particularly invited to present and discuss their research ideas and work in progress. visit the website for more information: http://www.cpsyc.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 global psypulse 6 http://www.cpsyc.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2nd international conference on society, humanity and history (icshh 2013) 10-11 august, 2013 barcelona, spain welcome to the official website of 2013 2nd international conference on society, humanity and history, icshh 2013, will be held during august 10-11, 2013, in barcelona, spain. icshh 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of society, humanity and history, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. the conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in society, humanity and history and related areas. all papers for the icshh 2013 will be published in the ijssh (issn: 2010-3646) as one volume, and will be included in the engineering & technology digital library, and indexed by proquest, ebsco, worldcat, google scholar,cnki, ulrich's periodicals directory, cross ref and sent to be reviewed by isi proceedings. one excellent paper will be selected from each oral session the certificate for excellent papers will be awarded in the welcome banquet on august 11, 2013. english is the official language of the conference. visit the website for more information: http://www.icshh.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 glăveanu 7 http://www.icshh.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ isps 18th international conference – best practice in psychological therapies for psychosis 22-25 august, 2013 warsaw, poland we would also like to extend a very warm invitation to warsaw in august 2013 to all interested in psychological approaches to psychosis. our international isps conferences over 57 years have an excellent reputation for the quality of the content and for the friendly atmosphere in which all contributors and participants are made to feel very welcome. throughout the world the cycle is turning more and more towards exploring the multitude of ways in which psychology is relevant to psychosis, from understanding early experiences and their effects on mind and brain, to trauma, to the psychology of stigma, and we could add here a very long list but emphasise our particular conference focus on the psychological therapies of many kinds relevant to psychosis. we encourage you to come and participate, to consider offering a paper of your own, or organise a symposium and join in the lively discussions and we guarantee you will return home enriched and enthused. visit the website for more information: http://www.isps2013warsaw.pl/index.php?lang=en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 global psypulse 8 http://www.isps2013warsaw.pl/index.php?lang=en http://www.psychopen.eu/ congress of the international association for the psychology of religion 27-30 august, 2013 lausanne, switzerland the 2013 congress of the international association for the psychology of religion (iapr) will be held in lausanne, switzerland. the congress is organized in collaboration with the university of lausanne, particularly the institute for social sciences of contemporary religions (issrc-religions, science and theological faculty/ftsr) and the institute of psychology (ip-social and political sciences faculty/ssp). increasingly, the iaprcongresses have become an essential place for meeting and dialogue between researchers and scholars from a vast array of countries. we cordially invite you to attend this congress and present your empirical and/or theoretical research in, for example, neurosciences, religion/spirituality, mental health, religious development, cultural perspective or other topics. the main language of this congress will be english. visit the website for more information: http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/iapr2013/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.618 glăveanu 9 http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/iapr2013/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ global psypulse the 14th international congress of the ifpe 2nd international conference on psychological sciences and behaviors icpsb 2013 creative minds: cognitive sources of art and discovery understanding employee dishonesty behaviours in the workplace action – a limit of psychoanalysis? the international congress on clinical and counselling psychology 2nd international conference on society, humanity and history ( isps 18th international conference – best practice in psychological therapies for psychosis congress of the international association for the psychology of religion another brick in the wall? putting freedom and democracy on the curriculum in hungarian schools györgy ligeti phd, university of elte, budapest, hungary biographical note kurt lewin foundation http://www.kla.hu/index_en.htm h-1052 budapest, váci street 9. iii. floor 1. +36.30.212.5426 university of elte, budapest (hungary) abstract hungary is an east central european country with a population of 10 million. every day about 1,821,000 children (between the ages of six and eighteen) go to kindergarten, elementary and secondary schools. approximately a further one million parents and teachers are affected by the public institutional system. how does this mass of many millions of people manage everyday conflicts? what conflict management and civic models does hungarian public education use today, 15 years after transition to democracy? relying on nation-wide studies carried out in recent years by the kurt lewin foundation i will now attempt to reveal answers to questions like these. our work presents the connection and correlation between school aggression, hazing, and the civic socialisation of the individual. the text is also inclusive of a number of interview extracts, too. the most important legal provision governing the hungarian education system is known as act lxxix of 1993 on public education. this act defines and regulates the rights and obligations of students, parents, and teachers (school users). although the act has been in force for more than a decade, everyday school life in hungary is largely pervaded by informal rules and conflict management techniques that rely on unconditional submission to authority rather than consensus. school life usually lacks the techniques designed to help the appropriate vindication of student and teacher rights and allow for the management of conflict under the framework of partnership. let’s see an example – one of the outcomes of our observations: “the use of cellular phones in our schools is forbidden”, said the house rules of one of the grammar schools we visited. this had not caused a problem until the passionately law-abiding pubescent students prevented the school principal from completing a mobile telephone conversation in the school corridor by constantly reminding the school head of the ban on mobiles. after the incident, the school leadership decided to involve students in the decision making process and together they reformed the school’s house rules and regulations. it now read: “the use of mobile phones shall not interfere with education”. from this moment on whenever someone’s phone rang in class, students had reminded each other of the rule, which they now felt was the result of their own contribution. let’s observe what had actually happened in this instance. the school had now involved all concerned parties in the process of legislation therefore they were now all able to identify with the rules they had themselves made. from that moment on the use of mobile telephones in class was not tolerated not because it was unethical or annoying, but because the ban had been jointly made. the kurt lewin foundation’s questionnaire study of a representative sample (n=1,447) of grade 11 (16-17-year-old) adolescents across the country was designed to observe and identify students’ attitudes to knowledge of the law, democracy, and minority groups. the nation-wide sample was representative in terms of community type, region, school type, and gender of the respondents. with respect to school rights the questionnaire had posed three simple questions: 11. do you think the school can refuse to hand out your end-year certificate because you have not returned borrowed books to the library? tick only one answer! o yes, i do, because i have not fulfilled my obligations towards the school library. o yes, but only if the school has issued me with a preliminary written notice. [correct answer is schools cannot refuse to hand out students’ certificates on any ground.] 12. what kind of disciplinary action can schools take? tick only one answer! o the school cannot apply any disciplinary action against students. o any effective disciplinary action can be taken provided it is approved by the school’s education board and it is also defined in the house rules. [correct answer is the disciplinary action schools can take must be defined by the act on public education.] 13. when and in which cases do you think students can exercise their rights to express their opinion in the school? tick only one answer! o opinion may be expressed during the school year on appropriate forums via student’s self government. o opinion may be expressed on the specific request of the principal or the teachers. [correct answer is opinion may freely be expressed any time on any subject matter as long as it does not impair the dignity of others.] only 80.7% of students identified the correct answers to all three questions (table 1). however, (only) 17.4% knew the right answer to all three. readers must be reminded at this point that the above questions concern everyday problems and conflict situation in hungarian schools. it is worthy of note that only 16.3 % of students with a zero score were from grammar schools while 36.6 % were going to vocational schools; the latter do not provide school-leaving students with a g.c.e., only a leaving certificate. similarly, 16.0 % of students with a zero score study in budapest (hungary’s capital city), while 60.7 % go to schools in rural communities representing the bottom of the hierarchy of communities in terms of their level of urbanisation. this fundamentally means that – at least according to the conclusions of this questionnaire survey – there is a relationship between the understanding of rights (and indirectly the rules of democracy) and other social variables. rights what is the purpose of school rights? before i endeavour to present bullying which is one of the most typical and also the most critical legal encroachments in terms of socialisation, i must emphasise that the school, being the first institution people come to face in the course of their lives, is also the arena for civic education: this is the first place where real work is going on and where children participate as real citizens. the school is also particularly important in this regard because it is a publicly financed institution designed to raise and educate children. the fundamental essence of the act on public education is to establish a contractual relationship between school citizens. participation in public education is a civil right and an obligation at the same time. however, the right is exercised and the obligation is fulfilled by autonomous citizens and not subjects of the state. analogously, the teachers are not slaves, but autonomous employees also with rights and obligations. in addition to this, student rights also represent pedagogical powers. in terms of socialisation, taking student rights and school citizens’ rights in general into consideration when organising everyday school life is not unnecessary theatrical play, or mere clownery, but an important means of civic socialisation. “it is much easier to bang on the table than to lay the table”, claimed one of the school principals in an interview about student rights. one of the most important findings of the kurt lewin foundation’s series of research studies for the office of the commissioner of education rights (2000–2003) is that teachers and students see rights and obligations in isolation, mostly in conflict of each other. conflicts and the methods of handling conflicts have an important role in the socialisation of students. we talk about democratic education and democratic education of children if problem management takes the interests of all parties into consideration on equal terms under the framework of partnership. this requires that the participants jointly shape the processes that can eventually lead to the constructive handling of conflicts. conflict between students, teachers, and parents (school citizens) is a natural phenomenon in a system where millions of people are in contact with each other every day. the real battle in our view does not lie between conflict and harmony, but between the different methods of conflict management. the crucial line lies between the development of conflicts and the lack of such development, between the lawful settlement of conflicts and the repression thereof. based on the findings of a nation-wide study (kurt lewin foundation, 2003) we may safely claim that if the rights of one school citizen (the teacher, for example) are violated, it is almost certain that sooner or later the rights of another school user (let’s say the student) will also be encroached upon as a result. let’s see an example: according to the section of the act on public education relevant to teachers, “in relation to the job the teacher is entitled to the following: a) to receive respect as a member of the community of teachers, the human dignity and personality rights, as well as the education and teaching activity shall be respected and acknowledged”. in contrast, during data collection with teachers we numerously encountered astonishment and surprise when the teachers were asked what they felt had been the greatest achievement in their work: many said they had never really given it much thought. teachers, who themselves provide constant feedback to their students, may never get any assessment or feedback regarding their own work. decades may easily pass without any feedback, and the effect it has on education and interaction with students is quite obvious for everyone to see. embitterment, disheartenment, grumbling and the act of seeking solace in aggression are all typical reactions. teachers relation to law is best described by lack of information, which is coupled with a lack of effort to seek such information. all this is well-illustrated by a lack of lawfulness, consciousness, and intent in teachers’ interactions with students. here are a few ideological axioms to illustrate: • measures that seem appropriate from a pedagogical perspective surpass any legal rule; [lack of lawfulness] • rights and obligations can be conflicting and there is a hierarchic relationship between them: rights cannot be exercised until obligations have been fulfilled. [lack of counsciousness] what is the case with parents? when we look at the rights parents have, the right to information seems the most neuralgic point. the very people who are most in need of appropriately profound and adequate information are those who suffer the greatest violation of their right to information. these people are the most vulnerable because of their poor education and their inability to identify and use the appropriate means necessary to get by in society (this, by the way, is the very result of their inappropriate and insufficient early civic socialisation). parents in many instances are only able to relate to the realm of school on the basis of their earlier childhood experiences. based on the results of research studies, children with special needs receive greatly different levels of provision, which is partly owed to the parents’ minimal understanding in the subject of public education and even in the system of social institution in general. the task of school selection does not present itself as a free choice option for all parents. for the children of disadvantaged families the beginning of the school term means inescapable and unwanted pressure. it is important to note here that the fluctuation of student numbers does affect the operation and future of all schools; this compels one group of schools to do everything in their power to maintain student numbers at a specific level in order to survive or vegetate (“vegetating schools”), while other schools subject kids to an arduous selection process (“racing stables”). free school selection today is not considered freedom by everyone, nor will it be in the long-run as long as the majority of families and communities are stricken by hardship and want. this is not meant to be a criticism of the freedom to choose school, but rather it is intended to present mandatory education pervaded by inequalities and the lack of school pluralism. studies have shown that a liberal school system, free choice of school, and meeting individuals’ needs at a high and differentiated level is not possible without a solid social welfare system to fall back on. still on the subject of parents, there is the issue of self-management. the methods of self-management simultaneously include spontaneous and formal interest representation. an increasing proportion of parents are beginning to recognise the advantages of joint representation, however the forms and objectives do not always project a more democratic and more liveable world. there are an increasing number of middle-class parents who form small communities with a view to organising their lives and school life in a consistent manner with european norms involving teachers and treating children as real partners in the process. as a result of these initiations, a fresh group of schools is about to emerge where the conveyance of information is also coupled with an ideal school climate for democratic civic education. there are also parent initiations that spontaneously stem from pure emotion, from the mechanic pursuit or adoption of the model provided by the other parent. the following initiation of non-roma parents in village p. is typical rather than unique. families in village p. had launched a movement with a view to isolating their children from the local roma children by enrolling their children in another school two villages away from their homes. their sole objective was to ensure their children do not have to share a classroom with roma kids. even the school’s secretary had followed suit. the school is now on the verge of abolishment because the minimum number of students required for survival is now impossible to uphold. however, some of the parents who had earlier withdrawn their children from the school are now gradually drifting back because the other school – which has now introduced a school-entry scheme to select students – had set the standards far too high in languages and mathematics. the requirements were set so high that (irrespective of background) many children from p. could simply not comply. now what is the model such parental behaviour presents? the model sadly teaches children in their early years how to isolate themselves from their peers. the climate under which students are socialised into civic life puts an equation mark between the terms “gypsy” and “non-desirable” with the assistance of the school. school aggression (bullying) although the violation of dignity might not be the most typical conflict situation or legal encroachment, it is certainly the most important in terms of civic education. it is never the content, the acquired material, or the exact place and date of a school excursion that lives on in our memories, but the atmosphere and the climate of communication that had defined everyday and red-letter school days. this is deposited in the adult person as some form of final product or outcome of education. the complete disregard of personal rights of others (teacher, student, parents) is an instance that leaves a sense of subordination in the injured person. the third party observing an unresolved injury of rights may well grow to think that injuring the other person’s dignity is an adequate alternative of conflict management. (in many cases it is.) the methods of conflict management and the various interest representation techniques are stored by the students and they can suddenly resurface in everyday interaction. the kurt lewin foundation’s research, which was based on interviews, observations, and a nation-wide representative questionnaire survey intended to reveal the vindication of student rights, was focused on how school conflicts emerge. the fundamental aim was, however, to see how schools actually handle conflicts: whether they consider conflict innately bad, something that needs to be eradicated at all costs, or whether teachers understand that the token of partner relations is in constant change whose most important catalyst is conflict. in the questionnaire study 8.2 % of the 1 447 interviewed students opted not to leave hazing in recess or in the dormitory unnoticed, while 2.8 % said they would perhaps garner signatures in a petition with a view to imposing stringent measures on hazing. (table 2). gini (2004, 107) refers to a similar questionnaire survey which puts greater emphasis on harassment. the results showed that 42 % of italian elementary school children and 28 % of secondary school children had been subjected to some form of harassment in the three months prior to the survey. it is also not without importance how students handle conflicts among themselves. the institution of hazing is well-known in numerous secondary schools. hazing is an initiation procedure which affects first class students arriving in september. in the beginning of the school year senior students repeatedly seek first-year classes in recess time and force new students to participate in various playful (believed to be playful) games. this usually goes on until the junior prom night (or “hazing prom” as it is often called) is held. first-year students are often stopped in recess and made to do push-ups or collect litter thrown away by others; this is clearly the violation of personal rights. essentially what happens is that (intimidated) first-year students pretend some degree of false enthusiasm and perform humiliating acts under pressure from the senior students. the phenomenon is very similar to the maltreatment of fresh army recruits. (the institution of mandatory conscription is about to be abolished in these days in hungary.) the socialisation of fresh recruits would be in the best hands of those very old-soldiers who themselves had once been raw recruits. the folkloristic stories about harassment in the army return in the verbal accounts of higher class students in secondary schools: “oh, c’mon”, they would say waving away concerns, “this really is nothing compared to what i had to go through as a freshman” (here i am quoting the assonant experiences of many of our observations). if you cannot handle this, you’re really worth nothing. it is very rare that freshmen object and protest. they are afraid of reprisal; and this is also confirmed by the interviews with teachers. although the humiliating tasks range on a wide scale, they do not testify of great imagination. they range from the funny to the disturbingly rough: some students had to blow out light bulbs, others had to mime driving while seated on the toilet seat using the plunger as the gear stick, but we had an account of a boy whose head was pushed inside the toilet bowl and the water flushed. one of our interviewed respondents described how “in the 20-minute recess, grade three students gathered freshmen around in the foyer, made each of them lean over a washbowl and remove paper boats with their hands behind their back using only their mouths. teachers were walking by pretending not to notice a thing, although all first-year “victims” had been rounded up.” the management of certain schools attempts to prevent hazing by spearheading the organisation of the “hazing night” and simultaneously punishing informal, recess bullying with an iron fist. however, teachers’ regular presence and corridor patrol tend to intensify the thrill of hazing, the sense of adventure, while strict punishment strengthens the sense of subjugation of senior students, which again (unintentionally) promotes hazing. we cannot use authoritarian measures to develop democratic attitudes. hazing is closely related to our affiliation to seniority and authority. the phenomenon is the foundation of gerontocracy, which probably chimes well with the interest of the teachers too: if work discipline of first-year students wanes and as a result students drop out, the student numbers may dangerously decline and the institution may – due to insufficient numbers – lose its raison d’etre: “first-year students today are quite impertinent; they do not know where the limits are, not even with teachers. this may well have been the cause for teachers to turn a blind eye to the harassments. […] this in some way has an impact on school spirituality. first-year students arrive from their elementary schools spoilt; some of them are so sloppy it’s unbelievable. i have practically no disciplinary means against them. and also, we do not want them to leave the school early. you see, the quota is reduced… student numbers fall…, statuses are questioned, so we do not like to give them a hard time. yet, we do not object if some other power teaches these little kids how to behave themselves”, as one class teacher described her feelings about the situation. one of the grammar schools, subjected to many weeks of participant observation and series of interviews, maintains close relations with the campus providing homes to students. (two thirds of the school children live on campus. many of them come from the far end of the country or even from romania and slovakia.) this is a fast paced school where learning and free time is carefully organised. campus students can only go home every sixth week. in addition to the high-level of interdependence among students, the sense of being locked up is characteristic of the atmosphere; under such circumstances any fellow student that is even just a little different than the rest can easily become a source of irritation. in this school students’ life is very strictly controlled; the always present male teachers in the campus area possess outstanding technical and psychological skills and know everything about student movement. vince, who was in his second-year at the time of our survey, fell victim of his schoolmates. physical harassment was an everyday routine in the boys’ campus; no-one would pay any particular attention to such trivial matters. even the educators would consider the occasional slap on the face a manly expression of emotion. vince, however, had already become the target of senior students, but later even his peers and younger students subjected him to attack, harassment, and bashing. it became a regular routine in the campus that the “boys let the steam out/off” (as one of the teachers had put it) and beat up or occasionally kick vince in smaller or larger groups. there was one instance when a thick electric cable found in the school yard was used to hit vince. in the dormitories of this particular campus, each dorm room was headed by a year-eleven or -twelve student. the position of dorm commander is either assigned as a form of punishment or promotion. respect must be shown by low-grade students towards dorm commanders and seniors, which is also reinforced by teachers, as it transpired in our research. it is routine practice in campus that final-year students walk into the room of juniors without any notice and confiscate all edibles. it seems that teachers had identified gerontocracy, i.e. the domination of older, upper-grade students as a means of control and discipline, and are keen to apply it. this tendency, however, reinforces older students in their beliefs that young ones can be hurt and harassed, and that such action does not humiliate the other person. one of the students described the dorm commander and other senior students: “i, for example, was made to apologise publicly from a final-grade students because i had grinned at him in the corridor. eight of them came up and made me kneel down and demanded i apologise otherwise they said they would bash me up. this was in grade one. but i have heard much rougher things going on in other schools. final-grade students had a watchword “johanna” and when it was aired over the school speakers, everyone knew it was time to go down to the cellar to bash vince up. they did it four or five times. in this school if the teachers don’t like you, they will do nothing, even if they know what »johanna« means.” the above is a collection of experiences from data collected using qualitative methods. although they reveal some concrete cases, they tend to point beyond the actual persons involved and perhaps present conclusive evidence. nonetheless, it would be necessary to conduct a large-sample survey in hungary, which – in common with the portuguese one (beatriz pereira et all, 2004.) – would rely on quantitative means to identify the most vulnerable groups threatened by school aggression. education for democracy democratic, civic socialisation is a special field within civic education helping young people integrate into democratic society, understand and comply with social norms, and even participate in the shaping of society through conveying mutuality, communication skills, and autonomy. the attitudes, skills, and knowledge whose conveyance and development collectively comprise democratic, civic socialisation are easily identifiable. let’s have a closer look now at the school where civic socialisation is taking place today. the school is not merely about the conveyance of knowledge and information. public education institutions also give instructions to the children every moment of school time regardless of whether society had indeed assigned schools the task of raising them or whether pedagogists are aware of the process or not. by saying this, i am presenting nothing new: the majority of school researches of the past thirty years have repeatedly addressed this fact. (assuming that the facts exist at all. if they do, they need to be included in the never-ending list of skills to be taught.) perhaps today’s literature and open discourse among school users (teachers, students, parents) concerning the process of raising our children by the school give less emphasis to how conscious schools are of the actual process. here is an example: one school intends to raise tolerant citizens. one of the teachers in this school scolds a student in front of the entire class as follows: “should i ever hear you making anti-semitic remarks in recess, my boy, i shall kick your teeth in.” the educational objective behind the quoted sentence is clear, however, the atmosphere and human relations (subordination along authority and power) that the sentence communicates is quite contrary to the intensions of the teacher. by attempting to teach tolerance, the teacher in our example has infringed upon rights: the student’s right to dignity. let’s approach the operations of the schools from a legal perspective, particularly because the service is publicly financed and the operations are promoted and defined by very clear and concrete legal provisions. it is also useful to adopt a legal approach because understanding school citizens’ (students, teachers, parents) attitudes to law can yield important results for understanding school civic socialisation processes. school house rules let us now observe one of the most important school documents, the house rules from the perspective of civic education. it is striking that most school house rules leave the issue of how to clash conflicting opinions within the school completely unregulated. numerous studies have been made in recent years to reveal how compliant school house rules are with the laws (gönczöl, 1998), and what they regulate (bíró, 1998). for our purposes the fundamental question is whether the house rules regulate the manner of handling controversial issues in the school or not. many house rules explicitly state that students are only entitled to exercise their rights provided they have fulfilled their obligations. these documents suggest that rights are granted or denied by the teachers or principal, and they are always right by default. what are the unexpected effects on behaviour such school philosophies may have? if there is no room for democratic conflict management, if the students do not have an avenue for minimal representation of interest (what is more, schools do not encourage or allow students to recognise their problems and interests), latent problem handling procedures that are in direct conflict with the school’s declared values and methods can easily emerge. these may include hazing and the institutionalised expression of school aggression. kindler: this is school slang in many places for school house rules. this fact alone tells us a lot about what students and secondary schools in general think of the law, contractual relationships, and rights, or the type of civic socialisation that goes on in schools. school types in terms of civic socialisation, public education institutions (elementary and secondary schools) may be classified into three distinct categories. as with any typology, the foundations may well be questioned, nevertheless let’s make an attempt at gaining a comprehensive view of the categories. the first group includes the so-called racing stables, which clearly prepare students for future middle-class life, for the practice of popular professions (physician, lawyer, economist). the aim is to improve performance and prepare students for exams required for successful entry into the next educational level; this often requires the simultaneous use of additional tutoring and admission-exam prep courses. the “vegetating” schools are placed on the other end of the scale. we can hardly talk of real education in these institutions, however both teachers and students know perfectly that they are speeding down a dead-end street and the acquired knowledge will only be enough to prepare students for future life in unemployment, and the time spent in education is only good to postpone life in unemployment. at last i ought to mention liberal or alternative (as they were called a couple of years ago) schools, which place particular emphasis on conscious democratic education and the preparation for active civic participation both in the curriculum and the organisation of school life. the most important factor is lack of time. there is no time for civic education in both the racing stables and the vegetating schools. there is no time for real raising because the teaching material has to be conveyed to the students according to school curriculum. there is no time for thinking because homework has to be assigned, the reading logs have to be completed, and most importantly they have to be checked to see whether the children have indeed read antigone at the age of fourteen. there is no time for communication because grammar, literature, and communication ought to be taught, imparted knowledge must be checked and marked. there is no time to provide feedback on individual or group work because work has to be measured, marked, and selected. on the one hand in the middle-class schools there is hardly any time for rearing because the relevance of democratic socialisation is lost amidst incalculable amounts of teaching material to be taught and tested. it is in the remedial classes, which can only provide temporary relief for the long-term problems, and the pressing of similarly colossal amounts of teaching material into the pupils heads in vegetating schools that prevent the conveyance of skills that would be otherwise indispensable for social integration. in this respect there is hardly any difference between “vegetating schools” and “racing stables”. teaching is segregated. disadvantaged and middle-class students, roma and non-roma, the fit and the handicapped hardly ever meet in schools. attention! segregation in school is usually a result of segregation of communities which stems form the fact that people who are a little better off will try to move away from poor neighbourhoods and regions which leaves schools with little room for manoeuvre. knowledge and skill are treated separately. knowledge is easy to measure, easy to mark, while skills are not. all this is reflected in the ways schools organise teaching material, space, and time. knowledge conveyed in schools rigidly divides the entire school universe into 45-minute blocks. students show intense interest toward organic chemistry for a period of 45 minutes then toward 20th century hungarian literature. lately students have the pleasure of gawking at teachers lecturing about family, euthanasia, capital punishment, pollution under the framework of 45-minute ethics classes. but what would happen if ethics or civic studies were not taught as separate subjects but instead were integrated into specific fields of culture within the realm of school education and rearing? this way it would transpire that organic chemistry has something to do with civic knowledge, the assumption of civic responsibility (environmental protection, the ethics of experimentation, the utilisation of natural scientific achievements). it would also come to light that literature, history, geography, music, art, and physics (at least its cultural historical side) comprise a single whole unit. brief summary what are the bases for our critique of the hungarian education system? on what grounds do we express the above expectations? the justification we have at hand is laid out in the constitution, which “ensures the possibility to exercise the right to education for citizens”. hungary provides this right by making public education generally available, by making elementary schooling mandatory, and by providing secondary and tertiary education accessible to individuals as a function of their personal achievement and ability. all this is based on the act on public education, which – relying on the constitution – was established in order to ensure “the prevalence of freedom of ideological conviction and religious freedom, the prevalence of patriotic education in public education, the enforcement of academic freedom, the freedom of teaching and education, the definition of rights and obligations of children, students, and employees of public education, and a public education system which provides up-to-date knowledge.” house rules, being the source of law, in force in schools today are being established on the basis of the above act by school users. compliance with the above regulations usually leaves a lot to be desired. as a result and in addition to the above described infringements of rights, students’ right to socialisation that would promote students’ integration into a modern democratic society and a market based economy is also impaired. today’s public education practice – without the direct intention of any of the participants – can in fact exclude students from the available alternative opportunities without actually violating the provisions of the law. the frequency of legal violations is particularly striking among disadvantaged students and their parents. in many cases these students go to schools or pre-schools that can be considered disadvantaged within the institutional system of public education. albeit the violation of rights of actors in public education takes place within school premises or within the walls of the classroom, the causes can be identified in most cases outside the school: primarily within the operation of the hungarian institution system specifically, the ineffective communication and cooperation between particular institutions. i must definitely mention that poverty, unemployment, the deficiencies of the hungarian community structure, persistently present prejudice, and the various actors’ relation to written rules and law are all equally important driving forces behind the infringements of rights. what lies behind the causes of legal violations is the lack of knowledge and skills, and the lack of communication skills is particularly striking. there is a parallel between insufficient or complete lack of communication in the entire education system (e.g. not knowing anything about the practices used in neighbouring schools, or the other ethnic group, etc.) and students’ lack of opportunity to acquire appropriate communication skills in the school. instead our students are made to learn increasing amounts of independent, isolated knowledge. however, in many places legal awareness among teachers and school leaders is strengthening. in the realm of public education there is an increasing number of programmes, initiations, innovations that aim to enforce the provisions of the act on public education and other legal statutes concerning education in the everyday life of schools and kindergartens to ensure equality of opportunity in the education of disadvantaged students in order to allow public education to make a real contribution in the social integration and democratic civic education of these students. notes 1 commissioned by the educational ombudsman, the surveys were designed to reveal the vindication or violation of student, parent, and teacher rights, as well as the extent of good practice in 2000-2004. 2 the database also contains as a contextual variable the responses of the 60 class teachers where the surveys were taken. 3 section 1) of article 19 of the act on public education 4 the study was conducted among elementary-school teachers. the sample was representative of region and community type. 1,464 teachers were personally asked questionnaire questions and approximately 110 teachers had been interviewed. in that year there were 96,700 elementary-school teachers working in hungary. 5 articles 13 and 14 of the act on public education references the complete summary of the research series conducted by the kurt lewin foundation in 2003 is available at www.kla.hu. there is also an english language summary available. bíró, endre (1998). rights in pedagogy. budapest: legal awareness foundation. gönczöl, katalin (1998). the vindication of student rights in secondary education institutions. budapest: report no. 6213/1998 of the parliamentary commissioner for civic rights. pereira, beatriz et al. (2004). ‘bullying in portuguese schools’, school psychology international, may 2004. 25, p.241-254. gini, gianluca (2004) ‘bullying in italian schools’. an overview of intervention programmes, school psychology international, feb 2004. 25, p.106-116. mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia correction mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia mohammad ali besharat, vahideh shahidi note the authors want to correct the following errors: 1. in section "measures" incorrect cronbach's alpha coefficients and test-retest coefficients for the adult attachment inventory (aai) are reported due to mixing up different versions of the aai. the correct cronbach's alpha coefficients are • total sample (n = 1480): .85, .84, and .85 (instead of .91, .89, and .88) • women (n = 860): .86, .83, and .84 (instead of .91, .90, and .87) • men (n = 620): .84, .85, and .86 (instead of .90, .89 and .87) the correct coefficients for test-retest reliability are • total sample: .87, .83, and .84 (instead of .87, .83, and .74) • women: .86, .82, and .85 (instead of .86, .82, and .75) • men: .88, .83, and .83 (instead of .85, .81, and .73) 2. incorrect references: all three in-text citations of "besharat (2011)" are incorrect (see section "participants and procedures" and "measures"). in all three cases the correct in-text citation is "besharat (2005)". in the reference section, reference to besharat (2011) has to be substitued by: besharat, m. a. (2005). development and validation of the adult attachment inventory [in farsi]. unpublished research report. tehran, iran: university of tehran. [the authors requested to add this note post-publication on 2014-10-10.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ research reports mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia mohammad ali besharat*a, vahideh shahidia [a] university of tehran, tehran, iran. abstract the main objective of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. five hundred and thirty six undergraduate students (282 girls, 254 boys) from public universities in tehran participated in this study. participants were asked to complete the adult attachment inventory (aai), the farsi version of the toronto alexithymia scale (ftas-20), and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (cerq). the results illustrated a significant negative correlation between secure attachment style and alexithymia. moreover, the results revealed a significant positive correlation between avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles with alexithymia. regression analysis showed that both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies, have a mediating role on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. secure and insecure attachment styles predicted changes in alexithymia through adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies in opposite directions. based on these findings, it can be concluded that the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia is partial. keywords: attachment, alexithymia, emotion regulation, cognition, coping europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 received: 2013-08-04. accepted: 2014-05-15. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: cherie armour, university of ulster, coleraine, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of tehran, p. o. box 14155-6456, tehran, iran. e-mail: besharat@ut.ac.ir this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction attachment styles refer to internal working models that stem from deep emotional bonds among child and mother (caregiver) that shape people's behavioral responses to the separation from the attachment figure and reunion. these styles are consistent over the different stages of life, and can affect social interactions (bowlby, 1988; waters, merrick, treboux, crowell, & albersheim, 2000). attachment researchers confirmed the effects of early experiences on the development and formation of internal representations. they also examined the effects of attachment internal working models on future relations as well as strategies of affect regulation (ainsworth, blehar, waters, & wall, 1978; bowlby, 1969, 1988; calkins & fox, 2002; dewitte, houwer, goubert, & buysse, 2010). maternal availability, sensitivity, and responsiveness provide a secure base for children. this secure base helps to organize experiences and copes with stressful situations. therefore, availability, sensitivity, and responsiveness of the attachment figure (mother) can be considered as a main source of variation in emotion regulation strategies (e.g., bowlby, 1969; roque & veríssimo, 2011; vallotton & ayoub, 2011). studies show that childhood experiences europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ with caregivers who do not express their emotions, and use insufficient strategies of responding to children’s negative emotions, have a strong effect in emotion regulation in adulthood (e.g., carrère & bowie, 2012; roque & veríssimo, 2011). attachment theory illustrates that processing information of emotional messages are inhibited by emotional defenses associated with insecure attachment. additionally, it blocks the awareness of feelings and decisions in themselves and others (bowlby, 1969, 1988). all of these show the interpersonal foundations of affectivity. attachment styles determine the emotional and cognitive rules as well as strategies that lead the emotional responses in individuals and interpersonal relations (ainsworth et al., 1978; bowlby, 1969, 1988; vallotton & ayoub, 2011). secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attached people use different strategies for emotional regulation and emotional information processing. people with secure attachment style use those emotional regulation strategies that minimize stress and activate positive emotions (mikulincer & florian, 2001). on the other hand, people with insecure attachment styles use those emotional regulation strategies that emphasize the negative emotions; repress emotional experiences (avoidant attached people), and experience the situations in a more stressful manner (ambivalent attached people; morley & moran, 2011). emotion regulation processes may be affected by numerous factors and are impaired in various forms. one of the known symptoms of the failure of emotion regulation is alexithymia (e.g., kreitler, 2002; taylor & bagby, 2000). alexithymia is an inability to recognize and verbal description of personal feelings. it has some characteristics including a. extreme poverty of symbolic thinking that limits detection of attitudes, feelings, desires and drives; b. inability to use feelings as symptoms of emotional problems; c. decrease in dream recall; d. difficulty in distinguishing between emotional states and physical sensations; e. rigid and formal appearance; f. lack of emotional facial expressions; and g. limited capacity for empathy and self-awareness (bagby & taylor, 1997; sifneos, 2000). people who have been forced to inhibit their emotions in childhood or their emotions are not properly treated will experience difficulty to regulate their emotions later in their life (bagby & taylor, 1997; humphreys, wood, & parker, 2009; meins, harris-waller, & lloyd, 2008). ability to recognize, describe, and regulate emotions is largely influenced by interactions with primary caregivers (roque & veríssimo, 2011). accordingly, it can be assumed that alexithymia may be related to attachment styles. studies have shown that the characteristics of alexithymia aremore between insecure attached people (besharat, 2010; fonagy, gergely, jurist, & target, 2002; montebarocci, codispoti, baldaro, & rossi, 2004). kraemer and loader (1995) suggest that insecure attachment may fail to learn how to feel and this may lead to alexithymia. insecurity in attachment relationships predicts the defection and failure to identify and express emotions (besharat, 2010; karukivi et al., 2011). although the evidence indicated that attachment styles are associated with alexithymia, study variables that could possibly play role in this regard have been neglected. therefore, the main objective of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of psychological variables, specifically, cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. this topic is worth investigating since attachment styles affect the development of children abilities related to the emotion regulation strategies, firstly (ainsworth et europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 besharat & shahidi 353 http://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 1978; bowlby, 1969, 1988; calkins & fox, 2002; karukivi et al., 2011). secondly, deficits in regulating emotions can be followed by failure to identify and express the emotions (dewitte et al., 2010; kreitler, 2002). emotion regulation refers to the ability to understand the emotions, to modulate experience and expression of emotions (feldman-barrett, gross, christensen, & benvenuto, 2001; gross, 1998, 2001). emotion regulation is wildly applied in all aspects of life from the early stages of mental development, and disturbance of emotions and their regulations has pathological consequences (eisenberg, fabes, guthrie, & reiser, 2000; gross, 1998). alexithymia is generally considered as a defect in emotion regulation (e.g., kreitler, 2002). emotion regulation is a complicated process involving interactions between neurophysiological, motor-expressive and cognitive-experiential systems of emotion. therefore, alexithymia appears in different forms such as inability to conceptualize emotions, inability to differentiate emotions, inability to conscious experience of emotions, and inability to describe stress which is transformed automatically to physical dysfunctions (frawley & smith, 2001). management and regulation of emotions are carried out base on multiple processes and techniques that can be used automatically or objectively, and consciously or unconsciously (gross, 1998). one of the main fields of emotion is regulation of the emotions in response to the stressors. in this field, emotion regulation strategies have been considered as coping strategies (garnefski & kraaij, 2006; garnefski, kraaij, & spinhoven, 2001). lazarus and folkman (1984) defined coping as cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external or internal demands which are beyond individuals’ capabilities. lazarus (1993) distinguished between problem-focused coping (trying to minimize distress through own modulation or the environment) and emotion-focused coping (use of cognitive coping strategies for changing themeaning of stressful events and decrease the consequence distress). both forms of copings are adaptive and the most useful coping approach is depending on the nature of the stressful situation (folkman & moskowitz, 2004). accordingly, the emotional responses to stressful events can be regulated through the use of cognitive coping strategies (folkman & moskowitz, 2004; lazarus & folkman, 1984). it is predicted that cognitive emotion regulation strategies in terms of their levels of adaptability can affect the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. based on theoretical considerations and research findings in the context of this study, the following hypotheses were tested: 1. there is a negative relationship between secure attachment style and alexithymia; 2. there is a positive relationship between avoidant attachment style and alexithymia; 3. there is a positive relationship between ambivalent attachment style and alexithymia; 4. cognitive emotion regulation strategies have a mediating role on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. method participants and procedure five hundred and fifty undergraduate students studying at public universities in tehran participated in this study. undergraduate students of the public universities in tehran, who had not a history of psychiatric disorder or illness requiringmedical treatment, participated in the study voluntarily. three questionnaires including the adult attachment inventory (aai; besharat, 2011), the farsi version of the toronto alexithymia scale-20 (ftas-20; bagby, parker, & taylor, 1994; besharat, 2007), and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (cerq; garnefski & kraaij, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia 354 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2006) were conducted in volunteers individually. in order to control order effects and tiredness in participants, questionnaires were presented in different orders. due to incomplete responses, 14 students were excluded from the statistical analysis. therefore, the participants of this study were 536 students, 282 girls (mage = 22.65 years, age range: 18-27 years, sd = 2.45 years) and 254 boys (mage = 23.90 years, age range: 18-30 years, sd = 2.86 years). measures adult attachment inventory (aai) — the aai is a 15-item inventory validated for the purpose of measuring attachment styles in iranian populations (besharat, 2011). the aai measures three attachment styles (secure, avoidant, and ambivalent) on a 5 point likert scale (1 = very little, 2 = little, 3 = moderate, 4 = much, 5 = very much). minimum and maximum subscale scores on the aai will be 5 and 25, respectively. the cronbach's alpha coefficients of the subscales for a sample of 1480 (860 females, 620 males) were .91, .89, and .88 for secure, avoidant, and ambivalent subscales, respectively. these coefficients were almost same for women (.91, .90, and .87) and men (.90, .89, and .87) in the sample. these coefficients indicate a good internal consistency. correlation coefficients between the scores of a sample of 300 subjects that participated in two sessions, with intervals of four weeks, were calculated to assess test-retest reliability. the coefficients of secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment styles were .87, .83, and .74, respectively (.86, .82, and .75 for women; .85, .81, and .73 for men), which indicate satisfactory test-retest reliability. factor analysis identified that secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment styles were confirmed by the aai (besharat, 2011). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .89, .87, and .83 for secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment styles, respectively. farsi version of the toronto alexithymia scale (ftas-20) — toronto alexithymia scale (tas-20; bagby et al., 1994) is a 20-item questionnaire with three subscales including difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking on a five-point likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). a total score of this scale is calculated by adding the three subscales’ final score. items in the tas-20 subscales are evident in questions such as "when i am upset, i don’t know if i am sad, scared, or angry", "it is difficult for me to describe how i feel about other people", and "i prefer to talk to people about their daily activities rather than their feelings" (bagby et al., 1994). several studies investigated and confirmed the psychometric characteristics of the tas-20 (parker, taylor, & bagby, 2001, 2003; taylor & bagby, 2000). adequate psychometric properties of the ftas-20 have reported for iranian populations (besharat, 2007). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .85, .83, .79 and .75 for alexithymia total score, difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings and externally oriented thinking, respectively. cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (cerq) — the cerq (garnefski & kraaij, 2006) is a 18-item questionnaire that measures cognitive emotion regulation strategies in response to threatening and stressful life events on a five point likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to five (always). the cerq has nine subscales including self-blame, other blame, focus on thought/rumination, catastrophizing, putting into perspective, positive refocusing, positive reappraisal, acceptance, and refocus on planning (garnefski & kraaij, 2006). items in the cerq subscales are evident in questions such as “i think that basically the cause must lie within myself", "i keep thinking about how terrible it is what i have experienced", "i think about a plan of what i can do best", "i think i can learn something from the situation" (garnefski & kraaij, 2006)." psychometric properties of the cerq have been approved in several studies (garnefski, baan, & kraaij, 2005; garnefski & kraaij, 2006). preliminary evaluation of the psychometric properties of the questionnaire in a sample 368 iranian (197 women, 171 men) were assessed and alpha europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 besharat & shahidi 355 http://www.psychopen.eu/ coefficients for subscales were from .67 to .89 (besharat, 2012). these coefficients confirm the internal consistency of the farsi version of the cerq. test-retest reliability of the cerq was calculated in a sample of 79 participants (43 women, and 36men) in two times with an interval of two to four weeks and confirmed with correlation coefficients from .57 to .76 (besharat, 2012). the content validity was judged on the basis of eight psychologists’ agreement and kendall’s coefficient was found from .81 to .92 for subscales. cronbach’s alpha coefficients for subscales of the farsi version of the cerq were from .73 to .87 for the present study. results table 1 presents mean scores, standard deviations, and zero order correlations for all study variables. results of independent t-test revealed no significant differences between boys and girls in secure attachment (t(534) = .513, p = .41), avoidant attachment (t(534) = -1.89, p = .06), ambivalent attachment (t(534) = -1.13, p = .26), alexithymia (t(534) = -.82, p = .41), adaptive emotion regulation strategies (t(534) =1 .49, p = .14), and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (t(534) = -1.80, p = .07). based on this data, a secure attachment style was negatively correlated with alexithymia (confirming the first hypothesis of the study), and both avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles had a significant positive correlation with alexithymia (confirming the second and third research hypotheses). table 1 mean scores, standard deviations, and zero order correlations between study variables girls (n = 282) \ boys (n = 254)a variable 654321m (sd) 11. secure attachment .57-.67.47-.49-.64-(4.53)15.34 12. avoidant attachment .52.63-.57.64.54-(4.40)12.73 13. ambivalent attachment .44.47-.51.49.43-(3.48)11.94 14. alexithymia .60.47-.47.53.57-(13.15)45.32 15. aers .72-.61-.37-.57-.48(1.13)6.83 16. mers .78-.63.32.50.49-(1.19)4.74 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation; aers = adaptive emotion regulation strategies; mers = maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. atop right of table represents correlations for boys and the bottom left of the table represents the correlations for girls. all p values < .001. to measure the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia, the four criteria of meditational model suggested by baron and kenny (1986) were tested: 1. attachment styles (independent variables) significantly predicted alexithymia (dependent variable); 2. attachment styles (independent variables) significantly predicted cognitive emotion regulation strategies (mediating variable); 3. cognitive emotion regulation strategies (mediating variable) significantly predicted alexithymia (dependent variable); 4. the relationship between attachment styles (independent variables) and alexithymia (dependent variable) was significantly reduced with the control for cognitive emotion regulation strategies (mediating variable). the zero order correlations presented in table 1 provide support for the first three criteria. the results of regression analyses presented in table 2 and 3 provide support for the fourth criterion. the results of two-step regression europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia 356 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analyses for adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies are presented in tables 2 and 3, respectively. the results showed that when the adaptive strategies of the cognitive emotion regulation entered in the equation as a mediating variable, ß regression coefficient for secure attachment style was changed from -.67 to -.47. the sobel test showed that the rate of change is significant (t = -7.81, p < .001), whereas secure attachment remained significant (t = -11.81, p < .001). similar results were repeated for avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles (table 2). the results show that adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediate the relationship between avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles with alexithymia. this result confirms the fourth hypothesis. table 2 summary of regression analyses for mediating role of adaptive emotion regulation strategies between attachment styles and alexithymia tßse bb∆r2r2 step 11. .45 secure attachment style .91-20.671-.093.94-1 step 2 .06.50 secure attachment style .81-11.470-.115.36-1 adaptive emotion regulation strategies .81-7.311-.460.60-3 step 12. .34 avoidant attachment style .7016.586.1051.481 step 2 .11.45 avoidant attachment style .298.336.121.001 adaptive emotion regulation strategies .10-10.410-.469.74-4 step 13. .29 ambivalent attachment style .6414.535.138.022 step 2 .18.47 ambivalent attachment style .439.3310.1330.251 adaptive emotion regulation strategies .41-13.471-.406.44-5 note. all p values < .001. table 3 summary of regression analyses for mediating role of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies between attachment styles and alexithymia tßse bb∆r2r2 step 11. .45 secure attachment style .91-20.671-.093.95-1 step 2 .14.59 secure attachment style .28-12.414-.098.20-1 maladaptive emotion regulation strategies .4513.453-.372.005 step 12. .34 avoidant attachment style .7016.586.105.751 step 2 .18.53 avoidant attachment style .3514.282.109.841 adaptive emotion regulation strategies .3514.525.404.805 step 13. .29 ambivalent attachment style .6414.535.138.022 step 2 .25.54 ambivalent attachment style .888.290.123.091 maladaptive emotion regulation strategies .2017.561.361.206 note. all p values < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 besharat & shahidi 357 http://www.psychopen.eu/ two-step regression analyses of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies is presented in table 3. the results showed that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies play a mediating role, and change ß regression coefficient from -.67 to -.41 for secure attachment style. the sobel test showed that the rate of change is significant (t = 13.45, p < .001), while secure attachment style still remained significant (t = -12.28, p < .001). similar results were repeated for avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles (table 3). the results show that maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies have a mediating role in the relationship between avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles with alexithymia. this result confirms the fourth hypothesis. discussion the present study had two main goals. the first goal was determining the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. secondly, the mediating role of adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia were tested. the results showed a significant negative correlation between secure attachment style and alexithymia. in addition, there was a positive significant relationship between avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles with alexithymia. accordingly, the first three research hypotheses are confirmed. the results of this study are consistent with the findings of previous research (besharat, 2010; fonagy et al., 2002; karukivi et al., 2011; montebarocci et al., 2004) and can be explained by several possible explanations. first of all, mother-infant interactions influence children’s ability to recognize, describe, and regulate emotions (e.g., bowlby, 1988; waters et al., 2000). the attachment figure's characteristics such as availability, sensitivity, and responsiveness, provide a main ground for development of emotion regulation strategies (bowlby, 1969; calkins & fox, 2002; dewitte et al., 2010; roque & veríssimo, 2011; vallotton & ayoub, 2011). immune interactions of mother (caregiver)-infant can provide a secure base for children in which they can organize the experiences as well as cope with distresses by using emotion regulation strategies. insecure interactions between mothers (caregiver)-infant, on the other hand, can unsafe this base and makes the emotion regulation difficult. according to attachment theory, emotional defenses related to insecure attachment inhibit processing of emotional information and block awareness of feelings and decisions in themselves and others (bowlby, 1969, 1988; carrère & bowie, 2012; roque & veríssimo, 2011). maladaptive emotion regulation strategies can be a good example of these emotional defenses and emotional inhibitions. these explanations are consistent with previous findings that confirmed the impact of inadequate interactions of mother (caregiver)-infant in the development of insecure attachment styles (ainsworth et al., 1978; bowlby, 1969, 1988; vallotton & ayoub, 2011), and alexithymia (besharat, 2010; karukivi et al., 2011; kreitler, 2002). the results showed that both adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies mediated the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia. given that this mediating role was partial, it can be concluded that part of the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia can be applied by cognitive emotion regulation strategies. managing and regulating emotions are set through the use of cognitive coping strategies (folkman & moskowitz, 2004; lazarus & folkman, 1984). these strategies may be adaptive (e.g., putting into perspective, positive refocusing, positive reappraisal, acceptance, refocus on planning) or maladaptive (e.g., selfblame, other-blame, focus on thought, catastrophizing; garnefski & kraaij, 2006). secure attachment style as a main influential factor in the development of emotion regulation abilities (bowlby, 1969; calkins & fox, 2002; carrère & bowie, 2012; roque & veríssimo, 2011), provides recognizing, expressing and exchanging emotions in social and affective relationships through adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. in contrast, insecure europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia 358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment styles destroy the potential developmental opportunities to gain and learning the emotion regulation skills within the relationship of mother-child and child-environment thorough maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies. also, this situation weakens an ability to identify, express and exchange emotions. research findings (besharat, 2007; mikulincer & florian, 2001) have shown that people with secure, avoidant and ambivalent attachment styles apply different strategies to regulate emotions and processing emotional information. people with secure attachment style use those emotional regulation strategies that minimize stress and activate positive emotions (mikulincer & florian, 2001; morley & moran, 2011). while, people with insecure attachment styles tend to follow those emotional regulation strategies that emphasize the negative emotions and repressed emotional experiences (avoidant) and experiencing situations more stressful (ambivalent; morley & moran, 2011). limitations the present study have several limitations that must be considered. the cross-sectional design of the study does not allow to draw conclusions about the directions of causality between attachment, alexythimia, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies. future longitudinal studies need to be conducted in order to clarify this important issue. although care was taken to use valid instruments for measuring attachment styles and emotion regulation strategies, both measures might have some shortcomings. the former is suffering from a simple approach dividing attachment styles in three categories and the latter has limited emotion regulation strategies to coping strategies with stress. therefore, it is important that future studies employ different measures in order to get more reliable findings concerning the research variables. the results of the present study were based upon a sample of undergraduate students. one should be cautious in generalizing the results to other populations. attachment may interact with other variables to produce positive or negative consequences. it would be of value to investigate mediating and moderating effects of variables such as early maladaptive schemas, metacognitive beliefs, and interpersonal problems. implications nonetheless, findings of the present study may have important implications. first, the findings of this study confirm the assumption of attachment theory in regards to the role of attachment styles and internal working models in regulation of emotions and affects. from this point of view, emotion regulation mechanisms are not considered merely intrapersonal processes. they are developed within the mother-infant interactions then spread to other areas of interpersonal and social relationships. furthermore, confirmation of the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and alexithymia can serve the integrity of assumptions of attachment and personality theories. findings of the present study provide new ideas and assumptions about the determinants of alexithymia. these determinants (attachment styles and cognitive emotion regulation strategies) not only cause theoretical enrichment of alexithymia, but also strengthen the relationship between theories of attachment and alexithymia. the practical implications of these findings could be developing educational programs within the parent-child relationship. moreover, managing emotions and interventional programs can be another practical implication. last but not least, treatment programs based on interpersonal relationships in terms of client-client (like spouses) and client-therapist 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(2000). attachment security in infancy and early adulthood: a twenty-year longitudinal study. child development, 71, 684-689. doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00176 about the authors dr. mohammad ali besharat is presently professor of clinical psychology at the university of tehran. professor besharat's research has focused on clinical health psychology, psychotherapy, and psychometrics. over a series of studies dr. besharat has also developed several psychological tests and observational measures. professor besharat has published nearly 400 theoretical and empirical scientific publications in farsi and english, including peer-reviewed articles, books and psychological tests. professor besharat is editor-in-chief of contemporary psychology, biannual journal of the iranian psychological association. he regularly teaches courses in personality, psychopathology, diagnosis, and psychotherapy. he enjoys relaxing with his family, reading, and sports. vahideh shahidi is a psychologist graduated from the department of psychology, wilfrid laurier university, waterloo, ontario. mrs. shahidi is now working as a counselor at university of tehran clinic to treat students' psychological problems. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 352–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.671 attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia 362 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.03.013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(03)00110-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2011.06.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(00)00014-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0022-3999(02)00578-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2011.06.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000012377 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.09.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00176 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia introduction method participants and procedure measures results discussion limitations implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors corrections.pdf attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia note 671-3038-2-ce_besharat_ex-pp-correction.pdf attachment, emotion regulation, and alexithymia note memory, history and narrative: shifts of meaning when (re)constructing the past theoretical contributions memory, history and narrative: shifts of meaning when (re)constructing the past ignacio brescó de luna*a, alberto rosaa a universidad autónoma de madrid, madrid, spain. abstract this paper is devoted to the examination of some socio-cultural dimensions of memory, focusing on narratives as a meditational tool (vygotsky, 1978) for the construction of past events and attribution of meaning. the five elements of kenneth burke’s grammar of motives (1969) are taken as a framework for the examination of reconstructions of the past and particularly of histories, namely: 1) the interpretative and reconstructive action of 2) a positioned agent operating 3) through narrative means 4) addressed to particular purposes 5) within a concrete social and temporal scenery. the reflexive character of such approach opens the ground for considering remembering as one kind of act performed within the context of a set of on-going actions, so that remembrances play a directive role for action and so have an unavoidable moral dimension. this is particularly relevant for some kinds of social memory such as history teaching and their effects upon identity. keywords: history, memory, mediation, narratives, events europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 received: 2012-04-30. accepted: 2012-05-08. published: 2012-05-31. *corresponding author at: email:ignacio.bresco@uam.es. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. vygotsky (1978) was among the earlier psychologists claiming the need of taking into account culture as one of the key issues for the development of higher psychological functions. it is through the appropriation of cultural elements from a social milieu that somebody born in a group turns from a biological agent into a competent social actor. historical narratives is one of the key tools for the construction of a socially shared meaning of the collective past, for giving sense to current events and for the imagination of possible futures. thus the newcomer is expected to assume the collective narratives of the past of the group, first as part of the audience, then as actor performing in the on-going socio-historical drama, and eventually (once acquired the necessary skills), as a voice transmitting the received stories, or even as a more or less original author of new ones. school obviously is one of the main institutional settings for the transmission of official stories about the past (wertsch & rozin, 1998). however, as it has been repeatedly pointed out (fivush, 1994; nelson 2000), individuals are also exposed to family conversations, sharing experiences and remembrances throughout their development, so they get familiar with the symbolic resources necessary for building their own autobiographical memory as well as for the transmission and participation in the transformation of the collective memory of their group. thus memory has a social character from its very beginning. and this is so not only because memories are shared with people in different social settings, but also because from very early on we are exposed to an avalanche of remembrances and narratives about the past of the different groups we belong to – family, community, nation, etc. these narratives, --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ even if they refer to events happened earlier than our birth date, are very often integrated in one’s memory, and so make us to “regard the past, both within and beyond the limits of personal memory” (mink, 1987, p. 93). attention to narratives as a device for the construction, communication and attribution of meaning to remembrances has been growing in the last decades (bruner, 1990; edwards & potter, 1992; lászló, 2008) with particular emphasis on their ‘poietic’ (freeman, 2001) meaning-making capability. harré and gillett (1994) went as far as to term this new sensitivity the discursive revolution. studies on the autobiographic (neisser & fivush, 1994), collective (feldman, 2001), family (middleton & edwards, 1990) or national (billig, 1995) past assume that research on memory cannot be limited to individuals, but has to be understood as a phenomenon involving both mind and culture (boyer & wertsch, 2009). this paper attempts to discuss issues related to the socially distributed character of memory, and particularly the central role historical narratives play in the social construction of the pasti. a point of view closely related to other socio-cultural studies on memory (middleton & brown, 2007; wagoner, 2012; wertsch, 2006). we will start with an examination of the mediational role narratives play as indispensable tools for shaping and giving meaning to events of the past. so viewed, any reconstruction of a historical past results from an interpretative act a situated agent performs with a particular purpose or, in other words, as an action with a sense oriented towards future action; an orientation that unavoidably relates the past with the present, and the present with a future one takes as desirable or fearful. such a view begs the question of the temporal and social sceneries in which historical reconstruction happens, sceneries in which multiple agents with different positionings and purposes put forward conflicting interpretations of the past. thus historical (re)construction is unavoidably a controversial and argumentative process. social (re)construction of the past: five elements of a grammar kenneth burke (1969) offered a pentad of elements to be considered as a structural tool (a grammar) for the analysis of any account of human activity: the act (action and the form that it takes), the agent (whom or what the responsibility of the activity is attributed to), the agency (the means or ways applied to read the goal), the purpose (the aim or goal, the “why” or “what for”) and the scene (where the activity takes place). this analytical device developed first as a tool for the analysis of literary and theoretical productions, but burke himself also took it as suitable for the study of any kind of human activity. thus, this pentadic grammar could be used both, for the analysis of the products of remembering (the narratives, the stories about the past taken as a literary production), and for the study of the very process of producing such narratives – remembering as an action carried out by an agent in a social and temporal scenery, employing linguistic and narrative means for a particularly purpose. since our interest here is in focusing on how remembrances are produced we will mainly focus on the analysis of the production process, rather than on the product of this process (narratives about the past), although the latter cannot be left completely aside of our consideration. the following pages will briefly examine how these five elements take shape when human agents go into presenting events of the past, particularly through historical narratives. we will especially center on the meditational role of narrative forms, on the positioning and purposes of the narrating authors and in the dynamics of the sceneries in which these actions are carried out. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 brescó de luna & rosa 301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ narratives as mediational means for the construction of events mediation is a key concept, since our relationship to the world, far from being direct, is mediated through different tools (either technical or symbolic) which shape experience. as wertsch (2006) states, “to be human is to use the cultural tools, or meditational means, that are provided by a particular socio-cultural setting” (p.11). according to this viewpoint higher psychological functions are mediated by cultural tools, such as language and narrative. these allow us to master the world and orientate our actions within it. in remembering, narratives guide us in rationalizing and giving meaning to the past by linking it with the present. the result is a plausible story, which, in turn, orientates our actions towards certain future goals. but how does this meditational role actually operates when accounting for past events? many people take reconstructions of the past to be a mere reproduction of ‘what really happened’. following bamberg (2009), we assume that what happens in the world does not directly shows as sharply clear-cut events, neither are these tidily ordered in sequences, and even less structured in an understandable plot. brockmeier and harré (2001) take these naïf beliefs as a consequence of what they call representational fallacy and ontological fallacy. the effect of the first is to understand events as objective realities with a given meaning, waiting to be captured and translated into language as accurately as possible, and so taking narratives to be a resource for representing what really happened. this belief entails two related epistemic difficulties. the first is finding the most accurate and aseptic way of translating reality into narrative accounts; something that points to the delicate question concerning language, the very use of which, according to carr (1961/2001), would “forbid [the historian] to be neutral” (p. 19). in addition, as long as it is impossible to reproduce the infinity of happenings that have taken place, criteria based of relevancy or significance are required, which carr claims would have very much to do with the future consequences of the events. so, from this standpoint, the significance of a particular event would not stem so much from any of its supposed inherent qualities, but from the way we relate that event with later ones; something that usually calls for a narrative plot. but, does reality come into view in the form of ready-made plots? this is what would follow from the ontological fallacy, according to which, “there [would be] really a story ‘out there’, waiting to be uncovered, prior to the narrative process” (brockmeier & harré, 2001, p. 48). historians traditionally associated to the so called narrative turn such as mink (1987) or white (1980) claim that a particular episode (either historical or autobiographical), as well as the plot, the genre and the theme that gather them together, are a consequence of the form in which the past is narrated. thus form does not only provide a sense to the past, but also carries with it a certain moral appeal (white, 1986). so viewed, reconstructing the past is not a mere representation of supposedly objective historical events – as follows from the representational fallacy -, nor results from a close and faithful reading of the story plot to which the events belong to – as the ontological fallacy demands. rather, as bamberg (ibid) points out, it results from the actions of individuals who via the use of mediational artifacts (mainly narratives) interpret their experiences and construct what eventually will appear as events. event construction is then mediated by language, not only by lexicon and syntax, but also by narrative forms, genres and narrative templates (wertsch, 2007). narratives are tools for reconstructing, moralizing and domesticating historical past in a credible and understandable way. interpretative action events are not entities with an independent existence, but a result of the narrativization of the past shaped through the superimposition of a theme and a narrative plot. however, this does not make that any story about the past europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 memory, history and narrative 302 http://www.psychopen.eu/ could pass for a history of what happenedii. narratives about the past (autobiographical and historical) cannot be arbitrary. they are for accounting for changes. but, what changes?, how to account for them? here comes the issue of significance, not only as relevance, but also of meaning, something that inevitably takes us to the realm of interpretation, to semiotics. if we take into account voloshinov’s philosophy of language (1973/1930), wemay take the traces left from changes happened in the past as signs capable of receiving multiple meanings by their inclusion within different thematic narratives (see brescó, 2008). meaning is not a feature belonging to the change, but a result of the function that change has within the narrative plotiii. the way and position in which changes get instantiated in particular utterances within the plot is what makes them to take a particular sense and fulfill a narrative function. as figure 1 shows, changes of the past should not be confused with the result of their interpretation as it appears within a particular thematic narrative. as bruner (1991) points out, “the act of constructing a narrative is considerably more than ‘selecting’ events either from real life, from memory, or from fantasy and then placing them in an appropriate order. the events themselves need to be constituted in the light of the overall narrative” (p. 8). figure 1. the narrative construction of events this genetic process shows in the way the september 11th, 2001 attacks were presented in mass media. the crashing of commercial airplanes against the twin towers has become a paradigmatic example of flash-memory (brown & kulik, 1977), since many people can vividly recall the images tv broadcasted alive. however, at that time few people, if any, were able to understand what was going on, to attribute a meaning to what they were watching in tv screens. it was for this purpose that specialists were summoned to give sense to that by inserting it into a narrative, that in addition to identify the particular agents carrying out these actions, also attributed them some intentions and motives, as well as placing the events within a wider story providing the supposed historical causes for an event that then was publicly being constituted alive. the resulting narrative inaugurated a new way of thematising contemporary history at large, replacing the old canonic schema of the cold war into a new one. this meant to give a new meaning to events already constituted under the old theme, such as the soviet invasion of afghanistan. and what is more important, the re-rationalization of the past within a new thematic carried with it not only a new narrative framework for the interpretation of the present, but also provided arguments for justifying some decisions shaping the immediate future. explanatory purposes the same change can be subjected to many interpretations, and so multiple events may be constituted at the service of the explanatory purposes at play. so the falling of the twin towers could be interpreted, for example, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 brescó de luna & rosa 303 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as resulting from a terrorist attack against western democracies under the thematic of a supposed “clash of civilizations”; or as the desperate response of the oppressed, if understood under a thematic of “imperialism”; or even, following conspiration theories, as belonging to a cynic strategy of the “industrial-military complex” to justify the conquest of third countries. this drives us to take into account the moral implications that come together with any explanatory purpose when (re)constructing events of the past from a particular thematic, since the projection of certain future scenarios tends to be argued upon the narrative construction of a past, which also serves for interpreting the present. this is the reason behind the controversies that abound around any version of the past, particularly about the interpretation of the signs it left in the present (archaeological remains, documents, etc.). as voloshinov (1973/1930), using a marxist terminology, said: “sign [i]s an arena of the class struggle” (p. 23). obviously the purposes one may have when recalling a past can be of many kinds. they can point towards probing, founding or justifying a theory, a decision taken, a behavior, a judicial verdict, a personal or political claim, etc. in sum, purposes linked to interests that go well beyond an uninterested reverence for the past of an antiquarian kind (nietzsche, 1957/1873-76). danto (1985) approaches the explanatory intentions of the historian as a key element for shedding light on the process of construction of events. of course, to account for the changes known and providing a credible narrative, supported by proofs, should be among the explanatory purposes of the explorer of the past. however, the changes happened, or rather the evidence gathered about them, and the narratives constructed under a particular thematic are bounded together and cannot be disentangled, not only because of the significance and meaning the plot provides, but also because narratives play an abductive function, making one to fill the gaps of the produced story by hypothesizing events that cannot been supported by material or witness proofs, but that are indispensable for the narrative to hold together. the cultural tradition in which narratives are produced is also relevant for the constitution of events, since they orient individual’s expectations about what happened, taking them to infer or even imagine some events. this is a well known phenomenon in the reconstruction of historical and biographical past (levi, 2003), and is particularly relevant in the juridical domain, when it concerns the stories juries elaborate in order to make sense of all the evidence presented in court to produce a verdict (pennington & hastie, 1992). scenery: temporal and social dynamics in the narrative construction of events any human action has a sense, and therefore can be subjected to a semiotic analysis. interpreting the past is no exception, it is a dynamic and conflicting task always situated in a social context of controversies (billig, 1987). the very raison d’être of history is precisely the diachronic and synchronic presence of multiple discourses in a continuous dialogical process (bakhtin, 1981), arguing and counter-arguing alternative views about the past. this line of thought is what takes hayden white (1980) to state that for a fact to be qualified as “historical” it must be able to be placed, at least, within two alternative narrative versions. remembering is no different. as middleton and edwards (1990) conclude after their analysis of conversations about the past that the facticity of a particular event results from contrasting different points of view about what happened, and does not originate from a pre-existing reality to which the conversation refersiv. moving now to the temporal realm, the example of september 11th also shows how the superposition of a narrative plot upon events acts as a powerful tool for linking the present with parts of the individual or collective past in order to orient towards some near or distant future scenarios. this is not an aseptic and objective process. it europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 memory, history and narrative 304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results from the projection of a thematic narrative linked to the explanatory purposes of the individual within his/her on-going activity in which the interpretation of the past plays a functional role. this is a process that needs to be regularly re-actualised, as new changes happen placing individuals before new presents, open to alternative imagined futures. this calls for revising the old ways of looking and thematising the past with the effect of re-signifying some events, and even to look for new relevant signs, before left aside, whose interpretation may end up producing new events, and so transforming the narrative produced. collingwood (1946) refers to this as the historical dimension of history. the positioned agent the social context of controversy gathers a multiplicity of voices linked to social and individual positionings (harré & moghaddam, 2003) which struggle for (re)constructing episodes within a credible narrative thematic congenial to their positioning. this requires deploying rhetorical resources to describe and account for the episode. these rhetorical devices discursively constitute and evaluate the participating agents and their goals, means and actions, as well as the sceneries in which they played. some get delegitimized, and some others justified or excused (austin, 1961), according to one’s identity position (bruner, 1990). thus, according to the positioning theory (harré & van langenhove, 1999), the way a conflict is interpreted is also a way of positioning oneself vis-à-vis the on-going controversy, since it carries with it an attribution of rights and duties to the agents involved. this shows in the form in which individuals thematise the past in order to justify some present actions to reach some future goals. present positionings are not foreign to the interpretations of past made, because they are not about the past; they are rhetorical devices, historical arguments for supporting current demands, either individual or collective. this argumentative context calls for the consideration of themultivoicedness of historical representations (łuczyński, 1997) when it comes to studying the way people (re)construct the past, assuming that every historical account belongs to a broader dialogue involving multiple voices identified with different positionings. as wertsch (2006) points out, this implies a hidden dialogism inasmuch as every version of the past constitutes, in one way or another, a response to a competing interpretation of a given episode. this is why the term (re)construction has been used in this paper. thus, far from referring to an accurate and complete reproduction of what actually happened, we want to highlight that the past is always in the process of being constructed and reconstructed by multiple positioned agents through different narrative forms (see brescó, 2009). conclusions this paper began pointing to the links between the social memory of a group and the autobiographical memory of individuals. zerubavel (1996), when talking of sociobiographical memory, refers to this connection and remarks that individual social identity is bounded to the capability to conceive some events of the history of the group as belonging to one’s own past, and so making them able to produce genuine feelings of pride, shame, resentment, or even guilt. memory and collective memory has become an area of interest for research (e.g., rosa, bellelli, & bakhurst, 2000) in which special attention has been given to the role of historical narratives for gaining the loyalty of the population (anderson, 1983; hobsbawm, 1990). school history books are key tools for the social transmission of a shared version of the collective past, and so for strengthening national identity (carretero, 2011; carretero, europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 brescó de luna & rosa 305 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rosa, & gonzález, 2006). learning historical narratives of the group is not only a way of sharing knowledge, but also a way of managing the conveyed events in such a way that they could be experienced as if lived in first person plural (billig, 1995), so that individuals could appropriate the narrative and feel appealed to become actors to perform a continuation of the received script. the use of history has important social and moral consequences, because the social reconstruction of the past has a powerful effect on our interpretation of the present as well as our view about the future. this is particularly evident when we look to not too far away uses of some versions of the national past in order to justify some political enterprises. however, the growing globalization, in addition to the increasing multiculturalism of some societies set new challenges that call for a more responsible use of the interpretations of the past (see brescó & rasskin, 2006; brescó & rosa, 2009). as some authors claim (e.g., blanco & rosa, 1997; egan, 1997), teaching of history should promote a critical and reflexive approach, avoiding the naturalisation of historical narratives, so that they could not be taken as faithful representations of what happened in the past. this paper attempts to contribute to this process of denaturalization by resorting to burke’s pentad as a suitable model that allows reflecting upon some of the elements worthy of being taken into account for the social construction of the past. the socially constructed nature of historical narratives is among these elements, together with the unavoidable interpretative, temporal, controversial and moral dimensions bounded together in any interpretation of the past. in sum, our attempt has been to unpack and highlight some of the elements that account for the social, cultural and political character of memory. vygotsky called for taking into account how cultural artifacts mediate the development of human individuals, but we should not forget that he also highlighted that consciousness develops within social exchanges, and plays a not negligible role in the direction of behavior. perhaps we may expect that a growing awareness of the fabric of the social construction of the past would facilitate a more critical and reflective use of historical stories, and so to go beyond in our understanding of social life. even if members of a cultural group cannot dispose of the narrative forms of their received tradition (bakhtin, 1986), perhaps a growing awareness about how memory and history work may empower individual’s agency and capability for authorship, and so contribute to developing an active citizenry more able to contribute to the increasingly complex world we are living in. notes i) we take history as one of the cultural tools for memory (rosa, 1993), without going in this paper into the discussion of the debate halbwachs opened about the similarities and differences between history and collective memory (see e.g., nora, 1989; olick & robbins, 1998; poole, 2008; wertsch, 2007). ii) the differentiation between history and story that exists in english does not appear either in latin languages or in german, where the words geschichte, the same as historia, storia and histoire gather together both meanings, somehow conflating the idea of fiction with that of representation of the past. iii) as ricoeur (1981) states, “to be historical, an event must be more than a singular occurrence, a unique happening. it receives its definition from its contribution to the development of a plot” (p. 167). iv) “our own explanations are judged not against the pre-given facticity of the source (except in the vulgar sense of its material existence) but against [other] human constructions of meaning [...]. in the end, the fact-value distinction is itself difficult to sustain since facts only signify, only have human meaning, within explanatory frames” (popular memory group, 1982, p. 225). references anderson, b. 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(1996). social memories: steps to a sociology of the past. qualitative sociology, 19(3), 283-299. doi:10.1007/bf02393273 europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 brescó de luna & rosa 309 http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/rep.1989.26.1.99p0274v http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.105 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.2.189 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1750698007088383 http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/448086 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02393273 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors ignacio brescó de luna works as lecturer of psychology at the universidad autónoma de madrid. his research interests are the mediational role of narratives vis-à-vis the (re)construction of historical events, especially those involved in national histories. he also works on the role of narratives in relation to collective remembering, national identity and the teaching of history. alberto rosa rivero works as professor of psychology at the universidad autónoma de madrid, where he lectures on history of psychology and cultural psychology. he is interested on the influence of cultural and historical knowledge in the shaping of identity and citizenship. he was editor of the journal “estudios de psicología” for 12 years, and co-edited with jaan valsiner the cambridge handbook of socio-cultural psychology. email: alberto.rosa@uam.es europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(2), 300–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.460 memory, history and narrative 310 http://www.psychopen.eu/ memory, history and narrative social (re)construction of the past: five elements of a grammar narratives as mediational means for the construction of events interpretative action explanatory purposes scenery: temporal and social dynamics in the narrative construction of events the positioned agent conclusions notes references about the authors cognitive innovation: from cell to society editorial cognitive innovation: from cell to society michaela gummeruma, susan denham*a [a] cognition institute and school of psychology, plymouth university, plymouth, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 586–588, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.879 published (vor): 2014-11-28. *corresponding author at: plymouth university, drake circus plymouth devon pl4 8aa, united kingdom. e-mail: sdenham@plymouth.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. living in a constantly changing world, dynamically shaped by natural and social forces, presents people with many challenges, both personal and societal. we address these challenges by finding new and innovative solutions to problems, new ways to think about things. the importance of fostering and utilising creative leaps of the imagination is nowhere more recognised than in the european horizon 2020 flagship initiative, innovation union. innovation union views technological and social innovation as key to the future economic success of europe and an education that promotes creative thinking as fundamental for progress. it is seen as essential to develop a strategy for nurturing highly creative researchers who have the intellectual depth and breadth to become productive and insightful innovators, able to proactively seek out new solutions to problems and transform their ideas into utilisable products and effective social innovations. the terms creativity and innovation are often used with different overtones, associated respectively with artistic and economic activities, thus acquiring negative connotations from those situated in other fields. however, both creativity and innovation clearly stem from a common "exploratory-curiosity-manipulatory" (hebb, 1955) drive, which is essentially and intrinsically human. it is this drive that causes us to constantly seek new stimulation, learn new skills, and acquire new knowledge in the process of constructing and adapting the self; whether that 'self' be an individual or a social group. we call this holistic view of creativity and innovation “cognitive innovation”. cognitive innovation is an integrative concept that recognises the fundamental links between the innovator, the innovation, the contextual challenges and consequential reverberations through society. cognitive innovation consists of an endless cycle of exploration, exploitation and explanation; an exploratory process of probing boundaries, selecting which of the countless ideas to exploit and develop further, synthesizing the resulting new insights into explanations of how things are, generating new challenges and questions. one can see this in the growing arsenal of skills and knowledge of the developing child as well as in the development of a company from nascent idea to fully fledged corporation. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ describing, understanding, and fostering cognitive innovation is at the heart of cognovo, a new multi-national doctoral training network funded by the eu marie curie initiative and led by the cognition institute at plymouth university. inspired by marie skłodowska-curie, the only woman to have won two nobel prizes (and in different disciplines!), the european marie curie programme provides generous funding to help researchers enrich their early research experience. cognovo is a transdisciplinary programme, based around 25 phd research fellows, that not only aims to provide cutting-edge research training but also draws substantial support and input from the private sector. in cognovo, scientific, technological and artistic explorations of cognitive innovation, underpinned by insights from a humanities perspective, are closely intertwined with the fellows’ training programme. thus, on the one hand, each phd project will advance our understanding of cognitive innovation and identify potential applications of innovative evidence-based solutions for the private sector. on the other hand, the latest scientific insights into creativity and cognitive innovation will inform the training initiatives designed to foster creative thinking on the part of the cognovo fellows. in cognovo we seek to forge a unitary cognitive innovation framework from a comprehensive multi-disciplinary collaboration, drawing together fellows and faculty from cognitive neuroscience, cognitive robotics, computational modelling, creative arts, experimental psychology, healthcare, the humanities, and medicine. the great strength of cognovo lies in its commitment to permeate disciplinary blinkers and push towards a broad understanding of cognitive innovation. cognovo presents a unique opportunity to conceptualize cognitive innovation from cell to society (keating & hertzman, 1999), from the micro to the macro, from individual to swarm, from past ideas to future memes. projects in the cognovo canon range from developing plausible neurocomputational models of mind-wandering and creativity, exploring the neurophysiological basis of creative processes (cell), implementing algorithms for innovation generation in artificial systems, describing the physiological, psychological, developmental, and social processes of cognitive innovation in humans, creating innovative interventions for cognitive and behavioural change, exploring the emergent innovation in processes of social groups and swarms, to charting the influences of technology, communication, and cultural memes on the conceptualization of cognitive innovation in the past and future (society). in that sense, cognovo’s approach to cognitive innovation puts to empirical test existing frameworks of (distributed) creativity (glăveanu, 2014) in which creative action is located in the triadic relationship between actor (both human and artificial), audience, and artefact, nested within social, material, cultural, and temporal resources. cognovo fellows don’t just work in parallel within their own discipline, specialization, language, or sphere of expertise. each of the individual research projects is supervised by amultidisciplinary team of experts, offering fellows the opportunity to integrate knowledge, methods and skills frommultiple disciplines in order to formulate and explore truly interdisciplinary research questions. we believe that this juxtaposition of disciplines and research topics with overlapping strands will lead to interesting new insights that could not have been foreseen or conceived within single specific disciplinary contexts, and in this sense we expect cognovo to be truly transdisciplinary. cognovo offers a wide-ranging curriculum designed to nurture curiosity beyond conventional discipline boundaries, including a rigorous humanities training, with a particular focus on the human values important for sustainable innovation. in addition, more generic training aimed at strengthening an outward-looking contextualisation of specific research discoveries will be provided by workshops in entrepreneurship and public engagement. in 1879 william james bemoaned the "desire on the part of men educated in laboratories not to have their physical reasonings mixed up with such incommensurable factors as feelings" and while the creation of disciplinary silos has undoubtedly resulted in significant scientific progress, there is nevertheless a pressing need to bridge europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 586–588 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.879 gummerum & denham 587 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the disconnect between disciplines; a need clearly recognised in the innovation union. james argued that the organ of consciousness gives individuals the power to help shape their futures, selecting, often unpredictably, from the "theatre of simultaneous possibilities" the course that best suits their needs and desires. similarly, we need to find ways to evolve an effective 'social consciousness' that is able to generate, select and nurture the innovative ideas that will bring benefit to society as a whole. we hope in cognovo to contribute towards this endeavour. to learn more about cognovo, see cognovo.eu funding cognovo (fp7-people-2013-itn-604764) is funded by the eu marie curie programme. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references glăveanu, v. p. (2014). distributed creativity: thinking outside the box of the creative individual. cham, switzerland: springer. hebb, d. o. (1955). drives and the c. n. s. (conceptual nervous system). psychological review, 62, 243-254. doi:10.1037/h0041823 james, w. m. (1879). are we automata? mind, 4, 1-22. doi:10.1093/mind/os-4.13.1 keating, d. p., & hertzman, c. (eds.). (1999).developmental health and the wealth of nations: social, biological, and educational dynamics. new york, ny: guilford press. about the authors michaela gummerum is an associate professor (reader) in psychology at plymouth university, uk. she investigates the development of cooperative, moral, and fair decision-making in individuals and groups. susan denham is professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience and director of the cognition institute at plymouth university. her research aims at understanding sensory perception and perceptual organisation, from behavioural, computational and theoretical perspectives. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 586–588 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.879 cognitive innovation: from cell to society 588 http://cognovo.eu http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0041823 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mind/os-4.13.1 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en cognitive innovation: from cell to society (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the process of dreaming, communication and a bit of psycho-analysis adela toplean university of bucharest adela.toplean@gmail.com adela.toplean@spray.se biographical note researcher, collaborator-lecturer at fjcs ( univ. of bucharest ), has translated a book on qualitative methodology, published 8 studies on the anthropology of death and history of death representations. researcher at lund universitet beginning with sept. 2005, department of psychology of religion. the shadow : i didn’t hear you talking in ages today i will give you this opportunity. the traveller : i hear voices. who’s talking? where this talking comes from? it’s like i hear myself talking. it’s just that the voice i’m hearing is weaker than mine… (f. nietzsche, the traveller and his shadow) (our translation) part ii (for part i, see europe’s journal of psychology, vol. i, no 2/2005) abstract is the reality of the dream something (slightly) different from the psychical reality? we will try to answer this question by fitting the problem of dream into a classic communication pattern and looking at the psychic agencies from a communication-related perspective. thuswise, the dream will take the form of a message whose shape is influenced by the sender and the receiver requiremenets, but also set as a (apparently) autonomous product of the unconsciousness. how much legitimacy would then lie in assigning the regulation of the onirical reality to „another” consciousness? would it be possible for the reality „state” we experience while dreaming to be due to a sort of onirical awareness that arises from an integration-reflex in the moment when the dreamer encounters a world that lacks any kind of antagonistic sensations and so, seemingly, very real? such faultless integration into the dreamt world through precise reflexes that are just the same as the ones used for appropriately approaching the outside world, seriously moots the problem of an (appearing) autonomy of reactions of the sleeping man – still perfectly awake in the strange light of a new, paradoxical and less approached „vigilance”. keywords: communication-pattern, freudian topics, onirical consciousness, psychical space, autonomous reality of the dream, ey’s consciousness vs. freud’s consciousness, the problem of presentations in psychoanalysis and phenomenology. about how much independecy exists in the dreamt world and the launch of a venturing concept now we’ll bring into discussion the dream that is set up as a message only if it succeeds in penetrating the consciousness and we will manage to remember it when being awake. as we already mentioned, unlike other unconscious diffuse messages, the dream has a more or less definite shape and healthy persons seldom, if ever, are unable to make a distinction between dreaming and really living. we could ask ourselves, in the beginning, if this message has indeed a reality of its own or it’s still difficult to single it out from the (unconscious) reality that gives it off. another doubt that needs to be clarified could be the following one: is the reality of the dream somehow distinct from the psychic reality? it’s interesting to notice that laplanche and pontalis, in their fantasme originaire. fantasmes des origines. origine du fantasme think that there are “trois sortes, donc de phénomènes (ou de réalités au sens le plus large) : la réalité matérielle, la réalité des pensées de liaison ou du psychologique, la réalité du désire inconscient et de son expression la plus vraie (le fantasme) » (laplanche & pontalis, 1985, pp. 18, 19, our underlining). the last one is described as establishing a connection between real contents and imaginary contents, which makes it look quite enigmatic. pontalis though, in his own book entre le rêve et la douleur (pontalis, 1977, p. 46), seems ready to discover a whole lot of other psychic spaces (or places?) each of them circumscribing its own reality: we will then have the latency space of the first freudian topic, a space of presentations, another one dedicated to the memory and a space for the drives (could it be the same one hosting the unconscious wishes in the typology that he created together with laplanche?); anyways, this particular space has the following features: “avec ses stratifications et ses clivages … traversé d’énergies, où ce sont les opérations plus que les thèmes qui importent; éspace comme réceptacle d’objets internes … avec la bipartition radicale dehors-dedans” (ibid., our underlining). in front of a large pallette of psychical spaces, pontalis asks: where exactly the dream-conflict will be unfolded? before shaping a conclusion, let’s take into account one more perspective: ey’s; in his very manner, he believes that “imaginary contents are actually parts of the consciousness as experiences of different degrees of unconsciousness” (ey, the quoted work, p. 91); since the dreamt contents comport a certain kind of unconsciousness, we may assume that it also benefits by its own space of expression chosen from the large number of such unconscious spaces arranged on different unconscious levels. knowing that the dream exhibits itself, that it basically objectifies a “life” -experience (even though it is one of a “sleeping consciousness” (ibid.), of a consciousness that is not applied to the world, so, that lacks a thetic function), we may assume that, once the message is built and delimited from its sender, it will be also able to uphold its own reality, apart from the sender’s, but still emanating from that one. if need be, we’d say that such “emanation” could be mistaken eventually with the transmission channel leading to the consciousness; we could easily name such channel the “psychic space” or we could choose a more twisted syntagm as zlate did: “the subjective interiority of an individual” (zlate, 1999, p. 195). let’s make a halt to the reality of the dream that, we suggested, stays for itself, with or without the dream being communicated to the consciousness. at this very level, the debates on the existence or the non-existence of the unconsciousness stagnated quite a while because, in wundt’s opinion for instance, a presentation that only rests into the unconscious sounds like a contradiction, since “the concept in itself suggests … a person representing a certain something” (jung, 1994b, p. 16); a presentation that cannot reach the consciousness is, after all, a presentation that nobody “has”. a possible solution – at least at a formal level – was brought by jung when he changed the syntagm “unconscious presentations” with another one: “unconscious contents” and thus avoiding stumbling in a term that was already acquired into another theoretical direction. still, after solving the formal contradiction, he went on with a devastating assertion: “each and every unconscious content is coupled with a certain kind of being-represented, that is a a sort of being-conscious, thuswise, we can seriously raise the problem of an existing unconscious subject” (jung, 1994b, p. 16, our underlining). a natural question follows (though, its answer is impossible to be naturally brought out): does such unconscious subject memorize, perceive and decide just like a conscious one with the only (possible) difference that the presence-field of the unconscious one remains the psychical reality (of the dream) while the presence-field of the second one is the objective reality? sleeping or being awake, does the individual resort to the same reflex action of “consciously” integrating himself or herself in a certain reality? is he or she setting out the same work of transforming the reality (be it an inner or an external one), of de-homogenizing the space through the intervetion of the inner duration that, bergson says, “introduces succession even among the external objects” (bergson, 1993, pp. 149, 150) and thuswise, bringing the time even into…the dreams’ world? the fact that, during dreaming, we proceed to actualize our experience, is quite obvious: “it would be enough … to wake a sleeping person up … for him or her to feel that he or she was teared away from a living experience that is impossible to live again … in other words, it’s a sort of experience that the subject gets in only by leaving the objective reality” (ey, the quoted work, p. 91). it’s hard to believe, however, that we could solve a problem as such, but we can still make a distinction between the living-like dreaming experience and the actual living experience: if the last one implies experiencing time, actively organizing the present through systematic moves to the advantage of the individual – when and if possible – (the famous setting up of the presence-field described by ey), when dreaming we live instantly (“the experience is spontaneoulsy and precariously actualized” (ibid., p. 138)) since there is no occasion for us to be involved in systemizing the reality; moreover, the time is not set up as present so we could only call it an “un-gripped time”, a time that is not able to open itself towards any kind of fulfill-able future. still, the perspective above is very much subdued to a conscious approach that never really succeeded in getting rid of the obsession of skimping time. under any other circumstances, we could actually assume that, on the contrary, we never take such a good advantage of time as we do when dreaming, when we are in an immediate contact with our personal past as well as with the species’ past and, in a certain way, with the future. ey banks on one consciousness only – for the individual who is integrated into the outside world and for the sleeping or mentally-ill individuals. the mental states of the last two ones are correlated with its “low” degrees, when the consciousness lacks the needed power for systemizing the experience. what ey could call a “consciousness of the dream” could actually be the very base of the consciousness that “catches” an event that unfolds itself, accidentally, in an imaginary and not in a real zone. besides, ey thinks that the consciousness can “fall” under the 0, into a reality, let’s call it, with the “minus” sign – which is the archetypical experience of the consciousness. he, of course, states, with a different occasion, that “the consciousness cannot be separated by the objective world, it’s caught in the real world just as the world is caught by it” (ey, the quoted work, p. 36); we may correct his assertion this way: the consciousness cannot be separated, it’s true, from a world of objects, but it can be somehow separated from the objective world. our consciousness cannot stay away from those worlds having a seeming exteriority. we will also add that, as long as our consciousness needs sense, needs space, needs temporality and needs a direction this way making its contribution to the individual’s building and, through this, to the shaping of the world itself, a “consciousness of the dream” tries to require from the dreamt reality the same sense, the same direction, space and temporality – all these on a field that this time tries “to slip” and that fails in aggregating itself into a presence-field. the consciousness always has the duration as an attachment, bergson says, and so everything that “touches”, becomes temporal. while the unconscious, freud said it in many occasions, is timeless par excellence. we would assume, without bringing too many details though, that the faint temporal feeling the dreamer has could be due to some kind of involvement of the consciousness in the living-like experience of the dream. another interesting issue could be that of the “volitional unconscious” acts: in the moment when i, the dreamer, decide upon a rescue solution in my dream, wouldn’t it mean that my escape plan should be translated through a very good (sometimes amazing) organization of my consciousness? when the possibility of the existence of such volitional unconscious acts is brought into discussion, jungs seems to give up: “when we do not talk about impulses … but about choices…apparently very well-balanced … then we can do nothing but admiting as necessary the hypothesis of a subject that disposes of himself and that also has certain presentations” (jung, 1994b, p. 29). when referring to the unconscious, and especially when focusing on the dream-state, could we, by any chance, bring into discussion a new consciousness, different from the day-time one, that might take over (to a certain extent) its functions through the contribution of the ego that has access to all levels of the psychic agencies? if such hypothesis would be accepted, then we won’t be surprised anymore by the brilliant choices we make, while dreaming, sometimes even more relevant than those made when being awake; and we’d also cease asking ourselves why the dreamt contents do not come back into the day-time consciousness if it is this consciousness and not another one that also wondered through the unconscious darkness. in the end, the differences between the two perspectives lie at two levels – structural and conceptual: the first one (ey’s) implies the existence of a widely integrative consciousness, always present – more or less – everywhere, and the second one, specific to psychoanalysis, talks about the self-direction of the unconscious and, under certain circumstances, about its own “consciousness”: “the unconscious may embody all those that are usually known as being functions of the consciousness” (ibid., p. 131). as for us, not wanting to expressly join to any of the two approaches, we would prefer to bring into discussion a consciousness (or even better: a-being-conscious-like experience) of the dream only, not of the unconsciousness as a whole. deciding if the entire unconscious benefits of the same – let’s call it onirical – consciousness, or by another one, or even by the day-time one but in a less structed form, seems to be yet impossible. the dream, as an autonomous psychical product, could be though granted with an autonomous consciousness, another one, we’d guess, than the day-time consciousness. as we all know from our own onirical experiences, the being-conscious-like feeling seems to be the one integrating us in the dreamt reality that appears in front of our very eyes as a “living” world through its own “unconscious”. to a great extent, the dreamer is aware of himself or herself and this very fact makes the predisposition for promoting the objectivity even more obvious; altogether, the whole affectivity mechanism is released this way: love, hate, empathy or fear towards the dreamt objects – they are all present for giving the impression of plainly living into and for that particular world of our dream. but being plainly involved into a world (be it an onirical one) cannot be done otherwise, but appealing to sensations, to perceptions and, of course, to a “reservoir” able to inprint them and preserve them even though it would be only for providing a better unfolding of the actual dreamt action/plot. in other words, we would also need a memory that should keep the onirical thread as stretched as possible. not all the sophisticated functions of the memory would be required, they are all the privilege of the day-time consciousness (see bergson, 1996, p. 132), the dream would only need a minimal placing in the onirical settlement, a minimal synchronism between the dreamt “thoughts” and the proper onirical action. ey eliminates right from the start the possibility of any mnesic traces to exist within a de-structured consciousness: the temporal psychic structure and the memory are both specific to the “fundamental structure of the consciousness” (ey, the quoted work, p. 8). but freud finds for the mnesic print a whole different explanation: firstly, the consciousness, as the contact-surface with the outside world (see freud, 1992a, pp. 37-44), is also the one that might scatter every second; secondly, if the stimulus comes from outside towards inside until reaches a certain “depth”-level (depending on its penetration force) it is to be guessed, freud says, that the very basis of the memory could be found in the excitation processes at the bottom levels of our psychical apparatus; because of their abysmal positioning, they might keep some lasting traces of the stimulus that once penetrated the surface (of the consciousness), surpassing it and, thuswise, without dealing too much with it except from a certain moment that we might call “present”: “one certain excitation cannot be conscious and having its trace in our memory in the same time” (ibid., p. 39). in short, our consciousness does not keep any trace of any external stimuli while these traces are of an extreme importance for manufacturing the remembrance and so freud concludes: “the consciousness is born where the mnesic trace ends” (ibid.). when jung settles the bounderies for our unconscious trying to underline a shape of any kind for such an instable reality, he said that “all things i know but i am not thinking about in this very moment, all things that were, at some point, conscious, but now i have completely forgot about; all things i have perceived with my senses but still not consciously paying any attention to them, all that i feel, think, remember, want and do without any intention and completely carelessly, which means unconsciously, all the future things that are right now preparing themselves inside me and will reach my consciousness … all these are parts of my unconscious … and all of these are more or less able to come out at the conscious level” (jung, 1994b, p. 45). as we may notice, jung also settles a sort of unconscious “data base” with sometimes small -sometimes big chances to be brought into consciousness at some future point. even though he is much more cautious than freud, bergson is not far from the psychoanalyst’s perspective when assuming that the consciousness only has by right what lies in its area at a precise moment, each reality that is attached to our consciousness being necessarily actual; thuswise, he admits the existence of the unconscious psychical processes which, in spite of their nature that doesn’t seem to permit any kind of action (at least not at a perceivable level), they still may help the consciousness in conducting the action and clarifying the choice. would it be reasonable to explain their fulfilling such duty through the help of the mnesic reservoir they possess (as another possible example of collaboration or communication-pattern between unconscious and consciousness)? as long as a sort of memory-stock may be assigned to the unconscious, we could also assume that the dream, mainly built from remembrances, has legal rights for using, at its turn, such mnesic reservoir. still, apart from the obvious connections, there are more affinities to be found between dream and memory in general. the possibility of existance of an (onirical) short-term memory could already outline another theoretical problem, related to that approaching the conditions of onirical sensations and perceptions that are shaping their own onirical reality that becomes manifest in the onirical action (in bergson’s acception of the term). the philosophers have put the equality sign between the image and the sensation (or perception) more than once. sartre (1997), paraphrasing hume, assumes (still not convincingly) that the image and the perception only differ from one another through intensity; yet, we all sometimes have vivid, full of details dreams that could easily compete with a whole range of day-time perceptions. taine claims the same thing: the image asserts itself as a sensation (ibid., p. 95, quoted from d’intelligence, 1st t., p. 125), testing this way the faith in its object. yet, the same taine insists upon a dissimilitude that must be taken into account between the real image and the “false” image: the first one is a sort of two-step sensing – the 1st step is correlated with a spontaneous sensation confering upon that image an absolute consistency while the 2nd step is consumed through a non-spontaneous sensation that diminishes the effect of the first one, operating a sort of correction (see details in sartre, the quoted work, p. 96). when a second moderating sensation is lacking, we “have” in front of our eyes an object that does not exist at all. the typical example is the hallucination: in front of a wall with a library shelf we “see” a threatening man – the perception of the wall with the shelf in front of it doesn’t take place anymore, the whole reality is somehow concentrated into the imaginary man who stands in front of the wall; he is actually the only object spontaneously perceived, in an absolute manner. we could extend such explanation to our onirical sensations, often very vivid and, of course, lacking the moderation-approach supposed to be fulfilled by an antagonistic sensation (still, it may appear in rare cases of consciously dreaming, when the dreamer knows that he is actually dreaming, but he cannot or he does not want to pull himself out of the onirical experience). living in an intensely perceived (and thus intensely sensed) world, the dreamer might need a memory to connect the imaginary things through contiguity and similitude. once the onirical thread is kept intact, the dreamer seems to be more conscious than ever: he/she gets caught into the action, he/she takes decisions, he/she changes his/her mind, he anticipates – and all these with an amazing ability, consuming his/her artistry in a sort of surprise-material that he/she prepares for himself/herself. having said that, how natural could be to assign the production of the dream to “another” consciousness? could the reality-state we all experience when dreaming be due to the involvement of an onirical consciousness born through an integration reflex in the moment when the dreamer is confronted with a world that lacks any antagonistic sensations and thus, seemingly, very real? the language of our dreams – a code made to measure the receiver? i was kindly allowed to experience all these, but never to talk about them saint bernard and now we ask for your permission to discuss in short our last issue: the onirical language. what could be more important in a communication process than the agreement upon the code that the sender and the receiver are deciding to use? as it is well-known, only the perfect symmetry between coding and decoding will guarantee the fidelity of transmission (dinu, the quoted work, p. 38). psychoanalysis from freud to lacan zealously talked about the language of our dreams. when ricoeur says that our psychism is rather defined through sense than through consciousness, a decisive importance is confered upon the hermeneutical approach, in unraveling the unconscious, but not only. an enormous number of works were also written about a specific language of our unconscious. freud, for instance, does not ascribe verbal presentations to any other psychical agency except the consciousness and pre-consciousness, while thinking through images is generously assigned to our unconscious. the verbal presentation found at the pre-conscious level, he says, are nothing but “mnesic reminiscences that once had the form of perceptions” (freud, 1992a, p. 106) that may easily come back at the conscious level in whatever moment. from saussure’s perspective, would be suitable to ask ourselves if the initially estamblished relationship between the signifier and the signified would be indeed intactly maintained until the following actualization will take place. probably yes. since the linguistic sign “does not connect a thing and a name, but a concept and its acoustic image” (saussure, 1998, p. 85) is quite possible for the pre-consciousness not to keep anything apart from the psychical stamp created by the signifier and the signified (which is actually the sign that can be – anytime – identically reproduced). if the consciousness is, above all, related to language “a field of the language” (ey, the quoted work, p. 136) ) and to verbal communication, the things don’t look that simple anymore when we try to approach the unconscious – it’s impossible to get an unified view by only writing a short, superficial study. paraphrasing waelheus, ey says that because of all the metaphores and desplacements, the language sets up a dialectics “of absence and presence” (ibid., 323), symbolically playing with things. no one ever pretended that our unconscious would lack a playfulness as such. the significances are always with it. missing the verbal function, it transfers to the pre-consciousness only the signifiers’ chains through a symbolical makeshift that lacan widely speculated upon. and so the unconscious, an image-made mosaic, would be constrained to talk: “ because the language, as a form of our being-conscious, actually represents the mediation between – and the stressing of – the conscious and the unconscious agencies” (ibid., p. 26); a logic of the double sense would be then set up, the very matter of hermeneutics (ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 59). between this type of logic and the transcendental reflection a certain kind of connection is settled that ricoeur justifies in a manner that could be favourable to us: “when we look back to the will for power of nietzsche’s man, or back to the generical human being of marx, or back to the libido of freud’s man or when we look forward to the transcendental place of significance that we vaguely defined here as being the sacre, we would notice that the right place for the sense is not the consciousness, but a something else” (ibid., p. 66). this “something else” that was turned from logic to figuration raised a whole range of problems. that’s why lacan, after quiting phenomenology and approaching a few readings from saussure (roudinesco, 1995, pp. 214-227), set out in interpreting freudian topographies in the light of linguistics. thuswise, he lays the foundation of the logic of the signifier (ibid., p. 222). except that, together with it, the signifier acquires a new prestige: it will become the “letter” always maintained above and never below the signified, as saussure (saussure, the quoted work, pp. 85, 86) accustomed us. and besides, lacan will add, we never deal with only one signifier, but with chains of signifiers because they continuously get born from one another. paying a great attention to the proliferation of the signifiers, lacan efficiently keeps himself away from a deciphering (sign by sign) of the unconscious (and so of the dream) that always proved to be damaging through its focusing on figuration to the prejudice of displacement and condensation, essential stages of the onirical material from latency to its becoming manifest. jakobson thinks that the displacement process (when the decisive significant facts from the latency period are sliding into „unsignificant” details in the manifest form of the dream)is very similar with the synecdoche (when the whole is represented through its parts), while lacan, in spite of his being influenced by the linguist, makes his choice for comparing the displacement with the metonymy (replacing of an idea with the other one, while preserving the existent relation between them). but jakobson invokes the metonymy for refering to the condensation process (the passing of a – generally – vast latent content into a manifest shortened content). unlike him, lacan makes a connection between condensation and metaphor as long as the condensation-mechanism seems to be similar with the bag-words. however, ricoeur denounces any intemperance in approaching the unconscious through linguistic means as well as hastly reducing its language at the economic features (let’s remember the energy-based theory that freud took over from breuer). all the same, it’s quite obvious that the two languages should go together: an unconscious mainly made up of forbidding instincts is yet “correlative to the habitual language” (ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 422). even though the repression could be seen as a sort of metaphor, such a comparison could not bring any justification not even for lacan who tried to suppress the energetic language overbidding the linguistic implications. the linguistic approaches should rather double the energetic one because, for the time being, we are finding ourselves in front of a language circumstance that is still far from being “normal”. freud compares the process of setting up the dream (the imposing of the censorship, the disguising approach, its final incoherence) with “the effort made by a subordinated for smuggling a few words that he knows would make his boss get upset” (freud, 1992b, p. 51) and ricoeur adds that such manner of admitting and keeping away from consciousness certain contents doesn’t have anything essentially linguistic. as we already said in other occasions, freud exclusively saves the language acts for pre-consciousness and consciousness; the figurative representation of the instinct as it reaches the pre-consciousness (the gate-keeper) may have the nature of a signifier still, without being a linguistic sign. though, the fact that freud sees beyond the language the “force of a signifier” (ricoeur, the quoted work, p. 424) makes elisabeth roudinesco estimate that, to a certain extent, he managed to anticipate the relationship between the signifier and the signified that saussure later imposed. as a conclusion, the problem of the language of dreams doesn’t seem to meet the linguistic phenomenon in every possible meeting-point, at least within a freudian approach. the displacement and condensation phenomena could be seen, of course, as being metonymical and/or metaphorical operations, but at the same time we shouldn’t forget that they only work with images. on the other hand, the image-based operations do not stay away from semiotics, on the contrary. as for us, we will take benveniste’s part who sets the dream-mechanisms either at the upstream or at the downstream of the linguistic approaches, with the relevant shade that ricoeur brings: [these mechanisms] … exhibit the confusion between infraand supra-linguistic processes” (ibid., p. 425). we believe that our lenses are now polished enough for allowing us to look – without pretending any details – through the very manner in which the psychical processes give birth, shape, wrap up and deliver one of their most seductive and well-outlined products: the dreams we dream every night. m1 – the message in its natural form c1 – the first code m2 – the message after suffering the dream-work c2 – the new code, after gate-keeper’s intervention references aristotle, (1966), de l’âme, société d’édition „les belles lettres”, paris, tr. by e. barbotin. 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(1996), introducere in psihologie, ed. by sansa, bucharest. zlate, m. (1999), psihologia mecanismelor cognitive, ed. by polirom, iasi. using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale for a non-clinical sample based on the pittsburgh sleep quality index (psqi) research reports using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale for a non-clinical sample based on the pittsburgh sleep quality index (psqi) panayiotis panayides*a, marios gavrielidesb, christodoulos galatopoulosc, mikaella gavriilidoub [a] lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. [b] gevorest ltd, nicosia, cyprus. [c] private psychiatric practice, limassol, cyprus. abstract originally, the aim of the present study was to investigate the psychometric properties and the appropriateness of the greek version of the psqi for a non-clinical sample. however, the scale was deemed not to be appropriate and results suggested some major modifications (study 1). the modified scale was administered to a second sample of cypriots and was shown to be unidimensional and to have a high degree of reliability (study 2). the items define a theoretical linear quality of sleep continuum of increasing difficulty and cover a wide range of that continuum. furthermore, a 3-point (instead of the original 4-point) likert scale was shown to be optimal and the scale was found to be appropriate for a non-clinical sample. the resulting scale is suitable for research purposes in studies regarding quality of sleep in academia, medicine and marketing. it could be used either for individuals or for large scale samples. keywords: quality of sleep, psqi, non-clinical sample, rasch europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 received: 2012-11-15. accepted: 2013-01-22. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: nikou kavadia 1, k. polemidia, 4152, limassol, cyprus. e-mail: p.panayides@cytanet.com.cy this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction approximately one third of our lives is spent sleeping. good quality sleep is essential for good health and wellbeing. the main effects of sleep deprivation include physical effects (sleepiness, fatigue, hypertension), cognitive impairment (deterioration of performance, attention and motivation; diminishment of mental concentration and intellectual capacity, and increase of the likelihood of accidents at work and during driving) and mental health complications. inadequate rest impairs the ability to think, to handle stress, to maintain a healthy immune system and to moderate emotions (world health organization, 2004, p. 2). according to buysse, reynolds, monk, berman, and kupfer (1989) ‘sleep quality’ is an important clinical construct because complaints about sleep are common (15 – 35% of the adult population). furthermore, sleep disturbances and complaints are associated with anxiety and stress (karacan, thornby, & williams, 1983) and are frequently reported in psychiatric disorders like depression and schizophrenia (buysse et al., 1989). different tools for measuring various aspects of sleep are described by beck, schwartz, towsly, dudley, and barserick (2004). these include polysomnography, actigraphy and self-reports. many self-report instruments are europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ reported in the literature. these include the pittsburgh sleep quality index (buysse et al., 1989), the verran and snyder-halpern sleep scale (snyder-halpern & verran, 1987) and the karolinska sleep diary (akerstedt, hume, minors, & waterhouse, 1994). the pittsburgh sleep quality index (psqi) the psqi is one of the best known self-rating instruments used to measure sleep quality. the psqi items were derived from three sources: clinical intuition and experience with sleep disorder patients, a review of other sleep quality questionnaires and clinical experience with the instrument during 18 months of field work (buysse et al., 1989). it consists of 18 self-rating questions assessing a wide variety of factors relating to sleep quality grouped into 7 components (subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbances, use of sleeping medications and daytime dysfunction). each component is scored separately, weighted equally on a 0 – 3 scale. the scores of the 7 components are then added to give a global psqi score, which has a range of 0 – 21 with higher scores indicating worse sleep quality. the 18 scale items are structured so that three of the components are measured by one item, two components by two, one component by three and one by nine items (one item is used for the calculation of two component scores). the psqi shares similarities with other instruments but buysse et al. (1989) emphasize the following three important differences. first, the psqi assesses the quality of sleep over the previous month. second, other studies (such as beutler, thornby, & karacan, 1978; domino, blair, & bridges, 1984; webb, bonnet, & blume, 1976) have used factor analysis to generate specific factors, whereas the psqi components are empirical and clinical in origin rather than statistical. third, there are differences in the scoring; the psqi assigns ordinal scores to quantitative and qualitative information, allowing for the generation of component scores and a single global score giving a single overall assessment of sleep quality, being simple to calculate and allowing for direct comparisons of individual patients or groups. the last two differences, although intended to be advantages of this particular scale, are perhaps weakness in that the structure of the scale has never been fully investigated and it is not always easy to assign ordinal scores to qualitative data. furthermore, the scoring of the scale is perhaps more complicated than intended. finally, the psqi was designed to assess clinical samples, while most previous questionnaires (such as in bixler, kales, soldatos, kales, & healy, 1979; karacan et al., 1983) have been designed to assess normal sleep habits of entire populations. the researchers feel that an investigation into the appropriateness of the scale on a non-clinical population is long overdue. studies on the validity and reliability of the psqi in the original study of the psqi (buysse et al., 1989), the reliability of the instrument was supported by cronbach’s alpha for the whole 18-item questionnaire and for the 7 component scores. also test-retest correlations of the global scores and the component scores were reported and statistical tests performed on the global scores and on the component scores from the two different administrations of the instrument leading to the conclusion of stable responses across time. the degree of validity of the instrument was supported by detection of differences between distinct groups in the sample (healthy control subjects with no complaints about sleep, patients with major depressive disorder and patients with disorder of initiating andmaintaining sleep). also concurrent polysomnographic findings were obtained and finally correlations between global score and component scores were reported. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 114 http://www.psychopen.eu/ since then, many studies have focused on the reliability and validity of the psqi. among them, there are studies with samples of elderly people (buysse, reynolds, monk, berman, & kupfer, 1991), patients with aids (rubinstein & selwyn, 1998), patients with panic disorders (stein, chartier, & walker, 1993), cancer patients (beck et al., 2004), patients with primary insomnia (backhaus, junghanns, broocks, riemann, & hohagen, 2002), bonemarrow transplant patients and women with breast cancer (carpenter & andrykowski, 1998) and nigerian students (aloba, adewuya, ola, & mapayi, 2007). the most commonly reported index of reliability (internal consistency) is cronbach’s alpha (cronbach, 1951). the evidence collected to investigate the degree of validity of the psqi commonly found in the literature includes correlations of component scores with global scores and comparisons of scores of distinct groups typically identified as having poor quality of sleep with control groups. examples of such experimental groups include insomnia patients (backhaus et al., 2002; aloba et al., 2007), patients with psychiatric disorders (doi et al., 2000), and low and high fatigue cancer patients (beck et al., 2004). finally, for the validation of the scale, correlations between psqi global scores and related (or unrelated) constructs were calculated (carpenter and andrykowski, 1998) and comparisons were made between psqi scores and daily logs (backhaus et al., 2002). no matter what instruments are used in measuring quality of sleep, good measurement is essential for further investigating the validity, reliability and appropriateness of the level of scaling of the instrument in relation to any given target population. rasch measurement rasch models were originally designed for use in educational assessment. however, over recent years there has been an increase in their use in health and social research. the reason for this new interest is the ability of these models to handle reliability and validity issues, to refine questionnaires by improving category functioning and by decreasing the number of items while retaining the psychometric properties of the instruments. in order to show the diversity of situations where the models can be used productively, panayides, robinson, and tymms (2010) reported a selection of applications of raschmeasurement. for example, prieto, roset, and badia (2001), assessed the psychometric properties of the spanish version of the assessment of growth hormone deficiency in adults. massof and fletcher (2001) assessed and refined the visual functioning questionnaire. myford and wolfe (2002) identified and resolved discrepancies in examiners’ ratings. chen, bezruczko, and ryan-henry (2006) described mothers’ effectiveness in caregiving for their adult children with intellectual disabilities. more recently, panayides and walker (2012) refined a widely used internet addiction scale using these models. of great importance in the validation process of any instrument is its factor structure. panayides andwalker (2012) describe why the rasch models are appropriate for the investigation of the dimensionality of scales. the rasch models construct a one-dimensional measurement system from ordinal data. however, more than one latent dimension will always contribute to empirical data. multidimensionality becomes a real concern when the response patterns indicate the presence of two or more dimensions so disparate that it is no longer clear what latent dimension the rasch dimension operationalizes. factor analysis is widely used in psychometrics to investigate the dimensionality of empirical data. like other statistical analyses, it operates on interval item scores whereas the item responses are ordinal by nature. thus results of studies using these methods are disputable. factor analysis “is confused by ordinal variables and highly correlated factors. rasch analysis excels at constructing linearity out of ordinality and at aiding the identification europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 115 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the core construct inside a fog of collinearity” (schumacker & linacre, 1996, p. 470). linacre (1998) showed that rasch analysis followed by pca of standardized residuals is always more effective at both constructing measures and identifying multidimensionality than standard factor analysis of the original response-level data. a key issue in the identification of a second dimension is the choice of the critical value of the eigenvalue. researchers have suggested various critical values. linacre (2005), however, argues convincingly that an eigenvalue on the rasch standardised residuals of a value of less than 2 indicates that the implied dimension in the data has less than the strength of two items and has little strength in the data. furthermore, with the use of infit and outfit statistics one can identify items which do not fit the models’ expectations, threatening unidimensionality. smith (1996) emphasises that items that do not fit the model should not be automatically rejected. instead, the reasons for their misfit should be examined before deciding whether to retain or reject them. research objectives many researchers have accepted the arguments of buysse at al. (1989) and used the psqi without questioning its dimensionality. few studies have investigated the factor structure of the scale but none has substantiated a single-factor structure and this makes using a single score on this scale questionable. kotronoulas, papadopoulou, papapetrou, and patiraki (2011) reported a 2-factor structure. aloba et al. (2007) and cole, motivala, buysse, oxman, levin, and irwin (2006) reported a 3-factor structure. furthermore, the above mentioned studies have used factor analysis techniques on the seven components and not on the 18 items from which the components were derived, and this seems to be another drawback (other than using factor analysis on ordinal data) of their investigations. only one study, to the knowledge of the authors, has used rasch measurement to validate the (revised) psqi (chien, hsu, tai, guo, & su, 2008) and, in that case, only 9 of the original 18 items (with a 3-point instead of a 4-point likert scale) were used to establish a one-dimensional scale. the person reliability they reported was 0.75 and person separation 1.87. originally, the aim of the study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the psqi with the use of the rasch rating scale model (andrich, 1978; wright & masters, 1982) and its appropriateness for a non-clinical sample (study 1). however, results showed that the psqi was not very appropriate for such a sample and a modified version of it was used in a second study using a 3-point instead of a 4-point likert scale and 11 items of the original psqi together with seven additional items, one of which was a combination of two psqi items. thus, it was deemed more appropriate to revise the main focus of these studies. consequently, the aim became to investigate, with the use of the rating scale model (rsm), the dimensionality and reliability of the modified instrument, whether or not the items define a theoretical linear continuum of increasing difficulty, the functioning of its likert scale and the appropriateness of the instrument for a non-clinical sample. methodology before commencing study 1, permission was obtained from the developers of the psqi to use the greek version (psqi-g). the psqi-g was found, following their suggestion, on the mapi institute website. mapi is an international company with a team of experts providing expertise in the translation and linguistic validation of patient-reported outcomes instruments for cross-cultural use and interpretation. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 116 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the selection of the sample in study 1, a multistage stratified random sampling design was applied. in the first stage, the sampling frame was stratified into urban and rural strata by district. the households were allocated proportionally in each stratum according to the population census of the statistical service of the republic of cyprus which took place in 2001. the selection of households in the urban areas was implemented through a simple systematic random sample. a random digit was selected and, by using an appropriate sampling interval, the urban households for each district were selected, giving a sample of size proportional to the size of each district. the selection in rural areas was conducted in two stages: the villages of each district were the primary sampling units and the households the ultimate sampling units. the sample of villages was drawn with probability proportional to its size. for the second stage, respondents were selected randomly in each household using per age and gender quotas proportional to the total population in accordance with the population census. in each household only one questionnaire was administered after the purpose of the study was explained in layman’s terms. the response rate amounted to 86%. specifically, 697 households were visited and 600 questionnaires were administered. a pilot study was conducted prior to the commencing of the survey in order to test the format, the questions and the questionnaire administration time. in total, 48 trained and experienced interviewers were employed to administer the questionnaires and clarify any ambiguities to the respondents. the fieldwork force was organized by mrc institute ltd, a full service research agency in cyprus, and was monitored by the researchers. table 1 shows the composition of the sample by gender (47% males and 53% females) and by age. furthermore, out of the 600 participants, 415 (69.2%) lived in urban areas and the remaining 185 (30.8%) in rural areas. table 1 sample composition in study 1: gender by age agegender total65+55-6445-5435-4425-3418-24 281 (47%)393948575642male 319 (53%)493960675945female 600887810812411587total results of the data analyses indicated that, for the psqi-g to become appropriate for a non-clinical sample, it needed modifications. therefore, a second study was considered essential. these modifications included the removal of certain items, the addition of others and the modification of the likert scale from 4-point to 3-point. the sampling of the first study proved very costly and time consuming and therefore the researchers decided to select a much smaller sample in the second study, of around 200 respondents. also, instead of the whole population of cyprus, the target population was people living in the two largest towns of the country, nicosia and limassol. the procedure followed was exactly the same as for the urban households in study 1. the sample size was 203 and proportional to the populations in the two towns. overall, 230 households were visited and 203 questionnaires were collected, giving a response rate of 88%. selection of the rasch rating scale model (rsm) the rasch rsm was selected for data analysis for the following reasons. first, the rasch models are the only models in item response theory (irt) that accept the raw scores of the respondents to be a sufficient statistic europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 117 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the estimation of their position on the variable continuum, thus maintaining the score order of students. since raw scores are the basis for reporting results throughout all the studies, the rasch models are consistent with practice. second, the rasch models involve fewer parameters and are thus easier to work with, to understand and to interpret. third, the rasch models give stable item estimates with smaller samples than other more general models (thissen & wainer, 1982). fourth, the person measures and item calibrations have a unique ordering on a common logit scale (bond & fox, 2001, 2007; wright & masters, 1982) making it easy to see relations between them. fifth, validity and reliability issues can be addressed through the use of the rasch models (smith, 2004). most importantly however, according to andrich (2004), the rasch model is based on a different philosophy from other approaches. this philosophy dictates the structure of the data including the fact that unidimensionality is a must for the measurement process. other models are driven by a desire to model all of the characteristics observed in the data, regardless of whether they contribute to the measurement process or not. so, as panayides, robinson, and tymms (2010) argue, the difference is between measurement and modelling. if the aim is to construct a good measure then the items comprising the scale should be constrained to the principles of measurement, thus the rasch model is highly appropriate. selection of the fit statistics the infit mean square and the outfit mean square were preferred for the present studies over a large number of fit statistics for their exploratory nature (douglas, 1990). they can identify a wide range of potential sources of unexpected response patterns and this is an advantage. a fit statistic that focuses on a specific type of unexpectedness may not have enough power to identify other types, thus missing ‘bad’ items. also, the infit and outfit mean squares have been used successfully to assess the fit of the rasch models for many years (e.g. curtis, 2004; lamprianou, 2006; panayides & walker, 2012; smith, 1990; wright & masters, 1982). furthermore, these statistics are computationally simpler and stand up well in comparison with possibly more precise tests. finally, they are utilized by most of the available software packages for rasch calibrations (e.g. conquest, winsteps, facets, rumm2020) and are familiar to many researchers. therefore there is no practical reason to use anything more complicated (smith, 1990). critical values for the fit statistics wright, linacre, gustafson, and martin-lof (1994) and bond and fox (2001, 2007) provide a table of reasonable item mean square fit values and suggest a critical value of 1.4 for psychometric scales. values of 1.4 indicate 40% more variability than predicted by the rasch model. curtis (2004) and glas and meijer (2003) suggest using simulated data according to a irt model based on the estimated parameters and then determining the critical values empirically. however, lamprianou (2006) argues that misfit is not a dichotomous ‘yes’/’no’ property but rather a matter of degree and as such it can be considered too large for one study and satisfactory for another depending on the aims of the researchers. for the purposes of the present studies, it was decided to consider items with infit or outfit greater than 1.4 (the widely used cut-off value) as ones needing re-examination before deciding to maintain or remove them from the scale, as suggested by wright et al. (1994) and bond and fox (2001, 2007). rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories a critical component influencing the measurement properties of any self-reported psychometric scale is the rating scale. yet there is no real general agreement regarding the optimal rating scale format. khadka, gothwal, mcalinden, lamoureux, and pesudovs (2012) suggest a maximum of 5, clearly-labelled and non-overlapping categories. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 118 http://www.psychopen.eu/ wright and linacre (1992) point out that it is the analyst’s task to extract the maximum amount of useful meaning from the responses observed by combining (or even splitting), if necessary, categories as suggested by the results of careful analysis, provided that both the statistical and substantive validity of the results is improved. rasch analysis provides a strong tool in the assessment of the functioning of rating scales. linacre (2002) suggested the following guidelines for determining the optimal number of categories. first, categories with frequencies less than 10 do not provide an adequate number of observations for estimating stable threshold values. second, the average measures of all persons in the sample who chose a particular category should increase monotonically in size as the variable increases, indicating that higher scores endorse higher categories. third, the thresholds (or step calibrations) should also increasemonotonically across the rating scale otherwise categories are considered disordered. fourth, the range between adjacent threshold estimates should be large enough to show a distinct range on the variable (linacre suggests at least 1.4 logits). at the same time it should not be greater than 5 logits to avoid large gaps in the variable. step disordering and very narrow distances between thresholds “can indicate that a category represents too narrow a segment of the latent variable or corresponds to a concept that is poorly defined in the minds of the respondents” (linacre, 2002, p. 98). finally, outfit greater than 2 indicates more misinformation than information, thus the category introduces noise into the measurement process. unidimensionality the dimensionality of the data was investigated through different studies as suggested by linacre (1998). first, the items correlations with the total measures were calculated, followed by pca of the standardised residuals and an examination of the item fit statistics. reliability indices the person reliability is an indication of the precision of the scale by showing how well the instrument can distinguish individuals. it can be replaced by the person separation index which ranges from zero to infinity and indicates the spread of person measures in standard error units. finally the item reliability shows how well the items are discriminated by the sample of respondents. wright and masters (1982) make the point that good item separation is necessary for effective measurement. comparison of the mean measures of distinct groups for validation purposes in study 2, a group of 20 adult (12 males and 8 females, aged 23 to 75) depression patients from a psychiatric private practice were added to the group of randomly selected cypriots. the patients were considered to be poor sleepers and were used to investigate whether the modified scale would identify this distinct clinical group. clinical evaluations of the conditions of these subjects were carried out through a complete medical history and clinical interview by their personal psychiatrist, who is one of the researchers. taking into consideration these clinical findings, final diagnoses were made based on the dsm-iv criteria (american psychiatric association, 1994). the modified scale was administered to them by their psychiatrist, after the aim of the study was explained and their consent taken. the position of the depression patients on the quality of sleep continuum was estimated using the item estimates from the non-clinical sample calibrations. comparisons between the mean raw scores andmean raschmeasures of the two groups were then made through independent samples t-tests. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results from study 1: the original psqi-g in the first study, the original psqi was used. the scale was deemed not appropriate for the non-clinical sample for the following reasons: complicated scoring many different calculations are needed in order to derive the seven component scores. some components are described by one item and others by more. the most striking and problematic example is the score for the “sleep disturbances” component. the component score is calculated as the sum of responses to 9 items (with scores 0 to 3). the component score is then calculated as 0 if the sum of responses to all nine items is 0, 1 if sum = 1 – 9, 2 if sum = 10 – 18 and 3 if sum = 19 – 27. therefore, if in any two or three items a person responds with a 3 and in other items with a 0, then the sleep disturbances score is 1 and that indicates no serious disturbances problems. for example, if a person wakes up during the night three or more times a week because he/she cannot breathe comfortably and because he/she experiences pains and because he/she has to go to the toilet, then his/her score on sleep disturbances will be very low when in fact such a person would have serious sleep disturbances. non-uniform likert scale even though the 7 components do have a uniform likert scale (0 to 3), the individual items to which the persons respond do not. some items have a 4-point likert scale and some require a numerical response, such as: during the past month, what time have you usually gone to bed at night? during the past month, how long (in minutes) has it usually taken you to fall asleep each night? reliability indices the person reliability is low at 0.69 as is the person separation at 1.48. both indices suggest a less than desirable reliability for this scale. validity (unidimensionality and item fit) table 2 shows the results of pca of the standardised residuals. there is no strong indication of a second dimension in the data (eigenvalue of 2 which explains 7.5% of the variance in the data and 11.6% of the unexplained variance) and the dimension operationalized by the rasch model explains only 35.5% of the variance in the data. also the ratio of variance explained by the measures to the variance explained by the first component is 4.65:1. table 2 pca of the standardised residuals % of unexplained variance% of total varianceeigenvalue total raw variance in observations .0%100.326 raw variance explained by measures .5%35.39 raw variance explained by persons .6%21.75 raw variance explained by items .9%13.73 total raw unexplained variance .0%100.5%64.017 unexplained variance in 1st component .6%11.5%7.02 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 120 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the item calibrations revealed two noteworthy facts. six of the items were misfitting (infit and/or outfit values greater than 1.4) and these six items together with two more had point measure correlation well below 0.40 (0.27 – 0.35) and this perhaps explains why the dimension measured by the scale explains only 35.5% of the variance in the data as well as the low reliability. description of these 6 items is given in table 4 where the new modified scale is described. disordered categories table 3 shows the thresholds between the categories. the problem is that the thresholds are not monotonically increasing but rather they are disordered. all other criteria were met. table 3 category thresholds thresholdsbetween categories 0-1 .130 1-2 .06-0 2-3 .07-0 figure 1 shows the probability curves for the four categories and depicts the problem of disordered categories. categories 1 and 2 never peak (i.e. they are not the most probable responses at any range of person measures). figure 1. category probabilities. the figure suggests that the distinction between category 1 “less than once a week” and category 2 “once or twice a week” was not clear in the minds of the respondents. this suggests that these two categories should be collapsed into one category labeled, in the opinion of the researchers, “once or twice a week”. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 121 http://www.psychopen.eu/ poor targeting of items figure 2 shows the item-person map. the items are targeted at persons with higher measures. the easiest items are above the mean person measure and the most difficult ones more than two standard deviations above it. the item estimates vary from -0.84 to 1.37 and this is a range of 2.21 logits, not a very wide coverage of the variable of quality of sleep. this poor targeting contributed to the low degree of reliability of the scale. figure 2. person – item map. the modified scale the following modifications, as indicated by the original analyses, were made to the psqi-g. first the misfitting items of the psqi-g are shown in table 4 (all items refer to the last month): item q7 was the most difficult item and, being so far from the person locations, all responses greater than 0 were essentially contributing to its misfit. however, the researchers felt that taking medicine to help a person sleep is a strong indication of sleep problems and bad quality of sleep; consequently, this item was maintained into the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 122 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 misfitting items of the psqi-g descriptionoutfitinfitmeasureitem how often have you taken medicine to help you sleep?q7 .910.861.371 how often have you had trouble sleeping because you cough or snore loudly?q5e .581.431.6-0 how often have you had trouble staying awake while driving, eatingmeals or engaging in social activity? q8 .581.451.210 how often have you had trouble sleeping because of any other reason?q5ja .201.521.340 how often have you had trouble sleeping because you were feeling too hot?q5g .351.441.600 how often have you had trouble sleeping because you were feeling too cold?q5f .421.431.380 new scale. item 5e was also maintained because it was one of the easier items (in an attempt to improve the item targeting of the scale). infit was marginally above 1.4 and outfit was affected by few unexpected responses. item q8 was removed. item 5ja was improved by describing the other possible factors (thus combining three items of the original psqi-g into one again, in an attempt to make this specific item easier for better targeting of the items). the last two items 5g and 5f were combined into one item “during the past month, how often have you had difficulty sleeping because you were feeling too hot or too cold?” because, conceivably, it depends on the weather conditions. finally, the item “during the past month, if you have spent eight hours in bed at night how many of those were actually spent sleeping?” replaced the three items that were used to calculate “habitual sleep efficiency”. the three items were: item 1: during the past month, what time have you usually gone to bed at night? item 3: during the past month, what time have you usually gotten up in the morning? item 4: during the past month, how many hours of actual sleep did you get at night? in order to improve the targeting of the items, the researchers added a few more items which they believed would be easier to endorse. those were: item 12: during the past month, how often have you felt that you wanted to sleep for a few more minutes when you woke up in the morning? item 13: during the past month, how often have you felt that you have wanted to sleep for a while in the afternoon? item 14: during the past month, how often have you felt sleepy while watching television in the evening? item 15: during the past month, how often have you had difficulty getting up in the morning because you were still feeling tired? item 16: during the past month, how often have you felt sleepy straight after lunch? the above items were taken, and adapted for this specific sample, from the sleep scale from themedical outcomes study (randcorporation, 1986) and the sleep disorder interactive or sleepiness scale (sleep disorder interactive or sleepiness scale, n.d.). overall, 11 items were maintained from the original psqi-g, two were combined, and 6 new added giving an 18item modified scale. also analyses suggested collapsing categories 2 and 3 and the new modified scale had a 3point likert scale where 0 = “never”, 1 = “once or twice a week” and 2 = “more than twice a week”. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 123 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results from study 2: the modified scale first calibration the first analysis of the 18-item scale revealed two misfitting items. item 14 (measure -1.55, outfit 1.51) and item 12 (measure -1.27, outfit 1.46). both were rather easy items and had the lowest point measure correlations (0.30 and 0.39 respectively). the misfit on those items was mainly caused by quite a few unexpected 0s and 1s by those among the higher scorers. these items were removed also because the researchers felt that they are more related to tiredness during the day rather than bad quality of sleep. the final 16-item scale was analysed again (the 16-item scale is included in the appendix). second calibration – item fit analysis the first analyses of the new 16-item scale revealed one slightly misfitting item, item 16 with outfit of 1.47. however, when the three worse fitting persons (with outfit > 3.0) were removed, all items fitted the rasch model nicely. table 5 shows the item measures, infit and outfit mean square statistics and point measure correlations. the items are displayed in measure order from the most difficult to the easiest. there seems to be a good spread of items from -1.87 to 2.56 logits, covering a range of 4.43 logits. also, items exhibit a good fit to the model (infit and outfit values smaller than 1.4) and satisfactory point measure correlations (between 0.44 and 0.67). table 5 item statistics in measure order ptmeas. routfitinfitst. errormeasureraw scoreitems 2810 .520.700.231.210.562 557 .520.920.201.160.661 656 .620.620.041.150.421 1149 .670.670.760.120.510 1218 .560.021.960.120.400 12418 .670.710.660.120.360 1335 .600.021.081.120.230 1531 .540.281.121.120.05-0 15717 .610.790.720.120.10-0 16911 .610.790.780.110.26-0 2062 .550.041.021.110.73-0 2133 .590.920.061.110.82-0 21815 .470.251.161.110.88-0 2244 .530.171.181.110.96-0 26316 .440.381.241.120.47-1 29013 .470.281.131.130.87-1 mean .980.021.130.000.3158 st. dev. .220.190.030.131.172 dimensionality – pca of standardised residuals table 6 shows the results of pca of the standardised residuals. the variance explained by the measures is 47.2% and this is a significant improvement from the original psqi-g (35.5%). the eigenvalue of the variance explained by the first component is 2.3 (7.5% of the unexplained variance and 14.2% of the unexplained variance, approximately the strength of two items). the two items with the highest loadings on the first component (both 0.58) were europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 124 http://www.psychopen.eu/ items 13 and 16. finally, the ratio of variance explained by the measures to the variance explained by the first component is 6.2:1, which again is an improvement from 4.65:1 of the original psqi. table 6 pca of the standardised residuals % of unexplained variance% of total varianceeigenvalue total raw variance in observations .0%100.330 raw variance explained by measures .2%47.314 raw variance explained by persons .7%24.57 raw variance explained by items .5%22.86 total raw unexplained variance .0%100.8%52.016 unexplained variance in 1st component .2%14.5%7.32 both items 13 and 16 had a loading of 0.58 on the first component extracted. item 13 was “during the past month, how often have you felt that you have wanted to sleep for a while in the afternoon?” and item 16 “during the past month, how often have you felt sleepy straight after lunch?”. both items were easy (measures of -1.47 and -1.87 respectively) and refer to tiredness in the afternoon hours and this is probably why they were distinguished by the first component. figure 3. plot of person measures from two calibrations. to investigate further whether these two items indeed measure a different component (different than quality of sleep), the researchers estimated the person measures using two different sets of items. first, the full 16-item scale and then the 14-item scale, having removed items 13 and 16 were used. the plot of the person estimates from the two calibrations is shown in figure 3. the correlation between the two sets of person measures was 0.976. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 125 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the researchers decided to maintain the items in the scale for the following reasons. first, the points are very closely scattered to a straight line in figure 3, as also indicated by the very high correlation between the two sets of data. this means that maintaining the two items does not affect the validity of the person measures. second, the items have acceptable infit and outfit statistics. third, the researchers believe that afternoon sleepiness can be considered as an indication of bad quality of sleep and those two items are the only ones which refer to it. finally, the two items being the easiest, they improve the spread of items and coverage on the variable continuum and thus the item targeting and the reliability of the scale. reliability the reliability indices are a good improvement from the original psqi. the person reliability for the modified 16item scale is 0.84, the person separation 2.25. finally, the item reliability was 0.99, indicating that the items are discriminated very well by the sample of respondents. item targeting figure 4 shows the spread of items. figure 4. person – item map. thirteen out of the 16 items are well targeted at a range of one standard deviation below to one standard deviation above the person mean and this range corresponds to approximately the central 70% of the person abilities. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 126 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, more importantly, the item targeting is much better than the item targeting of the original psqi-g where there were no items below the person mean measure. in this case, six out of the 16 items are targeted at persons below the mean person ability (-0.58) starting with item 13 (-1.87) at 1.29 logits below the mean person ability. optimal number of categories figure 5 shows the probability curves for the three categories. it is clear that the thresholds are no longer disordered. each category peaks for a satisfactory range of values on the variable continuum. category 0 is the most probable for measures less than -0.68; category 1 for measures between -0.68 and 0.68, giving a range of 1.36 logits, close to the 1.4 minimum suggested by linacre (1999); finally category 2 was the most probable for persons with measures above 0.68. all other criteria for diagnosing the optimal number of categories have been met. figure 5. category probabilities. comparison of the mean scores and mean measures of two groups the responses of the depression patients were added to the 203 respondents of the non-clinical sample and person measures were estimated for all 223 people using the item estimates from the second and final calibration. then, both the mean person raw scores andmean person rasch measures were compared using the independent samples t-test. tables 7 and 8 show the results of the two t-tests. both tests show strong evidence of difference (p < 0.001 and p = 0.004 respectively) with the depression patients having significantly higher scores andmeasures, thus worse quality of sleep. table 7 comparisons of raw scores between the two samples p-valuedftsemmean scorensample 22-203non-clinical .0000.4840.7315 120depression .5843.9010.3521 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 127 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 comparisons of rasch measures between the two samples p-valuedftsemmean measurensample 22-203non-clinical .0040.0930.5840-0 120depression .9072.1610.29150 discussion the original psqi-g the aim of study 1 was to investigate the appropriateness of the psqi-g for a non-clinical cypriot sample, through an investigation of its psychometric properties. however, results suggested that it was not appropriate, for the following reasons. first, scoring of the scale was considered too complicated. second, even though the seven components were reported on a uniform 4-point likert scale, the 18 items that comprise those components were not. third, the categories of the 4-point likert scale were disordered, rendering it non-optimal. fourth, reliability indices were lower than desired (person reliability of 0.69 and separation of 1.48). fifth, unidimensionality of the scale was not very convincing and six items did not fit the rasch rsm well. finally, the item targeting was not very appropriate for this sample since the scale was designed for clinical samples and item estimates were all positioned above the mean person measure along the variable continuum and had a rather narrow spread of only 2.21 logits. this poor targeting of the items contributed to the low reliability indices and the poor fit of six of the items. the modified scale results of the first study suggested some modifications to the original scale. eleven items were maintained, two were combined into one and six new easier items were added in order to improve the targeting of the items. the likert scale was changed from a 4-point to a 3-point. the researchers cannot tell whether this change from a 4point to a 3-point rating scale was necessary as a result of possible semantic obstacles encountered through the translation, as suggested by sechrest, fay, and hafeez zaidi (1972), or due to problems with the original construction of the 4-point scale. this modified scale was administered to a second sample of cypriots. the first calibration revealed two misfitting items which were removed. thus, the final form of the modified scale contains 16 items. psychometric properties of the modified scale all the items fitted the rasch model very well (all items had infit and outfit mean square values below the critical value of 1.4). the items were approximately evenly spread along the linear continuum and had a spread of 4.43 logits, from -1.87 to 2.56. the item hierarchy created by the item calibrations forms a ladder with even steps of an average step length of 0.30 logits, with the easier to endorse items at the bottom and the harder to endorse at the top. furthermore, the highly satisfactory item reliability of 0.99 indicates a good separation of the 16 items along the variable they define. it is therefore safe to conclude that indeed the items are sufficiently spread to define distinct levels along the variable and they do define a linear continuum of increasing difficulty. the good targeting of the items, together with the good point measure correlations (all above 0.44) significantly improved the reliability of the scale (person reliability of 0.84 and separation of 2.25). the reliability indices reported europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 128 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this study are much higher than those by chien et al. (2008), who have also used rasch analyses for a revised psqi with only 9 items. the unidimensionality of the scale was substantiated by the good point measure correlations, by the good fit of the items to the model and by pca of the standardised residuals. the variance explained by the measures was above 47% of the total variance in the data, whereas the variance explained by the first component was 2.3 (7.5% of the total variance). to ensure that the first component did not describe a different dimension, the person measures were estimated twice. once, using all 16 items and, second, by excluding the two items with the highest loadings on the first component. both the plot of these two sets of person measures and the correlation (0.976) suggest that the two items can be maintained without threatening the validity of the person measures. therefore, strong evidence was collected supporting the hypothesis that the scale was unidimensional. finally, in an attempt to assess the strength of the scale to identify distinct groups of poor sleepers, the scale was also administered to 20 clinically diagnosed depression patients. the mean raw scores and the mean measures of the two groups, the non-clinical group and the depression patients, were then compared with the use of the ttest for independent samples. results showed that, indeed, the scale can discriminate between the two groups by identifying the poor sleepers with higher raw scores and rasch measures. concluding remarks the present studies were, as far as the researchers have been able to ascertain, the only attempt to assess the psychometric properties of the full 18-item psqi. results showed that this scale was not appropriate for a nonclinical sample of cypriots and the researchers proposed significant changes to the scale by removing a few items, adding others, and changing the 4-point to a 3-point likert scale, thus ending with a new, modified 16-item scale. this modified scale was shown to be unidimensional and to have a high degree of reliability. the items are well targeted for the range of person measures. they cover a wide range of the quality of sleep continuum (4.43 logits, from -1.87 to 2.56) and define a theoretical linear continuum of increasing difficulty. furthermore, the 3-point likert scale was shown to be optimal and the scale was found to be appropriate for a non-clinical cypriot sample. the aim of these studies was to devise a scale to measure the quality of sleep in non-clinical populations, primarily that of cyprus, although the researchers believe that the scale should be suitable for similar populations. such a scale could be used not just for research purposes in studies concerning quality of sleep (be they of an academic, medical or marketing nature), but also for initial evaluation in psychiatric practice. the scale could either be administered to an individual in order to assess his or her personal quality of sleep, or to a larger sample for research purposes. the style of the revised scale provides for simple completion as well as simple calculation of the total score, thus it is practical for all involved. finally, given also its psychometric properties, further validations are recommended in other languages too. possible limitations due to high costs, the sample used in study 2 for the evaluation of the psychometric properties of the new scale (n = 203) was smaller than the sample used in study 1 (n = 600) for the psqi. this smaller sample may not give such reliable results as the first sample. however, having in mind the strengths of the raschmodels, the researchers feel that the conclusions of this study can be considered reliable. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 129 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it should be emphasised that results of the first study rendered the psqi-g inappropriate for this specific nonclinical cypriot sample. however, they cannot rule out the fact that, given a clinical sample for which the psqi was designed, the psychometric properties could have been more favourable. the professionally translated and linguistically validated psqi-gwas used in order to minimise potential inaccuracies in translation, however the possibility of problems with the “equivalence in terms of experiences and concepts” (sechrest et al., 1972, p. 41) cannot be ruled out. it is suggested that further research with the use of this new scale be carried out on english speaking non-clinical samples for further evaluation of its psychometric properties in the original language of construction. funding this study was funded by gevorest ltd, a company of bedroom products in cyprus. competing interests marios gavrielides is owner and managing director of the funding company gevorest ltd. mikaella gavriilidou is currently employed at gevorest ltd. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank miranda jane walker for proof reading the 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(1982). rating scale analysis. chicago: mesa press. appendix scale for measuring quality of sleep instructions: the questions below relate to your sleep habits during the past month only. your responses should be as accurate as possible and representative of the majority of the days and nights during the past month. part a please respond to all the questions by circling the number which best corresponds to your case for each question. 0 = never during the past month. 1 = once or twice a week. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 133 http://www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/sleepdisorder.asp http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt34b.htm http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt103a.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/nur.4770100307 http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pms.1976.43.3.987 http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/114101/e84683.pdf http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt63f.htm http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83b.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2 = more than twice a week. 210during the past month, how often has it taken you longer than 30 minutes to get to sleep?1. 210during the past month, how often have you slept for less than 6 hours during the night?2. 210during the past month, how often have you woken up too early in the morning?3. 210during the past month, how often have you woken up in during the night?4. 210during the past month how often have you had difficulty sleeping because you have had to get up to use the bathroom? 5. 210during the past month how often have you had difficulty sleeping because you have had problems with your breathing? 6. 210during the past month, how often have you had difficulty sleeping because you were coughing or snoring loudly? 7. 210during the past month, how often have you had difficulty sleeping because you were feeling too hot or too cold?” 8. 210during the past month, how often have you had difficulty sleeping for some other reason (such as feeling pain, having bad dreams or any other reason)? 9. 210during the past month, how often have you taken medication to help you sleep?10. 210during the past month, how often have you had difficulty maintaining enough energy to keep up with your daily activities? 11. 210during the past month, how often have you felt that you have wanted to sleep for a while in the afternoon?12. 210during the past month, how often have you had difficulty getting up in the morning because you were still feeling tired? 13. 210during the past month, how often have you felt sleepy straight after lunch?14. part b please respond to the last two questions by circling the number that best corresponds to your case for each question. 0: more than 7 hoursduring the past month, if you have spent eight hours in bed at night how many of those were actually spent sleeping? 15. 1: 5 to 7 hours 2: fewer than 5 hours 0: goodduring the past month, how would you rate your sleep quality overall?16. 1: neither good nor bad 2: bad part c please underline accordingly. 2: female1: malegender: 6: 65+5: 55-644: 45-543: 35-442: 25-341: 18-24age: europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale 134 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors panayiotis panayides holds a bsc in statistics with mathematics (queen mary college, university of london), an msc in educational testing (middlesex university, uk) and a phd in educational measurement (university of durham, uk). he is currently an assistant headmaster and head of the mathematics department at the lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. his research interests include educational and psychological measurement and research into mathematics education. marios gavrielides holds a bsc in accounting and finance (deree college – athens) and a bsc in marketing (institute of marketing. london). he has worked for many years as a management consultant to some of the largest companies in cyprus. he is an accredited consultant by the institute of technology – cyprus and he has delivered numerous seminars approved by the cyprus authority of human resource development where he is an approved trainer. over the last few years he has been and still is the owner and managing director of gevorest ltd, a company of bedroom products in cyprus. his research interests include sleep habits, sleep problems and sleep products in general. christodoulos galatopoulos holds an m.d. (degree in medicine) from athens university medical school. he has worked in various nhs hospitals in the essex and birmingham areas of the uk and trained in general adult psychiatry. in 1987 he became a member of the royal college of psychiatrists (mrc psych). he is currently a consultant psychiatrist in the private sector in limassol, cyprus. mikaella gavriilidou holds a bsc in psychology (newcastle university upon tyne). she is currently employed at gevorest ltd, a company of bedroom products in cyprus. her research interests include child psychology, sleep disorders and sleep habits in both children and adults. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 113–135 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.552 panayides, gavrielides, galatopoulos et al. 135 http://www.psychopen.eu/ using rasch measurement to create a quality of sleep scale introduction the pittsburgh sleep quality index (psqi) studies on the validity and reliability of the psqi rasch measurement research objectives methodology selection of the rasch rating scale model (rsm) selection of the fit statistics critical values for the fit statistics rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of categories unidimensionality reliability indices comparison of the mean measures of distinct groups results from study 1: the original psqi-g complicated scoring non-uniform likert scale reliability indices validity (unidimensionality and item fit) disordered categories poor targeting of items the modified scale results from study 2: the modified scale first calibration second calibration – item fit analysis dimensionality – pca of standardised residuals reliability item targeting optimal number of categories comparison of the mean scores and mean measures of two groups discussion the original psqi-g the modified scale psychometric properties of the modified scale concluding remarks possible limitations funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix scale for measuring quality of sleep about the authors the role of psychology in human resources management talibova shelale rasim department: psychology azerbaijan university of languages abstract hrm can be considered to be responsibility of all those who manage people as well as a description of persons who are employed as specialists. it is that part of management that involves planning for human resource needs, including recruitment and selection, training and development. it also includes welfare and safety, wage and salary administration, collective bargaining and dealing with most aspects of industrial relations. the integration between the management of human resources and psychology is arguably the prime factor delineating hrm theory and practice from its more traditional personnel management origins. selection of the personnel has long been recognized as a key activity within hr and this article seeks to explore the extent to which its practice provides evidence of such strategic alignment. keywords: psychology, management, personnel selection, human resources, tests gilbreth (2005) gave the following definition of the psychology of management: the psychology of management means the effect of the mind that is directing work upon that work which is directed, and the effect of this undirected and directed work upon the mind of the worker. the emphasis in successful management lies on the man, not on the work. seyidov (2000) also defines the management and then shows the correlation between management and psychology. management – a science about coordination of resources of the organizations on reaching the planned purposes. there where a person exists, his psychological features that are reflected in his activity are always with him. studying the psychology of management, we study the psychology of the person, his activity and the most important thing – influence of the mentality of the person on activity and influence of activity on psychology and behavior of the person. the psychology of management is the branch of psychology studying mental features of the person and its behavior in the course of planning, organization, management and the control of joint activity. the human factor is considered as the central point in the psychology of management, as its essence and a core. being engaged in studying the person in the conditions of the concrete practical activities of psychology, managers constantly face the problems that need development both of the professional work, and of the person who carries it out. among this variety of problems, seyidov (2000) has given the greatest attention to four basic problems or fundamental questions of the psychology of management: motivation, leadership, interpersonal relations, selection of personnel. motivation – activity of the person, its formation in the process of its realization and satisfaction gained from the activity. leadership is one of the brightest and interesting phenomena arising in the course of group activity. the efficiency of any activity depends on its adequate understanding. according to nemov (1998) the leader – an authoritative member of a social group, whose power and privileges are admitted voluntarily by other participants of the group, ready to listen to him and follow him. interpersonal relations are a part of the human nature. it is shown in the form of internal requirement in communicating and establishing the interpersonal relations. selection of personnel – management and psychology most closely intertwine among themselves in a question on selection of personnel. the psychology of people as concrete participants in the process of management is on the foreground and allows us to speak about the high practical importance of psychological factors in management. if the psychological aspect of selection is guided by revealing of necessary characteristics, features, qualities and abilities of the person for successful performance of this or that professional work by means of psychological methods and techniques then selection from the point of view of management is a search and revealing of people by means of requirements of the professional work. it is necessary to combine inherently and to supplement mutually the two approaches set forth above to select the people for the purpose of the most adequate and productive use of the available human resources providing achievement of the planned purposes. storey’s (1992) findings that selection as a key, integrated task was evident in 80 per cent of the case companies investigated provide grounds for optimism. conversely wright and storey’s (1997) conclusion that despite a few reported exceptions traditional approaches to recruitment and selection continue to dominate practice presents an altogether more pessimistic picture. these apparent contradictions inevitably place a question mark over the extent to which strategic selection is really practiced by organizations. miles and snow (1984) and schuler and jackson (1987) were able to identify human resource (hr) practices, including selection, which were congruent with the different competitive strategies of defender, prospector and analyzer (miles and snow,1984), and cost reduction, innovation and quality enhancement (schuler and jackson,1987), and found evidence of such practice in case companies. at other times, evidence of strategic selection has emerged from studies investigating general developments in the hr practice. for example, from a comprehensive study investigating how the management of hr was developing in uk companies, storey (1992) was able to identify ‘selection’ as one of twenty-seven dimensions that could be used to differentiate hrm from more traditional personnel management and industrial relations practice. under hrm, selection was identified as an ‘integrated, key task’, whereas under the personnel and industrial relations banner it was seen as a ‘separate, marginal task’ (storey, 1992: 35). in his analysis of fifteen major case companies, storey (1992: 82) found evidence of integrated selection in 80 per cent of them. in a review of their own case study research, hendry, pettigrew and sparrow (1988) identified that strategic responses to changes in the business environment, such as restructuring, internationalization and total quality management, were leading to demands for new employee skills to support such moves. their delivery required a more strategic approach to selection. kydd and oppenheim (1990) studied four successful industry leaders with excellent track records of hrm practice and found that they were using recruitment and selection strategically to respond, albeit in different ways, to their particular labor market conditions to maintain their competitive position. elsewhere, case studies targeted specifically at selection have also provided evidence that the strategic variant is being practiced. in a study of chase manhattan bank, borucki and lafley (1984) demonstrated how selection practices were adapted over time to meet different strategic imperatives as they emerged. research by bowen et al. (1991:35) led them to develop an alternative model of selection with a strategic thrust based on “hiring for the organization and not the job” and illustrated how it was used by a manufacturing company to select employees into “its high-involvement organization”. in a detailed case study exploring the hr practices of a paper production plant, beaumont and hunter (1992) uncovered strong evidence that selection was being used strategically to bring about a more flexible workforce that was necessitated by the organization’s competitive strategy. although the evidence, based on these cases, of strategic selection being practiced is significant, there is equally a substantial literature base that raises doubts about how widespread this practice might be. for example, the conclusions of lundy and cowling (1996) and scholarios and lockyer (1996) point to selection being conducted in a much less strategic and sophisticated way. critical analysis the selection process is concerned with identifying, attracting and choosing suitable people to meet an organization’s human resource requirements. selection is essentially concerned with finding, assessing and engaging new employees or promoting existing ones. as such, its focus is on matching the capabilities and interests of prospective candidates with the demands and rewards of a given job. selection decisions are amongst the most important of all decisions that managers have to make because they are a prerequisite to the development of an effective workforce. selecting the right employees is important for three main reasons. first, your own performance always depends in part on your employees. subordinates with the right skills, knowledge and attributes will do a better job and the company. employees without these skills will not perform effectively, and your own performance and the firm’s will suffer. second, it is important because it’s costly to recruit and hire employees. third, it’s important because of the legal implications of incompetent hiring. various selection techniques are available, and a selection procedure will frequently involve the use of more than one. interviewing is universally popular as a selection tool. a single one-to-one interview may give way to a series of 1-to-1 interviews or interviews with many – the panel. we can analyze the interview in terms of how it is structured, the processes of interaction, the problems of interpersonal decision-making, the relationship between job-related questions and personal questions. the interview is an examination – a face-to-face encounter via which each side seeks to make a decision about the other. the employer is in the dominant position. even where the short-list is very short and the employer is desperate to fill the post – it is unlikely that an applicant perceived as being a rogue or maverick will be employed. the employer at all times will seek to protect their interests. the face-to-face selection interview is the traditional method – yet it is fraught with problems of subjectivity, interpersonal judgment, interpretation and miss-interpretation. why we still use interviews even though if they are so subjective and unreliable. 1. the interview plays key part in differentiating between candidates for the same job. 2. the interview serves the employing organization is a social entity. owners/members want to determine who they are going to be working with. selectors have positions of power within the organization. in their decisions they want to appoint the most competent person technically but not someone who will not “fit into the culture”. if the candidate will become a loyal contributor (according to their perception of what is important to the organization) the person choice itself may enhance the interviewer’s own status within the organization. 3. the interview – for candidates who are short-listed – provides a setting in which documented information, test measurements and interpersonal, social value-judgments are made. 4. factual information is exchanged and clarified by both sides at an interview e.g. what did the applicant decide on a specific career move, what expertise do they have on a given area and what is the evidence for this? 5. the interview brings together data from several sources – application forms or curriculum vitae, test results, job data. these can be assessed and intangibles – would this person fit into the team (given what we know of their expectations and behavior!). a social meeting is necessary. 6. applicants want to present themselves rather than be judged mechanically e.g. on the basis of a clinical test or form. so even though the interview is known to be unreliable – it still dominates and is unlikely to be abandoned. it is however now the subject of increasing external inspection by the courts. the selection process emerges as a matter for human rights. the managerial response is likely to be more defensive in terms of seeking to improve the processes which generate evidence that the selection decision was based upon job criteria and measurable tests may be designed or bought in to “measure/evaluate” a candidate’s knowledge or skills. the test may be specifically job related – a typing test or test for fork-lift truck driving, debugging a computer program or making a sales presentation. the test may be generic – knowledge of labor law or verbal/numeric comprehension and fluency (tests of cognitive ability). typing tests, spelling test, arithmetic test, bricklaying tests, fork-lift truck driving tests, the graduate employability test – these require the “subject” in a test situation (arguably realistic in terms of job similarity) demonstrating what he/she is supposed to know and can do. for the test to be valid the competences being tested must be required by the job/task. if not, then the results from the test may have nothing to do with job performance. the results are likely to be poor predictors – so why use the test? for employment test design, a very thorough job analysis is needed to establish the knowledge, skill level (mastery) and to elicit the contexts or environmental circumstances within which the job holders will perform with competence. >> will the employee be performing in a busy, noisy environment? >> will he/she be expected to perform speedily or under pressure? >> will they be carrying out a multitude of tasks at once? >> will there be supervision, advice and assistance? is there a high level of risk and initiative required? these and many other questions indicate that competence requires mastery. i can play a mozart piano sonata perhaps to royal college of music grade 2 standards but not to royal festival hall concert standards. thus for a typing test – we must define expected speed, error/time ratios. a typing test may test ability to layout a page. it may be extended to evaluate ability to use a range of word processing functions. of course such a requirement is likely to relate to the specific word processing software being used in the office. alternatively a more general test might be devised to test concepts of word processing and transferable skills. psychometric tests these include tests of cognitive ability (traits of general intelligence such as verbal, numerical and logical ability). they also extend to self-reporting tests (questionnaire inventories) about the candidate’s self-perceived behavior, personality, life/work orientations and value systems. completion of the application form and the interview are both tests. there are also group exercises which are used as tests. in addition to these devices there are hundreds of off-the-shelf tests on the market. a test is an instrument, designed to measure something. the “something” has to be measurable – either in a concrete sense (we can weight it!) or in a comparative sense – we can compare the results of individuals against the results of groups who have been measured using the same instrument and for whom “norms” exist. if we use tests there needs to be a clear correlation between possessing the quality being tested and subsequent success in learning and performance. an employer may devise a test or buy one in off-the-shelf. someone has to administer the test properly and have the ability to interpret the results. from a test’s results, the employer may judge that the applicant does not have the necessary qualities. however, if the test is unreliable or invalid, litigation may knock on the door. if the applicant is a woman or from – say – a minority group or is disabled then the employer is obliged (natural justice and statute) to offer evidence relating to how the conclusion about “unsuitability” was arrived at. references current or previous employers may be asked to give information on their knowledge of the candidate. references are usually thought on the latter stages of the selection cycle either immediately before the job offer is made or afterwards – the offer is made “subject to satisfactory references being received”. work experience can candidates be invited to do the advertised job for a short period? if they do a contract of employment relationship is formed. most employees are engaged on the basis that their first few weeks/months at work consist of a probationary period during which time their suitability is being assessed by their actual manager, peers and anyone else directly affected by their performance. in a sense a college leaver or someone else who starts on a training scheme or “work-fare” programmed is participating in a longer selection process. at the end of the probationary period – the employer makes a decision as to whether or not the job relationship is to continue. simulations these range from asking candidates to make a presentation on a subject to candidates meeting in a group to discuss a topic or resolve a problem (case study or simulation exercise involving planning, organizing, leadership, communication skills, analysis, synthesis, influencing etc). applicants may be presented with a situation that they might face if they got the job such as planning a conference, evaluating an organizational case study and making decisions. assessment centers (a group-focused, package/battery approach) several methods are combined into a program (e.g. interviews, ability and psychometric tests, presentations etc) for group of candidates who attend a centre (company training centre, hotel). some of the techniques involve candidates working/interacting in groups (discussion or management games/simulations) and their behaviors are recorded and evaluated by observers (trained?). candidates may spend one or more days together with their selector/observers – who meet to share observations and interpretations about candidates. biographical analysis analysis of the application form and the interview process in a broad sense involve biographical analysis. employers seeking to fill jobs involving considerable responsibility perhaps including a high security or risk element may wish to investigate the candidate more deeply. a security search may be involved – clearly issues about privacy are raised here. however on a milder footing, the biographical picture may be expanded by asking the candidate to complete a questionnaire which gathers further information about his/her life/career history. the questionnaire may capture further details on professional development and qualifications and explore more subjective areas such as preferences about the make-up of a job and developmental aspirations/opportunities. the questionnaire responses now have to be either analyzed or interpreted. validation, reliability and administrative costs now need to be questioned. bio-data methods are available in computerized forms which involve statistical correlations of job success with detailed biographical elements. hand-writing analysis the applicant’s hand-writing – shapes, angles, sweeps, emphasis, size – is analysed by experts. from this inferences are made about the candidate’s qualities very dubious in terms of validity and reliability – yet some practitioners sell the method. which employers use it or dabbled with its use? selection has long been seen as two of the activities of the hr function. however, increasingly organizations are choosing to involve other parties such as line managers or specialist agencies, or to outsource the activity altogether. employees can be involved at various stages in the selection process. the most popular level of involvement is to encourage existing employees to introduce candidates to the organization; almost half of respondents have either introduced or improved bounty payments to staff for introducing successful candidates. in one of the biggest companies of azerbaijan (nb group ojsc) i was involved into the project concerning organization of selecting staff. during my activity in that project i found out that a less common approach is to involve peers or team members in the selection of candidates. the first stage of selection consisted of a competency-based interview. to be successful at these stage candidates had to demonstrate an out going personality, a positive attitude to life, some knowledge of the company and enthusiasm to work there. those who successfully completed this interview were then invited to undertake a week on the-job experience at the company with the vacancy. candidates were required to work the same time as their future colleagues. an existing team members will be assigned to act as a guide and mentor for the day. team members assess each candidate on a number of competencies, including enthusiasm and ability to follow instructions, and then vote on whether or not they want to offer them a job. candidates were also interviewed by the company manager who does not get a vote but can lobby for or against someone. towards the end of the week the manager gathers team members’ votes and lets candidate know the outcome. in this work i have attempted to explore the literature and practice on the selection on hrm and also the help of psychological methods. it is notable that although the hrm concept has been around for two decades, the literature contains more questions than answers on both the practice and academic status of this field. correct selection is therefore of crucial importance. and correct selection must mean that both parties to the selection decision, e.g. interviewer and interviewee, are satisfied, in all circumstances, the right decision has been made. the candidate who has been subjected to a battery of tests, however thoroughly validated, will not necessarily feel this if he or she has never had a chance to talk to a member of the organization. similarly, the interviewer who has never met the candidate cannot be sure that the approved ingredients detected by the tests do really go to make up an acceptable whole whose appearance and impact on others match his / her test scores and whose tenacity and motivation augur well for success in the job. references beaumont, p.b. and hunter, l.c. (1992) “competitive strategy, flexibility and selection: the case of caledonian paper”, industrial relations journal,vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 222–8. bowen, d.e., ledford, g.e. and nathan, b.r. (1991) “hiring for the organisation not the job”, academy of management executive,vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 35–51. borucki, c.c. and lafley, a.f. (1984) “strategic staffing at chase manhattan bank”, in c.j. fombrun,n.m.tichy and m.a.devanna (eds) strategic human resource management,new york: john wiley, pp. 69–86. gilbreth l. m. (2005) the psychology of management; the function of the mind in determining, teaching and installing methods of least waste, pp. 1-21 hendry, c., pettigrew, a. and sparrow, p. (1988) “changing patterns of human resource management”, personnel management,november, pp. 37–41. kydd, c.t. and oppenheim, l. (1990) “using human resource management to enhance competitiveness: lessons from four excellent companies”, human resource management, summer,vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 145–66. lundy,o. and cowling,a. (1996) strategic human resource management, london: routledge. miles, r.e. and snow, c.c. (1984) “designing strategic human resource systems”, organizational dynamics, summer, pp. 36–52. nemov r.c. (1998) “practical psychology”, moscow: vlados. pp 278 schuler, r.s. and jackson, s.e. (1987) “linking competitive strategies with human resource management practices”, the academy of management executive,vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 207–19. scholarios, d. and lockyer, c. (1996) “human resource management and selection: better solutions or new dilemmas?”, in b. towers (ed.) the handbook of human resource management (2nd edn), oxford: blackwell, pp. 173–95. seyidov s.i. (2000) “psychology of management”, baku: chashioglu, pp.12-50 storey, j. (1992) developments in the management of human resources,oxford: blackwell. wright, m. and storey, j. (1997) “recruitment and selection”, in i. beardwell and l. holden (eds) human resource management:a contemporary perspective (2nd edn), london: pitman, pp. 210–76. biographical note born in nakhchivan city, the azerbaijan republic, the author has obtained her master degree in 2006 and is currently a postgraduate student at the azerbaijan university of languages in the department of psychology (social psychology branch). her scientific adviser is the rector of the azerbaijan university of languages, doctor of psychological sciences, prof. samed seyidov. correspondence address: talibova shelale rasim, department: psychology, azerbaijan university of languages, e-mail: shela357@yahoo.com the association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status research reports the association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status emily fritha, paul d. loprinzi* a [a] department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, oxford, ms, usa. abstract we evaluated the association between physical activity and cognitive function among a national sample of the broader u.s. adult population, with consideration by social risk. data from the 1999-2002 national health and nutrition examination survey (nhanes) were used to identify 2031 older adults, ages 60-85. social risk was classified by measuring four nhanes variables, namely poverty level, education, minority status, and social living status, which were graded on a scale of 0-4, with higher scores corresponding with higher social risk. the digit symbol substitution test (dsst) was used to assess cognitive function. physical activity was assessed via a validated self-report questionnaire. after adjustments, meeting physical activity guidelines (vs not) was associated with greater cognitive function (β = 3.0, 95% ci [1.5, 4.4], p < 0.001). in this same model, social risk status was also independently associated with cognitive function. meeting physical activity guidelines (vs. not) was not associated with higher cognitive function among those with a social risk score of of 3 (β = -0.01; 95% ci [-6.3, 6.4], p = 0.99) or a social risk score of 4 (β = -6.8, 95% ci [-15.7, 2.0], p = 0.12). in this national sample of older adults, meeting physical activity guidelines, and degree of social risk were independently associated with cognitive function. however, physical activity was not associated with cognitive function among older adults with the highest degree of social risk. keywords: education, elderly, executive function, exercise, poverty, minority status, stress europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 received: 2017-05-31. accepted: 2017-07-17. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of health, exercise science, and recreation management, 229 turner center, university, ms 38677, usa. phone: 662-915-5521. fax: 662-915-552. e-mail: pdloprin@olemiss.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. rarely does social risk emerge as the product of a single measure of poor health (adler, bush, & pantell, 2012; mcewen, 1998). social risk is an umbrella term often defined by poverty level, education, minority status, and social living status, which interact along a continuum that defines individual susceptibility to a myriad of hazardous health outcomes (caleyachetty et al., 2015; loprinzi & davis, 2016). thus, the weight of social risk on measurable health outcomes is a function of social class, socioeconomic status, opportunities for employment, access to healthcare, safe and sanitary environments, reliable transportation, resources to initiate and sustain exercise and healthy behavior, and positive social interactions (kuiper et al., 2015; sutin, stephan, carretta, & terracciano, 2015). in addition to poor health, social risk factors may be linked to reductions in normal cognitive function (lynch, kaplan, & shema, 1997; oakes, 1990; sutin et al., 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ disturbances in neuronal connections may be catalyzed by social inequality (meyer-lindenberg & tost, 2012). social inequality is an issue of modern relevance, as persistent racial tensions and class discrimination create significant division across and within societies worldwide (sutin et al., 2015). economic hardship has been shown to affect levels of depression, memory, and attentional focus among adults ages 45 and older (lynch et al., 1997). lack of positive social interactions are also associated with incident dementia in elderly individuals (kuiper et al., 2015). cognitive manifestations of class disparity have also been observed in younger populations; however, it is unclear if cognitive dysfunction is a result of stressors implicit in discrimination, or if opportunities for cognitive advancement are lacking for marginalized individuals of higher social risk (oakes, 1990). the harmful consequences of social exclusion on cognitive dysfunction have been compared to health risks associated with low-educational attainment, depression, and physical inactivity (kuiper et al., 2015). emotional processing, stress response, and salience are also negatively affected by rising social risk, and potentially contribute to symptoms of mental illness and reduced resiliency in combatting various stressors (meyer-lindenberg & tost, 2012). the protective effects of exercise adherence in attenuating maladaptive management of acute and long-term stress, have been well documented (jackson, 2013). the physiological basis of exercise-attenuated stress is influenced by hormonal changes, as well as neurotransmitter activity (jackson, 2013), including dopamine and serotonin action on cerebral structures; especially the brain’s limbic system, which attends to emotional processing of negative and positive stimuli (esch & stefano, 2010). moderate-intensity exercise is thought to induce a pleasurable, calming effect, promoting health and facilitating adequate stress management (esch & stefano, 2010; king, baumann, o’sullivan, wilcox, & castro, 2002). historically, exercise has been identified as a eu-stressor which may not only benefit physical wellness (jackson, 2013), but may also optimize cognition (davey, 1973) in older individuals. as social risk factors, such as economic hardship, are suggested to contribute to deleterious mental and physical functioning, and mortality risk (lynch, kaplan, & shema, 1997), physical activity may be critical in protecting against these adverse health outcomes. as noted previously, both physical activity and social risk may influence cognitive function, but to our knowledge, limited research has evaluated them collectively on cognitive function, and further, whether physical activity is still associated with higher cognitive function among those with worse social risk status. therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the potential for physical activity and social risk status to independently associate with cognitive function among an aging population. a subsequent aim of this study was to determine the relationship between physical activity status and cognitive performance among those with higher (worse) social risk scores; that is, whether social risk status moderates the association between physical activity and cognition. methods study design the 1999-2002 nhanes data was used. the nhanes is an ongoing survey conducted by the center for disease control and prevention designed to evaluate the health status of u.s. adults through a complex, multistage, stratified clustered probability design. further details of nhanes can be found elsewhere (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm). association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status 768 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants written informed consent was obtained from all participants. participants included 2,031 older adults (60-85 yrs) with complete data on the study variables. procedure self-reported physical activity, objectively-measured cognitive function, and self-reported social risk nhanes data (1999-2002) from 2,031 older adult participants ages (60-85) were assessed. these relationships were determined using multivariate linear regression techniques. physical activity as described elsewhere (loprinzi, 2015), participants were asked open-ended questions about participation in leisure-time physical activity over the past 30 days. data was coded into 48 activities, including 16 sportsrelated activities, 14 exercise-related activities, and 18 recreational-related activities. for each of the 48 activities where participants reported moderate or vigorous-intensity for the respective activity, they were asked to report the number of times they engaged in that activity over the past 30 days and the average duration they engaged in that activity. for each activity, metabolic equivalent of task (met)-min-month was calculated by multiplying the number of days, by the mean duration, by the respective met level (met-min-month = days*duration*met level). the met levels for each activity are provided elsewhere. participants engaging in 2000+ moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (mvpa) met-min-month were defined as meeting physical activity guidelines. as described elsewhere (loprinzi, 2015), this self-reported physical activity measure has demonstrated evidence of convergent validity by associating with accelerometer-assessed physical activity. cognitive function as describe elsewhere (frith, addoh, mann, windham, & loprinzi, 2017), the digit symbol substitution test (dsst) was used to assess cognitive function; only nhanes participants 65+ years of age were eligible for the dsst assessment. the dsst, a component of the wechsler adult intelligence test and a test of visuospatial and motor speed-of-processing, has a considerable executive function component and is frequently used as a sensitive measure of frontal lobe executive functions (parkin & java, 1999; vilkki & holst, 1991). the dsst was used to assess participant cognitive function tasks of pairing (each digit 1-9 has a symbol it is associated with) and free recall (allowing participants to draw more figures in the limited time due to remembering pairs). participants were asked to draw as many symbols as possible that were paired with numbers within 2 min. following the standard scoring method, one point is given for each correctly drawn and matched symbol, and one point is subtracted for each incorrectly drawn and matched symbol, with a maximum score of 133. social risk consistent with other studies (caleyachetty et al., 2015; loprinzi & davis, 2016), social risk was assessed from four nhanes variables, namely poverty level, education, minority status, and social living status. for poverty level, participants were dichotomized into being above or below the poverty level, with an income-to-poverty ratio of < 1 denoting below the poverty threshold. for education, participants were dichotomized as < 12th grade education or 12th grade or higher education. for minority status, participants were classified as either frith & loprinzi 769 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ non-hispanic white or other (mexican american, other hispanic, non-hispanic black, or other race). lastly, for social living status, participants were classified as married/living with a partner or other (widowed, divorced, separated or never married). based on these 4 social risk parameters, the possible range for this variable is 0-4; those with a social risk of “4” were below the poverty level, had < 12th grade education, were not a nonhispanic white, and were not married or living with a partner. thus, a higher social risk score indicates a worse social risk level. statistical analysis and covariates multivariable linear regression analysis was used to examine the association between meeting mvpa guidelines and cognitive function (outcome variable). analyses were computed separately across the social risk status levels and adjusted for the nhanes complex, multistage probability design. in all models, the following covariates were included: age (continuous; yrs), gender, physician-diagnosed hypertension (yes/no), a1c (continuous; %), energy intake (continuous; kcals), a1c (continuous; %); overweight (measured bmi ≥ 25 kg/m2 vs. a bmi < 25 kg/m2), and self-reported smoking status (current, former or never smoker). statistical significance was established as p < 0.05. results weighted characteristics of the study variables are shown in table 1. older adults with a higher social risk score engaged in less mvpa. the mean mvpa met-min-month among those with a social risk score of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, was 4555.8, 2816.5, 2352.6, 2739.8, and 1979.5. following this trend, the proportion of adults meeting mvpa guidelines across these respective social risk groups was: 49.2%, 32.2%, 25.5%, 18.9%, and 11.6%. table 1 weighted characteristics of the analyzed sample, 1999-2002 nhanes (n = 2031) variable point estimate (se) dsst, mean 47.7 (0.7) social risk score, % 0 44.3 1 33.1 2 14.0 3 6.4 4 2.2 age, mean years 69.9 (0.3) % female 54.4 % meeting mvpa guidelines 37.4 % overweight/obese 71.1 % physician-diagnosed hypertension 50.0 % smoker 12.4 energy intake, mean kcals 1790.9 (22.8) a1c, mean % 5.8 (0.02) note. a1c = glycosylated hemoglobin; dsst = digit symbol substitution test; mvpa = moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status 770 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a multivariable linear regression model adjusting for all covariates as well as social risk status, meeting physical activity guidelines (vs. not) was associated with greater cognitive function (β = 3.0, 95% ci [1.5, 4.4], p < 0.001). in this same model, social risk status was also independently associated with cognitive function, demonstrating a clear dose-response relationship; compared to those with a social risk score of 0, the adjusted β’s for those with a social risk score of 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, were -7.7 (95% ci [-9.6, -5.7], p < 0.001), -14.5 (95% ci [-16.8, -12.2], p < 0.001), -23.1 (95% ci [-25.8, -20.3], p < 0.001), and -31.0 (95% ci [-37.0, -24.9], p < 0.001). thus, this model demonstrates that greater mvpa participation is independently associated with greater cognitive function, and those with a higher (worse) social risk had lower cognitive function. additional analyses evaluated whether meeting physical activity guidelines was associated with cognitive function across the different social risk levels. notably, physical activity was only associated with better cognitive function among those with a lower (better) social risk score. after adjustments, meeting physical activity guidelines (vs. not) was associated with higher cognitive function among those with a social risk score of 0 (β = 2.1, 95% ci [0.13, 4.0], p = 0.03), a social risk score of 1 (β = 3.8, 95% ci [1.2, 6.4], p = 0.006), a social risk score of 2 (β = 5.1, 95% ci [2.0, 8.1], p = 0.002), but not among those with a social risk score of 3 (β = -0.01, 95% ci [-6.3, 6.4], p = 0.99) or a social risk score of 4 (β = -6.8, 95% ci [-15.7, 2.0], p = 0.12). discussion previous work has demonstrated the independent influences of physical activity and social risk on cognition function (loprinzi & davis, 2016; meyer-lindenberg & tost, 2012). specifically, poverty has been shown to corroborate reduced physical, psychological, and cognitive functioning (lynch, kaplan, & shema, 1997). to our knowledge, limited research has evaluated both their independent and combined associations in a single cohort, and further, limited research has evaluated the role of social risk as a moderator in the relationship between physical activity and cognitive function. this was the aim of our study. both physical activity and social risk were independently associated with cognitive function; although, within our sample, physical activity did not appear to be beneficially associated with cognitive function among those with a higher (worse) social risk score. this finding underscores the importance of tailored attention to individuals with a high social risk status (i.e., minority older adults, those living alone, those with less education, and those below the poverty level). as shown in the results, physical activity promotion among those with a higher social risk score may be particularly needed as those with the highest social risk score were the least active. increased levels of inactivity could explain the divergent results between elderly participants classified as scoring 0-2 on our index of social risk, compared to participants scoring higher. absence of an association between physical activity and cognitive function among those characterized as having higher social risk, strengthens our suggestion that physical activity promotion must target marginalized and underserved populations. although utilization of a cross-sectional design was appropriate for our analysis of this national sample, crosssectional and experimental research has provided convincing evidence on the neuroprotective benefits of physical activity on cognition (erickson, hillman, & kramer, 2015; lautenschlager et al., 2008). the breadth of these benefits is substantive, with improvements in late-life cognition spanning an array of cognitive domains (smith et al., 2010); particularly involving tests of executive function (colcombe & kramer, 2003). while future experimental research should aim to investigate the effects of physical activity on an array of cognitive tests, the dsst was an appropriate measure of executive function among individuals within this sample. brain frith & loprinzi 771 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ imaging highlights improvements in white matter integrity and gray matter volume in line with physical activity participation. specifically, the frontal cortex and hippocampus are gray matter structures subject to positive modifications in total volume as a result of regular exercise engagement (erickson, hillman, & kramer, 2015). brain imaging research also implicates stress as a catalyst for structural changes in cortical, limbic, and hippocampal structures (musazzi, treccani, & popoli, 2015). stress is a contributing factor to depression and anxiety disorders, which are prevalent among individuals with higher social risk (meyer-lindenberg & tost, 2012). morphological changes include dendritic atrophy and remodeling of neurons within the prefrontal cortex, which is a cognitive structure necessary for learning, working memory, and executive function (musazzi et al., 2015; stuss & knight, 2002). it may be impossible to accurately pinpoint stress levels that exceed abilities for successful coping and adaptation. however, the myriad of stressors described for those with elevated social risk, may exert a profoundly multiplicative impact on physical and mental fortitude in the older population. we must also consider the likelihood of reverse causation as a limitation of our study. our findings show an inverse association between physical activity levels and social risk across four nhanes variables. however, social risk may also be an antecedent to physical activity initiation and maintenance. minority adults may not feel comfortable engaging in physical activity if social isolation is a concern. cultural differences may also play a role in hedonistic and affective responses to physical activities characteristic of american societies. older adults, living alone, may lack sufficient self-efficacy related to physical activity, and may feel unsafe or insecure when attempting to be active in solitude. fall risk among elderly individuals is another concern that may influence the decisions of older adults to be physically active. barriers also include securing reliable transit to and from safe spaces for exercising, as well as the increased proportion of elderly men and women who do not live in close proximity to environments conducive to exercise (schutzer & graves, 2004). individuals subject to inadequate educational opportunities, are likely to receive a paucity of credible education on the benefits of physical activity and lifetime wellness. older adults with a lower socioeconomic status may also be less likely to have access to exercise facilities, or equipment, such as proper walking shoes. in conclusion, results of this study show an inverse relationship between physical activity participation and social risk. a significant linear association was also observed between cognitive dysfunction and social risk. participants who met mvpa guidelines were less likely to score higher (worse) across social risk variables, including poverty level, education, minority status, and social living status. however, the beneficence of physical activity does not appear to attenuate social risk among individuals with the highest social risk scores. therefore, physical activity is instrumental in preventative care. social risk scores are not static, meaning that the degree of social risk could potentially be augmented as a function of time spent facing a variety of stressors, specifically low socioeconomic status, opportunities for personal growth and societal inclusion, and access to resources for attaining healthcare and observing healthy behaviors. stress is thought to be a contributing factor to cognitive dysfunction among those with greater predicted social risk. understanding the deleterious association between excessive amounts of distress and neural remodeling is of critical importance for individuals, and professionals in the health industry. optimal education and strategies for stress management are necessary aims for maintenance of cognitive function, as well as learning to develop resilience despite adversities inherent to social risk. in a society where social classes are distinct and often pejorative, social risk will remain a public health concern. although equitable societal reform may be suggestive of an idealistic prospective, there is much that can be accomplished in the public health sector to increase opportunities for individuals to thrive. future research should examine independent effects of social risk within association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status 772 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the built environment on physical activity and cognition among older populations, as well as constructing experimental research designs to more comprehensively assess these multifaceted relationships. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adler, n., bush, n. r., & pantell, m. s. 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(2015). perceived discrimination and physical, cognitive, and emotional health in older adulthood. the american journal of geriatric psychiatry, 23(2), 171-179. doi:10.1016/j.jagp.2014.03.007 association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status 774 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2015.04.006 http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.300.9.1027 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.08.014 http://doi.org/10.1177/0890117116662943 http://doi.org/10.1056/nejm199712253372606 http://doi.org/10.1056/nejm199801153380307 http://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3083 http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2015.00060 https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/r3928.pdf http://doi.org/10.1037/0894-4105.13.4.539 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2004.04.003 http://doi.org/10.1097/psy.0b013e3181d14633 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2014.03.007 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vilkki, j., & holst, p. (1991). mental programming after frontal lobe lesions: results on digit symbol performance with selfselected goals. cortex, 27(2), 203-211. doi:10.1016/s0010-9452(13)80124-4 about the authors emily frith, m.s., is a phd student in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. paul loprinzi, ph.d., is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. frith & loprinzi 775 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 767–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1471 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ association between physical activity and cognitive function with considerations by social risk status (introduction) methods study design participants procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. bam2013 conference: managing to make a difference 10-12 september, 2013 liverpool, united kingdom the management of private and public institutions affects almost every aspect of our lives. however, narrowly defined conceptions of management place a premium on the rational pursuit of measurable, financial returns with limited amounts of regulation. consequently, the dysfunctional effects of mainstream management are ignored and innovative forms of economic activity undertaken in pursuit of broader social goals are neglected. private sector scandals in banking and the media as well as high-profile public sector failings in social services and hospitals have highlighted limitations associated with current management practices. members of the academy will be aware of the problems associated with a narrow focus on rational managerial solutions whether applied to research, teaching or engagement with business and other stakeholders. therefore, based on the theme of ‘managing to make a difference’ the bam community is invited to consider the wider implications of management. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the bam2013 conference with a range of sub-themes and a strong multi-disciplinary spirit provides an excellent opportunity to consider various facets of management beyond ‘manageable’ means-ends explanations. liverpool, ‘the original redbrick university’, makes a significant contribution to the changing fortunes of the city with 27,000 students and 5,000 staff including 1,400 academics and 800 researchers. the university of liverpool management school invites you to join an open and stimulating debate on the theme of ‘managing to make a difference’. management school staff are excited by the prospect of hosting the bam conference in 2013 and will ensure that it reflects the vibrancy, passion and good humour for which the city of liverpool is famous. visit the website for more information: http://www.bam.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?id=1161&reset=1 europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 global psypulse http://www.bam.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info?id=1161&reset=1 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dreams, phantasms and memories 19-20 september, 2013 gdańsk, poland there are a number of reasons why it is worthwhile to study dreams. this topic is currently an especially relevant and important one for two primary reasons. firstly, the current zeitgeist is one of rationality and pragmatism, almost exclusively oriented towards measurable profit, tangible effect and spectacular success. as a result, phenomena such as dreams, fancies, secret fantasies, and remnants of memories are often neglected. secondly, in the light of postmodern suspicions which question any permanent foundations of existence, truth, memory and identity, and in a situation where our whole reality reveals a distinctly phantasmatic character, a temptation arises to treat the realm of dream and imagination as especially distinguished – as the most important way of “being-in-theworld”, or perhaps even the only one which we can access. our conference will encompass the problem areas of dream, imagination and memory in their broad contexts. we invite researchers representing various academic disciplines: psychoanalysis, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, neurophysiology, history of literature, theatre studies, film studies, consciousness studies, memory studies, gender studies, postcolonial studies, animal studies et al. this conference welcomes both experienced representatives of dream studies and those scholars who have not yet researched dreams but share our conviction about their significance. we look forward to receiving closely focused paper proposals (e.g. “dreams of the homeless”), as well as synthesising ones (e.g. “modern philosophy in relation to dream and imagination”). we will be happy to hear from both experienced scholars and young academics at the start of their careers, as well as undergraduate and graduate students. we also invite all persons interested in participating in the conference as listeners, without presenting their papers. we hope that due to its interdisciplinary nature, the conference will bring many interesting observations on and discussions about the role of dream, memory and imagination in the present-day world. visit the website for more information: http://www.dreams-phantasms.ug.edu.pl/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 glăveanu http://www.dreams-phantasms.ug.edu.pl/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the first international conference on the science of creative thinking 29 september – 1 october, 2013 bologna, italy the marconi institute for creativity (mic) is pleased to announce the launch of the 1st mic conference dedicated to the science of creative thinking, to be held in 2013 from sep 29 to oct 1 in bologna. the event will be held in conjunction with the celebration for the marconi prize 2013, the top international award for inventors in the field of information and communication technologies, promoted by the marconi society. visit the website for more information: http://www.mic-conference.org/welcome-mic-conference-2013-website europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 global psypulse http://www.mic-conference.org/welcome-mic-conference-2013-website http://www.psychopen.eu/ 4th international conference on education & educational psychology 2-5 october, 2013 antalya, turkey iceepsy 2013 has every potential to build on the successes of its three predecessors. iceepsy 2011 has attracted over 370 presentations from 45 countries, and iceepsy 2012 has advanced even that with over 450 registered participants from 57 countries. the iceepsy 2013 scientific committee and board of reviewers are working hard to ensure that the quality of this event exceeds any precedent. iceepsy 2013 especially welcomes papers from the following and related topics: assessment and evaluation, teacher education, basic education, basic skills; counselling psychology; adolescent growth and development, educational psychology; continuing education, higher education, quality assurance / institutional effectiveness; learning theories, effective teaching practices, second language teaching; new approaches in psychology; special education, education and technology, ict, distance learning. the quality of iceepsy 2013 is further accentuated by its internationally renowned keynote speakers. iceepsy 2013 will, in addition, feature a range of interesting workshops as well as a special international roundtable for participants to engage in additional discussions related to the key topics addressed at the conference and further cross-fertilisation across thematic sections. visit the website for more information: http://www.iceepsy.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 glăveanu http://www.iceepsy.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ global symposium for psychology professionals 11-12 october, 2013 riverside, california, usa we would like to extend our warmest invitation to you to participate in the global psychology symposium. the theme of the symposium is psychology and global health, changing times, changing practice. psychology professionals play a pivotal role in the promotion, maintenance and restoration of mental health on a global scale. there is a global trend of shifting the focus of mental healthcare services from traditional settings to community based and family focused practice. psychology professionals are increasingly called upon to respond to the needs of society and individuals in crisis, war, famine, economic turmoil, crime, murder, abuse, loneliness, and despair. the symposium will provide a valuable opportunity for psychology professionals from different cultural backgrounds and diverse fields to explore the global impact of psychology as a field of practice on community and individual mental health care. an international perspective will be used to promote the generation and implementation of evidence based practice. through sharing and exchange of information on the latest developments in the disciplines among experts from across the globe, the conference will contribute to formulating global and regional strategies in advancing psychology. visit the website for more information: http://www.uofriverside.com/psychconference.html europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 global psypulse http://www.uofriverside.com/psychconference.html http://www.psychopen.eu/ advances in anger management and domestic violence 24-25 october, 2013 liverpool, united kingdom the nama fall conference will be held at the university of arizona, student union memorial center, south ballroom, on october 24 & 25, 2013 9 am to 4:30 pm both days, in beautiful tucson az. you are invited to network with your colleagues, as you learn from preeminent leaders in the anger management and domestic violence field. there is something for every professional with ceus available from nasw, nbcc, naadac, ca-bbs, iaodapca, and nama. discover state-of-the-art treatments and evolving research as you earn continuing education credits during tucson’s most beautiful season. the nama fall anger management and domestic violence conference is the premier educational and networking event in 2013. this conference is open to everyone interested in new evidence and clinically based skills, concepts, and techniques for anger management and domestic violence. visit the website for more information: http://namass.org/conference2013.htm europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 glăveanu http://namass.org/conference2013.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ international psychology conference dubai 1-2 november, 2013 dubai, united arab emirates the international psychology conference, dubai offers a great opportunity to continue your professional development in this evolving field. its mission is to become a forum where practitioners and applied professionals can meet to exchange ideas and discuss current hot topics in this discipline. the conference will provide a range of learning opportunities, enable professional networking and facilitate new ways of thinking in psychology. as psychology is such a broad field, we will stream into three key areas: clinical psychology business/occupational psychology psychology in the wider context we encourage a broad range of professionals to attend this non-profit, practitioner led event. unlike other events held locally, the ipcd will take a uniquely psychological perspective on the listed themes. the event therefore provides one of the only specialized development opportunities for psychologists in the region. furthermore, it enables allied professionals and the general public to learn more about relevant issues from the professional psychology viewpoint. visit the website for more information: http://www.psych-me.com/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 global psypulse http://www.psych-me.com/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2013 2nd international conference on ethics in human research 18-19 november, 2013 london, united kingdom welcome to the official website of 2013 2nd international conference on ethics in human research icehr2013 will be held during november 18-19, 2013, in london, uk. icehr 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of ethics in human research, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. the conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in ethics in human research and related areas. all papers for the icehr2013 will be published in the ipedr (issn: 2010-4626) as one volume, and will be included in the engineering & technology digital library, and indexed by ebsco,worldcat, google scholar, cnki, ulrich's periodicals directory, cross ref and sent to be reviewed by isi proceedings. one best paper will be selected from each oral session. the certificate will be awarded in the welcome banquet on november 19, 2013. visit the website for more information: http://www.icehr.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 glăveanu http://www.icehr.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ third annual international research-to-practice conference «early childhood care and education» 21-23 november, 2013 moscow, russian federation the third annual international research-to-practice conference «early childhood care and education» will be held during 21-23 november at the russian presidential academy of national economy and public administration (moscow, russia). who is invited: teachers, psychologists, social workers, policy makers as well as other specialists and students, who are interested in early years education and care. in 2013 the annual international research-to-practice conference «early childhood care and education» will be held for the third time. this conference has already become one of the major events for the professionals working in this field. main aims of the conference are: bringing the major issues of the early education and the prospects for further research in this field up for discussion, showcasing the latest studies in early education, enhancing collaboration and network cooperation, as well as the use of information and communication technologies (ict) in the field of early education. visit the website for more information: http://en.ecceconference.com/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 global psypulse http://en.ecceconference.com/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2013 international conference on behavioral and educational psychology 25-26 november, 2013 bangkok, thailand welcome to the official website of the 2013 international conference on behavioral and educational psychologyicbep 2013, will be held during november 25-26, 2013, in bangkok, thailand. icbep 2013, aims to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results about all aspects of behavioral and educational psychology, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted. the conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in behavioral and educational psychology and related areas. all papers for the icbep 2013 will be published in the ijiet (issn: 2010-3689) as one volume, and will be included in the engineering & technology digital library, and indexed by electronic journals digital library, ebsco, worldcat, google scholar, ulrich's periodicals directory, cross ref and sent to be reviewed by isi proceedings. one best paper will be selected from each oral session. the certificate will be awarded in the welcome banquet on november 26, 2013. visit the website for more information: http://www.icbep.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3) doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.667 glăveanu http://www.icbep.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ global psypulse bam2013 conference: managing to make a difference dreams, phantasms and memories the first international conference on the science of creative thinking 4th international conference on education & educational psychology global symposium for psychology professionals advances in anger management and domestic violence international psychology conference dubai 2013 2nd international conference on ethics in human research third annual international research-to-practice conference «early childhood care and education» 2013 international conference on behavioral and educational psychology humorous coping and serious reappraisal: short-term and longer-term effects research reports humorous coping and serious reappraisal: short-term and longer-term effects andrea c. samson*a, alana l. glasscoa, ihno a. leea, james j. grossa [a] department of psychology, stanford university, stanford, ca, usa. abstract the management of unhelpful negative emotions has been addressed by two literatures, one focused on coping via humor, and the other focused on emotion regulation. in the present study, we directly compared humorous coping with conventional (serious) reappraisal. we expected humorous coping to be more effective than serious reappraisal in the short and longer term. fifty-seven participants used either humorous coping, serious reappraisal, or attended naturally while viewing negative pictures and then rated their positive and negative emotional responses. one week later, participants viewed and rated the pictures again. in the short-term, while humorous coping was more difficult than serious reappraisal, it was more effective in down-regulating negative and up-regulating positive emotions. in the longer-term, both strategies had beneficial effects on positive emotions while humorous coping was more beneficial than serious reappraisal in down-regulating negative emotions. this is the first study that empirically shows short and longer-term beneficial effects of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal in the context of emotions elicited by negative stimuli. keywords: emotion, emotion regulation, humor, coping, reappraisal europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 received: 2013-12-13. accepted: 2014-03-14. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, stanford university, 450 serra mall, bldg 420, stanford, ca 94305, united states. e-mail: andrea.samson@stanford.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. when unhelpful negative emotions arise, what should be done? this question has been addressed by two rich, and mostly separate, research literatures. the first is focused on humor, which has been described as an effective coping strategy for dealing with negative life circumstances (e.g., freud, 1928; lefcourt & martin, 1986; martin & lefcourt, 1983; vaillant, 2000). the second is focused on emotion regulation, which has been described as an effective means of down-regulating negative emotions (e.g., gross, 1998, 2007). humor has long been seen as an adaptive response to adversity and difficult life circumstances (herth, 1990; samson & gross, 2014; sanders, 2004) and can be seen as a buffer against negative effects of stress and as a means of dealing with negative situations in an adaptive way (abel, 2002). anecdotal evidence suggests that humor can be a beneficial coping mechanism during war (ford & spaulding, 1973; henman, 2001) and even in concentration camps (ostrower, 2000). consistent with these claims, there is emerging empirical evidence that humor moderates stress responses and helps people deal with negative experiences (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993; kuiper, mckenzie, & belanger, 1995). furthermore, the impact of humor on the recovery from negative europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions has been examined in the context of a self-threat paradigm (geisler & weber, 2010) and recent studies have shown that distraction may serve as one mechanism by which humor can attenuate negative emotions (strick, holland, van baaren, & van knippenberg, 2009a). emotion regulation refers to processes that influence which emotions people have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions (gross, 1998). one particularly effective form of emotion regulation is cognitive reappraisal, which refers to changing the meaning of an emotion-eliciting situation so as to change its emotional impact. cognitive reappraisal has been shown to decrease negative emotion both in the moment (e.g., thiruchselvam, blechert, sheppes, rydstrom, & gross, 2011) and after brief delays (macnamara, ochsner, & hajcak, 2011; thiruchselvam et al., 2011). in the present study, we were interested in directly linking these two literatures in an experimental paradigm that focused on short and longer-term effects. more specifically, we aimed to compare the effects of humorous coping and serious reappraisal on negative and positive emotion. while serious reappraisal works to down-regulate negative emotions, humor is a means to evoke positive emotions.we hypothesized that in the short-term, humorous coping would lead to greater increases in positive emotion and decreases in negative emotion than serious reappraisal. our expectation was that both strategies would share the underlying process of reframing the meaning of a situation. however, in humorous coping, we expected this change of perspective to be more dramatic, due to the absurd and often incongruent elements that are inherent to humor. this might enable a person to distance him or herself more from a negative event. in addition, the positive emotions in the humorous condition may help to down-regulate negative emotions even more effectively than serious reappraisal. this aligns with the findings that positive emotions have the power to “undo” negative emotions (fredrickson, 1998; fredrickson & levenson, 1998; fredrickson, mancuso, branigan, & tugade, 2000). in addition, we expect these effects to persist over time and therefore hypothesize that humorous coping, compared to serious reappraisal, would lead to greater increases in positive emotion and greater decreases in negative emotion in the longer-term. method participants sixty-one participants were recruited from two west coast universities. after excluding four participants (three were unable to use at least one of the strategies, and one participant did not complete part two of the study), the final sample consisted of 57 participants (38.6% male, mean age: 19.70 years, sd = 2.38). fifty-three percent of the participants described themselves as caucasian, 22.8% asian/asian-american, 8.8% african-american, 5.3% hispanic, 1.8% arabic, 1.8% native american, and 7.0% declined to answer. participants were compensated with two credits toward their course participation, and written informed consent was obtained prior to the experiment. procedure participants were extensively instructed in the use of humorous coping and serious reappraisal prior to the task, and there were four practice trials before the start of the task. in order to facilitate the generation of humorous coping and serious reappraisals during practice, examples were provided. one humorous coping practice trial consisted of a picture of a man with stitches on his forehead. an example of humorous coping was: “now he has a great zombie costume for halloween.” one serious reappraisal practice trial consisted of a picture of veterinarians conducting surgery on a dog. an example of serious reappraisal was: “maybe the dog was sick, but now he’s being treated and he’ll be better soon.” europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 humor and reappraisal 572 http://www.psychopen.eu/ each participant saw 80 pictures from the international affective picture system (iaps, lang, bradley, & cuthbert, 1995): 64 negative (valence: m = 2.60, sd =1.54; arousal: m = 5.55, sd = 2.18; prototypical examples: men with weapons, sick people in hospitals, injured animals or people, piles of garbage in nature, crashed cars or airplanes) and 16 neutral (valence:m = 5.35, sd = 1.32; arousal:m = 3.65, sd = 1.95; prototypical examples: commonplace objects such spoons or a chessboard). the pictures were presented in two humor and two serious blocks (with 20 pictures per block), which were alternated. half of the participants started with a humor block. the pictures were randomized to each block and each condition. each block consisted of 8 humorous coping or serious reappraisal trials, 8 “watch negative” trials, and 4 “watch neutral” trials, during which participants responded naturally, i.e., let their emotions occur freely without any attempt to regulate them. trial order was randomized. the structure of each trial was as follows. after an instruction slide (4 seconds), each picture was presented on the screen (10 seconds). after each coping/reappraisal trial, the participant was asked whether they were able to successfully generate the target response (“yes,” “sort of,” “no”). trials in which participants indicated they were not able to generate a response (“no” response) were excluded from analysis (15.95% were excluded). the participant was then instructed to type out their humorous coping response or serious reappraisal, or to explain why it was difficult in case they did not come up with a humorous coping response or serious reappraisal. they then rated how difficult it was and how negative and positive they felt, each on a scale from 1 (“not at all”) to 9 (“very much”). at the end of each block, participants completed a short verbal fluency task to assess cognitive flexibility, which is not relevant here. one week later, participants received an email with a link to an online survey in which they were asked to rate their positive and negative emotional responses to the same pictures. analytic strategy we utilized a multilevel modeling (mlm) approach to test the main effects of condition and block type, as well as the condition × block type interaction. as an alternative to anovamodels, mlm is often better suited for analyzing data from repeatedmeasures designs as it is robust to violations of homoscedasticity and sphericity, accommodates missing data (i.e., no listwise deletion), and is applicable for data with multiple levels of nesting (hoffman & rovine, 2007; maas & snijders, 2003). furthermore, mlm has been shown to be more powerful compared to anova models implementing corrections for sphericity violations (quené & van den bergh, 2004). preliminary analyses (i.e., mauchly’s test) indicated that sphericity was violated across the levels of condition (regulate, watch negative, watch neutral) on all outcomes: short-term positive, χ2(2) = 7.32, p < .05, and negative emotion, χ2(2) = 13.16, p < .01, long-term positive, χ2(2) = 72.44, p < .01, and negative emotion, χ2(2) = 47.65, p < .01. model specifications were as follows: (1) condition (regulate, watch negative, watch neutral), block type (humor or serious), and the interactions of dummy coded condition × block type (regulate× humor; watch negative × humori) were included as fixed effects. (2) random slopes were specified to allow for individual variation by condition and type; this specification accommodates violations of sphericity and homoscedasticity. (3) subject, block, and trial, were included as random effects. picture stimuli and regulation blocks were fully crossed with individuals (i.e., every individual views every picture in every block), thus random subject, block, and item variability are treated as crossed at the same level (vs. nested). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 samson, glassco, lee et al. 573 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this model was run four times to test the effects of condition and block regulation type on each of four outcomes: short-term positive emotion, short-term negative emotion, long-term positive emotion, and long-term negative emotion. all analyses were conducted using sas proc mixed. results preliminary analyses humorous coping was rated as more difficult (m = 3.80, sd = 1.23) than serious reappraisal (m = 3.43, sd = 1.17), t(56) = 3.72, p < .001. consistent with these ratings, participants were less often able to successfully regulate responses to the picture in the humorous condition (m = 58.7%, sd = 21.21) than in the serious condition (m = 70.8%, sd = 16.18), t(56) = -4.77, p < .001. participants were “somewhat” successful more frequently in the humorous (m = 20.9%, sd = 14.12) than in the serious condition (m = 17.5%, sd = 12.28), t(56)= 2.01, p < .05, and were more often unsuccessful in using humorous coping (m = 20.3%, sd = 16.16) compared to serious reappraisal (m = 11.6%, sd = 11.03), t(56) = 4.51, p < .001. short-term effects of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal for negative emotion, the effect of block type differed by condition (γ = -0.38, se = 0.12, p < .01). in the regulation condition, humorous coping (m = 3.62, sd = 0.18) resulted in less negative emotion than serious reappraisal (m = 4.25, sd = 0.18), t(157) = -6.85, p < .01; see figure 1. as expected, no effect of block type (humorous/serious) on negative emotion was observed within the ‘watch negative’, t(126) = -0.98, p = .33, and ‘watch neutral’, t(303) = -1.29, p = .20, conditions. all estimates are reported in table 1. for positive emotion, the effect of regulation type also differed by condition (γ = 0.32, se = 0.12, p < .01). in the regulation condition, humorous coping (m = 3.92, sd = 0.19) resulted in greater positive emotion compared to serious reappraisal (m = 3.55, sd = 0.19), t(173) = 4.23, p < .01; see figure 1. similarly, no effect of reappraisal type on positive emotion was observed within the ‘watch negative’, t(135) = -0.44, p = .66, and ‘watch neutral’, t(343) = 0.46, p = .64, conditions. the effects of block type and condition varied across individuals for both positive and negative emotion (ps < .05; see slope variances in table 1), indicating that the equal variances assumption was not tenable for short-term ratings. longer-term effects of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal for longer-term negative emotion, the effect of block type differed by condition (γ = -0.33, se = 0.11, p < .01). in the regulation condition, humorous coping (m = 4.48, sd = 0.21) resulted in less negative emotion compared to serious reappraisal (m = 4.80, sd = 0.21), t(157) = -4.53, p < .01; see figure 1. no effect of block type on negative emotion was observed within the ‘watch negative’, t(126) = -0.01, p = .99, and ‘watch neutral’, t(303) = 0.07, p = .94. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 humor and reappraisal 574 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. short-term and longer-term emotional effects of humorous coping and serious reappraisal. note.means of positive and negative emotions by block type (humorous coping and serious reappraisal) and condition (watch neutral, watch negative, regulate); short-term effects on a) negative emotion and b) positive emotion, longer-term effects on c) negative emotion and d) positive emotion. *p < .01. for long-term positive emotion, the effect of block type did not differ by condition (ps > .05). however, main effects of condition were observed (see figure 1); participants reported less positive emotion in the ‘watch negative’ (m = 2.06, sd = 0.12; γ = -1.64, se = 0.22, p < .01) and ‘regulate’ (m = 2.52, sd = 0.13; γ = -1.26, se = 0.22, p < .01) conditions, compared to the ‘watch neutral’ condition (m = 3.70, sd = 0.24). in addition, positive emotion was lower in ‘watch negative’ condition compared to the regulate condition, t(79) = -5.41, p < .01. significant variability was observed for the regulate condition for both positive and negative emotion (ps < .05). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 samson, glassco, lee et al. 575 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 multilevel model parameter estimates for short-term and longer-term emotion outcomes longer-termshort-term positive emotionnegative emotionpositive emotionnegative emotion seestimateseestimateseestimateseestimateparameter fixed effects intercept .240.69**3.320.30**2.230.58**4.180.02**2 block (humor) .080.020.090.010.100.050.110.25*-0 condition watch negative .220.64**-1.260.82**2.190.06**-2.240.45**3 regulate .220.26**-1.260.51**2.210.03**-1.210.23**2 humor × watch neg. .100.01-0.110.01-0.110.08-0.110.160 humor × regulate .100.160.110.33**-0.120.32**0.120.38**-0 random effects intercepts subject .140.74**0.460.35**2.210.94**0.110.38**0 block .000.000.000.000.010.010.000.000 picture .020.07**0.070.34**0.030.14**0.060.35**0 residual .030.41**1.040.78**1.040.84**1.040.88**1 slopes block (humor) .010.000.000.000.020.07**0.030.09**0 watch negative .000.000.070.080.110.19*0.340.45**1 regulate .050.15**0.070.13*0.140.46**0.220.83**0 model fit 13,98215,10015,25515,432aic 13,95615,07415,22715,406bic note.unstandardized estimates are displayed. aic = akaike information criterion. bic = bayesian information criterion. aic and bic statistics assess model fit relative to degrees of freedom, where smaller values indicate a better-fitting model. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion to our knowledge, this is the first study to explicitly bridge the humorous coping and emotion regulation literatures by directly contrasting humorous coping and serious reappraisals in an experimental paradigm. our findings indicate that humorous coping was more difficult and less often successful than serious reappraisal. however, when successful, it was the more effective strategy to down-regulate negative and up-regulate positive emotions in the short-term, and to down-regulate negative emotions in the long-term. our finding that humorous coping led to greater increases in positive emotions and greater decreases in negative emotions in the short-term might be due to several factors. one is the dramatic perspective change associated with humor (see also samson & gross, 2014). more dramatic perspective change on a negative event might help to create greater emotional distance (see also keltner & bonnano, 1997) and result in more effective emotion regulation. in addition, the “out of the box” thinking associated with humor might lead to a stronger increase in positive emotions. this might be facilitated by the absurd elements and incongruity-resolution processes inherent to humor (e.g., suls, 1972). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 humor and reappraisal 576 http://www.psychopen.eu/ second, greater cognitive effort may have been required to generate the humorous coping response than the serious reappraisal. if so, it’s possible that the greater effort might have been associated with greater distraction from the negative content of the stimulus than simply generating a serious reappraisal, in line with previous research (e.g., strick et al., 2009a). third, the positive emotions elicited by a joke may “undo” negative emotions (e.g., fredrickson, 1998; fredrickson & levenson, 1998; fredrickson et al., 2000). besides the positive emotions directly elicited by the humorous coping, additional positive emotions might even have been elicited by the success of coming up with a humorous statement. previous studies have shown that there may be significant differences between reappraisals that aim to reduce or increase one emotion (quantitative change) in contrast to reappraisals that replace an emotion with another one (qualitative change; see mcrae, ciesielski, & gross, 2012). in order to clarify the underlying mechanisms that are decisive for the stronger regulatory effect of humorous coping vs. serious reappraisal, future studies might benefit from analyzing additional emotion reappraisal strategies that are either matched to humorous coping in cognitive effort/difficulty and/or the amount of positive emotions that are elicited. this might help to disentangle the consequences of cognitive processes (e.g., humorous perspective change) and positive affect (e.g., mirth) on regulating emotions. a positive reappraisal condition is required that is equally positive and difficult, without being humorous, in order to understand the unique effects of the humorous component. previous research has already examined different types of reappraisals which may be good candidates, such as detached and positive reappraisal (shiota & levenson, 2012). interestingly, we found stronger long-term effects of humorous coping in contrast to serious reappraisal only in negative, but not positive emotions. this speaks for a rather transient effect of humor on positive emotions (i.e., a humorous remark is able to lift positive emotions in the moment itself), however, after some time passed, this joke does not evoke the same amount of positive emotions. for the success of dealing with negative stimuli, the decrease of negative emotions in the long term might be more crucial than the increase of positive emotions, which is in line with various findings of the healing effect of humor in dire life circumstances (e.g., downe, 1999; ford & spaulding, 1973). this is the first study that observed more beneficial long-term effects on down-regulating negative emotions of humorous coping in contrast to serious reappraisal. however, further research needs to replicate these findings and to examine more closely the underlying mechanisms that lead to stronger long-term effects of humorous copings. for example, humorous information may be better recalled than non-humorous information (see strick, holland, van baaren, & van knippenberg, 2009b), which might explain longer-term differential effects. our study showed that generating humorous reappraisals was more difficult, and that people were less likely to succeed to regulate compared to serious reappraisal. this result has potential implications on the use of humor to face adverse events in daily life. for instance, individuals may know implicitly that humorous coping is more effortful and difficult than serious reappraisals and would not even attempt to generate humorous reappraisals – particularly if cognitive resources are limited. if this were the case, it is likely that individuals would select the strategy that is easier to implement, regardless of any benefits associated with using humor. individual differences, particularly related to one’s sense of humor, may substantially impact one’s approach to facing life’s adversities. in addition, future studies could examine the relationship of implicit beliefs regarding the effectiveness of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal and whether this association is indicative of how people attempt to use humor as a regulation strategy in dealing with negative emotions on a daily basis. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 samson, glassco, lee et al. 577 http://www.psychopen.eu/ several limitations of this study should be noted. first, this study focused on self-reported emotion experience. future studies should include more objective measures (autonomic and neural correlates) to better understand humor as an emotion regulation strategy, as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms and resulting emotional effects. second, the current study did not include a non-humorous positive condition. future studies should do this to assess whether the effect of humorous coping is due to the positive emotion introduced in this condition or due to the particular cognitive processes inherent to humor. third, the present study considered one particular context, namely viewing negative pictures. future research should analyze the impact of situational and contextual characteristics on the appropriateness and effectiveness of humorous coping given the possibility that humorous coping by itself may be an inadequate response in certain situations. it is likely that the availability of alternative regulation strategies (e.g., problem solving) impacts the choice to use humor to down-regulate emotions. fourth, the present study did not manipulate cognitive resource availability. future research should also examine the effects of cognitive resource availability at a given time point, since humorous coping appears to be more difficult. this will help to formulate implications for the successful implementation of humor as emotion regulation strategy in daily life and treatment (see also franzini, 2001; kubie, 1971). finally, the present study focused on only one particular form of humor. in a recent study, we have found that not only benevolent but also malevolent forms of humorous copings can be effective (although to a limited extent, samson & gross, 2012). other types of humor (e.g., telling pre-fabricated jokes, teasing) and their adaptive functions should also be examined to better understand the efficacy of different types of humor to deal with negative emotions in daily life. notes i) this interaction term was required to test the overall condition x block interaction. since the ‘watch negative’ trials do not differ between the humor and serious blocks, this effect should be non-significant. funding a.s. was supported by the swiss national science foundation (pa00p1_136380). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank katerina stefanidi, kacey marton, jeff rector, and helmut lackner for their help with this study. references abel, m. h. 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(2000). adaptive mental mechanisms: their role in a positive psychology. the american psychologist, 55, 89-98. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.89 about the authors andrea c. samson is currently a postdoctoral scholar at stanford university. her research focuses on behavioral and neural correlates of humor, mixed emotions and emotion regulation in healthy participants as well as individuals with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 humor and reappraisal 580 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq053 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.6.1313 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0026351 http://web.macam.ac.il/~ochayo/me.html http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.specom.2004.02.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.585069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038504040864 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029208 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0015951 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221300903293055 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2011.02.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.89 http://www.psychopen.eu/ alana glassco graduated from stanford university in 2011 with a master's and bachelor's in psychology. the study of humor as emotion regulation was the focus of her stanford thesis. she currently works at google as a data analyst. ihno lee received her ph.d. in quantitative methods from the university of kansas. her interests and expertise are in applying multilevel and latent variable modeling techniques to address hypotheses in emotion regulation. as a postdoctoral researcher, she is currently exploring how, when, and why people regulate emotions in daily life, and the extent to which regulation strategies and goals may be shaped by features of the social environment. james j. gross is professor of psychology at stanford university, and is a leading researcher in the areas of emotion and emotion regulation. dr. gross has authored over 250 publications, and is a fellow in the association for psychological science and the american psychological association. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 571–581 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.730 samson, glassco, lee et al. 581 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor and reappraisal (introduction) method participants procedure analytic strategy results preliminary analyses short-term effects of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal longer-term effects of humorous coping versus serious reappraisal discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors taking the pulse of global psychology mihaela chraif vlad glaveanu editors one of the first assumptions any reader might have when first visiting the ejop web-page is finding a journal focused on european psychological research. starting with our first issues we took pride in promoting european authors and in launching a special column, “europe’s impulse”, dedicated to studies concerning the european union or articles presenting mainly european psychological events. at the same time europe’s journal of psychology has presented itself as a journal opened for both psychologists and psychology students worldwide, a journal that has an international scientific committee and editorial board formed by renowned professionals and researchers. it is high time we acknowledge once again our commitment to promote high-standard articles and research excellence at a global level. this is why from this issue on “europe’s impulse” will be named “global psypulse”, a column that will foster articles aimed at sharing information regarding psychological events (conferences, colloquiums, seminars etc.), academic or research institutes and academic programmes in psychology from around the globe. in short, our objective is to offer our readers a complex and comprehensive image of today’s psychology as a science and as a profession not only from europe but worldwide. this is, of course, a pretty ambitious goal but one that can be accomplished with your help and, therefore, we welcome all contributions that would fit the above guidelines and, by this, all articles that can help us “take the pulse” of psychology at an international level. it is our strong belief that europe’s journal of psychology, although originally targeted at a european public, is and will continue to be an open space for scientific dialogue and a global provider of first-class psychological knowledge. therapy beyond modernity – interview with dr. richard house by beatrice popescu our interviewee is dr. richard house, prolific author, editor, educator, psychotherapist and activist in the politics of psycho-practice. graduating from oxford university in 1976 (with first class honours), richard house gained a ph.d. in environmental sciences from the university of east anglia (norwich) in 1984. after working in publishing he trained as a counsellor/psychotherapist (1987-95), and has worked in the ‘human potential’ field since 1990 in various capacities. he was recently appointed senior lecturer (part time) in psychotherapy and counselling at roehampton university, london (research centre for therapeutic education). he is also a trained steiner waldorf class teacher and a steiner kindergarten teacher. richard has been running the norwich steiner parent & child group since 1998, and also works in the kindergarten, which was opened at easter 2001 and which he ran for several years. he is also series editor of hawthorn press’s cutting-edge ‘early years’ series, and recently co-founded the anthroposophical publishing company ur publications (montreal). richard has been a major contributor to the literature in counselling/psychotherapy since the early 1990s, and he writes regularly for the mother magazine on child care and educational issues, as well as regularly contributing to ipnosis, new view, and a range of psychotherapeutic journals. not least, he conceived and co-edited the critically acclaimed anthologies implausible professions: arguments for pluralism and autonomy in psychotherapy and counselling (pccs books, ross-on-wye, 1997) and ethically challenged professions: enabling innovation and diversity in psychotherapy and counselling (co-edited with yvonne bates), and published his book therapy beyond modernity: deconstructioning and transcending profession-centred therapy in 2003 (karnac books). address for correspondence: richardahouse@hotmail.com ejop: how did your passion for counseling/therapy develop? richard house: like most of the therapists i know, it began with a personal experience of therapy (in my case, back in the 1980s), which quite quickly became something of a pre-occupation. i had always had a kind of ‘proto-interest’ in psychology – especially radical anti-psychiatry – but which i never really pursued or even understood, until that interest took form and began to crystallize in the wake of my own early group-therapy experiences when i began participating in regular monthly weekend encounter groups – very much grounded in the humanistic, human potential movement. i am faintly embarrassed now when i think back to the rather evangelical way in which i embraced therapy in those early days – how i allowed its world-view to dominate my life, and how insufferable i must have been to a number of friends who were then, and subsequently remained, relatively unenamoured by the influence of therapy. i was seduced and fascinated by the endless complexities, subtleties and mysteries of the human psyche and human relationships more generally – and therapy and its associated literature have proved to be a wonderfully rich and stimulating vehicle for this abiding interest. ejop: what prompted you to get involved in the psycho-practice politics? richard house: i have always been a political radical – it is a natural position for me, being a younger second born, in frank sullaway’s sense (born to rebel) – so perhaps unconsciously wishing to overthrow the existing hegemony and balance of power! (i am only half-serious here – of course this is probably one of many factors involved, but i am now also very sceptical of the narrow psychoanalytic and deterministic world-view which accounts like this are rooted in). more specifically, here in norwich there has always been a very strong radical therapy tradition – with the halls (jill and the late tony), whose wonderful encounter groups i attended for many years, and also professor brian thorne of the norwich centre and university of east anglia. jill, tony and brian were leading lights in the then norwich collective, a peer group of innovative therapists, and this group became a leading focus for disquiet at the trend towards the institutional professionalisation of therapy and counselling, which began to gather pace in the late 1980s and early 1990s. i became a founder-member of the so-called norwich group process group, and helped to organise the two national conferences on the dynamics of accreditation which the group organised. my like-minded colleagues and i were beginning to find ourselves in a scarcely tolerable position, as the professionalising bandwagon gained momentum – for, on the one hand, if we ignored the seeming inexorability of state/statutory regulation, then (‘grandparent’ clauses excepted) we might well be placing ourselves in a position where continuing therapeutic practice might be illegal; and yet by acquiescing in the face of these cultural pressures, we would have done ourselves a kind of ‘soul violence’ which would be both personally and vocationally damaging. these, then, were the deeply challenging dynamics with which my colleagues and i were struggling over this difficult period in the early and mid-1990s. after meeting for well over a year, the group process group decided to organise a national conference on the dynamics of accreditation. in fact, two conferences were held in successive years (1991 and 1992), and reports of these highly successful events (in which [now professor] brian thorne and group consultant david wasdell played a leading design and facilitation role) were published in cannon and hatfield (self and society, 1992) and house (self and society, 1992). around one hundred practitioners from all over britain attended both events combined, and within a few years at least some of the faces were to appear again and become familiar colleagues and friends with the inauguration of the independent therapists network in 1994. certainly these were exciting, heady times for all of us – and personally, the group process group was one of the most nourishing, challenging, rich experiential learning environments that i could ever wish to experience. the institutional ‘madness’ around professionalisation seemed to be infecting everyone in the therapy world: not least the poor unfortunate trainers who seemed to be continually changing the requirements and boundaries of their trainings in mid-stream (good modelling for secure and consistent therapeutic boundaries, i thought!) – much to the understandable chagrin of their long-suffering trainees (myself included), as the training regulations changed even more frequently, it seemed, than government policy on the school curriculum! (and with both processes no doubt being fed by a common cultural dynamics). with the publication in the mid-1990s of richard mowbray’s seminal book the case against psychotherapy registration (which rightly became the ‘bible’ and the focus of the anti-professionalisation movement) and the consolidation of the independent practitioners network at the same time, i had a ready-made peer group of like-minded radicals with whom to deepen our concerns and develop cogent and incisive critiques of the directions in which therapy was developing. finally, being something of a compulsive writer, i relished (and still relish) expressing in print my manifold concerns about the way in which therapy as a vocation is understood and pursued in modern culture. ejop: how did the professionals react to “therapy beyond modernity”? richard house: i would say for the most part, very positively. i know a number of colleagues who are actively engaging with the very same issues i address in the book – that is, how to find a way to be an effective and empowering therapist-healer in an increasingly professionalised environment whose institutional bureaucratic practices threaten to be antithetical to the core values that underpin therapy at its best. but there are also some who are, i think, rather (or perhaps very) threatened by the book – not least, perhaps, because if read in a certain way, it can easily be experienced as undermining the livelihood upon which many practitioners depend. i am sorry about that reaction – for my overriding concern in the book is to pose searching, counter-intuitive questions about therapy, the honest and fearless engagement with which can only strengthen, rather than undermine or subvert, therapy practice. above all, for me therapy should always be a critical, subverting, potentially revolutionising practice – in that (and at the risk of grandiosity) therapy can and should be playing a central role in the evolution and maturing of human consciousness; and as soon as profession-centred conservatism and any associated normalising or pathologising agendas begin to assert themselves, that is the time to kick over those traces and reassert therapy’s subverting counter-cultural roots, if it is to continue to serve its historically critical task of consciousness evolution, rather than becoming another ‘modernist’ dead-weight upon it. in terms of book reviews, they have for the most part been very positive indeed, which has been very gratifying. however, with therapy beyond modernity and also implausible professions, i have found that in terms of sales, there is perhaps a ‘glass ceiling’ for books like this, for in any professional or vocational field, there will always be a ‘normal distribution’ as far as radicalism is concerned, and the ‘consolidators’ and the conservatives will always tend to outnumber the innovators. but were it ever so ... and that just goes with the territory of being a ‘radical’! ejop: is there a price to be paid for being bold and straightforward? richard house: that’s a surprising and very interesting question – and i don’t, alas, have the space to answer it as fully as its subtlety deserves! in typical postmodern style, i would say ‘yes’ and ‘no’. ‘yes’, in the sense that in modern culture, there is a highly pernicious trend towards appearance taking precedence over substance and authenticity – and then anyone who plumps for the latter is in danger of being marginalised, treated as an embarrassment, or even ignored. but ‘no’, in the sense that from my perspective there really is no alternative to honesty and authenticity and telling it how it is – because if i did anything else, i simply wouldn’t want to live with myself. the ‘retired’ (ha ha!) radical-left british politician tony benn is a very interesting case in point. after many years of staying true to his radicalism no matter what the political and personal cost (which included routine demonising by the reactionary british press, and even within sections of his own political party), he is now a greatly respected ‘elder statesman’ of british public life, filling theatres and halls up and down a country which is positively yearning for honesty and authenticity in our spin-ridden political culture – an honesty which, to my mind, the admirable tony benn models impeccably. that’s the kind of ‘way of being’ i will always aspire to – and trust that any short-term cost that such aspirations entail will be more than outweighed by benefits (including, not least, a clear conscience!) in the longer term. ejop: should therapy be a calling or a career choice? richard house: for me, therapy is always a ‘calling’ – yet i wouldn’t presume to say what it ‘should’ be for other people or practitioners; for that should be left to the free choice of every individual to make sense of, and pursue. but of course i have (strongly held) views about the effects that possessing different conceptions of therapy entails, both personally and culturally, and i will continue to put these observations and reflections out into the public sphere. and if those ideas have any effect on the wider direction in which therapy as a healing practice and a cultural phenomenon evolves, then so be it – but that’s my main motivation for doing so. ejop: you were trained initially in geography at oxford and you developed later an interest for counseling/therapy. it was a rather interesting career switch. how did you end up developing your own therapy techniques? richard house: the only link between geography and therapy that i am aware of is that the latter helped me to realise that the former (studying geography at university) had been very much of a false start as far as finding my true destiny is concerned. i don’t recognise or support the language of ‘technique’ as far as therapy practice is concerned (as i’ve made clear at various points in my published writings). rather, i adhere to the existential-phenomenological view that it is the way of being that is crucial in therapy practice, and it’s that sensibility that i take into all my work, which i see as a (hopefully progressive) deepening of my understanding of the dynamics and the mysteries of the human psyche and human relationship. then, in the process, therapy just happens – as my former and inspirational trainer tony storey used to say. my task as a therapist, then, is to create the conditions within every unique therapy relationship in which therapy can happen – and that is all i do, or claim to do. and if i get it reasonably ‘right’ at least some of the time, then i’m being an effective therapist for the other (as levinas would say). ejop: do you have any advice for young therapists who are struggling to enter the profession? richard house: in terms of the motivation to become a therapist, i’d first want to ask any aspiring therapist whether they like people (including themselves); and whether they think they will be able to strike a good-enough balance between the life of a committed therapist and all that goes with it, and the needs they have for living a fulfilling personal life. if the answer to either of these questions were to be ‘no’, then i would urge them to think again before investing all of the emotional and financial resources required for becoming a professional therapist. and i would also urge any aspiring therapist to explore as openly and undefendedly as possible their motivations for becoming a therapist – including their unconscious ones! (sussman’s soberingly excellent book a curious calling is a very good place to start here). once having decided to be a therapist, i would say that the most important thing by far is to stay true to yourself (which of course entails a radical openness to self-experience and a mature and maturing self-awareness). this for me includes holding the position of an ongoing willingness to challenge and deconstruct the most hallowed taken-for-granted assumptions of professional(ised) therapy – for in that way, i think you will maximise the possibility that your practice will evolve in a healthy direction rather than becoming ossified and frozen in professionalised institutional dogma. the norwich psychotherapist jill hall once told me that she never, or hardly ever, advertised for clients – for if you are a good and effective therapist, then you will simply get clients, registered or not (with word of mouth and personal recommendation always, to my mind, being more effective than the glossiest and most impressive looking of brochures!). this approach really does require a great deal of trust and courage – and an openness to the possibility that if, indeed, clients don’t find their way to you, then maybe being a therapist just isn’t your destiny. certainly, i think it’s possible to try too hard to be a therapist… – and if you catch yourself trying too hard, and then maybe trying something else would be a better idea. finally, they could try reading jean clark’s excellent edited book freelance counselling and psychotherapy: competition and collusion (routledge, 2002) and guy gladstone’s chapter ‘the making of a therapist and the corruption of the training market’, in the implausible professions anthology. ejop: are there any common misperceptions about the therapist job that you would like to mention? richard house: if there are any, then i think they will have mostly been implicit and discernible in what i’ve already written, above. what immediately comes to mind is, first, the view that practising therapy is necessarily extremely demanding in an emotional or spiritual sense. for some practitioners, no doubt it is, but equally, i have people who just seem to be ‘naturals’ – or in other words, perhaps one might say (somewhat controversially!) that therapists and healers are far more ‘born’ than ‘made’. the other thing i would want to say is that for most people, it might be that having a non-therapist component to one’s working life or career is important, or even crucial. i have long felt that being a full-time therapist can have very peculiar (and far from healthy) effects on one’s psyche and distorting effects on one’s personal life and relationships, and in all kinds of ways – which effects i see as being an artifact of the highly peculiar way and setting in which therapist and client meet. this is something i’d like to write about at length, if i can ever find the space and time to do so! ejop: we know rudolf steiner greatly influenced your work. what mostly fascinates you about steiner’s philosophy? richard house: to put the record straight, rudolf steiner’s influence has only come quite recently – from about 1998 onwards… – at least as far as i am aware!… what most fascinates me is the sheer, scarcely believable ‘life output’ of this extraordinary human being. indeed, in the history of ideas, one of the most abiding mysteries of the twentieth century is just how one of its most inspired, original and wide-ranging thinkers and seers – steiner – is so comparatively little recognised, or even known of, in the range of disparate fields on which he has had, and continues to have, such a profound influence. the deliverer of over 6,000 lectures in his lifetime, his full collected works come to a staggering 350 volumes (freud’s number about 40); and his lasting legacy includes uniquely innovative ‘impulses’ in fields as wide-ranging as curative education and social therapy (the world-renowned camphill communities); biodynamic agriculture (precursor of organic agriculture); holistic (anthroposophical) medicine; architecture and design; the arts (eurythmy, painting, speech and drama); organisational consultancy; ethical banking and finance – and, of course, steiner (waldorf) education. the extraordinary neglect of his vast corpus has been attributed by some to his quite unashamed esotericism and explicit engagement with ‘the divine’ through his discipline of ‘spiritual science’, which perhaps led – both in his own lifetime and since – to his shunning by conventional academia. (in his early, ‘pre-esoteric’ career, incidentally, steiner was a widely respected philosopher and scientist.) more likely, i think, is that his thorough-goingly and then quite unfashionable holistic approach to human experience was quite simply decades ahead of its time; and it is only now, when so-called ‘new paradigm’, post-modern epistemologies and cosmologies are thankfully beginning to undermine the zeitgeist of modernity, that his remarkable insights, which both incorporate yet also transcend modernity, are beginning to attract the rich attention they deserve. certainly, steiner was a relentless scourge of the one-sided materialism that prevailed in his day, and he brought a spiritually informed perspective to his educational worldview, which viewed the human being as far more than a material body. in this sense, his work has profound relevance to what we call ‘transpersonal therapy’ – but that is another story. ejop: albert ellis once said that the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. do you agree with this? richard house: in a sense, yes – the ‘sense’ i am referring to being the very reason i became increasingly disillusioned with therapy in the mid-1990s, and in the process discovering steiner education as an intrinsically healing experience for children. in other words, perhaps an urgent evolutionary task is for humankind to create cultural forms which help children to have healthy, empowering childhoods, thereby short-circuiting the need for remedial adult psychotherapy and counselling; and in this regard, surely education is the place to start – and especially as modern schooling systems are commonly moving in exactly the wrong direction! however, there is an important note of caution i want to make here. the current fashion of ‘professionalising’ children’s difficulties can so easily miss the point. my own strong conviction, rather, is that it is a far better use of our creative energies to strive for the creation of natural schooling environments which are, by their very nature, intrinsically healing – rather than seeing ‘child psychotherapy’, ‘school counselling’ and the like as yet another professional opportunity or ‘career niche’ for ‘professionalised therapy’ to colonise within modern culture. rudolf steiner himself emphasised the healing aspect of any genuinely authentic educational experience, illustrating how imaginative knowledge based on truth is intrinsically healing and health-giving. as he said exactly 80 years ago now, ‘our whole waldorf school pedagogy has a therapeutic character.’ critics of the soulless utilitarianism of modern mainstream schooling systems (myself included) have repeatedly stressed the untold, long-term emotional and developmental damage that the fashionable ‘surveillance culture’ is perpetrating on today’s children, with its anxiety-saturated obsession with assessment and testing, and its forced cognitive early learning at absurdly young, developmentally inappropriate ages. perhaps those of us whose practice and world-view are still informed by spiritual sensibility and child-centredness could profitably commit at least as much time and energy to the political task of challenging the cultural/political sources of the current malaise – in which ‘child abuse’ in routinely committed against children by and through modern technocratic culture – as we do to ‘therapising’ childhood problems once they have been created. put differently, i would like to see a plethora of child healing practices flourishing and weaving themselves into the very fabric of modern culture, rather than witness the sad spectacle of an ascendant, professionalised ‘child therapy’ mechanistically bolting itself on to the fields of education and health care. ejop: are there any other editorial projects you would like to initiate in the future? richard house: one that is currently ‘in process’ is a book on the relevance of rudolf steiner’s work to therapy and counselling. another might be the crossover between therapy and education, responding to the recent critiques of the infiltration of therapy sensibilities into the education world by kathryn ecclestone of exeter university and her colleagues. and i am continually surprised by the directions that unfold in my life, and i look forward to more such (editorial) surprises in the future! thank you very much for giving me then opportunity to answer your interesting questions – and i hope that my answers and musings will be of interest and stimulation to your readers. richard house, norwich uk, 3rd november 2005 trait emotional intelligence, anxiety sensitivity, and experiential avoidance in stress reactivity and their improvement through psychological methods literature reviews trait emotional intelligence, anxiety sensitivity, and experiential avoidance in stress reactivity and their improvement through psychological methods kenneth choia, kristin vickers*b, adrianna tassoneb [a] department of chemical engineering, ryerson university, toronto, canada. [b] department of psychology, ryerson university, toronto, canada. abstract stress pervades daily society, often with deleterious consequences for those prone to react intensely to it. intervention techniques to attenuate stress reactivity are thus paramount. with that goal in mind, researchers have sought to identify and alter malleable psychological dispositional variables that influence stress reactivity. trait emotional intelligence (tei), anxiety sensitivity (as), and experiential avoidance (ea) are increasingly receiving attention in these research efforts. the self-reported emotional component of stress reactivity has been emphasized in investigations and is our focus. specifically, this paper overviews the role of tei, as, and ea in self-reported stress responses. we also discuss empirically supported psychological methods to adjust suboptimal levels of these variables in normal populations. both psycho-educational (information, skills) and mindfulness-based interventions (specific mindfulness therapies or components) are covered. findings include that (1) tei, as, and ea are each correlated with the emotional component of stress reactivity to both naturalistic and lab-based stressors; (2) preliminary support currently exists for psycho-educational intervention of tei and as but is lacking for ea; (3) adequate evidence supports mindfulness-based interventions to target ea, with very limited but encouraging findings suggesting mindfulness methods improve tei and as; and (4) although more research is needed, stress management approaches based on mindfulness may well target all three of these psychological variables and thus appear particularly promising. encouragingly, some methods to modify dispositional variables (e.g., a mindfulness-based format of guided self-help) are easily disseminated and potentially applicable to the general public. keywords: stress, emotional intelligence, experiential avoidance, anxiety sensitivity, mindfulness europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 received: 2014-01-27. accepted: 2014-05-12. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: department of psychology and the institute for stress and wellbeing research, ryerson university, 350 victoria st., toronto, on m5b2k3, canada. e-mail: kvickers@ryerson.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. many people experience moderate (or higher) stress each day. indeed, nearly a quarter of people living in north america report high daily stress (american psychological association [apa], 2009; statistics canada, 2012). it is evident that extensive strain is placed on healthcare systems and economies due to stress (rosch, 2001). unfortunately, stress may also exacerbate risk for numerous mental illnesses (such as depression and anxiety) as well as hypertension and heart disease (barker, 2007; chu, williams, harris, bryant, & gatt, 2013; dressler, 1984). indeed, the possible deleterious consequences of stress clearly hinder human health; thus, the discovery of viable options to better prepare or protect individuals is essential. along those lines, psychologists have increasingly turned their attention to studying stress and its management. a variety of definitions for the term “stress” currently occur in this burgeoning literature. some researchers coneurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ ceptualize stress as “a negative emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological, and behavioral changes” (baum, 1990, p. 653), while others maintain that stress can be a positive experience as well that contributes to growth and development (e.g., tedeschi & kilmer, 2005). still others propose that the term “stress” is too subjective to be useful to researchers (e.g., american institute of stress, n.d.) and advocate instead the use of the terms “stressor,” defined as a real or perceived demand on the body or mind, and “stress reactivity,” defined as the emotional and physical responses to the demand (e.g., blonna, 2007). this terminology is used in this review. extensive research has revealed that stress reactivity to a given stressor evidently varies across individuals (e.g., gelkopf, berger, bleich, & silver, 2012; lazarus, 1998; telch, rosenfield, lee, & pai, 2012; vollrath, 2001). this variance in stress reactivity across individuals likely results from a multitude of interacting physiological, developmental, and psychological factors (for a review, see wu et al., 2013), thereby offering numerous targets for improving stress reactivity. complicating interpretation, the components of stress reactivity (e.g., subjective and physiological changes) may themselves diverge within an individual (e.g., mikolajczak, petrides, coumans, & luminet, 2009). we focus here on self-reported emotional responses to stress. it is recognized that individual dispositional variables may influence one’s emotional responses to stress (e.g., wu et al., 2013). for example, higher pessimism is associated with greater stress in parents of children with development disabilities (wang, michaels, & day, 2011). two methodologies have been heavily used in the research area of stress and dispositional variables. in one approach, researchers have examined how dispositional variables predict subjective reactions to naturalistic stressors (e.g., schmidt, lerew, & jackson, 1997). to illustrate, during academic exam stress, university students with higher neuroticism develop more somatic symptoms (zunhammer, eberle, eichhammer, & busch, 2013). another informative approach has used lab-based stressors (for reviews, see allen, kennedy, cryan, dinan, & clarke, 2014; kudielka, hellhammer, & kirschbaum, 2007). although this method reduces ecological validity (e.g., telman, holmes, & lau, 2013), its advantages include permitting a constant external stressor across individuals and also disentangling the possible stress generative effects of psychological variables from their role in stress reactivity (e.g., vollrath, 2001). for example, using this method, researchers have found that those with high levels of negative affectivity have significantly greater negative mood after high demand laboratory stressors, relative to those with lower negative affectivity (o'brien, terry, & jimmieson, 2008). taken together, the findings from this literature indicate that dispositional variables influence stress responses, thereby making stress “a highly personalized process” (lecic-tosevski, vukovic, & stepanovic, 2011, p. 291). indeed, a number of potentially malleable dispositional variables influence reactivity to naturalistic and lab-based stressors and are included in two recent reviews (e.g., for a discussion of both negative affectivity and neuroticism, see lecic-tosevski et al., 2011; both optimism and coping style are covered in wu et al., 2013). three other modifiable dispositional variables – trait emotional intelligence (tei), anxiety sensitivity (as), and experiential avoidance (ea) – are increasingly receiving attention in stress research. we overview each below. broadly speaking, tei is a personality trait reflecting individuals’ capacity to perceive, understand, use, and regulate emotions beneficially both within themselves and in others (schutte, malouff, & thorsteinsson, 2013). as is the fear of bodily symptoms of anxiety based on beliefs the symptoms are harmful or have aversive consequences (reiss, peterson, gursky, & mcnally, 1986). ea is the desire to avoid unwanted thoughts, feelings, memories, and physical sensations, plus associated behavioral avoidance (hayes, wilson, gifford, follette, & strosahl, 1996; europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 377 http://www.psychopen.eu/ jacob, ower, & buchholz, 2013; for a review, see chawla & ostafin, 2007). ea and as are moderately correlated (r = .43, bardeen, fergus, & orcutt, 2013), and lower ea (e.g., higher acceptance) is associated with higher tei (r = .40, donaldson-feilder & bond, 2004). to our knowledge, no investigation has examined how tei correlates with as. all three of these dispositional variables are currently conceptualized as important influences on stress reactivity. more specifically, high tei is posited to buffer individuals from the negative consequences of stress (ugoji, 2012), while high as and high ea are conceptualized as vulnerability factors for many forms of anxietyand stress-related symptoms (tanay, lotan, & bernstein, 2012). indeed, based on findings that tei, as, and ea influence emotional stress reactivity in normal populations, researchers are advocating both psycho-educational intervention (e.g., for ea and as; bardeen et al., 2013; keough & schmidt, 2012; for tei; ugoji, 2012) and also mindfulness-based approaches (e.g., tanay et al., 2012) as preventative strategies. for example, ugoji (2012, p. 105) recommends that “stakeholders in education” include emotional intelligence training within the curriculum, and schmidt, eggleston, et al. (2007, p. 305) advocate reducing as a “primary prevention intervention.” likewise, bardeen and colleagues (2013, p. 468) suggest “directly target[ing]” high ea in at-risk individuals to reduce perceived stress. the purpose of this paper is to overview the empirical evidence connecting tei, ea, and as to emotional stress reactivity, along with the positive mental health promotion strategies (e.g., fledderus, bohlmeijer, smit, &westerhof, 2010) that improve them. we omit discussion of the many successful therapeutic techniques that benefit patients in severe distress and instead focus on the two aforementioned broad types of psychological interventions: psychoeducational and mindfulness-based. we define psycho-educational approaches as those that help participants gain information, skills (e.g., through presentations, self-help, or self-reflection) and/or change their behavior (e.g., through adopting an exercise regime or by systematically encountering previously avoided stimuli). these interventions are often designed to improve a particular dispositional variable (e.g., emotional skills training is used for tei; slaski & cartwright, 2003). health promotion approaches based on mindfulness, in contrast, usually seek to improve quality of life, thus often including many dispositional variables as outcomes. a number of different mindfulness-based interventions are in use. all share extensive emphasis upon “present centered awareness” (chiesa & malinowski, 2011, p. 412) but otherwise diverge from one another in philosophical orientation, among other issues (for a review, see chiesa &malinowski, 2011). we focus here on practical implementation differences across mindfulness-based health promotion strategies (e.g., whether meditation is included) and describe below the two particular mindfulness-based methods – mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy (mbsr; kabat-zinn, 1982, 1990) and acceptance and commitment therapy (act; hayes, strosahl, &wilson, 1999) –that are commonly adapted in health promotion research. mbsr is a particularly well-established approach to lessen stress reactivity (for reviews, see chiesa & serretti, 2009, 2010). influenced by buddhist philosophy, mbsr focuses on intensive meditation to increase mental and physiological focus on self. originally designed to help patients with chronic ailments and pain, mbsr has since shown its ability to reduce stress and promote health in normal populations (chiesa & serretti, 2009). mbsr is administered in a group setting and relies on four main methods to attenuate stress (kabat-zinn, 1990): yoga meditation, walking meditation, body scanning (non-judgemental focus on all bodily parts), and sitting practice (focus on breathing while comfortably seated). an adapted meditation component is sometimes used by itself in “mindfulness meditation” interventions (e.g., chu, 2010). in mbsr and its adaptations, emphasis is consistently placed on acceptance of experiences in the moment, for their own “pure” (chiesa & malinowski, 2011, p. 412) sake. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 378 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acceptance of present experience is also an essential component of act, but the purpose of this acceptance is to facilitate behavioral change (baer & krietemeyer, 2006; chiesa &malinowski, 2011). indeed, act differs notably from other mindfulness-based methods in its inclusion of behavioral-change strategies to affect the content of experience and in fact originated as an individual therapy with specific behavioral strategies tailored to each client. although act is now used in group and workshop format (e.g., biglan, layton, jones, hankins, & rusby, 2013; luoma, kohlenberg, hayes, bunting, & rye, 2008), its emphasis on personal values, goals, and actions consistent with these values and goals continues to distinguish it from other mindfulness-based methods (baer & krietemeyer, 2006). additionally, act does not include formal meditation training and omits buddhist influence (chiesa & malinowski, 2011). the mindfulness exercises included in act are thus shorter (baer & krietemeyer, 2006) and have far less emphasis on extensive bodily scanning than those of mbsr (arch & ayers, 2013). these differences noted, the commonalities between act and mbsr are potentially more important (baer & krietemeyer, 2006). we adopt this perspective and discuss mindfulness-based methods as a type of health promotion strategy, along with psycho-educational approaches, in relation to tei, ea, and as, below. our general aim is to provide an overview of the concrete, established ways to reduce emotional stress reactivity via modifying these dispositional variables. modifiable dispositional variables in stress reactivity trait emotional intelligence (tei) overview — emotional intelligence (ei) is a construct that has captivated researchers for decades. although different models exist (for a review, see muyia, 2009), most ei models include dimensions assessing one’s capacity to perceive and understand emotions, as well as use and regulate emotions (schutte et al., 2013). most models contain both intraand interpersonal aspects; for example, the ei model proposed by salovey and mayer (1989) includes abilities to regulate and appraise emotions in both oneself and in others. less agreement exists concerning how to assess ei. some researchers conceptualize ei as an objective cognitive proficiency assessed by performance accuracy; others advocate a subjective personality trait or mixed model (see muyia, 2009) and use self(or other-) reports of ei. scores on measures from each ei type are only moderately correlated (schutte et al., 2013). we focus here exclusively on subjective ei (referred to as “trait ei”, or tei, following others, e.g., arora et al., 2011) because relative to objective ei, tei is more strongly related to mental health (martins, ramalho, & morin, 2010) and has garnered more attention in stress research (schneider, lyons, & khazon, 2013), including in the mindfulness-based methods we discuss. higher tei has incremental validity (petrides, pérez-gonzález, & furnham, 2007) in relation to many beneficial psychological outcomes (for reviews, see martins et al., 2010; zeidner, matthews, & roberts, 2012). for example, university students with high tei are more likely to complete their degree (keefer, parker, & wood, 2012), and adolescents with high tei have significantly fewer depressive symptoms as well as less disruptive behavior compared to those with lower tei (davis & humphrey, 2012). complicating interpretation, different measures of tei with distinct theoretical bases are in use (see martins et al., 2010; muyia, 2009). additionally, cogent concerns have been raised about whether tei is “pan-cultural” (schutte et al., 2013, p. 66; for a review, see matthews, zeidner, & roberts, 2012). research is needed to address this issue (see matthews et al., 2012). in the meantime, the overall pattern of findings from naturalistic stress studies suggests that higher total tei beneficially impacts self-reported stress responses. indeed, higher tei is associated with less self-reported stress in many samples including nurses (görgens-ekermans & brand, 2012), firefighters (wagner & martin, 2012), and human service europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 379 http://www.psychopen.eu/ workers (e.g., physicians, teachers, and managers; ogińska-bulik, 2005) and is related to enhanced stress management skills in undergraduates (ugoji, 2012). that noted, higher scores on the attention to feelings subscale of the trait meta-mood scale (salovey, mayer, goldman, turvey, & palfai, 1995) prospectively predicted increased stress in adolescents, suggesting that high scores may not be adaptive on all facets of all tei measures (e.g., excessive focus on feelings; salguero, palomera, & fernández-berrocal, 2012). studies using lab-based stressors generally indicate that higher tei (or an aspect thereof) reduces negative emotional stress responses. for example, less negative emotions and intrusive thoughts occurred after a stressful movie clip for those higher in tei (on the clarity [mood differentiation] and repair [mood regulation] subscales of the trait meta-mood scale) compared to those with lower tei (ramos, fernández-berrocal, & extremera, 2007). likewise, those with higher tei (on the repair subscale of the trait meta-mood scale) characterized repeated lab stressors (adapted from the trier social stress test [tsst], kirschbaum, pirke, & hellhammer, 1993) as less threatening (salovey, stroud, woolery, & epel, 2002) and had less worsening in mood after both the tsst (mikolajczak, roy, luminet, fillée, & de timary, 2007) and a failure stressor (a difficult test misleadingly presented as easy; mikolajczak et al., 2009; findings were significant for men and showed a trend for women). contrastingly, several studies have linked higher tei to augmented negative mood post-stressor (arora et al., 2011; petrides & furnham, 2003; sevdalis, petrides, & harvey, 2007) including more anxiety in medical students during a simulated surgery (arora et al., 2011) and more tension, depression, and anger following a stressful movie clip (petrides & furnham, 2003). however, in these studies, those with higher tei recovered faster from their negative moods post-stressor compared to low tei participants (arora et al., 2011; petrides & furnham, 2003; sevdalis et al., 2007). cumulatively, these findings suggest that interventions targeting tei may benefit emotional stress reactivity over the long-term. psycho-educational intervention — most commonly, tei intervention has relied on training in emotional skills. the findings overall (for a review covering both ability ei and tei, see schutte et al., 2013) indicate that tei does indeed increase after suitable training across samples including college students (e.g., schutte & malouff, 2002) and employees (e.g., slaski & cartwright, 2003). for example, both self-reported and informant-rated (spouse or close friend) tei increased significantly one month after emotional intelligence training, compared to the control condition (kotsou, nelis, grégoire, & mikolajczak, 2011). indeed, as shown in table 1, the effect size estimate for increased self-reported tei post-intervention was large, and the effect size estimate for informant-rated tei was moderate. in contrast, both ratings of tei failed to improve in the control group (and in fact informant-rated tei decreased significantly; kotsou et al., 2011). table 1 summarizes the psycho-educational interventions for tei that are discussed in this paper. schutte and colleagues (2013, p. 62) provide a comprehensive review of all psycho-educational ei interventions to date, noting that the findings provide “preliminary evidence” that psychoeducational intervention is effective. despite these encouraging results, unanswered questions remain, including about the specific training approach needed for lasting change in tei. for example, two psycho-educational interventions (kirk, schutte, & hine, 2011; wing, schutte, & byrne, 2006) used expressive writing (20 minutes daily for three days) instead of direct emotional skill instruction. although tei improved in both, data collected 2 weeks post intervention (available only in wing et al., 2006) indicated that the effect was not maintained (although a trend towards significance was shown). in contrast, instructional skills training produced significantly increased tei both 1-month and also 1-year post-intervention (kotsou et al., 2011), suggesting that direct skills instruction produces a more durable increase in tei. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 380 http://www.psychopen.eu/ direct skills training programs, however, have varied in the number and length of sessions (schutte et al., 2013); to illustrate, nelis and colleagues (2011) utilized 18 hours of training plus email contact, while schutte and malouff (2002) asked students to complete a three-credit university course incorporating emotional skills. less time-intensive tei training approaches seem particularly worthy of further investigation. surprisingly, the literature is largely absent of brief (e.g., one session) tei interventions (see carrick, 2010, pp. 50-51). one relevant dissertation used a halfday classroom workshop (plus individual coaching 6 weeks later), finding that several tei competencies (table 1) had significantly increased three months after the workshop (carrick, 2010). future research using brief tei workshops is warranted, along with investigations establishing the precise content necessary to cover in tei interventions (for a review, see ciarrochi & mayer, 2007), given different theoretical models (mayer, robers, & barsade, 2008). also worthy of further investigation is the possibility of briefer assessment measures of tei. currently, the most widely used brief measure of tei contains 33 items (assessing emotions scale; schutte, malouff, & bhullar, 2009); shorter tei measures, if valid and applicable across diverse settings, would be a welcome addition to this literature from a practical perspective (see wong & law, 2002, for a 16-item tei measure for leadership and management research; for a review of tei measures, see pérez, petrides, & furnham, 2005). mindfulness-based intervention — research using mindfulness-based methods to target tei is in its infancy. the studies to date are summarized in table 1. one pilot study used adapted mbsr to increase tei in psychology graduate students (cohen & miller, 2009). the mbsr adaptation added increased attention to awareness of others (and was therefore called interpersonal mindfulness training [imt]). training otherwise closely followed a manualized mbsr (kabat-zinn, 1982) and consisted of six 90-minute sessions over six weeks administered in a group format, plus weekly homework on personal experience of mindfulness. the intervention significantly increased tei, and also decreased perceived stress from baseline to post treatment; however, no control group was included. experimental research testing whether adapted mbsr benefits tei seems warranted. additional reasons exist to consider targeting tei via mindfulness. indeed, experimental evidence indicates that 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation over eight weekly sessions improves tei in graduate students, compared to relaxation instructions without training (chu, 2010). other findings (not summarized in table 1) are also consistent with meditation benefiting tei, although the designs are either correlational (schutte & malouff, 2011) or impractical to apply to the general population (e.g., 10-day intensive vipassana meditation retreat; perelman et al., 2012). furthermore, several prominent researchers emphasize the potential applicability of mindfulness-based methods to tei improvement (e.g., see schutte et al., 2013); along these lines, ciarrochi and blackledge (2006) advance a specific type of mindfulness-based method, mindfulness-based emotional intelligence training. summary — many studies indicate that greater tei is linked to decreased emotional stress reactivity, although additional research is needed given discrepant findings. current preliminary evidence (schutte et al., 2013) supports the use of psycho-educational emotional skills training to increase tei. however, the precise nature of the ideal skills training (e.g., content of sessions) is unestablished. mindfulness-based methods appear promising in tei amelioration and warrant further consideration given their known benefits on a host of other psychological and physical variables (for a review, see chiesa & serretti, 2009). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 summary of psycho-educational and mindfulness-based interventions for tei effect size estimaterelevant findingssex distributionsampleinterventionstudy d = .63aincreased tei74% female152 first year university students emotional skills training course schutte & malouff (2002) r = .23bimproved retention rate for first year students vs. control group n/a, p < .001increased tei40% female120 retail chain managers 4-week ei training program slaski & cartwright (2003) n/a, p < .001improvement in stress n/a, p < .001well-being vs. control group partial η2 = .31increased tei67% female46 working adults (all residents of australia) emotional self-efficacy program via expressive writing kirk et al. (2011) partial η2 = .12positive affect vs. control group partial η2 = .02 for positive writing; partial η2 = .085 for increased tei at post-test for experimental groups vs. control but not significant at 2 week follow up 64% female175 australian adultspositive expressive writing task with or without an emotional regulation cue (erc) wing et al. (2006) writing with erc; n/a, p = .08 d = .90 self-rated tei; d = .63 informant-rated tei; at post-test improved tei was noted along with 68% female72 adultsinstructional skills training aimed at kotsou et al. (2011) improving five core d = 1.34; all p’s time 1 to time 3 < .001 decreased stress vs. control group; maintained at follow upemotional competencies d = 1.13 time 1 to time 2improved tei vs. control group72% female58 undergraduate university students 18 hours (4 sessions) of ei training nelis et al. (2011) d = .91 time 1 to time 3maintained at follow up n/a; all p’s < .05increased ei competencies of impulse control, flexibility, 100% female11 nurse managers from a university 4 hour classroom based learning carrick (2010) problem solving (no control group) hospital with no previous ei training intervention on ei competencies d = .40increased tei95% female21 graduate psychology students adapted mbsrcohen & miller (2009) d = .55decreased perceived stress pre-post (no control group) increased tei aspects of47% female19 graduate studentsmindfulness meditation chu (2010) d = 1.86amood regulation d = 1.68aemotion appraisal d = 1.81asocial skills d = 2.36adecreased perceived stress vs. control group note. all psycho-educational training studies for tei are reviewed in schutte et al. (2013); above we summarize the studies discussed in this paper. tei = trait emotional intelligence; ei = emotional intelligence; mbsr = mindfulness-based stress reduction; n/a = no effect size in article and not enough information given to calculate an effect size aeffect size not given; we computed it using an effect size calculator (becker, 2000). beffect size not given; we computed it using ellis (2009). anxiety sensitivity (as) overview — individuals who report heightened as are prone to misinterpret somatic feelings and physiological responses to anxiety-related symptoms, often associating these feelings with danger and harm. consequently, high as individuals are susceptible to substance abuse, psychological disorders, and maladaptive stress reduction behaviors (donnell & mcnally, 1990; mitchell, riccardi, keough, timpano, & schmidt, 2013; stewart, peterson, & pihl, 1995; for a review, see naragon-gainey, 2010). for example, prospective research has established that europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 382 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as predicts the subsequent development of alcohol use disorders in adults two years later (schmidt, buckner, & keough, 2007); similarly, in adolescents (age 9-13), as predicts the development of anxiety symptoms one year later after controlling for baseline anxiety and depression (schmidt et al., 2010). the role of as in panic disorder in particular has received extensive attention (for a review, see mcnally, 2002). findings indicate that as is a prospective predictor of panic; for example, as predicts the development of spontaneous panic attacks two years later in those with no history of panic (schmidt, zvolensky, & maner, 2006). theoretical conceptualizations of as (reiss, 1991) posit that higher as amplifies emotional responses to stress (isyanov & calamari, 2004). consistent with this idea, greater as has been associated with heightened perceived stress in several samples including undergraduates (bardeen et al., 2013; tull & gratz, 2008) and first-year medical school and health science graduate students (isyanov & calamari, 2004). additionally, as likely figures prominently in the appraisal of and reactivity to emotional events (zvolensky et al., 2002). in fact, as has been linked with exacerbated distress and greater susceptibility to psychopathological disorders in volunteers responding to disastrous situations (hagh-shenas, goodarzi, dehbozorgi, & farashbandi, 2005; mitchell, griffin, stewart, & loba, 2004). likewise, emerging findings indicate that in adolescents, high as predicts aggravated emotional responses to both natural disasters and also stressful life events (hensley-maloney & varela, 2009; kadak, nasıroğlu, boysan, & aydın, 2013; mclaughlin & hatzenbuehler, 2009). similar findings have resulted from lab-based stressor research. indeed, empirical investigations have correlated elevated as to heightened stress reactivity across experimental stressors, including mental arithmetic, cold pressor task, and the tsst (gómez-pérez, lópez-martínez, & asmundson, 2013; lee, watson, & law, 2010; messenger & shean, 1998; rosa esteve & camacho, 2008; shostak & peterson, 1990; stewart, buffett-jerrott, & kokaram, 2001; thompson, keogh, french, & davis, 2008; zvolensky et al., 2002). furthermore, the link between as and stress reactivity is of the upmost importance since stressful life events may trigger one’s as to increase, thereby aggravating vulnerability to numerous psychological disorders (schmidt et al., 1997; taylor, koch, & mcnally, 1992; wheaton, mahaffey, timpano, berman, & abramowitz, 2012). importantly, as is malleable, as amply documented (e.g., feldner, zvolensky, schmidt, & smith, 2008; keough & schmidt, 2012; korte & schmidt, 2013). psycho-educational intervention — a number of different preventative interventions have targeted as and are summarized in table 2. two interventions are adaptations of therapies, cognitive-behavioral therapy (cbt) and motivational enhancement therapy. the former is well established to reduce as in clinical patients (for a metaanalysis, see smits, berry, tart, & powers, 2008). modifying this approach for wider dissemination, radhu, daskalakis, arpin-cribbie, irvine, and ritvo (2012) used a 12-week web-based cbt intervention to successfully reduce both as and negative thoughts in perfectionistic university students. with burgeoning internet use, further research into web-based interventions to lessen as would be welcome. motivational enhancement therapy, commonly used to treat substance abuse and eating disorders, increases intrinsic motivation to improve poor lifestyle choices (ager et al., 2011; heather & mccambridge, 2013; lothstein, 2012; martin & rehm, 2012). important new research suggests its applicability to as reduction as well. specifically, korte and schmidt (2013) determined that a single session of motivational enhancement therapy led to a 26% decrease in as. given cost and time limitations, this type of brief intervention seems especially important. further research examining the durability of the as reduction obtained from one-session motivational enhancement therapy (korte & schmidt, 2013) and web-based cbt (radhu et al., 2012) is warranted. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 383 http://www.psychopen.eu/ most other as interventions incorporate cognitive restructuring, which has been shown to improve as in both adults (e.g., steinman & teachman, 2010) and adolescents (for a review, see lau, 2013). for example, based on the success of anxiety reduction approaches using cognitive bias modification (for a review, see macleod & mathews, 2012), researchers have used positive training, a specific type of interpretive bias modification method, to decrease as. positive training is accomplished by having participants add a positive outcome to incomplete anxiety-producing scenarios. for example, the vignette “you are jogging. your heart starts to beat quickly. this is in_igorating” is completed with “invigorating,” thereby enabling individuals to learn to associate anxiety-related symptoms with positive outcomes. in line with this hypothesis, the as of nonclinical individuals diminished after positive training (steinman & teachman, 2010) compared to control conditions. likewise, as reduction (from pretest to both post-test and to 48 hour follow-up) occurred after a different cognitive bias modification task, which trained participants to associate bodily sensations with neutral interpretations (macdonald, koerner, & antony, 2013). research investigating the long-term durability of as reduction after cognitive bias modification would be welcome. brief informational interventions targeting as have also garnered increasing attention. for example, anxiety sensitivity amelioration training (asat; schmidt, eggleston, et al., 2007) is comprised of informative presentations regarding stress reactivity, the goal of which is to educate individuals about biological responses to stress and assure them that these reactions are expected and normal. schmidt, eggleston, et al. (2007) administered asat to high-risk individuals, defined as those who had high as scores (at least 1.5 standard deviations above the mean for nonclinical community members) but no current or recent (past year) psychological disorder. promisingly, asat produced significant and rapid decreases in as compared to the control condition (a health and nutrition video). this gain was partially maintained at 24-month follow-up, at which point there was also a significantly decreased incidence of axis i disorders in participants who received asat, compared to those in the control condition. a further strength of asat is its ability to form part of a “stepped care” approach, implemented according to the degree of severity of existing issues and modified to suit individual needs (schmidt, eggleston, et al., 2007). along these lines, asat has shown success in high as participants who have experienced traumatic events. specifically, vujanovic, bernstein, berenz, and zvolensky (2012) found that a two-hour session of asat (tailored for each individual) markedly reduced as; importantly, the effect was largely maintained at three months post intervention. due to the small number of participants in this study, a larger study of asat is warranted. another brief intervention, keough and schmidt’s (2012) anxiety sensitivity education and reduction training, combines stress information with interoceptive exposure, in which individuals repeatedly experience the bodily sensations they fear (rapee & barlow, 1988). specifically, 50-minute powerpoint presentations outlining the common physiological reactions to stress are used, along with practice of specific interoceptive exposure examples (tailored to the individual) (see also carter, marin, & murrell, 1999). recently, anxiety sensitivity education and reduction training more rapidly lessened as than did physical health education training (control group) emphasizing minimal alcohol consumption and adequate exercise and sleep. importantly, the anxiety sensitivity education and reduction training group still had substantially lower as levels than the control group six months post-intervention (keough & schmidt, 2012). one non-cognitive intervention, physical exercise, also successfully reduces as (broman-fulks, berman, rabian, & webster, 2004; broman-fulks & storey, 2008; smits, berry, rosenfield, et al., 2008), perhaps due partly to interoceptive exposure and also to neurochemical changes, including in the neurotransmission of serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline (for a review, see lin & kuo, 2013). findings indicate that the greatest and most europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 384 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rapid reductions in as occur through repeated sessions of vigorous aerobic exercise (e.g., 20 minutes at 70% of the maximum heart rate, twice weekly for 2 weeks; smits, berry, rosenfield, et al., 2008). low intensity aerobic exercise seems less potent, although broman-fulks et al. (2004) did observe a reduction in as in the low intensity exercise group (six 20-minute sessions at ‘220-age x .60’ aerobic heart rate over 2 weeks). this finding is encouraging as low intensity exercise may bemore feasible or attractive for many individuals than intense aerobic exercise. indeed, individuals with a high body mass index – precisely those whose physical health would most benefit from exercise – are especially prone to fear feelings of biological arousal from vigorous exercise (smits, tart, presnell, rosenfield, & otto, 2010). as reduction post-exercise has been shown to persist for one (broman-fulks & storey, 2008) to three weeks (smits, berry, rosenfield, et al., 2008). mindfulness-based intervention— although research on mindfulness-based methods to attenuate as in normal populations is limited (see table 2), preliminary evidence suggests that mbsr may be effective. specifically, a recent investigation tested the effect of a brief mindfulness skills training program on both as and ea (tanay et al., 2012). researchers asked university students and community members to attend four weekly 1-hour skills training sessions that focused on mindfulness meditation in the mahasi tradition, “slightly different” (tanay et al., 2012, p. 498) from mbsr. participants also performed 15 minutes of mindfulness exercises four times per week. as decreased significantly post-intervention in the experimental group, compared to the control group. further research is warranted. in particular, researchers have questioned whether those with high baseline as – who are thus especially fearful of bodily sensations – will benefit from mindfulness-based methods (see rogojanski, vettese, & antony, 2011). along those lines, clinical findings suggest that high as patients do not benefit as much from mbsr compared to cbt, perhaps due to the extensive body scanning in mbsr that may be arduous for high as participants (arch & ayers, 2013). consistent with this idea, act, which does not include intensive bodily attention, was indeed effective in those with high as (wolitzky-taylor, arch, rosenfield, & craske, 2012). act interventions in normal populations to attenuate as are lacking. summary—a variety of psycho-educational interventions reduce as in the short-term. options for as improvement include exercise for those able to engage in physical activity, as well as varieties of brief forms of cognitive restructuring. anxiety sensitivity education and reduction training and also asat have shown at least partial maintenance of as improvement at 6and 24-month follow-up, respectively; durability of gains from other methods is not yet established. other important unanswered questions from the psycho-educational as reduction research include the populations for whom each method is most effective (e.g., cultural or gender differences). additional insight into adapted mbsr is needed to determine whether it helps those with high baseline as. act may be a better option than mbsr in those with high as. further research will clarify matters. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 summary of psycho-educational and mindfulness-based interventions for as effect size estimaterelevant findingssex distributionsampleinterventionstudy η2 = .17decreased as in intervention vs. control group 72% female47 students with high perfectionism scores 12-week web-based cbt intervention radhu et al. (2012) β = .12decreased as for intervention vs. control group controlling for baseline as 75% female80 students with high as motivational enhancement therapy korte & schmidt (2013) ηp 2 = .07decreased as for intervention vs. control group controlling for baseline as 69% female75 students with high as cognitive bias modification (positive training) steinman & teachman (2010) d = .82decreased as in training condition only from pre-test to post-test 76% female34 students with high as cognitive bias modification (interpretation training) macdonald et al. (2013) partial ε2 = .047decreased as post-intervention 61% female404 students and community members with high as anxiety sensitivity amelioration training schmidt, eggleston, et al. (2007) n/a, p = .08partially maintained at 24-month follow-up n/afor 80% of participants, as decreased to normal level 60% female5 trauma-exposed adults anxiety sensitivity amelioration training vujanovic et al. (2012) decreased as for intervention vs. control group 84% female104 individuals with high as anxiety sensitivity education and reduction training keough & schmidt (2012) β = -0.54after 1 month and β = -0.516 months controlling for baseline as decreased as for intervention vs. control for 76% female54 students with high as physical exercise (high-intensity or low-intensity) broman-fulks et al. (2004) η2 = 0.60high-intensity exercise η2 = 0.36low intensity exercise ηp 2 = .17decreased as for exercise group after 1st session; maintained at follow-up 79% female24 participants with high as aerobic exercisebroman-fulks & storey (2008) d = 2.15decreased as for both exercise groups compared to control 75% female60 participants with high as exercise with or without cognitive restructuring smits, berry, rosenfield, et al. (2008) n/abaseline as not associated with post-treatment self-efficacy in either group 41% female61 smokersmindfulness or suppression for cravings rogojanski et al. (2011) n/acbt outperformed mbsr in post-treatment symptom reduction for high as patients 21% female71 patients with an anxiety disorder adapted mbsr or group cbt arch & ayers (2013) n/abaseline as did not affect symptom reduction results of act 47% female87 patients with an anxiety disorder act or cbtwolitzky-taylor et al. (2012) d = .61decreased as in intervention vs. control group 65% female53 adultsadapted mbsrtanay et al. (2012) note. as = anxiety sensitivity; act = acceptance and commitment therapy; mbsr = mindfulness-based stress reduction; cbt = cognitive behavioral therapy; n/a = no effect size available. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experiential avoidance (ea) overview — those who report high ea are largely unwilling to experience the physical and mental symptoms resulting from personal experiences, leading to ineffective and maladaptive coping behaviors (hayes et al., 2004). similarities exist between ea and the concept of avoidance coping (see wu et al., 2013), but the two constructs are not identical. instead, between the two, ea distinctly predicts quality of life (karekla & panayiotou, 2011). ea manifests itself across adolescents and adults through the continued suppression of emotions and emotional displays, causing greater re-occurrence in a vicious cycle of negativity and downward moods (e.g., wegner, schneider, carter, & white, 1987). high ea hinders psychological health and is related to increased pessimism and substance abuse (fergus, bardeen, & orcutt, 2013; levin et al., 2012), along with self-destruction, denial, self-blame, and behavioral disengagement (karekla & panayiotou, 2011). for example, high ea is associated with parental stress and dysphoria in mothers of preschool children in a head start program (shea & coyne, 2011); among parents of children with cerebral palsy, high ea significantly predicts chronic sorrow symptoms (whittingham, wee, sanders, & boyd, 2013). in contrast, those with lower ea accept and de-emphasize pain associated with stress (costa & pintogouveia, 2011). along those lines, studies using lab-based stressors report that high (relative to low) ea predicts more negative emotional responses after either unpleasant film clips (shallcross, troy, boland, & mauss, 2010; sloan, 2004), inhalation of carbon dioxide-enriched air (which induces breathlessness and other physiological symptoms; feldner, zvolensky, eifert, & spira, 2003), or dysphoric mood induction (the velten mood induction procedure [velten, 1968] accompanied bymusic; gird & zettle, 2009). that noted, studies that instructed participants to use acceptance versus other emotion regulation strategies (e.g., suppression) in the face of discomfort have found mixed results and overall no advantage for acceptance in minimizing negative affect (for a review, see kohl, rief, & glombiewski, 2012); dispositional ea was not considered in the review. kohl et al. (2012) point to substantial methodological differences among the studies and caution that no conclusion can be drawn yet about whether acceptance influences negative affect post-discomfort. further research will clarify matters. as kohl et al. (2012) note, this research line would benefit from identifying how trait levels of avoidance (e.g., ea) may influence effective use of state emotion regulation strategies (e.g., avoidance of provocation-induced emotion). also important will be testing whether specifically training participants how to use a particular emotional regulation strategy (e.g., acceptance rather than avoidance) enhances the benefits of that strategy. research on how ea influences emotional responses to naturalistic stressors indicates that individuals with higher ea report greater distress and stress rumination (goldstone, farhall, & ong, 2011; morina, 2007). indeed, a recent correlation between high ea and perceived stress has been reported, indicating that therapeutic methods to lower eamay, in turn, decrease stress reactivity (bardeen et al., 2013), with a further link with emotional distress (cristea, montgomery, szamoskozi, & david, 2013). an additional reason to target ea to reduce self-reported stress levels is that it moderates the relationship between as and perceived stress, such that high ea individuals, regardless of as level, report high perceived stress, whereas among low ea individuals, higher as is associated with augmented perceived stress (bardeen et al., 2013). ea thus seems a reasonable candidate for psychological intervention of stress reactivity (costa & pinto-gouveia, 2011). psycho-educational intervention — to date, ea has received little effective psycho-educational intervention (please see table 3 for a summary), unlike tei and as. indeed, the narrative emotional disclosure task has failed to improve ea in several studies (carpenter, 2000, reviewed in chawla &ostafin, 2007; moore, brody, & dierberger, 2009; wilson, 2012). for example, using this method to target ea, moore et al. (2009) asked university students europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 387 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to write about either traumatic or neutral events for 20 minutes on three consecutive days; one-month follow-up data revealed that ea did not improve in either group. behavioral interventions have fared better, although much more research is needed. more specifically, in one investigation, systematic desensitization reduced ea (with results not significantly different from those of the mindfulness-based method act, described below; zettle, 2003; see chawla & ostafin, 2007). additionally, in adolescents with tourette’s syndrome, a behavioral treatment (habit reversal training) decreased ea to the same extent when administered alone or accompanied by act (best, 2010). as such, the role that exposure techniques can play in reduction of ea is an important, but under-investigated, question (e.g., gloster, hummel, lyudmirskaya, hauke, & sonntag, 2012). mindfulness-based intervention — act was designed explicitly to target ea (e.g., burrows, 2013), and has thus figured prominently in ea intervention (chawla & ostafin, 2007). substantial evidence (summarized in table 3) indicates that act decreases ea in both clinical and normal populations, with cost-effective group and self-help formats now available (e.g., burrows, 2013; fledderus, bohlmeijer, pieterse, & schreurs, 2012; luoma et al., 2008). for example, group act (“living to the full” featuring eight 2hour sessions over two months) significantly improved ea (plus emotional well-being and mental health) at 3month follow-up, compared to the waitlist (fledderus et al., 2010). likewise, promising results were obtained from a guided self-help form of act, in which participants engaged in 10-15 minutes of mindfulness exercises daily and each week completed one of the nine self-help modules in an act self-help manual (bohlmeijer & hulsbergen, 2008); participants also received a weekly support email. post-intervention results indicated that act self-help significantly improved both ea and anxiety, compared to wait-list; 3-month follow-up data from act participants indicated that these gains were maintained (fledderus, bohlmeijer, et al., 2012). these findings taken together suggest that act approaches that are easily disseminated (e.g., fledderus et al., 2010; fledderus, bohlmeijer, et al., 2012) have substantial and durable benefits on both ea and mental health. mbsr also may effectively reduce ea, although more research is needed. two studies that did not include a control group (kearney, mcdermott, malte, martinez, & simpson, 2012; weinrib, 2011) found improved ea (relative to baseline) after manualized mbsr (kabat-zinn, 1982). four months after the end of treatment (kearney et al., 2012), ea improvement was maintained. additionally, the aforementioned brief mindfulness skills training program, which did include a control group, also found improved ea after adapted mbsr (tanay et al., 2012). summary — high ea is linked to stress reactivity, although no clear advantage has been shown for acceptance versus other strategies to temper negative affect post-discomfort. substantial evidence indicates act significantly improves ea. adapted mbsr may be effective as well although research is limited. the sparse research on psycho-educational intervention of ea suggests behavioral approaches hold more promise than the narrative emotional disclosure task. indeed, elements of exposure arguably occur in act (gloster et al., 2012), raising the possibility that exposure itself may ameliorate ea, as suggested by several studies. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 summary of psycho-educational and mindfulness-based interventions for ea effect size estimaterelevant findingssex distributionsampleinterventionstudy d = .60decreased ea in intervention vs. control group 65% female53 adultsadapted mbsrtanay et al. (2012) n/ano difference in ea for intervention and control 75% female50 adultsnarrative emotional disclosure carpenter (2000) groups controlling for baseline ea n/ano difference in ea for intervention and control groups 55% female233 adultsnarrative emotional disclosure moore et al. (2009) n/ano difference in ea for intervention and control groups 49% female315 undergraduate students narrative emotional disclosure wilson (2012) partial eta squared = .05no difference in ea between habit reversal training with and without act 15% female13 adolescents with tic disorders habit reversal training with and without act best (2010) n/ano difference in ea between act and systematic desensitization 83% female24 college studentsact versus systematic desensitization zettle (2003) n/adecreased ea from 1st session to final session; 1 female participant, no males 1 assault survivor (case study) actburrows (2013) maintained at 8-month follow-up decreased ea in intervention groups vs. control 70% female376 participants with moderate (not act (with or without extensive email contact) fledderus, bohlmeijer, et al. (2012) severe) depressive symptoms d = .70act without extensive email d = .63for act with extensive email decreased ea preto post. aaq and aaq-ii used for ea 53% female88 adults in treatment for substance abuse; 48 completers actluoma et al. (2008) d = .56for ea (aaq) d = .84for ea (aaq-ii) decreased ea in intervention vs. control group; gains maintained 82% female93 participants with some (but not severe) psychological distress act (group format)fledderus et al. (2010) d = .51post-treatment d = .74follow-up wilks’ λ = .45decreased ea preto post-treatment (no control group) 85% female106 adultsmbsrweinrib (2011) decreased ea (no control group) 24% female92 veteransmbsrkearney et al. (2012) d = .65from baseline to 2 months d = .68from baseline to 6 months note.ea = experiential avoidance; mbsr=mindfulness-based stress reduction; act = acceptance and commitment therapy; aaq=acceptance and action questionnaire; n/a = no effect size available. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions and limitations collectively, this review focused on the role of tei, as, and ea in self-reported stress responses. empirically supported psychological methods to adjust suboptimal levels of these variables in normal populations were overviewed as well. since summaries of our findings for each variable were included above, we now draw attention to four major conclusions that emerge from examination of this general literature. first, the current literature generally supports the conclusion that self-reported stress reactivity is influenced by each of these dispositional variables, with emotional stress reaction decreasing as tei, as, and ea improve. unfortunately, unresolved issues, particularly for tei, complicate interpretation. studies that operationalize tei as a single total score report that higher levels predict decreased emotional stress reactivity. however, investigation into the facets of tei may importantly refine this finding. indeed, greater attention to feelings was recently shown to prospectively predict intensified emotional stress (salguero et al., 2012), perhaps by aggravating a tendency to ruminate, exacerbating risk for depression (salguero, extrema, & fernández-berrocal, 2013). notably, although ea is unidimensional (fledderus, oude voshaar, ten klooster, & bohlmeijer, 2012), as is also a multifaceted construct (physiological, mental, and social concerns; naragon-gainey, 2010) but is largely viewed as a single entity in stress investigations to date (but see broman-fulks & storey, 2008). thus, further research that delves into the facets of tei and as and subjective stress reactivity would be welcome. overall, the current findings support the objective of targeting each of these dispositional variables to reduce emotional stress reactivity, as a number of researchers have done. the second conclusion this literature review permits is that preliminary support currently exists for psycho-educational intervention of both tei and as but is lacking for ea. indeed, unsuccessful findings have consistently occurred after use of the narrative writing task to target ea, and other psycho-educational methods have been under-investigated. limited findings suggest behavioral interventions such as exposure may in fact reduce ea, but the paucity of studies and the specialized populations studied (e.g., adolescents with tourette’s syndrome; best, 2010) indicate the need for more research. in contrast to ea, effective psycho-educational interventions for both tei and as abound. nevertheless, a number of questions remain. in particular, data establishing the necessary and sufficient parameters of effective psycho-educational approaches to target tei and as are largely absent. also scarce in the literature are studies directly comparing which approach works best and for whom. further research using psycho-educational interventions will undoubtedly clarify matters. third, adequate evidence supports a specific type of mindfulness-based method, act, to target ea, while mindfulness-based methods investigations are just beginning for tei and as, with encouraging preliminary findings. nevertheless, caution is warranted in generalizing from these early mindfulness findings for tei and as. indeed, the only mbsr study targeting tei of which we are aware lacked a control group (cohen & miller, 2009). furthermore, although the mbsr intervention of as was a true experimental design with successful results (tanay et al., 2012), concerns have been raised about whether individuals with extremely high baseline as will be able to remain in an mbsr program that by definition requires extensive focus on bodily sensations, precisely that which is feared by high as individuals (arch & ayers, 2013). act interventions for high as have thus been posited as a better mindfulness-based method option than mbsr (wolitzky-taylor et al., 2012). empirical investigation will shed light on this and other important unresolved issues. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 390 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fourth, although the early state of the literature does not permit a conclusion concerning which intervention is “best,” arguably reasons exist to consider using mindfulness-based methods in particular to target these dispositional variables. mindfulness-based methods are known to have a vast array of psychological and physiological benefits (for a review, see chiesa & serretti, 2009, 2010), and exciting evidence continues to accrue along these lines. for example, mbsr was recently shown to successfully reduce physiological reactivity to stress through pro-inflammatory down regulation of the transcription factor nf-kb (creswell et al., 2012), with subsequent increases in gray matter and improvement of neural circuits in the brain across both genders (goldin, ramel, & gross, 2009; kerr, sacchet, lazar, moore, & jones, 2013). mindfulness-based methods may improve numerous dispositional variables implicated in stress reactivity, in addition to their other beneficial effects (e.g., tanay et al., 2012). that noted, using a specific psycho-educational technique to target a particular dispositional variable makes sense to achieve the other beneficial outcomes associated with improved levels of the dispositional variable, in addition to reduced stress reactivity. for example, increased tei may improve workplace civility (kirk et al., 2011). likewise, suboptimal levels of ea and as are empirically documented risk factors for psychopathology (for reviews, see chawla & ostafin, 2007; naragon-gainey, 2010, respectively). mindfulness-based methods have been less studied with regard to these dispositional variables than have psychoeducational methods. consequently, there are numerous unanswered questions concerning the aspects of mindfulness-based methods that are both necessary and sufficient to include; dismantling studies will undoubtedly illuminate which components (e.g., mediation, included in mbsr but not act) affect dispositional variables. continued investigation into brief and easily disseminated forms of mindfulness-based methods also seems warranted. act self-help (fledderus, bohlmeijer, et al., 2012) is an important step in this direction. likewise, exciting new work suggests that mbsr is beneficial when administered through telehealth (niles, vujanovic, silberbogen, seligowski, & potter, 2013) and also when less time commitment is required (e.g., one hour instead of three hour weekly meetings; klatt, buckworth, & malarkey, 2009). ongoing investigations will undoubtedly advance the understanding of easily disseminated forms of mindfulness-based methods. future research directions include whether there are gender or cultural differences influencing response to these interventions. overall, studies to date have tended to include more women than men; for example, the only mbsr intervention to date that examined changes in tei included only one male participant (cohen & miller, 2009). similarly, many intervention studies discussed in this work focused on north american samples. along those lines, all the psycho-educational interventions for as reviewed above used north american samples. the extent to which these findings will generalize to other cultures is an empirical question warranting scrutiny. this paper has strengths. it adds to the existing literature on dispositional variables and stress (for reviews, see lecic-tosevski et al., 2011; wu et al., 2013) by discussing three other modifiable psychological factors influencing stress reactivity, tei, as, and ea, each of which is increasingly receiving attention in stress research. we delineated the health promotion techniques that improve tei, as, and ea, covering both psycho-education and mindfulness methods. particular emphasis was placed on interventions that are applicable to the general population and easily disseminated. throughout, we drew heavily on current literature and sought to provide thorough coverage of the relevant scholarly works. despite these strengths, this review has limitations. the dispositional variables and intervention methods covered each comprise their own specialized area of study, and we did not focus on distinctions these literatures make, for example, in the different models of tei or in the practical and theoretical differences among adapted mbsr europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 choi, vickers, & tassone 391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ approaches. numerous other dispositional variables (e.g., objective ability ei, davis & humphrey, 2012) importantly influence stress responses and were not included in this review. likewise, we covered a limited number of intervention techniques and did not consider other well-established approaches that have proven efficacy. in particular, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (segal, williams, & teasdale, 2002) is a potent program that greatly reduces the risk of relapse in those with three or more depressive episodes (galante, iribarren, & pearce, 2013). we were unable to cover physiological components of the stress response and likewise omitted both the rich literature on traumatic stressors and the burgeoning research on how these dispositional variables may be modified in those with psychopathology. some studies yielding null results may have been inadvertently excluded (e.g., the file drawer problem, rosenthal, 1979). finally, in emphasizing reduced stress reactivity, we did not discuss how minimal stress reactivity might in fact be suboptimal (e.g., lovallo, 2011). future research will help to illuminate the precise level of stress reactivity that most promotes maximal health benefits over the long-term. funding kenneth choi received funding from the ryerson summer student research opportunities program of the office of the vice president of research and innovation at ryerson university. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ager, r., roahen-harrison, s., toriello, p. j., kissinger, p., morse, p., morse, e., . . . rice, j. 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(2002). perceived stress and anxiety sensitivity in the prediction of anxiety-related responding: a multichallenge evaluation. anxiety, stress, and coping, 15(3), 211-229. doi:10.1080/1061580021000020699 about the authors kenneth choi is presently completing a b.eng in chemical engineering at ryerson university. he discovered his interest for psychology through an introductory undergraduate course, and this passion has continued to flourish as a member of dr. kristin vickers’ lab. he is currently involved in research that explores distractions in academic classrooms and serves as research assistant for a study of neurocognition in ocd. kristin vickers is an associate professor in psychology at ryerson university. her research focuses on the anxiety disorder area, with a specific emphasis on understanding the causes and correlates of unexpected panic attacks. her enthusiasm for research in this area was incited early in graduate school as she sat in a course on anxiety disorders taught by her graduate school adviser, dr. richard j. mcnally. she is also interested in furthering understanding of risk and resilience factors in stress responses through the biological provocation of stress. adrianna tassone is a third year psychology undergraduate student at ryerson university. she is engaged in on-going psychological research at the university, from arranging fieldwork to data inputing and analysis. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 376–404 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.754 trait variables in stress and their improvement 404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084911 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1061580021000020699 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en trait variables in stress and their improvement (introduction) modifiable dispositional variables in stress reactivity trait emotional intelligence (tei) anxiety sensitivity (as) experiential avoidance (ea) conclusions and limitations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors on the gift of humor arthur asa berger human beings were given many gifts when we were created, such as imagination, inventiveness, and reason, but i often think the greatest gift was a sense of humor. for it is our sense of humor that enables us to tolerate and, in a way, triumph over the terrible things that happen to all of us, from time to time, in the course of our lives. that is, mirthful humor has a remarkable therapeutic value that is connected to our survival, psychologically as well as physically. we now know that laughter leads to the release of endorphins and has physiological benefits of various kinds. the interesting thing about humor is that nobody really knows why we laugh. the freudians argue that humor is a form of masked aggression and we get rid of many of our torments by ridiculing others. philosophers, since aristotle’s time, have been interested in humor and aristotle is supposed to have written a book on comedy that has never been found. aristotle argued that humor is based on a sense of superiority over others who are made to be ridiculous. we laugh at others because we feel superior to them, for one reason or another. other philosophers have suggested that humor is essentially tied to incongruities of one kind or another, between what we expect or are led to expect and what we get. this can be seen in jokes, in which the punch line offers an incongruous resolution to a narrative that generates mirthful laughter. and some philosophers and psychologists have suggested that humor is tied to certain kind of communication and meta-communication that our minds process in ways that we cannot completely understand. i have argued, in a number of books such as an anatomy of humor, that we cannot know why we laugh but, drawing upon work by the folklorist vladimir propp, we can know what makes us laugh. i suggest that there are a limited number of techniques used by humorists, at all times and in all lands, that inform humorous texts—whether we are talking about jokes, plays, situation comedies, or any other form of humor. whatever the reasons behind our mirthful laughter, and that is the kind of laughter that is connected to humor, people everywhere are drawn towards it and that is because we instinctively recognize that there are significant psychological and social benefits tied laughter and a sense of humor. our sense of humor enables us to endure and overcome political tyrannies, survive bumbling democracies, and tolerate moronic bosses and inept and neurotic wives, husbands, friends and acquaintances. life is often tragic but it is always comic. that is why we can say, “he and she who laughs, lasts (that is, survives) and he and she who laughs last, laughs best.” biographical note arthur asa berger, phd, is a professor of broadcast and electronic communication arts at san francisco state university. his main area of interest includes topics such as media criticism, cultural studies, humor, communication theory. he has published a number of books on humor including: the art of comedy writing (1997), blind men and elephants (1995) and an anatomy of humor (1993). investigating new ways to study adolescent moral competence oleg podolskiy m. sc. psychology, moscow state university phd student at the department of education, albert-ludwig university of freiburg abstract to explore adolescent moral development and moral competence it is important to develop an instrument, which would make a moral dilemma content explicit for subjects and assist adolescents to make a proper decision. we suppose that a specially designed movie could be used as a tool for representing a moral dilemma core to develop essential motivation and inclusion of viewers in the presented task, to present a realistic content of the problem situation and to present the context of this situation as a whole, and finally to make explicit the emotional peculiarities of the situation. the new method to assess adolescent moral competence has been tested in few secondary schools of moscow, russia in 2002-2004 (participant’s age 13 – 16 y.o., n=250). it has been found that this new method allowed to objectify the content of a moral dilemma much more effectively than a traditional, written manner did and consequently revealed more adequately the level of adolescents’ moral competence. keywords: adolescence, moral development, moral competence, educational diagnostic video, audiovisual representation of moral dilemma introduction moral development is a major topic in a present-day society, that offers human beings a lot of contradictory moral values and orientations. this problem is especially important in adolescence, when a young, developing person with his/her forming outlook is required to determine his/her own values. as several contemporary studies of moral development have shown (a. podolskij, karabanova, 2003), it is very difficult for adolescents to identify the moral content of a practical social situation, to distinguish it from other content in the same situation. to explore adolescent moral development and, in particular, moral competence it is important for the researcher to have at his/her disposal an instrument to make a proper moral dilemma content explicit for an adolescent participant and stimulate the subject to make a proper decision. the present research study is aimed to compare two ways of presenting moral dilemma (in written manner and as a visualized presentation of moral dilemma by means of a specially worked out instructional film) to assess the one, which provides subjects with bigger opportunities to extract the core of this moral situation. competence and moral competence to define the “moral competence” concept we have to understand how the term “competence” is defined in general. generally, we use in our everyday language such terms as “competence” or “competent person” without being able to precisely define or clearly differentiate them. the use of these terms as synonyms is reflected in dictionary entries as well, for example, competence is defined in the webster’s dictionary as “fitness or ability”. words given as synonyms or related terms are “capability”, “capacity”, “efficiency”, “proficiency”, and “skill”. competence in different subjects of science like philosophy, psychology, linguistics, sociology for instance still yields a wide variety of definitions. nonetheless, in all disciplines listed above, competence is interpreted as a roughly specialized system of abilities, proficiencies, or skills that are necessary to reach a specific task or goal (weinert, 2001). the wide variety of meanings given to the concept of competence is seen not only in its many uses, but also in the construction of terminology to express competence, such as media competence, business competence, age competence, and also cognitive, social, motivational, personal. it is not possible to discern or infer a coherent theory out of these many uses. “there is no basis for a theoretically grounded definition or classification of competence from the seemingly endless inventory of the ways the term competence is used” (weinert, 2001, p.46). hence we can assume that definitions of competence posed by researchers, grounded in a certain theoretical basis, can reflect only their subjective view on the object studied. the same “conditions” are related to the morality and to the problem of moral competence specifically. lawrence kohlberg has defined moral judgment competence as the capacity to make decisions and judgments which are moral and to act in accordance with such judgments (kohlberg, 1964). so we assume the definition by kohlberg be quite broadened that deprives an opportunity to measure validly the concept in genera, and we’ll define the moral competence later. first of all we accept the definition of competence as ability to reason and judge, determined by knowledge and comprehension of certain subject. certainly, reflexy, as a “process of mental self-perception” (psichologia. slovar’, 1990) is of a great importance in competence development. reflexy is divided into personal and intellectual domains. (semenov, stepanov, 1983). intellectual reflexy assumes several functions; determination and aiming, questioning, estimation, prediction and confirmation. personal reflexy plays a role of self-esteem and motivation (semenov, stepanov, 1983). the reflexive system can be defined as a “system, which is able to describe one’s behavior and during further actions use obtained description as certain rules, principles, and algorithms etc.” (rozov, 1987, p. 36). the process of decision-making plays a part in, or may even define moral competence. accordingly, we have take into consideration its five fundamental skills; structuring decisions, assessing beliefs, assessing values, combining these beliefs and values into coherent choices, and having a metacognitive understanding of one’s abilities. for each skill, performance can be defined in terms of either accuracy related to an external criterion or consistency among responses (dawes, 1988; yates, 1990). decision structuring as the backbone in the process of decision-making involves identifying the elements of a decision: (a) alternative courses of action, (b) potential consequences of those actions, (c) sources of uncertainty (regarding which consequences will follow each action), and (d) strategies for integrating decision-relevant information. evaluating this ability requires presenting individuals with open-ended tasks (parker, fischhoff, 2001). thus moral competence, as the object we are examining, may be defined by its three components (sadokova, 2001): self-competence – the ability to adequately perceive oneself as a subject of moral interaction, to realize one’s interests, intentions, aims, motives, feelings and value definitions caused by moral conflict, and possible ways of behaving in a situation involving a moral choice; competence in partner – an ability to perceive other individuals participating in that situation, to understand their aims, interests, motives, feelings, system of values and possible actions adequately; competence in situation assumes an ability to have an integrated view of the situation, to analyze consequences of events, to comprehend the values and norms which participants of that situation are guided by and to take into account all the peculiarities of the conflict and the individuals involved in it. due to the system of psychological conditions the development of moral competence is provided, this system is organized by a number of mental processes, namely: objectivation, decentration, analysis, reflexy and hierarchy (karabanova, 2001; podolskij, karabanova, 2003). 1. objectivation (opening and making clear) of the moral norms content. this is the first task and individual faces during his/her moral growth – to clarify the social meaning of the behaviour. the individual focuses on the interests and motives of other people and tries to make clear the consequences that his/her action has on the well-being and emotional status of other persons. objectivation is an essential point in the genesis of the moral choice and moral action. 2. decentration – coordination of the different possible perspectives to consider one problem, where interests and needs of the participants are opposite. only in this case can we deal with moral dilemmas and moral choice. both cognitive and emotional components are involved in the decentration. the adequate and accurate perceptions of the feelings of the partners in the social interaction promote the coordination. the empathy and taking into consideration the emotions of the partner, the ability to interpret his/her behaviors improve social interactions and provide the decentration. the contradiction of the participants’ interests facilitates the process of decentration, because it makes evident the necessity to appreciate the perspective of others in order to satisfy all needs. the role-taking helps to clear the position of the others and leads to the decentration in moral reasoning and moral behavior. 3. analysis stresses the importance of the cognitive processes in moral competence. analysis is intended to distinguish essential and nonessential (accidental) elements of the problem-situation (like moral dilemma is), helps to predict the following and future consequences of the behavior, to take into account a moral meaning, and to evaluate the importance of the different behavioral alternatives for the person. 4. reflexy – the representation of the content and foundation of the moral norm and moral choice in a verbal form. reflection is a process of a great importance, which determines the level of generalization and consciousness of the moral action. 5. hierarchization is the final step in establishing the individual’s moral position, which expresses his/her attitudes towards moral norms, standards, evaluations, and patterns. moral choice and final decision is based upon the hierarchical relationships between moral norms, differing by the content (for instance, justice sharing and helping behavior). according to the age-related developmental approach by l.s.vygotsky and d.b.elkonin, the regularities of the moral norms acquisition depend on the objective content of the norm, or on the regulative principles derived from the generalized social activity and interrelations. all these processes – objectivation, decentration, analysis, reflection, and hierarchization are not consecutive in the time perspective, but form the developmental structure with causal dependence and makes valuable contribution to moral development and enhancement of a new, higher level of moral competence in particular. assuming that adequate orientation in moral situations is the basis of morally competent behavior, we can assert that such competence would be realized in a case when the participant is able for objectivation of such situation and features of moral situation, to analyze it, and consequently plan and carry out certain behaviors. morally competent behavior depends on the presence of corresponding means – objectivation, analysis etc. finally, the “dual aspect theory” (as a core aspect for constructing the g.lind’s moral judgment test) states that for a comprehensive description of moral behaviour, both affective and cognitive properties need to be considered. the affective aspect informs us about the direction or orientation of human behaviour, and the cognitive aspect – about its structure and organization. both aspects are needed to achieve a comprehensive description of human action and each contributes in a unique way to the prediction of external criteria. a full description of a person’s moral behaviour involves a) the moral ideals and principles that informs it and b) the cognitive capacities that a person has when applying these ideals and principles in his or her decision-making processes (lind, 2003). probably nobody would oppose the notion of the “dual nature” of moral behavior nowadays. this assumption is of great importance, but another question – “how could emotions, and especially moral emotions, affect moral behavior?” has to be taken into consideration as well. emotions and moral emotions – the impact on moral competence. throughout the history of moral philosophy the problem of moral judgement has been the «centre of attraction» of scientific discussions. during this time the question of interrelations between morality and emotions neglected and viewed suspiciously (solomon, 1993). the criticism that emotions are irrational was not new with kant (plato, for instance, argued for the irrational nature of emotions in his phaedrus). however, kant extended this criticism, pointing out the particular problems they posed for moral reasoning and decision-making. kant characterized emotions as non-moral influences at best, immoral at worst. assumptions that are based on the notion that emotions negatively affect moral judgments are based upon the following premises: 1) emotions are always partial, arbitrary, and passive 2) moral judgments should be impartial, well-grounded, and freely made and therefore 3) emotions are detrimental to moral judgments, and are to be avoided in moral decision-making (pizzaro, 2001). pizzaro refutes this characterization of emotions on empirical grounds by arguing the following: 1) people are endowed with the capacity to regulate emotions, and on many occasions are able to effectively induce or suppress emotional reactions through a variety of tactics, allowing us to recruit emotions when appropriate and lending flexibility to our emotional lives. 2) emotions are not vacuous reflexes devoid of rational influence. rather, emotions reflect pre-existing concerns, such as our moral beliefs and principles, making them less capricious than may appear. 3) emotions might be included in the process of moral reasoning; rather than defeating the reasoning process, emotions can actually aid reasoning by acting as a centralizing agent, focusing our attention and cog¬nitive resources on the problem at hand. pizzaro concludes that “these characteristics make emotions desirable for the process of moral decision-making” (pizzaro, 2001, 358). thus, pizzaro confirms the interaction between emotions and moral judgment, highlighting the role of empathy as the most significant, truly moral, and a very important emotion (pizzaro, 2001). modern researchers also define such moral emotions like guilt, shame (eisenberg, 2000), anger, disgust, contempt, and embarrassment (haidt, 2003). however, empathy is still marked out as the most significant one, for the reason that it expresses one’s concern about another person, especially in problem situations. empathy has been implicated by developmental psy¬chologists (e.g., eisenberg, 1986; hoffman, 1987), social psychologists (e.g., batson, 1991), and philosophers (e.g., blum, 1980) as a component of psychological functioning, which is necessary for individuals to be moral. the main feature of this claim is that empathy entails imagining someone else’s emotion that is consistent with perceiving empathy as a state in which one apprehends this emotion without necessarily being in the corresponding emotional state. there are modern approaches to empathy. eisenberg defined empathy in affective terms as “an affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or would be expected to feel” (eisenberg, 2002, p. 135). this means that in order to have empathy with another person one may have to imagine his/her emotions. it is possible to evoke emotions similar to those of another person by simulating having his/her beliefs and desires, or by imagining being in his/her situation (nilsson, 2003). harold adds that “empathy requires not only imagining the emotion of someone else, but also feeling an emotion that is similar to the emotion of this other person (harold, 2000, p. 343). pizzaro states that the presence of moral emotions is affected by the individual’s moral beliefs. because of this, emotional reactions can be reliable informers of the moral priorities of an individual, significantly weakening the claim that emotional reactions are merely non-cognitive, reflexive responses (pizzaro, 2001). hoffman assumed that empathy and moral principles complement each other in order to produce moral behavior. empathy is the motivation for acting morally in the first place while moral principles reduce “empathic bias” and “empathic overarousal” (hoffman, 2000). changes in motivating moral behaviour could take place as a cause of inclusion of affective components: emotions, feelings regarding to other person. empathic feelings motivate, according to research, people to care for others (for reviews, see batson, 1991; hoffman, 2000). without empathy, moral principles seem to lack the motivating force for people to care for others (hoffman, 2000). taking into consideration that situations which include moral dilemma are mostly based on a challenge (or dilemma) and on sacrifice of one thing in favour of another, empathy enables us to reflect on feelings of the participant in the moral situation and consequently is an important sign of a moral task presence in the problem situation. so it seems that empathy is needed to see the situation morally (thompson, 2001) empathy to the participant induces us to consider moral principles that are important for making right decision in a moral situation. the feelings of empathy are nothing else but a signal of morally significant content present in a situation. thus here we emphasized the importance of empathy, its motivating, informative and signal functions regarding the moral situation. presentation of material as a way to discover moral competence. mostly all researchers in the field of moral development and moral competence use certain types of problem task presentation material (interviews, written narratives) but not all of them take into account the meaning of its influence on the process of evaluation of moral competence in whole. kohlberg realized that the stimulus (presentation) materials, but not the way of presenting, and the interviewing method were decisive for defining the level of moral judgement. it is important to use presentation material to:1)acquire high content-rich answers, 2) define the highest level of moral judgement that is possible for the respondent and 3) ascertain the level, on which the participant can use their own moral principles for moral decision-making (kohlberg, 1984). on the other hand, george lind states that moral competence can not be observed or measured by looking at an isolated act (or same acts) of moral behavior, rather, valuable judgments of a person’s moral dispositions can only be made when we can observe the whole pattern of different reactions to a variety of moral situations (lind, 2003). we assume the important role of moral task presentation. to access and finally measure the structure of moral competence one needs to present to the respondent an important (motivating) real-life problem situation, which includes moral dilemma. we will get back to this point later. do we still measure moral competence? kohlberg was searching for an objective, observable method to evaluate moral competence. the interview method (used by kohlberg), “… is not identical with the mostly tacit cognitive processes involved in typical moral decision-making processes, and both types of reasoning are not closely enough related to each other to let us regard conscious reasoning as a valid indicator or tacit moral competence. piaget’s simple-response-method (“which of these two acts are worse, a or b?”) may considerably overestimate what has been found to be cognitions.. more specifically, the kohlberg-interview method, which scores the “stage” of conscious moral arguments, is suspected to let us systematically underestimate people’s moral competence” (lind, 2004, 10). lind himself asserts that his diagnostical tool, the moral judgment test was designed for evaluation studies and particularly to measures the core of moral-democratic competencies, namely the ability to make moral judgments and to engage in a moral discourse to solve conflicts and dilemmas and should not be used to make decisions about individual persons (lind 2003). conversely, for us, individual moral competence is of a great importance, and this issue addressed in our scientific work. summing up one of his papers (lind, 2004), george lind states that still there is a wide gap between the concept of moral competence and its measurement, and the results received neither confirm the presence of a certain moral competence, nor disprove this fact. this conclusion forces us to continue a search for a proper method of investigation and measurement of the subject moral competence. 6 steps forward to moral competence so we believe that valuable research on moral competence evaluation should aim to develop an instrument, which would sufficiently create preconditions for appearance of empathy and later on objectivate the completeness of moral dilemma maintenance, and would represent a realistic, emotionally signed and motivating for decision making situation, containing moral dilemma in it. below, we list six statements, which are highly important for designing a new instrument to assess and evaluate adolescent moral competence: 1) moral competence may be defined by its three components: self-competence – an ability to adequately perceive oneself as a subject of moral interaction, to realize one’s interests, aims, motives, feelings and value definitions caused by moral conflict, and possible ways of behaving in a situation involving a moral choice; competence in partner – an ability to perceive other subjects participating in that situation adequately, to understand their aims, interests, motives, feelings, system of values and possible actions; competence in situation assumes an ability to have an integrated view of the situation, to analyze consequences of events, to comprehend the values and norms which participants of that situation are guided by and to take into account all the peculiarities of the conflict and the subjects involved in it (podolskij, karabanova, 2003). 2) a special stimulus material is to be developed which should be sensitive not only to the cognitive component of moral behavior (“moral reasoning”), but also to its affective component (eisenberg, 2002; lind, 2004). 3) the traditional means of presenting a moral dilemma by using short written narratives does not completely meet the above mentioned requirements as it doesn’t highlight the affective component of the moral situation. this causes difficulties for adolescent individuals to comprehend the moral conflict content. 4) the stimulus material should be assessed not only by the moral dilemma objective structure but also by the age-related and culturally specific situational contexts; this would provide a stronger motivation and deepen participants’ involvement in the situational context. 5) the stimulus material should make it easier to “pull” the participant psychologically into the posed dilemma in a way that is personally significant for him/her. it may be provided only in the case where the participant would, in addition to comprehending the objective structure of the situation (who are the participants? what is the origin of the conflict? etc.), also be able to deal with the emotional experience of the participants of moral dilemma; in other words – would be able to empathize with them. 6) we consider that visualized presentation of moral dilemma, as a specially developed film would promote solving the above mentioned tasks (2-5) to a greater extent. thus this kind of experimental task presentation should be more sensitive in measuring moral competence, than with traditional, textual presentation. instructional video as a way to assess adolescent moral competence in the present day, if one would like to find out define, with support of which information medium one might facilitate an appearance of the greatest amount of emotions, cinematography and television, probably, would lead this list. cinema was and still is an unlimited space where billions of people of different ages, sex and religion meet each other for the same goal – to experience and express emotions. modern society is filled with cinema culture, tv and video films and is absolutely unimaginable without them. movie production industry offers us a way to achieve an exciting and multisensory experience, but for some of us cinema is still the place where we can “watch, deepen and to sense”. but an exclusive ability of the movie is to transmit the same emotions to different people. classical cultural workers in the movie production such as sergey eisenstein defined emotions as a one of the general goals, which the film director aims for while shooting the new movie. andrei abazin shared this notion, striking out the importance of ways to achieve certain emotions (particularly underlying the role of reality). in the present day, we can define a number of special techniques that create necessary emotional atmosphere like light, camera movement, actors’ performance, sound, music, narrative style, genre shifts, etc. several researchers highlighted the meaning of identification with actors’ role in the movie as a central mechanism of emotional origins. identification with a movie hero (any kind of role) never appears in a “vacuum” or separated from the situation as a whole. the viewer is not only finding him/herself with an actor description, but with the defined place of the actors’ role in the whole narrative and its relation to other roles. identification with an actor could appear only in the case of complete understanding of situation and complexity of actor relations. at the same time, movies do not oblige an audience to feel any emotions. more adequately is to say, that certain movies invite us to feel emotions. an audience has a right to accept such invitation, or to refuse it – it depends on whether the audience is an “educated” one, in a sense of abilities to “read” the keys to identify these emotions. (smith, 2003) modern audiences, in general, could be called quite “educated” in comprehending movies. in particular, we can say this about a young audience, whose development depends more and more on this audio-visual source of information. with the aid of the audio-visual medium we are able to conduct the presentation of the special problem in the best way and represent the situation that are inadequately described with a by words only. the movie can “heat up” the high emotionality of a conflict or interpersonal relations in the conflict situation, which are of a great instructive value (meisel, 1998). preferences of dramatization implemented in the context of the instructional format are also sufficiently clear. for example, movie production, which includes actors performance, artistic arrangement and many other expressive tools, enables us not only to focus our attention on the key frames including educational situations, but also to highlight the special mood and “atmosphere” of the situation so that an audience would be able to feel (especially it could be important for moral situations). dramatization partly plays a role in creating the emotional context of the situation, as a way to assure the viewer reflects on the core idea of the movie (deighton, romer, & mcqueen, 1989). surely there are also several hidden dangers, like if the actors’ performance is conceived as unnatural, or disrupts the expectations of the audience. in this case it is no longer considered the perfect aid to present a certain message (hoban, 1953). if the dramatization is not truthful, it could lead to an unpredictable reaction of the audience, and it would consequently switch the viewer perception of the presented contents. integrating different literature sources (meisel, 1998; picciotto, robertson, & colley, 1989; schramm, 1977; ziegerell, 1991; wetzel, douglas, 1994) we can define additional key features, of the abilities and preferences of video-technologies for educational settings: 1) information could be presented in visual way quite effectively: animation, speech, music, sound effects and static graphics can later be integrated in the movie. written printed information can not be as vivid, impressive and memorizing as a video. 2) reality. video can represent the contents of behaviour, processes, situations and events that (possibly) take place in reality. 3) with the assistance of video, we can observe such complex actions, which couldn’t be presented by any other way. 4) dramatization (comparatively with real events) enables to present the complex situation in a particular way, and to attract attention of the audience to the key, instructionally important points. 5) movies can be edited, updated and remade relatively easy. 6) while making videos there is a possibility to support it with different audio tracks which enables to produce multilingual movies in spite of all the advantages of the video medium there is still a strong possibility to that the viewer could be disappointed with low quality material. in this case, everything that could be counted as an amateurish, non-professional, boring or too ordinary (the list of possible negative characteristics could be continued) probably would lead to rejection of further watching (picciotto, robertson, & colley r., 1989). while making educational movies, one has to take into account a huge number of factors, not only for keeping the interest of the audience, but mainly to represent the idea and the message of the movie. using special techniques in educational movie production, we can present the real state of a situation and their relations. in this way, the audience unintentionally becomes involved in an artificial situation, as though it were taking place in the reality. we do not aim to retell the story of the cinematography, theories of movie production, script production, actors performance, and movie directing in general. rather, we intend to underline briefly some of the techniques which have to be taken into account in the making of instructional movies. movie length. while making the special instructional audiovisual programmes it is important to avoid long and boring movies. the most useful are short ones. this is based on the assumption, that long movies can cause passiveness, or “passive watching”, when the audience stops to assess the content of the movie critically and precisely (elliott, 1984). some of researchers (baggaley, 1973; trenaman, 1967; vernon, 1953) stress the importance of movie length, which might be limited to 25-30 minutes. regardless to the motivational abilities of video, an older audience loses interest while watching the movie much faster than a younger one (wright et al., 1984). sound effects. the necessity and efficacy of using sound effects in movie production is appreciated quite contradictorily, regardless of its ability to arouse and keep the interest of the audience while watching. sound effects increase the attention of young audience (alwitt, anderson, lorch, & levin, 1980; anderson & levin, 1976; bryant & zillmann, 1981; calvert и gersh, 1987; calvert, huston, watkins, & master, 1982; calvert & scott, 1989). sound markers (provoking sound effects) are used in movies as an effective instrument to highlight important key frames, expanding performance capabilities of instruction (bryant, zillmann, & brown, 1983; calvert & scott, 1989; watt & welch, 1983). music. the main goal of the musical background in the movie is to create a special atmosphere. music can stimulate the audience to feel concern with the movie actor, to feel emphatic, to “fit” his happiness, fear, disappointment for instance. (gianetti, 1987; zucheman, 1949). humour if relevant to the core concept of the movie is used to attract attention as a valid and effective technique for educational media making (lesser, 1972, 1974). summing up we need to underline the fact that the importance of medium, and specifically the audio-visual medium (such as a movie) in education and instruction could be defined only if its key functions and preferences are defined. additionally we have to stress that, technology or a medium would never lead the process of development, but might follow side by side with it, providing new abilities for education. so the video-technology can’t be examined and used as an original, self-contained, separated from the context studied, tasks and objectives of education and therefore we have to take to account not only technological preferences of such medium (like video is) alone, but only with close interaction with its psychoeducational context, and here namely with moral competence assesment. on the basis of psychoeducational analysis (eisenberg, 2002; haidt, 2001; lind, 2004; pizarro, 2001) and instructional technology literature (elliott, 1984; meisel, 1998; romiszowski, 1988; smith, 2003; wetzel, 1994) we supposed that a specially designed diagnostic movie could be used as a way of representing a moral dilemma to enable the following: 1) to develop essential motivation and consequently the inclusion of viewers in the core of the presented task. 2) to present a realistic problem situation content, and at the same time to present the context of this situation as a whole, showing interests and aims of the participants of the situation in question. 3) to make explicit the emotional content of the situation in question: especially feelings and attitudes of the situation participants. empirical study during 2003-2004 a new method for assessing adolescent moral competence was tested at secondary schools in moscow, russia. the general question of our experiment was: how does the presentation of problem task (which contains moral dilemma) affect measurement and analysis of adolescent moral competence? therefore we stated the following goals of experimental study: 1) to develop special scenario, to prepare and shoot a film, containing dramatized moral dilemma. 2) to define the criteria using expert appraisal, which would characterize adolescent moral competence whilst solving tasks with moral dilemmas. this would help to develop a special testing method (experimental questionnaire). 3) to form comparable experimental and control groups with a relatively equal initial level of moral competence. 4) to conduct experimental research, aimed on examination of video-dramatization as a mean of studying adolescent moral competence development, compared with textual form of moral dilemma presentation. 5) to examine the results of research regarding significant differences among participants of different ages and gender. characteristics of the sample the sample consisted of 250 students of the 6th and 9th grades, aged 11-16 (49% male and 51% female) from the secondary school n798, moscow with profound study of english, and secondary school n1115, moscow. hypotheses general hypothesis: visualized presentation of moral dilemma using a specially shot film, will more adequately take into account psychological features of adolescents and characteristics of adolescent moral development. thus, it is expected that significant differences will be found between the visualized and textual presentation of moral dilemmas. minor hypothesis; differences in the success of the different types of presentation may be related to age and gender differences of participants. procedure and method a prototype of the test “moral dilemmas” was used to evaluate the level of moral competence in the samples. this test was developed in the framework of the international project “mamos” (podolskiy, karabanova, 2000). in the recent study two problem tasks (situations that contain moral dilemmas of (at least) two contradictory moral norms) were used, which were similar to the ones used in that project. these tasks were “julja” and “misha”, and were used in both groups (control and experimental) correspondingly as a pretest and as a main part of the study. in the task “misha” the hero of the story appears in a situation of a moral choice between two principles: to tell the truth and to keep confidential relations with parents, but, thus, most likely to be upset and to upset his friend, or, having deceived parents to spend time together with the friend. in the problem task “julja” the dilemma was between two controversy wishes – to say the truth and to have the worse grade for the whole year (which is important for the main hero) or to tell lies (and say the wrong grade for assignment) and probably as a consequence to break good relations with a teacher. based on the methodology of developing instructional films, professional experience and intuition, we wrote a scenario of a film, which was shot, cut and recorded as a short instructional video (diagnostical movie “misha”). in accordance to this scenario an equivalent textual version of the problem situation was prepared. regarding the structure of moral competence, special questions were devised (later on they determined the contents of questionnaires for tasks “julja” and “misha”) to analyze each component of moral competence: comprehension of own aims, motives and position in problem situation (in dependence on its outcomes), orientation in goals and intentions of participants of the situation, opposition of their interests, intentions and goals, an ability to guess possible reasons for their behavior on the basis of analyzed leading motives, understanding the feelings of other people – participants of this situation, and a capacity for sympathize them in different outcomes, etc.) in total 11 questions (including 1 subquestion) were presented to the subjects in the pretest. the examples of the questions are: “what feelings does julia experience?”, “wherein lies a conflict of this situation?”, “how julja can reason in this situation?”, “what would happen if julja says truth?” etc. 19 questions (including 4 subquestions) were presented to the subjects in the main study. the examples of the questions are:”what feelings does misha experience?”, “what do you think of heroes (i.e. participants of the situation)?” (all three subquestions – 6a, 6b, 6c), “wherein lies a conflict of this situation?”, “how this situation is seen by parents’ eyes?”, “do you think misha’s position to be right? why?”, “how misha can reason in this situation?”, “aims of whom can you find in this situation mostly worthy?”, “what do you think about friendship between misha and snake?“ etc. subjects’ responses were evaluated on the base of the specially elaborated assessment criteria; accordingly every answer has got one or another quantitative meaning. the questions were constructed in an open-ended form so not to limit respondents’ ability to demonstrate their comprehension of the problem situation. these questionnaires were the same both for the participants to whom the written task has been presented and for those who watched the experimental movie. in addition to the questions reflecting components of moral competence, we developed an “empathy index” as a special independent variable. this index is supposed to be very important one, because it shows the extent to which the teenager has placed themselves in the situation of moral choice. the index is defined by the comprehension of situation and emotional experience of the main subject of dilemma (in relation of whom the empathy has appeared). the empathy index was determined for pretest and main study separately, as an integrative sum of answers on the following questions: “what feelings does julia experience?”, “whether you have experienced feelings like julja had, while getting to know her difficult situation?”, “wherein lies a conflict of this situation?”, “how can julja argue in this situation, making a decision how to act?”– for the task “julja”, and “what feelings does misha experience?”, “whether you have experienced feelings like misha had, while getting to know her difficult situation?”, “wherein lies a conflict of this situation?”, “how can misha argue in this situation, making a decision how to act?” – for the task “misha”. the control group solved moral tasks using written narratives both in the pretest (written problem task “julja”) and in the main part (written problem task “misha”) of the study, and the experimental group solved the pretest task using a written narrative (written problem tasks “julja” similar to the one solved by the control group students) and watched the experimental movie “misha” in the main part. the pretest and the main part of the study were performed with an interval of three days. results pretest results the main result of the pretest was that no significant differences between control and experimental groups in solving the tasks “julia” has been found. no significant differences were found between control and experimental group subjects also what regards to the “empathy index”. interesting to add that a significant difference has been found between male and female subjects: the girls (as one might expect) demonstrated sufficiently higher level of empathy than the boys (p=.037) while comparing answers of senior (9th grade) and junior (6th grade) students no significant differences were found either. the only exception was a question “what might happen if julia answered honestly?”. at this point senior subjects demonstrated significantly higher results (p=.025) unlike at the rest points. so we had no hesitations concerning a similarity of the selected groups. main part results as a core result of the main part we found significant differences between control and experimental groups concerning the following questions: “what feelings does misha experience?” (p=.050), “what do you think of heroes (i.e. participants of the situation)?” (p=.341), “wherein does a conflict of this situation lie?” (p=.047), “how is this situation seen by parents’ eyes?” (p=.013), “do you think the misha’s position to be right? why?” (p=.003), “how misha can reason in this situation?” (p=.003), “aims of whom can you find in this situation mostly worthy?” (p=.003), “what do you think about friendship between misha and snake?” (p=.001). significant differences were also found concerning the “index of empathy” (p=.040) what can we say about the abovementioned distinctions? first of all, we consider that students from the experimental group could comprehend more complete understanding of other people’s feelings – participants of situation, and also an ability to sympathize them in different outcomes. secondly, they (experimental group) could give more complete and detailed estimation of the task participants. thirdly, and it’s quite important for us, it was found that a much higher level of understanding what is “really going on” in the situation, what are the main goals of participants, how they should behave themselves. and finally, fourthly, students from the experimental group showed better results comparatively to their peers from the control group what regards level of empathy with respect to participants of situation. also, it might be mentioned that a relatively small size of sample didn’t afford us to make a more detailed analysis of two other independent variables, i.e. age and sex. in other words, we can’t strictly persist on the fact, that received data is the result of experimental procedure only, and does not depend on sex or age of students at all as for that we need to hold on a new study with a much greater sample. to summarize we can say that the main result we achieved was a presence of significant differences between the control and experimental groups on a bigger part of questions of the experimental task questionnaire. students from the experimental group showed a more complete understanding of the dilemma participants’ feelings and an ability to sympathize with them in different outcomes of the situation. the experimental group students were able to give more complete and detailed evaluations of all participants of dilemma; they showed a much deeper understanding of what is “really going on” in the situation, what the main goals of the participants were and possible means of behavior in the situation. hence, students from the experimental group showed far better results and a higher level in all components of moral competence than students from the control group. discussion what can we say about gaining our research goals? the first and second goals were to develop special experimental questionnaire (based on the structure of moral competence) and to prepare and shoot the film, which would assist adolescents to objectify main components of moral dilemma. surely these goals were subsidiary for our research, but without solving them we couldn’t address the other goals. that’s why we paid much attention to the theoretical analysis, presented in the recent paper, and realization of outcomes of this analysis in special questionnaire and experimental movie. as the third goal we had to achieve equalization of compared groups with regards to the initial level of moral competence. to gain this goal, adolescents (6th and 9th-graders) were presented with a task “julia”. as we can see from the results, control and experimental groups have shown mostly the same initial level of moral competence. also we have found a lot of differences on many parameters between boys and girls. these distinctions appeared to be more essential than distinctions between junior (6th grade) and senior (9th grade) students. surely it might be useful to compare control and experimental groups by initial intellectual, emotional and moral development level in pretest. unfortunately we didn’t have such a possibility. the forth, and most important goal of main study was to analyze to what extent the form of the moral dilemma presentation would affect the results of problem solving by adolescents. we had every reason to believe that a visualized presentation of moral dilemma as a specially worked out instructional film objectivated main components of moral dilemma and appeared to be more adequate to psychological features of adolescence and characteristics of adolescent socio-moral development. concerning our fifth goal, namely to find dependence of the phenomenon studied upon sex and age of students – we leave this question to the future research. at the same time we found evident tendencies: 1) the phenomenon of a moral dilemma presentation form was greater among 9th-grade students. possibly it could be connected with the fact that presented task content was much closer to the actual problems of 9thgraders. we do not except, that there is also another reason: questions of morality are much more valuable and significant for 14-15 year old adolescents, than to 11-12 year old boys and girls. 2) comparably greater effect was found among boys. at the same time we must take into account that a considerably greater initial level of mostly all main parameters of moral competence has been demonstrated by girls. to sum up the performed research, we believe that its main goals were mostly settled (we left the fifth goal not fully solved) and research hypotheses were proved. we can point out several perspectives of our future research: 1) it is important to study correlation of explored phenomenon with sex and age of respondents more deeply. 2) the contents of moral dilemmas should vary, particularly the type of presented conflict, the structure of dilemma’s participants (coevals, adults, relatives) 3) we’ve left an issue of relations between individually-psychological features of respondents and studied phenomenon open. biographical note corresponding author: institut für erziehungswissenschaft albert-ludwigs-universität rempartstr.11, 79098, freiburg, germany tel: +49-761-203-2455 fax: +49-761-203-2458 e-mail: po@nm.ru (o. podolskiy) references alwitt, l. f., anderson, d. r., lorch, e. p., & levin, s. r. 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(1999). the uses of television in american higher education. new york: praeger. zucheman j., (1949). music in motion pictures. a review of the literature with implications for instructional films. philadelphia: pennsylvania state college (eric document reproduction service no. ed 002 434) which are the “best” cities for psychology research worldwide? research reports which are the “best” cities for psychology research worldwide? lutz bornmann*a, loet leydesdorffb, günter krampenc [a] division for science and innovation studies, max planck society, munich, germany. [b] amsterdam school of communication research (ascor), university of amsterdam, amsterdam, the netherlands. [c] leibniz institute for psychology information, university of trier, germany. abstract we present scientometric results about worldwide centers of excellence in psychology. based on web of science data, scientific excellence can be identified for cities from where highly-cited papers originate. data refer to all psychology articles published in 2007 which are documented in the social science citation index and to their citation frequencies from 2007 to may 2011. 218 cities are visualized with an article output of at least 50 in 2007. statistical z tests are used for the evaluation of the degree to which an observed number of top-cited papers (top-10%) for a city differs from the number expected on the basis of randomness in the selection of papers. the map points at excellence centers in cities at the east and west coast of the usa as well as in great britain, germany, the netherlands, ireland, belgium, sweden, finland, australia, and taiwan. these results indicate that highly-cited psychological research articles come from the anglo-american countries and some of the non-english european countries in which the number of english-language publications has increased during the last decades. implications of the results for the publication strategies of psychologists in non-english speaking countries are discussed as well as the neccessity to care for qualitative criteria in evaluations in addition to quantitative, scientometric criteria. keywords: scientometrics, citation analysis, bibliometrics, psychology, research excellence europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 received: 2012-06-20. accepted: 2012-09-17. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: division for science and innovation studies, administrative headquarters of the max planck society, hofgartenstr. 8, 80539 munich, germany, email: bornmann@gv.mpg.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction recently, loet leydesdorff, lutz bornmann and co-authors have developed new approaches for the spatial visualization of concentrations of highly-cited papers using overlays to google maps. bornmann, leydesdorff, walch-solimena, and ettl (2011) provided methods to map field-specific centers of excellence around the world using bibliometric data. these methods identify and agglomerate excellence in cities where highly-cited papers were published. using colors and sizes for the marks, differences among cities in terms of performance rates can be visualized on maps. bornmann and waltman (2011) extended these methods and used a new approach with density maps for a spatial examination revealing regions of excellence. in contrast to bornmann, leydesdorff, et al. (2011) who focus on cities, this approach is intended to visualize broader regions where highly-cited papers were published. a further step in the development of these spatial visualization methods is described in bornmann and leydesdorff (2011). this most recent method does not only consider the quantitative numbers of highly-cited papers, but the observed number of highly-cited papers for a city is tested statistically against the expected number of highly-cited europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ papers. for example, if authors located in a single city have published 1,000 papers, one would expect for statistical reasons that approximately 100 (that is, 10%) would also belong to the top-10% most-highly cited papers. an observed number of 70 highly-cited papers for this city may seem as a large number compared to other cities, but the specification of the expectation above changes this appreciation. this approach has drawn considerable attention in science journalism.1 the application of scientometric methods outside the physical and life sciences has sometimes been considered questionable (moed, 2005). as abramo and d’angelo (2011) formulated: “the use of such measures is still limited to the natural and formal sciences, where publications in international journals and conference proceedings are the most accepted form for the diffusion of research outputs, and where the publications therefore represent a trustworthy proxy of research outputs ... in the arts and humanities and most of the social sciences, bibliometric indicators are considered not yet sufficiently robust to inform peer-review” (p. 500). although psychology does not belong to the “hard-science” disciplines scientometric methods have increasingly been applied for evaluative purposes within the discipline (see, e.g., endler, rushton, & roediger, 1978; krampen, 2008; nosek et al., 2010). according to the results of mahdi, d'este, and neely (2008) “citation counts are a reasonable proxy for peer assessment in some subjects, such as … psychology” (p. 3). publication and citation behavior in psychology converges at least in some of its sub-disciplines (e.g., experimental psychology, bioand neuropsychology, clinical psychology, social psychology) with the physical and life sciences. this resulted during the last decades in increased publishing in english-language and internationally peer-reviewed journals (see, e.g., krampen, huckert, & schui, 2012; krampen & schui, 2011). we return to this topic in the results section below. in this study, we provide a map for cities using all 2007 articles contained in the relevant so-called subject categories of the social science citation index (web of science,wos, thomson reuters). although bornmann and leydesdorff (2011) used psychology data as an example the present study is more systematic, because these authors based their psychology map only on a random sample of all publications from one year, while in the present study all publications (with the document type “article”) are included. furthermore, one of us as an expert for psychology documentation and information checked the plausibility of the scientometric results. methods procedure for data collection the procedure to map the cities of the authors having published the top-10%most-highly-cited papers in a certain field is described in detail in bornmann and leydesdorff (2011). in the following, we give a short overview of this method. the share of top-10% most highly cited publications in their subject category (publication year, document type) has become a de facto standard for the assessment of excellence at the institutional level (bornmann, de moya anegón, & leydesdorff, 2012; bornmann & leydesdorff, 2011; bornmann, mutz, marx, schier, & daniel, 2011; leydesdorff, bornmann, mutz, & opthof, 2011; tijssen & van leeuwen, 2006; tijssen, visser, & van leeuwen, 2002; waltman et al., 2012). in this study we follow this classification and focus on the top-10% of papers published in 2007 in psychology, using a citation window from 2007 up to the date of harvesting data from the wos for this research (may 23, 2011). all papers from 2007 having at least 16 citations each in the publication set belong to the top-10% most cited psychology papers in this set. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 “best” cities for psychology research worldwide 536 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a first step, all papers (n = 21,528) with the document type “article” published in 2007 and belonging to the subject categories “psychology,” “psychology, applied,” “psychology, biological,” “psychology, clinical,” “psychology, developmental,” “psychology, educational,” “psychology, experimental,” “psychology, mathematical,” “psychology, multidisciplinary,” “psychology, psychoanalysis,” and “psychology, social” were downloaded from the wos (social science citation index). we restricted the search to articles (as document types) since (1) the method proposed here is intended to identify excellence at the research front and (2) different document types have different expected citation rates, possibly resulting in non-comparable datasets. after running in subsequent steps various programs which can be copied freely,2 the output file can be uploaded to the webpage of the gps visualizer3 in order to visualize the content. the file contains the city entries from the wos data. the counting of occurrences in this study (so-called “integer counting”) follows the procedure of how author addresses on publications are gathered by thomson reuters for inclusion in the wos. if co-authors are provided with an identical city-address on a publication, this leads to a single city occurrence in the output. if the co-authors are affiliated with different cities, the different city names are all used equally in the programs. in a further file, the city entries from thewos data are organized so that aggregated city occurrences can be visualized on a map, that is, provided with latitudes and longitudes (source of the coordinates: google). for the maps presented below we zoomed in on europe and north america. other regional foci can be studied using the google map at http://www.leydesdorff.net/psychology/cities.htm. one can inspect the ratio between observed and expected numbers of excellent papers for a specific city by clicking on the respective city node. since the underlying data of a map from wos (bibliographic data) and google (geocoding coordinates)4 are error-prone (bornmann, leydesdorff, et al., 2011), we decided to visualize only cities (n = 218) with an article output in 2007 of at least 50. there is a danger for cities in the data with a small number of papers that they result from private addresses of researchers or addresses of hospitals (but not from psychology departments) and that they receive wrong coordinates fromgoogle. furthermore, the use of a threshold of 50 provides us with a minimum of five papers expected in the top-10% and thus confirms with a requirement of using the statistical procedure described in the following. for these 218 cities we could check the validity of the geocoding coordinates. in the case of (systemic) errors still on the maps, however, we appreciate and will respond to feedback. statistical procedure the z test for two independent proportions (sheskin, 2007, pp. 637-643) is used for evaluating the degree to which an observed number of top-cited papers for a city differs from the value that would be expected on the basis of randomness in the selection of papers (bornmann & leydesdorff, 2011). z has a positive value (sign) if the observed number of top papers is larger than the expected number and the z-values are negative in the reverse case. an absolute value of z larger than 1.96 indicates statistical significance at the five percent level (p < .05) for the difference between observed and expected numbers of top-cited papers (marked with an asterisk *). in other words, the authors located in that city are outperformers with respect to scientific excellence in terms of this statistics. due to the large number of city tests being conducted (n = 218), especially highly significant p values (p < .01) should be considered as significant and interpreted (marked with at least two asterisks **; *** will indicate p < .001). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 bornmann, leydesdorff, & krampen 537 http://www.leydesdorff.net/psychology/cities.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ using this statistical test, we designed the city circles which are visualized on the map using different colours and sizes. the radii of the circles are calculated by using: | observed value – expected value | + 1 the “+1” must prevent the circles from disappearing if the observed ratio is equal to the expected one. furthermore, the circles are coloured green if the observed values are larger than the expected values. we use dark green if z is statistically significant; light green indicates a positive, but statistically non-significant result. in the reverse case that the observed values are smaller than the expected values the circles are red or orange, respectively. they are red if the observed value is significantly smaller than the expected value and orange-red if the difference is statistically non-significant. if the expected value equals the observed value a city node is coloured grey. results locations of authors having published highly-cited papers figure 1 shows the location of authors in europe having published highly-cited papers in psychology and the deviations of the observed from the expected numbers of top-cited papers per location (the circle radii) in 2007. if one clicks on a circle,5 a frame opens showing the number of observed versus expected values for the respective city, as well as an asterisk indicating whether the difference between the values is statistically significant or not. in figure 1, for example, london is indicated by a very large dark green circle—the largest green circle in europe—because of an observed value much larger than expected. in the description in a frame, the large and statistically highly significant difference between the observed (no = 194) and the expected value (ne = 100.9) can be retrieved. further large green circles on the map with a statistically highly significant difference (p < .01) between observed and expected values are visible for oxford (no = 39, ne = 19.6) and cambridge (no = 32, ne = 14.0) in great britain as well as amsterdam (no = 67, ne = 40.5) and nijmegen (no = 42, ne = 22.2) in the netherlands. significant (p < .05) differences in favor of high citation counts are documented for the cities of berlin (no = 34, ne = 19.4), bremen (no = 13, ne = 5.3), mannheim (no = 15, ne = 6.6), munster (no = 14, ne = 5.6), and leipzig (no = 29, ne = 13.9) in germany, dublin in ireland (no = 18, ne = 6.8), utrecht in the netherlands (no = 44, ne = 25.8), louvain in belgium (no = 31, ne = 17.6), stockholm in sweden (no = 38, ne = 20.9), and oulu in finland (no = 13, ne = 5.0), furthermore, some other european cities are indicated with light green circles indicating a positive but statistically non-significant result. most of these cities for which the relationship between expected and observed citations is positive, but not statistically significant are located in great britain (i.e., aberdeen, canterbury, edinburgh, exeter, lanark, leeds, manchester, nottingham, sheffield, and york), the netherlands (i.e., groningen, leiden, maastricht, rotterdam, and tilburg), germany (i.e., cologne, dusseldorf, freiburg, gottingen, jena, and munich), belgium (brussels and ghent), switzerland (bern, geneva, lausanne, and zurich), finland (helsinki and turku), norway (oslo and bergen), sweden (gothenburg and uppsala) and spain (madrid and valencia). single cities are located in austria (vienna), denmark (copenhagen), france (paris), italy (milan), and it should be noted that only some of these cities are capitals. the reverse case that the observed value is significantly smaller than the expected citation value is identified for no european city. however, there are many more cities which must be described as highly productive (i.e., psychology journal article output in 2007 of at least 50), but for which the relationship between expected and europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 “best” cities for psychology research worldwide 538 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. cities in europe with highly cited articles in psychology during 2007 (only cities are visualized with a total article output in 2007 of at least 50)6 observed citations is negative without reaching statistical significance (see orange-red circles in figure 1): birmingham, brighton, bristol, cardiff, lancaster, leicester, liverpool, and southampton in great britain; frankfurt am main, heidelberg, and tubingen in germany; padua and rome in italy; barcelona and granada in spain; marseille in france; athens in greece; ankara in turkey. it follows that the underperformers (in terms of the scientometric criteria used in this study) are more distributed than the top-performing cities. figure 2 shows the corresponding map focusing on the usa. there is a very high concentration of large green circles (indicating positive differences between observed and expected citation frequencies reaching statistical significance) at the east coast which is completed by some more at the west coast as well as some in the north-east and south-east. the result that the best cities in 2007 for psychology research worldwide are located europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 bornmann, leydesdorff, & krampen 539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the usa is supported further by the large number of light green circles, only a very few orange-red circles, and no red circles in figure 2. figure 2. cities in the usa with highly cited articles in psychology during 2007 (only cities are visualized with a total article output in 2007 of at least 50)7 extending the view to a global one, our results point to the fact that in addition to the above described cities in europe and the usa only a few more cities show significantly positive differences of observed against expected citation frequencies of the psychology articles published in 2007: sydney (no = 45, ne = 27.8) and parkville (no = 19, ne = 7.8) in australia as well as kaohsiung in taiwan (no = 26, ne = 8.6). furthermore, light green circles indicating a positive, but not statistically significant difference can be reported for beer sheva, haifa, and jerusalem (israel), adelaide and melbourne (australia), christchurch and dunedin (new zealand), singapore, seoul (south korea) as well as beijing (china). brisbane, clayton and st. lucia (australia), aichi8 and tokyo (japan) as well as hong kong, auckland (new zealand), and tel aviv (israel) are characterized by orange-red circles indicating a slightly negative, but statistically non-significant difference for observed versus expected citation frequencies. only mexico city (mexico), moscow (russia), sao paulo (brasilia), and taipei (taiwan) show statistically significant negative differences for observed versus expected citation numbers (red circles on the map) indicating an underrepresentation in attaining top-10% citations. the anglicization of psychology the results show impressively that most research results are published and cited within the anglo-american countries: most of the best cities for psychology research worldwide are located in the usa and great britain. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 “best” cities for psychology research worldwide 540 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this is completed only by some cities in the netherlands, israel, australia, the scandinavian, and the german-speaking countries. this can be considered as an anglo-american agglomeration effect which we would like to discuss in more detail. anglicization of the sciences occurred rapidly in the natural sciences, particularly in areas of discovering facts and natural laws, which are not or—at least—only weakly and indirectly dependent on culture and socialization, i.e., language, nationality, politics, etc. the anglicization of the arts and humanities occurs more gradually and less extensively because of its direct dependency and relationships to culture and socialization, e.g., national and cultural specifics of educational, legal and health systems, social norms, traditions, etc. somewhat in-between the faster moving natural sciences and the slower arts and humanities are the social sciences and, especially, psychology, because its research topics (i.e., behavior and experience or—more contemporary—action and cognition) must be analyzed from both a natural science and a humanities perspective (see, e.g., krampen et al., 2012). for example, the psychobiological and neuropsychological determinants and correlates of behavior and experience are under psychological study as well as the social, cultural and psychodynamic aspects of action and cognition. thus, psychological research can incorporate the natural science methodology as well as the (often more qualitative) methodology of the arts and humanities which includes the methods (e.g., statistics) of the social sciences. within the methodological and theoretical developments in the history of psychology, the american psychological association (apa) is the major worldwide player since the 1940s, which propagates its research orientation and methodology as well as standardization of “psychological index terms” (gallagher tuleya, 2007) and referencing. as o'connell and kowal (2009) formulated: “what is abundantly clear is that the apa has become an empire. whether it and psychology throughout the modern world – developmentally not entirely independent of the apa – have becomemore scientific over the decades since that famous, arbitrary data, 1879, remains an open question” (p. 73; remark: 1879 is the year in which wilhelm wundt established the first experimental psychology laboratory at the university of leipzig, germany). this is confirmed by the author affiliations of the psychology publications documented in the apa-database psycinfo (krampen, 2009): about 85% of the authors’ affiliations refer to anglo-american countries (about 65% usa, 12% great britain, 8% australia and new zealand), from “the rest of the world” are only 15% (5%german-speaking countries, 3% netherlands, about 2% each france, spain, italy, and 1.5% china). these numbers reflect the very strong “publish or perish” culture in u.s. academia. to advance on any level, or to simply retain a job, an academic in the u.s. must publish and publish prolifically – this is to a lesser extent also the case in great britain. so, while some researchers may spend more time researching, analyzing, and writing an important piece of work, it can be argued that a u.s.-based researcher has to focus on quality but also on quantity. empirically substantiated in scientometric content and author analyses, arnett (2008) stated in the leading american psychologist that “psychological research published in apa journals focuses too narrowly on americans, who comprise less than 5% of the world population. the result is an understanding of psychology that is incomplete and does not adequately represent humanity” (p. 602). he concludes that “the narrowness of american psychological research … focus on a philosophy of science that emphasizes fundamental processes and ignores or strips away cultural context.” arnett’s suggestions for broadening the scope of american psychology are positively discussed in some comments (loschiavo & shatz, 2009; webster, nichols, & schember, 2009). arnett (2009) explains in his reply that the neglected 95% are a challenge not only to psychology’s empirical research, but – much more far reaching – to its philosophy of science, epistemology, and methodology too. this is a plea for an (re-)opening europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 bornmann, leydesdorff, & krampen 541 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the recently western (dominantly us-american) dominated psychology for alternative and complementary approaches. for the sake of optimizing the international visibility, reception, and impact of the results of psychological research in the non-english-speaking countries (and cities), fierce discussions in the research communities have taken place. one conclusion was that researchers should attempt to publish their empirical findings more frequently in international english-language journals and less frequently in national, non-english journals. in the recent past, similar discussions are taking place in many larger non-english psychology research communities, such as france, germany, italy, and spain. this is confirmed by bibliometric analyses of the publication languages of the documents in psycinfo (see krampen, 2009): the huge majority of 95% is published in english (or – more exactly – in an anglo-american science idiom), only 1.2% in german, 1.1% in french, 0.7 in spanish, 0.6% in chinese, 0.5% in portuguese, 0.4% in italian, 0.3% in japanese, and 0.1% in russian. all other languages of the world are less than 0.01%. results on the anglicization of psychology publications from the german-speaking countries (see krampen & schui, 2011) point out that publishing in english is highest for basic research in experimental psychology and bio-/neuropsychology (about 85%), medium in social, developmental and differential psychology (about 20-30%), and lowest in applied psychology (about 10-15% each in clinical, industrial and educational psychology). science and research are a priori neither mono-cultural (i.e. western) nor mono-national (i.e., us-american) undertakings. science and research are multi-cultural and multi-national undertakings, admitting cultural and national specifics as well as cultural and international universals. therefore, psychologists in the non-english countries (and these in the anglo-american countries too) should be motivated to do research within their culture and country in search for the psychological specifics of culture and language as well as in search for the psychological universals and cross-cultural differences. both of which are of intra-cultural and inter-cultural interest, because cultural specifics (emics) and cross-cultural differences and universals (etics) are significant topics of psychology and anthropology (berry, poortinga, segall, & dasen, 2002; pike, 1967). the results of multiple (many one-cultural and multi-cultural, respectively; “emic”) research and the results of (cross-cultural; “etic”) research should be published in national and international science communities in various languages (but all with abstracts, keywords, phrases, titles in english translation) and in english as well. under the assumption that the culture of psychology is an open scientific culture, which is interested in advances of scientific knowledge, this publication strategy attracts more and more international attention. this publication strategy is supported by european undertakings promoting high standard digital open access journals and publication platforms (see, e.g., krampen, 2009). the recent european newcomer psychopen can be considered as an example.9 discussion the maps presented in this study allow us to reveal cities around the world where highly cited psychology papers originate from using scientometric data. based on wos data, field-specific excellence can be identified in cities where highly-cited papers were published. compared to the mapping approaches published hitherto (see the introduction), this approach is analytically oriented by allowing the assessment of an observed number of excellent papers for a city against the expected number. with this feature, this approach can not only identify the top performers in output but the most frequently cited papers in psychology with the highest impact on the research of other researchers. these are cities in which authors are located who publish significantly more top-cited papers europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 “best” cities for psychology research worldwide 542 http://www.psychopen.eu/ than can be statistically expected. since these cities do not necessarily have a high output of highly-cited papers, our approach normalizes for size. despite the advantages of our approach of mapping observed versus expected numbers, we recognize the limitations inherent to these bibliometric exercises (see bornmann & leydesdorff, 2011): (1) it is not always the case that the addresses listed on the publication reflect the locations where the reported research was conducted. (2) our method does not consider the different positions of authors on a paper. a paper is counted for a city if at least one co-author is located there. (3) if the same author has a double affiliation then both cities will get credit for the same piece of work of the author. this might lead to inflating the citation impact of certain cities. (4) citation counts (and thus the categorization of publications as highly cited) are a function of many variables in addition to scientific quality (bornmann & daniel, 2008). (5) we present a spotlight on all psychology papers published in 2007 which are documented in the social science citation index covering many, but not all psychology journals while maintaining its focus on english-language publications. (6) indicators of scientific output and impact – as used in this study – do not tell the whole story in research evaluation (bornmann, 2011, 2012): scientometrics is not the attempt “to measure the un-measurable, but a necessary but not at all sufficient quantitative tool for the difficult task of gathering data on scientific performances” (krampen, 2011). advantages of scientometrics are its transparency and the reduction of subjective evaluation biases in peer reviews; its disadvantages are, e.g., the incompleteness of and mistakes (e.g., misspellings) in databases. the whole story (named as an informed peer review) should include qualitative criteria (e.g., peer evaluation and review, significance of results for society and application, etc.) and quantitative criteria (besides bibliometric indicators, e.g., funding of research, number of academic vocations, invited lectures). however, the whole story about all cities worldwide which are relevant in psychological research cannot be presented on a map – this is only possible with bibliometric indicators. notes 1) for example, at http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-european-team-scientific-relevance-city.html and http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/03/22/the-best-cambridge-london-and-worst-moscow-taipei-cities-for-science/ 2) from http://www.leydesdorff.net/topcity/ 3) at http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map_input?form=data 4) see here the comments on http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/ 5) at http://www.leydesdorff.net/psychology/cities.htm 6) see for the full map at http://www.leydesdorff.net/psychology/cities.htm 7) see for the full map at http://www.leydesdorff.net/psychology/cities.htm 8) aichi is a prefecture of japan. most of the author addresses in aichi belong to nagoya, the capital of aichi. 9) http://www.psychopen.eu/mission/ references abramo, g., & d’angelo, c. a. 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(2009). american psychology is becoming more international. the american psychologist, 64(6), 566-568. doi:10.1037/a0016193 about the authors lutz bornmann is working at the division for science and innovation studies of the administrative headquarters of the max planck society (munich, germany). since the late 1990s, he has been working on issues in the promotion of young academics and scientists in the sciences and on quality assurance in higher education and research. he is a member of the editorial board of the journal of informetrics (elsevier) and scientometrics europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 bornmann, leydesdorff, & krampen 545 http://www.zpid.de/pub/research/2011_slightly-more.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/asi.21534 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016192 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1154053 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1154053 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167210378111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1016082432660 http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.3941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016193 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (springer) and advisory editorial board member of embo reports (nature publishing group). contact: division for science and innovation studies, administrative headquarters of the max planck society, hofgartenstr. 8, 80539 munich, germany; bornmann@gv.mpg.de loet leydesdorff (ph.d. sociology, m.a. philosophy, and m.sc. biochemistry) is professor at the amsterdam school of communications research (ascor) of the university of amsterdam. he is visiting professor of the institute of scientific and technical information of china (istic) in beijing and honorary fellow of the science and technology policy research unit (spru) of the university of sussex. he has published extensively in systems theory, social network analysis, scientometrics, and the sociology of innovation (see for a list of publications at http://www.leydesdorff.net/list.htm). contact: amsterdam school of communication research (ascor), university of amsterdam, kloveniersburgwal 48, nl-1012 cx amsterdam, the netherlands; loet@leydesdorff.net günter krampen is professor of psychology at the university of trier (germany) and associate professor of psychology at the université du luxembourg (luxembourg). contact: leibniz institute for psychology information, university of trier, germany; krampen@uni-trier.de europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 535–546 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.482 “best” cities for psychology research worldwide 546 http://www.leydesdorff.net/list.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ “best” cities for psychology research worldwide introduction methods procedure for data collection statistical procedure results locations of authors having published highly-cited papers the anglicization of psychology discussion notes references about the authors adolescent bullying and sleep difficulties research reports adolescent bullying and sleep difficulties simon c. hunter*a, kevin durkina, jamesm. e. boylea, josephine n. boothb, susan rasmussena [a] school of psychological sciences and health, university of strathclyde, glasgow, united kingdom. [b] school of psychology, university of dundee, dundee, united kingdom. abstract this study evaluated whether adolescents who report having been bullied, being bullies, or report both being a bully and being bullied experience more sleep difficulties than children uninvolved in bullying. the study drew upon cognitive theories of insomnia, investigating whether the extent to which young people report worrying about bullying can moderate associations between victimization and sleep difficulties. participants were 5420 adolescents who completed a self-report questionnaire. pure victims (or = 1.72, 95% ci [1.07, 2.75]), pure bullies (or = 1.80, 95% ci [1.16, 2.81]), and bully-victims (or = 2.90, 95% ci [1.17, 4.92]) were all more likely to experience sleep difficulties when compared to uninvolved young people. the extent to which young people reported worrying about being bullied did not moderate the links between victimization and sleep difficulties. in this way, bullying is clearly related to sleep difficulties among adolescents but the conceptual reach of the cognitive model of insomnia in this domain is questioned. keywords: sleep difficulty, insomnia, peer-victimization, bullying, worry, logistic regression europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 received: 2014-05-21. accepted: 2014-10-10. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: school of psychological sciences and health, university of strathclyde, 40 george street, glasgow, g1 1qe, united kingdom. tel.: (+44) 0141 548 4879. fax: (+44) 0141 552 6948. e-mail: simon.hunter@strath.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. adolescent bullying and sleep difficulties bullying involves repeated acts of physical, verbal, and/or relationship-focused aggression, which take place in physical and/or electronic environments (smith et al., 2008). children and young people can be involved as a bully (those who use bullying behaviors), as a victim (those who experience bullying behaviors) or as a bully-victim (those who are both bullies and victims) (boulton & smith, 1994), and there is typically an imbalance of power between bullies and their victims during this repetitious and negative interaction (olweus, 2012). recent estimates suggest that around 22-33% of adolescents are bullied (shakoor et al., 2012; sourander et al., 2010) and this experience is associated with an array of negative psychological (hawker & boulton, 2000; kochel, ladd, & rudolph, 2012), social (kochel et al., 2012; schoffstall & cohen, 2011) and somatic (gini & pozzoli, 2009) outcomes. young people engaging in bullying behaviors also display negative psychosocial wellbeing (e.g. gini & pozzoli, 2009; rivers & noret, 2013) and are at increased risk of later offending behavior (ttofi, farrington, lösel, & loeber, 2011). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ there is evidence that one specific outcome, the experience of sleep difficulties, may also be related to involvement in bullying problems (see table 1). sleep difficulties include problems which can be symptomatic of clinical insomnia (apa, 2013), namely falling asleep, maintaining sleep, and engaging in a sufficient amount of restorative sleep. they affect around 25% of young people, of whom 5 – 10% meet diagnostic criteria for insomnia (johnson, roth, schultz, & breslau, 2006; roberts, roberts, & duong, 2008). difficulties are persistent during adolescence (kataria, swanson, & trevathan, 1987) and predict sleep difficulties in later life (dregan & armstrong, 2010). sleep difficulties are themselves associated with numerous indices of maladjustment, including depression, anxiety, interpersonal functioning, life satisfaction, and somatic health (alfano, zakem, costa, taylor, & weems, 2009; gregory & eley, 2005; meijer, reitz, deković, van den wittenboer, & stoel, 2010; roberts et al., 2008; roberts, roberts, & xing, 2011). table 1 studies evaluating associations between bullying involvement and sleep difficulties outcomebullying measuresleep measureparticipantsstudy chronic female victims experience more sleep problems than all other girls. no effect for boys. chronic victims = age 5 = observations. adolescence = mynard & self-report. four items assessing difficulty getting to n = 65 to 85. american youth aged 5 years old at t1, then biebl, dilalla, davis, lynch, & shinn (2011) those bullied at age 5, then twice, two years apart, duringjoseph’s (2000) self-report mpvs. sleep, night-time awakenings, nightmares, peaceful nature of sleep. aged 10-18 at t2 and 12-20 at t3. adolescence. desisters = those bullied at 5, then at first time point in adolescence. late-onset = only bullied in adolescence. children bullied at t1 were 1.91 times more likely than not bullied children to report sleeping problems at t2. sleeping self-report using the olweus (1991) definition and response options. self-report. single item: “sleeping problems.” n = 1118. dutch youth aged 9-11 years old. two time points, 6-months apart. fekkes, pijpers, fredriks, vogels, & verloove-vanhorick (2006) problems at t1 did not predict being bullied at t2. analyses controlled for age, gender, and number of friends. bullied students more likely to report trouble sleeping: 75.5% vs 60.7% of non-bullied adolescents. self-report: ‘during the past 30 days, howmany days were you bullied?’ self-report. single item: “during the past 12 months, how often have you been so n = 104,614. youth were 13 and 15 years old from 19 low and middle income countries. fleming & jacobsen (2009) worried about something that you could not sleep at night?” participants reporting <8 hours sleep were 1.35 times more likely to be bullied than those report >8 hours sleep. controlled for sex, age, and race/ethnicity. self-report: ‘‘during the past 12 months, have you ever been bullied on school property?’’ self-report. single item: “on an average school night, how many hours of sleep do you get?” n = 14,782 adolescents from the 2009 national youth risk behavior survey in n. america. hildenbrand, daly, nicholls, brooks-holliday, & kloss (2013) adolescents with sleep problems “almost every night” were 3.1 times more likely to be a pure cybervictim, 1.5 times self-report. cyberbullying and cybervictimisation based on a self-report. single item: “during the past 6 months, n = 2221 finnish youth aged 13-16 years old. sourander et al. (2010) more likely to be a pure cyberbully, and 2.6 times more21-item scale; traditionalhave you experienced likely to be a cyberbully-victim than those reporting lessbullying and victimisationproblems with falling asleep or sleeping?” frequent sleep problems. those reporting sleep problemsassessed with 4 items based “once or twice a week” were 2.4 times more likely to be aon olweus (1991) definition and response options. cyberbully-victim than those reporting sleep problems less frequently. controlled for sex, grade, family structure, city, and ethnicity. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 741 http://www.psychopen.eu/ outcomebullying measuresleep measureparticipantsstudy being a victim of bullying “once or twice” not associated with sleep difficulty. those who were victims “sometimes self-report based on the olweus (1991) definition and response options. self-report. single item assessing difficulty getting to sleep during the preceding 6 months. n = 856 norwegian youth aged 13-15 years old. natvig, albrektsen, & qvarnstrøm (2001) or more often” were 1.94 times more likely to report sleeplessness than non-victims, controlling for gender, age and school. this effect was not present after controlling for self-efficacy, social support, alienation and distress. no difference between pure bullies, pure victims, bully-victims and control group. self-report, austin & joseph’s (1996) peer-victimization self-report. four items assessing difficulty falling asleep and waking at night. n = 291 french youth aged 9-12 years old. houbre, tarquinio, thuillier, & hergott (2006) scale and bullying behavior scale. poor female sleepers 1.51 times more likely to be bullied than good sleepers (for boys, or = 1.72). poor female self-report: “i have been bullied” and “i have bullied self-report. single item: “did you have sleeping problems last week?” n = 3216 swedish youth aged 13-18 years old. holmberg & hellberg (2008) sleepers 2.50 times more likely to be bullies than good sleepers (for boys, or = 1.63). someone” (time period not specified) sleep not associated with pure victim, pure bully, or bully-victim status among 16-18 year olds. among the self-report. two items: ‘‘have you been bullied within the past self-report. two items, one relating to nocturnal sleep n = 19,436 japanese youth aged 12-18 years old. tochigi et al. (2012) younger group, those with <8 hours sleep were 1.55 timesyear?’’, and ‘‘have you bullied others within the past year?’’ duration and one relating to irregular bedtimes. more likely to be pure victims compared to those with 6-8 hours sleep. those with >8 hours sleep were 1.38 times more likely to be pure victims and 1.34 times more likely to be bully-victims. those who “always” had an irregular bedtime were 1.25 times more likely to be a bully and 1.41 times more likely to be a bully-victim than those with less frequent irregular bedtimes. however, the evidence linking sleep difficulties to bullying involvement is by no means conclusive. examining table 1, it is clear that very few investigations have controlled for known confounders. for example, caffeine intake, alcohol use, and drug abuse are all associated with sleep problems (johnson & breslau, 2001; ludden &wolfson, 2010; roberts et al., 2011) yet, to our knowledge, no previous study has controlled for more than a very narrow range of variables such as age, gender, and number of friends. it is particularly important to control for symptoms of depression, given the link between these and sleep disturbance such that 89% of clinically depressed adolescents experience some form of sleep difficulty (lewinsohn, rohde, & seeley, 1998). using the present data set, we were able to control for a wide range of potential confounders: gender, school-stage, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, caffeine intake, exercise, symptoms of depression, whether young people smoked or drank alcohol, and whether they reported ever using illegal drugs. in addition to dealing with confounding variables, we also focused on both victim and bully status. of the nine studies in table 1, only four have examined roles other than that of victim. those studies indicate that young people who use bullying behaviors evidence sleep problems, though these relationshipsmay weaken and disappear in late adolescence. frequent sleep problems also increase the likelihood that adolescents will be involved in cyberbullying as a victim, bully, or bully-victim. only houbre et al. (2006) report finding no differences in sleep difficulties when comparing bullies, victims, bully-victims and uninvolved children. thus, the degree to which involvement in bullying problems is uniquely associated with sleep difficulties remains unclear. the current study europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 742 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aimed to investigate the relationship between involvement in bullying problems as a victim, a bully, or a bully-victim, and the presence of sleep difficulties after controlling for known confounding factors. a related issue is the relationship between the cognitive processing of bullying experiences and any associated sleep difficulties. it is well-established that, among adults, cognitive factors influence sleep difficulties such as insomnia (harvey, 2002), yet their role in adolescent sleep difficulties is much less clear (alfano, zakem, costa, taylor, & weems, 2009). to date, no study has investigated whether specific cognitions related to peer-victimization might act as risk factors in the development or maintenance of sleep difficulties. worry-based cognitions, that is, unproductive and repetitive thoughts (muris, roelofs, meesters, & boomsma, 2004) have been highlighted as important when considering sleep disturbance in childhood (alfano et al., 2009; gregory, willis, wiggs, harvey, & steps team, 2008). cognitive models of insomnia (espie, 2002; harvey, 2002) predict that such cognitions moderate the relationship between stressors and sleep difficulties, with that relationship being muted or absent when these cognitions are absent. that is, the impact of a potential stressor would depend considerably on whether the individual accords it salience as a negative event, ruminates about it, and dwells on its harmful consequences for the self. it follows that how an individual deals cognitively with experiences of peer-victimization should influence the impact of those experiences. one candidate cognitive process, worry, is associated with the experience of being bullied (berthold & hoover, 2000; nishina, 2012; nishina & bellmore, 2010). to date, the proposition that the extent to which young people worry about being bullied may moderate the effects of bullying on sleep difficulties has not been assessed. testing this prediction has the potential to inform not only our understanding of maladjustment relating to bullying, but also our understanding of the development of sleep difficulties across adolescence. the purposes of the present study were therefore twofold. first, we sought to provide further evidence for the association of involvement in bullying with sleep disturbance in adolescence, taking into account known confounds. second, we examined the proposition that any relationship between experiencing insomnia symptoms and victim status would be moderated by problem-specific rumination (worrying about being bullied). method database this study was a secondary analysis of an existing data set, which comprised a survey completed by 5,420 adolescents in west central scotland. the aim of the survey was to provide a baseline of the health and well-being of secondary school students (s1 to s6; approximately aged 11 to 17 years old) from 11 mainstream secondary schools, including one alternative provision unit. the percentage of students in the schools who were registered for free school meals was 15.16% (range = 3 to 28.1%), which compares favorably to the national average in scotland (17.8%: scottish government, 2010). the sample is described in table 2. students completed the survey during school hours during either october or november. the data were originally collected on behalf of the uk national health service and the authors were not involved in its collection. ethical approval was granted under the arrangements of the commissioning agency, which also approved the use of the (anonymised) data for secondary analysis. permission to conduct the study in specific schools was then sought from head teachers of those schools. parents were sent information sheets and were given the opportunity to withdraw their child from the study using an ‘opt-out’ procedure. pupils themselves were given an information sheet concerning the study and were free to decline to participate if they so wished. those europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 743 http://www.psychopen.eu/ young people who took part were given a list of support services to allow them to seek help on matters that may have been of concern to them. table 2 sample characteristics sleep group variable sleep difficultycontrol gender (p = .002, φc = .04) male (39.4%)98(49.2%)2,498 female (60.6%)151(50.8%)2,578 school-stage s1 (14.5%)36(20.9%)1,063 s2 (16.9%)42(20.5%)1,040 s3 (18.1%)45(17.2%)874 s4 (19.3%)48(19.1%)970 s5 (20.1%)50(13.5%)688 s6 (11.2%)28(8.8%)449 ethnicity (p < .001, φc = .05) white (91.5%)237(96.2%)4,982 other (8.5%)22(3.8%)197 alcohol (p < .001, φc = .07) yes (74.8%)190(59.4%)2,961 no (25.2%)64(40.6%)2,022 smoking (p < .001, φc = .12) yes (25.9%)63(9.2%)462 no (74.1%)180(90.8%)4,538 illegal drugs (p < .001, φc = .11) yes (34.0%)83(15.4%)768 no (66.0%)161(84.6%)4,217 drink tea/coffee (p = .017, φc = .03) yes (7.1%)15(3.9%)181 no (92.9%)195(96.1%)4,514 bullying status (p < .001, φc = .20) uninvolved (50.2%)114(78.6%)3,637 pure victim (16.3%)37(8.2%)380 pure bully (15.0%)34(10.2%)472 bully-victim (18.5%)42(3.0%)141 worry about being bullied (p < .001, φc = .08) yes (29.7%)73(15.4%)759 no (70.3%)172(84.6%)4,176 free school meals (p = .064) mean (sd) (6.34)15.90(6.35)15.11 physical activity (p = .008, d = 0.07) mean (sd) (2.43)4.04(2.21)4.41 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 744 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures the survey itself was originally developed through a series of stages of pilot work and review. the final instrument consisted of 78 questions assessing a wide range of health and well-being behaviors. control variables the primary analyses controlled for several demographic features: gender; school-stage; and free school meals at the school level (used as a proxy for socioeconomic status). ethnicity was also controlled for, comparing white (“white scottish”, “white other british”) with all others. in addition, whether young people currently smoked (no, yes), drank tea or coffee (no, yes), reported ever using illegal drugs (no, yes), and/or using alcohol in the past year (‘never’ vs ‘once or twice a year’ or more often) were used as control variables because of their association with sleep problems (ludden & wolfson, 2010; roberts et al., 2011). for the same reason, exercise (loprinzi & cardinal, 2011) was assessed using the number of days over the preceding week where students reported engaging in more than one hour of exercise (“active enough to make you breathe harder and/or become sweaty”). finally, due to the high degree of overlap between symptoms of depression and insomnia (lewinsohn et al., 1998), symptoms of depression were assessed using four items: “i’ve felt unhappy, sad or depressed”, “i’ve felt hopeless about the future”, “i’ve felt tense or nervous”, and “i’ve worried too much about things.” participants were asked to report how often they had experienced each symptom during the preceding month. each item was rated on a three-point scale (0 = ‘never’, 1 = ‘sometimes’, 2 = ‘most of the time’) and these were summed to produce a score which varied from 0 – 8 (cronbach’s alpha = .72). involvement in bullying — participants were asked to report whether they had “been bullied in the past year” in their school (no, yes) and/or elsewhere (no, yes). they were also asked to report whether they had “bullied or frightened someone in this school in the past year”, with possible responses ‘never’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, and ‘very often’. a composite variable was then created which indicated participants’ involvement in bullying: uninvolved young people were neither bully nor victim, pure victims were victims of bullying (either inside or outside of school) but were not involved in bullying others, pure bullies were involved in bullying others (‘sometimes’ or more often) but were not victims of bullying, and bully-victims were both bullies and victims. worry — participants were presented with a list of 20 different worries (e.g., “money problems”, “the way i look”, “exams”, etc.), and were asked to tick all that applied to them. overall, 16.0% of students (n= 837) reported that they were worried about “being bullied”. the extent to which each worry was reported is shown in table 3, both overall and by victim status. being a victim of bullying was significantly associated with greater reports of all forms of worry except for ‘worry about exams’. of particular note is ‘worry about being bullied’ where the disparity between victims’ and non-victims’ level of worry was largest. sleep difficulties — participants were asked how many times during the previous month they had “felt too tired to do things”, “had trouble getting to sleep”, and “had trouble staying asleep”. these three items reflect three of the four core symptoms of insomnia as outlined in dsm-v (apa, 2013) i.e. difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, and non-restorative sleep. the fourth area mentioned in the dsm-v, distress or impairment relating to sleep and sleeping patterns, was not evaluated. each item was rated on a three-point scale (0 = ‘never’, 1 = ‘sometimes’, 2 = ‘most of the time’) and these were summed to produce a score which varied from 0 – 6 (cronbach’s alpha = .56). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 745 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 percentage of ‘yes’ reports for each type of worry, overall and by victim status victim of bullying* yesnooverallworry school .651.538.239 being bullied .851.09.715 money problems .034.823.324 the way i look .352.434.735 boyfriend/girlfriend .328.516.617 exams .957.656.654 loneliness .534.212.415 family rows .040.327.028 relationships with parents/carers .426.313.714 drugs .919.110.411 getting a job .034.823.624 being talked about .052.229.731 my health .634.120.921 friends .641.221.523 skin problems .624.117.617 brothers/sisters .923.712.014 fear of violence/gangs .436.817.420 family health problems .425.717.218 the future .048.436.836 drinking .319.19.510 *victim status was significantly associated (p < .001) with preponderance of all worries except for ‘worry about exams’ where victims and non-victims did not differ. statistical analyses to identify students with serious sleep difficulties, we constructed a sleep difficulty group, based on the estimate that 5 – 10% of young people meet diagnostic criteria for insomnia (johnson et al., 2006; roberts et al., 2008). the 5% of young people with the most serious difficulties are also at most at risk for internalizing difficulties (paavonen, solantaus, almqvist, & aronen, 2003), difficulties which are also prominent for those involved in bullying problems (hawker & boulton, 2000). the sleep difficulty group therefore consisted of students who scored 5 or 6 on the six-point sleep scale. this cut off point created a sleep difficult group of 249 young people (4.6% of the total sample). to address our first aim, a hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis was employed, regressing sleep difficulty group membership onto the control variables at step 1, and the involvement in bullying variable at step 2. for the bullying involvement variable, the uninvolved students served as the comparison group. to address our second aim another hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis was conducted, with the same variables entered at step 1. however, at step 2 victim status was entered along with the worry variable. at step 3, an interaction term, victim status x worry was entered. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 746 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results as shown in table 2, the sleep difficulties group is populated by more girls, non-white adolescents, smokers, drug-takers, tea/coffee drinkers, and adolescents who worry about bullying. those in the sleep difficulties group also evidenced slightly lower physical activity levels but did not differ on levels of free school meals. a higher proportion of the sleep difficulty group consists of pure bullies, pure victims and bully-victims than is the case for the group without sleep difficulties. bullying group membership and sleep difficulties the results of the first hierarchical binary logistic regression are shown in table 4. the first step in the analysis accounted for approximately 20.6% of the variance (model nagelkerke r2 = .21). the only significant predictor was depressive symptomatology. for each unit increase in depressive symptomatology, young people were 1.89 times more likely to be in the sleep difficulty group. given that depressive symptomology was assessed on a 9point scale, this is a very large effect. the second step in the analysis added approximately 1.3% to the variance accounted for (model nagelkerke r2 = .22). victims (unadjusted or = 3.11) and bullies (unadjusted or = 2.32) were almost twice as likely as uninvolved young people to experience sleep difficulties, while bully-victims (unadjusted or = 9.50) were almost three times more likely to experience these difficulties compared to uninvolved young people. table 4 binary logistic regression analysis resultsa predicting likelihood of sleep difficulty group membership step 2step 1 or [95% ci]waldb (se)or [95% ci]waldb (se)variable school fsm , 1.03]1.01 [0.99.051(0.01)0.01, 1.03]1.01 [0.99.890(0.01)0.01 gender b , 1.07]0.77 [0.55.582(0.17)-0.27, 1.17]0.86 [0.62.960(0.16)-0.16 ethnicity c , 1.85]0.88 [0.42.110(0.38)-0.13, 1.77]0.85 [0.41.190(0.38)-0.16 school-stage , 1.09]0.98 [0.88.170(0.06)-0.02, 1.05]0.94 [0.85.251(0.05)-0.06 tea/coffee d , 2.02]1.06 [0.56.030(0.33)0.06, 1.92]1.02 [0.54.010(0.32)0.02 alcohol d , 1.65]1.13 [0.78.410(0.19)0.12, 1.68]1.15 [0.79.550(0.19)0.14 drugs d , 2.07]1.37 [0.91.252(0.22)0.21, 2.09]1.39 [0.93.532(0.21)0.33 smoke d , 1.98]1.25 [0.79.870(0.24)0.22, 2.14]1.36 [0.87.801(0.23)0.31 exercise , 1.13]1.05 [0.98.181(0.04)0.05, 1.13]1.05 [0.98.781(0.04)0.05 depression , 1.94]1.78 [1.63.12170(0.04)***0.58, 2.03]1.86 [1.71.70212(0.04)***0.62 pure victim e , 2.75]1.72 [1.07.015(0.24)*0.54 pure bully e , 2.81]1.80 [1.16.806(0.23)**0.59 bully-victim e , 4.92]2.90 [1.71.5815(0.27)***1.06 afor dichotomous categorical variables, 0 was the reference category. b0=female, 1=male. c0=non-white, 1=white. d0=no, 1=yes. ecomparison group was the ‘uninvolved’ participants. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. victim status, sleep difficulties, and moderation by worry the results of the hierarchical binary logistic regression addressing our second aim are shown in table 5. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 747 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 5 b in ar y lo gi st ic r eg re ss io n a na ly si s r es ul ts a p re di ct in g li ke lih oo d of s le ep d iff ic ul ty g ro up m em be rs hi p st ep 3 st ep 2 st ep 1 o r (9 5% c i) w al d b (s e) o r (9 5% c i) w al d b (s e) o r (9 5% c i) w al d b (s e) m ea su re s s ch oo lf s m ,1 .0 2] 1. 01 [0 .9 9 .2 4 0 (0 .0 1) 0. 01 ,1 .0 3] 1. 01 [0 .9 9 .3 1 0 (0 .0 1) 0. 01 ,1 .0 2] 1. 01 [0 .9 8 .2 7 0 (0 .0 1) 0. 01 g en de rb ,1 .1 1] 0. 78 [0 .5 4 .9 4 1 (0 .1 8) -0 .2 5 ,1 .1 1] 0. 78 [0 .5 4 .9 5 1 (0 .1 8) -0 .2 5 ,1 .1 6] 0. 82 [0 .5 7 .2 7 1 (0 .1 8) -0 .2 0 e th ni ci ty c ,1 .7 9] 0. 80 [0 .3 6 .3 0 0 (0 .4 1) -0 .2 3 ,1 .8 0] 0. 80 [0 .3 6 .2 8 0 (0 .4 1) -0 .2 2 ,1 .7 9] 0. 81 [0 .3 6 .2 8 0 (0 .4 1) -0 .2 2 s ch oo l-s ta ge ,1 .1 1] 0. 98 [0 .8 7 .1 0 0 (0 .0 6) -0 .0 2 ,1 .1 0] 0. 98 [0 .8 7 .1 4 0 (0 .0 6) -0 .0 2 ,1 .0 6] 0. 94 [0 .8 4 .0 2 1 (0 .0 6) -0 .0 6 te a/ co ffe ed ,1 .9 9] 1. 00 [0 .5 0 .0 0 0 (0 .3 5) 0. 00 ,1 .9 9] 1. 03 [0 .5 1 .0 0 0 (0 .3 5) 0. 00 ,1 .9 7] 1. 01 [0 .5 2 .0 0 0 (0 .3 4) 0. 01 a lc oh ol d ,1 .7 0] 1. 13 [0 .7 5 .3 2 0 (0 .2 1) 0. 12 ,1 .6 9] 1. 12 [0 .7 4 .3 0 0 (0 .2 1) 0. 12 ,1 .6 7] 1. 13 [0 .7 5 .3 4 0 (0 .2 1) 0. 12 d ru gs d ,2 .0 4] 1. 29 [0 .8 2 .1 8 1 (0 .2 3) 0. 26 ,2 .0 5] 1. 30 [0 .8 2 .2 3 1 (0 .2 3) 0. 26 ,2 .0 1] 1. 27 [0 .8 1 .0 8 1 (0 .2 3) 0. 24 s m ok ed ,2 .2 8] 1. 34 [0 .7 9 .2 1 1 (0 .2 7) 0. 30 ,2 .2 6] 1. 33 [0 .7 9 .1 3 1 (0 .2 7) 0. 29 ,2 .3 3] 1. 38 [0 .8 2 .4 7 1 (0 .2 7) 0. 32 e xe rc is e ,1 .1 1] 1. 03 [0 .9 5 .6 0 0 (0 .0 4) 0. 03 ,1 .1 1] 1. 03 [0 .9 5 .5 6 0 (0 .0 4) 0. 03 ,1 .1 1] 1. 03 [0 .9 5 .5 1 0 (0 .0 4) 0. 03 d ep re ss io n ,2 .0 0] 1. 82 [1 .6 4 .2 5 14 0 (0 .0 5) ** * 0. 60 ,2 .0 2] 1. 81 [1 .6 4 .4 6 14 0 (0 .0 5) ** * 0. 60 ,2 .0 9] 1. 90 [1 .7 3 .9 8 18 1 (0 .0 5) ** * 0. 64 vi ct im d ,4 .0 8] 2. 36 [1 .3 6 .4 2 9 (0 .2 8) ** 0. 86 ,3 .2 1] 2. 08 [1 .3 5 .9 2 10 (0 .2 2) ** 0. 73 w or ry ab ou tb ei ng bu lli ed ,1 .9 2] 1. 08 [0 .6 1 .0 6 0 (0 .2 9) 0. 07 ,1 .4 7] 0. 94 [0 .6 0 .0 8 0 (0 .2 3) -0 .0 6 vi ct im d* x w or ry ,1 .7 3] 0. 74 [0 .3 1 .5 0 0 (0 .4 4) -0 .3 1 a f or di ch ot om ou s ca te go ric al va ria bl es ,0 w as th e re fe re nc e ca te go ry .b 0= fe m al e, 1= m al e. c 0 =n on -w hi te ,1 =w hi te .d 0= n o, 1= ye s. *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. ** *p < .0 01 . europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 748 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the first step in the analysis accounted for approximately 20.9% of the variance (model nagelkerke r2 = .21). as before, the only significant predictor was depressive symptomatology. the second step in the analysis added approximately 0.9% to the variance accounted for (model nagelkerke r2 = .22). victims were twice as likely as non-victims to report sleep difficulties (unadjusted odds ratio = 3.11), and worry about being bullied was not a significant predictor (unadjusted odds ratio = 2.34). the third step in the analysis did not account for any unique variance for (model nagelkerke r2 = .22) and the interaction term was not significant. discussion the results presented here extend those of previous research reporting that young people involved in bullying experience sleep difficulties (biebl et al., 2011; fekkes et al., 2006; fleming & jacobsen, 2009; sourander et al., 2010). importantly, this effect was demonstrated even after controlling for the effects of a number of variables known to be associated with sleep difficulties. finally, worry about being bullied did not predict sleep difficulties and neither did it moderate the relationship between victimization and sleep difficulties. the association between being bullied and reporting quite serious sleep difficulties was found here despite controlling for a number of potential confounding variables. given the cross-sectional nature of the data, caution is warranted in respect of inferring causality. however, previous research using a cross-lagged design has supported a one-way direction of causal effect from victimization to sleep difficulty (fekkes et al., 2006), and our results indicate that this effect is robust. regarding directionality in the association between being a bully and sleep problems, there is strong evidence suggesting that effects between adolescent sleep difficulties and aggression are bidirectional (meijer et al., 2010). the present findings are consistent with the proposition that reciprocal links hold true for bullying (a sub-type of aggression), though longitudinal research is needed to examine this association further. worry neither predicted sleep problem status nor moderated the association between peer-victimization and sleep problems. this contradicts what we might expect based upon cognitive theories of insomnia (espie, 2002; harvey, 2002), at least with respect to worry about a specific stressor occurring in the young person’s life. it is possible that ‘worry’ as a risk factor and as a moderator of the relationships between stressors and insomnia may manifest itself via worry about sleep itself (e.g., a young person worrying about whether she or he will be able to fall asleep: gregory et al., 2008) which we did not assess. alternatively, our results may indicate that the sleep difficulties group we selected are qualitatively different from what could be expected of a clinically diagnosed group of young people with insomnia, and therefore the etiology of the difficulties may also differ. if we accept that the link between victimization and sleep difficulties is not because young people are worried about being bullied, then it follows that some other explanatory variable must account for this. future research could address the possibility that victimization provokes a state of heightened physiological arousal, which in turn impacts on sleep. our results also indicate that it is important to consider the status of those involved in bullying problems when seeking to address sleep difficulties. our results indicate that bully-victims are most at risk of experiencing problems, though they also indicate that both pure-victims and pure-bullies are likely to experience problems with sleep too. our results for all three groups were very similar to those of sourander et al. (2010) in terms of effect sizes (odds ratios) despite their study focussing on involvement in cyber-bullying. the other study which we are aware of which included bully-victims (houbre et al., 2006) found no effect of bullying role on sleep problems. however, an important difference between houbre et al. and both ours and sourander et al.’s studies is that the former involved 9-12 year olds where as both of the latter involved children and young people aged between 11 and 17 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 749 http://www.psychopen.eu/ years old. this suggests that there may be a developmental trend in the emergence of sleep difficulties associated with involvement in bullying, i.e. that this relationship only emerges in later childhood/early adolescence. it would be helpful for future research to consider such a hypothesis using data frommiddle childhood to late adolescence. although not an aim of this paper, the degree to which status as a victim was associated with all forms of worry was striking. this supports the contention that these young people experience multiple forms of disadvantage and that they have a diverse range of psycho-social challenges to overcome (finkelhor, ormrod, & turner, 2007; vaillancourt, miller, fagbemi, côté, & tremblay, 2007; wolke, woods, stanford, & schulz, 2001).these data highlight the importance, for anti-bullying policies relating to victims, of engaging with each young person’s overall situation rather than trying to tackle victimisation as though it were an isolated problem. a limitation of the current study is that it is based upon self-reports. these have sometimes been criticized by sleep researchers as being subject to specific biases, such as insomnia patients overestimating how long it takes them to fall asleep (harvey & tang, 2012). the reliance on self-reports for all measures could also be a criticism of the study, though methods variance may be less problematic than is sometimes suggested (spector, 2006). a further limitation of our study is that we have included young people ranging in age from pre-adolescence to lateadolescence. sleep patterns and sleep requirements vary across this group (see wolfson & carskadon, 1998) and so future work in this area may usefully focus on sub-groups of specific ages to examine in moderating and mediating factors linking victimization and sleep differ during different periods of childhood and adolescence. it is also true that the measures used here were not established ‘gold-standard’ measures (e.g., children’s depression inventory: kovacs, 1985). we would have preferred the use of such measures, but had no input into choice of instrument. however, the items used here closely approximate the items and conceptual scope of established measures of, for example, depressive symptomatology and sleep, and have strong face validity with expressed descriptions of common sleep problems. the prevalence of being bullied reported here (11.1%) also supports the adequacy of the measures used as it closely approximates that of previous studies using scottish samples: due et al. (2005: 9.4% among 11-15 year olds); sweeting, young, west, and der (2006: 15% reducing to 10% for 11-15 year olds); and, hunter, boyle, and warden (2007: 11.7% among 8-13 year olds). furthermore, a clear benefit of the database is that it includes a large sample of adolescents from many schools, completing numerous items on various topics and hence with minimal risk of demand characteristics bearing on responses. as such, this study serves as an excellent foundation from which future research can build. in summary, this study extends previous research by highlighting the salience of involvement in bullying for adolescents’ sleep difficulties. young people who are bullied experience increases in the likelihood that they will report serious sleep difficulties. this finding is obtained even after controlling for other variables which have been shown to be related to sleep difficulties. bullied students are also likely to evidence high levels of sleep difficulty, though most at risk as those students who both experience and use bullying behaviors (‘bully-victims’). this study also evaluated whether stressor-specific worry could act as a moderator of the relationship between victimization and reports of sleep difficulties. here, we did not find support for predictions drawn from cognitive models of insomnia. however, the differing ways in which worry can be conceptualized suggest that this model may yet help us to understand risk and resilience in the context of victimization and sleep difficulty. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 750 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we acknowledge the support and expertise provided by greater glasgow and clyde health board in the preparation of this manuscript. references alfano, c. a., zakem, a. h., costa, n. m., taylor, l. k., & weems, c. f. 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(2001). bullying and victimization of primary school children in england and germany: prevalence and school factors. british journal of psychology, 92, 673-696. doi:10.1348/000712601162419 about the authors simon hunter’s main research interests lie in understanding the psychosocial wellbeing of children and young people who experience bullying behaviors. he also has an interest in bullying and loneliness amongst older adults. kevin durkin’s primary research interests relate to communicative development, including language development and uses of the media. kevin also has a keen interest in social development, including the development of stereotypes and problem behavior in adolescence. jim boyle’s research interests include language impairment (both identification and intervention), the effects of computer games and exercise upon executive functions, bully-victim problems in schools and in the work-place, psychometrics, and the practice of educational psychology. josie booth’s interests lie in executive functioning, academic attainment and emotional and behaviors well-being. in addition, josie seeks to understand the relationships between executive function and physical activity in adolescents. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 bullying and sleep difficulties 754 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01846.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.79 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094428105284955 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000709905x49890 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0045736 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cbm.808 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ab.20202 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.tb06149.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712601162419 http://www.psychopen.eu/ susan rasmussen is a chartered health psychologist with research interests focusing primarily on suicide and self-harm. additionally, susan seeks to understand the factors that affect behavior during disease epidemics. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 740–755 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.815 hunter, durkin, boyle et al. 755 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en bullying and sleep difficulties (introduction) adolescent bullying and sleep difficulties method database measures control variables statistical analyses results bullying group membership and sleep difficulties victim status, sleep difficulties, and moderation by worry discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the perception of instability and legitimacy of status differences enhances the infrahumanization bias among high status groups research reports the perception of instability and legitimacy of status differences enhances the infrahumanization bias among high status groups cristina mosso a, silvia russo* a [a] department of psychology, university of torino, torino, italy. abstract previous research within the social identity framework has shown that perceptions of legitimacy and stability of status differences interactively determine cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to intergroup contexts. whether such perceptions affect subtle forms of prejudice, namely infrahumanisation, is unknown. we examined if the perceptions regarding high status stability and legitimacy are associated to the infrahumanisation bias. we hypothesized that participants perceiving status differences as unstable and legitimate would report higher levels of infrahumanization than those who perceive status differences as stable and/or illegitimate. participants (n = 439 italian students enrolled in psychology courses) completed a structured paper-and-pencil questionnaire. we found that participants tended to attribute more negative secondary emotions to their ingroup (italians) than to the outgroup (immigrants from africa), indicating the presence of an infrahumanization bias. the results of a moderated regression aimed at predicting infrahumanization showed that highstatus group members who perceived status differences as legitimate and unstable reported higher levels of infrahumanization than their counterparts did. the results attest the important and independent role of the perceptions related to the status for the debate on intergroup relations. keywords: infrahumanization, high-status group, status stability, status legitimacy, intergroup-relations europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 received: 2018-01-05. accepted: 2018-11-16. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of torino, via verdi 10, 10124, torino, italy. e-mail: silvia.russo@unito.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in this article, we ask whether subtle cues conveying the intergroup emotions are affected by the perception of social structure. this aim is relevant as in prior work on the intergroup relations the role of status and legitimacy is still controversial. recent research has explored how the intergroup bias may be revealed through the infrahumanization, the tendency to attribute more humanity to the ingroup than to the outgroup. unlike primary emotions, secondary emotions involve complex cognitive processes and are perceived to be uniquely human. for example, we can easily attribute sadness (primary emotion) to both humans and animals, while we would attribute disappointment (secondary emotion) to humans only. as such, the infrahumanization bias reflects the differential attribution of secondary emotions to ingroup vs. outgroup members. several studies have shown that this bias characterizes a variety of intergroup and interpersonal relationships, ranging from ethnic to work to quasiminimal groups (for a review see demoulin et al., 2009; leyens, 2009; vaes, leyens, paladino, & miranda, 2012), and that it is related to both animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization (martínez, rodriguez-bailon, moya, & vaes, 2017). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the infrahumanization bias is very pervasive and recent studies showed that it is independent from the statusrelationship between groups. for example, leyens et al. (2001) found that canarians (low-status group) tended to attribute fewer secondary emotions to spanish people (high-status group) to the same extent as spanish people did. similarly, rodriguez-perez, delgado-rodriguez, betancor-rodriguez, leyens, and vaes (2011) examined the infrahumanization of outgroup members throughout the world in relation to similarity, intergroup friendship, knowledge of the outgroup, and status. among these factors, status was the only one that was not related to outgroup dehumanization (for similar results see also demoulin et al., 2005; paladino et al., 2002; paladino & vaes, 2009). altogether these results show that infrahumanization is not a prerogative of high-status groups, leading researchers to conclude that intergroup status differences are conditions neither necessary nor sufficient for infrahumanization to occur (leyens, 2009). however, less in known about whether perceptions of status differences affect expressions of the infrahumanization bias. many studies reported that perceptions of legitimacy and stability of status differences play a fundamental role in explaining intergroup dynamics: they interactively determine the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses to the intergroup context (see bettencourt, dorr, charlton, & hume, 2001 for a comprehensive meta-analysis on this topic). in this study, we suggest that the perceptions of status differences might affect the infrahumanization bias more than the status-relationship between groups itself. in pioneering work conducted within the social identity theory framework, turner and brown (1978) reported that high-status group members showed greater ingroup favoritism than low-status groups when status differences were perceived as legitimate but unstable. according to turner and brown, high-status groups are more likely to feel insecure when status differences are legitimate but the hierarchy seems to be unstable because the instability of status hierarchy represents a threat to the high-status group’s positive social identity and, consequently, leads to a sense of insecurity. subsequent research supports this idea by showing that, when people feel that their high status is justified, they will be more likely to react by increasing ingroup identification and ingroup favoritism (capozza, andrighetto, di bernardo, & falvo, 2012). in addition, perceptions of instability can be threatening for high-status group members as they put at stake their dominant role in society and can consequently lead to group protection reactions (johnson, terry, & louis, 2005). this argument has further been supported by scheepers, ellemers, and sintemaartensdijk (2009) who showed that physiological reactions signalling increased threat occurred when high-status group members were told intergroup status differences were unstable or likely to change. despite the importance of stability and legitimacy perceptions in shaping intergroup dynamics, the relationships between these perceptions and the infrahumanization bias, a kind of emotional prejudice (leyens et al., 2003), has been largely neglected (but see russo & mosso, 2019 for an exception). the study in the current research, we focused on the role played by the perception of stability and legitimacy of socioeconomic status differences in enhancing/reducing expressions of infrahumanization bias. we examined expressions of infrahumanization bias among italians by comparing primary and secondary emotions attributed to the italians themselves (high-status, ingroup) and to immigrants from africa (low status, outgroup). we expected the perception of instability to be positively related to infrahumanization, especially when status differences are perceived as legitimate. in other words, participants perceiving status differences as unstable and legitimosso & russo 359 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mate should report higher levels of infrahumanization than those who perceive status differences as illegitimate and stable (h1). method participants and procedure four-hundred and twenty-nine students (76.6% women; mage = 23.16, sd = 3.16) enrolled in psychology courses at a university in a large italian city gave their informed consent. their participation was voluntary and anonymous. participants completed a structured paper-and-pencil questionnaire, presented as part of a study on attitudes and opinions of european students. all data and study materials are available from the authors upon request. measures perception of status instability and legitimacy we asked participants to think about immigrants from africa and to indicate, on a 7-point scale, whether: 1) socio-economic status differences between immigrants from africa and italians can change in the future (1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely); 2) socio-economic status differences between immigrants from africa and italians were legitimate (1 = very illegitimate, 7 = very legitimate). infrahumanization participants have been presented four scenarios (texts were translated and adapted from brown, eller, leeds, & stace, 2007) in which the protagonists had a positive or negative experience. an example of positive experience is “[italian name/name of immigrant from africa] plays volleyball and is part of the university team. in the last game of the season he scored the winning point against the rival team”; an example of negative experience is “[italian name/name of immigrant from africa] loves art and his parents are both artists. he thought he would have received an excellent judgement by the committee of a painting competition but he found out he received a very bad one.” the order of the presentation was randomized. two of the protagonists were said to be italian and the other two to be immigrants from africa. after reading each scenario participants had to check, in a list of eight emotions, all the emotions that the protagonist may have felt after the episode described. four were primary emotions (happy, pleased, sad, angry) and four were secondary emotions (proud, good-mood, disappointed, ashamed) (martin, bennett, & murray, 2008). control variables among socio-demographic variables, we considered gender (1 = male), age, and political orientation (7-point left-right axis). results we examined the infrahumanization measure by summing up primary and secondary emotions attributed to ingroup and outgroup members across the four scenarios. we then conducted a 2 (protagonist group membership: ingroup vs. outgroup) x 2 (type of emotion: primary vs. secondary) x 2 (valence of emotion: positive vs. perception of social structure and infrahumanisation 360 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negative) within-participants anova. all the direct effects and two-way interactions were significant, and they were further qualified by a significant three-way interaction between factors, f(1, 428) = 143.31, p < .001, ηp 2 = .25. in order to clarify this interaction, we ran two 2 (protagonist group membership: ingroup vs. outgroup) x 2 (type of emotion: primary vs. secondary) anovas by considering positive and negative emotions separately. as concerns positive emotions, only the main effect of emotion was significant, f(1, 428) = 170.08, p < .001, ηp 2 = .28, with secondary emotions selected more often (m = 3.06) than primary emotions (m = 2.26). when analyzing negative emotions we found significant main effects for group and emotion, but these effects were qualified by a significant two-way interaction f(1, 428) = 251.15, p < .001, ηp 2 = .37. the ingroup-outgroup difference in emotions attribution was noticeably greater for secondary emotions (mingroup = 1.27, moutgroup = 0.26), t(428) = 32.06, p < .001, d = 4.07, than for primary emotions (mingroup = 1.15, moutgroup = 1.00), t(428) = 3.87, p < .001, d = 0.49. we computed an index of infrahumanization by subtracting secondary negative emotions attributed to outgroup members from secondary emotions attributed to ingroup members (cf. brown et al., 2007). to test the hypothesis advanced, we ran a moderated regression aimed at predicting infrahumanization. as shown in table 1, the perception of instability was significantly and positively related to the dependent variable. adding the interaction between perception of legitimacy and instability of status differences (both mean centered), the explained variance of the model significantly increased, δf(1, 394) = 3.88, p < .05 (r2 = 07). the simple slopes analysis with perception of instability as predictor and perception of legitimacy as moderator showed that, in line with our expectations, the perception of instability had a positive and significant effect on infrahumanization among participants who perceived status differences as legitimate (+1 sd), simple slope = .09, t(394) = 3.34, p < .001, but not among those who perceived status differences as illegitimate (-1 sd), simple slope = .02, t(394) = .73, p = .47 (cf. figure 1). table 1 moderated regression analysis predicting infrahumanization predictor infrahumanization b se t β intercept 0.92*** 0.04 23.73 gender -0.16*** 0.04 -4.21 -0.21 age -0.01 0.01 -0.98 -0.05 political orientation 0.02 0.02 0.63 0.03 perception of legitimacy -0.02 0.03 -0.55 -0.03 perception of instability 0.06** 0.02 2.75 0.14 legitimacy x instability 0.03* 0.02 1.97 0.10 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. mosso & russo 361 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. moderating effect of the perception of status legitimacy on the relationship between the perception of instability and infrahumanization. discussion the present research investigated the relationship between high-status group members’ perceptions of instability and legitimacy of their own superiority and infrahumanization. social identity research has shown that highstatus group members tend to show high levels of ingroup favouritism and prejudice toward the outgroup when they perceive status differences as legitimate and unstable (turner & brown, 1978). somewhat surprisingly, recent studies on the infrahumanization bias have shown that this form of subtle prejudice does not change as a function of social status (e.g., leyens et al., 2001). however, the role played by the perception of sociostructural variables at an explicit level of analysis has never been explored; we aimed at testing the role of perceived stability and legitimacy among high-status group members in enhancing/reducing the infrahumanization bias. our findings, in line with leyens et al. (2001), indicated that participants tended to attribute more negative secondary emotions to their ingroup (italians) than to the outgroup (immigrants from africa). for example, they tended to select more often “disappointment” to describe the feelings of an italian person in a negative situation, than to describe the feelings of an immigrant. given that secondary emotions are attributed uniquely to humans (and not to animals), this differential attribution has been described as a form of humanity denial. interestingly, in line with turner and brown (1978), we also found that the perception of the status differences as unstable and legitimate had a positive impact on the infrahumanization bias. in other words, participants who thought that it was right and fair for them to have a higher status compared to immigrants and, at the same time, perceived that such high position at risk (likely to change for worst) showed a tendency to perceive immigrants as less human (i.e., attributing less secondary emotions to immigrants than to italians). this result has two main theoretical implications. the first implication is related to the role of status differences in shaping expressions of infrahumanization bias. even though previous studies showed that this bias was not related to group hierarchies, the approach of focusing on ethnic, national or regional groups has been questioned in that these status differences may be perceived differently as concerns their extent and legitimacy (vaes et al., perception of social structure and infrahumanisation 362 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2012). our findings support this argument by showing that the perception of legitimacy and stability of status differences matters for the manifestation of the infrahumanization bias. the second one is related to the role of perceived threat to one’s own dominant status position in the society. on the one hand, theorists have linked the perception of threat to prejudice toward outgroups, and toward immigrants in particular (e.g., stephan & stephan, 1996), concluding that there is systematic evidence that high levels of perceived threat are strongly associated with negative attitudes toward outgroups (riek, mania, & gaertner, 2006). on the other hand, research showed that the perception of instability of status differences is threatening for high status group members (e.g., scheepers et al., 2009). the results gained in the current study indirectly supported the idea that perception of instability of one’s own superiority can foster the belief that one’s ingroup is more human than the outgroup because of increased threat perception. importantly, this study expanded on previous research by showing that the potential effect of threat also applies to more subtle forms of prejudice (i.e., infrahumanization) than the ones traditionally considered, which today are socially disapproved and normatively sanctioned (dovidio & gaertner, 2004). this study contributed to a deeper understanding of the relationships between infrahumanisation and the perception of socio-structural variables; notwithstanding, we have to acknowledge some limitations. first, our focus was limited to high-status group members. future studies should focus on low-status groups as well, as different patterns of associations between perceived stability/legitimacy and infrahumanization could emerge. for example, research within the social identity theory suggests that, when status differences are perceived as legitimate, members of low status groups show outgroup favoritism (e.g., turner, 1980). second, we assessed the perception of stability and legitimacy through two single-item measures. even if similar single-items have been used as measures of stability and legitimacy in previous research (e.g., jost, kivetz, rubini, guermandi, & mosso, 2005), including the pioneering work by turner and brown (1978), future studies adopting more reliable measures (see federico, 1999 for an example of a four-items scale to measure perception of legitimacy of status differences) will be welcome. third, we found the infrahumanization effect for negative emotions only, which may be due to the limited number of emotions available in our dataset. future studies should examine a larger number of positive and negative emotions. conclusion research within the social identity theory framework emphasizes the importance of the perception of status differences (mainly legitimacy and stability) in shaping intergroup bias. however, the relationship between these perceptions are associated to the infrahumanization bias—is controversial. we filled this gap by showing that high-status group members who perceived status differences as legitimate and unstable reported higher levels of infrahumanization compared to their counterparts. in times of increasing migration flows, we witness everyday discriminatory acts and prejudiced attitudes towards the newcomers. the findings from this study indicate that the specific perceptions that natives hold about their alleged status superiority do matter in expressions of infrahumanization, in particular the perception of legitimacy of their own position. the nature of sociostructural characteristics of intergroup relations should then inform present-day debates on the ethnic diversity of our societies, and the political discourses should be free of superiority legitimizing rhetoric. mosso & russo 363 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this study was supported by a research grant from the miur/prin2009 [grant number 200974xyl2_003]. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank gianni briante, filippo rutto, and erica viola. references bettencourt, b. a., charlton, k., dorr, n., & hume, d. l. 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(1978). social status, cognitive alternatives, and intergroup relations. in h. tajfel (ed.), differentiation between social groups: studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 202–234). new york, ny, usa: academic press. mosso & russo 365 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.170 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.50 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f026151007x216261 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00224545.2016.1192097 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1368430202005002539 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f014466608x322882 https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327957pspr1004_4 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs11211-018-0321-x https://doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.609 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0147-1767%2896%2900026-0 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.2420100203 https://www.psychopen.eu/ vaes, j., leyens, j.-p., paladino, m. p., & miranda, m. p. (2012). we are human, they are not: driving forces behind outgroup dehumanisation and the humanisation of the ingroup. european review of social psychology, 23, 64-106. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2012.665250 about the authors cristina o. mosso is associate professor in social psychology at the department of psychology at the university of turin. her research addresses legitimacy, prejudice, political ideology and system justification theory. silvia russo is researcher in social psychology at the department of psychology at the university of turin. her research interest lies in political behavior, political psychology, and social psychology. more specifically, she focuses on psychosocial predictors of political attitudes and behaviors. perception of social structure and infrahumanisation 366 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 358–366 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1585 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f10463283.2012.665250 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perception of social structure and infrahumanisation (introduction) the study method participants and procedure measures results discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors emotional, cognitive and self-enhancement processes in aggressive behavior after interpersonal rejection and exclusion research reports emotional, cognitive and self-enhancement processes in aggressive behavior after interpersonal rejection and exclusion joanna rajchert*a [a] institute of applied psychology, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland. abstract the relationship between exclusion or rejection and aggression is already well documented, but there is still a debate about the mechanisms that underlie this effect. in two studies we focused on the propensity to react aggressively (readiness for aggression) on the bases of emotional, cognitive or self-enhancement (personality-immanent) processes. in both studies we first measured readiness for aggression and then ego-depleted participants. next, in study 1 we excluded participants (n = 96) using an online ball throwing game and measured displaced aggressive behavior intensity and duration of an unpleasant noise administrated to a stranger. in study 2 participants (n = 140) were rejected by a peer on the basis of an interview that they gave and then could retaliate by reducing peer's chance for getting a job. the results show that exclusion effect on displaced aggression was moderated by cognitive readiness for aggression, while rejection effect on retaliatory aggression was shaped by emotional and personality-immanent readiness for aggression as well as ego-depletion. the results were discussed in light of the strength model of self-control by baumeister, vohs, and tice (2007). keywords: exclusion, rejection, readiness for aggression, aggressive behavior europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 received: 2015-02-09. accepted: 2015-07-17. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: institute for applied psychology, the maria grzegorzewska univeristy, ul. szczesliwicka 40, 02-353warsaw, poland. telephone: +48 22 589 36 00. e-mail: lasilasijr@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a number of studies (e.g. baumeister, brewer, tice, & twenge 2007; dewall, twenge, bushman, im, & williams, 2010; twenge, baumeister, tice, & stucke, 2001) show strong relationship between interpersonal rejection or exclusion with aggressive behavior. different mechanism were proposed as a base of this relationship (for review see: leary, twenge, & quinlivan, 2006). most researchers agree that these mechanisms are connected with various aspects of control: self-control defined as a capacity or strength (muraven & baumeister, 2000) or feeling of control over situation (warburton, williams, & cairns, 2006). rejection diminishes motivation for self-control because the connection with others are broken. rejection also force people to attempt to manage difficult and unpleasant emotions, what exploits the self-control resources leading to increase of impulsive and automatic reactions. exclusion is also related to feeling of loss of control over situation, thus aggressive behavior might be a way to regain a control. research shows also that experimental reducing (by inhibiting impulses) or boosting a capacity for self-control (by sugar consumption) and also restoring the feeling of control over environment (by controlling the noise level) influence aggression in expected way (gailliot et al., 2007; warburton, williams, & cairns, 2006). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in two studies we intended to explore whether three different mechanism at the base of aggressive behavior interact with the rejection or exclusion and shape the aggressive manifestation. as fraczek suggested (e.g. frączek, konopka, & dominiak-kochanek, 2015) people differ as to the propensity to base their aggressive behavior on particular mechanisms: emotional, cognitive or related to the self-representing one's needs and motivations. he proposed that emotional impulsive readiness (e-ir) for aggression is a quite stable tendency to react with aggression on the basis of emotional outburst. this propensity is related to low trait self-control, emotionality and emotional reactivity and higher anger. this type of readiness is related to temperamental propensities, mostly emotional reactivity (frączek, konopka, & smulczyk, 2013). aggressive behavior based on e-ir is limited in time and frequently violent, as it is a manifestation of angry reaction to aversive stimuli and provocation. women demonstrate higher e-ir than man in poland and uruguay, but no sex difference is observed in china and spain and in the united states women were higher on e-ir than men (frączek et al., 2013; rajchert & frączek, 2012). it can be then assumed that apart of different social roles performed by men and women that shape aggressive manifestations (eagly & steffen, 1984) also cultural factors that influence the process of socialization of men and women are important predictor of this type of readiness. second pattern of readiness, cognitive habitual readiness (c-hr) on the other hand is a proclivity for aggression based on well-developed net of aggressive schemes represented by behavior patterns related to social role or profession. cognitive processes, such as: social perceptions, anticipation and attribution, have a crucial role in h-cr. this class of readiness is responsible for habitual and planned aggressive behavior, which is perceived as approved and legitimized, important, obvious and necessary part of social relations. habitual cognitive readiness is weakly related to temperamental features and sex differences in this pattern of readiness are stable across countries with men scoring higher than women. there is also a third pattern of readiness, personality-immanent readiness (p-ir) for aggression possible, when one feels pleasure and satisfaction as a consequence of aggressive act. people who can be characterized by this type of readiness use aggressive behavior as a way of enhancing their self-esteem and control over the situation. studies show that p-ir is related to eysenk's psychopathy scale and is more prevalent among men in different cultural settings (frączek et al., 2013; rajchert & frączek, 2012). baumeister and colleagues propose in strength model of self-control (e.g. baumeister, vohs, & tice, 2007; muraven & baumeister, 2000) that self-control is a control over the self by the self and that it can be depleted or consumed by previous acts of effortful control. repeated exertions of self-control, for example regulation of negative emotions experiences after ostracism, deteriorate the self-control capacity, that is a limited resource, leading to worse performance on other self-control tasks. furthermore baumeister and colleagues argue that people differ in their base self-control strength or resources. we think that people with predisposition for aggression on the basis of emotional, cognitive or self-imbibed mechanisms also differ with regard to their self-control strength or the capacity to inhibit the automatic reaction in different situations. individuals with high e-ir are the least able to self-regulate their emotions because of their low self-control strength, so direct, painful rejection episode should anger them and deplete their capacity to inhibit aggressive retaliatory response toward someone, who rejected them. however, if the exclusion situation would not be emotionally disrupting enough to cause angry outburst, than e-ir should not influence aggression level. quite different effects could be predicted for high c-hr in those two situations. people with cognitive propensity for aggression hold many beliefs approving aggressive behavior. frączek's (2015) conceptualization posits that they see aggression as normal and frequent in their environment and develop a hostility bias in evaluation of social situation. research shows that this hostility bias may underlie aggressive europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 708 http://www.psychopen.eu/ behavior after exclusion because people with many aggressive scripts tend to see ambiguous behavior as aggressive and react accordingly to their interpretation (dewall, twenge, gitter, & baumeister, 2009). then we could expect that the hostility bias would be the most noticeable, when exclusion will be less severe and obvious (more ambiguous), for example when rejection is not communicated directly but only deduced from the observation of other people's ostracizing behavior. ambiguous acts leave much more space for subjective interpretation that may engage hostile cognitions (characteristic for high h-cr individuals) leading to more aggression (e.g. crick & dodge, 1996; dodge & coie, 1987). with regard to high p-ir individuals, we think that they are prone to aggression without any instigation, so being rejected or excluded should not matter for their aggression level. rather they might bemore aggressive toward anybody and anytime, when for example they need to boost their self-esteem or they feel bored or unhappy. although high p-ir individuals are thus not particularly susceptible to situational triggers of aggression, and can act aggressively even without provocation, they would also respond with an increased aggression if a provocation derogates their self-esteem and they perceive aggression as a mean for enhancing their self-appraisal. to strengthen the differences between people with three readiness types we also depleted their self-control strength. experimental ego-depletion cause people to behave more automatically and cause more aggression after provocation (muraven & baumeister, 2000; schmeichel & baumeister, 2004), so we hoped that the interaction effect of readiness for aggression and exclusion on aggression will be stronger when individuals would be egodepleted. to test our assumptions we conducted two studies in which we first measured readiness for aggression, next ego-depleted participants, then in study 1 excluded or included them and measured their displaced aggressive reaction and in study 2 rejected or accepted them and gave them a possibility to be aggressive toward someone who rejected them. study 1 in study 1 we sought to verify first, whether exclusion would cause more displaced aggression than inclusion and second whether this effect would be shaped by level of readiness for aggression. it was hypothesized that less direct and severe exclusion in contrast to rejection, would be interpreted as more antagonistic behavior by high c-hr individuals but not by less c-hr participants and the effect would be more pronounced after ego-depletion. we also hypothesized that p-ir would be positively related to aggression level among excluded and included individuals as well. in this study we also controlled for the level of e-ir, but did not hypothesize it to be a significant moderator of exclusion aggression relationship or have a main effect on aggression either since the exclusion was indirect. method participants and procedure — ninety six polish students aged from 18 to 25 years old (m = 21.35, sd = 1.71; 48 men and 48 women) from different universities and schools participated in the study voluntarily, without any monetary incentive. first participants completed the readiness for interpersonal aggression inventory (riai, frączek, konopka, & smulczyk, 2009) measuring three types of readiness for aggression. the inventory consists of 30 statements with yes and no answering possibility. three scales measure e-ir, h-cr and p-ir. each scale includes 10 items. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 709 http://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire has a good predictive validity and internal consistency ranging from α = .76 for c-hr to α = .67 for e-ir. in the current study consistency was even better: for e-ir alpha = .75, for h-cr alpha = .84 and for p-ir alpha = .75. next participants were ego-depleted by reading the words representing basic colors printed with incompatible ink color. such a tusk requires participant to inhibit competitive reaction to name the color of the ink instead of reading the word list. in the control condition participants were reading the words naming colors printed in black ink on white paper. both groups were reading the lists in the presence of the experimenter for 5 minutes. when finished, participants completed for the first time the positive and negative affect schedule by watson, clark, & tellegen (1988) in polish adaptation by brzozowski (2010) to check whether the manipulation that followed was effective. to manipulate the feeling of exclusion individuals were playing the cyberball game on a computer (williams & jarvis, 2006). in this game participants throw a virtual ball to two other participants. in fact the game is preprogrammed and no other players exist. in the exclusion condition participants get only 2 first throws and for about 3 minutes observe how two other people are playing with each other. in the inclusion condition participants obtain as many throws as others. after the cyberball participants completed panas again and aggressive behavior was measured by competitive reaction time game (crt; dewall et al., 2010). in this computer program, individuals compete with other participant (in study 1 it was someone, who was not previously playing cyberball with participant) in fast clicking on the rectangle. the person who was faster in each trial punishes the opponent with a noise by setting the duration and intensity from 0 to 10. the participant always wins the first trial and has to set the noise level for the opponent, which is used as an index of unprovoked aggression. after crt participants were asked whether they believed in the experimental mask, next thanked and debriefed. results the exclusion manipulation was effective. participants declared that they felt less included after exclusion than after inclusion (m = 2.47, sd = 1.98 vs. m = 5.89, sd = 2.04, t(95) = 8.22, p < .001). excluded participants also noticed that only a small percentage of all throws was directed to them (9%, sd = 8.14 vs. 38%, sd = 12.20, t(95) = 13.60, p < .001). excluded and included group also differed in positive and negative emotions. the analyses were conducted using a repeated measures anova separately for positive and negative affect measured by panas. the interaction term between time of measurement (directly before and after the manipulation procedure) was significant for positive affect, f(1,95) = 26.50, p < .001, partial η2 = .22. post hoc analysis showed that following manipulation, excluded individuals declared less positive affect, m = 25.38, sd = 1.18, than included, m = 33.10, sd = 1.35, t(47) = 3.99, p < .001, and participants from the excluded group had higher positive affect before manipulation, m = 32.38, sd = 1.18, than after manipulation, t(47) = 5.93, p < .001. no other post hoc comparisons yielded significant differences. the interaction also was significant for negative affect, f(1,95) = 6.38, p < .05, partial η2 = .06. after manipulation, excluded participants had more negative affect, m = 14.35, sd = 5.96, than included, t(47) = -2.38, p < .05, and included participants had more negative affect before manipulation,m = 13.17, sd = 3.96, than after, m = 12.02, sd = 3.16, t(47) = 2.19, p < .05. there were no other significant differences for negative affect. most participants did not believe that they had played the cyberball game with real people (we used a 7-point likert scale, where 7 represented very strong belief), m = 2.36, sd = 1.64. what is more, many participants were not convinced, that they have played with real people in crt (m = 2.48, sd = 1.73 on a 7-point scale). to test whether manipulation of exclusion, ego-depletion and gender of participants affected aggression, 2 x 2 x 2 anova was conducted. results showed no significant differences in displaced aggression due to manipulation or gender. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 710 http://www.psychopen.eu/ next analysis of correlation between aggression and readiness for aggression was implemented (table 1). table 1 pearson r correlation indices between readiness for aggression and displaced aggression 4321measures -1. displaced aggression .33**.26*.22* -2. e-ir .27*.25* -3. c-hr .69** -4. p-ir *p < .05. **p < .001. the readiness for aggression patterns were inter-correlated in a predicted direction, as in other studies (frączek et al., 2013). when other types of readiness were not controlled, all patterns of readiness were positively related to aggression. to verify the interaction hypothesis a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses for each readiness for aggression pattern were conducted. the final model, presented in table 2, included all main and interactive effects and predicted 24% of variance in displaced aggression (p = .032). table 2 hierarchical multiple regressions models for readiness for aggression on displaced aggressive behavior final model variables pseb .0001.15constant .378 .4251.41exclusion (ex), inclusion = 0 .131 .4431.36ego-depletion (ed), no ed = 0 .071 .8861.18gender, women = 0 .170 .9820.82e-ir .02-0 .3570.93c-hr .86-0 .0751.03p-ir .861 .4902.11ex x ed .46-1 .7471.35e-ir x ex .430 .3951.46e-ir x ed x ex .251 .0231.73c-hr x ex .014 .0822.57c-hr x ed x ex .52-4 .2211.68p-ir x ex .07-2 .3482.22p-ir x ed x ex .092 results were as we expected. controlling for all other variables in the model, p-ir was positively related to aggressive behavior at the level, that was close to the significance (p = .075). also interaction between c-hr and exclusion was significant and 3-way interaction of c-hr, ego-depletion and exclusion was close to significance. further analysis allowed for interpretation of the interaction effects. we tested the moderated moderation model (hayes, 2013) in which aggression was predicted by exclusion and this relationship was moderated by c-hr. ego-depletion moderated the interactive effect of exclusion and c-hr on aggression. it turned out that the intereurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 711 http://www.psychopen.eu/ action term was significant only when participants were not depleted (b = 2.15, p = .002). moreover only participants who were high on c-hr and were not depleted differed in aggressive behavior between exclusion conditions (b = 2.84, p = .003). means were presented in figure 1. figure 1. interaction effect of exclusion, ego-depletion (ed; ned, no ego-depletion) and c-hr on displaced aggression. slopes are plotted at the ±1 sd. discussion of study 1 we assumed, based on other research results in which identical procedures for manipulation of exclusion (e.g. warburton, williams, & cairns, 2006) and measurement of aggression (dewall, twenge, bushman, im, &williams, 2010) were used, that exclusion in the cyberball game would cause more displaced aggressive behavior than inclusion, but results of study 1 contradicts this prediction. apparently the feeling of exclusion that was experienced by participants in our study was not strong enough to cause a main effect of exclusion on aggression. for example dewall et al. (2010) observed increase in aggression measured by crt among ostracized in cyberball participants. also at least twometa-analysis indicated that cyberball procedure cause less positive andmore negative emotions, diminishes basic need satisfaction and increase aggressive reaction toward a guilty and also an innocent other (gerber & wheeler, 2009; hartgerink, vanbeest, wicherts, & williams, 2015). it was also indicated that ostracism induced by cyberball procedure may lead to more positive social behavior or at least behavior that is motivated by the need to reconcile and reconnect with others (gerber & wheeler, 2009). thus, the behavior after exclusion is not always directed against others and motivated by the desire to hurt a target. when other conditions favor such behavior (for example there is a possibility of further contact with the ostracizing partner or the relationship is valued), ostracism may be followed also by pro-social behavior (smart richman & leary, 2009). however, we are not aware of any study that used either cyberball or crt game procedures in polish sample. polish students in study 1 were very suspicious with regard to the procedure of exclusion manipulation and aggression measurement, which might have influenced the significance level of the effect. on the other hand a study by zadro, williams, and richardson (2004) showed that mean indices of four basic needs fulfillment (feeling included, feeling of control, meaningful existence and positive self-esteem) did not differ between people who received explicit information that they would play with a computer and participants who were told that they would play with other people. in both groups individuals declared lower needs satisfaction in exclusion than in inclusion condition. in our study europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 712 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants also declared that they felt less included and had less positive mood after exclusion than after inclusion. we do not know however if the procedure would still be strong enough to produce aggression, when people knew that they were excluded by a computer. in any case participants were also suspicious about crt and that could finally turn the tide to less aggressive behavior. in future studies it would be necessary to use other ostracism procedures, that would not induce suspiciousness among participants. although we could not show that exclusion by cyberball intensified aggressive behavior among all participants, we demonstrated that at least part of them reacted more aggressively than others. results indicated, along with our prediction, that the effect of exclusion on aggression was stronger for high c-hr than for low c-hr participants. contrary to our expectation, ego-depletion did not boost this effect but rather reduced the difference in aggression between excluded and included individuals with high c-hr by increasing aggression among included participants. ego-depletion causes more automatic and less controlled behavior, thus it could activate cognitive hostility bias among high c-hr participants even after inclusion, what leaded them to more aggression. the study 1 also showed, as predicted, that p-ir was a predictor of aggression. this relationship was positive and moderate in simple correlation analysis but weak, when all other patterns of readiness for aggression and their interaction with experimental conditions were taken into account. still, we can conclude that people, who often experience satisfaction and pleasure as a consequence of being aggressive act that way even when they are included and might be in general more aggressive than people, who do not feel pleasure in harming others. study 2 in study 2 we wanted to verify hypothesis that (1) experience of rejection would cause more retaliatory aggressive behavior toward the rejecting partner and that (2) this effect would be moderated by e-ir. i was also predicted that (3) ego-depletion would strengthen the interaction effect of e-ir and rejection on aggression. we based our hypothesis on the assumption that sever and unfair rejection straight forward information about exclusion from a relationship based on insufficient or scarce knowledge about a rejected person, would more greatly affect those, who have problems with emotion regulation and control of impulses. rejection would be in this case a provocation that would evoke aggression toward the rejecting person among all participants, but the most aggressive would be those with the least control capacity (high e-ir individuals), especially after ego-depletion which would diminish their ability to self-control even more. as in study 1, we also predicted that p-ir would be a positive predictor of aggression irrespectively of experimental conditions. method participants and procedure — study was conducted in two parts. during the first part 140 polish students of pedagogy (17 men and 123 women) aged from 18 to 25 (m = 21.35, sd = 1.71) completed readiness for interpersonal aggression inventory in groups during the introductory psychology course class. the internal consistency of riai scales in study 2 were good with α = .75 for e-ir, α = .70 for c-hr and α = .60 for p-ir. one week later students were invited to the laboratory for the second part of the study which was conducted individually, that was presented to them as a separate experiment on interpersonal relations via computer and media. this part of the procedure began with the moodmeasurement using panas. next participants were told that they would exchange video recordings with a peer to decide whether they want to work together later. first, all participants watched the same video of a female answering 3 questions (e.g. "how do you find the food in your school's cafeteria?"). participants were to decide whether they want to work with the person from the video later. after they made their europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 713 http://www.psychopen.eu/ decision, they were recorded answering the same 3 questions. their decision and recording was then delivered by the experimenter to the female peer, who never existed. during the time when experimenter was delivering the message to the peer, half of the participants were ego-depleted. ego-depletion procedure was based on procedure used in stucke and baumeister (2006) study. participants received a text from national geographic divided in 2 parts and printed on both sides of a paper sheet. at the first page was the instruction to circle all letter a in the whole text which counted 144 words. we wanted to provoke an automatic response to circle the letter a. on the next page participants were also to find and circle letter a, but only in those words which contain also letter m, b or k. this part of the text counted 131 words and participants had to inhibit previously learned automatic response to letter a. the second half of participants that was not ego-depleted circled all the letter a in both parts of the text, so they did not have to break their automatic response. when participants finished that task, the experimenter delivered the feedback from the peer. in acceptance condition participants could read that "the interview was cool! i would really like to work with you later.". in rejection condition the information was: "this interview was poor! i would never want to work with you.". after receiving the feedback participants completed panas again and were told that the experiment have finished. before they left, experimenter told that the peer with whom they just have interacted wanted to work as an experimenter's assistant and needed to collect as many ratings as she could. all participants agreed to complete 10-item survey (e.g., ‘you can rely on this person’; ‘this person is friendly’) on a scale ranging from 1 = completely disagree, to 10 = completely agree, rating the peer's suitability for the job. next participants were asked question measuring suspicion, thanked and debriefed. results first we conducted analysis of difference in negative and positive affect to check for the effectiveness of the manipulation. as in study 1 the analyses of repeated measures anova were run on positive and negative affect scores. the interaction between rejection manipulation and time of measurement was significant for positive, f(1,139) = 17.93, p < .001, partial η2 = .12, as well as negative affect, f(1,139) = 12.23, p < .01, partial η2 = .08. further analysis revealed that among included participants positive, t(47) = 5.93, p < .001, as well negative affect, t(47) = 5.93, p < .001, differed between measurements with lower positive, m = 27.58, sd = 7.06 vs. m = 31.11, sd = 7.43, and higher negative affect, m = 16.30, sd = 4.72 vs. m = 12.76, sd = 3.50, before than after manipulation. following manipulation, excluded participants also declared more negative affect, m = 15.97, sd = 6.73, than included, t(47) = 5.93, p < .001. post hoc tests showed no other significant differences. participants were also asked whether they believed that they have interacted with a real person. they were giving an answer on a 7-point scale, where 7 signified that they completely believed in the experimenter's story'. results showed that participants were not very suspicious and by average believed that they interacted with a real person (m = 4.27, sd = 2.01) and completed the job evaluation survey for the real person (m = 4.13, sd = 2.04). next correlation analyses were conducted for aggression and readiness for aggression, which showed that only h-cr was related to retaliatory aggressive behavior. in this analysis also p-ir was related to c-hr. in this analysis only p-ir was weekly related to c-hr. pearson r indices are presented in table 3. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 714 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 pearson r correlation indices between readiness for aggression and retaliatory aggression 4321measures -1. retaliatory aggression .01.17*.10 -2. e-ir .00.05 -3. c-hr .34** -4. p-ir *p < .05. **p < .001. in the next step we verified the interaction hypotheses using a series of multiple hierarchical regression analyses. the final model is presented in table 4. table 4 hierarchical multiple regressions models for readiness for aggression on retaliatory aggressive behavior (the more positive evaluation was granted the less aggression) final model variables pseb .000.30constant .407 .000.42rejection (r), inclusion = 0 .27-2 .599.45ego-depletion (ed), no ed = 0 .230 .380.51gender, women = 0 .450 .672.21e-ir .090 .975.25c-hr .080 .995.24p-ir .020 .995.61r x ed .00-0 .951.36e-ir x r .020 .027.49e-ir x r x ed .11-1 .251.47c-hr x r .54-0 .703.47c-hr x r x ed .180 .049.51p-ir x r .011 .072.54p-ir x r x ed .99-0 the final model explained 39% of variance in retaliatory aggression (p < .001). the strongest and highly significant effect was obtained for rejection manipulation (b = -2.27). participants were more aggressive (gave the peer less positive recommendation for the job) in the rejected group than in the accepted group. furthermore there were two significant interaction effects and one interaction effect was reaching significance level. we hypothesized to find an interactive effect of e-ir and rejection on aggressive behavior, but we supposed that this effect would be more pronounced among people, who were also ego-depleted. thus, we hoped that both interaction effects for e-ir, two-way as well and three-way, would be significant. it turned out that only a 3-way interaction effect was significant. interpretation of this effect showed that the effect of rejection on aggression differed for low and high e-ir, but only when participants were ego-depleted (b = -1.11, p = .026), but not when their self-control strength was left as it was. we also observed that the effect of rejection was highly significant in europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 715 http://www.psychopen.eu/ all groups beside one participants with low e-ir, who were also ego-depleted (b = -1.21, p = .066). mean aggression scores were presented in figure 2. figure 2. interaction effect of rejection, ego-depletion (ed; ned, no ego-depletion) and e-ir on aggression. slopes are plotted at the ±1 sd. in addition interaction effect of p-ir and rejection was significant and the three-way interaction was close to significance. interpretation of these effects indicated that p-ir and rejection interaction was more significant when there was no ego-depletion (b = 0.94, p = .098) than when there was ego-depletion manipulation implemented (b = 0.11, p = .805). effects in all groups were very strong ranging from -3.20 to -2.20, p < .001. the least significant (although still quite strong) effect was observed for high p-ir participants when they were not ego-depleted (b = -1.46, p = .033). means were presented in figure 3. figure 3. interaction effect of rejection, ego-depletion (ed; ned, no ego-depletion) and p-ir on aggression. slopes are plotted at the ±1 sd. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 716 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion of study 2 results confirmed the prediction that rejection would cause more retaliatory aggression than acceptance. this result was not surprising, if we consider the procedure of rejection that was giving the impression that the interaction partner was rude and outwardly aggressive on the basis of a very scarce information about the participant. such provocative rejection must have angered and irritated almost everyone leading to retaliation, what was showed in study 2. research using similar procedures for inducing feeling of rejection as well as for measurement of aggression gave comparable results (e.g. stucke & baumeister, 2006). although the interactive effect of e-ir and rejection was not significant low and high e-ir participants were not different in their reaction to rejection and acceptance ego-depletion made the difference visible. when ego-depleted, participants with low e-ir were able to restrain their aggressive response after rejection, while those with high e-ir became even more aggressive. we think that ego-depletion reduced self-control that was diminished already by rejection but only among individuals with high e-ir, what resulted in outburst of aggression. contrary to expectation, participants with low tendencies for emotionally driven aggression controlled themselves more after ego-depletion than without ego-depletion. it is possible that depletion strengthen the dominant, automatic reaction that would be the inhibition of aggressive impulses among low e-ir participants. this inhibition would consequently lead to withdrawal from the relation or avoidance behavior rather than retaliation. research shows that withdrawal is one of possible reactions after rejection (smart richman & leary, 2009). the hypothesis about main effect of p-ir on retaliatory aggressive behavior was not confirmed in study 2. instead, without ego-depletion, high p-ir was related to less aggressive behavior after rejection than low pir (1.5 vs. 3 points more negative evaluation of a peer comparing to acceptance condition). some explanation for this result, as in study 1, comes from the cognitive perspective of the high p-ir person. aggressive behavior is normative mean of improving one's mood or self-esteem for high p-ir people. thus, other's antagonistic behavior (rejection) might not be referred to the self, but rather considered as being guided by some other forces or goals. in other words high p-ir participants could cognitively distance themselves from the rejecting behavior of a peer seeing this behavior as a consequence of a peer's bad mood, boredom or other internal factor that was not related to actual behavior of a participant. however, ego-depletion derogated the capacity for such rational evaluation of partner's motivation and disposed participants to more automatic and less rational reaction, that was retaliatory aggression. general discussion results of both studies were not completely in line with our predictions; this suggests that the problem of mechanisms for aggressive behavior needs more research or maybe different procedures mainly for the ostracism and rejection manipulation and aggression measures should be implemented. exclusion procedure by cyberball, conducted for the first time with polish participants proved to be effective in inducing feeling of exclusion and changing mood, however the procedure did not influence displaced aggression scores. obviously more studies are needed to verify the effectiveness of the used procedure in poland. the reason for the lack of the main effect for aggression might be the high suspiciousness in this particular sample or some cultural variables. two hypothesis referring to e-ig and c-hr were partially confirmed in our studies. we found that c-hr is more significant when people are excluded and e-ir, when people are rejected. high c-hr probably leads people to europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 717 http://www.psychopen.eu/ see ambiguous exclusion episodes as more antagonistic, as in dewall et al. (2009) studies, and induces more aggressive response on the basis of cognitive hostility bias (crick & dodge, 1994). rejection on the other hand produced more aggression in all participants beside those with low e-ir after ego-depletion. we think that in case of such a strong main effect of rejection on aggression, ego-depletion enhanced the effect of e-ir priming the dominant reaction (hagger, wood, stiff, & chatzisarantis, 2010) that was either aggressive outburst or inhibition. as to the third readiness for aggression pattern, p-ir, we anticipated the main, positive effect for displaced as well as direct, retaliatory aggression. studies showed that as it is possible that high p-ir fosters displaced aggressive behavior after less severe form of exclusion, it may actually help to inhibit retaliatory aggression after rejection, when people are not depleted of self-control probably on the basis of cognitive distancing (e.g. larsen & christenfeld, 2011; lott, 2002) or external attributions (e.g. kelley &michela, 1980) of causes of partner's rejecting behavior. when strength of self-control was depleted high p-ir participants were not able to use their cognitive resources as easily and behaved as aggressively as others. limitation and conclusion although research has enriched our knowledge about conditions in which particular mechanisms of aggressive behavior operate, our conclusion are limited by a series of problems. the first problem was related to the unequal gender composition of the sample in study 2. gender differences in aggression and readiness for aggression are well documented (archer, 2000; frączek et al., 2013), so it was important to control for sex differences, which we did. though the effect of gender was not significant in either of the studies, we cannot be sure whether the results of the study 2 would be similar if more male participants had been included. for example worse than in other studies (e.g. frączek et al., 2015) internal consistency of riai scales in study 2 could be due to the overrepresentation of woman in the sample. another problem is also related to gender, although not gender of participants but of interaction partner in study 2, that was female. participants (men and women) watched an interview of a women of their age, and next were rejected by this women. it is still to be determine experimentally how the same and different gender in interacting pairs would be related to aggression after rejection. it would be also interesting to further explore how gender of the target of aggression would shape the intensity of displaced aggression in study 1, in which gender of the opponent in crt was not reviled. another issue that should limit the conclusions was the study design that we used. both studies were constructed to explore the situational conditions that would intensify the effect of readiness for aggression on aggressive behavior. in two separate studies we examined the effect of exclusion and rejection, but at the same time we changed the object of aggression. doing so, we were unable to separate the individual effect of the rejection vs. exclusion from the effect of the target of aggression. in future studies implemented design of the experiments should allow for determination of individual effects. conclusions summarizing, the results of two studies indicate that different mechanisms, emotional, cognitive and related to self might take part in shaping aggressive responding after exclusion and rejection. however, there are situational factors that are important activators of these mechanisms the level of ambiguousness of the exclusion incident, the strength of self-control and probably also the target of aggression. future studies should focus on determining the individual influence of situational factors explored in our studies, but also on testing the effects with different aggression measurement procedures and expanding our insight into gender variability of obtained results. presented results may also help to construct preventive and intervention programs suited to individual differences europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 exclusion and aggressive behavior 718 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in readiness for aggression. programs that are directed at the mechanism might be more effective because they are more comprehensive (address the important mediators or precursors of the problem) and theory driven (nation et al., 2003). funding preparation of this manuscript was supported by grant dec-2011/01/d/hs6/05486 from the polish national science centre. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references archer, j. 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(2009). reactions to discrimination, stigmatization, ostracism, and other forms of interpersonal rejection: a multimotive model. psychological review, 116(2), 365-383. doi:10.1037/a0015250 stucke, t. s., & baumeister, r. f. (2006). ego depletion and aggressive behavior: is the inhibition of aggression a limited resource? european journal of social psychology, 36(1), 1-13. doi:10.1002/ejsp.285 twenge, j. m., baumeister, r. f., tice, d. m., & stucke, t. s. (2001). if you can't join them, beat them: effects of social exclusion on aggressive behavior. journal of personality and social psychology, 81(6), 1058-1069. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.81.6.1058 warburton, w. a., williams, k. d., & cairns, d. r. (2006). when ostracism leads to aggression: the moderating effects of control deprivation. journal of experimental social psychology, 42(2), 213-220. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.03.005 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 williams, k. d., & jarvis, b. (2006). cyberball: a program for use in research on interpersonal ostracism and acceptance. behavior research methods, 38(1), 174-180. doi:10.3758/bf03192765 zadro, l., williams, k. d., & richardson, r. (2004). how low can you go? ostracism by a computer is sufficient to lower self-reported levels of belonging, control, self-esteem, andmeaningful existence. journal of experimental social psychology, 40(4), 560-567. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2003.11.006 about the author joanna rajchert is an adjunct at academy of special education, institute of applied psychology, warsaw, poland. she acquired her phd title at the university of warsaw, department of psychology. she specializes in experimental social psychology, in particular in the field of aggressive and prosocial behavior but also educational psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 707–721 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.934 rajchert 721 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0015250 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.81.6.1058 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jesp.2005.03.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758%2fbf03192765 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jesp.2003.11.006 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en exclusion and aggressive behavior (introduction) study 1 method results discussion of study 1 study 2 method results discussion of study 2 general discussion limitation and conclusion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author clinical inclusion of dissociative episodes-a case study virginia claudia neacşu clinical psychologist, c.m.d.t.a. abstract we described a clinical case presenting with dissociative and ptsd-like symptoms and we attempted a diagnosis and some symptom explanations in the light of existing theories about trauma and dissociation. keywords: dissociation, posttraumatic stress syndrome, trauma theory theoretical consideration concerning trauma and dissociation dsm-iv defines dissociation as “…a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, or perception of the environment” (dsm-iv, p. 693). dsm-iv-tr defines dissociation as “the splitting off of clusters of mental contents from conscious awareness, a mechanism central to hysterical conversion and dissociative disorders; the separation of an idea from its emotional significance and affect as seen in the inappropriate affect of schizophrenic patients”. cardeña (1994) has identified three broad categories of dissociation: (1) dissociation as non-integrated mental modules or systems. (2) dissociation as an alteration in consciousness involving a disconnection from the self or the world. (3) dissociation as a defense mechanism. for cardeña, true category 1 dissociative phenomena (such as dissociative amnesia and the conversion disorders) “are characterized by an apparent dysfunction in perception, memory, or action that a) cannot be reversed by an act of will; (b) occurs in the presence of preserved functioning of the apparently disrupted system; and (c) is reversible, at least in principle”. in contrast, “category 2 dissociation essentially encompasses depersonalization and derealization. the third category of dissociation refers more to the function of categories 1 and 2”. brown, distinguishes between type 1 dissociation—encompassing dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorder (did), and the conversion disorders—and type 2 dissociation, encompassing depersonalization/derealisation, peri-traumatic dissociation and out-of body experiences. type 2 dissociation is described as “an altered state of consciousness characterized by a sense of separation (or detachment) from certain aspects of everyday experience, be it their body (as in out-of-body experiences), their sense of self (as in depersonalization), or the external world (as in derealization)”. (holmes, 2005) the concept of compartmentalization incorporates cardeña’s (1994) category 1 and brown’s type 1 dissociation. all compartmentalization phenomena are characterized by a deficit in the ability to deliberately control processes or actions that would normally be amenable to such control (brown, 2004; cardeña, 1994, cit in holmes, 2005). the compartmentalized processes continue to operate normally (apart from their inaccessibility to volitional control), and are able to influence ongoing emotion, cognition and action. this definition incorporates conditions characterized by an inability to bring normally accessible information into conscious awareness (e.g. dissociative amnesia), which can also be regarded as a control problem. ptsd subjects are considered to suffer from both types of dissociation, that is both detachment and compartmentalization. (brewin, 2003; foa, molnar and cashman, 1995 cit.in holmes, 2005). donald meichenbaum stated four groups of risk factors, which predict who will develop ptsd after experiencing a negative event. the first category encompasses stimulus characteristics-intensity, duration and its proximity to the subject (to experience/to witness or hear about the event). a second category includes the response characteristics: its nature (anxiety, terror, dissociation) and the temporal distance between the occurrence of the event and the onset of the pathological symptomsthe longer it takes for the symptoms to occur, after the event, the higher the likelihood of developing ptsd. the likelihood for ptsd also increases if, along with the specific response, there are comorbid features: anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and irritability. the third risk factor are premorbid features in terms of socialization patterns, especially intergenerational victimization-if the parents have also been victimized, the child is more likely to develop ptsd. the forth, often overlooked risk factor is the reinsertion environment after the negative event, a supportive/non-supportive environment. (meichenbaum, volpe, 1998) l. terr (1991) described two types of traumatic events. events that are abrupt, short-term (a few minutes and as long as a few hours) can be referred to as type i traumatic events. this category encompasses natural and accidental disasters and deliberately caused human-made disasters (rape, robbery, severe physical abuse). type ii trauma represents the ongoing or repeated exposure to traumatic events (chronic victimization by child sexual abuse, domestic violence). “research indicates that… individuals who directly or vicariously experience such events show similar profiles of psychopathology including chronic ptsd”. (volpe, 1996) case description patient l.p., 20 years of age, college student, presented to a psychiatric consultation in december 2007, and to the psychological service two weeks later. the main complaints were dissociative crises, during which she travels various places outside her apartment, apparently in an attempt to escape being hit or hurt in some way. she preserves consciousness for her identity and chronological age, but her behavior and verbal expression are extremely regressed: she uses numerous diminutives, she designates herself by the nickname, and she is temporally and spatially disorientedbehaving as if her dead grandmother were still alive and waiting for her. the episodes last 30 minutes to about one hour. in the past, during some of these episodes, she manifested self-harming behavior and her mood varied from one episode to another–intense fear/sadness/irritability/numbness. outside the episodes she had a sad mood, diminished interest for previous enjoyed activities and anergia. she declared previous suicidal ideation, which she communicated to some members of her family, but did not proceed with her intention. as the psychiatric and psychological interview revealed, she had no delirious ideation, hallucinations, inter-episodic disorganized behavior or negative symptoms. she has never used drugs and is less than a regular alcohol consumer. she declares having suffered a single head trauma, when her stepfather pushed her and she hit her head falling. she didn’t lost consciousness then and clearly remembers that event. neurological examination revealed no pathological changes in the eeg and ct didn’t evidentiate any structural cerebral modifications. case history the dissociative episodes were first noticed, most probably, by her boyfriend the summer of 2006 and, they may have been present before 2006, she or her father/boyfriend can’t state the exact date of onset. apparently her mother noticed some moments of “spacing out” but they were not as dramatic as the present complaints. in november 2004 she witnesses her grandmother’s having a stroke (vca) and becoming comatose, she tried to save her, giving her htn medication and tried to call several ambulances. eventually, after three days hospitalization, her grandmother died. she remembers clearly the facts and her emotional states during those moments. around her baccalaureat examinations period, her mood became constantly depressed, she was anhedonic and easily fatigued. the symptoms accentuated gradually until she passed her faculty exams. between the two examinations, she studied continuously. she applied and took an examination for six faculties. the patient’s biological parents divorced when she was 4. they each remarried and she has four stepsisters, two from each parent’s new family. at the moment, she lives with her boyfriend in her grandmother’s house. she has been trusted in her mothers care and lived with her and her stepfather until recently. he was an excessive drinker and physically abused her mother; sometimes she would hit him back. the patient has also been hurt several times when she tried to defend her mother. she asked the patient to introduce her stepfather as her biological parent in social circumstances and motivated the preserving of the abusive relationship as an attempt to offer the patient the benefits of a complete family and of her stepfather’s financial status. the patient describer her mother as prone to emotional outbursts and domineering. during the first two weeks since referral, the dissociative episodes occurred every other day, then daily to decrease in frequency at the end of the third week, after she was administrated eglonyl. her mood already improved within the first two weeks since referral, after receiving carbamazepine and prozac. her anxious disposition and exaggerated startle response to minor stimuli non-trauma associated persist, she declares a decrease in memory and attention performance, reflected in her grades level and intrusive memories of her grandmother death. at the beginning of the third week, the results on the (ravlt), rey auditory verbal learning test, were within normal limits, for the ii to vi series, with a slight deficiency on the performance after the first presentation. she was also able to successfully finish one of her academic projects, which she worried she wouldn’t realize if the crises continued. she has an intense reaction to stimuli associated with the trauma (ambulance sound)self-blame, helplessness, numbness and/or severe anxiety and dispneea, and avoids them. apart from the anxious disposition and general heightened reactivity, the intense psychological and physiological reaction is selective-it appears only at the ambulance sound, but not at the sound of fire engine or police sirens. during the dissociative states, she phones her father or her boyfriend, towards whom she has a remarkable affective dependency. diagnosis and assessment for orientative purposes we evaluated the patient with ies (impact of event scale, horowitz et al., 1979). instead of describing the worst event experienced the week prior to psychological assessment, she was instructed to complete the scale relating her response choices to the most stressful event she has experienced until the assessment. she cited two such events: the moments spent in the ambulance, trying to get her grandmother to the hospital in time and one of the numerous physical conflicts between her mother and stepfather which she witnessed and during which her mother’s life was endangered. the evaluation yielded a total score of 34 points, with 17 points for each of the two subscales-avoidance and intrusion. there are no romanian norms for the scale, but studies suggest a 26 total score as a cutoff, above which a moderate or severe impact is indicated. the 1979 version of ies doesn’t evaluate the hyper arousal dimension of ptsd. the stroke her grandmother suffered and the moments until receiving adequate care were experienced with fear and helplessness. she witnessed the cited conflict with fear, anger and helplessness. the resulting symptoms interfere with her daily functioning and have imparing effects on her short and long-term plans, as she listed them. we can presume the presence of ptsd symptoms on axis i, chronic, possibly with delayed onset. she does meet the a and b criteria for ptsd, but only 2 symptoms from the b and form the c ptsd criteria. differential diagnosis: dissociative amnesiashe does have multiple episodes of inability to recall important personal information, usually of a stressful nature, too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. (e.g. arguments with her boyfriend). however, she also qualifies for ptsd criteria. dissociative fugue, dissociative identity disorderalthough in some of the dissociative states she attempts to leave her apartment; she preserves awareness about her identity and age and does not assume another identity. she displays immature verbal expression and interests both during and outside the dissociative states-her clothing and accessories are typical for a teenager, she sleeps with a stuffed animal and she uses diminutives to designate herself and her significant others. during the dissociative crises she is able to perform simple arithmetics and does not give approximate answers, as in ganser’s syndrome. concerning axis ii conditions, we signal some type b cluster personality traits: a pervasive and early pattern of: a)frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (e.g. she reacts with intense distress when she is refused help and has difficulties in tolerating her boyfriend’s absence during the day, when they both attend faculty courses); b) recurrent suicidal threats (outside the dissociative episodes); c) discomfort in situations in which she is not the center of attention; d) the requirement of excessive admiration and expectations of favorable treatment or automatic compliance with her demands. differential diagnosis: dependent personality disorder –the patient firmly promotes her decisions both current and important, to members of her family and other authority figures (teachers/trainers), and when she perceives a lack of instrumental support, she actively (and angrily) demands it, although she is aware of the possibility of a conflict. she feels able to adequately function in many areas and does not comply with demands that seem inconvenient to her in order to avoid support withdrawal. discussion the dissociative states that the patient displayed qualify for cardeña’s both first and second categories of dissociation. they manifest themselves as an apparent dysfunction in memory and action, they cannot be reversed by an act of will, and they occur in the presence of preserved functioning of the apparently disrupted system (memory) and are reversible. according to brown, during this patient’s dissociative states, both compartmentalization and detachment are present. she is not able to deliberately control processes or actions that would normally be amenable to such control -actions and memory. she declares her real age (20), but fails to integrate this piece of information with the information concerning her grandmother death which occurred when the patient was 17. usually, in this patient compartmentalization is present when the trigger is of an interpersonal nature. when the stimulus is an inanimate element of the traumatic situation (i.e. ambulance siren), the main type of dissociation is a kind of detachment (she concentrates on her inner’s anxiety experiences and is indifferent to other s attempts to initiate interaction). according to terr’s theory, which stresses the type and duration of the traumatic events, one can say that the patient has been exposed both to type i and ii trauma. describing the traumatic events selected for the ies, she mentioned that, although she wanted to save her mother’s life, she felt embarrassed and unable to stand up against her stepfather, since, by doing so, she would have disobeyed her mother’s requests, which were to consider and respect him as her real father (in exchange of the financial advantages he would offer them). therefore, the patient had to choose between two mutually exclusive rules, having a major impact on her disposition since they were stated by the same significant other: “you must help me, you owe it to me” and “you must respect your stepfather”. it might have been this contradiction which put her in a helplessness position. also, not being able to help her grandmother get to the hospital sooner (while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, she tried to call a taxi, but didn’t have enough money available to pay for it) might have had the same effect on her. according to meichenbaum’s theory, the patient presents with at least three risk factors for ptsd: she both experienced the event (her grandmother’s cva) and witnessed it (the physical conflict between her parents), she experienced them with intense anxiety, one of her parent was also subjected to victimization (continuous domestic abuse) and the reinsertion environment (after both negative events) was not supportive. she declared that, until recently, she trusted her mother with all her problems and concerns (at her mother’s requests), but she realized that these were used as reasons to reproach, whenever her mother was upset and were attributed to deficiencies in her daughter character. the image she has about he mother is ambivalent-“i had an image about her as an irreproachable person. now is a mixture of feelingsi care about her but i’m also afraid of her”. it is possible that this inconsistency between her mother’s promises and her actual behavior might have caused the patient’s tendency to regard people as basically disloyal or dishonest. this tendency becomes transparent during some dissociative states, when she vacillates between relying on her boyfriend for protection and being afraid of him, both during the same episode. she was promised preferential treatment as a result of her stepfather’s status, instead she felt isolated by her peers. she revealed that she had an ally and confident in her grandmother who treated her well. the loss of this attachment figure might have had a significant impact on her and could account for the intrusive thoughts and images and, also, for the patient tendency to seek nurturance in her, during the dissociative episodes. since she showed am improvement in her daily functioning and a decrease in the intensity and frequency of the main presenting complains she remains under psychiatric care with periodical assessment recommendations and was referred to a trauma intervention trained psychotherapist. references holmes e.a., brown r.j., mansell w., fearon r.p., hunter e.c.m., frasquilho f., david oakley, (2005). “are there two qualitatively distinct forms of dissociation? a review and some clinical implications”, clinical psychology review 25 (2005) 1–23, retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hypnosis/articles/holmes2005.pdf., (19.04.2007) meichenbaum d., ph.d., volpe j.s, (1998). “trauma response profile”, http://www.aaets.org/article39.htm, retrieved 20.04.2007 volpe j.s., (1996). “effects of domestic violence on children and adolescents: an overview” retrieved (26.03.2007) from http://www.aaets.org/article8.htm 2000, manual de diagnostic si statistica a tulburarilor mentale, ed. a patra, 1994 a.p.a. 2000, a.p.a. diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders – fourth edition, text revision. washington, dc: author. retrieved (20.04.2007) from http://arts.monash.edu.au/behaviour/dissociation/whatisdiss.pdf http://www.swin.edu.au/victims/resources/assessment/ptsd/ies.html biographical note virginia claudia neacşu is a clinical psychologist, c.m.d.t.a. “academician ştefan milcu”, bucharest. she graduated from university of bucharest, faculty of psychology and education sciences, ma cognitive behavioural therapy and she currently practices psychotherapy under supervision – cbt – ct, being also trained in sfbt and narrative therapy. relationships between emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring support and career resilience research reports relationships between emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring support and career resilience ridhi arora*a, santosh rangnekara [a] department of management studies, indian institute of technology roorkee, roorkee, uttarakhand, india. abstract this study empirically investigates the mediating role of psychosocial mentoring support on emotional stability personality disposition and career resilience relationship. in addition, this research also focuses on estimating the interrelationship between emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring support and career resilience. the results show substantive direct relations between emotional stability and psychosocial mentoring as well as between emotional stability and career resilience. psychosocial mentoring is also seen as a significant predictor of career resilience. further, it mediates partially the relationship between emotional stability personality and career resilience. future and practical implications of research have also been provided. keywords: big five, emotional stability, mentoring, personality, career resilience europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 received: 2014-07-03. accepted: 2014-11-03. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of management studies, indian institute of technology roorkee, roorkee, uttarakhand 247667, india. e-mail: ridhi.arora23@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the topic of mentoring has grabbed the attention of academicians and management practitioners worldwide. mentoring is regarded as the most popular form of developmental relationships, which stimulates the career advancement of employees (bozionelos & wang, 2006). mentoring relationship exists between mentor, a senior experienced person and protégé, a junior experienced person in which psychosocial support of the mentor (friendship, unconditional acceptance and confirmation, counseling, role-modeling) is essential in promoting the protégé’s competence, self-efficacy and overall development (kram, 1985; shollen, bland, center, finstad, & taylor, 2014). also, such type of mentoring has been demonstrated to be effective in enhancing persistence of the employees during the adverse times (carson & bedeian, 1994; day & allen, 2004; london, 1983). this extent to remain motivated despite the challenges and fluctuations in a given line of work/career is known as career resilience (carson & bedeian, 1994). managing career resilience represents a major challenge both for organizations and employees due to the effects of globalization, changing career trends and increased pace of technology. this has forced organizations to devise career-resilience building strategies such as mentoring activities for employees with varied personality traits. in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ this context, the “big five” or “ocean” model of personality provides the most appealing framework for understanding a wide range of behaviors in terms of five broad personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (emotional stability) (neff, toothman, bowmani, fox tree, & walker, 2011). of these big five traits, we are interested in studying emotional stability that ranges between two extremes—emotionally stable and neurotic—and is also one of the widely examined personality trait (neff et al., 2011). the emotional stability personality trait has potential implications for regulating protégé’s varied range of emotions at all stages of the mentoring relationship (ragins & kram, 2007; turban & lee, 2007). for example, while high emotional stability indicates high self-assurance, low emotional stability is likely to impede progress at all the stages of the mentoring relationship, thereby, leading to dysfunctional mentoring relationships (turban & lee, 2007). therefore, for handling such protégés, psychosocial support of the mentor is likely to be influential in motivating them to be resilient in every situation. aim and hypotheses development in this study, we propose to examine the interrelationships between emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring and career resilience with a specific focus on investigating the mediating role of psychosocial mentoring on the relationship between emotional stability and career resilience. the proposed model of the study has been represented in figure 1. we aim to propose these objectives based on social exchange theory (set) and cognitive developmental theory. these theories postulate that social exchange relationships evolve when employers “take care of employees,” to productively influence work behavior and positive employee attitudes. such social exchange relationships, like mentoring also help in the intellectual stimulation of the protégé through the provision of ample growth opportunities (cropanzano & mitchell, 2005; rhodes, spencer, keller, liang, & noam, 2006). thus, by investigating the mediating role of psychosocial mentoring on emotional stability and career resilience, our research theoretically and empirically expands our knowledge on mentoring and career resilience, as not many studies have been conducted in relation to mentoring with career-related variables, like career resilience (arora & rangnekar, 2014). the survey of existing literature shows that previous studies have investigated about howmentoring produces resilience in women, adolescents and medical students (kao, rogers, spitzmüller, lin, & lin, 2014). however, limited studies have been found on mentoring and career resilience within the organizational context. besides this, a plethora of studies on the mediating role of psychosocial mentoring support also highlights the significance of conducting this research. figure 1. proposed model. emotional stability emotional stability dimension is recognized as a significant predictor of job performance (rothmann & coetzer, 2003), and is also known for its key role in maintaining conducive workplace social interactions (lee, dougherty, & turban, 2000). low scorers on emotional stability are labeled as neurotic individuals, who have a tendency to display ineffective coping mechanisms, and also carry a hostile attitude as well as they are self-blaming in nature. they lack the ability to find constructive solution to a problem (clutterbuck & lane, 2004), and show their indeciseurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 17 http://www.psychopen.eu/ iveness very often. further, low emotional stability also suggests about an individual’s constant struggle with the feelings of insecurity and self-consciousness (costa & mccrae, 1992a; goldberg, 1993). such people are prone to psychiatric problems. thus, while lower scores on this factor experience a range of negative emotions, such as stress, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, disgust, guilt and fear (rothmann & coetzer, 2003), higher scores on this factor have a tendency to remain self-assured, calm and free from fluctuating and disturbing emotions. career resilience in the past, various perspectives have been represented to guide the concept of resilience that includes both psychological and environmental perspectives (bimrose & hearne, 2012). bryant (1995) has defined resilience as “whenever a change occurs in a person’s life, the individual traits and skills (e.g. time management) interact with both environmental as well as situational factors to produce a behavior that leads to the successful adaptation towards change.” therefore, resilience is “an ability to absorb the high level of disruptive change while displaying minimal dysfunctional behavior” (conner, 1992). again according to richardson (2002), resilience is “the motivational force within everyone that creates a drive to pursue wisdom, self-actualization, altruism and to be in harmony with the spiritual source of strength.” one such form of resilience is career resilience that highlights “the ability to adapt to change even when the circumstances are discouraging (bimrose & hearne, 2012; london, 1997). according to conner (1992), resilient people tend to enhance the total assimilation of the change impact. thus, even though it may be difficult for them to accept any change during the change implementation process, they still remain engaged and regain their equilibrium faster. later on fourie and van vuuren (1998) stated that career resilient people are endowed with a great ability to adapt during changing circumstances. similarly, abu-tineh (2011) in his research on 100 faculty members of qatar university, explained career resilience as one’s ability to manage effectively one’s work life. according to him, members with high resilience are flexible, goal-driven, high in self-esteem, instilled with confidence, optimist, and are able to make timely changes and always provide new learning opportunities for implementation. psychosocial mentoring psychosocial mentoring support covers “those aspects of a relationship that enhance an individual’s sense of competence, identity and effectiveness in a professional role” (kram, 1985, p. 32). psychosocial mentoring includes various functions, such as mentors serving as role-model; conveying unconditional positive regard toward protégé through unconditional acceptance and confirmation; encouraging protégé to discuss his anxieties and fears without any hesitation and counseling him by informally interacting with him by becoming his friend (kram, 1985; noe, 1988). these functions promote the personal growth of the protégé with the aid of mentor’s emotional support and guidance (chao, 1998). according to simon, perry, and roff (2008), psychosocial mentoring functions operate at an interpersonal level, and represent a deeper and a more intense aspect of the mentoring relationships (allen, eby, poteet, lentz, & lima, 2004). such type of mentoring often evolves into a more emotional bond and a pleasurable positive interpersonal contact develops between the mentor and the protégé (raabe & beehr, 2003). emotional stability and career resilience individuals low on emotional stability (neuroticism) is characterized by instability, depression and also display a lack of personal insecurity. such people have a tendency to remain hostile and impulsive because of which they often show lack of psychological adjustment (storm & rothmann, 2003; van vianen, klehe, koen, & dries, 2012). moreover, such individuals are more likely to appraise stressful events as threats rather than a challenge (gallagher, 1990). previous research by furnham, crump, andwhelan (1997) has also reported about a strong negative europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 emotional stability and career resilience 18 http://www.psychopen.eu/ association between neuroticism (low emotional stability) and resilience (friborg, barlaug, martinussen, rosenvinge, & hjemdal, 2005). on the other hand, individuals high on emotional stability display effective coping mechanisms and remain calm and less worried (ang, van dyne, & koh, 2006; penley & tomaka, 2002). as a result, individuals with high emotional stability are better able to handle novel situations more effectively, and respond to uncertainty with a greater patience. furthermore, such individuals display flexible verbal and nonverbal behaviors (ang et al., 2006) while dealing with others. we, therefore, expect that emotional stability would be strongly related to career resilience. h1: emotional stability personality disposition will be strongly related to career resilience. emotional stability and psychosocial mentoring past research has depicted that people, who are low on emotional stability are anxious, carry negative emotions because of which they do not show greater interest in initiating mentoring relationships (bozionelos, 2004). furthermore, their hostile and impatient attitude also makes them less concerned and less cooperative in understanding the actual needs. such kind of employees is not able to realize and reap the actual benefits, which can be obtained through the psychosocial support of the mentor. on the other hand, those employees, who are high on emotional stability being calm and composed, are able to regulate their negative emotions. they refrain themselves from being impulsive and do not take things personally, which further enhances the prospects of obtaining mentorship support. mentors also find it easier to work with those protégés, who are calm and predictable (lee et al., 2000). we, thus, propose that h2: emotional stability personality disposition will be strongly related to psychosocial mentoring. psychosocial mentoring and career resilience numerous studies have suggested that managerial support plays a key role in the employee’s career development (noe, noe, & bachhuber, 1990) and other commitment behaviors (colarelli & bishop, 1990). the role of managers is also important for inculcating positive feelings in an individual about one’s career (allen et al., 2004). according to noe et al. (1990), employees show high levels of career resilience when manager provides performance feedback, communicates the expectations and discusses thoroughly about career-related issues (noe et al., 1990). besides this, psychosocial mentoring functions enhance an individual’s ability andmay alleviate work-related stress (greiman, 2007). we, thus, assume that in dealing with emotional reactions that prevail in the workplace during times of adversities and turbulence, psychosocial mentoring would serve as a potential tool to enhance career resilience of the employees. we have, thus, hypothesized that: h3: psychosocial mentoring support will be strongly related to career resilience mediating role of psychosocial mentoring the role of personality in mentoring relationships has gained a significant importance in the recent years (ragins & kram, 2007; turban & lee, 2007). some of the personality traits being domain specific strongly influence mentoring relationships (ragins & kram, 2007). turban and dougherty (1994) have identified high internal locus of control, self-monitoring and emotional stability as the main personality traits decisive of a person’s attraction to receive mentoring. also mentoring represents a dynamic interpersonal relationship between mentor and protégé in which protégé’s personality is highly crucial (ehrich, tennent, & hansford, 2002). we argue that the relationship between emotional stability and career resilience will be mediated by psychosocial mentoring support. this is europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 19 http://www.psychopen.eu/ because psychosocial mentoring support provides the most appropriate route through which protégés feel comfortable to share their problems with mentor on a regular interaction basis (fagenson-eland, marks, & amendola, 1997). moreover, friendly nature and admiration of the mentor in psychosocial mentoring also contributes to the establishment of interpersonal comfort in the mentor-protégé relationship. this helps in reducing the stress and tension prevalent during the times of turbulence (kram & hall, 1989). similarly, unconditional acceptance and confirmation of the mentor also instills confidence in the protégés to tackle the obstacles effectively. thus, with the mentor assuming various roles of psychosocial mentoring; emotionally stable protégés, who show interest and attempt to initiate mentoring relationships, derive the career benefits associated with mentorship (ragins & kram, 2007; turban & lee, 2007). this enhances confidence in the protégés to face the tough times effectively, thereby, making them more career resilient. therefore, it can be hypothesized that: h4: psychosocial mentoring will mediate the relationship between emotional stability and career resilience. method participants and procedure the data for the study were collected from 233 managers having full time employment in private sector (45.1%) and public sector (54.9%) organizations in north india. of these 233 participants, about 85.4% were males and 14.6% were females with about 39.1% aged within 26–30 years. participants were from all the three hierarchical levels, junior level management (24.5%), middle level management (60.5%) and senior level management (15%). overall participants had a good educational background with 6% as diploma holders, 43.8% as graduates, 46.4% as post graduates and 3.8% held degrees higher than post-graduation. the organizations were targeted by contacting hr managers. these organizations were located in the same geographical region and had similar kind of organizational structure. none of these organizations had a formal mentoring scheme in place at the time of the study. survey questionnaires were distributed among the participants during the office hours with the support of human resource department of the organization. the aim of the study was then explained to the participants and those managers, who provided their consent, were then administered with a paper and pencil survey. the survey questionnaires, which were distributed, were prefaced with a cover letter that explained the importance of participation. participants were also assured regarding the anonymity and confidentiality of their responses. survey questionnaires were initially administered among 240 respondents, seven of whom responded to be not involved in any current mentoring relationship, which ultimately resulted in overall relatively complete data of 233 participants. measures emotional stability — for the measurement of emotional stability, ten items were adopted from goldberg’s (1990) big five markers available to use freely for research purpose in the international personality item pool (ipip). the sample items included, “i get stressed out easily”, “i am relaxed most of the time”. the ipip scales have been found to be most valid for the indian sample in comparison to other personality scales in a recent study by uppal, mishra, and vohra (2014). the participants were asked to rate themselves on the response scale ranging from 1, “strongly disagree”, to 5, “strongly agree”. the scale’s alpha reliability was found to be .73. psychosocial mentoring support — we have measured psychosocial mentoring support using the 14-item scale from the study of noe (1988). the author reported good internal consistency of .92 for this scale. as the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 emotional stability and career resilience 20 http://www.psychopen.eu/ original scale items were developed and tested on the sample of educational administrators; it was important to modify the scale items to suit the organizational context. examples of the items are “my mentor has demonstrated well listening skills in our conversations” and “my mentor has conveyed feelings of respect for me as an individual”. the response scale ranged from 1, “strongly disagree” to 5, “strongly agree”. the scale demonstrated good internal consistency, cronbach’s α = .92, for the indian sample. having amentor— this was assessed using a single item. an established definition of mentor was also provided to the participants to help them understand meaning of mentor as given below: a mentor is generally defined as a higher ranking, influential individual in your work environment who has advanced experience and knowledge and who is committed to provide upward mobility and support to your career. your mentor may or may not be in your organization and may or may not be your immediate supervisor (ragins, 1989, p. 2). following this, they were also asked to respond whether they currently had a mentor (coded no: 1 and coded yes: 2) in line with previous studies (bozionelos & wang, 2006). career resilience — to measure the career resilience, four items were adopted from the scale of career commitment measure (ccm) (carson & bedeian, 1994). ccm represents a multidimensional construct of three major dimensions—career identity, career resilience and career planning. in this study, we have considered career resilience component of the ccm. sample items include “given the problems i encounter in this line of work/career field”, “i sometimes wonder if i get enough out of it”, “the costs associated with my line of work/career field sometimes seem too great”. the response scale ranged from 1, “strongly disagree” to 5, “strongly agree”. the scale’s internal consistency cronbach’s α was reported to be 0.72. test of discriminant validity—we also examined the distinctiveness of the constructs (emotional stability, career resilience and psychosocial mentoring) using confirmatory factor analysis with the help of amos software version 20 (arbuckle, 2011). to evaluate the goodness-of-fit of the proposed model, we followed maximum likelihood methods of estimation and also considered both absolute and relative fit indices as per the recommendations of hair, black, babin, anderson, and tatham (2005) as (a) the χ2 goodness-of-fit statistic; (b) the comparative fit indices (cfi; bentler, 1990); (c) the goodness of fit indices (gfi); (d) the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea, steiger, 1990) and (e) the incremental fit index (ifi; bollen, 1990). the hypothesized model was also compared with three other alternative models using sequential χ2 difference test. as depicted in table 1, the hypothesized model represented most adequate model fit than other alternative models with fit indices as χ2 (n = 233, df = 318) = 413.059; cfi = .958; gfi = .890, rmsea = .036 [rmsea should be less than .06 for good models (hu & bentler, 1998)] and ifi= .959. henceforth, the hypothesized model was retained for the subsequent analysis. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 21 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 confirmatory factor analysis of measurement models: fit indices rmseaificfigfi∆df∆χ2dfχ2models .036.959.958.890––318combining three factorsahypothesized model .059413 .046.928.927.86816334combining psychosocial mentoring and career resilience model 1 .687.659500 .065.860.857.82215333combining emotional stability and psychosocial mentoring support model 2 .93244.986657 .056.904.901.8554314one factor modelmodel 3 .116126.175539 athree factors: emotional stability, psychosocial mentoring and career resilience. control variables— following variables were set as controls in order to control their spurious effects on dependent variable and were coded as given below: • age (years): 21–25 (1), 26–30 (2), 31–35 (3), 36–40 (4), 41–45 (5), above 45 (6) • gender: males (1), females (2) • marital status: married (1), unmarried (2) • educational level: diploma holder (1), graduates (2), post-graduates (3), higher than post-graduate (4) • hierarchical level: junior level (1), middle level (2), senior level (3) • organization sector: private sector (1), public sector (2). approach for data analyses multiple hierarchical regression analysis was used for the testing of both direct and indirect effects. specifically, for the testing of mediation hypothesis, guidelines of baron and kenny‘s mediation approach was adopted in alignment with earlier studies (karatepe, 2011). this technique is based on the notion that mediation effect of the variable first assumes the presence of total effect between predictor and criterion variable initially rather than indirect effect (mathieu & taylor, 2006). and this “mediation should justify such a significant total relationship existing between an antecedent and criterion that is accounted either in part (partial mediation) or complete (full) mediation by the respective mediator variable” (mathieu & taylor, 2006). baron and kenny (1986) proposed sequential verification of four conditions for the fulfillment of conduction of mediation analysis (pardo & román, 2013) as (1) independent variable (iv) should relate to dependent variable (dv); (2) independent variable (iv) should relate to the mediator variable (mv); (3) mediator variable (mv) should relate to the dependent variable (dv), and (4) the relationship between independent variable (iv) and the dependent variable (dv) must be significantly reduced in the presence of mediator variable. besides these four conditions, another unique distinction was illustrated in context to condition supporting ‘full mediation’ and ‘partial mediation’. according to them, the condition of full mediation is well established when relationship between iv and dv completely disappears while controlling the effect of mv. on the other hand, the condition of partial mediation is considered to be established when the relationship between iv and dv is significantly reduced while controlling mv, but does not completely disappear (baron & kenny, 1986; pardo & román, 2013). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 emotional stability and career resilience 22 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results the descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among the study variables have been detailed in table 2. it can be seen that reliabilities have been represented diagonally and all are within the acceptable range of above .70 (nunnally, 1978). table 2 shows that emotional stability has positive, but moderate correlation with career resilience (r = .211, p < .01); and psychosocial mentoring support also relates positively but has weak correlation with career resilience (r = .172, p < .01). table 2 means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the variables 987654321sdmvariable –1. age .6251.9012 –2. gender .275**-.353.1451 –3. marital status .200**.563**-.479.3561 –4. educational level .162*.194**.281**-.670.4802 –5. organization sector .182**-.280**-.184**-.311**.546.5661 –6. hierarchical level .019-.047.262**-.113-.447**.622.9051 7. psychosocial mentoring .92][.089.252**.015.123-.051-.163*.713.8143 8. emotional stability .73][.172**.071.194**.122-.054-.155*-.177**.635.2573 9. career resilience .72][.211**.172**.080.065.039-.054-.089.074.826.0353 note. n = 233. cronbach’s alpha is presented in parentheses along the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. hypotheses testing for investigation of the direct effects, multiple hierarchical regression analysis was used as the statistical technique. first of all, direct effect of emotional stability was measured on career resilience. the results are demonstrated in table 3. as hypothesized, the emotional stability personality factor was found as a significant predictor of career resilience (β = .216, p < .01), which supported h1. second, for the evaluation of h2, direct impact of emotional stability personality dimension on the psychosocial mentoring was measured. table 3 depicted emotional stability personality factor (β = .127, p < .05) as a significant predictor of psychosocial mentoring that provided support to h2. similarly, psychosocial mentoring support (β = .161, p < .05) was also seen as a significant predictor of career resilience (see table 4). hence, h3 was also supported. mediation analysis results the first three conditions of the four step model as proposed by baron and kenny (1986) has been well proved with the testing of the hypothesis pertaining to estimating direct effects as depicted in table 3 and table 4. for the evaluation of the fourth condition and the final stage of four step model as per baron and kenny‘s (1986) proposal, sequential procedure of hierarchical multiple regression analysis was followed in which control variables were first entered in block 1 in the first step; then in the second step, emotional stability (iv) was entered in block 2; and the last step was completed with the entry of psychosocial mentoring support (mv) in block 3 against career resilience (dv). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 23 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 hierarchical multiple regression analysis: direct effects between emotional stability and career resilience; emotional stability and perceived psychosocial mentoring psychosocial mentoringcareer-resilience predictor variables ∆f∆r2r2ß (step 2)ß (step 1)∆f∆r2r2ß (step 2)ß (step 1) 3.30**–.0811.06–.027step 1 (control variables) age .070.086.006.033 gender .021.009.152*.131 marital status .021-.009-.035-.014educational level .087.080.031-.044organization sector .220.240.035.069 hierarchical level .045.050.072.080 3.71*.015*.09610.48**.043**.071step 2 emotional stability .127*.216** note. n = 233. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 4 hierarchical multiple regression analysis: the direct effect of psychosocial mentoring on career resilience career-resilience predictor variables ∆f∆r2r2ß (step 2)ß (step 1) 1.06–.027step 1 (control variables) age .019.033 gender .130.131 marital status .013-.014educational level .057-.044organization sector .030.069 hierarchical level .072.080 5.67*.024*.051step 2 psychosocial mentoring .161* note. n = 233. *p < .05. ** p < .01. table 5 shows that with the entry of psychosocial mentoring support as the mediator variable (mv), the coefficient of relationship between emotional stability (iv) and career resilience (dv) reduced (β = .216, p < .01 to β = .199, p < .01), but still remained significant while controlling the effects of mv. this indicates partial mediating effect of psychosocial mentoring support on emotional stability and career resilience relationship. hence, h4 is partially supported. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 emotional stability and career resilience 24 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 hierarchical multiple regression analysis: mediating effects career resilience (dv) predictor variables ∆f∆r2r2ß (step 3)ß (step 2)ß (step 1) 1.06–.027step 1 (control variables) age .004-.006.033 gender .149*.152*.131 marital status .033-.035-.014educational level .043-.031-.044organization sector .005.035.069 hierarchical level .066.072.080 10.48**.043**.071step 2 (iv) emotional stability .199**.216** 4.09*.017*.087step 3 (mv) psychosocial mentoring .136* note. n = 233. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion this study makes useful contribution to the available literature on mentoring and occupational psychology from the perspective of understanding the role of socio-emotional support as a mediator of the relationship between emotional stability personality factor and career resilience. to the best of our knowledge, the present study appears to be the first research to explore mediating role of psychosocial mentoring between the two variables. in addition, this study also focuses on understanding the interrelationships between emotional stability and career resilience, emotional stability and psychosocial mentoring, psychosocial mentoring and career resilience, as not many studies have investigated the influence of personality and mentoring on career resilience. in support of hypothesis h1, emotional stability personality disposition was found to be a positive significant predictor of career resilience. this implies that those protégés, who exhibit greater self-control, remain calm and composed and regulate their emotions, are higher on career resilience. on the other hand, people with low emotional stability (i.e. high neuroticism) are more vulnerable to emotional distress and exhibit poor coping mechanisms, which further makes them a low scorers on the resilience dimension (campbell-sills, cohan, & stein, 2006; costa & mccrae, 1992b; kling, ryff, love, & essex, 2003). as proposed, for hypothesis h2, emotional stability personality was found to be significant predictor of psychosocial mentoring support. this means that protégés with higher scores on emotional stability show greater interest and willingness to receive psychosocial mentoring support and vice-versa. besides this, such individuals may also perceive greater psychosocial mentoring support in comparison to protégés, who are low on emotional stability. this is because protégés with low emotional stability lack confidence for establishing relationships with upper-level managers (mortazavi, 2012), and are considered as liability because of their downplaying abilities and successes (turban & lee, 2007). also, being low on emotional stability is likely to delay their progress at all the stages of the mentoring relationship, thereby, resulting in dissatisfaction, and may also give rise to instances of conflict that may take the form of a dysfunctional mentoring (ozer & benet-martinez, 2006; ragins & kram, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 25 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2007; turban & lee, 2007). on the other hand, emotionally stable protégés perceive greater psychosocial mentoring support, and are keen to initiate mentoring relationships. as a result, such people are often seen as more competent and attractive by the mentors due to their inherent quest for learning (turban & lee, 2007). further evaluation of hypothesis h3, showed that among indian managers’ psychosocial mentoring acts as a significant predictor of career resilience, which is similar to the proposed hypothesis. this highlights the subjective nature of psychosocial mentoring in influencing employees’ affective reactions for individual level and organizational level outcomes (ammeter, douglas, gardner, hochwarter, & ferris, 2002; ashkanasy & daus, 2002; craig, allen, reid, riemenschneider, & armstrong, 2013; weiss & cropanzano, 1996). similarly, in support of hypothesis h4, the findings of our study depicted a partial mediating effect of psychosocial mentoring support on emotional stability and career resilience relationship. undoubtedly, psychosocial mentoring provides a strong mechanism for linking emotional stability personality disposition and career resilience; yet the finding about partial mediation of psychosocial mentoring shows that for administering mentoring, it is important to consider protégé’s personality traits, specifically, those protégés, who possess the desired traits are more likely to show interest to get the mentoring and extract the key benefits associated with mentoring process. another reason that can be attributed to the partial mediation effect of psychosocial mentoring is the possible inclusion of other mediator-moderator variables those have not been focused in this research. for example, the recent study by kao et al. (2014) demonstrated the effects of mentor’s gender and supervisory status on resilience in mentoring relationships. similarly, as vocational support facilitated by the mentor is also known to influence employee’s resilience (kao et al., 2014); therefore, one might expect mediation of career-oriented mentoring in addition to psychosocial mentoring support on emotional stability and career resilience relationship. practical contributions of the present study the results of the study provide meaningful implications from both practical and theoretical perspectives. these are discussed as below: recruitment and selection — as, emotional stability personality disposition is closely related to “successful functioning” in all areas of life including situations of adversity, both in and out of the workplace (bailey & gulko, 2014); this also represents a major call for organizational decision-makers to be alert during recruitment and selection to focus on only those candidates, who are high on emotional stability. moreover, people, who are high on emotional stability are rational decision-makers and are less judgmental in their behavior; therefore, bringing in emotionally stable candidates will serve as a step forward to sound development of workplace interpersonal connections and in maintaining cordial-friendly relations (rajasekher, 2011). grounding psychosocial mentoring skills — given the crucial role of protégé’s positive perceptions of psychosocial mentoring in the development of positive attitudes, such as organizational commitment, organizational attractiveness and intentions to pursue employment in the mentor’s organizations (spitzmüller et al., 2008; windeler & riemenschneider, 2013); we also suggest policy-makers of the organization to take initiatives for inculcating psychosocial mentoring skills in the potential mentors of the organization. this could be done through organizing sessions, like training-for-trainers to help them understand the usefulness of psychosocial mentoring roles. particularly, managers must be trained for how they should provide negative feedback to employees in a constructive manner without unduly criticizing them (willemyns, 2010); this is especially most required while dealing with protégés, who are low on emotional stability. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 emotional stability and career resilience 26 http://www.psychopen.eu/ counseling practices — specifically, the findings of this research have implications for incorporating counseling practice in the mentorship model of the organizations so as to guide the workforce during the times of turbulence. for example, if a protégé is low on emotional stability, his anxiousness and negative affectivity can be reduced to some extent with mentor’s counseling skills. as counseling helps in assessing the degree of anxiety and depression that may influence the client’s decision-making ability; additionally, it may also help protégés in overcoming challenges of their multiple roles by enhancing their self-efficacy and self-confidence (perrone & civiletto, 2004; salami, 2008). designing mentoring programs — the findings of the study might be useful for preparing guidelines for designing mentoring programs in the organization. one of the noteworthy, implications of this research is that it informs both mentors and protégés about how important it is to maintain friendly and unconditional support in the mentor-protégé relationship in order to achieve outcomes in the long run. limitations and recommendations for future research there are some limitations associated with the present research. first limitation is the use of a cross-sectional survey based research design, which is based on protégé’s self-reported data that limits the scope for making any inferences about causality. for instance, our study revealed psychosocial mentoring as the significant predictor of career resilience. yet, one might think of a career-resilient protégé to perceive higher levels of psychosocial mentoring support. perhaps, such kind of causal inferences could be determined through the adoption of longitudinal research designs. second concern is related to the common-method bias (cmb) due to the use of self-reported measures in the study. however, this does not represent serious threat to our study, as checked by using the procedural guideline of harman’s single factor (podsakoff & organ, 1986), which showed the emergence of a single factor that explained very little variance. further, as scope of the study was limited to study the linkage between psychosocial mentoring, emotional stability and career resilience; sample inclusion took into consideration only the mentored individuals. further study is recommended using the experimental and quasi-experimental research designs while considering both mentored as well as non-mentored individuals. as consent prescreening is considered as one of the promising techniques for increasing response rates (baruch & holtom, 2008); the data of this study were collected through personal survey administration after the managers expressed their consent which has resulted in high response rates. this may be questioned due to general association of high r-r with the mixed-mode approach of surveys (shih & fan, 2007). future studies are, thus, recommended to incorporate mixed-mode methods for conducting survey research. another concern is the sample intake from different industries; hence, findings cannot be generalized to any specific sector. future studies are recommended for testing the proposed interrelationships in the specific business setting. in this regard, scholars and academicians may seek to extend the work by exploring various probable subsets of psychosocial mentoring functions in a specific organizational context. also, given the shortcomings in the development of a psychosocial mentoring relationship in organizations with formal mentorship scheme, a qualitative research investigation may be of interest for preparing comparative account of the formal mentoring versus informal mentoring. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 27 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we sincerely thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that considerably improved this work. we also thank ms. tanaya saha for assisting the editing of this manuscript. references abu-tineh, a. m. 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(1996). affective events theory: a theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. in b. m. staw & l. l. cummings (eds.),research in organizational behavior: an annual series of analytical essays and critical reviews (vol. 18, pp. 1-74). greenwich, ct: elsevier science/jai press. willemyns, m. (2010). mentoring communication style: implications for managers. in z. haqq (ed.), annual london business research conference, world business institute (wbi), australia, melbourne (pp. 47-51). retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1432&context=dubaipapers windeler, j. b., & riemenschneider, c. (2013). organizational commitment of it workers: leader support and differences across gender and race. in the association for computing machinery (ed.), sigmis-cpr’13: proceedings of the 2013 acm conference on computers and people research (pp. 3-14). new york, ny: editor. about the authors ridhi arora, is a doctoral research candidate in the department of management studies at the indian institute of technology roorkee. her current research interests focuses on understanding the role of personality and mentoring relationships on career outcomes. she can be reached at ridhi.arora23@gmail.com. dr. santosh rangnekar, is an associate professor in the department of management studies at the indian institute of technology roorkee. he specializes in organizational behavior, human resource management, knowledge management (intellectual capital-human capital creation). his area of research is in the different dimensions of human resource practices in organizations and exploring the factors responsible for developing human capital for effective performance. he can be reached at srangnekar1@gmail.com. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 16–33 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.835 arora & rangnekar 33 http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1432&context=dubaipapers http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en emotional stability and career resilience introduction aim and hypotheses development emotional stability career resilience psychosocial mentoring emotional stability and career resilience emotional stability and psychosocial mentoring psychosocial mentoring and career resilience mediating role of psychosocial mentoring method participants and procedure measures approach for data analyses results hypotheses testing mediation analysis results discussion practical contributions of the present study limitations and recommendations for future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors what are you laughing at? a comprehensive guide to the comedic event book reviews o’shannon, dan (2012). what are you laughing at? a comprehensive guide to the comedic event. new york, ny: bloomsbury academic. 272 pp. isbn 978-1441162939. what are you laughing at? a comprehensive guide to the comedic event rod a. martin*a [a] university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 582–585, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.823 published (vor): 2014-08-13. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. e-mail: ramartin@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. o’shannon, dan (2012).what are you laughing at? a comprehensive guide to the comedic event. new york, ny: bloomsbury academic. 272 pp. isbn 9781441162939. what is the essence of humor? what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for laughter to occur? these sorts of questions have intrigued and perplexed philosophers and researchers since at least the time of plato and aristotle. like the six blind men trying to describe an elephant, most theories have attempted to build a complete explanation of humor out of one or two particular aspects of this multifaceted phenomenon. various theories, for example, have tried to explain all of humor in terms of aggression, superiority, relief, incongruity, surprise, disgust, or subversion. each theory is able to explain a subset of jokes or comedic situations, but very few seem capable of accounting for the full range of laughterevoking phenomena. in what are you laughing at? a comprehensive guide to the comedic event, dan o’shannon makes a very laudable attempt to do just that. unlike most contemporary humor theorists, o’shannon is not an academic ensconced in an ivory tower, but instead is a successful comedy writer who has honed his comedic skills as a writer and producer of such awardwinning television sitcoms as cheers, frasier, and modern family. nonetheless, he is clearly familiar with much of the academic writing on humor, and he occasionally compares and contrasts his own theory with those discussed in the research literature. however, most of his ideas come from his own very careful and systematic analyses of the nature and determinants of laughter carried out over a lifetime of trying to make people laugh. not surprisingly, the book is written in a lighteurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ hearted, breezy style, with plenty of jokes and amusing anecdotes, but beneath the veneer of frivolity lies a very well-reasoned, systematic, and comprehensive theory that should cause academics in the humor research field to sit up and take notice. o’shannon presents his ideas as a theory of comedy rather than humor, and indeed the word humor rarely appears in the book. however, he defines comedy in much the same way that contemporary humor scholars refer to humor: as an umbrella term used to describe all forms of funny, amusing, or laughter-evoking phenomena. these include not only performances such as sitcoms, stand-up comedy, and joke-telling, but also the funny things that arise – both intentionally and unintentionally – in everyday conversations, such as amusing anecdotes, witticisms, conversational banter, and puns, as well as humorous non-verbal pratfalls, gaffes, and mishaps. thus, for the humor scholar, this book is really a theory of humor and not just comedy. o’shannon also uses the term joke in a very broad sense to refer to any humorous stimulus or event, whether it takes a verbal, visual, behavioral, or tactile form, and whether it is intentional or unintentional. according to o’shannon, comedy (which i’ll call humor from here on) is not a characteristic of a stimulus, such as a joke or funny event, but instead is a subjective experience occurring within the perceiver (or receiver, in o’shannon’s terminology). a complete theory of humor therefore cannot focus only on the elements of the joke itself for a full explanation of funniness, but must also take into account the cognitive, affective, and social processes occurring within the receiver. this explains why the same joke may be hilarious to one person and barely worth a chuckle to another, or why the same person may find a particular event very amusing in one context but not in another. the crucial determinant of whether or not a receiver experiences a stimulus as funny is not so much a characteristic of the stimulus as it is the receiver’s own choice to perceive it as funny. this choice is influenced in part by characteristics of the stimulus, but also by the context and a variety of enhancing and inhibiting factors, which o’shannon catalogues in considerable detail. these include, for example, the receiver’s current mood and health, one’s relationship to other people who may be present, and a wide range of supplementary emotions that may arise in response to the comedic event, such as feelings of superiority, disgust, identification, shock, or subversiveness. thus, in o’shannon’s view, many of the elements that other theorists have seen as constituting the essence of humor (superiority, surprise, etc.) are better viewed as potential (but not essential) enhancers of the enjoyment of humor. with regard to the comedic stimulus itself (the “joke” broadly defined), o’shannon contends that two elements are necessary for humor to occur: incongruity and a particular type of cognitive process. therefore, like many widely-held contemporary humor theories, this is essentially an incongruity theory. according to o’shannon, humor essentially involves the recognition that something does not fit with our normal expectations of the world, coupled with an attitude of playfulness and the perception of the incongruity as safe, trivial, and nonthreatening. however, o’shannon strongly disagrees with incongruity-resolution theories which were once fashionable among humor scholars and still have some influence in the research literature. these theories suggest that humor in a joke results from incongruity being introduced when the punchline does not seem to fit with the setup, and then being resolved by recognizing some ambiguity in the setup that allows the listener to make sense of the punchline after all. in contrast, o’shannon argues that the purpose of a joke is not to resolve incongruity, but to create and enhance incongruity, and to maintain it as long as possible. o’shannon presents a framework for conceptualizing and quantifying different levels of incongruity, and describes in detail a number of ways in which it may occur, including conceptual, attitudinal, behavioral, presentational, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 582–585 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.823 martin 583 http://www.psychopen.eu/ physical, and logical incongruity. he also discusses the cognitive processes by which the receiver arrives at the perception of incongruity. these are divided into three main categories: (1) straightforward information, in which the incongruous elements are presented together with little “cognitive assembly” required on the part of the receiver; (2) gap-filling, in which the comedy material is presented in such a way that the receiver must fill in a cognitive blank in order to complete the incongruous picture; and (3) recontextualization, in which the receiver needs to find an alternative interpretation of previous information in order to perceive the incongruity. through it all, o’shannon illustrates his ideas with a wide range of jokes and material from various sitcoms, films, and plays, as well as personal anecdotes from everyday life. he also provides an interesting overview of the history of comedy in america over the 20th century. how does all of this relate to the focus of the present special issue of europe’s journal of psychology, which is devoted to research on the role of humor in well-being and health? o’shannon’s focus is on the way humor works – particularly in the context of professional comedy, but also in everyday life – rather than its psychological health benefits. nonetheless, this book may help to provide a broader theoretical context for thinking about the role of humor in well-being. the types of humor that contribute to psychological well-being likely do not merely involve spending a lot of time sitting on a couch watching comedy shows on television or constantly telling jokes to other people. more likely, health-enhancing humor involves actively finding comedic enjoyment in the context of everyday experiences, especially during times when life is stressful, challenging, or frustrating. these experiences of humor, which arise directly from one’s own life circumstances, enable the individual to perceive his or her life from a different perspective, to diminish the threats, and to gain an enhanced sense of control. although this book is not written as a guide to finding humor in adversity, several important practical insights may be drawn from it. first, humor essentially involves a playful attitude. in order to experience any potential psychological benefits of humor, an individual needs to be able to step out of the normally serious business of daily life and take some time to play. second, humor is largely a social phenomenon: people laugh and engage in humor much more frequently when they are with others than when alone. to experience the health benefits of humor, it helps to have a variety of positive relationships with others with whom one can interact frequently in a playful manner. third, humor involves the playful perception and generation of incongruity. we normally see incongruity as something to be avoided or minimized in our daily lives, whereas in humor we seek out and celebrate incongruity, playfully exaggerating it and exploring its various facets. fourth, a humorous perspective involves imagination, the ability to elaborate on a basic humorous theme and create new incongruities by engaging in “what-if” thinking. fifth, to fully enjoy humor one must have an awareness of the personal enhancers and inhibitors that influence one’s own level of enjoyment (e.g., mood states, the types of companions one associates with, the sorts of topics that evoke positive and negative emotional reactions, etc.). besides suggesting some practical insights for enhancing humor in one’s own life, this book offers a wealth of ideas that could stimulate a good deal of further scholarly research, both basic and applied. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 582–585 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.823 what are you laughing at? 584 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. about the author rod a. martin is a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial well-being. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 582–585 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.823 martin 585 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en what are you laughing at? (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments about the author the relationship between coronary heart disease (chd) and major depressive disorder (mdd): key mechanisms and the role of quality of life literature reviews the relationship between coronary heart disease (chd) and major depressive disorder (mdd): keymechanisms and the role of quality of life adrienne o’neil*ab [a] school of medicine, deakin university, geelong, australia. [b] school of public health and preventive medicine, monash university, melbourne, australia. abstract various trials have been conducted evaluating depression management programs for patients with coronary heart disease (chd). however, to date, the most effective way to manage this co-morbidity in the real world setting remains unclear. to better understand the past successes and failures of previous trials and subsequently develop suitable interventions that target key components of health related quality of life (hrqol) such as mental, physical and vocational functioning, we first need to understand the mechanisms underpinning the relationship between the two conditions. this paper will draw on the key literature in this field as identified by psychiatric, medical and social sciences databases (cochrane central register of controlled trials, pubmed, ovid, medline) available up to january 2012, with the aim to conduct a narrative review which explores: the aetiological relationship between depression and chd; its association with hrqol; the relationship between chd, depression and vocational functioning; and the impact of depression treatment on these outcomes. key recommendations are made regarding the management of this prevalent co-morbidity in clinical settings. keywords: coronary heart disease, depression, health related quality of life, vocational functioning, mechanisms, cardiovascular disease europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 received: 2012-05-21. accepted: 2012-06-23. published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: school of medicine, po box 281, deakin university, kitchener house, ryrie st, geelong, victoria, australia, 3220. e-mail: aoneil@barwonhealth.org.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. background coronary heart disease (chd) and major depressive disorder (mdd) the relationship between coronary heart disease (chd) and major depressive disorder (mdd) has been investigated extensively over recent decades, as the prevalence of both conditions has risen around the world (murray & lopez, 1996). each condition remains a major contributor to the global burden of disease; chd is the leading cause of death (world health organization, 2004), while mdd (defined as the presence of severely depressed mood persisting for at least two weeks) is the top-ranking cause of disability (world health organization, 2008). in western countries (e.g. australia), heart disease is the leading cause of disease burden and death, and depression is the top-ranking cause of non-fatal burden (mathers, vos, & stevenson, 1999). increasing rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome, an ageing population, sedentary lifestyles and chronic life stressors (among other factors) have all contributed to this rising trend. while depression and heart disease commonly occur in the general population as individual conditions, the two often coexist. for example, depression is highly prevalent among individuals with chd. this condition has been europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ estimated to affect one in five hospitalised myocardial infarct (mi) patients (bush et al., 2005). this co-morbidity is particularly problematic because chd patients with depressive symptoms are more likely to experience poorer behavioural, psychological and clinical outcomes, including increased likelihood of morbidity andmortality, compared with those who are not depressed. in mi patients, a landmark study by frasure-smith, lesperance, and talajic (1995) revealed that the presence of depression was significantly related to 18-month cardiac mortality (frasuresmith et al., 1995). this finding has since been corroborated; others have demonstrated that even mild to moderate depressive symptoms in post-mi populations are associated with decreased survival (bush et al., 2001). while it may seem intuitive that individuals who have experienced a life threatening event would report negative emotions such as low mood in the ensuing recovery period, the relationship between cardiovascular disease (cvd) and depression is much more complex; the conditions may act bi-directionally rather than causally. gaining a better understanding of the nature of these two conditions is of great importance; both in understanding the role of psychosocial factors in the relationship between cvd and depression and for the development of appropriate treatment programs if they are to effectively impact on key components of hrqol including mental, physical and related functioning outcomes. therefore, this paper will draw on the key literature in this field as identified by psychiatric, medical and social sciences databases (cochrane central register of controlled trials, pubmed, ovid, medline) available up to january 2012, with the aim to conduct a narrative review which explores: the aetiological relationship between depression and chd; its association with hrqol; the relationship between chd, depression and vocational functioning; and the impact of depression treatment on these outcomes. key recommendations are made regarding the management of this prevalent co-morbidity in clinical settings. depression as a risk factor for cvd while depression is a prognostic indicator for a range of outcomes in patients with existing chd including increased risk of heart failure (may et al., 2009), suicide (larsen, agerbo, christensen, sondergaard, & vestergaard, 2010), reduced health service utilisation (frasure-smith et al., 2000) and medication adherence, depression is also considered an independent risk factor for the onset of heart disease (van der kooy et al., 2007). the presence of depressive symptoms before the onset of a cardiac condition appears to increase the risk of cardiac fatality (whang et al., 2009). in fact, those with a history of depression are four times more likely to have a mi than those without (pratt et al., 1996). indeed, there is evidence that the presence of depressed mood in the preceding hour may trigger potentially life-threatening cardiac events (steptoe, strike, perkins-porras, mcewan, & whitehead, 2006). for example, by comparing the depressed mood of 295 acute coronary syndrome (acs) patients two hours prior to acs symptom onset with the same period 24 hours earlier and with usual levels of depressed mood, steptoe et al. (2006) found that the odds of acs were 2.5 following depressed mood, and the relative risk of acs onset following depressed mood was 4.3 compared with usual levels of mood (steptoe et al., 2006). a metaanalysis has further demonstrated that the overall risk of depressed but otherwise healthy individuals developing heart disease is 64% higher than for those without depression (van der kooy et al., 2007). the bi-directional nature of this co-morbidity would suggest that depression is not purely reactionary to a life threatening cardiac event and the association is, in fact, much more complex. while the pathways that play a role in the initiation of depression and/or in the pathogenesis of heart disease remain largely undetermined, a number of causal pathways have been proposed. a comprehension of this network is important if we are to understand the overall impact of co-morbid heart disease and depression on key aspects of functioning. in order to provide a more comprehensive review of their association, the aetiological relationships between the two conditions including hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (hpa) axis, cortisol elevation, heart europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 164 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rate variability, pro-inflammatory cytokines, platelet activation, genetics, risk factor clustering, medication noncompliance, anger and anxiety, demographics and psychosocial factors will now be explored in more detail. aetiological relationships between depression & heart disease hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis hyperactivity and cortisol elevation there is evidence to suggest that depression elicits the same biological responses that contribute to acs (steptoe et al., 2006). firstly, it should be noted that depression has traditionally been associated with hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (hpa) axis, as an extension of the ‘fight or flight response.’ this term was coined to explain the response of a person to threat, characterised by a discharge of the sympathetic nervous system enabling a person to either fight or flee danger ("bodily changes in pain", 1929). the result is an overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, which increases circulating levels of adrenaline, noradrenaline and serum cortisol. this response has the potential to contribute to increased cardiovascular risk through a variety of related risk factors, including those consistent with the metabolic syndrome (high lipid levels, obesity, elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance). it is possible, however, that these physiologic responses may vary for different severities of depression. abnormal hpa axis function resulting in hypercortisolaemia (high amounts of circulating cortisol) has been associated with severe depression. evidence suggests that those with mdd exhibit blunted reactivity (burke, fernald, gertler, & adler, 2005), whereas this process may differ for those with milder cases of depression. it is likely that patients with less severe depression show a reduced cortisol response to stress and have low or normal ambulatory measures of cortisol (taylor et al., 2006). despite these advances in knowledge, the extent to which hpa activity mediates the relationship between chd and depression (of varying degrees) remains unclear. disentangling this relationship by observing the effects of depression treatment on hpa activity has failed to provide clarity; this may be because altering hpa activity via psychological interventions is considered particularly difficult to achieve. for example, taylor et al. (2009) randomised 48 depressed participants with elevated cardiovascular risk factors to a cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt) intervention or a wait list control (wlc) condition to determine whether achieving improvements in mood would ameliorate autonomic dysregulation, hpa dysfunction, typical risk factors and c-reactive protein (crp). traditional risk factors (such as lipids and blood pressure), crp and psychophysiological stress tests were assessed preand post-treatment after six months. results indicated that, while the cbt subjects were significantly less depressed than those assigned to the wlc (post-intervention hamilton rating scale for depression (hrsd) mean scores were 5.5 versus 15.5, respectively), no significant differences in any of the traditional risk factors or psychophysiological measures (with the exception of triglyceride levels and heart rate) were observed. further, 20 non-depressed, age and risk-matched controls exhibited no change in the variables measured during the same time (taylor et al., 2009). despite limited generalisability due to the small sample, the authors concluded that alterations in mood have limited impact on hpa activity, traditional or atypical risk factors, cortisol or cardiophysiology; a finding which contradicts the conventional wisdom that depression is linked to increased cortisol levels and hpa dysfunction (gillespie & nemeroff, 2005). interestingly, this study did, however, highlight the role of another key mechanism thought to underpin the relationship between heart disease and depression, heart rate variability (hrv). decreased heart rate variability hrv has been defined as the varying time interval between heart beats. decreased hrv has previously been associated with a heightened risk of mortality (dekker et al., 2000). more specifically, along with other alterations of the autonomic nervous system (ans), it has long been considered a fundamental mechanism linking heart europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 165 http://www.psychopen.eu/ disease and major depression. changes in the ans, such as heart rate variability, are commonly linked with cardiac function (musselman, evans, & nemeroff, 1998). it is also well established that depression can impact the autonomic control of the cardiovascular system, thereby impeding cardiac functioning. typically, depressed patients have been found to experience elevated resting heart rate, even when adjusting for confounding factors such as medication usage. in a review, carney and freedland (2009) identified higher resting heart rate as a common feature of both chd patients with depression, andmedically well patients with depression. themechanism linking the two conditions has been identified as excessive sympathetic activity (or, alternatively, reduced parasympathetic nervous system activity) found in depressed patients, which can promote myocardial ischaemia or other related cardiac conditions. however, research in support of this remains inconsistent. findings from the heart and soul study, comprising a sample of 873 outpatients with stable chd found little evidence of an association between depression and hrv, leading the authors to question hrv as the fundamental mechanism linking depression and cvd (gehi, mangano, pipkin, browner, &whooley, 2005). several limitations have been associated with this study, however, including its cross-sectional design. others have examined the effects of depression treatment on cardiovascular outcomes as another means by which to explore the role of hrv. studies evaluating the use of psychological interventions in patients with high cvd risk (carney et al., 2000; taylor et al., 2009) have demonstrated some benefits; depression treatment can effectively reduce hrv in this population. however, meta-analyses and other studies have revealed that, in spite of the benefits, the effects of psychological therapy do not translate to reduced cardiovascular mortality or morbidity (rees, bennett, west, smith, & ebrahim, 2004). elevated plasma levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines leading to atherosclerosis another mechanism thought to be associated with chd and depression is inflammation. inflammatory changes are common characteristics of both heart disease and depression. the underlying inflammatory component of acs is atherosclerosisthe build up of plaque in the arteries. this inflammatory component is also a physiological characteristic associated with depression. for example, patients with depression have been found to exhibit elevated inflammatory markers, including interleukin-6 (il-6) and crp (a non-specific measure of inflammation). moreover, il-6 and crp are significant predictors of various outcomes in patients with acs (hartford et al., 2007) and other inflammatory conditions (e.g. stroke (muir, weir, alwan, squire, & lees, 1999)). circulating il-6 induces the release of crp, as well as other inflammatory markers, making il-6 a strong independent marker of increased mortality in those with unstable coronary artery disease (cad) (lindmark, diderholm, wallentin, & siegbahn, 2001). interestingly, the presence of high levels of crp has also been found in non-depressed patients at risk of cvd, as well as in depressed samples without known cvd. a meta-analysis has demonstrated that both crp and il-6 are positively associated with depression (crp: standardised mean difference (smd) = 0.15, 95%ci = 0.10,0.21; il-6: smd = 0.25, 95% ci = 0.18,0.31, indicating a high level of significance). sub-group analyses revealed similar results both in clinical and community samples (howren, lamkin, & suls, 2009). in cardiac patients with co-morbid depression, the association with il-6 and crp is complex. patients with severe post-acs depressive symptoms exhibit higher levels of crp and il-6 than those with mild symptoms. in fact, it has been estimated that patients with the most severe depression record crp levels > 50% higher than patients in the middle and lowest range (miller, freedland, duntley, & carney, 2005). it has been argued that such trends are responsible for the effect of atherosclerosis on acs. as cortisol is responsible for suppressing pro-inflammatory cytokines, the hypo-pituitary response to stress exhibited by these patients is subsequently inadequate, making individuals with depression more susceptible to, or less equipped to respond to stress. a review by von känel, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 166 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mills, fainman, & dimsdale, (2001) highlighted the common pathophysiologic characteristics of depression and stress reactivity. in addition to elevated plasma levels, other common features include increased blood pressure, heart rate, arousal mobilisation of energy stores and elevated risk of ventricular fibrillation. recently, evidence has emerged suggesting that increased inflammation explains only a small proportion of the relationship between heart disease and depression (davidson et al., 2009). this is supported by earlier data from the heart and soul study which suggest that inflammation is unlikely to explain the adverse cvd outcomes linked to depression in those with heart disease (whooley et al., 2007). these findings have led researchers to focus on other possible mechanisms linking depression and heart disease such as platelet activation and hypercoagulability. platelet activation and hypercoagulability increased platelet activation is another common physiological feature of both acs and depression. there is evidence that depression is associated with increased platelet activation (morel-kopp et al., 2009), leading to thrombus formation, vascular damage and an increased risk of a cardiac event. enhanced platelet reactions are often the result of psychologic stress, and a common characteristic of mi. in a 2001 review comprising 68 articles, von känel et al. (2001) found that pro-coagulant responses to stressors induced blood clotting (hypercoagulability) in patients with atherosclerosis but not in healthy subjects. more specifically, the authors found that chronic psychosocial stressors, namely job strain and those associated with low socioeconomic status, were found to be related to a hypercoagulable state, which may be responsible for, or contribute to, a depressed state and/or atherosclerosis (von känel et al., 2001) (the role of demographic and psychosocial factors in the relationship between heart disease and depression will be discussed in further detail later in the review). however, evidence from large scale studies (e.g. the heart and soul study (gehi et al., 2010)) has challenged the idea that increased platelet activation, a previously putative mechanism, is the underlying mechanism linking depression to cvd. using a cross-sectional design, gehi and colleagues (2010) assessed platelet activation in 104 patients with stable chd (n = 58 with a current episode of major depression and n = 46 without past or current major depression). platelet activation was measured by plasma concentrations of platelet factor 4 (pf4) and betathromboglobulin (β-tg), and by urinary concentrations of 11-dehydro-thromboxane b2 (tbxb2). the authors found no differences in mean levels of pf4, b-tg or tbxb2 in patients with and without major depression, even after adjusting for covariates such as medication and aspirin usage, age, and smoking. the authors concluded that the association between depression and cardiovascular disease is not attributable to platelet activation among patients with stable chd (gehi et al., 2010). genetic factors and predispositions it is known that genetic predisposition plays a role in the initiation of depression and in the pathogenesis of heart disease, either independently or via interactions with extraneous factors. first, there is strong evidence that depression has a hereditary component. for example, in the largest sample to date, a swedish national twin study found that lifetime mdd was heritable (kendler, gatz, gardner, & pedersen, 2006); first-degree relatives of individuals with mdd were two to three times more likely to develop depression when compared with the first-degree relatives of controls. the mechanism underlying a potential ‘depression gene’ is thought to be associated with genetic variation related to endothelial dysfunction. endothelial dysfunction is predictive of depressive symptoms and has been proposed as another mechanism contributing to depression among cardiac patients (mccaffery et al., 2009). animal models have demonstrated that deficits in endothelial function are associated with recent stress exposure, which persist even after stressful stimuli have been eliminated (williams, kaplan, & manuck, 1993). the role of endothelial dysfunction in the relationship between cvd and depression has been associated with europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 167 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cytokine release. this is either as a result of, or a contributor to, various disease processes, such as those which occur in hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia or diabetes as well as from environmental factors, such as smoking. these findings highlight the multi-factorial nature of the association between depression and cvd. inter-relationships among psychophysiological factors indeed, it is recognised that, due to the complexity of the two conditions, it is unlikely that any single physiological mechanism can explain their relationship. rather, it is likely that these mechanisms are inter-related (grippo & johnson, 2009). de jonge et al. (2010) argues that the aetiological relationship between depression and cvd is “best described as a complex system, consisting of many distinct but inter-related and inter-dependent components linked through multiple interconnections and feedback loops” (de jonge et al., 2010). as examples, serotonin has been identified as a catalyst in platelet activation that leads to atherosclerosis, hpa activity which, due to elevated cortisol levels, can result in immune system changes, and the inflammatory nature of atherosclerosis can, itself, promote decreases in central serotonin. there is also evidence that key lifestyle factors, such as diet, sedentary lifestyles and alcohol, can precipitate depression, heart disease or both. the influence of such biobehavioural factors will now be explored. factors mediating the relationship between depression and heart disease risk factor clustering the presence of depression and its symptoms, including anhedonia (characterised by apathy and lack of pleasure), helplessness and hopelessness, can inhibit the primary prevention behaviours associated with cvd. that is, individuals with depression may be more likely to report risk factor behaviours that contribute to chd onset, such as smoking and high alcohol consumption. hughes, hatsukami, mitchell, and dahlgren (1986) found that the prevalence of smoking was higher in those with mental disorders than in the general population, a finding which has also been observed for alcohol use (sullivan, fiellin, & o'connor, 2005). while there is good evidence that alcohol use can precede the onset of mdd (hasin & grant, 2002), individuals with existing depression may use alcohol as a form of self-medication. in fact, depression has been found to act as a mediator between stress and excess alcohol (camatta & nagoshi, 1995). interestingly, alcohol consumption has been closely associated with other risk factors for heart disease such as smoking and dietary habits, particularly in depressed populations. while there is evidence of risk factor clustering in the general population, clustering is more common among people with depression (verger, lions, & ventelou, 2009). other studies have demonstrated that depression affects other key primary and secondary prevention behaviours such as physical activity. not only are those experiencing depression as a sole condition more likely to be sedentary than those without, but there is evidence that for cardiac patients, depression impedes exercise regimes after a coronary event (roshanaei-moghaddam, katon, & russo, 2009). a recent review evaluating 11 studies (representing 20,000 cardiac patients) found post-mi depressive symptoms to be a significant risk factor for a sedentary lifestyle or poor compliance to a physical activity program (roshanaei-moghaddam, katon, & russo, 2009). more recently, diet has been identified as a key factor that may mediate the relationship between depression and cvd. not only are low levels of omega-3 fatty acids – derived from foods such as fish – associated with increased risk of chd and high prevalence mental disorders like anxiety, but case-control studies have demonstrated that low omega-3 levels are related to depression levels after a recent cardiac event (frasure-smith, lesperance, & julien, 2004). conversely, cad patients experiencing depression have been shown to report higher levels of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 168 http://www.psychopen.eu/ polyunsaturated fatty acids (pufas), compared with non-depressed patients. while the protective effects of omega-3 result from its anti-inflammatory properties (de jonge et al., 2010), evidence of the full effects of pufas remains conflicted. large scale, international studies have also found no association between depression and omega-3 deficiencies (hakkarainen et al., 2004). despite this, there remains some long standing evidence of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids on cvd-related risk factors including reducing blood pressure (appel, miller, seidler, & whelton, 1993) and triglycerides. additionally, the association between depressive symptoms and high risk behaviour related to alcohol, smoking, physical activity and diet may precipitate other medical conditions, such as diabetes mellitus (dunbar et al., 2008), overweight and obesity, hypertension, and hypercholesterolaemia, all associated with the onset of heart disease. indeed, the inextricable link between depression, heart disease and lifestyle factors suggests that a multi-faceted approach may be required when developing appropriate depression management or secondary prevention interventions in this patient population. evidently, lifestyle as a mediating factor in the relationship between depression and heart disease affects both primary cvd prevention activities, as well as secondary prevention behaviours. important components of the latter, adherence to cardiac rehabilitation programs and medication regimes can often be compromised by the presence of depression after a heart event, increasing the risk of recurrent cvd events. noncompliance with cardiac rehabilitation and medical regimens the world health organisation (who) considers cardiac rehabilitation “an integral component in the overall management of patients with cvd” (world health organization expert committee, 1964). while it is recommended that patients who are hospitalised with heart disease as an index admission are referred to early outpatient rehabilitation (thomas et al., 2007), evidence suggests that patients experiencing depression post-discharge are less likely to complete a cardiac rehabilitation program compared with their non-depressed counterparts (roblin, diseker, orenstein, wilder, & eley, 2004), increasing the likelihood of a recurrent cvd event. for these patients, increased attrition levels may be due to the cognitive and/or somatic symptoms of depression including hopelessness, reduced motivation, social exclusion, fatigue and helplessness. in any case, noncompliance to rehabilitation and medical regimes in this population has been identified as “a formidable problem impacting on the failure of risk-reduction therapies, on patient morbidity, and on health care costs” (burke, dunbar-jacob, & hill, 1997). the presence of depression, has been specifically linked with the under-utilisation of appropriate health services (frasure-smith et al., 2000) and poorer self-care, specifically in relation to medication adherence. kronish and others (2006) found that patients with persistent post-acs depression differ significantly in their level of adherence to medications prescribed for their cardiac condition, compared with those who did not exhibit depression in hospital (kronish, et al., 2006). interestingly, the presence of other negative emotions, such as anxiety, in cardiac patients has recently been shown to be associated with better medication adherence (de jong et al., 2011). the relationship between depression, anxiety and cvd will now be discussed. anxiety and anger similarly to depression, there appears to be a bi-directional, rather than purely causal, relationship between anxiety and cvd. anxiety is both highly prevalent in patients with existing chd (serber, todaro, tilkemeier, & niaura, 2009) and has been shown to independently predict subsequent cvd events over decades (janszky, ahnve, lundberg, & hemmingsson, 2010). anxiety is thought to produce an activation of inflammation, coagulation and fibrinolysis (geiser et al., 2008), common characteristics of cvd. given that anxiety and depression often europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ occur co-morbidly, it is possible that anxiety may mediate the relationship between depression and cvd, or conversely that depression may mediate the relationship between anxiety and cvd. frasure-smith and lesperance have demonstrated substantial overlap in mdd and generalised anxiety disorder (gad) in patients with stable cad, concluding that both are associated with prospective coronary events (frasure-smith & lesperance, 2008). these findings have led some to argue that clinically meaningful distinctions of distress in cad patients need to be considered (de jonge & ormel, 2008), if this relationship is to be truly understood, and should be considered in the development of treatment programs for this population. further, the role of personality traits, hostility and anger, have been identified as having the potential to alter one’s susceptibility to chd onset. chida and steptoe (2009) conducted one of the first quantitative systematic reviews in this area, and found that anger and hostility were significantly correlated with poorer prognosis in chd patients. if appropriate treatment programs are to be provided for patients after a heart event, the role of negative mood and traits, as well as other psychosocial factors, may need to be taken into consideration. demographic factors depression has been significantly associated with social isolation (finkelstein, o'connor, & friedmann, 2001), chronic life stressors (kessler, 1997) and maladaptive coping style in both cardiac (allman, berry, & nasir, 2009) and other populations (benson et al., 2010). it is well established that these factors can be mediated by demographic variables such as gender, social economic status (ses) and income, and have also been linked to cardiovascular risk. for example, a gradient exists between ses and depression risk among individuals with chronic disease (e.g. diabetes (golden et al., 2007)). this trend has also been observed for those with established chd; those reporting chd and low ses are more likely to report depression (mendes de leon, 1992). those belonging to a lower sesmay have accentuated cardiac risk factors simply because of their location within the ses hierarchy. indeed, those belonging to a lower ses bracket are more likely to suffer adverse cardiovascular events than those reporting high ses (vieweg, dougherty, & bernardo, 1998). additionally, low ses, which can translate to poorer standards of living (for example, less exposure to important resources, fresh and healthy foods, safe exercising environments) can act synergistically with other cardiac risk factors such as overweight and obesity, hyperlipidaemia or hypertension, to accelerate the course of atherosclerosis (vieweg, dougherty, & bernardo, 1998). psychosocial factors in a similar manner, psychosocial variables like social isolation and low levels of emotional support have been related to both depression and chd. social isolation may adversely affect the origin, course, and outcome of heart disease (king, 1997). evidence indicates that low social support confers a risk of 1.5 to 2.0 in both healthy individuals and in chd populations (lett et al., 2005). this relationship is thought to share the same risk factor pathways as the relationship between ses and onset of chd. moreover, recent evidence indicates that the impact of social support on mortality is comparable with other well established risk factors for mortality like smoking (holtlunstad, smith, & layton, 2010). the way in which one perceives their own physical and mental health functioning – their health related quality of life (hrqol) – is another psychosocial variable that can provide important insights about the relationship between depression and heart disease. depression is closely linked to hrqol. in fact, depression has been identified as the single most important, independent predictor of hrqol (lane, carroll, ring, beevers, & lip, 2001) in cardiac populations. the concept of hrqol has been developed and defined as ‘the functional effect of an illness and its consequent therapy upon a patient, as perceived by the patient’ (schipper, clinch, & olweny, 1996). a concept europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 170 http://www.psychopen.eu/ traditionally encompassing physical functioning, mental health, social relationships, and happiness or global satisfaction, hrqol has become of increasing importance in the context of disease populations for several reasons. it is considered both a determinant in the course and onset of some diseases (e.g. diabetes (tapp, o'neil, shaw, zimmet, & oldenburg, 2010)) and is considered by some, a significant endpoint for evaluating the impact of a disease or treatment. the concept of measuring hrqol, however, is contentious. it has been argued that a quantitative instrument to measure, by its very nature, a qualitative concept is an insufficient means by which to gauge an individual’s hrqol status. in addition to the issue of subjectivity versus objectivity, there is contention surrounding hrqol as a function-based or satisfaction-based measure. for example, hrqol measures may be used to assess patients’ satisfaction with care or the effects of therapy, or alternatively to assess one’s functional status as a result of illness. in spite of these assertions, the importance of investigating the role of hrqol in disease populations is becoming increasingly apparent. in fact, hrqol can be predictive of clinical outcomes in patients with chronic disease. functional components have been used to predict survival and rehospitalisation in chronic disease populations (osman, godden, friend, legge, & douglas, 1997). moreover, hrqol is of increasing importance in the context of health economics as its derivative can often be used to capture quality adjusted life years (qalys), a measure of disease burden encapsulating both quality and quantity of life lived. the relationship between hrqol, depression and chd is a complex one. for example, while it is clear that some depressive symptoms such as hopelessness, sadness and anhedonia impact poorly on self-rated health status and thereby hrqol status (ruo et al., 2003), components of hrqol, like impaired functioning, can also intensify depression. an example of this is that loss of mental and physical functionality is a strongmediator in the association between depression and chronic disease. those with depression possess a 34% greater attributable risk of functional limitation (95%ci: 24.8-42.7) (dunlop, lyons, manheim, song, & chang, 2004). the effect of depression is such that symptoms impact cardiac functioning; depressive symptoms can diminish the functional benefits of interventions aimed at improving cardiac functioning (e.g. coronary artery bypass grafting (cabg) surgery (mallik et al., 2005)). despite such evidence, surprisingly, the role of hrqol in populations with co-morbid depression and heart disease remains under-researched (haas, 2006). traditionally, research exploring the impact of depression or depression treatment in cardiac populations has focused predominantly on clinical outcomes. the emerging rationale for an increased focus on hrqol as both a risk factor and an outcome in this area of research, is two-fold. first, investigating the role of hrqol in cardiac populations has the potential to shed light on the relationship between depression and cvd, where there remains a deficit in our knowledge. just as treating depression in cvd populations has not been shown to improve cvd-related outcomes or survival (berkman et al., 2003), neither can it be assumed that treating depression will alter hrqol status. recently, it has been argued: “as investigators move forward in attempting to unravel the intriguing relation between depression and coronary disease, it will be important to include quality of life indicators as outcomes of interest” (haas, 2006). second, if we are to use our existing understanding of this relationship, with the view to improve patient outcomes, a distinction needs to be made between enhancing quality and quantity of life, which begins with the inclusion of hrqol indicators. for example, rumsfeld and ho (2005) argue for the prioritisation of hrqol in cardiac research, because for coronary patients, hrqol outcomes are as important as any potential survival outcomes. of survival gain, they argue that the benefits are “limited to specific patient subsets and many patients express a desire for quality of life equal to or greater than their desire europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 171 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for quantity of life” (rumsfeld & ho, 2005). the complex relationship between depression, chd and hrqol will now be explored in more detail. the relationship between depression and mental and physical functioning (hrqol) in cardiac populations traditionally, assessing clinical endpoints such as survival and recurrent cvd events has been considered paramount for monitoring both the recovery of cardiac patients and the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions, including health coaching and depression management programs. increasingly, hrqol outcomes have become of interest in cardiac populations, particularly over the past five years, as evidence has emerged to link clinical and hrqol outcomes, and to expose the detrimental impact of depression on hrqol (both in cardiac and other medically ill populations (gaynes, burns, tweed, & erickson, 2002)). for example, physical parameters such as body mass index (bmi) and obesity, as well as psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety directly relate to hrqol status in medically ill patients (katz, mchorney, & atkinson, 2000). in fact, hrqol has been found to be more strongly and directly related to symptoms of depression than physical components like bmi (fabricatore, 2005). similarly in cardiac populations, while clinical parameters like heart failure severity have been found to impair the physical domain of hrqol, depression significantly impairs both the psychological and physical domains of hrqol (faller et al., 2009; müller-tasch et al., 2007). additionally, timing of depression onset in relation to a coronary event can impact upon self-rated mental health (o’neil, williams, stevenson, oldenburg, berk, & sanderson, 2012). ‘early’ depression (assessed at an average of six days post-mi) can impact hrqol long after a cardiac event (lane, carroll, ring, beevers, & lip, 2001). it has therefore been concluded that depression is the best predictor of hrqol in mi populations, and can remain detrimental to hrqol for the ensuing year, or even longer (drory, kravetz, & hirschberger, 2002). the effects of depression treatment on hrqol of cardiac patients few studies have evaluated the impact of depression treatment on hrqol outcomes of mi patients. through the implementation of the bypassing the blues study, rollman et al. (2009) developed one of the first studies in this area to use hrqol as a primary endpoint in their evaluation of a telephone-delivered, stepped, collaborative care program to treat depression in cabg patients. briefly, this depression treatment intervention was proven efficacious in improving mental hrqol outcomes, as measured by sf-36. no significant differences in physical hrqol were observed between groups. a recent meta-analysis comprising five studies including the bypassing the blues study, provided further evidence of the benefits of depression treatment on mental hrqol outcomes (o’neil, sanderson, oldenburg, & taylor, 2011). the authors demonstrated the overall benefits of depression treatment on mental hrqol in cardiac patients after 6 months (standardized mean difference: -0.29) compared with comparator conditions (placebo/usual care). significant yet modest effects on physical hrqol outcomes were also observed (standardized mean difference: -0.14). given that changes in depression and hrqol appear to be synchronous (atalay et al., 2010; caruso et al., 2010), it may seem intuitive that alterations in depressive symptoms would lead to subsequent improvements in mental hrqol. however, further research into the role of hrqol is required in cardiac populations, not only to corroborate the findings of rollman et al. (2009), but to identify a depression treatment program most effective for impacting all areas of hrqol, including physical functioning.while observational studies (ormel, oldehinkel, brilman, vanden brink, & leenstra, 1994) have demonstrated an association between alterations in depressive symptoms europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 172 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and changes in physical functioning status, this relationship is complex. it appears that the link between improved depression and reduced functioning may not contain a direct causal link, rather it is more likely to be bi-directional. as previously discussed, depression could either be the cause or the consequence of reduced functioning or disability (simon et al., 1998). the effects of lifestyle interventions on hrqol of cardiac patients depressive symptoms such as declining motivation, apathy and hopelessness have also been linked to increased risk-factor clustering such as reduced physical activity levels, unhealthy dietary patterns, smoking and alcohol (verger, lions, & ventelou, 2009). these behaviours can debilitate physical functioning and also act as mediators in the onset of other medical conditions. obesity, hyperlipidaemia, hypertension, diabetes, liver disease and cancers may manifest as a result of risk-factor clustering, or the depression itself. in fact, depression is a modifiable risk factor for diabetes (molife, 2010). this can thereby impact one’s physical functioning and level of disability. physical activity interventions have been found to significantly improve physical hrqol in medically ill patients, for example, a recent study of cancer survivors evaluated the impact of a strength training program, which demonstrated an effect size of 0.54 on physical hrqol (de backer et al., 2007). in cardiac patients, physical hrqol benefits have been observed, attributable to an educational intervention (strömberg &mårtensson, 2003). in cardiac patients with depression, the anticipated benefits of combining a lifestyle modification intervention targeting physical functioning with depression treatment that targets mental health functioning become apparent. for patients with both depression and a medical illness, gaynes, burns, tweed, and erickson (2002) recommend “adopting amultidimensional approach to hrqol rather than treating it unidimensionally”. to date, the effectiveness of such a program in cardiac populations is unknown. the benefits of treatment have the potential to go beyond mental and physical functioning to improve other important recovery outcomes, including vocational functioning. the relationship between heart disease, depression and vocational functioning work resumption the relationship between depression, heart disease and employment is equally complex. after a cardiac event, depression may act as a barrier to work resumption, or conversely may manifest as a by-product of functional restrictions (e.g. exercise, employment). specifically, long absences from the workforce after a cardiac event may exacerbate depressive symptoms through feelings of social isolation, reduced productivity or stimulation. equally, returning to everyday activities like work in the post-mi period may promote feelings of self-worth, self-esteem, social connectivity and productivity. evidence suggests that the majority of patients will resume work after a cardiac event (söderman, lisspers, & sundin, 2003). however, those experiencing depression will be slower and less likely to return to work (schleifer & macari-hinson, 1989), and more likely to experience social problems than their non-depressed peers. these longer absences from the workplace could be further exacerbated by a range of other variables including cognitive factors (e.g. illness perceptions, attitudes to work, values), demographic factors (such as age, location) and environmental factors (e.g. family life, job content and stress (physical and emotional)). the role of depression in work resumption after a cardiac event, however, is more complex than this, when considering that depression appears to be present in a significant proportion of cardiac patients prior to their coronary event. it has been reported in one study that 44% of cad patients have a prior history of diagnostically defined major depression, however the exact figure and the precise sequence of onset of the conditions, remains unclear (freedland, carney, lustman, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 173 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rich, & jaffe, 1992). since authoritative bodies have identified depression and other psychosocial factors (e.g. stress) as risk factors for heart disease, occupational research in chronic disease populations has become of increasing interest (bunker et al., 2003). for example, employment factors such as decision latitude, job strain, high effort-reward imbalance and psychological demands have all been identified as predicting chd morbidity and mortality (schnall, landsbergis, & baker, 1994). in cardiac patients, workplace productivity (including physical, psychological and social functioning of an individual while at work (ellis, eagle, kline-rogers, & erickson, 2005)) is a useful measure by which a patient’s recovery can be determined. employment status has also been recognised as an index of the success of rehabilitation efforts (steger & chrisholm, 1977), because both physiological and psychological factors influence vocational outcomes, and both are key components of cardiac rehabilitation. yet, measuring work resumption alone does not capture productivity once back in the workplace. work performance post-mi, patients may be prone to absenteeism (work days lost as a result of illness), presenteeism (attending work while sick at reduced productivity), and lower retention rates. subjectively, almost one third of cardiac patients feel that their mi has decreased their work performance and output one year after the event (currell, urquhart, wainwright, & lewis, 2000). in western countries such as australia, chd and depression are the most common conditions related to unemployment (bishop & philips, 2009). moreover, the work-related burden of comorbid depression and cvd at the population level has been demonstrated (o’neil, williams, stevenson, oldenburg, & sanderson, 2012). of further importance, is that depression can predict the work outcomes of chd patients (o'neil, sanderson, & oldenburg, 2010). this is of particular relevance as mi survival rates and length of working lives are increasing; indicators of productivity have been identified as “essential in this era of increased attention to resource utilization” (milani, lavie, & cassidy, 1996). the association between depression and the work performance of cardiac patients has been of much interest in light of epidemiologic and other studies (stewart, ricci, chee, hahn, & morganstein, 2003; whooley et al., 2002); depression has been shown to predict poor work outcomes in other chronic disease cohorts (e.g. diabetes) (von korff et al., 2005). the current evidence base indicates that depression, disease severity and age may all act as determinants of work performance (ellis, eagle, kline-rogers, & erickson, 2005). epidemiological data have also revealed the long term impact of chronic depression on work outcomes; longitudinal (druss, schlesinger, & allen, 2001), community (broadhead, blazer, george, & tse, 1990) and primary care (spitzer, 1995) mental health surveys have reinforced that the presence of chronic depression is correlated with persistent work related impairments. therefore, there has been much interest in developing efficacious, as well as cost-effective approaches to treating depression in psychiatric populations in order to enhance vocational outcomes. the impact of depression treatment on vocational outcomes of cardiac patients studies evaluating the key work outcomes of depressed, medically healthy patients have provided promising results; strong links have been identified between enhanced wellbeing and work performance. in fact, it has been argued that mood can improve synchronously with work productivity (aikens, kroenke, nease, klinkman, & sen, 2008; who, 2001), reduce absenteeism (keyes & grzywacz, 2005; pelled & xin, 1999) and predict sound job performance (cropanzano & wright, 1999). others have found no effect; simon et al. (1998) argue that depression treatment does not translate to direct vocational benefits. the authors did, however, discuss the temporal nature of depression and functioning when europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 174 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussing this null finding. they propose a possible delay in visible improvements in occupational functioning compared with depressive symptoms, and subsequently, argue that sustained remission of depression may be necessary to achieve good occupational outcome (simon et al., 1998). in other words, although depression treatment has the potential to improve work outcomes, the relationship does not appear to be immediately synchronous. rather, programs designed to treat depression with the view to enhance work productivity and performance may require evidence of long term sustainability if the effect of an intervention is to go beyond altering depression. of the existing depression treatment programs that have been evaluated in cardiac populations, few, if any, have evaluated the impact on vocational outcomes. given the relationship between depression, chd and work, it is likely that treating depression in cardiac patients would improve vocational functioning either directly or as a by-product of enhancing mood outcomes. while there is limited evidence from clinical trials to support this, such an intervention could be personally, clinically and economically advantageous. conclusion the relationship between depression and chd is well established. the two conditions often co-exist and there remains compelling evidence that individuals who report this co-morbidity experience a range of poorer outcomes, including worse hrqol and work outcomes. the biological mechanisms underpinning the relationship between the two conditions were reviewed to provide a context for the role of psychosocial factors, such as hrqol. while it is clear that key components of hrqol – mental and physical health functioning – can partially mediate the relationship between depression and chd, there is much about this relationship that remains unclear. understanding the burden of co-morbid depression and cvd on hrqol and work outcomes, as well as the prognostic role of depression after a cardiac event, is crucial for the development of targeted interventions to improve key functioning outcomes of cardiac patients experiencing depression. evidently, more research regarding suitable treatment approaches is required in this area: “it would be expected that treating depression and anxiety would lead to improved quality of life and reduction in days of restricted activity and days missed from work [in cardiac patients]. this remains to be demonstrated in a clinical trial, however” (dickens et al., 2006). while a shortcoming of this review is that it is narrative and not systematic, therefore may be subject to bias, the evidence presented in this paper shows some support for depression treatment impacting mental hrqol and lifestyle interventions, like exercise, benefiting physical hrqol few programs have applied a multi-faceted approach to treating co-morbid depression in cardiac populations. combining a depression management program with a lifestyle intervention using a targeted approach, could result in overall hrqol benefits and subsequently enhance vocational functioning. funding this work was supported by a post graduate award from the national heart foundation of australia (pp 08m4079). competing interests the author declares no competing interests. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge professor brian oldenburg, dr kristy sanderson, associate professor chris e stevenson and dr emily d williams for providing critical feedback on the manuscript. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 o’neil 175 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references aikens, j. e., kroenke, k., nease, d. e., jr, klinkman, m. s., & sen, a. 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(2008). the global burden of disease 2004 update. geneva: world health organisation. world health organization expert committee. (1964). rehabilitation of patients with cardiovascular disease: report of a who expert committee (who technical report series, 270). geneva: world health organization. about the author dr adrienne o’neil is a national health and medical research council (nhmrc) research fellow in public health at deakin university, australia. her expertise lies in the development of innovative and contemporary approaches to the treatment of co-morbid mental and physical conditions. dr o’neil has produced a series of key, first author, peer reviewed publications in this area in high impact journals such as the archives of internal medicine and diabetes care. dr o’neil was previously named the national heart foundation of australia’s top ranked scholar in public health and currently acts as a peer reviewer for several top ranked journals including circulation and journal of affective disorders. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 163–184 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.466 cardiovascular disease and depression 184 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.10.016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinte.162.22.2614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/jci116772 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cardiovascular disease and depression background coronary heart disease (chd) and major depressive disorder (mdd) depression as a risk factor for cvd aetiological relationships between depression & heart disease hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis hyperactivity and cortisol elevation decreased heart rate variability elevated plasma levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines leading to atherosclerosis platelet activation and hypercoagulability genetic factors and predispositions inter-relationships among psychophysiological factors factors mediating the relationship between depression and heart disease risk factor clustering noncompliance with cardiac rehabilitation and medical regimens anxiety and anger demographic factors psychosocial factors the relationship between depression and mental and physical functioning (hrqol) in cardiac populations the effects of depression treatment on hrqol of cardiac patients the effects of lifestyle interventions on hrqol of cardiac patients the relationship between heart disease, depression and vocational functioning work resumption work performance the impact of depression treatment on vocational outcomes of cardiac patients conclusion funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author café philosophique with lou marinoff interview café philosophique with lou marinoff lou marinoff, beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 received: 2013-07-27. accepted: 2013-07-27. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. beatrice popescu: first of all, dr. lou, we thank you a lot for granting us an interview, considering your busy schedule as a prestigious academic, acclaimed public speaker, writer and last, but not least, philosophical practitioner. could you please tell us where your love for counseling stems from and who was your first inspiration, aside from the classics? lou marinoff: you are more than welcome, beatrice. i am delighted to have a virtual coffee with you. my “love of counseling” – as you so generously phrase it – may be nothing more than operant conditioning. my first inspiration was my talkative extended family, most of whom were capable of dispensing advice almost continuously, and on any topic. in such a climate, one must think for oneself, dispense advice in self-defense, and ultimately take one's own counsel. having counseled myself for many years using philosophical resources, i never dreamed that i would one day do this with others. and today, after more than twenty years of engagement with philosophical practice, it sometimes seems like a dream. beatrice popescu: from a philosophical practitioner’s standpoint, philosophy needs to be demystified and made available in the service of people for whom it was initially created. lebon considers that reaching this goal may only happen progressively, while engaging philosophy therapeutically via five methods that made it famous: critical thinking, conceptual analysis, phenomenology, thought-experiments and creative thinking. can philosophy (the discipline that discusses anything and attempts to treat any ailment of the soul) become a resource for common people, from the perspective of philosophical counseling? lou marinoff: yes, and no. i have come to believe that while many people can and do benefit from philosophical counseling, it is not a panacea and may never attract as many people as does psychological counseling. why? for similar reasons to what we witness in the universities: psychology departments tend to be much larger than philosophy departments, with more faculty and students alike. this is partly because many people find philosophy difficult, which it certainly can be, and find psychology more accessible, which it often is. as to why that is the case, let me offer one plausible reason: for the most part it is fair to say that psychological counselors work mostly europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ with affect, whereas philosophical counselors work mostly with reason. naturally this distinction is not black-andwhite, but it is nonetheless conspicuous. professor lou marinoff is a commonwealth scholar originally from canada, professor and chair of the philosophy department at the city college of new york, and founding president of the american philosophical practitioners association (appa). he is also editor of philosophical practice: journal of the appa. lou has authored two international bestsellers: plato not prozac, translated into 27 languages since 1999, and therapy for the sane, into 12 languages since 2003. both books apply asian andwestern philosophy to the resolution of everyday problems. lou's recent books include the middle way (sterling, ny, 2007), el poder del tao (ediciones b, barcelona, 2011) and the inner philosopher, a dialogue with japanese buddhist leader daisaku ikeda (dialogue path press, cambridge ma, 2012). lou has collaborated with global think-tanks and leadership forums such as the aspen institute, biovision (lyon) and theworld economic forum (davos). lou is a three-time canadian open table hockey champion (1978-79-80) and had his comeback in 2007. he is a legend and ambassador of table hockey, promoting the game and sport as highly beneficial for children. dr. lou marinoff is also the publisher of an innovative website (http://www.loumarinoff.com) presenting his own work, either books, photo albums or absolutely blissful interpretations of classical guitar pieces. while everyone is prone to emotional turbulence at one time or another, not all are willing or prepared to make cognitive breakthroughs into the imperturbable realms of the stoics, the taoists, and the buddhists, whose philosophical theories and practices conduce to transcending emotional turmoil, and to converting psychic suffering into serendipity. most people inherit burdensome psychological baggage from their families, and are further deformed by life’s inevitable trials and tribulations. during the 20th century, governments and universities invested heavily in psychology, which developed many schools and modalities for helping people cope with problems of affect. but at the same time, this investment left the masses stranded in their emotions, with nowhere else to turn except to religion or pharmacology. indeed, one might observe that much of contemporary psychotherapy has itself assumed the status of a secular religion – replete with unexamined premises, unchallengeable dogmas, and institutionalized corruptions. what we philosophical counselors have discovered empirically is this: a good many people are both desirous and capable of noetic maturation, to an extent that leads them beyond psychotherapy and psychopharmacology alike. just as freud castigated organized religions for appealing to and prolonging infantilism in adults, so some philosophers have similarly critiqued psychology and pharmacology for maintaining their patients in arrested states of noetic development, engendering emotional dependencies and preventing people’s “inner philosopher” from emerging. moreover, as philosophical practice is now burgeoning in east asia (i.e. china, japan, korea), we see asian practitioners rejecting western psychology and pharmacology alike as “western cultural colonialism,” and resuscitating indigenous asian philosophical practices in their stead. so let’s conduct the following thought-experiment: if during the 21st century governments and universities were to invest in philosophical counseling only 10% as much as they invested during the 20th century in psychological counseling, what would be the outcome? predictably, more and more of the masses would avail themselves of philosophical services. services need to be developed and marketed in order to be accessed. i believe that the potential market for philosophy is much larger than most people imagine; yet there will always be people who are neither willing nor ready to explore philosophical pathways. in the best of all possible worlds, people would be made aware of their options, and be able to exercise their preferences. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 café philosophique with lou marinoff 420 http://www.loumarinoff.com http://www.loumarinoff.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ beatrice popescu: achenbach is not suggesting a structured scheme such as the one you recommend: peace. for our readers, peace means: problems, emotions, analysis, contemplation, equilibrium. lazarus also recommends a scheme called basic-id, while aaron beck proposed the model: abcde. regardless of acronyms fashion (also extensively used in corporate world), what prompted you to create your own scheme, with a name so inspiring? lou marinoff: the blunt truth is that harpercollins, the american publisher of plato not prozac, insisted that i come up with a “method” and an acronym in order to make philosophical counseling more “user-friendly” for an american readership. “self-help” books are often formulaic for just this reason. so i asked myself a question: “is it possible that philosophical counseling can be characterized, such that some recognizable pastern or process captures the kind of journey one takes with a counseling philosopher?”. in response, i came up with the “peace” process during an inspired long-weekend. while it does not describe the specifics of any particular case, i would say that at least 80% of my cases fit its contours in a general way. when plato not prozac was published, i knew that i would draw flack from some of my colleagues, for daring to suggest a method. many of us actually agree with achenbach, and often we employ the method of no-method. then again, some philosophical counselors also apply robust methodologies, such as pierre grimes's philosophical midwifery, or nelsonian socratic dialogue. nevertheless, numerous colleagues have remarked to me that the peace process describes, in a general way, a large majority of their cases, too. at the same time, it regularly fails as a purely “self-help” method, as clients usually get stuck at the contemplative stage, and need a philosopher to help them progress beyond it. the connotation of the acronym is somewhat ironic, in so far as the well-known “peace process” in the middle east appears to be another name for interminable strife. then again, i firmly believe that all external conflicts are manifestations of inner conflict. only those whose inner conflicts are resolved can truly be at peace themselves, and therefore with the world. beatrice popescu: do you still recall your first experience as a counselor? how did it change you, if it happened? lou marinoff: yes, i recall it vividly. it happened in 1992, at the university of british columbia’s centre for applied ethics. one morning the centre received a phone call from a high school principal, who sought a practical resolution to an ethical quandary that was causing him and his community considerable distress. legal advice had succeeded only in making matters worse, while prozac (self-evidently) would not have resolved the issue either. i took the call, and helped the principal resolve his dilemma via philosophical means – in one session. the case was a revelation to me – it illustrated that even in a social democracy like canada, with universal health care and a wide social safety net, people may be suffering from unresolved ethical (among other philosophical) problems, and therefore need access to philosophical counselors. beatrice popescu: how do you think we can match today’s pressure to be highly specialized in a certain domain with the need of a more intense and “holistic” paradigm. in other words, how can i be a clinical psychologist trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy working with autistic children and still be able to see this problem in a different context, more global? aren’t we in a “dangerous” need of always having to change what we have already learned, with the risk of eternally redefining the things we know? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 marinoff & popescu 421 http://www.psychopen.eu/ loumarinoff:what an important and earnest question! it serves only to deepen my concerns about the scienceshumanities divide, and the need to bridge this chasm. had you, as a student of clinical psychology (nominally a “science”) been exposed to a course in the philosophy of science, you might have been introduced to neurath’s metaphor, which speaks directly to your concern. here is a summary. thanks largely to the work of the late sir karl popper, we now conceive of scientific endeavor as something that progresses not only by discovering truths via experimental verification of hypotheses, but also (and sometimes more importantly) by experimental falsification of mistakenly-held beliefs. progress in science often depends on identifying and rejecting mistaken theories and false precepts that previous generations had accepted as true. the history of every single science is rife with examples. this is why we have to keep re-writing the scientific textbooks. what follows is neurath’s metaphor: scientists are like ship-builders whose vessel is already at sea, and thus they lack the possibility of making repairs in a “safe” and “controlled” dry-dock. sometimes they must find a way to replace planks, bulkheads, keels, rudders, and propellers while afloat in deep or even turbulent waters, an enterprise that you rightly characterize as “dangerous” or “risky”. the alternative – jeopardizing the vessel by allowing it to become unseaworthy – is arguably worse. so scientists must be courageous and skilful enough to constantly repair their ships at sea. if instead they succumb to inflexible or unchallengeable dogmas, they start looking like religionists. beatrice popescu: stepping in a young counselor’s shoes, do we still have time, nowadays, to take a walk in the antique gardens and contemplate the meaning and scope of life, while the clients await us at the doorstep? is it possible to write, think and also to have a daily job, all in the same time? lou marinoff: this is a lovely segue from your prior question. if the young counselor in question is a scientist, then indeed she must keep up with her science, and learn to repair her ship at sea. but this in no way precludes (and actually it justifies) her creating space for contemplation. most of my counseling psychologist colleagues are able to see around five clients per day. if they stretch their caseload to six or seven clients per day (which some of them do toward the end of the week) they become exhausted or even burned out. anyone who spends hours at a time being present for others needs to recharge their own batteries – healers also (and sometimes especially) need healing themselves. a wonderful way of achieving this is by strolling through those “antique gardens,” partaking in exquisite philosophical blossoms from aristotle, epictetus, lao tzu, or shakyamuni. or perhaps by engaging with music, painting, dance, or writing. becoming a complete and fulfilled human being requires so much more than being chained to a desk, even in the service of helping others! beatrice popescu: is the fight with death becoming a daily confrontation in modern society? do you feel that the collapse of religious institutions in the secular society makes the fear of death more palpable than ever? lou marinoff: you have a knack for asking burning questions, and this is one. as you may know, philosophers like hobbes and spinoza, and later, psychologists like freud and riviere, accused dogmatic organized religions of preying upon people’s infantile fears of the unknown, and especially of death. the “flip-side” is that strong religious convictions can indeed help some people assuage such fears (and at the fanatical extreme, provoke them to murder or suicidal murder). marx was undeniably correct that religious beliefs function like cultural “opiates,” numbing people’s primordial fears with faith and hope. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 café philosophique with lou marinoff 422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ but since mainstream judeo-christian traditions are indeed collapsing, hundreds of millions of westerners must seek comfort in secular society. this is no mean feat, and difficult to attain without a guiding philosophy. beatrice popescu: reading critchley’s “book of dead philosophers” it was moving to see how great thinkers deal with the idea of their own mortality. do you think they were all honest and serene? thinking of wittgenstein, he said before dying: “tell them i’ve had a wonderful life”. is it reasonable to expect that extensive sessions of philosophical counseling may attenuate the eternal fear of death in humans? creating legacy can be therapeutic when trying to alleviate the pain of our own death? lou marinoff: critchley has done a very good job of reminding us that we humans are all-too-cognizant of our mortality, and are at times inconsolable in the face of death. as critchley points out, many philosophers, from antiquity to the present, have seized upon mortality as a departure point for leading meaningful lives. beatrice popescu: practical philosophy seems to be working mostly for people with a sense of education and culture. what about the persons who don’t understand the paradigm, the simple people who have a narrower understanding of life, how can we touch their souls with philosophy? lou marinoff: if we suppose that philosophy, for the mainstream population, is something of an “acquired taste,” then we will not feel obliged to foist our paradigm wholesale upon the masses. such restraint will happily distinguish us from religious missionaries, who seek (ideally) to convert everyone, and from secular dogmatists, ranging from marxists to believers in the dsm, who likewise seek to universalize their brands of “snake oil.” that said, human virtues and human decency remain part and parcel of a commodious life, and these lie within reach of most people, external conditions permitting. i shall never forget my russian grandparents, who escaped the horrors of tsarist pogroms, the bolshevik revolution, and the ensuing civil war, in order to reach the new world, a land that offered them liberty, opportunity, and hope for a better life for their children and grandchildren. they were born and raised in shtetls, and they never read a word of philosophy all their lives. yet they were courageous, kind, honest, forthright, and hardworking people. one might even venture to say that they did not need philosophy, as their virtues shone brightly without it. they never acquired tastes for dom perignon or foie gras either, but this did not get in the way of their goodness … au contraire! beatrice popescu: in your book “plato not prozac” which i must admit i breathlessly read, you don’t exclude, but somehow minimize the idea of depression as a brain neurochemistry-induced disorder. could we take the risk of simply neglecting the idea or is this more of a figure of speech than a programmatic step aiming to provide a panacea-treatment for all types of disorders? lou marinoff: the current pharmacological mantra of “chemical imbalance in the brain” is nothing but a vacuous sales-pitch, used to justify licit drug-dealing on a global scale. the fatuous but unstated background assumption is that brains are “sealed containers” accessible only to pharmacologists, and that consumers are passive and powerless victims of their circumstances and neurochemistry alike. this is a widespread and disempowering swindle. consumers need to be reminded that brain-chemistry is affected by a host of factors, including lifestyle choices. different ways of breathing, eating, working, exercising, recreating, sleeping, thinking, reading, attaining goals, and relating to others all affect our brain chemistry. while indeed there are psychoses and clinical depressions that need to be controlled or diminished bymedications, the vast majority of people who depend onmood-enhancing europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 marinoff & popescu 423 http://www.loumarinoff.com/books_pnp.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ formulations have abdicated their sovereignty over their own mental states. lasting happiness and enduring joie de vivre are among the outcomes of a healthy philosophy of life, and correspondingly healthy lifestyle. beatrice popescu: in the search of solutions for contemporary man’s problems, it is obvious we cannot rely exclusively on certain “recipes”, pre-packed answers, but more on self-exploration and self-defining efforts, leading to a profound individual construction of the meaning of life. and if the meaning is so intrinsically individual, how is it still possible to communicate to others, how can we still be a “community”? to what extent the individualized meaning of life may be an alienating factor in today’s society? lou marinoff:while it may be perfectly obvious to you that a formulaic “paint-by-numbers”modus vivendi cannot be relied on to solve contemporary human problems, it may be less obvious to some of our readers that such approaches are in fact exacerbating the problems themselves, rather than solving them. during the second half of the 20th century, it became clear that nietzsche’s “will to power,” freud’s “will to pleasure,” and riviere’s “will to immortality” were not sufficient to account for relentless human purposiveness, and to explicate mechanisms of response to being thwarted. so frankl introduced “will to meaning” as another prime motivating factor. beyond this, nichiren buddhists have introduced “will to be valued,” while philosophical counselors have discovered that “will to be understood without being judged (or diagnosed)” is yet another empirically observable factor. the individual has been all-but-obliterated, not only by dehumanizing totalitarian governments (political and theocratic alike), but also by the “velvet totalitarianism” of bureaucratic nanny-states, and by the debased technocracies that have colonized education and health care. when people encounter nothing but computer-automated telephone queues or indifferent and incompetent bureaucrats on a daily basis, and when every encounter is quantified according to pre-determined data-sets, and when one’s humanity is deemed irrelevant by the system, the meaning of life itself is mocked. we inhabit a brave new world, in which too many people feel like the last human in a society of robots. nothing can be more alienating than to have one’s individuality and humanity disregarded. beatrice popescu: talking of communities, the idea of running a philosophical café in new york, which i believe you are still very fond of, made you in time more aware of the problems of humans? i see it as a wonderful opportunity to indulge in other’s people minds and extract the essence. lou marinoff: yes, running a café-philo in new york was a great experience. i did it monthly, at a barnes & noble bookstore in chelsea, for about seven years. it taught me a lot about human problems, and never failed to surprise me. most importantly, it convinced me of the wholesale need to open up a creative and reflective public space, wherein people can air their views and engage in debate with enthusiasm and without fear. the most rewarding aspect was addressing tough issues openly and honestly, without suppression from political correctness, and absent the spin-doctoring of agenda-driven mainstream media. beatrice popescu: i was equally surprised and amused to see that at a recent international conference on philosophical counseling in south korea you started your presentation on “well-being in an age of culturally induced illness” with an ironic and iconic outlook on mcdonalds dubbed “hamburger university”. could you develop the subject a little for our readers? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 café philosophique with lou marinoff 424 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lou marinoff: i can certainly develop this subject. firstly, the photo in question is a real picture, which i personally took on the campus of “hamburger university.” only in the usa can such pretentiously self-mocking vulgarity be elevated to commercial seriousness. this “university” campus, located in the outskirts of chicago, is none other than a mcdonalds think-tank. i tried to audit some of its “courses,” but was denied entry. i was free to wander around the grounds, and at liberty to pay to stay in the hotel that sits on the campus. this hotel serves very healthy food – e.g. salad bars and mediterranean-style meals – and there is no mcdonald’s restaurant (i.e. neither big macs nor other fast food) anywhere on the site. so while the mission of “hamburger university” may well be to help sell another 99 billion big macs, its faculty evidently has no intention of consuming such toxic waste themselves. it’s an exercise in flagrant hypocrisy, among other things. at the same time, obesity is now america’s #1 health problem, and the fast-food industry is the problem’s biggest instigator. moreover, juvenile obesity is becoming widespread in all westernized nations, precisely because of appalling nutritional habits foisted upon children by this industry. juvenile obesity is a crime against humanity, perpetrated by fast-food and junk-food manufacturers, whose accomplices are none other than parents, schools, and governments. now step back and consider that this so-called “epidemic” of obesity is not caused by any viral or bacterial agent. your children do not “catch” obesity from their obese playmates, as they may well “catch” flu or other biologicallybased illnesses. the epidemic of obesity is an outcome of atrocious eating habits, reinforced by sedentary lifestyles, and a congeries of other cultural factors. now step back again, and realize that obesity is only one among many culturally-induced epidemics. beatrice popescu: have you ever been tempted to switch from academia to the corporate world in an engaged and engaging manner, not only as a public speaker on certain events? what stopped you, if it did? lou marinoff:what an interesting question. i have not yet been tempted to switch, but that’s only because of an absence of sufficiently tempting offers. and any temptation factor would have to be correspondingly strong to impel me to make such a change. one of the most rewarding aspects of academic life is its comparatively generous allotment of time to reflective and creative pursuits. one is paid (albeit modestly) to think, to read, and to write. for a philosopher, that’s a wonderful way to earn one’s keep. the corporate world’s rewards are far richer materially, but at the inevitable cost of time. i would rather have less income and more time to pursue my interests, rather than more income and less time, unless the two could somehow be combined. for many years, ibm had a resident “fellows” program, where a few bright people were paid simply to think about matters of interest to them, under ibm’s roof. that kind of investment is bound to pay off sooner or later. so nothing has yet “stopped” me from switching to the private sector, except for the absence, to date, of an offer i couldn’t refuse. beatrice popescu: having noticed your talent as classical guitar player, especially bach (my favorite classical composer) and your subtle taste for nature photography, i am amazed to witness so many talents in one individual reminding me of a renaissance man. how do you manage to share yourself between so many passions, what is your relationship with the ruthless god “time”? lou marinoff: thanks for your appreciation. “renaissance man” would be a nice epitaph, but first i need to complete few more projects. please don't rush me! i manage to share myself among so many passions because i am driven by one big passion: to live each interval of time (minute, hour, year, lifetime) to the fullest possible europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 marinoff & popescu 425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extent. or maybe i am excessively passionate? is that in the dsm-v? but passion alone is not enough; it must also be sublimated into creative art. sometimes i can slow time down, and even stop it. but as soon as one expresses the thought "time has stopped," it starts right up again. on a few occasions i have even turned back the clock; that is, time sent me gifts, from the past into the present. but the future always turned out the same again, except each time it arrived much quicker. my relationship with this ruthless god must be as rueful as possible. as our lives spiral ever-deeper into time’s vortex, accelerating as we swirl towards the singularity at the center of our time, we must realize this: the past exists in time, but not in our present time. the future also exists in time, but likewise not in our present time. only this moment exists in our present time; that is all there is. death itself is of no-moment. it is not something that happens in any moment of life, except the last one. why, then, be concerned with it? when i visited heliopolis, an egyptian magus asked me, “are you master of your time?” “you already know the answer”, i replied. “when we create something...” he completed my thought: “it creates us”. so just in case time is actually a ruthless goddess, then consecrating every moment to creativity might tempt her to grant even more moments, provided of course that she likes the art. beatrice popescu: at the end of our talk, professor lou marinoff, i just want to tell you that i am looking forward to reading your latest book, the inner philosopher, written in collaboration with daisaku ikeda. i am deeply honored you offered me the opportunity to interview you, it has been a meaningful experience. lou marinoff: your thoughtful questions have been stimulating and refreshing. i greatly appreciate your engagement, and hope that you and your readers have enjoyed these responses. many thanks too for your interest in the inner philosopher. i look forward to reading your review. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 419–426 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.665 café philosophique with lou marinoff 426 http://www.ikedacenter.org/books-publications/book-list/inner-philosopher http://www.ikedacenter.org/books-publications/book-list/inner-philosopher http://ejop.psychopen.eu/article/view/666 http://www.psychopen.eu/ café philosophique with lou marinoff neuroticism as a moderator of direct and mediated relationships between introversion-extraversion and well-being research reports neuroticism as a moderator of direct and mediated relationships between introversion-extraversion and well-being daniela fadda*a, l. francesca scalasa [a] department of education, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. abstract among personality traits, extraversion has received major theoretical and empirical attention as predictor of subjective well-being (swb), whereas the role of emotional stability-neuroticism has been partially neglected. the present study aims to study the role of neuroticism in the relationship between introversion-extraversion and swb. in particular, we explored if the trait of neuroticism moderates the relationships between introversion-extraversion and swb dimensions (satisfaction with life, mastery, vigour, social cheerfulness), directly and by mediation of self-esteem. indeed, previous studies have suggested that self-esteem is positively associated with high extraversion and low neuroticism and that it positively mediates the relationship between swb and personality traits in adolescents. for this purpose, a sample of high school students (n = 1173) completed the oxford happiness inventory, the rosenberg self-esteem scale and the big five questionnaire. in a latent variable model, we examined the interaction effects (direct and indirect) of extraversion and neuroticism on swb dimensions. our results showed that the nature of differences between introverts and extraverts on swb could be related to the level of neuroticism in relation to satisfaction with life. moreover, self-esteem mediated the relationship between personality traits and swb. in particular, mediated moderation effect analysis showed that self-esteem mediates completely the relationship between the interaction term (extraversion x neuroticism) and mastery, and partially the relationship with satisfaction with life. moreover, moderated mediation effect analysis showed that high levels of neuroticism moderate the effect of extraversion on satisfaction with life and mastery through the mediation of self-esteem. in conclusion, our results suggest that although extraversion has a cardinal role on swb dimensions related to vigour and social cheerfulness, neuroticism and the mediating role of self-esteem should more properly considered in relation to satisfaction with life and mastery. keywords: subjective well-being, self-esteem, extraversion, neuroticism, adolescence europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 received: 2015-04-17. accepted: 2015-09-09. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada *corresponding author at: department of education, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari. via is mirrionis 1, 09123 cagliari, italy. e-mail: daniela.fadda@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. subjective well-being (swb) is a broad term that encompasses the various ways people evaluate their lives. from a holistic perspective, swb is characterized by affective and cognitive factors including concepts such as life satisfaction, satisfaction with domains such as work and health, pleasant emotions, low levels of unpleasant emotions, feelings of fulfilment and meaning (e.g., pavot & diener, 2008). according with seligman (2002, 2011) swb is a multifaceted construct that cannot be reduced to overly simplistic ideas. a multidimensional perspective seems to be appropriate in the study of swb across the lifespan, and particularly in adolescence (e.g., kirschman, johnson, bender, & roberts, 2009; lerner, 2009). among the various contributions to the holistic perspective on swb in adolescence, this study takes into account the multidimensional model of argyle et al. (argyle, 2001; argyle, martin, & crossland, 1989). the authors have extended their initial perspective europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ on happiness (composed of cognitive and affective components), developing a multidimensional conception of swb that includes several elements related to self-fulfilment, optimism, sense of control, positive relations with others, purpose in life, personal growth and physical health. transitioning from argyle's perspective, we can consider five dimensions of swb. satisfaction with life is an important factor in the prevention of psychopathology (huebner, suldo, smith, & mcknight, 2004) and it mediates the impact of stressful life events and parenting behavior on adolescent risk behavior (mcknight, huebner, & suldo, 2002). mastery included capacities of self-fulfillment that are increasingly relevant during adolescence because they are associated with the development and acquisition of behavioral and emotional autonomy (steinberg & silverberg, 1986). vigour can be defined as the energy required to engage in activities and achievements (mahon & yarcheski, 2002). social interest and social cheerfulness relate to interest in other individuals and fun in social groups are relevant in the promotion of social development (bonaiuto, perucchini, & pierro, 1997; meeus, 1994). extraversion and swb extraversion is often considered the personality trait most relevant to the study of swb (e.g. diener, suh, lucas, & smith, 1999). eysenck (1983) defined happiness as stable extraversion, and argued that it appears to be related to easy sociability and a predisposition to enjoyable interactions with other people. extraversion predisposed young people to have favorable life events, especially in the domains of friendship. these in turn led to a high level of positive swb and to increments in extraversion (headey, glowacki, holmstrom, & wearing, 1985; pavot, diener, & fujita, 1990; watson, clark, mcintyre, & hamaker, 1992). costa and mccrae (1980) supported the long-term effect of extraversion on swb in an examination of the relationship between personality measures and levels of swb obtained ten years later. furthermore, costa, mccrae, and norris (1981) found this relationship so robust that extraversion could predict swb over a 17-year period. despite the relationship between extraversion and swb, hills and argyle (2001a) found that a substantial minority of subjects can be classified as “happy introverts”. these individuals prefer solitude, intimate relations and involvement in introspective activities. to explain this finding, the authors suggested that the extraversion trait affects swb by a specific mechanism that reflects the ways individuals choose to attain happiness. introverts may not derive much satisfaction from gregarious situations, but they could be no less open to other kinds of happiness. introverts may establish individual affiliative relationships with a few special friends, they may have highly satisfying leisure activities and they may also enjoy an intense inner life, based on intellectual, musical or religious activities, which give them much to think about without the need to rely on other people (storr, 1988). eysenck (1967) states that the degree of introversion-extraversion is determined by the level of activity in the ascending reticular activating system (aras). the extravert person is postulated to have a low level of arousal, so he/she seeks out more intense stimuli; introverts are characterized by high levels of activity and so will find their optimal level of arousal at a much lower level of stimulation. moreover, in hills and argyle’s (2001a) study, the variables more strongly associated with happiness, life regard and self-esteem, do not have a dominant social connotation. both introverts and extraverts can achieve high level of happiness, and comparisons between the portioned groups of happy extraverts and introverts reveal no significant differences in self-esteem. the authors concluded: “the evidence that low introversion-extraversion scores are not inimical of happiness is unequivocal. this suggests that introversion-extraversion may be more of an instrumental variable which reflects rather than determines how individuals choose to attain life satisfaction and happiness” (hills & argyle, 2001a, p. 607). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 50 http://www.psychopen.eu/ neuroticism as moderator of the relationship between extraversion and swb according to eysenck’s theory of the biological bases of personality traits (1967), the introversion-extraversion dimension can be dichotomized in four groups based on neuroticism predisposition: stable extraverts (low arousal), unstable/neurotic extraverts, stable introverts (both moderate arousal), and unstable/neurotic introverts (high arousal). stable extraverts are described as playful, easygoing, carefree, sociable and contented. unstable extraverts are considered quickly aroused, egocentric, hot headed and histrionic. stable introverts are calm, reasonable, controlled ad persistent. unstable introverts are regarded as anxious, serious, worried, suspicious and thoughtful (eysenck, 1967). considered their arousal level, unstable introverts would be expected to avoid excessive external stimulation. whereas stable extraverts would be expected to actively pursuit external stimulation. in a sample of preadolescents, young and bradley (1998) found that the unstable introverts regarded themselves as less happy and popular than other subjects. the authors suggested that it is not simply introversion that determines negative social consequences, neuroticism also needs to be considered. therefore, unstable introverts may be more likely to suffer from maladjustment than stable introverts. in general, individuals higher in neuroticism are more unhappy than those lower in neuroticism (e.g., costa & mccrae, 1980; deneve & cooper, 1998; diener, oishi, & lucas, 2003; diener, suh, lucas, & smith, 1999; steel, schmidt, & shultz, 2008). in a meta-analysis of the relationships between 137 distinct personality constructs and swb, deneve and cooper (1998) found that emotional stability was the strongest predictor of swb. moreover, hills and argyle (2001a, 2001b) suggested that emotional stability might be more important to individual swb than extraversion and its component of sociability. studies in which both extraversion and neuroticism are included as independent variables reveal that the effect of neuroticism on swb normally outweighs the effect of extraversion (brebner, donaldson, kirby, & ward, 1995; david, green, martin, & suls, 1997; deneve & cooper, 1998; pavot, fujita, & diener, 1997; ryan & frederick, 1997). vittersø (2001) found in a sample of adolescents that, when controlled for emotional stability, the effect of extraversion is attenuated or disappears altogether (see also: hotard, mcfatter, mcwhirter, & stegall, 1989; pavot et al., 1997). moreover, vittersø and nilsen (2002) found that emotional stability is a predictor of swb more important than introversion-extraversion; indeed, emotional stability explains eight times as much of the swb variance as does extraversion. self-esteem as mediator of the relationship between swb and personality traits high extraversion and low neuroticism have been positively associated with self-esteem in adult and adolescent samples (erdle, gosling, & potter, 2009; robins, tracy, trzesniewski, potter, & gosling, 2001), as well as in cross-cultural studies (fickova, 1999). for example, erol and orth (2011) found that during adolescence and early adulthood “at each age, emotionally stable, extraverted, and conscientious individuals experienced higher selfesteem than emotionally unstable, introverted, and less conscientious individuals did” (erol & orth, 2011, p. 7). self-esteem is one of the strongest predictors of swb and psycho-social adaptation (diener, 1984; neto, 2001; rosenberg, 1965). poor self-esteem has been associated with indices of poor adjustment (bosacki, dane, marini, & youth lifestyle choices community university research alliance, 2007), whereas high self-esteem has been associated with swb (deneve & cooper, 1998; diener, 1984; rosenberg, schooler, schoenbach, & rosenberg, 1995), despite differences in culture and/or nationality (diener & diener, 1995). studies that have examined the relationship between self-esteem and swb in adolescence have identified patterns similar to adults, with a strong association between the two variables (cheng & furnham, 2004). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 51 http://www.psychopen.eu/ previous studies have suggested that self-esteem positively mediates the relationship between swb and personality traits in adolescents. for example, furnham and cheng (2000) using path models, found that extraversion exhibited direct and indirect predictive power, whereas neuroticism predicted swb only through the mediation of self-esteem. subsequently, cheng and furnham (2003) found that only self-esteem had direct predictive power on the swb total score. moreover, because extraverts (compared with introverts) tended to have higher self-esteem, and individuals with high levels of neuroticism (compared with stable individuals) tended to have lower self-esteem, the authors suggested that extraversion and neuroticism predicted swb through self-esteem. support to the mediating role of self-esteem derives from a recent study (fadda, scalas, & meleddu, 2015) based on measured variables (i.e., scale scores) confirming that self-esteem is not only a direct predictor of swb dimensions, but also a crucial mediator of the relationship between personality traits and swb. fadda et al. (2015) found that self-esteem positively influenced several swb dimensions (in particular the sense of mastery and self-fulfillment, but also satisfaction with life, vigour and social cheerfulness) and that both extraversion and neuroticism affect all swb dimensions directly and with exception of social interest, through the mediation of self-esteem. interactional model of personality it should be noted that, although the relationships between self-esteem, extraversion, neuroticism and swb are powerful, at the moment it is still not possible to clearly provide the direction of causality (diener et al., 1999; mcniel & fleeson, 2006). within this context, it appears useful to consider the interactional models of personality (endler & magnusson, 1976; mischel & shoda, 1999), which focuses on the circular process that takes place in person-situation interaction. according to these models, the individual perception of swb will be determined by a complex pattern of relations between cognitive and affective units that will be activated by particular configurations of features present in situations. the stable personality structure of the individual determines the relationships between the types of situations encountered and the cognitive, affective and behavioral responses (shoda & mischel, 2000). although interactional models of personality are recursive and would require a longitudinal study that can follow their development over time, in the present investigation we were confined to a static correlational model. the examination of this model is possible through the use of sem able to define the structure of the complex network of direct and indirect links between the variables. present study the present study aims to study the role of neuroticism in the relationship between introversion-extraversion and dimensions of swb (satisfaction with life, mastery and self-fulfillment, vigour and social cheerfulness). our literature review (hills & argyle, 2001a, 2001b; vittersø, 2001; young & bradley, 1998) showed that neuroticism is implied in individual swb determination, and suggested that its role might be more critical than introversion-extraversion, particularly in young people. therefore, the role of neuroticism needs to be further explored. in particular, we explored if the trait of neuroticism moderates the relationships between introversion-extraversion and dimensions of swb, directly and by mediation of self-esteem. previous studies (cheng & furnham, 2003; fadda et al., 2015; furnham &cheng, 2000), supported the mediating role of self-esteem in adolescents; however, these study were confined to observed variables, which do not take into account measurement error. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 52 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study addresses limitations from previous studies considering the interconnections between personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism and their interaction), self-esteem, and swb within a single latent model. we hypothesize (hypothesis a) that the trait of neuroticism moderates the relationships between introversion-extraversion and swb. in particular, moving from eysenck’s (1967) theory of cortical arousal, we expect that the relations of introversion-extraversion with swb will be different in individuals characterized by different levels of neuroticism. specifically, we expect a1) that between extraverts, unstable individuals will show lower levels of swb than stable extraverts and more similar to stable introverts (eysenck, 1967). moreover, we expect a2) that unstable introverts will show the lowest levels of swb (hills & argyle, 2001a, 2001b; young & bradley, 1998). finally, we expect (hypothesis b) that the neuroticism of unstable introverts and extraverts might negatively impact self-esteem, which in turn will decrease swb (erol & orth, 2011). methods participants the present study investigates swb in adolescence. since in italy attending high school is compulsory for adolescents, at least up to the age of 16, high school was an ideal context for questionnaires administration. thus, for the recruitment of participants to the study and in order to have a representative sample of high-school italian students, we contacted 20 high-schools from different fields of study (e.g., scientific, humanistic, technical). the convenience sample, balanced for gender, consists of 1173 adolescents (580 males and 593 females) aged between 14 and 20 years (m = 16.78; sd = 1.70). consistent with the general italian school population, the sample was homogeneous in terms of race (caucasian) and cultural background (all students spoke italian as their native language). measures to measure swb we used the revised oxford happiness inventory (ohi, argyle et al., 1989; italian version: meleddu, guicciardi, scalas, & fadda, 2012). the ohi consists of 29 items on a 4-point response scale. each item invites the respondent to choose one of four sentences formulated to reflect incremental statements. for example: 1 = i do not feel happy; 2 = i feel fairly happy; 3 = i am very happy; 4 = i am incredibly happy. using exploratory structural equation modelling (esem; asparouhov & muthén, 2009; marsh et al., 2009), meleddu et al. (2012) validated the italian version of ohi in a sample of adolescents. a five-factor structure (satisfaction with life, mastery, vigour, social interest and social cheerfulness) with strong measurement invariance over gender was found and adequate internal consistency for most of the scales (total scale, α = .90; satisfaction with life, α = .81; mastery, α = .80; social cheerfulness, α = .74; vigour, α = .67; social interest, α = .65) could be demonstrated. in the present sample, cronbach’s alpha was good for satisfaction with life (6 items; α = .77), mastery (10 items; α = .75) and social cheerfulness (5 items; α = .74), sufficient for vigour (5 items; α = .63) and poor for social interest (2 items; α = .57). to assess internal consistency, we used also the omega coefficient, which has been shown to be a more sensible index in comparison to cronbach’s alpha (e.g., graham, 2006; zinbarg, revelle, & yovel, 2007; zinbarg, revelle, yovel, & li, 2005). omega coefficient was good for: satisfaction with life (ω = .98), mastery (ω = .92), vigour (ω = .93), social cheerfulness (ω = .97), and sufficient for social interest (ω = .75). given the psychometric limits of the scale, and a lack of an effect of self-esteem on social interest in previous studies (fadda et al., 2015; meleddu et al., 2012), we will not take into account this variable in the present investigation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 53 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to measure self-esteem we used the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rse, rosenberg, 1965; italian version: prezza, trombaccia, & armento, 1997). rse is composed of 10 items with a 4-point likert (from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = completely agree) response scale. the italian version showed adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability values, as well as good construct validity and a factorial structure, similar to that found in other countries (prezza et al., 1997). in the present sample, internal consistency was α = .83. to measure personality traits we administered the extraversion and neuroticism scales of a italian questionnaire for the measurement of the big five factor model (big five questionnaire, bfq; caprara, barbaranelli, & borgogni, 1993), with a 5-point response format (from 1 = absolutely false to 5 = absolutely true). the bfq (that included also agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience scales) showed good factorial structure and adequate internal consistency. in the present sample, we found adequate internal consistency for both scales (α = .74 for extraversion and α = .84 for neuroticism). procedure for every school, we preliminarily obtained informed consent from parents using an opt-out procedure, so that only parents not interested in the study would have to return back the signed form. participants anonymously completed the questionnaires within a larger battery during their regular school time. it took about 20 minutes to complete the questionnaires considered in the present study. the guarantee of confidentiality was stressed and only 12 students decided not to participate in the study. because self-report measures may be subject to distortions, and in particular, demand characteristics can influence reports (nichols & maner, 2008; orne, 1962), the questionnaires were administered in similar conditions (in class context during school hours) by the same researcher, instructed to provide the same information (e.g., self-presentation, instructions, overall goals of the study, anonymity and other ethical issues) to all participants. analyses in order to proceed with the statistical analyses all the variables were standardized. hypotheses testing was carried out with structural equation models (sem; bollen, 1989) using the mplus program (5.2. version). self-esteem was defined by a trait substantial factor, along with two method factors (marsh, scalas, & nagengast, 2010; quilty, oakman, & risko, 2006). in line with the italian validation (caprara et al., 1993), the traits of extraversion and neuroticism were assessed through two latent constructs with two indicators each (respectively: dynamism and dominance; lack of emotional control and lack of impulse control). for swb, in line with the italian validation of the ohi (meleddu et al., 2012), we used an esem approach with a four-factor structure (satisfaction with life, mastery, vigour, and social cheerfulness). to evaluate results, several fit indices were taken into account: chi-square, comparative fit index (cfi), tucker–lewis index (tli), root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea). cfi and tli vary from 0 to 1, with values close to 1 indicating a better fit. for rmsea, values lower than .06 indicate a potentially better fit (hu & bentler, 1999), although no golden rules have been established (chen, curran, bollen, kirby, & paxton, 2008; marsh, hau, & wen, 2004). our latent model (see figure 1) is characterized by correlations between the exogenous variables, introversionextraversion and emotional stability-neuroticism; direct effects of personality traits and self-esteem on swb dimensions, and indirect effects of traits on swb mediated by self-esteem. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 54 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. conceptual path diagram. note. the arrows indicate the causal direction of influences. to test the moderating effects of emotional stability-neuroticism, we have included in the model a latent interaction term between extraversion and neuroticism, using the product of indicators method (marsh, wen, & hau, 2004). moreover, to better understand the mediating role of self-esteem, based on our results, we performed post hoc tests of mediated moderation (e.g., baron & kenny, 1986) and moderated mediation (cheung & lau, 2015). it is not uncommon for hypotheses about moderation and mediation relationships to occur in the same context. in the models in which interaction effects are mediated, the effect is termed mediated moderation (baron & kenny, 1986). baron and kenny (1986) provided indications to compute how much of the total effect of the moderator is due to the mediator. complete mediation is the case in which the predictor (the interaction term in our models) no longer affects the outcome variable (e.g. mastery) after the mediator (self-esteem) has been controlled. partial mediation is the case in which the path from the predictor to the outcome is reduced in absolute size but is still different from zero when the mediator is introduced. when an indirect effect is moderated by at least one moderator variable, the effect is termed moderated mediation (james & brett, 1984). in moderated mediation models, researchers investigate whether the strength of an indirect effect depends on the value of the moderator, resulting in a conditional indirect effect (preacher, rucker, & hayes, 2007). the index of moderated mediation is the change of the indirect effect of the predictor (e.g. extraversion) on the outcome variable (e.g. satisfaction with life and mastery) through the mediator (self-esteem) for a unit change in the moderator (neuroticism). it should be noted that the indirect effects at different levels of the modereurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 55 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ator are statistically and significantly different when the confidence interval of the moderated mediation index does not include zero (cheung & lau, 2015). cheung and lau (2015) recommend to use bootstrapping in testing moderated mediation effects in latent interaction models. with bootstrapping, the sampling distribution of the moderated mediation effect is first estimated non-parametrically, then the information from the bootstrap sampling distribution is used to construct a confidence interval for the moderated mediation effect (preacher et al., 2007). because this analysis is still not available for esem, for these tests we used as outcome variables the corresponding factors specified with cfa. results measurement model as a preliminary test, we examined themeasurement model based on correlated latent variables with no structural regression paths nor the interaction variable. considering the complexity of the model, it showed an adequate fit to the data (χ2 = 1532.87; df = 642; p < .01; cfi = .92; tli = .91; rmsea = .034). in table 1, we report the correlations among the variablesi. table 1 correlations between the variables in the measurement model. 654321variable —1. extraversion —2. neuroticism .29**—3. self-esteem .52**-.61** —4. satisfaction with life .57**.39**-.40** —5. mastery .50**.79**.56**-.51** —6. vigour .40**.37**.32**.18-.53** 7. social cheerfulness .31**.45**.46**.42**.25**-.60** **p < .01. structural model to test our hypotheses, we examined a model including all the latent constructs, as well as the latent-variable interaction between extraversion and neuroticism, and the structural paths among the variables (see figure 1). despite its complexity, the model showed adequate fit indices (χ2 = 1610.95; df = 710; p < .01; cfi = .92; tli = .90; rmsea = .033). direct effects on swb regarding direct influences of traits on swb dimensions, main effects were in line with previous studies (see table 2). extraversion promoted vigour and social cheerfulness; neuroticism negatively influenced mastery. moreover, self-esteem positively influenced satisfaction with life and mastery. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 56 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 direct and indirect effects on swb dimensions. social cheerfulnessvigourmasterysatisfaction with lifevariable direct effects extraversion .56**.62**.12.08 neuroticism .09-.05-.21**-.04interaction .09.09.01-.33**self-esteem .00.13-.62**.56** indirect effects mediated by self-esteem extraversion .00.06-.29**.27** neuroticism .00.06.27**-.24**interaction .00.03-.13*>.11* *p < .05. **p < .01. concerning hypothesis a, the interaction between extraversion and neuroticism was statistically significant for satisfaction with life. the graph reported in figure 2a shows that the level of neuroticism influences both introverts and extraverts. consistent with our hypothesis a1, stable extraverts had a better satisfaction with life than unstable extraverts; and unstable extraverts showed a pattern of satisfaction with life similar to stable introverts (both groups are characterized by moderate arousal). differently from hypothesis a2, unstable introverts showed high levels of satisfaction with life. figure 2. two-way interaction effects. note. extraversion range from 1.09 to 4.67 (m = 3.29; sd = .46); neuroticism range from 1.67 to 4.83 (m = 3.20; sd = .56). effects on self-esteem the results showed that extraversion (β = .48; se = .049), neuroticism (β = -.43; se = .051) and their interaction (β = .29; se = .084) influence self-esteem. figure 2b shows that for low levels of neuroticism, there are no differences between extraverts and introverts. for high levels of neuroticism, extraverts seem to be more comfortable with themselves than introverts. indirect effects mediate by self-esteem as expected (hypothesis b), the latent interaction variable positively influenced satisfaction with life and mastery by an increase in self-esteem (see table 2). self-esteemmediated also the relationship between personality traits europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 57 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and swb. in particular, extraversion (positively) and neuroticism (negatively) affected satisfaction with life and mastery through the mediation of self-esteem. mediated moderation effect to study the mediated moderation effect we examined if self-esteem affects the outcome variables testing a model with satisfaction with life and mastery as criterion variables and the interaction term and self-esteem as predictors (baron & kenny, 1986). results showed that self-esteem affects satisfaction with life (β = .56, p < .01) and mastery (β = .62, p < .01). results showed that self-esteem completely mediates the relationship between the interaction term and mastery (i.e., the effect of the interaction term on mastery after controlling for self-esteem is zero), and partially mediates the relationship between the interaction term and satisfaction with life (the effect of the interaction term on satisfaction with life after controlling for self-esteem is different from zero: β = -.23, p < .01). moderated mediation effect in line with suggestions provided by cheung and lau (2015) and hayes (2015), we estimated the moderated mediation effect of extraversion on satisfaction with life and mastery at various levels of the moderator (neuroticism) to probe the moderated mediation effect. the bootstrap estimated index of moderated mediation was significant for satisfaction with life (.229, se = .052, 95% bootstrap ci [.156, .359]) and mastery (.185, se = .034, 95% bootstrap ci [.125, .261]). the results of the mediating effects at various levels of the moderator showed that when neuroticism was at one standard deviation above the mean, the mediating effect of extraversion on swb dimensions through self-esteemwas significant and positive (satisfaction with life, .348, se = .118, 95% bootstrap ci [.211, .699]), (mastery, .281, se = .064, 95% bootstrap ci [.191, .472]). when neuroticism was at one standard deviation below the mean, the mediating effect was not significant. these results imply that neuroticism may influence the mediating effect of extraversion on satisfaction with life and mastery through self-esteem only when neuroticism is high. discussion and conclusion aim of the present study was to explore the moderating role of neuroticism in the relationship between introversionextraversion and swb with and without the possible mediation of self-esteem. although the relationship between swb and extraversion, has often been studied in literature, few studies have taken into account the moderating role of neuroticism. literature suggested that neuroticism might be more important to individual swb than extraversion and its component of sociability (deneve & cooper, 1998; hills & argyle, 2001a, 2001b). moreover, young and bradley (1998) found that unstable introverts may be more likely to suffer from maladjustment than stable introverts. we have better examined these aspects using a latent framework. our model is characterized by direct effects of personality traits and self-esteem on swb dimensions and indirect effects of traits on swb mediated by selfesteem; moreover, we specifically included in the model a latent interaction term between extraversion and neuroticism. our results showed that the nature of differences between introverts and extraverts on swb could be related to the trait of neuroticism in relation to satisfaction with life. stable extravert individuals appear to be more satisfied europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 58 http://www.psychopen.eu/ than the other individuals; this might be the result of some characteristics of the stable extravert, who is a sociable and carefree person. unstable introvert individuals showed an intermediate level of satisfaction; whereas the unstable extraverts, often isolated from peers due their aggressive behaviour, showed the lowest level of satisfaction. finally, it should also be noted that, unstable extraverts showed pattern of satisfaction similar to stable introverts. this result is consistent with eysenck’s theory of the biological bases of personality traits (1967). indeed, moderate levels of cortical arousal lead both groups to experience similar levels of satisfaction. in accordance with previous studies where self-esteem has been reported to be one of the strongest predictors of swb (e.g., cheng & furnham, 2003; neto, 2001), our results showed that self-esteem had a positive influence on satisfaction in life and on the overall sense of mastery, which includes capacities that concur with self-fulfilment, such as life control, making decisions easily, organizing time, and getting started. concerning the effects of the interaction term (extraversion x neuroticism) on self-esteem, our results showed that for low levels of neuroticism, there are no differences between extraverts and introverts. in general, stable individuals seem to be comfortable with themselves. this effect changes for high levels of neuroticism. in particular, among introverts, self-esteem is influenced by the level of neuroticism. the stable introverts showed a level of self-esteem higher than the unstable introverts. this is not unexpected considering that the stable introvert is a calm and thoughtful individual, who prefers solitude, intimate relations and feels good about himself when is involved in introspective activities; whereas the unstable introvert has melancholic qualities such as pessimism, anxiety and moody. on the contrary, for individuals with a high level of extraversion, both, stable and unstable extraverts seem to be comfortable with themselves. in line with suggestions from previous studies on adolescence samples (e.g., fadda et al., 2015; furnham & cheng, 2000), the results of our study support the idea that self-esteem is not only a direct predictor of swb dimensions related to satisfaction with life and mastery, but also a crucial mediator for traits of personality. in the present study, we found that self-esteem completely mediates the relationship between the interaction term and mastery, whereas the relationship between the interaction term and satisfaction with life is only partially mediated by self-esteem. partial mediation is the case in which the path from the predictors to the outcome is reduced in absolute size but is still different from zero when the mediator is introduced (baron & kenny, 1986). results of moderated mediation effect analysis showed that, consistent with our second hypothesis, a high level of neuroticism moderates the effect of extraversion on satisfaction with life and mastery through the mediation of self-esteem. in general, for unstable introverts and extraverts, being comfortable with themselves seem to positively affect swb. the importance of considering the mediation of self-esteem emerged also when we considered separately the traits of extraversion and neuroticism. indeed, extraversion showed direct influences on dimensions related to energy and vigour required to engage in activities, as well as achievements and fun in social group activities, but not on satisfaction with life and mastery. extraversion appears to promote these swb dimensions, via an increment of self-esteem. thus, feeling good about themselves more strongly affects the sense of satisfaction and of mastery, so that adolescents feel in control of the situations; and vice versa if they feel bad about themselves this would greatly detriment their sense of satisfaction andmastery. in a similar way, neuroticism negatively affects self-esteem, which, in turn, decreases the swb dimensions of satisfaction with life andmastery. so feeling bad about themselves would greatly detriment adolescent’s sense of swb. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 59 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one explanation of the positive association between self-esteem and extraversion is that, at least in western cultures, extraverted tendencies are encouraged and valued more than introverted tendencies (francis & james, 1996). other authors have argued that extraversion develops very early and could subsequently contribute to the evolution of other personality-based tendencies (e.g., seeking social support, positive affect), which could serve as potential mediators of the relationship between extraversion and self-esteem (swickert, hittner, kitos, & coxfuenzalida, 2004). finally, in the present study, we took into account several swb dimensions (satisfaction with life, mastery, vigour, social cheerfulness). indeed, swb is a multifaceted construct, and a multidimensional perspective seems to be appropriate in the study of swb in adolescence. according to lifespan studies, people’s conceptions of well-being, change with age (ryff, 1989; ryff & singer, 2008). during adolescence, swb appears to be frequently centered around important personal and social factors, which favour the attainment of the basic goal of autonomy (ryff & singer, 1998, 2000). study limitations even though our results await to be further replicated in samples of different ages and culture, they provide interesting insights in the relation between personality traits, self-esteem and swb. overall, our hypothesis concerning the moderating role of neuroticism was not confirmed for all dimensions. although extraversion showed a direct effect on vigor and social cheerfulness, the interaction with neuroticism lead a direct effect only on satisfaction with life. a possible explanation might be that the dimensions of swb concerning social relations and energy to engage activities, strongly characterize extraverts and thus are not affected by levels of neuroticism. as for the indirect effects, they concern only the two dimensions of swb directly affected by self-esteem. indeed, the interaction term affected, through the mediation of self-esteem, satisfaction with life (partial mediation) and mastery (complete mediation). these aspects should be further examined in future studies. a relevant limitation of the present study relates to direction of causality among the examined constructs. to understand if personality causes swb or if swb causes personality it is necessary to use sophisticated methodology like longitudinal designs. in the present investigation, we were confined to a static correlational model. overall, the question of the direction of causality between personality and swb is difficult. for example, although many studies showed that self-esteem is a major predictor of swb, it is also possible that the achievement aspect of happiness could increase individuals’ self-esteem, presumably by making one feel proud of oneself (argyle & lu, 1990). from a theoretical point of view, the interactive models of personality, suggest that these relations might be recursive. nonetheless, concerning traits, some longitudinal and experimental studies (e.g., magnus, diener, fujita, & pavot, 1993; mcniel & fleeson, 2006) suggest that extraversion and neuroticismmight causally determine swb. therefore, this area of research needs to be further examined in future studies. conclusion in conclusion, the neuroticism trait should be considered, as well as extraversion, a cardinal predictor of swb. our results confirmed that the trait of neuroticism moderates the relationships between introversion-extraversion and some swb dimensions, directly and by mediation of self-esteem. therefore, future studies interested in swb personal predictors should take into account not only extraversion but also the level of neuroticism. an important consideration of the present study concerns the relationship between extraversion and satisfaction with life. being extravert in association with low neuroticism leads to higher levels of satisfaction. on the contrary, the unstable europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 60 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extraverts are not more satisfied than their introverted peers, both stable and unstable. finally, we confirm that self-esteem is a factor that can significantly help unstable extraverts and introverts to be happy. notes i) self-esteem showsmoderate correlations with extraversion and neuroticism. this could negatively affect regression estimates by creating problems of multicollinearity. this is particularly true for models including interactions (aiken & west, 1991). to minimize unnecessary multicollinearity in this study, all variables were standardized at the item level and the cross-product indicators for the latent interaction factors were all centred (aiken & west, 1991). nevertheless, since specific tests of multicollinearity are still not available within a latent framework, we also performed classical tests of multicollinearity for the manifest variables (i.e. scale scores) corresponding to the constructs used in our latent models with interaction. condition indices were all reasonably low (range: from 1.27 to 1.80); tolerance (self-esteem = .72; extraversion = .80; neuroticism = .90) and vif (self-esteem = 1.39; extraversion = 1.26; neuroticism = 1.12) values were also adequate for all variables. therefore, our models should not be affected by multicollinearity problems. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aiken, l. s., &west, s. g. 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(1998). social withdrawal: self-efficacy, happiness, and popularity in introverted and extroverted adolescents. canadian journal of school psychology, 14, 21-35. zinbarg, r. e., revelle, w., yovel, i., & li, w. (2005). cronbach's α, revelle's β, and mcdonald's ωh: their relations with each other and two alternative conceptualizations of reliability. psychometrika, 70, 123-133. doi:10.1007/s11336-003-0974-7 zinbarg, r. e., revelle, w., & yovel, i. (2007). estimating ωh for structures containing two group factors: perils and prospects. applied psychological measurement, 31, 135-157. doi:10.1177/0146621606291558 about the authors daniela fadda has achieved her degree in psychology at the university of cagliari, italy in 2005. in 2008, she took a master in "sport psychology" at the inter-university centre "mind in sport team” of rome. in june 2012 she took a ph.d. in cognitive psychology university “la sapienza” in rome. thesis title: “personal and environmental predictors of well-being in adolescence”. then she won a research fellowship from the university of cagliari. her postdoctoral interests concern: psychological well-being, personality and school adjustment. she is member of the italian association of psychology. l. francesca scalas is a researcher at the department of education, psychology, philosophy university of cagliari, italy. from 2007 to 2008 she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the department of education oxford university. she took her degree in psychology at the university of cagliari in 1999, then she won a research fellowship from the same university. in 2005, she took a phd in cognitive psychology university “la sapienza” in rome. she is member of the italian association europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 neuroticism as a moderator 66 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2f1099-0984%28200009%2f10%2914%3a5%3c407%3a%3aaid-per391%3e3.0.co%3b2-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.134.1.138 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f1130361 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0191-8869%2803%2900080-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0191-8869%2800%2900192-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023%2fa%3a1013831602280 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.63.6.1011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs11336-003-0974-7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0146621606291558 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of psychology, the european association of personality psychology, and the self-concept enhancement and learning facilitation research group. her main research interests are in personality psychology with specific reference to self-concept determination mechanisms, self-regulation processes, and determinants of psychological well-being. contact: lfscalas@unica.it psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 49–67 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.985 fadda & scalas 67 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en neuroticism as a moderator (introduction) extraversion and swb neuroticism as moderator of the relationship between extraversion and swb self-esteem as mediator of the relationship between swb and personality traits present study methods participants measures procedure analyses results measurement model structural model discussion and conclusion study limitations conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence research reports longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence claire louise fox*a, simon christopher hunterbc, siân emily jonesd [a] school of psychology, keele university, keele, united kingdom. [b] school of psychological sciences and health, university of strathclyde, glasgow, united kingdom. [c] university of western australia, perth, australia. [d] department of psychology, goldsmiths college, university of london, london, united kingdom. abstract this study assessed the concurrent and prospective associations between psychosocial adjustment and four humor styles, two of which are adaptive (affiliative, self-enhancing) and two maladaptive (aggressive, self-defeating). participants were 1,234 adolescents (52% female) aged 11-13 years, drawn from six secondary schools in england. self-reports of psychosocial adjustment (loneliness, depressive symptomatology, and self-esteem) and humor styles were collected at two time points (fall and summer). in cross-lagged panel analyses, self-defeating humor was associated with an increase in both depressive symptoms and loneliness, and with a decrease in self-esteem. in addition, depressive symptoms predicted an increase in the use of self-defeating humor over time, indicating that these may represent a problematic spiral of thoughts and behaviors. self-esteem was associated with an increase in the use of affiliative humor over the school year but not vice-versa. these results inform our understanding of the ways in which humor is associated with psychosocial adjustment in adolescence. keywords: humor, psychosocial adjustment, depression, loneliness, self-esteem, adolescence europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 received: 2015-10-26. accepted: 2015-12-19. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: school of psychology, keele university, staffs. st5 5bg, united kingdom. e-mail: c.fox@keele.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the relationship between specific humor styles and psychosocial adjustment is poorly understood, particularly amongst children and young people. it is recognised that there are fourmain types of humor style, and that these reflect the use of humor in everyday life (fox, dean, & lyford, 2013; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). self-enhancing humor is the ability to maintain a humorous perspective in the face of stress and adversity; it is closely aligned to coping humor (e.g. ‘my humorous outlook on life keepsme from getting too upset or depressed about things’). aggressive humor also enhances the self, at least in the short-term, but is done at the expense of others (e.g. ‘if someonemakes amistake i often tease them about it’). affiliative humor enhances one’s relationships with others and reduces interpersonal tensions (e.g. ‘i enjoy making people laugh’). finally, self-defeating humor, largely untapped by previous humor scales, is used to enhances one’s relationships with others, but at the expense of the self (e.g. ‘i often try to make people like or accept me more by saying something funny about my own weaknesses, blunders and faults’). although individuals who use self-defeating humor might be seen as fairly ‘witty’ and ‘amusing’ (‘class clowns’), it is thought to reflect an underlying emotional neediness and low self-esteem (martin et al., 2003). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the ability to distinguish between different components of humor has brought with it a clearer picture of the relationships between humor and adjustment. this is evidenced by the stronger correlations between humor and psychosocial adjustment which are reported when using the adult humor styles questionnaire (hsq) as compared to research using unidimensional measures (martin et al., 2003; gillham et al., 2011). martin (2007) explains that there are different ways in which positive styles of humor may lead to better mental health. firstly, humor boosts positive emotions and counteracts negative feelings of depression and anxiety. secondly, humor can be seen as a mechanism for coping with stressful events; it can provide the individual with a way of reappraising a situation, viewing it from a different and less threatening point of view. finally, adaptive styles of humor can lead to satisfying personal relationships, which are themselves linked to better mental health. among adults, affiliative and self-enhancing humor are negatively correlated with depression and loneliness, and positively correlated with self-esteem. an opposite pattern of results is found for self-defeating humor (çeçen, 2007; dyck & holtzman, 2013; fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009; hampes, 2005; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin et al., 2003; mccosker & moran, 2012; tucker et al., 2013). in addition, aggressive humor is typically not associated with psychological adjustment but is strongly negatively correlated with social adjustment measures (kuiper et al., 2004). for example, kuiper et al. (2004) found that aggressive humor was negatively correlated with perceptions of interpersonal skills that included the degree of emotional support one can provide and conflict management skills. dyck and holtzman (2013) noted that of all the four humor styles, aggressive humor has the weakest and most inconsistent findings, with many studies that have used the adult hsq failing to find significant associations between aggressive humor and measures of psychological adjustment. in adolescents, the two adaptive styles of humor were negatively correlated with depression, while there was a positive correlation between self-defeating humor and depression (erickson & feldstein, 2007). however, the administration of the adult hsq in this study found low reliability coefficients, particularly for the two maladaptive sub-scales (erickson & feldstein, 2007). the adult hsq was subsequently adapted for use with children aged 11 years and upwards (fox et al., 2013). with the child-hsq, self-defeating humor was positively correlated with depressive symptoms and negatively correlated with global self-worth (fox et al., 2013). aggressive humor was found to be associated with the measures of psychosocial adjustment but there were some important gender differences. for example, for girls, it was linked with higher depression and lower global self-worth. unfortunately, the cross-sectional nature of this study means that it is not possible to disentangle the causal direction of effects. it could be that particular styles of humor (e.g. adaptive) lead to improved psychosocial adjustment or that better adjustment promotes the greater use of adaptive styles of humor. longitudinal research is therefore needed to disentangle the causal pathways between humor and psychosocial adjustment. research with both children and adults suggests that males and females use humor in different ways. for example, males are more likely to use aggressive humor compared to females (fox et al., 2013; führ, 2002; martin et al., 2003; saraglou & scariot, 2002). thus, potential gender differences in the associations between humor and adjustment were explored. the main aim of this research was to investigate the relationships between humor styles, depressive symptoms, loneliness and self-esteem using a cross-lagged panel design. this enabled us to make stronger statements about cause and effect by predicting change across time while controlling for earlier levels of each construct. we predicted that: (a) affiliative and self-enhancing humor would be negatively associated with depressive symptoms and loneliness over time, (b) self-defeating and aggressive humor would be positively associated with depressive europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence 378 http://www.psychopen.eu/ symptoms and loneliness over time, (c) affiliative and self-enhancing humor would be positively associated with self-esteem over time, and (d) self-defeating and aggressive humor would be negatively associated with self-esteem over time. gender differences were also examined. method participants we recruited 1,234 pupils aged 11-13 years (school years 7 and 8; 680 aged 11-12 years, and 554 aged 12-13 years), from six state secondary schools in the midlands, uk. in terms of gender, 599 participants were male and 620 female (with missing data for 15 participants). the mean age of the sample at time 1 was 11.68 years (sd = 0.64). the ethnic composition of each school (m = 93% white) was a reflection of the region in which the research was located; the sampling strategy took into account both rural/urban and ses profile to achieve a range of schools representative of the area from which they were recruited. parents or carers of all pupils in the relevant year group at each school were invited to allow their child to participate, using the opt-out method of consent. pupils who did not participate in the first session of data collection at time 1 were not permitted to take part in the second session of data collection at time 1; due to the number of measures administered there were two sessions of data collection at each time point. across the time points of the study, the participation rate ranged from 70% to 85% of eligible young people registered in the schools. participant recruitment and data collection were conducted during school hours. participants assented to take part in the study during class time. classes varied in size from 10-31 with a modal class size of 24 pupils. participants who were not taking part completed an alternative activity. materials students completed an answer booklet at each session in which they record their name, age, school class, gender and ethnicity, prior to completion of the measures pertinent to that session. humor styles participants completed the self-report child humor styles questionnaire (child hsq; fox et al., 2013), which is an adapted version of the adult hsq (martin et al., 2003). using a 4-point response scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree), participants rated their agreement with the 24 statements. there are six items per subscale with four sub-scales in total: self-defeating (e.g. ‘i often put myself down when i am making jokes or trying to be funny’), aggressive (e.g. ‘when i tell jokes i’m not worried if it will upset other people’), affiliative (e.g. ‘i don’t have to try very hard to make people laugh – i seem to be a naturally funny person’) and self-enhancing (e.g. ‘i find that laughing and joking are good ways to cope with problems’). when used with 11-16 year olds, fox et al. (2013) found acceptable levels of internal reliability for all four sub-scales (all α > .70), and confirmatory factor analysis identified a very clear four-factor structure. the child hsq also has acceptable levels of test re-test reliability (rs range from .65 to .75 across one week). for the present study, reliability coefficients were all above .70, apart from aggressive humor at time 1 (time 1: αaggressive = .66; αself-defeating = .73; αself-enhancing = .75, αaffiliative = .85; time 2: αaggressive = .71; αself-defeating = .81; αself-enhancing = .82, αaffiliative = .88). mean scores were calculated for each sub-scale, with higher scores reflecting greater use of that form of humor. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 fox, hunter, & jones 379 http://www.psychopen.eu/ depressive symptoms the 10-item, self-report children’s depression inventory short form (kovacs & beck, 1977) for ages 7-17 years was administered. for each symptom, participants are required to indicate which of three items best describes them over the preceding two weeks, and responses were scored from 0 (no symptom), 1 (mild symptom), or 2 (moderate/severe symptom). an example item is: “i am sad once in a while”, “i am sad many times”, and “i am sad all the time.” sum scores were then calculated, with higher scores reflecting the presence of greater symptomatology. this measure showed acceptable internal consistency with the current sample (α = .86, and α = .88, at t1 and t2 respectively). loneliness this was assessed using the four-item, self-report loneliness and social satisfaction scale (asher, hymel, & renshaw, 1984; rotenberg, boulton, & fox, 2005). a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 = not at all true to 5 = really true was used and a mean score was calculated such that higher scores reflected greater loneliness. an example item is ‘i am lonely.’ in the current study, this measure showed acceptable internal consistency (α = .86, and α = .88, at t1 and t2 respectively). self-esteem rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item, self-report self-esteemmeasure for adolescents and adults was used with participants judging each item on a 4-point scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. an example item is “i am able to do things as well as most people”. with the current sample, reliability coefficients were α = .87 and α = .89 at t1 and t2 respectively. sum scores were calculated with higher scores reflecting better self-esteem. procedure prior to data collection, the study was approved by the relevant university ethics committee. data collection took place in the fall (time 1) and summer (time 2) terms of the school year, in school classrooms with a class teacher present. the average number of days between time 1 and time 2 was 197.5 (sd = 18.68). data collection took approximately half an hour. a range of other variables were measured but are not the central focus of this paper (see fox, hunter, & jones, 2015, for a paper which draws on the same dataset). sessions began with the researchers introducing themselves and explaining the measures that would be collected that day, and explaining the confidential nature of the questionnaires. pupils were asked to complete the questionnaire booklets in silence; they were asked to keep their answers private and not look at what other pupils were doing. following data collection pupils were thanked and fully debriefed as to the aims and purpose of the study. results descriptive statistics and gender differences descriptive statistics for the total sample and for males and females separately are shown in table 1. a series of t-tests found that boys reported using more aggressive humor than females at both time 1 and time 2. in addition, compared to girls, boys reported higher self-esteem at both time points and fewer depressive symptoms at time 2. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence 380 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means (and sds) for the total sample and males and females femalemaletotal sample variables t (df)m (sd)m (sd)nm (sd) 11841. t1 agg (1167)***7.03(0.47)2.00(0.50)2.20(0.49)2.10 9902. t2 agg (978)***5.49(0.48)2.07(0.49)2.24(0.49)2.15 11873. t1 sen (1170)1.67(0.51)2.63(0.55)2.68(0.53)2.65 9874. t2 sen (975)0.32(0.55)2.62(0.61)2.63(0.57)2.62 11735. t1 sd (1156)1.79(0.52)2.03(0.55)2.09(0.54)2.06 9906. t2 sd (979)1.08(0.57)1.93(0.60)1.97(0.58)1.95 11887. t1 aff (1171)1.15(0.53)2.92(0.60)2.96(0.57)2.94 9918. t2 aff (979)0.72(0.52)2.95(0.63)2.98(0.57)2.96 11469. t1 ses (1129)**2.56(5.19)28.59(5.61)29.41(5.39)29.00 95810. t2 ses (946)***4.88(5.32)28.84(5.69)30.58(5.55)29.68 110311. t1 dep (1088)0.77(3.37)3.25(3.72)3.09(3.54)3.16 93712. t2 dep (925)**2.83(3.62)3.45(3.69)2.77(3.68)3.11 121513. t1 lone (1199)1.08(0.88)1.81(0.95)1.75(0.91)1.78 101514. t2 lone (1003)1.50(0.85)1.73(0.85)1.65(0.85)1.69 note. sd = self-defeating humor. ag = aggressive humor. aff = affiliative humor. sen = self enhancing humor. dep = depressive symptoms. ses = self-esteem. lone = loneliness. t1 = time 1. t2 = time 2. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. correlations as shown in table 2, all four humor styles and all three measures of adjustment showed moderate to high stability (rs ranging from .50 to .63). at time 1 and time 2, self-enhancing and affiliative humor were positively correlated with self-esteem and negatively correlated with depressive symptoms and loneliness. self-defeating humor, in contrast, was negatively correlated with self-esteem and positively correlated with depressive symptoms and loneliness. the same patterns were observed from time 1 to time 2. for example, self-defeating humor at time 1 was positively correlated with depressive symptoms at time 2, and depressive symptoms at time 1 were positively correlated with self-defeating humor at time 2. at time 1 and time 2 aggressive humor was negatively correlated with self-esteem. also at time 1 aggressive humor was negatively correlated with loneliness. aggressive humor at time 1 was negatively correlated with loneliness at time 2 and self-esteem at time 1 was negatively correlated with aggressive humor at time 2. however, these correlations for aggressive humor were very small, ranging from -.04 to -.07 (see table 2). structural equation modelling measurement models amos 20.1 was used to estimate a fully cross-lagged model evaluating the proposed relationships between the three psychological adjustment variables and humor styles. data from only those participants who took part at time 1 (n = 1,234) were included in the analyses, and full information maximum likelihood was used in the analyses to deal with missing data. because χ2 values are inflated by large sample sizes, we used additional criteria to assess model fit, including the cmin/df ratio, cfi and rmsea. a good fitting model is indicated by cmin/df values under 3 (hu & bentler, 1999); cfi above .90, reflecting adequate fit (bentler, 1992), and above europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 fox, hunter, & jones 381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 intercorrelations for psychosocial adjustment and humor styles at time 1 and time 2 correlations variables 14.13.12.11.10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. --1. t1 agg --2. t2 agg .50*** --3. t1 sen .02.03 --4. t2 sen .51***.01.01--5. t1 sd .05-.09**.15**.14*** --6. t2 sd .55***.02.04.20***.07* --7. t1 aff .19***-.16***-.21***.36***.13***.13*** --8. t2 aff .63***.29***-.15**-.29***.22***.14***.11** --9. t1 ses .31***.32***.37***-.42***-.17***.23***.04*-.06*--10. t2 ses .61***.35***.24***.54***-.36***-.20***.11***.06*-.01--11. t1 dep .52***-.71***-.29***-.31***-.40***.40***.21***-.23***-.00.02--12. t2 dep .59***.77***-.52***-.36***-.25***-.54***.35***.29***-.13***-.01.04 --13. t1 lone .56***.72***.44***-.61***-.31***-.33***-.37***.39***.16***-.15***-.03.07*--14. t2 lone .54***.78***.51***.67***-.44***-.37***-.28***-.53***.34***.22***-.12***-.04-.07*note. sd = self-defeating humor. ag = aggressive humor. aff = affiliative humor. sen = self enhancing humor. dep = depressive symptoms. ses = self-esteem. lone = loneliness. t1 = time 1. t2 = time 2. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. .95 to indicate good fit; and rmsea scores of .06 or less (hu & bentler, 1999). first, separate measurement models were assessed for: 1) loneliness, 2) depressive symptoms, and 3) self-esteem, using the t1 and t2 data. in each case a path was drawn with the t1 latent variable predicting the t2 latent variable. t1 and t2 error variances for identical observed variables were permitted to covary. model parameters were examined and in parallel we also considered whether there were any theoretical justifications for the modifications. for loneliness, the fit of the model was good (see table 2). for depressive symptoms and self-esteem the goodness of fit statistics indicated that modifications would be needed (e.g. cmin/df scores of 5-6). for depressive symptoms, we tested a second model where we allowed focussed sets of error terms to covary. these were error terms for specific items which reflected methodological rather than conceptual issues i.e. negatively worded items. this provided a better fitting model (see table 3 for the comparison of models 2 and 3). in the same way, for self-esteem, we allowed the error terms for the five negatively worded items to covary. again, this led to a better fitting model (see table 3 for the comparison of models 4 and 5). stability paths from t1 to t2 were: .63 for loneliness, .68 for depressive symptoms and .67 for self-esteem. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence 382 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 cross-lagged models rmsea [90% ci, low, high]cfiχ2/dfdfχ2model .042 [.030, .055]16model 1: loneliness .99.203.12***51 .061 [.057, .065]162model 2: depressive symptoms .91.615.76***908 .054 [.050, .058]140model 3: model 2 + constraints .94.604.49***643 .063 [.059, .067]159model 4: self esteem .92.915.11***940 .042 [.033, .047]139model 5: model 4 + constraints .97.203.76***444 .034 [.033, .036]1029model 6: humor styles .91.442.22**2515 .032 [.031, .034]1023model 7: model 6 + constraints .92.302.82***2350 .030 [.029, .031]4280model 8: psychosocial adjustment and humor styles .90.132.0***9094 ***p < .001. figure 1. schematic of structural model for psychosocial adjustment and humor styles (omitting error terms, indicators for latent variables and covariance paths). note. only significant paths shown. stability coefficients appear in the middle of the diagram. *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 fox, hunter, & jones 383 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for the humor styles measurement model, t1 latent variables predicted all t2 latent variables. since humor was multidimensional, all the t1 latent humor style variables were allowed to covary, as were the t2 latent variable disturbances. corresponding t1 and t2 error variances for the observed variables were also permitted to covary. the predicted four factor model provided an adequate fit. the error terms for the three negatively worded aggressive humor questionnaire items were allowed to covary, and this provided a better fitting model (see table 3 for a comparison of models 6 and 7). stability paths from t1 to t2 ranged from β = .62 to .70. cross-lagged structural equation models having established the adequacy of the measurement models, a cross-lagged model combining all three psychosocial adjustment variables and self-reports of humor styles was evaluated. all the t1 latent variables were allowed to covary, as were the t2 latent variable disturbances. this model (see table 3, model 8) displayed an acceptable fit. see figure 1 for a schematic depiction of the model with all significant paths. self-defeating humor at time 1 predicted an increase in depressive symptoms and loneliness at t2 and a decrease in self-esteem (t2). there was a reciprocal relationship between self-defeating humor and depressive symptoms to the extent that levels of each at t1 predicted increases in the other at t2. in addition, there was a significant path between selfesteem at t1 and affiliative humor at t2. multiple groups analyses we conducted analyses to assess whether model parameters were equivalent for males and females. to achieve this, we compared two models. the first model was an unconstrained model in which all stability and cross-lagged paths were allowed to vary across boys and girls. the second model constrained all stability and cross-lagged paths to be equal across boys and girls. if the relative fit of the constrained model is significantly worse than the unconstrained model, using change in chi-square (∆χ2) as an indicator, then we can conclude that effects differ across groups. there was no significant decrement in fit for the constrained versus the basic model (∆χ2 = 43.92, df = 49, p > .05). this indicates that the stability and cross-lagged paths are equivalent for boys and girls. discussion this is the first study to examine the longitudinal associations between children’s humor styles and their psychosocial adjustment. as noted by martin (2007), there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that humor in adults is linked to better mental and physical health, but there is a lack of research on the social and emotional benefits of humor in children. we found that self-defeating humor predicted an increase in loneliness over time and a decrease in self-esteem. there was evidence of a bi-directional relationship with self-defeating humor predicting an increase in depressive symptoms over time and vice-versa. in addition, self-esteem predicted an increase in the use of affiliative humor. contrary to our expectations, these relationships were the same for boys and girls. despite the large number of studies over the last decade which have used the adult hsq, we are not aware of any studies which have examined the longitudinal relationships between the four humor styles and aspects of psychosocial adjustment. we found that having a high self-esteem can facilitate the development of affiliative humor over time and that depressive symptoms can lead to a greater use of self-defeating humor. future studies could examine potential mediating variables that might explain these relationships. in particular, the role of selfdefeating humor in the development of depressive symptoms should be examined further. our findings suggest that adolescents may get caught up in a vicious cycle when using self-defeating humor, with one problem exacereurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence 384 http://www.psychopen.eu/ bating the other; how a child feels about the self and others may be reflected in their humor, which in turn, may reinforce negative self-referential cognitions, leading to an increase in depressive symptoms. support for such a proposition comes from theories of depression, e.g. beck and colleagues, who argued that negative core beliefs about the self can contribute to depression (beck, rush, shaw, & emery, 1979; dozois & beck, 2008). furthermore, it has been found that individuals with maladaptive self-schemas are more likely to display maladaptive coping (young et al., 2003). self-defeating humor could be viewed as a type of maladaptive coping, which might reinforce and maintain these beliefs, leading to an increase in depression. it may have the same effect as rumination, often linked with depression, which is thought to bring negative thoughts to the ruminator’s attention, facilitating a negative interpretation of their situation (lyubomirsky & nolen-hoeksema, 1995; nolen-hoeksema, 2000). support for the role of negative self-beliefs comes from cross-sectional research in adult populations where humor styles mediated the relationships between early maladaptive schemas and depressive symptoms (dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009). the authors suggest that humor, employed as a coping strategy, could be a useful avenue for intervention, particularly in relation to depression. the therapist and child could collaboratively discuss how they use humor, establishing whether this leads to unintended negative consequences. cognitive therapy draws on the links between beliefs and behaviour, and how this can lead to distress. if the child can recognise that their use of humor does have some drawbacks that they were not aware of, attention could be paid to developing more adaptive styles of humor to see what impact that has on the child’s psychological state. as well as self-defeating humor reinforcing beliefs about the self, this style of humor also involves one’s weaknesses being validated by others (e.g. through others’ laughter), which can leave an individual feeling unsupported and that close family and friends do not care. this may compound the negative effects of self-defeating humor. in support of this, social support has been identified as an important mediator of the relationship between humor styles and well-being. dyck and holtzman (2013) found that the association between self-defeating humor and depressive symptoms in adults was mediated by (lack of) social support. an additional cautionary note is that the means for depressive symptoms are fairly low given that the potential range of scores is from 0 to 20. however, the scores showed expected and significant correlations with other variables measured as part of the study, suggesting that there is sufficient variation in the sample to demonstrate the relationships we predicted. for example, depression was associated with all but one of the humor styles. however, it is possible that within our sample there were very few young people who were displaying clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms. further research could endeavour to explore the associations with more ‘at risk’ populations. it was also found that self-defeating humor led to an increase in loneliness across time. this finding compliments our findings reported elsewhere which suggested that use of this humor style may put adolescents at an increased risk of peer victimisation over time (fox et al., 2015). it has been argued that humor is one means through which social status can be achieved and maintained (klein & kuiper, 2006). the humor style a child used may impact on their social relationships because different humor styles are more positively received by others (see kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010; zeigler-hill et al., 2013). if humor does impact on children’s peer groups relationships, then this can potentially lead to greater feelings of loneliness. this effect may also be mediated by social support, as indicated above. future studies could measure the role of perceived social support when examining the negative effects of self-defeating humor. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 fox, hunter, & jones 385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ somewhat surprisingly, there was no evidence for a protective role for humor in the development of adjustment problems. affiliative humor did not predict changes in adjustment over time, although self-esteem did predict an increase in the use of affiliative humor. self-enhancing humor was unrelated to the measures of psychosocial adjustment across time. this casts some doubt on the validity of this measure but it may simply indicate that it is only in adulthood that we can use this style of humor effectively to cope with life stress and adversity (altshuler & ruble, 1989). in support of this point, interviews with a small sample of 12-16 year olds elicited open-ended responses to suggest that children of this age do see a use for humor as a coping tool, but only with less serious events (führ, 2001), e.g. ‘does not always help, not with serious things’. this null finding only emerged within the full causal model, which, it could be argued, is a more conservative test of the associations between multiple predictors and several different outcome variables, especially since this controlled for earlier levels of each outcome variable. indeed, even those paths that were significant were small in magnitude. simple correlations identified cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between self-enhancing humor and all threemeasures of psychosocial adjustment. future research should examine the role of this particular humor style further to advance understanding of the development of self-enhancing humor as a coping tool across adolescence. the same relationships were identified for boys and girls, in contrast to our previous cross-sectional research which identified gender differences in the associations between aggressive humor and adjustment (fox et al., 2013). in our previous study, aggressive humor was associated with higher depression and lower global self-worth in girls. in the current study, there were no longitudinal associations between aggressive humor and all three of the measures of psychosocial adjustment. as indicated by dyck and holtzman (2013), of all the four humor styles, aggressive humor demonstrates the weakest and most inconsistent findings, with many studies using the adult hsq failing to find significant associations between aggressive humor andmeasures of psychological adjustment. our findings add to the growing body of literature which suggests that aggressive humor is unrelated to measures of psychological adjustment, at least in the short-term. as argued by martin (2007), over the long-term, aggressive humor may be detrimental to the self because it tends to alienate others. studies over a longer time-frame may be able to identify significant associations between aggressive humor and psychological maladjustment. our study employed a cross-lagged panel-design, allowing us to begin to describe the direction of possible effects between variables. however, our study is not without limitations. one such limitation is the use of self-reports to measure humor styles and psychosocial adjustment, which raises the possibility that associations were biased by shared method variance. however, it is not clear that shared method variance necessarily leads to inflated estimates (conway & lance, 2010). regardless, it would be judicious for future research to consider gathering data from different sources, such as peers, teachers or parents. in sum, this if the first study to identify longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment, and in children. there is little need for further cross-sectional studies and we would encourage researchers to move on to address the causal direction of effects in adults and children, so that we can advance understanding of the development of humor and its negative consequences. a bi-directional relationship was identified between self-defeating humor and depressive symptoms. a consideration of other potential moderating and mediating variables such as negative self-beliefs and perceived social support would be useful avenues for future research. the findings suggest that a focus on humor use in the treatment of childhood depression could be beneficial. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence 386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this research was supported by a grant from the economic and social research council (ref: res-062-23-2647). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are grateful to sirandou saidy khan, hayley gilman, lucy james and katie wright-bevans who provided invaluable assistance with data collection and 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(2013). laughing at the looking glass: does humor style serve as an interpersonal signal? evolutionary psychology, 11, 201-226. doi:10.1177/147470491301100118 about the authors claire fox is a senior lecturer in psychology at keele university, uk. claire is interested in researching vulnerable groups of children and young people, including those affected by bullying and domestic abuse, with a view to informing interventions in schools. she was the principal investigator on the esrc-funded project, ‘humour and bullying in schools’, on which this paper is based. simon c. hunter, phd, is a senior lecturer in psychology at the university of strathclyde, uk and an honorary research fellow at the university of western australia (australia). his research has focused on children’s situational appraisals, coping strategies, emotional reactions, and psycho-social adjustment in peer victimization contexts. he is also interested in experiences of discrimination and in the ways that children and young people use electronic forms of communication. siân jones is teaching fellow at goldsmiths college, university of london, uk. her research has primarily been in the areas of social and educational psychology, with a specific focus on friendships in schools. siân is particularly interested in how peer group memberships and school ethos affect children’s responses to bullying. this research speaks to the role of bystanders in bullying incidents, including cyberbullying incidents. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 377–389 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 fox, hunter, & jones 389 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs10802-005-6740-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2012.11.023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f147470491301100118 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence (introduction) method participants materials procedure results descriptive statistics and gender differences correlations structural equation modelling discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors iconographic professional interests inventory (3ip): a new validation study research reports iconographic professional interests inventory (3ip): a new validation study diego boerchi*a, paola magnanob [a] faculty of education, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] faculty of human and social sciences, università kore, enna, italy. abstract interests have been a central focus of counselling psychology (and vocational psychology in particular) for over 100 years. the awareness of professional interests increases self-knowledge and provides occupational information. in career counselling, vocational interests are assessed more frequently than any other vocational construct, though early evaluations (before 13 years old) of professional interests are very rare. the aim of this research is to examine the 3ip construct (iconographic professional interests inventory; an inventory composed of 65 stylised pictures that represent people in the act of performing a job) in depth, testing more models in addition to the 19 vocational areas proposed in the 3ip manual. results show that most of the vocational areas can be grouped into 4 second-level areas (“things”, “people”, “leisure”, and “culture”). moreover, holland’s riasec model is tested; an accurate selection of items reveals that this model works well using 24 specific jobs. the research concludes that the inventory has good psychometric qualities which can grow further by mean of the increasing, in a targeted way, of the number of jobs. keywords: vocational interests development, vocational interests assessment, children, holland’s model, psychometrics europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 received: 2015-01-26. accepted: 2015-08-01. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: diego boerchi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, l.go gemelli 1, 20123 milano. tel. +39.02.7234.2905, mobile +39.347.0931161. e-mail: diego.boerchi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it is widely assumed that vocational interests play an important role in satisfaction and achievement, both in study and work. vocational guidance has historically considered both aptitude and interests as the fundamental psychological dimensions to consider in the training or job choice process. both research and vocational interventions usually concentrate on the first choice of a study, which does not take place with students younger than 13 years old. research into interest development is rare, but it is particularly rarely studied among children; this is in part due to the lack of assessment instruments developed to work with this target. the aim of this research is to deepen knowledge of a new instrument developed to appositely investigate professional interests for children. definitions dispositional interests, as opposed to situational interests (silvia, 2006), are trait-like, reflecting a person’s preferences for behaviours, situations, contexts in which activities occur, and/or the outcomes associated with these preferred activities (rounds, 1995). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ from a dispositional perspective, we can identify academic and vocational interests (savickas, 1999). academic interests are associated with facilitative effects on cognitive functioning, learning, and academic achievement (schiefele, krapp, & winteler, 1992). the educational psychology tradition of interest research focuses on the relationship between interest and attention/motivation, primarily examining interest’s function in learning and academic achievement for children’s classroom settings (krapp, 1999; renninger, hidi, & krapp, 1992). holland (1966) defined vocational interests as “the expression of personality in work, hobbies, recreational activities, and preferences” (p. 3). school-subject preferences and choices are systematically related to vocational interests (elsworth, harvey-beavis, ainley, & fabris, 1999). holland (1966) proposed in his person-environment fit theory of occupational choice that vocational choices arise from perceptions of fit between work environment and interests; vocational interests facilitate a fit between people and their environment to improve occupational success and satisfaction. hereafter, “vocational interest” will be used to refer both to academic and vocational interests. vocational interests development despite their dispositional qualities, vocational interests develop like other personal factors (roe, 1956; tyler, 1961). evidence indicates that vocational interests change in response to the positive and negative environmental reinforcements they receive, especially the evaluations of significant others (e.g., parents, teachers, other caregivers, and peers), reinforcements, one’s own attributions, and social and cultural forces. other powerful influences include gender (betz & schifano, 2000; boerchi, 2011; eccles, 1993), racial/ethnical groups (leong, 1995), and levels of socioeconomic status (bandura, barbaranelli, caprara, & pastorelli, 2001). macro-level factors, such as economics and public policy, also contribute to the development of interests (blustein, phillips, jobin-davis, finkelberg, & roarke, 1997). there is general consensus that vocational interests emerge during childhood (tracey, 2001) and develop by an increasingly refined differentiation of activities and preferences (tyler, 1964). interest differentiation does not occur at a single time or at a particular level; rather, it seems to be a continuous process that follows a set of steps. the differentiation process is likely affected by different kinds of childhood experiences (roe, 1957). it probably stops at a higher general level for nonpreferred areas but continues to lower and more detailed levels for the preferred areas. the notion that adolescents become more certain of their interests with age has received empirical support (e.g., cook et al., 1996; csikszentmihalyi & schneider, 2000) and has been integrated into career-development theories (e.g., ginzberg, ginsburg, axelrad, & herma, 1951; gottfredson, 1981, 2002; holland, 1997; super, savickas, & super, 1996; todt & schreiber, 1998). in childhood—children are exposed to occupational images at an early age and develop relatively steady career aspirations as early as kindergarten (mcmahon & patton, 1997). from a very young age, children are inundated with cultural imagery of occupations through the media and other sources (wright et al., 1995). from the time children are able to speak, their interests are frequently elicited through inquires about their aspirations (e.g., “what do you want to be when you grow up?”; trice & rush, 1995). according to hartung, porfeli, and vondracek (2005), a significant amount of literature has examined aspects of children’s vocational development and behaviour since the mid-twentieth century, when theorists such as ginzberg et al. (1951), roe (1956), and super (1957) explicitly conceptualised childhood as an important formative period for vocational development: europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 572 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as childhood ideas about work and occupations are the precursors to adolescent career development and later exploration of the world of work, it behoves us to continue to expand our understanding of career development during the elementary and middle school years. (howard & walsh, 2011, p. 257) in adolescence — it is generally held that interests are quite stable over time (hansen, 1984; swanson, 1999) and, furthermore, that interests become more fully developed and relatively stable by late adolescence (hansen, 1984; tracey, 2002a; tracey, robbins, & hofsess, 2005). early adolescence, from 12 to 14 years old (middle school), is particularly significant for changes in the cognitive and social fields across all ethnic groups and both genders (nichols, 1990; phillips & zimmerman, 1990; ruble & seidman, 1996). children are in the process of moving from amore concrete representation of interests to a more abstract representation that is commonly utilised by adults (tracey, 2002a; tracey & ward, 1998). with age, there is increasing realism in occupational choice (osipow, 1983) and in perceptions of competence (nichols, 1990; phillips & zimmerman, 1990). marsh and yeung (1998) have posited that these changes are the result of the importance that internal and external referents assume as age increases. in the middle school the social comparison is an important way to build self-perception, so children frequently notice how others are respect to interests and competencies. then, this externally driven focus is used by children to evaluate their own interests and skills to each other, in an ipsative way. this process contributes to modify the structure and the level of interests and competency rating at this age (tracey, 2002a). these changes also have an important consequence on how students see themselves: their self-evaluations become increasingly differentiated, critical, and realistic with age (harter, 1990; marsh, 1987; nichols, 1990). indeed, children in the middle school ages (e.g., 12-year-olds) start to focus on competencies in particular domains; they discriminate by area and by comparing themselves with other children (harter, 1990). afterwards, interests tend to crystallise, and by high school, interests assume a structure that is invariant across older ages (tracey & rounds, 1993). riasecmodel—holland (1966, 1997) proposed amodel of vocational interests that specifies six interest domains: realistic (r), investigative (i), artistic (a), social (s), enterprising (e), and conventional (c), hereafter referred to as riasec. the riasec model represents the six interest domains in a two-dimensional space by arranging them in a hexagon in which similarity between interests determines their position and proximity. interest domains are located next to those to which they are most similar and opposite those to which they are most dissimilar. as nagy, trautwein, and lüdtke (2010) highlighted, the hexagonal model has stimulated a wealth of research. early reviews supported holland’s model (prediger, 1982; rounds, 1995), and quantitative investigations have largely confirmed these findings (e.g., day, rounds, & swaney, 1998). in particular, a structural meta-analysis conducted by tracey and rounds (1993) confirmed that the circumplex hexagonal model has a good fit in u.s. samples. in contrast to the relatively clear pattern of findings from the united states, findings from other countries have not been definitive. most early qualitative reviews concluded that cross-cultural generalisations of the circular model are valid (hansen, 1987; harrington & o’shea, 1993; holland, 1985). however, the majority of quantitative investigations conducted outside the united states have failed to confirm holland’s model (e.g., fouad & dancer, 1992; glidden-tracey & parraga, 1996; swanson, 1992). in addition, šverko and babarović (2006) concluded that, in almost all non-u.s. countries and even in the u.s. ethnic sample, the structure of vocational types could not be described with the circular model. the model’s degree of fit has been shown to differ a great deal from country to country (einarsdóttir, rounds, ægisdóttir, & gerstein, 2002; farh, leong, & law, 1998; leong, austin, sekaran, & komarraju, 1998; rounds & tracey, 1996; tracey & rounds, 1993). moreover, riasec’s circular structure is less well-established in international contexts and in children. in fact, tracey and ward (1998) found that the cireurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 573 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cular structure is less prevalent in children under 14 years; that study demonstrated that the circular structure does not hold well for younger children, though adherence to the normative circular model increases with age. the circular structure of interests seems to develop during middle school and remain stable in high school (see also tracey, 2002b; tracey, lent, brown, soresi, & nota, 2006; tracey & robbins, 2005). thus, the circular structure varies depending on both culture and developmental level, suggesting that holland-based scales may not have a common meaning across all cultures or age levels. ccca model — howard and walsh (2010) proposed the conceptions of career choice and attainment (ccca) model to study and explain the development of children’s reasoning about careers. the ccca model, which was derived from theory and research on children’s reasoning related to illness, violence, and ethnic identity, uses three approaches to cognitive reasoning. in the first approach, association, children use fantasy to think about careers. they engage in little self-reflection and have too little self-awareness to gather information about preferences, abilities, and opportunities. future career choices are based on heroes or imaginary models. the association approach is divided into two levels, pure association and magical connection, and it is typical of kindergarten students (5–6 years old). in the second approach, sequence, children are able to identify an agent (e.g., activity, event, situation, or condition) that leads to choosing and attaining a job. career choice and attainment are understood as separate processes, and children are able to explain how the two are related in concrete terms, using direct spatial contact or temporal sequences (e.g., get a diploma, go to college, and then start the job). the sequence approach is divided into two levels, external activities and internal processes and capacities, and it is typical of 3rd grade students (8–9 years old). in the third approach, interaction, children are able to define the act of choosing a career as a process that involves dynamic interaction between self-awareness of personal attributes (e.g., interests, innate abilities, skills, and values) and environmental opportunities (e.g., availability of a career, opportunities to develop the requisite skills, and the current conditions of the job market). attaining a career is considered to be a process based on the dynamic interaction of personal characteristics and career characteristics. the interaction approach is also divided into two levels, interaction and systemic interaction, and it is typical of 6th grade students (11–12 years old). therole of gender in vocational interests development—holland suggested that interests are also determined by gender. this concept is supported by much theory and research which considers gender to be a key factor in vocational development (stockard & mcgee, 1990). according to havighurst (1983), children acquire a genderrole identity via family, peer groups, and school experiences. these experiences may also encourage genderrole stereotyping (birk & blimline, 1984; feingold, 1988; mckenna & ferrero, 1991; miller & stanford, 1987; sung, 2007). the sex-typing interpretation fits with the interest development model (gottfredson, 1981; roe & siegelman, 1964). in their personality theory of career choice, roe and siegelman (1964) postulated that, typically, girls will be more likely to quickly adopt social interest (social scale) and that boys will focus more on interests involving things (realistic and investigative scale). in her theory of circumscription and compromise, gottfredson (1981, 2002) claimed that sex typing is a primary filter to evaluate experience. tracey (2002a) found a gender trend: over time, boys became less interested (and perceived themselves as less skilled) in artistic and social areas while girls perceived themselves as less interested in investigative activities. the decrease in math and science interests among girls has been well documented (catsambis, 1995; eccles, 1987, 1994; hilton & berglund, 1974; europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 574 http://www.psychopen.eu/ jones, mullis, raizen, weiss, & weston, 1992; weinburgh, 1995). moreover, according to eccles (1994), boys and girls with similar personality traits may develop divergent occupational interests because of social influences on gender roles (e.g., from parents, teachers, culture, and societal norms). simply observing that an occupation is performed exclusively by workers of the other sex may well reduce individuals’ likelihood of developing or expressing an interest in that field; this observation suggests the existence of a self-perpetuating cycle that makes it difficult to significantly increase the number of gender-nontraditional workers within fields (weisgram, bigler, & liben, 2010). other researchers (e.g., woods & hampson, 2010) have posited that gender and personality traits jointly influence the development of vocational interests. identification with parents (helwig, 1998) and with teachers (wall, covell, & macintyre, 1999) are also important factors. parents and teachers shape children’s interests by controlling the type of activities that they are exposed to; through their interactions, teachers and parents influence children’s perceptions of appropriate careers (bandura et al., 2001). according to boerchi (2011), it is difficult to determine if these differences are due to social roles, which imposes the development of gender-specific interests, or evolutionary psychology, which maintains that differences are biological and created by sexual selection over time. it is difficult to determine if the differences assessed by interest inventories are real or if they represent socially acceptable expressions of interests which are less gender-determined. assessment of interests in childhood and adolescence the classic questionnaires are not always suitable for childhood; we can find few guidelines for the assessment of interests with this target. use of familiar activities — the literature on children’s interests focuses almost exclusively on expressed aspirations, wherein children are asked what career they would like to have as an adult (barak, feldman, & noy, 1991; phipps, 1995; schulenberg, goldstein, & vondracek, 1991; trice, 1991; trice & king, 1991; trice & rush, 1995; tyler, 1955). children tend to have sex-typed occupational aspirations (e.g. tyler, 1955), but there has been little focus on the broader representations of interests. therefore, the better method to assess interests appears to be a focus on familiar activities, rather than unfamiliar adult occupations. it is better to construct an instrument that includes activities relevant to children’s lives—activities which they engage in and have the necessary experience to accurately assess. for research in which interests have been assessed through familiar activities, the structure of interests in children has been found to differ from that of adults (dusek, kermis, & monge, 1979; freeberg & rock, 1973; tyler, 1955, 1956; zbaracki, clark, & wolins, 1985). possible use of pictures—most interest inventories are based on complex verbal stimuli and call for the examinee to have a considerable degree of verbal proficiency. pictures, however, are closer to real life than printed statements are. thus, during testing, pictures should elicit preference responses that are closer to real-life responses. it appears that, in principle, it is possible to construct picture items which are much less ambiguous than mostly verbal items. this decreased ambiguity should lead to higher reliability and improved validity (geist & mcdaniel, 1952). in the literature, two older inventories used pictures to assess childhood interests: the geist picture interest inventory (geist, 1959) and the reading-free vocational interest inventory (becker, 1967). some pictorial interest inventories have been created more recently, both for children and adults. these include the pics and pics-2 (picture interest career survey; brady, 2007); the career interest card sort (athanasou & hosking, 1998), which is a procedure developed for use with adults in employment counselling and vocational europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 575 http://www.psychopen.eu/ guidance; and the picture interest inventory (stoll, jungo, & toggweiler, 2006; toggweiler, jungo, & stoll, 2004), a nonverbal test that uses photographs of people performing vocational activities. the latter inventory, which is mainly used with swiss adolescents, allows the assessment of vocational interests in terms of holland’s theory. the test of photos of professions (or berufsbilder test [bbt]), a projective method to clarify professional inclination, is used with adolescents (melo-silva, pasian, assoni, & bonfim, 2008); a pictorial version of the riasec scales of the personal globe inventory (enke, 2009) is used for adults; and the pictorial and descriptive interest inventory (pdii; šverko, babarović, & međugorac, 2014) was developed in order to provide students who are finishing elementary school with an internet-based measure of riasec interests. finally, in the italian context, viglietti produced the mv-70 (viglietti, 1974), an inventory that is limited by its gender bias; each sector is composed of ten jobs exclusively for males and ten jobs that can also be carried out by women; masculine jobs are more prestigious, and feminine jobs are congruent with gender prejudices. method: drafting of the inventory according to howard and walsh (2010), starting from the third level (external activities), children choosing jobs consider interests even if those interests are based on external, observable activities. that is why we have to study and improve conceptualisation on interests, starting with 8-year-old children to promote a linear development of interest conceptualisation which can help students make choices in the future. when this process is not adequate, counsellors meet with those students who are unable to reflect on their interests or understand the differences between training courses when they have to make their first school choice. that is why we decided to propose a new instrument appositely made for research on children’s interest development; our instrument could be brief, specific, and characterised by simplicity and consistency with childhood targets and the current sociocultural context. the result is a 65-item picture inventory. it takes only a few minutes to be administered and is able to attract the interest of children without tiring them. the result, the iconographic inventory on professional interests (3ip), is a self-assessment tool that predominantly uses pictures as stimuli and that is well-suited to be used with younger students and foreign students, both of which are usually characterised by limited language skills. the process to develop the inventory required three phases. the first was dedicated to the choice of professions to insert in the inventory, the second was a pilot study to define the definitive version of the inventory, and the third was the study to test the psychometric properties of the definitive instrument and to standardise it. here, they will be briefly described. choosing the professions in order to ensure good content validity, the initial phase consisted of a set of professions that, for the target of students ranging in age from 9 to 13, was as much as possible representative of different areas of professional interest. since we could not refer to a unique, shared model for the areas of interest, we chose to use the psp/3 – preferenze scolastiche e professionali (scholastic and professional preferences) model (bonelli & mancinelli, 2012), an italian inventory of educational and career preferences that is mostly used in guidance projects to direct 13-year-old students in choosing subsequent studies. a list of 21 professional interest areas was presented to 30 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 576 http://www.psychopen.eu/ students at primary and secondary schools; the descriptions did not refer directly to any profession. the students were then asked to indicate all the professions. a list of 75 professions was selected on the basis of the frequency they were mentioned in the psp/3 model, the students’ knowledge levels, and the consistency that the professions were identified with at least one area of the model. three more professions were added to cover military areas; these were not part of the psp/3 model but were fairly frequently cited by students. pilot study for each career, a picture was created to represent a person performing that profession. in order to minimise the influence of stereotypes, the human figures in the pictures were stylised, rendering them unidentifiable in terms of gender and facial expression (see examples in figure 1). figure 1. examples of items. pictures were accompanied by the name of the profession and a sequential number, and they were collected in a questionnaire. the front page of the questionnaire listed the instrument’s title and instructions for filling it out. the questionnaire was accompanied by a response sheet that was adapted to measure the interest in each profession using a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1 (none) to 4 (a lot). the questionnaire in the pilot study was administered to 143 students. of these students, 55 were from primary school, and 88 were from secondary school. the participants were equilibrated by gender; 56 were from the north of italy, and 87 were from the south of italy. assessing interest inventories, data are typically distributed in a nonnormal way with a positive asymmetry. thus, we tested the distribution obtained by transforming the data with a logarithmic function. usually, skewness and europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 577 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kurtosis between –1.5 and 1.5 are preferred (tabachnick & fidell, 2001), but they are considered acceptable between –2 and 2 (george & mallery, 2010). the result was a very good normal distribution for 10 items (both skewness and kurtosis lower than 1), an acceptable normal distribution for 65 items (skewness or kurtosis greater than 1 but less than 1.5), and a kurtosis near 2 for three items. thus, we decided to use the robust unweighted last squares (uls) method for factorial analysis, and we logarithmically transformed data only for internal consistency and reliability. both exploratory factor analysis with uls and item analysis based on internal consistency (cronbach’s α) suggested that we should eliminate 10 professions because of their inconsistency with the hypothesised scale and to refer to a 19-vocational-area model. of the 19 areas, 17 possessed good internal consistency (cronbach’s α equal or bigger than .70). the remaining two scales had limited internal consistency due to being composed of only two items. definitive questionnaire the final version, composed of 65 professions collected in 19 dimensions (table 1), was administered to a sample of 1,117 students as follows: • 51.0% males and 49.0% females; • 30.9% attending primary school and 69.1% attending the secondary school; • 89.3% aged 9 to 13 years, with a mean age equal to 11.65 and a standard deviation (sd) equal to 1.61; and • 31.4% from the north and 68.6% from the south of italy. table 1 areas and professions professionsarea farmer; breeder; florist; gardeneragriculture waiter; barman; cook; receptionisthoteliers sculptor; designer; painter; graphic designer; ceramistarts tyre repairer; coachbuilder; mechanicautomotive historical; geographer; archaeologistliterature bank clerk; business consultanteconomy architect; surveyorbuilding hairdresser; model; stylist; tailor; cosmeticianaesthetics lawyer; judgeforensic computer programmer; computer techniciancomputer writer; journalist; interpreter; translatorlinguistic policeman; sheriff; military; airplane pilotmilitary singer; musician; composer; orchestra conductormusic physician; ophthalmologist; otorhinolaryngologist; dentist; nursehealth scientist; chemical; biologistscience educator; social worker; psychologistsocial carpenter; smith; repair technician; electriciantechnology trucker; driver; taxi drivertransport tourist guide; travel agent; hostesstourism europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 578 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on this occasion, data were also transformed logarithmically to achieve a normal distribution. the result was a very good normal distribution for 21 items (both skewness and kurtosis between –1 and 1) and an acceptable normal distribution for 43 items (skewness or kurtosis between –1.5 and –1.5); only item 48 (otorhinolaryngologist) had a nonnormal distribution, with skewness equal to 2.0. this item was not considered in the statistical analysis. areas were obtained by calculating the means for the original versions of the items in each area. the distribution was normal for 15 scales (with skewness or kurtosis between –1 and 1), and acceptable (between –1.5 and 1.5) for the other four. reliability. reliability was estimated by the internal consistency index (cronbach’s α). as shown in table 2, in the total sample, most of the indexes were good. only economy, building, and social were critical. table 2 internal consistency: cronbach’s α index sperman-brown corrected (4 items’ scale)original n° itemsarea secondary (n = 772) primary (n = 345)total secondary (n = 772) primary (n = 345)total 4agriculture .79.70.73.79.70.73 4hoteliers .75.70.70.75.70.70 5arts .80.74.76.83.78.80 3automotive .90.87.88.87.83.85 3literature .81.81.78.76.76.73 2economy .77.70.73.62.54.58 2building .84.77.80.73.62.67 5aesthetics .84.85.84.87.88.87 2forensic .85.79.83.74.65.71 2computer .86.80.82.75.66.70 4linguistic .73.71.70.73.71.70 4military .82.59.80.82.59.80 4music .81.78.78.81.78.78 5health .78.64.71.82.69.75 3science .88.84.83.84.80.79 3social .76.60.66.70.53.59 4technology .86.74.80.86.74.80 3transport .88.78.83.85.73.79 3tourism .80.76.76.75.70.70 note. boldface indicates indexes lower than .70. if we compare the subsamples of primary and secondary students separately, we obtain a better situation for secondary students (who were critical only for economy) but a worse situation for primary students (who were critical for economy, building, forensics, computers,military, health, and social). because it is established that the internal consistency of a scale is influenced by its number of items, and considering that some scales were composed by only two or three items, we corrected the indexes using the sperman-brown formula, which assumes that all the scales are composed of four items. the results showed a very good situation for the secondary sample, a good situation for the whole sample (which was critical only in the social area), and an acceptable situation for the primary-student sample (which was critical in military, health, and social). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 579 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discriminant validity: gender differences. as mentioned above, professional interest is one of the psychological dimensions in which there are the larger gender differences (boerchi, 2011). we expected to find a statistically significant difference in most of the areas we assessed. table 3 shows the differences, their significance as measured with the t-student test, and the effect size measured with cohen's d. table 3 gender mean differences and effect sizes female (n = 547)male (n = 570) area pdifferencecohen's dsdmsdm automotive .000.850.311.390.151.910.991 technology .000.690.201.400.231.760.921 military .000.800.970.730.651.910.452 transport .000.570.950.390.191.810.761 computer .000.620.690.820.771.990.392 science .000.300.330.830.831.970.132 literature .000.260.330.750.691.850.961 buildings .000.290.310.920.931.920.212 agriculture .000.140.210.620.601.730.741 economy .008.130.160.820.911.860.052 forensic .127.080.090.910.002.930.082 health .001.13-0.190.650.861.650.741 hoteliers .001.15-0.200.730.262.740.112 arts .000.28-0.380.810.132.710.841 linguistic .000.29-0.410.760.002.650.711 social .000.30-0.460.710.861.590.561 music .000.42-0.530.800.152.790.731 tourism .000.45-0.570.850.242.740.791 aesthetics .000.29-1.941.820.742.510.451 excluding forensic, the means’ differences were all clearly consistent and in the direction we expected: automotive, technology, military, transport and computer were preferred by males and aesthetics, tourism, music, social and linguistic were preferred by females. the effect sizes were clearly defined, too: three were very large (d > 1.00); three were large (0.66 < d < 0.99); five were moderate (0.36 < d < 0.65); 7 were small (0.11 < d < 0.35); and one was near zero. concurrent validity. to test the concurrent validity of the scales, the 3ip was administered together with the psp/3 for a part of the sample (174 students attending the third year of the secondary school; 13–14 years old and with gender nearly equally distributed). table 4 shows only the correlations which explain more than 33% of the variance in the relationship between two variables, than those bigger than .57. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 580 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 concurrent validity with psp/3 3ip sps/3 to ur is m tr an sp or t te ch no lo gy so ci al sc ie nc e h ea lth m us ic m ili ta ry li ng ui st ic c om pu te r fo re ns ic a es th et ic s b ui ld in g ec on om y li te ra tu re a ut om ot iv e a rt s h ot el ie rs a gr ic ul tu re .74agriculture .65hoteliers .66arts .69handicrafts .62.82.79mechanic literature .74economy .59.67building .73aesthetics .83fashion .81computer .62.70linguistic .82music .61.66health .70science .73social .71.70.63electronic .72.73.65.69transport .70tourism .61graphics .77chemical note. only correlations which explain more than 33% of variance in the relationship between the two variables are reported. all of them were statistically significant, with a low error rate (p < .001), and congruent with the content of the interest areas. along the diagonal, you can see the correlations we expected: all were consistent except literature, which was only .39 (p < .001). among the areas that were not present in psp/3, forensics was not correlated with any variables,militarywas correlated with transport, graphicswas correlated with computer, and chemicalwas correlated with science. most of the variables correlated only with one or two of the psp/3 variables. exceptions included the technical areas automotive, computer, and technology. method: testing new models as indicated above, the aim of this research is to test two new models on the same data gathered for the definitive questionnaire. four-factor model as a first step, we tried to identify a second-level structure starting from an exploratory factorial analysis, using the 19 areas as items. considering that all areas except transport had a normal distribution, for this step, we decided to use them without a logarithmic transformation. a principal axis extraction and an oblimin rotation with kaiser normalisation efa were conducted. the oblique solution was chosen, assuming a relationship between the dieurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 581 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mensions. the kaiser criterion (eigenvalues > 1) suggested a four-factor solution which explained 52.6% of the variance. as a second step, the health, computer, and linguistic areas were eliminated because they were not saturated more than .40 by any of the factors. table 5 shows the rotated loadings of all the areas. table 5 model matrix of explorative factorial analysis peoplecultureleisurethingsarea automotive .024.061.170-.870 technology .042-.140-.079-.836 transport .087.095.068.777 agriculture .271-.152-.330.491 military .261.221-.122-.479 aesthetics .007-.147.871.255hoteliers .128.163.606.332 tourism .319.031.587.027 music .013-.289-.541.049arts .162-.454-.486.056 literature .069.758-.033-.019 science .088.752-.076-.001 buildings .218.420-.031.134 forensic .615.195-.033-.032economy .585.018-.181.150 social .369.194-.360.027note. loadings higher than .40 are highlighted, and areas are ordered by factor. the model explains 53.4% of variance and identifies four main factors, labelled as things, leisure, culture, and people. all areas seem to be explained mostly by one factor, with the only exceptions being arts—which is bifactorial and will be considered in the leisure factor—and social, which will be considered in the people factor, for which it has the higher loading. to deeply evaluate the validity of the factors, a model with a confirmatory factorial analysis (cfa) using the maximum likelihood method and amos rel.22 software was tested for each of the logarithmically transformed items. goodness-of-fit indexes were examined through the chi-square test, rmsea, and cfi. a nonsignificant chi-square was desired, suggesting that the observed and reproduced covariancematrices did not differ significantly and thus that they demonstrated a good model fit. however, because the chi-square test is sensitive to sample size, models with a large sample can only be evaluated with rmsea and cfi (byrne, 2010). models with acceptable fit also present rmsea < .08 and cfi > .90 (bentler, 1990), but models with optimum fit present rmsea < .05 and cfi >.95 (hu & bentler, 1999). table 6 shows that all four models had acceptable or good fit indexes. figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 show the standardised estimates. to increase the quality of the models, some items with lesser relationships with the latent variable were eliminated. items 52, 39, 46, and 59 in the things factor and items 27, 44, 13, 3, 56, and 63 in the leisure factor were eliminated. no items were eliminated from the culture or people factors. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 582 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 four-factor fit indexes for cfa models tested with maximum likelihood (n = 1117) cfirmseadfχ2factor .955.064 (.058 – .070)72things (automotive; technology; transport; agriculture; military) .057***402 .915.071 (.066 – .077)85leisure (aesthetics; hoteliers; tourism; music; arts) .061***566 .980.055 (.043 – .068)17culture (natural sciences; humanistic sciences; buildings) .553***74 .977.052 (.036 – .068)11people (forensic; economic; social) .110***44 ***p < .001. figure 2. standardised estimates for the things factor. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 583 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. standardised estimates for the leisure factor. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 584 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. standardised estimates for the culture factor. figure 5. standardised estimates for the people factor. holland’s riasec model as for the previous model, as a first step, we tried to identify a second-level structure starting from an exploratory factorial analysis and using the 19 areas as items. a principal axis extraction and oblimin rotation with kaiser europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 585 http://www.psychopen.eu/ normalisation efa was conducted. the oblique solution was chosen, assuming a relationship between the dimensions. to test the riasec model, we forced a six-factor solution which explained 54.2% of the variance. table 7 shows the rotated loadings of all items. all areas seem to be explained mostly by one factor. five factors were easy to label: social, realistic, investigative, artistic, and enterprising. the last factor (conventional) can also work, even if it contains jobs that are partly connected to the artistic (e.g., architect) and enterprising (business consultant) factors. table 7 model matrix of explorative factorial analysis enterprisingconventionalartisticinvestigativerealisticsocialarea social .063-.073.071.000.031-.699 health .027.049.061.102-.055-.637 forensic .033.260-.164-.028-.043.508 technology .126.150-.063.041-.813-.012 automotive .093.112-.080-.077.809-.005transport .182-.005.110-.016.727-.012 agriculture .042-.168.317.063-.529-.001military .048-.102-.183-.221-.447-.174 literature .075-.005.031.804-.002.017 science .055.060-.042.672-.010-.126 arts .030-.211-.693.141-.032-.013 aesthetics .328-.113.513.319.211.217 music .236-.009-.401.121-.061.131 buildings .087.594-.241.132-.019-.050 computer .128-.467-.022-.147-.198-.068economy .232-.449-.087-.141.074-.284 tourism .770-.020-.026-.081-.062.047 hoteliers .553-.034-.175.129.288-.004linguistic .360-.098-.107.278-.162.274 note. loadings higher than .40 are highlighted, and areas are ordered by factor. to evaluate the validity of the factors in depth, two models have been compared with a cfa using the maximum likelihood method. in the first, all areas were inserted directly, with a single score representing the mean of the items which compose it; for the second, logarithmically transformed items were selected to find the best solution (step-by-step, those with lower relations to the latent variable were eliminated until the best solution remained). table 8 shows that the first model has bad fit indexes and that the second one, shown in figure 6, has acceptable fit indexes. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 586 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 riasec six-factor fit indexes for cfa models tested with maximum likelihood (n = 1117) cfirmseadfχ2 (p) .757.112 (.108 – .117)1372070.655***areas .920.053 (.050 – .056)237979.845***items ***p < .001. figure 6. standardised estimates for the riasec model. because riasec was proposed as a circumplex model, we decided to test this feature, too. the validity of the circular/hexagonal model was investigated using the hubert and arabie (1987) randomisation test, performed by randall software (tracey, 1997). starting from the correlation matrices between the six factors, the randomisation test (hubert & arabie, 1987; rounds, tracey, & hubert, 1992) provided two indices: the correspondence index europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 boerchi & magnano 587 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (ci), a descriptive measure of the model’s degree of fit to the data, and the p value, which can be interpreted as the significance of the fit. the ci may vary between 1 and –1; higher ci values imply better fits to the data. rounds and tracey (1996) defined the standard for holland’s model, affirming that the ci must be larger than .66. for instance, in šverko and babarović (2006), after two administrations in 1998 and 2002, the ci values were .72 and .86, respectively, for 18-to-19-year-old students; .57 and .67, respectively, for 16-to-17-year-old students; and .31 for 15-year-old students in 1998. the randomisation p values in all samples did not exceed .05. according to the previous literature (tracey, 2002b; tracey & robbins, 2005; tracey et al., 2006), the authors conclude that “it can be seen that as the students get older, they start to conceptualise interests in ways more like holland’s model” (tracey & ward, 1998, p. 496). riasec variables have been calculated, summing the logarithmically transformed items selected by the second model. all six variables had a good normal distribution; only realistic was partly asymmetric (1.255). starting from the pearson correlations matrix in table 9, the ci value was .62 and the p-value was .033. table 9 pearson correlations matrix between the six riasec factors conventionalenterprisingsocialartisticinvestigativerealisticfactor .874 (.874)realistic .830 (.830)investigative .188** .795 (.795)artistic .325**.102** .587 (.703)social .240**.276**.023 .747 (.787)enterprising .372**.281**.130**.030 .576 (.773)conventional .182**.176**.172**.325**.388** note. in the diagonal cronbach alpha. in brackets indexes corrected with sperman-brown prophecy formula assuming all the scales were composed by 5 items. **p < .01. discussion 3ip is a vocational interest inventory created with a particular attention to content validity. the jobs inserted in the questionnaire were selected to be well-known by students 9 years old and up. thus, the definitive number of jobs was limited, but the inventory still measures students’ vocational interests in 19 professional areas. a by-product of this is that most of the areas contain a very small number of jobs, with evident consequences on the reliability and validity of the resulting measures. despite this limit, this research has shown good qualities and the potential to be a powerful psychological inventory to assess second-level areas. both the four-factor and riasec models have good psychometric features. this is an important result considering that the models were not theorised from the beginning. riasec, in particular, has shown good fit on the circumplex model: its ci of .62 is not optimal, considering the limit of .66 proposed by rounds and tracey (1996), but, considering that our sample was from 9 to 13 years old, this ci reached the level of the croatian sample šverko and babarović (2006) attained at ages 16 to 17. because this result is partially in opposition to the previous research (e.g., tracey & ward, 1998), the question is how much this ci depends on the developmental level and how much it depends on the assessing instrument’s features. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 588 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the potential to become a more precise instrument for psychological assessment of vocational interests for younger students can be achieved through a targeted increment of the number of jobs. increasing each area to five items will likely be enough to obtain good internal reliability, even though this is not enough to guarantee good validity for second-level models. the riasec model needs particular attention; new jobs have to be chosen according to the limited number of jobs in some of the factors. the four-factor model could change in terms of both number and content because it probably is not completely representative of all the different kind of jobs a student can be interested in. conclusion 3ip has been shown to possess good psychometric qualities despite the limited number of items in some of its scales. increasing the number of jobs could both improve the reliability of some scales and enhance the overall capability to assess second-level areas, as described by the riasec model. the challenge is to improve the quality of the instrument while maintaining its capacity to work with 9-to-10-year-old students. 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(1985). children's interests inventory, grades 4-6. educational and psychological measurement, 45, 517-521. doi:10.1177/001316448504500308 about the authors diego boerchi, phd, assistant professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of education, department of psychology, catholic university of milan. he is also member of the steering committee of the research center for vocational guidance and career counseling (cross) and of the research unit for the resilience psychology. research interests: vocational guidance, career counseling, career education, parents' influence on children scholastic choices, career related tests and questionnaires. paola magnano, phd, is assistant professor in work and organizational psychology at the faculty of human and social sciences, kore university, enna. she is member of the management committee of the italian society for vocational guidance (sio) and of the courage research group. research interests: vocational guidance, career counselling, career education; burn out in helping professions. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 571–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.927 iconographic professional interests inventory 596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8624.2010.01433.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0020600 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f1131905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f001316448504500308 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en iconographic professional interests inventory (introduction) definitions vocational interests development assessment of interests in childhood and adolescence method: drafting of the inventory choosing the professions pilot study definitive questionnaire method: testing new models four-factor model holland’s riasec model discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg interview narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg michael bamberg*a, carolin demuthb [a] clark university, department of psychology, worcester, ma, usa. [b] center for developmental and applied psychological science, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 published (vor): 2016-02-29. *corresponding author at: clark university, department of psychology, worcester, ma 01610-1477, usa. e-mail: mbamberg@clarku.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. carolin demuth: michael, your work over the past decades has contributed significantly to our understanding of identity, particularly, narrative identity. can you talk a little bit about the story of how you first got interested in the topic? michael bamberg: this is typically the question where people tell a self-narrative of a transformative experience; but, you know, i approach this question also, “what am i doing here?” in identity research, from a theoretical perspective, and my entry point to narrative studies, narrative inquiry, and also identity research, is coming in as a developmental theorist. often people assume that if they study a population like children, or infants, or emerging adulthood, they do developmental research. but, in reality i think, what they do, is they study a population, typically also, a population that is still in the process of developing, or becoming or changing, and the assumption there is that as adults, we have emerged and then, there is no more development. but that is, i think, a misconception. it’s also highly problematic, because, what really is development? and this question i would tackle with the assumption that there is change going on in everyday encounters, in mundane situations, throughout the whole life. although this resembles a little bit lifespan psychology, i am entering this from a different angle, and that is that the changes that are taking place aremicro changes, are changes that are usually not the big kinds of, which are, typically retrospective reflections, where we think we have changed from one person to another. but there are micro processes, within which change typically takes place. and this is exactly where change and consistency are in cahoots, or working together. so [i am] looking at the micro changes, within the context of what is called socio-changes or socio-genesis, and ontogenesis, where a person comes into being, and where a person also becomes a social being; in this interplay, these micro processes that are taking place, constitute, if you want to call it, change. they are the territory, the landscape within which development is forming, and within which then it becomes a territory for inquiry. so these are the kinds of developmental processes, i think each developmentalist is interested in. and that is where the issue of identity and identity formation, these types of changes that are europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ taking place, are at the core of psychology; but not just psychology, also of a number of fields within sociology and anthropology and possibly we will get into this later. but there is this balance or navigation of what remains constant, and what changes. i think that is at the core of developmental studies, or developmental perspective, and this also at the same time is at the core of what we can call identity formation, and also then the sense of self that is emerging in these formative processes. so that will be my answer to the question “how do i enter identity and identity studies”. carolin demuth: so what is it that is so special about self-narrative that makes it crucial for identity? michael bamberg: my orientation point with regard to narratives is that self-narratives are probably nothing special. they are to a lot of narrative psychologists, and they are also to traditional psychologists who are not really using story-telling or narratives as a means to get into issues of identity or sense of self. i think behind that, that self-narratives are the most relevant way of getting into identity analysis, are the moments of self-reference, where we so to speak step outside of our bodies and look at ourselves and refer to ourselves. so that’s where these moments of self-reflection for traditional narrative psychologists become the center for identity and identity analysis. and i’m worried about this, because this assumes that somewhere somehow in our social development en route to modernity we have learned this process of stepping outside of ourselves and reflect on ourselves, and typically through institutions like the confession – saint augustine i think is a landmark here in this development, but then to modernity in the last two, three hundred years, where we have becomemore self-oriented, self-centered as well – not in a typically negative sense, but in terms of this socio-genesis, that we have become more of a society of individuals. and within this, of course, there is this ability to step outside and look at ourselves from a different angle, and reflect on ourselves. and at the high point of this socio-genesis is the turn to a therapeutic orientation where within the last hundreds years, we have become more and more, we can call it, aware, but also possibly obsessed with this notion that we can dig into this self as something that has an interior with something like a self memory, and then we can work with this in order to find out who we really are. but again, this is, i think a very traditional view and this view has a lot of problems. let me just cut through this where i would like to enter: the role of narratives is less in self-narratives – they can be self-narratives, they can thematize myself – but in any kind of narrative practice, in story-telling practices so to speak, we practice a sense of who we are, we practice first of all, to put things into a temporal continuity and discontinuity. so there is a temporal aspect of mapping out characters that can be the self, but it doesn’t have to be. typically, we design characters who have a bit of a history coming to a present and possibly even launching into something that follows next as a future. so in this we are laying out characters, but at the same time we view these characters from a particular perspective, we view them as navigating a sense of constancy and change. typically there is some character development, in particular in modernity in the novel, the character becomes him or herself, so there is a change over time. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 15 http://www.psychopen.eu/ michael bamberg is editor of the journal narrative inquiry through which he supports and encourages theorizing and research into narrative from differing perspectives. in addition, he is the series editor of studies in narrative consisting of a series of books at the cutting edge of narrative research. michael bamberg has been an important figure in the promotion of a series of different genres of psychology, applied linguistic, narrative and identity research. from his dissertation work on the acquisition of narratives by young children (bamberg, 1987), through positioning theory (bamberg, 1997, 2003) and analysis of narratives (bamberg, 2011a, 2012), to identity construction in talk-in-interaction (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008; bamberg, 2011a, 2011b; bamberg, de fina, & schiffrin, 2011), he has contributed varied strands to applied linguistics, psychology, and identity theory. has been heavily involved in the establishment of the newly formed section of division 5 of the american psychological association, the society for qualitative inquiry in psychology. he is professor at clark university, usa, and is nationally and internationally known for teaching workshops on qualitative methods and narrative analysis. he just finished (in february 2016) his threeyear long appointment as yunshan chair professor at the guangdong university of foreign studies, china. correspondence: clark university, department of psychology, worcester, ma 01610-1477, usa. e-mail: mbamberg@clarku.edu but then we also lay these characters out in terms of “how is this character different from others?” in stories, in particular how is the character a protagonist versus antagonist. but then there is also a valuing of these characters, in terms of how they differ, [e.g.] in terms of gender. if you want to tell a story that has the romantic plot, then traditionally, typically, it is a hetero story – not anymore, it doesn’t have to be – but it is typically the story where males are characterized, drawn out, differently from females. and these differences are brought to the fore, and in a way embraced and celebrated. of course there’s a change, in particular recently, in how these plots are formed and the roles these characters are playing, so to speak. so the characters are designed in terms of differences and sameness, different in terms of their ethnicity, of their gender, their age, local, regional background [etc.]. and they are also drawn out in terms of similarities, in-group characteristics, if you want to call it. and the third territory here, along which characters are designed is in terms of agency: how agentive are they characterized or how passive, in what kinds of passive roles are they placed so to speak. if you want to draw out a hero, then this hero is kind of almost planning what he or she – typically he in the tradition of heroic actions – is doing next: the plan, the intention is there, and then the intention leads to actions and changes in the world. so, the characters are drawn up highly transitive, in that sense. in the victim story or in a suffering story, we draw out the characters typically in an inagenative way as somebody who is the victim of typically the actions of others, but it can also just be happenings or bad luck or fate, thunder storms and snow, where these consolations are put in a way that the character is placed into conditions, as a recipient. i also call these three territories dilemmas because the speaker has choices to place these characters into these three territories or arenas or spaces in different ways. this of course also happens when we talk about ourselves but i think that is a variant of general story-telling, and it might be a special variant, but i think nothing particular is happening here that is not already visible and done in story-telling about others, and also in fictional storytelling. but what comes in here, and i really would draw up an important difference between identity researchers who put all their money on self reference and on stories where people reflect on themselves – is that in all storytelling, there is a practice in story-telling, and we relate not only with words but also with our bodies to our audiences; and i think, this is where gestures, where facial expressions, where gaze become relevant in order to package – package is possibly the wrong expression but – there is a unit of how, whatever is said is expressed bodily and whatever is said, is said verbally. this unit of verbal and bodily expression in story-telling is europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 16 http://www.psychopen.eu/ something that is making a difference – and also that is analyzable, and in particular now that we have visual means where we also can go into the visual means of story-telling and bring this into the package that we can use when we analyze and work with stories analytically. carolin demuth is associate professor in the department of communication and psychology, centre for developmental and applied psychological science (cedaps) at aalborg university, denmark. her research interest lies in the dialogical interplay of self, culture and discourse with a focus on narrative identity as well as early childhood socialization and human development. her work is rooted in cultural and discursive psychology. she also holds a strong interest in qualitative methods and epistemologies in general. correspondence:center fordevelopmental and applied psychological science, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: cdemuth@hum.aau.dk carolin demuth: this is basically also your critique of the big story approach of life stories, where people reflect on their lives. you make a strong point in saying that identity is achieved in situated practices in everyday mundane interactions, through small stories, fragmented stories. but don’t you think that big life stories still have relevance for identity research? michael bamberg: this brings up the issue that – about 10 years ago, i think we started to tackle this difference between big stories and small stories or narrative practices. let me just clarify this a little bit: the small story approach, or the narrative practice approach, assumes that stories typically occur in mundane everyday situations. when we interact, when we talk, that’s where we at times, not all the time, we launch into storytelling mode or we break into story-telling mode. and we mark this also: ‘oh i remember’ or ‘oh that reminds me’ or ‘let me tell you the story of what…’, but not all the time do we mark it; sometimes we just launch into them, but it is very typical. i mean if you look at the bodily reactions also that we have on video tape, even in 10 year olds, when somebody is taking the floor with a small story, the others lean back and then towards the end, again move forward – and this happens already, two, three, four seconds before the story teller ends the story – the others move in and there is a signaling, a bodily signaling, that ‘i’m done with my story, the floor is open and i want some reactions to the story’. so these are the kinds of situated interactive contexts within which stories have their function. and they do, with regard to identity research now, they do identity work; and we can go into this in a little bit more detail. but now, you asked, isn’t there something that big stories also accomplish, also do in terms of identity work. big stories, the tradition that we started to tackle 10 years ago, are based on the assumption, that we have a life – and we do (laughs) i’m not denying that – but that this life is configured in terms of a story. and big story researchers, identity researchers in particular, assume that if we put people into, and let me just be blunt here, when we put them into experimental conditions, almost like taking them to the dark room, putting them on the couch, and letting them forget where and how they really live, and tell them “i want you to reflect on yourself and only yourself”, so “think about the question, who are you really?”, “talk to yourself, disregard where you are, what you are, in this particular situation, just dig into your interiority and find out and lay it all out, and start as early as you can remember”. this is the kind of confessional, and traditionally an institutional situation. it is the type of therapeutic situation, and this is also a type of the big story research where we typically ask for life stories – “you have all the time, two, three hours, and tomorrow we can continue, so tell me everything”. in a way i characterize them as sunday conditions, you know, appealing to the notion of confessions that happen in catholic churches – i don’t know whether they typically happen on sundays or not – but that type of experimental condition, within which we are not doing the kind of normal story-telling that we typically do, and the assumption behind this type of research, again, is that there is something stored, that is at the essence, that is at the primordial condition of being an existential kind of europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 17 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self that was always there, and maybe changing, but it is part of the story, of the story – singular here, that is you; or that your life is the story that you tell. i think this is actually reducing ourselves to walking stories, to walking narratives. the person and personhood is a walking narrative, and then for us as researchers, in particular in psychology, but in other social sciences as well, we tap into this by letting them tell their story; and this is in no way different from traditional approaches to personality where we use a questionnaire in which we have our participants answer the kinds of questions that we think are relevant to this type of identity. so we are stepping outside the normal everyday existence within which stories are told, within which they surface, and assume that there is something that is organizing our life, that we assume is the kind of basic underpinning of being in the world. and i find this highly problematic. if you ask, for instance, 13-year-olds to tell their stories, their life stories, they look at you and say “what are you talking about?” or they say “well, you know, i was born, and then i went to school” – so they may be able to give you stages. or if you ask a 70 year old citizen who grew up in the rural parts of china, or has been working all their lives on the conveyer belt, and you go in with a microphone, and say, can you tell me the story of your life, they also will look at you in disbelief and say “what are you talking about? i have been working here all my life, that is me, that’s my life”. so you will not get these book-form life stories with chapters. these are, when you get them as a researcher, highly stylized forms that have been exercised and practiced, and this is the way they have come to existence; but they are in no way necessarily running – in the sense of determining – someone’s life. they are stylized forms, and that doesn’t mean that they are not interesting or irrelevant. i think they are what they are: highly reflected, retrospective ways of letting one’s life pass by oneself, and then drawing some conclusions. so with regard to that, i don’t think they are sitting inside the person. they are ways of making sense, but there are other ways of making sense that are taking place in front of our eyes. and my call to identity research is simply “let’s work with ordinary stories first, and then later on you may also want to look at these highly stylized forms that may come in the form of biographies or autobiographies, where there are interesting things to read and to re-reflect on, how these things come to existence. so, i’m not totally doing away with these big stories, these reflective ways of making sense of one self – i don’t want to call them irrelevant; but they are an outcome of the identity work in small stories – becoming formed continuously in everyday conversations with small stories in their midst. and those stories in there i think are highly interesting, they are really telling, and they also may consolidate in these big stories and these reflective life stories; and as i said, these are forms worthwhile studying, but i don’t understand why – this is a rough estimate – 60 or 70% of research on identity is using big stories and not focusing on the real formative small stories that are going on in mundane, everyday situations. carolin demuth: so, if narrative identity is something that is constructed in everyday interaction, and you contest the notion that there is something like a core inner self that we can get to, are we then not merely rhetorical performers, is there nothing inside of us that is a self or identity? is it only constructed in the situation? michael bamberg: there are maybe two issues here, one is the interiority-exteriority, and the other one is the construction process in situ. let me address the first first, because the inside-outside distinction, is one, that is i think is very relevant for psychologists. and traditional psychology i think is build on this notion that we have an inner core, an interiority. let me tell you a small story maybe, because a couple of years ago, someone asked me to write a chapter for their development of identity handbook, and they wanted me to take the exteriority position, and they thought that this is what i’m doing. and i had this extended argument with them that the distinction europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 18 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between inside and outside is at least a problematic one, maybe even a false one. so at the end i bowed out of it because they wanted to nicely pit my position that identity is something that is formed in interactions in social situations, and not inside a self. so, i said no i can’t do this because that is not what i believe. and then a former student of mine took that position but he also felt it was very misunderstood. so, this contrast of interaction as something that is outside – and there is something that is inside, becomes really even more than problematic, because it is based on a misconception of what language is – what language is, what interaction is. the assumption that seems to run through this is that we have an interiority, wherever that comes from, and sometimes it’s a nativist assumption that is running through this or an evolutionary assumption that is running through this argument, that this interiority then in situ and in vivo is expressed. and typically with emotions, right, the emotions are inside, language is placed in the mind or in the brain. so, whenever emotions and language are expressed, they are visible in behavior, but before that they are not visible. nevertheless as psychologists, we can enter what is invisible, what is hidden, the interiority, by having people talk about it, when they unpack it, in particular in talk or in behavior: that’s where the interiority or aspects of it become visible. but, again, this traditional view i think is very close to an experimentalist point of view, that we position the person in experimental conditions, in the dark room out of context, we pull them out of who they are in everyday mundane situations; and only in those special conditions can we find out what is inside. i think this conception is running now through modern psychology in brain research – that we believe we can look into the brain and get answers to what is happening when people are in real everyday contexts. but again, what is running through this is this assumption of this monologic self, that we are who we are, when we are with ourselves. when we are in our social contexts, when we are with other people, then we are not our real selves anymore, then we wear masks. then it is society that deforms us. so, this is a way of placing behavior, language in particular, but also interactions, into a context outside, that is different from who we really are. again, i think what this metaphor between internal and external does is placing the wrong emphasis on – in particular in psychology – on the monologic, the person who seemingly speaks to himself when they are trying to figure things out: the reflective self. and interestingly hubert hermans calls this the “dialogical self”. but it is ultimately a very monologic way of splitting up the self. and this is only possible because in modernity we have a metaphor giving us the impression that we can find ourselves by going deeper into ourselves, but who is the finder of this finding process, and who is the one that is reflected on? again, i’m not trying to take this away, i think self reflection is a very important achievement in modernity, and this is exactly i think what has become, now part of our modern education processes, that we want all learners become more reflective of the practices in which we are involved; and in order to do that, we have to engage in self-reflection. but the context within which self-reflection makes sense is that we are, first of all, considering the interactive social situations within which we are embedded. now, we reflect on those, and in that process, we also can remove, take a third person perspective so to speak on ourselves, and look at ourselves: what has led to my action. and this again i think is the metaphor that runs deeply through big story research; but it also runs through this whole distinction between interiority and exteriority, and unfortunately it turnes what is called within this metaphoric approach, the exteriority, into a byproduct; and storytelling in our everyday interactions into something that also happens – but, you know, it’s not really that relevant or interesting. it is the interiority from where all this happens, from where all this comes. this to me is the central point, and this is an outcome of essentializing and existentializing self and identity, from where a lot of these kinds of problematic issues have emerged over the last forty/fifty years with regard to narrative – and over the last hundred, hundred fifty years with regard to psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 19 http://www.psychopen.eu/ carolin demuth: that brings us to the next question. there are narrative identity researchers who refer to self stories as a form of experiencing the world, especially in the realm of phenomenological analysis. what role do phenomenological aspects have in your approach? michael bamberg: in my own reflections on narrative and qualitative inquiry, i think this is where the notion of experience has proven to be very important for the narrative turn, and, in the turn to narrative, for making use of narratives. it appears to be the case that stories and experience have a lot in common. let me step back for a second and get back to the notion of reflection, and enter this issue from there. because when i tell a story of yesterday as part of an ongoing interaction, so this is a short story of what happened yesterday, and then we continue our conversation. this making something from yesterday relevant to the here and now, the ongoing conversation, is of course also a reflective piece, it is stepping out of the conversation right now and bringing something in from a previous time. so there is some form of reflection, but this is different from sitting down in the dark room or on the couch and reflecting on my whole life. each small story, each event in which we make something past, possibly even something futurist, fictive, relevant to the here and now of the ongoing conversation, has reflective aspects. in that sense there is an overlap between talking about yesterday or something that happened five years ago, and making it relevant to the here and now and the notion of experience [of what happened]. the term experience has been used, possibly even overused within the narrative turn or the turn to narrative, and i’m also trying to bring this a bit back into what experiences are and what they are not. so is narrative a form of experience, or can it be? yes, it can. but behind this is a larger question, a larger bunch of questions. first of all, let’s just assume for a second, what is it that actually happened, that is made relevant in a story? then, how is what actually may have happened brought into a sequence of events or happenings that we can call “the experience”, where there is something that you, i, anyone as a subject, subjectively from a particular point of view, have become part of. so, you only could look at what actually happened, an accident, from the street corner or out of the window from where you saw, whatever unfolded, in terms of a sequence of events. so, this brings us to the next distinction, and that is: what when you close the window and move on: what have you stored? which becomes a problematic matter for what is called memory. now, of course we have to ask how over time this is being reworked through other experiences that were previous, or through new experiences that are similar. so, how has this particular sequence of events that happened, how have they been stored and restored in memory, over time? and then, equally important – or possibly more important: in a particular situation, you bring this up, you make what you think has happened, what has been stored and reworked, you try to make this relevant, for a particular interactive situation, like on the couch if you are asked to talk about your mother – and you try to make something relevant from way back to the here and now. and of course, typically this happens in a more interactive situation, because something has been talked about before. and you know where the conversation is going, typically, and that’s where you bring this in, for a particular reason. so you, first of all, put this into the language that we are habitually speaking. in maori, you would ‘language’, as a verb, this particular experience very, very differently, culturally, historically, as you would do this in german or in english – languages that place the subject in sentence initial position. so, with a language already comes also a particular ‘perspectivizing’ of whatever the experience was. but now with the telling of it, you are working up particular parts of the sequence of events, you pull them out and plug them into your story. so, in languaging and storying, what you think happened, what you ‘stored’ and what you reworked, comes to existence in the form of a story. and this is different from what you experienced. so, we don’t want to do away with experience, experience is still, let me carefully say, not irrelevant, but the telling of it, let’s focus on europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 20 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that, let’s work with that, let’s work with the micro-cues, that you use in the process of telling, fitting something previous into the here and now and making it relevant, is where we should start. how is it told and why, and those are the kinds of analytical questions that i think we would want to start with; and then we can carefully, if you want to, bring ourselves back to the notion of experience. but what experience nowadays is, has been so wildly problematized, in particular when it comes to traumatic experiences or experiences that are grounded in some larger experiences. let’s not go into more detail here, but my point is that our belief that we are getting from the stories that people tell to their experiences has become a highly problematized assumption. however, i nevertheless trust that in our analysis of story-telling practices we are much closer to the experiential world of our participants than when we take them out of their everyday context and subject them to answer questionnaire-like questions that either confirm our hypotheses or disconfirm them. and again, i don’t want to say that big story research is a bad approach, but it is not the best approach if you are interested in the experiential world of people and in particular if you look at how they are dealing with whatever it is that they think their experiences were. and this would be in the everyday processes of story-telling. carolin demuth: your approach can be broadly located within the field of discursive psychology. do you see any differences to other approaches within discursive psychology, e.g. approaches that take more a conversational analysis approach, for instance? michael bamberg: as i mentioned already, one of the aims of situating stories in our story-telling practices is looking at when people actually tell stories and move from there, what these stories are, what these stories do in the interaction, but also what these stories do in terms of bringing off a sense of who i am that i’m practicing in story-telling – and again, not only in story-telling when i thematize the self but also in story-telling about my children or whatever, where i clearly position myself with my values and my orientations. the original point that i already mentioned was that i think we are more than walking narratives, it is wrong to reduce people to narratives or personhood to narrative. so that is on that extreme. the other extreme would be to say identity doesn’t exist, or it’s an epiphenomenon, and what we are really interested in are just the conversational practices that we engage in, the turn-taking machinery that is keeping interaction going. i think there is more, there’s something, i don’t want to call it in the middle, but i think we can learn from these two extreme positions because in the process of ‘inter-acting’, of being in social situations where we present, display a sense of who we are, we come across, we are affirmed, we react to, this is where we exactly also practice and turn these practices into more and more habits or into rituals of identity work, that become metaphorically speaking ‘us’. so, the way i approach a position that is different from these two extremist positions is by highlighting the story-telling practices that we engage in — but not that these practices ultimately result in the oneand-only story that ultimately becomes or replaces me. rather, we are these practices within which we fashion, refashion, rework, navigate, construe a sense of who we are. but also there is this building process and this process of continuous change, that makes it possible to talk about, retrospectively, potential major transformations; but usually there are these small little things in everyday routines that are not always the same, that make who we are, that are forming a sense of who we are, that are forming, or that are answering, or that make it possible that we can answer the question, “who am i?”. so, i think this is where we can learn in particular from those analysts who work with fine grained situated conversations or interactional data, and more and more also turn to visual data since we have the technical equipment to analyze what is actually going on in these micro-processes in terms of a mutual understanding, in terms of something that some people call the inter-corporeality within which, we as bodies and as minds and brains and as persons, identities, all kind of form or bring ourselves off – i think europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 21 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that’s the best metaphor that i can use at this point in time – a sense of self is brought off and is renewed, but there is a continuous process within which this takes place. carolin demuth: there has been quite a bit of discussion and critique within the last few years that qualitative research in general and discursive psychology in particular put a too strong focus on language, and there is a lot of discussion about materiality in which social interaction is embedded in, the material world as well as embodiment. to what extent do you take that into account in your approach? michael bamberg: this is a really interesting question. i used to say that without language, well i still do say this [laughs], without language, what we call being human, wouldn’t be the same. now, that’s easy to say, i think that’s relatively safe. still, i mean the question here that is behind it, is what is the role of language in having become a language or languaging animal in our genealogy and also in our socio-genesis? how important is language? but i think there are more and more approaches now that try to place language into the body – that we resonate with ourselves when we speak, so to speak – this also then can be pushed into the level of content, and we haven’t gone into that today; the issue of narrative as form and narrative as content, and using narrative in order to make sense of form and content and ourselves – but where the body i think is becoming more of an analytic object. and the body has been disregarded, disrespected maybe even, in psychology, and the tradition of psychology, because traditionally it was the soul and then the mind that formed the centerpiece of being human. the body again was more the outside, keeping the inside, in particular the mind and our secrets, all hidden. now, i think, and maybe that is erroneous, that the change in putting more emphasis on what we do with our bodies, has come from technology, that we see bodies more as – in interaction – as doing identity work, as presenting a sense of self and we also have more access to intercultural, visual images these days. so, what we can do now is break down and display bodies in interaction in slow motion, or in fast forward. we can stop the tape, rewind it, go over it again; and having done this in the last twenty years more and more and with better precision is almost like what in the sciences was the magnifying glass or ways of looking at things that were invisible to the human eye before. now we have behavior, bodily behavior – and within this, language behavior, under the microscope, under a different microscope; but we can look at the micro-cues that are being, in a way, exchanged when people are doing social work, and in this social work, do identity work. i mean presenting a sense of who we are and hearing and seeing who the other is, and making sense of this as something that works together toward a mutual understanding. so, this is i think where bodies have become much more and much easier of a target of recent analytic frameworks within which language is put into a new frame of doing linguistic analysis – not anymore from written texts, i think this is really past, and in particular written text working with fiction. this is where a lot of identity work, i think, originally in narratology was housed, then to more and more linguistics, where tape recordings and transcripts were the way we tried to fixate spoken language, into sentences, into narratives, and now to the kinds of ways within which language is used, and narratives as well, in bodily work that is taking place in everyday situations but also i think in situations where people are in “life-storycouch-situations” and reflect on who they think they really are. carolin demuth: you still refer to language as the main tool to tell stories. what about people who don’t have language? what about deaf people? are they not able to construct their narrative identity? michael bamberg: this brings up exactly the sense-making in deaf and blind populations when it comes to the body. how do blind people make sense of bodily behavior, of gesture and eye gaze, things like this? these are really interesting questions. but behind this also is the question whether there are universal approaches to identity, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 22 http://www.psychopen.eu/ or whether there is a way – and can narrative identity formation processes still be used as an analytic tool? – to get into sense-making of self, sense-making of others in a more culture-specific way. and in terms of traditional ways within which we are tied into communities of sense-making, within which these bodily, linguistic practices take place, i think that’s where, as long as we can participate in these practices, we are participating in meaningmaking processes within which bodies, within which minds, within which habits are forming the foundation for mutual understanding. as long as the aim of mutual understanding, that is tying people together, and that is tied into the practices, into concrete practices that blind people, deaf people, people who can’t speak are tied into, there is a participatory framework within which aspects of this skill set are being practiced. so, it is not the language per se, it is not hearing, speaking per se, or hearing per se or touching per se, i think touching is a very important other skill set in corporeality, in mutual sense making. and then also, laying eyes onto objects and also facial expressions, of smiling, of expressing anger or distance. all these are not necessarily coming from inborn reactions, they might, but that’s not where they are meaningful in our developed, human societal work that we do with each other. this is where the social layers have become the ones that are helping us to interpret the other and self, world – and then my place within world. i think as long as there is a participation, there is a way of learning and being able to practically use those means that are available to the individual, culturally and also in terms of the abilities, the skill sets, that individuals have, and sometimes don’t share. carolin demuth: a related question to this: you already mentioned cultural differences, people like charles taylor have argued that self narratives have become particularly prominent, you said this yourself earlier in the interview, that self narratives have become more central in our post-modern western world. would you say one can take your approach, methodologically, and go to a different cultural context and do research, e.g. in traditional societies where in everyday interactions, self-narratives don’t play such a central role? michael bamberg: i think i know where you are heading with this. cross-culturally, i think to take the self-reflective narrative into communities that are, if there are any, that are not touched by globalization, by hollywood, i think would be highly problematic. i alluded to it when i said: ask a thirteen year old for a life story, or go ask chinese workers who are coming from the countryside and now spend twelve to fifteen hours at the conveyer belt, for their life stories. you don’t get what you get in a late modern society from middle class participants. in particular, i think this is where a lot of narrative research moves into the narrative of doctors, of teachers, of nurses, in professional organizations. and there’s nothing wrong with that; but i think that’s very different to use the big story, life story narrative approach in these communities compared to the thirteen year old or non middle class rural, culturally differently designed spaces. but, the narrative practice approach, i think still holds water here cross-culturally, as well as culturally, because this is truly a cultural approach: you go into their practices within which references to past events or future events are surfacing. this is where something is made relevant that happened, supposedly previously to the interactive context. these are situations, where broadly speaking, the dilemma of past, change, present, constancy, so what do past events have in common with the present right now, and what is different, are managed, are navigated. right, and that is my argument in the story-telling practices approach: when it comes to the navigation of differences between characters, narrative is a good place to look for this type of navigation. when it comes to the navigation of agency – how are characters placed, highly agentive, transitive, having an effect on the world, or less so as being affected by the world, in particular in suffering, victimized narratives – again, narratives are a good place to spot these kinds of navigations. but, the navigation of sameness and differences between people, and agency also can be navigated in other genres. but when it comes to the navigation of past, present, or different times in europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 23 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the past, where people are trying to make relevant changes, or they make relevant the constancy – i’m exactly the same nice young boy i was when i was five years old – where that is the attempt to accomplish – this type of navigation – that’s when narratives are doing, and only narratives, this type of job. and it is exactly because they have a temporal dimension. now recipes and route descriptions also have a temporal dimensions, but not in the same way as narratives. this is simply where you follow a list, so to speak, but narratives are more than a list of events, and we can go deeper into that but i think we past that stage in the interview. i think, this type of narrative practice approach is particularly relevant for what people call ‘cultural research’, what i call ‘contextual research:’ context within different cultures, even in different times, in different situations, in different populations. i think this is more productive than the big story approach that argues that we have to find people’s interiority and unfold it, and show who they really are, because small story research fosters understanding in the exemplary fashion. again, big story research is not wrong, and we don’t want to do away with it; but i think there is this whole other side which probably is more complex but also more interesting; and i also think ultimately it will pay off: it will lead to deeper insights. and i think it is typically in sync with qualitative inquiry. so this is where narrative inquiry, the way i define it, is a nice complementation, and fits in a qualitative interesting way. carolin demuth:now you also teach qualitative methods related to your approach. in the last ten or twenty years, various attempts have been made to define criteria to evaluate the quality of qualitative research. it is of course difficult [to define general criteria] because qualitative inquiry is a very heterogeneous field and there are no standardized procedures, but some attempts have been made. but particularly within narrative inquiry, and there are various approaches here as well, it seems that there are no clear-cut criteria of how to evaluate research. are there any criteria, or do you have any ideas of how we can evaluate the quality of narrative inquiry? michael bamberg: this is a really complex issue right now. there are two aspects, one, how does narrative inquiry fit qualitative inquiry, and the other, what really should be called ‘qualitative’, what should be called ‘narrative inquiry’ and possibly what isn’t. these are also kind of political issues, i mean, nobody owns the term inquiry. there is a journal called critical inquiry, i think that’s the most famous one, then there’s a journal called qualitative inquiry, and that is pretty well known as well, and there is this journal called narrative inquiry. so, inquiry is nothing that anyone owns; but what is inquiry really and what kind of analytic approach is going along with inquiry? is storytelling by itself already a type of inquiry? i’m hesitant to follow this, and into this also falls the debate of how much auto-ethnography or whether novel-writing is a form of inquiry. it can be argued, but i think this would form a different type of inquiry. it is also a self-inquiry, that’s another topic, it’s an interesting topic and i would love to have that debate at some other point in more detail. turning to narrative inquiry: what is narrative inquiry? briefly, the traditional narratology is squarely narrative inquiry: trying to figure out what is a narrative, what are the forms of narrative, how have they historically developed, and also what are the contents that typically are put into narratives, the history of the genres and of the themes that have been narrativized. i think those topics are part of literary analysis and literal history and they have formed the meat of narratology in the past; and they are a form of narrative inquiry. and these are also not just embraced in literature or foreign language departments, but also in other departments where people in text linguistics or cognitive linguistics and in cognitive psychology have tried to figure out how certain forms, certain sequences of narrative chunks affect recipients’ minds. now when it came to taking narrative inquiry as the metaphor to explore lives, and people’s experience, as in the social sciences, i think this was a game changer, triggering the big change for the turn to narrative in the social sciences. the realization that we can have people tell stories and we find out how they organize whatever it is – their own experience, their personal lives – and we also use their stories to europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 24 http://www.psychopen.eu/ find out about their understanding of the institution, within which they work, the classroomwithin which they operate, the interplay between classroom and outside the classroom, the students’ lives so to speak, this realization catapulted narrative inquiry into the public domain. narrative inquiry became the major tool to use narratives, storytelling as a way of trying to find out or better understand particular segments of private and public lives – how people meet their partners on the web, how they make sense of themselves and others in intercultural social situations. all this i think contributed to this huge wave of adopting narrative into the social sciences as a major tool to investigate, to do inquiry. but that’s also where now a lot of confusion came with this, and this takes us back to the discussion we had before, because some people argue that those segments of life just like the individual personal life are narratively organized. so, some people build narrative into life per se and argue: life is a narrative, that is, narrative is organizing what is happening out there; it is organizing your experience. the next one is, how you store your experience, narrative is helping you to store experience, to organize and reorganize experience, to make relevant and then to narrativize it. so, some colleagues within the social sciences have placed narrative and these different parts of what we can call now the narrativization process to become the central organizing forces for human life. in contrast, and as i try to make clear, i’m trying to locate narratives where people actually break into narratives and tell stories; and i start working from there. outliers of this position that expands the notion of narrative seems to be holding that everything is narrative, and wherever you jump in, you find aspects of a process of narrativization. that’s what i have characterized in my own writings as the “narrative über alles” [“narrative above all”] position – that i don’t think ultimately holds water. i don’t think it is helpful. i think it leads to a position where anyone can say anything in their analytic work andmaintain that they are doing ‘narrative inquiry’. well, ok, but how so? exemplify it, lay it out, and that’s i think, having used this metaphor of this continuum, from everywhere to actual story-telling practices, that those who venture more to the extreme of essentializing narrative and making it a precondition to human existence, building it into not only human communication but even to being human per se, that it leads to a way of shortcutting the kinds of justifications for the questions that researchers are asking and then also for methodological approaches, the tools that they bring in where is it that they actually credit narrative story-telling, to the sense-making abilities that are approached, that are being researched. so, i haven’t answered your whole question – now bringing this into qualitative inquiry, i think, the relationship between qualitative inquiry and narrative inquiry within this range of different perspectives makes it even more problematic. because qualitative inquiry also is a conglomeration of a number of different ways of asking meaningful research questions and finding ways of answering these meaningful questions. and interestingly, the american psychological association (apa) has just put together a task force, and we meet in two weeks actually, for the first time, in order to – and this is an interesting and problematic thing – in order to define guidelines for the publication of qualitative research, and guidelines for the publication of qualitative research obviously also implies there are some guidelines for what is good qualitative research, so that it is publishable and should be published. at this point, we are using the guidelines that have been developed and are published in the apa guidelines for qualitative experimental research. how much those guidelines are good guidelines that can be transferred to qualitative approaches, is still an open question. but also, some debate will focus heavily on whether there should be any guidelines at all, because the argument can be made that we should continue to be open to the kind of innovative practices that have originally turned us to qualitative inquiry, and there i think in particular to narrative inquiry. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 25 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one last word, when i teach qualitative inquiry, and i just put together a sequence of thirteen kind of ted talks, small talks, that i want to make available to the public. i’m trying to bring qualitative inquiry into twenty-first century learning strategies. we have changed from, i think largely at least, from the focus on teaching practices to learning practices and within the learning practices that are replacing lecturing and the transfer of information, qualitative inquiry has become a very powerful instrument to actually show and document how learning practices nowadays can be more productive and more useful for learners in the twenty-first century. and within qualitative inquiry, the way i teach it and the way i have also outlined it in some of these small talks, is that observing is still the queen of qualitative inquiry; so that we have to first of all problematize our everyday modes of laying eyes on others and describing what we see. so, in other words, we have to learn to ask: what is going on when we fashion descriptions in inquiry as researchers, and what kind of interpretative cultural procedures are at work when we describe? it is as simple as that. and from there i think a skill set can be developed within ‘the qualitative mindset’, as we call it, that can be transferred and moved into narrative inquiry. narrative inquiry also as a highly interpretative discipline where there are interpretative strategies at work that we again have to bring out and then make available for criticism, for reflection. description, observing, and interpretation of narratives are the pillars, i think, for qualitative inquiry. now the question is: how are we able to bring some standards into this that mark and demarcate what is good quality from what is less quality; i think because we all agree that certain of these ways of doing inquiry are better than others – not everything is the same here – but, we are in highly contested territory, and entering this, i first thought ‘i’m not going to go there’, but then i thought ‘why not?’, this is definitely a terrific learning experience. and at the next congress of qualitative inquiry in urbana champaign, this will hopefully be discussed, as one of the core themes. but i hope that we also can bring this back to narrative inquiry and identity analysis, and i hope that one of the next places we can do this is the international psychology conference in yokohama, in july 2016. so, i think those are places where these issues need to be discussed; and this is an exciting time, and i find things are going in the right direction rather than that there are dangers and problems and issues that we have to resolve. i think it’s an open territory and i think it is fascinating. carolin demuth: this brings me to my very last question: what are some future directions that you see for the field of narrative inquiry? michael bamberg: i am thinking a lot about that. we possibly can use this question also to divide again a little bit of traditions that are currently on the market so to speak. i think there is one tradition to take narrative out into the fields, partly as a method or as a tool, or something that is inspiring to other disciplines. there is a big discussion in the medical humanities of the role of narrative and even in educating physicians. there is a big discussion of the role of narrative in legal discourse and in legal persuasion; and again, i think in educating lawyers and educating the public also about this. narrative marketing and narrative branding are, i think, fascinating and i’m trying to get into this as well, in particular with visual narratives: how we can use them in terms of appealing to an audience emotionally but also productively [laughs] not just for consumption to persuade them to consume or identify with a particular brand, but also to become critically involved emotionally, with branding processes and identity processes – personal branding. right now (november in 2015) we are going in the united states through a process where people are beginning to pick candidates of the two parties who will run against each other next year in the presidential election. and this is where story-telling, i mean it’s just unbelievably at the forefront, and it hasn’t been, i think recognized by europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 26 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the media yet. just a couple of days ago, one of the forerunners of the republican party has told his story – it is a redemption story – his story of having been a child with a lot of anger problems and having overcome these problems and having become a major figure in a medical discipline. and now presenting a sense of self that is calm, that is comfortable, that is peaceful – so this is an interesting narrative. now the press, the media has tried to, like with every political candidate, go after this to corroborate the story. and now this life story or this way of trying to come across with this life story as a particular kind of person, has been pulled into doubt. and to me, this is worthwhile a debate again – what are the facts? or, is it just important to say: this is the way the person who is marketing himself, who is branding himself this way, this is the way the person makes sense of himself, so let it be there and let’s work with what this person has to offer, whether this is a true story or not a true story, but this is a way he would like to see himself and make sense of himself. this is at the issue right now, of personal branding and also in apologizing – something that i have been looking at in the past. i can go on with narratives’ role in education, in marketing, in teacher identity, in all brands of life. so, narrative has become a really highly publicized tool of doing this type of inquiry, and that is one direction i think narrative inquiry will continue to become even more popular, more interesting, more applied. i think that is where a number of new journals have come up; it is an exciting area, and i definitely want to be involved in the future, in the personal branding of myself maybe even as well [laughs], but, help people do this, the narrative marketing. so, this is a section of life i think where narrative will expand. now, the other – i think that’s also where i would like to say this is where narrative inquiry as a specialized form of inquiry should center – is to reformulate the questions that i also just went over from my own perspective, and this is the discussion of “what is narrative?” – this discussion focuses on how narrative is used for identity research in socio-linguistics, in psychology, in sociology and anthropology, and neighboring disciplines. furthermore, how is it moving from here into these more applied disciplines like narrative marketing and branding? what are the dangers? what are the problems? should we confine it more? should we open it up? these are the kinds of discussions that i definitely would like to see more discussed and published within the journal of narrative inquiry. these are ways of centering on issues that we, i think, as a relatively small community, should also, in a way, control. i mean not control in terms of: this is right, and this is wrong; but enable a discussion within which we find agreements and disagreements, and can widen it – but not too wide – into those applied areas, because the applied areas all provide many ways of publishing applications of narrative inquiry in these fields. so, there are lots of journals, even journals that have narrative in their title, but narrative inquiry itself, i think, is where we might want to provide a forum to center on the discussions of how we work with narrative. what is good work? what is productive work? what is helpful for disciplines? and also what is helpful for expanding the term narrative – or narrowing it in particular ways? and this is, i think, where discussions could take place that we did not get into today: what are differences between ‘identity’, ‘narrative identity’ and ‘forming a narrative sense of self’? how is the question of ‘who am i?’ answered by use of different narrative approaches? this is an area of narrative inquiry, that i would also typically invest myself in the next five or ten years, and i think it’s a growing debate here, and also potentially a very productive one. carolin demuth: narrative inquiry remains a fascinating field and there is still lot of potential for very interesting future research. thank you very much, michael, for taking the time for this interview. michael bamberg: you are most welcome. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 bamberg & demuth 27 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bamberg, m. (1987). the acquisition of narratives. berlin, germany: mouton de gruyter. bamberg, m. (1997). positioning between structure and performance. journal of narrative and life history, 7(1-4), 335-342. doi:10.1075/jnlh.7.42pos bamberg, m. (2003). stories, tellings, and identities. in c. daiute & c. lightfoot (eds.), narrative analysis: studying the development of individuals in society. london, united kingdom: sage. bamberg, m. (2011a). who am i?–narration and its contribution for self and identity. theory & psychology, 21, 3-24. doi:10.1177/0959354309355852 bamberg, m. (2011b). who am i? big or small – shallow or deep? theory & psychology, 21(1), 122-129. doi:10.1177/0959354309357646 bamberg, m. (2012). narrative analysis. in h. cooper (editor-in-chief), apa handbook of research methods in psychology: vol. 2. quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 85-102). washington, dc, usa: american psychological association press. bamberg, m., de fina, a., & schiffrin, d. (2011). discourse and identity construction. in s. schwartz, k. luyckx, & v. vignoles (eds.), handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 177-199). berlin, germany: springer. bamberg, m., & georgakopoulou, a. (2008). small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. text and talk, 28, 377-396. doi:10.1515/text.2008.018 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 14–28 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1128 narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg 28 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075%2fjnlh.7.42pos http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0959354309355852 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0959354309357646 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2ftext.2008.018 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en narrative inquiry: an interview with michael bamberg (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references conceptual referents, personality traits and income-happiness relationship: an empirical investigation research reports conceptual referents, personality traits and income-happiness relationship: an empirical investigation dilwar hussain* a [a] indian institute of technology guwahati, guwahati, india. abstract one of the ongoing debates in social indicator and subjective well-being research is concerned with the weak relationship between objective (such as income) and subjective indicators of well-being (such as life satisfaction). empirical studies show that the relationship between subjective and the traditional objective well-being indicators is weak. this relationship is found to be very complex and far from clear. the present study tries to shed lights behind the complexity of the relationship between income and subjective well-being (swb) by bringing into the analysis some alternative factors such as heterogeneity in the human perception and purpose of life (conceptual referent theory) and personality traits. conceptual referent theory of happiness proposes that people differ in their conceptual referent for a happy life and this referent plays a significant role in their judgment about happiness and life satisfaction. results of this cross-sectional survey based on 500 individuals residing in rural and urban areas indicate that the relationship between income and life satisfaction is not very strong. furthermore, the relationship between income and life satisfaction is contingent on a person’s conceptual referent for happiness. this study suggests that income seems to have a significant influence on life satisfaction for some people (especially with outer oriented referents) and insignificant influence for other people (especially holding inner oriented referents). additionally, neuroticism personality trait was able to further explain the relationship between income and life satisfaction. it was observed that the individuals with higher level of neuroticism tend to get a lower level of satisfaction from income rise as compared to individuals with lower level of neuroticism. keywords: subjective well-being, life satisfaction, conceptual referent theory, neuroticism europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 received: 2017-02-10. accepted: 2017-07-01. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology guwahati, guwahati, assam, india-781039. email: dhussain@iitg.ernet.in this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. what is the impact of income on subjective well-being (swb) or life satisfaction? this is a significant question for various stakeholders such as political parties, governments, economists and so on. there are many policy implications associated with this question. we can judge the benefits of economic progress by exploring the impact of income on swb (diener & biswas-diener, 2009). there is extensive literature on the relationship between income and well-being (howell & howell, 2008). however, the relationship is very complex and far from clear. economists are generally convinced that income is a sufficient indicator of human well-being and increasing the level of income will upsurge human well-being and life satisfaction (lakshmanasamy, 2010). however, empirical studies show that the relationship between subjective (such as life satisfaction) and the traditional objective well-being indicators (such as income, consumption) is weak. cross-sectional survey data show significant positive but small coefficient (blanchflower & oswald, 2004). for example, diener and oishi europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ (2000) in a cross-sectional survey of a large sample from 19 countries reported a correlation between income and subjective well-being ranging from .02 to .38. these findings generally indicate that subjective well-being increases with income at a decreasing marginal rate. furthermore, other evidences suggest that the link between income and life satisfaction could be more complex than that. for example, easterlin (1974, 1995) reported no significant link between income and happiness both across countries and within individual countries. similar findings were also reported by psychologists diener et al. (1995) and political scientists (inglehart, 1990). in this direction, (diener & biswas-diener, 2009) after reviewing various findings related to income and subjective well-being concluded the following: 1. there are large correlations between the wealth of nations and mean reports of swb. 2. there are mostly small correlations between income and swb within nations (correlation appears to be larger for poor nations) 3. economic growth in the last decades in most economically developed nations has been accompanied by a little rise in swb 4. people who prize material goals more than other values tend to be substantially less happy the complexity of the relationship between income and swb is further reflected by the discrepancies in terms of objectively deprived individuals claimed to be satisfied with their life (satisfied poor) and vice versa. this phenomenon has been termed as ‘satisfaction paradox’. for example, zapf (1984) reported two types of discrepancies between objective and subjective indicators of wellbeing. one category includes objectively welloff people but reported dissatisfaction with their life. he called them ‘frustrated privileged’. other category included objectively deprived people but reported to be satisfied with their life. he called them ‘adapted people’. he used the term satisfaction paradox specifically for this group of people. recently, neff (2009) in a study with rural south indian villages reported that about one-fifth of individuals in the lowest income quintile exhibited ‘satisfaction paradox’. he interpreted this phenomenon as a way of adaptation to poverty. individuals learned to become satisfied with their deprived living conditions. present study the present study tries to shed lights behind the complexity of the relationship between income and swb by bringing into the analysis some alternative factors. specifically, this study will investigate the following variables to explain the relationship between income and swb1. role of heterogeneity in the human perception and purpose of life (conceptual referent theory) and 2. personality traits these factors may provide greater insights into the dynamics of human swb. human beings are not just consumers of material goods. they have diverse traits and purposes in life which will influence their evaluation of life satisfaction. therefore, money can be a good determinant of life satisfaction for some but may not be a significant factor for others. very few studies have investigated the role of these factors in explaining the relationship between income and swb. although, many studies have investigated the role of personality traits in swb, very few studies have investigated the role of personality traits in the relationship between income and swb. this study will be a step forward in this direction. this study will investigate following specific research questions: conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 734 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. does income have an influence on life satisfaction or subjective well-being? whether people in lower income tend to be less satisfied with their life as compared to people with higher income? 2. what is the relationship between objective indicator (income) and subjective indicator (life satisfaction/ subjective well-being) of well-being? is there any discrepancy between objective and subjective indicators of well-being? 3. to what extent people show satisfaction paradox? that is, do people report to be satisfied with their life despite being financially poor? if so, can income be used as a good proxy for subjective well-being? 4. how can we explain ‘satisfaction paradox’? can individual heterogeneity (personality) and heterogeneity in the conceptual references for happiness play a significant role in satisfaction paradox? the concept and measurement of subjective well-being (swb) swb has been conceptualized in many ways. veenhoven (1984) defined swb as the degree to which an individual judge his/her overall quality of life as a whole in a favorable way. diener (2009) reported that swb comprises people’s long-term levels of pleasant affect, lack of unpleasant affect, and life satisfaction. affect balance refers to pleasantness minus unpleasantness of one’s emotional life. life satisfaction denotes to the conscious global judgment of one’s life. diener (1984) suggested three properties of swb. they are: 1. it is subjective and resides within the experience of an individual. 2. it is not just the absence of negative factors, but also includes positive measures. 3. it includes a global assessment rather than only a narrow assessment of one life domain. in general, swb refers to the well-being as declared by the person on a single or a group of questions about his/her well-being. it is a direct measure of well-being and substantially differs from the academically oriented analytical theory of knowledge. swb implies bottom-up rather than top-down approach to understanding human well-being (rojas, 2006). sometimes the term ‘happiness’ is used synonymously with swb. however, most authors avoid the term ‘happiness’ because of its varied meanings in common parlance (diener, 2009). swb is commonly measured in terms of life satisfaction. affect balance (positive and negative emotions) is also used as an additional measure of swb. the link between the cognitive (life satisfaction) and affective (emotions) is a matter of debate and some authors questioned this dichotomy (lyubomirsky, 2001). life satisfaction is generally considered as close to the philosophers’ conception of wellbeing, which involves a person’s judgment of her life (tatarkiewicz, 1976). the conception of life satisfaction may be more relevant for public policy and development strategy than a wellbeing assessment based on transitory affective states (rojas, 2007). the conception of life satisfaction is expected to be less volatile and cognitively oriented (sirgy et al., 1995). therefore, this study measures swb in terms of life satisfaction. the conceptual referent theory of happiness (crt) rojas (2005) proposed conceptual reference theory of happiness to explain the heterogeneity of conceptual referents people have when they appraise their life or answers swb question. this theory states that a person must have a conceptual referent for what a happy or satisfied life is and they must be using that referent to evaluate their quality of life. therefore, a person’s judgment about his or her wellbeing is contingent on his/her conceptual referent for happiness (rojas, 2005). this theory further stresses the heterogeneity in the hussain 735 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conceptual referents people use while evaluating their life. this heterogeneity provides an explanation for people behaving differently in their pursuit of happiness. rojas (2005) further states that upbringing and sociocultural factors may influence the kind of conceptual referent a person develops to define a happy life. to understand the heterogeneity in the conceptual referents for happiness, rojas (2005) identified eight conceptual referents for happiness after reviewing various philosophical schools of thoughts associated with happiness. these conceptual referents includestoicism, virtue, enjoyment, carpe diem, satisfaction, utopian, tranquility, and fulfillment. table 1 gives a brief description of each of these referents. table 1 typology of conceptual referents for happiness conceptual referents brief description associated phrase orientation (inner/outer) stoicism happiness is a permanent state of contentment with life and with what happens in life. this state implies renunciation, austerity, acceptance, and resignation; taking things as they are and as they come out. happiness is accepting things as they are inner virtue happiness is a spiritual state produced by the feeling of acting properly, according to one’s consciousness happiness is a sense of acting properly in our relations with others and with ourselves inner enjoyment happiness is joyfulness and absence of pain; it is the enjoyment of those goods that provide comfort. it is the satisfaction of all human needs and wants happiness is to enjoy what i have got in life outer carpe diem happiness is the present pleasure and gratification, it is about enjoying now as much as possible happiness is to enjoy every moment in life somewhat outer satisfaction happiness is a feeling of life’s elation that comes with an intuitive judgment about oneself and about one’s surrounding world happiness is being satisfied with what i have and what i am outer utopian happiness is an ideal that guides human action. it is perfection itself conceptualised as the synthesis of virtue and pleasure. it is a desired, yet unreachable good, at least in this life happiness is an unreachable ideal we can only try to approach inner tranquillity happiness is a state of tranquillity, the absence of worries that takes place with prudence, moderation, measurement, and judicious wants happiness is in living a tranquil life, not looking beyond what is attainable somewhat inner fulfilment happiness is the realization of our nature and the fulfilment of our essence as human beings. happiness is in that activity that constitutes the ultimate goal of each human being happiness is in fully exercising our capabilities somewhat outer note. from rojas (2005, 2007). furthermore, as indicated in table 1, rojas (2007) divided these conceptual referents based on their inner versus outer orientation. inner oriented conceptual referents emphasize inner conditions as the main foundation for happy life. on the other hand, outer oriented referents emphasize that happiness emerges from a person’s relation to his or her external world. external conditions will have a greater effect on happiness for such a person. according to the author, this distinction “implies an oversimplification of the philosophical thought; however, the attempt may be useful to understand the nature of the relationship between a person’s income and her happiness appraisal” (rojas, 2007, p. 8). therefore, this dichotomous classification is an oversimplification and not a definitive classification. it seems to indicate that some conceptual referents are more oriented towards inner dimensions and others towards outer orientation. however, this distinction may have significant implications for investigating the relationship between income and life satisfaction. in this conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 736 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ connection, it can be hypothesized that income will play a stronger role in a person’s happiness if he/she holds a conceptual referent with an outer orientation (rojas, 2007). most studies investigating the relationship between income and happiness (particularly in economics) assumes a universal conceptual referent for happiness or well-being and makes conclusions and policies based on that assumption. such conclusions can be erroneous (rojas, 2005). despite the theoretical significance of this theory, no study has investigated this theory in the context of income and happiness (except rojas, 2007). consequently, this study investigates crt to better understand the relationship between income and life satisfaction. income, personality traits, and swb personality is regarded as one of the strongest predictors of subjective well-being (deneve & cooper, 1998). some authors estimate that between 44% and 52% of the variation in well-being is predicted by individual differences (lykken & tellegen, 1996). interestingly, lucus and diener (2009) reported that the strong influence of personality on swb is one of the most replicable findings emerged in the last decade; but, personality theory has not found a central role in well-being research. they further suggested that one of the reasons behind this paradox is that generally happiness is considered as an outcome of life conditions and from this perspective strong effect of personality and weak effect of situations seems counter-intuitive. however, this finding makes more sense when swb is also considered as an ongoing process and not just an outcome. among the personality traits, extraversion has received greatest attention and a huge body of literature supported its significant association with swb (argyle & lu, 1990; rusting & larsen, 1997). however, close examination of these studies revealed that the effect size of extraversion is quite small as compared to the effect size of neuroticism (vittarsø, 2001). in this direction, deneve and cooper (1998) in a meta-analysis found that neuroticism was the strongest predictor of both life satisfaction and happiness and extraversion contributed somewhat in explaining the variance in positive affect. although the influence of personality on swb has been studied, very few studies addressed the role of personality in the relationship between income and swb. personality may have significant implications when studied in relation to income and swb. it will help us to understand how economic incentives might influence individuals with different personality traits (boyce & wood, 2011). it is very likely that an individual’s marginal utility of income depends on their personality (boyce & wood, 2011). further, the relationship between income and well-being may be dependent on an individual’s personality type (boyce & wood, 2011). this potential moderating effect of personality in the relationship between income and swb has not received proper attention from researchers. furthermore, personality could be one of the important explanatory factors that might provide insights into the phenomenon of ‘satisfaction paradox’ and a weak relationship between income and swb. therefore, the study investigates the moderating effect of personality traits in the relationship between income and swb. hussain 737 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants 500 participants (367 males and 133 females) from diverse background (200 from rural areas and 300 from urban areas) were selected randomly. their age ranged from 19-56 with a mean of 32. monthly household income ranged from rupees 2,000 to 600,000 with mean value 30,000. about 70% were residing in nuclear and 30% joint family structure. their education ranged from primary (30%), secondary (21%), higher secondary (20%), graduation (18%), and post-graduation (11%). caste category included general (58%), other backward caste (20.4%), scheduled caste (15.4%), and scheduled tribe (5.5%). procedure participants were selected from both rural and urban areas nearby guwahati city of assam, india. upon receiving their consent, participants were briefed about the purpose of the study. they were also told about the voluntary nature of participation. no specific incentives were given to the participants. after receiving their consent, a booklet comprising of all the questionnaires were handed over to them which were collected after few hours. some participants asked for more time and returned the questionnaires after few days. measures the survey gathered information regarding the following variables: demographic and social variables: age, gender, background (rural/urban), caste category and education. economic variable: household income per month is used as the income variable, which means that the individual’s marginal utility will be based on changes to the income of the household that the individual is attached to. subjective wellbeing: it is assessed in terms of satisfaction with life in general. the question asked was: ‘taking everything into account, how satisfied are you with your life as-a-whole in general?’ the scale ranged from one to seven (‘very satisfied’ to ‘very dissatisfied’). single item life satisfaction scale showed substantial validity and performed similar to multiple item satisfaction with life scale. cheung and lucas (2014) reported that single-item life satisfaction measures demonstrated substantial degree of criterion validity with the more psychometrically sound multi item satisfaction with life scale (swls) (zero-order r = 0.62 – 0.64; disattenuated r = 0.78 – 0.80). furthermore, patterns of correlations and statistical significance with theoretically relevant variables were the same across single-item measures and the swls. conceptual referents for happiness: once a person answered the life satisfaction question, he/she was presented with a list of phrases (presented in table 1) and asked to select that phrase he/she related happiness/life satisfaction to. the respondent was asked to select just one phrase from the eight alternative phrases. this measurement of conceptual referents was followed from rojas (2007). personality traits: big five inventory (bfi; john, donahue, & kentle, 1991) is a 44 item assessment of five personality traits: openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. the scale asks respondents the extent to which they agree that a particular characteristic applies to them on a 5 point conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 738 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). reliability of this scale for this study was good. reliability for this study was good. alpha values are .75, .78, .73, .80, .76 for openness, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism respectively. results life satisfaction in the present sample, the assessment of general life satisfaction (table 2) showed that largest numbers of respondents are dissatisfied with their lives (47.6%). on the other hand about 41.3% respondents reported to be satisfied with their lives. however, very small percentage of the respondents reported to be either ‘very satisfied’ (3.3%) or ‘very dissatisfied’ (5.6%). table 2 general life satisfaction life satisfaction code life satisfaction categories % aggregate % dissatisfied 47.6 very dissatisfied 5.6 dissatisfied 21.6 rather dissatisfied 20.4 neutral 11.1 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 11.1 satisfied 41.3 rather satisfied 19.1 satisfied 18.5 very satisfied 3.7 total 100.0 100.0 group difference analysis showed that there is no significant difference in mean life satisfaction score of male (m = 3.88; sd = 1.70) and female (m = 3.85, sd = 1.64) sample; t(298) = .073, p = .942. however, there was a significant difference in the mean life satisfaction score of rural (m = 3.37, sd = 1.69) and urban (m = 4.31, sd = 1.54) sample; t(298) = 3.706, p < .001. income, life satisfaction and satisfaction paradox in the present sample, the correlation coefficient between income and life satisfaction is positive and statistically significant (r = .23, p = .05). however, this relationship is weak as the coefficient is small. table 2 and 3 shows the life satisfaction level for every income quintile. table 3 indicates that income seems to have a positive influence on life satisfaction as mean life satisfaction progressively increases from lowest (m = 3.30) to highest income quintile (m = 4.54). this finding indicates that on average people with low income are less satisfied with their lives as compared to their higher income counterparts. furthermore, table 3 indicates that more people located in the lower income quintile (62.5% and 63.6% in the 1st and 2nd income quintile respectively) reported dissatisfaction with their life as compared to higher income quintile (37.5% and 26.9% in hussain 739 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the 4th and 5th income quintile respectively). similarly, more number of people located in higher income quintile (60% and 53.8% in the 4th and 5th income quintile respectively) reported satisfaction with their life as compared to lower income quintile (32.5% and 27.3% in the 1st and 2nd income quintile respectively). thus, money does buy happiness and satisfaction. however, income may not always determine life satisfaction as table 3 clearly indicates the even in the lower income quintile who can be considered poor as per the conventional measure of poverty, a large percentage of people expressed high satisfaction with their lives (32.5% and 27.3% in the 1st and 2nd quintile respectively). furthermore, more number of people reported satisfaction with their lives in the 4th quintile (60%) as compared to 5th quintile with higher income (53.8%). people expressed high life satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction with their lives at all income levels. table 3 mean life satisfaction and general life satisfaction (in %) by household income quintiles household income quintile dissatisfied (%) neutral (%) satisfied (%) m (life satisfaction) sd lowest quintile 62.5 5.0 32.5 3.30 1.87 2nd quintile 63.6 9.1 27.3 3.27 1.63 3rd quintile 47.1 23.5 29.4 3.74 1.35 4th quintile 37.5 2.5 60.0 4.45 1.39 highest quintile 26.9 19.2 53.8 4.54 1.49 there are about 32.5% of people in the 1st quintile and 27.3% in the 2nd quintile exhibited satisfaction paradox phenomenon (table 3). they expressed satisfaction with their life despite belonging to the lowest income quintiles. to understand the possible reasons behind this phenomenon, individual heterogeneity (personality) and heterogeneity in the conceptual referents for happiness was explored. following sections report the findings associated with these concepts. conceptual referents for happiness table 4 presents the distribution of conceptual referents for happiness across the sample. this distribution clearly reveals that there is heterogeneity in the conceptual referents among people while evaluating their life satisfaction or happiness. it is possible that one of the reasons behind the weak relationship between income and subjective well-being is the heterogeneity in the conceptual reference people use to evaluate their life. furthermore, table 4 reveals mean life satisfaction scores of people with different conceptual referents. it is observed that the average life satisfaction score of the whole sample is 3.99 and average life satisfaction is little higher for people with referents such as tranquility, stoicism, virtue, fulfillment. however, people with conceptual referents such as carpe diem, satisfaction, enjoyment, and utopian reported lower life satisfaction as compared to whole sample average. therefore, it seems that some conceptual referents could be superior in terms of achieving more happy and satisfying life. however, mean difference is not large enough to make a definitive conclusion. conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 740 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 sample distribution and mean life satisfaction scores of conceptual referents conceptual referent associated phrase percent mean ls sd stoicism happiness is accepting things as they are 7.4 4.58 1.505 virtue happiness is a sense of acting properly in our relations with others and with ourselves 11.7 4.42 1.502 enjoyment happiness is to enjoy what i have got in life 11.1 3.22 1.768 carpe diem happiness is to enjoy every moment in life 22.2 3.97 1.483 satisfaction happiness is being satisfied with what i have and what i am 15.4 3.44 1.960 utopian happiness is an unreachable ideal we can only try to approach 5.6 3.89 1.364 tranquility happiness is in living a tranquil life, not looking beyond what is attainable 6.8 5.09 1.868 fulfillment happiness is in fully exercising our capabilities 19.8 4.03 1.694 total 100.0 3.99 1.701 further, it is possible that the difference in the average life satisfaction score is influenced by sociodemographic variables. therefore, a regression analysis was conducted to see the effect of conceptual referents on life satisfaction after controlling socio-demographic variables (age, gender, background, family income). table 5 shows the result of regression analysis. table 5 conceptual referents predicting life satisfaction after controlling sociodemographic variables predictor β r2 step 1 .123** age -.097 gender .088 background .158 income .215* step 2 .248** stoicism -.102 virtue -.317** enjoyment -.450** carpediem -.536** satisfaction -.442** utopian -.215* fullfillment -.483** note. tranquility conceptual referent is taken as a reference in the analysis. conceptual referent categories were coded into 7 dummy codes. *p < .05. **p < .01. hussain 741 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tranquility conceptual reference was taken as reference in the regression analysis as it had the highest average life satisfaction score. conceptual referents significantly predicted life satisfaction after controlling demographic covariates (r2 = .248, p < .01). result shows that under identical socio-demographic conditions, people with tranquility reported higher life satisfaction as compared to virtue (β = -.317, p < .01), enjoyment (β = -.450, p < .01), carpe-diem (β = -.536, p < .01), satisfaction (β = -.442, p < .01), utopian (β = -.215, p <.05), and fulfillment (β = -.483, p < .01). however, there was no significant difference between the people with tranquility and stoicism (β = -.102, p < .418) conceptual referent. therefore, there is some indication from the present sample that people with conceptual referents such as tranquility and stoicism declare relatively higher life satisfaction as compared to other conceptual referents under identical socio-demographic variables. income, life satisfaction and conceptual referents a series of eight separate regression analysis was conducted after clustering people based on their conceptual referents. the objective of these regression analyses was to test whether income predicts life satisfaction for people holding a particular conceptual referent. other socio-demographic variables were controlled in each of these regression analyses. logarithmic transformation was done to the scores of household income variable in order to reduce the skewness of data. table 6 indicates that the relationship between income and life satisfaction is statistically significant for people holding conceptual referents such as ‘satisfaction’ (β = .501, p < .01) ‘enjoyment’ (β = .641, p < .05) and ‘fulfillment’ (β = .408, p < .05). interestingly, these conceptual referents are outer-oriented. however, income is not statistically significant for people holding conceptual referents such as stoicism, virtue, carpe diem, utopian, and tranquility. most of these referents are inner oriented. therefore, this study suggests that income seems to have a significant influence on life satisfaction for some people (especially with outer oriented referents) and insignificant influence for other people (especially holding inner oriented referents). table 6 relationship between life satisfaction and logarithm of income by conceptual referent conceptual referent β se r2 stoicism .039 .402 .002 virtue .165 .278 .027 enjoyment .641* .389 .411** carpe diem .066 .457 .004 satisfaction .501** .322 .251** utopian .306 .634 .094 tranquility .343 .296 .117 fulfillment .408* .274 .167* *p < .05. **p < .01. income, life satisfaction, and personality this study also made an attempt to explore the role of personality traits in explaining the relationship between income and life satisfaction. for this purpose, the role of big five personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism) in explaining the relationship between income and life satisfaction was investigated. only neuroticism turned out to be a significant moderator between income and conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 742 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ life satisfaction among the big five factors. summary of the moderated regression analysis is shown in the table 7. table 7 moderating effect of neuroticism between household income and life satisfaction variables β se r2 household income .149 .127 .165** neuroticism -.153 .068 income x neuroticism -.358** .193 *p < .05. **p < 01. moderated regression analysis was conducted after centering the scores of both income and neuroticism and creating an interaction term between them. moderated regression analysis reveals a significant income personality interaction effect (β = -.358, p < .01). demographic variables were used as control variables. specific nature of moderating effect of neuroticism can be seen in the interaction graph in figure 1 which was drawn after doing the median split of both neuroticism and household income. figure 1. moderating effect of neuroticism between income and life satisfaction it is clear from the figure 1 that individuals with higher level of neuroticism (dashed line) tend to get a lower level of satisfaction from income rise as compared to individuals with a lower level of neuroticism. furthermore, as compared to individuals with lower level of neuroticism, individuals with higher level of neuroticism reported more satisfaction when they are poorer but they reported less satisfaction when they are richer. hussain 743 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study seems to indicate that income influences life satisfaction to some extent. for example, on average people with low income are found to be less satisfied with their lives as compared to their higher income counterparts. however, the correlation coefficient between income and life satisfaction is not very strong (r = .23). this finding is consistent with a large number of previous studies that have shown a weak relationship between income and measures of swb. furthermore, people expressed high life satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction with their lives at all income levels. a large percentage of participants also displayed ‘satisfaction paradox’. that is, many people with low income reported satisfaction with life and vice versa. therefore, a rise in income may not always ensure a rise in life satisfaction, that is, many individuals may show a discrepancy between their objective and subjective indicators of well-being. these findings indicate that income by itself may not be considered a good proxy for swb. it is not always correct to determine people’s well-being based on objective indicators such as income. the efficacy of income in generating well-being has been overestimated by economist and other social scientists. such assumptions should be carefully examined in the light of empirical evidence. this investigation further explored two potential explanations for the weak relationship between income and life satisfaction: the role of heterogeneity in people’s purpose in life (conceptual referents for happiness) and heterogeneity in personality traits. the idea behind selecting these factors was that the human beings are not just consumers of commodities, but, they are more than that. they have subjective perceptions, different traits and purposes in life. such factors will always play a critical role in determining the role of income on life satisfaction. these factors may help us to gain better insights in understanding the complex relationship between income and life satisfaction. the study of conceptual referents for happiness clearly reveals that there is heterogeneity in the conceptual referents among people while evaluating their life satisfaction or happiness. people have different things in their mind when they evaluate their life satisfaction. this heterogeneity in conceptual referents may have significant implications for life satisfaction and its relationship with income. for example, results showed that the average life satisfaction is little higher for people with referents such as tranquility, stoicism, virtue, fulfillment. however, people with conceptual referents such as carpe diem, satisfaction, enjoyment, and utopian reported lower life satisfaction as compared to whole sample average. when a regression analysis was conducted to see the effect of conceptual referents on life satisfaction after controlling socio-demographic variables, conceptual referents such as tranquility and stoicism declare relatively higher life satisfaction as compared to other conceptual referents. therefore, there is some indication from the present sample that people with certain conceptual referents such as tranquility and stoicism could be superior in terms of achieving more happy and satisfying life. when separate regression analysis was conducted after clustering people based on their conceptual referents, the relationship between income and life satisfaction was found to be statistically significant for people holding conceptual referents such as ‘satisfaction’ ‘enjoyment’ and ‘fulfillment’. interestingly, these conceptual referents are outer-oriented. however, income is not statistically significant for people holding conceptual referents such as stoicism, virtue, carpe diem, utopian, and tranquility. therefore, this study suggests that income seems to have a significant influence on life satisfaction for some people (especially with outer oriented referents) and insignificant influence for other people (especially holding inner oriented referents). it is clear that the conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 744 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between income and life satisfaction is contingent on the conceptual referent a person holds. this finding lends support the conceptual referent theory and its predictions. among the big five personality traits only neuroticism turned out to be a significant moderator between the relationship between income and life satisfaction. specific nature of the interaction effect shows that individuals with higher level of neuroticism tend to get a lower level of satisfaction from income rise as compared to individuals with a lower level of neuroticism. furthermore, as compared to individuals with a lower level of neuroticism, individuals with a higher level of neuroticism reported more satisfaction when they are poorer but they reported less satisfaction when they are richer. proto and rustichini (2015) reported that neuroticism is associated with higher sensitivity to negative emotions and outcomes, threats and punishments. therefore people with higher neuroticism trait experience higher sensitivity to losses and meeting expectations. they further suggested that neurotic people choose life scenarios with a lower level of satisfaction and expects that the cost of being rich is high for them and consequently predicts less life satisfaction. therefore, this could be one reason why neurotic people derive less satisfaction with rise in come. conclusions and implications this investigation finds out that the relationship between objective (such as income) and subjective indicators (such as life satisfaction) is not very strong. it has also provided support to the presence of ‘satisfaction paradox’, that is, people report to be satisfied with their life despite having very low income. it is not always correct to determine a person’s well-being only on the basis of objective indicators such as income and other socioeconomic variables. it is clear that human well-being depends on many other psychological factors beyond these objective indicators. this study investigated two potential factors explaining satisfaction paradox and the weak relationship between income and life satisfaction: the role of heterogeneity in human personality traits and life purposes. this study lends support to the idea of heterogeneity in the conceptual referents for happiness across people. thus, people differ in how they judge their lives to assess their well-being or life satisfaction. furthermore, the heterogeneity of conceptual referents shed some light on the nature of the relationship between income and life satisfaction. it was observed that the relationship between income and life satisfaction is contingent on a person’s conceptual referent for happiness. income seems to have a significant influence on life satisfaction for some people (especially with outer oriented referents such as enjoyment and fulfillment) and insignificant influence for other people (especially holding inner oriented referents such as stoicism and virtue). this difference may be one of the potential factors explaining the weak relationship between the income and swb. additionally, neuroticism personality trait was able to further explain the relationship between income and life satisfaction. it was observed that the individuals with a higher level of neuroticism tend to get a lower level of satisfaction from income rise as compared to individuals with a lower level of neuroticism. therefore, it is possible that the nature of our personality trait particularly neuroticism determines whether we derive satisfaction in our life from income rise. findings of this study may have significant implications for various stakeholders interested into policies for abatement of poverty and increasing human well-being. such policies should look into these complexities of hussain 745 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ human nature in judging the relationship between objective and subjective indicators of well-being. particularly, the assumptions of universal parameters and referents (as most economists believe) for human happiness and well-being can be erroneous and may not serve all. there can be substantial benefit in understanding how monetary incentives might influence people with different traits and life purposes. limitations and future directions although this study included participants from the diverse socio-economic background, it is limited by sample size. further, the results of this study are based on data collected from the samples residing in india. specific cultural values of india (based on religious and spiritual orientations) and social structures based on caste systems might have influenced the results. future studies should look into the phenomenon of satisfaction paradox to understand adaptation to life circumstances among people who report life satisfaction despite having very low income. there is a possibility of the existence of ‘learned helplessness’ among this group. it is possible that they have learned to accept their objectively deprived life circumstances after many unsuccessful attempts to change it for better. whether people develop this referent for happiness as a result of learned helplessness or cultural values? this needs to be investigated in future research. the heterogeneity of conceptual referents and its role in explaining the relationship between income and life satisfaction should be further examined using larger data base. further, research is needed to understand and clarify the division between “inner vs outer” orientated conceptual referents of happiness. the rationale behind such division is not very clear in some conceptual referents such as “virtue” and “satisfaction”. the roles of cultural values in developing conceptual referents can 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(1984). individuelle wohlfahrt: lebensbedingungen und wahrgenommene lebensqualität. in w. glatzer & w. zapf (eds.), lebensqualität in der bundesrepublik deutschland: objektive lebensbedingungen und subjektives wohlbefinden (pp. 13-26). frankfurt, germany: campus. about the author dr. dilwar hussain is an associate professor in the department of humanities and social sciences, indian institute of technology guwahati in guwahati, assam, india. his areas of interest include psychology of health and well-being, psychology of human trauma, and positive psychology. conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship 748 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 733–748 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1394 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-7109.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp8837.pdf http://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-004-4643-8 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2005.10.002 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf01079198 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ conceptual reference, personality traits and income-happiness relationship (introduction) present study the concept and measurement of subjective well-being (swb) the conceptual referent theory of happiness (crt) income, personality traits, and swb method participants procedure measures results life satisfaction income, life satisfaction and satisfaction paradox conceptual referents for happiness income, life satisfaction and conceptual referents income, life satisfaction, and personality discussion conclusions and implications limitations and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author physical aggression and facial expression identification research reports physical aggression and facial expression identification alisdair james gordon taylor*a, maria joseb [a] department of ophthalmology & visual sciences, university of british columbia, vancouver, canada. [b] department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, united kingdom. abstract social information processing theories suggest that aggressive individuals may exhibit hostile perceptual biases when interpreting other’s behaviour. this hypothesis was tested in the present study which investigated the effects of physical aggression on facial expression identification in a sample of healthy participants. participants were asked to judge the expressions of faces presented to them and to complete a self-report measure of aggression. relative to low physically aggressive participants, high physically aggressive participants were more likely to mistake non-angry facial expressions as being angry facial expressions (misattribution errors), supporting the idea of a hostile predisposition. these differences were not explained by gender, or response times. there were no differences in identifying angry expressions in general between aggression groups (misperceived errors). these findings add support to the idea that aggressive individuals exhibit hostile perceptual biases when interpreting facial expressions. keywords: facial expressions, aggression, physical, face processing, emotion europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 received: 2014-05-24. accepted: 2014-07-23. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of ophthalmology & visual sciences, vancouver general hospital eye care centre, university of british columbia, vancouver, british columbia, v5z 3n9, canada. e-mail: alisdairt@eyecarecentre.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction behaviour directed toward another individual with intent to cause harm is regarded as aggression (berkowitz, 1993; bushman & anderson, 2001). aggression is a common trait found in both humans and animals. an individual might exert aggression in order to dominate, maintain his/her position in society, or to compete for resources, thus rendering aggression critical to survival. it is imperative to investigate the underlying mechanisms of aggression and how it impacts on social behaviour given its role in everyday life and because aggression can negatively impact on an individual’s social functioning. the social information processing model (crick & dodge, 1994; dodge, 1980) suggests biases may drive an aggressive individual’s behaviour when interpreting the ambiguous actions of others. this “hostile attribution bias” occurs when an individual infers hostile intent to the behaviour of another individual even though the intent of that individual is uncertain. according to crick and dodge (1994), the bias occurs because of a distortion in social cue processing over time. this distortion is crucial as it hinders the aggressive individuals’ ability to decode the necessary cues from another individual’s actions in order to interpret their intent. in the absence or distortion of these cues, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the aggressive individual may attribute hostility to the intentions of the other individual’s actions, resulting in the likelihood of an aggressive response. one example where this bias may arise is during the extraction of facial cues. while invariant facial features such as gender or race may be reasonably identifiable, variant characteristics such as facial expressions can be ambiguous to interpret. an individual produces facial expressions to convey messages to perceivers regarding their feelings or views on a particular incident. this form of non-verbal communication assists us with interpersonal encounters, and contributes to building relationships (ellis & young, 1998). if an aggressive individual is unable to accurately decode facial expression cues from others then biases can creep in. the purpose of the current study was to investigate the impact of trait aggression on facial expression processing. recent studies have shown aggressive individuals exhibit biases when processing angry facial expressions across different paradigms, (e.g., bertsch, böhnke, kruk, & naumann, 2009; van honk, tuiten, de haan, van den hout, & stam, 2001; zhang & liu, 2011). these studies allude to a pre-conscious processing of threatening stimuli in aggressive individuals. other research has focused on aggressive individuals abilities when making judgments about facial expressions an arguably more ecologically valid task.when asked to simply identify facial expressions, larkin, martin, and mcclain (2002) found aggressive participants were more likely to misidentify non-angry expressions to be angry (misattribution errors). misattribution errors may stem from impairment to social cue interpretation, leading to hostile attribution biases described earlier (crick & dodge, 1994). it should be noted that larkin and colleagues measured the ‘hostility’ aspect of aggression. trait aggression is considered to be multi-dimensional consisting of several sub traits (buss & perry, 1992). in a more recent study, hall (2006) also presented participants with images of faces and asked her participants to make judgments about the expression the face exhibited. participants then completed the aggression scale of the personality assessment inventory (pai) (morey, 1991). results showed that the higher the level of self-reported aggressive attitude, the more likely the individual was to perceive non-existent aggression. this misattributed anger was possibly due to the pre-existence of a hostile bias found in aggressive individuals. consistent with larkin et al. (2002), hall (2006) observed that high-aggressive individuals made more misattribution errors for angry faces compared to low-aggressive individuals. hall suggested that individuals saw aggression in their environment and were reinforced to see the world as they thought it was by attributing a hostile intent to others. this explanation fits into the hostile attribution account (crick & dodge, 1994). however, in hall’s study, high and low aggression groups were determined by dividing total aggression scores from the pai. this method may only give us a general insight into the relationship of trait aggression and facial expression processing, whereas investigation into sub-traits of aggression will highlight specific relationships between certain facets of aggression and human behaviour. for instance it is not yet reported whether trait physical aggression specifically impacts on healthy individuals’ ability to identify facial expressions. physical aggression is regarded as behaviour causing or threatening physical harm towards others. it is an undesirable trait of a destructive nature, associated with poor communication and interpersonal interaction (hazaleus & deffenbacher, 1986; parrott & zeichner, 2002). given these deficits in interpersonal communication, it is reasonable to presume that individuals with high levels of trait physical aggression will find the task of determining another’s emotional state very difficult and will exhibit misperceptions when interpreting facial expressions, similar to those with high levels of overall aggression or hostility (hall, 2006; larkin et al., 2002). in addition, hostile biases may be strong in individuals with high trait physical aggression because they are more readily willing to engage europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 taylor & jose 651 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in situations involving conflict. lastly, increased exposure to angry faces may contribute to hostile biases in aggressive individuals as well, as it is likely that physically aggressive individuals have been involved in many threatening situations. overall, misattribution of anger should be expected from physically aggressive individuals. the main aim of the present study was to establish the relationship between trait physical aggression and facial expression processing in a sample of healthy participants. we wanted to know whether individuals with high levels of physical aggression make biased judgments of facial expressions would these individuals see anger when it is not there and consequently misattribute anger to non-angry expressions? the nature of such errors might be critical, as an inappropriate behaviour could follow from amisidentified facial expression. for instance, a perceiver may attempt to help an individual who appears to be upset and hurt. however, if the face of the apparent ‘hurt’ individual is only briefly visible, or difficult to see, then it is possible that the perceiver has misinterpreted their expression. in this situation the misinterpretation could be dangerous, as the perceiver may approach to offer assistance, whereas the apparent hurt individual may respond with verbal or even physical aggression towards the perceiver. consequently, it is important to understand the errors that perceivers make when processing other’s facial expressions. to investigate, we adopted the aggression questionnaire (bpaq (buss & perry, 1992)) a widely used indicative measure of trait aggression and a facial expression identification task, whereby participants were required to identify the correct emotion from a series of faces of varying facial expressions (happy, neutral, angry, disgusted, and fearful). this task has been widely used (see palermo &rhodes, 2007) andmaking judgments about facial expressions is something we do every day, thus this paradigm is ideal for exploring social information processing in aggressive individuals. one criticism of previous aggression studies that have used facial expression identification tasks concerns the amount of time participants were given to respond. hall (2006) fails to report information about how participants responded and how long they were given to respond. in larkin et al.’s (2002) study, images of faces were presented for 10 seconds followed by a 5 second response interval. a more valid method would be for participants to respond as soon as they think they have interpreted the emotional expression, in order to represent real-life quick judgments. in many situations, evaluation of a person’s emotion is conducted in a short amount of time for adaptive reasons. for example processing a threatening facial expression quickly may avoid potential conflict. therefore we asked participants to respond as soon as they thought they knew the facial expression to increase ecological validity and to assess whether response times would account for any effects of physical aggression on misattribution errors. an additional criticism of larkin et al.’s procedure was the order the questionnaire and task were carried out. to avoid unfair saliency being placed on trait aggression, participants should complete the questionnaire after the face expression identification task. we expected high levels of physical aggression would correlate with an increased number of misattribution errors those individuals with high scores on the physical aggression scale of the bpaq will incorrectly misidentify non-angry facial expressions as angry expressions significantly more than those individuals with low physical aggression scores. a supplementary aim of the present study was to examine whether high and low aggressive individuals differ with their ability to correctly identify angry faces in general. findings from previous studies are somewhat inconsistent. whilst some studies have not seen any differences in angry expression identification between groups (hall, 2006; larkin et al., 2002) others have (barth & bastiani, 1997). therefore we recorded participants’ under-reported judgments of angry expressions (misperceived errors) in an attempt to clear up the inconsistencies of past studies findings and establish whether these types of errors varied according to physical aggression. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 aggression and emotion 652 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants participants comprised 80 (26 male) undergraduates (mean age 21.45) from bournemouth university. course credit was awarded as compensation for participation. all participants provided written consent and the research was approved by the departments psychology ethics committee and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 declaration of helsinki and its later amendments. materials and apparatus aggression questionnaire — trait aggression was measured with the buss-perry aggression questionnaire (bpaq) (buss & perry, 1992). the questionnaire consists of 29 items divided into four sub scales; (i) anger, (ii) hostility, (iii) verbal aggression, (iv) physical aggression. the bpaq has shown high internal consistency (α = .89) and high retest reliability (α = .80) (buss & perry, 1992; harris, 1997). items consisted of single statements, for example “i often find myself disagreeing with people”, or “if somebody hits me i hit back”. participants had to indicate how accurately each statement described them using a 1 (very inaccurate) to 5 (very accurate) likert scale. facial expression identification task— images of faces were selected from the “the radboud faces database” (rafd) (langner et al., 2010). the rafd is a high quality face database, which contains pictures of various emotional expressions in accordance with the facial action coding system (ekman & friesen, 1978). we selected 12 images (6 male, 6 female) for each of the five facial expressions (happy, neutral, angry, disgust and fearful) totalling 60 images. images were edited using adobe photoshop elements 6.0, cropped and resized to a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, on white background. participants completed the facial expression perception task on a windows based computer using a 21 inch crtmonitor, with a screen resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 pixels. experiment builder (s-r research ltd.) was used to programme and display the experimental stimuli. during data collection, a dell host computer recorded participants’ responses and response times. procedure after the experimental instructions were explained, participants were then asked to complete the facial expression perception task. this task was divided into two blocks – practice and experimental. in the practice block, participants viewed twenty faces in one continuous block. to begin, participants were asked to look at a black cross in the centre of the screen. shortly afterwards a face was presented and participants had to indicate which expression they thought the face showed, by pressing the corresponding response key (1=angry, 2=disgust, 3=fearful, 4=happy, 5=neutral). participants were instructed to do this as quickly and as accurately as possible. images were randomised, with an exposure time of 5s per face. participants were encouraged to ask any questions during the practice block. the procedure for the experimental block was identical to the practice block, although now a new set of 60 faces were used for the experimental block. upon completion, participants completed the bpaq (buss & perry, 1992). the questionnaire was completed second so as to avoid unfair saliency being placed on trait aggression. testing lasted roughly thirty minutes. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 taylor & jose 653 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results gender and facial expression identification as previous studies have found gender differences in facial expression processing (rotter & rotter, 1988), we assessed whether a gender difference in the number of errors made existed in the present study. independent samples t-tests showed no gender differences in the number of misattribution errors and misperceived errors made (ps > .57) therefore gender was collapsed over. however, the disproportionate ratio of female to male participants in our study necessitated the use of gender as a covariate. relationship between trait aggression and facial expression identification partial correlations (when controlling for gender) were analyzed to establish the relationship among total trait aggression scores, sub trait aggression scores, anger misattribution errors (mistaking a non-angry expression as angry) and anger misperceived errors (misidentifying angry expressions, see table 1). physical aggression scores correlated significantly with misattribution errors, (r = .270, p = .016), providing support for our hypothesis. none of the other aggression scales correlated with misattribution errors (all r < .207, all p > .067). similarly, there were no observed relationships between aggression scores and misperceived errors (all r < .050, all p > .660), therefore misperceived errors were not analyzed further. table 1 partial correlations among scores of verbal aggression, anger, hostility, physical aggression, total aggression, misattribution errors and misperceived errors when controlling for gender (n = 80) misperceivedmisattributiontot aggverb agghostilityangerphys aggvariable .781 (p < .001).388 (p < .001).136 (p = .023).647 (p < .001)phys agg = .660).050 (p= .016)a.270 (p .872 (p < .001).596 (p < .001).299 (p = .008)anger = .695)-.045 (p= .263).127 (p .566 (p < .001).105 (p = .305)hostility = .766)-.034 (p= .735).039 (p .672 (p < .001)verb agg = .757).035 (p= .198).146 (p tot agg = .981).003 (p= .067).207 (p misattribution = .015).273 (p misperceived note. phys agg – physical aggression, verb agg – verbal aggression, tot agg – total aggression. asignificant correlation between physical aggression and misattribution errors. physical aggression and misattribution errors we next conducted an analysis in order to establish whether misattribution errors varied as a function of physical aggression. to do this, we first divided the physical aggression scores into quartiles, thus creating four groups of participants. participants with scores falling in the upper quartile and lower quartile were then entered into an analysis of covariance (ancova) with physical aggression group (high-aggression vs. low-aggression) as the independent variable, misattribution errors as the dependent variable and gender as the covariate. participants with scores falling in the middle range were excluded from this analysis, resulting in a new n of 38, (12 males). the ancova revealed a significant main effect of physical aggression group on the number of misattribution errors made by participants, after controlling for the effect of gender (f(1, 35) = 5.586, p = .024, η2 = .138). high-aggressive participants were significantly more likely to mistake non-angry facial expressions as angry expressions compared to low-aggressive participants, (m = 3.50 vs. 1.77, see table 2) providing further support for our hypothesis. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 aggression and emotion 654 http://www.psychopen.eu/ response time analysis a response time analysis was conducted in order to assess whether physical aggression modulated response times for misattribution errors. an independent t-test showed that there was no difference in misattribution errors response times between high and low aggression groups (t(36) = .220, p = .827), ruling out the possibility of a speed/accuracy trade off. table 2 averaged facial expression misattributed and misperceived identification errors as a function of facial expression type and physically aggressive groups expression errors totalneutralhappyfeardisgustangry misattribution high (n = 22) .042.001.380.062.253.503 low (n = 16) .651.680.270.821.733.771 total (n = 38) .851.820.320.921.533.502 misperceived high (n = 22) .042.310.001.252.563.063 low (n = 16) .651.180.320.951.642.183 total (n = 38) .851.240.610.082.033.133 discussion the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between trait physical aggression and facial expression identification in healthy individuals. as expected, when making facial expression judgments, participants with high levels of physical aggression made significantly more misattribution errors compared to participants with low levels of physical aggression. this meant that aggressive individuals commonly believed the facial expressions they saw were angry expressions, even when they were non-angry. this difference was not attributable to gender or response time differences. participants’ ability to correctly identify angry expressions overall did not vary as a function of physical aggression. we tested the hypothesis that high-aggressive individuals would be more likely than low-aggressive individuals to misidentify varying non-angry facial expressions as angry expressions. our findings supported this hypothesis, as participants in the high-aggressive group made significantly more misattribution errors compared to participants in the low-aggressive group. this finding is consistent with previous studies who have found effects of hostility and general aggression on misattribution errors in facial expression identification (hall, 2006; larkin et al., 2002). however, to our knowledge, this is the first reported study to show that misattribution errors vary according to the level of physical aggression in the general population. these findings are in line with the “hostile attribution bias” (crick & dodge, 1994). the hostile attribution bias suggests that biases may drive an aggressive individual’s behaviour when attempting to interpret the ambiguous actions of others. breakdown in social cue encoding leads to a distortion in social cue processing thus hindering the aggressive individuals’ ability to decode the necessary cues from another individual’s actions in order to interpret their intent. hostile predispositions are likely to creep in when there is cue distortion, which can lead to inaccurate facial expression identification, as observed in the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 taylor & jose 655 http://www.psychopen.eu/ present study. it is therefore possible that high-aggressive individuals in the current study were unable to appropriately extract cue information from the faces they saw, leading them to rely on perceptual biases when trying to identify the expressions. impaired interpersonal skills may be another potential source of the misattribution of anger shown by high-aggressive individuals. deficits with interpersonal interaction and communication have been previously observed in individuals with physical aggression (hazaleus & deffenbacher, 1986; parrott & zeichner, 2002), which may account for the expression interpretation difficulties these participants had in our study. a secondary aim of the current study was to establish whether participants’ ability to identify angry expressions in general would vary according to their level of physical aggression. in line with past studies, (hall, 2006; larkin et al., 2002) there were no differences in misperceived errors for angry facial expressions between high and low aggressive participants. however one study had reported that high-aggressive individuals were more accurate to identify angry expressions compared with low-aggressive individuals, although this was found in a child population (barth & bastiani, 1997). it may be surprising that high-aggressive individuals did not perform differently to their low-aggressive counterparts when identifying angry expressions in the present paper. previous studies have observed processing advantages for high-aggressive participants when attending to angry expressions (e.g. bertsch et al., 2009; zhang & liu, 2011) and when attending to non-facial threatening stimuli as well (parrott, zeichner, & evces, 2005). again, a hostile attribution bias is suggested to play a role in this biased processing. some have argued in favour of pre-conscious processing of threatening stimuli in aggressive individuals due to an evolutionaryevolved, content-specific response to the facial expression of anger (van honk, putman, hermans, & tuiten, 2000). differences in paradigms or aggression inventories may explain why previous studies have observed this processing advantage in aggressive individuals. choice of aggression measurement may also account for the lack of relationship found between hostility and misattribution errors and overall aggression with misattribution errors in the present study. one interesting finding from this study was that relative to low-aggressive individuals, high-aggressive individuals were more likely to misattribute anger to disgust facial expressions more so than the other non-angry expressions. this has also been reported in another study (larkin et al., 2002). however, unlike larkin’s study, gender did not alleviate this relationship. interestingly, pond et al. (2012) found a negative relationship between physical aggression and disgust sensitivity, that is those with high levels of physical aggression were those with low sensitivity to disgust. expressions of disgust may be misleading to aggressive individuals due to impaired signals for social avoidance (rosenberg, ekman, & blumenthal, 1998). similarly, individuals with hostile predispositions – such as aggressive individuals may also misinterpret signals for social approach (larkin et al., 2002; rosenberg et al., 1998). in the present study, high-aggressive individuals mistook happy expressions as neutral expressions, highlighting the potential impairment of social approach signals. indeed, it is not uncommon for other populations who demonstrate social approach signal deficits to mistake happy expressions as neutral (eack, mazefsky, & minshew, 2014). one possibility for this breakdown in interpreting social approach signals is that physically aggressive individuals fail to appropriately engage in cognitive processing that is necessary here, leading to poor emotional interpretation (epps & kendall, 1995). another possibility is that a general social-cognitive impairment exists. it would be interesting to examine whether aggressive individuals show impairments when dealing with additional emotional related tasks, such as applying emotional information to guide behaviour (mayer, salovey, & caruso, 2004). if impairments exist in other facets of emotional processing, then this may point towards a more general deficit of emotional intelligence in physically aggressive individuals. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 aggression and emotion 656 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some limitations of the present study should be noted. the ratio of male to female participants was heavily in favour of females. although we controlled for gender in our study, it would be fruitful to include a more representative sample of men and women in future research. if this is done, then it would be interesting to explore whether gender differences exist in terms of misattribution errors, as they have been reported previously regarding expression processing (e.g., rotter & rotter, 1988). another potentially interesting avenue would be to see if the gender of the faces presented influences facial expression processing in aggressive individuals. previous research has suggested that people look for particular cues on faces that they expect to see in men and women and consequently associate certain emotions to each gender (hess, adams, & kleck, 2004). for example, thicker eyebrows indicate perceptions of dominance, a characteristic that can be expressed with anger (zebrowitz, 1997) and is typical for a male face (brown & perrett, 1993). as a result, angry expressions are typically identified faster and more accurately when portrayed by a male, as opposed to a female face (becker, kenrick, neuberg, blackwell, & smith, 2007). moreover, one sex may portray certain expressions to a clearer, more interpretable level than the other. this raises questions about whether aggressive individuals’ will show these same male anger superiority effects and establish if anger is equally misattributed across male and female faces. one potential outcome is that aggressive individuals will misattribute anger to non-angry expressions more so in male faces. the present data suggests that an individual’s ability to identify the emotional state of others from facial expressions is influenced in part by their level of trait physical aggression – although high-aggressive participants’ judgments of angry expressions were intact, those with high levels of this trait commonly mistake non-angry expressions to be angry expressions. this finding supports the notion of a hostile predisposition that influences behaviour when social cue signals have insufficiently been encoded. these findings suggest that our expectations regarding another’s emotionality is partly based on our own personality, which has implications for elucidating how social behaviour and interpersonal interaction are influenced by undesirable traits which are prevalent in everyday life. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to lena kessler for her help and advice with the study. references barth, j. m., & bastiani, a. 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(2011). experimental study of attentional bias to negative emotion facial expressions in high trait anger individuals. psychological science, 34, 322-327. about the authors alisdair taylor is a post-doctoral research fellow in neuroscience at the university of british columbia, canada. he received his doctorate in psychology from the university of sussex, u.k. his current research interests include the decision making processes in parkinson’s disease and individual differences in emotion processing. maria jose is a post-graduate student at the university of surrey, u.k. she obtained her bachelor’s degree from bournemouth university, u.k. her current research interests involve the relationship between trait aggression and face processing. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 650–659 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.816 taylor & jose 659 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.04.025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/genp.132.1.67-80 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.17.4.376 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00986931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0269993004200222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en aggression and emotion introduction method participants materials and apparatus procedure results gender and facial expression identification relationship between trait aggression and facial expression identification physical aggression and misattribution errors response time analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conference announcements global psypulse conference announcements iuliana denisia olaru*a [a] ejop senior editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(1), 1–99, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.585 published: 2013-02-28. *corresponding author at: 73 hunters grove, ha3 9ad, harrow, london, united kingdom. e-mail: denisia_denisia@yahoo.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 2013 inaugural aps health psychology conference 5-6 april, 2013 cairns, australia conference theme: “improving community and individual health” the 2013 inaugural aps health psychology conference will feature two days of keynote presentations; individual research papers, posters and symposia; half-day workshops and peer supervision sessions. it will be a great opportunity to gather all your continuing professional development hours, network with colleagues, and hear about recent research in clinical health psychology and health promotion. visit the website for more information: 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provide valuable ideas related to how to improve lives by enhancing people's health and happiness. visit the website for more information: http://www.achp2013.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.585 olaru 7 http://www.achp2013.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 21st world congress for social psychiatry 29 june 3 july, 2013 lisbon, portugal conference theme: “the bio-psycho-social model: the future of psychiatry” 21st world congress for social psychiatry will be the opportunity for specialists from around the world to advance the physical, social and mental well-being of mankind. the congress aims to bring collaboration between psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists. visit the website for more information: http://www.wasp2013.com/index.htm europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.585 global psypulse 8 http://www.wasp2013.com/index.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ 13th international congress of behavioral medicine 20-23 august, 2014 groningen, the netherlands the congress will be attended by experts in behavioral medicine and related disciplines from every region of the world offering an excellent opportunity for networking and building collaborations among scientists from diverse regions of the world as well as discussions between disciplines that contribute to the science and practice of behavioral medicine. based on the tradition of previous congresses the scientific program will include keynote addresses, master dialogues and debates, symposia, roundtable discussions, oral and poster presentations, meetings of special interest groups, teaching and training workshops, and satellite activities, scientific and trade exhibitions. visit the website for more information: http://www.icbm2014.com europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(1), 1–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i1.585 olaru 9 http://www.icbm2014.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ global psypulse 2013 inaugural aps health psychology conference conference theme: “improving community and individual health” visit the website for more information: wpa 2013 bucharest congress conference theme: “primary care, mental health & public health integration: the catalytic role of information and communication technology (ict)” visit the website for more information: implications of research on the neuroscience of affect, attachment, and social cognition visit the website for more information: 6th international and 11th national congress of clinical psychology visit the website for more information: 10th world congress of the international association for adolescent health conference theme: “bringing perspectives from public health and clinical medicine to promote adolescent health” visit the website for more information: xiiith international conference of forensic mental health services conference theme: “empowering forensic mental health services: integrating research and practice” visit the website for more information: 5th asian congress of health psychology conference theme: "health and happiness" visit the website for more information: 21st world congress for social psychiatry conference theme: “the bio-psycho-social model: the future of psychiatry” visit the website for more information: 13th international congress of behavioral medicine visit the website for more information: what do we talk about when we talk about participation? sense of community and social representations of participation research reports what do we talk about when we talk about participation? sense of community and social representations of participation alessia rochira* a, evelyn de simone a, terri mannarini a, sergio salvatore a [a] department of history, society and human studies, university of salento, lecce, italy. abstract the relationship between sense of community (soc) and citizen participation has been extensively studied in community psychology. connecting social representations and soc theory, this study explored the lay meanings of citizen participation and its association with soc. a word association task and a measure of territorial soc were administered to 390 participants, and data analyzed to explore the contents of the social representations of citizen participation conveyed by the interviewees and their salience. results revealed that different levels of soc were associated with variations in the social representation of citizen participation. specifically, among high-soc participants the notion of formal political participation prevailed, while among low-soc participants a more articulated vision emerged, encompassing social and community participation, and also conventional and non conventional types of participatory behaviors. keywords: sense of community, citizen participation, social representations, analysis of evocations, word association task europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 received: 2018-01-12. accepted: 2018-10-31. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of bologna, bologna, italy *corresponding author at: department of history, society and human studies, university of salento, via di valesio angolo v.le san nicola 73100 lecce, italy. tel: +390832294706, fax: +390832294723. e-mail: alessia.rochira@unisalento.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. taxonomies of participation citizen participation can be regarded as the active and voluntary involvement of individuals who seek to influence policy decisions and programs, to change problematic conditions in their communities (ohmer, 2007), modify the material circumstances of their lives and foster well-being (mannarini, fedi, & trippetti, 2009). researchers from several disciplines, mainly community psychology, sociology, and political science, have contributed to classify various forms of citizen participation. there is a general consensus on the differentiation between political and social participation. political participation denotes a concern in political life (rollero, tartaglia, de piccoli, & ceccarini, 2009) and it is conveyed in behaviors such as voting, signing a petition, taking part in a march, belonging to a political party, or running as a candidate. in contrast, social participation refers to a variety of pro-social practices beyond the institutionalized political arena, such as volunteering or mobilizing to promote public services, or to defend public spaces. such a distinction has been further refined with the introduction of the notion of public participation (antonini, hogg, mannetti, barbieri, & wagoner, 2015), which refers to a socio-political form of participation through which citizens are enabled to express their preferences and concerns about issues of public interest, and to take part in policy-making processes. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, ekman and amnå (2009), 2012 differentiated political, civil, and nonparticipation or disengagement. specifically, political participation includes both formal (e.g., voting) and non-formal (e.g., demonstrating) types of citizen participation, with the latter incorporating both legal (e.g., signing a petition) and illegal activities (e.g., sabotage). additionally, political participation encompasses both overt behaviors and cognitive dimensions such as political interest that result in discussing political themes and searching for political information (almond & verba, 1963; marsh & kaase, 1979). this cognitive participation is often referred to as latent participation (amnå, 2010; berger, 2009; van deth, 2001). civil participation consists of committed initiatives towards either specific groups, the entire community, or the broader society. this is the case with recycling, volunteering in the community, taking care of public goods, and being informed about collective issues. finally, non-participation refers to disengagement from both political and social collective issues. ekman and amnå (2009) distinguished between active anti-political modes, such as nonvoting, and passive modes, such dismissing any interest or concern in politics. besides classifications and taxonomies, meanings of citizen participation in commonsense knowledge have been explored by social representations theorists who aimed to explain how the notion and practice of citizen participation were socially constructed by daily communication and interaction to form a shared system of meanings (jovchelovitch, 2007). notably, previous studies in the field (andreouli & howarth, 2012) posited that citizen participation, and particularly the lay understanding of citizen participation that people produce and share (mannarini & fedi, 2010), are sensitive to context, intergroup dynamics, and self-identification with the social setting within which participatory behaviors occur, such as the community or larger social arenas. at the same time, these investigations indicated that social representations of citizen participation may incorporate complementary representations concerning other relevant objects (andreouli, 2013; chryssochoou & lyons, 2011; howarth, andreouli, & kessi, 2014)—for example, the community where the participatory practices occur, the local institutions, the groups or individuals who are perceived as entitled to participate and those who are not—that in turn amplify the social dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. hence, social representations of citizen participation can be conceptualized as dynamic forms that are located in precise historical and political frames and can vary in their degree of stability and resistance to competing perspectives. citizen participation and sense of community sense of community (soc; sarason, 1974) is a valuable concept in community psychology that has attracted the interest of hundreds of scholars. according to mcmillan and chavis (1986), soc encompasses the multifaceted relations between individuals and community. sense of community includes four key dimensions: the subjective sense of belonging to an organized system (i.e., membership), history and collective memories, as well as shared norms, symbols, and experiences (i.e., shared emotional connection), the expectation of having personal needs fulfilled by community and its members (i.e., needs’ fulfillment), and the sense of both being a source and a target of influence within the community (i.e., influence). numerous studies have emphasized the positive effects of soc at both the individual and community levels. in particular, research on participatory behaviors highlighted the positive association between soc and a diversified range of participatory behaviors has been acknowledged: namely, civic (brodsky, o’campo, & aronson, 1999; chavis & wandersman, 1990), social (obst, smith, & zinkiewicz, 2002; prezza et al., 2001), and political participation (anderson, 2009), both in conventional and non-conventional forms (davidson & cotter, 1986; xu, perkins, & chow, 2010). a recent meta-analytic review (talò, mannarini, & rochira, 2014) attested the exisrochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 313 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tence of a moderate relationship between soc and citizen participation, especially in cultures where civic and political engagement are valued. in contrast, qualitative analyses found different patterns of relationship: for instance, mannarini and fedi (2009) suggested that even a weak soc can be associated with active citizen participation, as feelings of detachment from the community can enable a more critical and thorough comprehension of its problems, thus encouraging individuals to undertake social and political action. they also pointed out that variations in soc were associated with different representations of the community (mannarini & rochira, 2014), which, in turn, activated distinct forms of citizen participation. these findings suggest the need to considering not only the magnitude and direction of the association between soc and citizen participation, but also the meanings attributed to both notions in the personal experience of individuals. in particular, our study was built to empirically explore the possibility that differences in individual sense of belonging to the community (i.e., soc) might be associated with different representations of the concept of citizen participation (rochira, fasanelli, & liguori, 2015). a theoretical and empirical route to delve in such an issue is offered by the theory of social representations and in particular by the structural approach to the study of social representations (abric, 2001). the theory of social representations in general, the theory of social representations (hereafter tsr; moscovici, 1973, 1984, 2005) concerns both the process of formation of the social knowledge and its products. with concern to the former, social representations (hereafter srs) refer to the process by which people create relatively enduring views of important objects and significant events that constitute their reality. with concern to the latter, srs indicate the structures of knowledge that enable individuals to “classify persons and objects, to compare and explain behaviors and to objectify them as parts of [their] social setting” (moscovici, 1988, p. 214). operatively, srs allow individuals to transform an object, which is perceived as unusual, into something that sounds familiar through associations to those images, concepts and languages—that together form a social representation—that are already known, explicitly through the process of familiarization (markovà, 2000). the structural approach to the study of social representations (abric, 2001) and particularly the theory of central nucleus (tnc), conceptualizes srs as “organized systems, [that] have two components: content and structure” (abric, 2003, p. 59). content stands for the information that a group or community share about an object of knowledge, and structure refers to the organization of content into a coherent form. according to the tnc, the structure of the representation consists of two main sections: the central nucleus and the periphery. the nucleus incorporates the most stable and shared information; it also regulates the organization of all the elements of the representation, thereby determining the global meaning of the representation. in contrast, the periphery is the most changeable part of the representation that filters the social circumstances and interindividual differences among community or group members (flament, 1989). the varying configurations of the peripheral elements support the core meaning conveyed by the nucleus, yet they integrate it with individuals’ stories, experiences, and subjective standpoints. the study the present investigation was part of a larger study aimed at exploring the impact of the financial crisis that has been occurring in europe in the last decade, on the social identities of european citizens. the project, named the social representations of participation 314 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ re.cri.re—between the representations of the crisis and the crisis of representations—received a grant within the horizon 2020 programi. in light of previous studies revealing that variations in soc might be associated with different forms of citizen participation, the present study aimed to explore to what extent different levels of soc might be related to different social representations of citizen participation. specifically, within the tnc framework, the aim was to identify differences between both the contents and the internal structure of the representations of citizen participation according to sub-groups of community members with different levels (i.e., low, medium and high) of soc. in line with srt tenets, our main hypothesis was that members of a local community would share the same set of references, and that this set would characterize the nucleus, but that differences between high, medium and low soc subgroups would be found on the periphery. our secondary hypothesis was that, based on the strand of research attesting a positive association between soc and citizen participation, residents with a stronger attachment to their community (high-soc subgroup) would share a more positive image of citizen participation compared to fellow citizens with a weaker attachment (medium and low soc subgroups). finally, our research intended to detect the contents of the lay representations of citizen participation produced by community members, and to compare them to the theoretical definitions and typologies available in the literature. method participants a convenience non-proportional quota sample by age and gender of residents in the salento territorial community (southern italy) was selected. the sample was composed of 390 participants (49% female), all nativeborn italian, aged between 19 and 94 years (m = 42.48, sd = 14.66). subjects who not accomplished the word association task were excluded and valid cases retained for the analyses amounted to 376. almost all participants were highly educated. in fact, 47.4% were high school graduates, 30% were college graduates, and 13.6% had post-graduate education. the remaining 9% had lower education levels. 31, 8% of the interviewees identified themselves as left-oriented, 13.3% were right-and 12.1% as center-oriented. a significant portion of the participants (42.3%) declared that they had no political preference. instruments data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. for the purpose of the present study, the following measures were adopted: word association task the word association task was intended to capture the semantic contents of the social representations, in line with research that studies social representations through the analysis of the semantic elements and their reciprocal relations (bauer & gaskell, 2008; lahlou & abric, 2011). participants were presented the stimulus “particirochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 315 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pation,” and asked first to freely list the first five words—whether nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.—that came to their minds, and, second, to rank them by importance (i.e., 1 = most important). brief sense of community scale the 8-item version of the sense of community scale (bscs-8 by peterson, speer, & mcmillan, 2008) was used to measure soc with reference to participants’ community of residence. examples of items are “i can get what i need in this community” (i.e., needs fulfillment), “i feel like a member of this community” (i.e., membership), “i have a say about what goes on in my community” (i.e., influence), and “i feel connected to this community” (i.e., shared emotional connection). socio-demographics participants were asked to provide demographic information specifying their age, gender, level of education, and professional position. political orientation was assed whereby a single self-report item. analyses bscs-8 was checked for reliability, and the value obtained was satisfactory (cronbach’s alpha = .81). data collected through the word association task was revised to correct type errors and reduce ambiguities. in particular, given that the software used for data analysis differentiated central and peripheral elements of the social representation computing the frequency of the words evocations, we edited ambiguities to avoid data dispersion. precisely, compound nouns were joined together to form a single word—for instance the words local and governance, which were written on the same line, were joined together whereby an underscore to form a compound word; feminine was reversed to masculine, and plural forms were converted to singular forms. moreover, homographs were disambiguated according to participants’ memos—for instance the italian word legge which means both the present third-person singular form of the verb to read (i.e., legge_verb) and the noun law (i.e., legge_noun). participants were divided into the three subgroups according to their soc score, precisely below the 33° percentile (low soc), between the 33° and the 66° percentile (medium soc) and above the 66° percentile (high soc). the low soc group comprised 132 participants (soc, m = 16.66; sd = 2.59), the medium soc group included 149 residents (soc, m = 21.49; sd = 1.12) and the high soc group gathered 95 interviewees (soc, m = 26.15; sd = 2. 4). words associations were analyzed separately for the three subgroups. the data analysis process consisted of two basic steps and was performed separately for each dataset. first, the semantic data was submitted to a categorization. an open coding was performed to categorize synonyms and capture convergent contents (strauss & corbin, 1990). pairs within the research team coded the sematic data separately for each dataset, compared their coding, and discussed any divergences in coding between them. second, each dataset was processed by the software ensemble de programmes permettant l'analyse des évocations evoc, 2005 (vergès, scano, & junique, 2002). the software evoc differentiated the semantic elements of the central nucleus and the periphery of the social representation based on the frequency hierarchy and average order of the evocations (i.e., rank)—along with the zipf’s law of word frequency distribution (zipf, the social representations of participation 316 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1949). in particular, the zipf’ law posits that natural language follows a systematic frequency distribution according to which there are very few high-frequency words and many low-frequency words (piantadosi, 2014). precisely, following the approach of evoc as originally developed pierre vergés (vergés, 1994, 2002), the central nucleus of the social representation was characterized by the words with the highest frequency of occurrence and the lowest rank of appearance—that is, the words that were rated by the participants as the most important. they were the most frequently mentioned terms that provided meaning and stability to the representation. the elements characterized by a high frequency and a rank of appearance above the average level featured the high periphery of the representation. these components were considered part of the first periphery, which can migrate to the central nucleus. the components with average frequency of appearance and low rank were conflicting elements characterizing the contrast zone of the representation. these terms could either typify the nucleus and the first periphery or symbolize the tendencies of a minority. finally, the elements characterized by low frequency and the highest rank of appearance—that is, the words rated by the interviewees as the least important—were more clearly peripheral elements and belonged to the second periphery. accordingly, the internal structure of the social representations shared by each subgroup resulted in four quadrants (figure 1) where the central nucleus was situated in the upper left quadrant, the 1st periphery in the upper right quadrant, the contrast zone in the lower left quadrant and the 2nd periphery was located in the lower right quadrant. figure 1. internal structure of social representations. finally, for the purpose of the results description, italian words were translated into english using back-translation with an english mother tongue speaker for checking the translation accuracy of the word association task data. results high-soc subgroup table 1 displays the internal structure of the social representations of citizen participation within the high-soc subgroup. rochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 317 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 the internal structure of the social representation of participation produced by high soc group nucleus first periphery word frequency ≥ 7 rank ≤ 3 word frequency ≥ 7 rank > 3 election 22 2.773 manifestation 11 3.455 collaboration 14 2.714 responsibility 10 3.200 duty 10 2.600 engagement 10 3.400 union 10 2.600 agency 8 3.250 freedom 10 2.700 politics 8 3.250 activism 9 2.444 civicness 7 3.571 democracy 9 1.778 sharing 7 3.714 rights 9 2.889 information 9 3.000 development 7 2.571 fundamental 7 2.286 job 7 2.857 equality 7 2.571 contrast zone second periphery word frequency < 7 rank ≤ 3 word frequency < 7 rank > 3 fight 6 2.500 membership 5 3.400 scarce 6 2.667 association 5 3.200 involvement 6 2.500 change 4 3.250 solidarity 5 2.800 length 4 3.500 ineffective 5 2.400 discontinuity 5 3.200 interest 5 1.400 debate 5 4.000 lawfulness 5 2.200 ignored 4 3.250 people 4 2.750 honesty 4 3.250 referendum 4 2.250 opinion 5 3.400 volunteering 4 2.750 revolution 4 3.250 awareness 4 3.000 value 4 3.500 disagreement 4 3.000 will 4 3.750 in general, the frequency values of the semantic categories occurring in the nucleus and the 1st periphery of the representation suggested that there was not a clear-cut differentiation between these two areas. at the same time, the value of the rank of appearance indicated that the core of the representation revolved around two basic themes. on the one side, the formal dimension of political participation echoed by the terms election, democracy, and rights; on the other side, also words alluding to commitment and social companionship such as collaboration, union, and equality hinted at the communal side of participation, whereas term activism addressed aspects related to agency. one more significant dyad of words—namely, development and fundamental—captured a positive view of citizen participation and its prospective outcome. the 1st periphery of the social representation shared by high-soc participants was partly aligned with the nucleus, but it included semantic components that point to the unconventional forms of citizen participation. in fact, on the one hand, politics reiterated the notion of formal political participation, on the other hand, manifestation and civicness clearly belonged to social forms of collective action and civic participation. further elements, the social representations of participation 318 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ such as responsibility, engagement, agency, and sharing consolidated the agentic role of social actors and the idea of social commitment. the contents of both the contrast zone and the 2nd periphery were in part consistent with the nucleus and the 1st periphery of the representation. in particular, several references resonated the formal and civic facets of participation—such as, respectively, lawfulness, referendum and volunteering together with solidarity, and association. however, a few semantic traits included in the two sections challenged the positive and highly consensual view of citizen participation emerged from the central nucleus. in fact, both conflict and criticism emerged—as shown by the terms fight, scarce, ineffective, discontinuity, and revolution. these components seemed to convey a complaint concerning the practice of citizen participation. medium-soc subgroup words occurring in the nucleus were more numerous than those occurring in the other areas of the representation as displayed by table 2. such a distribution suggested that the kernel of the image of citizen participation shared by the medium soc subgroup was varied in content and highly consensual, with moderate divergences in the peripheral areas. indeed, the core of the representation conglobed references to the political and institutional as well as the social participation. in fact, on the one hand, the lemmas election, rights, democracy, and referendum delineated the institutional mode of participation. on the other hand, manifestation, collaboration, union and community mainly designated the social counterpart of participation together with its civic mode evoked by the semantic traits volunteering, civicnes, association and agency, that characterize the 1st periphery. individual agency and responsibility confirmed to be central elements, as indicated by the words involvement, engagement, responsibility activism and will—included in the nucleus—and interest decision and agency— comprised in the 1st periphery. at the same time, these areas encompassed the dialogic facet of citizen participation outlined by the terms dialogue, voice, and deliberation; though, the frequency and rank values informed that this semantic component is less important than, respectively, the political/institutional view and the social view of citizen participation. the elements contained in both the contrast zone and the 2nd periphery aligned with the semantic contents characterizing the core and 1st periphery of the representation, although a few original constituents emerged. in particular, whereas the contrast zone collected abstract building blocks evoking the subjective and relational texture of citizen participation—for example, communion, relations, culture, need and hope—the 2nd periphery introduced references to everyday life experiences, such as job and internet. additionally, although marginally, conflicting and unconventional participatory practices were mentioned both in the contrast and in the 2nd periphery—see fight and revolution. rochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 319 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 the internal structure of the social representation of participation produced by medium soc group nucleus first periphery word frequency ≥ 6 rank ≤ 3 word frequency ≥ 6 rank > 3 election 32 2.594 volunteering 13 3.308 rights 19 1.947 civicness 12 3.250 information 19 2.368 interest 12 3.167 manifestation 17 3.000 sharing 12 3.333 involvement 16 2.188 politics 12 3.667 democracy 16 2.438 association 11 3.455 freedom 15 2.000 decision 9 4.111 referendum 15 2.867 respect 7 3.429 engagement 15 2.933 discontinuity 7 3.571 responsibility 15 2.800 deliberation 7 4.429 collaboration 14 2.929 agency 6 3.167 scarce 14 2.929 organization 6 3.333 duty 13 2.615 activism 13 2.923 honesty 10 2.200 union 10 3.000 will 9 2.778 fundamental 8 1.625 equality 8 2.750 dialogue 6 2.833 development 6 2.833 voice 6 1.833 community 6 3.000 contrast zone second periphery word frequency < 6 rank ≤ 3 word frequency < 6 rank > 3 communion 5 1.800 disinterest 4 3.250 culture 4 2.000 justice 4 3.250 relations 5 2.000 political party 4 3.250 fight 5 2.000 people 4 3.250 expression 5 2.400 apathy 4 3.500 representative democracy 5 2.400 opinion 4 3.500 need 4 2.500 assembly 5 3.600 hope 4 2.500 awareness 5 3.600 collectivity 5 2.600 internet 4 3.750 ineffective 4 2.750 job 4 3.750 opportunism 4 2.750 utopia 5 3.800 government 4 3.000 realism 4 4.250 debate 4 3.000 confusion 4 4.750 positive emotions 5 4.200 dissatisfaction 4 4.250 revolution 4 4.750 choice 4 4.000 low-soc subgroup the examination of the internal structure of the social representation shared by the low-soc subgroup of participants (table 3) showed that the core, that is the one conveyed by the nucleus and the 1st periphery, was the social representations of participation 320 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ characterized by a bottom-up view, as indicated by the references to activism, collaboration, people, common goods, union, community and society. moreover, the core transmitted the values underlying the representation of citizen participation, such as freedom, equality, and honesty. however, the kernel of the shared image of participation also included the institutional mode that is reminded by the semantic component rights. table 3 the internal structure of the social representation of participation produced by low soc group nucleus first periphery word frequency ≥ 6 rank ≤ 3 word frequency ≥ 6 rank > 3 freedom 19 2.053 election 28 3.107 activism 17 3.000 sharing 15 3.200 rights 17 2.588 manifestation 13 3.308 information 15 1.667 referendum 11 3.091 equality 12 2.333 scarce 10 3.200 democracy 12 2.500 ineffective 10 3.900 responsibility 10 2.300 volunteering 10 3.900 collaboration 10 3.000 union 9 3.222 awareness 8 3.000 politics 9 3.556 people 7 2.429 agency 8 3.125 deliberation 6 2.167 mendacity 8 3.500 apathy 6 1.333 interest 7 3.429 common goods 6 2.333 transparency 7 3.714 expression 6 2.333 choice 7 3.571 honesty 6 3.000 selfishness 6 3.667 involvement 6 3.333 community 6 3.333 society 6 3.500 contrast zone second periphery word frequency < 6 rank ≤ 3 word frequency < 6 rank > 3 membership 5 2.000 hear 4 3.250 confusion 4 2.750 assembly 5 3.800 constitution 4 2.500 lacking 5 4.200 disinterest 5 2.800 association 4 3.500 duty 4 2.000 civicness 4 3.500 fundamental 4 1.750 control 5 3.200 human being 4 2.250 culture 4 3.750 ideas 4 2.750 decision 5 3.800 education 4 2.500 dialogue 4 4.000 motivation 4 1.750 disagreement 5 3.200 opinion 4 3.000 development 4 4.250 pluralism 5 2.600 guarantee 4 3.500 relations 5 2.800 governance 4 3.250 local governance 5 3.200 engagement 5 3.400 useless 4 3.500 political party 5 3.600 rochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 321 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the most significant semantic pieces of the 1st periphery established the formal and political mode of participation, as epitomized by the elements election, referendum, and politics. precisely, the frequency and rank values of election indicated that this component can be included in the kernel of the representation. at the same time, this area comprises allusions to the social—manifestation—and civic—volunteering—forms of citizen participation. interestingly, a cluster of semantic categories outlined individual agency and responsibility, that is the subjective capacity to act independently and make free choices, in particular responsibility and awareness—in the central nucleus—and agency, interest, and choice in the 1st periphery. the content that characterized the contrast zone and the 2nd periphery was composed of many different elements. although the values of frequency and rank were modest, they are worth illustrating. in addition to mentions to the institutional—for example, constitution—and civic participation—for example, civicness, assembly and association—the semantic components included in these areas—for example, ideas, education, opinion, pluralism together with disagreement and dialogue—introduced the notion of citizen participation as a cultural and dialogical practice. finally, the representational contents revealed ambivalent attitudes. in fact, while a positive evaluation—evoked by the word fundamental—distinguishes the whole structure of the representation, criticisms and negative assessments characterized the 1st periphery and the contrast zone; moreover, the more the 2nd periphery is approached, the more the view of citizen participation appeared conflicting, as indicated by the terms selfishness, confusion, disinterest, and useless. high, medium and low soc groups comparison in the three conditions (e.g., low, medium and high soc) the structure of the representation revealed a conspicuous set of shared core meanings—as indicated by the number of elements comprised in the central nucleus of the representations. moreover, noteworthy commonalities and differences in the contents of the social representations of citizen participation shared by the three subgroups of interviewees emerged. interestingly, information appeared as a significant aspect of the nucleus of the representation of the three groups, evoking the latent component of citizen participation, which relies on individuals’ interest in public issues. references to political participation—mainly in its formal variant, that is voting (e.g., election)—were stable across the groups. however, whereas in the high soc condition the institutional and political view of citizen participation came about as the most important, in the medium soc it was complemented by the social mode and in the low soc any particular form prevailed but the bottom-up participation. specific of the high soc subgroup representation were the emphasis on the institutional foundation of citizen participation, the concept of participation as a duty and responsibility, the reference to the issue of job, mentions to development and progress as outcomes of citizen participation, and an overall idealistic view and positive attitude towards it. unlike the low soc subgroup, a very few criticisms and bottom-up participation characterized the periphery of the representation. the contents of the medium soc representation are scattered across the four sections. specific to this group were acknowledgments to the personal commitment and free engagement towards citizen participation, the dialogic tenet of citizen participation, references to the civic mode which characterized the 1st periphery of the repthe social representations of participation 322 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ resentation, mentions to culture and intangible aspirations as well as a critical viewpoint which covered the four sections. finally, specific of the low soc subgroup representation were mentions of social/civic participation, along with the political form. references to the social, interactive and communal basis of citizen participation elicited the bottom-up approach, and a critical/disapproving attitude towards individual apathy and selfishness. in addition, likewise the medium soc subgroup, remarks to education, relations, pluralism and ideas were peculiar to this representation. discussion as expected in our main hypothesis, participants converged toward a common set of representational elements underpinning the lay notion of citizen participation, regardless of the degree of identification and attachment to the local community. though, differently from our hypothesis, the intensity of the sense of community was also associated with variances in the core of the representations and not only in its peripheral areas. there was a large consensus among the participants about the values which constitute the social reality of citizen participation. at the same time, the latent dimension of citizen participation (amnå, 2010; berger, 2009; van deth, 2001), considered as a psychological and pre-political mode of participation (almond & verba, 1963; marsh & kaase, 1979), also surfaced as a core component of the social representations elaborated by our participants. the core meaning of the representations conveyed by the three subgroups recalled the definitions, common in the scientific literature, of political, civic and social participation. the emerging consensual reality not related to a general agreement or the same view of citizen participation among the three subgroups. in fact, voting was the participatory behavior largely mentioned by participants. however, the formal and institutional type of political participation was especially evoked in the high soc subgroup whereas volunteering, demonstrating, or taking part in a community group or meeting were more peculiar of the medium and the low soc. results also revealed that in the specific commonsensical view of citizen participation analyzed in this study, different types of participation were set in different types hierarchy of representativeness with the political mode perceived as the most prototypical when participants having the greater attachment towards the community and the bottom up participation was exemplary to those who were less connected to their community. broadly, the findings indicated that either a solid or a feeble attachment relationship with the community was related with a preference towards a precise mode of citizen participation. diversely, an intermediate level of soc not privileged a well-defined formula of citizen participation but both the political and the social/civic ways intersected between each other’s. these results contended with the idea that different levels of soc can be associated with different views of citizen participation (mannarini & fedi, 2009) overall, these findings highlighted that that the lay notion of citizen participation that was detected in our study covered few behavioral habits compared to the repertoire of multiple activities and actions considered in the scientific taxonomies. at the same time, few original contents also emerged—such as dialogue, culture and education—that have not been extensively addressed in such taxonomies, thus suggesting the need for refining or broadening the typologies of citizen participation. rochira, de simone, mannarini, & salvatore 323 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as also supposed in our main hypothesis, differences were found in the peripheral part of the representations, according to different level of individuals’ soc. those with a greater attachment to local community agreed on a formal variant of citizen participation and mainly focused on electoral behaviors (brady, 1999; van deth, 2001). they also emphasized the significance of individual duty and associated citizen participation to development and progress. generally, the expectation that high levels of soc would be associated with a positive representation of citizen participation was supported. the social representation of medium and low soc participants conveyed a cooperative and relational image of citizen participation, within which conventional and non-conventional types of political participation, as well as the political and the social form, were blended. results supported the possibility that average and low attachment to local community does not necessarily result in devaluing citizen participation (mannarini & fedi, 2009). on the contrary, they suggested that a weak soc could be consonant with perspectives that are more comprehensive and inclusive of concerns for both the communities and the broader society and are able to take into account plurality of modes, forms and behaviors. ultimately, the study has some limitations that have to be pointed out. first, we adopted a single technique for evoking the social representations of citizen participation but the structural approach suggests the use of diverse instruments. second, the usage of a sole instrument might limit the interpretation of the results and the comparison between the three groups. third, we followed the user guide of the evoc software to set the four areas of the internal structure of the social representations and, as a result, a large quota of less frequent words than expected were included in the central core and, especially, in the periphery of the representations. fourth, given that sense of community is a dynamic experience embedded in the cultural and historical context, further data are needed to account for the differences that might characterize diverse territories. nonetheless, we contend that our investigation results opened up a potential route of inquiry on the relationship between low or even negative soc (mannarini, rochira, & talò, 2014) and citizen participation, supporting the idea that dissatisfaction with the community does not inevitably result in apathy and disengagement, but on the contrary, that it can support a critically constructive view of citizen participation. future investigations could enlarge the comprehension of the soc-participation association with regard to multiple soc, so as to explore to what extent multiple simultaneous belongings can be related to variations in the social representations of citizen participation. notes i) further information is available at the project website, www.recrire.eu. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. the social representations of participation 324 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 http://www.recrire.eu https://www.psychopen.eu/ references abric, j. c. 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(1949). human behaviour and the principle of least effort: an introduction to human ecology. cambridge, ma, usa: addison-wesley press. about the authors alessia rochira is assistant researcher of social psychology at the department of history, society and human studies (university of salento, lecce). her research interests cover several topics at the crossroads between social and community psychology, such as interethnic relations, acculturation, sense of community, community resilience, social representations, common sense justice and legal compliance. contact: alessia.rochira@unisalento.it evelyn de simone is a ph.d. student in human and social sciences at the university of salento with a community psychology research project. her interests are mainly focused on community resilience, sense of community and civic participation. contact: evelyn.desimone@unisalento.it terri mannarini is associate professor of social psychology at the university of salento, lecce, italy. her research interests cover political, social and community psychology. her work has been focusing on community participation, collective action, acculturation processes, and gender stereotypes. contact: terri.mannarini@unisalento.it sergio salvatore is professor of dynamic psychology at the department of history, society and humanities, university of salento. president of the european institute of cultural analysis for policy (eicap). his scientific interests regard the psychodynamic and semiotic theorization of mental phenomena and the methodology of analysis of psychological processes as field dependent dynamics. he also takes an interest in theory and the analysis of psychological intervention in clinical, scholastic, organizational and social fields. on these issues he has designed and managed various scientific projects (e.g., re.cri.re.) and published about 250 works. contact: sergio.salvatore65@icloud.com the social representations of participation 328 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 312–328 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1588 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10464-010-9312-2 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the social representations of participation (introduction) taxonomies of participation citizen participation and sense of community the theory of social representations the study method participants instruments analyses results high-soc subgroup medium-soc subgroup low-soc subgroup high, medium and low soc groups comparison discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors creativity and marketing: interview with marie taillard interview creativity and marketing: interview with marie taillard marie taillarda, vlad glăveanu*b [a] creativity marketing centre, escp europe – london campus, london, united kingdom. [b] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract in this interview dr. taillard discusses her interest and ongoing research in the areas of marketing, consumer behaviour and creativity. she considers how academic training can be applied to a business context and describes the newly formed creativity marketing centre at escp europe. exploring the multiple intersections between creativity and marketing represents not only a paradigmatic change for those interested in business and consumer behaviour but also for researchers of creativity who can start envisioning and studying consumption as a creative act. this interview will offer valuable points of reflection for all those interested to know more about this approach. europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 519–522, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.556 received: 2012-11-20. accepted: 2012-11-20. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark, email: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. vlad glăveanu: dr. taillard, you have been trained both in business and linguistics and currently specialise in marketing management and consumer behaviour. what exactly brings these interests together and how can knowledge of linguistics help understand both consumers and firms? marie taillard: thanks for picking up on my fairly atypical background. you’re right, i have a ph.d in linguistics as well as an mba (with a finance concentration), and extensive experience in services marketing. to me what links all this together is a passion for the mechanisms and substance of social interactions, and in particular communication. the area of linguistics in which i pursued my research is pragmatics, at the intersection of linguistics, cognitive psychology, anthropology and philosophy of language. in my ph.d thesis, i explored persuasive communication phenomena, both from the persuader’s and the audience’s perspectives. the theoretical framework in which i anchored my research is relevance theory, developed by dan sperber and deirdre wilson, my supervisor. i also looked at the evolutionary roots of persuasion, which i showed are clearly linked to factors of influence such as authority, scarcity, commitment, reciprocity and such, documented by robert cialdini, but also in the cultural transmission literature by rob boyd and some of his colleagues. in other words, persuasion works because it appeals to adaptive tendencies humans have to be influenced by certain types of individuals (e.g., in positions of authority), under certain circumstances (e.g., under scarcity), using certain types of appeals (e.g., reciprocity or commitment). i applied some of this research to my experience as a marketer – trying to understand persuasion in marketing, from both the firm’s and the consumer’s angles. in the meantime, digital marketing and social media were developing fast and opened up all sorts of interesting opportunities to think about communication and persuasion. should we consider social media a more sophisticated persuasive strategy (the next level in a persuasion arms race), in which persuasive intent is much less manifest than in more traditional media? europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ marie taillard earned her mba from columbia business school and her ph.d. from the university of london. her previous academic work was in linguistics and she specializes in studying marketing management and consumer behavior from the perspective of the communications that take place between consumers and firms and amongst consumers themselves. she is interested in how the internet has transformed relationships between stakeholders in organizations and in how consumers contribute to creating value with companies. she has also conducted research in the area of change management. dr. taillard held management positions in the united states for american express, council travel, uta french airlines, club med and accor hotels. marie taillard is a member of the american marketing association, the academy of marketing science and the association for consumer research. as a member of escp europe's permanent faculty since 2007, she teaches in several postgraduate and executive programmes at the school. she is the academic director of the school's successful master in marketing and creativity whose launch she spearheaded in 2009. she is expanding her research in marketing and creativity as the director of the new creativity marketing centre on the london campus of escp europe. correspondence: escp europe – london campus, 527 finchley road, london nw3 7bg, united kingdom, email: mtaillard@escpeurope.eu vlad glăveanu: one particular focus of your research relates to the role of the internet in facilitating communication within organisations and also among consumers. what exactly is specific to this medium of communication and exchange that can shape the behaviour of stakeholders and consumers and foster value generation processes? marie taillard: the interesting thing about the internet as far as marketing is concerned, is that it takes away much (not all) of the traditional information asymmetry between producers and consumers. it shifts control back to consumers, and allows them to exchange information with each other, and to act publicly, either individually or collectively in relation to the brand. whether they “like” a brand on facebook, post a negative review on tripadvisor, contribute a recipe on epicurious.com, or participate in a tweetchat, they contribute to the brands they consume in creative ways and add value both to their own experience of the brand, and as a a result, to the brand itself (they can also take value out of the brand if they complain publicly). so, there are more and more opportunities for consumers to take some of their consumption experience online and in so doing to create value around the brand. youmention other stakeholders – the argument is the same – employees, suppliers, retailers and such all have similar opportunities, sometimes through specific channels (e.g., a retailer can promote the brand on their own site, thus creating more value for themselves along the way). vlad glăveanu: at a methodological level, what can an analysis of conversations (including discussions in online forums) tell us about consumer behaviour and consumer creativity? marie taillard: well, i see these forums as veritable petri dishes of creativity! individuals are interacting spontaneously out of sheer interest or passion, sharing, solving problems, creating new practices. we are using conversation analysis as a methodology as it allows us to see how conversations build into creative outcomes one contribution at a time. it is the very structure of conversation, the exercise that consists in crafting a contribution and interpreting others’, and so on, which allows greater creativity to emerge. we have never before had access to this level of spontaneous and transparent dialogue. of course, we must be aware of and sensitive to ethical concerns of confidentiality and disclosure, but the insights we can gain, are nothing short of phenomenal. vlad glăveanu: you are currently directing the master in marketing and creativity launched in 2009 at escp europe. this represents a rather unique combination of these two areas, what would you say are the overlaps between marketing and creativity? europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 519–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.556 creativity and marketing 520 http://www.psychopen.eu/ marie taillard: it is a unique combination, you are quite right. there have always been overlaps between the two areas. advertising agencies have creative staff – the people who come up with the creative elements of a campaign, whether it is copy for print ads, slogans, the “big idea” (and smaller ones too) behind a commercial etc. what we are developing and teaching is creativity at a much broader and strategic level. our premise is that marketing is evolving very fast, competition is increasing and consumers are increasingly confused about the benefits of one brand vs. another. this is the context that requires what we call “creativity marketing” – starting with a thorough understanding of consumers, allowing consumers (and all other stakeholders) to deploy their own creativity at every possible touch point. consumption is packed with creativity through and through: consumers take a product or service and make it their own. the same is true for other relationships between brands and their stakeholders (employees – particularly in service industries, suppliers, distributors etc.). so creativity marketing is about focusing on these relationships and the creative opportunities to create value for all involved. at the same time, we also advocate a stronger balance between the creative and analytical sides of marketing. the digital context has enabled the capture and storage of unprecedented amounts of valuable data (“big data”), which can and should be analyzed for greater insights and more efficient management. these analytical processes too present excellent opportunities for creative thinking. themost sophisticated algorithms cannot begin to compete with human creativity in asking incisive questions, drawing insights from statistical patterns and telling compelling stories from these data. we are so convinced of the importance of these overlaps that we are actually “branding” this a new perspective on marketing, “creativity marketing”, and teaching it successfully to students from around the world. vlad glăveanu: what kinds of skills are developed within this programme and what type of jobs do graduates usually aim for after completing their studies? marie taillard: the program is based on three pillars, creativity, marketing and management skills. we want to make sure that our graduates hone their creative skills so as to apply them to a better understanding of consumers, of markets, of value creation processes and opportunities, and of their role within organizations. that and a good dose of analytical skills. beyond skills, we also help students develop a managerial mindset – creativity has a role to play there too. vlad glăveanu: you are also directing the newly formed creativity marketing centre (cmc) at the london campus of escp europe. what kinds of research projects are specific to this centre? marie taillard: you are right, we are at the very beginning of the life of the centre, and are developing a number of projects – we have one going on around creativity and value creation, another focused on consumer creativity – working with data from consumer forums, one around big data and creativity and another new one in partnership with a large multinational company on creativity in the “brand ecosystem”. a number of researchers in marketing, consumer behaviour, organizational behaviour, psychology and anthropology have agreed to work with us and so we are starting to formulate more projects to bring these disciplines to bear on our research. vlad glăveanu: how is creativity conceptualised by members of the cmc and what are the implications of this “definition” for our understanding of marketing and consumer behaviour in particular? marie taillard: i think that our roots in the social sciences naturally make us inclined to think of creativity as a social or cultural phenomenon. in your own recent papers, for instance, you develop a very interesting socio-cultural perspective on creativity in which audiences and affordances are part of the process of actors performing creative acts resulting in creative artefacts. this type of characterization is particularly in line with our perspectives on europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 519–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.556 taillard & glăveanu 521 http://www.psychopen.eu/ creativity and consumption – consumption is a personal experience, but one that is also deeply social and cultural at the core. vlad glăveanu: conversely, what can studies of consumer behaviour tell us about creativity as a phenomenon and its current forms of expression? marie taillard: this is one aspect we have yet to explore, but i would think that looking at creativity in the context of consumption should give us access to a whole new range of data from which to gain better insights into creativity. in particular i see opportunities to tap into a veritable treasure trove of examples of creativity at work, for instance among consumers participating in online conversations as part of their consumption experiences. vlad glăveanu: what do you think are the greatest challenges faced today by people working in the area of creativity and marketing and how can they be addressed by practitioners? marie taillard: to tell you the truth, i think we are now in a situation where the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. this is a very exciting time for marketers – we have lots of engaged and informed consumers and powerful ways to communicate with them and enable further engagement. thanks to this and the ongoing dialogue we can develop, we can bring consumers into the value creation loop, and as a result, create new paradigms for value creation. this is very important in face of the growing sense of discomfort experienced by consumers, which we as consumers ourselves can certainly identify with, particularly in the context of the severe global economic crisis. as marketers, we can no longer feel satisfied with pushing consumption for consumption’s sake. we must adopt a much more collaborative attitude to our practice of marketing. vlad glăveanu: finally, what would be a word of advice for young scholars interested in studying the creativity of consumption or working towards building a career in marketing? marie taillard: the key words in my mind are creativity, empathy (i.e., being able to relate to consumers’ needs, emotions etc.), dynamism (adapting to constant change) and rigor (in analyzing markets, consumers, opportunities etc.). certainly, these skills and attitudes are those with which we try to equip our students, and this is what i think will help them excel in the future. it’s above all a very human and social field where having a real passion for how humans go about conducting their daily lives as social beings is crucial. vlad glăveanu: thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with us. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 519–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.556 creativity and marketing 522 http://www.psychopen.eu/ creativity and marketing intention to remain at work until legal retirement age: a comparative analysis among different age subgroups of employees research reports intention to remain at work until legal retirement age: a comparative analysis among different age subgroups of employees catherine hellemans*a, caroline closona [a] research centre for work and consumer psychology, université libre de bruxelles (ulb), brussels, belgium. abstract the paper is an empirical contribution to the intention to remain at work until legal retirement age among different age subgroups of employees. three groups of antecedents are analyzed: health condition, professional competence, and psychosocial work conditions, among two age groups of employees: 40to 49-year-old employees and employees 50 years of age or older. the participants are employees from the service industry who are subject to annual control by occupational medicine (n = 280). they completed the vow/qft (vragenlijst over werkbaarheid / questionnaire sur les facultés de travail), a self-report questionnaire measuring several dimensions to understand the intention to remain at work. hierarchical regression analyses tested the hypotheses. results show there is clearly distinctive process between employees who were 40–49 years old and those over 50 in the explanation of intention to work until the lawful retirement age. among the first group, perceived health and increase in abilities explained the intention to remain (psychosocial aspects were not an incremental explanation); among the second, it was the possibility of participation that motivated them to work. implications concern the management of age and career: these are not the same factors that explain the intention to remain at different stages of the career. this research clarifies the respective roles of health, professional competence, and work conditions to understand the intention to remain by studying their incremental explanations and distinguishing two subgroups of age. keywords: intention to remain, older worker, health, work ability, professional competences, psychosocial work conditions europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 received: 2013-04-15. accepted: 2013-07-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: ulb, psychologie du travail et de la consommation, cp 122. 50, avenue fr. d. roosevelt, b – 1050 brussels, belgium. e-mail: catherine.hellemans@ulb.ac.be this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction many european countries report a low number of people over 55 who still work; belgium is a good example, with barely 35% of workers from this age group in 2009 (eurostat, 2010). while the normal state pension age in belgium is 65, the federal government has awarded early retirement at the age of 55 years under certain conditions (company in financial difficulty, significant restructuring plan, hard labour, disabled workers or with seriously physical problems). this early retirement is a system for employees over 55 years old who are laid off: they are then entitled to unemployment benefits and an additional compensation charge from their former employer, while having the status of "bridging pensioner"; it is not uncommon that taking his/her early retirement is, from a financial point of view, very attractive for the worker. from the 70s, the use of this mechanism has become common in belgium: it has been seen as a way for struggling businesses to reduce their workforce without significant social conflict by offering an elegant way to older workers to leave their company and the labour market. this strategy has been seen for many years as a win-win strategy for business leaders, labour unions, and workers; so much europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ so that elchardus’ and cohen’s (2003) belgian survey showed that, for many workers, early retirement has now become an entitlement. the problem is, under cover of a social plan, that the costs were simply shifted to longer term on the state, and therefore on society. the context of recent years led to radically change the position: many baby boomers leave the workforce and future generations just are not numerous enough to absorb the early massive departure of baby boomers. the belgian company securex (2010) estimates that if we want to avoid disaster, we would require that employment rate for workers aged 55 and older back up to 60% by 2030. as mentioned in schalk et al. (2010), companies “have to rely increasingly on the knowledge, skills, and experience of older workers while the available workforce is shrinking considerably” (p. 77). a key question is how to enable older workers to remain employed. schalk et al. (2010) estimate that the elements necessary to efficiently maintain older workers in the labor market are health condition of employees, various psychosocial work aspects such as the job and working environment quality, and also the attitude of managers towards older workers. thus appears a major contemporary challenge for the belgian society, through the human resource managers: encourage older workers to continue working without too great personal sacrifice, i.e., in tolerable working conditions for the senior worker. the aim of this research is to present some factors determining correct work conditions or at least work conditions playing a positive role for workers to remain at work. so in this context, the objective of this study did not focus on the economic and financial situation of workers and their households / families. we analyze the contribution of three groups of antecedents – health condition, work ability, and psychosocial work aspects – among two age groups of employees: 40to 49-year-old employees and employees 50 years or older. we posit that the antecedents of intention to work until legal retirement age do not have the same incremental value between these two subgroups. the originality of this contribution is so to distinguish the order of importance of different categories of conditions for the retention of staff among age categories: there is a need for hr to know what the priorities in each age category are for proposing good practices of age management; in belgium, this need for good practice is very acute. in a study conducted recently in belgium, it appears that for most companies, actions in terms of age management related thoughts, projects, but few are implemented effectively; actions based on factors identified as levers of continued employment until age 65 are almost nonexistent (lurkin, angenot, & braeckman, 2012). intention to quit or intention to remain until legal retirement age there are quite few studies on intent to remain (mrayyan, 2007); some exceptions are shacklock‘s contributions in australia (shacklock, 2006; shacklock & brunetto, 2011). the concept is usually investigated through intention to quit as retirement or turnover, although adams and beehr (1998) showed that there are significant differences between the predictors of turnover intentions and retirement intentions. the essential reasons for retirement are financial – having some savings or other family income (beehr & bennett, 2007; kim &moen, 2001; shultz, morton, & weckerle, 1998); family (beehr & bennett, 2007; saba, guérin, & wils, 1998; shultz et al., 1998); health (beehr & bennett, 2007; kim & feldman, 1998; saba et al., 1998); and various work-related variables like strains, demands, requirements (adams, 1999; blekesaune & solem, 2005; elchardus & cohen, 2003; elovainio et al., 2005; schreurs, van emmerik, de cuyper, notelaers, & de witte, 2011), job/organizational commitment, satisfaction (adams, 1999; adams & beehr, 1998; morrow & mcelroy, 1987; saba et al., 1998), or organizational culture (lindbo & shultz, 1998). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 624 http://www.psychopen.eu/ weckerle and shultz (1999) have analyzed the antecedents of four types of retirement: early retirement, continuing work, obtaining bridge employment in the same job, and obtaining bridge employment in a different job. they noted that voluntariness of retirement, anticipated financial reward, and job flexibility all significantly differentiate the four types of retirement decisions, but also, according to continuing work, the most important factor is financial constraints. bidewell, griffin, and hesketh (2006) suggest that whereas the choice between early retirement with less money and delayed retirement with more money is an important aspect in relation to retirement decisions, the decision is tempered by current and anticipated health and also by enjoyment considerations after retirement. the process is actually complex; first, many antecedents to remain or to quit exist. second, there are various ways to organize these antecedents, and all the authors do not use the same one. for example, beehr (1986) distinguished “personal variables” (health, age) from “environmental variables” such as “job variables” and “nonjob variables.” “non-job variables” relate to the individual or personal variables. third, the meta-analysis conducted by topa, moriano, depolo, alcover, andmorales (2009) resulted in differentiating retirement planning from retirement decision; the statistical analysis indicated different principal predictors for these two variables. schalk et al. (2010) found that much research on early retirement mainly examines older employees and sometimes retrospectively samples of retirees: the respondents were necessarily more limited than workers working. this comment is not trivial because we think that different dynamics in the explanation of the intention to work until the legal retirement age potentially exist according to the worker‘s age because there are probably different needs and different expectations from the employee towards his or her organization (or towards his or her life as a whole) at different stages of his or her current working life or career. health, age, and work studies focusing on the relationship between personal variables and retirement decisions show that health and age significantly predict retirement decisions: people with better health retire at an older age than people in poorer health (beehr, glazer, nielson, & farmer, 2000; bidewell et al., 2006). the results from the meta-analysis from topa et al. (2009) are more precise: specific job-related attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and work involvement) predict retirement planning whereas poor health and negative work conditions do not affect it; retirement decisions have an opposite influence on poor health and negative work conditions. of course, as topa et al. (2009) stated, the relationship between health and retirement is complex: health problems can cause early retirement and undermine retirees’ well-being, but retirement from unhealthy jobs may also promote early retirement and increased well-being for retirees. moreover, they note that the expressions “health” or “health problem” are quite vague, ranging from major physical illness to relatively mild psychosomatic illness, and are not always defined in the investigations or contributions. the studies relating to the evolution of biological phenomena among older workers show that there are real limits to the functioning of older workers only if they work in a professional environment where the physical requirements are painful, such as those for blue-collar workers in secondary production (e.g., faurie, fraccaroli, & le blanc, 2008; laville, 1989; laville & volkoff, 1998; millanvoye, 1998; peeters & van emmerik, 2008). an interesting way to understand the links between age and health is ilmarinen and tuomi’s (2004) investigation of “work ability”; they developed thework ability index (wai), a questionnaire of seven simple questions – including three questions on health problems – widely used in epidemiological studies (see also ilmarinen, 2007). according to the authors, wai scores can predict work disability, early retirement, and death primarily among older male workers with a job with strong physical requirements. camerino et al. (2006) confirmed in a large study among 10 european countries that low perceived ability to work increases with age among nurses. van den berg, elders, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ de zwart, and burdorf (2009) synthesized the results of about twenty studies conducted between 1985 and 2006 concerning the health factors linked to the wai. four studies proved the link between a low musculo-squelettic capacity and the wai; four studies showed a relationship between the overweight and a weak score on wai; and four studies showed a link between a lack of physical exercise during free time and a weak score on wai. the general health status seemed well predicted with the wai, but according to ilmarinen and tuomi (1992), the wai score remains constant between 45 and 57 years old among employees with intellectual jobs. the wai score is precisely calculated thanks to various questions about health problems. in addition, the unidimensionality of this score does not make it possible to differentiate work ability from the point of view of health and work ability from the point of view of professional competence whereas health problems and problems of competence at work require a different kind of remediational intervention under the responsibility of different actors in the organization. psychosocial work aspects, professional competence, and intention to remain we have seen above that many authors consider work conditions to be antecedents of the intention to quit. of course, the term “work conditions” covers many aspects, such as job content (quantity of work, complexity, interest, etc.), physical requirements, job conditions (training, learning, financial rewards, etc.), psychosocial work aspects (social support, acknowledgement, opportunity of participation, etc.). van den berg et al. (2009) were interested in the studies relating to the bond between psychosocial job requirements and the wai score. they report that in five studies out of seven, strong mental requirements are associated with a weak wai score, and in three studies out of four, lack of autonomy is associated with a weak wai score. shacklock (2006) interviewed 36 people, including 12 retirees (average age was 59.3 years) about their experiences, perceptions, and understanding of continuing to work. the attachment to work and social interaction at work are two findings specific to the intention to continue working. in a very recent contribution, shacklock and brunetto (2011) showed that in addition to health and financial factors, older workers’ intention to continue paid working (owicw) depends on four work-related variables: the importance of working, the flexibility of working arrangements, interests outside of work, and management and organizational factors such as supervision. the analyses deserve further refinement insofar as a short analysis of the literature according to agemanagement demonstrates that expectations and difficulties relating to work conditions differ with advancement in years or in career (morrow & mcelroy, 1987) and probably also according to the sector (secondary sector versus service industry). authors such as slocum, cron, hansen, and rawlings (1985) and roger and tremblay (1999) estimated the arrival of a career plateau (also called “midcareer plateau”) among workers about 45 years; most authors associate essentially negative consequences with it: poor health (slocum et al., 1985), a decrease in self-esteem, more anxiety (cerdin, marbot, & peretti, 2003), less satisfaction towards the superior (slocum et al., 1985), hostility towards the organization, withdrawal, and the intention to quit the organization (nicholson, 1993). perceived competence, the ability to perform, and their evolution factor into the process of career plateau (lemire & rouillard, 2003; rabinowitz & hall, 1981). marquié (1998) noted that competence continues to progress with age, just as experience and automatism. however, many contributions treating the evolutions of the labour market and the organizational structures underline the changing nature of work, the intensification of work, and the necessity to be trained and continuously adapted (gollac & volkoff, 2000; levy-leboyer, 1995; marquié, 1998; roger & tremblay, 1999; wrenn & maurer, 2004). adequate competence and experience could thus progress less quickly than the always-renewed requirements of the job. hellemans (2006) highlighted that if younger workers do not attribute an overall obvious lack of competence to workers older than 50, they attribute a poorer score according europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 626 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to their adaptation to change. paumès cau-bareille and marquié (1998) also found that older workers are underrepresented in training programs. if there is a deliberate policy not to invest more in the older worker, the organization does not acknowledge it. according to guérin, saba, and wils (1998), expectations of the oldest workers are nevertheless precisely: the acknowledgment and the feeling to be listened to. kosloski, ekerdt, and deviney (2001) found that jobs with high intrinsic rewards and positive social relations associate with less retirement planning. rabinowitz and hall (1981) reported that the strongest correlates of involvement in late career are two types of rewards: performance-based rewards and membership in the organization. another expectation of older workers is adaptation to work conditions – in particular, adapted rhythm and autonomy (firth, mellor, moore, & loquet, 2004; saba et al., 1998) suggested that to ameliorate the intention to quit, managers need to monitor workload actively. overall, apart from health, the question of competences is decisive for workers close to 40 years old, as are social acknowledgement aspects, which are advanced for the oldest workers. our hypotheses are as follows: • hypothesis 1: perceived health, professional competence, and psychosocial aspects at work contribute to the intention to work until legal retirement age. • hypothesis 2: beyond perceived health, professional competence contributes incrementally to the intention to work until legal retirement age among 40to 49-year-old employees; psychosocial aspects at work do not. • hypothesis 3: beyond health condition and professional competence, psychosocial aspects at work contribute incrementally to the intention to work until legal retirement age among employees 50 years or older. recently, wang and shultz (2010) recommend using a multilevel framework for potential predictors: individual, job, organization, or even societal levels, and moreover incorporating a person-environment fit perspective. this study follows these recommendations partly. we use perceived health at the individual level and knowledge and the opportunity for training, social support, and participation at the job level. we do not study income as a potential predictor, so it is not controlled, but we use the “managerial role” as a control variable as a proxy for income. our aim is to study some human and work condition variables on which the occupational medicine or the personnel department can have an impact (cf. prevention approach). methodology participants our study focuses only on workers in the service sector: the participants are employees 40 years or older from the tertiary sector who are subject to annual check-up due to the characteristics of the workplace (exposure to biological risk factors as in health professions, educational sector, food trade, etc.). so it was the occupational physician who asked the employee if he or she agreed to complete the questionnaire. the sample consisted of 280 employees (n = 280) who completed the paper questionnaire. to quote only the principal sectors in which the participants work, 85 (30.4%) of the sample come from the healthcare sector, 25 (8.9%) from the insurance sector, 25 (8.9%) from services to companies (cleaning, etc.), 25 (8.9%) from public administration, 22 (7.9%) from the food trade, 21 (7.5%) from wholesale trade, and 16 (5.7%) from transport. 158 (56.4%) were 40–49 years old (m = 44.92; sd = 2.79), and 122 (43.6%) were 50 or older (m = 55.29; sd = 3.98). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 627 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there is a good repartition by gender: 112 (40.0%) were men, and 168 (60.0%) were women. 62 (26.9%) had inferior secondary education; 79 (28.7%) had superior secondary education; approximately half of the sample 122 (44.4%) had a high-school diploma among which 32 (11.6%) had a university degree. only 67 (24.3%) of the participants had a managerial role (cf. “are you a manager of collaborators?”). measures intention to work until legal retirement age. we use five questions from the vow/qft (hellemans, piette, & himpens, 2010) to measure the intention to work until legal retirement age (we call this dimension “intention to remain” for more facility). the questions (with a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = “certainly not” to 5 = “yes, certainly”) are as follows: “does the idea of having to work until legal retirement age distress you?” (to reverse), “do you sometimes think about an early retirement?” (to reverse), “do you prefer to continue to work as long as possible?”, “do you have the intention to anticipate your retirement?” (to reverse), and “do you wish to work until legal retirement age?” perceived health. health problems may be quite different among employees and workers. we chose a single and very general measure of perceived health to be appropriate to our various sub-samples: “how would you qualify your health condition these two last weeks?” (1 = bad, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent). professional competences. professional competence is measured by two dimensions from the vow/qft (hellemans, 2011, 2013; hellemans et al., 2010). the first is related to perceived competence and experience at work; it is measured by six items on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. the items are as follows: “when i’m confronted with a problem in my work, i generally find different solutions”; “i realize the objectives that are imposed for me”; “i’m armed sufficiently to cope with the demands imposed by my job”; “i’m generally on top of my work”; “the experience i have accumulated has prepared me to handle changes in my job”; and “i can stay calm when i’m confronted with difficulties because i can count on my experience”. the other part relates to work capacities evolution (increase) during the last five years (six items to evaluate on a 5point scale ranging from 1 = strongly decreased to 5 = strongly increased). items are as follows: “how have these last five years evaluated . . . my speed of work . . . my ambition to reach something . . . my motivation to go to work . . . the quantity of work i can achieve . . . my ability to cope with changes in my job . . . [and] the energy i can use for my work”. hellemans (2011, 2013) conducted an exploratory-confirmatory analysis on these dimensions; the factorial structure was stable and internally consistent. psychosocial aspects. we have three dimensions from the vow/qft (hellemans, 2011, 2013; hellemans et al., 2010) closely linked with psychosocial work aspects: (a) use of knowledge and opportunity of training (three items, e.g., “does your work call sufficiently upon all your aptitudes and capacities?”), (b) social support (four items, e.g., “can you, if necessary, ask for assistance from your colleagues?”), and (c) opportunity for participation (three items, e.g., “can you take part in decisions that relate to your work?”). the three dimensions are evaluated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 = never to 4 = always. hellemans (2011, 2013) conducted an exploratory-confirmatory analysis on these dimensions; the factorial structure was stable and the internal consistency was good. results all the analyses were conducted with ibm spss statistics 19.0.0. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 628 http://www.psychopen.eu/ descriptive statistics cronbach’s alpha is a measure of the internal consistency, based on the correlations between different items on the same scale. the reliability of a majority of the scales is very satisfactory, with cronbach’s alpha ranging from .83 to .90 (see table 1). the reliability of the “knowledge and training” score is .61, a score that is borderline or “questionable” (george & mallery, 2003). so we can calculate a single index for each scale or dimension starting from the items constituting it. the single index of a scale is obtained by summing the items of this scale (if an item is formulated in an opposite way, one reverses its score before the sum) and then dividing this score by the number of items used in the addition. means, standard deviations, cronbach alphas (excepting “perceived health” because it is a single measure), and bivariate zero-order correlations are presented in table 1. the intention to remain is significantly correlated with all the variables. there is no high collinearity between the different potential predictors, except perhaps between social support and participation possibility. hypothesis test to test the first hypothesis, we used multiple linear regression to assess whether perceived health, professional competence, and psychosocial aspects are good predictors for the intention to remain. the dependent variable was the composite score of intention to remain (mean of the five questions of the vow/qft): so the score ranges from 1.00 to 5.00. the potential predictors were perceived health, the two dimensions of professional competence, and the three dimensions of psychosocial aspects. we used the enter method for this regression because it allows obtaining a model containing all the variables and all the information linked to them using an exploratory approach (an exploratory approach is an approach without constraining assumption). the predictors explain 21% of the intention to remain. in multiple regression, there is multicollinearity when two or more predictors are (very) highly correlated. this question of multicollinearity would be tested through statistical analysis because it affects calculations regarding individual predictors (it does not reduce the predictive power or reliability of the model as a whole). according to gujarati (2003), there is no multicollinearity problem because the variance inflation factor (vif) is less than 10. allison (2001, as cited by bressoux, 2008) used a more severe indicator – tol < .40 or vif > 2.5 – to detect multicollinearity problems. all of these criteria are respected. there are three predictors with a significant beta: perceived health, perceived competence and experience, and increased capacity. the three psychosocial variables are poor predictors. these results confirm the result of numerous studies: perceived health explains a great part of the intention to remain, but professional competence contributes also to the explanation of the intention to remain. this is true among our entire 40-years-or-older sample. there could be different processes according to the age of employees to explain the intention to remain; we wanted to investigate this possibility. let us first assess whether the two subgroups have similar characteristics: no significant differences appeared between the 40to 49-year-old employees and those 50 years or older in the intention to continue to work until the legal retirement age (t = 0.01; p = .99). the two subgroups are not distinguished manifestly according to sex (03c7 χ2 = 4.07, p = .04; contingency coefficient c = .12, p = .04). they are not distinguished according to the level of study (t = 0.72; p = .47) or by managerial role (χ2 = 1.02, p = .31; contingency coefficient c = .06, p = .31). we decided to execute a hierarchical regression supported by the results of the preceding stepwise regression to allow comparisons by age of processes explaining intention to remain. the hierarchical regression, contrary to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 629 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 d es cr ip tiv e s ta tis tic s (m ea n, m ea n by s ub gr ou p, s ta nd ar d d ev ia tio n) ,c ro nb ac h a lp ha (in d ia go na l) an d p ea rs on c or re la tio ns 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sd m 50 + (n = 12 2) m 40 -4 9 (n = 15 8) m w ho le sa m pl e .9 0) ( .0 7 1 .2 1 3 .2 1 3 .2 1 3 in te nt io n to r em ai n 1 .3 7* * .9 3 .1 6 3 .0 7 3 .1 1 3 p er ce iv ed h ea lth 2 .8 8) ( .3 5* * .3 3* * .6 9 .0 0 4 .8 2 3 .9 0 3 c om pe te nc e an d e xp er ie nc e 3 .8 6) ( .3 4* * .4 7* * .3 4* * .5 2 .7 5 2 .0 2 3 .9 0 2 in cr ea se c ap ac ity 4 .6 1) ( .3 0* * .3 2* * .1 8* * .1 5* .5 8 .5 7 2 .5 9 2 .5 8 2 k no w le dg e an d tr ai ni ng 5 .8 3) ( .3 7* * .2 4* * .4 1* * .2 5* * .2 3* * .7 6 .8 6 2 .8 4 2 .8 5 2 s oc ia ls up po rt 6 .8 5) ( .6 5* * .4 7* * .3 0* * .4 3* * .1 8* * .2 5* * .7 9 .5 4 2 .4 2 2 .4 8 2 p ar tic ip at io n o pp or tu ni ty 7 *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. p’ s tw ota ile d. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 630 http://www.psychopen.eu/ non-hierarchical regression, makes it possible to test very precise hypotheses in terms of incremental contributions: one tests at the beginning a rather simple model; then, stage by stage, one introduces new predictors to test whether they continue to explain the variable to be predicted beyond information from the preceding stages. we will carry out two hierarchical regressions, one by subgroup of age. the hierarchical regressions will make it possible to answer the following questions: • thanks to the previous regression, we learned that perceived health contributes greatly to the intention to remain, but we do not know if this contribution is similar between the two subgroups (40–49 years old and 50 years or older) (cf. step 2 in table 3). • do perceived competence and experience contribute in a large incremental way (beyond perceived health) among the two subgroups? (cf. step 3 in table 3). • is there an incremental contribution of psychosocial aspects (beyond perceived health and beyond professional competences) among one of the two subgroups? (cf. step 4 in table 3). table 2 regression of intention to remain on health, dimensions of professional competences and dimensions of psychosocial aspects dependent variable: intention to remain viftoltβindependent variables perceived health .321.76.56**3.25 competence and experience .481.68.24*2.17 increase capacity .421.70.15*2.16 knowledge and training .391.72.150.01 social support .791.56.41-0.03participation opportunity .072.48.560.05 d (6, 213) = 9.43; p < .000r2 =.21 *p < .05. **p < .01. p’s two-tailed. a preliminary stage is to control certain potentially parasitic variables in the model. results of the studies on the wai indicate that wai scores can predict early retirement, primarily among older male workers with a job with strong physical requirements (ilmarinen & tuomi, 2004). so, it is convenient to use as control variables gender, level of study, and managerial role (cf. step 1 in table 3). so the different blocks for the hierarchical regression are block 1: the control variables; block 2: perceived health; block 3: professional competences; and block 4: psychosocial aspects. inside a block, we used the enter method for the regression. first, we have executed this hierarchical regression with the entire sample (to obtain a global result), and then with each of the two employee subgroups (40–49 years old and 50 years or older). the results are presented in table 3. the results show a similar r2 for both subgroups, .28 and .26, respectively. these r2 are better than the r2 for the entire sample (see table 2). so the predictors taken as a whole explain the contributions to the intention to work until legal retirement age among each subgroup. the control variables never contribute significantly to the intention to remain (step 1). gender, education level, and managerial role do not contribute to the intention to remain. step 2 assesses the perceived health contribution to the intention to remain as well as among employees 40–49 years old and those 50 years or older, but it is more important among the younger group (among 40to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 631 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 results of hierarchical regressions: intention to remain on health, professional competences and psychosocial aspects among age dependent variable: intention to remain 50 years or older sample40to 49-year old sample step 4step 3step 2step 1step 4step 3step 2step 1independent variables step 1 control variables gender ratio .19.13.15.16.01.00.03.13educational level .09.03.01.03.04-.03-.05-.09 managerial role .05.12.19.26*.03.00.06.02 step 2 perceived health perceived health .23*.20.28**.27*.28*.46*** step 3 professional competences competence and experience .02-.18.15.13 increase capacity .03.09.26*.22* step 4 psychosocial aspects knowledge and training .01.00 social support .06-.11 participation opportunity .41**.25*r2 .26.19.14.07.28.25.20.03 δ r2 .08.04.07.07.03.06.17.03 sig var f .036.114.007.086.196.012.000.361 *p (t test) < .05. **p (t test) < .010. ***p (t test) < .000. p’s two-tailed. 49-year-olds: p > .000 and δ r2 = .17; among employees 50 years or older: p = .007 and δ r2 = .07). so perceived health is an important predictor of the intention to remain for both age groups. the question is now whether there are other important predictors, what they are, and whether they are different among the subgroups. step 3 shows that there is a significant incremental contribution of professional competence (cf. increased capacity) among 40to 49-year-old employees (p = .012) but not for the employees 50 years or older (p = .114). thus, increased capacity increases explanation of intention to remain besides the perceived health factor among 40to 49-year-old employees but not for those 50 years or older. apart from perceived health, the question of the increase of capacity is a key element of the intention to remain among 40to 49-year-old employees, but not among the oldest. step 4 demonstrates that the incremental contribution of psychosocial aspects besides perceived health and professional competence is not significant for 40to 49-year-old employees (p = .196) but is for employees 50 years or older (p = .036), with a noteworthy beta (β = .41) for the opportunity for participation. opportunity for participation is very important for employees 50 years or older to their intention to remain at work until legal retirement age. this pattern of results indicates that there is a clearly distinctive process between 40to 49-year-old employees and employees 50 years or older to explain the intention to work until legal retirement age. among 40to 49-yearold employees, it is essentially perceived health and also increasing capacity that explain the intention to remain. among employees 50 years or older, health and opportunity for participation explain this intention to remain; for them, the issue of professional competence is quite limited. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 632 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion our research aimed to understand workers’ reasons to work until legal retirement age. the literature advances many reasons, particularly financial ones related to the income, savings, and household expenses. we did not study this financial aspect as our objective centered on aspects mobilizing the personnel and career department in organizations. for the finest comprehension of the process, we wanted to test the incremental contributions, beyond perceived health, of two work conditions – professional competence and psychological aspects at work – and to compare two age categories of employees. the results highlighted a clearly distinctive process between 40to 49-year-old employees and employees 50 years or older in the explanation of intention to work until legal retirement age. among the first group, perceived health and also increasing capacity explain the intention to remain. among the employees 50 years or older, perceived health and mostly opportunity of participation explain this intention to remain. as indicated in the literature (beehr & bennett, 2007; beehr et al., 2000; bidewell et al., 2006; guérin et al., 1998; kim & feldman, 1998), health is a good predictor of intention to remain among older workers. a quite surprising result is that perceived health is also very important to explain intention to remain among the younger group, or even more important than in the older group. a potential interpretation of this result could be that there is a “natural selection” with age: the employees who are older than 50 and still working are in better health than the 40to 49-year-old employees, or those older employees with poor health have probably already stopped working. this agrees with the results obtained by beehr et al. (2000) and by bidewell et al. (2006) (cf. the “healthy work effect”). we have tested the eventuality of a mean difference in perceived health by subgroup of age thanks to a t test: the result indicates no significant difference (m40-49 = 3.07; m50+ = 3.16; t = -.82; p = .414). so another interpretation of our previous results – which is not easy to verify – should be that in view of the first important health preoccupations appearing typically around 40 years old (hunt, mcewen, & mckenna, 1984; slocum et al., 1985), the 40to 49-year-old employees are quite distraught and do not consequently think about being able to work until the lawful age of the retirement whereas the older employees already put up with that. another important contribution of this research is to distinguish the various meanings of work ability. the literature on wai understands work ability as a question of (dis-)ability to work whereas the notion from the vow/qft concerns the ability to work without a lack of competence or capacity. these two meanings correspond on the one hand to industrial medicine preoccupations and on the other to human resource management preoccupations: they are complementary but play different roles. we have obtained a pattern of results for the incremental predictors that is quite different between the two groups: work ability (increased capacity) incrementally explains the intention to remain among younger employees but not among the older ones; psychosocial aspects incrementally explain the intention to remain among the older employees but not among the younger ones. the literature on career management explains the existence of different stages in career – that correspond quite well with our subgroups (rabinowitz & hall, 1981) – and the presence of specific needs and expectations for each stage. so among younger workers, a common problem is the career plateau; people who can expect an evolution in their career are those who are competent and/or can still increase their capacity. people in a career plateau at this stage know that without competence, time until retirement will seem quite long. we exposed above many negative consequences of the career plateau raised by the authors (less satisfaction towards the superior, poor health, a decrease in self-esteem, stress, hostility towards the organization, etc.). the challenge thus appears fundamental for hr management: given the lengthening of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 633 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the professional life related to postponement of legal retirement age in many european countries, the career plateau will likely appear more frequently and for a longer period. because the older workers are closer to the end of their careers, career evolution is likely no longer expected, but fair acknowledgment and consideration – some psychosocial work conditions – are. this result agrees with the results of guérin et al. (1998), kosloski et al. (2001), and rabinowitz and hall (1981). our research is not without limitations. we need to address two limitations in relation to the composition of our sample: (a) our sample is relatively small, the participants are submitted to medicinal examination seeing their risks at work, so our sample is not necessarily representative of all employees in belgium; there is no guarantee that the results can be generalized; (b) considering statistics of eurostat (2010) – a great source for a number of early retirement workers in belgium – our older sample is in a certain way composed of people who “leave the common run”, so our sample is probably not representative of all older employees in europe. another limitation of our study is the number of predictors, although this can be understood within our experimental design (to compare the incremental contributions between two age categories of employees). according to the recent theoretical contribution ofwang and shultz (2010), future investigation about employee retirement should use amultilevel framework for potential predictors (individual, job, organization, or even societal) and incorporate a person-environment fit perspective. we used in this study perceived health for the individual level and knowledge and opportunity for training, social support, and participation for the job level. perceived competence and experience, like increases capacity, are variables of congruence between the person and the job (p-j fit). so predictors concerning the organizational level or the person-organizational fit are beneficial to the understanding of early retirement and the remediation in the field. as we suggested about the interpretation of a lack of perceived competence, important variables are general failure of the hrm, discrimination in training, high innovation culture, and organizational pressure for early retirement. we mentioned above the context of belgium, and fear for the financing of social security. the problem for the government is to encourage companies to reduce the number of early retirement / maintaining workers to work beyond the age of early retirement, ideally until the legal retirement age (65 years). to do this, government solutions pass through lower premiums for early retirement and / or bonuses for employees working until 65 years old. but to make this strategy sustainable, it is necessary that business leaders and hrmanagers are convinced older workers are still useful and efficient (see cost/effectiveness, cost/competences), and, in connection with this first idea, that business leaders and hr managers improve work conditions of older people so they always feel useful, are not too exhausted, or even take still enjoy working. the pattern of our results indicates the importance of distinguishing the interventions by age category (or by career stage) to motivate or enable employees working until legal retirement age and also the importance of anticipating the management of age. age management practices should start long before the worker is regarded as an “older worker.” according to kooij, de lange, jansen, and dikkers (2008), the term “older worker” refers to 50or 55-and-above; all practices are not necessarily adequate at each age. to prevent perceived (or real) lack of competence among 40to 49-year-old employees, hr management should follow closely the professional path of the workers over time to propose at the right moment adequate formation, mobility, or coaching. to prevent perceived lack of opportunities of participation among 50-plus, hr management should create mentors or propose transformational leadership in the teams – different actions that have the finality of continuing to recognize the value of the older worker while monitoring their workload. the demonstration of different criteria by age as predictors of intention to remain until the legal retirement age are all guides to motivate companies to develop best practices, targeted to the age category. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 634 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgements this research was supported by the belgian federal public service employment, labour and social dialogue, directorate-general humanization of the labour with the collaboration of the belgian professional association of occupational physicians. references adams, g. a. 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(2009). the effects of work-related and individual factors on the work ability index: a systematic review. occupational and environmental medicine, 66, 211-220. doi:10.1136/oem.2008.039883 wang, m., & shultz, k. s. (2010). employee retirement: a review and recommendations for future investigation. journal of management, 36(1), 172-206. doi:10.1177/0149206309347957 weckerle, j. r., & shultz, k. s. (1999). influences on the bridge employment decision among older usa workers. journal of occupational and organizational psychology, 72, 317-329. doi:10.1348/096317999166707 wrenn, k. a., & maurer, t. j. (2004). beliefs about older workers’ learning and development behavior in relation to beliefs about malleability of skills, age-related decline, and control. journal of applied social psychology, 34(2), 223-242. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02546.x about the authors catherine hellemans, phd, is a senior lecturer of work psychology at research centre for work and consumer psychology, université libre de bruxelles (ulb). her current research related to psychosocial risks on work ability among older workers, perceived uncertainty at work and occupational mobility. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 intention to remain at work 638 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13594320802674629 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0143831x10365931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.1997.1610 http://www.human-interest.be/nl/magazine/2010-11/pageflip.html http://www98.griffith.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/10072/13260/1/39162_1.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00483481111106110 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/256065 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2009.03.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/oem.2008.039883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0149206309347957 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/096317999166707 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02546.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ caroline closon, phd, is a lecturer of work psychology at research centre for work and consumer psychology, université libre de bruxelles (ulb). her current research focuses on work-family interface and corporate social responsibility. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 623–639 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.614 hellemans & closon 639 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intention to remain at work introduction intention to quit or intention to remain until legal retirement age health, age, and work psychosocial work aspects, professional competence, and intention to remain methodology participants measures results descriptive statistics hypothesis test discussion acknowledgments references about the authors bravery, courage, and honour natalia wentink phd student the centre for investigative psychology http://www.i-psy.com these characteristics are embedded in the maltese cross, a symbol worn by fire-fighters, specifically in the united states. fire-fighters hold a particular status and earn respect because they demonstrate these characteristics each day protecting the community. in some places these men and women are under attack. as an american living in britain, it is a striking contrast to see fire-fighters treated as targets of youth anti-social behaviour. across the country, these attacks occur as fire-fighters respond to an accidental fire call or to an incident in which youths have deliberately set a fire; this creates an ambush situation for fire-fighters. attacks often involve youths throwing stones at fire-fighters and the fire engine, shouting verbal abuse, spitting, and stealing tools from the fire engine. severe incidents such as directly targeting fire crews with air rifles and fireworks have reported as well. attacks of one form or another occur several times each day in some areas. youth attacks on a target traditionally related to bravery and courage; the phenomenon of attacks on fire-fighters is not simple irony. there is also the image of the fire-fighter as an anonymous person in a uniform; this may be a contributing factor as to why they are targets for abuse. research on youth anti-social behaviour frequently cites gaining status amongst peers as a motivating force behind such actions. some youths engage in risk taking activities and choose to defy authority figures in efforts to gain recognition and status, and an image of “bravery”. interviews with youths who have attacked fire-fighters confirm this underlies their actions. the image of a fire-fighter may represent an anonymous authority figure which places them as a target for abuse. research has found that the nature of the target (or victim) relative to the perpetrator may have an impact on behaviour. for example, it is believed youths are less likely to offend against family and friends. this could be linked to a higher likelihood of getting caught, however, such a view ignores the popular view of adolescence as a time in which youths challenge authority and engage in risk-taking activities. these characteristics are exemplified in attacks on fire-fighters. at the centre for investigative psychology at the university of liverpool we conducted the first academic study examining the extent of this problem, its affects on fire crews, and possible reasons as to why youths engage in such behaviour. investigative psychology, a field founded by professor david canter in 1990, is the application of psychological principles to all aspects of analysis, investigation, and prosecution of crime. goals of this field rest on empirically based research to develop theories, models, and tools for solving ‘real world’ problems. this field contributes to areas such as arson, rape, fraud, and murder. some examples of work use behavioural actions to distinguish between types of offenders, such as in rape and murder. just as not all murders and murderers are the same, not all anti-social behaviour is the same. a psychological understanding of anti-social behaviour cannot take all behaviours, targets, and offenders and haphazardly assume they are one in the same. effective intervention and prevention strategies necessitate a clear understanding on the various behaviours which make up anti-social behaviour and the kinds of youths who engage in them. one trend in britain is to use restorative justice programms to deal with young offenders. this practice brings the victim (target) and offender together to try and repair the harm via community service and other forms of reparation. a key notion is that this event also breaks down boundaries between victim and offender. by having the victim and offender meet and talk face to face, anonymity is theoretically replaced with a form of familiarity. on the whole such practices lack empirically based theoretical models of change. clearly, such interesting practices are worthy of further study and investigation. there are 2 central question underlying this process: 1. what is the strength of the role of target in anti-social social behaviour? 2. does a change in target status relative to the perpetrator have an influence on future offending? research into anti-social behaviour needs to look the kinds of behaviour and the targets of behaviour youths engage in. it is possible that different youths may consistently have different targets. differentiating between types of offences and types of offender has a number of academic and practical implications. not only does this approach allow for a greater understanding of the problem, but can reveal the underlying processes of offence behaviour. this information is useful in identification of offenders and treatment. more specifically, with youth anti-social behaviour, such knowledge can inform prevention and intervention strategies in a variety of settings such schools, youth clubs, juvenile detention centres. the 8th international investigative psychology conference perpetrators, profiling, policing: theory & practice. london 15-16th december, 2005 for information about the conference and more information on investigative psychology please go to the website: the centre for investigative psychology http://www.i-psy.com the effects of attractiveness and status on personality evaluation research reports the effects of attractiveness and status on personality evaluation stefano tartaglia*a, chiara rollerob [a] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [b] faculty of psychology, university ecampus, novedrate, italy. abstract research on personality has shown that perceiving a person as attractive fosters positive expectations about his/her personal characteristics. literature has also demonstrated a significant link between personality traits and occupational achievement. present research examines the combined effects of attractiveness, occupational status, and gender on the evaluation of others’ personality, according to the big five model. the study consisted of a 2 (attractiveness: high vs. low) x 2 (occupational status: high vs. low) x 2 (target gender: male vs. female) between-subjects experimental design (n = 476). results showed that attractive targets were considered more positively than unattractive targets, and this effect was even stronger for male targets. occupational status influenced perceived agreeableness (lower for high-status targets) and perceived conscientiousness (higher for high-status targets). keywords: gender, personality evaluation, stereotyping, attractiveness, status, experimental design europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 received: 2014-12-10. accepted: 2015-10-08. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: stefano tartaglia, dipartimento di psicologia, università di torino, via verdi 10, 10124 torino, italy. phone: ++390116702055. fax: ++390116702061. e-mail: stefano.tartaglia@unito.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. according to differential psychologists, personality can be effectively and parsimoniously described by models composed of three to seven major traits (revelle, condon, & wilt, 2011; swami et al., 2013). among these approaches, the most widely-accepted is the five-factor model of personality, which refers to the 'big five' dimensions of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (digman, 1990; goldberg, 1993). this model explains individual differences in personality at a broad level of abstraction (costa & mccrae, 1992; goldberg, 1993; mccrae & costa, 1999) and shows good cross-cultural applicability (mccrae & costa, 1997): recurring regularities – despite differences in history, religion, language and culture – suggest that these personality traits are basic characteristics of the human species. the big five dimensions proved to be universal both for self-evaluation and from the observer’s perspective when used to evaluate personality of other people (mccrae & terracciano, 2005). considering gender differences, costa, terracciano, andmccrae (2001) reported pancultural patterns of differences between men and women. specifically, women are higher than men in extraversion (costa et al., 2001; mccrae & terracciano, 2005), but not in the work setting (robinson, 2009). women also score higher than men on conscientiousness (feingold 1994; mccrae & terracciano, 2005) and neuroticism (costa et al., 2001; mccrae & terracciano, 2005). several studies reported also higher level of agreeableness in women (costa et al., 2001), europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ with very few exceptions across countries (i.e. in italy, where no gender differences emerged, mccrae & terracciano, 2005). research on personality has been developed in several directions. one of these is the study of stereotypic processes fostering inferences on others’ personality based on cognitive biases (i.e. ćurković & franc, 2010; langlois et al., 2000). in this perspective, studies aim at investigating how individuals form impressions of others and how specific characteristics influence the expectations. the present study follows this perspective focusing on two characteristics: attractiveness and status. the first one is a classical basis of stereotyping. the second one has been studied mainly as an outcome of personality traits (i.e. dilchert & ones, 2008; judge, higgins, thoresen, & barrick, 1999), whereas here it is considered as a predictor of different personality inferences. inferences on personality: what is beautiful is good the ‘‘what is beautiful is good’’ stereotype (dion, berscheid, & walster, 1972) is a classic phenomenon in social psychology and implies that when forming impressions of others, perceiving a person as good looking fosters positive expectations about personal characteristics. physical attractiveness has been shown to generate a broadly favorable impression of both men and women (langlois et al., 2000). indeed, people seem to assume that positive interpersonal qualities and physical attractiveness are systematically linked (i.e., a “halo effect”) (andreoni & petrie, 2008; callan, powell, & ellard, 2007; smith, mcintosh, & bazzini, 1999). the effects of attractiveness are strong and pervasive. as langlois et al. (2000) underline in their meta-analysis, attractiveness is a noteworthy advantage for both children and adults in almost every domain. based on the “what is beautiful is good” effect (dion et al., 1972), several studies (eagly, ashmore, makhijani, & longo, 1991; feingold, 1992; langlois et al., 2000) demonstrated that this phenomenon functions as a stereotype, making the perceived link between appearance and personality larger than the actual link. attractive targets are assessed as less introverted, neurotic and higher on openness dimension than unattractive targets (ćurković & franc, 2010; langlois et al., 2000). in sum, attractiveness leads perceivers to make strong inferences of personality goodness. when attractiveness and status can be detrimental: the beauty is beastly effect despite the above-mentioned studies attesting the positive effects of physical attractiveness when forming impressions, a small body of research suggests that attractiveness can be detrimental to women in certain situations. the “beauty is beastly” effect (heilman & saruwatari, 1979; heilman & stopeck, 1985) posits that attractive women are at an advantage for feminine sex-typed jobs and at a disadvantage for masculine sex-typed jobs. although the literature concerning the “beauty is beastly” effect is less consistent than studies on the “what is beautiful is good” effect, recently johnson, podratz, dipboye, and gibbons (2010) confirmed its validity in definite situations. specifically, attractiveness can be detrimental for attractive women applying for masculine jobs, mainly for highstatus positions, when physical appearance is perceived to be unimportant (rollero & tartaglia, 2013). thus, attractiveness and its relation with professional status are of various significance depending on the gender of the person being judged. personality and status many researchers interested in the consequences of personality traits have considered the big five dimensions as predictive elements of status attainment in the occupational domain (i.e. judge et al., 1999). literature has largely demonstrated that employees with a certain personality trait profile work harder and earn a higher salary (barrick & mount, 1991; dilchert & ones, 2008; ng, eby, sorensen, & feldman, 2005; seibert & kraimer, 2001). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specifically, conscientiousness and extraversion show a positive relationship with salary and job satisfaction (judge, heller, & mount, 2002; sutin, costa, miech, & eaton, 2009) whereas neuroticism and agreeableness correlate negatively with success criteria, occupational level, and job satisfaction (cohrs, abele, & dette, 2006; rode, arthaud-day, mooney, near, & baldwin, 2008). lastly, the results obtained in studies on openness have been inconsistent (furnham, taylor, & chamorro-premuzic, 2008; ng et al., 2005). thus, if literature underlines that personality paves the way to professional status, the actual relation between status and personality may be the basis for stereotyping people on the ground of their social position. in this sense, studies about the relation between status and personality may be a good starting point to assess the opposite direction: people may infer others’ characteristics on the basis of their professional status. the current study the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of relevant stereotypes in the context of the big five model. as seen, literature has explored the relation between personality and occupational status, as well as the influence of attractiveness stereotype on the evaluation of others. however, to our knowledge no study has examined the combined effects of attractiveness, occupational status, and gender on the evaluation of others’ personality. the present study examined whether attractiveness, occupational status and gender of the target affect people’s evaluations in relation to five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. the study consisted of a 2 (attractiveness: high vs. low) x 2 (target occupational status: high vs. low) x 2 (target gender: male vs. female) between-subjects experimental design. hypotheses on the ground of research literature, we set the following hypotheses. hypothesis 1. both targets’ attractiveness and occupational status should increase perceived extraversion. the strongest available conclusions come from the meta-analysis of langlois et al. (2000) who found that observer inferences of attractiveness were correlated with observer reports of extraversion. conversely, unattractive targets are assessed as more introverted (ćurković & franc, 2010). concerning status, positive relationships have been found between extraversion and job success criteria (boudreau et al., 2001; judge et al., 1999; rode et al., 2008). because the status manipulation refers to the work context, following robinson (2009) we did not expect any effect of the target gender on perceived extraversion. hypothesis 2. previous research (ćurković & franc, 2010; langlois et al., 2000) did not show any effect of attractiveness on agreeableness. instead, high occupational status should decrease the evaluation of agreeableness of the target, as most studies have found a negative relationship between agreeableness and occupational status (boudreau et al., 2001; judge et al., 1999; ng et al., 2005; rode et al., 2008; seibert & kraimer, 2001). although several studies reported higher levels of agreeableness in women (costa et al., 2001), a cross-cultural study conducted in 50 different cultures did not find that effect in the italian sample (mccrae & terracciano, 2005). for this reason, we did not hypothesize any influence of target gender on perception of agreeableness. hypothesis 3. target’s attractiveness, occupational status and gender were expected to affect perceived neuroticism. on the basis of the ‘beauty is good’ effect (dion et al., 1972), physically attractive individuals are perceived as having various positive qualities (e.g., eagly et al., 1991; feingold, 1992; langlois et al., 2000), whereas unattractive targets are assessed as more emotionally unstable (ćurković & franc, 2010). concerning status, several studies have found that neuroticism correlates negatively with job europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 tartaglia & rollero 679 http://www.psychopen.eu/ success criteria (boudreau et al., 2001; judge et al., 1999; ng et al., 2005; rode et al., 2008) finally, as many studies report higher levels of neuroticism among women (costa et al., 2001; mccrae & terracciano, 2005), we expected female target to be evaluated as more neurotic. hypothesis 4. target’s attractiveness, occupational status and gender were expected to influence the perception of conscientiousness. on the ground of the ‘beauty is good’ effect (dion et al., 1972), more attractive individuals should be judged as more conscientious. moreover, most results indicate a positive relationship between this trait and job status (barrick & mount, 1991; judge et al., 2002; judge et al., 1999; sutin et al., 2009). finally, we expected that female targets should be considered more conscientious because many studies report higher level of conscientiousness in women in respect to men (feingold 1994; mccrae & terracciano, 2005). hypothesis 5. attractiveness should increase perceived openness, as unattractive targets are assessed as lower on this trait (ćurković & franc, 2010). we did not hypothesize other influences because the results on the relation of occupational status and target gender with openness have been inconsistent. positive (ng et al., 2005) or negative (furnham et al., 2008) associations between openness and occupational status have been found, whereas other studies showed no association at all (barrick & mount, 1991; boudreau et al., 2001; judge et al., 1999). concerning target gender, in a cross cultural study mccrae and terracciano (2005) found that different traits related to openness personality factor have different relations with target gender (i.e. men are higher in openness to ideas whereas women in openness to feelings). method participants and experimental design a sample of 476 university students (48.2%male and 51.8% female) participated in the present study. participants were recruited among undergraduate and graduate students of arts and science schools in italy. their average age was 23.22 years (sd = 3.35). the ethnic composition of the sample was completely homogeneous: all participants were italians. the study consisted of a 2 (attractiveness: high vs. low) x 2 (occupational status: high vs. low) x 2 (target gender: male vs. female) between-subjects experimental design. procedure a photograph (2.95 in. [7.5 cm] x 2.36 in. [6.0 cm]) picturing the face of a subject (target) was presented to participants. the picture was introduced by a brief description of the job of the person pictured (“he/she is a doctor/operator working in a hospital/call centre”). participants randomly received one of the eight experimental conditions: (a) picture of a very attractive woman with high status job; (b) picture of an unattractive woman with high status job; (c) picture of a very attractive woman with low status job; (d) picture of an unattractive woman with low status job; (e) picture of a very attractive man with high status job; (f) picture of an unattractive man with high status job; (g) picture of a very attractive man with low status job; (h) picture of an unattractive man with low status job. after viewing the photograph, participants were asked to evaluate big five traits of target. independent variables manipulations attractiveness — a pretest of 66 university students (33 males and 33 female; average age 23.20; sd = 3.43) received a set of 10 photographs reproducing women’s faces and ten photographs reproducing men’s faces. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 680 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants rated the physical attractiveness of the faces on a 10-point scale. on the basis of these evaluations we chose the most attractive females (m = 7.64 and m = 7.42) and males (m = 7.35 and m = 7.34) (high attractiveness conditions) and the less attractive ones (females:m = 3.97 andm = 4.50; males:m = 3.74 andm = 3.79) (low attractiveness conditions) as stimuli for the experiment. status — during the pretest, participants were also asked to rate a list of 14 jobs on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very low status) to 5 (very high status). we chose the jobs that in a previous study on a similar population have been evaluated neither typically masculine nor typically feminine (rollero & tartaglia, 2013). we used these evaluations to select the two jobs rated lowest (call centre operator, m = 1.85) and highest (doctor, m = 4.50) in status. we manipulated the status of the target in different conditions presenting the person in the photograph as a doctor (high-status conditions) or as a call centre operator (low-status conditions). dependent measures participants were asked to evaluate the big five personality traits of the target by means of five single items using a bipolar response scale (woods & hampson, 2005). each item is made of two opposing descriptions representing the poles of a big five factor. a nine-point scale was placed between the two descriptions. in its original version, this scale was used to assess self-evaluations asking participants to indicate the extent to which one pole or the other best described them.wemodified the instructions asking participants to evaluate the person in the photograph. results table 1 reports the descriptive statistics of the dependent variables.we performed two-way between-group anovas to determine the presence of significant effects of target’s attractiveness, status, and gender on each perceived big five factor. we also controlled for the effect of the respondents’ gender. table 1 perceived big five personality traits: descriptive statistics correlations sdmpersonality trait 4321 1. extraversion .512.604 2. agreeableness .19**-.232.274 3. neuroticism .06.35**-.192.685 4. conscientiousness .01-.13**-.01-.402.265 5. openness .16**-.01.16**.02.102.963 **p < .01. extraversion as predicted by hypothesis 1, attractiveness increased the perception of extraversion, f(1,451) = 187.68, p < .01, eta square = .29. the attractive targets (m = 5.96; sd = 2.26) were considered more extraverted than the unattractive ones (m = 3.24; sd = 1.96). contrary to what was expected, target status did not have any effect. an interaction effect between attractiveness and target gender was found, f(1,451) = 5.73, p < .02, eta square = .01 (see figure 1 and table 2) showing that the effect of attractiveness was stronger for male targets. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 tartaglia & rollero 681 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 perceived extraversion: simple-effects comparisons for the interaction of attractiveness and target gender. post hoc (lsd)sdmtarget a-c p < .011.792.92a. unattractive male targets a-d p < .01 b-c p < .012.073.56b. unattractive female targets b-d p < .01 c-a p < .012.266.08c. attractive male targets c-b p < .01 d-a p < .012.265.83d. attractive female targets d-b p < .01 figure 1. interaction of attractiveness and target gender: evaluation of the target in terms of extraversion mean scores. agreeableness as predicted by hypothesis 2, target status decreased the perception of agreeableness, f(1,451) = 10.81, p < .01, eta square = .02. the low-status targets (m = 4.59; sd = 2.25) were considered more agreeable than the high-status targets (m = 3.94; sd = 2.15). no influence of attractiveness was found. concerning target gender, male targets (m = 4.74; sd = 2.23) were judged more agreeable than females (m = 3.77; sd = 2.11), f(1,451) = 22.33, p < .01, eta square = .05. no interaction effect was found. neuroticism as predicted by hypothesis 3, attractiveness decreased the perception of neuroticism, f(1,451) = 52.72, p < .01, eta square = .10. the attractive targets (m = 4.99; sd = 2.03) were considered less neurotic than the unattractive ones (m = 6.37; sd = 2.14). contrary to what was predicted, target status did not have any effect. as expected, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 682 http://www.psychopen.eu/ female targets (m = 6.14; sd = 1.94) were judged more neurotic than males (m = 5.21; sd = 2.33), f(1,451) = 23.98, p < .01, eta square = .05. no interaction effect was found. conscientiousness as expected status and target gender influenced the perception of conscientiousness. the high-status targets (m = 5.69; sd = 2.41) were considered more conscientious than the low-status targets (m = 4.83; sd = 2.32), f(1,451) = 16.72, p < .01, eta square = .04. female targets (m = 5.59; sd = 2.32) were evaluated more conscientious than the male targets (m = 4.94; sd = 2.44), f(1,451) = 9.43, p < .01, eta square = .02. an interaction effect between attractiveness and target gender was found, f(1,451) = 16.50, p < .01, eta square = .04 (see figure 2). the hypothesized positive effect of attractiveness was confirmed only for female targets. attractive women were considered more conscientious than all the other targets (see table 3). another interaction effect between gender of participants and target gender was found, f(1,451) = 4.32, p < .05, eta square = .01 (see figure 3). male participants evaluated women more conscientious than men (see table 4). table 3 perceived conscientiousness: simple-effects comparisons for the interaction of attractiveness and target gender. post hoc (lsd)sdmtarget a-d p < .012.565.20a. unattractive male targets b-d p < .012.414.96b. unattractive female targets c-d p < .012.304.70c. attractive male targets d-a p < .012.066.20d. attractive female targets d-b p < .01 d-c p < .01 table 4 perceived conscientiousness: simple-effects comparisons for the interaction of respondent gender and target gender. post hoc (lsd)sdmrespondent gender and target gender a-b p < .012.304.79a. male respondents evaluating male targets b-a p < .012.285.90b. male respondents evaluating female targets 2.585.10c. female respondents evaluating male targets 2.335.33d. female respondents evaluating female targets europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 tartaglia & rollero 683 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. interaction of attractiveness and target gender: evaluation of the target in terms of conscientiousness mean scores. figure 3. interaction of respondent gender and target gender: evaluation of the target in terms of conscientiousness mean scores. openness there were no main effects of independent variables on perceived openness. the hypothesized effect of attractiveness was in interaction with target status, f(1,451) = 4.11, p < .05, eta square = .01, and with target gender, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 684 http://www.psychopen.eu/ f(1,451) = 7.17, p < .01, eta square = .02 (see figures 4 and 5). low-status attractive targets were considered more open than high-status attractive targets (see table 5). attractive male targets were evaluated more open than unattractive male targets and attractive female targets (see table 6). attractiveness seemed to be a benefit for low-status and male targets. table 5 perceived openness: simple-effects comparisons for the interaction of status and attractiveness. post hoc (lsd)sdmtarget 2.033.78a. low-status unattractive targets b-d p < .052.114.29b. low-status attractive targets 2.134.03c. high-status unattractive targets d-b p < .052.123.72d. high-status attractive targets table 6 perceived openness: simple-effects comparisons for the interaction of attractiveness and target gender. post hoc (lsd)sdmtarget a-c p < .052.163.71a. unattractive male targets 1.984.11b. unattractive female targets c-a p < .052.104.31c. attractive male targets c-d p < .05 d-c p < .052.123.69d. attractive female targets figure 4. interaction of status and attractiveness: evaluation of the target in terms of openness mean scores. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 tartaglia & rollero 685 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. interaction of attractiveness and target gender: evaluation of the target in terms of openness mean scores. discussion the present study examined stereotypic processes that foster inferences on others’ personality. specifically, we considered whether attractiveness, occupational status and gender of the target affect his/her personality evaluation. results revealed that judgments of all big five personality dimensions are affected by these variables. in general, results are in line with the ‘beauty is good’ effect (dion et al., 1972), as people seem to believe that physical attractiveness implies positive personality traits, but the effects of attractiveness are different for men and women. consistently with previous studies (ćurković & franc, 2010; langlois et al., 2000), the attractive targets were judged as extraverted and emotionally stable. different interactive effects of targets' physical attractiveness and gender were confirmed on the judgments of extraversion, conscientiousness and openness. for extraversion the effect of attractiveness is the same for women and men but is stronger for male targets. attractiveness has a positive effect on conscientiousness only for women whereas it increases openness only for men. thus, overall the “beauty is good effect” seems to be greater for men. we can interpret this finding thinking that in contemporary western societies the female attractiveness easily implies the sexualisation of women (liss, erchull, & ramsey, 2011; nowatzki & morry, 2009; rollero, 2013). indeed, while physical attractiveness has been shown to generate a broadly favorable impression of both men and women, investigations of the traits associated with women’s sexiness suggest a stereotype that is damaging for other aspects: for example, it is poor match for highstatus jobs (glick, larsen, johnson, & branstiter 2005; rollero & tartaglia, 2013; tartaglia & rollero, 2015). the job of our targets was salient, as targets of our study were described only in relation to their profession. for women in this domain attractiveness could be partly damaging. actually our results showed an interactive effect of target status and attractiveness on openness judgment indicating that being attractive increases that positive trait only europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 686 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for low-status targets. this result is consistent with the “beauty is beastly effect” affirming that attractiveness is damaging for women applying for masculine jobs for which physical appearance is perceived to be unimportant (johnson, podratz, dipboye, & gibbons, 2010), usually the high–status jobs. the influence of occupational status is more controversial. although literature was confirmed for agreeableness (lower for high-status targets) and conscientiousness (higher for high-status targets), status had no influence on extraversion and neuroticism. this may be due to the specific inference task in which participants were involved. existing literature is based on the big five dimensions as predictive elements of status attainment in the occupational domain, whereas in the present study people were asked to deduce personality traits from the occupational status. furthermore, the chosen low status job (call centre operator) is an occupation requiring communicative competences and relational attitudes that are strictly linked to extraversion. this fact might explain why in present case high status targets were not considered more extraverted than their low status counterparts were. from a gender perspective, the present study confirms stereotypes regarding women as more neurotic and more conscientious (costa et al., 2001; mccrae & terracciano, 2005). we obtained unexpected results concerning agreeableness. previous research carried out in italy showed no gender differences on this trait (mccrae & terracciano, 2005), whereas in our study men were considered more agreeable. further research should address this point, as the experimental design used in this study may have fostered a specific evaluation process, matching inferences based on gender, job status, and attractiveness. finally, the stereotypes about gender personality seem to be largely shared among men and women. indeed, the gender of the respondents did not have any direct effect on the traits and had just one interaction effect with target gender, as male participants judged women more conscientious thanmen, whereas females did not. however, findings concerning the effect of respondents’ gender are explorative, as in the present study we did not focus on participants’ gender, but only controlled for its effect. since, to our knowledge, this was the first study that examined the combined effects of attractiveness, occupational status, and gender on the evaluation of others’ personality, further research is necessary to strengthen present findings. for example, it should be noteworthy taking into account certain traits of respondents, such as their own attractiveness, their chance for professional success, as well as their endorsement of sexist attitudes. moreover, other dependent variables may be considered, such as evaluation of life satisfaction and well-being of targets with different characteristics. this could contribute to shed light on mechanisms of forming judgments about personality. in sum, the present findings shed light on relevant elements that may operate in evaluation processes. as the social expectations perspective has argued (see langlois et al., 2000), social stereotypes affect people’s specific expectations about others. facial appearance, as well as status, elicits social stereotypes that in turn create expectations for the characteristics of the target. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 tartaglia & rollero 687 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andreoni, j., & petrie, r. 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(2005). measuring the big five with single items using a bipolar response scale. european journal of personality, 19(5), 373-390. doi:10.1002/per.542 about the authors stefano tartaglia is assistant professor at the department of psychology, university of turin, italy. his research interests pertain to the domain of social and community psychology. his recent works concern gender stereotyping, social influence of the mass media, and the ethnic prejudice. chiara rollero earned her phd in social psychology at the university of turin (italy). her research interests deals with gender issues, stereotypes, objectification processes, mass media and well-being from a gender perspective. she has more than forty international research publications on these topics. now she is assistant professor at the faculty of psychology of the university ecampus (italy), where she teaches social psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 677–690 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.896 attractiveness and status on personality evaluation 690 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027%2f1614-0001.30.4.201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1468-2389.2008.00435.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1174%2f021347413807719166 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006%2fjvbe.2000.1757 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207%2fs15324834basp2101_7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.704 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fsjop.12014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0022022115597068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.542 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en attractiveness and status on personality evaluation (introduction) inferences on personality: what is beautiful is good when attractiveness and status can be detrimental: the beauty is beastly effect personality and status the current study hypotheses method participants and experimental design procedure independent variables manipulations dependent measures results extraversion agreeableness neuroticism conscientiousness openness discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in psychology research reports monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in psychology joseph g. ponterotto* a [a] division of psychological & educational services, graduate school of education, fordham university – lincoln center, new york, ny, usa. abstract publishing one’s research in peer-reviewed journals is generally acknowledged to be a valuable enterprise. this is particularly the case for academic and research psychologists who rely on publications for career status, stability, and advancement. psychological researchers can devote extensive amounts of time to planning, conducting, writing up, and getting their research published in respected psychology journals, yet their work efforts in this regard have heretofore never been quantified monetarily. this article introduces the concept of a monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in psychology. an initial basic linear equation is introduced that sets the dollar (or euro) value of an article based on the median number of hours involved in publishing an article, the mean hourly wage of psychologists, and the 5-year impact factor (if) of the journal in which the article is published. mevs were calculated for the full range of journals published by the american psychological association (apa) that have if ratings. mev values varied widely, from a low of $4,562 for an article published in the journal "dreaming", to a high of $131,613 for an article appearing in "psychological bulletin". this article represents the first to explore the mev as an additional metric to understand the impact of published articles, and as such this exploratory study has numerous limitations. chief among these is the study’s reliance on the controversial journal citation reports (jcr) journal impact factor metric, as well as its extrapolation from a limited medical literature on the average number of hours involved in publishing a study. keywords: monetary equivalent value (mev), impact factor, research, psychologists’ salaries, psychologists’ work hours europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 received: 2018-01-27. accepted: 2018-11-17. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: division of psychological & educational services, graduate school of education, fordham university – lincoln center, 113 west 60th street, room 1012, new york, ny 10023-7478, usa. tel: +1-212-636-6480, fax: +1-212-636-6416. e-mail: ponterotto@fordham.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the importance and value of publishing research in peer-reviewed journals in psychology is widely acknowledged in the profession. for academic psychologists in tenure-tract college and university positions, and for psychologists employed in other research-weighted settings such as major hospitals, research institutes, and community mental health centers, publishing one’s work is often essential in securing career stability and mobility, status among colleagues, and career advancement (see pfleegor, katz, & bowers, 2017). publishing one’s research in “known” and respected journals marks a “success point” and a wider professional acknowledgement of the importance of one’s investigative efforts. furthermore, from the institutional perspective, publications in respected academic journals bring international prestige and promotes the recruitment of new promising staff and students (see doyle & cuthill, 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological researchers spend significant amounts of time planning, conducting, writing-up, and submitting their research studies. components of the process include conceiving an idea and conceptualizing the project; selecting collaborators and co-authors and delineating team member responsibilities; conducting and integrating the literature review; setting the research paradigm and statistical models; locating and securing research measures and protocols; preparing and securing institutional review board (irb) approval for the study; data collection; data cleaning and data analysis; manuscript preparation; selecting an appropriate journal and preparing for submission; responding to reviewer comments and revising the manuscript; preparing the revision cover letter; and copy-editing and final page proof review. in total, researchers can spend hundreds of hours to see a single study through to publication in a peer-reviewed psychology journal (song, abedi, macadam, & arneya, 2013). what material value should be placed on this effort? more specifically, what is the equivalent monetary value of all the work that goes into getting a research study published in a peer-reviewed journal? this article introduces the exploratory concept of the monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in a peer-reviewed psychology journal. a basic linear equation is presented that establishes a dollar (or euro) value of a published article in psychology based on 1) the median number of hours it takes to publish an article from conceptualization to final publication, 2) the mean hourly wage of psychologists, and 3) the 5-year impact factor (if) of the particular journal in which the article is published. it should be noted that there is no research assessing the average number of hours it takes to publish different types of journal articles in psychology, and the present mev model borrows from a limited medical research literature. further it should be noted at the outset, that the cultural and economic context for the present study is primarily anchored within the north american sphere, and international replication, adaptation, and expansion of methods described herein is highly encouraged. as the mev formula relies heavily on impact factors set by the institute for scientific information’s (isi) journal citation reports (jcr), published by clarivate analytics (formerly thomson reuters), it is important to begin the discussion with a review of the benefits and limitations of the bibliometric if. value and limits of the impact factor there is something alluring about rankings and ratings, a standard metric for easy comparisons. take, for example, the popularity of the annual u.s. news & world report’s “best colleges ranking.” college deans and other university administrators often keep close track of the rankings with the goal of either maintaining or raising their ranking in their respective university or college categories. top ranked universities often highlight their ranking in advertisements or profiles of their university in both social and print media. in the area of professional journal prestige, perhaps the most popular and often cited rating or bibliometric is the journal’s impact factor (if) (chorus & waltman, 2016). anchoring the if is the proportion of citations to articles in the journal relative to the number of articles published in the journal over specified time frames. journal editors across disciplines, particularly in the physical, behavioral, and social sciences, often call attention to the importance of ifs. take, for example, the following quotes from two journal editorial statements. the first is from cuellar (2016), opening a special issue on ifs for the journal of transcultural nursing, where the editor noted the value of ifs. the second is written by reich-erkelenz, schmitt, and falkai (2016) and expresses pride in the latest if rating for their journal, european archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, monetary equivalent value (mev) 330 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “publishing in a journal with an impact factor means that scholars are reading the journal and citing it in their work. it is the number of times that an article is being cited in someone else’s articles. it means that the articles that we are publishing uphold scientific integrity and are being used to help other scientists to advance their work. it means that our work is getting out to others by not just having someone read them but by saying ‘go read this’ as a citation in someone else’s work.” (cuellar, 2016, p. 437) “we are proud of opening this issue with awesome news: isi has just released the new impact factor list for 2015, according to which european archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience (eapcn) for the fourth time in a row has risen its impact factor and now has achieved a rank of 4.113, thus for the first time negotiating the hurdle of 4.0.” (reich-erkelenz et al., 2016, p. 475) such quotes by editors are not uncommon (see also cacchione, 2017), and various journals state their ifs on the journal’s homepage. ifs have taken on a level importance and status that may or may not be warranted depending on the use of the bibliometric. for psychologists and scientists in more developing countries, publishing in higher if journals promotes aspirations of joining the larger scientific community (see mishra & neupane, 2018). the rationale and use of ifs have evolved over the last 90 years. gross and gross (1927) first suggested that the reference count could be used to rank the use of scientific journals. the term “impact” was introduced by garfield (1955), who is often credited with the concept of “impact factor,” though “factor” was not added until the 1961 science citation index (garfield, 1963, 1996). the initial intent of the if was to help librarians compare the quality of diverse journals within particular scientific disciplines (garfield, 1955; kiesslich, weineck, & koelblinger, 2016). such data could help in librarian decision-making in terms of which journals to subscribe to given available budgets. the journal if was never intended to evaluate the merits of a particular article or the scholar(s) publishing the article. however, in recent decades, the use and interpretation of journal ifs have expanded markedly beyond their original intent, even to the point of impacting researchers’ neural reward signals. a fairly recent fmri study of 35 neuroscientists from the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology, showed significantly greater neural activity in the nucleus accumbens (nacc; the reward signal center of the cerebrum) of these scientists when responding to a stimulus of potentially publishing in a high if neuroscience journal over a medium or low if journal (paulus, rademacher, schafer, muller-pinzler, & krach, 2015). this laboratory study provided the first evidence that consideration of journal ifs can effect neural response patterns, and further demonstrates “how deeply entrenched the concept of [journal] if has become on the neural systems level” (paulus et al., 2015, p. 11). are ifs worthy of the attention and significance they now garner across the sciences? concern for the inappropriate interpretation of ifs in various contexts, for example, evaluating the merits of an individual article, or researchers themselves, or the collective faculty within a university department, or merits of grant applications, has led to a broad body of research highlighting the limitations and potential manipulations of ifs. a concise summary of these limitations is provided in the san francisco declaration on research assessment (dora; 2012), which emanated from a working group of editors and publishers of scholarly journals that met during the 2012 annual meeting of the american society for cell biology in san francisco. the overarching recommendation of the working group of scholars which was endorsed by 74 renowned scientists worldwide was as follows: ponterotto 331 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “do not use journal-based metrics, such as journal impact factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.” (dora, 2012, p. 2) the san francisco declaration on research assessment (dora, 2012) and a host of independent researchers have highlighted some of the limitations of using ifs for the purpose of assessing and comparing the scientific merit or output of institutions or individual researchers. collectively, these limitations can be organized along six content areas. first, citation distributions within journals are highly skewed (dora, 2012; olff, 2014), and the if is not representative of the number of citations that individual articles accumulate within the same journal (deleon, 2018; eyre-walker & stoletzki, 2013). second, the properties of the journal if are field specific, and citation sources can vary widely in article type such as empirical research, substantive review, or theoretical paper (dora, 2012). furthermore, if magnitudes vary widely across disciplines, making cross-disciplinary comparisons of scientific merit or impact virtually impossible (liu, gai, zhang, & wang, 2015; postma, 2007). for example, the highest if for a psychology journal in this study is for psychological bulletin, with the latest-year if rating of 16.793; whereas the highest rated medical journal, the new england journal of medicine, reached an if of 72.406 in its last year (national institute of environmental health sciences, 2018). a third limitation of journal ifs is that they can be manipulated (or “gamed”) by editorial policy (dora, 2012). more specifically in this regard, journals editors (and review boards) can raise the impact factor by accepting fewer articles for publication in the journal, thus increasing the citation to publication ratio (kiesslich et al., 2016). fourth, the journal ifs do not exclude self-citations, and by promoting self-citations, journals, or authors writing for specific journals, can boost ifs (chorus & waltman, 2016; liu et al., 2015). fifth, online-to-print delays in article publication can artificially raise ifs, particularly for longer print delays as ifs are mainly based on date of publication in print form (tort, targino, & amaral, 2012). sixth, according to dora: “data used to calculate the journal impact factors are neither transparent nor openly available to the public” (dora, 2012, p. 1). access to clarivate’s journal citation reports (jcr) and their if ratings, or scopus’s scimago journal ratings require expensive subscriptions only available to researchers or the public with institutional access to these sources. despite the known limitations of relying on ifs as measures of individual or institutional merit, they hold some value in assessing impact. eyre-walker and stoletzki (2013) examined three methods of assessing the merit of an empirical paper: independent scholar rating of the paper post publication; the number of citations the paper accrued within 6 years after publication; and the if of the journal in which the study appeared. though there was a moderate correlation (r = .38; medium effect size) between scholar ratings of the published article and the number of citations eventually accrued by the article, the scholars over-rated (i.e., were influenced by) papers in high if journals. when this favorability bias was controlled for statistically, the correlation was negligible (r = .15, small effect size). eyre-walker and stoltezki (2013) suggested that “scientists have little ability to judge either the intrinsic merit of a paper or its likely impact” (p. 1). the authors concluded that while none of the three methods is a good measure of merit, the if may be the most satisfactory given it is a pre-publication measure. acknowledging that ifs do not describe the merits of an individual article, but instead acknowledge the impact and influence of the journal itself on its target discipline, this bibliometric serves a useful limited purpose (see also friedman, 2016; postma, 2007). with the proliferation of print and online professional journals, ifs do provide some standard metric on the article citation to publication ratio. most researchers would prefer their articles be published in journals that are often cited by other scholars within their own fields. of course, at times weaker monetary equivalent value (mev) 332 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ articles do reach publication in high impact journals, and very good articles appear in lesser known and cited journals. as highlighted by garfield (1996), “in the final analysis, impact simply reflects the ability of journals and editors to attract the best papers available” within their discipline (p. 411). certainly, researchers would like to see (at least some of) their research and major conceptual/review/theoretical articles published in the journals that attract the best papers. the reality is that despite the known limitations of ifs, articles published in high if journals have greater value in that they are more often cited by other researchers. it is likely then, that researchers who have a good number of published articles in high impact journals, will garner a collectively greater professional status. the primary purpose of this study is not to further debate the merits and limits of bibliometrics, particularly in our case, the impact factor (if). the purpose is to stimulate thought and reflection on the material monetary value-equivalent to the extensive amounts of work researchers devote to the research and publication process. ifs can be quite abstract to members both within and outside the scientific community, whereas the concept of money, or monetary value, may be more easily understood by those attempting to understand the value and work involved in publishing articles in select journals. a second purpose of this initial exploratory study is to stimulate follow-up research, from different national, statistical, and conceptual angles, on the monetary equivalent value (mev) formula as an additional metric to consider when weighing the impact of a published article in psychology. method median number of hours involved in publishing a research article a review of the psychology literature did not uncover any research calculating the average number of hours involved in publishing a study. however, in the field of medicine, such a study was conducted. song et al. (2013) had 13 surgeons specify time on task for 171 studies that they had published from 1990 through 2012. the studies focused upon involved retrospective designs rather than randomized control trials, given the much greater frequency of retrospective studies (song et al., 2013). the number of hours per study ranged from 29 hours to 1,287 hours. given the positive skew of the distribution the researchers calculated the median number of hours per study which was 177 hours. this total represents the efforts of the collective team, not just the lead author. naturally, the distribution of work tasks and hours across co-authors or team members will vary dependent on the size of the research team and scope of the study conducted. table 1 summarizes the results of the song et al. (2013) study organized along the median number of hours involved in eight components of the research and publication process. the greatest amount of time was devoted to data collection (22% of total time), followed by manuscript preparation (22%). though the song et al. (2013) study was in medical surgery research, and not in psychology, aspects of the positivist and post-positivist research paradigm, the scientific method, and the associated quantitative procedures transcend both medical and psychological research (see ponterotto, 2005). furthermore, as in medical research, retrospective studies are much more common than randomized control trials in many subfields of psychology research (heppner, kivlighan, & wampold, 2007). thus for the purpose of this study, and until the song et al. (2013) study is replicated in various subfields of psychology, we will use the median hours per study ponterotto 333 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of 177 in the present calculations. however, it should be emphasized that until researchers replicate the song et al. (2013) study across various psychology journal contexts, the current mev discussion is a conceptual proposal and should not be implemented in any journal evaluation procedure. table 1 median number of task hours spent on a research article from idea conceptualization to publication based on song et al.'s (2013) study component of study median hours percent of total pre-study planning 20 11 literature review 21 12 ethics process 7 4 data collection 41 23 data analysis 22 12 manuscript preparation 39 22 manuscript submission 10 6 manuscript post-submission 17 10 total 177 100 mean hourly wage of psychologists as with the number of hours involved in publishing a study, the salary of psychologists can vary widely. according to the u.s. government’s occupational outlook handbook (bureau of labor statistics, u.s. department of labor, 2018), the median pay for psychologist in 2016 (latest data available) was $75,230, or $36.17 per hour based on a 40 hour-work week and 52 weeks per year. the mean salary for academic psychologists in the 2016–2017, according to the american psychological association (christidis, lin, & stamm, 2018) was $74,085, or $35.62 per hour (40 hour-work week). for the present study we used the mean of the two salary reports, which fell at $35.9, rounded to $36. therefore, for the purposes of the present study, the average hourly wage for psychologists is set at $36. determined value of a published article in psychology independent of journal if to calculate the monetary value of modal article in a psychology journal, we used the equation: (median number of hours for study) (average hourly wage of psychologists), or in us dollars, (177) ($36) = $6,372. the equivalent value in euros (as of the january 20, 2018 exchange rate) where $1 usd = 0.8184 €; $36 x 0.8184 = € 29.46; and (177) (€ 29.46) = € 5,214 article monetary value. impact factors and journal selection naturally, the hypothetical dollar value of a published study will be impacted by the quality or reputation of the journal in which the study is published. the popular, though controversial bibliometric of the 5-year impact factor (if) established by the institute for scientific information (isi) and published in the annual journal citation reports (clarivate analytics, formerly thomson reuters) was selected for the present study. a journal’s impact factor (if) in a given year is the number of citations to the journal in that year to articles published in the journal during the previous 2 years (numerator) divided by the number of citable articles (submonetary equivalent value (mev) 334 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stantive articles and reviews only) published in the journal in the preceding 2 years (denominator) (garfield, 2006). the 5-year if bibliometric extends this formula back 5 years, rather than two. for an initial sample of journals, the author selected all journals affiliated with the american psychological association (apa) that reported if ratings (some of the newest journals had not yet reported ifs). if available, we utilized the journal citation report (jcr) 5-year impact factor (if) ratings (in two cases where the 5-year if was not available, we incorporated the latest if rating). on apa’s webpage (www.apa.org), under the browse journal link, the ifs are listed with the journal descriptions. final mev linear equation the final linear product equation in calculating the monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in psychology was: mev = (m) (w) (if) where m = the medium number of hours involved in publishing a research article (or 177 in the present study); where w = the average hourly salary of psychologists (or $36 for present purposes); and where if = the 5-year impact factor of the selected psychology journal. the equation is operationalized across the variety of journals comprising table 2. the present author would like to again emphasize that the jcr if is controversial in the scientific literature (e.g., dora, 2012), and the average number of hours involved in publishing a study, as well as the average hourly salary of psychology researchers is based on a limited literature and initial estimates. table 2 journals of the american psychological association, classification category, rank within category, 1and 5-year impact factors, with equivalent dollar and euro value as of 2018 ranked by monetary valuea journal category rank 1-year if 5-year if $ equi € equi psychological bulletin psych. – multidis. 2 of 128 16.793 20.655 131,613 107,712 psychological methods psych. – multidis. 10 of 128 4.667 10.141 64,618 52,883 psychological review psych. – multidis. 5 of 128 7.638 9.506 60,572 49,572 american psychologist psych. – multidisc. 7 of 128 6.681 7.329 46,700 38,219 jour. of pers. & soc. psych. psych. – social 4 of 62 5.017 7.296 46,490 38,047 jour. of applied psychology psych. – applied 5 of 80 4.130 6.890 43,903 35,930 jour. of consult. & clin. psych. psych. – clinical 8 of 121 4.593 6.053 38,570 31,366 jour. of exp. psych.: general psych. – exper. 4 of 84 4.420 5.883 37,487 30,679 jour. of abnormal psychology psych. – clinical 11 of 121 4.133 5.722 36,461 13,472 jour. of educational psych. psych. – edu. 5 of 58 3.459 5.240 33,389 27,326 developmental psychology psych. – develop. 17 of 70 3.228 4.653 29,649 24,265 jour. of occup. hlth. psych. psych. – applied 16 of 80 2.679 4.534 28,891 23,644 health psychology psych. – clinical 15 of 121 3.458 4.352 27,731 22,695 emotion psych. – exper. 12 of 84 3.251 4.266 27,183 22,247 jour. of counseling psychology psych. – applied 19 of 80 2.516 4.094 26,087 21,350 psychological assessment psych. – clinical 18 of 121 3.307 3.922 24,990 20,452 psychology and aging gerontology 7 of 32 2.812 3.843 24,488 20,041 neuropsychology psych. – clinical 19 of 121 3.286 3.734 23,793 19,472 school psych. quarterly psych. – educat. 6 of 58 3.256 3.317 21,136 17,298 psych. of addict. behaviors substance abuse 11 of 34 2.543 3.308 21,079 17,251 pers. dis.: theory, res., & trtm. psych. – clinical 31 of 121 2.606 3.249 20,703 16,943 jour. of exp. psych.: applied psych. – applied 26 of 80 2.156 3.224 20,543 16,812 ponterotto 335 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ journal category rank 1-year if 5-year if $ equi € equi psychotherapy psych. – clinical 32 of 121 2.573 3.216 20,492 16,771 psychology of violence psych. – clinical 46 of 121 2.192 3.070 19,562 16,010 jour. of exp.psych.: lrn., mem., & cogn. psych. – exper. 26 of 84 2.667 2.962 18,874 15,446 law & human behavior law 7 of 147 2.822 2.919 18,600 15,222 jour. of exp. psych.: hum. percp. & perf. psych. – exper. 32 of 84 2.287 2.833 18,052 14,774 behavioral neuroscience behav. sciences 23 of 51 2.453 2.797 17,722 14,504 psych of aesth., creat., & the arts psych. – exper. 46 of 84 1.860 2.751 17,529 14,346 psych of rel. & spirituality psych. – multidis. 40 of 128 2.000 2.732 17,408 14,247 journal of family psychology family studies 15 of 43 1.742 2.669 17,007 13,919 cult. div. & ethnic minority psych. ethnic studies 1 of 15 2.040 2.620 16,695 13,663 exp & clin. psychopharm. psych. – clinical 47 of 121 2.186 2.577 16,577 13,567 review of general psychology psych. – clinical 54 of 121 1.492 2.450 15,611 12,776 psych. trauma: thr., res., prct., & pol. psych. – clinical 68 of 121 1.584 2.405 15,325 12,542 psych of men & masculinity psych. – social 22 of 62 1.957 2.387 15,210 12,448 jour. of comparative psychology psych. – multidis. 32 of 128 2.268 2.342 14,923 14,923 psych., publ., policy, & law law 22 of 147 1.915 2.244 14,299 11,702 rehabilitation psychology rehabilitation 21 of 70 1.615 2.309 14,713 12,041 amer. jour. of orthopsychiatry social work 7 of 42 1.692 2.220 14,146 11,577 intern. jour. of stress manag. psych. – applied 42 of 80 1.632 2.077 13,235 10,832 psychological services psych. – clinical 71 of 121 1.544 2.073 13,209 10,810 prof. psych.: res & practice psych. – multidis. 67 of 128 1.209 1.987 12,661 10,362 sports, exercise, & perf psych. psych. – applied 31 of 80 1.930 n/a 12,298 10,065 jour. of exp. psych.: anim. lrn. & cog. psych. – biological 8 of 14 2.132 1.866 11,890 9,731 asian amer. jour. of psych ethnic studies 3 of 15 1.528 1.771 11,285 9,236 canadian psychology psych. – multidisc. 57 of 128 1.429 1.767 11,259 9,214 canadian jour. of exp. psych. psych. – exper. 74 of 84 1.055 1.741 11,094 9,079 psychiatric rehab. jour. rehabilitation 42 of 70 1.037 1.532 9,762 7,989 families, systems, & health pub, env, occ hlth 107 of 157 1.219 1.408 8,972 7,343 psychoanalytic psychology psych. – psychoan. 1 of 31 1.068 1.380 8,793 7,196 group dyn.: theory, res. & prac. psych. – social 47 of 62 1.073 1.358 8,653 7,082 jour. of diversity in higher ed. ed. & educ. res. 128 of 235 1.029 1.200 7,646 6,257 jour. of neurosc., psych., & economics psych. – multidis. 68 of 128 1.188 n/a 7,570 6,195 military psychology psych. – multidis. 91 of 128 0.734 1.174 7,481 6,122 training & education in prof. psych. psych. – educat. 50 of 58 0.810 0.983 6,237 5,104 canadian jour. of behav, sciences psych. – multidis. 114 of 128 0.404 0.883 5,626 4,604 history of psychology hist. of soc. sci. 4 of 35 1.000 0.839 5,346 4,375 dreaming psych. – multidisc. 83 of 128 0.867 0.716 4,562 3,734 note. if = impact factor. aeuro exchange values were calculated on january 20, 2018, when $1 = 0.8184 euros. exchange calculator found at https://www.investingt.com/currencies/eur-usd-converter results table 2 presents a rank ordering of the dollar (and euro exchange equivalent on january 20, 2018) value of an article published in 59 journals sponsored by the apa. all but two of these journals (journal of neuroscience, psychology, and economics, and sports, exercise, and performance psychology) reported 5-year ifs. the monetary value of articles published in the chosen journals varied markedly, from a high of $131,613 for a psychological bulletin publication to a low of $4,562 for an article published in the journal, dreaming (both journals are classified in the category of psychology—multidisciplinary). the median monetary value across all journals monetary equivalent value (mev) 336 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.investingt.com/currencies/eur-usd-converter https://www.psychopen.eu/ was $17,408 (m = $22,311; sd = $19,381). the median 5-year if was 2.751 (m = 3.57, sd = 3.07). for the 1year if, the median value was 2.156 (m = 2.66, sd = 2.34). the ifs rose from the 1-year to 5-year period for all journals save for two: dreaming and the history of psychology. additional journals with high monetary values in the psychology—multidisciplinary category were psychological methods ($64,618), psychological review ($60,572), and the american psychologist ($46,700). high value journals in the category of psychology—applied were the journal of applied psychology (individual article valued at $43,903) and the journal of occupational health psychology ($28,891). in the psychology—social category, the journal of personality and social psychology ($46,490) had the greatest monetary value, followed by psychology of men and masculinity ($15,210). in the psychology—experimental category, the journal of experimental psychology: general ($37,487) was the highest; in psychology—developmental, developmental psychology ($29,694) was highly valued; in psychology—clinical, the journal of consulting and clinical psychology ($38,570), ranked first; and in the ethnic studies category the journal cultural diversity and ethnic minority psychology ($16,695) was the top ranked. discussion psychological researchers usually devote a good amount of time to planning, conducting, writing-up, and publishing research studies. it is generally understood that publishing one’s research in peer-reviewed journals is a necessary component of career stability and success in many research-oriented settings internationally. however, little medical research, and no psychological research, exists that documents the actual number of hours spent in the production and publishing of various types of research articles, and no research has heretofore specified a material or monetary-equivalent value of such work and dedication. the proposed “monetary equivalent value” (mev) linear equation, while primarily exploratory at present, opens the discussion on the topic. as noted by an anonymous reviewer of an earlier version of this manuscript, “money is less abstract [than ifs] and easier to imagine.” the present study is limited by the conceptual foundation of the mev which relies on central tendency measures of the number of hours worked by psychologists and their average income/hourly wages. further, this study is limited to the north american research publishing context, and may or may not be generalizable to other continents and countries. additionally, the mev is also anchored in the popular jcr journal impact factor rating, which as has been noted, is open to debate and controversy. consistent with the recommendation from dora (2012), the mev value is theoretical and applies to an average article in the specific journal, and not to any particular article. the concept of mev is an interesting one to ponder as past literature has not examined the monetary equivalents of the time and effort devoted to the publishing process in psychology journals. an important goal of this article is to stimulate follow-up research internationally on potential formulas, applications, and limitations of mevs. to that end, the following research directions are presented to address the limitations of the present study and stimulate thinking on additional journal metrics. first, research is needed to study the average number of hours involved in publishing psychological research. furthermore, research is needed to examine the average amount of hours devoted to publishing different types of psychological research. for example, what is the variation in work hours involved in reaching publication in ponterotto 337 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ correlational studies, versus quasi-experimental studies, versus fully randomized controlled experiments? for that matter, what is the estimated hourly work involved in preparing and publishing a meta-analysis or conceptual/theoretical article? also, how do time frames for publishing an article in a specialty journal (e.g., dreaming) vary from those published in broad appeal journals (e.g., psychological bulletin)? further, research can examine whether preparation and publication time of a study varies depending on the experience levels of the researcher. also, with newer social internet tools to facilitate and expedite sampling (particularly in survey research) such as mechanical turk, qualtrics, and survey monkey, how will sampling time frames be affected (refer back to table 1)? second, this study calculated the average hourly wage of psychologists based only in north america. salaries and forms of compensation for published research can vary widely within and across nations and across firstand third-world economies. also, the pressure to publish in higher impact journals can vary from country to country and from institution to institution within countries. this topic needs to be studied from a wider context and it would behoove psychologists to partner with sociologists and economists in interdisciplinary research. furthermore, research can attend more specifically to the salary or work hour variance among psychologists within research communities. for instance, the average u.s. salary of an assistant professor in psychology across all institution types is $61,500 (in 2016–2017 survey) (christidis et al., 2018) or $29.57 per hour for a 40hour work-week. the average psychologist in private practice, however, who may charge $150 per hour, may earn $312,000 a year for their 40-hour work weeks. the loss in income for a private practitioner to take time away from their patients to conduct and publish a study is far greater than for an academic who often has a flexible work week and where research is part of the job description and allotted time within the work week. naturally, many private practitioners or practitioners in diverse settings do publish in psychology journals. third, mevs will need to be recalculated each year or every few years as updated information on psychologists’ salaries, work hours involved in publishing a manuscript, and the if becomes available. for the many new psychology journals appearing each year, 5-year impact ratings are not yet available, thus researchers may want to rely on single or 2-year ifs in some calculations. naturally, journals without current if ratings should not be assessed with the mev model. it should also be noted that while some online-only psychology journals, such as plosone psychology and frontiers in psychology do report ifs, many newer online journals have not yet joined the jcr system. fourth, it is suggested that follow-up research examine variations on the mev and the variables used to calculate the coefficient. for example, more complex extensions of the mev formula can incorporate page lengths of published articles (on the assumption, for example, that a 12 page article published in the journal of consulting and clinical psychology is more “valuable” than a three page article). it is acknowledged that the present study is just a first step to introduce a new concept to the growing discourse on the prestige and status of publication outlets in psychology. money is universally understood, and publishing does impact the financial status of researchers and their home institutions. it is hoped that the present study will stimulate follow-up research internationally. monetary equivalent value (mev) 338 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ concluding comments at times the general public may not understand the amount of work and effort devoted to research and publishing. to some, an academic psychologist teaches a few courses a semester, has summers off, takes frequent sabbaticals, and if tenured, has a relatively secure job for life. though of course this perception is a marked simplification and stereotype, quantifying and placing a monetary value on our research efforts may inform the public of researchers’ commitment to their profession and society. using a concept such as monetary value in addition to traditional impact factor ratings to understand the status of journals and the studies they publish, may demystify the process for the lay public and increase the public’s accessibility to the psychology profession. naturally, as an initial explication of a formulaic system (mev) to consider a monetary metric, systematic follow-up research is called for before such a metric can be used with good levels of confidence. many of the if critics cited in this article would agree that it behooves the advancement of scientific fields to have multiple metrics to judge an article’s impact, and that an overreliance of a single metric, such as if, should be avoided. it is the author’s hope that this article stimulates research on alternative evaluative metrics of journals in psychology. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references bureau of labor statistics, u.s. department of labor. 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(2012). rising publication delays inflate journal impact factors. plos one, 7(12), article e53374. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053374 about the author joseph g. ponterotto, ph.d. is currently a professor of counseling psychology in the graduate school of education at fordham university, lincoln center, new york city (usa) campus. his primary research areas include multicultural psychology, psychobiography, research methods and design, and career development. a former associate editor of the journal of counseling psychology, he now serves on the editorial board of the american psychologist, the flagship journal of the american psychological association. his most recent book is a psychobiography of john f. kennedy, jr.: understanding his inner life, achievements, struggles, and courage (2019, charles c thomas publisher, springfield illinois, usa). dr. ponterotto maintains a small psychotherapy and career counseling practice in new york city. ponterotto 341 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 329–341 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1595 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0142537 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10551-017-3578-3 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0167.52.2.126 https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0000999 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00406-016-0714-5 http://am.ascb.org/dora/ https://doi.org/10.1097%2fgox.0b013e31828e9f51 https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0053374 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ correction monetary equivalent value (mev) of a published article in psychology joseph g. ponterotto note the author wants to correct the following errors: table 2 (pages 335-336): the euro equivalent value column ("€ equi") should read as follows: journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 31,566; journal of abnormal psychology, 29,840; and journal of comparative psychology, 12,213. [the author requested to add this note post-publication on 2019-06-15.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ monetary equivalent value (mev) (introduction) value and limits of the impact factor method median number of hours involved in publishing a research article mean hourly wage of psychologists determined value of a published article in psychology independent of journal if impact factors and journal selection final mev linear equation results discussion concluding comments (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author correction the emotion regulation questionnaire: psychometric properties and norms for swedish parents of children aged 10-13 years research reports the emotionregulationquestionnaire: psychometric properties andnorms for swedish parents of children aged 10-13 years pia enebrink*a, annika björnsdotterb, ata ghaderiab [a] division of psychology, department of clinical neuroscience, karolinska institutet, stockholm, sweden. [b] department of psychology, uppsala university, uppsala, sweden. abstract this study evaluated the internal consistency and factor structure of the swedish version of the 10-item emotion regulation questionnaire (erq), and its relation to family warmth and conflict, marital satisfaction, and parental discipline strategies, in addition to obtaining norms from the general population of parents of children aged 10-13 years. the erq has two subscales measuring an individual’s use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression as emotion regulation strategies. a random non-referred sample of parents of 1433 children aged 10-13 years completed the erq and other questions targeting the family functioning and couple adjustment (warmth/conflict in the family; dyadic adjustment scale-short form) and parental strategies (parent practices interview). the results indicated adequate internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) of the two subscales (cognitive reappraisal .81; expressive suppression .73). confirmatory factor analysis resulted in close to acceptable fit (rmsea = 0.089; cfi = 0.912; gfi = 0.93). norms are presented as percentiles for mothers and fathers. the erq cognitive reappraisal scale correlated positively with marital adjustment (das), family warmth, appropriate discipline (ppi), and negatively with harsh discipline (ppi). the erq expressive suppression subscale was negatively correlated with marital satisfaction (das) and family warmth, and positively with harsh discipline (ppi). to conclude, this study showed the adequate reliability and construct validity of the erq in a large sample of swedish parents. specific use of suppression or reappraisal as a parental emotion regulation strategy was related to couple satisfaction, warmth in the family and employment of adequate discipline strategies in expected direction. keywords: emotion regulation, parents, rating scales, psychometrics, confirmatory factor analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 received: 2012-10-10. accepted: 2013-02-05. published: 2013-05-31. *corresponding author at: karolinska institutet, department of clinical neuroscience, division of psychology, 171 65 stockholm, sweden. e-mail: pia.enebrink@ki.se this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction emotion regulation, in terms of processes related to modifying and influencing when and how specific emotions are expressed and how the emotions are experienced (gross, 1998b), has become acknowledged as an important factor for wellbeing and mental health over the past decades (gross & john, 2003; kring & sloan, 2010). emotion regulation involves both conscious and unconscious processes, positive and negative emotions, and may include generating, reducing as well as sustaining emotions (gross & thompson, 2007). it probably has a central role in both severe and less severe forms of mental health and psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety (cisler & olatunji, 2012), depression vulnerability (ehring, tuschen-caffier, schnülle, fischer, & gross, 2010), misuse of alcohol (berking et al., 2011), borderline personality disorder (mcmain, korman, & dimeff, 2001), and in anorexia nervosa (davies, swan, schmidt, & tchanturia, 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in clinical work with children and adolescents, parents are often involved in treatment. recently, emotionor selfregulation/self-control for parents has become a focus in prevention and intervention programs of child emotional and behavioral functioning, such as the tuning in to kids (havighurst, wilson, harley, prior, & kehoe, 2010) and the incredible years (webster-stratton & reid, 2010). the ability of a parent to regulate his or her affect could be important for providing positive, supportive and warm parenting, possibly mediating positive outcomes for the child. adequate emotion regulation skills such as keeping one’s cool or reappraising a problematic situation might enable a parent to, more often, cope effectively with a difficult situation, for instance through validating the child´s perspective, coaching the child, and using appropriate problem-solving or positive parenting strategies (see bariola, gullone, & hughes, 2011, for a review of research on parent and child emotion regulation). this could also provide the child with a positive role model for emotion regulation. knowledge on specific emotion regulation strategies that are effective and could lead to positive child and parental behavior, wellbeing and interconnectedness with each other, would be informative both theoretically and in treatment planning. for emotion regulation, several emotion regulation strategies have been identified, of which some may be helpful, while others seem to have an unintended negative impact on the individual. examples of instruments that target emotion regulation strategies or processes involved are, for instance, the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (cerq; garnefski, kraaij, & spinhoven, 2001), the acceptance and action questionnaire-ii (aaq-ii; bond et al., 2011), the affective style questionnaire (hofmann & kashdan, 2010), the berkeley expressivity questionnaire (gross & john, 1995, 1997), the difficulties in emotion regulation scale (ders; gratz & roemer, 2004), and the emotion regulation questionnaire (erq; gross & john, 2003). the erq (gross & john, 2003) is based on a theoretically interesting and partially validated process model of emotion regulation, which includes several emotion regulation strategies. two of these, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, both included in the erq, have been differently connected to for instance psychological wellbeing and social functioning in experiments with undergraduate students and community samples of adults (e.g., gross & john, 2003). the emotion regulation model that the erq is based on distinguishes between antecedent-focused strategies, i.e., before an emotional situation or reaction occurs or has become fully activated, and response-focused strategies, i.e., regulating emotions after they occur and are being experienced (gross & thompson, 2007). cognitive reappraisal is defined as an antecedent cognitive strategy where future or present situations are reappraised so that the emotional impact is changed. it includes changing or reformulating the way an individual thinks about a situation or the emotion, to regulate its impact. expressive suppression is defined as a response-focused strategy where the behavioral reactions or emotional expressions are made covert and not shown to others, involving restraining or inhibiting external facial, bodily, or behavioral signs of the emotion. research indicates that each of these strategies is differentially related to psychological functioning and wellbeing (gross, 1998a; gross, 2001; gross & john, 2003; john & gross, 2004; srivastava, tamir, mcgonigal, john, & gross, 2009). for cognitive reappraisal, few negative affective, cognitive or social effects have been identified. expressive suppression on the other hand, has been associated with lower psychological wellbeing in terms of increased physiological and sympathetic activation (gross, 1998a), decreased positive affect (gross & john, 2003), deteriorated memory (richards & gross, 2000), and negative social consequences (butler et al., 2003; gross & john, 2003). in summary, this research favors reappraisal as a strategy for regulating emotions opposed to suppression. due to its theoretical base, and the focus on two commonly used strategies that seem to be differently related to psychological wellbeing, the erq seems of interest to evaluate for various populations. the erq was recently adapted for use with children and adolescents (erq-ca) and evaluated with a sample of participants aged 10-18 years (gullone & taffe, 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 290 http://www.psychopen.eu/ earlier research by gross and john (2003) has shown adequate factor structure and cronbach’s alpha (in average, .79 for cognitive reappraisal and .73 for expressive suppression) for the erq in a sample of undergraduate students. abler and kessler (2009) replicated the original factorial structure and reported adequate reliability (cronbach’s alpha cognitive reappraisal .76; expressive suppression .74) in a similar sample. wiltink and colleagues (2011) presented norms from a representative community study of adults (n = 2524; mean age 49.4 years, sd = 18.2), and reported acceptable reliability (cronbach’s alpha; cognitive reappraisal, .82; expressive suppression .76). however, confirmatory factor analysis did not completely confirm the original factor structure why the authors modified one item (nbr 8). in this study, suppression was predicted by depression, male gender, lower income and education. until today, no study has validated the erq or provided norms for a sample of parents. parenthood during preand early adolescence could be a period associated with high stress and new challenges in emotion regulation for the family. in some of the evidence-based programs for parents to conduct problem children, e.g., the family check up (fcu; dishion & stormshak, 2007), a structured multi-level assessment-driven motivational approach is included where the developmental level of the child, as well as parental and family-related risk/protective factors are evaluated and discussed. the aim is to provide the family with tailored feedback based on their self-ratings and describe these in relation to norms for the targeted population. the family is then offered an individualized treatment plan. to achieve this, therapists and researchers need to have established, validated instruments with known psychometrics and norms for this particular population compared to adults in general. a recent review has argued for consistency across studies in the measurement of emotion regulation, and that more refined theoretical conceptualizations of regulatory strategies, types or skills should be included (bariola et al., 2011). in light of the current research and theoretical model underlying the erq, this instrument was chosen in the present study for examining emotion regulation among parents. since internet-based questionnaires are used frequently nowadays for collecting information, but only a few evaluations exist of data collected through the internet compared to when collected through paper and pencil, we chose to include both of these procedures to compare the outcome of these approaches. it could be hypothesized that parents who use cognitive reappraisal and therefore may be able to cope more effectively with difficult emotions use more appropriate discipline, as opposed to parents using suppressive emotion regulation strategies where more harsh and inconsistent discipline could be expected. further, in line with earlier research showing that individuals who use cognitive reappraisal as a strategy have closer relationships (gross & john, 2003), it is possible that parents who use reappraisal have more satisfying and rewarding relations with their family members and less family conflicts. on the contrary, we expect parents who use expressive suppression to have more strained relationships and higher incidence of family conflicts. as earlier research has reported, individuals who suppress have less emotional closeness, more avoidance of sharing, and discomfort with closeness in their relationships (gross & john, 2003). in line with the previously identified knowledge gaps, the aim of the present study was to 1) evaluate the internal consistency and factor structure of the erq in a community sample of parents, 2) obtain norms for self-ratings of the erq subscales, and 3) evaluate the associations of the erq to self-rated couple distress/marital adjustment, family warmth and conflict, and parenting strategies. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 291 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method design the study was a cross-sectional observational study. parents to children aged 10-13 years were randomly selected from the swedish population address register (spar) and received information about the study. consenting parents were randomly assigned to respond to the questionnaire via internet or paper and pencil. all the variables with the exception of some demographics were continuous. measures translation and back-translation of the erq from english as well as the other questionnaires that were not already available in swedish was carried out according to the procedure suggested by the world health organization (who, 2007). assessment of demographics: the parents were asked to provide information about the following: their relation to the child (being a mother; father; step-mother; step-father; foster-parent; other relationship), child age, child gender, parental marital status (married; living together; single; widower/widow; living apart, other marital condition), and their highest level of formal educational (less than elementary school; elementary school; 2-year college school or less; more than 2-year college school; less than 3-year university; 3-year university or more; ph.d.). the emotion regulation questionnaire (erq; gross & john, 2003) is an established 10-item self-report questionnaire targeting emotion-regulatory processes and strategies for how emotions are regulated and managed. individuals are asked to rate the extent to which they typically try to think or behave differently in situations to change their emotions. the questionnaire consists of 10 items capturing two specific emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on a 7-point likert scale, where 1 means “strongly disagree”, 4 “neutral”, and 7 means “strongly agree”. higher mean score on a subscale indicates that the strategy is more endorsed. the cognitive reappraisal scale has 6 items and the expressive suppression has 4 items. item example in the cognitive reappraisal scale is “i control my emotions by changing the way i think about the situation i’m in”, and of the expressive suppression scale is “i control my emotions by not expressing them”. no items are reversed. in earlier studies, the erq had high internal consistency for both the cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression subscales (α = .79 and .73, respectively; gross & john, 2003). good convergent validity has been reported with several measures, e.g., the cope reinterpretation and venting scales (carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989), and discriminant validity with e.g., the 44-item big five inventory (john, donahue, & kentle, 1991; for a thorough description of validity, see gross & john, 2003). the scales have demonstrated stability across 3 (r = .69; gross & john, 2003) and 2 months (cognitive reappraisal, r = .67; expressive suppression, r = .71; balzarotti, john, & gross, 2010). parenting practices interview (ppi; compare, reid, webster-stratton, & hammond, 2007; webster-stratton, reid, & hammond, 2001) is an 80-item questionnaire measuring parenting practices. the parents are asked to evaluate how often he or she uses a certain strategy on a 7-graded likert scale. for the present study we included two subscales, a 15-item harsh and inconsistent discipline subscale and a 12-item appropriate discipline subscale. an example of a question is “the following is a list of things that parents have told us they do when their children misbehave. in general, how often do you do each of the following things when your child misbehaves (that is, does something (s)he is not supposed to do)?”. example of an item for the harsh/inconsistent discipline is, e.g., “raise your voice (scold or yell)”, and of the adequate discipline “get your child correct the problem or make up europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 292 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for his/her mistake”. in the present study, the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) was .84 for harsh/inconsistent parenting, and .80 for positive praise and incentives. dyadic adjustment scale, brief version (sabourin, valois, & lussier, 2005) includes 4 items measuring the relationship between the parents. this is the short version of the original das scale (spanier, 1976) with 32 items, targeting dyadic satisfaction, dyadic consensus, dyadic cohesion, and affectional expression. sabourin and colleagues (2005) concluded that the das-4 was informative at all levels of couple satisfaction. the internal consistency of the das-4 was .84 in the original study and .60 in the present study. warmth and conflict in the family consists of 5 questions on warmth from the adult-child relationship scale (acrs; criss & shaw, 2005), which is an adaptation of the school-based student-teacher relationship scale (strs; pianta & nimetz, 1991) and 4 questions on conflict adapted from the pal2 project by the child and family center, university of oregon, eugene, or. usa. the internal consistency for the warmth subscale in the present study was .80, and the corresponding value for the conflict subscale was .70. procedure a first wave of information letters was sent to 2800 families in sweden detailing the purpose and procedures of the study. the parents were informed about the voluntary nature of the study, and that they would be randomly assigned to respond to the questionnaire via internet or the traditional way (paper and pencil). all the parents were also provided with a pre-paid envelope and a checklist to indicate in case they wished not to participate in the study, or if they preferred to receive a questionnaire via mail if they were allocated to the internet condition, in order to decrease the drop-out rate. a total of 168 parents (6%) asked to receive the questionnaires on paper, of which 28 had been assigned to internet. these 28 parents received the questionnaire on paper and 23 of them returned the questionnaire, all of which were excluded from the analyses comparing parents’ response on paper versus through internet. randomization was done using www.randomizer.org. the parents were also referred to a homepage on the internet where they could read more about the study. parents who agreed to participate in the study responded to questions regarding frequency and characteristics of their child’s behaviors and emotional wellbeing, as well as characteristics of parental strategies, couple adjustment and family warmth or conflicts (see measures). the parents were also asked to respond to a set of questionnaires with background information about the family, i.e., child age, school functioning, parental education and profession. if the parents had several children in the same age group, they were asked to consider their youngest child in the 10-13 years age span when filling out the questionnaires. a reminder was sent out to the parents within one month. we also called a randomly chosen subset of parents across children’s age and sex to remind them about the study. within 3-6 weeks after the phone call, a third wave of information letters, informed consent and questionnaires were sent out to all the remaining non-respondents. the participating parents received a small incentive (e.g., cinema tickets) for participating in the survey. the regional research ethics committee approved of the study. participants of the invited 2800 parents, 1443 responded to the survey. ten respondents did not report if they were mothers or fathers and were therefore excluded, leaving 1433 parents (51.2%). explicit difficulties in speaking and understanding swedish constituted an exclusion criterion, since the questionnaires were in swedish. no family was excluded a priori from the study due to the exclusion criteria. of the 1433 respondents, there were 756 (52.8%) mothers, 675 (47.1%) fathers, and 2 stepparents (0.1%). due to missing data, complete data on the erq expressive suppression and the cognitive reappraisal subscale was available for 1387 and 1355 parents, respectively. no europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 293 http://www.randomizer.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ differences in background characteristics were identified for those with complete data on the erq compared to those with missing items. mean age of the children was 11.51 years (sd = 1.10), and there was a similar amount of parents to boys (49.6%) and girls (50.4%) in the sample. for the norms and subgroup analyses we chose to combine the small number of stepparents with (same gender) mothers and fathers. to describe demographics and when investigating the relation between educational status and the internet/paper-pen versions, the seven levels of education parents reported on were coded into five levels to avoid groups with very low number of parents (i.e., those with a ph.d., or parents with uncompleted elementary school). when evaluating the association between emotion regulation strategies and parental education, however, educational level was divided into “higher education” (university-level) and “without higher education” (completed high school or less). due to the small number of widowers/widows (n = 8) and other marital conditions (n = 4) these were combined with the group of single parents in the analyses. a majority of parents (53.7%) reported having at least 2 years of college/university studies (i.e., 2 years: 19.4%; 3 years or a phd: 34.3%) whereas the rest reported their highest level of education to be elementary school (6.4%), or 2-year or 3-year high school studies (20.4% and 19.5%, respectively). most parents were married or living together (63.9% and 20.5% respectively), whereas the other parents reported being single parents or widows/widowers (13.4%), or were living apart (2.2%). no differences emerged between mothers and fathers on the demographic variables (child age, child gender, or educational level). however, a significant difference in marital status emerged between mothers and fathers who participated in our study (χ2 (3; n = 1426) = 100.69, p < .001). the proportion of mothers being married, single/widow/other marital condition, living apart, or living together with a partner was 53.7%, 20.3%, 3.7%, and 22.3%. the corresponding proportions for father were: 75.2%, 5.7%, 0.6%, and 18.5%. a larger proportion of parents responded to the questionnaire in the paper and pencil condition (n = 976; 68.1%) compared to via the internet (n = 457; 31.9%). when evaluating the proportion of parents with different levels of education to see whether this was related to the response-rate, this was not significantly different between those responding via paper or internet, and there were no significant differences in any of the other background characteristics for parents who completed the questionnaire via the internet or paper-pen version. statistical analysis the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) version 19 was used for the statistical analyses. there were 0.3% non-systematic missing values for single items in the erq, resulting in missing values on the erq for 40 (erq suppression) and 62 (erq reappraisal) individuals. in total, 22 outliers were identified (6 on erq suppression, and 16 on erq reappraisal). data on the erq suppression subscale is therefore available for 1387 parents and the reappraisal subscale for 1355 parents. internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) and corrected item to total correlations were calculated. chi-square, t-tests and anovas were used to explore possible differences in categorical and continuous background variables between the genders and respondents. multiple group comparisons after significant f-test were done using bonferroni correction. other comparative analyses were done using pearson’s correlation coefficients. in line with the recommended thresholds (cohen, 1988) we considered a correlation of .1 as small, .3 as medium, and .5 as high. cohen’s d or partial eta squared was used as a measure of effect size for group comparisons. with a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) we examined the fit of the twofactor model of the erqwith a cognitive reappraisal and an expressive suppression subscale, respectively (gross & john, 2003). for the cfa we used lisrel 8.30 (jöreskog & sörbom,1978, 1988, 1993). the global model fit to the data was tested by chi-square, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cf) and goodness of fit index (gfi). the alpha was set to p < .05. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 294 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results demographics and emotion regulation significant differences emerged between mothers and fathers regarding use of emotion regulation strategy with mothers reporting slightly higher levels of cognitive reappraisal (mothers: m = 5.04, sd = 0.97; fathers: m = 4.83, sd = 0.89; t(1353) = 4.13, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.22) and fathers using more expressive suppression (mothers: m = 2.98, sd = 0.91; fathers: m = 3.49, sd = 0.92; t(1385) = -10.3, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.56). parents with college/university education reported more use of cognitive reappraisal compared to parents without higher education (m = 5.05, sd = 0.93;m = 4.82, sd = 0.93; t(1349) = 4.64, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.25). in contrast, parents with higher education reported less use of expressive suppression (m = 3.11, sd = 0.89) compared to those without higher education (m = 3.35, sd = 1.00). the difference was statistically significant (t(1383) = 4.60, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.25). further, use of cognitive reappraisal was significantly different between parents with different marital status (f(3, 1346) = 3.33, p = .019, partial η2 = .007). after bonferroni correction, parents who were living apart reported significantly higher use of reappraisal (m = 5.42; sd = 0.94) than parents who were married (m = 4.92; sd = 0.93), or those who lived together (m = 4.97, sd = 0.90), but no significant differences remained between single/widowed parents and the other groups. similarly, significant differences emerged in relation to expressive suppression (f(3, 1376) = 6.20, p < .001, partial η2 = 0.01). after bonferroni correction, single/widowed parents reported significantly lower use of suppression as a strategy (m = 2.98; sd = .87) compared to married parents (m = 3.25; sd = 0.94) and parents living together (m = 3.34; sd = 0.93), but no significant differences remained between parents living apart and the other groups. there was no correlation between the age of the child and use of parental emotion strategy (reappraisal r = .02; suppression r = .04). there were no significant differences on the cognitive reappraisal scale between those who filled in the questionnaire through the internet or paper-pen (t(1353) = -1.49, p = .13). although those responding through the internet reported significantly lower frequency on the expressive suppression scale (m = 3.12; sd = 0.92) than those completing the paper-pen version (m = 3.26; sd = 0.96) (t(1363) = -2.44, p = .02) the difference represented a small effect (cohen’s d = 0.15). reliability the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of the cognitive reappraisal scale was .81, and .73 for the expressive suppression scale. the corrected item-total correlations within each scale were in general large (>.50). one item with small item-total correlations was found for each scale. the item (5) in the reappraisal scale was “when i’m faced with a stressful situation, i make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm” (r = .33), and in the suppression scale (item 9), ”when i am feeling negative emotions, i make sure not to express them” (r = .43). removing these items from their subscales resulted in a small increase of alpha for the cognitive reappraisal scale (alpha .83), whereas the alpha for the expressive suppression scale did not change. factor structure of the erq to evaluate the construct validity of the erq, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis. the chi-square analysis of the model was significant (χ2 (34; n = 1366) = 408.61, p < .001), thus rejecting the model based on the data, a finding that is usual in large samples. on the other hand, fit indices adjusted for the large sample size europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 295 http://www.psychopen.eu/ showed that a two-dimensional model had fairly acceptable fit: rmsea = 0.089, and 90% ci for rmsea = (.0818; .0974), cfi = .912, and gfi = .931 (please see figure 1). figure 1. confirmatory factor analysis of the emotion regulation questionnaire. note. chi-square = 408.61, df = 34, p-value = 0.00001, rmsea = 0.089. modification indices (mi) in lisrel suggested that the model would attain a better fit by relating item 4 and 9 to cognitive reappraisal, although both of these items are very clear examples of suppression. in addition, mi suggested that the error covariance between quite a few indicators (i.e., erq items) should be allowed to correlate. if the error covariances of items 1 and 3 on the erq are allowed to correlate, the fit indices improve drastically (rmsea = .066, and 90% ci for rmsea = (0.0579; 0.0740), cfi = .95). when the model was tested for fathers only, slightly better fit indices emerged rmsea = 0.083, and 90% ci for rmsea = (0.0719; 0.0952), cfi= .924, and gfi = .936. the chi-2 was still very high and significant (χ2 (34; n = 650) = 186.68, p < .001). mi in lisrel once again suggested that item 4 and 9 should be related to cognitive reappraisal to reach at a better fit as well as letting the error covariances of some indicators to correlate. testing the model for mothers only, resulted in slightly less favorable fit (χ2 (34; n = 716) = 252.44, p < .001, rmsea= .0943, and 90% ci for rmsea = (0.0836; 0.105), cfi = .892, and gfi = .919). mi suggested a path between cognitive reappraisal and item 9 on the erq, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 296 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as well as two paths from expressive suppression to item 8 and 10, in addition to letting the error covariances of the indicators to correlate. finally, the reappraisal and the suppression subscales were significantly correlated (r = .10, p < .001) albeit with a small effect size. norms for the erq cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression subscales are provided in table 1. the norms are displayed separately for mothers and fathers, and percentiles for both tails are provided, based on the mean scores for each subscale. table 1 norms (mean, median, mode and percentiles) for the erq reappraisal and suppression scale for mothers and fathers, respectively suppressionreappraisal measure fathers (n = 658)mothers (n = 729)fathers (n = 641)mothers (n = 714) 3.49 (0.92)2.98 (0.91)4.83 (0.89)5.04 (0.97)mean (sd) 3.502.754.835.00median 4.002.504.505.00mode percentiles 1.251.002.672.671 2.001.753.333.335 2.252.003.833.8310 2.502.254.004.0015 2.752.254.164.1720 4.253.755.506.0080 4.504.005.836.0085 4.754.256.006.2590 5.004.506.336.5495 5.505.507.007.0099 relations to marital adjustment, family warmth/conflicts and parental strategies the correlations between the erq subscales to measures tapping marital adjustment (das), family warmth, and harsh discipline (ppi) were significant (see table 2), small in magnitude (i.e., below r = .3), and non-significant to family conflicts (p > .05). the erq reappraisal scale was positively significantly associated with marital adjustment (das), family warmth, appropriate discipline (ppi), and negatively associated with harsh discipline (ppi). interestingly, the associations between the erq suppression subscale with marital satisfaction (das) and family warmth were significant and negative, whereas it showed a non-significant association to appropriate discipline (ppi) and a small, positive significant correlation with harsh discipline (ppi). table 2 correlations between the erq subscales and couple adjustment, family warmth and conflict, as well as appropriate and harsh parenting. erq suppression subscaleerq reappraisal scalescale das .21**-.09** family warmth .25**-.22** family conflict .04-.04ppi appropriate discipline .01-.12** ppi harsh discipline .12**.14****p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 297 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study presents data from one of the first evaluations of emotion regulation in a normative sample of parents with children in the 10-13 years age span. norms from the general population of parents of preand young adolescents are essential for informative research on this group. our findings contribute both to the limited knowledge on the kind and level of emotion regulation that parents use, as well as to the knowledge-base about how parental emotion regulation is related to marital adjustment, parental strategies and family warmth and conflict. as a notable part of data collection in various research studies is now being done through the internet, we randomized parents to respond to the erq via internet or using paper and pencil. no clinically meaningful differences emerged between internet versus paper and pencil. the erq seems to be a stable instrument that can be administered via internet or the usual way. the erq seems to work well in a large representative sample of swedish parents. its psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, item-to-total correlations, factors structure, and correlation to various other relevant measures correspond well to earlier studies (e.g., gross & john, 2003). we found only few significant demographic differences, all representing small effects with one exception. fathers reported significantly higher levels of expressive suppression compared to mothers, a difference with a medium size effect. this is in line with earlier studies reporting higher frequency of use of suppression among men (e.g., gross & john, 2003). item 5 and 9 had smaller corrected item-total correlations (citc) than the rest of the items. item 5 in the cognitive reappraisal scale (when i’m faced with a stressful situation, i make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm) showed medium citc (.33), while it was between medium and large (.48) in the study by balzarotti and colleagues (2010). citc of item 9 in the expressive suppression scale (when i am feeling negative emotions, i make sure not to express them) was between medium and large (.43), which was very similar to findings in the study by balzarotti and colleagues (2010), as well as wiltink and colleagues (2011) (citc = .45 and .48 respectively). the two subscales were correlated (r = .10, p < .001) with a relatively small effect size. other studies have reported lack of correlations between the reappraisal and suppression scales (e.g., gross & john, 2003). in addition, the factor analysis basically confirmed two rather independent factors, similar to those reported earlier (gross & john, 2003; john & gross, 2004). whereas gross and john (2003) report two independent factors through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and describe a good fit, wiltink and colleagues (2011) could not completely replicate the two-factorial solutions of the erq (χ2 (42) = 1172.44, p < .001; rmsea = .11; srmr = .097; cfi = .90). in the latter study, reductions in the overall chi2 are reported when allowing item 8 to load on both factors (χ2 (41) = 662.95, p < .001; rmsea = .078; srmr = .064; cfi = .95). rmsea level in the cfa should preferably be below .06 to indicate good fit, but levels up to .08 are considered to indicate acceptable fit. the fit indices in our models are at the borderline levels, and making someminor adjustments in the model would lead to acceptable fit (e.g., allowing some error covariances among the indicators to correlate). we chose not to make such modifications just to attain a better fit to report, as such changes do not in reality correspond to how the instrument has been formed, used and perceived by the participants. overall, the fit indices are very close to what is considered adequate. as hypothesized, the erq reappraisal scale correlated positively with marital adjustment, family warmth, appropriate discipline, and negatively with harsh discipline. the erq expressive suppression subscale was negatively correlated with marital satisfaction and family warmth, and positively with harsh discipline. these results, targeting europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 298 http://www.psychopen.eu/ parents, extend earlier research where individuals who use reappraisal as a strategy have been found to have closer and more rewarding relationships, and those using suppression having more strained relationships, more avoidance of sharing and discomfort with closeness (gross & john, 2003). during middle childhood to adolescence, children need to learn to use more effective emotion regulation strategies. a disability to regulate emotions during these years has been found related to risk for development of psychopathology (e.g., betts, gullone, & allen, 2009). generally it is suggested that when a parent respond sympathetically and supportively to his/her child, the child may learn how to regulate his/her emotions in a new situation, whereas punitive or dismissive reactions of parents to children’s emotions have been related to negative outcomes (for a review, see bariola et al., 2011). theoretically and clinically, it would be valuable with a multi-faceted, comprehensive understanding on the connection between theoretically important parental emotion regulation strategies and the child’s emotion regulation strategies, psychosocial functioning and psychopathology. parental antecedent or response-focused emotion regulation strategies, like cognitive reappraisal or expressive suppression, perhaps in combination with various parenting strategies (e.g., appropriate strategies or harsh, inconsistent discipline) and other characteristics of the family, such as the quality of the parent-child relationship, could be possible moderating or mediating variables for development of child emotion regulation strategies andmight have an effect on outcome in interventions for parents and children with internalizing or externalizing problems. increasing our understanding of how these variables might interact and their importance for outcome could be one way forward for more individualized and tailored treatments. further, cognitive reappraisal and suppression should be investigated in the context of other emotion regulation strategies in experimental studies in various populations to contribute to the theoretical development of the concept of emotion regulation. the present study provides one step in that direction, through the validation of the erq in a sample of parents and providing of norms. limitations despite intensive efforts, the response rate was low, and there is a risk for bias in terms of higher level of education among respondents compared to those who chose not to participate in the study. the number and marital status of responding parents were though fairly evenly distributed among children at each age cohort (i.e., 10 to 13 years of age). children’s limited age range puts another limitation on how representative this sample of parents is in relation to the population of parents in general. nevertheless, these are critical ages when it comes to child development, and knowledge on emotional regulation strategies of parents of children at these ages is important. conclusions the results of this study indicate adequate internal consistency and acceptable factor structure of the erq in a sample of parents to children aged 10-13 years. the study provides norms of the erq as percentiles for mothers and fathers, respectively. parents are role models for their children and emotion regulation in stressful situations may be crucial for providing supportive, validating and positive parenting. if the present findings are replicated and expanded, the erq might be a valuable instrument in research and clinical work with families. funding the work was supported by the national board of health and welfare (grant no. 6.2.1-18225/2010). acknowledgements we are indebted to the parents who participated in the study. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 299 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references abler, b., & kessler, h. 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(2007). process of translation and adaptation of instruments. retrieved from http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/research_tools/translation/en/ about the authors pia enebrink is a research group leader/ph.d., clinical psychologist/licensed psychotherapist. her main research interest currently concerns prevention studies and cbt-treatments for children/youth and their families. annika björnsdotter is a phd-student/clinical psychologist. her research interests involve prevention studies and parent management training (pmt). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 the emotion regulation questionnaire 302 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(200102)57:2<183::aid-jclp5>3.0.co;2-y http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(91)90007-q http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374410701662741 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.3.410 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.17.1.15 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014755 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15374424jccp3003_2 http://dx.doi.org/10.3205/psm000078 http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/research_tools/translation/en/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ ata ghaderi is a professor in psychology, clinical psychologist/licensed psychotherapist. his main research areas are eating disorders, body image, prevention studies, cbt-treatment for various disorders. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(2), 289–303 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i2.535 enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi 303 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the emotion regulation questionnaire introduction method design measures procedure participants statistical analysis results demographics and emotion regulation reliability factor structure of the erq relations to marital adjustment, family warmth/conflicts and parental strategies discussion limitations conclusions funding acknowledgments references about the authors the impact of parental styles on the development of psychological complaints research reports the impact of parental styles on the development of psychological complaints daniela rocha lopes*a, kees van puttenb, peter paul moormann c [a] psychologist, sao paulo, brazil. [b] department of methodology, faculty of social sciences, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. [c] department of clinical, health and neuropsychology, faculty of social sciences, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. abstract the main aim of the present study was to test rogers’ theory, stating that parental styles characterized by unconditional positive regard (upr) promote healthier adults than parental styles characterized by conditional regard (cr). for both caregivers cr was found to be associated with significantly higher scores on psychological complaints than upr (on nearly all scl-90 scales and the scl-total score), even when controlling for gender. although lack of emotional warmth by the father and harsh discipline by the mother were significant predictors of scl-90-total (indicating state neuroticism) it should be noted that both variables only explained a small amount of the total variance. empirical evidence was found for rogers’ theory. others factors than merely emotional warmth and discipline play a role in the etiology of state neuroticism. for future research it is therefore recommended to include other factors, such as daily worries, temperament, and alexithymia keywords: rogers, parental styles, psychological complaints, neuroticism, conditional regard europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 received: 2014-07-03. accepted: 2015-01-23. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: av. vereador josé diniz, 3457 cj. 709 04604 006 campo belo são paulo sp brazil. e-mail: danielarlopes@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the role of early experiences in the development of future psychological problems has been the focus of many personality theories, as demonstrated in rogers’s theory (1951), which mainly considered that a healthy development of personality has to do with favorable conditions which occur especially in parent-child interactions during the formative years. in his theory, the considered optimal relationship is unconditional positive regard (upr), which is characterized by the child being consistently prized regardless of one’s behavior, and moreover by constantly receiving affection and acceptance. rogers (1951) also described the considered less optimal parental style, conditional regard (cr), which on the other hand, is characterized by a tendency of the child to perceive that one is only valued when one’s behavior is in accordance to the parents expectancy since parent-child interactions are permeated by inconsistencies both in discipline and in expressions of love. roger’s concept of cr (1951) has features in common with later constructs, such as parker’s concept of affectionless control (ac) rearing style (1990), characterized by harsh discipline in combination with the lack of a loving attitude. parker (1990) stated that ac parental style seemed to be a risk factor for neurosis or simply for seeking for help. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the pathway from upr to psychological health can be understood through the presence of parents’ consistency in the promotion of emotional warmth and discipline leading to the development of more secure individuals. individuals whose parents demonstrated support, affection and responsiveness to their needs most of the time tend to be less sensitive to rejection. in the same way, they are also more inclined to see themselves as more competent and likeable (wearden, peters, berry, barrowclough, & liversidge, 2008). therefore, it is possible to assume that the presence of consistency in the way parents rear their children directly affect in a positive way the way they see themselves. in that sense, research in this field suggests that individuals reared in upr parental styles tend to present a higher self-concept. due to this condition, those individuals could experience less vulnerability either from negative internal or external cues. on the other hand, individuals with a higher sense of vulnerability tend to experience more psychological distress when exposed to negative internal or external cues. ac, on the other hand, is more related to the presence of parental inconsistencies in rearing styles. inconsistencies were shown to be predictors of psychological disorders because they promote ambivalent feelings towards the self, unpredictability as aversive stimuli and feelings of being subjected to injustice (dwairy, 2010). as it has been mentioned above, ac parental style can be compared to the notion of conditional regard, which was demonstrated to cause an unstable sense of self a fragile self-esteem and a sense the one’s self worth is vulnerable (kernis et al., 1998). the reason why cr or ac parental style might be associated with lack of psychological health can be attributed to parents’ use of love withdrawal and guilt induction (kernis, brown, & brody, 2000) as important factors generating unstable self-esteem. parental styles and psychological complaints several studies demonstrated the relation between negative parental styles and the occurrence of psychological complaints later in life. those studies demonstrated that individuals who were exposed to parental styles involving low levels of emotional warmth and high levels of inconsistent and punitive discipline demonstrated a higher probability of developing psychological complaints in the future such as agoraphobia (manicavasagar, silove, wagner, & hadzi-pavlovic, 1999), depression and anxiety (mcginn, cukor, & sanderson, 2005), low self-esteem (schlette et al., 1998), somatic complaints (lackner, gudleski, & blanchard, 2004), hostility (muris, meesters, morren, & moorman, 2004) and sleepiness (brand, hatzinger, beck, & holsboer-trachsler, 2009). maternal and paternal styles and psychological complaints most studies in this field focused more on the maternal figure, by presenting data supported either exclusively by the analyses of the maternal style or by sample selection based on having equal maternal and paternal styles (simons & conger, 2007). previous studies which have taken in consideration both paternal and maternal rearing styles reported different results concerning a higher influence of the father, of the mother, or even of both parents on the development of psychological symptoms (gerlsma, emmelkamp, & arrindell, 1990; xia & qian, 2001). the present study makes a novel contribution to the existing literature by analyzing parental styles through the presence or lack of two factors combined: emotional warmth and discipline. moreover, the research focuses not only on specific psychological complaints but mainly in their general consequences, known as the concept of neuroticism, in particular its state component. finally, the present study aims to contribute to relevant findings europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding the influence of the father’s role in shaping personalities of children from child towards adulthood (khaleque & rohner, 2012). hypotheses the present study will examine whether early experiences of cr (rogers, 1959) rearing style, which is characterized by high scores on discipline (inconsistent punishment, harsh discipline) in combination with low scores on emotional warmth (lack of a loving attitude), lead to more psychological complaints in adulthood than early experiences of a parental style characterized by upr (rogers, 1959), which is characterized by low scores on discipline (consistent punishment, positively oriented discipline) in combination with high scores on emotional warmth (loving attitude). this will be done for paternal and maternal parenting styles separately. differences between con (high on discipline and high on emotional warmth) and ind (low on discipline and low on emotional warmth) parental styles, will be explored as well. furthermore the impact of the respondent’s gender will be investigated. finally, it will be tested whether the dimensions of discipline and emotional warmth in parental styles predict psychological complaints. considering that inconsistencies present in cr parental style were revealed to be important factors generating unstable self-esteem (kernis et al., 2000) it is expected that subjects exposed to cr parental style present more psychological complaints and, therefore a higher level of neuroticism than those exposed to upr parental styles. material and methods participants a total of 263 undergraduates in psychology of leiden university (52 males;mage = 23.32, and 211 females;mage = 22.73) participated in our research. when tested, none of the students was familiar with the instruments used or with the aim of the study. procedure the lpciq and the scl-90-dutch version were administered on the mental information processing and neuropsychological diagnostic system (minds'96 test manager, (brand, 1996; brand & houx, 1992). all questionnaires were part of a much larger test battery, in which personality questionnaires and neuropsychological tests were included. instruments psychological complaints will be measured through the dutch adaptation of the scl-90 (arrindell & ettema, 1986), whereas parental styles will be measured for both father and mother separately through the lpciq-revised (moormann, bermond, albach, & van dorp, 1997; moormann, de cocq van delwijnen, van wessel, & bauer, 1989; moormann & van dijk, 1992). lpciq-r consists of 21 items and has two dimensions of which the reliability coefficients are: (1) emotional warmth (αfather-child = .89; αmother-child = .88) and (2) discipline (αfather-child = .85; αmother-child = .85). parental styles were constructed by combining extreme scores (> 70th percentile and < 30th percentile) on the emotional warmth (ew) and discipline (d) dimensions, resulting in four parenting styles: cr (low on ew, high on d), upr (high on ew, low on d), con (high on ew, high on d) and ind (low on ew, low on d). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 rocha lopes, van putten, & moormann 157 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scl-90–dutch adaptation consists of nine scales measuring recently experienced somatic and psychological complaints. the main dimension of the scl-90 is its total score (state measure of neuroticism), based on the sum total of the following scales: agoraphobia, anxiety, depression, somatic complaints, insufficiency of thinking and acting, interpersonal sensitivity, hostility and sleep problems. reliability and validity are good (evers, van vlietmulder, & ter laak, 2000). results as parental styles were constructed by combining extreme scores (based on percentile scores) on the emotional warmth and discipline dimensions of the lpciq-r only a selection of the respondents were part of the anovas. the cut off scores for the father were: > 41 on ew and < 16 on d for upr; < 35 on ew and > 18 on d for cr; > 41 on ew and > 18 on d for con; < 35 on ew and < 16 on d for ind. the cut off scores for the mother were: > 44 on ew and < 20 on d for upr; < 39 on ew and > 22 on d for cr; > 44 on ew and > 22 on d for con; < 39 on ew and < 20 on d for ind. our main hypothesis was that cr (both paternal and maternal) leads to significantly higher scores on psychological complaints than upr. descriptives of the scl-90 variables for the four paternal and maternal parental styles are reported in tables 1a and 1b. table 1a descriptives for the parental styles of father concerning psychological complaints (based on the scores from all scl-90 scales) indconcrupr scale nsdmnsdmnsdmnsdm 15195158agoraphobia .740.407.230.057.113.418.930.337 15195158anxiety .152.7312.004.8912.424.4714.963.5212 15195158depression .089.5324.6810.3223.8410.3126.236.6920 15195158somatic .563.2717.904.1615.195.2417.783.6615 15195158insufficiency .952.1313.713.1113.686.9415.173.1712 15195158sensitivity .474.6722.055.9522.1412.7328.653.8421 15195158hostility .073.008.913.847.742.847.161.986 15195158sleep .990.873.642.894.342.694.301.783 15195158neuroticism .6320.20120.4533.37118.3243.49136.7017.41111 results of psychological complaints for the parental style father the results of the one-way anovas with all scl-90 scales as dependent variables and parental styles of the father as independent variable were significant for agoraphobia, f(3, 139) = 3.69, p = .013, depression, f(3, 139) = 3.61, p = .015, insufficiency, f(3, 139) = 5.88, p = .001, sensitivity, f(3, 139) = 7.40, p < .001, sleep problems, f(3, 139) = 2.99, p = .033, and the neuroticism scale, f(3, 139) = 5.89, p = .001. the strength of the relationship between parental styles of the father and agoraphobia, depression, insufficiency, sensitivity, sleep problems, and neuroticism as assessed by partial eta squared, varied from medium (.06) to large (.14) in the cases above, with the level factor accounting from 6% to 14% of the variance of the dependent variable. the levene’s test of equality of error variances was only non-significant for somatic complaints. therefore contrast tests not assuming equal variances were used for agoraphobia, depression, insufficiency, sensitivity, sleep problems, and neuroticism. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 158 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the contrast coefficients for the main hypothesis were -1, 1, 0, 0 for upr, cr, con and ind, respectively. all ttests were one-tailed. the results of the contrasts between upr and cr were significant for agoraphobia, t(57.76) = 2.40, p = .01, depression, t(77.52) = 3.26, p = .001, insufficiency, t(69.42) = 3.68, p < .001, sensitivity, t(57.95) = 3.90, p < .001, sleep problems, t(75.93) = 3.70, p = .008, and neuroticism, t(64.55) = 3.86, p < .001. with the exception of anxiety, somatic complaints and hostility all other scales confirmed the main hypothesis for the father. on the whole respondents with fathers practicing upr displayed significantly lower psychological complaints than fathers practicing cr. table 1b descriptives for the parental styles of mother concerning psychological complaints (based on the scores from all scl-90 scales) indconcrupr scale nsdmnsdmnsdmnsdm 25244333agoraphobia .041.447.880.387.433.638.990.337 25244333anxiety .782.6812.711.2912.945.2315.213.8212 25244333depression .216.4422.066.6321.8613.9828.305.4821 25244333somatic .952.5615.613.7915.176.6317.833.7615 25244333insufficiency .633.8812.254.7113.406.7715.383.7312 25244333sensitivity .486.8423.006.2523.6611.3327.933.4822 25244333hostility .241.886.231.756.013.078.521.856 25244333sleep .401.044.331.883.212.514.681.853 25244333neuroticism .6620.76116.6820.29115.4946.23139.1317.03114 results of psychological complaints for the parental style mother the results of the one-way anovas with all scl-90 scales as dependent variables and parental styles of the mother as independent variable were significant for agoraphobia, f(3, 121) = 3.13, p = .028, anxiety, f(3, 121) = 3.84, p = .011, depression, f(3, 121) = 5.48, p = .001, insufficiency, f(3, 121) = 3.17, p = .027, hostility, f(3, 121) = 3.35, p = .021, and the neuroticism scale, f(3, 121) = 5.49, p = .001. the strength of the relationship between parental styles of the mother and agoraphobia, anxiety, depression, insufficiency, hostility, and neuroticism as assessed by partial eta squared, was medium in all cases, with the level factor accounting from 6% to 12% of the variance of the dependent variable. the levene’s test of equality of error variances was only non-significant for sleep problems. therefore contrast tests not assuming equal variances were used for agoraphobia, anxiety, depression, insufficiency, hostility, and neuroticism. the contrast coefficients for the main hypothesis were -1, 1, 0, 0 for upr, cr, con and ind, respectively. all t-tests were one-tailed. the results of the contrasts between upr and cr were significant for agoraphobia, t(50.82) = 2.35, p = .01, anxiety, t(67.25) = 2.27, p = .01, depression, t(56.84) = 3.25, p = .001, insufficiency, t(66.50) = 2.67, p = .005, hostility, t(65.17) = 2.30, p = .012, and neuroticism t(55.88) = 3.28, p = .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 rocha lopes, van putten, & moormann 159 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with the exception of somatic complaints, sleep problems and sensitivity all other scales confirmed the main hypothesis for the mother. on the whole respondents with mothers practicing upr displayed significantly lower psychological complaints than mothers practicing cr. beyond the main hypotheses in addition to cr and upr parental styles, possible differences considering indifferent and confusing parental styles were also investigated using a one-way anova with post-hoc tests. the levene tests of homogeneity of variances for the father regarding somatization p = .24 showed that the bonferroni post-hoc test, assuming equal variances could be used. for agoraphobia (p = .00), anxiety (p = .03), depression (p = .00), insufficiency (p = .00), sensitivity (p = .00), hostility (p = .00), sleep problems (p = .00), and neuroticism (p = .00) dunnet's c was used, which does not assume equal variances. cr resulted in significant higher scores (p = .05, two-tailed) than con for sensitivity and agoraphobia. moreover cr resulted in significant higher scores (p = .05, two-tailed) than ind for sensitivity (see table 1a). the levene tests of homogeneity of variances for the mother regarding sleep problems (p = .26) showed that the bonferroni post-hoc test, assuming equal variances could be used. for agoraphobia (p = .00), anxiety (p = .03), depression (p = .00), somatic complaints (p = .01), insufficiency (p = .04), sensitivity (p = .01), hostility (p = .00), and neuroticism (p = .00) dunnet's c was used, which does not assume equal variances. cr resulted in significant higher scores (p = .05, two-tailed) than con for neuroticism, anxiety and depression. moreover cr resulted in significant higher scores (p = .05, two-tailed) than ind for neuroticism (see table 1b). the overall picture for both paternal and maternal parenting styles shows the negative effect of cr. gender differences gender differences were found, except for sensitivity, hostility and sleep problems for all scl-90 scales, including neuroticism. descriptives are given in table 2. the levene’s test was significant for all scl-90 variables, except for sensitivity, hostility and sleep problems. it should be noted that the number of respondents is based on the whole file, e.g. all respondents that filled out the scl-90. the parenting styles imply that only extreme scores are used. therefore the number of respondents is much lower for the analyses where differences between parental styles were investigated than the number of respondents involved in testing for sex differences. however the results from table 2 suggest that is advisable to control for gender differences, because on most scl-90 scales female respondents scored significantly higher than male respondents. considering the large number of ancovas (eighteen in total) that had to be performed to control for gender first a data reduction technique was applied, e.g. a principal component analysis (pca) was performed on the scl-90 subscales, to see how they were interrelated. the main issue was how many components could be distinguished among the scl-90 complaints. the pca (see table 3) with varimax rotation, conducted on the 8 scl-90 subscales, resulted in a one-factor solution, accounting for 56.0% of the total variance. component 1 with an eigenvalue of 4.5 accounted for 56.0% of the variance. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 160 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 overview of the scores on scl-90 scales sorted by gender p (2-tailed)tsdmngender neuroticism 812female .001.53) = 3.29t(356.0730.28123 192male .4023.74116 agoraphobia 812female .011.04) = 2.54t(495.781.737 192male .031.487 anxiety 812female .007.24) = 2.70t(335.893.3413 192male .233.6112 depression 812female .000.05) = 4.17t(359.478.7223 192male .556.3921 somatic 812female .000.09) = 4.88t(335.514.6516 192male .743.1215 insufficiency 812female .042.00) = 2.04t(360.504.9013 192male .473.2913 sensitivity 812female .290.45) = 1.06t(320.267.5024 192male .346.9423 hostility 812female .166.56) = 1.39t(307.222.537 192male .042.307 sleep 812female .799.15) = 0.26t(303.052.444 192male .921.404 the results from the pca clearly indicated that there was only one common factor underlying the various scl-90 complaints. this factor is called neuroticism (acknowledged by the test constructors and composed of the sum total of all the 8 subscales; see arrindell & ettema, 1986). when considering the result from the pca (the subscales are highly interrelated) only 2 ancovas were performed instead of 18, where the sum total score of the subscales (neuroticism) acted as dependent variable, the paternal and maternal parenting styles (cr, upr, con and ind) as independent variable and gender as covariate. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 rocha lopes, van putten, & moormann 161 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 pca on the 8 scl-90 subscales component 1: neuroticismscale agoraphobia .640 anxiety .830 depression .870 somatic .700 insufficiency .840 sensitivity .820 hostility .690 sleep .550 gender differences in psychological complaints by parental style father a one-way analysis of covariance (ancova) was conducted in order to eliminate the effect of gender as a potential confounding. a preliminary analysis evaluating the homogeneity-of-slopes assumption for the parental style by the father indicated that the relationship between the covariate (gender) and the dependent variable (neuroticism score) did not significantly differ as a function of the independent variable (parental style by the father), f(3, 135) = .76, mse = 732.97, p = .52, partial η2 = .02. the ancova was significant, f(3, 138) = 6.39, mse = 964.84, p < .01. the strength of the relationship between the parental style by the father and the neuroticism score was medium, as assessed by a partial η2, with the parental style by the father accounting for 12% of the variance of the dependent variable, holding constant the gender factor. therefore differences on the neuroticism scores among groups did not vary as a function of gender. gender was significant for neuroticism (p = .03) and the parental style by the father was also significant (p < .01). these data show that although gender was significant, the impact of the overall parental styles is much stronger than a possible influence by gender on neuroticism. therefore the parental style by the father was shown to be determinant for the scores on neuroticism and gender could be eliminated as a possible confounding since it was shown that being either male or female as a respondent did not play a crucial role on neuroticism scores. gender differences in psychological complaints by parental style mother again a one-way analysis of covariance (ancova) was conducted in order to eliminate the effect of gender as a potential confounding. a preliminary analysis evaluating the homogeneity-of-slopes assumption for the parental style by the mother indicated that the relationship between the covariate (gender) and the dependent variable (neuroticism score) did not significantly differ as a function of the independent variable (parental style by the mother), f(3, 117) = .15, mse = 153.62, p = .93, η2 = .00. the ancova was significant, f(3, 120) = 4.20, mse = 982.18, p = .01. the strength of the parental style by the mother and the neuroticism score was medium, as assessed by a partial η2, with the parental style by the mother accounting for 9% of the variance of the dependent variable, holding constant the gender factor. therefore differences on the neuroticism scores among groups did not vary as a function of gender. gender was not significant for neuroticism (p = .12), but the parental style by the mother was significant (p = .01). once again these data show that the impact of the overall parental styles is much stronger than a possible influence by gender on neuroticism. therefore the parental style by the mother was shown to be determinant for the scores europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 162 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on neuroticism and gender could be eliminated as a possible confounding since it was shown that being either male or female did not play a crucial role on neuroticism scores. in conclusion, the analyses performed when controlling for gender, demonstrated that the overall effect of both paternal and maternal parenting styles is much stronger than gender. results of parental style dimensions (emotional warmth and discipline) on psychological complaints a stepwise multiple regression analysis was carried out, where the four parental style dimensions (emotional warmth by the father, emotional warmth by the mother, discipline by the father and discipline by the mother) were entered as predictor variables and neuroticism (scl-90total score) as dependent variable. the results are given in table 4. table 4 stepwise multiple regression analysis predicting the neuroticism score (scl-90 total score) from both paternal and maternal emotional warmth and discipline components of the lok-r adj. r squarerrbetascale emotional warmth father .050.23-0.23-0.23***-0 discipline mother .060.130.130.12*0 *p < .05. ***p < .001. the outcome of the stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that the state neuroticism scale (scl-90 total score) was predicted from lack of emotional warmth by the father and harsh discipline by the mother. the two predictor variables together explained only 6% of the total variance. lack of emotional warmth by the father was the strongest predictor. the dimensions of emotional warmth by the mother and discipline by the father were not significant. discussion the main outcome supports roger’s notion (1951) that cr compared with upr would lead to significantly more psychological distress later in life. with the exception of a few scales respondents with cr parents reported significantly higher scores on nearly all psychological complaints, including the sum total of the scl-90 (state neuroticism) than respondents with upr parents. this result held for both paternal and maternal parental styles. the devastating effect of cr remained significant even when other paternal andmaternal parental styles (e.g. confusing and indifferent) were involved in the analyses. those findings are also in accordance with previous studies showing that negative parenting styles led to more psychological complaints than positive parenting styles (brand et al., 2009; maynard & harding, 2010; mcginn et al., 2005). although there were some differences in the way male and female respondents reported symptoms of distress, parental styles demonstrated to have more importance than respondent’s gender in what refers to the impact they have on psychological complaints. a remarkable finding was the importance that must be given to the role of the father. both the lack of emotional warmth by the father and the harsh discipline by the mother were found to be the main predictors of state neuroticism. as the lack of emotional warmth by the father explained a greater amount of the total variance than harsh europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 rocha lopes, van putten, & moormann 163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discipline by the mother our data seem to suggest that the role of the father should not be overlooked as a primary caregiver in the development of psychological complaints in the offspring. a cold father was the one exerting the strongest impact on psychological complaints. it has been shown that although the amount of time spent with the children was not predicted by the sex of the parent, mothers still reported to take significantly more responsibility for child-related tasks and for disciplining, regardless of mothers also having a professional career (renk et al., 2003). it has also been found that fathers experienced more satisfaction than mothers with their parenting responsibilities probably because fathers were usually involved in more leisure activities than in assisting in child-related tasks (renk et al., 2003). through these findings it is possible to assume that parents having a better division regarding childcare would not only allow women to reduce their stress and increase their satisfaction regarding parenting responsibilities, but also possibly provoke an increase in fathers’ emotional involvement with the offspring, promoting therefore a healthier psychological development of those individuals. our findings corroborate with khaleque and rohner (2012) research since father’s affection seem to be critical to a person’s development, contributing not only with a child’s development but being also responsible for shaping personalities throughout adulthood. the implication of this lies is the reassignment of a more egalitarian division of the importance of both caregivers, removing the emphasis that is often attributed to the maternal role. therefore, this finding supports the importance of men becoming more involved in nurturing child care. clinical implications professionals designated to assist families and parents in educational and clinical settings should pay special attention to the quality of fathers’ active participation and emotional involvement in childcare tasks. furthermore, regarding the maternal role, the focus should be in assuring that mothers do not exert too harsh discipline in the upbringing of the children. limitations some limitations should be considered when interpreting our findings. first, the vulnerability of our research for retrospective contamination (respondents reporting psychological complaints are inclined to blame their parents for their deplorable psychological state). this could have affected the outcomes of our study as we are in fact dealing with perceived parental styles. second, since lack of emotional warmth by the father and harsh discipline by the mother only accounted for 6% of the total variance, other factors than only parenting styles should be considered when explaining the etiology of psychological complaints. demographic variables such as the socioeconomic status of the respondent may affect the experience of psychological complaints. the same holds for whether parents were married or divorced; whether there was a significant difference in the amount of contact with each parent; and whether parents were biological or adoptive. the respondents personality is another factor of importance. it may be argued that some individuals are more apt to report psychological complaints than others, irrespective of parental styles. dumont (2010) for instance refers to some studies (beer, arnold, & loehlin, 1998; eysenck, 1990; goldsmith, buss, & lemery, 1997) which concluded that patterns of child-rearing exert little impact in shaping the temperament of a child. although the scl-90 total score is not a direct measure of temperament it cannot be denied that its subscales anxiety and hostility do relate to temperament. but even then there is another hurdle to overcome: the scl-90 total score is a state neuroticism score, and it could be questioned to what extent state measures are generalizable europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 164 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to trait measures, since the scl-90 essentially measures breaks in normal function rather than personality or traits (schmitz, kruse, heckrath, alberti, & tress, 1999). however, state and trait measures are not fully independent of each other (see for instance mischel, 1968 on the person-situation controversy). individuals with high neuroticism scores tend to display stronger levels of psychological distress in stress provoking situations than individuals with low neuroticism scores, while everybody, regardless of the trait level of neuroticism, will react with more psychological distress in stressful situations. the foregoing seems to justify why temperament should be considered as a predictor of psychological distress. citing some studies (riemann, angleitner, & strelau 1997; tellegen et al., 1988), dumont (2010) considers that it is possible to find that approximately 70 percent of the variance could be accounted to genetic determinants whereas 20 to 35 percent of it are due to environment. in the present research even less, e.g. only 6% of the total variance was explained by the environment. as the scl-90 deals with recently experienced somatic and psychological complaints it seems likely that all kinds of daily worries, not investigated in our research, might explain a substantial part of the remaining total variance. the same holds for disorders of affect regulation, because alexithymia types with an impaired cognitive component (reduced ability to verbalize, identify and analyze emotions) create a condition for reporting psychosomatic complaints and appear to hamper psychological health (moormann et al., 2008). therefore, future research should be aimed at the analysis and control of these factors contributing to psychological complaints. however it should be noted that the focus of our research was not on all possible factors that might lead to psychological distress, but instead on testing rogers’s theory stating that upr promotes healthier individuals later in life than cr. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references arrindell, w. a., & ettema, j. h. m. 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(2001). the relationship of parenting style to self-reported mental-health among two subcultures of chinese. journal of adolescence, 24, 251-260. doi:10.1006/jado.2001.0375 about the authors daniela rocha lopes, msc, is a psychologist in private practice in sao paulo, brazil. dr. kees van putten is an assistant professor in the department of methodology of the faculty of social sciences at leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. dr. peter paul moormann is an assistant professor in the department of clinical, health and neuropsychology of the faculty of social sciences at leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 155–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.836 parental styles and psychological complaints 168 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jado.2001.0375 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en parental styles and psychological complaints introduction parental styles and psychological complaints maternal and paternal styles and psychological complaints hypotheses material and methods participants procedure instruments results results of psychological complaints for the parental style father results of psychological complaints for the parental style mother beyond the main hypotheses gender differences gender differences in psychological complaints by parental style father gender differences in psychological complaints by parental style mother results of parental style dimensions (emotional warmth and discipline) on psychological complaints discussion clinical implications limitations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain research reports assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipipneo-120) in the public domain petri j. kajonius* abc, john a. johnson d [a] department of psychology, university of gothenburg, gothenburg, sweden. [b] department of psychology, university west, trollhättan, sweden. [c] department of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy, university of skövde, skövde, sweden. [d] department of psychology, pennsylvania state university, state college, usa. abstract assessment of individual differences in personality traits is arguably one of the hallmarks of psychological research. testing the structural validity of trait measurements is paramount in this endeavor. in the current study, we investigated 30 facet traits in one of the accessible and comprehensive public-domain five factor model (ffm) personality inventories, ipip-neo-120 (johnson, 2014), using one of the largest us samples to date (n = 320,128). we present structural loadings for all trait facets organized into respective ffm-trait domain (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness). both hierarchical second-order and bi-factor models showed tolerable model fit indices, using confirmatory factor analysis in a structural equation modeling (sem) framework. some facet traits were substantially more representative than others for their respective trait domain, which facilitate further discussions on ffm-construct content. we conclude that ipip-neo is sufficiently structurally robust for future use, for the benefit of research and practice in personality assessment. keywords: personality, structure, five factor model, ipip europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 received: 2018-06-01. accepted: 2018-10-01. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of gothenburg, p.o. box 500, se 405 30 göteborg, sweden. e-mail: petri.kajonius@hv.se this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. understanding how measurements of individual differences are structured is one of the foundations of psychology. a particular interest for assessment of personality traits has for some time been on the rise, even in fields outside psychology (pennisi, 2016; swann & seyle, 2005). the arguably most used conceptualization for personality is the five factor model (ffm; costa & mccrae, 1995; mccrae, 2010), consisting of trait domains neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. however, underlying the five trait domains is a number of specific lower order facet traits that makes up a more fine-grained structure, which hitherto has been less emphasized. recently, editors have called for increased attention to facet trait analysis as a way forward for research in personality testing (ziegler & bäckström, 2016). the present study sought to advance this call by testing one of the more accessible and comprehensive public-domain representations of the ffm, ipip-neo-120 (johnson, 2014). the ipip-neo is a product of the international personality item pool collaboration project (ipip; goldberg et al., 2006). both researchers and practitioners have free access to this europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ instrument, and to the authors’ understanding it is frequently used in behavioral sciences across europe. the ipip-neo has to our knowledge only been subjected to structural analyses in small samples (e.g., kajonius & dåderman, 2014) or in short versions (e.g., mini-ipip; kajonius & dåderman, 2017). in the present study we were able to secure 30 facet traits based on 120 personality items in a large public us sample (n = 320,128). without a psychometrically sound understanding of an open-source ffm instrument such as the ipipneo-120, implications concerning use and interpretation may be skewed or erroneous (see mõttus, 2016). not knowing how facet traits organize and contribute to the ffm we may not know what the five trait domains imply in terms of scope, precision, and consequently not knowing what the ffm measures. these investigations may help inform on the theoretical and practical use of personality measurement in the public domain. the five trait domains of personality personality traits are important for most, if not all, life outcomes, and have demonstrated predictive validity in subjective outcomes such as relationships and well-being (roberts, kuncel, shiner, caspi, & goldberg, 2007). traits also relate to a variety of objective life-outcomes, such as annual income and educational attainment, as shown in studies with a swedish nation-wide sample (e.g., kajonius & carlander, 2017). personality traits furthermore seem to be growing in importance with the contexts of individualism in modern society (skirbekk & blekesaune, 2014). there is also emerging evidence that personality traits tend to cluster geographically (jokela, bleidorn, lamb, gosling, & rentfrow, 2015; kajonius & mac giolla, 2017), providing nations, regions, or neighborhoods with certain characteristics. personality traits are principally known to be fairly stable and develop predictably throughout life (briley & tucker-drob, 2014). a study based on almost 15 million twin pairs (polderman et al., 2015) reported that the heritability for personality traits generally is 50% (h2 = .49). the majority of reliable (error-corrected) trait variance over a life-time (83%) has been shown to be due to stable influences such as genetics and social maturation (anusic & schimmack, 2016). personality is most frequently measured with the five factor model (ffm; mccrae, 2010). this represents regularities of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in individuals expressed in five broad trait domains: n = neuroticism, e = extraversion, o = openness, a = agreeableness, c = conscientiousness. recurring correlations among these have reignited the importance of studying the structure of the ffm (strus, cieciuch, & rowiński, 2014). this has particularly come to the forefront with the advent of the use of personality traits in the dsm-5 (american psychiatric association, 2013). many psychologists today agree that the ffm framework can be used as a foundation for integrating common and abnormal personality traits (markon, krueger, & watson, 2005). the usefulness of ffm has received much empirical support (see a review by miller, 2012). the lower order facet structure of the ffm organizing personality into five trait domains is often too general for certain purposes, such as when differentiating job candidates for a specific task or individualizing clinical diagnoses. for instance, recognizing that someone is high on trait factor extraversion could indicate that the person is sociable, happy, energetic, or dominant, or all of these. in other words, what is the scope and meaning when someone scores high on extraversion? another example might be illustrated by the trait factor openness. there are several specific lower order facet traits which could be more informative, such as adventurousness in predicting tendency to travel, or intellect in predicting choice of education. research and practice might therefore be better served by using narrower and more specific traits. facets should enable higher precision of analysis (see ziegler & bäckström, kajonius & johnson 261 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2016). the ipip-neo instrument makes use of this by including a number of facet traits, consisting of dispositions towards certain behaviors, affects, and cognitions within each factor domain (see zillig, hemenover, & dienstbier, 2002). the 30 facet traits of ipip-neo are presented in table 1, with 6 facet traits for each one of the 5 trait domains, arranged in columns, followed by example items. for instance, the first facet trait friendliness in trait domain extraversion (e1) attempts to capture the propensity of being friendly and experienced as socially warm person. one item example of the friendliness facet trait is the extent one “makes friends easily”. personality models are often constructed by items making up facet traits which in turn make up the broad trait domain, which aims at generating both content scope and precision (johnson, 2014; mccrae, 2010). the extent to which this hierarchical structure is valid can be tested by assessing how items, facets, and trait factor are interlinked. optimally, both trait and facet levels should be saturated by the variance provided by items. table 1 the five personality traits and their underlying facet traits in the ipip-neo-120 neuroticism extraversion openness agreeableness conscientiousness n1_anxiety worry about things e1_friendliness make friends easily o1_imagination love to daydream a1_trust trust others c1_self-efficacy excel in what i do n2_anger get angry easily e2_gregarious love large parties o2_artistic believe in the importance of art a2_morality cheat to get ahead c2_orderliness like to tidy up n3_depression often feel blue e3_assertive take charge o3_emotionality feel other’s emotions a3_altruism love to help others c3_dutifulness keep my promises n4_self-conscious find it difficult to approach others e4_activity am always busy o4_adventurous prefer variety to routine a4_cooperation love a good fight c4_achievement work hard n5_immoderation rarely overindulge e5_excitement love excitement o5_intellect love to read challenging material a5_modesty think highly of myself c5_self-discipline am always prepared n6_ vulnerability panic easily e6_cheerful radiate joy o6_liberalism tend to vote for liberal political candidates a6_sympathy sympathise with the homeless c6_cautiousness rush into things note. each one of the 30 facet traits in ipip-neo are exemplified with a typical item worded in italics. the present study the overall endeavor of the present study was to test the structure of one public domain version of the five factor model (ffm) of personality, ipip-neo-120 (johnson, 2014). the specific objective was to investigate how facet traits organize according to its proposed structure (table 1) in respective ffm trait domain. the general hypothesis was that facet traits would contribute to each trait domain according to their positions in the established ffm literature (costa & mccrae, 1995). confirming the structure of personality assessment in the public domain would give important information on scope and meaning of this publically available ffm to professionals who need a simple and accessible instrument in their research and practice. assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 262 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method sample and procedure we were able to make use of one of the largest us samples to date (n = 320,128). the sample consisted of 40% males (n = 127,695) and 60% females (n = 192,433), with an average age of 28.1 years (sd = 10.1). the respondents were 19–69 year old. the data was collected through an online survey, in the form of a website offering visitors feedback on their ffm personality after filling out 120 items. the visitors were at large volunteers from all walks of life, nationwide in the us, who could have reached the site by word-of-mouth, internet search engines, and other informal channels. every participant had to actively acknowledge that the survey would be time-consuming, used for educational and research purposes, and that careless responding would invalidate the usefulness. no login was required, and no personal, traceable data (e.g., ip-addresses) was collected, neither data on ethnicity, socio-economic status, or other demographic characteristics. the data-set can be accessed at an open psychology research depository (see supplementary materials). data limitations despite the generous number of respondents this likely is not a representative nationwide sample. due to the active volunteering of respondents, a reasonable assumption is that several of the trait facet levels such as in openness to emotionality, openness to intellect, and altruism were likely unrepresentatively high (see appendix), since these traits are known to characterize people interested in psychology (vedel, 2016). another concern was that online surveys are often known for inconsistent responding or intentional misrepresentations. however, the quality of the present online survey data was analyzed according to guidelines in johnson (2005). for example, duplicates (showing long strings of equivalent data) were removed. also, repetitive patterns, which may indicate curiosity to see the items with no purpose of doing going through with the test, were removed. the missing data (1%) was finally corrected by imputing item means. due to the present size of sample (n = 320,128), the item-correlations with and without the missing data imputed showed near perfect convergence (r = .998). the conclusion is that these commonly raised problems may not interfere with the purpose of the present study. instrument ipip-neo-120 is a publically available representation of the ffm (johnson, 2014), drawing 120 items from the international personality item pool (ipip; goldberg et al., 2006). ipip-neo was built on open-source items correlating with the original neo-pi-r (costa & mccrae, 1995). ipip-neo was created seeking to optimize length, reliability, and validity in ffm measurement, and even surpassed the original in mean facet reliability (α > .80) (johnson, 2014). the trait scales are built by four correlated items within each facet trait, while keeping bandwidth in meaning (i.e., removing repetitive items), as well as tending to balancing items (+ and – keyed items). each of the items are measured on a 1 (almost never) – 5 (almost always) scale which then are summarized into facet traits (min = 4, max = 20). six facet traits in turn are averaged into one trait factor. overall, the mean reliability for facet scales in the present study was α = .78. only four facets (13%) were below α = .70. see table 2 for a summary of alphas. kajonius & johnson 263 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical method the analyses were based on the 30 facet traits in the ffm (ipip-neo-120). we first explored the unconstrained factor structure with facet correlations and exploratory factor analysis to see if facets organized into five proposed factors. the main objective was then finalized with testing hierarchical structural cfa models, one for each trait domain. the models were based on established ffm literature (costa & mccrae, 1995), and tested the loadings between manifest items, latent trait facets, and respective latent trait domain. we utilized fit indices table 2 exploratory factor analysis of ipip-neo facet traits trait domain / facet trait α c e a n o conscientiousness .90 c1_self-efficacy .77 .74 .04 -.09 -.11 .08 c2_orderliness .85 .49 .02 .10 .04 -.21 c3_dutifulness .67 .46 -.06 .44 -.03 -.14 c4_achievement .78 .76 -.04 .10 .08 .08 c5_self-discipline .72 .80 .05 .02 -.05 -.09 c6_cautiousness .88 .38 -.26 .31 -.26 -.12 extraversion .89 e1_friendliness .81 .08 .85 .11 -.06 -.07 e2_gregariousness .80 -.02 .83 -.08 .03 -.04 e3_assertiveness .86 .53 .25 -.33 -.07 .16 e4_activity .71 .55 .19 -.08 .14 .02 e5_excitement .74 -.17 .45 -.39 -.01 .25 e6_cheerfulness .80 .11 .61 .14 -.18 .01 agreeableness .85 a1_trust .86 -.09 .40 .38 -.13 -.05 a2_morality .74 .20 -.07 .62 -.07 .05 a3_altruism .73 .11 .31 .57 .23 .27 a4_cooperation .69 -.01 -.05 .72 -.22 -.03 a5_modesty .72 -.19 -.13 .46 .18 -.05 a6_sympathy .73 .01 .16 .52 .22 .31 neuroticism .90 n1_anxiety .79 .00 -.13 -.02 .83 -.07 n2_anger .87 .12 -.09 -.45 .55 .00 n3_depression .85 -.21 -.39 -.05 .47 .14 n4_self-conscious .72 -.11 -.64 .14 .22 -.06 n5_immoderation .72 -.29 .09 -.23 .27 .16 n6_vulnerability .78 -.17 -.09 .03 .76 -.10 openness .82 o1_imagination .75 -.21 -.02 -.14 .07 .52 o2_artistic .75 .02 -.06 .19 -.02 .64 o3_emotionality .66 .08 .17 .32 .45 .37 o4_adventurous .71 -.05 .18 -.04 -.35 .45 o5_intellect .74 .12 -.23 -.02 -.26 .64 o6_liberalism .69 -.19 -.04 .02 -.01 .32 note. boldface italics indicates factor loading not aligning to expectation (i.e., higher loading on the wrong trait factor). 95% ci were less than ±0.01. assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 264 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for two ways of modeling each ffm trait domain. the first way was the original and most used hierarchical second-order structure in two levels (costa & mccrae, 1995). this is characterized by the general latent trait domain at the top, loaded by six facet traits, which in turn are loaded by 24 item measurement items. the second way of modeling was a bi-factor model, where both the general latent trait factor and specific latent facets are loaded onto directly by measurement items. the bi-factor approach is also helpful in revealing if any facet traits could be viewed as trait domains on their own—if items would not load on the general trait domain factor, but only on the facet trait, this could imply independence from the ffm domains. the cfa model was conducted in a sem-framework, extracted with maximum likelihood, using amos v.23. the models were attempted as largely unconstrained, without covarying error terms. due to the large sample size, all results were significant and standard errors were less than 0.01. results figure 1 presents all 30 facet correlations in ipip-neo (red colors showing negative relationships and blue colors showing positive relationships). figure 1. correlations between the 30 facet traits in the five factor model ipip-neo-120 (n = 320,128). note. the more intense blue color, the higher positive correlation, the more intense red color, the higher negative correlation. c1-c6 = conscientiousness facets; e1-e6 = extraversion facets; a1-a6 = agreeableness facets; n1-n6 = neuroticism facets; o1-o6 = openness facets. descriptions of facet abbreviations are found in table 1. kajonius & johnson 265 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, the contrasting intensity of blue along the diagonal generally shows a high internal coherence within the five trait domains. equally, the rows and columns of the neuroticism factor (facets n1-n6) show intensity of red colors, indicating overall negative correlations with the other four trait domains. apart from these patterns, most facets showed weak or no color with cross-facet traits, indicating fair, but far from perfect, discriminant qualities. exploring five factors in the ipip-neo before investigating the main objective of testing the five-factor structure as measured by ipip-neo, we checked whether exploratory factor analysis (efa) would confirm five factors. utilizing maximum likelihood (ml) for extraction, and oblique rotation, assuming correlations between facets, the summary of loadings (structural pattern) is reported in table 2. only five factors had eigenvalues above 1, which was an initial confirmation of the ffm ipip-neo structure. the goodness of fit was χ2 (295) = 38,877, rmsea = 0.07, and tli = 0.84. the first factor extracted 21%, the second 11%, the third 8%, the fourth 6%, and the fifth 5% of total variance, making the total 51%. overall, the facet traits revealed five clear trait structures (table 2). however, there were also 4 facet discrepancies, as marked in italics in table 2. facet trust (a1) loaded slightly more on extraversion; assertiveness (e3) and activity (e4) organized mostly under conscientiousness; and emotionality (o3) under neuroticism. the structure of the five factors in the ipip-neo the main objective was to test the structures of the ffm trait domains in the public ipip-neo-120 instrument. all five cfa trait structure models, one for each domain, were conducted in two ways: second-order models; see figure 2a, and bi-factor models; see figure 2b). all parameters were unconstrained, and conducted without modifications (e.g., covariances between errors). table 3 accounts for the results of the second-order models (based on figure 2a), one for each ffm domain. the table includes fit indices (χ2(df), rmsea, tli, and cfi), reported in the trait domain rows, and facet and item loadings, reported in the facet rows. the first observation was that the second-order structures overall showed at best tolerable model fits. most were above recommended stricter limits (rmsea > 0.05 and cfi, tli < 0.90; cheung & rensvold, 2002). fit indices, however, could be improved by allowing one or two selected error variances to covary within each trait facet, which would result in neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness structures fitting within recommended limits (rmsea < 0.05 and cfi, tli > 0.90). a second observation was that loadings both on facet and trait factor level were overall high. the average facet loading in the second-order models was 0.65, and the average item loading 0.70. however, a few weaker loadings (defined as β < .50) were seen, such as facet traits trust and notably modesty in the agreeableness domain, or assertiveness and activity in the extraversion domain. openness showed the overall weakest construct coherence, with three of its facet traits, that is, imagination, emotionality, and liberalism, showing weak loadings. such facet traits may not be contributing robustly to their respective general trait factors. also, on the contrary, several facet traits showed notably strong loadings (β > .90)—friendliness on extraversion, self-discipline on conscientiousness, and anxiety and vulnerability on neuroticism almost showed convergent identity. assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 266 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. a) the structure of the ffm second-order models. b) the structure of the ffm bi-factor models. note. ffm = five factor model. table 4 accounts for the bi-factor models (based on figure 2), one for each ffm domain. the first observation here was that the bi-factor models, which control for a general trait factor, overall showed better model fits than second-order models. this is however expected since fit indices such as rmsea reward parsimony (i.e., adding constraints). nevertheless, cfi were also superior, and the difference was substantial for two of the trait structures: extraversion (.90 compared to .87) and agreeableness (.91 compared to .86). a second result was that ecv average was .47 on facet level and .50 on trait factor level. these results can overall be interpreted as unidimensionality in the components of the ipip-neo structure, which support a more nuanced facet structures as hypothesized. along this line of reasoning, however, some trait structures had facets that seemed disconnected from the trait domain. for instance, the trait factor agreeableness and facet modesty showed a disconnection. items “i think i am better than others” and “i think highly of myself” did not load on the general trait domain agreeableness (β = .05 and β = .09), but highly on the facet trait (β = .88 and β = .90). (recall that facet trait modesty did not load satisfactorily on agreeableness in the second-order model). also, self-discipline (in trait domain conscientiousness) and friendliness (in extraversion) items even loaded negatively on respective facets, while loading strongly on respective general trait factors. this could be interpreted as these facets being identical with the general trait factor.i these mentioned examples may represent the core of respective general factors but may at the same time be too similar to optimally function as independent facet traits. a last and final complexity was that all the trait domain models may be confounded by common variance bias, such as social desirability or acquiescence responding. this could potentially confound fit indices, as well as kajonius & johnson 267 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ loadings (see the extended discussion in anusic, schimmack, pinkus, & lockwood, 2009). consequently, we also attempted to estimate to what extent a common method factor may be present. we created a so called bogus marker variable, which was made up by four uncorrelated fake items, which we added to the bi-factor model of the trait structure agreeableness, chosen for its face appeal and social desirability. the average loadings from this fictive variable on the common factor, even though small, were not trivial (β = .18). with no comtable 3 ipip-neo second-order ffm trait structures (based on figure 2a) trait domain / facet trait ecv facet (β) item a item b item c item d neuroticism χ2(246) = 23,295; rmsea = 0.06; tli = 0.90, cfi = 0.91 n1_anxiety .49 1.0a .62 .67 .68 .79 n2_anger .62 .57 .85 .82 .82 .65 n3_depression .59 .72 .82 .73 .87 .65 n4_self-conscious .40 .54 .74 .61 .63 .53 n5_immoderation .40 .41 .61 .62 .61 .68 n6_vulnerability .47 .98 .77 .70 .64 .62 extraversion χ2(246) = 30,751; rmsea = 0.07; tli = 0.87, cfi = 0.88 e1_friendliness .53 .96 .72 .79 .75 .63 e2_ gregarious .51 .89 .72 .76 .60 .75 e3_assertive .61 .47 .85 .76 .81 .70 e4_activity .44 .43 .77 .83 .60 .29 e5_excitement .42 .54 .73 .73 .49 .60 e6_cheerfulness .51 .75 .66 .74 .73 .72 openness χ2(246) = 17,301; rmsea = 0.05; tli = 0.88, cfi = 0.89 o1_imagination .45 .45 .52 .63 .79 .71 o2_artistic .44 .88 .77 .55 .60 .70 o3_emotionality .39 .41 .54 .59 .50 .66 o4_adventurous .33 .46 .52 .68 .69 .59 o5_intellect .44 .67 .54 .73 .59 .77 o6_liberalism .43 .35 .88 .34 .83 .35 agreeableness χ2(246) = 26,313; rmsea = 0.06; tli = 0.86, cfi = 0.87 a1_trust .61 .42 .81 .69 .81 .81 a2_morality .43 .63 .68 .59 .83 .49 a3_altruism .41 .91 .63 .74 .62 .57 a4_cooperation .37 .64 .49 .58 .72 .63 a5_modesty .47 .13 .46 .87 .92 .24 a6_sympathy .42 .78 .66 .71 .57 .64 conscientiousness χ2(247)* = 17,513; rmsea = 0.053; tli = 0.92, cfi = 0.93 c1_self-efficacy .46 .89 .73 .65 .67 .72 c2_orderliness .58 .55 .69 .70 .84 .80 c3_dutifulness .42 .62 .80 .57 .35 .79 c4_achievement .49 .81 .72 .69 .75 .63 c5_self-discipline .40 .99 .99 .67 .66 .45 c6_cautiousness .66 .49 .82 .77 .83 .82 note. each ffm facet loads (β) on the top trait domain factor, and is made up by four items (a, b, c, and d). see figure 2a. ecv = explained common variance (based on respective items); ffm = five factor model; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; tli = tucker lewis index; cfi = comparative fit index. 95% ci were less than ±0.01. aa standardized beta equal to or above 1.0 can legitimately occur, and indicates high multicollinearity (deegan, 1978). assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 268 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mon method variance present, this bogus variable should have been closer to zero. this result indicated that almost 4% of the variance in agreeableness may be attributed to common method factors due to the respondent source. table 4 ipip-neo bi-factor ffm trait structures (based on figure 2b) trait domain / facet trait item a (g) item b (g) item c (g) item d (g) neuroticism χ2(230)a = 20,704; rmsea = 0.06; tli = 0.90, cfi = 0.92, ecv = 0.52 n1_anxiety .16 (.60) .57 (.65) .13 (.66) .55 (.80) n2_anger .75 (.44) .61 (.52) .71 (.44) .49 (.41) n3_depression .58 (.58) .46 (.54) .66 (.60) .37 (.51) n4_self-conscious .66 (.38) .50 (.34) .53 (.34) .38 (.35) n5_immoderation .54 (.28) .63 (.18) .56 (.24) .58 (.33) n6_vulnerability .56 (.76) .31 (.69) .10 (.63) .04 (.62) extraversion χ2(228) = 22,111; rmsea = 0.06; tli = 0.90, cfi = 0.91, ecv = 0.55 e1_friendliness -.01 (.73) .09 (.76) .64 (.71) .12 (.62) e2_gregarious .70 (.58) .28 (.69) .10 (.58) .28 (.66) e3_assertive .77 (.38) .65 (.37) .73 (.34) .59 (.37) e4_activity .79 (.25) .70 (.39) .49 (.35) .31 (.03) e5_excitement .45 (.46) .48 (.42) .71 (.06) .63 (.32) e6_cheerfulness .32 (.55) .31 (.64) .60 (.50) .62 (.49) openness χ2(228) = 12,405; rmsea = 0.05; tli = 0.91, cfi = 0.92, ecv = 0.43 o1_imagination .31 (.46) .49 (.35) .84 (.27) .59 (.35) o2_artistic .39 (.64) .11 (.56) .29 (.51) .59 (.53) o3_emotionality .47 (.25) .51 (.29) .42 (.25) .69 (.18) o4_adventurous .44 (.27) .57 (.35) .70 (.26) .45 (.36) o5_intellect .25 (.48) .60 (.46) .33 (.47) .63 (.48) o6_liberalism .80 (.31) .30 (.16) .82 (.25) .31 (.17) agreeableness χ2(228) = 15,003; rmsea = 0.05; tli = 0.91, cfi = 0.93, evc = 0.48 a1_trust .76 (.30) .57 (.39) .77 (.28) .71 (.38) a2_morality .49 (.48) .37 (.46) .59 (.60) .17 (.48) a3_altruism .40 (.49) .62 (.55) .22 (.56) .24 (.50) a4_cooperation .39 (.33) .58 (.35) .40 (.52) .33 (.52) a5_modesty .41 (.45) .88 (.05) .90 (.09) .20 (.35) a6_sympathy .68 (.37) .54 (.46) .19 (.52) .41 (.47) conscientious χ2(228) = 13,700; rmsea = 0.05; tli = 0.94, cfi = 0.95, ecv = 0.53 c1_self-efficacy .23 (.66) .38 (.54) .37 (.57) .42 (.56) c2_orderliness .57 (.40) .54 (.43) .72 (.45) .66 (.45) c3_dutifulness .66 (.47) .38 (.40) .13 (.34) .64 (.47) c4_achievement .35 (.60) .38 (.56) .52 (.59) .40 (.50) c5_self-discipline -.13 (.64) -.05 (.66) .39 (.66) .29 (.56) c6_cautiousness .72 (.39) .66 (.39) .73 (.40) .69 (.45) note. ffm = five factor model; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; tli = tucker lewis index ; cfi = comparative fit index. each ffm facet is made up by four items (a, b, c, and d), and is controlled by g (general trait domain factor). see figure 2b. very weak loadings (below .20) are marked in italics. 95% ci were less than ±0.01. fit indices (χ2, rmsea, tli, cfi) are reported based on figure 2b, without improvement modifications (e.g., covariations between errors or between facets). adid not converge in a first run with all parameters free, returning negative error variance or heywood cases, which was amended by relaxing two constraints. kajonius & johnson 269 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion we were able to confirm the established five factor structure in the public-domain version of the ffm, ipipneo-120, in one of the largest us public samples to date. the inter-correlation matrix (figure 1), as well as the exploratory factor analysis (table 2) reported five clearly recognizable factor patterns. the main objective of testing hierarchical second-order models and bi-factor cfa models (figures 2a and b) overall reported tolerable fit indices, and mostly sufficient structural loadings (tables 3 and 4). however, these were at times not overly impressive. the results may be interpreted in a more optimistic light, seeing the often notoriously low model fit indices and weak model structures in complex personality models (hopwood & donnellan, 2010). it was clear that the five trait factors were supported by a substructure made up of facet traits, based on the ecvvalues (≈ .50; see table 4). the ecv indicated that substantial common variance is present in the ipip-neoitems, assuming trait unidimensionality and thus supporting a more nuanced facet structure. only trait factor openness had a relatively low ecv of .43 and is the one factor in the ipip-neo that is more loosely structured, being composed of items constituting various facets such as imagination, liberalism, and intellect (see table 1). the ipip-neo-120 results encourage careful future use of the five trait domains and 30 facet traits in the public domain. this use is presently ongoing, such as being used in subclinical contexts (kajonius, 2017), or nation-wide comparisons (kajonius & mac giolla, 2017; mac giolla & kajonius, 2018). in line with previous research, the present study also identified some overall concerns regarding trait domain validity in the ipip-neo-120. despite the ffm being an empirically impressive model, many critics have pointed out apparent limitations, such as lack of robust scope and meaning (see mccrae, 2010). one measurement objective is that facet traits should help define the broader trait domains, not confuse these. there may be both independent facet traits (e.g., modesty) as well as perhaps domain-convergent facet traits (e.g., self-discipline and friendliness) in each of the ffm trait domains, as the present study indicates. the ipip-neo has undoubtedly inherited some problems from the original neo-pi-r model (cf. costa & mccrae, 1992; furnham, guenole, levine, & chamorro-premuzic, 2013). one example in the present study is that facet traits openness to imagination, emotionality, and liberalism are weakly (β < .50) related to the general openness domain. another example is the activity and assertiveness facets in extraversion. in the ipip-neo, openness seems to be more characterized by artistic (esthetic) interests and intellectual endeavors, rather than emotions and politics (see facet loadings in table 3), and extraversion seems better characterized by social energy and positive temperaments, than being busy and assertive (which tended to sort under conscientiousness, when unconstrained in efa; see table 1). moreover, one specific finding worth highlighting is that the facet trait modesty was almost entirely disconnected from trait domain agreeableness, and may surprisingly be the one facet currently not functioning sufficiently. one explanation could be that modesty should indeed be viewed as an independent trait apart from agreeableness. modesty may be more linked to a proposed sixth factor in an expanded ffm paradigm, honesty-humility (cf. kajonius & dåderman, 2014). another explanation may be that modesty contains a greater degree of social desirability than other facet traits (allik et al., 2010). not many would score an item such as “i think i am better than others” highly, and this may not provide enough variance to support a general agreeableness trait. this anomaly may again fuel the debate concerning a sixth factor in the ffm, suggesting the addition of honestyhumility (e.g., deyoung, quilty, & peterson, 2007). such a factor may capture additional normative values, beyond agreeableness. either way, reporting the contents and structural validity of a trait domain is a crucial key factor for understanding what is being measured. assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 270 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the other side of the coin is that a few ipip-neo facet traits also showed, not weak or disorganized loadings, but extremely strong loadings bordering on identity. facet traits self-discipline under conscientiousness, friendliness under extraversion, and anxiety under neuroticism reported cfa loadings around and above β = .90. this may be interpreted as the facet trait being identical to the trait domain, and could be considered too convergent for a multifaceted structure. conversely, this can also be considered as core features of respective ffm trait domains, and can be helpful when creating and choosing items for shorter personality measurements with fewer items. it is clear that there remains a challenge on how to establish conceptualizations of personality trait domains— are they mostly descriptions of underlying temperaments, or behavioral life-styles, thus yielding different scopes and meanings to the trait domains (cf. zillig et al., 2002)? the present structural analyses, using one of the largest population samples to date, may facilitate this discussion by reporting overall results pertaining to what is being measured in each of the five trait domains. (for instance, ipip-neo openness measures mostly intellectual/artistic curiosity, and extraversion measures mostly being happy in the fellowship of other people). the complexity and hierarchy of psychological personality traits may ultimately never be captured in a simple structural model (hopwood & donnellan, 2010). nevertheless, the present ipip-neo seems to be reasonably robust compromise. the take-home message from the present study is the demonstrated structure of lower order ffm facet traits, which provides some of the needed scope and precision for future needs of measurements of individual differences. notes i) note that the second-order models reported convergence between facet self-discipline and trait conscientiousness (β = .99) as well as between facet friendliness and trait extraversion (β = .96). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. data availability raw data collected with both a 300-item and 120-item ipip version of the neo pi are freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials raw data collected with both a 300-item and 120-item ipip version of the neo pi (for access see index of supplementary materials below). kajonius & johnson 271 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials kajonius, p. j., & johnson, j. a. 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(2002). what do we assess when we assess a big 5 trait? a content analysis of the affective, behavioral, and cognitive processes represented in big 5 personality inventories. personality and social psychology bulletin, 28(6), 847-858. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289013 appendix table a1 sample descriptive statistics of 5 trait domains and 30 facets trait domain / facet trait m sd α neuroticism 11.10 2.66 0.90 n1_anxiety 12.07 3.77 0.79 n2_anger 11.51 4.11 0.87 n3_depression 9.35 3.87 0.85 n4_self-conscious 11.69 3.64 0.72 n5_immoderation 11.94 3.44 0.72 n6_vulnerability 10.07 3.63 0.78 extraversion 13.69 2.36 0.89 e1_friendliness 14.48 3.60 0.81 e2_gregarious 12.36 4.02 0.80 e3_assertive 14.56 3.43 0.86 e4_activity 12.84 3.15 0.71 e5_excitement 12.52 3.32 0.74 e6_cheerfulness 15.35 3.20 0.80 assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain 274 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 https://doi.org/10.1038%2fng.3285 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1745-6916.2007.00047.x https://doi.org/10.1002%2fper.1936 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fgpr0000017 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167204271591 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2015.12.011 https://doi.org/10.1027%2f1015-5759%2fa000372 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167202289013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trait domain / facet trait m sd α openness 13.71 2.06 0.82 o1_imagination 14.60 3.41 0.75 o2_artistic 14.67 3.58 0.75 o3_emotionality 15.20 3.01 0.66 o4_adventurous 12.28 3.26 0.71 o5_intellect 14.50 3.55 0.74 o6_liberalism 11.03 3.67 0.69 agreeableness 14.87 2.01 0.85 a1_trust 13.43 3.54 0.86 a2_morality 16.63 2.88 0.74 a3_altruism 16.72 2.56 0.73 a4_cooperation 15.10 3.49 0.69 a5_modesty 12.34 3.35 0.72 a6_sympathy 15.03 3.10 0.73 conscientiousness 14.95 2.34 0.90 c1_self-efficacy 16.32 2.40 0.77 c2_orderliness 13.23 4.31 0.85 c3_dutifulness 16.32 2.57 0.67 c4_achievement 16.06 3.09 0.78 c5_self-discipline 14.07 3.16 0.72 c6_cautiousness 13.68 4.09 0.88 note. n = 320,128. sd = standard deviation. the facet trait scales ranged from 4 (min) to 20 (max). nmale = 127,695, nfemale = 192,433, mage = 28.13, sd = 10.14. 95% ci were ±0.01. about the authors petri kajonius is an active research within the fields of personality and social psychology, and an associate professor in work psychology at university west, sweden. he is also an acknowledged speaker and communicator of science to the broad public. john a. johnson is professor emeritus of psychology at the pennsylvania state university. he has published on personality, moral and educational development, career choice, and work performance. dr. johnson is a recognized expert on computerized psychological measurement. over a million persons have completed his on-line personality test, which was designated a yahoo! incredibly useful site of the day. dr. johnson co-edited a book published by the american psychological association, advanced methods for conducting online behavioral research. he currently helps manage the international personality item pool website. he has taught more than 20 different courses and is the recipient of a number of awards for teaching excellence. kajonius & johnson 275 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 260–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1671 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ assessing the structure of the five factor model of personality (ipip-neo-120) in the public domain (introduction) the five trait domains of personality the lower order facet structure of the ffm the present study method sample and procedure data limitations instrument statistical method results exploring five factors in the ipip-neo discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references appendix about the authors value-personality link measured with novel instruments developed with an emic perspective research reports value-personality link measured with novel instruments developed with an emic perspective suna tevrüz a, tülay turgut* a, murat çinko b [a] division of organizational behavior, department of business administration, marmara university, istanbul, turkey. [b] division of quantitative methods, department of business administration, marmara university, istanbul, turkey. abstract the first aim of this study is to investigate whether instruments developed with an emic approach in turkey produce the same trait-value links obtained with studies using near universal instruments, and if emic traits and value concepts are composed under agency and communal conceptions. so, the first aim of this study is to inspect the conceptual similarities in the links between traits and values. the second aim is to examine the moderating effect of disposable income on the strength of the trait-value relationship. undergraduate and graduate students (n = 595) from six universities in istanbul responded to the personality profile scale (pps) and the life goal values (lgv) questionnaire. second order factor analysis indicated that indigenous value and trait items were representative of communal and agency conceptions. furthermore, most of the value-trait links revealed with regression analysis, and the sinusoid relationships revealed with pearson correlation coefficients were consistent with the findings measured with near universal instruments. additionally found relationships between traits and especially conservation values can be interpreted as the instrumentality of agentic traits for personal as well for social focused values. disposable income had a moderating effect on five trait-value relationships and three out of five were weaker in the low-income group. keywords: traits, values, communion, agency, emic, disposable income europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 received: 2016-05-19. accepted: 2017-01-23. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: division of organizational behavior, department of business administration, marmara university, bahcelievler campus, 34180, istanbul, turkey. e-mail: tturgut@marmara.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. personality and values are important variables for understanding the person, and many studies done in various countries and cultures have examined the relationship between these two attributes with the aim of developing an integrative model for enriching our understanding of the individual (parks-leduc, feldman, & bardi, 2015). most commonly used survey instruments are schwartz’s value survey and the big five trait measurement. schwartz’s value theory was developed with an etici approach and is found to have near universality across cultures (cieciuch, schwartz, & vecchione, 2013; schwartz, 1994). big-five, on the other hand, “has shown itself to be reliable, valid and useful in a variety of contents and cultures” (mccrae & costa, 2004, p. 592) and is found to be universal across cultures (mccrae & costa, 1997). the first aim of the present research is to examine the trait-value relationship using instruments developed in turkey with an emic perspective and to see if the links found with instruments of universal usage will be replicated with turkish indigenous measures and if value and trait items are representative of communal and agency conceptions. meanwhile, restriction of europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ economic resources was found to have a moderating effect on the strength of value-trait relationships (fischer & boer, 2015). our second aim is to test if the amount of disposable income effects value-trait links measured with indigenous instruments. similarities and differences between values and personality traits personality and values are two areas of different psychological disciplines. values are studied in social psychology, whereas personality is a research area of personality and individual differences, however, they are associated concepts (parks & guay, 2009; parks-leduc et al., 2015; roccas, sagiv, schwartz, & knafo, 2002). correlational studies infer common genetic factors for values and personality traits (schermer, vernon, maio, & jang, 2011). furthermore, rokeach (1973, p. 21) had called attention to the common descriptive terms when he stated that a person’s character, which is seen from a personality psychologist’s standpoint as a cluster of fixed traits, can be reformulated from an internal, phenomenological standpoint as a system of values. thus, a person identified from the “outside” as an authoritarian on the basis of his f-scale score can also be identified from the “inside” as one who values obedience, cleanliness, and politeness and undervalues broadmindedness, intellectualism and imagination. it is not uncommon to run into terms shared by both concepts. for instance, the term obedience may both be a tendency or a belief about the importance of being obedient to elderlies or to authority. however, this does not mean that valuing obedience will lead to obedient behavior (sheldon & krieger, 2014). in spite of some similarities, there are important distinctions between the two constructs. personality traits relate to what we naturally tend to do, while values relate to what we believe we ought to do. values are ordered by importance and may conflict with each other when activated simultaneously, so that value priorities may change if exposed to new environments but personality traits are relatively stable. values include an evaluative component while personality traits do not. moreover, values as life goals may drive behavior (fischer & boer, 2015) and being cognitive representations of motivations affect behavior under volitional control, but traits are linked to temperament and describe what people are like (fischer & boer, 2015; parks & guay, 2009; roccas et al., 2002). hence, links found in correlative studies between personality traits and values are not perfectly systematic; there is variability in the outputs of empirical studies. however, differences between the measurements used could be one of the reasons for this variability. meta-analytic studies on value-trait links done by fischer and boer (2015) and parks-leduc et al. (2015) include only those studies using schwartz’s value measurement (svs and pvq) and the big five trait measurement. the present study examines valuetrait relationships on the basis of these two studies. values, traits and their association with agency-communion schwartz’s value measurement, which consists of power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, conformity, tradition and security as 10 value types, is found to be near universal across cultures. the ten main values are related in a circular pattern and the values are organized in two bipolar dimensions, which are openness to change vs. conservation and self-enhancement vs. selftranscendence. openness to change and self-enhancement incorporate individual interest, while their opposites, conservation and self-transcendence incorporate social interest (schwartz, 2012). the circular structure is formed through the conflict of opposite poles and compatibility among adjacent values. so outside variables related to a value are similarly related with the adjacent values and the relationship gets weaker as tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 195 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the value type departs from the most positively related value. however, the relationship is not linear, but sinusoidal (schwartz, 1992, 1996) described as smoothly fluctuating curves. meanwhile, a recent study by trapnell and paulhus (2012) shows that schwartz’s values are also related to the importance people place on agency and communion, referred by bakan (1966) as two fundamental modalities of human existence. hogan (1983) labels them as “getting ahead” (agentic) and as “getting along” (communion). agentic content refers to goal achievement and task functioning like competence, assertiveness and persistence. communion content refers to relationship and social functioning like helpfulness, benevolence, trustworthiness and cooperativeness (abele & wojciszke, 2014). two basic motives of these two dimensions are approval and power (paulhus & john, 1998). these two factors encompass various two fold conceptualizations in psychology such as instrumentality vs. expressiveness, masculinity vs. femininity, independent vs. interdependent, initiating structure vs. consideration, etc. (abele & wojciszke, 2014). schwartz’s (2012) differentiation of values as personal focused vs. social focused was also revealed in trapnell and paulhus’ (2012) study, in order to be interpreted in the agentic and communion framework. the data collected from the premier european social survey (ess) revealed that self-transcendence and conservation values locate at the communion dimension, whereas self-enhancement and openness to change values locate at the agentic dimension. on the other hand, personality traits are described as recurrent patterns of thought, behavior and affect, so they vary in the extent to which they are based to cognition (parks-leduc et al., 2015). the big-five trait measurement consists of neuroticism (emotional stability), extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience (intellect) as five traits. the fifth factor is the broadest factor including interests in all aspects of life, such as thoughts, ideas, experiences, feelings, art and intellectual curiosity (olver & mooradian, 2003). this five-factor structure is also found to be universal across cultures (mccrae & costa, 1997). the agentic and communion constructs are also attributed to differentiate personality traits (paulhus & trapnell, 2008; trapnell & wiggins, 1990). agency attributes are positively related to openness to experience and negatively related to agreeableness and conscientiousness. communion attributes, on the other hand, are positively related to extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness (diehl, owen, & youngblade, 2004). when we bring together the findings of trapnell and paulhus (2012) and trapnell and wiggins (1990) studies, we can expect agentic natured values and agentic traits to be related to each other while communal natured values and communion traits to be associated with each other. for the value-trait association, parks-leduc et al. (2015) propose two sources of similarities, which strengthen the links between specific traits and values: the nature and the content of the two constructs. specific traits, which are more cognitive in nature and content, tend to have stronger links with values, but affective natured traits may have weaker links. for example, the contents of the trait openness to experience and the value openness to change are matching. both include preference for new ideas, new experiences, stimulation, curiosity, creativity and self-direction. thus, the trait openness to experience, is found to have the strongest link and emotional stability, the lowest link with values (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015). here, we again see a two-fold conceptualization: cognitive-natured vs. affective-natured concepts. in both meta-analytic studies using schwartz value and the big five trait measurement (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015) the strongest positive association is found between openness to experience trait and the higher order value openness to change (especially with self-direction). the second consistent positive value-personality link 196 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ association is between the personality trait agreeableness and socially oriented values such as benevolence and conformity. the structural pattern of the value theory also works with this trait-value link (parks-leduc et al., 2015). that is, the links of traits are negative with the opposite ends of the same major dimensions (agreeableness conflicts with self-enhancement and openness to experience/intellect with conservation) as proposed in the value theory. contrary to the assumption of the oppositions of bipolar values in schwartz’s model, agency and communion value dimensions are not opposites in agentic-communion model. according to wiggins (trapnell & paulhus, 2012, p. 43) various combinations are “possible in a society or in an individual: development of one modality does not restrict development in the other; there is no inherent conflict between the two”. on the contrary they moderate each other (abele & wojciszke, 2014). the findings of the two meta-analytic studies (fischer & boer, 2015 and parks-leduc et al., 2015) and of findings collected from the two sources of data (trapnell & paulhus, 2012) are acquired from two scales (i.e., the big five and schwartz’s value scales), which are near universal across cultures. according to parks-leduc and colleagues, similarity of the nature of the two constructs is important in the value-trait relation. this means stronger links are expected between cognitive natured traits and values as well as between affective natured traits and values. it will be challenging to explore the conceptual similarities of the trait-value links measured with indigenous instruments. it will also be interesting to see how indigenous value and trait items are composed under agency and communal conceptions. so, one of the goals of this study is to inspect the conceptual similarities in the links between traits and values. moderating variables in value-trait links the two meta-analytic studies also examined value-trait relationships with a moderating variable. parks-leduc et al. (2015) examined the role of individualism-collectivism and tightness-looseness of culture as moderators. the data collected for the moderating variable is based on hofstede’s 1980 data in which countries are assigned a number from 1 to 100 representing their level of individualism versus collectivism and level of tightness versus looseness. neither of these cultural variables was found to be effective on the relationships between traits and values. however, there is a long lapse of time between 1980 and 2015 studies. maybe current data collected for the same cultural variables for each country would give different results. fischer and boer (2015), on the other hand, examined the contribution of restricting threatening contexts as moderators on the strength of value-trait links. these moderators are resource threat (measured by gross national income), ecological threat (measured predictors are: population pressure, air quality, human sustenance and death, infant mortality etc.), and restrictive social institutions (measured predictors are: autocracy, crime rate, press freedom, labor freedom etc.). in high threatening contexts, all personality traits, except extraversion were found to have weaker correlations with values. personality traits and value links were found to get stronger with low financial, low ecological threats and with high democratic social contexts. these findings are an important contribution to theoretical explanations of value-personality association, which challenged us to examine the moderation effect of participants’ disposable income. educational and personal expenses of students are mostly taken care of by their families in turkey. depending on the families’ economic condition some students get larger and some get smaller amounts of allowance and some have to earn their own living. therefore, the disposable income ranges from finite to infinite, which we assumed would constrain their choices and lead to differences in the degree of satisfaction with the use of money. high satisfaction will have facilitating and no satisfaction will have hindering effects in life, which tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 197 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ consequently will have an impact on the values considered to be important, resulting in a difference of valuetrait link between the high-income and low-income groups. we hypothesize that the value-trait link for the lowincome group will be weaker than those of the high-income group. method participants and procedure participants (595 in total) of the study include 462 (78%) undergraduate and 123 (21%) graduate students (and 10 -1%missing response) from two state universities (32%) and from four private universities (68%) in istanbul, turkey. 348 (59%) females and 245 (41%) males (2 missing response) between the ages of 18 and 48 (m = 22.8, sd = 3.6), participated on voluntary bases and completed the questionnaires during class hours. instruments two scales were used for the measurement of value-trait link: life goal values (lgv) questionnaire to measure values and personality profile scale (pps) to measure traits. disposable income was measured by a single question. life-goal values values are measured with life-goal values (lgv) questionnaire. it consists of 33 value items, 23 of which are indigenous items developed in turkey and integrated with 10 pvq itemsii, which was analyzed with multidimensional scaling proxscal (tevrüz, turgut, & çinko, 2015). the 33 items were distributed to nine basic values. conceptually similar indigenous and pvq items joined together under the same regions as seen in figure 1. however some adjacent but distinct values in schwartz’s model formed single regions (e.g., stimulation/hedonism and achievement/power). there were no emic items corresponding to universalism, so it was represented with a single item transferred from pvq. all the main values were given schwartz’s universal value names except a specific ninth area, named intellectualism, which took place under openness to change region. values of openness to change and self-enhancement on figure 1 represent individual interest while values of self-transcendence and conservation represent social interest (tevrüz et al., 2015). in the present study, participants were asked to answer the question, “how similar is this person to you?” responses were given on a 6-point scale type with end points 1 (not a bit similar to me) and 6 (very much similar to me). value-personality link 198 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. configuration derived from the combination of wag and pvq items (tevrüz, turgut, & çinko, 2015). personality profile scale (pps) for the measurement of personality traits, the 43-item pps developed by tevrüz and türk smith (1994) is used. pps contains six factors detected with explorative factor analysis with principle component extraction method and labeled talent (outstanding, intelligent, superior, perfect, clever, talented and creative), agreeableness (docile, compliant, calm, silent, patient, self-sacrificing and modest), liveliness (cheerful, smiling, friendly, talkative, joking, funny and active), restlessness (distressed, pessimistic, nervous, impatient, conflicted and capricious), determination (determined, hardworking, ambitious and powerful) and selfishness (egoistical, selfish and aggressive). gülgöz (2002) notices some resemblance between these factors and the big five model of personality traits. talent and determination factors are compared with conscientiousness, which contains self-discipline, aim of achievement, dependable, organized tendencies. agreeableness and selfishness (in low values) are similar to positive and negative poles of agreeableness of the big five, which reflects a tendency to be cooperative. liveliness and restlessness matches with extraversion and neuroticism. however, personality profiles scale does not cover the openness to experience dimension of the big five model. pps is a product of a measurement in which the adjectives are evoked by everyday life experiences, not from lexical studies, which may incorporate infrequently used adjectives. traits like imaginative, visionary, responsive and intuitive of openness/intellect dimension of the big five are rarely used adjectives in everyday discourse (saucier, 1992). so this omission is expected. the 43 items of pps were inspected by a group of scholars and graduate students for up to datedness, and five items were eliminated due to changes in the meaning of items with time such as “yumuşak-soft” becoming to mean gay in current lexicon. tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 199 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pps is a self-rating bipolar scale, one of the poles representing similar to my personality ranging from 4 (very much) to 1 (very little) and the other pole contrary to my personality ranging from -4 (very much) to -1 (very little). participants rate how much each adjective corresponds to or contradicts their personality on an 8-point bipolar scale. disposable income participants’ disposable income was explored by a single questioniii, simply asking them to indicate the adequacy of their monetary status in spending money. six response alternatives ranged from 1 (i can spend as much as i can, without giving much thought) to 6 (i can hardly meet even my basic necessities). among these six response alternatives we name the first three measures as high income and the last three measures as low income. since the aim of the present study is simply to compare the value-trait link of those who are financially well off and those who have financial difficulties in spending money, participants who selected one of the first three alternatives were grouped as having high income and participants who selected one of the last three alternatives were grouped as having low income. results this section includes the analyses of higher-order dimensions of traits and values, value-trait relationships, the pattern of the value-trait relationships and the moderating effect of disposable income. but the pps, which was developed 20 years ago, has not been used ever since. furthermore, some items were eliminated for this study because of their change of meaning in 20 years, which made us suspect the original six-factor structure. so, for the present study we preferred to analyze the factor structure of pps with explorative factor analysis and carry out further analyses stated above with the obtained structure. hence we begin this section with the factor analysis of pps. personality profile scale (pps) factors explorative factor analysis with principle component extraction method and obligue rotation for 38-item pps extracted seven factors. eight itemsiv are excluded from the analysis because of the low factor loadings. the results are given in table 1. factors in table 1 evoke the dimensions of the big five. for instance, adjectives, which locate on the first factor lively resemble the extroversion dimension of the big five facet, which includes adjectives, like active, sociable, talkative, etc. the second factor restless and the sixth factor bold have adjectives as in neuroticism of the big five expressing experiences of negative emotions. combination of agreeable (factor 3) and compassionate (factor 7) bears a resemblance to agreeableness of the big five. diligence (factor 5) partly taps conscientiousness, which incorporates in the big five trait adjectives like hardworking, achievementoriented and persevering. no correspondence to openness to experience/intellect is found in the indigenous personality profiles scale. the only personality trait, which reminds openness/intellect of the big five, is “creative” of the competency factor. lively has the highest reliability score (alpha = .86), whereas bold has the lowest (alpha = .56). value-personality link 200 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 factor structure for personality profile scale factor name items factor loading factor variance (%) reliability lively 21.50 .86 20 humorous .82 34 playful .80 24 cheerful .76 15 smiling .62 21 talkative .59 06 friendly .57 29 affectionate .48 restless 11.85 .77 19 somber .83 22 pessimistic .81 31 distressed .66 18 capricious .62 09 conflicting .53 competent 7.19 .78 41 capable .85 40 creative .83 43 intelligent .76 01 clever .59 agreeable 9.06 .74 26 peaceful .83 28 quiet .76 25 patient .65 37 docile .63 diligent 4.89 .72 04 determined -.81 08 hardworking -.77 16 ambitious -.70 bold 3.98 .55 27 aggressive -.73 32 nervous -.61 07 daring -.55 compassionate 3.76 .64 12 devoted -.75 03 modest -.62 05 selfish .55 17 kind -.47 total factor variance 62.23 note. kaiser meyer olkin sampling adequacy = .84; bartlett's test of sphericity chi square: 9448.66; df = 435; p = .000. higher-order dimensions of traits and values in order to see the conceptual similarities between value and trait factors and keeping in mind the agentic and communion modalities, we ipsatized (centering within subjects) all values and traits, and applied a second order factor analysis (principle component with oblique) forcing values and traits to two factors. table 2 gives tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 201 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the combined result of values and traits. there are five values and three traits in factor 1. the traits (competent, lively, diligent) and four values (stimulation/hedonism, self-direction, achievement/power and intellectualism) are individual focused. in bakan’s (1966, p. 14) terms they are “for the existence of an organism as an individual”. however, as the fifth value security of the social focused conservation dimension is also located in the same factor, but this is not anomalous, since security value shares the same motivational goal with power in avoiding or overcoming threats by controlling relationships and resources (schwartz, 2012, p. 10). we can say factor 1 is representative of the agentic modality. the second factor includes four values and two traits, which are social focused denoting relationship, social functioning; thus it is representative of the communion modality. however, this second factor is also related to the traits “bold” and “restless”. bold implies an aggressive tendency and restless negative emotions. both are negatively related to communion and have very low loadings. because of the cognitive nature of values, these two traits of emotional content are not expected to have strong relations with values (parks-leduc et al., 2015). table 2 second order factor analysis for value and trait factors factor factor loading factor 1: agentic (v) stimulation/hedonism .69 (v) self-direction .66 (v) achievement/power .64 (v) intellectualism .63 (t) competent .57 (t) lively .55 (t) diligent .49 (v) security .43 factor 2: communion (t) agreeable .69 (v) conformity .64 (t) compassionate .60 (v) tradition .56 (v) benevolence .52 (v) universalism .42 (t) bold -.37 (t) restless -.24 total factor variance 36.44 note. t = traits; v = values. kaiser meyer olkin sampling adequacy = .72; bartlett's test of sphericity chi square = 2177.18; df = 120; p = .000. value-trait relations the value-trait relation was analyzed with univariate regressions of values on traits (forward inclusion). results are given in table 3. all personality traits, even restless, have significant links with values, but r2 values (ranging from .09 to .19) demonstrate low contributions to variance. the strongest links are between compassionate and conformity (ß = .33), between compassionate and benevolence (ß = .31) and between lively and stimulation/hedonism (ß = .30). remaining links vary between ß = -.09 and ß = .26. value-personality link 202 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 regression analysis of nine value factors on seven traits statistic self-enhancement self-transcendence conservation openness to change ach/power benevolence universalism security conformity tradition intellectualism self-direction stim/hedo r2 .17 .19 .10 .09 .16 .11 .18 .09 .14 f value 19.86*** 28.75*** 14.55*** 12.67*** 24.25*** 21.59*** 21.79*** 16.68*** 26.93*** trait ß value lively .19*** -.10* .10* .15*** .30*** restless .11* .13** competent .11* .11* -.10* .20*** .15*** .12** agreeable .09* .12** .10* .14** -.09* diligent .19*** .11* -.14** .19*** .13** .23*** compassionate .31*** .26*** .11* .33*** .25*** .16*** .10* bold .10* -.11* .13** -.10* *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. based on two major findings of the meta-analytic studies (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015), regression results given in table 3 are inspected on two grounds: 1) whether the nature of trait-value links are similar to earlier meta-analytic studies, and 2) whether link patterns are in accordance with value structure, in which case traits having links with values of one pole should not have links with values of the opposite pole, too. value-trait links of openness to change and conservation values values on the openness to change dimension emphasize individual interest and are cognitive in nature, revealing individual control and accomplishment. the three values given on figure 1 for openness to change are intellectualism, self-direction and stimulation/hedonism. intellectualism is about meaning, enthusiasm and capacity use. self-direction is about independent thought and action, exploring and creating. both are linked to competent (ß = .20 and ß = .15 respectively) (table 3). intellectualism is also related to diligent (ß = .23) described as determined, hardworking and ambitious (table 1). self-direction and stimulation/hedonism, on the other hand, have links with lively (ß = .15 and ß = .30 respectively). these three personality traits (competent, diligent and lively) are directed to individual interest and they have a cognitive nature like the basic values to which they are linked in the agentic modality (table 2). however, intellectualism is related also to compassionate (ß = .16), which has a social and emotional content described as devoted, modest and kind (table 1), hence its negative relation with bold (ß = -.10) is rather spontaneous. conservation pole -opposite of openness to change poleincludes security, conformity and tradition values. they represent collective interest and are about safety for children and family, compliance to social norms by having an orderly life, being trustworthy, avoiding missteps and acceptance of and respect for tradition and religion (figure 1). conformity and tradition are linked to agreeable (ß = .10 and ß = .14 respectively) which includes peaceful, quiet, docile and patient personality traits (table 1) sharing the communion modality with these values (table 2). like security they are also related to compassionate (ß = .11, ß = .33 and ß = .25 respectively), which implies social interest (table 1). these traits are conceptually fitting to the conservation tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 203 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dimension. also the negative link between conformity and competency -a trait of the opposite pole(ß = -.10) is in accordance with the structural pattern of the value theory. however, conformity and security values are also related to diligent (ß = .13, ß = .19), and security to lively (ß = .10). while tradition gets in relation with bold (ß = .13), those who give importance to security seem to reject boldness as a personality trait (ß = -.11). the two traits (lively and diligent) have individual focus and agentic meaning, which is more appropriate to openness to change values of the opposite pole. so, all value types of conservation share traits of the opposite pole values, which contradict to the structural pattern of the value theory and the results of the two meta-analytic studies (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015). however, this sharing is acceptable with the agentic-communion model (wiggins, 1991). trait-value links of self-transcendence and self-enhancement values the second higher order value dimension is self-enhancement of individual interest versus self-transcendence of collective interest. achievement and power of the self-enhancement pole, which exist as independent value types in schwartz’s value model, are united as a single value in a previous study (tevrüz et al., 2015) and are analyzed as a single value in the present study, too. regression analysis with forward inclusion gave relevant links between achievement/power and personality traits, which symbolize individual interest (lively: ß = .19, competent: ß = .11 and diligent: ß = .19). however, restless and bold which have negative emotional connotations are also related to achievement/power (ß = .11, ß = .10 respectively). benevolence and universalism are self-transcendence values at the opposite pole, assessing social interest. they have links with agreeable (ß = .09 and ß = .12, respectively). the two meta-analyses also gave the same relation (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015). likewise compassionate, the second trait of social interest, also relates with benevolence and universalism (ß = .31 and ß = .26, respectively). benevolence also gets in relation with traits signifying individual interest. benevolence is represented by welfare of others, integrity, contribution to society and protection of the environment (figure 1). being competent (ß = .11) and diligent (ß = .11) seem to be functional for those who give importance to benevolence. on the other hand, being lively and diligent seem to be contrary to universalism (ß = -.10 and ß = -.14), which was represented by the wording “equality for all”. pattern of the value-trait relations schwartz’s value theory states that an outside variable related to a value is similarly related with the adjacent values and the relation gets weaker as the value type departs from the most positively related value. schwartz (1996), morselli, spini, and devos (2012) and parks-leduc et al. (2015) supported this pattern. traits and values of the same modalities share the same factor (table 2), but regression analysis shows that some values are also related to the traits of the opposite modality (table 3) and this relation is not in accordance with values’ structure, but is acceptable with the agentic and communion framework. in order to see the pattern of value-trait relations, correlations between traits and values are graphically represented as advised by schwartz (1992, 1996). the values are placed on the horizontal axis in the order they take on the value circle given in figure 1 and the traits in three separate groups (communion traits, agentic traits and traits having negative emotion) are plotted on the vertical axis. we used pearson correlation coefficients between values and traits (figure 2, 3 and 4). value-personality link 204 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. results for social tendency traits (agreeable and compassionate). figure 3. results for individual tendency traits (lively, competent and diligent). figure 4. results for negative emotional tendency traits (bold and restless). figure 2 gives the sinusoid pattern as predicted by the value theory (schwartz, 1996). higher correlation of agreeable and compassionate with the adjacent conservation and transcendence values gets weaker in both directions. figure 3 of individual focused agentic traits (lively, competent and diligent) gives a different picture, especially with competent and diligent traits. the two peaks with achievement/power and intellectualism, which are individual-focused agentic values, is expected, but the third peak with benevolence of social-focused communion value distorts the pattern. competence and diligence seem to be functional for benevolence. on the other hand, lively demonstrates a more accurate pattern predicted by the value theory. tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 205 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the pattern of restless is also fitting to the prediction (figure 4). a positive correlation of restless with achievement/power and the adjacent stimulation/hedonism values also get weaker as values move away from achievement/power. but such a pattern does not hold for bold. the trait bold shows a deviation by its positive relation with the value tradition. the pattern and regression results obtained in the present study show that especially values of communion get in significant relations with agentic traits, which is not in accordance with values’ structure. however, when approached as agentic-communion entities, they facilitate or mitigate each other (abele & wojciszke, 2014, p. 9). on the whole, although the development of the items of the two instruments used in this study was of indigenous nature, results of value-trait relations measured with these instruments are relatively comparable with those achieved by the universal instruments. disposable income and value-trait relationships fischer and boer (2015) found a moderating effect of restricting conditions on the strength of value-trait relations. in the present study disposable income is hypothesized as having a moderating effect on the valuetrait link. it is coded as a dummy variable and is multiplied with personality traits to be entered as a third predictor into the regression analysis. however, the high correlation of this predictor variable with the dummy variable led to multicollinearity problem. hence, correlation analysis is applied for the value-trait links of highincome and low-income groups, and fisher’s z is calculated for the significance of difference between correlations (preacher, 2002; sas institute, inc., 2010). the two groups differ on five value-trait relations (table 4). value-trait links are stronger for the high-income group, supporting earlier findings on the country level (fischer & boer, 2015), except for achievement/powerbold and achievement/power-diligent relation (z = -2.59, 95% ci [-.40, -.06] and z = -3.08, 95% ci [-.44, -.10]). bold people (defined as aggressive, nervous, daring) and diligent people (defined as determined, hardworking, ambitious) give importance to achievement and power more when they have low income. but when the income is high, diligent people give importance to intellectualism more (z = 2.05, 95% ci [.0002, .34]). table 4 difference between high-income and low-income groups trait, value h l fisher’s z 95% cir n r n competent benevolence .33*** 266 .14** 272 2.27* [.03, .37] diligent achievement/power .14** 259 .39*** 275 -3.08*** [-.44, -.10] intellectualism .42*** 261 .27*** 273 2.05* [.0002, .34] bold achievement/power .09 263 .31*** 276 -2.59** [-.40, -.06] compassionate stimulation/hedonism .21*** 267 .03 277 2.11* [.01, .35] note. only significant relations are reported. h = high income; l = low income. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. value-personality link 206 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the other two traits related with values are competent and compassionate. competent is individual-focused, but is linked to the social-focused benevolence value when income is high (z = 2.27, 95% ci [.03, .37]). those who don’t have difficulty in spending money are more open to benevolence if they are competent. it is interesting to note that when income is high, those who are compassionate give also importance to stimulation and hedonism more (z = 2.11, 95% ci [.01, .35]). relation between compassionate (devoted, modest and kind) and stimulation/hedonism (fun, exciting life and pleasure) does not seem to be in tune, but as seen from table 3, one of the highest contribution to stimulation/hedonism comes from liveliness (ß = .30), which encompasses traits of affection like friendly, smiling, affectionate. however, further exploration for clarification is needed. discussion studies done on value-trait links with universal scales provide some meaningful relationships (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015). also, the values and traits of these scales are found to be differentiated to agentic and communion constructs, which are considered as two fundamental modalities of human existence (paulhus & trapnell, 2008; trapnell & paulhus, 2012). this study looks for conceptual similarities of indigenous value-trait relationships with those found with universal measures and with the two fundamental modalities. moderating effect of disposable income on value-trait relationships is also inspected. we first discuss the comparable and incomparable findings and then the moderating effect of disposable income. comparable findings indigenous value items stem from turkish people’s responses given to work goal and achievement goal questions which integrate with schwartz’s values (tevrüz et al., 2015). likewise, the indigenous personality trait items resemble the big five trait items although the items are derived from turkish people’s self-descriptive responses. hence, in terms of resemblance of indigenous scales to near universal scales, we evidence some conceptual similarities, which we expect to be repeated in the value-trait relationships and in their decomposition to agentic-communion constructs. as for the value-trait relationships, the meta-analytic studies report that, one of the most consistent value-trait relationship holds between the trait agreeableness and the value benevolence. agreeableness also seems to have a moderate relationship with universalism, conformity and tradition (fischer & boer, 2015; parks-leduc et al., 2015). the present study replicates these findings. the other most consistent relationship is between openness to experience trait and openness to change (especially with self-direction) value. openness to experience factor of the big five is a broad trait having the most cognizant and individual focused features. the indigenous personality profile scale does not have the richness of this broad factor, but the factor competent (with traits such as capable, creative, intelligent and clever) has a cognitive nature with an individual focus and its relation with intellectualism and self-direction, which are also individual focused, is analogous to openness to experience and openness to change relation. so far, these relationships derived through indigenous and near-universal scales seem to be in conceptual agreement. meanwhile, the two fundamental modalities, agentic and communion concepts, set up a framework for distinguishing two aspects of values and traits (trapnell & paulhus, 2012). agentic refers to goal achievement tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 207 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and task functioning, whereas communion refers to maintenance of relationship and social functioning (abele & wojciszke, 2014). findings of the present study give a similar conceptual decomposition of indigenous values and traits to two fundamental modalities, which are nearly perfect representatives of agentic and communion constructs (table 2). security, as a conservation value seems like an outsider to agency. however security is an adjacent value to power (an agentic value), and they both stress the “same orientation on the motivational continuum around the circular value structure” (schwartz, 1996, p. 124); so, its existence does not distort the agentic picture. incomparable findings table 3 gives some opposing values, which share the same personality traits; that is, some agentic values are associated with communion traits (like intellectualism and self-direction with compassionate), and some communion values with agentic traits (like conformity, and benevolence with diligent and competent). in each case the conflicting value poles are similarly associated with some of the traits and this is incompatible to the theorized value structure (roccas et al., 2002; schwartz, 1992, 1996). on the other hand, it is compatible with the explanations of the two fundamental modalities of human existence. it is quite possible that the content, nature and the assigned meaning of the outside variable (the traits) function as agency and communion attributes in corroborating the values of opposite poles. this brings to mind the possibility that communion (or agentic) values may be in conjunction with agentic (or communion) traits if these traits do not contradict each other. for example, a person, who gives importance to intellectual values may also have compassionate tendencies for others as well as being competent and diligent for herself; or a person, who gives importance to conformity, may well be a diligent person as well as being compassionate and agreeable. a person, who gives importance to benevolence, may also need to be a competent and a diligent person besides being agreeable and compassionate; or a person maybe lively, diligent and also compassionate for keeping close others from difficulties or hardship. such results are expected in the agentic and communion conceptualization, since they are two fundamental modalities in the existence of individuals (bakan, 1966, pp. 14-15). individuals exhibit their broad classes of behavior in a social environment, where they act as participants (communion); they also exist for their own goals and aspirations (agency). abele and wojciszke (2014, p. 9) resemble them to the dual nature of human existence. they are not independent; they mitigate each other. if they don’t, for example; if an extreme form of dominance (agency) is not mitigated with kindness (communion) it will be harmful both for the self and for interacting others. moreover, a study (abele, 2014) done on life satisfaction found that the highest satisfaction occurred when communion-values were moderated by agentic-traits. the value-trait relationships attained with the indigenous instruments used in this study are in coherence with the dual perspective model of agency-communion. the theorized value pattern of schwartz’s model proposing the opposition of the value poles, especially when they are associated with outside variables, seems to call for integration with the agency-communion model. under what conditions and with which constructs corroboration between opposing values occur seems to be a challenging research question. furthermore, it would enrich our understanding of values and also individuals if we know what it means to make or not to make distinctions between opposite poles. financially advantaged and disadvantaged groups fischer and boer (2015) hypothesized and found that under threatening conditions value-trait relationships get weak. the results of this study show weak relationships between values and traits. those, who have financial value-personality link 208 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ difficulties show weaker links especially with openness to change values (intellectualism and stimulation/ hedonism) and benevolence, but the relationship of bold and diligent with achievement/power is stronger. diligence and boldness seem to be functional for the financially disadvantaged to attain achievement/power. diligence, with its hardworking, determined and ambitious features, is a reasonable and useful instrument for attaining achievement/power, but the instrumentality of boldness is rather doubtful. when comparisons are made, the financially disadvantaged group may perceive own status as a state of injustice, which stimulates anger and aggression (adams, 1965; brown, 1986), and bold bears aggressive, nervous and daring features. these descriptions of bold bring to mind the dark triad, which is composed of machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy, which are malevolent and antisocial traits in general population, and all three traits are significantly correlated with power and achievement (kajonius, persson, & jonason, 2015). lack of the dark triad trait measurement seems to create weaknesses in personality traits and value studies. with the use of these traits we could have obtained more information about “financially disadvantaged-bold” relation as well as about “tradition-bold” relation. conclusion as a conclusion, we can say that the relationships between personality traits and values measured with near universal and indigenous instruments present conceptual similarities, supported by the agentic-communion dual perspective. the present study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the plausibility of value-trait measurement with a new (indigenous) set of traits and values, which give comparable results to those obtained with near universal measures. on the other hand, the incomparable findings demonstrate the potential of emic measurements exposing some unpredicted findings, which we think should be taken into consideration in values research, especially when relationships with an outside variable and the effect of a moderator is studied. inclusion of the two fundamental modalities into the values studies would give new insights. we think the adopted emic approach may serve to encourage the development of novel instruments with an emic approach, which may help to expose cultural and transcultural trends. besides, we can say that the findings of this study gave us the opportunity to see turkish university students’ description of values in terms of their self-understanding. it would be interesting to follow up and see if their values and self-descriptions change in turkey, where the government gets increasingly authoritarian and pan-islamic, demonstrating malevolent practices on environmental and judicial issues and where there is a continuous increase in unemployment-rates (gökay & xypolia, 2013; http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/preistatistiktablo.do?istab_id=2262). limitations the generalizability of the findings of the study is not so wide as including turkish people as a whole, since the sample consists of only students of universities settled in istanbul. for example, because of the characteristics of the sample, intellectualism value may be specific only to students in the academic life; and the relationship of restless and diligent traits with intellectualism may be more a characteristic of young people. hence, replication is needed with future studies, which have diversities in age, education and home city (urban or rural). notes i) in social science, two perspectives are cited as etic (the outside perspective) and emic (the inside perspective). the etic research attempts to identify the universal aspects of behavior and the main goal is to make generalizations of behavior across cultures and to develop theories. the emic research attempts to identify culture-specific aspects of behavior, and the tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 209 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/preistatistiktablo.do?istab_id=2262 http://www.psychopen.eu/ main goal is to explore and document the valid principles in any one culture (brislin, 1976; lu, 2012; mccutcheon, 1999; morris, leung, ames, & lickel, 1999). ii) shortened forms of pvq are used widely in ess (21-items) and in wvs (10-items). morselli, spini, and devos (2012) compared them and found similar results, implying the representativeness of the 10-item measure. iii) our aim was to see if students’ allowance was satisfactory enough while spending money. it is a narrow-scoped construct. there are studies, which show that when a construct is narrow, concrete, specific and unambiguous, use of a single-item is preferred (bergkvist & rossiter, 2007; diamantopoulos, sarstedt, fuchs, wilczynski, & kaiser, 2012). iv) excluded items are: active, dynamic, realistic, powerful, outstanding, intolerant, super and indolent. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank şeyda türk smith, nurdan özarallı, and güler i̇slamoğlu for proof reading the earlier versions of the article. we would also like to express our appreciation to three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions in refining the article. references abele, a. e. 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(2011). a behavior genetic study of the connection between social values and personality. twin research and human genetics, 14(3), 233-239. doi:10.1375/twin.14.3.233 tevrüz, s., turgut, t., & çinko, m. (2015). integrating turkish work and achievement goals with schwartz’s human values. europe’s journal of psychology, 11, 259-279. doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 tevrüz, s., & türk smith, ş. (1994). üniversite gençliğininin kişilik profilleri [university students’ personality profile]. paper presented at the thirteenth national convention of turkish psychological association, izmir, turkey. trapnell, p. d., & paulhus, d. l. (2012). agentic and communal values: their scope and measurement. journal of personality assessment, 94(1), 39-52. doi:10.1080/00223891.2011.627968 trapnell, p. d., & wiggins, j. s. (1990). extension of the interpersonal adjective scales to include the big five dimensions of personality. journal of personality and social psychology, 59, 781-790. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.4.781 wiggins, j. s. (1991). agency and communion as conceptual coordinates for the understanding and measurement of interpersonal behavior. in d. cicchetti & w. m. grove (eds.), thinking clearly about psychology: essays in honor of paul e. meehl: personality and psychopathology (vol. 2, pp. 89-113). minneapolis, mn, usa: university of minnesota university press. value-personality link 212 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 http://quantpsy.org http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202289008 http://doi.org/10.1002/per.2410060506 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1994.tb01196.x http://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116 http://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-014-9424-3 http://doi.org/10.1375/twin.14.3.233 http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i2.825 http://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2011.627968 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.4.781 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors suna tevrüz is an emeritus professor of social psychology at the organizational behavior section of the business administration department at marmara university in istanbul, turkey. she completed her phd in social psychology at hacettepe university, ankara, turkey. her areas of research interest include human values, motivation, self-concept and sociolinguistics. tülay turgut is currently an associate professor in organizational behavior at marmara university, turkey. she completed her ba in psychology at middle east technical university and her phd in organizational behavior at marmara university, turkey. her areas of research interest include work values, work engagement, achievement goal orientations and personorganization fit. murat çinko is currently a professor in quantitative methods at marmara university, turkey. he completed bs in statistics at middle east technical university and his phd in statistics at marmara university, turkey. his areas of research interest include statistical analysis, financial econometrics and multivariate analysis. tevrüz, turgut, & çinko 213 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 194–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1201 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ value-personality link (introduction) similarities and differences between values and personality traits values, traits and their association with agency-communion moderating variables in value-trait links method participants and procedure instruments results personality profile scale (pps) factors higher-order dimensions of traits and values value-trait relations pattern of the value-trait relations disposable income and value-trait relationships discussion comparable findings incomparable findings financially advantaged and disadvantaged groups conclusion limitations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors i and my friends are good people: the perception of incivility by self, friends and strangers research reports i and my friends are good people: the perception of incivility by self, friends and strangers ursula hess*a, michel cossetteb, shlomo hareli c [a] humboldt-university, berlin, germany. [b] department of human resources management, hec, montreal, canada. [c] university of haifa, haifa, israel. abstract three studies were conducted to assess self-serving biases in participants’ beliefs about incivility, its antecedents and consequences as well as restitution behaviors and forgiveness as a function of whether a behavior was performed by themselves, strangers or friends. participants who imagined themselves in the active role not only described their own behavior as more excusable, congruent with an actor-observer bias, but more importantly, they showed strong self-serving biases with regard to all their reactions to the situation – even though this leads to logical contradictions. this self-serving expectation generalized to friends and contrasted sharply with expectations for strangers, whose behaviors were described as logically consistent. the difference between what is expected from self and friends and what is expected from others may account for much of the popular moral outrage at incivility in various social realms. keywords: perceived incivility, self-serving-biases, restitution behaviors, forgiveness, emotions europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 received: 2015-02-15. accepted: 2015-12-15. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: humboldt-university, berlin, rudower chaussee 18, 12489 berlin. e-mail: ursula.hess@hu-berlin.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there is a popular perception that people in general show rudeness across a variety of relationships and that they tend to do so more than oneself (e.g., abc news “20/20”, 2006). the consequences of varied uncivil behaviours, such as checking emails or texting during meetings, not listening, withholding information or avoiding someone, spreading rumors about colleagues in the office and untidiness in a shared kitchen (johnson & indvik, 2001; porath & pearson, 2010), have been mainly studied in the work context, where they are seen as one important source of interpersonal conflicts (pearson, andersson, & porath, 2000). here the notion of norm violation has been emphasized, as incivility in the workplace entails the violation of workplace norms for mutual respect (andersson & pearson, 1999). however, as noted in the abc poll referred to above, behaviors that violate norms for respect are not uncommon outside the workplace. yet, there is a strange lack of research on uncivil behaviors outside the workplace. in fact, the closest would be research on a related issue – verbal impoliteness – in the framework of politeness theory (brown & stephen, 1987). this research focuses on the specific verbal strategies that can be used to convey a message in more or less polite ways. uncivil behavior, by contrast, has rarely been studied in this framework europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., ambady, koo, lee, & rosenthal, 1996) or only as a means to “qualify” the verbal message (trees &manusov, 1998). a line of research that deals with norm violations is research on moral evaluations and the emotions that are elicited in response to these. in this context, three domains can be distinguished, purity, justice, and community roles linked to emotional reactions of disgust, anger and contempt, respectively (rozin, lowery, imada, & haidt, 1999). in the form of empathic anger, anger can also be a reaction to the perceived harm that an immoral act may cause (batson et al., 2007). however, the acts that are typically referred to by incivility – at least when they do not cumulate – are not of the kind to violate norms of purity or justice or cause harm. rather, they violate social scripts, the general expectations that people have about the proper behavior of others. even though social norm expectations are often perceived as “right” and “good” (hull, 1952) their violation is unlikely to result in harm. another line of research that has addressed issues related to incivility in the widest sense, is research on the selfserving biases, that is, the tendency to describe oneself as more moral, cooperative, considerate as well as less impolite and unethical than others (alicke, 1985; allison, messick, & goethals, 1989; dunning, meyerowitz, & holzberg, 1989; goethals, messick, & allison, 1991).thus, when asked to rate how polite or impolite they are relative to the average person, (e.g., alicke, 1985), participants describe themselves in a more positive light than the average person. however, in this line of research people do not so much describe what in fact they would do in a specific situation, but rather how they would behave compared to a general standard with regard to an abstract criterion. the present research aimed to study the perception of incivility outside the workplace by comparing naïve theories about own behavior with naïve theories about the behavior of strangers and friends. that is, we were interested in the social role norms and naïve theories that underlie reactions to incivility. two questions were assessed. first, how do descriptions of own reactions to incivility differ from descriptions of others’ reactions to the same incivility? and second, how do people perceive their own uncivil behavior in comparison to the uncivil behavior of others? importantly, we are less interested in the evaluation of the uncivil behavior as such, than in the normative consequences that are drawn from the initial behavior. specifically, an uncivil gesture does not stand alone. initially, the recipients of uncivil behavior usually feel hurt (johnson & indvik, 2001). this may lead to an apology by the perpetrator as apologies are effective in repairing relationships and in the reduction of negative feelings towards the offending other (hareli & eisikovits, 2006). in turn, the victim may or may not accept such an apology. however, even though there is research on apologies and forgiveness (gonzales, pederson, manning, & wetter, 1990; itoi, ohbuchi, & fukuno, 1996; takaku, weiner, & ohbuchi, 2001), the whole chain of events has not been studied. yet, the different steps of the chain of events can all be perceived differently depending on who is the perpetrator of the incivility. as regards the perception of the uncivil act, we expect, based on research on self-serving biases, that people may construe their own behavior as less uncivil than the same behavior enacted by others, but even if they do not, they may still view themselves as less responsible for it. specifically, the undesirable behavior would be construed as more situationally driven, more temporally unstable, as well as less controllable (bradley, 1978; weiner, 1986) and hence participants would see themselves as less blameworthy and more driven by the particularities of the specific situation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 100 http://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, a closely related bias, the actor-observer bias, suggests that although observers tend to abstain from taking responsibility for their own undesirable acts, they do see others as responsible for similar acts (jones & nisbett, 1972; ross, 1977). based on this rationale, we expect that own behavior, albeit acknowledged as uncivil, would be construed as accidental or uncontrolled and therefore as less threatening to the self (alicke, 1985). as regards the chain of events following an incivility, it is interesting to speculate on how these behaviors are connected in people’s mind. the logical chain of events presumes that if a person judges another’s behavior as more uncivil than their own, will they also consider themselves to suffer more and to be more reluctant to forgive this more grievous offense. however, alternatively, the self-serving bias may operate such that people are inclined to claim more favorable reactions for themselves with regard to every individual aspect of this chain of events. this would then result in a logical break where the more grievous misbehavior by a stranger results in less hurt and a more ready acceptance of an apology as well as forgiveness, than would be expected from a stranger in response to one’s own much less grievous act. overview and hypotheses the present research had the goal to investigate the norms and naïve theories that guide perceptions of incivility. we expected that the initial act would be rated as more uncivil when the perpetrator is a stranger. we further investigated expected reactions to the act in terms of experienced hurt and forgiveness. we predicted that participants would show a general self-serving bias for all of the individual components of the chain of events such that people’s naïve theories about such an event become logically disconnected. specifically, if i feel that someone else’s uncivil act is worse than mine, then i should feel more hurt, and less willing to accept an apology. however, the logic of self-serving biases outlined above suggests the possibility that this logical chain will be disrupted such that at the same time that i feel another’s transgression to be worse, i would also feel less hurt and more forgiving – because each of these separately suggests that i am somehow “better.” a further goal of the present research was to assess whether such a bias generalizes to friends. that is, is an incivility committed by a friend perceived like one committed by self or rather like one committed by a stranger? again, there are two possible outcomes. on one hand, a friend should be perceived as similar to oneself as shared interests, attitudes and behaviors are the ingredients of friendship (sullivan, 1953) and people are aware of this fact (davis & todd, 1985). thus, people might find it harder to admit wrong-doing in the case of friends as it would reflect negatively on them as well. on the other hand, relationships with friends also imply high levels of caring and respect (newcomb & bagwell, 1995). thus, because of the general expectation of respect among friends, people may feel more hurt by uncivil friends, but, because of the friendship be nonetheless more inclined to forgive them. this may suggest that judgments would be even more self-biased when the perpetrator of a rude act is a friend. to address these questions we used a vignette approach. the use of vignettes has been criticized because they represent a reality that is different from the more stimulus rich and interactive environment of actual social interactions (see for example, parkinson &manstead, 1993, for a discussion of this issue). on the other hand, vignettes are an excellent tool to assess symbolic knowledge about the social norms that people apply when judging social interactions (hareli, shomrat, & biger, 2005; robinson & clore, 2002). as the present study is principally concerned europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 101 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with assessing the norms and naïve theories that are relevant to the perception of incivility outside the workplace, the use of vignettes was considered appropriate. three vignette studies were conducted. in study 1, the imagined interaction partner was a stranger, whereas in study 2 the imagined interaction partner was a friend. study 3 assessed reactions to the same act when the imagined interaction partner was either a friend or a stranger. in all three studies we assessed perceptions of incivility from the perspective of the ‘victim’ versus the ‘perpetrator’. the extent to which the behavior was attributed to external, uncontrollable, and temporary causes was assessed in each case. to investigate the reactions to the initial behavior we explored perceptions of hurt caused by the behavior and how likely ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ considered restitution behaviors on the part of the perpetrator as well as their acceptance by the victim. importantly, each participant responded only to one of the scenarios and hence no explicit comparison with the abstract “average person” was invited. study 1 method participants a total of 212 participants (71 men) with a mean age of 29 years (sd = 10) were recruited using a snowball system. for this, research assistants sent out invitations to participate in a web based research project and asked the participants to then send the invitation on to other people. vignettes two vignettes were selected from a list of situations that had been reported by research assistants as recent incivilities that they had encountered and for which there was agreement that they represent typical uncivil behavior by strangers. vignette 1 described a protagonist who cuts off another car at a highway exit and vignette 2 described a person who speaks increasingly loudly into their cell phone while sitting in a bus opposite another person. the vignettes were written from either a 3rd person (i.e., the driver of the other car cut me off at the exit) or a 1st person perspective (i.e., i cut another driver off at the exit). the transcripts of the vignettes for this as well as for the other studies appear in the appendix. dependent measures perceived incivility — three items assessed the incivility of the behavior. participants were asked to rate the behavior on bipolar 11-point scales anchored with illegitimate – legitimate, impolite – polite, and disrespectful – respectful. the three items were combined into a single scale (study 1: α = .80; study 2: α = .85, study 3: α = .76). dimensions of causal attribution — participants were asked to indicate on four 11-point bipolar scales to what degree the cause for the event was "located within the self" – "located within the environment’, "permanent" – "temporary", "controllable"– "uncontrollable" (by the protagonist), and "controllable"– "uncontrollable" (by another person) to assess locus, stability, and controllability respectively. hurt —we assessed the participant’s view of the hurt that the behavior caused the other individual involved. for this, participants rated the victim’s likely emotional reactions in terms of being irritated/frustrated, angry, sad, hurt, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 102 http://www.psychopen.eu/ disgusted as well as indifferent on 7-point scales anchored with 0 not at all and 6 – very intensely. the five negative emotion items correlated highly and were combined into a single negative emotion scale (study 1: α = .70; study 2: α = .85, study 3: α = .77).i restitution behaviors and their impact — for this, participants were asked to indicate on 11-point scales anchored with 1 – unlikely and 11 – very likely, the likelihood that the protagonist would apologize and the likelihood that the victim would forgive the protagonist. in addition they were asked about the likelihood that even after receiving an apology the victim would still feel angry. procedure participants were asked to read the vignettes and to respond to the questions. each participant received only one vignette. the questions were phrased to reflect the role of the participant as either victim or perpetrator and presented in the order above. results participants who imagined themselves as perpetrators, (m = 4.52, sd = 2.11), compared to those who imagined themselves as victims (m = 3.74, sd = 1.92), t(210) = 2.81, p < .01, d = .39, rated their behavior more positively on the incivility scale. this perception is congruent with the causal attributions that participants made as a function of their specific role. that is, participants in the role of the perpetrator of an incivility considered the cause of “their” behavior as more temporary (m = 8.71, sd = 2.54 versus m = 7.03, sd = 3.00) and situation driven (m = 6.00, sd = 3.25 versus m = 5.25, sd = 3.01) than those who rated a stranger’s incivility toward them, t(210) = 4.31, p < .001, d = .59 and t(210) = 1.74, p = .084, d = .24, respectively. however, participants did not consider the situation to be less controllable by themselves when they were the protagonist than when they were the victim in the story (m = 3.79, sd = 2.87 versus m = 3.93, sd = 2.93), t(210) = .35, p = .728, d = .05; nor more controllable by others (m = 7.55, sd = 3.05 versus m = 7.94, sd = 2.91), t(210) = .95, p = .345, d = .13. to assess the perception of the hurt caused by the behavior we assessed perceptions of the likely negative emotions experienced by the victim. as predicted by the self-serving bias view, participants who imagined themselves in the role of the victim reported feeling less negative emotion (m = 1.83, sd = .99 versus m = 2.38, sd = 1.02) t(210) = 3.99, p < .001, d = .55, but not more indifference (m = 2.00, sd = 1.72 versusm = 1.97, sd = 1.56), t(210) = .13, p = .895, d = .02, than did participants who imagined the role of the perpetrator. that is, as victims, participants considered themselves to be less likely to suffer hurt when exposed to inconsiderate behavior than strangers would be in the same situation. with regard to restitution behaviors, a self-serving bias also emerged. essentially, participants in the active role (apologizing, accepting an apology, remaining angry) portrayed a more positive view than those in the passive role (receiving an apology, being granted forgiveness, and being the target of residual anger). thus, when imagining themselves in the role of the perpetrator of the incivility, participants considered it much more likely that they would apologize (m = 6.20, sd= 3.56), than participants in the victim role expected strangers to apologize (m = 3.39, sd = 2.55), t(210) = 6.65, p < .001, d = .91. conversely, participants in the victim role considered it more likely for themselves to forgive (m = 9.47, sd = 2.18), than participants in the perpetrator role considered it to be forgiven (m = 7.27, sd = 3.00), t(210) = 6.16, p < .001, d = .84. finally, victims believed europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 103 http://www.psychopen.eu/ themselves to be less likely to remain angry (m = 3.01, sd = 2.33) than perpetrators anticipated victims to be (m = 5.06, sd = 2.67), t(210) = 5.97, p < .001, d = .82. discussion as expected, participants who were asked to imagine themselves in the role of the perpetrator of an incivility, considered that act to be less uncivil than participants imagining being at the receiving end of the same act. congruent with this evaluation, the “perpetrators” considered the behavior to be less permanent and more situational, that is, they described themselves as less responsible for the event, which was conceived of as situationally driven. this reaction is typical for a hedonic bias (shaver, 1970; weiner, 1986) such that fault is deflected from the person by attributing the cause to the situation. more interesting, however, is the divergence between victims and perpetrators when it comes to perceptions of the victim’s emotional reactions to the behavior and to restitution behaviors. participants' who described aspects of the situation in which actions or reactions were in their own hands perceived the situation more positively. that is, they expected to feel less hurt, to be more likely to apologize and to accept an apology, as well as less likely to remain angry after an apology. conversely, participants' described aspects of the situation that were in the stranger’s hands considerably less positively. in particular, they considered it much less likely to receive an apology as well as for their own apology to be accepted by the stranger. this pattern suggests that, when compared to unknown others, participants judged themselves as reacting more ideally to the situation than others would, that is, they showed a strong self-serving bias when it comes to reactions to rude behavior. this in turn would imply an implicit norm to “stand above” such things and to readily forgive incivilities. it is interesting to note that despite the fact that the stranger was seen as more responsible for the incivility and that the behavior was perceived as characteristic of that person, participants described themselves as less hurt, more likely to forgive and less likely to remain angry. yet, when the “victim” is another person -who was supposedly hurt accidentally by a situation driven act -he or she was expected to feel more hurt and to be less likely to forgive and more likely to remain angry. oneself was also seen as more likely to apologize. that is, participants viewed themselves as better than the other in all respects – thereby disconnecting the logical link between the events that follow a given behavior, which would lead one to expect that purposeful bad behavior would result in more pronounced negative effects than an accidental act. however, in the present study the incivility was after all committed by a perfect stranger, and one may argue that such acts should indeed not be considered as overly hurtful and be put aside easily as they are unlikely to reoccur. also, it is easy for a person to see him/her self as better than others whose identity is unknown, as most research on self-serving assessments has considered unknown others (e.g., alicke, 1985; epley & dunning, 2000). but what happens when the incivility is committed by a friend who by definition is more similar to the participants (davis & todd, 1985)? this is the question addressed by study 2. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 104 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 method participants a total of 245 participants (75 men) with a mean age of 30 years (sd = 11) were recruited using the snowball system described for study 1. vignettes study 2 employed the same procedure and dependent measures as study 1. however, the two vignettes described an interaction with a friend. therefore, different topics were chosen. this was done because it is important for the present study that the behaviors are representative of ones likely to occur in interaction with friends. as it is unlikely to meet a friend on the highway or the bus and that s/he will then behave in the way described in the vignettes used for study 1, these vignettes are not suitable models for such an interaction. we therefore used the same selection procedure as described for study 1 to select vignettes for uncivil interactions with friends. vignette 1 described a situation where in the middle of an important personal discussion with a friend, the protagonist’s cell phone rings and the protagonist then proceeds to talk on the phone for several minutes. vignette 2 describes a situation where a friend who is invited for dinner backs out at the last minute to accept another invitation. again, vignettes were written in either the 3rd person perspective (i.e., my friend answered the phone) or the 1st person perspective (i.e., i answered the phone). each participant read and responded to only one vignette. results contrary to study 1, participants who imagined themselves as perpetrators of the incivility did not consider the behavior as significantly more positive on the incivility scale (m = 3.94, sd = 2.36) than participants who imagined themselves as the victim of the incivility by a friend (m = 4.38, sd = 2.30), t(243) = 1.46, p = .146, d = .19. this is not due to an overall difference in perceived incivility that would have resulted in a floor effect. in fact, the levels of perceived incivility of the behaviors in study 1 (m = 4.01, sd = 2.04) and study 2 (m = 4.07, sd = 2.34) were nearly identical. however, participants who imagined the role of the perpetrator nonetheless perceived the causes of the event as more temporary (m = 8.72, sd = 3.04 versusm = 7.54, sd = 2.91), t(243) = 3.11, p < .01, d = .40, situation driven (m = 6.38, sd = 3.52 versus m = 5.05, sd = 3.11), t(243) = 3.15, p < .01, d = .40, and more uncontrollable by them (m = 5.88, sd = 3.58 versus m = 4.95, sd = 3.21), t(243) = 2.15, p < .05, d = .27, but not by another person (m = 7.17, sd = 3.12 versusm = 6.92, sd = 3.00), t(243) = .65, p = .52, d = .08. that is, even though perpetrators considered “their” behavior to be as uncivil as did those participants who evaluated a friend’s behavior they still distanced themselves from responsibility for the event. as regards perceptions of hurt, the same pattern as in study 1 emerged. that is, participants who imagined themselves in the role of the victim, reported feeling less negative emotion (m = 2.59, sd = .34 versus m = 3.18, sd = 1.42), t(243) = 3.34, p < .01, d = .43. in addition, they also expected themselves to be more indifferent (m = 1.67, sd = 1.51 versus m = 1.17, sd = 1.39), t(243) = 2.71, p < .01, d = .34, than did participants who imagined the role of the perpetrator. in other words, as victims, participants considered themselves as less likely to suffer when exposed to inconsiderate behavior than their friends would be in the same situation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 105 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, as regards restitution behaviors, a very different pattern from study 1 emerged. whereas in study 1 participants imagining themselves in the role of the perpetrator considered it much more likely that they would apologize to a stranger, forgive a stranger who apologized and expected to feel less anger after receiving an apology than would be the case vice versa, this pattern was not observed for friends. in fact, friends were described in equally positive terms, in that participants saw themselves and their friends as equally likely to apologize (m = 8.67, sd = 3.39 versusm = 8.52, sd = 2.57), t(243) = .93, p = .355, d = .12, to accept an apology (m = 9.66, sd = 2.14 versus m = 9.44, sd = 2.02), t(243) = .82, p = .415, d = .11, as well as (un)likely to remain angry (m = 3.33, sd= 2.72 versus m = 3.87, sd = 3.03), t(243) = 1.47, p = 1.44, d = .19. thus, participants extended their positive view of their own likely behavior in such a situation to their friends. discussion overall, a very different picture emerged for incivilities involving friends rather than strangers. incivilities by either oneself or the friend were seen as equally rude and restitution behaviors and reactions were considered as equally likely. only two differences between self and friends emerged. participants considered themselves less hurt by the behavior and they attributed less causal responsibility to themselves. importantly, the lack of differences between self and friends was not due to the level of incivility of the behavior. in fact, the level of perceived incivility (m = 4.07) was almost identical to study 1 (m = 4.01). these findings suggest that the self-serving bias observed in study 1 for the self largely extends to friends and may be considered to be more of an in-group bias in that context. this observation fits with the notion that friends are in fact perceived as very similar to oneself with regard to beliefs, attitudes and behaviors (davis & todd, 1985). causal attributions in contrast have been found to be insensitive to in-group bias (smith, whitehead, & sussman, 1990), which explains why the actor-observer bias remains unaffected. however, this conclusion is limited by the fact that friends and strangers were described as engaging in different types of acts. this was done to assure that the situations described would be commonly observed incivilities, which are representative for interactions with friends and strangers respectively. given that by definition we interact differently with friends and strangers this resulted in separate sets of vignettes. yet, it would still be interesting to consider how friends and strangers compare when the same act is described even if these behaviors are of necessity less representative and more extreme. this was done in study 3. study 3 method participants a total of 435 participants (138 men) with a mean age of 26 years (sd = 8) were recruited either using the snowball system described for study 1 (n = 98), or using a paper version distributed in large classes or public places at the university of quebec at montreal (n = 337). vignettes study 3 employed the same procedure and dependent measures as study 1. however, for study 3 vignettes were chosen that described situations that can occur with both friends and strangers as interaction partners. for this, we used the same selection procedure as described for study 1 to select vignettes for incivilities likely to occur europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 106 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with both friends and strangers. vignette 1 described a situation where the friend/stranger shares an elevator with the ‘victim’ and sneezes wetly without holding their hand in front of their face. vignette 2 describes a situation where the friend/stranger walks through a door without holding it open for the closely following ‘victim’ such that the door hits the ‘victim.’ again, vignettes were written in either the 3rd person perspective (i.e.,my friend/a stranger walked through a door without holding it open for you) or the 1st person perspective (i.e., i walked through a door without holding it open for a friend/stranger). each participant read and responded to only one vignette. as expected these behaviors were rated as considerably less positively on the 11-point incivility scale (m = 3.34, sd = 1.97), than the situations described in studies 1 (m = 4.01, sd = 2.04) and 2 (m = 4.07, sd = 2.34). results to compare perceptions for victims and perpetrators as a function of the friend or stranger status of the interaction partner, a 2 protagonist (self/other) x 2 relationship (friend/stranger) anova was conducted on all dependent variables. see table 1 for f-values and table 2 for means and standard deviations. simple effects analysis and post-hoc tests were used to follow up on significant effects. table 1 analysis of variance results for study 3 p x rrelationship (r)perpetrator (p) scale η2pfη2pfη2pfdf .02.011.04.001.03.0011,429incivility .486.1517.0911 .05.001.03.001.02.0091,419temporary .4823.1914.926 .01.037.01.029.00.2391,427situational .394.824.391 .01.136.02.003.00.6941,412not controllable by actor .232.209.160 .00.517.00.517.00.6781,427not controllable by others .420.280.170 .00.293.06.001.08.0011,431hurt felt by the victim .111.7925.9338 .00.267.01.034.01.1421,429indifference felt by the victim .231.514.172 .07.001.06.001.12.0011,431likelihood to apologize .7132.0027.2459 .03.001.11.001.08.0011,431victim's likelihood to forgive .9510.5750.7339 .00.207.12.001.09.0011,431victim's feeling of anger after receiving an apology .601.8355.2442 the protagonist’s behavior was considered to be equally uncivil for all perpetrators except when the perpetrator was a friend in which case the behavior was considered to be less uncivil than own behavior and the behavior of strangers. that is, unlike study 1, participants did not consider themselves as less uncivil than a stranger. this is likely due to a floor effect as many participants noted that they considered the described behaviors to be very uncivil indeed. yet, it is also possible that the nature of the uncivil behaviors used in this study is responsible for this effect. it remains for future research to examine this possibility. as regards attributions of causality, participants considered the behavior of the perpetrator who was a stranger as less temporary, more situation driven and less controllable by the self (but not by others) than the behavior of either self or the friend. as regards perceptions of hurt, the same pattern as in studies 1 and 2 emerged. specifically, participants considered themselves as less likely to suffer than either a stranger or a friend, but they also expected their friends to suffer less than a stranger would. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 107 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 means and standard deviations as a function of protagonist and relationship (study 3) perpetrator scale selfother friendstrangerfriendstranger sdmsdmsdmsdm incivility1 .971.36b3.791.91a2.142.28b4.751.06a3 temporary .952.49b8.133.70b8.412.31b9.912.95a6 situational .330.89a5.330.86a5.330.97b6.330.55a5 not controllable by actor .603.49a5.603.97ad4.283.12bc6.133.60a4 not controllable by others .203.368.043.708.912.668.882.638 hurt felt by the victim .331.50a2.171.23c3.101.87b1.401.36a2 indifference felt by the victim .491.85a1.471.69a1.731.26b2.831.75a1 likelihood to apologize .562.59b9.372.73b9.562.08b9.203.27a6 victim's likelihood to forgive .631.94a9.262.15c8.271.45b10.851.80a9 victim's feeling of anger after receiving an apology .682.17a3.82c2.335.741.87b1.912.41a3 note. subscripts are based on lsd < .05. different subscripts denote a significant difference. 1lower values indicate more incivility. as regards restitution behaviors, the results also match both study 1 and study 2. that is, participants consider themselves and their friends as more likely than a stranger to apologize, to forgive, and to not remain angry, with either no difference between them and their friends or an even more forgiving attitude when the perpetrator was a friend. thus, as in study 2, participants extended their positive view of the likely behavior in such a situation to their friends and as in study 1, they consider strangers to be much less likely to ask for or grant forgiveness. in sum, with regard to feelings of hurt and restitution a pattern of selfand friend serving bias emerged where participants who saw themselves as victims of strangers and those who imagined having been uncivil to a friend reported themselves and their friends to be less likely to be hurt, more indifferent, more likely to apologize and to forgive and less likely to remain angry. general discussion in studies 1 and 3, a self-serving bias was observed in participants’ assessments of an incivility performed by themselves versus a stranger. not only, as expected from research in the actor observer bias (jones & nisbett, 1972; ross, 1977), did participants consider themselves to be less uncivil and less responsible for the act, but they also considered their behavior to be more positive in terms of both, being able to put the insult aside and to forgive when being in the role of the victim and of making restitution when in the role of the perpetrator. this finding suggests that people perceive a social norm of not being too upset about the rude behavior of strangers and to readily forgive, as well as an expectation that someone who behaved rudely takes responsibility for the act and tenders an apology. this normative expectation may be the source of much moral outrage at the inconsiderate behavior of others, as it is accompanied by a uniqueness bias (goethals, 1987; mullen, dovidio, johnson, & copper, 1992) in so far as others are perceived as considerably less likely to behave in ways that are congruent with this norm. thus, with europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 108 http://www.psychopen.eu/ regard to incivilities by oneself and strangers and the reactions to them, participants show a consistent “holier than thou” attitude. notably, this attitude leads participants to present the somewhat illogical chain of events where the worse offense by another leads to less hurt and more forgiveness on their part, whereas their, accidental and less offensive, behavior leads to more hurt and less forgiveness. the same is not true for interactions with friends. even though there is still an actor-observer bias evident in the causal attributions in study 2 such that participants who imagine the perpetrator role consider themselves as less responsible for their acts than the friend would be in the reverse situation, this bias disappears for the more extreme behaviors in study 3. with regard to hurt and restitution behaviors the overall pattern suggests that participants in the perpetrator role consider themselves and their friends to suffer less and work harder towards restitution – with incivilities by friends being considered less hurtful and more likely to be resolved, in fact, a very reasonable assumption as this is the basis of what it means to be friends. this overall pattern of effects does not seem to be due to an ultimate attribution error (pettigrew, 1979) as attributions were found to differ in a way favoring the self. a more likely explanation for the present finding is that the self-serving bias generalizes to friends and hence becomes more of an in-group bias. that is, in the same vein that people attribute more positive attributes (allen, 1996; rustemli, mertan, & ciftci, 2000) and behaviors (beaupré & hess, 2003), the “proper” reaction to an incivility represents one more positive behavior that is preferentially attributed to in-group members. this implies that if we consider it to be normative for a “good person” to apologize, accept apologies and not hold grudges, then this means that people expect their friends to be good persons as well, but strangers to be quite unlikely to be good persons as the difference in the perceived likelihood of the good behavior between self and strangers is strikingly large. this sort of thinking could be one mechanism to reinforce in-group boundaries. in fact, the ascription of “good behavior” to friends and self and of considerably less “good” behavior to strangers, is reminiscent of leyen’s infra-humanization theory (e.g., demoulin et al., 2005; leyens et al., 2000), which claims that humans are motivated to view out-groups as possessing a lesser degree of humanity than the in-group. interestingly, the self-serving biases worked in a way that disrupted the logical connection between the sequence of events following an incivility. thus, even though participants considered the same behavior more uncivil when performed by a stranger rather than themselves or a friend, they considered themselves to be less hurt by the behavior, and also considered it more likely for themselves and their friends to forgive such a behavior and conversely to apologize for their – less voluntary and more ‘accidental’ own incivility. recently research has documented that people’s memory of undesirable actions is also affected by self-serving biases (bell, schain, & echterhoff, 2014). specifically, the level of immorality of morally questionable behaviors was better remembered when it was associated with personal costs than when it was associated with personal benefits. although such memory effects cannot explain our results, it is of interest for future research to study if the same may be true of impolite behaviors being differentially remembered as a function of the identity of the protagonist. the strong difference between what it expected from self and friends and what is expected from strangers, especially with regard to restitution behaviors is striking and may account for much of the popular moral outrage at rude behavior. specifically, in our modern era more andmore of the people we interact with and whomwemay perceive as uncivil are in fact strangers and our bias to see strangers as both more uncivil and less likely to apologize may then lead us to see the world as more and more rude (e.g., abc news “20/20", 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 109 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) in addition, we asked participants to provide ratings for shame, guilt, cheerfulness, and satisfaction. the mean ratings for these emotions were below 1, they will therefore not be discussed further. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abc news “20/20”. 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centre. vous souhaitez prendre la bretelle de sortie qui n’est pas très loin devant, mais vous dépassez au même moment une autre voiture qui roule dans la voie de droite. plutôt que ralentir et passer derrière l’autre voiture, vous coupez le chemin de l’autre voiture afin de gagner la bretelle de sortie. 2. vous roulez en voiture sur l’autoroute dans la voie de droite. une autre voiture à votre gauche veut gagner la bretelle de sortie qui n’est pas très loin devant. plutôt que ralentir et passer derrière vous, le conducteur vous coupe le chemin afin de gagner la bretelle de sortie. 3. vous êtes dans l’autobus. une personne est assise tout juste en face de vous, la personne à l’air fatigué et cogne des clous. vous répondez à votre téléphone cellulaire et notez que vous avez de la difficulté à entendre votre interlocuteur et à vous faire entendre. vous continuez votre conversation et parlez de plus en plus fort afin de vous faire entendre. 4. vous êtes dans l’autobus. vous êtes fatigué et vous cognez des clous. la personne d’en face répond au téléphone et a de la difficulté d’entendre et de se faire entendre. la personne continue sa conversation et parle de plus en plus fort afin de se faire entendre. vignettes used in study 2 1. un(e) ami(e) vous invite à souper à son domicile. tard cette même journée, vous recevez une autre invitation. vous annulez le dîner sans de vous excuser. 2. vous invitez un(e) ami(e) à souper à votre domicile. tard cette même journée, votre ami(e) reçoit une autre invitation. votre ami(e) annule le dîner sans de s’excuser. 3. vous discutez avec un(e) ami(e). alors qu’il vous lui parle d’un sujet très important pour lui, votre téléphone cellulaire sonne. vous répondez au téléphone et parlez plusieurs minutes avec l’autre personne. 4. vous discutez avec un(e) ami(e). alors que vous lui parlez d’un sujet très important pour vous, son téléphone cellulaire sonne. votre ami(e) répond à son téléphone et parle plusieurs minutes avec l’autre personne. vignettes used in study 3 1. vous marchez en direction de votre lieu de travail et apercevez un(e) de vos amis derrière vous. vous entrez dans l’immeuble et lâchez la porte au lieu de la retenir. en conséquence, la porte passe très proche de frapper votre ami(e) qui est tout juste derrière. 2. vous marchez en direction de votre lieu de travail et apercevez un(e) de vos amis qui s’apprête à entrer dans l’immeuble. vous avez la certitude que votre ami(e) vous ait vu approché. au moment où vous approchez pour entrer, votre ami(e), qui est tout juste devant vous, lâche la porte au lieu de la retenir. la porte passe très proche de vous frapper. 3. vousmarchez en direction de votre lieu de travail et apercevez une personne derrière vous. vous entrez dans l’immeuble et lâchez la porte au lieu de la retenir. en conséquence, la porte passe très proche de frapper cette personne qui est tout juste derrière. 4. vous marchez en direction de votre lieu de travail et apercevez une personne qui s’apprête à entrer dans l’immeuble. vous avez la certitude que cette personne vous ait vu approché. au moment où vous approchez pour entrer, la personne, qui est tout juste devant vous, lâche la porte au lieu de la retenir. la porte passe très proche de vous frapper. 5. vous êtes dans un ascenseur bondé de personnes. votre ami(e) vous fait face. soudainement, vous éternuez. vous omettez de mettre votre main et éclaboussez votre ami(e). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 hess, cossette, & hareli 113 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 6. vous êtes dans un ascenseur bondé de personnes. votre ami(e) vous fait face. soudainement, votre ami(e) éternue. il/elle omet de mettre sa main devant lui/elle et vous éclabousse. 7. vous êtes dans un ascenseur bondé de personnes. une personne vous fait face. soudainement, vous éternuez. vous omettez de mettre votre main devant vous et vous éclaboussez l’autre personne. 8. vous êtes dans un ascenseur bondé de personnes. une personne vous fait face. soudainement, cette personne éternue. elle omet de mettre sa main devant elle et vous éclabousse. about the authors ursula hess – professor of social and organizational psychology, studies the communication of emotions and in particular social factors that influence this process. she has published more than a hundred research articles and book chapters. shlomo hareli – professor of social psychology, studies the social perception of emotions focusing on inferences that people drew from witnessing others’ emotions. michel cossette – professor of human resources management, studies motivational factors related to emotional labour and processes affecting employee retention and turnover. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 99–114 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.937 the perception of incivility 114 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the perception of incivility (introduction) overview and hypotheses study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion study 3 method results general discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix vignettes used in study 1 vignettes used in study 2 vignettes used in study 3 about the authors vignette research on messy and confusing problems in primary mental healthcare research reports vignette research on messy and confusing problems in primary mental healthcare e. h. (dineke) smit* a, j. j. l. (jan) derksenab [a] department of clinical psychology, radboud university nijmegen, nijmegen, the netherlands. [b] department of clinical & life span psychology, free university brussels, brussels, belgium. abstract the average primary care psychologist feels an ever-widening gap between objective, measurable reality as described and the complex and dynamic reality they experience. to obtain a better understanding of this complex dynamic reality, we conducted an exploratory mixedmethod study of primary care psychologists. we asked our participants to write vignettes about messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare. we then examined the data in portions, exposed the patterns in the data, and subsequently analysed all in conjunction. the 113 vignettes showed experiences of psychologists dealing not only with the patient, but also with the family of the patient and/or employers, working together with other healthcare professionals, struggling with dilemmas and having mixed feelings. however, using the cynafin framework, 36% of the vignettes were still rated as simple. was it because those vignettes contained fewer words (p = .006)? or because it is difficult to grasp complexity when cause and effect are intertwined with emotions, norms and values? in the discussion, we suggest examining a complex dynamic system in terms of both the consistency of its various elements and the dynamics of the system. we also discuss how to optimize the system’s adaptive self-organizing ability and how to challenge ourselves to invent negative feedback loops that can keep the complex system in equilibrium. keywords: complexity theory, vignette study, primary care psychology, complexity, mixed-method study europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 received: 2016-06-01. accepted: 2017-01-23. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: oleanderstraat 48, 1338 wn almere, netherlands. e-mail: e.h.smit@4sophia.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the complex daily reality of healthcare that psychologists experience is influenced by numerous factors. every day, care professionals evaluate and assess available information and its relevance to their actions. during their training, they learn to classify this complex reality into uniform categories, for example as symptoms of a mental disorder. factors that do not fit a disorder are mostly ignored. increasingly, both students and care professionals are trained to follow protocols aimed at output rather than at handling complex and dynamic situations (derksen, 2015). the psychological literature seldom includes any mention of chaos. research only includes factors that are measurable according to a rigid order and a well-defined method. then results are guaranteed and hypotheses can nearly always be confirmed (fanelli, 2009; fanelli, 2012). science hardly addresses the fact that observation, as a method, is in itself a psychological process leading to changes in the mental patterns studied (derksen, 2015). government policy and descriptions of good care formulated by care financiers also have little europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ room for complexity and chaos. to them, care can be objectified, rules can be applied to the care system and the results of care can be measured. when science, the government and healthcare training programmes consistently focus on reducing the experienced complexity, care professionals are encouraged to do the same. but then, what are we to do with messy and confusing problems in the complex and sometimes even chaotic context of mental healthcare? the average care professional feels an ever-widening gap between objective, measurable reality as described and the complex and dynamic reality they experience. every day, care professionals face messy and confusing situations for which there are no disease-oriented guidelines, where the rules of the care system are not enough to hold on to, where care results cannot be assessed with routine outcome measurement tools and where ‘good care’ is open to many interpretations. to obtain a better understanding of this complex dynamic reality, we conducted an exploratory mixed-method study of 23 primary care psychologists. our research question was ‘what patterns can be analysed from vignettes describing messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare?’ to prepare for the study, we conducted a literature study on the gap between objective, measurable reality as described and the complex and dynamic reality psychologists experienced. messy and confusing problems the gap between objective and measurable reality and reality experienced as complex and dynamic is a familiar phenomenon. the german philosopher jürgen habermas described the distinction between the world as a political and economic system, on the one hand, and the world people live in on the other (habermas, 1968). the french philosopher bruno latour showed that even in the world of objective and measurable reality, complex social problems play an important role (latour, 1987). much has also been written about coping with this gap and the competences required to do so. michael polanyi made a significant contribution to the discourse on tacit knowledge. tacit knowledge can be defined as knowledge and skills which professionals are less aware of having but which nevertheless direct their actions, transcend the generally available scientific knowledge and are necessary in day-to-day practice (polanyi, 2009). aaron antonovsky added the concepts of ‘sense of coherence’ and ‘self efficacy’ to this discourse. sense of coherence can be defined as the ability to connect the comprehensible and the incomprehensible (antonovsky & sagy, 1986). the concept of self efficacy can be defined as the ability to act meaningfully in the world around you (ibid). the american philosopher donald schön describes objective and measurable reality and reality experienced as complex and dynamic in terms of ‘high hard ground’ and ‘swampy lowlands’. “on the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the use of research-based theory and technique.” (schön, 1995, p. 27). he contrasts this with the swampy lowlands, the unruly day-to-day reality. “in the swampy lowlands, problems are messy and confusing and incapable of technical solution” (ibid). on the high ground, all mental symptoms that patients exhibit either fit or do not fit the dsm (american psychiatric association, 2013) criteria for mental disorder. on the high ground, it is assumed that a scientifically unverified method cannot (yet) be effective and successful. the same is true for quality of care, where the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy applies: you must prove that your work is of high quality; otherwise, it is of smit & derksen 301 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ insufficient quality. how different are the swampy lowlands, the day-to-day reality of psychologists, in primary care and elsewhere. the swampy lowlands contain far more than just mental symptoms and diagnosed disorders but also, for example, obstinate patients with complicated personal circumstances and colleagues who have a very different view of good care. there, social and societal problems play roles in the consulting room and even professionals can be led by their emotions. at issue are equivalent but conflicting values that have no easy answers.... vignette study the context to obtain a better understanding of the complex dynamic reality of psychologists, we conducted an exploratory mixed-method study. with our study, we attempt to ‘translate’ the swampy lowlands in terms of the high hard ground. our goal is to include the swampy lowlands in the scientific debate on mental healthcare. the first obstacle we must overcome is the question of how to ‘capture’ these swampy lowlands in a scientific article. we started by asking dutch primary care psychologists to write vignettes, which would make the swampy lowlands apparent. in 2011, 29 experienced primary care psychologists followed an eight-day course entitled de wetenschap van de eerstelijnspsychologie [the science of primary care psychology]. this course covered the scientific foundation and societal context of primary care psychology, the normative professionalization of primary care psychologists, the complexity of the work of primary care psychologists, and various research fields of primary care psychology. the course day covering the normative professionalization (kunneman, 2005) of primary care psychologists focussed on professional and personal accounts of messy and confusing problems in daily practice. the course day on the complexity of the work focussed on the dynamics in daily practice and the fundamentals of complexity sciences. the participants shared experiences, discussed moral dilemmas and obtained a better understanding of the normative nature of their professional conduct. the homework assignment was to write three to five descriptive vignettes of messy and confusing problems in their work. of the 29 participants, 23 completed the assignment, writing in total 113 vignettes. sample vignette the client is a young man (31), married, father of two young children and employed by a medium-sized accounting firm. his work is of a very high standard. he has been on sick leave for ten weeks now, with symptoms of fatigue, frequent headaches, hand tremors and a general sense of being unable to meet the quantitative demands placed on him. the occupational health physician has ‘ordered’ him to resume work for three days, two hours a day. the client states that he can hardly cope with this. during our sessions, the client’s lack of confidence and fear of failure clearly come to the fore. other issues that must be addressed are his difficulty with establishing boundaries and standing up for himself. after three weeks, his superior tells him that he must start working five days a week, two hours a day. when the client says he is not ready, his superior consults the occupational physician and then tells the client that the doctor agrees that he is ready to work more hours and that’s the end of it. on his next appointment with the occupational physician, the client tries to explain that he really is unable to work more hours yet. the doctor says that he feels the client is not giving him good enough arguments and sees no reason to change the new workload, and that if ‘the psychologist’ disagrees, he should phone vignette research in primary mental healthcare 302 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ him. the client phones the psychologist and asks him to contact the doctor to explain why he cannot work more hours yet. the psychologist promises to do so. however, after this conversation he begins to doubt whether that is the right thing to do. this vignette was written by one of the participants of the vignette study. research design for the theoretical background, the researchers were guided by various theories. firstly, an interest in complexity sciences. complexity science fits well with the unruly day-to-day reality of primary care psychologists (smit, 2015). there is no formal definition of complexity sciences but this emerging approach to research can be seen as a collection of theories and conceptual tools (benham-hutchins & clancy, 2010; paley & gail, 2011). it can be described as the scientific study of complex systems, in which many parts interact. this vignette study is a part of a larger study on the complexity of mental health care. secondly, the researchers used the mixed methods in social inquiry approach outlined by greene (greene, 2007). “mixed methods social inquiry involves a plurality of philosophical paradigms, theoretical assumptions, methodological traditions, data gathering and analysis techniques, and personalized understanding and value commitments [...]” (greene, 2007, p. 13). it “aspires to understand complex phenomena by intentionally including multiple ways of knowing and valuing and by respectfully engaging with differences, both those presented by other inquirers’ mental models and those located in the social world” (greene, 2007, p. 17). finally, we applied the qualitative research aids provided by braun and clarke (braun & clarke, 2013; braun, clarke, & terry, 2015). following braun and clarke we included three kinds of question used in qualitative research. the first concerned our research question: ‘what patterns can be analysed from vignettes describing messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare?’ the second was for the participants, the authors of the vignettes. they were asked to describe three to five instances of messy and confusing problems they experienced as complex. this question was posed in the context of the eight-day course ‘the science of primary care psychology’ described above. the third question dealt with how we worked with our data. they varied according to the portions of the vignette and will be further explained below. the vignettes were written according to the following structure. participants described the context, the setting in which the situation occurred. they described the situation, the ‘core’ of the vignette (see example above). they included the emotions involved in the situation – which could be what the psychologists themselves, the clients and/or other parties felt – and the norms and values that played roles in the situation. these topics were selected with the participants at the end of the course days on normative professionalization and the complexity of the work. our research design took a semantic approach to all data used (data corpus, braun, clarke, & terry, 2015). it was decided to analyse the situation descriptions with the cynefin framework because of snowden’s embeddedness in the complexity sciences (snowden & boone, 2007). then the emotions mentioned in the vignettes, the persons involved, and the values were all categorized. finally, the vignettes were checked for the presence of terminology related to professional conduct. two researchers conducted the study. they began by reading all the vignettes several times. coding and assessment of all aspects of the vignette was initiated jointly and then allocated to the either one of the researchers. researcher a first examined the situations, the people involved and the terms related to professional disease-oriented guidelines. researcher b encoded the emotions and values. both researchers smit & derksen 303 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kept written notes and discussed these afterwards. dubious cases were discussed extensively in order to arrive at a joint decision. researcher b sample-checked the measurements and coding of a researcher and vice versa. again, any differences in judgement were discussed in order to reach consensus. the final analysis was done by the principal investigator (researcher a) and discussed with researcher b and the authors of the vignettes. context this portion of the vignette described whether the situation concerned a primary care practice, often supplemented by the city or regional location of the practice. in some cases, the context was indicated by whom the patient was referred to and how long the patient was in treatment. we did not analyse these data in further detail. situation sketch the researchers wanted to investigate whether patterns can be analysed in the descriptions of ‘messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare’. the cynefin framework van snowden (snowden & boone, 2007) was used in this process. the cynefin framework is a sense-making model that fits the exploration of the data. it can help one to see things from new viewpoints, to assimilate complex concepts, and to address real-world problems and opportunities (idem). as a sense-making model it helps one characterize what kind of situation it is. the cynefin framework sorts situations into five contexts, defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect. these are: simple, complicated, complex and chaotic systems. in a simple or obvious situation, cause and effect relationships are predictable and repeatable. in a complicated situation there is a relation between cause and effect, but this relation is not self-evident. it requires more expertise to see the relations between cause and effect. when a situation is complex, cause and effect are only knowable in hindsight and the outcome is emergent and unpredictable. in chaotic situations the relationship between cause and effect is impossible to determine; there are no manageable patterns to define. in the middle of the cynefin framework there is also the unknown situation called disorder. in these situations it is not yet known if the situation is complicated and in need of more expertise or if the situation is, for instance, complex. the review of the situation sketches was based on the following questions: • are cause and effect both clear? if the answer is yes, then we conclude it is a simple situation. • is it possible to know what causes this situation and to predict the likely effect with more information? if the answer is yes, then we conclude it is a complicated situation. • are there many causes and effects interacting with each other that make the situation emergent? if the answer is yes, then we conclude it is a complex situation. • are there no manageable patterns to define? if the answer is yes, then we conclude it is a chaotic situation. while assessing the situation sketches, the researchers kept notes to stay aware of their own experiences and interpretations and to guard against potential ‘inattentional blindness’ (simons & chabris, 1999). this pitfall was offset as much as possible by rereading the questions (as described above) after analysing each batch of five situation sketches, as well as rereading tips about the pitfalls of qualitative research. vignette research in primary mental healthcare 304 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions the question related to the described emotions was ‘which basic emotions (as described by ekman) are mentioned in the vignettes?’ the basic emotions described in the primary care psychologists’ vignettes were coded as follows: joy, grief, anxiety, anger, surprise and aversion (ekman, 1994). all other emotions that could not be coded as one of these six were assigned to two categories: the first group held emotions with a positive connotation (“i couldn’t agree more”) and the second held emotions with a negative connotation (“i felt i was flogging a dead horse”). finally, there was a small rest category of ‘other emotions’, for example “i have mixed feelings about this”. all instances of these emotions were tallied. parties involved the question related to the parties involved was ‘which and how many parties are mentioned?’ all parties implicitly or explicitly involved in the situation were coded. an example of an ‘implicit party’ in a vignette is a general practitioner who plays a recognizable part in the situation but is not explicitly identified as the referring doctor. the parties and numbers of people involved were recorded for each vignette. norms and values our research on the norms and values was directed by the question ‘which norms and values are mentioned and how often?’ the vignette allowed the psychologists to record relevant norms and values. we define the concept of values as ‘opinions of what is desirable; motives and ideas that are regarded as worthy of pursuit’. we define the concept of norms as ‘concrete guidelines for action; the link between general values and concrete behaviour’. most participants described one or more norms and values in each of their vignettes. however, the cases contained more norms and values than explicitly described by the participants. the researchers coded these and included them in the overall analysis. terminology relating to professional conduct we looked at the vignettes and scanned them for terminology often used in descriptions of the professional conduct of primary care psychologists. this includes such terms as ‘making a diagnosis’ (diagnosis), ‘working in accordance with guidelines’ (guidelines), ‘methodology’ (method), ‘treatment’ (treatment) and words such as ‘disorder’, ‘depression’ and finally terminology indicating the ‘outcome of care’ (effect, result). research findings situation sketch the participants described 113 vignettes of messy and confusing problems they experienced as complex. the researchers investigated whether this perceived complexity could be objectified. here objectified means wanting to do justice to the object of study, to allow the object of study to speak for itself and not let it get distorted (maso & smaling, 1998). during the assessment the researchers took the texts of the situation sketch literally (semantic approach, braun & clarke). thereupon the sketches were evaluated according to the cynefin framework as simple, complicated, complex or chaotic situations. it was not easy for the researchers to ignore their own experiences, knowledge and judgement while reading and reviewing the sketches. effectively they had to fight against the dutch proverb een goed verstaander heeft maar een half woord nodig (lit. trans. ‘an understanding person needs only half a word’ meaning: ‘a careful smit & derksen 305 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ listener doesn’t have to ask twice’). it took a lot of effort and concentration to assess the literal text, to remain aware of their own experience and keep feeling that this research work was valuable. both researchers felt a strong palpable relationship between what they were reviewing and the idea they were involved in forging valuable progress. when they had to review literal wording and limit their personal interpretation to the minimum, then they felt less involved. when their commitment was reduced, the idea they were doing valuable research also diminished greatly. assessing the sketches triggered an association that defined the situations described as a static snapshot of a dynamic whole. during the analytical process the question of whether more information (measured as more words) would increase the likelihood that the situation could be assessed as complex or chaotic became relevant. in assessing the four categories, the following became apparent in general. as expected, a simple vignette more or less described the cause and effect of the case. complicated vignettes often contained multiple storylines (cause – effect) that all influenced one another but the effects were either described or predictable. complex vignettes also contained several storylines but here the relation to the effects were hard to guess or were largely unknown. chaotic vignettes described situations with unexpected twists and turns and the relationship with the effects was insufficiently clear. of the 113 vignettes (= 100%) 41 vignettes (36%) were rated simple with a recognizable relationship between cause and effect. for example: because the practice has partnered with two health centres in a large city suburb, the number of referrals and thus registrations has increased rapidly in a short time, causing waiting times of six weeks or longer. the workload is increasing despite clients’ complaining about the long wait. the ‘background’ is another factor in that the health insurers’ contracts require that the waiting time be limited. 39 vignettes (35%) were rated complicated. for example: client (39) is living together, has an intellectual disability. she was neglected in her youth; parents divorced, father deceased and mother an alcoholic who does not want to see her daughter with her boyfriend. client has siblings, but none of them wants to be in touch with her. mother-in-law takes care of her. treatment is focussed on achieving more independence. although mother-in-law and therapist have doubts about the effect of treatment, the client is keen to continue. of the 113 vignettes, 18 vignettes (16%) were rated complex and 15 (13%) chaotic. example of a complex situation: client (48) works at a municipal waste station. he was the only child of older parents. both depressed. mother admitted to psychiatric hospital, committed suicide. father died young. raised by grandparents. did not have a normal childhood. he was taught that nothing he did ever mattered. has been taking seroxat (antidepressant) for years. is thus scared he will lose his truck driving licence on reexamination. at an advanced age he married a woman from a very problematic family with lots of mental disability in the family. she is the only ‘normal’ one, and trained for a job in home care. this woman adopted a child with mental disability whose biological father has not recognized paternity. the vignette research in primary mental healthcare 306 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ son (16) has many behavioural problems and is in special education. partners disagree strongly on how to deal with him. as the controversy the child knows well how to drive the parents apart. the reason for the request for help is that the woman thinks her husband should seek help, or she will put an end to their relationship. the client feels that nothing he does will ever be good enough for his wife and he suffer from her aloofness. elp approach: clarify what is happening, consider what causes the disagreement, what happens then, how to deal with it, how partners interact with one another and how things could turn out. furthermore, normalizing the client’s behaviour. the partner is invited to relationship therapy. both have indicated what bothers them. they would like to see each other and learn how they could help one another. wife keeps husband at an emotional distance, without indicating how he could/should get closer (sets unclear terms). meanwhile, the wife goes her own way. client feels powerless, says he cannot get through his partner. “she’s got a wall around herself and won’t let anybody in”; “she's hard as nails, very black and white”. she says that he must change, but doesn’t say in what way or how. client functions adequately and satisfactorily at work. example of a chaotic situation: woman (23), care worker; a first-line [primary care] psychological examination led to a referral to second-line [mental health care] on the basis of personality problems. client was on sickness benefit. to bridge the long waiting time for second-line mental health care, the client was seen in our practice. client appeared to have only basic health insurance which proved inadequate to cover the ‘bridging time’. i soon learned that the client had a one-year employment contract which would expire in three months. the employer made implicitly it known that the contract would not be extended. the employer further informed me that while the client had been regarded as a good worker, her current status as ‘unstable’ entailed too much risk for the employer. during the waiting period, the client’s problems stacked up and she needed frequent support. her [voluntary/family] carers were not prepared to provide this. we then examined if there was a difference between the number of words and the ratings of simple, complicated, complex and chaotic (see table 1). the 113 vignettes contained a total of 17,674 words, an average of 156.4 words per vignette. the situation sketches rated simple had on average 107.21 words (total word count 4396, total vignettes 41). the situation sketches rated complicated had on average 167.85 words (total word count 6546, total vignettes 39). the situation sketches rated complex had on average 203.67 words (total word count 3666, total vignettes 18). the situation sketches rated chaotic had on average 204.4 words (total word count 3066, total vignettes 15). this means that simple situations averaged fewer words than complicated situations and in turn complicated situations averaged fewer words than complex situations. the average difference between complex and chaotic situations was minimal, 203.67 and 204.4, respectively. smit & derksen 307 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 word count category total vignettes total words per vignette average words per vignette simple 41 4,396 107.21 complicated 39 6,546 167.85 complex 18 3,666 203.67 chaotic 15 3,066 204.40 total 113 17,674 156.40 we conducted a general linear model univariate analysis to examine if there was a difference in word count among the four assessment categories. the scores were derived independently of each other. normal distribution was somewhat askew due to the relatively limited number of participants. the categories in the population had equal variances. the ratio between the largest and smallest standard deviation is a factor of 3; the smallest standard deviation is 48.782 and the largest is 104.101. there is a strong effect on the average number of words between the four vignette categories (f(3,109) = 9.357, p < .001). this effect is strong (η2 = .205). a bonferroni post hoc test was performed to determine which categories differed statistically on word count. this showed that simple differed from complex, chaotic and complicated. simple averaged 60.63 fewer words than complicated (p = .006), 96.45 fewer words than complex (p < .001) and 97.18 fewer words than chaotic (p = .001). the remaining three categories did not differ significantly from each other in terms of word count. emotions it soon became clear that the situations described in the vignettes are fraught with emotion. in total, 314 instances of emotion could be coded, on average 2,78 per vignette. anger (in 83 of the 113 vignettes) was most frequent, followed by joy (37 instances), grief (36 instances), anxiety (16 instances), surprise (9 instances) and aversion (2 instances). the emotions that could not be assigned easily to the basic emotions were coded as emotions with either a negative connotation or a positive connotation. of these (123), 92 had a negative connotation and 31 a positive connotation. finally, the rest category of emotions with a more or less neutral connotation was mentioned 8 times. parties involved all vignettes involved a primary care psychologist (100%). a client was mentioned in 89.4% of the vignettes. the client’s family was directly or indirectly involved in 46.9% of the situations. their degree of involvement varied from being present at one or more of the sessions to being an important factor in the client’s problems. the primary care psychologists had most often contact with the gp (28 times). specialists and welfare organizations were involved 24 times, followed by the occupational physician or client’s employer (18 times). the health insurer was involved in 15 vignettes. colleagues of the psychologists were involved 14 times. the government (varying form our legal system, social services and public authorities) was mentioned 11 times. in 6 vignettes other parties were mentioned such like regional cooperation’s. on average the psychologists had to deal with 1,5 other persons (or organizations) at least. vignette research in primary mental healthcare 308 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ norms and values the values described by the primary care psychologists were listed in a top ten. several instances of values could be included. if a value (e.g. honesty) was mentioned four times in a vignette, it counted as one. the top ten values are: professionalism (35 instances), honesty (24), commitment (20), transparency (17), openness (16), responsibility (10), respect (9), sincerity (9), good care (8), justice (7) and respecting boundaries (7). in total 372 values were mentioned. in 72 vignettes norms were described, in total 132 unique norms. 48 norms could be placed in more than one category. the following categories were made: treatment by the primary care psychologist (40 norms), the professionalism of the primary care psychologist (29), the therapeutic relationship (24), general decency (21), good care (if explicitly mentioned, 15), norms relating to other parties involved such as other care professionals (not immediate colleagues) and insurers (14), client behaviour (10), the primary care psychologist and society (10), collaboration within the practice and/or with colleagues (8), client interests (5) and, finally, professional interests (4). terminology relating to professional conduct we investigated the extent to which concepts relating to professional conduct were described in the vignettes. this concerns words and phrases such as making the diagnosis (diagnosis), working in accordance with guidelines (guidelines), methodical (method), treatment (treatment) and words such as ‘disorder’ and ‘depression’ and finally terminology indicating the results of care (effect, result). the word ‘guidelines’ was used in two of the 113 vignettes. the word ‘effect’ was used in five of the 113 vignettes and the word ‘result’ six times. ten vignettes mentioned mental disorders. symptoms of anxiety in the client were mentioned in 27 vignettes and words relating to depression (depressed feelings, symptoms and/or antidepressants) appeared in 34 vignettes. personality problems were mentioned 12 times. ‘method’ (covering method and methodical) appeared once. the word ‘treatment’ was present in 82 of the 113 vignettes. conclusions our research question was ‘what patterns can be analysed from vignettes describing messy and confusing problems in the complex context of mental healthcare?’ the objective was to obtain a better understanding of the complex dynamic reality of primary care psychologists in mental healthcare. we tried to bridge the gap between objective, measurable reality as described and the complex and dynamic reality psychologists experience. the situation sketches were investigated with the aid of the cynefin framework because this tool facilitates making the complex rating (in addition to the simple, complicated and chaotic ratings). the cynefin framework also reflects the interest of researchers in complexity sciences. data analysis revealed the following patterns. all vignettes described situations experienced as complex. however, the researchers rated 36% of the vignettes as simple. this suggests that using a model fitting in complexity sciences (cynafin framework) does not guarantee showing the experienced complexity. in addition, it could be established that the probability of a situation being assessed as complicated, complex or chaotic rose in proportion with more words being used to describe the situation. the vignettes were filled with emotion, with ‘anger’ appearing most often. the values ‘professionalism’ and ‘honesty’ and norms concerned smit & derksen 309 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ treatment by the psychologist were mentioned most often. besides the patient [client] and his/her family, the psychologists had to deal with on average 1.5 other persons (or organizations) at least. the vignettes hardly mentioned disease-oriented guidelines, but the words ‘treatment’, ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ were common. beforehand, the participants and researchers agreed on the following components of the vignettes: context, situation, emotions and norms and values. these components were first examined separately, obviously with the aim of analysing them together in the end. the researchers’ experience in particular gave direction to this relationship. accordingly, the researchers perceived the situation sketches as ‘mere’ snapshots of a broader and more dynamic entity, comparable to a scene from a film. they noticed that the descriptions of emotions and values also contained a lot of additional information that could explain the perceived complexity. an example of a vignette experienced as complex but rated simple is as follows: client (32), two children, from curacao. problems with autonomy. she is doing an internship at a nursery as part of a municipal rehabilitation project. the municipality has offered to reimburse consults not covered by her health insurance. client calls off her appointment on the day itself: she has problems with her menstruation. i am allowed to send in the invoice [for her session], but i mustn’t tell the municipality that that she did not turn up. we could answer yes to the question ‘are both cause and effect clear?’ cause: client cancels appointment late. effect: she must pay for the session. cause: client is in a reintegration programme, has hardly any income so the municipality pays her bill. result: client asks the psychologist not to tell the municipality that she did not attend. when we read the emotions associated with this situation sketch: irritation that she has put me in a difficult position. i will not lie, but i also know that the consultation is too expensive for her to pay herself. and then, when we look at the values (and norms) described by this participant – honesty (you're honest) and goodwill (psychologist must show consideration for the patient) – the ethical dilemma for the psychologist becomes apparent: “i want to be honest and i want to show leniency.” dealing with ethical dilemmas demands multiple skills of the psychologist and when multiple stakeholders are involved, there is often talk of an incongruence of interests (koocher & keith-spiegel, 2008). all vignettes were fraught with emotions, which could contribute to the perceived complexity. in another vignette (also rated simple), for example, a participant describes the following: i feel indignation and anger: how dare she be so demanding. i also feel used and manipulated. i wonder how motivated she is to be treated and if i can still be her therapist. in any case, i no longer want to be her therapist. besides the situation itself and the number of words (that can be) used to describe it, the associated emotions, potentially conflicting values and the involvement of several affected parties can explain why psychologists to consider messy and confusing problems in mental health care to be complex. the high hard ground is concerned with ‘manageable problems’, where solutions are found ‘through the use of research-based theory and techniques’. emotions, potentially conflicting norms and values, the involvement of vignette research in primary mental healthcare 310 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ multiple parties and especially the consistency of these cases all stand more in the background of the high hard ground. these constituents have been reduced from the disease-oriented guidelines. the personal story of the patient is often reduced to ‘required information’, symptoms consistent with a mental disorder. meanwhile, the swampy lowlands (unruly day-to-day practice) are filled with emotions, norms and values. treatment of a patient with for instance a depression, involves also dealing with the family of the patient or dealing with employers, working together with other healthcare professionals, struggling with dilemmas and having mixed feelings. these factors can explain why psychologists experience the swampy lowlands as complex. discussion in this research we studied the complexity psychologists experience while working in primary care. experienced complexity is positioned in schön’s swampy lowlands and snowden’s cynefin framework was applied in order to grasp and ultimately distil some of its patterns. the aim was to obtain a better understanding of this complex dynamic reality. although the vignettes themselves are all about treating patients, complexity is experienced most often in relation to the treatment context. this context includes the patient’s relatives, the collaborative partners such as gps and occupational health doctors, and health insurers, as well as fellow psychologists and psychiatrists. playing a role in the background are social issues – such as the question of what is good care and who decides that – as well as potentially conflicting emotions, and norms and values. covering both the theory and practice of mental illness treatment, this system is inextricably connected to the laws and regulations of the health care system, the emotions of the psychologists involved and the personal context of the patient. this study deals with professional behaviour in a complex, dynamic system. it challenges us to develop another way of thinking. we need a kind of thinking that reconnects that which is disjointed and compartmentalized, that respects diversity as it recognizes unity, and that tries to discern interdependencies. we need a radical thinking (which gets to the root of problems), a multidimensional thinking, and an organizational or systemic thinking. (morin, 2008, p. vii) some examples. a complex dynamic system could be examined in terms of the consistency of its various elements and the dynamics of the system. but also in terms how to optimize the system’s adaptive selforganizing ability. in the process, it would be good to apply not only traditional scientific theorems – such as the principle of universal determinism, the principle of reduction and principle of disjunction – but also the dialogic principle, the principle of organizational recursion and the holografic principle as used in complexity sciences (morin, 2008, 2014). another challenge is to think in terms of causal feedback loops which can be either positive or negative. a positive loop will amplify an effect whereas a negative loop will inhibit or dampen an effect (gershenson & heylighen, 2005; heylighen, 2001). the researchers’ experience provides an example of both positive and negative loops in this study. the researchers felt attracted to the subject of ‘swampy lowlands in the practice of psychology’ (cause). that motivated them to undertake this study. their commitment was reinforced by the emotions of the respondents, thus reinforcing the cause and resulting in a positive loop. however, while they were examining the data the researchers consciously adopted an objective stance, creating a distance smit & derksen 311 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (scientific method) that reduced their emotional involvement, which thus resulted in a negative loop or equilibrium. their personal involvement returned when the data analysis was complete and distance was no longer necessary. our next challenge is to explore what it takes to bring the psychologist’s experience of complexity into a state of balance (equilibrium) without reducing or separating it into disparate elements. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge the following research assistants who provided much-appreciated assistance: a. helms (m.a.) and f. helms (msc.) and s. pas (msc.). references american psychiatric association. 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(1995). knowing-in-action: the new scholarship requires a new epistemology. change: the magazine of higher learning, 27(6), 27-34. doi:10.1080/00091383.1995.10544673 simons, d. j., & chabris, c. f. (1999). gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. perception, 28(9), 1059-1074. doi:10.1068/p281059 smit, e. h. (2015). the complexity of primary care psychology: theoretical foundations. nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences, 19(3), 269-284. snowden, d. j., & boone, m. e. (2007, november). a leader’s framework for decision making. harvard business review, 85(11), 68-76. about the authors dineke smit is a philosopher of science and phd candidate faculty social sciences/clinical psychology, radboud university nijmegen, netherlands. she is researcher at a mental health organization and secretary of the working group mental health of the european forum of primary care. her research interest concerns the complexity and dynamics of mental healthcare and mental healthcare organization. jan derksen is professor of clinical psychology and employed at the radboud university in nijmegen the netherlands and the free university of brussels. he is also active as a primary care psychologist and psychotherapist since 1978 in holland and was one of the founders of the primary care psychology movement. smit & derksen 313 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 300–313 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1212 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2010.09.012 http://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1995.10544673 http://doi.org/10.1068/p281059 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ vignette research in primary mental healthcare (introduction) messy and confusing problems vignette study the context sample vignette research design emotions parties involved norms and values terminology relating to professional conduct research findings situation sketch emotions parties involved norms and values terminology relating to professional conduct conclusions discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors machiavellianism and adult attachment in general interpersonal relationships and close relationships research reports machiavellianism and adult attachment in general interpersonal relationships and close relationships tamás ináncsi*a, andrás lángb, tamás bereczkeia [a] department of general and evolutionary psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. [b] department of personality, development and clinical psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. abstract up to the present, the relationship betweenmachiavellianism and adult attachment has remained a question to be answered in the psychological literature. that is why this study focused on the relationship between machiavellianism and attachment towards significant others in general interpersonal relationships and in intimate-close relationships. two attachment tests (relationship questionnaire and long-form of experiences in close relationship) and the mach-iv test were conducted on a sample consisting of 185 subjects. results have revealed that machiavellian subjects show a dismissing-avoidant attachment style in their general interpersonal relationships, while avoidance is further accompanied by some characteristics of attachment anxiety in their intimate-close relationships. our findings further refine the relationship between machiavellianism and dismissing-avoidant attachment. machiavellian individuals not only have a negative representation of significant others, but they also tend to seek symbiotic closeness in order to exploit their partners. this ambitendency in distance regulation might be particularly important in understanding the vulnerability of machiavellian individuals. keywords:machiavellianism, dismissing-avoidant attachment style, attachment-related avoidance and anxiety, general interpersonal relationships and close relationships europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 received: 2014-04-30. accepted: 2015-01-12. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: győri kapu 162 fsz/1, 3530 miskolc, hungary. e-mail: tengertudat@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, rapid growth occurred in the number of studies addressing the dark triad and, within that, machiavellianism (jonason & krause, 2013; jones &weiser, 2014). machiavellianism has already been investigated in several contexts. still, little is known about the way machiavellians are attached to their partners in romantic relationships. while machiavellians are especially skilled and successful in deceiving others in everyday interpersonal situations such as those involving competition and strategy (czibor & bereczkei, 2010), the case is completely different with social contexts aimed at trust, commitment and cooperation (pilch, 2008; pilch, 2012). this study attempts to fill in the mentioned gap in the literature by exploring machiavellian individuals’ adult attachment patterns shown in general interpersonal relationships and intimate-close relationships. in this way, machiavellians’ views on interpersonal relationships are approached at both a more general and a closer level. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ machiavellianism the concept of machiavellianism originates from the nameniccolo machiavelli (1469-1527) whose concept became over the course of time inseparably associated with the conception of a “dark personality” and “the dark side of love” (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010; hatfield, 1984; shaver & hazan, 1988). machiavellian individuals may be described by such characteristics as deceitful, dissimulative, false-hearted, manipulative, self-seeking, exploitative, utilitarian, cynical, indifferent, emotionally cold, unscrupulous, hypercompetitive and egocentric. christie and geis (1970) suggest that the primary characteristic differentiating between less andmore machiavellian individuals (referred to as low and high machs) is the measure of emotions invested in interpersonal relationships. the emotionally detached interpersonal orientation is an essential factor of machiavellianism to the extent that christie and geis (1970) described high machs by the term “cool syndrome” as opposed to low machs described by the term “soft touch”. this differentiation is supported by the results of wastell and booth (2003) suggesting that machiavellians are characterised by alexithymia, that is, their inner experiences are poor, they live in an emotionally vacant world and have no connection to their own emotions. as a result of being unaware of their own emotional experiences, they are unable to empathetically attune to others (andrew, cooke, & muncer, 2008; barnett & thompson, 1985; jakobwitz & egan, 2006; paál & bereczkei, 2007) and to provide social support. their difficulties in social emotional cognition are illustrated by a study of austin and colleagues (2007) who have found that machiavellians show a low level of emotional intelligence. etiology of dismissing-avoidant attachment style and machiavellianism dismissing-avoidant individuals’ parents are emotionally inexpressive and unavailable in a psychological sense. they do not provide a feeling of security, they cannot soothe their child when she or he in distress, and they avoid close physical contact (cassidy & kobak, 1988; fraley, davis, & shaver, 1998). these parents disapprove and undervalue the experience and expression of emotions, and consider attachment behaviour to be childish and a sign of weakness. they moreover expect autonomy and achievements from their children rather than establishing intimate relationships with others (bartholomew, 1990). as a consequence, avoidant individuals learn over time that the experience of emotions is harmful (montebarocci, codispoti, baldaro, & rossi, 2004), intimate interactions with others are painful and they can only expect refusal. in order to avoid the pain of loss and disappointment, they strive to prevent psychological closeness, intimacy, and considerable investments in close relationships and to keep the attachment system deactivated (mikulincer & shaver, 2003; shaver & mikulincer, 2002). as they pay little attention to emotional experiences (fraley & brumbaugh, 2007), they are not influenced by them and this condition may be described as alexithymia (montebarocci et al., 2004; troisi, d’argenio, peracchio, & petti, 2001). several studies suggest that the etiology of machiavellianism, similarly to the development of a dismissingavoidant pattern, partly originates from childhood experiences obtained in relationships with unexpressive, less understanding, highly punitive or restrictive caregivers (christie & geis, 1970; guterman, 1970; jonason, lyons, & bethell, 2014; kraut & lewis, 1975; ojha, 2007; touhey, 1973). thus, apparently, it may also be established from a developmental aspect, following the observation of wastell and booth (2003), that the machiavellian attitude is not based on voluntary choice but is a constrained developmental path depending on childhood experiences. other studies (e.g. láng & birkás, 2014) highlight chaotic functioning in the family of origin of machiavellian individuals. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 140 http://www.psychopen.eu/ internal mental working model workingmodels of dismissing-avoidant individuals—attachment and romantic relationships are fundamentally based on mental models or emotional schemata of the representational world (sandler & rosenblatt, 1962). these cognitive concepts refer to the process in which one forms a model or image of the self, a model of others as well as a model of the rules on which interpersonal relationships are based (bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1982). dismissing-avoidant individuals’ model of self is characterised by a positive self-image (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991). bartholomew (1990; p. 164) suggests that “a way of maintaining a positive self-image in the face of rejection by attachment figures is to distance oneself and develop amodel of the self as fully adequate and hence invulnerable to negative feelings …”. since their self-esteem is to a great extent internalised, they do not need external reinforcement and, by establishing rigid self-boundaries, they show self-confidence and independence even when facing permanent losses (fraley & shaver, 1999). bowlby (1973) and other authors termed such a disposition as “compulsive self-reliance” or an “excessive need for self-esteem”. they regularly describe themselves in positive terms and restrict cognitive access to negative self-traits (mikulincer, 1995) and consider themselves rather than others as a basis of security (fraley & davis, 1997). dismissing-avoidant individuals tend to maintain models of others in which they are represented as malevolent, unreliable and hostile. as dismissing-avoidant individuals’ trust in others is unstable (collins & read, 1990; feeney & noller, 1990; simpson, 1990), they hold negative expectations on others’ availability and hold the belief that one cannot rely on significant others in times of crisis. they are distrustful towards others’ intentions, therefore they are not willing to either provide or accept support and care (collins & feeney, 2000; simpson, rholes, & nelligan, 1992). according to dismissing-avoidant individuals’ models of close relationships, they hold that the real one does not actually exist, only in novels and films. romantic relationships do not last long and happiness does not require maintaining close relationships (feeney, 1999; levy & davis, 1988; shaver & hazan, 1988). researchers have found that dismissing-avoidant attachment style is negatively related to all three components of the love triangle of sternberg (1986, 1988) (levy & davis, 1988) as well as to interpersonal closeness (brennan et al., 1998; collins & read, 1990). it is also negatively related to interpersonal dependence, trust (simpson, 1990), and self-disclosure (mikulincer & nachshon, 1991). dismissing-avoidant individuals are characterised by a preference for casual sex (brennan et al., 1998; feeney, noller, & patty, 1993) and a sociosexual orientation lacking intimacy (brennan & shaver, 1995). they do not particularly adhere to their partners and especially dismissing-avoidant men experience less anxiety following the break-up of a relationship (simpson, 1990; sprecher, felmlee, metts, fehr, & vanni, 1998). working models of machiavellians — high machs’ self-models are characterised by rigid self-boundaries, compulsive self-reliance and stable self-esteem. they evaluate their autonomy and independence highly, whereby their need for psychological closeness is minimalised. they only show their abilities and positive attributes to the social environment while concealing their feelings and personal deficiencies based on the belief that disclosing emotions and vulnerability is a sign of weakness that would merely be an invitation to others to exploit them (sherry, hewitt, besser, flett, & klein, 2006). one major characteristic of a model of others based on a machiavellian attitude is a negative, cynical view on human nature (mchoskey, worzel, & szyarto, 1998) and generalised distrust against others. machiavellians europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 141 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conceive of others as unpredictable and unreliable. led by a paranoid suspicion, machiavellian individuals perceive others as pursuing ill intentions, as controlling, demanding, hostile and threatening. they are unable to find values that could be respected in their parents, partners or others. with respect to relational models, high machs hold that intimacy is risky because trust is always subject to betrayal and self-disclosure incurs especial vulnerability. therefore, they avoid deep intimacy and are reluctant to share their ideas and feelings with others. due to their utilitarian and instrumentalist attitude, they enter into short-term relationships at a low investment rate (holtzman, 2013; jonason, li, webster, & schmitt, 2009) and they are not interested in establishing committed, emotionally deep relationships. they maintain an impersonal relation to their partners, only treating them as exploitable objects. their sexual behaviour is characterised by promiscuous, unrestricted sociosexual orientation (mchoskey, 2001a). thus, high machs focus their resources on personal goals rather than on people and overemphasise the extrinsic motivation of material success as opposed to such intrinsic motivations as community and family (mchoskey, 1999). ali and chamorro-premuzic (2010) have found that machiavellianism is negatively related to the intimate relationship dimensions of sternberg (1986, 1988), that is, intimacy and commitment. machiavellianism, dismissing-avoidant attachment style and psychological vulnerability if they are to be represented on a bipolar dimensional scale whose poles are seeking for closeness (attachment) and avoiding closeness (autonomy), both dismissing-avoidant and machiavellian individuals should be placed on the emotionally cold pole of the scale (bekker, bachrach, & croon, 2007; jones & paulhus, 2011; zimberoff & hartman, 2002). despite being characterised by low anxiety besides high avoidance, dismissing-avoidant individuals’ invulnerability is questionable. although dismissing-avoidant individuals mostly adapt well to everyday life and report psychological balance, this is much more due to their powerful defense mechanisms than to their actual psychological well-being. this is also reflected in the results of studies (mikulincer, dolev, & shaver, 2004) which have revealed that avoidant subjects’ defense strategies prove to be vulnerable and may are likely to collapse in situations involving intense and permanent distress (dozier & kobak, 1992). studies have demonstrated that dismissing-avoidant individuals may tend to experience negative mood states such as depression or loneliness (wei, russel, mallinckrodt, & vogel 2007) and, furthermore, hostile emotions (kobak & sceery, 1988) neuroticism (conradi, gerlsma, van duijn, & de jonge, 2006), less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions (mikulincer & nachshon, 1991; simpson, 1990) and that they may also tend to more quickly recall words with negative contents (baldwin, fehr, keedian, seidel, & thomson, 1993), apply less constructive and less flexible emotion regulation strategies (block & block, 1980; kobak & sceery, 1988) and maladaptive coping strategies such as alcohol consumption (brennan & shaver, 1995; brennan, shaver, & tobey, 1991). evidence for a similar vulnerability concerning machiavellians has also been reported in the literature. high machs have dysfuncitional personalities; they are characterised by unbalanced emotional functioning, hostile and negative attitudes, and depressive symptoms (jakobwitz & egan, 2006; mchoskey, 2001b; mchoskey et al., 1998; paulhus & williams, 2002). the above description may raise the following question: how much overlapping or perhaps identical constructs are dismissing-avoidant attachment and machiavellianism? in our opinion, machiavellianism is only one of the possible ways of coping with a rejecting, abusing or neglecting social environment. while some of the dismissingavoidant individuals respond to childhood adversities with withdrawal from the social world, machiavellian individuals try to cope with expected refusals and hurts by means of their controlling and deceptive interpersonal tactics. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 142 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses given that that both dismissing-avoidant individuals and machiavellians form such cognitive models of themselves, their partners and close relationships which emphasise self-confidence, distrust of others and a defensive interpersonal style against psychological closeness, we formulate the following hypotheses: 1. in general interpersonal relationships, high machs are attached in a dismissing-avoidant style whereas low machs are securely attached. 2. in intimate-close relationships, machiavellianism is positively related to avoidant attachment. since the relevant literature is characterised by uncertainty regarding anxiety, no specific hypotheses were formed in this study concerning the relationship between machiavellianism and attachment anxiety. method sample second-, thirdand fourth-year law students of the university of miskolc, hungary and the university of pécs, hungary participated in the study. the overall sample consisted of 210 subjects. 15 subjects were excluded from the overall sample due to incomplete filling of the questionnaires and 12 additional subjects were excluded because they reported that they had never had an intimate partner. exclusion of the latter was necessary because the experiences in close relationships questionnaire (ecr) is only capable of measuring attachment of those who have already had a romantic relationship. without relevant experience, subjects are not able to give valid responses. in this way, the actual sample consisted of 183 subjects (53 male; 130 female). subjects’ age varied between 19 and 27 years. (m = 21.63; sd = 1.57). measures hypothesis testing was based on self-report measures. the two attachment questionnaires presented below were selected primarily because they enabled the assessment of attachment and relationship attitudes towards both less close general relationships and romantic relationships. furthermore, the two questionnaires also differ in their underlying methodologies: one is based on attachment categories while the other is based on attachment dimensions. the authors of this study suggest that the joint application of the questionnaires enables a more precise assessment. relationship questionnaire – rq (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991) — based on the adult attachment questionnaire developed by hazan and shaver (1987), bartholomew and horowitz (1991) developed a forced-choice instrument comprising separate items which measures adults’ general willingness to be attached. the scale describes four prototypical attachment patterns such as secure, dismissing-avoidant, anxious-preoccupied and fearful-avoidant, defining the major characteristics of the four attachment styles. subjects were first asked to evaluate each category on a 7-point likert scale marking the value which best reflected how they acted and felt in general interpersonal relationships. then they were asked to select the prototype which most characterised them according to the previously presented descriptions. experiences in close relationship – ecr (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) — currently, the most widely accepted attachment model is the typology comprising four attachment styles (bartholomew, 1990; bartholomew & horowitz, 1991) based on two underlying latent dimensions. one dimension is the self-model, also referred to as anxiety, that represents a particular view on the valuableness of the self. the other dimension is the model of europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 143 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the other, also referred to as avoidance, that includes general expectations on others’ availability, responsiveness and reliability (griffin & bartholomew, 1994). attachment avoidance describes the intensity of attachment such as the feeling of discomfort related to closeness or the avoidance of intimacy. attachment anxiety describes the quality of attachment such as being worried about the durability of relationships or being anxious about rejection or abandonment (brennan et al., 1998). the scale has been designed to assess the general pattern of adult romantic attachment, i.e. the way subjects experience their close relationships in general and not the feelings they experience in their current relationship. brennan and colleagues developed the 142-item ecr combining adult attachment scales available in 1997. the first 36 items of the scale define a factor structure of two continuous attachment dimensions, one of whichmeasures attachment avoidance and the other measures attachment anxiety. the extended version of the scale assesses 12 additional attachment-related dimensions besides the two principal dimensions. these additional scales enable a more specific assessment of avoidance and anxiety (each measured by six dimensions) and a more accurate indication of individual differences in adult romantic attachment. subjects indicated their responses on a 7-point likert scale ranging from do not agree at all (1) to agree absolutely (7). the reliability of ecr dimensions ranged from .74 to .92 (cronbach’s alphas). mach iv (christie & geis, 1970)— the 20-itemmach scale was designed by social psychologists of the columbia university to assess the propensity for fraud and interpersonal manipulation as well as cynical and unmoral attitudes and beliefs. ten items each reflect the acceptance and ten items the avoidance of a machiavellian attitude. the mach score is the sum of the ratings given to the 20 items plus 20. each item of the scale is followed by a 7-point likert scale ranging from do not agree at all (1) to agree absolutely (7). the minimum value of machiavellianism is 40, the maximum is 160. higher scores on the scale indicate higher levels of machiavellianism. subjects were divided into two groups based on the median (98) of mach-iv in our sample: (1) low machs (70 – 97); (2) high machs (98 – 135). mach iv proved to be a reliable instrument in our study (cronbach’s alpha = .73). procedure the survey was conducted in university classrooms where subjects filled in the questionnaires alone after receiving instructions. data were collected in groups of subjects. participation was anonymous to prevent subsequent personal identification of subjects. in order to ensure secrecy and prevent dissimulation, subjects were informed before the survey that they should individually place their filled out questionnaires in a large envelope circulated in the classroom at the end of the session. subjects participated in the study voluntarily, without receiving course credits or financial compensation. results relationship between machiavellianism and attachment style in general interpersonal relationships at the first stage of data analysis, a chi-square test was conducted to compare frequencies of different general attachment styles assessed by the relationship questionnaire (rq) in the low mach and high mach groups. the result of the chi-square test showed that the distribution of attachment styles was not independent of machiavellianism (χ2(3) = 9.612; p < .05). distributions reported in table 1 show that the significant difference from random distributions resulted from the significantly higher frequency of securely attached subjects among low machs as well as from the significantly higher frequency of dismissing-avoidant subjects among high machs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 144 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 distribution of subjects with different attachment styles in the low mach and high mach groups attachment style group fearfulpreoccupieddismissingsecure low mach (53%)n = 26(45%)n = 14(37%)n = 16(66%)n = 39 high mach (47%)n = 23(55%)n = 17(63%)n = 28(34%)n = 20 total (100%)n = 49(100%)n = 31(100%)n = 44(100%)n = 59 at the second stage, the low and high mach groups were compared in an analysis of the variance in their ratings of each attachment style they were presented with in descriptions. results are shown in table 2. data show that low and high machs only differed in the evaluation of one attachment style, namely, dismissing-avoidant attachment (cohen’s d = .49). high machs evaluated the description of dismissing-avoidant attachment as characterising them to a significantly higher degree than their low mach counterparts. table 2 comparisons between the low mach and high mach groups in the dimensional evaluations of the four attachment styles; results of the analyses of variance pf high machlow mach attachment style sdmsdm secure .557.3470.571.983.601.124 dismissing .001.02911.002.993.751.063 preoccupied .447.5810.711.523.671.333 fearful .282.1671.012.843.931.533 note. df = 1,182 in each case. relationship betweenmachiavellianism and attachment dimensions in close interpersonal relationships at the third stage of data analysis, the relationship between machiavellianism and adult romantic attachment dimensions – measured by experiences in close relationships questionnaire (ecr) – was tested with pearson’s correlations in order to better fit the nature of our data (i.e., interval scale; table 3). according to the results of pearson’s correlations individuals with more pronouncedmachiavellian attitudes showedmore avoidant attachment in their romantic relationships. this relationship was also reflected in all six additional avoidant attachment dimensions. more machiavellian individuals conceived of their partner as a worse attachment figure, trusted their partner less, and reported themselves to be more self-reliant. they also reported higher incidence of discomfort both with closeness and dependence, and claimed to hang on to their independence tough-mindedly. although the principal dimension of attachment anxiety was not significantly correlated with machiavellianism, four out of six additional anxious attachment dimensions showed a significant relationship with mach-iv scores. thus, more machiavellian individuals showed less separation anxiety, more attachment-related anger at partner, more uncertainty about their feelings towards their partners. they also uttered a more pronounced desire to merge with their partners. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 145 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 p ea rs on ’s co rr el at io ns be tw ee n m ac hi av el lia ni sm an d th e tw o hi gh er or de ra nd 12 lo w er or de rd im en si on s of e c r 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 d im en si on ec r hi gh er or de rd im en si on s 1. av oi da nc e 2. a nx ie ty .1 5* ec r lo w er or de rd im en si on s 3. p ar tn er is a g oo d a tta ch m en tf ig ur e .2 4* * .5 8* * 4. s el f-r el ia nc e .4 1* * .0 4 .6 2* * 5. d is co m fo rt w ith c lo se ne ss .5 7* * .5 7* * .1 7* .9 0* * 6. d is co m fo rt w ith d ep en de nc e .6 8* * .6 5* * .4 8* * .0 8 .7 7* * 7. tr us ti n p ar tn er s .5 7* * .5 5* * .4 6* * .4 5* * .3 7* * .5 4* * 8. to ug hm in de d in de pe nd en ce .3 7* * .6 2* * .6 2* * .6 6* * .4 6* * .1 7* .6 2* * 9. s ep ar at io n a nx ie ty .5 6* * .1 5* .3 7* * .4 6* * .4 9* * .4 6* * .3 7* * .5 1* * 10 .a tta ch m en t-r el at ed a ng er at p ar tn er s .1 1 .1 5* .4 6* * .2 4* * .4 1* * .1 9* * .3 7* * .5 8* * .3 4* * 11 .u nc er ta in ty a bo ut fe el in gs fo rp ar tn er s .5 7* * .3 7* * .5 0* * .4 5* * .4 4* * .7 2* * .4 3* * .5 7* * .2 8* * .6 6* * 12 .l ov ab ili ty /r el at io na ls el f-e st ee m .4 0* * .3 9* * .0 6 .1 3 .4 4* * .3 2* * .4 8* * .1 8* .4 8* * .4 5* * .4 7* * 13 .d es ire to m er ge w ith p ar tn er s .5 3* * .4 5* * .6 1* * .1 0 .1 5* .4 9* * .3 2* * .4 4* * .1 8* .4 8* * .8 1* * .4 1* * 14 .f ea ro fa ba nd on m en t .7 4* * .6 3* * .4 5* * .5 3* * .1 3 .0 7 .4 7* * .2 7* * .3 7* * .2 1* * .4 2* * .7 6* * .3 8* * m ac hi av el lia ni sm .1 0 .2 1* * .1 1 .1 9* * .2 3* * .2 3* * .3 1* * .5 3* * .3 4* * .2 8* * .2 8* * .3 3* * .1 2 .3 3* * *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 146 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study was aimed at exploring relationship between machiavellianism and attachment-related attitudes in general interpersonal relationships and intimate-close relationships. concerning attachment measured in relation to general interpersonal relationships, results showed that dismissing-avoidant attachment style and machiavellianism were closely related constructs. specifically, the distribution of different attachment styles between the two mach groups showed that most high machs were found among dismissing-avoidant subjects while most low machs were securely attached. furthermore, high machs found dismissing-avoidant attachment to be characteristic to them to a significantly higher degree than did their low mach peers. these results confirm hypothesis 1. results obtained from the dimensional measures of ecr showed a more sophisticated picture of the relation between machiavellianism and attachment in an intimate-close relationship. according to the results, machiavellianism was positively correlated with attachment avoidance, but was uncorrelated with attachment anxiety. the robust finding betweenmachiavellianism and attachment avoidance was further supported by significant correlations betweenmachiavellianism and each additional attachment avoidance dimension. these results support hypothesis 2. nevertheless, additional attachment anxiety scales showed that angry feelings toward the partner, uncertainty about feelings towards partner, desire for merging, and relative lack of separation anxiety are also characteristic of machiavellian individuals (aim 1). our results partially replicate those describing machiavellian individuals as having an emotionally detached interpersonal orientation (christie & geis, 1970; mchoskey, 1999; wastell & booth, 2003). reflected in dismissingavoidant attachment, machiavellian individuals have a positive model of self and a negative model of others. others are viewed as malevolent and as people who cannot be trusted (christie & geis, 1970). so, at the level of internal working models, dismissing-avoidant attachment and machiavellianism seem to overlap. at the same time, machiavellianism’s relation with attachment anxiety highlights that means of coping with interpersonal situations – especially in intimate-close relationships – differ for machiavellian and dismissing-avoidant individuals. put in a more precise way, the machiavellian strategy can be one of several strategies that help individuals to cope with anxiety resulting from rejection by caregivers or romantic partners. insensitive of separation itself, machiavellian individuals want to merge with their partners in order to control them. their anger at their partner also results from the uncontrollable actions of the partner. uncertainty of their feelings towards the partner might be a result of their alexithymia (wastell & booth, 2003). apparently, machiavellians’ interpersonal attitude is based on a symbiotic-hostile merging with the partner rather than simple interpersonal distance. machiavellians’ relationships are symbiotic in the sense that they consider their partners to merely be exploitable objects whose existence exclusively depends on their ability to satisfy machiavellians’ self-related needs (paál & bereczkei, 2007). led by utilitarianism, they want to get but not give in romantic relationships. at the same time, such relationships are also hostile since machiavellians manipulate their partners against their partners’ will, and this exploitative behaviour restricts partners’ personal prospects and growth. machiavellians practically live at their partners’ expense. when partners no longer provide any benefits or actively deny further exploitation, they may elicit devastating anger from machiavellians who then abandon the relationship in order to prevent further frustration. machiavellians’ greatest fears result from losing control over their partners. this may occur frequently as a result of abandonment because people often choose to escape from a relationship established with an untruthful, manipulative and exploitative person (anderson, 1968; buss, 1989; fletcher, simpson, thomas, & giles, 1999). machiavellian individuals unrestricted sociosexual orientation europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 147 http://www.psychopen.eu/ also increases the likelihood of being abandoned (mchoskey, 2001a). machiavellians respond with intense anger to any suspicion of abandonment or being let down. this is done in a relatively immature manner by derogating the partner and attachment – all parts of an avoidant attachment strategy. the symbiotic-hostile nature of machiavellians’ intimate relationships as outlined above is seemingly contradicted by the observation that machiavellians are irritated by their partners’ excessive need for closeness. this contradiction may also be due to their concealed vulnerability on the one hand, while, on the other hand, it may also indicate a form of need for control emerging in their relationships. namely, machiavellian individuals want to have exclusive control of closeness and distance in their relationships. by doing so, they transgress an essential rule of relationships, namely, reciprocity. thus, it is not surprising that their relationships are short-lived and mostly provide little contentment (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010). to summarise the novel findings of our research, the above described pattern of additional attachment anxiety dimensions – an urgent need for merging, feelings of anger and frustration towards the partner with a simultaneous lack of separation anxiety – suggest that high machs almost exclusively consider closeness as an opportunity for exploitation and control. thus, from the perspective of object relations theory, machiavellians’ close relationships are actually symbiotic in nature but such relationships provide a negative, destructive form of symbiosis (hamilton, 1988). furthermore, need for interpersonal distance resulting from the negative representation of others and the need for physical closeness that is necessary for control and exploitation are present in machiavellian individuals at the same time. in our opinion, this makes machiavellian individuals extremely vulnerable because the above mentioned contradiction between distance and closeness results in heightened levels of anxiety that can only be solved by the means of primitive defence mechanisms. limitations and prospects for future research the study is not free from limitations. firstly, the sample exclusively comprised university students, thus the results obtained cannot be generalised to a wider population. secondly, the unbalanced distribution of genders in the sample might distort results. the overrepresentation of women might contribute to machiavellians’ high score in the anxiety dimension of ecr (del giudice, 2011). thirdly and finally, the study was conducted using a questionnaire methodology and was based on a cross-sectional arrangement. consequently, the causal relationships established often remain hypothetical although the relationships revealed between the studied variables were obtained by means of accurate statistical analyses. a repetition of the study using projective tests or including real-life couples in the sample under laboratory conditions might bring especially intriguing results. a longitudinal study would enable us to observe how the degree of machiavellianism measured before the establishment of an intimate partner relationship influences the course of romantic relationships from adolescence. subsequent studies should importantly apply more refinedmeasures to investigate the vulnerability of machiavellian individuals. among others, it should be clarified whether machiavellians – while staying physically close to others – are afraid of or indifferent to emotional closeness. funding this work was supported by the hungarian scientific research fund – otka (k 101762). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 148 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the second author is an associate editor of ejop but played no editorial role for this particular article. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ali, f., & chamorro-premuzic, t. 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(2001). insecure attachment and alexithymia in young men with mood symptoms. the journal of nervous and mental disease, 189(5), 311-316. doi:10.1097/00005053-200105000-00007 wastell, c., & booth, a. (2003). machiavellianism: an alexithymic perspective. journal of social and clinical psychology, 22, 730-744. doi:10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 wei, m., russel, d. w., mallinckrodt, b., & vogel, d. l. (2007). the experiences in close relationship scale (ecr)-short form: reliability, validity, and factor structure. journal of personality assessment, 88(2), 187-204. doi:10.1080/00223890701268041 zimberoff, d., & hartman, d. (2002). attachment, detachment, nonattachment: achieving synthesis. journal of heart-centered therapies, 5(1), 3-94. about the authors tamás ináncsi, is assistant lecturer of psychology. his reseraches focusing on the phenomenology and cognitions of machiavellianism in the context of close relationships (e.g., romantic ideals, relationship quality) andrás láng, phd, is assistant professor of developmental and clinical psychology. his areas of research cover different fields of attachment theory (e.g., adult attachment, therapeutic relationship, religiosity). he has been recently involved in seveurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 153 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407588054005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616730210154171 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.09.010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.59.5.971 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.3.434 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407598156005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2786566 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00005053-200105000-00007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223890701268041 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eral research on the developmental aspects of machiavellianism. he is the author of the book 'attachment and psychotherapy relationship'. tamásbereczkei, phd, dsc is professor in psychology, with biological and philosophical background. his interest encompasses fields like sexual attractiveness, mate choice, reproductive behavior, altruism and prosocial behavior, machiavellianism and socialization during childhood. his studies have been published in international journals, he is the author and editor of several books on evolutionary psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 139–154 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.801 machiavellianism and adult attachment 154 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en machiavellianism and adult attachment (introduction) machiavellianism etiology of dismissing-avoidant attachment style and machiavellianism internal mental working model machiavellianism, dismissing-avoidant attachment style and psychological vulnerability hypotheses method sample measures procedure results relationship between machiavellianism and attachment style in general interpersonal relationships relationship between machiavellianism and attachment dimensions in close interpersonal relationships discussion limitations and prospects for future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors is the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress mediated or moderated by parenting alliance? research reports is the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress mediated or moderated by parenting alliance? elena camisasca*a, sarah miragolia, paola di blasioa [a] centro di ricerca sulle dinamiche evolutive ed educative (c.r.i.d.e.e.), department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. abstract the purpose of this study was to explore the mediating and moderating effects of parenting alliance on the relationship between marital adjustment, as represented by the dimensions dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, and affectional expression, and maternal and paternal stress. self-report data were gathered from 236 italian families (236 mothers: m = 40.9; sd = 4.4 and 236 fathers: m = 42.9; sd = 4.8) of children aged 6–11 years (m = 8.6; sd = 1.7). a set of regression analyses were conducted to examine whether parenting alliance mediates or moderates the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress. regression analyses were consistent with a model of coparenting as a mediator but not as a moderator of the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress. in the case of mothers, parenting alliance mediates the relationships between two dimensions of marital adjustment (dyadic consensus and dyadic cohesion) on parenting stress; in the case of fathers, parenting alliance serves as a mediator of the relationship between the marital adjustment (in terms of dyadic satisfaction) and parenting stress. implications for future research and interventions are discussed. keywords: marital adjustment, parenting alliance, parenting stress, mediation, moderation europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 received: 2013-12-02. accepted: 2014-02-23. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: c.r.i.d.e.e., department of psychology, catholic university of milan, l.go gemelli, 1, 20123, milan, italy. e-mail: elena.camisasca@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction psychological stress has been conceptualized as an experience arising from continuous interactions and adjustments between a person and his environment (lazarus & folkman, 1984). it was also suggested that stress is not inherently maladaptive (selye, 1973, 1974) and that, at moderate levels, it can foster positive changes in wellbeing, adaptability, and performance of individuals (cotton & hart, 2003; hart & cotton, 2002; mcgowan, gardner, & fletcher, 2006; o’sullivan, 2011; quick, nelson, & quick, 1990; tedeschi & calhoun, 2004). in contrast, “when the demands placed on the body (in the larger sense that includes both the physiological and the psychological aspects) exceed its capacity to expend energy in maintaining homeostasis” (le fevre, matheny, & kolt, 2003, p. 729) a negative psychological response can occur. in family studies, parenting stress has been conceptualized as a perceived discrepancy between situational demands and personal resources connected to parenthood (abidin, 1995; cooper, mclanahan, meadows, & brooks-gunn, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2009; deater-deckard, 2004) and it is distinct from stress in other domains of life (e.g., work stress or marital relationship stress). because high levels of stress that arises from the demands of parenthood has been shown to impact several areas of family life, including both the quality of parent-child relationship and child adjustment (östberg & hagekull, 2013), it is important to understand which factors may predict this parental condition. at this regard, the attention to the quality of marital functioning and coparenting relationship may be particularly valuable. marital adjustment and the quality of parent-child relationship past literature has consistently shown a significant relation between marital functioning and the quality of parentchild relationships and parenting stress. a spillover hypothesis (easterbrooks & emde, 1988; erel & burman, 1995) has explained this association by suggesting that aspects such as affect or behavior of one relationship in a family can transfer to another, such as from the marital relationship to the parent-child relationship. this hypothesis assumes that parents experiencing deteriorated marital relationships may show more dysfunctional parenting due to a spillover of the couple’s overall distress (emery, hetherington, & dilalla, 1984). a series of studies has empirically tested that marital satisfaction affects the quality of the caregiver-child relationship in terms of parental investment, responsivity, self-efficacy, and reduced hostility (cox, owen, lewis, & henderson, 1989; floyd, gilliom, & costigan, 1998; merrifield & gamble, 2013; sturge-apple, davies, & cummings, 2006). other studies have also demonstrated how a couple’s relationship characterized by warmth, complicity, emotional support, and greater conflict management skills is related to lower levels of parenting stress (colpin, de munter, nys, & vandemeulebroecke, 2000; mulsow, caldera, pursley, reifman, & huston, 2002; wieland & baker, 2010) and greater caregiving skills (lafontaine, belanger, & gagnon, 2009). inversely, marital conflict was found to be associated with parents’ withdrawal from a parenting role and their engagement in dysfunctional interactions denoted by permissiveness, hostility, and tension (almeida, wethington, & chandler, 1999; fauchier & margolin, 2004; kerig, cowan, & cowan, 1993; krishnakumar & buehler, 2000; margolin, gordis, & oliver, 2004). coparenting and the quality of parent-child relationship recently, to better understand the mechanisms through which dysfunctional relationships in the marital dyad affect parenting, scholars have identified coparenting as an important aspect of the interparental relationship that can explain the effects of marital functioning on parent-child relationships (bonds & gondoli, 2007; floyd et al., 1998; frosch, mangelsdorf, & mchale, 2000; ippolito morrill, hines, mahmood, & cordova, 2010; margolin, gordis, & john, 2001; mchale & rasmussen, 1998). coparenting is the component of marital relationships that pertains specifically to parenting together and it is through this relationship that parents negotiate their respective roles, responsibilities, and contributions to their children (margolin et al., 2001; mchale, kuersten-hogan, lauretti, & rasmussen, 2000). this construct encompasses both the parents’ abilities to coordinate their activities and support one another as well as their not supportive responses or efforts to interfere with or undermine one another (feinberg, brown, & kan, 2012; mchale, 1995). more specifically, the broad construct of coparenting includes supportive or hostile-competitive dimensions, as well as discrepancies in parental involvement (belsky, putnam, & crnic, 1996; mchale, 1995, 1997), triangulation (margolin et al., 2001; mchale, 2007), and parents’ perceptions of their parenting alliance (abidin, 1992; cohen & weissman, 1984; floyd et al., 1998). parenting alliance, in particular, has been one of the most widely used operationalizations of coparenting and, according to weissman and cohen (1985), a sound coparenting alliance includes the following four characteristics: (a) both parents’ investment in the child; (b) valuing each other’s involvement with the child; (c) respect for each other’s judgment about child rearing; and (d) having a desire to communicate child-related information. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 236 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an important hypothesis presented in the literature considers the coparenting relationship more of a proximal determinant of the quality of parenting experiences than other features of marriage, outlining that the parent’s ability to coordinate their activities can mediate the effects of general marital quality on parenting experiences (bonds & gondoli, 2007; floyd et al., 1998; ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001). according to grych and fincham (1993, p. 61) “the widely used concept of domain specificity” provides one explanation for this greater proximity of the coparenting relationship to parenting: marital interactions concerning child rearing have a greater impact on parenting than other aspects of the marital relationship (ippolito morrill et al., 2010). in this way, solid parenting alliance represents a point of intersection between two family subsystems precisely, the marital and parent-child relationships (lindsey, caldera, & colwell, 2005). several studies have directly supported this proposed hypothesis, suggesting that any direct effect between marital relations and parenting decreases or disappears after accounting for the mediating effect of parenting alliance (bonds & gondoli, 2007; floyd et al., 1998; ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001). the dimensions of parenting investigated in these studies are: parenting stress (margolin et al., 2001); parenting practices (ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001), perceived parenting competence (floyd et al., 1998), and maternal warmth (bonds & gondoli, 2007). specifically, in a cross-sectional study conducted on both parents of preschool children, margolin, gordis, and john (2001) examined the mediational effects of coparenting represented by the dimensions of cooperation, triangulation, and conflict on the relationships among marital conflict, parenting practices, and parenting stress. results showed that coparenting functions as a link in the relationship between marital conflict and parenting both for mothers and fathers. the data were consistent with a mediational model, indicating that coparenting is an important mechanism by which marital relations affect parent-child relationships. floyd, gilliom, and costigan (1998) conducted a longitudinal study on a sample of married and cohabiting parents of school-age children with mental retardation: the results showed the parenting alliance mediated the effects of marriage on parenting experiences in terms of perceived parenting competence and negative parent–child interactions. yet, in a longitudinal study conducted on both parents of preadolescents, ippolito morrill, hines, mahmood, and cordova (2010) have empirically tested two different models: the traditional indirect model (parenting alliance as a mediator of the relationship between marital health and parenting practices) and an alternative model (in which parenting alliance simultaneously predicts both marital relationships and parenting practices). findings suggested that both the traditional indirect model and the alternative predictor model fit for both spouses. on the basis of these results, the parenting alliance could perform multiple and dynamic roles in the overall family system. finally, in a sample of mothers of adolescents, bonds and gondoli (2007) showed that the parenting alliance characterized by good teamwork, mutual support, and consistent perception of the child mediates the relationship betweenmarital adjustment and maternal warmth. the findings suggested that positive marital relations set the stage for a solid parenting alliance that then facilitates the positive emotional tone of parent-child interactions. in the literature, an interesting alternative perspective argued that more positive qualities of one subsystem can buffer against negative qualities of the other dyadic subsystem (erel & burman, 1995). therefore, it was also suggested that the quality of coparenting relationship could moderate the association between marital functioning and parenting experiences because interactive effects between these variables may occur as well (feinberg, 2002; merrifield & gamble, 2013). thinking about coparenting and parenting alliance in particular as moderator entails, on the one hand, to assume that there might be a good parenting alliance despite the marital distress (cowan & mchale, 1996; talbot & mchale, 2004) and, on the other hand, to believe that the strength of the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting experiences could be smaller for parents with high levels of a parenting alliance and greater for those with low levels. in fact, it may be that, at high levels of coparenting europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ support and alliance, the parental ability to cooperate for the wellbeing of their children provides a protective basis for positive parent-child interactions, even in the presence of marital distress. to our knowledge, there is only one study by merrifield and gamble (2013), that directly assessed the interactional effects of marital quality and coparenting relationship on parenting experiences, measured in terms of self-efficacy. authors explored the possibility that supportive coparenting may compensate for the potentially damaging effects of less satisfaction in a marriage, or more spousal conflict on parenting self-efficacy. alternatively, positive marital relations may compensate for the potentially negative effects of undermining coparenting on parenting cognitions. findings showmixed evidence for a stress buffering association. authors showed that mothers and fathers’ reports of supportive coparenting were associated with increases in parenting self-efficacy in the context of more positive marital relationships. additionally, fathers’ reports of higher marital satisfaction were associated with a greater decrease in parenting self-efficacy, in the context of reports of greater undermining coparenting. in literature, further works that evaluated the effects of interaction between marital conflict and coparenting quality on child adjustment suggested that a strong parenting alliance may diminish the effects of couple conflict on children (abidin & brunner, 1995; mchale, 1995). specifically, high levels of couple hostility may be detrimental only when coparenting quality is low, not when it is high. the present study this review of the literature suggests that marriage and parenting subsystems in families could be connected through mediational processes. in this study, these processes will be explored in an attempt to understand if parenting alliance could be considered the mechanism through which marital adjustment influences the parenting stress. moreover, this study is aimed to extend this line of exploration by focusing on both mothers and fathers, and by exploring the effects of the specific dimensions of marital adjustment on both maternal and paternal stress. the choice to focus on both mothers’ and fathers’ reports regarding marriage, parenting alliance and parenting stress, starts form the suggestions of the literature that outlined how this research topic could gain in importance as researchers increasingly focus on both mothers’ and fathers’ roles in the family system (bronte-tinkew, horowitz, & carrano, 2010; feinberg, 2002). at this regard, we can say that the majority of the studies on parenting stress have investigated maternal stress and, when research has focused on fathers, it has generally relied on information reported by mothers about fathers (bronte-tinkew et al., 2010). unlike most studies on parenting stress, those on coparenting, has considered both mothers’ and fathers’ roles, without detecting significant differences because of parent gender (floyd et al., 1998; ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001; merrifield & gamble, 2013). these data, although consistent with recent research that suggests the influence of gender on parenting roles is decreasing in importance (coltrane & adams, 2008), deviate from those of research studies that found that fathers display more marriage-related disruptions in parenting than do mothers, suggesting that fathers’ parenting may be more vulnerable (the father vulnerability hypothesis) to negative marital relations (belsky, gilstrap, & rovine, 1984; cummings, goeke-morey, & raymond, 2004; cummings & o’reilly, 1997; parke, 2002). we suppose that it’s therefore interesting to explore both mothers and fathers reports regarding the associations among marital adjustment, parenting alliance, and parenting stress. in exploring these associations, we also interested to consider the distinct dimensions of marital adjustment (dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, and affectional expression), measured through the dyadic adeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ justment scale (das; spanier, 1976) that is the most widely utilized self-report measure of relationship adjustment in the social and behavioral sciences (south, krueger, & iacono, 2009). moreover, we are interested in exploring the associations among marital adjustment, parenting alliance, and parenting stress in families with school-aged children. we chose to study this specific age group because previous studies have investigated this topic in families with preschool children and adolescents, to our knowledge, only floyd et al. (1998) have examined school-aged children with developmental disabilities. in addition, the focus on this age group stems from the consideration that the elementary school children require specific skills and tasks by the parents. from a family system perspective, roberts (1990) stated that the main parenting tasks are establishing rules which govern interactions, maintaining appropriate hierarchy, and allowing the child to establish relationships outside the home. these parenting tasks depends on the closeness/distance among parents (broderick & smith, 1979) and are supported by their ability to maintain good coparenting competences. objectives and hypothesis— the primary goal of the present study was to examine the role of parenting alliance as a mediator of the relation between marital adjustment and maternal and paternal stress. more precisely, we were interested in exploring which specific dimensions of marital quality in terms of dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, and affectional expression are mediated by parenting alliance. in fact, the effects of these specific dimensions were not explored in previous literature on parenting stress. further, to explore differences based on parents’ gender, the present study examined parenting alliance as a mediator separately for mothers and fathers between marital adjustment and maternal and paternal stress in a sample of italian families with school-aged children (6-11 years). we examined the hypothesis stating that marital adjustment (in terms of dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, dyadic cohesion, and affectional expression) leads to increased perceived parenting alliance of both mothers and fathers, which, in turn, leads to reduced maternal and parental stress. on the basis of fathering-vulnerability hypothesis, we expect the parenting stress of fathers could be more susceptible to deterioration in the face of marital disadjustment. our secondary goal was to explore if mothers and fathers’ parenting alliance could moderate the relation between marital adjustment and maternal and paternal stress. the consideration of parenting alliance as a potential protective factor in the relation between marital relationships and parenting stress is an attempt to move beyond the prevalent mediational hypothesis in order to investigate if parenting alliance could play other important possible roles within the family system (feinberg, 2002; merrifield & gamble, 2013). methods participants participants were 236 mothers and 236 fathers of italian pupils (49.2% boys, 50.8% girls) ages 6-11 years (m = 8.6; sd = 1.7) recruited by four primary public schools located in milan and in the province of milan. the children were noted as being the only child (36.8%), the first-born (32.9%), the second-born (23.7%), and the third-born (6.6%). the couples had been married 12 years on average (sd = 4.5). the mothers averaged 40.9 years of age (sd = 4.4), and the fathers averaged 42.9 years of age (sd = 4.8). socioeconomic status (ses) of participants’ families was assessed by asking for parents’ qualifications and jobs: 32% of participants were from middle-low class, 47.8% from middle class, and 20.2% from middle-upper class. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 239 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure participants were recruited from four primary public schools located in milan or the province of milan. they are part of a broader sample recruited in a previous research aimed to validate the parenting alliance measure with the italian population (camisasca, miragoli, caravita, & di blasio, in press). the participating schools were recruited by a standard procedure that included introductory meetings with school principals and letters to the parents describing the goals and procedures of the study. two hundred fifty-five dyads married or cohabitant parents indicated their willingness to participate in this study. these parents signed consent forms that described the project and its goals, the voluntary nature of participation, and the confidentiality of the data collected. packets consisting of self-report measures were delivered to parents, asking them to complete the forms independently and not to share their answers. mothers and fathers were asked to complete three questionnaires: the dyadic adjustment scale (das; spanier, 1976; italian validation by gentili, contreras, cassaniti, & d’arista, 2002), the parenting alliance measure (pam; abidin & konold, 1999), and the parenting stress index short form (psi-sf; abidin, 1995; italian validation by guarino, di blasio, d’alessio, camisasca, & serantoni, 2008) to be returned within two months. of the 255 dyads of parents, 19 (7.5%) were excluded because their scores were below the 10th percentile of the defensiveness scale of psi-sf, which taps the extent to which parents responded with a set that attempts to present themselves and their relationship with their child in an overly positive manner. the present analyses were based on 236 mothers and 236 fathers who completed all instruments. measures dyadic adjustment scale (das; spanier, 1976; italian validation by gentili et al., 2002) is a widely used 32-item self-report measure of the quality of the marital relationship consisting of four subscales: (1) dyadic consensus (13 items), the degree to which the couple agrees on matters of importance to the relationship (e.g., religion, recreation, friends, household tasks, and time spent together); (2) dyadic satisfaction (10 items), which evaluates the degree to which the couple is satisfied with their relationship, expressed in the frequency of quarrels, discussions of separation and positive interactions; (3) affectional expression (4 items), which evaluates the degree of demonstrations of affection and the frequency of disagreements regarding expressed levels of affection and sex; and (4) dyadic cohesion (5 items), which evaluates the degree of closeness and the frequency of shared activities experienced by the couple. items’ ratings vary with rating of agreements ranging from 0 (always disagree) to 5 (always agree), rating of frequency from 0 (all the time) to 5 (never) or from 0 (none) to 4 (all), dichotomous ratings ranging from 0 (yes) to 1 (no), and qualitative ratings ranging from 0 (extremely unhappy) to 6 (perfect). the 32 items are summed to create a total score ranging from 0 to 151, with higher scores indicating better marital adjustment. the values of internal consistency of the italian validation of the das (gentili et al., 2002) correspond to: α = .93 for the total adjustment; α = .89 for the dyadic consensus; α = .87 for the dyadic satisfaction; α =.63 for the affective expression; and α = .78 for the dyadic cohesion. in our sample: α = .90 for the total adjustment scale (α = .90 for mothers and fathers); dyadic consensus: α = .86 (mothers) and α = .87 (fathers); dyadic satisfaction: α = .73 (mothers) and α = .71(fathers); affective expression: α = .69 (mothers) and α = .72 (fathers); and dyadic cohesion: α = .80 (mothers) and α = .76 (fathers). in some studies (sabourin, valois, & lussier, 2005; sharpley & cross, 1982) this four-factor structure of the das (spanier, 1976) was not replicated as a one underlying "adjustment" dimension emerged. however, other researchers have confirmed the multi-dimensional nature of the construct which the four-factors das was reported to measure adequately (south et al., 2009). in order to examine the dimensionality of das, in our sample, a confirmeurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 240 http://www.psychopen.eu/ atory factor analysis was carried out by eqs (bentler, 2001). we compared the fit indexes of two cfa models: a first model in which the subscale scores have been specified as loading a unique factor, according to sharpley and cross (1982) and sabourin et al. (2005), and a second cfa model in which the subscale scores were loading the four-factor model introduced by spanier (1976) and replicated by south, krueger, and iacono (2009). for the one-factor model, goodness-of-fit indexes were not satisfactory (χ2(464) = 1483.16, p < .001; cfi =. 72; rmsea = .08; srmr = .070; 90% ci [.080, .089]; χ2/df = 3.19). on the contrary, the confirmatory factor analysis applied on the four factors version showed fit indexes (χ2(455) = 1151.02, p < .001; cfi = .82; rmsea = .07; srmr = .070; 90% ci [.065, .075]; χ2/df = 2.52) better than those of the one-factor model. parenting alliance measure (pam; abidin & konold, 1999; italian validation camisasca et al., in press) is a selfreport measure assessing the degree to which parents believe they have a sound parenting relationship with their child’s other parent. pam consists of 20 items that can be responded independently by either mothers or fathers of children from 1 to 19 years old. the item response scale is a 5-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), with higher scores reflecting stronger co-parental alliance. pam was developed by abidin and konold (1999) on the basis of weissman and cohen’s (1985) four characteristics of a sound parenting alliance (see the section introduction). pam has been normed over large samples in the north-american population, and it has been found to measure the same factors for fathers and mothers (konold & abidin, 2001). in the original validations sample the internal consistency of pam was high: α = .97 for mothers, α = .96 for fathers, and α = .97 for a combined sample (abidin & konold, 1999). the italian version of the pam was translated from the parenting alliance measure by abidin and konold (1999) with the special permission of the publisher, psychological assessment resources, par, inc. in our contribute to validation (camisasca et al., in press) total score alphas were high for both mothers (.90) and fathers (.92). parenting stress index short form (psi-sf; abidin, 1995; italian validation by guarino et al., 2008) is a 36-item questionnaire that assesses parenting stress. the items are rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” it consists of four subscales: parental distress (pd), 12 items; difficult child (dc), 12 items; and parent-child dysfunctional interaction (p-cdi), 12 items, as well as a defensive responding subscale that consists of 7 items drawn from the parental distress subscale. the defensive responding subscale assesses parental bias in reporting by quantifying the desire of parents to present a favorable impression of themselves and minimize problems in the parent–child relationship. the pd subscale focuses on the sense of competence/incompetence in rearing the child, conflict with the partner, lack of social support, and stress associated with the restrictions deriving from the role of parent. the dc subscale focuses the parent’s perception of the child in terms of temperament, requesting and provoking behaviors, and non-collaborative and demanding behaviors. finally, the p-cdi subscale measures parents’ perceptions of the emotional quality of their relationship with their children. the sum of the scores of the three subscales (pd + p-cdi + dc) enables us to obtain the value of total stress, which gives an indication of the overall level of the specific parental stress, not deriving from other roles or other events. the values of internal consistency of the italian validation of the psi-sf (guarino et al., 2008) correspond to α = .91 for the total stress scale; α = .91 for the pd subscale; α = .95 for the p-cdi subscale, and α = .90 for the dc subscale. in this study, regarding to the mothers, the values of internal consistency of the psi-sf correspond to α = .90 for the total stress scale; α = .81 for the pd subscale; α = .83 for the p-cdi subscale, and α = .81 for the dc subscale. regarding to the fathers, the values of internal consistency of the psi-sf correspond to α = .91 for the total stress scale; α = .85 for the pd subscale; α = .83 for the p-cdi subscale, and α = .82 for the dc subscale. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 241 http://www.psychopen.eu/ strategy of analysis data analyses proceeded in several steps. first, correlations were calculated among all variables investigated (four dimensions of marital adjustment, parenting alliance, and parenting stress) to examine initial bivariate associations and identify possible covariates. second, a set of regression analyses were conducted to examine whether parenting alliance mediates the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress. four regression parameters were estimated separately for mothers and fathers, based on procedures recommended by baron and kenny (1986): (a) the predictor (marital adjustment) must be significantly associated with the hypothesized mediator (parenting alliance); (b) the predictor must be significantly associated with the dependent measure (parenting stress); (c) the mediator must be significantly associated with the dependent variable, and (d) the impact of the predictor on the dependent measure is less after controlling for the mediator. the procedures outlined by baron and kenny (1986) were deemed appropriate, as mediation analysis in psychological research is most often guided by their criteria. finally, a set of regression analyses were conducted to examine the possibility of moderating effects of marital adjustment and parenting alliance on parenting stress. separately for mothers and fathers, we computed two-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses (baron & kenny, 1986; holmbeck, 1997), using the centered four dimensions of marital adjustment and parenting alliance in step 1 and the same centered variables and the interaction products among these variables in step 2. results associations among marital adjustment, parenting alliance and parenting stress correlations, means, and standard deviations of all variables used in the present study are presented in table 1 for mothers and in table 2 for fathers. regarding the variables investigated, the means scores are similar to those obtained in the italian validation studies (das: gentili et al., 2002; pam: camisasca et al., in press; psi: guarino et al., 2008) both for mothers and fathers, and are placed within normal limits. more precisely, by considering the das total score, our data show that 49.6% of mother and 47% of fathers have a score lower than the median, that is 117 for mothers and 119 for fathers. regarding parenting alliance, our data show that 49.2% of mother and 47.9% of fathers have a score lower than the median, that is 85 for mothers and 84 for fathers. finally, regarding parenting stress, our data show that 52.1% of mother and 47.5% of fathers have a score lower than the median, that is 70 for mothers and 67 for fathers. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations for marital adjustment (das), parenting alliance (pam), and parenting stress (psi-sf) in mothers (n = 236) m (sd)654321 -1. dyadic consensus (das) (6.0)53.7 -2. dyadic satisfacton (das) (6.7)35.9.353** -3. affectional expression (das) (2.0)9.3.334**.529** -4. dyadic cohesion (das) (4.9)16.5.396**.276**.498** -5. parenting alliance (pam) (9.3)84.1.421**.431**.266**.590** -6. parenting stress (psi-sf) (15.9)70.3.384**-.244**-.281**-.186**-.320***p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 242 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations for marital adjustment (das), parenting alliance (pam), and parenting stress (psi-sf) in fathers (n = 236) m (sd)654321 -1. dyadic consensus (das) (6.1)53.8 -2. dyadic satisfacton (das) (6.1)37.4.379** -3. affectional expression (das) (2.2)9.4.339**.539** -4. dyadic cohesion (das) (4.7)16.3.390**.358**.484** -5. parenting alliance (pam) (9.2)84.7.291**.320**.431**.411** -6. parenting stress (psi-sf) (15.9)66.7.360**-.239**-.211**-.290**-.265***p < .05. **p < .01. for mothers and fathers, the correlation analysis showed that the variables were intercorrelated. in particular, maternal perception of parenting alliance was correlated positively with all dimensions of marital adjustment (dyadic consensus: r = .59, p < .001; dyadic satisfaction: r = .27, p < .001; affectional expression: r = .43, p < .001; dyadic cohesion: r = .42, p < .001) and negatively with parenting stress (r = -.38, p < .001). similarly, paternal perception of parenting alliance was correlated positively with all dimensions of marital adjustment (dyadic consensus: r = .41, p < .001; dyadic satisfaction: r = .43, p < .001; affectional expression: r = .32, p < .001; dyadic cohesion: r = .29, p < .001) and negatively with parenting stress (r = -.36, p < .001). mediating effects of parenting alliance in mothers and fathers to test the effects of the four dimensions of marital adjustment separately for mothers and fathers (predictors: dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion) on parenting alliance (mediator), multiple linear regressions were performed (condition 2 of the mediational model). to examine the relative contributions of marital quality (predictor) and parenting alliance (mediator) to parenting stress (outcome), the hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted separately for mothers and fathers. marital adjustment’s dimensions dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion were entered in step 1 (condition 1 of the mediation model). the parenting alliance was added in step 2 (condition 3) to determine what degree it mediates the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress (condition 4). table 3 presents the results of regression analysis (unstandardized and standardized coefficients) predicting association between marital adjustment (dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion) and parenting alliance, and table 4 the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis predicting parenting stress. table 3 predictors of parenting alliance in mothers (n = 236) βse bbpredictor variables constant .534.8535 dyadic consensus .44**.10.68 dyadic satisfaction .03.08.04 affectional expression .13*.29.62 dyadic cohesion .14*.12.27 note. r2 = .38; f = 35.99**. *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 243 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 hierarchical regression analysis predicting parenting stress in mothers (n = 236) and fathers (n = 236) fathermother predictor β∆r2β∆r2 step 1 .12.15 dyadic consensus .12-.15*dyadic satisfaction .20**-.04affectional expression .40-.11dyadic cohesion .09-.20**step 2 .05.02 dyadic consensus .06-.07dyadic satisfaction .12-.04affectional expression .02-.09dyadic cohesion .08-.17*parenting alliance .25**-.19*total r2 .17.17 *p < .05. **p < .01. regarding themediating role of maternal perception of parenting alliance, results revealed that the parenting alliance (β = -.19, t = -2.52, p < .05) totally mediates the relationship between the dyadic consensus (β = -.07, t = -.77, p = n.s.) and parenting stress and partially mediates the relation between dyadic cohesion (β = -.17, t = -2.34, p < .05) and parenting stress. the value for the sobel test (sobel, 1982, 1986) was indeed significant (t = -.163, p = .05). figure 1 shows a schematic of the mediation model under investigation. figure 1. parenting alliance as mediator of the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress in mothers (n = 236). table 5 presents the results of regression analysis (unstandardized and standardized coefficients) predicting interaction between marital adjustment (dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion) and parenting alliance, and table 4 gives the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis predicting parenting stress. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 244 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 predictors of parenting alliance in fathers (n = 236) βsebpredictor variables constant .984.0244 dyadic consensus .24**.11.36 dyadic satisfaction .30**.10.46 affectional expression .07.29.31 dyadic cohesion .04.13.08 note. r2 = .26; f = 20.57** *p < .05. **p < .01. regarding the mediating role of parenting alliance in fathers (see table 4), results revealed that parenting alliance (β = -.25, t = -3.58, p < .001), totally mediates the relationship between dyadic satisfaction (β = -.12, t = -1.70, p = n.s.) and parenting stress. figure 2 shows a schematic of the mediation model under investigation. figure 2. parenting alliance as mediator of the relationship betweenmarital adjustment and parenting stress in fathers (n = 236). moderating effects of marital adjustment and parenting alliance in mothers and fathers to explore the moderating effects of marital adjustment and parenting alliance on parenting stress separately for mothers and fathers, we computed a two-step hierarchical regression analyses, according to baron and kenny’s (1986) recommendations for testing moderator effects. the analyses assessed the unique effects of marital adjustment (in term of dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion) and parenting alliance, and the association of the interaction of the four dimensions of marital adjustment and parenting alliance with parenting stress. two-way interactions between each measure of marital adjustment and parenting alliance assessed whether the parenting alliance moderated the relationship of marital adjustment with parenting stress. evidence of moderation would be apparent if there was a statistically significant change in the variance accounted for parenting stress with the introduction of the interaction terms (cohen & cohen, 1983). the main effects of the four dimensions of marital adjustment and parenting alliance were entered at step 1 to assess their unique association with the outcome measures. these main effects and the two-way interaction between each measure of marital adjustment and parenting alliance were entered at step 2. interaction terms were composed of the product of the variables (dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion x parenting alliance) that were centered to avoid problems of multicollinearity. table 6 reports standardized coefficients for the hierarchical regression analyses predicting maternal and paternal parenting stress. regarding the mothers, results showed that at the step 1, the main effects of centered parenting alliance (β = -.19, t = -2.52, p < .05) and centered dyadic cohesion (β = -.17, t = -2.34, p < .05) were significant, but at the step 2, we did not detect a statistically significant change in the variance explained by the model (∆r2 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 245 http://www.psychopen.eu/ = .02, ∆f = .32). therefore, for the mothers, no moderating effects of marital adjustment and parenting alliance on parenting stress were sustained. table 6 hierarchical regression analysis predicting parenting stress in mothers (n = 236) and fathers (n = 236) fathermother predictor β∆r2β∆r2 step 1 .17.17 dyadic consensus .06-.07dyadic satisfaction .12-.04affectional expression .02-.09dyadic cohesion .08-.17*parenting alliance .25**-.19*step 2 .02.02 dyadic consensus .01-.06dyadic satisfaction .13-.05affectional expression .05-.09dyadic cohesion .09-.17*parenting alliance .22**-.18*dyadic consensus × parenting alliance .17-.07dyadic satisfaction × parenting alliance .07.17* affectional expression × parenting alliance .06-.10dyadic cohesion × parenting alliance .01.02 total r2 .19.19 *p < .05. **p < .01. likewise, regarding fathers results showed that at the step 1, the main effect of centered parenting alliance (β = -.25, t = -3.58, p < .001) was significant and, at the step 2, we did not detect a statistically significant change in the variance explained by the model (∆r2 = .01, ∆f = .52), showing that parenting alliance did not moderate any dimensions of marital quality on parenting stress. discussion in this study, we explored the role of parenting alliance as a mediator or a moderator of the relation between marital adjustment and parenting stress. our results support the hypothesis that parenting alliance could function as a link in the relationship between marital adjustment and parenting stress for both mothers and fathers but did not sustain the moderating role of parenting alliance for both parents. specifically, our data are consistent with a mediational model, indicating that parenting alliance could be an important mechanism by which marital adjustment affect parent-child relationships. in other words, marital adjustment could foster a solid parenting alliance that is characterized by good teamwork, mutual support, and consistent perceptions of the child, which then could facilitate the positive parent-child interactions and reduce levels of parenting stress. in this way, we can assume that a solid parenting alliance could provide the parents with emotional and psychological resources required to cope with parenting demands without stress. our findings are consistent with results of both longitudinal and cross-sectional studies (bonds & gondoli, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 246 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2007; floyd et al., 1998; ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001) that any direct effect between marriages and parenting decreases or disappears after accounting for the mediating effect of coparenting. differently from more recent research (ippolito morrill et al., 2010) that did not detect significant differences in parenting alliance’s mediational effects because of parent gender, and differently from the fathering-vulnerable hypothesis, our findings show that mothers and fathers are sensitive to different dimensions of marital quality. more precisely, our data suggested that perceived mothers and fathers’ parenting alliance may function as a link in the relationship among different dimensions of marital adjustment and parenting stress. in particular, in the case of mothers, the perceived parenting alliancemediates the relationship among the dimensions dyadic consensus and dyadic cohesion, and the parenting stress. on the other hand, in case of fathers, results pointed out that parenting alliance mediates the relationship between dyadic satisfaction and parenting stress. in other words, mothers’ perceptions about their agreement with the partner on matters of importance to the relationship and mothers’ perceptions about closeness and the frequency of shared activities experienced by the couple are the most relevant dimensions of marital adjustment that affect parenting alliance, which then leads to a reduced maternal stress. on the contrary, for fathers, dyadic satisfaction expressed in the frequency of positive interactions, few quarrels, or discussions of separation is the most relevant dimension of marital adjustment that affects the parenting alliance, which then leads to a reduced paternal stress. these results lead us to believe that, for mothers, aspects of the couple relationship (consensus and cohesion) that have the greatest influence on the parent-child relationship are closely associated with the possibility of being able to cooperate with partners, sharing both the value-related aspects of the philosophy of family life and the practical management of everyday life. fathers seem more sensitive to the level of satisfaction derived from the emotional relationship with their partner and less receptive to the issues of cooperation about the practical management and the value-related aspects of family life. we could tentatively explain these differences assuming that mothers have generally more family responsibilities and household tasks as parents, independently of the functioning of their marital relationship. as a consequence, mothers could be more sensitive than fathers to the aspects of couple relationship that includes the possibility of sharing and feeling supported by their partners in family values, aims, and tasks. on the contrary, fathers are generally less involved in the management of everyday life and, thus, seem to bemore sensitive to the quality of emotional relationship with the partner than to other aspects of marital adjustment. the idea that mothers could be more receptive than fathers to the issues concerning the practical management of home environment and that fathers could be more sensitive than mothers to the level of marital satisfaction has also been suggested in one study by nelson, o’brien, blankson, calkins, and keane (2009). this study was aimed to explore relations between four sources of family stress (marital dissatisfaction, home chaos, parental depressive symptoms, and job role dissatisfaction) and parenting experiences of both mothers and fathers. results have confirmed that in case of fathers marital dissatisfaction was predictive of their parenting, while in case of mothers, the perception of the home environment as disorganized (home chaos) predicted a greater negativity and reduced patience, during interactions with their children. since this is the first study that evaluates the mediating role of parenting alliance on the associations among the specific dimensions of marital adjustment on parenting stress, further studies are needed to confirm these differences in mothers and fathers. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 247 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, results do not support the idea that perceived mothers’ and fathers’ parenting alliance could moderate the relation betweenmarital adjustment and parenting stress. more specifically, results showed that parenting alliance does not affect the strength of the relation among the dimensions of marital relations and parenting stress. in this sense, the quality of parenting alliance is not a protective factor able to mitigate the effects of marital disadjustment on parenting stress. in conclusion, although cross-sectional, our data support the idea that the parenting alliance could be an important mechanism by which marital relations affect parentchild relations and not a variable that affects the direction of this relationship. limitations of the study and future directions this study includes some methodological shortcomings. the nature of our cross-sectional data cannot explicitly identify directional effects or causal links, while longitudinal data could provide stronger evidence of directionality or causality. as noted by baron and kenny (1986), the causal sequence generally described in a mediational model cannot be proved on the basis of cross-sectional data. without measuring marital adjustment, parenting alliance, and parenting stress across time, this study cannot draw conclusions about directional effects. however our results are consistent with the literature (bonds & gondoli, 2007; floyd et al., 1998; ippolito morrill et al., 2010; margolin et al., 2001) that found that marital relations affect parenting alliance, which then facilitates positive parent-child relations. another limitation of the study is the use of only self-report data. future research should use a multi-method approach, including observational methods, self-reports, and interviews in which parents can describe their marital and coparenting relationships and parenting stress. in addition, our sample was composed of italian parents who were predominantly well-educated and middle-class; replications of our findings with a more heterogeneous sample would foster generalization of findings to a broader population. finally, a further and important limitation is the method of analysis of our dyadic data, by considering them as independent and bidirectional, and by ignoring the mutual interdependence of scores of the two partners. a good corrective measure of this limitation could be the use of actor-partner interdependence model (apim) which integrates a conceptual view of interdependence in two person relationships with the appropriate statistical techniques for measuring and testing it (cook & kenny, 2005). apim uses the parent dyad as the unit of analysis (kashy & kenny, 2000; kenny, 1996; kenny & cook, 1999) and implies that the two members of the dyad influence each other in the form of partner effects, creating interdependence between members (ledermann & macho, 2009). in future research we could use api mediation model (apimem) in order to test our mediational hypothesis and to assess the effects of couple interdependence on the variables investigated (marital adjustment, parenting alliance and parenting stress). despite certain limitations, the findings of the present study draw attention to the construct of parenting alliance and suggest that the parenting alliance could be one of the explicative mechanisms of the connection between marital and parent-child relations for both mothers and fathers. our results also show that parenting alliance mediates, in case of mothers and fathers, the effects of different dimensions of marital quality on parenting stress. although our results did not detect any moderation effects of parenting alliance, we suggest that future research continue to explore the potential buffering role of parenting alliance. for example, it could be useful to investigate if parenting alliancemoderates the association among the four dimensions of marital adjustment (dyadic consensus, dyadic satisfaction, affectional expression, and dyadic cohesion) and the specific dimensions of parenting stress europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to better understand if and how at high/low parenting alliance conditions, marital disadjustment differently affects maternal and paternal stress in terms of parental distress, parent-child dysfunctional interactions, and perceptions of the child as difficult and problematic. a more detailed understanding of the mechanism that explains associations among different family subsystems couples, coparenting and parent-child relationships -could lead both to the implementation of preventive programs and the improvement of more effective clinical interventions aimed to help distressed couples with children. clinical implications our results also raise important practical implications for clinical interventions for couples with children. according to literature (bonds & gondoli, 2007; feinberg, 2002; floyd et al., 1998), we can assert that, on the one hand, our findings suggest that marital therapy that helps spouses function better as a couple may be an important factor in improving parent–child relationships. on the other hand, since the parenting alliance mediates the association between marital adjustment and parenting stress for both mothers and fathers, this specific family subsystem might be targeted by intervention programs aimed to interrupt the link betweenmarital disadjustment and dysfunctional parenting. further, because some couples who experience difficulty as coparents may not label themselves as maritally distressed and could be more resistant to marital interventions, the opportunity to receive coparenting intervention may be a more acceptable offer than marital therapy, per se. in strategic and practical terms, it may be easier to gain parents’ involvement about the treatment goals if the intervention is focused upon parenting alliance. such an intervention, aimed at fostering the wellbeing of the child, could be more accepted than a therapy focused on improving the couple relationship. furthermore, the enhancement of a positive parenting alliance may be an incentive for repairing deteriorated marital relationships and preventing a more serious escalation in marital conflict. therefore, clinical interventions focused on parenting alliance may be a good preventing strategy to mitigate spillover of distress from the marital to parent–child relationships. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abidin, r. r. 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(2010). the role of marital quality and spousal support in behavior problems of children with and without intellectual disability. journal of intellectual disability research, 54, 620-633. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01293.x about the authors dr. camisasca elena, phd, assistant professor in developmental psychology at the faculty psychology, catholic university of milan, italy. research interests: marital adjustment and marital conflict, parenting alliance, parenting stress, attachment, child abuse and maltreatment. dr. sarah miragoli, phd, assistant research in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan, italy. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, traumatic narratives, parenting stress, sexualized behaviors, child legal involvement. prof. paola di blasio, is a full professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan. she is also director of the research center for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, marital adjustment, parenting stress. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 235–254 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.724 is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? 254 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/351594 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017572 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/350547 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.20.2.227 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/b:jade.0000035627.26870.f8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2788.2010.01293.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en is parenting alliance a mediator or moderator? introduction marital adjustment and the quality of parent-child relationship coparenting and the quality of parent-child relationship the present study methods participants procedure measures strategy of analysis results associations among marital adjustment, parenting alliance and parenting stress mediating effects of parenting alliance in mothers and fathers moderating effects of marital adjustment and parenting alliance in mothers and fathers discussion limitations of the study and future directions clinical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors self representations and music performance anxiety: a study with professional and amateur musicians research reports self representations and music performance anxiety: a study with professional and amateur musicians claudia castiglione a, alberto rampullo* b, silvia cardullo a [a] department of clinical and experimental medicine, university of messina, messina, italy. [b] department of political and social sciences, university of catania, catania, italy. abstract individual, social and situational factors might play an important role on the experience of anxiety during musical performances. the present research focused on the relationship between self-representations, including musical self, and performance anxiety among a sample of italian professional and amateur musicians (n = 100; age, m = 23.40, 50% females). we predicted that higher self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) would be associated with higher performance anxiety in a musical setting (vs. a non musical one), via musical self, and only in professional musicians. the results confirmed our hypothesis. higher discrepancies between actual and future selfrepresentations were positively associated with higher performance anxiety levels via the musical self only in participants who play instruments at a professional level. furthermore, musical self influenced performance anxiety levels in a music related setting (i.e., a concert) but not in a non musical one (i.e., an exam). keywords: self-representations, musical performance, performance anxiety, proximity, semantic space europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 received: 2017-11-02. accepted: 2018-04-06. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; andrew p. allen, maynooth university, maynooth, ireland *corresponding author at: university of catania, department of political and social sciences, via vittorio emanuele ii, 8, 95131, catania, italy. e-mail: albertorampullo@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. musical performance requires high levels of skill in several areas. musicians need years of intensive training to develop the required sensorial, cognitive, and behavioural skills (conrad & roth, 2007; kraus & chandrasekaran, 2010; standley, 2008). furthermore, musicians place a great importance on the level and the quality of their performances because they recognize them as a fundamental element of their personal identity (langendörfer, hodapp, kreutz, & bongard, 2006). indeed the quality of their performances affects their selfesteem and their career, and, in this context, their general tendency to perfectionism and meticulousness might be considered useful and desirable in the pursuit of their goals (kirchner, 2003; langendörfer et al., 2006). despite the common belief that years of practice could protect musicians from anxiety before or during musical performance, research showed that practice and experience cannot guarantee that musical performances will be free of feelings of anxiety and stress (nagel, 1990; taborsky, 2007). many world-renowned musicians (e.g., frederic chopin, sergei rachmaninoff and barbara streisand) have experienced music performance anxiety with negative physical and psychological consequences (brodsky, 1996; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ kenny, 2011). it could negatively affect not only the quality of the artist’s exhibition though an increase of anxiety levels before, or during, a performance in front of an audience, but it could have also negative effects on the self-esteem of the artist (kenny, 2011; sinden, 1999). performance anxiety in musicians when an individual faces a threat, the human body reacts through a series of physical changes useful to facilitate fight, flight or freeze response behaviours (barlow, 2002; maack, buchanan, & young, 2015; martini, timmons, & tallitsch, 2012; sinden, 1999). anxiety levels have both positive and negative effects on musical performance. intermediate levels of performance anxiety play an adaptive role, facilitating the use of some coping strategy with positive effect on musical performance (kenny, davis, & oates, 2004; lehrer, goldman, & strommen, 1990; steptoe & fidler, 1987; wolfe, 1989). however, several studies found that music performance anxiety had negative effects on musicians even if they are professional (james, 1998; kenny et al., 2004; van kemenade, van son, & van heesch, 1995), and not only in training (boucher & ryan, 2011; fehm & schmidt, 2006). indeed anxiety was shown to be positively related with poor musical performance experiences (aderman et al., 1989; kubzansky & stewart, 1999) and, as a consequence of poor performance, with unhealthy coping strategies (park, 2010) with the possibility to end prematurely their musical careers (ryan & andrews, 2009). even so, more experienced students might perform better than less experienced peers under anxiety conditions (hamann, 1982; osborne, kenny, & holsomback, 2005). research on musical performance anxiety has focused on several individual, social and situational factors like motivation, personality traits, emotions, type of instrument, performance setting, presence of an audience or type of performance (kenny, 2011). motivations behind musicians’ career path seem to play an important role. individuals showed higher level of performance anxiety when their motivation was external, like desire to satisfy parents’ wishes (seamands, 1999). other individual factors might also play an important role. perfectionism was shown to be associated with higher levels of anxiety in musicians (kenny et al., 2004; mor, day, flett, & hewitt, 1995), especially socially prescribed perfectionism (langendörfer et al., 2006). actually, the social aspect of performance seems to be a central aspect in how musicians cope with their anxiety levels. cox and kenardy (1993) found that anxiety increased when musicians performed solo on stage compared to practice and group sessions. indeed the mere presence of other individuals may alter their performance if we consider triplett’s research (1898) showing that cyclists register better race times when racing with others. subsequently zajonc (1968), using the theory of hull-spence (1956), extended triplett’s (1898) results about social influences on performance. according to zajonc (1968), the mere presence of a public creates a state of excitement resulting in a state of readiness. thus, social influence can have facilitating or inhibitory effects on performance. the presence of co-actors or a public can improve the speed and accuracy of performance in simple or wellknown tasks (social facilitation) and it can compromise performance in complex or poorly learned tasks (social inhibition; bond & titus, 1983). according zajonc (1965) social facilitation occurs because the presence of others increases the individuals’ physiological activation, which makes some behaviour easier to perform. physiological activation facilitates performance based on behaviours that are very accessible, simple, well learned or practiced. in opposition, physiological activation can inhibit instead performances based on complex or new behaviours. social inhibition delineates all the conscious or unconscious avoidance behaviours of a specific situation or of a social interaction when individuals perceive the chance that other people might express feelings of disapproval (denollet, 2013). castiglione, rampullo, & cardullo 793 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, social inhibition has proven to be related to social concerns for evaluations, anxiety about social interactions, social avoidance, and withdrawal (denollet, 2013). social inhibition also has an impact on musicians. for example, brotons (1994) explored the effects of the performance setting (jury and nonjury situation) on music performance anxiety among a sample of music students, covering a wide range of music disciplines. music performance anxiety was measured through several physiological, behavioural and self-reported measures and participants in a jury setting showed higher heart rates and anxiety levels as compared to a nonjury setting. similarly, leblanc, jin, obert, and siivola (1997) found that the presence of a group of spectators significantly increased anxiety levels and heart rates. music performance anxiety have been linked to cognitive processes similar to social phobia and was proven to be higher when an audience was present during a solo performance as compared to group performance, in a private setting, and tape recording session (osborne & franklin, 2002). musicians tend to react differently to an audience depending on their professional level. music students experienced high levels of anxiety in front of an audience but more experienced students performed better than less experienced peers under anxiety conditions (hamann, 1982; osborne, kenny, & holsomback, 2005). additionally, students who want to become professionals showed higher levels of performance anxiety (robson & kenny, 2017). a recent study (barbar, de souza crippa, & de lima osório, 2014) among brazilian musicians showed that professional and amateur musicians had similar music performance anxiety, but professional ones showed higher levels of general and social anxiety. self representations and anxiety representations about oneself shape and affect individuals’ behaviors, cognitions and emotions. these representations might concern beliefs about one’s own actual, ideal, undesired, future, or professional self (hart et al., 1997; higgins, klein, & strauman, 1985; markus & nurius, 1986; ogilvie, 1987; strauman & higgins, 1988). the term future self delineates a set of knowledge about what one might become (markus & nurius, 1986). when individuals describe, or think about, themselves, they will use knowledge about characteristics that they believe they actually possess or they will likely acquire in the future. they will use self-knowledge about themselves in the present and projected into the future. this set of knowledge, ‘possible selves’ (markus & nurius, 1986) refers to the beliefs about how an individual will, or might, become. self-representations drive cognitions, emotions and behaviours and facilitate performances by focusing on explicit goals and by strategically implementing plans of actions (castiglione et al., 2015; markus & nurius, 1986; markus & ruvolo, 1989). self-representations are structured in a semantic space (semantic space approach, hart et al., 1997). self representations’ descriptors and attributes delimit the position of self representations in the semantic space, the more similarly two self-representations are described or defined, the closer these representations will be located in the semantic space of an individual (hart et al., 1997; higgins et al., 1985). closeness among self-representations might positively affect self-esteem, emotions, and behaviours (field, hart, & horowitz, 1999; hart & fegley, 1995; hart et al., 1997; heppen & ogilvie, 2003). discrepancies and incongruences between self dimensions (higgins et al., 1985; markus & nurius, 1986; rogers, 1961) showed a negative effect on emotional states like depression, sadness, stress and anxiety (hart et al., 1997; heppen & ogilvie, 2003; higgins, 1989). performances, goals and careers are also affected by self-concept (oyserman & markus, 1990). self-images affect individuals’ cognitions, emotions (including anxiety) and behaviours (castiglione, licciardello, & self representations, and music performance anxiety 794 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rampullo, 2015; hart, field, garfinkle, & singer, 1997; heppen & ogilvie, 2003; higgins, 1989; markus & nurius, 1986; markus & ruvolo, 1989) and thus, shape musicians’ performances and careers (schnare, macintyre, & doucette, 2012; varvarigou, creech, & hallam, 2014). self-representations were shown to play an important motivational role among musicians, with musical self positively affecting performances, goals and careers in musicians (oyserman & markus, 1990; schnare et al., 2012; varvarigou et al., 2014). the latter have been related also to the performance setting, with musicians showing higher music performance anxiety in a jury situation (brotons, 1994) or in a solo performance (osborne & franklin, 2002) compared to a non-jury situation or a private setting, especially in professional musicians (osborne et al., 2005). some studies have examined the role of self representations in musicians (schnare et al., 2012; varvarigou et al., 2014) focusing on other individual and contextual factors, thus the present study aimed to extend previous literature examining the relationship between self representations and anxiety among a sample of italian professional and amateur musicians. aims and hypotheses the present study focused on the relationship between self-representations and anxiety among a sample of italian professional and amateur musicians. we predicted that self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) would be negatively associated with musical self, thus higher self-discrepancies would be associated to a less positive representation of the musical self. we expected also that musical self would be negatively associated with music performance anxiety, thus a more positive representation of the musical self would be associated with lower levels of performance anxiety. finally, we predicted that higher self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) would be associated with higher performance anxiety in a musical setting as compared to a non-musical one, via the musical self, and only in professional musicians (see figure 1). figure 1. suggested moderated mediation model. self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) associated with music performance anxiety, via the musical self, only in professional musicians. castiglione, rampullo, & cardullo 795 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample consisted of 100 musicians (n = 50 professionals, n = 50 males) with an average age of 23.40 (sd = 3.80; range 18-30) and an average of 11.26 years of playing an instrument (sd = 4.80; range 2-23). measures performance anxiety performance anxiety was measured using an italian validated version (pedrabissi & santinello, 1989) of the state anxiety inventory (spielberger, 1983). it is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 40 items rated on a 6point likert scale (1-never to 6-always) about anxiety levels in different social situations. the two social situations we used for the purpose of this research were: a university exam (an oral exam in front of other students; exam, α = .90) and a concert (α = .88). both are performance situation in front of an audience, but only the concert situation is a music performance. higher score refers to higher levels of performance anxiety. self representations two semantic differentials were used to measure actual and future self (osgood, suci, & tannenbaum, 1957). they were made up of 34 7-point bipolar scales (e.g., strong – weak). this version was already tested in the sicilian context (see castiglione, licciardello, mauceri, & rampullo, 2012; de caroli & sagone, 2012). it was used to measure the representations of actual self (me as i am) (α = .86), future self (me as i will be) (α = .89), and musical self (the musician) (α = .85). based on the semantic space approach (hart et al., 1997), the location of self-representations in individuals’ semantic space is based on the similarity of the self-representations’ descriptors or attributes (hart et al., 1997; higgins et al., 1985). thus, discrepancy was operationalized as euclidean distance (hafdahl, panter, gramzow, sedikides, & insko, 2000; kirchler, palmonari, & pombeni, 1994) between descriptors of the actual and future self and using the pythagorean theorem (square root of the summed squared differences between each item/adjective pair). a value of 0 refers identical description of actual and future self, higher values refers to higher discrepancy between them. background questions background questions were used to get age and gender information of our participants. results we conducted a series of independent sample t-tests to verify professional level (professional vs. amateur) effects on self-representations discrepancies (actual vs. future self), musical self, and performance anxiety (exam and concert). professional level showed a significant effect on self-representations discrepancies (actual vs. future self) t(98) = 4.757, p < .001 and on concert performance anxiety t(98) = 2.222, p = .03. professional participants showed higher self-representations discrepancies and concert performance anxiety compared to amateur participants (see table 1). self representations, and music performance anxiety 796 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations and correlations variable m sd 1 2 3 4 amateur 1. actual self vs future self discrepancies 1.15 .82 – 2. musical self 5.07 .50 -.07 – 3. exam performance anxiety 54.74 10.52 -.48** -.07 – 4. concert performance anxiety 48.24 8.26 .30* -.47** .18 – professional 1. actual self vs future self discrepancies 1.81 .55 – 2. musical self 4.90 .74 -.34* – 3. exam performance anxiety 57.95 10.41 .33* -.12 – 4. concert performance anxiety 52.28 9.85 .13 -.50** .38** – overall 1. actual self vs future self discrepancies 1.47 .77 – 2. musical self 4.99 .64 -.23* – 3. exam performance anxiety 56.35 10.54 -.44** -.12 – 4. concert performance anxiety 50.26 9.27 .28** -.50** .31** – **p < .01. *p < .05. in amateur participants, we found medium negative correlations between self discrepancies and exam performance anxiety. furthermore, we found medium negative correlation between musical self and concert performance anxiety. in professional participants, self discrepancies were negatively related with musical self and positively with exam anxiety. musical self was also negatively related with concert performance anxiety (see table 1). zero order correlations, means and standard deviations for self-representations discrepancies (actual vs. future self), musical self, and performance anxiety (exam and concert) are shown in table 1. to test our hypothesis we followed preacher, rucker, and hayes (2007) approach to moderated mediation analysis. initially, we tested if the path from the predictor (i.e., self-discrepancies) to the mediator (i.e., musical self) was affected or not by the proposed moderator professional level (professional vs. amateur). subsequently, we tested the path between the mediator and the outcome measures (performance anxiety in musical and non-musical setting). finally, the moderated mediation model was test through process macro, model #7 (hayes, 2013). firstly, we tested through a multiple hierarchical regression analyses (baron & kenny, 1986) the effects of the predictor (self discrepancies) on the proposed mediator (musical self) and the interaction between the predictor and the professional level (professional vs. amateur). variables were centred to avoid multicollinearity (cohen, cohen, west, & aiken, 2003). to test the interaction between the predictor (self discrepancies) and professional level, one interaction term was created. if the interaction term significantly contributed to the regression model, we proceeded to investigate conditional effect of self-discrepancies on musical self at moderator values (professional vs. amateur). we tested the effects of self-discrepancies and the professional level on musical self. self discrepancies showed a significant and negative main effect, b = -.25, t(98) = -3.066, p = .003 on musical self, r2 adj = .10, f(3, castiglione, rampullo, & cardullo 797 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 96) = 4.67, p = .004. the addition of the interaction term significantly contributed to the regression model, r2 change = .04, fchange (1, 96) = 6.39, p = .01. the interaction between self discrepancies and the professional level was significant, t(96) = -2.528, p = .01, suggesting that the effect of self discrepancies on musical self depends on professional level. simple slopes analysis showed that self-discrepancies did not significantly affect musical self for amateur musicians. on the other hand, high discrepancies between actual and future self had a significant negative effect on musical self-representation for professional musicians, b = -.45, se = .14, t(96) = -3.189, p = .002 (see figure 2). figure 2. musical self levels as a function of actual vs. future self-discrepancies and professional level. after testing the path between the predictor and the proposed mediator, we tested the paths between musical self representation and performance anxiety (exam and concert) through a series of regression analyses with musical self representation and professional level entered simultaneously in the model. only musical self-representation had significant influence on concert performance anxiety: more positive musical self-representation was significantly associated with lower concert performance anxiety, b = -6.94, t = -5.433, p < .001, r2 adj = .27, f(2, 97) = 17.944, p < .001. as hypothesized, musical self-representation and professional level were not significantly associated with performance anxiety in a non-musical setting (exam). finally, to test if the indirect effects of self-discrepancies on performance anxiety through musical self (mediator) depend on professional level or not, we used the model 7 of the process macro (hayes, 2013). we tested the moderated mediation model with concert performance anxiety as outcome variable using bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples. the index of moderated mediation was significant (hayes, 2013), index = 2.73, se = 1.23, 95% ci [.80, 5.65], indicating that professional level moderated the mediation effect of musical self on the relationship between self-discrepancies and concert performance anxiety. specifically, the indirect effect of selfdiscrepancies on concert performance anxiety via musical self was significant only for professional musicians, ab = 3.02, se = 1.21, 95% ci [1.09, 5.99]. self representations, and music performance anxiety 798 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion studies on musicians’ performance anxiety have explored different individual, social and situational variables like motivation, personality, emotions, or performance setting (kenny et al., 2004; leblanc et al., 1997; mor et al., 1995; seamands, 1999). performance setting (like jury or non-jury situation) might affect how the musician experiences the performance and the levels of anxiety that they feel (brotons, 1994; osborne & franklin, 2002; osborne et al., 2005). however, musicians might react differently based on their professional level, with professionals experiencing higher levels of anxiety (osborne et al., 2005) even if they have been shown to cope better under anxiety conditions (hamann, 1982). finally, self-representation might affect performance (schnare et al., 2012; varvarigou et al., 2014) and anxiety levels (hart et al., 1997; heppen & ogilvie, 2003; higgins, 1989) also in musicians. the present research focused on the relationship between self-representations and anxiety among a sample of italian professional and amateur musicians. more specifically, we predicted that higher self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) would be associated with higher performance anxiety in a musical setting as compared to a non-musical one, via the musical self, and only in professional musicians. the results supported our prediction that self-discrepancies (actual vs. future self) were negatively associated with the representation of musical self, thus higher discrepancy between actual and future self was associated with less positive representation of musical self. these results seems support the motivational role of possible selves (markus & nurius, 1986), especially if we consider that the negative association between self discrepancies and musical self emerged only for professional musicians. varvarigou et al. (2014) already described how supporting possible selves through positive role models elicited detailed descriptions of students’ musical self and a positive motivational effect toward musical activities. coherently with previous results and with our predictions, musical self was negatively associated with performance anxiety only in a musical setting (concert). these results support the idea that performance setting could play an important role. previous research (brotons, 1994; osborne & franklin, 2002; osborne et al., 2005) already showed how musicians reported different level of anxiety based on the performance setting (e.g. jury – non-jury situation). finally, in line with literature on self dimensions (castiglione et al., 2015; markus & nurius, 1986; markus & ruvolo, 1989), and with literature on differences between professional and amateur musicians (hamann, 1982; osborne et al., 2005), higher discrepancies between self-representations were associated with higher performance anxiety levels via the musical self only in participants who play instruments at a professional level. furthermore, coherently with literature on effects of the settings on music performance anxiety (osborne & franklin, 2002), musical self was associated with performance anxiety only in a music related setting. results suggests that musical self might play an important role as a mechanism through which musicians could more easily manage performance anxiety in musical performance setting. limits of the study a major concern of the present study was that music performance anxiety was measured with only a self-reported measure. future studies should explore the effect of self dimensions on anxiety levels through the use of physiological and behavioural measures (brotons, 1994; leblanc et al., 1997). furthermore, data showed a positive correlation between exam and concert performance anxiety, thus indicating that anxious people might castiglione, rampullo, & cardullo 799 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 https://www.psychopen.eu/ be more anxious no matter the context. nevertheless musical self representation and professional level were not significantly associated with performance anxiety in a non-musical setting (exam), indicating that the setting might play, at least in part, an important role. another limit is related to the use of a correlational design. previous studies have addressed already the causal path linking self-images discrepancies to anxiety (heppen & ogilvie, 2003) employing different research designs (for example, a longitudinal design). future studies should implement also other research designs (for example, an experimental design). future studies could consider also other factors central for professional development and representation of self-dimensions like creativity (de caroli, licciardello, sagone, & castiglione, 2010; gladding, 2008) or self-efficacy (brouwers & tomic, 2000; skaalvik & skaalvik, 2007). conclusion the results of the present study showed for the first time that self-representations discrepancies were associated with performance anxiety in a musical setting (vs. a non musical one), via musical self, only in professional musicians, thus extending previous literature on the relationship between possible selves (markus & nurius, 1986) and music performance anxiety. the results also seem fundamental for the literature on educational intervention to promote and sustain a musical career with youth scholars (varvarigou et al., 2014). intervetions focused only on contextual factors should include individual variables through the employment of strategies aimed at reducing self-images discrepancies and sustaining a positive musical self representation. professional psychological support might be directed on both improvement of own self-image and supporting a positive representations of musicians as a professional group. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aderman, m., baker, t., bohnenblust, b., hunget, r., & villines, m. 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(1965). social facilitation. science, 149(3681), 269-274. doi:10.1126/science.149.3681.269 zajonc, r. b. (1968). attitudinal effects of mere exposure. journal of personality and social psychology, 9(2, pt.2), 1-27. doi:10.1037/h0025848 about the authors castiglione claudia, ph.d., is a research fellow at university of messina, italy. her main research interests are possible selves and social identity. alberto rampullo, ph.d., is a psychologist. his main research interests focuses on intregroup relations, gender studies and leadership. silvia cardullo is a psychologist in messina, italy. her main research interests are music and social psychology. castiglione, rampullo, & cardullo 805 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 792–805 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1554 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1126/science.149.3681.269 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0025848 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ self representations, and music performance anxiety (introduction) performance anxiety in musicians method participants measures results discussion limits of the study conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors being irrationally funny as a cognitive psychologist interview being irrationally funny as a cognitive psychologist interview with dan ariely dan ariely*a, beatrice popescub [a] duke university, social science research institute, durham, nc, usa. [b] faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. abstract the idea of interviewing dan ariely was somehow latent on my mind since i started being interested in cognitive psychology and cognitive behavior psychotherapy, but actually got more ardent ever since irrationality became a research topic for his team at duke university. i picked him as an interviewee thinking not only at his exceptional skills as a researcher and as kahnemann ‘disciple’, but mainly for his fantastic wit, true modesty and utmost interest in making people’s lives easier and more comfortable, by creating awareness on a lot of topics otherwise neglected. dan ariely’s very agreeable personality and humor would not let you think of him as a burnt casualty who, in his youth struggled to survive a personal drama, so well-documented in his paper “painful lessons” posted on the mit website (http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/mit/papers/mypain.pdf). i think reading his paper and also this transcribed interview with him would be also comforting for people who found out about bucharest fire incident that rocked our society and also for people who are personally related to this tragedy. keywords: cognitive psychology, irrational behavior, behavioral economics, trauma, resiliency europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 published (vor): 2015-11-27. *corresponding author at: social science research institute, duke university, 2024 w. main st., durham, nc 27705, usa. e-mail: dan@danariely.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. beatrice popescu: first of all, dear professor ariely, we would like to thank you for squeezing this interview among the huge amount of activities you are currently involved in. you have started your ba studies with hard sciences, mathematics and physics at tel aviv university and you continued them with philosophy and psychology. how did this switch happen and when did you decide to embrace cognitive psychology as a research adventure? dan ariely: hello, bucharest, sorry for the delayed response, hopefully this will be useful. how did the switch happen? actually the switch happened not because i was thinking about it, but just because i was kind of forced to switch. so basically what happened was that i was badly injured many years ago when i started studying at the university, when i was still suffering from a lot of pain and i had a lot of challenges and among my many injuries, one is that my hands don’t function very well and it’s hard for me to move them. one of the things that happened was that i had to write to the university. i started studying physics, then i thought i could do math and physics without writing, which turned out to be wrong, but, because i couldn’t write, i had to pick something else and i picked philosophy and psychology, which allowed me to actually not use my hands as much and then, even though it started by their requirement, very quickly i fell in love with psychology, particularly with experimental science. it europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ can happen largely by accident, because one of my first professors, hannan frenk, he was injured himself, he lost both of his legs in an explosion and he kind of turned his personal interest in pain into his professional interest. through him i kind of learned a lot about experimental psychology but i also learned about how you can take your on interest in life and turn it into your professional interest. beatrice popescu: your mentor is daniel kahneman, the famous cognitive psychologist who also recommended you to enter the field of behavioral economics and urged you to also obtain a doctorate in business administration. can you describe in a few phrases in which way your collaboration with prof. kahneman changed your thinking? dan ariely: daniel kahneman is an incredibly thoughtful, interesting, creative guy and he has influenced me in many ways. he’s influenced me in the way that i thing about collaborations, in the way that i think about students, in the way that i think about the people i work with, in terms of the topics i work on. in the last years danny has moved to try and influence policy in a bigger way and that has influenced me as well and i think actually the whole field is now much more interested in contributing to the questions about how do we design life in a better way from a policy perspective. beatrice popescu: i must confess, your paper “painful lessons” posted on the mit website moved me a lot, i consider it one of the few well researched ‘pain and suffering’ documented descriptions and also an important lesson of stoicism in a hedonistic world. as a research psychologist, what advice do you have for people hit by drama in their lives? dan ariely: thanks for the question. this question is about my essay on pain. what advice do i have for people who are hit by trauma? i actually don't know. as you can imagine, lots of people with injuries write to me and they ask me a lot of interesting questions, tell me about their lives, they ask questions about resiliency, about what gets people to be more resilient, less resilient? resiliency is something that i am deeply interested in and we actually have some research projects on this right now, but where really resiliency comes from, we don’t know exactly: there are some personality traits of course that are related, there is the question about feeling of hope and not feeling helplessness, there is the question of having a supportive family, having an optimistic view of the future, all of those are true but to deeply understand resilience, we're not there yet, but this is something that i'm certainly interested in and trying to explore more. beatrice popescu: your book “predictably irrational” presents experimental evidence that proves yet again that human behavior is irrational and exposes some of the irrational behaviors we engage in. is behavioral economics able to explain all of our behaviors and also, does it have an answer for all our worries? dan ariely: no, absolutely not, we can explain some of them and they have an answer for those and again, of course not. two things are important to consider here: the first one is that, of course, science is just kind of work in progress, but the other thing to realize is that the world is also changing. therefore, if you think about the world of physics, the world of physics is kind of stable, but if you think about the world of social science, the world of social science keeps on changing: ten years ago we didn't have cell phones, we didn't have facebook and life was different, the patients were different, the mistakes that people were making were different. i think that social science would never get all the records of all the irrational behaviors, because technology and society would keep on moving forward and people would discover new ways to get things wrong or they will discover some ways that were dormantly wrong to be now more actively wrong. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 interview 566 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dan ariely is a cognitive psychologist, best-selling author, james b. duke professor of psychology & behavioral economics at duke university, and dedicated to answering questions in order to help people live more sensible and enriched lives. his interests span a wide range of domains and his sometimes unusual experiments are consistently interesting, amusing and informative, demonstrating profound ideas that fly in the face of common wisdom. in addition to appointments at the fuqua school of business, the center for cognitive neuroscience, the department of economics, and the school of medicine at duke university, dan ariely is also a founding member of the center for advanced hindsight, and the author of the new york times best sellers predictably irrational (2008), the upside of irrationality (2010), and the honest truth about dishonesty (2012). in 2013, bloomberg recognized ariely as one of “top 50 most influential thinkers”. he also has a bi-weekly advice column in the wall street journal called “ask ariely” where youmay reach him in order to ask him the most unexpected and surprising questions. correspondence: social science research institute, duke university, 2024 w. main st., durham, nc 27705, usa. e-mail: dan@danariely.com beatrice popescu: seeing the amount of free downloads on the web despite all copyright laws, from movies to books and research work, how do you think we can change this situation? can we possibly cultivate moral behavior in people by teaching ethics or ethical behavior starting from gymnasium? do you think offering products at a discounted price would curb the free download phenomenon? dan ariely: there's lots of free downloads on the way people download a lot of stuff illegally. can we do it by getting people to be more moral and can we discount prices sufficiently to curb the frees? i don't think we could, i don't think either of them. i think that what we find about this, honestly, is that people find lots of ways to rationalize their behaviors and i think that when it comes to digital goods people have lots of good ways, lots of effective ways to rationalize their behavior. they can say things like: “nobody's going to really be hurt” and “nobody's really suffering” and “i wouldn't do it anyway the other way around” and “the people are making too much money”, so people can say all kinds of stories to themselves and i don't think it's about price. even if it was very cheap, they would acknowledge it was very cheap, but they would say yes, it could be a little bit less, but i don't think it could stop it. beatrice popescu: together with a team of researchers in 2008 you won the ig nobel prize for your research paper on the behavioral impact of a higher price. one of the study conclusions is that even though in general we look for free or discounted products, when it comes to health, we look for higher prices in medicines (and brand names) thinking that there is a positive correlation between price, quality and efficiency . do you think this could also apply to psychotherapy fees? could a person consider for example that if offered pro bono, the chances are that a therapy does not work and if highly priced, it works better? dan ariely: there are some cases in which price is high, people have high expectations and therefore they have a higher placebo effect and when the price is low, they have low expectations and therefore a low placebo effect and even a nocebo effect in that case. do i think this could apply to other things as well? of course, i think that the price certainly grabs our attention, we think about it and because of that, it has an ability to influence the expectations of quality. now, here's the thing: if you take something that people know it’s quality, for example i take a very expensive computer or a very expensive phone and i tell people “i'm giving you this for free” and they know it's of the same type and quality, they are not going to say: “oh, this must be terrible!”, but if i don't tell them about it and they don't know the quality in advance, it can backfire. and the reality is that we have lots of things in those cases when people don't know the quality. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 ariely & popescu 567 http://www.psychopen.eu/ beatrice popescu is a cognitive behavior psychotherapist at bellanima medical center bucharest and the founding editor of europe’s journal of psychology. she has published papers and book reviews on clinical psychology, psychotherapy and psycho-practice politics. her research interests are cognitive behavior therapy, rebt, existential psychotherapy and philosophical counseling ethics. she is now undergoing a phd program at the faculty of philosophy of university of bucharest, supervised by ccny with the thesis title: “philosophical counseling and psychotherapy. ethical issues in philosophical counseling”. since 2005, beatrice has developed a passion for interviewing personalities of psychology along with her old professional interest in media and communication industry, having worked for multinational companies and agencies based in bucharest. correspondence: e-mail: beatrice.popescu@bellanima.ro beatrice popescu: in rational emotive behavior therapy (albert ellis) we often try to help the client to replace the irrational thinking with rational cognitions, hoping that negative emotions elicited by automatic thoughts will turn into positive or neutral ones that follow rational thoughts. in the paradigm you propose, if i understand well, a bit of irrationality is not always to be rejected. when do you think it’s reasonable to be irrational? dan ariely: trying to help people replace irrational thinking with rational cognitions? yes, it's a question of what do we think of this ‘irrational’, there are lots of definitions of it. one definition is that whatever is stupid is irrational, and then of course, by definition you don’t want stupid things. another thing is to say this is about the economic definition, when people are not selfish for example it’s irrational and that of course we don’t want to say that’s the case and we want to eliminate that, to tell people should stop helping other people or not consult their emotions and so on. i don't think it's always the case, but it’s really a question of what do we consider as irrational. my main concern with irrationality is not the economic definition. i am interested in the economic definition because if we can shape the economic definition people might not adopt economics as a tool for policy, but the part that interests me more is the part where people get things wrong and because they don’t understand what’s controlling their behavior and from that perspective i think psychologists have a lot to do in terms of educating people to better understand the real reasons for their behavior. beatrice popescu: the (dis)honesty project is your latest research assignment that turned into a documentary film, presented at montclair film festival. like cruelty, dishonesty turns out to be a remarkably prevalent phenomenon apparently better explained nowadays by circumstances and cognitive processes than by concepts like character and moral development. however, since in one of your experiments in which you asked the subjects to sign an mit ‘honor code’ the cheating did not occur at all, do you think the idea of signing and complying to ethical codes could possibly increase ethical behavior in humans? do you think ethics and behavioral science could explore issues in an interdisciplinary conceptual framework in order to increase people’s awareness towards moral behavior? dan ariely: the “dishonesty project” is a movie and then some things around it about how we understand dishonesty. here is some research on dishonesty, some stories about people who were dishonest and how they deteriorated over time and what happened to them and we tried to go back and forth between those stories. and the research to try and understand how research fits with people's real lives and what are the implications of fathom. i actually think the producer yael melamede and the rest of the team did an amazing job in this movie and i think we need to do multiple things: we need to increase awareness and then we need to create different systems because you see, if people just become more aware, awareness will go away, at some point it will be other things that will be important so it’s not just awareness that we can rely on. but we need to combine awareness with interest in actually doing something else and then doing something else. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 interview 568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ beatrice popescu: procrastination is another hot topic among your research interests. the conclusions of one of your papers are that people are good at self-imposing meaningful deadline to overcome procrastination, the deadlines are effective in improving task performances, but unfortunately people cannot manage to set those deadlines optimally. do you have a suggestion on the optimal setting of deadlines, especially for graduate students striving to finish writing their phd thesis? dan ariely: procrastination is a very tough thing. over the last few years, we actually tried to create an app that would help people manage their time and we recently sold the little company to a big company, to google, and i am hoping that they will use it. but if you think about it, i think that the gateway for productivity is the calendar: you look at the calendar, you see what you have to do and then you do what the calendar tells you. if you want to write your phd thesis, then that task needs to be on your calendar. so what you need to do is to take maybe two productive hours you have every day, maybe between 9 and 11 a.m. or maybe in the evening or maybe one on one however it is. and you should write down: this is when i'm working on my thesis and when you don't work on it, you should admit that you are not working on it. but if you basically say let me just let other things take hold of my calendar and i work on my phd when the time comes, the time will not come. so i think that the calendar is an important gateway for good behavior. beatrice popescu: in your ted presentations you always insert anecdotes and humorous bits that your audience simply love. charlie chaplin once said: “through humor, we see in what seems rational, the irrational; in what seems important, the unimportant”. do you agree with him? dan ariely: is humor important to see rational and irrational? i am not sure about ‘rational’ versus ‘irrational’, but i think humor is a way to view life. and i think through humor and jokes and fable, we can actually have a good view of human nature. and i think it's a really wonderful start to view important things. i think it also gives people a break, it gets people to be less serious about themselves, it opens people's mind, it relaxes them, it makes them a bit more creative, so all good things. beatrice popescu: you are not only an esteemed university professor teaching in the marketing department at duke university, but also a cognitive psychologist and behavioral economics researcher, a social media influencer, an analyst, an acclaimed speaker travelling all over the world, a fervent blogger, but also a father and a husband. when do you find time for everything? is prioritization a difficult task for you? dan ariely: i am not actually teaching in the marketing department anymore, i'm teaching at duke but not in any particular department. how do i have time for everything? i don't actually, as you can tell from this interview that i'm late on it. i don't have time for everything and i actually don't sleep that much and i am very stressed. so i'm not one of those people who is managing everything, i’m one of those people who tries to, has good intentions but i fail, i fail often and time management is one of those things that is very very hard for me and to figure out priorities is very complex. i often just work as hard as i can for as long as i can, but i don't have a secret on worklife balance, it’s certainly is not one of my ‘forte’. beatrice popescu: what is your relationship with your students at duke university? do they see you as a mentor or more as an erudite friend? when describing them the market realities before landing a job in the real world, do they seem challenged or discouraged? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 ariely & popescu 569 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dan ariely:what is my relationship with my students? i think that it's a collaborative relationship, i think of it more like a father when kids start or a tutor when students start. my role is to provide them with all the help that i can, to let them flourish and then as they become adults, we become more of friends. i'm still in touch with all of my past students, i think of ourselves as an extended family, i even like the students of my previous students, i feel like any of my grandchildren, so that's very much a family feeling to the experience. they know about my life, i know about their lives, once a year i try to take all my students and my family for a vacation together so everybody gets to hang out and meet each other and spend some time together, these are two sides of my life. they meet from time to time in other cases as well, but we try to also make sure we meet in those as well. beatrice popescu: in the end of our talk, dear professor, i would like to ask you if you have other projects in mind for the next period and also to wish you a happy well-deserved summer holiday. dan ariely: first of all, thanks for the nice wishes for the summer holiday. in terms of other projects, my goal for the near future is to create a center that will focus on helping people make better financial decisions. i'm still not exactly sure how we'll do it, but i think that money is one of those things that technology can either help us spend more and think less, or get us to stop, reflect and behave better. so i'm hoping to be able to contribute to the behaving better. in any case, i hope this is helpful and if you have more questions, i am on my way to brazil but i will try to answer by email. bye. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 565–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1083 interview 570 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments improving patient outcomes: effectively training healthcare staff in psychological practice skills: a mixed systematic literature review literature reviews improving patient outcomes: effectively training healthcare staff in psychological practice skills: a mixed systematic literature review katherine garzonis*a, eryn mannb, aleksandra wyrzykowska c, pavlo kanellakisd [a] department of clinical, educational and health psychology, university college london, london, united kingdom. [b] saint andrew's healthcare, northampton, united kingdom. [c] department of psychology and behavioural sciences, coventry university, coventry, united kingdom. [d] kanellakis and associates, london, united kingdom. abstract training is an important part of modern european healthcare services and is often cited as a way to improve care quality. to date, various training methods have been used to impart skills relevant to psychological practice in a variety of mental health professionals. however, patient outcomes are rarely used in evaluating the effectiveness of the different training methods used, making it difficult to assess true utility. in the present review, we consider methods of training that can effectively impact trainee and patient outcomes. to do so, pubmed, psycnet, scopus, central and eric were searched for studies on training of healthcare staff in psychological practice approaches. in total, 24 studies were identified (16 quantitative and 8 qualitative). for the most part, group, individual, and web-based training was used. a variety of health professionals were trained in skills including ‘communication’, ‘diagnosis’, and ‘referral’ to name but a few. in the majority of studies staff skill level improved. these findings hold implications for the design, implementation, and evaluation of training for mental healthcare staff. keywords: psychology, skills, training, mental health professionals, professional development, communication, general practitioners, nurses, multidisciplinary team europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 received: 2015-01-22. accepted: 2015-04-09. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: research department of clinical, educational and health psychology, university college london, gower street, london,wc1e 6bt. e-mail: k.garzonis@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction every year almost 40% of people within the european union (eu) suffer from some form of mental disorder (wittchen et al., 2011). the recent increases in the number of diagnoses available (american psychiatric association, 2013) has contributed to more than 80 million additional people needing treatment in 2010 compared to 2005 (wittchen et al., 2011), with as many as 200 million european citizens suffering from mental health problems today. however, only a third will access specialist mental health treatment (wittchen et al., 2011), and the most common point of entry to services will be through doctors and other medical staff (alonso et al., 2004; gater et al., 2005). this creates a bigger need for psychologically-informed practice across healthcare systems, and places a burden on a range of healthcare professionals to develop these necessary skills. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ techniques for psychologically-informed practice are diverse in themselves, and recommendations to improve care have included developing communication skills (travado, reis, & borras, 2014), cultural sensitivity (national institute for health and clinical excellence, 2011), and interpersonal interactions (de haes & tunissen, 2005) to name but a few. in addition to these abilities, the rapidly-expanding evidence base of diagnoses and their treatments creates a need to regularly update healthcare professionals' own psychological knowledge. ‘education, training, and development’ are regularly acknowledged as the preferred way to enhance skill acquisition, andmore frequently the only way to improve patient care in this context (department of health, 2013). while training is an oft-cited concept, it is rarely recommended how it should occur. for example, the francis (2013) report—based on an inquiry into the notorious mid-staffordshire trust, an english national health service centre with appallingly low standards of care—uses the term 'training' no fewer than 583 times. however, there is little discussion about the form this training should or could take. the challenges posed by the current financial climate mean there is a need now more than ever for efficacious learning, yet there is little consideration for what makes healthcare training effective. undeniably, the end-goal of most professional development within mental health is to improve patient outcomes; it is therefore reasonable to assume effective training positively impacts patients. however, there are relatively few studies defining effective training of healthcare staff in this way, and fewer still that include considerations on the methods of training. the present review more people than ever before are presenting with mental health difficulties to general healthcare services (alonso et al., 2004; gater et al., 2005; wittchen et al., 2011). mental health has become amatter for all health professionals (department of health, 2013) and a cross-disciplinary approach can produce “significant added value” (european parliament, 2009). this widening scope of mental health care-related roles, combined with financially-stretched healthcare systems, means a multidisciplinary approach to psychological skills development is not only important, but timely. thus, we will examine the training provided to a range of staff who work with patients in mental health settings, including, but not limited to, psychologists, nurses, and physicians. these staff will be collectively referred to as mental health professionals (mhps) from here. while there are many ways to define concepts as variable as 'skills' and 'training', this review will focus on training as “the systematic development of attitude, knowledge, skill, behaviour patterns required by an individual in order to perform adequately a given task or job” (department of employment, 1971). our understanding of 'skill' follows the cambridge dictionary's (“skill,” 2014): “an ability to do an activity or job well”, where this refers to a specific pattern of behaviour. thus 'psychological skills training' can be understood as a systematic effort to create specific behaviour patterns relevant to good psychological practice. while training frequently forms a significant part of recommendations to improve patient care (e.g. webb, 2011; world health organization, global health workforce alliance, 2008), what constitutes the most effective types of training is frequently overlooked. in order to bridge this gap, the aim of the present review is to investigate ‘what method of training is most effective in teaching psychological practice skills to mhps?' to understand the efficacy of training, it is necessary to consider both patient and staff outcomes–especially as training may be enjoyable and change behaviour in trainees, but still have no benefit to patients (hinrichs, 1976). to the authors' knowledge, at the time of writing this type of analysis of psychological practice skills training among mhps has not yet been undertaken, but, as described previously, is sorely needed. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 536 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method search strategy searches were made of databases psycnet, scopus, pubmed, central (the cochrane library), and eric (institute of education studies) for publications between 2009 and 2014. the same search terms and search structures (e.g. nested searches) were used in each database. where possible, filters appropriate to pre-define inclusion and exclusion criteria were included. identical search criteria were used to identify both qualitative and quantitative data from studies. by not specifying the research methodology, we minimised the number of appropriate studies missed through inadequate filters (gorecki et al., 2010). added to these results were any relevant documents identified from the resultant studies' citations, which were subject to the same inclusion and exclusion criteria. study quality was evaluated using the critical appraisal skill program qualitative research checklist (casp, 2013) for qualitative studies, and the mixed methods appraisal tool (pluye & hong, 2014) for all other study designs. all reviewers carried out the same search on one of the databases in order to check consistency between searches and quality ratings. search terms the search terms used in the current review are presented in table 1, below. nested searches are indicated by terms within brackets. 'muscle' was used as an exclusion term to reduce the number of spurious results related to muscle training. table 1 search terms and their operators for locating studies does not containmust containcontains at least one not muscleand (nurse or nurses or healthcare or “health care” or psychologist or psychologists or doctor or doctors) "continuing professional" or development or cpd or education and (patient or patients or client or clients or “service user” or “service users”)or training or learning or supervision or skill or skills terms related to skills, training and their synonyms were identified from prior reading of related literature (higgins & green, 2011) and have been cross-referenced with index terms on psycnet to generate a greater number of relevant results. the search process was evaluated through consultation with senior researchers involved in the project. searches were also checked to see whether pre-identified papers of relevance were picked up by the strategy. multiple trials of different search terms and strategies were used in order to get the most appropriate results. these trials suggested using broader search terms over more specific ones in order to pick up the greatest number of relevant studies. in deciding terms for mhps, we have been selective in adding common key words likely to target the largest proportion of workers. the sheer number of professionals involved in mental health alone has necessarily meant we europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 537 http://www.psychopen.eu/ have not included some specific mhp terms in order to keep search results manageable. the charity mind for example lists 37 different professions in mental health (challis, 2013), and therefore it has not been possible to include them all in this search. criteria for selecting studies table 2 lists the inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies in this review. these were designed to select highquality studies with both staffand patient-outcome data. table 2 inclusion and exclusion criteria exclusioninclusion • quantitative studies without comparison data (outcome preand/or post-intervention, or control group) • staff outcomes included skills relevant to psychological practice (e.g. communication, formulation) • staff were adults • insufficient description to replicate programme delivery (e.g. length of intervention, time between sessions, etc.)• peer-reviewed • qualitative, mixed, or quantitative studies (e.g. reviews, trials, or rcts) • full text cannot be found • papers written in a language not understood by the reviewers • •if filtering was available, studies were listed under an educational/training heading intervention was not delivered to healthcare staff • studies on non-human subjects • •patient outcomes developmental studies (e.g. childhood or ageing studies) •• skills irrelevant to psychological practice in an adult mental healthcare setting were taught articles in english, polish, greek, punjabi, or spanisha alanguages understood by reviewers. we have used staffand patient-level outcomes to indicate effectiveness of interventions. a patient outcome was defined as: “a likely consequence of training that is meant to impact patient mental health”, where that impact is referenced in the department of health's current policies on improving mental health outcomes (department of health, 2011a, 2011b, 2014; public health england, 2013). this understanding was based on a general definition of 'outcome' (“outcome,” 2015) with the addition of a specific focus on mental health as informed by government policy. staff outcomes were defined as: “a likely consequence of training meant to impact staff skill(s)”, following our earlier definition of skills. results the search strategy identified over two thousand papers across the five search engines (table 3). to be included in the analysis a study needed to describe a training process, report a trainee outcome linked to training effectiveness, and include a patient outcome that could potentially be connected to effects of training. most studies were excluded as they did not to describe the training of mhps, and others were screened out at later stages because they did not report patient outcomes or detailed descriptions of training procedures. after application of all the inclusion/exclusion criteria, the number of studies analysed was 29. five further studies were removed afterwards as it was decided 'standardised patients', played by actors, could not be used to indicate patient outcomes. in total, 24 studies were eligible for the final analysis, including eight qualitative studies. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 538 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 search results reason for exclusionnº studies excludednº studies examinedstage irrelevant topic9672421articles obtained from search terms did not meet criteria157454abstracts retrieved for evaluation full text not accessible83297articles attempted to find full text for did not meet criteria185214full text obtained for detailed evaluation used standardised patients529articles considered for analysis 24articles finally included review of studies for clarity of description, the selected studies have been grouped into quantitative or qualitative methodologies, followed by a consolidative summary. following cochrane guidelines (higgins & green, 2011), quantitative papers were reviewed using a narrative approach, while qualitative studies were examined using a form of thematic synthesis (thomas & harden, 2008). finally, the conclusions of these analyses were combined into a united synthesis, following a method of bayesian conversion (the joanna briggs institute, 2014). most studies had a casp or mmat quality rating of 50% or higher (see table 4). qualitative studies on average scoredmore highly than quantitativemethodologies, whichmay be because few randomised control trials adequately described their blinding process. table 4 summary of included studies quality scoreatraineestraining typedesignyearauthors 6/7gpsgroupqualitative2009aiarzaguena et al. 7/7nursesindividual + groupqualitative2012amerson 50%gpsgrouprct2010bakker et al. 75%gpsindividual + grouprct2009bregnhøj, thirstrup, kristensen, bjerrum, & sonne 6/7emergency staff, including doctors and nurses individual + groupqualitative2012collin, valleala, herranen, & paloniemi 100%multidisciplinary clinical teamsgrouprct2011feder et al. 7/7medical studentsindividualqualitative2011de feijter, de grave, dornan, koopmans, & scherpbier 75%hospital doctorsgrouprct2011fossli jensen et al. 75%gpsindividual + grouprct2012gongora-ortega, segovia-bernal, valdivia-martinez, galaviz-deanda, & prado-aguilar 75%gpsindividualrct2013guldin, vedsted, jensen, olesen, & zachariae 25%nursesindividual + grouprct2013jansink et al. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 539 http://www.psychopen.eu/ quality scoreatraineestraining typedesignyearauthors 100%cognitive behavioural therapistsgroupnon-controlled2012karlin et al. 50%gpsgrouprct2009lester, birchwood, freemantle, michail, & tait 100%managers of learning disability servicesindividual + groupnon-controlled2011mackey & dodd 5/7child and adolescent mental health services psychodynamic therapists groupqualitative2010mcloughlin 6/7medical studentsindividualqualitative2012monrouxe & rees 6/7gps and hospital specialistsweb-based videoqualitative2011nilsen 25%physiciansindividualrct2013penner et al. 75%gpsgrouprct2013shirazi et al. 100%cognitive behavioural therapistsindividual + groupnon-controlled2010simons et al. 6/7school psychologistsgroup + presentationsqualitative2010suldo, friedrich, & michalowski 100%physiciansgrouprct2013tarn, paterniti, orosz, tseng, &wenger 100%nursesindividualrct2011van weert, jansen, spreeuwenberg, van dulmen, & bensing 50%mental health nursesindividual + grouprct2010white & winstanley ascores out of 7 reflect casp scores; percentage scores represent mmat criteria. a full summary of the review findings from both qualitative, quantitative, and synthesised analyses can be found in the appendix. quantitative studies sample — sixteen studies described training experiences with mhps, who were most commonly general practitioners (gps) or nurses. there was great heterogeneity in outcomes and training methods, which has prevented a meta-analysis. results are therefore presented as a narrative, and conclusions should be treated tentatively as generalisations to the population cannot be assumed. the training received by mhps can be classed into ‘group’, ‘individual’, or ‘web-based’ categories. while there were some differences in how these types of training were applied across studies, in general group training involved a number of mhps receiving the same training, ranging in length from 1-hour to 4-days. this type of training was often based in interactive approaches, including discussions, debates, and role-plays. individual training typically involved trainees independently acquiring new skills. this was achieved by a variety of learning resources, including pamphlets, information sheets, or feedback. finally, web-based training typically taught new skills through an online medium. web-based training most often involved video-conferencing as a means to give feedback and tutorials to mhps about their performance. group training — group training was used to teach communication skills to nurses (jansink et al., 2013), gps (tarn et al., 2013), hospital doctors (fossli jensen et al., 2011), and learning disability staff (mackey & dodd, 2011). across all studies, communication improved post intervention, although there is evidence to suggest this is not maintained over time (jansink et al., 2013) or only to a small degree (fossli jensen et al., 2011). these europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 540 http://www.psychopen.eu/ group training sessions were interactive, as opposed to a traditional lecture format, including role-plays, discussions, etc. group training was also used to enhance gps' diagnostic skills (bakker et al., 2010; feder et al., 2011; shirazi et al., 2013), and again improvements were shown post intervention. interestingly, interactive group training was superior to education alone when a direct comparison was made (shirazi et al., 2013), and an exploratory analysis of these studies' effect sizes suggests such interactivity may more effectively teach diagnostic skill than group lectures alone. finally, improvements in skill were noted when group training was used to train mental health nurses in supervision skills (white & winstanley, 2010) gps in prescription skills (bregnhøj et al., 2009). as such, it seems that group training may be efficacious in training mhps in communication, diagnostic, supervision and prescription related skills. not all group training improved mhp skill level. when used to train referral skills in gps (feder et al., 2011; lester et al., 2009), only one study detected an increase in ability (feder et al., 2011). in the other study, the authors noted that educating gps alone may be insufficient to make a difference in their skill level. they argue that as primary care is just one part of the care system; a whole-systems approach is required (lester et al., 2009). also, this study did not explicitly use interactive groups as a teaching method, unlike the study that found a significant difference. three other studies that found mixed results with non-interactive groups looked at training therapists (karlin et al., 2012; simons et al., 2010) and gps (gongora-ortega et al., 2012) in clinical competency skills. improvements were noted in only two of the three post-intervention, although it is worth noting that these studies sustained educational support at least 6 months longer than gongora-ortega and colleagues (2012). the latter's authors suggested the statistically non-significant result was a function of the small sample size, which may have led to insufficient power to detect a significant difference in preversus post-intervention scores (gongora-ortega et al., 2012). the following comments on patient outcomes must be treated cautiously. it is not within the scope of this study to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of particular interventions on particular outcomes, as the number of studies is too small and too varied to facilitate strong conclusions. given this, in general, patients seen by mhps with skills obtained through group training were more likely to be referred for treatment (bakker et al., 2010; feder et al., 2011; lester et al., 2009; shirazi et al., 2013)—which can be counted as a patient outcome under the “no health without mental health” policy, relating to access (department of health, 2011a)—and see improvements in their depression and/or anxiety scores with treatment (karlin et al., 2012; simons et al., 2010). only one study, by gonogora-ortega and colleagues, of the four involving group training was able to improve patient satisfaction or trust in their mhp (fossli jensen et al., 2011; gongora-ortega et al., 2012; tarn et al., 2013; white & winstanley, 2010). however, fossli jensen et al. (2011) as well as white and winstanley (2010) argue in some cases this may have been because satisfaction was already high, producing a ceiling effect. although about one third of the above studies mixed group training with additional individual work, there is not enough evidence to suggest this has a specific impact on either trainee or patient outcomes. anecdotally, there europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 541 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is evidence to suggest interactive groups may enhance the acquisition of some skills in trainees. however, no such tendency was found regarding patient outcomes. individual training — studies using individual training showed less methodological variation than the group interventions. while group training would often involve a mixture of role-plays, discussions, presentations, etc.—with and without additional individual learning—the two studies using purely individual training tended to focus on only one or two approaches. this is to be expected, particularly as the above-mentioned activities require more than one person; individual learning is naturally limited here. penner et al. (2013) used written information as an aide-mémoire to convey a sense of 'being part of a team', while guldin and colleagues (2013) supplemented their leaflets on recognising complicated grief with patient risk assessments for the same. neither study was able to sustain their trainee effects at follow-up, suggesting written material alone is not sufficient to produce significant change. however, patients' trust in their doctor and adherence to medical advice wasmaintained at 16 weeks follow-up (penner et al., 2013), as were small reductions approaching significance in depression and grief scores after one year (guldin et al., 2013). this may indicate the interesting possibility that, for certain skills, mhp learning does not need to be sustained in order to produce long-standing patient changes. this may be more likely under conditions where the mhp has a time-limited role in the early stages of the care pathway. for example, a gp trained to give the most appropriate referral at the first signs of mental distress can greatly impact future care and course of the illness (ross & hardy, 1999). further research in this area would be interesting, especially if such change is found more generally, such as by eliminating other potential factors like patient group. web-enabled training — as opposed to the above-mentioned group and individual training methods, in which the majority of learning aids are based in physical reality, a study by van weert et al.'s (2011) used digital methods to create and host learning material. they used web-enabled video to record and upload individual nurses' consultations with cancer patients, which the nurses could watch at home or in the hospital. individual feedback on communication skills was provided, and supplemented with a reflection task that encouraged the trainees to review their own material. this was linked to a small, statistically significant improvement in nurses' communication skills and patients' recall of consultation information compared to controls. however, an exploratory comparison with effect sizes from other studies targeting communication skills would suggest web-enabled training may be less effective at teaching this particular skill. qualitative studies data was extracted using a meta-ethnographic approach, wherein summary terms and concepts were identified from the authors' original findings and listed (campbell et al., 2003). these were then used as codes and organised into themes and sub-themes, following a method of thematic synthesis (thomas & harden, 2008). these themes were re-examined and regrouped (as appropriate) in order to best represent the meanings in the code groups in the context of training methodology. three other review authors appraised these to agree a final version, resulting in nine themes related to effective training. sample — a total of eight qualitative studies were selected for inclusion in the present review. similar to the quantitative studies above, training involved: ‘group’ (aiarzaguena et al., 2009; mcloughlin, 2010; nilsen, 2011), ‘individual’ (amerson, 2012; collin et al., 2012; monrouxe & rees, 2012), and ‘web-based’ (videoconferencing; europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 542 http://www.psychopen.eu/ nilsen, 2011) methods. in addition, training by means of ‘peer presentations’ was also identified (suldo, friedrich, & michalowski, 2010). theme 1: translation of policy into practice — the challenges of applying what has been learnt within an educational environment to the healthcare setting was made clear in the research by monrouxe and rees (2012). here, medical students reported that qualified staff members would often demonstrate actions inconsistent with their teaching, resulting in students experiencing contradictory formal and informal learning experiences. this reflects the quantitative work of lester and colleagues (2009) and also white and winstanley (2010) who both noted how the overall organisation can be a significant force, even barrier, to the implementation of skills learnt in training. monrouxe and rees (2012) highlight peer support within the workplace as a potential coping strategy for staff in this situation. their research shows this can help students overcome the negative emotional outcome caused by contradictions between teaching and practice. mentoring, or other sources of peer support, may provide individuals with an awareness of professional issues within the learning environment, and help empower them toward articulation of their experience and positive cultural change. moreover, monrouxe and rees (2012) suggest this ensures a respectful, professional service for all patients by encouraging awareness of such ethical issues. theme 2: the training environment — although it can be difficult to translate learning into practice, the training environment can be utilised to improve generalisability of skills. de feijter et al. (2011) argue the natural complexity of a healthcare environment means learning within the workplace can be more effective than a relatively simple classroom setting. in their study students were exposed to a variety of in vivo experiences, such as collaboration and time constraints, and therefore were presented with 'a realistic account' of what clinical practice entails. this type of training was described in relation to the activity theory (engeström, 2006), where interactions between practitioners, customers (patients), and systems can be reflectively designed into the environment. this demonstrates the importance of insight into both becoming a healthcare professional and taking care of patients without doing harm, which can be used for better integrated and expansive design of training systems. de feijter et al. (2011) also identified the relationship with the supervisor as a key moderating factor in students' experience of the environment. as knowledge and trust in the trainee's abilities increased, they would gradually be given more responsibility by their supervisor. this exposed them to new and more complex interactions within the healthcare environment, allowing more advanced skill development. theme 3: professional culture in congruent care — in addition to where training is provided, the type of training provided should also be considered. monrouxe and rees (2012) highlight a 'clash of cultures' that can occur in training. they point out that trainers may be educated in alternative models of care, often those that erode the ‘patient-centred approach’. in turn, this can create a negative emotional state for the students, who, although they felt a strong identity with their teaching team, were morally distressed by providing healthcare that was insensitive to patients’ needs (monrouxe & rees, 2012). the findings suggest educationalists should be up to date with policies and expectations of the clinical setting. doing so ensures culturally relevant practice, meaning patients receive appropriate care that is consistent with their expectations of the nhs (monrouxe & rees, 2012). theme 4: understanding individual patients' needs— the needs of patients should also be a primary concern when training is provided. for example, aiarzaguena and colleagues (2009) found that targeting interventions at europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 543 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the consultation stage helped gps feel closer to “difficult” patient groups, and also promoted better understanding of patient needs. nilsen (2011) found that training within a multi-disciplinary team (mdt) promoted faster and more effective diagnosis. this meant that all professionals were able to contribute their expertise in considering different patient needs, therefore optimally delivering high-quality care. it was also found that specialists benefited from the collaboration, as it allowed for continuity both within the team and for the patient. theme 5: patient safety — in terms of the patient experience, monrouxe and rees (2012) also commented on how patients’ dignity and safety can be compromised during student training. they note this compromise was partly due to the amount of unsupervised student involvement within patient care. in their study, it was accepted that students were bound to make mistakes, yet they were also asked to practice beyond their level of competency. it was also found that consent was often not gained from patients for treatment by students, which pressurised students to take full responsibility for the care provided. finding the balance between learning through experience and reducing the potential harm for patients in healthcare settings should be an important concern, yet monrouxe and rees (2012) found that the standard of patient care is often compromised within medical training. de feijter et al. (2011) suggest that approachable supervisors may be one means to support students to provide a high standard patient care and reduce the number of risks taken during training. themes 6-9: the four cs—clarification, co-ordination, communication and collaboration— four common factors found consistently throughout all of the qualitative literature were: clarification, co-ordination, communication and collaboration. collin and colleagues (2012) describe the importance of each of these factors when learning in emergency work. clear guidelines used within training for gps were found to increase the application of skills to a variety of patients’ needs using a structured intervention technique (aiarzaguena et al., 2009). this demonstrated the importance of clarification for skill-sets. co-ordination between the multidisciplinary team meant that learning could be on-going within the working environment; for example, when reviewing the patients’ needs on a daily basis using video-conferencing (nilsen, 2011). fast and effective communication was a central feature of the qualitative research on learning within the workplace. communication increased the speed and efficiency of patient diagnosis and planning of care (collin et al., 2012). finally, when applied to a context of constant change, collaboration between the qualified member of staff, student and patient reduced the discrepancies within the healthcare training environment and maintained that the patients' needs were the priority of the service provided (collin et al., 2012). structured and unstructured training — delivery of training that did not follow a predetermined structure commonly took the form of learning within the 'here and now'; getting involved with all processes of patient care, often in collaboration with a senior member of staff (de feijter et al., 2011). it appeared less common that training was provided within a pre-planned, structured manner for students. aiarzaguena et al. (2009) used a sample of gps to test the use of a structured tool and a re-attribution technique for diagnosing patients with medically unexplained symptoms. it was found that by providing staff with training that used clear guidelines, their understanding increased and they were able to apply the framework taught to europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 544 http://www.psychopen.eu/ patients with psychological symptoms. the importance of relevant and regular training to improve insight for more challenging symptoms was highlighted by gp’s that completed the intervention. individual learning — individual learning was found to increase self-efficacy in cognitive, practical and affective learning dimensions, when students engaged in an international service-learning project for nursing (amerson, 2012). here, individual study, e.g. through reading assignments, improved cognitive understanding of cultural differences, which was complemented with the individual's experience of working in another country; “seeing makes it real” (amerson, 2012, p. 12). these cultural insights translated into better communication skills, and thereby greater practical understanding of patient requirements. this improved patient outcomes as graduates were able to recognise culturally different responses to pain and were able to care for each individual’s specific needs more accurately. amerson (2012) also found that learning independently during international trips was effective training for allowing the learner to develop ‘a desire and passion to fulfil their job role to the best of their ability’. it was concluded in this study that exposing mhps to a multitude of variables, such as: the treatment process, the form of treatment and the challenges of patient care—including exposure to inconsistencies within the practice—increased their competency and optimised learning interactions. collin and colleagues (2012) also reported on the use of individual learning involving all staff members working within an emergency unit for acute care. errors occurring in the treatment chain were connected to inconsistent practice when working individually within a multi-professional collaboration process for patient care. for example, single staff roles overlapped without them even knowing about each other. however, within the study this was interpreted as learning through experience when mishaps were highlighted to employees, enabling them to learn from others’ experiences and mistakes. individual-level learning was found to be common within the emergency work setting for patient care, as healthcare roles were represented as single, separate processes within the treatment chain for emergency practice. group learning — as in the quantitative studies, training within a group was found to be the most common form of learning for mhps, used with both qualified clinicians (aiarzaguena et al., 2009; mcloughlin, 2010) and students (amerson, 2012; de feijter et al., 2011; monrouxe & rees, 2012). collaboration lead to higher quality of care for patients by improving the communication betweenmulti-disciplinary teams, allowing for mhp’s to have better knowledge of patients. an important feature of group learning was collaboration (suldo, friedrich, & michalowski, 2010), which was linked to improvement in communication skills (collin et al., 2012). this was most pronounced when working within a group at an early stage of contact with the patient, leading to a reduction in discrepancies when delivering practical instructions for patient care (collin et al., 2012). inter-professional collaboration facilitated learning as a natural part of care practices, whereby being a member of a multi-disciplinary team allowed for on-going learning within the workplace (nilsen, 2011). video-conferencing — videoconferencing between general practitioners and hospitals in norway was found to be most successful for efficient, collaborative work, with the ability to successfully adapt to the patient’s condition as it changed over time (nilsen, 2011). by using videoconferencing as a communicative tool, healthcare professionals were able to exchange information in order to overcome any knowledge gaps relating to patients’ needs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 545 http://www.psychopen.eu/ within this study, the regular use of videoconferencing meant a continuous follow-up of the patient’s progress, and allowing staff members to mutually share their expertise. nilsen (2011) described this as separate activity systems coming together; the patient acts as a shared object uniting the healthcare professionals, providing a common activity and allowing for multi-disciplinary learning. the selected patient case used to describe this training technique was discussed by the team over several days, allowing for a repertoire of knowledge to be developed. this improved the outcome for the patient, as their complex needs could be discussed as time unfolded allowing for continuity and prompt decision making with their treatment. peer presentations — when given by mhps, teaching through colleague presentations enhanced skill-sets of individuals within the team who did not specialise in mental health (suldo, friedrich, & michalowski, 2010). it was found that solutions were generated before problems occurred, acting as a strong preventative method for risks. this would also improve the service-user access by providing interventions in more frequently used locations, such as at schools and within the workplace. this finding was consistent with mcloughlin (2010), who found that when staff came together, it was possible to be constructive and creative, rather than work in a reactive way. in doing so, staff were able to listen to each other and take the time required to work through a complex situation (mcloughlin, 2010, p. 238). synthesis the data thus far has been presented as two separate analyses of quantitative and qualitative information. to unite these into a single summary, a synthesis is required. this has been achieved using a bayesian-style conversion of quantitative-into-qualitative information, based on the method suggested by the joanna briggs institute (2014). first, the results of the quantitative analysis were written as descriptive—i.e. qualitative—statements. second, these statements were compared to the conclusions of the qualitative analysis for topical similarity. where similarity was identified, the original texts were referred to to determine the appropriate context of the statements (the joanna briggs institute, 2014). finally, a single statement reflective of both analyses was produced. these have been phrased in such a way as to give indications for practice, based on the available evidence. effectively training in psychological practice skills — the points below summarise the main findings of the synthesised material from the qualitative and quantitative studies. they have been divided into different methods of training, which were most amenable to a combined analysis. 1. individual training: a. individual training offers fewer opportunities for feedback, increasing the chance of inconsistencies in practice. b. it is therefore more effective when combined with feedback from team members in related disciplines, particularly in mdts. c. professional change from this type of training alone is unlikely to be permanent with a short period of study, but it can foster a passion for work that may motivate future efforts. d. this motivation can contribute to improving patient outcomes that are based on single professional contacts early in the care pathway, such as trust in a doctor after one consultation. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 546 http://www.psychopen.eu/ e. as such, this training can be more efficient where short-term skill improvement is wanted, and can be expressed as written material. 2. group training: a. interacting within a group naturally, through exchanges, aids the development of communication skills and fosters learning, but requires an initial ability to collaborate effectively. b. it is therefore most effective when a range of disciplines are represented, such as in mdts, as this brings the biggest pool of relevant knowledge. c. outcomes that are affected by the availability of professional knowledge, such as referrals, diagnoses, care pathways, and (as a result) mental health symptoms, are thereby more effectively taught by such groups. d. by the same token, group training has relatively little effect on outcomes like patient satisfaction, which do not depend as heavily on breadth of knowledge. e. asmore information and feedback is shared, practice becomesmore consistent and knowledge-based skills improve with time. 3. web-enabled video training: a. as with group training, web-enabled video allows professionals to share knowledge and improve communication skill-related outcomes through interaction. b. however, digitally-facilitated interaction requires several different communication practices specific to that medium, so is therefore not as effective as physically-present groups in enhancing face-to-face interaction abilities. c. this method of training may then be more effective in training groups of remote individuals in communicationand knowledge-based skills. discussion group, individual, and web-based training were used across quantitative and qualitative studies. peer presentation was also used to train mhps in the qualitative studies. overall, each type of training positively impacted skills among mhps. as such, the choice of training mode may be influenced by other factors such as resource availability, and the availability of trainers and trainees. individual trusts may also have pragmatic or financial preferences for the type of training used among mhps. some methods of training leant themselves more towards training particular abilities, especially communication skills, which appeared to be enhanced by group interactions with peers. this was related to a positive impact on patient outcomes that were dependent on mhp's ability to use and communicate knowledge, such as appropriate referrals and improvement in mental health symptoms. other patient outcomes, such as satisfaction, proved more elusive, suggesting the selection of a training method should be considered in light of both the skill to be taught and the patient change this is hoped to impact. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ implications for clinical practice the studies reviewed suggest most methods of training are effective at improving skills in mental health professions, although this effect can be enhanced when type of skill and the desired patient outcome are taken into consideration. in general, it is suggested communication skills are more likely to improve with interactive, face-to-face groups, and this is more likely to improve patient outcomes that can be linked to availability of professional knowledge. membership of an mdt is a reoccurring example of how this can be achieved even in an unstructured training environment, given appropriate collaboration. individual learning can be a useful way of making short-term skill changes, but is unlikely to create lasting change in trainees without significant time investment. interestingly, the research suggests such change may not be necessary to positively affect patients when made early on in the care pathway. this further highlights the need for including patient outcomes when evaluating the effectiveness of learning interventions. the potential limitations of individual training should be considered in relation to the increase in 'e-learning' in many nhs trusts (e.g. gray, plaice, & hadley, 2009), which is a short-term experience and generally a solitary activity. lastly, web-enabled video learning can be effective in teaching communication-based outcomes to remote participants when part of a group or as reflection, although this may not be as effective as groups occupying the same physical space. research implications this review has contributed to the literature by examining what training can be effective at improving both patient and trainee outcomes in a wide range of studies. the large attrition rate from the initial literature search reflects the fact that very few studies report patient outcomes, which should be an important consideration when researching effectiveness in healthcare. the present review should be considered as a first step toward understanding mhp training in psychological skills, and it is important that future work considers the heterogeneity that existed across studies in the present review. type and content of training, trainee profession, skills, length, type of patients and patient outcomes were varied throughout, and although this heterogeneity provides amuch-needed broad overview, it also limits the direct comparison of study findings. as such, more targeted and controlled studies would provide more nuanced understandings. limitations of the review the strength of the conclusions of this review has been severely curtailed by the heterogeneity present within the studies, and they should be treated as tentative first steps towards a more solid evidence base. the lack of a sufficient number of controlled studies has prevented a meta-analysis and thus a more definitive conclusion on what variables form the active ingredient for effective learning. for example, many studies using group training combined this with individual learning activities, but it has not been possible to tease out potential effects. this in itself should be the subject of a much larger publication. the generalisability of the findings is also limited, as it is unknown to what extent the particular type of mhpmay influence the effectiveness of a training method, or indeed the specific type of patient. the wider application of some training methods may be difficult in the average mental health care setting, limiting their value beyond this paper. for example, amerson (2012) uses an international service-learning project to teach cultural competences, yet it is largely impractical for most services to routinely send trainees to other countries. while this is not unheard of, for example the european hospital and healthcare federation hope exeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 548 http://www.psychopen.eu/ change programme has been encouraging similar activities since 1981 (european hospital and healthcare federation, 2013), it is not common. in these cases, as with most training processes, adaptations would need to be made to accommodate individual services practices. conclusion in sum, this review can be said to provide an important platform for skills training and development among mhps. the work shows a variety of training methods that may be used. it also points to important avenues for further and future considerations. overall, it is hoped the this review will serve as an integral first step in the improvement of much needed skills training in the area of mental health, which, ultimately, is intended to benefit the wide range of individuals who engage with mental health services across europe. competing interests pavlo kanellakis is one of the associate editors of europe's journal of psychology but played no editorial role for this particular article. funding the authors wish to thank the mental health institute local education and training council in the west midlands for their support and funding towards this research, following the up-skilling the workforce in psychological practice skills project, hosted by coventry and warwickshire nhs partnership trust. acknowledgments we would like to thank gemma unwin, sarah crowther, judith bond, and geraldine fletcher, and the mental health providers and service users across the west midlands for their support and constructive feedback. final thanks go to florencia oviedo, for her administrative support. references aiarzaguena, j. m., gaminde, i., grandes, g., salazar, a., alonso, i., & sanchez, a. 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http://www.who.int/workforcealliance/knowledge/resources/rrt_framework/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix: summary of findings for effectively training healthcare staff the following points are based on research of training methods that have had a positive impact on both patients and staff. however, as patient effects are dependent on the particular staff skill being taught, it is not within the scope of this document to make recommendations for training methods that will improve particular patient outcomes. these suggestions are based on a limited number of heterogeneous studies from a narrative analysis, and should be treated with the appropriate amount of caution. individual training refers to self-paced, independent learning, or training of one individual by another. most effective for: short-term skill enhancement; greater staff self-efficacy and passion for work; improved patient outcomes from single-session contacts early in care pathway; learning where dedicated facilities and funds are not available. not recommend for: trainees with low self-motivation; long-term skill change; consistent practice. 1. training should be combined with individualised feedback where possible, in order to reduce inconsistencies in practice. this feedback should reflect current professional guidelines, e.g. be consistent with patient-centred care. 2. short-term individual training alone is unlikely to create sustained skill change, but may enhance passion for work-related learning that can be translated into job-based motivation. 3. trainees should already have a relatively high level of motivation for self-directed learning. group training refers to either formal structured training with other individuals, or on-the-job learning by working within a team. groups can be interactive, e.g. using role plays, or passive, such as didactic lectures. most effective for: outcomes that are affected by the availability of professional knowledge, e.g. diagnostic, supervision, communication, consistency in practice, and prescription skills. creates natural environments for ongoing group learning. not recommend for: patient outcomes unrelated to breadth of mhp knowledge. 1. training should include interactive elements, such as role plays, group discussion, and peer presentations. less structured interactive activities can also be considered, such as peer feedback at the end of a shift. 2. a level of collaborative ability should already be present among group members. if not, consider reducing the amount of interactive work. 3. where possible, groups should include individuals from a range of related professions. one example of this is a multi-disciplinary team. 4. clinical-competency training should be conducted over a longer period of time of at least 6 months, in order to increase the potential of sustained learning. 5. where possible, peer presentations should be given by qualified professionals to members of related disciplines. web-enabled video training refers to the use of digital equipment to either: allow synchronous communication between individuals who are not in the same physical space, or record and review staff performance, both for the purpose of learning. most effective for: facilitating knowledge-based abilities through group interaction, e.g. communication, when training members are not co-located. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 554 http://www.psychopen.eu/ not recommend for: instances where face-to-face communication is also available; where the necessary equipment is not readily accessible; one-to-one learning. 1. where possible, this type of training should follow the same guidelines as group training. 2. consider making allowances for the different styles of communication required by digital media. for example, eye contact is more difficult and facial nuances less apparent, which may impact activities such as role play. effective delivery of training interventions one of the most common issues with training is translating learning into practice. insufficient consideration of how to achieve this increases the chance of inconsistent work and misinformation on what constitutes appropriate care. these problems can be reduced using several strategies that apply regardless of the training method used. 1. contradictions in practice should be minimised where possible. to this end, providing the following to both trainees and educators should be considered: a. clear guidelines for practice, professional standards, and learning outcomes. these must be institution-specific where appropriate. b. peer support, preferably in group format, where discussion of disparities and good practice is encouraged. c. awareness of an individual's own instances of good practice and departures from it through feedback. d. coordination and communication of work within teams. e. collaboration between supervisors, trainees and mdts, where appropriate. 2. where possible, training should include: a. individual feedback on work b. structured learning c. regular training 3. where structured training is not available, such as during placement work, suitable supervision should be arranged. consider having supervisors responsible for: a. allocating work for trainees that is appropriate to their skill-level, i.e. using supervisors as 'pace-makers'. b. overseeing trainee work where there is relatively high risk to patients from incorrect procedures. c. providing regular feedback to trainees. 4. supervisors must be approachable by trainees, and subject to the same guidance as in point 5. where particular patient groups are identified as especially challenging to work with, provide additional training and information specific to them. a. this is particularly effective when targeted at the initial assessment appointment. b. inter-disciplinary discussion of these groups should be encouraged. 6. consider what type of change is desired: a. long-term patient change can be achieved through short-lived staff outcomes, particularly when this occurs early in the care pathway. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 garzonis, mann, wyrzykowska et al. 555 http://www.psychopen.eu/ b. consider brief individual training if short-term staff change is required. this can be delivered through relatively cost-effective means, such as handouts. c. consider group training for more sustained staff change. where staff are likely to have prolonged contact with patients, such as through therapy, include long follow-up periods of training, such as every six months over a one year period. about the authors katherine garzonis is training for a doctorate in clinical psychology at university college london. her interests include the transmission of learning, improving clinical decision-making, and the relationship between anxiety and mental health. eryn mann is currently an assistant psychologist for a charity providing specialist nhs healthcare. her research interests include investigating the impact of vicarious traumatisation and she is motivated to reduce the stigma of mental health by increasing awareness. aleksandra wyrzykowska is a psychology undergraduate at coventry university. her interests include the relationship between social media and underlying mental health and external validation. pavlo kanellakis was the principle investigator for first phase of the up-skilling the workforce in psychological practice skills project. his main interests are currently in implementation and translational research, particularly the dissemination and application of research findings in the 'real' world, and training health professionals. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 535–556 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923 effectively training psychological practice skills 556 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en effectively training psychological practice skills introduction the present review method search strategy search terms criteria for selecting studies results review of studies quantitative studies qualitative studies synthesis discussion implications for clinical practice research implications limitations of the review conclusion (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments references appendix: summary of findings for effectively training healthcare staff individual training group training web-enabled video training effective delivery of training interventions about the authors is rumination a risk and a protective factor? research reports is rumination a risk and a protective factor? kaitlin a. harding* a, amy mezulis a [a] seattle pacific university, seattle, wa, usa. abstract high trait positive affect (pa) protects against depressive symptoms through cognitive responses such as rumination. however, how rumination in response to positive emotions (positive rumination) protects against depressive symptoms while rumination in response to negative emotions (brooding) predicts depressive symptoms is poorly understood. we hypothesized that (a) positive rumination and brooding represent a shared cognitive process of affect amplification on distinct affective content and (b) less brooding and greater positive rumination would distinctly mediate greater trait pa in predicting fewer depressive symptoms. our prospective design among 321 adults first compared three confirmatory factor analysis models of the relationship between brooding and positive rumination. we then utilized structural equation modeling to examine whether brooding and positive rumination mediated the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms, controlling for baseline depressive symptoms, trait negative affect (na), and the distinct effects of each mediator. results supported a conceptualization of brooding and positive rumination as distinct but related constructs, represented as a common process of affect amplification to explain how rumination may amplify resilience or risk in predicting depressive symptoms (χ = 195.07, δχ = 8.78, p < .001, cfi = .91, rmsea = .07). furthermore, positive rumination and brooding were distinctly predicted by trait pa, suggesting that trait pa exerts distinct effects on protective and risk forms of rumination. less brooding mediated the relationship between greater trait pa and fewer depressive symptoms (β = -.04, p = .012), but positive rumination did not (β = .02, p = .517). rumination may represent a protective and a risk factor, which may better enable individuals who brood to redirect their rumination on positive content and thereby reduce their risk of depressive symptoms. keywords: affect, broaden-and-build, depression, resiliency, rumination europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 received: 2016-08-27. accepted: 2016-10-26. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: michelle roley-roberts, the ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, united states *corresponding author at: seattle pacific university, usa, marston 107, 3307 3rd ave west, suite 107, seattle, wa 98119. tel.: (425) 533-3621. email: hardingk@spu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. research has increasingly acknowledged the importance of examining high trait positive affectivity (pa) as a protective pathway against depressive symptoms by broadening attention to notice the positive aspects of events and building recovery from the negative aspects of events (clark & watson, 1991; kotov, gámez, schmidt, & watson, 2010; naragon-gainey, gallagher, & brown, 2013). in particular, pa is proposed to build resiliency by increasing access to adaptive cognitive responses to promote pa and reducing use of maladaptive cognitive responses to diminish negative affectivity (na; fredrickson, 2001, 2004). ruminative responses are supported predictors of depressive symptoms that are hypothesized to mediate the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms (arger, sánchez, simonson, & mezulis, 2012; ito, takenaka, tomita, & agari, 2006). literature presently considers rumination in response to negative content (i.e., brooding) as a risk factor for depressive symptoms (mezulis, simonson, mccauley, & vander stoep, 2011; roelofs, huibers, peeters, arntz, & van os, 2008), and growing evidence supports rumination in response to europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ positive content (i.e., positive rumination) as a protective factor against depressive symptoms (feldman, joormann, & johnson, 2008; harding, hudson, & mezulis, 2014). despite the designation of positive rumination and brooding as forms of rumination, however, rumination is often categorically labeled as a harmful cognitive response that diminishes resiliency and predicts a range of poor health outcomes, especially depressive symptoms (harvey, watkins, mansell, & shafran, 2009; ottaviani et al., 2016). in the pursuit of resiliency, reconsidering rumination as both a protective and a risk factor may allow greater flexibility in conceptualizing cognitive tendencies and inform interventions that shift cognitive focus from na to pa content, rather than discouraging rumination altogether. trait pa and rumination predict depressive symptoms trait pa is a core dimension of temperament that describes an individual’s tendency to experience frequent and intense activity, pleasure, and positive anticipation of the future (rothbart, 2007). all individuals exhibit some degree of trait pa that remains relatively stable across time and situations. high trait pa is a protective factor against depressive symptoms and related non-suicidal self-injury, with low trait pa conversely representing a risk factor for these conditions (naragon-gainey, watson, & markon, 2009; watson, gamez, & simms, 2005). high trait pa is a unique resiliency factor against depressive symptoms over and above the predictive value of trait na (brown, chorpita, & barlow, 1998; clark & watson, 1991), which describes an individual’s tendency to experience intense and frequent na (evans & rothbart, 2007). furthermore, high trait pa demonstrates an “undoing effect” by buffering against the detrimental effects of high trait na in predicting depressive symptoms (riskind, kleiman, & schafer, 2013). in addition to distinctly predicting depressive symptoms, trait pa inhibits the risk conferred by trait na and may exert similar effects on the risk conferred by cognitive tendencies such as brooding. rumination is defined as “the process of thinking perseveratively about one’s feelings and problems rather than in terms of the specific content of thoughts” (nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008). theoretical understanding of rumination is rooted in response styles theory (nolen-hoeksema, 1991), which discusses maladaptive cognitive responses to na and na-eliciting events that predict depressive symptoms and emphasizes rumination on negative affective content as a central depressogenic cognitive response. rumination may be in reference to positive affective content, negative affective content, or be neutral in affective valence (feldman et al., 2008; treynor, gonzalez, & nolen-hoeksema, 2003). positive rumination refers to responding to positive events and mood states with perseverative cognitive focus on positive content, which represents an adaptive cognitive process that increases pa and predicts fewer depressive symptoms (feldman et al., 2008). as a counterpart to positive rumination, brooding refers to responding to negative events and mood states with perseverative cognitive focus on negative content, which represents a maladaptive cognitive process that increases na and predicts greater depressive symptoms (nolen-hoeksema, 1991; treynor et al., 2003). positive rumination is an adaptive form of rumination that amplifies pa (gilbert, nolen-hoeksema, & gruber, 2013), while brooding is a maladaptive form of rumination that amplifies na (moberly & watkins, 2008). theory on trait pa, rumination, and depressive symptoms broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion links trait and state pa to a wide range of behaviors and cognitions (fredrickson, 2001, 2004). specifically, this theory asserts that pa builds mental and physical harding & mezulis 29 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ resources to widen the range of thoughts and behaviors in which an individual is willing to engage, which may improve resiliency against the development of depressive moods and behaviors. the broaden-and-build theory assumes that depressive symptoms deplete mental and physical resources and encourage rigid cognitive patterns that are maintained by na (peterson & seligman, 1984). based on this view of depressive symptoms, greater trait pa may increase resiliency against depressive symptoms by broadening attentional biases and increasing access to alternative cognitive responses. over time, these cognitive patterns are proposed to alter the experience of both pa and na. while not limited to depressive symptoms, the broaden-and-build theory predicts that greater pa increases the resources available to adaptively endure everyday challenges and appreciate positive events, which may protect against depressive symptoms over time. the broaden-and-build theory proposes that greater pa broadens an individual’s capacity to engage in adaptive cognitive responses to further increase pa (e.g., positive rumination) and evade maladaptive cognitive responses (e.g., brooding) to recover faster from na. for example, a person who is positively ruminating during a professional training event may be more able to shift cognitive focus to notice a broader scope of details of the event that is eliciting their pa. alternatively, if an individual is brooding in response to the same professional training event, they may have greater access to the alternative cognitive response of positive rumination and become more aware of positive aspects of the event, since pa broadens attention to notice more aspects of an event and increases access to alternative cognitive responses such as positive rumination. by promoting experiences of pa and recovery from na, greater trait pa may predict both forms of rumination and through these cognitive pathways distinctly predict depressive symptoms. since greater positive rumination predicts fewer depressive symptoms and greater brooding predicts greater depressive symptoms, the content of rumination may determine whether rumination confers protection against or risk toward depressive symptoms. appraisal theories as a framework to understand how positive rumination and brooding may impact pa and na, appraisal theories assert that events are labeled as positive or negative based on cognitive interpretations of specific events and the resultant affect elicited by those events (ellsworth & scherer, 2003). rumination represents one way events may be labeled as positive (through positive rumination) or negative (through brooding) and is an ongoing affective experience that shifts in valance and intensity based on how an event is interpreted (ortony, clore, & collins, 1988; pp. 1-25). for example, an individual may interpret the event of attending a professional training as positive by engaging in positive rumination such as, “i feel so energized to learn today” or “i’m really enjoying learning this material.” alternatively, they also may brood in response to this event by endorsing thoughts such as, “i’m not competent enough in this area” or “i feel so frustrated that i have to sit inside all day.” such ruminative responses may exist within the same individual, who then labels the event as positive or negative depending on the affective content of the rumination. consequently, all events have the potential to elicit pa and na, with the valence of a given affective experience impacted by how the event is cognitively interpreted. given that positive rumination and brooding both represent forms of rumination, the affective content of the rumination may determine whether rumination is adaptive (e.g., positive rumination) or maladaptive (e.g., brooding). taken together, cognitive-affective theories posit that the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms may be impacted by the cognitive processing of pa and na. however, an empirical division remains between positive and negative cognitive-affective pathways to depressive symptoms in that many studies consider the trait na-brooding-depressive symptoms pathway as distinct from the trait pa-positive ruminationrumination promote resiliency 30 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ depressive symptoms pathway (feldman et al., 2008; mezulis et al., 2011; roelofs et al., 2008). dividing cognitive-affective pathways to depressive symptoms into positive and negative categories may mask important conceptual and statistical overlap between these pathways. first, the assumption that distinct affective pathways (i.e., pa and na) predict distinct cognitive responses is untested and inconsistent with research demonstrating that pa and na both considerably share variance in predicting depressive symptoms (clark & watson, 1991; kotov et al., 2010; naragon-gainey et al., 2013; wetter & hankin, 2009). second, positive rumination is demonstrated to be negatively correlated with depressive symptoms over and above brooding and negatively correlated with brooding across multiple studies of depressive symptoms (feldman et al., 2008; raes, daems, feldman, johnson, & van gucht, 2010), which supports statistical overlap in protective and risk cognitive pathways despite proposed conceptual distinction. third, whereas positive rumination and brooding have been proposed as distinct cognitive responses that may link affective pathways to depressive symptoms (fredrickson, 2001, 2004; treynor et al., 2003), both describe ruminative responses that are proposed to amplify affective content (gilbert & gruber, 2014; weitzman, mchugh, & otto, 2011) and through amplifying affect subsequently predict depressive symptoms (feldman et al., 2008; nolen-hoeksema, 1991). positive rumination and brooding may share a common process of affect amplification, but no known research has examined these cognitive responses jointly in the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms. cognitive responses may mediate the effect of trait pa on depressive symptoms positive rumination and brooding are theoretically proposed to predict depressive symptoms through a perseverative cognitive process (i.e., rumination) that amplifies affect. affect amplification refers to the process of directing attention to the affective content of events, which results in increasing the intensity of an individual’s affective experience regardless of the valence of the affect (weitzman et al., 2011). affect amplification and rumination are not clearly distinguished in the literature, although rumination may be best characterized as one form of affect amplification. although positive rumination is defined as exclusively pertaining to pa and brooding is defined as exclusively pertaining to na, affect amplification additionally may diminish the opposing form of affect. for example, the broaden-and build theory and supporting research assert that adaptive cognitive responses like positive rumination that amplify pa may additionally buffer against the experience and persistence of na (fredrickson, 2001, 2004; quoidbach, berry, hansenne, & mikolajczak, 2010). as a result, greater trait pa may increase an individual’s predisposition to engage in greater adaptive cognitive responses and fewer maladaptive responses. positive rumination and brooding may exert dual effects on pa and na as part of this affect amplification process, with positive rumination amplifying pa while diminishing na and brooding amplifying na while diminishing pa. cognitive processes in the relationship between trait affect (i.e., trait pa and trait na) and depressive symptoms have been separately considered for pa and na, but investigation of a shared affect amplification process is yet unexplored. both cognitive responses may represent the same underlying cognitive process, which could support a more unified literature in understanding how trait affect predicts depressive symptoms through shared language. research supports mediation relationships for brooding as a risk mechanism and positive rumination as a protective mechanism (arger et al., 2012; harding et al., 2014; mezulis et al., 2011; roelofs et al., 2008), but the shared variance between these two cognitive responses additionally may explain how protective and risk factors relate and are jointly transmitted in the relationships between trait affect and depressive symptoms. affect amplification may offer a unifying cognitive process to describe overlapping but distinct cognitive mechanisms in predicting depressive symptoms. harding & mezulis 31 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ current study our prospective study among adults examined whether positive rumination and brooding were best understood as types of rumination that share a common process of affect amplification. we additionally examined whether positive rumination and brooding exerted distinct mediation effects in the relationships between trait pa and trait na in predicting depressive symptoms. in part 1, we modeled nested relationships between positive rumination and brooding to determine whether they represented (a) distinct constructs, (b) distinct but related constructs, or (c) the same construct. we hypothesized that positive rumination and brooding would represent distinct but related constructs with the shared variance representing affect amplification. in part 2, we then examined positive rumination and brooding as cognitive mechanisms through which trait pa predicted depressive symptoms across eight weeks, controlling for the effects of trait na and depressive symptoms at week 1. the best-fitting measurement model from part 1 was included as the mediation model. we hypothesized that (a) greater trait pa would predict greater positive rumination and less brooding, (b) greater positive rumination and less brooding would distinctly predict fewer depressive symptoms, and (c) greater positive rumination and less brooding would distinctly mediate the relationship of greater trait pa predicting fewer depressive symptoms. method participants and procedure participants were 321 (73.5% female) undergraduate students with an age range of 18-29 years (m = 19.03, sd = 1.64). approximately 70.40% of participants were caucasian american, 2.80% were african american, 16.5% were asian american, 0.60% were native american, 4.70% were hispanic/latino american, and 5.00% identified as another or multiple cultural backgrounds. participants were recruited via presentations in undergraduate psychology courses, contacted via email with links to the online questionnaires, and compensated with research credit required for their coursework. participants who completed the week 1 questionnaire on trait affect, positive rumination, brooding, and depressive symptoms were invited to complete a second questionnaire of their depressive symptoms seven weeks later (week 8). all variables were directly measured except affect amplification, which represents the shared variance between positive rumination and brooding. data were derived from a larger collection that contributed published work that also utilized measures of trait affect and depressive symptoms (harding et al., 2014; hudson, harding, & mezulis, 2015). measures depressive symptoms depressive symptoms were measured at week 1 as a covariate and seven weeks later as the dependent variable with the 20-item center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d; radloff, 1977). participants rated how they felt and behaved over the past week. responses ranged from 0 (rarely or none of the time) to 3 (most or all of the time) for items such as, "i was bothered by things that usually don’t bother me” and “i felt hopeful about the future.” higher scores indicated greater symptoms. cronbach’s α ranged from .85-.90 in previous studies (radloff, 1977). in our study, α = .88 at week 1 and α = .86 at week 8. rumination promote resiliency 32 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trait pa trait pa was measured at week 1 with the 11-item pa subscale of the adult temperament questionnaire (atq; evans & rothbart, 2007). participants rated how well each statement described them. responses ranged from 1 (extremely untrue of you) to 7 (extremely true of you) for items such as, “i rarely feel happy” and “when i don't feel unhappy, i usually feel happy instead of neutral.” higher scores indicated greater trait pa. cronbach’s α = .84 in a previous adult sample (evans & rothbart, 2007). in our study, α = .81. trait na trait na was measured at week 1 with the 51-item na subscale of the adult temperament questionnaire (atq; evans & rothbart, 2007). participants rated how well each statement described them. responses ranged from 1 (extremely untrue of you) to 7 (extremely true of you) for items such as, “i become easily frightened” and “i often get irritated when i'm trying to make an important phone call and get a busy signal.” higher scores represented greater trait na. cronbach’s α ranged from .76-.86 in a previous adult sample (evans & rothbart, 2007). in our study, α = .88. brooding brooding was measured at week 1 with the 5-item brooding subscale of the ruminative responses scale (rrs; nolen hoeksema, 1991), which is part of a 22 item measure of ruminative responses to na. participants rated how often they generally thought or did each statement when they experienced na. responses ranged from 1 (never) to 4 (always) for items such as, “think ‘what am i doing to deserve this?’” and “think about a recent situation, wishing it had gone better.” higher scores indicated greater brooding. cronbach’s α ranged from .72-.78 in previous studies (olson & kwon, 2008; surrence, miranda, marroquín, & chan, 2009; treynor et al., 2003). in our study, α = .80. positive rumination positive rumination was measured at week 1 with the 9 positive rumination items of the response to pa scale (rpa; feldman et al., 2008), which is a 17 item scale on ruminative responses to pa. participants rated how often they generally thought or did each statement when they experienced pa. responses ranged from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always) for items such as, “when you are feeling happy, how often do you think about how happy you feel?” and “when you are feeling happy, how often do you think ‘i am living up to my potential’?” higher scores indicated greater positive rumination. cronbach’s α ranged from .73-.76 in a previous study (feldman et al., 2008). in our study, α = .83. results data analytic plan data analyses were conducted with amos 21.0 in two parts. part 1 conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) of week 1 measures of brooding (five items) and positive rumination (nine items) and sequentially tested three nested models (figure 1): positive rumination and brooding modeled as distinct constructs (model 1), distinct but related constructs (model 2), and the same construct (model 3). model fit was evaluated through comparing chi square difference tests and model fit indices to determine which model demonstrated the best fit to the data (byrne, 2010, pp. 53-95). thereafter, part 2 examined week 1 trait pa in predicting week 8 harding & mezulis 33 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ depressive symptoms as mediated by the best fitting model in part 1 and controlling for week 1 trait na and depressive symptoms (model 4). figure 1a. model 1 of brooding and positive rumination as distinct constructs. figure 1b. model 2 of brooding and positive rumination as distinct constructs with shared variance representing affect amplification. figure 1c. model 3 of brooding and positive rumination as the same construct of affect amplification. rumination promote resiliency 34 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ data met all parametric assumptions (kline, 2005) and were missing completely at random (mcar) for both weeks as indicated by a non-significant little's mcar test (week 1 χ2[3808] = 3699.08, p = .895; week 8 χ2[139] = 162.98, p = .080). missing data were handled through multiple imputation in the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) 21.0 for participants who completed at least 80% of each measure (eekhout et al., 2014). missing data analyses in spss 21.0 indicated that 0.61% of data were missing at week 1 and 0.33% of data were missing at week 8 for a combined 0.56% of missingness across weeks. variable correlations and descriptives are presented in table 1. table 1 variable correlations and descriptives. variable 1 2 3 4 5 m sd 1. week 1 depressive symptoms 14.41 9.09 2. week 1 na .55** 4.00 0.65 3. week 1 pa -.47** -.41** 5.09 0.88 4. week 1 brooding .44** .51** -.30** 9.70 2.98 5. week 1 positive rumination -.05 .03 .27** .17** 21.87 4.70 6. week 8 depressive symptoms .49** .40** -.33** .35** .02 12.84 9.93 *p < .05. **p < .01. affect amplification as defined by weitzman et al. (2011) implicates rumination as a form of affect amplification, and response styles theory (nolen-hoeksema, 1991) similarly defines rumination as a category of cognitive responses that increase the intensity of the affective content on which an individual perseverates. based on these conceptualizations of rumination as amplifying affective content, we tested affect amplification through confirmatory factor analyses by labeling the shared variance of positive rumination and brooding as affect amplification, since conceptually positive rumination and brooding are proposed to differ in the valence of their affective content, not the perseverative and intensifying nature of their cognitive process. rumination as a concept is proposed to amplify affect, regardless of the valence of the affect. we proposed that the distinct variances of positive rumination and brooding would represent positive affective content and negative affective content, respectively, which is consistent with how literature describes them as distinct forms of rumination. part 1: cfa cfa in amos 21.0 compared three structural equation modeling (sem) models to determine whether positive rumination and brooding were best conceptualized as two distinct factors (model 1), two related factors (model 2), or a single factor (model 3). we first examined chi square values between models, which indicated that model 2 best fit the data (i.e., closest to 0) and fit the data significantly better than models 1 or 3 (i.e., the chi square difference tests comparing models 2 vs. 1 and models 3 vs. 2 were statistically significant in favor of model 2). we then examined the comparative fit index (cfi) for each model, which also indicated that model 2 best fit the data but was below the recommended cutoff for superior model fit (i.e., cfi of .95 or above indicates superior model fit; byrne, 2010). similarly, the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) supported mediocre model fit and was above the recommended cutoff of .05 for below to support superior model fit (<.05 is superior model fit, .05-.10 indicates mediocre model fit, byrne, 2010). however, model 2 demonstrated slightly better model fit compared to model 1 and demonstrated considerably better fit compared to model 3. lastly, model 2 best fit the data based on the akaike information criterion (aic) and bayesian information harding & mezulis 35 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criterion (bic), which demonstrated slightly lower values than model 1 and considerably lower values than model 3 (lower values indicate better fit). model 2 fit significantly better than model 1, whereas constraining the latent factors to equality in model 3 led to a significant loss of fit relative to model 2. across model fit indices, model 2 was supported as the best fitting model to the data. improving model fit: modification indices due to the marginal but comparatively best fit of model 2, modification indices were examined for all three models to determine the potential for theory-consistent model fit improvement. modification indices displayed the greatest improvements in model fit if the residual terms of four pairs of items within the rpa were allowed to covary. two pairs of items between the rrs and rpa were also indicated as modification indices, but these covariances did not represent items that were conceptually related or theoretically consistent. consequently, only modification indices allowing residual term covariances between rpa items were added to all three models (table 2). the inclusion of modification indices improved the fit of all models, with model 2 demonstrating superior fit compared to model 1 (figure 2). figure 2. model 2 loadings of brooding and positive rumination (with modification indices) representing the distinct but related processes of negative amplification and positive amplification. part 2: mediation analyses after establishing model 2 as the best fitting conceptualization of positive rumination and brooding in part 1, part 2 examined pa, na, positive rumination, and brooding in the prediction of depressive symptoms seven weeks later through an sem mediation model. the indirect effects of each mediator were calculated and the contributions of the opposite mediator were controlled in analyses. week 1 trait na and depressive symptoms were controlled and all variables were simultaneously entered into one sem. phantom variables were modeled to accommodate multiple predictor and mediator variables in the same model, which allowed the calculation of distinct indirect effects for each mediator (macho & ledermann, 2011). rumination promote resiliency 36 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we examined mediation relationships through a bias-corrected bootstrapping approach (shrout & bolger, 2002) to test for the significance of sem indirect effects in model 4. based on this approach, we generated 1,000 bootstrap samples with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals and bootstrap estimates of indirect, direct, and total effects. the relationships between trait pa and depressive symptoms were determined to be mediated by positive rumination and brooding if (a) the direct effect value decreased compared to the total effect value, (b) the indirect effect was statistically significant, and (c) the confidence intervals for the indirect effect did not contain zero (hayes, 2013; shrout & bolger, 2002). our hypotheses proposed four separate mediation relationships, with week 1 trait pa predicting week 8 depressive symptoms as mediated by week 1 positive rumination and brooding and controlling for week 1 trait na and depressive symptoms. model 4 fit to the data supported interpretation of the structural model and subsequent mediation analyses (table 2). table 2 model comparisons model χ2 df models δχ2 δdf cfi rmsea aic/bic model 1 203.85* 77 .902 .072 259.85/365.45 model 2 195.07* 76 1 vs. 2 -8.78* -1 .908 .070 253.07/362.44 model 3 422.26* 77 1 vs. 3 218.41* 0 .732 .118 478.26/583.86 model 1 with mi 140.72* 73 .947 .054 204.72/325.41 model 2 with mi 131.35* 72 1 vs. 2 -9.37* -1 .954 .051 197.35/321.81 model 3 with mi 355.98* 73 1 vs. 3 215.26* 0 .780 .110 419.98/540.97 model 4 with mi 250.81* 123 .928 .057 342.00/986.92 note. cutoff for 1 df = 3.841. mi = modification indices added between positive rumination items. *p < .001. in support of our hypotheses, greater trait pa predicted fewer depressive symptoms distinctly from trait na. findings additionally supported significant predictive relationships between trait pa and depressive symptoms, since (a) trait pa and depressive symptoms statistically correlated, (b) trait pa temporally preceded depressive symptoms, and (c) third variable explanations were mitigated through the covariates of trait na and depressive symptoms at week 1 (field, 2009, pp. 173-174). also consistent with hypotheses, greater trait pa predicted greater positive rumination and less brooding. partially consistent with hypotheses, less brooding predicted fewer depressive symptoms, but positive rumination did not significantly predict depressive symptoms in either direction. positive rumination did not significantly mediate the relationships between trait pa and depressive symptoms based on the criteria that (a) the direct effect did not significantly decrease in value compared to the total effect value, (b) the indirect effects were non-significant, and (c) the confidence intervals of the indirect effects contained zero (table 3). however, brooding mediated the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms such that greater trait pa predicted fewer depressive symptoms through less brooding. in support of mediation, the effect of trait pa on depressive symptoms decreased by 18.54% when brooding was in the model (figure 3). harding & mezulis 37 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. model 4 of brooding and positive rumination mediating the relationship between trait affect and depressive symptoms with model 2 as the mediator. rumination promote resiliency 38 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 model 4 bootstrap analysis of positive rumination and brooding mediating the relationships between trait affect and depressive symptoms model pathway standardized pβ se 95% ci lower upper combined c trait pa→depressive -.20 .06 -.31 -.09 .002 c' trait pa→depressive -.18 .06 -.30 -.05 .003 brooding α trait pa→brooding -.15 .06 -.27 -.04 .014 β brooding→depressive .21 .07 .07 .36 .005 trait pa→depressive α x β (c c') -.04 .15 -.09 -.01 .012 trait pa→depressive c' -.04a positive rumination α trait pa→positive rumination .34 .07 .20 .47 .002 β positive rumination→depressive .04 .06 -.09 .16 .566 trait pa→depressive α x β (c c') .02 .14 -.03 .07 .517 trait pa→depressive c' -.21b a-.04 = (c [c c’]) = (-.20 [-.20 + .04]). b-.21 = (c [c c’]) = (-.20 [-.20 + .21]). discussion the current study examined whether positive rumination and brooding were best understood as types of rumination that share a common process of affect amplification but are distinguished by the valence of the affective content of the rumination. we then examined whether positive rumination and brooding mediated trait pa in predicting depressive symptoms. while less brooding did protect against depressive symptoms, positive rumination did not significantly predict depressive symptoms despite being predicted by trait pa. the joint examination of positive rumination and brooding represents a novel endeavor to integrate rumination as a form of affect amplification rather than inaccurately dividing rumination in response to pa (i.e., positive rumination) from rumination in response to na (i.e., brooding). in further support that positive rumination and brooding represent a partially shared cognitive process on pa and na, a recent study demonstrated that rumination in response to an imagined future goal increased an individual’s emotional reactivity to that event by amplifying their experience of pa and na (gilbert & gruber, 2014). rumination was supported as a form of affect amplification of pa and na. trait affect, cognitive responses, and depressive symptoms findings demonstrated that greater trait pa distinctly predicted fewer depressive symptoms controlling for the effects of trait na and depressive symptoms at week 1, which was consistent with existing literature on the relationships between trait pa and depressive symptoms (clark & watson, 1991; kotov et al., 2010; naragongainey et al., 2013). greater trait pa also distinctly predicted greater positive rumination and less brooding, and less brooding distinctly mediated greater trait pa in providing resiliency against depressive symptoms. findings harding & mezulis 39 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ support brooding as a significant mediator of the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms, with trait pa potentially undoing the effects of trait na through predicting less brooding and subsequently fewer depressive symptoms. greater trait pa distinctly predicted greater engagement in positive rumination and less engagement in brooding, meaning that trait pa impacted the affect amplification of pa and na. contrary to our predictions, greater positive rumination did not predict fewer depressive symptoms. despite studies supporting a significant relationship between positive rumination and depressive symptoms (feldman et al., 2008; harding et al., 2014), multiple studies similarly demonstrated no effect between positive rumination and depressive symptoms (gilbert et al., 2013; raes, smets, nelis, & schoofs, 2012). one research group recently acknowledged this literature discrepancy and specifically investigated the effect of positive rumination on anhedonic depressive symptoms (nelis, holmes, & raes, 2015). they demonstrated that greater positive rumination predicted fewer anhedonic symptoms, despite a lack of overall significance predicting depressive symptoms or depressive symptoms predicting positive rumination. this finding suggested that the impact of positive rumination may be specific to anhedonia, with greater positive rumination predicting fewer anhedonic depressive symptoms but not predicting the excess of negative affect and associated symptoms that comprise depressive disorders. further research is needed to disentangle the effects of positive rumination in the prediction of mood disorder symptoms. the lack of a significant relationship between positive rumination and depressive symptoms also may be partially explained by a methodological over-emphasis on excess na rather than a lack of pa when measuring depressive symptoms. for example, the ces-d that we utilized to measure depressive symptoms contains four items on pa that are reverse-scored, but it contains no items specific to anhedonia. consequently, whether a study finds that greater positive rumination predicts fewer depressive symptoms may depend on the emphasis of anhedonia within the depressive symptoms measure. this over-emphasis on excessive na and underemphasis on limited pa in measuring depressive symptoms reflects existing literature on cognitive-affective models of depressive symptoms that similarly focus on na but neglect integrating the role of pa in jointly predicting depressive symptoms (beck, 1967; nolen-hoeksema, 1991). consequently, the lack of a significant relationship between positive rumination and depressive symptoms may reflect a measurement inaccuracy that is rooted in a theoretical inaccuracy regarding how depressive symptoms are conceptualized. theoretical implications depressive symptoms literature presently separates theories on symptom development and maintenance into protective and risk mechanisms (beck, 1967; fredrickson, 2001; nolen-hoeksema, 1991), with no unified theory to explain the joint roles and similarities between positive rumination and brooding or how pa and na are amplified through cognitive mechanisms to predict depressive symptoms. the unique effects of trait pa and trait na in predicting brooding further blur theoretical distinctions between cognitive protections and cognitive risks, since brooding is supported to mediate trait pa and trait na pathways to depressive symptoms. findings support broaden-and-build theory by demonstrating that trait pa impacts pa and na distinctly, which strengthens the theoretical view that greater pa both amplifies experiences of pa and mitigates experiences of na. findings are also consistent with the appraisal theory framework that events elicit a combination of pa and na, which may explain why brooding is distinctly impacted by pa and na and how brooding potentially exerts its effects on depressive symptoms through increasing na and decreasing pa in response to events, whether those events are labeled as negative or positive. while appraisal theories do not explicitly integrate protective and risk mechanisms in pathways to depressive symptoms, incorporating appraisal theories with existing rumination promote resiliency 40 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ theories may offer a unifying foundation to better understand how pa and na jointly predict depressive symptoms. clinical implications applied clinically, findings suggest that interventions aiming to decrease brooding may exert a stronger effect in decreasing depressive symptoms compared to interventions aiming to increase positive rumination. due to limited literature examining positive rumination and brooding as related constructs, it is unknown whether clinical interventions that aim to decrease brooding may concurrently decrease or increase positive rumination. this question is partially addressed through research by kiken and shook (2014), which found that trait mindfulness was negatively associated with negative rumination but not associated with positive rumination. hence, mindfulness interventions may decrease brooding without discouraging positive rumination. determining how brooding interventions impact positive rumination is an important clinical consideration, since discouraging rumination as a blanket construct may inaccurately communicate to individuals that rumination is maladaptive across contexts. while literature is mixed on positive rumination as a protection against depressive symptoms, interventions that target both positive rumination and brooding may present a greater therapeutic benefit for individuals with bipolar mood symptoms, since greater brooding is demonstrated to predict greater depressive symptoms and greater positive rumination is demonstrated to predict greater hypomanic symptoms (feldman et al., 2008; johnson, mckenzie, & mcmurrich, 2008; raes et al., 2010). since increasing positive rumination may risk the onset of a hypomanic or manic episode in individuals with bipolar disorders, interventions that increase positive rumination should be monitored and moderated among certain clinical populations. clinical interventions that promote directed attention to pa and the reappraisal of events from negative to positive are important future directions in the study of resiliency against depressive symptoms (quoidbach, mikolajczak, & gross, 2015). if redirecting brooding to positive rumination may be considered a form of reappraisal, this shift in ruminative focus may improve control over an individual’s event-specific experiences of pa. instead of considering mindfulness as a cognitive intervention to combat ruminative responses, mindfulness instead may be clinically applied as a similar or complementary approach to rumination. for example, a mindfulness exercise involving a full sensory experience of an enjoyable meal may pair mindful attention to the sensory experience of eating with positive rumination on thoughts related to how enjoyable the meal is. comparing the affective experience of this activity when engaging in rumination only, mindfulness only, or a combination of rumination and mindfulness may provide valuable insight into the contributions of rumination as a context-specific protective or risk factor. clinical literature commonly assumes that rumination and mindfulness are contradictory cognitive responses (ietsugu et al., 2015; snippe et al., 2015), but this unexamined assumption may limit our capacity to clinically utilize the potential strengths inherent in both cognitive responses. limitations and future directions several study limitations should be considered when interpreting findings. first, the current study applied a non-experimental design that is consistent with causality but cannot directly test for causal relationships due to the presence of only two time points and lack of direct experimental manipulation. second, trait pa, trait na, and cognitive responses were measured at week 1, which limited the prospective nature of the causal model and prevented us from statistically demonstrating the temporal precedence of trait pa before ruminative harding & mezulis 41 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ responses. however, the nature of trait pa does theoretically support the temporal precedence of trait affect due to its description as a stable dimension of temperament across time and situations. in contrast, positive rumination and brooding represent more malleable and event-specific responses. third, an overall lack of research on the integration of cognitive mechanisms in the relationship between trait affect and depressive symptoms limits available literature to support the proposed relationships. future directions may seek to replicate the supported relationships, since the presented findings represent the only known examination of the joint contributions of positive rumination and brooding. if these relationships are supported, including pa and na as well as positive rumination and brooding in predictive models of depressive symptoms may be warranted as standard practice, since results support considerable statistical overlap among these affective and cognitive predictors (table 1). in addition, growing literature on pa and depressive symptoms would benefit from an integrated theoretical understanding on the joint contributions of cognitive mechanisms in the relationship between trait pa and depressive symptoms. to date, theories on depressive symptoms offer largely distinct conceptualizations of affective and cognitive protections and risks. lastly, future clinical interventions to prevent and treat depressive symptoms could develop cognitive interventions that both increase pa and decrease na, since difficulty experiencing pa (i.e., anhedonia) is often under-emphasized in measuring depressive symptoms. rumination may represent a protective and a risk factor that impacts pa and na, and integrating understanding of resiliency against and risk toward depressive symptoms may better enable individuals to think adaptively in addition to or in spite of their trait affective tendencies. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. general note this study represents the dissertation data of the first author: harding, k. a. 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(2009). brooding and reflective rumination among suicide attempters: cognitive vulnerability to suicidal ideation. behaviour research and therapy, 47(9), 803-808. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.06.001 treynor, w., gonzalez, r., & nolen-hoeksema, s. (2003). rumination reconsidered: a psychometric analysis. cognitive therapy and research, 27(3), 247-259. doi:10.1023/a:1023910315561 watson, d., gamez, w., & simms, l. j. (2005). basic dimensions of temperament and their relation to anxiety and depression: a symptom-based perspective. journal of research in personality, 39(1), 46-66. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.006 weitzman, m. l., mchugh, r. k., & otto, m. w. (2011). the association between affect amplification and urgency. depression and anxiety, 28(12), 1105-1110. doi:10.1002/da.20830 wetter, e. k., & hankin, b. l. (2009). mediational pathways through which positive and negative emotionality contribute to anhedonic symptoms of depression: a prospective study of adolescents. journal of abnormal child psychology, 37(4), 507-520. doi:10.1007/s10802-009-9299-z about the authors kaitlin harding is a ph.d. student in clinical psychology at seattle pacific university who is completing her final year of training at the veterans affairs puget sound health care system, american lake division. her program of research examines how depressive and trauma-related symptoms impact comorbid physical health conditions, with emphases on pain and type ii diabetes mellitus. her dissertation is the focus of this article. dr. amy mezulis is an associate professor of clinical psychology at seattle pacific university. she is interested in biopsychosocial pathways to adolescent-onset disorders of emotion regulation such as depression and self-injury. she identifies as a developmental psychopathologist with a focus on both normal and abnormal mental health trajectories and the joint contributions of biological vulnerability and environmental context. dr. mezulis’ research has received competitive grant funding from the national association for research in schizophrenia and depression and the national institute of mental health. rumination promote resiliency 46 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 28–46 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1279 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.06.001 http://doi.org/10.1023/a:1023910315561 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.006 http://doi.org/10.1002/da.20830 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-009-9299-z http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ rumination promote resiliency (introduction) trait pa and rumination predict depressive symptoms theory on trait pa, rumination, and depressive symptoms cognitive responses may mediate the effect of trait pa on depressive symptoms current study method participants and procedure measures results data analytic plan part 1: cfa improving model fit: modification indices part 2: mediation analyses discussion trait affect, cognitive responses, and depressive symptoms theoretical implications clinical implications limitations and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments general note references about the authors sour fruits on the trail: renewing phenomenological practice interview sour fruits on the trail: renewing phenomenological practice roberta de monticelli*a, andrei simionescu-panaitb [a] vita-salute san raffaele university, milan, italy. [b] faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. abstract this summer, europe’s journal of psychology hosts a fruitful discussion about phenomenology, its method, the possibilities of application in today's context and its current troubled waters stemming from recent historical-ideological debates. prof. roberta de monticelli offers lush and informative answers to provocative issues like overdriving the epoché, heidegger's dark undertones, the relation between pedagogy and authorship in phenomenology and the idea of filtering politics through husserlian phenomenology. keywords: italian phenomenology, husserl, emotions and values, schwarze hefte, applied phenomenology and politics europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 published (vor): 2015-08-20. *corresponding author at: san raffaele university, via olgettina, 58, 20132 milan, italy. e-mail: demonticelli.roberta@hsr.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. andrei simionescu-panait: each year, the san raffaele university hosts an international spring school, which gathers around for debate numerous big authors in philosophy and connected areas of research, as well as plenty of students. this year, the event (“joint commitment. collective intentionality, trust and political obligation”) hosted a direct dialogue between phenomenologists, experts in social ontology, applied ethics, normativity and researchers interested by intersubjectivity and empathy – in short, an important interdisciplinary event. how would you appreciate the presence of husserlian concepts or schelerian axiology in this fresh environment of ideas? does phenomenology display a tendency of growth in recognised importance, considering research in recent years? roberta de monticelli: the latter question is important. indeed, we are looking at a re-awakening of true phenomenological research all over the world. this rekindled interest in all sorts of issues (de monticelli, 2013) related to what lynne baker would call “the metaphysics of everyday world” (baker, 2007) is the exciting fact of the last years, along with a more and more widespread involvement of trained philosophers in the research projects of a variety of sciences, addressing the natural and the social aspects of human life. a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that harsh judgment made by thomas metzinger, according to whom phenomenology was “a discredited research program… intellectually bankrupt for at least 50 years” (gallagher & zahavi, 2008). shaun gallagher and dan zahavi, who are among the protagonists of the phenomenological renaissance at the very heart of contemporary philosophy of mind, point out three developments in cognitive science, which brought about a possible rehabilitation of phenomenology: 1. a revived interest in phenomenal consciousness; 2. the advent europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of embodied approaches to cognition; 3. the amazing progress in neuroscience and – i would add – the increasing need for accurate description of life-world phenomena whose neurobiological correlates one wants to investigate. professoressaroberta demonticelli of the vita-salute san raffaele university of milan is one of europe's leading forces in phenomenology. her research covers ethics and epistemology, the relationship between values and norms, and the philosophy of the person. complementary to publishing books and articles on those topics, roberta de monticelli also has a long history in teaching, having held positions at the university of pisa, state university of milano, university of geneva (holding jeanne hersch's chair after her retirement). she is currently the director of the personaresearch center at the faculty of philosophy at san raffaele university, where she holds her courses in ethics, phenomenology and philosophy of the person. roberta de monticelli received numerous prizes for her work, including the “premio art.3” for her contributions in civil and political progress in italy (2012), the “premio nazionale di filosofia castiglioncello” (1998), the “premio rapallo per la donna scrittrice” for her 1988 “il richiamo della persuasione. lettere a carlo michelstaedter" and the "premio nazionale di poesia walter tobagi” (1988). correspondence: san raffaele university, via olgettina, 58, 20132 milan, italy. e-mail: demonticelli.roberta@hsr.it now we can come back to the first part of your question. more and more scholars and scientists all over the world are getting familiar with that style of research that has been termed as the “4 e phenomenology”. its rationale is the insight that no satisfactory account of the mind can be offered without considering mind’s embodiment, the environment in which a living body is embedded, the way in which life is enactedwithin such a life-world, and the extra-bodily extensions of mind making up the cultural layer of a human, and indeed social, life-world. that interdisciplinarity you mention is somehow built into the very method of any serious phenomenological research, because of the very richness of intertwined contents making up even the simplest bit of reality, as it is given to our consciousness. we devoted this year’s spring school to such a pervasive phenomenon as the sort of bond which ties together the agents of any common enterprise, from a simple walk to a concert, from the ordinary working of a department of philosophy to the destiny of a nation, or of europe. joint commitment is the title of an admirable (and disputable) book by margaret gilbert, but it’s also a key concept pinning down a source of social normativity. as most concepts in contemporary analytic philosophy, it is both a guideline for conceptual analysis of complex facts, and a template needing intuitive fulfilment, that is, requiring or at least exciting phenomenological descriptions and insights. is a conjugal pact, or even a friendship, a bond, and a source of deontology, of exactly the same nature of, say, a commercial partnership? what distinguishes the three latter joint commitments from the one underlying a quarrel, or even a refined philosophical discussion? as soon as one raises these questions, all the fine-grained phenomenological descriptions of different “forms” of collective intentionality, from basic pre-personal collective habits up to sharing values of a personal level, come to the mind, and one sees why moritz geiger, a phenomenologist of the munich circle, called phenomenology “a passion for distinctions”. an ideal travel mate for some bold generalizing minds, issued from the analytic tradition, such as most keynote speakers of our past schools: such as peter van inwagen on free will, lynne baker on personhood, barry smith on taste, john searle on status functions or margaret gilbert herself on joint commitment. thus, your reference to husserlian concepts or schelerian axiology is quite to the point. gemeingeist is the title of one of the manuscripts out of which ideas ii should have been worked out in one of the phases of its vexed history. also, shared values are one of the main issues of scheler’s two masterpieces, formalism in ethics and on the nature and forms of sympathy. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 380 http://www.psychopen.eu/ andrei simionescu-panait: there's an academic anathema floating on heidegger's head, with all the schwartze hefte english translation and related discussions. the popular conception that places heidegger as a philosopher who bettered husserlian phenomenology is now fading. as jeanne hersch remarked, he had the chance of either being “the first priest of a new liturgy, or the last priest of a forgotten one” (hersch, 1936), by the way of his signature “back to the greeks” rally call. meanwhile, husserlian phenomenologists carry on with their work, while others admit radical changes of heart towards heidegger (figal & schulte, 2015), at a time when the separation between a philosopher's concepts and his life carries no relevance in argumentation. also, it is no secret that young phenomenologists worldwide turn to husserl, scheler or merleau-ponty as starting points for their future projects. can these events play an important role in bridging the (still active) analytic/continental divide? andrei simionescu-panait is a phd student at the faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, currently working on embodied cognition, kinesthetics and sartorial objects, with a phenomenological account of elegance at the core of his thesis. andrei is fond of artistic experience, out of which arose the motivation to pursue both phenomenology and the practice of the arts as a way to fully grasp why is it that we are moved by cultural artifacts. correspondence: e-mail: tesimionescu@gmail.com roberta de monticelli: you yourself quoted, in your third-last question, a relevant passage in a letter by husserl, addressed to alexander pfaender, on husserl’s bewilderment about “the gross misunderstanding” that he himself could have anything to do with “a philosophical system of the kind which i have always considered it my life's work to make forever impossible”. we shall come back to that issue. what is really important now is focusing on the very horror of martin heidegger’s thoughts recently published with the schwarzen heften. that they should be published, was part of heidegger’s explicit will: they belong to his legacy to posterity. and, thank god, posterity has taken a stand, albeit with a lot of stunning exceptions. some persist in ignoring the deep link between heidegger “dictatorial and irresponsible way of thinking” (hersch, 1988) and his wholehearted public support of the nazi power. jeanne hersch, whose chair of modern and contemporary philosophy i took over in geneva (1989-2004) has been one of my masters. she has been my “continental” guide into the best of european practical philosophy, apart from the phenomenological legacy which i had learnt at my mother's knee so to speak, at the state university of milan, even before starting my study of philosophy at the scuola normale in pisa. now what i learned from her, with astonishment, is that the worst of implications from heidegger’s thought were crystal clear for the ones who had really got to know him and his teaching in the thirties. she was among the students of heidegger in freiburg, along with hannah arendt and, above all, raymond klibansky. klibansky became a great historian of the platonic tradition: he was the youngest member of thewarburg circle and the one who rescued the warburg library from the nazi officials by adventurously transferring it to london, just in time to help himself to safety as well. he has been another of my “continental” masters: i had met him in oxford, where i spent a year as a doctoral student long before being appointed at geneva university. both of them, hersch and klibansky, jews of polish origin, had also been students of karl jaspers in heidelberg (like hannah arendt) in those fatal years, the early thirties, during which heidegger holds the rectorship speeches (more than one, indeed) and entered the ns party (which he did not quit any more, nor did he ever publicly take any distance from any of his nazi engagements). what was crystal clear to jeanne hersch and raymond klibansky (and to karl löwith as well, albeit to a lesser degree of clarity) – are the very theoretical roots, in heidegger’s system of thought, of an endorsement to any possible anti-humanistic, illiberal and in fact violent political adventure. even the discovery of such obscene passages, in the schwarzen heften, as the ones charging the jews with their own extermination, in their role of “mouthpiece of modernity” and hence of “objectification” of being, technology and disenchanted desire for power, did not feel surprising then. emmanuel faye’s research has added more evidence and more europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ philosophical analysis to that of victor farias, but the big question, in the light of klibansky’s and hersch’ writings, is still the same: how was it possible for such a long time that a vast majority of leading philosophers, especially in france and italy, have been so utterly indifferent to the radical destruction of the practical reason, this actual legacy of enlightenment and socraticism, hence of “european” philosophy to court, that the “hirsch of being” had been preaching in his pompous and sophistic language? our phenomenologylab hosted a rich discussion on those issues, on the occasion of a conference held this year at san raffaele university on the schwarze hefte. i myself resumed the theses i had been defending for more than twenty years on the sophistic core of heidegger’s thought, destroying the very norms of logical argument and ethical judgementi. but let’s turn to a related issue which is more to the point of your question. the reason why many of the researchers and scholars who are currently placed within the phenomenological tradition did ignore the dark side of heidegger’s thought (starting from sartre, alas) is another astonishing fact, haunting almost the whole history of the scholarly research on husserl and phenomenology (which i would keep quite distinct from research in phenomenology; spiegelberg, 1975). my claim about this fact is that it causally depends on a most surprising neglect of the living and the vivid practical soul of phenomenology. by “practical” i mean “ethical” in the broad sense in which husserl used to employ this word, both at the very beginning of his philosophical career and in his numerous, systematic courses on ethics. practical reason is essentially “intertwined” with “theoretical” reason, as logics is not really “parallel”, but “intertwined” with ethics (husserl, 1908-1914). the very heart of husserl's thought beats in his question on the sources of normativity, a question he meant in so radical a way as to invest logical, axiological and practical normativity alike. husserl’s answer provides a basis for the pars construens of the logical investigations, starting from that masterpiece analysis in prolegomena §14, which displays the equivalences between eidetic and axiologic statements and their normative or deontic versions. it is impossible to see the unitary project being developed throughout the six investigations without considering this main claim about the eidetic sources of normativity, overarching all detailed inquiries into the given eidetic (ontological) bonds “keeping together”, within definite ranges of possible variations, all parts and moments of any concrete object. this pars construens of the phenomenological thought, i.e. the discovery and exact conceptualization of what i proposed to call “the gift of bonds” (de monticelli, 2013b, 2013c), underlies its pars destruens as well, namely the two reductions to absurdity of scientific naturalism on one hand (quite particularly in its application to mind, i.e. “psychologism”) and historicism/cultural relativism, on the other hand. to sum up, husserlian phenomenology involves a most innovatory and bold project of a rational foundation of practical thought, i.e., the kind of thought which can enlighten and direct our actions, in the wide sense of “action” in which we meaningfully enact our lives in the life – and social worlds where humans meet. in this wider sense, cognition too is action, and so is experience. no cognition, no experience is possible without some standard of correctness, i.e. without normativity. a criticism of pure and practical reason, questioning and rejecting the main tenet of kantianism, i.e. the gaps between data and apriori, experiences and norms, phenomena and noumena, cognition and duty, resuming the reject of all these dualisms by the very notion of material apriori: such is husserlian phenomenology in the eye of his founder himself (husserl, 1956b). such a phenomenology almost emphatically calls for a material axiology, a complementary achievement of practical reason, which is to a formal axiology what the material ontology of the ontological “regions” is to formal ontology. husserl’s thought calls for scheler’s, a formal ethics craves to be implemented by a “material” ethics of values, as the one that scheler provided with his masterpiece (scheler, 1973). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 382 http://www.psychopen.eu/ now a phenomenology so conceived is utterly incompatible with a system of thought rejecting the very tenets of socraticism and humanistic, enlightened reason, as the one represented by heidegger and his followers. i am not sure that even the best contemporary phenomenologists are fully aware of this, and i wonder whether such an awareness is common enough among young phenomenologists worldwide who, as you said, turn to husserl, scheler or merleau-ponty as starting points for their future projects. there’s more than a methodological divide in the (in itself absurd) opposition between a continent and a method, which is the analytic/continental divide. it is no chance that this divide did not really exist before breaking out with carnap’s bitter (and so reasonable, in spite of carnap’s own part of empiricist dogmatism) pamphlet against heidegger’s best seller,was ist metaphysik (carnap, 1931). it did not exist at a time where husserl and frege and russell read each other, moore read brentano and austin quoted husserl. it wasn’t that dramatic either, in the world where i was so lucky to live in, as a phd student at oxford university, where the first and most crucial of my masters, sir michael dummett, was also a scholar in continental metaphysics: not only frege’s, but even hermann lotze, one of the german masters of realism... andrei simionescu-panait: in a letter to ingarden from 1917, edith stein jokes about how cumbersome her work with husserl in editing the ideen manuscripts may “force” her to attain an “absolute epoché in terms of waiting”. however mildly funny this might be, it betrays her conception about this phenomenological instrument, as a desired and perhaps attainable philosophical state of consciousness with which to proceed in philosophical endeavours. in contrast to this, luft (2011) explains how the epoché is only a preliminary step in the process of reduction. both bracketing and (eventually) applying the reduction unfold as practice, by the way of exercise, which means that we're talking about processes here and not states. how do you position yourself between these two presumably opposite takes on working in phenomenology? roberta de monticelli: i emphatically disagree from luft’s claim that “the reduction marks a significant rupture within husserl’s thought and stands for the establishment of phenomenology as a transcendental philosophy in the tradition of kant” (luft, 2011, p. 243). it is a most popular claim, actually marking husserl’s traditional interpretations from the very beginning. themyth of a “kantian”, or in that sense “idealistic” nature of what husserl unhappily termed “transcendental idealism” was born with the first dissents between the master and some of his former students, such as roman ingarden or edith stein, or the so called “realist” phenomenologists of the munich circle. i always regarded this reading of husserl’s thought as a tragic misunderstanding of its very crucial – and utterly anti-kantian tenets: i) the priority of the given on the construed (“back to the things themselves”); ii) the theory of eide, i.e. of those ontological (not just epistemic) bonds of (co)variation of possible contents which make up the very material ontology of concrete objects and states of affairs or events, grounding the “laws of essence” of different ontological regions (and, by the way, of axiological regions too: for values are a subclass of eide); iii) intentionality explained as an (ontologically) internal or essential relation, i.e. as a relation whose terms cannot subsist independently of the relation itself (the terms are, technically, non-independent parts of a whole, or “moments” of it). now whereas ii) explains the meaning of “idealism”, which in several passages husserl takes as referring to his theory of eide, iii) might be read as an “idealistic” claim in a kantian sense. wrongly so. for its rationale is a rigorous definition of the first-person perspective, as an essential feature of consciousness. all the possible different modalities of consciousness (perceptions, beliefs and propositional attitudes, emotions and feelings, desires, decisions, drives) are different modes of presence of objects (states of affairs, events, realizable possibilities), quite obviously inseparable from the subject whom they are presented in a given perspective. yet “inseparable europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 383 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from” does not mean “reducible to”: quite on the contrary, everything worth the name of real is (given as) transcendent the aspect or part of it which is present, or presently “given” to consciousness. in case of direct cognition or “original presence”, such as perception, emotion, empathy or, in short, experience (as opposed to representative, and even “symbolic” consciousness) this transcendence lets the object appear as an infinite source of information, open to active exploration and capable of disconfirming illusions, resisting to cognitive mistakes and, above all, resisting to our wishes, wills, endeavours. in this background the meaning of the phenomenological epoché can be better clarified. epoché is the “radical alteration of the natural attitude” consisting in “bracketing” or setting out of power (without rejecting) the “posits” built in the natural attitude (ideen i, § 31). what are these “posits”? quite simply, the obvious, pre-reflective, automatic, sometimes wrong and often right endorsements of all contingent particularity of both object and subject bound in a given intentional relation, or state of consciousness. let’s exemplify with perception. “posit” is the tacit stance taken by the perceiver (stellungnahme) as concerns the true existence of the thing perceived. even if it can turn out wrong (in case of a perceptual illusion) it is no “judgement” or reflective statement: it definitely is “built in” the perception as such. a perceived thing is given or experienced as existing here and now, as opposed to a remembered or an imagined one. here and now, that is, given to me, from exactly the point of view that i myself am presently and contingently taking over. why bracketing posits? that’s the way to “alter” the natural attitude, i.e. to switch to the phenomenological attitude. bracketing all contingencies and circumstantialities in an intentional state is just how we proceed in order to regard this state as a token of its type, as an instance of – say – visual perception, accessible to everybody in its essential or invariant or non-contingent features (concerning both its object, its subject, and their mode of presence/givenness to each other). the point is: phenomenology is a method of research, aiming at universally accessible evidence; but it cannot achieve universal accessibility by giving up first-person perspective, and switching to third-person, or “impersonal” one, as scientific naturalism does by adopting the positive stance of an empirical science, e.g. cognitive psychology. it is specific to phenomenology to safeguard any intentional state – say perception – as it is actually lived, i.e. in first-person perspective. living in first person perspective is (en)acting life as a subject – that’s why phenomenologists prefer the term “act” to “state” when it comes to instances of the intentional relation. in short, epoché is the idealizing device by which universal accessibility of descriptions is reached, starting from actual, first person experience. it is the voluntary switch from everyday natural attitude to phenomenological attitude and perspective. a brief clarification of what phenomenological perspective amounts to is in order here. it is the perspective one has when adopting the phenomenological stance via epoché. adopting the phenomenological stance toward any object is clarifying how that object appears from an appropriate first-person perspective, e.g., a perceptual one, if it is a perceptual object, or an emotionally qualified one, if it is an object of emotional experience, and so on. to sum up: adopting the phenomenological attitude means putting oneself ideally in the place of the subject of some kind of intentional state. one adopts this stance “ideally” by “bracketing” whatever is contingent upon an actual object, e.g. its present situation in space and time, and upon an actual subject, e.g., this person i am. so explained, phenomenological epoché has nothing whatsoever to do with kantian transcendentalism (nor has it anything to do with “idealism” as opposed to “realism”). it seems to such an extent constitutive of the phenomenological method as such, that even where it is not explicitly theorized (as in the logical investigations) or it is europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 384 http://www.psychopen.eu/ qualified with caveats and distinctions (as by scheler, reinach, stein, héring and others) it is of course practiced as soon as the phenomenological description and analysis takes over. let’s come to a conclusion. i do not think that, concerning phenomenological epoché, the contrast state/process is a relevant one. i would take a stance on the side of stein (and of scheler) as concerns the priority of a “practical” epoché, that is of a setting out of the power of all more or less automatic responses to all sorts of circumstances, encounters and events, that we spontaneously enact in the life world. some responses are further cognitive explorations, most of them are just habitual actions, life-routines like preparing breakfast or making one’s bed or submitting one’s corrected proofs to the publisher. we are constantly in action (gallagher, 2012), this is our way to take reality seriously. epoché as suspending, postponing action is no frivolous escape from this seriousness, but just a provisional “conversion” to philosophical reflection, aiming at a larger and deeper grasp of whatever reality we are confronted with, by setting aside automatic and pragmatic responses, often biased with prejudice and self-interested drives. this philosophical attitude can become a habit too, as edith stein had to acknowledge with a bitter smile. but if one reads carefully ideas i, §§31-32, one will find a lot of hints to this secular and provisional withdrawal from mundane engagements which is a modern form of a monk’s habit... namely, phenomenological philosophy. andrei simionescu-panait: self from surface to depth: in your (de monticelli, 2014) schema about selfhood, you suggest a distinction bodily feelings (hunger, tiredness) and moods (anxiety, depression). the first would refer to experiencing one's body (globally felt – perhaps quantitatively) that can constitute vital values, while the second would point at the experience of one's global state (how are you? qualitatively) that eventually gets constitutively entangled with cultural artefacts. (a) how would you respond to someone who would interpret these elements of your schema as echoes of cartesian dualism? (b) it would be really interesting for readers to find out in what way are vital values overlapping with more abstract (not so vital) values. architecture drawing lessons can make us perceive the “skeletons” of houses, altogether and simultaneously with the regular perception of buildings in the surrounding. theorizing, do you think that abstract values can turn upon more those vital values and change their way of constitution in experience? roberta de monticelli: the schema you mention is an attempt at providing a clear and systematic criterion for classifying emotional experiences within a scale representing the degree of motivational power each experience should have in a “normal” personal life. where by “motivational power” i mean the degree of personal involvement we ascribe to an experience, or of the range/weight of decisions and choices elicited by it. falling in love with plato’s dialogues can have more consequences on one’s future behaviours than enjoying the pleasure of an ice cream in summertime. this criterion exploits both poles of the intentional relation. on the “noematic” side it finds out a correlation between the height or hierarchical positions of the value-qualities envisaged by the emotional experiences (the agreeableness of an ice cream, the meaningfulness of plato’s intellectual discoveries) and the “depth” or “centrality” in our lives of the corresponding experiences. which is in other words the motivational power they have for us (differentiating motivational styles and hence personalities: you may be as deeply impressed by musical values as i am by political ones and vice versa). on the “noetic” side it discovers a correspondence between the layer of sensibility concerned by each (type of) experience and the layer of (one)self that the same experience “reveals”. the increasing role that each (type of) feeling plays in personal life (its motivating power, its relative degree of personal involvement) explains the deeper and deeper self-revealing power which that feeling experience exhibits/produces. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both ideas stem from scheler’s formalism; my attempt consists in putting them together as the two terms of emotional intentionality. the result is the schematic representation of self “from depth to surface”, i.e. the layered theory of self-constituting sensibility underlying it. by “self” i mean a person, as she experiences herself, or as she is “given to herself”, in that quite peculiar, irreducible way, in which anybody is not given to anybody else that is, from a first person perspective. from this perspective, layers of sensibility simply are layers of (one)self, as they are lived/experienced from within. a further step i endeavoured is that of exploiting this self-constitutive role of feeling experiences to provide a taxonomy of feeling experiences by exhibiting its ordering principle in the correspondence between the layer of sensibility concerned by each (type of) experience and the layer of (one)self that the same experience “reveals”. not all feeling experiences, indeed, come to be felt from inside as “really” concerning oneself in one’s personal identity – one’s deepest self, so to speak. my theory suggests that there is a specific layer of sensibility constituting individual personality, whereas other, more basic, layers of sensibility are in a way pre-personal, i.e., both virtually shared with other animals and activated all the time from the very beginning of human life, even before a layer of well-structured personal sensibility, ordered by a personal or cultural scale of values, has developed. call this latter the layer of sentiments, or the value-preferences ordering layer. if my theory is plausible, this is the very central, or most intimate, layer of selfhood. call it the core-self: it is what ordinary language still calls a person’s “soul”. this is the rationale of the partition you referred to, between sensory feelings, bodily feelings and moods on one hand, all of them belonging to the more basic pre-personal layers, “sensory” and “vital” ones; and the personal layer(s) comprising sentiments, sentiment-based emotions, passions. incidentally, moods do indeed provide us with information about our global state, whose experience can be inclusive of bodily feelings (being sleepy, feeling oppressed, feeling tired or hungry) or not: yet they don’t really tell us “who” we are (as an outburst of indignation, a feeling of admiration, a surge of compassion or of contempt occasionally do, by revealing our actual value preferences to us and to others). feeling experiences of the vital layer simply tell us how we are, or what we need. the preceding clarification may lay out some answers to your questions. (a) no cartesian dualism in the distinction between vital and personal layers of sensibility, because they are in fact layers of (one)self, of the same person as given to herself – as different, more or less central or deep “parts” – yet inseparable parts – of the concrete whole that a person is – an embodied person, of course: do we know of other ones? the ontologically independent being is the whole, not its parts. hence there is no dualism of substances. (b) “abstract” values, if we mean by that values of the personal level, can indeed reveal themselves as essentially dependent on the values of the vital level, and normally do: there is no personal flourishing in endeavors striving after justice, truth or beauty, without a minimum satisfaction of basic needs – hunger, having a shelter, security… even if you may as well “sacrifice” your health or life to your passion for truth or for justice. and this tells us, once again, the (correctly felt) hierarchic relations of these value-spheres. andrei simionescu-panait: husserlian phenomenology has intriguing concepts. some of them are static and aim at mapping consciousness (objects, essences, evidences, or the later life world “regions”), while others try to seize the way in which consciousness processes unfold (intentionality, syntheses, constitution). husserl is always under the tension between offering radical answers (in methodology at least) and inviting phenomenologists to ponder at the elusive character of consciousness, that simply can't stay still in order to be analysed (difficult to practice). post-husserlian phenomenologists borrow and reanimate the importance of some concepts fromhusserl, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in different combinations that constitute their own “voices” in phenomenology. it is said about schoenberg that he was the first, the last and by far the best of serialists, because only he knew how to practice his own customtailored radical method. (a) in what way can phenomenology avoid this harsh but possible future evaluation? (b) science rarely wonders about its foundations. husserl fought to make a radical change when it comes to those heavy cornerstones of human enquiries. but this was one century ago. now, can phenomenological practice also be conceived outside the realm of books, while fierce discussions about methodology can be tamed and put into the background (like in regular science)? or is this a step back towards regular, “natural attitude” driven, prephenomenological science? roberta de monticelli: i have always believed that phenomenology is applied phenomenology, or it’s nothing at all. endless methodological discussions, or worse, philological ones on the true exegesis of the sacred texts – betray the very spirit of phenomenology. it’s indeed ironic that the philosopher who revived a living way of thinking based on lived experience, the one who used to ban sheer speculation or just deductive thought not supported by the intuitive presence of the things themselves about which one is thinking, was also a compulsive writer, one who could not think without writing. yet husserl is not the only classical source of our methodology and technicalities. if there is a first limit to overcome in the scholarly training of young phenomenologists, that is a too exclusive study of husserl (or, worse, of husserl as interpreted or criticised by heidegger). there are plenty of other sources even among the very classics, from scheler to stein, fromreinach to spiegelberg, from pfaender to von hildebrand, not to mention hedwig conrad-martius, gertha walter, nikolai hartmann, rudolf plessner... but the second, even more harmful limit to overcome is a purely scholarly training, confined to reading literature without practicing phenomenological analysis and description of particular issues. our centre in milan tries to improve teaching in both directions: by enlarging the “canon” – and including not only the mentioned authors but also many contemporary ones, and many “applied phenomenologists” from different disciplines: psychiatrists, psychologists, social ontologists, legal philosophers, moral philosophers. and, more importantly, by focusing on particular topics, allowing for discussion and comparison between phenomenological and other analytical approaches, and suggesting personal exercise in the techniques of eidetic variation, design of mental or empirical experiments, rewording of many classical issues in phenomenological terms: free will, personhood, personal identity, consciousness, emotions, perceptions, value theory, normativity theory, collective intentionality, intersubjectivity. all this can count as answers to your questions (a) and (b). i shall add that the best practice of phenomenology requires a training in that kind of structural-eidetic exploration, discovering “laws of essence”, which is based on experience, but in a way different from empirical or statistical induction: eidetic generalizations are based on experienced tokens of typical or eidetic cases. such generalizations are necessarily true if they are true, and their epistemic status is apriori. yet they are far from being “purely conceptual” or just rooted in semantics: they really are substantive relations, rooted in the contents of the envisaged states of affairs, as given to experiences of the appropriate sort. andrei simionescu-panait: in an article from 1999 in zahavi, depraz (eds.), p. ducat sees phenomenology as a discipline that is supposed to be separated from ideologies of any sort (ducat, 1999). phenomenology and miscellaneous political fashions of any intensity cannot, or at least should not suffer any form of marriage. however, the transcendental structures behind political attitudes in humans sounds like a valid phenomenological application, since it's engaged in analysing experience. what are your predictions on the way in which phenomenology can reconfigure political sciences? roberta demonticelli: it seems tome, though, that ducat holds phenomenology to be independent from ideologies of any sort, not from ideals. the point is that this crucial distinction is more and more fading away from the thought europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 387 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and consciousness of many contemporary philosophers, both on the side of scientific naturalism and on that of post-modernist disenchantment. this i judge to be a tragic mistake. even ducat seems well conscious of that husserlian claim on the interweaving of ethics and logics, or the practical and theoretical sides of reason, that we discussed above. reason can be defined as (not only) a disposition, (but also) a willingness to respond adequately to all sorts of exigency and demand raised by the life world. these “demands” range from themost basic and simple “affordances”, such as the aesthetic and functional qualities of items in the natural and artificial environment (which have a lot of motivational power but are no unconditional “oughts”) up to the conditional and unconditional obligations pervading the realms of morals, law and politics. obligations and requirements pervade also, as we saw, the realms of logics and cognitive research or technology. norms and their critical examination, issuing in either renewed, universally accessible justification, or else in their reject (at least as universally valid norms), are everywhere subject to what husserl called “the jurisdiction of reason”. more than that: there is no intentional state (or rather act) which would not be subject to this “jurisdiction”. for experience and consciousness crave for adequacy. a perception can be illusory, an emotion inappropriate, a desire inconvenient, a will unjust, a judgment false, a sentiment wrong, a piece of imagination incoherent or impossible. what is curiously neglected by the whole brentanian and analytic tradition about intentionality is this “noetic” side of the intentional relation, namely the validity claim built into each act, depending on its characteristic “posit”, making up the naïve dogmatism of common sense, ordinary experience, traditional beliefs, shared or “social” emotions and sentiments. it is an implicit claim, spanning each act, without which we could not even discover our cognitive, emotional and practical mistakes, and “learn from experience”. hence it is really constitutive of any intentional act, quite as much as its relation to an intentional object, despite being ignored by brentano and the analytical tradition. yet this validity claim can turn out to be justifiable, or not. the very possibility of questioning the rightness of any act whatsoever, or the critical possibility, certifies the overall “jurisdiction of reason” on personal consciousness and experience. this discovery is the act of birth of philosophy. even according to husserl’s rich lecture texts on history of philosophy and, what is more, human civilization (husserl, 1956a, 1976, 1988a, 1988b). an examined life, though, is by no means an anthropological necessity, but only a habitual, freely endorsed personal attitude, first introduced as a foundation of a civilized and just society by socratic philosophy in the ancient world, and by enlightenment in the modern world. it is an attitude massively neglected by most cultures and civilizations throughout history and geography. it is the personal attitude corresponding to what husserl calls the socratic and humanistic ideal of a “civilization” founded on reason (i.e. as we saw, on demands of reasons and justification: quite the opposite of that disquieting “panlogism” of a hegelian “reason” issuing in historical determinism, political realism and “ethical state”). a civilization founded on reason should be understood as opposed to a civilisation founded on tradition, religion (god’s will), or whatever “voluntarism” of the modern age might justify modern realpolitik. that is, the reject of the rule of law in favour of a man’s government and of his decisionmaking powers, along the lines of political thought of, say, carl schmitt, heidegger himself, and post-foucaultian schools (such as the so-called italian theory with agamben and others) (esposito, gentili, & marramao, 2015). this brings us back to your question. on one hand, husserl has even a peculiar term for what i called ideals, referring to the project of a civilization founded on reason(s). this term is “telos”, yet this word should be understood as a synonym of “task”, “duty”, overall project of our practical thought, subject to an “always renewed” verification europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and criticism. and by no means as a “destiny” of “western” civilisation, since it is quite the opposite of a destiny. it is just a past commitment, freely obliging autonomous moral subjects capable of verifying it and endorsing it again, maybe in new forms. it is an “immer wieder” rising demand of (public) justice, freely and rightly accepted and engaging one to corresponding action, or freely and wrongly rejected by delivering oneself, for example, to dark totalitarian and nationalistic adventures of the nazi kind. this is why husserl not only does not reject, but passionately advocates a phenomenological foundation of political theory, as part of a “rational science of society”, where, of course, rationality is meant in its double face, theoretical and practical (husserl, 1956a)ii. more than that: husserl has a lucid grasp – one would say a prophetic vision – of the ideal of a european unity yet to come. europe, much more than a continent, is a movement toward the ideal: a recursive affirmation of values over and above facts, ideas over and above reality, ideal obligations over and above actual powers. it could not have been home to science and democracy otherwise. on the other hand, it would be quite surprising if political obligation did not find a place, definitely not reducible to, and yet conditioned by, legal and moral obligation, within the general scheme ofmaterial ontologies (e.g. social ontology) and material axiology, two main research fields of phenomenology. between the spheres of values (of a personal level) we definitely find the sphere of political values, or values making up a well ordered polity (or a project thereof): justice, with all its “moments”, or partial contents: responsible freedom, equal dignity-and-rights, equal opportunities, minimum welfare, solidarity, citizenship, legality, transparency, pluralism, independence of the truth agencies such as information, education, judiciary... here is a vast program of analysis and discovery for a material axiology of phenomenological obedience. andrei simionescu-panait: if we were to check correspondence from the first world war, we see that edith stein was very unhappy with the way husserl gave next to no feedback on his students' text, as well with the very unstable way in which husserl would share his thoughts on how his own ideen manuscripts should be handled by his followers. their communication (cooperation) was precarious because of husserl's fast paced rhythm of writing on new manuscripts. as expected, husserl was in turn dissatisfied of the reception of his phenomenology, dissatisfied with his students' phenomenological directions as he grew older and became dominated by his genetic attitude in thought. he was especially dissatisfied with heidegger, in a letter to pfaender from 1933: “i arrived at the distressing conclusion that philosophically i have nothing to do with this heideggerian profundity, with this brilliant unscientific genius; that heidegger’s criticism, both open and veiled, is based upon a gross misunderstanding; that he may be involved in the formation of a philosophical system of the kind which i have always considered it my life's work to make forever impossible. everyone except me has realized this for a long time.”, husserl (1997) writes, as he seems to take the blame for not being very attentive to his students' progress. but is he to blame? when a great and cunning philosopher fails as a teacher and as a group leader, can we attach the label of failure to his name? the question would be: can we expect from a person to be both experimental, radical, fresh in thought and well organized and patient with pupils – or is it a conflict of possibilities in terms of attitudes and values? roberta de monticelli: we are back to the misunderstandings concerning the real legacy of phenomenology, but in the context of a larger, interesting inquiry into philosophical pedagogy. let me come back to husserlheidegger first, this time with a personal experience. husserl’s krisis (husserl, 1976) was the first text in classical phenomenology i read – even before taking up philosophy at the university. enzo paci, the founder of milan’s phenomenological school (which was somehow dispersed in its rich potentialities, owing to the somewhat eclectic character of paci’s thought: yet on that far background of our centre, see de monticelli, 2011) was then very europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ popular, even school pupils and cultivated people had heard of him and of the translations he fostered of husserl’s masterpieces. i was a 16 years old girl when 1968 exploded, and i remember feeling perfectly at ease with that confused mixture of frankfurter “critical theory”, hegelianism, and undigested bits of phenomenology, which was a sort of common language for the young leftists of those days. it was only thirty years later that, going back to the krisis to prepare an undergraduate course, i was almost shocked by paci’s preface of 1968. not a single word about the tragic time in which husserl had written the first seven sections of the krisis, where he manages to condense his thought by presenting it in direct continuity with modern enlightenment, both nourished by the hope to provide at last a foundation of knowledge, reasonableness and autonomy to practical thought (ethics, legal and political theory). instead of accepting the gap between science, which does admit of such a foundation, and the governance of human affairs, left over to arbitrariness, realpolitik, or the conflict of faiths. not a single word about the tragic meaning of husserl picture of philosophers as “funktionäre der menschheit”, officials of humanity – as written by a man who had just been deprived of his role of public official, that is of his venia legendi, the power to teach, by his own university, with the approval of his former student, martin heidegger. not a single word about the two principles affirmed throughout those seven sections. that is, i) the principle of responsible personhood, grounding practical reason on freedom of the moral subject, conceived as a reasonable, sensible and autonomous agent, capable of value experience and research, and ii) the principle of moral, legal and cosmopolitical universalism, grounded on universal accessibility of the fundamentals of public ethics, making up what post-war humanity called “the human rights”. not a single word on the fact that heidegger had built his “system of thought”, in those years, on the very reject of those two principles, and on their replacement with two opposite principles. here they are: i) a principle of historical destiny, removing autonomy and moral responsibility of individual persons; and ii) a principle of ethnic, blut-und-boden community as prior to that of personhood and equal dignity, on the basis of which he enslaved philosophy to the exaltation of the fuehrerprinzip, and of the “intimate greatness of national socialism” (rectorship speech). in this respect, compared with somemasters of my generation, even the celebrated (or ill-famed) kind of solipsism of husserl’s teaching was a paradigm of rigour, intellectual honesty and passion for truth. as one gathers, after all, from the memories of edith stein, ingarden, spiegelberg and many others – all of them recognizing, as a defining mark of true phenomenology, that crucial love for “synphilosophein”, or the debating community of philosophers, preferring attention to “the thing itself” and to each other’s work, to monologue in later “hirsch-of-being’s style”. after all the dream of reviving an international community of researchers, truth being “an ideal situated in infinity” and not the revelation of some guru or visionary bard, is a recurring dream of phenomenologists of all ages. our centre too is still dreaming that dream, and you and i are collaborating to make it more real, in this very moment. andrei simionescu-panait: you have had a productive publishing rhythm in recent years. ontologia del nuovo: la rivoluzione fenomenologica e la ricerca oggi (2008), la novità di ognuno. persona e libertà (2009) or l'ordine del cuore. etica e teoria del sentire (2012) are some of your works in recent years, in which you analysed the manners in which phenomenology today can reshape ethics, epistemology, or questions about selfhood and choice, to name a few. towards which area of human experience will your next project be focused? roberta de monticelli: let me just add the last group of works on moral and civil issues in contemporary italy, la questione morale (2010), la questione civile (2011) and sull’idea di rinnovamento (2013), if only to stress once europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 390 http://www.psychopen.eu/ again the link i feel mandatory for a socratic philosopher, between pure research and participation in public debate. i tried to perform this duty by taking a stance in the “space of reasons”, or in the face to face of argument and criticism, against a tendency of governments to bypass legality and even constitutional norms in favour of informal powers and particular constituted interests. using the empirical materials of some battles against corruption or lack of transparency in the public sphere i tried a phenomenological investigation of our so widespread indifference to public ethics, finding its origin in a special kind of self-destitution of the autonomous moral subject, in a cultural climate of moral and political scepticism. all this descriptive materials form the background and intuitive source of evidence for an outline of a phenomenological theory of values, opposing most meta-ethical positions, from metaphysical realism to expressivism, emotivism, constructivism of different sorts. the result is now in print – it will come out next fall under the anti-nietzschean title al di qua del bene e del male (einaudi). yet my research project for the future is different. i have written even too much in italian or french, in an age where you should not escape confrontation and criticism on the part of the international philosophical community. i’m writing in english (or a faint imitation of it) several papers and the project of a book tackling with what i deem to be a real gap in the current phenomenological renaissance: the theory of ontological dependencies, i.e., eidetic invariants and “the gift of bonds”. my utopian dream is that of rethinking that sort of ockham’s fork which set modern thought on the path of naturalistic metaphysics, empiricist epistemology and axiological scepticism. i am trying to think anew, by contemporary standards of rigour and exactness, the other path – the one whose rejection threw back duns scotus and the essentialistic tradition among the myths or the fairy tales of the past. wrongly so – for it is the path of phenomenology, conceived as an ontology of concreteness. some initial hints at this research program are to be found in de monticelli (2012) and de monticelli (in press). andrei simionescu-panait:one last question, a curiosity. you're known to have a close relationship to literature, novels and poetry, and it seems that the best of authors manage to informally capture specific particularities about human attitudes, situations and changes that blend all of these together. they can seize the shapes of flowing experience, they can grasp contrasting emotions in events and successful recurrences of failure in characters, they can see “essences” in motion. i wonder, which author in literature would you consider to have great phenomenological intuitions, even if lacking formal phenomenological training? roberta de monticelli: there is a question that has always been intriguing to me: how comes that we learn much more about the essential features of emotional experiences by reading novels, poems or ancient and modern tragedy and comedy, rather than by studying dedicated chapters in psychology handbooks? i think i found an answer to this quandary. emotional phenomena are dependent not only on personhood, but even on individual personality, because they are constitutive of both. they are both individuating and individuated! quite as much as actions, where “si duo faciunt non est unum”, the same type of action is instantiated by essentially different tokens depending on the agent. recall the dramatic differences in the ways people have to walk, to speak, to respond to similar circumstances. conversely, one will find this person’s voice, dynamic style, smile, unmistakable or unique. the same happens with emotions and sentiments of a personal level. they don’t just manifest personhood, but individual personality. in the very richness of their contents and implications, they cannot be separated from the individual person experiencing and enacting – somehow “interpreting” them. think of the deep differences between the ways different familiar persons have to be and to appear unhappy. this is not the case with instances of logical or mathematical reasoning, or even philosophical thoughts, that, as frege used to say, “have no master”. and in fact, as far as psychology of cognition, logics or even perception is concerned, we do learn from academic europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology much more than from literary texts. acts of the strictly cognitive spheres are not individuated and individuating. a phenomenologist (e.g.: edith stein, 2014) would say: only emotional and conative acts, in short being affected and acting are self-constitutive acts, or experiences through which we “encounter” ourselves, or the others, in their intimate individuality. purely cognitive acts are not self-constitutive, i can be completely unaware of myself when thinking or calculating (but try to be unaware of yourself while somebody steps on your foot). that’s why we seek to understand different types of ill-fated love, perhaps, by reading anna karenina or madame bovary (that is, in the background of a personal narrative, as many would say) much more than by studying academic psychology. as a way of conclusion, i would say that any great novelist or poet is a master in phenomenology of haecceity – of personality or essential individuality of persons, as it unfolds through all value and disvalue experiences of a given life, confronting good and evil of all sorts. a character, in this sense, is very much as you say, “essence in motion”. we have often more vivid memories of fictional characters, encountered in literary worlds, than of some real persons met in our environment. what young girl would not fall in love with prince andrei bolkonsky on a ball night in moscow, exactly like natasha? notes i) here is the link to the discussion: http://www.phenomenologylab.eu/index.php/2015/03/quaderni-neri-martin-heidegger/#comment-27212 ii) the customary triadic wording of husserl’s, from ideas i onward, is “theoretic, evaluative and practical reason”, corresponding in fact to the triadic scheme of intentional acts of strictly cognitive, emotional and conative sorts. funding this paper is supported by the sectorial operational programme human resources development (sop hrd), financed from the european social fund and by the romanian government under the contract number sop hrd/159/1.5/s/136077. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references baker, l. 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(1973). formalism in ethics and non-formal ethics of values. evanston, il: northwestern university press. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 de monticelli & simionescu-panait 393 http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/monist20139611 http://www.losguardo.net/public/archivio/num15/articoli/2014-15_italian_theory.pdf http://www.badische-zeitung.de/literatur-und-vortraege/das-ende-des-heideggerianertums--99384125.html http://dx.doi.org/10.3917/comm.042.0474 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2104711 http://www.psychopen.eu/ spiegelberg, h. (1975). doing phenomenology: essays on and in phenomenology. the hague, the netherlands: martinus nijhoff stein, e. (2014). letters to roman ingarden (hugh candler hunt, trans.). washington, dc: ics publications. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 379–394 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1035 interview 394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references the effect of schooling on basic cognition in selected nordic countries research reports the effect of schooling on basic cognition in selected nordic countries bert jonsson* a, maria waling b, anna s. olafsdottir c, hanna lagström d, hege wergedahl e, cecilia olsson b, eldbjørg fossgard e, asle holthe e, sanna talvia d, ingibjorg gunnarsdottir f, agneta hörnell b [a] department of psychology, umeå university, umeå, sweden. [b] department of food and nutrition, umeå university, umeå, sweden. [c] school of education, university of iceland, reykjavik, iceland. [d] turku institute of child and youth research, university of turku, turku, finland. [e] faculty of education, western norway university of applied sciences, bergen, norway. [f] unit for nutrition research, landspitali – the national university hospital of iceland and faculty of food science and nutrition, school of health sciences, university of iceland, reykjavík, iceland. abstract the present study investigated schooling effects on cognition. cognitive data were collected as part of a research project (promeal) that investigated school meals and measured the intake of school lunch in relation to children’s health, cognitive function, and classroom learning in four nordic countries, among children between 10–11 years of age. it was found that finnish pupils attending 4th grade were not, on any measure, outperformed by norwegian and icelandic pupils attending 5th and swedish pupils attending 4th grade on a task measuring working memory capacity, processing speed, inhibition, and in a subsample on responseand attention control. moreover, boys were found to perform superior to girls on tasks measuring processing speed. however, girls were found to perform better on tasks related to attention and self-control. the results are discussed in relation to the reciprocal association between cognition and schooling and whether these results reflect quality differences between schools in the four nordic countries; most notably in comparison to finland. keywords: schooling effects, cognitive functioning, working memory, processing speed, attention, response control, inhibition europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 received: 2017-01-10. accepted: 2017-05-26. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; maciej karwowski, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, umeå university, se-901 87 umeå, sweden. e-mail: bert.jonsson@umu.se this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the starting point for the present study is a research study titled “prospects for promoting health and performance by school meals in nordic countries (promeal)” (waling et al., 2016). the general aim of that study was to determine whether overall healthiness, based on diet and learning conditions can be favored by school lunches in four nordic countries. the study included more than 800 10–11-year-old pupils from finland (4th grade), sweden (4th grade), norway (5th grade), and iceland (5th grade). in this study, we also measured basic cognitive abilities such as working memory capacity (wmc), inhibition, processing speed, attention, and self-control. the present study focuses on these cognitive measures, the pupils’ age, and their attending grades. the present study provides important insights on whether one year extra of formal schooling may influence basic cognitive abilities already at 10-11 years of age. results that are of significance in the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ perspective of the reciprocal relation between cognition and school attainments (e.g., andersson & lyxell, 2007; cliffordson & gustafsson, 2008; swanson & howell, 2001) and the ongoing debate following the recurrent pirlsi and timssii evaluations. the nordic countries are considered homogenous with regard to shared economic and social models of the welfare (berggren & trägårdh, 2012). the organization “save the children” (https://www.savethechildren.net) ranked in 2015 the nordic countries at the top five positions on an index related to maternal health issues (e.g., educational and economic status). although all pupils in the present study were in the same age, they differed with regard to number of formal school years. swedish and finnish children start compulsory school the year they turn seven years of age and norwegian and icelandic children the year they turn six years of age (“barn och familj i norden,” 2016). with regard to organizational prerequisites and learning environments, there are some notable differences. finnish pupils spend the least amount of compulsory instruction time in primary and lower education compared to swedish, norwegian and icelandic pupils. the average hours per year spent in class in 2013 was as follow: finland, 632 hours; sweden, 754 hours; norway, 748 hours; and iceland 729 hours. finland had in 2013 the lowest total public expenditure on primary education as a percentage of total public expenditure (including public subsidies to households for living costs, which are not spent in educational institutions): finland 2.3%; sweden 3.3%; norway 3.8% and iceland 5.1%. in spite of this difference the average class size in primary schools was in 2014 almost identical for finland, sweden, and iceland (18-19 pupils in each class). no data was available for norway (oecd, 2016). hypothesis there is substantial evidence that extra time in school does affect intelligence (e.g., cliffordson & gustafsson, 2008; ritchie, bates, der, starr, & deary, 2013) and that intelligence is intertwined with the aforementioned cognitive constructs (e.g., sheppard & vernon, 2008; unsworth, fukuda, awh, & vogel, 2014). the nordic countries are regarded as homogenous with respect to economic and social welfare (berggren & trägårdh, 2012), but differ with regard to when children enter formal school (“barn och familj i norden,” 2016). we, therefore, expected that icelandic and norwegian (5th grade) pupils should outperform swedish and finnish (4th grade) pupils of the same age on tasks measuring wmc, processing speed, inhibition, attention, and selfcontrol. below we elaborate on the cognitive measures used, their underlying constructs, interrelationships, relations to intelligence and of the relations between schooling and intelligence. background interrelationships and relations of working memory, inhibition, processing speed, attention and selfcontrol with intelligence the relationships between working memory and inhibition, processing speed, attention, and self-control have been emphasized in several studies. among those studies, it is common to describe self-control or selfregulatory behavior as connected to the executive functions of working memory. for instance, hofmann, schmeichel, and baddeley (2012) argue that “executive attention” is one of the “main battlefields of selfregulation”. the relationship between inhibition, attention, and working memory is also emphasized in kane and engle’s (2003) model of working memory. they argue for a domain-general executive attention mechanism that is responsible for maintaining information in working memory. without any distractors, relevant information can the effect of schooling on basic cognition 646 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 https://www.savethechildren.net http://www.psychopen.eu/ be retrieved from long-term memory, but when distractors are present, task-irrelevant information will intrude and slow down one’s response and produce more errors. in the kane and engle’s (2003) study, it was shown that conflicts arising from performing habit versus goal-oriented stroop tasks are more problematic for individuals with low wmc. hence, individuals with lower working memory span conducted more errors in incongruent trials when congruent trials were made up of 75% or 80% of the stroop task. the authors argue that this result is similar to what is found during dichotic listening tasks (conway, cowan, & bunting, 2001) and antisaccade tasks (kane, bleckley, conway, & engle, 2001). studies of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) have shown that the lower wmc that these children often exhibit typically manifests in a lack of inhibitory and attentional control, and that processing speed explains much of this deficit (karalunas & huang-pollock, 2013). the significance of processing speed for wmc can also be seen when perceptual speed is controlled for. in those studies, the explained variance associated with wmc is significantly reduced when the speed component is statistically removed (e.g., salthouse, 1992, 1996). in addition to the intertwined relations of the aforementioned constructs, it is also well known that these constructs are associated with intelligence. for example, unsworth et al. (2014) showed that a multifaceted view of working memory including scope of attention, attention control and secondary memory explained the individual differences in working memory and its relation to fluid intelligence. in a review by sheppard and vernon (2008) it was concluded that intelligence and processing speed is significantly correlated, with a tendency that more complex speed tasks obtained higher correlations. it was further found that the correlations were stronger with general fluid intelligence than with crystallized intelligence. the literature regarding these constructs is massive. with the intent of providing a basic understanding of these constructs, below we briefly describe each construct separately and the relation between schooling and intelligence. working memory — baddeley’s model of working memory is perhaps the most influential model (e.g., baddeley, 2000). baddeley’s model consists of a central executive, which is responsible for the control and regulation of cognitive processes and three separable and interacting subsystems: the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer. the phonological loop is responsible for speech-based information, the visuo-spatial sketchpad for visual and spatial information, and the episodic buffer for integrating information from both long-term memory and the various components of working memory. the central executive controls the subsystems and regulates goal-oriented behavior, such as planning, inhibition, shifting and updating (miyake, 2000). the sub-component inhibition is responsible for selecting a correct response in the presence of a stronger competing source. shifting is responsible for one’s ability to shift between mental sets, while updating is responsible for negotiating new information in relation to old information. working memory capacity refers to one’s ability to store as much information as possible while simultaneously processing information and is commonly measured using complex working memory tasks (e.g., daneman & carpenter, 1980; redick et al., 2012; unsworth, heitz, schrock, & engle, 2005). inhibition — inhibition is as pointed out often seen as part of the executive control (miyake, 2000), but can also be viewed as a separate construct, denoted as cognitive inhibition or just inhibition (macleod & macdonald, 2000; but see dempster & corkill, 1999, for a different view). macleod (2007) defined cognitive inhibition as “… the stopping or overriding of a mental process, in whole or in part, with or without intention” (p. 5). cognitive inhibition is a mental process and is involved in tasks such as having to inhibit irrelevant information, which can be viewed as different from inhibition that manifests in motor-related behavior, such as inhibiting a motor response. however, several studies have found overlapping brain areas that are involved in both cognitive and jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 647 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ motor inhibition. these studies are supported by findings showing that psychiatric patients are usually impaired in tasks assessing both motor response inhibition and cognitive inhibition (see bari & robbins, 2013, for a review). in the present study, inhibition is thus regarded as a construct that includes both cognitive and motor inhibition. a general finding among studies is that inhibition plays an important role in development; however, whether the development is linear or protracted is subject for debate (e.g., mcauley & white, 2011). processing speed — processing speed refers to the amount of time it takes to carry out simple or automatic cognitive tasks. it is regarded as a characteristic that is different in each individual and is related to other cognitive abilities. salthouse (1996) offered two mechanisms for understanding how processing speed is related to changes in cognitive functioning: the limited time and simultaneity mechanisms. the limited time mechanism is associated with one’s ability to complete cognitive operations within a given amount of time. the simultaneity mechanism is associated with one’s ability to maintain information from previous processes by the time subsequent processing is completed. it is well established that processing speed is attributed to the changes in cognitive abilities across childhood (kail, 1991; kail, 2007) and adulthood (salthouse, 1996). across adulthood, these changes indicate that the gradual age-related decline of more advanced cognitive abilities (e.g., reasoning) is caused by an age-related decline in simple perceptual and cognitive processing speeds (salthouse, 1992, 1996; schretlen et al., 2000). the development of processing speed and its significance for other cognitive functions among children was described by fry and hale (1996) as a “cognitive developmental cascade.” that is, a sequence of stages in which the current stage affects the forthcoming stages: increasing chronological age >> processing >> speed >> wmc >> reasoning ability. this is a sequence that nettelbeck and burns (2010) interpreted as “maturing brain structures improve processing speed, with concurrent improvement in working memory and other cognitive functions” (p. 380). attention and self-control — attention and self-control are two constructs that share variance. hence, attention can be regarded as a key component of self-control, and the role of attention is to select information from an array of environmental information (knudsen, 2007). self-control is compared to the broader concept self-regulation, which is commonly used to define the self-regulatory processes aimed at controlling emotions, thus overriding pre-potent impulses in relation to external demands (e.g., hofmann et al., 2012). when a goal is set, top-down attention can modulate more bottom-up attentional inputs, thus inhibiting irrelevant information and preserving the goal of working memory (kane et al., 2001; knudsen, 2007). longitudinal studies have found evidence that self-control is predictive of academic attainments and prosocial behavior (duckworth & gross, 2014), as well as intelligence (moffitt et al., 2011). the relation between formal schooling and intelligence in a seminal study, ceci (1991) provided evidence for a quantitative relationship between schooling and general intelligence. hence, the number of years of schooling was associated with increasing iq scores. the perhaps strongest evidence came from “natural” experiments indicating that iq increased between 2-6 points for every year in school. among other, brinch and galloway (2012) showed that a mandatory attendance reform that was launched in norway in the 1960s, but differently enforced depending on municipalities, generated variation in an ability test undertaken by all 19 years old as part of their military service. this “natural” experiment allowed for an estimate of the effects of compulsory education. an effect of 3.7 increased iq per school year was found. type of schooling and its influence on cognition has also been investigated. when comparing a mandatory enlistment test battery, cliffordson and gustafsson (2008) found that the average effect of schooling on the effect of schooling on basic cognition 648 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognition was a 2.7 point increase in iq for each year. on a population level, using data from every individual enlisted in the military in sweden between 1980 and 1994, carlsson, dahl, öckert, and rooth (2015) showed that an extra 10 days of schooling increased crystallized intelligence by 1% of a standard deviation, but that measures of fluid intelligence did not. in recent years, a longitudinal study of participants born in 1921 revealed that each year of education had increased the individuals’ iq score by an average of 0.66 points at age 79 years when controlling for iq at age 11 years (ritchie et al., 2013). although the effects of education on processing speed were small or non-existent, ritchie et al. (2013) raised the question of whether a difference in education early in life (before the age of 11 years) may also increase one’s processing speed. in addition to the numerous behavioral studies that have been performed in this area, there are also neuroimaging studies that show how some years, or even days, in school, make a difference with regard to academic performance and how the brain processes information. in a study of pupils in the 2nd and 3rd grades (7-9 years old), rosenberg-lee, barth, and menon (2011) found evidence that even a single year of schooling exhibited altered brain functions and connectivity, indexed by arithmetic progress. effects that were most notable included increased activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlpfc) and deactivation in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex. third-graders also showed a greater connectivity between the dlpfc and a number of posterior brain regions. methods using computerand web-based tasks, we measured wmc, inhibition, processing speed, and (on a subsample) attention and self-control. participants a total of 837 10-11-year-old pupils attending the 4th or 5th grade participated in the promeal study (for more details see waling et al., 2016). each country included between 201 and 225 pupils; 48% of the students were boys (table 1). of those 837 pupils, 104 did not complete the cognitive tests and/or were excluded from the analyses because they had a diagnosis such as tourette syndrome, adhd/attention deficit disorder (add), dyslexia, autism, or a combination thereof. in the analyses of processing speed and inhibition, 733 participants were included. for the task that measured wmc, 40 pupils scored zero; they probably misunderstood the task and were thus also excluded from the analysis. therefore, a remaining sample of 693 pupils was included for the complex working memory task. table 1 number of participating schools, classes, and pupils in the promeal study grade schools (n) classes (n) pupils (n) boys n (%) girls n (%) total 30 62 837 403 (48) 434 (52) finland 4th 9 18 206 99 (48) 107 (52) sweden 4th 9 14 197 98 (50) 99 (50) norway 5th 6 17 210 92 (44) 118 (56) iceland 5th 6 13 224 114 (51) 110 (49) jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 649 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a subsample of pupils, we also measured attention and self-control. for these measures, we randomly selected pupils from each school (a total of 212 students). out of those 212 pupils, we excluded an additional 18 participants, as they only had partial data registered and two participants with a diagnose. note that there were more finnish pupils doing this test. the final sample used in the analyses of attentionand response control consisted of 194 participants. it had of course been desirable to collect this data from all participants. however, due to license demands and restricted available research time due to the duration of the school day, the collection of attention and self-control data was restricted to a subsample. the samples were relatively homogeneous from a socioeconomic perspective; data from a parental questionnaire showed that the children’s parents were highly educated, employed, and faced few economic challenges (waling et al., 2016). this homogeneity was relatively equal across countries, but there were some differences worth noting. for instance, fewer finnish parents had a university degree; the percentages of university degrees held for the parents/caregivers in each country were as follows: finland (51%), sweden (66%), norway (72%) and iceland (58%). proportions based on a response rate of 80%, 90%, 68% and 97%, respectively. these percentages are higher than the official statistics from the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) (42%, 39%, 42%, 38%, respectively for tertiary education in 2015) with regard to educational attainments of 24-64 years old (oecd, 2016). however, in the present study, the most of the pupils’ parents/caregivers lived in or in close proximity to university cities and were most likely within the age span of 30-45 years (considering that they had a child between 10-11 years of age). these circumstances probably inflate the percentages compared to the country averages. note also the low response rate for norwegian parents. the percentage of non-native pupils differed to a lesser extent: finland, 2% (n = 3); sweden, 5% (n = 6); iceland, 7% (n = 13); no data were available from norway. response rate for finland, sweden, and iceland, were 90%, 80%, 99%, respectively. measures of cognitive abilities working memory capacity. the measures of wmc were conducted using a complex working memory task (unsworth et al., 2005), denoted as child operation (co)-span, in which a series of interleaved letters and a concurrent arithmetic tasks were presented. the participants had to perform various mathematical operations (addition with the sum of integers always in the range of 3-9) while simultaneously retaining letters in their short-term memory. the scoring process uses the same principle as that of the wechsler intelligence scale for children (wisc-iv) (wechsler, 2003) digit span task: the total number of letters to be recalled. the task began at level two with two sequences; the student then proceeded to the next level as long as two sets in a row were answered correctly. thus, there was no predefined highest level, but the span score ranged from zero to the individual’s highest level (nyroos, jonsson, korhonen, & eklöf, 2015). inhibition and processing speed: for the measures of inhibition and processing speed, a computer-based stroop task was used. the pupils were shown a sequence of words, one at a time, that was either congruent, incongruent, or neutral with their coloring and the students were required to indicate the color of the letters (macleod & macdonald, 2000). the words were presented in each student’s respective language. four blocks of 32 trials with a total of 128 trials were presented. each individual block consisted of 8 neutral trials, 12 congruent trials, and 12 incongruent trials. these blocks were presented in a random order. blocks containing the effect of schooling on basic cognition 650 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ congruent and incongruent trials were comprised of color words (black, blue, red, and yellow). the neutral block (e.g., “car” printed in black) consisted of nouns of similar lengths as the color words, presented in colored letters. these blocks are denoted as conditions. three measures were extracted: the reaction time (rt) in milliseconds for the incongruent, congruent, and neutral conditions. the rts for congruent and neutral conditions were used as the dependent measure for processing speed (the shorter the rt, the faster the processing speed). in the stroop paradigm, congruent and neutral words can be used as measures of processing speed, as they do not elicit any conflict or inhibition (e.g., tam, 2013). the rt for incongruent conditions denoted as “stroop inhibition,” can be seen as indicative of inhibition; when comparing incongruent with congruent conditions, the rt is typically higher for the incongruent condition (i.e., it represents a stroop inhibition effect). attention and self-control: for attention and self-control, we used the integrated visual and auditory continuous performance test (iva+plus). iva+plus is a computer-based test of attention and response control (sandford & turner, 2004a). in the iva+plus, two stimuli are presented simultaneously (the numbers “1” and “2”). there are 250 trials in each modality presented either on the computer screen or in headphones. the participants are required to respond only to target “1” and to inhibit their response to target “2”, irrespective of the presented modality. the frequencies of “1” and “2” vary across tests, being common or rare, with increasing risk of commission and omission errors, respectively. the iva+plus full-scale response quotient is a measure of an individual’s overall ability to make accurate responses. the scale also includes both visual and auditory modalities and is built upon separate scores of vigilance (measure of inattention, derived from two types of commission errors), focus (total variability of processing speed, derived from the variability of correct responses), and speed (attention processing problems in relation to slow discriminatory mental processing, derived from rts for correct responses). the full-scale attention quotient was used as a proxy of attention in the present study. the iva+plus full scale response quotient is a measure of an individual’s ability to regulate his or her responses and to respond appropriately; in the present study, this scale was used as a proxy of self-control. the scale includes both visual and auditory modalities and is built upon separate scores of prudency (measures of impulsivity and response inhibition, derived from omission errors), consistency (the ability to stay on task, derived from the general reliability and variability of rts), and stamina (identifies problems with sustaining attention and maintaining effort, derived from the rts when making correct responses during the first and last 200 trials). the full-scale response quotient was used as a proxy of self-control. higher scores are always indicative of better attention and self-control, respectively (“scoring the iva+plus,” 2016). procedure data collection the data were collected between october 2013 and may 2014. the wmc task and tests of inhibition and processing speed were performed with all participating pupils during the morning lecture. one week later, a continuous performance test measuring attention and self-control was administered the sub-sample, about two hours after lunch on three separate days. the procedure for administering the cpt task was identical for all participants. however, for the purposes of the present study, only the values from day one were used in the analyses. to facilitate comparisons, the entire data collection process was completed via computer; hence, the jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 651 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ same instruments were used and the tasks were therefore presented in the same structured way in all countries. before starting each test, the same instructions were given to all pupils. data collection for the cospan and stroop task was in sweden, finland and norway conducted in groups of 5-10 pupils. on iceland, special computer rooms with space for 20 pupils were used. for the iva+plus measure the data collection was in all countries conducted in groups of 3-5 pupils. the psychometric properties of each dependent variable is described below. co-span. the analyses of skewness and kurtosis revealed no problems with either. skewness was -0.90 (se = 0.90) and kurtosis 0.640 (se = 0.18). the dependent variable for wmc was the number of correct recalled letters. higher values were interpreted as better wmc. to control for that effort was allocated to the concurrent math tasks, the dependent variable “percentages math correct” was also analyzed. for percentages math correct, the skewness was -1.62 (se = 0.09) and kurtosis 4.60 (se = 0.18); they were, therefore, log transformed. following the transformation, the mean values were -0.69 (se = 0.09) and -0.82 (se = 0.18) for skewness and kurtosis, respectively. the analysis of percentages math correct was conducted on the transformed values. stroop. rt was measured in milliseconds and aggregated to the level of mean values for each pupil and condition. initial analyses revealed relative high skewness and kurtosis among the dependent variables. the skewness for the neutral, congruent, and incongruent conditions were between 2.07 and 3.38 (se = 0.09) and kurtosis between 9.24 and 27.30 (se = 0.18). after the log transformation, the mean values for skewness ranged from 0.56-0.69 (se = 0.09) and the mean value for kurtoses were between 0.69 and 1.34 (se = 0.18). the analyses were conducted on the transformed values. attention and self-control. the skewness and kurtosis analyses revealed that there were no problems with either. skewness for the full-scale attention quotient was -0.70 (se = 0.17) and 0.02 (se = 0.34) for kurtosis. the corresponding values for the full-scale response quotient were -0.74 (se = 0.17) and 0.64 (se = 0.34), respectively. the iva+plus full-scale attention quotient and the full-scale response quotient were used as the dependent variables. higher scores were interpreted as better attention and self-control. factor structure and factorial invariance in order to assess whether the same constructs were measured across countries and gender initial principal component analyses (pca) extracted the factor structure for all participants with regard to the tasks that all participants performed (wmc, math task, stroop neutral, congruent, incongruent). the pca analyses (spss) on the five dependent variables was conducted with oblimin rotation. this was followed by a factorial invariance analyses which evaluated whether the same factor structureand loading were present across countries and gender. factorial invariance was estimated through both configural and metric invariance using amos. the model fit for configural invariance (number of factors across countries and gender) was obtained by using the comparative fit index (cfi; bentler, 1990; hu & bentler, 1999), the tucker and lewis index (tli; tucker & lewis, 1973), and the root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea; browne & cudeck, 1992). according to bentler (1990), cfi and tli values greater than .90 are indicative of an acceptable fit. rmsea-values below .05 represent a good fit (byrne & campbell, 1999). to evaluate metric invariance (whether the same factor loadings were present across countries and gender) a model comparison between a fully constraint model and an unconstraint model was conducted. the effect of schooling on basic cognition 652 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measured verified that the samples were adequate for factor analyses (.77) and that bartlett test was significant. a kmo value above .6 is considered to be a minimum, and a significant result (p < .05) on bartlett´s test is needed for data to be suitable for factor analysis (field, 2013). the pca extracted two factors with an eigenvalue above 1 explaining 75.13% of the variation was extracted. table 2 shows the rotated factor loading. table 2 factor loading for exploratory factor analysis with oblimin rotation dependent variables factor 1 factor 2 stroop congruent .94 stroop incongruent .94 stroop neutral .93 math percent correct .78 co-span .75 note. factor loadings below .30 are suppressed. the analysis of configural invariance across countries and gender displayed a cfi of .999, tli of .998 and rmsea of .08. the analyses of metric invariance showed that chi-square difference was nonsignificant, p = .27. altogether, indicating a good fit with regard to both configural and metric invariance across countries and gender. these analyses were not conducted on measures of attention and self-control. those measures were, as pointed out, obtained on a subsample and therefore too small to be used in an evaluation of factor structure. ethics written informed consent was obtained from all participating parents/caregivers before the pupils entered the promeal-study. in finland, informed consent was also collected from the pupils. in all countries, the pupils were able to deny participation even if parents/caregivers had consented participation. the study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the helsinki declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008, and all procedures involving human subjects were approved by the ethical committee of the university of turku in finland, the national bioethics committee (56363); the icelandic data protection authority (vsn13-088) in iceland; the data protection official for research in norway; and the regional research ethics review board, the faculty of medicine, umeå university, in sweden (2013-212-31o). statistical analyses since the sample size differed depending on the task, and in order to assess the effects associated with the specific aforementioned constructs, we ran separate analyses of variance (anova) with countries and gender serving as between-subjects variables, while the tasks targeting each construct separately served as the dependent variables. for each anova, partial eta square (η2 p) was reported as a measure of effect size. the omnibus tests of each dependent variable were followed by bonferroni’s adjusted post hoc tests at a .05 level jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 653 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results the results comparing countries are presented according to the performed tasks, co-span, stroop (congruent, incongruent and neutral), and iva+plus (attention and response control) and interpreted in terms of corresponding constructs. table 3, 4 and 5 show the mean values and standard deviations for all the dependent variables and are based on non-transformed values. included are also the mean value range across individual schools. initial t-tests comparing parents’ level of education (university degree with no university degree) revealed no effect of education on any of the dependent measures, all p > .05. co-span: an anova with countries and gender serving as the between-subjects factors and co-span scores acting as the dependent variable revealed a significant effect of country, f(3,685) = 9.4 p < .001, η2 p = 0.04. however, no effect of gender, f(1,685) = 0.71, p = .40, η2 p = 0.001, and no interaction effect between gender and country, f(3,685) = 1.13, p = .34, η2 p = 0.005, were found. the post hoc tests confirmed that finnish pupils outperformed pupils from all other countries. no other comparisons differed significantly (table 3). the analysis shows that finnish pupils as a group scored higher than pupils from all other countries on a measure of wmc. table 3 average measures and standard deviations of co-span and math tasks across countries, gender and range measures group n task (correct response in ms) co-span co-span math (percent) m sd range m sd range finland boys 83 4.40 1.08 90.18 10.03 girls 104 4.32 1.16 89.38 8.75 total 187 4.35 1.12 3.94-4.58 89.74 9.33 87.19-92.46 sweden boys 71 3.72 1.16 91.42 7.12 girls 77 3.73 1.15 89.96 9.92 total 148 3.72 1.15 3.6-4.10 90.66 8.69 87.47-94.32 norway boys 87 4.17 1.14 89.26 8.04 girls 107 3.86 1.14 89.53 9.72 total 194 4.00 1.25 3.73-4.42 89.41 8.98 85.95-91.49 iceland boys 82 3.90 0.93 90.20 8.12 girls 82 4.00 1.06 90.21 8.93 total 164 3.95 1.00 3.57-4.34 90.21 8.51 88.74-91.53 note. co-span = child operation span task, a measure of complex working memory. co-span math = operation span, the concurrent math task in percent correct response. range = mean value range across individual schools. with regard to the concurrent arithmetic tasks, there were no differences between countries, f(3,685) = 0.65, p = .58, η2 p = 0.003, or gender, f(1,685) = 0.52, p = .47, η2 p = 0.001, nor were there any interaction effects between gender and country, f(3,685) = 0.32, p = .81, η2 p = 0.001. only 3.5 percent of the participants scored below 70% math correct, and those were evenly distributed across countries and gender. hence, the cognitive the effect of schooling on basic cognition 654 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ efforts spent by the pupils during the concurrent tasks were equal across all four countries and for both genders. stroop: the mean rts for neutral, congruent and incongruent show that icelandic and finnish pupils responded faster than norwegian and swedish pupils; boys were faster than girls. separate anovas with countries and gender as the between-subjects factors revealed main effects of countries for neutral words, f(3,724) = 13.30, p < .001, η2 p = 0.5, and congruent words, f(3,724) = 15.76, p < .001, η2 p = 0.06. the effect of gender was also significant across neutral and congruent conditions, with shorter rts for boys, as well as for neutral, f(1,724) = 8.14, p = .004, η2 p = 0.01, and congruent words, f(1,724) = 11.15, p = .001, η2 p = 0.02. however, there was no country × gender interaction for neutral or congruent conditions, f(3,724) = 2.00, p = .11, η2 p = 0.008, f(3,724) = 0.65, p = .58, η2 p = 0.003, respectively. post hoc analyses confirmed that finnish and icelandic pupils had significantly shorter rts than swedish and norwegian pupils. no other comparisons were significant (table 4). these response differences indicate higher processing speed fore icelandic and finnish pupils compared to norwegian and swedish pupils and higher processing speed for boys compared to girls. table 4 average measures with standard deviations (milliseconds) of stroop tasks across countries, gender and range measures group n task (reaction time) stroop neutral stroop congruent stroop in-congruent m sd range m sd range m sd range finland boys 86 1379 474 1255 326 1399 430 girls 105 1488 419 1368 331 1565 440 total 191 1439 446 1227-1527 1317 332 1113-1379 1490 442 1348-1645 sweden boys 78 1627 728 1531 694 1645 826 girls 86 1660 868 1567 505 1692 562 total 164 1664 802 1282-1921 1550 601 1221-1737 1669 698 1270-2030 norway boys 90 1484 522 1439 484 1504 503 girls 110 1713 525 1609 532 1748 571 total 200 1610 534 1473-1807 1532 516 1358-1735 1638 554 1440-1888 iceland boys 88 1338 439 1262 376 1344 399 girls 90 1336 496 1336 498 1433 482 total 178 1350 468 1196-1720 1299 443 1116-1640 1398 444 1196-1806 note. stroop neutral = measure of processing speed. stroop, congruent = measure of processing speed. stroop incongruent = measure of inhibition. range = mean value range across individual schools. for the incongruent conditions of the stroop task, there was a significant effect of country, f(3,724) = 11.80, p < .001, η2 p = 0.05, and gender, f(1,724) = 17.92, p < .001, η2 p = 0.02, with boys responding faster than girls. however, there was no country × gender interaction, f(3,724) = 0.99, p = .40, η2 p = 0.004. post hoc analysis confirmed that icelandic and finnish pupils had significantly shorter rts than swedish and norwegian pupils. jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 655 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ no other comparisons were significant. the shorter response time indicates a better ability to inhibit a prepotent response among icelandic and finnish pupils compared to swedish and norwegian pupils and that boys were better than girls. iva+plus: there was no main effect of country for the iva+plus full-scale attention quotient, f(3,186) = 1.91, p = .13, η2 p = 0.03. the analysis of gender revealed a significant effect, f(1,186) = 4.72, p = .03, η2 p = 0.03, with girls outperforming boys. no country × gender interactions was found, f(3,186) = 1.20, p = .31, η2 p = 0.02. the analysis of the iva+plus full-scale response-control attention quotients revealed a tendency of significant effects of country, f(3,186) = 2.61, p = .05, η2 p = 0.04, with pupils from finland and iceland outperforming pupils from sweden and norway. the analysis of gender was significant, f(1,186) = 9.70, p = .002, η2 p = 0.05, with girls outperforming boys. however, no country × gender interactions was found, f(3,186) = 0.55, p = .65, η2 p = 0.009 (table 5). these results indicate that that finnish and icelandic pupils had better self-control than swedish and norwegian pupils and that girls’ self-control and attention was better than boys’, irrespectively of country. table 5 average measures with standard deviations of iva+plus across countries and gender group n task (correct response) iva+plus; attention iva+plus; response m sd range m sd range finland boys 39 83.54 20.45 82.85 20.47 girls 45 96.17 16.17 89.89 18.07 total 84 90.38 19.22 84.00-98.93 86.62 19.43 76.17-99.14 sweden boys 18 81.67 22.10 71.28 18.62 girls 22 85.23 24.70 81.32 24.18 total 40 83.63 23.34 67.00-108.00 76.80 22.17 65.20-94.60 norway boys 8 83.63 18.71 74.00 24.72 girls 19 93.89 20.72 91.05 12.20 total 27 90.85 20.36 86.00 18.81 80.60-91.00 iceland boys 22 93.27 14.73 83.09 21.48 girls 21 93.76 19.64 88.00 15.02 total 43 93.51 17.10 77.75-106.75 86.49 18.56 69.50-90.40 note. iva+plus attention = measure of attention control. iva+plus response = measure of response control. range = mean value range across individual schools. table 6 summarizes the differences between countries and gender. note that higher co-span, math tasks, iva +plus (full scaleattention and response control) are regarded as better performance. while shorter response time for stroop tasks (neutral, congruent, incongruent) are regarded as better performance. the effect of schooling on basic cognition 656 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 comparing countries and gender co-span (complex working memory task) finland > sweden & iceland & norway*** boys = girls math task (concurrent working memory task) finland=sweden=iceland=norway boys = girls stroop neutral (processing speed) finland & iceland > sweden & norway*** boys > girls** stroop congruent (processing speed) finland & iceland > sweden & norway*** boys > girls** stroop incongruent (inhibition) finland & iceland > sweden & norway*** boys > girls** iva+plus full scale attention attention) finland=sweden=iceland=norway ns. boys < girls* iva+plus full scale response control (response control) finland & iceland > sweden & norway† boys < girls** †p = .05. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the present study set out to investigate the potential differences between 10-11-year-old pupils from finland, sweden, norway and iceland, with regard to their basic cognitive capacities. the 10-11-year-old pupils from iceland and norway were attending the 5th grade, and the swedish and finnish pupils were in 4th grade. we expected that 5th-grade pupils from norway and iceland should outperform 4th grade pupils from finland and sweden, as they were in the same age range (10-11 years) but had attended school for one year longer; hence a schooling effect based on more schooldays experience. initial factor analyses indicate that the measures can be considered as invariant across countries and gender and thus valid for the statistical analyses. the results from the present study showed that finnish 4th grade pupils never were outperformed on any of the dependent variables. in addition, the analyses of gender differences did reveal that there was no genderrelated difference with regard to co-span. for neutral and congruent stroop conditions, the boys were faster. however, on the other hand, girls performed better on the iva+plus measures. the same pattern was also seen with regard to the iva+plus measure of response control. the between countries differences were unexpected, especially the difference between finland, sweden and norway. although the results do not rule out socioeconomic factors, it seems unlikely that the obtained differences are caused by socioeconomic differences among the participating countries, considering the homogeneity among the nordic countries (berggren & trägårdh, 2012). below each construct is addressed separately and discussed with respect to potential quality differences among schools in the nordic countries as reflected in the pirls and timms evaluations. jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 657 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ working memory capacity. in the present study, wmc was measured by the co-span task, in which participants had to process a mathematical task while simultaneously retaining letters in their short-term memory. the analyses showed that finnish pupils scored higher than pupils from all other countries. when measuring wmc using complex working memory tasks, it is important that the participants process the concurrent task while remembering the stimuli intended to measure wmc. if the participants choose to ignore the concurrent tasks, the complex working memory tasks turn into a simple span task that only provides a measure of short-term memory capacity. however, only 3.5% of the participants scored below 70% math correctly, and those were evenly distributed across countries and gender. indicating that they allocated cognitive resources for the concurrent tasks. in addition, there was no difference in performance between countries for the concurrent arithmetic tasks; the average scores were almost exactly the same. processing speed. processing speed was measured using the neutral and congruent conditions of the stroop task. overall, it was found that finnish 4th and icelandic 5th grade pupils had shorter rts than norwegian 5th and swedish 4th grade pupils. these results indicate that finnish and icelandic pupils processed information faster. inhibition. in a stroop incongruent condition, the task is to name the ink color when the word does not correspond to that color (the word “red” printed in “blue”). the prepotent response is to read the word (i.e., red). hence, to be successful, the pupil has to inhibit the prepotent response to read the word and instead select the color “blue”, a so-called incongruent stroop task. this is a well-known phenomenon and is frequently used as a measure of inhibition. the results indicate that the differences seen in the incongruent conditions reflect differences in one’s ability to inhibit, as finnish 4th grade and icelandic 5th grade pupils outperformed swedish (4th grade) and norwegian (5th grade) pupils. attention and self-regulation. the iva+plus is a highly demanding (mind-numbing) task; in the present study, it was used to extract measures of attention and self-control. the full-scale attention control quotation was viewed as a measure of one’s overall ability to make a correct response. the full-scale response control quotation scale was viewed as a measure of an individual’s ability to regulate his or her responses, thus enabling him or her to respond appropriately. in the present study, these measures were seen as indicative of attention and self-control, respectively. the results showed that icelandic 5th and finnish 4th grade pupils outperformed swedish 4th and norwegian 5th grade pupils with regard to self-control. there was no main effect for attention. although self-control is not a“pure” cognitive task, it is closely related to the constructs of working memory and processing speed (hofmann et al., 2012). gender differences. the analyses of gender differences revealed no difference with regard to wmc, which is in line with previous research (brocki & bohlin, 2004). however, for speed of information processing (stroop neutral and congruent), the boys were faster – a result that could indicate that boys processed information faster than girls. it is also possible that the effect of processing speed is associated with one’s reading/decoding ability. however, in general, girls are better at tasks involving reading (mullis, martin, foy, & drucker, 2012), and decoding skills are usually mastered around the 4th grade for both boys and girls (clinton et al., 2014). an alternative explanation for this difference is that boys have faster rts on computer-based tasks and not on the speed of information processing per se. in fact, when using a computer-based task, boys have been found to be faster than girls (see roivainen, 2011, for a review). the effect of schooling on basic cognition 658 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the results, which indicated that girls had better response and attention control than boys, could be related to attention ability and the ability to engage in self-control; this may be a function of maturity. however, it could also be attributed to the finding that boys respond faster and thus produce more commission errors when being administered the iva+plus test (sandford & turner, 2004a). we did expect that one year extra in school would have some effect on cognition and therefore differentiate 5th grades from 4th grade pupils, hence providing additional support for the hypothesis of schooling effects. to our surprise pupils from finland, attending 4th grade was not, on any measure, outperformed by pupils attending 5th grade (iceland & norway). it is possible that the differences found between these nordic countries originate in differences in cognition established already when pupils begin school. however, as pointed out above, if considering socioeconomic indicators such as parents’ educational level, the results found in the present study does not support such an interpretation (especially the difference between finnish, swedish and norwegian pupils). in addition, fewer parents of finnish pupils had a university degree compared to swedish and norwegian parents. a potential explanation is, of course, the time in school and the economic spending on schools in each country. however, as pointed out above, finnish pupils spent the least amount of compulsory instruction time in primary and lower education and has in relation to sweden, norway and iceland the lowest public expenditure on primary education (oecd, 2016). could it be that the results reflect quality differences in the schooling offered in the different nordic countries? most notably between finland and the other nordic countries. it is well known that the constructs investigated in the present study are closely related to and predictive of demanding subjects such as reading, math, and science. working memory is perhaps the most frequently investigated cognitive construct in that respect. the evidence of wmc with regard to performance on basic school subjects such as reading (swanson, 2003; swanson & howell, 2001), mathematics (andersson & lyxell, 2007; clark et al., 2014), learning to spell (ormrod & cochran, 1988), and reasoning (kyllonen & christal, 1990) is extensive. the progress of children’s wmc, including executive function, also supports the development of self-control and, ultimately, selfregulation. hence, children become increasingly self-directed, advancing their ability to achieve goals autonomously as a function of a developing working memory. in addition, self-control predicts academic performance over and above intelligence (duckworth, quinn, & tsukayama, 2012). with this in mind it is interesting to discuss the results in relation to the progress in pirls and timss evaluations from the last few years (see mullis, martin, foy, & arora, 2012 and mullis, martin, foy, & drucker, 2012, for an overview). one emphasis in the discussions following the pirls and timss reports has been on the performance on reading and math among swedish and norwegian 4th-grade pupils, especially in comparisons to finnish pupils (iceland did not participate in pirls and timms). given the assumption that the differences found in pirls and timms are valid and are not caused by other parameters, such as motivational factors (eklöf, 2007), a question to ask is whether the effects in the present study reflect the differences found in the pirls and timss evaluations of 4th-grade pupils. schooling effects that are not based on more years in school, but on quality differences between countries that are manifested in the pirls and timss evaluations and lead to developmental differences in cognition by the 4th grade. this reasoning is of course highly speculative, as we did not have any data from pirls or timms that could be used as a comparison. however, this conclusion seems feasible considering studies showing that cognitive training can provide both behavior jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 659 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and brain activation differences within a time frame of only five weeks (dahlin, neely, larsson, bäckman, & nyberg, 2008). strengths and limitations. the relatively large sample size, the standardized and computerized tasks, trained researchers collecting data and the fact that the tasks were not part of the curriculums has to be considered as strengths. there are, however, some limitations. although we have data from oecd (oecd, 2016) on between country differences with regard to organizational prerequisites and learning environments, there are probably differences that are not accounted for. pupil’s compliance when taking the tests is another potential limitation. it is possible that finnish pupils were more compliant in taking the test, simply doing as they were instructed without fuss. conversely, being compliant with instructions can also reflect one’s ability to maintain focus, and this might thus be indicative of attention and self-control abilities. although, the measures of attention and selfcontrol were underpowered, the results pointed in the same direction as the other analyses. it is therefore possible that the trend toward significance with respect to the analyses of response control underestimated the real effect; hence, there may be a risk for a type ii error. the present study was not longitudinal, nor did we measure the pupils when they entered school. to investigate this, a longitudinal design measuring cognitive functioning across time is needed, and these findings should be measured against one’s progress in math, science, and reading; however, this was not within the scope of the present study. another limitation is that the sampling was conducted in, or in close proximity to, university cities. as a consequence, the proportion of academic parents was relative high, which narrows the external validity. however, it is likely that the differences found in this study would be maintained or even increase in a more heterogeneous sample. the limitations considered, it is important that future studies focus on quality indicators that might differ between the nordic countries. these quality indicators should include cognitive demanding tasks such as math, reading and science. they should also include other tasks that facilitate self-control/regulation. in this context, it is worth to mention blair, gamson, thorne, and baker’s (2005) argument that math education in early school years is a central mechanism through which schooling influences one’s fluid abilities. “changes in aspects of experience associated with the utilization and repeated practice of prefrontally based fluid cognitive skills that begin relatively early in life are likely to lead to relatively enduring changes in performance on measures of fluid intelligence” (p. 97). conclusions the results in the present study did not support the hypothesis that an additional year in school will affect basic cognition, though an effect may be present within countries. an interesting finding was that pupils from finland attending 4th grade were not, on any measure, outperformed by pupils attending 5th grade (iceland & norway). interesting aspects to pursue in future studies are to investigate whether there are cognitive differences among children in these four nordic countries already at the beginning of formal school and longitudinally investigate whether there are specific quality indicators in school that subsequently affect pupils’ cognitive abilities. a reasonable starting point should be to evaluate those cognitive abilities known to be predictive of school attainments, such as math and reading, as well as to assess the teaching and pedagogical approaches associated with those subjects. the effect of schooling on basic cognition 660 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) pirls: progress in international reading literacy study (https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/) ii) timss: trends in international mathematics and science study (https://timssandpirls.bc.edu/) funding the study was funded by nordforsk (grant number 54761) and the turku university foundation. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to all of the pupils, parents/caregivers, and participating schools in the study. references andersson, u., & lyxell, b. 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(2003). wechsler intelligence scale for children-wisc-iv. san antonio, tx, usa: psychological corporation. about the authors bert jonsson is an associate professor in psychology. he is investigating fundamental questions arising in educational science and pertaining to the cognitive neuroscience of children’s learning. maria waling is an associate professor in food and nutrition. her research has a focus on children’s food habits, in particular different aspects of school meals e.g., school meals effect on cognitive function. anna s olafsdottir is a professor in human nutrition. her primary research area is health promotion, obesity treatment and prevention among children and adolescents. hanna lagström has a broad background in nutrition, with specific training to study the relations between diet, nutrition and health as well as expertise in longitudinal research. hege wergedahl is a professor in public health. her research focuses on healthy eating and nutrition in school and kindergartens. cecilia olsson is an associate professor in food and nutrition. her research has a focus on food and meals among children in relation to different aspects, e.g., health and learning. eldbjørg fossgard is an associate professor in food and health. she is investigating cultural and social aspects of food and meal, both in a family and in an institutional context. asle holthe is an associate professor in food and health. he is investigating implementation of healthy eating in schools and kindergartens, and pedagogical practices. sanna talvia holds a phd with educational background in education and nutrition. she is interested in research of children’s health, nutrition and nutrition education. jonsson, waling, olafsdottir et al. 665 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 http://doi.org/10.1155/2013/212767 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf02291170 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2014.01.003 http://doi.org/10.3758/bf03192720 http://doi.org/10.3402/fnr.v60.30468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ingibjorg gunnarsdottir is a professor of human nutrition. her primary research area is nutrition and growth during pregnancy, infancy and childhood. agneta hörnell is a professor in food and nutrition. her research interests include different aspects of food and health; mainly focused on children. the effect of schooling on basic cognition 666 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 645–666 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1339 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the effect of schooling on basic cognition (introduction) hypothesis background methods participants measures of cognitive abilities procedure factor structure and factorial invariance ethics statistical analyses results discussion conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors how does mentoring contribute to gen y employees’ intention to stay? an indian perspective research reports how does mentoring contribute to gen y employees’ intention to stay? an indian perspective mohammad faraz naim* a, usha lenka a [a] department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee, india. abstract the present study is aimed at investigating the impact of mentoring on intention to stay of gen y employees working in indian it industry. also, the mediating roles of perceived organization support and affective commitment are examined. primary data were collected from a sample of 314 gen y employees (born between 1980-2000) from it industry in delhi, ncr india. data analysis was carried out using amos and spss to test sequential mediation. findings reveal that mentoring has a direct influence on intention to stay of gen y employees and perceived organization support and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between the two. this study contributes to the literature on mentoring, perceived organization support, affective commitment, and intention to stay. keywords: gen y, mentoring, perceived organization support, affective commitment, intention to stay, retention europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 received: 2016-09-20. accepted: 2017-02-28. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; gkorezis panagiotis, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece *corresponding author at: department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee, 247667, uttarakhand, india. e-mail: mfaraznaim@yahoo.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there has been a plethora of research done in the area of employee retention. for the last few decades, it has become the focal point of attention for scholars and practitioners alike. more so, in the present hypercompetitive business landscape, characterized by high talent mobility and diverse workforce, employee retention presents a serious challenge. the entry of gen y employees has added to the multi-generational nature of workforce. as a result, three different generations of employees namely baby boomers (1946-1960), gen x (1961-1980) and gen y (1981-2000) are working together. however, each generation exhibits a different set of work values, preferences, and characteristics (twenge, campbell, & freeman, 2012). in particular, gen y is the most different and harbors high expectations from the employer. research demonstrates that gen y employees are viewed as ‘high maintenance generation’ as they seek inclusive style of management, participative decision-making, innovation support, and challenging work (martin, 2005). they harbor a sense of immediacy and entitlement, manifested as a desire for quick promotion and immediate performance feedback (lowe, levitt, & wilson, 2008). the rationale for focusing on gen y employees is marked by their ever increasing representation in the workforce and the imminent retirement of baby boomers. india is one of the youngest countries of the world, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ propelled by its gen y cohort standing at 425 million, which is roughly one-third of india’s entire workforce, and estimated to rise to 45-50 per cent by 2020 (rajendram, 2013). further, gen y employees are identified as jobhoppers, who frequently change jobs to satisfy their self-esteem and self-actualization needs. recent research indicates that among a third of companies surveyed, roughly 15 per cent gen y employees have left their employers within one year (schawbel, 2013). in particular, it professionals have been found to exhibit a strong tendency to leave the organizations (korunka, hoonakker, & carayon, 2008). this has resulted in an immediate need to design effective retention strategy, keeping in mind gen y employees’ needs and preferences. gen y employees are new to workplace and lack work-experience. hence, they display high growth need, learning-orientation, and a desire to acquire work-related knowledge and competencies. consequently, they crave continuous learning and prefer organizations that provide a nurturing environment to support their continuous development (holt, marques, & way, 2012; terjesen, vinnicombe, & freeman, 2007). this is primarily to upgrade their skills to excel in their professional career and stay employable in volatile talent market. therefore, recognizing the developmental needs of gen y is critical to effectively manage this generation (hutchinson, brown, & longworth, 2012; lub, nije bijvank, matthijs bal, blomme, & schalk, 2012). however, among the various developmental interventions such as formal training sessions, workshops, webinars, job rotation, tuition reimbursements; mentoring is the most cost-effective intervention with significant benefits. importantly, mentoring as a developmental intervention appeals highly to gen y employees, as they continuously seek learning, feedback, and informational and emotional support. therefore, mentoring is used as a holistic hr intervention to facilitate personal and professional development, which by and large, is a top concern for gen y (rhodes, 2009). moreover, the extant literature supports that mentoring is effective for employees that display personality attributes of higher need for achievement and developmental-orientation (godshalk & sosik, 2003). with this objective, this empirical article investigates the impact of mentoring on intention to stay of gen y employees. in accordance with idiosyncratic work-related values and preferences and grounded on psychological-contract theory and social exchange perspective, we incorporated mentoring to foster gen y employees’ perceived organizational support levels, leading to affective commitment and finally, resulting in an intention to stay forth. importantly, this paper addresses the calls for empirical research to test the relevance of mentoring as a best practice to develop gen y (hutchinson et al., 2012; stahno & yang, 2014). the major contribution of this paper is that we contribute to the theoretical underpinning of mentoring research from a generational perspective. in addition, this is one of the first indian studies to explore mentoring in context of retention of working gen y population. further, there have been claims to explore the underlying mechanism that explains the influence of mentoring on employee behavioral outcomes (hezlett & gibson, 2007). in this view, this is the first study to theoretically propose and empirically investigate a holistic model that links mentoring theory with perceived organizational support and affective commitment for the retention of gen y employees. this paper is structured as follows: the next section highlights literature on mentoring and then hypotheses development. it is followed by research methodology section, then discussion of the results and major implications. thereafter, the article concludes with the limitations and conclusion sections. naim & lenka 315 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ theory and hypotheses development mentoring mentoring has its roots in greek mythology, wherein the poem, the odyssey firstly reported the term ‘mentor’. however, kram (1985) pioneered the notion of mentoring in scholarly literature. she defined it as “…a relationship between a young adult and an older, more experienced adult that helps the younger individual learn to navigate in the adult world and the world of work” (pp. 2). mentoring is a process where a more experienced member of the organization called mentor, takes responsibility for and actively participates in the systematic development of the skills and abilities of a less experienced member of the organization called mentee (eby et al., 2013). while, a mentor is someone who guides and supports mentee (who is lesserexperienced) achieve personal and professional learning (johnson & ridley, 2015). kram (1985) pioneered the two-dimensional conceptualization of mentoring, including vocational (career function) and psychosocial (social support function). the career function encompasses providing challenging assignments, protection, exposure, and visibility; while the psychosocial function offers counseling, acceptance, confirmation, and friendship. in essence the primary objective of mentoring is to assist in personal and professional development of the mentee by sharing critical business knowledge, experience, and organizational perspectives (berezuik, 2010; eby et al., 2013). as such, mentoring facilitates career development by helping the mentee in setting career goals, providing clarity on different aspects such as job expectations, importance of one’s role in the achievement of larger organizational goals, and offer guidance on how to achieve career advancement within the organization (eller, lev, & feurer, 2014). also, mentoring promotes socio-emotional and cognitive development by providing satisfying relationships, inculcating a perception of self-efficacy, and self-awareness (salami, 2010; st-jean & audet, 2012). over the years mentoring has been associated with numerous benefits encompassing mentee-related benefits, mentor-related benefits, and organizational benefits. the mentee-related benefits include increased productivity and promotions, career development, higher career satisfaction, commitment, and socialization and lower turnover intentions (decastro, griffith, ubel, stewart, & jagsi, 2014; lankau & scandura, 2002; payne & huffman, 2005). the mentor-related benefits are greater sense of personal satisfaction and mental stimulation achieved through guiding the development of young mentees. the organizational benefits include reduced withdrawal behavior and a positive link with justice perceptions and performance (eller, lev, & feurer, 2014; kim, im, & hwang, 2015; lankau & scandura, 2002). however, till date research is scarce on empirical examination of the impact of mentoring on employees’ intention to stay. against this backdrop, the main objective of this research is therefore to investigate the influence of mentoring on gen y employees’ intention to stay. relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay mentoring is a learning intervention comprising of an experienced mentor and a novice mentee. it promotes personal and professional development of mentees by building their knowledge, attitude, skills, and competencies. this is achieved by sharing of organizational insights, expanding mentee networks, assisting in goal setting, and providing developmental feedback (berezuik, 2010; eller et al., 2014; johnson & ridley, 2015). in addition, mentors provide sponsorship, coaching, protection, exposure, counseling, friendship, and appraisal to facilitate competency development in mentees (kram, 1985; naim & lenka, 2017a). importantly, indian gen y wants to grow, therefore seeks developmental intervention such as mentoring at workplace. as per a recent study, 65% indian gen y consider training and growth opportunities to be most important retention mentoring, gen y intention to stay 316 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor; while 89.6% believed training acts as a reason to stay with the organization (behrens, 2014; tjinsite, 2012). another study points out that talent and leadership development avenues offered by organizations have a positive link with employee’ intention to stay and affective commitment mediates this relationship (chamimalaeb & garavan, 2013). certainly, mentoring is the ideal intervention to address career and psychological needs of gen y employees, as it improves personal and professional development of mentees, thereby creating a positive work experience (fishman, 2016). this is consistent with affective events theory, which states that affective work events result in affective reactions, which in turn, shape employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. in this vein, development resulted from mentoring is also an affective experience, which generate affective reactions in the form of affective commitment and then intention to stay forth with the current organization (weiss & cropanzano, 1996). in addition, one of the main characteristics of gen y members is relationship ethic i.e. they strongly value relationships with supervisors and peers. they have a preference for strong social support system via peers and supervisor, and desire a flat hierarchy where they have access to senior leadership. they tend to favor an inclusive style of management; and prefer supportive leaders who offer emotional support, creative freedom, individualized attention, flexibility, and feedback (fishman, 2016; lowe, levitt, & wilson, 2008; ng, lyons, & schweitzer, 2017; twenge et al., 2012). this is perhaps the product of their pampered upbringing where they are brought up with an empowered parenting style and received continuous guidance and direction at home and school. further, this is in accordance with a growing body of mentoring literature (e.g. fleig-palmer & rathert, 2015; lankau & scandura, 2002; pop, swanepoel, & barkhuizen, 2013) that indicated a positive effect of mentoring on employee retention. in particular, mentoring relationship with immediate supervisor has been been linked to lower turnover intentions as supervisory mentors reduce stress, workload, and provide emotional and social support (firth, mellor, moore, & loquet, 2004; kim et al., 2015). likewise, a longitudinal study involving 1000 army professionals revealed that mentoring has a negative effect on turnover intentions, mediated by affective commitment (payne & huffman, 2005). therefore, we assume that mentoring has a positive relationship with gen y employees’ intention to stay. thus, we hypothesize thath1: mentoring is positively related to gen y employees’ intention to stay. relationship between mentoring and perceived organizational support mentors provide access to social networks resulting in relationship building with coworkers and superiors, and access to internal experts, which otherwise may not be possible. unsurprisingly, mentoring provides an outlet for mentees to express their opinions and freely discuss their problems with mentors and receive expert advice. in the process, it creates a psychologically safe environment of dialogue, feedback, and support. importantly, mentoring offers role-modeling function that enables mentees to learn the best ways to perform work. this is consistent with social learning theory, which posits that people learn by observing the behavior of others (particularly role-models) in a process called observational or vicarious learning (bandura, 1978). all this satisfies social, relational, and psychological needs of new hires, thereby facilitating their socialization. therefore, mentoring influences employees’ development as well as satisfies their higher order psychological naim & lenka 317 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ needs of socialization and self-actualization. importantly, gen y employees are new entrants to workplace and hence their socialization is of paramount importance. based on the theoretical underpinnings of social exchange theory (set), perceived organizational support (pos) is the key mechanism that evokes employee positive outcome including intention to stay. pos indicates a general perception that one's organization offers care and concern towards his/her development and well‐ being (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002). according to set social relationships are emerged, maintained, or terminated on the basis of the perceived cost-benefit analysis. employees follow the norm of reciprocity by exhibiting positive behavior of staying forth, as a response to the positive treatment received from their organization (emerson, 1976). in this view, higher order need satisfaction achieved through developmental and socialization support contributes to pos. stated differently, through its career, psychosocial, and role-modeling functions, mentoring facilitates professional and personal developmental and fuels relationship building and socialization. this in turn, satisfies developmental and self-actualization needs of gen y employees, and engenders a sense of realization that organization values them and is concerned for their development, which ultimately contributes to pos. thus, we hypothesize thath2: mentoring is positively related to perceived organizational support (pos) mediating role of perceived organizational support perceived organizational support (pos) represents employees’ belief concerning the degree to which an organization values their contribution and care for development (eisenberger, huntington, hutchison, & sowa, 1986). capitalizing on set, employees reciprocate the perceived support, by improving their performances and commitment towards the organization. in this view, the perception of organizational support predicts employees’ perceptions of the quality of exchange relationships with their organizations, which in turn, influence employees’ work attitudes and behaviors. precisely, the higher levels of pos are found to be associated with higher motivation, job satisfaction, discretionary efforts, performance, and strong emotional attachment and sense of belonging with the organization (eisenberger, stinglhamber, vandenberghe, sucharski, & rhoades, 2002; islam, ahmad, ali, ahmed, & bowra, 2013; park et al., 2016). there is a growing body of literature, which reveals that higher level of pos is positively related to employees’ intention to stay forth with the current organization (cao, hirschi, & deller, 2014; eisenberger et al., 2002; liu, yang, yang, & liu, 2015; nasyira, othman, & ghazali, 2014) likewise, rhoades and eisenberger (2002) in their meta-analysis have shown that increase in pos is significantly linked with higher likelihood to stay in the organization. from gen y employees’ perspective, who are relatively inexperienced and need socialization to acclimatize in the organization, it is logical to assume that the available organizational support (in the form of mentoring relationships) would have a positive effect on social exchanges with the employing organization. this perception of organizational support increases their affective attachment to the organization, and hence there is a higher likelihood of strong urge to stay forth with the current organization. in other words, mentees with an access to mentoring perceive higher level of organizational support and feel more emotionally attached and exhibit a greater urge to stay forth than to those without an access to mentoring relationship. therefore, we hypothesize thath3: perceived organizational support (pos0 is positively related to gen y employees’ intention to stay. h4: perceived organizational support (pos) has a mediating effect on the relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay. mentoring, gen y intention to stay 318 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between mentoring and affective commitment one of the primary goals of any mentoring program is to achieve mentee personal and professional development (kram & isabella, 1985). by consistent sharing of insights, experiences, effective practices, and information on mishaps or failures; mentors foster social, functional, and personal competency development (naim & lenka, 2017a). in particular, social interactions between mentor and mentee involve dialogue and inquiry, and knowledge interflow resulting in informal learning opportunities for gen y to expand their competencies such as leadership, emotional self-control, internal locus of control, self-efficacy, self-confidence, achievement motivation, personal goals, decision making, risk-taking, networking, negotiation, persuasion, technical know-how, opportunity identification, initiative taking and collaborative potential. further, knowledge transfer occurring in mentoring facilitates competency development as gen y mentees learn and acquire new knowledge (naim & lenka, 2017a). in this view, mentoring focuses on social exchanges between mentor and mentee, and offer coaching, feedback, challenging assignments, exposure, and visibility to create opportunities for organization-wide learning. the extant research establishes a positive link of mentoring with organizational learning and knowledge sharing (scandura et al., 1996; singh, bains, & vinnicombe, 2002). past literature reveals that organizational development initiatives signal an organization’s commitment towards employees hence positively impact employee satisfaction, commitment, and retention (joarder, sharif, & ahmmed, 2011). organizations offering developmental interventions including mentoring enhance employees’ competencies and earn a sense of emotional bonding manifested as affective commitment (samuel & chipunza, 2009). likewise, skill development of employees is found to be positively related to affective commitment (hay, 2002). this factor is most relevant to gen y employees who harbor an ambition to succeed and have learning goal orientation; hence they are more likely to participate in developmental initiatives (godshalk & sosik, 2003). unsurprisingly, literature provides empirical and theoretical support on the positive relationship between mentoring and employee outcomes of increased job involvement, affective commitment, job satisfaction, and citizenship behavior (payne & huffman, 2005). similar evidence is also found in an it-industry specific study (reid, allen, riemenschneider, & armstrong, 2008). therefore, in the present context, it is rational to assume a positive relationship between mentoring and affective commitment. thus we hypothesize thath5: mentoring is positively related to affective commitment. mediating role of affective commitment affective commitment is denned as "an affective or emotional attachment to the organization such that the strongly committed individual identifies with, is involved in, and enjoys membership in, the organization" (allen & meyer, 1990, pp. 2). it acts as a binding force and affectively committed employees want to remain employed with the same organization (meyer et al., 2012). it is one of the widely studied constructs in positive organizational psychology. the significance of affective commitment in the present context has theoretical underpinnings of organizational support theory, which asserts that employees evaluate the care, concern, and favorable treatment offered by the organization and then accordingly base their decisions on how to respond (eisenberger et al., 1986; rhoades & eisenberger, 2002). in this vein, decision to stay employed or leave is largely determined by the treatment received from the organization. naim & lenka 319 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as per theory of reasoned action (tra), intentions are the best predictors of actual human behavior (ajzen & fishbein, 1980). various scholars have studied the determinants of such intentions (e.g. griffeth, hom, & gaertner, 2000; suliman & al-junaibi, 2010). it includes perceived stress, management support, commitment, job satisfaction, job characteristics, justice, and organization culture (firth et al., 2004; george, george, wallio, & wallio, 2017; meyer & allen, 1997). however, most literature is focused on intention to quit as compared to intention to stay, which has gained academic attention rather recently (holtom, mitchell, lee, & eberly, 2008). importantly, to date, there has been little research done in the context of indian gen y employees’ intention to stay. intention to stay is the tendency of employees to remain employed with their current organization (currivan, 1999). it is a psychological process of attachment with the organization (hunjra, ali, chani, khan, & rehman, 2010). however, in context of gen y employees, intention to stay is generated, when they perceive personal and professional development. in other words, when the organization offers developmental opportunities to enhance their personal, social and professional competencies, it demonstrates its commitment towards them and nurtures a sense of emotional attachment; leading to development of affective commitment. this affective commitment ultimately translates to intention to stay (thompson, 2011). for this study, we argue that mentoring is one of the interventions to be adopted by organization to induce gen y employees’ intention to stay. there is compelling evidence that suggests a storing positive influence of commitment on intention to stay i.e. when employees feel committed to their organization; they have a higher likelihood to stay (griffeth et al., 2000; guchait & cho, 2010; suliman & al-junaibi, 2010). in particular, affective commitment is shown to be a strong determinant of intention to stay as emotionally attached employees are more likely to be motivated to stay forth (craig, allen, reid, riemenschneider, & armstrong, 2013). in this vein, literature suggests a mediating role of affective commitment on generation of intention to stay (griffeth et al., 2000; guchait & cho 2010; suliman & al-junaibi, 2010). further, research reveals that pos is positively related to intention to stay (cao et al., 2014; eisenberger et al., 2002; nasyira et al., 2014). there is compelling evidence that ac mediates the relationship between mentoring and employee outcomes including ocb, turnover intentions, and intention to stay (craig et al., 2013; rhoades, eisenberger, & armeli, 2001). thus, we hypothesize thath6: affective commitment is positively related to gen y employees’ intention to stay. h7: affective commitment has a mediating effect on the relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay. sequential mediating effects of perceived organizational support and affective commitment based on above-noted theoretical and empirical evidence, we hypothesize that mentoring relationship with intention to stay is achieved through pos and then affective commitment. in this vein, we integrate the two models with mediation through pos and with mediation through affective commitment, in turn, generating a sequential-mediation model, depicted in figure 1 (hayes, 2009). thus, we hypothesize thath8: the relationship between mentoring and intention to stay is sequentially mediated by pos and affective commitment. mentoring, gen y intention to stay 320 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. research model and hypotheses. note. n = 314. *p < .01. **p < .05. method participants and procedure a cross-sectional survey design is used to gather primary data. gen y employees working in it industry in indian bangaluru region are selected as respondents. bangalore is viewed as the ‘silicon valley’ of india, being home to numerous domestic and global top-notch it organizations. the sample comprises of it professionals born between 19812000 and possesses minimum working experience of one year. the top 50 indian software companies were chosen from the list generated by nasscom (the indian technology watchdog) and invited to participate in this research work. we contacted hr managers to take their consent to participate in this research and to identify gen y employees based on their birth years. respondents were selected randomly from the given list of software developers that fall under gen y category. in total 27 organizations agreed to participate and hence we administered 450 questionnaires from june 2015 to october 2015 to survey gen y employees. in all, 314 completely filled questionnaires were collected with a response rate of 69.77%. out of this sample 77% are males and 23% are females; with an age group of 20-24 represented by 29% respondents, 25-29 by 55% and 29-34 by 16%. in terms of education, 24% were diplomaholders, 54% were graduate, and 22% were post-graduate. in terms of experience, 22% have 0-2 years of experience, 40% have 2-4, 28% have 4-6 years, and 10% have more than 6 years of experience. measures questionnaire items were adapted from pre-existing validated scales. the five-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) was used as the measurement method. the questionnaire consists of three naim & lenka 321 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sections namely; the first section is the brief introduction and instructions along with the purpose of research and assurance of establishing the anonymity of responses. the second section includes the statements dealing with basic information of the respondents namely age group, gender, education, and years of experience; the third section includes the statements on mentoring, perceived organizational support, affective commitment, and intention to stay. mentoring it is measured by 9-item scale designed by castro and scandura (2004). a sample item was: “my mentor takes a personal interest in my career”. responses were measured on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). cronbach alpha was found to be 0.94 and mean value is 3.98 (sd = .68). pos it is measured by 8-item scale adapted from eisenberger, cummings, armeli, and lynch’s (1997). an example item is “my organization cares about my opinions”. cronbach alpha was found to be 0.82 and mean value is 4.14 (sd = .59). affective commitment it is measured by 6-item scale taken from meyer and allen (1997). an example is “i really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own“. cronbach alpha was found to be 0.74 and mean value is 3.33 (sd = .84). intention to stay it is measured by 7-item scale adapted from mayfield and mayfield (2007). a sample item is. “i expect to be working for my current employer one year from now”. cronbach alpha was found to be 0.76 and mean value is 3.46 (sd = .57). control variables to avoid potentially misleading relationships between study variables and to enhance the validity of the study, the effect of age-group, gender, education, and experience were controlled (foote & li-ping tang, 2008). the coding schemata for the control variables are shown in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations (n = 314) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. age-groupa 2.5861 .5436 2. genderb 1.2301 .4263 -.012 3. educationc 2.2210 .6779 .044 -.14 4. experienced 3.2814 .7712 -.097 -.426** .218 5. mentoring 3.9883 .6827 .212 .136* .773** -.773* (.944) 6. pos 4.1488 .5860 .085 .107** -.526** .511** .535* (.882) 7. ac 3.3398 .8459 .098 1-83* .210* .210* .540* .320** (.731) 8. intention to stay 3.4615 .5718 .219 .127** .537** .537* .383* .210** .402* (.756) note. reliability estimates (cronbach’s alphas) are in parentheses. ain years: 1 = 20-24 (29%), 2 = 25-29 (55%), 3 = 29-34 (16%). b1 = male (77%), 2 = female (23%). c1 = diploma (24%), 2 = graduate (54%), 3 = post graduate (22%). din years: 1 = 0-2 (22%), 2 = 2-4 (40%), 3 = 4-6 (28%), 4 = > 6 (10%). *p < .01. **p < .05. mentoring, gen y intention to stay 322 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis and results data analysis for the present study was done using spss 21.0 and amos 21.0 statistical packages. hypotheses testing were carried out through correlation analysis and regression technique. while, to investigate the sequential mediation effect, an analytic approach of preacher and hayes (2004) was utilized (see table 3). reliability estimates, correlations, and descriptive statistics including standard deviations for all the variables under study are depicted in table 1. before proceeding for hypotheses testing, firstly the measurement model was examined for dimensionality, convergent, and discriminant validity through confirmatory factor analysis. as depicted in table 3, the proposed four-factor model of mentoring (model 1), pos, affective commitment, and intention to stay is found to exhibit acceptable fit indices (hair, black, babin, & anderson, 2010). test of hypotheses to examine the discriminant validity of the four-factor model, it was compared with four alternate models, described in detail in table 2. first, it was compared against the three-factor model (all the items of mentoring and affective commitment loaded on a single factor, and pos and intention to stay). findings reveal that the three-factor model was a comparatively poor fit (see model 2 in table 2, model 2 – model 1: δχ2 = 2,266.58, df = 55, p < .001). then the proposed model is tested against two factor model (all items related to mentoring, pos, and affective commitment loaded on a single factor), which was proved to be a poorer fit than the proposed measurement model (see model 3 in table 2, model 3 – model 1: δχ2 = 2,609.93, df = 67, p < .001). table 2 the fit indices for alternative measurement models model χ2 df χ2/df cfi gfi tli rmsea model 1 2,627.74*** 1,732 1.517 .95 .96 .93 0.038 model 2 4,894.32*** 1,787 2.738 .63 .69 .64 0.067 model 3 5,237.67*** 1,799 2.911 .60 .62 .58 0.081 note. cfi = comparative fit index; gfi = goodeness of fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; rmsa = root mean square error of approximation. ***p < .001. thereafter, the discriminant validity of the four-factor model was estimated. furthermore, the result reveals a 35% explained variance, which was well within the prescribed limit of 50%, the minimum threshold in accordance with harman’s single factor test (podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012), thereby indicating that common method variance has been death with effectively. results show that mentoring and intention to stay were positively related (r = .38, p < .01), thus providing support for hypothesis 1. likewise, mentoring was found to be positively related to perceived organizational support (pos) (r = .53, p < .01) providing support for hypothesis 2. also, the association of mentoring and affective commitment was shown to be significantly positive (r = .54, p < .01) providing support for hypothesis 5. affective commitment and intention to stay was found to be positively related (r = .40, p < .01) providing support for hypothesis 6. pos was also found to be positively related to gen y employees’ intention to stay (r = .21, p < .01) providing support for hypothesis 3. naim & lenka 323 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sequential multiple mediation analyses for pos and ac to analyze the structural model of present study, path coefficients are estimated after controlling the age group, gender, education, and experience. for testing of the sequential mediating effects, we followed preacher and hayes’ (2004) analytical approach the rationale of utilizing this technique is that it enables to assess the indirect effects of both mediators i.e. pos (hypothesis 4) and ac (hypothesis 7) in a serial manner (taylor, mackinnon, & tein, 2008). this technique equips us to examine the indirect effect between the predictor and the criterion variables through the mediator via a bootstrapping method (efron & tibshirani, 1993). thereby, table 3, reports the estimates of the indirect effects, and the path estimates at symmetric 95% confidence intervals. table 3 path coefficients and indirect effects for mediation models model path coefficients to estimates indirect effects intention to stay pos ac symmetric 95% confidence interval bootstrap 95% confidence interval mentoring 0.20* (.13) 0.25* (.05) 0.37* (.17) pos 0.61* (.23) 0.31** (.40) ac 0.66* (.05) total .24 (.05) -.06, .24 -.07, .27 m→pos→its -.0.7 (.05) .15, .03 -.18, .02 m→ac→its .14 (.05) .35, .21 -.36, .20 m→pos→ac→its .08 (.04) .03, .19 .03, .21 note. n = 314. bootstrap confidence intervals were constructed using 2000 resamples. total effect (m → its) = 0.38 (.08). standard error in parentheses. *p < .01. **p < .05. as against the stated hypothesis 4, pos did not significantly mediate the path from mentoring to intention to stay, thus hypothesis 4 was not supported. however, results provide empirical evidence that pos mediated the path between mentoring and ac. the evidence was also found that ac mediates the path from mentoring to intention to stay, thus hypothesis 7 was supported. finally, we tested hypothesis 8, which has stated that pos and ac sequentially mediate the relationship between mentoring and intention to stay. based on the analysis of other hypotheses, it is revealed that pos mediated the relationship between mentoring and ac, and ac in turn mediated the relationship between mentoring and intention to stay. to sum, all hypotheses but hypothesis 4 were supported. discussion the study is aimed at addressing the retention of gen y employees in indian it industry, a recent challenge faced by many industries across the globe. in this vein, the impact of mentoring on gen y employees’ intention to stay is investigated. the extant literature has focused on the influence of mentoring on employee outcomes including turnover intentions (e.g. craig et al., 2013; kim et al., 2015). however, there is a dearth of scholarly literature on impact of mentoring on intention to stay in indian context. more importantly, retaining the younger generation employees is another critical issue faced by indian organizations, particularly it organizations (naim mentoring, gen y intention to stay 324 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & lenka, 2017b). at the same time, there is limited literature on how mentoring influences employees’ intention to stay. hence, this empirical study attempted to fill this gap by providing insights on how mentoring influences gen y employees’ intention to stay forth. in so doing, this study is based on the underlying principle of social exchange theory to explore the role of mentoring in retaining gen y employees. in the present turbulent environment, talent retention has become a significant challenge for organizations. in particular, gen y employees, by their inherent nature are more prone to job-switching. one of the catalysts behind this is the changing nature of psychological contract wherein job-security and life-time employment are replaced by multitasking, flexibility and employability. therefore, grounded on psychological contact theory, organizations should fulfill psychological contract as promised to gen y employees by incorporating developmental interventions such as mentoring. this is in agreement with past empirical evidence that desire to develop competencies are critical to realize psychological contracts of gen y employees (d’amato & herzfeldt, 2008; festing & schäfer, 2014). we extended prior research on mentoring and gen y retention to provide empirical and theoretical support to existing findings on mentoring outcomes in indian it context. based on social exchange approach (emerson, 1976), organization support theory (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002) and social learning theory (bandura, 1978), we provided a theoretical justification for the research model. the total direct relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay suggests that mentors’ strongly influence gen y employees’ decision to stay. this is probably due to continuous emotional support, guidance, counseling, visibility, protection, personal and professional development opportunities offered by mentors, which evoke an intention to stay forth. hence, it can be assumed that employees with an access to mentoring at workplace have a higher likelihood of staying as compared to non-mentored employees. this is in accordance with past studies, which noted that learning and development opportunities predict employees’ decision to stay or leave (chami-malaeb & garavan, 2013; frey & steckstor, 2007). moreover, this study addresses the call for future research by hezlett and gibson (2007) on unraveling the underlying mechanisms governing the relationship between mentoring and employee outcomes. in this regard, this article extends the literature by providing a detailed account of the underlying mechanisms (i.e. pos and ac) that explain the influence of mentoring on intention to stay. in doing so, mentoring fosters gen y employees’ personal and professional development and socialization; thereby satisfying their higher order selfesteem and self-actualization needs. this leads to feeling of pos that contributes to affective commitment, which, in turn, results in an intention to stay. stated differently, there are two pathways that govern the influence of mentoring on gen y employees’ intention to stay i.e. ac and pos. the findings of the study are consistent with the findings of pop and barkhuizen (2010). also, craig et al. (2013) noted similar empirical findings from 109 american it employees, suggesting a positive impact of psychosocial mentoring on affective commitment, leading to reduced intention to leave. these findings have significant implications for organizations operating in dynamic environments. organizations should embrace workplace mentoring to evoke employee positive outcomes including commitment, engagement, and job satisfaction. further, results indicate that affective reactions in the form of affective commitment in response to mentoring strongly predict gen y employees’ intention to stay. however, pos was not found to be a significant mediator between these relationships. the results suggest that participation in mentoring is perceived as a positive work naim & lenka 325 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experience by gen y employees and results in feeling emotionally attached with the organization, leading to continue working with the organization. importantly, indian culture emphasizes on the importance of emotional bonding to nurture any relationship. consequently, from perspective of indian employees, evoking an emotional attachment with the organization plays a key role in deciding to stay with the employer. however, level of pos did not have a significant mediating effect on relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay. it might be due to following two reasons: first, apart from developmental interventions like mentoring, indian gen y employees also seek other measures such as coworker support, supervisory support, access to technologies like social media, and top leadership support to facilitate flexibility and innovative culture to encourage intrapreneurship (naim, 2014; srinivasan, 2012). gen y employees’ positive perception of such factors may lead to desired levels of pos that can have a significant effect on their intention to stay. second, due to predominant collectivistic value system of indian culture, gen y employees seek collaboration and support from myriad sources, similar to what they have received during their upbringing from parents, elder siblings, and seniors at school or college level. they hold similar set of expectations at workplace and view their supervisors, peers, and leaders as role-models to imitate their behaviors for attaining career success (gupta, suri, javidan, & chhokar, 2002; srinivasan, 2012). however, indian culture is also characterized by a high power-distance, which renders immediate superiors to maintain distance from their subordinates. consequently, the very people, whom gen y considers as rolemodels, do not offer enough support. in this case, due to lack of support such relationship does not lead to desired levels of pos that can influence intention to stay. finally, this study assessed the sequential mediating effect of pos and ac on the relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay. results revealed a significant indirect relationship between mentoring and gen y employees’ intention to stay through both pos and ac. this could be attributed to three possible reasons: firstly, as gen y employees expect mentoring at workplace, therefore participation in mentoring is perceived as a positive work experience, which in turn, contributes to the feeling of emotional attachment. this proposition is also supported by the findings of lankau and scandura (2002) who reported that mentoring leads to personal skill development, that in turn influence various employee outcomes. secondly, top leaders should nurture a culture supportive to continuous dialogue and inquiry, open communication, social interactions, fair execution of hr policies (compensation, performance management, recognition), and knowledge sharing to enhance pos and generate employees’ affective commitment with the organization. this is in alignment with the findings of hu, wang, yang, and wu (2014) and baranik, roling, and eby, (2010), which demonstrated a positive effect of mentoring functions on mentee’ pos. thirdly, ac achieved through higher level of pos further influences employees’ decision to stay with the organization that provides developmental measures such as mentoring. however, the influence of socio-economic factors such as gender, income, hierarchical position, and tenure in the organization might also exert a great deal of impact on affective commitment with the organization. for instance, recent recruits might be more inclined towards receiving mentoring support than the experienced gen y members, who have already acclimatized with the culture of the organization. theoretical implications the present study offers significant theoretical contributions. firstly, it provides an empirical justification of a conceptual model that extended mentoring research in the context of gen y employees’ outcomes. in this case, it is empirically established that mentoring has a significant relationship with intention to stay of gen y mentoring, gen y intention to stay 326 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ employees. this is an extension of set, whereby gen y employees reciprocate by exhibiting emotional attachment and intention to remain with the organization in response to the positive work experience of mentoring that contributes to pos. importantly, it also bridges the gap in literature, as there is a lack of existing frameworks for gen y retention. secondly, we believe that no empirical study till date has examined the factors that influence intention to stay of indian gen y employees from it industry. hence, this study is one of the first of its kind to investigate the influence of mentoring on intention to stay of indian gen y. in this vein, we evaluated the sequential mediating role of pos and ac on relationship between mentoring and intention to stay. also, this is significant because existing literature only suggests a positive effect of the two variables on employee outcomes, but no research has studied their combined effect on employee retention. thirdly, the study contributes to the literature on mentoring, affective commitment, perceived organizational support, and intention to stay, through external validation of the concepts developed in a western world context. it is worthwhile to mention here that there is a limited empirical literature on gen y retention and mentoring in indian context. finally, the findings provide an empirical evidence for the underlying process by which mentoring influences gen y retention. it has explored mentoring to evoke perceived organizational support and affective commitment of young generation employees, resulting in an intention to stay forth. to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore the relationship between mentoring, affective commitment, and intention to stay in gen y employees’ context. practical implications the present study holds important insights for hr managers who seek to strengthen the retention rates of young generation employees i.e. gen y. the findings assist practitioners in gaining a deeper understanding of how mentoring influences gen y employees’ retention. in indian it industry context, organizations strive to retain gen y employees who also happen to be their future leaders. firstly, to enhance affective commitment of gen y employees, it organizations should integrate mentoring into their talent management strategy. mentoring as a developmental intervention will invigorate the employer brand of organizations by adding a dimension of employee development that will attract and retain ambitious gen y employees. in this vein, it organizations should harness their technological capabilities such as using social media platforms (internal networking tools) to identify and connect mentor and mentee working in different departments or at a different location. this is important because most indian it organizations operate globally with their subsidiaries located in different countries; therefore, it is prudent to use technological solutions to foster mentoring relationships. also, the positive influence of mentoring on gen y affective commitment and retention encourages top leadership to explore other enablers such as social media, continuous learning climate, knowledge sharing, and internal communication to evoke positive employee attitudinal outcomes. secondly, evoking positive employee attitudes of affective commitment is a predictor of intention to stay (naim & lenka, 2016). this has valuable implications in contemporary knowledge economy, wherein organizations are vying to retain their high potential employees, as employees’ knowledge assets drive the organizational performance and sustainability. employee turnover has become a grave challenge for hr professionals across the industries. however, the situation is worse in emerging markets, where the turnover rates of young employees are alarmingly high in service sectors (vaiman & collings, 2015). naim & lenka 327 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thirdly, indian it industry operates in an environment of global competition marked by high talent mobility. as per recent reports, it industry has experienced roughly 21.9 per cent attrition rates in the last one year (deloitte, 2015). likewise, another study points that india leads the list of countries, with an expected employee turnover rate of 26.9% (biswas 2013). therefore, a significant implication of this study from the perspective of it industry is a strategy to improve retention rate as a valuable means to achieve competitive advantage (pfeffer, 2005). fourthly, as it industry experiences fast-paced changes in client requirements, therefore they need their workforce to continuously enrich their skill-sets to meet changing market demands. this has farreaching implications on it organizations’ sustainability in a competitive business environment. therefore, mentoring is a vital resource for it organizations to mould their young generation workforce in accordance with its business requirements. in addition, as gen y are relatively new to workplace, therefore role-modelling function of mentoring enable them to learn the best practices of the industry and assimilate tricks-of-the-trade by observing their experienced mentors. consequently, this article seeks to recommend it organizations to embrace mentoring and create organizational culture supportive to talent development. finally, from an economic vantage point, retention saves fair amount of financial cost that otherwise would incur due to employee turnover. to an estimate, turnover cost may reach 2.5 times the annual remuneration package of departing employee. this includes direct cost (recruitment, selection, induction) and indirect costs (training, loss of productivity, time to acclimatize) (corporate leadership council, 2004). more importantly, a departing employee takes away the crucial business knowledge and skills, and more often end up joining the competitor of parent organization. limitations the present research has certain limitations that open up new avenues for future investigation. the first limitation lies in its relatively small sample size and cross-sectional research design. hence, further research is needed to confirm our suggested relationships, as self-reported surveys are poor to establish cause-effect relationships. therefore, it is recommended to replicate the research using longitudinal design to establish better causal-effect relationships. as this study was carried out in it industry of india, empirical findings of the study could be more applicable in asian countries as compared to western ones. it is better to replicate this study in public sector organizations or in manufacturing sector, may be in a different country as suggested results may not be generalized. as quantitative research design has its obvious limitations so future studies should employ qualitative methods like focus interviews to further examine the results of this study. also, as self-reported data were collected from a single-source, there is a potential common method bias. however, harman’s single factor test was conducted to deal with this potential problem. further, it may not be a complete investigation as management perspective is not examined. therefore, future research should interview both hr managers and gen y employees to validate the study results. the actual retention or turnover rates rather than intention to stay can be examined to extend this research. also, one could explore variables such as organizational culture and self-esteem as mediating variables in context of mentoring influence on employee outcomes. this study has excluded to examine the impact of socio-economic variables such as gender, income, marital status, and tenure in the organization on intention to stay forth. hence, future researchers should examine their effects. other potential line of research could be to assess the impact of mentoring on employer brand perceptions of the organization and in this regard, other developmental initiatives such as job rotation and secondments can also be incorporated. mentoring, gen y intention to stay 328 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion this study was embarked upon investigating the impact of mentoring on gen y employees’ intention to stay via the mediating effects of perceived organizational support and affective commitment. findings reveal that both perceived organizational support and affective commitment sequentially mediated the mentoring and intention to stay relationship. this study has highlighted the underlying mechanism of how mentoring can influence an employees’ intention to stay, especially of young employees. importantly, this research provides organizations with guidelines on how practicing mentoring can influence employees’ positive work-related behaviors. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank my parents for their continuous blessings and unconditional support. thanks to my supervisor for her guidance and constructive criticism. last, but not the least, all praise to al-kareem for keeping me motivated throughout. references ajzen, i., & fishbein, m. 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(2012). generational differences in young adults’ life goals, concern for others, and civic orientation, 1966–2009. journal of personality and social psychology, 102(5), 1045-1062. doi:10.1037/a0027408 vaiman, v., & collings, d. g. (2015). global talent management. in d. g. collings, g. t. wood, & p. m. caligiuri (eds.), the routledge companion to international human resource management (pp. 210-225). abingdon, united kingdom: routledge. weiss, h. m., & cropanzano, r. (1996). affective events theory: a theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. research in organizational behavior, 18, 1-74. about the authors mohammad faraz naim is presently a senior research fellow at department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee, india. prior to that, he has completed mba in human resource management and holds a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology. his research interest includes talent management, gen y / millennials, hr technology and employer branding. usha lenka is presently an associate professor, at department of management studies, indian institute of technology, roorkee, india. she holds a ph. d. in management from indian institute of technology, kharagpur and has published research on a wide range of areas. she has research experience of more than ten years. her research interest includes talent management, knowledge management, creativity and innovation, quality management, and learning organization. naim & lenka 335 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 314–335 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1304 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2010.488451 http://doi.org/10.1177/1094428107300344 http://doi.org/10.1108/13620430710821994 http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/240 http://content.timesjobs.com/managing-generation-x-y/ http://doi.org/10.1037/a0027408 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ mentoring, gen y intention to stay (introduction) theory and hypotheses development method participants and procedure measures analysis and results test of hypotheses sequential multiple mediation analyses for pos and ac discussion theoretical implications practical implications limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the relationship between gratitude and loneliness: the potential benefits of gratitude for promoting social bonds research reports the relationship betweengratitude and loneliness: the potential benefits of gratitude for promoting social bonds andrea caputo*a [a] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, rome, italy. abstract this paper explores the potential role of gratitude on the reduction of loneliness feelings, even controlling for several variables related to social desirability, well-being (subjective happiness and life satisfaction) and socio-demographic characteristics. through a web-based survey a convenience sample of 197 participants completed an online questionnaire including these measures. correlation analyses and four-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted. the results show a negative correlation between gratitude and loneliness; specifically, gratitude succeeds in accounting for up to almost one-fifth of the total variability of loneliness even controlling for further variables. being female, not having a stable and consolidated relationship and not participating in the labor force represent some risk factors affecting loneliness which should be taken into account in further research. keywords: gratitude, loneliness, social relationships, social desirability, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 received: 2014-06-17. accepted: 2015-01-16. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: via pescasseroli 6, 00177 roma, italy. e-mail: andrea.caputo@uniroma1.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. loneliness plays an important role in investigating the psychological process of human feelings and behaviors with regard to the formation andmaintenance of social relationships (wu & yao, 2008). loneliness is an emotionally unpleasant experience resulting from a discrepancy between the types of interpersonal relationships one wishes to have, and those that one perceives they presently have (peplau & perlman, 1982). it can be considered as a feeling of emptiness, isolation or unwanted solitude, clearly distinguishable from the objective state of solitude, social isolation, or being alone. indeed, social contact does not necessarily buffer one against loneliness because the experience of loneliness seems to have more to do with individuals’ perceptions of the quality of social interactions (asher & paquette, 2003; hawkley, burleson, berntson, & cacioppo, 2003). many studies (hawkley & cacioppo, 2010; heinrich & gullone, 2006) indicated that loneliness can negatively affect health, life satisfaction and well-being. in this regard, most of the recent research on subjective well-being has focused on the benefits of gratitude as a means to increase life satisfaction and positive affects and decrease negative ones from childhood to old age (emmons & mccullough, 2003; watkins, woodward, stone, & kolts, 2003). gratitude is recognized as “indispensable in the life of one individual who will face isolation and loneliness if the capacity to feel grateful is impaired” (emmons & mccullough, 2004, p. 2010), because it motivates the reeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ ciprocation of aid (bartlett & desteno, 2006; mccullough, kilpatrick, emmons, & larson, 2001; tsang, 2006). as stated by melanie klein (1963/1975) gratitude can mitigate loneliness because it deeply includes a very close connection between being able to accept and to give, and both are part of the relation with the good object. indeed, loneliness relates to a deficiency of the needs of intimacy and meaning (mcgraw, 1995). expressing gratitude thus plays an important role in relationships because it can strengthen social bonds and friendships (emmons & shelton, 2002; mccullough & tsang, 2004), as well as the characteristics needed for their development and maintenance (algoe, haidt, & gable, 2008; gordon, arnette, & smith, 2011; kubacka, finkenauer, rusbult, & keijsers, 2011; mccullough, kimeldorf, & cohen, 2008), such as peer, family and social support (froh, yurkewicz, & kashdan, 2009), prosocial motivation (michie, 2009; naito, wangwan, & tani, 2005; tsang, 2006), relationship connection and satisfaction (algoe, gable, & maisel, 2010), willingness to forgive (deshea, 2003), praise (deutsch, roksa, &meeske, 2003) and trust (dunn & schweitzer, 2005). however, only few studies have specifically examined the potential role of gratitude for the reduction of loneliness feelings (burcat, 2010; feng, 2011). in addition, these studies show two main limitations: the specific type of samples selected (respectively, college students at a public california university in the study by burcat and korean american pastors and spouses in the study by feng) and the correlation analyses conducted which did not take into account further confounding factors. therefore, this paper aims at proposing a research study which consents to overcome these two limitations by extending findings to a wider range of population and using regression models to disentangle the relationship between gratitude and loneliness controlling for further variables. theoretical framework and aim of the study in this study loneliness is defined as an individual’s subjective experience of emptiness, isolation and lack of satisfying human relationships (hughes, waite, hawkley, & cacioppo, 2004; victor, scambler, bond, & bowling, 2000), thus causing negative feelings and distress. loneliness “denotes the lack of intimate/meaningful solidarity with other beings and bespeaks an entitative-emotional longing for their plenitude and connectedness” (mcgraw, 1995, p. 46). in this sense, gratitude is hypothesized to reduce the feeling of individual isolation from others resulting in insecurity and instability (mcgraw, 1995), which impacts on how people interact, as well as how they interpret interpersonal situations (murphy & kupshik, 1992). the emotion of gratitude can influence the likelihood of their forming satisfying relationships, counteracting the distorted thinking which can lead to loneliness by causing deficits in sociability (peplau & perlman, 1982). by distorted thinking we mean irrational cognitions according to which, in explaining the causes of their loneliness, lonely people are likely to blame themselves, deriving uncontrollable, internal, and stable attributions (solano, 1987). that is, they are likely to see their personalities as unchangeable (stable), view social situations as being beyond their control, and believe that they do not have friends because they are perhaps dull and boring (internal). this contributes to inappropriate patterns of self-disclosure (horowitz & french, 1979), less effective coping behavior and dysfunctional attitudes (e.g., fears of interpersonal rejection, feeling unsure of oneself, and social anxiety) (wilbert & rupert, 1986). instead, grateful individuals can have an expanded circle of attributions, because they attribute their success to others’ controllable actions (weiner, 1985), and also take into account how they themselves have contributed to their own success (mccullough, emmons, & tsang, 2002). therefore, the experience of gratitude may allow people to be more responsive to others and take full advantage of available interpersonal opportunities (jones, hobbs, & hockenbury, 1982), thus increasing self-perceived social competence and interrupting chronic loneliness which impede the future meeting of belongingness needs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 the relationship between gratitude and loneliness 324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this study aims at investigating the potential role of gratitude on the reduction of loneliness feelings. in doing that, it takes into account some confounding factors which could interfere in this relationship, which mainly refer to social desirability bias and other positive emotions. on the one hand, social desirability may affect both gratitude and loneliness because it leads to report pro-social and altruistic dispositions which are culturally agreeable (lyubomirsky, sheldon, & schkade, 2005; wood, froh, & geraghty, 2010), as well as to hide undesirable feelings related to low emotional well-being (lasgaard, goossens, & elklit, 2011). on the other hand, how much of the variance in loneliness is due to gratitude needs to be studied independently of how much it is due to well-being measures such as life satisfaction and subjective happiness. method participants and procedure a web-based survey was promoted via social media (forums, blogs, social networks) to study the relationship between subjective well-being and other related psychological constructs. it was conducted according to online survey design, development and implementation guidelines suggested by andrews, nonnecke, and preece (2003). online survey was chosen because of its widespread use for quality of life, health-related and well-being research (vereecken & maes, 2006) and its easy access to geographically diverse respondent groups across the national context (evans &mathur, 2005). in addition, the validity and reliability of internet research for subjective well-being surveys were demonstrated to be comparable to those of the paper-based versions (howell, rodzon, kurai, & sanchez, 2010). a convenience sample of 197 participants was recruited (158 women and 39 men) whose mean age was 29.1 (sd = 10.4). a questionnaire was administered which included socio-demographic information and loneliness, gratitude, social desirability, subjective happiness and life satisfaction measures. participants were guaranteed anonymity. for the present study 100% of the respondents filled in the complete questionnaire without missing data. measures gratitude— thegratitude questionnaire-six-item form (gq-6) (mccullough, emmons, & tsang, 2002) is a sixitem self-report questionnaire designed to assess individual differences in the proneness to experience expressions of gratefulness and appreciation in daily life, as well as feelings about receiving from others. respondents endorsed each item on a 7-point likert-type scale and the score was calculated as the sum of items, ranging from 6 to 42. higher scores mean higher proneness to experience gratitude in daily life. for the purpose of this study, the scale was adapted to the italian language through translation, back translation and equivalence evaluation, and showed a satisfactory internal consistency (α = .750). loneliness — the three-item loneliness scale, developed by hughes et al. (2004) from the revised ucla loneliness scale, was used to assess loneliness consisting of feelings of isolation, disconnectedness, and not belonging. the response categories were coded 1 (hardly ever), 2 (some of the time), and 3 (often) on a 3-point scale. each person’s responses to the questions are summed, with higher scores indicating greater loneliness. for the purpose of this study, the three items were derived from the italian version of the revised ucla loneliness scale (solano & coda, 1994). the 3-item scale showed a good internal consistency (α = .839). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 caputo 325 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social desirability — the italian adaptation (manganelli rattazzi, canova, & marcorin, 2000) of the short 9-item version of the marlowe-crowne social desirability scale (mc-sds) was used to measure social desirability. participants were requested to respond to each item on a 7-point scale. a total score is derived from the sum of all items, ranging from 7 to 63. higher scores indicate higher levels of social desirability. internal consistency was sufficient (α = .611). the relatively low cronbach’s alpha seems to be in agreement with other studies using the italian short version of the mc-sds (maino & aceti, 1997; manganelli rattazzi et al., 2000). subjective happiness— the subjective happiness scale (shs) (lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999) is a widely used four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness. the scale required participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals on a 7-point likert scale, as well as it asked to what extent they identify themselves with description of happy and unhappy individuals. the score was calculated as the mean of items, ranging from 1 to 7. higher scores mean greater perceived happiness. the italian version of the scale was used (duncan & grazzani-gavazzi, 2004) and showed a cronbach’s alpha of .847. life satisfaction — as a measure of global life satisfaction, a three-item scale was specifically developed and used for the purpose of the study. subjects had to rate how much they were satisfied with three dimensions respectively regarding socio-economic status, general health status, and life style and conditions, using a 10-point agreement scale. the score was calculated as the sum of items, ranging from 3 to 30. higher scores mean better life satisfaction. the scale showed good psychometric properties with a cronbach’s alpha of .764. statistical procedures to explore the relationships among the different measures considered (gratitude, loneliness, social desirability, subjective happiness, life satisfaction), correlation analyses were performed. with regard to our research question, four-step hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted by using loneliness measure as dependent variable. the model 1 includes only gratitude measure as explicative variable in order to test whether gratitude can explain variance of loneliness. then other variables were progressively entered in the regression models in order to estimate the predictive value of gratitude in reducing loneliness, even controlling for several additional characteristics which refer to: social desirability bias (model 2), well-being measures such as subjective happiness and life satisfaction (model 3) and socio-demographic variables (model 4). with regard to socio-demographic predictors, a dummy for gender (male, female) and three dummies respectively for marital/relationship status (married/cohabitant, in a relationship, single) and employment status (employed, unemployed, others) were created. instead, age and education were inserted as continuous variables. all analyses were performed using spss 16.0. results in table 1 socio-demographic variables of our sample are reported, as well as descriptive characteristics of used measures. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 the relationship between gratitude and loneliness 326 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 socio-demographic variables and descriptive characteristics of subjective well-being measures of the sample (n = 197) social desirabilitygratitudelonelinesslife satisfaction subjective happinesssocio-demographic variables sdmsdmsdmsdmsdm%ncategorical variables gender (6.92)39male .227.6438.5924.801.974.764.9718.161.014.819 158female .667.5937.417.5425.092.735.165.5418.041.873.280 marital/relationship status 56married-cohabitant .208.2039.407.7027.781.544.974.4819.041.224.428 62in a relationship .796.2137.356.0824.981.745.564.9018.930.893.531 79single .657.2837.797.1425.022.206.465.8117.131.683.140 employment status 85employed .867.2037.996.5126.861.095.784.2519.950.084.143 33unemployed .677.1836.057.7321.232.795.545.7915.071.483.816 79othersa .087.1636.077.6325.082.036.854.1519.131.883.140 sdmcontinuous variables -----age .4010.1029 -----education (years) .523.4513 total .577.8037.317.3625.052.585.085.6318.061.903 aothers include homemakers, students or retired. as shown in table 2, the negative correlation between loneliness and gratitude is confirmed and the other measures are associated accordingly with the theoretical framework: loneliness is negatively correlated with subjective happiness, life satisfaction and social desirability; while gratitude shows a positive association with them. however, the correlations are not so high to cause potential multicollinearity problems in regression analyses, thus indicating the presence of separate constructs. table 2 correlations for all measures social desirabilitygratitudelonelinesslife satisfaction subjective happiness 1subjective happiness 1life satisfaction .601*** 1loneliness .481***-.557***1gratitude .438***-.463***.483*** 1social desirability .316***.253***-.235***.168** **p < .01. ***p < .001. the results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses (table 3) indicate that gratitude can be considered as a valid predictor in all the regression models, accounting for up to 18.7% of the total variance of loneliness. gratitude thus seems to contribute to reduce loneliness feelings. when entering additional controls, its coefficient tends to decrease because of its relationship with the other explicative variables, despite it still remains statistically significant. in the model 2, social desirability does not show an incremental validity in explaining loneliness. instead, in the model 3, the well-being controls increase the overall explained variance thus suggesting the relevance of europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 caputo 327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ individual positive emotional states in accounting loneliness. then, in the model 4 (explaining 44.4% of loneliness) the results about socio-demographic characteristics show that being male and married or cohabitant predict lower loneliness, while homemakers, students or retired (in terms of occupational status) generally feel more lonely. in other words, this means that being female, not having a stable and consolidated relationship and not participating in the labor force represent some risk factors affecting loneliness which should be taken into account. table 3 summary of hierarchical multiple regression analyses for predicting loneliness (standardized coefficients) model 4model 3model 2model 1 constant .051***12.747***11.722***9.699***8 gratitude .176**-0.150*-0.397***-0.438***-0 social desirability .054-0.105-0.128-0 subjective happiness .312***-0.367***-0 life satisfaction .186*-0.166*-0 gender (male) .122*-0 age .087-0 education .063-0 marital/relationship status (ref: single) married-cohabitant .201**-0 in a relationship .082-0 employment status (ref: unemployed) employed .1430 others .186*0 r .6890.6140.4540.4380 r2 (adjusted) .444***0.364***0.198***0.187***0 ∆r2 .098**0.171***0.0150.192***0 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the study results highlight that loneliness and gratitude are negatively correlated, consistently with previous research (burcat, 2010; feng, 2011). in addition, gratitude is demonstrated to be associated with increase in happiness, life satisfaction and social desirability; differently from loneliness which is generally related to negative outcomes in these measures. with regard to our research aim, gratitude seems to work as an influential moderator of loneliness feelings, accounting for up to almost one-fifth of its variability, thus suggesting the potential benefits of gratitude for promoting social bonds. some gender differences in predicting loneliness emerge which indicate that women are more vulnerable to loneliness than men (brackin, 2002; briscoe, 2005; victor, scambler, bowling, & bond, 2005). gilligan (1982) suggested that womenmay develop a way of thinking about the world that depends on a sense of being connected with others. thus, women feel that to be alone is to be a failure. men, by contrast, value independence, and believe that it is unmanly to need another to assuage loneliness. however, previous research findings have been quite ambiguous and controversial in this regard (mahon, yarcheski, yarcheski, cannella, & hanks, 2006). borys and perlman (1985) found differentiated results of gender differences in loneliness using different measures. in detail, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 the relationship between gratitude and loneliness 328 http://www.psychopen.eu/ they highlighted that when loneliness is measured using the direct self-labeling measurement (e.g., “do you often feel lonely?”) as in our study, females reported higher level of loneliness. besides, higher levels of loneliness are perceived in people who are single than in married/cohabitant ones, consistently with recent literature (drennan et al., 2008; ernst & cacioppo, 1999; findlay, 2003; victor et al., 2005). indeed, data from respondents in more than 20 nations document that loneliness is less common among married than non-married individuals (perlman & peplau, 1998). being married is considered as a protective factor in the experience of loneliness (lauder, sharkey, & mummery, 2004), probably because of the socially integrating function of a stable partner (dykstra, 1995). the presence of a partner facilitates social interaction and many activities are undertaken as a couple, with other couples; while the absence of an important relationship or the lost connection with a loved one can lead to loneliness (mcinnis, 2000). then, loneliness mainly characterizes homemakers, students or retired than other social categories probably because they do not participate in the labor force and may have more restricted social networks. indeed, college students are more lonely than older adults (rokach, 2000), homemakers may build fewer nonfamily social contacts due to the lack of opportunities to build such contacts through their employment (owens & swensen, 2000), and retired people may be characterized by reduced mobility as a precondition for seeking out contact partners (dawson, hendershot, & fulton, 1987) and facilitating the establishment and maintenance of social contacts. this notwithstanding, the comparison between these categories and unemployed people (who don’t report higher loneliness in our study) should be further examined in future research in order to better understand the specific factors explaining these differences. some limitations regarding this study need to be taken into account in order to put the findings into perspective. at first, this study used a convenience sample composed of internet users which was not a national representation and was not randomly chosen. issues regarding self-selection bias may thus exist which do not allow generalization. in addition, internet users may be characterized by increased loneliness and a reduction in both the number of friends people have and the time they spend with them (kraut et al., 1998). however, other studies found no such correlations (katz & aspden, 1997) or achieved opposite conclusions (coget, yamauchi, & suman, 2002). another limitation refers to the low generalizability of findings due to the small number of male respondents in the sample. however, the inclusion of gender as covariate in the regression analysis helped adjust estimates for this gender imbalance. then, the nature of this research does not enable conclusions on causal relations between examined variables, because correlation analyses and self-report measures also have inherent limitations. another limitation concerns the causal relationship between gratitude and loneliness. in this regard, loneliness might also be considered as a moderating factor that can facilitate (or not) the opportunity to build social bond and the consequent feeling of gratitude. however, longitudinal data would be required to disentangle the pattern of these causal effects. in addition, experimental research could be carried out where participants could be induced to engage in various amounts of gratitude to examine what effects this would have on their feelings of loneliness. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 caputo 329 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references algoe, s. b., gable, s. l., & maisel, n. c. 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(2008). psychometric analysis of the short-formucla loneliness scale (uls-8) in taiwanese undergraduate students. personality and individual differences, 44, 1762-1771. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.02.003 about the author andrea caputo is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, specialist in health psychology. he is currently a ph.d. student at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology, university of rome “sapienza”, italy. his research interests have mainly been focusing on the individual-context relationship, health and quality of life, cultural studies and techniques for text analysis based on social representations theory, in both clinical and psychosocial field. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 323–334 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.826 the relationship between gratitude and loneliness 334 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.92.4.548 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01173384 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.02.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the relationship between gratitude and loneliness (introduction) theoretical framework and aim of the study method participants and procedure measures statistical procedures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author “fuelling” cognitive judgments: worry as a mediator between risk perceptions and intentions to quit smoking research reports “fuelling” cognitive judgments: worry as a mediator between risk perceptions and intentions to quit smoking velibor bobo kovač*a, jostein riseb [a] university of agder, kristiansand, norway. [b] norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research, oslo, norway. abstract the aim of the present study was to assess the importance of cognitive and affective risk perceptions along with measures of self-prediction of future smoking status and confidence in one’s ability to quit on intentions to quit smoking. additionally, the purpose was to explore the mediating effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting smoking intentions. the data consist of 415 participants defined as daily and “sometimes” smokers who were interviewed by telephone. the results showed significant direct effects of risk perception, worry, confidence, and self-prediction of future smoking status on intentions to quit smoking. furthermore, the results showed a significant mediating effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting intentions. the results are discussed in relation to the general role of cognitive and affective processes in influencing behavioural decisions. the implications and limitations of the present analysis are also discussed. keywords: smoking, intentions, risk perception, worry, mediation europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 received: 2012-06-11. accepted: 2012-07-04. published: 2012-08-29. *corresponding author at: university of agder, faculty of humanities and education, po box 422, 4604 kristiansand, norway, email: bobo.kovac@uia.no. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the role of risk perceptions in decisions about preventive health behaviours has been a major research concern for a number of years as these perceptions are hypothesized to be important in the initiation and development of self-protective health behaviors (weinstein, 2000). risk perceptions refer to individuals’ beliefs about the likelihood of possible health problems in future and are usually conceptualised in terms of probabilities (perceived vulnerability) of occurrence of negative outcomes and severity of negative outcomes (van der pligt, 1998). this concept has accordingly been incorporated in various health behaviour theories, notably the health belief model (see abraham & sheeran, 2005), and the protection motivation theory (see norman, boer, & seydel, 2005). nevertheless, a number of studies have indicated that the relation between risk perception and health behaviours, although most often found to be positive, is weak and inconsistent (see van der pligt, 1998 and norman et al., 2005). in a meta-analysis (harrison, mullen, & green, 1992) the average correlations between measures of risk perception and health behaviours never exceeded r=.21 (see also hall, french, &marteau, 2009). similar findings are reported in the area of smoking behaviour (sutton, 1999; weinstein, 2003). accumulating evidence thus suggests that the predictive value of risk perceptions in relation to measures of preventive health behaviour in general, as well in specific areas like smoking, is low. this raises a question of the practical utility of the concept, especially if one is interested in changing a particular health behaviour, like quitting smoking. --> europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ one possible reason for the weak association between risk perceptions and health behaviours might be attributed to absence of exploring motivational/emotional mechanisms in previous research. thus, measures of risk perceptions have mainly been taken as a cognitive activity in the sense that people are making some kind of evaluation and integration of cognitive information before they deliberate whether or not to engage in a preventive health behaviour. the cognitive flavour of the prevailing models of health behaviour has presumably contributed to a neglect of the motivational role played by affect in decisions about preventive health behaviours as compared to that of cognitive evaluation. this tendency may reflect a more common neglect of the role played by affect in decision making theories (loewenstein, weber, hsee, & welch, 2001). loewenstein et al. (2001) have proposed that affect should be incorporated along with cognitions in decision-making accounts, denoting their model the risk-as-feeling model. this model is dealing with anticipatory emotions (emotions experienced while the decision is being pondered) as opposed to anticipated affect (affect which comes into the picture when considering the emotional implications of having made a certain decision). the basic idea is that risky decisions are guided by fear and anxiety which work independently of cognitive considerations of risks and outcomes. for example, decision-relevant feelings may derive from vividly imagined consequences of a decision as well as from personal experiences and familiarity of the consequences of making a decision. in effect these authors propose that the impact of cognitive risk considerations on decisions is partly mediated by affective responses (loewenstein et al., 2001). the same reasoning may be derived from social psychology in which a number of studies have provided evidence that it is possible to make a distinction between affect and cognition and accordingly to demonstrate the primacy of affect versus cognition in determining behaviour (see trafimow et al., 2004 for a review). combining betweenand within-participants analyses across a number of different behaviours, trafimow et al. (2004) demonstrated that most of the behaviours were driven by affect, although admittedly this tendency was not so clear-cut in the within-person analyses. as noted and elaborated upon by trafimow & sheeran (2004), this finding is consistent with the evolutionary ideas presented by johnston (1999) and damasio’s (1994) somatic marker hypothesis, and the finding that affect is more readily accessible in memory than cognition (verplanken, hofstee, & janssen, 1998). in effect, the above findings suggest that affect provides the motivational impetus for behavioural intentions and that the influence of cognitions on intentions primarily work through affect, i.e. affect exerts its effect in the here and now (see trafimow & sheeran, 2004). in other words, although trafimow-sheeran model and the risk as feelings model, pertains to current or anticipatory affect, i.e. affect experienced in the here and now, these ideas are nevertheless consistent with the proposition that affect might mediate between cognitive evaluations and decision making processes. one plausible representative of affective processes which is expected to play an important role in decision making is the concept of worry. although it is acknowledged that worry might have a cognitive “flavour”, this concept has predominantly been operationalized in current literature in terms of affect-laden images which are commonly negative and uncontrollable (finney rutten, blake, hesse, augustson, & evans, 2011). studies have shown that risk perception (or perceived vulnerability) and worry independently predicted various indicators of screening behaviours (e.g mccaul & mullens, 2003; see also overview by hall et al., 2009). the effects of worry have frequently been associated with self-protective health behaviours in general (mccaul, schroeder, & reid, 1996) as well as with quitting smoking intentions (finney rutten et al., 2011; magnan, köblitz, zielke, & mccaul, 2009), and quitting smoking activities (dijkstra & brosschot, 2003), although these findings are not straightforward (see hall et al, 2009). for example, hall and colleagues (2009) have found that worry about europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 cognitive and affective risk perceptions 392 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cervical cancer was not related to intention to stop smoking. hence, the conclusions were made that worry was less important in motivating behavioral change when it comes to disease preventive behaviors. however, only two studies seem to have tested the mediation hypothesis that the effect of risk perception (likelihood estimates) on preventive health behaviours is mediated by worry, and none of them in the context of smoking behaviour. cameron & diefenbach (2001) found that worry about breast cancer mediated the predictive power of risk perception of getting breast cancer on interest in genetic testing. furthermore, chapman & coups (2006) found that worry mediated the effect of risk perceptions on influenza vaccination and that worry was a stronger predictor than risk perception. in a third study outside the domain of traditional preventive health behaviours, on willingness to fly after 9/11, the inclusion of worry into the final regression equation after risk perception, increased the amount of explained variance significantly, but it remains unclear whether worry mediated the effect of risk perception (bergstrom & mccaul, 2004). thus there is a need for more studies on the mediational capacity of anticipated worry in relation to risk perception in general as well as in the area of quitting smoking in which the role of anticipated emotions have not been explored. additional predictors in order to provide a more complete account of the process of forming an intention to quit smoking we included two predictors in addition to measures of affective (worry) and cognitive risk (risk perception). first, when it comes to behaviours which are difficult to perform, like quitting smoking, behavioural performance as well as intention to perform the behaviour are in part dependent on the amount of control one has over it. consistent with this, perceived behavioural control (ajzen, 1991) and self-efficacy (bandura, 1977) are integral parts of the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) and social cognitive theory, respectively. a similar concept has been suggested by eiser & sutton (1977) arguing that intentions to stop smoking depend strongly on the expectancy of success (or confidence) in their ability to stop. we included this latter concept into our prediction model. traditionally, past behaviour has been also included into analyses using the tpb to account for quitting smoking, and has been found to account for additional variance in quitting intentions (see moan & rise, 2005) indicating that important predictors are left out (ajzen, 1991). a related idea which has not been explored in this context is whether a measure of self-prediction of future smoking status adds to the prediction of quitting intentions above the other predictors. just as smokers make use of what they have been doing in the past when they decide whether or not to stop or continue to smoke, they may also base this decision on reflections about their future smoking status in the long run. thus the higher the probability of being a daily smoker in the future, the lower the inclination to quit smoking. the aim of the present study was twofold. first, to explore whether personal awareness of worry (i.e. affective processes) mediated the effect of cognitive risk perception on quitting intentions. secondly, to explore whether two additional predictors: (i) self-prediction of future smoking status and (ii) confidence in one’s ability to stop smoking, accounted for variance above those of the cognitive and affective risk measures. materials and methods the data come from a nationwide interview survey (by telephone) conducted in 2000 as part of the national monitoring system of smoking. the interviews were conducted by specially trained professionals and organized by statistics norway (see vågane, 2001). the original sample comprised 2486 persons, and interviews were europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 kovač & rise 393 http://www.psychopen.eu/ obtained with 1446 persons yielding a response-rate of 58.3%. of the non-responders (n=1037), 396 persons declined to be interviewed, while 271 persons were unavailable, and the rest could not be reached for various reasons. the present study includes smokers defined as “daily” and “sometimes” smokers (n=415), and the results are considered to be representative of norwegian smokers. the majority of instruments applied here have been used in several previous studies on risk perception (see rise, strype, & sutton, 2002). the mean age of the participants was 42 (range 16-72), 50% were women, they reported to smoke 13 cigarettes per day, and had made on an average 1.7 attempts at quitting smoking during last year. measures intention to quit smoking was measured by adding the following two items into a sum-score: “i intend to quit smoking during the next 6 months” and “i desire to quit smoking during the next 6 months” using a seven point scale ranging from (1) very unlikely to (7) very likely (r=.69, p<.001). risk perception (cognitive risk measure) was measured by two items in terms of a percentage scale ranging from 0-100%. risk probability estimates were estimated conditional on quitting smoking (“how likely do you believe it is that you will become sick and die due to your smoking if you stop smoking within a couple years?”) and conditional on continuing to smoke (“how likely do you think it is that you will become sick and die due to your smoking if you continue to smoke for the rest of your life?”). the two responses were added to provide a sum-score of risk probabilities (r=.54, p<.001). worry (affective riskmeasure)wasmeasured by two items asking howworried the smokers were about becoming sick and dying due to their own smoking conditional on carrying on smoking (“are you worried that you will become sick and die due to your own smoking if you carry on (if you stop) a smoking for the rest of your life. a seven point response scale ranging from (1) “not worried at all” to (7) “strongly worried”. the two responses were added to provide a sum-score of worry (r=.56, p<.001). self-prediction of future smoking statuswas assessed by one item asking participants to estimate their smoking status in 5 years from now using a 4 point scale (1= quite sure that i would smoke daily, 2 = i would probably smoke daily, 3 = i would probably not smoke daily, and 4 = quite sure that i would not smoke daily). confidence in one’s ability to quit smoking (expectancy of success) was assessed by one item asking participants the following question: “if you now make an attempt to quit smoking, what is in your opinion the probability that you would succeed?” (percentage scale ranging from 0-100%). results descriptive statistics and correlations are presented in table 1. all measures correlated significantly with intention to quit smoking. the strongest correlation with intention was observed for worry (r=.41, p<.001), followed by future smoking (r=.31, p<.001) and confidence (r=.17, p<.01). it is notable that risk perception, although significantly correlated with intention (r=.15, p<.01), was weakly related to intention in terms of effect size (cohen, 1988). worry was also significantly related to risk perception (r=.37, p<.001), but was unrelated to future smoking and confidence. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 cognitive and affective risk perceptions 394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlations and descriptive statistics among study variables sdm54321variables 1. intention to quit .152.483.001 2. future smoking .95.373.001.31*** 3. confidence .6333.0560.001.30***.17** 4. risk perception .4919.6927.001.07-.20***-.15** 5. worry .581.722.001.37***.04-.06.41*** *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p <.001. regression analyses table 2 shows the results of the four steps hierarchical linear regression analyses in which quitting intention was regressed upon risk perception (step 1), worry (step 2), confidence (step 3), and future smoking (step 4). risk perception was a significant predictor of quitting intentions explaining 2% of the variance (β=.14, p<.01). the addition of worry at step 2 contributed significantly to an increase of explained variance (14%; f-change 65.09, p<.001, β=.41 p<.001). the addition of confidence at step 3 explained a significant proportion of additional variance in quitting intentions (3%; f-change 13.92, p<.001, β=.18, p<.001). finally in the fourth step the inclusion of future smoking added 6% of additional variance (f-change 30.78, p<.001; β=27, p<.001). the final model explained a total of 25% variance in quitting intentions with worry as the strongest predictor, followed by future smoking and confidence. in the second step, the effect of risk perception was reduced to a non-significant effect, indicating a possible mediation effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting intentions. according to baron and kenny (1986) mediation effects are confirmed when a mediating variable accounts for a relationship between two other variables in the sense that the effects of predictor variables are significantly reduced when a hypothesized mediating variable is included in the regression analysis. table 2 regressing intention to quit smoking on self-prediction of smoking status, confidence, risk perception, and worry. betafchangeadj. r2predictors enteredsteps risk perception1 .14**.85**6.02 risk perception2 .01nsworry .41***.09***65.16 risk perception3 .00ns worry .42*** confidence .18***.92***13.19 risk perception4 .06ns worry .38*** confidence .11*** future smoking .27***.78***30.25 *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. ns = non-significant. in order to test whether this reduction was statistically significant a sobel test was conducted. the results showed a significant mediational effect of worry on the relation between risk perception and quitting intention (sobel z = europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 kovač & rise 395 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 5.44, p < .001). in sum, these results indicate that worry, in addition to being significant predictor of quitting smoking intentions, also serves as a mediator providing a more comprehensive account of the cognitive aspects of risky decision making. discussion there has been a growing interest in the motivational role of affect in the area of decision making (loewenstein et al, 2001), social psychological research on attitude-behaviour models (trafimow & sheeran, 2004), research on perceived risk and preventive health behaviours (mccaul & mullens, 2003; chapman & coups, 2006), and research in the context of smoking behaviours (kovač & rise, 2011). a common finding of empirical studies based on ideas deriving from these perspectives is that affect tends to play a more important role than cognition in determining behaviour. consistent with this, the results of the present study found that affect, conceptualised as worry, was a stronger determinant of intentions to quit smoking than cognition, conceptualized as risk perception. a second important finding of the present study was that the effect of risk perception on quitting intentions was fully mediated by worry. this is consistent with the theoretical prediction of the trafimow/sheeran model (trafimow &sheeran, 2004). trafimow &sheeran (2004) draw upon various theoretical ideas and empirical findings supporting their argument that cognition has to be translated into affect in order to influence behaviour, and that affect provides the motivational impetus for action. next, the results provide support for the additional contribution of confidence in one’s quitting ability or expectancy of quitting success as noticed in earlier formulations of the concept in the formation of intention to quit smoking (eiser & sutton, 1977; sutton, marsh, & matheson, 1987). this suggests that control perceptions are important in the prediction of quitting intentions irrespective of whether they are conceptualised as perceptions of control as in the tpb, self-efficacy in the sct (see moan & rise, 2005; 2006, and armitage & conner, 2001) or as confidence. finally, it should be noted that self-prediction of future smoking status was the second strongest predictor of intentions (close to that of worry). at least two explanations may be advanced to account for this finding. first, as suggested in the introduction, representations of the self in the distant future, e.g. prediction of future smoking status, may enter into the calculations underlying the decision whether or not to stop smoking. however, the finding may also indicate that smokers’ statement of their intention to quit in the near future partly reflects a heuristic judgement based on a simple extrapolation from a representation of the future self as a smoker or non-smoker. empirical studies have shown that representations of the self in the distant future are more important than representations of the self in the near future for a number of relevant self-processes (wakslak, nussbaum, liberman, & trope, 2008). although it was expected that worry would appear to be an important direct predictor of intentions as well as a mediator of the relation between risk perception and quitting intention, it is nevertheless important to note that worry may not capture the full essence of risk perception. in their conceptual review, mccaul & mullens (2003) were reluctant to parallel worry with an emotional episode like fear. they construed worry as being closer to a core affect in the sense that it is constantly present, carrying with it negative feelings. these authors suggest that worry constitutes unwanted and uncontrollable thoughts about a threatening event, which nevertheless may motivate adaptive problem solving. in a number of studies they have provided evidence that worry is a better predictor than risk perception when it comes to specific health protective behaviours such as cancer screening (see mccaul & mullens, 2003). extending this idea, the present results indicate that general sensation of worry may not be limited to the workings of immediately threatening events, but also be useful in “fuelling” general europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 cognitive and affective risk perceptions 396 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive evaluations and judgments which contribute in the decisions to pursue healthy behavioural alternatives. worry has some similarities with affect in the risk-as-feelings model in the sense that it diverges from the cognitive assessment of risk in terms of being an anticipatory concept exerting its effects in the here and now. thus, worry is frequently experienced immediately prior to or at the very time of a decision, exerting a dominant influence in the decision making process. however, this differs from the risk-as-feelings model in which affective reactions are similar to an emotional episode deriving information from the current situation in terms of vividness and immediacy of a hazard. as noted, the relation between risk perception, as representative of cognitive processing of risk, and worry, as representative of affective processing of risk, is similar to some of the popular dual process models in contemporary psychology, notably epstein (epstein & pacini, 1999), and mischel (1996). with reference to epstein, the cognitive-experiential self-theory posits that people react to and comprehend reality through two fundamentally different co-acting systems, the rational and the experiential systems (epstein & pacini, 1999). while the latter is characterised by being intuitive, automatic, affect-based, oriented towards rapid processing, and experiential, the rational system is analytical, deliberative, verbal, and oriented towards slower processing. the basic idea is that when a person responds to an emotionally significant event, he or she will automatically search memory for related events which contains some emotional associations. similarly, the cognitive affective personality system model (caps) (mischel & ayduk, 2002) aims to integrate various attention processes and different modes of information processing along with a possible link to neuroscience and brain structures. the central feature of the capsmodel is the existence of two distinct and interactive systems: the “hot” system which is based on emotional processing and the “cool” system which is cognitively oriented (metcalfe &mischel, 1999). the interaction of these two systems produces mental representations and behavioural patterns which are both cognitive and emotional. thus, thinking about the object or behaviour of desire (e.g. cigarette or smoking) may activate emotion and consequently action. the theory suggests that self-regulatory failures are primarily caused by activation of strong emotionally based processes which sabotage already planned actions, e.g. quitting smoking. however, the basic premises of the caps also suggest that cognitive processes would be stronger if they are supported by correspondent emotional mechanisms. for example, a person might plan to quit smoking and perceive this course of action as a rational choice in a given situation, but nevertheless fail to enact it being based on deficiency of emotional processes which are supposed to support the cognitive orientation. in terms of our study it would imply that risk perception can only be instrumental in the quitting process if they are supported by activation of worry in relation to quitting smoking. this is indicated by the present findings which show that worry (a) contributes to a significant increase of explained variance in quitting intentions after the effects of risk perceptions are being controlled, and (b) fully mediates the effect of risk perception on quitting intentions. this suggests that abstract cognitive perceptions are dependent on affective states (e.g. worry) in order to guide behaviour towards achievement of long term aims and self-regulatory consistency. limitations and implications some limitations of the present study should be acknowledged. first, it may be argued that predicting quitting intentions requires a more complete model of potential predictors. for example, predictors taking social influence into account are not included, whereas control perceptions and self-prediction of future smoking are included. second, although information about the process of actual quitting is certainly valuable, due to restrictions in the data collection procedure, it was not possible to obtain a measure of actual quitting. nevertheless, as behavioural intention is presumed to be the most proximal predictor of behaviour (ajzen, 1991), analyses of this kind may still europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 kovač & rise 397 http://www.psychopen.eu/ be of help in disentangling the primacy of affect versus cognition in this particular area. third, the study was conducted using telephone interviews where participants commonly tend to answer in a fairly rapid manner, as compared to traditional paper and pencil responses. thus there was a restricted possibility for participants to go back and modify some of the previously given answers. additionally, although we are not aware of any studies which address this question, one could speculate that this approach might accentuate the use of heuristic/automatic responses at the expense of intentional/conscious processes. fourth, it is possible that alternative measures of risk perception would be stronger predictors of quitting intentions. following sloman (1996), windschitl & wells (1996) argued that being confronted with estimations of numerical probabilities, which is common practice regarding assessments of risk perception (sutton, 1999; weinstein, 2003), tends to sway people towards deliberative and rule-based reasoning. in contrast, the use of verbal measures such as scales which for example range from “very unlikely” to “very likely” tend to elicit more associative and intuitive thinking. hence it is possible that verbal measures of risk perception may be stronger predictors of intention than numerical probability estimates. future studies should use matching instruments in order to more accurately estimate the relative importance of these constructs (for a detailed discussion of measurement issues concerning risk perception and worry see sjöberg, 1998). finally, the use of only one item to assess self-prediction of future smoking and confidence, and only two items to assess behavioural intentions, risk perception, and worry may to some extent have weakened the reliability of these measures. notwithstanding these limitations, the present study may have some theoretical and practical implications. in theoretical terms, the findings provide further support for the idea that affect is of primary importance for risky decision making. current literature on this topic has predominantly focused on “who wins the battle”, cognition or emotion (epstein & pacini, 1999; mischel, 1996). the present work offers an alternative approach which emphasizes the importance of exploring a more nuanced relation between emotion and cognition (evans, 2007). the results indicate that emotion and cognition might even be supportive of each other, and conjointly work in the same direction. furthermore, the results emphasize the need for more detailed research on the mediational role of other possible emotional measures which could be useful in obtaining self-regulatory success when it comes to demanding personal projects such as quitting smoking. from an applied perspective, the results indicate that smoking threat communications may benefit from inducing more chronic negative emotions like worry, and not only rely on more episodic negative emotions like fear. although it is reasonable to assume that worry and fear are conceptually related, future research should focus on investigations of the causal relation between these concepts. thus, an important issue in the decision making process might revolve around analysis of the conditions under where fear evoking stimuli or images also aim at establishing a more lasting sensations of worrying for own health or life situation. finally, the results point to the importance of representations of the self in the distant future in the intention formation process. conclusions this study specifically aims to make contribution to the research field which investigates the role of affective and cognitive processes in decisions related to quitting smoking. the results clearly show that cognitive judgments, which frequently represent detached evaluations of future actions, need affective processes (i.e. worry) in order to “fuel” behavioural decisions. although the role of affective processes in prediction of future actions has predominantly been neglected in current literature on health behaviours, the conclusions of this research point out the necessity of including the relevant affective processes (e.g. worries and desires) in theoretical models which aim to provide a comprehensive account of human actions. future research should investigate whether or europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 cognitive and affective risk perceptions 398 http://www.psychopen.eu/ not these results are applicable to health behavioural decision making in general as well as contexts which require self-regulatory efforts/competencies. references abraham, c., & sheeran, p. 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(1996). measuring psychological uncertainty: verbal versus numeric methods. journal of experimental psychology: applied, 2, 343-364. doi:10.1037/1076-898x.2.4.343 about the authors velibor bobo kovac is an associate professor in the department of education at the university of agder in norway. his main research areas are addictive behaviors in general, with a specific focus on smoking, assessments of student behavior in the context of higher education, and special education. jostein rise is a senior researcher at the norwegian institute for alcohol and drug research and a professor ii in social psychology at the university of oslo in norway. his main research areas are attitudes towards drug issues, attitude-behaviour models in general and psychological aspects of addiction. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(3), 391–401 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i3.479 kovač & rise 401 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1998.tb00918.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.1.3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698579908407020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/0144666041501642 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8287.1998.tb00551.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199801/02)28:1<23::aid-ejsp843>3.0.co;2-z http://www.ssb.no/emner/00/90/omnibus/notat_200173/notat_200173.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012939 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.1.65 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1076-898x.2.4.343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive and affective risk perceptions additional predictors materials and methods measures results regression analyses discussion limitations and implications conclusions references about the authors italian adaptation of the "autonomy and relatedness coding system" research reports italian adaptation of the "autonomy and relatedness coding system" sonia ingoglia*a, maria grazia lo cricchioa [a] department of psychology, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the study examined the applicability of the observational technique developed by allen and colleagues (allen, hauser, bell, & o’connor, 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003) to investigate the issues of autonomy and relatedness in parent-adolescent relationship in the italian context. thirty-five mother-adolescent dyads participated to a task in which they discussed a family issue about which they disagree. adolescents were also administered a self-report measure assessing their relationship with mothers. mothers reported significantly higher levels of promoting and inhibiting autonomy, and promoting relatedness behaviors than their children. results also suggested a partial behavioral reciprocity within the dyads, regarding promoting and inhibiting relatedness, and inhibiting autonomy. finally, mothers’ inhibiting autonomy behaviors positively correlated to teens’ perception of their relationship as conflicting; adolescents’ inhibiting and promoting autonomy and inhibiting relatedness behaviors positively correlated to open confrontation, rejection and coolness, while promoting relatedness behaviors negatively correlated to open confrontation, rejection and coolness. the results suggest that, for italian mothers, behaviors linked to autonomy seem to be associated with being involved in a more negative relationship with their children, even if not characterized by open hostility, while for italian adolescents, behaviors linked to autonomy seem to be associated with threatening the closeness of the relationship. globally, the findings suggest that the application of this observational procedure may help our understanding of youth autonomy and relatedness development in italy, but they leave unanswered questions regarding its appropriate adaptation and the role played by cultural differences. keywords: autonomy, relatedness, parent-adolescent relationship, observational technique europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 received: 2013-01-11. accepted: 2013-05-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università degli studi di palermo, viale delle scienze, ed.15, 90128, palermo, italy. e-mail: sonia.ingoglia@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent decades, a growing body of research has focused on the process of individuation as a key developmental task during adolescence (allen, hauser, bell, & o’connor, 1994; bray, adams, getz, & mcqueen, 2003; grotevant & cooper, 1986; hill & holmbeck, 1986; ingoglia, lo coco, liga, & lo cricchio, 2011; lo cricchio, liga, ingoglia, & lo coco, 2012). this process includes, on the one hand, being able to operate in an autonomous and self-directed manner without being controlled or impaired by parents, and, on the other hand, having close and intimate ties with them. in this perspective, the achievement of a state of autonomous relatedness (bowlby cited in murphey, silber, coelho, hamburg, & greenberg, 1963) may be considered as the optimal outcome of the changes occurring in the parent-child relationship during adolescence. several studies have shown that more individuated youngsters (characterized by high levels of both autonomy and relatedness) tend to report higher levels of selfesteem, self-confidence, academic achievement, and psychological well-being, and lower levels of psychopathology than teens characterized by impairments in autonomy and/or relatedness in the relationship with their parents (delaney, 1996; frank, avery, & laman, 1988; ingoglia et al., 2004; kins, beyers, & soenens, 2013; kruse & walper, 2008; lamborn & steinberg, 1993; lee & bell, 2003; mcclanahan & holmbeck, 1992; pavlidis &mccauley, 2001; willemen, schuengel, & koot, 2011). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, the research regarding the development of youth autonomy and relatedness has been conducted primarily from the perspective of middle class european american childrearing values, limiting generalization to other cultural and socioeconomic settings (mcelhaney & allen, 2012; mcelhaney, allen, stephenson, & hare, 2009; smetana, 2002; tamis-lemonda et al., 2008). literature on sociocultural influences on parenting and adolescent development suggests that the sociocultural environment can shape the degree to which autonomy is valued, the way in which it is negotiated within parent-child relationship, and the outcomes associated to this process (bornstein & güngör, 2009; greenfield, keller, fuligni, & maynard, 2003; harkness & super, 2002; levine et al., 2008; manzi, regalia, pelucchi, & fincham, 2012; parke & buriel, 2006; peterson, steinmetz, & wilson, 2005; phinney, kim-jo, osorio, & vilhjalmsdottir, 2005). for instance, parental behaviors that appear restrictive of adolescent behavior in one setting may have very different meanings in other contexts, and thus different consequences for youth adjustment (deater-deckard, dodge, bates, & pettit, 1996; ho, bluestein, & jenkins, 2008; mcelhaney & allen, 2001). therefore research that aims to fully understand family processes concerning this aspect of adolescent development should carefully consider the role of cultural values, and the aspects of the autonomy and relatedness processes that unfold similarly across settings and those that are more peculiar to certain cultures (mcelhaney & allen, 2012; tamis-lemonda et al., 2008). to enable the study of autonomy and relatedness in parent-adolescent relationship in a cross-cultural perspective, researchers need reliable and valid measurement instruments, particularly observational procedures which allow the assessment of specific behaviors. the observational technique developed by allen and colleagues (allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003) is one of the most widely used to investigate these issues (becker-stoll, fremmer-bombik, wartner, zimmermann, & grossmann, 2008; holmbeck et al., 2003; kahlbaugh, lefkowitz, valdez, & sigman, 1997; langfitt, wood, brand, brand, & erba, 1999; pavlidis & mccauley, 2001; samuolis, hogue, dauber, & liddle, 2006; scharf & mayseless, 2008), but until now no attempt has been made to apply it in the italian cultural context. the general aim of this study is to analyze the applicability of the observational technique developed by allen and colleagues to an italian sample of mother-adolescent dyads. mothers are the relational fulcrum of the family, while fathers seem to maintain a more peripheral position (greene & grimsley, 1990; noller & callan, 1990), and this is particularly true in italy, where the centrality of the mother is more emphasized than in many other cultures (carrà & marta, 1995; malagoli-togliatti & ardone, 1993). in italian families, besides the task of child-rearing, mothers have also the role of providing guidance, socialization, and the transmission of norms and values (manganelli & capozza, 1993; rosnati, 1996; scabini, 2000). the autonomy and relatedness observational procedure and coding system the observational procedure proposed by allen and colleagues (allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003) is aimed at measuring autonomy and relatedness with respect to a “paradigmatic challenge” for a family with an adolescent, that is, negotiating different ideas and opinions of both parents and teen. it requires the participation of the adolescent and his/her parent(s) in the so-called “revealed differences family interaction task”, in which they discuss family issues identified as areas of disagreement. to determine a topic for discussion, the adolescent and parent(s) are asked to separately rate eleven areas of possible disagreement in their relationship on a 5-point scale (from 1-not a problem to 5-a major problem); examples of issues are money, telephone use, friends, grades, household rules. the interviewers identify three topics for subsequent discussion by selecting the areas in which both the adolescent and parent(s) reported many problems (with scores higher than 3 for both of them). the adolescent is then recorded presenting his/her position on the three selected conflict areas. both members of the dyad are then brought together, and the researcher explains to them the rules of their task. the discussion begins europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 462 http://www.psychopen.eu/ only after the playing of the audiotape previously recorded with the adolescent. after hearing the audiotape, they have eight minutes to discuss each problem, trying to both explain their positions and find a possible solution. the videotapes and transcripts are then utilized to code the parent-adolescent interactions for speech promoting or inhibiting autonomy and relatedness within the dyad using the “autonomy and relatedness coding system” (arcs; allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003). coders use both the videotapes and transcripts of parent-adolescent interactions to determine the extent to which autonomy and relatedness are exhibited and/or undermined throughout the course of the discussion. each interaction is coded independently by two trained researchers. coders follow concrete behavioral guidelines provided by the arcs to rate both parents’ and adolescents’ individual statements on all ten individual subscales (see table 1), with scores ranging from 0 to 4. specific interactive behaviors are coded and then added together on a priori grounds into four global scales: promoting relatedness, inhibiting relatedness, promoting autonomy, and inhibiting autonomy. table 1 individual and global scales of the arcs inhibition of relatednesspromotion of relatednessinhibition of autonomypromotion of autonomy • interrupting/ignoring other person • queries to other person which are truly information seeking • recanting a position• stating reasons clearly for disagreeing • overpersonalizing the discussion. blurring the• ••confidence in stating thoughts and opinions hostile or devaluing statements toward other person validating/agreeing/positively reacting to other personboundary between the person and his/her position • engaged interaction • pressuring other person to agree promoting autonomy behaviors are those which differentiate a person from others, reflecting independence of thought and the capacity of self-determination in social interaction. they allow the definition of the extent to which an individual feels free to think and act in a self-directed manner while accepting and encouraging the other one to express his/her position autonomously. they refer to the use of statements regarding the reasons behind a position and to a calm and confident tone in the discussion. in this scale there are two behavioral categories: 1. stating reasons clearly for disagreeing: it refers to the ability to state clearly ones' own reasons and to give complete information in order to explain one’s own position; 2. confidence in stating thoughts and opinions: this category codes the extent to which a person demonstrates confidence by speaking out forcefully and often and with self-belief. inhibiting autonomy behaviors are those that make it difficult for both members of a dyad to discuss the reasons for their own opinions. they interfere with the expression of autonomy within a dyad by employing tactics of psychological control which diminish the importance of the other’s position and, in this way, make it difficult for him/her to continue discussing his/her position in the interaction. these behaviors undermine autonomy both by directly contesting the other’s statements about his/her positions and intentionally impeding discussion of the reasons behind positions. they do not simply reveal the absence of autonomy, but reflect several ways of inhibiting or avoiding autonomous discussion within a dyad. in this scale there are three behavioral categories: 1. placating/recanting: this code includes behaviors which inhibit a productive discussion of an issue by advancing a statement that the other member of the dyad doesn't mean (i.e. pretending to agree/change one's own position) in order to placate the other person and/or de-escalate the argument; europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 ingoglia & lo cricchio 463 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. overpersonalizing/blurring the boundary between the person and his/her position: there are several ways this may be done, all of which have the same thing in common: they treat the disagreement as being in some respect a "fault" or feature of the person disagreeing rather than a dissimilarity in ideas and reasons; 3. pressuring the other to agree: this code refers to all those statements that implicitly (using sarcasm) or explicitly (asking directly) pressure the other to change his/her mind by making it uncomfortable for him/her not to do so. promoting relatedness behaviors are those which reflect interest and involvement in, and validation of, another person’s thoughts and feelings. they tend to increase the extent of positive interactions between members of a dyad, particularly by expressing interest in, and empathy and positive reactions toward, the other person, his/her thoughts and feelings. in this scale there are three behavioral categories: 1. queries of another person which are truly information seeking: this category specifically refers to statements that indicate a genuine interest in what the other person thinks; 2. validating/positively reacting to other person: this category codes statements which tend to validate the other person by reacting positively to them. this may be done by agreeing with the other directly or by copying what the other says; 3. engaged interaction: this category focuses upon the degree to which a person is engaging with another. a person can demonstrate engagement both verbally and non-verbally, and he/she is fully engaged only if he/she is sensitive to what the other is communicating. inhibiting relatedness behaviors are those which actively undermine the degree of positive interaction within a dyad, either by explicitly cutting off the other person when he/she is trying to speak, devaluing the speaker and what he/she is saying and, thus, implicitly cutting him/her off, or refusing to engage in a discussion. this scale includes two behavioral categories: 1. distracting/ignoring/cutting off other person: this category refers to actions which ignore or cut off another person. the more statements explicitly communicate a lack of interest in the other’s statements, and/or a lack of willingness to hear what the other is saying, the higher the score for this category will be; 2. hostile or devaluing statements toward other: this category refers to devaluing statements which would be reasonably expected to leave the other person feeling annoyed, hurt about him/herself. this category includes statements which are rude or hostile toward the other person or their statements. each interaction is coded as the average of the scores given by two trained raters who are blind to other data of the study. each partner’s behavior in the dyad is then summed to yield a single dyadic score for each scale. the scoring system takes into account both the frequency and level of statements falling into each code: specifically, more frequent and/or intense statements are rated higher than less frequent and/or intense statements. the coding system produces ten scores for individual scales and four scores for global scales, both for parent (to teen) and for teen (to parent). in the validation study, allen and colleagues (1994) found empirical support for a three-factor model: autonomousrelatedness factor (obtained combining scales for promoting autonomy and relatedness), inhibiting autonomy factor and inhibiting relatedness factor, but more recent work has shown the value of examining the four global scales separately (allen, hauser, o’connor, & bell, 2002; mcelhaney & allen, 2001). autonomy and relatedness in parent-child relationship and adolescent's psychosocial adjustment results of a number of studies have shown that the arcs global factors are differently related to each other. both for teens and for mothers, autonomous-relatedness has been found not to be significantly associated to inhibiting autonomy and inhibiting relatedness, while inhibiting autonomy has been found to be positively linked to europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 464 http://www.psychopen.eu/ inhibiting relatedness (allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2002; allen, hauser, o’connor, bell, & eickholt, 1996). results have also shown a moderate behavioral reciprocity within the dyads. mothers' and teens' promoting relatedness behaviors have been found to be positively associated to each other, and the same is for inhibiting relatedness behaviors (allen, hauser, et al., 2002; allen, mcelhaney, et al., 2003); mothers' and teens' promoting autonomy behaviors have been found to be positively but moderately associated to each other (allen, mcelhaney, et al., 2003) or not associated (allen, marsh, et al., 2002), and the same is for inhibiting autonomy behaviors. as outlined by allen, mcelhaney and colleagues (2003), mothers' and teens' behaviors promoting their own autonomy may be considered less conceptually linked than promoting relatedness behaviors: displaying one's own autonomy does not necessary enhance the other person's autonomy in the relationship. several studies have analyzed the role of autonomy and relatedness behaviors on adolescents’ psychological adjustment showing that the way in which families handle youngsters' strivings for autonomy is linked to numerous aspects of their adjustment (allen et al., 1994, 1996; allen, hauser, et al., 2002; allen, mcelhaney, et al., 2003; allen, porter, mcfarland, mcelhaney, & marsh, 2007; holmbeck et al., 2003; mcelhaney & allen, 2001; pavlidis & mccauley, 2001). family discussions that allow for adolescents’ to express their points of view openly while maintaining a positive relationship with the other have been linked to higher levels of social and interpersonal competence, greater self-esteem, higher levels of ego development, and lower levels of depressed affectivity and externalizing problems (allen et al., 1994; allen, bell, & boykin, 2000; hall, 2002; mcelhaney & allen, 2001). in contrast, both inhibiting autonomy and inhibiting relatedness behaviors have been linked to a wide range of negative outcomes, including depression, externalizing problems, poor peer relationships, greater association with deviant peers and lower levels of ego-development (allen et al., 2006; allen, hauser, et al., 2002; pavlidis & mccauley, 2001). application of the observational procedure in other sociocultural settings allen and colleagues' observational procedure have been used in other countries than the us, for example, germany (becker-stoll et al., 2008) and israel (scharf & mayseless, 2008). notwithstanding, none of these studies was specifically aimed at examining its applicability in a cross-cultural perspective; consequently we lack a basis for comparison. but, as shown by some studies, the associations between the arcs factors may change in diverse social settings, and so one way to explore the meaning that autonomy and relatedness behaviors have for family members in a specific sociocultural context may be to investigate their reciprocal interrelations. for instance, scharf and mayseless (2008), differently than allen and colleagues (1994), found that israeli girls’ exhibiting autonomy behaviors were highly related to inhibiting autonomy behaviors toward both mother and father. even if conducted in the us cultural context, the study of samuolis and colleagues (2006) on an inner-city, ethnic minority, drug abusing sample may also be useful to understand how the interrelations between the arcs factors may change in diverse social settings. differently than allen and colleagues (1994), samuolis and colleagues (2006) found that, both for adolescents and their parents, inhibiting behaviors were highly correlated to each other, defining an undermining autonomous-relatedness factor. according to these authors, the two types of inhibiting behaviors may be viewed as forms of detraction from the relationship. moreover they found that autonomousrelatedness was positively linked to undermining autonomous-relatedness (both for adolescents and their parents) and psychological maladjustment indices, such as drug use, externalizing, and internalizing behaviors. in this sample, autonomous-relatedness was largely defined by behaviors indicative of reasoning and confidence rather than engagement and validating; these two types of behaviors do not necessary reflect positive traits. samuolis and colleagues (2006) concluded that autonomous-relatedness could represent something qualitatively different europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 ingoglia & lo cricchio 465 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this sample than was originally conceptualized by the arcs creators. authors also found evidence for a behavioral reciprocity within the dyads for undermining autonomous-relatedness but not for autonomous-relatedness. aims of the study the main purpose of the study was to explore the applicability of the observational procedure and coding system developed by allen and colleagues in the italian cultural context, focusing on mother-adolescent dyads. the first aim of the study was to explore the differences between mothers and their children in their scores of autonomy and relatedness behaviors. no previous study was specifically aimed at analyzing these differences. notwithstanding, on the basis of descriptive results reported by a number of research studies (allen et al., 1994; allen, marsh, et al., 2002; allen, mcelhaney, et al., 2003; pavlidis & mccauley, 2001), we hypothesized that mothers would report higher levels of promoting autonomy and relatedness behaviors, and lower levels of inhibiting autonomy and relatedness behaviors than their children. the second aim of the study was to explore the interrelations among the autonomy and relatedness behaviors of mothers and adolescents. in light of the contradictory results of previous studies, no specific hypothesis was formulated. finally, the third aim of the study was to examine the construct validity of the coding system, investigating the relations among autonomy and relatedness behaviors and adolescents’ perceptions of the quality of the relationship with their mothers. it was hypothesized that both maternal and adolescent promoting autonomy and relatedness behaviors would be related to a positive parent-child relationship, while inhibiting autonomy and relatedness behaviors would be related to a more negative relationship. method participants globally, 70 persons participated in the study, specifically 35 adolescents and their mothers. there were 10 boys and 25 girls; they aged from 14 to 19 years (m = 16.35, sd = 1.67). all youngsters attended the high school and lived with their parents. mothers aged from 37 to 59 years (m = 47.35, sd = 5.48); all of them were married. approximately 55% of mothers had a job and 45% were housewives; with regard to mothers who had a job, 16% were professional or managerial, 36% trades people, 15% skilled workers, and 33% unskilled workers. of all participants, 75% of mothers had obtained their secondary school-leaving certificate. all the participants were caucasian and were recruited through public announcement from several high schools of sicily (southern italy), that served middle-class communities. measures observed autonomy and relatedness in mother-adolescent relationship— adolescents and their mothers participated in a revealed differences family interaction task in which they discussed a family issue about which they disagreed. typical topics of discussion included money (19%), grades (19%), household rules (17%), friends (14%), and brothers and sisters (10%). other possible topic areas included communication, plans for the future, alcohol and drugs, religion, and dating. both the videotapes and transcripts were then utilized to code the parentadolescent interactions for speeches promoting or undermining autonomy and relatedness in the dyad using the arcs (allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003; ingoglia & allen, 2010). coder training and the establishment of inter-rater reliability on this coding system proceeded as follows. authors were previously trained by coding europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 466 http://www.psychopen.eu/ manual authors; new coders practiced using tapes for which consensus codes had previously been established. next, the whole group of experienced and new coders coded a small number of the tapes from the current dataset; these tapes were considered practice tapes for the new coders. additional new coders were trained in a similar manner, calibrating themselves to the group as a whole by practicing on consensus tapes. bi-monthly coding meetings were held in which a single tape was coded by the entire group to discuss interpretations of the manual and to prevent coder drift. each interaction was coded by two coders. care was taken to ensure that coders were blind to the rest of the family data. in order to assess the reliability of the coding system, interrater concordance was calculated using intraclass correlation coefficients and evaluated using the guidelines provided by cicchetti and sparrow (1981): a coefficient less than .40 is considered poor, from .40 to .59 is fair, from .60 to .74 is good, and over .75 is excellent. coefficients ranged from .60 (mother to adolescent, querying to other person) to .90 (mother to adolescent, inhibiting relatedness) showing a good to excellent reliability of the scales. reported quality of the relationship with mother — in order to assess the quality of the relationship with their mothers, adolescents completed the relationship with the mother questionnaire (rmq; mayseless, wiseman, & hai, 1998). rmq a 63-item self-report measure consisting of seven subscales: (a) emotional closeness (10 items, e.g., “she can make me feel better when i’m in a bad mood”), which taps the strength of the emotional bonds with mothers; (b) communication (10 items, e.g., “between ourselves we talk openly about things”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents may talk openly to their mothers, (c) mutuality (7 items, e.g., “when i see that something is bothering her i ask her about it”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents perceive the relation with their mothers as characterized by reciprocity, (d) rejection/coolness (10 items, e.g., “we appear to disturb each other”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents perceive their mothers as cold and rejecting, (e) supervision (8 items, e.g., “she always wants to know who i was with”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents perceive their mothers as controlling, (f) autonomy (8 items, e.g., “she allows me as much freedom as i want”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents perceive the respect of their own autonomy in the relationship with mothers, and (g) open confrontation (10 items, e.g., “we fight and argue a lot”), which taps into the extent to which adolescents perceive the relation with parents as conflictual. the items were presented as declarative statements; participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (1 = very untrue; 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true of their relationship with their mothers. in the present study, the subscales had adequate internal consistency: cronbach's α ranged from .70 to .82. results differences between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores on the arcs scales in order to examine differences between mother and adolescent scores on the arcs scales, t-test for dependent samples was computed. means, standard deviations and t-test are presented in table 2. regarding the global scales, mothers reported significantly higher levels of promotion of autonomy, inhibition of autonomy, and promotion of relatedness than their children. regarding the individual scales, mothers reported significantly higher levels of stating reasons clearly for disagreeing, pressuring other person to agree, querying and validating other person, while adolescents reported higher levels of ignoring other person. interrelations among scores of the arcs scales in order to evaluate the correlation between the scores of the arcs scales, pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was calculated. results are presented in tables 3 and 4. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 ingoglia & lo cricchio 467 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 means and standard deviations of the arcs scales and t-test adolescentmother tsdmsdm individual scales stating reasons clearly for disagreeing .78**-2.580.761.670.212 confidence in stating thoughts and opinions .65-1.910.972.820.383 recanting a position .590.670.350.640.240 overpersonalizing the discussion .17-1.081.971.291.222 pressuring other person to agree .96**-2.001.172.920.782 queries to other person .49***-5.780.550.001.431 validating other person .54*-2.860.211.930.741 engaged interaction .77†-1.680.382.790.642 ignoring other person .04**3.810.262.870.761 hostile statements toward other person .52-0.840.720.041.830 global scales promoting autonomy .53*-2.660.242.660.682 inhibiting autonomy .51*-2.710.371.610.611 promoting relatedness .31***-4.480.221.660.721 inhibiting relatedness .451.620.341.830.121 †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 3 correlation coefficients for individual and global scales of the arcs relative to mothers 10987654321individual scales -stating reasons for disagreeing1 -confidence2 .43* -recanting a position3 .39*-.12-overpersonalizing the discussion4 .15-.03.01-pressuring other person to agree5 .41*.16.33†.02 -queries to other person6 .10-.27-.39*.14-.24-validating other person7 .10.43*-.33†-.05.40*-.20-engaged interaction8 .81***.15.58***-.37*-.03-.36†-.19-ignoring other person9 .39*-.47**-.20-.51**.56*.08-.23.09-hostile statements toward other10 .50**.45*-.51**-.16.28.12.12.04.1014131211global scales -promoting autonomy11 -inhibiting autonomy12 .03 -promoting relatedness13 .49**-.37*-inhibiting relatedness14 .46*-.51**.14 †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regarding mothers, globally the results showed that promoting autonomy behaviors were uncorrelated with inhibiting autonomy behaviors, negatively related with promoting relatedness behaviors, and positively but non significantly related with inhibiting relatedness behaviors; inhibiting autonomy behaviors were related negatively with promotion of relatedness and positively with inhibition of relatedness; promoting and inhibiting relatedness behaviors were negatively associated to each other. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 correlation coefficients for individual and global scales of the arcs relative to adolescents 10987654321individual scales -stating reasons for disagreeing1 -confidence2 .39* -recanting a position3 .02.22 -overpersonalizing the discussion4 .31†.43*.27 -pressuring other person to agree5 .60***.17.44*.26 -queries to other person6 .10.14-.38*-.32†-.09-validating other person7 .12-.25-.03-.37*.26-.04-engaged interaction8 .17.01-.06.13-.14-.14.33†-ignoring other person9 .04.10-.01-.76***.56**.22.23.37* -hostile statements toward other10 .34†.19-.28.36†-.35†.46*.68***.27.23 14131211global scales -promoting autonomy11 -inhibiting autonomy12 .48** -promoting relatedness13 .15-.23-inhibiting relatedness14 .13-.80***.41* †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regarding adolescents, globally the results showed that promoting autonomy behaviors were positively related with inhibiting autonomy and relatedness behaviors and negatively but not significantly related to promoting relatedness behaviors; inhibition of autonomy was positively related with inhibition of relatedness, and negatively but not significantly related to promotion of relatedness; promoting and inhibiting relatedness behaviors were related negatively but not significantly to each other. interrelations between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores of the arcs scales in order to evaluate the correlation between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores on the arcs scales, pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed. results are presented in table 5. regarding the global scales, the results showed that mothers' and teens' promoting autonomy behaviors were not related to each other, whereas inhibiting autonomy, promoting relatedness and inhibiting relatedness behaviors were positively related to each other. regarding the individual scales, the results showed that mothers' and adolescents' behaviors overpersonalizing the discussion and engaging interaction tend to be more strictly related to each other than other categories. validity of the arcs scales in order to evaluate the correlation between the arcs scales and adolescents’ perception of their relationship with mothers, pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was calculated. results are presented in table 6. concerning mothers’ behaviors, only inhibition of autonomy was in some degree positively related to open confrontation. regarding adolescents, promotion of autonomy was positively related to open confrontation, rejection/coolness, and in some degree to supervision; inhibition of autonomy was positively related to open confrontation, and in some degree to rejection/coolness; promotion of relatedness was in some degree negatively related to open confrontation, rejection/coolness, and supervision; inhibition of relatedness was positively related to open confrontation and rejection/coolness. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 ingoglia & lo cricchio 469 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 correlation coefficients between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores on the arcs scales individual scales stating reasons clearly for disagreeing .04 confidence in stating thoughts and opinions .22recanting a position .03overpersonalizing the discussion .52** pressuring other person to agree .35† queries to other person .55** validating other person .20 engaged interaction .43* ignoring other person .45* hostile statements toward other person .35† global scales promoting autonomy .02inhibiting autonomy .70*** promoting relatedness .43* inhibiting relatedness .38* †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 6 correlation coefficients between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores on the arcs scales and the rmq scores asrcocmcec mothers promoting autonomy .20.06-.07-.03-.21.16.16 inhibiting autonomy .11.07-.25.32†.24-.30-.29promoting relatedness .02.03-.12-.09-.04-.13.09 inhibiting relatedness .01.02-.23.11.16-.23-.02adolescents promoting autonomy .16-.36 † .38*.45*.19-.18-.13inhibiting autonomy .01.05-.33 † .42*.30-.25-.20promoting relatedness .22.33 † -.35 † -.36 † -.21.13.12 inhibiting relatedness .15.06-.37*.47**.28-.29-.31note. ec emotional closeness, c communication, mmutuality, oc open confrontation, rc rejection/coolness, s supervision, a autonomy. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion and conclusions to enable the cross-cultural study of autonomy and relatedness in parent-adolescent relationship, scholars need a reliable and valid measurement instrument. the general aim of this research was to analyze the applicability in the italian cultural context of the observational technique developed by allen and colleagues (allen et al., 1994; allen, hauser, et al., 2003). globally, the findings suggest that the application of this observational procedure may help our understanding of youth autonomy and relatedness development in italy. notwithstanding, they also evidence some differences from previous studies and criticalities (such as the limited sample size) which leave unanswered a crucial question: has this observational procedure been adapted correctly in the italian context, or does the meaning of autonomy and relatedness behaviors substantially differ across the italian and us culture? europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 470 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the first aim of the study was to explore the differences between mothers and their children in the scores of autonomy and relatedness behaviors. as hypothesized, mothers reported higher levels of promoting autonomy (specifically, expressing reasons behind disagreement) and relatedness behaviors (particularly, querying and validating), but differently than hypothesized, they also reported higher levels of inhibiting autonomy (specifically, pressuring the other person to agree) than their children. regarding inhibiting relatedness as a global factor, no difference emerged, but adolescents reported higher scores of interrupting/ignoring the other than mothers. these results suggest that mothers seem to have greater capabilities for promoting both autonomy and relatedness than their children, but they also tend to inhibit autonomy, particularly by pressing their children to agree, more than youngsters. on the contrary, adolescents tend to make use of ignoring/cutting off behaviors much more than their mothers. we may hypothesize that mothers have more mature abilities in conflict negotiation which may help them to manage the autonomy and relatedness issues, even though they are also more pressing. mothers' inhibition of autonomy is indeed primarily defined by pressuring other person to agree, not recanting or overpersonalizing, with the latter being more coercive tactics of psychological control which diminish the importance of the other's position than the former. unfortunately, there is a lack of studies in this specific field, and we need to further investigate these differences between mothers and their children. the second aim of the research was to study the interrelations between autonomy and relatedness behaviors. in light of the contradictory results of previous studies, no specific hypothesis was formulated. firstly, we separately explored the associations among behaviors exhibited by mothers and those exhibited by teens. in general, the results showed that some behavioral categories were reciprocally associated for mothers but not for teens and vice versa, suggesting that they may convey different meanings and serve distinct functions for each of them. concerning the behaviors belonging to the relatedness domain, for mothers, promoting and undermining relatedness behaviors were negatively related to each other, while for adolescents, they were independent. these results suggest that, for mothers, relatedness behaviors seem to refer to a unique and clearly defined domain, while for adolescents they do not. regarding autonomy behaviors, for adolescents, promoting and inhibiting autonomy were positively related, confirming the results of other studies (samuolis et al., 2006; scharf & mayseless, 2008), whereas for mothers they were independent of each other. perhaps, for adolescents, the engagement in such behaviors is relevant to fulfill their autonomy needs independently of their specific meaning, and every possible way of expressing their own opinion may be considered to be adequate. instead, for mothers, the two behavioral categories seem to be independent from each other, suggesting that autonomy is perceived as a more complex and multifaceted field. concerning the interrelations between behaviors belonging to autonomy and relatedness domains, for mothers, differently than allen et al. (1994), the promotion of autonomy was negatively associated with the promotion of relatedness and was unrelated to the inhibition of relatedness; in addition, the inhibition of autonomy was negatively associated with the promotion of relatedness and positively associated with the inhibition of relatedness, confirming results of other studies (samuolis et al., 2006). for teens, differently than allen et al. (1994), the promotion of autonomy was unrelated to the promotion of relatedness and was positively associated with the inhibition of relatedness, while the inhibition of autonomy was unrelated to the promotion of relatedness and was positively associated with the inhibition of relatedness, confirming results of other studies (samuolis et al., 2006). taken together, these results suggest that, for italian mothers, all behaviors linked to autonomy seem to be associated with being involved in a more negative relationship with their children, even if not characterized by open hostility, while for italian adolescents, all behaviors linked to autonomy seem to be associated with threatening the closeness of the relationship. one possible explanation may be that mothers and teens deal with the issues of autonomy and relatedness in different ways and that the results are perhaps affected by the cultural europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 ingoglia & lo cricchio 471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ context. in a culture such as the italian one, in which connectedness has been traditionally emphasized over independence (van de velde, 2008), the expression of autonomy may be viewed as a risk for the relationship. we also explored the correspondence of behaviors exhibited by mothers and teens. results showed a certain reciprocity regarding inhibiting autonomy, promoting relatedness, and inhibiting relatedness behaviors, but not for promoting autonomy behaviors, partially confirming the results of allen and colleagues (allen, hauser, et al., 2002; allen, mcelhaney, et al., 2003) and samuolis and colleagues (2006). mothers’ tactics of psychological control are more likely to be “reciprocated” by their children than the behaviors reflecting independence of thought and the capacity of self-determination in social interaction. as underlined by allen, mcelhaney, and colleagues (2003), displaying one's own autonomy does not necessarily enhance the other person's autonomy in the relationship. it is more likely that mothers who pressured their teens or overpersonalized arguments have adolescents who behave similarly toward them during conflicts; at the same time, youths who express hostility during negotiation are more likely to have mothers who behave in the same way toward them. globally, these results raise some questions: (a) is it more difficult for a child to learn a mature way of affirming his or her own autonomy than immature ways? (b) is autonomy a more complex domain than relatedness? future studies should aim to analyze these aspects in more depth. the final goal of the study was to examine the construct validity of the coding system, investigating the relations among mothers’ and adolescents’ observed autonomy and relatedness behaviors with adolescent perceptions of the quality of their relationship. generally, teen reports were more strictly associated with their own observed behaviors than their mothers’ behaviors. moreover these findings were substantially consistent with those coming from the analysis of the interrelations between the arcs factors. as it was hypothesized, the results showed that, for adolescents, the promotion of relatedness was, to some degree, negatively associated with open confrontation, rejection/coolness, and supervision, the inhibition of relatedness was positively associated with open confrontation and rejection/coolness, and the inhibition of autonomy was positively related to open confrontation, and, to some degree, rejection/coolness. differently than it was hypothesized, the promotion of autonomy resulted positively associated with open confrontation, rejection/coolness, and, to some extent, supervision. in general, the results concerning relatedness behaviors were in the expected direction, while those related to promoting autonomy behaviors were not. adolescents who perceive the relationship with their mothers as conflicting and characterized by rejection and lack of warmth tend to exhibit low levels of promoting relatedness behaviors and high levels of inhibiting autonomy, inhibiting relatedness, and promoting autonomy behaviors. perhaps for italian adolescents, the expression of autonomy is linked to a negative relationship. with regard to mothers, only inhibiting autonomy behaviors were, to a certain degree, positively related to their children’s report of open confrontation: the more mothers tend to exhibit behaviors which undermine autonomy, themore their children tend to report their relationship as conflicting. taken together, the results of the present study suggest the existence of differences in the meaning of autonomy and relatedness behaviors exhibited by italian mothers and adolescents when compared with us dyads, which may be attributed to culture. as recently underlined by claes and colleagues (2011), in a cross-cultural study comparing italian, canadian and french families, italian mothers are perceived by their children as using the most constraining parental practices when it came to parental behavioral control, as more demanding in terms of family rules and authorizations, as maintaining family rules and requiring their adolescents to ask for authorizations until a much later age, and they are seen as taking more punitive actions when rules are broken. globally, authors found that there are more requirements, less tolerance, and stricter disciplinary actions perceived in italian parents europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 472 http://www.psychopen.eu/ than in canadian ones. recent research has described two contrasting parenting models that regulate the achievement of developmental tasks in adolescence in various cultures (greenfield et al., 2003; kagitçibasi, 1994, 1996; kitayama, 2002). the independent model values individuation and gives importance to the development of initiative and autonomy; the interdependent model emphasizes collective dimensions, mutual support, loyalty to family and respect of parental authority. italian parents’ parenting practices seem to correspond to the interdependent model, which emphasizes emotional bonding within a strict framework of requirements, rules, and disciplinary restrictions (claes et al., 2011). as outlined by scabini, marta, and lanz (2006), the italian family is characterized by a high degree of emotional bonding and support from both parents, yet also by restrictions; indeed, children have obligations to family and relations of dependency with their parents. as with any study, there are a number of shortcomings that limit the interpretability of the present findings. firstly, the sample size of the current study was small, which limits its statistical power. secondly, there was an unequal distribution of adolescents according to gender in the sample. this aspect may limit the results since gender differences exist in relation to autonomy and relatedness. thirdly, more specific measures of mother-adolescent relationships have to be taken into account in order to better investigate construct validity. moreover, as with any study of this nature, although the situation was designed to induce maternal and adolescent behaviors typically seen in their natural setting, it is possible that some participants may have been uncomfortable in front of the camera and felt compelled to act in ways that did not necessarily reflect how they would have behaved in a more ordinary setting. another important limitation to the current study is that it involved only mother-adolescent interactions in the observation of autonomy and relatedness behaviors. the absence of data on fathers excludes an important member of the family system. in families in which fathers are present, their support and inhibition of their adolescents’ autonomy and relatedness may play an important and distinct role (allen et al., 1994), and may also have different implications for girls and boys. as underlined by several authors (bornstein & güngör, 2009; greenfield et al., 2003; harkness & super, 2002; levine et al., 2008; manzi et al., 2012; parke & buriel, 2006; peterson, steinmetz, & wilson, 2005), we need a more complete understanding of the role of sociocultural context before generalizing our current theories regarding autonomy and relatedness processes to all families. to enable the study of these issues in a cross-cultural perspective, researchers need reliable and valid measurement instruments, such as the observational procedure developed by allen and colleagues. the findings of the present study suggest that the application of this technique may help our understanding of youth autonomy and relatedness development in italy, but at the same time they leave unanswered questions regarding its appropriate adaptation and the role played by cultural differences. future research should consider a wider range of participants more equally distributed in terms of gender, consider different members of the dyads during interactions and, last but not least, other variables in order to analyze the construct validity of the coding system. references allen, j. p., bell, k., & boykin, k. a. 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(2011). observed interactions indicate protective effects of relationships with parents for referred adolescents. journal of research on adolescence, 21(3), 569-575. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00703.x about the authors sonia ingoglia is assistant professor in psychometrics at the department of psychology, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. maria grazia lo cricchio is a post-doctoral student at the department of psychology, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 461–478 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.571 autonomy and relatedness in adolescence 478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00703.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ autonomy and relatedness in adolescence (introduction) the autonomy and relatedness observational procedure and coding system autonomy and relatedness in parent-child relationship and adolescent's psychosocial adjustment application of the observational procedure in other sociocultural settings aims of the study method participants measures results differences between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores on the arcs scales interrelations among scores of the arcs scales interrelations between mothers’ and adolescents’ scores of the arcs scales validity of the arcs scales discussion and conclusions references about the authors rasch measurement in language research: creating the foreign language classroom anxiety inventory research reports raschmeasurement in language research: creating the foreign language classroom anxiety inventory miranda j. walker*a, panayiotis panayidesa [a] lyceum of polemidia, limassol, cyprus. abstract the purpose of this study was to construct a new scale for measuring foreign language classroom anxiety (flca). it begun with the creation of an extended item pool generated by qualitative methods. subsequent rasch and semantic analyses led to the final 18-item foreign language classroom anxiety inventory (flcai). in comparison with the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas), the flcai demonstrated more convincing evidence of unidimensionality and the optimal 5-point likert scale functioned better. the flcai, while 55% the length of the flcas, thus more practical for classroom practitioners to administer and analyse, maintains its psychometric properties and covers a wider range on the construct continuum thus improving the degree of validity of the instrument. finally, test anxiety was shown to be a component of flca. keywords: foreign language classroom anxiety, rasch measurement, unidimensionality, reliability europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 received: 2014-04-03. accepted: 2014-06-13. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: anthemidos 12, 4007, limassol, cyprus. e-mail: mirandajanewalker@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. foreign language anxiety (fla) is a key issue to be addressed by language teachers as it can cause students to become less receptive to language input (krashen, 1981), and thus slow down the language learning process. furthermore, it can negatively affect student motivation (liu, 2012; liu & huang, 2011) as well as achievement (horwitz, 1986; macintyre & gardner, 1991; mahmood & iqbal, 2010; yan & horwitz, 2008). debate, initiated by sparks and ganschow (1991), continues over correlation and causation, in other words whether anxiety causes poor performance or poor performance causes anxiety (horwitz, 2000; macintyre & gregersen, 2012). either way, as anxiety can have debilitating effects on foreign language learning, identifying students with high levels of foreign language anxiety is important (horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986). by identifying such students, the teacher can take steps to help them cope with this. if the teacher is unaware that their students are suffering from fla, they may perceive students’ behaviour as lack of motivation, abilities and / or poor attitude. in fact aida (1994) suggests that students learn more effectively when teachers take necessary measures to help them overcome their fla. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ literature review anxiety, according to spielberger (1983), is the subjective feeling of tension, apprehension, nervousness, and worry associated with an arousal of the automatic nervous system. (horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986, p. 125). he defines state anxiety as an ‘unpleasant emotional state or condition’ and trait anxiety as a ‘relatively stable individual difference in anxiety-proneness as a personality trait’ (p. 1). horwitz et al. (1986) suggest that clinically ‘the subjective feelings, psycho-physiological symptoms, and behavioural responses of the anxious foreign language learner are essentially the same as for any specific anxiety’ (p. 29). notwithstanding, horwitz et al. (1986), as pioneers in the field, have played a significant role in facilitating an understanding of fla by providing the following definition: fla is ‘a distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviors related to classroom language learning which arise from the uniqueness of the language learning process’ (p. 128). horwitz et al. (1986) further suggest that fla is related to communication anxiety, fear of negative evaluation and test anxiety. horwitz and young (1991) do however inform us that in the literature there are two approaches to language anxiety. in one it is viewed as ‘a manifestation of other more general types of anxiety’ (p. 1). in the other it is considered as ‘a distinctive form of anxiety expressed in the response to language learning’ (ibid). aida (1994) suggests that students with a fear of negative evaluation might become passive in the classroom and that, in extreme cases, the students may even consider skipping lessons in order to avoid anxiety situations, and thus they are left behind. gender comparisons of fla have been varied. park and french (2013) report significantly higher anxiety levels in females than males whereas matsuda and gobel (2004) found no significant differences. along with their world renowned definition of fla, horwitz et al. (1986) designed the foreign language classroom anxiety scale (flcas). this 33 item, five category likert scale was designed for use with university students almost 30 years ago but remains a popular instrument. chan and wu (2004) note that ‘due to the scale’s success on construct validation and reliability, the flcas has been widely adopted by many researchers to explore learners’ foreign language anxiety’ (p. 292). the majority of these studies has also been with university students. park and french (2013) suggest that as this anxiety scale has been widely used around the world, psychometric evidence has been established. they state that the internal consistency of the flcas was high in many cited studies. however, they add that the latent factor structures differed across studies citing, among others, aida (1994), horwitz (1986) and tóth (2008). most recently, panayides andwalker (2013) showed through raschmeasurement, that the scale is unidimensional, and that test anxiety is indeed a component of flca. nonetheless, they brought into question the extremely high reliability (internal consistency) suggesting possible flaws in the scale. teachers and students are direct stakeholders in language teaching and learning. both must work in unison in order to achieve maximum results. indeed research has shown that anxiety can ‘be changed and shaped through teacher intervention in learning’ (robinson, 2002, p. 8). this reiterates the need for teachers to assess their students’ degree of anxiety. as teachers’ perceptions of their students’ language anxiety are not always congruent with that of the students (levine, 2003), self-report instruments measuring student anxiety are vital tools for the educator. over recent years the literature has begun to embrace amore dynamic, multifaceted relationship between anxiety, motivation, self-efficacy and other language learning variables such as learner characteristics and teaching styles (liu, 2012; liu & huang, 2011). such advances in research, as well as the fact that time and settings are not constant, infer a need to re-evaluate and perhaps refine even widely-accepted instruments such as the flcas. besides, even ‘the most accepted working hypotheses themselves may need revising’ (spielmann & radnofsky, 2001, p. 261). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 614 http://www.psychopen.eu/ validity of scales ‘validity always refers to the degree to which empirical evidence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropriateness of interpretations and actions based on test scores’ (messick, 1993, p. 13). this is because ‘test responses are a function not only of the items, tasks, or stimulus conditions but of the persons responding and the context of measurement’ (messick, 1993, p. 15). for this reason, as yun and ulrich (2002) stress, the appropriateness of an instrument should be established through validity investigations prior to its use in new situations or new attributes of population. furthermore, luyt (2012) advocates that such a process determines whether a test ‘requires revision or a new instrument might better be developed’ (p. 297). panayides and walker (2013) conducted a study of the psychometric properties of the flcas on a cypriot senior high school population (16-18 years old). they verified that test anxiety was a component of fla, which had previously been disputed (aida, 1994; cheng, horwitz, & schallert, 1999; matsuda & gobel, 2004). their analysis also revealed flaws in the original flcas. they found the reliability of the flcas to be very high, in accordance with most primary studies on the flcas. they suggested that such high reliability is undesirable in psychometric scales since it can lower their degree of validity. panayides andwalker’s (2013) investigation revealed two reasons for such a high reliability. first, the items covered a rather narrow range on the construct continuum. such construct underrepresentation threatens validity (messick, 1993) and jeopardizes the precision of person estimates (panayides & walker, 2013). second, the scale includes many parallel items. the researchers believe that the use of parallel items should be avoided as: • they may give a false sense of a high degree of reliability • the validity of the instrument is compromised • for basic research, very high reliabilities are not necessary (nunnally, 1978) • while ray (1988) supports the use of parallel items in order to investigate the consistency in an individual’s response pattern, such practice can be successfully avoided by using item response theory (irt) models and person fit statistics. one approach which excels in collecting a wide range of validity evidence of an instrument is rasch measurement. rasch measurement the most important difference perhaps, and at the same time the strength, of the rasch models over other irt models is its philosophy. rasch measurement is a mathematical framework of ideal measurement, against which test and scale developers can assess their data (bond & fox, 2001, 2007). any departure from the models’ requirements constitutes parting from useful measurement. other irt models are statistical models aimed at incorporating all characteristics observed in the data without any regard as to whether they contribute to themeasurement process. panayides, robinson, and tymms (2010) argue that the difference is between measurement and modelling. if the aim is to describe the data at hand, trying to model all of their characteristics, then irt models are preferable. on the other hand if the aim is to construct good measures then the scale or test items should be constrained to the principles of measurement, and this can be achieved only through the use of raschmeasurement. assessing unidimensionality, the rasch approach scales such as the flcas, 'where single scores are used to position individuals on a latent trait continuum should be unidimensional' (panayides &walker, 2013, p. 496). thus, before such scales are used, their unidimensionality must be established as an important component in the investigation of their degree of validity. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 615 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor analysis (fa) is the most widely used method for assessing the dimensionality of data. however, fa has a major drawback. as with all other statistical analyses, it operates on interval-level data when in fact, the scale scores are ordinal by nature. this makes results of such analysis disputable. rasch measurement transforms ordinal scores into an interval-level logit scale thus producing more reliable results (wright & masters, 1982). schumacker and linacre (1996) state that: factor analysis is confused by ordinal variables and highly correlated factors. rasch analysis excels at constructing linearity out of ordinality and at aiding the identification of the core construct inside a fog of collinearity. (p. 470) following the rasch calibrations, principal components analysis (pca) of the standardised residuals can be performed. this method has been shown to be more effective at identifying multidimensionality than factor analysis of the raw data (linacre, 1998). with regard to the critical value of the eigenvalue, above which the factor extracted can be considered a different dimension, linacre (2005) argues that any value smaller than 2 indicates the strength of less than two items thus the implied dimension has little strength in the data. he suggests that, in a test with a reasonable length, if a secondary dimension has eigenvalue less than 3, the test is most probably unidimensional. this study the flcas is irrefutably a well-established instrument which has been used productively for so long that it is inevitable that the new scale will be met by some with scepticism and that comparisons may be made between the two instruments. this is welcomed as it will help establish the validity of the scale in other similar settings. this study follows on from panayides and walker (2013) who suggested further research be carried out so as to refine the flcas. rasch measurement was used in this study to construct a new foreign language classroom anxiety scale that is less lengthy, covers the construct of fla more adequately and maintains the reliability, while at the same time enhances the validity of the instrument. the following recommendations made by panayides and walker (2013) were adhered to. first, five items were removed from the original flcas due to poor fit to the rasch model, and a careful semantic analysis of the remaining 28 items was conducted in order to remove parallel or repetitive items. second, new items were added so as to achieve a wider coverage of the construct and to improve item targeting. finally, the category labels were changed in order to facilitate possible collapsing should the need arise. the research questions guiding this study were: 1. is the new 5-point rating scale psychometrically optimal? 2. does the new scale provide reliable person measures? 3. do the scale items define a single construct? 4. how does the new scale compare with the original flcas? despite the fact that panayides and walker (2013) demonstrated test anxiety to be a component of flca through rasch analyses, previous inconsistencies in research findings (aida, 1994; horwitz et al., 1986; macintyre & gardner, 1989) as well as the significance of test anxiety in the literature, indicated a need to explore this again in the new scale. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 616 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method the creation of the new scale in keeping with aera, apa, & ncme (1999) the following were documented: (1) the procedures used to develop, review, try out and select items from the item pool; (2) the model used for evaluating psychometric properties of items and data used for item selection (3) the irt used in the test development, the item response model and evidence of model fit. gehlbach and brinkworth (2011) suggest that ‘a literature review and focus group-interview data can be synthesized into a comprehensive list to facilitate the development of items’ (p. 380). this study sought teacher and student input and in doing so supports pasquale’s (2011) stance that ‘to ignore such beliefs handicaps the language teaching and learning process at nearly every step of the way’ (p. 97). to this end, two focus groups were held in january 2013 with experienced language teachers. the creation of the new scale began with an oversized pool of items. these included 22 items from the original 33 items of the flcas (horwitz et al., 1986) and 17 newly created items. the original 33 items were reduced to 22 through a multi-step process. first, the five items found by panayides and walker (2013) to be misfitting the rasch model in a similar sample of cypriot high school students were removed. they found the scale to be unidimensional once these had been removed. second a further six items were removed including four parallel items and two which were not considered relevant to classroom anxiety. the two deemed unrelated for the classroom setting were: item 14, i would not be nervous speaking the foreign language with native speakers and item 32, i would probably feel comfortable around native speakers of the foreign language. following this, additional items were generated with the intention of improving coverage of the construct. in accordance with the substantive approach (messick, 1993), items were included in the pool on the basis of judged relevance. the researchers based their decisions on an in-depth study of the literature, an informal discussion with efl students, two focus group discussions with language teachers and three personal interviews with recently retired teachers of senior high school efl. efl students from ten mixed ability classes were asked informally by their teacher, one of the researchers in this study, to state what makes them anxious in the efl classroom. they were told that their answers would help her address their anxieties better and also facilitate research. all ideas raised were taken down in writing by the researchers. in january 2013 two focus group discussions were held. rodriguez, schwartz, lahman, & geist (2011) contend that focus groups are ‘a powerful qualitative research method which, especially when designed to be culturally responsive, facilitate collection of rich and authentic data’ (p. 400). one of the groups comprised of 12 teachers and the other of 37 teachers. the participants, who had between one and 33 years teaching experience, were asked to share their beliefs concerning what makes students anxious. they were asked to note down their ideas without discussion a few minutes prior to the main group discussions. these notes were collected to prevent changes being made during the discussion. ideas raised during the ensuing discussion were noted by one of the two researchers, while the other coordinated the discussion. finally three recently retired teachers of senior high school efl, with an average of 37 years teaching experience, one of whom a trained psychologist, were consulted. they were asked by email to write down what they believed europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 617 http://www.psychopen.eu/ causes efl students classroom anxiety. following this, personal interviews were held between them and one of the researchers. the purpose of these was to expand on ideas raised in the written comments. details of the data collected from the student and teacher discussions and interviews can be found in appendix a, in frequency order. the new items stemming from qualitative data collected for the extended item pool were written directly in greek as the data fromwhich they were generated was greek. this is also the language of the participants. items designed as a result of the literature review were written in english and translated into greek. the greek version of the original flcas, translated by panayides and walker (2013) was also used. the resulting 39 item scale was administered, in april 2013, to 212 students in three senior high schools in limassol, cyprus, all of whom had been studying english for a minimum of seven years. in compliance with messick’s (1993) guidelines, the item responses were obtained and analyzed. the final scale items were subsequently selected from the pool. the selection process involved, in line with aera et al. (1999), looking into two different sets of criteria (a) semantic and (b) statistical – measurement. the addressing of semantic issues included the removal of parallel items and those items which had been shown to contain ambiguities. an example of ambiguity can be found in item 15 of the original flcas (horwitz et al., 1986) ‘i get upset when i don't understand what the teacher is correcting’. some stated that their level of english was higher than that of the lesson and so they very rarely made mistakes and wondered whether they should be answering hypothetically. it is customary for children in cyprus to take private english tuition, from as young as six years of age, which progresses at a faster rate than school lessons do. such confusion could lead to unreliable results and thus it was considered prudent to remove this item. for the examination of statistical – measurement criteria, the rasch rating scale model (andrich, 1978) was used which is appropriate for analyses of likert scales. the investigation involved analysing the estimated measures of the items in order to ensure a wide coverage of the construct, the point measure correlations and the item fit statistics. five items with outfit of greater than 2.0 and with both infit and outfit greater than 1.5 were removed. finally 22 items were kept. these items included 10 from the original flcas (horwitz et al., 1986) and 12 newly designed items. eight items concerned test anxiety, five items communication anxiety, four fear of negative evaluation and five general anxiety items. interestingly this break down reflects the emphasis given to each aspect of fla in the group discussions, informal discussions with students and interviews held within the setting during the development stage of the extended item pool. the 22-item scale was administered to 285 high school students (16-18 years old) in october 2013. the likert scale — great emphasis and consideration was placed on the number and labels of the likert scale to be used. in their validation study of the flcas, panayides and walker (2013) documented concerns regarding the likert scale for the population under study. the main problem encountered was that the probability curves of the middle three categories, namely ‘disagree’, ‘neither agree nor disagree’ and ‘agree’, failed to peak (be the most probable choice) for sufficiently large ranges on the construct continuum. they could not however be collapsed for semantic reasons. since this is a valid concern it has been addressed in designing the modified scale by changing the labels. the importance of semantics is that should any subsequent problems in the likert categories be diagnosed and collapsing of categories become necessary, it will be possible to do so. as such participants are asked to indicate ‘how often do the following statements apply to you?’ by selecting between never, rarely, sometimes, frequently and always. this maintains a starting point of five categories. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 618 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assessing unidimensionality—many of themethods offered by the raschmodels were used for the assessment of the scale dimensionality. first, pca of the standardised residuals was used as suggested by linacre (1998). second, the point measure correlations were observed for the possibility of unacceptable values (negative or close to zero) and third, the well-known mean square statistics, infit and outfit. various values are suggested in the literature for cut-off values including the most popular for scales are 1.4 (wright, linacre, gustafson, & martinlof, 1994), 1.5 (bond & fox, 2001, 2007) and 1.6 (curtis, 2004). there is a simple explanation as to why higher values are considered adequate as cut-off values for scales. for high stakes multiple-choice tests the items are highly controlled, carefully constructed and piloted and the examinees respond in a highly controlled environment. questionnaires are usually less carefully constructed and there is less control over how respondents behave. observational instruments usually have even less control (or even no control) of how respondents behave. therefore, less control → more off-dimensional behaviour → worse fit expected. (linacre, personal communication, march 7, 2007) the primary purpose of conducting a test or administering a scale is to measure the ability or position on the latent trait continuum of people. one needs measures that are good enough for the purpose. rough measures are useful for the purpose of assessing personality traits and thus the fit criteria can be much more relaxed. consequently 1.5 was chosen as the cut-off value for this study. in deciding whether an item should be removed from the scale or replaced, ‘one should use the suggested cut-off scores as a guide, and then rely on his/her professional judgement and intuition to reach the best possible decision’ (panayides, 2009, p. 134). next the items were divided into two groups, test anxiety items and the rest. person measures were obtained from the two groups of items separately. the two sets of person measures were compared using the correlation coefficient and by performing t-tests for differences in the measures from the two different calibrations as suggested by smith (2002). a 95% confidence interval for the t-values would be approximately between -2 and 2. values outside this range indicate significant differences between the person measures. hence, any percentage of tvalues outside this range of less than 5% indicates that the two item groups give statistically equivalent person measures and the two groups of items can be considered as measuring the same construct. the next step was to once again divide the items into two groups, the items from the original flcas and newly created items. the same method of t-tests for differences between the two sets of person measures (one from each item group) was used. in both cases where the t-test method was employed, the item estimates used were the ones obtained from the final calibration of the 18-item scale (shown in table 2 in the results section). finally, for the investigation of invariance, persons were divided by gender and item estimates were obtained separately for the two groups. again the two sets of item estimates were compared using a scatter plot and the calculation of the correlation coefficient. statistically equivalent item measures were obtained which supports the property of invariance. in other words the construct measured by the scale has the same meaning across the two groups of people. reliability — three reliability indices were used in assessing the reliability of the scale: person reliability, which shows how well the instrument can distinguish persons; person separation (gp), which takes values from zero to infinity and indicates the spread of person measures in standard error units and strata, given by the formula [(4gp+1)/3]. strata determines the number of statistically distinct levels (separated by at least three errors of measurement) of person abilities that the items have distinguished. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 619 http://www.psychopen.eu/ item reliability was also used as it is useful in showing how well the items are discriminated by the sample of respondents. wright and masters (1982) emphasise that good item separation is a necessary condition for effective measurement. rasch diagnostics for the optimal number of likert scale categories — optimizing a rating scale is ‘finetuning’ to try to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of a test (linacre, 1997, para. 1). linacre (2002) and bond and fox (2001, 2007) describe the rasch measurement diagnostics for evaluating the effectiveness of the number of categories of a likert scale. these diagnostics facilitate the investigation of the extent to which respondents can clearly identify the ordered nature of the rating scale response options, and whether they can accurately distinguish the difference between each category. categories with very low frequencies (linacre suggests lower than 10) do not provide enough observations for estimating stable threshold values. such categories should be removed or collapsed with adjacent categories, provided that the semantics permit such collapsing. the average of the measures of all persons in the sample who choose successive categories should increase monotonically. this indicates that those with higher position on the construct continuum endorse higher categories. likewise, the thresholds or step calibrations should also increase monotonically, otherwise they are considered disordered. in addition, the range of each category (the distance between successive thresholds) should not be too wide in order to avoid large gaps in the variable (not more than 5.0 logits), or too narrow to show distinction between categories (not lower than 1.0 for the case of a 5-point likert scale). step disordering and very narrow distances between thresholds ‘can indicate that a category represents too narrow a segment of the latent variable or correspond to a concept that is poorly defined in the minds of the respondents’ (linacre, 2002, p. 98). finally, the outfit statistic provides another useful tool in assessing the effectiveness of the categories. values of outfit greater than 2.0 indicate more misinformation than information, that is, the category introduces noise into the measurement process. estimation method—winsteps (linacre, 2005) was used for the analysis of the data. the estimation method used with this software is joint maximum likelihood estimation (jmle) in preference to conditional maximum likelihood estimation or marginal maximum likelihood estimation. linacre (2005) explains that jmle is preferred ‘because of its flexibility with missing data. it also does not assume a person distribution’ (p. 11). he also clarifies that any estimation bias is not a real concern as, except in rare cases with short tests or small samples. results the first calibration of the 22-item scale the first calibration (22 items and 285 persons) showed very satisfactory reliability indices: person reliability = .93, person separation = 3.70 and strata = 5.27. however, this calibration also revealed that some items had almost identical statistics. when constructing new scales a good range of item difficulty estimates is needed (that is, a good spread of the items on the construct continuum) so as to attain a high degree of reliability. empirically, when two or more items are functioning almost exactly the same, then any one of these is as good as the other. when this happens, one can look at these items qualitatively, asking the question: are any of the items more valuable than the rest? and then retain the item or items that are deemed more valuable and remove the others. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 620 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 shows four groups of statistically very similar items. group a has two items, group b three, group c four and group d two. four items were removed: one from each of groups b and d, items 4 and 1 respectively and two from group c, items 12 and 16. table 1 groups of statistically similar items wording pt-measure correlation item difficulty item number item group in tests, i worry that i won’t understand the vocabulary in the text.2a .74.57-0 essays make me nervous.11 .74.58-0 i start to panic when i have to speak without preparation in the language class.8b .72.07-0 i always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than i do.19 .73.10-0 i keep thinking that the other students are better at languages than i am.4 .74.11-0 i am afraid that my language teacher is ready to correct every mistake i make.16c .70.270 when we have an oral dialogue, i worry that i might not be able to understand what the other person is saying. 17 .72.260 it embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class.13 .70.220 i worry that i might not understand the instructions in a listening test.12 .68.200 i tremble when i know that i am going to be called on in language class.1d .63.550 i get anxious when the test has a listening component.7 .67.570 note. newly generated items are in bold. semantic justifications for the removal of items — ‘i tremble when i am going to be called on in language class’ (item 1) was removed because this concept is an extension of ‘it embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class’ (item 13). furthermore the adjective ‘tremble’ was considered by the researchers to be so specific that even very anxious students may not choose it. items 4 and 19 were found not only to be statistically almost identical, but their meaning was also parallel. being nervous about listening tests in general (item 7) could well include worrying about not understanding the instructions in listening tests (item 12). it was therefore considered that the latter could be removed. the fear of having every mistake corrected by the teacher (item 16) caused some undesired ambiguity. some participants asked if they should answer hypothetically since their level of linguistic competence was higher than the difficulty level of the class. others wished to respond theoretically as they had never experienced this. calibrations of the 18-item scale the remaining 18 items were used for the second calibration. initially, a person fit analysis revealed a few misfitting students. seven of those (approximately 2.5% of the sample) were considered badly misfitting with infit and/or outfit values greater than 2.5. the responses of these students were considered to be distorting the measurement process and were removed. the remaining dataset, 18 items and 278 students, was used for the final calibration. table 2 shows the item statistics, in difficulty order, from the most difficult to endorse to the easiest. the item difficulties range from -1.41 to 1.40. this covers a range of 2.81 logits on the construct continuum. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 621 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 item statistics in measure order routfitinfiterrordifficultyitem .6018 .171.091.100.401 .6821 .780.950.090.001 .687 .990.021.090.660 .6714 .091.291.090.560 .7422 .750.740.090.470 .7517 .770.840.080.340 .7213 .031.980.080.250 .755 .860.790.080.100 .738 .950.960.080.01-0 .7519 .890.930.080.05-0 .729 .071.081.080.13-0 .7620 .900.910.080.25-0 .773 .860.820.080.40-0 .7410 .111.061.080.45-0 .762 .950.870.080.55-0 .7711 .910.950.080.60-0 .716 .361.311.080.93-0 .7015 .511.501.080.41-1 note. r (final column) shows the point measure correlations. reliability — the person reliability was found to be .93, the person separation 3.57 and strata 5.09. also item reliability was .98. despite the removal of four items from the scale, the reliability indices remained essentially unaffected, thus maintaining the high degree of reliability of the scale. dimensionality of the scale — various analyses were performed for assessing whether the scale is unidimensional. first the point measure correlations (shown in table 2) of all items were positive and highly significant, ranging from .60 to .77. pca of standardised residuals — table 3 shows the results of the pca of the standardised residuals. table 3 standardised residual variance in eigenvalue units modelledempirical variance component %%eigenvalue raw variance explained by measures .362.961.229 raw variance explained by persons .049.748.023 raw variance explained by items .313.213.26 raw unexplained variance .737.138.018 unexplained variance in 1st factor .64.22 total raw variance in observations .0100.0100.247 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 622 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to assess the strength of the measurement dimension one looks at the variance explained by the measures. in this case it is 61.9% of the total variance in the data. the first factor had an eigenvalue of 2.2, the strength of less than three items. also the first factor explains just 4.6% of the total variation and only 12.1% of the unexplained variance. furthermore, the ratio of the variance explained by the measures to the variance explained by the 1st factor is 13.3:1. the evidence collected from the pca of the standardized residuals suggests that no second dimension is present in the data meaning that the scale is unidimensional. item fit —with the exception of item 15, ‘i worry about my grade in english’, all other items were well below the infit and outfit cut-off values. item 15 with item difficulty estimate of -1.41 had marginal values (infit = 1.50 and outfit = 1.51). further investigation showed that this item was the easiest in the scale and its marginal fit was caused by very few unexpected high scores by person with low positions on the construct continuum. for example, persons with entries 101 and 146 had estimates of -2.22 and -3.06 and scored 5 and 4 on the item respectively. both persons were positioned much lower than the item on the construct continuum and their probabilities of scoring 5 and 4 respectively were below 2%. just these two unexpected responses raised the infit and outfit from 1.45 and 1.46 to 1.50 and 1.51 respectively. as this item was considered important semantically, since it was the only item asking about students’ overall assessment, and was the easiest in the scale thus widening the construct coverage, it was kept in the scale. property of invariance— the dataset was divided into two subgroups. one contained the 18 items and 87 male students and the other 18 items and 194 female students. four students did not state their gender. the correlation between the two sets of item difficulty estimates, yielded from the two separate calibrations, was .967. furthermore, figure 1 shows the scatter plot of these item estimates together with a 95% confidence interval. figure 1. scatter plot of item estimates from two separate calibrations (male female). only one of the 18 items estimates fell slightly outside the confidence interval. this, together with the very high correlation, are a strong indication that invariance holds, meaning the construct indeed has the same meaning among the two groups of students. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 623 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is test anxiety a component of flca? — the aim of creating a scale is to obtain estimates of persons’ level of anxiety or their positions on the flca continuum. in order to investigate whether test anxiety is a component of flca the items of the scale were divided into two groups. the first group contained the seven test anxiety items (items 2, 6, 7, 10, 14, 18 and 20) and the second the remaining 11 items (items 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21 and 22). person measures were estimated for the two groups of items separately. the correlation of the two sets of measures was highly significant at .876. perhaps more importantly, significant differences between measures were found only in 12 cases (four t-values below -2.0 and eight t-values above 2.0) and this represents 4.3% of the sample (12 out of 278 students). since this percentage is below 5% one can infer that the person estimates from the two separate item groups are statistically equivalent and that the two item groups indeed measure the same construct. figure 2 shows the distribution of the t-values which approximates very well a standard normal (mean = 0 and standard deviation = 1) with a mean of 0.06 and standard deviation 1.053. figure 2. distribution of t-values (1). flcas items vs new items— finally the items were once again divided into two groups. the first group contained the seven flcas items (6, 8, 13, 18, 19, 21, 22) and the second the 11 new items (2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20). personmeasures were estimated for these groups of items separately. the correlation of the twomeasures was highly significant at .869. significant differences between person measures were found in 11 cases (four tvalues below -2.0 and seven t-values above 2.0) which represents 4.0% of the sample. this method also gave statistically equivalent person measures supporting again the unidimensional structure of the scale. figure 3 shows the distribution of the t-values with a mean of 0.008 and a standard deviation of 1.026. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 624 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. distribution of t-values (2). category functioning — table 4 shows the rasch diagnostics for the investigation of the functioning of the likert scale categories. table 4 rasch diagnostics for the category functioning thresholdsoutfitinfitaverage measureobserved countlabelcategory none1608never1 .920.880.62-2 1297rarely2 .73-1.930.031.29-1 1000sometimes3 .61-0.031.990.35-0 539frequently4 .670.071.091.430 288always5 .661.161.141.641 all categories had high observed frequencies, the average person measure corresponding to the categories monotonically increases, infit and outfit values are very close to the expected value of 1.00 and the thresholds also monotonically increase. finally, the ranges between successive thresholds (1.12, 1.28 and 0.99) are large enough to show distinction between categories. the satisfactory ranges between successive thresholds can be seen in figure 4 which shows the category probabilities. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. category probabilities. each probability curve (corresponding to each of the five categories) peaks for a significant range along the continuum and this shows that each category is the most probable for the corresponding range. since these basic criteria suggested by linacre (2002) are met, the 5-point likert scale can be considered optimal. item targeting — figure 5 shows the person item-map. the items are well targeted for persons of just below the persons' mean flca to about one and two thirds standard deviations above the mean (from -1.41 to 1.40 logits) covering a range of 2.81 logits. the person measures range from -4.03 to 6.03. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 626 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. person-item map (each '#' represents two persons). comparisons between the flcai and the flcas table 5 shows comparisons between the main psychometric features of the new scale presented in this study, the foreign language classroom anxiety inventory (flcai), and the equivalent flcas features from the 2013 study by panayides and walker (2013). both instruments were administered to similar-sized samples from the same population (cypriot high school students of age 16-18) and data were analysed through rasch measurement thus facilitating comparisons. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 627 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 comparisons between the flcai and flcas flcaiflcasdescription 18 items33 itemsscale length 285304sample size high school studentshigh school studentssample composition 16 – 1816 – 18age of participants reliability person reliability .93.93 person separation .573.643 pca of standardised residuals variance by measures .9%61.6%51 first factor extracted eigenvalue .22.52 % of total variance .6%4.4%4 ratio (measures:1st factor) .3:113.9:111 2.81 logits1.44 logitsconstruct coverage optimalmarginally optimalcategory functioning the flcai (18 items) is shorter than the flcas (33 items) by 45%. nevertheless, person reliability is the same and person separation is negligibly lower. the strength of the measurement dimension is arguably better in the flcai as the variance explained by the measures is 61.9% of the total variance as opposed to 51.6% in the flcas. furthermore, the eigenvalue of the first factor extracted by pca of the standardised residuals is 2.2 in the flcai and slightly higher at 2.5 in the flcas. also, the ratio of variance explained by the measures to the variance explained by the first factor is higher for the flcai (13.3:1) than for the flcas (11.9:1). the above evidence shows that core construct measured by the flcai has more strength in the data than that measured by the flcas, thus there is more convincing evidence of unidimensionality in the new scale. two further points are noteworthy in the comparisons made in table 5. first there is a wider construct coverage for the 18 items of flcai (2.81 logits) than for the 33 items of flcas (1.44 logits). second, the five categories of the likert scale in the flcai function better than those in the flcas. conclusions the purpose of this study was to design an appropriate instrument for measuring foreign language classroom anxiety in high schools. prerequisites were it being psychometrically successful, that is, having a high degree of validity and reliability and of course being an appropriate instrument for the intended population. the flcas (horwitz et al., 1986) has been efficaciously used for almost 3 decades however validity is not time and location independent. a study of its psychometric properties in senior high schools in cyprus (panayides & walker, 2013) drew attention to the need for modifications. such revisions included an examination of its length, which has been suggested to have inflated reliability (panayides & walker, 2013). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 628 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the new scale was created in a multi-step fashion. it began with an examination of the original scale. this was followed by the creation of an enlarged item pool which was generated by an extensive examination of the literature, informal discussions with language teachers and students, three interviews with highly experienced english language teachers, as well as focus group discussions with language teachers. concerns raised in the literature, such as those of sparks and patton (2013) that the flcas ‘is likely to be measuring individual differences in students’ language learning skills and / or self-perceptions about their language skills rather than anxiety unique to l2 learning’ (p. 870), were reflected upon in the selection of items. the enlarged item pool (39 items) was administered to 212 16 – 18 year old students in early 2013. this was then shortened again through a multi-step process which included rasch analyses and thorough semantic examination. this resulted in a 22 item scale which was administered to 285 16 – 18 year old students in october 2013. finally fine tuning was performed in order to create the most appropriate, efficient and functional scale whilst maintaining reliability. this included careful reanalysis of both the statistic and the semantic properties of the remaining items. four further items were deemed unnecessary for statistical and semantic reasons. the resulting 18-item form of the scale was used for the final analyses. rasch measurement was judged to be the most appropriate method of yielding answers to the following research questions: is the new 5-point rating scale psychometrically optimal? the effectiveness of the scale was investigated through the rasch diagnostics suggested by linacre (2002) and bond and fox (2001, 2007). all categories had high observed frequencies and thus an adequate number for stable estimates. both the average person measure corresponding to each category and the threshold estimates monotonically increased and the ranges between successive thresholds were satisfactory rendering each category the most probable choice in an adequate range. finally the outfit values of the categories were all close to the expected value of 1.00. all the evidence collected supports the hypothesis that categories function satisfactorily and thus five can be considered the optimal number of categories for the flcai. does the new scale provide reliable person measures? all the indices calculated reveal a high degree of reliability. the person reliability was .93 indicating that the scale can distinguish individuals very well. the person separation was 3.57 and strata 5.09 confirming the good separation of persons along the flca continuum. finally, the item reliability was .98 indicating that the items are well discriminated by the sample of respondents and this is a necessary condition for effective measurement (wright & masters, 1982). do the scale items define a single construct? a variety of evidence was collected to support the unidimensional structure of the scale. first, all point measure correlations were positive and highly significant (.60 to .77). second, pca of the standardised residuals revealed a strong measurement dimension explaining approximately 62% of the variation in the data. furthermore, there was no significant second dimension present in the data (its eigenvalue was only 2.2 explaining only 4.6% of the total variation). also the measurement dimension was 13.3 times stronger than that second dimension. third, all items fit the rasch model well. only one item (item 15) was marginal but it was not removed from the scale for two reasons; its misfit was caused by very few students responding unexpectedly to it and it was the easiest item in the scale, widening the coverage of the flca construct. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 629 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fourth, two separate calibrations were performed on the 18 items from two distinct groups, male and female students. the item difficulties obtained from the two groups were statistically equivalent, showing that the property of invariance holds for this scale. that is, the construct has the same meaning across the two different groups of people. fifth, in agreement with panayides and walker (2013), the researchers showed that test anxiety is indeed a component of flca by separating the items into two groups, one containing the seven test anxiety items and the other the 11 remaining items. person estimates were obtained from the two groups and these estimates were shown to be statistically equivalent, strengthening the belief that this scale indeed measures one construct and is unidimensional. finally, it was shown that the seven flcas items included in flcai measure the same construct as the 11 newly created items. since the flcas is a well-established scale which has been validated many times, this result not only strengthens the hypothesis that flcai is unidimensional, but also that the dimensionmeasured by the inventory is indeed flca. how does the new scale compare with the original flcas? panayides and walker’s study (2013) facilitated direct comparisons between the flcas and flcai as data in both studies were analysed through the use of rasch measurement with a time lapse of just one year. panayides and walker (2013) suggested that the very high reliability of the flcas was caused by the length of the scale, the use of parallel items and the narrow construct coverage. this study confirmed this since the new scale has just 55% the length of the original scale, containing 18 items rather than the 33, without losing any of its psychometric properties. in fact, the flcai is psychometrically superior to the flcas for the following reasons. first its degree of reliability is not lowered by the downsizing of the scale. thus, a new shorter scale has been created without any loss in the degree of reliability from the original. the shortening of the instrument was beneficial as teachers and 'most researchers are constrained by another real-world factor: survey length' (matthews, kath, & barnes-farrell, 2010, p. 76). second, it covers a much wider range of flca (2.81 logits as opposed to 1.44 logits). third the categories function better and fourth, the unidimensional structure of the scale is more convincing with a much higher strength in the main dimension measured by it. despite achieving a wider spread of item difficulties and wider construct coverage than that in the flcas, the items of the flcai are well targeted for students with higher levels of flca. the mean item difficulty is, as always in rasch analyses, zero whereas the mean person measure is well below at -1.40 logits. they suggest that the targeting of the items of the flcas can be explained by the fact that senior high school students in cyprus have been studying english since early primary school, and they are therefore familiar with the language. consequently their anxiety levels are well below that of high school or university beginner level students of english, who have been the participant population in many other studies in the literature. this study aligns itself with panayides and walker’s (2013) stance, and suggests that should the flcai be used in a different setting, with less experienced students of english, or another foreign language, the mean item difficulty would probably be much closer to the mean person measure. limitations the results reported here are very convincing and the researchers believe that the flcai will also prove worthy and appropriate for other efl and foreign language learner populations where the students have been studying europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 630 http://www.psychopen.eu/ english for more than 8-10 years. notwithstanding, the validity of the scale cannot be taken for granted for any other population, just as it could not for the flcas. the flcai is a highly appropriate instrument for measuring flca among the cypriot high school population. finally, even though every effort was made to provide an accurate equivalent for these items, slight semantic differences cannot be ruled out between the english and greek versions of the flcas and the flcai. concluding remarks for the creation of the flcai rasch analyses were complemented by semantic analyses. this was deemed necessary as this inventory is intended not only for use in further educational research but also, and perhaps more importantly, it is intended to be used by language teachers at the beginning of each academic year to assess their students’ anxiety level. it was therefore of paramount importance to design an instrument that is as time economic as possible during both administration and analysis, without compromising validity, reliability or usefulness. it is also recommended that when teachers administer this instrument in the future they not only consider their students’ total anxiety score but also what they find most anxiety provoking. this will lead to better student support. the flcai was shown here to have a high degree of validity and reliability. however, further studies of the validity and appropriateness of the scale in diverse settings such as among university students and different countries are encouraged. given the thoroughness of the methodology used, and the strengths of rasch measurement, it is believed that the flcai will prove to be a valuable instrument maintaining its psychometric properties in other settings. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aida, y. 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(2002). estimating measurement validity: a tutorial. adapted physical activity quarterly, 19, 32-47. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 634 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt94k.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1991.tb01076.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lang.12025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00108 http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt83b.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2007.00437.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix appendix a the data collected from the discussions with students and teachers, and the three interviews was subjected manually to theme analysis. the complete list of ideas and their frequencies can be seen below. these had a direct impact on the designing of items for inclusion in the extended item pool. the items in bold feature in the final version of the scale. 19tests 10oral participation 7grades 5being mocked if they make serious mistakes 5peer pressure / other students' reactions 4unclear instructions for listening tests 4essays / creative writing 4fear of making mistakes / reproduce incorrectly 3unclear instructions for written tests 3oral test 3homework – unfamiliar tasks, too much 2worry that they are not understood correctly 2teacher's reaction if they make a mistake 2teacher criticism 2talking about mistakes 2unknown vocabulary 2unfamiliar tasks in tests 1being interrupted whilst giving an answer 1threats from the teacher related to their grades 1working individually 1lack of self-confidence / sense of trust 1difficult concepts in the curriculum 1not knowing what is required 1listening tests 1amount of studying required for the lesson 1when the teacher is unfriendly 1when the teacher does not show understanding 1teacher not using exercises which could relax them in the lesson 1not being given encouragement 1fear of expressing their opinions 1teacher centred teaching 1technology 1sharing ideas 1their pronunciation 1fear that they haven't understood the teacher correctly 1not being well-prepared 1too much grammatical theory 1written exercises in the classroom 1double period 1lack of knowledge about the teacher europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 walker & panayides 635 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix b: the foreign language classroom anxiety inventory the numbering on this inventory is that used for the 22-item scale. this is so as to avoid any potential confusion in references made to items throughout the study. new items are in bold. instructions: below you will find a list of statements related to the feelings a student may experience during foreign language lessons. please respond with √ or x in the box which best reflects how often these statement apply to you. a lw ay s o fte n so m et im es r ar el y n ev er 2. in tests, i worry that i won’t understand the vocabulary in the texts. 3. i get nervous when the tasks are unfamiliar to me. 5. i worry that my english teacher might ask me something that i won’t understand. 6. i am usually at ease during tests in my language class. 7. i get anxious when the test has a listening component. 8. i start to panic when i have to speak without preparation in language class. 9. i am afraid i may mispronounce a word in front of the class. 10. thoughts of doing poorly interfere with my concentration in tests. 11. essays make me nervous. 13. it embarrasses me to volunteer answers in my language class. 14. during important tests i am so tense that it upsets my stomach. 15. i worry about my grade. 17. when we have an oral dialogue, i worry that i might not be able to understand what the other person is saying. 18. the more i study for a language test, the more confused i get. 19. i always feel that the other students speak the foreign language better than i do. 20. during tests i find myself worrying about the consequences of failing. 21. language class moves so quickly i worry about getting left behind. 22. i get nervous when i don't understand every word the language teacher says. about the authors miranda jane walker holds a ba in hispanic studies and modern greek (king’s college, university of london) a ba in english language and literature (university of cyprus) and an ma in education leadership and management (open university, uk). she is currently an edd candidate at the open university, uk. she teaches spanish in secondary education in limassol, cyprus. her research interests include teacher and student motivation and anxiety in the foreign language classroom as well as educational leadership and management. panayiotis panayides holds a bsc in statistics with mathematics (queen mary college, university of london), an msc in educational testing (middlesex university, uk) and a phd in educational measurement (university of durham, uk). he is an assistant headmaster and head of the mathematics department in secondary education in limassol, cyprus. his research interests include educational and psychological measurement as well as research into mathematics education. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 613–636 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.782 rasch measurement in language research: the flcai 636 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en rasch measurement in language research: the flcai (introduction) literature review validity of scales rasch measurement assessing unidimensionality, the rasch approach this study method the creation of the new scale results the first calibration of the 22-item scale calibrations of the 18-item scale comparisons between the flcai and the flcas conclusions is the new 5-point rating scale psychometrically optimal? does the new scale provide reliable person measures? do the scale items define a single construct? how does the new scale compare with the original flcas? limitations concluding remarks (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix appendix a appendix b: the foreign language classroom anxiety inventory about the authors birds of a feather laugh together: an investigation of humour style similarity in married couples research reports birds of a feather laugh together: an investigation of humour style similarity in married couples christian martin hahn*a, lorne john campbella [a] department of psychology, the university of western ontario, london, canada. abstract the present research investigated the degree of similarity in humour styles between spouses as assessed with the humour styles questionnaire (hsq). furthermore, self-esteem was investigated as a potential moderator of partner humour style similarity. a sample of 116 heterosexual, married couples independently completed questionnaires assessing self-reported humour styles across the 32 item hsq, as well as global self-esteem. results indicated that there is significant positive association between the humour styles of married partners. this association was moderated by individual self-esteem. specifically, participants with high self-esteem were found to have greater humour style similarity with their partners. similarity was also greater for positive compared to negative types of humour. implications for the use of dyadic data in investigating the roles of humour within couples are discussed. keywords: relational humour, self-esteem, marriage europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 received: 2016-01-20. accepted: 2016-04-27. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: western university, department of psychology, london, ontario, canada, n6a 5x2. e-mail: chahn@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. humour is widely regarded as a desirable quality that most people look for in a romantic partner (feingold, 1992; goodwin & tang, 1991; mcgee & shevlin, 2009; sprecher & regan, 2002). indeed, when asked, individuals report that displaying humour is the most effective method of attracting a mate (buss, 1988). beyond initial attraction, sharing humourous experiences and laughing together also increases feelings of closeness (fraley & aron, 2004). more specifically, romantic partners who share similarities in what they find to be humourous tend to see their partners in a more favourable light and have greater optimism for the future of their relationship (barelds & bareldsdijkstra, 2010; murstein & brust, 1985). this may be the case because similarities in humour may be representative of similarities in personal values, needs, and preferred methods of communication, factors that have been demonstrated as important in mate selection (e.g., abel, 2002; driver & gottman, 2004; kelly, 2002). the majority of research on humour and mate selection has focused on the relationship outcomes of humour use (e.g., barelds & barelds-dijkstra, 2010; campbell, martin, & ward, 2008; campbell & moroz, 2014). there are however, broad themes in regard to what people do and do not find attractive. among these is the well documented finding that the majority of individuals seek out mates who they find to be similar to themselves (barelds & bareldsdijkstra, 2007; byrne 1971; byrne & nelson, 1965; klohnen & luo, 2003). this similarity-attraction hypothesis would suggest that individuals may be drawn to romantic partners whose humour style is similar to their own. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, there are other factors that may influence the degree to which individuals value similarity in a partner. key among these is self-esteem. those with higher self-esteem are more likely to seek a partner who is similar to themselves than are those with lower self-esteem (brown & brown, 2015; jones, pelham, carvallo, & mirenberg, 2004). the present study assessed the self-reported humour styles of romantic partners and predicted that there would be similarity in humour style between partners. furthermore, we assessed self-esteem and predicted that self-esteem would moderate the degree to which partners are similar in humour style. humour and mate selection humour plays an active role in both interpersonal attraction and mate selection (buss, 1988; fraley & aron, 2004; mcgee & shevlin, 2009; sprecher & regan, 2002). this importance of humour in mate selection may be due to the perception that displays of humour are demonstrations of other qualities such as agreeableness (cann & calhoun, 2001) and sociability (wanzer, booth-butterfield, & booth-butterfield, 1996), which are important factors in relationship satisfaction, conflict resolution, and commitment. however, individuals vary in how they display humour themselves and in how they prefer others to display it (barelds & barelds-dijkstra, 2010; martin et al., 2003). though humour may be ubiquitous in its appeal, it follows that individual differences in types of humour typically used may be associated with preferences for the type of humour that they find attractive in a mate. the multidimensional construct of humour has been deconstructed and categorised in a number of ways, leading some researchers to ask whether or not there are certain aspects of humour that are more attractive than others? the answer to this question is “yes”. using martin et al.’s (2003) multi-dimensional humour styles questionnaire, prior research has identified that the two positive humour styles (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing) are associated with increased positive mood, increased romantic interest, and higher ratings of suitability for a long-term relationship (didonato, bedminster, & machel, 2013; howland & simpson, 2014). the two negative humour styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) are associated with feelings of rejection, feelings of sadness, and lower ratings of suitability for a long-term relationship (didonato et al., 2013; kuiper, kazarian, sine, & bassil, 2010; winterheld, simpson, & oriña, 2013). although these humour styles may be broadly viewed as being more or less attractive relative to one another, individual differences persist. the investigation of these differences has yielded further information regarding why individuals may be attracted to certain displays of humour but not to others. among these is similarity in humour. prior research has identified similarity between potential romantic partners in the type of jokes told and response to external humourous stimuli to be predictive of attraction (barelds & barelds-dijkstra, 2010; murstein & brust, 1985). in the context of humour, how similar we see others to ourselves seems to play a role in how we evaluate them as potential mates. the tendency for individuals to be attracted to those who are perceived to be similar reflects the similarity-attraction hypothesis (byrne 1971; byrne & nelson, 1965). this hypothesis has received considerable empirical support (e.g., byrne 1971; byrne & clore, 1970). given that, overall, individuals are more attracted to similar others, it is unsurprising that individuals ultimately tend to choose mates who are similar as well (epstein & guttman, 1984). this phenomenon, termed “assortative mating”, has been investigated rigorously in relationship sciences. although the existing humour literature has established some role of similarity in attraction, this body of work has not specifically investigated whether or not this phenomenon translates into the establishment of romantic relationships between those who share a similar sense of humour. the theoretical rationale for such an association is clear: humour is widely viewed as an attractive quality, individuals place a great deal of value on humour in potential europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 407 http://www.psychopen.eu/ romantic partners, individuals are more drawn to a sense of humour similar to their own, and broadly speaking, individuals tend to form relationships with those who are seen as being similar to themselves. self-esteem in assortative mating a substantial body of research has investigated the possible mechanisms of action behind assortative mating. one such explanation is that individuals feel more at ease with those who share our ideals, preferences, and interests (cooper & sheldon, 2002). having shared or similar interests and perspectives is closely related to both how attractive and how trustworthy potential romantic partners are perceived (singh et al., 2015; ziegler & golbeck, 2007). another explanation is that assortative mating is partially guided by self-enhancement bias (i.e., the tendency to view oneself in an overly positive manner; kwan et al., 2004). brown and brown (2015) put forth the notion that because most individuals have a favourable opinion of themselves, these individuals are drawn to romantic partners who mirror their own attributes (jones et al., 2004) but that those who have an unfavourable view of self would be less drawn to similar romantic partners. using a small university student sample, brown and brown (2015) asked participants to describe themselves, their ideal partner, and to complete a self-esteem questionnaire. the authors found that individuals with higher self-esteem were more likely to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms similar to those used to describe themselves than were their low self-esteem counterparts. this finding is important as it goes a step further than the similarity-attraction hypothesis and demonstrates the influence of self-enhancement bias in mate selection. the idea that self-enhancement plays a role in mate selection follows the rationale that individuals view their romantic partners as extensions of the self and therefore those who do not like themselves place less value on similarity between a partner and the self. therefore, it appears that the role of similarity in attraction may not be as simple as once thought but rather is influenced by perceptions of the self. a logical extension of brown and brown (2015) is to examine these phenomena in a higher-powered sample of partnered, as opposed to single, participants. there are many possible avenues through which to pursue this investigation. humour lends itself nicely to this question given the existing literatures establishing the link between mate preferences and attraction, and humour style similarity (e.g., barelds & barelds-dijkstra, 2010; byrne, 1971). establishing whether or not similarity in humour styles pervades beyond mate preference and attraction represents an important first step. a follow-up to this is to examine the potential mechanisms of action through which this may occur. self-enhancement linked to self-esteem may provide one such explanation given the established link between these constructs and the value of similarity in an ideal romantic partner. the current study the current study sought to test hypotheses regarding the similarity between humour styles of romantic partners and the role that individual differences (i.e., self-esteem) play in moderating this degree of similarity. prior research has established strong support for the notion that not only is humour an important characteristic in a potential romantic partner but furthermore that this attraction is increased when a potential partner has a sense of humour that is seen as similar to one’s own. drawing on established theory, contemporary research in this field has identified self-esteem to play an important role in how similar individuals want their ideal partner to be to himor herself. the existing body of research has focused on humour in attraction and the role of similarity therein but has not addressed whether or not these findings carry forward to established relationships. therefore, the present study provides an important extension by assessing the similarity of humour styles between romantic partners using the humour styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003), a widely used and well validated scale that europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 humour style similarity 408 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assesses the degree to which individuals subscribe to each of four humour styles. we hypothesize that overall, romantic partners will share significant similarity across the humour styles endorsed.we then assessed the influence of individual self-esteem on the association between partner humour styles. we hypothesize that those with higher self-esteem will share greater similarity in humour styles with their romantic partners than will their lower self-esteem counterparts. findings of this study may provide a fuller understanding of humour in romantic partners that goes beyond existing empirical research investigating humour in romantic attraction. method participants one hundred and sixteen married heterosexual couples participated in the present study and were compensated with $50.00 per individual ($100.00/couple). couples were recruited using advertisements in local community newspapers in the city of london, canada, an urban city with a population of approximately 366,000 that is located southwest of toronto. the average length of dating prior to marriage was 35.19 months (sd = 27.79) and the average length of marriage at time of participation was 120.23 months (sd = 127.12). the average total length of relationship was 153.16 months (sd = 124.58). the average age of male participants was 38.56 years (sd = 11.22) and for female participants was 36.7 years (sd = 10.71). the majority of couples (60%) had children (m = 1.31 per couple). this data set has been used previously in study 2 of lackenbauer and campbell (2012), campbell, overall, rubin, and lackenbauer (2013), and campbell and moroz (2014), but those investigations did not test the hypotheses addressed in the present study. procedure data used in the present study were collected as part of a larger study. only the procedure relevant to the present study will be described herein. couples were invited to complete their participation at an in-person laboratory session at the university of western ontario. at this session, members of the couple were separated and asked to independently provide their informed consent to participate and to complete a set of paper-and-pencil questionnaires. these questionnaires included measures of humour use and perceptions of the self. materials humour styles questionnaire (hsq) the hsq (martin et al., 2003) assesses self-reported styles of humour use. this 32-item scale measures the degree to which individuals display each of four styles of humour use: affiliative (e.g., i enjoy making people laugh), selfenhancing (e.g., if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humour), aggressive (e.g., if someone makes a mistake, i will tease them about it), and self-defeating (e.g., i let people laugh at me or make fun at my expense more than i should). there are 8 items for each humour style. this measure uses a seven-point likert scale response mechanism (1 = totally disagree; 7 = totally agree) and generates scores for each humour style by averaging responses across each 8-item set. martin et al. (2003) report acceptable reliability (α > .77) and construct validity (based on correlations with peer-report humour style; rs = .22 .33). the internal consistency in the present sample was acceptable for affiliative (α = .85 and .85 for men and women, respectively), self-enhancing (α = .83 and .87 for men and women, respectively), aggressive (α = .78 and .67 for men and women, respectively), and self-defeating (α = .83 and .82 for men and women, respectively) humour styles. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 409 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rosenberg self-esteem scale (rse) the rse scale (rosenberg, 1965) assesses self-reported evaluation of and attitude toward the self. this 10-item questionnaire (e.g., i take a positive attitude toward myself) utilizes a four-point likert scale response mechanism (0 = strongly disagree, 3 = strongly agree). robins, hendin, and trzesniewski (2001) report acceptable reliability (α = .88) and construct validity (based on correlation with the single item self-esteem scale [robins, hendin, & trzesniewski, 2001]; rs = .72 .76). participant self-esteem scores are obtained by totalling responses on all ten items (maximum score = 30) with higher scores indicating higher self-esteem. the internal consistency in the present sample was acceptable for this measure (α = .88 and .89 for men and women, respectively). results data analytic strategy models of interest were investigated using multilevel modeling (mlm; kenny, kashy, & bolger, 1998; raudenbush & bryk, 2002), in accordance with the recommendations of kenny, kashy, and cook (2006; see also campbell & kashy, 2002). data in the present study have a nested structure. specifically, participant self-reported ratings of humour styles across the 32 items of the hsq (level 1) are nested within couple (level 2). we ran two models: model 1, the test of our primary hypothesis, estimated the within-couple association between participants’ humour styles within couples across the 32 items on the hsq. this model was run twice, once using male participant hsq scores as the criterion, and once using female participant hsq scores as the criterion. model 2, the test of our secondary hypothesis, estimated the degree to which the association between partner humour styles withincouples is influenced by self-esteem. model two was run twice, once using male partners’ self-esteem scores, and once using females partners’ self-esteem scores. all predictor variables were grand mean centered for analyses. descriptive statistics descriptive statistics, including response ranges, means, and standard deviations, and t test results for male and female responses to each of the 32 hsq items are reported in table 1. for several of these items, significant differences were found between genders. the majority of these differences were found in items corresponding to the negative humour styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating). in their initial standardization sample martin et al. (2003) found significant differences between genders for all subscales. however, it was noted by these authors that strong significance was found only for the negative humour styles and that for positive humour styles, the threshold of significance was barely crossed and this was attributed to the large sample size rather than a true sex difference. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 humour style similarity 410 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for the 32-items of the humour styles questionnaire and t-test results for differences between genders female partnermale partner tsdmrsdmritemhumour style 1 – 71 – 71affiliative .320.261.226.261.166 1 – 71 – 75 .720.501.035.491.175 1 – 71 – 79 .23*2.441.415.821.964 2 – 72 – 713 .300.141.236.031.276 1 – 72 – 717 .730.681.545.581.695 1 – 74 – 721 .371.191.236.720.396 2 – 71 – 725 .22*2.071.406.451.076 1 – 71 – 729 .321.761.974.731.295 1 – 71 – 72self-enhancing .450.651.165.681.055 1 – 71 – 76 .521.431.545.411.825 1 – 71 – 710 .100.681.534.631.524 1 – 71 – 714 .271.581.215.451.455 1 – 71 – 718 .100.781.344.631.394 1 – 71 – 722 .000.771.643.681.633 1 – 71 – 726 .650.601.115.551.245 1 – 71 – 730 .731.671.165.461.475 1 – 71 – 73aggressive .631.781.283.881.653 1 – 71 – 77 .530.681.283.681.393 1 – 71 – 711 .95***3.461.402.851.173 1 – 71 – 715 .22*2.831.422.761.932 1 – 71 – 719 .38**3.871.203.921.014 1 – 71 – 723 .780.781.064.701.224 1 – 71 – 727 .41*2.591.102.791.592 1 – 71 – 731 .54*2.911.383.951.993 1 – 71 – 74self-defeating .811.781.952.731.343 1 – 71 – 78 .59*2.871.462.881.133 1 – 71 – 712 .95**2.861.493.841.094 1 – 71 – 716 .49***3.791.103.901.913 1 – 71 – 720 .81**2.441.052.581.592 1 – 71 – 724 .220.841.862.631.912 1 – 71 – 728 .301.971.493.821.833 1 – 71 – 732 .68***3.771.283.691.094 note. r = range of scores from 1-7. degrees of freedom for t-tests = 114. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. hypothesis 1: partners will endorse similar humour styles table 2 displays the results for analysis of model 1. this analysis revealed a significant association across the 32 hsq items within couples. this is to say that when looking at the responses of married partners to each of the 32 items of the hsq, the responses endorsed by partner one positively predicted the responses endorsed by his or her partner. the differences in coefficients obtained with male versus female hsq entered as the criterion are attributable to random error. the results of both analyses are significant at p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 multilevel models testing the effects of one partners’ hsq responses predicting the other partners’ hsq responses (model 1) model 1 male partners’ hsq as criterionfemale partners’ hsq as criterion r95% citsebr95% citsebvariable .33.37, .4420.73***.02.41.31.43, .5219.20***.03.48partner hsq responses note. unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. approximate effect sizes were computed using the formula r = √(t2/(t2 + df)) (see rosenthal & rosnow, 2007). degrees of freedom were 3575. ***p < .001. hypothesis 2: self-esteem will have a moderating effect model 2 was run in order to determine whether or not individual differences in self-esteem moderated the association between the humour styles of male and female partners. to test our hypothesis, model 2 was run twice. first, with male partner humour style as the criterion, and female humour style and female self-esteem as predictors. second, with female partner humour style as the criterion, and male humour style and male self-esteem as predictors. as illustrated in table 3, in both analyses the association between humour styles was moderated by selfesteem. figures 1 and 2 illustrate the associations between partner humour styles for high (+1 standard deviation above the mean) and low (-1 standard deviation below the mean) self-esteem. for both females (figure 1) and males (figure 2) with high self-esteem, the association between self and partner humour styles was stronger than for their low self-esteem counterparts. table 3 multilevel models testing the effects of one partners’ hsq and self-esteem predicting the other partners’ hsq responses (model 2) model 2 male humour as criterionfemale humour as criterion r95% citsebr95% citsebpredictor .33.02.40.31.02.47partner hsq responses , .44.36.73***20, .52.42.38***19 .04.07-.02.02.07.01partner self-esteem , .11-.15.38-, .14-.12.21 .04.02.05.03.02.05partner hsq responses x partner self-esteem , .08.01.52*2, .09.01.17*2 note. unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. approximate effect sizes were computed using the formula r = √(t2/(t2 + df)) (see rosenthal & rosnow, 2007). degrees of freedom ranged between 113 (self-esteem) and 3574 (humour style) for models estimated with all couples. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 humour style similarity 412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. moderation effects of male self-esteem in the association between male humour (predictor) and female humour (criterion). figure 2. moderation effects of female self-esteem in the association between female humour (predictor) and male humour (criterion). exploratory analyses although not a primary interest at the outset of the study, additional analyses were conducted to investigate potential differences attributable to humour type (i.e., positive and negative) in the similarity between spouses’ humour styles. specifically, we investigated whether or not the findings above differed for positive (i.e., affiliative and selfenhancing humour styles) versus negative (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) humour styles. for this analysis, humour type was effect coded such that the 16 positive humour items were each coded as “1” whereas the 16 negative humour items were each coded as “-1”. the models presented in table 2 were re-run, this time adding the effect code of humour type, as well as the interaction between this effect code and partner hsq responses (for both male scores and female scores as the predictor). both male partner humour (b = .23, se = .02, t(3573) = 9.95, p < .001) and humour type (b = .94, se = .03, t(3573) = 30.91, p < .001) were significantly associated with female partner humour. a significant interaction was found between predictor variables in this model (b = .04, se = .02, t(3575) = 2.74, p = .006), suggesting that similarity between male and female hsq scores was stronger for the positive (b = .27) versus negative humour styles (b = .19). this analysis was repeated with male partner humour style as the criterion, and female partner humour style and humour type as the predictors. again, both predictors were significantly associated with the criterion (female partner humour style: b = .22, se = .02, t(3573) = 10.74, p < .001; humour type: b = .67, se = .03, t(3573) = 21.08, p < .001). the interaction between these predictors was significant (b = .06, se = .02, t(3573) = 4.01, p < .001), again suggesting that similarity between female and male hsq scores was stronger for the positive (b = .28) versus negative humour styles (b = .16). a final exploratory europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis was run to investigate a potential three-way interaction between partner humour style, humour type, and self-esteem. the results of this analysis were not significant. discussion the present study was conducted in order to answer two questions: are married partners similar in self-reported humour style? if so, is this similarity moderated by the self-esteem of either partner? in answering the first question, our results are the first to show a strong positive correspondence within couples between the humour styles endorsed by heterosexual married partners, confirming our primary hypothesis. that is, the profiles of self-reported humour across the 32 items of the hsq, a well-validated hallmark measure of individual humour use, are positively associated between spouses. the reasons for this association may be complex and the results of our exploratory analysis may help to provide a clearer explanation. these analyses revealed that the overall association between partners’ humour styles was greater in the presence of higher endorsement of positive (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing) as opposed to negative (i.e., aggressive, self-defeating) humour styles. one possible explanation for this difference is that it is a reflection of the social desirability of different humour styles. cann and matson (2014) found that, among dating partners, positive humour styles are viewed as more socially desirable and perceived to be associated with more prosocial behaviours than are their negative counterparts. the greater desirability of, and importance placed on positive humour styles may result in increased likelihood of romantic pairing between individuals with strong endorsement of positive humour styles. this increased likelihood may be the result of an increase in the number of romantic prospects due to the social desirability of positive humour. an alternate explanation for this finding may be that among established couples, such as those sampled for the present study, the use of positive versus negative humour styles has had relationship enhancing effects. this would imply that couples who express higher endorsement of negative humour styles are less likely to maintain long-term romantic relationships due to the perceptions of expressions of negative humour styles being socially undesirable. indeed prior research has identified a link between the use of positive humour and relationship satisfaction among dating couples (caird & martin, 2014). as evidenced by the significance of similarity between partners endorsing negative humour styles, within dyad humour similarity is ubiquitous. however, it is possible that social desirability or relationship enhancing effects of positive humour is a driving force in the heightened magnitude of humour similarity among couples endorsing positive humour styles. in answering the second question, our results show that the association found between partner humour styles was indeed moderated by the self-esteem of either partner. specifically, those with higher self-esteem shared greater similarity in humour style with their partners than did their low self-esteem counterparts. it is, however, important to note that the moderating effect of self-esteem did not alter the direction of association between partners’ humour styles. that is to say that the presence of low self-esteem does not produce an inverse association between partner humour styles (i.e., significantly dissimilar humour styles) but rather lessens the magnitude of the positive association identified above. prior research has indicated that self-esteem influences the degree to which individuals seek and form romantic relationships with partners viewed as similar to the self (brown & brown, 2015). specifically, that individuals with high self-esteem endorse descriptions of an ideal other that are similar to descriptions of themselves. the present research extends these findings by investigating the role of self-esteem in simieurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 humour style similarity 414 http://www.psychopen.eu/ larity of established couples, rather than in descriptions of hypothetical partners. this shows evidence that selfenhancement biases pervade beyond who individuals would like to be romantically involved with and into whom individuals go on to form lasting romantic relationships with. this is the first research to demonstrate a high degree of similarity in the humour styles of married partners. the further exploration of the influence of individual differences (i.e., self-esteem) provides initial evidence of the presence of psychological processes not previously observed in the context of humour (i.e., self-enhancement bias). the results of this study provide a foundation for future works relating to humour in the context of established romantic relationships. strengths and implications the use of dyadic data is a major strength of the present study. this allows us to draw objective conclusions regarding the similarity of humour styles among married partners that would not be possible with individual data. for example, having own partner rate his or her own humour style and the humour style of his or her partner may only reflect a perception of similarity that may be motivated by a desire for feelings of relational cohesion. a key implication of this research is that individuals appear to form committed romantic relationships with partners who display a similar humour style. that is, the importance placed on humour similarity seems to extend beyond attraction, as noted in previous literature (e.g., barelds & barelds-dijkstra, 2010). additionally, this study is among the few extant studies to examine humour in the context of established romantic relationships. this opens up the door for future research investigating the specifics functions served by humour similarity within the dyad. future directions the present study has established a clear association of within dyad humour style similarity. future research should expand beyond the cross-sectional approach used the present study and investigate humour style similarity over time. studies employing a longitudinal design may identify the dynamic nature of humour styles within couples that is precluded by the nature of the data in the present study. this would identify potential differences in similarity at various stages of the relationship as well as explore a possible trend toward similarity over time. further areas for future exploration may involve investigation of the functions that humour and humour similarity may serve within the context of romantic relationships. the present study identifies a strong degree of humour style similarity between married partners but does not explore the possible effects that similarity or dissimilarity may have on relationship outcomes. an intriguing question raised by these findings is “what does this mean for the relationship?”. in answering this question one direction may be to investigate the possible associations between humour style similarity and relationship satisfaction and whether or not these associations are present across all humour styles. prior research has linked humour use with relationship satisfaction but not necessarily humour similarity (e.g., aune & wong, 2002; caird & martin, 2014). furthermore, the present study identifies similarity between married partners in both positive and negative humour, but it is possible that relational benefits that may arise from humour style similarity (e.g., relationship satisfaction) are exclusive toor are stronger forpartners sharing a positive humour style than for those who share negative humour styles. limitations the cross-sectional design of the present study prevents us from differentiating between possible directions of causality. for example, it may be the case that individuals are selecting partners because of their similarity in humour or it could be that over time, partners grow increasingly similar in humour style. longitudinal data that europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 415 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assesses humour style prior to-, at the outset of-, and during a romantic relationship would allow for analysis of changes in individual humour styles over time and changes in the relatedness of humour within the couple. additionally, by relying on self-reports of humour we may be capturing the styles of humour that participants wish to present or that they believe they display, but not the humour styles that they truly use on a regular basis. future studies using observational methods may provide insight into the humour styles used by partners when interacting with one another. conclusions the results of the present study provide a meaningful contribution to the existing literature on humour styles and romantic relationships. by focusing on married couples, we are able to extend established findings on humour similarity beyond the field of initial attraction. in addition, we identified that this similarity is influenced by evaluations of the self. the more positively an individual views him or herself, the more likely there is similarity in humour style between that individual and his or her partner. overall, we see evidence that humour is an important feature in a romantic partner and that its importance is influenced by factors relating to the self. funding we 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(2013). it's in the way that you use it: attachment and the dyadic nature of humor during conflict negotiation in romantic couples. personality and social psychology bulletin, 39(4), 496-508. doi:10.1177/0146167213479133 ziegler, c.-n., & golbeck, j. (2007). investigating interactions of trust and interest similarity. decision support systems, 43(2), 460-475. doi:10.1016/j.dss.2006.11.003 about the authors christian hahn is a doctoral candidate in the clinical psychology program atwestern university. his research interests include social anxiety in the context of close relationships and maintenance of established romantic relationships. lorne campbell is a professor at western university. his research interests include interpersonal attraction, relationship formation, as well as the maintenance and stability of romantic relationships. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 406–419 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hahn & campbell 419 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0265407515576993 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0265407502019004048 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f01463379609369999 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167213479133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.dss.2006.11.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humour style similarity (introduction) humour and mate selection self-esteem in assortative mating the current study method participants procedure materials results data analytic strategy descriptive statistics hypothesis 1: partners will endorse similar humour styles hypothesis 2: self-esteem will have a moderating effect exploratory analyses discussion strengths and implications future directions limitations conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 corrected version a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder leo russell, duncan moss note this is a newer version of an article published in ejop, vol. 9 issue 2 (2013) under the same title. in the following publication some section headings were added which had been lost during document production. http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v9i2.560 literature reviews a meta-study of qualitative research into the experience of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder leo russell*a, duncan mossb [a]clinical psychology service, somerset partnership nhs foundation trust, taunton, united kingdom. [b]department of clinical psychology, university of plymouth, plymouth, united kingdom. abstract the purpose of this study is to review the current state of the literature reporting qualitative studies that depict the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. the method attempted to combine empirical and discursive approaches and was strongly influenced by guidance from paterson, thorne, canam, and jillings (2001) on conducting ameta-review. meta-data analysis was used to compare the studies and, subsequently, nine common themes emerged: ‘struggles with identity’, ‘loss of control’, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’, ‘negative view of self’, ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, ‘stigma’, and ‘acceptance and hope’. the meta-method explored and evaluated the qualitative methods that have been used to study this phenomenon, and the meta-theory considered the theoretical underpinnings and contributions of this research. the review concludes that an awareness of these themes could support clinical work with service-users and inform the development of relevant interventions such as interpersonal social rhythm therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. further qualitative research is recommended to extend this literature base and include a greater representation of men and people living in non-westernised countries. keywords: bipolar disorder, diagnosis, symptoms, qualitative, meta-study, mania, review europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 received: 2012-12-19. accepted: 2013-04-15. published (vor): 2013-05-31. corrected (cvor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: clinical psychology service, foundation house, wellspring road, taunton, ta2 7pq, england. e-mail: leo.russell@nhs.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction this study seeks to develop ways of understanding the experience of ‘symptoms’ associated with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and of the experience of diagnosis itself. the use of this diagnosis as a reference point is a practical solution to the problem of identifying literature that included participants with similar kinds of distress and experiences that are perceived to be unusual. however, as is discussed throughout this review, it is also a problematic solution as diagnostic systems and the application of diagnosis are contentious areas of questionable validity. background bipolar disorder as a psychiatric diagnosis — bipolar disorder is a commonly applied diagnosis of a mental health problem with prevalence rates between 1-1.5% (jones, 2004). according to the american psychiatric aseurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ sociation (1994), the criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder require the presence of either ‘mania’ or ‘hypomania’ alongside an experience of ‘clinical depression’. unlike many other diagnoses, bipolar disorder appears to have no significant differences in prevalence rates across cultures, age groups or gender compared to culture, age and gender in the general population (newman, leahy, beck, reilly-harrington, & gyulai, 2001). people who have been labelled with this diagnosis report significant distress and suffering, poor quality of life, high levels of self-harm and approximately a third of these people attempt suicide at some point (jones, 2004; jones & bentall, 2006). the diagnosis is also associated with non-adherence to psychological interventions and medication and this is seen as negatively impacting the prognosis (gaudiano, weinstock, & miller, 2008). however, it should be noted that this epidemiological data is largely based on information gathered within westernised and developed countries such as the united kingdom and united states of america. many people who are given the bipolar disorder diagnosis prefer the original term, coined by emil kraepelin, of ‘manic-depression’ as this seems to reflect more closely the extremes of emotional experience they tend to report (critical psychiatry network, 2009; jamison, 1995). the term bipolar disorder was introduced by karl leonard in 1957 as a solution to the over-inclusiveness of ‘manic-depression’ due to the huge differences in the ‘symptoms’ reported by people given this diagnosis (bentall, 2003). this separated manic-depression into unipolar depression and bipolar depression. ironically, contemporary commentators observed that the construct of bipolar disorder has itself become an over-inclusive diagnosis in current diagnostic systems (critical psychiatry network, 2009). critique of psychiatric diagnosis— in drawing from studies where diagnosis is part of the criteria for participant selection, it is important to acknowledge from the outset some of the problems of psychiatric diagnosis. two of these problems are discussed below; lack of validity of diagnoses and ethical problems with diagnoses and its role in social power structures. the psychiatric diagnostic system fundamentally views emotional distress as arising from biological abnormalities that can be alleviated by biological interventions (moncrieff, 2007). diagnostic systems have been argued to be unjustified by research and unreliable in distinguishing aetiology, prognosis and outcome (boyle, 2007). this is perhaps not surprising given the historical context of diagnostic models and the fact that these have not been sufficiently updated to reflect the evidence of their invalidity (bentall, 2003). furthermore, it is clear that, despite service-users sometimes adopting diagnostic terminology to describe their experiences, they “tend to attribute their breakdowns not to illness, but to a variety of psychological and social reasons”, taking a contradictory position to the disease model of diagnostic systems (johnston, 2000, p. 35). the diagnosis of bipolar disorder has received particular criticism. the critical psychiatry network (2009) observes major discrepancies between the ‘diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders’ and the ‘international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems’. this lack of agreement between diagnostic systems undermines the validity of the construct of bipolar disorder. there has also been a concerning rise in reported prevalence rates of bipolar disorder since the 1950s and again more rapidly in recent years; this is difficult to account for using the disease model (healy, 2008). one commentator has suggested that this reflects the investment of pharmaceutical companies in medication for bipolar disorder, which again would threaten the validity of the diagnosis (healy, 2008). in addition to validity concerns about diagnosis, there have also been questions about the oppressive function of diagnosis in society. thomas szasz (1972, p. 275) described psychiatric diagnoses as “stigmatizing labels, phrased europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 644 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to resemble diagnosis, and applied to persons whose behaviour offends or annoys others”. this position has been further elaborated with some commentators perceiving a societal operation of power and interest in promoting a misinforming discourse of emotional distress as ‘illness’ that creates the illusion that the distress is the fault of the individual (smail, 2005). moreover, many service-users have described the burden and the stigma of diagnosis of mental illness as well as the subjugation of their views and opinions in professional discourses about diagnosis (campbell, 2007). research exploring this diagnosis— jones and bentall (2006) argue that people who been given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder have until recently been neglected in psychological research. the recent upsurge in research has contributed to the development of theory and intervention. this has been based mainly on the integration of quantitative research that has explored personal factors related to risk, patterns of thinking, neuropsychological characteristics, biological characteristics, and treatment outcomes (jones & bentall, 2006). there is also a body of qualitative research that has sought to explore more closely the experience of people who have been given this diagnosis. these studies offer alternative insights into ways of understanding the experiences associated with symptoms and receiving diagnosis. the current impact of this qualitative research is limited due to the absence of attempts to make connections and draw distinctions between the findings of these studies. aims the purpose of this study is to review the current state of the literature reporting qualitative studies that depict to the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this consists of two questions; what are the experiences of ‘symptoms’ and ‘having a diagnosis’ for people who are given this diagnosis? what methods and theories have been used to explore this and how has this choice shaped the findings? the undertaking of this study has inevitably been shaped from conception to completion by my own background, assumptions and beliefs. i am amale in my mid-twenties and my professional background is clinical psychology1. i am of caucasian ethnicity and lived my whole life in england. initially, my interest in this area arose from conversations with clinical colleagues about the difficulties of developing interventions for people who suffer from the kinds of distress associated with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. furthermore, in undertaking this study, i have become aware that part of my curiosity may reflect an interest in ‘mania’ due to personal experience of noticing, on occasion, my own feelings and actions taking on a ‘hypomanic’ quality. this reveals my own assumption that experiences described as ‘mania’ and ‘depression’ are ways of understanding different kinds of distress that are along a continuum of human experience as opposed to representing symptoms of an illness. method meta-review methodology this meta-review uses an interpretive qualitative approach to compare and contrast qualitative research from the perspective of the insider. it is an attempt to combine analytical and discursive methods through a ‘radical relativist’ stance. this is a stance that rejects traditional notions of scientific ‘truths’ in favour of ‘truth’ as a social construction, whilst recognising the need to draw subtle links and connections between multiple perspectives of the ‘truth’ in order to make qualitative research useful (sandelowski, 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 645 http://www.psychopen.eu/ meta-data analysis — this is the “analysis of the results of previous analysis” (zhao, 1991, p. 378), performed in order to highlight the interrelationships between findings regarding phenomenon under study (paterson, thorne, canam, & jillings, 2001). in this manner, meta-data analysis is essentially an approach aimed at making sense of the findings of a series of related but independent investigations, in order to recognise shared and differing outcomes in a meaningful way. this meta-data analysis is guided by the meta-ethnographic approach of noblit & hare (1988), which is described below. primary research studies identified for the literature review are read several times. they are then re-read and notes are made of the phrases, metaphors, ideas and concepts described in the primary studies. the next stage is to organise the notes from each study to identify common themes, metaphors and concepts within each study. finally, the notes for all studies are compared to establish whether the studies offer similar ideas and concepts (demonstrating that they are ‘reciprocal’) or have conflicting ideas and concepts. based on this process, the studies we analysed were perceived as being reciprocal and the shared themes that emerged are presented in this review. meta-method— themeta-method provides an overview of the ‘epistemological soundness’ of the primary research studies (based on guidelines from yardley, 2000), and a consideration of how the application of methods may have shaped the findings emerging from this field of research (paterson et al., 2001). meta-theory — the meta-theory undertaken in this review considers the theories that have been used to understand the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and the theories developed from that body of research. selection of primary research the initial searches attempted to identify any qualitative research papers that have studied the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. studies were identified through a literature search of csa psychinfo, csa psycharticles, science direct (elsevier), swetswise, web of knowledge, cinahl and medline. the following terms were used to locate the studies; ‘bipolar’ or ‘bipolar disorder’ or ‘manic depression’ or ‘bipolar depression’ or ‘mania’ and ‘qualitative’ or ‘interpretative phenomenological analysis’ or ‘discourse analysis’ or ‘phenomenology’ or ‘discursive’ or ‘grounded theory’ or ‘narrative’ or ‘social constructions’ or ‘exploration’ or ‘focus group’ or ‘grounded study’ or ‘constant comparative’. in addition, the reference section of each of the studies was then explored to identify any further relevant studies. inclusion and exclusion criteria — after the initial literature search, more stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to select appropriate papers: 1. the research data must be based mainly on the accounts of the persons who are identified with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. 2. the study must explore the person’s experiences connected to their diagnostic label of bipolar disorder as opposed to understanding it in relation to a specific intervention or domain of life. 3. the study must be based on an adult population. 4. the study must have undertaken an analysis of the raw data. 5. the study must be physically or electronically accessible through reasonable measures to enable the authors to include it in the review. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 646 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these criteria ensured that the studies relate to adults who have been given the diagnostic label of bipolar disorder. the choice of excluding studies without analysis of data was taken to provide a set of studies that also reveal something about the authors’ constructions of participants’ constructions. these strict criteria also provided a means for maintaining the number of studies below ten to enable this review to be comprehensive (sandelowski, docherty, & emden, 1997). overall, nine studies were identified for inclusion in this review (see table 1 below). for simplicity, this review refers to these studies by the code number in the table. table 1 studies identified for review 1code inder et al. (2008)study psychiatrydiscipline new zealandcountry therapy sessionsdata collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 15 people with primary diagnosis of bipolar disorder (i, ii, or ‘not otherwise specified’). age 15-35sample the effect of bipolar disorder on the development of ‘self’.focus the authors identified four core themes in the experience of bipolar disorder; effects on relationships, others definition of self, disrupting (impact of bipolar disorder on lives), and problems in the development of sense of self. main findings 2code jönsson, wijk, skärsäter, & danielson (2008)study nursingdiscipline swedencountry interview (semi-structured)data collection content analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 18 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder (i or ii). age 18-57sample how people with bipolar disorder understand their ‘illness’ and their view of the futurefocus the authors identified six themes; accepting the illness, being insecure in oneself, striving for understanding, managing the illness, an uncertain future and a hopeful future. the authors conclude this illustrates the ongoing process of moving back and forth toward acceptance. main findings 3code o’leary, page, & jenkins (1991)study applied psychologydiscipline united statescountry interview (semi-structured)data collection phenomenal analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 4 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder “manic type.” (adults). age not givensample what people experienced when they were in the ‘mania stage’ of bipolar disorderfocus thirteen categories were identified. the authors discuss five themes in detail; levels of awareness, personal behaviours, differences between manic phases, interpersonal behaviours and similarities between manic phases. main findings 4code proudfoot et al. (2009)study psychiatrydiscipline australiacountry email discussion between participant sample and informed supportersdata collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 12 people diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 12 months prior to study and accessing treatment. age 18-59sample the experience, issues and concerns of people following diagnosis of bipolar disorder.focus europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 647 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the authors identified seven themes; unwanted side-effects of medication, coping with unpleasant symptoms, positive and negative reactions to the diagnosis, identifying early warning signs and triggers of the illness, the main findings loss of a sense of self, uncertainty about their future and stigma. they conclude these issues can undermine effective treatment and attempts at self-management. 5code lim, nathan, o’brien-malone, & williams (2004)study clinical psychologydiscipline australiacountry focus group discussiondata collection the phenomenological approach (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 18 people with a bipolar i diagnosis. age 28-58sample the psychosocial issues and problems faced by people given a bipolar disorder diagnosis.focus three themes were identified: bipolar patients’ experience of life as chaotic and unstable, of circumstances as being out of their control, and as characterised by loss and deficits. the authors conclude that this may affect self-efficacy, which could negatively impact ability to manage the illness. main findings 6code michalak, yatham, kolesar, & lam (2006)study psychiatrydiscipline canadacountry interviews (semi-structured)data collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 35 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. age 21-68sample the impact of bipolar disorder on a person’s life with specific reference to quality of lifefocus the authors identified six themes; routine ‘order in chaos’, independence, stigma and disclosure, identity, social support, and spirituality. authors also described participants’ order of life priorities for quality of life contributing to the development of a quality of life questionnaire. main findings 7code goldberg (2007)2study psychology (clinical emphasis)discipline united statescountry interviews (narrative)data collection combination of grounded theory ideas (a form of interpretive theme analysis) with narrative & discursive approaches to analysis analysis method 6 people who had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. age 40-55sample deconstructing the experience of people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorderfocus the author found an apparent mutual interaction between individual experience and societal labels. participants had faced challenges to self and identity, with particular regard to developing a cohesive sense of self in the light of psychiatry and societal discourse about bipolar disorder. main findings 8code chapman (2002)study educational psychologydiscipline united statescountry interviews (semi-structured)data collection grounded theory analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 12 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (i and ii). age 22-62sample the experience of bipolar disorder with a focus on responding to challenges to identity.focus a central process in the experience of dealing with bipolar disorder is responding to challenges to identity. a model for understanding this process is developed and described. main findings 9code pollack & aponte (2001)study europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 648 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychiatric nursingdiscipline united statescountry interviews (structured)data collection thematic analysis (a form of interpretive theme analysis)analysis method 15 people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder on an inpatient ward. age 21-52sample the perception of ‘illness’ in people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.focus the authors identified three themes; coming to terms with the diagnosis, the importance of personal metaphors, and dealing with the medical model. there was no apparent difference between themes with regard to ethnic groups. main findings overall participant sample— all the studies included in this review used the official diagnosis of bipolar disorder as a way of selecting participants although the studies ranged widely in terms of the functional difficulties experienced by participants, the severity of their symptoms and the length of time since diagnosis. overall, across all studies there were 135 participants. all studies, with the exception of one [5], stated the gender of participants and so overall data from these studies breaks down into the following percentages; 37.4% were men and 62.6% were women. the age of participants ranged from 15-68. only four studies reported the average age of participants [1,2,6,7]. the mean of these average ages was 37.2. the ethnicity and education of participants was not widely reported in these studies. given that bipolar disorder seems to be diagnosed with equal prevalence rates across different ethnic groups (newman et al., 2001), it could be assumed that participants may represent largely the cultural majority within the countries where the studies took place. therefore, this sample is likely to mainly represent white participants who live in the five specific countries where the research has been carried out, all of which would be considered to be ‘developed’ countries. the level of education of the participants indicates a range of educational backgrounds from school leave-takers before the age of sixteen to university graduates. results meta-data analysis the meta-data analysis revealed observable and striking commonalities between the data of the studies. the steps we took to undertake this process are detailed in the methodology above. nine major themes regarding the experience of ‘symptoms’ and having a diagnosis of bipolar disorder emerged. the quotations below are in bold for primary author’s observations and italics for the participants’ own words. — struggles with identity — “…like a reed in the wind…i feel like i’m going like this in the breeze and i’ve lost whatever it says what i am” (1, p. 129). all the studies with the exception of one [3] highlighted the struggles with identity faced by the participants. these struggles were described as complex and took multiple forms. two of the studies [1,2] reflected on a sense of confusion that comes from the discontinuity of moods experienced by people who are given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder; “i had different personalities all over the place that were out of character for the person who had been so happy a couple of months ago” (1, p. 129). in some of the studies, the participants referred to a strong sense of loss or absence of self [1,4,6,7,8]. one participant said “my biggest issue is coming to terms with the loss of who i am, and that i sometimes feel i cannot be the person i once was” (4, p. 125) and another noted that after europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 649 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a manic episode, “you don’t know how to become yourself again, it’s like someone hands you a drivers licence and you’re like, ‘well who is this person’?” (6, p. 32). participants and authors in several of the studies also recognised a sense of fragility and uncertainty about the self [1,4,7,8,9]. the authors of one study noted that “participants were not knowing whether or not to trust themselves” (4, p. 125), and a participant in another study described feeling like “…just a pile of pieces. and i didn’t have enough glue to put it together again” (7, p. 155). in contrast, four of the studies referred to ‘acceptance’ of identity as also being part of the experience of some people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [1,2,6,8]. one author commented “as people sort through observations about self and symptoms, and as they consider what they value about themselves, they make decisions about what they will and will not claim as part of themselves” (8, p. 101). — loss of control — “it’s like walking down the road and having a big hailstorm coming” (8, p. 152). seven of the studies reflected on the feeling of loss of control as a central part of experience for participants [1,3,4,5,7,8,9]. some of these studies commented that participants accounts of the internal experience of mania were partly characterised by a sense of fast motion and high speed thinking which felt out of control and scary [3,4,7,8,9]. this experience was powerfully communicated in the metaphors used by some of the participants. one person explained, “the mania terrifies me, the thoughts run through my mind like a speed train and i hate it.” (4, p. 124). one study described the experience of “very fast motion” as the only consistent characteristic of mania reported by participants (3, p. 45). in several of the studies, a frightening loss of control was also described by participants through the use of analogy to powerful and dramatic external events [1,5,7,8]. in particular, participants seemed to draw on metaphors from the natural world in communicating a sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming forces such as being in the path of hailstorms, tornados, quick sand and the waves of the ocean. — disruption, uncertainty and instability — “the fear is that your mood might soar or that you might become depressed and unable to do what you have to…you don’t dare to have long-term goals and dreams because you know that you are totally chaotic. you do not dare to dream.” (2, p. 1229) all of the studies in this review reported to some extent the participants’ reflections of the experience of disruption in their lives and most studies highlighted a sense of pervasive uncertainty and instability that accompanied this in participants’ accounts [1,2,4,5,6,9]. one study commented that, “there appears to be a constant struggle for stability and normality in their lives, and these are often elusive in the face of recurrent episodes and hospitalisation” (5, p. 813). this struggle for stability was described by the authors of another study as attempting to find “order in chaos” (6, p. 28). two studies commented directly on the shared experience among participants of uncertainty in terms of the future [2,4]. this uncertainty was seen as spanning all spheres of the person’s life. a number of participants explained that as a result of this uncertainty, they avoid making plans and goals for the future, one example was “i only think about one day at a time…tomorrow i plan to go to my boyfriend…but then i haven’t planned anything, it’s like a blank piece of paper” (2, p. 1229). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 650 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this uncertainty about the future was further allied to feelings of hopelessness in three of the studies [2,4,5]. one study hypothesised about the cognitive processes that lead to hopelessness, “if their future were predicted by their past and current circumstances, then it follows that they would perceive their future to be as uncertain or unstable as their lives at present. this often results in a sense of hopelessness…” (5, p. 815). — negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss — “…saying inappropriate things would make me lose all my friends. and talking too fast, you know, all these things, acting weird, you know odd behaviour. my friends would ditch me of course and at the end i’d be alone” (6, p. 32). participants across all studies talked about the wide negative impact of symptoms on their social world and other domains of life. two studies in particular highlighted this as a central part of the experience of their participants [1,6]. one of these described that, “participant’s responses revealed that the onset of bipolar disorder…brings about changes that, for many patients, may last a lifetime. these changes include the break-up of relationships, loss of employment and financial status, and alienation from friends” (6, p. 814). this interpretation by the authors also reveals their alignment to the medical model in assuming that ‘bipolar disorder’ is an illness that happens to a person and then causes life changes as opposed to there being an interaction between a person’s distress and difficult life events. furthermore, it is not clear in the authors’ analysis whether this view is shared by the participants in the study. all the studies revealed participant stories of deficits and losses with the theme of loss being made explicitly clear in four of the studies [5,7,8,9]. one participant explained “our illness does cover loss. loss, i mean, we have loss, living with loss, to do with relationships, jobs, and family, and also with time” (5, p. 814). in one study, the author observed that many participants had experienced feelings of loss as they, “began to realise that they have suffered significant losses in their own lives that, in retrospect, they can attribute to symptoms of their bipolar disorder” (8, p. 99). in addition to experiencing loss about their current lives, two of the studies reflected on feelings of loss about the future [8,9]. these discourses contained a sense of grief and mourning for previously imagined futures now seen as unobtainable. one study summarised this loss as “not being able to fulfil their life dreams” [9, p. 175] and another extended this by observing that some of the participants realised “that, given their ongoing symptoms, their expectations and hopes for themselves are too high and need to be lowered to be more realistic” [8, p. 99). — negative view of self — “thoroughly miserable week. i was having big issues about bipolar and how i hate the person i’ve become” (4, p. 126). a common thread across five of the studies was a negative view of self [1,4,5,8,9]. some participants expressed this directly through statements such as, “it can make you feel very, very bad about yourself,…you can just feel like the lowest form of life on the planet” [8, p. 70]. other’s expressed a sense of self-disgust though their use of metaphor; “in the beginning i hid it like, like leprosy.” (7, p. 202). for some of the participants it seemed that this sense of ‘self-dislike’ [1, p. 130] or “self-loathing” [1, p. 130] may have related to feeling like a failure, which was alluded to in two studies [1,5] with one observing that, “bipolar patients also view themselves as being defective. often, there is an accompanying sense of failure and loss of self-confidence” (5, p. 814). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 651 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is interesting that this sense of failure was expressed only in two of the studies, which used non-interview based methods of data-collection, namely excerpts from therapy and a focus group. these methods may create a context where talking about a sense of self-failure may be more socially accepted or even socially expected than in interviews. this highlights the problem of comparing studies where different methods of data-collection are used, which place the participants in different social contexts and roles, such as interviewee, group member or serviceuser. — positive or desirable aspects of ‘mania’ — “because somehow, the manic juice gives you somehow, the ability to make friends like mad. great powers of conversation” (3, p. 45). four studies also described participants’ accounts of positive elements of the experience of ‘mania’ [2,3,4,7]. for some, these positive elements of experience were seen by participants as offering relief from depression [2], whereas three of the studies [2,4,7] described how some participants found ‘mania’ a desirable part of experience in its own right; “several of the participants commented on how they enjoyed their manic symptoms” (4, p. 124). one study developed this idea by eliciting a range of descriptions about the experience of ‘mania’ that indicated parts of this experience were positive, such as “… (feeling) very happy, feeling expansive, having high energy” [7, p. 113]. participants in two of the studies expressed particular difficulty in taking on the assumption of the psychiatric construct of bipolar disorder, that would entail accepting that positive elements of their experience as part of ‘an illness’ [4,7]. one study commented, “they understood that while they were depressed they were unwell, but they found it harder to comprehend that when they were ‘happy’ they were also unwell” (4, p. 125). one study described the risk of ‘pathologising exuberance’ illustrated by one participant who said of getting diagnosed that, “here’s someone telling me that the times in my life where i had felt any joy, any ecstasy, any sense of purpose or meaning-you know…that any of those things that i felt or thought were also pathology” (7, p. 180). — struggling with the meaning of diagnosis — “…you have to understand what a tremendous blow to my ego it was to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder…you cannot live the rest of your life like other people…the bottom line is, you’re not normal” (7, p. 133). participants in four of the studies described the significant impact of diagnosis and their subsequent responses and ways of finding meaning from this [2,4,7,9]. some of the participants talked about difficulty initially accepting the assumption of the psychiatric model of the construct of bipolar disorder as ‘an illness’; “accepting my illness was very difficult for me…due to the fact that there were so many years between (relapses)” (2, p. 1223). one study indicated that part of the difficulty with accepting the diagnosis at first was the meaning of bipolar disorder to participants, “the initial association of some participants to bipolar disorder was that bipolar disorder was a ‘crazy’ diagnosis, unlike depression, and that this meant they were crazy” (7, p. 134). the narrative offered within these studies seems to suggest that after the initial shock of diagnosis the participants went through a process of meaning-making that eventually led to the diagnosis becoming a more congruent part of their identity. this could be seen as a process of recognition that the construct of bipolar disorder closely resembled their experiences and matched their belief system, or alternatively the assimilation of diagnosis into their europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 652 http://www.psychopen.eu/ identity could be seen as enforced submission to assumptions of the psychiatric model due to the dominant influence of these discourses in society. — stigma — “i guess they just think about what they see on tv…they just assume…that you’re crazy and you’re nuts and you’re psycho and you’re dangerous” (6, p. 30). one of the strongest areas or reciprocity between the studies was participants’ experience of feeling stigmatised [1,2,4,5,6,7,8]. some of the participants’ accounts seemed to indicate two parts to their experience of stigma; being seen as ‘not normal’ [5,7] and being seen as ‘crazy’ or feared by other people [5,6,7,8]. the sense of ‘being seen as not normal’ was illustrated in participants metaphors in one study, with one man describing feeling like a ‘martian’, and another participant describing themselves as feeling like ‘the kid with the cooties’ [7]. the studies suggest that being seen as mentally ill and therefore not normal led to isolation from their communities. this discourse is summarised in one study, “they described being isolated from the community around them and their families, and view the community around them as rejecting them” (5, p. 814). these studies also revealed narratives about the fears of being seen as crazy, with ‘mania’ being perceived as a particularly ‘crazy’ form of mental illness. this was captured by a participant in one study who said, “it’s sort of like it’s ok to be depressed. it’s not ok to be manic. because, if you’re manic, then they’ll lock you up, or put a straight jacket on you, or something” (8, p. 63). — acceptance and hope — “…it’s just something i grew from. like each experience is all a piece of me, bad or good, and i do remember them and i do know what happened but there’s nothing i can do about it and i know i’ve moved on and i can take that with me and it makes me stronger” (1, p. 130). another theme that seemed to be captured in some of the studies was a sense of acceptance and hopefulness [1,2,6]. the authors of the studies used phrases such as ‘self-acceptance’ (1, p. 130), ‘personal growth’ (2, p. 1227) and ‘a hopeful future’ (2, p. 1229) to describe this aspect of experience for participants. it was difficult to ascertain a consistent message from the studies about what acceptance involved. this could be due to the complicated and dynamic process of acceptance that was outlined by a participant in one study who described the process of acceptance as, “a whole bunch of different things (that) happen at different times, like physical acceptance of it, and the spiritual and emotional, and acceptance of the past and all the fears and things that go with it; it’s quite a complex process” (6, p. 32). meta-method: a methodological critique evaluating epistemological soundness — to assess the quality of these studies this review draws on the guidelines for good qualitative research developed by yardley (2000). these consist of three guiding principles discussed below. 1. sensitivity to context — almost all of the studies situated their research clearly within the context of previous literature and current theory [1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9]. most of the studies prioritised positioning the research in the context of literature on bipolar disorder specifically, whereas one study drew on the wider context of literature regarding the experience of illness [9]. two of the studies were able to place the research within the context of literature on europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 653 http://www.psychopen.eu/ bipolar disorder and wider understandings about the experience of diagnosis and people’s experiences of ‘illness’ described in the field of health psychology [7,8]. all of the studies with the exception of one provided a clear description of the recruitment procedures used [3]. the majority of studies used forms of convenience sampling, recruiting participants mainly from mental health services. only one study reflected on how these recruitment procedures may have influenced the range of experiences reported by participants [7]. two studies described an element of purposive sampling following initial recruitment with different intentions; one aimed to include participants who had covered issues pertinent to the research question at the initial phase of data collection [1], whereas another aimed to provide a heterogenous sample [6]. however, one study did use purposive sampling to provide an equal representation of ethnic groups [9]. most of the studies gave some description of the participants’ demographics, although a major limitation in many of the studies was an absence of contextual information such as ethnicity [1,2,3,4,5,6], gender [5], and level of education [1,4,5,6]. the relationship of the researcher in relation to the participants was rarely considered in these studies. it was not always clear if the participants had any existing working relationship with the researchers and there was no reflection on the impact of the relationship on the information that was elicited from participants. one major limitation was that only one study provided a detailed description of the context of the researcher and how this may have influenced data-collection, data-analysis and subsequent findings [7]. in addition, the social role of the participants varied across these studies with some being interviewees [2,3,6,7,8,9] and others being service-users in therapy [1], members of a focus group [5] or email respondents [4]. these different social roles may have influenced the way participants responded to researchers, which may reduce the validity of directly comparing these studies. 2. commitment, rigour, transparency and coherence — the notion of commitment as used by yardley (2000) refers to prolonged engagement in the collection and analysis of data including a complete immersion in this data. the data collection stage was described with some clarity in all the studies. some of the studies showed greater commitment and rigour in eliciting detailed data through the use of multiple interviews, contacts, or mediums of data collection [1,4,5,7,8]. many of the studies used semi-structured or open interviews which took places over a period forty-five minutes of longer to ensure that participants had an opportunity to reflect extensively on the questions asked [2,6,7,8]. three of the studies [1,4,5] used innovative alternative methods for collecting data (excerpts from therapy sessions, email correspondents and focus groups). completeness of data-collection is an important part of undertaking rigorous research and this can be enhanced through the recruitment process (yardley, 2000). this process was limited in this research as the majority did not describe the rationale for the number of participants with only two studies selecting participants on the basis of ‘theoretical saturation’ [7,8]. the completeness of data collection may also have been undermined through the use of strict exclusion criteria, including co-morbidity with other mental health difficulties [1], alcohol or drug dependence [1] or accessing services [1,4], high probability of disengaging with services [1], and currently being hospitalised [2]. the completeness of analysis and interpretation also contributes to rigour and this appeared to vary across studies. most studies offered extensive and transparent evidence for the basis of analysis and interpretation through lengthy verbatim accounts that supported identified themes (1,2,4,5,6,7,8), whereas one study used very europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 654 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specific participant quotes as evidence with little context of the overall account being given [3]. in contrast, one study provided few examples of evidence for each emerging theme, whilst using longer accounts directly from participants, giving a clearer flavour of the context and meaning of these accounts [9]. a strength of these studies was the appropriate fit between the research question and the underpinning philosophy of the methodologies used. all the studies drew on some form of interpretive theme analysis which matched the research questions adequately as this form of analysis seeks to identify aspects of the participants’ experience from their own perspective, and in terms of their assumptions and constructs, which were seen as relatively stable over time (dallos & vetere, 2005). one study used mixed methods, drawing on three qualitative approaches: narrative analysis, interpretive theme analysis and discourse analysis, to identify themes, stories and discourses that run through participants’ accounts [7]. whilst the use of mixed methods can be criticised for lacking in coherence, this study was a good example of the important use of imagination and intuition in research (cooper & stevenson, 1996) and appeared to offer a coherent way of understanding the data. 3. impact and importance — the studies in this review fulfilled the criteria of making an important contribution to understanding of the experience of people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder with potential for having a wide impact on clinical work. whilst the qualitative methodology restricts the generalisability of the research conclusions, all authors attempted to consider the possible implications for clinical practice or future research. this included contributing to the development of practical tools and methods for guiding clinical work or further research [4,6,8], developing new theoretical understandings [2,3,9,5], and raising specific issues for consideration in clinical work and research with people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9]. two of the studies appear to have had a useful impact already as they have been part of research projects by the authors that were found to be widely cited as part of the literature review [6,9]. in contrast, two of the studies were dissertations projects, which at the time of our analysis had not been published and therefore would have at that point had little impact despite the potentially important contributions they offer to understanding the experience of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder [7,8]. overall appraisal of primary studies — as a whole, the studies reveal some interesting trends in the way the experience of bipolar disorder has been explored in qualitative research. it is notable that common themes emerged from research that span across five different countries. this may imply that there is a shared quality to the way in which different cultures socially construct and understand the psychological impact of being given a diagnosis of ‘bipolar disorder’. this could reflect something regarding the ‘international community of construction’ aided by technological advances in the 21st century. alternatively, these commonalities could be perceived as supporting the notion that the participants’ experiences reflect an ‘actual phenomenon’ that is less socially constructed and more inherent in ‘human nature’ itself. one striking feature of the research is that all the studies were undertaken in developed and westernised countries. furthermore, only one of the studies focused on a population whose first language was not english [2]. this may have contributed to the largely reciprocal nature of the concepts, metaphors and ideas expressed by authors and participants across studies. for example, the theme of ‘struggles with identity’ is perhaps a construction more consistent with the values and assumptions of westernised societies, and may not arise in research undertaken in more eastern cultures. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 655 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is also notable that with the exception of one study, the research was all undertaken in the last decade. this may reflect an increasing popularity of qualitative methods or cultural shifts towards person-centred practice, where the personal narratives of service-users are given greater value than within previously dominant expertpractitioner models of working. all these studies reflected a sense of person-centred practice in their sensitivity and respect towards participants. however, most of the studies stopped short of stepping outside a medical model in taking the notion of ‘bipolar disorder as an illness’ at face value and using ‘symptom-based’ language. furthermore, the participants were not active parts of the research process following data-collection, with the exception of one study that sought participant feedback on the themes that emerged [6]. another important feature of this body of research is that in almost all the studies the chief investigator (first named author) was female [1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. furthermore, this is coupled with a participant sample where males are underrepresented, given the equal prevalence of the application of a bipolar disorder diagnosis among the genders (newman et al., 2001). it is possible that the paradigm of qualitative research fits more closely with dominant discourses available to women than the discourses available to men in western societies, which would lead both to women researchers being more interested in this method of study and womenmore likely to agree to participate in such research. the relative absence of male narratives in these studies may preclude developing understandings about how men who are given this diagnosis make sense of their experiences. it is interesting that the majority of studies chose a semi-structured interview as the data-collection method. the popularity of this approach may reflect perceived best practice for undertaking good qualitative research, cultural traditions or practical issues. it could also be argued that interviews are only a tentative and small move away from the quantitative methodology of questionnaires. some of the primary research studies used more diverse and creative methods of data collection (such as therapy sessions and group forums), which raises a question about whether it is valid to have compared these differing studies in our analysis. it is my hope that including such a variety of studies can provide the foundation for a wider repertoire of discourses to be drawn on, which may enhance the helpfulness of this review, whilst at the same time it is important to acknowledge that this limits the validity and reliability of conclusions drawn from these studies as a whole. similarly, the studies also take different positions with regard to perceiving bipolar disorder as representing an ‘illness’ [1,2,3,4,5,6,9] or viewing participants as a group of people who may have some shared experiences of distress that have contributed to them being labelled with the diagnosis of bipolar disorder [7,8]. on the one hand, this is problematic and undermines the cohesiveness of the findings but, on the other, it also perhaps usefully reflects the real world dilemma for practitioners who have to work alongside different models and find ways of communicating different ideas to service-users in respectful ways. one concern however, is that the majority of the studies do not even acknowledge they are taking a position within the disease model and as such create the illusion of an undisputed ‘truth’ that bipolar disorder is an illness. the use of interpretive theme analysis in these studies may reflect a compromise in the research community between quantitative empirical research and qualitative methods due to using an approach that shares a quantitative assumption that individuals hold knowable, stable and robust assumptions and constructs that can be identified and assessed. one study used a more ambitious form of interpretive theme analysis [8], that of grounded theory, aiming to develop understandings that are generalisable to wider groups of people (dallos & vetere, 2005). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 656 http://www.psychopen.eu/ meta-theory theoretical perspectives used to understand the phenomenon — the studies explored the experiences of people who have been given the diagnostic label of bipolar disorder through the lenses of several theoretical positions. some of the studies drewmainly on one theoretical perspective [1,3,5] for understanding these experiences, whereas others offered more eclectic perspectives [6,7,8,9]. all of the studies with the exception of one [3] explored the experiences of participants drawing on social psychology ideas. this seems consistent with the focus of participants on the connection between their experiences and their social relationships. it is also possible however that this theoretical position may have impacted the framing and execution of the design, analysis and interpretation of findings towards an account convergent with social and psychological theories. in contrast, as discussed above, many of the studies were based firmly within a psychiatric ‘illness’ model of bipolar disorder that could be argued to be partly in contradiction with some of the social and psychological theories used to explain the findings. the application of social theory was clearly evident in these studies. in one study, the author took a clear position of social constructionism from the outset [7] and in others the authors were influenced overtly by psychosocial theories [1,5] and by social ideas about the impact of stigma [2,4]. in other studies, the specific use of social theory was less explicit but remained present [6,8,9]. two of the studies used specific psychosocial theories to explain their findings; erikson’s theory of identity diffusion in psychosocial development [1], and self-efficacy theory [5]. the absence of intrapsychic theories may account for the lack of explicit descriptions of emotional experience in these studies, becoming a subjugated discourse in the context of the more tangible social disruption experienced by the participants. three of the studies drew on theories derived from research into perceptions of illness and illness experiences in physical health practice [4,8,9]. this focus provided a useful comparison with similar literature that shared important experiential challenges with the accounts from participants in the studies, such as the experience of stigma and the challenge of identity. however, it could be argued that this reinforces the construction of these experiences as ‘an illness’ called ‘bipolar disorder’ that limits the authors’ ways of understanding the participants’ narratives. developments in theory derived from the research — all the studies in this review exercised caution in making extensive theoretical claims on the basis of their findings. instead, the studies opted to describe important themes that had been recognised by their participants, postulating that these may be useful to consider in clinical work or future research. however, some of the studies offered tentative theoretical developments on the basis of their findings. one study applied self-efficacy theory (bandura, 1995) to the understanding of the nature of bipolar disorder [5]. the authors reflected on ideas from self-efficacy theory in relation to their findings and concluded that a person’s lack of belief in their ability to control ‘moods’ and ‘symptoms’ may influence their ability to develop self-management skills in order to help them manage their difficulties. the authors discuss implications for addressing self-efficacy beliefs in clinical work and measuring these beliefs as part of future outcome research. one study attempted a more ambitious theoretical synthesis of its findings by proposing a new model for understanding the process of “responding to challenges to identity” [8]. the author suggests that an understanding of this model can enhance psychotherapeutic work with people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 657 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the accounts from authors and participants from the studies in this review illustrate the challenging journey of people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. some of the themes converge with quantitative research describing the ‘symptoms’ and characteristics of bipolar disorder. the theme of ‘loss of control’ shares similarities with the concept of ‘psychomotor acceleration’, which was one of five concepts identified as associated with manic of mixed symptoms in a study of people who have received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (cassidy, forest, murry, & carroll, 1998). in that study, they described ‘psychomotor acceleration’ as including ‘symptoms’ of increased motor activity, pressure of speech, flight of ideas and racing thoughts. the same study identified a factor named ‘increased hedonic function’, which has parallels with ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’ including increased humour, euphoria and increased interest in sexual activity. the presence of some positive aspects of mania is described further in autobiographies and single case accounts in academic journals (furman & cavers, 2005; jamison, 1995). however, all of these accounts also describe these desirable aspects of ‘mania’ in the context of the painful struggles experienced by people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. similarly, the theme of ‘negative view of self’ is synonymous with findings from quantitative literature on the cognitive style of people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this literature suggests that people who receive a bipolar disorder diagnosis have low self-esteem and higher levels of self-criticism when ‘depressed’ or ‘euthymic’ than control groups of people who have not been given this diagnosis (alloy et al., 2006). in contrast, the remaining themes (‘struggles with identity’, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, ‘stigma’, and ‘acceptance and hope’) are not well represented in the quantitative literature and therefore may be absent in discourses about working with people who have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. this may be a consequence of the different focus of researchers using quantitative and qualitative approaches. the former are more likely to align themselves with the medical model, and explore issues of medication compliance and professional or expert perspectives on bipolar disorder, whereas the latter are perhaps more drawn to understanding the experience of participants and being curious about non-medical ways of describing these experiences. however, some of the themes identified can lend themselves to be broadly applied to prevailing ideas about bipolar disorder recognised in the quantitative literature. the theme ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’ is alluded to through causal models of bipolar disorder, which speculate on the role of disruption of biological and social experience in the ‘relapse’ of ‘euthymic’ people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (luty, 2006). similarly, the issue of non-adherence to treatment for people given this diagnosis is widely described in research (gaudiano et al., 2008) and could relate to some of the identified themes, including ‘struggles with identity’, ‘struggling with the meaning of diagnosis’, and ‘stigma’. the theme of ‘acceptance and hope’ also appeared largely absent from the literature. this may reflect the tendency for clinical practice to focus almost entirely on the alleviation of suffering with little exploration of issues around positive wellbeing (duckworth, steen, & seligman, 2005). attempts to explore these issues may begin to address problems such as treatment non-adherence, struggles with identity and diagnosis, stigma, and the negative view of self. if people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder are going to find new ways of being in the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 658 http://www.psychopen.eu/ world that are less emotionally distressing, there needs to be a discourse about opportunities for developing salience, vitality and hope in their lives that offers a welcome alternative to flight into ‘mania’. implications for clinical practice the themes that emerged from the reviewed papers can be used in clinical work by practitioners through offering opportunities for people to explore these in therapeutic work. this may involve directly discussing the themes or simply thinking about how these issues may shape service-users’ personal experiences and engagement with mental health services. these themes can also inform the development and applications of specific interventions for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’ and ‘negative impact of symptoms across life and the experience of loss’ can be addressed through the use of interpersonal social rhythm therapy which is aimed at developing a self-monitoring programme to facilitate a lifestyle, “characterised by more regular sleep-wake cycles, mealtimes, and other social zeitgebers” (luty, 2006, p. 208). similarly, other practitioners are developing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for bipolar disorder (williams et al., 2008). this may offer new ways for people who have been given this diagnosis to live alongside, and be in acceptance of, ‘disruption, uncertainty and instability’, ‘loss of control’, and the ‘positive or desirable aspects of mania’, that could reduce the extent of resistance and judgement towards these experiences and therefore reduce the overall level of distress. future clinical practice could consider even more radical use of the philosophies underpinning mindfulness by offering new narratives of identity that embrace the human capacity to experience the self as a collection of conflicting parts instead of aspiring towards the integration and wholeness goal of western philosophies (epstein, 1998). ‘negative view of self’ and ‘loss of control’ can be explored through the use of cognitive behavioural therapy using techniques such as cognitive restructuring, positive datalogs and behavioural experiments (mansell & scott, 2006; newman et al., 2001). newman et al. (2001) also discussed how therapists can work on the issues of stigma, loss and acceptance, which could offer effective ways of tackling these themes in individual work. two of the themes that emerged; ‘stigma’ and ‘negative impact of symptoms on social relationships across life and the experience of loss’ imply an important role for clinical work beyond that of individual approaches. in addition, the diagnosis itself is likely to contribute to the experience of stigma by placing the person’s struggles entirely within the individual and presenting their distress as an illness. it could be argued that the most effective ways of tackling some of these difficulties is through challenging the use of illness terminology and diagnosis, raising public awareness and acceptance of people who are given this diagnosis and experience these kinds of distress, fighting discrimination and helping people to become and feel like a meaningful part of their community. implications for further research the themes that were identified in the process of this review represent a collection of concepts, metaphors and ideas that communicate different understandings of the distress and unusual experiences reported by people who have been given the label of bipolar disorder. future research could apply these themes using quantitative methods to explore their generalisability with larger numbers of participants. however, this relies upon this being a reliable and valid diagnostic category, and some have argued this is not the case with the diagnostic category of bipolar disorder (bentall, 2003; critical psychiatry network, 2009). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 659 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the qualitative research into the experience of people who are given this diagnosis could be extended by undertaking studies with greater male representation or with people from non-western countries. it would also be useful to explore the same experience using alternative methods than interpretive theme analysis, such as more purely discursive methods or narrative theme analysis. this would contribute wider perspectives on the experience of people given the diagnosis of bipolar disorder through recognising the importance of individual, local and societal contexts, discourses and narratives in shaping this experience. the identified themes also offer a variety of avenues for further elucidation and to explore in helping people suffering from similar kinds of distress to overcome these difficulties. one area where this could be particularly helpful is in exploring the theme of positive or desirable aspects of mania. the desire to retain these positive aspects of experience despite great suffering and distress may be undermining motivation to change and interventions to overcome these difficulties. this raises many questions about the nature, ideas and understandings about the experience of mania, pleasure, and happiness, for people who have been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and how this can be explored to make interventions more acceptable to service-users. limitations of review the specificity of the inclusion criteria may have limited the scope of this study to provide a comprehensive exploration of the experience of people who been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. the decision to exclude some studies on the basis of “understanding it in relation to a specific intervention or domain of life” inevitably relies on my own assumptions about what are important and central parts of experience for people given this diagnosis. as a result studies about ‘identity’ or ‘psychosocial issues’ were included, prioritising these parts of experience over that reported in excluded studies about ‘smoking cessation’ and ‘work functioning’. a possible limitation is the attempt to undertake both empirical and discursive analysis within the same study. this mixed methodology could be seen as being philosophically contradictory as the former assumes findings represent some form of reality and truth, whereas the latter analysis does not seek real truths but perspectives and ways of understanding. the stance of ‘radical relativism’ offered one way of resolving this issue where “inquiry is pursued with truth as a ‘regulated ideal’” (sandelowski, 2006, p. 13). however, this has proved highly challenging and the discursive influence within this review may have itself been subjugated by my own tendency towards a stance of empiricism. another possible limitation, from an empirical perspective, is that this meta-review is inevitably based on my interpretations of the primary authors’ interpretations (paterson et al., 2001). this will have been influenced by the popular discourses available to me as a british, white, middle-class, male, in the field of clinical psychology. however, from a discursive perspective this layering of constructions is an inherent and unavoidable part of undertaking a qualitative review. however, tracking the origin of interpretations proved difficult in these studies. this may have diluted the authenticity of original experience as sometimes it was unclear which interpretations were direct descriptions from participants and which were reflections on a series of ‘similar’ accounts from participants but made by the authors. i have attempted to address this through being transparent about whether quotes have come from participants or authors, however this is limited as the review only has scope to present some of the core evidence for each theme from the synthesis. notes 1) this paper uses ‘i’ as a first person singular to represent specifically the subjective position of leo russell as the lead researcher. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research 660 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2) following the completion of this review, goldberg’s (2007) original dissertation has been published in an updated version of this work (goldberg, 2012). references alloy, l. b., abramson, l. y., neeren, a. m., walshaw, p. d., snezana, u., & nusslock, r. 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(1991). meta-theory, meta-method, meta-data-analysis: what, why, and how? sociological perspectives, 34(3), 377-390. doi:10.2307/1389517 about the authors leo russell is a principal clinical psychologist working for somerset partnership nhs foundation trust in adult mental health services. his research interests include the experience of service-users given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, working with males who suffer with eating difficulties, the use of positive psychology in the alleviation of emotional distress, and the clinical applications of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy. duncan moss is a senior lecturer on the clinical psychology programme at the university of plymouth, as well as a consultant and trainer in the areas of mindfulness meditation and reflective practice. his recent research interests have included a focus on exploring qualitatively the experience of ‘mindfulness’ meditation and looking at this in the context of broader reflective questioning of ‘research’ as discourse. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 643–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.675 russell & moss 663 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2005.05.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1098-240x(199708)20:4<365::aid-nur9>3.0.co;2-e http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2007.08.022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08870440008400302 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1389517 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 675_russell_deckblatt 675_russell_ex ‘bipolar disorder’: reviewing qualitative research introduction background aims method meta-review methodology selection of primary research results meta-data analysis meta-method: a methodological critique meta-theory discussion implications for clinical practice implications for further research limitations of review notes references about the authors pressing obligations or inspiring potentials? the influence of the ought vs. expected selves on task performance research reports pressing obligations or inspiring potentials? the influence of the ought vs. expected selves on task performance waclaw bak*a, slawomir ciasteka, malgorzata michalczuka [a] institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, lublin, poland. abstract this paper focuses on the effects of activating expected self as compared to the effects of activating the ought self. the expected self is a component of self-knowledge that pertains to the perception of one’s capabilities and potentials. two experimental studies compared participants’ task performance after manipulating the momentary accessibility of the expected self vs. the ought self. in study 1, contrary to expectations, the activation of the expected self resulted in poorer outcomes when the task required sustained attention. however, an interesting mood difference was revealed, which led us to hypothesise that activating the expected self results in slower (i.e., less hasty) work while performing the task. this hypothesis was confirmed in the second study. keywords: expected self, ought self, obligations, potentials, task performance europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 received: 2015-02-20. accepted: 2015-04-24. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, al. raclawickie 14, 20-950 lublin, poland. e-mail: wabak@kul.pl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction obligations are among the strongest regulators of human behaviour. all traditional societies place emphasis on the category of duties and responsibilities as important motivators for desired outcomes. not only are they viewed as effective for motivating people to work on important society goals, but also as a means to reach one’s own personally relevant goals, especially those related to work, family and satisfying interpersonal relations. on the other hand, currently we can observe a tendency to deemphasise those categories of obligations, viewing them as a source of external motivation (see deci & ryan, 2008), which may even have detrimental effects on long term engagement and effectiveness of goal realisation. this is accompanied with the idea that every person has some positive potentials and that they function as resources which can be utilised as motivational strategies. such an emphasis on personal possibilities and positive resources is employed in many domains such as coaching, management and business (e.g., whitmore, 2009), education (e.g., torp & sage, 2002), and psychotherapy (e.g., gonzález, estrada, & o’hanlon, 2011; kita, 2011; o’hanlon, 1998). we do not claim conflict always exists between obligations and possibilities. a particular obligation may be congruent with one’s feelings of possibilities (e.g., the belief that the obligation is achievable). however at their core europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ level, there seems to be a basic dichotomy between obligations and possibilities. the aim of the current studies were to examine which set of self-beliefs results in better task performance when activated. is it better to focus on duty and responsibility or rather on one’s sense of having broad potentials and capabilities? the ought self vs. the expected self in the present paper we address the above questions, assuming that they refer to the regulatory outcomes of activated self-knowledge. two aspects of self-knowledge are crucial here. the first one refers to beliefs about what one should be like, which can be best conceptualised in terms of the ought self. the second aspect refers to beliefs about one’s possibilities, i.e. mental representation of what is attainable for the subject, what one believes he/she is capable of being like. this is best represented by the concept of the expected self. the notion of the ought self is grounded in the self-discrepancy theory by higgins (1987), who introduced two distinctions between domains of self-knowledge. first, there is a basic division between actual self and self-guides. second, two types of self-guides are distinguished: the ideal self and the ought self. the ideal self is a cognitive representation of one’s hopes, aspirations and wishes for oneself, i.e. the attributes that one would ideally like to possess. the ought self in contrast is the representation of attributes that one believes one ought to possess referring to one’s duties, obligations and responsibilities. the basic idea of higgins’ (1987) theory is that discrepancies between actual self and self-guides are distinctively connected to vulnerability for specific emotions. discrepancy between actual self and ideal self relates to dejection related emotions, while discrepancy between actual self and ought self relates to agitation related emotions. the second aspect of self-knowledge that we are interested in here is the expected self. it comprises the domain of self-knowledge that pertains to beliefs about one’s capabilities and potentials. the term expected self derives from markus’ and nurius’ (1986) influential theorising about possible selves (see also hoyle & sherrill, 2006; mcelwee & haugh, 2010). possible selves are imaginations of future states of the self, referring to what is perceived as potentially possible for oneself. among the different types of possible selves, the expected self is a possible self that it is not only possible to imagine, dream of, or think about, but one that is also expected to become the real self in the future. the expected selves are perceived by a subject as realistic and attainable, while the other types of possible selves (e.g., hoped-for ones) are more akin to loose aspirations for which attainability is not a crucial characteristic (carver, reynolds, & scheier, 1994; oyserman & markus, 1990). the expected self may include both positive and negative possibilities (sobh & martin, 2008). there is, however, a kind of positive bias – a tendency to think about one’s potentials in positive rather than negative terms (carver et al., 1994; markus & nurius, 1986). the expected self vs. self-efficacy beliefs the idea that self-beliefs regarding one’s capabilities and potentials play an important role in self-regulation has been clearly expressed by bandura (e.g., bandura, 2001) and widely studied within the self-efficacy paradigm (e.g., bandura & locke, 2003; maddux & volkmann, 2010; wieber, odenthal, & gollwitzer, 2010). thus, one can easily notice clear similarities between the concept of the expected self and the concept of self-efficacy. indeed the connection between these two constructs was explicitly expressed by oyserman and markus (1990) in their seminal work on possible selves.when defining the construct (which includes the expected self as one of its domain) the authors stated that possible selves “are conceived of as the self-relevant, internal structures that embody and give rise to generalised feelings of self-efficacy” (oyserman & markus, 1990, p. 113). nevertheless, there are europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 350 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some differences, both conceptual and methodological, between the approach employed in the studies presented below and the self-efficacy paradigm. first, self-efficacy beliefs are conceptualised as operative capability – a belief that one can perform a given action. this operative aspect of self-beliefs, however, is not as central in the present study as it is in the case of self-efficacy. the expected self is the aspect of self-knowledge that may involve the belief that one can perform a particular action, however the agency is not crucial here. the expected self is a more general and less “agentic” belief that a particular self-view is possible to become the actual self in the future, no matter who is responsible for executing the outcome-resulting action. second, bandura’s approach strongly emphasises the domain-specificity (or task-specificity) of self-efficacy beliefs. it explores how efficacy beliefs regarding a particular domain affect the effectiveness of dealing with tasks from this specific domain (bandura, 2006, 2007; maddux & volkmann, 2010; ozer & bandura, 1990). we, by contrast, are interested in how the activation of specific self-beliefs affects performance in a domain that is not directly related to the content of the activated self-knowledge. the expected self in our studies was activated by asking the participants to generate lists of attributes, whose attainment lies within their capabilities. when listing their expected selves attributes, participants were fully free to choose their content. as a result, the specific contents of the activated expected selves differed across participants. however, the task performed afterwards was the same for everyone and was unlikely to be directly related to the activated self-knowledge of any participant, as in the case of domainspecific self-efficacy. the present research the studies presented in this paper are based on the assumption that self-knowledge is not merely the description of one’s self-perception but dynamic knowledge that has an impact on emotions, motivation, and behaviour (brown & mcconnell, 2009; higgins, 1996). self-knowledge is a complex structure, composed of many different aspects. depending on what aspect is currently active (accessible), different regulatory consequences arise (higgins, 2000; schlegel, hicks, arndt, & king, 2009). this phenomenon is usually addressed in experimental studies, in which changing the accessibility of a given aspect of self-knowledge is expected to result in a change in a person’s current functioning (e.g., cesario, grant, & higgins, 2004; liberman, molden, idson, & higgins, 2001; molden & higgins, 2004). the present research explored the regulatory consequences of making the expected self vs. the ought self momentarily accessible. two experimental studies were conducted. the main hypothesis for the first study was that the activation of the expected self will have amore positive impact on task performance compared to the activation of the ought self. we assumed that the momentary accessibility of specific expected self attributes would activate a general belief in having broad capabilities and potentials. we further predicted that this general belief would translate into specific task performance, even if the task had nothing to do with the expected self attributes originally activated. we activated specific self-beliefs (a different set of expected self attributes for every person) but predicted a non-specific effect (the same task was administered to everyone). the belief that one has a wide range of resources and capabilities energises one’s motivation, which enables one to manage the task effectively. we expected that it would operate very much like optimistic beliefs about oneself (carver, scheier, & segerstrom, 2010; scheier, carver, & bridges, 1994). there are indeed empirically proven connections between the expected self and optimism (carver et al., 1994). the ought self, in contrast, may activate extrinsic motivation, resulting in potentially detrimental effects on task performance (see ryan & deci, 2006). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 bak, ciastek, & michalczuk 351 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we do not postulate, however, that activating the expected self improves the performance for every type of task. our previous research suggests that these effects are less likely to be observed when performance depends mostly on such stable personal characteristics as general intelligence, particular abilities, or specific knowledge (ciastek & bąk, 2012). still, even here some positive effects of activated expected selves may operate, though they refer to some additional aspects of performing the task, beyond its mere effectiveness. this is what the second study examined. the study tested the hypothesis that activating the expected self (compared to activating the ought self) will lead to a more accurate prediction of own future performance on a specific task. study 1: effectiveness of task performance overview the first study was designed to examine how the activation of the expected self (compared to the activation of the ought self) influences the effectiveness of task performance. a sustained attention task was used to measure themain dependent variable. effective performance in such a task demands persistence in a long series of reactions. although a single reaction was relatively easy and did not require any specific skills or abilities, the whole task could have been experienced as difficult in two ways. first, it lasted for a relatively long time and the participant did not know how long it would be. second, the stimuli kept changing and getting more complex and more difficult in a manner that was difficult to predict. the participant did not know what to expect next and how long the whole task would last. thus, we predicted that managing this task effectively requires believing in one’s capability to deal with unpredictable situations, i.e. a kind of efficacy beliefs (see bandura, 2001). given the conceptual similarities between self-efficacy and expected self, the activation of the expected self may lead to optimistic beliefs about one’s capacities to deal with unpredictability and uncertainty. this may strengthen the motivation to persevere in the task in the face of difficulties. motivation, in turn, can improve attentional performance, as has been shown in several studies (e.g., engelmann & pessoa, 2007; sänger & wascher, 2011; verhoeven et al., 2010). we predicted participants in the expected self condition not only to achieve better performance (hypothesis 1) but also to be in a better mood after completing the task (hypothesis 2). method participants included 81 students (41 women) from four universities located in lublin (poland), representing different majors of study. their ages ranged from 19 to 26 (m = 21.98; sd = 1.79). they were randomly assigned to two self-knowledge activation conditions (expected self vs. ought self) in a between-subjects design. the proportion of women and men was balanced between conditions. all participants received cinema ticket vouchers for their participation. participants signed up for individual 30-minute experimental sessions. after being greeted in the laboratory, each participant was seated in a private cubicle with a computer and two numbered envelopes on the desk. the envelopes contained paper forms to be used during the experiment. the entire procedure was programmed in e-prime 2.0 (schneider, eschman, & zuccolotto, 2002). this included instructions concerning the use of the paper forms as well. at the beginning, the researcher provided general information about the study and told participants that all detailed instructions would successively appear on the computer screen. then he left the room and monitored the course of the experiment through a one-way mirror. after filling out basic demographic data (age, sex, and the field of study), the main elements of the procedure followed. it consisted of three stages: (1) the manipulation procedure, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 352 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aimed at activating a particular component of self-knowledge, (2) the attentional task, and (3) the assessment of mood. at the end of the experimental session, participants were fully debriefed, thanked for their participation, and rewarded with cinema ticket vouchers. manipulations — participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the activation of the expected self vs. the activation of the ought self. in both conditions, the manipulation procedure consisted of two stages. first, participants generated a list of individual self-knowledge attributes (expected self vs. ought self). second, they were asked to choose two attributes from the list they had just created and describe them in a more detailed narrative form. the two conditions differed in the aspect of self-knowledge that was explored. in the expected self condition, participants generated the list of expected self attributes in response to the following instructions: “the task below concerns your beliefs regarding what you can become. it is about such positive traits and attributes whose attainment lies within your capabilities. please devote the next 10 minutes to describing yourself as someone you really can become. start by entering each positive possibility into a separate line below.” following these instructions, eight lines appeared starting with “i can…,” although there were no explicit instructions specifying how many attributes were to be generated. after filling in the list of attributes, the participant was asked to turn the page over and read the instructions for the second stage of manipulation: “now, from the list you have just created, choose two possibilities that you can describe in greater detail. (…). then devote some attention to each of the possibilities chosen and describe it as if you wanted to tell someone about it in detail. make sure your tale contains as many details and particulars as possible. write what specifically this possibility is about, what it consists of, and what exactly you have in mind when saying that it is attainable.” in the case of activating the ought self, the instructions were very similar except that they referred to “(…) your beliefs regarding what you ought to be like. (…) such traits and attributes that are connected with your sense of duty and responsibility”. attentional task — after the manipulation form, a sustained attention task followed. participants were asked to react when the letter “m” appeared on the computer screen. a total of 750 stimuli were presented one by one on the screen. exposure time ranged from 500 to 750 ms, depending on the complexity of the stimulus. after each stimulus, a blank screen was presented for 300 ms and then the next stimulus followed. there were four types of stimuli: (a) single letters, (b) non-word strings of letters, ranging in length from three to nine letters, (c) correctly spelled words, and (d) incorrectly spelled quasi-words. they were presented in nine blocks as described in detail in table 1. the blocks were presented in the same order to all participants, but the stimuli within each block were displayed in a random order, different for each participant. the correct reaction throughout the task was to press the designated key when the letter “m” appeared on the screen and refrain from pressing it when there was no “m” on the screen. the total number of correct reactions was calculated to assess task performance. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 bak, ciastek, & michalczuk 353 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 the details of blocks of stimuli used in the attentional task exposure time for a single stimulus (ms) number of stimuli within the blockblock 500701. single letter 500902. non-word string composed of 3 letters 60053. non-word string composed of 5 letters 700754. non-word string composed of 9 letters 650605. non-word string composed of 7 letters 7501006. mixed words and quasi-words. series no. 1 7501007. two non-word strings (one above the other) 7501008. mixed words and quasi-words. series no. 2 7501509. mixed words and quasi-words. series no. 3 the whole task lasted 12.5 minutes (the total exposure time for all 750 stimuli). however, participants knew neither how long it would be nor what type of stimulus would appear next. this was expected to bring about some kind of uncertainty and ambiguity for participants to deal with. the overall performance required persistence in sustaining attention for quite a long time. the additional requirement was the ability to deal with unknown situations. the task became increasingly complex and difficult, so the belief in one’s capability to deal with new situations was expected to be helpful. assessment of mood — the uwist mood adjective checklist (umacl; matthews, jones, & chamberlain, 1990) was used to measure mood after the completion of the task. it assesses three dimensions of mood: hedonic tone, tense arousal, and energetic arousal. hedonic tone refers to subjective feelings of pleasantness and relates to the dimension of positive affect. it is best depicted by such adjectives as: cheerful, contented, satisfied, happy, sad, sorry, and gloomy. tense arousal is an anxiety related aspect of mood with highest loadings on: anxious, jittery, tense, nervous, calm, restful, relaxed, and composed. the third factor – energetic arousal – is best defined by such adjectives as: active, enthusiastic, excited, energetic, vigorous, unenterprising, sluggish, tired, and passive. being in better mood (see hypotheses 2) means greater hedonic tone, greater energetic arousal and less tense arousal. the reliability (cronbach’s alpha) for the polish adaptation of umacl subscales ranges from .71 to .90 (goryńska, 2005). results and discussion we predicted that the activation of the expected self would lead to better performance in the attentional task compared to the activation of the ought self. four outlying observations were removed from this analysis. the independent t-test revealed that the conditions differed in the mean number of correct responses (t(75) = -2.01; p = .048; d = .46), but the direction of this difference was opposite of what was expected. the mean for the ought self group was significantly higher (m = 701.70; sd = 15.99) than the mean for the expected self group (m = 691.20; sd = 27.99). thus, the effectiveness of attentional processes was better in the ought self activation group. the second hypothesis was that the participants with the expected self activated would be in a more positive mood after completing the task compared to the participants with the ought self activated. to verify this hypothesis, independent t-tests for umacl subscales were calculated. among the three dimensions of mood measured by the umacl, the energetic arousal subscale differentiated between the experimental conditions and the direction europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 354 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of this significant difference was consistent with the hypothesis (see table 2). mean score on energetic arousal was higher for expected self group compared to ought self group. there were no differences between conditions in the other two dimensions of mood (hedonic tone and tense arousal). table 2 the t-test for the mood variables (umacl) t-testought selfexpected self cohen’s dpdftsdmsdmvariable 79hedonic tone .130.55.600.102.285.202.565 79tense arousal .260.25.15-1.901.705.212.175 79energetic arousal .460.04.052.951.084.682.155 contrary to expectations, performance in the attentional task turned out to be better after ought self activation than after expected self activation. activating positive beliefs regarding one’s capabilities and potentials did not have the predicted positive impact. in seeking an explanation for this result, we may hypothesise that the effects of expected self vs. ought self activation on task performance is moderated by the characteristics of the task. the results of this study do not preclude the possibility that expected self has some positive effects on task performance, however they may be limited to specific types of tasks. for other tasks, the ought self may have better impact, and the task used in our study seems to be a good example. achieving a high score in the attentional task required that participants follow the instructions scrupulously and remain focused on the stimuli for a long period of time. what is important for such an activity is following the imposed external rules, staying focused on the instructions, and not questioning the reasonability of the work. thus, activation of the ought self seems to fit these conditions better, as this aspect of self-knowledge refers to one’s sense of duty and responsibility. the expected self, in contrast, is not concerned with obligations, but with capabilities and potentials. therefore, participants in the expected self condition were not very pressed to achieve a good score in the task. as a result, their performance was in fact poorer compared to that of the participants in the ought self condition. we suggest, however, that this poorer performance was not caused by any kind of deficit or inability to focus attention but rather by being more relaxed and not regarding the task so seriously. they might have acted more calmly, with less haste, and not so much under the pressure of time. such an interpretation seems to be consistent with the results referring to mood differences. despite their poorer performance, after completing the task, participants in the expected self condition were more energetic, vigorous, enthusiastic, and at the same time – less tired and sluggish. study 2: accuracy of predicting the level of performance and pace of solving the task overview the second study went beyond the mere effectiveness of task performance. regardless of whether there is an effect on the level of performance and irrespective of the direction of this effect, the activation of the expected self may affect some other aspects of coping with the task. this study tested the hypothesis that the activation of the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 bak, ciastek, & michalczuk 355 http://www.psychopen.eu/ expected self (compared to the activation of the ought self) will lead to a more accurate prediction of one’s own future performance on the task (hypothesis 1) and a slower pace for solving the task (hypothesis 2). prior to carrying out the task, participants were provided with general information about what they would be requested to do and then were asked to predict the expected level of their performance. the task used in this study required the ability to mentally manipulate and rotate objects, which is a relatively stable, individual difference variable from the domain of general intelligence (matczak, jaworowska, ciechanowicz, & stańczak, 2006). we did not expect then that the mean score of correctly solved trials would differ between experimental conditions. we did postulate however, that the activation of self-knowledge affects the accuracy of predicting one’s own future results. in order to make such a prediction accurately, one needs to recognise both one’s own potentials and limitations. this aspect of self-knowledge is best represented by the concept of the expected self, so making the expected self momentarily accessible should improve the accuracy of prediction. activating ought self, in contrast, may lead to either overestimating or underestimating the expected outcome of one’s upcoming activity. overestimation is expected because the activated self-standard may result in focusing on reaching the highest quality, with the context of possibilities and personal constraints being somewhat ignored. underestimation, on the other hand, may be a result of the discrepancy between actual self and self-standards. activated discrepancy results in negative emotions and situational drop in self-esteem, which will probably result in lowered expectations regarding one’s own future performance. the second study was designed to test this accuracy-of-prediction hypothesis. there was however, an additional hypothesis which stems from our interpretation of the results of the first study. we postulated that the activation of the expected self (compared to the activation of the ought self) would lead to a slower pace when performing the task. we assumed that this would result from less haste and less time pressure. method participants included 81 students (41 women) from four universities located in lublin (poland), representing different majors of study. their ages ranged from 18 to 26 (m = 21.99; sd = 1.79). they were randomly assigned to two self-knowledge activation conditions (expected self vs. ought self) in a between-subjects design. the proportion of women and men was balanced between conditions. all participants received cinema ticket vouchers for their participation. although the sample has very similar characteristics as study 1 sample, they are independent samples – a different set of people participated in study 2. participants signed up for 30-minute individual experimental sessions. after being greeted in the laboratory, each participant was seated in a private cubicle with a computer and two numbered envelopes on the desk. the envelopes contained paper forms to be used during the experiment. the entire procedure was programmed in e-prime 2.0 (schneider et al., 2002). this included instructions concerning the use of the paper forms as well. the researcher started by providing general information about the study and telling participants that the detailed instructions would successively appear on the computer screen. following this initial information, the researcher left the room and monitored the course of the experiment through a one-way mirror. after filling out basic demographic data (age, sex, and the field of study), the main elements of the procedure followed. it consisted of three stages: (1) manipulation procedure, aimed at the activation of a particular aspect of self-knowledge, (2) prediction europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 356 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the level of own performance on the squares test, (3) performing the squares test. at the end of the experimental session, participants were fully debriefed, thanked for their participation, and rewarded with cinema ticket vouchers. manipulations — participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the activation of expected self vs. the activation of ought self. the manipulation procedure was very similar to that used in the first study. there was only one difference related to the expected self condition. in the first study, participants were asked to write down positive expected self attributes. in contrast, in the second study the instruction was to write down expected self attributes regardless of their valence. this modification is a result of the assumption that the accuracy of predicting one’s own upcoming performance is based on recognising both one’s own positives potentials as well as limitations. the instructions for the second stage of expected self manipulation (detailed description of the chosen two attributes) as well as the entire instruction for ought self activation were identical to study 1. the squares test — following the manipulation, the participant returned to the computer and was provided with general information about the next task: “in a moment, you will see 10 figures, one by one, on the screen. each of these figures can be divided into two parts with a straight line and then reassembled into a square. the task will consist of finding, in each case, the fragment of the figure which should be cut off and put in a different place so as to make up a square. one minute will be allowed for solving each figure.” next, the sample figure was presented along with its correct solution. the participant was then informed that 10 figures will be presented, one by one, from the easiest one to the most difficult one. before seeing the figures, participants were asked to predict their performance, i.e. to indicate how many figures they were expecting to solve correctly. after making their predictions, participants were presented with the squares test. this task was adapted from the apis-z, which is a battery of general intelligence tests (matczak et al., 2006). the test is designed to measure the ability to mentally manipulate and rotate objects. it consists of 10 irregular polygons. the task is to split each figure with a straight line into two parts in such a way that after rotation and reconnection they form a square. the original version of the squares test is a paper-and-pencil task, where all 10 figures are presented at once with a time limit of six minutes for solving the whole test. for the purpose of the present study, a modified version of the test was developed. in contrast to the original version, the figures were presented on the computer screen, one by one, from the easiest one to the most difficult one. the order of presentation was determined by the results of the apis-z standardisation study, which provided information about the difficulty level (the mean number of correct solutions in the standardisation sample) for each figure (matczak et al., 2006). participants were informed that each figure would be presented for one minute. it was possible either to terminate the presentation earlier by pressing the specified key or let the presentation last for the entire time limit. if there was no action, the figure disappeared after one minute but it was still possible to write down the solution (on a paper report sheet). the next figure was not presented until the specified key had been pressed. the participant could then choose between approaching the next figure immediately after the previous one or taking a break, for which no time limit was specified. there were no explicit instructions either that the task should be done as quickly as possible or that it was possible to take a break between figures. nevertheless, both the presentation time for each figure and the break time between figures were recorded for the purpose of verifying the second hypothesis. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 bak, ciastek, & michalczuk 357 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we assumed that they both reflect the pace of solving the figure and reveal whether a participant acted in haste. as there was no explicit instruction regarding the pace of doing the task, such haste would be self-imposed. results and discussion as expected, there was no difference between the conditions in the mean number of correctly solved figures (t(79) = -0.78; p = .44; d = 0.18). the first hypothesis referred to differences in the accuracy of predicting the level of own performance. accuracy was operationalised as the difference between the predicted and the obtained level of performance. contrary to the expectations, the accuracy of prediction for expected self group (m = 2.32; sd = 1.68) did not differ from the accuracy for the ought self group (m = 2.63; sd = 1.90; t(77) = -0.16; p = .87; d = 0.04). the second hypothesis was focused on the formal aspect of working on the task. more specifically, we hypothesised, that after being primed with the expected self, participants would work at a slower pace. two analyses were conducted to verify this hypothesis. first, for each participant, we calculated the number of figures that were presented for the full one-minute period (i.e. figures whose presentation was not terminated intentionally by the participant). in order to meet the normality assumption for this variable we applied a square root transformation and removed two outlying observations. the independent t-test revealed a significant difference between the experimental conditions (t(71.99) = 2.31; p = .02; d = 0.52) and the direction of this difference was consistent with our prediction. there were, on average, more figures whose presentation was not interrupted intentionally by the participant in the expected self group (m = 1.87; sd = 0.68) in comparison to the ought self group (m = 1.45; sd = 0.91). consistent with this were the results of the second analysis. we measured the time spent on breaks between figures and calculated the mean time for each participant. one outlying observation was removed in order to normalise the distribution of this variable. the independent t-test revealed a significant difference between the conditions (t(69.40) = 3.03; p = .003; d = 0.67) and its direction is again in line with our hypothesis. participants in the expected self condition took longer breaks between figures (m = 2762.66 (ms); sd = 1457.09) in comparison to participants in the ought self condition (m = 1931.94; sd = 955.32). the results of both analyses were consistent and thus may be a manifestation of the same mechanism. after the expected self activation, participants were more likely (compared to the ought self condition) to utilise the whole time limit available for solving the task. they also took longer breaks between figures. onemay say that participants in the expected self condition needed more time for solving the task correctly. there is, however, an alternative interpretation. the longer response times may indicate that participants in the expected self condition were calmer and felt less pressed for time when performing the task. in contrast, participants in the ought self condition worked in haste and under the pressure of time. what is important here is that this was self-imposed haste, since there were no explicit instructions saying that the task should be performed as quickly as possible or that it was better to note down the solution before the presentation of the figure ended. general discussion the presented studies focused on the regulatory consequences of making specific aspects of self-knowledge momentarily accessible. we were interested in situations when, prior to executing a specific task, a person focuses on his or her own attributes. which aspect of activated self-knowledge has a better impact on task performance? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is it better to focus on beliefs regarding one’s capabilities and potentials (the expected self) or on beliefs concerning duties and responsibilities (the ought self)? we predicted the former rather than the latter focus would improve performance and we tested this hypothesised positive effect of activating the expected self in two studies. the results showed that focusing on the expected self may have different effects than focusing on the ought self. nevertheless, the nature of this difference was complex and seems to depend on a specific aspect of performing the task. the first study did not reveal the predicted positive effect of activating the expected self on the level of task performance. the results were just the opposite. performance on the attentional task was better when participants were focused on their duties, obligations, and responsibilities. we argue that this effect might have been caused by the fact that this task required following instructions scrupulously and being focused on relatively boring stimuli for a long period of time. following such imposed, external rules seems to fit the ought self condition better, since this is the aspect of self-knowledge that explicitly refers to duty and responsibility (higgins, 1987, 1997). people in the ought mind-set probably worked harder, because they felt influenced by social expectations regarding their performance. the results of our study do not preclude the possibility that for some other types of tasks activating the expected self may improve performance. it suggests, however, that when a task requires being focused on the instructions and doing some relatively boring job the ought self (as compared to the expected self) has better impact on task performance. it seems that the ought self rather than the expected self should be activated when one wants to achieve a high level of performance on such tasks. regardless of the above, we have additional results suggesting that certain positive effects of making the expected self accessible do in fact occur. in the case of the first study, we found that, regardless of their poorer performance, the participants in the expected self condition were more energetic after completing the task. consistent with this were the results of the second study, which were not focused on the level of performance itself, but on some additional formal aspects of performing the task. this time we did not expect differences in the effectiveness of performance, and there were no differences indeed. however, we also did not find a difference, which we did postulate – one which referred to the accuracy of predicting the level of performance. on the other hand, in line with our predictions, participants in the expected self condition worked slower while performing the task. they did not rush as much as the ought self participants did, yet reached the same level of performance. we suggest that this means working more calmly, with less haste, and not being so susceptible to time pressure. in conclusion, we can state that even if activating the expected self does not improve the effectiveness of task performance, it seems to positively impact the way a task is performed. it probably creates favourable conditions for feeling better when doing the work and immediately after the work has been done. it also promotes being more relaxed and not so prone to external pressure to hurry up. in some cases, it may result in poorer achievement. in others, it does not affect the level of performance. still, this does not preclude the possibility that for some other types of tasks the expected self improves performance. future studies should explore this third possibility by looking for the specific characteristics of such tasks. in light of the two studies presented in this paper, we cannot say that “yes, we can” is always the best motivator. nevertheless, there are situations, in which activating this potential-focused state of mind may still be a good idea. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 bak, ciastek, & michalczuk 359 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this research was supported by the polish committee for scientific research, grant nn106 263535 awarded to the first author. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bandura, a. 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(2008). hoped-for selves and feared selves: how positive and negative reference values in self-regulation moderate consumer goal-directed efforts. european advances in consumer research, 8, 350-352. torp, l., & sage, s. (2002). problems as possibilities: problem-based learning for k-16 education (2nd ed.). alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. verhoeven, k., crombez, g., eccleston, c., van ryckeghem, d. m. l., morley, s., & van damme, s. (2010). the role of motivation in distracting attention away from pain: an experimental study. pain, 149, 229-234. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.01.019 wieber, f., odenthal, g., & gollwitzer, p. (2010). self-efficacy feelings moderate implementation intention effects. self and identity, 9, 177-194. doi:10.1080/15298860902860333 whitmore, j. (2009). coaching for performance: growing human potentials and purpose: the principles and practice of coaching and leadership (4th ed.). boston, ma: nicolas brealey publishing. about the authors waclaw bak, phd, is an assistant professor at the institute of psychology, chair of personality psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. his main research interests are focused on the structure of self-knowledge, processes of self-regulation, the content and regulatory functions of self-standards, and emotion regulation. slawomir ciastek is a phd student at the institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. his research interests include psychology of the self and gamification as the new approach for raising engagement, motivation and self efficacy. malgorzata michalczuk is a phd student at the institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. her interests focus on cognitive personality psychology, positive psychology and self psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 349–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.943 the expected self and task performance 362 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2011.05.015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014060 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2010.01.019 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298860902860333 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the expected self and task performance introduction the ought self vs. the expected self the expected self vs. self-efficacy beliefs the present research study 1: effectiveness of task performance overview method results and discussion study 2: accuracy of predicting the level of performance and pace of solving the task overview method results and discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors young italian neets (not in employment, education, or training) and the influence of their family background research reports young italian neets (not in employment, education, or training) and the influence of their family background sara alfieri*a, emiliano sironib, elena martaa, alessandro rosinab, daniela marzanaa [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. [b] department of statistical sciences, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. abstract this work investigates the relationship between family variables (parents’ educational level, relationship quality, intrusiveness, support, and autonomy) and young italians’ status as neets (not in employment, education, or training). we used data from a representative sample of 9,087 young italians. each participant filled out an anonymous online questionnaire that contained several scales to measure the variables mentioned above. the results reveal that parents’ educational level and support have a protective effect on the risk of becoming a neet for both genders. autonomy has a specific negative impact for males while intrusiveness has a positive impact mainly for females. keywords: neet, family relations, young people, social exclusion, transition to adulthood, family background, unemployment europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 received: 2014-12-19. accepted: 2015-04-18. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, l.go gemelli n.1, 20123 milan, italy. phone: 02/72342347. e-mail: sara.alfieri@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. while in archaic societies most transitions took place by discrete “leaps” and were accompanied by actual “rites of passage” that signaled a collective wish to mark the passage to a new condition, in contemporary modern society transitions are represented increasingly as being individual, relatively undefined (with respect to both modalities and timing), negotiable, little ritualized, and as having wide margins of choice. the slowing down of the transition to adulthood has given the family of origin more value and power to influence during a period of the life-cycle in which, in past decades, it has tended to play only a minor role in many western societies (scabini, marta, & lanz, 2006). young italians, in particular, leave home at a later age on average than young people in other developed countries. the peculiarities of the italian context can be explained from both cultural and structural standpoints. on the one hand, the presence of strong intergenerational ties is coherent with longer stays in the family of origin (dalla zuanna & micheli, 2004). on the other hand, the unfavorable labor market and a welfare system that is not generous to young generations tend to discourage individual autonomy (rosina, micheli, & mazzucco, 2007). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ this is even true today during this exceptional social-historical moment in which the transition to the world of work has become difficult due to the recent economic crisis: “the current crisis has severely affected employment. this is of special concern to young people, who are more vulnerable to the effects of unstable economic cycles in the labour market” (european commission, 2012). the educational route is not free of risk either. alongside the growing number of universities present throughout italy offering a wide variety of programs of study and easier access even for youth from less affluent backgrounds, the probability that they will not succeed in completing their degree remains high (bratti, checchi, & de blasio, 2008). according to the eurostat (2009) report “youth in europe”, only about 10% of students in italy who have a parent with a low educational level succeed in obtaining a university degree, in contrast to the european average which is more than double this value. in this connection, an emerging phenomenon in industrialized societies having to do with the transition to adulthood is that of neets, an acronym for not in employment, education, or training: in short, young people who are unemployed or are outside the system of education and training. the neet label generally applies to young people aged between 16 and 24 years (the prince’s trust, 2007), although this can vary (rose, daiches, & potier, 2012). for example, pemberton (2008b) defines as neets young people in the uk aged between 16 and 18 years while chen (2011) includes those aged between 15 and 34 years in japan and between 15 and 24 in taiwan. this can depend on many factors: the meaning that different cultures ascribe to “youth,” the obligation to attend school until the age of 14, 16, or 18, depending on the country, as well as the possibility of easily accessing educational opportunities. independently of these differences, all definitions of neet concur in identifying a category particularly at risk for social exclusion from mainstream adult life. the results obtained by the recent survey of adult skills a product of the oecd programme for the international assessment of adult competencies (piaac) showed that neets are the social group most at risk for depletions of key skills that are important in enabling adults to fully integrate and participate in the labor market, education and training, and social and civic life (di francesco, 2013; oecd 2013). apart from patchy employment prospects, subsequent consequences may include difficult relationships, lack of social and political participation, poor physical and mental health, drug abuse, and criminality (atkinson & hills, 1997; robins & rutter, 1990), as well as important repercussions on the wider social context (lee, 2004; maguire & rennison, 2005). for those young people who have economic support from their parents, neet status is not so much an economic problem as one of idleness, which makes it more difficult for neets to adjust to adulthood (chen, 2011). italy, in particular, besides being the country where the phenomenon of emerging adulthood appeared first and on the largest scale, is also the european country with the third highest percentage of neets aged between 18 and 24 years (27.0% in 2012), after turkey (35.0%) and greece (28.4%) (eurostat, 2012). to date no studies appear to have investigated this phenomenon in depth in italy despite its importance here. the aim of this study is to offer a contribution to fill this gap and to investigate which characteristics of family relations distinguish italian neets. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 young italian neets and their family background 312 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the peculiarities of italian families the slowing down of the transition to adulthood and, in particular, remaining for a longer time in the family of origin are possible only because adolescents and young adults can count on their families. we are now witnessing an essentially peaceful transformation of family relations in which, as research shows at least in italy, families with young adults are characterized by good communication and high levels of support and relationship quality. the results of research into enmeshment and the acquisition of autonomy are more complex. in this connection, a recent study carried out by cigoli, margola, and molgora (2010) demonstrated that the acquisition of an adult identity status and, therefore, of autonomy is determined by a) family life style, b) the young person’s status as a worker or student, and c) residence in a specific geographical location. in particular, workers whether high school or college graduates turn out to be more capable of managing space for autonomy with respect to family relations while students appear to experience a conflict between expectation and fear. manzi, vignoles, regalia, and scabini (2006), comparing italian and british young people, showed that, while for the former greater quantity of free time spent with their parents predicted better family functioning and greater well-being, for the british young adults higher levels of psycho-social well-being are associated with greater distance from the family of origin. in synthesis, investigating the relation between young people and family relationships within a specific context thus appears to be crucial. what characterizes the family relationships of neets? qualitative and quantitative studies carried out in the uk on neet young people aged 16 to 18 years have identified the following sets of factors: inequality variables; personal situations; family and environmental variables; bad experiences in the educational system; failures of the educational system. in particular, studies carried out by bynner, joshi, and tsatsas (2000) and by bynner and parsons (2002) revealed five main sets of factors influencing neet status. the majority of these are related to intergenerational or educational influences (family circumstances, such as social class; parents’ educational level; parental interest in children’s education and aspirations; place of residence; early educational attainment of children) and also showed some differences linked to gender. rennison, maguire, middleton, and ashworth (2005) find that neet status is more prevalent among young people whose families did not have access to high educational levels and, consequently, are not able to provide support and advice about the education system. the present study the topic of neets’ family characteristics has never been studied in italy. yet, in our opinion, it is important to carry out such research in italy, a country characterized by strong intergenerational family ties and weak public welfare for the new generations (de rose, racioppi, & zanatta, 2008), in addition to being the birthplace of emerging adulthood. the present work aims to fill this gap by investigating the relation between family relationships and neet status. methods participants and procedure the sample consists of 9,087 individuals aged between 18 and 29 years (m = 23.22, sd = 3.44), taking under consideration the age bracket defined by arnett (2000, 2006) as constituting emerging adulthood. in fact, this is europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 alfieri, sironi, marta et al. 313 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a phase of the life cycle characterized by change and exploration of possible life directions. the individuals were chosen with a stratified sampling technique and are representative of young adults residing in italy. sampled individuals are equally distributed according to gender (49.0% male). 38.7% are students; 34.7% are workers. about 7% both work and study while 19.6% of the sample are neets. for neet status to reflect the dynamics of young people’s lives, it must be defined longitudinally and represent a minimum period of time that the young person is not engaged in education, training, or employment as opposed to his/her being involved in one or more of these activities over the same period. for this reason, in the present work we considered as neets only young people who have been outside educational, work, or training spheres for at least six months (see, for example, bynner & parsons, 2002). the data for our work comes from the database of the “rapporto giovani (youth project)” launched in 2011 by the toniolo institute of advanced studies with the involvement of the cariplo foundation and ipsos ltd as executive partners. we used a mixed methodology for recruitment: cati (computer-assisted telephones interviewing) and capi (computer-assisted personal interviewing) with in-depth cawi (computer aided web interviewing). more details are available at http://www.istitutotoniolo.it instruments for the survey, participants filled out a questionnaire composed of demographic and background factors such as gender which also included details about family of origin. in addition, the analysis contains a set of family indices measuring quality of the relationship between the young adults and their parents that are helpful for establishing a link between family context and the young people’s transition to adulthood. the variables used in the empirical analysis to predict the condition of neet are listed as follows. these, together with cronbach alpha, are available in table 1. parents’ education — we considered three categories: higher, secondary, and lower. higher education means that respondents’ mother/father completed a tertiary education cycle, completing a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree. secondary education indicates that the respondent’s parent obtained a 5-year high school diploma while lower education is a residual-reference category that includes primary education, lower secondary, or an incomplete upper secondary education. quality of relationship with parents — this was measured using the italian “scala della qualità delle relazioni con i genitori” (“quality of the relationship with parents scale”) (scabini & cigoli, 1992), composed of 12 items (e.g. “my mother/my father understands me”) (from 1=never to 4=always). this scale measures the perception of support between parents and child. intrusiveness—we used a translated and adapted version of the intrusiveness subscale of green andwerner’s (1996) cifa (california inventory for family assessment) that measures aspects like coercive control, separation anxiety, possessiveness/jealousy, and emotional reactivity. this is a scale composed of 9 items (e.g. “my father/my mother often thinks he/she knows what i am thinking without asking me”) (from 1=never to 4=always). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 young italian neets and their family background 314 http://www.istitutotoniolo.it http://www.psychopen.eu/ support — this was calculated using the weighted mean of two ad hoc items (e.g. “overall, how much do you feel able to count on your father’s support?”) on a 4-step response scale (from 1 = not at all to 4 = very much). autonomy — this was measured using a translated and adapted version of autonomy support scale of the perceptions of parents scale (grolnick, ryan, & deci, 1991) that measures autonomy perceived by children. this is a scale composed of 8 items (e.g. “my father/my mother lets me make my own plans for what i want to do”) on a 4-step scale (from 1 = not at all to 4 = very much). data analysis we used a binary probit regression model where the dependent variable is a categorical indicator taking value 1 if the respondent has not been engaged either in education or training for a period exceeding six months and 0 if the respondent is working or studying at the time of the interview. we decided to exclude from the analysis individuals who were not working or studying but who had concluded their educational or work activities less than six months before the data collection. the reason for this choice has to do with the hypothesis that the condition of neet applies (see, for example, bynner & parsons, 2002) only when a long period of inactivity is ongoing. results descriptive statistics of the sample for the variables used in the analysis are reported in table 1. table 1 summary statistics of the dependent and independent variables used in the analysis cronbach αsdmvariable neeta .3560.1490 education of the mother highera .3400.1330 secondarya .4750.3430 lowera .4990.5230 education of the father highera .3410.1340 secondarya .4740.3400 lowera .4990.5260 quality of relationshipb .9420.5480.1153 intrusivenessb .8400.4770.1122 supportb .6660.6010.5803 autonomyb .7360.6460.4183 an = 8658. bn = 8049. as can be seen from table 1, neets comprise about 15% of the sample, a slightly lower percentage than that reported by official statistics (21%) due to the fact that, as explained above, we chose to exclude from the neet category respondents who had not been studying or working for less than six months. we decided to perform a gender-specific analysis in order to evaluate the different impacts of the explanatory factors on males and females. indeed, table 2 shows that for some crucial explanatory variables such as respondeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 alfieri, sironi, marta et al. 315 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ents’ educational level of mothers (only with respect to tertiary education levels), intrusiveness, and support, there is a statistically significant difference in means. in particular, the score for the factor “intrusiveness” is higher among males. conversely, support is higher in the females’ subsample. table 2 summary statistics of the dependent and independent variables used in the analysis, by gender differencem (females)m (males)variable neeta .022**-0.1600.1380 education of the mother highera .018*0.1250.1430 secondarya .015-0.3480.3330 lowera .003-0.5260.5230 education of the father highera .0100.1300.1400 secondarya .015-0.3440.3290 lowera .0040.5260.5300 quality of relationshipb .006-0.1163.1103 intrusivenessb .034**0.0962.1302 supportb .045***-0.6013.5563 autonomyb .0230.4083.4313 an = 8658. bn = 8049. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. results relative to the explanatory variables included in table 3, in addition to the gender disparity in the percentage of neets, suggest the strategy of running two separate models for males and females henceforth. table 3 marginal effects for predictors of the condition of neet females (n = 3661)males (n = 3494) variables zmarginal effectszmarginal effects education of the mother higher .20-3.0786**-0.78-3.0874***-0 secondary .37-5.0781***-0.53-3.0483***-0 0000primary or less education of the father higher .83-2.0690**-0.65-3.0853***-0 secondary .77-2.0398**-0.81-2.0379**-0 0000primary or less quality of relationship .01-0.0002-0.171.01610 intrusiveness .862.0385**0.441.01700 support .03-2.0263*-0.10-3.0342**-0 autonomy .87-1.0186-0.15-3.0306**-0 0.120.15pseudo r2 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 young italian neets and their family background 316 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 provides results for the determinants of the condition of neet in italian young adults. the table reports marginal effects for the covariates and z statistics. the marginal effect of each independent variable measures the average change in the probability of observing a value 1 (the condition of neet) by an increase of one unit in the explanatory variable. moreover, we note that we have controlled for respondents’ geographical heterogeneity by introducing macro area dummies in the regression (omitted by the output). our results show that parents’ education plays a relevant role in predicting the condition of neet. in particular, the higher the mother’s education is, the lower the probability that her child will be neet. more specifically, net of the other covariates, mother’s university education decreases by about 8% the likelihood of being a neet for both males and females. a secondary education has a smaller impact for males (about 4%) and a larger one for females (more than 7%). father’s education also has a significant and monotone effect in reducing the likelihood that his child will be neet: having a university educated father decreases by over 8% the risk of being a neet for males and by 7% for females in comparison to lower education (chosen as reference category). as expected, father’s secondary education has a smoothed effect (less than 4% for both genders) compared to that of a university education. the family indices included in the model also present interesting findings. quality of relationship does not have a significant impact on the risk of being neet while intrusiveness has a significant impact only for women. the higher the degree of parents’ intrusiveness in a young woman’s life, the greater is the likelihood that she will fall into a condition of neet. the support index is negatively associated with the neet condition for both females and males even if the effect is stronger for males (with a marginal effect of -3.42% against an effect of -2.63 for females). finally, autonomy is negatively related to the neet condition in the males’ subsample with a marginal effect of -3.06%. cragg and uhler's (1970) r2 is equal to 0.15 for males’ regression and 0.12 for females’ regression. in this framework we should point out that probit regression does not have an equivalent to the r2 that is found in ols regression. although this statistic ranges between 0 and 1, cragg and uhler's (1970) pseudo r2 does not mean whatr2means in ols regression: 0.15 cannot be explained as the proportion of variance of the response variable explained by the predictors. hence, we suggest caution in considering as totally negative the response of pseudo r2. nevertheless, we acknowledge that pseudo r2 values of 0.12 or 0.15 are relatively low. this result is certainly a limitation in our analysis that was caused by the limited set of explanatory variables available in the analysis. more specifically, the neet condition may not depend only on family indicators and the family of origin’s educational background. the respondents’ occupational condition may have been mainly caused by the macroeconomic context and individual material conditions that are not included in the model in order to avoid reverse causality problems. discussion the present work aimed to investigate with an exploratory approach a new emerging social phenomenon in industrialized societies. although there has been some research that has investigated which factors influence neet status, we found no such studies conducted in the italian context. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 alfieri, sironi, marta et al. 317 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an initial result that emerged from the study is that parents’ educational level has a protective effect on the risk of falling into neet status for both genders. this finding is coherent with the results of other research (see, for example, bynner & parsons, 2002). in particular, rennison et al. (2005) maintain that parents with low educational levels have less expertise when giving their children advice about educational choices thus guiding their children toward poor and inefficacious choices or toward making no choice at all. moreover, parents’ educational level can be considered an indicator of socio-economic status (abramson, gofin, habib, pridan, & gofin 1982). education, especially a university degree, requires a large economic investment. this implies that, especially in countries without active labor market policies, young people who cannot count on parents’ help in order to continue their studies tend to leave school prematurely, with a higher risk of being trapped in temporary, low paying jobs that, once concluded, lead to the condition of neet. with respect to the relational variables considered, the situation is more complex. as regards relationship quality, it is worth noting that, in and of itself, this variable does not determine neet status. this result could be imputed to the fact that relationship quality is a “generic” variable that includes different constructs which, perhaps, compensate for one another. the results that emerged when considering the other variables appear to confirm this hypothesis. a variable that turned out to be statistically significant for neet status in both genders is support. in the longitudinal study carried out in the uk by bynner and parsons (2002), the authors tested the impact of two variables that we could connect to a form of support (parents reading stories to their children and the interest parents demonstrate toward their children) measured when children were 10 years old and then 6 years later. the results reveal that for males only the first variable has a positive impact while for females only the second one does. pemberton (2008a) reports on the results of a qualitative study in which most of the neets interviewed reported low levels of support from parents, a reason for which these young people had to seek role models outside the family. on the other hand, intrusiveness influences neet status positively only for females. when young women do not grow up in a context in which they feel free to explore their environment a context in which they make some choices supported by their parents yet still feel able to express their own opinions their ability to assume responsibility for choices, to take charge of their lives in an autonomousmanner, and their status as neets can be impacted. in pemberton’s (2008a) qualitative study cited above, the author finds that many of the neets interviewed report that they have overly controlling parents. in contrast, autonomy has an impact only for males, negatively influencing their status as neets. this may suggest that the more young people feel free to build their own identity and are supported in doing so, the more they succeed in developing resilience and in finding resources for not falling into the condition of neet. on the other hand, the more young people are rendered passive and kept in the family nest, the less they will be able to confront the developmental tasks associated with their phase of the life cycle, and, as a result, could end up in the condition of neet. conclusions this study provides important information for the implementation of interventions in the italian context. in the first place, it emerges that the neet phenomenon is not only an individual problem; thus, it is not possible to resolve europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 young italian neets and their family background 318 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the difficulties connected to it by only taking into consideration neet young people. rather, we can consider the neet phenomenon as being multidimensional. on a purely individual level, it is necessary to improve education/training and skills by reducing early school dropout rates, in particular. young people who do not make good use of their years in training or education carry a persistent fragility throughout their working lives. many studies confirm how important and productive it is to invest well in the younger age brackets (heckman, 2006). on the level of relational quality, while the best known programs aimed at curbing the phenomenon involve only young people (chen, 2011), involving families, helping them become more aware of their own functioning, and designing targeted interventions with them in mind could provide valuable help in addressing the neet phenomenon. finally, on a societal level, in order to foster an active attitude in young people, it is important to strengthen the link between education/training and work, which becomes more efficacious the more instructional systems are able to provide students with skills that are directly spendable in the job market and consistent with its evolution. for young people who conclude their studies/training or reach the end of a temporary job contract, employment services are necessary that can create an individual development plan by conducting an assessment of a young person’s skills in relation to the demand constituted by available jobs. this work has some limitations. first, a longitudinal development of the present research perspective would be fruitful: this would allow for the monitoring of possible changes over the course of different ages. for example, it would be interesting to analyze different “pathways” that young neets can undertake (e.g. engaging in even short periods of activity/training, initiating alternative and somehow compensatory activities such as volunteerism, etc.). moreover, it would allow us to test the model described here by investigating antecedent and consequent variables over time, for example, to better understand whether family relationships influence neet status or whether, vice versa, it is neet status that influences family relationships. third, self-report instruments give us only the respondents’ views and are susceptible to social desirability to various degrees; thus, the use of a multimethod approach would be germane. for example, it would be useful to probe some of the findings that emerged using semi-structured interviews (for example, the quality of relationships with parents). finally, the values of pseudo r2 are quite low. it was argued that pseudo r2 should not be understood as the more common r2, yet the values are not completely satisfactory. it makes sense, therefore, to hypothesize some additional variables that could be included in themodel. future developments of the present work will seek to overcome these limitations. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 alfieri, sironi, marta et al. 319 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references abramson, j. h., gofin, r., habib, j., pridan, h., & gofin, j. 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(2006). the transition to adulthood and family relations: an intergenerational perspective. london, united kingdom: psychology press. about the authors sara alfieri, phd, is a post-doc fellow in social psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). her specific research interests are: transition to adulthood, family relationships, attitude transmission, risk behaviour. contact: sara.alfieri@unicatt.it emiliano sironi, phd, is an assistant professor in demography (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). his research interest is transition to adulthood. contact: emiliano.sironi@unicatt.it elena marta, phd, is full professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). her specific research interests are: transition to adulthood, family relationships, civic participation. contact: elena.marta@unicatt.it alessandro rosina, phd, is full professor in demography (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). his current research interests are: transition to adulthood, family relationships, generation relationships. contact: alessandro.rosina@unicatt.it daniela marzana, phd, is a post-doc fellow in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). her specific research interests are: civic participation, transition to adulthood, social exclusion. contact: daniela.marzana@unicatt.it psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 311–322 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.901 young italian neets and their family background 322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en young italian neets and their family background (introduction) the peculiarities of italian families what characterizes the family relationships of neets? the present study methods participants and procedure instruments data analysis results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device to enhance metacognitive skills and agency in future clinical psychologists research reports group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device to enhance metacognitive skills and agency in future clinical psychologists cristiano scandurra* a, simona picariello b, daniela scafaro b, vincenzo bochicchio c, paolo valerio a, anna lisa amodeo d [a] department of neurosciences and reproductive and odontostomatological sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] sinapsi center, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [c] department of humanistic studies, university of calabria, rende, italy. [d] department of humanistic studies, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. abstract metacognitive skills and agency are among the main psychological abilities a clinical psychologist should have. this study aimed to assess the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device able to enhance metacognitive skills and agency in final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology within an educational context. thirty-three final-year students of clinical psychology participated in an experiential laboratory lasting two months. participants completed measures regarding metacognitive skills and agency at pre-, posttreatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment. the results suggested that group psychodynamic counselling made students feel more capable of recognizing emotional states, understanding causal relationships, inferring mental states of others in terms of beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations, and thinking critically. furthermore, the group psychodynamic counselling helped students to feel more able to derive pathways to desired goals and to motivate themselves via agency thinking to use those pathways. thus, the study confirmed the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device able to enhance metacognitive skills and agency in future clinical psychologists. keywords: psychodynamic counselling, group, metacognition, agency, clinical psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 received: 2017-09-20. accepted: 2018-02-14. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, usa *corresponding author at: department of neurosciences and reproductive and odontostomatological sciences, university of naples federico ii, via sergio pansini 5, 80131 napoli – italy. tel. 00393341523239. e-mail: cristiano.scandurra@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. undergraduates in clinical psychology must acquire specific clinical competencies, such as conduction of clinical interviews, taking charge of psychological distress, health promotion in a preventive perspective, and so on. learning these psychological-clinical skills requires that students deeply reflect on the role they will take in different health care contexts. these reflective skills must be supported and encouraged during university training, in which students may project themselves into future work scenarios (freda, esposito, & quaranta, 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ among others, two fundamental psychological skills a clinical psychologist should improve are metacognitive skills and agency (sheikh, milne, & macgregor, 2007). as we will discuss below, these skills include reflective ability, that is, the capacity to critically analyze experience, a fundamental skill for future clinical psychologists (freda & esposito, 2017). with the aim of promoting these skills in a group of future clinical psychologists, we conducted a learning laboratory with undergraduates at the beginning of their last year of the master’s degree in clinical psychology program at the university of naples federico ii (italy), which is strongly characterized by a psychodynamic foundation. due to this specific foundation, we decided to use the group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device, assessing its effectiveness in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency. within clinical settings, it is common to find studies on cognitive-behavioral interventions aimed at enhancing patients’ metacognitive skills (e.g., lopez, floyd, ulven, & snyder, 2000). recently, studies assessing the effectiveness of psychodynamic interventions in enhancing these skills in clinical settings have also been conducted (e.g., harder & folke, 2012; rosenbaum et al., 2012). within educational contexts, however, although some research has demonstrated the efficacy of learning cognitively-oriented laboratories in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency in students (e.g., kuiper, 2002), to our knowledge no previous studies have assessed whether a psychodynamically-oriented laboratory can effectively enhance these skills in future clinical psychologists. thus, the innovation of the current study is in its assessment of the effectiveness of a psychodynamic intervention carried out within an educational context to enhance metacognitive skills and agency in a non-clinical sample (i.e., students in clinical psychology). in the following paragraphs, we report theoretical definitions of metacognition and agency, highlighting their fundamental role for clinical psychologists and their relationship with reflective ability. subsequently, we report evidence for the importance of conducting learning laboratories aimed at enhancing metacognition and agency, and then we describe the theory and technique for using group psychodynamic counselling with undergraduates, both in clinical and educational contexts. metacognition and agency: their role for clinical psychologists and relationship with reflective ability metacognitive skills are conceptualized as an individual’s knowledge and regulation over one’s own cognitions (flavell, 1979) and they lead to monitor progress through goals, to identify strengths and weaknesses, and to modify learning strategies in agreement with more favorable outcomes (ford, smith, weissbein, gully, & salas, 1998; quattropani, lenzo, mucciardi, & toffle, 2015). more specifically, semerari et al. (2008) defined metacognition as a set of abilities that allows to: (a) attribute and recognize mental states to oneself and to the others; (b) reflect upon and reason with mental states; (c) use information about mental states to decide upon solutions for psychological and interpersonal problems and cope with personal suffering. according to this definition, it is reasonable to believe that dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs are associated with the development and maintenance of psychological disorders, such as anxiety disorder, social phobia, panic disorder, anorexia nervosa, and so on (e.g., quattropani, lenzo, & filastro, 2017; quattropani, lenzo, mucciardi, & toffle, 2016; wells & carter, 2001). on the basis of the definition by semerari et al. (2008), adequate metacognitive ability is shown through the perception of oneself as an intentional agent, through the ability to reflect and reason on one’s own and others’ scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 445 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental states, and through the ability to use psychological knowledge to regulate action plans and manage psychological problems (alaimo & schimmenti, 2013). as metacognitive skills help to inform decisions and actions, and lead to a monitoring phase (sheikh et al., 2007), we believe that they are fundamental for clinical psychologists who are faced with complex circumstances in which they should take charge of pathological situations, try to promote health in diverse contexts, and constantly rethinking about their actions and decisions. metacognition is somehow connected with agency. indeed, agency represents an on-going process through which one’s own actions are monitored and might be self-corrected ensuring that they are goal directed (paternoster & pogarsky, 2009). as stated by metcalfe and greene (2007), “the profound implications of agency are predicated on the idea that people are […] able to monitor their own agency, that is, to make metacognitive assessments about when and whether they are, themselves, in control” (p. 184). thus, as suggested again by sheikh et al. (2007), agency is a fundamental person-centered capacity for the active engagement of clinical psychologists in clinical processes and decisions. this is true also for students, whose agentic engagement (reeve & tseng, 2011) in learning activities represents a fundamental learning process (christenson, reschly, & wylie, 2011), predicting better academic progress and achievements (ladd & dinella, 2009). on the basis of the previous definitions, metacognitive skills and agency should be viewed as two dimensions including the reflective ability (freda & esposito, 2017). to this end, sheikh et al. (2007) clearly stated that metacognition, that is, the capacity through which the mind thinks about itself (“thinking about thinking”), informing decisions and actions, is a reflective capacity which leads to a monitoring phase that might help to change the direction of one’s own decisions and actions. on the other hand, paternoster and pogarsky (2009) defined agency as “an intentional activity directed toward some goal [which involves] thoughtfully reflective behavior” (pp. 111-112), clearly linking agency to a reflective ability. development of reflective ability is crucial in clinical psychology students’ education and in their future work because it allows them to analyze and re-analyze their own activities (dallos & stedmon, 2009), and critically analyze experiences (freda & esposito, 2017). as a consequence, self-reflection is considered a mandatory and non-optional activity for an ethical and effective clinical psychology practice (lavender, 2003). for this reason, it seems crucial to train future clinical psychologists in enhancing their reflective abilities. learning laboratories enhancing students’ metacognition and agency hofstein, kipnis, and kind (2008) highlighted the importance of promoting metacognitive skills and agency within learning laboratories. indeed, once learned, metacognition supports lifelong reflective thinking in divergent situations, helps in the management of ambiguity and problems, promotes a sense of responsibility for one’s own actions, and increases a sense of self-confidence for rapid decision-making (kuiper, 2002). much research in the area of science education has shown that metacognitive processes are able to promote meaningful learning so that students improve their ability to apply their learning in a new context (e.g., rickey & stacey, 2000; thomas & mcrobbie, 2001), thus becoming an active agent. most of these researchers agree that metacognitive processes are able to promote the problem-solving processes and the students’ awareness of their cognitions. for example, kuiper (2002) described an eight-week training addressed to new graduate nurses who were transiting into a workplace dimension. self-regulated learning strategies proved useful in enhancing metacognitive critical thinking abilities and helping nursing graduates improve their thinking group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 446 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strategies. again, abd-el-khalick and akerson (2009) described the influence of a training in metacognitive strategies on the development of pre-service elementary teachers’ views of nature of science. the authors reported that those participating in this training developed a more informed view of the target aspects of nature of science. to our knowledge, no previous studies dealt with laboratories enhancing metacognitive skills and agency addressed to final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology programs from a psychodynamic point of view. similar to the works of kuiper (2002) and abd-el-khalick and akerson (2009), participants taking part in our training laboratory were also transiting into a workplace dimension. furthermore, the particular attention the psychodynamic approach gives to emotions is in line with the most recent theories about metacognition, considered not only as thinking about thinking, but also as thinking about emotion (e.g., eichbaum, 2014). promoting these skills in final-year undergraduates can therefore mean increasing their reflective ability on their own mental and emotional states connected to becoming clinical psychologists, helping them to project themselves toward future work scenarios. to this end, freda et al. (2015) argued that students’ learning of clinical skills should go through a reflection process, that is, the psychological process focusing on deeper recognition of oneself as having an active role in relationships, giving them a subjective meaning. furthermore, freda et al. (2015) stated that this is not just a cognitive process, but implies that students come into contact with their and others’ emotions, assuming a reflective position, or rather, understanding that individuals’ behaviors are a consequence of intentional mental states. within this context, the use of group formats has been considered the best approach to promote reflection processes (amodeo, picariello, valerio, & scandurra, 2018; freda et al., 2015) and, thus, to enhance metacognitive skills and agency. group is a device that facilitates this process because participants become bearers of different representations of the same experience—in this case, of being final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology—and the individual has to deal with different points of view, putting in motion a reflective and self-observational process that can bring change to a rigid position (amodeo, picariello, valerio, bochicchio, & scandurra, 2017). indeed, groups have the potential to promote fruitful exchange between participants, thanks to the mirroring processes that groups activate (e.g. bion, 1961) and the role of counsellor as creative-social-mirror (fonagy & target, 1997) who bears in mind the mental states of the others, translating them into a comprehensive language (esposito, ribeiro, alves, gonçalves, & freda, 2017a; esposito, ribeiro, gonçalves, & freda, 2017b). mirroring processes have to be intended as those processes occurring in groups that allow individuals to intersubjectively reflect on one’s own thoughts and feelings “by recognizing their experience in others as they empathize with the other and respond internally as if that person were the self” (esposito et al., 2017b, p. 392). thus, as argued by freda et al. (2015), the group represents a dimension in which reflective processes take place very intensively. indeed, relationships between group members and between participants and facilitator become an object for reflection and a chance to reflect on those interactions occurring in the here and now of the group setting. we believe that whether these processes become an object of reflection, an increase in metacognitive skills and agency might be produced. this is the reason why we decided to use a group device to increase these abilities. group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device group psychodynamic counselling is a short-term clinical intervention delivered in a group format through a limited number of sessions (from four to six). it is aimed at providing clients with opportunities to understand an actual conflictual situation more clearly, helping them to cope with it and to make choices and changes scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 447 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ accordingly (amodeo, liccardo, tortono, & valerio, 2008). in this work we make reference to the theoretical model used by psychotherapists working at the tavistock clinic in london (e.g., copley, 1976; salzberger wittenberg, 1986), whose roots are in bion’s work within institutions (e.g., bion, 1961). this is the reason why we use the term “counselling” and not “counseling.” most scientific work in this field refers to the individual psychodynamic counselling, an intervention considered particularly suitable for young adults because, for its shortness, it does not offer incentives for regression and dependence in a developmental period during which individuals are trying to act out a separation process from parental internal objects (adamo, sarno, preti, fontana, & prunas, 2010; hetherington, 1999; noonan, 1983; scandurra, 2016). the suitability of psychodynamic counselling for young adults led researchers and counsellors to consider this intervention particularly useful for university students (e.g. adamo, 1999; copley, 1976; richards, 1999), due to their specific developmental stage during which they are constructing a professional identity and the job market is around the corner. group psychodynamic counselling differs from the individual counselling mainly because of the use of the group as a work tool. within this group format, a silent observer acting as a catalyst for persecutory and superego anxieties and a container for the group’s frustrations (chiodi, di fratta, & valerio, 2009) supports the counsellor who facilitates the intervention. amodeo et al. (2017) reported a learning laboratory experience where they used group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training methodology to reinforce well-being and academic identity in a group of final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology, demonstrating that this intervention can be productively used beyond a clinical context within university and educational settings with students who are becoming clinical psychologists to provide them with new tools and skills. during the first counselling session, the “work couple”—the counsellor and the observer—were introduced by the counsellor and the participants were told: this is a space in which we have the possibility to think and reflect about your status as final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology. in this space it is possible to say anything you think, using fantasies, thoughts, and dreams. whatever emerges in this space will belong to the group and thus be treated as group material. thus, the counsellor provides a specific working focus (students are invited to think about their status of finalyear undergraduates in clinical psychology) and at the same time open working focus (they can think of this in all ways they feel as appropriate for that specific group) leading participants to reflect together and to incentivize a deep exploration on their actual identity status. the counsellor uses classical psychodynamics tools like interpretations and clarifications, paying particular attention to transference and counter-transference phenomena. notwithstanding that, differently from a long-lasting group psychodynamic intervention, the counsellor is more active, facilitating narrations, memories, and debates between participants. furthermore, in the classic psychodynamic counselling, no working focus is used, allowing clients to be totally free to say what they want and need. within a bionian framework (bion, 1961), the group is considered as a whole and particular attention is given to the interpretations of its conscious and unconscious mental and emotional states. the bionian approach has its roots within freudian psychoanalysis, even though its contribution on the psychoanalytic theory of schizophrenia and group phenomena laid the foundations of a somehow divergent current. within this group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 448 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ framework, every group is seen as operating in two contrasting and co-existing ways. the “work group” is the group mental functioning which deals with the primary task, that is, what the group is called upon to accomplish; this mental state implies contact with reality, the tolerance of frustration, and the control of the drives. the “basic assumptions,” on the other hand, are intense and primitive emotions that dominate the group’s unconscious functioning and determine the ways in which the group tries to reach a common goal. in other words, the “basic assumptions” are omnipotent and magical group fantasies that are often completely contrary to the conscious opinions of the members. within such a complex frame, the counsellor identifies major themes (both conscious and unconscious) and gives them back to the group, starting from the here and now to the there and then. differently, the observer assumes the function of a receptacle for group projections, making group anxieties more manageable and facilitating the counsellor’s work. this complex mechanism allows the group to project its persecutory and superego function on the observer, relieving resistances and protecting the counsellor from aggressive fantasies, so that counsellor interventions might be perceived as good nourishment. this function is essential due to the short duration of the intervention. furthermore, the observer has the task of writing observational reports at the end of each session, and these narrative materials become the reflection materials of a supervision where all staff members discuss about the psychodynamic process with an external psychodynamic counsellor. in this way, the supervisor may fulfill the function of rêverie (bion, 1962). the current study the aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling in enhancing perceived metacognitive skills and agency in final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology. previous studies have already demonstrated that both cognitive-behavioral treatments (e.g., lopez et al., 2000) and psychodynamic clinical interventions (harder & folke, 2012; rosenbaum et al., 2012) were effective in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency in clinical samples. the same was found in the case of learning cognitivelyoriented laboratories, which were effective in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency in non-clinical sample, such as students (abd-el-khalick & akerson, 2009; kuiper, 2002). thus, informed by results achieved in these previous studies, we hypothesized that also a learning psychodynamically-oriented laboratory conducted through a psychodynamic device (i.e., group psychodynamic counselling) would be effective in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency in a non-clinical sample (i.e., students in clinical psychology). specifically, we expected that the group psychodynamic counselling described above might enhance perceived metacognitive skills, as it introduces reflective processes on mental and emotional states (amodeo et al., 2017), and these processes are treated in a group format that by its nature promotes a deep exploration of these states thanks to mirroring processes (esposito et al., 2017b; freda et al., 2015). furthermore, we also expected that this process allows participants to perceive themselves as more intentional agents, or rather to view themselves as agents able to provoke mental and emotional states in others, regulating on this basis their action plans and managing better psychological problems and conflicts (paternoster & pogarsky, 2009; sheikh et al., 2007). indeed, participants took part in a laboratory of clinical psychology called “learning from experience,” based on the same bionian (1962) theoretical and clinical concepts. according to bion (1962), we can learn from experiences only if a transformation of the emotional experience occurs and if individuals living their experiences become able to rework it subjectively, actively integrating new learned concepts into their own identity in a continuous cycle of action, research, and reflection. thus, beyond an unconscious work on these contents, it is necessary to promote a reflective thinking upon them. scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 449 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedures thirty-three students (9 males and 24 females) with an average age of 24.89 (sd = 3.73) took part in a university in the last year of a degree course in clinical psychology at the university of naples federico ii. the laboratory lasted two months and was organized into six 8-hour sessions. due to the high number of participants, they were randomly divided into two “small groups”—one consisting of 16 and the other of 17 participants—and each group participated in six sessions of group psychodynamic counselling that took place at the beginning of classes and lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes. therefore, the only difference between the two groups was the “work couple” (i.e., the counsellor and the observer) and, thus, the personal management style of the counsellor. notwithstanding that, both counsellors (as well as both observers) were psychodynamicoriented psychotherapists with a solid training in psychodynamic psychotherapy with children, adolescents, or adults, based in particular on the tavistock model. each of the six days began with a psychodynamic group counselling session, with the exception of the last day, during which the session was conducted at the end of the day with the aim of carefully working through and holding separation anxieties. at the end of each group psychodynamic counselling session—with the exception of the last session where the following structure was inverted—the two groups were joined together in a long day of classes conducted by a teacher in clinical psychology who worked through traditional methods, such as readings related to psychodynamic counselling or clinical cases. all data were collected in accordance with the italian law on privacy and data protection 196/2003 and became property of the department of humanistic studies of the university of naples federico ii. they were stored in a database accessible only to the principal investigator. the study was designed to respect all principles of the declaration of helsinki on ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. in accordance with italian law, informed consent was obtained before starting the intervention. furthermore, all participants gave consent to report their narratives in a scientific manuscript. measures metacognitive functions screening scale (mfss) the mfss is a 30-item measure assessing metacognitive functions (alaimo & schimmenti, 2013). alaimo and schimmenti (2013) defined metacognition as the set of abilities that allow individuals to: (1) attribute and recognize mental states starting with facial expressions, somatic states, behaviors, and actions; (2) reflect and think about mental states; (3) use information on mental states to solve problems or psychological and interpersonal conflicts and to master the subjective suffering. based on this definition, alaimo and schimmenti (2013) created a new measure constituted by four subscales: (1) cre, the ability to recognize emotional states and describe personal and social emotions (e.g., “i often do not know what adjective to use to describe my emotion”); (2) crc, the ability to understand causal relationships to build relationships between behaviors and goals to reach (e.g., “i hate to think today about what may happen tomorrow”); (3) cdd, the ability to judge the distance of objects from one another and from ourselves, or rather the ability to infer the mental state of another person in terms of beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations (e.g., “i often find myself unable to tune in with the emotions that people with whom i come into contact experience”); and (4) cdp, the ability to ponder group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 450 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ situations and problems, that is, the critical thinking and the ability to evaluate situations and problems to better apply previous experiences to actual events (e.g. “when i face with important or delicate situations, i always try to take advantage of previous experiences to avoid negative consequences”). in our sample the values of cronbach’s alpha for each subscale at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment were as follows: cre (αpre = .77; αpost = .82; αfollow-up = .84), crc (αpre = .71; αpost = .68; αfollow-up = .75), cdd (αpre = .68; αpost = .62; αfollow-up = .75), and cdp (αpre = .64; αpost = .65; αfollow-up = .63). the response options ranged from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” on a 4-point likert scale. adult hope scale (ahs) the ahs is a 12-item measure of a respondent’s level of hope (snyder et al., 1991; italian adaption by ferrari, nota, & soresi, 2010). snyder et al. (1991) defined hope as the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways. higher hope has been found to be related to better outcomes in academics, athletics, physical health, psychological adjustment, and psychotherapy. this scale is divided into two subscales comprising snyder’s cognitive model of hope: agency, that is, the goal-directed energy (e.g., “i energetically pursue my goals”) and pathway, or planning to accomplish goals (e.g., “i can think of many ways to get out of a jam”). in our sample the values of cronbach’s alpha for each subscale at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment were as follows: agency (α pre = .69; αpost = .68; αfollow-up = .62) and pathway (αpre = .67; αpost = .80; αfollow-up = .81). the response options ranged from “definitely false” to “definitely true” on a 8-point likert scale. statistical analyses all analyses were performed using spss 20. a one-way within-subjects (repeated measures) anova was conducted to compare the effect of intervention on the dependent variables—metacognitive functions and adult hope (agency and pathways). bonferroni adjustments were applied evaluating the subscale questionnaires. when the sphericity assumption was violated, greenhouse gressier statistics were used and reported. cohen’s (1988) classification scheme for the effect size (η2; small effect = .01, medium effect = .06 and large effect = .14) was used to index and interpret the proportion of variance explained by the variables. finally, to verify whether the management style of the two different counsellors could have affected the results, a one-way between-subjects anova was performed, considering the group as the reference variable. furthermore, with the aim of controlling for the potential effects of participants’ age (e.g., justice & dornan, 2001) and gender (e.g., bidjerano, 2005)—especially considering the italian context (amodeo, vitelli, scandurra, picariello, & valerio, 2015; scandurra, amodeo, bochicchio, valerio, & frost, 2017; scandurra, amodeo, valerio, bochicchio, & frost, 2017; scandurra, bacchini, esposito, bochicchio, valerio, & amodeo, 2018; scandurra, braucci, bochicchio, valerio, & amodeo, 2017; scandurra, mezza, bochicchio, valerio, & amodeo, 2017; scandurra, picariello, valerio, & amodeo, 2017; vitelli et al., 2017a; vitelli et al., 2017b)—on metacognitive skills and agency, these variables were included as covariates in a one-way within-subjects anova. results no difference based on management style was detected in the one-way between-subjects anova, indicating that the management style of the two counsellors was not a significant variable to explain changes in outcome dimensions. furthermore, neither age nor gender were significant as covariates, indicating that neither dimension significantly impacted the changes detected. thus, we provide only results for the one-way withinscandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 451 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjects anova. in table 1, means, standard deviations, and within-subjects effects test for intervention outcome measures at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment are reported. instead, in table 2, pairwise comparisons with bonferroni correction from preto post-intervention, postto follow-up assessment, and preto follow-up assessment on the outcome measures are reported. metacognitive functions for the mfss measure, the repeated measures anova revealed a significant effect for time for each subscale (see table 1). post hoc tests using the bonferroni correction revealed significant time effects from preto post-, postto follow-up, and preto follow-up assessment on all subscales. an increase in each time of the intervention was detected. this suggests that significant change in perceived metacognitive functions was not only achieved at post-assessment and maintained at follow-up, but additionally, improvement occurred from postto follow-up assessment (see table 2). results are also reported in graphic form (see figure 1). hope for the ahs measure, the repeated measures anova revealed a significant effect for time for each subscale (see table 1). post hoc tests using the bonferroni correction revealed significant time effects from postto follow-up and preto follow-up assessment on both subscales, but none from preto post-intervention (see table 2). the levels of both ahs subscales decreased from preto post-intervention and increased from postto follow-up and from preto follow-up assessments. thus, it seems that the group psychodynamic counselling caused a statistically significant increase in the goal-directed energy (agency) and in the planning to accomplish goals (pathways), but not immediately after the intervention, where these dimension levels decreased. results are also reported in graphic form (see figure 2). table 1 means, standard deviations, and within-subjects effects test for intervention outcome measures at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment measure pre post follow-up f df η2m sd m sd m sd cre 11.76 3.21 12.91 2.44 13.71 2.90 13.49*** 1.51 .30 crc 17.12 2.95 18.42 2.51 19.64 1.77 39.83*** 1.56 .55 cdd 27.73 2.85 28.67 2.87 30.18 2.51 46.08*** 1.36 .59 cdp 8.85 1.77 9.61 1.37 10.15 1.26 37.14*** 1.41 .54 agency 24.33 3.84 23.54 2.84 26.30 2.41 31.70*** 1.68 .50 pathway 23.45 3.53 23.15 3.33 25.36 2.83 21.80*** 1.50 .40 note. cre = ability to recognize emotional states; crc = ability to understand causal relationship; cdd = ability to judge the distance of objects; cdp = ability to ponder situations and problems. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 452 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 pairwise comparisons from pre to post, post to follow-up, and pre to follow-up assessments on the outcome measures in training participants (n = 33) measure md se p 95% ci cre pre to post 1.15 0.29 .001 [0.41, 1.89] post to follow-up 0.79 0.35 .008 [-0.08, 1.67] pre to follow-up 1.95 0.47 .001 [0.76, 3.14] crc pre to post 1.29 0.25 <.001 [0.66, 1.92] post to follow-up 1.22 0.23 <.001 [0.63, 1.81] pre to follow-up 2.51 0.35 <.001 [1.63, 3.39] cdd pre to post 0.94 0.14 <.001 [0.58, 1.30] post to follow-up 1.51 0.30 <.001 [0.75, 2.28] pre to follow-up 2.45 0.29 <.001 [1.71, 3.19] cdp pre to post 0.76 0.14 <.001 [0.39, 1.12] post to follow-up 0.54 0.11 <.001 [0.27, 0.81] pre to follow-up 1.29 0.19 <.001 [0.81, 1.78] agency pre to post -0.79 0.43 .221 [-1.86, 0.29] post to follow-up 2.76 0.30 <.001 [2.00, 3.52] pre to follow-up 1.97 0.33 <.001 [1.13, 2.81] pathway pre to post -0.30 0.24 .649 [-0.91, 0.30] post to follow-up 2.20 0.39 <.001 [1.22, 3.19] pre to follow-up 1.90 0.43 <.001 [0.82, 2.99] note. md = mean difference; se = standard error; ci = confidence interval; cre = ability to recognize emotional states; crc = ability to understand causal relationships; cdd = ability to judge the distance of objects; cdp = ability to ponder situations and problems. figure 1. changes of metacognitive functions at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment. note. cre = ability to recognize emotional states; crc = ability to understand causal relationships; cdd = ability to judge the distance of objects; cdp = ability to ponder situations and problems. scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 453 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. changes of agency and pathways (adult hope scale) at pre-, post-treatment, and 3-month follow-up assessment. discussion the aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of group psychodynamic counselling in enhancing metacognitive skills and agency in final-year undergraduates in clinical psychology within an educational context. the results suggest that this kind of clinical training device is an effective method to achieve those objectives as the levels of these dimensions increased after the intervention and, above all, after the threemonth follow-up assessment. specifically, it seems that group psychodynamic counselling made students feel more capable of recognizing emotional states, understanding causal relationships, inferring mental states of others in terms of beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations, and thinking critically, evaluating situations and problems to better apply the previous experiences with actual events. furthermore, it also emerged that this clinical training device helped students to feel more able to derive pathways to desired goals and to motivate themselves via agency thinking to use those pathways. the above mentioned psychological skills were higher after three-month follow-up than immediately after the treatment, indicating that group psychodynamic counselling activated psychological processes that seemed to lead to an ongoing positive change, continuing also after the end of the intervention. although participants in the current study cannot be considered as a clinical sample, it is worth noting that this constant growth trend has been detected in meta-analytic studies assessing the effectiveness of longand short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (e.g., abbass, hancock, henderson, & kisely, 2014; de maat, de jonghe, schoevers, & dekker, 2009; leichsenring & rabung, 2008). indeed, from these studies it is possible to note that benefits produced by psychodynamic interventions endured and increased with time, in contrast to the effects of other nonpsychodynamic empirically supported psychotherapies where the benefits seemed to tend to decay with time for the most common disorders, such as depression and anxiety (shedler, 2010). notwithstanding these considerations, as previously mentioned, the participants were not from a clinical population, and students did not ask to participate because of psychological distresses or conflicts. thus, consistent with our theoretical foundations, the perceived increase of their metacognitive skills and agency has to be interpreted within bion’s (1962) concept of learning from experience rather than as a therapeutic outcome. final-year undergraduate students, indeed, are leaving the reassuring university institution that has housed them for at least five years and whose function has been to act as a holding environment (winnicott, 1965) promoting the acquisition of group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 454 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ new competencies to apply to future work scenarios and activating awareness and change processes (amodeo et al., 2017). this particular period might activate a potential developmental crisis, representing an important turning point in the life of a young adult. the laboratory described above can therefore represent a sort of ‘buffer’ able to alleviate the separation anxiety and to promote a reflective process on one’s own psychological and clinical skills and competencies. looking specifically at the results, regarding the perceived improvement of ability of recognizing one’s own emotional states, during the experience participants had the chance to give voice to their still un-thought emotional states. for example, during the second session of a group, a participant stated, “i was finally able to give a name to a physical sensation which i felt in my stomach. i’m angry because i feel that my university path is finishing and i feel alone!” this example shows the capacity of participants to transform physical sensations into thought emotions, thus having the possibility to think and reflect about their unknown emotional states. we believe that this ability might be viewed as an insight about an emotional state, and through bion’s (1962) lens, as a transformation of beta elements into alpha elements, that is, the transformation of sensory impressions into thoughts that can be dreamed. on the other hand, we found that participants felt more able to understand causal relationships between their own behaviors and goals to reach. it seems possible to us to track this finding through the ability of participants to reflexively think about their actual student status as connected with their future and imminent status as psychologists. for instance, in the last session of a group, a participant stated: a retrospective eye is ever necessary… an eye on what one is and on what one was, on what one would like to be… it is necessary to think about oneself as a liquid magma that becomes crystal and then returns to be malleable, in a continuous mutation… the image of the liquid magma that goes through a structural change was a very powerful stimulus for the group, and the fact that this image was recalled at the end of the experience provided the opportunity to work also on the separation—the group was “liquefying” to find a new shape—and on the new skills acquired. participants, indeed, expressed the awareness of being in a “liquid” stage of their life, during which they were open to learning from experience and to include into their “magmatic” and still under-construction professional identity new tools and instruments. moreover, participants were all young adults, and thus they were trying to construct a new lifestyle closer to their current goals and new abilities (arnett, 2007), because this was a very liquid stage of their lives. again, within metacognitive dimensions, participants felt to increase their ability to inferring one’s own and others’ mental states. for instance, during the third session of a group, participants decided to play a game they called “the mirror game.” some participants answered the question “if i look in the mirror, what am i looking at?” following, we report a narrative example by a participant: i look at a boy who rejects everybody, destroying his most important relationships, an often depressed boy… a boy who does not finish anything, who has also thought to leave university. nevertheless, when a mirror returns a good image i feel that i become able to do everything i want…as in this case… this example shows the importance of being mirrored by the group (esposito et al., 2017b), as this process sets reflexivity in motion, orienting oneself positively towards the future. after the intervention of this participant, scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 455 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ indeed, the group started a very fruitful discussion about the skills a psychologist should have to productively do this job. for instance, participants discussed the importance of working through distressed moments and learning to use them to grow up and to perceive themselves as human beings and not only as psychologists. a participant said: as a future psychologist i believe and hope to be able to think my emotions and sensations, not leaving them to overwhelm me, but using them as a resource both for me and for the other within the clinical relationship. in this last example, we also believe that the hope of becoming a competent clinical psychologist is comprised. results suggested that group psychodynamic counselling helped participants to feel more able to derive pathways to desired goals and to motivate themselves via agency thinking to use those pathways. furthermore, it seems to us that this last narration contains a reference to an agentive position that leads to assume the responsibilities of one’s own actions, thoughts, and emotions. to this end, during the penultimate session of a group, a participant was able to tell his personal story of a past suicide attempt and his long personal therapeutic path before deciding to be enrolled in a clinical psychology university course. the emotional climate of the group in that moment was very warm, and the whole group was able to use that painful experience to reflect on the importance of future clinical psychologists being able to use those experiences to understand and work with the pain of their potential clients. in the meantime, the group had the chance to work through the possibility that psychologists may decide to do this specific job to come to terms with their own pain and internal conflicts. the group was able to activate a reflective process on this complex issue, deeply understanding the importance of reflecting on this need to avoid dangerous relational collusions with potential clients. this perceived enhancement in the ability of thinking critically about one’s own subjective experience and choices seems to us a fundamental goal that psychologists should achieve, as it allows to use past personal experiences at the service of the actuality. to this end, kullasepp (2006) stated that the construction of the professional identity for psychologists involves a parallel process that should lead to becoming more and more aware of oneself, of one’s own emotions, cognitions, and so on. it seems to us that participants of our laboratory had the chance to broaden their vision of reality, perceiving it as a complex dimension in which intrapsychic and interpsychic phenomena are constantly intertwined, which is in line with the process highlighted by kullasepp (2006). in this sense, a participant stated: this lab has shown me that the relationship i create with others is primarily a sort of dialogue between various instances of my mind, with fantasies, dreams, symbols, representations, models, beliefs… and, never like in this lab, i felt that what i decided to take with me in the bag of my trip… light but wellstocked luggage… is the awareness that we are all connected, that no man is an island, as pirandello would say. this last reference to the lab as a trip might be read as a newly achieved awareness that the construction of a professional identity is ever a slow and complex process, during which the subjective experience is strongly intertwined with others, such as colleagues, clients, and supervisors. more generally, we believe that this experiential course enabled students to grow up both subjectively and professionally, becoming one of the tools that students might use in their future careers. to this end, during the last session of a group, a pregnant participant told the group a very distressing dream: she dreamed about killing her daughter and woke up in anxiety. the counsellor had the chance to invite the group to reflect and work through the separation anxiety group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 456 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ manifested through the murder of a baby girl. indeed, the group was turning toward the end and the participants needed to “kill” the group to make room for subjectivity again. beyond this possible interpretation of the dream and leaving its personal meaning in the background, the counsellor brought participants to reflect on their developmental stage as a phase where they are “killing” their student status—represented by the baby girl —to make room for a new adult status, or rather the imminent status of a clinical psychologist. thus, through this dream, we believe that participants unconsciously represented the first steps of their individuation process as future professionals. limitations this study is not free from limitations. first, the sample is not representative of the general population of finalyear undergraduates in clinical psychology, first of all because of its quite small number of participants. however, the experiential nature of the intervention allows to overcome this limit. second, we did not compare our results with a control group of students in clinical psychology not participating in the same experience, which could have given higher reliability to the results obtained. in addition, comparing the results obtained with those from a control group may have helped in understanding whether other variables might intervene in the enhancement of students’ metacognitive skills and agency, such as the graduation process itself. thus, future research should consider involving a control group to ensure that the perceived change in metacognitive skills and agency levels are due to the specific experience, excluding the influence of other possible variables. however, although this is an important limit of the study making difficult to assess causality, at the same time it should be considered as partial due to the three-month follow-up assessment that demonstrated an enduring increase in these dimensions also after the immediate end of the experience. finally, the measures used in this study were subjective self-evaluations based on self-report. as such, the results may be better understood as reflecting the participants’ confidence in each of these domains rather than their ability per se. future research should considering to assess metacognitive and agentive skills through non-self-report measures evaluating objective improvements rather than self-perceptions. conclusions and future directions educational institutions should ensure practical experiences where students might be able to learn from experience, adding new tools and skills to their repertoire. providing experiential spaces aimed at enhancing metacognitive skills and agency through specific attention to the emotional dimension helps to increase reflective thinking and to promote reflective processes that have the functions of both alleviating anxieties for the future and activating awareness and change processes. future research might consider applying this clinical training methodology to students in different degree courses, adapting the laboratory to specific competencies that these students should acquire for their future professions. moreover, it would be interesting to test the effectiveness of this device for first-year students who have had recent access to the university and to repeat the same experience at the end of their university path, assessing the possible changes that may occur. funding the authors have no funding to report. scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 457 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abbass, a. a., hancock, j. t., henderson, j., & kisely, s. r. 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(1965). the maturational processes and the facilitating environment. london, united kingdom: hogarth press. about the authors cristiano scandurra, ph.d., research fellow in clinical psychology at the university of naples federico ii, psychodynamic psychotherapist trainee. his research focuses on transgender identity, minority stress, gender and sexual violence, and psychodynamic counselling. simona picariello, ph.d., clinical psychologist, and psychodynamic psychotherapist trainee. her research interests are: adolescence, psychodynamic counselling, gender issues, stigma. group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition 462 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 http://doi.org/10.3280/pds2017-002004 http://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2017.1286794 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0018378 http://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.540 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.4.570 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2017.08.001 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sexol.2017.08.002 https://www.psychopen.eu/ daniela scafaro, clinical psychologist at the sinapsi center of the university of naples federico ii. her research interests are: gender stereotypes, homophobic bullying, sexual and gender identity, eating disorders, and psychodynamic counselling. vincenzo bochicchio, ph.d., assistant professor in developmental psychopathology at the university of calabria and clinical psychologist. his research interests are: epistemology of clinical psychology, theoretical psychology, perception, gender issues, and development of ethnic prejudice. paolo valerio, md, full professor in clinical psychology at the university of naples federico ii. his research areas are: emotional disorders among late adolescents and young adults, psychodynamic counselling, gender variance and gender dysphoria, disorders of sex development, and homophobic and transphobic bullying anna lisa amodeo, ph.d., assistant professor in clinical psychology at the university of naples federico ii and psychodynamic psychotherapist. her research focuses on gender identity and sexual orientation, gender and sexual stigma, homophobic bullying, psychodynamic counselling. scandurra, picariello, scafaro et al. 463 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 444–463 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1528 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ group psychodynamic counselling and metacognition (introduction) metacognition and agency: their role for clinical psychologists and relationship with reflective ability learning laboratories enhancing students’ metacognition and agency group psychodynamic counselling as a clinical training device the current study method participants and procedures measures results metacognitive functions hope discussion limitations conclusions and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors visual experience: sensation, cognition and constancy book reviews hatfield, gary, & allred, sarah (eds.). (2012). visual experience: sensation, cognition and constancy. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. 264 pp. isbn 9780199597277. visual experience: sensation, cognition and constancy farid pazhoohi*a [a] independent researcher, shiraz, iran. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 204–207, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.731 published (vor): 2014-02-28. *corresponding author at: baharan street moali abad street, shiraz, iran. e-mail: pazhoohi@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. hatfield, gary, & allred, sarah (eds.). (2012). visual experience: sensation, cognition and constancy. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. 264 pp. isbn 9780199597277. mankind has always been interested in the way people perceive the world and this has become one of its main concerns reflected in the fact that early explanations for visual perception date back to ancient greece. studies of visual perception were pursued merely in the field of philosophy until the 20th century, when psychologists, and thereafter neuroscientists, formulated their contributions to this topic. but what are the recent theories and findings regarding visual experience and, what have been the recent developments in related fields such as the psychology and philosophy of visual perception?visual experience: sensation, cognition, and constancy deals with important questions about visual perception that concern the philosophers and psychologists of our era, with a focus on the phenomenal appearances of size and color. this volume, which is emerged out of a research workshop on cognitive and developmental factors in perceptual constancy, held at the institute for research in cognitive sciences (ircs) of the university of pennsylvania in february, 2009, includes both psychologists’ empirical and philosophers’ phenomenological points of view on spatial and color perception. the volume is edited by gary hatfield, professor of philosophy at university of pennsylvania, who is trained in experimental psychology, history of science, and philosophy, and sarah allred, assistant professor at the department of psychology, rutgers university. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ this volume consists of three parts and eleven different chapters: in the first part, cognitive and phenomenal factors in spatial perception are dealt with; in the second part, historical and conceptual issues of visual perception studies are presented; and the third part examines the contributions of memory, computation, and inference to color constancy. the chapters of this volume are written by experts, scholars and eminent researchers in the field of vision perception. as the chapters do not follow a specific theme and due to their diversity, in what follows, each chapter is separately dealt with. in the first chapter, granrud, describing his experiments regarding size constancy, investigates perception of size from a certain distance in children and shows age related changes in size estimation accuracy. he shows that humans at different ages use cognitive strategies to compensate for underconstant perception (i.e., when the observer sees the distant objects as being smaller than they really are) at far distances. he suggests that developmental changes in size-estimation accuracy “results from the development of reasoning abilities and deliberate strategy use” (p. 13). in the second chapter, hatfield describes two mechanistic views on size constancy in spatial perception: twoand three-dimensional sensory cores corresponding to the retinal image. he rejects two-dimensional sensory cores – perceptions lacking depth and corresponding to linear perspectives, which are then elaborated by cognitive judgment leading to visual constancy. instead, he offers a 3d projection of the phenomenal world – the visual experience with normal and systematic underconstant perception. hatfield proposes that visual experience contains phenomenal and cognitive modes at the same time, leading for example into the phenomenal perception that railroad tracks converge in the distance, and also to the cognitive awareness that these tracks are physically parallel. in the third chapter, wagner reviews the size constancy research that has been done over the last century, and gives a brief overview of the recent size constancy literature. he explains the basic concepts of size constancy (e.g. ‘constancy’: when the “observer accurately adjusts the near comparison to match the standard at all distances” (p. 63); ‘overconstancy’: when the observer sees the distant objects as being larger than really are, and ‘underconstancy’ as mentioned above). wagner then, describes the factors that are investigated in size constancy, such as effect of participant age, cue conditions, stimulus orientation, and instructions, and how they influence size perception. finally, wagner explains his mathematical model for size constancy data, which serves as an explanation for precision in size constancy based on the amount of information that hits the retina, a factor dependent on the visual angle. in the fourth chapter, durgin, ruff and russell try to provide an evolutionary and adaptive explanation for the existence of a systematic underconstancy, and relate it to our abilities for self-motion awareness and coordination. the authors then discuss views and theories on depth perception emerging from monocularly and binocularly. in the next chapter, gilchrist deals with the objective and subjective sides of perceptual experiences and their difference as two approaches regarding experimental investigations. gilchrist defines and separates these two sides and explains how gestaltists opposed this dualism and still how the dualistic view (subjective/objective sides of perceptual experience) persists today. by emphasizing on the difference between sensational and cognitive judgments, he cautions that the instructions during experiments must be carefully worded and defined whether to evoke a sensational or a cognitive judgment in the perceptual experiments. in the sixth chapter, macleod rejects the notion that perception is independent of the observer’s affective state and previous experience. he explains that our visual perception is affected by neural top-down (cognitive) influences, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 204–207 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.731 pazhoohi 205 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as neurons of all cortical areas are connected via feedbacks to other cortical areas, which consequently leads to a discussion of subjective attentional priorities and experiences. in the seventh chapter, clark defines and explains the notions of the ‘appearances’ of perceptible items –the properties that the subject perceives– and their ‘phenomenal’ properties–how things appear according to subject’s mental state. to discuss these notions, he uses examples of perceptual illusions on lightness and brightness. clark argues that through three processes of perceptual grouping, perceptual organizing and attention, we add inexistence elements to items to yield ‘phenomenal’ results. in the eighth chapter, cohen tries to bring our focus to the fact that visual perception can consciously represent contradictory presentations of a specific phenomenon simultaneously, creating a dual representation which he calls the puzzle cases. then in the rest of the chapter, in a philosophical approach, he tries to answer how these dual representation views happen and how we perceive these two properties distinctly. in a philosophical argument, cohen emphasizes his computational view which relates to the difference between the perceptual input and output stages of the perception creating disparate perceptions and contradictory properties of a specific object. in the ninth chapter, olkkonen, hansen and gegenfurtner discuss why color vision is important and ecologically adaptive as a perceptual ability and suggest that color vision facilitates object discrimination while avoiding numerous and confounding possible perceptual states of the world. color constancy enables identification of a given object despite the variation in illumination. thereafter the authors review the literature on the investigations of ‘memory color’, which is the effect of the prior experience or previously seen color of a thing on the current color perception of that thing. the authors introduce their novel experimental method for the memory color investigation which is the adjustment of stimulus color by the observer to avoid the possible confounding effects of color memory. finally the authors of this chapter discuss the effects of prior knowledge of color appearance on object identification. at the beginning of the tenth chapter, hilbert explores color constancy under different illuminations and claims that the phenomenology of color constancy is not stable. the rest of the chapter gives a philosophical take on the limitations in the definition of concepts like computation, judgment and inference. in the eleventh chapter, sarah allred brings up the topic of ambiguity in color experience (ambiguity in image formation, visual ambiguity due to the physiological properties of the photoreceptors and the existence of noise in the physiological system) and suggests a bayesian computational approach to the problem of sensory ambiguity and information loss. although they converge under a main topic, each chapter of this volume could be considered as a separate paper. also, in some chapters, the reader is confronted with philosophical claims which seem hard to test and are nonfalsifiable claims, aiming to answer the proximal mechanisms of perception (e.g., cohen’s “computation and the ambiguity of perception”). in addition, like allred’s chapter, the volume could have benefited from more neuroscientific perspectives, such as those underlying the neuronal mechanism of color constancy and reflection properties, and visual evoked potentials recordings in the investigation of color vision, to name just a few. another approach that the book could be benefited from would be the study of non-human animals’ visual experience regarding color constancy and visual cognition. this volume represents the recent fundamental theories and findings concerning visual experience through the works of leading scholars and professionals of the field. a key strength of this volume, unlike many similar books, is its tolerance towards opposing ideas and views, as the authors of different chapters have different views and sometimes contradictory opinions about a specific topic, making the volume’s overall attitude unbiased. the book is unique in the way that it shows the recent understandings in the philosophy of perception, which could be europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 204–207 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.731 visual experience 206 http://www.psychopen.eu/ considered in line with the classic works such as kant and merleau-ponty on perception. also this volume could be considered as a follow-up on hatfield’s previous volume, perception and cognition: essays in the philosophy of psychology (hatfield, 2009), which is his perspectives on different aspects of vision from theoretical issues in visual perception and cognition to color perception. due to the nature of the volume which is a discussion regarding the recent findings in visual experience with a focus on the philosophical point of view, it seems that the book is written mainly for the professionals of the field and does not seem to be an easy read for non-professionals and general readers. visual perception is therefore an essential resource for the professionals and researchers in the fields of visual perception, theory of mind and philosophy of science. references hatfield, g. (2009). perception and cognition: essays in the philosophy of psychology. new york, ny: oxford university press. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 204–207 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.731 pazhoohi 207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en visual experience (article body) references (dis)obedience in u.s. american young adults: a new way to describe authority relationships research reports (dis)obedience in u.s. american young adults: a new way to describe authority relationships maura pozzi* a, alessandro quartiroli b, sara alfieri a, francesco fattori c, carlo pistoni a [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. [b] department of psychology, university of wisconsin – la crosse, la crosse, wi, usa. [c] ucd school of nursing, midwifery and health systems – university college dublin, dublin, ireland. abstract the present research aims to investigate the psychosocial phenomena of obedience and disobedience in young adults residing in the united states, as a replication of a previous study by pozzi, fattori, bocchiaro, and alfieri (2014). we utilize social representation theory as a means to better understand and define (dis)obedience, a behavioral dimension of the concept of authority. the analysis was conducted using a concurrent mixed methods design. one hundred and fifty-one participants completed a self-report online questionnaire. the results indicate that participants see both obedience and disobedience as related to an authority. obedience was mostly perceived as an ability to be responsive to laws, social norms, or physical authorities, as well as a positive social object. disobedience, instead, was defined as a failure of a negative line of conduct. these results differ from previous research, contributing meaningfully and pragmatically to the theoretical debate on (dis)obedience. theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. keywords: obedience, disobedience, social representation, cultural comparison, young adults europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 received: 2016-10-05. accepted: 2017-12-16. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, l.go frà gemelli, 1, 20123 milano (italy). tel: +39 02 7234 2686. fax: +39 02 7234 2642. e-mail: maura.pozzi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. authority relationship, obedience, and disobedience are fundamental components of everyday life within family dynamics (bray & harvey, 1992; darling, cumsille, & loreto martínez, 2007; fromm et al., 1936), the workplace (özcan, 2014) and school (xiao, 1999). as such, social scientists have been investigating these topics for decades (fromm, horkheimer, mayer, & marcuse, 1936; moraro, 2014). within the field of social psychology, stanley milgram was the first person to study issues of authority in human relationships, as he examined obedience beginning in 60s (milgram, 1963). milgram tried to explain why persons obey (or disobey) an authority’s unjust requests. this study now represents a milestone in the field of social psychology, as over the last 50 years, it has inspired several replications through experimental research design (e.g., brannigan, nicholson, & cherry, 2015; burger, 2009) and has been connected to diverse issues such as morality (kohlberg, 1985) and citizenship development (marzana, marta, & pozzi, 2012a, 2012b). all studies examining obedience and disobedience assume milgram's definition, originating from an everyday use: “if y follows the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ command of x we shall say that he has obeyed x; if he fails to carry out the command of x, we shall say that he has disobeyed x” (milgram, 1965, p. 58). traditional literature on (dis)obedience has assumed and verified that milgram’s assumption and definition of (dis)obedience is valid worldwide (benjamin & simpson, 2009; blass, 2009; burger, 2009; miller, 2009; reicher, haslam, & miller, 2014). the choice of a positivist method to study a phenomenon such as (dis)obedience, left a dearth of understanding about authority relationships. although this initial deductive approach to (dis)obedience has increased our understanding of this topic and played an important role in the current literature (e.g., passini & morselli, 2009; reicher et al., 2014), a more inductive approach to the study of these social processes is necessary (charmaz, 2008; mörtl & gelo, 2015). the continuous use of experimental paradigm (blass, 2012) left uncovered what doise (1986) theorized as the ideological level of analysis. social representation theory (srt) shines particularly useful light on issues of (dis)obedience (moscovici, 1961). social representations (srs) are defined as set of beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and behavioral intention that persons, belonging to a specific social group, have referring to a social object (e.g. family, power, money) (moscovici, 1961). for instance, what people mean by (dis)obedience is co-construed by people in their interpersonal relationship in the same social group (i.e., ethnic, political, religious, cultural, professional, scientific). thus, srs form a general way of thinking, feeling, and behaving within particular group (abric, 2003; fattori, curly, et al., 2015; fattori, pozzi, marzana, & mannarini, 2015; gelo et al., 2016; moscovici, 2011; pozzi et al., 2014). within the context of italian culture, pozzi, fattori, bocchiaro, and alfieri (2014) utilized the framework of social representation theory defined (dis)obedience as a socially constructed phenomena. pozzi et al. (2014) argued that obedience can be seen as a context dependent behavior, neither positive nor negative per se. obedience and disobedience, in the italian context are related to the concept of authority (individuals, institutions, and society). while mostly considered an uncritical response to laws, social norms, or physical authorities, disobedience was also defined as an active, conscious line of conduct in which some issues related to freedom and society. this advancement highlights the positive and prosocial element of disobedience. social representation theory and its importance the pertinence of srt (moscovici, 1961) in studying authority relationship has been widely recognized (e.g., fattori, curly, et al., 2015; galli, 2006; leman & duveen, 1999; marzana et al., 2016; moscovici, 2011; pozzi et al., 2014). srt is a complex paradigm theorizing that all the people belonging to a specific social group share and contribute to the co-construction of common conceptions about a social object (lo monaco, piermattéo, rateau, & tavani, 2017; moscovici, 1961). in the present study, the social-object is the authority relationship and its behavioral expressions of obedience and disobedience. these shared representations stem from interpersonal relations, communication, media influence, and the cultural history of the group, and helps people comprehend the world and communicate with others (moscovici, 1961). starting from moscovici’s theorizations, abric (1993) developed a structuralist approach, theorizing that a sr is composed by a content, a set of beliefs, attitudes, and scripts, and is organized in a precise structure. abric (2003) conceives the representational structure as composed by a central core, called nucleus, and a periphery. nuclear elements give unity and stability to the representations, while peripheral elements allow plasticity to the representation, giving persons belonging to the same social group, the possibility to have pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 405 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ different conceptions of the same representation. all the information, beliefs, ideas, and attitudes related to a specific object of representation, give meaning to the representation according to their place in the structure. specifically, nuclear elements are key components defining the social object, while peripheral elements can be behavioral tendencies, the expression of a minority group, or elements fading in or out from the representation (fasanelli, galli, & sommella, 2005). in this perspective, authority relationship can be viewed as a relationship of obedience and disobedience as two social representation objects for two main reasons (galli, 2006). the first one is that they respect the inclusion criteria defining when a social object can be a social representation object: a) having a strong social relevance; b) being object of social interaction; c) being in relation with other social objects (e.g., via power, dominance, hierarchy); and d) referring to social norms and values strictly connected between them. the second reason is given by the intrinsic and contingent nature of the topic. obedience and disobedience are phenomena with which people deal every day, often implicitly, throughout their entire lives, and that nowadays are important social issues about which people want to communicate (chomsky, 2013; galli, 2006). at a methodological level, this means that: (1) open-ended self-report questionnaires will be used to collect verbal material about a specific social object (dis)obedience; (2) the contents depicted in this verbal material should be analyzed with regard of both their frequency of appearance (indicative of how much they are shared within a group) and the rank of relevance (indicative of how much they are important within a group) (abric, 2003; fasanelli, galli, & sommella, 2005). the result is a matrix organized as follow: (a) a nucleus (high frequency and high rank), representing the core and most stable sr features shared by the group. (b) a first periphery (high frequency and low rank), representing less central and more open to change but still representative aspects of the sr. (c) the elements of contrast (low frequency and high rank), which are characteristic of a possible minority within the considered social group; these elements are more open to change than the elements of the first periphery. (d) finally, a second periphery (low frequency and low rank), representing the least representative characteristics of the minority (a lower amount of individuals) and presents the highest degree of openness and flexibility to change (abric, 2003; fasanelli et al., 2005). some scholars assumed social representations are ruled by opposite concepts of interaction, called themata (see marková, 2003 for a more detailed description). in this research, in accordance with previous results by pozzi et al. (2014), we choose to adopt a more structural approach such as abric (2003) suggests. the need to communicate about obedience and disobedience reaffirm the salience of these two social objects, making them important representational objects. through interpersonal communication, people share knowledge about authority relationship and obedience and disobedience, shaping beliefs and attitudes useful to take a position and to act properly in the social world. in sum, sr can be seen as tool for communication and to behave in social interactions. it is the transformation of abstract concepts in real guidelines that people can follow to be functional in the social world. given these premises, this paper aims to replicate the study by pozzi et al. (2014) in order to verify if the new definition of (dis)obedience, identified through the srt, is also applicable in the context where milgram's original definition was developed. specifically, we attempt to answer two research questions: a) how can obedience and disobedience as social representation objects be defined within u.s. culture, and b) are there differences between the u.s. and previous results on social representations of (dis)obedience? in this research we hypothesize that us young adults will evoke the same italian’s sr of (dis)obedience. for italians obedience is both: (a) the respect for social norms given by an institutional authority and (b) the compliance with orders or u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 406 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ requests given by a physical authority. obedience is constantly assessed (in its value) considering the request and the outcome of the act of obedience. obedience is often accepted passively and unconditionally by the actor in the authority relationship. thus, disobedience is intended as a lack of respect of both (a) laws and rules that may be imposed by a physical authority and/or (b) for social norms imposed by social group. disobedience is always context related, that means that the assessment of a disobedient act depends on the context in which it is implemented and on the outcomes. the disobedience act is always under the subject’s awareness: this means that those who disobey conceive the illegitimacy of a request or the injustice of a rule in a specific situation and decide to oppose to it consciously. method participants a sample of 151 u.s. young adults (79 female; 52.3%)i aged between 19 and 25 years (m = 22.7, sd = 1.3) took part in this study on a voluntary basis and signed participation consent forms. seventy participants (33 female; 47.1%) answered the questionnaire related to obedience (m = 22.96; sd = 1.481) while 81 participants (46 female; 56.8%) answered the questionnaire related to disobedience (m = 22.46; sd = 1.078). one hundred and eleven participants (73.5%) identified as university students, 27 (17.9%) identified as student-workers, and 8 (5.3%) indicated they were workers. eighty-nine (58.9%) participants stated that they have a college degree, 58 (38.4%) indicated having a high school degree, and three (2%) reported having a phd. participants were recruited through a convenience sampling procedure in two north american higher education institutions located on both east and west coast. the study was approved by the institutional review boards of the institutions where data collection took place. research design a mixed-method research design was conducted. the central premise of using mixed methods is that an intentional and synergic integration of quantitative and qualitative approaches provides a better understanding of research problems than either approach alone, as it provides more comprehensive evidence for studying a research problem, especially when it is very complex and asks for multiple sources of data (creswell & plano clark, 2011). by using a convergent parallel mixed-method design, the intent of the research is to concurrently collect both quantitative and qualitative data, to analyze both datasets, and to integrate the findings in a coherent enriched manner. this process would allow researcher to validate one set of results with the other (alfieri, 2017; aresi & pedersen, 2016; creswell, 2013; gelo, braakmann, & benetka, 2008). we obtained a data corpus (the content of the representation), treated qualitatively through a thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006), and a data set (structure of the representation) analyzed quantitatively using evoc2000 software (vergès, 2002). in order to analyze the content of the representation, on each single data corpus (one for obedience and one for disobedience), we first labeled the collected open answers (level 1-coding), then we identified groups of labels which have similar meaning and clustered them identifying main overarching themes (level 2-coding), and finally explored and analyzed the relationships among the themes into a concise, coherent narrative which “connects” the emerged themes. at first, the four judges independently completed the analysis on both obedience and disobedience, and then, as a group, they finalized the analysis through a negotiation process. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 407 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the structure of the representation, has been recreated by inserting the terms, results of the free associations, in evoc2000 (vergès, 2002). before this operation, the terms had been clustered into semantic categories or lemmas. these categories are the result of a matching process between all the words with similar meanings according to the explanation given by the participants (“why have you chosen x?”). according to the structural approach theorization (abric, 2003; vergès, 1992), the evoc 2000 software generates a matrix composed by four quadrants taking into account both frequency and ranking. as fasanelli et al. (2005) indicate, “only the intersection of these two [qualitative and quantitative] criteria allows for the identification of the statute of constitutive elements of the social representation being studied” (p. 113). instrument a self-report online questionnaire was administered using qualtrics online platformii to college students in two higher education institutions in the united states. this instrument was composed of two sections: 1. an open-ended question framed to investigate the content of the representation (“in your opinion, what is obedience?” and “in your opinion, what is disobedience?”); 2. an exercise of free associations based on the hierarchized evocation technique (vergès, 1992), to disclose the structure of the representation. participants were asked to associate five nouns and five adjectives with the inductor word (“obedience” for half of the sample, “disobedience” for the other half) and to rank them by importance. to disambiguate nouns and adjectives, subjects were asked to briefly explain their choice (fasanelli et al., 2005). results obedience thematic analysis according to the participants in the study, the term obedience evoked an act of compliance with orders and rules (level 2-coding). a common idea presented by the participants was the idea that obedience is the tendency of “doing what one is told.” for example, “obedience is when you obey certain task, to comply with rules and laws” (participant 1); “obedience is when you listen to what is being told” (participant 2). participants used different labels to indicate how the authority asks for obedience: ordersiii, norms, rules, laws and guidelines (level 1-coding). participants defined obedience as “how well you listen to directions, laws or guidelines and how well you follow them” (participant 69). they also defined it as “willingly following laws, rules, guidelines, and expectations” (participant 67), as well as “following the rules set by someone else” (participant 45). authority was mainly considered in a one-to-one relationship (level 2-coding) (parents, superiors, and teachers). however, a few participants indicate society, as a whole, as an authority, defining obedience as “being able to follow rules or direct commands given by some[one] of higher authority then you” (participant 10) and as the tendency to follow “the norms of our society” (participant 19). obedience also evokes the theme of ability (level 2-coding), which is something that individuals learn since childhood. some participants indicated how obedience is “the ability or willingness to follow something” (participant 50), while others defined it as “one’s ability to remain faithful and committed to something” (participant 46). participants conceive different ways of being obedient (level 2-coding), from agreeing and u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 408 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ willingly accepting the order to blindly obey. in this context, participants described it as “following directions and accepting to agree about something” (participant 19), “being able to listen, obey, and confirm with what you are told, but respectively and with no hesitation” (participant 25), and “doing things that may go against your personal preference in order to support a greater overall good” (participant 71). loyalty (level 2-coding), was defined by participants as faithfulness towards people who depend on your action. for example, a participant reported how “being obedient is remaining faithful to those who you care about and to those who depend on you for fulfilling certain wants or needs” (participant 37). similarly, another participant defined obedience as “one’s ability to remain faithful and committed to something” (participant 46). from participants’ answers arises a positive view (level 2-coding) of obedience. for example, while a participant describes obedience as “always doing the right thing. even if you're told otherwise” (participant 31), another describes it as “following an order in a good manner and good attitude” (participant 43). structure analysis the structure analysis of the sr enables the researcher to organize the results in a 4 quadrants table. the upper left quadrant of the output (see table 1 and 2 respectively for obedience and disobedience), characterized by a high frequency and high average rank of appearance, includes the terms belonging to the nucleus. these elements are fundamental and stable components that form the central core of the representation, and represent the stability and unity of the sr. the first periphery, located in the upper right quadrant, is characterized by a high frequency of appearance and by a low average rank of appearance: these terms indicate the behavioral tendencies related to the sr (palmonari & emiliani, 2009). the elements of contrast located in the third quadrant, on the lower left, are characterized by a low frequency of appearance and by a high average rank of appearance. the terms in this section can characterize the nucleus or symbolize the tendencies of a minority. the second periphery, the lower right quadrant, is characterized by a low frequency of appearance and low average rank of appearance. here, we found the elements going in or out from the representation. see table 1 for the structures’ summary and comparison. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 409 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 social representation structure – obedience nucleus first periphery nouns f ≥ 13 rank < 3 nouns f ≥ 13 rank ≥ 3 family 21 1.7 school 33 3.4 rules 16 2.2 animals 25 3.9 respect 16 2.8 army 16 3.1 children 14 2.7 religion 13 2.7 adjectives f ≥ 13 rank < 3 adjectives f ≥ 13 rank ≥ 3 positive 30 2.9 submissive 19 3.5 respectful 21 2.4 compliant 21 2.8 faithful 16 2.9 obeying 13 1.8 loyal 13 2.1 elements of contrast second periphery nouns 7 ≤ f < 12 rank < 3 nouns 7 ≤ f < 12 rank ≥ 3 follower 10 2.2 superior 10 3.3 loyalty 10 2.5 compliance 8 3.0 work 10 2.7 law 8 3.2 police 8 2.0 conformity 7 3.9 attention 6 3.8 social-order 6 3.0 adjectives 6 ≤ f < 12 rank < 3 adjectives 6 ≤ f < 12 rank ≥ 3 willing 11 2.1 strict 10 3.4 smart 6 2.7 hard 7 3.3 dutiful 6 3.0 listened 6 3.7 note. f = frequency. disobedience thematic analysis for the majority of the participants, disobedience was perceived as the refusal to obey a law or an authority order (level 2-coding). moreover, it is an act against different types of authority (level 2-coding) identified in parents or superiors. for example, one participant reported that disobedience is an act of being “disobedient to your parents, the police, to teachers, or even to god”iv (participant 12). participants identified different types of “orders” (level 2-coding) with commands, rules, and laws (level 1-coding) being the most cited. one participant reported how disobedience “is the lack of obedience or not obeying a rule, law, or an order” (participant 52). disobedience evokes the theme of failure (level 2-coding), clearly observed in the participants’ tendency to define disobedience as “failing to obey certain laws to be followed” (participant 46), “failure to abide by the rules, order, regulation” (participant 6), and “failure to obey an authoritative figure” (participant 73). u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 410 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, participants reported that disobedience evokes an intentional behavior (level 2-coding), as captured by some of the participants’ statements. for example participants defined disobedience as “intentionally going against what you are expected to do” (participant 48), “blatant disrespect for the person who you are intentionally undermining” (participant 62), and “voluntarily and purposefully violating a superiors orders” (participant 76). overall, disobedience was perceived as a negative behavior: “defined as misbehavior” (participant 80), “doing the wrong things” (participant 87), and “not doing the right thing or being negligent” (participant 102). structure analysis in analyzing the structure of the social representation of disobedience, see section "obedience: structure analyses" above for the meaning of the quadrants. table 2 social representation structure – disobedience nucleus first periphery nouns f ≥ 12 rank < 3 nouns f ≥ 12 rank ≥ 3 prison 24 2.8 children 29 3.4 disrespect 21 2.6 animals 21 3.3 criminal 18 2.8 negativity 19 3.4 rebellion 19 3.3 adjectives f ≥ 10 rank < 3 adjectives f ≥ 10 rank ≥ 3 negative 64 2.9 rebellious 38 3.0 rude 21 2.8 naughty 14 3.1 disrespectful 19 2.2 stubborn 16 2.9 elements of contrast second periphery nouns 7 ≤ f ≤ 11 rank < 3 nouns 7 ≤ f ≤ 11 rank ≥ 3 ignorance 11 2.6 rule 8 3.1 school 10 2.8 insubordination 7 3.0 non compliance 9 2.4 time-out 7 3.6 defiant 9 2.6 troublemakers 6 4.0 teenager 8 2.7 punishment 7 2.3 law 7 2.6 adjectives 6 ≤ f ≤ 9 rank < 3 adjectives 6 ≤ f ≤ 9 rank ≥ 3 ignorant 9 2.8 non compliant 9 3.8 defiant 8 2.1 sad 6 2.3 note. f = frequency. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 411 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this section deals with the aggregation and the comparison between thematic and structural analysis of both obedience and disobedience. as previously stated by some structuralist scholars (abric, 2003; fasanelli et al., 2005), only from the combination of the content and its structure is it possible to gain the complete meaning of a social representation. obedience – comparison content-structure we observed a striking similarity between nuclear elements and narrative themes, giving strength and unity to the representation of obedience. the terms rules and law confirm the necessity of an explicit form of order to evoke obedience. social norms and laws (e.g., national constitution, street code) have a fundamental role in regulating human behavior in a variety of social contexts (kelman & hamilton, 1989; passini & morselli, 2009). participants considered obedience as resulting from two processes of (non)consciousness: a) a blind answer to a request, as destructive obedience (blass, 2012; milgram, 1963), or b) as a conscious agreement to an order. this second process of obedience stems from the correspondence between individual and authority values (kelman & hamilton, 1989). for example, if a person shares the values of the authority, then he or she agrees with orders and norms they consider as coherent with the society’s fundamental values (haslam, reicher, & birney, 2014; reicher, haslam, & miller, 2014). parents, in fact, are fundamental models for children’s attitudes and behaviors, and their influence remains even in adulthood (alfieri et al., 2014a, 2014b, 2016; barni et al., 2013; iafrate, donato, & bertoni, 2013). furthermore, obedience is also considered as an ability, a positive skill a child should learn and act out during his or her lifespan. in fact, participants focused on obedience as the act of obeying figures such as parents and teachers, whom they follow in order to learn how to behave. terms as family and religion reinforce this last statement and represent places where a child, as evoked in the nuclear elements of the representation, coconstruct the sr of obedience. since piaget’s (1932) first reflections on the authority relationship, personified by the child-parent interaction, it has been hypothesized that the child experiences autonomy and heteronomy is through the first forms of social relations (i.e., family relations). the child is able to do so, by assessing these forms of thinking in a positive or negative way according to their parents’ values (leman & duveen, 1999). when childhood ends and the individual experiences different relational contexts, such as school, the military, and work, he or she learns obedience through socialization processes which are influenced by his or her cultural belonging (xiao, 1999). this thesis affirms once again with srt (moscovici, 1961) and with the importance of studying such phenomena through a societal approach. obedience also evokes the idea of respect (loyal, faithful, respectful), as the individual has to respect and be loyal to his or her commitments toward other people. according to this dimension, it is relevant to refer to kelman and hamilton’s (1989) study focused on military obedience. in a war context, a person is inclined to obey depending on three variables: (a) how the expectation of his or her social role imposes certain behaviors; (b) how to avoid sanctions and stigmatization; (c) how his or her values align with those conveyed by the authority’s request(s). the dimension of personal respect towards other people is evoked—an obedient person is someone who is reliable. u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 412 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, the representation of obedience, obtained via merging content and structure, is largely considered as positive (e.g., the most commonly used adjective in the nucleus was positive). disobedience – comparison content-structure a strong correspondence between content and structure emerged from the data, giving us a coherent representation of disobedience as a social object. the term disobedience evokes a lack of respect for the law or for a person’s order. it indicates a refusal to comply with an explicit command, whether in the form of a formal law or a verbal order. participants refer to commands in different ways along a continuum, going from very formal laws to verbal, more informal orders. disobedience evokes the concept of failure: a disobedient person is someone who is not able to do what he or she has been told to do. this topic recalls the educative level of obedience, that is, a person who does not learn from his or her family to behave properly in an authority relationship, is going experience more difficulty obeying. a disobedient person is considered uneducated (ignorance, stubborn, rude), because he or she does not respect other people and does not know how to behave in occasions where obedience is required, showing a lack of respect for social norms. once again, we have concrete subjects of disobedience: children, animals and teenagers, revealing the conception of a one-to-one disobedience. another issue in the representation of disobedience is the level of intentionality. for the participants in the current study, disobedience is always an intentional behavior. this point seems to contradict the idea of disobedience as failure, because it considers disobedience as a planned and conscious act. this is an issue that accompanied disobedience since its first theorizations (lefkowitz, 2007; milgram, 1974). the reflections on conscious disobedience evolved from milgram’s (1974) conception of disobedience as an escape behavior from a stressing situation. according to milgram, people who cannot accept the authority’s order feel a cognitive dissonance. their inability to deal with such dissonance, and the attempt to reduce it, lead them to disobey to the order. however, other scholars began to uncover the processes underlying disobedience, both as historical analysis (kelman & hamilton, 1989; modigliani & rochat, 1995) and as experimental studies (bocchiaro & zimbardo, 2010; bocchiaro, zimbardo, & van lange, 2012). these studies highlighted how disobedience is a final outcome of a rational process. people challenging the status quo evaluate the authority request or the law as illegitimate, find alternatives to the situations, and finally, if they feel effective, they could disobey. people who cannot accept the authority’s orders experience a cognitive dissonance that leads them to disobey in order to reduce the dissonance. generally, this disobedience can be perceived as failure. participants perceive disobedience negatively, due to its evoking of a sense of wrong doing. moreover, the negative evaluation of disobedience stands out in the structure, monopolizing all the quadrants with the majority of terms having negative connotations. in this sense, nuclear elements such as prison and criminal are significant because they highlight the process of a disobedient act, which ends with one of the worst possible consequences and punishment: the loss of freedom. from these terms we can infer participants implicitly refer to disobedience as an antisocial behavior, something dangerous for people and for society. antisocial disobedience has been theorized as a specific type of disobedience (passini & morselli, 2013), which favors only one social groups and disadvantages the other groups (e.g., ku klux klan). there is no possibility to highlight a positive side of disobedience, such as pro-social disobedience (passini & morselli, 2009). pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 413 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ comparison between obedience and disobedience according to participants’ evocations, obedience and disobedience seem to be two partially overlapping representations, while concurrently being in strong opposition with each other. to have both obedience and disobedience it is necessary to have “orders” that can assume several forms. it is possible to have explicit order, such as in the contexts of the military or family (as the ones in milgram’s study in 1963), or implicit orders such as laws (e.g., via the constitution). obviously, these representations share the need for real authority figures to give orders or to create laws. different authorities express themselves through various channels to give orders. for instance, “institutional” authorities can create and establish laws that people must follow, while parents, to fulfill their role, can give verbal indications to their children. the sr of obedience and disobedience also point out the subjects who can obey or disobey. in both representations, participants refer to children, teenagers, and animals as the main subjects in an authority relationship, indicating a preference in configuring an authority relationship as a face-to-face (one-to-one) relationship. school as a place of obedience and disobedience focuses on children, but also on educative figures such as teachers, who should teach a child how to behave properly and that are to be obeyed. in fact, obedience evokes the concept of ability, something that a person should learn in his or her first stages of life. when a person fails in learning this ability, then disobedience likely stands out. moreover, while obedience evokes compliance to social norms, there are no references for social or civil disobedience. another strong difference emerges through the participants’ polarization in the assessment of obedience and disobedience. the former evokes exclusively positive terms and adjectives, while the latter seems to be represented as something negative, for its nature and consequences. these antinomies, represented by the couple abilityfailure and positive-negative, remind us of the dialogical approach within the srt (marková, 2003). namely, assumed social representations are ruled by opposite concepts of interaction, called themata. themata are diads of opposite concepts, such as positive-negative, that serve to interpret the social world. for example, if a child learns that obedience is positive, he or she will learn that everything that is not coherent or similar to obedience is negative. in this way people categorize the social world, creating their own representations deriving from the collective memory of the social group to which they belong. regarding our first research question, we offer a definition of obedience and disobedience according to the srt paradigm (moscovici, 1961). obedience is seen as the respect of orders that can be verbal, as parents with children or sergeant with soldiers, or written, as the constitutional laws or the code of the street. these “orders” necessarily come from an authority that can assume different forms, such as a parent, a superior at workplace, or his or her own social group or society in general. obedience can be blind or critical, depending upon if the obedient person reflects on and agrees with the values underlining the authority request or with the norms imposed by society. disobedience, conversely, is a lack of respect of orders, given by an individual authority or of a formalized law, inserted in civil codes. it is defined as a behavior performed by an individual towards another individual representing the authority. disobedience is always intentional and it is the outcome of a rational, cognitive process. it is defined as a negative behavior, and in its extreme cases can lead to imprisonment. u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 414 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ comparison between u.s. and previous results according to the second aim of the present research, the results highlighted more differences than similarities between previous results (pozzi et al., 2014 based on an italian sample) and u.s. participants. social representation of obedience italian and u.s. participants commonly evoked and shared three components: 1) individual authority, authority relationship as an interpersonal relationship; 2) social learning, social institutions such as family and school should teach obedience; 3) awareness, a necessity to agree with the authority’s request, in opposition to blind obedience. undoubtedly, family and school are the first contexts where a person experiences relationships with authorities and its limits (bray & harvey, 1992; fromm et al., 1936; xiao, 1999). parents and teachers represent the first authorities and their educative role is fundamental for the functional development of children’s critical thinking and moral reasoning (kohlberg, 1985; marzana et al., 2012a). a parental education that promotes reflections over ethics, morality, and political issues is fundamental for the growth of a future active citizen (alfieri et al., 2013; marta & cristini, 2012; marta, marzana, aresi, & pozzi, 2016; marta, pozzi, & marzana, 2010; marzana, marta, & pozzi, 2012b). interestingly, participants recalled a dimension of awareness, underlining the existence of a critical obedience in opposition to the well-known blind obedience. this result is an opportunity to stress the existence of constructive obedience, a fundamental feature of everyday life as it ensures social order (darley, 1995). results from the current study showed a difference between italian and u.s. american participants. specifically, within the italian sample, the sr of obedience evoked the respect to different types of norms and of institutional authorities. here, obedience referred to norms that range on a continuum from oral (e.g., command by superiors) to written norms (e.g. constitutional laws, civil code). again, a basic requisite for obedient behavior is the explication of the order, whether it is oral or written (passini & morselli, 2010). moreover, written norms usually come from institutional authorities, legitimate organs that, in their efficient forms, are necessary and facilitate the administration of civil life (passini & morselli, 2009). u.s. american participants represented obedience differently also because of their association with themes such as loyalty and personal respect. the issue of loyalty connected to obedience was analyzed by studies on military authority relationship (kelman & hamilton, 1989; pion-berlin, esparza, & grisham, 2014). analyzing obedience to superiors, pion-berlin et al. (2014) found that it was likely to happen when: “material interests were satisfied and where militaries identified with government, believed internal order missions to be appropriate, followed the law, and remained unified” (p. 246). within the u.s. american sample, this theme was connected to the ability and fear of punishment components. findings from the analysis of obedience behavior in military contexts revealed that military authority can also administer sanctions and punishment in order to ensure obedience (kelman & hamilton, 1989). coherently, obedience was considered as an ability, something that a person needs to know how to enact. moreover, italians evaluated obedience neither positively nor negatively, while u.s. american participants conceived it as entirely positive. given the recent debate on the military psychology (e.g. the british psychological society), it seems interesting to compare these results with those of a recent study on young italian soldiers (manuscript submitted for publication). in fact, it appears that sr of (dis)obedience of italian soldiers has similarities to the american civilians’ sr. given these results, it seems interesting to study this topic and the connection between the two sr and deepen the debate. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 415 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social representation of disobedience the term “disobedience” evoked more themes and components than “obedience”. all the samples included the following themes in the social representation of disobedience: 1) disobedience as lack of norm respect; 2) disobedience as expression of autonomy; 3) different types of orders convey disobedience; 4) awareness, disobedience is always a chosen act; 5) punishment, as a consequence of disobedience. the issue of personal autonomy has been largely debated within the literature, from the eteronomy-autonomy dichotomy (milgram, 1974) to the last reflections on civil disobedience (moraro, 2014; vecina, marzana, & paruzel-czachura, 2015). according to these last insights, citizens are allowed to use a certain degree of force in opposition to coercion implemented by any other individual or institution. more precisely, it is reasonable to address moral autonomy (leman & duveen, 1999; sonnentag & mcdaniel, 2013) for positive disobedient actions, that is, the “inner” authority, composed by moral and ethical standards, opposed to the external authority. accordingly, disobedience is evoked as a choice or result of an aware process and that requires more effort to be implemented (sonnentag & mcdaniel, 2013). disobedience evoked the theme of punishment, which, in this case, was seen as a consequence and not as a cause. in fact, disobedient people are often punished with retaliation by superiors (berry, 2004), as well as with exclusion and stigmatization from their social groups (milgram, 1974). italians represented disobedience as civil and directed to an institutional authority. civil disobedience is the most discussed type of disobedience since the reflections of the greek myths such as antigone, lysistrata and prometheus (laudani, 2010). one of the defining features of disobedience is to be addressed by an institutional authority (thoreau, 1849). similarly, regarding what observed with the social representation of obedience, u.s. american participants considered disobedience as a lack of personal respect (loyalty) towards a person and as a failure (vs obedience as ability). lastly, italians evaluated disobedience according to the consequences of its implementation, while americans considered it always negative. conclusions social psychologists agree with the need to change the point of view on authority relationship, to disobey the traditional paradigm and methods used to inquire about obedience and disobedience (morselli & passini, 2012a; pozzi et al., 2014). in this paper, the use of the srt (moscovici, 1961) provides a fundamental contribution in analyzing authority relationship from a societal level, examining it in a study on social representations of obedience and disobedience in u.s americans and comparing it with previous research examining italian participants. scholars can give sr a more central role in studying this phenomenon, trying to integrate the study of isolated individuals with a more global look at relations. by doing this, it is possible to highlight how obedience and disobedience are not just behaviors, as clearly identified by multiple scholars across time (e.g., milgram, 1963; pozzi et al., 2014). instead, obedience and disobedience are composed and can be considered as attitudes. thus, this study allowed us to refer to the construct (dis)obedience, not only from a behavioral standpoint, but, instead, also evoking concepts related to affects and cognitions, which enabled us to defined it as an attitude, as inferred by the multiple component model of attitude (abcs of attitude by eagly & chaiken, 1993). according to this model, attitudes are the results of the influence of three components: affect (i.e. feelings and emotions elicited by the attitude object – in this case (dis)obedience), behavior (i. e. past events or experiences related to attitude object), and cognition (i.e. attributes, beliefs, thoughts related to the attitude object) (aschieri et al., 2016). this approach allows the authors to place a new u.s. representation of (dis)obedience 416 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emphasis on the interpretation of the construct (dis)obedience as attitude, and, therefore, as an antecedent of behaviors. based on this idea, it is possible to develop models able to explain human behaviors, in which (dis)obedience in one of his components is consider an attitude. using abric’s (2003) approach in the study of the sr of (dis)obedience, allowed the authors to identify what elements are central, as opposed to those that instead are peripheral, in the study of such a complex construct. summing up, if these two phenomena define the relationship with the authority and if the relationship with the authority is a central theme in one’s adequate social life, it is relevant to explore the meanings attributed to these social objects. this process will enable an understanding of the possible dynamics elicited by the relationship with the authority, whether this is an individual, as presented by the participants of this study, or an institution (morselli & passini, 2012b; tamanza, gozzoli, & gennari, 2016). the present paper also responds to the claim of elcheroth, doise, and reicher (2011) calling for the study of social interactions through the use of “social representations”. testing cross-cultural differences can also help researchers better understand interpersonal processes in different countries, especially when analyzing relationships individuals face with their authorities, with a more critical view of how obedience and disobedience are defined (i.e., commonly through milgram’s 1963 lens). possible limitations of the current study include the use of a single instrument to evoke the social representations of obedience and disobedience. even if this instrument is an effective, reliable, and time-saving tool to uncover social representations (abric & tafani, 2009; fasanelli et al., 2005), interviewing the participants would have provided a deeper understanding of the content of the representations. in the future, it may also be fruitful to collect data from samples of other u.s. americans, aiming to verify the validity of these results. new samples could confirm or disprove the absence of any levels of the civil disobedience component within disobedience social representation in the u.s. as a possible development, authority relationship has been highlighted as a central theme in the study of civic participation (mannarini, roccato, fedi, & rovere, 2009; morselli & passini, 2012a), a type of social action that psychologists need to study from a societal point of view. moreover, future studies could analyze social representations of authority relationship within groups of activist or members of social movements, to clarify both at theoretical and practical levels, their conceptions of authorities, policies, and social change (e.g., fattori, pozzi, et al., 2015; aresi, fattori, pozzi, & moore, 2016; pozzi, pistoni, & alfieri, 2017). notes i) two people did not declare their gender. ii) https://www.qualtrics.com/qualtrics, provo, ut iii) henceforth, words in italics are the original terms evoked by the participants. iv) the majority of the participants (113 people) come from the so-called “bible belt”, a specific area in the southeastern and the south-central areas of the united states where religion is a pervasive aspect of everyday life and where church attendance is higher than the country’s average. funding the authors have no funding to report. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 417 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 https://www.qualtrics.com/qualtrics https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank dr. tony docan-morgan for his valuable feedback in the final editing phase of this manuscript. references abric, j. c. 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(1999). independence and obedience: an analysis of child socialization values in the united states and china. journal of comparative family studies, 30(4), 641-657. retrieved from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=hong_xiao about the authors maura pozzi – associate professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore italy). she earned a ph.d. in social and developmental psychology in the same university where she is a member of the psychology department and of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research since 2001. her research interests concern family functioning models, particularly focusing on intergenerational dynamics. currently she takes the post lecturer in social and community psychology. she is also co-investigator in several researches on family as well as volunteerism and authority relationship. alessandro quartiroli – associate professor of psychology at the university of wisconsin – la crosse. he earned a phd in sport and exercise psychology from the west virginia university (morgantown, wv, usa). he is currently a member of the psychology department at uwl where he teaches upper class undergraduate courses in health psychology and psychological measurement. currently his main areas of research focus on professional and ethical issues in sport and exercise psychology and the psychology of health behaviors. sara alfieri – psychologist and post doc researcher in the department of psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore (italy). her research focuses on family relationships with a particular emphasis on values, prejudice and stereotype. francesco fattori – phd in social and community psychology and psychologist. currently, post-doc researcher at the school of nursing, midwifery and health systems at the university college dublin (ucd). his research interests concern health systems and health professionals engagement. carlo pistoni – phd student in social psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore of milan (italy). his research interests focus on activism and collective action, political participation and volunteerism. pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri et al. 423 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 404–423 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1314 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2016.1245536 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2015.04.013 http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=hong_xiao https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ u.s. representation of (dis)obedience (introduction) social representation theory and its importance method participants research design instrument results obedience disobedience discussion obedience – comparison content-structure disobedience – comparison content-structure comparison between obedience and disobedience comparison between u.s. and previous results conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors how internal political efficacy translates political knowledge into political participation research reports how internal political efficacy translates political knowledge into political participation evidence from germany frank reichert*a [a] faculty of education and social work, university of sydney, sydney, australia. abstract this study presents evidence for the mediation effect of political knowledge through political self-efficacy (i.e. internal political efficacy) in the prediction of political participation. it employs an action theoretic approach—by and large grounded on the theory of planned behaviour—and uses data from the german longitudinal election study to examine whether political knowledge has distinct direct effects on voting, conventional, and/or unconventional political participation. it argues that political knowledge raises internal political efficacy and thereby indirectly increases the chance that a citizen will participate in politics. the results of mediated multiple regression analyses yield evidence that political knowledge indeed translates into internal political efficacy, thus it affects political participation of various kinds indirectly. however, internal political efficacy and intentions to participate politically yield simultaneous direct effects only on conventional political participation. sequentially mediated effects appear for voting and conventional political participation, with political knowledge being mediated by internal political efficacy and subsequently also by behavioural intentions. the mediation patterns for unconventional political participation are less clear though. the discussion accounts for restrictions of this study and points to questions for answer by future research. keywords: action theory, germany, internal political efficacy, political knowledge, political participation, theory of planned behaviour, voting europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 received: 2015-12-11. accepted: 2016-04-28. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: faculty of education and social work, education building a35, camperdown, the university of sydney, nsw 2006, australia. e-mail: frank.reichert@sydney.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it is commonly understood that people who are more knowledgeable in political realm and who feel more efficacious to influence political decisions are more politically active. although political knowledge may be considered a significant quality of politically active and involved citizens, most people’s knowledge about politics appears insufficient to meet the standards of a “competent citizen” (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; maier, 2000). moreover, there is still a need to understand how political knowledge might be relevant to increasing political participation. on the one hand, action theory suggests that subjective feelings of political efficacy might be more relevant than factual knowledge when predicting actual behaviour. on the other hand, the aforementioned scholars also suggest that political knowledge be a vital determinant of political efficacy. therefore, in order better to understand the mechanism of how political knowledge might influence citizens’ participation in the political realm, this article examines internal political efficacy as a potential mediator of political knowledge: following action theory, it argues that political knowledge stimulates the individual’s sense of political efficacy, which operates as a mediator by transmitting a substantial amount of that knowledge’s impact on actual participation in politics. the major contribution europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of this analysis is the application of action theory to the political realm using representative panel data, thereby going beyond previous research in the field. the present study focuses on germany, where longitudinal data are available, and thus mainly research from a german context is reflected; acknowledging that the predictors of participation may vary across national contexts. political knowledge, internal political efficacy and political participation political knowledge political knowledge is “the range of factual information about politics that is stored in long-term memory” (delli carpini & keeter, 1996, p. 10). more extensive knowledge about polity, politics, and policy is presumed to enable and encourage people to participate in politics (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; galston, 2001). indeed, empirical evidence suggests that political knowledge contributes to more stable and consistent political attitudes, helps citizens achieve their own interests and make decisions that conform with their attitudes and preferences, promotes support for democratic values, facilitates trust in the political system, and motivates political participation (galston, 2001). it is therefore not merely rational to acquire political knowledge for self-interest purposes, but political knowledge is also a motivational force. as such a multifunctional variable, it increases the chance effectively to achieve own political goals. the mechanism how political knowledge translates into political behaviour is not fully understood yet, however, but it is sensible to assume that this mechanism might involve an individual’s political self-efficacy (see below). internal political efficacy the concept of “self-efficacy” relies on the distinction between “outcome expectations”—“a person’s estimate that a given behavior will lead to certain outcomes”—and “efficacy expectations”—“the conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes” (bandura, 1977, p. 193). the latter is an individual’s expectation of being able to act successfully to gain the objective aimed. with regard to politics, this comprises the feeling that one is capable of understanding political facts and processes and that one feels capable of influencing politics successfully (almond & verba, 1965; balch, 1974; campbell, gurin, & miller, 1954). consequently, internal political efficacy involves a person’s subjective assessment of his or her political knowledge, among other things such as the belief in one’s behavioural skills and that the actions undertaken will have an impact. although some scholars use different vocabulary, such as an individual’s “self-concept of political competence” (krampen, 2000b), “political self-efficacy” (caprara, vecchione, capanna, & mebane, 2009; see also madsen, 1987, whose construct of “political self-efficacy” joins items that reflect both internal and external efficacy) or “subjective political competence” (koch, 1993; pickel, 2002; reichert, 2013), these concepts equate to internal political efficacy, which is the more common term. that is, the self-concept of an efficacious citizen describes him or her as politically competent and powerful. it is therefore no surprise that internal political efficacy has been considered as a motivational factor in rational pathways to political participation (finkel, 1985; see also jung, kim, & de zúñiga, 2011), as it combines both elements of rationality and motivation. indeed, numerous studies show that internal political efficacy plays a significant, positive role in political participation (condon & holleque, 2013; krampen, 2000b; schulz, ainley, fraillon, kerr, & losito, 2010). krampen (2000b, p. 290) concludes, for instance, “the variables of frequency of political activity in everyday life, self-concept of political competence, and political knowledge in adolescence are the most significant discriminators for voting versus nonvoting behavior of young adults.” hence, both political knowledge and internal political efficacy are europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 222 http://www.psychopen.eu/ precursors of political participation, and some scholars suggest that this might also hold for political activities other than voting (gallego & oberski, 2012; johann, 2012; westle, 2011, 2012). kinds of political participation when we talk about “political participation”, we refer to activities undertaken voluntarily by a citizen to influence authoritative or generally binding regulations and decisions related to the political system (van deth, 2014). behavioural intentions are strong predictors of actual behaviour (ajzen, 2012), although the correlational relationship between both is by no means perfect (fishbein & ajzen, 1981; gaiser & de rijke, 2010). even so citizens’ intentions to perform political behaviour are often conceptualised as political participation too. we may distinguish four kinds of political participation (e.g., barnes et al., 1979; steinbrecher, 2009): voting in political elections does not require intense effort, nor is it bound to a strong commitment. the only constraint on voting is formal regulations (e.g., citizenship).conventional political activities are traditional, often institutionalized and party-related forms of participation (e.g., supporting an election campaign). these activities ask for a higher degree of commitment and a more extensive investment of time by its activists. unconventional activities refer to a broad range of less institutionalized and usually less time-intensive or committed political participation located outside political parties (e.g., attending a non-violent political protest march) that often deal with rather narrow social or political issues or aim at solving a certain political problem. alternatively, this kind of participation could be labelled “issue-based participation”, even though the present research employs the more traditional terminology. non-normative political activities, such as participation in an unauthorised or violent political demonstration, are located outside the legal framework and will not be considered here. political knowledge, efficacy and participation it is obvious that political knowledge, internal political efficacy and political participation must be correlated with each other, and research suggests that political knowledge and efficacy are of greater predictive value for explaining political participation than vice versa (finkel, 1985; vetter & maier, 2005). according to contemporary wisdom, political knowledge “promotes political participation” (galston, 2001, p. 224), and the same applies to internal political efficacy, as many studies report a positive impact of political efficacy on a range of political activities (balch, 1974; steinbrecher, 2009; vecchione et al., 2014; verba, schlozman, & brady, 1995). while much empirical research was concerned with voting behaviour, showing that political knowledge increases the likelihood to vote (e.g., amadeo, torney-purta, lehmann, husfeldt, & nikolova, 2002; delli carpini & keeter, 1996; howe, 2006; krampen, 2000b), research has also focused on other kinds of political participation, however. on the one hand, scholars find the influence of political knowledge to be smaller with respect to other political activities (milner, 2007; oesterreich, 2003), and others even suggest that internal political efficacy might be the more robust predictor of unconventional political activities in comparison to the impact of political knowledge (kuhn, 2006; schulz et al., 2010). on the other hand, some studies provide evidence for the simultaneous predictive value of internal political efficacy and political knowledge on institutionalized and unconventional political activities (gallego & oberski, 2012; johann, 2012; westle, 2011, 2012). hence, there is a need better to understand the mechanism of how political knowledge and efficacy affect political participation, because most previous research was constrained to the examination of bivariate relationships or models that included multiple predictors of participation, without focusing on the mechanism behind political knowledge and efficacy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ towards an action theoretic model of political participation evidence for the role of internal political efficacy versus political knowledge with respect to political participation is equivocal—especially because positive correlations between objective and subjective measures are only of moderate extent, at least in the german context, as shown for different measures of objective and subjective political knowledge (maier, 2000; oberle, 2012; westle, 2009). this might support the assumption that both political knowledge and internal political efficacy have separate effects on political participation. on the other hand, action theoretic models of behaviour ask how political knowledge translates into political participation and whether its potential effect is direct, indirect, or both direct and indirect. specifically, action theoretic models argue that it is about personal convictions of control and feelings of self-efficacy, yet not actual knowledge and skills that are most important in initiating behaviour (ajzen, 1991; bandura, 1977; krampen, 2000a). the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) (ajzen, 1991), in particular, shows that (normative, behavioural and control) beliefs determine behaviour. conceptually, perceived behavioural control corresponds to self-efficacy, which refers to internal political efficacy in political realm. moreover, research conducted in the vein of tpb suggests that accurate knowledge of a certain topic is neither sufficient nor necessary to predict actual behaviour (ajzen, joyce, sheikh, & cote, 2011). one study that employed tpb, for instance, found that overall blood donation knowledge did not predict blood donation intention directly, but it had the strongest mediation effect through self-efficacy (polonsky, renzaho, ferdous, & mcquilten, 2013). similarly, a study on the willingness to communicate about an environmental issue yielded positive effects of perceived knowledge about risks related to that issue on self-efficacy (dalrymple, shaw, & brossard, 2013). while perceived knowledge had no significant effect on the willingness to communicate, self-efficacy had significant positive effects. another study on the smoking behaviour of youths yielded that adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ knowledge about the offspring’s whereabouts and activities reduced the adolescent’s intention to smoke and actual smoking behaviour indirectly through self-efficacy not to smoke (harakeh, scholte, vermulst, de vries, & engels, 2004). in contrast, among the few studies in the tradition of tpb that are loosely related to forms of socio-political participation, some modelled a direct effect of knowledge on blood donation intentions or on wastepaper recycling behaviour and yielded rather insignificant or mixed results (cheung, chan, &wong, 1999; lemmens et al., 2005). hence, only internal political efficacy might be a direct predictor of political participation, as it could fully mediate the effect of political knowledge. following these thoughts, maybe subjective control and perceptions of efficacy are stronger predictors of political behaviour than actual knowledge about politics, and internal political efficacy might work as a mediating mechanism? such a mediation effect of political efficacy was, for example, discussed by delli carpini and keeter (1996); and jung et al. (2011) modelled an effect of political knowledge on internal political efficacy, while both were supposed to promote political participation. although these scholars did not statistically test this mediation effect, they implicitly assumed—and their results suggest the thesis—that political efficacy mediates the facilitating effect of political knowledge. conversely, vetter and maier (2005) find the regression coefficients in regression analyses to be slightly stronger for internal political efficacy predicting political knowledge than vice versa, though these scholars also did not test for mediated relationships. multiple mediation analyses of a study which was conducted in germany provide some evidence that internal political efficacy might indeed be the more proximal measure, as it mediated the effect of political knowledge on actual as well as intended conventional political participation (reichert, 2013). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 224 http://www.psychopen.eu/ due to limitations with respect to the sample, however, that study did not find mediated or direct effects of political knowledge with regard to other forms of political participation. in particular, the analysis by reichert (2013) had the character of a pre-test and exclusively comprised 76 university students of psychology. furthermore, only 41 students participated twice, and since no federal election took place during that study period, an examination of actual voting behaviour was impossible. hence, that research needs to be expanded in scope, owing to its obvious limitations, to examine whether the proposed mediation mechanism holds for the entire population. finally, we also need to address the role of behavioural intentions. tpb does not only posit that internal efficacy affects actual behaviour, but that it also predicts behavioural intentions which additionally mediate efficacy’s impact on actual behaviour, while efficacy retains its direct effect—above and beyond the significant impact of behavioural intentions (ajzen, 1991, 2012). based on recent research which indicates that internal political efficacy is of special significance in the prediction of conventional political participation (reichert, 2013), it is also necessary to examine whether internal political efficacy outweighs the impact of behavioural intentions with regard to conventional participation. in conclusion, the contribution of the present study lies in the examination of the mechanism how political knowledge affects different kinds of political participation, and whether its influence is mediated by internal political efficacy. furthermore, this study analyses a sequential mediation with behavioural intentions as additional mediators. although some scholars have discussed a mediated effect of political knowledge (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; jung et al., 2011), this mechanism has not yet been tested in the political realm, except for one study with severe limitations (reichert, 2013). in comparison, a major feature of the present analysis is the utilisation of panel data, which enable the examination of the suggested mediation mechanism with respect to actual (instead of merely intended) political behaviour using a more representative and comprehensive sample. hypotheses the research question that is central to this analysis asks how political knowledge influences different kinds of normative political participation, and it aims to clarify the role of internal political efficacy as a mediating mechanism. such a mechanism has been proposed by other scholars without proper testing (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; reichert, 2013). following those suggestions and tpb, we expect indirect (positive) influences of political knowledge on political participation, mediated by internal political efficacy due to an overlap of both variables in multiple regression analyses (h1). in particular, we assume the effect of political knowledge is fully mediated by internal political efficacy with regard to conventional political participation, i.e. political knowledge will not retain any effect on conventional participation when we control for political efficacy (h2). referring to the study by reichert (2013), which found no mediated effects for other forms of political participation, however, it needs to be explored whether and to what extent this mechanism also applies to voting and unconventional political participation. additionally, the impact of internal political efficacy may be mediated by behavioural intentions—which implies a sequential mediation of political knowledge by both internal political efficacy and willingness to participate (h3). this assumption derives directly from tpb which claims that both efficacy and behavioural intentions directly affect actual behaviour, while efficacy is additionally mediated by behavioural intentions. although the strength of this impact of political efficacy may vary across different forms of political participation, we expect them to be strongest—and more important than behavioural intentions—with regard to conventional political participation, based on study findings according to which particularly internal political efficacy and conventional political participation are positively correlated (reichert, 2013) (h4). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 225 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method procedure for the purpose of this study, we utilise the german longitudinal election study (gles) long-term panel (rattinger et al., 2012). we focus on germany as this is the home of the researcher, and it is the context where a previous study tapped into this mediation relationship, yet that study had obvious limitations with respect to its sample in terms of size, representativeness and the time period covered (reichert, 2013). the gles provides an opportunity to test the introduced hypotheses, as this dataset includes measures for political knowledge, internal political efficacy, and information about all three kinds of intended as well as actual political participation across time, which is quite rare. hence, the gles long-term panel is an appropriate choice, despite some constraints (see below). the gles long-term panel merges data from preand post-election surveys conducted around the elections to the german bundestag in 2002, 2005, and 2009 using a disproportionate stratified multistage random sampling design. the population includes people with german citizenship aged 16 years and older who lived in germany at the time of measurement. of 3,263 people surveyed in 2002, 902 participated again in the second wave in 2005, and still 641 participated in the third wave in 2009.i because of the disproportionate sample design, the east/west weight was employed in all analyses. cases with “mutations” in age or gender were excluded. similarly, participants with a reported immigration background were also eliminated from the analysis, due to the low number in the sample in comparison to the true population proportion (those who refused to report whether they were born in germany were excluded too). measures the independent variables used in this study were measured in 2002, while the dependent variables—political participation—were measured in 2005 and in 2009.ii the means and standard deviations of all independent and dependent variables are depicted in table a1 (appendix). political knowledge and efficacy political knowledge — two questions in the 2002 survey tapped political knowledge explicitly: “which of the two votes in the federal election is of more importance?” and, “how many federal states does germany have today?” both items are relevant in the context of elections and parliaments: the first item refers to the second vote (of two votes) in federal elections which decides about the allocation of seats in the federal parliament, the german bundestag, and thus determines which political party will be given the task of forming a government. the second item is of significance with respect to the german bundesrat, a constitutional body which represents all german federal states (länder) at the national level. the fact that 16 federal states exist is political knowledge as the länder are represented in the bundesrat with respect to their size and population. furthermore, participants were asked about the political stances of several nationwide important political parties on the political issues of nuclear energy, the immigration of foreigners, and the european unification. for each item and political party, they responded on a seven-point scale, each of which was labelled with opposing statements at the extremes; for example, “laws on immigration should be relaxed” versus “laws on immigration should be made tougher,” to indicate how determined or close to one of these extremes they believed a political party’s position was. we additionally utilized these data, that is, what respondents thought the positions of the political parties were on those political issues, since two items seemed to be inadequate in the measurement of political europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ knowledge. consequently, all items related to political elections, and thus measured only certain aspects of political knowledge. in particular, the respective election manifestos of each party were the basis for evaluating the “correct” party position on the aforementioned three political issues and for deciding whether respondents’ knowledge about the stances of six german political parties on those issues was correct (i.e. eighteen additional political knowledge items). this seemed reasonable, because the gles was always conducted around federal elections, and manifestos are fixed information that voters can read to learn about the positions of political parties. two coders indicated which scale point most adequately represented the respective position of each party, referring to their election manifestos. after all items had been coded independently by each coder, both coders discussed all codings, and in particular diverging codings—most discrepancies were only of a difference of one scale point, and for every item they came to an agreement about the specific scale point that best reflected the “correct” response (the overall inter-coder reliability is .85). for all 20 knowledge items, “don’t know” was treated as missing data, because research suggests that missing knowledge (“don’t know”) differs from incorrect knowledge (e.g., johann, 2008; mondak, 1999). in particular, internal political efficacy correlates with nonresponse to the political knowledge questions (mondak, 1999), as was the case in the present sample (r = -.35).iii eventually, this resulted in an additive political knowledge index representing the percentage of correct answers. internal political efficacy — three efficacy items were used as indicators for internal political efficacy (0 = strongly disagree…4 = strongly agree):iv “politics is such a complex issue that people like me cannot understand what is going on” (reverse coding); “i feel i could play an active role in a group dealing with political issues;” and, “i am perfectly able to understand and assess important political questions.” a mean index was calculated (cronbach’s α = .70), which correlated significantly with political knowledge (r = .12, p < .001). political participation with respect to political participation, post-election participants answered whether they had voted in the recent federal election (0 = no vs. 1 = yes), whereas pre-election participants indicated on a five-point scale how likely it was that they would vote in the forthcoming federal election (0 = i will certainly not vote … 4 = i will certainly vote). self-reported, retrospective information about voting decisions in the elections of the previous period of the german bundestag were always available (recoded to 0 = did not vote vs. 1 = voted). two items related to actual conventional political participation: “i visited election campaign rallies” (five-point scale recoded to 0 = never and 1 = rarely to very often; not available in 2005), and membership in a political party (0 = not a member and 1 = member). the final index was coded no participation at all (0) and participation in at least one activity (1). “try to get support from a party/politician” (0 = i would definitely not do … 4 = i would definitely do) measured the intention to participate in conventional political participation. the measurement of unconventional participation was more difficult, since only a single item was available, measuring “membership in a citizen’s initiative.” consequently, this measure reflects a specific form of unconventional or issue-related political participation. for willingness to participate unconventionally, however, two items could be used: “contribute to a citizens’ initiative,” and, “participate in a legal demonstration” (0 = i would definitely not do… 4 = i would definitely do). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 227 http://www.psychopen.eu/ socio-demographic control variables all analyses controlled for potential confounders. specifically, standard socio-demographic variables that usually correlate with political knowledge, efficacy or/and participation were used (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; grönlund & milner, 2006; maier, 2000; stolle & gidengil, 2010; vetter, 2006; westle, 2012).v the list of control variables comprised gender (0 = female vs. 1 = male; 51% malevi), age (m = 50.85, sd = 18.05), and a household’s total net monthly income, which was recoded into eight nearly equally spaced intervals ranging from less than 500 euro to at least 3,500 euro (m = 3.27, sd = 2.04, i.e an average income of approximately 1885 euro). for educational achievement, information about the highest school graduation certificate was recoded into two dummy variables “no or lowest formal qualification” (46%), and “intermediary secondary qualification” (30%; remainders with higher qualification) (0 = no vs. 1 = yes). dummy variables for region of residence (0 = west germany and 1 = east germany; 77% located in west germany) as well as for pre(0) vs. post-election date of interview (1; 52% pre-election) were also considered as control variables, because differential political socialization and knowledge bases between eastern and western germans may be substantial. moreover, people tend to have higher levels of political knowledge after political elections compared to before political elections (maier, 2009; westle, 2012), although election campaigns do not seem to reduce the knowledge gap (mccann & lawson, 2006). results data analysis multiple analyses accounted for political knowledge, internal political efficacy and the control variables mentioned above as predictors, including behavioural intentions as sequential mediators (except for voting in the post-election sample). longitudinal logistic regression analyses were performed for actual participation between 2002 and the measurement of the criteria. linear regression was employed to predict the mediators, because these variables approached an interval scale. analyses were conducted inmplus (muthén &muthén, 1998-2015) using its integrated full information maximum likelihood procedure for treating missing data in the dependent variables, and employing a robust maximum likelihood estimator and monte carlo integration with 750 integration points for sequential mediation analyses. for continuous criteria, the common coefficient of determination is provided in the text (r2), whereas for binary dependent variables, nagelkerke’s adjusted coefficient of determination (ṟ2) was calculated manually (nagelkerke, 1991, p. 692, equation (3)). explaining political participation before we proceed with the results of the multiple regression and mediation analyses, it is noteworthy that all correlations between actual participation or intended participation and political knowledge and internal political efficacy were positive (table a2 in appendix). among the post-election sample, casting one’s ballot correlated marginally significantly with political knowledge but not with political efficacy. furthermore, internal political efficacy was a significant correlate of all other behavioural variables, whereas political knowledge was a significant correlate of behavioural intentions only (though marginally significant for intentions to vote), yet knowledge did not correlate significantly with either kind of actual participation. finally, almost all correlations between our criteria and internal political efficacy were stronger than those between participation and knowledge. it therefore seems plausible to expect mediated relationships between political knowledge and actual political participation, as these preliminary analyses reinforce the expectation that political knowledge is mediated by internal political efficacy (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; reichert, 2013) and not vice versa (as indicated by vetter & maier, 2005). that is, a significant europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 228 http://www.psychopen.eu/ zero-order correlation between predictor and outcome variable is not an essential requirement for a mediated relationship (mackinnon, fairchild, & fritz, 2007), in particular if the mediation process becomes less proximal as may be the case in longitudinal analyses with several years between the measurement of the independent and the dependent variables (shrout & bolger, 2002). examining internal political efficacy as sole mediator in table 1, we see that political knowledge did not significantly predict actual political participation in any model, i.e. accounting for other influences, a citizen’s knowledge about politics did not explain his or her political behaviour. more interestingly, internal political efficacy was irrelevant for voting, though efficacy significantly increased the chance to engage in conventional political participation. since both political knowledge and efficacy were significantly and positively correlated, internal political efficacy mediated the effect of political knowledge on political participation with regard to conventional political behaviour, i.e. political knowledge contributed to internal political efficacy, and its influence on conventional political participation (as well as its effect on unconventional political behaviour in 2005) was transmitted via a citizen’s political self-efficacy. since this pattern of correlations did not appear for all forms of political participation, other predictors might have been at work for those activities. table 1 longitudinal mediated regression analyses (dependent variables: political participation) unconventional participationdconventional participationcvoting 20092005200920052009b2005a2002apredictor political knowledge (1.11)0.47(1.73)-0.52(0.99)-0.11(1.13)0.68(2.24)2.91(3.79)-5.87(5.72)2.06 internal political efficacy (0.34)0.19(0.24)0.54*(0.19)0.90***(0.21)0.69**(0.37)-0.01(0.60)-0.37(0.49)0.46 political action (behavioural intention) (0.35)0.64†(0.22)0.36(0.10)0.29**(0.12)0.32**(0.53)1.66**(0.31)1.84*** age (0.02)0.01(0.02)0.02(0.01)0.02*(0.01)0.04***(0.02)0.03(0.05)0.10*(0.03)+0.00 gender (0.73)1.14(0.44)-0.01(0.27)-0.28(0.28)0.01(0.64)0.62(1.08)0.86(0.78)0.21 pre-/post-election (0.50)-0.16(0.44)0.15(0.26)0.77**(0.26)-0.13 income (0.13)-0.06(0.10)-0.02(0.07)0.01(0.07)0.05(0.18)0.07(0.19)0.42*(0.22)0.11 region of residence (1.12)-2.00†(0.62)-0.82(0.34)-0.63†(0.43)-1.05*(0.57)-1.81**(3.20)1.21(1.20)1.30 no or lowest qualification (0.73)-0.47(0.51)-0.25(0.33)0.39(0.36)-0.19(0.98)-2.94**(1.58)-0.64(0.86)-1.63† intermediary secondary qualification (0.69)-0.00(0.53)-0.17(0.32)0.36(0.33)0.04(1.04)-2.14*(2.17)-0.15(1.16)-1.12 indirect effect via (0.19)0.11(0.15)0.30*(0.16)0.51**(0.15)0.39*(0.21)-0.01(0.33)-0.20(0.28)0.25 internal political efficacye (0.14)0.56***(0.14)0.56***(0.14)0.56***(0.14)0.56***(0.19)0.58**(0.20)0.54***(0.20)0.54** ṟ2(political participation) .139.076.185.168.262.412.407 r2(internal political efficacy) .203.203.206.206.197.215.215 note. unstandardized regression weights (standard errors in parentheses). apre-election sample with n = 1,146. bpost-election sample with n = 1,156. cn = 2,291. dn = 2,336. eindirect effects above (upper row); direct effects of political knowledge on internal political efficacy below (lower row). †p < .101. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. although our results support previous research which, in the german context, suggested that political knowledge may have an indirect effect on conventional political participation, mediated by political efficacy (reichert, 2013), they are not in line with the assumption that internal efficacy should always facilitate actual behaviour (ajzen, 1991). yet it was outlined earlier that we may expect that internal efficacy may have a significant impact on behavioural intentions independent of its influence on actual behaviour, in particular given the time interval between europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 229 http://www.psychopen.eu/ each survey. therefore, the following deals with the question whether the impact of internal political efficacy—though it did not predict voting and unconventional participation (the latter only applies to the 2009 analysis) directly—was perhaps mediated by behavioural intentions. this seems plausible, because the intention to participate in respective political activities increased the likelihood that a person would actually participate (although for unconventional participation, it was not significant at the five per cent level of significance). it is noticed again that the common requirement that there be a significant zeroorder correlation between predictor and outcome variable “severely reduces power to detect mediation, especially in the case of complete mediation (i.e., direct effect is zero)” (mackinnon et al., 2007, p. 601). this even more so if the mediation process becomes less proximal and/or the impact of a predictor variable is mediated in several sequences (shrout & bolger, 2002), which may be the case in our longitudinal analysis owing to the time between the measurement of political knowledge and the occurrence of actual political participation. following these thoughts, sequential mediation might be a plausible alternative mechanism of how political knowledge translated into political action. therefore, the following examines whether behavioural intentions worked as a second mediator, such that political knowledgemay have increased internal political efficacy, which promoted citizens’ willingness to participate in politics, and thereby affected political participation on a sequentially mediated path. the mediating influence of behavioural intentions preliminary cross-sectional analyses — prior to sequentially mediated regression analyses, cross-sectional analyses were performed to examine whether political efficacy predicted behavioural intentions and, hence, mediated the influence of political knowledge. table 2 shows the respective regression coefficients, with intentions to political action as the main criteria, whereas internal political efficacy was regarded as a mediator of political knowledge and, therefore, was an intermediate criterion. table 2 cross-sectional mediated regression analyses (criteria: intentions to participate) unconventional participationb conventional participationb voting (pre-election sample)apredictor political knowledge (0.16)0.36*(0.18)0.25(0.22)0.14 internal political efficacy (0.03)0.43***(0.03)0.38***(0.03)0.15*** age (0.00)-0.02***(0.00)-0.01***(0.00)0.01*** gender (0.05)-0.04(0.06)-0.08(0.05)-0.07 pre-/post-election (0.05)-0.09†(0.05)-0.15** income (0.01)0.00(0.01)0.02†(0.01)0.01 region of residence (0.05)0.08†(0.05)-0.21***(0.06)-0.23*** no or lowest qualification (0.06)-0.42***(0.08)-0.25**(0.06)-0.16* intermediary secondary qualification (0.06)-0.28***(0.07)-0.16*(0.06)-0.10 indirect effect via (0.06)0.24***(0.05)0.21***(0.03)0.07* internal political efficacyc (0.14)0.55***(0.14)0.55***(0.19)0.51* r2(intention to participate) .259.144.077 r2(internal political efficacy) .203.203.216 note. unstandardized regression weights (standard errors in parentheses). an = 1,195. bn = 2,353. cindirect effects above (upper row); direct effects of political knowledge on internal political efficacy below (lower row). †p < .101. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 230 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we find that political knowledge was barely a significant predictor of intentions to participate politically if we controlled for multiple predictors, as it only increased the intention to participate in unconventional political behaviour. in contrast, and as suggested by tpb, internal political efficacy increased behavioural intentions throughout. these results support the assumption that political knowledge translates into internal political efficacy and may affect political participation only indirectly—perhaps fully mediated by efficacy and behavioural intentions. voting — figure 1 indeed shows a sequentially mediated effect in the pre-election sample. political knowledge raised internal political efficacy, which increased the willingness to vote in the upcoming election, and finally this intention predicted actual voting. internal political efficacy did not directly affect voting behaviour, but it had an indirect influence through the conscious decision actually to vote. this pattern emerged for both voting in the 2002 as well as voting in the 2005 federal election. figure 1. prediction of voting in the federal election by political knowledge, sequentially mediated through internal political efficacy and intention to vote (effects on voting in 2002 above lines; effects on voting in 2005 below lines; pre-election sample with n = 1,195). note. unstandardized regression weights; direct effects in mediated regressions in parentheses. ‡p < .051. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not significant. conventional political participation — this time looking at longitudinal effects, figure 2 confirms that internal political efficacy had an indirect effect on actual behaviour in addition to its direct influence, which was mediated by the intention to participate. that is, political knowledge affected the intention to participate in conventional action in the future indirectly through internal efficacy, and it was sequentially mediated by both efficacy and willingness to act. it comes without surprise that political efficacy also mediated the impact of political knowledge on conventional participation in a “direct” step. this pattern is identical for conventional political participation measured in 2009 (figure 2). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 231 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. prediction of conventional political participation by political knowledge, sequentially mediated through internal political efficacy and intention to participate in conventional political action (effects on conventional participation between 2002 and 2005 above lines; effects on conventional participation between 2005 and 2009 below lines; n = 2,353). note.unstandardized regression weights; direct effects in mediated regressions in round parentheses; indirect effect of political knowledge by internal political efficacy on actual behaviour in squared parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not significant. unconventional political participation — when we look at figure 3 and unconventional participation, we see that political knowledge elevated the willingness to participate in unconventional political participation directly. yet we also discover an additional indirect effect which wasmediated by internal political efficacy, i.e. political knowledge increased the intention to participate in unconventional political action in two ways: indirectly by promoting an individual’s internal political efficacy which in turn affected their willingness to participate; and it was also a direct facilitator of the willingness to unconventional participation. consequently, political knowledge did not necessarily have to translate to internal political efficacy in order to trigger unconventional participation. figure 3. prediction of unconventional political participation by political knowledge, sequentially mediated through internal political efficacy and intention to participate in unconventional political action (effects on unconventional participation between 2002 and 2005 above lines; effects on unconventional participation between 2005 and 2009 below lines; n = 2,353). note.unstandardized regression weights; direct effects in mediated regressions in round parentheses; indirect effect of political knowledge by intention to participate on actual behaviour in squared parentheses. †p < .101. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not significant. however, the behavioural intention was only a marginally significant predictor of actual behaviour in 2009, but it was no significant precursor of unconventional participation in 2005. as a result, the mediated paths to actual europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 232 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participation differed in both years. in 2005, our analysis yielded no statistical evidence for a sequential mediation. instead, political knowledge was mediated by internal political efficacy in one step only. for unconventional participation between 2005 and 2009, however, a marginally significant sequential mediation occurred (figure 3): political knowledge boosted internal political efficacy, thereby it increased the intention to participate in unconventional political behaviour indirectly, which in turn raised the chance that a citizen would participate unconventionally. as efficacy was no significant predictor of unconventional participation in the latter analysis, the one-step mediated path that was identified in the 2005 analysis did not occur in 2009. discussion this paper contributes to the understanding of how political knowledge translates into political action through the application of the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) and by focusing on internal political efficacy as its mediator. we expected that political knowledge would be fully mediated by internal political efficacy with respect to conventional political participation, though it would retain some impact on voting and unconventional political behaviour (h1, h2). we found evidence which underlines the significance of internal political efficacy, but political knowledge had no direct influence on actual participation. however, as it raised the levels of internal political efficacy, political knowledge was fully mediated and turned into action in an indirect way. this was not a simple translation though: internal political efficacy contributed to the intention to participate in all kinds of political action, while efficacy only predicted increases in the likelihood to participate in conventional political behaviour in a direct way. as we had hypothesized, the impact of internal political efficacy was mediated by behavioural intentions (h3), but only in the prediction of conventional political participation did efficacy consistently retain an additional direct effect on actual behaviour. a citizen’s internal political efficacy seemed to be more important with regard to conventional political participation compared with their willingness to participate, but it was far from clearly being muchmore important than the impact of the latter (h4). in those cases when efficacy predicted behavioural intentions and these affected actual participation in multiple analyses, we nevertheless found sequentially mediated effects, that is, political knowledge raised internal political efficacy; thereby it contributed to the willingness to participate politically, which in turn increased the likelihood that a citizen would participate in politics. the present research adds to few studies that employ an action theoretic model to examine the role of accurate knowledge in the prediction of behaviour. it specifically shows that political knowledge is rather subsidiary compared with perceived behavioural control (ajzen et al., 2011), meaning that internal political efficacy is more important in the prediction of political behaviour. adding to that, political knowledge affected political participation through internal political efficacy, and it primarily affected behavioural intentions (compare also dalrymple et al., 2013; polonsky et al., 2013). although accurate political knowledge may not always be necessary, nor is it sufficient, to predict behaviour (ajzen et al., 2011), it contributes to decisions that conform with an individual’s preferences and political attitudes (galston, 2001), at least indirectly. also, it is a precursor of more proximal beliefs and personal preferences that closely relate to actual participation (e.g., polonsky et al., 2013). previous research has discussed such a mediation in the political realm (delli carpini & keeter, 1996; jung et al., 2011; reichert, 2013), while others found the effects of efficacy on knowledge to be stronger than vice versa (vetter & maier, 2005). they did not test the indirect path on political participation in mediated regression analysis, however. the present study went one step further and tested for the mediated effect of political knowledge, as europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 233 http://www.psychopen.eu/ well as a sequential mediation via both efficacy and intended participation. yet direct effects of efficacy on actual participation were rarely found when we controlled for willingness to participate, which is surprising given that tpb suggests simultaneous direct effects of both efficacy and behavioural intentions on actual behaviour (ajzen, 1991, 2012). admittedly, this article examined only one part of tpb. however, we found direct positive influences of behavioural intentions and internal political efficacy in the prediction of conventional political participation, in addition to mediated effects through behavioural intentions. here internal political efficacy rather outweighed the impact of behavioural intentions. those direct effects on conventional political participation above and beyond intentions are congruent with previous research (reichert, 2013), which shows a higher significance of internal political efficacy with respect to conventional compared to other forms of political participation. internal political efficacy might thus be more relevant for initiating party-political activities that require a strong and continuous commitment compared to oneoff or issue-based political activities that focus on just one specific political goal or act. limitations in sum, we found evidence in support of our hypotheses, although the effect sizes were rather small and a few mixed results also require us to address some constraints of this study. first, the intention to participate in unconventional political action did not (or barely) increase the likelihood actually to participate unconventionally. this might be due to one limitation stemming from the measures on unconventional political participation that we could use in our analysis: one constraint using the gles long-term panel was the high percentage of respondents who actually voted in federal elections, and that only one item for unconventional behaviour was available, which yielded a very small number of people who participated unconventionally. this latter item certainly reflects issuerelated participation, yet many other forms of unconventional participation exist, such as participating in a protest march or boycotting products for political reasons. still, it is surprising that the expected relationships appeared for voting and party-related political participation but not for unconventional behaviour. further research is needed to understand whether the (almost) absence of the expected mediated relationships generally applies to unconventional participation. this could indeed be the case though, assuming that unconventional political participation is less continuous than or perhaps not as much a consistent habit as participation in more institutionalized ways. that is, a citizen’s actual participation in unconventional activities might be less predictable, as specific political issues and, hence, opportunities to issue-based participation may arise on rather short notice. furthermore, the samples were also affected by panel attrition, yet this is one of the problems in longitudinal research. in any event, both the sampling strategy and the changes in measurement are limitations of this study, just as we need to be aware that political knowledge and the motivation to participate in surveys are confounded (prior & lupia, 2008). however, the dataset used here is one of few nationwide panel studies, and to the author’s knowledge the only longitudinal database which also provides all measures that were required to test the mediation hypotheses (i.e. a comprehensive political knowledge measure, internal political efficacy, behavioural intentions and self-reported actual participation in different kinds of political participation). lastly, a minor point refers to the measurement of political knowledge. the employed measure reflected knowledge which was relevant in the (upcoming) federal election(s). whereas johann (2012) found significant effects of political knowledge not merely on voting but on different political activities even when he controlled for internal political efficacy, in our analyses the only direct influence of political knowledge was on expected participation in unconventional activities in the future. however, the results for conventional political participation are similar to europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 translating political knowledge into participation 234 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research that used a broader knowledge measure (reichert, 2013), and are quite aligned for voting and conventional participation. therefore, the present study provides significant insights despite of the rather narrow content captured by its knowledge items. yet we need to address this as a minor restriction with respect to the generalizability of our findings. conclusion in conclusion, the present analysis provides indication that internal political efficacy increases intentions to participate politically. it is well known that behavioural intentions are important preconditions of actual behaviour (ajzen, 2012; westholm, montero, & van deth, 2007), far from being perfectly correlated though (fishbein & ajzen, 1981; gaiser & de rijke, 2010). we applied longitudinal analyses using actual political participation. thus, we could corroborate previous research (reichert, 2013), in particular with regard to conventional political participation. in essence, the results of the present study seem reliable, but further research, both quasi-experimental and survey research, is needed to understand the different patterns for voting (sequentially mediated impact) and party-related (both sequentially and “directly” mediated influences) versus unconventional political participation (mixed results) in detail. in addition, researchers need to consider various unconventional political activities, as the measure in the present study was somewhat problematic (see above). the findings furthermore raise questions for examination in future research. that research may focus on potentially differential effects of knowledge about political figures versus knowledge about polity on various forms of political participation (johann, 2012; reichert, 2013). here media exposure may play a significant role, as policy-specific knowledge is highly influenced by the breadth of media coverage and the prominence of a certain issue (barabas & jerit, 2009), though it also matters how the actual information is made available (i.e. “digestible”) (jerit, barabas, & bolsen, 2006) and by whom (munger, egan, nagler, ronen, & tucker, 2015). polity-related knowledge may be harder to acquire through the media, however. in addition it would be useful to consider profound competences such as political reasoning or capacities to act, in addition to accurate political knowledge, when assessing the mediating effect of political efficacy. most important though will be replication studies using cross-national data to examine how general or specific these relationships are. only then will we be able precisely to answer the questions of how, when, and which facets of political knowledge affect certain kinds of political participation, and to whom those findings apply. the present study focused on germany; however, it showed that action theory provides a valid approach to the study of participation in political realm (diener, noack, & gniewosz, 2011). in conclusion, this research suggests that political knowledge is far from being unimportant, though it has to translate into political efficacy to trigger political participation. strengthening political knowledge and internal political efficacy to increase the levels of political attentiveness and participation (pasek, feldman, romer, & jamieson, 2008) are significant challenges for civics educators to bring about politically engaged and democratically participating citizenries. notes i) a lack of as well as unsuccessful panel care measures, in addition to the long interval with only three measurements, caused the high panel attrition. except for “intermediary secondary qualification” (and prevs. post-election survey), statistically significant differences between people who participated only in the first survey and those who were interviewed at least twice were found among all variables reported in this article, though with rather small mean differences (two-tailed p = .05 throughout this article unless otherwise noted). these patterns were the same among preand post-election interviewees, except that gender and age did not yield significant mean differences in the pre-election sample. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 235 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ii) models for participation between 2005 and 2009 using predictors that were measured in 2005 are not reported, due to the fact that key items of the independent variables were not measured in the 2005 surveys (for details on the 2002 measures, see text and also compare the next note). in particular, only the political stances of five political parties were measured with respect to nuclear energy and the european unification. that is, items on the immigration of foreigners, which caused relatively fewer “don’t know” responses in 2002, were not available in 2005. furthermore, only one item measured internal political efficacy in 2005. hence, both key measures would carry more error than the 2002 measures. iii) the author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewer who pointed out the problematic issues that may emerge from equating missing knowledge with incorrect knowledge when examining internal political efficacy as a mediating mechanism of political knowledge. it is noted here that responding with “don’t know” was expectedly more likely for those political parties that were less present in the public and, hence, of which many citizens presumably were less aware of (i.e. the right wing party die republikaner and the socialists [pds]), whereas “don’t know” responses were less common for the established political parties (i.e. the christian democrats, the social democrats, the greens, and the liberals). also, respondents were more certain to know the parties’ stances on immigration issues, but less so about nuclear energy. the explicit knowledge items triggered fairly little nonresponse though. iv) all scale points of the following items were verbally labelled throughout. v) political interest was not included to avoid collinearity, as it is usually significantly correlated with internal political efficacy and since the present analysis aimed to understand the applicability of action theory in the political realm with particular attention on the role of political self-efficacy. vi) descriptive statistics are as of 2002. frequencies may not sum up to 100% due to rounding. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments parts of this research were conducted while the author was affiliated with the leibniz institute for educational trajectories (lifbi), bamberg, germany. the author is grateful to dr. olga grabow for her assistance in data coding, and to jan eric blumenstiel for valuable information and references related to the utilisation of political knowledge as measured in the german longitudinal election study. the author also wishes to thank three anonymous reviewers for their very thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this article, and prof. vlad glăveanu for his 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(pre-election) %96 voting 2005 (pre-election) %96 voting 2009 (post-election) %93 conventional participation 2005 %11 conventional participation 2009 %20 unconventional participation 2005 %3 unconventional participation 2009 %4 table a2 bivariate correlations between political participation and political knowledge and efficacy internal political efficacypolitical knowledgekind of political participation intention to vote (2002, pre-election sample) .20***.05† voting (2002, pre-election sample) .13**.07 voting (2005, pre-election sample) .16**.04 voting (2009, post-election sample) .10.11† intention to conventional action (2002) .31***.07*** conventional participation (2005) .18***.04 conventional participation (2009) .23***.06 intention to unconventional action (2002) .40***.11*** unconventional participation (2005) .12***.02 unconventional participation (2009) .10**.07 note. political knowledge, internal political efficacy and behavioural intentions measured in 2002 (weighted n between 291 and 3,016). †p < .101. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. about the author frank reichert, dr. phil., is a postdoctoral research associate at the faculty of education and social work at the university of sydney. his research is located in the field of political psychology, and he currently examines civic education, political knowledge and citizen participation. the national academy of education (naed) has selected him to be a 2016 naed/spencer postdoctoral fellow to pursue critical research in education, and he will commence employment with the faculty of education at the university of hong kong in june 2016. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 221–241 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1095 reichert 241 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en translating political knowledge into participation (introduction) political knowledge, internal political efficacy and political participation towards an action theoretic model of political participation hypotheses method procedure measures results data analysis explaining political participation discussion limitations conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the author the relationship between accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability: a study in iranian primary school children research reports the relationship between accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability: a study in iranian primary school children hamdollah manzari tavakoli*a [a] department of education, kerman branch, islamic azad university, kerman, iran. abstract the relationship between children’s accuracy during numerical magnitude comparisons and arithmetic ability has been investigated by many researchers. contradictory results have been reported from these studies due to the use of many different tasks and indices to determine the accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons. in the light of this inconsistency among measurement techniques, the present study aimed to investigate this relationship among iranian second grade children (n = 113) using a pre-established test (known as the numeracy screener) to measure numerical magnitude comparison accuracy. the results revealed that both the symbolic and non-symbolic items of the numeracy screener significantly correlated with arithmetic ability. however, after controlling for the effect of working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory, only performance on symbolic items accounted for the unique variances in children’s arithmetic ability. furthermore, while working memory uniquely contributed to arithmetic ability in one-and two-digit arithmetic problem solving, processing speed uniquely explained only the variance in single-digit arithmetic skills and long-term memory did not contribute to any significant additional variance for one-digit or two-digit arithmetic problem solving. keywords: symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison, arithmetic ability, working memory, processing speed, long-term memory europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 received: 2016-04-10. accepted: 2016-07-02. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, pontypridd, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of education, kerman branch, islamic azad university, kerman, iran. e-mail: hmanzari@iauk.ac.ir this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction attaining arithmetic ability is a main academic skill children learn during elementary school years. it provides the foundation for learning higher forms of mathematics such as fraction, ratio, proportion, percentages and algebra. successes in daily life, society, and labor increasingly depend on this quantitative skill. difficulties in performing arithmetic skills may face children with substantial problems in educational setting and negatively interfere with their daily experiences throughout life. in order to provide scientifically appropriate remedial teaching strategies for children suffering from mathematical difficulties, a number of researchers tried to find both specific numerical and general cognitive factors underlying arithmetic ability (e.g., caviola, mammarella, lucangeli, & cornoldi, 2014; fuchs et al., 2010; krajewski & schneider, 2009; östergren & träff, 2013; passolunghi & lanfranchi, 2012; träff, 2013; vanbinst, ansari, ghesquière, & de smedt, 2016). however, contradictory results have been reported from these studies due to the use of many different tasks and indices to determine the accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and general cognitive factors. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ we aimed to measure performance on symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparisons using the numeracy screener, working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory and determine their contribution to arithmetic ability among second-grade iranian children. the main research question is whether variability in children’s scores on symbolic or non-symbolic items of the numeracy screener could uniquely explain the variability in single-digit or two-digit arithmetic problem solving after controlling for the effect of working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory, as these are domain-general cognitive skills related to mathematical abilities. before detailing the specifics of the method used, the literature describing numerical magnitude comparison and its contribution to children’s arithmetic ability will be reviewed. in addition, the roles of working memory, processing speed, and long-termmemory as three domain-general cognitive abilities influencing children’s arithmetic development will be briefly explained. non-symbolic and symbolic numerical magnitude comparison and their relationship to arithmetic in recent years, psychologists have proposed that humans and many other species have an inherent sense of quantity known as “approximate number sense” (ans). this mental number representation system allows approximate estimation of quantities without counting. when observing different non-symbolic magnitudes (e.g., arrays of dots), our ans enables us to implicitly discriminate between smaller and larger ones (e.g., choosing the more numerous dot array). our accuracy performing these non-symbolic comparisons dramatically changes from infancy to adulthood. (barth, kanwisher, & spelke, 2003; halberda & feigenson, 2008; lipton & spelke, 2003; xu & spelke, 2000). this improvement in discrimination accuracy suggests that infants and young children are much more imprecise in their ability to approximate quantity via non-symbolic representations than are older children and adults. after going to school, children acquire a new symbolic system for representation of magnitudes. similar to the pre-existing non-symbolic system, the new system allows children to manipulate or compare magnitudes, but in symbolic forms such as words that represent numbers or arabic digits. to compare quantities using symbolic representations (e.g., arabic digit comparison), researchers assumed that children need to map the acquired symbolic system onto an already-existing non-symbolic system (deheane, 2011; nosworthy, bugden, archibald, evans, & ansari, 2013; price et al., 2012). in other words, processing of non-symbolic magnitudes is the precursor to the processing and comparison of symbolic representations of magnitude. during recent decades, it has been assumed that numerical magnitude processing is related to arithmetic development in children. de smedt, verschaffel, and ghesquière (2009) provided theoretical arguments and behavioral evidence that sufficiently support this assumption. first, understanding numerical magnitudes might help children use counting procedures to solve arithmetic problems. when solving arithmetic problems involving single digits (e.g., 7+3), children initially count both addends to find the solution (1, 2, 3, …, 7, 8, 9, 10). gradually, they learn to use a more advanced strategy, known as counting on or min procedure, in which children start counting from the larger addend to solve the problem (e.g., counting 7, 8, 9, 10 to solve 7+3). a child’s ability to make a decision on the larger addend is dependent on his or her understanding of numerical magnitudes (de smedt et al., 2009). neuroimaging studies have also revealed that numerical magnitude processing is important for mathematical achievement. researchers have found that the intraparietal sulcus, an area of the brain that is dedicated to the processing of numerical magnitude comparisons (holloway & ansari, 2010; lyons, ansari, & beilock, 2015) is consistently activated during arithmetic problem solving (e.g., barnea-goraly, eliez, menon, bammer, & reiss, 2005; bugden, price, mclean, & ansari, 2012; isaacs, edmonds, lucas, & gadian, 2001; price, mazzocco, & europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability 568 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ansari, 2013). moreover, structural and functional abnormalities in the intraparietal sulcus have been found in children with mathematical learning disabilities (barnea-goraly et al., 2005; de smedt, holloway, & ansari, 2011; heine et al., 2013; price, holloway, räsänen, vesterinen, & ansari, 2007). third, a number of researchers studying numerical magnitude processing in children with a mathematical learning disability or with developmental dyscalculia showed that these children have specific deficits related to the understanding and processing of numerical magnitudes (e.g., brankaer, ghesquière, & de smedt, 2014; defever, de smedt, & reynvoet, 2013; geary, hoard, nugent, & byrd-craven, 2008; landerl, bevan, & butterworth, 2004; rousselle & noël, 2007). in building a body of behavioral and theoretical evidence related to numerical magnitude processing in early life and its correlation with arithmetic ability in children, several researchers have used different numeracy comparison computerized tasks to explore the relationship between both symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison and previous, concurrent, or future arithmetic ability in children. however, these researchers reported contrasting results (see chen & li, 2014; de smedt et al., 2013 for a review). while a number of researchers have found significant correlations between non-symbolic numerical comparison (dot arrays) and arithmetic skills (e.g., bonny & lourenco, 2013; halberda, mazzocco, & feigenson, 2008; inglis, attridge, batchelor, & gilmore, 2011; linsen, verschaffel, reynvoet, & de smedt, 2014; mazzocco, feigenson, & halberda, 2011; mundy & gilmore, 2009; vanbinst, ghesquière, & de smedt, 2015), other have not (e.g., holloway & ansari, 2009; kolkman, kroesbergen, & leseman, 2013; lonnemann, linkersdörfer, hasselhorn, & lindberg, 2011; mundy & gilmore, 2009; nosworthy et al., 2013; sasanguie, göbel, moll, smets, & reynvoet, 2013; sasanguie, van den bussche, & reynvoet, 2012; soltész, szűcs, & szűcs, 2010; vanbinst, ghesquière, & de smedt, 2012). furthermore, a large number of studies have reported significant correlations between symbolic numerical comparison (arabic digits) and arithmetic abilities (e.g., holloway & ansari, 2009; kolkman et al., 2013; lonnemann et al., 2011; mundy & gilmore, 2009; nosworthy et al., 2013; sasanguie et al., 2012; vanbinst et al., 2015); however, a smaller number of studies did not find these significant relationships (e.g., sasanguie et al., 2012). a possible explanation of the contrasting results reporting the relationship between numerical knowledge and arithmetic ability is that no commonly accepted, identical version of the magnitude comparison task exists (de smedt et al., 2013). to assess individuals’ numerical comparison performance, many elements of the tasks have varied, including the sizes of the dot arrays, the ways of controlling the visual characteristics of the dots, the length of time that the subjects could use while determining the value difference between the two displays, and (most importantly) the variety of indices used to measure performance acuity (de smedt, noël, gilmore, & ansari, 2013; inglis & gilmore, 2014). the four common indices usually used to measure comparison performance acuity are accuracy, the weber fraction, or the effects of either numerical distance or ratio on the accuracy or reaction time of subjects. using the accuracy index, researchers simply report the proportion of trial participants who answered correctly in a given period of time (nosworthy et al., 2013) or without any time limitation (e.g., fuhs & mcneil, 2013; gilmore, attridge, & inglis, 2011; kolkman et al., 2013; lourenco, bonny, fernandez, & rao, 2012). the weber fraction index (w) measures the precision of an individual’s ans representation; the representation becomes more precise as w approaches zero (inglis & gilmore, 2014). finally, when numerical distance or ratio effect are used to measure the acuity of comparison, the slopes of lines or curves that relate accuracy or reaction time to ratio or numerical distance are calculated (inglis & gilmore, 2014). assuming that these four indices measure the same underlying property, some researchers have just used the accuracy index (fuhs & mcneil, 2013; gilmore et al., 2011; kolkman et al., 2013; lourenco et al., 2012; nosworthy et al., 2013), while others have relied upon the weber fraction, the numerical distance or ratio effect (bugden et al., 2012; holloway & ansari, 2009; lourenco et al., 2012; maloney, risko, preston, ansari, & fugelsang, 2010; merkley & ansari, 2010; price et al., 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 569 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, it has been shown that these are not interchangeable constructs and reliable tools must assess the same construct for cross-comparison (inglis & gilmore, 2014; lindskog, winman, juslin, & poom, 2013). inglis and gilmore (2014) investigated the psychometric properties of (and interrelation between) these different indices. they found that numerical distance or ratio effect has poor reliability with retesting in the same group and has no relationship with either weber fractions or accuracy. moreover, the researchers showed that weber fractions have lower retest reliability than accuracy (inglis & gilmore, 2014). in response to these findings, the researchers recommended indexing acuity on an individual’s numerical comparison by reporting just their accuracy figures (inglis & gilmore, 2014). an identical test intended to use just the accuracy index to measure the acuity during the comparison of magnitudes is the “numeracy screener” (nosworthy et al., 2013). in this test, participants are required to compare pairs of both symbolic (56 digit pairs) and non-symbolic (pairs of dot arrays) magnitudes ranging from 1-9. the screener controls the visual characteristics of dot arrays by ensuring that half of them have equal area, while the other half have equal perimeter. display time is controlled by giving participants a consistent time period (2 minutes) to complete the test (nosworthy et al., 2013). after demonstrating the validity of the numeracy screener by finding age-related improvements in the accuracy of numerical comparisons, the researchers (nosworthy et al., 2013) tried to explore whether the test is capable of explaining variability in children’s arithmetic achievement. they found that the scores on both symbolic and non-symbolic items of this basic assessment tool significantly correlated with the scores on arithmetic and calculation skills, but only performance on the symbolic items accounts for the unique variance in arithmetic skills after controlling for the effect of some general cognitive abilities such as working memory, intelligence and reading ability. general cognitive factors and their relationship to arithmetic ability in addition to numerical magnitude comparison processing as a domain-specific numerical ability, other domaingeneral cognitive factors might explain individual differences in children’s arithmetic abilities. working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory are three cognitive abilities that may have a significant impact on individual differences in the arithmetic abilities of different children (alloway & alloway, 2010; berg, 2008; bull & johnston, 1997; dulaney, vasilyeva, & o'dwyer, 2015; geary, 1993; raghubar, barnes, & hecht, 2010). before clarifying the plausible role of these cognitive factors in children’s arithmetic abilities, the development of arithmetic achievement in primary school–aged children should be briefly explained. in the process of solving single-digit arithmetic problems, children pass through simpler to more advanced strategies. first, they learn to use a procedure in which they count all of the numbers, a procedure of obtaining a sum in which both addends are counted to find the solution. then, they learn to use “counting on” (or min) procedures, in which they state the value of the larger addend before counting the smaller one. in both strategies, children may use their fingers for counting or count aloud. finally, frequent use of counting strategies leads to the formation of long-term memory association between problems and their answers, eventually resulting in direct retrieval of answers from long-term memory when solving simple arithmetic problems (geary, 1994; siegler & shrager, 1984). as mentioned earlier, numerical magnitude comparison skills may affect the ability of children to make decisions on the larger addend when using a min strategy (de smedt et al., 2009). furthermore, working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory are three types of cognitive ability that may play a central role as children progress through the different procedures used to solve arithmetic problems. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability 570 http://www.psychopen.eu/ working memory generally refers to a limited-capacity information-processing resource engaged in two key processes, the storage of information and the simultaneous processing of the same or other information (berg, 2008). it is assumed that, in solving arithmetic problems, children use their working memory capacity to store relevant information (both addends) and simultaneously process that information using sum or min procedures. furthermore, for the construction of an association between problem and answer in long-term memory, both addends (first and second number) and the final answer must be simultaneously active in working memory (geary, 1993). thus, children with higher working-memory capacity may solve simple arithmetic problems more efficiently than children with lower working-memory capacity. in concert with this assumption, several researchers examining the relationship between working memory and arithmetic ability have found that working memory uniquely explains individual differences in children’s arithmetic ability in the presence of other number-specific or general cognitive factors (e.g., de smedt et al., 2009; nosworthy et al., 2013; rasmussen & bisanz, 2005; van der ven, van der maas, straatemeier, & jansen, 2013). processing speed refers to the cognitive ability to execute simple cognitive tasks rapidly and efficiently (case, 1985, as cited in brown, 1986). during sum or min counting procedures to solve arithmetic problems, processing speed may facilitate counting speed to successfully pair problems and their answers in available working memory before decay. more efficient and faster pairing of problems and their answers in limited working-memory capacity results in more established long-term memory representations. in contrast, lower processing speed may increase the time necessary for deriving counted answers and for pairing a problem with its answer in working memory; hence, working memory may decay before the pairing is produced, impeding the development of an association in long-term memory (geary, 1993). bull and johnston (1997) initially examined the role of processing speed in the arithmetic ability of children. they reported that processing speed uniquely contributed to arithmetic ability when other cognitive skills (including working memory and reading ability) also provided unique contributions. the unique contribution of processing speed to arithmetic ability has also been reported by other researchers (e.g., durand, hulme, larkin, & snowling, 2005; fuchs et al., 2006; kail & hall, 1999; swanson & beebefrankenberger, 2004). given that arithmetic performance transparently depends on automatic retrieval of answers from long-term memory, long-term memory itself may be a plausible determinant of children’s arithmetic performance (fuchs et al., 2006). however, given the role of working memory and processing speed in the retrieval of information from long-term memory, it is unknown to what degree arithmetic performance can be attributed to long-term memory rather than working memory and processing speed (fuchs et al., 2006; swanson & beebe-frankenberger, 2004). present study in the present study, we examine the relationship between both the symbolic and the non-symbolic tasks of the numeracy screener and arithmetic ability in iranian second grade children. another goal is to find the extent to which these tasks explain the variability in both single-digit and two-digits arithmetic problem solving scores given the presence of contributions from working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory. with regard to the literature, we hypothesize that both symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparisons are significantly correlated with arithmetic ability. furthermore, we expect that symbolic (but not non-symbolic) magnitude comparisons uniquely explain the variability in arithmetic scores in the presence of working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 571 http://www.psychopen.eu/ material and methods participants for the initial sample, the subject group consisted of typically developing second-grade boys (n = 113) from four different classrooms. using raven’s standard progressive test (raven & raven, 2003), the iq level of the children ranged from 95 to 125. every student in the sample was born in 2007. their vision was normal or corrected to normal; none of them had developmental disabilities. after obtaining written informed parental consent, each subject was assessed individually during a 45-60 minute session in a quiet room located inside the school. all assessments were conducted in one session at the end of the academic year, when the students would have been taught all mathematical topics that were part of the curriculum for that year. measures numerical magnitude comparisons numeracy screener was used to measure both symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparisons. the numeracy screener (nosworthy et al., 2013) is a quick written tool to assess children’s ability to compare different numerical magnitudes ranging from 1-9. the magnitudes were presented in both symbolic (56 digit pairs) and non-symbolic (56 pairs of dot arrays) formats. in the non-symbolic form, dot stimuli were controlled for area and density; in both symbolic and non-symbolic formats, each numerical magnitude was counterbalanced taking into account the side of presentation. during the assessment section, participants were given one minute to cross out the larger of the two dot arrays in the non-symbol comparisons and one minute to cross out the larger of the two arabic digits in the symbol comparisons. before starting the assessment children were instructed to complete three sample items with the examiner and practice nine items on their own to ensure their understanding of the task. furthermore, during the instruction given for the dot array comparisons, they were told not to count the dots, but rather to just try and estimate them. when the examiner ensured that the child understand the rule, the main part of the test was started. in addition, during the test, the child was reminded not to count the dots, but just try to estimate them as quickly as possible. the order in which children did the symbolic and non-symbolic representation comparisons was varied so that half of the students started with the arabic digit comparison and the other half started with the dot array comparison. with administration of the numeracy screener, two scores were provided for each participant. the first score was the number of correct answers in the non-symbolic task (labeled as the non-symbolic comparison score); the second was the number of correct answers for the symbolic task (labeled as the symbolic comparison score). arithmetic ability two written (paper and pencil) tasks were administered to measure each subject’s arithmetic ability. the two tests were a single-digit arithmetic problem solving test (labeled the “math fluency” test) and a two-digit arithmetic problem solving task (labeled as the “calculation” test). the math fluency test assessed the participant’s ability to quickly solve single-digit arithmetic problems. during the task, children were asked to solve 20 simple addition problems (5+4, 4+6, 9+3, 4+9, 3+7, 9+3, 8+5, 6+4, 9+5, 3+8, 4+5, 2+9, 8+6, 9+5, 7+8, 8+6, 4+5, 6+3, 9+6, 8+5) and 20 simple subtraction problems (6-4, 7-3, 9-7, 8-4, 9-6, 8-6, 9-3, 5-2, 8-3, 5-3, 9-5, 8-3, 7-4, 8-5, 9-2, 6-3, 84, 9-7, 7-5, 8-6); oneminute was given for each section, during which children were to complete as many problems as possible. half of the participants started with addition, half with subtraction. the number of correct answers for each task represented the score on that one. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability 572 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the calculation task assessed the ability of participants to solve addition and subtraction problems involving twodigit numbers. students were required to complete 10 problems in which they added two two-digit numbers (10+46, 28+32, 61+26, 59+15, 74+18, 12+15, 23+14, 16+32, 63+24, 81+18) and then to solve 10 similar subtraction problems (86-20, 34-14, 45-27, 60-45, 29-17, 90-15, 87-31, 56-23, 35-12, 43-18). the order in which the tasks were presented was similar to the order for the math fluency tasks. since two-digit arithmetic tasks may require more abstract reasoning, further attentional resources, and basic arithmetic skills, any time pressure may negatively affect child’s performance accuracy. thus, unlike the math fluency problems, there was no time limitation in these tasks. the score on the tests was the number of correct answers for each task. working memory “counting span” is a well-known task to measure working-memory capacity. this task was originally presented by case, kurland, and goldberg (1982) and was adapted by keenan (1998). this task was used with some other modifications to adjust it to the ability of the participants. during the warm-up phase of the task, participants were told that they would be playing a memory game in which they had to count all of the red dots on a card and then remember the number of red dots. each card had between two and six red dots and a number of distractor dots in blue and green. the task had six levels; each level had two trials. in the first level, the participant was presented one card at a time, told to count the red dots, and then asked how many red dots were on the card after the card was turned over. in the second level, the participant was shown one card and told to count its red dots. subsequently, the card was turned over and another card was presented. the same procedure was repeated for the second card. then, the participant was asked how many red dots were on the first card and the second card. in levels three through six, the procedure was exactly the same, but one more card was added to each level. the procedures terminated when the participant incorrectly answered twice at any level. the score was the number of correct answers across all levels, with a maximum of 12. processing speed the “wj-iii visual matching task” (wj is for “woodcock-johnson”) was used to measure processing speed (woodcock, mcgrew, mather, & schrank, 2003). in this task, the participants were required to locate and circle identical numbers in rows of six numbers. they had three minutes to complete 60 rows presented on two a4-sized pages. the participant’s score was the number of correctly circled matching numbers in each row. the test developer reported that the internal consistency of the task is .91. long-term memory tomeasure semantic long-termmemory, we used retrieval fluency, described inwoodcock and johnson (1989). in this task, the participants were asked to recall related items divided between two categories (animals and fruits) for 1 minute per category. credit was earned for each correct, non-duplicated answer. results the means and standard deviations (along with skewness and kurtosis) of all variables were presented in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 573 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 mean, standard deviation (sd), range, skewness, and kurtosis of variables kurtosisskewnessrangesdmnvariable 17-45113symbolic com .720-.0008.895.7230 14-41113non-symbolic com .061.7-.835.2130 1-9113two-digit addition .164-.214-.043.196 0-8113two-digit subtraction .565-.187-.083.086 22-0113single-digit addition .164-.445.704.809 0-18113single-digit subtraction .903.262.403.507 9-33113long-term memory .163.418.804.5818 2-10113working memory .944.476.361.006 2-15113processing speed .061-.154-.552.748 note. com = comparison. as is shown in table 1, all variables had skewness and kurtosis between -1 and +1. bivariate correlations were conducted between the raw scores of all variables to determine their interrelationships. the results are presented in table 2. table 2 bivariate correlations between all variables 987654321variable 11. symbolic com .31*.39**.36**.34**.44**.42**.18.61** 12. non-symbolic com .38**.31*.21*.19*.25*.22*.17 13. long-term memory .21*.38**.14.16.17.22* 14. single-digit add .46**.43**.58**.38**.60** 15. single-digit sub .32**.34**.49**.56** 16. two-digit add .26*.26*.65** 17. two-digit sub .29*.31* 18. working memory .33** 19. processing speed note. com = comparison. *p < .05. **p < .01. based on cohen (1988), most variables had significant moderate to large correlations with each other (table 2). with regard to the relationships between aptitude on numerical magnitude comparisons and arithmetic ability, the higher correlations were between symbolic magnitude comparisons and both single-digit addition and subtraction (.42 and. 44, respectively) and both two-digit addition and subtraction (.34 and .36, respectively). however, smaller correlations existed between non-symbolic magnitude comparison and all arithmetic tasks (.22, .25, .19, and .21). regarding correlations between general cognitive abilities and arithmetic skills, single-digit addition and subtraction had significant correlations with long-term memory, working memory, and processing speed, while two-digit addition and subtraction were significantly correlated with working memory and processing speed, but not with long-term memory. since comparisons of both symbolic and non-symbolic magnitudes were moderately related to all arithmetic skills, in order to get more information about the unique contribution of each magnitude comparison to both math fluency europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability 574 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and calculation skills, four linear regression analyses were conducted, two for single-digit addition and subtraction and two for two-digit addition and subtraction. the major focus of these analyses was to carefully examine the independence of each numerical magnitude comparison to predict single-digit and two digits addition and subtraction skills while controlling for the effect of working memory, processing speed, and long-termmemory. for this purpose, all of the variables were entered in one step. the results were presented in table 3 and table 4. table 3 linear regression analyses with single-digit addition and subtraction as dependent variables single-digit subtraction f = 6.110, p < .001, r2 = .23 single-digit addition f = 9.563, p < .001, r2 = .31 tßtßpredictor working memory .902.272*.022.175* processing speed .462.250*.892.279* long-term memory .04-0.006.740.066 non-symbolic com .090.015.89-0.095symbolic com .891.212*.033.320* note. com = comparison. *p < .05. table 4 linear regression analyses with two-digit addition and subtraction as dependent variables two-digit subtraction f = 6.321, p < .001, r2 = .24 two-digit addition f = 5.322, p < .001, r2 = .22 tßtßpredictor working memory .691.197*.452.210* processing speed .510.054-.430.043 long-term memory .540.047.500.039 non-symbolic com .47-0.049-.05-0.050symbolic com .214.444*.013.501* note. com = comparison. *p < .05. table 3 shows that the first linear regression analysis with single-digit addition as the dependent variable was significant (f (5, 113) = 9.563, p < .001, r2 = .31). in this model, performance on working memory, processing speed, and symbolic comparison explained the significant and unique variance in single digit addition. conversely, non-symbolic magnitude comparison and long-term memory did not uniquely explain the variance in that. the second linear regression analysis, which used single-digit subtraction as a dependent variable, was also significant (f (5, 113) = 6.211, p < .001, r2 = .23). in this model, similar to first model, symbolic comparison, working memory, and processing speed had significant and unique contributions to single-digit subtraction. however, nonsymbolic comparison and long-termmemory did not account for significant and unique contributions to (or variances in) single-digit subtraction skill. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 575 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 shows that the third linear regression analysis with two-digit addition as the dependent variable was significant (f (5, 113) = 5.322, p < .001, r2 = .22). in this model, performance on working memory, and symbolic comparison explained the significant and unique variance in twodigit addition. conversely, non-symbolic magnitude comparison, processing speed, and long-term memory did not uniquely explain the variance in that. the forth linear regression analysis, which used two-digit subtraction as a dependent variable, was also significant (f (5, 113) = 6.321, p < .001, r2 = .24). in this model, similar to third model, symbolic comparison and working memory had significant and unique contributions two-digit subtraction. however, non-symbolic comparison, processing speed, and long-term memory did not account for significant and unique contributions to (or variances in) twodigit subtraction skill. discussion and conclusion the present study explored whether performance on the symbolic and non-symbolic items of a numeracy screener is related to individual differences in the arithmetic ability of second grade children in iran. the arithmetic skills measured included single-digit addition and subtraction tasks and series of two-digit addition and subtraction problems. furthermore, we intended to determine whether magnitude comparison tasks significantly explain variances of single-digit and two-digit addition and subtraction skills over some general cognitive factors including working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory. we found that participants’ scores on both symbolic and non-symbolic items were significantly correlated with scores on single-digit and two-digit arithmetic. participants who scored highly on symbolic or non-symbolic magnitude comparison tasks on the numeracy screener also tended to receive high scores on single-digit and twodigit arithmetic. nevertheless, the results of our regression analyses demonstrated that only participants’ scores on the symbolic items of the numeracy screener uniquely explain the variances in both single-digit and two-digit addition and subtraction skills. these findings are closely comparable with the results reported by nosworthy and colleagues (2013). these researchers initially used the numeracy screener to measure performance on numerical magnitude comparisons and determine its relation to arithmetic ability. in addition, similar results have also been reported by researchers from studies that used other forms of magnitude comparison tasks (e.g., holloway & ansari, 2009; kolkman et al., 2013; lonnemann et al., 2011; mundy & gilmore, 2009; sasanguie et al., 2012; vanbinst et al., 2015). for example, in a recent study vanbinst et al. (2015) tried to explore the relationship between numerical magnitude comparison ability and simple arithmetic ability in firstand second-grade children using a computerized version of the magnitude comparison task. the researchers (vanbinst et al., 2015) used accuracy and reaction time as indices to measure both symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude comparison. their results showed that symbolic (but not non-symbolic) numerical magnitude comparisons uniquely explain the variances in arithmetic ability among primary school children in the first grade. our data also support the commonly held assumption that symbolic magnitudes are acquired through a process in which the mapping symbolic system is mapped onto a previously existing non-symbolic system (mundy & gilmore, 2009). the significant correlation between our symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks, as well as the significant relationships between both magnitude comparisons and arithmetic ability, suggests that similar developmental trajectories may underlie the processing and representation of both symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitudes. however, the unique contribution of symbolic magnitude comparison to arithmetic ability may suggest that symbolic magnitude comparisons cover the variances explained by non-symbolic representations. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability 576 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the results of our regression analyses also revealed that working memory uniquely explains the variance in both single-digit and two-digit arithmetic, in the presence of the unique contribution of symbolic magnitude comparison. the central role of working memory in developing children’s arithmetic ability have been reported by several studies (e.g., dulaney et al., 2015; raghubar et al., 2010; van der ven et al., 2013). it has been assumed that working-memory capacity provides a limited work space for children to use sum or min strategies when solving simple digit arithmetic problems, consequently leading to the development of associations between problems and their answers in long-term memory (geary, 1993). thus, higher working-memory capacity leads to more accurate performancewhile making calculations andmore long-termmemory representations. in addition, attentional resource of working memory can assist children as they attempt to perform accurate two-digit calculations. in concert with this assumption and in line with previous studies, our findings support the vital role of working-memory capacity in children’s arithmetic achievement. to elaborate further, the regression analyses revealed that processing speed uniquely contributed to single-digit and two-digit addition and subtraction, but not to two-digit arithmetic. it has been assumed that, in solving arithmetic problems, processing speed may facilitate counting speed to successfully pair problems and their answers in available working memory capacity before decay begins. more efficient and faster pairing of problems and their answers in limited working memory capacity result in more established long-termmemory representations (geary, 1993). bull and johnston (1997) initially examined the role of processing speed in children’s simple digit arithmetic abilities. they reported that processing speed uniquely contributed to arithmetic ability in the presence of unique contributions of other cognitive skills. furthermore, the unique contribution of processing speed to simple-digit arithmetic abilities has also been reported by other researchers (e.g., durand et al., 2005; fuchs et al., 2006; kail & hall, 1999; swanson & beebe-frankenberger, 2004). in line with bull and johnston (1997), the present study also supports the unique contribution of processing speed to simple-digit arithmetic problem solving. in addition, both the single-digit arithmetic test and the processing speed task (visual matching) were paper-and-pencil, timerestricted tasks. thus, the rate of children’s sensory-motor performance may underpin their execution speed in both tasks. however, unlike single-digit arithmetic, participants had an unlimited amount of time to complete our two-digit arithmetic test. this may clarify the reason for the insignificant contribution of processing speed to calculation. in addition, compared with simple (single-digit) arithmetic, solving problems involving two-digit arithmetic may require more abstract reasoning, further attentional resources, and basic arithmetic skills. thus, it might be expected that the variances in two-digit arithmetic are explained to a greater degree by fluid intelligence, working memory, or basic arithmetic abilities rather than processing speed. in line with swanson and beebe-frankenberger (2004) and fuchs et al. (2006), our regression analyses revealed that long-termmemory did not uniquely contribute to variances in single-digit or two-digit arithmetic. these findings are in contrast with the assumption that long-term memory itself may be a plausible determinant of arithmetic performance in children. given the role of working memory in the retrieval of information from long-term memory, it is plausible that arithmetic performance can be attributed to working memory rather than semantic long-term memory. in conclusion, the current findings demonstrated that significant relationships exist between the performances of second-grade primary school children in iran on the numeracy screener items as well as on both measured arithmetic abilities (single-digit and two-digit arithmetic). in addition, it was found that only the symbolic comparison portion of the numeracy screener accounted for unique variances in both single-digit and two-digit arithmetic. these results are in line with previous research in which the numeracy screener was initially used (nosworthy europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 577 http://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2013) and highlights the applicability of the test in educational setting. quickly and easily assessing the numerical magnitude processing abilities of students using such a simple and easily available written test can help educators focus on these essential skills during math instruction in the classroom. in particular, this may assist educators in developing countries where there is no available advanced computerized equipment in many school settings. furthermore, the significant relationship shown between non-symbolic items of the numeracy screener and both single-digit and two-digit arithmetic skill replicates the findings of nosworthy and colleagues (2013) and may suggest that the non-symbolic portion of the test could be utilized by itself for preschool children who do not have semantic representations of number symbols. the performance of preschool children on the non-symbolic items of the numeracy screener may explain their individual differences in mathematic ability during the primary school years. further studies are recommended to investigate this line of research. the current findings demonstrated that a combination of numerical magnitude comparison tasks assessed via a numeracy screener, memory, and processing speed explain 30% and 22% of the variances in math fluency and calculation skill, respectively. the remaining variances might be explained by other domain-specific factors such as number line estimation, subitizing ability, counting knowledge, or other domain-general cognitive abilities such as attentive behavior, inhibition, task switching, language, and intelligence. further research is recommended to determine the relationship between the numeracy screener, the other factors summed up above, and arithmetic ability in primary school children, especially in other developing countries. funding this work was supported by islamic azad university, kerman branch (grant number 07/25/7/28233). competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references alloway, t. p., & alloway, r. g. 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(2000). large number discrimination in 6-month-old infants. cognition, 74(1), b1-b11. about the author dr. hamdollah manzari tavakoli is an assistant professor at department of education, islamic azad university, kerman branch. he has been a faculty member since 2001 and has taught different courses such as research methods, statistics, educational psychology, educational management. he has supervised several master and phd students and participated in three research projects as supervisor. he has published one book and more than 25 articles in national and international journals and conference proceedings. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 567–583 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1175 tavakoli 583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0663.96.3.471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2013.04.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0151045 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1751-228x.2012.01148.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.lindif.2014.12.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.lindif.2013.09.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en accuracy of numerical magnitude comparisons and children’s arithmetic ability introduction non-symbolic and symbolic numerical magnitude comparison and their relationship to arithmetic general cognitive factors and their relationship to arithmetic ability present study material and methods participants measures results discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author muslim immigrant men's and women's attitudes towards intimate partner violence research reports muslim immigrant men's and women's attitudes towards intimate partner violence marialuisa gennari* a, cristina giuliani b, monica accordini b [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, brescia, italy. [b] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. abstract this study aims to study the attitudes towards intimate partner violence (ipv) in a group of muslim immigrants. to this end, six focusgroups were conducted involving 42 first-generation muslim immigrants (21 males and 21 females) from pakistan, egypt and morocco. focus groups transcripts were then analyzed using the software atlas.ti. irrespectively of nationality, couples replicate relational models learnt in their country of origin, implying a rigid gender-based role division. women are considered less socially competent if compared to men and therefore in need of protection. divorce is possible only in case of severe danger: women have to stand beside their husbands and maintain family unity. even though they are not directly related to ipv, these factors may be key in determining its onset and perpetration. with regards to ethnic background, pakistani interviewees not only seem to acknowledge the possible occurrence of violence within couple relationships, they also accept it as a mean to regulate socially dysfunctional behaviors. both moroccan males and females denounce the impact of post migration stressors as potential triggers of ipv. the distance from one’s family of origin in migration is perceived as problematic by both men and women, however, while males’ distance from their kin might make them feel overwhelmed with family responsibilities and give way to deviant behaviors, women suffer from the lack of support and protection by their extended family. implications for practice are also discussed. keywords: ipv, muslim immigrants, male and female attitudes, migration risk factors europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 received: 2017-03-10. accepted: 2017-06-13. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, c. da s. croce, brescia, italy. e-mail: marialuisa.gennari@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over the past decades, the issue of domestic violence against women within immigrant families has become a major research concern. as shown by an increasing body of research, immigrant and refugee couples are particularly vulnerable to domestic violence: immigrant women report both a higher frequency of intimate partner violence (ipv) episodes (ranging from 30% to 60%) as well as a greater severity of abusive incidents if compared to the general population living in high income western countries (hass, ammar, & orloff, 2006; jasinski & kantor, 2001; raj & silverman, 2003; vatnar & bjørkly, 2010). the rationale for such a phenomenon has been attributed to the various dimensions underlined in the literature as contributing to domestic violence as well as to the many challenges posit by the post migration context (capaldi, knoble, shortt, & kim, 2012; giuliani & gennari, 2014), including the socio-cultural variability of the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ various migration countries (gozzoli, 2016; tamanza, gozzoli, & gennari, 2016). several studies have shown that socio-cultural variables (e.g., attitudes, cultural beliefs, and values) are critical factors leading to an increased tolerance towards domestic violence (haj-yahia, 2000, 2003; murnen, wright, & kaluzny, 2002). if such values and attitudes are retained also in the hosting country, they contribute to the perpetration of abusive conducts and prevent women from seeking help (vives-cases et al., 2013). more specifically, immigrant couples coming from majority-muslim countries show higher ipv rates if compared to their non-immigrant counterparts: for example, moroccan immigrant women in spain (colorado-yohar et al., 2012), iraqi (barkho, fakhouri, & arnetz, 2011), as well as pakistani and south-asian (adam & schewe, 2007; lee & hadeed, 2009) women immigrated to the u.s. report being exposed to abusive behaviors to a greater extend if compared to the native population and even to other non-immigrant muslim women. muslim immigrants’ attitudes towards ipv scientific literature exploring the relationship between muslim immigrants attitudes and ipv has especially focused on three, deeply interrelated, key themes affecting the emergence and perpetuation of spousal violence and the help-seeking behaviors among immigrants: a. traditional gender role attitudes. traditional gender role attitudes have been found to facilitate violence and to provide cultural justification for abusive behaviors (bhanot & senn, 2007) while encouraging self-blaming attitudes in abused women (abu-ras, 2007). both muslim men and women have the duty to preserve the honor of their family, however, they are expected to show different behaviors: men should be authoritative and courageous while women are encouraged to be submissive (kulwicki, 2002). such gender specific differences imply that men are in control and entitled to exert authority over their wives. in patriarchal cultures, men are socially—and often times legally—responsible for the women in their family, this gives them the right to educate and discipline them (shalabi, mitchell, & andersson, 2015). when a female fails to meet societal expectations or to perform her duties, violence is reckoned as a valid alternative to educate her. many states in the muslim world adopt laws and regulations enforcing patriarchal values that give men the responsibility to decide for their female family members while cultural attitudes regarding the social acceptance of violence are widespread (lee & hadeed, 2009) and may also be legitimized by a literal interpretation of the qur’an. this results in different degrees of acceptance of violent behaviors and their normalization in social and intimate relationships: violence may be considered a normative, not deviant, behavior to discipline dependent family members (ibrahim & abdalla, 2010). b. family integrity and honor. family is the key social unit in muslim societies and family cohesion and honor are regarded as extremely important values. the concepts of shame (ayb) and honor (sharaf) are at the core of the family structure, therefore all members are called to protect family integrity and respectability (ammar, 2007). in this view, family needs should precede individual needs and women in particular are the ones who have the responsibility of keeping the family together, maintaining harmony, solidarity and loyalty between members (abu-ras, 2007). privacy and the family integrity should be preserved, even at the sake of the happiness of their individual members. the utmost importance of privacy and honor can prevent abused immigrant women from seeking help for fear of being judged or even stigmatized by friends and relatives. on a similar note, divorce is disregarded and considered to put shame on the family, therefore spouses are advised to stay together even if they are unhappy with their marriage. women wishing to gennari, giuliani, & accordini 689 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ divorce their husbands (a practice called khula) are generally stigmatized and socially disapproved (levitt & ware, 2006). c. social isolation in the post-migration context. although many immigrants experience social isolation, muslim immigrant women are particularly subject to this experience. when women migrate to reunite to their husbands, they don’t benefit from the protection of their patrilineal kin and become therefore completely dependent on their husbands. muslim women have been reported to suffer from a double isolation as their husbands often attempt to further isolate them from social life for fear of their becoming too westernized or out of jealousy (abraham, 2000a; giuliani & tagliabue, 2015). the lack of support from their community of origin and the stigma and shame associated to services and shelters are other important elements that might prevent women from adopting help seeking behaviors (cainkar & del toro, 2010). in light of the literature findings outlined above and considering the lack of studies on immigrant male and female attitudes towards domestic violence (macey, 1999), the present study aims to explore men’s and women’s attitudes towards ipv in three ethnic groups of muslims immigrated to italy from morocco, egypt and pakistan as well as to explore the underlying beliefs and values facilitating or justifying violent behaviors, also in light of the struggles posit by the post-migration context. in particular, our study aims at addressing the following objectives: 1. investigate the immigrant men and women attitudes with regards to a phenomenon, such as that of domestic violence, that is described a particularly urgent by the scientific literature on the topic; 2. outline the differences between men and women with regards to their attitudes towards domestic violence; 3. outline the differences between the three ethnic groups considered with regards to their attitudes towards domestic violence. method study design this paper is an exploratory study employing a cross-sectional qualitative design. in particular, a focus group design was used in order to facilitate interaction and exchange between members and to elicit the emergence of cultural values and norms regarding ipv among muslim immigrant communities. focus groups have been found to be sensitive to cultural issues and particularly useful to address attitudes and beliefs towards sensitive topics (kitzinger, 1995) as they provide insights into participants’ cultural models and perceptions. focus groups allow participants to openly discuss their views and to gain a greater awareness of both their own as well as the others’ perspectives (morgan, 1997). moreover, this methodology may help participants compare their own situation or viewpoint with that of the community or group they belong to and this is especially important when discussing sensitive topics such ipv. ipv is frequently regarded as a private matter and having the chance to discuss it with others may reduce isolation and social stigma as well as help people gain awareness regarding the social and cultural barriers to help seeking (yoshihama, 2005). ipv and muslim immigrants 690 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants six focus-groups were conducted from september 2014 to march 2015 with 42 first generation muslim immigrants (21 m, 21 f), equally divided across the three nations of origin. the six groups were homogeneous for nationality and gender. immigrants from morocco, egypt and pakistan were identified for our study and chosen for their representativeness within the italian context. the 524.775 moroccans, 135.284 egyptians and 106.485 pakistanis officially residing in italy on january 1, 2014 are amongst the largest minorities in the country. moreover, it is noteworthy to mention that pakistanis are among the fastest growing immigrant groups in italy (istituto italiano di statistica [istat], 2014). the 42 participants lived in northern italy and were recruited through a snowball sampling method according the following criteria: (1) being first-generation muslim immigrants and being above 18 years of age; (2) coming from morocco, egypt or pakistan; (3) being married and having lived in italy with one’s family (partner and child(ren)) for at least two years. participants were screened for age, education, employment status and length of stay in italy, these data are reported in table 1. table 1 participants’ socio-demographic characteristics characteristic men women morocco (n = 7) egypt (n = 7) pakistan (n = 7) total (n = 21) morocco (n = 7) egypt (n = 7) pakistan (n = 7) total (n = 21) age median 35.00 32.00 29.00 32.00 30.00 33.00 31.00 31.00 mean 34.71 34.00 31.71 33.48 30.57 33.85 32.14 32.24 standard deviation 7.04 8.52 6.82 7.20 4.76 9.92 4.98 6.71 residence years in italy median 13.00 11.00 8.00 11.00 9.00 10.00 6.00 8.00 mean 13.57 11.00 10.00 11.52 10.14 11.85 5.85 9.29 standard deviation 6.32 7.79 4.32 6.17 4.63 8.49 2.96 6.12 education (frequencies) no schooling 3 1 2 6 1 0 3 4 up to 10 years 4 5 5 14 6 4 4 14 >11 years 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 3 employment status (frequencies) unemployed 3 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 housewife 0 0 0 0 5 7 7 19 unskilled worker 4 5 7 16 2 0 0 2 small businessman 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 procedure and data collection several language schools, ethnic, and religious associations were contacted to recruit the first participants who were then asked to inform their fellow nationals about the possibility to take part in the research project. as mentioned above, 42 participants met the inclusion criteria. selected participants were explained the aims of gennari, giuliani, & accordini 691 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the research and invited to sign the consent form. after having been granted anonymity, interviewees filled in a short questionnaire with their background information. subsequently they were invited to take part in a 90 minutes focus group discussion after which they were rewarded with a 10 euro gift voucher for shopping at local market. focus groups took place in private homes or in public places (libraries, schools, local associations) and were led by two italian experienced moderators, a male and a female, as suggested by several studies (e.g., krueger & casey, 2000). in particular, female groups were moderated by a female conductor, with the male researcher mainly assisting with field notes and observation while the contrary happened with male groups. for the scopes of this research, an experienced moderator was defined as someone having conducted at least 10 focus groups and having a specific expertise with working with immigrant populations, particularly those coming from majority muslim countries. moderators used a semi-structured focus-group guide containing a set of questions and statements to explore the topic of ipv among immigrant muslim couples. questions focused both on the factors that, according to the literature, may contribute to cause or perpetrate domestic violence as well as on domestic violence per se. among the precipitating factors, participants were asked about the challenges and hardships faced in the new country, their relationships with their family and community as well as the main differences between being in a couple in italy and back in their home country. questions and prompts used to investigate domestic violence are based on the literature on ipv and have been used elsewhere in focus group contexts (beaulaurier, seff, & newman, 2008; petersen, moracco, goldstein, & clark, 2003). prompts were intentionally vague so to stimulate the discussion about sensitive issues without suggesting any desired answer. questions discussed by participants included: “what does the words intimate partner violence tell you?”; “what happens when couples fight? how are fights handled?”; “what happens when arguments or fights get “out of hand”?; “how are marital conflicts handled in your own community? is there any difference between what happens in your home country and what happens here in italy?”. in order to further reduce the risk of socially desirable responses, the following short vignette describing a conflictual couple relationship was also included along with the above mentioned prompts and participants were asked to comment on the situation: “besma is 36; together with their children, she joined her husband three years ago. now the couple is experiencing serious problems, they don’t get along and he mistreats her. besma feels unhappy and doesn’t know what to do…”. the research was granted approval by the university ethical committee, which fulfilled ethical standards of the italian psychology association (aip, associazione italiana di psicologia). data analysis focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim in order to perform a content analysis of the transcripts. content analysis can be a useful method for organizing and summarizing data (berg, 2004) as it allows a more immediate understanding of the text as it identifies the underlying themes summarizing the transcripts. being a data-driven method (sandelowski, 2000), content analysis allows to draw phenomenological insights directly based on the words and phrases that participants used to voice their attitudes and thoughts. content analysis was conducted utilizing atlas.ti 7.0 (muhr, 2004), the focus group transcripts were uploaded to the database and then independently coded by two researchers. external team members who were not directly ipv and muslim immigrants 692 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ involved with the analysis reviewed the transcripts, methodology and analytic strategy to increase credibility and validity. the coding procedure followed various steps: initially, two researchers independently coded all the transcripts. both open and axial coding were used, axial codes were derived from a review of the literature, while open codes were created deductively from the text transcripts (strauss & corbin, 1998). after this initial set of coding, the two researchers met to share their individual coding schemes until a unified coding scheme was created. at the end of this second step, researchers analyzed all the six focus groups transcripts again according to the so found set of codes. after the coding was completed, researchers leveraged on the atlas.ti co-occurrence frequency table to identify related concepts and create broader codes families (muhr, 2004). finally, periodic research meetings involving the whole research group (e.g., the two coders as well as the focus group moderators) in which the published literature, text transcripts and emergent recurrent patterns were discussed in relation to each another served to further refine the list of codes families. triangulation of data was assured by the presence of colleagues with expertise in both migration issues and qualitative methods (crabtree & miller, 1999). one of the main advantages of using atlas.ti it is that it also creates a list of quotations connected to each code and code family, this allows results to be data-driven and prevent researchers from making undue assumptions. although findings from this procedure may lack generalizability, they are true to the participants’ voice and opinion (corbin & strauss, 1990). results the content analysis results generated 12 codes (called ‘categories’), which can be further clustered into four overarching codes families (called ‘themes’) (see table 2), each referring to a specific domain. table 2 themes and categories emerged from the focus-groups theme categories attitudes towards violence • violence acceptance • male duty to control vulnerable women cultural norms towards the marital couple bond • husbands’ supremacy • couple and family unity as a priority • disapproval/unacceptability of divorce • family as origin of the marital contract • families of origin as preferred help-seeking source in case of marital crisis impact of the geographical distance from the family of origin • male loneliness and feeling overwhelmed • men exposure to deviant behaviors • women lack of protection women social relations in post-migration context • women isolation • women employment gennari, giuliani, & accordini 693 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ theme 1: attitudes towards violence the first theme, made of two categories, refers to views and attitudes concerning violence episodes that can occur in community and family relationships, while no specific mention to the couple bond is made. violence acceptance the first category concerns the normalization of violence within the social context: only people coming from pakistan report habitual violence episodes in their social relationships. in particular, participants justify violent behaviors as a way to correct or eliminate misconduct according to a set of cultural norms and habits that regulate every aspect of the individuals’ social and private life, indicating appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. a certain degree of violence is therefore considered as a sign of showing interest and care towards someone. both male and female interviewees seem to share this view, as confirmed by the following quotes: (pakistani man2): …in our country if someone is wrong the others need to correct him/her. (pakistani man1): yes, they use force sometimes… to correct. (interviewer): when you say others who are you talking about? the family or the community? (pakistani man2): the family but also the community around them. (pakistani woman): i like it here, kids go to school and teachers do not beat them. in pakistan each class is composed of 50/55 pupils and things can get very messy so they need to discipline children and most of them are beaten by their teachers… conversely, it is important to notice that neither moroccan nor egyptian participants mention the legitimation of violent behaviors or explicitly refer to the possibility of using violence in social relationships. male duty to control vulnerable women another category that pakistani men only bring about to support violent behaviors against women is connected to the need for social control. it is a specific male duty to control and take care of the female members of the family, especially when they are out of home. women are in fact considered less socially competent and capable of dealing with the outside world. (pakistani man2): here you are constantly worried about that problem…you are not calm, there is no (pakistani man1): we live in very numerous, united families, with many siblings and cousins. he wanted to say that back in pakistan we don’t have this kind of problem, here, on the contrary, we do. trust me, we have that over there. … you can be calm, there’s always going to be someone watching out in case something happens (pakistani man3): when you are there there’s people you can trust, you are calm because you know that somebody will always watch out in case something happens… someone who controls your wife and kids. (pakistani man4): here it is not as if you were there, in pakistan. over there a man can remain calm because women stay among themselves and don’t get into troubles. you feel safe because they talk among themselves, understand and learn things. theme 2: cultural norms towards the marital couple bond the second theme, made of five categories, concerns the participants’ representations of marriage. as we will see later in the text, those representations are strictly connected to and facilitate couple violence. ipv and muslim immigrants 694 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ husbands’ supremacy according to all the participants, irrespectively of their ethnic background, muslim couples are characterized by a rigid role division and a great power imbalance between men and women. while women prove to be good wives showing devotion and submission to their husbands, it’s a husband’s duty to exert his power and authority. both male and female interviewees agree that men should occupy a superior and privileged position over women and males’ decisions and wishes should come first. according to this view, women are called to stand beside their husbands, no matter what. family is the only place where women can find fulfillment. it is also interesting to notice that such a view is promoted by elderly women who try to educate young brides. (moroccan man): moms always recommend their daughters to be patient…they say: “you need to be patient. women need to put up with their husbands and be tolerant and do as they are asked”. (pakistani woman): women need to follow their husbands’ advice, they have to show respect and obedience because men know better, they know what is best for their wives. (egyptian woman): egyptian men do whatever they want, they don’t need to ask for permission. women, on the contrary, ask men for the permission to do certain things. the women who took part in our research agree that self-determination is based upon gender: women should obey and be subdued to their men, while husbands have a much wider array of things they can do or ask for. (egyptian woman): i wanted to say that men have the power and control because they are the ones who bring money home so they run the family and decide. (pakistani woman): men and women are at the same level here in italy. even though also over there they have the same rights, it’s not the same because women are dependent on their husband. (moroccan woman): a good wife shows respect towards her husband and so she has to swallow some bitter pills sometimes, even if she doesn’t agree, she has to be silent and accept. couple and family unity as a priority an extremely relevant category raised in particular by female participants has to do with the key value and indissolubility of family bonds. the importance of family ties justifies women’s tolerance of marital conflicts and their acceptance of violent behaviors perpetrated by their spouses. (egyptian woman): i would like to have a family and become a mother. family is the most important thing, especially for a woman, she is the one who has the duty to keep the family together. (moroccan woman): if you are experiencing a problem with your husband, you don’t tell anybody. …i don’t want this to happen, especially after having had kids, i’d like my family to be unite, i don’t want anyone to suffer because of me. (pakistani woman): my husband came here…so when he came to italy i had no choice but to follow him and move here too, wives have to follow their men. disapproval/unacceptability of divorce according to some widespread cultural norms, couples should find a way to remain together in spite of conflicts, misunderstandings and even violence. women are unlikely to leave their husbands as their family and gennari, giuliani, & accordini 695 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ children come before the individual and couple well-being. disapproval of divorce is another category emerged from the focus groups, as shown by the following quotes. (pakistani woman): here if you happen to fight with your husband, you want a divorce. …this is what i see happening. on the contrary, in our culture we try to get along and remain together until the end, despite the problems. (moroccan woman): as a wife, i’ve always tried to carry on. you know, even when violence-related problems occur, women need to think to their family and their children first. (egyptian woman): you keep on going on for the sake of your parents and for your children, this is our duty. even if there are things you don’t like, you have to accept them, you cannot disrupt your family and have your children go through that. according to all participants, divorce is rarely a viable option. it needs to be said that while pakistanis are extremely reluctant to even consider the possibility of divorce, egyptians and moroccans seem to be more open. (moroccan man): if no other solution is possible there is divorce. … divorce is really the last option but if the spouses don’t get along anymore and they cannot find any solution they have to separate, it’s sad but it’s best for everyone. (interviewer): is it possible to get separated in pakistan? (pakistani woman): yes, but it’s extremely unlikely, almost nobody does it. women think about their children first, they know that have to make any effort for them. it is hard to separate if you have kids because kids will then experience many problems. family as origin of the marital contract the occurrence of arranged marriages is another important issue that affects the couple’s life. in these cases, families of origin enter an agreement while spouses cannot express their will or feelings. while men did not comment on this event, interviewed women reported an increased risk of domestic violence in cases of arranged marriages. in these cases spouses don’t know each other before the wedding and this may result in a greater likelihood of misunderstandings, disagreements and relational mismatches. (pakistani woman): here girls are free to choose their future husbands, but in our country parents are the ones who make this choice. …they ask you beforehand, they will ask you: “this is your boyfriend, do you like him or not?” i can’t say i love someone because i’ve never seen him but if my parents ask me: “do you like him?” and my answer is no, they are going to look for someone else, this is not a big deal. (moroccan woman): i’ve seen many, many cases of battered women because in our country arranged marriages outnumber love marriages. when there is an arranged marriage, you don’t know who your husband is going to be and there’s a chance he is not going to be good to you. families of origin as preferred help-seeking source in case of marital crisis irrespectively of ethnicity, all participants agree that families of origin are called to help young couples in case of severe marital conflict. parents in particular mediate couple disputes and lead new couples throughout complex decision-making processes. therefore, their advice becomes a non-written law to abide to. in order to fully understand this aspect, it needs to be remembered that, as said before, in many cases families of origin highly contributed to the couple formation. ipv and muslim immigrants 696 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (moroccan man): i think it’s better if you have a mediator…i’ve gone through this already, you end up fighting constantly. the police is called and you lose your mind and you come to blows. so this is my advice: if i have a problem in my relationship, i call our parents. that’s it! we go there, we talk and we find a solution. (egyptian man): so in my opinion it is very good to get help from your family and when there’s a problem between husband and wife and they don’t get any help then they separate. (moroccan woman): when the husband starts beating his wife she would go to her parents for help: she would stay at her parents’, this is how it works in our country. …i saw it happen many times. (pakistani man): talking to your parents and elder relatives really helps things go smoother because they give advice and wish the best for everybody. when two people get married, the whole family is involved. let’s say that something happens between us and we fight, the whole family will intervene: “what problems do you have? who’s right? who’s wrong?” so if there’s a problem, they are involved too. theme 3: impact of the geographical distance from the family of origin the third theme, made of three categories, collects topics regarding the impact of losing connection to one’s family of origin. the forced distance from their families, puts couple stability at stake and all interviewees reported feelings of loss and being overwhelmed by an emotional burden they can hardly bear. male loneliness and feeling overwhelmed in some cases male participants reported problems connected to feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running a family. deprived of the protective and surveillance function usually performed by community and extended family members, men or young male immigrants are left alone to bear this responsibility. male interviewees often report feeling worried and concerned and thus incrementing surveillance efforts over women. being away for work all day, men experience an increased sense of helplessness and frailty because they cannot be next to their wives and monitor their behaviors: (moroccan man): the problem here in italy is that husbands are busy, they work all day while women don’t do anything, they just take care of the kids. so the greatest problem is that we are away from home while back in morocco this was not a big deal. (egyptian man): here you have everything you want but in spite of that, we all want to go back home and stay with our wives and children because here they are alone and don’t know anybody…so we are worried. (pakistani man): i am alone in taking care of my family and if i have a problem at home it’s a mess… who can i trust? who can i turn to for help? you see, it is a huge trouble for us, we are constantly worried, we are afraid for our wives and children. men exposure to deviant behaviors according to the moroccan participants’ narrations, immigrant men behavior is deeply affected by the distance from their families of origin. free from the restrictions and limitations imposed by their older family members and because of the power imbalance within the marital relationship, men feel legitimated to carry out behaviors gennari, giuliani, & accordini 697 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of any kind, including abusing drugs and committing crimes. moreover, women, subjugated to their husbands and virtually ignored as potential interlocutors, are in no position to contain such behaviors. in particular, some moroccan men experience an estrangement from their family life after migration to the point that their conduct betrays the model imposed to a good muslim father. several moroccan male participants reported having witnessed irresponsible and even risky behaviors carried out by their fellow nationals, who seemed oblivious of the damage they were causing to their families. such a change in life style often results in arguments and strong disagreements within the marital couple. conflicts may hesitate in violent behaviors (bélanger & brisebois, 2010), especially in cases of men drinking to excess, abusing drugs or being involved in illegal activities. according to our interviewees, however, drug abuse is related to, although not causing, violence: both occur due to unemployment and the lack of economic resources. (moroccan woman): when they lose their job because they hurt themselves or because their contract has expired…sometimes men ask women for money to go to the bar or buy drugs. as long as women do not complain and obey their husbands everything’s fine but if they say: “i can’t take it anymore!”, then violence begins. (moroccan man): a man who always stays at the bar will inevitably have problems with his wife. some men are seldom at home with their families and when they are home they are drunk because they don’t have money or because they’ve lost their job…so they may come to blows with their wives. women lack of protection according to all female participants, couple violence results from losing contact with one’s family network. after migration, the kin loses the protective and conflict resolution role it once had over the woman and the couple in general. in particular, women not only report feeling lonely in face of emotional and relational strains, but they also lack protection from the possible abuses perpetrated by their husbands. therefore, living in italy for muslim wives may not only mean coming to terms with an increased emotional distress but also putting their physical safety at stake. hence, women run the risk of being exposed to an invisible, silent violence, hidden within the comfort of their house’s walls. (moroccan woman): this is what i’ve…i’ve come to understand: these men see that women are far away from their families and so they do as they wish in that they exploit them. back in morocco women have their families to protect them. (pakistani woman): wives find it very hard to adapt alone, they are always home alone and depend on their husbands for everything…so it depends on how the husband is because she doesn’t have anybody to turn to if something bad happens to her. theme 4: women social relations in post-migration context the fourth theme, made of two categories, focuses on the attitudes towards the challenges that are inevitably connected to migration. with regards to this category, interviewees underlined both the social isolation women —especially those coming from pakistan—are confronted with after migration as well as the difficulty in accepting female work, even in face of economic strains. ipv and muslim immigrants 698 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ women isolation pakistanis often report being concerned with the emotional difficulties experienced by their wives due to both the absence of their social network as well as the isolation resulting from their lifestyle. loneliness and marginalization are the main features of female immigration: locked in their homes, pakistani women are strangers within a culture they do not belong or participate to, immersed in a language they do not understand and do not learn. in this respect, men underline that many times, even several years after the migration, the encounter between pakistani women and the italian community fails to occur, to the point that they will always feel strangers and constantly dream of returning home. (pakistani woman): my roots are back there, it’s hard for me to live here. i am always at home by myself and have no-one to talk to, i feel lonely and homesick and i often think about pakistan, how is it over there, what people are doing. (pakistani man): women are always home, they never go out. they cannot go around. they have to wait ’til saturday if they need to go to the market. …they have to wait their husbands because they either don’t speak italian or don’t have the driving license. frail and emotionally unstable because of this situation, pakistani women pour their discontent—which men are unable to handle—on their families. (pakistani man): my wife told me she misses her parents and her siblings…i hope this will eventually go away because she is sad and always crying. …women are always sad because they would like to go back there [to pakistan]…so the family lacks happiness and joy. moroccan men are also aware of the social isolation affecting women, however they do not ascribe this situation to migration. they rather call upon economic problems, poverty or the poorly designed political actions undertaken by the italian government that do not favor integration. moreover, moroccan men reckon that, having more time to dedicate to the development of social relations, women have greater chances of socialization in the host country. (moroccan man1): i see women in public gardens and foreign women talk to italian women…it happens…while men find it harder to talk with others if they are not colleagues. i mean, now women have far more chances to integrate than men. (moroccan man2): it may happen that our wives here cannot go around because they don’t have a car or a driving license…but these are economic problems, it has nothing to do with our culture or religion. …the european society doesn’t favor women’s integration into society. women employment another relevant aspect that might put immigrant couples’ stability at stake is the issue of female employment. unlike the pakistani and egyptian immigrants in our sample, who do not want their wives to work, moroccan men report mixed feelings about this issue. some, allow their wives to work or attend training courses. many others, on the contrary, approve of female employment only in case of severe economic hardships, especially if this implies working in close contact with other men. (moroccan man): this is good because your wife helps you and then, how can i say? if she has the chance to attend a training course…according to her education and skills…maybe do some training or something. gennari, giuliani, & accordini 699 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (moroccan man): if a woman is happy staying at home and her parents don’t need her help she can do without working, she can stay home which is much better…if a woman, needs something, she has the right to help her parents if they’re in need. also when needed, women employment is not always welcomed in moroccan families: working in mixed environments together with other adult males or working at night may result in arguments and conflicts and may as well lead to the explosion of violence. (moroccan man): maybe women are willing to work because they need to support their families of origin. husbands don’t agree because women will need to work full-time or do a job they don’t approve of. …these are the actual problems that may lead to violent behaviors. it might be that a woman wants to work in a restaurant and her husband says: “no, you can’t work in a restaurant because i don’t want you to always be surrounded by other men”. discussion the present paper aims at investigating the attitudes towards domestic violence in a group of immigrants coming from morocco, egypt and pakistan. in particular, our aim was threefold: 1. to investigate the immigrant men and women attitudes with regards to a phenomenon, such as that of domestic violence, that is described a particularly urgent by the scientific literature on the topic; 2. to study the differences between men and women with regards to their perceptions of the topic; and 3. to study the differences between the three ethnic groups considered. irrespectively of the interviewees’ gender and nationality, the focus groups transcripts allowed to identify some recurrent topics that might help researchers understand the marital context in which spousal violence maybe perpetrated. in particular, these common topics are: 1. husband’s supremacy which also implies women occupy an inferior and subjugated position within the couple and determines a rigid gender-based role division. as already evidenced by the literature on the topic, muslim immigrants tend to replicate the same traditional gender role patterns adopted in their countries of origin also after migration. in this respect, some authors (ali, karamali, & malik, 2014) have underlined how traditionalism or perpetuation of traditions may lead to family problems due to the immigrants’ poor adaptation to the hosting country; 2. the women’s duty to keep the couple and family unity as a priority. consistently with the literature on the cultural norms regulating family interactions and gender role expectations in muslim communities (adam & schewe, 2007; ammar, 2007), our findings suggest that women are called to preserve family integrity and cohesion, even in cases when their own happiness and physical safety is at stake; 3. the disapproval/unacceptability of divorce, both to safeguard the extended family’s honor and respectability as well as to prevent children from experiencing their family’s disruption. scientific literature also highlights that, especially if initiated by a woman, divorce brings shame and social stigma upon the family and children (savaya & cohen, 2003). families generally encourage spouses’ cohabitation despite the occurrence of violence (abu-ras, 2007) and for this reason before taking the decision to leave, a woman should be at serious risk; ipv and muslim immigrants 700 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 4. migration, with the multiple challenges it brings about, results in an increased emotional vulnerability for both men and women (abraham, 2000a, 2000b). feelings of loneliness for men and isolation for women may become unbearable. as clearly evidenced by our findings, the distance from the families of origin that usually act as mediators and role models for the spouses posit immigrant couples at greater risk of segregation. the focus groups analysis show the key role played by the spouses’ families of origin: back in the homeland, the spouses’ parents help maintaining the couple stability, support the husband in running the household and perform a protective function toward the wife and children while similar sources of support are either non-existent or greatly underused in the hosting country. as a result, couple members are left alone to face the many challenges posit by the new context as well as the everyday family duties. such a condition, characterized by a great emotional load combined with the lack of both social and economic resources, facilitates the onset and perpetration of violent behaviors against women (hassouneh-phillips, 2001). besides the above mentioned topics, common to all the participants, irrespectively of their country of origin and gender, some specific considerations can be drawn with respect to nationality and gender. with regards to nationality, pakistani interviewees not only acknowledge the possible occurrence of violence in intimate relations but also its role as a social regulator, making it a legitimate mean to correct socially unacceptable behaviors. violence is thus normalized, especially as it serves the need for women’s social control. men have the specific duty of guardianship over women, they are called to protect and compensate for their frailty and lack of social skills (ali et al., 2014). moreover, women’s isolation as a result of a lack of contacts with the italian context is a recurrent theme in both pakistani males’ and females’ interviews. we agree with the literature on the topic in asserting that women’s estrangement from the community and lack of social support in the hosting country might contribute to explain the invisibility of violence that often remains unnoticed and concealed beneath the house’s walls (abu-ras, 2000; kulwicki, aswad, carmona, & ballout, 2010). differently from the other participants, moroccan interviewees show a greater awareness of the risk factors connected to migration in determining the onset and perpetration of domestic violence: economic and workrelated difficulties, liberalization of men’s risky or illegal behaviors, traditional gender role patterns that are replicated in the host country with no possibility of being altered are all mentioned as possible causes facilitating the explosion of violence within the couple. as far as gender differences are concerned, two main topics emerge from the analysis of the focus groups. women only, irrespectively of their country of origin, report a lack of self-determination and a limited possibility of choice compared to men. this is especially important if we consider that women with low autonomy have been found to be at greater risk for domestic violence. consistently with the literature on the topic, our female interviewees report the need for women to obey and be subdued to their husbands (shalabi et al., 2015; petersen et al., 2003). in this respect, it is also interesting to notice that the issue of arranged marriages, as the expression of the passive acceptance required to muslim women within the marital couple, was brought up by female participants only. the distance from the families of origin acquires a slightly different meaning based on gender: while women report a lack of protection and guardianship (especially when problems and couple disagreements degenerate gennari, giuliani, & accordini 701 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ giving rise to violent behaviors), men’s distance from their kin either causes them to feel overwhelmed by family duties and responsibilities or give way to unacceptable, deviant (drug or alcohol abuse, illegal activities) or even violent behaviors. as shown by several studies, drug and alcohol abuse along with unemployment and financial strains (efe & ayaz, 2010) increase the likelihood of violent behaviors taking place within the couple. implications for practice the topic of violence in immigrant couples posits a series of relevant questions pertaining possible interventions: how can professionals (physicians, psychologists, social workers, law enforcement agencies and other service providers) face this issue? along with relevant similarities, the differences between the three ethnic group considered with respect to their attitudes towards domestic violence and gender role expectations suggest the need for both researchers and service providers to also take into account, among other variables, the country of origin of immigrants for not running the risk of equating all muslims. actually, it must be underlined that there is no such thing as one muslim culture, rather, the muslim world is rich with multiple differences both between as well as within countries (hamada, 2001). an example of this concerns divorce: contrary to the other two ethnic minorities considered, moroccan participants view divorce as something that, although undesirable and reproachable, can be accepted. as extensively discussed above, families of origin regulate couple disputes and are conceived as help-seeking sources with the result that violence keeps being a private “affair”, to be handled within the house’s walls. such cultural norms regarding family privacy constitute a great barrier to services utilization. especially if provided by members of hosting country, domestic violence services are regarded as unsafe and culturally inappropriate (kulwicki et al., 2010). the women in our sample, especially those coming from pakistan, lack the relevant connections and knowledge about existing services and are isolated from the community life in the hosting country. promoting connections within immigrant communities, facilitating the relationships between immigrant families and immigrant communities, developing and fostering interventions promoted by immigrant organizations and associations may help view the matter as a public concern rather than a private issue that needs to be resolved within the family. the development of culturally competent services and the involvement of people sharing the same cultural and religious beliefs of the immigrants seeking help may provide an answer to the feeling of isolation and loneliness both our male and female participants reported, especially in case of couple distress. our finding that, when faced with post migration strains and lacking the support of their network, immigrant men might carry out illicit behavior or abuse drugs and alcohol sheds light on an, often underrepresented, problem in migration studies and calls for the need of developing services targeted at men and not exclusively at women. in this perspective, promoting periodic meetings between male immigrants from the same country of origin/ ethnic group conducted by leading figures within their community might help men voice their feelings as well as facilitate the development of formal and informal peer support groups, thus reducing their isolation. in a similar fashion, the outcomes of the present study highlight the importance of providing occasions for meeting and exchange among immigrant women sharing the same cultural background, this will likely multiply their sources of support as well as increase their satisfaction with their lives in the hosting country. ipv and muslim immigrants 702 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations the topic dealt with in the preset study needs to be further investigated within a larger sample in order to assess the reliability and external validity of the topics emerged. moreover, the low educational level of the participants involved together with their lack of fluency in italian might have affected their ability to describe their feelings and thoughts in a more nuanced and richer way, therefore limiting the number and specificity of the themes emerged. further studies should therefore include participants with different educational background as well as with a higher language proficiency. the introduction of a quantitative instrument assessing the level of acculturation might also be useful to provide a better interpretation of the participants’ narratives. it might be hypothesized that longer-term residents develop greater levels of assimilation of the hosting culture’s values and representations therefore showing similar attitudes towards couple-related problems to those of the non-immigrant population. a further limitation might be constituted by the choice of the focus group as the data collection instrument. focus groups have the advantage of allowing the quick recruiting of a large number of participants at lower costs if compared to individual interviews which also require a greater personal involvement. moreover, focus groups are particularly suited for gaining an insight of the respondents’ attitudes, beliefs and values which are easily expressed through social interaction. despite its many advantages, it should be noted that focus groups might also have some limitations, for example that of silencing or reducing the impact of minority opinions. discussing highly emotionally connoted topics in a group context might lead to stereotypical answers as well as increase the social desirability bias towards both the group members as well as the moderators. the social desirability bias towards the in-group members might be reduced by introducing in-depth individual interviews aimed at further discussing 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(2010). an interactional perspective on the relationship of immigration to intimate partner violence in a representative sample of help-seeking women. journal of interpersonal violence, 25(10), 1815-1835. doi:10.1177/0886260509354511 vives-cases, c., torrubiano-domíniguez, j., gil-gonzález, d., parra, d. l., agudelo-suàrez, a., davò, m., . . . martinezromàn, m. a. (2013). social and immigration factors in intimate partner violence among ecuadorians, moroccans and romanians living in spain. european journal of public health, 24, 605-612. doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckt127 yoshihama, m. (2005). a web in the patriarchal clan system tactics of intimate partners in the japanese sociocultural context. violence against women, 11(10), 1236-1262. doi:10.1177/1077801205280179 ipv and muslim immigrants 706 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 http://doi.org/10.1177/1524838009334130 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2006.00283.x http://doi.org/10.1080/741922935 http://doi.org/10.1023/a:1020488928736 http://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.93.3.435 http://doi.org/10.1177/02654075030202004 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9718-6 http://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2016.1245536 http://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509354511 http://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckt127 http://doi.org/10.1177/1077801205280179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors marialuisa gennari, is a senior researcher in clinical psychology at catholic university of brescia. her research interests focus on family and couple relations, in particular intimate partner violence, divorce and migration. cristina giuliani, phd, is an assistant professor of social psychology at catholic university of milan. her current research interests include post-migration family dynamics, family resiliency, and acculturation experience in muslim families. monica accordini, is a temporary research assistant at catholic university of milan. her research interests focus on immigration, especially with regards to integration and acculturation processes, as well as on forensic psychology and the rehabilitation of convicts. gennari, giuliani, & accordini 707 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 688–707 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1411 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ ipv and muslim immigrants (introduction) muslim immigrants’ attitudes towards ipv method study design participants procedure and data collection data analysis results theme 1: attitudes towards violence theme 2: cultural norms towards the marital couple bond theme 3: impact of the geographical distance from the family of origin theme 4: women social relations in post-migration context discussion implications for practice limitations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the effects of test trial and processing level on immediate and delayed retention research reports the effects of test trial and processing level on immediate and delayed retention sau hou chang* a [a] school of education, indiana university southeast, new albany, in, usa. abstract the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of test trial and processing level on immediate and delayed retention. a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed anovas was used with two between-subject factors of test trial (single test, repeated test) and processing level (shallow, deep), and one within-subject factor of final recall (immediate, delayed). seventy-six college students were randomly assigned first to the single test (studied the stimulus words three times and took one free-recall test) and the repeated test trials (studied the stimulus words once and took three consecutive free-recall tests), and then to the shallow processing level (asked whether each stimulus word was presented in capital letter or in small letter) and the deep processing level (whether each stimulus word belonged to a particular category) to study forty stimulus words. the immediate test was administered five minutes after the trials, whereas the delayed test was administered one week later. results showed that single test trial recalled more words than repeated test trial in immediate final free-recall test, participants in deep processing performed better than those in shallow processing in both immediate and delayed retention. however, the dominance of single test trial and deep processing did not happen in delayed retention. additional study trials did not further enhance the delayed retention of words encoded in deep processing, but did enhance the delayed retention of words encoded in shallow processing. keywords: single test trial, repeated test trial, shallow processing level, deep processing level, immediate retention, delayed retention europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 received: 2016-02-09. accepted: 2016-11-22. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: school of education, indiana university southeast at 4201 grant line road, new albany, in 47150, united states. telephone: 812-941-2606. fax: 812-941-2667. e-mail: sauchang@ius.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. testing is usually viewed as a way of assessing how much students know, but is seldom seen as a way of enhancing students’ learning. however, roediger and karpicke (2006a, 2006b) argued that taking a test had a greater positive effect than studying the material on future retention. such an improved performance from taking a test is known as the testing effect. the research design of testing effect usually includes a study phase, an intervening phase, and a test phase (e.g., chan & mcdermott, 2007; roediger & karpicke, 2006a). during the study phase, participants take study trials to study some set of material varying from word lists to prose passages. during the intervening phase, participants may take study trials again to study the material or take test trials to test how much they retain the material. during the test phase, participants are given a final retention test of the material. the typical finding is that those participants who take test trials outperform those who take study trials during the intervening phase. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ evidence for the testing effect in promoting learning comes from laboratory studies (e.g., wheeler, ewers, & buonanno, 2003), educationally related studies (e.g., nungester & duchastel, 1982) and classroom studies (e.g., leeming, 2002). laboratory studies typically use word lists as material, and free recall as test. for example, wheeler et al. asked participants to study a 40-word list presented at a rate of one word every 3 seconds. after the first presentation, participants in the repeated test conditions were told to take a recall test to write down as many of the words as they could recall from the list, and this process was repeated four times with 1 minute break after each recall test. on the other hand, after the first presentation, participants in the repeated study conditions were told to study the words presented at the same rate, and this process was repeated four times with 1 minute break after each study. no matter whether participants were in the repeated test or repeated study conditions, participants in the 5-min delay conditions took a recall test for the study list after five minutes, and those in the 7-day delay conditions took the recall test after 7 days. results revealed a huge advantage for repeated study trials on the immediate free-recall test, but repeated test trials were found to be favorable on the final free-recall test given a week later. other laboratory studies showed how the number of test trials at retrieval affects retention. roediger and karpicke (2006a) had participants either study a passage three times and take one test or study a passage once and take three tests. results showed that those who had one test trial recalled more than those who had three test trials in immediate retention, but the opposite happened in delayed retention. wheeler and roediger (1992) also reported that taking three tests immediately after studying a list of pictures greatly improved retention on a final test relative to taking a single test. dempster (1997) identified two hypotheses to account for the positive effects of test trials on learning. the first hypothesis stated that the testing effect was a result of additional exposure to material and overlearning of the material during the test trials (e.g., thompson, wenger, & bartling, 1978). however, when roediger and karpicke (2006b) reviewed experiments with equal exposure to the material in the study trials when participants were asked to study the material several times, and in the test trials when participants were given a test several times, they still found testing effects. in addition, wheeler et al. found that overlearning of the material with additional studying only produced better retention in the short term than repeated testing did, even though testing produced better long-term retention. if additional exposure and overlearning cannot explain the testing effect, an alternative is needed. the second hypothesis stated that the testing effect was a result of the retrieval processes that increased the elaboration of a memory trace and multiplied retrieval routes (e.g., bjork, 1975; jacoby, 1978). since recall tests that required production led to greater testing effects than recognition tests that involved identification, bjork argued that recall tests required greater retrieval effort than recognition tests. the effortful retrieval increased the elaboration of the memory trace and enhanced the testing effect. in addition, mcdaniel and masson (1985) manipulated whether studied words were processed with semantic or phonemic encoding tasks. the testing group was given the first cued-recall tests with semantic or phonemic cues matched or mismatched the type of encoding, and the control group was dismissed. all subjects took a final cued-recall test the next day. they found that the testing group performed better on the final test when the cues for the first test mismatched the original encoding than when the cues on the first test matched the type of encoding. the effortful retrieval increased the types of retrieval routes to the memory trace and enhanced the testing effect. therefore, effortful retrieval processes that increased the elaboration of a memory trace and multiplied retrieval routes are better able to account for the testing effect. test trial and processing level on retention 130 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with a sizable research on the testing effect, several variables have been investigated: the material to be learned (e.g., roediger & karpicke, 2006a) the format of the test trial and final retention test (e.g., carpenter & delosh, 2006), the feedback received on the test trial (karpicke & roediger, 2007), the time interval between study and test trials (e.g., carpenter & delosh, 2005), and the interval before the final retention test (e.g., wheeler et al., 2003). however, how to study the material or the encoding of the material receive less attention. one way to study the material is to encode it in different levels of processing (lop). craik and tulving (1975) conducted a series of experiments to explore the lop effect on memory. to process words at different depths, they asked participants to answer various questions about the words. for example, questions about typescript encouraged shallow encodings, questions about rhymes encouraged intermediate encoding, and questions about category encouraged deep encoding. after the encoding phase was completed, participants were given a recall or recognition test for the words. results showed that deeper encodings took longer to accomplish and were associated with higher levels of performance on the subsequent memory test. to further investigate the shallow and deep processing, morris, bransford, and franks (1977) had participants encode words phonemically (shallow processing) or semantically (deep processing). they found that semantic encoding led to greater recognition than phonemic encoding in standard recognition test. however, phonemic encoding was superior to semantic encoding given a rhyming recognition test. encoding manipulations that directed subjects to attend to the rhymes of inputs resulted in better performance on a rhyming test than did encoding activities that prompted subjects to process the semantic meaning of inputs. in a separate study, kuo and hirshman (1997) manipulated the lop (semantic vs. letter) by asking subjects to say aloud a word that was either related in meaning to the initial word (deep processing) or to share the first letter of the initial word (shallow processing). subjects studied a list consisting of 48 context words (exception words or pronounceable nonsense words) and 19 regular words. a free recall test was given after five minutes. results showed that the mean proportions of regular words correctly recalled were significantly higher in the deep processing condition than those in the shallow processing condition. the lop effect was approximately equal in the nonsense and exception word context. in addition, jacoby, shimizu, daniels, and rhodes (2005) investigated if recognition memory was based on trace strength or familiarity, or depth of processing. in phase 1, subjects made pleasantness judgments for 36 words in one list (deep processing) and vowel judgments (whether a word included an o or u) for 36 words in another list (shallow processing). in phase 2, subjects received deep and shallow recognition memory tests. for the deep recognition memory test, words whose pleasantness had been judged were mixed with an equal number of new words (i.e., foils). subjects were correctly informed that all of the “old” words in the test list were from the pleasantness-judged list. for a separate, shallow recognition memory test, the subjects were correctly informed that all “old” words in the test list were presented in the vowel judgment list. in phase 3, three types of words appeared in a recognition memory test of foils: 36 deep foils (presented as new items in the deep recognition memory test); 36 shallow foils (presented as new items in the shallow recognition memory test); and 72 new foils (words that were not presented earlier). the subjects were instructed to judge a word as “old” if it has been presented earlier during any phase of the experiment, and to respond “new” only if the word had not been presented earlier. results showed that attempting to recognize old items that were deeply processed during study resulted in greater depth of processing at retrieval and thus better memory for foils than did attempting to recognize items that were shallowly processed during study. in contrast to formal models of chang 131 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recognition memory that highlighted the importance of quantitative criteria (e.g., strength of global familiarity in the model), specifying the source of old items or source-constrained retrieval could produce a qualitative change in the type of information used for memory judgments. one study was found to study deep processing and testing effect. karpicke and smith (2012) investigated if another type of deep processing (elaboration) at encoding contributed to the testing effect of repeated retrieval. elaboration is the process of encoding more features or attributes of an event, producing distinctive representations and multiple retrieval routes for later retrieval. they asked participants to learn word pairs across alternating study and test trials. in elaborative study conditions, participants used an imagery-based keyword method, a verbal elaboration method, or a semantic elaboration method to encode items during study trials. in the imagery-based keyword method, a mental image of a meaningful interaction (e.g., an ant drinks poison) between the keyword (ant) and the definition of the vocabulary word (antiar means poison) was produced. in the verbal elaboration method, subjects were shown a word pair (e.g., wingu-cloud) and were told to type a word (e.g., bird or sky) that would help them relate the word and english word (e.g., a bird flying in the sky). in the semantic elaboration method, the word pairs were identical (e.g., castle-castle) so that the production of verbal elaborations relating the identical word pairs would be restricted or prevented. on a criterial test one week after the learning phase, repeated test trials produced better long-term retention than repeated study trials regardless of the elaborative encoding conditions. karpicke and smith (2012) did not find any type of elaborative encoding to be accountable for the testing effect of repeated retrieval. without comparing shallow processing to deep processing, it is still unclear if lop would be a factor affecting the benefits of retrieval practice. in addition, when mcdaniel and masson (1985) asked subjects to process words with semantic or phonemic encoding, they found the semantic or phonemic cues on the first test could affect how much subjects remembered on the second test. with additional time exposed to the material in the first test, the testing effect could not be attributed to lop. further study is needed to examine whether lop would be a factor mediating the testing effect. therefore, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of test trial and processing level on immediate and delayed retention. research questions included (a) was there any difference between single test trial and repeated test trial on immediate and delayed retention? the testing effect expected that single test trial enhanced immediate retention but repeated test trial enhanced delayed retention (e.g., wheeler & roediger, 1992). (b) was there any difference between shallow and deep processing on immediate and delayed retention? the level of processing effect expected that deep processing enhanced immediate and delayed retention (e.g., craik & tulving, 1975). (c) was there any difference between test trials and processing level on final recall? previous studies expected that there was an interaction among test trial, processing level and final recall (e.g., karpicke & smith, 2012; mcdaniel & masson, 1985). method participants seventy-six college students (mean age = 21.3 years old; range = 19 – 27 years old; male = 8; female = 68) completed the immediate and delayed tests in partial fulfillment of a psychology course requirement. at the beginning, ninety-one college students were invited to participate in the present study. data of fifteen test trial and processing level on retention 132 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were discarded because nine of them were over 27 years-old (to keep the age range within 10), two of them did not show up for the delayed free-recall test, and four of them did not follow instruction to provide complete data. the procedures met all american psychological association (apa) ethical principles for use of human subjects (apa, 2002), and participants were provided informed consent in accordance with guidelines set by the institutional review board of the university. materials forty stimulus words were taken from the words used by craik and tulving (1975, experiment 9, see table 1). from the mrc psycholinguistic database (wilson, 1998), several properties of the stimulus words were obtained. the average number of letters was 4.75 (sd = .74), the average number of syllables was 1.23 (sd = .42), the average printed kucera-francis word frequency was 16.3 per million (sd = 14.45), the average concreteness rating was 571.91 (sd = 40.7), and the average familiarity rating was 507.73 (sd = 54.06). table 1 stimulus words and category questions word category question word category question bear a wild animal lamp a type of furniture brake a part of a car lane a type of road brush used for cleaning lark a type of bird cart a type of vehicle mast a part of a ship chapel a type of building monk a type of clergy cheek a part of the body nurse associated with medicine cherry a type of fruit pail a type of container clip a type of office supply pond a body of water copper a type of metal rice a type of grain drill a type of tool roach a type of insect earl a type of nobility robber a type of criminal fence found in the garden sheep a type of farm animal fiddle a musical instrument soap a type of toiletry flame something hot sonnet a written form of art flour used for cooking speech a form of communication glove something to wear tire a round object gram a type of measurement tribe a group of people grin a human expression trout a type of fish honey a type of food witch associated with magic juice a type of beverage wool a type of material design a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed anovas was used with two between-subject factors of test trial (single test, repeated test) and processing level (shallow, deep), and one within-subject factor of final recall (immediate, delayed). participants were randomly assigned to the single test and the repeated test trials. they were then randomly assigned again to the shallow processing level and the deep processing level. therefore, there were 38 participants in each test trial (single test and repeated test) and each processing level (shallow and deep). the design for the test trial was based on that in roediger and karpicke (2006a) and wheeler and roediger (1992). in the single test trial, participants studied the stimulus words three times and took one free-recall test in chang 133 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ each cycle. in the repeated test trial, participants studied the stimulus words once and took three consecutive free-recall tests in each cycle. there were three cycles of study/test trials (either ssst or sttt) for 12 trials total. there were nine study and three test trials in the single test trial, and there were three study and nine test trials in the repeated test trial. in the shallow processing level, participants were asked whether each stimulus word was presented in capital letter or in small letter. in the deep processing level, participants were asked whether each stimulus word belonged to a particular category (see table 1). the final immediate free-recall test was administered five minutes after the 12 study and test trials, whereas the delayed free-recall test was administered one week later. procedure participants were tested in groups of five or fewer. they were told to study and recall a list of words, and answer some questions to help them remember the words. the task was programmed by e-prime experimental software (version 1.1; schneider, eschman, & zuccolotto, 2002). before the word list was presented, participants were given a practice list of two words to familiarize themselves with the task and the presentation rate, and a practice recall test to familiarize themselves with the testing procedure. there were a learning phase and a testing phase after the practice. the learning phase consisted of 12 study and test trials and took about 30 minutes. at the beginning of each study trial, participants were asked to rest their hands on a key labeled “yes” and the other on a key labeled “no” on the computer keyboard. first, a “ready” prompt was shown on the computer screen for 1 s. the typescript question or category question was then shown for 1 s, and participants were asked to answer the question by pressing the appropriate key. the typescript question was asked in the form, “is the word in capital letter?” or “is the word in small letter?” the category question was asked in the form, “is the word (a category)?” both typescript and category questions were counterbalanced, so that half of the answers to the questions was “yes” and half was “no.” the purpose of the question was to induce the participant to process the word at a relatively shallow level (typescript questions) or at a relatively deep level (category questions). no matter if participants answered the typescript or category questions, stimuli words were presented on a computer at 2 s per word and the screen proceeded to the next word after 2 s. to present 40 stimuli words, the total time for one study trial was 80 s. participants who were not able to answer the questions correctly over 80% were discarded from the analysis. the beginning of each test trial was indicated by a tone (presented over headphones for 0.5 s) and a “recall” prompt that remained on the computer screen throughout the test. during each test trial, participants were given 80 s to write down as many of the words as possible, in any order, on a response booklet. therefore, the time of exposure to materials on study trials and test trials was equated (both are 80 s). the transition from one test trial to another (in the repeated test condition) was indicated by a tone as well as a change in the background color on the computer screen: the background was blue during the first test, green during the second test, and red during the third test. at the end of each test trial, participants were instructed to turn to the next page on their response booklets and not to look back at any of their previous responses at any time during the learning phase. after the learning phase of three cycles of 12 study and test trials, participants proceeded to the testing phase and were asked to complete mazes for five minutes. participants were then given an immediate free-recall test to write down as many of the words as they could recall in 10 minutes, and were instructed to draw a line on test trial and processing level on retention 134 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ their recall sheet to mark their progress at one minute intervals. this procedure ensured that participants had exhausted their knowledge by the end of the 10 minutes recall test and allowed the researcher to measure the number of words recalled. all participants, except two, returned for the delayed free-recall test one week later. they were given 10 minutes to write down as many of the words as they could recall, and were instructed to draw a line on their recall sheet to mark their progress at one minute intervals. finally, participants were asked whether they expected to be given a test in the second session and whether they consciously rehearsed the test items after the first session. at the end of the delayed free-recall test, participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation. results the mean number of correct words recalled out of 40 words on the immediate and delayed free-recall tests is presented in figure 1, as a function of test trial (single test, repeated test) and processing level (shallow, deep). a significance level of .05 is used for all analyses in this study. a 2 test trial (single test vs. repeated test) × 2 processing levels (shallow vs. deep) × 2 final recall (immediate vs. delay) mixed analysis of variance (anova) revealed a main effect of final recall, f(1, 72) = 400.446, p < .001, partial η2 = .848. effect size indicated a high proportion of variance accounted for by final recall. further pairwise comparisons using a bonferroni correction showed that the mean number of words recalled in five minutes (23.868) was significantly higher than words recalled in one week (14.395), p < .001. figure 1. means and standard error of the number of words (total = 40) recalled in immediate and delayed final recall by test trial and processing level (n = 76). results showed a main effect of test trial, f(1, 72) = 13.7, p < .001, partial η2 = .160. effect size revealed low strength in associations. further pairwise comparisons using a bonferroni correction showed that the mean number of words recalled in single test trial (21.737) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial (16.526), p < .001. there was also a main effect of processing level, f(1, 72) = 34.676, p < .001, partial η2 = .325. further pairwise comparisons using a bonferroni correction showed that the mean number of words chang 135 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recalled in deep processing level (23.276) was significantly higher than those recalled in shallow processing level (14.987), p < .001. there was an interaction between final recall and test trial, f(1, 72) = 7.119, p = .009, partial η2 = .09. there was an interaction between final recall and processing level, f(1, 72) = 39.454, p < .001, partial η2 = .354. no interaction was found between test trial and processing level, f(1, 72) = 1.762, p = .189, partial η2 = .024. there was an interaction between final recall, test trial and processing level, f(1, 72) = 9.347, p = .003, partial η2 = .115. simple main effects analysis was then conducted to investigate the interaction between final recall and test trial (table 2). in immediate recall, the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 27.11, sd = 8.611) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 20.63, sd = 8.274; f(1, 72) = 20.027, p < .001]. in delayed recall, the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 16.37, sd = 7.134) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 12.42, sd = 7.417; f(1, 72) = 6.719, p = .012]. in single test trial, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 27.11, sd = 8.611) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 16.37, sd = 7.134; f(1, 72) = 257.176, p < .001]. in repeated test trial, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 20.63, sd = 8.274) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 12.42, sd = 7.417; f(1, 72) = 150.39, p < .001]. table 2 means and standard deviations of the number of words (total = 40) recalled in immediate and delayed final recall by test trial (n = 76) test trial immediate delay m sd m sd single test (n = 38) 27.11 8.611 16.37 7.134 repeated test (n = 38) 20.63 8.274 12.42 7.417 simple main effects analysis was also conducted to investigate the interaction between final recall and processing level (table 3). in immediate recall, the number of words recalled at deep processing (m = 29.5, sd = 6.185) was significantly higher than those recalled in shallow processing [m = 18.24, sd = 7.793; f(1, 72) = 60.621, p < .001]. in delayed recall, the number of words recalled at deep processing (m = 17.05, sd = 6.363) was significantly higher than those recalled in shallow processing [m = 11.74, sd = 7.675; f(1, 72) = 12.186, p = .001]. in shallow processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 18.24, sd = 7.793) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 11.74, sd = 7.675; f(1, 72) = 94.255, p < .001]. in deep processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 29.5, sd = 6.185) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 17.05, sd = 6.363; f(1, 72) = 345.646, p < .001]. test trial and processing level on retention 136 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 means and standard deviations of the number of words (total = 40) recalled in immediate and delayed final recall by processing level (n = 76) processing level immediate delay m sd m sd shallow (n = 38) 18.24 7.793 11.74 7.675 deep (n = 38) 29.50 6.185 17.05 6.363 another simple main effects analysis was conducted to investigate the interaction among final recall, test trial and processing level (table 4). in shallow processing and immediate recall, the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 21.684, sd = 8.226) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 14.789, sd = 5.663; f(1, 72) = 11.358, p = .001]. in shallow processing and delayed recall, the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 15.37, sd = 8.348) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 8.11, sd = 4.852; f(1, 72) = 11.374, p = .001]. in deep processing and immediate recall, the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 32.526, sd = 4.765) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 26.474, sd = 6.05; f(1, 72) = 8.753, p = .004]. in deep processing and delayed recall, no difference was found between the number of words recalled at the single test trial (m = 17.37, sd = 5.727) and those recalled in repeated test trial [m = 16.74, sd = 7.086; f(1, 72) = .086, p = .77]. table 4 means and standard deviations of the number of words (total = 40) recalled in immediate and delayed final recall by test trial and processing level (n = 76) processing level immediate delayed single repeated single repeated m sd m sd m sd m sd shallow (n = 38) 21.68 8.226 14.79 5.663 15.37 8.348 8.11 4.852 deep (n = 38) 32.53 4.765 26.47 6.050 17.37 5.727 16.74 7.086 in single test trial and immediate recall, the number of words in deep processing (m = 32.526, sd = 4.765) was significantly higher than those in shallow processing [m = 21.684, sd = 8.226; f(1, 72) = 28.087, p < .001]. in single test trial and delayed recall, no difference was found between the number of words in deep processing (m = 17.37, sd = 5.727) and those in shallow processing [m = 15.37, sd = 8.348; f(1, 72) = .862, p = .356]. in repeated test trial and immediate recall, the number of words in deep processing (m = 26.474, sd = 6.05) was significantly higher than those in shallow processing [m = 14.789, sd = 5.663; f(1, 72) = 32.619, p < .001]. in repeated test trial and delayed recall, the number of words in deep processing (m = 16.74, sd = 7.086) was significantly higher than those in shallow processing [m = 8.11, sd = 4.852; f(1, 72) = 16.064, p < .001]. in single test trial and shallow processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 21.684, sd = 8.226) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 15.37, sd = 8.348; f(1, 72) = 44.494, p < .001]. in single test trial and deep processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 32.526, sd = 4.765) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 17.37, sd = 5.727; f(1, 72) = 256.286, p < .001]. in repeated test trial and shallow processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 14.789, sd = 5.663) chang 137 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 8.11, sd = 4.852; f(1, 72) = 49.836, p < .001]. in repeated test trial and deep processing, the number of words in immediate recall (m = 26.474, sd = 6.05) was significantly higher than those in delayed recall [m = 16.74, sd = 7.086; f(1, 72) = 105.751, p < .001]. the free-recall tests in the learning phase were also analyzed to see if results were similar to the free-recall tests in the testing phase (immediate and delay). another 2 test trial (single test vs. repeated test) × 2 processing levels (shallow vs. deep) × 3 recall (recall 1 vs. recall 2 vs. recall 3) mixed analysis of variance (anova) was conducted. similar results were found with main effects in test trial, f(1, 72) = 28.704, p < .001, partial η2 = .285; processing level, f(1, 72) = 32.054, p < .001, partial η2 = .308; and recall, f(2, 144) = 124.216, p < .001, partial η2 = .633. table 5 shows that the mean number of words recalled in single test trial (15.588) was significantly higher than those recalled in repeated test trial (10.64); those in deep processing level (15.728) was significantly higher than those in shallow processing level (10.50), those in the third recall test (16.618) was significantly higher than those in the second (13.697) and first recall tests (9.026) in the learning phase. however, no interactions were found between recall and test trial, f(2, 144) = .362, p = .697, partial η2 = .005, recall and processing level, f(2, 144) = 1.593, p = .207, partial η2 = .022; test trial and processing level, f(1, 72) = .159, p = .691, partial η2 = .002; and among recall, test trial and processing level, f(2, 144) = .356, p = .701, partial η2 = .005. table 5 means and standard deviations of the number of words (total = 40) recalled in test trial by processing level in the learning phase (n = 76) factor m sd test trial single 15.59 5.528 repeated 10.64 5.044 processing level shallow 10.50 5.191 deep 15.73 5.283 recall recall 1 9.03 5.317 recall 2 13.69 5.767 recall 3 16.62 6.511 discussion the present study investigated the effects of test trial and processing level on immediate and delayed retention. there was an interaction between final recall and test trial; between final recall and processing level; and among final recall, test trial and processing level. however, no interaction was found between test trial and processing level. the finding that participants in single test trial recalled more words than repeated test trial in immediate final free-recall test was consistent with previous studies that single test trial produced more short-term benefits than repeated test trial (roediger & karpicke, 2006a; wheeler et al., 2003). however, the dominance of single test test trial and processing level on retention 138 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trial over repeated test trial in delayed retention was different from previous studies that repeated test trial produced more long-term benefits than single test trial (roediger & karpicke, 2006a; wheeler et al., 2003). participants in the single test trial were exposed to the words in 9 study trials and those in the repeated test trial were exposed to the words in 3 study trials. the additional exposure to the words in single test trial may lead to overlearning of the words and better retention on immediate and delayed test. on the other hand, participants in the repeated test trial took 9 test trials and those in the single test trial took 3 test trials. the additional test trials were supposed to give participants in the repeated test trial more retrieval practice. bjork (1975) stated that the retrieval process increased the elaboration of memory trace and enhanced the testing effect. however, duchastel (1981) noted that the free-recall test contained no cues to assist participants in answering the test and might therefore result in recall of only part of the contents, or a lesser testing effect. with less exposure time to the words in the study trials and no cues to assist free recall in the test trials, participants in the repeated test trial failed to produce greater benefits on the delayed recall test. the finding that participants in deep processing performed better than those in shallow processing in both immediate and delayed retention was consistent with previous studies that deeper encodings led to higher levels of performance on subsequent retention test (craik & tulving, 1975; jacoby et al., 2005). the effort participants put forth to differentiate if each stimulus word belonged to a particular category promoted a deep processing of the words whereas the effort to differentiate if the words were presented in capital letters encouraged a shallow processing. craik and tulving explained that memory performance depended on the elaborateness of the encoding, and retention was enhanced when the encoding context was more fully descriptive. even though no interaction was found between test trial and processing level, there was an interaction among test trial, processing level and final recall. no matter whether it was in shallow or deep processing, participants in single test trial performed better than those in repeated test trial in immediate retention. the advantage of single test trial over repeated test trial carried over to delayed retention in shallow processing, but not in deep processing. similarly, no matter whether it was in immediate or delayed retention, participants in deep processing performed better than shallow processing in repeated test trial. the advantage of deep processing over shallow processing carried over to single test trial in immediate retention, but not delayed retention. the most interesting finding was the delayed retention of participants in the deep processing and single test trial. the current study showed a dominance of single test trial over repeated test trial and deep processing over shallow processing in retention. however, the dominance of single test trial and deep processing did not happen in delayed retention. even though participants in the repeated test trial were only exposed to the words in 3 study trials, their delayed retention was the same as those in the single test trial who were exposed to the words in 9 study trials. when participants studied the words in deep processing, the number of study and test trials did not matter. no testing effect was found because the repeated test trial still did not outperform the single test trial in delayed retention. kang, mcdermott, and roediger (2007) pointed that testing could be of little help when very few items were successfully retrieved on test trials. a further look at the recall performance in the learning phase found that participants in the repeated test trial did not recall more items than those in the single test trial. with a disadvantage of the fewer items retrieved in the learning phase, the repeated test trials managed to perform the chang 139 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ same as the single test trial in delayed retention, but did not perform well enough to bring the testing effect. retrieval practice was only beneficial to memory when retrieval was successful. the advantage of deep processing over shallow processing prevailed when participants only studied the words 3 times in repeated study trial. however, when participants studied the words 9 times in single test trial, the deep processing advantage disappeared in delayed retention. when participants studied more times, the depth of processing did not mediate the delayed retention. craik (2002) stated that initial encoding determined the potential for later retrieval, while retrieval environment determined the degree to which that potential will be realized. deep processing has the potential for assisting later performance but the retrieval environment makes the potential possible. even though shallow processing does not have the potential for greater retrieval, the number of study trials may have increased the odds of the environment for greater retrieval. conclusion the present study found the level of processing effect or the superiority of deep processing over shallow processing on subsequent retention tests, but did not find any testing effect or the superiority of repeated testing over simple testing on subsequent retention tests. even though testing effect was not found in delayed retention, the depth of processing did mediate the delayed retention. in deep processing, participants managed to perform the same no matter whether they were in single or repeated test trial. it showed that the number of study and test trials did not affect the delayed retention when participants studied the words in deep processing. once participants established a connection of the word to the category in 3 study trials, the additional 6 study trials did not further enhance retention. in single test trial when participants studied the words 9 times, they performed the same no matter whether they processed the words in shallow or deep encoding. it showed that the number of study and test trials affected the level of processing effect. even when participants processed the words in shallow encoding, they could perform as well as those in deep processing when both studied the words 9 times. in conclusion, additional study trials did not further enhance the delayed retention of words encoded in deep processing, but did enhance the delayed retention of words encoded in shallow processing. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. test trial and processing level on retention 140 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references american psychological association. 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(1998). mrc psycholinguistic database: machine-usable dictionary, version 2.00. behavior research methods, instruments, & computers, 20, 6-10. doi:10.3758/bf03202594 about the author sau hou chang is an associate professor in educational psychology at school of education at indiana university southeast, usa. she teaches educational psychology, psychology of teaching, classroom assessments, and assessment in schools. she also supervises clinical experiences and practice of the elementary education students. test trial and processing level on retention 142 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 129–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1131 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1207/s15328023top2903_06 http://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.11.2.371 http://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80016-9 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.1.18 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00012.x http://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.3.210 http://doi.org/10.1080/09658210244000414 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1992.tb00036.x http://doi.org/10.3758/bf03202594 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ test trial and processing level on retention (introduction) method participants materials design procedure results discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author psychological investigations of humor and laughter: honoring the research contributions of professor rod martin editorial psychological investigations of humor and laughter: honoring theresearch contributions of professor rod martin opening comments nicholas a. kuiper*a [a] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 published (vor): 2016-08-19. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, westminster hall, western university, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7. e-mail: ramartin@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. welcome to this special issue of europe’s journal of psychology (ejop), which honors the many psychological research contributions on humor and laughter made by professor rod martin. after completing his graduate training at the university of waterloo in 1984, dr. martin became a faculty member in the clinical psychology program at the university of western ontario. professor martin then remained at western for many years, conducting research on humor and laughter, until his very recent retirement in the summer of 2016. in a distinguished research career which spans over 30 years, professor martin has published a large number of high impact research articles, chapters, and scholarly books on humor and laughter. representative illustrations of these contributions are shown in table 1. this table is organized accordingly to the various topic areas within the domains of humor and laughter research that professor martin has explored since the early to mid-1980s. what is immediately apparent, even from a cursory examination of table 1, is the extremely broad range of humor and laughter topics that professor martin has investigated. over the years, his theoretical and research contributions have been at the forefront of psychologically-based humor investigations, resulting in considerable advances in our understanding of many different psychological aspects of humor and laughter. for example, in addition to writing a definitive book in 2007 that provided a broad overview of theoretical approaches and research on the psychology of humor and laughter, dr. rod martin has also developed several assessment measures for humor that have become the leading standards in the field, such as the humor styles questionnaire. professor martin has also made substantial theoretical and research contributions to several other longstanding issues in the humor and laughter research domain, including clarifications and elaborations regarding the various relationships between humor and physical health, humor and psychological well-being, and humor and psychopathology. further themes that have been prominent in professor martin‘s research program have integrated his work europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ on humor with a broader positive psychology perspective. dr. martin and his colleagues have also mapped out how various personality characteristics and other individual difference attributes may relate to sense of humor, particularly as expressed via the four humor styles. some of this work has explored developmental issues in humor, whereas other studies have focused on the degree to which sense of humor may display cross-cultural variations. further aspects of professor martin’s work has addressed the nature versus nurture distinctions by examining humor styles from a behavioral genetics perspective, as well as considering how professional comedians may differ from non-comedians in their upbringing, the expression of certain personality traits and their humor production ability. dr. martin has also advanced our understanding of how humor and laughter may be involved in social interactions and close relationships, as well as the use of humor as a possible intervention technique. overall, this very brief synopsis of professor martin’s many research activities and accomplishments over the past 30 or so years clearly reveals both the breadth and depth of his contributions to our psychological understanding of humor and laugher. in turn, his contributions now provide a robust theoretical-empirical framework that can be built upon by future investigators, as they continue to explore psychological aspects of humor and laughter. professor martin’s legacy in the humor research domain is very strong, and this special issue honors his contributions by presenting an in-depth interview with dr. martin (martin & kuiper, 2016, this issue). in this interview, professor martin discusses several of his main humor research contributions over the past 30 years, and provides both a personal and historical perspective on his career highlights and accomplishments. in addition, dr. martin also provides many insightful comments regarding some of the most significant issues facing contemporary humor and laughter researchers today. table 1 humor and laughter topics investigated by professor rod martin books on humor and laughter lefcourt, h. m., & martin, r. a. (1986). humor and life stress: antidote to adversity. new york, ny, usa: springer. martin, r. a. (2007). the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. burlington, ma, usa: elsevier academic press. [translated into spanish, korean, japanese and russian] assessment of humor and laughter martin, r. a. (1996). the situational humor response questionnaire (shrq) and coping humor scale (chs): a decade of research findings. humor: international journal of humor research, 9, 251-272. martin, r. a., puhlik-doris, p., larsen, g., gray, j., & weir, k. (2003). individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. edwards, k. r., & martin, r. a. (2014). the conceptualization, measurement, and role of humor as a character strength in positive psychology. europe’s journal of psychology, 10, 505-519. humor and physical health martin, r. a. (2001). humor, laughter, and physical health: methodological issues and research findings. psychological bulletin, 127, 504-519. martin, r. a. (2002). is laughter the best medicine? humor, laughter, and physical health. current directions in psychological science, 11, 216-220. [invited article] europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 kuiper 313 http://www.psychopen.eu/ martin, r. a. (2004). sense of humor and physical health: theoretical issues, recent findings, and future directions. humor: international journal of humor research, 17, 1-19. edwards, k. r., & martin, r. a. (2012). do humorous people take poorer care of their health? associations between humor styles and substance use. europe’s journal of psychology, 8, 1-12. humor, psychological well-being and psychopathology martin, r. a., & lefcourt, h. m. (1983). sense of humor as a moderator of the relation between stressors and moods. journal of personality and social psychology, 45, 1313-1324. kuiper, n. a., martin, r. a., & olinger, l. j. (1993). coping humor, stress, and cognitive appraisals. canadian journal of behavioral science, 25, 81-96. kuiper, n. a., martin, r. a., olinger, l. j., kazarian, s. s., & jette, j. l. (1998). sense of humor, self-concept, and psychological well-being in psychiatric inpatients. humor: international journal of humor research, 11, 357-381. frewen, p. a., brinker, j., martin, r. a., & dozois, d. j. a. (2008). humor styles and personality-vulnerability to depression. humor: international journal of humor research, 21, 179-195. dozois, d. j. a., martin, r. a., & bieling, p. j. (2009). early maladaptive schemas and adaptive/maladaptive styles of humor. cognitive therapy and research, 33, 585-596. dozois, d. j. a., martin, r. a., & faulkner, b. (2013). early maladaptive schemas, styles of humor, and aggression. humor: international journal of humor research, 26(1), 97-116. humor, positive psychology and quality of life kuiper, n. a., martin, r. a., & dance, k. a. (1992). sense of humor and enhanced quality of life. personality and individual differences, 13, 1273-1283. kuiper, n. a., & martin, r. a. (1998). is sense of humor a positive personality characteristic? in w. ruch (ed.), the sense of humor: explorations of a personality characteristic (humor research series) (pp. 159-178). berlin, germany: mouton de gruyter. kuiper, n. a., & martin, r. a. (1998). laughter and stress in daily life: relation to positive and negative affect.motivation and emotion [special issue on affect and self-regulation], 22, 133-153. edwards, k. r., & martin, r. a. (2010). humor creation ability and mental health: are funny people more psychologically healthy? europe’s journal of psychology, 3, 196-212. veselka, l., schermer, j. a., martin, r. a., & vernon, p. a. (2010). laughter and resiliency: a behavioral genetic study of humor styles and mental toughness. twin research and human genetics, 13, 442-449. humor, personality and other individual difference attributes martin, r. a., & kuiper, n. a. (1999). daily occurrence of laughter: relationships with age, gender, and type a personality. humor: international journal of humor research, 12, 355-384. martin, r. a., lastuk, j. m., jeffery, j., vernon, p. a., & veselka, l. (2012). relationships between the dark triad and humor styles: a replication and extension. personality and individual differences, 52, 178-182. schermer, j. a., martin, r. a., martin, n. g., lynskey, m., & vernon, p. a. (2013). the general factor of personality and humor styles. personality and individual differences, 54(8), 890-893. martin, r. a. (2014). humor and gender: an overview of psychological research. in d. chiaro & r. baccolini (eds.), gender and humor: interdisciplinary and international perspectives (pp. 123-146). new york, ny, usa: routledge. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 editorial 314 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor and developmental issues martin, r. a. (1989). humor and the mastery of living: using humor to cope with the daily stresses of growing up. in p. e. mcghee (ed.), humor and children's development: a practical guide to applications. new york, ny, usa: haworth press, 135-154. kazarian, s. s., moghnie, l., & martin, r. a. (2010). perceived parental warmth and rejection in childhood as predictors of humor styles and subjective happiness. europe’s journal of psychology, 3, 71-93. humor and cross-cultural issues kazarian, s. s., & martin, r. a. (2006). humor styles, culture-related personality, well-being, and family adjustment among armenians in lebanon. humor: international journal of humor research, 19, 405-423. chen, g. h., & martin, r. a. (2007). a comparison of humor styles, coping humor, and mental health between chinese and canadian university students. humor: international journal of humor research, 20, 215-234. chen, g., watkins, d., & martin, r. a. (2013). sense of humor in china: the role of individualism, collectivism, and facework. psychologia, 56, 57-70. humor and behavioral genetics bressler, e. r., martin, r. a., & balshine, s. (2006). production and appreciation of humor as sexually selected traits. evolution and human behavior, 27, 121-130. vernon, p. a., martin, r. a., schermer, j. a., & mackie, a. (2008). a behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the big-5 personality dimensions. personality and individual differences, 44, 1116-1125. veselka, l., schermer, j. a., martin, r. a., cherkas, l. f., spector, t. d., & vernon, p. a. (2010). a behavioral genetic study of relationships between humor styles and the six hexaco personality factors. europe’s journal of psychology, 3, 9-33. humor in social interactions and close relationships yip, j. a., & martin, r. a. (2006). sense of humor, emotional intelligence, and social competence. journal of research in personality, 40, 1202-1208. campbell, l., martin, r. a., & ward, j. r. (2008). an observational study of humor use while resolving conflict in dating couples. personal relationships, 15, 41-55. caird, s., & martin, r. a. (2014). relationship-focused humor styles and relationship satisfaction in dating couples: a repeated-measures design. humor: international journal of humor research, 27(2), 227-247. humor and professional comedians greengross, g., martin, r. a., & miller, g. (2012). personality traits, intelligence, humor styles, and humor production ability of professional stand-up comedians compared to college students. psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts, 6, 74-82. greengross, g., & martin, r. a., & miller, g. (2012). childhood experiences of professional comedians: peer and parent relationships and humor use. humor: international journal of humor research, 25, 491-505. humor as an intervention technique martin, r. a. (1996). humor as therapeutic play: stress-moderating effects of humor. journal of leisurability, 23, 8-15. rudnick, a., kohn, p. m., edwards, k. r., podnar, d., caird, s., & martin, r. a. (2014). humour-related interventions for people with mental illness: a randomized controlled pilot study. community mental health journal, 50, 737-742. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 kuiper 315 http://www.psychopen.eu/ articles in the current special issue in further recognition of dr. martin’s many research achievements, this special humor issue of europe’s journal of psychology offers a set of contemporary psychological studies investigating various aspects of humor and laughter. table 2 provides a brief summary of several key characteristics for each of the papers in this special issue. these characteristics include the humor constructs being investigated in that study, the sample employed, and the main issues under consideration. as can be seen in table 2, the majority of the studies in this special issue (see the first 9 listed in this table) build upon dr. martin’s prominent humor styles model. in turn, the last 3 papers listed in table 2 provide samples of additional contemporary work in the humor domain that does not derive directly from professor martin’s work, but rather focuses on laughter research, therapeutic medical clowning, and the semiotic analysis of jokes. what is quite evident across all of the papers in this special issue is the extensive nature of the humor research now being conducted. as shown in table 2, participants are drawn frommany different countries (canada, germany, norway switzerland, united kingdom, and united states), and include samples composed of children, adolescents, adults, and couples. the novel themes examined in these studies include associations of humor styles with: (1) happiness and other personality characteristics (ford, lappi, & holden, 2016, this issue), (2) forgiveness (hampes, 2016, this issue), (3) cognitive distortions and depression (rnic, dozois, & martin, 2016, this issue), (4) pathological personality traits in the dsm-5 (zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel, 2016, this issue), (5) psychosocial adjustment across time in adolescents (fox, hunter, & jones, 2016, this issue), and (6) short and long-term romantic motives (didonato & jakubiak, 2016, this issue). other novel aspects of humor styles examined in the current set of studies include: (7) the degree of similarity in humor styles between spouses (hahn & campbell, 2016, this issue), (8) childrens’ understanding of self-evaluative and self-defeating humor styles (james & fox, 2016, this issue), and (9) adaptations of the humor styles questionnaire for use with german speaking populations (ruch & heintz, 2016, this issue). moving beyond a focus on the humor styles, the remaining studies in this special issue explore: (10) links between laughter, trunk compression and cortical activation (svebak, 2016, this issue), (11) the effects of medical clowning on patients and staff (dionigi & canestrari, 2016, this issue), and (12) the use of a typology of 45 different techniques to analyze jokes (berger, 2016, this issue). more generally, as you read through these articles presented in this special humor issue of ejop, i hope you find them to be enjoyable, informative and enlightening. in addition to honoring professor rod martin’s research work, this collection of articles also provides an intriguing slice of contemporary theory and research on various psychological aspects of humor and laughter. as such, reading about this work may inspire you to also conduct further research on some of the topics described herein. however, in doing so, it should be remembered that the topics covered in this special issue represent only a very small portion of the exponentially increasing number of psychologically-based studies on humor and laughter published in the past few years. this additional research also warrants further detailed consideration as the field moves forward. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 editorial 316 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 overview of papers in the special humor issue (ejop august 2016) main issues examinedsamplehumorinvestigators associations of humor styles with happiness and personality characteristics including sample of 194 united states residents 1. ford, lappi & holden affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor extraversion, locus of control, optimism and self-esteem. self-defeating humor associations of humor styles with forgiveness.112 college students in the united states 2. hampes affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor associations of humor styles with cognitive distortions and depression in social and achievement-related contexts. 208 university students in canada3. rnic, dozois & martin affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor associations between humor styles and pathological personality traits in dsm-5, 594 university students in the united states 4. zeigler-hill, mccabe & vrabel affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor including negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition and psychoticism. self-defeating humor longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence. 1234 adolescents (aged 11-13) enrolled in secondary schools in the u.k. 5. fox, hunter & jones affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor how romantic motives (short versus long term) affect use of and response to adapative and maladaptive humor. community sample (n = 175) and university students (n = 149) in the united states 6. didonato & jakubiak humorous behaviors pertaining to affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating humor styles degree of similarity in humor styles between spouses, and the role of self-esteem as a potential moderator of degree of similarity. 116 heterosexual married couples in canada (n = 232) 7. hahn & campbell affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor self-defeating humor qualitative in-depth interviews to determine childrens’ understanding of self-focused humor 10 children (aged 8-11 years) at a u.k. primary school 8. james & fox self-enhancing humor self-defeating humor styles (self-enhancing humor and self-defeating humor). develops and reports on the psychometric properties of a german version of the humor combined several german speaking samples for a total of 1101 participants. 9. ruch & heintz affiliative humor self-enhancing humor aggressive humor styles questionnaire. also examinedself-defeating humor relationships between hsq humor styles andhumorous behavior q-sort deck, literary comic styles other measures of humor (e.g., humorous behavior q-sort deck, literary comic styles) examined the consequences of laughter upon trunk compression and cortical activation. 81 university students from norway (in two studies) 10. svebak laughter summarizes effects of medical clowning on adult patients, relatives and medical staff. review of current research literature on effectiveness of medical clowning 11. dionigi & canestrari medical clowning interventions in clinical health care settings typology of 45 techniques of humor in 4 categories (e.g., logic, identity, & action) used to analyze a joke. semiotic analyses of the joke12. berger jokes europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 kuiper 317 http://www.psychopen.eu/ concluding comments while preparing this special issue, i received many positive comments from other humor investigators about the stellar quality and high impact of the many research contributions made by professor martin throughout his career. notably, many of these investigators also spontaneously commented on the very gracious interpersonal style that is a hallmark of professor martin’s professional interactions with others. his positive demeanor, coupled with a strong ability and desire to unravel the many mysteries still surrounding our use of humor and laughter, helps make professor martin a truly outstanding humor scholar. his work has greatly advanced our knowledge and understanding of many different facets of humor and laughter, and we would all like to wish him the best as he begins his retirement. i would also like to thank all of the reviewers and contributors to this special humor issue for their assistance throughout the many stages of this project. their co-operation, patience and thoughtfulness certainly helped to make this special issue a very fitting tribute to professor martin’s research career and accomplishments. finally, i would also like to offer considerable thanks to the chief editor of ejop, vlad glăveanu, who has very capably helped me throughout this special issue project. it should be noted that this is the third in a series of special humor issues that europe’s journal of psychology has published (see also kuiper, 2010 and kuiper 2014). for all three issues, the chief editor’s encouragement and unwavering support has made this editorial task immensely easier. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references berger, a. a. (2016). three holy men get haircuts: the semiotic analysis of a joke. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 489-497. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 didonato, t. e., & jakubiak, b. k. (2016). strategically funny: romantic motives affect humor style in relationship initiation. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 390-405. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 dionigi, a., & canestrari, c. (2016). clowning in health care settings: the point of view of adults. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 473-488. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 ford, t. e., lappi, s. k., & holden, c. j. (2016). personality, humor styles and happiness: happy people have positive humor styles. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 320-337. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 fox, c. l., hunter, s. c., & jones, s. e. (2016). longitudinal associations between humor styles and psychosocial adjustment in adolescence. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 377-389. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1065 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 editorial 318 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1042 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1105 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1107 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1160 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1065 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hahn, c. m., & campbell, l. j. (2016). birds of a feather laugh together: an investigation of humour style similarity in married couples. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 406-419. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1115 hampes, w. (2016). the relationship between humor styles and forgiveness. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 338-347. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 james, l. a., & fox, c. l. (2016). children’s understanding of self-focused humor styles. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 420-433. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 kuiper, n. a. (2010). introductory comments: special issue of ejop (august 2010) on humor research in personality and social psychology. europe's journal of psychology, 6, 1-8. doi:10.5964/ejop.v6i3.205 kuiper, n. a. (2014). investigating the role of humor in psychological health and well-being: opening comments. europe's journal of psychology, 10, 408-411. doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.809 martin, r., & kuiper, n. a. (2016). three decades investigating humor and laughter: an interview with professor rod martin. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 498-512. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 rnic, k., dozois, d. j. a., & martin, r. a. (2016). cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 348-362. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 ruch, w., & heintz, s. (2016). the german version of the humor styles questionnaire: psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 434-455. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 svebak, s. (2016). consequences of laughter upon trunk compression and cortical activation: linear and polynomial relations. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 456-472. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 zeigler-hill, v., mccabe, g. a., & vrabel, j. k. (2016). the dark side of humor: dsm-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles. europe’s journal of psychology, 12, 363-376. doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 about the author dr. nicholas a. kuiper has been a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time he has published numerous articles and chapters on humor, psychological well-being, depression, anxiety, selfschema processing of personal information, and various other topics of interest. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 312–319 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1213 kuiper 319 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1115 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1012 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1067 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v6i3.205 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v10i3.809 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1119 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1118 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1116 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1102 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v12i3.1109 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en editorial articles in the current special issue concluding comments (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the german version of the humor styles questionnaire: psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor research reports the german version of the humor styles questionnaire: psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor willibald ruch*a, sonja heintza [a] department of psychology, university of zurich, zurich, switzerland. abstract the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in humor research and has been adapted to several languages. the hsq measures four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating), which should be adaptive or potentially maladaptive to psychosocial well-being. the present study analyzes the internal consistency, factorial validity, and factorial invariance of the hsq on the basis of several german-speaking samples combined (total n = 1,101). separate analyses were conducted for gender (male/female), age groups (16–24, 25–35, >36 years old), and countries (germany/switzerland). internal consistencies were good for the overall sample and the demographic subgroups (.80–.89), with lower values obtained for the aggressive scale (.66–.73). principal components and confirmatory factor analyses mostly supported the four-factor structure of the hsq. weak factorial invariance was found across gender and age groups, while strong factorial invariance was supported across countries. two subsamples also provided self-ratings on ten styles of humorous conduct (n = 344) and of eight comic styles (n = 285). the four hsq scales showed small to large correlations to the styles of humorous conduct (-.54 to .65) and small to medium correlations to the comic styles (-.27 to .42). the hsq shared on average 27.5–35.0% of the variance with the styles of humorous conduct and 13.0–15.0% of the variance with the comic styles. thus–despite similar labels–these styles of humorous conduct and comic styles differed from the hsq humor styles. keywords:humor styles questionnaire (hsq), german adaptation, reliability, factorial validity, factorial invariance, styles of humorous conduct, comic styles europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 received: 2016-01-20. accepted: 2016-04-12. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: university of zurich, department of psychology, binzmühlestrasse 14/7, ch-8050 zurich, switzerland. e-mail: w.ruch@psychologie.uzh.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, &weir, 2003) assesses the four humor styles of affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating to allow for a multidimensional assessment of everyday functions of humor, with a focus on functions that are relevant for one’s psychosocial well-being. it has been frequently employed in psychological humor research around the world, as indicated by the various adaptations of the hsq, for example in arabic, armenian, chinese, french, italian, lebanese, and turkish (bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006; saroglou & scariot, 2002; sirigatti, penzo, giannetti, & stefanile, 2014; taher, kazarian, & martin, 2008). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study investigates the psychometric properties (internal consistency and factor structure) of the german adaptation of the hsq by combining five samples from germany and switzerland. the german hsq has already been used in several published and unpublished studies (e.g., martin et al., 2003; ruch, beermann, & proyer, 2009; samson, huber, & ruch, 2013) and typically the psychometric criteria were examined and reported. however, no formal adaptation study has been published until now. this will be done by drawing several samples from the german-speaking countries together. in addition, separate analyses are conducted for gender, age, and country to test the psychometric properties of the hsq in these specific populations, and to test the factorial invariance for the first time. the norms provided can be used as a comparison standard in future studies with the german hsq. the second contribution of the present paper is to outline the theoretical similarity of the hsq humor styles with other conceptualizations of styles of humor and to test their empirical overlap. although the hsq is currently the most frequently employed approach to humor styles, wolfgang schmidt-hidding already presented eight comic styles (whereby “comic” broadly referred to humor) in 1963, which he derived from literature analyses. in 1996, craik, lampert, and nelson proposed 10 styles of everyday humorous conduct, which can be arranged on five bipolar dimensions. although the three approaches refer to styles of humor, their origins and frameworks differ from each other. comparing the four humor styles of the hsq with the eight comic styles and the ten styles of everyday humorous conduct highlights the similarities and differences of humor concepts using the label “styles”. internal consistency and factorial validity of the hsq scales when developing the hsq, martin et al. (2003) employed a construct-based scale construction approach (see jackson, 1970), which should lead to reliable and construct-valid measurement scales. they examined the literature on humor and well-being and derived four humor styles. the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles are supposed to be benign to oneself and others, while the former should be used to improve one’s relationships with others and the latter to enhance oneself. the aggressive humor style is supposed to be detrimental to others and should enhance oneself, while the self-defeating humor style should be detrimental to oneself and improve one’s relationships with others. martin et al. (2003) refined the item pool to measure the four humor styles using several samples to arrive at the final 32-item solution, the hsq. combining these samples (n = 1,195), they obtained sufficient internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha ranging from .77 for aggressive to .81 for self-enhancing), which were replicated in other studies (e.g., baughman et al., 2012). occasionally, lower internal consistencies were obtained, especially in translated versions of the hsq aggressive scale. kazarian and martin (2004), sirigatti et al. (2014), and chen and martin (2007) found internal consistencies of .56, .58, and .61 for the hsq aggressive scale, respectively, while the other three scales showed higher internal consistencies (≥ .70). bilge and saltuk (2007) reported acceptable internal consistencies for affiliative and self-enhancing (.74 and .78) and lower ones for aggressive (.69) and self-defeating (.67), and taher et al. (2008) found acceptable internal consistencies for the self-enhancing and self-defeating scales (.89 and .76), and lower values for the affiliative (.67) and aggressive scales (.55). based on these findings that internal consistencies were mostly high with the exception of the aggressive scale, the following prediction is made: prediction 1: the four hsq scales show acceptable internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha ≥ .70). the lowest values are expected for the aggressive scale. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor analysis of the hsq items should yield a four-factor simple structure, in which high loadings should be obtained for the items belonging to each scale, and the cross-loadings should be small. this four-factor structure has been supported in several studies employing principal components analyses (pca; bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher et al., 2008) and confirmatory factor analyses (cfa; chen & martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003; sirigatti et al., 2014). translations into different languages often yield items that do not perform well, either due to an imprecise translation or due to cultural differences. in the hsq research, occasionally a few items deviated from the expected simple structure in pca; that is they had higher loadings on a non-corresponding humor style factor than on their corresponding factor. saroglou and scariot (2002) reported that one (unidentified) item deviated from simple structure. kazarian and martin (2004) detected two such items, item 28 of the self-defeating scale (“if i am having problems or feeling unhappy, i often cover it up by joking around, so that even my closest friends don’t know how i really feel”) and item 19 of the aggressive scale (“sometimes i think of something that is so funny that i can’t stop myself from saying it, even if it is not appropriate for the situation”). chen and martin (2007) found deviations from simple structure for item 28 of the self-defeating scale and items 19 and 27 (“if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”) of the aggressive scale. kazarian and martin (2006) found mismatches for item 9 of the affiliative scale (“i rarely make other people laugh by telling funny stories about myself”), item 28 of the selfdefeating scale, and item 11 of the aggressive scale (“when telling jokes or saying funny things, i am usually not very concerned about how other people are taking it”). taher et al. (2008) obtained mismatches for the following items: item 28 (self-defeating), item 9 (affiliative), and items 3 (“if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it”), 7 (“people are never offended or hurt by my sense of humor”), 11, and 27 (aggressive). typically these items were already comparatively lower in the original study (martin et al., 2003) despite displaying sufficient results there. in sum, 5 of the 32 items showed deviations from simple structure in two or more studies. of the seven items listed at least once, five are from the aggressive scale (one each from the affiliative and self-defeating scales), corroborating the finding that the aggressive scale occasionally yielded a lower alpha. based on these results, the following prediction is made: prediction 2: the factorial validity of the hsq is supported a pca and cfa, which are computed in separate samples (i.e., random halves of the total sample). deviations from simple structure might be obtained for up to five items. psychometric properties in demographic groups in general, it is important to determine whether a scale shows differences in demographic variables to avoid biases in results due to the sample composition and to allow for meaningful comparisons across different groups. first, we test if sufficient internal consistencies can be obtained in different demographic groups, specifically gender (males and females), three age groups (17–24, 25–35, and 36+ years), and country (germany and switzerland). sirigatti et al. (2014) found that males and females as well as two age groups (adolescents and young adults) had good internal consistencies in all humor styles (.70–.85), except for the aggressive scale (.50–.61), with the lowest values obtained for females. in terms of differences between germany and switzerland, the above reviewed findings of the internal consistencies in different languages and cultures suggest values ≥ .70, with the possible exception of the hsq aggressive scale. based on these results, the following prediction is made in terms of the internal consistencies in the demographic groups: europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 436 http://www.psychopen.eu/ prediction 3: the four hsq scales show acceptable internal consistencies for the demographic groups, gender, the three age groups, and the two countries (cronbach’s alpha ≥ .70). we expect the lowest values for the aggressive scale. second, the means of the four hsq scales might differ in the demographic groups. the results by martin et al. (2003) indicate that means were significantly higher for males than for females. effect sizes were small for affiliative, self-enhancing, and self-defeating (cohen’s d < 0.20) and medium to large for aggressive (cohen’s d = 0.72). baughman et al. (2012) replicated these gender differences. others found significant gender differences (males obtaining higher values than females) for specific subscales only, namely for the aggressive scale (cohen’s d = 0.39, bilge & saltuk, 2007; cohen’s d = 0.43, sirigatti et al., 2014) or the aggressive and self-defeating scales (cohen’s d = 0.31 and 0.21, kazarian & martin, 2004). some found no gender differences (chen & martin, 2007) or that females scored higher than males in the affiliative scale (cohen’s d = 0.20; bilge & saltuk, 2007). although the findings on gender differences in the hsq scales were in general mixed, the most consistent effect was that males scored higher in the aggressive scale than females. prediction 4: males score higher in the hsq aggressive scale than females. in terms of age differences, martin et al. (2003) compared participants younger than 19 years with those older than 25 years. they found that younger participants scored significantly higher in the affiliative (cohen’s d = 0.72) and aggressive scale (cohen’s d = 0.85). older women scored higher than younger women in the self-enhancing scale (cohen’s d = 0.29). chen and martin (2007) obtained similar age differences in participants younger than 22 and older than 23 years: younger participants had higher scores than older ones in the affiliative (cohen’s d = 0.27) and aggressive scales (cohen’s d = 0.35). thus, the affiliative and aggressive scores were found to be higher in younger participants, rather than in older participants in the two studies. the present studies uses a wider age range and treats age as a continuous variable instead of separating it into age groups. the following prediction is postulated for age-related differences in the four humor styles: prediction 5: age correlates negatively with the hsq affiliative and aggressive scales. a final comparison of mean differences in the hsq scales relates to people from two german-speaking countries, germany and the german-speaking area of switzerland. as this has not been previously investigated, we postulate an exploratory research question: research question 1: are there mean differences in the hsq scales between switzerland and germany? third, testing factorial invariance (cheung & rensvold, 1999; vandenberg & lance, 2000) across different groups can determine whether the same factor structure holds across the different demographic groups (weak factorial invariance or configural invariance) and whether the groups have similar factor loadings (strong factorial invariance or metric invariance) or not. support for at least weak factorial variance is needed to allow comparisons across the different groups (cheung & rensvold, 1999) and would further support the factorial validity of the hsq. factorial invariance can be tested using multi-group cfa by comparing the fit indices of a model that imposes the same factor structure across the different groups (model 1, weak factorial invariance) and a model that imposes the same factor loadings across the different groups (model 2, strong factorial invariance). martin et al. (2003) compared the varimax-rotated factor solution of the pca for a subset of males (n = 177) and females (n = 275). high congruence coefficients (> .97) indicated that the four-factor structure was comparable across gender, which might hint to the presence of weak factorial invariance. however, we are not aware of any europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 437 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies with the hsq that tested the factorial invariance of the four scales multi-group cfa across any demographic groups. research question 2: can weak or strong factorial invariance be supported across the demographic groups of gender (males and females), three age groups (17–24, 25–35, and 36+ years), and two countries (germany and switzerland)? hsq humor styles and other styles of humor the second goal, next to testing the psychometric properties of the german adaptation of the hsq, is to theoretically outline and empirically investigate the relation of the hsq scales to the similarly labeled conceptualizations of styles of everyday humorous conduct (craik et al., 1996) and literary comic styles (schmidt-hidding, 1963). the term “style” has been used differently in psychology and humor research, and we chose the usage of styles in the context of traits as a unifying framework. this was deemed suitable as the three humor-related styles used in the present study can all be construed as trait-like, that is, as rather stable across time within a person, and as showing individual differences between people. to understand similarities and differences among these humorrelated styles, the term style as construed by each of these authors is delineated and compared to the understanding of styles in the context of traits. definition of styles in the context of traits the typical use of the term traits refers to content traits, which reflect behavioral tendencies, that is, to what extent certain behaviors are demonstrated. for example, an extraverted person tends to be outgoing, talkative, and to attend social events, while an introverted person would show these behaviors less often. by contrast, styles denote how behavior is performed, and stylistic traits refer to the typical and habitual ways in which a person performs behavior (buss & finn, 1987). for example, buss and finn (1987) described playfulness in their classification as a stylistic trait as follows (p. 439): “playful people waggle their eyebrows, wink, roll their eyes, smirk, laugh raucously, make facetious remarks, and may exaggerate their movements in caricature. at the other extreme, serious people maintain a firm jaw, a set mouth, straight eyebrows, and in general, avoid silliness and retain a sober mien.” as can be seen from this description, stylistic traits go beyond which behaviors are shown (e.g., playful people laughing more than serious ones), but playful people are described as more expressive and performative in their laughter than serious ones. while this description elaborates on playfulness at a broad level, humor styles–conceptualized as stylistic traits–should differentiate multiple ways in which humorous behavior can be performed. for example, one could tell jokes expressively, deadpan, restrained, or offensively. thus, in the trait definition of styles and stylistic traits, humor styles should denote the typical ways in which a person performs humorous behavior. humor styles martin et al. (2003) describe their definitions of humor styles as “individual differences in uses of humor” (p. 48), “distinctive uses or styles of humor” (p. 50), “functions, forms, or styles of humor” (p. 51), and “ways in which people use humor“ (p. 70). the stylistic aspect is added by describing that these functions or uses of humor can be either achieved in a way that is self-accepting (affiliative), tolerant of others (self-enhancing), detrimental to others (aggressive) or detrimental to the self (self-defeating) (martin et al., 2003, p. 52). for example, a person could make a joke in a self-accepting way that improves one’s relationships with others (affiliative), or in way that europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 438 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is tolerant of others and enhances the self (self-enhancing), or in a way that is detrimental to others and enhances the self (aggressive), or in way that is detrimental to the self and enhances one’s relationships with others (selfdefeating). the stylistic aspect in the hsq humor styles is thus based on evaluations of humor to achieve certain means. both the evaluations and the functions can be either conscious and explicit or unconscious and implicit. this view on styles deviates from the trait definition in emphasizing different ways in which people use humor for a certain means and in the evaluations of this use, instead of different ways to perform the humor behavior itself. the latter would be closer to observable behavior (like making a deadpan face when telling a joke), while the hsq humor styles rather focus on how humor is judged (like being self-accepting when telling a joke), adding an evaluative and more abstract dimension to the humor styles. also, the emphasis on functions is unique to the hsq humor styles. ten styles of everyday humorous conduct craik et al. (1996) define their styles of everyday humorous conduct by specific qualities or forms of behaviors and characteristics associated with humor. this understanding of styles is similar to the stylistic trait definition. their instrument, the humorous behavior q-sort deck (hbqd), contains 100 statements that should collectively provide information about a person’s humor style. these statements contain ideas from humor literature, tendencies of humor behavior, as well as various aspects of humor appreciation, comprehension, and production. a pca of q-sort ratings (forced normal distribution from very uncharacteristic to very characteristic) of the hbqd statements resulted in five factors reflecting bipolar styles of humorous conduct. these were labeled socially warm vs. cold (socially constructive uses of humor vs. remaining socially aloof), reflective vs. boorish (recognizing and appreciating humor vs. competitive humor production), competent vs. inept (being witty vs. not being witty), earthy vs. repressed (enjoying vs. rejecting humor with sick, off-color, or sexual contents), and benign vs. mean-spirited (appreciating intellectual and harmless humor vs. mocking, joking about, and laughing at others). thus, both the definitions and dimensionality (four unipolar vs. five bipolar factors) of the hsq humor styles and the styles of humorous conduct differ. the hsq focuses on how people evaluate humor behaviors and the uses that these behaviors fulfill, whereas the hbqd focuses more on which humor behaviors are shown and how they are performed. one study (n = 167 german adults) empirically investigated the relationship between the hsq humor styles and the styles of everyday humorous conduct (ruch, proyer, esser, & mitrache, 2011). using the hbqd rating form (hbqd-rf), which employs a normative instead of an ipsative response format, they found positive correlations between the hsq affiliative scale and the hbqd-rf socially warm vs. cold, competent vs. inept, and earthy vs. repressed scales (medium to large effects). the hsq self-enhancing scale showed small to medium correlations with four of the five hbqd-rf scales (all except for benign vs. mean-spirited). the hsq aggressive scale correlated positively with reflective vs. boorish and earthy vs. repressed, and negatively with benign vs. mean-spirited (small to medium effects). finally, the hsq self-defeating scale correlated positively with earthy vs. repressed and negatively with benign vs. mean-spirited (small effects). the pattern of correlations in ruch et al.’s (2011) study showed that (a) the hsq affiliative and the hbqd-rf socially warm vs. cold scales overlapped to a large extent, while the other correlations were of small to medium size, (b) the hbqd-rf reflective vs. boorish scale was relatively independent of the hsq scales, and (c) all hsq europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 439 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scales went along with the hbqd-rf earthy vs. repressed scale, which is surprising as the hsq items do not contain any such content (i.e., sick, off-color, or sexual humor). the present study aims at replicating these findings using the hbqd-rf with 10 unipolar scales instead of five bipolar ones. this was preferred as ruch et al. (2011) found that some of the hbqd-rf scales were not strictly bipolar, and the ten unipolar scales should thus provide a better interpretation as to which end of the poles might be more or less overlapping with the hsq humor styles; for example, the mean-spirited pole might be more relevant for hsq aggressive scale than the benevolent one. the following predictions are derived from the previous findings: prediction 6: the four hsq scales show similar correlations to the ten unipolar scales of the hbqd-rf as they did to the five bipolar ones in the ruch et al. (2011) study. however, it is not expected that the correlations are symmetric for the styles of humorous conduct at both ends of the poles. research question 3: how much variance do the four hsq scales explain in each of the ten unipolar scales of the hbqd-rf? research question 4: how much variance do the ten unipolar scales of the hbqd-rf explain in each of the four hsq scales? eight comic styles another tradition of humor-related styles stems from literary studies, in which a comic style (or style of comedy) refers to “the nature or ‘flavor’ of comedy and humor in general” (milner davis, 2014, p. 264). the term comic (german: “komik”) in this sense is similar to the umbrella definition of humor used in psychological research, in which all comical and humor-related phenomena are subsumed. schmidt-hidding (1963) described the characteristics and conduct associated with eight comic styles as prevalent in literary studies, namely fun, humor (in the narrow sense of benevolent humor), nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism. he also presented a model distinguishing these eight styles according to seven characteristics, namely the (a) intention and goal associated with each comic style, (b) the object or topic of the style, (c) the attitude of the person showing the comic style, (d) the person’s behaviors towards other people, (e) the ideal audience, (f) the method or procedure of showing the comic style, and (g) linguistic peculiarities. although transcending the definition of stylistic traits, these eight comic styles also entail how humorous behavior is performed (e.g., teasing, mocking, surprising, brief, ambiguous). the list of eight comic styles is not exhaustive, yet it was taken as a starting point for assessing individual differences in the endorsement of comic styles (ruch, 2012). to this end, schmidt-hidding’s descriptions were transformed into self-ratings for the present study, called the comic styles rating form. it consists of short texts describing each comic style, and participants provided ratings on how frequently they show each of them. testing the overlap of comic styles with the hsq is especially interesting, as they stem from different disciplines (psychology vs. linguistics) and were developed using different rationales (literature on humor and well-being with an empirical scale construction vs. a lexical and rational approach). as with the styles of everyday humorous conduct, the comic styles refer more to humor behaviors and how they are performed, which results in similar differences to the hsq humor styles. however, some similarities regarding the contents can also be delineated. the hsq affiliative humor style and the comic style fun share an emphasis on social humor production, and the hsq self-enhancing scale entails a component of recognizing absurdities in life, which is also a part of the comic style humor. finally, the hsq ageurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 440 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gressive scale and the comic styles satire, sarcasm, and cynicism all refer to mocking, criticizing, and making fun of others. no equivalent to the hsq self-defeating humor styles can be delineated in the comic styles. conversely, it is assumed that the comic styles primarily related to linguistic peculiarities or cognitive factors, such as nonsense, wit, and irony, will have no direct correspondence in the hsq. based on the conceptual considerations, the following prediction and research questions are postulated: prediction 7: the hsq affiliative humor style correlates positively with fun, self-enhancing with humor, and aggressive with satire, sarcasm, and cynicism. research question 5: how much variance do the four hsq scales explain in each of the eight comic styles? research question 6: how much variance do the eight comic styles explain in each of the four hsq scales? method sample five samples (n = 75–382, entailing published data fromruch & heintz [2013] and unpublished data) were recruited by different researchers from swiss and german universities, employing the german adaptation of the hsq. they were combined into a total sample of n = 1,101 (27.3% males), ranging in age from 16 to 76 (mdn = 25, m = 29.37, sd = 11.36). participants were primarily from switzerland (61.2%) and germany (23.6%), while 15.2% were from other countries or did not indicate a country. participants were overall well educated, with 37.1% having more than 13 years of education, 59.9% having 10–13 years of education, and 27% having up to 9 years of education (1.3% did not provide sufficient information about their education). a subsample of 344 participants (36.6% males) provided ratings on the hbqd-rf and 285 participants (35.8% males) provided ratings on the comic styles rating form. instruments hsq the hsq (martin et al., 2003) consists of 32 items measuring four humor styles (8 items each). the likert-type response scale ranges from totally disagree (1) to totally agree (7). the german adaptation of the hsq was done in several steps, which were monitored and guided by an expert in humor and assessment: (a) a team of several students (german native speakers, proficient english skills) independently translated the original english version of the hsq into german. (b) another team of students (including a linguist) provided independent back translations. (c) differences between the original english version and the back-translations were discussed and resolved across the student teams and the expert. (d) this version was empirically assessed and items were further refined (e.g., clarity, understandability) to provide the final german adaptation of the hsq. this version can be obtained by contacting the authors. hbqd rating form the hbqd rating form (hbqd-rf, ruch et al., 2009) contains the 100 statements of the hbqd (craik et al., 1996) measuring ten unipolar styles of humorous conduct with 6–15 items each: socially warm, socially cold, reflective, boorish, competent, inept, earthy, repressed, benign, and mean-spirited. the bipolar likert-type response europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 441 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scale ranges from very uncharacteristic (1) to very characteristic (7). the intercorrelations between the ten scales ranged from -.38 (socially warm and social cold) to .70 (earthy and mean-spirited), with a median of .29. comic styles rating form the comic styles rating form consists of eight short texts containing the characteristics of the comic styles as described by schmidt-hidding (1963): fun, humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism. an example text (for nonsense) is: “when using nonsense humor, i’d like to demonstrate how ridiculous the bare mind is. but basically, nonsense is absolutely pointless. when employing nonsense, my relation to language can be described as inventive.” participants rated how frequently they show these characteristics on a likert-type scale from never (1) to very often (5). the intercorrelations between the eight ratings ranged from -.18 (irony and humor) to .58 (sarcasm and cynicism), with a median of .05. procedure the questionnaires were completed online or with paper-pencil format between 2009 and 2012. the hsq was usually one questionnaire within a larger study. analyses the internal consistencies of the total sample (prediction 1) and the subgroups (prediction 3) are indicated by cronbach’s alpha. the factorial validity of the hsq (prediction 2) is tested with pca and cfa (each conducted in one random half of the total sample), the latter modeled with the lavaan package (rosseel, 2012) in r (r development core team, 2015). the robust mlm estimator (with satorro-bentler corrections) was employed, and the following fit indices are reported (with the values in parentheses indicating a good and acceptable fit according to schermelleh-engel, moosbrugger, & müller, 2003): χ2 (good: p > .05, acceptable: p ≥ .01), χ2/df (good: ≤ 2, acceptable: ≤ 3), comparative fit index (cfi; good: ≥ .97, acceptable: ≥ .95), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea; good: ≤ .05, acceptable: ≤ .08), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr; good: ≤ .05, acceptable: ≤ .10). weak or strong factorial invariance (research question 2) is tested in a multi-group cfa. the two models of factorial invariance are computed by introducing the relevant group factors into the model, forcing the same factor structure across groups (weak factorial invariance), and by additionally forcing all loadings to be equal across groups (strong factorial invariance). these models are then compared using the χ2 difference test (using scaled statistics according to satorra & bentler, 2010) and the akaike information criterion (aic) values. gender (prediction 4) and country differences (research question 1) in the means of the hsq scales are investigated with unpaired t-tests. the correlations of the hsq scales with age (prediction 5), the hbqd-rf scales (prediction 6), and the comic styles (prediction 7) are analyzed with pearson correlation coefficients. the variance that the four hsq scales explain in the hbqd-rf scales (research question 3) and the comic styles (research question 5) and vice versa (research questions 4 and 6) is analyzed with standard multiple regression analyses. results as the five samples were recruited by different researchers, we first tested whether they all measure the hsq scales reliably and show an appropriate factor structure to avoid biases. scale analyses showed that the internal consistencies were comparable across the samples (ranging from .79–.91 for affiliative, .80–.87 for self-enhancing, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 442 http://www.psychopen.eu/ .69–.74 for aggressive, and .77–.87 for self-defeating), and all corrected item-total correlations were positive. pca with varimax rotation in each sample supported the four-factor structure of the hsq, with only 1 to 4 loadings per sample (i.e., 3.1–12.5% of the items) deviating from simple structure (i.e., higher loadings on another but the intended hsq factor). given these comparable and sufficient psychometric properties within each sample, we combined them into the total sample of 1,101 participants. note that this total sample was split in two random halves for the analyses of the pca (n = 550) and cfa (n = 551). internal consistency and factorial validity of the hsq predictions 1 and 2 refer to the internal consistency and factorial validity of the german adaptation of the hsq in the total sample. table 1 shows the internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) of the four hsq scales. table 1 internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) of the four scales of the german humor styles questionnaire (hsq) in the total sample and in several demographic subgroups countryage groupgender totalhsq scale gerch36+25–3516–24fm 2606742413435178003011,101n .87.86.87.89.84.86.89.87affiliative .85.81.83.83.82.84.80.83self-enhancing .72.70.68.66.72.67.73.70aggressive .82.81.80.80.82.81.80.81self-defeating note. m = males; f = females; ch = switzerland; ger = germany. as can be seen in table 1, the four hsq scales had good internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha ≥ .80), while the internal consistency of the aggressive scale was acceptable (.70). this confirms prediction 1. the factorial validity of the hsq in the total sample is tested with a pca and cfa. as expected, the scree test and the parallel analysis suggested the retention of four factors (first eight eigenvalues: 5.89, 4.05, 2.80, 1.82, 1.32, 1.25, 1.08, 1.00), together explaining 45.5% of variance. the rotated component matrix and communalities of the pca with varimax rotation is shown in table 2. as can be seen in table 2, the loadings on each of the four factors was high for affiliative (.58–.77), self-enhancing (.51–.78), and self-defeating (.54–.81), with the exception of one item (item 28 with a loading of .31). the aggressive scale had two items with low loadings (.18 for item 19 and .19 for item 11), while the other loadings were high (.50–.72). second loadings were low (mdn = .08), with only one item exceeding .30 (item 16 from the self-defeating scale). only item 19 (aggressive scale) had higher second loadings than the loading on the aggressive factor (i.e., a deviation from simple structure). in general, communalities were high (mdn = .48), exceeding .25 for all items except for the three that had low loadings on their intended factor (i.e., items 11, 19, and 28). thus, with one exception (item 19), the four-factor structure of the hsq was supported in the pca. this was also confirmed by the very high congruence coefficients (tucker’s phi), comparing the four factors of the present pca with those of the original sample (seemartin et al., 2003, pp. 58–59), which ranged from .94 (aggressive) to .98 (self-defeating). a cfa was conducted with the other half of the sample (n = 551), resulting in a mostly acceptable model fit, χ2(458) = 1271.97, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.78, cfi = .841, rmsea = .057, and srmr = .076. table 2 also shows the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 443 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 rotated component matrix and communalities of a principal components analysis with varimax rotation and standardized loadings of a confirmatory factor analysis of the 32 items of the four scales of the german humor styles questionnaire confirmatory factor analysisprincipal components analysis f4 sdf3 agf2 sef1 afh2f2 sdf4 agf3 sef1 afhsq item .62af 1 (rec.) .69.05-.10.12.77 .53af 5 .73.06.07.28.67 .39af 9 (rec.) .45.21.01.06.58 .60af 13 .77.05-.00.15.76 .45af 17 (rec.) .72.00.11.08.66 .60af 21 .73.10.02.15.75 .55af 25 (rec.) .65.02.02.08.73 .51af 29 (rec.) .77.08-.09.24.67 .42se 2 .74.02-.01-.59.26 .34se 6 .55.07.06-.52.26 .61se 10 .79.08.02-.78.03 .45se 14 .60.01.09-.60.28 .62se 18 .78.03.08-.78.00 .31se 22 (rec.) .51.09-.07.51.19 .51se 26 .66.09.02-.69.16 .28se 30 .46.07-.07-.52.03 .41ag 3 .60.24.59.06.08 .28ag 7 (rec.) .40.11.50.13-.07.07ag 11 .17.03.19.18.06.54ag 15 (rec.) .65.07.72.00.12 .16ag 19 .29.23.18.20.19 .48ag 23 (rec.) .70.01-.62.13-.28 .39ag 27 .53.16.60.03-.05.53ag 31 (rec.) .65.02.72.04-.12 .51sd 4 .66.71.08.00.06.68sd 8 .77.81.08.02-.11 .47sd 12 .62.66.12.07.10 .42sd 16 (rec.) .48.54.15.09-.32 .64sd 20 .74.79.04.01-.13.41sd 24 .56.62.06.04-.15.20sd 28 .32.31.12.22.21.57sd 32 .69.71.13.05.23 % expl. var. .711.18.211.514 note. n = 550 (pca) and n = 551 (cfa). af = affiliative; se = self-enhancing; ag = aggressive; sd = self-defeating; rec. = recoded; h2 = communalities; % expl. var. = percent of explained variance by the factor (after rotation). loadings of items theoretically belonging to one factor in bold. standardized factor loadings of the cfa. the results were similar to the pca, with the same three items loaded < .40 on their corresponding factors (i.e., items 11, 19, and 28). in addition, the correlations between the four hsq scales and the latent factors in the cfa are of interest, as they should not correlate too strongly with one another. in the pca sample, the observed correlations were significant between affiliative and self-enhancing (r = .39, p < .001), affiliative and aggressive (r = .23, p < .001), affiliative europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 444 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and self-defeating (r = .10, p = .014), and between aggressive and self-defeating (r = .31, p < .001). in the cfa, three significant correlations emerged between affiliative and self-enhancing (r = .49, p < .001), affiliative and aggressive (r = .29, p < .001), and aggressive and self-defeating (r = .24, p < .001). although medium to large correlations emerged between some of the humor styles (especially between affiliative and self-enhancing), the scales can still be regarded as distinguishable, yet not independent, humor styles. overall, the factorial validity of the hsq can be mostly supported in both the pca and the cfa, confirming prediction 2. differences in demographic variables firstly, the reliabilities in the demographic subgroups gender, age, and country are investigated. as can be seen in table 1, the internal consistencies of the hsq scales in all subgroups exceed .80. as expected, the aggressive scale had lower values, which ranged from .66 to .73. internal consistency was below .70 for females and for the age groups 25–35 and 36+ years. this confirms prediction 3. next, the mean differences across gender, age, and countries are of interest. table 3 shows the means and standard deviations of the four hsq scales in the total sample and in the demographic subgroups. table 3 means (with standard deviations in parentheses) of the four scales of the german humor styles questionnaire (hsq) in the total sample and in several demographic subgroups countrygender totalscale gerchfemalemale 2606748003011,101n af (8.60)44.35(7.71)44.49(7.83)44.43(8.70)44.65(8.07)44.49 se (9.03)35.45(8.18)36.42(8.62)36.01(8.09)36.11(8.48)36.04 ag (7.74)28.03(7.57)27.89(7.17)27.10b(8.07)30.46a(7.58)28.01 sd (8.58)25.54(8.33)25.25(8.47)25.15(8.23)26.02(8.41)25.39 note. af = affiliative; se = self-enhancing; ag = aggressive; sd = self-defeating; ch = switzerland; ger = germany. means with different subscripts in the subgroups differed significantly from one another (p < .05). as can be seen in table 3, males scored significantly higher in the hsq aggressive scale (p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.44), while the other three scales showed no gender differences (all ps > .12), confirming prediction 4. no significant differences emerged between the participants from switzerland and germany (all ps > .13), answering research question 1. age correlated negatively with the affiliative (r = -.11, p < .001), aggressive (r = -.19, p < .001), and self-defeating (r = -.08, p = .005) scales and positively with the self-enhancing scale (r = .09, p = .004). this only partly confirms prediction 5, as every hsq scale showed small age effects, not only the affiliative and aggressive ones. third, the factorial invariance of the hsq is tested across gender, age, and country. table 4 shows the fit indices of the models for weak and strong invariance and the χ2 difference test. as can be seen in table 4, the models testing weak and strong factorial invariance showed an acceptable fit for all demographic groups, with the exception of the significant χ2 (p < .001) and the cfi (.82–.83) that indicated an unacceptable fit. the χ2 difference test was significant for gender and age, indicating that the model of strong factorial invariance fitted the data significantly worse than the weak invariance model. this supports weak factorial europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 445 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 fit indices of models assessing weak (model 1) and strong (model 2) factorial invariance of the german humor styles questionnaire across several demographic subgroups χ2 diff.aicsrmrrmseacfiχ2/dfχ2subgroup, model 50.30**gender (males and females) 120,998model 1 .07.06.83.852.67***2,607 120,995model 2 .08.06.83.822.43***2,663 93.53**age group (17–24, 25–35, 36+) 120,806model 1 .08.06.83.262.98***3,106 120,791model 2 .08.06.82.242.33***3,198 33.80country (switzerland and germany) 102,730model 1 .08.06.83.592.35***2,376 102,708model 2 .08.06.83.562.10***2,413 note. cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; srmr = standardized root mean square residual; aic = akaike information criterion; χ2 diff. = χ2 difference test. **p < .01. ***p < .001. invariance across gender and the three age groups. by contrast, evidence was obtained for strong factorial invariance between the two countries, answering research question 2. hsq humor styles and other styles of humor first, the four hsq scales were correlated with the five bipolar styles of humorous conduct of the hbqd-rf. the results are shown in table 5. as can be seen in table 5, the correlations were mostly as predicted. the hsq affiliative humor style mainly overlapped with the socially warm, socially cold (negative), competent (large effects) and inept (negative) styles. it correlated negatively with repressed (but not earthy) and also correlated positively with the benign style of humorous conduct (medium effects). surprisingly, it correlated positively with both the reflective and boorish styles of humorous conduct (accounting for the zero correlation in the study by ruch et al., 2011). the hsq self-enhancing humor style was characterized by a reflective and benign style of humorous conduct (medium effects) in addition to the socially warm (large effect) and socially cold (negative) styles of humorous conduct. the hsq aggressive humor style strongly overlapped with the earthy and mean-spirited styles of humorous conduct as well as with boorish and competent (medium effects). the hsq self-defeating humor style showed the strongest correlations with mean-spirited, earthy, boorish, and inept (medium to large effects). this partly confirms prediction 6, as the correlations obtained were lower for earthy and repressed and higher for reflective and boorish. the asymmetric correlations between the two poles of each of the bipolar styles of humorous conduct (and the positive correlations of both styles that is evened out in a bipolar dimension supports the importance of separating them into ten unipolar styles. examining the variance that was shared by the four hsq scales in the ten unipolar styles of humorous conduct (research question 3), large effects were found in all styles of humorous conduct but the repressed and benign ones (medium to large effects). on average, the hsq scales and the styles of humorous conduct shared 27.5% of the variance, with amaximum of 50.0% (socially warm style of humorous conduct). in terms of explained variance, the four hsq humor styles explained between 27.0% (repressed) to 70.0% (socially warm) of the absolute variance in the styles of humorous conduct (mdn = 52.0%), and between 55.4% (inept) and 93.1% (repressed) of their reeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 446 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 correlations of the four scales of the german humor styles questionnaire (hsq)with the ten unipolar scales of the humor behavior q-sort deck rating form (hbqd-rf) and total shared and explained variance in standard multiple regression analyses with cronbach’s alpha for (comparison) αrtotal r2hsq sdhsq aghsq sehsq afhbqd-rf scales .81socially warm .70***.50***.18***.13*.48***.65*** .74socially cold .62***.39***.19***.18***.31***-.54***.73reflective .44***.20***.20***.17**.32***.34*** .72boorish .47***.22***.35***.31***.15**.28*** .82earthy .60***.36***.36***.57***.02-.10 .29repressed .27***.08***.09.13*-.09-.21***.66competent .57***.33***.22***.33***.19***.49*** .74inept .41***.17***.33***.20***.11*-.19***.58benign .35***.12***.07.08.27***.31*** .81mean-spirited .64***.41***.45***.57***.03-.08 total r2 .25***.40***.30***.57*** r .50***.63***.55***.76*** cronbach’s α .78.69.79.83 note. n = 344. af = affiliative; se = self-enhancing; ag = aggressive; sd = self-defeating. total r2 = shared variance; r = explained variance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. liable variance (mdn = 76.1%). in other words, on average one fourth of the variance was unique to the styles of humorous conduct and could not be explained by the four hsq scales. large effects were also found when the ten styles of humorous conduct predicted the four hsq scales (research question 4), with the two approaches sharing between 25.0% (self-defeating) to 57.0% (affiliative) of the variance (mdn = 35.0%). the absolute variance predicted by the styles of humorous conduct was on average 59.0%, and the reliable variance explained ranged from 64.1% (self-defeating) to 91.3% (aggressive) and 91.6% (affiliative), with a median of 80.5%. thus, on average around one fifth of the variance was unique to the hsq humor styles and could not be explained by the ten styles of humorous conduct. these findings underscore that the hsq and the hbqd-rf assess similar, but not exchangeable, humor-related styles. prediction 7 and research questions 5 and 6 concern the overlap of the four hsq scales with the self-ratings of the eight comic styles. table 6 shows the correlations of the hsq with the eight scales of the comic styles rating form. as can be seen in table 6, the hsq affiliative humor style correlated positively with fun (medium effect) and nonsense (small effect). the hsq self-enhancing style correlated positively with humor (medium effect), fun, nonsense and lower cynicism (small effects). the hsq aggressive humor style overlapped with sarcasm, satire, cynicism, and wit (medium to large effects) and to a lesser extent with irony and low humor (small to medium effects). lastly, the hsq self-defeating scale showed small to medium positive correlations with cynicism, sarcasm, and wit. thus, overall the stronger alignments of affiliative with fun and of aggressive with satire, sarcasm, and cynicism as postulated by prediction 7 were substantiated. also, the low correlations of the hsq humor styles with nonsense and irony showed that these comic styles were rather independent of the hsq, while medium to strong correlations were obtained for wit and satire with the hsq aggressive humor style. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 447 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 correlations of the four scales of the german humor styles questionnaire (hsq) with the eight scales of the comic styles rating form and total shared and explained variance in standard multiple regression analyses with cronbach’s alpha (for comparison) rtotal r2hsq sdhsq aghsq sehsq afcomic styles fun .38***.14***.10.03.19**.35*** humor .42***.18***.07.27***-.24***.08 nonsense .16.03.03.07.12*.13* wit .36***.13***.13*.35***.09.07 irony .28***.08***.10.25***.09-.01 satire .41***.16***.11.39***.06-.03 sarcasm .44***.19***.16**.42***.05-.01cynicism .44***.20***.19**.39***.13*-.09total r2 .07**.34***.12***.14*** r .27***.58***.34***.38*** cronbach’s α .78.69.80.80 note. n = 285. af = affiliative; se = self-enhancing; ag = aggressive; sd = self-defeating. total r2 = shared variance; r = explained variance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. examining the variance that is shared by the four hsq scales in the eight comic styles (research question 5), medium to large effects were found for all comic styles but nonsense (small effect). on average, the hsq scales and the styles of humorous conduct shared 15.0% of the variance, with a maximum of 20.0% (cynicism). in terms of explained variance, the four hsq humor styles explained between 16.0% (nonsense) to 44.0% (sarcasm and cynicism) of the absolute variance in the styles of humorous conduct (mdn = 39.5%). medium to large effects were also found when the eight comic styles predicted the four hsq scales (research question 6). the two approaches shared between 7.0% (self-defeating) and 34.0% (aggressive) of the variance (mdn = 13.0%). the absolute variance predicted by the styles of humorous conduct was on average 36.0%, and the reliable variance explained ranged from 34.6% (self-defeating) to 84.1% (aggressive), with a median of 45.0%. thus, on average around half of the variance was unique to the hsq humor styles and could not be explained by the eight comic styles. the lower coefficients are, of course, partly due to the fact that the comic styles were measured with one item only, which lowers reliability. again, the hsq humor styles and comic styles were not exchangeable. discussion and conclusion the present study aimed at testing the psychometric properties of the german adaptation of the hsq. the second goal was to examine the theoretical and empirical overlaps with two previous conceptualizations of styles in humor research, namely styles of humorous conduct (craik et al., 1996) and comic styles (schmidt-hidding, 1963). the internal consistencies obtained were good for all hsq scales and satisfying for the aggressive scale, supporting prediction 1. the factorial validity was supported in a pca (including the high congruence coefficients) and cfa, with three items showing low loadings (items 11, 19, and 28) and one item violating simple structure in pca (item 19 of the aggressive scale). these items showed similar deviations from simple structure or low loadings in previous studies (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004, 2006; saroglou & scariot, 2002; taher et al., 2008). thus, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 448 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a more general difficulty of fitting these items into the four-factor structure is a more likely explanation than specific problems with the german translation or cultural differences. compared to the other items of the respective scales, these three items were also the lowest two in the aggressive scale, and the lowest in the self-defeating humor style scales in the pca by martin et al. (2003). this also sheds light on the reasons for the aggressive scale consistently yielding a comparably lower internal consistency. overall, however, the factor structure of the hsq was replicated in the pca and cfa, supporting prediction 2. the item content can potentially help to explain why the three items did not fit as expected into the four-factor structure in the present and previous studies. item 11 (“when telling jokes or saying funny things, i am usually not very concerned about how other people are taking it.”) of the aggressive scale does not directly involve disparaging humor, as not being concerned how others take it could also mean–amongst other things–that one makes jokes that others don’t find funny. thus, people can interpret this item in an aggressive or in less aggressive way. item 19 (“sometimes i think of something that is so funny that i can’t stop myself from saying it, even if it is not appropriate for the situation.”) of the aggressive scale does also not directly involve laughing at or mocking others, but rather being impulsive and saying something funny that is inappropriate. thus, this item is lacking a directly aggressive connotation, which could explain why this item occasionally loads higher on other humor styles than the aggressive one. item 28 (“if i am having problems or feeling unhappy, i often cover it up by joking around, so that even my closest friends don’t know how i really feel.”) of the self-defeating scale might yield lower loadings, as it is the only item of this scale that entails the aspect of hiding one’s negative feelings. this aspect seems to be less related to the other self-defeating items in translated versions than in the original study. thus, the content of these three items deviates from the other scale items, which could explain why these items did not load as highly on their corresponding humor style factors and why the aggressive scale also shows lower internal consistencies in several studies. also it is noteworthy that the three items stemmed from the supposedly “maladaptive” hsq scales (aggressive and self-defeating). an alternative interpretation as to why these three items deviate in both the current and previous samples is that they are rather long and contain conditional clausesi, which might introduce additional complexities in interpreting these items and in translating them appropriately. influence of demographic groups next, the psychometric properties of the german hsq across several demographic groups were of interest. the internal consistencies were good except for the aggressive scale, which was lower than .70 for three demographic groups. obtaining lower values for females than for males replicated the findings with the italian version of the hsq (sirigatti et al., 2014). the mean differences in the hsq scales were significant for the aggressive scale only, with males obtaining higher values than females, confirming prediction 4. age differences were small but in the expected directions, with affiliative, and aggressive decreasing with age. in addition, self-enhancing increased and self-defeating decreased with age. the latter two humor styles however shared less than 1% of the variance with age, thus–despite their statistical significance (likely due to the large sample size)–they were not practically meaningful. this partially confirms prediction 5 and extends previous findings on age differences in the hsq, which typically compared only two age groups (adolescents and younger/middle-aged adults) with one another (martin et al., 2003; sirigatti et al., 2014). that is, the means of the hsq varied even if different groups of adults were compared with one another (from emerging adults to older adults). the exploratory comparison of people from switzerland and germany (research question 1) revealed no significant mean differences. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 449 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study also investigated the factorial invariance of the hsq across three demographic groups (research question 2). strong factorial invariance was found across the two countries (switzerland and germany); that is, participants from both countries had the same four-factor structure and the same factor loadings. weak factorial invariance was supported across gender and the three age groups. that is, they shared the same factor structure, but the loadings were different across the groups. thus, differences across these demographic groups can be meaningfully compared in relation to the underlying four humor style factors, as they have “the same conceptual frame of reference” (vandenberg & lance, 2000, p. 37). this finding is important as other differences obtained between the groups (e.g., between males and females) could also be due to a different composition of the four hsq factors, in which for example the aggressive scale would be composed of different items for each group. this would make it challenging to differentiate between “true” differences in the hsq factors and simply different compositions of these factors. however, our findings show that–at least for the german adaptation of the hsq–the same factor structure holds for gender, age groups, and nationalities (the latter also having the same loadings). for the groups in which strong factorial invariance was not given, future studies could test for partial metric (or partial strong factorial) invariance to determine for which hsq items the same loadings hold across the demographic groups. overall, the german adaptation of the hsq can be considered successful. internal consistencies were satisfying in the overall sample and for the demographic subgroups. apart from one item of the hsq aggressive scale, the four-factor structure was supported and at least weak factorial invariance was given across gender, age groups (16–24, 25–35, and 36+), and countries (germany and switzerland). the adaptation can thus be recommended for further studies with the hsq in german-speaking countries. although the sample of austrians was not large enough to allow for separate multi-group analyses, we expect–based on the encouraging findings across switzerland and germany–that the psychometric properties will also be sufficient in austria. this prediction could be empirically tested in future studies. hsq and other styles of humor in addition to investigating the psychometric properties of the german version of the hsq, the overlaps between the hsq humor styles and two previous conceptualizations of styles of humor were of interest. in general, two of the hsq humor styles showed stronger overlaps with the previous concepts of styles of humor: the aggressive scale had its counterparts in both the styles of everyday humorous conduct (earthy und mean-spirited) and in the comic styles (wit, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) and the affiliative scale corresponded with several styles of humorous conduct (e.g., socially warm, socially cold, and competent) and the comic style fun. as expected, selfenhancing related to the comic style (benevolent) humor, and in the hbqd-rf, and it was an amalgam of socially warm, reflective and benign humorous conduct. there was no direct counterpart for the self-defeating humor style; but spurious relations were present to boorish, earthy, inept and even mean-spirited styles of everyday humorous conduct. although it is not a comic style in literature studies, it tended to be endorsed by those high in the comic styles sarcasm and cynicism. this style of humor seemed more unique to the hsq and deserves more attention in future studies. furthermore, correlations with the ten unipolar scales of the hbqd-rf were of larger magnitude than expected, although the pattern largely conformed to the previous findings obtained with the bipolar styles of humorous conduct (ruch et al., 2011). the importance of separating the bipolar styles into unipolar ones was highlighted by the fact that most correlations were asymmetric across the poles (e.g., the hsq affiliative scale correlated .49 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 450 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with competent and .19 with inept). this might also be the reason why the obtained correlations were in general larger than expected. in particular, if the bipolar styles of humorous conduct are not perfectly bipolar (as found by ruch et al., 2011, and as evidenced by the largest negative correlation being -.38 in the present study), and if the hsq humor styles overlap more with one end of the pole or correlate positively with both poles, then using the bipolar styles of humorous conduct lowers the correlations that can be obtained or it might mask existing correlations (as we found for the reflective and boorish styles of humorous conduct). the present findings might thus be a more realistic estimate of the overlaps between the hsq humor styles and the hbqd-rf styles of humorous conduct. as this only partly confirms prediction 6, future studies on the relationships between the hsq and the styles of humorous conduct are warranted. the variance explained in the ten unipolar styles of humorous conduct by the four hsq scales was also large (answering research question 3), with the strongest overlaps occurring for the socially warm and cold (hsq affiliative and self-enhancing), meanspirited and earthy (hsq aggressive and self-defeating), and competent style of humorous conduct (all four hsq scales). the styles of everyday humorous conduct reflective, inept, and benign were least represented in the hsq, and the four hsq scales explained up to 60% of their reliable variance. in turn, the hbqd styles of humorous conduct explained large amounts of variance in the hsq scales, with the largest effect occurring for the hsq affiliative scale (answering research question 4). the descriptions of the eight comic styles according to schmidt-hidding (1963), by contrast, showed lower correlations to the hsq scales, which is also due to the fact that they were assessed with single ratings. the five predicted relationships were confirmed with medium to large effects; that is, affiliative went along with fun, aggressive went along with satire, sarcasm, and cynicism, and self-enhancing with humor (small to medium effects). in addition, the aggressive humor style also correlated with wit and irony and negatively with (benevolent) humor. this could indicate that people high in the aggressive humor style might have a larger repertoire of different ways of showing humor. another explanation could be that many comic styles contain an aggressive element. this makes sense as disparagement humor is often considered an important element in humor (for a theoretical and empirical overview, see ferguson & ford, 2008). this explanation might have two consequences: first, some of the comic styles (especially satire, sarcasm, and cynicism) were rather similar in self-reports (correlations between the three ratings ranged from .48 to .58, indicating large overlaps), although their construct descriptions differed from one another. although this indicates at least 23.0–33.6% shared variance between the three ratings, it cannot be evaluated how much reliable variance the ratings share. second, the hsq aggressive scale is sensitive to the mocking and teasing element in these comic styles, but not to the nuances in which these comic styles differ (e.g., cynicism representing a general destructive attitude, while satire aims at correcting societal problems and wrongdoings of others). further research is needed to investigate the aggressive elements in the comic styles further and to delineate their usefulness as individual difference variables in humor research. if a separation of these comic styles (e.g., satire, sarcasm, cynicism) is possible, maybe a facet model with different mockery components would be favorable. as expected, the self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles had small correlations to some of the comic styles. in turn, the comic styles nonsense and irony only had small correlations to the hsq scales, while the correlations were higher than expected for wit and satire (both correlating with the hsq aggressive scale). thus, prediction 7 can only be partially confirmed. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 451 http://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding the variance the four hsq scales could explain in the comic styles (research question 5), the values were large. the smallest amounts of variance were explained in irony and nonsense. these two comic styles entail specific linguistic techniques (saying the opposite of what is meant) and specific humor contents (nonsensical play on words and the play with sense and nonsense) that are not covered in the hsq humor styles. conversely, the eight comic styles explained amedium to large amount of variance in the hsq self-enhancing and self-defeating scales, while the effects were large for affiliative and aggressive (research question 6). this shows that the aspects of coping humor and humor ineptness were less represented in the comic styles. in general, the styles of humorous conduct and comic styles showed many overlaps with the hsq scales, the former mainly with the affiliative and aggressive humor styles and the latter especially with the aggressive humor style. yet it is underscored that they measure different humor aspects than the hsq does, despite similar labels. this also fits to the theoretical distinctions of the definitions and the differential usage of the term styles. the hsq humor styles focus on evaluations of different uses of humor, while the hbqd-rf and the comic styles focus more on humor behaviors and different ways they can be conducted, converging more with the approach of stylistic traits. these style approaches are thus non-redundant and each should be studied in their own right. what do the findings of the present study imply for future research in the area of styles of humor and hsq humor styles in particular? first, the successful adaptation of the hsq into german and the investigation of its psychometric properties and norms allow unifying research efforts in german-speaking countries. second, establishing strong factorial invariance and similar means across two countries provide a fruitful basis for comparative international studies, extending the present findings to further languages and cultural areas. third, the lack of support for strong factorial invariance for gender and three age groups and the mean differences in these demographic groups open up a new research venue:why domen differ fromwomen and why do adolescents differ from adults? do they evaluate humor differently; for example, do men regard aggressive humor styles as less detrimental to others than women do? or do they use humor for different purposes? these questions and others would provide insights into our understanding of the hsq humor styles in general and in prevalent demographic groups. fourth, the inclusion of the other two approaches to styles of humor theoretically and empirically complements studies of the hsq by focusing more on humor behaviors and how they are performed. future studies could investigate whether the styles of everyday humorous conduct and the comic styles do also contribute to psychosocial well-being, especially beyond the hsq scales. as the hsq was proposed to be comprehensive in terms of humor and well-being, this should not be the case, yet an empirical test of this proposition has yet to be provided. this would further strengthen the hsq as a comprehensive measure in this area, or it could suggest possible extensions of the hsq. limitations although the sample was large, it was not representative of the german-speaking population, especially in terms of age and education. the psychometric properties of the hsqmight differ in people with lower levels of education or in older people, so this remains to be tested in future research. second, the comic styles were measured with one item each; thus they might have low reliability, limiting the correlations that can be obtained with other measures. future studies should employ several items to measure each of the comic styles described by schmidt-hidding (1963) as an individual-difference variable. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 german version of the humor styles questionnaire 452 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions the present study examined the psychometric properties of the german version of the hsq in a large sample of adults, and presents its norms as a reference for future studies using this adaptation. overall, the psychometric properties of the hsq were similar to the original paper (martin et al., 2003) and better than in many other translations (e.g., bilge & saltuk, 2007; chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006; taher et al., 2008), supporting that it can be used meaningfully in german-speaking countries (at least germany and switzerland). the reliability of the four hsq scales was supported in the total sample as well as in the subgroups, with the aggressive scale showing the lowest reliabilities. weak factorial invariance for the four-factor structure of the hsq was supported across gender and age groups, while strong factorial invariance was supported across switzerland and germany. this supports the feasibility of interpreting differences in the four hsq factors in these demographic subgroups as the items form at least the same latent structure. the empirical convergence of the hsq scales with 10 styles of humorous conduct and eight comic styles was mixed, with some styles largely converging with the hsq, while others were rather independent of it. this is line with the theoretical distinctions of stylistic traits and the approaches to styles in the three humor concepts, underscoring that the usage of similar labels does not automatically imply that the constructs are interchangeable as well. notes i) thanks to one anonymous reviewer for pointing out this item characteristic. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank stephanie estoppey, jenny hofmann, ingo jacobs, lili müller, and rene t. proyer for providing additional data of the german hsq for the present paper. author contributions both authors contributed equally to this work. references baughman, h. m., giammarco, e. a., veselka, l., schermer, j. a., martin, n. g., lynskey, m., & vernon, p. a. 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(2000). a review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. organizational research methods, 3(1), 4-70. doi:10.1177/109442810031002 about the authors willibald ruch is a full professor of psychology at the university of zurich, switzerland. his research interests are in the field of humor and laughter, cheerfulness, and smiling. in his doctoral dissertation at the university of graz (austria) in 1980, he developed a taxonomy of jokes and cartoons and studied their relation to personality. his more recent work, together with his research team at the university of zurich, includes humor from a positive psychology perspective, the effectiveness of humor training programs and clown interventions, the ability to laugh at oneself, the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia), and the measurement of humor. sonja heintz received her master’s degree in psychology at the saarland university in 2012, and she has since worked in the section of personality and assessment at the university of zurich, switzerland. she works as a research and teaching assistant and pursues her phd. her main research interests are humor behaviors, individual differences in humor and positive psychological variables, methodology, and measurement. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 434–455 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1116 ruch & heintz 455 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumor-2013-0026 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs11336-009-9135-y http://www.dgps.de/fachgruppen/methoden/mpr-online/issue20/art2/mpr130_13.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v10i3.682 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0022022108321177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f109442810031002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en german version of the humor styles questionnaire introduction internal consistency and factorial validity of the hsq scales psychometric properties in demographic groups hsq humor styles and other styles of humor method sample instruments procedure analyses results internal consistency and factorial validity of the hsq differences in demographic variables hsq humor styles and other styles of humor discussion and conclusion influence of demographic groups hsq and other styles of humor limitations conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author contributions references about the authors exploring identity in muslim moroccan and pakistani immigrant women research reports exploring identity in muslim moroccan and pakistani immigrant women cristina giuliani*a, semira tagliabueb [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, brescia, italy. abstract this study presents a qualitative investigation of how muslim moroccan and pakistani female immigrants living in italy conceptualize their cultural identity. ten moroccan and 10 pakistani (adolescent and adult) women were interviewed through in-depth semi-structured interviews. the interviewees expressed a strong attachment to their culture of origin: their religion is a crucial aspect of their identity, along with certain cultural rules and traditional values. at the same time, both moroccan and pakistani participants were ambivalent toward and experienced difficulties in developing a connection to the host country, although the two groups exhibit their lack of connection to their host country in different ways: moroccans’ self-representation is marked by a sense of foreignness and by a lack of an emotional connection with places where they are living while pakistanis tend to express cultural distance and conflict with the host culture’s values. for both the moroccan and pakistani groups, the challenge of integration and biculturalism seems demanding in the italian context and is marked by a deep feeling of emptiness, a lack of an emotional bond with the new country, and a strong cultural ambivalence. finally, narrative themes are articulated across four interrelated dimensions (cultural, religious, gendered, spatial), revealing interesting differences based on national origin and generation. keywords: cultural identity, pakistani and moroccan immigration, muslim women, qualitative analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 received: 2014-07-21. accepted: 2014-11-13. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: cristina.giuliani@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in europe, as in countries with a longer history of immigration such as the united states, canada, australia, and new zealand, muslims constitute a growing new immigrant population from a wide range of african and middle eastern countries. an expanding body of empirical work has focused on the acculturation process of muslim immigrants living in western countries, in particular in the post-9/11 era (sirin & fine, 2007). the term acculturation has been used to refer to the “process of cultural and psychological change that takes place as a result of contact between two or more cultural groups” (berry, 2006, p. 13), leading to some long-term psychological and social adaptations of an individual or group. in this process, cultural identity, considered as a multidimensional construct linked to a sense of self as a member of one or more groups (e.g., berry, phinney, sam, & vedder, 2006), has been frequently analysed both in young and adult immigrants. several authors have pointed out that the negotiation and interplay among religious, cultural, ethnic, and national dimensions of identity represent a complex challenge, one that is generally considered more demanding for second-generation children of immigrants than for the firsteurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ generation immigrants (berry et al., 2006; britto & amer, 2007; phinney, 1990; stuart, ward, & adam, 2010). children of immigrants struggle with combining loyalty with cultural and religious heritage and host society values earlier in their developmental and socialization process than do their adult counterparts. difficulties related to the acculturation experience have been documented less in north american and australian studies than in european. north-american and australian studies have found that adolescent and young adult children of muslim immigrants tend to choose an integrated or bicultural identity (britto & amer, 2007; stuart et al., 2010), and that female adolescents are able to navigate more fluidly than their male peers between dual cultural frameworks, without experiencing a high level of ambivalence or conflict, and without feeling “split” between cultures (sirin, bikmen, et al., 2008; sirin & fine, 2007, 2008; zaal, salah, & fine 2007). moreover, it seems that a strong muslim identification is balanced by participation in the broader society (sirin, bikmen, et al., 2008; stuart et al., 2010). in europe, however, muslim immigrant youth rarely achieve an integrated or bicultural identity: they seem to prefer an ethnicover a national identification (berry et al., 2006; crul & doomernik, 2003; heim, hunter, & jones, 2011; stevens, pels, vollebergh, & crijnen, 2004; vedder, sam, & liebkind, 2007). moreover, in contrast to immigrant muslim boys, immigrant muslim girls show an ambivalent acculturation pattern (stevens et al., 2004, p. 699). characteristics of the european context of immigration some distinctive characteristics of the european context of immigration need to be considered in order to better understand the problematic acculturation patterns for young immigrant muslims in european countries (alba, 2005; duyvendak, 2011; leyendecker, 2011). first, the close geographic proximity between countries facilitates the contact with friends left behind and with one’s own culture of origin. inexpensive flights, the possibility of spending yearly holidays in the homeland, and new technologies allow people to stay closely connected to friends and family in the country of origin. second, the high level of negative biases, intolerance toward low-status immigrants, religious – institutionaland societal discrimination, and the poor school and professional integration experienced by muslim immigrants in many eu countries all represent both a barrier against cultural integration and identification with the dominant group (adida, laitin, & valfort, 2010; allen & nielsen, 2002; ambrosini, 2013; berry et al., 2006). lastly, european-specific migration patterns, which today rely on a legal system of family reunification and formation, do not allow for the emergence of a true third generation of immigrants, that is, a generation of offspring with both parents born in the host country. since the 1990s, being brought as a spouse to the destination country has been and still is one of the principal legal means of gaining entry into europe for new immigrants (de haas, 2007; leyendecker, 2011). indeed, family and parents often prefer their children to marry a partner from the country of origin. furthermore, these marital choices are often strengthened by strong cultural norms regarding consanguineous marriages and family ties (bertolani, rinaldini, & bordogna, 2014; erricchiello, 2011; reniers, 2001). in europe, unlike in the united states, thirdand fourth-generation immigrants frequently live in families in which parents have a “mixed generational status” (leyendecker, 2011, p. 5): for instance, one parent may be born or have grown up in europe, while the other in the country of origin, carrying with him or her his own culture and language. thus, the combined effects of (1) geographical proximity and close connection to the country of origin, (2) intolerance and discrimination towardmuslims, and (3) european-specific migration patterns explain young muslims’ struggles to integrate feelings of belonging to both ethnic and host cultures. characteristics of the european research about muslims comparing european studies with north-american and australian research is difficult for yet another reason, in this case related to sampling. north american and australian studies tend not to distinguish among different etheurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 64 http://www.psychopen.eu/ nicities; they might, for example, investigate the acculturation experience of muslim immigrants or arab americans, regardless of their specific geographical provenience. in contrast, european studies, although scarce, have tended to focus on one specific immigrant ethnic group: in general, the largest and most-established in the country where the research is performed. for example, spanish, french, and dutch studies have focused specifically onmoroccan immigrants (garcía-sánchez, 2010; sabatier, 2008; stevens et al., 2004; stevens, vollebergh, pels, & crijnen, 2007a, 2007b); british, finnish, and norwegian studies on pakistani immigrants (campbell & mclean, 2003; oppedal & røysamb, 2007); and studies from the north western area of europe (germany, finland, norway, and the netherlands) on turkish immigrants (crul & doomernik, 2003; oppedal & røysamb, 2007; vedder et al., 2007). yet few published studies have examined immigrant patterns of acculturation in those european mediterranean countries—in particular spain and italy—which only emerged as new destination countries for immigrants beginning in the 1980s. research in the field is particularly lacking in italy (salih, 2000, 2009), with a few exceptions (regalia & giuliani, 2012), which found that muslim immigrants to italy collectively experienced a fragile and complex transition experience, characterized by deep feelings of solitude and social isolation, high levels of perceived discrimination, and strong religious identification. moroccan and pakistani communities in italy in italy today, muslim arab, north african, and south asian immigrants constitute approximately 20% of the legalized immigrant population (blangiardo, 2013; istituto italiano di statistica [istat], 2014). within those immigrant populations, moroccans and pakistanis comprise, respectively, the largest non-e.u. immigrant populations residing in italy (with 524,775 moroccans officially residing in italy on january 1, 2014), and one of the groups that has experienced the highest increase during the last decade (with 106,485 pakistanis officially residing in italy on january 1, 2014) (istat, 2014). despite their similarities as regards their numbers, these two groups have differing migratory histories and characteristics. migration from the country of morocco began in the mid-1980s, whereas migration from pakistan started in the second half of the 1990s. for both nationalities, the first migration wave was male-dominated, though this trend was gradually counterbalanced by the arrival of women and children within the scope of family reunification (ambrosini, 2013; istat, 2014). the immigrant experience is related to the political and social-economic conditions in the immigrant’s country of origin: morocco is considered to be a more developed and dynamic country with a gross domestic product (gdp) per capita of us$3082 (who, 2012), while pakistan is a poorer country with a gdp per capita of us$1183 (who, 2012). both are muslim societies, but, whereas reformist and modernized ideas about women’s rights have spread throughout moroccan society, in pakistan the fundamentalist islamic tradition is still strong (giunchi, 2012). most moroccan and pakistani immigrants in italy are living in the northern part of the country: the former settled predominantly in urban areas, while the latter settled in rural or suburban areas (blangiardo, 2013). these immigrants perform principally lower-skilled work (the building trade, domestic work, agriculture, small industries) (ambrosini, 2013). the percentage of female moroccan immigrants in italy (43,9%) today almost equals that of male immigrants (56,1%) from the same country. in contrast, in the pakistani community the percentage is lower (33% versus 67%) (istat, 2014). moreover, the levels of participation of women in the workforce are different for moroccan and pakistani communities: while 22% of moroccan women are part of the italian labor market, the same is true for only 3% of pakistani women (centro studi e ricerche [idos], 2014). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 giuliani & tagliabue 65 http://www.psychopen.eu/ comparisons between moroccan and pakistani immigrants are interesting for socio-demographic, historical, political, religious, and cultural reasons (de haas, 2007; giunchi, 2012; zaman, stewart, & zaman, 2006). moreover, the exploration of howmoroccan and pakistani immigrants describe their experience of migration, and identification of similarities, and differences between those two groups and between first and second generation immigrant women is essential, as, currently, the available literature contributes little (oppedal & røysamb, 2007; vedder et al., 2007). the aim of the current study, which concentrates on how immigrant women of two ethnic groups (moroccan and pakistani) and of two age groups (adult and adolescent immigrants) conceptualize their identity, is to fully analyse the post-migration experiences of women in correlation with their national origins and generational status. method participants the 20 female immigrants who participated in the current study are a subset of the group of participants of a larger study conducted by regalia and giuliani (2012) from january 2008 to december 2011. among the participants, 10 adult immigrant women (5 from morocco, 5 from pakistan-punjab) and 10 immigrant girls (5 from morocco, 5 from pakistan-punjab) met the following criteria and were thus selected: (1) adult immigrant women should be married, living in italy with their family (husband and children) for at least two years; and (2) immigrant girls should be between ages 14 and 18, have immigrated to italy through family reunification, and have lived in italy for at least two years. all participants were selected from the northern region of italy and identified themselves as muslim. at the time of the interviews, the average age of the immigrant women was 33.90 years (sd = 5.04; m = 31.60, sd = 6.34 for moroccans; m = 36.20, sd = 1.92 for pakistanis). length of residence in italy for women was an average of 9.60 years (sd = 3.57; m = 11.40, sd = 3.71 for moroccans; m = 7.80, sd = 2.59 for pakistanis). all women had a low level of education (for the most part no schooling, or schooling through the first grade); moroccan women were employed full-time or part-time in unskilled jobs, while pakistani women were homemakers. adolescent girls immigrated to italy when they were, on average, 7.80 years old (sd = 5.05; m = 7.20, sd = 5.85 for moroccans;m = 8.40, sd = 4.72 for pakistanis); at the time of the interviews the average age of the adolescents was 16.70 years (sd = 1.57;m = 17.20, sd = 1.30 for moroccans;m = 6.20; sd = 1.78 for pakistanis). all adolescent girls were attending secondary level school. average length of residence in italy for adolescents on average was 8.40 years (sd = 5.25; m = 10.00, ds = 6.40 for moroccans; m = 6.80, ds = 3.83 for pakistanis). all participants were fluent in italian, and all interviews were conducted in italian. materials and procedure after obtaining written individual consent (and parental consent for adolescent girls) to participate under the condition of anonymity, participants were asked to answer a brief demographic questionnaire, which gathered relevant background information, and to complete an in-depth, semi-structured individual interview conducted by two expert interviewers. approval from the ethical committee of the psychological department catholic university of milan was sought and received. specific areas of inquiry in the semi-structured interviews included personal and family immigration history (e.g., “tell me about your arrival in italy”; “can you describe your experience?”), life experience in the host country europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 66 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (family, school, work, leisure), self-representation (e.g., “could you talk about yourself through images, things that are meaningful for you?”), comparisons between homeland and host country, social context and social relationship, future projects, and expectations about the future. the interviews took place in the respondents’ homes or in public spaces (i.e., library, school), and respondents were offered a 10-euro gift certificate to a local market for their participation. coding the interview transcripts were analysed with grounded theory methodology, using open and axial coding (strauss & corbin, 1990). atlas.ti scientific software development (2013) software was employed throughout the qualitative data analysis process to code the primary documents. a team of two researchers independently analysed the verbal data following completion of the systematic steps. first, they openly coded the data, inductively developing a preliminary list of codes, describing the content of selected narrative quotes. the term codes refers to the initial labels used to characterize the transcript quotationsi. next, the researchers grouped the codes into higherlevel conceptual categories, called themes. finally, the themes were grouped into more comprehensive conceptual categories which indicate the conceptual macro area of interest. themes and main thematic dimensions were then analysed further through clustered matrices, which allowed the subject to describe narratives, but taking into account country of origin (morocco/pakistan) and generation (adult/adolescent). for purposes of publication, the quotations have been translated from italian to english by the authors. results themes and dimensions identified collected data disclosed rich qualitative information concerning the way in which immigrant women and girls describe their life experiences and their cultural belonging. several themes emerged from these narratives, which are described here in depth. using these themes as a starting point, four overarching and interrelated thematic dimensions were identified: cultural dimension of identity was used to indicate times when participants described themselves in relation to cultural systems, revealing cultural orientations, behavioural preferences, and values concerning both their heritage group and the larger society in which they now live. the gender dimension of identity was employed for times when participants described their experiences as women (values, behaviours, beliefs). the religious dimension of identity referred to those times when participants valued their religious affiliation and described their thoughts and engagement in devout practices; spatial dimension of identity indicated times when participants expressed their attachment to physical places, the emotional bond with a geographical region or land, the strength of their feeling at home, or, conversely, the lack of this feeling. as shown in table 1, each of these four thematic dimensions referred to specific themes. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 giuliani & tagliabue 67 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 themes and thematic dimensions of identity thematic dimensiontheme cultural dimension of identity (n = 97)a• culture of origin • caught between two cultures • apart from host culture • italian behavioural assimilation • culture of host country gender dimension of identity (n = 55)• independent and free woman • traditional woman religious dimension identity (n = 54)• muslim affiliation • religious practices spatial dimension of identity (n = 51)• without a land • motherland bond • host country bond anumbers reported refer to the total quotes for each main theme identified. cultural dimension of identity — most of the interviewees’ self-narratives developed around the main theme cultural dimension of identity, and, within this dimension, immigrant women and girls valued their relationship with their culture of origin. in a few cases, they expressed attachment and openness to the culture of the host country. these participants were very focused on traditional values, rules, and habits. for instance, immigrants stressed solidarity among families, family support, loyalty and respect toward one’s culture of origin and a collectivistic orientation, as indicated by statements like the following: in our culture we help each other; there, i would find the warmth, the affection among people, but here people are too busy and don’t have time to devote to others, sometimes even to their own family (participant 5, moroccan woman, 34 years old). participants often referred to cultural rules: our culture is a culture inherited from india….although we are muslims, our traditions date back to india (participant 16, pakistani adolescent, 18 years old). even if i live here, i live the way i lived in morocco. my life has not changed because i cannot go out in the evening; we have rules. it is the same culture, nothing different from before (participant 11, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old). my husband and i have explained the rules of our culture to her. our task is to explain what is right and what is wrong in our culture (participant 6, pakistani woman, 33 years old). participants referred to their traditional habits about maintaining their mother tongue, as well as preferences in food and television programs: of course, my parents try to encourage us to speak arabic at home; after all, outside the home we speak only italian, so inside the home they say “speak arabic, speak arabic”, in order to preserve our own language (participant 14, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old). i speak urdu, … punjabi. it is my native language (participant 17, pakistani adolescent, 15 years old). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 68 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we don't speak italian at home, only arabic. we are still native … we have not changed much here (participant 5, moroccan woman, 34 years old). i do not watch italian tv, i watch only pakistan tv…i like the programs. there are many tv shows where i can see weddings… i watch those shows…because we have a pakistani and an indian channel (participant 19, pakistani adolescent, 16 years old). those who felt a strong connection to their culture of origin also felt a weak link with the italian host culture, which they perceived as a distant culture that conflicted with their own culture. in line with this, the acculturative experience was characterized by struggle and difficulties, expressed as the feeling of being caught between two cultures: my thoughts are confused, so my words are confusing (participant 20, pakistani adolescent, aged 18 years). the difficulty that i have found is in comparing the italian and pakistani cultures; because what i find normal in pakistani culture, i do not find normal here…i am not able to fairly compare them, i don’t know how to do it. that is, many times teachers say to me: "come on, do it this way." seen through the lens of an italian this is not such a bad thing ...but through the lens of a pakistani, it is not acceptable. i would try to avoid that thing (participant 16, pakistani adolescent, 18 years old). i live split in half, 50% italian, 50% moroccan (participant 14, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old). i must become a part of this culture, which is bit different; i cannot put the two things together… “i must become a part of this culture”: i’ve been telling myself this for the last eight months (participant 17, pakistani adolescent, 15 years old). or of being apart from italian culture: there are some things here that really make me feel homesick for my country, because they make me feel different: not suitable for this place, not suitable for this country (participant 15, moroccan adolescent, 17 years old). and the bad thing is that i do not feel comfortable with italians. that is, they are different, we are different (participant 11, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old). i did not know all the people here were different from us ...that the mentality of an italian is different from that of a pakistani, even though i’ve been here from 10 years. i'm half italian, but in any case the way of thinking is different, so it would be easier to stay with a person with a similar mentality to yours …but i think that the mind-set is different: i cannot reason with the italian people (participant 16, pakistani adolescent, 18 years old). moreover, disorientation, confusion and stress seemed to characterize the challenge of the intercultural dialogue. positive orientation toward italian culture was confined to efforts of behavioural assimilation concerning more peripheral domains of acculturation, namely those in material and instrumental areas: christmas…in truth we who are muslims should not celebrate it. we celebrate it, but in a different way, whereas for you it is more symbolic: you pray, we only exchange gifts (participant, 12, moroccan adolescent, 15 years old). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 giuliani & tagliabue 69 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it clear that i am italian, especially from my behaviour. and, okay i behave like an italian; i do everything they do (participant 12, moroccan adolescent, 15 years old). i am like the italians in my gestures, because i make so many gestures. i gesticulate, yes, and in pakistan in my family nobody gesticulates, they don't make all these gestures! (participant 16, pakistani adolescent, 18 years old). thus, these participants felt italian when making a gesture, eating pizza, or exchanging presents on christmas day. only rarely did the interviewees reveal a deep and meaningful identification with the basic elements of mainstream culture, with its symbolic and ideological elements, such as ways of thinking, principles, beliefs, and values. therefore it was unusual to find a sentence such as the following in which the participant expressed a strong connection to the italian culture: [the women] of my country are different from me; you cannot communicate with them. i prefer to interact with italian women, rather than with people from my country because we [italians and i] think the same way, about so many things (participant 4, moroccan woman, 23 years old). gender dimension of identity — gender self-representation seemed to give equal value to, on the one hand, the image of a free woman who is emotionally independent from the family and adamant about her choices, and, on the other, the image of a traditional woman who is loyal to cultural gender norms, is located within the physical space of home, is governed by family members in her social relationships, and modest and decorous in her dress and everyday behaviour. this result clearly exemplified the cultural gap and the struggles that the participants live with during their contact with western culture. indeed, interviewees spoke about their gender identity in various ways. examples of quotes in which the participants described themselves as free and independent women, include the following: i can dress the way i want well, perhaps not in a loincloth (participant 12, moroccan adolescent, 15 years old). at least inside house, with my husband, i have the freedom to state my opinion. i am involved in the raising of my children. … in morocco, the man has the power. here, instead, i can say to him: "we can do this, we can do that…. i can allow my daughter to dress as she wants. if she wants to pray, she prays. she is free to do what she feels like doing in morocco no, this thing cannot be done”. (participant 1, moroccan woman, 38 years old) in my country the man has more influence because he is strong, but this is not acceptable for me, i want to change this, because it is not all right, always the men….also the women must do something…now i have more chances to express myself, i am free and independent, to study, to achieve a job and professional carrier. (participant 17, pakistani adolescent, 15 years old) there, you must not have a boyfriend, that is, only when you get married, you can see him, only when you get married, you can date….there they have the laws, therefore you cannot have a boyfriend, that is, it is not a law, however the families that are in this way, you cannot engage with the person that you want, those things. in italy, you are more free. here, i can be engaged to whomever i want. (participant 12, moroccan adolescent, 15 years old) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 70 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in italy you are a little, how to say, more free…that is, also in pakistan you are a little free, however it is in a different way. there, you must also follow the religion a bit, instead here you do whatever you want. (participant 14, pakistani adolescent, 14 years old) at the same time, there were many participants who focused on their traditions: i do what my husband tells me to do. (participant 9, pakistani woman, 38 years old) women have too much freedom, and i do not like it. thus, not only girls, but also women…because here they decide what they want to do, they do not think to the future, as if someone discuss with her husband, they have to separate…this is what i see, then i do not know. instead, in our culture, we really think to go on together, husband and wife, until the end. (participant 10, pakistani woman, aged 37 years) i do not like the coed school, boys and girls together. (participant 19, pakistani adolescent, 16 years old) i am modest, reserved with men together (participant 17, pakistani adolescent, 15 years old) i do not like to spend time with boys. (participant 18, pakistani adolescent, aged 14 years). i always wear something to cover me up in front…. then i put the short t-shirt….no, i meant to say, long t-shirt, because yes, you know, to cover you. (participant 20, pakistani adolescent, 18 years old) religious dimension of identity—more coherent representation was found for the theme of religious dimension of identity: muslim affiliation and personal engagement in devout practices represented fundamental aspects of the immigrants’ identity. in the self-description, participants cited several aspects linked to the muslim faith, such as their choices regarding clothes or prayers, illustrating that their affiliation with the islamic religion was an important aspect of their identity. everyone keep religion as an important thing, how we are muslim. (participant 4, moroccan woman, 23 years old) i am muslim, not christian. (participant 11, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old) my religion is islam, i follow my religion, i believe in allah. (participant 19, pakistan adolescent, 16 years old) my life is influenced by religion, because it is a thing that, it is a bond, then here there is the prophet. thus, there is really the way to behave, the way….then this really is what i am. (participant 14, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old) they also frequently cited islamic beliefs and traditional religious practices concerning daily prayers, dietary practices, and celebrations. but, well, at 2:00 p.m. when i get back from school, i have to pray again, and then again at 4:00 p.m., then again at eight o’clock. (participant 19, pakistan adolescent, 16 years old). in the morning i get up and i pray…i pray for my parents. (participant 20, pakistan adolescent, 18 years old) i pray, i do ramadan, i completely follow my religion….i miss the religious celebrations, the feast at the end of ramadan is to celebrate the end, and so the first day in which we can eat, it is a religious month in which we dedicate ourselves to the prayer, to read koran, give importance to the religion, you should europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 giuliani & tagliabue 71 http://www.psychopen.eu/ give importance to the religion all the year, but this…specifically in that month you have to care this aspect of your life…and then also the celebration for the prophet birth.. it is important. (participant 13, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old) we also pray at home. i also make the prayers every day, five times a day, so my children learn. (participant 2, moroccan woman, 27 years old) spatial dimension of identity — finally, concerning spatial dimensions of identity, the most common feeling was that of being a foreigner, or an individual without a homeland. we are foreigners, who are living in italy (participant 14, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old) always we feel foreign, even if you have children that were born here…always we feel in a place that is not ours. you are a guest forever, you live as a guest in a home. (participant 1, moroccan woman, 38 years old) you feel inside that you are not in your own country…there is no future here, i do not have to see a future here (participant 5, moroccan woman, 34 years old). this negative feeling seemed mainly a description of the lack of an emotional connection to places where they are living (nation, city, neighbourhood), rather than an indication of orientation or preference in regards to cultural meanings. italy was rarely looked upon as the motherland, and the emotional link with it was very limited; only rarely did interviewees make statements such as the following: i feel like an italian who was born here (participant 13, moroccan adolescent, 18 years old). indeed, the participants sometimes preferred to define themselves through the nostalgic link with their native motherland. past experiences were evoked from the interviewees, and the coded quotes make reference to real and idealized places left behind. i like my native country too much, my village…i feel also that it is part of my life. (participant 16, pakistan adolescent, 18 years old) moroccan and pakistani, adult and adolescent immigrants’ self-representation interesting differences and similarities emerged when moroccan and pakistani narratives were compared, as well as when adult and adolescent narratives were compared. both adult and adolescent immigrants in the pakistani subgroup clearly highlighted their attachment to their own culture of origin, their adherence to traditional gender image and religious affiliation, and their strong engagement in devotional practices. in contrast to those for the adult pakistani women, the narratives for pakistani adolescents were informed by deep feelings of disorientation and stress in intercultural contacts, feelings of being apart from the italian people, and ambivalent and conflicting feelings regarding their gender identity. pakistani adolescents tend to describe themselves both as traditional women in some aspects (dressing according to tradition, being modest, participating in traditional and family-arranged marriage), and as, free and independent women in others (taking opportunities to pursue life goals, continuing education, seeking professional careers and democratic rights, participating in public life, civil engagement, and freedom of speech). thus, more so than in the adult generation, pakistani girls expressed struggles and contradictions about the acculturative challenges they face, reeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 72 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vealing both loyalty to the traditional gender image, and a partial valorisation of the traits of freedom, independence, and self-management possible within the new european context. for the moroccan subgroup, both adults and adolescents tend to describe themselves as lacking an emotional link with the geographical place they are living; they view themselves as people “without a homeland, neither here nor there,” or “foreigners in any land”. but, unlike the pakistani subgroup, and despite this feeling of foreignness, they did not stress any attachment to their culture of origin, nor did they seem to find a strong and positive source of identification in the values and customs of their origin. that lack or weakness of identification with their culture of origin could be read in association with the absence of reports of ambivalent feelings towards the two cultures. muslim identification seemed to provide a sort of identity marker, but unlike the pakistani subgroup, it did not create contradictions regarding the prevalent gender image valued by them: they were clearly oriented toward valorising their image as independent and free women. freedom for moroccans was expressed through visible manifestations, such as non-traditional dressing, self-management in heterosexual and social relationships, and the explicit rejection of the islamic values of the image of the woman as controlled and prudish in her behaviours. discussion the aim of this study was to explore how immigrant women conceptualize their identity by considering two different countries of origin, morocco and pakistan, and two different generations of female immigrants (adult and adolescent). as found in previous explorations of the same topic, the self-description of moroccan and pakistani immigrants emerged as a complex association of four different and interrelated key social dimensions — cultural, gender, religious, and spatial — (berry et al., 2006; fried, 2000; phinney, 1990). overall, and corresponding to recent international studies (campbell & mclean, 2003; fried, 2000; oppedal & røysamb, 2007; sabatier, 2008; stevens et al., 2004, 2007b; vedder et al., 2007), our results present an image of immigrants who express—though in different ways — a strong attachment to their culture of origin (be it their culture of origin and their faith or their places of origin) as well as a struggle to build a link with their host country or culture. however, immigrants talk about their experience and identity in different ways. pakistani girls value their cultural distinctiveness, referring to their strong attachment to their culture of origin and its practices, norms, and values. for this subgroup, the culture of origin represents a positive and organized map of meaning in self-description and a key resource in interpersonal relationships (campbell & mclean, 2003). the attachment to the culture of origin is additionally expressed by pakistani girls through a strong muslim affiliation, which is evidenced through their descriptions of their rigorous engagement in devout practices, and their valorisation of the traditional image of a woman. moreover, the struggles and feelings of disorientation engendered both by the feeling of being caught between cultures and by the perception of distance from the host culture models illustrate the strength of their culture of origin. deep conflict and ambivalence are clearly experienced by pakistani girls with regard to gender identity as well: the highly valorised self-image as a traditional pakistani woman is accompanied by a moderate valorisation of the traits of freedom, independence, and self-management. however, unlike adult pakistani women, the pakistani adolescent girls appear to be both attracted to and fearful of the western woman’s image as free and independent. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 giuliani & tagliabue 73 http://www.psychopen.eu/ unlike pakistani immigrants, moroccan immigrants, especially moroccan girls, frequently use spatial dimensions of identity in order to describe themselves as estranged or without a homeland (“not from around here”), pointing to the lack of a connection to the physical places in which they live. however, as they do not stress or value the attachment to their culture of origin and their religion, they do not experience strongly ambivalent feelings toward the two cultures. like moroccan adults, adolescent girls clearly value the image of women as being independent and free, particularly in regards to aspects related to bodily and visible manifestations of freedom (free and seductive dress, free in their romantic relationships). they refuse to label themselves according to the traditional norms of gender. the moroccans’ limited attachment to their own culture of origin and their strong adherence to a western model of a free woman (perhaps also stereotyped) are consistent with the pervasive sense of emotional distance experienced within their current life contexts. this distance grew out of the feeling of being without a homeland or from the nostalgic evocation of a link with a lost motherland. in summary, pakistanis appear strongly attached to their culture of origin and are especially loyal to a traditional image of women while, at the same time, they are simultaneously disoriented and moderately attracted to some aspects of western culture. meanwhile, moroccans strongly adhere to the western model of emancipated and independent women and they perceive a strong similarity with the italian girls’ lifestyles. despite this perception of similarity to their italian counterparts, their attachment to places where they are living is limited and their selfrepresentation is marked by a sense of foreignness. moreover, they assign multiple and distinct meanings to freedom: when moroccans talk about freedom, they refer to its visible manifestations, such as non-traditional dressing or self-management in heterosexual and social relationships. instead when pakistanis talk about freedom, they refer to opportunities to pursue educational or professional emancipation, as well as to be engaged in public and civil life. several factors can be hypothesized to explain the consistent differences that emerge between pakistani and moroccan identity representation and acculturation processes: a longer and better--established immigration history and a high level of exposure to modernized lifestyles in highly urbanized settings for the moroccan immigrants, both in italy and in morocco; and the more traditional and more specific cultural heritage of the southeast asian community that characterizes women in the pakistani subgroup. in both national groups, the findings show a fragile and complex identity representation of immigrant girls and women, characterized by a pervasive sense of foreignness. this confirms the worries and the doubts about acculturation patterns of muslims indicated by several studies that have emerged in europe of late (berry et al., 2006; crul & doomernik, 2003; heim et al., 2011; stevens et al., 2004; vedder et al., 2007). however, listening to adolescent and adult immigrant women voices in the present study allows the emergence of different meanings associated with their sense of foreignness, which include not only cultural but also spatial and social components. moroccans perceive themselves above all as individuals untied to the land where they live, but also weakly tied to their own cultural heritage. they seem to express a desire for home and belonging to a place that they seem not to have found in their current life contexts. pakistanis, strongly attached to their heritage values and norms, express cultural distance and conflict with the host culture, which complicate the cultural negotiation process. for both the pakistani and moroccan groups, the challenge of integration or biculturalism seems to be demanding in the italian context as well, and is marked by strong cultural ambivalence, a feeling of emptiness, and a lack of emotional bond with the new country. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 74 http://www.psychopen.eu/ although the current findings are limited by the number of women interviewed and the explorative approach adopted in this study, they may help researchers to pose new questions and show the importance of not grouping muslim immigrants into one ethnic group, but rather differentiating the study of the migration phenomenon according to both the country of origin and the country of settlement of immigrants (berry et al., 2006; leyendecker, 2011; sirin, bikmen, et al., 2008). stronger reinforcement for this statement should come from future studies that compare the identity representation of male immigrants from different countries. it is likely that girls experience family loyalty, gender-specific cultural conflicts, and levels of acculturative stress more intensely than males, as recently documented in a number of studies (khuwaja, selwyn, kapadia, mccurdy, & khuwaja, 2007). furthermore, a deeper consideration of the specific challenges that second generations face is needed, also differentiating early adolescence (11–14 years old) and middle adolescence (15–18 years old). our findings show that those aspects that define identity representation within each national group are more clearly emphasized by adolescents than by first-generation adult women. this reveals an intensification of these aspects in the self-representation of the younger generations. however, a differentiation regarding age and generational status could reveal a more detailed picture of challenges brought by the migration. this study further supports psychosocial practitioners in their understanding of the differences of cultural identity and history, showing that interventions should be prepared according to the country of origin, and that cultural integration is a multidimensional phenomenon deserving of attention. notes i) the complete list of codes can be requested by contacting the first author. funding the research was supported in part by funds granted to cristina giuliani by the università cattolica del sacro cuore (grant d.3.2, 2009; 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(2006). pakistan: culture, community, and familial obligations in a muslim society. in j. georgas, j. w. berry, f. j. r. van de vijer, c. kagitcibasi, & y. h. poortinga (eds.), families across cultures (pp. 427-434). cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. about the authors cristina giuliani, phd, is an assistant professor of social psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). her current research interests include post-migration family dynamics, family resiliency, and acculturation experience in muslim families. semira tagliabue, phd, is an assistant professor in psychometric (università cattolica del sacro cuore)her specific research interests are: methodology of research, dyadic and family data analyses, interpersonal relationships of adolescents and young adults. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 63–78 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.844 exploring muslim identity 78 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022104270111 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9112-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022107300277 https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/handle/2292/18735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888690701454617 http://rho.emro.who.int/rhodata/?theme=country http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888690701454674 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en exploring muslim identity introduction characteristics of the european context of immigration characteristics of the european research about muslims moroccan and pakistani communities in italy method participants materials and procedure coding results themes and dimensions identified moroccan and pakistani, adult and adolescent immigrants’ self-representation discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors singleness, religiosity, and the implications for counselors: the indonesian case literature reviews singleness, religiosity, and the implications for counselors: the indonesian case karel karsten himawan* ab, matthew bambling a, sisira edirippulige c [a] faculty of medicine, university of queensland, brisbane, australia. [b] faculty of psychology, universitas pelita harapan, tangerang, indonesia. [c] centre for online health, university of queensland, brisbane, australia. abstract this paper explores the unique role of religiosity in assisting indonesian singles (extensively refer to those who are never married) and how it relates to the counseling and therapeutic practices with never-married clients. whereas the role of religiosity has been drawn into scholarly attention for its effectiveness in dealing with many situations that are particularly related to social stigma, little is known regarding its role in assisting singles to overcoming stigma due to their singleness. indonesian society regards marriage as a social achievement and this perception places singles in an undervalued position. on the contrary, the society regards positively those who demonstrate religious attributes. therefore, religiosity is a potential factor that mediates social perception of singles who attach themselves to religious attributes (such as: religious symbols and rituals). using database search methodology, this paper presents an overview of how religiosity assists singles in overcoming their challenges and discusses the implications of those dynamics in counseling settings. keywords: singles, never-married, religiosity, well-being, indonesia, counseling europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 received: 2017-09-25. accepted: 2017-11-12. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: room k.27, mental health building, royal brisbane and women’s hospital, herston 4006, brisbane, australia. e-mail: k.himawan@uq.net.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. human beings desire happiness, and therefore they direct their every action toward achieving it (emmons, 2005). many personality theorists explain how individuals develop certain mechanisms to achieve and maintain their happiness. according to the psychoanalytic theory, for instance, happiness is achieved through a sexual pleasure and individuals could escape from the anxiety situations by adopting certain defense mechanisms (freud, 1910). humanistic theorists, on the other hand, believe that happiness belongs to those who can accept themselves unconditionally without being judged (rogers, 1961). being ultimate goal of life, when linked to the cultural context, perhaps marriage was one of the universal events across cultures assumed to bring happiness. growing body of the evidence supports that marriage contributes to individuals’ level of happiness in various cultures (hirschl, altobelli, & rank, 2003; musick & bumpass, 2012; stack & eshleman, 1998), although many other predominantly western studies also have been conducted in the last decades to present the opposite finding by highlighting the positive relationship between singleness and happiness (depaulo, 2013; depaulo & morris, 2005). particularly among most asians, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ marriage is also considered important not only for the married couples, but also for their bigger family members (to, 2015; utomo, reimondos, utomo, mcdonald, & hull, 2016). this phenomenon explains why parents often give considerable tensions toward their unmarried children as they reach the marriageable ages (to, 2015; wang & abbott, 2013). nevertheless, the degree to which marriage increases individuals’ level of happiness is questioned nowadays as more current data follows a path that signifies individuals’ preference to remain single. in the global context, it is evident that more people choose to remain single and to marry older (australian bureau of statistics, 2016; corselli-nordblad & gereoffy, 2015; us census bureau, 2016). within asia, jones and yeung (2014) also noted that marriage has undergone shifting values as more people are favoring single lifestyle. this paper was particularly focused on the singleness in indonesia. there are two typical characteristics that lead us to consider indonesia as the geographic scope of this study. firstly, the proportion of single people in indonesia has sharply increased over the years (badan pusat statistik, 2010a; jones, 2010), whereas the societal acceptance toward singles remains low (situmorang, 2007), causing singles to be very prone to becoming the target of despising and derogation. this condition is the opposite to what currently occurs in many other asian countries, which western values have been well-permeated, such as singapore. in singapore, increasing single proportion is accompanied by bigger societal acceptance toward them (jones, yanxia, & zhi, 2012). moreover, although the single proportion is growing in the last decades, studies regarding singles in indonesia are still very limited. secondly, indonesia is an ideal setting to examine the relationship between singleness and religiosity. while singles are undervalued in the society, there are indications that people in indonesia tend to regard positively those who demonstrate religious attributes and symbols (imanda, 2011; mcbeth, 2016). this fact is essential particularly in relation to understanding singles’ coping way in overcoming negative social judgment. given the fact that religious attributes are positively regarded, singles may be tempted to adopt a certain pattern of religious coping style that may be less beneficial to them as they only use religious demonstrations as a shield to protect themselves from being derided without making spiritual meaning of their singlehood periods. objective the objective of this examination of the literature was to present the various roles of religiosity in assisting indonesian singles to overcome both psychological and social burdens due to their single status, relying on the compilation of current findings of related phenomena. for that purpose, there is a need to define the scope of singles. in this paper, singles refer to those who are heterosexual and are never married regardless their motives of being single. the discussion about singlehood in this paper would then be based on this scope. despite this paper being focused in indonesia, the discussion has relevance for other asian countries which share cultural similarities, particularly considering that singleness is a rising phenomenon in asia (jones & yeung, 2014) and that there is only a few studies conducted regarding singleness within the asian context. further, this paper also serves as the first paper from asian perspective that explores the roles of religiosity in assisting singles and how it implies to the counseling context. singleness and religiosity in indonesia 486 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method this paper presents a systematic compilation of current research findings by conducting a database search strategy. major databases were included in finding relevant articles, including scopus, sciencedirect, psycarticles, and psycinfo. both qualitative and quantitative research articles were included in this review. however, studies that focused on homosexual singles, single parents, or divorced participants were excluded to eliminate biases in the interpretation since this paper focuses primarily on the heterosexual singles. to ensure the currency of the findings, our search was primarily focused on the publication dates of the last 15 years. given a very few studies ever conducted in indonesia regarding singlehood, we expanded our search to also include studies within asian contexts, assuming they have a degree of cultural similarities. figure 1 presents the process of selection of the studies. other than those studies, western-based studies were also included to assist in developing many related concepts (including: modernization and formulation of the single lifestyle) and to enrich the discussion of implications in the counseling setting. figure 1. the process of studies selection for the main analysis. to provide the context, this paper began by presenting the overview of growing single numbers in indonesia, the factors that promote the single lifestyle, and the exploration of singles’ perspective toward marriage. the discussion was then focused on the roles of religiosity as a coping way for singles. at the end of this paper, the implications for counselors, social workers, and other relevant mental health practitioners was discussed based on the current findings related to the existing singlehood phenomenon in indonesia. himawan, bambling, & edirippulige 487 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results singles in indonesia: the increased proportion and quality of life despite being a country which society regards the universality of marriage (hull, 2002), the trend toward singleness in indonesia appears to be consistently increasing over the years. this fact is partially reflected through individuals’ delayed age of first marriage. while in 1970, people started to marry at the age of 19 (jones, 2010), the most recent census showed that the average age of marriage for males were 25.7 and 22.3 for females (badan pusat statistik, 2010b). the proportion of never-married women aged 35-39 were also increased nearly three times, from only 1.4 percent in 1970 (jones, 2010) to 3.8 percent in 2010 (badan pusat statistik, 2010b). as many as 6.83 percent of individuals aged 30-39 years were single in 2000 (united nations, 2017), while in 2010 the proportion increased to 7.18 percent (badan pusat statistik, 2010b). notwithstanding the proportion being significantly lower than those in other asian countries, such as japan, hong kong, taiwan, or singapore (jones & yeung, 2014), studying singles in indonesia remains to be significant due to the following reasons. first, being as one of the most populated countries in asia, when indonesian singles’ percentage is converted to numbers, there are nearly three million singles (badan pusat statistik, 2010b) whose well-being is likely to be threatened due to being derided by their surroundings. secondly, with only about seven percent of single adults in the society, it is obvious that marriage is still regarded as a culturally normative event. this situation then creates certain tension for singles to marry in order to comply with the social expectation of them (jones, 2001; jones & yeung, 2014; situmorang, 2007). nevertheless, a recent national survey conducted in 2014 provides a striking evidence regarding singles’ quality of life. in contrast with the previous findings that demonstrate the linkage between marriage and happiness, that survey revealed that when compared to marrieds, never married individuals were found to be significantly happier (badan pusat statistik, 2015). despite the slight happiness level difference between those groups, this data is imperative to highlight the likelihood of shifting marriage perception among indonesian society. although no further explanations were provided in that study regarding in which aspects of happiness singles are outstripping marrieds, many factors, particularly related to the modernization, may explain why more indonesian adults are choosing to remain single nowadays. modernization and the single lifestyle in indonesia the increasing rates of singleness cannot be understood without a reference to the variety of social transformations created by modernization. modernization stimulates series of both social processes, including urbanization, gender equality, higher education, higher job opportunity (rössel, 2012), and personal values, such as: increased personal efficacy and equality of gender (hamamura, 2012). in relation to the single lifestyle, the effects of modernization can be grouped into at least four themes: gender equity, shifting personal values, increasing acceptance of marriage-like forms, and impacts of technology (himawan, bambling, & edirippulige, 2017a). the effects of many changes brought by modernization to individuals’ preference on remaining single can be sociologically explained. gender equity acts result in the increased women participation in both education and industry (badan pusat statistik, 2016a, 2016b). with more women competing in industries, marriage rates in indonesia are subsequently reduced because society persists to define an ideal marriage to occur between singleness and religiosity in indonesia 488 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ higher status men and lower status women (this definition of marriage is also known as the hypergamy norm of marriage (yeung & hu, 2016)). modernization also facilitates many western values to be permeated in the society, including the values of marriage and the attitude toward sex and dating (hull, 2002). the demand of industrial development to increase human participation in the workforce stimulates urbanization (rössel, 2012). more people from rural areas move to city or factory areas and set up a new living arrangement, which also includes a formation of a new set of values that emphasizes individualism and self-reliance (sachs, 2005). they are also more likely to be exposed with various marriage-like arrangements, such as cohabitation, that offer emotional and sexual enjoyment without necessarily being committed in the long run (raymo, park, xie, & yeung, 2015). despite the practice of cohabitation is not acknowledged both by the indonesian law and the society (fachrudin, 2016), it begins to be a common practice in the recent years with an increased acceptance by the younger generation (rahyani, utarini, wilopo, & hakimi, 2012). in addition to that, online porn materials may be seen as an acceptable way of sexual gratification among singles. the sexual content over the internet has been found to alter adults’ sexual needs through various methods from text message to video sex (drouin, vogel, surbey, & stills, 2013), providing a channel for sexual stimulation without necessarily have to be in the long-term relationship. further, such use of technology to access porn materials is also indicated to be a factor that reduces marriage likelihood (malcolm & naufal, 2014), which occurs as a result of technological modernization. indonesian singles’ attitude toward marriage despite the fact that singles are growing both in numbers and in their quality of life and that many factors contribute to the increasing favorability of single lifestyle, it appears that apparently most indonesian singles are still desiring marriage. in this part, some evidence related to indonesian singles’ attitude toward marriage is presented. a qualitative study conducted by situmorang (2007) suggests that the predominant reason for individuals to remain single is because they have not yet met their potential partners. this finding is also articulated by vignato (2012) that highlights the interaction between sexual passion and religious compliance in determining singles’ marriage preference. in both studies, singles were described as being involuntarily single. a study has been done to explore the degree of marriage favorability among indonesian singles (himawan, 2017). participated by 107 singles, it was found that more than 80 percent of them indicated their intention to marry. further, although more than 90 percent of them reported being distressed due to excessive marriage pressures received from their surroundings, most of them expressed their reasons to marry beyond for the sake of social compliance. their three predominant reasons to marry are as follows: (1) for the emotional fulfillment (38.95%): to make life complete, to gain support and affection, to share life burdens, to gain personal enjoyment; (2) for procreation purposes (28.42%): to have an offspring, to build a family; and (3) for spiritual fulfillment (13.68%): to fulfill god’s calling, to obey to god’s demand. all of the above studies show a strong indication that most of the indonesian singles are involuntarily singles. a particular attention regarding singles’ effective coping strategies is therefore instructive to be drawn considering that their well-being is likely to be threatened due to their involuntary status. himawan, bambling, & edirippulige 489 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ how singles compensate their need to attach a predominant feeling singles, particularly involuntarily singles, may experience is a feeling of loneliness (wang & abbott, 2013). this could be understood because every human has a fundamental need to belong (baumeister & leary, 1995). baumeister and leary (1995) argue that a relationship that can satisfy ones’ need to belong is characterized by three components: (1) provides a meaningful interpersonal connection, (2) enables frequent physical interaction, and (3) fosters the sense of security. among adults, this relationship is perhaps best manifested through marital relationship. however, in a case where a romantic partner is absent, as in the case of singles, many potential alternative relationships are available, including: relationship with parents, family members, friends (morris & depaulo, 2009), or through a spiritual connection with god and religious communities (kirkpatrick, 1992). many western-based studies point out the effective roles of social support from family and friends among singles (depaulo & morris, 2005; morris & depaulo, 2009), however limited studies are available to sufficiently conclude such effectiveness in both asian and indonesian context. in light of the limited empirical evidence, a comparative study of single women in indonesia, thailand, and philippine showed that indonesian single women seem to take more passive roles in the family and are reluctant to share their personal problems with family members (tan, 2010). some singles are also preferred to be self-reliant in solving their personal problems by choosing to build a meaningful spiritual relationship rather than sharing with their friends or family members. this finding articulates the assumption of important roles of religiosity in assisting singles to overcome their challenges. the roles of religiosity in overcoming singles’ psychological and social challenges religiosity may offer a promising outcome for singles since it facilitates both psychological attachment and accepting community (saroglou, 2011) to which singles may belong. being lonely and burdened due to negatively valued, singles may be benefited through building spiritual attachment with a higher being. the idea of religion is originated based on human feelings of fear and loneliness, and therefore spiritual attachment operates on the function to satisfy the human need for security and belongingness (kirkpatrick, 1992). through building an intimate interaction with the higher being, individuals begin to gain a meaning behind their current situation (saroglou, 2011). that spiritual meaning would make individuals feel more secure as they understand that their current condition does not stand for itself but rather is served for bigger and transcendent purposes (pargament et al., 1990). whereas the attachment need can be provided through romantic relationships (schachner, shaver, & gillath, 2008), in the case of singles, kirkpatrick (1992) believes that religiosity could serve a similar function when partners are not available. himawan, bambling, and edirippulige (2017b) concluded that singles could be benefited from adopting adaptive religious coping way, which is indicated by: (1) the focus on the values rather than symbols of their religions (as according to allport’s (1966) concept of religious orientation), (2) the less tendency to perceive god as the punishing figure (as according to pargament, feuille, and burdzy (2011)), and (3) the ability to build and maintain relationship with the higher being and with their religious community (as according to saroglou, 2011). by practicing this kind of religious coping, not only that singles could draw meaning of their singlehood as something that helps develop their spirituality, they also could be benefited through their involvement in the religious community, particularly if their religion does not strongly oppose the position of being singles. motives singleness and religiosity in indonesia 490 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of being singles also determine the degree to which they are accepted within their religious communities because religious singles tend to define their singlehood as temporary period and not as a personal choice (engelberg, 2016; ibrahim & hassan, 2009). such motives could increase more sympathetic reaction from their communities (slonim, gur-yaish, & katz, 2015). generally, although they may be negatively judged by general society, the religious community offers more trusting and accepting atmospheres (dingemans & ingen, 2015), in which they could engage without being undervalued. however, adopting the religious approach in assisting singles should be performed cautiously, particularly in the indonesian context. pargament and park (1995) concluded that maladaptive religious coping is manifested in the form of denial, passivity, and resistance to social change. denial of the reality occurs when singles are preoccupied practicing extrinsic religiousness (as described by allport, 1966), in which they deny their real burdens associated with being singles by articulating themselves with religious attributes and rituals. further, when singles are adopting the pessimist view of religion, such as by seeing the higher being as punishing figure (pargament et al., 2011), they are more likely to be passive in their current situation and to be resistant to change. in addition to that, when focused on the substantial content of most religious beliefs, singles may also feel burdened of practicing religiosity, especially when they emphasize how their religious teachings encourage them to marry. ample of research have demonstrated that singles whose religion encourage them to marry are struggled due to their inability to comply with their religious demands (darrington, piercy, & niehuis, 2005; engelberg, 2016; ibrahim & hassan, 2009). this suggests that religiosity may also cause singles to feel more inadequate, which leads to their lower level of well-being. further, when putting religiosity into the perspective of indonesian culture, maladaptive religious coping may be more likely to occur considering that the society often tends to regard those with the religious demonstration in an overly positive manner (imanda, 2011). religiosity is considered to be a very fundamental aspect among indonesian society to the extent that religious and culture based thinking are pervasive among the people, regardless their education and ethnicities (himawan, 2014). being regarded very positively, attaching themselves with many religious attributes without taking an advantage of making spiritual meaning in reflecting their involuntary status could be a shortcut way for singles to be less stigmatized (himawan et al., 2017b). in this case, singles would likely be burdened practicing such maladaptive religious coping way. practicing such maladaptive coping could lead to an identity dissonance due to the fact that they reflect themselves to be highly religious while also being single (engelberg, 2016). many studies demonstrate how those who are preoccupied heavily on religious rituals and symbols are likely to experience negative psychological outcomes (doane, elliott, & dyrenforth, 2014; navara & james, 2005; power & mckinney, 2014; tahmasbipour & taheri, 2011). discussion and implications for counselors there are social and psychological risks associated with being singles in indonesia. the challenges are intensified by the fact that, whereas most indonesian singles are involuntarily singles, the society often attributes singleness with social failure and incompetence. such interplay between societal pressure and something that goes beyond individual control creates a condition that definitely threatens singles’ well-being. examining the roles of religiosity in assisting singles is relatively a new area of study and therefore very limited resources are available to provide the empirical based relationship between religiosity and singles’ well-being. himawan, bambling, & edirippulige 491 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ after reviewing the available literature, however, this paper has highlighted the key finding regarding the roles of religiosity as singles’ coping way. it could be concluded that singles’ motives of practicing religiosity would determine whether the outcome would be promising or detrimental. despite the phenomenon being understudied, this paper provides a basis and a direction for future relevant studies regarding the use of religiosity as one of the coping ways for singles. more empirical studies are certainly needed to provide evidence based arguments regarding the role of religiosity in assisting singles, especially in asian context, in which cultural and religious values are still well-permeated in the daily practice. on the practical ground, the roles of government and other related parties are essential to modify societal perception towards singles, particularly with a notion that most indonesian singles are actually having an intention to marry. counselors (and psychologists; due to counseling sessions in indonesia are also commonly performed by psychologists) hold a vital role in assisting singles to overcome their psychological and social challenges. with a low yet constantly rising psychological awareness in indonesia (setiyawati, blashki, wraith, colucci, & minas, 2014), it is reasonable to expect that counseling sessions around singlehood theme will continue to arise as single proportion is consistently increasing and there is no observable government and social strides to reduce stigma toward them. therefore, counselors need to have a good understanding of psychological and social dynamics of singles, particularly in relation to the social and cultural contexts. in assisting singles, counselors need to be aware of their own attitude toward marriage that may intervene the counseling sessions. counselors are urged to provide a non-judgmental atmosphere in the counseling sessions, which is a required condition to enable singles to securely disclose their personal problems. therefore, whether counselors are pro-marriage or singlehood, they must address and position clients’ attitude toward marriage as the utmost goal of the sessions. an understanding of singles’ motives (whether they are voluntarily or involuntarily singles) could be one of the ways to assess their readiness toward perceived societal judgment, which would add more insight in formulating appropriate counseling strategies. with regards to the religiosity, despite the fact that the religious coping may be beneficial for singles, counselors need to have good knowledge and skill in integrating religious issues in the counseling sessions. many counselors tend to maintain a secular point of view in their sessions and thus attempt to eliminate clients’ religious values (lothstein, 2002). nevertheless, in the last two decades, the trend toward integrating spiritual and religious issues in the counseling session emerges and more clients prefer to receive services from counselors who are sensitive to religious issues (sperry, 2012). when addressing religious issues in the counseling sessions, it is worth noticing counselors’ approach to religiosity as categorized by zinnbauer and pargament (2000) (rejectionist, exclusivist, constructivist, or pluralist), so that appropriate actions could be taken accordingly (such as: referring clients, adjusting clients expectation in the counseling sessions) should there is a mismatch between counselors’ approach to religiosity and clients’ condition. lastly, although this paper demonstrates the possible effective roles of religiosity in assisting singles, it does not necessarily mean that religious approach must be applied when handling never married clients, especially when handling atheist single clients or clients who prefer to argue on the secular or rational basis. the roles of religiosity are most effective for clients who identify themselves in certain religious beliefs. counselors should encourage clients in practicing religiosity according to their beliefs, rather than insisting counselors’ religious beliefs. given this situation, client referrals perhaps could be a good solution when friction occurs as a result of the discrepancy between the religious values of both counselors and the clients. singleness and religiosity in indonesia 492 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this work was supported by indonesian endowment fund for education. the first author is the sponsor recipient. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allport, 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(2000). working with the sacred: four approaches to religious and spiritual issues in counseling. journal of counseling and development, 78, 162-171. doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb02574.x about the authors karel k. himawan is a lecturer in the faculty of psychology, universitas pelita harapan, indonesia and a ph.d candidate in the university of queensland, australia. his research interests include interpersonal relationship (dating, marriage, and singleness), religiosity and spirituality, and psychological functioning in various social interactions. matthew bambling is a senior lecturer and researcher in the department of psychiatry, faculty of medicine, the university of queensland, australia. sisira edirippulige is a senior lecturer and researcher in the centre for online health / centre for health services research, faculty of medicine, the university of queensland, australia. himawan, bambling, & edirippulige 497 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 485–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1530 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1177/0967828x16674134 http://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2012.652847 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.08.004 http://doi.org/10.1177/2057150x16659019 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb02574.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ singleness and religiosity in indonesia (introduction) objective method results singles in indonesia: the increased proportion and quality of life modernization and the single lifestyle in indonesia indonesian singles’ attitude toward marriage how singles compensate their need to attach the roles of religiosity in overcoming singles’ psychological and social challenges discussion and implications for counselors (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors predictors of marital adjustment: are there any differences between women and men? research reports predictors ofmarital adjustment: are thereanydifferencesbetweenwomen and men? antoaneta andreea muraru*a, maria nicoleta turliuca [a] alexandru ioan cuza university, iasi, romania. abstract the purpose of this study was to explore if there are differences between women and men in relationships among family-of-origin, romantic attachment, and marital adjustment. two hundred and forty-nine participants filled out four self-reported measures: the differentiation in the family system scale, family adaptability and cohesion evaluation scale, experiences in close relationship scale, and revised dyadic adjustment scale. in order to analyze the data, multiple-group analysis with amos 16.0 was used. there was no difference between women and men in all observed variables. regardless of gender, only the romantic attachment was a significant predictor of marital adjustment. only in women, family-of-origin significantly predicted their romantic attachment. across gender groups, the configural model fitted satisfactorily the observed data. when measurement and structural weights, as well as residuals were constrained to be equal across gender groups, the invariance of the model was also supported. the results suggest women and men could be similar when it comes to the relationships among constructions they both have regarding family-of-origin experiences, romantic attachment patterns, and marital adjustment. some implications for research and clinical practice with marital couples are briefly discussed. keywords: family-of-origin, romantic attachment, marital adjustment, gender, invariance europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 received: 2012-09-16. accepted: 2013-04-22. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: faculty of psychology and education sciences, alexandru ioan cuza university, 3 toma cozma street, 700554 iasi, romania. e-mail: antoanetamuraru@yahoo.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. several studies explored the connections between experiences within the family-of-origin and adult attachment patterns (feldman, gowen, & fisher, 1998; lapsley & edgerton, 2002; muraru & turliuc, 2012), the way adults cope with their premarital or marital relationship (holman, larson, & harmer, 1994; lee & ok, 2002; martinson, 2005; muraru & turliuc, 2012; sabatelli & bartle-haring, 2003; whitton et al., 2008), as well as adjustment to couple or family life (holmes & anderson, 1994). attachment in infancy and childhood has attracted an increasingly interest from both researchers and practitioners (blount-matthews & hertenstein, 2006; crowell & treboux, 1995; mccartney & dearing, 2002; roth-hanania & davidov, 2004). basically, attachment was conceptualized as an emotional connection that develops between two individuals, one of them being capable of providing protection, comfort and support in times of need (mccartney & dearing, 2002; roth-hanania & davidov, 2004). early attachment develops between an infant and a primary caregiver since the first year of life. since 1980’s, there was a new trend in the research of attachment focusing on working models, as well as on emotional and behavioral styles associated with adults’ romantic attachment (bartholomew & shaver, 1998; fraley & shaver, 2000; hazan & shaver, 1987). in the last three decades, researchers have shown greater interest in conceptualizing the romantic relationship between two adults, taking into account europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment working models that adults acquire since childhood. it has been emphasized that attachment working models evolve over time, depending on the developmental tasks and on the relational experience of each individual (bartholomew & shaver, 1998; crowell & treboux, 1995; fraley & shaver, 2000; hazan & shaver, 1987). although attachment patterns exist also in adulthood, relationship strategies adults use are not the same as those used by infants and children (parker & scannell, 1998). thus, adults tend to have a broader repertoire of behaviors for their romantic relationships than infants do. furthermore, in adults, romantic attachment patterns have a variety of functions and they are usually characterized by reciprocity, companionship, sexual bonds, and mutual goals (crowell & treboux, 1995). it has been shown that the romantic attachment adults acquire has its roots in the attachment patterns developed during childhood (crowell & treboux, 1995; hazan & shaver, 1987) and plays an important role in the adults’ psychosocial adjustment (crowell & treboux, 1995). based on john bowlby and mary ainsworth’s models of attachment, hazan and shaver (1987) had described three styles of romantic attachment (secure, avoidant, and anxious). researchers manifested a great deal of interest for the impact romantic attachment has upon the quality of adult couple relationships (feeney, 1999; fuller & fincham, 1995; marchand, 2004; timm & keiley, 2011; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998). studies have shown that attachment patterns tend to be associated with variables such as: degree of affection expressed towards the partner, satisfaction regarding marital life, marital conflictsolving styles, control of emotions or frequency of positive emotions expressed by marital partners. del giudice (2011) suggested that romantic attachment plays a central role both in the long-term regulation of the affective connections within a marital couple and parenting style, yet this process takes place differently for men and women. the role gender plays in the marital relationship build-up and evolution could be important, yet it has not been fully understood and empirical evidence is still contradictory (larson & holman, 1994). thus, in a study on gender differences regarding the differentiation of self-experimented within the family-of-origin and the adjustment level in adulthood, holmes and anderson (1994) concluded that, for men, the level of differentiation of self in the familyof-origin is significantly associated with the level of subjective well-being, as well as with the level of personal functioning within the family system. however, for women, adjustment indices were not significantly related to the differentiation of self in the family-of-origin. in another study, holman, larson, and harmer (1994) concluded that, only for married men, the better they perceived the quality of family-of-origin environment, the higher their marital relation quality (as measured after one year through the marital satisfaction and its stability). sabatelli and bartleharing (2003) argued that, when compared to the husbands’ experiences within the family-of-origin, the wives’ experiences in their families-of-origin had stronger relationships both with their own perceptions about marriage and with the perceptions of their partners. in a study aimed at testing a structural model of the relationships among differentiation of self within the marital relationship, romantic attachment styles, communication regarding sex life and sex and marital satisfaction, timm and keiley (2011) proved the invariance of the model depending on the participants’ gender. the present study there is a growing body of literature suggesting that men and women are different concerning how they perceive their family-of-origin experiences (holmes & anderson, 1994; sabatelli & bartle-haring, 2003; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998), romantic attachment pattern (del giudice, 2011; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998), as well as adjustment to romantic relationships (larson & holman, 1994; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998). nevertheless, there is a lack of literature available on the differences in women and men concerning the role family-of-origin plays in their romantic relationships. the current study aimed at exploring the differences between women and men in europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 428 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationships among family-of-origin, romantic attachment, and marital adjustment using multiple-group analysis through structural equation modeling (sem). along with the role gender plays, all these variables were explored separately, without combining them in one model. figure 1 depicts our hypothetical working model of relationships among family-of-origin, romantic attachment pattern and marital adjustment. a previous study carried out on 164 married adults revealed that family-of-origin latent variable had a significant effect on romantic attachment which, in its turn, was significantly related to marital adjustment (muraru & turliuc, 2012). figure 1. the hypothetical model of relationships among family-of-origin, romantic attachment, and marital adjustment. method participants two hundred and forty nine adults completed the measures by which the indicators of latent variables introduced in the model were obtained. there were 79 men and 170 women. the mean age for participants was 35.5 years (sd = 7.8). all participants were caucasian, most of them had a bachelor degree (80.3%) and were married for the first time (94%). almost 59% of the participants had a marriage experience of more than five years, having on average 2.4 children (sd = .73). measures differentiation in the family system scale (difs, anderson & sabatelli, 1992)— differentiation of self is reflected in the family system’s interactional patterns for maintaining interpersonal distance and, thus, in the tolerance for both individuality and intimacy (anderson & sabatelli, 1992). in other words, personal autonomy of the choices a family member makes is promoted in an interactional context based on respect, kindness, affection, and empathy, as well as on cooperative problem-solving (sabatelli & bartle-haring, 2003). the assessment of patterns of family interactions is essential if researchers are to understand the influence of family environment on members and family system development. the 66-item differentiation in the family system scale was used to measure the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 muraru & turliuc 429 http://www.psychopen.eu/ differentiation of self in the family-of-origin. participants used a five-point likert-type scale (1 never to 5 always) to rate items, such as “my father responds to my feelings as if they have no value” or “my mother showed respect for my father's viewpoint”. the scale is behavioral focused, so that interactional patterns can be emphasized. starting from the relational dyads participant-father, father-participant, participant-mother, mother-participant, mother-father, and father-mother three composite scores were derived in order to be used as indicators of differentiation (see anderson & sabatelli, 1992). for entire scale, anderson and sabatelli (1992) reported alphas ranging from .84 to .94 across three studies. construct validity of the difs was supported by significant correlations between differentiation scores and measures of family conflict and identity status. in the present study, the difs subscales proved a satisfactory internal consistency (cronbach α between .71 and .90). the family adaptability and cohesion evaluation scales— the family adaptability and cohesion evaluation scales faces iii (included in grey smith, 1996) was used to measure adaptability and cohesion, as indicators of family-of-origin latent variable. adaptability is defined as the ability of a family system or marital dyad to change its power structure, roles and rules in response to stressful situation (olson & gorall, 2003). adaptability was measured using ten items (e.g., “our family changes its way of handling tasks“). also, faces iii allows the assessment of cohesion which may be viewed as the extent to which members of a family system are emotionally connected. murray bowen refers to this dimension by using the word “togetherness” (cf. nichols & schwartz, 2001). cohesion is linked to other facets of family life, such as: coalitions, interests, recreational activities, decisionmaking or family boundaries (olson & gorall, 2003). the cohesion was measured using other ten items (e.g., “we like to do things with just our immediate family”). answers were provided on a five-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always). for a non-clinical norming sample, d. h. olson, j. portner and y. lavee reported internal consistencies as high as .62 for adaptability and .77 for cohesion (cf. grey smith, 1996). authors of the original scale reported a non-significant and negligible correlation (r = .03) between cohesion and adaptability, indicating independence of the two dimensions. the cronbach α realiability for the current study was .79 for adaptability and .89 for cohesion. experiences in close relationships scale (ecr, brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998) — in the present study, romantic attachment was measured using a short version of the experiences in close relationships scale (wei, russell, mallinckrodt, vogel, 2007). according to data reported by wei et al. (2007), ecr displayed satisfactory psychometric qualities. the scale includes 12 items to which participants answered using a seven-point likerttype scale ranging from 1 (strong disapproval) to 7 (strong approval). six of the items focus on anxiety as a romantic attachment pattern (e.g., “i need a lot of reassurance that i am loved by my partner”), while the other six focus on avoidance (e.g., “i am nervous when partners get too close to me”). across six studies carried out on college students samples, wei et al. (2007) reported internal consistencies equal to .78-.88 for avoidance and .77-.86 for anxiety. also, confirmatory factor analyses indicated two factors and a good fit to the data for measurement models across studies. in the present study, cronbach α reliability was .82 for avoidance and .66 for anxiety. revised dyadic adjustment scale (rdas, busby et al., 1995) — marital adjustment has been described as a dynamic process, the outcome of which is determined by the degree of: a) troublesome differences in marital relationship; b) interpersonal tensions and personal anxiety; c) satisfaction of marital partners; d) cohesion; e) consensus on important couple’s matters (spanier, 1976). a 32-item scale (dyadic adjustment scale/das) has been developed to operationalize four dimensions of marital adjustment: consensus, satisfaction, cohesion and affectional expression. in the present study, the 14-items revised dyadic adjustment scale was used to measure marital adjustment. this instrument is a psychometrically improved shortened version of das (spanier, 1976). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 430 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants answered on a six-point likert-type scale, except for one item formatted on a five-point scale. consensus on matters of importance to marital relationship (decision making, values, and affection) was measured using six items. four items (e.g., “how often do you discuss terminating your relationship?”) measured marital satisfaction. this dimension refers to stability of a couple and conflicts between spouses. other four items (e.g., “how often do you have a stimulating exchange of ideas?”) operationalized marital cohesion which included discussions and activities engaging both marital partners. the rdas was selected because it had proved good psychometric qualities (busby, christensen, russell crane, & larson, 1995). in the original sample, values of internal consistency were .81 for consensus, .85 for satisfaction, .80 for cohesion, and .90 for total rdas. busby et al. (1995) reported a correlation equal to .97 (p < .001) between rdas and das. also, authors provided evidence for criterion-related validity of rdas, suggesting that rdas and das are equal in their ability to correctly classify cases as either distressed or non-distressed married adults. in the present study, the internal consistency values were: .83 for marital consensus, .92 for marital satisfaction, and .77 for marital cohesion. procedure participants were recruited by a convenience non-probabilistic sampling plan from various occupational settings (e.g., education, public administration, services etc.). the participation was voluntary and based on informed consent. participants were asked to complete anonymously the four self-reporting scales in their homes. questionnaires were administered in the same order: difs faces iii ecr rdas. eighty percent of protocols with responses were returned to investigators. the rest of the participants did not respond to our request to return the protocols, without giving any reason for doing so. no other additional information was obtained from these participants. a supplementary number of 12 protocols were excluded from subsequent analyses because of missing responses. our initial aim was to collect data from a large sample of marital couples but, due to the sampling constraints, only a small portion of participants was represented by spouses. thus, the unit of analysis was the individual. statistical analyses themeans and standard deviations of observed variables for females andmales were computed and the student’s t-test for independent samples was used in order to perform comparisons by gender. for each comparison, the effect size was estimated using the cohen’s d coefficient (cohen, 1992). cohen’s d values around .20 indicate a small effect size, values around .50 indicate a moderate effect size, while values as high as .80 indicate a large effect size. for both females and males, zero-order correlations among the indicators of all latent variables were computed using the product moment correlation coefficient (r). in order to estimate the parameters and degree of statistical fitting for our sem model across gender, multiplegroup analysis through maximum likelihood (ml) technique was used (byrne, 2010). the sem with ml procedure assumes that observed variables have normal distributions (bowen & guo, 2012; byrne, 2010). in the present study, the univariate normality of distribution for each observed variable was assessed by examining the skewness and kurtosis values. the spss package uses 0 as a reference value for skewness and kurtosis, to decide if a distribution is normal or not. there is no clear cutoff to indicate an acceptable level of skewness and kurtosis (byrne, 2010; west, finch, & curran, 1995). in a conservative approach, the researcher might conclude that a skewness value greater than 1 or less than – 1 is problematic (bowen & guo, 2012). the value of skewness tends to impact tests of means. more problematic than skewness is kurtosis, which severely impacts tests of variances and covariances. as in the case of skewness, if kurtosis is greater than 1 or less than -1 (in software packages using 0 as reference value for a normal distribution), one might conclude that the distribution could be problematic. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 muraru & turliuc 431 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, several simulations (muthén & kaplan, 1985; west, finch, & curran, 1995) have found significant problems in the ml procedures arising with univariate skewness at least equal to 2 and kurtosis to 7 (in software packages using 3 as reference value for a normal distribution) or 4 (in programs using 0 as cutoff). one approach to handle the presence of non-normal observed variables in sem suggests the use of a bootstrapping procedure which yields more accurate ml estimates of parameters from a model (byrne, 2010). the fitting between the configural model and observed data was assessed by examining the following indexes (browne & cudeck, 1993; byrne, 2010; hu & bentler, 1998; maccallum & austin, 2000): χ2 (critical level of significance was set at .05, two-tailed), bentler-bonnett normed fit index (nfi) and non-normed (tucker-lewis) fit index (nnfi/tli), comparative fit index (cfi) and the classical root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). rmsea is one of the most important indicators showing the degree to which estimated parameters of a sem model are representative for the whole population from which the sample was drawn. since rmsea is sensitive to misspecifications of relationship among variables and it is accompanied by a confidence interval which provides an indication of precision of estimation, its use in applied research is strongly encouraged (maccallum & austin, 2000). a non-significant χ2 value, as well as values greater than .95 for nfi, nnfi and cfi, and rmsea value lower than .05 indicate a good fit of the configural model to the observed data (byrne, 2010). following suggestions from the literature, it was considered that a value of rmsea as high as .08 indicates an acceptable fit of the sem model (browne & cudeck, 1993). also, tli and cfi values ranging from .90 to .95 indicate an acceptable model fit (hu & bentler, 1998). the configural model provides the baseline to which all subsequent tests for invariance are compared. the classical approach in arguing for evidence of invariance is based on the χ2 difference (∆χ2) test (byrne, 2010). the value ∆χ2 represents the difference between the χ2 value for the configural model and the χ2 values for the other models in which equality constraints have been imposed on particular parameters. according to byrne (2010), evidence of invariance is claimed if ∆χ2 value is not statistically significant. in the criticism of the ∆χ2 procedure, some researchers have argued that, from a practical perspective, the χ2 difference test represents an excessively stringent test of invariance, because semmodels, at best, are only approximations of reality (byrne, 2010). it was consequently argued that it may be more reasonable to base decision on a difference in cfi rather than on the ∆χ2 value (cheung & rensvold, 2002; cited in byrne, 2010). evidence of invariance should be based on a ∆cfi value not exceeding .01. although this practical approach has been criticized, its use is increasingly reported in the family and couple psychology literature (lucas et al., 2008; south, krueger, & iacono, 2009). results preliminary analyses table 1 shows descriptive values for distributions of all observed variables. participants tended to obtain a higher score in the differentiation between them and their mothers, while the score in differentiation between their parents was lower andmore heterogeneous. the average anxious attachment score was higher than the one for avoidance, although the distributions for both dimensions displayed the same amount of variation. family-of-origin adaptability, participant-father, participant-mother, as well as mother-father differentiation had quasi-symmetric distributions. marital satisfaction and cohesion, as well as anxious attachment showed modest departures from the reference value for skewness, while the distribution for family-of-origin cohesion had a more prominent skew. only avoidant attachment and marital consensus had a skewness above the absolute value of europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 432 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for the observed variables kurtosisskewnessmaxminsdmvariables 5014family-of-origin cohesion1. .13.83-.667.5737 4610family-of-origin adaptability2. .29-.04-.386.8824 3025240participant-father differentiation3. .72-.16-.56598.441772 3025504participant-mother differentiation4. .54-.08-.82527.161811 3025180mother-father differentiation5. .87-.21-.11678.711750 3466.18avoidant attachment6. .551.351.3112 406anxious attachment7. .19.59.416.9317 305marital consensus8. .641.11-1.484.6923 200marital satisfaction9. .39-1.49-.186.7611 191marital cohesion10. .15-.40-.753.0712 1. on the other hand, family-of-origin cohesion, anxious attachment and marital cohesion had quasi-kurtic distributions, while participant-father and mother-father differentiation were platykurtic in their distributions. avoidant attachment and marital consensus had more prominent leptokurtic distributions (kurtosis > 1), while marital satisfaction was more platykurtic. thus, none of the skewness values for observed variables were greater than 2, while none of the kurtosis values were greater than 7. therefore, we considered that the distributions of the observed variables did not significantly depart from normality. furthermore, we used the ml procedure without performing the bootstrapping. there were no significant differences between females and males in all observed variables (see table 2). cohen’s d values were close to zero, indicating negligible effect sizes. table 2 gender comparisons in observed variables dpt malesfemalesvariables sdmsdm family-of-origin cohesion1. .05.728.34-.736.8237.078.4537 family-of-origin adaptability2. .04.726.35.365.6924.826.9724 participant-father differentiation3. .04.786.27.32539.321757.57625.471779 participant-mother differentiation4. .02.872.16.73472.241803.84552.851814 mother-father differentiation5. .13.298.04-1.02574.261811.24721.571722 avoidant attachment6. .04.788.26-.226.4612.186.2412 anxious attachment7. .05.725.35.996.7217.146.0218 marital consensus8. .00.990.01-.654.6923.424.6823 marital satisfaction9. .06.640.46.386.4911.106.8811 marital cohesion10. .07.631.48-.483.2412.873.9911 table 3 displays the zero-order correlations among all observed variables. the correlations were computed separately for each gender. there were significant negative correlations among family-of-origin indicators, avoidant attachment and anxious attachment. for males, only three out of 11 correlations were significant (p < .05, twotailed). for both female and male participants, the strongest correlations were among family-of-origin indicators and consensus, as an indicator of marital adjustment. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 muraru & turliuc 433 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 ze ro -o rd er c or re la tio ns a m on g o bs er ve d va ria bl es 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 va ria bl es fa m ily -o f-o rig in co he si on 1. (.2 5* ) .5 6* ** fa m ily -o f-o rig in ad ap ta bi lit y 2. (.3 6* *) .4 5* ** (.5 7* ** ) .6 7* ** p ar tic ip an t-f at he rd iff er en tia tio n 3. (.7 9* ** ) .5 9* ** (.2 8* ) .4 6* ** (.5 8* ** ) .5 6* ** p ar tic ip an t-m ot he rd iff er en tia tio n 4. (.7 5* ** ) .6 6* ** (.8 3* ** ) .8 1* ** (.2 3* ) .4 8* ** (.6 6* ** ) .7 5* ** m ot he rfa th er di ffe re nt ia tio n 5. (.1 5) -.3 2* ** (.1 1) -.2 7* ** (.1 6) -.2 9* ** (.1 1) -.2 0* * (.2 6* ) -.1 5* av oi da nt at ta ch m en t 6. (.4 8* ** ) .4 2* ** (.1 5) -.1 4 (.1 2) -.2 6* ** (.2 1) -.1 5* * (.2 6* ) -.1 4 (.0 7) -.0 5 a nx io us at ta ch m en t 7. (-. 42 ** *) -.4 9* ** (-. 67 ** *) -.6 8* ** (.2 6* ) .3 9* ** (.2 5* ) .2 9* ** (.2 4* ) .3 6* ** (.2 0) .2 5* * (.3 7* *) .2 8* ** m ar ita lc on se ns us 8. (.0 1) .0 6 (.0 05 ) -.1 0 (.0 4) -.1 1 (.0 1) .1 5* (.1 6) .2 2* * (.0 3) .1 2 (.2 4* ) -.0 1 (.1 0) .0 7 m ar ita ls at is fa ct io n 9. (.0 3) .0 4 (.7 1* ** ) .5 4* ** (-. 35 ** ) -.3 5* ** (-. 62 ** *) -.5 0* ** (.1 9) .1 9* * (.1 5) .1 8* (.1 5) .2 2* * (.0 9) .2 7* ** (.3 1* *) .1 2 m ar ita lc oh es io n 10 . n ot e. c or re la tio ns pl ac ed ou to fb ra ck et s ar e fo rf em al es ,w hi le th e co rr el at io ns pl ac ed in si de th e br ac ke ts ar e fo rm al es . *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. ** *p < .0 01 . europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 434 http://www.psychopen.eu/ except for cohesion, all family-of-origin indicators correlated significantly and positively with marital cohesion in females. for males, there was a significant correlation only between family-of-origin cohesion and marital cohesion. regardless of gender, the correlations between family-of-origin indicators andmarital satisfaction were inconsistent. for both sexes, the pattern of associations among avoidant/anxious romantic attachment and indicators of marital adjustment was similar. there were significant correlations among romantic attachment styles andmarital consensus and cohesion. exploring the invariance across gender the current findings suggest that emphasizing stereotyped differences between women and men is not fruitful in clinical practice. family and couple therapists could rather work on deconstructing the social discourses about gender differences, enabling a sense of personal agency for their clients. in the present study, romantic attachment was a negative predictor of marital adjustment for both women and men. these results are consistent with those reported in previous studies that have examined the relationship between adult romantic attachment and indicators of marital quality (feeney, 1999; marchand, 2004; muraru & turliuc, 2012; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998). in agreement with the data reported in a prior study (muraru & turliuc, 2012), but contrary to the study carried out by sabatelli and bartle-haring (2003), the family-of-origin had no significant contribution to the marital adjustment prediction for either women or men who participated in the present study. when the configural (unconstrained) model was taken as reference, marital satisfaction was not a significant indicator of marital adjustment, neither for women nor for men (see table 4). the other nine observed variables were significant indicators of latent variables. for both women and men, romantic attachment was a significant and negative predictor of marital adjustment. otherwise, family-of-origin had no significant contribution to the prediction of marital adjustment. family-of-origin was also a significant predictor of the romantic attachment only in females. the configural model proved a satisfactory fit to the observed data across gender groups: χ2 = 109.87, df = 64, p < .001, cfi = .960, nfi = .991, nnfi = .943, rmsea = .054 (90% ci = .036; .071). when measurement and structural weights, structural covariances and residuals were constrained to be equal across gender groups and the δχ2 criterion was used, multiple-group analyses yielded four models. all of them indicated a satisfactory fit to the observed data (see table 5). the differences between the χ2 value for the configural model and the χ2 value for constrained models were not statistically significant (p > .05), thus supporting the invariance of hypothesized model across gender groups. moreover, the values of δcfi were lower than .01, strengthening the evidence of invariance. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 muraru & turliuc 435 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 m ea su re m en ta nd s tru ct ur al w ei gh ts fo rt he c on fig ur al m od el of r el at io ns hi ps a m on g fa m ily -o f-o rig in ,r om an tic a tta ch m en t, an d m ar ita la dj us tm en t m al es fe m al es h yp ot he tic al m ea su re m en t an d st ru ct ur al re la tio ns hi ps p c .r . st .e st . s. e. u ns t. es t. p c .r . st .e st . s. e. u ns t. es t. .0 01 < .3 2 7 .6 8 .0 01 .0 09 .0 01 < .3 6 14 .8 0 .0 01 .0 1 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → co he si on .0 03 .0 0 3 .3 3 .0 01 .0 03 .0 01 < .0 3 8 .5 5 .0 01 .0 06 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → ad ap ta bi lit y .0 01 < .5 5 12 .9 1 .0 7 .9 4 .0 01 < .6 1 16 .8 6 .0 4 .7 9 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → pa rti ci pa nt -fa th er di ffe re nt ia tio n .0 01 < .6 7 10 .8 4 .0 7 .7 6 .0 01 < .5 9 11 .7 1 .0 5 .5 8 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → pa rti ci pa nt -m ot he rd iff er en tia tio n .9 1 .0 0 1 .9 4 .0 0 1 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → m ot he rfa th er di ffe re nt ia tio n .8 8 .0 0 1 .7 6 .0 0 1 r om an tic at ta ch m en t→ av oi da nt st yl e .0 01 < .2 6 4 .5 4 .1 6 .6 8 .0 01 < .8 9 6 .5 4 .1 0 .7 1 r om an tic at ta ch m en t→ an xi ou s st yl e .0 01 < .6 9 7 .8 0 .0 8 .6 7 .0 01 < .0 7 8 .6 2 .0 7 .6 2 m ar ita la dj us tm en t→ co he si on .8 9 .0 0 1 .8 7 .0 0 1 m ar ita la dj us tm en t→ co ns en su s .9 51 .0 6 0 .0 07 .1 8 .0 1 .1 49 .4 4 1 .1 1 .1 3 .1 8 m ar ita la dj us tm en t→ sa tis fa ct io n .0 86 .7 1 -1 .2 2 .0 01 .0 02 .0 01 < .1 6 -4 .3 9 .0 01 .0 03 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → ro m an tic at ta ch m en t .1 83 .3 3 1 .1 3 .0 01 .0 01 .5 60 .5 8 .0 5 .0 01 .0 00 1 fa m ily -o f-o rig in → m ar ita la dj us tm en t .0 01 < .8 0 -4 .8 2 .1 2 .6 2 .0 01 < .5 2 -6 .0 1 -1 .1 2 .8 3 r om an tic at ta ch m en t→ m ar ita la dj us tm en t n ot e. u ns t. es t. – un st an da rd iz ed es tim at e; s .e .– st an da rd er ro r; s t. es t. – st an da rd iz ed es tim at e; c .r .– cr iti ca lr at io . europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 436 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 tests for invariance of hypothetical model 90% ci of rmsearmseannfi/tlinfiδcficfiδdfδχ2dfχ2model .036; .071.054.943.911-.960--64109.87 ***unconstrained model (baseline) .037; .070.054.943.901.005.955712.21 ns71122.08 ***measurement constrained .035; .068.052.947.899.003.9571013.64 ns74123.51 ***structural weights constrained .037; .069.053.945.897.006.9541117.04 ns75126.91 ***structural covariance constrained .036; .068.053.946.895.006.9541319.65 ns77129.52 ***structural residuals constrained ***p < .001. ns – non-significant differences from unconstrained model. discussion our study was designed to be exploratory. the purpose was not to test any hypothesis regarding invariance across gender when it comes to relationships among family-of-origin, romantic attachment, and marital adjustment, but to explore if there is a difference regarding the impact early family-of-origin experiences have on later adjustment to romantic relationships in the case of women and men. by incorporating suggestions from well-known couple and family therapists (nichols & schwartz, 2001; sabatelli & bartle-haring, 2003), our hypothetical model assumed that experiences individuals undergo in their families-of-origin represent a legacy which tends to influence adjustment to developmental tasks throughout their lifespan, including to romantic relationships. from an intergenerational perspective, murray bowen has developed a comprehensive theoretical framework to explain how constructions individuals have about their families-of-origin are reflected in the choices they make in everyday life, including their romantic relationships (cf. nichols & schwartz, 2001). bowen’s theory has influenced the practice of many couple and family therapists who emphasized the role family resources have in the process of rewriting stories related to the personal lives of clients. in line with suggestions from the literature, in the current study it was assumed that constructions married adults hold about their families-of-origin tend to be associated both with patterns of romantic attachment and their adjustment to marital relationships. data from a multiple-group analysis using structural equation modeling suggested the invariance of our hypothetical model across gender. the data revealed that romantic attachment had a significant negative effect upon marital adjustment for both women and men. this result is consistent with previous studies (feeney, 1999; marchand, 2004; muraru & turliuc, 2012; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998). there is a growing body of literature suggesting that romantic attachment patterns impact the quality of a couple’s relationship (feeney, 1999; marchand, 2004; volling, notaro, & larsen, 1998). in a marital couple, a secure attachment expressed by the two spouses implies an active, affectionate, and reciprocal relationship in which both marital partners mutually provide closeness and emotional comfort. adults expressing a secure attachment toward their partners tend to have relationships characterized by high levels of reciprocal trust, support, and intimacy, as well as shared feeling and ideas (hazan & shaver 1987; simpson et al. 1992). in contrast, adults with prevailing insecure attachment tend to fear abandonment, to experience emotional ups and downs, to be obsessively jealous, and overly dependent on their partner (parker & scannell, 1998). adults with an avoidant attachment pattern tend to deny attachment needs, are reluctant to trust others, avoid closeness and, often, are overinvolved with activities, such as professional work. in a relationship, two adults tend to bring with them their own working models about attachment and related behaviors. thus, the relationship tends to be shaped by the partners’ style of relating. moreover, the interaction of their personal styles tends to influence the way the two partners are experiencing their relationship. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 muraru & turliuc 437 http://www.psychopen.eu/ family-of-origin had no significant effect upon marital adjustment for either women or men. at least one explanation might be advanced in relation to this result. in romania, the family-of-origin exerts a great influence on the way adults give meanings to their lives and relationships. the postmodern tendencies regarding changes in the pattern of family values are rather weak, being characteristic for a minority (e.g., young people from urban areas) within the romanian population (popescu, 2008). however, in the present study, over 87% of the participants were under forty, representing the cohort born since 1970. when democracy was reinstated in romania, these participants were around 20 years old. therefore, we assumed that the majority of participants had opportunities to be exposed to the new ideological representations about family and its role in society. this could have an impact on how participants in our study represent their families-of-origin and the role early experiences play in later personal development. in addition, in the present study, faces and difs were adapted to allow the exploration of constructions participants had about their own family-of-origin experiences. this approach involved an effort to remember the early past, which could be impacted by the subjectivity of participants, regardless of their gender. at the same time, the rdas asked participants to assess their current marital relationship. it is possible that the two factors above have a significant contribution to the way adults surveyed in this study perceived their own past (including the meaning of experiences specific for their families-of-origin) and related it to their perception of the current marital relationship. however, further explanations for this finding remain to be found. moreover, no significant effect of the family-of-origin upon romantic attachment was revealed in the case of male participants. this finding is consistent with data reported by feldman, gowen, and fisher (1998). why was the family-of-origin significantly related to romantic attachment only for women? searching for an explanation, we presumed that gender could moderate the relationship between family-of-origin experiences and romantic attachment styles. thus, we observed that correlations among differentiation of self within family-of-origin, adaptability, cohesion, and avoidant attachment were negative and significant only for women. additionally, the correlations for men were lower than those for women. as far as anxious attachment was concerned, the pattern of correlations was quite similar, except for differentiation between participants and their fathers (for this variable the correlation was slightly greater for men, even if non-significant). the moderating role of gender could be related both to working models of attachment (crowell & treboux, 1995) and transitional changes over time, which, in conjunction with family-of-origin experiences, could have a different impact on the functioning of women and men. although, regardless of gender, working models and romantic attachment behaviors (especially those related to the secure attachment) tend to be relatively stable over a short-term period (fuller & fincham, 1995; lopez & gormley, 2002; scharfe & bartholomew, 1994), relationship experiences can initiate some changes over time. thus, getting married usually involves a major transition for the individual and many changes are likely to occur over the early transitional years of marital life. women and men may differently integrate the legacy of experiences they undergo in their family-of-origin into the transitional stage of the first years of marriage, including in terms of restructuring models of romantic attachment. it is possible that, in structuring working models of romantic attachment, women tend to be more rooted in experiences acquired within their family-of-origin, while men tend to avoid recognizing the connection between the “relational present” and their early experiences. it is just one of the hypotheses that we intend to explore in future studies. a limitation of the current study was the disproportion between number of male and female participants that could affect the accuracy of estimated parameters. secondly, the findings were based on data from a relatively small and homogeneous (e.g., residence or level of education) convenience sample of participants, thus limiting the generalization of results. adults married for the first time, living in urban areas and having a bachelor degree, may not be representative of all married adults. a replication of the present study on amore extended and heterogeneous europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 438 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sample of adults is needed. another limitation refers to the unit of analysis, which was the individual. a study conducted on marital couples, using self-reports and structured interviews with both partners, would allow nuancing the explanations for possible differences or similarities when it comes to relationships among family-of-origin, adult attachment, and marital life. the marital couple seems to be a more appropriate unit of analysis, because it is more probable for the two spouses to be tied by an emotional and transactional bond, including by past experiences. as far as the structured interview is concerned, such a technique provides the clinician the opportunity to acquire a deeper understanding of personal shared meanings partners give to their relationship and, also, to past experiences. thus clinicians, together with the couples, may co-construct a coherent exploration regarding the legacy of the family-of-origin. finally, the cross-sectional nature of our design limits the possibility to infer causal relationships among variables included in the hypothetical model. funding the research as well as the the preparation of this manuscript was partially supported by a grant implemented at alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi from the european social fund through the sectoral operational programme for human resources development 2007-2013, priority axis 1 – education and training in support for economical growth and development of a knowledge based society, major area of intervention 1.5. – doctoral and postdoctoral programs in support of research [grant posdru/cpp 107/dmi 1.5/s/78342]. references anderson, s. a., & sabatelli, r. m. 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(2008). prospective associations from family-of-origin interactions to adult marital interactions and relationship adjustment. journal of family psychology, 22(2), 274-286. doi:10.1037/0893-3200.22.2.274 about the authors antoaneta andreea muraru is a phd student at the faculty of psychology and education sciences, alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi, romania. also, she is a couple and family therapist with a special interest in narrative therapy. dr. maria nicoleta turliuc is a professor of family and couple psychology at the faculty of psychology and education sciences, department of psychology, alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi, romania. her research interests include family and couple dynamics, role of gender in human relationships and society, and domestic violence. she coordinates the center for women's professional training and development. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 427–442 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.524 predictors of marital adjustment 442 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0092623x.2011.564513 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/585266 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223890701268041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.22.2.274 http://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of marital adjustment (introduction) the present study method participants measures procedure statistical analyses results preliminary analyses exploring the invariance across gender discussion funding references about the authors linguistic markers of processing trauma experience in women’s written narratives during different breast cancer phases: implications for clinical interventions research reports linguistic markers of processing trauma experience in women’s written narratives during different breast cancer phases: implications for clinical interventions maria luisa martino*a, raffaella onoratoa, maria francesca fredaa [a] department of humanistic studies, federico ii university, naples, italy. abstract research into the change processes underlying the benefits of expressive writing is still incomplete. to fill this gap, we investigated the linguistic markers of change in cognitive and emotional processing among women with breast cancer, highlighting the differences and peculiarities during different treatment phases. a total of 60 writings were collected from 20 women: 10 receiving chemotherapy and 10 receiving biological therapy. we performed a series of repeated measures anova for the most meaningful liwc linguistic categories, including positive/negative emotions and cognitive processes, to assess change over three sessions. results demonstrated a significant increase in the positive emotions category for the entire group of women, with particular relevance for the biological therapy group of women, and a marginally significant (p = .07) greater use of words indicating cognitive processes for women receiving biological therapy. for the negative emotions category time was significant for the whole group of women, showing a peak of use in the second session of writing. peculiar differences in the linguistic markers of processing trauma were observed between the two groups. although the writing intervention is a support for both groups of women, it seems to be beneficial when there is a large time gap since the administration of chemotherapy and, thus, when the patient can revisit the experience. the relationship of the illness with life can be rearticulated, and the writing becomes a space for resignifying the traumatic cancer experience. keywords: linguistic markers, expressive writing, narrative, emotional and cognitive processing, breast cancer, clinical interventions europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 received: 2015-04-29. accepted: 2015-09-25. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: federico ii university, via porta di massa n°1, 80133, naples, italy. phone: 3397363081. e-mail: marialuisa.martino@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. emotional and cognitive processing through expressive writing during a traumatic breast cancer experience the onset of an illness such as breast cancer is considered to be a traumatic experience for women who cope with long and arduous therapeutic treatment. depending on the staging and treatable areas, from a medical viewpoint, the treatment includes local interventions such as surgery and radiotherapy or systemic interventions such as chemotherapy and hormonal therapy (cordova et al., 2007). the difficulty in identifying a single stressful event, the internal source of the stressor factor, and the temporal continuity of the of the stressor experience are the core elements that characterize cancer as a traumatic experience unique and different from the others (mehnert & koch, 2007). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ these treatments result in numerous side effects, such as fatigue, pain (koopman, hermanson, diamond, angell, & spiegel, 1998), hair loss, and temporary and permanent changes in physical appearance, reduction in the quality of life, and difficulties with spouses/caregivers (bonnaud-antignac, hardouin, leger, dravet, & sebille, 2012). during the period of active treatment, the woman is faced with the difficult task of living with this “new” condition, which can strengthen or weaken the process of remodeling the patient’s self esteemand her ideal body (fobair et al., 2006). breast cancer and its treatment in women cause a set of psychic disruptions that challenge femininity and provoke anxiety, depression, guilt feelings, isolation, worthlessness, distrust, and psychological distress. this traumatic event suddenly confronts the woman with a new type of information regarding the world; this information defies the person’s preexisting mental schemas and threatens one’s basic assumptions about the self and world, constructing a gap between appraised meaning and global beliefs, between global and situational meanings, between emotion and cognition that interrupt the continuity of life (freda, de luca picione, & martino, 2015; janoff-bulman, 2004). the two principle treatment phases for breast cancer are chemotherapy and biological therapy that are administered at two different time points and are consequential for the therapeutic and pharmacological postoperative assessment, to which women with breast cancer are generally subjected for a very long time. the first treatment phase is the pharmacological mode that is administered in cycles. this destroys the cancer cells and is particularly invasive; however, it does not guarantee a certain prognosis of life. biological therapy, the most promising phase in terms of prognosis, is a therapeutic approach with a reduced toxic effect that directly interferes with the functional expression of some genes, prevents the tumor from growing, and prevents a relapse because it coincides with a phase after the chemotherapy. in this scenario, expressive writing interventions promote a beneficial meaning-making and integrative process of traumatic experience into one’s own life story, thereby constructing a narrative that connects emotion and cognition shattered by trauma and supporting health; physical benefits and emotion regulation (boals, 2012; boals, banks, hathaway, & schuettler, 2011; de campora, giromini, larciprete, li volsi, & zavattini, 2014; freda, de luca picione, & martino, 2015; martino, freda, & camera, 2013; schutte, searle, meade, & dark, 2012; vrielynck, philippot, & rimé, 2010). the narrative is a space for transformation and resignifies the traumatic experience, through which the narrator reconstructs a broken self-narrative story after a traumatic experience (angus &mcleod, 2004; hermans, 2003; mcadams, 2008; neimeyer, 2002). the narration includes the role of a semiotic device, whereby the traumatic experience is reactualized in the here and now of the narrative setting. through plot development during the narrative process, the writer sets up processes of semiotic connection that can promote change and knowledge, because he/she strives to find a configuration for events in the discourse that can make sense of the experience, even if temporarily, and thus promote integration of the trauma (freda &martino, 2015; greenberg & paivio, 2003; margherita, gargiulo, &martino, 2015; margherita, martino, recano, & camera, 2014). therefore, the narrative allows us to understand these changes and the subjective way by which people understand and connect with these transformations, observe how these transformations are constructed, and emerge in the stories of the subjects (pals & mcadams, 2004). on one hand, the evaluation of the benefits of the writing technique, in the context of breast or ovarian cancer, has been highlighted in the literature, showing a reduction of symptoms related to avoidance and approach to their emotions (zakowski, ramati, morton, johnson, & flanigan, 2004) or a reduction of distress and symptoms europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience 652 http://www.psychopen.eu/ related to the condition of evasion (stanton et al., 2002). on the other hand, understanding of the change processes that underlie the beneficial effects of writing is incomplete (freda & martino, 2015; stone, smith, kaell, & hurewitz, 2000). to achieve a better understanding of the processes of change activated by writing as they occur, there must be an analysis of words indicating cognitive and emotional processes, which are present within the written stories and are the types of mechanisms that mediate adaptation to the traumatic event (pennebaker, booth, & francis, 2007). borrowing knowledge from linguistics, pennebaker and colleagues (2010) have focused on the role of language. the words reflect but do not “cause” the states of mind. the words reflect changes in the way people think. language, in this sense, is an epiphenomenon that offers information about who we are and simulateneously is a tool that provides a mechanism for effecting change (pennebaker, facchin, & margola, 2010; tausczik & pennebaker, 2010). therefore, what prompts the writingis a cognitive processing of the traumatic experience that becomes increasingly complex throughout the writing sessions and includes meaning making, insight, construction of a coherent narrative, integration of the experience into the patient’s own world view or change thereof, reinterpretation of the event as an opportunity for growth (baikie & wilhelm, 2005), and correction of emotional dysregulation that facilitates control over emotions and builds a new sense of mastery and efficacy (king, 2001). in particular, in the context of cancer in women, few studies have explored the processes underlying the effects of writing; moreover, few studies have explored the linguistic markers and the way of narrative articulation of the cognitive and emotional processes in the writings of women with breast cancer. most of the investigations have focused attention on correlational, predictive, or mediation studies between the health and physical benefits of writing and use of words. previous research (low, stanton, & danoff-burg, 2006), conducted on the writings of women with breast cancer, revealed no association between the use of words and emotional and cognitive health benefits. a study on italian hospitalized patients (iacono, donati, & solano, 2003) showed a correlation only between the use of emotional words (positive and negative) and health objective of subjects (days of hospitalization), with no significant difference between the use of cognitive and emotional words and the progress of discussions between patients with bladder papilloma with postoperative long or short hospital stay. several studies (pennebaker, 2002; pennebaker, mehl, & niederhoffer, 2003; ramírez-esparza & pennebaker, 2006) have revealed that the greater use of positive emotional words during the writing sessions, as well as a gradual increase in the use of general cognitive words during the meetings, was associated with greater health benefits than an intermediate use of negative words. the use of emotional words proved to be a predictor of health benefits, particularly the progressive increase of cognitive words (cause and intuition) (pennebaker, booth, & francis, 2007). schwartz and drotar (2004) demonstrated that a decrease in negative emotion together with an increase in cognitive processing facilitated by written emotional disclosure has beneficial effects on the physical health-related quality of life. the use of certain words, with particular reference to emotional and cognitive matter, reflects that the person is starting a process of building a coherent story, putting her thoughts and emotions into words, and making her way trying to find causes and make sense of the event, starting are reflexive and metareflexive process to promote health benefits (pennebaker, facchin, & margola, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 martino, onorato, & freda 653 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to enrich the comprehension of the processes underlying the benefits of expressive writing for women with breast cancer (martino, freda, & camera, 2013), we investigated the linguistic markers of change by which the writing intervention reconstructed the patient’s narrative about the traumatic experience. we also assessed whether the writing intervention has supported the different ways of expressing their experiences in words and reorganizing the traumatic event (emotional and cognitive processing of the traumatic event) at different stages of treatment: chemotherapy and biological therapy. despite the absence of specific reference literature on the subject of breast cancer, it was expected that we would be able to detect a gradual increase in the use of cognitive words and an increased use of words for positive emotions compared with a moderate use of words for negative emotions. regarding the two phases of the illness, we meant to compare not only two different aspects of the therapeutic treatment but also two different moments of the traumatic experience: the phase of chemotherapy nearest to the traumatic acme of the communication of diagnosis and its uncertainty and the phase of biological therapy closer to a phase of life when the reconstruction and return to everyday routines take place. such an understanding of therapeutic writing allows for the ability to reflect on the most benefit timing within which one can propose writing interventions and reflect about its functions. method participants this study was conducted in two hospitals in southern italy, both of which are national centers of reference for the treatment of oncological illnesses. the study was approved by the ethical committee of the hospitals. from the medical records, during the year 2013, 20 women were identified on the basis of the cancer stage and phase of the treatment (the participants were required to have non-metastatic breast cancer and be in the postoperative drug treatment phase) and asked to participate in our study. these women were categorized into two groups: 10 patients recieving chemotherapy and diagnosed in the preceding 6 months and 10 patients receiving biological therapy and diagnosed in the preceding 12 months. participation in the study was voluntary after signing the informed consent; nobody refused to participate. the patients in the chemotherapy group were aged between 37 and 55 years (m = 45.3; sd = 10.6), and those in the biological therapy group were aged between 36 and 60 years (m = 49.1; sd = 7.78). the two groups were homogeneous for age, nationality, and socioeconomic status. tools and procedures within the greater panorama of expressive writing, we used the expressive writing technique (written emotional disclosure) as the model proposed earlier (martino, onorato, d’oriano, & freda, 2013; pennebaker, facchin, & margola, 2010), which is used in the context of breast cancer traumatic experiences (low, stanton, & danoffburg, 2006; stanton et al., 2002). for adapting the writing technique to the aim of this study, we asked the participants to write about the traumatic experience of breast cancer. the meetings occurred in an ad hoc room of the hospitals in conjunction with standard medical examinations. the writing sessions lasted 30 minutes each and were structured over time with an interval of 21 days to promote, between one session and the other, the in-depth progression of emotional and cognitive processing. data analysis initially, for analyzing the written texts, we used the linguistic inquiry and word count (liwc2007), a software for text analysis based on the number of words belonging to 80 linguistic categories (freda, esposito, & quaranta, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience 654 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2015; freitag, grimm, & schmidt, 2011; pennebaker et al., 2007). the corpus of analysis consisted of 60 transcribed texts (3/subject). the texts were analyzed after integration of the italian dictionary to implement the number of recognized words reaching an average of 80% of recognized words. the liwc2007 consists of > 4,500 terms that are included by numeral recognition in one or more categories simultaneously. it involves classifications that are structured into categories and subcategories; for example, macrocategory psychological processes is included in the cognitive processes category, which, in turn, contains causality and insights in its interior subcategories and so on for each dimension. its internal structure consists of two basic components: a program that calculates the percentage of words contained in the various linguistic categories, creating an output file, and a language dictionary. the output produced by the analysis includes as many as 32 categories indicating psychological constructs and as many categories indicating paralinguistic dimensions, personal interests, and punctuation. in the present work, we particularly focused only on certain linguistic categories that are considered in the literature to be the most central, referring to emotional and cognitive processing, in terms of positive emotions (i.e., good, love, happy), negative emotions (i.e., worthlessness, ineffectiveness, hatred, enemy) and cognitive processes (i.e., i recognize, i know, in fact, why, then, i think, consider) (hoyt & pasupathi, 2008; moore & brody, 2009; north, meyerson, brown, & holahan, 2013). subsequently, we performed a series of repeated measures analysis of variance (anova), with a two-way mixed factorial design, to verify the best hypothesis proposals. in all cases, a 5%maximum threshold error was assumed. for each preselected language category (positive/negative emotions and cognitive process), the dependent variable was defined as the score resulting in the liwc analysis for each writing session (t1-t2-t3) and as a factor between the groups and the treatment-therapeutic phase that the women were undergoing (chemotherapy and biological therapy). results computer analysis of texts was performed to control the interaction between linguistic categories and therapy. linguistic categories and time were also analyzed to extrapolate mean scores, which was calculated as the progress of the three writing sessions. in addition, scores were determined for the categories of positive emotions, negative emotions, and cognitive processes for the groups in biological therapy, for the groups in chemotherapy, and for the groups as a whole (table 1). the repeated measures anova show the following main effects (table 2). for positive emotions the main effects for therapy and time between the groups were significant, f(1, 18) = 6.53, p = .02, and f(1, 18) = 10.234, p = .005, respectively. these data show a greater use of positive emotions by women receiving biological therapy and a progressive increase of words indicating positive emotions in the whole group, over the course of the three writing sessions. over the course of the three writing sessions, the biological therapy group showed a considerable increase between t1 and t3 (11.90 and 17.00, respectively) contrary to the chemotherapy group (7.60 and 12.45, respectively). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 martino, onorato, & freda 655 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics of the scores of linguistic categories (positive emotions, negative emotions, cognitive processes), reported from three writing sessions (t1-t2-t3) for biological therapy, chemotherapy, and entire group cognitive processesnegative emotionspositive emotions group t3t2t1t3t2t1t3t2t1 sdmsdmsdmsdmsdmsdmsdmsdmsdm chemotherapy n = 10 .872.218.692.209.273.717.764.098.172.727.042.523.765.4512.255.8812.045.607 biological therapy n = 10 .464.4711.472.429.084.079.352.826.962.638.633.985.404.0017.743.2015.225.9011 entire group n = 20 .024.849.522.319.673.398.713.457.572.188.133.754.515.7314.594.0414.465.759 table 2 repeated measures anova: main effects between groups, related to the linguistic categories (positive emotions, negative emotions, cognitive processes) for therapy and time cognitive processesnegative emotionspositive emotions factor fdffdffdf 111therapy .75103.52700.53606 111time .3211.3897.23410 regarding the negative emotions category, the factor therapy was not significant, f(1, 18) = 0.52, p = .48, while time was significant, f(1, 18) = 7.389, p = .014, showing a peak in the second session of writing (table 1). in observational terms, we can read an interesting dynamic: a steady increase in the use of negative emotion words in the group receiving chemotherapy (the means were 3.52, 7.72, and 8.09, respectively, for t1, t2, and t3) compared with the biological therapy group, which showed an increasing trend at t2 and decreased again at t3 (5.98, 8.63, and 6.82, respectively, for t1, t2, and t3). for the cognitive processes category the factor therapy approached significance, f(1,18) = 3.75, p = .07, thus suggesting a greater use of cognitive words for women receiving biological therapy. observing the mean scores we note a mean increase between t1 and t3 in both groups, although the increase was noticeably greater in the biological therapy group (9.07 and 11.47, respectively). however, from a statistical point of view the factor time was not significant, f(1, 18) = 1.321, p = .27. in summary, the results reveal that the entire group of women, regardless of the therapeutic phase they were going through, showed a statistically significant increase in the mean number of words indicating positive emotions between t1 and t3 (9.75, and 14.73, repectively), compared to words indicating negative emotions that tend to maintain a stable trend, while the mean scores for the words indicating cognitive processes, although not significant, increased gradually between t1 and t3 (8.39, and 9.84, respectively). the analysis did not reveal any significant effects of the interaction time versus therapy for the three linguistic categories and, therefore, does not provide evidence in this regard. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience 656 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion our results only partially confirmed our hypothesis. as hypothesized, we detected a statistically significant increase over the course of the three writing sessions for the linguistic category of positive emotions and negative emotions within the entire group of women; however, cognitive processes do not show statistically significant changes. analysis of the effects between the groups (table 2) confirms the statistically significant differences for the factor therapy, i.e., between the groups receiving biological therapy and chemotherapy, only in the scores for the categories of positive emotions. looking at the trend of the mean scores for the various linguistic categories in question (table 1), we can say that the level of positive emotions during the first writing session is more elevated for women receiving biological therapy than for those receiving chemotherapy. given this initial difference, the group receiving biological therapy demonstrated a progressive increase in the use of words indicating positive emotions, with a marked increase during the third and final session of writing. this could possibly be interpreted by observing a connection with the patient’s therapeutic phase, a stage when concerns about the possible effects of therapy are attenuated; the body does not suffer with this type of therapy, as with the physical upheavals that accompany chemotherapy. we interpret that the ability to use a greater number of words indicating positive emotions peculiar of women in biological therapy, which increases over time, could confirm the possibility to look beyond the cancer experience. this ability allows to look with a positive involvement to the present and future, integrating the event into one’s own personal lifestory, adopting positive resources and an increasing the use of optimistic strategies for trauma resolution. we believe that this is facilitated by the possibility to construct a dialogue, over the time course of the illness, with one’s own life, thanks to a view of the future that is, gradually, more attainable (freda, de luca picione, & martino, 2015; freda & martino, 2015). regarding the cognitive processes category, a statistically significant difference between the two groups of women was not observed. starting from this assumption, observing the mean trend (table 1) we note a peculiarity: the biological therapy group used cognitive words, particularly during the third and last session of writing. these data confirm the presence of a process of construction of a narrative meta-reflection, re-interpretation, and integration of the experience. we believe that the increased use of cognitive words is observable for women receiving biological therapy because of the presence of a greater distance from the traumatic acme of communication of diagnosis and the beginning of the arduous therapeutic treatment, as well as the inevitable gradual health improvements and the greater freedom from fear of death in the future. this results, in the latter stage, in an experience that is less threatening and, thus, able to be contemplated through distance, by adopting a meta-reflective lens aimed at constructing meaning and comprehension. a relationship with the future that is still grappling with the significance of the current time makes this process much more arduous for women receiving chemotherapy. however, regarding the differences within the groups, there was no significant interaction between the different types of therapy, chemotherapy and biological, and the use of certain linguistic categories or the progression thereof in the three writing sessions. maintaining an awareness of the differences among the subjects and the research design, this result is consistent with the results of the study by iacono, donati, and solano (2003), which did not show a significant difference between the use of words and the cognitive and emotional advance of the meetings between subjects suffering from bladder papilloma, with long or short postoperative hospital stay. we found that women receiving biological therapy more often reference negative emotions in the second session, as a process of progressive connection between the events and emotions, including the negative ones that have europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 martino, onorato, & freda 657 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characterized its traumatic story, negative emotions that the women receiving biological therapy can now label and feel. women receiving biological therapies relive the traumatic experience and the painful onset of the illness and its therapeutic procedure by creating a process of identification (emotional labeling), acceptance of pain, and awareness of a connection between the events and the emotions, building meaning that allows them to be able to re-harmonize with the traumatic experience and future (freda, de luca picione, & martino, 2015). as we had mentioned earlier, the entire group of women, regardless of the type of ongoing therapy, showed an increase of positive and negative emotion words, indicating the progress of the writing sessions. in this sense, it can be said that the intervention of writing is an activator of emotionally ideational processing of the present and future and their own projects within a narrative construction, which seems to have formed a connection between negative and positive; good and bad non-verbal aspects, still raw and not symbolized, and a search for expressive words (bucci, 1997; iacono, donati, & solano, 2003). in any case, the lack of a significant interaction between the different types of therapy and the use of certain linguistic categories during the progress of the three sessions seems to confirm a beneficial use of the tool of writing, which has allowed the promotion of transformation processes and the connection of events, starting with the construction of a border and a frame, both internal and external, within which to share and preserve their story. we believe that this has supported or is supporting a process of integration experience (martino, onorato, d’oriano, & freda, 2013). conclusions and implications for clinical interventions the intervention of expressive writing for women with breast cancer is an opportunity for re-transcription of the traumatic experience that led to an increase in the reorganization of the emotional trauma caused by the illness. despite the limitations of this study related to the number of participants, the analysis made it possible, however, to throw light on the processes underlying the writing, the way of putting the traumatic event of illness into words, and the use and choice of cognitive and emotional linguistic markers to be able to relate and build integration. in particular, this study has allowed us to observe peculiar modes/ways that characterize the process of expressing in words and the construction of the meaning of personal experience depending on the therapeutic phase. we believe that these differences in go-through and transformation of the meaning of experience have played a mediating role within the specific relationship between the person, illness, and reality. on one hand, the writings of women undergoing chemotherapy go through their experience focusing on the current time of the illness process and its therapeutic aspect that makes it more difficult to build a reflective process on past illness experience. in this sense, the future comprises the time of the continuity of the illness that is full of uncertainty and fear (freda &martino, 2015). on the other hand, women undergoing biological therapy reorganize their experience of illness, putting into words and re-experiencing itsmost painful aspects, but simulataneously being able to build harmonization in dialogue with the illness, present, and future. the construction of a frame of sense, with respect to the complexity (integration of emotion and cognition) of their experience, seems to proceed simultaneously with the ability to positively symbolize their future, being in a promising therapeutic phase. although the writing was a beneficial tool for all women, with a different degree and modality, it seems important to choose the type of psychological intervention in line with the specific phase of treatment and its cognitive–emotional processing style. it is also important to incorporate this kind of intervention within the psychological service of the hospital to provide these women the possibility to continue their meetings with a psychologist because the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience 658 http://www.psychopen.eu/ writing intervention is configurated, also, as an activator of psychological demand (martino, freda, & camera, 2013; van middendorp & geenen, 2008). in addition, the context in which the expressive writing takes place must be considered as it can influence the use of language and the choice of linguistic markers by the participants (corter & petrie, 2008). as implication of our study we believe that the possibility to reflect and meta-reflect about the illness experience and construct a coherent story is more possible when the expressive writing is proposed at a phase sufficiently distant from the traumatic climax of the illness and its arduous therapeutic process (chemotherapy). we believe that expressive writing could be more useful for women during a time in which they begin to understand the past experience of cancer and are able to construct a complex and meta-perspective framework for the events. this seems possible because the fear of death is less acute and the bodily conditions are promising for a positive future. in conclusion, this preliminary research study holds implications for clinical work as well as for planning interventions to improve well-being in the oncology setting. understanding the different ways in more detail and the path to narrative re-construction of the traumatic experience of breast cancer among women undergoing the specific therapeutic phase, as well as the distance from the communication of diagnosis, may help psychologists to propose an expressive writing intervention within a proper distance. it may help support a process of sharing and narrate the traumatic illness experience, respecting the patient’s internal and external lived times of experience. this refers to the ability to promote the choice of the best type of psychological support within a hospital setting, according to the phases of medical treatment as well as the distance from the traumatic acme of communication of diagnosis. in our future research, we plan to increase the number of participants and compare other types and phases of oncological illnesses. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors wish to express their sincere gratitude all the staff of the hospitals and all women participated in this study. references angus, l., & mcleod, j. 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(2004). written emotional disclosure buffers the effects of social constraints on distress among cancer patients.health psychology, 23, 555-563. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.23.6.555 about the authors maria luisa martino, (marialuisa.martino@unina.it), phd, researcher in the department of humanistic studies, federico ii university of naples, italy. her research field is clinical and health psychology. she deals with psychological research-intervention in hospital institutions with particular regard to the use and evaluation of different narrative devices as tools to promote wellbeing. adopting quali-quantitative methods, she studies the processing of traumatic experience of illness with particular regard to the construction of meaning-making processes. she published the book “trauma, scrittura ed elaborazione in oncologia pediatrica” [trauma, writing and processing in pediatric oncology] (saarbrücken, de: pai, 2013). dr. raffaella onorato, (raffaellaonorato@libero.it), psychologist, specializing in psychoterapy. her research interests are centered on the assessment and evaluation of the benefits of expressive writing tecnique with different oncological illnesses. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience 662 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.psych.54.101601.145041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075%2fni.16.1.26ram http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f02699931.2011.562881 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023%2fb%3ajocs.0000045349.10034.62 http://dx.doi.org/10.1200%2fjco.2002.08.521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0278-6133.19.6.619 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0261927x09351676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348%2f135910707x251199 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f02699930903172161 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0278-6133.23.6.555 http://www.psychopen.eu/ maria francesca freda, (fmfreda@unina.it), associate professor of clinical psychology in the department of humanistic studies, federico ii university of naples, italy. she works on psychosocial interventions in institutions, with particular attention towards educational and health institutions. many of her studies are on narratives as a methodology for the elaboration of experience's meaning. her current interests are for the study of narrative as a device of the psychological clinical intervention, area of study in which she published narrazione e intervento in psicologia clinica [narrative and intervention in clinical psychology] (liguori, napoli, 2009). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 651–663 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.991 martino, onorato, & freda 663 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en linguistic markers of processing cancer trauma experience emotional and cognitive processing through expressive writing during a traumatic breast cancer experience method participants tools and procedures data analysis results discussion conclusions and implications for clinical interventions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the effect of telling lies on belief in the truth research reports the effect of telling lies on belief in the truth danielle polage* a [a] central washington university, ellensburg, wa, usa. abstract the current study looks at the effect of telling lies, in contrast to simply planning lies, on participants’ belief in the truth. participants planned and told a lie, planned to tell a lie but didn’t tell it, told an unplanned lie, or neither planned nor told a lie (control) about events that did not actually happen to them. participants attempted to convince researchers that all of the stories told were true. results show that telling a lie plays a more important role in inflating belief scores than simply preparing the script of a lie. cognitive dissonance may lead to motivated forgetting of information that does not align with the lie. this research suggests that telling lies may lead to confusion as to the veracity of the lie leading to inflated belief scores. keywords: lying, lies, inflation, memory, deception europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 received: 2017-03-21. accepted: 2017-05-24. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, ms#7575, central washington university, 400 e. university way, ellensburg, wa 98926, usa. email: polaged@cwu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. garry, manning, loftus, and sherman (1996) showed that participants who initially reported that certain childhood events had not happened, but then imagined they had happened, increased their confidence in the false events. this now famous effect is commonly referred to as the ‘imagination inflation’ effect, because it has been shown that through imagining an event their belief in the event becomes more likely, or their belief in the event becomes inflated. since then, other studies have shown that imagination is not the only way to increase belief in counter-factual events. studies have demonstrated an inflation effect by exposing participants to the false information using a variety of paradigms such as paraphrasing (sharman, garry, & beuke, 2004) and explanations (sharman, manning, & garry, 2005). studies have also shown that making up information, or what researchers call “confabulating” information, results in memory failure for the truth. in chrobak and zaragoza (2008), participants were asked to describe entire fictitious events that they had never witnessed. results show that over time, half of the participants developed false memories of these fictitious events. pickel (2004) showed that participants who fabricated descriptions of a videotaped robbery suspect had trouble remembering the actual suspect and also confused their made up details with the truth. it appears that almost any task that increases the familiarity with and requires participants to mentally engage with the false information might lead to an inflation of belief effect. many studies have looked at the effect on memory of creating false information; however, few studies have looked at the effect of intentional lying on memory for the truth. polage (2012) europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ demonstrated that deliberate lying can lead to “fabrication inflation” in which participants increase their likelihood ratings for self-created events after lying about them. it is very likely that liars use their imagination to create false stories, but lying is more than just creating a false story. dictionary.com defines a lie as “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive” (“lie,” 2017). this definition involves two components: the first involves the veracity of the information and the second involves the deceptive intent of the speaker. therefore, in order for a person to tell a lie, there must be evidence of both components of the definition. liars must first construct false stories and then try to convince others that their stories are true. the current research examines whether the deliberate attempt to deceive plays a role in belief inflation or whether lying is simply another means of exposing participants to false information. to the author’s knowledge, there is no literature looking at the effect of telling, versus simply creating, a lie on likelihood to believe. according to the source or reality monitoring (rm) approach, source confusion occurs when people create perceptual and sensory details of false events that are similar to real memories (johnson & raye, 1981). when participants answer questions about the false event, whether in writing or speaking, the memory for the false event becomes more detailed and more similar to true event memories increasing the likelihood that the person will believe it. the exposure will also increase familiarity and fluency with the memory which is also thought to increase belief in the false memory (garry & wade, 2005). according to vrij, granhag, and mann (2010), good liars look to the listener to determine whether they feel they are being believed and try to tell simple, plausible, and realistic lies that would not contradict anything the observer might know. implausible events are unlikely to be believed (pezdek, finger, & hodge, 1997), but memories of detailed, plausible events from one’s past might be confused with true events leading to an inflation effect. if lying was simply another means of exposure to false information resulting in source confusion, then whether the lie was told would make no difference. but lies, unlike imagination, paraphrasing, guessing, and confabulating, must be communicated with the intention to deceive. so, what effect does the telling of a lie have on belief? previous studies suggest contradictory outcomes. according to the source monitoring framework memories rich in detail might be considered true in the absence of memory for the cognitive operations used to create those memories. but, telling lies is effortful. langleben et al. (2002) observed that the brain is more active during lie telling than it is while telling the truth. zuckerman, depaulo, and rosenthal (1981) suggest that liars must maintain internal consistency (such as avoiding contradicting oneself) and external consistency (making sure the lies don’t contradict what others know to be true) and therefore lying requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth. one would expect this cognitively demanding task to be remembered, so even though the content of the memory might be remembered, so would the act of creating the lie. any familiarity with the content of the lie could be correctly attributed to lying. telling a lie without pre-planning would be especially cognitively demanding. walczyk, mahoney, doverspike, and griffith-ross (2009) and greene, o’hair, cody, and yen (1985) point out that it takes less time to deliver a prepared lie than it does to tell the truth as the response is simply the delivery of a memorized script. depaulo et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis reported that less time to plan a lie is related to greater cognitive effort. regurgitating planned lies is less cognitively demanding than creating and telling lies on the spot. in terms of memory for cognitive processing, the increase in cognitive demand for the told lies should serve as a cue to distinguish between false and true memories and result in a decrease in belief in the lie. if memory for cognitive operations significantly impacts telling lies 634 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ source monitoring, one would expect the told only group to show a lower inflation effect than told lies that were prepared first. although telling lies is cognitively demanding, several lines of research suggest that other aspects of telling a lie might increase source monitoring errors and lead to higher rates of fabrication inflation. polage (2012) found that participants who reported feeling more uncomfortable about lying were more likely to believe their selfgenerated lies. it is possible that the negative affect involved in lying induces dissonance, which later becomes self-deception. cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957) arises when one’s beliefs and actions contradict each other. an easy way to avoid the discomfort of having lied, is to believe that the lie is the truth. shu, gino, and bazerman (2011) demonstrated how cognitive dissonance can result in memory change. their study found that participants who first read an honor code and later cheated were less likely to remember the components of the honor code than were those who didn’t cheat. they suggest their results are due to motivated forgetting of the rules in an attempt to preserve one’s moral self-image after behaving unethically. kouchaki and gino (2016) also found that after engaging in unethical behavior, participants’ memories for their past unethical actions were impaired. the authors believe that the psychological distress and discomfort of their misdeeds caused the memories to become less clear and vivid than memories of ethical actions. they also suggest that this “unethical amnesia” could lead people to repeat acts of dishonesty. polage found that those who lied frequently were much more likely to believe their lies than those who lied less often. it is possible that people revise their memories to reduce cognitive dissonance. participants who find themselves uncertain as to the true source of the lied-about information and who are also motivated to want to believe the lie, may lower their decision criterion required to accept the lie as true (hekkanen & mcevoy, 2002) and if successful this strategy may be repeated. another important difference between simply planning a lie and telling a lie is that until a lie is communicated to someone else, the liars are free to continually update and change their versions of their stories. a lie becomes a lie when it is shared. the goal of lying is to be believed. good liars track the reactions of their audience and modify their stories and behavior to maintain the lie (buller & burgoon, 1996; vrij et al., 2010). once shared, liars should “stick with” their lie in order to avoid detection. so, although both planning and telling lies could provide the content of the lie, sharing the lie provides the motivation to remember the lie exactly as it was told in order to avoid detection. wade, garry, nash, and harper (2010) showed that false memories are affected by an “anchoring effect” in that the first version of the false event is most influential in memory distortion. the version of the story they created first became “truth” to them. similarly, the first version of the event told should anchor the memory; the liar must then remember the details of the told lies to maintain the falsehood. the lie that was shared is now public and the liar could be motivated to commit it to memory, believe it, and accept it as collective “truth”. so although the source monitoring literature might suggest that awareness of cognitive operations while telling a lie might lead to less inflation, studies suggesting that discomfort, lax criterion, motivated forgetting, cognitive dissonance, and maintenance of consistency could lead to higher levels of source confusion when a lie is shared. finally, it is possible that the act of simply speaking the lie out loud while trying to convince the other person they are telling the truth might help liars remember the content of the lie. hopkins and edwards (1972) showed that memory for words that were pronounced was better than for words that were studied silently. therefore, polage 635 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ speaking some lies out loud versus simply thinking about others might make the unspoken lies less memorable than those that were spoken. saying the information out loud can increase memory for that information which would suggest that the content of the spoken lies will be more memorable. in summary, fabricating a lie likely uses many techniques such as imagination and counterfactual thinking that have been shown to result in inflated belief in the false event. lying differs however, in that lies are told to another person with the intention of deceiving the listener. both planning and telling lies will result in created content for the lie which could inflate belief in the created content. however, in terms of ability to source monitor, telling a lie is thought to be more effortful and the cognitive effort could be remembered, especially in the absence of pre-planning the lie when the cognitive effort is greatest. if the creation of the lie is remembered, then familiarity with the content of the lie can be attributed to self-generation of the lie and belief in the lie should decrease. however, if cognitive dissonance is induced, motivated forgetting of having lied could counteract memory for cognitive operations and increase the likelihood of the lie being accepted as true. lying to another person cements the lie as public truth providing the liar motivation to remember the lie and want to believe it. in the absence of clear counter memories, the liar may be more likely to accept the lie as truth and inflate their belief in the lie. told lies might be more simple and plausible which could further increase the likelihood of believing the lie. finally, telling a lie also benefits from the effects of speaking information aloud which has been shown to improve memory for the content of the lie and could make the source judgment more difficult. it is therefore expected that both planning and telling a lie should provide the content of a lie, but that telling a lie could lead to stronger impairments in ability to source monitor due to discomfort, motivated forgetting, and lax criterion. telling a prepared lie should result in all of the impairments of planning and telling the lies such as rehearsal of the lie, cognitive dissonance, motivated forgetting and belief in public record, but in addition should result in an even more difficult source monitoring decision than either planning or telling alone due to repetition of the memory and decreased memory for cognitive operations (due to the decreased effort needed to tell a pre-planned lie). it is therefore expected that planning and telling a lie will have an additive effect and should result in the highest inflation effect. the current study compares the effects of planning and telling lies on belief in the lie and anticipates main effects for both planning and telling a lie, with the highest fabrication occuring for lies that are both planned and told. method participants fifty-two undergraduate students from central washington university participated in the first session of the study, four did not return for the second session, and data from three participants was discarded due to participants repeatedly not following the lying prompts. the resulting 45 participants were used in the final analyses. materials participants' experiences were measured using the life events inventory (lei; garry et al., 1996). the full inventory contains 60 items that ask whether a particular event happened to the participant before the age of 10. the participant rated whether each event happened using a likert-type scale anchored at 1 (definitely did not happen) to 8 (definitely did happen). the lei was administered twice, approximately 2 weeks apart. the telling lies 636 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pretest consisted of 21 of the 60 items from the original. pretest responses were used to get baseline ratings of four target items to be used in the study. the ideal score for each of the four target items was a score of 2 which indicated participants were quite confident the events in question had not happened, however, the placement of the score on the scale still allowed for movement in both directions and avoided a floor effect. after selecting items with an initial rating score of 2, scores of 3 were utilized, then 1 and, finally, as a last resort, an item with a score of 4 was chosen. after selecting the four events, they were randomly assigned to one of the four event conditions (lie 1, lie 2, lie 3, or lie 4 described later). the posttest scores were used in order to compute a change score from pre-test to posttest. the posttest consisted of 42 items (the original 21 items plus 21 new items that served as distractors). participants were also given the dissociative experiences scale (des; bernstein & putnam, 1986) with the intent of using it as a covariate. the des consists of 27 items that ask the participant to estimate how often an experience happens to them. for example, one question states, "some people have the experience of driving a car and suddenly realizing that they don't remember what has happened during all or part of the trip." the participant is asked to estimate what percentage of the time this happens to them. because its relationship to the dependent variables was not significant, it will not be discussed further in this paper. design the study was a within subjects repeated measures design with two independent variables. the first independent variable was whether the lie event was planned (or not) and the second independent variable was whether the lie event was told (or not). the dependent variable was the change in ratings score from lei 1 to lei2 taken two weeks later. procedure after receiving informed consent, participants were given the lei to complete. after completing the lei, participants were given instructions to read while the experimenter excused herself to use the bathroom. in reality, the researcher went into a neighboring room in order to score the lei pretest and select which four life events would be used in the experiment. the experimenter randomly assigned the four events to be either prepared and told (lie 1), not prepared but told (lie 2), prepared but not told (lie 3), or not prepared and not told (control). the instructions provided to the participants included a cover story that explained that the study was designed in order to determine whether it was possible to tell whether someone is lying. they were told they would be asked about some events that may or may not have happened to them and that the interviewer would try to determine whether they were lying. the instructions further explained that the participants would be given items to describe to the interviewer and that they would be told whether to say that the event did or did not occur before the age of 10. so, whether the event happened or not, the participant was to follow the prompting of the interviewer. participants were told that they should be as sincere as possible as the idea was to convince the interviewer that the event actually happened. if the event actually happened before the age of 10 and they were told to say that it happened, they were asked to include factual information. if the event did not occur before the age of 10 and they were told to say that it did happen, they were asked to tell a feasible story in order to convince the interviewer that the event actually happened. polage 637 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when the experimenter finished scoring the lei, she returned to the room and read the instructions with the participant to ensure they were understood. then, she gave the participant an eight-item "events list" that the participant was asked to write stories about; this was the "prepared" manipulation. the events are listed in the appendix in the order given to the participants. note that the two lies come from the participants' lei pretest scores and were randomly chosen from the four items that received a 2 (3, 1, or 4) score. the same six filler items were used for all participants and were not selected based on the ratings given on the first lei; two “yes” responses which were likely to be true for most participants and four “no” responses, two of which were likely to be false and two of which were likely to be true for most participants. for each event on the list that participants would claim to be true, they were asked to answer eight follow-up questions: (1) what were you doing right before this event occurred? (2) where were you? (3) who were you with? (4) how old were you? (5) what time of day was it? (6) how did you feel about this event? (7) what happened right after the event? (8) are there any other details important to this story? for the “no” responses, participants were asked to answer "how do you know that you never _______?". the “no” responses were not of interest to this study, but served as a counterbalance measure to avoid all “yes” responses. participants were given as much time as they needed to complete this part of the experiment, and they generally finished in about 20-30 minutes. when they finished writing about the various events (i.e., "preparing" their lies), they summoned the experimenter from the adjoining room in order to do the next part of the study: the oral interview. for the interview (the "told" manipulation), participants were asked to discuss a variety of events including lie 1 (the same event they "prepared") and lie 2 from the lei pretest (which was not prepared but had to be created on the spot). for each event, participants were either asked to "please tell me about the time that you __________" or to tell the interviewer "how do you know that you never _______?". the instructions were the same in the oral interview as for the written /prepared portion. they were directed to answer according to the interviewer’s prompt even if their response was not true. the same eight follow-up questions used in the writing session were used as prompts in the interview in the same order. the interview session also took about 20-30 minutes. after the interview was completed, they were reminded to return in two weeks for the second session. at the second session, approximately 2 weeks later, participants were run singly or in small groups. they were asked to complete the lei posttest which consisted of 42 events, repeating all 21 from the pretest in addition to 21 previously unpresented events from the original lei. they were then provided with complete disclosure. results and discussion the lei pretest scores were subtracted from posttest scores on the four target events. therefore, there were four change scores per participant: lie 1 (prepared and told), lie 2 (not prepared but told), lie 3 (prepared but not told), and control (neither prepared nor told). if participants increased in their belief in the lie, their change scores should be positive. the mean (standard deviation) change scores are presented in table 1 (below). telling lies 638 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 mean (sd) change scores for experiment 1 target event m (sd) prepared and told (lie 1) 1.51ab (2.21) not prepared but told (lie 2) 1.02 (2.39) prepared and not told (lie 3) 0.80a (2.08) not prepared and not told (lie 4: control) 0.44b (1.98) note. shared subscripts indicate a significant difference at p < .008. telling a lie about an event (m = 1.27) did increase the belief that the event did occur relative to not telling a lie (m = 0.62; f(1, 44) = 5.05, p = .03, η2 = .103). there was no main effect for preparation of the lie (f(1, 44) = 1.66, p = .20, η2 = .036). there was no significant interaction between preparing the event and lying about it (f(1, 44) = 0.06, p = .81, η2 = .001). planned within subject t-test comparisons were conducted using a protected alpha level to test the hypothesis that planning combined with telling would increase inflation effects as compared to simply telling or planning alone. results demonstrated that the planned and told group caused significantly higher inflation scores than the planned only group. there was no significant difference between planning or not planning told lies (see table 1). the results demonstrate that telling a lie to another person in an effort to deceive, and not simply creating a lie, increases belief in the lied about event. telling lies, whether planned or not, resulted in the highest change scores. these results support previous results (polage, 2012) demonstrating that telling lies is yet another paradigm in the long list of methods used to inflate belief in false, self-generated information (imagining: garry et al., 1996; paraphrasing: sharman et al., 2004; explanations: sharman et al., 2005; confabulating: chrobak & zaragoza, 2008; pickel, 2004). it is likely that constructing a lie uses many similar processes as other inflation tasks which result in detailed memories and increased fluency with the memory; however, the current results suggest that it is the telling of the lie and not just the creation of the lie that drives fabrication inflation. as vrij et al. (2010) suggests, good liars tell simple, plausible, and realistic lies which should be easier to believe than complicated, unrealistic lies. attempting to be believable constrains realism that would not be present when simply imagining an event. so, although forming a lie may involve imagery, it may also differ from simple imagination in which there is no external pressure to be believable. lying also cements the lie as public truth providing the liar motivation to remember the lie and want to believe it. in the absence of clear counter memories, the liar may be more likely to accept the lie as truth and inflate their belief in the lie. but telling a lie is thought to be effortful (langleben et al., 2002; zuckerman et al., 1981) which should result in the correct attribution of even a clear and realistic memory as having been fabricated. so why would the told lies show higher inflation than lies that weren’t told? it was expected that the unplanned told lies would have been most difficult to generate (depaulo et al., 2003; greene et al., 1985; walczyk et al., 2009) resulting in the strongest cues for cognitive operations; however, this assumed that participants would use great effort to create a lie without pre-planning. according to leins, fisher, and ross (2013), however, liars may not be working that much harder than truth tellers because one of the main strategies liars use is to recycle true stories. so, similar to telling a preplanned lie that is simply retrieved from memory and hence less cognitively demanding, recycling a true story would not be particularly cognitively demanding and would not result in a strong memory for cognitive operations. if the lie event was already stored in memory, there would be no additional cognitive polage 639 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ resources devoted to creating unplanned lies. this could explain why there was no additional benefit of planning the lies in advance in comparison to telling them on the spot. the strategy used for creating the lie determines how cognitively demanding lie telling is and this variability could affect memory for cognitive operations across participants. polage (2004) showed wide variability in belief in the lie, in that some decreased their belief in the lie and some came to fully believe in it. it was assumed that the source monitoring decision would benefit from the effort involved in telling a lie, however, some lies told might require extreme effort to create while others require less effort than remembering an old true memory. in fact, memon et al. (2010) found an increase in cognitive operations when participants were telling the truth, so telling the truth can also be cognitively demanding, sometimes more so than lying. in addition, verschuere, spruyt, meijer, and otgaar (2011) found that lying was less demanding when liars lied more frequently, and that the lying response became more dominant with repeated use. so, lying may be easier for some participants than others. polage (2012) found that those who lied more often were more likely to show fabrication inflation. as lying increases, the process of lying might get easier, using less cognitive resources to create lies. also, proficient liars might simply have more preplanned lies available in memory. in the absence of memory for the cognitive demands of lying, the other aspects of telling lies that decrease source monitoring ability may have caused participants to increase their belief in the lies. polage (2012) found that those who felt more guilt lying, lied more often and were more likely to believe the lies. these results seem contradictory as you would expect those who feel more guilty lying to do so less often, however, results on cognitive dissonance, suggest that those who feel guilty about lying but do so often are likely to experience psychological discomfort or cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957). believing they didn’t lie is one strategy that can decrease cognitive dissonance and motivated forgetting of having lied or denying information that might go against their preferred reality is one way to bring their beliefs in line with their actions. shu et al. (2011) and kouchaki and gino (2016) showed that cognitive dissonance can result in forgetting of unethical actions. it is possible that participants in this study were faced with whether to believe in an event they have already told someone else was true and of which they have detailed memory. motivated forgetting could impair memories that contradicted having lied and they may find themselves less certain of the truth. since motivated liars should maintain consistency and stick with the version of the story that was first made public (wade et al., 2010) they may increase their doubt in the truth. the change in belief for lies that were told was on average 1.27 points on an 8 point scale which suggests that fabrication inflation may cause a slow eroding of belief, which over time might continue to increase if the lie is maintained and reinforced by others. finally, one cannot discount that verbal lying has the memorial benefits of speaking out loud which has been shown to improve memory (hopkins & edwards, 1972). it is also possible that the liars were maintaining the lie, but that no memory change actually occurred. when studying deception this is always a concern as we don’t know if participants are believing the lie, trying to dupe the researcher, or even responding to perceived demand characteristics. these are possibilities that cannot be overlooked. in summary, the current results showed that telling a lie, in contrast to simply planning a lie, resulted in fabrication inflation and led liars to increase their belief in lies told with the intention of deceiving. based on previous literature, i suggest that the simple, plausible event details that seem familiar and true might increase in belief in the lie. although one might remember the cognitive effort used to create the memory and reject it as false, it is also possible that proficient liars or those who use recycled versions of the truth might not remember creating a lie. it is also possible that the desire to reduce cognitive dissonance by using lax criterion and telling lies 640 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ motivated forgetting of information that contradicts public “truth”, combined with the negative affect of lying can reduce the liar’s ability or desire to effectively source monitor. as this is the first study that directly compares telling versus planning a lie, it raises many questions that need to be addressed in future research. the results support the idea that telling a lie results in fabrication inflation but it does not answer the question of why the effect occurs. for example, are participants motivated to remember the content of the lie in order to remain consistent? if motivation to believe affects memory for the truth, one would expect the lies told to be similar over time. do participants change their “told” lies to be more realistic and hence more believable than their planned only lies (to others and potentially to themselves)? future research should examine the level of detail provided in the lie stories to determine whether liars do attempt to “keep it simple” as vrij et al. (2010) suggests and whether the level of detail has an effect on memory. the interview sessions in the current study were not video-recorded and were therefore not able to be analyzed for content. future research might attempt to examine the consistency of the stories and rate them on criteria based content analysis (cbca; steller & koehnken, 1989) elements. it is possible that stories that score higher on cbca may result in more memory distortion. the effects of lying on belief have been relatively unexplored and the current study suggests that the intentionally deceptive component of lying, not just the creation of the lie, affects belief in the lie. these results suggest that belief change may occur as a result of a deliberate lie and that liars become less confident in the truth after lying. given that the average person lies at least once a day (serota & levine, 2015), the effects of lying on false beliefs have repercussions that affect everyone and continued research into related variables and their effects should be conducted. although the lies told in this study were low stakes lies, it is possible that the factors associated with lying that might increase source monitoring errors such as discomfort and motivated forgetting would be even stronger in high stakes lies such as those involving perjury and coerced false confessions. this research therefore has applications both to everyday experiences and psychology and law topics. funding this research was partially supported by the office of the dean, college of the sciences, central washington university, ellensburg, washington. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references bernstein, e. m., & putnam, f. w. 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(1981). verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. in l. berkowitz (ed.), advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 14, pp. 1-59). new york, ny, usa: academic press. doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60369-x polage 643 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 http://doi.org/10.1002/acp.995 http://doi.org/10.1177/0261927x14528804 http://doi.org/10.2307/4149020 http://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1041 http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211398138 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2010.10.023 http://doi.org/10.1177/009318531003800105 http://doi.org/10.3758/pbr.17.1.66 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-009-9090-8 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix: questions and participant instructions that were used during the written and oral interviews event participant instructions did this really happen to you? did you fall off your bicycle? yes did you shake hands with the president? no lie 1 (prepared and toldused in written and oral interviews) yes did you get a hook stuck in your hand while fishing? no did you build a fort? no lie 2 (not prepared but toldoral)/ lie 3 (prepared but not toldwritten) yes did you swallow chewing gum? yes did you break a favorite toy? no lie 4 (controlneither prepared nor told) --note. the participants were asked to follow the instructions whether the event had or had not actually happened to them. lies 1-4 were based on their responses to the lei 1. the other events were filler questions given to all participants. about the author dr. danielle polage is an associate professor of psychology at central washington university. she specializes in memory research, particularly false memories, lying, and other psychology and law issues. telling lies 644 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 633–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1422 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ telling lies (introduction) method participants materials design procedure results and discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author from organizational justice perceptions to turnover intentions: the mediating effects of burnout and job satisfaction research reports from organizational justice perceptions to turnover intentions: the mediating effects of burnout and job satisfaction juan diego vaamonde* abc, alicia omar a, solana salessi ad [a] national scientific and technical research council (conicet) research institute, school of humanities and arts, national university of rosario, rosario, argentina. [b] school of psychology, national university of rosario, rosario, argentina. [c] department of society, state, and government, national university of rafaela, rafaela, argentina. [d] department of culture, education, and knowledge, national university of rafaela, rafaela, argentina. abstract turnover intentions (ti) stand as an insidious problem that impacts on the functioning of organizations and the well-being of their members. currently, there is a growing interest in identifying the explanatory mechanisms of ti, in order to strengthen and retain valued employees for organizations. in line with this trend, the aim of the present study was to test an integrative serial multiple mediation model that examined the possible mediating role of burnout and job satisfaction in the relationships between organizational justice and ti. to achieve this objective, a cross-sectional empirical study was carried out on a multi-occupational sample of 408 argentine employees (219 women and 189 men). participants completed a self-report questionnaire comprising previously validated measures for the target population. structural equation modeling showed that perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice have negative indirect effects on ti through burnout and job satisfaction, while perceptions of informational justice exert such effects on ti only through job satisfaction. these results indicate that distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice perceptions relate to lower levels of burnout, which in turn promote greater job satisfaction and lower ti among employees. in addition, informational justice perceptions are positively related to job satisfaction, leading to a decrease in employees’ ti. findings are discussed in light of their theoretical and practical implications. managers and human resource professionals could consider the research results in their attempts to design and implement talent retention strategies within organizations. keywords: organizational justice, burnout, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, argentine employees europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 received: 2017-07-17. accepted: 2018-03-05. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: national scientific and technical research council (conicet) research institute, school of humanities and arts, national university of rosario, mitre 1356, (2000) rosario, argentina. e-mail: juandvaamonde@yahoo.com.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the last decades have witnessed profound changes in the world of work. the globalization of economies, together with market liberalization and the emergence of new recruitment and employment rules, has created favorable conditions for labor instability and employee turnover (international labour organization, 2016). at the organizational level, turnover of qualified employees leads to poor performance and high costs of recruitment, selection, and training of new staff; while, at the individual level, turnover affects the levels of commitment, identification, and social integration of workers (chang, wang, & huang, 2013). in order to prevent and intervene in this issue, researchers and organizational specialists have turned to the study of turnover intentions (ti), deeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ fined as employees’ conscious and deliberate willingness to leave their organizations (allisey, noblet, lamontagne, & houdmont, 2014; chang et al., 2013; flint, haley, & mcnally, 2013). over the last years, employees’ ti have occupied a prominent position in human resource management and organizational research, mainly because they stand as a strong predictor of actual employee turnover (chang et al., 2013; tett & meyer, 1993). recent empirical evidence indicates that ti are an insidious phenomenon that has negative consequences for both workers and organizations, such as absenteeism, frustration, low motivation, and reduced work performance (flint et al., 2013; han, han, an, & lim, 2015). in view of this situation, and given the strategic value attributed to the retention of human capital, there is now a growing interest in identifying the explanatory variables of workers’ ti. in this regard, although organizational commitment, occupational stress, and job satisfaction are among the most studied predictors of these withdrawal cognitions (chang et al., 2013), little is known about the role that variables such as organizational justice perceptions or burnout syndrome could play in ti of latin american workers in general, and argentine workers in particular. moreover, while early studies of ti generally focused on their external, work-related and personal correlates, recent research has shifted the focus onto the examination of different models of ti, trying to identify factors that might mediate or moderate the relationships between certain predictor variables and ti (boroş & curşeu, 2013; flint et al., 2013; suurd ralph & holmvall, 2016). in line with this current trend, this paper aims to examine an integrative serial multiple mediation model that posits the possible mediating role of burnout and job satisfaction in the relationships between organizational justice and ti. the study contributes to the literature in two significant ways. first, it extends past research by exploring the potential indirect effects of organizational justice on ti. second, by examining burnout and job satisfaction as serial mediators in the organizational justice–ti relationship, the study contributes to the understanding of the underlying psychological mechanisms through which organizational justice perceptions influence ti of employees. literature review and hypotheses turnover intentions (ti) employee turnover represents one of the most expensive problems of today’s organizations to the point that the cost of a resigning employee equates about a year of her/his salary (boroş & curşeu, 2013). undoubtedly, high rates of voluntary turnover are often harmful to organization performance and work outcomes (flint et al., 2013). in this sense, given that ti constitute the final step of a series of withdrawal cognitions and/or behaviors, they are considered a useful variable to anticipate and prevent employee turnover (chang et al., 2013; flint et al., 2013; tett & meyer, 1993). besides, even when ti do not lead to actual turnover, they have a negative impact on organizational effectiveness, as employees with unfulfilled ti are likely to engage in other kinds of withdrawal behaviors (ferreira, martinez, lamelas, & rodrigues, 2017). thus, as chang et al. (2013, p. 2) stated, “if antecedents of ti can be identified in advance, firms can develop appropriate interventions to enhance competitive advantage and prevent avoidable visible and invisible costs”. the literature review indicates that one potential useful antecedent of ti are organizational justice perceptions. however, empirical research on the relationship between these variables is still scarce. in fact, a search in the databases academic search premier, psychology and behavioral sciences collection, and psycinfo, with turnover and justice as general subject terms, yields a total of only 134 papers published between 1991 and 2017, and none of these studies has been carried out in latin america or the caribbean. this is rather surprisvaamonde, omar, & salessi 555 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ing given the abundance of evidence (e.g., international labour organization, 2015) claiming the importance of identifying determinants of turnover so as to boost employee retention and organizational performance. consequently, the general purpose of this research was to contribute to fill this gap by analyzing the relationships between organizational justice and ti among argentine employees. organizational justice and ti organizational justice refers to employees’ perceptions of what is fair and what is unfair within their organizations (colquitt, 2001). it has been defined as a multidimensional construct composed of four distinct factors (colquitt et al., 2013): distributive justice (perceived fairness related to outcomes and distributions), procedural justice (perceived fairness of procedures used to determine outcome distributions), interpersonal justice (quality of interpersonal treatment received when procedures are implemented), and informational justice (level of adequacy, honesty, and convenience of information conveyed about why procedures are used a certain way or how outcomes are determined). organizational justice has captured the attention of experts due to its effects on a wide repertoire of employee attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors towards the organizations and their members (colquitt et al., 2013; silva & caetano, 2016). previous studies (campbell, perry, maertz, allen, & griffeth, 2013; kim & kao, 2014; silva & caetano, 2016; suurd ralph & holmvall, 2016) have shown that justice perceptions promote higher organizational commitment, higher job satisfaction, and lower ti. this observation finds support in social exchange theory (blau, 1964), which posits that if employees perceive benefits in their work exchanges, they are likely to continue to participate in them; if not, if there is little compensation or unfair organizational treatment, employees are likely to avoid future exchanges, and one form of avoidance involves resorting to withdrawal cognitions and/or behaviors (flint et al., 2013). so, based on these antecedents, we hypothesize that: hypothesis 1: organizational justice perceptions (i.e. distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice) will be negatively related to ti (h1). to date, the limited research available on the linkages between organizational justice and ti has focused almost entirely on their direct relationships, neglecting the study of possible mediating variables. in an attempt to address this limitation, flint et al. (2013) reported that justice perceptions exert an indirect effect on ti of canadian employees through their organizational and supervisory commitment. tayfur, karapinar, and camgoz (2013) found that emotional exhaustion and cynicism mediated the relationships between perceptions of justice and ti of turkish employees. more recently, suurd ralph and holmvall (2016) observed that overall justice and strain mediated the relationships between distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice and ti of canadian armed forces personnel. despite this empirical evidence, no research has so far examined the possible serial mediating effects of burnout and job satisfaction in the relationships between organizational justice and ti. burnout and job satisfaction as mediators between organizational justice and ti the term burnout describes a syndrome characterized by emotional exhaustion, cynicism or depersonalization, and reduced or lack of personal accomplishment, which results from long-term exposure to emotionally demanding stressors in the workplace (leka & jain, 2010; maslach & jackson, 1986). such stressors exceed individuals’ coping abilities and can ultimately affect their health in a negative way. although the study of burnout was initially confined to caring and social professions (e.g., nurses, doctors, dentists, social workers, and teachers), researchers have expanded its analysis to include a much broader spectrum of workers (leka & jain, 2010). organizational justice and turnover intentions 556 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ previous research (campbell et al., 2013; moreno-jiménez, gálvez-herrer, rodríguez-carvajal, & sanz vergel, 2012; tayfur et al., 2013) has shown that burnout develops as employees find themselves immersed in situations of chronic stress, including work environments where low organizational justice prevails. employees who perceive constant unfair treatment at work are likely to feel emotionally exhausted, to undervalue their abilities and achievements, and to develop cynical attitudes toward their organization and coworkers. this increase in burnout levels can lead, in turn, to higher ti among employees (han et al., 2015; moreno-jiménez et al., 2012). so, considering these antecedents and arguments, we propose the following hypothesis: hypothesis 2: burnout will be negatively related to organizational justice perceptions (h2a) and positively related to ti (h2b). a wide diversity of studies show that burnout has a clear negative impact on job satisfaction (leka & jain, 2010; scanlan & still, 2013), which is usually defined as an attitude toward work experiences that includes cognitive and emotional aspects and has important implications for both employee behavior and organizational outcomes (moura, orgambídez-ramos, & gonçalves, 2014; salessi & omar, 2016). individuals suffering from emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and/or lack of personal accomplishment at work will, understandably, experience job dissatisfaction, increasing their chances of developing ti (kuo, lin, & li, 2014; salessi & omar, 2016). these withdrawal cognitions emerge as a coping mechanism triggered by the unpleasant situation, in a failed endeavor to elude it. in fact, over the years, numerous studies have examined the relationship between job satisfaction and labor turnover (e.g., allisey et al., 2014; kim & kao, 2014; kuo et al., 2014; scanlan & still, 2013; zeffane & bani melhem, 2017), concluding that satisfied employees present low or no ti. therefore, based on these antecedents, we posit the following hypothesis: hypothesis 3: job satisfaction will be positively related to organizational justice perceptions (h3a) and negatively related to burnout (h3b) and ti (h3c). as for the mediating roles of burnout and job satisfaction, only a handful of studies have recently started to examine these roles in ti explanatory models. in this sense, regarding burnout, gabel shemueli, dolan, suárez ceretti, and nuñez del prado (2016) found that it fully mediated the relationship between work overload and ti of nurses from spain and uruguay. in a similar vein, amponsah-tawiah, annor, and arthur (2016) observed, in a multi-occupational ghanaian sample, that commuting stress was indirectly related to job satisfaction and ti via burnout. also, based on a sample of pakistani engineers and supervisors, shaukat, yousaf, and sanders (2017) used structural equation modeling to prove that burnout mediated the association between relationship conflict and different outcome variables, including ti. regarding job satisfaction as a mediator variable, kuo et al. (2014) showed that it significantly mediated the relationship between work stress and ti among long-term care nurses in taiwan. also, drawing on data from a sample of chinese nurses, feng, su, yang, xia, and su (2017) observed that social status exerted significant indirect effects on ti through job satisfaction. finally, ferreira et al. (2017) conducted a multilevel study with portuguese hotel employees in which they confirmed that job satisfaction and job embeddedness fully mediated the relationship between different task characteristics and ti. the mediating roles of burnout and job satisfaction in the relationship between organizational justice and ti could be explained from the perspective of the conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 1989), which states that individuals seek to acquire and maintain resources (objects, characteristics, conditions, and/or energies) and when there is a loss (or a threat of a loss) of such resources, they become stressed. in the context of this study, perceived low organizational justice is considered a stressor that threats individual resources (e.g., salvaamonde, omar, & salessi 557 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ary, time, fair working conditions, etc.). this situation could promote over time higher levels of burnout, leading to lower job satisfaction and greater ti among employees. so, in spite of the fact that conclusive evidence indicates, on the one hand, that low justice perceptions produce higher burnout and lower job satisfaction, and, on the other hand, that a decrease in job satisfaction generates a breeding ground for the development of employees’ ti (allisey et al., 2014; chang et al., 2013; feng et al., 2017; international labour organization, 2016; scanlan & still, 2013; shaukat et al., 2017; tayfur et al., 2013), no research has yet explored the possible links between organizational justice, burnout, job satisfaction, and ti in a single integrative model. therefore, in light of these theoretical and empirical antecedents, and considering the insufficiency of the current state of knowledge to account for ti, the aim of the present study was to analyze the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between organizational justice perceptions and ti of argentine employees. specifically, we tested a serial multiple mediation model in which justice perceptions and ti were set as predictor and criterion variables, respectively, while burnout and job satisfaction played the role of mediating variables (figure 1). the main hypothesis of this model was as follows: hypothesis 4: burnout and job satisfaction will act as serial mediators in the relationships between organizational justice perceptions (i.e. distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice) and ti (h4). figure 1. proposed serial mediation model. method design the study adopted an empirical, cross-sectional research design. it was framed within the guidelines of the associative-explanatory strategy (ato, lópez, & benavente, 2013), since its purpose was to explore the functional relationships between a particular group of variables to predict or explain their behavior. according to ato and his colleagues (2013), three characteristics allow to operationally define this type of non-experimental study: (a) the existence of a single sample of participants that is not usually randomly selected; (b) the measurement of two or more variables that are generally of a quantitative nature; and (c) the availability of a correlation or a covariance matrix for the statistical analysis. in this particular research, the explanatory design is composed of organizational justice and turnover intentions 558 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a measurement and a structural model, with both latent and observed variables. these models are known as structural equation models (sem). participants four hundred and eight employees (219 women and 189 men) of public and private organizations located in the central region of argentina participated in the study. their mean age was 29.4 years (sd = 9.2) and the mean tenure was 4.7 years (sd = 5.5). regarding their educational level, 34.8% had secondary education, 39.5% had tertiary education, and the remaining 25.7% had university education. in relation to the organizational sector, 36.3% worked in public organizations, and 63.7% worked in private companies. as far as organizational activity is concerned, 38.5% belonged to trade/business companies, 21.6% to educational institutions, 19.3% to industries, 15.7% to public administration, and the remaining 4.9% to health organizations. while 41.7% and 54.2% were hired and permanent employees, respectively, 4.1% were managers or supervisors. measures organizational justice organizational justice was explored using the argentine adaptation (vaamonde & salessi, 2014) of colquitt’s organizational justice scale (2001). this measure consists of 20 items that explore the dimensions of distributive justice (4 items, α = .90, e.g., “my outcomes [salary, promotions, rewards, etc.] reflect the effort i have put into my work”), procedural justice (7 items, α = .87, e.g., “the procedures that my organization uses to make decisions and arrive at my outcomes have been applied consistently”), interpersonal justice (4 items, α = .92, e.g., “my boss/supervisor/manager has treated me in a polite manner”), and informational justice (5 items, α = .90, e.g., “my boss/supervisor/manager has provided me with reasonable explanations regarding the procedures enacted”). the items were assessed using a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). the instrument has proven to have good validity indices (χ2/df = 2.36, pgfi = .61, gfi = .91, cfi = .94, rmsea = .03). the original average variance extracted (ave) values (all above .60), as well as their square roots, demonstrate adequate convergent and discriminant validity. burnout the latin american validation (gonzález-llaneza, 2007) of the maslach burnout inventory (maslach & jackson, 1986) was utilized to assess burnout syndrome. this instrument is composed of 22 items distributed in three dimensions: emotional exhaustion (9 items, α = .87, e.g., “i feel emotionally drained from my work”), depersonalization (5 items, α = .73, e.g., “i feel i treat some people at my work as if they were impersonal objects”), and reduced or lack of personal accomplishment (8 reverse scored items, α = .72, e.g., “i have accomplished many worthwhile things in this job”). a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) was used to assess these dimensions. the inventory presents adequate validity indices (χ2 = 224.63, p < .001, gfi = .92, agfi = .89, cfi = .93, rmsea = .07) and ample evidence of convergent and discriminant validity across different spanish-speaking contexts (gil-monte, 2005; martínez pérez, 2010; olivaresfaúndez, mena-miranda, macía-sepúlveda, & jélvez-wilke, 2014). job satisfaction the argentine validation (salessi & omar, 2016) of the job satisfaction scale (macdonald & macintyre, 1997) was used to examine this variable. this measure explores job satisfaction as a single factor through 7 items vaamonde, omar, & salessi 559 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (α = .82, e.g., “i feel good working for this organization”) with a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). confirmatory factor analysis has shown remarkable validity indices for this instrument (χ2 = 18.79, p = .07, gfi = .99, agfi = .97, cfi = .99, rmsea = .04). convergent/discriminant validity was originally assessed through correlations between the scores on job satisfaction and other theoretically related constructs such as commitment and trust, achieving good psychometric results (salessi & omar, 2016). turnover intentions ti were measured using the turnover intentions scale developed by vaamonde (2015). this instrument consists of 7 items that explore the construct as a single factor (α = .91, e.g., “i am thinking of leaving my job”) with a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). the measure exhibits satisfactory validity indices (χ2 = 1.11, p = .35, gfi = .98, agfi = .96, cfi = .99, rmsea = .02) as well as convergent and discriminant validity (ave > .60; √ave greater than inter-construct correlations). demographic data the questionnaire included a final section to collect the following demographic data: gender, age, educational level, tenure, position, organizational sector, and organizational activity. procedures all participants were contacted at their workplaces and informed of the objectives of the study. after this introduction, they were invited to answer a booklet containing a sheet of informed consent, a set of detailed instructions, and the instruments described above. data collection took place during working hours at the physical spaces provided by the organizations for this purpose. participation was anonymous and voluntary, and no incentives were offered for completing the survey. with regard to ethical issues, the study was reviewed and approved by the research ethics committee of the national university of rosario, argentina (resolution c.s. nº 206/2015). it was therefore conducted in full compliance with the research ethical standards recommended not only by the national university of rosario and the conicet, argentina, but also by the american psychological association. data analysis first, preliminary analyses were performed to examine the presence of missing values, outliers, and influential observations, such as skewness, kurtosis, and multicollinearity (hair, black, babin, & anderson, 2010). second, a confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to assess the measurement model. third, descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations were calculated between the variables of interest. fourth, the proposed theoretical model was tested by means of structural equation modeling. the strategy of rival models was used to contrast two mediation models. to evaluate the goodness of fit, the following tests and indices were calculated: chisquare (χ2), χ2/degrees of freedom ratio (χ2/df), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker-lewis index (tli), parsimony normed fit index (pnfi), root mean standard error of approximation (rmsea), and the closeness of fit for rmsea (pclose, p of close fit). adequate goodness-of-fit is indicated by χ2/df less than 3, cfi and tli equal to or greater than .90, pnfi greater than .50, rmsea less than .05, and pclose greater than .50 (byrne, 2016; hair et al., 2010). besides, when comparing alternative models with different degrees of freedom, the one with the highest pnfi presents the highest level of parsimonious fit. finally, the indirect effects of organizational justice on ti through burnout and job satisfaction were examined using bootstrap analysis, selectorganizational justice and turnover intentions 560 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ing 5000 random samples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals. these analyses were performed using spss 20 and amos 20. results preliminary data analyses given that less than 2% of missing values were detected, median imputation was used for their replacement. skewness and kurtosis statistics did not exceed the critical limits of ±2.0 (byrne, 2016; hair et al., 2010). mahalanobis and cook’s distances did not reveal the presence of outliers or influential observations, and no multicollinearity problems were found among the study variables. taken together, these results supported the implementation of structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation method. measurement model analysis a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the measurement model. organizational justice, job satisfaction, and ti were estimated as correlated first-order factors, with their respective items as observable variables. in order to achieve greater model parsimony (byrne, 2016), burnout was operationalized as a second-order latent construct, with its corresponding dimensions, indicators, and interfactor correlations. to optimize the initial model fit (table 1), and considering the theoretical basis for the different constructs, those items with standardized factor loadings lower than .60 were deleted, leading to final loadings ranging from .60 to .92 (p < .01). as can be seen in table 1, the fit indices obtained for this revised model were very satisfactory. furthermore, with the purpose of assessing construct reliability and validity, cronbach’s alpha coefficients and composite reliability (cr), average variance extracted (ave), and square root of ave were calculated for each factor. cronbach’s alphas and cr equal to or greater than .70, ave equal to or greater than .50, and square roots of ave greater than inter-construct correlations are considered sufficient evidence of reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, respectively (hair et al., 2010; henseler, ringle, & sarstedt, 2015). as shown in table 2, all these reliability and validity analyses yielded expected results. harman’s one-factor test was also performed to rule out common method biases (podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012). table 1 goodness-of-fit statistics for the estimated measurement models model χ2 df χ2/df cfi tli pnfi rmsea pclose initial measurement model 2696.81** 1454 1.86 .90 .90 .77 .05 .99 revised measurement model 1197.43** 675 1.77 .95 .95 .81 .04 .99 note. cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; pnfi = parsimony normed fit index; rmsea = root mean standard error of approximation (rmsea); pclose = p of close fit. **p < .001. vaamonde, omar, & salessi 561 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 reliability and validity indices of the measures measure cronbach’s α cr ave √ ave 1. distributive justice .93 .93 .76 .87 2. procedural justice .86 .87 .52 .72 3. interpersonal justice .87 .89 .67 .82 4. informational justice .92 .91 .68 .82 5. burnout .85 .76 .54 .73 6. job satisfaction .83 .81 .52 .72 7. ti .92 .92 .62 .79 note. ti = turnover intentions; cr = composite reliability; ave = average variance extracted. descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations table 3 presents the means, standard deviations, and product-moment correlations coefficients for the variables of interest. as expected, all facets of organizational justice perceptions (i.e. distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice) were negatively related to both ti (h1) and burnout (h2a), and positively related to job satisfaction (h3a), while ti were positively associated with burnout (h2b) and negatively associated with job satisfaction (h3c). burnout also appeared to be negatively linked to job satisfaction (h3b). therefore, hypotheses 1 to 3 were fully supported. table 3 descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations between the variables under study (n = 408) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. distributive justice 2.68 1.19 2. procedural justice 3.17 1.01 .50** 3. interpersonal justice 4.18 0.95 .33** .48** 4. informational justice 3.69 1.16 .44** .64** .66** 5. burnout 2.47 0.65 -.47** -.51** -.47** -.48** 6. job satisfaction 3.43 0.78 .54** .57** .44** .56** -.56** 7. ti 2.79 1.14 -.40** -.44** -.30** -.39** .49** -.66** note. ti = turnover intentions. **p < .001. structural model analysis the strategy of rival models was adopted, contrasting two mediation models: a first model in which the direct effects of organizational justice on job satisfaction and ti were restricted to zero, as well as the direct effects of burnout on ti; and a second model that was freely estimated, including all residual direct effects. although both models showed satisfactory fit indices (table 4), the results of the χ2 difference test (δχ2(9) = 17.88, p = .04) indicated that the residual effects added to the second mediation model significantly improved goodness-of-fit. figure 2 presents the regression coefficients of this second model. as can be seen, distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice are negatively related to burnout, which is negatively related to job satisfaction, leading to decreased ti among employees. contrary to expectations, informational justice only presents a positive relationship with job satisfaction, which could be identified by the addition of the residual effects in the second organizational justice and turnover intentions 562 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ model. the amount of variance explained (r2) for each endogenous construct was 56% for burnout, 84% for job satisfaction, and 62% for ti. table 4 goodness-of-fit statistics for the estimated mediation models model χ2 df χ2/df cfi tli pnfi rmsea pclose first mediation model 1188.60** 683 1.74 .95 .95 .83 .04 .99 second mediation model 1170.71** 674 1.74 .95 .95 .82 .04 .99 note. cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; pnfi = parsimony normed fit index; rmsea = root mean standard error of approximation (rmsea); pclose = p of close fit. **p < .001. figure 2. final serial mediation model. note. unstandardized regression coefficients (b), standard errors (in brackets), and r2 are reported. for ease of visual interpretation, observed variables (indicators) and non-significant relationships were eliminated from the figure. *p < .05. **p < .01. finally, bootstrap analysis was performed to check for serial multiple mediation. table 5 presents the indirect effects calculated with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. as can be observed, the distributive, procedural, and interpersonal dimensions of organizational justice exert a significant negative indirect effect on ti through burnout and job satisfaction. this implies that perceptions of justice promote lower levels of burnout among employees, which in turn increases their job satisfaction, promoting lower ti. informational justice only presents a negative indirect effect on ti through job satisfaction. there were no significant residual direct effects of organizational justice on ti. these results supported hypothesis 4, except for the mediating role of burnout in the relationship between informational justice, job satisfaction, and ti. vaamonde, omar, & salessi 563 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 indirect effects of organizational justice on ti relations indirect effects 95% bootstrap ci distributive justice→burnout→ti .01 -.16; .38 distributive justice→satisfaction→ti -.08 -.30; .06 distributive justice→burnout→satisfaction→ti -.17* -.64; -.06 procedural justice→burnout→ti .03 -.28; .68 procedural justice→satisfaction→ti .05 -.17; .54 procedural justice→burnout→satisfaction→ti -.30* -1.22; -.10 interpersonal justice→burnout→ti .02 -.18; .67 interpersonal justice→satisfaction→ti .11 -.17; .71 interpersonal justice→burnout→satisfaction→ti -.22* -.93; -.03 informational justice→burnout→ti .00 -.07; .33 informational justice→satisfaction→ti -.25* -.88; -.01 informational justice→burnout→satisfaction→ti -.04 -.35; .21 note. unstandardized indirect effects are reported (b). ci = confidence intervals; satisfaction = job satisfaction; ti = turnover intentions. *p < .05. discussion the aim of the present study was to test a serial multiple mediation model that explored the mediating role of burnout and job satisfaction in the relationships between organizational justice perceptions and ti of argentine employees. the development and verification of this theoretical model sheds light on the understanding of a problem that is common to many organizations and involves complex, costly, and time-consuming solutions: workers’ withdrawal cognitions and behaviors. our findings show that perceptions of justice are negatively related to ti of employees. according to previous studies (colquitt, 2001; colquitt et al., 2013; flint et al., 2013; kim & kao, 2014; suurd ralph & holmvall, 2016), workers who present less ti are those who perceive fairness in salary, promotions, and other outcomes (distributive justice), in the methods and procedures used to arrive at decisions (procedural justice), in the quality of the interpersonal treatment received (interpersonal justice), and in the adequacy and amount of explanations provided by management (informational justice). as can be derived from the postulates of social exchange theory (blau, 1964), these results suggest that individuals who perceive fairness in their organizational exchanges experience less intentions to quit or withdraw from their jobs, while those who perceive low justice and lack of reciprocity in their relations with the organization, manifest higher ti. the structural equation analysis indicates that the relationships between organizational justice and ti are mediated by burnout and job satisfaction in an interconnected chain. specifically, perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice are linked to lower levels of burnout, which results in greater job satisfaction, promoting in turn fewer ti among employees. this finding is consistent with a growing number of studies that have observed that organizational justice negatively impacts on the emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment that characterize burnout syndrome (campbell et al., 2013; flint et al., 2013; tayfur et al., 2013). in line with the conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 1989), justice perceptions are associated with resources valued by employees (e.g., salary, rewards, fair procedures, adequate inorganizational justice and turnover intentions 564 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ terpersonal treatment, etc.), and obtaining and maintaining these resources is related to lower levels of burnout. prior research (leka & jain, 2010; moura et al., 2014; scanlan & still, 2013) has reported that the reduction of burnout syndrome leads to greater job satisfaction, a variable that is recognized not only for its mediating role between work stress factors and ti (ferreira et al., 2017; kuo et al., 2014), but also for its potential to decrease withdrawal cognitions in different occupational groups (allisey et al., 2014). on the contrary, the results suggest that low justice perceptions produce a feeling of lack of control over work conditions and outcomes, thus generating an increase in burnout and a decrease in job satisfaction, which in turn fuels ti among individuals. furthermore, perceptions of informational justice show positive associations with job satisfaction, which promotes a reduction of ti. this finding indicates that the provision of adequate, timely, and convenient explanations of the decision-making process acts as a motivator for employees (colquitt et al., 2013; silva & caetano, 2016), reinforcing job satisfaction and strengthening intentions to stay in the organization. it is worth noting that of the four dimensions of organizational justice, procedural justice had the strongest indirect effect on ti through the proposed mediators. this observation can be explained by the fact that perceived fairness in organizational procedures fosters stronger work emotional responses, providing a basis for the development of relationships of greater trust, loyalty, and involvement with the organization (colquitt et al., 2013; tayfur et al., 2013). the results of the study provide several practical implications for organizations. in this regard, human resource managers and specialists could design and implement different talent retention strategies in order to reduce the undesirable indirect effects of low organizational justice on ti. these strategies can be conceived in terms of distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational factors that can optimize employee retention and thus intervene in the withdrawal process before it is too late. distributive retention strategies do not only include higher salaries, but also fringe benefits and incentives aimed at recognizing employees’ motivation, performance, and commitment. in fact, the best distributive way of promoting and motivating employees to stay in the organization would be a combination of appropriate pay across organizational levels, career opportunities, promotions, bonus, and other kinds of rewards such as retirement benefits and travel possibilities (al mamun & hasan, 2017; bryant & allen, 2013). this is particularly important for employees who possess skills that are in demand, since they are likely to be tempted by higher salaries or better benefits. there are also several retention strategies organizations can adopt that do not entail major additional costs. these solutions involve procedural, interpersonal, and informational approaches. with respect to procedural strategies, it would be wise to implement fair and equitable procedures for making distributions and compensations as well as developing programs that include job rotation and reduce role ambiguity and role conflict (bryant & allen, 2013; ferreira et al., 2017). moreover, employers should provide the necessary conditions for employees to meet their knowledge and work-family needs (e.g., positions that match their skills, fair appraisal policies, monitoring levels of work-family balance), and also create opportunities for greater employee participation in the decision-making process (al mamun & hasan, 2017; colquitt et al., 2013; deery & jago, 2015; silva & caetano, 2016). what is more, if the organizational culture of argentine public and private organizations is considered (omar & urteaga, 2010), another effective strategy would be to implement more flexible human resource practices and clearer organizational goals in the public sector, and more employee-focused human resource practices and more democratic participation in the private sector. such strategies would encourage not vaamonde, omar, & salessi 565 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ only fairness perceptions at work, but also a reduction of stress levels and an increase in job satisfaction, favoring employee retention. as regards interpersonal strategies, human resource experts assert that poor leadership and supervision leads to higher turnover rates. hence, it is vital for organizations to coach their managers in effective leadership skills and to promote honest respectful interpersonal working relations. in this sense, “one of the most important retention tools is being a leader instead of a manager” (al mamun & hasan, 2017, p. 68), pushing towards the potential of employees, appreciating their performance, and providing tools for personal and professional development (ferreira et al. 2017). managers could also create opportunities to foster interaction and cohesion between newcomers and experienced workers, so as to increase the sense of being embedded in the organization. last, concerning informative retention strategies, management should create work environments where important information is shared efficiently, and standards and procedures used for making organizational decisions are clearly communicated (bryant & allen, 2013). the proposed serial mediation model suggests that if retention strategies are applied, organizations have a good chance of improving organizational justice perceptions, thus reducing the harmful impact of low fairness on burnout, job satisfaction and, eventually, ti. efforts to improve talent retention should also include mechanisms to periodically assess the mediating variables involved in the turnover process. this practice requires building up basic trust among employees or working with outside consultants to collect, analyze and interpret the data (bryant & allen, 2013). last, but not least, it is necessary to point out some strengths and limitations of the study. among the latter, it should be noted that the convenience sampling method prevents the generalization of the results to the population of argentine workers. also, the cross-sectional nature of the study implies that no conclusions can be drawn with respect to causal relationships. to overcome these limitations, future research could examine the problem through experimental or longitudinal designs. nonetheless, it should be highlighted that the direct and indirect effects found in our mediation model fit in a large research tradition and are consistent with both theoretical postulates and previous empirical results (campbell et al., 2013; colquitt et al., 2013; flint et al., 2013; kim & kao, 2014; kuo et al., 2014; leka & jain, 2010; scanlan & still, 2013). another possible weakness concerns the use of self-report measures, which could have caused common method bias. to address this possible limitation, some non-statistical remedies were introduced in the research design (podsakoff et al., 2012), such as verbal and written assurances of response anonymity and the use of distinct sections, instructions, and response formats throughout the questionnaire, all of which probably contributed to the satisfactory result of the harman’s single-factor test. as for the strengths of the study, to our knowledge this is the first attempt to explore not only ti in the argentine organizational context, but also the possible intermediate links that act in the relationships between justice perceptions and ti. our results extend and support past research that has reported significant partial relationships between the variables under study, providing empirical confirmation of the serial multiple mediation model proposed. in particular, this paper extends previous findings (salessi & omar, 2017) by verifying the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationships between certain dispositional/contextual variables and key outcome variables for the functioning of argentine organizations. future research could test our model with samples of employees from other countries, as well as consider the inclusion of other potentially significant variables for the development of withdrawal cognitions and behaviors (e.g., organizational commitment, positive/negative affect, organizational support, etc.). finally, the findings of our study not only contribute to a better comprehension of the processes that lead employees to leave their organizations, but also provide organizational justice and turnover intentions 566 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 https://www.psychopen.eu/ useful information to design and implement organizational programs to reinforce job stability and improve employee retention. funding this study was supported by the national scientific and technical research council (conicet) and by the national university of rosario (research project psi318), argentina. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allisey, a. f., noblet, a. j., lamontagne, a. d., & houdmont, j. 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(2017). trust, job satisfaction, perceived organizational performance and turnover intention: a public-private sector comparison in the united arab emirates. employee relations, 39, 1148-1167. doi:10.1108/er-06-2017-0135 about the authors juan diego vaamonde, phd, is a postdoctoral fellow at the national scientific and technical research council (conicet), an associate professor at the national university of rafaela, and an assistant professor at the national university of rosario, argentina. his current research interests lie in the field of health, organizational and social psychology. alicia omar, phd, is a scientific research at the national scientific and technical research council (conicet), argentina. her primary research interests cover psychometrics, personality, and organizational psychology. solana salessi, phd, is a postdoctoral fellow at the national scientific and technical research council (conicet) and an associate professor at the national university of rafaela, argentina. her current research interests focus on organizational psychology. organizational justice and turnover intentions 570 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 554–570 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1490 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-016-0263-0 https://doi.org/10.1037/mil0000104 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033938 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1993.tb00874.x https://doi.org/10.1108/er-06-2017-0135 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ organizational justice and turnover intentions (introduction) literature review and hypotheses method design participants measures procedures data analysis results preliminary data analyses measurement model analysis descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations structural model analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors frogs’ legs versus roast beef: how culture can influence mind-wandering episodes across the lifespan research reports frogs’ legs versus roast beef: how culture can influence mindwandering episodes across the lifespan léa m. martinon a, jonathan smallwood b, colin hamilton a, leigh m. riby* a [a] psychology department, northumbria university, newcastle-upon-tyne, united kingdom. [b] psychology department, university of york, york, united kingdom. abstract numerous studies have captured the nature of mind-wandering and how it changes across the lifespan; however, the influence of culture has been neglected. this study investigated the joint effects of culture and age in a large scale online questionnaire-based survey of 308 adults over 18 years of age, both in france and the united kingdom. to capture a profile of thinking style, self-report measures of mindwandering frequency, mindfulness, mood, rumination, self-reflection, future thinking, depressive symptoms, and cognitive failures were gathered. findings revealed an earlier decrease in mind-wandering frequency for french speaking participants. cultural effects were demonstrated on rumination and reflection rates across the life span, with in general more rumination and less reflection for english speakers. overall, negatively toned thoughts were dominant for english compared to more expressive thoughts in general for french speakers. confirmatory factor analyses featured different theoretical models to explain mind-wandering frequency in the french and british populations. this study provides the basis for further investigations of sociocultural influences on the eclectic phenomenon of mindwandering. keywords: mind-wandering, day-dreaming, cultural differences, self-generated thoughts, aging, rumination, reflection europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 received: 2018-02-02. accepted: 2018-06-05. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: psychology department, northumbria university, newcastle-upon-tyne ne1 8st, uk. e-mail: leigh.riby@northumbria.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the study of the wandering mind has accelerated in recent years, primarily due to the importance of such thought processes on everyday behaviour and wellbeing. in the literature, mind-wandering has been referred to as task-unrelated thought (giambra, 1989), daydreaming (cundiff & gold, 1979; poerio, totterdell, emerson, & miles, 2015), and more recently self-generated thought (smallwood, 2013). the commonality between all is the disengagement from the processing of the external world to internal thoughts and feelings. however, trains of thought of this nature can take many forms (i.e., related to the self or to others, to the past, or to the future; baird, smallwood, & schooler, 2011) and have both positive and negative consequences (e.g., planning and enhanced problem solving, baird et al., 2012; cognitive failures, mooneyham & schooler, 2013; and mood changes, poerio, totterdell, & miles, 2013). mind-wandering is known to take up anywhere from a third to half of our mental life (killingsworth & gilbert, 2010), and can impact on everyday life activities (cowley, 2013; mcvay, kane, & kwapil, 2009) yet little is known about how culture impacts on the frequency, content, and consequences of mind-wandering across the lifespan. the phenomenon has been investigated across the globe; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ namely, china (deng, li, & tang, 2012; song & wang, 2012), united states of america (levinson, smallwood, & davidson, 2012), united kingdom (smallwood, nind, & o’connor, 2009), belgium (stawarczyk, majerus, maj, van der linden, & d’argembeau, 2011) and germany (tusche, smallwood, bernhardt, & singer, 2014). yet, given how socio-cultural research has dominated investigations into psychological phenomenon, it is surprising that no recent direct comparisons of populations on the nature and frequency of self-generated thoughts have been carried out. cultural implications very little research has focused on the impact of culture on mind-wandering experiences. one large scale questionnaire study explored characteristics of adults’ daydreaming; singer and mccraven (1961) evidenced cultural differences in daydreaming frequency and content. afro-american and jewish participants presented the highest daydreaming frequency compared to their british counterparts. although the nature of the variability was not specified, the authors argued that variations in family constellations (complex bonds and family relationships) and life experiences in general drive such differences. indeed, jewish cultural values, such as the encouragement of self-reflection and open communication between family members, may play an important role in mind-wandering frequency and identity creation. elsewhere, research has evidenced that mind-wandering scaffolds and maintains a continuous feeling of “self” and identity (smallwood et al., 2011; song & wang, 2012). rather than explaining the pattern of findings in terms of relatively more positive aspects of daydreaming (self-reflections), for the afro-americans, negative life events (e.g., bullying) were suggested to give rise to a greater propensity for unpleasant thoughts and the likelihood of developing psychological problems associated with rumination (e.g., depression, salmon, 2000; erdur-baker, 2009). more recently, research showed that european-heritage students tend to mind wander more than asian-heritage students or japanese exchange students (sude, 2015). yet, others failed to demonstrate any cultural differences, between portuguese and brazilian participants, in terms of frequency or content of mind-wandering experiences (gonçalves et al., 2017). nevertheless, their results suggested that portuguese students used mind wandering to their advantage more than brazilian students. together these studies point to the influence of culture on the occurrence and the characteristics of mind wandering, and provides the foundation for the study presented here. although the examination of cultural differences in mind-wandering has been neglected, data from the language domain are informative and may aid in the generation of hypotheses for future experimental work. our thoughts and feeling during mind-wandering episodes are composed largely of inner speech rather than visual imagery (bastian et al., 2017; stawarczyk, cassol, & d’argembeau, 2013). additionally, once internalized, language plays a crucial role in shaping cognitive processes and organizing thoughts (vygotsky, 1962). according to whorf (1956), certain properties of a given language affect the way people perceive and remember and so through language, culture may influence people’s self-generated and unconscious thought processes. for example, the different way of talking about time between english and mandarin corresponds to discrepancies in how english and mandarin speakers think about time (boroditsky, 2001). abstract thoughts involving time tend to be shaped and organised differently with vertical (mandarin) and horizontal (english) metaphors driving how time is conceptualized. therefore, considering that two languages may impact on the nature of abstract thoughts differently, it is not unreasonable to suggest language will have a more universal impact on self-generated thoughts studied here. mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 212 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the vast majority of studies investigating cultural differences on psychological phenomena often compare western and eastern populations where more striking differences are expected. comparison within european countries is fairly rare but due to geographic proximity, cultural similarities may be predicted. yet, some observations suggest clear cultural differences existing between french and british citizens. for example, the literature regarding the “déjà vu” experience suggests that french speakers describe their experience of such thoughts as more disturbing than english speakers (fortier & moulin, 2015). additionally, a crucial element when investigating cultural discrepancies, is the strong influence of the individuals’ educational background on the development of moral value and shaping of thought processes. the education system is considered to be a product of societal norms shared by the majority of the population (hofstede, 1984), and as such, the notable differences between the french and british educational system suggest divergent cultural values. the french educational system is mostly focused on knowledge and intellect, whereas the british system mainly focused on the development of the individual (mons, duru-bellat, & savina, 2012). this difference can be illustrated within disparate professions. for example, in the management environment, french managers show a tendency to be more control orientated, in contrast to their british counterparts that are more prone to delegation and trust (gröschl & barrows, 2003). many more examples of divergent social and psychological styles (e.g., writing methods) between french and british individuals could be highlighted here but overall one could expect more fundamental difference in the nature of thinking in the form of self-generated thoughts. mind-wandering characteristics a growing body of research has explored the variety of content that comprise self-generated thoughts. recent work has focused on the temporal dynamics of mind-wandering, revealing a tendency for thoughts to be directed toward the future (baird et al., 2011; d’argembeau, renaud, & van der linden, 2011; smallwood, nind, et al., 2009). future-oriented thoughts seem to be characterised by a verbal form, with a tendency to be realistic, concrete, structured and more personally relevant (stawarczyk et al., 2013). future thinking has been related to recovery from negative responses such as stress (engert, smallwood, & singer, 2014) and are commonly associated with positive mood (ruby, smallwood, engen, & singer, 2013). self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering, and self-generated thoughts are more often about the self than others (baird et al., 2011; smallwood et al., 2011). while the majority of spontaneous cognition is future oriented, a smaller but significant proportion of off-task thoughts are directed to the past (baird et al., 2011). negative mood induction procedures have consistently been found to induce greater past-related thoughts (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). in the absence of mood induction, it has been evidenced that sadness tends to precede mindwandering occurrence, and having negatively toned thoughts during mind-wandering predicts subsequent sadness (poerio et al., 2013). overall, thoughts directed toward the past tend to induce negative mood while future and self-related thoughts tend to improve mood. a further key research endeavour is the exploration of mind-wandering outcomes. if different mind-wandering styles occur across cultures, this could have some bearing on the positive and negative consequences of such episodes. for instance, mind-wandering is reported to have deleterious effects on cognitive abilities including working memory, sustained attention and comprehension (for a review see mooneyham & schooler, 2013). similarly, on everyday activities, engaging in mind-wandering while driving increases error rates and impacts on driver safety (cowley, 2013; qu et al., 2015). mirroring work on mind-wandering, data from the mindfulness and mediation literature is informative regarding impacts on task performance. mindfulness has been shown to reduce mind-wandering frequency with subsequent improvements on everyday activities (mrazek, franklin, martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 213 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ phillips, baird, & schooler, 2013). mindfulness practice is often associated to well-being (brown & ryan, 2003) and increased cognitive abilities (chiesa, calati, & serretti, 2011), however mind-wandering also seems to benefit individuals. as mind-wandering is in part goal oriented (d’argembeau et al., 2011), and mostly refers to the self and the future, then it has been argued that one of the primary functions of mind-wandering is to enable the anticipation and planning of personally relevant future goals (baird et al., 2011). additional functions highlighting the adaptive value of mind-wandering have been identified including enhanced social problem solving (ruby et al., 2013), the fostering of both a more patient style of making decisions (smallwood, ruby, & singer, 2013) and more creative processing whilst problem solving (baird et al., 2012). particularly relevant here, the mind-wandering literature has considered how the ageing process modulates the frequency of mind-wandering. age-related decreases in cognitive ability have largely been report on those function sub-served by the frontal lobes (e.g., executive control and inhibition) and hippocampus (e.g., episodic memory). given the widely reported executive function deficit in ageing (riby, perfect, & stollery, 2004a, 2004b), intuitively one would expect greater intrusive thoughts for older individuals due to difficulties in effectively inhibit irrelevant thoughts and feelings. paradoxically, multiple studies have reported a decrease in the frequency of mind-wandering episodes as one grows older (giambra, 1989; jackson & balota, 2012; jackson, weinstein, & balota, 2013). it is worthwhile noting however that the complexity of the thoughts and specific content of mind-wandering episodes has in the main been neglected. characteristics that have been associated with the ageing process can give clues to the specific components that influence the nature of mind-wandering episodes. for example, older adults are thought to be more mindful and present moment focussed (splevins, smith, & simpson, 2009) and largely have more positive moods (carstensen, isaacowitz, & charles, 1999). regarding future thinking, rendell et al. (2012) showed that older adults were worse at imagining the future than a-temporal experiences. thus, their frequency of future thoughts decreases (berntsen, rubin, & salgado, 2015) but they also seem to experience more a-temporal than future directed mind-wandering (jackson et al., 2013). overall, the nature of self-generated thoughts is somewhat complex during mind-wandering episodes as we age. the present study the purpose of this study was to identify broad discrepancies in mind-wandering by examining the frequency between french (france) and english (united kingdom) native speakers, in young, middle-aged and older adults. in order to further characterise the joint effects of age and culture a collection of seven questionnaires were used to capture key elements previously associated with the wandering mind in the literature. namely, mindfulness abilities, mood, future thinking, self-attentiveness (rumination and reflection), cognitive failure, and depressive symptoms measures were gathered. unfortunately, the literature regarding the influence of culture on mind-wandering is lacking, impeding the generation of precise hypotheses, particularly when it comes to two european countries. however, variables capturing mood and emotional content (e.g., rumination vs. reflection) will establish whether a previously identified bias for negatively toned thoughts in english speakers and more expressive thoughts for french speakers (e.g., work examining the déjà vu experience; fortier & moulin, 2015) is also observed for self-generated thought. regarding the overall effects of age, we anticipate a decrease in mind-wandering frequency, future thinking and depressive symptoms (berntsen et al., 2015; giambra, 1989; nolen-hoeksema & ahrens, 2002) alongside an increase in cognitive failures and mindfulness abilities (mecacci & righi, 2006; splevins et al., 2009). in addition, structural equation modelling will be used to generate an overview of the relationships linking mind-wandering experiences to the measures collected. conceptumind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 214 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ally, we expect that measures of rumination, negative mood and depressive symptoms will compose a negative construct (nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008; poerio et al., 2013; smallwood, o’connor, & heim, 2005). additionally, we expect that the frequency of future-self related thoughts and self-reflection will comprise a self-related construct (stawarczyk et al., 2013; trapnell & campbell, 1999), and that measures of mindfulness and cognitive failures will make an attentional construct (chiesa et al., 2011; mooneyham & schooler, 2013). ultimately, we hypothesis that the theoretical model, where mind-wandering frequency is predicted by age and the previously outlined constructs (self-related, negative and attentional), will fit the present data. however, once again, the lack of research on the impact of culture on mind-wandering experiences prevents us from formulating clear hypothesis about the variations of the model in the two populations, yet differences are suspected (gonçalves et al., 2017; singer & mccraven, 1961; sude, 2015). method participants a total of 471 volunteers completed an online survey, 283 in english and 188 in french. fourteen non-english native speakers were removed from the english data set. one non-french native speaker was removed from the french data set. however, significant differences were found between the samples in terms of age, f(1, 453) = 7.56, p = .006, ηp 2 = .02, and years of educations, f(1, 451) = 4.56, p = .033, ηp 2 = .01. therefore, we choose to match the sample on those two variables. the remaining data consisted of 154 native english speakers (m = 31.21, sd = 16.15, 132 female) and 154 native french speakers (m = 32.32, sd = 15.96, 130 female). to be inclusive as possible, the inclusion criteria were to be 18 or over and be native english or french speakers. this study was approved by the ethics committee of the faculty of health and life sciences of northumbria university. the investigation was conducted according to the principles expressed in the declaration of helsinki and for both populations, participants provided informed consent. measures mind-wandering the daydreaming frequency scale (ddfs, giambra, 1993) is one of the 28 scales composing the imaginal process inventory (singer & antrobus, 1963, 1970) and consists of 12 items assessing daydreaming frequency. participants are asked to choose on a five-point likert scale the nature of thoughts which is appropriate for them. for example, “i lose myself in active daydreaming” can be answered by either (1) infrequently, (2) once a week, (3) once a day, (4) a few times during the day or (5) many different times during the day. the original 12 items of the ddfs were translated into french by (stawarczyk, majerus, van der linden, & d’argembeau, 2012) with a back-translation procedure. cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (α = .92) and french version (α = .92) of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. mindfulness the mindful attention awareness scale (maas, brown & ryan, 2003) is a 15-item scale introduced by the following sentences: “below is a collection of statements about your everyday experience. please answer according to what really reflects your experience rather than what you think your experience should be.” participants must rate the statements on a six-point likert scale ranging from 1 (almost always) to 6 (almost never). for martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 215 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ example, “i rush through activities without being really attentive to them” or “i snack without being aware that i'm eating.” a higher score indicates more mindful abilities. the french version of the maas was translated by stawarczyk et al. (2012) with a back-translation procedure. cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (α = .88) and french version (α = .82) of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. mood the positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) consists of two 10-items mood scales that respectively measure positive and negative affect, both as states and traits. participants are asked to rate the extent to which they experience particular emotions right now with reference to a five-point likert-scale ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (very much). examples of emotions would be as such, “distressed” or “excited.” the french version of the panas was translated by gaudreau, sanchez, and blondin (2006) with a back-translation procedure. cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (positive affect, α = .90; negative affect, α = .93) and french version (positive affect, α = .85; negative affect, α = .91) of the positive and negative subscales of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. future thinking the future-self thoughts questionnaire (fst; mcelwee & haugh, 2010) consists of 11 items designed to assess two dimensions of thoughts about one’s future selves: (i) frequency, the extent to which participants spontaneously think of themselves in the future, and (ii) clarity, the vividness with which participants “see” themselves in the future. participants are asked to rate the extent to which each statement describes how they think or act in their daily life with reference to a six-point likert-scale ranging from 1 (not at all true for me) to 6 (completely true for me). for example, a question like “when i daydream, i often see myself as i may be in the future” measures future-self thoughts frequency, and a question like “my future seems vague and uncertain to me” measures their clarity. the french version of the fst was translated by stawarczyk et al. (2012) with a back-translation procedure. cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (frequency, α = .91; clarity, α = .58) and french version (frequency, α = .82; clarity, α = .57) of the frequency and clarity subscales of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability considering the number of items within each subscales (frequency, 6 items; clarity, 5 items). self-attentiveness the rumination and reflection questionnaire (rrq; trapnell & campbell, 1999) consists of 24 items designed to assess reflection and rumination where participants are asked to rate the extent to which they agree or disagree to statements. answers are given on a five-point likert-scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). according to trapnell and campbell (1999), rumination and reflection both involve heightened attention to self. rumination is "self-attentiveness motivated by perceived threats, losses, or injustices to the self"; reflection is "self-attentiveness motivated by curiosity or epistemic interest in the self" (trapnell & campbell, 1999, p. 297). for example, “my attention is often focused on aspects of myself i wish i'd stop thinking about” for rumination and “i'm very self-inquisitive by nature” for reflection. this questionnaire was translated to french by fluckiger (2009). cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (reflection, α = .86; rumination, α = .91) and french version (reflection, α = .82; rumination, α = .87) of the reflection and rumination subscales of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 216 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive failures the cognitive failure questionnaire (cfq; broadbent, cooper, fitzgerald, & parkes, 1982) consists of 25 items measuring self-reported failures in perception, memory, and motor function. participants are told that the questions will be about minor mistakes, which everyone makes from time to time, but some of which happen more often than others. they must rate how often these things have happened to them in the last 6 months on a five-points likert-scale from 0 (never) to 4 (very often). for example, “do you fail to notice signposts on the road?.” the french version used in the present study was translated by fluckiger (2009). cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (α = .91) and french version (α = .87) of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. depressive symptoms the beck depression inventory (bdi-ii; beck, steer, ball, & ranieri, 1996) is a widely used tool for assessing the severity of depressive symptomatology. the 21 items are rated on a four-point likert scale, from 0 to 3 points. scores range from 0 to 63. for example, “past failure” can be answered by either (0) i do not feel like a failure, (1) i have failed more than i should have, (2) as i look back, i see a lot of failures or (3) i feel i am a total failure as a person. the french version used in this study was done by fluckiger (2009) and validated in both clinical (depressed) and nonclinical samples. cronbach’s alpha have been computed on the english (α = .94) and french version (α = .88) of the questionnaire and revealed good reliability. procedure recruitment of the participants for this study was via social media and a poster campaign both in france and the united kingdom (uk). they all took part in this study online using qualtrics’ survey software (qualtrics.com). all the questionnaires (ddfs, maas, panas, fst, rrq, cfq and the bdi), were presented in a randomized order. before the end of the session participants had to give demographic information – gender, age, number of years of education, native language and country of residence. participants took approximately 30 minutes to complete the questionnaires. the survey was completed anonymously, and no compensation was given for participation. results pearson’s correlations were initially conducted between each measure for both language conditions (english, french). analyses replicated previous findings by revealing the commonly found negative correlation linking mind-wandering to age, and positive correlations linking mind-wandering to mindfulness, cognitive failures and depression scores (see table 1). martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 217 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlations between variables for both english and french speakers individually and jointly variable native language 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. age english french total 2. ddfs english -.26*** french -.35*** total -.31*** 3. maas english .16* -.49*** french .10 -.45** total .13* -.47*** 4. panas positive english .11 -.12 -.00 french .02 -.13 .19* total .07 -.11 .10 5. panas negative english -.08 .24** -.36*** -.02 french -.04 .19* -.37*** -.09 total -.06 .22*** -.35*** .04 6. fst clarity english .03 -.06 .24** .33*** -.34*** french .06 -.27*** .27*** .26*** -.27*** total .04 -.17** .25*** .27*** -.31*** 7. fst frequency english -.38*** .35*** -.33*** .08 .15 .13 french -.31*** .37*** -.37*** -.05 .22** .09 total -.35*** .36*** -.35*** .02 .18*** .10 8. rrq rumination english -.31*** .51*** -.47*** -.28*** .41*** -.18* .32*** french -.12 .36*** -.40*** -.27*** .47*** -.23** .42*** total -.22*** .41*** -.44*** -.31*** .42*** -.19*** .36*** 9. rrq reflection english .11 .21*** -.16 .20* .13 .09 .09 .13 french -.06 .27*** -.07 .13 -.04 .10 .24** .06 total .03 .24*** -.09* .21*** .06 .08 .16*** .04 10. cfq english -.07 .42*** -.74*** -.10 .39*** -.26*** .19 * .45*** .06 french -.15 .51*** -.68*** -.24** .37*** -.25** .34*** .39*** .09 total -.11 .46*** -.71*** -.18** .37*** -.24*** .26*** .43*** .05 11. bdi english -.13 .39*** -.53*** -.33*** .64*** -.39*** .22** .58*** .11 .58*** french -.20* .43*** -.38*** -.53*** .54*** -.37*** .28** .55*** -.08 .47*** total -.16** .40*** -.46*** -.40*** .59*** -.38*** .24*** .54*** .03 .53*** note. ddfs = daydreaming frequency scale; maas = mindful attention awareness scale; panas = positive and negative affect schedule; fst = future-self thoughts; rrq = rumination and reflection questionnaire; cfq = cognitive failure questionnaire; bdi = beck depression inventory. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. effect of native language in order to investigate the differences between french and english native speakers on the subsequent analyses of variance (anova) have been conducted on participants’ scores to the questionnaires (ddfs, maas, pa, na, fst clarity, fst frequency, rumination, reflection, cfq, and bdi). regarding positive mood, an effect of native language indicate that english speakers tended to have less positive thoughts than french speakers, f(1, 306) = 15.22, p < .001, ηp 2 = .05. considering rumination, results showed an effect of native language, indicating that english speakers tended to ruminate more than french speakers, f(1, 306) = 14.70, p < .001, ηp 2 = .05. finally, results on the reflection measure revealed an effect of native language, indicating that mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 218 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ english speakers tended to reflect less than french speakers, f(1, 306) = 19.70, p < .001, ηp 2 = .06. mean and standard deviation scores for each measure are presented in table 2. in summary, results demonstrated that french native speakers reported more positive emotions, ruminated less and experienced more reflection than english native speakers. table 2 mean scores, standard deviation and number of participants of pertinent measures measure english speakers french speakers m sd n m sd n ddfs 3.46 .74 154 3.53 0.83 154 maas 3.98 .87 154 4.11 0.77 154 panas – positive*** 2.57 .74 154 2.90 0.73 154 panas – negative 1.79 .79 154 1.91 0.83 154 fst – clarity 3. 61 1.11 154 3.46 1.20 154 fst – frequency 3.65 1.31 154 3.63 1.16 154 rrq – rumination*** 3.73 .85 154 3.36 0.87 154 rrq – reflection*** 3.27 .72 154 3.65 0.78 154 cfq 1.84 .60 154 1.74 0.62 154 bdi 15.76 12.43 154 16.04 9.78 154 note. ddfs = daydreaming frequency scale; maas = mindful attention awareness scale; panas = positive and negative affect schedule; fst = future-self thoughts; rrq = rumination and reflection questionnaire; cfq = cognitive failure questionnaire; bdi = beck depression inventory. ***p < .001. effect of age and native language in order to investigate individual changes across the life span, both samples were divided into three age groups (table 3; young: 18–35, middle-aged: 36–54 and older adults: 55+). table 3 age means, standard deviations and number of participants for each defined age groups for both the english and french native speaker samples age groups english french total m sd n m sd n m sd n young 21.77 4.36 108 22.55 3.92 105 22.15 4.16 212 middle-age 44.40 4.71 25 46.03 5.72 31 45.30 5.31 56 old 64.10 5.79 21 65.72 5.72 18 64.85 5.48 39 total 31.21 16.15 154 32.32 15.96 154 31.77 16.04 308 mind-wandering a 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) anova was conducted on the ddfs daydreaming scores. a main effect of age was significant, f(2, 302) = 12.63, p < .001, ηp 2 = .08, indicating that young adults (m = 3.62, sd = 0.73) and middle-aged adults (m = 3.38, sd = 0.81) tend to mind wander more frequently and older adults (m = 2.97, sd = 0.82), p < .001, p = .022. young and middle-aged adults did not differ in their mind-wandering scores, p = .159. martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 219 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the interaction between language and age was significant, f(2, 302) = 3.93, p = .021, ηp 2 = .03. the decomposition of this interaction revealed that in the english speaker group, the effect of age was significant, f(2, 151) = 8.69, p < .001, ηp 2 = .10, indicating that young (m = 3.53, sd = 0.73) and middle-aged adults (m = 3.62, sd = 0.54) were not different in their mind-wandering frequency. however, both young and middle-aged adults reported more mind-wandering than older adults (m = 2.87, sd = 0.76), respectively p < .001 and p = .001. in the french speaker group, the effect of age was also significant, f(2, 151) = 8.44, p < .001, ηp 2 = .10. results showed that young adults (m = 3.70, sd = 0.73) had higher mind-wandering frequency than middle-aged (m = 3.18, sd = 0.93), p = .004 and older adults, (m = 3.09, sd = 0.89), p = .008. however, middle-aged adults and older adults mind-wandering frequency was equivalent, p = .999. these data presented in figure 1 demonstrate an earlier decrease in mind-wandering frequency in the french speaking group (between 36 and 54 years old). figure 1. the effects of participants’ native language (english, french) and their age group (young, middle age, old) on mind-wandering frequency measured by the ddfs. note. ddfs = daydreaming frequency scale. error bars represent standard errors. mindfulness a 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) anova was conducted on maas scores. a main effect of age was evidenced, f(2, 302) = 3.57, p = .029, ηp 2 = .02, indicating that young (m = 4.00, sd = 0.82) had a tendency to be less mindful than older adults (m = 4.37, sd = 0.80), p = .033. young and older adults did not differ from middle-aged adults (m = 3.98, sd = 0.81) on this score, respectively p = .999 and p = .058. results suggested an increase of mindfulness as one grows older, in line with results regarding mind-wandering. however, mindfulness does not seem to be influenced by cultural differences between the two populations. mood a 2 (valance; positive, negative) by 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) anova was conduct on panas scores. the main effect of valence was significant, indicating that participants tended to express more positive affect (m = 2.74, sd = 0.75) than negative (m = 1.85, sd = 0.81), f(1, 302) = 131.09, p < .001, ηp 2 = .30. the main effect of native language revealed that english participants (m = 2.18, sd = 0.54) tend to express less affect than their french counterparts (m = 2.40, sd = 0.53), f(1, 302) = 7.21, p = .008, ηp 2 = .02. results revealed a general tendency for participants to express more positive affect than negative ones. in addition, french native speakers tended to be more expressive than english native speaker. mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 220 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ future thinking a 2 (specificity; clarity, frequency) by 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) repeated measure anova was conduct on fst scores. the main effect of age was significant, f(2, 302) = 6.63, p = .002, ηp 2 = .04, indicating that young adults (m = 3.58, sd = 0.75), scored higher on the future-self thoughts questionnaire than older adults (m = 2.96, sd = 0.78), p = .002. young and older adults did not differ from middle-aged adults (m = 3.23, sd = 1.01) on these scores, respectively, p = .231 and p = 336. the interaction between specificity and age was significant, f(2, 302) = 11.01, p < .001, ηp 2 = .07 (figure 2). the decomposition of the interaction showed that future-self thoughts clarity did not change across life span, f(2, 305) = .163, p = .850, ηp 2 = .00, whereas its frequency did, f(2, 305) = 17.495, p < .001, ηp 2 = .10. results revealed that young adults (m = 3.88, sd = 1.17) had more frequent future-self thoughts than middle aged adults (m = 3.30, sd = 1.31), p = .004 and older adults (m = 2.77, sd = 0.98), p < .001. middle-aged adults and older adults had a similar frequency of future-self thoughts, p = .090. figure 2. the effect of specificity of future-self thought (clarity, frequency) and participants’ age group (young, middle-age, old) on the measure of future-self thoughts (fst). note. error bars represent standard errors. therefore, results demonstrate that the frequency of future-self thoughts decreases with age for both french and english speakers. the clarity of the thoughts was, however, not influenced by either age or culture. self-attentiveness a 2 (self-attentiveness; rumination, reflection) by 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) repeated measures anova was conduct on rrq scores. the main effect of age was significant, indicating that older adults (m = 3.27, sd = 0.59) had less self-attentive thoughts young adults (m = 3.55, sd = 0.59), p = .031, f(2, 302) = 3.35, p = .037, ηp 2 = .02. young and older adults did not differ from middle-aged adults (m = 3.49, sd = 0.61) on self-attentiveness, respectively p = .999 and p = .218. the three-way interaction between self-attentiveness, language and age was not significant, f(2, 302) = 1.20, p = .303, ηp 2 = .01, however, the three two-way interactions revealed interesting findings. the interaction between self-attentiveness and age was significant, f(2, 302) = 4.829, p = .009, ηp 2 = .03. further analyses revealed that reflection rates did not change across life span, f(2, 305) = 1.01, p = .365, ηp 2 = .01, whereas rumination rates did, f(2, 450) = 7.36, p = .001, ηp 2 = .03. as such, young adults (m = 3.66, sd = 0.06) ruminated more than older adults (m = 3.16, sd = 0.14), p = .003. middle-aged (m = 3.39, sd = 0.12) adults did not differ from young or older adults on this measure, respectively p = .112 and p = .607. martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 221 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the interaction between self-attentiveness and native language was significant f(1, 302) = 8.33, p < .001, ηp 2 = .05. further analyses showed that both rumination and reflection rates differed as a condition of culture, respectively f(1, 306) = 14.70, p < .001, ηp 2 = .05 and f(1, 306) = 19.70, p < .001, ηp 2 = .06. however, english native speaker presented higher rates of rumination (m = 3.73, sd = 0.85) and lower rates of reflection (m = 3.27, sd = 0.72) than french native speakers (rumination, m = 3.36, sd = 0.87; reflection, m = 3.65, sd = 0.78). the interaction between language and age was significant, f(2, 302) = 3.99, p = .018, ηp 2 = .03. decomposition of the interaction demonstrated that in the case of french native speakers age did not have an impact on the overall measure of self-attentiveness, f(2, 151) = 1.81, p = .168, ηp 2 = .02. however, age seemed to have an impact on the overall measure of self-attentiveness in the english native speaker’s group, f(2, 151) = 6.06, p = .003, ηp 2 = .07. as such, young (m = 3.54, sd = 0.06) and middle-aged adults (m = 3.68, sd = 0.12) presented higher rates of self-attentiveness than older adults (m = 3.12, sd = 0.13), respectively p = .008 and p = .004. young and middle-aged adults presented similar scores on this measure, p = .810. results demonstrated cultural and age difference regarding attention toward the self as measured by rumination and reflection. firstly, findings showed that only rumination rates seems to be impacted by age with a decrease of such thoughts as age increases. secondly, french and british citizens presented an opposite pattern of self-attentiveness with french native speakers engaging more in self-reflection and less in rumination than english native speakers. finally, self-attentiveness revealed to be stable across time in the french population but not the british one, where a decrease occurs in later age. these data are summarised in figure 3. figure 3. a. the effect of participants’ age (young, middle age, old) on rumination and reflection rates. b. the effect of participants’ native language (english, french) on rumination and reflection. c. the effect of participants’ native language (english, french) and their age group (young, middle age, old) on their overall self-attentiveness rates. note. rrq = rumination and reflection questionnaire. error bars represent standard errors. cognitive failures a 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) anova was carried out on the cfq scores and revealed no significant effects. surprisingly, findings did not evidence any age effect on this measure of cognitive failure. depressive symptoms a 3 (age; young, middle-aged, old) by 2 (language; english, french) anova was carried out on bdi scores. a significant main effect of age was evidenced, f(2, 302) = 4.47, p = .012, ηp 2 = .03, indicating that young adults mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 222 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (m = 16.83, sd = 11.58) tended to score higher on the depression inventory than older adults (m = 10.95, sd = 9.70), p = .009. middle-aged adults (m = 15.80, sd = 9.69) scores on the depression inventory were similar to both young, p = .999 and older adults, p = .090. results regarding depressive symptoms did not reveal any cultural differences but did show an effect of age, indicating that young adults tended to be more depressed than older adults. confirmatory factor analysis based on the literature and the abovementioned primary analyses it is clear that mind-wandering experiences are eclectic by nature. specifically, three features seem to be associated to mind-wandering experiences, namely self-orientation, negative mood and attentional skills. in this study, the self-related construct was measured by the reflection and future-self thoughts frequency subscales; the negative construct was measured by the depressive symptoms, negative affect and rumination scales; and finally, the attentional construct was measured by the mindfulness and cognitive failures questionnaires. in consideration of the literature, the model will also implement age as a factor influencing mind-wandering frequency. to assess formally the fit of our measurement model to the data, we used confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). conclusions about structural model fits were based on commonly used fit indices with cut-offs suggested by kline (2005): χ2/df < 2; cfi > 0.90 for reasonably good fit; rmsea < 0.05 for good fit, < 0.08 for reasonable fit. the fit indices of the model were as follows; χ2(19) = 60.80, p < .001, χ2/df = 3.20, cfi = 0.949, rmsea = 0.085. all measures loaded significantly on the negative and attentional construct. reflection marginally loaded on the self-related construct (.189). however, it seemed that only age (-.155) and the attentional construct (-.363) significantly predicted mind-wandering. each of the four factors (self-related, negative, attentional and age) co-varied significantly with each other. although we suspected rumination to be largely associated with the negative construct, by definition rumination has a self-related component. therefore, with the aim of improving our model, rumination scores were added to the self-related construct. this change was based on modification indexes from this analysis, and in accordance with the theory since definition ruminative thoughts are self-related. this new model, presented in figure 4, showed to have a reasonably good fit; χ2(18) = 40.29, p = .002, χ2/df = 2.24, cfi = 0.973, rmsea = 0.064. as can be seen the fit of the model was improved and, this time, each measure loaded significantly on its construct of interest. in this new model only the attentional (-.308) and self-related constructs (.314) predicted mind-wandering frequency and the four factors co-varied significantly with each other. martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 223 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. structural equation model predicting mind-wandering frequency with self-related, negative and attentional constructs and age. note. single-headed arrows connecting latent variables (circles) and observed variable (rectangles) represent standardized path coefficients, indicating the contribution of the variables. double-headed arrows connecting the factors represent the correlations among the factors. next, a group comparison was conducted to identify if the fit of the model differed between french and english native speakers. to do so two models where compared, one allowing for variability between the two groups (h1) and one restricting the loading of the 4 factors (self-related, negative, attentional and age) to an equal number in both populations (null hypothesis, h0). although the overall fit statistics show that both models are a good fit, h1, χ2(36) = 58.86, p = .009, χ2/df = 1.63, cfi = 0.973, rmsea = 0.046; h0, χ2(40) = 73.23, p = .001, χ2/df = 1.83, cfi = 0.961, rmsea = 0.052, the nested model comparison that assesses the worsening of overall fit due to imposing the four restrictions on the original model shows to be statistically significant χ2(4) = 14.37, p = .006. this finding suggests that the two models differ and that the model with equal factor loadings (h0) should be rejected in favour of the original model (h1). consequently, the model created here does not fit french and english native speakers equally and therefore separation is warranted. looking only at english native speakers the model showed to have a reasonably good fit; χ2(18) = 27.17, p = .076, χ2/df = 1.51, cfi = 0.980, rmsea = 0.058. as shown in table 4 the negative (.030) and attentional constructs (-.001) did not significantly contributed to mind-wandering frequency. therefore, the model was improved by removing these two direct effects. the fit of the new model was good; χ2(20) = 27.19, p = .130, χ2/df mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 224 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = 1.36, cfi = 0.984, rmsea = 0.048. however, the contribution of reflection was not significant (.118). therefore, with the aim to improve further this model the measure of reflection was removed. the third model created for the english native speakers was of very good fit; χ2(13) = 12.17, p = .514, χ2/df = 0.94, cfi = 1.00, rmsea = 0.000. this final model is presented in figure 5a. as can be seen, in this population only age and self-related thoughts are directly influencing mind-wandering frequency. it is worth noting that the negative (.457) and attentional constructs (-.582) significantly co-varied with the self-related construct and most likely contributed indirectly to mind-wandering frequency. table 4 factor loading for models with data from both groups separately factor english native speakers french native speakers model 1 model 2 model 3 (figure 5a) model 1 model 2 model 3 (figure 5b) regression self-related reflection .117 .118 .233 .211 .195 future fq. .528a .525a .523a 1.026a 1.122a 1.209a rumination .446*** .448*** .434*** .208 .184 .166 negative depressive s. .959a .958a .955a .819a .810a .811a negative a. .667*** .667*** .669*** .659*** .665*** .664*** rumination .401*** .392*** .406*** .609*** .626*** .635*** attentional cognitive f. -.860*** -.860*** -.861*** -.855*** -.845*** -.844*** mindfulness .863a .862a .861a .795a .794a .794a mind-wandering self-related .933*** .963*** 1.00*** .068 negative .030 .102 attentional -.001 -.456*** -.562*** -.545*** age .323 .338* .403* -.245*** -.267*** -.258*** reflection .209*** covariance self-related negative .449** .467*** .457*** .330*** .307*** .288*** attentional -.592*** -.598*** -.582*** -.410*** -.385*** -.352*** age -.625*** -.626*** -.664*** -.300*** -.276*** -.257*** negative attentional -.669*** -.670*** -.672*** -.649*** -.668*** -.677*** age -.132 -.132 -.132 -.169† -.170† -.173† attentional age .134 .134 .134 .153 .153 .153 aregression weighed at 1. †p < .07. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. looking only at french native speakers the model revealed to have a reasonable fit; χ2(18) = 31.69, p = .024, χ2/df = 1.76, cfi = 0.965, rmsea = 0.071. as shown in table 4 the self-related (.068) and negative constructs (.102) did not significantly contributed to mind-wandering frequency. therefore, the model was improved by remartinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 225 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moving these two direct effects. the fit of the new model was reasonably good; χ2(20) = 33.23, p = .032, χ2/df = 1.66, cfi = 0.967, rmsea = 0.066. based on modification indexes from this analysis this model was further improved by added a direct path between reflection and mind wandering frequency. the third model created for the french native speakers was of good fit; χ2(19) = 22.29, p = .270, χ2/df = 1.17, cfi = 0.992, rmsea = 0.034. this final model is presented in figure 5b. as can be seen, in this population it is age, attentional skills and reflection that are directly influencing mind-wandering frequency. it is worth noting that the self-related (-.352) and negative constructs (-.677) significantly co-varied with the attentional construct and most likely contributed indirectly to mind-wandering frequency. finally, rumination scores did not significantly loaded into the self-related construct (.166), yet removing it from this construct did not improve the model fit; χ2(20) = 30.51, p = .062, χ2/df = 1.53, cfi = 0.973, rmsea = 0.059. figure 5. a. structural equation model predicting mind-wandering frequency with self-related construct and age in a population of native english speakers. b. structural equation model predicting mind-wandering frequency with reflection scores, attentional construct and age in a population of native french speakers. note. single-headed arrows connecting latent variables (circles) and observed variable (rectangles) represent standardized path coefficients, indicating the contribution of the variables. double-headed arrows connecting the factors represent the correlations among the factors discussion given the myriad evidence demonstrating strong socio-cultural influences on cognition and behaviour, it is surprising that cultural impacts on internal trains of thought have been neglected. this study aimed to investigate the influence of culture on mind-wandering experience across different age groups, by comparing a population of english (uk) and french (france) speakers. our approach considered not only differences in the frequency of mind-wandering but critical characteristics and content that shape the occurrence of such self-generate thoughts. overall, the data highlighted how culture drives differences in age-related declines in mind-wandering mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 226 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frequency. importantly, socio-cultural experience impacted on the frequency of relatively more negative (rumination) and positive (reflection) thoughts, as well as participants’ overall affective expressiveness. finally, evidence suggest that different theoretical models, for the french and british population, capture the complex relationships between mind-wandering and related features. consider first the frequently observed age-related decrease in mind-wandering frequency. research using both self-report questionnaires (giambra, 1989) and experience sampling in laboratory settings (jackson & balota, 2012) has demonstrated a reduction of mind-wandering as we age. early explanations focussed on the cognitive capacity view of ageing to explain this counter intuitive finding. as we grow older our capacity to direct attention and resources to the task at hand declines and as a result older adult have less ability to switch or share resources between activities and internal trains of thought. the executive failure account of mind-wandering experience (riby, smallwood, & gunn, 2008; smallwood & schooler, 2015) suggests that one’s cognitive control enables the flexible adjustment of mind-wandering events, such as reducing its occurrence in the context of a difficult task. in a similar vein, older adults’ lower cognitive control may prevent them from engaging in mindwandering experience while performing cognitive tasks. co-ordinating multiple tasks and executive deficits of this nature have been widely reported in the ageing literature (for meta-analysis see riby et al., 2004a). interestingly, during ongoing tasks if we probe both task-related and task-unrelated thoughts, older adults tend to report concerns about their performance. this task-related interference has been reported to be more dominant in older adults than young adults (e.g., mcvay, meier, touron, & kane, 2013). anxiety, worry and monitoring of performance for older adults may demand cognitive resources to maintain performance and further reduce the possibility of task-unrelated thoughts to emerge. when comparing the two populations, results evidenced an earlier decrease in mind wandering for the french speakers (36–54 years old) than for the english speakers (over 55 years old). most research in ageing does not include this middle age group in their investigation; yet findings suggest that this period may well be subject to changes in mind-wandering rate. early stage theories (erikson, 1978) suggest moving from middle-age to later adulthood is a critical point in development and many moderators of successful progression and ageing have been identified. sociocultural context impacts on the roles, beliefs, values and shape our identity and thought processes even when we are approaching later adulthood. together, this suggests that individuals’ sensitivity to changes at this time of life can support modifications in mind-wandering experiences. however, one must consider the nature of the items composing the ddfs. the focus is mainly made on one’s general tendency to mind wander as a whole which perhaps is not sensitive enough to capture the very nature of the different thought processes that are included under the umbrella terms daydreaming and mind-wandering. as such, questionnaires measuring more specific type of thoughts can be highly informative. our examination of individual difference in self-focus (rumination vs. self-reflection) is particularly informative regarding the abovementioned age-related declines in mind-wandering frequency. while reflection rates seem stable across ages, rumination rates evidenced a drop in later adulthood. rumination involves negatively toned thought content (nolen-hoeksema et al., 2008). moreover, rumination has been associated with perceived threats, losses or injustice to the self (joireman, 2004) and the daydreaming style guilt-fear of failure (characterised by anguished fears, fantasies and aggression; shrimpton, mcgann, & riby, 2017). during early adulthood, a large amount of decisions made will inevitably shape ones’ future in the short and/or long term. as evidenced by the literature on the reminiscence bump, this period of life is known to be filed with key life events such as falling in love, starting a new job and building a family (rathbone, moulin, & conway, 2008). inevitably, at the time where such important events are experienced or anticipated, one can expect greater future-related martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 227 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thoughts (i.e., see results on future-self thoughts; stawarczyk et al., 2012) but also greater anguished fears, fantasies or perceived threats to the self. critically, these elements largely support ruminative thoughts and could explain the higher rates found in younger adults compared to older adults. this interpretation is further corroborated by younger adults’ tendency to be subject to anxiety and depressive symptoms (jorm, 2000), which are commonly associated with higher rates of rumination (nolen-hoeksema, 2000). now, in contrast with rumination, self-reflection is defined as self-attentiveness motivated by curiosity in the self. a self-reflective thinking style enables problem solving and promotes good mental health (takano & tanno, 2009; trapnell & campbell, 1999). previous research from our laboratory has highlighted the positive nature of such thoughts with reflection associated with the positive-constructive daydreaming style (shrimpton et al., 2017). here we suggest that the resilient features of self-reflection, such as openness to experience, self-knowledge (trapnell & campbell, 1999), perspective taking (joireman, parrott, & hammersla, 2002) and the ability to learn from our mistakes (joireman, 2004), are essential across all stages of life. major self-reassessment triggered by social and personal events occur at any moment in life, whereas it is choosing a career path, building a family, managing teenagers, ageing parents or adapting to physical and cognitive changes in later adulthood (demo, 1992; helson & moane, 1987; neugarten, 1974). therefore, it is not surprising that the therapeutic value of self-reflection is used across all ages (appelbaum, 1973; conte et al., 1990). focusing on the impact of culture, rumination rates were found higher for english than french native speakers, whereas the opposite pattern was evidenced for reflective rates. as previously outlined, self-reflection is of great value for openness to experience, self-knowledge, perspective taking and the ability to learn from our mistakes. the benefits of self-reflection are in line with more general positive outcomes associated with mindwandering including creativity, goal planning and future planning (koestner, lekes, powers, & chicoine, 2002; smallwood et al., 2011; verhaeghen, aikman, & joormann, 2014). therefore, reflection seems particularly important in the context of positive life changes as opposed to the relatively more negative rumination counterpart. bearing in mind the results on mood (i.e., see discussion below), one could infer that the higher emotional expressiveness, found in french speakers, may enable a larger gathering of self-knowledge throughout life; therefore, raising reflections rates. interestingly, some features of this population illustrate this idea. for example, rates of professional reconversion elicited in france are relatively high; in 2012, a survey was conducted in france indicating that 60% of the working population declared having changed their area of work at least once (ipsos, 2012). interestingly, among those, 55% declared that the change was by their own will and not because of dismissal, and 71% stated that this decision marked a change in their life beyond the professional aspect of things. in this context, great self-reflection skills are required, such as the ability to learn from one’s mistakes, or openness to new experiences. despite the lack of research on the impact of culture on reflection’ rates, these elements suggest a concrete explanation of the french speakers’ higher rates of reflection. in contrast, british citizens’ propensity to be less expressive about their emotions, can be interpreted as a tendency to avoid the processing of feelings. rumination is related to more avoidance and extrinsic content of goals (thomsen, tønnesvang, schnieber, & olesen, 2011), while expressive writing interventions showed to reduce the occurrence of ruminative thoughts in formerly depressed patients (gortner, rude, & pennebaker, 2006). together, this suggests that british citizens’ tendency to overlook their feelings may foster ruminative thoughts as opposed to reflective ones. ultimately, the impact of culture and age on the overall rates of self-focused thoughts are perfectly in line with the previously discussed findings. self-centred thoughts showed to be stable in the french native speakers’ population, while a significant decreased occurred for english native speakers in later adulthood. keeping in mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 228 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mind that french citizens self-focused thoughts are largely composed of self-reflection and that self-reflection was evidenced as a stable feature across ages, one may consider that the unchanged rates of self-focus in this population is an expression of self-reflection foremost. similarly, the observed decrease of self-focus thoughts for older native english speakers may be driven by the decrease of ruminative thoughts in this stage of life and the reliance on these type of thoughts for the british population. a further critical component influencing mind-wandering considered here is mindfulness abilities across the lifespan. this finding has been evidenced previously in the ageing literature, yet no clear interpretation on why this increase occurs has been suggested (splevins et al., 2009). mindfulness is defined as the ability to be focused on the present moment and often involves greater attention to detail and effective processing of stimuli in the environment. this increase in mindfulness may illustrate the age-related decrease of mind-wandering frequency and the increase of performance monitoring (i.e., task relevant interference; mcvay et al., 2013). a somewhat simplistic view is that both concepts have been considered as opposite constructs. however, numerous examples suggested that both mind-wandering and mindfulness can have benefits as both increase creativity (baird et al., 2012; lebuda, zabelina, & karwowski, 2016). research should further explore this apparent paradox. another component supporting the age-related decrease in mind-wandering frequency is the reported reduction in the frequency of future-self thoughts with increased age. prior research has demonstrated a decrease in future-self thought frequency as one gets older, with no age differences regarding the clarity of the thoughts (berntsen et al., 2015; stawarczyk et al., 2012). that is, the quality and vividness of the thoughts remains stable, merely their quantity decreases. this effect on the frequency may be due to a decrease in future perspectives as we grow old, thus inducing either, less future-selves to think about or, a personal bias that leads to progressively avoid future perspectives, consciously or not. from the literature the important contribution of future thinking to mind-wandering episodes is explicit (baird et al., 2011; d’argembeau et al., 2011; smallwood, nind, et al., 2009). therefore, this suggests that the reduced frequency of self-future thoughts experienced by older adults will inevitably induce a reduction of the general mind-wandering frequency. the present study also incorporated measures of depression as well as rumination, both previously identified as important components of mind wandering. depressive symptoms are closely associated with rumination (austin, mitchell, & goodwin, 2001; nolen-hoeksema, 2000) and related research has reported higher mindwandering frequency in dysphoric patients (smallwood et al., 2005). results here evidenced a decrease of depressive symptoms with age, alongside the decrease of mind-wandering frequency and future thinking. this age-related decrease in depressive symptoms, that may appear counter intuitive, has been illustrated in the literature for a “young old” population. indeed, previous researches on age differences in depression have frequently shown the “young old” (i.e., 55 to 75; neugarten, 1974) to be less depressed than middle-aged and younger adults (gatz & hurwicz, 1990; jorm, 2000). however, the “old old” adults tend to have quite high levels of depression. here, in the older adults' group, participants were above 55 years of age with an average of 64.85, therefore, fitting into the “young old” category. altogether, findings suggest that the age-related decrease of depressive symptoms could contribute to the age-related reduction of mind-wandering episodes, along with the reduced future thinking frequency and increased mindfulness abilities. therefore, giving further insight into the relationship between depressive thoughts and mind-wandering. martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 229 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, another element was theoretically expected to support the age-related decrease in mind-wandering frequency. mind-wandering has long been associated to attentional deficits, thus indicating the importance to measure cognitive failures. older adults have widely been reported to have difficulties on measures of executive control (e.g., braver & west, 2008) but self-reported failures were not observed here. however, other studies seem be in line with our findings. for example, a normative study did not evidence any correlations between cfq scores (broadbent et al., 1982) and any demographic factors, including age. this may be explained by a difficulty for older adults to report their cognitive failures or more general difficulties in the sensitivity of the measure to capture change (especially given the data was acquired online) compared to laboratory measures of executive dysfunction. indeed, older adults tend to claim to have remarkable worries about their own cognitive abilities, but do not seem to be able to record the cognitive lapses that are known to increase in aging (mecacci & righi, 2006). additionally, data acquisition (i.e., online study) is a cofounding factor that needs to be kept in mind when considering this result, as it may have induced a selective bias. limited work has been carried out on individual differences in thought processes across french and english speakers. therefore, precise predictions regarding the impact of emotionality of thought content is difficult to generate. overall, english speakers showed less extreme positive and negative emotions than their french counterparts. although investigations of cultural differences in emotional expressiveness are rare, lay observations of beliefs and behaviours of french and british citizens suggest cultural differences in the expression of their emotions. british citizens have an intriguing relationship with their own and other people’s emotions; they tend not to be overly demonstrative, and look down on gushing public displays of emotion (khor & march, 2007; smallwood, fitzgerald, miles, & phillips, 2009). this tendency to hide their feelings is in sharp opposition to french citizens. as an illustration, french citizens show high propensities to express their feelings toward the government, through demonstrations and strikes. a survey conducted between 2009 and 2013 revealed that france had the second highest rate of strikes, among 12 european countries, whilst the uk was in the 9th position (osborne, 2016). those drastically different approaches to self-expression are in line with work on the déjà vu experience. fortier and moulin (2015) report french citizens’ tendency to describe their experience of “déjà vu” as more disturbing than english citizens. this corroborates the idea of wider self-expression from this population. nevertheless, those elements of explanation are exploratory and further scientific investigations should be conducted in order to clarify this finding. finally, confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to provide an overview of the complex relationships between the key features of mind-wandering experiences. our theoretical model hypothesised that the combination of the negative construct (i.e., rumination, depressive symptoms and negative affect), the self-related construct (i.e., future-self thought frequency, self-reflection and rumination), the attentional construct (i.e., mindfulness abilities and cognitive failures) and age would drive the variation of mind-wandering frequency. within this model mind-wandering frequency is portrayed as an umbrella phenomenon that integrates a multitude of features. notably, age was found to have a limited contribution to mind-wandering, which is surprising considering the well documented age-related decrease of mind-wandering (giambra, 1989; jackson & balota, 2012; jackson et al., 2013; mcvay et al., 2013). however, the factor of age was highly connected to the self-related construct, a factor composed of two measures known to decrease with age (i.e., rumination and future-self thoughts). in addition to age, the negative construct also presented limited contribution to mind-wandering variation in frequency. evidence has clearly outlined the relationship between mind-wandering and negative affect (poerio et al., 2013) and depression or related symptoms like rumination (smallwood et al., 2005). research suggests that these negative features are largely found for past related thoughts (smallwood & o’connor, mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan 230 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2011), while future related thoughts show positive outcomes such as improved mood and reduction of stress (engert et al., 2014; ruby et al., 2013). critically, mind-wandering experiences have been described as largely future oriented (baird et al., 2011). therefore, the limited contribution of the negative construct may reflect the smaller propensity of negatively toned and past-related thoughts. additionally, a strong relationship was evident between the negative and attentional construct, suggesting that part of the negative construct’s contribution was driven by attentional lapses. lastly, despite the reasonably good fit of the model to the data, further statistical analyses demonstrated a different fit for both english and french native speakers. considering both groups separately, for the english native speakers mind-wandering frequency largely relied on the self-related construct with no direct influence from the attentional construct, the opposite pattern was demonstrated for the french native speakers. these two constructs are shown to be highly related to each other in both models. however, in the british model the self-related construct was composed of ruminative and future-self thoughts, while it was mainly future-self thoughts in the french model. here we suggest that the contribution of the self-related construct in the british population is driven by their higher rates of ruminative thoughts. despite no cultural difference outlined on the attentional measures (i.e., mindfulness and cognitive failures) the influence of this construct was significant for the french model. research clearly states the importance of executive control to flexibly manage ones’ thoughts (smallwood & schooler, 2015). this raises questions as to why the attentional characteristics are not central to mind-wandering frequency in the british population. one avenue to consider is the possibility of an indirect effect, where the attentional construct contributes to mind-wandering frequency via its strong relationship with the self-related construct. subsequently, the factoring of selfreflection into the self-related construct for the british population was in agreement with the previously discussed cultural differences on self-centred thoughts. however, in the french population, where reflection rates are high, this measure contributed to the self-related construct and to mind-wandering frequency in a direct manner. ultimately, together, these findings demonstrate an influence of culture on the complex experience of mind-wandering. nevertheless, some limitations must be taken into account when interpreting these findings. firstly, conducting an online survey most certainly influenced the characteristics of the population recruited. this is especially true for older adults as not all the aging population has access to internet or is comfortable with the use of electronic devices. additionally, it provoked an unbalanced distribution of participants across age groups. secondly, it is difficult to know if the findings differentiating french from english native speakers can be attributed to a cultural difference, or merely a language effect via the interpretation of the questionnaires. indeed, even if back-translation of questionnaires is commonly used, it does not guarantee equivalence across two languages. indeed, one word in language a may correspond to multiple words with slightly different connotations in language b. for example, a neutral word in english, when translated into french can have a slight negative connotation and therefore would induce differences in participants’ report. nevertheless, correlations of similar weight are found between questionnaires for each population. for example, depressive symptoms, which were not influenced by culture, correlated positively, at the same extend for both group, with rumination rates (r = .58 and r =.55), with negative affects (r =.64 and r =.54) and mind-wandering (r =.39 and r =.43), which all varied depending on cultural affiliation. additionally, a study controlling for language of testing evidenced cultural differences between european american and chinese (ji, zhang, & nisbett, 2004). they stressed that the cultural effect was bigger when language was not taken into account, meaning that language of testing does modulate results but it does not mediate them. therefore, even though language of testing may lead to changes in responses, such martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 231 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ changes occurred in a limited range and do not necessarily threaten the conclusion pertaining to cultural comparisons. in conclusion, findings from this study clearly evidence cultural differences between english and french speakers, and most importantly they seem to significantly impact one’s experience of mind-wandering. those results also gave a warning toward overgeneralization of findings. indeed, if mind-wandering is experienced in every culture, supported by shared cognitive processes, the experience in itself may be different, as highlighted by our findings. first mind-wandering frequency decreased at an earlier age for french speakers. then, rumination and reflection rates were different in both populations and exerted different age-patterns. finally, french speaker showed heighten mood as compared to english speakers. therefore, results stress the importance of considering and measuring cultural affiliations during participants’ recruitment as it can modulate the findings. this study is the first to directly investigate cultural discrepancies in mind-wandering and associated features, therefore, giving the ground work for future research. future work should move on to laboratory based study and fully measures the socio-cultural affiliation of participants to enable a deeper understanding of cultural influences on mind-wandering experience. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments this work supported by a uk research studentship from researcher development framework and forms part of a larger phd program of work supervised by the dr. l. riby, dr. j. smallwood and dr. c. hamilton. references appelbaum, s. a. 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(vol. 10). oxford, united kingdom: technology press of mit. about the authors léa m. martinon has completed her phd in the psychology department at northumbria university. her project focuses on mind-wandering experiences in aging. her approach consists of using converging methods, including neuroimaging, to disentangle the complexity of such experiences. other topics of interests are attentional control, prospective memory, creativity, mindfulness, and ubiquitous phenomenon like self-generated thoughts or déjà-vu. jonathan smallwood has been a pioneer in the integration of cognitive neuroscience methodologies to the study of mindwandering. specifically, he is using eeg, meg, fmri and tms to understand how the brain produces experiences that do not arise directly from immediate perceptual input. his lab is studying naturally occurring examples of these phenomena (experiences such as daydreaming and mind-wandering) as well as with tasks that mimic these states. colin hamilton is currently a senior lecturer in psychology. his research interests are in cognition and in particular short term visual memory and visuospatial working memory. a major emphasis has been on the individual differences associated with visual short term memory, with a focus upon child development, and adult ageing. a recent focus has been upon the individual differences in working memory associated with the broader autism phenotype. leigh m. riby is a recognised researcher on the topics of successful ageing and the cognitive neuroscience of the wandering mind. he has extensive publications in applied and fundamental research in these areas, especially with reference to emerging neuroimaging/physiological technologies. he has published two books and particularly relevant here, a catalogue of articles examining mind wandering and novel cognitive interventions. current projects are using multi-modal imaging and other physiological techniques to disentangle the processes involved during mind wandering episodes and importantly are assessing the utility meditation interventions in chronic illness. martinon, smallwood, hamilton, & riby 239 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 211–239 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1597 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mind-wandering & culture across the lifespan (introduction) cultural implications mind-wandering characteristics the present study method participants measures procedure results effect of native language effect of age and native language confirmatory factor analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors material culture: still ‘terra incognita’ for psychology today? editorial material culture: still ‘terra incognita’ for psychology today? christiane moro*a [a] institute of psychology, university of lausanne, lausanne, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 172–176, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 published (vor): 2015-05-29. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, lausanne university, 1015 lausanne, switzerland. e-mail: christiane.moro@unil.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. hamlet: do you see nothing there? gertrude (the queen): nothing at all, yet all that is i see. hamlet, act iii, scene iv although over the past decades culture can be said to have re-entered psychology, one can only be puzzled by the fact that material culture did not receive the same attention and has been neglected by both ‘mainstream’ and cultural-historical traditions. to counter-balance this strange absence, the assumption i start from in this editorial is that material culture and material objects are at the heart of human developmental processes, conditioning our everyday relationship to the world, and influencing how we live, act, think and develop as human beings from an early age. this view bridges the gap between what is traditionally identified as, on the one hand, symbolic and, on the other, material culture. in psychology, on-going scientific work is being undertaken to unpack the role of material culture for the developing subject and the way in which it elicits and transforms his/her psychological processes in a dialectical movement of appropriation and transformation of culture through innovation. this emerging field extends the psychological to the mundane world, which becomes an essential player in the area of psychological development. considering the fact that our daily lives are characterised by innumerable encounters with material objects that obviously, in a way or another, organise our relationship to the world, the very first question is why psychology has been so silent concerning this crucial issue and why it has taken so long to inscribe material culture into its scientific agenda. even in the emerging stream of research in psychological development where materiality is now being considered a crucial actor, a second very important question arises: how can we progress in the problematisation of material culture and its objects for a better understanding of the evolution and transformation of psychological processes? why such a lack of interest for material culture in psychology? in ‘mainstream’ psychology and in the field of developmental psychology, the reality (also called the real) refers to an objective world that the subject thinks about. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ inaugurated by piaget’s (1952, 1954) seminal research, this conceptualisation of the object refers to it as ‘what is placed in front of’, ‘which exists independently from the mind’ (from the latin objectum). it conceives objects in terms of their physical properties, as a result of an attribution by the solitary subject. this view is grounded in the classical subjectivity orientation within philosophy, inspired by descartes and kant, in which the world is theoretically defined as an objective entity. from that time onwards, the object has been limited to the rational and consequently, its historical, cultural and semiotic features have been overlooked or naturalised. to come back to the example of early development, besides piaget, this is also the case for subsequent inneist, computationalist and social cognition perspectives (e.g., baillargeon, spelke, & wasserman, 1985; leslie, 1987, inspired by fodor; and tomasello, 1999, inspired by gibson). the same surprising absence applies, but for different reasons, to the cultural-historical developmental tradition which has some difficulties in placing the issue of material culture on its agenda. why such a lack of consideration of the cultural status of the object in the cultural-historical framework? representing this tradition, vygotsky (1962; vygotsky & luria, 1994) attributes a considerable role to language, considered as the semiotic system par excellence in human development. we assume that this pre-eminence of language is the consequence of a focus on social relations grounded in the legacy of marx’s anthropology (cf. the 6th thesis on feuerbach) where it is asserted that the humanitas de l’homo, i.e., “[…] the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. in its reality it is the ensemble of social relations” (marx, 1845 [my emphasis]). if we do agree with this conception of external human essence as expressed by marx, we consider that the identification of the culture to the social in vygotsky's framework leads to neglecting the intrinsic meaning of the object as related to its conventional use in favour of an extrinsic meaning, over-determined by the linguistic device. as a consequence, in the above positions, the object is invisible and the role of material culture for human development is under-theorised. the aim of making visible material culture in psychology brings us close to the field of material culture studies (e.g. hicks & beaudry, 2010; tilley, keane, küchler, rowlands, & spyer, 2006) in which materiality is a growing research topic emerging at the frontier between archaeology and anthropology. this new, interdisciplinary field, unbounded and unconstrained, reconsiders material culture as “an integral dimension of culture, and that there are dimensions for social existence that cannot be fully understood without it” (tilley et al., 2006, p. 1). the domain of things or objects is the principal concern but, alternatively, material culture studies can also take the human subject or the social as their starting point (tilley et al., 2006). this field of research is animated by substantive debates and, amongst them, the utility of creating a separate category of the ‘material’ that is not materially enacted (hicks, 2010, referring to ingold, 2007). this question is intrinsically linked to the definition of material culture and material objects, even if some scholars refuse to consider it (see miller, 2010). in psychology, an increasing stream of interdisciplinary work dealing with objects, things, artefacts, etc., reflecting various orientations of research and using different conceptual and theoretical frameworks one can identify. these works broadly originate in cultural-historical perspectives without excluding the interconnection with other psychological traditions such as (without being exhaustive) cognitive perspectives, biological theory, neurosciences, etc., and making use of semiotic, phenomenological, ecological or anthropological approaches. these studies are trying to reflect on what was a taken-for-granted issue, insisting on the significance and importance of investigating material domains to understand human development (e.g., andrén, 2010; de la ville & tartas, 2010; glăveanu, 2014; moro, 2011; moro & muller mirza, 2014; moro & rodríguez, 2005; muller mirza & perret-clermont, 2008; rickenmann, 2014; sinha, 2005) with topics concerning, for example, early development, creativity, the work of art, consumption, education, professional practices, gestures, among others. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 172–176 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 moro 173 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in this strive to reintroduce materiality in psychology and to explore its cultural, historical and semiotic status in human development, it is interesting to turn, once again, to philosophy. in particular towards phenomenology and to heidegger who challenged the kantian doxa by reintroducing a reflection on things and objects in the ordinary world. his perspective is filling, in a certain way, the gap left opened in cultural-historical theory (cf. vygotsky) concerning the material world. we choose to address this approach, in the end, as it is an illustration of the perspective of ordinariness also evoked by schütz and luckmann (1973) and searle (1995) and because that it might constitute a new and fruitful perspective for psychology (cf. also wittgenstein, 1961 and cavell, 1986). challenging the kantian doxa by rethinking the world and things in their ordinariness – within which, since the beginning, human relationships are embedded – the conception of phenomenology sheds new light on the issue of ‘wordliness’ of the world through, inter alia, a reflection on the ‘thing’. in being and time, heidegger (1996) goes beyond kant’s classical subjectivity by exploring the wordliness of the world in order to understand what it means to be a world for the dasein. etymologically, dasein (german neologism) means ‘being-there’ and is usually translated by ‘being-in-the-world’. what is interesting for the question of materiality is that the world is reintroduced in its ordinariness and is considered as a significant whole in relation to the dasein. the world in which one dwells may be accessed through activities, by how one engages with things in the world in a pragmatic mode. this contrasts with kant’s doxa, where the world is only accessible in the mode of knowing. as an example, in the thing, heidegger (1971) is interested in that sort of things of the world that can be used such as a jug. he takes the example of a handmade ceramic jug and asks ‘what is a jug?’ in its fundamental thingness. the jug then can be defined through the void inside it whose basic function is ‘to hold’, which is the way of being of the jug for the dasein. the advantage of engaging with heidegger’s views is that we are immersed into the world of things; in it, we live, encounter and experience things through how we perceive and use them ordinarily. the reflexion on the worldliness of the world provides new insight on the issue of materiality by making us aware of the conventional use of things. pursuing cultural-historical perspectives which focus on explaining the practical and historical relationship of the developing subject to the world, one of the questions raised is how this world and its realities are appropriated by the subjects and how psychological processes are elaborated thanks to this appropriation, considering that these relationship are constantly re-qualified by the developing subject in the course of his/her interactions with the world and other people. here the question of meaning is crucial to consider. material culture has a double nature. it is material but it is also a site of public meanings through the conventional uses of objects. how people access these public meanings and how do they transform them? how to understand then the question of affordances? as a starting point or as the point of arrival for the reconstruction of the intrinsic meaning of the object? and how to redefine the question of intersubjectivity? how to speak of meaning-making processes in relation to the activity of the subject concerning the object? and how to link these meanings to other forms of meanings, including those concerning corporeity and language, in a multimodal perspective of meaningmaking processes? the reintroduction of the material world of culture (and conventions) at the very core of the object (or the thing), by contrasting classical subjectivity, where objects are reduced to the subjectivity and representation, increases the complexity of our relationship with the world and with other people, making obvious the new challenges introduced in the study of human development thanks to materiality. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 172–176 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 material culture: still ‘terra incognita’ for psychology today? 174 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references andrén, m. 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(1996). being and time (j. stambaugh, trans.). albany, ny: state university of new york press. hicks, d. (2010). the material-cultural turn. in d. hicks & m. c. beaudry (eds.), the oxford handbook of material culture studies (pp. 25-98). new york, ny: oxford university press. hicks, d., & beaudry, m. c. (eds.). (2010). the oxford handbook of material culture studies. new york, ny: oxford university press. ingold, t. (2007). materials against materiality. archaeological dialogues, 14(1), 1-16. doi:10.1017/s1380203807002127 leslie, a. (1987). a «language of thought»: approach to early pretense. in j. montangero, a. tryphon, & s. dionnet (eds.), symbolism and knowledge (cahiers de la fondation des archives jean piaget no. 8, pp. 133-144). geneva, switzerland: jean piaget archives foundation. marx, k. (1845). theses on feuerbach. retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/thes.htm miller, d. (2010). stuff. cambridge, united kingdom: polity press. moro, c. (2011). material culture, semiotics and early childhood development. in m. kontopodis, c. wulf, & b. fichtner (eds.), children, development and education: cultural, historical, anthropological perspectives. london, united kingdom: springer. moro, c., & muller mirza, n. (eds.). (2014). sémiotique, culture et développement psychologique. villeneuve d’ascq, france: presses universitaires du septentrion. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 172–176 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 moro 175 http://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1700528 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(85)90008-3 http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/c/cavell88.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1380203807002127 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/thes.htm http://www.psychopen.eu/ moro, c., & rodríguez, c. (2005). l’objet et la construction de son usage chez le bébé: une approche sémiotique du développement préverbal. bern, switzerland: lang. muller mirza, n., & perret-clermont, a. n. (2008). dynamiques interactives, apprentissages et médiations: analyses de construction de sens autour d’un outil pour argumenter. in l. filliétaz & m.-l. schubauer-leoni (eds.), processus interactionnels et situations éducatives (pp. 231-253). brussels, belgium: de boeck. piaget, j. (1952). the origins of intelligence in children. new york, ny: ballantine. piaget, j. (1954). the construction of reality in the child. new york, ny: ballantine. rickenmann, r. (2014). la construction sociale de l’émotion esthétique: dimensions transactionnelles des rapports à l’objet culturel en calsse. in c. moro & n. muller mirza (eds.), sémiotique, culture et développement psychologique (pp. 277-294). villeneuve d’ascq, france: presses universitaires du septentrion. schütz, a., & luckmann, t. (1973). the structures of the life-world (vol. 1). london, united kingdom: heinemann. searle, j. (1995). the construction of social reality. london, united kingdom: allen lane. sinha, c. (2005). blending out of the background: play, props and staging in the material world. journal of pragmatics, 37, 1537-1554. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2004.09.011 tilley, c., keane, w., küchler, s., rowlands, m., & spyer, p. (2006). handbook of material culture. london, united kingdom: sage. tomasello, m. (1999). the cultural origins of human cognition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. vygotsky, l. s. (1962). thought and language. cambridge, ma: mit press. vygotsky, l. s., & luria, a. (1994). tool and symbol in child development. in r. van der veer & j. valsiner (eds.), the vygotsky reader (pp. 99-174). cambridge, united kingdom: basic blackwell. wittgenstein, l. (1961). investigations philosophiques. paris, france: gallimard. about the author christiane moro is full professor of developmental psychology at the university of lausanne (switzerland). she was a former assistant of bärbel inhelder at the university of geneva. her research area and publications concern early cognitive and communicative development from a pragmatic and semiotic perspective grounded in vygotsky’s framework. her published works include: l’objet et la construction de son usage chez le bébé. une approche sémiotique du développement préverbal (2005) with cintia rodríguez; l’intersubjectivité en questions. agrégat ou nouveau concept fédérateur pour la psychologie? (2014) with nathalie muller mirza and pascal roman (eds.); sémiotique, culture et développement psychologique (2014) with nathalie muller mirza (eds.). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 172–176 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 material culture: still ‘terra incognita’ for psychology today? 176 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.09.011 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en material culture: still ‘terra incognita’ for psychology today? (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author how (ir)rational is it to believe in contradictory conspiracy theories? research reports how (ir)rational is it to believe in contradictory conspiracy theories? petar lukić* ab, iris žeželj ab, biljana stanković a [a] department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. [b] laboratory for social psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract there is evidence that not only believing in one conspiracy theory (ct) makes a person more probable to believe in others, however unrelated their content is, but that people can even believe in contradictory cts about a single event. after piloting locally relevant conspiracy theories on a convenient serbian speaking sample (n = 152), we sought to replicate this finding on a larger sample (n = 252), but introduced several changes. we differentiated necessarily and probably mutually exclusive cts, and interviewed the participants who answered contradictory to understand the reasoning behind it. the participants were more prone to endorse probably than necessarily exclusive items (we registered positive correlations in former and no correlation or negative correlation in later). two strategies enabled them to overcome the contradiction: (a) distilling the crucial content and downplaying other information and (b) treating the contradictory scenarios as possible versions of events. taken together, these results indicate that participants are not as irrational as sometimes portrayed. keywords: conspiracy theories, irrationality, contradictory beliefs, overcoming contradictions europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 received: 2018-03-06. accepted: 2018-10-05. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: meštrovićeva 36, 11000 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: petarlukicpeca@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. conspiracy theories (cts) are narratives that offer an explanation of important social events. these narratives stand as an alternative to the official ones (governmental, academic, institutional, etc.), usually containing an assumption about a small group of malevolent, powerful actors, collaborating in secrecy. albeit alternative, cts are not endorsed by a neglectable minority of the population. on the contrary, for example, data show that around 50% of us citizens believe in at least one conspiracy theory regarding medical topics (oliver & wood, 2014a). one telephone survey showed that 41% of randomly selected participants believed that us air force is hiding evidence that the usa had been visited by ufos and that 69% of the participants thought that it is likely that assassination of john f. kennedy was secretly planned by powerful political actors (goertzel, 1994). in a nationally representative survey of adult serbian citizens, out of those who have heard about it, 44% agreed that haarp system controls the weather, and 35% that moon landing was staged (milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017). in addition, there is evidence that belief in cts can lead to different behavioral outcomes: people who are more prone to believe in cts are more likely to avoid the traditional medicine, less willing to get vaccinated (oliver & wood, 2014b), and to adhere to the prescribed therapy (bogart, wagner, galvan, & banks, 2010). cts are also a common part of the political propaganda and are used as a mean of intimidation and manipulaeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ tion of public opinion (goertzel, 2010; gray, 2008). experimental studies showed that even mere exposure of ct to a person can make them less willing to vote, to engage in charity work or to sign a petition to stop global pollution (douglas, sutton, jolley, & wood, 2015; jolley & douglas, 2014; van der linden, 2015). while cts can be construed around a wide range of social events, from the origin of hiv to the existence of ufo, they are usually positively interrelated. goertzel (1994) showed that there is a general factor of believing in different conspiracy theories. in other words, if a person believes in one ct, he/she is more prone to believe in others, no matter how different their content is (lukić & žeželj, 2017; oliver & wood, 2014b; swami, chamorro‐premuzic, & furnham, 2010; swami et al., 2011; van prooijen, krouwel, & pollet, 2015; wood, douglas, & sutton, 2012). in this system, labeled "monological belief system", one ct supports the others. furthermore, there is evidence that not only believing in one ct makes a person more prone to believe in other cts about different events, but a person is also more likely to believe in a ct about the same event that contradicts it. in an influential study designed to test these assumptions, wood et al. (2012) registered positive correlations between believing in mutually exclusive cts (i.e. “(princess) diana faked her own death so that she and dodi (al-fayed) could retreat into isolation”, “one or more rogue ‘cells’ in the british secret service constructed and carried out a plot to kill (princess) diana” and “business enemies of dodi and his father mohammed alfayed assassinated dodi, with the death of (princess) diana a cover-up for the operation”). they explained this finding not by assuming there were multiple cts in the system that support each other, but by assuming that each ct was in coherence with a higher-order belief (e.g. the official narratives are not true). one potential measure of such a more general, higher order belief, could be the so-called "conspiracy mentality" which is defined as “general propensity to subscribe to theories blaming a conspiracy of ill-intending individuals or groups for important societal phenomena” (bruder, haffke, neave, nouripanah, & imhoff, 2013, p. 2); however, the authors did not include it in their study. even though wood et al. (2012) were careful in explaining their central finding, it is often evoked in the academic debate to illustrate how irrational it is to believe in cts (brotherton, french, & pickering, 2013; swami, voracek, stieger, tran, & furnham, 2014; van der linden, 2015). even the proposed explanation about a higher order belief is contested, and instead it is proposed that the conspiracy believers are prone to so called “double think”, i.e. to simultaneously endorse contradictory claims (irwin, dagnall, & drinkwater, 2015). we argue, however, that the obtained correlation could be an artifact of the way we typically pose questions in surveys, and that respondents could have interpreted it in a way that allowed them to circumvent contradiction. having this in mind, we sought to replicate the initial finding, but we introduced several important changes in the design. first, we included a more general measure of conspiratorial mentality to study its relation to specific cts. second, we drew a distinction between the beliefs that are necessarily mutually exclusive (princess diane can either be dead or alive), and the ones that are probably mutually exclusive, since they may simultaneously be true, although that is highly unlikely (princess diane death could be conceived by an actor a or a b, but one can imagine a coherent narrative in which there could be a cooperation between these two actors). although the authors did differentiate these types of relations between the cts (compare study 1 and study 2, wood et al., 2012), they did not contrast them in a single design. third, to shed a light on the process of responding and the underlying reasoning, upon finishing the survey, we recruited and interviewed participants who endorsed contradictory cts. lukić, žeželj, & stanković 95 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the aim of the present study was (a) to explore if endorsement of different cts is positively correlated and correlated to conspiracy mentality (b) to specifically analyze the correlation between contradictory cts, and compare the ones necessarily exclusive and probably exclusive, (c) to register and categorize the cognitive strategies respondents use when endorsing contradictory statements. we expected that endorsement of different specific cts would correlate positively (h1) and that it would be correlated with general proneness to conspiratorial thinking (h2). furthermore, we expected that endorsement of contradictory cts would correlate positively (h3), although the participants would be more prone to simultaneously endorse pairs of probably exclusive than pairs of necessarily exclusive cts (h4). method participants and procedure to pre-select familiar cts, we conducted an online pilot survey (number of participants n = 152, 65 males) with 32 items containing potentially widespread cts. we constructed the scale drawing from previous published international works (goertzel, 1994; swami et al., 2010; brotherton et al., 2013; dagnall, drinkwater, parker, denovan, & parton, 2015), and scarce regional ones (blanuša, 2009, 2011), as well from the traditional media, social networks, forums and blogs. for the final version, we selected items with the average familiarity of at least three on a five-point scale. after the pilot study that allowed us to construct a culturally sensitive instrument for assessing belief in cts, we conducted the main study on a different sample. the participants were 252 high school and university students (82 males, mage = 19.77, sd = 1.58). we chose this particular age group (late adolescents and emerging adults), as they are still in process of forming a coherent worldview, so we reasoned they might be more prone to endorsing contradictory narratives. they completed a pen and pencil survey under a self-generated code name. upon analyzing the data, we formed a subsample of participants who endorsed contradictory cts by answering with either 3 agree or 4 – strongly agree on a four-point likert scale (n = 122). out of those, we randomly polled 26 participants and conducted semi-structured interviews with themi. interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim for further analysis. the sampling for this qualitative phase of the study was ceased when the theoretical saturation was reached. instruments belief in specific cts. we designed a 16-items questionnaire covering various cts chosen in the pilot stage (i.e. “1969 moon landing of us astronauts was staged”; "pharmaceutical companies deliberately keep the cure for hiv away from the public"). items were evaluated using a likert scale with a 4-point response format (1 = completely disagree, 4 = completely agree). we excluded the midpoint of the likert type scale used to measure the endorsement of cts, thereby forcing the respondents to decide whether it is more likely to be true or not. we reasoned that having a midpoint might have artificially inflated the correlations in the initial study, as they might have partially stemmed not from endorsing the cts but from being indecisive. internal consistency (cronbach's alpha = .78) allowed us to compute a single score. exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories 96 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ contradictory cts. on top of chosen 16, we added nine mutually contradictory items, out of which some were necessarily exclusive (i.e. “slobodan milošević was killed in the hague” and “slobodan milošević did not actually die in the hague, but faked his own death”) and some probably exclusive (i.e. “hiv virus is deliberately produced in the usa” and “hiv virus is deliberately produced in europe”). to avoid circularity in later correlational analysis, these items were not included in the total score of belief in specific cts. locally specific contradictory cts were construed around three events: the death of slobodan milošević in the hague, the assassination of željko ražnatović arkan and the true identity of josip broz tito. slobodan milošević (1941–2006) was a president of serbia during the wars in croatia and bosnia in the 1990s. he was charged with war crimes by the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia in the hague. while the process against him was still ongoing, he died of natural causes in the hague prison. there were several alternative accounts to his death in the serbian public: one assumed he was still alive and living in russia, whilst the other assumed he did not die of natural causes but was murdered in the hague. željko ražnatović arkan (1952–2000) was a commander of paramilitary forces in the yugoslav wars and a habitual offender wanted by the interpol. he was nevertheless politically active during the war years (1990s) in serbia. arkan was killed in a hotel lobby in 2000. even though the shooter was charged and prosecuted, the political motives behind the murder, as well as the suspicion that he is in fact still alive, are still discussed in the official and social media. josip broz tito (1892–1980) was a yugoslav communist revolutionary leader, serving as a first president of socialist federal republic of yugoslavia for more than 30 years. in serbia, but also in all ex-yugoslav countries, there are multiple cts regarding his origin, identity and political past, partly due to his skillful equilibrating between east and west during the cold war. to measure proneness to conspiratorial thinking, we adapted five-item conspiracy mentality questionnaire (cmq) constructed by bruder et al. (2013) with a 5-point response format (1 = completely disagree, 5 = completely agree). semi-structured interview consisted of several parts. the first part aimed at warming up the participants and leading them to think through their answers on the questionnaire (“do you remember your answer to the item ‘1969 moon landing of us astronauts was staged?’” and “why did you answer like that?”). next part consisted of the same questions as the previous one, but this time concerning a pair of mutually exclusive items that the participant endorsed. following that, we pointed to the fact that this is a case of contradictory claims and asked the participant to give us the reason behind endorsing both (“one might say that this representation of the event and the previous one can’t go together, that they contradict each other. how do you understand this? can you explain how both can be true?”). this procedure has been repeated with all pairs of contradictory items endorsed by the participant. results we will start with a detailed description of cm and specific ct endorsement in the sample, and then proceed to test the hypotheses about their interrelatedness, as well as the endorsement of contradictory cts of different types. finally, we will qualitatively analyze the strategies respondents reported to have used when they endorsed contradictory narratives and illustrate them with typical citations by the participants. the instruments, database and interview transcripts are available at https://osf.io/zxq2x/. lukić, žeželj, & stanković 97 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://osf.io/zxq2x/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the reliability of belief in specific cts questionnaire was α = .78, and the reliability of cmq on our sample was α = .67, slightly lower than in the original study (reliability of different versions of the questionnaire ranged from α = .72 to α = .84, bruder et al., 2013). the exploratory factor analysis yielded with one factor explaining 44% of the variance. taken together, this allowed us to calculate a summary score. the average endorsement, standard deviation and the percentage of endorsement for all cts used in present research are detailed in table 1. table 1 mean, standard deviation and percentage of endorsement of cmq and specific cts items m sd % conspiracy mentality questionnaire politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions. 4.57 0.71 91.30% many very important things happen in the world, which the public is never informed about. 4.47 0.82 89.72% there are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions. 4.23 0.91 77.86% events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of secret activities. 3.92 0.95 69.56% government agencies closely monitor all citizens. 3.45 0.98 47.43% 3.42 0.78 87.35% 3.18 0.88 80.23% 2.76 0.90 63.24% 2.74 1.04 61.66% 2.68 0.85 57.70% 2.68 1.00 56.52% 2.67 0.96 57.70% 2.61 0.99 56.91% 2.56 1.00 51.77% 2.54 1.01 50.59% 2.54 0.98 52.96% 2.52 1.00 49.80% 2.50 0.91 50.98% 2.46 1.05 46.64% 2.39 0.97 43.08% 2.30 0.92 39.52% 2.24 0.96 36.75% 2.17 1.06 37.15% 2.13 1.03 35.96% 2.13 0.99 35.17% 1.90 0.95 24.11% 1.76 0.85 15.41% 1.71 0.92 17.39% 1.61 0.73 9.09% specific cts some of the ingredients of coca-cola should produce an addiction in its consumers. certain commercials on television contain subliminal messages which negatively affect our behavior without our knowledge. trails in the sky that are left behind the airplane contain chemicals which pollute the living environment and poison people. pharmaceutical corporations are keeping the cure for hiv in secret. pharmaceutical corporations sell vaccines of poor quality on the eastern-european market. freemasons is a secret organization that controls the world from the shadow. željko ražnatović arkan was killed by the secret security service.a it is possible to control the weather conditions by using haarp. hiv is deliberately made in the usa laboratories to reduce the percentage of black population in africa.a the fact that the vaccines are bad for children’s health is kept away from public. slobodan milošević did not die by natural death, but was murdered in the hague.a the attack on the world trade centre in new york in 2001 is performed by the usa secret services. pharmaceutical corporations use citizens of eastern-european countries as guinea pigs for testing new medications. the 1969 moon landing of american astronauts was staged. pharmaceutical corporations use vaccines in order to cause certain diseases in people. josip broz tito was a high ranked member of freemasons. hiv is deliberately made in the laboratories of european pharmaceutical corporations to reduce african population and thus to control the flow of immigrants from africa into europe.a proofs of alien existence are kept away from public. the death of adolf hitler was staged. hiv is deliberately made in laboratories of central africa.a željko ražnatović arkan faked his death.a josip broz tito was an american spy.a the real josip broz tito died during wwii and was then replaced by a double. tito was a russian spy.a slobodan milošević did not die in the hague, but faked his death.a 1.41 0.66 4.74% amutually exclusive items. exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories 98 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measurement model. to examine the factor structure of the specific conspiracy theories questionnaire, the 16 items were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis. the results corroborated our first hypothesis about the interrelatedness between cts of very different content. both parallel and scree criteria indicated a one-factor solution. the size of the kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy, kmo = .78, and significance of bartlett’s test of sphericity (χ2 = 671.71, p < .001) showed that the 16 items had adequate common variance for principal component analysis. the number of components to be extracted was determined by parallel criteria (horn, 1965) and inspection of the scree plot (cattell, 1966; buja & eyuboglu, 1992). based on the mentioned criteria, one factor emerged with parallel criteria average higher than the 95th percentile, explaining 24% of total variance, with item loadings varying from .32 (“hidden messages in commercials”) to .62 (“vaccines cause diseases”). to test the assumption that items from belief in specific cts questionnaire and conspiracy mentality questionnaire will form two separate factors, we compared a single-factor model and a two-factor model in confirmatory factor analysis. we found that two-factor model (χ2/df = 1.98, gfi = .88, rmsea = .06, cfi = .79), although not optimal on all parameters, fitted the data better than single-factor model (χ2/df = 2.25, gfi = .82, rmsea = .07, cfi = .73). full correlation matrix of specific cts and cmq items is detailed in table 2. specific cts and cmq items were either positively related or unrelated. similarly, all pairs of contradictory items were mostly related to other cts and items from cmq, forming an expected pattern. also in line with initial expectations, we registered a substantial correlation between average specific ct endorsement and cm (r = .49, p < .001). endorsing contradictory cts. almost half of our participants (48.4%) endorsed at least one pair of mutually exclusive cts. participants endorsed more pairs of probably exclusive cts than pairs of necessarily exclusive cts (table 3). unlike wood et al. (2012), we found both positive and negative correlations between mutually exclusive cts depending on the type of relation between them. namely, probably exclusive cts were positively correlated specifically “hiv was produced in africa”, “hiv was produced in europe”, “hiv was produced in the usa” (rusaeur = .58, p < .001; rusa-afr = .28, p < .001; reur-afr = .17, p < .001) and “josip broz tito was a russian spy” and “josip broz tito was an american spy” (r = .23, p < .001). on the other hand, one pair of necessarily exclusive cts was negatively correlated “željko ražnatović arkan was killed” and “željko ražnatović arkan is still alive” (r = -.27, p < .001), whilst the other pair was unrelated “slobodan milošević was killed in the hague” and “slobodan milošević did not actually die in the hague” (r = .06, p = .346)ii. there were positive correlations between the number of endorsed pairs of mutually exclusive cts and the score on belief in specific cts questionnaire (τ = .31, p < .001; ρ = .37, p < .001)iii, as well as between the number of endorsed pairs of mutually exclusive cts and the score on cmq (τ = .20, p < .001; ρ = .24, p < .001). lukić, žeželj, & stanković 99 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2a in te rc or re la tio ns o f e nd or se m en ts o f i te m s fr om b el ie f i n s pe ci fic c ts q ue st io nn ai re a nd c on sp ira cy m en ta lit y q ue st io nn ai re , p ar t 1 ite m s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1. s ub lim in al m es sa ge s – .1 1 .0 5 .0 7 .0 6 .1 3* .2 7* * .1 0 .0 5 .2 0* * .1 2 .1 4* .1 1 .2 1* * .1 2* 2. t ito f re em as on – .2 6* * .2 4* * .1 9* * .2 7* * .1 1 .0 9 .0 8 .1 1 .2 3* * .1 4* .2 8* * .0 1 .3 2* * 3. t ito ’s d ou bl e – .1 7* * .2 5* * .2 2* * .0 2 .2 0* * .0 5 .0 9 .0 4 .1 1 .1 3* .1 7* * .2 9* * 4. m oo n la nd in g – .3 5* * .1 6* .1 2 .2 7* * .2 2* * .1 9* * .2 8* * .2 5* * .3 2* * .1 6* .1 9* * 5. h itl er fa ke d hi s de at h – .1 8* * .0 6 .1 7* * .1 0 .1 7 .1 9* * .1 4* .2 9* * .0 6 .0 1 6. h a a r p – .2 1* * .2 9* * .1 9* * .2 5* * .3 1* * .1 3* .2 4* * .1 8* * .3 0* * 7. c oc ac ol a – .0 9 .1 7* * .1 8* * .2 5* * .1 8* * .1 6* .0 9 .1 9* * 8. h iv c ur e hi dd en – .2 6* * .3 3* * .3 9* * .2 5* * .3 2* * .1 2 .2 6* * 9. v ac ci ne s e as t e ur op e – .3 1* * .2 2* * .3 4* * .2 5* * .1 6* .1 5* 10 . v ac ci ne s ha rm fu l – .4 2* * .1 6* .2 0* * .2 4* * .2 3* * 11 . v ac ci ne s di se as es – .2 2* * .3 5* * .1 7* * .1 3* 12 . g ui ne a pi gs – .1 7* * .2 7* * .2 8* * 13 . 9 /1 1 – .0 8 .0 8 14 . c he m tra ils – .1 6 15 . f re em as on s – 16 . a lie ns p ro of h id de n 17 . h iv m ad e in u s a 18 . h iv m ad e in e ur op e 19 . h iv m ad e in a fri ca 20 . t ito r us si an s py 21 . t ito a m er ic an s py 22 . a rk an m ur de re d 23 . a rk an a liv e 24 . m ilo še vi ć m ur de re d 25 . m ilo še vi ć al iv e 26 . p ub lic n ot in fo rm ed 27 . m ot iv es o f p ol iti ci an s 28 . a ge nc ie s m on ito rin g 29 . u nr el at ed e ve nt s 30 . s ec re t o rg an iz at io ns exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories 100 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2b in te rc or re la tio ns o f e nd or se m en ts o f i te m s fr om b el ie f i n s pe ci fic c ts q ue st io nn ai re a nd c on sp ira cy m en ta lit y q ue st io nn ai re , p ar t 2 ite m s 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1. s ub lim in al m es sa ge s .1 4* .1 9* * .1 4* .0 6 .0 5 .0 4 .1 5* .0 9 .1 2 -.0 3 .3 0* * .1 9* * .1 7* * .1 7* * .2 9* * 2. t ito f re em as on .1 8* * .2 3* * .1 9* * .2 0* * .2 4* * .2 3* * .1 0 .0 1 .2 1* * .0 4 .0 6 -.0 2 .0 7 .1 5* .2 1* * 3. t ito ’s d ou bl e .1 4* .0 9 .0 8 .0 1 .1 3* .2 5* * .1 0 .2 8* * .2 5* * .2 0* * -.0 4 -.0 3 .1 1 -.0 5 .1 9* * 4. m oo n la nd in g .2 4* * .2 9* * .1 2 .1 2 .0 9 .1 7* * .1 6* .1 1 .2 7* * .0 7 .1 2 .0 9 .0 6 .1 5* .2 4* * 5. h itl er fa ke d hi s de at h .2 1* * .1 7* * .0 2 .1 9* * .1 4* .1 7* * .1 3* .1 9* * .2 2* * .1 5* .1 0 .0 8 .0 7 .1 4* .1 5* 6. h a a r p .2 1* * .2 3* * .1 7* * .2 2* * .1 3* .1 1 .1 6* .1 5* .2 2* * .1 0 .1 6* .0 6 .1 8* * .0 5 .2 4* * 7. c oc ac ol a .1 0 .2 1* * .0 8 .1 8* * -.0 4 .0 7 .1 9* .0 4 .1 8 -.0 1 .1 1 .1 0 .1 6* * .0 9 .2 1* * 8. h iv c ur e hi dd en .1 3* .4 1* * .3 6* * .2 2* * .0 7 .1 9* * .1 3* .0 8 .1 4* .1 4* .2 1* * .0 7 .1 5* .1 3* .3 3* * 9. v ac ci ne s e as t e ur op e .1 7* * .3 2* * .0 4 .1 1 .1 5* .1 3* .1 9* * .0 3 .1 7* * .0 4 .0 9 .2 8* * .1 1 .2 2* * .2 5* * 10 . v ac ci ne s ha rm fu l .1 7* * .2 5* * .1 7* * .0 8 .0 7 .2 1* * .2 9* * .0 3 .1 4* .1 5* .2 1* * .0 8 .2 0* * .1 7* * .3 9* * 11 . v ac ci ne s di se as es .1 3* .3 5* * .2 2* * .2 9* * .0 8 .1 3* .2 0* * -.0 2 .1 6* .1 4* .1 6* * .1 4* .1 7* .2 1* * .2 9* * 12 . g ui ne a pi gs .0 8 .2 5* * .1 1 .0 7 .0 5 .0 8 .1 7* * .0 7 .3 0* * .0 6 .1 7* * .1 4* .1 6* .2 9* * .2 8* * 13 . 9 /1 1 .1 1 .2 7* * .2 1* * .3 1* * .1 3* .1 4* .0 2 .1 3* .1 7* * .0 2 .0 9 .1 4* .1 2 .1 7* * .3 0* * 14 . c he m tra ils .2 2* * .1 4* .0 8 .0 5 .1 0 .1 2 .1 6* .0 8 .1 7* * .1 2 .1 9* * .1 2 .0 9 .1 2 .2 6* * 15 . f re em as on s .1 7* .2 2* * .2 0* * -.0 2 .1 1 .1 6* .1 9* * .1 0 .2 5* * .1 0 .1 2 .0 2 .2 0* * .1 2 .3 8* * 16 . a lie ns p ro of h id de n – .1 2 .1 3* .0 9 .1 4* .1 2 .1 3* .2 0* * .1 6* .0 4 .1 2 .0 9 .1 8* * .1 5* .2 0* * 17 . h iv m ad e in u s a – .5 8* * .2 8* * .0 6 .1 2 .1 7* * .0 5 .1 8* * .0 4 .2 3* * .1 0 .0 1 .2 1* * .3 2* * 18 . h iv m ad e in e ur op e – .1 7* * .1 3* .0 3 .0 1 .1 6* .0 5 .1 0 .1 7* * -.0 1 .0 7 .1 6* .1 8* * 19 . h iv m ad e in a fri ca – .1 2* .0 3 .1 5* -.0 2 .1 0 .0 6 .0 6 .0 4 -.0 4 .1 7* * .1 2 20 .t ito r us si an s py – .2 3* * .1 1 .0 1 .0 8 .1 7* * .0 2 .0 4 .0 5 .1 3* .0 6 21 . t ito a m er ic an s py – .0 7 .2 0* * .1 6* .3 7* * .0 3 -.0 4 .0 3 .0 3 .1 4* 22 . a rk an m ur de re d – -.2 7* * .3 1* * -.0 1 .1 4* .0 2 .1 1 .1 5* .2 3* * 23 . a rk an a liv e – .0 1 .3 2* * .0 5 .0 5 .0 6 .0 3 .0 4 24 . m ilo še vi ć m ur de re d – .0 6 .0 7 .0 8 .1 9* * .1 4* .1 7* * 25 . m ilo še vi ć al iv e – -.1 3* -.0 9 -.1 3* .0 1 -.0 8 26 . p ub lic n ot in fo rm ed – .3 6* * .1 4* .2 9* * .4 7* * 27 . m ot iv es o f p ol iti ci an s – .2 5* * .3 0* .3 3* * 28 . a ge nc ie s m on ito rin g – .2 6* * .2 7* * 29 . u nr el at ed e ve nt s – .3 4* * 30 . s ec re t o rg an iz at io ns – lukić, žeželj, & stanković 101 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 frequencies of contradictory and non-contradictory answers on pairs of probably and necessarily exclusive cts type of answers probably exclusive cts necessarily exclusive cts origin of hiv tito arkan milošević contradictory answers 108 (42%) 6 (2%) 23 (9%) 6 (2%) non-contradictory answers 144 (58%) 246 (98%) 229 (91%) 246 (98%) content analysis of the interview transcripts revealed two types of reasoning behind endorsing mutually exclusive items, upon we excluded cases of answering in a random or inattentive manneriv. all explanations given by the participants were unproblematically recognized as indicating one of the following strategies behind endorsing contradictory cts: a) distilling crucial content. emphasizing the shared aspect of contradictory items that is considered crucial and disregarding the aspect that is different because it is considered to be of secondary relevance. for example, the participants are more focused on the fact that hiv was man-made than on the actual geographical origin of the virus: “it is irrelevant. i don’t know if it was produced in the usa or europe, but i believe it was created deliberately, with a specific aim.” “i truly believe it is fabricated intentionally! i wouldn’t bet on a particular place of origin. what is important to me is that it is created by someone, and not the details, if it was in africa or europe...” it seems that the respondents are able to circumvent the contradiction by reinterpreting the claims and extracting the shared aspect of the content that is relevant to them – in this case, it is the thesis of a secret plot to create hiv virus. the concrete location is considered to be information of secondary importance and the one they are unsure of. some participants even represent europe and the usa as a single political area with shared interests (“europe, america... it’s the western civilization”), which further makes the difference in geographical origin of the virus irrelevant when endorsing the claims. this first explanatory strategy was typical for probably exclusive ct items – 75% of the answers in this category were explained this way (and none of the necessarily exclusive ct items). b) evoking possible scenarios. treating contradictory items as possible scenarios – different explanations that make sense, sound credible or could be accurate under certain conditions. since participants are not sure which one of the alternative explanations is true, they endorse both as equally plausible: “well, i don’t know, either he was killed, or he staged his own death... for me, these are both possible options.” “well, it is possible that he is alive, but, in case he is dead, it certainly had something to do with the state.” we could not assume that the respondents in this situation believe in any of the two options expressed by the contradictory claims, but they certainly suspect the official story about the event. so, they are not sure if someone was killed or faked his own death, but they are sure “there is something suspicious about it”. and that is exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories 102 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ why they endorse both claims as potentially true, although they do not know which of them actually happened. therefore, they also evade contradiction since they endorse claims as “either a or b is true”, not as “both a and b are true”. this second explanatory strategy was typical or necessarily exclusive ct items – all of the answers in this category were explained this way (and only 25% of the probably exclusive ct items). conclusions and implications first, our results strongly corroborate the idea of cts of very different content being related and forming a unified belief system. most of the endorsements of specific cts were moderately positively correlated and they form one principal component. we found a moderate positive correlation between belief in specific cts and proneness to conspiratorial thinking, which goes in line with the results of previous research. along with the results of confirmatory factor analysis that favor the two independent factors model, we argue that belief in specific cts and conspiracy mentality, although correlated are not fully overlapping constructs. namely, cms content is generic and independent of cultural or historical content; due to abstractness of its items it can be more acceptable to general public in comparison to specific cts – some of the cmq items were even criticized to be factual, instead of conspiratorial (swami et al., 2017). second, in their seminal study, wood et al. (2012), reported only positive correlations between endorsements of contradictory cts and did not differentiate between probably exclusive and necessarily exclusive cts in a single design. in the present research, however, participants were sensitive to the type of mutual exclusiveness and the percentage of the endorsement of necessarily and probably exclusive items as well as their correlation support this conclusion. around half of our participants endorsed at least one pair of contradictory cts and, as predicted, participants endorsed pairs of probably exclusive items more than they endorsed pairs of necessarily exclusive ones. in addition, we registered positive correlations between cts which were probably exclusive and no correlation or even negative correlation between those that we proposed as necessarily exclusive. this finding illustrates that it is important to further explore the logical relations between the beliefs and the way the participants organize them in coherent belief systems. third, through the interviews, we sought to understand the reasoning behind the endorsement of contradictory items. analysis of the interview data indicates that in case of the agreement with contradictory cts, the respondents actually interpret the claims so as to avoid contradictions. they construct a higher order interpretation of the events in which suspicion towards the “official story” is central and mutually exclusive cts are seen as probable alternative explanations – only one of which might be true. this is consistent with the finding of harambam and aupers (2015) that people who believe in conspiracy theories perceive themselves as “skeptics”. the qualitative analysis thus highlighted several problems with the questionnaire as a way to assess beliefs in cts and the typical interpretations of questionnaire data. namely, one concrete ct can be an elaborate system of beliefs which we simplify and narrow down to one sentence in a questionnaire. that forces the respondents to compromise when assessing their truthfulness. they reinterpret the statement in the way it fits their belief system and the information available to them, ignoring some pieces and cherry-picking other pieces of the cts content in the process. lukić, žeželj, & stanković 103 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition, a participant’s agreement with a statement sometimes does not indicate the endorsement of its content, but the endorsement of any explanation that is alternative to the official one. the respondents assume that they have only a limited knowledge about certain events so they are not in a position to give definitive answers – as one of them said: “i can’t really claim something like that (regarding what happened in the case of arkan’s murder), because i am not an important person". they actually respond to the items by assessing the probability of the given scenario – “there is a possibility that they did (landed on the moon in 1969), but i can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’”. since the respondents reported having assessed probability for an explanation to be true (it may have happened like that), this allowed for different (even contradictory) representations of events to be simultaneously probable, therefore contradictory beliefs to coexist without being irrational. our findings can fit the three-level model recently put forward by wood (2017), in which general conspiracy ideation leads to conspiracy suspicions about specific event, which in turn can breed different specific conspiracy beliefs. if the conspiracy beliefs can share a common assumption, however vague (e.g. “climate change/death of an important person is a hoax”), it is possible for them to simultaneously exist. taking all this into account, one should be careful before drawing a conclusion that the respondents who endorsed a ct really “believe” in it. thus, participants’ answers on response scales should be interpreted more carefully. additionally, more elaborate response scales could be developed that would allow e.g. separate assessment of the likelihood of an event or the credibility of the explanation etc., so the respondents’ relation towards the items becomes clearer. the knowledge about an event, i.e. the quantity and quality of the information available to a participant should also be assessed and its relationship with believing in cts clarified. on the other hand, even when they believe in a certain ct, their explanations indicate that this belief is in most cases really superficial – without any greater engagement in form of researching and considering facts that could support or discredit their belief. this is not surprising, since this research, as all the previous ones, has been conducted on the general population. studying persons who are particularly committed to and involved with cts could provide a better-grounded basis for drawing conclusions about reasoning behind beliefs in cts, including those contradictory ones. this research goes to show that people who endorse cts are not as irrational as sometimes portrayed. adequately understanding proneness to conspiracy beliefs is especially relevant in a contemporary context, characterized by complexity and ambiguity of social events and the abundance of information sources together with the lack of acknowledged epistemic authorities. discussed methodological challenges indicate that conspiratorial worldview should be studied more thoroughly, preferably in the multi-method framework and with more sensitivity to its content and the participants’ responding strategies. notes i) the participants who endorsed probably exclusive cts and the ones who endorsed necessarily exclusive cts were evenly represented in the interview sample. since the participants have completed the survey under self-generated code names for anonymity reasons, these code names were then used to search for the participants for the interview phase. participants, of course, had the option to refuse being interviewed by not approaching the researcher when their code name had been listed. ii) we also used kendall’s τ (τ = .04, p = .458) and spearman’s ρ (ρ = .05, p = .459) as a measure of correlation between these two variables because of low mean of endorsement on item “slobodan milošević did not actually die in the hague”. iii) we used kendall’s τ and spearman’s ρ as a measure of correlation between these two variables because of the extreme violation of the normal distribution in the number of endorsed pairs of exclusive cts. exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories 104 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://www.psychopen.eu/ iv) when confronted with their answers on the cts questionnaire, part of the participants readily declared that they gave answers in a random or careless manner. around 30% of all answers (eight respondents in total) examined were classified as such. we treated those answers as invalid, i.e. not as indicators of endorsing contradictory cts by the participants, since the participants have not read or have not elaborated the content of the items. funding the research was supported by serbian ministry of education, science and technological development; project no 179018. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the project is a result of collaboration within a cost action ca 15101, comparative analysis of conspiracy theories (compact). the authors would like to thank the three reviewers for their careful reading of the paper and constructive input, as well as all the participants in the research. data availability for this study, a dataset is freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials the instruments, database and interview transcripts for the present paper are available via the osf project page (https://osf.io/zxq2x/). index of supplementary materials lukić, p., žeželj, i., & stanković, b. 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(2012). dead and alive: beliefs in contradictory conspiracy theories. social psychological & personality science, 3, 767-773. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611434786 about the authors petar lukić is a phd candidate in psychology at belgrade university. his main research interest are irrational beliefs, with focus on belief in conspiracy theories. in his work he combines qualitative and quantitative methods. iris žeželj is an assistant professor of social psychology at the university of belgrade, serbia. her main areas of interest are intergroup relations and motivated cognition, specifically biases in memory, self-knowledge and group-perception. her research has addressed a variety of real-world issues, such as ethnic discrimination, prejudice against lgbt population, use of historical representations and collective memory in intergroup relations, building of anti-scientific attitudes, the role of conspiracy theories in political and health related behaviors. she uses a wide variety of research methods, from lab and field experiments, to cross cultural surveys. biljana stanković is an assistant professor of qualitative methodology at the university of belgrade, serbia. she is working with qualitative approaches on different topics at the intersection of health and social psychology, seeking to integrate theoretical perspectives from cultural-historical psychology, science and technology studies and anthropology. lukić, žeželj, & stanković 107 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 94–107 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172617 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1583 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.2010.02004.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.045 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614567356 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12231 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611434786 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ exploring belief in contradictory conspiracy theories (introduction) method participants and procedure instruments results conclusions and implications notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors a cross-lagged panel analysis of the relationship between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community research reports a cross-lagged panel analysis of the relationship between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community gabriele prati* a, elvira cicognani a [a] department of psychology, university of bologna, bologna, italy. abstract neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community have been associated with important outcomes for adolescents. however, the complex interplay between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community among adolescents is not clear. moreover, the studies showing an association between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community have been cross-sectional. the present study investigated the directionality of the relationship between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community using a longitudinal cross-lagged design. using structural equation modeling, a cross-lagged panel analysis revealed that school sense of community at time 1 significantly predicts neighborhood sense of community at time 2 even after controlling for neighborhood sense of community at time 1. however, neighborhood sense of community at time 1 did not predict school sense of community at time 2. results of this study support the theory that school sense of community can provide students with a bridge between school and community. keywords: sense of community, school, students, cross-lagged panel study europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 received: 2018-06-22. accepted: 2019-02-25. published (vor): 2019-12-12. handling editor: sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london united kingdom *corresponding author at: dipartimento di psicologia, università di bologna, piazza aldo moro 90, 47521 cesena (fc), italy. e-mail: gabriele.prati@unibo.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mcmillan and chavis (1986, p. 9) defined sense of community “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.” in the last 25 years, researchers have recognized the importance of this indicator of the perceived quality of the relationships with the community, for adolescents’ developmental outcomes and well-being (e.g., albanesi, cicognani, & zani, 2007; capone, donizzetti, & petrillo, 2018; cicognani et al., 2008; evans, 2007; petrillo, capone, & donizzetti, 2016; prati, cicognani, & albanesi, 2018; pretty, andrewes, & collett, 1994; pretty, conroy, dugay, fowler, & williams, 1996; vieno, lenzi, santinello, & scacchi, 2013). sense of community in adolescence can be enhanced by shared emotional connection and positive experiences with peers and significant adults, which provide opportunities for satisfying personal needs and experiencing influence over the community (cicognani, zani, & albanesi, 2012). the construct of sense of community among adolescents has been investigated mainly with reference to transactions with school and neighborhood, two of the community settings within which adolescents’ support networks are embedded and in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ which they share experiences and develop emotional connections with others (cicognani, klimstra, & goossens, 2014; pretty et al., 1994, 1996). researchers have acknowledged the role of interpersonal and societal contexts including involvement in community in adolescent development (smetana, campione-barr, & metzger, 2006). individuals are connected to multiple communities through their multiple identities, roles, and relationships (brodsky & marx, 2001; mannarini & fedi, 2009). for instance, adolescents can develop significant relationships in one context (e.g., establishing friendships at school) contributing to their sense of community with reference to that context, and the same relationships can have spillover effects on other contexts (e.g., through sharing of other experiences in their community with classmates who are friends). the school setting is of primary relevance for adolescents in western countries, given the significant amount of time that they spend in this context. although it is reasonable to assume that neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community are correlated among adolescents, previous research has shown that they have distinguishing features (chipuer, 2001; pretty et al., 1994, 1996). brodsky and marx (2001) documented, in a study involving students enrolled in a job-training and education center, the presence and operation of multiple psychological senses of community with reference to multiple, separate or nested, communities. specifically, brodsky and marx demonstrated the operation of quantitatively and qualitatively different multiple psychological senses of community between a macro territorial setting and a job-training and education center (which was considered a subcommunity of the territorial setting). following these findings, we can consider the school as an example of a nested subcommunity that coexists within a territorial community toward which students may develop sense of belonging. another difference between school sense of community and neighborhood sense of community is that adolescents tend to consider the local community as a place “not chosen” (cicognani et al., 2012), while the school could be chosen to some extent. choice is likely to have an influence on individuals’ psychological sense of community (obst & white, 2007). theoretical framework to our knowledge no previous attempts have been made to understand the complex interplay between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community among adolescents. in the literature, we could identify two perspectives that suggest opposite paths of influence between the two aspects of sense of community. according to social disorganization theory (shaw & mckay, 1942; simcha-fagan & schwartz, 1986), the level and extent of community social organization mediate the relationship between a neighborhood’s characteristics and developmental outcomes. social disorganization theory has been extensively utilized to explain the influence of neighborhood characteristics on youth behaviors (e.g., bursik & grasmick, 1993; elliott et al., 1996; leventhal & brooks-gunn, 2000; sampson & groves, 1989). utilizing the social disorganization framework, research has demonstrated that community social organization (e.g., reflected in a stronger perceived sense of community) mediates the influence of negative structural characteristics on youth behaviors (e.g., leventhal & brooks-gunn, 2000; sampson & groves, 1989; sampson, morenoff, & earls, 1999). drawing from updated systemic social disorganization models, cantillon, davidson, and schweitzer (2003) provided evidence for the hypothesis that neighborhood sense of community has important spillover effects on youths’ bonding and participation in school. therefore, based on this perspective, neighborhood sense of community could be conceptualized as a predictor of school sense of community. neighborhood and school sense of community 690 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the ecological model of bronfenbrenner (1979) is specifically useful to understand youth outcomes, as it moves beyond individual characteristics to include the influence of the family and the larger sociocultural context. there is evidence that the ecological model of bronfenbrenner (1979) can inform a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to youth development (e.g., bronfenbrenner, 1986; hong, lee, grogan-kaylor, & huang, 2011; ungar, ghazinour, & richter, 2013). based on the ecological model of bronfenbrenner (1979), bateman (2002) suggests that school sense of community may promote sense of community with the larger communities to which the students belong. specifically, school sense of community is associated with connections with multiple communities outside the school and opportunities for students to participate in school activities and neighborhood events. in addition, school sense of community is related to participation in accessible and diverse after-school clubs, thereby enabling students to connect with the local community. schools can build reciprocal partnerships within the local community by contributing to the cultural and economic life of the community and by addressing its educational and health needs, for instance, through service learning initiatives (e.g., bringle & hatcher, 1996; stoecker, tryon, & hilgendorf, 2009). among adolescents, sense of familiarity and experiences with the context are necessary to perceive the local community as a place for experiencing feelings of belonging (cicognani et al., 2012). in addition, there is evidence that adolescents who participate more to local community life report higher neighborhood sense of community compared to less involved adolescents (cicognani et al., 2012). finally, using a grounded theory approach, cicognani et al. (2012, p. 120) showed that, among adolescents sense of community is associated with “bonding (sharing, brotherhood, acceptance, support) in the context of specific relationships (friendship, family).” the school as a community provides a place allowing a direct (face to face) contact among members. such interactions can continue afterschool and take place in the local community. in this way, a school environment that can build students’ school sense of community has the potential to promote students’ neighborhood sense of community. one of the main limitations is the cross-sectional nature of the available studies, such that it is not possible to determine causality or direction of the associations between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community. the aim of the present study was to examine the directionality of the association between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community using longitudinal data and a cross-lagged panel design. using a cross-lagged design, neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community were assessed at each time and the relations between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community at different time points were then investigated whilst controlling for within-construct correlation (finkel, 2004). compared to cross-sectional design, a cross-lagged panel design enables a more accurate assessment of causality (burkholder & harlow, 2003). based on the reviewed literature, we hypothesized that: h1. according to a social-ecological approach (bateman, 2002; bronfenbrenner, 1979), school sense of community at time 1 will predict neighborhood sense of community at time 2 even after controlling for neighborhood sense of community at time 1. h2. according to updated systemic social disorganization models (cantillon et al., 2003), neighborhood sense of community at time 1 will predict school sense of community at time 2 even after controlling for school sense of community at time 1. prati & cicognani 691 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure the procedures followed in the current study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the italian association of psychology and with the 1964 helsinki declaration. the principal of a technical institute (high school) of the italian region of emilia romagna was contacted and asked permission to conduct the study. the technical institute is co-educational (although male students predominate). upon permission from the school, letters of consent were distributed to the students’ parents. to collect the data, we used a website accessible only to participants. before taking part to the study, participants read a consent form that provided information about the study, instructions, and their rights as participants. the consent form made clear that participation was anonymous and voluntary. we obtained a response rate of 53% (including incomplete surveys). after obtaining informed consent, participants were asked to complete (individually) the online questionnaire during class time. participants were approached at the beginning of the school year (time 1) and at the end of the school year (time 2). between-waves attrition was 12%. there were no significant differences between participants who did and did not drop-out in terms of gender, χ2(1) = 0.79, p > .05, age, u = 2538.5, p > .05, school sense of community at t1, u = 2584.0, p > .05, and neighborhood sense of community at t1, u = 2530.0, p > .05. we linked together data from each participant at different time points using an anonymous code which was self-generated by participants. the students who were included in both time 1 and time 2, who thus formed the sample of the present study, numbered 106 (97 male and 9 female students). participants’ age ranged from 13 to 17 (m = 14.42, sd = 0.67). twenty-three participants were living in a city, 50 in a town, 26 in a village, and 7 in rural environments. measures at time 1 and at time 2, we asked participants to complete an online questionnaire including the measures of school sense of community and neighborhood sense of community. to measure neighborhood sense of community, we used the brief scale of sense of community in adolescents (chiessi, cicognani, & sonn, 2010). the scale includes 20 items. examples of items from this scale include “in this place, there are enough initiatives for young people,” “i spend a lot of time with other adolescents that live in this place,” and “people in this place support each other.” responses were measured using a 5-point likert type scale (1 = not at all true, 5 = completely true). the referent community was the neighborhood where the participants lived. in the current study, cronbach’s alpha was .90 at time 1 and .93 at time 2. we used the scale of sense of community in the school (soc-s; prati, cicognani, & albanesi, 2017) to measure sense of community in the school. the soc-s comprises 10 items. examples of items from the soc-s include “i like to stay with other students attending this school,” “in this school, i feel i can share experiences and interests with other students,” and “in this school, there are enough initiatives for me.” participants rated the responses on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all true, 5 = completely true). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha was .84 at time 1 and .88 at time 2. statistical analysis we conducted a cross-lagged path analysis using mplus version 7 (muthén & muthén, 1998–2012). we employed missing data estimation using maximum likelihood imputation procedure as recommended by graham neighborhood and school sense of community 692 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (2009). we tested our hypotheses using a structural equation modeling with the wlsmv estimator (a robust weighted least squares estimator using a diagonal weight matrix). an initial test of the measurement model revealed that all the latent factors were well represented by their respective indicators (i.e., all the factor loadings for the indicators on the latent variables were significant), and the overall model had a good fit, χ2(1704) = 2070.44, p < .001; nnfi = 0.91; cfi = 0.92; rmsea = 0.045. results table 1 displays correlations and descriptive statistics for key study variables. neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community at time 2 did not correlate with age and gender. neighborhood sense of community at time 1 correlated with gender but not with age. school sense of community at time 1 correlated with age but not with gender. as regards intercorrelations between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community measured at t1 and t2, all the correlation coefficients were positive and significant. table 1 correlations among and descriptive statistics for key study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. gender 2. age 16.42 0.68 −.01 3. school sense of community (time 1) 3.70 0.62 .09 −.23* 4. school sense of community (time 2) 3.43 0.79 .10 −13 .54* 5. neighborhood sense of community (time 1) 3.34 0.63 −.33* −.04 .26* .34* 6. neighborhood sense of community (time 2) 3.27 0.77 −.15 −.12 .29* .57* .56* note. n’s range from 103 to 106 due to occasional missing data. for gender, 1 = male, 2 = female. *p < .05. figure 1 displays the cross-lagged relationships between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community at times 1 and 2, while controlling for gender. school sense of community predicted follow up neighborhood sense of community controlling for the effects of baseline neighborhood sense of community, thereby confirming hypothesis 1. however, t1 neighborhood sense of community did not predict school sense of community. therefore, hypothesis 2 was not supported by the results. prati & cicognani 693 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. cross-lagged relationships between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community at times 1 and 2 (χ2(1760) = 2143.67, p < .001; nnfi = 0.91; cfi = 0.91; rmsea = 0.045). note. regression coefficients are standardized. *p < .05. we controlled for gender in the model. discussion the purpose of this investigation was to examine the directionality of the association between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community. with few exceptions (e.g., prati, albanesi, & pietrantoni, 2016), in the literature on sense of community studies have used correlational designs to investigate this relationship (e.g., cantillon et al., 2003; pretty et al., 1994, 1996), despite researchers acknowledging the need for more longitudinal studies (pretty, 2002). in the current study, we used a fully cross-lagged longitudinal design. therefore, we were able to establish the temporal relationships between neighborhood sense of community and school sense of community. we found that school sense of community at time 1 predicts neighborhood sense of community at time 2, after controlling for baseline levels of neighborhood sense of community. thus, the data provide evidence in favor of our first hypothesis. however, in the current study, neighborhood sense of community at time 1 did not predict school sense of community at time 2 when controlling for school sense of community at time 1. therefore, the findings did not support our second hypothesis. the results of the present study provide support for an embedded ecological model of development (bateman, 2002). a strong sense of community in the school which is part of the microsystem is able to foster such experience in a larger social system (exosystem), such as the neighborhood community context. in the literature, several types of communities have been identified (mcmillan & chavis, 1986). for instance, there is a territorial and geographical notion of community and a relational notion of community which relates to the quality of human relationships, without reference to a place. in the present study, we demonstrated that the experience of sense of community can influence individual's sense of community with regard to another community in which the person is embedded. during adolescence, the direction of such influence seems to be from the immediate physical and social environment (microsystem) to the neighborhood community contexts (exosystem). according to the ecological framework of human development of bronfenbrenner (1979), children may not interact directly with the exosystem; however, as they become adolescents, their interaction with the exosystem becomes neighborhood and school sense of community 694 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ more direct. research on identity formation in adolescence revealed that the more adolescents explored different alternatives and made firm commitments in different life domains (i.e., in the achieved identity status), the more they developed neighborhood sense of community (cicognani et al., 2014). the experiences of adolescents in their neighborhood enable the exploration of new values, roles, relationships, and interests and build civic commitment (evans, 2007; flanagan, bowes, jonsson, csapo, & sheblanova, 1998). in their conceptual model, long and perkins (2007) defined the community social (i.e., neighboring, citizen participation, collective efficacy, informal social control, and communitarianism) and place (i.e., place attachment, community confidence, and community satisfaction) predictors of sense of community. while participation (e.g., involvement in protest activities, civic forms of engagement, public deliberation, political campaigning or voting) is not consistently associated with sense of community among adolescents (talò, mannarini, & rochira, 2014), the major theoretical implication of the current research is that school sense of community may play a role in determining neighborhood sense of community among adolescents. therefore, the role of school sense of community should be taken into account in developing conceptual models of neighborhood sense of community among adolescents. in addition, this theoretical implication bears on a practical implication, specifically on the role of the school in promoting sense of community. indeed, these findings have practical implications for school and community psychologists. in terms of intervention programs, offering students opportunities to participate in school life, and in learning activities that stimulate collaboration within the entire school, and making the educational environment more capable to satisfy young people’s needs (i.e., to have a voice, to be heard, to develop significant relationships, to have positive experiences, to explore different options) are strategies that teachers can effectively implement in their ordinary activity to improve the relational school environment (bateman, 2002; whitlock, 2006) and, ultimately, students’ neighborhood sense of community. in addition, there is evidence that comprehensive, whole-school ecological intervention programs such as the child development project that promote caring and supportive relationships, a sense of common purpose, cooperation between teachers, students, staff, and parents and that stimulate students’ participation in decision making can enhance students’ school sense of community (battistich, schaps, & wilson, 2004). the results of the present study should be considered in light of its limitations. first, the sample was small and not nationally representative. in addition, female participants were under-represented. previous studies demonstrated that, compared to their male counterparts, females adolescents tend to report lower scores on neighborhood sense of community and higher scores on school sense of community (e.g., chiessi et al., 2010; prati et al., 2017). although the results were controlled for gender, we cannot rule out the possibility that the findings would not generalize to other samples of students. a second limitation consists in the research design. longitudinal research has an advantage over laboratory experiments that lack external validity; however, for determining causality, only experiments remain the gold standard. thus, future research should be directed also toward experimental studies involving larger and more gender diverse samples. keeping in mind the limitations of the present study, the findings suggest that school sense of community is a temporal antecedent of neighborhood sense of community. future research should examine interventions that address school sense of community and how these interventions may foster neighborhood sense of community. the study of the mechanisms by which school sense of community may have an influence on neighborhood sense of community is of great interest since sense of community is important for adolescents’ developmental outcomes and well-being. although the promotion of sense of community is not a “panacea” (prati, albanesi, & prati & cicognani 695 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cicognani, 2018), more efforts should focus on understanding the experience of adolescents’ sense of community at school and in the neighborhood. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references albanesi, c., cicognani, e., & zani, b. 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(2013). what is resilience within the social ecology of human development? journal of child psychology and psychiatry and allied disciplines, 54(4), 348-366. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12025 vieno, a., lenzi, m., santinello, m., & scacchi, l. (2013). sense of community, unfairness, and psychosomatic symptoms: a multilevel analysis of italian schools. journal of adolescent health, 53(1), 142-145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.02.019 whitlock, j. l. (2006). youth perceptions of life at school: contextual correlates of school connectedness in adolescence. applied developmental science, 10(1), 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532480xads1001_2 about the authors gabriele prati teaches social psychology at the university of bologna (italy). he received doctoral degree in social psychology from the university of bologna. his research interests focus on sense of community, risk perception, attitudes, wellbeing, and behavior change. elvira cicognani is full professor at the university of bologna since 2016. her research interests are in the domain of social and community psychology. her principal current research interests concern forms and processes of civic and political participation and active citizenship, sense of community and psychosocial well-being, psychosocial and community processes in health behaviors, health promotion interventions. she has been involved in international and national research projects, and was the coordinator of horizon 2020 project “catch-eyou” (2015–2018). prati & cicognani 699 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 689–699 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1682 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1745-9125.1986.tb01507.x https://doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.psych.57.102904.190124 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs11205-013-0347-2 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fjcpp.12025 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jadohealth.2013.02.019 https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs1532480xads1001_2 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ neighborhood and school sense of community (introduction) theoretical framework method participants and procedure measures statistical analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors with a little help from my family: a mixed-method study on the outcomes of family support and workload research reports with a little help frommy family: a mixed-method study on the outcomes of family support and workload alessandro lo presti*a, fulvia d’aloisioa, sara pluvianobc [a] department of psychology, second university of naples, caserta, italy. [b] suor orsola benincasa university, napoli, italy. [c] university of edinburgh, edinburgh, united kingdom. abstract our aim was to investigate some predictors and outcomes of family-to-work enrichment (fwe) via a mixed-method approach. we sampled 447 married employees of an italian factory. survey results from study 1 showed that emotional support from family positively predicted fwe, while this latter mediated the associations between the former on one side, and work engagement and life satisfaction on the other. moreover, extra-household support directly associated positively with life satisfaction. evidence from 20 anthropological in-depth interviews (study 2) returned a more complex picture, highlighting the gendered role of partners inside couples, the importance of kinship support, the sense and the value of filiation and parenthood in their connection with job roles, the complex and continuous interplay between family and life domains. in combination, results from both studies stressed the importance of family support; additionally, evidences from study 2 suggested that fwe could be better understood taking into account crossover dynamics and the compresence of work-to-family enrichment and conflict. in sum, these studies contributed to shed light on fwe dynamics, an under-researched topic in italy, whose knowledge could be of great empirical and practical value. keywords: family-to-work enrichment, mixed-method approach, family support, family workload, gender issues, work-family enrichment europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 received: 2016-03-25. accepted: 2016-07-13. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: second university of naples, department of psychology, viale ellittico, 31 – 81100 – caserta, italy. ph: +390823275331. e-mail: alessandro.lopresti@unina2.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the current global trend of increased dual-earner and single-parent families, coupled with a blurring of gender roles, provides a vivid illustration of how work and non-work aspects of life are intertwined (greenhaus & powell, 2006). greenhaus and powell (2006) provided a theory that specifies the conditions under which “work and family roles are ‘allies’ rather than ‘enemies’” (p. 72), thus beginning to test the idea of work-family enrichment, defined as the extent to which experiences in role a (work or family) improve the quality of life, namely heighten high performance or positive affect, in role b (family or work). enrichment can occur bi-directionally, meaning that work can provide resource gains that have a positive impact on the family role (work-to-family enrichment, wfe) or, conversely, family can provide resource gains that lead to positive impact on the work role (family-to-work enrichment, fwe). for clarity, in this paper we specifically emphasised this latter direction (i.e., from family to work) that, in spite of its significance, appeared for a long time as “the neglected side of the work-family interface” (crouter, 1984, p. 425). according to a meta-analysis by mcnall, nicklin, and masuda (2010) carried out on 25 previous studies, fwe was associated with job satisfaction, affective commitment, family satisfaction, physical europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and mental health. other studies found significant associations with life satisfaction (lazarevic, holman, oswald, & kramer, 2015), organizational citizenship behaviours (bhargava & baral, 2009), positive mood and psychological distress (carlson, hunter, ferguson, & whitten, 2014), among others. it derives that fwe does not only represent an important variable in order to explain the positive interplay between family and work domains but is accompanied by a large variety of significant work and general positive outcomes of practical and organizational salience. nevertheless, the amount of empirical evidence about fwe (in particular, about its predictors), as compared towfe and other work-family variables, remains limited (mauno & rantanen, 2013), and almost absent as regards to italy. consistently with the importance of co-workers support within organizational contexts, especially for work-to-family enrichment (lo presti & mauno, 2016), family support, and workload, seem to be fundamental variables that can foster, or hinder, the development of family-to-work enrichment, to the extent that they can provide individuals with valuable psychosocial resources that can facilitate their subsequent work experiences. despite the importance of this topic, scholars have usually used comprehensive measures of family support (bhargava & baral, 2009; lu, 2011), returning a simplified picture of this variable, and neglected to evaluate family workload. finally, given the complexity of this issue, which connects to the intertwinement between family and work domains, a quali-quantitative approach would be preferable; yet it seems that scholars have preferred up to now only quantitative approaches, overlooking more comprehensive research designs. stemming from this rationale, this work challenges and expands the extant research on fwe through a mixedmethod approach. first, consistently with work-family enrichment theoretical frameworks (greenhaus & powell, 2006; wayne, grzywacz, carlson, & kacmar, 2007), as well as previous empirical evidence, we quantitatively evaluated the impact of different facets of family support, and family workload, as antecedents of fwe, and their combined effects on life satisfaction and work engagement (study 1) on a sample of blue-collar workers, an underrepresented occupational group in work-family studies. second, based on current evidence concerning the wellknown italian gap between male and female labour rates, and the impact of its specific welfare system (the socalled familistic welfare) on work-family conciliation, we qualitatively examined, through an anthropological indepth perspective, the interplay between work and family life and their resulting effects among blue-collar workers, contrasting them with study 1 evidence (study 2). from a practical point of view, knowing which family variables, in terms of family workload and facets of family support, have a positive impact on fwe, and thus on work engagement and life satisfaction, could provide practitioners and hr professionals with useful information about what to target with interventions aimed at improving individuals’ work-family interface and consequently their quality of life, both at work and in general. nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that higher life satisfaction and work engagement can have a positive impact on individual motivation and, thus, lead to heightened work performance; it derives that promoting family-to-work enrichment does not only go in the interest of employees but of the organization itself. theoretical foundation crucial driver of the enrichment process is the generation of resources, conceptualized as assets that individuals may capitalize to solve a problem or manage challenging situations, therefore keeping their life manageable (greenhaus & powell, 2006). these include skills and perspectives, psychological and physical resources, socialcapital resources, flexibility, and material resources. wayne et al. (2007) proposed the resource-gain-development perspective of work-family enrichment based on the conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 2011). they defined resources as characteristics of the environment europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 585 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that (bakker & demerouti, 2007): (a) support individuals in achieving goals, (b) address demands (i.e., aspects of the job that require sustained effort, such as high work pressure), and/or (c) encourage personal growth and development. wayne et al. (2007) argued that “the basic premise of the resource-gain-development perspective is that individuals have natural tendencies to grow, develop, and achieve the highest levels of functioning for themselves and the systems in which they participate including families and organizations” (p. 66). according to this model, enrichment acts as a mediator between resources and work/family outcomes. thus, resources may increase enrichment between work and family domains, which in turn may have positive outcomes, both at work and home (hunter, perry, carlson, & smith, 2010). consistently with this perspective, social resources (e.g., social support from family members) promote family-to-work enrichment by fostering a positive family environment that equips employees with sufficient resources to successfully and satisfactory functioning in the work domain. furthermore, consistently with mcnall et al. (2010), it is also possible to expect that enrichment would be associated with outcomes related to the domain from which it firstly originated. thus, for instance, it is plausible to assume that fwe could also be associated with life and family satisfaction, apart from job satisfaction and work engagement (as it would be assumable from its original theoretical foundation). as wayne, musisca, and fleeson (2004) explained, “it may be that when individuals make attributions about the benefits of one role to the other, this primarily results in more positive affect and behavioral investment in the role seen as providing the benefit” (p. 124). family demands and resources as we previously stated, we focused on family workload (as a family demand) and different facets of family support based on the fact that a comprehensive examination of their effects on fwe is still lacking in the literature on work-family enrichment, and that examining such phenomena could have direct positive practical implications for organizations, such as tailoring work-family interventions targeting also the home domain in order to enhance family support dynamics. in the arenas of work and family domains, a large body of research focuses on the negative home-work interaction (long dilworth & kingsbury, 2005), referred as the detrimental load effects that have built up in the home situation and interfere with functioning at work. indeed, higher home demands, measured as general household activities (demerouti, geurts, & kompier, 2004) or in terms of number and age of children (voydanoff, 1988), are usually associated with a higher level of negative home-work interaction. however, according to greenhaus and powell (2006), the tug of war between work and family may be loosened by the acquisition of social capital, defined as “the goodwill that is engendered by the fabric of social relations and that can be mobilized to facilitate action” (adler & kwon, 2002, p. 17). thus, social support received from a family member must be regarded as a key resource that, besides leading someone to feel “cared for and loved, esteemed and valued, and a member of a network of mutual obligation” (cobb, 1976, p. 300), may also foster affect in the family that can be transferred to the individual’s functioning at work. traditionally, two types of non-work social support have received empirical validation: (a) emotional or socioemotional, and (b) instrumental or tangible. the former involves the family’s interest in the employee’s work and those general behaviours or attitudes of care and concern that spread in one’s mind encouragement, attention and positive regard, understanding, and guidance with problem-solving. on the other hand, the latter encompasses those family member behaviours and attitudes specifically aimed at facilitating the employee’s household tasks europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 586 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and responsibilities, as well as at organizing family life as to accommodate the employee’s work schedule or job requirements (king, mattimore, king, & adams, 1995). it might also be noted that a great deal of attention in the literature has been paid to spouse support (carlson & perrewé, 1999) but it should also be underlined the important role of other forms of non-work social support on whom a person can rely on. for instance, in wider families individuals may lean on other domestic support resources such as elderly parents or domestic helpers, who may help to mitigate the stress within the family domain (pagani & marenzi, 2008). moreover, the employee may also benefit of the helping hand of people who are not bounded by permanence or sharing of a household, such as other kin or friends. to comprehensively account for the variety of non-work social support but also avoid any overlap between its different forms, in this study we specifically investigated the roles of family (spouse, sons, and daughters) and extra-household social support. several findings corroborate the relationship between family support and fwe. aryee, srinivas, and tan (2005) used a comprehensive measure of family support, encompassing instrumental and emotional sources of support. their findings speak in favour of a positive relationship between family support and fwe, suggesting that supportive family experiences may allow individuals to work longer hours and avail them of developmental opportunities. in contrast, wayne, randel, and stevens (2006) found that only family emotional support strongly predicted fwe. this suggests that, in order to generate positive experiences across domains, feeling that family members care about individual’s work concerns, rather than sharing household responsibilities, is of a greater importance. especially noteworthy is a longitudinal study carried out by hakanen, peeters, and perhoniemi (2011) that, instead of investigating only one form of support, proposed a wider conceptualization of home resources, conceived as both the emotional, instrumental and appraisal support from one’s family/partner, as well as the social support from one’s friend. in particular, the authors pointed out that fwe positively predicted both home resources and marital satisfaction over time. nevertheless, we believe that this evidence unveil just the tip of the iceberg of how studying the importance of family support might enhance our view of enrichment dynamics. therefore, on the call to incorporate both demandand resource-family factors in examining fwe, we hypothesized that: h1: family workload will be negatively related to fwe. h2a-c: family support, including both emotional (a) and instrumental (b) family social support, as well as extra-household support (c), will be positively related to fwe. mediation hypotheses concerning fwe this study attempted to examine some specific work-related (work engagement) and non-work (life satisfaction) outcomes of positive home-work interaction. in this vein, consistently with the resource-gain-development perspective (wayne et al., 2007), that assumes that resources may increase enrichment between work and family domains, which thenmay improve satisfaction at work and at home, fwe could represent a key mediator between family resources and demands on one side, and home/work outcomes on the other. siu et al. (2010) clarified how work engagement might represent a crucial factor in testing greenhaus and powell’s (2006) dual pathways model. in this respect, family support should be considered as a key resource that could enhance work engagement. indeed, employeesmay leverage instrumental advice and affective resources received europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 587 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from family to reach their craved work goals, or family support may also motivate a member to work harder by providing love and care (grzywacz & marks, 2000). in addition, rothbard (2001), examining whether engagement in one role was enriching or depleting to the engagement in the other role, found that (though only among women) positive family affect related to a greater work absorption. finally, hakanen et al. (2011) revealed that work-tofamily enrichment related to work engagement and these variables reciprocally influenced each other over time. the opposite might also be true, namely fwe can predict work engagement. indeed, albeit it is largely demonstrated that both directions of enrichment may be related to work outcomes, it could be also the case that enrichment operates similarly to conflict, implying that work-to-family enrichment is more closely tied with family outcomes, whereas fwe is more closely related to work outcomes (mcnall et al., 2010). based on the above arguments, we propose that: h3a-c: family support, including both emotional (a) and instrumental (b) family social support, as well as extra-household support (c), will be positively related to work engagement via fwe. as several studies linked work-to-family conflict to lower life satisfaction (e.g., allen, herst, bruck, & sutton, 2000; eby, casper, lockwood, bordeaux, & brinley, 2005), it is not so surprising to expect the reverse; that is, evidence suggesting the relationship between enrichment and life satisfaction (e.g., mcnall et al., 2010), although not so convincingly as it is for work-to-family conflict (mauno, kinnunen, & rantanen, 2011). for instance, van steenbergen, ellemers, and mooijaart (2007) revealed that, if the experience of conflict was highly predictive of stress-related outcomes (e.g., emotional exhaustion), the inclusion of a similar construct to enrichment, namely facilitation (i.e., individual’s judgement that participation in one role makes participation in another role easier, p. 281), significantly and substantially improved the prediction of positive work outcomes (e.g., affective commitment) as well as nonwork outcomes (e.g., life satisfaction), over and above the effects of conflict. also mauno et al. (2011) underlined that fwe was a strong predictor of life satisfaction. in addition, according to greenhaus and powell (2006), family participation is likely to generate a variety of resources (e.g., social-capital resources), which can bolster one’s performance and positive affect at home, and in turn improve one’s positive affect at work. thus, it follows that greater positive feelings about own family role might subsequently result in reciprocation in the form of higher family and life satisfaction in general (mcnall et al., 2010). indeed, involvement with family domain has been linked to a greater life satisfaction (judge, boudreau, & bretz, 1994). for instance, adams, king, and king (1996) revealed that high levels of family involvement were associated with higher levels of emotional support from family members, which, in turn, had a positive relationship with life satisfaction. similarly, greenhaus, collins, and shaw (2003) showed how quality of life was highest for those more engaged or more satisfied in family than work, and lowest for those who are more engaged or more satisfied in work than family. also, bhargava and baral (2009) provided evidence for the positive relationship between family support and fwe and also found that fwe related to family and job satisfaction. finally, as previously mentioned, consistently with mcnall et al. (2010), it is also possible to expect that enrichment would be associated with outcomes related to other domains than work. based on the above arguments, we propose that: h4a-c: family support, including both emotional (a) and instrumental (b) family social support, as well as extra-household (c), will be positively related to life satisfaction via fwe. figure 1 depicts our research model. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 588 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. research model. study 1 method participants data were collected by means of a self-report questionnaire among employees of a food-processing factory located in southern italy, one of the main productive sector in that part of the country. each questionnaire was distributed inside a sealable envelope (accompanied by a letter of invitation to participate in the study) and retrieved by a survey researcher. an estimated plant population was about 1000 employees (fluctuating according to seasonal production needs), and we randomly sampled the 60% of the total plant population, thus 600 employees. a random sampling was carried out in order to have a representative sample of the total plant population and not interfere too much with organizational processes. this sampling procedure was negotiated with managers. 530 questionnaires were returned (88.3% response rate), and, of these, 489 were valid for research purposes (the other 41 were mostly incomplete). after applying a post-hoc selection criterion, selecting married or cohabitating employees, 447 employees were retained for the subsequent analyses. we decided to focus on partnered respondents owing to their particular relevance for work-family research, given the scarcity of other family status (only 10%), and in order to have a more homogeneous sample. the sample comprised 370 (82.8%) men and 77 women (17.2%), and was consistent with the overall situation in italy regarding gender distribution in industrial manufacturing organizations (istat, 2013). mean sample age was 41.64 years (sd = 7.01; min. = 25, max. = 60), and the average number of children per household was 1.64 (sd = .94; min. = 0, max. = 5). most participants (n = 385, 86.1%) had a permanent contract and were shift workers (n = 388, 86.8%). the great majority of the participants (n = 395, 88.4%) worked in blue-collar occupations. measures the measures were initially translated from english to italian, and have already been used in previous italian studies (lo presti & nonnis, 2011), where they have turned out to be reliable measures of the studied phenomena. family workload was assessed through an 8-item scale developed for the present study (cronbach’s α = .85;m = 16.38, sd = 7.43) that asked, with reference to a typical week, to evaluate the frequency according to which the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 589 http://www.psychopen.eu/ individual was in charge to accomplish a series of family chores within own household (e.g., “do grocery shopping”, “prepare a hot meal”, etc.). the complete list of items is available from the first author upon a request. responses were based on a five-point likert scale (from 0 = never to 4 = always) while scores ranged between 0 and 32. emotional and instrumental family social support were assessed via the family support inventory by king et al. (1995). emotional (e.g., “members of my family are interested in my job”; cronbach’s α = .80; m = 22.9, sd = 4.96) and instrumental (e.g., “my family leaves too much of the daily details of running the house to me”; cronbach’s α = .75; m = 23.1, sd = 4.9) family support scales both featured 6 items. responses were based on a five-point likert scale (from 1 = completely false to 5 = completely true) while scores ranged between 6 and 30. extra-household social support was evaluated through a single item (e.g., “when i need it, i am confident i can count on extra help from my relatives as parents, uncles, cousins, etc. to accomplish my family chores”;m = 3.41, sd = 1.4). responses were based on a five-point likert scale (from 1 = completely false to 5 = completely true). family-to-work enrichment, was assessed by using 6 items (e.g., “my involvement in my family requires me to avoid wasting time at work and this helps me be a better worker”) from the work family enrichment scale by carlson, kacmar, wayne, and grzywacz (2006; italian adaptation by ghislieri, martini, gatti, & colombo, 2011; cronbach’s α = .92; m = 21, sd = 6.18). responses were given on a five-point likert scale (from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree) while scores ranged between 6 and 30. work engagement was evaluated using the utrecht work engagement scale (schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2006). it comprised 9 items (e.g., “at work, i feel bursting with energy”; cronbach’s α = .94; m = 31.77, sd = 14.07); responses were based on a seven-point likert scale (from 0 = never to 6 = always) while scores ranged between 0 and 54. life satisfaction was assessed via the satisfaction with life scale by diener, emmons, larsen, and griffin (1985). the scale comprised 5 items (e.g., “i am satisfied with my life”; cronbach’s α = .88; m = 15.52, sd = 5.25). responses were based on a five-point likert scale (from 1 = completely false to 5 = completely true) while scores ranged between 5 and 25. some background factors were used as control variables in this study: sex (1 = male, 2 = female), age, number of children, and family/job involvement (one item: ranging from -5 = my job is the most important thing to me to 5 = my family is the most important thing to me). these variables were controlled for in the analyses because they have found to be relevant in work-family interface research (byron, 2005; mauno, kinnunen, & ruokolainen, 2006). data analysis descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviations) and zero-order correlations were used to describe variables and their inter-correlations. hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to test the associations between predictors and the three outcomes (fwe, work engagement, life satisfaction). mediation effects were tested through bootstrapping (hayes, 2013). results table 1 depicts zero-order correlations between study variables. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 590 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations (under the diagonal) between the study variables and their standard errors (above the diagonal) 1110987654321m (sd)variables --1. gender a .05.05.05.05.04.05.03.05.05.05 -2. age .05.05.05.05.05.05.05.05.04.17-(7)41.63 -3. number of sons .05.05.05.05.05.05.05.05.28.13-(.94)1.64 -4. job/family involvement b .05.05.05.05.05.05.05.07.08-.15(1.99)3.14 5. family workload .05.05.05.05.04.05.85)(.15.15-.22-.67(7.43)16.38 06. emotional family support .05.04.04.04.04.80)(.14-.01-.06-.12-(4.96)22.9 7. instrumental family support .05.05.05.04.75)(.59.35-.02-.07.05.34-(4.9)23.1 -8. extra-household support .04.05.05.35.38.02-.08.07-.07-.04-(1.4)3.41 9. family-to-work enrichment .04.04.92)(.17.16.37.02-.06-.06-.01-.02(6.18)21 10. work engagement .04.94)(.41.11.14.26.04-.20-.01.13.07-(14.07)31.77 11. life satisfaction .88)(.46.35.34.14.25.01-.07-.06-.05-.03-(5.25)15.52 note. a1 = male, 2 = female. blower scores mean higher job involvement while higher scores mean higher family involvement; cronbach alphas in brackets on the diagonal. family workload did not correlate with none of the three outcomes. emotional family support positively correlated with fwe (r = .37, p < .01), work engagement (r = .26, p < .01) and life satisfaction (r = .25, p < .01). instrumental family support positively correlated with fwe (r = .16, p < .01), work engagement (r = .14, p < .01) and life satisfaction (r = .14, p < .01). extra-household support positively correlated with fwe (r = .17, p < .01), work engagement (r = .11, p < .05) and life satisfaction (r = .34, p < .01). finally, fwe positively correlated with work engagement (r = .41, p < .01) and life satisfaction (r = .35, p < .01). the results of the hierarchical linear regression analysis on fwe are shown in table 2. table 2 results of hierarchical linear regression analysis for family-to-work enrichment, work engagement and life satisfaction life satisfactionwork engagementfamily-to-work enrichment variables βstep 4βstep 3βstep 2βstep 1βstep 4βstep 3βstep 2βstep 1βstep 3βstep 2βstep 1 gender a .07-.04-.03-.04-.01.03.03.01.10.10.02 age .05-.04-.07-.07-.15**.16**.14*.14*.03.01-.01 children .01-.02-.04-.04-.01-.02-.03-.03-.05-.05-.05salience b .08-.10*-.08-.08-.17***-.19***-.19***-.19***-.07-.07-.07family-workload .03.01.01-.03.01.03-.06-.12emotional family support .06.15*.11.21**.37*** instrumental family support .10-.12-.01-.02-.05extra-household support .31***.31***.05.06.03 family-to-work enrichment .25***.28*** r2 .19***.14***.01.01.17***.11***.06.06***.14***.01.01 ∆r2 .06***.12***.07***.05***.12*** note. a1 = male, 2 = female. blower scores mean higher job involvement while higher scores mean higher family involvement. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 591 http://www.psychopen.eu/ control variables (i.e., gender, age, number of children, job/family salience) were inserted at step 1, family workload (as a home demand) at step 2, while emotional, instrumental and extra-household support (as home resources) were inserted at step 3. neither control variables nor family workload did show any significant association with fwe. emotional family support did show a significant positive association (β = .37, p < .001). r2 was equal to 14% (p < .001), the majority of it (12%, p < .001) attributable to home resources (i.e., emotional family support). table 2 also shows the results of hierarchical linear regression analyses on work engagement and life satisfaction, respectively. steps 1 through 3 were identical to the regression on fwe, while the two following regressions included an additional fourth step, featuring the insertion of fwe as ultimate predictor. as regards to work engagement, age showed similar β coefficients across the four steps (ranging between βstep 1 = .14, p < .05 and βstep 3 = .16, p < .01). the same happened for job/family salience (ranging between βstep 4 = -.17, p < .001 and βstep 1-3 = -.19, p < .001), meaning that those more involved in their job (instead of family) show higher work engagement. emotional family support showed a positive association (β = .21, p < .01) at step 3, while its coefficient lost statistical significance after the insertion of fwe (β = .28, p < .001) at step 4. control variables explained the 6% (p < .001) of work engagement variance, 5% of variance (p < .001) was attributable to home resources and 7% (p < .001) to fwe. total r2 was equal to 17% (p < .001). as regards to life satisfaction, emotional family support showed a significant positive association (β = .15, p < .05) only at step 3, while extra-household support showed the same coefficient (β = .31, p < .001) across steps 3 and 4. finally, fwe showed a positive significant coefficient (β = .25, p < .001). home resources explained the 12% (p < .001) of life satisfaction variance, while fwe added more 6% (p < .001). total r2 was equal to 19% (p < .001). finally, the decrease in emotional family support’s beta coefficient between steps 3 and 4 could be an indicator of a potential mediation effect by fwe towards work engagement and life satisfaction, respectively. we verified mediation through bootstrapping (1000 samples; ci = 95%) and using the process macro by hayes (2013). as regards to work engagement, the unstandardized effect of emotional support before entering fwe, b = .45, p < .001, 95% ci [.35, .56], suffered a decrease after the insertion of this latter variable, b = .35, p < .01, 95% ci [.09, .61]. the indirect effect of emotional support through fwe was significant, b = .37, p < .01, 95% ci [.25, .53] and testified of a partial mediation. as regards to life satisfaction, the unstandardized effect of emotional support before entering fwe, b = .45, p < .001, 95% ci [.35, .56] suffered a decrease after the insertion of this latter variable, b = .15, p < .01, 95% ci [.05, .25]. the indirect effect of emotional support through fwe was significant, b = .12, p < .01; 95% ci [.07, .17] and testified of a partial mediation. discussion based on premises of the theoretical work of greenhaus and powell (2006) as well as wayne et al. (2007), this study complied with recent calls to rely on a more balanced view of the work-family interface (voydanoff, 2004), by investigating first how family workload negatively related to fwe (h1) and, conversely, emotional (h2a) and instrumental (h2b) family social support, as well as extra-household support (h2c), positively predicted fwe, and consequently work engagement and life satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 592 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, counterintuitively, h1 was not supported as family workload did not negatively affect fwe. this evidence could be explained taking into account that our sample was male-dominated and that, still today, in italy (especially the southern part, mainly due to cultural reasons) the burden of family chores is largely upon women (see also study 2). additionally, among the different assumptions about the positive relationship between overall family support and fwe, only the first one concerning the positive affect of emotional family support (h2a) was confirmed. thus, consistently with wayne et al. (2006), it seems that in many if not most individual’s experiences of enrichment a key role is played by those family behaviors and attitudes of whole-hearted care, love, understanding, guidance, and so on, rather than just concerns about sharing household responsibilities. interestingly, extra-household support, although did not show any significant association with fwe, directly associated positively with life satisfaction. it could be the case that having the support of a kin is an important asset for everyday family life’s arrangement, thus contributing to a greater global life satisfaction, but this does not necessarily improve one’s functioning at work. in any case, our study demonstrated that different typologies of support (i.e., emotional and instrumental), as well as diverse sources of support, such as that one received from other people outside the narrow burdens of family (e.g., other kin or friend), should not be collapsed into an aggregate measure of overall non-work support because they can differently relate to enrichment. the mediation analyses also showed interesting results. regarding to specific work outcomes, partially consistent with our expectations, fwe mediated the relationship between emotional support and work engagement (h3a) but did not similarly mediate the relationship between instrumental family support (h3b) nor extra-household support (h3c) on one hand and work engagement on the other hand. the same is true as regards to the other outcome; indeed, fwe mediated the relationship between emotional support and life satisfaction (h4a) but did not mediate the relationship between instrumental family support (h4b) nor extra-household support (h4c) on one hand and life satisfaction on the other. thus, the present study points to family emotional support, via positive affect generated at home that transfers to work, a key role in driving specific positive general and work outcomes. further research should continue to examine the influence of enrichment on other organizationally relevant outcomes (e.g., turnover intentions, job performance), as well as non-work related variables (e.g., physical and mental health). anyway, in the current study there are a number of limitations that must be acknowledged. firstly, the data was based on a single source, which may inflate common method variance. future research should consider the possibility of capturing perceptions of fwe from more than one source (e.g., spouse, co-worker) to mitigate this effect. furthermore, the study was cross-sectional and certainly future research might benefit from longitudinal data (casper, eby, bordeaux, lockwood, & lambert, 2007) to disentangle the direction of causality and mediations. third, we relied upon a nearly restricted sample of manufacturing employees, within which women are largely under-represented. albeit this is consistent with the overall situation in italy regarding gender distribution in industrial manufacturing organizations (istat, 2013), future research might examine more equally distributed samples in order to consider possible gender differences. fourth, the range of variables was limited. future research should include, at least, both directions of work-family conflict and work-family enrichment. finally, the outcomes’ amount of explained variance was low to moderate; future research should expand the range of potential fwe antecedents. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 593 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 method this study, as typical of the anthropological approach, focuses on qualitative, in-depth analysis, constructed on storytelling and long interviews. twenty in-depth interviews (10 male and 10 women, age 37-47, with junioror high-school degree, married with 1 or 2 children) were carried out among the factory blue-collar workers, via a snow-ball sampling. the anthropological semi-structured interviews used in this study featured a track with several open questions; participants were also free to suggest the inclusion of issues or aspects considered important. the interviews’ track featured three main thematic blocks: work life, family life and children care, work-family conciliation strategies. examples of questions were: would you describe your work activities [work life]? could you describe the organization of your work schedule (e.g., shiftwork, etc.) [work life]? could you describe how, and if, the organization of your household activities interacts with your work schedule [family life]? could you describe the sharing of household activities and children care between you and your partner [family life]? could you describe which programs and instruments (kind of help/support) you recur to for conciliating between work and family [work-family conciliation strategies]? could you describe if, and how, any of your family experience or competence is able to enrich your work life [workfamily conciliation strategies]? the complete list of questions is available from the second author upon a request. anthropological interviews always involve ethnography, namely a participative practice based on several meetings, visits and observations of family settings, events and routines (agar, 2010; herzfeld, 2014). the possibility to meet the workers and their families outside the interviews’ set (e.g., for having a coffee, tea or dinner), was an opportunity for obtaining an observational perspective, facilitating the completion and enrichment of the interviews with some discrepancies or gaps between behaviors and stories. the analysis of tales and texts was inspired by the interpretive methodology, focused on the cognitive system and the horizon of values that the subjects expressed answering the questions and describing their daily life and family behaviors (geertz, 1973, 1983). in this way, the reconstruction of practices, obtained during the interviews, is able to enlighten real sides of the family life, particular strategies of conciliation, situations during which work and family intertwine and enrichment processes occur. the specificity of the anthropological approach consists therefore in the possibility to describe, in a qualitative way, parts and scraps of current situations and cultural horizon framing the choices of the family life. results and discussion as introduced earlier, three different thematic blocks were identified in order to analyse the interview reports, namely: work life, family life and children care, and work-family conciliation strategies. indeed, although clearly heuristically defined, these aforementioned topic areas do not seem substantially quite so separated and mutually exclusive, as some overlap does exist in the way individuals usually describe and represent their workand family-experiences. regarding work characteristics and engagement, the first noticeable aspect emerging from the interviews concerned the shift work issue: despite the repetitive nature of the production line, individuals agreed that their work did not require much effort, but rather it was characterized by rigid working hours and the mechanical repetition of shifts (morning, afternoon, night); in fact, shift work entailed unavoidable absences from home, therefore resulting in europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 594 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the loss of essential moments of ordinary family life and child care (e.g., having lunch or dinner all together). chores at home usually weighted on women, who complained about the distress in simultaneously juggling between household management, picking children from school, and cooking, with the extra difficulty that often they were not at home for lunch and/or dinner time. in the framework of the italian situation as described above, it is not difficult to understand how work-family conciliation can be somewhat problematic and difficult because of shift work, and yet it is up to women experiencing, together with the difficulties, a strong transformation in “traditional” family relationships that, as we said, are still geared toward a markedly unbalanced weight care. nonetheless, it is fair to state that, despite the difficulties, significant levels of work motivation did persist. so, sara, 32 years old, with a middle school educational level, married for a year and childless, tells: my husband supports me a lot, in fact he says: ‘if you want to work, do it just for yourself’. with my savings i made my bath over, i painted my house, i bought a lot of stuff, i gave some of my own money to other people: i helped my mother after my father died, and i helped my sister too. (...) in the first place, my job allows me to live independently of my husband, meaning that my husband always contributes to our household expenses, but i if i wish to purchase a tv, i buy it with my own savings. in the italian context, where female employment rates are lower than in the rest of europe, as well as the model of the male breadwinner is still dominant, having a job becomes fundamental for women’s emancipation, and in some cases also a way to delay the marriage or, at least, to not consider getting married as the best chance for a woman (condition that is still widespread in southern italy). it is the case of maria, 45 years old, with a middle school educational level, married and with two children (6 and 4 years old): i replaced my father. my father retired and i took his place. since i was the eldest daughter, as well as not engaged and unemployed, my father asked me if i wanted to prove myself. ‘if you will be fine, great!’ – he said to me – ‘and even if it won’t work out, whatever. besides, since you will begin working, you will be able to make some money. so, you will be fine, although if you won’t like the work so much. because you know, one can’t live without money’. maria met her husband at the factory (he was one of her co-workers). they got married when she was 39, and now they have two children. nonetheless, she still kept working, being fully aware that two incomes allowed for a higher purchasing power, as well as a better social status and lifestyle for her family. therefore, the economic self-sufficiency by means of work, coupled with the decision-making ability to manage money, was a concrete andmeaningful milestone for women, which pushed andmotivated them also in overcoming the difficulties of shift work and, at the same time, provided them with a greater ability to demand their partners a more active participation in the domestic sphere and a better balance in sharing housework. in fact, when both partners did work, this also incited husbands towards a growing commitment in the domestic sphere: giulia, 37 years, two sons and a working husband, proudly told: ‘my husband does what her wife actually does’. in essence, the first aspect of enrichment and work-family conciliation that work entails is the greater availability of male workers in participating in housekeeping and, conversely, the increased readiness of women in requiring their partners a more equal domestic partnership. simultaneously, indeed, it is obvious from the interviews with male workers that they did express quite a satisfaction in participating housework, flaunting their supportive and collaborative role, and representing themselves as more europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 595 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “modern” as directly involved in work-family conciliation issues, traditionally considered an exclusively female problem. as the mediterranean model is characterized by a gendered division of domestic labour still heavily weighted on the side of women, factory work, despite all the difficulties related to the shift work, therefore appeared to women as a significant factor of emancipation and, more generally within couples, as a factor that encouraged a cultural change in order to offset the burden of domestic work. this had a positive effect on the satisfaction of women for their work role, and even men in dual-earner families were satisfied and engaged with their job, given that both in the couple felt producers of income as well as active protagonists of their family life. in addition, women were also spokespersons for the gratification that the job offered through the experience of a broader horizon of life than the domestic one did, giving them the chance to meet people, gain experience, deal with various people and situations, with an inevitable positive impact throughout own existential path: i enjoy that at work you can know other people. there are more than 1200, 1300 workers [authors’ note: a more correct estimate is 1000]: you can always experience and learn something from them. you can also meet nice people, and perhaps they may help you on your life journey, enriching you with their experience. it means that you can understand something more in depth, or discuss it with them. this means a lot for me even on my private side, in respect to my family. one grows, too. (michela, age 32) workers therefore appreciated all the stimuli and possibilities for knowledge arising from the world outside the household that the work itself provided them, with a clear enrichment of the experiences and their meaning on the side of private and family life. in this way, work became a cognitive horizon filled with values, able to go beyond the boundaries of the work sphere strictly speaking and therefore becoming a key factor that gave a boost to expand the workers’ life horizon with a dynamic and flexible interchange between areas of life. this explains why, although work-family conciliation is difficult under the system of shift work, work became acceptable and necessary and, on balance, women did not think of retiring and returning to an exclusively domestic life situation, which would represent not only an economic involution, but also a more general retrograde step in their lifestyle’s improvement. our anthropological in-depth perspective allowed us to find qualitative evidence about the possibility that work, and especially female work, can have a positive effect on gender equality and family care organization; as a result, work motivation also increases for both male and female workers, and it can help to overcome some difficulties in daily family life. in a gendered perspective, it is worth mentioning that the women in our sample, as emerged from interviews, were able to work expressing more satisfaction and pleasure “with a little help” from their husbands, but also men became more able to collaborate and accomplish care tasks with enthusiasm and participation “with a little sustain” from their partners. it is an interesting interchange between work and family, based on material and psychological resources, able to strengthen each counterpart and thus producing a positive cultural change. this means, in the italian situation, the possibility to realize a more equal distribution of household work between men and women, and a more advanced familiar model, in line with gender equality and a correct sharing of roles, inside and outside the family. conclusions the challenges faced by actual human resource professionals entail the difficulty of grasping the changing nature of the workforce, including a rise in dual-earner couples with burdensome childcare and eldercare responsibilities. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 596 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as work and family domains are so much intertwined, maintaining a harmonious relationship between the two will benefit unavoidably both individuals and organizations (orkibi & brandt, 2015). notwithstanding the limitations already mentioned, the two different studies constituting our research provided together a step further in understanding how these important life domains may influence each other. keeping in mind for both studies the call of the extant literature that a deeper understanding of the work-family experience will not be fully achieved until researchers will not devote as much attention to enrichment as they devoted to conflict (greenhaus & parasuraman, 1999), in study 1 we posited that different facets of family social support would be positively associated with fwe and family workload negatively; moreover we hypothesized that fwe would be positively associated, as a mediator, with work engagement and life satisfaction. we found that employees feeling emotionally supported by their family members experienced higher fwe (wayne et al., 2006) which, moreover, acted as a mediator with regard to work engagement and life satisfaction (mauno et al., 2011). finally, we found that experiencing extra-household support (e.g., from relatives) positively impacted on life satisfaction (fu & shaffer, 2001). such results on one side seem to disconfirm the negative role of family workload with respect of fwe (as we already said, a potential explanation may reside in our male-dominated sample), while on the other highlight the importance of family emotional support (as well as from extra-household sources). thus, our findings corroborate the importance of support in line with previous research (e.g., greenhaus & powell, 2003; radcliffe & cassell, 2014) and challenges practitioners and hr professionals to pay attention to these variables in designing interventions that, through the improvement of the employees’ work-family interface, could also have positive effects for the organization. besides, after decades of debate about whether the availability of support reduces work-family conflict, we go further reframing from the outset the relationship between work and life in terms of mutual enrichment. plus, consistently with recent literature calls to recast the work-family duality introducing a ‘third space’ where workers can manage these domains through an active collaboration among multiple groups (organizations, families, churches, schools, recreation centers, and so on) (putnam, myers, & gailliard, 2014), we begin to fill this scenario including characters outside the couple, such as elder relatives or neighbors, whose support can be helpful. as for our in-depth qualitative study 2, results depicted a more complex picture than the survey could not return. male participation in family chores seemed mainly depending on women emancipation and their absences from home because of work. moreover, female fwe dynamics seemed based on crossover processes, that is female work experiences pushed male partners, first under the pressure of daily needs, and then on the basis of a cultural change, to be more participative in family chores. from our interviews, on one side we observed fwe dynamics and their positive effects on both work and general life, but on the other, these dynamics seemed depending on a complex interplay that took into account processes of crossover, work-to-family enrichment and conflict. indeed, reconnecting to a research framework that has overemphasized the complex and problematic aspects of workfamily conciliation in the italian case (donati & prandini, 2008; dovigo, 2007; garofalo & marra, 2008), our study 2 stressed both the unavoidable several difficulties faced by dual-earner couples, particularly by women who bear the main responsibility for housework, and the positive consequences of managing simultaneously multiple roles (e.g., wife, mother, worker). although being a preliminary study, it leaves the door open to future research in continuing to examine the positive aspects of interplay and mutual enrichment that family and work arenas may have, in the framework of a stronger motivation to achieve positive work-family conciliation outcomes. in conclusion, the combination of different methodologies would certainly be an interesting future pursuit in workfamily literature; just as we have learnt a great deal about positive relationships between work and family through our quantitative first study, we could deepen our understanding of these same relationships through study 2 qualitative analyses, which allowed for gaining insight into individual experiences, specifically how people perceived europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 597 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and interpreted their interactions within family and workplace, therefore showing an otherwise hidden interrelatedness between emotions and attitudes experienced in the various domains of life. in this way, we want to embrace a more open, flexible and complex concept of enrichment, comprising different and simultaneous dynamics, that seems better explicable with an integrative quanti-qualitative approach, able to describe and explain real processes of enrichment. closing comments we have extensively outlined, both theoretically and empirically, the benefits stemming from combing multiple roles. however, part of the future impetus should be also directed to pragmatically develop a wide range of familyfriendly programs, practices and social policies that support devotion to work and family spheres (butts, casper, & yang, 2013). currently, the extent and nature of these initiatives may vary widely across countries, yet generally they relate to care-related leaves, child-referral services, and flexible work arrangements (hegewisch & gornick, 2011). however, the mere availability of these discretionary provisions does not automatically guarantee their proper and extensive use. the cold truth is that too often “the policy exists but you can’t really use it” (kirby & krone, 2002), at least if workers do not want to be perceived as being less committed to the organization (allen & russell, 1999) or labelled as troublemakers who create additional work for others or receive unfair benefits at others’ expenses (ryan & kossek, 2008). if not legitimized by a work-family culture who wholeheartedly supports work-family balance, policies take-up may be indeed thwarted by employees’ fear of backlash and negative career consequences, such as lower rewards and fewer advancement opportunities (butts et al., 2013; thompson, beauvais, & lyness, 1999). in the long run, this would result in a pessimistic scenario very much alike that one sketched by khallash and kruse (2012), where work-life balance will end to be just a privilege for a small segment of employees whose policies’ use comes with minimal career costs, while would not exist such a thing for the majority of workers who struggle to hold on to their jobs. that lack of such a concern on the part of the organization for the worker’s well-being will unavoidably hamper not only the employee, increasingly in jeopardy in coordinating and managing multiple life roles, but mostly the organization itself, which will likely experience poor productivity, higher turnover occurrences and absenteeism (allen, 2001). employees’ families are key business stakeholders and their interest must be taken into account in management practices not only on the basis of ethical or common sense concerns but, given their influence on workers’ satisfaction and consequent motivation, because they can help making the difference in terms of organizational performance and efficiency. therefore, implicit in this argument becomes that taking care of accommodating and integrating employees’ family needs is a crucial means for today enterprises for maintaining a competitive advantage in the turbulent economic environment they live, a strategic choice for attracting and retaining employees who otherwise will experience more and more tension between work and family lives. funding alessandro lo presti’s research was supported by a grant from regione campania (l.r. 5/02, annualita` 2008, cup b22i08000140002). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 with a little help from my family 598 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adams, g. a., king, l. a., & king, d. w. 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(2006). the role of identity and work–family support in work–family enrichment and its work-related consequences. journal of vocational behavior, 69(3), 445-461. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2006.07.002 about the authors alessandro lo presti, ph.d., is assistant professor of work and organizational psychology at the second university of naples. his research interests include: work-family conciliation, employability, career attitudes, job insecurity. fulvia d’aloisio is associate professor of cultural anthropology at department of psychology at the second university of naples. her research fields are work, family, gender issues, with an overall focus on cultural dynamics and change. sara pluviano is a student of the international phd in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience at the suor orsola benincasa university, in agreement with the university of edinburgh, where she studies memory errors and the reconstruction of information. her research interests also include: work-family conciliation, employability, career attitudes, job insecurity. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 584–603 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1159 lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano 603 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.hrmr.2007.01.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0001-8791%2803%2900035-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jvb.2006.07.002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en with a little help from my family (introduction) theoretical foundation family demands and resources mediation hypotheses concerning fwe study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results and discussion conclusions closing comments (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors training of attention in children with low arithmetical achievement research reports training of attention in children with low arithmetical achievement maria guarnera*a, antonella d’amicob [a] department of human and social sciences, university “kore” of enna, enna, italy. [b] department of psychology, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract this study focuses on the role of attentional processes in arithmetical skills and examines if training of basic attentive skills may improve also working memory abilities reducing arithmetic difficulties. in order to study the efficacy of attentional treatment in arithmetic achievement and in enhancing working memory abilities a test-treatment-retest quasi experimental design was adopted. the research involved 14 children, attending fourth and fifth grades, with arithmetical learning disabilities (ald) assigned to experimental and control conditions. the numerical comprehension and calculation processes were assessed using the abca battery (lucangeli, tressoldi, & fiore, 1998). attentional abilities were evaluated using a multitask computerized assessment battery attenzione e concentrazione (di nuovo, 2000). wm abilities were evaluated by listening span task, digit span backward, making verbal trails and making colour trails. the results showed that intensive computerized attention training increased basic attentive skills and arithmetical performances with respect to numeric system in children with ald. no effect on working memory abilities was found. results are also important from a clinical perspective, since they may suggest strategies for planning individualized training programs. keywords: arithmetical skills, working memory, attentional abilities, attention training, children with dyscalculia europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 received: 2014-01-14. accepted: 2014-04-06. published (vor): 2014-05-28. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of human and social sciences, university “kore” of enna, enna 94100, italy. e-mail: marinaguarnera@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mathematical competence entails a variety of complex skills that encompass somewhat different conceptual content and procedures (e.g., arithmetic, algebra, and geometry); problem solving in these domains often involves the holding of partial information and the processing of new information to arrive at a solution, which ought to require working memory resources. indeed, individual difference studies that compare working memory performance in children with and without difficulties in math discovered differences in various aspects of working memory. even if the results of different studies are sometimes inconsistent with regard to the functioning of verbal short term memory (see raghubar, barnes, & hecht, 2010, for a review), there is a general agreement about the relationship between children’s arithmetical skills and their performance in visuo-spatial tasks (d’amico & guarnera, 2005; mclean & hitch, 1999) and working memory tasks involving central executive abilities. in a treatment study, d’amico (2006) reported also that working memory training had a significant effect in improving visual spatial working memory abilities of children belonging to the experimental group as well as in the improvement of knowledge about quantity and spatial relationships. in this study, the visual spatial working memory tasks (now included in the pml working memory test battery by d’amico and lipari, 2012) required higher executive functions, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ asking children, at the same time, to maintain and to process visual spatial information. thus, in the experimental group, improved executive visual spatial abilities were accompanied by improved knowledge about quantity and spatial relationships. indeed, many studies demonstrated that children with arithmetical learning disabilities (ald) do not always show difficulties in working memory tasks requiring lower executive resources, such as backward word span tasks or digit span tasks (d’amico & guarnera, 2005; fuchs et al., 2008; passolunghi & cornoldi, 2008; reuhkala, 2001; siegel & ryan, 1989; swanson & beebe-frankenberger, 2004; van der sluis, van der leij, & de jong, 2005), while they more consistently fail in tasks, such as the listening span task and the counting span task, requiring specific executive processes such as inhibitory control, updating, and attention switching, in line with models of working memory that focus on the importance of attentional control (e.g., engle, 2002). the relation between updating and inhibitory processes and later math outcomes have been investigated even in longitudinal studies (blair & razza, 2007; bull, espy, & wiebe, 2008; english, barnes, taylor, & landry, 2009; mazzocco & kover, 2007). blair and razza (2007) found that inhibitory control in preschoolers predicted kindergarten mathematical abilities, such as basic numeracy, knowledge of shapes, quantity, relative size, addition, subtraction, and simple graphic relations. bull et al. (2008) found that inhibitory processes in the preschool years predicted general learning outcomes in both math and reading at the end of the third year of primary school. mazzocco and kover (2007), noting that the relationship between the executive processes andmath was dependent on age, have suggested that strong executive skills in the early primary grades may help mathematical learning and performance, even if they are not necessarily associated with mathematical performance across age or across all mathematical tasks or all domains of mathematics. despite these limitations, the results so far described seem to indicate a general central executive deficit in children with ald and this hypothesis is also supported by the high grade of comorbidity betweenmathematical and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (alloway & passolunghi, 2011; commodari, 2012; gross-tsur, manor, & shalev, 1996; raghubar et al., 2010; shalev, manor, & gross-tsur, 1997). most arithmetical tasks, in fact, require children to simultaneously hold relevant information in memory (i.e., carrying relevant information in arithmetical problems) and discharge information which is no longer relevant (i.e., already processed numbers or non-task-relevant information). in this sense, a deficit in the effortful cognitive inhibition of information that disrupts working memory capacity may be considered one of the key factors in arithmetical disabilities. an inhibition deficit could likely impair learning of different arithmetical skills. for example, barrouillet, fayol, and lathulière (1997) propose that difficulties in the ability to suppress or inhibit irrelevant or non-pertinent information may give rise to disruption in the retrieval process of simple arithmetical facts in children with ald (see also conway & engle, 1994; geary, brown, & samaranayake, 1991; geary, hamson, & hoard, 2000; koontz, 1996). similarly, passolunghi, cornoldi, and de liberto (1999; see also passolunghi & cornoldi, 2000) showed that the arithmetical problem solving of children with ald is significantly influenced by their poor memory recall for critical information and enhanced memory recall for irrelevant information of arithmetic problem texts. “memory overload” resulting from the failure to inhibit irrelevant information could impair, for example, accurate representations of arithmetical word problem. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 278 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, we know that attention is not a unitary process. following classification by nigg (2000), attentive tasks may involve effortful or automatic cognitive inhibition. the first is more executive in nature and more similar to what requested in working memory tasks, while the second is more automatic and require lower level attentional resources. there are not so many studies examining both effortful or automatic attentional processes in children with ald, but they seems to demonstrate that automatic attentional processes are less important for arithmetic skills. censabella and noël (2007) in a study investigating the inhibition capacities of children with mathematical disabilities using effortful suppression tasks of irrelevant information from working memory, and automatic tasks of inhibition of prepotent responses, and a task of interference control, did not find evidence for impairment of children with ald in none of the measures used. a partially different result was reported by d’amico and passolunghi (2009) that showed that children with ald suffered from a deficit in effortful inhibition mechanisms, measured rating intrusion errors in listening span task, while no evidence for dysfunction of the automatic inhibition processes was found. in this study, even though children with ald were slower than controls in performing the tasks in general, they were sensitive to the same extent as the control group to the negative priming effect, an indicator of normal automatic inhibitory functions measuring the individual effort necessary to “reactivate” the previously inhibited information (see may, kane, & hasher, 1995, for a review). no studies, so far, have investigated whether the training of basic attentive processes may have a positive effect in reducing arithmetic difficulties. for this reason, a first aim of this study was to investigate the role of automatic attentional processes in arithmetical skills using a test-treatment-retest quasi experimental study, involving a total of 14 children with ald assigned to experimental and control conditions. considering the important role played by attentional processes in working memory processes, we also wondered if the treatment of basic attentional processes may lead to an improvement of working memory function. no studies, to our knowledge, explored such an issue and the result is not taken for granted, since the working memory model involve executive attentional processes rather than basic or automatic attentional processes. the treatment studies we could refer to used the opposite method, studying if a working memory training may have effect on attentional processes. however, the results are not consistent: klingberg, forssberg, andwesterberg, 2002 using cogmed, a computerised training programme designed to enhance working memory (thorell, lindqvist, bergman, bohlin, & klingberg, 2009), demonstrated training effects on working memory performances but not effect in choice reaction time task. on the contrary, cogmed training revealed to be useful for reducing inattentive behaviors in children with adhd (klingberg et al., 2005). for this reason, a second aim of the present study has been to examine if training of basic attentive skills may lead to an improvement of working memory abilities. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 guarnera & d’amico 279 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method a test-treatment-retest quasi experimental design was adopted in order to study the efficacy of attentional treatment and its role in arithmetic achievement and in enhancing working memory abilities. during the test phase, a group of children with ald were administered with a series of arithmetical, attentional and working memory tasks. during the treatment phase, children assigned to the experimental group followed the attentional training program described below, while children assigned to control group carried out the normal scholastic activities. during the retest phase children were again administered with the same arithmetical, attentional and working memory tasks used in the test phase. participants and test-treatment-retest phases are described in more details below. participants a group of teachers at a primary school of a sicilian city was asked to identify all the pupils attending their classes (fourth and fifth grades) who showed scholastic difficulties in the arithmetical area. the teachers identified 25 children, 8-10 years old, with low arithmetical achievement. participants in fourth and fifth grades were in an equivalent number and their socio-cultural level was medium/high. the next step in the group selection relied upon the use of standardized tests as described below. materials used for phase 1 test arithmetical skills— the numerical comprehension and calculation processes of the whole group were assessed using 10 subtests drawn from the abca battery (lucangeli et al., 1998). the 10 subtests included were: mental calculation, written calculation, retrieval of combinations and numerical facts, seven-table completion forward, four-table completion backward, number dictation, denomination of arithmetic symbols, insertion of symbols “ < ” and “ > ” between two numbers, increasing arrangements of numbers and decreasing arrangements of numbers. the subtestsmental calculation andwritten calculationmeasured child ability to solve basic operations. children were required to perform calculations using the four basic arithmetical operations. the experimenter observed the participants, checking the use of appropriate rules and noting whether they used fingers to reach solutions. retrieval of combinations and numerical facts subtests assessed basic knowledge of addition and subtraction with one-digit numbers, multiplication tables, and other facts. the subtests required that children solved verbally a series of addition and subtraction combinations and used tables, recalling information from long-term memory. child response was considered correct only if it is given immediately and not as a result of a computation. to perform tables completion forward and backward subtests, children were required to complete respectively the seven and the four tables. in number dictation subtest, the experimenter dictated a series of numbers asking children to write them on a piece of paper. in the subtestdenomination of arithmetic symbols, children were required to say the name of the main arithmetic symbols (+, -, x, ÷, <, >, =) and to show their use with some examples. the insertion of symbols “ < ” and “ > ” between two numbers implied that children compared two numbers saying if the first was smaller/greater than the second. increasing and decreasing arrangements of numbers assessed semantic and syntactic knowledge. children were required to order, according to an increase or decrease order respectively, numbers that were randomly displayed. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 280 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these 10 subtests were scored following the author's recommendations as follows: (1) for each one is calculated the total number of correct answers and the execution time. the speed of execution is important only if the performance is correct. the raw score obtained in each subtest was compared to the abca normative data; (2) if the raw score was below the 10th percentile a standard score of “0” was given, otherwise if the raw score was above the 10th percentile a standard score of “1” was given (lucangeli et al., 1998). thus, the total arithmetical standard score could range from 0 to 10. children who obtained a total standard score below 5 were then considered as “poor arithmetical achievers”. furthermore, two reading tasks, considered to test different aspects of reading abilities, were administered to exclude all children with below average reading abilities from the poor arithmetic group. the first was a reading comprehension task (prova mt; cornoldi & colpo, 1981) requiring pupils to read a passage to themselves and to answer 10 questions about its content. following the norms of the mt test (cornoldi & colpo, 1981), the children that answered at least six questions correctly were considered to be normal readers. the second task, drawn from the sartori, job, and tressoldi (1995) battery, required children to read a list of 48 non-words aloud. for the particular error distribution reported in normative data from the test, sartori et al. (1995) suggest considering normal readers to be those children that perform at least 36 non-words correctly (> 5th percentile). only 14 children, with a mean age of 9 years and 5 months (6 males, 8 females, mage in months = 113.1, sd = 4.8), out of the initial 25, matched the criterion for diagnosis of poor arithmetical achievers. they showed normal reading ability (reading comprehension m = 7.6, sd = 1.6, non-words reading m = 40, sd = 5.4) but low achievement in the arithmetical area (total standard score m = 2.2, sd = 1.5). selected children were then assessed using a series of attentional and wm tasks, described below. attentional tasks — attentional abilities were evaluated using a computerized battery of tasks (attenzione e concentrazione; di nuovo, 2000) whose characteristics of reliability and validity have been successfully verified. the test involves 7 tasks that assess simple reaction time and choice reaction time, visual, visuo-spatial and auditory selectivity, digit span, divided attention, resistance to distraction, and attentive shifting. the first simple reaction time test measures the visual reaction time to unselected stimuli and consists in pushing a particular computer key following a visual stimulus. the second test,speed and accuracy, measures the reaction time related with a choice; the task measures speed and accuracy of response to complex stimuli and requires the participant to push the key corresponding to one of a groups of stimuli. the third test includes auditory and visual tasks; the auditory recognition test measures auditory selectivity and requires recognition of an auditory target among vocal distracters. the visual recognition test includes two different tasks: the first one requires recognition of a visual target among a group of distracters appearing in sequence, the second is a computerized version of symbols barrage test. the fourth test, digit span, is an adjustment of classic digit span and – as in the well-known wechsler scale subtest – it includes two different tasks: digit forward and digit backward. the task requires repetition of each digit sequence exactly as it is given in forward test, in reversed order in backward test. the tasks measure simple immediate span attention (lezak, 1995). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 guarnera & d’amico 281 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the fifth test values the divided attention by a double contemporaneous task (visual recognition and auditory recognition). to perform this task, children were asked to use both hands on the computer keyboard; children were instructed to push a particular key following a visual stimulus, a different key following an auditory stimulus. the sixth test, colour word interference task, measures selectivity and the capacity to inhibit interference of nonpertinent signals. it is an adjustment of classic stroop test that requires the naming of the colour of ink used to print a word describing a different colour (e.g., “red” written using blue ink), overcoming the interference originating from the habit of reading the word. the computerized adaptation of this test consists of two sequential tasks, the first base line task used as baseline and the second interference task as interference test. the difference between the scores obtained in the first and second tasksmeasures the subjects’ overcoming the distraction induced by irrelevant stimuli. the seventh test measures the attentive shifting through two search tasks, the first one with verbal symbols (letters) and the other one with visual-spatial symbols (some rectangles, each of them having a small pole differently oriented). in both tasks, children were instructed to search and cross out, pushing a particular key, three targets in each matrix, so that they had to change attentive focus. for each task, except digit span, the software stores data concerning three parameters: times, omissions and errors in answers. these 7 subtests were scored as follows: the raw score obtained in each subtest was compared to the attenzione e concentrazione normative data; if the raw score, even in just one parameter, was above the superior quartile (while for digit span, the raw score has to be below the superior quartile) a standard score of “0” was given, otherwise if the raw score was below the superior quartile a standard score of “1” was given. thus, the total attentive standard score could range from 0 to 7. furthermore, a score was calculated for each subtest, obtained by the sum of 0 and 1, given to times, errors and omissions of each task. a total score for the variables times, errors and omissions was calculated transversally to all tasks. working memory tasks — the central executive component of wm was measured using 4 tasks. listening span task: the experimenter reads a set of sentences aloud, asking the child to express a true/false judgment on the content of each sentence and to recall, at the end of the set, the last word of each sentence. following the daneman and carpenter (1980) procedure, the listening span score corresponds to the longest set of sentences of which the last words have been correctly recalled. digit span backward: the experimenter reads a series of digits aloud, asking the children to recall the digit set in the reverse order. the score correspond to the maximum length of the digit set recalled in the reverse order of presentation. making verbal/colour trails: we used two making trails tasks for their high correlation with arithmetical abilities as demonstrated in the study by mclean and hitch (1999). to perform the verbal trails task, children were asked to shift between numerical and alphabetical code, starting to recite the numerical sequence (from 1 to 11) and the alphabetical sequence (from a to m), alternating each number with the corresponding letter (i.e.: 1, a, 2, b, 3, c, etc.). the verbal trails score corresponds to the total time taken to perform the task. the making colour trails task (adapted by mclean & hitch, 1999, from an adult version by d’elia & satz, 1989) consisted in the presentation of an a4 sheet on which 22 circles were printed. half the circles were pink and half yellow. each series of coloured circles contained a number from 1 to 11 and each number appeared once in the pink circles europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 282 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and once in the yellow circles. the children were asked to make a written trail, alternating colours and numbers, starting with “yellow 1” up to “pink 11”. the colour trails score corresponds to the total time taken to complete the task. assignment of children with ald to experimental and control groups children were assigned to experimental and control groups on the base of the scores obtained at the arithmetic, attentive and wm tests of the phase 1. two anovas performed on the arithmetic and attentive total scores and one manova performed on the scores of different wm tasks revealed that the two groups did not differ significantly with respect to arithmetic (f = .024, p > .05), attentional (f = .034, p > .05), and wm (f = 1.99, p > .05) skills. moreover, children in experimental group and control group have been matched for age (t = -.543 p > .05) and gender. the experimental group included 4 girls and 3 boys (mage in months = 112.43, sd = 5.80) and the control group had the same gender composition (mage in months = 113.86, sd = 3.85). materials used for phase 2 the attentional training children in the experimental group were submitted to training in individual sessions, in a computer laboratory, during school time. training was performed at least 30 min per day, 4-6 days a week, for a period of 4 weeks. in each training session seven tasks included in the attenzione e concentrazione (di nuovo, 2000) battery were presented: simple reaction time and choice reaction time, visual, visuo-spatial and auditory selectivity, digit span, divided attention, resistance to distraction, and attentive shifting. the tasks used in the training session are the same as those included in the section test of attenzione e concentrazione (di nuovo, 2000) battery described above. unlike the section test, visual and verbal feedback and personal report were implemented in the computer program to increase compliance during the training. specifically, on the screen appeared a cartoon character saying words of encouragement during each task and an outcomes report at the end of each task. during the training session children in experimental group missed different lessons each time, while children in the control group attended regular lessons. materials used for phase 3 retest phase after the attentional training all children were administered again the same tasks used in the test phase and described above: the abca battery’s subtests (lucangeli et al., 1998), attenzione e concentrazione battery’s tasks (di nuovo, 2000) and wm tasks. results test-retest changes in the group of subjects undertaking the treatment program (experimental group) were compared to test-retest changes in the group of subjects not undertaking the treatment program (control group). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 guarnera & d’amico 283 http://www.psychopen.eu/ concerning arithmetic abilities, a series of 2 x 2 analyses of variance with between factor group (experimental group and control group) and within factor time (pre-test and post-test), were performed on the total arithmetical standard score and on total scores of tasks assessing the numerical system (number dictation, denomination of arithmetic symbols, insertion of symbols “ < ” and “ > ” between two numbers, increasing arrangements of numbers and decreasing arrangements of numbers) and the calculation system (mental calculation, written calculation, retrieval of combinations and numerical facts, seven table completion forward, four table completion backward). results, detailed in table 1, showed that children in experimental group improved more than controls in total arithmetical standard score (f = 4.941, p = .046, partial η2 = .29). however, this result was principally due to the improvement of standard scores in the numerical system tasks (f = 15.187, p = .002, partial η2 = .56), while treatment had no effect on standard scores in calculation system tasks (f = .750, p > .05, partial η2 = .06). a second series of 2 x 2 anovas was performed on attentional tasks (total score, scores on each attentive subtest, overall times, errors and omissions scores). results revealed again that children in the experimental group improved more than controls in total attentive score (f = .533, p = .025); concerning each attentive subtest, a significant treatment effect was pointed out only for the simple reaction time (f = 8.333, p = .014), while a tendency to statistical significance of treatment was evidenced for speed and accuracy (f = 3.868, p = .073); a significant treatment effect was proved also for the overall times score (f = 10.226, p = .008), evidencing that children in experimental group improved their speed in all considered tasks. no effect of treatment was evidenced in any of the other attentional tasks. the third series of analysis was performed on working memory scores. in this case, a multivariate 2 x 2 anova performed on all thewm scores failed to reveal a significant treatment effect (f = .57, p > .05). anovas performed on scores of each wm task did no revealed any significant treatment effect on wm abilities. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 284 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 p er fo rm an ce s of tw o g ro up s b ef or e an d a fte rt he tr ea tm en ti n a ll c on si de re d ta sk s, an d r es ul ts of g ro up x ti m e a n o va s a n o va s’ re su lts c on tr ol g ro up tr ea tm en tg ro up g ro up x ti m e g ro up ti m e a fte r b ef or e a fte r b ef or e p f p f p f sd m sd m sd m sd m a b c a te st to ta la rit hm et ic s co re .0 46 .9 41 4 ns .7 78 .0 01 < .4 7 44 .3 7 2 .4 3 4 .7 2 1 .4 2 2 .1 4 2 .2 8 6 .7 0 1 .2 9 2 n um er ic sy st em .0 02 .1 87 15 ns .1 82 .0 01 < .1 88 54 .3 5 1 .1 4 2 .9 8 0 .5 7 1 .8 2 0 .0 0 3 .6 9 0 .1 4 1 c al cu la tio n sy st em ns .7 50 ns .8 62 .0 01 .7 50 18 .8 9 1 .2 9 2 .9 0 0 .8 6 0 .8 0 1 .2 9 3 .2 1 1 .1 4 1 w or ki ng m em or y ta sk s 0 li st en in g sp an ta sk ns .0 00 3 ns .0 32 .0 01 < .1 48 31 .50 .9 3 2 .7 0 0 .2 1 2 .5 5 0 .2 8 3 .9 2 1 d ig it sp an ba ck w ar d ns .2 55 .0 32 .8 82 5 .0 10 .1 91 9 .9 7 0 .5 7 3 .5 3 0 .5 7 2 .8 9 0 .1 4 4 .5 3 0 .4 3 3 m ak in g ve rb al tra ils ns .2 48 ns .0 00 ns .3 87 .0 4 20 .0 0 54 .1 7 19 .1 4 59 .6 1 11 .1 4 56 .3 2 14 .7 1 56 m ak in g co lo ur s tra ils ns .1 20 .0 42 .1 61 5 ns .1 25 1 .2 6 24 .7 1 75 .2 5 30 .8 6 80 .1 4 9 .8 6 51 .3 9 19 .0 0 62 a tte nt io na lt as ks to ta la tte nt iv e s co re .0 25 .5 33 ns .9 59 3 .0 01 < .0 00 30 .2 7 1 .5 7 3 .5 1 1 .4 3 2 .9 5 0 .7 1 5 .4 0 1 .5 7 2 s im pl e r ea ct io n ti m e .0 14 .3 33 8 ns .9 31 ns .0 00 3 .4 8 0 .2 8 0 .5 3 0 .4 3 0 .3 8 0 .8 6 0 .4 9 0 .2 8 0 0 4 s pe ed an d a cc ur ac y .0 73 .8 68 3 ns .0 29 .0 09 .5 53 9 .9 7 0 .4 3 3 .0 7 1 .1 4 3 .1 1 1 .7 1 2 6 a ud ito ry ,v is ua l, an d vi su os pa tia lr ec og ni tio n ns .8 00 1 ns .0 56 2 ns .2 50 1 .5 7 1 .8 6 5 .7 3 1 .6 0 1 .7 1 7 .1 1 2 .1 4 6 2 0 3 d ig it s pa n ns .2 07 ns .8 28 .0 42 .1 72 5 .3 8 0 .8 6 2 .5 4 1 .1 3 1 .4 3 2 d iv id ed a tte nt io n ns .0 00 ns .3 17 1 .0 04 .7 06 12 .4 9 0 .7 1 3 .0 7 1 .8 6 2 .9 0 0 .1 4 4 .7 5 0 .2 8 3 0 6 c ol ou rw or d in te rfe re nc e ns .5 22 ns .0 00 ns .0 87 2 .3 8 0 .8 6 5 .4 9 0 .7 1 5 .7 9 0 .5 7 5 0 4 a tte nt iv e s hi fti ng ns .0 00 ns .4 07 .0 02 .6 34 14 .7 5 0 .7 1 3 .5 0 1 .2 8 2 .3 9 1 .5 7 2 o ve ra ll ti m es ’s co re a .0 08 .2 26 10 ns .1 99 2 .0 05 .7 39 11 .2 7 2 .1 4 7 .7 3 1 .0 0 7 .1 3 1 .4 3 10 .5 6 2 .2 9 6 o ve ra ll e rr or s’ sc or ea ns .2 50 ns .6 82 ns .3 61 1 .5 8 0 .0 0 8 .7 0 1 .2 9 7 .6 9 0 .1 4 8 .2 1 1 .8 6 7 o ve ra ll o m is si on s’ sc or ea ns .0 99 ns .2 71 .0 03 .2 81 14 .9 5 0 .7 1 7 .1 2 2 .1 4 6 .6 9 0 .1 4 8 .1 1 1 .2 9 6 a t he in cr ea se of th e sc or es in di ca te s an im pr ov em en to ft he pe rfo rm an ce (s ee m at er ia ls u se d fo rp ha se 1 -t es t). europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 guarnera & d’amico 285 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the present study showed that intensive computerized attention training increased basic attentive skills in children with ald. in particular, children with ald showed a significant reaction times reduction in attentional tasks. this result demonstrated that also very basic automatic skills such as reaction time may be modified by treatment, contrary to what was affirmed by sohlberg, mclaughlin, pavese, heidrich, & posner (2000). this is a very interesting result if we consider that reduced reaction times may reflect an improvement in speed of processing, a very basic cognitive ability, important for a whole range of higher level cognitive skills, and in particular for arithmetic learning, since a number of studies demonstrated that children with ald and children with typical development often differ each other for their speed of processing abilities (see d’amico & passolunghi, 2009, for a short overview). on the other hand, another important result of the present study is that attention training produced a significant improvement on number processing scores of children with ald. thus, it is possible that the attentional training increase speed of processing that, in turn, improve the abilities of number processing. these results partially support the findings of ashkenazi and henik (2012). these authors showed that attentional training in university students with developmental dyscalculia (dd) improved attention abilities. however, in contrast to our findings, they found no improvement either in tasks requiring numerical or calculation abilities. however, this study differs from ours both for the type of training used and for the age of the participants, as it is known that the relation between attentive processes and ability in maths is dependent on age (mazzocco & kover, 2007; raghubar et al., 2010). finally, our results did not evidence any improvement of wm performance of children with ald as effect of attentive training. this result is somewhat coherent with klingberg et al.’s (2002) study demonstrating that a wm training does not improve choice reaction time task. in conclusion, the present study opens up a new treatment perspective in the field of arithmetic learning difficulties and supports the literature demonstrating the influence of basic attentive skills on arithmetical abilities (fuchs et al., 2005). there are however some limitations, since: 1. treatment effects were limited to very basic attentional skills and not to higher level one 2. the treatment significantly improved only numerical abilities and not calculation ones 3. the treatment had no effect in improving working memory abilities. looking deeply into these results, it is clear that they are all interconnected: indeed, while attentional training improved basic attentional abilities, no effect of treatment were observed for higher level attentional abilities such as spatial recognition, digit span, divided attention, colour word interference or attentive shifting. since literature discussed in the introduction demonstrated that calculation processes relies on higher attentional abilities more than on lower level and automatic processes, it is not surprising that no improvement of high attentional processes corresponds to no improvement of calculation abilities. similarly, literature investigating the relationships between attentional processed and working memory affirms that working memory involves higher level and executive attentional processes, rather than lower level and automatic ones (baddeley, 1986; conway, tuholski, shisler, & engle, 1999; cowan, 1995; kane, bleckley, conway, europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 286 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & engle, 2001); thus, again, no improvement of high attentional processes, no improvement in working memory abilities. with the data available in this study it is not possible to say why the treatment had no effect in higher level attentional abilities; it is highly probable that this result could be afforded in a longer and more intensive training, but only future treatment study may help to answer to this question. with the available result, we can only affirm that a reduction in simple reaction time lead to improved number processing abilities. since we know that children with ald may differ from each other, showing selective or more important number processing or calculation difficulties, this is an important result in a clinical perspective. indeed, it might suggest strategies for planning individualized training programs, relying, case by case, on automatic or executive attentional processes. in other words, it might suggest that the treatment for children with numerical processing problems could be focused in simple reaction times tasks, processing speed tasks and so on, whereas treatment for children with calculation problems could be focused on inhibition of irrelevant information, strategies planning and other executive processes tasks. we hope that further studies will support and extend our results in order to give more strength to this very useful research perspective. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alloway, t. p., & passolunghi, m. c. 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(2005). working memory in dutch children with readingand arithmetic-related ld. journal of learning disabilities, 38, 207-221. doi:10.1177/00222194050380030301 about the authors maria guarnera: phd in theories and methods of formative processes, researcher in psychology at university “kore” of enna. her research interests are mainly focused on cognitive psychology, particularly on attention, memory and mental imagery related to both learning processes and life span. antonella d’amico: phd in psychology, researcher at the dipartimento di psicologia, università degli studi di palermo. her main interests are the psychology of learning and memory, the study on cognitive factors underlying learning disabilities and the use of icts for learning and for cognitive rehabilitation. more recently, she also dedicated her studies to emotional intelligence and its relationship with scholastic achievement. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 277–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.744 attention training and arithmetical disabilities 290 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2009.10.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410120090786 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/135467997387434 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1131037 http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/1380-3395(200010)22:5;1-9;ft656 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.96.3.471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00745.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00222194050380030301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en attention training and arithmetical disabilities (introduction) method participants materials used for phase 1 test assignment of children with ald to experimental and control groups materials used for phase 2 the attentional training materials used for phase 3 retest phase results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors measuring teacher job satisfaction: assessing invariance in the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss) across six countries research reports measuring teacher job satisfaction: assessing invariance in the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss) across six countries alessandro pepe a, loredana addimando* b, guido veronese a [a] department of human sciences "r. massa", university of milano-bicocca, milan, italy. [b] department of teaching and learning, university of applied sciences and arts of southern switzerland, locarno, switzerland. abstract work and organizational psychology has long been concerned with measuring job satisfaction in organizational contexts, and this has carried across to the field of education, leading to a research focus on the work-related satisfaction of teachers. today, a myriad of organizations continue to assess employees’ job satisfaction on a routine basis (liu, borg, & spector, 2004). unfortunately, a sort of balkanization of the field has resulted in the production of dozens of specific measurement tools, making it difficult to cross-compare samples and contexts. the present paper tested the measurement invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss) in six international cohorts (netherlands, united states, russia china, italy and palestine) of in-service teachers (n = 2,819). confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group invariance tests were applied. the tjss-9 displayed robust psychometric proprieties and no substantial departures from measurement invariance (configural and metric). future research is required to further test equivalence across additional countries, with view to developing a truly international tool for measuring job satisfaction in teaching. keywords: teacher job satisfaction, job satisfaction scale, measurement invariance across countries europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 received: 2017-02-07. accepted: 2017-04-09. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: e-mail: loredana.addimando@supsi.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the term job satisfaction usually refers to the extent to which employees like the components of their job (spector, 1997). over time and across different paradigms, other definitions of the construct have also been adopted, sometimes in parallel with one another. a brief and non-exhaustive summary of these includes: locke’s (1969) idea of a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences; vroom’s (1964, 1982) focus on workers’ emotional orientation towards their job; milkovich and boudreau’s (1997) definition of job satisfaction as a pleasurable response to job contents; versus schultz’s (1982) proposal that job satisfaction is simply employees’ psychological disposition towards their work. despite the variations in this broad range of available definitions, the majority of them share the idea that job satisfaction is essentially an affective and positive job-related reaction to the workplace (worrell, skaggs, & brown, 2006) that translates into how people feel about their work (irving & montes, 2009). independently of the ontological debate on how the construct should be conceptualized, countless organizations have gone on routinely assessing employees’ job satisfaction with a view to optimizing the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ management, training and retention of human resources (liu, borg, & spector, 2004).the reasons for which job satisfaction continue to empirically intrigue managers, practitioners and researchers are easily listed, and are mainly linked to the awareness that “happy employees” can lead organizations to prosper more (and not only in terms of economic returns). in practice, job satisfaction is positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviors (foote & tang, 2008; swaminathan & jawahar, 2013), enhanced work environments (newsham, jay brand, veitch, aries, & charles, 2009), improved worker health (faragher, cass, & cooper, 2005) and more efficient performance (mafini & pooe, 2013). in addition, job satisfaction is positively associated with workrelated characteristics such as administration control, teaching competence and organizational culture (ma & macmillan, 1999). conversely, employees’ job satisfaction is inversely associated with general (hanebuth, 2008) and injury-related absenteeism (drakopoulos & grimani, 2013), intention to leave the workplace (macintosh & doherty, 2010; tschopp, grote, & gerber, 2014), counterproductive interpersonal and organizational behaviors (mount, ilies, & johnson, 2006), job-related stress (boudreaux, mandry, & brantley, 1997), psychological distress (moen, kelly, & lam, 2013) and biological markers of ill-health (such as higher levels of inflammatory cytokines and other lymphocytes; amati et al., 2010). such negative effects on the teaching professions are crucial since, for instance, job related stress is negatively related with students’ academic achievement (banerjee & lamb, 2016; kalyva, 2013). similarly to the construct of job satisfaction itself, the correlates and determinants of employee satisfaction have been framed differently within different theoretical paradigms. studies about satisfaction broadly divide into two main research traditions. one line of enquiry has seen job satisfaction as largely influenced by internal and personal factors [such as an individual’s cultural background (kwantes, 2010), level of education (ganzach, 2003), expectations (vroom, 1964) or perceptions of equity (carrell & dittrich, 1978). maslow’s (1970) hierarchical theory of needs and herzberg, mausner, and snyderman’s (1959) two-factor theory of job satisfaction are representative of this first tradition. alternative lines of enquiry have viewed job environment and conditions and the specific contents of the job [such as pay (diener & seligman, 2004), organizational atmosphere (okpara & wynn, 2008), promotion of inequality by management (card, mas, moretti, & saez, 2012) as playing a stronger role than personal attributes in determining levels of job satisfaction. hackman and oldham’s (1976) job characteristics model and karasek’s (1979) job demand-control model both belong to this second school of thought. this lack of theoretical agreement regarding the underlying theoretical constructs has been mirrored in the production of dozens of dimensionand job-specific measurement tools, generating a sort of balkanization of this research field. furthermore, the existing cross-cultural research on the topic has not contributed to unifying the debate on measures of job satisfaction. indeed, although the first step in all organizational interventions aimed at improving employee satisfaction is to establish the existing level (wright, gardner, moynihan, & allen, 2005), one of the major difficulties for human resource professionals and researchers is still establishing how to measure employee job satisfaction in a reliable and relatively unbiased manner (rynes, colbert, & brown 2002). a means of overcoming the current impasse may be the development of multi-lingual studies with a greater focus on ecological validity (van de vijver & hambleton, 1996) and on assessing the degree to which the measured constructs overlap across the populations of interest (hambleton, 1994). with this goal in mind, the present study analyzed the efficacy of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss) in assessing job satisfaction across a large sample of in-service primary teachers (n = 2,819) from six different countries in order to develop a reliable measurement model suitable for quick and large-scale administration in pepe, addimando, & veronese 397 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both applied and research contexts across different cultural and linguistic settings (american english, russian, arabic, italian and cantonese). by testing the structure of different linguistic versions of the teacher job satisfaction scale, we expected to obtain a reasonably stable and invariant measurement model representing a shared underlying structure of job satisfaction. the teacher job satisfaction scale: developing the questionnaire on the dimensionality of satisfaction measures: does size matter? in 1997, wanous, reichers, and hudy conducted a study on job satisfaction, concluding that job satisfaction is best assessed using a single-item measure. in another classic study, scarpello and campbell (1983) similarly suggested that the best way to evaluate job satisfaction is to ask workers to rate one item on a 5-point scale, namely “how satisfied are you with your job?”. these authors advocated the adoption of single-item measures of job satisfaction for three main reasons: (a) single measures of satisfaction were highly correlated with composite measures (i.e., scales); (b) single items take up less space, are more cost-effective and may feasibly be used to monitor satisfaction on a routine basis; (c) single-item measures are more popular with those administering them and more likely to be completed by employees. in addition, it has been debated whether respondents may not provide lower ratings of job satisfaction as an artifact of long and multi-faceted measures. it is possible that a long set of items may lead respondents to evaluate aspects of their job that would otherwise be marginal to their overall evaluation. a final advantage offered by the adoption of general single-item measures of job satisfaction is that they overcome the issue of job-specific measures given that they measure generic job satisfaction (nakata, irie, & takahashi, 2013). although these arguments in favor of a single-item measure are quite compelling, especially in relation to dynamic and complex environments such as schools where time is often a crucial resource, researchers have appeared to ignore them, rarely adopting generic one-item instruments to measure job satisfaction. a review of widely-used measures of job satisfaction (van saane, sluiter, verbeek, & frings-dresen, 2003) revealed that the majority of ready-to-administer questionnaires are multidimensional, and that even those that assess a single general dimension of satisfaction do so via multi-item scales. for instance, the job descriptive index (jdi, a very popular questionnaire in organizational science; leong & vaux, 1992) is composed of 18 items. the job satisfaction survey (spector, 1985) measures nine facets of satisfaction via 36 items, while the minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (hirschfeld, 2000) assesses 20 aspects of job satisfaction via 100 items. similarly, the teacher job satisfaction questionnaire (lester, 1987) assessed nine different domains of job satisfaction: supervision, colleagues, working conditions, pay, responsibility, work (itself), advancement, security, and recognition. in all these cases, a multi-dimensional approach is preferred given that multiple-item measures: (a) may be easily evaluated using standard psychometric indicators (e.g., internal reliability); (b) may be used in structural equation modelling approaches; (c) offer a more structured approach to unpacking the construct of job satisfaction (nagy, 2002). in addition, those who support the use of multi-item measures do not view potentially lower job satisfaction ratings due to the inclusion of multiple dimensions as a ‘“true” bias, arguing in contrast that such scores represent a better grounded evaluation of workplaces and, consequently, are more reliable subjective measures. in our view, both approaches have something to offer to the theory and practice of measuring job satisfaction in workplaces. on the one hand, there is an evident need for compact and easy-to-administer research tools that may easily be applied in real-life settings. in our experience, when a public or private organization agrees to participate in a study of employee job satisfaction, both respondents and management tend to perceive long batteries of item as a meaningless burden. on the other hand, there is invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 398 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an equally self-evident need for valid and reliable measures in the social science field. today, the leading scientific journals implicitly require published research to have been conducted using multiple-item scales (drolet & morrison, 2001). in devising the teacher job satisfaction scale, we took both these aspects into account, leading us to develop our questionnaire in the spirit of an old and well-known latin adage: in medio stat virtusi. thus, in constructing the teacher job satisfaction scale, we attempted to trade off the efficiency of adopting single-item methods against the efficacy of adopting multi-item measures, in such a way that the drawbacks of one method were offset by the advantages of the other and vice versa. specifically, in the interests of achieving this ideal balance, we: (a) included a single overall item for each facet of job satisfaction in our measurement model; (b) balanced each sub-scale of the tjss by including at least two specific items for each facet; (c) ensured that the overall questionnaire–though brief–was long enough to enable evaluation of its psychometric proprieties. on the operationalization of job satisfaction: key domains in the educational context the rationale for viewing job satisfaction in teaching as a key focus for educational research mainly concerns the benefits, for both teachers and students, that “satisfied” teachers are known to contribute to organizational performance (heller, rex, & cline, 1992). it has frequently been reported that satisfied teachers display high levels of job commitment and are less at risk of leaving the profession (gersten, 2001; singh & billingsley, 1996). similarly, klassen and chiu (2010) confirmed the negative relationship between job satisfaction and occupational stress by demonstrating that, among primary teachers, high levels of occupational stress correspond to low levels of job satisfaction. another study conducted in the italian context (caprara, barbaranelli, steca, & malone, 2006) reported that job satisfaction was predicted by teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and, in turn, it affects students’ academic achievement. in general, it may be concluded that job satisfaction in teaching is derived from the gratification of higher order needs such as positive social relationships, rather than lower order needs (e.g., pay incentives) (sylvia & hutchinson, 1985). in fact, recent research shows that interpersonal relationships play a key role in the work of teachers (van droogenbroeck, spruyt, & vanroelen, 2014) and that satisfaction with positive relationships with co-workers, parents, and students mitigates some of the adverse effects of teaching work (cano-garcía, padilla-muñoz, & carrasco-ortiz, 2005; gavish & friedman, 2010; skaalvik & skaalvik, 2011). these findings, along with the framework offered by herzberg’s (1966) dual-factor satisfaction theory, which has been widely applied in research examining k-12 (i.e., the label k-12 refers to comprises the sum of primary and secondary education in the anglophone countries) teacher satisfaction (e.g., perie & baker, 1997), provided robust justification for our choice of the particular facets of job satisfaction to include in the measurement model of the teachers job satisfaction scale. teachers’ relationship with their students was the obvious choice for the first dimension in our operational model for evaluating the job satisfaction of primary teachers. today, there is broad consensus among researchers (e.g., addimando 2013; chang, 2009; pepe & addimando, 2013; spilt, koomen, & thijs, 2011) that the most common source of work-related stress in teachers is their interaction with pupils. negative relationships in the classroom are frequently related to difficulty with classroom management (wubbels, brekelmans, den brok, & van tartwijk, 2006), a key factor in stress and burnout later on in teachers’ careers (tatar & horenczyk, 2003; veldman, van tartwijk, brekelmans, & wubbels, 2013). the second dimension was also related to the social atmosphere in the work organization and, specifically, on how relations with coworkers influence employees’ job satisfaction (ellickson & logsdon, 2001). in particular, luthans (2005) pepe, addimando, & veronese 399 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recommended viewing this factor as a major determinant of job satisfaction. similarly, work by ghenghesh (2013), suggested that the quality of teachers’ relationships with co-workers is a key variable influencing their job satisfaction. finally, in line with current thinking about the social aspects of teachers’ work, the third dimension included in the model was satisfaction with parents. extensive research (fan & chen, 2001; houtenville & conway, 2008; jeynes, 2007; jeynes, 2010) has explored the importance of parental involvement for children’s school achievement, suggesting that families should be fully included in school processes. in a recent quantitative synthesis of research about parental involvement (castro, exposito-casas, lopez-martin, lizasoain, navarro-asencio, & gaviria, 2015), a strong general relation emerged between type of parental involvement and academic achievement, in particular with regards to develop and maintain communication with them about school activities and schoolwork and promote reading habits. on the contrary, supervision and control of homework and parental attendance of school activities do not appear to be especially related to the children’s academic achievement (p. 13). other studies (see szumski & karwowski, 2012) confirmed the positive relation between engagement of parents and students‘ academic achievement and supported the thesis that in the process of placing children with disabilities, selection processes based on students’ social origin do take place (p. 1623). the present study the aim of the present study was to test the factor structure of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss), along with its measurement invariance across six subsamples of primary teachers. given that theoretical advances on the topic of job satisfaction suggest the adoption of stable and robust quantitative tools enabling the cross-comparison of results, we tested different competing factor structures for the tjss via standard confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) in order to estimate the scale’s psychometric proprieties in a large sample of teachers (n = 2,819). in particular, we evaluated four different models of the tjss-9: unidimensional (1), threedimensional with uncorrelated sub-scales and item-level errors not allowed to co-vary (2), three-dimensional with correlated sub-scales and item-level errors not allowed to co-vary (3) and three-dimensional with correlated sub-scales and covariance among item-level errors allowed (4). details of the technical aspects guiding our assessment of the “best fitting baseline structure” are reported in the method section. next, in order to improve the ecological validity of our findings, we explored measure invariance across all subsamples by applying multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (mgcfa) with a cross-validation procedure (byrne, 2004). first, we tested the hypothesis that job satisfaction scores would be represented by three factors in all groups: satisfaction with co-workers, satisfaction with students and satisfaction with parents. to this end, configural invariance (φg = φg’) (a weak type of factorial invariance test; horn & mcardle, 1992) was measured. next, metric invariance (∧i,j g = ∧i,j g′) was tested by constraining all factor loadings to be equal across groups. during the third step, the scalar invariance of tjss was specified and item intercepts (τg = τg’) were set to be equal, so that latent factors means could be meaningfully compared across groups. finally, in keeping with standard practice (for details see cheung & rensvold, 2002), error variance invariance (θδ g = θδ g’) and full construct invariance (all parameters fixed to be equal) were also evaluated (see also cavalera, pepe, zurloni, diana, & realdon, 2017; grazzani, ornaghi, pepe, brazzelli, & reeffe, 2017; veronese & pepe, 2013). measures of reliability as well as the convergent/concurrent validity of the tjss scales with the general health questionnaire (ghq-12) were also calculated. in the final section of this paper, we discuss the empirical results obtained in terms of both the implications for theoretical research of using an invariant model of satisfaction and invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 400 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the practical implications of adopting the tjss-9 scale as a means of collecting information about teachers’ job satisfaction across different contexts. methodology participants the sample was composed of primary teachers (n = 2,819) recruited in schools located in six different countries: the netherlands (n = 551, 19.6%), the united states (n = 284, 7.8%), russia (n = 169, 6.0%), china (n = 934, 33.2%), italy (n = 724, 25.9%), and palestine (n = 149, 4.1%). all teachers (100%) worked in staterun primary schools. gender distribution was 2,394 females (85.2%) and 411 males (14.6%) (4 missing values). the characteristics of the country sub-samples are reported in table 1 and they indicate that it was appropriate to test the structural invariance of tjss using mgcfa cross validation procedures. table 1 characteristics of sub-samples gender tenure female male n (%) n (%) m sd netherlands 439 (79.5) 112 (20.5) 17.3 11.0 russia 166 (98.2) 3 (1.8) 17.9 7.8 china (hong kong) 801 (85.6) 133 (14.4) 11.9 8.1 united states 266 (93.6) 17 (16.4) 12.8 9.6 italy 668 (92.0) 56 (8.0) 17.7 9.6 palestine 54 (63.8) 95 (36.2) 10.4 8.3 note. according to world bank (2014, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/se.prm.tchr.fe.zs), general female ratios (%) in primary schools were: netherlands (85%), russia (99%), china (hong kong, 78%), united states (88%), italy (96%), palestine (not available). participation in the study was on voluntary basis, with all participants recruited on-site and surveyed at their workplaces. questionnaires were anonymous and the data was handled collectively. only teachers who had been in charge of their own classrooms for at least one full year at the time of the study were eligible to participate. the study was conducted following apa ethical principles and code of conduct (american psychological association, 2010). measures teacher job satisfaction scale (tjjs-9) the teacher job satisfaction scale (pepe, 2011) is a questionnaire aimed at measuring job satisfaction that has been specifically developed for use in educational contexts. the tjss-9 is composed of three dimensions: satisfaction with co-workers (3 items), satisfaction with parents (3 items) and satisfaction with students’ behaviors (3 items). items are rated on a 5-point scale (1 = i am highly dissatisfied with this aspect of the school, 5 = i am highly satisfied with this aspect of the school). for instance, the dimension “co-workers” included items such as “the quality of your relations with co-workers” or “the extent to which your co-workers pepe, addimando, & veronese 401 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/se.prm.tchr.fe.zs http://www.psychopen.eu/ encourage you and support you in your work”. given that from the outset we were interested in developing an instrument with structural invariance, great care was taken when translating the items into the different languages, taking the “ask the same question” rule (harkness, van de vijver, & mohler, 2003) as a guideline. the first draft of the teacher job satisfaction scale was developed in english in order to facilitate its subsequent translation into other languages. for each country, two bilingual (english and target language) researchers worked separately to obtain a “local” version of the questionnaire. a third research coordinator supervised their products. all translated versions of the questionnaire were then explored by small groups of teachers (up to eight) to evaluate the target-language translation and adaptation (in terms of familiarity and specificity of meanings). finally, all language versions (english, dutch, russian, italian, cantonese, arab) were administered during preliminary pilot sessions. the current version of the instrument (with 9 items) was developed from an original set of 35 items loading on six different dimensions: satisfaction with all the colleagues, satisfaction with co-workers, satisfaction with management, satisfaction with parents, satisfaction with students’ behavior and responsibility. from that initial version of the questionnaire, a series of exploratory and confirmatory analyses were conducted on data from local samples, with a view to making the tjss measurement model more robust, reliable and compact. cronbach’s alpha values and the means of inter-item correlations for each sub-sample are reported separately in the results section. general health questionnaire (ghq-12) the general health questionnaire (ghq) (goldberg, 1972) is a family of reliable quantitative tools aimed at “detecting psychiatric disorders among respondents in both community and non-clinical settings” (goldberg & williams, 1988, p. 1). the ghq-12 is one of the shorter versions of the original instrument (ghq-30), which has often been used in the context of large-scale social surveys (e.g., by the world health organization) given its proven reliability and sensitivity in measuring psychological distress across multiple groups of participants. in order to assess psychological distress among teachers in the present study, we adopted the tripartite measurement model composed of anxiety (4 items), social dysfunction (6 items) and loss of confidence (2 items). each subscale has scores ranging from 0to 3. we decided to include the ghq-12 as a means of crossvalidating the tjss-9 scores for three main reasons: (a) there is an unusually strong positive relationship between job satisfaction and psychological health (faragher, cass, & cooper, 2005); (b) specific language versions of the measure had already been translated, culturally adapted and reported in the literature for each of the countries in our study; (c) the ghq-12 measure has been advantageously used in previous teacher studies (pepe & addimando, 2014) yielding satisfactory results in terms of reliability of scores and normality of distribution. cronbach’s alpha values and the means of inter-item correlations for each sub-sample are reported separately in the results section. statistical procedures confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) the software amos 21.0 was used to specify and assess different measurement models based on the variance-covariance matrix of the tjss-9 scores. prior to analysis, all variables were checked for assumptions related to factor analysis (i.e., homoscedasticity, multivariate normality, etc.). no excess skewness or other major violations to normality were found. multivariate outliers were identified and skipped via the application of a p > .001 criterion for mahalanobis’ distance. next, the cfa method was applied (estimation method: maximum likelihood) to evaluate four different models for the overall sample: the purpose of this first set of analyses was to specify a robust and “shared” model of tjss-9 to serve as baseline for further analysis. the invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 402 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ first was a unidimensional solution (m1), in which all items measuring job satisfaction loaded together onto a single unidimensional factor. then, a three-dimensional model (satisfaction with co-workers, students and parents) with uncorrelated subscales and uncorrelated item-level errors (m2) was assessed. next, a third model (m3) allowing scales to covary with uncorrelated item-level errors (m3) was specified. finally, a less constrained measurement model (m4) with correlated dimensions and allowing item-level errors to correlate (as suggested by crawford and henry, 2004) was tested. the degree to which each model fitted the empirical data was evaluated for both practical significance and statistical significance using the following goodness-of-fit indices: root mean square error of approximation (rmsea, the cut-off value for the rmsea is .05 [steiger, 2007] while more robust models require the rmsea 90th confidence interval to fall entirely below.08 [mac callum, browne, & sugawara,1996]); standardized root mean square residual (srmr, a value of less than .08 for srmr is generally considered a good result [hu & bentler, 1999]); normed fit index (nfi, the index must have a value of over .95 [kline, 2005]).comparative fit index (cfi, a cut-off point of. 95 is generally accepted [hu & bentler, 1999]); tucker–lewis index (tli, also known as the non-normed fit index, for a model to be accepted, the index must have a value of over .95 [tabachnick & fidell, 2007]). structural invariance and multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (mgcfa) when researchers aim to assess the measurement equivalence of an original questionnaire and its translated versions, mgcfa should be applied (koh & zumbo, 2008). the hypothesis of invariance across measures is supported when the network of relations between latent constructs and observed variables are identical across groups of interest. in other words, this type of analysis tests whether or not measurements yield measures of the same attributes under different conditions of the empirical world (horn & mcardle, 1992). given that we were interested in developing a ready-to-administer version of tjss in different languages, we applied standard procedures for testing measurement invariance (vandenberg & lance, 2000) to groups of teachers from different countries. such comparisons help to identify the model with the best generalization potential (hair, black, babin, & anderson 2010). in order to assess invariance, the statistical significance of the variation in χ2 is calculated at each hierarchical step. the hypothesis of equivalence across groups is rejected if the indexed variations are statistically significant. the cut-off points of other fit indexes (δcfi, δrmsea, δsrmr) for rejecting measurement invariance were set at δ < .01, corresponding to a p-level of .01 (chen, 2007). concurrent validity and reliability finally, in order to “enhance confidence that the concept under study is being captured” (short, ketchen, shook, & ireland, 2010, p. 53), the present study used measures of psychological distress to evaluate the concurrent validity of tjss-9 scores. specifically, ghq-12 scores were used as a proxy (i.e., as a negatively correlated measure of the original construct) and analysed for correlation with job satisfaction scores. a statistically significant correlation between tjss-9 and ghq-12 variables would imply concurrent validity. cronbach’s α values and confidence intervals (ci; based on feldt’s [1965] formula) of ghq-12 scores were: α = .794, 95% ci [.781, .807]. results our first goal was to obtain a measurement model serving as baseline for the analysis of structural invariance across groups. the main descriptive values (means, standard deviations and measures of distribution) are reported in table 2. pepe, addimando, & veronese 403 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics for tjss-9 items m sd skewness kurtosis the quality of your relations with co-workers 3.99 0.79 -0.64 0.60 the extent to which your co-workers encourage you and support you in your work 3.80 0.87 -0.53 0.18 your overall satisfaction with your co-workers 3.92 0.79 -0.60 0.60 the extent to which students act in a self-disciplined manner 3.16 0.85 -0.24 -0.23 your satisfaction with the behavior of students in your school 3.35 0.81 -0.48 0.05 your overall level of satisfaction with student discipline in your school 3.29 0.80 -0.42 -0.06 the degree of interest shown by parents in the education of their children 3.31 0.91 -0.41 -0.21 the extent to which parents are supportive of the school and its programs 3.22 0.89 -0.32 -0.13 your overall level of satisfaction with parents where you work 3.32 0.88 -0.36 -0.10 the results of confirmatory factor analysis for the nine items of the teacher job satisfaction scale are reported in table 3. table 3 goodness of fit indices for cfa models of the tjss-9 (n = 2,819) χ2 df rmsea srmr nfi nnfi cfi unidimensional (m1) 8,195.2 27 .27 .15 .61 .48 .61 three independent dimensions(m2) 2,287.4 27 .14 .26 .89 .85 .89 three dependent dimensions (m3) 151.2 24 .04 .02 .99 .99 .99 three dependent dimensions with correlated item-level errors (m4) 128.5 22 .03 .02 .99 .99 .99 the one-dimensional model (m1) yielded a very poor fit with the data, as reflected in all the fit indexes. this model displayed null statistical and practical significance and so the hypothesis of mono-dimensional measurement of job satisfaction was rejected. the second model representing three independent dimensions of satisfaction was also rejected: once again, the fit indexes were very low, χ2(27) = 2,287.4, p < .001: rmsea = .143; srmr = .26; cfi = .89; nnfi = .85; nfi = .89. model m 3 representing satisfaction as comprising three co-dependent dimensions yielded satisfactory fit indexes, suggesting that it should be accepted. the model displayed both statistical and practical significance, cfi = .993, nnfi = .991; nfi = .994). finally, the last model (m4) obtained equally robust fit indexes, leading us to adopt it as our baseline for assessing multi-group structural invariance. the relationships among items and dimensions of satisfaction are reported in figure 1. invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 404 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. tjss model measurement (m4). the baseline model confirmed the original tripartite structure of the questionnaire: satisfaction with co-workers, satisfaction with students and satisfaction with parents. the first dimension is composed of the following items: (a) the quality of your relations with co-workers (λ11 = .89, se = .011); (b) the extent to which your co-workers encourage you and support you in your work (λ21 = .80, se = .019); (c) your overall satisfaction with your coworkers (λ31 = .75, se = .024). the second dimension is made up of a further three items: (d) the extent to which students act in a self-disciplined manner (λ42 = .84, se = .015); (e) your satisfaction with the behavior of students in your school (λ52 = .84, se = .015); (f) your overall level of satisfaction with student discipline in your school (λ62 = .77, se = .023). finally, the third dimension comprises the three items (g) the degree of interest shown by parents in the education of their children (λ73 = .90, se = .010); (h) the extent to which parents are supportive of the school and its programs (λ83 = .84, se = .015); (i) your overall level of satisfaction with parents where you work (λ93 = .79, se = .021). factor loadings on the individual items (λi,j) all displayed strong practical significance, λ values were all above the recommended cut-off point (λ > .3) at a good level of statistical significance and with low standard errors. the p values for factor loadings were < .001 in all cases. in addition, the model specified relationships among latent variables. in particular, satisfaction with parents and satisfaction with students displayed a strong, statistically significant and positive correlation (φ32 = .66, p < .001) on the contrary, the variable satisfaction with co-workers appeared to be less strongly related to the other two components (φ12 = .37, p < .001, φ13 = .35, p < .001) of job satisfaction. finally, only two co-variance errors (θi,j) were included in the model (θ45 = .052, θ46 = .011). this seemed to be appropriate given that the parameters did not alter the structure of the λ parameters previously hypothesized in m2 and m3 (bagozzi, 1983) and they represented non-random measurement errors linked to local sample specificities (byrne, shavelson, & muthén, 1989). the subsequent step involved the adoption of mgcfa analysis to assess the measurement invariance of tjss-9 across the country subsamples of teachers (table 4). the multi-group test for configural invariance provided strong numerical support for accepting the hypothesis of configural equivalence (δx2 and all other differences between fit indexes were acceptable) among factor structures, meaning that participants from different groups conceptualized the construct of job satisfaction in the same way. this was the weakest test of factorial invariance and the outcome suggested that the same pattern of free and fixed parameters applied to each group of teachers. pepe, addimando, & veronese 405 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 results of tests of invariance in tjss-9, δ values of indexes are reported model x2 df δx2 (p) rmsea srmr nfi nnfi cfi baseline model 128.5 22 .018 .035 .99 .99 .99 1. configural invariance (m4a) 265.6 192 137.1 (.97) .017 .028 .99 .99 .99 2. metric invariance (m4b) 281.9 162 16.24 (.98) .019 .033 .98 .98 .98 3. scalar equivalence (m4c) 1,584.4 207 1,318.7 (.001) .043 .064 .90 .91 .91 4. error variance invariance (m4d) 2,008.9 237 424.4 (.001) .045 .106 .87 .90 .89 5. complete invariance (m4e) 2,483.66 292 474.7 (.001) .046 .113 .84 .89 .86 note. **p <.001. we next tested item-level metric invariance (∧g = ∧g′) by specifying equal item-factor loadings across groups. this test allowed us to assess whether item ratings could be compared across groups and whether item differences indicated disparity in the underlying constructs. goodness-of-fit indexes provided robust support for the metric invariance of tjss-9 across educational contexts, suggesting strong factorial invariance of tjss-9. the difference between m4b and m4a in terms of δχ2was not statistically significant. the hypothesis of invariant factor loadings patterns was therefore accepted. next, scalar invariance (τg = τg’) and error varianceinvariance (θδ g = θδ g’) were evaluated. in the first case, the results did not support scalar invariance of the tjss-9, revealing that the teachers in the different groups did not have equal intercepts for the observed variables. in the latter case, the groups displayed unequal levels of variance in relation to the invariant items. consequently, the test for full invariance led to similarly unsatisfactory results and to rejection of the hypothesis of full invariance. reliability analysis and convergent validity the main descriptive statistics for the tjss-9 sub-scale scores of each national group are summarized in table 5. in general, all the dimensions of job satisfaction were reliable and displayed normal distribution. with regard to convergent validity, zero-order correlations for the overall sample confirmed that teachers’ psychological distress scores as measured by the ghq-12 were negatively and moderately correlated with satisfaction with coworkers (r = -.179**), satisfaction with students (r = -.233**) and satisfaction with parents (r = -.180**). the magnitude of these correlations were in line with other studies exploring correlations between job satisfaction and ghq-12 scores [e.g., amati et al. (2010) found a correlation of -.235 in nurses, kawada and yamada (2012) found a correlation -.275 in general workers]. invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 406 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 descriptive statistics and internal consistency of tjss-9 subscale for each sub-sample satisfaction with coworker satisfaction with students satisfaction with parents m sd alpha skewness m sd alpha skewenss m sd alpha skewness netherlands 12.39 1.87 .789 -.657 10.70 1.91 .823 -.537 10.63 2.21 .822 -.660 russia 12.41 2.07 .797 -.824 9.52 1.96 .722 -.391 9.82 2.35 .787 -.520 china (hong kong) 11.68 1.58 .848 -.002 9.59 1.87 .898 -.284 9.94 1.89 .901 -.279 united states 12.69 2.17 .884 -1.090 10.00 2.44 .872 -.538 9.71 3.14 .937 -.441 italy 11.52 2.47 .856 -.703 9.91 2.14 .810 -.433 9.89 2.37 .843 -.255 palestine 8.26 1.28 .801 -1.820 6.85 1.71 .785 -.301 6.55 1.74 .789 -.155 conclusion the present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) in six cohorts of primary teachers at state-run schools in six countries. to this end, confirmatory factor analysis, multigroup comparison, internal consistency and convergent validity tests were conducted. overall, the results of the cfa supported a measurement model of job satisfaction in educational contexts covering three domains explaining 79.5% of variance in teachers’ overall work-related satisfaction: satisfaction with students, satisfaction with co-workers and satisfaction with parents. the baseline structure is composed of nine items and two-correlated item-level errors. the inclusion of covariance among item-level errors into the final baseline model did not substantially alter the parameters previously estimated (bagozzi, 1983, p. 2) and they represented non-random error determined by the peculiar characteristics of samples (fiorilli et al., 2015; veronese & pepe, 2017). the latent factors displayed excellent internal and good convergent validity. the observed cumulative indicators were normally distributed, meaning that the tjss-9 represents an excellent screening tool for assessing primary teachers’ levels of job satisfaction. with regard to measurement invariance, the results of the mgcfa fulfilled the requirements for construct equivalence and measurement unit equivalence. therefore, the different language versions of the tjss-9 (american english, russian, arabic, italian and cantonese) may be said to display a shared factor model with similar underlying meanings across groups, implying that factor variance may be compared across groups. on the other hand, the present study did not support full scale equivalence, meaning that groups scores should be compared with extreme caution. in addition, the present study adopted a measure of psychological distress (general health questionnaire; goldberg, 1972) to support convergent validity. from this point of view, further researches adopting the tjss-9 will require the use of other measures for eventually evaluating discriminant validity (e.g., turnover intentions) of the scale. given these outcomes, we propose the following guidelines for the future use and development of the tjss-9. first, from a theoretical point of view, our study confirms (in the educational field specifically) the importance of social and interactional aspects of work in determining the job satisfaction of the workforce. following in the tradition of studies using social information processing approaches (salancik & pfeffer, 1978), our findings support the idea that job attitudes and perceptions are influenced by social cues picked up directly from the work environment. the pattern of parameters, the relations among items and latent factors, as well as the amount of explained variance observed in our study all appear to point in this direction. this does not mean that job tasks or dispositional dimensions are not implicated (or should be excluded from investigations of job satisfaction in teaching), but the inclusion of heterogonous cohorts from different countries and educational pepe, addimando, & veronese 407 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ contexts in the present research design provides a strong basis for viewing such aspects as hierarchically subordinated to social and relational aspects. furthermore, the basic invariance of the tjss-9 measurement model across groups observed in our data, provides valuable evidence for relatively stable and, perhaps, pancultural dimensions of teachers’ job satisfaction. second, from a methodological point of view, the idea that job satisfaction is best measured by a single-item measure is only partially borne out by our research and findings. from our experience in developing the tjss-9, we conclude that overall indicators (including for specific dimensions) of job satisfaction help to evaluate and comprehend the constructs under study. however, it appears that it is also of benefit to include a small number of more specific items with a view to creating a more comprehensive framework allowing the exploration of concurrent effects. in fact, one of the possible explanations for the tjss-9’s excellent psychometric proprieties is the inclusion of specific indicators completing and reinforcing the overall measures of job satisfaction. third, from a practical point of view, the administration method (paper and pencil), respondent burden (less than 10 minutes) and ease of interpretation score characterizing this instrument all encourage its adoption across different settings (e.g., for routine screening) and national contexts. consequently, the tjss-9 may be classed as a short and user-friendly measure of job satisfaction representing a valuable resource for professionals and practitioners whose aim is to collect data as easily as possible while avoiding overburdening individuals working in dynamic organizations (such as schools). limitations as is usually the case in research, the current work also presents limitations that warrant discussion. first, the research design was cross-sectional and a further interesting development will therefore be to longitudinally track the job satisfaction patterns of different cohorts of teachers. second, scalar and full invariance were not confirmed for the measure under study, meaning that great caution should be applied to the comparison of tjss-9 scores across cultural groups. third, we administered the questionnaire to convenience samples of inservice primary teachers working in state-run schools only. although we tried to compensate for sampling errors by increasing the size of the samples, the scope for generalizing our findings to other teacher populations remains limited. then, another limitation is about the content of the tjss-9. specifically, the items included into the model of measurement are aimed at assessing specifically satisfaction with social relationships (students, parents and colleagues). other important aspects that contribute to job satisfaction (e.g., organizational culture, climate, pay, perception of autonomy, etc.) were not included in the questionnaire. consequently, in order to get a complete evaluation of job satisfaction it is important to place side by side tjss-9 with other complementary measure of job satisfaction. finally, we only had the opportunity to translate and administer the questionnaire in six different language versions: there is still a long way to go before the goal of a truly international tool for evaluating teachers’ job satisfaction may be achieved. notes i) “the virtue lies somewhere in the middle”. invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 408 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. 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(2006). an interpersonal perspective on classroom management in secondary classrooms in the netherlands. in c. evertson & c. weinstein (eds.), handbook of classroom management: research, practice, and contemporary issues (pp. 1161-1191). mahwah, nj, usa: lawrence erlbaum associates. pepe, addimando, & veronese 415 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1857 http://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.1.2.89 http://doi.org/10.1177/109442810031002 http://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqg038 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2013.01.005 http://doi.org/10.1177/1049731513486360 http://doi.org/10.1177/0163278715625741 http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.247 http://doi.org/10.1177/0143034306064540 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00487.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors alessandro pepe, ph.d. senior fellow researcher at university of milano-bicocca. he was adjunct professor in work and organizational psychology and lecturer in qualitative and quantitative methods in social sciences at department of human sciences, university of milan-bicocca (it). his research interests are focuses on topics such as psychometrics, statistical tools for social psychology, and mixed-method research. loredana addimando, ph.d. lecturer and senior researcher at teaching and learning department of the university of applied science and arts of southern switzerland. counselor in work and organizational psychology. her research interests are focuses on positive psychology in lifelong learning and mixed-method researches. guido veronese, ph.d. researcher and senior lecturer at university of milano-bicocca. family psychotherapist. lecturer in clinical and community psychology at department of human sciences, milano-bicocca (it). his research interest are mainly focuses on migration, resilience and subject well-being in context of war. invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) 416 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 396–416 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1389 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ invariance of the teacher job satisfaction scale (tjss-9) (introduction) the teacher job satisfaction scale: developing the questionnaire the present study methodology participants measures statistical procedures results reliability analysis and convergent validity conclusion limitations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors youth participation in psychological literature: a semantic analysis of scholarly publications in the psycinfo database research reports youth participation in psychological literature: a semantic analysis of scholarly publications in the psycinfo database iana tzankova* a, elvira cicognani a [a] department of psychology, university of bologna, bologna, italy. abstract the topic of youth participation in the public sphere has received increasing attention within recent psychological research. the literature remains somewhat fragmented between different conceptualizations varying in their specificity or broadness. the present study aims to map the current state of debate in psychology regarding youth civic and political participation and to identify the prevalent themes that characterize the research in the discipline from 1990 to 2016. a semantic content analysis with the software t-lab was performed on a corpus of 1,777 publications retrieved from the psycinfo database. the results highlight the increasing number of academic contributions on the topic, confirming the growing importance of the issue within psychology. the study sheds light on the spheres of participation, in which the discipline has attempted to make a contribution, namely: traditional and online political context, institutional civic education, adolescent development, and rights-based activism. moreover, the findings reveal the existing opposing priorities of research that focus either on the explanation of specific forms of involvement or on the formation of future citizens. within the thematic attention to young people’s civic and political development, there seem to be two general approaches that see youth in divergent ways: as citizens whose civic capacities are to be fostered or as targets for top-down training interventions. this systematic thematic review calls attention to the disparate ways in which youth participation is being addressed in psychology and highlights the need for greater theoretical integration in the field of study. keywords: youth, political participation, civic engagement, activism, psychology, semantic content analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 received: 2018-04-21. accepted: 2018-09-19. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of bologna, viale berti pichat 5, 40126 bologna, italy. e-mail: iana.tzankova2@unibo.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, there has been an ever-increasing interest in youth participation both in political discourse and in academic research within various disciplines. it is also a growing topic of interest in different spheres of psychology, including political, social, developmental and community psychology. the discipline has sought to contribute to the understanding of underlying psychological processes of participative activity (e.g., motivations, attitudes, emotions, sense of belonging, efficacy beliefs, perceptions of contextual influences, etc.) and of the implications of engagement for the well-being and development of youngsters. for example, socio-psychological contributions have examined extensively the general processes related to forms of participation, such as collective action and protesting (fattori, pozzi, marzana, & mannarini, 2015; van stekelenburg & klandermans, 2013; van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2008), as well as volunteering (omoto & snyder, 2002). considerable interest in research with developmental and community focus has been devoted more directly to the nature and sigeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ nificance of different forms of participation adopted by young people, their correlates and effects in terms of sociopolitical development. in this sense, adolescence and young adulthood are regarded as crucial formative periods, in which youth are engaged in the maturing of their identity and their relationship with society (erikson, 1968; yates & youniss, 1999). on the one hand, research has been motivated by the understanding that these periods of socialization are central for the development of sociopolitical attitudes and behaviors in adulthood, thus concentrating on factors that lead to later participation and on related developmental trajectories throughout the life course (eckstein, noack, & gniewosz, 2012; finlay, flanagan, & wray-lake, 2011; sears & levy, 2003; zaff et al., 2011). on the other hand, civic engagement has also been regarded as an experience that strengthens young people’s resources and capacities. as a consequence, a substantial amount of literature has concentrated on identifying the possible beneficial relations of social participation to positive youth development (lerner, almerigi, theokas, & lerner, 2005; lerner, lerner, & benson, 2011), as well as to community development and youth empowerment (evans & prilleltensky, 2007; watts & flanagan, 2007). in general terms, therefore, psychological disciplines have highlighted the importance of understanding and promoting civic participation among young people both for the health of democratic societies and for the healthy development of youngsters themselves. however, there is lack of a comprehensive systematic view on how the discipline addresses young people’s active involvement in the public sphere. the present study, based on a dissertation research by the first author (tzankova, 2018), seeks to obtain an overall image of the current prevalent ideas associated with the topic of youth civic and political participation in psychology. concepts such as activism, political participation, civic engagement, social participation, community participation, active citizenship, and many others, have been used at times synonymously and at times distinctly to denote various ways of getting involved in societal or collective issues. in this sense, there is some ambiguity over how much studies of differently defined forms of participation actually overlap and what degree of specificity carries each term. many of these concepts have been defined and developed extensively in the fields of political sciences or education studies to then be borrowed and adopted in psychological disciplines along with their underlying assumptions about what kind of participation is relevant and about young people’s active role, in particular. the field of study has, thus, been characterized by lack of clarity on what constitutes youth participation in the public sphere and how it should be approached. while there has been wide interest in explaining specific institutional and non-institutional forms of political participation, such as voting or activism, the literature has often considered a broader conceptualization of youth participation as more adequate, considering the sociopolitical opportunities present during adolescence and young adulthood. the notion of civic engagement, popularized by landmark contributions on the importance of social capital (putnam, 2000), has been particularly used in research to cover a wide variety of formal and informal activities in interaction with society, making it an all-encompassing umbrella term (adler & goggin, 2005). it has been an especially fruitful concept in the context of research on youth civic development (flanagan, 2003; sherrod, flanagan, & youniss, 2002; sherrod, torney-purta, & flanagan, 2010) and has been defined as “individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern” (american psychological association, 2018). the broadness of such an umbrella notion, however, has been criticized for excessive conceptual stretching: “like other buzzwords, civic engagement means so many things to so many people that it clarifies almost nothing” (berger, 2009, p. 335). the concept of active citizenship is also considered to be closely related to that of civic engagement (adler & goggin, 2005; shaw, brady, mcgrath, brennan, & dolan, 2014; zaff, boyd, li, lerner, & lerner, 2010) and has tzankova & cicognani 277 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ been defined in similarly broad terms. within the context of european policy on citizenship education, the concept has been defined as “participation in civil society, community and/or political life, characterized by mutual respect and non-violence and in accordance with human rights and democracy” (hoskins & mascherini, 2009, p. 462). in this conception, too, the activities considered are of great variety—from electoral, activist to community-based and unconventional types. however, a specific emphasis is given on the values that are at the base of such involvement, as these are indicative of the underlying intention behind the definition of the concept, which is related to the promotion of a specific kind of active citizenship within european policy on education (biesta, 2009). adding to the complexity in the study of youth participation is the difficulty to disentangle the competing assumptions about young people within academic research on the issue. as efforts are being concentrated on civic and political education, the peculiar citizenship status of youngsters is brought to the fore. adolescents, in particular, are not granted full citizen rights until coming of age and are considered to be in a period of developing crucial political competences, thus justifying the greater attention to the impact of socializing factors and processes. there have been, however, criticisms on how young people’s role as actors in the public sphere can often be challenged by normative and adult-centric assumptions in policy and scientific discourses on citizenship (hart, 2009; osler & starkey, 2003; smith, lister, middleton, & cox, 2005). youth can often be framed as citizens-in-formation based on a deficit-based model that tends to overlook existing experiences and rights (osler & starkey, 2003). young people themselves, especially adolescents, may be influenced by general attitudes that portray them in negative terms or as lacking the abilities to contribute significantly to society (camino & zeldin, 2002; smith et al., 2005). in this sense, a lot of research has assumed young people to be lacking interest and knowledge and has concentrated on how to promote their development as “good” responsible citizens. as argued by staeheli, attoh, and mitchell (2013), such an approach runs the risk of attempting to “mould” youth into normative and unchallenging active citizens, rather than seeking to foster their autonomy and critical skills in relation to the political sphere. consequently, different understandings of youth agency evidence the contested nature of the concepts in academic literature related to young people’s active citizenship. aim of the study in view of the outlined considerations, the aim of the present exploratory study is to map the study of youth participation in the civic and political sphere within scholarly psychological literature from the last 25 years, in order to gain better understanding of how young citizens and their actions in the public sphere are viewed and theorized in contemporary psychology. we, thus, explore the use of several most prominent key concepts denoting youth participation (“activism,” “civic or political participation,” “civic or political engagement” and “active citizenship”) through textometrical analysis of publication abstracts. in particular, we seek to systematize the current state of psychological debate on the topic of youth participation by: identifying sub-groups of specific thematic patterns that can be identified in the academic production related to the chosen terms; and analyzing the latent organization of the content in terms of relationships between these themes. youth participation in psychology 278 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method procedure searching process a systematic search was carried out in the electronic database psycinfo, which is one of the most important bibliographic sources for international literature in psychology. containing more than 4 million records with extensive coverage from the 1800s to the present, the database is one of the most comprehensive in psychological science and related social and behavioral sciences. with this consideration in mind, we assumed that the resulting references would be sufficient for a comprehensive view of current literature in the discipline. the research was carried out on 30 august 2016, using each of the following terms: “active citizenship,” “civic engagement” or “political engagement,” “civic participation” or “political participation,” “activism.”i the key terms that were used were chosen by the authors as most relevant in youth participation literature that treats particularly the public civic and political sphere. these were required to appear together with words denoting young people: “youth*” or “young*,” “teen*” or “adolescen*” and delimited to titles, abstracts, keywords or subjects. data extraction the references were organized based on the search terms used. duplicates were removed and the database was screened to remove erratum pieces to articles and book reviews, deemed not to be original contributions to the scholarly discourse. moreover, 103 references published before 1990 were excluded from the analysis, resulting in a final database of 1,777 publications published between 1990 and mid-2016. this selection was related to the goal of the present contribution, which was to provide an image of recent and contemporary literature on the topic. moreover, less recent academic works may not be as accurately and comprehensibly indexed in online databases. the textual corpus was created using the abstracts of the contributions, considering that they represent the first communication to the academic public and could thus provide a concise description of the authors’ main ideas. each record already had an abstract retrieved through psycinfo. it is important to stress, however, that abstracts are quite limited in length and, so, they are more structured and less thorough than the publication itself. the entries in the final corpus were tagged so as to indicate the year of publication, the type of publication (journal article, book or chapter), the geographical area relative to the institutional affiliation of the first author, and the key terms used to retrieve the publication from the database. the resulting dataset is available as open access data (tzankova & cicognani, 2018). analysis the abstracts of the references resulting from the bibliographic search were analyzed by means of a lexicographic content analysis, which aims to examine the internal structure of a text corpus through the study of its word distribution and word associations. the software t-lab 9.1 (lancia, 2014), which is an all-in-one set of linguistic and statistical tools, was used to perform the analysis. the software allows for a variety of text analysis based on word occurrences and co-occurrences (lancia, 2004) within units of analysis (elementary contexts) defined by the researcher. in our case, the analysis was performed on each text record, that is, abstract of the publications. through t-lab it is also possible to identify thematic differences in the documents and relate them to external variables by which the text corpus is classified. the variables according to which the entries in the corpus were classified were: key terms used in the bibliographic search; time period of publication; tzankova & cicognani 279 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ type of publication. in more detail, the corpus of abstracts was analyzed to obtain the main thematic clusters characterizing the corpus and the latent dimensions through which it can be organized. the thematic document classification tool was used, which combines cluster and correspondence analysis of each record in the text corpus. in a first phase of the analysis, automatic lemmatization was performed to reduce the corpus words to their respective headwords according to the linguistic vocabulary consulted. afterwards, the thematic document classification module was used to perform unsupervised clustering with the method of bisecting k-means, which consists of the following steps: 1) a data table of corpus documents x lexical units with presence/absence values is constructed; 2) data is pre-processed through a tf-idf (term frequency—inverse document frequency) normalization and scaling of row vectors to unit length (euclidean norm); 3) documents are clustered using the measure of cosine coefficients and the method of bisecting k-means; 4) for each of the obtained partitions, a contingency table of lexical units by clusters is constructed; 5) a chi square test is applied to all the intersections of the contingency table; 6) finally, a correspondence analysis of the contingency table of lexical units by clusters is performed (lancia, 2004). the thematic clusters identified by this procedure represent semantic universes (reinert, 1983), that identify the specific vocabulary of a group of publications with respect to the others. the correspondence analysis examines the relationships between the resulting vocabularies in latent dimensions that represent the organization of meanings within the overall discourse. results characteristics of the bibliographic corpus figure 1 shows the temporal distribution of the retrieved publications on youth participation between 1990 and 2016. the increase of literature produced on the topic in the last 10 years is evident. it is worth noticing that the contributions published from 2011 until the date of the bibliographic search account for 52.8% of the whole corpus. figure 1. distribution of publications by year. the publications were categorized in six different time periods in order to use the variable in the thematic analysis (see table 1). we considered the large number of publications in the last 7 years and, while previous years youth participation in psychology 280 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ are categorized in periods of 5 years each, the period from 2010 to 2016 is divided in two periods of four and 3 years. table 2 shows the amount of publications according to their type. table 1 number and percentages of entries according to time period time period frequency percent 1990–1994 47 2.6 1995–1999 91 5.1 2000–2004 181 10.2 2005–2009 405 22.8 2010–2013 556 31.3 2014–2016 497 28.0 total 1,777 100.0 table 2 number and percentages of entries according to type of publication type frequency percent book 51 2.9 book section 266 15.0 journal article 1,460 82.2 total 1,777 100.0 figure 2 shows the distribution of publications according to the geographical area of the first author’s institutional affiliation. the majority of authors were affiliated with an institution in north america (60.4%). for 54 publications it was not possible to retrieve the geographical area of the affiliation from the psycinfo record, as indicated by the “unknown” bar in the figure. figure 2. distribution of publications by geographical area. tzankova & cicognani 281 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the entries were also classified according to the search terms used to retrieve them. the aim was to explore the amount of scientific production related to different keywords denoting citizen participation and their interconnectedness, as seen in table 3. contributions could be classified to one term uniquely or, if resulting from multiple searches, to the combination of relevant terms. table 3 number and percentages of entries according to search terms and their combinations search terms frequency percentage unique entries civic or political engagement 376 21.2 civic or political participation 419 23.6 activism 661 37.2 active citizenship 39 2.2 co-presences civic or political engagement & civic or political participation 137 7.7 civic or political engagement & activism 43 2.4 civic or political engagement & civic or political participation & activism 29 1.6 civic or political participation & activism 62 3.5 active citizenship & civic or political engagement 4 0.2 active citizenship & civic or political engagement & civic or political participation 1 0.1 active citizenship & civic or political participation 6 0.3 total 1,777 100.0 as shown in table 3, the term “activism” (37.2%) resulted in the largest amount of scholarly publications, followed by “civic or political participation” (23.6%) and “civic or political engagement” (21.2%). “active citizenship,” however, yielded limited results (2.2%), indicating that the term has not received wide attention in psychological literature, despite its possible relevance. moreover, the terms do not seem to be highly related. “civic or political participation” and “civic or political engagement” obtain the highest number of shared results (7.7%). thematic classification the analysis obtained three clusters corresponding to different themes in the analyzed corpus. each cluster consists of a set of documents characterized by the same patterns of keywords and can be described through the most characteristic lexical units (lemmas) from which it is composed. chi-square test verifies the significance of a word recurrence within each cluster. table 4 shows both the percentage of the textual corpus of which each cluster is composed of and a brief list of the most characteristic words for each one. the researchers assigned the names of each cluster after interpreting the main thematic focus of the characteristic lemmas. the clusters thus represent domain-specific repertoires that identify different approaches and underlying assumptions to the study of youth civic and political participation. in the following paragraphs the characteristics of each thematic clusters are explored in detail, including—where significant—their relation to the illustrative variables considered in the analysis. cluster analysis development of civic engagement (cluster 1) — the first thematic cluster is the most present one (36.5%) and shows a direct focus on youth (“youth,” “young people”) and adolescents, in particular. it is characterized youth participation in psychology 282 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by words denoting a developmental perspective (“development,” “developmental,” “positive development,” etc.). moreover, the theme seems to be one of studying civic engagement and active citizenship, as well as associated processes in young people: “civic engagement,” “active citizenship,” “responsibility,” “civic development,” “competence,” “civic knowledge,” “foster.” based on the interpretation of these semantic patterns, the cluster was named to reflect the core focus on youth development of civic competences. indeed, the thematic domain seems to pay interest in citizenship education (“citizenship education,” “learning”), but also on creating opportunities for youth empowerment through participatory approaches (“opportunities,” “participatory,” “empowerment,” “power,” “youth-led,” etc.). in this sense, a concern with marginalized groups that may not have equal availability of resources emerges, especially regarding immigrants (“immigrant,” “ethnic,” “disability,” “marginalized”). book and book section publications characterize the cluster, as well as the search terms “civic or political engagement” (also in combination with “civic or political participation” and “activism”) and “active citizenship.” moreover, the cluster is characterized by publications in the period between 2010 and 2013. activism (cluster 2) — the second cluster (13.2%) represents youth participation in terms of challenging the status quo and of claiming rights related to identity. it is characterized by reference to activist practices of raising one’s voice and defending social causes and rights collectively: “protest,” “movement,” “activism,” “right,” “collective action,” “equality,” “social movement,” “oppression,” “radical,” etc. participation is conceived as rights-claiming action that challenges inequalities and affirms collective identities, as evidenced by the many references to gender-related terms (“feminist,” “gay,” “gender,” “feminism,” “sexual,” “lgbt,” etc.) and other characteristic identity-related words (“identity,” “assertive,” “social identity,” “identification,” etc.). the focus is on the struggle against injustices and discrimination (“aggression,” “prejudice,” “oppression,” “torture,” “sexist,” etc.) and on the request for rights related to diverse issues (“peace,” “war,” “animal,” etc.). however, the cluster table 4 most characteristic lemmas for each thematic cluster (c1-4) c1: development of civic engagement (36.5%) c2: activism (13.2%) c3: civic education as prevention/ intervention strategy (21.4%) c4: political participation (28.9%) lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 youth 918.15 feminist 747.91 health 389.95 political 775.93 civic engagement 233.05 peace 740.87 students 329.06 political participation 672.71 citizenship 193.70 gay 509.76 community 309.46 on-line 498.11 civic 156.36 feminism 361.76 school 299.09 social capital 303.40 development 112.20 protest 356.66 service-learning 273.97 internet 266.75 immigrant 107.92 movement 322.53 program 168.03 news 213.72 ethnic 93.68 war 286.46 tobacco 159.45 facebook 203.69 young people 78.64 lesbian 270.58 prevention 150.83 offline 177.31 developmental 58.16 women 263.78 african american 134.88 use 171.96 disability 56.93 feminist activism 245.49 teachers 134.53 participation 169.96 identity 56.08 aggression 224.28 alcohol 104.16 voting 169.84 empowerment 53.02 sexual 222.91 service 95.73 social media 169.76 space 47.53 men 215.88 medical 91.45 election 159.74 adolescence 45.24 lgbt 175.68 intervention 89.57 political efficacy 154.37 opportunities 45.24 rights 156.19 educational 81.20 politics 152.53 note. the table reports only the first 15 lemmas according to χ2 value (see discussion of the clusters in the following paragraphs for more details on specific vocabulary). tzankova & cicognani 283 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ does not seem to be characterized by direct references to young people, rather focusing on marginalized groups and social issues. while both cluster 1 and 2 present characteristic words denoting marginalized and socially excluded groups, cluster 1 is characterized by lemmas with a focus on developmental processes and fostering of youth citizenship in different targets (adolescents, immigrants). these references are missing in cluster 2, in which the prevalent focus is indicated by a plurality of words denoting existing practices of protest, resistance and identity affirmation that are not specfic to youth only and can be related to a tradition of critical feminist perspectives. this theme is related to results from the search term “activism” and to less recent publications from the 90’s (time periods: from 1990 to 1994 and from 1995 to 1999). civic education as prevention/intervention strategy (cluster 3) — the third cluster (21.4%) emerging from the analysis is characterized by a discourse on participation that relates it to the educational sphere (“students,” “school,” “service-learning,” “educational,” “teachers,” “classroom,” etc.). youth participation, in this case, is conceived in relation to strategies to be enacted top-down (“program,” “intervention,” “project,” “policy,” etc.), in order to train and promote civic skills (“training,” “skills,” “promote,” “civic responsibility,” “communication skills”), but also to prevent or cope with different health issues or problematic behaviors (“health,” “prevention,” “tobacco,” “alcohol,” “sex education,” etc.). these can also be addressed in the community and local contexts (“community,” “neighborhood,” “community-based”). the cluster is characterized by the search term “civic or political engagement” and publications from north america. while cluster 1 also focused on civic engagement and the fostering of certain competences for participation, this thematic grouping does not refer to any developmental issues and remains prevalently focused on strategies and interventions in educational contexts. the main difference between the two clusters seems to be the way that youngsters are intended—tellingly, here the focus is on “students” (seemingly passive recipients), whereas in cluster 1 it is “youth” and “young people.” political participation (cluster 4) — youth participation in the last cluster (28.9%) is related mainly to the political sphere: “political,” “political participation,” “voting,” “political engagement,” “political behavior,” “political activity” and the electoral process (“election,” “campaign,” “party,” “presidential”). related psychological processes (“political efficacy,” “efficacy,” “trust,” “values,” “attitudes,” etc.) and personality traits (“trait,” “personality”) are brought forward. interestingly, there is a characteristic attention for the role of media and its digital forms (“online,”, “off-line,” “news,” “facebook,” “social media,” etc.). the focus is on explaining and predicting voting and political engagement in a quantitative research approach (“survey,” “predict,” “effects,” “hypothesis,” “correlation,” “experiment”). this theme, like cluster 2, is also not characterized by references to youth as a group and focus of the research. likely, the approach in the contributions from this cluster is mostly focused on understanding the underlining factors of participation and young people are the sampled population, but the emphasis is not on them specifically. the cluster is characterized by journal articles and by results from using the search term “civic or political participation” (including in combination with “civic or political engagement” and “activism”). correspondence analysis identified three latent dimensions that organize the corpus, explaining the variance between documents. the thematic clusters are positioned in the factorial space, according to the relative contribution of each as seen in table 5. figures 3 and 4 represent the thematic dimensional space and the interactions between the clusters. youth participation in psychology 284 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 collocation of the clusters in the factors (absolute contributions) cluster factor 1a factor 2b factor 3c 1: development of civic engagement +0.26 +0.12 +0.39 2: activism -0.04 -1.15 -0.06 3: civic education +0.43 +0.19 -0.53 4: political participation -0.69 +0.18 -0.07 note. values in bold character are above the threshold value of 0.25, equal to 1/n (n = raws of the analyzed table, cfr. lancia, 2014). ayouth participation as conventional political activity vs. civic development; byouth participation as rights-claiming vs. normative civic and political engagement; cyouth participation as empowering developmental process vs. learning and prevention. figure 3. correspondence analysis: factor 1 (x-axis) and factor 2 (y-axis). the three factors represent distinctions between different approaches to the study of youth participation in the examined corpus. correspondence analysis youth participation as conventional political activity versus civic development (factor 1) — the first factor explains 39.75% of the total variance and differentiates the clusters development of civic engagement and civic education as prevention/intervention strategy from political participation. on the one polarity of the factor, we find references to educational and developmental content (“school,” “civic engagement,” “learning,” “program,” “development,” etc.), while on the other—to conventional political participation (“political participation,” “election,” “on-line,” “social capital,” etc.). the distinction is one between studying the development of civic behavior through educational strategies and analyzing the factors that facilitate political participation. tzankova & cicognani 285 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ youth participation as rights-claiming versus traditional civic and political engagement (factor 2) — the factor explains 35.77% of the total variance and distinguishes the cluster activism from all the others. participation of young people intended as active rights-claiming (“feminist,” “activist,” “right,” “identity,” etc.) is opposed to the study of more traditionally promoted civic and political behaviors (“civic engagement,” “political participation,” “school,” “on-line,” “democratic,” etc.). the distinction recalls differentiated attention to non-conformist and conformist action, where the latter is privileged in mainstream research. youth participation as empowering developmental process versus learning and prevention (factor 3) — explains 24.46% of the total variance and distinguishes the cluster development of civic engagement from civic education as prevention/intervention strategy. on the one hand, the development of youth civic engagement is studied as a positive and empowering process in the transition to adulthood (“youth,” “citizenship,” “civic engagement,” “participatory,” “empowerment,” “adolescence,” etc.). on the other hand, studies are interested in classroom education and prevention (“health,” “school,” “prevention,” “program,” etc.). discussion the study analyzed scholarly publications in order to map existing conceptualizations of youth participation in the psychological discipline and identify differences and specificities of semantic patterns in the analyzed publications through textometric analysis. the bibliographic research in the database psycinfo showed how the topic has been the center of an exponential increment in academic interest, especially since 2010. the increase of research on youth participation is in line with the growing attention on fostering citizens’ relationship with the figure 4. correspondence analysis: factor 1 (x-axis) and factor 3 (y-axis). youth participation in psychology 286 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ public sphere on the international political stage as evidenced by numerous policies that address the issue in western democracies. a promising and stimulating development has also been offered by the study of the possibilities that digital participation can bring to the inclusion of young people in the public discourse. the analysis considered the use of different terms denoting participation to civic and political life and the findings suggest that, within the widespread and growing attention to participation processes in psychological literature, there are marked variations in the ways that youth’s role in contributing to society as citizens is addressed. in particular, the cluster analysis identified four semantic universes in the corpus, which suggest the presence of different groupings of publications according to general focus of research: 1) the study of youth as citizens in development, where opportunities and empowerment are to be promoted; 2) the study of youth as actors of social change and rights-claiming in opposition to injustices; 3) the study of educational strategies for promoting civic behavior and preventing risk behavior; 4) the study of predictors and effects of conventional and digital political participation. correspondence analysis identified three latent dimensions, differentiating the study of youth civic development from that of participation in conventional politics, as well as differentiating the educational focus from the one on empowering developmental processes. moreover, the research on youth activism in defense of social justice was distinct from the other thematic repertoires. the analysis was based only on the abstracts and not the full texts of publications, and considered limited number of characteristics, which could not allow us to capture methodological and theoretical aspects of the contributions. since the abstracts are short and written to resume the main features of a publication, analyzing them could not access the more nuanced aspects of the works. a more in-depth analysis of full texts would certainly evidence more refined linguistic associations and further research could provide a deeper investigation of semantic and thematic patterns associated with different theoretical positions on youth participation, even if based on a smaller amount of publications. however, the analysis of the wide sample of abstracts gathered still offered an extensive overview of understandings of youth participation across a vast sample of academic texts. moreover, full texts may not always be available for consultation freely as abstracts are. a further aspect to consider is that our corpus was retrieved through the use of only one database, namely psycinfo, which could over-represent english-language and mainstream psychological research as it indexes a selection of international journals based on quality and relevance. the analysis of the corpus characteristics indeed highlights the prevalence of contributions from north america and europe, for example. a recommendation for further research using bibliographic records is to consider multiple databases for the data retrieval, but it would also be important for important online databases in psychology to expand collections in order to represent non-englishspeaking scholars, as well as open access and non-mainstream research of quality. despite these limits, the study evidenced and distinguished the contexts of participation in which psychology has attempted to make a contribution—institutional political sphere, schools and higher education, community contexts and adolescent development, as well as activist movements. the textometrical analysis allowed to shed light on the specific concerns regarding youth participation that characterize each of these areas of study. the findings highlight how current psychological research present two main priorities on youth participation, as two of the publication clusters can be related to a focus on the formation of future citizens (i.e., development of civic engagement and civic education as prevention/intervention strategy) and the other two clusters can be related to a focus on the explanation of existing forms of involvement (i.e., political participation and activism). each of the identified thematic groups was associated with the specific use of individual terms denoting types of participation. rather than synonymous, the concepts of activism, political participation and civic engagement tzankova & cicognani 287 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ seem to reveal particular approaches and focuses of study. whereas “activism” specified an area of critical research attentive to forms of rights-claiming and justice-oriented collective action, the term “political participation” was most typical in the study of more conventional acts related to the electoral or online political sphere. the latter association points to the conceptual integration of more recent interest in online forms of action within the academic work on traditional political citizenship. such integration, however, seems less present for justicebased activism, as the publications that were characterized by its study were thematically distinct with respect to the rest of the corpus and were more typical for the 90’s psychology. the findings highlighted also the growing popularity (especially post-2010) of the study of “civic engagement” in psychology. the thematic area delineated by the use of the term does not seem to be distinguished by reference to other specific participative forms, indeed, pointing to the inclusive and broad nature of the concept (adler & goggin, 2005). rather, this group of publications reveals an approach characterized by the examination of developmental processes in adolescence. the results also indicate that young people seem to assume different roles in the distinct research areas. in the study of what motivates conventional and online political activity or rights-claiming activism, for example, the specificity of addressing youth as a group was not evidenced by the thematic vocabularies. in these groups of publications, youngsters are more probably studied as the population of interest, in which these disparate forms of participation are occurring, and are not distinct from adults in the theoretical considerations. when young people appear as the central topic in the examined contributions, however, they can be characterized differently —namely, as students whose skills and responsibility are to be trained through educational strategies or as young citizens whose civic capacities are to be developed within adequate contexts and opportunities. the results point to a particular attention to adolescence in these areas of study and to assumptions based on the idea of youngsters as citizens-in-formation (osler & starkey, 2003; smith et al., 2005). the distinction between the two thematic focuses, however, also revealed tensions in addressing citizenship development within psychological research between favoring controlled intervention versus guided emancipation. overall, our study offered a systematic thematic review of the current academic debates in psychological disciplines regarding the topic of youth participation. the presented paper can be used as a starting point for orienting future research on youth participation by pointing out commonly explored aspects, as well as existing gaps and lack of dialogue between perspectives. the findings evidenced the macro dimensions that orient research in the interpretation of this complex issue within the growing contribution of psychology. these included the quest of understanding developmental processes in young people’s citizenship in parallel to the study of psychological factors related to forms of youth participation in the political sphere. the evidence suggests the need of greater theoretical integration on the topic that would bridge this gap and take into account both the developmental nature of youth participation and the plurality of its actual expressions, without failing to include critical and activist behaviors. future research should seek to develop an approach that recognizes the political and social impact of the variety of forms of adolescents’ engagement within their formative experiences of citizenship. moreover, our findings pointed to the growing isolation of the study of identity-claiming and justice-based activism from all other literature. this distinction points to an ever more prevalent normative ideas of youth participation within psychology, which fail to take into account young people’s capacity to challenge societal status and to act for social change outside of the realm of traditional politics (banaji & buckingham, 2013). a further effort is needed from scholars on the topic in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of youth citizenship that includes creative, non-conforming and disruptive actions within the study of the development of offline and online participation. youth participation in psychology 288 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 https://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) initial searches included the terms “community involvement”, “community participation” and “citizen participation.” the examination of the results led to excluding those terms, as contributions were too broad (not pertinent to the civic/political sphere) or repetitive. funding the research reported in this paper was funded by the european union, horizon 2020 programme, constructing active citizenship with european youth: policies, practices, challenges and solutions (www.catcheyou.eu), grant agreement number 649538. the 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(2011). developmental trajectories of civic engagement across adolescence: disaggregation of an integrated construct. journal of adolescence, 34(6), 1207-1220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.07.005 about the authors iana tzankova, phd, is a research fellow at the department of psychology, university of bologna. her research interests deal with political, social and community psychology, and include socio-political attitudes and youth participation. elvira cicognani, phd, is full professor at the department of psychology, university of bologna. her research interests are in social and community psychology, and include civic and political engagement among young people and community participation. tzankova & cicognani 291 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 276–291 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1647 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13676260500431743 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13562576.2013.780715 https://doi.org/10.6092%2funibo%2famsdottorato%2f8677 https://doi.org/10.6092%2funibo%2famsacta%2f6011 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0011392113479314 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.134.4.504 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fjcop.20178 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10964-010-9541-6 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.adolescence.2011.07.005 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ youth participation in psychology (introduction) aim of the study method procedure analysis results characteristics of the bibliographic corpus thematic classification discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence among medical and engineering faculty members research reports teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence among medical and engineering faculty members ajeya jhaa, indoo singh*a [a] department of management studies, sikkim manipal university, sikkim, india. abstract studies have revealed that emotional intelligence (ei) influences an individual's job performance in terms of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. but prior studies were limited mostly to the corporate sector. therefore the present study was conducted to understand the correlation between ei and teaching performance in the case of faculty members at medical and engineering colleges, as courses related to these two fields are quite extensive and demanding which often leads to stress among students (saipanish, 2003; foster & spencer, 2003; schneider, 2007; ray and joseph, 2010). a total of 250 faculty members from three medical and four private engineering colleges of uttar pradesh, india, participated in the study. emotional intelligence scale (eis, 2007), teacher effectiveness scale (tes, 2010) and teacher rating scale (trs, 2003) were administered to measure the emotional intelligence, self-reported teacher effectiveness and student rated teacher effectiveness of the faculty members respectively. all materials used in the study are constructed and standardized on indian population. the study revealed a positive correlation between ei and teacher effectiveness, both self-reported and students rated. among ten components of ei considered in the study; emotional stability, self-motivation, managing relations, self-awareness and integrity emerged as the best predictors of teacher effectiveness. gender differences on the scores of ei and teacher effectiveness was insignificant. the ei and self-reported teacher effectiveness of engineering faculty members were relatively higher than those of medical faculty. however, according to students’ rating there was no significant difference in teacher effectiveness among the two groups. implications of this research from the perspective of training faculty members are discussed. keywords: emotional intelligence, teacher effectiveness, faculty members, private medical and engineering colleges europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 received: 2012-06-24. accepted: 2012-11-07. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: brig. sb singh, 18 joggers park, carriappa marg, lucknow cantt. pin226002, lucknow (up), india, email: smit.indoo@gmail.comsinghindu64@rediffmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the pursuit of higher education is expected to be stressful, especially in the field of medical and engineering education. many studies have shown that stress levels of medical students are genuinely high (miller, 1994; saipanish, 2003; ray & joseph, 2010). also, as compared to the general population, medical students experience more distress, anxiety and depression (lloyd & gartrell, 1984). a study conducted at cornell’s college of engineering revealed that 62% of engineering students felt extremely anxious about their grades (schneider, 2007). academic reasons like massive syllabus, the difficulty of the curriculum, long studying hours, and emotional factors like lack of peer support, competitive environment, rigid authoritative and non-encouraging faculty, lack of recreational activities, staying away from home, financial problems, uncertain future, cultural and minority issues, mismatch between capability and expectation, are some generators of stress among medical and engineering students (wolf, 1994; supe, 1998; foster & spencer, 2003; schneider, 2007). efficient teaching and good learning are the two most important factors for success in academia. conventionally, in higher education a teacher brings two things to the classroom that are of value to the learners. one is subject europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ expertise the other is knowledge of teaching methods i.e. a teacher’s pedagogy, such as how to structure and explain the content being presented, use of materials and so on. but emotional intelligence is the unrecognized third component of what a teacher has to offer to learners (mortiboys, 2005) because learning involves struggle, frustration, thrill or excitement (claxton, 1999). a good teacher needs an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement and the motivation to learn. according to neuroscience, the neural connection between the thinking and emotional centers of the brain can either enhance or inhibit a person’s ability to learn (davidson, 2000; adolphs, 2003; cacioppo & berntson, 2009). studies have also shown that emotions can activate and stimulate the brain for better recall (cahill, prins, weber, & mcgaugh, 1994; dalgleish, 2004) and are crucial to sensory development because they facilitate the storage and recall of information (rosenfield, 1988). stress and threat cause the brain to downshift; this reduces the opportunity for neuron growth and causes learning to be inhibited (ornstein & sobel, 1987). therefore teachers must understand the emotions of the students and act accordingly. this helps in creating a positive learning environment and motivating students for better performance because how a person learns is as important as what he/she learns. social neuroscience explains that, when two people interact, their emotional centers impact each other, for better or for worse (wolpert & frith, 2004; cacioppo & berntson, 2005; goleman, 2006; cacioppo, berntson, & decety, 2010). this means that teachers are able to help students get in better brain states for learning by acknowledging learners’ expectations, hopes, worries and so on, which has a positive effect on how they feel. smith (1997) asked students what qualities should the ideal teacher in higher education have, and found that interpersonal characteristics such as ‘empathic’, ‘approachable’ and ‘relates to students as equals’ were woven in with attributes relating to the lecturer’s skills and knowledge. carson (1996) gathered the responses of former students, who graduated over a period of 26 years, about teachers whom they perceived to be most effective. she found that the single quality the students most frequently associated with effective teachers – more often than brilliance and love of subject and even more often than enthusiasm in the classroom – was a special attitude toward students and relationship with them. spergel (2008) in her study on "the impact of teacher’s behaviours, personality characteristics and skills on students’ motivation to learn" found that participants clearly voiced the necessity for a combination of positive behaviours, personality characteristics as well as skills on the teacher’s part. a study conducted by penrose, perry, and ball (2007) had revealed that ei was positively associated with teacher self-efficacy. based upon this finding, penrose et al. contend that enhancing teacher’s ei may increase efficacy and subsequently lead to improved student achievement. hall andwest (2011) in their study demonstrated the important connection between understanding emotions, communication knowledge, dispositions, and performances. emotions are personal and subjective experiences caused by the complex interplay between physiological, cognitive and situational variables (mandal, 2004). buck (1985, cited by singh, 1998) has defined emotions as the process by which motivational potential is realized or ‘read out’ when activated by challenging stimuli. in other words, emotions are mechanisms of carrying information about motivational systems as they have immense power to alter perception, memory and thought processes of an individual to achieve specific goals (goleman, 1996). different emotions produce different types of response and have different outcomes, for example, anger generates a pulse of energy strong enough for vigorous action, love generates a general state of calm and contentment europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 668 http://www.psychopen.eu/ facilitating cooperation, happiness inhibits negative feelings and fosters an increase in available energy whereas sadness brings a drop in energy and enthusiasm (levenson, ekman, & friesen, 1990). this shows that emotions can either be helpful or detrimental therefore they need to be recognized and regulated. according to cooper and swaf (1997), the ability of an individual to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection and influence is called emotional intelligence (ei). salovey and mayer (1989) originally used the term "emotional intelligence" in their published work and defined it as: a form of intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. according to bar-on (1997), ei is an array of emotional and social abilities. it includes five components: intrapersonal, interpersonal, adaptability, stress management, and general mood. goleman's (1998) model outlines four main constructs of ei: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. within different constructs of ei, there are a set of emotional competencies like emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, self-confidence, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, achievement drive, initiative, empathy, service orientation, organizational awareness, developing others, influence, communication, conflict management, leadership, change catalyst, building bonds, teamwork and collaboration. in the current study, ei has been defined as the ability of a person to recognize and understand one’s own emotions and those of others and regulate or manage those emotions so as to motivate self and others for achieving specific goals. based on goleman’s model of ei and its competencies, the present research has incorporated ten components of ei: self-awareness, empathy, self-motivation, emotional stability, managing relations, integrity, self-development, value orientation, commitment and altruistic behaviour. the definition of teacher effectiveness is subjective, meaning that it can be different for different people. the literature on teaching effectiveness or teacher effectiveness uses a variety of concepts (ornstein, 1991). it has been explained by some researchers as teacher characteristics (anderson, 1991; strong, tucker, & ward, 2003) whereas, other researchers are more concerned with the teaching processes or the teaching outcomes (flander & simon, 1969). in the present study, teacher effectiveness has been defined as having good academic and professional knowledge with a clear concept of the subject matter, good preparation of the lesson with clear objectives, organized and systematic presentation of the concepts with proper learning materials, ability to communicate his/her knowledge to the students successfully, classroom management, positive attitude towards students and colleagues, result feedback accountability and ability to understand and motivate students. a teacher needs awareness of his/her feelings, values and attitudes as a teacher, awareness of his/her behaviour and how others see them (palmer, 1998). consistent and constructive feedback from students, colleagues and school authorities facilitates a teacher in better self-evaluation of his/her abilities. those with good ei have no hesitation in taking feedback from others and then working upon it to continuously evolve their performances. teachers with high ei competencies are optimistic, adaptable, collaborative, confident, authoritative, open, approachable and enthusiastic (mortiboys, 2005). they have better communication skills, better abilities for conflict resolution (ming, 2003) and problem solving, better impulse and self-control and higher self-esteem. with higher level of motivation they are more assertive and more responsible and cope better with stress (salami, 2010). interestingly, despite many studies showing the usefulness of ei in a teaching learning environment, very few researchers have explored the role of ei in teacher effectiveness for medical and engineering education, especially europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 669 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when the courses related to these two fields are quite stressful (wolf, 1994; supe, 1998; foster, & spencer, 2003; schneider, 2007). therefore, the objective of the present study was to see if the ei of the faculty members has any relationship with teacher effectiveness from both a teacher’s and student’s perspective. based on prior studies on ei and its correlation with work efficiency, it was hypothesized that the ei of the faculty members will have a positive correlation with teacher effectiveness. goleman (2001) posits that individuals are born with a general ei that determines their potential for learning emotional competencies. these competencies are not innate talents, but rather learned capabilities that must be worked on and developed to achieve outstanding performance. emotional intelligence by itself is probably not a strong predictor of job performance; instead, it provides a foundation for emotional competencies which are strong predictors of job performance as different jobs require different competencies. haskett (2003) found a significant link between specific ei competencies, and behaviors of effective teaching in higher education. therefore, the purpose of the current study was also to explore the relationship between various components of ei and teacher effectiveness along with their significance as predictors of teacher effectiveness. some professions may require a great deal of emotional intelligence while others may not (spencer & spencer, 1993; yate, 1997). there are professions that require interacting with people, working in teams or having informal relationships. for example, leaders may need a higher degree of ei because of the very nature of their job, which requires them to interact with a large number of people, and empathize and understand their needs and desires. sales require an ability to judge clients’ moods and the emotional skill to decide when to promote the product and when not to be. such professions may be satisfying only when one has the requisite level of emotional intelligence. in contrast, jobs that can be executed individually, in structured or fixed ways, may not require a great deal of emotional intelligence. for instance, success in painting or professional tennis may require more self-discipline and motivation, and less ei (singh, 2006). keeping this in view, the current study explored if there was any difference in the ei level and teaching/teacher effectiveness of medical and engineering faculty members. while a large body of research focuses on the gender of students and their academic performance, less research explores the impacts of a teacher's gender on their teaching performance. studies have revealed that early experience, biological factors, educational policy, and cultural context interact in complex ways contributing to gender differences in science and mathematics achievement and ability (halpern et al., 2007). in line with gender stereotypes, males are expected to achieve in math, science, and technology, whereas females are reared to be interested in the arts and humanities (ceci &williams, 2010). the expected success of females in a given scientific task is generally lower than that of their male counterparts, even if they are equally competent. this societal belief however has not been supported much in the research community with regard to the published literature. with changing social perception, differences in performance between males and females have shrunk to nearly insignificant levels on most standardized tests and most researchers don’t support the notion of innate superiority of males in math and science (johnston, 2005). despite these research findings, the gender stereotypes about the superiority of males in math and science-related professions still exist, therefore the present study also investigated gender differences in ei and in the teaching effectiveness of faculty members. methods the present research is exploratory and empirical in nature. the study utilized a correlation research design using standardized tools. the investigation examined the association of predictor variable emotional intelligence with europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 670 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the criterion variable teacher effectiveness in the case of faculty members. the population of reference for this research consisted of all faculty members working in private medical and engineering colleges in uttar pradesh (up), india. with cities like noida, gaziabad, meerut, kanpur, and lucknow having many private professional colleges, up becomes a major representative of professional education in north india. population-wise also it is the largest state in india. participants the final sample consisted of 250 faculty members; 113 (44 females and 69 males) from medical college and 137 (59 females and 78 males) from engineering college. thus a total of 103 female and 147 male faculty members participated in the study. the important representative cities of up, each having a population above 10 lakh and having at least one private medical college, and five private engineering colleges were selected. well established colleges within these cities were then selected on the basis of their infrastructure and courses offered. convenience and approachability factors were also taken into consideration. the cities selected were gaziabad, lucknow, kanpur, meerut and bareilly. twelve colleges (6 each of medical and engineering) were shortlisted and contacted for seeking permission to conduct the study but only seven colleges (3 medical and 4 engineering) granted permission. faculty members teaching different subjects in the various departments of the colleges were selected randomly. materials all the tools used in the study are constructed and standardized on the indian population and available from the psychological corporation of india. emotional intelligence scale (eis) by upinder dhar, sanjyot pethe, and anukool hyde (hyde, pethe, & dhar, 2007) was used to measure the ei of faculty members. the scale is in line with goleman’s view of ei. this measure was preferred over other measures as it is constructed and standardized on indian population and available from the psychological corporation of india. the split half reliability coefficient of the scale is 0.88 and its content validity is 0.93. the validation has been done on indian executives but it can be used for other professions as well. the scale has a total 34 items with response options of strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. it measures ten components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, empathy, self-motivation, emotional stability, managing relations, integrity, self-development, value orientation, commitment and altruistic behaviour. an example of an item is: “i can listen to someone without an urge to say something”. teacher effectiveness scale (tes), developed by dr. shalu puri and prof. s. c. gakhar (puri, ghakar, 2010), was administered to measure the teaching effectiveness of faculty members. the test-retest reliability coefficient of the scale is 0.76 and its content validity is .91. the scale consists of a total of 68 items with the response categories – strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree and strongly disagree. the areas of teaching measured by the test items are – academic and professional knowledge, preparation and presentation of lesson, class management, attitude towards students, parents, colleagues and head of the institution, use of motivation, reward and punishment, result, feedback accountability and personal qualities an example of an item is: “ i seek the cooperation of students to pursue my topic”. teacher rating scale (trs), developed by dr. r. c. deva (2003), was used for the rating of teacher effectiveness of faculty members by the students. the scale consists of 17 dimensions, grouped under 3 categories: personal qualities, professional competence and classroom performance of the teachers. the inter-rater reliability coefficient europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 671 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of the scale is .91 and its content validity is .85. an example of an item is: “the teacher encourages students to discuss and present their views”. two measures (tes and trs) of teacher effectiveness were used as tes is a self-report measure with items constructed from the teachers’ point of view for self-evaluation whereas items in trs are constructed from a student’s point of view asking their opinion about the personal qualities, professional competence and classroom performance of their teachers. also, it would have been very time consuming for students to rate five teachers each on 68 items; therefore trs was used as it accommodates the various items of tes under 17 dimensions of teacher effectiveness making it convenient for respondents. procedure approval for the investigation was acquired from the principal, director and the chairman of the respective colleges. faculty members teaching 2nd to 4th semester students in various departments of the colleges were selected randomly. they were contacted personally by the researcher and after a general introduction both tools were handed over to them. the confidentiality of the information obtained from the respondents was guaranteed. completed questionnaires were collected after a few days. data analysis was done using statistical software (spss, 16.0 version). pearson r correlation, regression analysis and t-test were used to determine the relationship, predictive value and difference in the variables under study. results as indicated in table 1 the mean age of the total sample (n = 250) was 34.39 years (s.d = 10.67). the gender ratio was male (58.8%) versus female (41.2%). the minimum age of the total sample was 23 years and maximum age was 68 years. there was a significant difference in the mean age of medical faculty (40.50 years) as compared to the mean age of engineering faculty (29.36 years), showing that engineering faculty members are comparatively much younger than medical faculty members. the mean age of female faculty members (31.47 years) was also found to be lower than the mean age of male faculty members (36.44 years) indicating that males might prefer to explore other professions before joining the teaching profession. table 1 age of faculty members sdmeanmaxminn 34.396823250total .67010 36.446823147male .28912 31.476123103female .8776 29.366423137engr-fac. .9596 40.506824113med-fac. .22311 table 2 provides the descriptive statistics regarding the scores of faculty members on ei, teacher effectiveness scale (tes) and teacher rating scale (trs) for the total sample. the respective means of ei, tes and trs scores were 138.69 (sd = 9.21), 289.54 (sd = 21.32) and 86.74 (sd = 14.40). statistical analyses revealed the normal distribution of the data. tes scores were obtained through self-reported teacher effectiveness of the faculty members, whereas trs scores were obtained through student-rated teacher effectiveness. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 672 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 ei, self-reported teacher effectiveness (tes) and student-rated teacher effectiveness (trs) sdstd. error of meanmeanmaxminn 164115250ei .2119.583.69138 337225250tes .32121.3481.54289 11854250trs .40014.912.7486 inter-correlation of ei and its components with tes and trs is presented in table 3. it was predicted that there would be a positive relationship between ei, tes and trs. this hypothesis was supported in the study as a strong relationship (r = .649, p < .01) was found between ei and tes. the correlation between ei and trs was also positive and significant (r =.561, p < .01) which indicates that, the better the ei level of faculty members, the better their teaching efficiency. the correlation between tes and trs (r = .449, p < .01) indicates that, although there is a positive relationship between teachers’ self-perception and students’ perception about their teacher effectiveness, this relation it is not very strong. this was because some of the faculty members had reported their teaching effectiveness lower than how students had rated their effectiveness, while others had reported it higher than students’ ratings. table 3 inter-item correlation for variables under study 121110987654321 -sa1. -emp2. .353 -sm3. .282.510 -es4. .446.473.462 -mr5. .545.345.476.463 -int.6. .372.402.360.222.368 -sd7. .304.232.318.299.193.257 -vo8. .054.195.168.276.314.281.314 -com9. .349.142*.320.362.257.350.246.385 -alt10. .285.156*.201.275.278.319.340.269.213 -ei11. .496.548.459.473.606.710.756.715.646.715 tes12. .649.293.363.296.282.418.485.550.457.388.456 trs13. .449.561.256.271.193.266.323.459.501.453.311.422 note.n = 250. sa = self-awareness; emp = empathy; sm = self-motivation; es = emotional stability; mr =managing relations; int. = integrity; sd = self-development; vo = value orientation; com = commitment; alt = altruism; tes = self-reported teacher effectiveness; trs = students rated teacher effectiveness. *p < .05. all correlations except those marked with asterisks are significant at .01 level, value less than .138 is insignificant. one of the objectives of the study was to explore the relationship between ei components and tes and trs. the purpose was also to assess, which component had the highest and the lowest correlation with the two types of teacher effectiveness. data mentioned in table 3 indicate positive relationships of all components of ei with tes and trs both; emotional stability had the highest correlation (r = .550) with tes followed by managing relations (r = .485), self-motivation (r = .457), self-awareness (r = .456), integrity (r = .418), empathy (r = .388), commitment (r = .363), value orientation (r = .296), altruism (r = .293), and self-development (r = .282). with trs also, emotional stability had the highest correlation (r = .501), followed by managing relations (r = .459), europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 673 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-motivation (r = .453), self-awareness (r = .422), integrity (r = .323), empathy (r = .311), commitment (r = .271), self-development (r = .266), altruism (r = .256), value orientation (r = .193). regression of ei on tes and trs, as indicated in table 4, reveals that ei was a significant predictor for predicting both self-reported as well as student rated teacher effectiveness, accounting for 42% of the variance in tes and 33% in trs for the total sample. there was not much difference in the variance of male (43%) and female (41%) tes scores, but the variance of male trs (37%) was higher than that of females (25%). the variance of tes scores was found to be higher for engineering faculty (44%) as compared to medical faculty (35%). but the variance of trs scores was higher for medical faculty (34%) than engineering faculty members (30%). table 4 regression of ei on tes and trs trstes fr2rfr2rn 147male-fac. .6084.368.607.43109.430.656 103female-fac. .0133.246.496.6070.411.641 113med-fac. .7556.338.582.7060.354.595 137engr-fac. .3557.298.546.48104.436.661 250total ei .73122.330.561.62180.421.649 p < .001. stepwise regression analyses were calculated using tes and trs as dependent variables and the ten components of ei as predictors. the prediction models mentioned in table 5 provide insight into the specific ei components that contribute to tes and trs. emotional stability emerged as the best predictor both for tes (β = .287, p < .001) and trs (β = .262, p < .001), followed by self-motivation (β = .204, p < .001 for tes and β = .258, p < .001 for trs), and managing relations (β = .201, p < .001 for tes and β = .227, p < .001 for trs). table 5 regression analysis: best fit models of ei components as predictors (β) for tes and trs trstes model 2model 1model 2model 1ei components n.s.n.s.self-awareness .282***.271*** n.s.n.s.empathy .155**.219*** n.s.n.s.self-motivation .258***.204*** n.s.n.s.emotional stability .262***.287*** n.s.n.s.managing relations .227***.201*** n.s.n.s.integrity .149**.155*** n.s.n.s.self-development .118*.144** n.s.n.s.n.s.n.s.value orientation n.s.n.s.n.s.commitment .185*** n.s.n.s.n.s.n.s.altruism r .497.593.562.643 r2 .247.352.316.413 f .17620.72944.40528.29443 note. n = 250. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. n.s. = non-significant. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 674 http://www.psychopen.eu/ integrity was a significant predictor for tes (β = .155, p < .001) in model 1, which explains 41.3% variance in tes when grouped with emotional stability, self-motivation and managing relations. in model 2, for tes self-awareness (β = .271, p < .001) emerged as the best predictor followed by empathy (β = .219, p < .001), commitment (β = .185, p < .001) and self-development (β = .144, p < .01) explaining 31.6% variance in teswhen all four components were combined. for trs also self-awareness (β = .282, p < .001) emerged as best predictor in model 2 followed by empathy (β = .155, p < .01), integrity (β = .149, p < .01) and self-development (β = .118, p < .05), explaining 24.7% variance in trs when all four components were grouped. altruism and value orientation were not significant as predictors for both tes and trs. differences in ei, tes and trs between engineering and medical faculty members are provided in table 6. the mean of ei scores of engineering faculty was 140.47 (sd = 9.47) and that of medical faculty was 136.52 (sd = 8.43). the value of t on ei scores of the two groups was 3.449, significant at .01 level. it indicates that the emotional intelligence of engineering faculty members was higher than that of medical faculty. the mean of self-reported teaching efficiency (tes) was 294.27 (sd = 20.35) and 283.81 (sd =21.16) respectively for engineering and medical faculty members. the value of t on tes scores for the two groups was 3.972, significant at a .01 level. thus, the self-reported teaching efficiency of engineering faculty members was found to be higher than that of medical faculty. the mean of student rated teacher effectiveness (trs) was 88.029 (sd = 13.84) and 85.725 (sd = 15.03) respectively for engineering and medical faculty members. the value of t on trs scores (1.261) indicates that, although the trs mean of engineering faculty members was found to be higher than that of medical faculty, it was not significant at a .05 level. table 6 difference in ei, tes and trs of engineering and medical faculty members t-testsdmeanngroup 137engr_facei .449**3.479.47140 113med_fac .438.52136 137engr_factes .972**3.3520.27294 113med_fac .1621.81283 137engr_factrs .261 (n.s.)1.8413.0388 113med_fac .0315.7385 **p < .01. n.s. = non-significant. table 7 indicates group statistics for ei, tes and trs in the case of male and female faculty members. the mean of male faculty members’ ei was 139.06 (sd 9.19), and that of female faculty members was 138.16 (sd 9.26). the value of t for the ei scores of the two groups (0.445) indicates that there was no significant difference found in the ei of male and female faculty members. the mean of respective scores of tes and trs for male members was 289.56 (sd 21.48) and 88.22 (sd 14.11) whereas for female members it was 289.52 (sd = 21. 20) and 85.22 (sd = 14.68). the value of t on tes score (0.990) and on trs (.106) indicates that there were no significant differences in the teacher effectiveness of male and female faculty members; although the mean of teacher effectiveness for male faculty members rated by the students was higher than that of female faculty members, the differences was not significant at a .05 level. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 675 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 7 difference in ei, tes and trs of male and female faculty members t-testsdmeanngender 147mei .445 (n.s.).199.06139 103f .269.16138 147mtes .990 (n.s.).4821.56289 103f .2021.52289 147mtrs .106 (n.s.).1114.2288 103f .6814.2285 n.s. = non-significant. discussion while the intellectual standard and subject expertise of teachers are important there are undoubtedly other qualities as well, that predict future teacher effectiveness, which requires a mix of intellectual and personal attributes (zumwalt & craig, 2005). the results of the study indicate that the ei of faculty members has a significant positive relationship with their teaching efficiency both self-reported as well as student rated. thus, the higher the ei, the better teacher effectiveness is. this is because emotionally intelligent teachers seek to have confidence not just in their content and materials but also in their flexibility and readiness to respond; they put energy into getting materials and methods planned but also into preparing to meet learners’ expectations (jensen, 1998). this is supported in the current study as self-motivation was found to be a significant predictor of teacher effectiveness. a significant positive relationship was found between the ei of faculty members and their teacher effectiveness as rated by students as well. this shows that learners’ perceptions may be influenced when the teacher uses ei. if learners perceive the teacher as showing care and respect towards them, they are likely to interpret the strictness of the teacher in a positive manner and try to follow the instruction given by him or her (mortiboys, 2005). in summary, this study explored the relationship between components of ei and teacher effectiveness and also sought to identify which ei component would significantly predict teacher effectiveness. results supported the existence of a positive relationship between all the components of ei and both self-reported and student rated teacher effectiveness. among the ten components, emotional stability had the highest correlation with both types of teacher effectiveness and emerged as the best predictor. the emotional stability of a teacher helps in avoiding emotional exhaustion and conflict with others which subsequently helps in better coping with stress and burnout thus improving performance (slaski & cartwright, 2002; nikolaou & tsaousis, 2002; salami, 2010). finding ways to deal with anger, fear, anxiety and sadness channelize, emotions to a positive end and is an essential sign of emotional competency. emotional management may underlie the ability of a teacher to be inspirationally motivating and intellectually stimulating. it is because teachers who are able to manage positive and negative emotions within themselves are able to understand the effects of positive and negative emotions on their work performance and relations with others. therefore, emotional stability had a considerably high correlation with managing relations which emerged as the second best significant predictor of teacher effectiveness, both self-reported and student rated. managing relations develops a better understanding between teachers and students creating a positive environment in the class. it helps to intervene and solve problems before they become serious. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 676 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-motivation also had a significant correlation with teacher effectiveness (both self-reported and student rated) and emerged as the second best predictor. self-motivated teachers can articulate a vision for the future and talk optimistically. they are not only able to motivate themselves but are also able to encourage and stimulate in others new ways of doing things. integrity was also one of the best four predictors of self-reported teacher effectiveness. a teacher who is honest, upright and true to him/herself and others is sincere and committed to his/her work. this is supported by a significant correlation between integrity and commitment. according to students’ ratings, integrity was also a significant predictor when grouped with self-awareness, empathy and self-development. self-awareness revealed a significant correlation with both types of teacher effectiveness and emerged as the best predictor when grouped with empathy, commitment and self-development. self-awareness helps faculty members identify the strengths and weaknesses of their present teaching performance and gives direction for future improvement. it is revealed in the present study by a significant correlation between self-awareness and self-motivation. knowing one’s emotional strength and weaknesses is of great help because the self has to constantly respond to the outer world. if one cannot interpret one’s own emotions, he or she may not be able to do the same for others (carver, 2003). this reduces effectiveness in handling interpersonal relationships. a teacher who has better awareness of his own emotions also has a better awareness of the emotions of his/her students and collogues. this is supported by a significant correlation between self-awareness, emotional stability and managing relations interestingly, according to students’ ratings, empathy was not a very strong predictor of teacher effectiveness. this was probably because a teacher may be high on empathy but he/she may not have acquired the skills, based on empathy, that lead to students’ satisfaction in teaching, the ability to coach or monitor their progress, or to resolve conflict. teachers’ self-reported empathy had a better predictive value for teacher effectiveness as it helps in understanding the emotions of others which leads to better interpersonal relations and also helps to deal effectively with conflicts (welch, 2003). this is supported in the study as empathy had a significantly high correlation with emotional stability and managing relations. empathy also revealed significant correlations with altruism and commitment. this may be because empathy helps teachers in understanding the needs and expectations of the students, thus motivating them to be committed to improve their teaching effectiveness. self-development emerged as a significant predictor in the study, although its correlation with teacher effectiveness was not very strong. self-development motivates a teacher for personal growth. he/she tries to develop himself/herself even if his/her job does not demand it. value orientation and altruism did not prove to be significant predictors and their correlation with teacher effectiveness was also not very strong. but their correlation with self-motivation and overall ei was significant which shows that probably value orientation and altruism do not have a direct impact on teacher effectiveness but they are relevant in developing the overall ei of a teacher and motivate him/her for better performance. a study conducted by singh (2003, cited by singh, 2006) on indian professionals about the levels of ei required for success in eighteen different professions revealed that on the basis of the ei required, these professions can be grouped into three clusters. the first cluster constitutes four professions exhibiting an extremely high ei level—artist, insurance, advertisement and social work. the second cluster consists of six professions: teaching, legal, tourism, politics, business/ entrepreneurship and police. to be ‘successful’ in any of these professions, one needs a high ei level. the third cluster constitutes eight professions exhibiting average ei: judiciary, administration, information technology, medicine, banking, engineering, accountancy and nursing. in these professions, individuals with moderate ei can also perform effectively. when average ei score of the professional from all eighteen europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 677 http://www.psychopen.eu/ professions under study were ranked from high to low, the ei score of doctors was slightly higher than that of engineers. in the current study, the ei of engineering faculty was found to be higher than that of medical faculty, probably because most of the engineering faculty members had worked as teachers in engineering colleges and not as engineers thus, by profession, they were more teachers than engineers. whereas, for medical faculty members, it is mandatory to have a substantial experience of clinical practice before becoming eligible for teaching classes. thus, by profession, medical faculty members are doctors as well as teachers and, according to singh’s study, doctors are in the third cluster whereas teachers are in the second cluster. this could be the reason why self-reported ei and teacher effectiveness of medical faculty members were lower than those of engineering faculty. interestingly, according to students’ ratings, there was no difference in the teacher effectiveness of medical and engineering faculty probably because students perceive faculty members more as teachers than as doctors or engineers. research findings on gender differences in ei are not very consistent and there are discrepancies in this regard. some studies have found significant gender difference in ei both in professional and personal settings (mayer & geher, 1996; mayer, caruso, & salovey, 1999; mandell & pherwani, 2003). daniel goleman (1998) asserted that no gender differences in ei exist, admitting that while men and women may have different profiles of strengths and weaknesses in different areas of emotional intelligence, their overall levels of ei are equivalent. the discrepancy may be due to choice of measurement. brackett and mayer (2003) found that females scored higher than males on ei when evaluated with a performance measure (the mayer-salovey-caruso emotional intelligence test). however, when using self-report measures, such as the bar-on emotion quotient inventory (eq-i) and the self-report emotional intelligence test (sreit), they found no evidence for gender differences. perhaps gender differences exist in emotional intelligence only when one defines ei in a purely cognitive manner rather than through a mixed perspective (stys & brown, 2004). in the present study, also, no significant gender difference could be seen as the instrument used in the study was of a self-report type based on a mixed ability model. according to o'hara, we are still very much in a state of mixed findings when it comes to gender and brain processing (johnston, stanford university report, 2005). in their study, yazıcı and ertekin (2010) found that prospective male teachers have a more instrumentalist approach in learning mathematics than females do according to their mathematical beliefs and, on the other hand, females have more mathematics teaching anxiety than males, especially in terms of subject knowledge and self-confidence. gender stereotypes that males have a better understanding of science and mathematics, based subjects whereas female are better at teaching languages (beilock, gunderson, ramirez, & levine, 2010), is generally prevalent in many societies. but most experts agree that if gender differences do exist, they are small and likely to affect specific areas of math skill at the highest end of the spectrum; there is no indication that women cannot succeed in mathematically demanding fields. still, women continue to be underrepresented in math, science and engineering-related careers (ceci, williams, & barnett, 2009; azar, 2010). after reviewing decades of research on gender differences, ceci and williams (2010) concluded that while there’s probably some genetic basis for small differences between the sexes in math and spatial ability, culture plays by far the bigger role in men and boys’ higher interest and achievement. however, with the changes in socio-cultural norms, this gender stereotype is gradually reducing and girls are taking math and science courses in a significantly larger number (bolzendahl & myers, 2004; ceci & williams, 2010; else-quest, hyde, & linn, 2010). when girls europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ see opportunities for themselves in science, technology, engineering and math, they’re more likely to take higher-level math in high school and more likely to pursue such careers (else-quest, hyde, & linn, 2010). the results of the present study are convergent with this view, as there was no significant difference found between the teacher effectiveness of male and female faculty members. however, in the regression analysis of ei and teacher effectiveness, the variance of students’ ratings of teacher effectiveness for male faculty members was much higher than that of female faculty members. but, in self-reported teacher effectiveness, the variance of male faculty members was only slightly higher than that of females. studies have revealed that ei intervention programs have been immensely beneficial in the corporate sector. researchers are trying to emphasize its importance in the field of education as well. nelson, low, & nelson (2006) found that a research based educational model of ei provides a positive and practical approach to help teachers and students stay healthy, act responsibly and deal effectively with change. ei training increases focus, learning, collaboration, improves classroom relationships, and decreases negative ‘put downs’ (jensen, 2001). penrose, perry, & ball (2007) contend that enhancing teacher’s ei may increase efficacy and subsequently lead to improved student achievement. based on their findings, the researchers of the present study also, strongly support and recommend a well-developed ei intervention program for faculty members to enhance teacher effectiveness and, subsequently, help students to manage stress and anxiety for a better academic performance. organizations like consortium on research on emotional intelligence in organizations (creio) and the work psychology and human resources forum (wphrf), working for promoting ei competencies in the work place, recommend a training process that includes four basic phases. the first phase, which is crucial for effective social and emotional learning, involves preparation for change, and it occurs at both organisational and individual levels. in the second phase, the training focuses on the change process itself. this includes the processes that help people change the way in which they view the world, and deal with its social and emotional demands. the third phase, transfer and maintenance, focuses on what happens after formal training experience has been gained. the fourth and final phase involves evaluation of programmes effectiveness. however, due to constraints of time and budget, it is sometimes difficult to follow all these four phases extensively. especially for medical faculty members, time is a major constraint. hence, such programmes should be customized according to the needs of the organization and should preferably be of a shorter duration. the success of any such programme depends on the willingness of participants to learn and bring change in their attitudes and behaviours because sustainable behavioral change is intentional andmust be self-motivated (boyatzis, 2001). therefore, the first phase of the training must emphasize making faculty members understand the power of emotions, their motivational aspects in the teaching-learning process and the role of ei in their professional as well as personal life. it is important to mention here that during the data collection for the current study, it was noticed that many of faculty members were not aware about ei or emotional intelligence. thus, awareness of ei is a first requirement. this can be done through presentations and talks delivered by expert ei trainers. the second phase must incorporate techniques to improve the emotional stability of faculty members as this component of ei revealed the highest correlation with teacher effectiveness and also emerged as the best predictor. importance of ei competencies like self-awareness, managing relations, self-motivation, integrity, commitment and self-development in enhancing teacher effectiveness and creating a positive learning environment can be highlighted through videos, group activities, case studies and group discussion. in the third phase of training, self-evaluation forms can be provided to faculty members to assess the application of ei competencies in the europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 679 http://www.psychopen.eu/ classroom and other work related situations. in the fourth phase, the effectiveness of the programme can be evaluated with the help of feedback forms filled by participants. limitations and future directions this study also has certain limitations. firstly, the measures used in the study for ei and teaching effectiveness were based on self-report, therefore the social desirability factor can come into play to some extent; however, to minimize this effect, student rating was also taken. similarly, the design of the instrument, with only 34 questions for assessing ten components of ei, may limit the thorough assessment of ei. secondly, as the selection process for students and faculty members of private medical and engineering colleges differs from that of government colleges, the sample was restricted only to private institutes. there were also geographical constraints in the study as it was limited to institutes situated within uttar pradesh, india. therefore, it is suggested that future researchers could conduct this type of study with faculty members and students at government colleges as well, and also in other states, countries and cultures, to provide more evidence to generalize findings from this study. thirdly, the present report is based on correlations, demonstrating a positive relationship between the ei and teacher effectiveness of faculty members; therefore no causal relationship should be drawn from the study. experimental research is recommended in the future to establish cause-effect relationships between ei and teacher effectiveness in the case of faculty members. conclusion researchers have been making efforts to understand how ei and iq complement one another, for instance, how a person’s ability to handle stress affects his/her ability to concentrate and put his/her intelligence to use. the more complex a job, the more important is ei because deficiency in these abilities can hinder the use of whatever technical expertise or intellectual abilities a person may have. the results of the present study also indicate the importance of ei and its usefulness in teaching performance as the ei of medical and engineering faculty members was found to have a significant correlation with teaching/teacher effectiveness. hence, there is a need to promote the ei of faculty members along with their subject knowledge and pedagogical skills for better efficiency in the teaching-learning process in higher education, and especially in professional courses like medical and engineering, so as to reduce anxiety and stress among students. the ei and self-reported teacher effectiveness of engineering faculty members were comparatively higher than those of medical faculty members; but, according to student rating, there was no significant difference in teacher effectiveness between the two groups. this is probably because students, whether from medical or engineering, perceive faculty members more as teachers than as doctors or engineers. gender differences in ei and teacher effectiveness were also not significant. hence, it is concluded that, with changing social conceptions, gender stereotypes are also changing and females are starting to be seen as competent teachers in both medical and engineering colleges. acknowledgment the researchers acknowledge with sincere gratitude the support and cooperation extended by the chairmen, directors and principals of the following institutes for granting permission to conduct the study in their establishments, and also to the faculty and students who participated in this research, for their contribution and time: 1) subharti medical college, meerut, up, india 2) shri ram murti smarak institute of medical sciences, bareilly, up, india 3) hind medical college, lucknow metro, barabanki, up, india 4) vidya college of engineering and technology, meerut, up, india 5) shri ram murti smarak college of engineering and technology, bareilly, up, india 6) bharat institute of technology, meerut, up, india europe's journal 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(2010). gender differences of elementary prospective teachers in mathematical beliefs and mathematics teaching anxiety. international journal of human and social sciences, 5(9), 610-613. zumwalt, k., & craig, e. (2005). teacher’s characteristics: research on the indicators of quality. in m. cochran-smith & k. zeichner (eds.), studying teacher education: the report of the aera panel on research and teacher education (pp. 157-260). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. about the authors prof. dr. ajeya jha has been the head of the department of management studies, sikkim maniple institute of technology since feb 2000. member of the editorial board of the international journal of management and a fellow of the indian congress of chemistry & environment, he successfully undertook and completed projects for unesco, the indo-canada environmental facility, the dept. of science and technology, and the world wide fund for nature india. his research interests include sustainable development, marketing, natural resource europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence 684 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smi.926 http://www.danielgoleman.info http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/reports/r150/r150-eng.shtml http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00197850310479169 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.1994.tb02679.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ management, wild life tourism and management, and tribal know-how. he has published around 90 research papers and supervised ten doctoral dissertations. address for correspondence: r-405, smit, majitar, east sikkim, india, email: ajeya611@yahoo.com. indoo singh is enrolled as research scholar in the department of management studies, sikkimmanipal university, sikkim, india. presently working as principal at the lucknow public school, uttar pradesh, india, indoo has a teaching experience of 20 years at different school and college levels. gold medalist in ma psychology, she published three papers, delivered radio talks, and conducted various workshops for teachers, parents and students on academic and behavioural issues. her research interests are health and educational psychology. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 667–685 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.483 jha & singh 685 http://www.psychopen.eu/ teacher effectiveness in relation to emotional intelligence methods participants materials procedure results discussion limitations and future directions conclusion acknowledgments references about the authors the effects of maltreatment in childhood on working memory capacity in adulthood research reports the effects of maltreatment in childhood on working memory capacity in adulthood arta dodaj* a, marijana krajina b, kristina sesar c, nataša šimić d [a] department of psychology, university of zadar, zadar, croatia. [b] department of psychology, university of mostar, mostar, bosnia and herzegovina. [c] centre of mental health, široki brijeg, bosnia and herzegovina. [d] department of psychology, university of zadar, zadar, croatia. abstract the aim of this study was to research the relation between exposure to maltreatment in childhood and working memory capacity in adulthood. a survey among 376 females in the age between 16 and 67 was administered. exposure to maltreatment in childhood (sexual, physical and psychological abuse, neglect and witnessing family violence) was assessed retrospectively using the child maltreatment questionnaire (karlović, buljan-flander, & vranić, 2001), whilst the working memory questionnaire (vallat-azouvi, pradat-diehl, & azouvi, 2012) was used to assess working memory capacity (recalling verbal information, numerical information, attention ability and executive functioning). the results suggest a significantly greater prevalence of physical abuse and witnessing family violence in comparison to other forms of maltreatment in childhood. psychological abuse and witnessing family violence have shown themselves to be statistically significant predictors for deficits in total working memory capacity, verbal recall and attention ability. the results suggest that traumatic experiences during childhood, such as abuse, may trigger particular cognitive changes which may be reflected in adulthood. it is, therefore, exceedingly important to conduct further research in order to contribute to the understanding of the correlation between cognitive difficulties and maltreatment in childhood. keywords: maltreatment in childhood, trauma, cognitive functioning, working memory, executive functions europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 received: 2017-01-09. accepted: 2017-03-16. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: university of zadar, obala kralja petra krešimira iv, 23000 zadar, croatia. e-mail: artadodaj@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. child abuse and neglect are understood to be the act and/or the failure to act of a parent or caregiver which results in harm, potential harm or a threat to a child, even in situations in which the harm is accidental or unintentional (gilbert et al., 2009; hart & rubia, 2012). the different forms of abuse and neglect are most frequently categorised as physical abuse, psychological abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and witnessing family violence (higgins, 2004). according to the results of a meta-analytical study (stoltenborgh, bakermanskranenburg, alink, & van ijzendoorn, 2015) 36% of the subjects had been exposed to psychological abuse, 23% to physical abuse, 18% to emotional neglect, 16% to physical neglect and 13% to sexual abuse. the exposure to abuse and neglect in childhood is a serious stress, which, besides emotional and behavioural difficulties, can also lead to cognitive deficits (hart & rubia, 2012). the studies which have researched the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between child abuse and specific cognitive deficits in adulthood (hart & rubia, 2012) suggest the detrimental effect of abuse and neglect on short-term memory capacity, episodic verbal memory, working memory, speech and language abilities, planning and organisational abilities, executive functioning, and abilities to direct and sustain attention, difficulties in learning and remembering (irigaray et al., 2013; mccrory, de brito, & viding, 2010). moreover, abused individuals achieve poorer results on general cognitive ability tests (mccrory et al., 2010). studies which have researched the connection between specific forms of abuse and neglect in childhood and cognitive functioning in adulthood suggest that individuals exposed to neglect, physical and sexual abuse have significantly poorer verbal memory capacity in adulthood than do non-abused individuals (grassi-oliveira, ashy, & stein, 2008). neglect, as opposed to other forms of abuse, has a more significant influence on difficulties in executive functioning according to the results of a longitudinal study by nikulina and widom (2013). the relationship between psychological abuse, neglect and difficulties in numerical memory capacity was confirmed in a study by majer et al. (2010), while the effect of other forms of maltreatment on numerical memory capacity was nonsignificant. in contrast to the previously mentioned study results, gould et al. (2012) indicated that difficulties in executive functioning were more significantly connected to physical and psychological abuse and neglect, whilst difficulties in numerical memory were more significantly linked to sexual abuse. although the results of the previously mentioned studies indicate a connection between child maltreatment and deficit in cognitive abilities in adulthood, they do not offer any proof that the indicated deficits have a significant effect on the daily functioning of the individuals who have been evidenced as such. furthermore, the studies to date have assessed exposure to one or two forms of maltreatment in childhood or they have been directed at maltreatment in general, or the forms of maltreatment were not specified at all (hart & rubia, 2012). the aforementioned lack has motivated us to attempt to determine the difficulties in daily functioning, which are connected to different forms of maltreatment, and to attempt to establish which difficulties are most frequently connected with specific forms of maltreatment in childhood. thus, the aim of this study was to determine the relationship between different forms of child maltreatment (physical and psychological abuse, neglect and witnessing family violence) and working memory difficulties (working memory capacity for verbal and numeric information, executive functioning and attention ability), and hence determine the predictive value of different forms of maltreatment on different memory types. methods participants the study sample consisted of 376 females aged from 16 to 67 years of age, of which 142 women had been exposed to different forms of maltreatment in childhood (mdn = 2.517, iqr = 1.000), and 234 women had not been exposed to maltreatment in childhood (mdn = 1.980, iqr = .767). measures working memory capacity in order to assess working memory capacity, the working memory questionnaire by vallat-azouvi et al. (2012) was used. the working memory questionnaire was developed to estimate everyday life problems related to dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 619 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ deficits of working memory in brain injured patients. the questionnaire was designed using baddeley’s memory model, which suggests that the concept of working memory does not only refer to short-term memory but also incorporates attention and executive functioning abilities (vallat-azouvi et al., 2012). the questionnaire serves to assess four types of difficulties in working memory: difficulties in recalling verbal information, difficulties in recalling numerical information, difficulties in executive functioning and difficulties in attention ability. it consists of 30 questions where participant rated each question on a five-point likert-type scale, ranging from 0 (“no problem at all”) to 4 (“very severe problem in everyday life”). the statement content on the subscale of difficulties in working memory recall of verbal information is concerned with difficulties in textual comprehension (e.g., “do you have difficulty understanding what you read?”) and the retention of verbal information (e.g., “do you find it difficult to remember the name of a person who has just been introduced to you?”). the statements on the subscale of difficulties in working memory recall of numerical information are concerned with difficulties in mental processing and recalling numerical information (e.g., “when you pay cash for an item, do you have difficulty in realizing if you have been given the correct change?”, “do you have problems with remembering sequences of numbers, for example, when you have to note down a telephone number?”). the statements on the subscale of difficulties in executive functioning are concerned with difficulties in organizing, planning and making decisions (e.g., “do you feel that you are very slow to carry out your usual activities” and “do you have difficulty in organizing your time with regard to appointments and your daily activities?”). finally, the statements on the subscale of difficulty in attention ability are concerned with difficulties in focusing and the inability to concentrate (e.g., “do nearby conversations disturb you during a conversation with another person?”), and with the difficulty of doing activities in chronological order (e.g., “do you find it difficult to carry out an activity with chronological steps (cooking, sewing, diy)?”). the total result on a specific subscale was gained through the simple addition of participant assessment. the range of results for each of the subscales was from 10 to 50, and from 30 to 150 for the whole questionnaire. higher scores corresponded to more difficulties/complaints. maltreatment in childhood the exposure to physical and psychological abuse in childhood, neglect and witnessing family violence was assessed with the child maltreatment questionnaire (karlović, buljan-flander & vranić, 2001) based on the comprehensive child maltreatment scales for adults (higgins & mccabe, 2001a). the participants were requested to record how often, up to the age of 14, they were exposed to the following behaviour by their father, mother or any other older person from their environment. this allows their comparison and reveals whether the child was abused by one or more individuals. the questions for the assessment of psychological abuse included the following behaviours: yelling, making fun of and mocking, talking dirty, frightening and threats, callous criticism and comparisons, insults and overly forbidding. the content of the question on physical abuse included the following behaviours: slapping and thumping, beatings, punching or hitting with an object, throwing on the ground and grievous physical injury. the content of the question on neglect included the following parental behaviour: irregular provision of meals and clothing, not visiting the doctor on time, locking up alone for longer periods of time, ignoring and refusing to talk. the content of the question for the assessment of witnessing family violence included the following behaviours: criticizing, insulting, threatening, limiting and yelling at other family members, as well as beating, hitting and injuring other family members. the participants rated every statement, which described the potentially abusive behaviour of parents or other adults towards them, with a three-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 3 (often). maltreatment in childhood and working memory 620 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on the basis of the participants’ answers, the total result of the participants for every question was obtained through simple addition, as was the total result for the whole scale. in addition, whilst calculating the exposure to child maltreatment, dichotomous results were used, i.e., the participants were divided into two categories: the abused and the non-abused. in accordance with studies to date, the results on the specific subscales of maltreatment above a 75 percentile was used to categorize exposure to maltreatment in childhood (holt & espelage, 2007). therefore, the participants whose results on the subscales were in the upper 25 percentile band were categorized as having been exposed to a specific form of child maltreatment. due to the set problem in determining exposure to maltreatment, we decided to also collate the results using the dichotomous method. procedure the questionnaire was conducted on-line, via the web-tool survey monkey. the questionnaires were distributed to the participants in two ways: via social networks or via e-mail addresses, simultaneously informing them about the research being conducted. the participants were informed of the aims of the research and the anonymity of all data was stressed. it was also stressed that the assessment is on a volunteer basis and that they could withdraw from the assessment at any time. the participants were requested to be as honest as possible, and they were cautioned that there are no correct or incorrect answers. the participants filled out the questionnaires in a set order which was determined in advance: first, they had to fill out a form with questions concerning general information on the participant, then they filled the working memory questionnaire, and finally the retrospective self-assessment questionnaire on exposure to child maltreatment. the participants needed approximately 15 minutes to fill out the questionnaires. results the results for the statements in the retrospective assessment of child maltreatment indicate that 142 (31.63%) participants of the total sample (n = 376) were exposed to one or more forms of child maltreatment (table 1). physical abuse (20.04%) and witnessing family violence (18.26%) are the most common forms of child maltreatment, while psychological abuse (11.36%) and neglect (7.8%) are present to a significantly lesser degree. besides the frequency assessment, table 1 also depicts the basic descriptive parameters or mean values (mdn) and measured variability (q1-q3) for each type of maltreatment. the resulting values indicate an on-average greater prevalence of witnessing family violence and psychological abuse in comparison to other forms of maltreatment. table 1 descriptive parameters of prevalence of different form of maltreatment in childhood by participants exposed and non exposed to abuse form of maltreatment in childhooda exposed to abuse non-exposed to abuse total n (%) mdn q1-q3 n (%) mdn q1-q3 mdn q1-q3 psychological abuse 51 (13.56) 2.000 .333 325 (86.44) 1.000 .333 1.333 .667 physical abuse 90 (23.94) 1.667 .333 286 (76.06) 1.000 .000 1.000 .000 neglect 35 (9.31) 1.500 .500 341 (90.69) 1.000 .000 0.000 .000 witnessing family abuse 82 (21.81) 5.000 1.000 294 (78.19) 3.000 .000 3.000 1.000 dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 621 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the differences in working memory capacity with respect to exposure to different types of child maltreatment were tested with the mann-whitney u test (table 2). the participants who had been exposed to psychological abuse in childhood, in comparison to those participants who had never experienced psychological abuse, exhibited greater difficulties in all aspects of working memory (verbal, numerical, executive functioning, attention ability), with the difference being statistically significant. the most significant differences were determined in the total result on the working memory scale (z = 5.267, p < .001) and in attention abilities (z = 5.010, p < .001). lower, but nevertheless significant differences, were evidenced in verbal information recall (z = 4.948, p < .001), executive functioning (z = 4.642, p < .001) and numerical information recall (z = 4.132, p < .001). in order to enable a clearer comparison of the attained results and to analyse the possible implications thereof, effect sizes were also determined using the cohen d-index (table 2). the resulting differences between the participants who had been subject to psychological abuse and those who had not, according to the results obtained using the mann-whitney u test, were moderate to high on all the subscales of working memory capacity. the highest effect size obtained was in the difficulties in the total working memory capacity (d = .814) and in verbal information recall (d = .803) amongst the participants who had experienced psychological abuse and those who had not, whilst difficulties in executive functioning (d = .737), attention ability (d = .711) and numerical information recall (d = .589) showed a lower or average effect size. statistically significant differences were determined for all types of difficulties in working memory capacity between the participants who had been physically abused in childhood and non-abused participants (table 2). the highest significant differences were obtained for difficulties in executive functioning (z = 4.567, p < .001) and in total working memory capacity (z = 4.305, p < .001), while the lowest significant differences were obtained for difficulties in attention maintenance (z = 3.168, p < .01). the results of the cohen d-index point in the same direction, although to a moderate to a moderate to moderately-large effect size. the highest significant difference value between the physically abused and the non-abused participants is evident in the difficulties in total working memory capacity (d = .777) and executive functioning (d = .584), whereas the lowest was evident in the difficulties in recalling numerical information (d = .428) and in maintaining attention (d = .423). further analysis of the results, between the participants who had been maltreated in childhood and those who had not, indicates that there is a significant difference between the two groups in all the measures of working memory capacity (table 2). the most significant differences were obtained on the subscales of total working memory capacity (z = 4.231, p < .001) and executive functioning (z = 4.004, p < .01), whilst the least differences were ascertained on the subscale of verbal information recall (z = 3.446, p < .001). table 2 clearly illustrates that the values of the effect sizes indicate a similar direction. the greatest difference between the two groups is evident on the subscale of total working memory capacity (d = .777) and executive functioning (d = .708), which indicates an exceedingly high effect, whilst the smallest difference was evident on the subscale of attention ability (d = .364), which indicates a moderate effect. maltreatment in childhood and working memory 622 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 d es cr ip tiv e p ar am et er s an d te st in g d iff er en ce s b et w ee n d iff ic ul tie s in w or ki ng m em or y c ap ac ity w ith r eg ar ds to w ith r es pe ct to e xp os ur e to d iff er en t t yp es o f m al tre at m en t i n c hi ld ho od ps yc ho lo gi ca l a bu se ph ys ic al a bu se n eg le ct w itn es si ng fa m ily a bu se ex po se d to a bu se n on -e xp os ed to a bu se ex po se d to a bu se n on -e xp os ed to a bu se ex po se d to a bu se n on -e xp os ed to a bu se ex po se d to a bu se n on -e xp os ed to a bu se w or ki ng m em or y ca pa ci ty m dn iq r m dn iq r z d m dn iq r m dn iq r z d m dn iq r m dn iq r z d m dn iq r m dn iq r z d ve rb al m em or y 2. 54 9 1. 12 5 1. 97 2 1. 75 0 4. 94 8* * .8 03 2. 12 5 1. 26 3 1. 95 5 .8 75 3. 94 2* * .4 91 2. 55 4 1. 75 0 1. 99 9 1. 00 0 3. 44 6* * .6 54 2. 41 5 1. 26 3 1. 94 9 .5 35 4. 27 7* * .5 65 n um er ic al m em or y 2. 34 0 1. 00 0 1. 86 8 1. 00 0 4. 13 2* * .5 89 2. 19 8 1. 33 3 1. 84 9 .8 33 3. 37 4* * .4 28 2. 45 1 1. 50 0 1. 87 9 1. 00 0 3. 59 2* * .6 62 2. 20 3 1. 50 0 1. 87 5 .8 83 2. 81 1* .4 12 e xe cu tiv e fu nc tio ni ng 2. 98 9 1. 57 1 2. 37 0 1. 14 3 4. 64 2* * .7 37 2. 83 4 1. 42 9 2. 33 4 1. 00 0 4. 56 7* * .5 84 2. 96 8 1. 00 0 2. 40 1 1. 14 3 4. 00 4* * .7 08 2. 84 5 1. 28 6 2. 34 4 1. 14 3 4. 55 9* * .6 08 a tte nt io n 2. 23 9 1. 03 8 1. 75 8 .6 67 5. 01 0* * .7 11 2. 05 1 1. 25 0 1. 75 2 .6 67 3. 16 8* .4 23 2. 27 3 1. 03 8 1. 77 8 .6 67 3. 51 8* * .3 64 2. 18 0 1. 33 3 1. 72 4 .6 67 4. 05 3* * .6 59 to ta l w or ki ng m em or y 2. 51 7 1. 00 0 1. 98 0 .7 67 5. 26 7* * .8 14 2. 34 4 1. 26 7 1. 96 1 .7 54 4. 30 5* * .7 77 2. 54 6 1. 10 0 2. 00 2 .8 00 4. 23 1* * .7 77 2. 40 2 1. 14 5 1. 95 5 .7 33 4. 66 7* * .6 43 *p < .0 1. * *p < .0 01 . dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 623 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the final analysis addressed the difficulties in working memory capacity with respect to the participants’ exposure or non-exposure to family violence (table 2). statistically significant differences were ascertained on all the subscales of working memory capacity between those participants who had witnessed family violence and those who had not. the most significant differences were ascertained for total working memory capacity (z = 4.667, p < .001) and executive functioning (z = 4.559, p < .001), and the least significant differences for numerical information recall (z = 2.811, p < .001). if the obtained differences are compared to the values of the cohen d-index, it is evident that the average effect size is exhibited on the subscale of attention ability (d = .659), total working memory capacity (d = .643) and on the subscale of executive functioning (d = 608), whereas the lowest, or weakest size is evident on the subscale of numerical information recall (d = .412). in order to reveal whether a relationship exists between child maltreatment and difficulties in working memory capacity, spearman’s rank correlation analysis was applied. the main reason for the application of spearman’s rank correlation was the asymmetrical distribution of the result variables of maltreatment in childhood and the variables of working memory capacity. on the basis of the obtained results (table 3), we can conclude that lower statistically significant correlations have been determined between all forms of maltreatment and neglect in childhood with difficulties in working memory capacity. higher correlations are evident on the subscales of total working memory capacity, attention ability and verbal information recall with all the tested forms of maltreatment, and lower correlations on the subscale of numerical information recall. similarly, a higher correlation was ascertained between psychological abuse and witnessing family violence and all aspects of working memory capacity in comparison to physical abuse and neglect, where these correlations are somewhat lower. table 3 correlations between forms of maltreatment in childhood and difficulties in working memory capacity working memory forms of maltreatment in childhood witnessing family abusepsychological abuse physical abuse neglect verbal memory .307** .222** .201** .321** numerical memory .229** .189** .200** .247** executive functioning .352** .277** .189** .288** attention .306** .213** .211** .336** total working memory .349** .262** .232** .349** *p < .01. **p < .001. in order to test the predictive value of various forms of maltreatment for difficulties in working memory capacity, multiple regression analysis was applied. the analyses were conducted thereby that the criteria variable in every individual, conducted analysis was a type of working memory capacity (difficulties in verbal information recall, difficulties in numerical information recall, difficulties in executive functioning and difficulties in attention capacity), and the predictor variables were the forms of maltreatment (psychological, physical, neglect, witnessing family violence). according to the criteria set out by myers (1990), before conducting regression analysis, it is necessary to determine the variance inflation factor (vif) in order to determine the non-existence of multi-collinearity between models. variance inflation factors are determined thus: first, the tolerance is calculated for every working memory capacity subscale, after which the value of 1 is divided by the tolerance for every type of working memory. the determined vif for every predictor in every model is less than 10, which maltreatment in childhood and working memory 624 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ indicates the non-existence of multi-collinearity between the models, which satisfies the precondition for the non-existence of multi-collinearity before the introduction of the regression analysis. the significant regression model predictors for working memory capacity for different types of child maltreatment are shown in table 4. table 4 predictive value of various forms of maltreatment in childhood and neglect for difficulties in working memory capacity criterion predictor r2 β f df p difficulties in verbal memory .119 12.582 4 psychological abuse .162 .006 physical abuse .011 .850 neglect .065 .207 witnessing family abuse .170 .007 difficulties in numerical memory .077 7.703 4 psychological abuse .104 .081 physical abuse .035 .557 neglect .099 .060 witnessing family abuse .107 .097 difficulties in executive functioning .133 14.238 4 psychological abuse .224 .000 physical abuse .090 .117 neglect .058 .253 witnessing family abuse .064 .305 difficulties in attention .126 13.391 4 psychological abuse .156 .007 physical abuse -.010 .868 neglect .071 .167 witnessing family abuse .195 .002 total working memory .150 16.335 4 psychological abuse .189 .001 physical abuse .035 .540 neglect .083 .100 witnessing family abuse .159 .011 note. r = coefficient of multiple correlation. r2 = coefficient of multiple determination (percent of criteria variance explained by predictors). β = beta coefficients of examined. df = degrees of freedom. for the difficulties in verbal information recall amongst the abused participants, significant predictors proved to be the variables of psychological abuse and witnessing family violence, which combined account for approximately 12% variance of verbal information recall. the positive beta ponder indicates that frequent exposure to psychological abuse and frequent witnessing of family violence predicts more significant difficulties in verbal information recall. for difficulties in numerical information recall amongst the abused participants, not a single predictor variable proved to be significant. psychological abuse proved to be a determinant for the difficulties in executive functioning, accounting for approximately 13% variance of the difficulties in executive functioning. the obtained values of the beta ponder dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 625 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ indicate that frequent exposure to psychological abuse suggests a greater probability of developing difficulties in executive functioning. the results of the regression analysis conducted on the subscale of attention ability showed the variables of psychological abuse and witnessing family violence to be a significant predictor variable. the variance percentage of difficulties in attention ability which these two types of maltreatment suggest is relatively low and amounts to approximately 13%. the beta ponders indicate that there exists a greater probability that persons who were frequently exposed to psychological abuse and witnessed family violence will have more express difficulties with attention maintenance. the final regression analysis confirmed that the significant determinants for difficulties in total working memory capacity are psychological abuse and witnessing family violence. the positive beta ponders indicate that frequent exposure to psychological abuse, neglect and witnessing family violence predicts a greater probability of difficulties with total working memory capacity. the obtained significant predictors allow for 15% variance of difficulties in total working memory capacity. discussion the results of the conducted research indicate that persons who had been exposed to some form of maltreatment in childhood have significantly more difficulties in working memory capacity than do persons who have not experienced maltreatment. psychological abuse is the form of abuse which leads to the greatest negative consequences on cognitive functioning amongst abused individuals. the consequences are most significant in the field of general working memory capacity and executive functioning. the most frequent form of child maltreatment that the participants had been exposed to were physical abuse and witnessing family violence, which is in accordance with other studies conducted in croatia and bosnia and herzegovina (ćosić, buljan flander, & karlović, 2002; sesar, živčić-bečirević, & sesar, 2008). in contrast to the aforementioned studies, the results of studies conducted in the germany emphasize of a higher prevalence rates of physical neglect, then emotional neglect, whereas sexual and psychological abuse are less prevalent (iffland et al., 2013). one of the possible explanations is that violence in our sample is perceived solely as a behaviour which is manifested physically. all other types of violence, which are physically less visible, may be perceived as usual and acceptable. such a behavioural model is frequently a reflection of culturological values acquired in the primary environment. another possible explanation for the difference in the study results may also be found in the methodological difference in the assessment of maltreatment frequency. the data in this study was collected on the basis of retrospective reports on maltreatment in childhood. the data collected are of a private and intimate nature, requiring the participants to recall negative childhood experiences. some of the negative experiences may have been repressed and/or forgotten, while others may have been exaggerated. furthermore, the negative emotions connected to recalling traumatic experiences may have influenced the ability of the participant to critically evaluate the behaviour of her parents (higgins & mccabe, 2001b). finally, finkelhor (1994) claims that all assessment obtained through retrospective research is practically always underestimated. the results of this study coincide with the results of other studies conducted to date (gould et al., 2012; grassioliveira et al., 2008; hart & rubia, 2012; irigaray et al., 2013; majer et al., 2010; mccrory et al., 2010; nikulina maltreatment in childhood and working memory 626 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & widom, 2013) which indicated significant differences in all subscales of working memory capacity between abused and non-abused participants. more significant difficulties other than in total working memory capacity have been indicated for executive functioning amongst persons who have been exposed to physical abuse, neglect and witnessed family violence. on the other hand, those who had been psychologically abused exhibited, besides difficulties in working memory capacity, significant difficulties in maintaining attention and verbal information recall. the obtained results show the most highlighted effects of maltreatment to be on executive functioning. the difficulties in the mentioned cognitive domains may be explained through the activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (hpa) axis, as well as by the changes in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex which are the basis for the control of working memory function and executive functioning. namely, exposure to maltreatment in childhood significantly affects the higher secretion of the norepinephrine, which increases the activities of the hpa axis. the hpa axis then increases the secretion of the adrenocorticotropic hormone which consequently provokes neural changes in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex (de bellis, 2005; grassi-oliveira et al., 2008; panzer, 2008; watts-english, fortson, gibler, hooper, & de bellis, 2006). existing evidence which indicates neurodegeneration in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex may also contribute to the mentioned difficulties evoked by maltreatment (anderson et al., 2008 as cited in hart & rubia, 2012; bremner et al., 1999; de bellis et al., 2002; hanson et al., 2012; hart & rubia, 2012). furthermore, as executive functions serve to optimize execution in situations which demand the coordination of several cognitive processes, including working memory and attention, their biological foundation is thus more complex than individual cognitive functions. the importance of the relationship between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and executive functions must be addressed, as this is the region involved in working memory. therefore, it is believed that working memory plays the central role in executive functioning (banich & compton, 2011), which could explain the obtained results on the most evident effects of all types of maltreatment and neglect on executive functioning. furthermore, psychological abuse has the greatest consequences on the cognitive functions, since the abused, besides evident difficulties in total working memory capacity, also has significant difficulties in maintaining attention and verbal information recall. the considerable difficulties of those who have been psychologically abused with attention and verbal memory coincide with biological and clinical premises. in an emotionally threatening situation, such as psychological abuse, the activity of the noradrenergic system, whose lesions cause difficulties in attention, is increased. furthermore, the secretion of cortisol is increased which further affects changes in the structure of the hippocampus which lies at the foundation of the mentioned functions (wilson, hansen, & li, 2011). from a clinical viewpoint, the repeated psychological abuse of a child is frequently conducted verbally and is tied to several emotional disorders, particularly anxiety (o’dougherty wright, crawford, & del castillo, 2009). the effects of emotions on attention have been undoubtedly confirmed, and indicate that anxiety is precisely what limits attention, that is, it reduces attention to the threatening stimuli (pacheco-unguetti et al., 2012; robinson, krimsky, & grillon, 2013; sagaspe, schwartz, & vuilleumier, 2011). in persons who have been psychologically abused, the greater part of the cognitive capacity is directed towards “fighting stress” which leads to a division of attention. as a result of insufficiently directed attention, difficulties can arise in the retention of verbal information. exposure to maltreatment in childhood, according to the results of this study, correlates positively with all tested working memory capacity functions. the highest correlations which are statistically significant were established for difficulties in working memory verbal information recall and in total working memory amongst persons who had been exposed to psychological abuse and witnessing of family violence. the established connection dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 627 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between psychological abuse and witnessing family violence and difficulties in verbal information recall and in total working memory capacity is in accordance with the earlier described biological changes. moreover, difficulties in verbal information recall and psychological abuse and witnessing family violence coincide with the foundational assumptions of developmental psychology about the interaction of the environment on the development of verbal functions in children. for example, parents who abuse their children do not encourage verbal expression of the child, and they verbally and non-verbally do not respond to the child’s activity which affects its verbal progress. the obtained results do not support the results of nikulina and widom (2013) who found a significant correlation between neglect and poorer executive functioning. the study by majer et al. (2010) conducted on a sample of 47 adults resulted in significant correlations between psychological abuse and neglect and difficulties in the recall of numerical information. however, as the sample was very small, the obtained results should be considered with caution. the variables of psychological abuse and witnessing family violence are shown to be the most significant determinants of difficulties in total working memory capacity, verbal information recall and attention ability. in addition to the mentioned difficulties, psychological abuse is a significant predictor for difficulties in executive functioning. the obtained results can be explained as these two types of violence, particularly psychological abuse, represent an especially emotionally traumatic experience for a child, which in the early phase of development affects its neurological development and consequently evokes long-term consequences for the individual (cook et al., 2005; van der kolk, 2003). in conclusion, we may say that persons who have been exposed to maltreatment in childhood have significantly more difficulties in working memory capacity than the participants who never experienced maltreatment. it has also been shown that the difficulties of the abused are manifested in the domain of general working memory capacity and executive functioning. the correlation analysis of the results suggests that all forms of maltreatment are significantly related to all the examined forms of difficulties in working memory capacity, whereby the correlation is highest for total working memory capacity and difficulties in the recall of verbal information. finally, there is a significant risk for difficulties in working memory capacity amongst those who were exposed to psychological abuse or frequently witnessed family violence. psychological abuse triggers the greatest negative consequences on cognitive functioning. methodological limitations of the study it is necessary to consider some of the methodological limitations of the conducted study. the heterogeneity of the sample constitutes one of the limitations, as the demographic variables such as age and level of education may have greatly affected the obtained results. the results may have been significantly influenced by the way the abused participants were categorized. according to the models and categorization of exposure to maltreatment in studies to date, arbitrary criteria were determined according to which the abused participants represented a group which was in the upper 25 percentile. a potential deficiency in the selection of such criteria may be the uncertainty in the decision on the correct categorization. thus, we may have undermined the presence of exposure to maltreatment because we neglected individuals who have been exposed to maltreatment occasionally, but not on a daily basis. a further limitation is the lack of a representative control group. namely, of the total number of participants, a certain number was classified as a group exposed to maltreatment, and on the basis of assessment, they were sorted into groups according to the type of maltreatment they experienced. it is possible that the participants who were in the group of physically abused maltreatment in childhood and working memory 628 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ were also exposed to other forms of maltreatment besides physical abuse, which could have affected the obtained results. the applied method for testing exposure to maltreatment was based on the retrospective report of abused persons. as the participants were asked to assess their exposure to maltreatment to a set chronological age, it is possible that some participants forgot or could not recall the events from the past. however, a study conducted on anonymous participants renders it impossible to confirm the responses of the participants through independent sources (sesar, 2009). furthermore, the data which was asked of the participants during the self-assessment of their exposure to maltreatment in childhood are of an intimate nature which could result in arising guilt complexes and thus result in dishonest responses. it should also be noted that this study did not control the duration, intensity and frequency of the maltreatment, nor the possibility of existing disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depressive disorders and the like, which would greatly decrease the possibility of attributing the obtained results exclusively to maltreatment. to conclude, it is necessary to also address the lack in the implemented questionnaire for testing working memory capacity, as well as the fact that the testing was done electronically. as the method for testing working memory capacity was the method of self-assessment, it is questionable to what extent the participants know themselves, which could have resulted in them supplying answers which do not correspond to their true capacity. furthermore, the assessments were subjective, which raises the issue of the objectivity of the obtained results. recommendations for further research the results of this research have multiple implications for further research and practice in the field of child maltreatment. this is the first study of its type in the bosnia and herzegovina region which comprehensively researched types of violence as determinants of cognitive functioning. the obtained results indicate that different types of maltreatment may lead to different types of cognitive difficulties. one could assume that the type of maltreatment and the duration of maltreatment may increase the susceptibility of neurocognitive dysfunction. future studies could test how different types of maltreatment in preschool and school age interactively affect the changes in neurocognitive functioning. furthermore, future studies could conduct a longitudinal study whose aim would be to determine the critical period of the effects of violence on neurobiological development. the measurement of neurobiological changes through brain screening techniques would provide better understanding of the relationship between maltreatment in childhood and cognitive functioning. in addition, future research should use more objective measurements for working memory, as well as clearer criteria with respect to maltreatment. for example, conducting research on a sample of participants who were victims of specific types of abuse in childhood and who were documented by social services would offer a better possibility to generalise the results. funding the authors have no funding to report. dodaj, krajina, sesar et al. 629 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references banich, m. 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(2003). the neurobiology of childhood trauma and abuse. child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of north america, 12, 293-317. doi:10.1016/s1056-4993(03)00003-8 watts-english, t., fortson, b. l., gibler, n., hooper, s. r., & de bellis, m. d. (2006). the psychobiology of maltreatment in childhood. the journal of social issues, 62, 717-736. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2006.00484.x wilson, k. r., hansen, d. j., & li, m. (2011). the traumatic stress response in child maltreatment and resultant neuropsychological effects. aggression and violent behavior, 16, 87-97. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2010.12.007 about the authors arta dodaj, phd is an assistant professor of psychology from university of zadar (croatia). here research interests are in the area of psychological, behavioural and biological consequences of stressful life events. marijana krajina earned her b.a. in psychology at the university of mostar (bosnia & herzegowina). her research interests deal with the impact of traumatic experiences on cognitive processes. kristina sesar, phd is an assistant professor at the department of psychology, university of mostar, bosnia and herzegovina as well as clinical psychologist at the centre of mental health, široki brijeg, bosnia and herzegovina. her current research interests are child maltreatment, bullying, intimate partner violence and sexting. nataša šimić, ph. d., is an associate professor at the department of psychology, university of zadar (croatia), where she teaches coursed from biological psychology. her current research focuses on sex hormones and behavior, psychophysiology of stress, psychophysical health and psychoneuroimmunology. maltreatment in childhood and working memory 632 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 618–632 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1373 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.3325/cmj.2008.2.243 http://doi.org/10.1002/car.2353 http://doi.org/10.1080/09602011.2012.681110 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2006.00484.x http://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2010.12.007 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ maltreatment in childhood and working memory (introduction) methods participants measures procedure results discussion methodological limitations of the study recommendations for further research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mama mach and papa mach: parental machiavellianism in relation to dyadic coparenting and adolescents’ perception of parental behaviour research reports mama mach and papa mach: parental machiavellianism in relation to dyadic coparenting and adolescents’ perception of parental behaviour andrás láng* a [a] institute of psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. abstract parental personality is a main contributor to parenting outcomes. however, research on parental personality and parenting or coparenting behaviour is scarce. these few studies showed that disagreeableness and neuroticism are consequently related to negative parenting outcomes. machiavellianism is an antagonistic and socially aversive personality trait. machiavellianism has been linked to unfavourable outcomes in several different types of relationships (e.g., romantic relationships, workplace relationships). using self-report measures, i investigated the association between parental machiavellianism, adolescents’ perceptions of parenting behaviour, and parent reported coparenting in a sample of 98 families raising adolescents. according to the results, machiavellianism was positively related to adolescents’ perceptions of rejecting and overprotective parenting behaviour in mothers. with regard to coparenting, fathers’ machiavellianism had a negative effect both on their own and on their spouses’ reports of coparenting quality. differences between fathers’ and mothers’ results are discussed with regard to their functions in the parent-child interaction and in the spousal dyad. keywords: machiavellianism, perceived parenting behaviour, coparenting, disagreeableness, avoidant attachment europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 received: 2017-06-07. accepted: 2017-09-12. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; kevin r. carriere, georgetown university, washington, dc, usa *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, university of pécs, ifjúság str. 6., h-7624 pécs, hungary. e-mail: andraslang@hotmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. machiavellianism has been in the focus of personality research since the beginning of the 1970s (christie & geis, 1970; fehr, samson, & paulhus, 1992). since then, this antagonistic and socially aversive trait has been known to make individuals less attractive mates (rauthmann & denissen, 2014) and less committed employees (becker & o’hair, 2007), but nothing has been revealed yet about the relationship between machiavellianism and parenting qualities. at the same time, relatively much is known about the personality functioning and personality traits of machiavellian individuals. using these constructs to link machiavellianism to parenting, i investigated the potential association between parents’ machiavellianism, their adolescent children’s perception of their parenting behaviour, and parents’ reports of dyadic aspects of coparenting. machiavellianism, normal personality traits, and personality functioning machiavellianism is a personality trait characterized by interpersonal manipulation, cynical attitudes, and utilitarian morality (christie & geis, 1970). with regard to normal personality traits [i.e., traits in the big five (costa & mccrae, 1992) and hexaco (ashton & lee, 2007) models], machiavellianism is consequently linked europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ to low levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and honesty-humility (lee & ashton, 2005; paulhus & williams, 2002; vernon, villani, vickers, & harris, 2008). some of the studies found machiavellianism to be positively correlated with neuroticism as well (jakobwitz & egan, 2006; vernon et al., 2008), whereas other studies reported no significant correlation between machiavellianism and neuroticism (lee & ashton, 2005; paulhus & williams, 2002). considering the psychological maturity and differentiation of individuals with pronounced machiavellian tendencies, mchoskey (2001) reported that machiavellianism was associated with personality dysfunction in general and with the “dramatic” and “odd” clusters of personality disorders in specific. in this study by mchoskey (2001), borderline personality disorder proved to be the best predictor of machiavellianism among the dsm-iv (american psychiatric association, 1994) personality disorders. this result was further confirmed from a psychodynamic approach by láng (2015) who found that machiavellianism was predicted by borderline personality organization as described by kernberg (1985). findings from other areas of personality functioning further support the relative immaturity of machiavellian individuals. richardson and boag (2016) found that machiavellianism was related to an immature defensive strategy that was reflected in machiavellian individuals’ frequent use of primitive defence mechanisms such as splitting, devaluation, and projective identification. according to mudrack (1990), machiavellianism is associated with an external locus of control, and interpersonal manipulation – a main characteristic of machiavellian individuals – can represent an attempt to cope with a hostile, uncontrollable environment. moreover, studies seem to agree that people with pronounced machiavellian attitudes have deficits in empathizing and emotional intelligence (e.g., ali, amorim, & chamorro-premuzic, 2009; baron-cohen, 2011; jones & figueredo, 2013; wastell & booth, 2003). parental personality as a determinant of parenting based on available theory and clinical research, belsky (1984) proposed a process model of parenting. according to this model, there are three interdependent general sources of influences on parenting: individual characteristics of parents (e.g., personality), individual characteristics of the child (e.g., temperament), and contextual factors (e.g., stress, social support). belsky (1984) placed parental personality at the centre of this model, and he did it out of two reasons. on the one hand, personality affects parenting both directly and indirectly through influencing the context of parent-child relations (e.g., marital relations, social support). on the other hand, personality can be conceived of as a characteristic pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours (roberts, 2009). thus, parents’ personality affects how parents feel, think and act in interaction with their children. compared with the aforementioned theoretical importance of parental personality for parenting quality, few studies investigated the association between big five personality traits and quality of parenting (e.g., huver, otten, de vries, & engels, 2010; prinzie, stams, deković, reijntjes, & belsky, 2009; vondra, sysko, & belsky, 2005). since agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability (i.e., lack of neuroticism) are the three dimensions of the big five that are correlated with machiavellianism, only parenting outcomes related to these three dimensions are reviewed here. in huver et al.’s (2010) study with parents of adolescents and in the metaanalytic review by prinzie et al. (2009), agreeableness was found to be positively related to warm, structured, and autonomy supportive parenting. agreeableness showed negative correlations with parental insensitivity, parental machiavellianism and parenting 108 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negative control, and intrusive-overcontrolling behaviour – especially in mothers (belsky, crnic, & woodworth, 1995). in the previously mentioned meta-analytic review, prinzie et al. (2009) reported modest but significant positive correlations between conscientiousness and parental warmth and positive control. losoya, callor, rowe, and hill goldsmith (1997) found conscientiousness to be positively associated with supportive parenting and negatively related to negative parental control. with regard to neuroticism or emotional instability, vondra et al. (2005) concluded that reviewed studies were consistent in reporting a negative relationship between neuroticism and competent parenting. however, vondra et al. (2005) argued that parental incompetence could take the form of either uninvolved-neglecting or intrusive-overcontrolling parenting. huver et al. (2010) found that emotional stability was negatively related to strict control. this result further supports that neuroticism might be related to intrusiveness and overcontrolling parenting as stated by vondra et al. (2005). in a previous edition of their chapter on personality and parenting, vondra and belsky (1993) reviewed studies that investigated the relationship between psychological differentiation and parenting. psychological differentiation is an umbrella term for personality characteristics (e.g. having an internal locus of control, empathizing, and mentalizing) that enable the individual to function in a mature and integrated way. vondra and belsky (1993) argued that without these psychological resources for understanding and tolerating the stress related to parenting, parents were unlikely to become competent parents. recent research results are in accord with vondra and belsky’s (1993) aforementioned statement. camberis, mcmahon, gibson, and boivin (2016) found that hardiness – an indicator of psychological maturity – was related to more sensitive mothering in infancy. johnson, mcmahon, and gibson (2014) found the same indicator of psychological maturity (i.e., hardiness) to be related to more favourable bedtime cognitions in mothers. in consequence, more mature mothers reported less sleep-related problems for their toddlers. glatz, cotter, and buchanan (2017) found that parental self-efficacy predicted promotive (i.e., positive and involved) parenting in parents of adolescents. parental self-efficacy can be considered as a form of internal locus of control which in turn is an indicator of psychological maturity. parental personality as a determinant of coparenting coparenting “refers to the ways that parents and/or parental figures relate to each other in the role of parents. coparenting occurs when individuals have overlapping or shared responsibility for rearing particular children, and consists of the support and coordination (or lack of it) that parental figures exhibit in parenting” (feinberg, 2003, p. 96). whereas parenting styles refer to parental behaviours that occur in the child-parent interactions, coparenting describes parental interplay in raising children (teubert & pinquart, 2010). several aspects of coparenting has been emphasized by different authors (feinberg, 2003; van egeren, 2001; van egeren & hawkins, 2004), but the essence of coparenting can be described by the following three components (kolak & volling, 2007). first, cooperation refers to the supportive and valuing attitude towards the other parental figure. second, there may be disagreement between the parental figures about childrearing issues. third, triangulation may occur. triangulation refers to the parent’s efforts to form an alliance with the child against the other parental figure or to communicate with the other parent through the child. individual characteristics of parents – most dominantly personality traits and personality functioning – affect both coparenting and the parental relationship in general (feinberg, 2003). kolak and volling (2007) applied the láng 109 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ previously mentioned model of belsky (1984) to describe the determinants of coparenting. according to this model, parent characteristics influence coparenting directly, but they also have an effect on coparenting through forming the parent’s relationship with the spouse, members of the broader family, and colleagues. despite methodological and conceptual progress in the field, empirical research on the relationship between parental personality and coparenting is even scarcer than on the relationship between parental personality and parenting (mchale, kuersten-hogan, & rao, 2004). weissman and cohen (1985) described parents who are invested in their children, value the other parental figure’s childrearing efforts, respect the other parent’s judgements, and communicate with their partner as the best candidates for high quality coparenting. laxman et al. (2013) found that fathers’ communion and negative emotionality were related to higher and lower coparenting quality, respectively. for mothers, they found that negative emotionality was associated with less undermining coparenting. kolak and volling (2007) found that positive expressiveness (i.e., being empathic, loving, and concerned) – especially that of fathers – was associated with more favourable coparenting outcomes. stright and bales (2003) found that parents’ personality adjustment – a constellation of high agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, openness to experience, and low neuroticism – was positively related to supportive and negatively to unsupportive coparenting. to sum up these results in terms of the big five (costa & mccrae, 1992), higher levels of coparenting seem to be associated with higher levels of agreeableness (investment, value, respect, communion, positive expressiveness) and lower levels of neuroticism (negative emotionality). aim of the study, hypotheses the aim of this study was to reveal how parental machiavellianism was related to two aspects of parental functioning. on the one hand, i wanted to investigate the relationship between parents’ level of machiavellianism and the way their adolescent offspring perceive them as parents. on the other hand, i wanted to reveal how parents’ ability to cooperate as parents (i.e., coparenting) was related to their level of machiavellianism. with regard to the relationship between machiavellianism and adolescent reported parenting, the following hypothesis was formulated. given the positive correlations between disagreeableness, emotional instability, lack of emotional intelligence / empathy, and machiavellianism, parents with higher levels of machiavellianism were expected to be perceived as less optimal parents by their adolescent offspring. i expected that less optimal parenting would be reflected in less parental emotional warmth, more parental rejection, and more parental overcontrolling (hypothesis 1). a further hypothesis (hypothesis 2) was formulated with regard to the relationship between machiavellianism and copareting. given the fact, that machiavellianism is a personality trait that is characterized by higher levels of disagreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, i expected that parents with higher levels of machiavellianism will report lower quality of coparenting (actor effect) just like partners of individuals with higher levels of machiavellianism (partner effect). parental machiavellianism and parenting 110 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ methods participants and procedure based on the expected strength of correlations (r = .35) and on conservative levels of power (.95) and significance (two-sided α = .05) we aimed to collect a sample of 100 families (hulley, cummings, browner, grady, & newman, 2007). after excluding incomplete data, 98 cohabiting hungarian families raising at least one 14-18 years old adolescent (target adolescent) participated in a study entitled ‘personality traits of adolescents in a family system perspective’. this sample was deemed to guarantee adequate statistical power. data from the same study was partially (overlapping variable: coparenting) used in láng and abell (2018) to investigate how interparental functioning related to adolescents’ level of machiavellianism. the relationship of parents lasted 21.59 years on average (sd = 3.83) and 96 pairs of parents were married. mothers and fathers were 43.79 years old (sd = 3.57) and 46.54 years old (sd = 4.29) on average, respectively. the majority of parents had at least 12 years of education (55.1 and 66.3 percent for mothers and for fathers, respectively). target adolescents (47 females) were all enrolled in formal education and were 16 years old (sd = 1.29) on average. target adolescents had an average of 1.29 siblings (sd = .92). participants were recruited from the relational network of undergraduate psychology students. students collected the data as partial fulfilment of the requirements for a developmental psychology research paper course. there was an inclusion criterion for the study. only families composed of adolescents and two cohabiting biological parents were included in the study. inclusion was independent of the amount of children. the inclusion criterion was introduced to obtain a relatively homogeneous sample with regard to family structure to ensure clarity for statistical analyses. consenting family members participated voluntarily and anonymously in the study. families received no reward in any form for the participation. the study received ethical approval from the united ethical review committee for research in psychology (ref. no.: 2016/063). measures machiavellianism in parents both mothers and fathers completed the mach-iv scale (christie & geis, 1970) as a measure of machiavellian personality traits. in mach-iv, participants are asked to report their agreement with 20 statements on a 7-point likert-scale (1 = completely disagree; 7 = completely agree). ten of these statements express machiavellian attitudes (e.g., “anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble”), the other 10 statements express anti-machiavellian attitudes (e.g., “one should take action only when sure it is morally right “). after reverse scoring anti-machiavellian items, scores were summed and an additional 20 points were added to achieve 100 as the theoretical mid-point of the total score. this was done in line with the original formulation of christie and geis (1970). mach-iv proved to be a reliable measure of machiavellianism both for fathers and mothers (table 1). adolescents’ perception of paternal and maternal parenting behaviour to measure their perception of paternal and maternal parenting behaviour, adolescents were asked to fill out the short egna minnen beträffande uppfostran (my memories of upbringing) adolescent version (s-embu-a; penelo, viladrich, & domènech, 2012). the s-embu-a is a 22-item self-report questionnaire that assesses perceived parental rearing style on the following three dimensions. (1) rejection refers to criticizing and strict láng 111 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parental behaviour. this dimension is measured by 7 items (e.g., “my parents treat me in such a way that i feel ashamed”). to avoid loss of data from adolescents without siblings, the item referring to parental preference for siblings was omitted from latter analysis. (2) emotional warmth refers to loving and supporting parental behaviour. emotional warmth is measured by 6 items (e.g., “my parents praise me”). (3) overprotection assesses overcontrolling and interfering parental behaviour with 9 items (e.g., “my parents want to decide how i should be dressed or how i should look”). perceived frequency of the parental behaviours described in the items was reported on a 4-point likert-scale (1=no, never; 4=yes, nearly always). each item was evaluated separately for perceived paternal and maternal parenting behaviour. scores were summed for each paternal and maternal dimension. all dimensions had good to excellent internal reliability (table 1). parental report of dyadic coparenting both mothers and fathers completed the parent form of coparenting inventory for parents and adolescents (cipa; teubert & pinquart, 2011). the inventory assesses the quality of coparenting on the following three subscales. (1) conflict “is defined as the extent of parental arguments or fights over childrearing as well as the extent of undermining the other parent through criticism, disparagement, or blame” (teubert & pinquart, 2010, p. 287). (2) cooperation “refers to the extent parents exchange information about their child, support and respect each other as parents, as well as communicate to the child a climate of mutual loyalty” (teubert & pinquart, 2010, p. 287). (3) triangulation “includes coalition formation between a child and one parent, and involvement of the child in parental conflicts” (teubert & pinquart, 2010, p. 287). each subscale is measured by 4 items (e.g., “me and my partner agree on whether to fulfil the wishes and demands of our child or not (reversed)”, “me and my partner reach shared decisions with regard to our child’s upbringing”, “our child gets involved in the arguments between me and my partner” for conflict, cooperation, and triangulation respectively). scores were summed to obtain a total score for each subscale. conflict and triangulation were reverse scored. thus, higher scores on each subscale indicate higher quality coparenting. both motherand father-reported subscales had cronbach αs that showed excellent internal reliability (table 3). statistical analyses means and standard deviations were computed for the measured variables. to indicate the internal reliability of scales, cronbach αs were computed as well. pearson’s correlations were used to test the linear relationships between pairs of variables. to further investigate the relationship between parental machiavellianism and adolescents’ perception of their parents parenting behaviour, parental machiavellianism was regressed on perceived parenting variables separately for mothers and fathers. moreover, commonality analysis was used to reveal unique and common effects. “unique effects identify how much variance is unique to an observed variable, and common effects identify how much variance is common to groups of variables” (nimon, 2010, p. 10). the dyadic interdependence between parental machiavellianism and reported coparetning behaviour was modelled by using ibm spss amos in accord with the actor-partner interdependence model (apim; kashy & kenny, 1999; kenny & cook, 1999; kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006). apim is a promising solution to one of the challenges of relationship research, namely the nonindependence of dyadic data. variable level data is available at osf.io/e4s2k. parental machiavellianism and parenting 112 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://osf.io/e4s2k https://www.psychopen.eu/ results means, standard deviations and internal reliability indices (cronbach αs) for the measured variables are presented in tables 1 and 3. according to these results, all measures proved to be reliable in this study. parental machiavellianism and perceived parenting first, the linear relationship between parents’ level of machiavellianism and adolescents’ perception of their parents were analysed with pearson’s correlations. results of these analyses (table 1) revealed that fathers with higher levels of machiavellianism – as compared to fathers with lower levels of machiavellianism – were perceived by adolescents as significantly more rejecting. the strength of this correlation was weak. mothers with higher levels of machiavellianism – as compared to mothers with lower levels of machiavellianism –were perceived by adolescents as significantly more rejecting and more overprotective. the strength of these correlations was moderate. further, to control for the overlap between different dimensions of perceived parenting, parental machiavellianism was regressed on the three dimensions of perceived parenting, using multiple linear regressions with enter method separately for fathers and mothers. moreover, commonality analysis (nimon, 2010) was used to show the unique and common association of perceived parenting variables with parental machiavellianism. for fathers, the model including the three dimensions of perceived parenting did not significantly predict fathers’ level of self-reported machiavellianism (r2 = .067; f(3,94) = 2.258, p = .087). therefore, further analyses were omitted for fathers. results of multiple linear regression for mothers (table 2) showed that the model including the three dimensions of perceived parenting accounted for 13.5 percent of the variance in mothers’ machiavellianism (f(3,94) = 4.899, p = .003). after controlling for shared effects, only perceived overprotection remained a significant predictor of maternal machiavellianism. results of commonality analysis (table 2) further revealed that the highest proportion (42.666 percent) of r2 was due to the common effect of maternal rejection and overprotection. láng 113 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 r el at io ns hi p b et w ee n p ar en ts ’ s el f-r ep or te d m ac hi av el lia ni sm a nd a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of p ar en tin g b eh av io ur ; r es ul ts o f p ea rs on ’s c or re la tio ns , d es cr ip tiv e s ta tis tic s an d in te rn al r el ia bi lit y in di ce s m sd c ro nb ac h α 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. p at er na l m ac hi av el lia ni sm 98 .3 06 15 .8 19 .8 25 .2 33 * -.1 22 .1 84 .4 55 ** * .4 24 ** * -.3 58 ** * .3 26 ** 2. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of p at er na l r ej ec tio n 8. 61 2 2. 55 9 .7 91 -.3 42 ** .4 11 ** * .2 39 * .6 84 ** * -.2 40 * .2 80 ** 3. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of p at er na l e m ot io na l w ar m th 17 .2 45 3. 96 9 .8 52 .0 64 .0 02 -.2 65 ** .7 31 ** * -.0 37 4. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of p at er na l o ve rp ro te ct io n 19 .3 27 4. 53 8 .7 41 .2 16 * .4 64 ** * .0 03 .7 87 ** * 5. m at er na l m ac hi av el lia ni sm 89 .5 82 12 .6 31 .7 26 .3 00 ** -.1 20 .3 27 ** 6. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of m at er na l r ej ec tio n 8. 40 8 2. 15 3 .7 31 -.4 35 ** * .4 71 ** * 7. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of m at er na l e m ot io na l w ar m th 18 .7 25 3. 41 5 .8 16 -.0 64 8. a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of m at er na l o ve rp ro te ct io n 21 .0 31 4. 95 6 .7 75 *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. * ** p < .0 01 . ta bl e 2 m ot he rs ’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm r eg re ss ed o n th e th re e d im en si on s of a do le sc en ts ’ p er ce pt io n of p ar en tin g b eh av io ur ; r es ul ts o f m ul tip le l in ea r r eg re ss io n an d c om m on al ity a na ly si s. va ria bl es c om m on al ity c oe ffi ci en t pe rc en t o f r 2 β p u ni qu e to r .0 18 13 .4 94 .1 72 .1 62 u ni qu e to e w .0 01 0. 48 8 -.0 29 .7 89 u ni qu e to o p .0 45 33 .2 68 .2 44 .0 29 c om m on to r a nd e w .0 09 6. 73 0 c om m on to r a nd o p .0 58 42 .6 66 c om m on to e w a nd o p -.0 01 0 .3 81 c om m on to r , e w , a nd o p .0 05 3. 73 4 to ta l .1 35 10 0. 00 00 n ot e. r = r ej ec tio n; e w = e m ot io na l w ar m th ; o p = o ve rp ro te ct io n. parental machiavellianism and parenting 114 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported machiavellianism and dyadic coparenting first, pearson’s correlations were run to analyse the relationship between mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported machiavellianism and dyadic coparenting (table 3). results revealed that mothers’ machiavellianism was negatively correlated with all three dimensions of dyadic coparenting. this means that mothers with higher levels of machiavellianism – as compared to mothers with less pronounced machiavellian traits – reported more conflict with their spouses about child rearing issues, less cooperation in parenting, and more triangulation of the child. moreover, two aspects of spouses’ report of dyadic coparenting quality was also correlated with mothers’ self-reported machiavellianism. this means that men with spouses who are relatively more machiavellian reported less cooperation in parenting and more triangulation of the child. with regard to fathers’ level of machiavellianism, this was correlated with both self-reported and spouse reported conflict, cooperation, and triangulation. this means that fathers with higher levels of machiavellianism reported lower quality coparenting as measured by all three subscales. moreover, spouses of relatively more machiavellian fathers reported lower quality coparenting on all three subscales as well. the strength of these correlations was week to moderate. using ibm spss amos and bootstrapping (n = 2000), modelling in accord with the apim (kenny et al., 2006) revealed both significant actor and significant partner effects (table 4). according to the results fathers’ report of dyadic coparenting conflict, coparenting cooperation, and triangulation were only affected by their own level of machiavellianism. the more machiavellian the father the lower quality coparenting was reported by him on all three subscales. on the other hand, mother-reported coparenting was affected only by their partners’ level of machiavellianism. it means that mothers’ perception of coparenting was less favourable on the subscales of coparenting cooperation and triangulation, if they had a coparent with more pronounced machiavellian traits. láng 115 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 r el at io ns hi p b et w ee n p ar en ts ’ s el f-r ep or te d m ac hi av el lia ni sm a nd d im en si on s of c op ar en tin g; r es ul ts o f p ea rs on ’s c or re la tio ns , d es cr ip tiv e s ta tis tic s an d in te rn al r el ia bi lit y in di ce s. m sd c ro nb ac h α 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. p at er na l m ac hi av el lia ni sm 98 .3 06 15 .8 19 .8 25 -.3 43 ** -.4 46 ** * -.4 96 ** * .4 55 ** * -.2 54 * -.3 77 ** * -.4 11 ** * 2. f at he rs ’ r ep or t o f c op ar en tin g co nf lic t 15 .0 10 3. 28 9 .8 65 .8 41 ** * .7 43 ** * -.1 53 .6 55 ** * .6 27 ** * .6 45 ** * 3. f at he rs ’ r ep or t o f c op ar en tin g co op er at io n 16 .0 31 3. 38 1 .8 68 .7 96 ** * -.2 96 ** .6 16 ** * .6 86 ** * .6 95 ** * 4. f at he rs ’ r ep or t o f t ria ng ul at io n 15 .0 31 3. 76 2 .8 53 -.2 45 * .5 93 ** * .6 37 ** * .7 74 ** * 5. m at er na l m ac hi av el lia ni sm 89 .5 82 12 .6 31 .7 26 -.2 49 * -.2 60 * -.3 22 ** 6. m ot he rs ’ r ep or t o f c op ar en tin g co nf lic t 14 .8 37 3. 23 2 .8 43 .7 75 ** * .7 63 ** * 7. m ot he rs ’ r ep or t o f c op ar en tin g co op er at io n 15 .8 57 3. 48 5 .8 63 .7 29 ** * 8. m ot he rs ’ r ep or t o f t ria ng ul at io n 15 .2 45 3. 56 7 .8 47 n ot e. c op ar et in g va ria bl es (c on fli ct , c oo pe ra tio n, a nd tr ia ng ul at io n) a re s co re d so th at h ig he r s co re s in di ca te m or e co op er at iv e co pa re tin g. *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. * ** p < .0 01 . ta bl e 4 a ct or a nd p ar tn er e ffe ct s of m ac hi av el lia ni sm o n d im en si on s of c op ar en tin g; r es ul ts o f a ct or -p ar tn er in te rd ep en de nc e a na ly se s. c op ar en tin g va ria bl e a ct or e ffe ct s pa rt ne r e ffe ct s r 2 c or re la tio n be tw ee n er ro rs o f de pe nd en t v ar ia bl es fa th er s’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm to fa th er s’ c op ar en tin g m ot he rs ’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm to m ot he rs ’ c op ar en tin g fa th er s’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm to m ot he rs ’ c op ar en tin g m ot he rs ’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm to fa th er s’ c op ar en tin g β 95 % c i β 95 % c i β 95 % c i β 95 % c i fa th er m ot he r r 95 % c i c on fli ct -.3 45 ** -.5 62 , .0 81 -.1 68 -.4 09 , . 06 8 -.1 78 -.4 35 , . 08 9 .0 05 -.2 16 , . 19 7 .1 18 .0 87 .6 33 ** * .4 61 , .7 61 c oo pe ra tio n -.3 93 ** -.5 70 , .1 67 -.1 12 -.3 15 , . 08 9 -.3 26 ** -.5 44 , .0 57 -.1 17 -.3 04 , . 06 1 .2 10 .1 52 .6 20 ** * .4 67 , . 75 1 tr ia ng ul at io n -.4 85 ** * -.6 41 , .2 92 -.1 71 -.3 93 , . 03 9 -.3 33 ** -.5 39 , .0 94 -.0 24 -.2 11 , . 15 7 .2 46 .1 92 .7 26 ** * .5 90 , . 82 8 n ot e. c or re la tio n be tw ee n fa th er s’ a nd m ot he rs ’ m ac hi av el lia ni sm is r = .4 55 (p < .0 5) . c op ar en tin g va ria bl es a re s co re d so th at h ig he r s co re s in di ca te m or e co op er at iv e co pa re nt in g. *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. * ** p < .0 01 . parental machiavellianism and parenting 116 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study was the first to investigate the relationship between the parental personality trait of machiavellianism and two different aspects of parenting – parenting behaviour as perceived by adolescent offspring and selfreported coparenting behaviour. results of the study partially confirmed my hypotheses. results are discussed in the following two sections. parental machiavellianism and perceived parenting as hypothesized (hypothesis 1), both mothers’ and fathers’ level of machiavellianism showed significant positive correlation with perceived rejecting parenting behaviour, but only mothers’ level of machiavellianism was positively associated with perceived overprotection. neither parents’ level of machiavellianism was associated with perceived emotional warmth. results of linear regression and commonality analysis showed that the relationship between dimensions of perceived parenting and parental machiavellianism was significant only for mothers. only overprotection emerged as a significant unique predictor accounting for 33.27 percent of maternal machiavellianism’s r2. the greatest proportion of maternal machiavellianism’s r2 (42.67 percent) was accounted for by the common effect of perceived maternal overprotection and rejection. to explain the relationship between adolescents’ perception of parenting behaviour and maternal – but not paternal – machiavellianism, the different roles of mothers and fathers in parenting should be considered. while mothers tend to be characterized by interpersonal concerns, instrumental concerns tend to describe fathers (richards, gitelson, petersen, & hurtig, 1991). this difference between mothers and fathers persists into adolescence – mothers continue to provide care and reassurance, whereas fathers foster autonomy and exploration (duchesne & ratelle, 2014). i speculate that the disagreeable nature of machiavellianism (e.g., jakobwitz & egan, 2006; paulhus & williams, 2002) would interact rather with mothers’ relational than with fathers’ instrumental functions in socialization. this in turn would make maternal machiavellianism – as compared to paternal machiavellianism – correlate stronger with adolescents’ perception of parenting. the main developmental task of adolescents in relation to their parents is separation and the development of autonomy. parents can support this task with providing a secure base and fostering autonomy at the same time. machiavellian mothers – lacking empathy, emotional intelligence (ali et al., 2009; andrew, cooke, & muncer, 2008; wastell & booth, 2003), and secure attachment (brewer, abell, & lyons, 2013; ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015; jonason, lyons, & bethell, 2014; láng & birkás, 2015) – are speculated to be unable to sensitively attune to these needs of their adolescent offspring, which in turn makes them rejecting (i.e., failing to provide a secure base) and overprotective (i.e., failing to support autonomy). further, overprotection can be considered as an effort of machiavellian mothers to exert control over their adolescent children. although machiavellian individuals rarely direct their manipulative actions towards family members (barber, 1994), they perceive their environment and significant others to be unpredictable (láng, 2015) and uncontrollable (mudrack, 1990). in adolescence, children become more and more autonomous (steinberg & silverberg, 1986). this normative developmental process might be perceived by machiavellian mothers as another instance of losing control. therefore, overprotective parental behaviour might represent an effort of mothers with relatively high levels of machiavellianism to maintain or regain control over their children. láng 117 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parental self-reported machiavellianism and dyadic coparenting in partial accord with hypothesis 2, both actor and partner effects were found between parents’ level of machiavellianism and parents’ reports of coparenting. however, these effects were limited to the effect of fathers’ level of machiavellianism. both fathers and their spouses reported lower quality of coparenting if fathers had a relatively higher level of machiavellianism. for the selective effects of fathers’ machiavellianism on both their own and their spouses’ evaluation of coparenting quality, the following explanations are offered. during the discussion of these results, two core aspects of machiavellianism are highlighted: disagreeableness (e.g., jakobwitz & egan, 2006; paulhus & williams, 2002) and emotional detachment (christie & geis, 1970). being disagreeable or antagonistic prevents individuals from cooperation and accommodation to others (costa & mccrae, 1992). moreover, machiavellianism is associated with competing problem solving strategies as well (mesko, lang, czibor, szijjarto, & bereczkei, 2014). thus, fathers with relatively higher levels of machiavellianism might be less willing to comply with their spouses, including parenting issues. they might rather stubbornly stick to their own ideas in parenting – leading to less coparenting cooperation and more coparenting conflict. more direct support for this explanation can be drawn from the studies of laxman et al. (2013) and kolak and volling (2007) who found that the level of communion and positive expressivity (constructs similar to agreeableness) were positively related to high quality coparenting – especially for fathers. with regard to triangulation, alliance formation can be considered as a manipulative alternative to genuine relating for machiavellian individuals (jones & paulhus, 2014). thus, forcing the child to take side in parental conflicts could be a means for machiavellian fathers to strengthen their positions in interparental rivalry. the negative effect of fathers’ machiavellianism on mothers’ reports of coparenting is speculated to be due to the following. based on their relationship oriented socialization (e.g., gilligan, 1982), women are especially sensitive to the presence of social support in their marital relationship. for example, martos, sallay, nistor, and józsa (2012) found in a hungarian sample that their partner’s supportive coping was positively correlated with women’s marital satisfaction, but negatively with that of men. in a study by bodenmann, pihet, and kayser (2006), both their own dyadic coping and that of their partner were significant predictors of martial satisfaction for women. at the same time, only their own dyadic coping was predictive of men’s marital satisfaction. machiavellian individuals with their predominantly avoidant attachment (brewer, abell, & lyons, 2013; ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015; jonason, lyons, & bethell, 2014; láng & birkás, 2015) are distressed by the closeness of others, which in turn prevents them to effectively provide social support (richman, dewall, & wolff, 2015). thus, machiavellian fathers’ lack of the ability to provide support might lead to perceptions of poorer coparenting quality in their spouses. moreover, avoidant attachment was found to be associated with an overestimation of negative emotions and hostile reactions during conflict and daily life (overall, fletcher, simpson, & fillo, 2015). childrearing is a stressful task for most parents and coping with this stress requires constructive contributions (vondra & belsky, 1993). fathers with higher levels of machiavellianism – who are characterized by higher levels of avoidant attachment as well – are speculated to react in a hostile way to their spouses’ negative emotions in childrearing conflicts. thus, these conflicts are rather escalated than resolved, which in turn leads to spouses’ reports of poorer coparenting quality. parental machiavellianism and parenting 118 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and conclusions although this study was unique in investigating the relationship between parental machiavellianism and parenting, some limitations of the study should be mentioned. first, as it is emphasized throughout the paper, the study relied solely on self-reports. no matter that data came from different informants, they are still at risk for perceptual bias. second, the study is cross-sectional in design. thus, establishing causal relationships between machiavellianism and parenting variables is beyond the scope of this study. third, families were selected so that only two-parent families were enrolled in this study. this was done in order to make the sample more homogeneous. however, this prevents the generalization of the results beyond families that consist of biological mother, biological father, and children. these limitations should be overcome by future research. this research should use observational data with regard to parenting and coparenting behaviours, and preferably a longitudinal design. this study showed that maternal – rather than paternal – machiavellianism was more predictive of adolescents’ perception of parenting behaviour, while fathers’ level of machiavellianism was the unique predictor of intradyadic functioning in the parental dyad. these results might have two practical conclusions. first, machiavellianism is only one expression of socially aversive and antagonistic personalities (e.g., marcus & zeigler-hill, 2015; paulhus & williams, 2002). based on the impressive results of this study, other dark personality traits should be included in the research of the association between parental personality and parenting or coparenting behaviour. this could be a fruitful investigation of personality characteristics that are situated at the borderline between normal and pathological (jonason, duineveld, & middleton, 2015). second, results might have implications for interventions with adolescents and their families as well. rejecting and overprotective parenting might prevent adolescents from completing their developmental tasks of separation and identity achievement (steinberg & silverberg, 1986), whereas marital discord – including a poorer quality of coparenting – is regarded by prominent parenting authors as the best familial predictor of child maladjustment (see feinberg, 2003 for a review). thus, both maternal and paternal machiavellianism interferes with optimal adolescent development. the selective effect of mothers’ machiavellianism on parenting and fathers’ machiavellianism on coparenting suggest that the most optimal interventions should target the family as a unit of intervention. decreasing machiavellian attitude in parents could lead to fathers’ increased ability to cooperate with and provide support to mothers in coparenting issues and to mothers’ more sensitive approach to their adolescent offspring’s needs. these in turn could lead to more optimal adolescent development, helping youth to develop into autonomous and responsible adults. funding andrás láng was supported by the únkp-16-4 new national excellence program of the hungarian ministry of human capacities. competing interests the author is an associate editor of ejop but played no editorial role for this particular article. láng 119 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references ali, f., amorim, i. s., & chamorro-premuzic, t. 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(2003). machiavellianism: an alexithymic perspective. journal of social and clinical psychology, 22(6), 730-744. doi:10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 weissman, s. h., & cohen, r. s. (1985). the parenting alliance and adolescence. adolescent psychiatry, 12, 24-45. about the author andrás láng, ph.d., is associate professor of developmental and clinical psychology. his areas of research interest cover attachment theory, personality and clinical psychology. he has been recently involved in several research projects on the developmental and clinical aspects of machiavellianism and the dark triad. parental machiavellianism and parenting 124 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 107–124 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1474 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ parental machiavellianism and parenting (introduction) machiavellianism, normal personality traits, and personality functioning parental personality as a determinant of parenting parental personality as a determinant of coparenting aim of the study, hypotheses methods participants and procedure measures statistical analyses results parental machiavellianism and perceived parenting mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported machiavellianism and dyadic coparenting discussion parental machiavellianism and perceived parenting parental self-reported machiavellianism and dyadic coparenting limitations and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the flow of learning editorial the flow of learning maciej karwowski* a [a] university of wrocław, wrocław, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 291–295, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1660 published (vor): 2018-06-19. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, university of wroclaw, dawida 1 st., 50-527 wroclaw, poland. e-mail: maciej.karwowski@uwr.edu.pl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. saying that learning is complex is akin to saying nothing. apparently, learning is not only dynamic and interactional, but also pretty challenging to understand – it is by no means an easy task to untangle all its nuances and idiosyncrasies. thus, it is not accidental that scholars sometimes compare learning to a river (see alexander, schallert, & reynolds, 2009). indeed, as they note (see alexander et al., 2009, p. 178), learning involves change, is inevitable, changeable at different points, and incredibly dynamic. precisely as a river, one may agree. but yet – still in line with rivers – learning can be resisted or could be disadvantageous: after all, if learning is change and change breaks our comfort zone, then learning could bring negative outcomes as well. therefore, although laypeople and professionals tend to perceive learning as ubiquitously positive, it is not necessarily always the case. learning helped our antecessors survive on savannahs and keeps helping us function today. today’s learning, however, especially the institutionalized one, too often equates with a static, prior-knowledge-based process of memorization rather than a dynamic transformation into skills and individually meaningful discoveries. can learning be inventive at all, though? or, perhaps, is any learning creative by definition? while it is hardly possible to create something meaningful if someone lacks the necessary knowledge, the question arises to what extent the process of learning itself may be framed as creative. if learning is a river, is creative learning a waterfall? these questions are not trivial; after all, school systems are often perceived as being responsible for hindering students’ individuality rather than inspiring it and, even if such an attitude is more ideological than empirical, it is too widely spread to be ignored (robinson, 2001). the conviction that school and creativity are opposites seems to stem from three sources – each of profoundly naïve character. the first is a clash between the romantic myth of (a supposedly always creative) childhood and the bureaucratized system schools belong to. many people believe that children are creative by nature, and schools (as instruments of secondary socialization) are anti-creative by their very character. the second source is informed by the shape of curricula and unsystematic observation of everyday school realities. indeed, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ practicing algorithms takes up a lot of space in every classroom around the world, likely more space than stimulating curiosity. to be a little bit ironic, one may say that people usually ask questions if they want to get to know something. this rule works poorly, however, if these people teach. teachers ask questions in response to which they know and want to hear the expected answer. the third source that informs broad public’s imagination are biographies of creators: many nobel prize laureates were average students in school, at best, or they remembered their school education as a nightmare. mark twain, one of the greatest writers of all times, is credited with a saying that he has “never let [his] schooling interfere with [his] education” (as quoted in harnsberger, 1972, p. 553). these words perfectly capture the attitude many people have towards school. briefly: schools have bad reputation. is it as bad as critics say, though? apart from the brilliant creators who did poorly at school, there are others who did excellently: sigmund freud, john locke, august comte, or karen horney, were great students (simonton, 2002). similarly, although studies that explore links between creativity and school achievement bring diverse results, they do not support the fact that the most innovative thinkers do poorly at school. in the most extensive meta-analysis conducted so far (gajda, karwowski, & beghetto, 2017), the link between creative abilities and school achievement was weak but positive (r = .22). therefore, current knowledge allows for two, even if premature, conclusions. first, creative students generally do well at school. that’s not too surprising – after all, creative abilities are cognitive abilities – they naturally inform learning. second, while some original students indeed underachieve at school, it is caused by their lack of motivation, or higher nonconformity rather than creative mental skills per se. is learning creative? previous theorizing on creative learning (e.g., jeffrey, 2006; lucas, 2001; treffinger et al., 1983) criticized school curricula and emphasized the limitations of algorithmic, exclusively intelligence-focused teaching (e.g., lucas, 2001). other models equated creative learning with problem-solving (e.g., treffinger et al., 1983). thus, these models focused either on intrapersonal mechanisms necessary for learning (students’ traits or cognitive processes) or systemic conditions that support or hinder creativity at school. less attention was devoted to class ethnography in this context (for an exception see lucas, 2001) or the role of student-student or studentteacher interaction as a vehicle for creative understanding. to address this gap, beghetto (2016) has recently posited that, in the school context, creativity should be analyzed as being involved in the process of learning, but also that learning itself can be creative. students come up with new and personally meaningful ideas within the context of school subjects. they also share their thoughts and contribute to the learning and understanding of their peers. what we need to understand is the role played by students’ creativity (their abilities) but also the creativity of the process of internalizing, organizing, and transforming knowledge for the effectiveness of learning. therefore, scholars approach creativity in learning from two perspectives: differential and processual. the former searches for an answer to the question of whether and to what extent more creative individuals are better or worse students than their less creative peers. the latter searches for discriminants of the original character of learning and explores in what way knowledge is restructured, integrated, and individually interpreted during the process of school-based learning (anderson et al., 2001; lucas, 2001). hence, the creative learning 292 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 291–295 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1660 https://www.psychopen.eu/ process of learning is a particular case of a creative process during which students combine their previous knowledge with new information in a way that is unique for them (mumford et al., 2012; sawyer, 2012). such a process of combining new and unclear content with already acquired knowledge is the core of a creative process. too little stock of expertise or a lack of creative self-beliefs make it impossible to occur. creative self-beliefs (csb) in the learning process what people think about their skills matters. but our understanding of the mechanisms played by different selfbeliefs, including those related to creativity, is still imperfect. deepening the knowledge about csbs structure and their interrelations might have profound practical consequences, e.g., for the development of new interventions that strengthen csbs and, through this, improve students’ functioning. why are self-beliefs important for understanding the creative process in general and creative learning in particular? a new theoretical model of creativity as an agentic action (cbaa, see karwowski & beghetto, in press) posits creative self-efficacy to mediate and valuing creativity to moderate the relationship between potential and achievement. in other words, this model makes self-beliefs vital factors responsible for mechanisms of effective functioning. the self-beliefs' role, however, is not limited to creative behavior, it informs the process of learning as well. creative learning involves sharing new understandings with other students and the teacher. revealing the new understanding in a classroom forum marks the transfer from intrato the inter-psychological sphere, because it is applicable not just to the student himor herself, but also his or her social environment. it requires, however, a sense of agency and competence. for a new idea to turn into a creative input in the current knowledge of others, the teacher, as well as the remaining students, must undertake an attempt to understand it. in being confronted with such a surprising idea, the teacher does not always know how to behave – ignore the idea and consider it a pure misunderstanding of the theme, or make an attempt to understand it and risk disrupting the lesson? if comprehension difficulty is the reason for rejecting the student’s idea, his or her potential and the entire creative process fade, which in consequence has a negative influence on the process of learning and undertaking further attempts at sharing ideas with others. when other students consider the idea to be both coherent and new, it may become an input for their understanding. consequently, creative learning becomes an interpersonal rather than intrapersonal act. concluding thoughts if learning is a river, so is creative learning – maybe an even more tumultuous river. to follow this river means to follow its flow, and monitoring flow requires a dynamic approach. learning is multidimensional, it depends on self-efficacy, emotions, and is highly situation-dependent. it is impossible to fully capture it using traditional psychometrics or relying on self-report measures. dynamic processes require dynamic methodologies. empirical synergies of micro-longitudinal designs with experimental procedures, naturalistic (yet rigorous) observations strengthened by interviews or ethnographic visits in the classroom – all of them may be helpful in untangling the mosaic of intra-psychological and social subprocesses engaged by learning. karwowski 293 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 291–295 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1660 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding preparation of this editorial was possible thanks to the funding obtained from the national science centre, poland (umo-2016/22/e/hs6/00118). competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references alexander, p. a., schallert, d. l., & reynolds, r. e. (2009). what is learning anyway? a topographical perspective considered. educational psychologist, 44, 176-192. doi:10.1080/00461520903029006 anderson, l. w., krathwohl, d. r., & bloom, b. s. (2001). a taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. new york, ny, usa: allyn & bacon. beghetto, r. a. (2016). creative learning: a fresh look. journal of cognitive education and psychology, 15, 6-23. doi:10.1891/1945-8959.15.1.6 gajda, a., karwowski, m., & beghetto, r. a. (2017). creativity and academic achievement: a meta-analysis. journal of educational psychology, 109, 269-299. doi:10.1037/edu0000133 jeffrey, b. (2006). creative teaching and learning: toward a common discourse and practice. cambridge journal of education, 36, 399-414. doi:10.1080/03057640600866015 karwowski, m., & beghetto, r. a. (in press). creative behavior as agentic action. psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts. lucas, b. (2001). creative teaching, teaching creativity and creative learning. in a. craft, b. jeffrey, & m. liebling (eds.), creativity in education (pp. 35-44). london, united kingdom: continuum. mumford, m. d., medeiros, k. e., & partlow, p. j. (2012). creative thinking: processes, strategies, and knowledge. journal of creative behavior, 46, 30-47. doi:10.1002/jocb.003 robinson, k. (2001). all our futures: creativity, culture and education. sudbury, united kingdom: dfee publication. sawyer, r. k. (2012). explaining creativity: the science of human innovation (2nd ed.). new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. simonton, d. k. (2002). great psychologists and their times: scientific insights into psychology's history. washington, dc, usa: american psychological association. treffinger, d. j., isaksen, s. g., & firestien, r. l. (1983). theoretical perspectives on creative learning and its facilitation: an overview. journal of creative behavior, 17, 9-17. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.1983.tb00970.x creative learning 294 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 291–295 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1660 http://doi.org/10.1080/00461520903029006 http://doi.org/10.1891/1945-8959.15.1.6 http://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000133 http://doi.org/10.1080/03057640600866015 http://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.003 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1983.tb00970.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the author maciej karwowski, phd is an associate professor and head of psychology of creativity lab (pocl) at the university of wroclaw, poland. his main interests include educational psychology of creativity and new developments in the measurement of creativity. karwowski co-edits an open journal access creativity: theories-research-applications and serves as an associate editor of the journal of creative behavior. karwowski 295 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 291–295 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1660 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ creative learning (introduction) is learning creative? creative self-beliefs (csb) in the learning process concluding thoughts (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author autonomy and submissiveness as cognitive and cultural factors influencing eating disorders in italy and sweden: an exploratory study research reports autonomyandsubmissiveness ascognitive andcultural factors influencing eating disorders in italy and sweden: an exploratory study sandra sassarolia, guido veronese*b, lauri nevonenc, francesca fiored, franceso centoramea, ettore favarettoe, giovanni maria ruggierod [a] studi cognitivi, post-graduate psychotherapy school, milan, italy. [b]department of human sciences, university of milano-bicocca, milan, italy. [c] school of health and medical sciences, örebro university, örebro, sweden. [d] psicoterapia cognitiva e ricerca, post-graduate psychotherapy school, milan, italy. [e] azienda sanitaria bolzano, bolzano, italy. abstract the aim of this exploratory study was to investigate the correlation between cultural and psychological factors in relation to predicting eating disorders in two different non-clinical italian (n = 61) and swedish (n = 31) female populations, thought to have different cultures and lifestyles. the swedish sample would reflect an emancipated model of women pursuing autonomy and freedom but also an ideal of thinness, while the italian sample would reflect a difficult transition from traditional submissiveness to modern autonomy. both groups completed self-report instruments assessing cultural values (e.g., collectivism and individualism) and features of eating disorders (e.g., drive for thinness, bulimia, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, parental criticism and perfectionism). swedish women were found to display higher levels of bulimia, perfectionism, and individualism than italian women, while regression analysis showed that in the italian sample high levels of collectivism were correlated with measures of eds. the results support the hypothesis that eds are linked with both modern values of autonomy, independence and emancipation, and situations of cultural transition in which women are simultaneously exposed to traditional models of submission and opportunities for emancipation and autonomy. keywords: eating disorders, culture, collectivism, individualism europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 received: 2014-12-20. accepted: 2015-03-14. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of human sciences, university of milano-bicocca, milano, 20126, italy. e-mail: guido.veronese@unimib.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction cultural attitudes and beliefs have been shown to be significant contributing factors in the development of eating disorders (eds). many researchers and clinicians consider the ideal of slim female beauty promoted by the media and pursued in north american and european countries since the 1960s to be a cultural determinant of eds (garner, garfinkel, schwartz, & thompson, 1980; hesse-biber & carter, 2005; hesse-biber, leavy, quinn, & zoino, 2006; silverstein, perdue, peterson, & kelly, 1986; wiseman, gray, mosimann, & ahrens, 1992). this ideal of thin female beauty is presumably linked to increasing levels of urbanization and industrialization (gordon, 1988). hence, the rise in eds in western countries may be attributed at least in part to the modern cultural shift towards individual autonomy and freedom and the rejection of a traditional lifestyle based on patriarchal and familial values (kashubeck-west & tagger, 2012; katzman & lee, 1997; nasser, 1988). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, this notion of modernization as a risk factor for eds may be insufficient. a second line of research has explored the alternative hypothesis that ed may not only depend on the modern ideal of thinness but also on emotional suffering linked to the cultural clash between increased levels of urbanization and modernization and the persistence of traditional patriarchal and familial values (nasser, 1988). traditional society would be characterized by submission, adherence to communitarian goals, religiously-motivated respect for stable social and sexual roles, confidence in higher non-personal “spiritual” meanings, and dysfunctional acceptance of hierarchical organizations. in contrast, a modern individualistic mentality would lead to the pursuit of personal autonomy and self-confidence, the setting of personal goals, and the building of functional relationships among peers to achieve concrete aims (nasser, 1988; ruggiero, 2003). according to katzman and lee (1997), it is plausible to suggest that in a changing cultural environment women may develop an ed not only as a result of dieting, and weight and fat phobia, but also as a reaction to sociocultural disconnection and transition. the question then becomes, do women affected by eds fear modern autonomy and pursue asceticism, rejecting the ideal of the body, the material world and the personal self? alternatively, are women with eds pursuing perfectionism, autonomy, self-control, a sense of triumph over the limitations of the body, and social assertiveness? an environment in which the above-mentioned condition of cultural transition can be found is southern italy. sociological studies have shown that the social status of women in southern italy is undergoing a transition (leccardi, 1995). in particular, southern italian adolescents live in a society in which the era of the large, patriarchal family, made up of several siblings and other kin of varying degrees, is coming to an end. the modern tendency is for nuclear families with two or three children, yet there is a conspicuous lack of a social group for teenagers that would allow them to develop an independent personality outside the family. the girls in this society are trapped in the "small" nuclear family (leccardi, 1995). up to 1998 italy had a weak tradition of implementing gender equality policies (rubery, 2002; villa, 2001) and, despite marked progress in gender mainstreaming since 1999, in 2013 the italian female employment rate was still significantly lower than the average european and swedish rates: 47.8% (italy), 58.6% (europe) and 71.8% (sweden) (organization for economic cooperation anddevelopment [oecd], 2013). what is more, if we consider southern italian women only, the employment rate is even lower: 20.7% (istituto nazionale di statistica [istat], 2013). consequently southern italian women develop a lower drive for autonomy and independence that could be hypothetically linked with lower sensitivity to models of female beauty (ruggiero, 2003). however, southern italian women also suffer because of internal familial conflict between exposure to the modern models of consumerism and gender equality as represented by the mass media (ruggiero, 2003) and a daily reality of submission and difficult access to employment. such conflicts may act as a cultural pathogenic factor in eds that may be just as powerful as exposure to modern values of thin female beauty (katzman & lee, 1997). swedish women on the other hand live in a society with a high level and sense of autonomy. sweden has one of the highest levels of gender equality in the world (oecd, 2013). this is based on the belief that when women and men share power and influence equally it leads to a more just and democratic society (borchorst & siim, 2008; hernes, 1987). an advanced welfare system makes it easier for both sexes to balance their work and family life (hofstede, hofstede, & minkov, 2010). thanks also to a well-developed ‘state feminism’ that results in a particularly woman-friendly welfare state (hernes, 1987), swedish women face fewer obstacles in developing their personal autonomy and making independent choices in relation to their personal, social and affective lives or career ambitions (borchorst & siim, 2008). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 cultural factors in eating disorders 234 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aim of the study and hypotheses tested in sum, the scientific literature suggests that eds are underpinned by both sociocultural and psychological factors. within the sociocultural set, a first stream of studies exclusively related eds to a cultural ideal of thinness and modern values of autonomy, individualism and independence; a second wave of studies added another set of cultural variables related to family conflicts fuelled by cultural contrasts between traditional values of submissive adherence to hierarchy and authority and modern values of autonomy and independence. the current research aimed to explore the effects of the two above-mentioned sets of cultural factors associated with eds, by testing both the model in which the first set of variables is sufficient to create a predisposition for eds (hypothesis 1) and the model proposing that both the sets of cultural factors contribute to the psychopathological mechanism, in other words that thinness may be pursued not only as a sign of autonomy and perfection but also as a protest against persistent submission and perceived control during cultural transition (hypothesis 2). method participants ninety-six women whom screening had shown not to be affected by eds (see procedures) participated in the study. sixty-one were from italy (mean age 21.72 ± 1.99 years) and 35 from sweden (mean age 21.51 ± 2.08 years). all were high school graduates without a university degree. three italian participants had been unemployed in the six months prior to the study. fifty-one of the italian women defined themselves as “catholic”; 14 swedish individuals defined themselves as “protestant” and two as “catholic”; while all other participants declared no religious affiliation. instruments in order to measure cultural factors we used the individualism–collectivism scale (ics). the ics was developed by triandis (2001) with the aim of assessing the construct of individualism–collectivism at the individual level. participants rate how strongly they agree or disagree with each statement on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the ics is composed of 16 items assessing individualism and 16 items assessing collectivism. these items are subdivided into four categories: horizontal individualism (hi), vertical individualism (vi), horizontal collectivism (hc), and vertical collectivism (vc). vi is defined as self-interest and competition, hi by independence and autonomy, vc is defined as giving priority to group goals over individual goals and having respect for elders and persons in authority, and hc is characterized by relationship-orientation and harmony. the first author translated the ics into italian. the second author translated the questionnaire into swedish. both versions were then back-translated into english by native english speakers from the us who were unfamiliar with the tool. an english language teacher from the us then compared the back-translations from the italian and swedish and found no meaningful discrepancies between them (romano denaro, june 23, 2004, personal communication). as measures of eds, we chose the drive for thinness (dt-edi), bulimia (b-edi), and body dissatisfaction (bdedi) subscales of the eating disorders inventory–version 3 (edi-3, garner, 2004). the dt-edi, in particular, assesses a key component of eds, and is useful in screening for them (abood & black, 2000; engström et al., 1999). according to garner (1991, 2004), the dt-edi subscale assesses excessive concern with dieting, preoccupation with weight, and fear of weight gain. polivy and herman (1987) found that high dt-edi scores for college women reflected a preoccupation with weight that was as severe as that of individuals with an ed. the drive for europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 sassaroli, veronese, nevonen et al. 235 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thinness construct is based on the clinical theorizing of hilde bruch (1973, 1982) and gerald russell (1970). for the purposes of the current study, the first author translated the questionnaire into italian. the italian version of the questionnaire was then back-translated into english by a native english speaker from the us who was unfamiliar with the tool. the author of the edi compared the original version with the back-translated version of the instrument and did not find any significant differences (d.m. garner, e-mail communication to brenda vanantwerp, january 15, 1997). the second author translated the questionnaire into swedish. this version was then backtranslated into english by a native of the us who was unfamiliar with the tool. an english language teacher from the us compared the back-translations from italian and swedish of the dt-edi, b-edi, and bd-edi subscales and found nomeaningful discrepancies between them (romano denaro, june 23, 2004, personal communication). the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965) assesses global self-esteem and sense of selfworth. it is a 10-item instrument. items are rated on a four-point likert scale, ranging from 3 (strongly agree) to 0 (strongly disagree). a significant body of research has shown the rses to have satisfactory reliability and validity when used with adults (corcoran & fisher, 2000, p. 610). the first author translated the rses into italian. the second author translated the questionnaire into swedish. these versions were then back-translated into english by a native of the us who was unfamiliar with the tool. an english language teacher from the us compared the back-translations of the rses from italian and swedish and found no meaningful discrepancies (romano denaro, june 23, 2004, personal communication). concern over mistakes (cm-fmps) is a 9-item subscale of the frost multidimensional perfectionism scale (fmps; frost, marten, lahart, & rosenblate, 1990). the fmps is a 35-item self-report questionnaire comprising six subscales: concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, personal standards, parental expectations, parental criticism, and organization. the cm-fmps assesses the aspect of perfectionism that is most closely associated with anxious and obsessive psychopathology (dibartolo, li, & frost, 2008). specifically, the concern over mistakes subscale assesses negative reactions to mistakes and perceptions of even minor mistakes as failure. this measure has proven internal consistency, high test-retest reliability, and a strong capacity to discriminate individuals affected by obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder and social anxiety from non-clinical subjects (frost et al., 1990). the first author translated the fmps into italian. this version was then back-translated into english by a native of the us who was unfamiliar with the tool. one of the authors of the mps compared the original version and the back-translated version and did not find any meaningful differences (randy frost, december 29, 2004, e-mail communication). the second author translated the questionnaire into swedish. this version was then backtranslated into english by a native of the us who was unfamiliar with the tool. an english language teacher from the us compared the back-translations from italian and swedish and found no meaningful discrepancies (romano denaro, june 23, 2004, personal communication). procedures we recruited purposive convenience samples in different workplaces in italy and sweden. italian and swedish psychologists assessed the demographic data and details of past or current psychological and/or psychopharmacological treatments supplied by the participants. the psychologists first administered the structured clinical interview for dsm-iv axis 1 disorders (scid-i; first, spitzer, gibbon, & williams, 1997) as a screening measure for eating, anxiety or mood disorders. no participant met the screening measure criteria for diagnosis with an ed and, consequently, all the participants were included in the database. further inclusion criteria included a minimum europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 cultural factors in eating disorders 236 http://www.psychopen.eu/ age of 18 years and the ability to adequately comprehend the written national language. all participants signed an informed consent form, were allowed to withdraw from the study whenever they wanted, and were not remunerated for their participation. this research followed the american psychological association’s (2010) ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct and was approved by the ethical board of the milano-bicocca university and of the studi cognitivi post-graduate psychotherapy school. controlled psychological variables in order to test the influence of cultural factors on eds, it was important to control for the effects of the well-known psychological correlates of eds. perfectionism and low self-esteem are the most powerful psychological correlates of eds (stice, 2002). individuals with an ed are frequently oppressed by persistent and vague feelings of not being sufficiently qualified, competent, or suited to the demands of life; spend a lot of time worrying about these negative self-evaluations (fairburn & harrison, 2003; sassaroli et al., 2005; vitousek & hollon, 1990); and strive for perfection either in terms of pursuing ideals of thinness and bodily appearance or in other aspects of life (bardone-cone, 2007; boone, soenens, vansteenkiste, & braet, 2012; castiglioni, faccio, veronese, & bell, 2013; castiglioni, pepe, gandino, & veronese, 2013; sassaroli et al., 2011; sassaroli et al., 2005). data analysis we conducted an analysis of variance (anova) to test for significant differences between the italian and swedish samples (hypothesis 1). linear regressions were used to test the relationships among ed measures, psychological measures and cultural measures (hypothesis 2). results preliminary analyses regarding the internal consistency of the instruments, cronbach’s alpha values for the ics subscales were: 0.75 among southern italian women and 0.77 among swedish women for the vi subscale; 0.71 among southern italian women and 0.78 among swedish women for the hi subscale; 0.76 among southern italian women and 0.81 among swedish women for the vc subscale; 0.68 among southern italian women and 0.78 among swedish women for the hc subscale. cronbach’s alpha were 0.071 among southern italian women and 0.73 among swedish women for the cm-fmps; 0.66 among southern italian women and 0.79 among swedish women for the dt-edi; 0.072 among southern italian women and 0.73 among swedish women for the b-edi; 0.81 among southern italian women and 0.77 among swedish women for the bd-edi; and 0.69 among southern italian women and 0.78 among swedish women for the rses. italy-sweden comparison the swedish sample obtained significantly higher mean scores than the italian sample on one of the measures of ed (b-edi), two psychological scales (cm-fmps and pc-fmps), and one cultural scale (hi). the italian sample obtained higher mean scores on two cultural scales (hc and vc). no significant differences were found in respect of dt-edi and bd-edi, rses, or vi. table 1 reports these results in detail. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 sassaroli, veronese, nevonen et al. 237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 comparison of mean scores of italian and swedish samples anovasweden (n = 35)italy (n = 61) variable effect sizef (df =181)m (sd)m (sd) .345drive for thinness .6550(2.56)4.37(4.80)3.33 .234bulimia .802***9(3.41)7.34(1.41).93 .463body dissatisfaction .1342(3.62)10.20(5.12)9.21 .278self-esteem .8580(5.49)28.51(4.72)30.52 .367concern over mistakes .955*1(8.53)22.69(5.95)18.84 .456parental criticism .103***3(4.04)14.66(3.06)8.08 .567horizontal collectivism .312***3(12.90)82.91(9.51)94.91 .135vertical collectivism .392**4(17.31)-9.91(16.26).82 .589horizontal individualism .107***6(10.30)24.40(17.00)7.44 .456vertical individualism .5028(11.02)70.40(10.16)70.07 note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in sum, comparison of the two samples revealed lower levels of collectivism and higher levels of individualism, perfectionism, and bulimia in the swedish sample with respect to the italian sample. relationship between cultural variables and measures of eating disorders based on these results we wished to test whether there was a relationship among the variables. we therefore conducted a series of linear regressions on the italian and swedish groups separately. the results indicated that in the italian sample vc (independent variable) predicted b (dependent variable) (r2 = .52; β = 0.217; t = 6.614; p < .05); while in the swedish sample vc (independent variable) predicted dt (dependent variable) (r2 = .63; β = 0.70; t = 2.62; p < .05), and hc (independent variable) predicted bd (dependent variable) (r2 = .67; β = 0.052; t = 2.68; p < .05). discussion the fact that swedish women tended to display higher levels of bulimia, perfectionism and individualism than italian women supports the argument (hypothesis 1) linking eds to the cultural values of autonomy, independence, and emancipation that are typical of modern individualistic and affluent societies (kashubeck-west & tagger, 2012; katzman & lee, 1997; nasser, 1988; ruggiero, 2003). on the other hand, the regression analysis showed that in the italian sample high levels of collectivism were correlated with measures of eds. this result supports the hypothesis linking eds with cultural transitions during which women are exposed to both traditional models of submission and opportunities for emancipation and autonomy (hypothesis 2). this is in line with the cultural model proposed by katzman and lee (1997), which states that modern women’s high level of cultural autonomy of may be related to a strong need for self-assertiveness, and, in people who are lacking in self-confidence and unable to meet these high standards, this may lead to high levels of anxiety, emotional confusion, social alienation, and cultural disconnection. the challenge posed by the increased sense of autonomy, self-confidence and the pursuit of personal goals may generate insecurity and the need for europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 cultural factors in eating disorders 238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vertical values of submission and dependence. in turn, women may express this emotional suffering by adopting maladaptive eating habits, such as restricted eating and bulimic behaviours (katzman & lee, 1997). it is likely not by chance that this line of research has mainly investigated cultures outside of northern europe and northern america. for example, it seems that women in asia may practice self-starvation in order to achieve selfdetermination when confronted with ambivalent cultural demands, with minimal importance attributable to weight and shape concerns (lee, 2001). anorexic and bulimic japanese women report significantly lower rates of drive for thinness than their respective north american counterparts (pike & mizushima, 2005). whereas in western culture thinness is often associated with having power and control, which in turn are associated with happiness, the japanese pursuit of thinness seems to serve as a strategy for postponing growing up and taking on the related responsibilities. there is evidence to suggest that body dissatisfaction plays a more significant part among american women than among japanese women in the development of eating disorders (mukai, kambara, & sasaki, 1998). these findings imply that it is mistaken to universally equate body image disturbance with weight and shape concerns. it appears that other dimensions need to be explored in order to construct a more culturally sensitive understanding of body dissatisfaction (pike & borovoy, 2004). furthermore, katsounari and zeeni (2012) compared lebanese and cypriot female students, finding that, while cypriot students were more preoccupied with their weight, lebanese students received higher emotional and external eating scores. these findings suggest that in lebanese culture, eating dysfunction among women may be due to responsiveness to external and emotional cues, while in cypriot culture it may be due to an excessive preoccupation with weight fuelled by sociocultural agents. in conclusion, this study seems to support the hypothesis that in non-western cultures eds are less directly linked to the pursuit of thinness, and more directly related to emotional suffering. katzman and lee’s model seems to be applicable to the italian sample. on the other hand, swedish women seem to show that higher values of edmeasures may also be related to individualism. these results suggest a connection between the need for increased personal autonomy and a personal ideal of slim female beauty that has been promoted by the media and pursued by women in many north american and european countries since the 1960s (altabe & thompson, 1994; cattarin & thompson, 1994). to summarize our findings, therefore, the italian data provided strong evidence in favour of hypothesis 2, which was borne out by the results of the regression analyses, while the swedish data yielded weaker support for hypothesis 1. in conclusion, the strength of this study is that it provides confirmation for both the models under enquiry, namely the earlier model linking eds to modern individualism and the later one in which eds are viewed as influenced by a cultural clash between traditional and modern values. the prevalence of a given model appears to depend on environmental circumstances: in fully individualistic cultural settings such as sweden, the first model seems to be the dominant one; in cultural contexts in transition such as southern italy, we may observe the second model in action. a key clinical implication is that in order to enhance their resilience against eds, individuals need to fully and functionally integrate modern and traditional values, an integration that can overcome both acritical adherence to modern individualism and destructive culture clashes between modernity and traditionalism (kashubeck-west & tagger, 2012; ruggiero, 2003). of course, it is necessary for these research outcomes to be replicated by future studies. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 sassaroli, veronese, nevonen et al. 239 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the study displays a number of limitations, the most important of which are the non-clinical nature of the sample and the use of self-report instruments. in addition, both the research design and our interpretation of the findings rely on the assumption that there were cultural differences between the italian and the swedish samples. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abood, d. a., & black, d. r. 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(1992). cultural expectations of thinness in women: an update. international journal of eating disorders, 11, 85-89. doi:10.1002/1098-108x(199201)11:1<85::aid-eat2260110112>3.0.co;2-t about the authors sandra sassaroli is director of studies at studi cognitivi, cognitive psychotherapy school. professor in cognitive psychotherapy at the post-degree constructivist psychotherapy school at university of barcelona. psychiatrist and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist at studi cognitivi. dr.guido veronese is research fellow at milano-bicocca university, family psychotherapist. lecturer in clinical and community psychology at department of human sciences, milano-bicocca, milano, italy. dr. lauri navonen is a psychiatrist working at school of health and medical sciences, örebro university, sweden. dr. francesca fiore is psychologist and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist at psicoterapia cognitiva e ricerca, milano, italy. francesco centorame is medical doctor and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist at studi cognitivi, cognitive psychotherapy school. ettore favaretto is ‎psychiatrist, psychotherapist and senior physician at the psychiatric department of bressanone general hospital, italy. giovanni maria ruggiero is psychiatrist and psychotherapist, director at psicoterapia cognitiva and research and head of research at studi cognitivi, milano, italy. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 233–243 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.902 sassaroli, veronese, nevonen et al. 243 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.825 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.696169 http://www.umist.ac.uk/management/ewerc/egge/egge.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01176209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/1098-108x(199201)11:1<85::aid-eat2260110112>3.0.co;2-t http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en cultural factors in eating disorders introduction aim of the study and hypotheses tested method participants instruments procedures controlled psychological variables data analysis results preliminary analyses italy-sweden comparison relationship between cultural variables and measures of eating disorders discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors why is working memory performance unstable? a review of 21 factors literature reviews why is working memory performance unstable? a review of 21 factors rachael n. blasiman* a, christopher a. was a [a] kent state university, kent, oh, usa. abstract in this paper, we systematically reviewed twenty-one factors that have been shown to either vary with or influence performance on working memory (wm) tasks. specifically, we review previous work on the influence of intelligence, gender, age, personality, mental illnesses/ medical conditions, dieting, craving, stress/anxiety, emotion/motivation, stereotype threat, temperature, mindfulness training, practice, bilingualism, musical training, altitude/hypoxia, sleep, exercise, diet, psychoactive substances, and brain stimulation on wm performance. in addition to a review of the literature, we suggest several frameworks for classifying these factors, identify shared mechanisms between several variables, and suggest areas requiring further investigation. this review critically examines the breadth of research investigating wm while synthesizing the results across related subfields in psychology. keywords: working memory, individual differences europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 received: 2017-05-31. accepted: 2017-08-25. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; tiziana lanciano, university of bari "a. moro", bari, italy *corresponding author at: 2491 st. rt. 45 south, salem, oh 44460, usa. e-mail: rvolokho@kent.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. working memory (wm) is an individual’s capacity to simultaneously manipulate some information while maintaining other information (baddeley, 1986; kane et al., 2004; miyake, 2001). many researchers view the measurement of wm as a straightforward task – a variety of wm tests are available, and all that is necessary is to select a measure or two, administer them to participants, and assign participants a numerical result. the resulting value can then be used to account for variance in other cognitive variables, to divide participants into high and low wm groups, to examine changes over time, or to serve as a baseline comparison or covariate for interventions or experimental treatments. regardless of the study design, the measurement of wm is frequently treated as a relatively stable, valid, descriptor of a person’s true wm capacity. however, our review of the broader literature indicates that performance on wm tasks is sensitive to many variables and situational factors. because of the burgeoning numbers of researchers who investigate wm or who include it as a measure of cognitive function, we feel it is important to consider the surprising number of factors that can influence the measurement of wm and how these factors may influence the interpretation of results. in that light, this paper serves three important functions. first, this review should be viewed as a resource. we conducted an exhaustive search of the literature to identify articles that met the broad requirements of this review; namely, we review articles that included any europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor that can alter wm performance. out of the several thousand articles examined, several hundred were related to the goals for this paper. representative articles for each factor were selected and incorporated into the review, and a supplement is available in which all reviewed articles are listed and classified by topic. as a resource, this paper highlights and describes each factor and relevant research findings. this information would be helpful for researchers just entering the field and also serves as a broad overview for more experienced wm researchers. second, we present a framework that classifies and groups these factors in a meaningful way. this framework allows for the classification of different types of factors, which in turn will promote discussion as to the manner in which they impact wm performance and will foster the development of cross-disciplinary hypotheses on the underlying mechanisms that cause variability in wm performance. we present additional frameworks in the conclusion of this paper. third, we hope that this paper provides a comprehensive overview of factors that can influence wm research, so that gaps or omissions in the literature can be identified and new lines of inquiry can form. to that end, we conclude this review with recommendations for future research in these areas. table 1 lists the twenty-one factors that will be reviewed in this paper and attempts to categorize them on several dimensions. the first dimension, and the one that provides the framework for this paper, divides factors into two groups: individual differences factors and manipulated (or environmental) factors. manipulated factors are more malleable, often temporary or reversible in nature, and are generally ones that can be randomly assigned to a person or obtained though some intervention. of course, these factors can be categorized in many ways (see table 1), and we will consider several of these classification systems in the conclusion to this paper. several of the possible categorization systems are listed in table 1, such as length of effect, malleability, and presumed mechanism. however, many gaps and inconsistencies exist in the literature, and this table only reflects an overall assessment based on the literature reviewed in this paper. before reviewing the individual factors, a few remarks about wm are needed to provide a theoretical base and to describe some terms that will be used throughout the text. first, we have aligned this review with the theoretical model of wm initially proposed by baddeley and hitch (1974). according to this model (figure 1), wm consists of multiple specialized components that allow humans to comprehend and interact with the environment, represent and retain information about the immediate past, and act on certain goals. the three major components of the original model are the central executive, the phonological loop, and the visual-spatial sketchpad. the phonological loop and the visual-spatial sketchpad maintain memory traces that overlap with sensory memory using rehearsal in the phonological loop and image generation in the visualspatial sketchpad. the central executive coordinates these two memory systems and controls attention, focus, and attention switching, as well as the activation of long-term memory. the phonological loop is fractionated into a passive phonological store and an active rehearsal the process. the phonological store represents material in a phonological code that decays with time unless the material is rehearsed. the visual-spatial sketchpad is also fractionated into passive and active subsystems. logie (1999) refers to these as the passive visual cache and an active inner-scribe. in more recent versions of the multiple components model, baddeley (2000; baddeley & logie, 1999) includes an episodic buffer. the episodic buffer is a storage system that uses multimodal elements to coordinate the memory systems with long-term memory. this leaves the central executive as an attention system not limited to wm processes. blasiman & was 189 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 a summary of factors that influence wm factors acute vs chronic effect malleability low/med/high mechanism/presumed cause of effect consistency/ inconsistency in literature individual differences intelligence c l biological c gender c l biological i age c l biological c personality c l biological i mental illness / medical conditions c m preoccupying thoughts/biological c manipulated emotion a m preoccupying thoughts c stress/anxiety a m preoccupying thoughts c dieting a/cb h preoccupying thoughts c craving a h preoccupying thoughts i stereotype threat a h preoccupying thoughts c temperature a h preoccupying thoughts/biological insufficient mindfulness uncertain h preoccupying thought control insufficient practice uncertain h uncertain i sleep a h uncertain c bilingualism c m uncertain c musical training c m uncertain insufficient altitude/hypoxia a/c* h biological insufficient exercise a/c* h biological i diet a/c* h biological insufficient drug use a/c* h biological c brain stimulation a h biological c amay be either an acute or chronic effect, depending on circumstances. certain factors discussed in this paper may selectively target the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, or the episodic buffer; these are noted where appropriate. in all other cases, the impairment is to wm performance in general. this paper generally operates within the framework of baddeley’s (1986) model of wm, and these terms are used throughout the text. other theoretical models of wm have been proposed (e.g. cowan, 1999) and many definitions provided (see cowan, 2017); however, a thorough review of theory is outside the scope of this work. variance in working memory 190 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. basic theoretical framework for this review (based on baddeley, 1986). second, we frequently reference two commonly used classes of wm tasks: n-back tasks and complex span tasks. an n-back task presents a participant with a series of stimuli, such as objects or letters of the alphabet. the participant must make a decision on every stimulus, and determine if it is the same one that was presented n stimuli ago. often a 2-back task is selected, which is generally considered a low load task, but task difficulty can be increased by increasing the number of objects that a person must maintain and update within the paradigm. the second class of wm tasks is complex span tasks, such as the reading span (rspan, daneman & carpenter, 1980) or operation span (ospan; turner & engle, 1989). these types of tasks generally have two goals that must be simultaneously achieved: (1) to maintain information, such as a word or letter of the alphabet and (2) to actively manipulate other information, such as solving math problems or judging the veracity of sentences. finally, many different variations of wm tasks have been employed to assess wm, as these tests can use either verbal or spatial information, and a wide variety of stimuli may be employed within the task. the wide variety of tasks, stimuli, and load create challenges in interpreting or comparing results of wm studies. although n-back tasks are often used to measure wm, they are not without concerns. kane, conway, miura, and colflesh (2007) found that although n-back tasks may have face validity as a wm measure, they did not show convergent validity with a popular complex span task. jaeggi, buschkuehl, perrig, and meier (2010) concluded that the n-back task is not a valid measure of individual differences in wm. indeed, redick and lindsey (2013) contend that complex span tasks and n-back tasks are not interchangeable as measures of wm. therefore, we recommend the reader consider the research reviewed carefully and consider the wm tasks used in each of the studies. blasiman & was 191 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ individual differences factors we begin this review with summaries of research on individual differences factors. these factors all share the common feature of being relatively stable, often pre-determined characteristics, and include intelligence, age, gender, personality, and both mental and medical conditions. intelligence most psychologists are in agreement that wm and general intelligence (g) are highly related but separate constructs (colom, rebollo, palacios, juan-espinosa, & kyllonen, 2004; conway, cowan, bunting, therriault, & minkoff, 2002; kane et al., 2004). wm has been specifically associated with fluid intelligence (gf; novel problem solving) and not crystallized intelligence (gc; verbal and learned experience) in many of these studies (ackerman, beier, & boyle, 2005; conway et al., 2002; martínez & colom, 2009; unsworth & engle, 2005). correlations between wm and gf differ from study to study, but tend to be moderate to large, ranging from .34 (engle, tuholski, laughlin, & conway, 1999; unsworth & engle, 2005) to .70 (colom et al., 2004). in their metaanalysis of wm and g, ackerman et al. (2005) report an average correlation of .48 between these variables, and make note of the wide variety of correlations reported by others. these discrepancies may be due in part to error or varying participant characteristics, but another possibility is that researchers using different types of wm tasks found different relationships to g. this is highlighted by some studies that compare different types of wm tasks, such as operation span, reading span, and spatial wm, as well as n-back tasks of wm. for example, jaeggi, studer-luethi, et al. (2010) report a correlation of .44 between an n-back task and a measure of gf, but a correlation of .24 was reported between the ospan and that same gf measure. the relationship between wm and g is further complicated by discriminations between spatial and verbal wm and crystallized and fluid g. for instance, engle et al. (1999) found a difference between overall wm and verbal wm, with a correlation of .34 between the ospan and g, but .28 for the reading span and g. other researchers have specifically claimed that verbal wm is related to gc and spatial wm is related to gf (haavisto & lehto, 2005; schweizer & moosbrugger, 2004). some investigations of individuals with borderline iq (i.e. 55-85) have also been conducted (e.g., van der molen, van luit, jongmans, & van der molen, 2007). alloway (2010) examined people with iqs between 70-85 and found that both verbal and spatial wm were impaired in this group. both verbal and spatial wm functioning are impaired in students with learning disabilities as well (maehler & schuchart, 2009). in terms of developmental disability, both down’s syndrome (numminen, service, ahonen, & ruoppila, 2001) and william’s syndrome (o’hearn, courtney, street, & landau, 2009) are associated with deficits in wm performance. in particular, the phonological loop is impaired in children with down syndrome (bird & chapman, 1994; wang & bellugi, 1994). given the voluminous research on the relationship between wm and intelligence, it is impossible to present more than a brief overview in this paper. however, we can conclude that a close positive relationship between these two variables exists, although the two are not isomorphic (beier & ackerman, 2005; conway, kane, & engle, 2003). given the previous discussion, we label intelligence as a chronic effect of biological origin with low malleability and a high degree of consistency in the literature (table 1). variance in working memory 192 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ age several groups have examined the three-factor model of wm (the central executive, phonological loop, and visuospatial sketchpad; e.g. baddeley, 1986) across the life span. the three factors appear to emerge around age six (gathercole, pickering, ambridge, & wearing, 2004). the basic three-factor structure remains throughout the rest of adulthood and into old age (hale et al., 2011), even as wm decreases throughout. many studies have reported age-related declines in wm (babcock & salthouse, 1990; borella, carretti, & de beni, 2008; cowan, naveh-benjamin, kilb, & saults, 2006; craik & bialystok, 2006; li et al., 2008; mcginnis & zelinski, 2003; park et al., 2002; paxton, barch, & racine, 2008; salthouse, 1994). in a meta-analysis of age and wm, bopp and verhaeghen (2007) reported moderate to large negative correlations between wm and age. wm increases linearly up to adolescence, when it begins to level off, but no change in the basic structure of the factors occurs during this process (lambek & shevlin, 2011). the decline appears to be linear, with a constant and continuous rate of decline beginning in the twenties and no sharp decline seen in old age (borella et al., 2008). in addition to group comparisons, longitudinal designs have also been employed and found consistent decline in wm performance with age (chiappe, hasher, & siegel, 2000; jenkins, myerson, hale, & fry, 1999; park et al., 2002; siegel, 1994). there have been reports that spatial wm declines more with age than verbal wm does (hale et al., 2011; jenkins et al., 1999; myerson, hale, rhee, & jenkins, 1999), although borella et al. (2008) did not find this in their analysis. other researchers have reported only decreases in verbal wm (fastenau, denburg, & abeles, 1996; vecchi, richardson, & cavallini, 2005). still others report declines in both verbal and spatial wm (de ribaupierre & lecerf, 2006; kemps & newson, 2006; park et al., 2002; salthouse, 1995). in addition to spatial/ verbal wm tasks, age differences have been documented in wm for objects (hartley, speer, jonides, reuterlorenz, & smith, 2001), and faces (grady et al., 1995; grady et al., 1998). a notable exception to the agerelated decline in wm is a study by mikels, larkin, reuter-lorenz, and carstensen (2005) in which older adults (ages 64-80) did better on a wm task employing positive emotion stimuli but younger adults (ages 18-28) did better when negative emotion stimuli were used. borella et al. (2008) suggest that wm declines are due to the inability to suppress intrusions of past material. hedden and park (2001) found older adults showed greater retroactive interference, leading them to surmise that irrelevant information is not efficiently deleted from wm. in contrast to this view, fisk and warr (1996) found that controlling for perceptual speed removed all age-related variance in wm. gaillard, barrouillet, jarrold, and camos (2011) compared 3rd and 6th graders on a complex span task and found that processing speed was the source of variance between the two groups. although the debate continues on the cause and rate of change in wm subcomponents over time, it is clear that wm performance does decline with age and hence it is an important individual differences factor to take into account when assessing wm. therefore, we label this factor in table 1 as biological, having a chronic effect over time, and low on malleability (as only the passage of time can alter age). age also plays a moderating role in the effect of several manipulated factors, such as practice, which will be discussed later in this paper. blasiman & was 193 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gender no general consensus in the field exists when it comes to the relationship between gender and wm performance. several researchers report that men have an advantage on spatial wm tasks and that women have an advantage on verbal wm tasks (speck et al., 2000; voyer, voyer, & bryden, 1995), some researchers report only a spatial advantage for men (lejbak, crossley, & vrbancic, 2011; orsini, simoetta, & marmorato, 2004), and others report no differences at all between genders (nagel, ohannessian, & cummins, 2007; robert & savoie, 2006). for instance, schmidt et al. (2009) found no difference in accuracy, speed, or brain activity (using fmri) between men and women completing a verbal n-back task, and yet multiple researchers have confirmed differences in prefrontal cortex (pfc) activity between men and women while completing wm tasks (goldstein et al., 2005; schweinsburg, nagel, & tapert, 2005; speck et al., 2000). duff and hampson (2001) attribute the gender difference to the effect of androgen and estrogen on neurons in the dorsolateral pfc (dlpfc). in contrast with other findings, duff and hampson (2001) found a response time and accuracy advantage for females in spatial wm but not for verbal wm, even though males outperformed females on the mental rotation task. interestingly, keenan, ezzat, ginsburg, and moore (2001) found that an estrogen supplement can increase verbal wm. in a large sample analysis using automated complex span tasks, redick et al. (2012) found little to no evidence of gender differences. because of the great amount of inconsistency in the results, it is difficult to determine the effect, if any, of gender on wm performance. if a difference does exist, this difference would be relatively chronic and most likely biological in origin (see table 1). however, given the available research, a firm conclusion cannot be drawn. personality one of the most commonly used personality frameworks is the big 5, which describes personality using five broad domains: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extroversion/ introversion (costa & mccrea, 1978). of these, extroversion/introversion has been linked with wm performance most frequently. extroverts are people who enjoy and actively seek out social situations, while introverts are seen as more socially inhibited (costa & mccrea, 1978). the link between extroversion/ introversion and wm performance suffers from conflicting evidence, however. some researchers state that extroverts outperform introverts on wm tasks (lieberman, 2000; lieberman & rosenthal, 2001) yet others find no differences (fink, grabner, neuper, & neubauer, 2005; studer-luethi, jaeggi, buschkuehl, & perrig, 2012). several researchers who support the extroversion-wm link have examined the role that dopamine might play in this relationship. dopamine has particularly been implicated in attentional control, an important aspect of the executive control in baddeley’s wm model. arnsten (1998) proposes an inverted u curve to explain the relationship between dopamine and wm. if extroversion is indeed associated with improved wm performance, it is possible that extroverts naturally have dopamine levels in the target range for maximum wm performance. this possibility was tested by chavanon, wacker, leue, and stemmler (2007). they divided participants into high and low extroversion groups and then randomly assigned a placebo or dopamine receptor antagonist, sulpiride, which would decrease overall dopamine activity. in the placebo condition, extroverts showed variance in working memory 194 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ increased cortical activity and performance in both high and low-load n-back tasks, but extroverts who had been given sulpiride performed worse on the wm task (chavanon, wacker, leue, & stemmler, 2007). caffeine, on the other hand, may facilitate dopamine release through its antagonist effect on adenosine (smillie & gokcen, 2010). researchers have reported a positive effect of caffeine on wm performance (see psychoactive substances section of this paper), and this effect may be particularly strong for extroverts. using a double-blind placebo controlled design, smillie and gokcen (2010) found that 200mg of caffeine improved nback performance for extroverts, but not introverts, on a high load n-back task. this experiment was replicated with a relatively low dose of caffeine, 65mg in a cup of coffee, resulting in greater wm improvement for extroverts compared to introverts (smith, 2013). altogether, these studies support the hypothesis that dopamine plays an important role in wm performance and provide evidence for differences in wm processes between introverts and extroverts. conscientiousness and neuroticism have been associated with wm performance as well. conscientiousness is associated with persistence, reliability, and self-discipline and neuroticism is associated with emotional instability, anxiety, and depression (studer-luethi et al., 2012). overall, higher neuroticism has been related to lower wm performance and higher conscientiousness has been related to increased wm performance on an n-back task (studer-luethi et al., 2012). overall, researchers have reported intriguing relationships between certain personality traits, particularly extroversion and wm. as shown in table 1, we view personality as a relatively stable biological factor (i.e. chronic effect with low malleability). additional research, both cognitive and physiological, will be required to fine-tune our understanding of the relationship between personality factors and wm. mental illness and other medical conditions a wide variety of mental illnesses have been associated with deficits in wm performance (see table 2 for a list of conditions and applicable references). the deficits observed in people diagnosed with schizophrenia have received an enormous amount of attention in the literature. not only are these impairments seen in people diagnosed with schizophrenia, but they have also been found in first degree relatives of individuals who have been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. people with schizophrenia and people with schizotypal personality disorder have difficulty ignoring distracting stimuli and maintaining information in wm. these deficits may be attributed to dopamine function in the pfc (barch et al., 2003), which then impairs functioning of the central executive in wm. of note, not all studies have found a relationship between wm and risk for schizophrenia. using a latent-variable approach, wm did not predict scores on a measure of schizotypy (kane et al., 2016). in addition to disorders on the schizophrenic spectrum, several other mental disorders have been investigated for deficits in wm. certain personality disorders have been associated with reduced wm (coolidge, segal, & applequist, 2009), particularly borderline personality disorder. anxiety disorders associated with reduced wm include post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd), and even hoarding disorder. mood disorders that have been associated with wm deficits include major depression, postpartum depression, and social anhedonia. these disorders may influence wm through a mechanism of preoccupying thoughts, a possibility further discussed in the next section. blasiman & was 195 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mental diagnoses associated with impaired wm performance disorder references schizophrenia spectrum barch, 2003; brahmbhatt, 2006; callicott et al., 2003; goldstein et al., 2011 borderline personality hagenhoff et al., 2013; lazzaretti et al., 2012; stevens, burkhardt, hautzinger, schwarz, & unckel, 2004 ptsd galletly et al., 2008; jelinek et al., 2008 ocd rampacher et al., 2010 hoarding disorder ayers et al., 2013 depressive disorders gohier et al., 2009; pio de almeida et al., 2012; rose & ebmeier, 2006 adhd dowson et al., 2004 autism cui, gao, chen, zou, & wang, 2010; steele, minshew, luna, & sweeney, 2007 wm performance has been thoroughly examined in people who have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd). adhd certainly impairs wm performance in children (kasper, alderson, & hudec, 2012; martinussen, hayden, hogg-johnsen, & tannock, 2005). however, there is some evidence that wm training can decrease adhd-related symptoms (klingberg et al., 2005; klingberg, forssberg, & westerberg, 2002; mezzacappa & buckner, 2010). wm deficits are not always seen in autism, but can be observed in some high-load tasks. in addition to mental illness, many other recognized disorders have been associated with impaired wm function (see table 3 for a list of these conditions along with applicable references). degenerative disorders, such as alzheimer’s disease and parkinson’s disease, decrease wm performance. in fact, levodopa (l-dopa) can improve wm performance in people who have been diagnosed with parkinson’s (lange et al., 1992; malapalani, pillon, dubois, & agid, 1994). wm is also impaired in people who have experienced traumatic brain injury (tbi). table 3 medical conditions associated with impaired wm performance disorder references alzheimer’s gagnon & belleville, 2011; huntley & howard, 2010 parkinson’s gilbert, belleville, bherer, & chouinard, 2005; owen, iddon, hodges, summers, & robbins, 1997 tbi mcdowell, whyte, & d’esposito, 1997 fragile x baker et al., 2011; munir, cornish, & wilding, 2000; ornstein et al., 2008 epilepsy longo, kerr, & smith, 2013 multiple sclerosis parmenter, shucard, benedict, & shucard, 2006 chronic fatigue deluca et al., 2004 spina bifida mammarella, cornoldi, & donadello, 2003 fragile x syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by too many codon repeats on the x chromosome, has been associated with both verbal and spatial wm deficits, regardless of task difficulty. wm is also impaired in children with epilepsy and spina bifida. deficits in wm have been reported in people with multiple sclerosis and people diagnosed with chronic fatigue. variance in working memory 196 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ many mental illnesses and general medical conditions have been associated with declines in wm, including genetic disorders and age-related disorders. some of these have a clear biological basis, but others are not so definitive. additional research is required to fully understand the mechanism of these deficits and develop methods to improve wm function in these groups. even so, it would be prudent to screen for the aforementioned disorders in large-scale studies. as seen in table 1, we rate mental illness as medium and medical condition as low in terms of malleability; the mental illnesses we list are treatable in many cases, while the medical conditions we list are generally more difficult to alleviate. nevertheless, we see both mental and medical conditions as chronic in nature and due to largely biological factors, with a few exceptions related to preoccupying thoughts (e.g. ocd). manipulated factors in this section, we will present a series of manipulated factors and their relationship to wm performance. these factors differ considerably from one another, but some similarities and patterns can be observed. for instance, the first seven factors that we describe are all associated with the concept of preoccupying thoughts. all the factors in the next section share one common feature; namely, their effect on wm performance can be manipulated. emotion some factors have a fleeting effect on wm performance, as research on state-dependent influences (such as emotion and motivation) has shown. emotion itself can impair cognition. for example, using an n-back task of faces, reaction time was slower for fearful faces compared to faces showing neutral expressions (kensinger & corkin, 2003). daily emotional ups and downs can also influence wm performance. brose, lövdén, and schmiedek (2014) found that people perform better on wm tasks on days they feel more positive affect compared to days they feel less positive affect. negative affect is particularly associated with decreased initiative and wm performance (brose, schmiedek, lövdén, & lindenberger, 2012). as mentioned in the section on age-related declines in wm, elderly adults show enhanced wm performance when stimuli have positive emotional valance (mikels, larkin, reuter-lorenz, & carstensen, 2005). researchers have also examined emotion and wm from a physiological perspective. gray (2004) contends that emotion and cognitive processes are related and selectively influence each other. for instance, gray (2001) induced approach or withdrawal type emotion and then tested participants on a verbal and spatial 2back task. withdrawal emotion selectively enhanced spatial wm while approach enhanced verbal wm performance. this makes theoretical sense because spatial ability and withdrawal/inhibition are both associated with right hemispheric function while verbal ability and approach behaviors are associated with left hemispheric function (gray, 2001). gray (2001) suggests that dopamine may modulate the effect of positive emotion on wm and that norepinephrine might modulate withdrawal on wm. motivation can also be considered a state-dependent influence on wm. sanada, ikeda, kimura, and hasegawa (2013) examined money as a motivator in a visual wm task and found that motivation improved visual wm in both high and low load tasks. others have also concluded that motivation enhances wm (e.g., gilbert & fiez, 2004; krawczyk, gazzaley, & d’esposito, 2007). blasiman & was 197 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotion can clearly influence performance on wm tasks, with different emotions having different levels of impact. in general, negative emotion seems to have an impairing effect on wm; however, under certain circumstances, positive emotion and motivation can enhance wm performance. we view emotion as an acute effect, with a medium level of malleability, and attribute the cause of the effect on wm performance to the preoccupying thoughts that accompany strong emotion (table 1). it is possible that preoccupying thoughts use up resources in the phonological loop, and this hypothesis will be discussed in the conclusion to this review. stress and anxiety in contrast to purely state-level effects, anxiety can be viewed as either a state or trait-level influence on wm (ilkowska & engle, 2010). for instance, sorg and whitney (1992) examined the influence of both trait anxiety and stress on wm performance. participants were divided into high/low anxiety groups and then exposed to either a stressful or non-stressful situation (a video game competition) before being tested on reading span. high trait anxiety people showed impaired verbal wm in the stress condition but not the low stress condition (sorg & whitney, 1992). the effect of trait anxiety is not limited to adults. visu-petra, cheie, benga, and alloway (2011) tested preschoolers on both verbal and spatial wm tasks and found that high trait anxiety was associated with longer verbal wm response times and poorer accuracy. by contrast, state anxiety seems to impair spatial but not verbal wm, with high wm individuals impaired by induced anxiety the most (shackman et al., 2006). rapee (1993) took a different approach and examined the effect of participation in a wm task on worry itself. rapee (1993) asked participants to focus on an area of concern that they would be able to worry about for some time while either generating random letters, engaging in articulatory suppression, completing a visuospatial task, or generating random numbers on a key pad and then tested the change in worry. tasks which involved the central executive and especially the phonological loop were able to reduce a worried state. multiple researchers have hypothesized as to the underlying mechanisms that allow anxiety to influence wm. elliman, green, rogers, and finch (1997) found that anxiety impairs processing ability in both the central executive and the phonological loop. they suggest that this impairment is due to pre-occupying anxious thoughts and subvocalization using up wm resources (elliman et al., 1997). others have concluded that anxiety has a greater effect on the phonological loop than the visuospatial sketchpad because worry-related thoughts consume cognitive resources (e.g. derakshan & eysenck, 2009; eysenck, derakshan, santos, & calvo, 2007; rapee, 1993). ashcraft and kirk (2001) report that math anxiety impairs wm due to intrusive thoughts and worries about math itself. evaluation anxiety has the same effect, and most likely operates on this same principle of consumed cognitive resources (coy, o’brien, tabaczynski, northern, & carels, 2011). anxiety has a uniformly detrimental effect on wm performance, and the root of this effect is the use of attentional resources by preoccupying thoughts centered on the anxiety-producing stimulus. the effect of stress and anxiety on wm performance is generally acute, and there is a medium amount of malleability (table 1). dieting another interesting factor that has been associated with impaired wm performance is dieting; a deficit that seems particularly obvious in high load verbal tasks (kemps, tiggemann, & marshall, 2005). unexpectedly, this variance in working memory 198 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ association does not seem to be due to weight loss or caloric restriction itself (vreugdenburg, bryan, & kemps, 2003). green and rogers (1995) found that dieters performed worse on cognitive tasks, including attention, regardless of whether the dieter was successful or not in actually losing weight. rather, the link between dieting and impaired wm seems to be due to preoccupying thoughts about food and body shape (green et al., 2003; kemps et al., 2005). these preoccupying thoughts reduce the amount of cognitive resources available for tasks that tap into wm (kemps, tiggemann, & grigg, 2008; kemps et al., 2005) because dieting requires selfmonitoring and attention to maintaining dieting behaviors (vreugdenburg et al., 2003). multiple studies have determined that dieting selectively interferes with the phonological loop but not the visuospatial sketchpad (green et al., 2003), which makes sense considering the verbal nature of preoccupying thoughts. vreugdenburg, bryan, and kemps (2003) compared dieters to non-dieters on tests of articulatory control and the phonological store. dieters performed worse on overall central executive function and the phonological loop, particularly on the phonological store. a study by shaw and tiggemann (2004) compared past dieters, dieters, and non-dieters on phonological loop performance by examining the phonological similarity effect and articulatory control. dieters did not show impaired performance on the phonological similarity effect, but were impaired on articulatory control, which was mediated by preoccupying thoughts (shaw & tiggemann, 2004). the preoccupying thoughts associated with dieting are amplified in eating disorders, and cognitive performance suffers greatly (mathias & kent, 1998). in a study comparing two dozen women with anorexia nervosa to dieters and non-dieters, kemps, tiggemann, wade, ben-tovim, and breyer (2006) found that both people with anorexia nervosa and dieters performed worse on dual wm tasks due to preoccupying thoughts about food, weight, and body shape than non-dieters. the effects of dieting may be both acute and chronic, with a high degree of malleability (table 1). similar to anxiety, the act of dieting seems to impair wm performance by consuming attentional resources through preoccupying thoughts. craving cigarettes the negative nature of preoccupying thoughts extends past dieting. smokers perform worse on wm task in which cues are smoking-related (wilson, sayette, fiez, & brough, 2007) and chocolate-cravers perform worse on wm tasks as well (tiggemann, kemps, & parnell, 2010). smokers who abstain from smoking at least 12 hours, and are presumably craving that behavior, show impaired wm performance — a finding that can be reversed by allowing smokers to smoke or by giving them nicotine (blake & smith, 1997; ernst, heishman, spurgeon, & london, 2001; jacobsen et al., 2005). however, not all studies agree with these results (e.g., park, knopick, mcgurck, & meltzer, 2000). greenstein and kassel (2009) suggest some of the inconsistency across studies is due to differences in methodology and the specific test that was used to assess wm. to address this possibility, they used verbal and spatial versions of the n-back and ospan. they found that smokers had significantly lower verbal wm than nonsmokers, both when they were permitted to smoke and when they were abstinent (greenstein & kassel, 2009), although there was no difference in verbal n-back performance between the smoking sessions. in addition, there was no difference in spatial wm between smokers who were craving smoking and those who blasiman & was 199 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were permitted to smoke. craving smoking seemed to selectively impair verbal wm and not spatial wm, similar to the findings regarding dieting and the action of preoccupying thoughts in the phonological loop. cravings are highly malleable and tend to be acute (table 1), although additional research is required beyond cigarettes and chocolate (e.g. gambling). stereotype threat stereotype threat occurs when a person is made aware of a stereotype regarding a group of which they are a member – including groups based on gender, race, and income level – and feel that they are at risk for conforming to such stereotypes. performance of those in negatively stereotype groups is hindered when the stereotype is present, causing anxiety (steele, 1997). this stereotype threat can then impair performance on wm tasks. for example, schmader and johns (2003) induced a stereotype threat in women by highlighting gender differences in math ability and in latinos by stressing ethnic group intelligence differences. ospan performance was significantly lower for both women and latinos after receiving the stereotype threat compared to individuals who did not receive the negative stereotypes (schmader & johns, 2003). stereotype threat is particularly detrimental in high load tasks. beilock, rydell, and mcconnell (2007) tested women on high and low load tasks and found that women who were given a gender-based stereotype threat performed worse on high load problems compared to women who did not receive the threat. some researchers suggest that the negative effect of stereotype threat on wm performance can be increased by activating multiple stigmatized aspects of group membership (forbes & schmader, 2010). tine and gotlieb (2013) tested multiple stereotype threats based on gender, race, and income level and found that each of these stereotype threats decreased wm performance, but income-based effects were the strongest of the three. individuals with all three stigmatized aspects of identity (i.e. a woman of a minority group in a low-income bracket) experienced greater deficits in wm after the threat compared to individuals who received just one or two types of threat. eliminating stereotype threat through counter-stereotype training is also possible, as demonstrated by forbes and schmader (2010). they retrained women to associate their gender with being good at math, which then increased performance on a complex span task. specifically, women who were trained to associate women with being good at math had higher wm scores than women who were trained to associate men with being good at math (forbes & schmader, 2010). beilock, rydell, and mcconnell (2007) believe that stereotype threat specifically targets the phonological loop. however, others propose alternate explanations (e.g. the ‘mere effort’ hypothesis, harkins, 2006), and some even question whether stereotype threats impair performance. jamieson and harkins (2007) report that women who received a stereotype threat regarding math and gender performed worse on some tasks and better on others, and they suggest that stereotype threats may motivate behavior by creating a situation in which a stereotyped individual wants to prove the stereotype wrong through their own efforts. despite this, the general consensus in this area seems to be that stereotype threats generally impair wm performance. a comparison of wm tasks that use verbal or spatial information is called for, and this type of experiment should be extended to multiple types of stereotype threat, as most of the studies have focused on gender thus far. overall, stereotype threat produces a highly malleable, acute effect on wm performance (table 1). variance in working memory 200 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ temperature schoofs, wolf, and smeets (2009) found that administering a cold pressor test (i.e. immersing one hand in ice water) impairs executive functioning in a wm task. although schoofs et al. tested the effects of acute stress, extremes in temperature might also affect wm performance. sellaro, hommel, manai, and colzato (2015) suggest that it may not be objective temperature that impairs wm so much as subjective temperature preferences. using a 2 (temperature preference: cold vs. warm) x 2 (environment: cold vs. warm) design, they tested performance in different work environments. people who were tested in an environment contrary to their temperature preferences performed worse on a 2-back task compared to people were tested in their preferred temperature, regardless of whether it was warm or cold. sellaro et al. (2015) suggest that subjective temperature preferences influence wm performance, but that objective temperatures may not. nevertheless, multiple studies have found a link between cold temperatures and impaired wm. these studies have specifically targeted tyrosine in their design. tyrosine is a substrate for catecholamine synthesis in the brain, and is a precursor for the catecholamine neurotransmitters, dopamine and norepinephrine (o’brien, mahoney, tharion, sils, & castellani, 2007). because exposure to cold increases the activity of (and therefore depletes) catecholamines, several researchers have tested whether the administration of tyrosine can reverse the negative effect of cold-stress on wm. mahoney, castellani, kramer, young, and lieberman (2007) found that post-cold pressor wm performance improved after the consumption of a food bar containing tyrosine. mahoney et al. conclude that cold exposure degrades cognitive performance and tyrosine alleviates the coldrelated wm deficits. likewise, shurtleff, thomas, schrot, kowalski, and harford (1994) found that administering tyrosine before immersion in cold water significantly improved accuracy on a wm task, possibly by preventing the cold stress-induced reduction in brain catecholamines. the existing literature suggests cold temperatures negatively influence wm performance. the mechanism of this relationship might be stress, and is certainly related to levels of catecholamines in the brain. in table 1, we describe temperature as an acute, highly malleable manipulated factor; however, the research in this area is sparse and too many questions remain for a firm conclusion as to the nature of this factor. mindfulness although several of the factors discussed in the preceding section all seem to impair wm performance due to the presence of preoccupying thoughts, mindfulness meditation may improve wm performance by controlling and reducing preoccupying thoughts. mindfulness meditation seeks to promote attentional control and awareness of internal and external experiences (chambers, lo, & allen, 2008). in a mindful state, all thoughts are examined without judgement or reaction; they are simply allowed to exist. mindfulness incorporates both the regulation of attention and an open and accepting attitude to mental activity (chambers et al., 2008). interestingly, the acceptance facet of mindfulness training has been more strongly linked to wm performance on an n-back task (ruocco & direkoglu, 2013), at least compared to present-moment awareness. this result seems surprising at first, but accepting one’s thoughts without judgement requires cognitive control, which may then be the link to wm performance. performance on wm tasks has been improved through both brief and intensive mindfulness training. zeidan, johnson, diamond, david, and goolkasian (2010) found that 20 min of mindfulness training for four days enhanced accuracy, but not speed, on an n-back task. however, they caution that this gain may not be a long blasiman & was 201 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ term change in wm performance (zeidan et al., 2010). chambers et al. (2008) tested 20 novice meditators before and after participation in a 10-day intensive mindfulness meditation retreat. they found significant improvements in wm and sustained attention; specifically, those who received the training performed better on a task-switching task than a comparison group who did not complete the training. although these studies seem like a promising avenue to improve wm, they certainly require replication. researchers should also address possible demand characteristics in future studies by including placebo control groups. in addition, many unanswered questions remain. for instance, how long does training influence wm? does the intensity and duration of mindfulness meditation training influence the strength and duration of the effect? these are important questions that should be addressed in the future. because few studies have been conducted in this area and because of uncertainty regarding the duration of effect (table1), we cannot make firm conclusions about the effect of mindfulness on wm at this time. practice perhaps the most intriguing factor that can alter wm performance, from the perspective of both basic and applied researchers, is regular practice on wm tasks. multiple researchers have reported improvements in wm performance after training on a wm task (bomyea & amir, 2011; dahlin, nyberg, bäckman, & neely, 2008; klingberg et al., 2005; li et al., 2008; redick et al., 2012; sprenger et al., 2013; zinke et al., 2014), and this result has created great interest in the effect of practice on wm performance. however, one major controversy in the literature surrounds the claim that wm training can ‘transfer,’ or create gains in other cognitive functions. much of this debate was stirred by a report that 8-19 days of training on an adaptive dual n-back resulted in gains on a test of fluid g (jaeggi, buschkuehl, jonides, & perrig, 2008). since then, little support for this claim has been found, and a multitude of studies have failed to replicate any effect of wm training on gf or general cognitive ability (brehmer, westerberg, & bäckman, 2012; chooi & thompson, 2012; holmes, gathercole, & dunning, 2009; redick et al., 2012; richmond, morrison, chein, & olson, 2011; sprenger et al., 2013; zinke, zeintl, eschen, herzog, & kliegel, 2012). in critical reviews of the literature, both shipstead, redick, and engle (2012) and melby-lervåg and hulme (2013) conclude that wm training does not increase intelligence. beyond fluid intelligence, though, some researchers claim that wm training can transfer to other tests of wm, such as complex span tests (holmes, gathercole, & dunning, 2009; richmond, morrison, chein, & olson, 2011; schmiedek, lövdén, & lindenberger, 2010). even this is a questionable finding, as multiple studies (buschkuehl et al., 2008; jaeggi, buschkuehl, et al., 2010; jolles, grol, van buchem, rombouts, & crone, 2010; li et al., 2008; redick et al., 2012; sprenger et al., 2013) have not replicated this result. in addition to transfer, the duration of training gains has caused considerable discussion. gains in wm performance after training have remained in six (jolles et al., 2010) to nine month (zinke et al., 2014) follow ups. however, buschkuehl et al. (2008) found that increases in visual wm gained from training disappeared at a one year follow up. in addition, transfer gains may not hold up over time (borella, carretti, riboldi, & de beni, 2010). research on the effects of wm training has been conducted on a range of age groups, from children (klingberg et al., 2002, 2005) and young adults (dahlin et al., 2008; jaeggi et al., 2008) to adults and the elderly (borella variance in working memory 202 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2010; dahlin et al., 2008). in addition, some researchers report gains in wm performance in children with adhd (klingberg et al., 2005) and in adult neuropsychological patients following strokes (westerberg & klingberg, 2007), indicating that some populations gain more from wm practice than others and that wm practice may be a viable tool to improve cognitive function in people with wm impairment. nevertheless, there may be pervasive methodological concerns with studies of wm training (shipstead, redick, & engle, 2012) and thus wm training remains a controversial topic in the field at this time. table 1 reflects this controversy, and both the length of effect and underlying mechanism are listed as uncertain. sleep sleep deprivation has a consistently negative effect on wm performance (lieberman, tharion, shukitt-hale, speckman, & tulley, 2002). casement, broussard, mullington, and press (2006) found that people who were chronically sleep deprived (i.e. regularly experiencing less than half of normal sleep times) performed worse on a task that required wm than non-deprived participants. this deficit is particularly strong under greater wm loads; cellini, de zambotti, covassin, sarlo, and stegagno (2014) report that people with chronic insomnia performed just as well as healthy controls on an easier wm task but performed significantly worse on a high load wm task. the negative effect of sleep deprivation on wm has also been shown in adolescent populations. gradisar, terrill, johnston, and douglas (2008) asked teenagers aged 13-18 to complete the ospan and self-report their sleep time and found medium to large effect sizes of sleep on wm scores. even younger children perform worse on wm tasks when sleep deprived; significant wm deficits have been found in sleep-deprived 6-14 year olds (steenari et al., 2003). in contrast to studies examining sleep deprivation, getting a good night’s sleep seems to have a positive effect on the relationship between wm and memory. a medium positive correlation between performance on the ospan and a general memory task was found after participants had slept but this result was not found in those who had remained awake (fenn & hambrick, 2012). several researchers have approached the sleep-wm relationship from a physiological perspective. choo, lee, venkatraman, sheu, and chee (2005) used an n-back task to test wm in participants who had been sleep deprived for 24 hours. the participants showed decreases in both response time and accuracy compared to participants who were not sleep deprived. some load dependent differences were seen in the left pfc, right parietal, anterior medial pfc, and left anterior cingulate cortex (choo et al., 2005). the left anterior cingulate cortex also showed increased activity due to sleep deprivation, but the right frontal gyrus and right insula were active in sleep-deprived participants only in the higher load conditions (choo et al., 2005). in a follow-up study, chee et al. (2006) found that sleep deprivation resulted in reduced activity in fronto-parietal regions. interestingly, sleep-deprived individuals who showed greater left fronto-parietal activity showed superior wm performance over people without this pattern of brain activity (chee et al., 2006). as obvious as the relationship between sleep deprivation and wm may seem, and considering the frequent use of college students in psychological research (a group historically known for sleep deprivation), it is surprising that this factor is not taken into consideration more often by researchers. sleep deprivation can become an influential extraneous variable in such studies and it would be prudent to assess sleep deprivation in wm blasiman & was 203 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ studies in general. we view sleep as having an acute and highly malleable effect on wm performance, although the exact mechanism of the effect is uncertain (table 1). bilingualism although some people may view bilingualism as an individual difference due to stability over time, we have included it in this section because it at least possesses the potential for manipulation (i.e. an individual may choose to learn a second language whereas they cannot choose their age or level of intelligence). much of the research on bilingualism and wm has been conducted by linguists, who have found some intriguing results. two interesting findings are the strong correlation between first language wm and second language wm, and the strong correlation between baseline wm performance and foreign language proficiency (alptekin & ercetin, 2010, 2011; daneman & carpenter, 1980; harrington & sawyer, 1992; miyake & friedman, 1998; osaka, osaka, & groner, 1993; walter, 2004). these results have led several researchers to claim that wm plays an important role in the acquisition of a second language (mackey, philp, egi, fujii, & tatsumi, 2002; williams, 1999) and in determining second language aptitude (ellis, 2001; miyake & friedman, 1998; sawyer & ranta, 2001). some investigators have looked at wm and bilingualism across the lifespan. several studies have found no difference in wm performance between monolingual and bilingual children (bialystok & feng, 2009; bonifacci, giombini, bellocchi, & contento, 2011). although kudo and swanson (2014) found no evidence that bilingual children have an advantage in wm, they did find that children transitioning from being monolingual to bilingual or from being dominant in one language to more equal in their bilingualism show enhanced wm, particular in the executive component. however, studies that report no differences in wm performance between monolingual and bilingual children may have used low-load tasks, and the difference between these groups may be more evident at higher cognitive loads. for instance, bilingual children did outperform monolingual children on a wm task in one study, although this advantage was more prominent in the more demanding, higher load tasks (morales, calvo, & bialystok, 2013). differences between spatial and verbal wm have also been investigated; bilingual participants outperform monolingual participants in spatial wm, but not verbal wm, across the adult life span (luo, craik, moreno, & bialystok, 2013). the phonological loop may be a significant factor in second language learning outcomes (baddeley, 2003; service, 1992). as the phonological loop deals with verbal information, it makes sense that it would be implicated in language learning. however, other researchers suggest that wm performance in a second language is due to the executive component of wm, and is independent of the phonological loop (lee swanson, orosco, & lussier, 2015). this debate requires further investigation. regardless of the role individual wm components play, it seems clear that wm is closely related to learning a second language. sawyer and ranta (2001) view wm as a system responsible for integrating the different components of foreign language. for instance, navigating between two languages requires holding some linguistic information in mind while manipulating another language, which certainly mirrors the manipulate/ maintain definition of wm (bialystok, 2011). nevertheless, many unanswered questions remain. one question centers on the issue that some researchers treat wm as a cause of second language success and others treat it as an effect. more specifically, some researchers seem to study the role baseline wm has in increasing success in second language acquisition, whereas others examine differences in wm between monolingual and variance in working memory 204 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bilingual groups. whether high wm improves the chances of becoming bilingual or learning a foreign language improves wm performance is debatable and requires additional research. certainly the effect is chronic, and we assigned a medium degree of malleability due to the effort needed to become bilingual (table 1). musical training musical training has also been investigated for its beneficial effect on wm task performance (besson, schön, moreno, santos, & magne, 2007; williamon & egner, 2004). long-term music training has been associated with greater auditory and spatial wm; specifically, years of music training and wm performance are positively correlated (george & coch, 2011). both children and adults who have received music training outperform non-musicians on various measures of wm, both verbal and spatial (franklin et al., 2008; fujioka, ross, kakigi, pantev, & trainor, 2006; parberyclark, skoe, lam, & kraus, 2009). lee, lu, and ko (2007) tested 40 middle-school age children and 40 college age adults on the effects of musical training on wm using span tasks. half of the participants in each group had received several years of musical training in the past and could play at least one musical instrument. participants were matched on both intelligence and level of education. the musically trained children and adults performed better than the untrained participants on tasks designed to measure phonological storage (lee et al., 2007). the musically trained children performed better than the untrained children on measures of executive control and visuospatial storage. however there was no difference between the two adult groups, suggesting that the effects of musical training on wm may depend both on age and the degree of music training received (lee et al., 2007). unfortunately, the studies conducted thus far used convenience samples of people who have already received musical training. similar to bilingualism, this is a potential problem of self-selection: individuals with higher wm may be naturally drawn to music or are more persistent in practicing an instrument. a longitudinal study, with a true experimental design, is needed to address this issue. as with bilingualism, the effect of musical training on wm performance is chronic and somewhat malleable due to the effort required for musical success (table 1). altitude/hypoxia one of the more unusual factors in this review is altitude (i.e. how far above sea level one is). yan, zhang, and gong (2011) found that people who lived at high altitudes performed worse than low altitude residents on a wm task. this difference held for both response times and accuracy. in another study, they compared sea level participants to natives of tibet and found that the high altitude tibetans performed worse on both verbal and spatial wm tasks, again showing deficits in response time (yan, zhang, shi, gong, & weng, 2010). even brief exposure to high altitudes has shown a suppressing effect on wm performance (see virués-ortega, buelacasal, garrido, alcázar, 2004, for a review). a possible cause of this phenomenon is hypoxia— the level of oxygen in the air people breathe. oxygen is less abundant at higher elevations. a few studies have examined the negative effect of hypoxia during sleep on wm (e.g., biggs et al., 2011; weiss et al., 2009) and during exercise (komiyama et al., 2015), but these studies introduce other variables to consider. as seen in table 1, we rate this factor as highly malleable, biological in cause, and having both an acute and chronic effect. however, too few studies have been conducted to make blasiman & was 205 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ any firm conclusions about the nature of the effect. though empirical work is sparse in this area, the existing studies open the door to explore other environmental factors, such as barometric pressure or humidity. exercise some controversy surrounds the effect of exercise on wm performance. some researchers have reported that exercise has a negative effect on wm, others find no effect at all, whereas several others report a wm advantage from engaging in exercise. we will review research from each of these perspectives. first, several groups of researchers report no effect, or even a negative effect, of exercise on wm. for example, dietrich and sparling (2004) found that wm was impaired during prolonged moderate exercise, whereas lambourne, audiffren, and tomporowski (2010) found no change in wm between rest and cycling (exercise) conditions. the effect of exercise on children’s wm is also debated. drollette, shishido, pontifex, and hillman (2012) found no change in wm during moderate walking in 9-11 year olds, yet soga, shishido, and nagatomi (2015) report that moderate walking results in slower response times on a spatial n-back task in 15-16 year olds. other researchers reported that exercise improves response times and accuracy on wm tasks. hogan, mata, and carstensen (2013) found that moderate cycling resulted in faster reaction time on a 2-back wm task for people ages 19-93. wm has also been assessed during exercise (as opposed to post-exercise). martins, kavussanu, willoughby, and ring (2013) report that moderate cycling increased accuracy on concurrent high load wm tasks. these varying results are difficult to explain. soga, shishido, and nagatomi (2015) suggest that the effects of exercise are short-lived, so that a delay in testing might miss an effect. baseline fitness is also an issue, as people in better shape may have better attentional control, which is an important factor in wm. this hypothesis was supported by a study conducted by clarkson-smith and hartley (1989), in which high-exercise adults outperformed sedentary adults on three span tasks, even when controlling for verbal intelligence. however, even long term effects of exercise on wm are uncertain; a more recent study found that a four-week regimen of aerobic exercise, strength training, and stretching resulted in no difference in wm performance. (nouchi et al., 2014). given the wide variety of results, additional research on exercise and wm is needed and both the timing of the wm test and baseline fitness should considered. diet in addition to the act of dieting (previously discussed in dieting section), diet itself can have a measurable influence on wm performance. the effects of sugar (glucose), dairy, protein, and fat have been examined, with the bulk of the research conducted on the effect of glucose. glucose consumption results in a relatively fast, short term improvement in wm (scholey, harper, & kennedy, 2001). this effect is so rapid that researchers who have not found an effect of glucose on wm have concluded that delay in testing was to blame (sünram-lea, foster, durlach, & perez, 2002). importantly, the positive effect of glucose on verbal and spatial wm is the result of both dosage and recency of administration, and this effect is most pronounced in higher load conditions (owen, scholey, finnegan, hu, & sunram-lea, 2012). variance in working memory 206 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conversely, induced acute hypoglycemia can cause impaired wm performance on span tests (sommerfield, deary, mcaulay, & frier, 2003). these results are particularly interesting in light of studies that characterize both self-control and attentional control as finite energy reserves that rely on glucose (gailliot et al., 2007). some researchers maintain that the effect of glucose is age dependent; that is, younger people need less glucose to see an effect on wm performance (messier, 2004). glucose paired with other substances can have a measureable effect wm as well. using a double-blind design, adan and serra-grabulosa (2010) found that participants who received both glucose and caffeine after a fasting period showed better attentional control and verbal memory compared to people who received only glucose or caffeine alone. combining glucose and caffeine has also been found to improve performance on both verbal and spatial n-back tasks of various loads (giles et al., 2012). besides glucose, dairy intake (which contains lactose) has also been associated with improvements in wm performance. crichton, murphy, howe, buckley, and bryan (2012) conducted a within-subjects study of obese adults with habitually low dairy intake (i.e. less than 2 servings a day). participants consumed a high dairy diet for six months and a low dairy diet for an additional six months. spatial wm was slightly better after six months of high dairy (crichton et al., 2012). crichton et al. (2012) propose that low-fat dairy’s benefit to cardiovascular functioning might be boosting cognitive function, although high intake of full-fat dairy is associated with cognitive decline. the effect of glucose has also been compared to protein and fat. jones, sunram-lea, and wesnes (2012) tested spatial and verbal wm at baseline, 15 min, and one hour after consuming either 40g glucose, 40g protein, 16g fat, or a placebo drink. attention was better 15 min after consuming fat or glucose drinks, wm improved 15 min after protein consumption, and wm decreased 60 min after glucose (jones et al., 2012). the authors conclude that different macronutrients have time-dependent effects on wm (jones et al., 2012). this conclusion was supported by a study that compared a slow-release sucrose with lactose and glucose. participants who consumed milk with sucrose performed best on a wm task (taib, shariff, wesnes, abu saad, & sariman, 2012). finally, a carbohydrate-rich breakfast has been shown to increase wm performance. smith, clark, and gallagher (1999) compared wm performance on participants who consumed cereal for breakfast versus participants who did not eat breakfast. consuming cereal for breakfast resulted in increased performance on a spatial wm task (smith et al., 1999). many of the effects of diet seem to be short term. glucose seems to confer short term benefits to wm, including when administered with caffeine. protein, fat, and carbohydrates have also been linked to wm performance, but these studies require replication. in addition, more long-term studies are needed to determine if general diet has a long term effect on wm. though we label diet as biological in cause and highly malleable (table 1), the existing literature is too small to make firm conclusions about the effect of diet on wm performance at this time. blasiman & was 207 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychoactive substances a wide variety of drugs (i.e. external substances that are capable of crossing the blood brain barrier and influencing cognitive function) have been tested for their effect on wm (see barch, 2004, for a review). because of the amount of literature in this field, it is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a thorough review. instead, representative articles have been chosen for several main psychoactive substances and additional resources are provided in the supplement to this article. both agonists and antagonists have been examined for their influence on wm. for instance, visuospatial wm is influenced by noradrenaline agonists in that both too high and too low doses cause impairment, forming an inverted u (arnsten & robbins, 2002). dopamine agonists (such as amphetamine, methylphenidate, pergolide, and low doses of bromocriptine) improve spatial wm, although these effects seem to be susceptible to baseline differences (barch, 2004; luciana & collins, 1997; muller, von cramon, & pollmann, 1998). cholinesterase inhibitors improve wm (barch, 2004). there is minimal evidence that noradrenergic agonists and nmda receptor agonists improve wm in humans, despite the strong effect seen in rats for both of these drug types (barch, 2004). nmda receptor antagonists, on the other hand, have been shown to impair wm (adler, goldberg, malhotra, pickar, & breier, 1998). one drug that undeniably has an influence on human cognition is caffeine, also known as methyltheobromine (amendola, gabrieli, & lieberman, 1998; fredholm, bättig, holmén, nehlig, & zvartau, 1999). caffeine binds to two types of adenosine receptors in the brain and blocks them in an antagonistic way, which then increases alertness and concentration (fredholm et al., 1999). the ability to concentrate to control attention is a key facet of wm, so it is perhaps no surprise that caffeine should have a positive effect on wm performance. indeed, nearly every study conducted on caffeine has found increased attention and wm as a result of consumption, with few exceptions (e.g. smith, clark, & gallagher, 1999). even habitual caffeine consumers still show increased wm performance after caffeine consumption (addicott & laurienti, 2009). in a study of male moderate caffeine users, koppelstaetter et al. (2008) found that men in the caffeine condition showed increased activity in the medial pfc – often associated with attention, executive functions, maintenance in wm, planning, and updating during a verbal 2-back task. in a study comparing a placebo to 100mg, 200mg, and 300mg of caffeine in sleep-deprived navy seals, lieberman, tharion, shukitt-hale, speckman, and tulley (2002) conclude that 200mg of caffeine is optimal for performance on a spatial wm task. past this amount, the effects do not significantly improve with dosage. several substances have been found to temporarily suppress wm (see table 4 for a list of substances and references). several of the effects appear to be load dependent, with high load task showing the greatest levels of wm impairment (i.e. alcohol, cannabis, mdma). not all psychoactive substances may influence wm; colzato, huizinga, and hommel (2009) compared recreational cocaine users who had been abstinent for one week to a matched group of non-users and found no impairment in either the maintenance or monitoring of information in wm. variance in working memory 208 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 psychoactive substances associated with impaired wm performance substance references diphenhydramine (antihistamine) gevins, smith, & mcevoy, 2002 alcohol gevins et al., 2012 cannabis ilan, smith, & gevins, 2004 mdma (ecstasy) fisk, montgomery, & hadjiefthyvoulou, 2011; wareing, fisk, murphy, & montgomery, 2004 psilocybin wittmann et al., 2007 one study has examined the effect of modafinil, a stimulant (but not an amphetamine) used in the treatment of narcolepsy and adhd, using a double blind placebo-controlled design. modafinil did not affect attentional control, but improved accuracy in the high load condition of a spatial wm task (müller, steffenhagen, regenthal, & bublak, 2004). it is of note that lower performing participants saw the greatest effect of drug (müller et al., 2004). considering the wm deficits associated with adhd (see mental illness and other medical conditions section), it is perhaps no surprise that medications designed to treat this disorder would improve wm performance. finally, emerging evidence suggests that certain herbal compounds can influence wm performance. in a study of thirty-two healthy adults, consumption of american ginseng improved wm performance on the corsi block test at one, three, and six hours post administration, but performance on an n-back task was not affected (scholey et al., 2010). even a single dose of american ginseng has been shown to improve wm performance (reay, scholey, & kennedy, 2010). wesnes, ward, mcginty, and petrini, (2000) found improved wm in a 14week double blind study of 256 people taking both 60mg ginko biloba and 100mg ginseng. ginko and ginseng improved both spatial and verbal wm compared to baseline and the placebo group, although spatial wm saw greater increases, within hours of administration and over the fourteen weeks the study was conducted (wesnes et al., 2000). as previously stated, the sheer volume of research that has been conducted on psychoactive substances precludes a thorough review in this paper. nevertheless, it is apparent that a wide variety of substances can influence performance on wm tasks. currently, stimulants seem to have the greatest positive effect on wm while most other recreational substances seem to have a negative effect, although task load certainly plays a role. psychoactive substances can have both acute and chronic effects and are highly malleable (table 1), but a great deal of variation exists between the effects of individual drugs. brain stimulation several dozen studies have investigated the effect of brain stimulation on wm. the two main forms of stimulation that have been investigated are transcranial direct current stimulation (tdcs) and repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation (rtms). tdcs is a procedure in which a weak electrical current is applied to the brain through two electrodes, an anode and a cathode. the goal of this procedure is to selectively increase or decrease cortical activity (nitsche & paulus, 2000; nitsche et al., 2003). the electrical field generated by tdcs is direct but low-intensity (datta et al., 2009). rtms, on the other hand, uses a magnetic coil to create a strong magnetic field. when the coil is applied to the scalp, it disrupts brain activity in the cortex by depolarizing blasiman & was 209 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the neurons in that area. this technique may either facilitate or inhibit brain activity, depending on the frequency of stimulation (brunoni & vanderhasselt, 2014). both tdcs and rtms are non-invasive procedures, and their effects on cortical activity are temporary. for this reason, they have been used extensively in research, including studies that stimulate the dlpfc to influence wm performance. the dlpfc is involved in both updating goal representations and other task-related demands (barch, sheline, csernansky, & snyder, 2003; d’esposito, postle, & rypma, 2000; d’esposito et al., 1995). nearly all of these types of studies use the n-back as their measure of wm. unfortunately, most studies suffer from small sample size. for this reason, brunoni and vanderhasselt (2014) conducted a meta-analysis of twelve different studies that described 33 experiments to determine the influence of tdcs and rtms on wm. based on this meta-analysis, they conclude that rtms of the dlpfc significantly improves wm performance. although tdcs significantly improved reaction time, it did not influence accuracy (brunoni & vanderhasselt, 2014). this result indicates that brain stimulation has a direct and measureable influence on wm performance. though rtms is already used in some clinical settings (e.g. as a treatment for major depressive disorder), there is some interest in using tdcs and rtms in clinical populations that suffer from impaired wm, such as schizophrenia. brain stimulation is a promising area for future study, and it would greatly benefit from additional studies using larger and more varied populations. conclusions and future directions this paper was written with several aims: to provide a review of past research, to serve as a resource for new researchers, to identify areas requiring additional research, and to provide a framework to classify these factors. as a result of these goals, we pulled many disparate areas of research together and highlighted some important considerations for researchers who frequently use wm tasks in their studies. as a reminder, there is a supplementary list of articles, arranged by topic, for each of the factors reviewed in this paper. one of our primary goals was to provide a framework for classifying factors that influence wm. we divided factors along the lines of subject and manipulated factors, which seemed a logical first step in considering relationships between factors. nevertheless, other possible frameworks may considered: duration of the effect, the malleability of the factor, the presumed mechanism that causes the variance in wm, and the level of consistency in the literature (see table 1). first, the duration of the effect on wm may be viewed as either acute or chronic. chronic factors, such as intelligence and personality, are relatively stable over time. this causes their effect on wm to also be stable over time. acute factors, such as emotional state and brain stimulation, are temporary, as is their effect on wm. several factors are uncertain in terms of duration of the effect. these factors include dieting, mindfulness, practice, altitude, exercise, diet, and drug use. each of these factors would greatly benefit from carefully designed, longitudinal studies. malleability refers to the likelihood of a factor changing, or being altered by external circumstances. table 1 assigns low, medium, and high values of malleability to each factor, although these are best guesses based on variance in working memory 210 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ knowledge of the field. certain factors are nearly impossible to alter while other factors are easily changeable. most of the highly malleable factors allow for personal choice, either by the individual or an experimenter. for example, a person can choose to exercise just as easily as an experimenter can assign a person to an exercise condition within a study. of greatest importance, however, several factors that have detrimental effects on wm are malleable (e.g. stress, sleep, stereotype threat, and certain mental illnesses). this gives hope that interventions or therapies designed to improve or ameliorate the effects of these factors will have the side effect of improving wm performance. a third possible framework relies on the underlying mechanism of each factor. several factors are presumably biological in origin, such as intelligence, age, diet, brain stimulation, and use of psychoactive substances. even personality has been investigated for its biological underpinnings, and the role of dopamine has certainly been implicated. several studies have highlighted areas of the brain, such as the dlpfc, as important to wm, and have examined overlap with other factors, such as critically listening to music. nevertheless, there seems to be a disconnect between neurological and behavioral studies of wm. as an example, the majority of neurological studies of wm use the n-back task. though the n-back and complex span tasks both presumably measure wm, they are weakly correlated with each other and may actually measure slightly different aspects of wm itself (kane, conway, miura, & colflesh, 2007). although a great deal of time and energy has been spent on investigating the underlying mechanisms of many of the factors reviewed in this paper, the cause of effect for several factors is unknown. these factors include mental illness, stereotype threat, temperature, practice, sleep, bilingualism, musical training, and exercise. each of these factors is somewhat uncertain in their mechanism(s) and additional study is needed. an additional framework for organizing the factors reviewed in this study is the level of consistency in the literature. although several factors have been thoroughly investigated, questions about the nature of their effect remain. these factors include gender, personality, craving, practice, and exercise. additional research may improve consensus in the field, and these factors would also benefit from thorough meta-analyses. in addition, some factors simply need more research in general, as too few studies have been conducted to make an assessment about consistency. these factors include temperature, mindfulness, musical training, altitude, and diet. one important thread that connects multiple sections of this paper, and deserves special mention, is preoccupying thoughts. intrusive thoughts are implicated in several types of mental illnesses, stress, anxiety, dieting, craving, and possibly stereotype threat. preoccupying thoughts may selectively impair wm by using up resources in the phonological loop. training to control preoccupying thoughts— for example, with mindfulness meditation— may diminish their effect, but additional research is needed to determine how effective this training is in the long term and if the training is truly effective at improving wm performance. an alternate to mindfulness meditation might be training on thought suppression. by increasing an individual’s ability to suppress intrusive thoughts, the harmful effects of those thoughts on wm might be reduced or eliminated. future investigations might examine the role of preoccupying thoughts in terms of theoretical models of wm. for instance, using the baddeley and hitch (1974) model, preoccupying thoughts might either be a function of misallocation of attentional resources by the central executive or an impairment of the phonological loop. another general trend to note is the difference between high and low load tasks. in addition to differences between using verbal and spatial stimuli, researchers can also choose task difficulty by manipulating the task blasiman & was 211 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 188–231 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1472 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parameters. increasing cognitive load may have a differential impact on the measurement of wm, as several factors (e.g., dieting, stereotype threat, sleep, and some psychoactive substances) seem to impair wm only, or especially, in high load tasks. load-dependent influences for each of the factors in this study should be assessed in the future. finally, we have used this review to demonstrate the many possible sources of variance in wm performance. it behooves researchers to consider the sheer breadth and scope of variables that can influence wm, and to take more of a variance accounting approach in the measurement of this important construct. several factors are quite easy to assess, as a researcher may easily include basic questions about them in a brief initial survey or include a short personality survey. furthermore, some factors are more important to assess for certain populations, such as sleepiness in college students. in fact, the time of day and sleepiness in college students may explain some of the contradictory results between several of the studies described in this paper. understanding and accounting for the many factors that can influence wm performance will improve the quality and validity of our measurements. of most importance, researchers who study wm or use it their research should understand that performance on wm tasks is not necessarily as stable as one would like to think, and multiple measures and measurements should be collected when possible. as schmader and johns (2003, p. 450) note in their study of stereotype threat, manipulations that “can produce situational reductions in wm underscores the need for researchers to use caution when assuming that such measures index a stable and unchanging ability.” funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank john dunlosky for his helpful comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. references ackerman, p. l., beier, m. e., & boyle, m. o. 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[b] department of human sciences, lumsa university of rome, rome, italy. [c] department of economics, business and finance, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities between italy and spain in regard to emerging adults’ perceptions of identity status, autonomy, attachment, and life satisfaction. the goal was to verify whether a mediterranean model of transitions from adolescence to adulthood exists. three hundred and forty undergraduate students (171 italians and 169 spanish) ranging in age from 19 to 22 completed measures of identity status, emotional autonomy, attachment style, and life satisfaction. multiple correspondence analyses provided a graphic synthesis of results. the results indicate that no common model of young adult development exists in spain and italy and that italian youth have a more complex quality of development compared to their spanish peers. keywords: transition to adulthood, identity status and attachment styles, mediterranean model, cross-cultural, multiple correspondence analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 received: 2015-08-26. accepted: 2016-01-26. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: cittadella universitaria – 94100 – enna, italy. e-mail: ugopax@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in times of large sociohistorical changes in europe (see adamski, 1994, for a review), several empirical studies have examined the transitions to adulthood across countries and cultures (e.g., bang & montgomery, 2013). young adults are in the process of exploring a variety of possible life directions, relating to new relationships, different identity models, and autonomy from parental bonds (arnett, 2014). starting with david reher’s (1998) study, researchers began to advance the idea that specific patterns of family and transitions to adulthood exist. in particular, scabini (2000) identified three different models: the nordic model, the british model, and the mediterranean model. the northern european model is marked by a long interim period between moving out of one’s parental home and starting a family. young men leave the parental home at 26 years, young women at 21 years, and, on average, the first marriage takes place six and eight years later (buhl, 2007; weick, 2002). the british model is characterized by a premature separation from family of origin and an early marriage; however, the choice of parenting in this model is postponed, the couple remaining childless for a long time. finally, in the mediterranean europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ countries, the term family indicates a diffuse network of relationships, obligations, and loyalties. the boundaries between households and kin networks are often considered not only in emotional and affective terms but also in legal and practical ones (naldini, 2005). moreover, household size is much larger, and a high percentage of the population lives in expanded households. in fact, in their late teens or early 20s, many youngsters live with their parents, either full time or part time, and more and more young people continue to do so until late in their 20s or even their 30s (beyers & goossens, 2008; laudani, guzzo, lo cascio, pace, & cacioppo, 2014; pirrone, nicolosi, passanisi, & di nuovo, 2015). not only do late adolescents live with their parents very often, they also refer to their parents as important sources of support (dotterer, hoffman, crouter, & mchale, 2008). furthermore, the definitive departure of young people tends to coincide somewhat closely with their marriage and finding a stable job. the years between adolescent maturity andmarriage are spent largely within the parental household; generally, marriage does not even enter the picture unless it is accompanied by a corresponding emancipation from the parental home and the formation of a new household (laudani et al., 2014). despite the large number of speculative studies conducted in the social sciences, little empirical evidence is available in the psychological sciences to support the existence of the mediterranean model of transitions to adulthood (buhl & lanz, 2007). for this reason, the main aim of this study is to empirically verify whether the mediterranean model of transitions to adulthood really does exist. this will help researchers understand how young adults develop their individuality in a proximal and distal context characterized by postponement of parental home leaving, marriage, or cohabitation. it will also help researchers to understand the difficulties of young people, especially females, when it comes to finding a stable job, especially in the absence of vocational training and with the strong protection of workers who are already employed (buchmann & kriesi, 2011; tsani, paroussos, fragiadakis, charalambidis, & capros, 2013). it could be important, in this sense, to compare psychological processes, such as autonomy, attachment styles, and identity building, and the satisfaction linked to these developmental variables, which are supposedly influenced by common cultural features and family traditions shared by italy and spain. we argue that the results of the present study may help verify whether a psychological and not only a social and economic mediterranean model of development really exists in the most populous countries of southern europe. the impact of culture on developmental processes toward the end of the second decade of life, young people are encouraged by significant others and their teachers to create action goals for their future lives in order to prepare for adulthood (see zaleski, 1994, for a review). successful transition to adulthood may be understood as the solving of three developmental tasks: finishing education, gaining employment, and establishing a partnership (cacioppo, pace, & zappulla, 2013; havighurst, 1953). as nurmi (1993) suggested, it is often assumed that young people derive their goals from their experienced context, based on cultural representations of how and when to solve those developmental tasks. some authors have recently found support for four basic transition patterns to adulthood in contemporary europe. these can be conveniently labeled, according to welfare-regime typology, as social democratic (scandinavian countries), liberal (the united kingdom), conservative (germany or the netherlands), and southern european (mediterranean countries; buchmann & kriesi, 2011). according to authors, the social and welfare features of these regions contribute to the individual and psychological development of the people who live in those regions. in the socialdemocratic context, a developmental contest fosters young people’s autonomy and readiness for experimentation, thereby encouraging them to leave home early, form nontraditional unions, and become parents. the liberal context promotes young people’s self-reliance and autonomy, encouraging people to leave home early and make europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 154 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a strong push for employment in a competitive market. in the conservative context, family orientation does not particularly foster young people’s search for autonomy, which is revealed by the comparatively older age at which people leave home. despite the relative ease of finding a job in this context, this does not translate into immediate marriage and parenthood. finally, in the southern european social and welfare context, strong hierarchically structured family ties, supported by the familial welfare regime, and the cultural legacy of a young man’s economic independence before embarking on marriage and parenthood, tend to greatly delay parental home leaving, union formation, and parenthood (buchmann & kriesi, 2011). from the very beginning, the literature (ryan & lynch, 1989) has underlined that the construction of a sense of a personal self and the establishment of a healthy sense of independence, as revealed in tasks relating to identity and autonomy, are particularly salient in the adolescent period (pace & zappulla, 2009). however, in recent years, a small but growing literature has observed the development of these constructs from a cross-cultural perspective (e.g., benson & furstenberg, 2007). in 1963, erikson stated that the formation of identity depends on the organization of prior experiences, which begin during adolescence, in a way that allows the individual to cope with new and challenging tasks. on the basis of this theory, social identities are constructed through interaction with significant others and are largely influenced by the social structures or contexts in which people exist (benson & kirkpatrick johnson, 2009; erikson, 1968). in this sense, several studies have argued that initial identity content is based on feedback youth receive from their parents, although youth will incorporate new information and contexts into their identities as they grow older (pace & zappulla, 2009, 2011). thus, children’s experiences of their environment influence their subsequent behavior and characteristics. from a cross-cultural perspective, goodnow (1988) stated that parents’ belief systems about child development are culturally rather than individually constructed. however, few studies have examined cross-national differences in identity formation during adolescence, and most of these studies have focused on comparing the united states and other nations (crocetti, schwartz, fermani, klimstra, & meeus, 2012). thus, further studies are needed to gain a better understanding of cross-national differences in identity formation in a mediterranean context. as previously mentioned, another important task of development is achieving emotional autonomy from one’s parents. sometimes, this is considered to be one of the more controversial psychological constructs among researchers who describe the process of transformation of parent-child relationships during adolescent development (pace & zappulla, 2013). based on controversial results, beyers and colleagues (2005) proposed distinguishing between two types of emotional autonomy in relation to parents: a healthy separation from parents and a more conflictual and radical detachment from parents. some scholars have seen autonomy as a culturally specific value, pertinent only to western cultures (markus & kitayama, 1991). for instance, rowland (1987) argued that in non-western cultural contexts, where individual autonomy is not valued or promoted, the development of an autonomous identity is not a developmental goal. based on this theory, many studies have investigated different cultural groups. helwig (2006), for instance, showed that the developmental pathway toward autonomy is consistent across diverse cultures. moreover, goodnow and collins (1990) showed that cultural norms and values influence beliefs about the appropriate timing of autonomy. specifically, several studies have examined the effects of cultural beliefs by comparing the autonomy expectations of adolescents and parents from different cultures or ethnicities (daddis & smetana, 2005). the results of these studies have indicated that european and american adolescents and parents generally expect adolescents to attain autonomy at earlier ages than families from other ethnicities or cultures do, including asian american early adolescents and parents (feldman &quatman, 1988), middle adolescents (15to 18-year-olds) from hong kong, and 12-, 14-, and 16-year-old american adolescents of mexican, chinese, and filipino backgrounds (fuligni, 1998). therefore, these studies have shown that larger macroeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 pace, cacioppo, lo cascio et al. 155 http://www.psychopen.eu/ level contexts, such as political and economic trends, influence the issue of autonomy (bronfenbrenner & morris, 1998). nevertheless, the debate about the universality of the construction of autonomy is not yet over (soenens, park, vansteenkiste, & mouratidis, 2012). the third aspect pertains to the construct of attachment style. as suggested by roisman and colleagues (2001), parental and peer attachment affects individuals from “the cradle to the grave” (p. 159), emphasizing the continuity of early attachment patterns into adult life (pace, cacioppo, & schimmenti, 2012; pace, madonia, passanisi, iacolino, & di maggio, 2015). since bowlby (1973, 1980) carried out his studies of attachment, it has been argued that the functions and dynamic processes of attachment, which develop in relation to primary caretakers, have a significant degree of stability over time and across relationships. for this reason, early attachment relationships are expected to influence the way people regulate their subsequent interpersonal behaviors and emotions (elicker, englund, & sroufe, 1992; leanza, lo porto, passanisi, & leanza, 2013; schimmenti, passanisi, gervasi, et al., 2014; schimmenti, passanisi, pace, et al., 2014). although some research studies on attachment (e.g., grossmann, grossmann, & keppler, 2005) have supported the notion, found in bowlby (1969), that the core components of attachment theory are culturally universal, several studies show that attachment cannot be generalized across all cultures (baiocco, pallini, & santamaria, 2014); however, the results in this area are incoherent. comparing the cultural values of the united states and japan, rothbaum and colleagues (2000) found that the cultural value of a child’s autonomy influences the meaning of the sensitive and responsive care given by parents: in japan, early interactions are more emotion-based, whereas, in the united states, they are more informationbased. other authors have argued that the tenants of attachment theory reflect the values and meanings of western culture, such as secure attachment and the construction of social competence. aims and hypotheses in this study, i compare the cross-cultural similarities and specificities of the developmental processes and life satisfaction of emerging adults in italy and spain. i aim to examine the differences and similarities between these countries with regard to emerging adults’ perceptions of identity status, emotional autonomy, attachment style, and life satisfaction. the goal is to verify whether the mediterranean model of transitions to adulthood exists. specifically, i hypothesized that there would not be a significant difference between italy and spain in relation to the scores for all the variables in the study or the relationship between them. usually, when research is carried out on the mediterranean model, it focuses on the individualization process and the related family attitude, i.e., whether personal or economic autonomy among adolescents is encouraged and promoted or not. therefore, it seems important, beyond speculation on the two countries’ common traditions, to conduct an empirical study on those variables that are considered to be relevant to the psychological emancipation of adolescents from their families. method participants the study examined 171 italian students (75 boys and 96 girls) who attended two universities in italy and 169 spanish students (70 boys and 99 girls) who attended two universities in spain. italian and spanish undergraduate students (n = 340) ranging in age from 19 to 22 were recruited. in particular, the average age of the italian students was 20.25 (sd = 1.80 years), whereas among spanish students, the average age was 19.66 (sd = 1.67 years). both the italian and spanish samples consisted only of caucasian students. moreover, the samples were comeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ parable in terms of years and types of schooling, sex, and age group composition. approximately 92% of the italian and spanish participants lived in two-parent households, whereas the remainder of participants lived with only one parent (usually the mother). procedure participants completed consecutively self-report measures on developmental processes and life satisfaction. they also provided information on their age, gender, and ethnicity prior to completing questionnaires. data were collected in two separate waves (data from italy were collected first, then spanish data). a standard informed assent was obtained before answering the questionnaire and students were informed that they could stop participation at any time. research procedures described in this article were performed in compliance with the american psychological association, the italian psychological association ethical guidelines for research and the ethical guidelines of the spanish psychological society. the present research is part of a wider and complex study in which many other variables, particularly regarding the differential characteristics of family contexts between italy and spain, were taken into account. the results of the related research have been published in 2014 (laudani et al., 2014). these related studies have tried to shed light on whether the individual and contextual aspects of adolescent development in italy and spain may be considered as similar or not. measures ego identity process questionnaire the ego identity process questionnaire (eipq; balistreri, busch-rossnagel, & geisinger, 1995) is the most popular measure in marcia’s (1966) identity status paradigm. in particular, the author described four qualitatively different identity statuses that arise from the presence or absence of two psychological adolescent processes: “exploration” and “commitment” (marcia, 1980). using these two dimensions, adolescents are classified into one of the four identity statuses: achievement is characterized by a period of active exploration leading to a firm identity commitment; foreclosure is characterized by strong commitments without having explored other possible alternatives; moratorium refers to adolescents’ active exploration of different alternatives without strong current commitments; diffusion refers to adolescents who do not actively explore different identity alternatives and who lack strong identity commitments (crocetti, rubini, luyckx, & meeus, 2008). specifically, eipq consists of 32 items within four ideological domains (values, occupation, religion, and politics) and four interpersonal domains (sex role, family, friendship, and dating) (pace & zappulla, 2009). the questionnaire was translated into italian and spanish and then back-translated by a native speaker. in the current study, the internal consistency (cronbach’s α) for the domain scores in italian and spanish version ranged from .70 to .76. emotional autonomy the emotional autonomy scale (eas; steinberg & silverberg, 1986) was administered to assess the emotional autonomy constructs of separation and detachment. the scale consists of 20 items concerning four components of emotional autonomy: perception of parents as people, parental deidealization, nondependency on parents, and individuation. for each item, adolescents are asked to respond on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the questionnaire was translated into italian and spanish and then backtranslated by a native speaker. according to beyers and colleagues (2005), an alternative factorial structure was considered, in which two higher-order factors substituted the original four factors. the first higher-order factor was called separation (obtained by summing items of the original scales deidealization and nondependency and two europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 pace, cacioppo, lo cascio et al. 157 http://www.psychopen.eu/ items of individuation). the second one was called detachment (obtained by summing items of the original scale perception of parents as people and two items of individuation) (pace & zappulla, 2009). relationship questionnaire attachment style was assessed through the relationship questionnaire (rq; bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; italian version, agostoni, 2007) was used to measure attachment style. participants were asked to choose which of the four paragraphs each prototypical of an attachment style (secure, dismissive, preoccupied, and fearful) best represented themselves. the prototypes, along with sample sentences, are (a) secure: “i feel comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me”; (b) dismissing: “i am comfortable without close emotional relationships”; (c) preoccupied: “i want to be intimate with others, but i often find that others are reluctant to get as close as i would like”; and (d) fearful: “i find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them”. participants are asked to indicate on a 7-point scale how well each paragraph describes them (1 = it does not describe me at all, 7 = it very much describes me) (pace, cacioppo, & schimmenti, 2012). the test-retest correlations of attachment dimensions are very high (on average, .78 for women and .86 for men) (scharfe & bartholomew, 1994). prototype rating reliabilities (alpha) in this study ranged from .72 to .80. multidimensional students’ life satisfaction scale – abbreviated version life satisfaction was assessed through the multidimensional students’ life satisfaction scale – abbreviated version (mslss av; huebner, zullig, & saha, 2012; italian version, zappulla, pace, lo cascio, guzzo, & huebner, 2014; spanish version in long version, galindez & casas, 2011), a self-report scale that includes 30 items, which students could answer on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (almost always). the mslss assesses satisfaction across five distinct domains, including family, friends, living environment, school, and self. a score for each domain was obtained by summing the individual items and dividing by the total number of items within the domain. similarly, a general satisfaction score was calculated by summing all item scores and dividing by number’s item. the coefficient alpha for the total score has been reported as .92 (huebner, 1991). in addition, the internal consistency scores for the domain scores in italian and spanish version ranged from .71 to .94 in previous studies (e.g., zappulla et al., 2014). data analysis we conducted preliminary analyses, including descriptive statistics and gender differences in the key study variables (anovas). distributions of all variables were checked for normality via kurtosis and skewness statistics. moreover, a multiple correspondence analysis (mca) was performed in order to compare the cross-cultural similarities and specificities in the two countries, italy and spain, in regard to adolescents’ and emerging adults’ developmental factors. in particular, developmental processes and their correlates were entered as active variables, while country was introduced as supplementary variables in order to not affect the mca solution, but still be able to know how the categories of this variable are positioned on the correspondence map. mca is a special technique of exploratory factor analysis that graphically displays multivariate categorical data (benzécri, 1992). seen as a generalization of principal component analysis for categorical variables, it allows researchers to analyze the pattern of relationships in a complex data matrix by replacing raw data with a simpler data matrix (abdi & valentin, 2007). associations between variables are examined by calculating the chi-square distance between variable modalities and between individuals. these associations can then be represented graphically by plotting the projection of the rows and the columns onto the dimensions extracted by the factor analysis. if two categories have similar count patterns, their profiles will be closer together in the correspondence map and they will have closer co-ordinates europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 158 http://www.psychopen.eu/ on dimensions that account for most of the variance. in summary, we selected mca because it stems from a statistical strategy that makes it possible to simultaneously manage multiple variables within a given system. it has the advantage of plotting the similarities and differences across the countries on a comprehensive graphic. to conduct the mca, continuous data for each of the variables of the study were reorganized into three categories: these categories represent values within 1 (low) and 3 (high). for instance, “family satisfaction 3” includes ratings above the third quartile on family satisfaction subscale, whereas “family satisfaction 1” includes ratings in the first quartile. results will be limited to the interpretation of the first two factors extracted by the mca (ben ammou & saporta, 2003). moreover, additional analyses were done to control the potential effect of disparities between the subsamples. we computed the mca on spss software (laudani et al., 2014). results descriptive analyses for all independent and dependent variables are presented in table 1. in order to analyze possible gender differences in the key study variables, we performed oneway analyses of variance (anovas). they revealed no statistically significant country effects in the scores of all variables in the study. table 1 descriptive statistics for the total sample, for spain and italy italybspainatotal sdmsdmsesdmvariables separation .600.143.560.193.130.580.173 detachment .510.303.430.283.120.480.293 exploration .240.961.250.961.110.250.961 commitment .250.142.250.262.130.260.212 general satisfaction .460.853.420.084.140.460.963 family satisfaction .790.803.720.014.120.760.903 friends satisfaction .730.124.530.484.130.660.304 school satisfaction .620.933.550.963.110.590.943 living environment satisfaction .700.533.600.983.130.690.753 self-satisfaction .570.873.530.993.120.550.933 note. n = 340. an = 169. bn = 171. figure 1 illustrates the mca two-dimensional space that represents developmental processes and their correlates as active variables, while country as supplementary variables. mca results are presented as follows: (1) interpretation of axes using contributions of the active variables to each factor; (2) interpretation of the position of the supplementary variable with respect to each factor; and (3) interpretation based on interpoint proximities in the two-dimensional map (laudani et al., 2014). the first axis (λ1) extracted by mca, with an eigenvalue of λ1 = 3.32 and 32.23% of inertia explained, bipolarly encompasses the following measures of developmental processes at the negative pole (table 2): low levels of domains of satisfaction (i.e., family, friends, living environment, self, and general life satisfaction), low separation, and high detachment. moreover, it encompasses the following measures of attachment styles and identity status: europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 pace, cacioppo, lo cascio et al. 159 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mca two-dimensional space. preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing attachment styles, while moratorium, diffusion, and foreclosure identity status. at the opposite positive pole, the first axis encompasses the following measures of developmental processes: high levels of domains of satisfaction (i.e., family, friends, living environment, self, and general life satisfaction), high separation and low detachment. moreover, it encompasses the following measures of attachment styles and identity status: secure attachment styles and achievement identity status. it is important to note that the analysis of discrimination measures has showed that the detachment dimension was not allocated to any of the obtained dimensions. hence, this axis represents the interiorization of secure attachment models in developmental processes and satisfaction for different domains of life, as opposed to interiorization of insecure attachment models in developmental processes and low satisfaction for different domains of life. the second axis (λ2), with an eigenvalue of λ2 = 2.22 and 22.17% of inertia explained, bipolarly of high level of school satisfaction at the positive pole and low level of school satisfaction at the negative pole. hence, this axis represents high satisfaction in school activities, as opposed to lack of satisfaction in school activities. as for differences between countries, the two country-related profiles of categories are significantly different from the mean profile of the first axis [t(171) = 3.04; p < .05 for italy and t(169) = -3.84; p < .05 for spain]; moreover, they are significantly different from the mean profile for the second axis [t(171) = 2.75; p < .05 for italy and t(169) = 2.17 p < .05 for spain]. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 160 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 summary of mca results positive polenegative pole first axis (λ1 = 3.32) (family, self, friends, environment)low level of life satisfaction high level of separation(family, self, friends, environment) high level of detachmentlow level separation secure attachmenthigh level of detachment achievement identitypreoccupied attachment fearful attachment dismissing attachment moratorium diffusion foreclosure high level of life satisfaction second axis (λ2 = 2.22) high level of school satisfactionlack of school satisfaction the profile for italy falls in the top left quadrant of the graph, which is defined by the negative pole of the first axis and the negative pole of the second axis. this quadrant is characterized by profiles of low satisfaction for different domains of life, lack of individuation processes, and interiorization of insecure attachment models in developmental processes. therefore, compared to spain adolescents’ perception, italian adolescents perceive low levels of all domains of satisfaction (i.e., family, friends, living environment, school, and self) and low separation. moreover, they experience less advanced identity status i.e., foreclosure, moratorium and diffusion – and they report preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing attachment styles. conversely, the spain profile is characterized by categories high in satisfaction for different domains of life, good in individuation processes, and good in interiorization of secure attachment models. thus, compared to italian adolescents’ perception, spain adolescents perceive high levels of all domains of satisfaction (i.e., family, friends, living environment, school, and self) and high separation. moreover, they experience more advanced identity status i.e., achievement – and they report secure attachment styles. discussion and conclusions the purpose of this study was to examine the differences and similarities between italy and spain with regard to emerging adults’ perceptions of identity status, emotional autonomy, attachment style, and life satisfaction. the goal was to verify whether a mediterranean model of transitions from adolescence to adulthood exists. in particular, we aimed to explore the existence and meaning of the so-called mediterranean model of adolescent development through empirical evidence, as opposed to the speculative reasoning characteristic of the social sciences. regarding the primary analyses, the data we collected revealed no statistically significant effect of country in the scores of all the variables in the study. interesting findings emerged from the multiple correspondence analysis (mca), which detected two axes of structured variables relating to the autonomy, attachment, identity, and well-being perceived by all adolescents europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 pace, cacioppo, lo cascio et al. 161 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the two countries. the mca results highlight the fact that young italian adults, compared to their spanish peers, perceive low levels of all domains of satisfaction (i.e., family, friends, living environment, school, and self) and low separation. moreover, they experience less advanced identity status, i.e., foreclosure, moratorium, and diffusion, and report preoccupied, fearful, and dismissive attachment styles. the profile of the spanish adolescent, conversely, is characterized by the following: a high level of satisfaction in different domains of life, a good level of satisfaction in terms of individuation processes, and a good level of satisfaction in terms of the interiorization of secure attachment models. the data we collected were extremely surprising. two groups of young adults, homogeneous for gender, age, and level of education (all the adults were in the first year of their university courses in social studies and humanities), described two completely opposite transitions from adolescence to young adulthood. what makes the findings completely reliable with the psychological literature is the absolute consistency of the results within the two groups. in fact, if we consider the relationship between psychological variables related to personal development and well-being, it is possible to make the following claim: when adaptive separation from parents characterizes the growth process, the quality of attachment and identity is positive, based on high levels of exploration and commitment within adolescent developmental tasks; meanwhile, personal satisfaction in all domains can be considered adequate. one result that contradicts the research hypothesis is the fact that the description of this consistent set of data describes only the spanish young adults. the set of data that characterizes the italian young adults is completely different but also consistent. in terms of the maladaptive characteristics of young people’s autonomy from their parents, which was assessed as ambivalent, identity appears to be inconsistent and is not focused on developmental tasks. finally, among italian youths, the models of attachment are more disadaptive than those of their spanish peers and are linked to low levels of personal satisfaction. in this sense, it seems that belonging to a different nationality can be considered the only variable that affects the developmental trajectories of the subjects who participated in the present study: in particular, the data highlighted how spanish adolescents show developmental trajectories characterized by a mature model of emancipation from childhood (autonomy, attachment, and identity) and consequent high levels of well-being (satisfaction in all domains of life). in contrast, italian young adults show ambivalent patterns of development and consequent low levels of well-being. a cultural approach would claim that individuals classify reality in terms of salient acts or events, making use of prototypical representations drawn from the popular psychology of their country or culture (smorti, menesini, & smith, 2003). the present findings, in this sense, are underlined by the following fact: a constellation of meanings linked to the culture of belonging influence the representation of the emotional aspects characterizing the stage of emancipation from patterns of parent-child relationships, where emotional dependency is the frame of reference. the results of the research clearly show that the transition to adulthood is actually different between the two countries, especially if we consider three of the major developmental tasks that characterize this stage of life: the development of emotional autonomy from parents, the transformation of attachment relationships, and the structuring of an identity based on the exploration of talents and the commitment to the pursuit of goals. the first thought that comes to mind is the fact that the differences between spanish and italian young adults with regard to their level of well-being are consistent with the different ways of dealing with developmental tasks described above. it seems that, at the same age and level of culture, spanish young adults have achieved a level of emotional maturity that exceeds that of their italian peers. this maturity seems to affect both their perception of their europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 162 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship with their parents and, as a result, their perspectives on life and the actions they are willing to perform. the explanation for such a marked difference is extremely complex. what this puts into question, however, is the existence of a unique model of the mediterranean’s transition from adolescence to adulthood. the data of the present research—despite all the limitations associated with the methodology of the self-reported survey and the involvement of a single age group (late adolescents/young adults)—clearly indicate two things: no common model of adolescent development in spain and italy exists, and italian youth have a more complex and ambivalent quality of development compared to their spanish peers. although we conducted the present research only among adolescents belonging to two mediterranean countries, it is important to mention that the population of italy and spain accounts for almost 75% of the population of mediterranean europe (which traditionally includes greece, albania, the countries that make up the former yugoslavia, cyprus, malta, and southern france). despite this, the conclusions of this study affirm that it is difficult to support the existence of a unique mediterranean model of transition to adulthood. conversely, it seems necessary to identify the social and cultural characteristics that differentiate the process leading the individuals of these two countries to build their individuality in such different ways. the fundamental question may be this: does spanish culture encourage autonomous development of young people more than italian culture? based on the data of this research and information that can be found in the blog of any erasmus student or young traveler throughout europe, the answer can only be positive. a conclusive answer to this question would require a multidisciplinary analysis of welfare policies and the widening of the study sample to adolescents from all areas of mediterranean europe. the value attributed to the emancipation of youth and the willingness of families to promote the autonomy of their late adolescents would also have to be investigated in order to explain, beyond speculative reasoning without scientific validity, why such a clear difference exists between adolescent development in the mediterranean area. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abdi, h., & valentin, d. 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(2014). factor structure and convergent validity of the long and abbreviated versions of the multidimensional students' life satisfaction scale in an italian sample. social indicators research, 118(1), 57-69. doi:10.1007/s11205-013-0418-4 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 pace, cacioppo, lo cascio et al. 167 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0003-066x.55.10.1093 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f1130981 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1475-6811.1994.tb00053.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs10578-013-0428-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs12144-014-9211-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0022022103034004003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.adolescence.2011.05.001 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f1130361 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.econlet.2013.04.043 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs11205-013-0418-4 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors ugo pace: professor of developmental and educational psychology. fields of interest: attachment during the life span, development of identity through countries and relation between different ethnic groups, relations between parents and adolescents. marco cacioppo: professor of clinical psychology. fields of interest: familial dynamics, familial relations as predictor of child development and adjustment from childhood to adolescence, life span characteristics of family memberships. valentina lo cascio: psychologist. fields of interests: maladjustment during the school years, and particularly due to indecisiveness, as chronic problem with making decisions across situations and domains and related and significant negative impact on individuals’ behavior during the process of making specific decisions. gianni guzzo:psychologist. fields of interest: bulling among adolescents, developmental trajectories in interethnic communities, adolescence and addictive problems, relationships among peers. alessia passanisi: professor of general psychology. fields of interest mainly concern the interface between linguistics and cognitive psychology, with particular emphasis on the topic of concepts and categorization, including the way in which people classify objects, persons and situations into different categories in order to understand the world. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 153–168 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1043 transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context 168 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en transitions to adulthood in mediterranean context introduction the impact of culture on developmental processes aims and hypotheses method participants procedure measures data analysis results discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors ses differences in children’s argumentative production research reports ses differences in children’s argumentative production maia j. migdalek* ab, celia r. rosemberg ab [a] national council of scientific and technical research, buenos aires, argentina. [b] university of buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. abstract recent studies have examined the argumentative strategies used by young children in everyday situations as well as in experimental settings. however, differences in argumentative production as a function of socio-economic status (ses) have been minimally explored. this study aims to analyze eventual differences regarding social group in the use of argumentative strategies and connectors marking causal and adversative relationships within these strategies. the corpus is 615 disputes occurred during play situations in the homes of 39 4-year old children living in buenos aires, argentina: 453 of mid ses children and 162 of low ses. argumentative strategies were codified using a system of inductively derived categories: a) the reiteration of the child’s point of view; b) the narration of previous experiences; c) the anticipation of courses of action; d) generalization; e) the description of the characteristics of an object, event or internal state; f) referencing authority; g) the mitigation of the point of view; h) providing an alternative proposal. results show that in both social groups the use of an argumentative strategy to sustain the point of view predominates over merely stating the point of view. additionally, we found significant differences in a) reiteration strategy, with the low ses group showing a greater use of this strategy and b) generalization and description strategies, with the mid ses children employing these ones more frequently. regarding the connectors, significant differences were only detected in the use of consecutive and adversative markers. the mid ses group showed a greater use of these particular connectors. keywords: children, disputes, argumentation, connector, ses differences europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 received: 2018-05-21. accepted: 2019-05-27. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: tte. gral. juan domingo perón 2158, c1040aah caba, buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: maiamigdalek@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recently, various studies have shown that young children, starting at age three, are capable of defending their points of view through some kind of argumentative formulation (bernard, mercier, & clément, 2012; crespo, 1995; dunn & munn, 1987; eisenberg, 1987; köymen, rosenbaum, & tomasello, 2014; migdalek & rosemberg, 2013; migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014; migdalek, santibáñez yáñez, & rosemberg, 2014; pontecorvo & arcidiacono, 2010; wyman, rakoczy, & tomasello, 2009). these studies addressed child argumentation by using several methodologies and theoretical frameworks (cobb-moore, danby, & farrell, 2008, 2009; crespo, 1995; eisenberg, 1987; kline, 1998; kuhn, 1992; peronard, 1991; pontecorvo & arcidiacono, 2010; stein & albro, 2001; voss & van dyke, 2001; zadunaisky ehrlich & blum-kulka, 2010). whilst in some studies children’s argumentation is elicited through experimental or quasi experimental situations, others study child argumentation in naturalistic settings. among these, eisenberg’s (1987) classic paper, conceptualizes the argumentative strategies employed by young girls in disputes with their parents and peers. she identifies the following strategies: insistence, verbal support, mitigation, appealing to another individual, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ threatening, use of verbal abuse, and offers to compromise. peronard’s (1991) four-year longitudinal study with five chilean children analyzes children’s utterances used to persuade their adult interlocutor, generally the mother. these kinds of utterances might constitute the precursor of argumentative discourse. these utterances initiate in the dialogical sequence, triggered by adults and later, in development, take form in an autonomous way. they mostly consist of argumentative points regarding actions, related to the material world, the cultural world, or the psychological world. dunn and munn (1987), on their part, explored young children’s justifications in disputes, considering the differences with regard to the interlocutor, mother and older sibling. they carried out a longitudinal study with 43 children aged 18, 24, and 36 months, within the home context. the analysis reveals that at 36 months justifications were equally frequent with mother and sibling. in these justifications children appeal mainly to their own feelings, but they also draw on referencing social norms, particularly in disputes with their siblings. the other participants in the dispute, both the mother and the sibling, offered justifications, although the mothers did so more frequently. as children grow older, both mothers and siblings are more likely to anticipate eventual consequences of the actions as justifications for their points of view. mothers and siblings draw on referencing social norms with similar frequency to each other. thus, the authors maintain that not only the parents but also the siblings are potentially important agents of socialization for children during early childhood. in another study, goetz (2010) focuses on verbal justifications present in spontaneous conversations between children and adults. the author longitudinally follows up on four children (from 2:6 and 4:11) extracted from the childes database. the analysis considers who produces the justification—parent or child—, the discursive context in which it appears and the age of the child. results show an increasing tendency in the percentage of justification production on the part of the children, as a function of age. nevertheless, this tendency is not observed in parent’s justifications. in relation to discursive contexts, conflicts appear to be important for the production of justifications between the ages of 2:6 and 2:11. by contrast, during the third year, questions stood out as promoters of justifications and between the ages of 4:0 and 4:11, the justifications are mostly produced as self-expansions. other studies addressed child argumentation preschool context. zadunaisky ehrlich and blum-kulka (2010) analyzed argumentative events in preschool children’s natural interactions. results showed that children, in order to negotiate their social relationships, manage the argumentative event effectively employing rationally based strategies characteristic of adults. nevertheless, they did not conceptualize the variety of strategies which configure child argumentation. for their part, cobb-moore, danby, and farrell (2008, 2009) studied children’s justifications used to maintain a stance during play situations and other activities at preschool. in their first study (2008) they created a system that categorizes the content of the children’s justifications. the system is based on the rule of transferred ownership, the rule of first possession, rules associated with custodianship, and the rule of third-party verification. the authors point out that the justification of point of view in the dispute constitutes a practice which allows children to construct and/or reinforce their status within the group while, at the same time, it contributes towards maintaining social order in the classroom. in their second study (2009) they analyze how young children manage social interaction in play situations. the authors identified four interactional practices: a) they claim possession of objects and play spaces; b) they appeal to pre-existing rules and to the social order to control interactions with their peers; c) they use language ses differences in children’s argumentative production 194 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strategically to regulate the actions of those around them; and d) they create and employ membership categories to include or exclude others and also to control and participate in the ongoing interaction. for their part, pontecorvo and arcidiacono (2010) found differences in the argumentative strategies employed by children according to context. they analyzed a narrative situation in the preschool context as well as mealtime in family settings. the qualitative analysis evidenced differences in the strategies employed by children in each context. the narrative at preschool stemmed from a conflict presented in a story. the children were asked to imagine different possible outcomes of this conflict. the analysis took children disputes regarding the resolution of the narrative conflict into account. in these disputes, the children defended their points of view via reasoning that displayed the possible negative consequences of the various hypothetical conditions and via the use of counterfactual forms. the authors highlight the role of the teacher in scaffolding this argumentative interaction through repetitions and reformulations of the children’s interventions. for their part, child-parent conversations during mealtimes at home children were characterized by parents’ explanations and justifications of everyday life rules through conditional structures and negative forms, similar to the counterfactual forms produced by the children at the preschool. in these mealtimes children also tend to use such structures. thus, the authors maintain that these exchanges of practical reasoning imply an opportunity for children to develop and practice certain discursive resources. recently, köymen, rosenbaum, and tomasello (2014) investigated 3 and 5-year-olds use of culturally common knowledge as a guarantee in order to justify their points of view within episodes of shared reasoning. they evaluated the children’s argumentative production whilst completing a task which entailed locating conventional and non conventional items in the context of a zoo. the results showed that when the episode included reasoning about a non conventional item, the children in both age groups explained the guarantee; but when the item was conventional, they would rely on the implicit guarantee. also, a reasoning episode which included a large number of justifications was usually resolved in a consensual rather than a forced way. results showed that 5-year-old children make the guarantees explicit more often than the 3 year olds, and that they tend to resolve reasoning episodes in a consensual way. an increment in social reasoning was evident between the ages of 3 and 5 as a consequence of social interaction and of their perception of the way in which their arguments are received by their interlocutors. kuhn (1992) studied the differences in primary school children’s argumentative performance considering their grade level and school experiences. results showed differences in the argumentative performance of children from third, sixth, and ninth grades as well as differences related to the academic level of the school they attended. these findings coincide with what has been pointed out by other authors (faigenbaum, 2012; kline, 1998; silvestri, 2001) who have indicated that the environment should promote argumentative competence in order for the children to develop it. another investigation carried out by kline (1998) with mid and high socio-economic status (ses) children in the second, fourth and sixth grades of primary school confirms this statement. through a design in which she combines interviewing children with argumentative production tasks, kline links the quality of children’s argumentation to previous experiences of children in persuasive interactions with others. the study showed a positive correlation between children’s argumentative skills and the exchanges in which the children had cooperated and argued previously. kline concludes that when children have the opportunity to initiate and ponder migdalek & rosemberg 195 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ arguments pose by others, and to participate equally in the resolution of disputes, they develop competence in persuasive argumentation. in spanish, the oppositional relationship in a dispute is indicated linguistically through the form “pero” (but). on the other hand, the consequence and cause relationship between the position and the argument may be marked linguistically through the connector “porque” (because). if, conversely, what is highlighted is a cause and consequence relationship the connector “por eso” (therefore) is employed. various investigations from a developmental perspective identified an early use of these connectors by the end of a child’s second year (braunwald, 1985; french & nelson, 1985; levy & nelson, 1994; mccabe & peterson, 1985, 1997). this does not imply, as tomasello (2003) and nelson (1996) maintain, that the appropriate use of the form in a particular context entails children’s complete understanding of its meaning. initially, children may use connectors in discursive contexts in which they heard them previously; their pragmatic use in the situation may reflect only a partial dimension of the meaning. with regard to this, french (1989) sustains that, most likely, representations of general events or scripts construct a cognitive context in the framework of which the child is able to understand causal, conditional, and disjunctive relationships. it is within the framework of these cognitive contexts that children initially produce the connectors that explicitly textualize these relationships. a minimal understanding of the form is necessary for its use, but a semantic reorganization leading to complete comprehension only takes place through its use in interactive situations. a series of studies have described the use of connectors in dispute situations (migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014; orsolini, 1993; pellegrini, 1985; among others). other studies have found that the justifications produced in validation contexts in which the point of view of another interlocutor is reinforced lead to a greater use of causal connectors than the ones produced in dispute contexts (kyratzis, ross, & köymen, 2010). this thorough review of the literature shows that previous research has mainly analyzed argumentative production elicited in experimental or quasi-experimental tasks. those studies that have analyzed natural situations of argumentation have not controlled the type of activity in order to consider differences in ses, age and home or school environment where the activity takes place. conversely, our studies about child argumentation focus on the analysis of 3 to 5-year-olds’ argumentative strategies in play situations at home or school. the results showed an early use of argumentative strategies, both verbal and non-verbal in order to regulate the joint action (migdalek & rosemberg, 2013, 2014; migdalek, santibáñez yáñez, & rosemberg, 2014; migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014). these results indicated developmental differences in the preschool period. additionally, they showed that age 4 represents a shift marked by significant differences in the use of an argumentative strategy instead of the mere opposition to other’s point of view (migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014). likewise, we have observed differences in the argumentative production of 4-yearold children according to the environment in which the play situation was taking place: preschool or the home (migdalek, rosemberg, & arrúe, 2015). the current study considering the investigations which show that the social context may, to a greater or lesser degree, propitiate the use of argumentative strategies (faigenbaum, 2012; silvestri, 2001), in the present paper we aim to further delve into the socio-economic status differences in children’s argumentative production. moreover we will analyze children’s use of connectors in order to mark causal and adversative relationships within these arguments. ses differences in children’s argumentative production 196 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to this end, we analyze a corpus of disputes during play situations in which 4-year-old socio-economically diverse argentinean children participated at home. argentina is currently characterized by a fragmented social structure, reflected in great variations along dimensions of housing, occupation, and education. this determine markedly different living and developmental conditions for children growing up in the same city. in the city and in the metropolitan area of buenos aires there exist 1,102 informal settlements, villas de emergencia, which are marginalized urban shanty towns characterized by precarious housing, and insufficient or nonexistent infra-structure and services. such neighborhoods are accessed by narrow dirt—or cement—floored corridors. official data indicate that currently in these marginalized urban neighborhoods 400,900 families reside, approximately 2,004,500 people (dirección general de estadística y censos, 2016). most of them are descendants of indigenous populations who formerly resided in the north of argentina or other countries of the region (such as paraguay, bolivia and peru) and migrated to buenos aires in large numbers, in the late 20th century. the urban segregation of the villas de emergencia with respect to the residential neighborhoods, where middle and high income families, mostly from european origin, live, is accompanied by very marked differences in the level of education accessed by the population. this results in a major socio-economic inequality which is woven into socio-cultural but not linguistic differences, given that spanish is the native language of the population. with the objective of capturing the extremes of this variation we collected data of spontaneous argumentative discourse in the households of children living in villas de emergencias and in residential areas of the city of buenos aires. method design this study follows a naturalistic approach (guba & lincoln, 1982; teale, 1986): we analyzed situations of spontaneous interaction in mid and low ses households of 39 (23 females) 4-year-old spanish-speaking children living in argentina, specifically buenos aires city and surroundings. participants the 39 children were between the ages of 4:1 and 4:11. 19 of them belonged to families in which the parents had incomplete or complete primary education and live in villas de emergencia. the remaining 20 children belonged to families in which at least one of the parents had completed higher level education and lived in urban residential areas. additionally, the parents differed in their occupation. according to report from the daycares’ personnel, all mid ses parents had stable employment as professionals. low ses parents were either unemployed, had occupations requiring low levels of qualification (in domestic service or construction), and/or had unstable jobs as part of the informal labor market. in all cases they received government subsidies. in argentina, it is not considered appropriate to ask families about their income, and thus this information was not available. migdalek & rosemberg 197 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ corpus the data analyzed in this paper is part of a larger corpus recorded in an investigation about children’s linguistic and discursive development (rosemberg, arrúe, & alam, 2005-2012).12 hours of natural interaction in everyday activities were recorded in each household (468 hours, 240 hs. in mid ses families and 228 in urban marginalized populations). the 12 hours were recorded in 3 or 4 observation days, which took place on different moments of the week and on different schedules. adult participants and older children were asked to carry out their regular daily activities. the observer responded to the child’s and their family member’s comments, but did not encourage conversations or specific activities. the audio recordings were fully transcribed, the information was complemented with written annotations of non-verbal characteristics of the interactions (gestures, actions and objects employed, among others) and were included for later analysis. the whole process of data collection and transcription took an extended period of time, 7 years. unit of analysis the units of analysis selected for this paper were the disputes between children and other participants in play situations. we chose to study argumentation in play situations specifically because play constitutes a governing and constitutive activity during the years of children’s lives. the disputes are defined as the meeting point of two confronting points of view, that are deployed in the interaction. the corpus of this study is made up of a total of 615 disputes: 453 of mid ses children and 162 of low ses. procedure of data analysis in order to analyze children’s argumentative strategies in the disputes, we follow a system of categories developed by author and collaborators (migdalek & arrúe, 2013; migdalek, santibáñez yáñez, & rosemberg, 2014). this system was constructed through a mixed methodology that combines the use of a qualitative procedure (grounded theory: glaser & strauss, 1967; strauss & corbin, 1991) together with the heuristic use of categories developed in previous research. the system of analysis was aimed to conceptualize children’s argumentation skills from a perspective of cognitive and pragmatic development. although we defined our categories based on previous research on adult argumentation (perelman & olbrechts tyteca, 1989; toulmin, 1958) as well as with the results of previous studies with children (cobb-moore et al., 2008, 2009; dunn & munn, 1987; eisenberg, 1987), we adapted them in order to create a system capable of working with the specificity of our data (migdalek, santibáñez yáñez, & rosemberg, 2014). to begin with, the system establishes a distinction between disputes in which the children only express their point of view and those in which they deploy some sort of argumentative strategy as support. next, it gives account of the type of argumentative strategy, simple or complex, based on whether or not it delivers new information as an argument. the strategy of reiteration was the only simple strategy identified. likewise, for the quantitative study, we considered whether it was the main strategy for supporting the point of view (reiteration 1) or whether it was a secondary strategy (reiteration 2), that is, the reiteration of another argumentative strategy. complex strategies are divided into two large groups. one group is composed of strategies which select previous knowledge, structured in different formats, as a basis for the organization of the argumentative strategy. in this subgroup we include the narration of previous experiences (referencing past events as evidence to ses differences in children’s argumentative production 198 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ support the point of view); anticipation (the projection of courses of action whether desirable or not, connected to the point of view); generalization (an affirmation which conceptualizes the phenomenon of the object of dispute with a certain degree of abstraction); and description (the argument is organized from the selection and presentation of characteristics or properties of the object, an event or an internal state which allow speakers to assert their point of view as a conclusion). the second group emphasizes the specific characteristics of the interlocutor as a basis for the strategy. among these are the appeal to authority (the point of view is supported by the authority of the other interlocutor who has affirmed it previously); politeness (the use of various linguistic resources which mitigate the formulation of the point of view so that it may be accepted); and the alternative proposal (a negotiation using some form of offer as a means to reach an agreement regarding the confronting positions in the dispute). table 1 presents examples of each category. table 1 examples of argumentative strategies es en reiteration bruno: ay, no, ¿por qué no puedo subir? bruno: oh, no, why can‘t i climb up? franco: vos subías y yo te tiraba, ¿dale? franco: you´ll climb up and i‘ll push you, ok? bruno: sí, porquebruno: yes, becausefranco: ¡no! franco: no! bruno: ¡sí! bruno: yes! franco: ¡no! franco: no! bruno: ¡sí! bruno: yes! franco: ¡no! franco: no. bruno: sí. bruno: yes. franco: no. franco: no. narration carlitos: está llorando tu pelota, agu ¿vamos a jugar vos con ella y yo con ella, dale, agu? ¿vos con ella, dale? carlitos: your ball‘s crying agu. can you play with her and me with her, ok, agu? you with her, ok? agustín: ¡no! agustín: no! carlitos: y yo con esta. carlitos: and me with this one. agustín: ¡no! agustín: no! carlitos: ¿por qué? ¿con cuál querés vo? carlitos: why? which one do you want to play with? agustín: no porque vo me dejaste [pegaste] un pelotazo. agustín: no because you hit me hard with the ball. anticipation carlitos: ¡dale, agus, juguemos ahora! agustín: con esta no, con esta no [se refiere a la pelota grande de cuero] si no me va a doler la cabeza, la panza. carlitos: c´mon, agus, let´s play now! agustín: not with this one, not with this one con esta no [he refers to a big leather ball]. if not, it´s going to hurt my head, my tummy. generalization carlitos: ¡ahora la paso! carlitos: i´ll pass the ball in a second! agustín: ¡no, quiero pasarla, dale! agustín: no, i want to pass it, c´mon! carlitos: ¡no, esperá, yo la paso! carlitos: no, wait, i´m going to pass it! agustín: ¡no! los jugadores [se refiere a los arqueros] no tienen que patear así parado, tiene que correr. agustín: no! players [goalkeepers] can´t kick the ball standing, they must run. migdalek & rosemberg 199 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ es en description julieta: mirá si se nos cae todo [se ríe]. julieta: what if everything falls down? [laugh]. canela: basta, no te rías porque me estoy desconcentrando. canela: stop it, don´t laugh because i´m getting distracted. appeal to authority rafael: ¿por qué no anda el control? rafael: why isn´t the joystick working? lautaro: ¡sí anda, rafael! lauraro: it does work, rafael. rafael: ¡el dos no anda! rafael: the number two doesn´t work. lautaroi: ¡lo dijo papá ayer! lautaro: dad said it yesterday. politeness cecilia: ¿querés queclara, querés tus tortas? cecilia: do you wantclara, do you want your cakes? clara: [no responde] clara: [she doesn’t answer] cecilia: tomá tu torta. cecilia: here, take your cake. alternative proposal sol: mirá, yo te presto el mío [un disfraz] y vos me prestás el tuyo. sol: look, i´ll share mine [a costume] and you´ll share yours. guadalupe: yo traje el mío para que yo me lo ponga. guadalupe: i brought mine so that [only] i can wear it. sol: ¡dale! sol: please! guadalupe: no, porque mamá y yo lo trajimos para que… guadalupe: no, because mom and i brought it so that… sol: bueno, pero después... sol: ok, but afterwards… the first author code the cent percent of disputes for both ses group. twenty five percent of disputes of each ses group coded by the second author for reliability checking. good indexes were found among the coders in all categories: reiteration 1 (96.75% agreement, κ = .931), reiteration 2 (96.10% agreement, κ = .729), narration (97,40% agreement, κ = .843), anticipation (98.05% agreement, κ = .943), generalization (97.40% agreement, κ = .701), description (92.20% agreement, κ = .783), alternative proposal (98.70% agreement, κ = .850), politeness (97.40% agreement, κ = .832), appeal to authority (99.35% agreement, κ = .886). we also analyzed the presence of certain linguistic resources—causal, consecutive and adversative connectors—used by the children in their argumentative production. ses differences were statistically analyzed regarding the use of argumentative strategies, and in the presence of connectors. given the differences in the quantity of disputes in both social groups, we calculated indexes considering the number of disputes each child was involved in. results bearing in mind the investigations which show that the social context may foster the use of argumentative strategies (faigenbaum, 2012; kuhn, 1992; silvestri, 2001), the present study aims to delve into the implications socio-economic differences might have on children’s argumentative production. to this end, we analyze a corpus of disputes in at-home play situations in which 4-year-old argentine children from marginal urban communities and from mid ses families. in the first place, we consider the degree to which children resort to some kind of argumentative strategy instead of simply expressing their point of view. we carried out a 2 x 2 variance mixed analysis, with ses (mid vs. low) as the inter-subject variable, and the use of strategies vs. the mere expression of a point of view as ses differences in children’s argumentative production 200 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intra-subject variables. the post-hoc analysis was completed with the bonferroni contrast test. the descriptive measures are shown on table 2. table 2 expression of mere point of view vs. use of argumentative strategies by ses dispute structure mid ses low ses m sd m sd mere expression of a point of view 0.39 0.26 0.39 0.31 use of an argumentative strategies 1.49 0.49 1.07 0.47 the variance analysis detects significant intra-group differences regarding the use of an argumentative strategy to support a point of view and the mere expression of a point of view f(1, 34) = 79.79, p < .001, in favor of using a particular strategy. the analysis also detects an effect of ses f(1, 34) = 5.81, p < .05: mid ses children use significantly more argumentative strategies. likewise we detect an interaction effect between ses and the use of an argumentative strategies vs. the mere expression of the point of view f(1, 34) = 4.66, p < .05. upon completion of the post-hoc analysis, we observed that ses renders no differences in the mere expression of a point of view, but we did detect that mid ses children use significantly more argumentative strategies (p < .05). next we analyze the relationship between the type of argumentative strategies—focused on the use of evidence or on the interlocutor’s characteristics—and ses. firstly, we carried out a mixed analysis of 2 x 2 variance, with ses as the inter-subject variable, and the type of strategies variable. also a post-hoc analysis was carried out using bonferroni’s contrast test. the statistical descriptives are shown on table 3, below. table 3 types of argumentative strategies by ses type of argumentative strategies mid ses low ses m sd m sd strategies centered on the use of evidence 0.96 0.50 0.38 0.28 strategies centered upon the interlocutor’s characteristic 0.16 0.19 0.12 0.12 without considering ses variation, results show significantly more use of argumentative strategies which imply the reference of evidence compared to those centered upon the interlocutor’s characteristics, f(1, 34) = 53.81, p < .001. additionally, the analysis does not only detect ses effects f(1, 34) = 15.97; p < .001, (given the greater quantity of strategies in the mid ses group), but also an interaction effect between the social group and the type of strategy f(1, 34) = 13.97, p < .01. the post-hoc analysis showed that the differences appeared mainly in the strategies focused on the use of evidence, being employed to a greater extent in the mid ses group (p < .01). next we carried out an analysis of the argumentative strategies as a function of ses; distributional results are deployed in figure 1. as observed in the figure 1, low ses children resort to the strategy of reiteration 1 (simple) most frequently, followed by the strategy of description, then narration and anticipation in equal migdalek & rosemberg 201 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measure, reiteration 2, appeal to authority, politeness and, at the same level, generalization and alternative proposal. for their part, mid ses children resort most frequently to description, followed by reiteration 1, then anticipation, narration, and next generalization and politeness in equal measure; then comes reiteration 2 (complex) and finally an appeal to authority. figure 1. distribution of argumentative strategies by ses. ses differences in the use of each of these strategies were assessed through the t-test. the descriptive statistics are shown on table 4, below. table 4 argumentative strategies by ses argumentative strategy mid ses low ses t(34) pm sd m sd reiteration 1 0.32 0.17 0.49 0.29 2.21 .03 reiteration 2 0.06 0.06 0.08 0.12 0.83 .42 narration 0.19 0.26 0.10 0.15 1.22 .23 anticipation 0.20 0.29 0.10 0.13 1.24 .23 generalization 0.09 0.09 0.02 0.05 2.89 .01 description 0.48 0.22 0.15 0.20 4.60 < .001 alternative proposal 0.06 0.07 0.02 0.04 1.75 .09 politeness 0.09 0.11 0.04 0.07 1.49 .15 appeal to authority 0.02 0.03 0.06 0.10 1.48 .16 significant differences were found in the reiteration 1 strategy: low ses children employed this strategy more frequently than mid ses t(34) = 2.21, p < .05. for their part, mid ses children resorted to the strategy of ses differences in children’s argumentative production 202 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ generalization t(34) = 2.89, p < .01 and the strategy of description significantly more often t(34) = 4.60, p < .001. finally, we carried out an analysis of the connectors which were present in the disputes according to social group. as may be observed on figure 2, the children from urban marginalized populations used causal connectors more frequently (0.9) than adversative connectors (0.2). in this group the use of consecutive connectors was not observed. for their part, the mid ses children also employed causal and adversative connectors to the same extent (0.18), followed by consecutive connectors (0.8). figure 2. distribution of connectors by ses. ses differences regarding the use of each of type of connectors analyzed were assessed using the t-test. the descriptive statistics are below on table 5. table 5 use of connectors by ses connector type mid ses low ses t(34) pm sd m sd causal connectors 0.18 0.21 0.09 0.12 1.61 .12 consecutive connectors 0.08 0.14 0.00 0.00 2.44 .03 adversative connectors 0.18 0.13 0.02 0.04 5.30 < .001 the analysis showed no significant ses differences in the use of causal connectors. nonetheless, significant differences were found in the use of connectors to mark consecutive t(34) = 2.44, p < .05 and adversative links t(34) = 5.30, p < .001, as mid ses children used them significantly more frequently. migdalek & rosemberg 203 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the results of the analysis of 4-year-old mid and low ses argentinean children’s argumentative strategies produced during in at-home play situations presented in this paper provide additional evidence to previous research (faigenbaum, 2012; kuhn, 1992; silvestri, 2001) regarding the importance of social context in early discursive acquisition. this study, differently from others (pontecorvo & arcidiacono, 2010), focused on only one type of activity —play—; therefore allowing for comparisons across social groups. these results replicate the findings of our previous studies. very early on, children from both social groups use argumentative strategies significantly more than simply opposing a point of view (migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014; migdalek et al., 2015). in play situations, when required by the situational and/or discursive context, children are capable of producing diverse argumentative strategies showing experience and understanding of the social world, likely due to an early understanding of shared intentions, wishes and beliefs. these results also as do those of other studies (dunn & munn, 1987; eisenberg, 1987; peronard, 1991; pontecorvo & arcidiacono, 2010; stein & albro, 2001; voss & van dyke, 2001; zadunaisky ehrlich & blum-kulka, 2010) highlight the early appearance of the argumentative use of language. the analysis also showed an effect of social group: mid-ses children employed significantly more argumentative strategies in disputes than their low-ses peers, however the mere expression of point of view was observed to be equal across both groups. additionally, mid ses children differed from their low ses peers, due to their more frequent use of the type of strategies that mainly relied on referencing evidence. as nelson (1996, 2007) suggested at age 3 children make a more flexible use of their mental representations of usual events, as well as specific representations of past events, creating a cognitive context that allows them to understand and participate in the world. these knowledge representations are an important base from which they can draw on to create an argument. if their strategy is effective in a certain situation, this may well reinforce its subsequent usage, evincing a bi-directional relationship between cognition and social context. in order to argue, low ses children employed the strategy of simple reiteration more than the mid ses group. this repetition resource has been studied in detail from classical to contemporary rhetoric (perelman & olbrechts tyteca, 1989; tindale, 1999). other studies on child argumentation have also identified reiteration as a strategy found in children’s argumentation. it has been considered a simple argumentative strategy, given that it does not provide new information as an argument (dunn & munn, 1987; eisenberg, 1987; stein & albro, 2001). it only requires the tacit recognition of a difference of opinion and insistence. it is difficult to assess whether low ses children resort mainly to reiteration because it is the more effective strategy in their context or due to the fact that their argumentative repertoire is limited. alternatively, the combination of both hypothesis may better explain low ses children argumentative performance. for their part, the mid ses group draws on the generalization and description strategies in a significantly greater number of opportunities than the low ses group. it is worth noting that in a previous study comparing low ses children’s argumentative performance in preschool versus at-home situations (migdalek et al., 2015), we found a more frequent use of these strategies in the preschool context than at home. these results provide new evidence to support the importance of context for deploying complex argumentative strategies (faigenbaum, 2012; kuhn, 1992; silvestri, 2001). the use of the generalization strategy may be attributed to the need to invoke social norms and rules that regulate interactions, especially at preschool ses differences in children’s argumentative production 204 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (cobb-moore et al., 2008, 2009). additionally, the taxonomic language that characterises school context from the start could explain the more frequent use of this strategy at preschool, as classroom interaction leads children to call upon superordinate concepts which subsume and provide explanations to specific concepts. the analysis detected no significant ses differences in the use of causal connectors. as has been proved, these types of connectors, mainly the ‘because’ form, are used in disputes from an early age (migdalek, rosemberg, & santibáñez yáñez, 2014; orsolini, 1993; pellegrini, 1985). these results replicate rosemberg, silva and stein (2010), who showed the early use of this connector in the production of narrative discourse by low ses children. conversely, the analysis did find significant differences in the use of consecutive and adversative connectors, being more frequent in the mid ses group. this could be due to mid ses children possessing a greater quantity and diversity of vocabulary, as has been shown in other studies (rosemberg et al., 2014). in short, the results of this study show important ses differences in the production of argumentative discourse. these differences may be attributed to variation in linguistic opportunities offered by social and discursive interactions. furthermore, disputes during play situations have proved to challenge children to use linguistic resources and strategies in order to support their claims. therefore, one pedagogical implication that arises from these results is that preschool teaching situations could be enriched by children’s spontaneous disputes, and become learning experiences with the potential of promoting argumentative discourse. funding this research was carried out within the framework of the project “vocabulario, narración y argumentación infantil. un estudio psicolingüístico y sociocultural” [vocabulary, narration and argumentation in infancy. a psycholinguistic and sociocultural study] (rosemberg, c.r: pip 112201 501000 80co, pict 2014/3327) with financial support from mincyt and conicet, argentina. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bernard, s., mercier, h., & clément, f. 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(2010). peer talk as a ‘double opportunity space’: the case of argumentative discourse. discourse & society, 21(2), 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926509353847 ses differences in children’s argumentative production 208 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 https://doi.org/10.1075%2flia.5.1.02ros https://doi.org/10.1080%2f0163853x.2001.9651594 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f0163853x.2001.9651593 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cogdev.2009.01.003 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0957926509353847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors maia julieta migdalek is an assistant researcher at the national council of scientific and technical research (conicet), argentina. she has a degree (ba) in letters (linguistics) and a ph. d. in the faculty of philosophy and letters at the university of buenos aires. she teaches linguistics at the university of buenos aires. her researches has focused on early literacy and children discourse development. celia reanta rosemberg is a principal researcher at the national council of scientific and technical research (conicet), argentina. she has degree (ba) in education and a ph. d. in the faculty of philosophy and letters at the university of buenos aires. she is the director of the centro interdisciplinario de investigaciones en psicología matemática y experimental (ciipme conicet). also, she is a regular professor at the university of buenos aires. her researches has focused on vocabulary, early literacy and children discourse development. migdalek & rosemberg 209 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 193–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1665 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ses differences in children’s argumentative production (introduction) the current study method design participants corpus unit of analysis procedure of data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors more than defense in daily experience of privacy: the functions of privacy in digital and physical environments research reports more than defense in daily experience of privacy: the functions of privacy in digital and physical environments debora benedetta lombardi*a, maria rita ciceria [a] department of psychology, university of the sacred heart of milan, milan, italy. abstract the purpose of the current study was to investigate the experience of privacy, focusing on its functional role in personal well-being. a sample (n = 180) comprised subjects between 18 and 50 years of age were asked to spontaneously provide accounts of their experiences with privacy and answer close-ended questions to acquire a description of a daily experience of privacy. the results showed the importance attributed to the function of privacy related to the “defense from social threats”, and the twofold function of privacy related to an “achieved state of privacy”, in the terms of both “system maintenance” and “system development”. the results also shed light on the role of the environment in shaping one’s experience of privacy. specifically, the participants recognized more easily the function of defense from threats related to seeking privacy while interacting in digital environments, whereas they seemed to benefit from positive functions related to an achieved state of privacy in physical environments. the findings sustain the notion of privacy as a supportive condition for some psychological processes involved in the positive human functioning and confirm previous studies conducted on the role of privacy in human well-being. keywords: privacy, positive experience, functions for well-being, person-environment interaction europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 received: 2015-02-24. accepted: 2016-01-15. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of the sacred heart of milan, l.go gemelli, 1, 20123, milan, italy. e-mail: debora.lombardi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in complex societies, where the boundaries between physical and digital environments are difficult to distinguish, the definition of privacy and the knowledge of its beneficial role in individuals’ well-being become challenging matters. the current study focused on the role of the experience of privacy in personal well-being in order to explore its functions in both digital and physical environments. privacy is a condition strongly related to everyday life. it plays a crucial role in enabling people to manage both their social interactions and their personal activities (pedersen, 1997). despite the lack of a univocal conceptual framework on the definition of privacy, scholars consider privacy a central ingredient in the positive human functioning (altman, 1975; newell, 1994). social and cognitive studies agree that privacy is a voluntary and temporary condition of separation from public domain (newell, 1994, 1995, 1998) that originates from the interaction between the individual’s features (e.g., need for recovery, need for selfregulation; johnson, 1974; pedersen, 1999) and the environment (e.g., is this place supportive for the satisfaction europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of my need for recovery?) (cole & hall, 2010; demirbas & demirkan, 2000; korpela, kyttä, & hartig, 2002; palen & dourish, 2003). accordingly, we consider privacy a socio-environmental construct, as the person-environment interaction determines both the shape of privacy, (i.e., thus, if privacy takes the shape of either solitude, anonymity, isolation, reserve or intimacy) and the beneficial functions that it can support (e.g., emotional regulation, stress recovery, enhancing creativity) (pedersen, 1997, 1999). although the relevance of privacy, as a condition that can provide support for certain positive psychological processes, has been confirmed, very little scientific attention has been paid to the specific functions of privacy. the literature on the psychology of privacy focuses more or less explicitly on the defensive behaviors to avoid the violation of privacy (altman, 1975; buslig & burgoon, 2000; milgram, 1973; palen & dourish, 2003). very little attention has been paid to the noteworthy function of privacy in supporting some of specific processes involved in the empowerment of personal well-being in terms of restoration and personal growth (newell, 1994, 1995; pedersen, 1997, 1999; westin, 1967). among the limited extant studies on the positive functions of privacy (cole & hall, 2010; newell, 1994, 1998; pedersen, 1997, 1999), newell (1994, 1998) proposed a synthetic functional theory of privacy called the systems model of privacy. according to this model, privacy plays a central role in supporting two classes of psychological processes, “systemmaintenance” and “system development”, to provide the conditions for both threat release and personal growth (newell, 1994, 1995, 1998). this work intends to gain a deeper understanding of the person’s experience of the beneficial functions of privacy, considering the complex overlap between physical and digital environment, as the process of privacy unfolds, from its need to the experience of its effects. the “how” and “why” of privacy: the functions of privacy and the personal well-being two main traditions of research on the topic of privacy exist in psychology. some authors have focused on the “how” of privacy, that is, the mechanisms through which a person seeks and obtains it (altman, 1975, 1977; buslig & burgoon, 2000; klopfer & rubenstein, 1977; petronio, 2003). these mechanisms consist of learned behaviors that serve to regulate social interaction and that vary widely across cultures (altman, 1977). the primary aim of these behaviors is to protect the person from environmental threats. these protective behavioral mechanisms are prerequisites for allowing the subject to reach a condition of privacy (newell, 1994). accordingly, we propose that the need for defense from threats precedes and makes possible the achievement of an experience of privacy. moreover, the need for the system to be protected from threats is activated by the experience of encroachment, even when anticipated. a different perspective concerns instead the investigation of the “why” of privacy (newell, 1994, 1995, 1998; pedersen, 1999; westin, 1967); thus, its functions for personal well-being, which people actualize when they achieve this state. this approach investigates the benefits of privacy; therefore, the focus is on the reached state of privacy rather than to the steps required to reach it. integrating the research interests about the “how” and the “why” of privacy, it is possible to identify the main features that characterize this process from the initial step of seeking it to the final step regarding the contemplation of the effects of its achieved state. some of the features related to this process of seeking-experiencing, such as the antecedent conditions connected to a desire for privacy (newell, 1994; pastalan, 1970), the affective set linked to its requirement (newell, 1994), the urgency through europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 116 http://www.psychopen.eu/ which the subject seeks it (newell, 1998), the affective state related to its achievement (francis & cooper, 1991; newell, 1994) and the perceived ability to achieve it, have been investigated in previous studies. specifically, the proponents of the approach related to the “why” of privacy (newell, 1994, 1995, 1998; pedersen, 1999; westin, 1967) make a point, which appears to be relevant for the purposes of the current work. they argue that privacy has two main functions for human well-being, (a) a system maintenance function, which involves cognitive and emotional processes implicated in the maintenance of the homeostasis and in a state of release and (b) a system development function, which comprises psychological processes, such as self-conscious processes, involved in personal growth (cole & hall, 2010; hammitt, 2012; newell, 1998; pedersen, 1999). as a systemmaintenance function, privacy supports processes to promote and ensure a satisfying level of homeostasis (cannon, 1932), since it is often associated with the experience of recovery from psychophysiological stress (ulrich et al., 1991), emotion regulation (izard & kobak, 1991), self-regulation and release (korpela, kyttä, & hartig, 2002; vuorinen, 1990). reframing the discourse on this topic to reflect the approach of positive psychology, it is possible to state that this type of experiencemay be associated with the hedonic experience (kahneman, diener, & schwarz, 1999) and the related concept of subjective well-being (diener, 2000), which focus on positive affect and the absence of unpleasant experience. as a system development function, privacy provides the condition to exercise and improve self-conscious processes, like self-evaluation, contemplation of one’s thoughts and emotions (long, 2000; long & averill, 2003; pedersen, 1997, 1999), problem-solving, creative thought (edney & buda, 1976; ittelson, proshansky, rivlin, &winkel, 1974; newell, 1994), and spirituality (pedersen, 1999; suedfeld, 1982). in this regard, for example, pedersen found that some psychological processes involved in the positive functioning, such as selfdiscovery and planning, are best supported by specific privacy forms, such as solitude and isolation conditions, rather than other forms, such as either intimacy or anonymity conditions (pedersen, 1997). considering the positive psychology point of view on this topic, the system development function underlies the idea of well-being as a complex long-term-oriented process of self-development and growth. thus, privacy presents a particular focus on personal growth (keyes, 2002; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). this approach to wellbeing is particularly close to the idea of psychological well-being (ryff & singer, 1998, 2008), which underlines the positive factors that empower individuals to fulfill self-actualization (ryan & deci, 2000). following this process approach to privacy, the current study aims to focus on two types of function of privacy: the function of protection from threats and the function related to an achieved condition of privacy. the former is a prerequisite for the achievement of a state of privacy. compared to the latter, it has attracted the most scientific attention so far. the second category comprises the beneficial functions provided by an achieved condition of privacy, such as the system maintenance and the system development (newell, 1994, 1995, 1998). despite the limited extant studies on the benefits related to the experience of privacy, scholars agree on emphasizing the relevance of experiencing privacy for the empowerment of well-being (cole & hall, 2010; long & averill, 2003; newell, 1994, 1998; pedersen, 1997, 1999). the role of the environment in shaping the concept of privacy: digital spaces vs. physical environments following the theoretical framework in which privacy arises from the interaction between the person and the environment, some authors have been interested in investigating the role of the environment in shaping the features of an experience of privacy. specifically, it is possible to identify two fields of research concerned with this matter. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 117 http://www.psychopen.eu/ first, the issue of privacy has been applied to the digital space domain. in the current study, we used the term “digital environment” to indicate technology-based social interactions, such as computer-mediated-communication (cmc), social-network interaction and communication viamedia and newmedia (palen & dourish, 2003; sommer, 2002; tu, 2002b). information technologies have contributed to the creation of new sets of problems; specifically, they have created a ubiquitous environment where sensible constraints are no longer perceived. hence, social interaction becomes difficult to manage (bellotti, 1998; grudin, 2001; neumann, 1995; tu, 2002b), since it has been related to multiple changes in boundary regulation practices (boyle, 2003; boyle, neustaedter, & greenberg, 2009; palen & dourish, 2003). consequently, an increase in sensitivity to the risks of violation of one’s personal information has occurred (cole et al., 2001; röcker & feith, 2009). from this perspective, the issue of privacy is associated with the problem of managing the information shared about oneself (altman, 1975, 1977; röcker & feith, 2009). a second line of research considers the influence of the physical environment in determining the features of an experience of well-being (cole & hall, 2010; hammitt, 1982, 2012; kaplan, 1995; korpela, hartig, kaiser, & fuhrer, 2001; korpela et al., 2002). from this perspective, the concept of privacy is useful to illustrate the kind of experience that people seek in particular contexts (e.g., in the wilderness) (hammitt, 2012). in his study, hammitt (2012) showed that wilderness privacy operates as a coping strategy to achieve a desired environmental state, as it works as a boundary regulation mechanism, which serves to fit with one’s needs for space and social interaction (altman, 1975; proshansky, ittleson, & rivlin, 1976) and for experiencing emotional and cognitive release (westin, 1967) from everyday stressors and fatigue. indeed, it is easier to identify strategies to take advantage of the beneficial functions of privacy to experience well-being in the physical environment rather than in this ubiquitous environment, since the former provides well-known sensible coordinates in which one can move in order to manage his/her social activities. considering the points made in the present discussion, some relevant questions about the function of privacy and the role of the environment in shaping its experience emerge. first, it may be interesting to examine the processes related to the functions of privacy as well as the experience of its beneficial effects, as pointed out in the literature. second, studies on both the digital and the physical environment reflect two main traditions of research on the topic of privacy in psychology. the “how” of privacy is particularly critical for research on the previously mentioned digital environment. the branch of work concerning privacy in the wilderness and the restorative experience in natural environments can be seen as part of “why” line of research. it would be interesting to go beyond the opposition between negative-positive experiences of privacy in relation to digital vs. physical environment through the investigation of the experience of the person-environment interaction in both types of environment. aims of the study the primary purpose of the current study was to investigate the experience of privacy, with a focus on its functions for well-being (i.e., the functions of threat defense, of system maintenance, and of system development). hence, we proposed to collect data on both the spontaneous definition of privacy and the guided description of its daily experience. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 118 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specifically, we intended to (1) investigate the relevance attributed to each of the two categories of function of privacy, such as the function of defense of the system and the function related to the achieved state of privacy (i.e., function of maintenance and function of development). hence, we expected that (a) the function of defense of the system would be mentioned more frequently compared to the function related to a state of achieved state of privacy (i.e., system maintenance function and system development function), since the aspects associated with the protection from threats are easier to identify in one’s daily experience of privacy, and the defense processes take priority over the psychological processes related to an achieved state of privacy (cannon, 1932; newell, 1994). second, we also expected that (b) considering the two functions related to the achieved state of privacy (i.e., the function of maintenance and the function of development), the function of maintenance would be cited more frequently compared to the function of development, as the effects related to the psychological processes involved in the maintenance of the system, (e.g., the effect of recovery from threats and emotional regulation) are easily to be detected compared to those involved in the development (e.g., the result of self-evaluation and contemplation of one’s thoughts), which comprises long-term processes. second aim of the current work was to (2) investigate the role of the environment in shaping the experience of privacy. according to the literature (boyle, neustaedter, & greenberg, 2009; palen & dourish, 2003; tu, 2002b), we expected that (c) the aspects associated with two positive functions related to a state of achieved privacy would be mentioned less frequently in relation to digital rather than physical environments, since in digital spaces, managing the threats of violation of one’s privacy (i.e., function of protection from threats) is of much concern (boyle, neustaedter, & greenberg, 2009; palen & dourish, 2003). method participants and procedure the sample comprised 180 italian volunteer males (n = 90) and females (n = 90) between the ages of 18 and 50 (m = 32.26; sd = 10.807). the subjects were heterogeneous in terms of education (bachelor’s degree = 44.44%; high school diploma = 48.33%; middle school diploma = 7.22%) and occupation (student = 28.89%; employee = 52.78%; freelance = 18.33%). the participants were recruited via the internet. all subjects were italian and currently living in italy. the study was conducted as a web-based-survey (sue & ritter, 2007), complying with requirements of anonymity and sampling (gosling, vazire, srivastava, & john, 2004; seligman, steen, park, & peterson, 2005). instruments we used two instruments to conduct a free exploration and obtain a guided detailed description of the daily experience of privacy. the first instrument comprised open-ended questions to investigate the sample’s social representation of privacy through their spontaneous definitions of privacy (foddy, 1993; reja, lozar manfreda, hlebec, & vehovar, 2003; europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 119 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vinten, 1995). specifically, it comprised three open questions. the first question concerned the meaning associated with privacy. it was phrased as follows: “think about the meaning that you give to the word ‘privacy’. then complete the following sentence: to me, privacy means…” the second open question concerned an experience of privacy violation. it was worded as follows: “think about an episode in your life in which you felt your privacy being violated, then please write about it”. the third open question dealt with the account of a positive experience of privacy. it was worded as follows: “think about an episode in your life in which you felt a positive experience of privacy, then please write about it.” the second instrument was a modified version of an ad hoc privacy questionnaire developed by newell (1998). it comprised two sections. the first section assessed demographic variables, including age, gender, education, and occupation. the second and final section of the instrument included close-ended questions. these questions assessed the main features that characterize the process of seeking privacy. (a) the antecedent conditions connected to a desire for privacy were assessed. past research (newell, 1994, 1998; pastalan, 1970) identified the following antecedent conditions: “social antecedents”, referring to the concerns for other people, such as overcrowding, need for intimacy, and perceived responsibilities to other people; “physical conditions”, referring to physical factors, which, if experienced, may require the achievement of privacy, such as noise and pollution; “motivational antecedents”, referring to intentions and desires to do or achieve something; and “organismic factors”, referring to disturbance in the physiological state of the individual that is unrelated to immediate social conditions, such as major injury, aggression, anxiety state, inability to control one’s action, menses. (b) the affective set linked to a requirement of privacy was assessed as another feature of privacy seeking (newell, 1994). the affective set categories used in past research (korpela 1991; newell 1998) included sadness, anger, anxiety, tiredness, positive state, creative thinking, desire to focus on one’s thoughts and desire of intimacy related to a previous condition to the achievement of privacy. (c) the after affective effects of the achievement of privacy (francis & cooper, 1991; korpela, 1989, 1991; newell, 1994, 1998) were derived from past research on privacy experience as well as restorative places. categories include relaxation, emotionality, tiredness and refreshments experienced after the achievement of a state of privacy. (d) the perceived ability to achieve privacy and (e) the urgencywith which the subject seeks privacy (newell, 1998) are the primary driver of seeking privacy and consider the following options: distress, concentration, need for creative thinking, and need for intimacy. questions related to the duration of the average experience of privacy, the frequency of the occurrence of both a need for privacy and a need for sharing a privacy experience with others were not included in the current version of the instrument. the original version of the questionnaire (newell, 1998) was translated into italian. data analysis the present study used a quali-quantitative analysis of the answers to the open questions. to explore the primary features of the sample’s concept of privacy, the textual corpus obtained from the answers was systematically analyzed using the t-lab 7.2 software for content analysis and text miningi. the choice of this instrument was justified by the fact that it allows investigating both the inner structure of a semantic map and the process of meaning making (lancia, 2004). after the text corpus was set up, two kinds of textual analysis were conducted. first, a cluster analysis, respectively called “thematic analysis of elementary context”, was performed (guest & mclellan, 2003; richards & richards, 1995). this analysis made it possible to identify the principal themes associated with the sample’s social representation of privacy and their localization into a semantic space. this semantic field was drawn up by the interception of two axes explaining the thematic variance of the considered corpus europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 120 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (gambetti & graffigna, 2010). specifically, the main isolated clusters consisted of elementary contexts (ec). each ec had the minimum degree of inner variance and the maximum degree of the external one. second, a cooccurrence analysis, which is called “word association analysis” (waa), was conducted to obtain a more precise exploration of the semantic association between some of the principal key words (i.e., lexical units, lu) to determine their local meaning. the relationships weremeasured with a semantic association index (cosine coefficient, salton & mcgill, 1984). the main features that characterize the experience of privacy collected through closed-ended questions were analyzed to explore the sample’s daily experience of privacy. chi-square analysis was applied to compare the data on the systemmaintenance type of function of privacy with those on the system development function (newell, 1994, 1998). results free exploration of the experience of privacy occurrence of omitted answers the first noticeable result that emerged from the free exploration of the semantic dimensions of privacy concerned the percentage of omitted answers to the open questions. a large portion (44%; n = 93) of the sample (n = 180) did not answer the question asking them to recount a positive experience of privacy (question 3) while another significant percentage (23%; n = 49) did not answer the question asking them to recount an experience of privacy violation (question 2). only 4.25% (n = 9) omitted answers to the question about the definition of privacy (question 1). cluster analysis (ca) the thematic analysis of elementary context was carried out on the entire textual corpus, which comprised the answers to the three open-ended questions included in the questionnaire. this analysis allowed for the creation of a semantics map through the individuation of two main factors that were used to organize the amount of textual data (see figure 1). • factor 1 represents the locus of control over private information (“internal locus of control-external locus of control” axis in figure 1). locus of control is external if the person perceives himself or herself to play a passive role in the management of his or her private information (right extreme), whereas it is internal if the person feels that he or she holds active control over this information (left extreme). • factor 2 represents the level of awareness about one’s own experience (“awareness-unawareness” axis in figure 1). the bottom of the axis represents a minimum level of awareness (unawareness) of several features of one’s daily experience, including the implicit risk associated with the interaction with media and new media and the ability to identify privacy (including its main facet and its thorough definition). conversely, the top of the axis corresponds to a maximum level of awareness about one’s own experience of privacy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 121 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the semantic map of the five clusters obtained with the application of the cluster analysis. themapping of the above criteria resulted in the isolation of five thematic clusters in which the corpus was organized (see appendix). the first cluster deals with the negative experiences of invasion of privacy via media and new media (e.g., telephone, the internet, e-mail, and facebook). these types of experiences increase the perception of violation of privacy due to the subject’s unawareness of the means by which an unknown person can obtain the subject’s personal information (e.g., telephone numbers, personal account information and other identifying data). the second cluster focuses on the management of private information by others. this cluster includes experiences through which the respondents entitle other persons to handle their own data. the management of private information by third parties can be proper or improper, such as, for example, publishing school results or speaking loudly during a medical examination. the third, fourth, and fifth clusters deal more directly with the definition of privacy. the third cluster focuses on the experiential and concrete features of privacy. when privacy is achieved, participants have a positive experience; they consider privacy a physical space in which one can exert free will and perceive a sense of agency. the fourth cluster focuses on a dialectic definition of privacy as a condition of “the lack of privacy violation”. this cluster includes elementary context, which defines privacy as a condition in which “nobody bothers me”, “my secrets are protected”, “nobody violates my personal space”, “nobody can read my personal diary”, and the like. the fifth cluster centers on the normative aspects associated with privacy. typical terms in this cluster concern the semantic field of protection and defense against violation of sensitive data. specifically, the individual protects the data him or herself. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 122 http://www.psychopen.eu/ word association analysis (waa) a word association analysis was conducted to specify and support the outcomes obtained from the ca (see table 1). specifically, the associations between the concept of privacy and other concepts related to the entire corpus were studied and measured using a cosine coefficient (cc, salton & mcgill, 1984). considering the four most significant associations with the concept of privacy (“life”, “violation”, “personal”, and “respect”), the results showed that privacy can be represented through three primary semantic dimensions. first, the sample seemed to acknowledge that privacy concerns the most intimate aspects of life and is linked to their daily experience (‘privacy’ and ‘life’, cc = 0.479; ‘privacy’ and ‘personal’, cc = 0.434). second, privacy was an acknowledged domain; thus, others have to respect it (‘privacy’ and ‘respect’ cc = 0.403). the dimension of respect entails interaction with other people and seems to emphasize the normative aspect of privacy as a juridical right. it also comprises the “need for control” that emerged from the sample’s accounts. the third dimension concerns the violation of a state of privacy, as indicated by the high value of the association between privacy and violation (cc = 0.47). this value suggests that the experience of violation of privacy is an important factor in the definition of the concept. therefore, the considered association justifies the hypothesis that the concept of violation is often activated when the respondents think about privacy. table 1 word association analysis (waa) of the textual corpus ec “privacy” + other lemmaec “privacy”cosene coefficienttranslated lemmalemma 42530.479lifevita 38450.470violationviolazione 531030.434personalpersonale 36550.403respectedrispettato 34530.388datadati 27380.364informationinformazione guided exploration of the experience of privacy considering the conditions that stimulate the subject to achieve privacy (“antecedent factors to privacy”), most participants (n = 180) indicated “social factors” as the first (43.89%) and “motivational factors” as the second (27.22%) reason to pursue privacy, followed by “physical factors” (11.67%) and “organismic factors” (10.00%). the “urgency” factor concerns a set of aspects that explain the subjective need to achieve privacy. a large portion (41.11%) of the total sample (n = 180) indicated “concentration” as the main reason and “stress” as the second reason (32.78%) to seek privacy. furthermore, the findings suggested that privacy is mostly sought for reasons concerned with “system development” (total development = 58.89%) rather than “system maintenance” (total maintenance = 40.56%) (table 2). these reasons differed significantly, as indicated by a chi square of 6.084 with 1df and a p-value of 0.014. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 123 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 urgency to achieve privacy, as identified by the total sample (n = 180) percentage of the total sample (n = 180)urgency system maintenance distress .78%32 emotional .78%7 total .56%40 system development concentration .11%41 creativity .78%17 total .89%58 no answer .56%0 affect associated with antecedents “affect associated with the antecedents” refers to the affective experiences of the subject after he/she identifies a need for privacy. according to past research, initial affect associated with a desire for privacy can be both negative (i.e., whether i am experiencing an overall negative affect while i am searching for privacy) or positive (i.e., whether i am experiencing an overall positive affect while i am searching for privacy). negative affect involves the experiences characterized by a need for restoration, physically, emotionally, and cognitively, while positive affect involves a state characterized by a need for being productive and involved in something important in one’s life. of the total sample, 36.67% (n = 180) indicated the “desire to focus on my thoughts” as the primary reason to seek privacy while 23.33% indicated “tiredness” (i.e., “i most often require a period of privacy when i am tired”). overall, both negative and positive affects associated with antecedents showed equal distribution of the data (table 3). after effects associated with obtaining the condition of privacy most participants (75.00%; n = 180) evaluated the affective set associated with a condition of achieving privacy positively; conversely, only a small percentage of the sample (22.22%) stated that they felt worse after achieving a condition of privacy. these responses differed significantly, as indicated by a chi square of 51.571 with 1 df and a p-value of 0.001. “ability to achieve privacy” refers to the subjects’ assessment of their perceived ability to reach a condition of privacy when needed. of the total sample (n = 180), 85.56% affirmed that they were able to pursue privacy “frequently” and 60% indicated they were able to pursue privacy only “occasionally”. smaller portions of the sample indicated that they could achieve privacy “rarely” (30%) or “always” (18.89%). only 4.44% said that they were “never” able to achieve privacy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 124 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 affective set associated to antecedents, as identified by the total sample (n = 180) percentage of the total sample (n = 180)affective set negative affect sad .44%9 angry .00%10 anxious .44%4 tired .33%23 total .22%47 positive affect positive .78%2 creative .11%6 focused .67%36 intimate .22%2 total .78%47 no answer .00%5 table 4 after effect associated to a condition of obtained privacy, as identified by the total sample (n = 180) percentage of the total sample (n = 180) after effect associated to an obtained condition of privacy positive more relaxed .56%45 less emotional .56%0 refreshed .22%12 back to normal .67%16 total .00%75 negative less relaxed .56%0 more emotional .56%10 more tired .00%0 the same as before .11%11 total .22%22 no answer .78%2 discussion the present study aimed to explore the representation of privacy in an italian sample and to investigate the importance of the two categories of functions of privacy (i.e., function of protection from threats, functions related to an achieved state of privacy) while considering the results of the spontaneous definition of privacy and those of the guided description of a daily experience of privacy. specifically, participants were expected to make a positive use of privacy in their daily experience (cole & hall, 2010; newell, 1998). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 125 http://www.psychopen.eu/ according to the first aim of the current study, we wanted to explore the relevance of each of the two types of positive functions of privacy (i.e., the function of defense from threats and the functions related to the achieved state of privacy, such as the “system maintenance” function and the “system development” function) based on the participants’ responses collected via open questions and pre-coded questions. overall, the findings that arose from the sample’s spontaneous definitions showed that the subjects seem to attribute most relevance to the function of protection from threats compared to the two functions related to an achieved state of privacy. specifically, the subjects’ representations of privacy contained primarily references to both the defense from threats and the protection of personal information (figure 1, table 1). figure 1 shows that four of the five clusters generated by the clusters analysis conducted in the current study, which are the first, the second, the forth, and the fifth cluster, dealt more or less explicitly with the aspects related to the defense against threats/protection of personal information (e.g., the fourth cluster collects strategies pertaining to protection, such as the behaviors of protecting the access to one’s personal diary or to one’s room). similarly, the findings from the word association analysis (table 1) showed the semantic closeness between the aspects concerning the protection of the most intimate aspects of life (e.g., personal data, intimate relationships information) and the concept of privacy. the sample’s representations of privacy were built on its normative features, such as the management of personal information and the defensive mechanisms to protect one’s intimacy from threats (e.g., “privacy occurs when my personal space boundaries are respected”, “i usually protect my personal information putting passwords everywhere”), as it is shown in the findings that arose from the content analysis (appendix and table 1). the conceptualization of privacy as a process aimed at protecting the most private information and defending the system from social threats, which arose from the participants’ spontaneous accounts, reflects a traditional theoretical definition of privacy focused on the mechanisms used to protect the system from social threats (altman, 1975; hammitt, 2012). the “protection from social threats” nature of privacy is also shown in the guided exploration of the daily experience of privacy, where the stressful events that concern the interaction with other people (“social antecedents”), such as the condition of overcrowding, were most frequently reported as antecedents related to the need for a period of privacy, as indicated by the participants. considering the second function of privacy, the findings of the spontaneous definitions refer to the beneficial qualities of privacy related to an achieved state of privacy (i.e., function of maintenance, function of development). this function of privacy has been mentioned less frequently compared to the function of protection from threats (figure 1, appendix). these data confirms the first hypothesis (a), since the participants cited both functions of privacy (i.e., the function of protection and the functions related to the achieved state of privacy) in their spontaneous accounts. moreover, the protection from threats is the most relevant concern that constitutes the great part of the participants’ representation of privacy, and it may guide the most part of their privacy-related behaviors. participants referred to the function associated with the achieved state of privacy mostly in their descriptions of the activities that one may carry out in private (figure 1, cluster 3). therefore, these findings seem to suggest that satisfying the requirements of the protection of the system from threats (i.e., function of protection) is a prerequisite for experiencing the beneficial qualities provided by a period of privacy (i.e., maintenance of the system, development of the system). this proposed interpretation needs to be investigated in future studies. through the second hypothesis, (b) we expected that focusing on the two functions of privacy related to the achieved state of privacy (i.e., the function of maintenance and the function of development), the function of maintenance would be mentioned more frequently compared to the system development function because the aspects associated with the maintenance dimension are easier to identify in one’s daily experience of privacy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 126 http://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, the data shows that participants assigned an equal importance to both of the positive functions related to the achieved state of privacy, considering the spontaneous definitions as well as the guided exploration of the daily experience. it was found that subjects reported personal experiences related to the system maintenance function of privacy (e.g., “when i experience a period of privacy, then i feel regenerated”, “i usually seek privacy when something stressful occurred and i need to recover”) as well as to the system development function of privacy (e.g., “i feel privacy when i am alone in my own room. once there, i can contemplate about my thoughts and put things in perspective”, “cultivate a friendship needs sharing one’s privacy”). furthermore, the outcomes of the pre-coded questions provided support for the high relevance ascribed to both beneficial functions of privacy related to an achieved state of privacy (i.e., system maintenance function, system development function). further support was obtained through the equal distribution of the answers across negative and positive affects associated with the antecedent conditions of privacy (table 3). in particular, we speculated that if a negative affective state, such as anxiety or anger, is experienced along with a need for privacy, then it is more likely that privacy would be required for its “systems maintenance functions” (e.g., in order to regulate one’s emotions or to recover from overstimulation). conversely, if a person feels positive affect, such as interest or curiosity in something, while he or she perceives a need for privacy, he or she would likely require privacy for its “systems development functions” (e.g., in order to commit to a creative task or to find concentration). the results concerning the beneficial functions of privacy related to the achieved state of privacy can be also explained by the theoretical approach offered by the field of positive psychology (kashdan, biwas-diener, & king, 2009; kashdan & steger, 2007). according to the subjective well-being perspective of positive psychology (diener, 2000; kahneman, diener, & schwarz, 1999), we found that an achieved period of privacy provides a positive experience, since it offers the opportunity for cognitive, emotional, and physical regeneration (table 4). specifically, considering the spontaneous descriptions of the experience of privacy, subjects reported that they perceive privacy when they “feel in control over the environment”, “perceive safety”, as well as experience positive states, such as satisfaction after a reached period of privacy. this data is in line with previous findings (i.e., the concept of “therapeutic value to privacy”, newell, 1998, p. 367). moreover, the findings are also consistent with the psychological well-being perspective of positive psychology (ryff & singer, 1998, 2008), since individuals seek privacy while looking for psychological conditions that lead to self-actualization (waterman, 1993) and personal growth (keyes, 2002), such as self-monitoring, self-contemplation (long, 2000; long & averill, 2003; pedersen, 1997, 1999), and problem solving (newell, 1994, 1998). according to the abovementioned explanation, the primary motive to seek privacy is related to personal growth (i.e., systems development function of privacy), as the subjects indicated that privacy is sought most frequently to find creative solutions to problems and achieve some important life purposes (table 2). in addition, another unexpected result concerns the relevance of the two beneficial functions of privacy to the achieved state of privacy, as the participants mentioned the aspects related to personal growth (i.e., system development) more frequently than they did aspects related to maintenance of the system (i.e., systemmaintenance) [chi square (df = 1) = 6.084; p = 0.01] (table 2). overall, these findings disconfirmed the second hypothesis (b), which proposed that the system maintenance function of privacy would be mentioned more frequently compared to the system development function, supporting previous findings (newell, 1994). thus, the results confirmed that privacy is equally important to the italian sample, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 127 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both for its maintenance function and for its system development it can support, even if it is more frequently required to accomplish personal growth processes, as indicated by the sample’s daily experiences. according to the second aim (2) regarding the experience of the positive functions of privacy related to the type of environment (digital vs. physical environment), privacy seems to be most frequently violated in the digital environment where the negative consequences are intensified by the perception of low control over who is managing one’s information and by the way in which personal information is managed according with the structural features of the environment. in particular, the interactions provided by the new media seem to facilitate the intrusion into the private space and to enhance the perception of the loss of control (figure 1). considering these results, it may be possible to state that subjects viewed the function of one’s protection against threats as a defense process that is highly related to this type of environment. conversely, references to the beneficial qualities of privacy, reflecting systems development function and systemsmaintenance function, were related to the physical environment, as reported by the italian sample (figure 1). in particular, the material features of the environment, such as the physical space that provides physical barriers that are easy to use to exercise control over the access to one’s space and information (e.g., “[…] when i spend time alone in my room and i can decide who to let in”), were mostly associated with positive experiences. the benefits provided by a state of privacy achieved are easily recognized (figure 1). these findings confirm the third hypothesis of the current study and support the existing literature on the topic (cole & hall, 2010; hammitt, 2012; palen & dourish, 2003; tu, 2002b) that identified the function of privacy related to system protection from threats in digital context and reported the benefits of a privacy experience in the physical environments. moreover, the data is in line with the abovementioned idea that participants seem to be mostly concerned with the control over the access to their personal information, and they recognize the beneficial qualities of privacy while they experience it. however, when it is difficult to exercise control due to the environmental features of the setting of the interaction, such as in digital environments (vs. physical environments), they focus on the strategies to assure their protection from threats rather than to identify benefits of privacy. these findings are also consistent with the idea that the function of protection of privacy is a precondition for achieving privacy and thus its beneficial qualities for well-being. finally, the role of the environment in shaping the experience of privacy provides the possibility to confirm the conception of privacy as a socio-environmental construct, which depends on both personal and environmental factors as well as on their interaction (pedersen 1997, 1999). conclusion the present study considers privacy as a supportive condition for some psychological processes involved in human well-being, such as increasing the sense of control over the environment (altman, 1975; proshansky, ittleson, & rivlin 1976), self-regulation (korpela, kyttä, & hartig, 2002) and enhancing creativity (edney & buda, 1976; ittelson, proshansky, rivlin, & winkel, 1974). the results support previous studies conducted on the role of privacy in individuals’ well-being (altman, 1975; edney & buda, 1976; hammitt, 2012; newell, 1994, 1995, 1998; pedersen, 1997; westin, 1967). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 128 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this study has some limitations. first shortcoming is related to the self-reported method we chose in order to satisfy the purposes of the study, such as the exploration of the benefits of privacy in the subjects’ daily experience. indeed, it would be useful to integrate the obtained data with more objective types of measures, such as observational measures or cognitive measures of performance in specific psychological processes (e.g., creative thinking), to estimate the enhancement of these processes after an achieved period of privacy. a further problem is related to the instrument that we used to collect the data about the guided exploration of the subjects’ daily experience of privacy. we considered an instrument taken from past research (newell, 1998) as the basis of our investigation. two main problems related to the use of this instrument need to be considered. first, we did not investigate the defensive function of privacy. this choice was justified by the fact that the defensive function of privacy has been broadly investigated in the past. thus, it would be more interesting to investigate the second type of function of privacy, such as that concerned with the benefits related to an achieved state of privacy, since it has attracted only little interest so far. nevertheless, the present work could be expanded by including questions about the defensive function of privacy. second, some suggestions for the improvement of the answer categories used in the instrument arose from the data collected though the free exploration of the daily experience of privacy. for instance, the answer categories could incorporate the effects related to an experienced state of privacy. this information could be integrated in the next version of the pre-coded instrument. however, the current work contributes to the existing literature on the psychological experience of privacy. first, the study used the quali-quantitative analysis, which proved to be helpful for investigating more deeply about the social representation of privacy and the use of privacy in daily life. it provides data that offer a thorough and comprehensive overview of the subjects’ experience of privacy. thus, the findings from this work could be used to inform further studies on the functions and process of privacy. for instance, we propose a theory of the process of privacy based on its effects on well-being. it would be interesting to verify the proposed theory in future research. second, the study focused on the unusual facets of the construct of privacy. privacy can be considered a double psychological concept that has received much attention largely because of its protective function (altman, 1977; boyle, neustaedter, & greenberg, 2009; palen & dourish, 2003; röcker & feith, 2009) while its unusual side related to the benefits of an experienced state of privacy has been neglected (newell, 1994). we believe that the beneficial features of privacy are worthy of studying, as they can have remarkable practical implications, for instance, by increasing the attention to conditions facilitating a person-environment interaction that would support privacy in critical contexts, such as schools, workplaces, and health-care environments. we also believe that positive psychology can offer the theoretical and practical instrument to investigate privacy as a positive experience. in conclusion, some practical indications arise from the current work. overall, our findings seem to suggest that people are mostly concerned with the protection of privacy (i.e., function of defense of the system) rather than with well-being related to an experience of privacy (i.e., function of maintenance of the system, function of development of the system). thus, future research should investigate the ways in which the control over the social interaction could be assured, especially in specific kind of environments where it might be difficult to manage access to one’s personal information, such as the digital environments, in order to enhance the benefits offered by an achieved condition of privacy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 129 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) t-lab software includes a set of statistical tools for content analysis and text mining (lancia, 2004) with theoretical roots in thegrounded theory (glaser & strauss, 1967), and it is currently used by quali-quantitative researchers from various european countries (guest & mclellan, 2003; richards & richards, 1995). for further information, see lancia, 2004. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank all the passionate workers of the laboratory of communication psychology for their support, and all the participants for giving their contribution to this project. references altman, i. 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(1967). privacy and freedom. new york, ny, usa: atheneum. appendix lemmas featuring in the five conceptual clusters obtained with the application of the cluster analysis table a1 cluster 1 collects the sample’s experience of invasion of privacy via media and new media ec in totalec in clusterchi2translated lemma and variablelemma and variable 211849.827e-maile-mail 141340.992receivericevere 1285534.024question 2domanda 2 181432.687colleaguecollega 121026.299callchiamare 9823.439facebookfacebook 131022.849internetinternet 131022.849websitesito 251313.138friendamico 6513.122noticeaccorgersi 6513.122openaprire europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 134 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108%2f00251749510084653 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.64.4.678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table a2 cluster 2 emphasizes the management of private information by other people, who can be entailed to manage one owns data or not ec in totalec in clusterchi2translated lemmalemma 3121homecasa .81137 1411examesame .99425 4423calltelefonata .54123 87hospitalospedale .88419 55continuecontinuo .61717 1510roomcamera .34617 1510namenome .34617 76surnamecognome .45516 1610numbernumero .20715 138contactcontattare .76211 75registration numbermatricola .8919 54resultesiti .7299 54universityuniversità .7299 table a3 cluster 3 concerns the experience of an achieved state of privacy, which is characterized by a sense of agency in managing the boundaries of its own personal space ec in totalec in clusterchi2translated lemmalemma 121149.875livevivere 402138.647spacespazio 241325.235timetempo 4420.452spenddedicare 5414.804likepiacere 5414.804consecrateritagliare 10613.943invadeinvadere 10613.943safetysicurezza 321313.892whilemomento 301212.352wenoi table a4 cluster 4 collects the sample’s experience of privacy as a condition of “lack of violation of privacy” ec in totalec in clusterchi2translated lemma and variablelemma and variable 119secretsegreto .72541 65social networksocial network .74823 5417.923readleggere 106diarydiario .41517 85episodeepisodio .48115 7120question 3domanda 3 .84311 53intimacyconfidenza .6938 125dealtrattamento .5387 166telldivulgare .2507 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 lombardi & ciceri 135 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table a5 cluster 5 focuses on the juridical features of privacy with a specific emphasis on the act of protecting sensitive data from threats ec in totalec in clusterchi2translated lemma and variablelemma and variable 2623(private) domainsfera .39955 8550question 1domanda 1 .10452 7743respectrispettare .07239 4427informationinformazione .76230 14564personalpersonale .68828 1211subjectindividuo .09228 1311rightdiritto .31824 1512sensitive datadato sensibile .88023 2315discretionriservatezza .55519 98choosescegliere .32219 1913decisiondecisione .82518 1812freedomlibertà .40716 108protectionprotezione .89215 1711defensetutela .05614 about the authors debora benedetta lombardi: ph.d. student at the doctoral school of psychology (catholic university of the sacred heart of milan). her research interests concern the human-environment interaction and its implication for both human well-being and health. also, she works at the traffic psychology research unit (catholic university of the sacred heart of milan). maria rita ciceri: ph.d., associate professor in general psychology (catholic university of the sacred heart). director of the traffic psychology research unit (catholic university of the sacred heart of milan). her research activity concerns the psychology of well-being applied to environmental and road-safety issues. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 115–136 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.948 the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being 136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the positive side of privacy: functions for personal well-being (introduction) the “how” and “why” of privacy: the functions of privacy and the personal well-being the role of the environment in shaping the concept of privacy: digital spaces vs. physical environments aims of the study method participants and procedure instruments data analysis results free exploration of the experience of privacy guided exploration of the experience of privacy discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix lemmas featuring in the five conceptual clusters obtained with the application of the cluster analysis about the authors the detrimental effect of machiavellian leadership on employees’ emotional exhaustion: organizational cynicism as a mediator research reports thedetrimental effect of machiavellian leadership on employees’ emotional exhaustion: organizational cynicism as a mediator panagiotis gkorezis*a, eugenia petridoua, theodora krouklidoua [a] department of economics, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece. abstract numerous empirical studies have examined predictors of emotional exhaustion. in this vein, both positive and negative leadership styles have been associated with this outcome. yet, little is known about the role of machiavellian leadership in fostering employees’ emotional exhaustion. as such, we investigated the relationship between machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion. even more, we investigated an explanatory mechanism of this association by encompassing organizational cynicism as a mediator. results showed that machiavellian leadership has a both direct and indirect, through organizational cynicism, on employees’ emotional exhaustion. keywords: machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism, emotional exhaustion, mediation europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 received: 2015-04-22. accepted: 2015-09-18. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: aristotle university of thessaloniki, university campus, 54124 thessaloniki, greece. e-mail: pango3@econ.auth.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. emotional exhaustion, described as “feelings of being emotionally drained by one’s work” (bakker & costa, 2014, p. 2), constitutes one of the core dimensions of burnout. in fact, scholars (cropanzano, rupp, & byrne, 2003; maslach, schaufeli, & leiter, 2001) have argued that it is the most important part of the specific phenomenon. accordingly, empirical research has shown that emotional exhaustion exerts stronger and more consistent effects on important outcomes compared to the other two components of burnout, namely disengagement and personal accomplishment (demerouti, bakker, nachreiner, & schaufeli, 2001; lee & ashforth, 1996). given its distinct and salient influence on key outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior (cropanzano et al., 2003), job satisfaction (karatepe & tekinkus, 2006; mulki, jaramillo, & locander, 2006), organizational commitment (bozionelos & kiamou, 2008) and job performance (halbesleben & bowler, 2007; janssen, lam, & huang, 2010; wright & cropanzano, 1998), numerous empirical studies have examined its antecedents. in this vein, the literature has addressed the role of both positive and negative leadership style (e.g., thomas & lankau, 2009; wu & hu, 2009). regarding the latter, though, little attention has been given to the relationship between machiavellianism and emotional exhaustion. machiavellianism has again received attention after the considerable stream of research in the 1970s and 1980s (dahling, whitaker, & levy, 2009). this is largely attributed to the recent corporate scandals and numerous cases europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of misconduct and malfeasance in organizations which have prompted researchers to invigorate their interest in the dark side of organizations (belschak, den hartog, & kalshoven, 2015). given that machiavellian leaders have its roots in this dark side and are perceived as opportunists, manipulators and cheaters (gunnthorsdottir, mccabe, & smith, 2002; sakalaki, richardson, & thépaut, 2007) this leadership style became a topic of interest for leadership and management literature. thus, the purpose of the present paper is to examine the impact of machiavellian leadership on employees’ emotional exhaustion. more importantly, we attempt to explain why this relationship occurs by providing an important explanatory mechanism. to this end, we highlight organizational cynicism, that is a negative attitude toward one’s employing organization resulting from the perception that organization lacks integrity (dean, brandes, & dharwadkar, 1998), as a mediator that accounts for the effect of machiavellianism on emotional exhaustion (figure 1). figure 1. the hypothesized model. literature review machiavellianism — the construct of machiavellianism has emerged in the literature after the work of christie and geis who described high machs as those that “manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, persuade others more, and otherwise differ significantly from their low machiavellian counterparts” (christie & geis, 1970, p. 312). drawing on the seminal books of machiavelli the prince (1513/1981) and the discourses (1531/1984), they recognized some common aspects of machiavellians such as “willingness to utilize manipulative tactics and act amorally and endorse a cynical, untrustworthy view of human nature” (dahling et al., 2009, p. 220). in the organizational domain, prior studies have shown that machiavellianism is related to a plethora of outcomes including lower organizational citizenship behavior, decreased job satisfaction, higher turnover and increased counterproductive work behavior (dahling et al., 2009; fehr, samson, & paulhus, 1992; o’boyle, 2012; sakalaki et al., 2007; wilson, near, & miller, 1996). furthermore, extensive research has examined the relationship between machiavellianism and work performance providing, though, inconsistent results. for example, several studies have reported a positive association between machiavellianism and performance (e.g., dahling et al., 2009), others have shown a negative effect of machiavellianism on performance (gable & topol, 1988), whereas a last stream of research has demonstrated a non-significant relationship (gable & topol, 1991; hunt & chonko, 1984). despite the extant research on machiavellianism, less is known in the realm of leadership (dahling et al., 2009). we attempt to contribute to the machiavellian leadership literature by investigating the effect of leader machiavellianism on employees’ emotional exhaustion through the mediation of organizational cynicism. machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion — there is an increasing interest among scholars regarding the role of leadership in affecting followers’ mood and emotions (bono, foldes, vinson, & muros, 2007; gooty, connelly, griffith, & gupta, 2010). both positive and negative leader behaviors are likely to elicit favorable europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion 620 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and unfavorable emotional reactions. for example, scholars have focused on the pivotal role that leaders play in mitigating or enhancing employees’ emotional exhaustion. more specifically, prior studies have demonstrated that positive leadership such as leader-member exchange (becker, halbesleben, & o’hair, 2005; thomas & lankau, 2009), authentic (spence laschinger & fida, 2014) and transformational (seltzer, nomerof, & bass, 1989) may affect such employees’ feelings. by contrast, substantial empirical research has revealed that abusive leadership (aryee, sun, chen, & debrah, 2008; tepper, 2007; wu & hu, 2009) increases employees’ emotional exhaustion (chi & liang, 2013; wu & hu, 2009). given that leader machiavellianism is related to employees’ perceptions of abusive supervision (kiazad, restubog, zagenczyk, kiewitz, & tang, 2010) we expect that the former will also augment employees’ feelings of emotional exhaustion. in addition, drory and gluskinos (1980) have argued that machiavellian leaders show little concern for both their interpersonal relationships with their followers and their feelings. this may be attributed to the fact that high machs are self-interested, solely focus on their achievements (cooper & peterson, 1980; sakalaki et al., 2007) as well as they exhibit low empathy for others (bagozzi et al., 2013; paal & bereczkei, 2007). thus, following the above logic we postulate that machiavellian leaders will enhance employees’ emotional exhaustion. h1: machiavellian leadership is positively related to employees’ emotional exhaustion. machiavellian leadership and organizational cynicism — although organizational cynicism has emerged many years ago, there is relatively insufficient empirical research. similar to machiavellian construct, organizational cynicism has recently attracted increasing attention due to the corporate scandals and the unethical behavior of leaders which have augmented employees’ cynicism toward the organization (bommer, rich, & rubin, 2005; naus, van iterson, & roe, 2007). in addition to its pertinence to contemporary business environment, organizational cynicism has been a topic of concern because it has been negatively related to core outcomes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job performance (e.g. chiaburu, peng, oh, banks, & lomeli, 2013). in their recent meta-analysis, chiaburu and his colleagues (2013) have attempted to accumulate some core antecedents of organizational cynicism. more importantly, they argued that employees’ cynical attitudes towards the organization may be determined by organizational factors that manifest lack of integrity. such distrust and lack of both integrity and morality may arise when leaders demonstrate machiavellian behavior because high mach individuals exhibit elevated levels of increased narcissism (mchoskey, 1995), mistrust and cynicism (mchoskey & hicks, 1999). on a related note, machiavellian individuals have been described as having the tendency to cheat and lie (lee & ashton, 2005; ross & robertson, 2000). brown and treviño (2006, p. 604) noted that “machiavellian leaders are motivated to manipulate others in order to accomplish their own goals. they have little trust in people and in turn, tend not to be trusted by others”. moreover, scholars argued that high machs “disregard standards of morality and see value in behaviors that benefit the self at the expense of others” (dahling et al., 2009, p. 228). given that supervisor-subordinate relationship is one of the most influential in the workplace (sluss & ashforth, 2008) and the former serves as a representative of the organization constituting the lens whereby subordinates perceive the organization (lord, brown, & freiberg, 1999), we posit that leader machiavellianism may be related to organizational cynicism. hence, based on the aforementioned theoretical and empirical arguments we propose that machiavellian leaders will enhance employees’ organizational cynicism. h2: machiavellian leadership is positively related to employees’ organizational cynicism. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 gkorezis, petridou, & krouklidou 621 http://www.psychopen.eu/ machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion — according to the above arguments, we have suggested that machiavellian leadership predicts both emotional exhaustion (hypothesis 1) and organizational cynicism (hypothesis 2). in parallel with this, scholars have demonstrated that organizational cynicism is positively related to emotional exhaustion (johnson & o’leary-kelly, 2003). more specifically, they have argued that the fatigue and a broad host of negative reactions that emanates from organizational cynicism may result in producing enhanced levels of personal strain and emotional exhaustion. furthermore, as noted above, leaders are considered to be representatives of each organization. as a result, employees’ perceptions about the leader are likely to affect their attitudes about the organization. in this regard, machiavellian leaders who are perceived as unethical and of low integrity may lead employees to be skeptical and negative towards the organization which in turn is may result in increased emotional exhaustion. hence, in line with previous research that highlights the mediating role of organizational cynicism (evans, goodman, & davis, 2010; johnson & o’leary-kelly, 2003) and taking into consideration the aforementioned hypotheses and the relationship between organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion, we propose that organizational cynicism will act as a partial mediator between machiavellian leadership and employees’ emotional exhaustion. h3: organizational cynicism partially mediates the relationship between machiavellian leadership and employees’ emotional exhaustion. method sample and procedure we collected data from employees working in a greek private hospital. one of the authors contacted human resource department which in turn administered the questionnaires. overall, 150 questionnaires were allocated to participants and 122 were returned producing a response rate of 80 per cent. among these, 40.2 per cent of respondents were male and 68.9 per cent was less than 45 years old. furthermore, a great percentage of the sample (63.9 per cent) has been employed in a permanent basis. last, the majority of the respondents has worked for the present organization for less than 10 years (56.6 per cent) and has work experience less than 20 years (78.7 per cent). measures machiavellian leadership and organizational cynicism used a five-point likert scale where 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree. likewise, emotional exhaustion was measured using a five-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to every day (5). all scale reliabilities (machiavellian leadership: α = 0.94; organizational cynicism: α = 0.89; emotional exhaustion: α = 0.89) were acceptable, exceeding the value (.70) suggested by nunnally, bernstein, and berge (1967). machiavellian leadership—we assessedmachiavellian leader behavior adapting the ten-item scale from allsopp, eysenck, and eysenck (1991). an example item is “my supervisor often acts in a cunning way in order to get what he wants”. organizational cynicism —we measured organizational cynicism using the four items developed by brandes, dharwadkar, and dean (1999) (as cited in kim, bateman, gilbreath, & andersson, 2009). an example item for this scale is “i believe top management says one thing and does another”. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion 622 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional exhaustion —we assessed emotional exhaustion using five items from maslach burnout inventory (maslach, jackson, & leiter, 1996). a sample item includes “i feel emotionally drained from my work”. control variables—we controlled for five demographic characteristics, namely gender, age, employment status, job tenure, organizational and job tenure. given that the bivariate correlations between control variables and outcomes were not significant we excluded them from our regression analyses (becker, 2005). confirmatory factor analysis we conducted confirmatory factor analyses (using amos 20) in order to examine the discriminant validity of the constructs. the results (table 1) showed that our three-factor baseline model provided the best fit to the data (x2(145) = 258.68, p < .01, cfi = .94, tli = .93, ifi = .94, rmsea = 0.08). moreover, we employed harman’s single factor test (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003) in order to examine the magnitude of common method bias. the results indicated a poor fit for the one factor model (x2 [148] = 658.36, p < .01, cfi = .72, tli = .68, ifi = .72, rmsea = 0.17). results means, standard deviations and correlations of the present variables are shown in table 2. machiavellian leadership is positively related to both organizational cynicism (r = .56, p < .01) and emotional exhaustion (r = .51, p < .01). also, organizational cynicism is related with emotional exhaustion (r = .49, p < .01). table 1 confirmatory factor analysis. rmseaifitlicfiδχ2dfx2model .08.94.93.94145258.68three factor model .13.83.80.83202.31**147460.99two factor model: machiavellian leadership and organizational cynicism .14.82.79.82213.70**147472.38two factor model: machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion .14.82.79.82212.66**147471.34two factor model: organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion .17.72.68.72399.68**148658.36one factor model *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. in order to test our hypotheses we used the three-step approach suggested by baron and kenny (1986). according to this process, mediation is supported when the following three conditions occur: a) the independent variable relates to the dependent variable b) the independent variable relates to the mediating variable and c) the mediating variable relates to the dependent variable and the relationship of the independent variable with the dependent variable is significantly lower in magnitude (or insignificant) in the third equation than in the second. in order to provide further support for the mediation hypothesis, we also conducted bootstrap analysis -1000 bootstrap samples with 95% confidence intervals in spss using macro developed by preacher and hayes (2004). this approach has the advantage of not assuming normality of sampling distribution. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 gkorezis, petridou, & krouklidou 623 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations. 7654321sdmvariable 0.601. gender .490 2.082. age .18*-.930 1.463. employment status .35**-.16-.690 2.654. job tenure .35**-.77**.13-.950 2.995. organizational tenure .74**.43**-.58**.05-.061 2.606. machiavellian leadership .07.06.17-.12.16-.161 2.797. organizational cynicism .56**.08-.07-.03.03.13-.171 2.858. emotional exhaustion .49**.51**.17.10.17-.17.08-.970 *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. the results (table 3) showed that machiavellian leadership significantly relates to both emotional exhaustion (β = .51, p < .01) and organizational cynicism (β = .56, p < .01) supporting, thus, our first two hypotheses and, accordingly, the two conditions of the mediation hypothesis. moreover, the present results demonstrated that organizational cynicism is related to emotional exhaustion (β = .30, p < .01) and the relationship between machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion is lower (β = .34, p < .01) when we added organizational cynicism in the equation. thus, we found support for the third condition and, therefore, our third hypothesis. likewise, the results from bootstrapping analysis corroborated our findings as the bias corrected confidence interval of the specific indirect effect did not contain zero (ranging between .07 and .24). taken together, the results showed that organizational cynicism partially mediates the relationship between machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion. table 3 regression results for testing hypotheses emotional exhaustion organization cynicismvariable step 2step 1 .34**.51**.56**machiavellian leadership .30**--organizational cynicism .31**.25**.31**adjusted r2 *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. in addition, as already mentioned we excluded our control variables from our regression analyses. however, in order to provide more robust results, we conducted the same process encompassing our control variables. the results also supported our hypotheses indicating not only the positive relationship betweenmachiavellian leadership and both emotional exhaustion (β = .49, p < .01) and organizational cynicism (β = .57, p < .01) but also the indirect effect of machiavellian leadership on emotional exhaustion through organizational cynicism (bias corrected confidence interval ranged between .08 and .25). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion 624 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion burnout and, in particular, emotional exhaustion has important negative consequences for both employees and organizations (e.g., cropanzano et al., 2003; wright & cropanzano, 1998). as such, in their attempt to investigate its antecedents, scholars have investigated the role of negative leadership styles in generating emotional exhaustion (chi & liang, 2013; wu & hu, 2009). yet, no prior study, to the best of authors’ knowledge, has examined the relationship betweenmachiavellian leadership and this outcome. using a sample of hospital employees, we found that machiavellian leaders play an important role in enhancing emotional exhaustion. thus, we contribute to the extant substantial literature on emotional exhaustion which addresses its antecedents (e.g. grandey, 2003; houkes, janssen, de jonge, & bakker, 2003; stordeur, d'hoore, & vandenberghe, 2001). moreover, our findings extend recent empirical research (den hartog & belschak, 2012; kiazad et al., 2010; o’boyle, 2012; zettler & solga, 2013) on machiavellian leadership by demonstrating emotional exhaustion as a negative outcome. in addition, the present study aims to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying this effect by incorporating organizational cynicism. congruent with prior studies that point to the mediating role of organizational cynicism (evans, goodman, & davis, 2010; johnson & o’leary-kelly, 2003) our findings suggest that this construct partially mediates the relationship between leader machiavellianism and employees’ emotional exhaustion. relatedly, our results also add to the emerging organizational cynicism literature and corroborate previous studies that have highlighted the vital role of leadership in affecting such this attitudinal outcome. nevertheless, although these studies have largely addressed the relationship between positive styles of leadership and organizational cynicism (cole, 2006; gkorezis, petridou, & xanthiakos, 2014) our present findings highlight the deleterious effect of negative leadership and in particular machiavellianism. last, the present results are in congruence with prior findings that have found the relationship between organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion (johnson & o’leary-kelly, 2003). practical implications our present results have some useful implications for organizations. the findings indicated that machiavellian leaders have a detrimental impact on employees’ organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion. given that both outcomes negatively affect core attitudinal and behavioral outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, intention to quit and job performance (e.g., chiaburu et al., 2013; cropanzano et al., 2003) it is of utmost importance that organizations should avoid recruiting and nourishing machiavellian leadership. moreover, organizations should identify and pay attention when such leadership behaviors are manifested. to achieve this, organizations may cultivate an open and friendly communication and culture which will allow subordinates to somehow express their complaints and worries regarding their high mach supervisor in the top management. even more, in the case of machiavellian leadership, organizations could benefit frommaking the specific leaders aware of their inclinations and, consequently, their harmful effect on employees’ outcomes (bagozzi et al., 2013). taken together, at a more general level the present findings underscore the core role of integrity, authenticity and ethics vis-a-vis leadership and organization. lack of these issues may lead employees to experience enhanced levels of cynicism and emotional exhaustion, which, in turn, will result in negative employee and organizational outcomes. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 gkorezis, petridou, & krouklidou 625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and future research as in any research, the present study has some limitations that need to be taken into consideration. first, we employed a cross-sectional design. as a consequence, it is difficult to examine the direction of causality. moreover, common method variance may confound our findings since we gathered data from a single source, namely employees. also data were drawn from the health care sector and in particular from a large greek hospital. thus, we should be cautious in generalizing the present results to other contexts. based on the above limitations, some stimulating avenues for future research may emerge. for example, future studies might use an experimental approach in order to test for the causality of the present relationships. in a similar methodological vein, further research should cope with common method bias by collecting data using either a longitudinal or a multi-source (i.e., supervisors) design. furthermore, researchers could focus on potential moderators which may alleviate or bolster the negative influence of machiavellian leaders on both organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion. for example, as regards the latter, scholars (suls & martin, 2005) have argued that neurotic individuals exhibit more severe emotions in response to their problems in their environment. hence, future research may examine the moderating role of followers’ levels of neuroticism in the relationship between machiavellian leadership and emotional exhaustion. in the same mode, further research could investigate other important intervening mechanisms that may account for the impact of machiavellian leaders on followers’ emotional exhaustion. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allsopp, j., eysenck, h. j., & eysenck, s. b. g. 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(2013). not enough of a ‘dark’ trait? linking machiavellianism to job performance. european journal of personality, 27(6), 545-554. doi:10.1002/per.1912 about the authors dr. panagiotis gkorezis is a research fellow at the aristotle university of thessaloniki in greece. his research interests include leadership, psychological empowerment, employee identification, counterproductive relationships and humor in the workplace. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion 630 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-9010.88.5.879 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758%2fbf03206553 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f3857884 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1559-1816.2007.00208.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1287%2forsc.1070.0349 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.burn.2014.03.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1046%2fj.1365-2648.2001.01885.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-6494.2005.00356.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0149206307300812 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fhrm.20288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.119.2.285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-9010.83.3.486 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1059601108331217 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.1912 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eugenia petridou is dean of faculty of economic and political sciences at the aristotle university of thessaloniki. her recent research focuses on entrepreneurship, empowerment, organizational learning, training and development. theodora krouklidou is a master student in informatics and management at aristotle university of thessaloniki. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 619–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.988 gkorezis, petridou, & krouklidou 631 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en machiavellian leadership, organizational cynicism and emotional exhaustion (introduction) literature review method sample and procedure measures confirmatory factor analysis results discussion practical implications limitations and future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors machiavellianism, relationship satisfaction, and romantic relationship quality research reports machiavellianism, relationship satisfaction, and romantic relationship quality gayle brewer* a, loren abell b [a] school of psychology, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom. [b] nottingham trent university, nottingham, united kingdom. abstract machiavellianism is characterised by a manipulative interpersonal style, willingness to exploit others, and a preference for emotionally detached relationships. the present studies investigate the extent to which machiavellianism influences relationship satisfaction and romantic relationship quality. in study 1, 194 heterosexual partnered women completed machiavellianism and relationship satisfaction measures. women with higher levels of machiavellianism reported lower levels of relationship satisfaction. in study 2, 132 heterosexual partnered women completed machiavellianism, trust, commitment, control, and emotional abuse scales. women with higher levels of machiavellianism perceived their partners to be less dependable, reported less faith in their partners, and were less willing to persist with the relationship than those with low levels of machiavellianism. with regards to negative behavior, machiavellianism predicted each form of control and emotional abuse investigated, such that those with high levels of machiavellianism were more likely to engage in controlling behavior and emotional abuse. findings have important implications for the prediction of romantic relationship quality and in particular for negative behavior such as control and abuse. keywords: machiavellianism, relationships, satisfaction, trust, commitment, control, emotional abuse europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 received: 2016-06-12. accepted: 2017-05-13. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: school of psychology, university of liverpool, liverpool, l69 7zx, uk. tel: +44 151 795 8563. e-mail: gayle.brewer@liverpool.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. machiavellianism is characterised by cynicism, manipulation, and a willingness to exploit others (christie & geis, 1970). previous research has demonstrated the manner in which machiavellianism influences sexual and romantic relationships (brewer & abell, 2015a). in particular, men and women with high levels of machiavellianism prefer emotionally detached relationships and are often reluctant to commit (ali & chamorropremuzic, 2010). research has therefore primarily focused on machiavellianism in the context of short-term sexual rather than long-term committed relationships. machiavellian men and women do however enter longterm relationships, and these provide valuable opportunities for manipulation and exploitation of the partner (brewer & abell, 2015b). the present studies investigate the nature of these relationships. in particular we examine the extent to which machiavellianism influences women’s relationship satisfaction (study 1), and specific positive and negative aspects of romantic relationship quality (study 2). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ satisfaction relationship satisfaction refers to a subjective evaluation of the relationship, involving both positive and negative feelings towards a partner and overall attraction to the relationship (rusbult & buunk, 1993). satisfaction is associated with a range of important relationship outcomes including dissolution (gottman & levenson, 1992) and displays considerable individual variation. for example low neuroticism, high agreeableness, high conscientiousness, and high extraversion each predict greater relationship satisfaction (malouff, thorsteinsson, schutte, bhullar, & rooke, 2010). machiavellianism is associated with lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness (austin, farrelly, black, & moore, 2007). adults with higher machiavellianism scores have negative representations of others (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015) and view others with emotional detachment, distrust, and suspicion (christie & geis, 1970). this broad negative view of others coupled with their lack of connection to their own and others feelings (wastell & booth, 2003) may result in lower relationship satisfaction. individuals higher on machiavellianism may not view relationships themselves as satisfying but engage in relationships to adhere to social norms or in order to manipulate relationship partners (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015). trust and commitment trust and commitment are important features of established romantic relationships (gere & macdonald, 2013). trust refers to the expectation of positive reward and partner responsiveness and exerts a substantial impact on relationship quality (givertz, woszidlo, segrin, & knutson, 2013). in particular, those with higher levels of trust in a partner display resilience to partner criticism (murray, lupien, & seery, 2012), a positive memory bias for previous behavior (luchies et al., 2013), greater intimacy, and lower partner avoidance behaviors (wieselquist, rusbult, foster, & agnew, 1999). commitment refers to a subjective state of dependence on another individual which motivates behavior intended to maintain and strengthen the relationship (kelley et al., 2003). it is associated with a range of positive relationship behavior such as willingness to support a partner’s interests (rusbult, olsen, davis, & hannon, 2004) and reduced attention to alternative partners (miller, 1997). relationship outcomes associated with commitment include sexual satisfaction (sprecher, 2002) and relationship dissolution (le, dove, agnew, korn, & mutso, 2010). those with high levels of machiavellianism display cynicism and a lack of faith in humanity (christie & geis, 1970), which may lead to low levels of relationship trust. indeed, ináncsi, láng, and bereczkei (2015) comment that “machiavellian individuals not only have a negative representation of significant others, but they also tend to seek symbiotic closeness in order to exploit their partners” (p. 139). furthermore, previous research has indicated that machiavellianism and the closely related traits of narcissism and psychopathy (ali & chamorropremuzic, 2010; foster, shrira, & campbell, 2006) are associated with low levels of relationship commitment. these studies did not necessarily require participants to be in a relationship at the time of the study. hence the present study investigates the relationship between machiavellianism and commitment in a partnered sample. based on these findings and the previously documented preference for relationships with low levels of commitment (jonason, luevano, & adams, 2012), those with high levels of machiavellianism are predicted to report low levels of relationship trust and commitment. these findings are consistent with recent findings indicating that women with high levels of machiavellianism are more likely to enter relationships to obtain sex than affiliation (brewer, abell, & lyons, 2016) and are more likely to report that their needs could be met by alternate partners (abell & brewer, 2016). machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality 492 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ control and emotional abuse intimate partner violence impacts on a substantial number of relationships (garcia-moreno, janse, ellsberg, heise, & watts, 2006) and may take the form of physical, psychological, or sexual abuse (coker, smith, mckeown, & king, 2000). whilst research has often focused on the consequences of physical violence, psychological abuse predicts a range of negative outcomes including poor physical and mental health (straight, harper, & arias, 2003; tiwari et al., 2008). furthermore, it may be more difficult for victims or professionals to recognise and address psychological compared to physical abuse. previous research indicates that psychoticism (a closely related trait) is associated with domestic violence (holtzworth-munroe, meehan, herron, rehman, & stuart, 2003). furthermore, machiavellianism is associated with a range of behaviors suggestive of a positive relationship with psychological abuse, including a gameplaying style of love (jonason & kavanagh, 2010), violence (pailing, boon, & egan, 2014), and aggression (webster, gesselman, crysel, brunell, & jonason, 2014). though few studies have considered the relationship between machiavellianism and psychological abuse directly, recent research reports that those with high levels of machiavellianism are more likely to engage in emotional abuse (carton & egan, 2017). control forms a central component of intimate partner violence (felson & messner, 2000) and may be adopted prior to or as a substitute to violence (graham-kevan & archer, 2009). previous research has established that machiavellianism is associated with social dominance (hodson, hogg, & macinnis, 2009) and a desire to maintain power over others (paulhus & williams, 2002) therefore positive relationships between machiavellianism and partner control and emotional abuse are predicted. the current studies investigate the extent to which machiavellianism influences women’s romantic relationship quality. we predict that women with high levels of machiavellianism will report lower levels of relationship satisfaction (study 1), lower levels of trust and commitment, and an increased need for relationship control and use of emotional abuse (study 2). study 1 method participants heterosexual women (n = 194) aged 16-61 years (m = 24.94, sd = 8.68) were recruited via online research websites and social networking sites. all participants were in an exclusive romantic relationship at the time of the study (m = 3.42 years, sd = 5.14 years). materials and procedure each participant completed the mach iv (christie & geis, 1970) and relationship satisfaction scale (hendrick, 1988). the mach iv (christie & geis, 1970) contains 20 items rated on a seven point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). the scale assesses interactions with others, morality, and cynicism. example items include “anyone who completely trusts anyone else is asking for trouble” and “never tell anyone the real reason you did something unless it is useful to do so”. ten items were reverse scored such that higher scores indicate higher machiavellianism. brewer & abell 493 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the relationship satisfaction scale (hendrick, 1988) contains 7 items each answered on a five point scale (1 = low to 5 = high). example items include “in general, how satisfied are you with your relationship” and “to what extent has your relationship met your original expectations”. two items were reverse scored such that higher scores represent higher levels of relationship satisfaction. cronbach’s alphas in the current study were machiavellianism: α = .64 and satisfaction: α = .91. results participants completed standardized measures assessing machiavellianism and relationship satisfaction. these were significantly correlated, r(181) = -.40, p < .01, such that high machiavellianism scores were associated with low relationship satisfaction. a multiple regression analysis was conducted to investigate the extent to which machiavellianism predicted relationship satisfaction. the influence of relationship length was also investigated, both as an individual predictor and as a moderator of the relationship between machiavellianism and relationship satisfaction. to represent the interaction between machiavellianism and relationship length, these variables were first mean centered and multiplied together. both individual predictors and the interaction term were then entered into a simultaneous regression model. the model significantly predicted relationship satisfaction (r2 = .15, f(3,164) = 9.69, p < .001) and machiavellianism was a significant individual predictor (β = -.36, t = -5.04, p < .001), such that higher levels of machiavellianism were associated with lower relationship satisfaction. relationship length was not a significant individual predictor and did not moderate the influence of machiavellianism on relationship satisfaction. study 2 method participants heterosexual women (n = 132) aged 18-50 years (m = 25.70, sd = 8.58) were recruited online via research websites and social networking sites. all participants were in a romantic relationship at the time of the study (m = 3.65 years, sd = 3.96 years). materials and procedure each participant completed initial demographic questions followed by a series of standardised measures including the mach iv (christie & geis, 1970), trust in close personal relationships scale (rempel, holmes, & zanna, 1985), commitment scale (rusbult, kumashiro, kubacka, & finkel, 2009), interpersonal violent control scale (bledsoe & sar, 2011) and the multidimensional measure of emotional abuse (murphy & hoover, 1999). the mach iv (christie & geis, 1970) contains 20 items rated on a seven point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). as outlined previously, the scale assesses interactions with others, morality, and cynicism. example items include “the best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear” and “it is wise to flatter important people”. the trust in close personal relationships scale (rempel, holmes, & zanna, 1985) is a 17 item measure of trust in a relationship partner. participants report the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements such as “i can rely on my partner to keep the promises he/she makes to me” from -3 (strongly machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality 494 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ disagree) to 3 (strongly agree). the measure contains three subscales: predictability (5 items); dependability (5 items); and faith (7 items). the commitment scale (rusbult et al., 2009) is a 15 item measure of relationship commitment. participants indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements on a nine-point scale from 0 (do not agree at all) to 8 (agree completely). example statements include “i feel completely attached to my partner and our relationship”. the measure contains three subscales: intent to persist (5 items); attachment (5 items); and long-term orientation (5 items). the intimate partner violence control scale (bledsoe & sar, 2011) is a 16 item measure of desired control. the measure contains three subscales: control through surveillance and threats (e.g. wishing to keep track of a partner, 6 items); control over everyday routines and decision making (e.g. wishing to control how a partner spends their day, 5 items); and control over autonomous behavior (e.g. wishing that the partner would terminate their job, 5 items). participants respond to statements such as “i wish i had more control of how my partner spends the day” on a five-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). in the present study one item (“i wish sometimes that i could take the children away from my partner to get him/her to go along with things”) was removed from the control through surveillance and threats subscale, as not all participants were expected to be parents. the multidimensional measure of emotional abuse (murphy & hoover, 1999) is a 28 item measure of psychological abuse. participants rate the frequency of abuse during the previous six months on an eight-point scale from 1 (once) to 6 (more than 20 times), with ‘never in the past six months but it has happened before’ (7) and ‘this has never happened’ (0) options also provided. participants responded to all items (e.g. “belittled the other person in front of other people”) as a perpetrator. the measure contains four subscales, each containing 7 items. the subscales were: restrictive engulfment (e.g. complaining that a partner spends too much time with friends); denigration (e.g. calling a partner a failure or worthless); hostile withdrawal (e.g. refusing to acknowledge or discuss a problem); and dominance / intimidation (e.g. threatening a partner or destroying their belongings). higher scores indicate greater levels of machiavellianism and each aspect of relationship quality investigated. cronbach’s alphas were acceptable in the current study: machiavellianism (α = .72); dependability (α = .77); faith (α = .93); intent to persist (α = .92); attachment (α = .72); long-term orientation (α = 85); surveillance and threats (α = .79); everyday routines and decision making (α = .74); autonomous behavior (α = .73); restrictive engulfment (α = .86); denigration (α = .89); hostile withdrawal (α = .90); dominance / intimidation (α = .83) investigated. the cronbach’s alpha for predictability was unacceptably low (α =.32) but increased to α =.68 following the removal of item 8. therefore the modified variable was used for subsequent analyses. results participants completed standardized measures assessing machiavellianism, trust, commitment, control, and emotional abuse. descriptive statistics and correlations for these variables are displayed in table 1. multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the extent to which machiavellianism predicted relationship quality. the influence of relationship length was also investigated, both as an individual predictor and as a moderator of the relationship between machiavellianism and relationship quality. to represent the interaction brewer & abell 495 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between machiavellianism and relationship length, these variables were first mean centered and multiplied together. both predictors and the interaction term were then entered into a simultaneous regression model. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations for machiavellianism, trust, commitment, control, and emotional abuse ma pre dep fai int att lon sur eve aut res den hos dom ma .24** -.26** -.35** -.38** -.14* -.22* .39** .33** .41** .38** .35** .45** .31** pre -.55** -.62** -.39** -.36** -.49** .58** .43** .41** .38** .33** .42** .273** dep .73** .45** .41** .41** -.66** -.40** -.33** -.46** -.34** -.42** -.21* fai .63** .49** .60** -.62** -.47** -.36** -.41** -.35** -.50** -.29** int .71** .81** -.43** -.28** -.36** -.24* -.35** -.43** -.35** att .60** -.32** -.12 -.26** -.11 -.24* -.28** -.21* lon -.39** -.24* -.27** -.19 -.34** -.36** -.35** sur .61** .66** .70** .58** .57** .45** eve .54** .61** .30** .38** .24* aut .49** .54** .48** .52** res .62** .55** .47** den .67** .79** hos .65** dom m 65.37 -4.05 6.32 12.46 31.19 27.66 30.93 9.18 8.93 5.36 7.30 3.33 9.08 2.75 sd 13.02 5.41 6.77 9.51 8.56 6.99 7.99 3.93 3.81 2.31 7.61 6.15 8.85 6.80 note. ma = machiavellianism; pre = predicatability; dep = dependability; fai = faith; int = intent to persist; att = attachment; lon = long-term orientation; sur = surveillance and threats; eve = everyday routines and decision making; aut = autonomous behavior; res = restrictive engulfment; den = denigration; hos = hostile withdrawal; dom = dominance / intimidation. *p < .05. **p < .01. the model significantly predicted the dependability (r2 = .10, f(3,111) = 3.87, p = .011) and faith (r2 = .17, f(3,109) = 7.30, p < .001) components of relationship trust but not predictability. machiavellianism was a significant individual predictor of dependability (β = -.25, t = -2.74, p = .007) and faith (β = -.35, t = -4.01, p < .001) such that those with higher levels of machiavellianism perceived their partners to be less dependable and reported less faith in their partners than those with low levels of machiavellianism. relationship length was also a significant individual predictor of faith (β = -.20, t = -2.31, p = .023), such that those in longer term relationships reported less faith in their partners. the model also predicted the intent to persist (r2 = .15, f(3,103) = 5.90, p = .001), but not long-term orientation (r2 = .06, f(3,103) = 2.17, p = .100), or attachment (r2 = .03, f(3,103) = 1.13, p = .340) components of relationship commitment. machiavellianism was a significant individual predictor of intent to persist (β = -.38, t = -4.17, p < .001), such that women with high levels of machiavellianism were less willing to persist with the relationship than those with low levels of machiavellianism. relationship length was not a significant individual predictor of trust or commitment (with the exception of faith) and did not moderate the influence of machiavellianism on these variables. the model predicted the surveillance and threats (r2 = .28, f(3,91) = 11.59, p < .001), everyday routines and decision making (r2 = .13, f(3,93) = 4.80, p < .001), and autonomous behavior (r2 = .17, f(3,90) = 6.25, p = .001) components of relationship control. machiavellianism was a significant individual predictor of surveillance and threats (β = .38, t = 4.24, p < .001), everyday routines and decision making (β = .32, t = 3.33, machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality 496 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p = .001), and autonomous behavior (β = .41, t = 4.23, p < .001), such that those with high levels of machiavellianism were more likely to engage in each form of controlling behavior. relationship length was also a significant individual predictor of surveillance and threats (β = .35, t = 3.92, p < .001), such that women in longer term relationships were more likely to employ this form of controlling behavior. the model predicted the restrictive engulfment (r2 = .17, f(3,90) = 6.07, p = .001), denigration (r2 = .14, f(3,89) = 4.64, p = .005), hostile withdrawal (r2 = .34, f(3,89) = 9.30, p < .001), and dominance / intimidation (r2 = .11, f(3,88) = 3.46, p = .020) forms of emotional abuse. machiavellianism was a significant individual predictor of restrictive engulfment (β = .36, t = 3.72, p < .001), denigration (β = .35, t = 3.54, p = .001), hostile withdrawal (β = .44, t = 4.70, p < .001), and dominance / intimidation (β = .32, t = 3.11, p = .003), such that those with high levels of machiavellianism were more likely to engage in emotional abuse. relationship length was also a marginally significant individual predictor of hostile withdrawal (β = .19, t = 2.00, p = .049). relationship length was not a significant individual predictor of controlling behavior (with the exception of surveillance and threats) or emotional abuse (with the marginal exception of hostile withdrawal) and did not moderate the influence of machiavellianism on controlling behavior or emotional abuse. discussion the present study demonstrates that women with high levels of machiavellianism experience low levels of relationship satisfaction, perceive their partner to be less dependable, report less faith in their partners, and are less willing to persist in the relationship. findings support the assertion that men and women with high levels of machiavellianism prefer emotionally detached relationships with low levels of commitment (ali & chamorropremuzic, 2010). the present study also demonstrated that women with high levels of machiavellianism were more likely to engage in each form of controlling behavior and emotional abuse investigated. these may serve a range of functions (e.g. increase the partner’s dependency, lower the partner’s self-esteem, increase the partner’s insecurity about the relationship, and produce fear or submission) which may make the partner more susceptible to manipulation attempts and / or less likely to confront these women about their behavior. previous research indicates that controlling behavior and emotional abuse have a substantial impact on the health and wellbeing of the victim (coker, smith, bethea, king, & mckeown, 2000) with many victims reporting that the emotional abuse exerted a greater impact than the physical abuse. the current findings may therefore assist the identification of those most likely to engage in this behavior. emotional abuse predicts perpetration of physical aggression and future research should investigate the relationship between machiavellianism and physical partner violence. as researchers have documented the extent to which mutual aggression within relationships occurs (e.g. archer, 2000, 2006), research investigating both perpetration and victimization in each partner would be particularly beneficial. a substantial body of research has documented the manner in which romantic interpersonal styles and relationship preferences develop across the lifespan, particularly with reference to the influence of parent-child relationships (kelley et al., 2005). in contrast, there is relatively little information available relating to the developmental trajectory of machiavellianism, though this may also be influenced by parent-child relationships (abell, lyons, & brewer, 2014). whilst previous research documents the influence of machiavellianism on brewer & abell 497 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ children’s behavior towards peers (abell et al., 2015), research investigating the manner in which machiavellianism impacts on the formation of romantic relationships in young adolescents is required. limitations and future research the present study was dependent on self-report questionnaire data. though consistent with research in this area, self-report data are subject to social desirability, random responding, bias interpretation, and recall accuracy. social desirability may be particularly important for the reporting of negative behavior such as relationship control and emotional abuse, though research indicates a greater willingness to disclose undesirable behavior in online compared to offline studies (booth-kewley, larson, & miyoshi, 2007). future research should therefore consider the inclusion of observational data. whilst it may be difficult to capture infrequent behavior with observational methods, this approach may provide a more realistic account of relationship dynamics such as decision making, negotiation, and conflict resolution (e.g. pérusse, boucher, & fernet, 2012). furthermore, the present study investigated the influence of machiavellianism on one partner’s behavior only. though there is recent evidence for the existence of assortative mating for machiavellianism (smith et al., 2014), women may behave differently when paired with low or high machiavellian partners. for example, women may be less likely (or less able) to manipulate men with high levels of machiavellianism due to their cynicism and distrust (christie & geis, 1970). indeed machiavellianism is associated with the perception that relationship partners engage in emotional manipulation (abell, brewer, qualter, & austin, 2016). previous research has also documented important sex differences with regards to relationship behavior (e.g. archer, 2000), those factors influencing relationship outcomes (acitelli, 1992), and the manner in which machiavellianism influences social relationships (brewer, abell, & lyons, 2014). therefore research should consider both the use of manipulation and those behaviors intended to reduce the threat of exploitation in romantic relationship dyads. to conclude, machiavellianism predicted relationship satisfaction and romantic relationship quality. women with high levels of machiavellianism reported lower relationship satisfaction, perceived their partners to be less dependable, reported less faith in their partners, and were less willing to persist with the relationship. women with high levels of machiavellianism also reported greater use of controlling behavior and emotional abuse directed at their partner. these findings indicate that though women with high levels of machiavellianism enter long-term relationships, these are more likely to be poor in quality. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality 498 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references abell, l., & brewer, g. 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(1999). commitment, pro-relationship behavior, and trust in close relationships. journal of personality and social psychology, 77, 942-966. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.942 about the authors dr gayle brewer is a lecturer at the university of liverpool. her research focuses on romantic relationships and sexual behavior. dr loren abell is a lecturer at nottingham trent university. her research investigates the impact of machiavellianism on personal relationships and social behavior. machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality 502 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 491–502 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1217 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/a0014016 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.044 http://doi.org/10.1080/00224490209552141 http://doi.org/10.1177/0886260503254512 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01593.x http://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.373 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.5.942 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ machiavellianism, satisfaction, quality (introduction) satisfaction trust and commitment control and emotional abuse study 1 method results study 2 method results discussion limitations and future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors general and domain-specific contributions to creative ideation and creative performance research reports general anddomain-specific contributions to creative ideation andcreative performance donggun an*a, mark a. runcob [a] center for learning science and creative talent development, seoul national university, seoul, korea. [b] department of educational psychology, university of georgia, athens, ga, usa. abstract the general objective of this study was to reexamine two views of creativity, one positing that there is a general creative capacity or talent and the other that creativity is domain-specific. these two views were compared by (a) testing correlations among measures of domain-general and domain-specific creativity and (b) examining how the general and the specific measures was each related to indices of knowledge, motivation, and personality. participants were 147 college students enrolled in a foreign language course. data were collected on participants’ domain knowledge, motivation, and creative personality, as well as four measures representing “general or domain-specific creative ideation” or “creative performance and activity”. results indicated that the four measures of creativity were correlated with one another, except for “general performance and activity” and “domain-specific ideation.” a canonical correlation indicated that knowledge, motivation, and personality were significantly correlated with the four creativity measures (rc = .49, p < .01). multiple regressions uncovered particular relationships consistent with the view that creativity has both general and domain-specific contributions. limitations, such as the focus on one domain, and future directions are discussed. keywords: general creativity, domain-specific creativity, creative ideation, creative performance europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 received: 2016-02-12. accepted: 2016-05-12. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: education research institute, seoul national university, 1 gwanak-ro, gwanak-gu, seoul 08826, korea. e-mail: bonnet413@naver.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction there is a debate whether creativity is domain-general or domain-specific (e.g., baer, 1998; plucker, 1998). plucker (1998) described a tendency to study creativity with an assumption of generality (e.g., guilford, 1967; torrance, 1974).the key evidence for this position is that measures of creativity within particular domains (usually creative performance and activity check lists) show significant intercorrelations. runco (1987), for example, assessed both gifted and non-gifted children’s creative performance and activity and found significant correlations among the indices in various domains (e.g., writing, music, crafts, performing arts, and science). hocevar’s (1976) study indicated that for college students, significant correlations were found among creative performance and activity in various fields (e.g., fine arts, crafts, performing arts, math-science, and music). these studies support the hypothesis that the nature of creativity is general rather than domain-specific. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the domain-specificity view holds that creativity emerges within fields. the critical evidence for this position is based on low correlations among different domain-derived artifacts created by the same person. for example, baer (1991) reported that for eighth graders, non-significant correlations were found among diverse domainspecific products (i.e., mathematical, verbal, and combined). runco (1989) reported similarly low correlations (average r = .18) among three different types of artwork in a group of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. baer (1993) found non-significant correlations among different domain-oriented products (e.g., poems, math puzzles, and collages) in a sample of diverse age groups (elementary children to adults). also relevant are the weak relationships between domain-general creativity and domain-specific creativity. han (2003) showed that second-graders’ general divergent thinking was not correlated with their domain-specific artifacts in language, art, and mathematics. diakidoy and spanoudis (2002) found that ninth-graders’ performances (fluency and originality) differed significantly on general and domain-specific divergent thinking tests. these studies support the hypothesis that creativity is domain-specific. one important difference between the two views of creativity involves contributions of knowledge and personality. theories of domain-specific creativity often emphasize knowledge, and in particular domain-specific knowledge (e.g. vincent, decker, & mumford, 2002; weisberg, 2006). although academic grades are generally unrelated to creativity (holland, 1961; holland & richards, 1965), domain-specific knowledge influences domain-specific creative performances (amabile, 1990; an, song, & carr, 2016; vincent et al., 2002). similarly, domain-specific creativity is associated with personality, different domains having different profiles of contributing traits (e.g., feist, 1998, 1999). the primary objective of the present research was to offer a fine-grained examination of how both general and domain-specific creativity are related to knowledge, motivation, and personality. this research is in fact unique in that it included measures of knowledge, motivational, and personality variables and examined each as predictor of both general and domain-specific creativity. an et al. (2016) had previously assessed knowledge, motivation, and personality but they looked to different forms of creativity (divergent thinking and creative expert performance) in only one domain (educational psychology) and did not take into account general creativity. the present study is different from an et al. (2016) in that the present study compared general and domain-specific creativity rather than different forms of creativity in one domain. the present study also measured the quantity of creativity, not just the quality of creativity. of course the samples in this investigation and that of an et al. (2016) were different as well. an et al. sampled korean college students. and here samples were entirely comprised of college students from the u. s. the results of the present study were expected to offer a useful perspective on the debate concerning general and domain-specific creativity. method participants participants included a total of 147 undergraduates from a large university in the southeastern united states. each student was enrolled in a korean language course at the time of the investigation. the fact that participants were only korean language students suggests a limitation but it also provides an opportunity to define domainspecific work very carefully. seven classes at three different levels (elementary, intermediate, and advanced) participated in this study. students completed a set of instruments as an extra credit activity in the classroom. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 predicting creative performance 524 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures domain-general creative ideation general creative ideation was assessed with the “everyday” creativity scale from the runco ideational behavior scale (ribs: runco, plucker, & lim, 2001). the ribsmeasure how frequently respondents have ideas in everyday life. the ribs has demonstrated good reliability in various previous studies (runco et al., 2001; runco et al., 2014). the ribs has also shown good construct validity (runco et al., 2001), discriminate validity (runco et al., 2001), and concurrent validity (runco et al., 2014). the everyday creativity ribs scale contains 20 likert items (e.g., “i have ideas for rearranging the furniture at home,” “…ideas for a new route between home and school”). responses were given on a 5-point likert scale: never (1), once a year (2), once a month (3), several times a week (4), and daily (5). internal consistency for this sample was α = .85. a point to emphasize is that the ribs only asks about ideas. the emphasis on ideas is explicit in each item of the ribs (i.e., “how often do you have ideas about...”). this is an important point because it clearly distinguishes the ribs from the performance and activity measures described below. domain-general creative performance and activity general creative performance and activity was assessed with the everyday activity scale of thecreative activities and accomplishment checklist (caac, okuda, runco, & berger, 1991). this checklist measures howmany times students were involved in creative activities in their everyday lives (e.g., “how many times have you cooked an original dish?”). previous findings (okuda et al., 1991; runco, noble, & luptak, 1990) indicate that the caac is reliable and a useful criterion of real world creative performances. it has a long history (holland, 1961; wallach & wing, 1969). the everyday scale contains 20 items, each with a 4-point likert scale: never (1), once or twice (2), three to five times (3), and six or more times (4). internal consistency was found to be α = .85 in this sample. note that the likert responses are different from those used for the ribs. this implies that any shared variance may not reflect reliance on a common methodology. also keep in mind what was said about the ribs: it is focused on ideas rather than products, activities, and accomplishments. domain-specific creative ideation this was assessed within one domain. there are all kinds of domains that could be examined (e.g., math, verbal, spatial, bodily), but this particular research project was focused on the language domain, and in particular the foreign language domain. creative ideation within this domain was assessed using a scale adapted from the original ribs (runco et al., 2001). for the korean language scale of the ribs, 10 items from the original were selected and modified such that they targeted the foreign language domain (e.g., “i have ideas about how to apply the korean language rules (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, social linguistic expressions) in new ways,” “…ideas about new methods for learning or teaching korean language”). the ribs for korean language was on a 5-point likert scale: never (1), once a year (2), once a month (3), several times a week (4), and daily (5). internal consistency was found to be α = .87 in this sample. domain-specific creative performance and activity creative performance and activity in the foreign language domain was assessed using a scale that was adapted from the caac (okuda et al., 1991). ten items were selected from the original caac (okuda et al., 1991) and modified for the foreign language domain. the previous versions of the caac asked “how many times have you participated in a club or organization,” and this version modified questions so the focus was clear on the language europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 an & runco 525 http://www.psychopen.eu/ domain (e.g., “how many times have you participated in a foreign language club or organization?”). ratings were on a 4-point likert scale with these options: never (1), once or twice (2), three to five times (3), and six or more times (4). internal consistency in this study was α = .64. domain-specific knowledge here again, it was necessary to be realistic and chose an available index to estimate knowledge. there are a multitude of options, but the decision was made to obtain data from student records as estimates rather than extend the time necessary for data collection by adding an additional measure. thus course grades in korean classes were collected and used as the estimate of domain-specific knowledge in foreign language. the raw scores (on a scale of 1-100) were obtained from instructors, and the scores were converted to standard t-scores (m = 50, sd = 9.78). motivation motivation in foreign language was measured using the korean motivation questionnaire (kmq). this was modified from the science motivation questionnaire ii (smq; glynn, brickman, armstrong, & taasoobshirazi, 2011). the smq ii includes 25 items and five motivational constructs to learn a science (i.e., intrinsic motivation, selfdetermination, self-efficacy, career motivation, and grade motivation). the smq ii is reliable and valid (glynn et al., 2011). the kmq has the same 25 items and the five constructs as the smq ii: intrinsic motivation (e.g., i enjoy learning korean), self-determination (e.g., i use strategies to learn korean well), self-efficacy (e.g., i am confident i will do well on korean projects), career motivation (e.g., understanding korean will benefit me in my career), and grade motivation (e.g., getting a good korean grade is important to me). this assessment was on a 5-point likert scale with these options: never (1), rarely (2), sometimes (3), usually (4), and always (5). internal consistency was α = .88 in this sample. creative personality creative personality was measured using thecreative personality scale (cps, gough, 1979). the cps is reliable and has various forms of validity (gough, 1979). previous research has reported reliability between .73 and .81. significant correlations have been reported between the cps and other creativity measures (e.g., domino’s scale for creativity, schaefer’s scale for creativity, and welsh’s four creativity scales). the cps is a 30-item self-report scale on creative personality traits. it includes 18 positive for creativity traits (e.g., insightful, inventive, and humorous) and 12 negative for creativity traits (e.g., commonplace, conservative, and submissive). participants were asked to check all traits that described themselves. they received 1 point for each positive trait and -1 point for each negative trait. total scores ranged from -12 to 18. internal consistency was found to be α = .76 in this sample. results descriptive statistics and correlations as can be seen in table 1, domain-specific knowledge was significantly and negatively correlated with general creative performance and activity (r = −.27, p < .01). motivation was significantly correlated with general creative ideation (r = .35, p < .01), domain-specific creative ideation (r = .37, p < .01), and domain-specific creative performance and activity (r = .22, p < .05). motivation also significantly correlated with cps creative personality scores (r = .20, p < .05). finally, creative personality significantly correlated with general creative ideation (r = .25, p < .01) and general creative performance and activity (r = .24, p < .05). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 predicting creative performance 526 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlation matrix, means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis 7654321variable __1. knowledge __2. motivation .14 __3. personality .20*.06 __4. ideation g .25**.35**.09− __5. activity g .51**.24*.02.27**− __6. ideation s .12.32**.03.37**.12 __7. activity s .19*.34**.32**.04−.22*.10− m .9514.0932.7145.1662.093.4071.0050 sd .543.277.5210.6010.623.2411.789 skewness .720.14−0.040.31−0.200.38−0.13−1 kurtosis .080.18−0.31−0.25−0.51−0.430.391 note. ideation g = general creative ideation; activity g = general creative performance and activity; ideation s = domain-specific ideation; activity s = domain-specific performance and activity. *p < .05. **p < .01. the four measures of creativity (general and domain-specific, ideation and activity) were related to one another, with the exception of general creative performance and activity and domain-specific ideation. the correlation between general creative ideation and general performance and activity was significant (r = .51, p < .01). general creative ideation was also significantly correlated with domain-specific creative ideation (r = .32, p < .01) and domain-specific creative performance and activity (r = .32, p < .01). general creative performance and activity was significantly correlated with domain-specific creative performance and activity (r = .34, p < .01). however, the relationship between general creative performance and activity and domain-specific creative ideation was not significant (r = .12, p > .05). finally, domain-specific creative ideation correlated with domainspecific creative performance and activity (r = .19, p < .05). multiple regressions the data were then analyzed using four multiple regression analyses. each used one of the creativity measures as a criterion. the four models tested included domain-specific knowledge, motivation, and creative personality measures as predictors. results are presented in table 2.the overarching question of this investigation concerned the possibility that general creativity differs from domain-specific creativity in terms of relationships with the knowledge, motivational, and personality predictors. most important, then, were the results from the full models. these included knowledge, motivation, and personality and explained 16% of the variance in the general creative ideation measure (r2 = .16, adjusted r2 = .14, r = .40, p < .01), 15% of general creative performance and activity (r2 = .15, adjusted r2 = .12, r = .39, p < .01), 15% of domain-specific creative ideation (r2 = .15, adjusted r2 = .12, r = .38, p < .01), and 9% of domain-specific creative performance and activity (r2 = .09, adjusted r2 = .06, r = .30, p < .05). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 an & runco 527 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 multiple regression of general or domain-specific creative ideation or creative activity radjusted r2r2tβsebpredictordv .40**.14.16ideation g knowledge .25−1.11−.10.12− motivation .76**2.26.09.25 personality .86**2.26.27.77 .39**.12.15activity g knowledge .45*−2.24−.11.26− motivation .94−0.09−.10.09− personality .97**2.30.29.87 .38**.12.15ideation s knowledge .011.09.06.06 motivation .04**4.36.06.24 personality .35−0.03−.18.06− .30*.06.09activity s knowledge .34−1.13−.03.05− motivation .09**3.29.03.09 personality .56−0.05−.09.05− note. ideation g = general creative ideation; activity g = general creative performance and activity; ideation s = domain-specific ideation; activity s = domain-specific performance and activity. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 2 shows that motivation (β = .26, p < .01) and creative personality (β = .26, p < .01) significantly predicted general creative ideation, and creative personality predicted general creative performance and activity (β = .30, p < .01). domain-specific knowledge was negatively associated with general creative performance and activity (β = −.24, p < .05). motivation also predicted domain-specific creative ideation (β = .36, p < .01) and domainspecific creative performance and activity (β = .29, p < .01). canonical correlation a canonical correlation using domain-specific knowledge, motivation, and creative personality as predictors and the four creativity measures as criteria was significant (rc = .49, p < .01). thus, and quite importantly, 24.3% of variance in creativity criteria can be explained by domain knowledge, motivation and creative personality. discussion the results indicate, first, that the four measures of creativity (two representing general creativity and two representing domain-specific creativity) were largely inter-related. the exception was domain-specific creative ideation, which was not significantly correlated with general creative performance and activity. the significant correlations certainly do not imply that the various measures are redundant with one another nor are interchangeable. correlations were only moderate, which makes perfect sense. it would be a surprise if general creative ideation was completely independent of domain-specific creative ideation, or if general creative performance and activity were not at all associated with domain-specific creative performance and activity. it makes sense that domain-specific creative activity is associated with general creative ideation and activity—after all, they are all about creativity, and general components of creativity could contribute to domain specific creativity, even europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 predicting creative performance 528 http://www.psychopen.eu/ if they are not redundant. recall also amabile’s (1990) theory that recognized both general and domain specific contributions to creative performances. the variance explained in each of the four criterion measures (i.e., general creative ideation and activity, and domain-specific ideation and activity), when the knowledge, motivation, and personality predictors were regressed, did not differ in any dramatic way (9% < r2 < 16%), but the contributions of the particular predictors did vary from criterion to criterion. personality contributed to both general creative ideation and general creative performance and activity, for instance, an outcome that replicates previous research (e.g., mccrae, 1987). personality was not associated with domain-specific creative ideation nor with domain-specific creative performance and activity, a result that is consistent with feist’s (1998) conclusion that personality contributes to different domains in different ways. it appears that the role of personality in domain-specific creativity is not be as critical as it is in general creativity. domain-specific knowledge (course grade) was negatively related to general creative performance and activity. this finding is in line with the previous research (e.g., holland, 1961; holland & richards, 1965) showing a negative or non-significant relationship between academic achievement and general creativity (runco & albert, 1986). motivation, on the other hand, was a fairly broad predictor, being related to both domain-specific creative ideation and domain-specific creative performance and activity as well as general creative ideation. this too was not surprising, given findings from previous research (e.g., rostan, 2010). domain-specific knowledge, on the other hand, was not related to either domain-specific creative ideation or domain-specific creative performance and activity. this was unexpected, given previous research (e.g., an et al., 2016; vincent et al., 2002; weisberg, 2006) on the role of domain-specific knowledge for domain-specific creativity. the difference between the present results and those of earlier investigations of domain-specific knowledge may reflect the fact that the focus here was on the number of creative activities that students voluntarily engaged in, not the quality of creative activities. runco (1987; runco et al., in press) previously demonstrated that the quality of creative activity does not depend on the quantity or frequency of creative activity. previous research compared general and domain-specific creativity by examining correlations among themeasures of creativity. support for general creativity was inferred from significant correlations among creativity measures in diverse domains (e.g., hocevar, 1976) and from a significant relationship between general (divergent thinking test) and specific creativity measures (e.g., plucker, 1999). support for domain-specific creativity was inferred from non-significant correlations among creativity measures in diverse domains (e.g., baer, 1991, 1993) and a non-significant relationship between general (divergent thinking test) and specific creativity measures (e.g., diakidoy & spanoudis, 2002). the logic used in those previous investigations, if applied to the present results, supports the view of general creativity. this follows from the significant correlations found between general and domainspecific ideation and activity. yet the other approach to testing general and domain-specific creativity relies on indices of knowledge, motivation, and personality. from this angle the present results may be interpreted as supporting the domain-specific view, at least when the domain represents a foreign language. the present results were especially clear for knowledge and personality, and admittedly not as clear for motivation, but there does seem to be a need to consider the underlying indices of creativity as well as the correlations among creativity measures to test the general-specific positions. the focus on foreign language represents a notable limitation in the present investigation. this was essentially a test of only one domain (language), and one culture for that matter. other domains and samples would need to europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 an & runco 529 http://www.psychopen.eu/ be tested in future research. as a measure of domain knowledge, we used students’ course grades. although we used standardized scores for the grades, another limitation is that grading can vary from course to course, and in fact the assessment criteria may vary as well. this investigation also relied on particular measures of domainspecific knowledge, motivation, and personality as predictors of creativity. measures that cover a wider variety of specific personality traits (e.g., hexaco or big 5 surveys) might uncover relationships that differ from the present results. it would be most beneficial to include assessments other than self-reports in future research. certainly future research is needed to examine both general and specific indices to better understand the multidimensional nature of creativity. funding this work was supported by the national research foundation of korea grant funded by the korean government (nrf-2013s1a3a2055007). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references amabile, t. m. 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(2014). the incremental validity of a short form of the ideational behavior scale and usefulness of distractor, contraindicative, and lie scales. the journal of creative behavior, 48, 185-197. doi:10.1002/jocb.47 torrance, e. p. (1974). the torrance tests of creative thinking—norms-technical manual research edition—verbal tests, forms a and b—figural tests, forms a and b. princeton, nj, usa: personnel press. vincent, a. s., decker, b. p., & mumford, m. d. (2002). divergent thinking, intelligence, and expertise: a test of alternative models. creativity research journal, 14, 163-178. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1402_4 wallach, m. a., & wing, c. w., jr. (1969).the talent student: a validation of the creativity intelligence distinction. new york, ny, usa: holt, rinehart, & winston. weisberg, r. w. (2006). modes of expertise in creative thinking: evidence from case studies. in k. a. ericsson, n. charness, p. j. feltovich, & r. r. hoffman (eds.), the cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 761-787). new york, ny, usa: cambridge university press. about the authors donggun an earned her ph.d. in educational psychology from the university of georgia. she is currently a researcher in education research institute at seoul national university in korea. she was a post-doctoral researcher in the center for learning science and creative talent development at seoul national university. she has received the owen scott scholars award and the outstanding teaching assistant award from the university of georgia. she is recipient of an american association of university women fellowship and sookmyung women’s university alumni association fellowship. mark a. runco earned his ph.d. in cognitive psychology from the claremont graduate school in california. he is currently distinguished research fellow for the american institute of behavioral research & technology, la vista, california, and professor at the university of georgia. he is founder and continuing editor of the creativity research journal and co-editor of the encyclopedia of creativity. author of over 200 books, chapters, and articles in the area of creativity, he is a fellow and past president of the american psychological association's division 10. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 523–532 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1132 predicting creative performance 532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fjocb.47 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207%2fs15326934crj1402_4 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en predicting creative performance introduction method participants measures results descriptive statistics and correlations multiple regressions canonical correlation discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors disadvantageous deck selection in the iowa gambling task: the effect of cognitive load research reports disadvantageous deck selection in the iowa gambling task: the effect of cognitive load melissa j. hawthornea, benton h. pierce*a [a] department of psychology, counseling, and special education, texas a&m university-commerce, commerce, tx, usa. abstract research has shown that cognitive load affects overall iowa gambling task (igt) performance, but it is unknown whether such load impacts the selection of the individual decks that correspond to gains or losses. here, participants performed the igt either in a full attention condition or while engaged in a number monitoring task to divide attention. results showed that the full attention group was more aware of the magnitude of gains or losses for each draw (i.e., payoff awareness) than was the divided attention group. however, the divided attention group was more sensitive to the frequency of the losses (i.e., frequency awareness), as evidenced by their increased preference for deck b, which is the large but infrequent loss deck. an analysis across blocks showed that the number monitoring group was consistently more aware of loss frequency, whereas the full attention group shifted between awareness of loss frequency and awareness of payoff amount. furthermore, the full attention group was better able to weigh loss frequency and payoff amount when making deck selections. these findings support the notion that diminished cognitive resources may result in greater selection of deck b, otherwise known as the prominent deck b phenomenon. keywords: iowa gambling task, attention, frequency awareness, divided attention, decision making europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 received: 2014-11-04. accepted: 2015-02-17. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: p.o. box 3011. e-mail: benton.pierce@tamuc.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the role of emotional processes in decision making has become an increasingly popular research topic in recent years. one of the most widely used instruments in the study of affect and decision making is the iowa gambling task (igt; bechara, 2007; bechara, damasio, damasio, & anderson, 1994; smith, xiao, & bechara, 2012). this task mimics real-life decision making situations that can be navigated successfully by healthy adults. however, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (e.g., bechara, damasio, damasio, & lee, 1999; bechara, damasio, tranel, & damasio, 1997, 2005), the amygdala, (bechara et al., 1999), the right parietal cortex (tranel, bechara, & damasio, 2000), and the anterior and posterior orbitofrontal cortex (bechara, 2007) show similar patterns of decision-making impairment on the task. in the iowa gambling task, participants are told that they have been loaned $2000 and are instructed to maximize their gains and minimize their losses. participants are presented with four decks, each of which is either a good deck (i.e., advantageous) or a bad deck (i.e., disadvantageous). within each deck, every card provides a monetary gain and a potential loss. the two bad decks (decks a and b) give high immediate and constant rewards. however, these decks also have substantial losses, resulting in a net loss if participants draw frequently from those decks. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the two good decks (decks c and d) provide smaller consistent rewards, but the penalties are smaller than the rewards, resulting in an overall long-term gain (see table 1 for deck characteristics). in addition, the decks differ in their payoff schemes. two decks (decks a and c) have frequent losses, whereas decks b and d have infrequent losses. with each draw of the card, participants are presented with the amount gained, the amount lost, and a running total of their overall net gain or loss. although the typical number of draws is 100, participants are not told this in advance. the purpose of the task is to determine if participants, through a trial-and-error process, learn to prefer the good decks. table 1 gains and losses on the iowa gambling task deck ddeck cdeck bdeck a $50$50$100$100gains $250$50$1250$150-$350losses 9:15:59:15:5frequency of gains/losses (10 trials) although there has been a substantial body of research showing that healthy participants gradually shift their deck choices from decks a and b to decks c and d, these studies have used the traditional scoring method (steingroever, wetzels, horstmann, neumann, & wagenmakers, 2013). this method calculates participants’ overall proportion of selections from the good decks, or alternatively, the difference in the overall proportion of choices between the good and bad decks. however, when igt performance has been examined on a deck-by-deck basis, a different pattern emerges. in a meta-analysis of igt studies, dunn, dalgliesh, and lawrence (2006) observed that in some studies, both normal controls and clinical participants favored decks b and d over decks c and d. similarly, toplak, jain, and tannock (2005) showed that participants chose deck b more often than the other decks. indeed, several studies have demonstrated that rather than developing a preference for the advantageous decks, participants tended to develop a preference for one advantageous deck (deck d) and one disadvantageous deck (deck b), with participants often selecting more cards from deck b than from the other decks (toplak et al., 2005; wilder, weinberger, & goldberg, 1998). this pattern of preferring deck b over other more advantageous decks has been labeled the “prominent deck b phenomenon” (chiu, lin, huang, lin, lee, & hsieh, 2008; lin, chiu, lee, & hsieh, 2007). deck b is unique, in that it is the only deck that gives high immediate and constant rewards, but the losses (which are infrequent) heavily outweigh these gains, making it a bad deck in the long run. although deck a is also considered to be a bad deck in that over time the losses outweigh the gains, the individual losses are smaller (typically $150-$350) and more frequent (see table 1). several studies have examined various factors that could impact igt performance. mood has been shown to affect performance, with a positive mood state leading to better performance compared to a negative mood state (e.g., bagneux, font, & bollon, 2013; de vries, holland, &witteman, 2008; miu, heilman, & houser, 2008). other research has explored the effect of instructional modifications, although the results have been mixed. for example, balodis, macdonald, and olmstead (2006) found that when participants were provided a shortened version of the task instructions, the expected learning pattern failed to develop. however, hawthorne, weatherford, and tochkov (2011) provided participants with instructions that varied in length and detail and found the traditional shift to advantageous decks in all three conditions. finally, factors such as time limitations (cella, dymond, cooper, & turnbull, 2007; dedonno & demaree, 2008), have been shown to lower performance. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 individual deck preference on the igt 336 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to more fully understand the cognitive processes underlying this preference for deck b, huizenga, crone, and jansen (2007) used amultilevel approach in examining developmental changes in igt strategy. these authors used a developmentally appropriate version of the igt (i.e., the hungry donkey task) with school-aged children (ages 6-9), older children (ages 10-12), adolescents (ages 13-15) and university students (ages 18-25) to examine how performance strategies changed based on developmental maturation. these authors demonstrated that agerelated improvement on the igt can be explained by a shift from a unidimensional to a multidimensional proportional reasoning strategy. according to this perspective, igt performance is influenced by three dimensions: (a) the amount of net gain, (b) the frequency of losses, and (c) the amount of probabilistic loss. huizenga et al. hypothesized that the task is too complex for participants to analyze all three dimensions and so they rely on strategies based on a single dimension. for children, the relevant dimension tends to be loss frequency. with developmental gain comes the ability to consider more than one aspect of the igt, resulting in a shift to multidimensional reasoning that includes loss frequency and the amount of probabilistic gain. this shift in reasoning is evident in participants’ changing deck preferences on the igt. for example, huizenga et al. (2007) found that a focus on loss frequency was the default strategy for all age groups. however, a subgroup of participants, primarily older adolescents and adults, employed a more sophisticated approach, in which they focused first on loss frequency, but then also considered the amount of probabilistic loss. huizenga et al. found that participants who relied solely on loss frequency favored decks b and d, whereas participants who considered probabilistic loss as an additional factor tended to develop a preference for deck d over deck b as the task progressed. the authors also found that participants who used probabilistic loss as a factor had higher levels of inductive reasoning ability as measured by the raven standard progressive matrices test (raven, court, & raven, 1985). huizenga et al. further hypothesized that participants who focused only on loss frequency likely also had more limited processing capacity, and therefore were not able to consider other relevant factors. cassotti, houdé, and moutier (2011) found similar results with children and adolescents, who showed a strong preference for disadvantageous decks, but still chose deck b more than deck a. although children, adolescents, and adults started out with similar patterns of deck selection, by the final block the patterns had changed. children and adolescents drew more from deck b, whereas adults selected more cards from decks c and d. furthermore, beitz, salthouse, and davis (2014) found that children, adolescents, and older adults preferred decks with low loss frequency as evidenced by a greater number of draws from deck b. young and middle aged adults, however, developed a preference for decks with higher net outcomes (decks c and d). these results are consistent with the recurring theme that certain populations are more susceptible to the prominent deck b phenomenon. in general, populations whose cognitive abilities are not fully developed (e.g., children and adolescents) and those whose cognitive abilities have begun to decline (e.g., older adults) are more likely to favor deck b (e.g., beitz et al., 2014; crone, bunge, latenstein, & van der molen, 2005; crone & van der molen, 2004; huizenga et al., 2007). additionally, populations who suffer from compromised cognitive resources such as people with schizophrenia (shurman, horan, & ntuechterlein, 2005) and those with adhd (toplak, jain, & tannock, 2005) also tend to favor deck b over more advantageous decks. furthermore, research has shown that placing a load on executive functions may disrupt learning on the igt. for example, hinson, jameson, and whitney (2002) used both a digit load task and a random number generation task to demonstrate that working memory load interfered with igt performance. in a later study, jameson, hinson, and whitney (2004) found that igt performance was compromised by having participants engage in a working memory task, but not by engaging in a verbal buffering task. the authors hypothesized that the verbal buffering europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 hawthorne & pierce 337 http://www.psychopen.eu/ task may not have sufficiently interfered with participants’ attentional resources to affect igt performance. similarly, pecchinenda, dretsch, and chapman (2006), using a modified version of the igt, found that low working memory load did not disrupt igt performance, whereas high working memory load did impair performance. overall, these findings suggest that working memory does play a role in igt performance and that impaired working memory capacity can cause poor performance on the task (but see manes et al., 2002). other research that has attempted to identify cognitive resources necessary for optimal igt performance has yielded mixed results (beitz, salthouse, & davis, 2014; toplak et al., 2010). to provide further support for the notion that diminished cognitive resources, particularly attentional resources, may underlie the prominent deck b phenomenon, the present study examined the effects of placing a cognitive load on igt performance in healthy younger adults. although we drew from huizenga et al. (2007) in our discussion of strategies involved with the igt, our focus was somewhat different. rather than attempting to establish the impact of cognitive load on strategy use, we examined how such impairment affects awareness of certain aspects of the task and the resulting behavioral results. participants completed the igt under either a full attention condition or a number monitoring condition. because there is a marked preference for deck b among populations who have diminished cognitive resources, we expected that by placing healthy young adults in a divided attention condition, we would be able to produce a prominent deck b effect. method participants a total of 60 undergraduate students from texas a&m university-commerce participated in the study and were randomly assigned to one of two groups. participants consisted of 38 females and 22 males. the mean age was 21.87 with a range from age 18 to age 29. materials iowa gambling task— a computerized version of the igt was used in this study. the computer screen displayed four rectangles with a number 1-4 in each rectangle. participants were instructed to select a card by clicking on the appropriate rectangle. below the rectangles, the card choice, reward, penalty and net gain were reported in green text. the participant’s total score was reported in black font. a green score bar at the bottom of the screen displayed the gains and losses. the reward structure and instructions were identical to those established by bechara et al. (1994: see table 1 for item characteristics). the task was self-paced. number monitoring task — number monitoring tasks are often used in divided attention paradigms because they have low error rates but high processing demands that tend to disrupt encoding of information (fernandes & moscovitch, 2000; park, smith, dudley, & lafronza, 1989). in this task, participants heard numbers through a set of head phones and were asked to click a hand-held counter whenever they heard a number containing the number 3 (e.g., 13, 23, 33). the numbers were all spoken in a female voice and presented at 4 second intervals using windows media player. procedure participants were tested individually in a quiet room during a 45-minute time period. before beginning the session, each participant completed an informed consent and a demographic form. the single-task group completed the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 individual deck preference on the igt 338 http://www.psychopen.eu/ igt without engaging in a simultaneous secondary task. the number monitoring group received instructions for the number monitoring task and then completed the igt and the secondary task simultaneously. we calculated payoff (net outcome) and sensitivity to loss frequency using the stocco et al. (2009) scoring method. that is, we determined payoff by subtracting the number of draws from bad decks from the number of draws from good decks (i.e., (deck c + deck d) (deck a + deck b). we then calculated frequency sensitivity by subtracting the number of draws from decks with a low frequency of loss from decks with a high frequency of loss (i.e., (deck b + deck d) (deck a + deck c). results two one-way anovas were conducted to identify differences between the full attention and number monitoring groups regarding both payoff and frequency sensitivity. the results showed differences in both payoff sensitivity f(1, 58) = 4.36, p = .03, η2 = .07 and frequency sensitivity f(1, 58) = 4.63, p = .04, η2 = .07. compared to the number monitoring group, the full attention group was influenced more by payoff amounts. in contrast, the number monitoring group was more sensitive to loss frequency than was the full attention group (see figure 1). figure 1. sensitivity between groups. a series of one-way anovas were used to analyze differences between the groups (i.e., full attention group and number monitoring group) on the different decks. a bonferroni correction was used to correct for inflated chances of type 1 error caused by repeated comparisons, resulting in a p criterion of .0125. the results indicated that there was a significant difference between groups only for deck b, f(1, 58) = 7.24, p = .009, η2 = .11, showing that disrupting attentional resources can lead to an increased preference for selecting deck b (see figure 2). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 hawthorne & pierce 339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. draws by deck. to further explore how cognitive load impacted frequency and payoff sensitivity, we next scored participants’ frequency sensitivity and payoff sensitivity by block (5 blocks of 20 responses). we conducted mixed anovas for both payoff and frequency sensitivity. for frequency sensitivity, there was a main effect of block, f(4, 58) = 6.71, p = .01, η2 = .10, but the interaction (block x group) was only marginally significant (p = .08). between subjects, there was also a significant effect of group membership, f(1, 58) = 6.63, p = .01, η2 = .10, with the number monitoring group having greater sensitivity. for the number monitoring group, frequency awareness changed across blocks, with higher levels of frequency awareness over the last three blocks (see figure 3). in contrast, the full attention group demonstrated an increase in frequency sensitivity from block 1 to block 2, followed by a relatively stable sensitivity until the last block. in block 5, frequency sensitivity dropped sharply. next, we conducted a mixed anova for payoff sensitivity. there was a main effect of block, f(4, 58) = 2.46, p = .04, η2 = .04, and no interaction (p = .23). there was also no difference between groups for payoff sensitivity (p = .33). a comparison across the different blocks showed that although the full attention group tended to be more aware of the payoff amount, participants were occasionally influenced by the frequency of losses (e.g., block 4; see figure 3). in contrast to the number monitoring group, which was consistently more sensitive to loss frequency, the full attention group experienced changes in focus, shifting between frequency and amount. this variability supports the idea that with full cognitive resources available, participants were better able to weigh previous results and make changes in their responses. without such resources, the number monitoring group tended to rely on a single aspect of previous responses, the frequency with which a deck produced a loss. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 individual deck preference on the igt 340 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. group performance across blocks. finally, we examined deck selection by block using a series of repeated-measures anovas. for the full attention group, changes across blocks in the number of cards drawn from each deck occurred only for deck a, f(4, 29) = 7.55, p < .001, η2 = . 21, and for deck c, f(4, 29) = 3.59, p = .009, η2 = .11. this group consistently selected a lower number of cards from deck a for all but the first block. however, the difference for deck c came in the last block of 20 draws (see figure 4). the number monitoring group also drew fewer cards from deck a, f(4, 29) = 11.15, p < .001, η2 = . 27. however, this trend began after the second block of draws. although both groups were able to identify deck a as being disadvantageous and consequently avoid drawing from that deck, it took the number-monitoring group longer to make this determination. furthermore, the full attention group drew equally from decks b, c, and d until the final block. in that block, participants drew primarily from deck c. this pattern indicates that the participants were able to balance payoff amount and loss frequency and adjust their draws accordingly. in contrast, the number monitoring group was not able to make this distinction, and instead relied more on frequency of losses as the guiding factor in card selection. figure 4. draws per deck across blocks. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 hawthorne & pierce 341 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion considerable effort has been placed on understanding the processes, both cognitive and emotional, that contribute to performance on the iowa gambling task. one finding that has not been fully explored is the prominent deck b phenomenon. research has shown that certain populations are more susceptible to this phenomenon, including children and adolescents, (cassotti et al., 2011; huizenga et al., 2007), older adults (beitz et al., 2014), and certain clinical populations (shurman et al., 2005; toplak et al., 2005). because these populations all have limited cognitive resources compared to older adolescents and younger adults (cella, dymond, cooper, & turnbull, 2012; plude, enns, & brodeur, 1994; salthouse, 2004; trick & enns, 1998), we hypothesized that limited resources might be the driving factor behind the deck b phenomenon. typically, research that has sought to link particular resources such as working memory, set-shifting, inhibition, and intelligence has yielded mixed results (toplak et al., 2010) with effect sizes that have often been small (beitz et al., 2014). therefore, we chose to focus on attentional abilities. to test the hypothesis that impaired attention would affect deck selection, we had one group of cognitively normal participants complete the igt under a full-attention condition, and a second group complete the task under a divided attention condition. we chose a number monitoring task for the divided attention condition because research has shown that this task has high processing demands but a low error rate (fernandes & moscovitch, 2000; park et al., 1989). therefore, the task affects initial encoding by limiting attentional resources, while minimizing the effects on other cognitive resources (e.g., working memory, inhibition). we first compared payoff and frequency sensitivity between the full attention and number monitoring groups. our results showed that participants in the full attention group were influenced more by payoff amounts than those in the number monitoring group, whereas participants in the number monitoring group were more sensitive to loss frequency. these findings are consistent with those of huizenga et al. (2007) who found that two main strategies accounted for deck preference in the igt. the more sophisticated strategy of weighing both payoff frequency and the amount of probabilistic loss required fully developed cognitive abilities and was typically seen in older adolescents and younger adults. within groups, there was no significant difference between payoff and frequency sensitivity for the full attention group. thus, consistent with huizenga et al., participants with full attentional resources were able to incorporate both payoff frequency and amount into their deck selections, whereas participants with impaired attentional resources defaulted to a reliance on the frequency of losses to guide their deck choices. next, we examined how this focus on payoff and loss frequency affected individual deck selection. huizenga et al. (2007) found that participants who focused on loss frequency demonstrated a preference for decks b and d. however, cassotti et al. (2011) found that although children and adolescents developed a bias toward selecting deck b, there was no preference for deck d. in the current study, participants in the number monitoring condition exhibited the prominent deck b phenomenon. in contrast, there were no significant differences in the number of draws from decks b, c, or d for participants in the full attention condition, findings that are consistent with those of cassotti et al. our results are also consistent with those of beitz et al. (2014) who found that both children and older adults performed poorly on the igt, driven primarily by a tendency to focus on the frequency of losses. similar choice patterns have been demonstrated in populations known to do poorly on the igt, such as people with schizophrenia (shurman et al., 2005) and those with adhd (toplak et al., 2005), lending support to the idea that intact cognitive resources are needed for optimal igt performance. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 individual deck preference on the igt 342 http://www.psychopen.eu/ our next analysis focused on the impact of participants’ sensitivity to loss frequency and payoff amounts throughout the igt. we divided the total number of draws into 5 blocks of 20 draws each and computed frequency and payoff sensitivity for each block. mixed anovas showed that the number-monitoring group was consistently influenced more by the frequency of the losses than by the amount of the gains. however, the full attention group tended to rely almost equally on frequency and amount until the last two blocks. in block 4, participant choices were driven largely by loss frequency. this trend reversed in the final block with payoff amount becoming the primary concern in deck selection. these trends indicate that the two groups reacted differently to the feedback provided by the igt. the full attention group made adjustments over time, whereas the number monitoring group tended to rely on one strategy. it may be that those in the number monitoring group did not realize the need for a strategy change, or that they realized that a strategy change was needed, but did not have, or chose not to expend, the resources needed to make the adjustment. either way, the reduction in attentional resources influenced how participants reacted to the gains and losses. in our final analysis, we examined each group’s deck selections across five blocks of 20 draws each. these results supported our earlier findings that the full attention group was better able to weigh both loss frequency and amount of payoffs in making deck selections. the full attention group quickly identified deck a as being disadvantageous and tended to avoid that deck for the remainder of the task. across blocks 2, 3, and 4, they drew equally from decks b, c, and d. in the final block, however, they shifted to drawing more frequently from deck c. this shows that the full attention group was able to recognize that deck c was advantageous and drew more cards from that deck to increase the overall gain. in contrast, it took the number monitoring group longer to recognize deck a as being a bad deck. once this determination was made, the number monitoring group drew equally from decks c and d but drew much more frequently from deck b. they apparently were influenced more by the frequency of payoffs and less so by the amount of the gain or loss. again, these results are consistent with other findings that showed the impact of diminished cognitive resources on igt performance (e.g., beitz et al., 2014; shurman et al., 2005). our findings also have relevance to dual systems theories of reasoning and decision making. one dual process account put forth by stanovich and west (1999) posits that one process relies largely on rational, cognitively demanding thought, whereas the other process is fast, intuitive, and tends to be emotion based. to avoid the implication that decision-making is governed by two separate and distinct brain systems, stanovich and toplak (2012) later adopted the terms type 1 and type 2 processes. because type 2 processes require cognitive effort, they are affected by tasks that compete for the limited available resources, often causing a shift to using type 1 processes. our findings suggest that when under cognitive load, participants were unable to fully use type 2 processes to weigh loss and gains against loss frequency, and therefore relied more on intuitive type 1 processes. (for a review of dual process decision making see evans, 2011) similarly, reyna and brainerd (2011) applied fuzzy trace theory as a dual systems account of decision making. from this perspective, gist memory is intuitive, automatic, and quick, whereas verbatim memory is more analytical and resource-consuming. our results suggest that under full attention conditions participants were better able to use verbatim memory of previous results when making deck selections. in contrast, the number monitoring group tended to rely more on the gist memory of the gain from deck b, when the retrieval of verbatim memory would have shown that deck b actually yielded an overall loss. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 hawthorne & pierce 343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to our knowledge, there has been no research that addresses the issue of attentional resources and decision making factors such as loss aversion. however, there is some evidence that cognitive load does impact which factors are considered by the decision maker. for example, shiv and fedorikhin (1999) demonstrated that under cognitive load, participants were more likely to choose an option that was highly appealing on an affective level (chocolate cake). however, in a no-load condition, the participants tended to choose the more cognitively appealing desert (fruit salad). similarly, biswas and grau (2008) found that under cognitive load, consumers chose more optional features when making a purchase. the authors argued that cognitive load prevents consumers from accurately processing price-ratio information. other research has also shown that when participants are placed under a cognitive load they tend to rely on heuristics rather than on analytical reasoning (de neys, 2006; gillard, van dooren, schaeken, & verschaffel, 2009; pelham, sumarta, & myaskovsky, 1994). our findings support the idea that under cognitive load, individuals tend to rely on prominent and salient features rather than engage in analytical reasoning. therefore, our research has real-world applications, perhaps extending to areas such as consumer research and behavioral economics. one potential limitation of the current study is that we only used one type of task (i.e., number monitoring) to induce cognitive load. therefore, we do not know the extent to which a more demanding divided-attention task would affect sensitivity to loss frequency and selections from deck b. another limitation is that we did not include any physiological measures (e.g., skin conductive responses) that might reveal how divided attention affects emotional reactions to deck outcomes. despite these limitations, we provide a new explanation for the prominent deck b phenomenon. typically the preference for deck b that was observed in certain populations was explained as an artifact of the task’s reward/punishment schedule (lin et al., 2007). however, our results indicate that the availability of cognitive resources is necessary for participants to engage in the more complex decision strategy of weighing both the frequency of losses and the probabilistic gain or loss associated with a deck. when participants’ attentional resources were taxed by a number monitoring task, they defaulted to using loss frequency to guide their deck choices. this basic strategy, in turn, resulted in these participants drawing more often from deck b than from any other deck. these results demonstrate, for the first time, that limited attentional resources may be sufficient to explain the preference for deck b among certain populations. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bagneux, v., font, h., & bollon, t. 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(1998). operant conditioning and the orbitofrontal cortex in schizophrenic patients: unexpected evidence for intact functioning. schizophrenia research, 30, 169-174. doi:10.1016/s0920-9964(97)00135-7 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 hawthorne & pierce 347 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2011.07.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00293.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/209563 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2004.03.020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0026342 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11299-011-0093-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1998.0700 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029929 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-5-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-1-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.04.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0885-2014(98)90016-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0920-9964(97)00135-7 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors melissa j. hawthorne is a graduate of the department of psychology, counseling, and special education at texas a&m university-commerce. she is currently an instructor in the department of leadership education and development at louisiana state universityshreveport. her research interests include the application of cognitive research to student success and retention. benton h. pierce is an associate professor specializing in cognitive psychology at texas a&m university-commerce. he is a graduate of texas a&m university, with post-doctoral work completed at harvard. he is interested in false or illusory memories and the role of monitoring processes in reducing such memory errors. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 335–348 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.931 individual deck preference on the igt 348 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en individual deck preference on the igt (introduction) method participants materials procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors does talking about emotions influence eyewitness memory? the role of emotional vs. factual retelling on memory accuracy research reports does talking about emotions influence eyewitness memory? the role of emotional vs. factual retelling on memory accuracy emanuela soleti*a, antonietta curcia, antonella biancoa, tiziana lancianoa [a] department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, bari, italy. abstract eyewitnesses typically talk about the crimes they have seen. the different ways in which a witness talks can also influence later recollections. indeed individuals can talk about crimes in order to cope with their negative emotions or to provide a detailed report. in the current study we investigated the role of factual vs. emotional retelling on memory accuracy of individuals who have eyewitnessed and discussed an emotional event. participants were shown a video in which a quarrel between strangers was evident, then they were assigned to one out of three experimental conditions, i.e., (a) talking in group about emotional reactions to the video, (b) talking in group about factual details of the video; (c) completing an unrelated task. we employed a novel procedure in groups that ensured more ecological validity; retelling with other co-eyewitnesses in fact resembles real life situation. eyewitnesses’ memory for details of the video was assessed immediately before the retelling session and after a short delay. results showed that while factual retelling prevents memory impairment over time, emotional retelling determined less detailed memories. implications for forensic assessments of eyewitness’ memory were discussed. keywords: memory accuracy, factual retelling, emotional retelling, eyewitness testimony europe's journal of psychology, 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640, doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 received: 2012-09-25. accepted: 2012-10-23. published: 2012-11-30. *corresponding author at: university of bari “a. moro”, department of education, psychology and communication, piazza umberto i, 1, 70100 bari (italy), e-mail: e.soleti@psico.uniba.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. how eyewitnesses talk about a crime: implications for memory accuracy memory assessment is a crucial issue in investigative procedures that predominantly rely on recollections of witnesses of crimes. experimental research has explored several factors that, under different conditions, might improve or impair memory accuracy, i. e. interviewing techniques, social and individual dispositions, distortions occurring during coding, retention and recall of information (wells, memon, & penrod, 2006). when asked to remember an event, people often report information that they have encountered after the original experience (post-event information, pei), rather than what they originally experienced (loftus, 1979). pei has been proposed in different forms (wright & davies, 1999): it may arise from biasing questions about the event (loftus & palmer, 1974), that is the way in which the questions are asked can distort reports of memory for the event. pei may also emerge through repeated re-descriptions of the event (wright & stroud, 1998) – that is it may be incorporated into written post-event narratives and embedded into people’s memory. finally pei may be presented by another person during discussions about the original experience (gabbert, memon, & allan, 2003; wright, self, & justice, 2000; wright & villalba, 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ even when eyewitnesses have seen the same event, their memories are likely to differ because of naturally occurring variations in the details attended to at that time, as well as actual or perceived differences in each person’s ability to accurately recall those details. of interest for eyewitness’ memory research is whether different ways of talking about the same crime can influence subsequent recall. eyewitness retellings depend upon the speaker’s goals, and feedbacks from the audience and social context (marsh, 2007). retelling the crime may be a strategy to cope with stress and unpleasant emotions related to criminal events, and this is a main feature of the so-called emotional retelling. people may also talk about what they have experienced in order to provide as many cues as possible to investigators. in this case, retelling is strictly related to reporting details about events, and it is called factual retelling (marsh, tversky, & hutson, 2005). to our knowledge, eyewitness retelling wasmanipulated in two studies (lane, mather, villa, & morita, 2001; marsh et al., 2005). in the first one, participants viewed a videotaped crime and then received false suggestions about the event. results showed that retelling instructions that encouraged rehearsal of previously suggested misinformation led to an increase in the number of errors on a later test (lane et al., 2001). the second study examined the consequences of emotional vs. factual retellings (marsh et al., 2005) when no specific error was suggested to witnesses. participants watched a disturbingly violent film clip, then were assigned to three groups: individuals in the emotional retelling group were instructed to report how they felt while watching the film events; individuals in the factual group told what happened from the beginning to the end of the film clip; individuals in the control no-talk group did unrelated activities. then they completed free recall and cue-driven memory tests. results showed that for cue-driven memory tests the focus of retelling had little effect. focus of retelling, instead, had a larger effect on free recall. in the first case, retrieval cues constrained participants’ responses, minimizing differences between retelling conditions. in the second case, participants had to generate their own retrieval cues, so the effect of different focus of retelling was more evident. more specifically, talking about emotions led to a better performance in a memory test, but also produced major errors in a free recall task when compared with factual retelling. on the other hand, factual retelling led to better performance on a free recall task by enhancing memory for facts, perceptual details such as spatial, temporal and activity components of the events. marsh and colleagues (2005) concluded that a matching between retelling focus (emotional vs. factual) and memory test focus was crucial to explain this pattern of results. indeed, retelling sessions are set up on a schema that can later serve to bias memory retrieval, leading to schema-consistent intrusions and schema-inconsistent omissions (tversky & marsh, 2000). according to the transfer appropriate processing account (tap; morris, bransford, & franks, 1977; tversky, 1974), when similar retrieval processes are used either during retelling or in final recall test, memory benefits. when there is a mismatch between the retrieval processes used at retelling and the final recall occasion, memory suffers. that is, retelling the event by focusing on factual details would facilitate later recall because of a match between processes involved in retelling and in recall (dudukovic, marsh, & tversky, 2004). instead, focusing on personal thoughts and emotional reactions to an event would lead to a decrease in perceptual and contextual qualities of the individual’s memory trace by enhancing memory for these subjective components of the experience (suengas & johnson, 1988). we conclude that talking about witnessed events leads to changes in memory and, more specifically, emotional retelling seems to impair memory accuracy for witnessed crimes, producing more errors in free recall tests (marsh europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 soleti, curci, bianco et al. 633 http://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2005). however, no research work so far has tried to investigate the effects of different focus of retelling on memory accuracy adopting a more ecological perspective. overview and hypotheses in the present study we aimed to investigate the effects of different focus of retelling on memory accuracy when retelling was manipulated at group level. participants in the current study were exposed to a video clip of an emotional disturbing event displayed from two different points of view. participants were then asked to recall the event alone and to discuss about it in a group session. a second recall test was employed to examine the effects of group discussion on subsequent memory reports. in the current study we employed a novel and naturalistic procedure, since participants watched the video clip recorded from two different perspectives in small groups of six people, in order to approach as much as possible a real life situation of exposure to a criminal event. differently from the procedure employed by marsh and colleagues (2005), where participants individually talked to a video camera about the film, participants in this study were requested to discuss their experience with their co-witnesses, as it usually happens among people who have assisted to a criminal episode. in addition, they were allowed to confront their memories with other present people’s recollections. based on the previous study by marsh and colleagues (2005), we hypothesized that emotional retelling will reduce memory accuracy for the event, instead, factual retelling will facilitate memory performance on a free recall task. this would be explained by considering that, while engaging in emotional retelling, individuals are more concerned with regulating their emotional reactions to the crime instead of reporting accurate details, as it is the case in a factual retelling condition. method design the study employed a 3 x 2 mixed design with retelling (factual vs. emotional vs. control) as the between-participants factor, and test-retest (pre-retelling vs. post-retelling) as the within-participants factor. the dependent variable was the memory accuracy index. participants a total of 126 individuals (m age = 24.16, sd = 3.80; 57.90% women) were recruited among friends of psychology students of university of bari. each student invited a friend to participate to the study in exchange of course credit. participants were assigned to one out of the three retelling conditions (factual vs. emotional vs. control) in groups of six individuals. materials and procedure initial phase. participants were informed they were taking part in a research investigating memory processes, and signed an informed consent form. each participant was assigned to a group of six individuals and all individuals in the group simultaneously watched a short video, so that one monitor was available for every three participants in the same room. the two monitors were arranged so that participants watching a monitor could not see what europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 emotional vs factual retelling in testimony 634 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was displayed to participants watching the other. participants were led to believe that they were all watching the same video, while they were watching two different perspectives of the video. crime event. the video shown to participants was a short film displaying two lovers conversing in a garden. a stranger approached the bench, began quarrelling with the boy and pushed him violently. a third man passed behind the bench, sipping a drink. two video clips were filmed, each lasting one minute and 48 seconds. both clips contained exactly the same sequence of events, but were filmed from different perspectives so as to simulate different witness’ perspectives. pre-retelling free recall phase. shortly after the video presentation, participants were given 10 min to write down a free account of the events seen in the video. this task was performed individually. instructions were provided for participants to think back to the video clip, to write down as much details as possible and to report the sequence of events accurately and in the order they were held. manipulation check. after the recall session, participants were asked to rate on a 11-point scale (0 = “not at all”; 10 = “extremely”) the emotional impact of the video clip. retelling phase. each group was randomly assigned to one out of three retelling conditions: factual condition, emotional condition or control condition. participants in the control condition did not talk about the video, and they were asked to perform an unrelated task for 5 min. participants in the other two conditions were invited to discuss within the groups about the events of the video for up to 5 min. participants assigned to the factual condition were instructed to talk about the events of the film extensively and in the same order in which they had occurred, so that somebody who had not seen the film could exactly imagine what had happened. participants assigned to the emotional condition were instructed to talk about their emotional reactions to the events of the video, thoughts and feelings about it so that somebody who had not seen the film could exactly imagine how they felt. similar instructions were employed in previous study by marsh and colleagues (2005). during the retelling phase, the experimenter supervised the group discussion in order to control the correct execution of the task. post-retelling free recall phase. participants were once again given 10 min to write down a free narrative of the events seen in the video. this task was performed individually. instructions provided to participants were the same as the ones given in the first pre-retelling recall phase. coding. two independent raters employed a checklist of details visible in both versions of the video (inter-raters reliability on a random sample of twenty transcripts: r = .98, p < .01). a score of 1 was assigned for each accurately reported detail. the accuracy index consisted of the proportion of details correctly reported by participants (max: 24). results manipulation check in order to evaluate the presence of relevant differences in the emotional reaction to the event between participants assigned to the experimental conditions of the design, a one way anova was run with retelling (factual vs. emotional vs. control) as the between subjects variable on the index of emotional impact of video clip. results showed no main effect of retelling (f2,123 = 2.57, n.s.), thus indicating that participants’ emotional reactions did not differ across the three retelling conditions. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 soleti, curci, bianco et al. 635 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis on the accuracy index a 3 x 2 repeated measures anovawas run on the accuracy index with retelling (factual vs. emotional vs. control) as between subjects factor, and test-retest (pre-retelling vs. post-retelling) as a within subjects factor. the main effects of retelling and test-retest were not found to be significant (respectively: f2,123 = 0.04, n.s.; f1,123 = 1.55, n.s.; see table 1). table 1 average proportions on the accuracy index retelling totalcontrolemotionalfactual mmmm (sd)(sd)(sd)(sd) .59.59.61a.57pre-retelling (.22)(.25)(.22)(.19) .57.58.55a.59post-retelling (.20)(.22)(.21)(.18) note. means in a column sharing the same subscript are significantly different at p < .05. for all conditions, higher means indicate higher memory accuracy. instead, the interaction effect of retelling by test-retest resulted as significant (f2,123 = 3.62, p < .05; see figure 1). figure 1. interaction effect of retelling by test-retest on accuracy index. simple effects analyses showed a significant decrement in the accuracy index moving from the pre to post-retelling phase (f1,123 = 8.52, p < .05) only for participants assigned to the emotional retelling condition (see table 1). europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 emotional vs factual retelling in testimony 636 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in the present study the role of factual and emotional retelling on memory accuracy was experimentally investigated in individuals who had witnessed and discussed in group a criminal event. in line with our hypothesis, emotional retelling was found to affect memory accuracy (marsh et al., 2005) by decreasing the proportion of correct details reported by participants in free recalls. by contrast, participants assigned to the factual retelling and control condition were found to report the same proportion of correct details of the event at both the test and retest recall sessions. the detrimental effect of emotional retelling might be due to the schema generated during retelling that later serves to bias memory retrieval, leading to schema-consistent intrusions and schema-inconsistent omissions (tversky & marsh, 2000). according to the tap (morris, bransford, & franks, 1977; tversky, 1974), a match between processes involved during retelling and in a final recall occasion facilitates memory tasks (and this is the case for the factual retelling), instead a mismatch impairs retrieval processes. in case of emotional retelling, the switch between the schema generated during emotional retelling and the (factual) schema required at the free recall seemed to have impaired memory accuracy. however, in our study the factual retelling and control conditions were not found to differ as to the proportion of details correctly reported. this result diverges from evidence by marsh et al. (2005) for different reasons. first, marsh and colleagues (2005) assessed the number of major errors committed by participants instead than the proportion of details correctly reported, as in the present study. in this respect our evidence seems not to be comparable with marsh et al.’s results. second, the lack of a significant difference between the factual retelling and control conditions might be explained by assuming that, in our study, the filler task served as a form of protection for the original memory trace. in this regard, the effects of the control condition seemed to parallel the effects of the factual retelling induction, which instead implied a match between the processes activated at retelling and final recall test, and a consequent facilitation on the subsequent memory performance. the present findings concerning the effect of the focus of retelling on memory accuracy need to be explained by considering two alternative accounts. one, which is referred to as the emotional retelling as deep encoding hypothesis, is that emotional retelling should have positive consequences for memory accuracy. according to this hypothesis, when retelling with an emotional focus, individuals are likely to retrieve the most important events, and to relate them to themselves: both rehearsal and relating events to the self are likely to have positive consequences for memory (symons & johnson, 1997). the other possibility, which is called emotional retelling as selective hypothesis, is that emotional retelling would have selective effects on emotional aspects of memory (dudukovic, marsh, & tversky, 2004). according to this hypothesis, focusing on personal thoughts and emotional reactions to an event leads to a decrease in perceptual and contextual qualities of the memory trace (suengas & johnson, 1988). results from the present study seem to support the emotional retelling as selective hypothesis confirming that emotional retelling, even when performed in group, creates an organizing schema of the event which subsequently biased memory retrieval reducing the proportion of correct details reported in the recall task (tversky & marsh, 2000). one important merit of the present study is that it preserves ecological validity in an experimental paradigm traditionally employed for investigating the effect of retelling on memory accuracy. participants were shown film clips in groups, in order to approach as much as possible a real life situation of exposure to a criminal event. moreover, participants were requested to discuss their experience with other people as it usually happens among europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 soleti, curci, bianco et al. 637 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eyewitnesses of a criminal episode who confront their memories with other present people’s recollections. furthermore, no misinformation was suggested to participants as in the experimental studies on post event information. the adoption of this procedure adds to the validity of the experimental approach for the investigation of memory accuracy, and contributes to the generalizability of the present findings to real-life situations. findings from the present study contain important practical implications for the forensic context. people are normally expected to discuss their experiences with others especially if they concern something out of the ordinary, such as witnessing a crime (rimé, 2009). however, as the present results demonstrate, if witnesses have discussed an event with one another, the way in which one person talks about it can influence what eyewitnesses report. this study demonstrates that if eyewitnesses retell with an emotional focus, this might compromise the accuracy of later testimony. despite these interesting findings, the present study has some limitations. first, although during the retelling session the experimenter supervised the group discussion in order to control the correct execution of the task, participants could have tried to switch the topic of their discussions from factual to emotional focus and vice versa. this might have had the effect of activating memory details not congruent with the retelling condition, subsequently impacting on the accuracy of participants’ recollections. at the very least, this switching could have happened in the participant’s memory representation of the experience instead of the explicit discussion with co-witnesses. this point entails a second limitation of the study, in which we did not have a direct control on the cognitive processes activated during the retelling session and the recall phase for participants assigned to different retelling conditions. third, in the experimental manipulation of retelling we did not include a control condition in which participants were free to discuss whatever topic they wanted, and this might limit to some extent the generalization of our conclusions to real-life situations. finally, in the present study we operationalized memory accuracy as the number of details correctly reported. a qualitative analysis on the types of errors generated by different focus of retelling is warranted (gabbert et al., 2006). in sum, eyewitness to criminal event might retell the event in order to cope with unpleasant emotions related to crime or to recall as much cues as possible for investigative aims (marsh et al., 2005). the present study demonstrated that eyewitness testimony is highly vulnerable to the focus of retelling. this conclusion accounts for the importance of employing structured protocols of interview, such as the cognitive interview (fisher & geiselman, 1992). this instrument, in fact, helps eyewitnesses to focus on factual details of their memories and simultaneously to cope with their emotional reactions to crimes. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge the help of anna libera fusillo, paolo girone, cristiano guttà, milvio ricci and raffaele spinelli in collecting the data. references dudukovic, n. m., marsh, e. j., & tversky, b. 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(2000). memory conformity: exploring misinformation effects when presented by another person. british journal of psychology, 91, 189-202. doi:10.1348/000712600161781 about the authors emanuela soleti phd is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are memory, forensic psychology and psychopathology. antonietta curci phd is an associate professor at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence, forensic psychology, and multivariate data analysis. antonella bianco phd is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are memory and eyewitness suggestibility. tiziana lanciano phd is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, mental rumination, emotional intelligence, and latent-variable analysis. europe's journal of psychology 2012, vol. 8(4), 632–640 doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i4.526 emotional vs factual retelling in testimony 640 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712600161781 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional vs factual retelling in testimony how eyewitnesses talk about a crime: implications for memory accuracy overview and hypotheses method design participants materials and procedure results manipulation check analysis on the accuracy index discussion acknowledgments references about the authors bystander reactions to workplace incivility: the role of gender and discrimination claims research reports bystander reactions to workplace incivility: the role of gender and discrimination claims samantha sinclair a [a] department of psychology, linnæus university, växjö, sweden. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 134–144, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 received: 2018-06-14 • accepted: 2019-11-04 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: samantha sinclair, department of psychology, linnæus university, universitetsplatsen 1, se-351 95, växjö, sweden. tel: +46 725 941 757, e-mail: samantha.sinclair@lnu.se abstract will men and women receive the same support at work when they claim to have been discriminated against? this paper reports a scenario-based experimental study (n = 240, 50.4% women, m age = 25.65) that investigated bystanders’ reactions to an incident where a co-worker is treated in a condescending manner by another co-worker. the results showed that women reacted more strongly to the incivility incident and were more willing to support and defend the co-worker. as expected, the gender difference in helping intentions was especially prominent when the co-worker attributed the incident to gender discrimination, compared to a control condition with an attribution unrelated to gender. further, when the incident was attributed to discrimination, the female coworker evoked somewhat stronger helping intentions than the male co-worker, suggesting the presence of gender bias. the results are discussed in relation to the prototype perspective of perceived discrimination. keywords discrimination attributions, gender bias, gender differences, emotional reactions, helping intentions, workplace incivility, discrimination prototypes previous research suggests that when people attribute negative events to discrimination, they tend to be negatively perceived. for example, a study by kaiser and miller (2001) found that an african american who failed a test was seen as a complainer when he attributed the failure to discrimination but not when he made other external attributions. similarly, another study (kaiser & miller, 2003) found that an african american who attributed rejection on the labor market to discrimination was perceived as more irritating, even when discrimination was blatant. people have also been found to react more negatively to a person who blames a failing grade on discrimination, even when this person belongs to their ingroup (garcia et al., 2005), and individuals who claim to have been discriminated can be perceived as more prejudiced against the outgroup (blodorn & o’brien, 2013). if individuals risk being negatively evaluated by others when they attribute events to discrimination, they may become more reluctant to make discrimination claims, which means that discrimination could continue unchallenged. although there can be costs associated with making discrimination attributions, there may sometimes be benefits, such as receiving support from others. unlike previous research on discrimination claims, the focus of the present paper is on prosocial reactions rather than social penalties. more specifically, the question is whether co-workers will evoke stronger reactions and helping intentions when they attribute being belittled by another co-worker to gender discrimination. the incident is an example of workplace incivility, which is defined as “low intensity, disrespectful or rude deviant workplace behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target and is in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect” (andersson & pearson, 1999), and can be a precursor to workplace bullying (baron & nauman, 1996). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1675&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ although previous research have investigated bystanders’ reactions to alleged gender discrimination, this has primarily been done in the context of blatant ambient sexual harassment toward women (e.g., bradley-geist, rivera, & geringer, 2015; chaudoir & quinn, 2010; hitlan, schneider, & walsh, 2006). while this work is indeed important, discrimination in the workplace based on gender and race is likely to have taken on more subtle forms in recent years and thus become more difficult to detect (nier & gaertner, 2012). for example, some individuals will claim to endorse egalitarian values while still expressing gender bias in the form of “selective incivility” (kabat-farr & cortina, 2012). the present study therefore examined reactions to gender discrimination claims in a situation where there is no clear evidence pointing to discrimination. furthermore, most studies on ambient sexism have not used a crossed design of participant and target gender, and without such a design, the constellations of possible gender bias that can be examined are limited. the present study used such a design to examine the nature of bystanders’ reactions to a co-worker who claim to have been discriminated against, and whether these reactions depend on bystander and co-worker gender. discrimination prototypes and gender bias a recent study (carlsson & sinclair, 2018) showed that people tend to interpret a situation where a woman is rejected on the labor market as a sign of gender discrimination. this can be explained by a prototype account of perceived discrimination. in general, people will perceive events as discrimination to the extent that features of the event, such as the domain where it occurs, as well as the group membership of the victim and perpetrator, fit their preconception (“prototype”) of what a typical discrimination case looks like (inman & baron, 1996). because women are prototypical victims of gender discrimination whereas men are not, it is possible that men who claim to be victims of gender discrimination end up receiving less support, which is a hypothesis that is put to the test in the current study. in other words, co-workers may receive different amounts of support depending on whether they are male or female. if such gender bias stems from discrimination prototypes, it should interact with the context. specifically, this bias should be more evident in contexts where gender discrimination prototypes apply, such as sexual harassment, domestic violence, sexism, and the like. for example, female victims are met with more sympathy relative to male victims in the context of partner aggression (hammock et al., 2017; worthen & varnado-sullivan, 2005). in the present study, we thus expected that people would display more gender bias in the context of alleged gender discrimination, relative to a gender-neutral context. gender stereotypes portray women as more communal (helpful, understanding, and friendly, e.g., bosak, sczesny, & eagly, 2008), and gender differences in self-reported communal traits have been observed across several cultures (sinclair, carlsson, & björklund, 2016; twenge, 1997, 2001). this gender difference seems pertinent in a workplace context, as women are more likely to endorse a relational approach to work, characterized by a belief that work is best accomplished through social relationships (matthew, buontempo, & block, 2013). for example, women claim to engage in more interdependence oriented behaviors at work (fletcher, 1999), and tend to deem potentially uncivil or harassing workplace behaviors as more offensive or inappropriate than men do (montgomery, kane, & vance, 2004). therefore, we expected women (relative to men) to be more prone to offer support to a co-worker who is subjected to workplace incivility. besides this general gender difference, women (relative to men) may display stronger reactions when a co-worker attributes an incivility incident to gender discrimination in particular. this hypothesis is based on the notion that women as a group have a history of being victims of gender discrimination and therefore may be more motivated to react to alleged gender discrimination in general. according to the defensive attribution theory (shaver, 1970), whether an observer will sympathize with a victim is contingent on how personally relevant and potentially threatening the context is perceived. when observers feel that they are likely to be involved in a situation similar to that of the victim in the future, subsequent feelings of threat increases the potential for stronger reactions. supporting this theory, elkins, phillips, and konopaske (2002) found that women, but not men, felt threatened when faced with discrimination claims in an employment context, whereas men were instead more threatened in a child custody lawsuit context. because female bystanders may anticipate a greater likelihood of becoming victims of future gender discrimination in organizations, we expected women (relative to men) to react more strongly in response to a co-worker who attributes being subjected to workplace incivility to gender discrimination, compared to an attribution that is gender neutral. sinclair 135 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ one can also imagine that women would be more motivated to help a co-worker who makes discrimination claims when this person is female rather than male, in other words, that they would exhibit a same-gender bias. however, based on the recent findings of carlsson and sinclair (2018), who with a total sample of almost 800, including a replication of elkins and colleagues (elkins, phillips, konopaske, & townsend, 2001; elkins et al., 2002), found virtually no evidence for same-gender bias in perceived gender discrimination, there is little reason to expect same-gender bias in the current study. the present study this study is concerned with whether co-workers who attribute workplace incivility to gender discrimination end up evoking stronger reactions and helping intentions from bystanders, and further, whether this depends on co-worker and bystander gender. this research contributes to the literature by examining prosocial reactions to a person who makes discrimination claims, acknowledging that there could be pros and not only cons associated with making discrimination claims. importantly, the crossed design of attribution type and participant and co-worker gender allows for putting gen­ der bias in the form of victim prototype effects in reactions and helping intentions to the test. that is, whether men and women receive different levels of support in the case of gender discrimination attributions per se, or if there is a gender bias regardless of the co-worker’s attributions, which could be the case if women are regarded as victims in general (regardless of context). moreover, previous studies do not reveal whether gender differences in reactions are unique to cases revolving around sexism per se (as defensive attribution theory would predict), or if women sympathize more with targets of unfair treatment in general, regardless of the nature of the conflict. the design was a 2 (co-worker’s attribution: gender discrimination vs. gender-neutral) × 2 (co-worker gender) × 2 (participant gender) between subjects factorial. the incivility incident was expected to elicit stronger emotions and helping intentions when the co-worker attributes the reason behind a rude colleague’s behavior to gender discrimination, compared to a gender-neutral attribution (hypothesis 1). second, women were expected to display stronger emotional reactions and exhibit stronger helping intentions overall, compared to men (hypothesis 2). this gender difference was further predicted to interact with the co-worker’s attribution, such that women should (relative to men) differentiate more between the two contexts and react more when the co-worker attributes the incident to gender discrimination (hypothesis 3). finally, based on prototype theory, there should be an interaction between the co-worker’s attribution and co-worker gender, specifically, the incident should elicit stronger reactions when the co-worker is female and claims to have been discriminated against based on her gender (hypothesis 4). method participants two-hundred and forty men and women (50.4% women, mage = 25.65, sd = 7.54), recruited at public libraries and campuses in the south of sweden, participated in the study without compensation. work experience was a prerequisite to participate. the majority (78.8%) were students with work experience, 18.3% were employed full time and the remaining 2.9% did not report their occupation. for reasons of transparency, we report how we determined the sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipula­ tions, and all measures in the study. the sample size was selected to have about 80% power to detect moderate effects (d = 0.5) for the follow-up simple effects of h3 and h4, and we thus decided on n = 60 per cell (using g*power; faul, erdfelder, lang, & buchner, 2007). this also meant > 95% power to detect moderate effects in the analysis of variance (anovas; ηp2 = .13). note that the design was not planned to have adequate power to follow-up a possible three-way interaction (as n = 30 per cell and d = 0.5 results in a power of 48%). based on recent research on perceived discrimination (carlsson & sinclair, 2018) that found minimal same-gender bias effects, a very large sample would be required to follow up a three-way interaction. however, there was sufficient power to detect the possibility of a general same-gender bias in the form of a two-way interaction that would be manifested if bystanders were more upset and motivated to help in the case where the co-worker belongs to the same gender as themselves. reactions to workplace incivility 136 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials and procedure the study was introduced as investigating judgments of interpersonal relations in the workplace. experimental manipulation after being randomly assigned to conditions, the participants were handed a booklet that presented a scenario about a male or female upper secondary teacher who was belittled by his or her colleague: maria (eric) works as an upper secondary teacher. one day a difficult situation presents itself at work. when maria (eric) suggests a new approach to solving the problem to a colleague, the colleague replies with a sneer: “what could you, who has only one year of experience, contribute with, while i on the other hand have been here for five years”. the participants in the discrimination attribution condition then read the following sentence: maria (eric) is convinced that the colleague behaves this way because the colleague has a problem with female (male) co-workers. participants in the control condition were instead presented with an attribution that was unrelated to gender: maria (eric) is convinced that the colleague behaves this way because the colleague has a problem with new employees. the participants were asked to imagine that they worked there and witnessed the event. emotional reactions the participants answered four questions that measured emotional reactions, specifically how upset, angry, sad, and dejected they felt about the incident (1 = not at all, 7 = very much, cronbach’s α = .71). helping intentions next, they responded to four statements that measured willingness to help and support the co-worker: “i would try to show maria (eric) my support by being extra nice to her,” “i would talk to maria (eric) and ask her how she is feeling after the incident,” “i would confront the colleague about their behavior,” and “i would report the incident to the person responsible for human resources” (1 = no, definitely not, 7 = yes, definitely). this measure had poor reliability (cronbach’s α = .53). omitting the item about being extra nice to maria or eric improved α to .62, however, the whole scale was used because omitting this item produced almost identical results. there was a moderate correlation between the emotional reactions scale and helping intentions scale, r = .40, p < .001. additional measures apart from characteristics of the target, the extent to which discrimination prototypes are applied could also depend on characteristics of the perpetrator (inman & baron, 1996). after completing the outcome measures, the participants therefore provided brief descriptions of how they had imagined the rude colleague’s appearance, age, gender, and so on. we asked the question in this unobtrusive way because we were interested in whether people spontaneously imagine a male perpetrator, depending on co-worker (target) gender and discrimination claims. finally, the participants answered demographic questions. results to test the four hypotheses, we conducted two three-way between groups anovas (one for each dependent variable) with 2 (attributions: gender discrimination vs. gender-neutral) × 2 (co-worker gender) × 2 (participant gender). means and standard deviations are presented in table 1. sinclair 137 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for emotional reactions and helping intentions experimental condition emotional reactions helping intentions female participants male participants female participants male participants m sd m sd m sd m sd discrimination attribution female co-worker 4.97 1.07 4.08 1.16 5.53 0.85 4.55 1.05 male co-worker 4.63 0.76 4.03 1.03 4.98 0.96 4.05 1.13 gender-neutral attribution female co-worker 4.33 1.06 3.82 1.09 4.66 0.99 4.18 0.92 male co-worker 4.51 0.81 3.85 1.06 4.69 0.89 4.39 1.11 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation. emotional reactions the anova with emotional reactions as the dependent variable revealed a statistically significant main effect of attribution type with a weak effect size, f(1, 232) = 5.24, p = .02, ηp2 = .022. this suggests that the participants reacted with more intense emotions when the co-worker attributed the incident to gender discrimination compared to an attribution that was unrelated to gender. this effect was significant for female participants, t(119) = −2.22, p = .028, d = −0.4, 95% ci [−0.76, −0.04], but not for male participants, t(117) = −1.11, p = .27, d = −0.05, 95% ci [−0.41, 0.31], providing partial support for hypothesis 1. supporting hypothesis 2, there was a medium sized main effect of participant gender, showing that women reacted with more negative emotions than men, f(1, 232) = 25.93, p < .001, ηp2 = .10. this gender difference was significant in both the discrimination attribution condition, t(118) = 4.03, p < .001, d = 0.74, 95% ci [0.36, 1.11], and the gender-neutral condition, t(118) = 3.21, p = .002, d = 0.58, 95% ci [0.19, 0.97]. there was no significant main effect of co-worker gender, f(1, 232) = 0.09, p = .76, ηp2 < .001, suggesting that the participants in general reacted with similar emotional intensity regardless of whether the co-worker was male or female. the interaction effect between participant gender and attribution type, f(1, 232) = 0.38, p = .54, ηp2 = .002, and between co-worker gender and attribution type, f(1, 232) = 1.26, p = .26, ηp2 = .005, were non-significant, rendering no support for hypotheses 3 and 4. finally, there was no significant interaction effect between participant gender and co-worker gender, f(1, 232) = 0.09, p = .77, ηp2 < .005, indicating no same-gender bias, and the three-way interaction was also non-significant, f(1, 232) = 0.68, p = .41, ηp2 = .003. helping intentions the anova with helping intentions as the dependent variable revealed a significant main effect of attribution type, which in line with hypothesis 1 showed that a co-worker who made a discrimination attribution evoked stronger helping intentions, f(1, 232) = 5.35, p = .02, ηp2 = .023. similar to emotional reactions, this effect size was only significant for female participants, t(119) = −3.40, p = .001, d = −0.62, 95% ci [−0.99, −0.25], and not for male participants, t(117) = −0.08, p = .93, d = −0.02, 95% ci [−0.38, 0.34], providing partial support for the hypothesis. supporting hypothesis 2, there was a significant and medium sized main effect of participant gender, as women expressed stronger intentions to help the co-worker, f(1, 232) = 27.23, p < .001, ηp2 = .11. we confirmed that this gender difference was significant in both the discrimination attribution condition, t(118) = 5.05, p < .001, d = 0.92, 95% ci [0.54, 1.3], and the gender-neutral condition, t(118) = 2.19, p = .03, d = 0.4, 95% ci [0.04, 0.77]. there was also a statistically significant interaction effect between participant gender and attribution type, f(1, 232) = 4.85, p = .03, ηp2 = .02, see figure 1. that is, the gender difference in helping intentions was especially pronounced when the co-worker made a gender discrimination attribution, which is in line with hypothesis 3. follow-up t-tests reactions to workplace incivility 138 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ showed that the gender difference was significant in both the discrimination attribution condition, t(118) = 5.05, p < .001, d = 0.92, 95% ci [0.54, 1.3], and the gender-neutral condition, t(118) = 2.19, p = .03, d = 0.4, 95% ci [0.04, 0.77], although the mean difference was more than twice as large in the discrimination attribution condition. figure 1 effects of attribution type and participant gender on helping intentions note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. in line with hypothesis 4, there was also a statistically significant interaction effect between attribution type and co-worker gender, as the participants were especially motivated to help the co-worker in the discrimination attribution condition when the co-worker was female, f(1, 232) = 6.26, p = .01, ηp2 = .026. this interaction effect is displayed in figure 2. follow-up t-tests revealed that, as expected, the female co-worker received more help than the male co-worker in the discrimination attribution condition, t(118) = 2.60, p = .01, d = 0.48, 95% ci [0.11, 0.85], but there was no significant difference in the gender-neutral condition, t(118) = −0.67, p = .51, d = −0.12, 95% ci [−0.48, 0.24], suggesting the possibility that discrimination prototypes guide helping intentions. sinclair 139 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 effects of attribution type and co-worker gender on helping intentions note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. as was the case with emotional reactions, the main effect of co-worker gender on helping intentions was non-signifi­ cant, f(1, 232) = 2.55, p = .11, ηp2 = .01, and so was the interaction between co-worker and participant gender, f(1, 232) = 0.20, p = .66, ηp2 = .001, and the three-way interaction, f(1, 232) = 0.06, p = .80, ηp2 < .001. this means that there were no indications of same-gender bias. exploratory analyses of how the participants imagined the rude colleague we also conducted exploratory analyses on how the participants imagined the rude colleague in the scenario. most participants (95.4%) provided descriptions of the colleague, and the majority (82.1%) mentioned gender. the answers were coded as mention versus no mention of a male colleague. an alternative coding (including only those who mentioned that the colleague was either male or female, and treating the rest as missing values) produced similar results. a chi-square test for independence (with yates continuity correction) revealed that in the gender-neutral attribution condition, the participants imagined a male colleague more often when the co-worker was male, χ²(1, n = 114) = 15.59, p < .01, ϕ = .39. this medium sized difference is displayed in figure 3a. in the discrimination attribution condition, however, there was no apparent difference in mentioning a male colleague depending on gender of the co-worker, χ²(1, n = 115) = 0.22, p = .64, ϕ = −.06, see figure 3b. reactions to workplace incivility 140 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 3a effect of co-worker gender on describing a male perpetrator in the gender-neutral condition, 3b effect of co-worker gender on describing a male perpetrator in the discrimination attribution condition note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. discussion the present study examined whether co-workers who are subjected to workplace incivility evoke more or less reactions and helping intentions depending on whether they attribute the incident to gender discrimination, and further, how this interacts with co-worker and bystander gender. previous research has primarily focused on the downsides to making discrimination attributions. the current findings add to this literature by showing that targets of workplace incivility may sometimes evoke stronger helping intentions when they make discrimination claims, at least when bystanders are female. tentatively, this should encourage individuals who are victims of gender discrimination at the workplace to consider disclosing their experiences to a co-worker. the results further revealed that when attributing the incivility incident to gender discrimination, the female co-worker evoked somewhat stronger helping intentions than the male co-worker. this is in line with the prototype perspective of perceived discrimination (inman & baron, 1996), which asserts that people perceive an act as discrimina­ tory to the extent that it fits their image of a typical discrimination case (e.g., female victim). the findings suggest that discrimination prototypes may not only be important for perceptions but also for the way people treat each other in the workplace. however, this effect was not significant for emotional reactions, spurring the need for further research. the very weak (and insignificant) main effects of co-worker gender suggest that women are not necessarily treated as victims in incivility contexts in general, but rather may be more readily supported as victims in gender discrimination contexts per se. moreover, that men and women did not seem to be selectively supporting of co-workers of their own gender suggests that there was little or no same-gender bias, which is similar to recent findings on perceived gender discrimination (carlsson & sinclair, 2018). akin to previous findings (montgomery et al., 2004), we also found that women displayed stronger reactions to a case of workplace incivility, compared to men. this can perhaps be explained by women having a more relational approach to work (matthew et al., 2013). women were especially motivated to help the co-worker when the co-work­ er made discrimination attributions compared to a gender-neutral attribution, regardless of co-worker gender. this suggests that women may be particularly motivated to detect and react against discrimination, which is in line with sinclair 141 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ defensive attribution theory (shaver, 1970). however, this interaction effect was statistically significant for helping intentions but not for emotional reactions and as such the hypothesis was only partially supported. the explorative analyses suggested that in the gender-neutral (control) condition, it was common to think of the rude colleague (“perpetrator”) as belonging to the same gender as the co-worker (“target”). in the discrimination attribution condition however, the proportions seem to shift from same-gender dyads into more cases of other-gender dyads, which might be due to activation of discrimination prototypes. although the upper secondary teacher occupation is gender balanced in sweden, there is a possibility that this occupation is associated more with females, and that this influenced the imagined perpetrator. it is also possible that if the perpetrator were a manager instead of a peer, other gender constellations would more readily come to mind. practical implications because it can be difficult to determine the severity of a workplace conflict, and whether it involves illegal behaviors such as discrimination, managers need to take multiple perspectives into consideration, including those of the victim, the alleged harasser, and other individuals in the work environment such as bystanders (raver & gelfand, 2005). the finding that female bystanders may become more motivated to offer support when a conflict is attributed to gender discrimination rather than being new at the job could be regarded as reasonable: if a colleague has problems with people because they are new on the job, this conflict may be more likely to dissipate over time. because a person’s gender in most cases remains constant, there could be more reason for bystanders to perceive the conflict as serious in this case. however, the observed gender difference in reactions and helping intentions may have implications for women’s stress levels: if they have a lower threshold to perceive incivility as serious, female bystanders may experience higher levels of stress reactions when there is an interpersonal conflict at the workplace. on a positive note, that bystanders care is good news for victims of workplace incivility: if employees fail to react when observing incivility and harassment, incivility could become the norm, which might foster an organizational culture of conflict (pearson, andersson, & porath, 2005). limitations and directions for future research in the gender-neutral condition, the co-worker attributed the colleague’s rude behavior to being new on the job. because discrimination might be perceived as more serious when there is no group permeability, that is, when switching groups is not possible (lalonde & silverman, 1994), and because being new on the job is temporary, future research may want to examine reactions to co-workers’ attributions to gender discrimination compared to attributions to, for example, discrimination due to ethnicity or age. it would also be optimal to experimentally vary gender of the perpetrator, which could not be accomplished in the current study, as it would have meant increasing the experimental design. future studies may however prefer to hold this variable fixed rather than unknown, in order to gain more control over the way that participants imagine gender constellations in interpersonal conflicts. another limitation of this study was the low reliability in one of the outcome measures (helping intentions). although the low reliability makes it less likely to find an effect, and thus should decrease the risk of making a type i error through decreased power, future research on this topic would be wise to use a more reliable measure of helping intentions. our incivility scenario corresponds to two out of the three types of bullying behaviors that seem to be especially related to stress reactions among employees, specifically, judging someone’s work unjustly or in an offending manner, and limiting someone’s possibilities of expressing his or her opinions (vartia, 2001). this suggests that the scenario bears resemblance to a realistic workplace incident in real life. for reasons of external validity, we included only participants with work experience, who could relate to the scenario. nevertheless, considering that behavioral intentions sometimes do not correspond perfectly with real behavior (e.g., kraus, 1995; wojciszke & bocian, 2018) it would be ideal to replicate the study in an authentic workplace situation using behavioral measures, preferably of real helping behavior. the present research was conducted in sweden and the findings should preferably be replicated in other cultures. for example, a recent meta-analysis by triana, jayasinghe, pieper, delgado, and li (2018) found stronger associations between perceived gender discrimination and poorer health and work-related outcomes in countries with relatively high reactions to workplace incivility 142 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 134–144 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1675 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gender equality. it is thus possible that people react differently to a co-worker’s discrimination claims depending on culture. on a final note on generalizability, because the current study investigated reactions to an incident in a gender-bal­ anced occupation, it may not generalize to maleand/or female-dominated occupations. however, previous research (carlsson & sinclair, 2018) has found that prototype effects in perceived gender discrimination are strongest in male-ty­ ped occupations and weakest in female-typed occupations. we therefore suspect that prototype effects in reactions to discrimination claims may follow the same pattern. funding: the author has no funding to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the author would like to thank rickard carlsson for his helpful comments on a previous draft of the manuscript. references andersson, l. m., & pearson, c. m. 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(2018). bad methods drive out good: the curse of imagination in social psychology research. social psychological bulletin, 13(2), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.5964/spb.v13i2.26062 worthen, j. b., & varnado-sullivan, p. (2005). gender bias in attributions of responsibility for abuse. journal of family violence, 20(5), 305-312. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-005-6606-5 about the author samantha sinclair is a senior lecturer of psychology at linnæus university. she received her doctorate in psychology from lund university in 2015. her research interests include social psychological processes and discrimination. reactions to workplace incivility 144 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201272010 https://doi.org/10.1177/13684302030063001 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295211007 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.1.78 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2013.01031.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601103252105 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2012.01745.x https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2005.15841946 https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2005.17407904 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0028777 https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12310 https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318776772 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02766650 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.133 https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.588 https://doi.org/10.5964/spb.v13i2.26062 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-005-6606-5 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ reactions to workplace incivility (introduction) discrimination prototypes and gender bias the present study method participants materials and procedure results emotional reactions helping intentions exploratory analyses of how the participants imagined the rude colleague discussion practical implications limitations and directions for future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author political imagination, otherness and the european crisis correction political imagination, otherness and the european crisis vlad petre glăveanu, constance de saint laurent note the authors want to add the following corrected funding statement: funding constance de saint laurent acknowledges the support of the swiss national science foundation doctoral mobility grant (grant number p1nep1_158990). [the authors requested to add this note post-publication on 2016-03-18.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ editorial political imagination, otherness and the european crisis vlad petre glăveanu*a, constance de saint laurentb [a] aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. [b] university of neuchatel, neuchatel, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 published (vor): 2015-11-27. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: vlad@hum.aau.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. “germany caused this problem. and they're eventually going to give every single migrant german passports they will all be flooding the uk within 5 years. and they'll all be voting for the labour party. and we'll be trapped in the eu by non-indigenous british voters for eternity” (lewis, commenting on the article ‘german interior minister calls for limits on migrants to eu’ published by yahoo news, 9 september 2015) all those following media reports in europe over the past seven years will be forgiven for thinking that the continent is in perpetual crisisi. whether a social, economic or political one, the same formula seems to apply: collective frustration over the current state of affairs; sense-making about the situation; finding culprits, preferably from outside one’s group or nation; protesting, more or less vocally, and moving on to the next crisis. at each stage of the ‘process’ a plethora of journalists, economists, sociologists and political scientists readily offer their views, lament or denounce the status quo, compare what happens here and now with what happened then and there, and generally accompany social movements as they unfold. what can psychologists contribute to these debates? in this editorial we argue that a psychological perspective is not only needed but fundamental for understanding current events. lewis’s comment, included as a suggestive motto, captures the essence of what psychology, we believe, can contribute with. the short quote is overloaded with evidence of various psychological processes applied to the migration crises and its effects on the uk (presumably lewis being a resident of this country). there is evaluation (‘germany caused this problem’), anticipation (‘they’re eventually going to give every single migrant german passports’), causal thinking (‘they will all be flooding the uk within 5 years’), generalisation (‘they’ll all be voting for the labour party’), and in/out-group dynamics (‘we'll be trapped in the eu by non-indigenous british voters for eternity’). all these mobilised for political aims, since an implicit argument is being built here that germany should not receive migrants, migrants should not get german passports and move to the uk, the fate of the country should not be determined by ‘non-indigenous’ voters and (perhaps) the labour party should stop wanting britain trapped inside the eu. still, rarely do psychologists write about political implications; they are more comfortable instead focusing on the nature and mechanisms involved in making evaluations, generalisations and in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ thinking in general, particularly its biases and heuristics (see kahneman, 2011). while this is a worthwhile enterprise in its own right, we believe it to be falling short of the full potential this discipline has to study, address, and contribute to social change. as follows, we will introduce imagination as a key psychological concept for theorising social change and define the notion of political imagination. we briefly discuss different elements included in this definition and, in particular, outline the relation between politics and imagination. in the end, we offer some reflections on both the ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ sides of political imagination as it participates in the construction of society in the spirit of nationalism and exclusion or, on the contrary, mobilises people to fight for just and democratic political processes. by understanding the dynamic of political imagination, psychologists would have a lot to contribute to current social debates in europe. imagination, otherness and society we propose to expand the discussion of psychological processes involved in social change from biases in cognition to the work of human imagination. bringing in the notion of imagination might seem odd considering its relegation today to the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, and the arts (cornejo, 2015). and yet, everything about lewis’s quote points to the use of this faculty. there are imagined events, imagined consequences and, on the whole, an imagined future constructed in just a few lines. arguably, lewis is not experiencing, at the moment of writing, any of the anticipated consequences of migration; in fact, he might not even have met, in person, any of the migrants arriving to europe in the wake of the syrian conflict, little less asked them about their plans in 5 year’s time. however, in his narration, the future of living with (and under) these other people is made ‘real’ and this infuses lewis’s imagination, arguably, with all sorts of images and scenarios about what it will mean to live in a country full of migrants, run by the labour party and trapped in the european union… these future scenarios are thus built on a fundamental and deeply consequential form of imagination – the imagination of otherness. it is important at this point to clarify our stand in one of the longest debates concerning human imagination – that of its relation to reality. drawing on sociocultural psychological scholarship (vygotsky, 2004), we consider imagination as a process deeply connected to how we experience the world at every moment. in fact, imagination participates in perception itself (pelaprat & cole, 2011), helping us construct images of what ‘is’, in addition to what is ‘not’ or ‘not yet’. in building reality, imagination draws on existing cultural resources, as well as past experience, in ways that enrich our here and now (bringing in the general, the possible, the impossible) and open it to new temporal dimensions (such as the future, the past we have not experienced, etc.) (see zittoun & gillespie, 2015). considering this complexity, the study of imagination in psychology and connected disciplines is rightfully multifaceted. it ranges from understanding how children engage in pretend play episodes (harris, 2000) up to how we creatively construct, in time, a personal life trajectory (zittoun & de saint-laurent, 2014). for the purposes of our discussion here, however, we are interested in a particular form of imagination, one that concerns collective rather than individual life. this is not an imagination by society, performed by a mysterious ‘group mind’, but one of society, developed by people as they engaged in collective living. as such, it is an imagination at once individual and social, symbolic (grounded in representations) and material (grounded in physical and institutional arrangements); it is also, ultimately, a political form of imagination, even when those who imagine do not directly participate in the institutionalised arena of politics. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 political imagination, otherness and the european crisis 558 http://www.psychopen.eu/ political imagination what do we define as political imagination? in a broad sense, this concept is meant to designate all those imaginative processes by which collective life is symbolically experienced and this experience mobilised in view of achieving political aims. almost all the concepts above require some qualification. imaginative processes what do we mean by imaginative processes? they refer to those psychological mechanisms that allow us to bring into the present, the here and now, other experiences (glăveanu, karwowski, jankowska, & de saint laurent, forthcoming). these experiences can be spatially or temporally distant, but also impossible or improbable. through this move, we transform our understanding of the present and how we act towards it. this kind of approach resonates with sociocultural definitions of imagination put forward in recent years (pelaprat & cole, 2011; zittoun & cerchia, 2013), definitions that escape the narrow understanding of this process in terms of imagery alone. it also invites us to reflect on who engages in such processes. by considering them as primarily psychological, we propose to study political imagination at the level of the individual; however, this is always an individual that exists within a collective or social context. in this sense, the products of political imagination are never, themselves, individual in nature. what scaffolds, then, political imagination? we postulate that a wide range of social and educational experiences offer individuals the resources to imagine, in line with vygotsky’s emphasis on the cultural roots of imagination (see vygotsky, 1994, 2004). in other words, the collective life this form of imagination is directed towards also offers people the concrete means to imagine. collective life what do we understand by collective? broadly speaking, ‘collective life’ designates all aspects of life that are the product of people acting as part of a group. benedict anderson (1983) made an important contribution to this discussion in his book on imagined communities. a popular idea in sociology and politics, his argument is that big social groups, particularly nations, are always imagined since “even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (p. 15). thus, experiencing the social world necessarily involves, at least in part, imagination. however, we would like to emphasise the fact that imagination should never be reduced to our relation to an absent other. on the contrary, political imagination is political precisely because it informs if we accept or not, understand or not, engage or not with very concrete others. symbolic experience then why talk first and foremost about symbolic experience? does political imagination not have a material, embodied side as well? it certainly does. but the notion of symbolic highlights the construction of imaginative experiences with the use of images, language, social representations, etc. this doesn’t mean that such symbolic means don’t have both concrete referents in the world or take materialised forms (in writing, drawing, talking, acting, and so on), but that their efficiency lies in their ability to connect what is here and what is not in a specific situation, to be a symbol of something else. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 glăveanu & de saint laurent 559 http://www.psychopen.eu/ political aims last but not least, the key notion of ‘political aims’ needs to be clarified. as briefly mentioned before, we are not concerned here only with those manifestations of imagination within the socially defined and institutionally enforced area of the political. for us, political aims concern others and how one ‘deals’ with otherness (and, through this, with oneself in relation to this otherness). what political aims are pursued in relation to others? to assimilate, exclude, control, dominate, emancipate, empower… and the list goes on. we therefore take ‘political’ in its double meaning, referring both to general matters of public life and to the ‘policing’ of social groups. imagination and politics in his paper, ‘politics at its best: reasons that move the imagination’, ferrara (2011) offered not only a good, simple definition of politics, but also explicitly and convincingly related politics with imagination. in his words: “first, no human being exists who does not act and whose action does not fit, albeit only in a merely mental sense, within a larger human collectivity. second, no action can be envisioned without reference to some notion of ends and means. third, no preestablished harmony exists between all the ends pursued by human beings and the social unions within which they live. hence the need for politics: politics sinks its roots in the unavoidable necessity of coordinating the ends of one’s own action with those underlying other people’s actions when we live in a shared world” (p. 39). imagination is, for him, an essential part of any political process: “only a human form of association to which unlimited resources were available and which could equally satisfy all the ends striven after by all of its members could dispense with politics. the important role of imagination becomesmanifest here: by enabling us to project an image of the world, the imagination allows us to perceive certain ends as deserving more or less priority over others and, more particularly, to envisage new ends” (p. 40). importantly for ferrara, and for our concept of political imagination, not all prioritisation of ends falls within the domain of politics. choosing ends that concern personal life, for instance, doesn’t require political deliberation. in other words, they belong to the private rather than the public domain. for ferrara (2011, p. 41), “only that deliberation on the priority of ends is political which – either on account of the nature of the controversy, or on account of the large number of people entitled to participate, or on the account of the mode of deliberation, or on account of all or some combination of these elements – produces outcomes which are binding for everybody” (p. 41). these comments help us define the realm of political imagination; however, they tell us little about its processes. the processes of political imagination what are, then, the mechanisms involved in political imagination? the first step, we assume, concerns building representations of others, their goals and intentions within collective life. the second, uses these representations to influence (limit or enhance) the possibility of others achieving their (imagined) aims. these two ‘phases’ are of course cyclical and interdependent since constructing otherness defines how one acts on this construction which, in turn, impacts the representation, and so on. what is important to note here is that, while a lot of discussion of imagination (and, for this matter, of political imagination; see bottici & challand, 2011), focused mainly on the construction of images, we are not referring here exclusively to images but rather their coordination within scenes or scenarios that constitute experience (glăveanu et al., forthcoming). we draw in this regard on the philosophical europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 political imagination, otherness and the european crisis 560 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perspective of vendler (1984) who pointed out the fact that we never imagine separate, fully formed images but scenes. let us return to lewis’s remarks concerning immigrants. while an implicit image of the immigrant is being built here (as someone who is dangerous, opportunistic, oppresses the local population, votes for labour and supports the eu, etc.), it is in fact imagined actions that take centre stage. a similar phenomenon was studied by one of the authors in relation to how romanians imagined eu citizens and how they thought eu citizens saw them in the eve of romania’s accession to the european union (glăveanu, 2007). the auto and hetero-stereotypes revealed by this study were, in turn, articulated within relational scenarios, including in a metaphorical manner (in which, for example, romania plays, for most respondents from bucharest, the part of cinderella, and the eu that of the prince or, for some, the wicked stepmother). the empirical study of political imagination as a concept has a short history but a long past. indeed, without always using this notion – or even the notion of imagination itself – extensive research has been conducted on issues related to what we define here as political imagination in the social sciences as well as in community, political, critical, decolonial, and liberation psychology. many such studies were made available to the general public. to take only one example, daniel francis (1992) first authored, more than two decades ago, a fascinating book on the ‘imaginary indian’ (republished in 2011). in this book, he set out to “understand where the imaginary indian came from, how indian imagery has affected public policy in canada and how it has shaped, and continues to shape, the myths non-natives tell themselves about being canadians” (p. 22). in structuring the discussion, francis organised his presentation along the following sections: 1) taking the image; 2) presenting the image; 3) appropriating the image; and 4) implementing the image. his approach is thus certainly very close to the two step mechanisms proposed above. other analyses of political imagination, closer to the migration debate in europe, are offered in recent chapters on how race is perceived in the west (lentin, 2011) and the struggle for people’s imagination of islam (challand, 2011). in the latter, a thorough presentation is included on how islam “gradually emerged as one of the most significant others of our epoch and has often served as negative counterpoint to the representations of modernity, democracy and western identity” (p. 142). the ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ sides of political imagination faced with these illustrations, together with the grim picture of a europe divided on the issue of immigration, particularly from muslim countries, it is legitimate to ask whether political imagination is not, in the end, the dark side of imagination. this is all the more striking when contrasted with recent literature arguing for the crucial role imagination plays for the development of the individual as well as the development of culture. zittoun and gillespie’s (2015) scholarly volume on this topic covers a wide range of examples in this regard, from imagination in the life course to imagination and social change (the latter through the power of utopias and the emergence of ‘communities of imagination’). observing the many crises of europe in the past decade compels us to reflect, however, also on situations in which imagination can lead to exclusion, discrimination and the maintenance of the status quo. moreover, it is not only the presence but ‘absence’ of political imagination that can carry terrible consequences (for a similar argument see bottici & challand, 2011). how else can understand the responses to the greek financial crises that presented the country no other alternatives than that of welfare cuts and neo-liberal reforms? or the situation whereby, in europe, the agenda of incessant ‘growth’ has no rival or, at least, no rival strong enough to win over people’s imagination? in this macro context, the relation between the lack and ‘dark’ side of collective europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 glăveanu & de saint laurent 561 http://www.psychopen.eu/ imagination is evident, leading to imaginative scenarios of the following kind found, for instance, on the website of the french extreme right party, the national front: migrants come to our countries to take advantage of social welfare but our countries are facing an economic crisis so we should close our boarders to protect ourselves but we cannot because of the schengen agreements and the quotas imposed by the eu therefore we need to leave the eu here, the premise is the imagination of an other, and the kind of actions his imagined aims and values will lead to, i.e., taking advantage of the european social welfare and potentially threatening its security. this kind of political imagination unfolds before us in the media, in political discourses and in everyday conversations, and it leads to specific actions in the present. here, it encourages leaving the european union, but also, implicitly, racist and discriminatory responses to the migration crisis. but is the picture so grim? reducing it to the development of nationalist and racist discourses – for as important as they are to study and understand – doesn’t do full justice to the power of a psychological function that animated people, through the centuries, towards developing more fair, democratic and equalitarian societies. should we not acknowledge its role in sparking the revolutions of the arab spring? or animating millions of people to rally in france in defence of ideals such as freedom of speech? or that, today, it brings young romanians to the streets in search of alternatives for a political regime based on nepotism and corruption? political imagination is at work in all of these instances, allowing us to imagine better futures and giving us a sense that there is a collective will to make the world a better place. and it doesn’t necessarily always lead to outright social mobilisation. its processes are more pervasive and embedded within the everyday lives of people who struggle against inequality and oppression. jovchelovitch (2015), for example, illustrated in this regard the ways in which imagination is at the core of social resistance and transformation in rio de janeiro’s favelas. without imagination, particularly political imagination, human agency would be impossible since the assertion of one’s agency is, itself, a political project. neither would our experience of sociality and communal living. the bonds that keep us together are maintained by imagination just as much as they are by direct and mediated contact. concluding thoughts it is this last observation that we find particularly important to conclude with. that is, the processes of political imagination – constructing otherness and acting based on this construction – are not meant for good or evil. they are part and parcel of our social life and, just as they support imaginations of separation and oppression, they can and do foster social activism, underpinning all those acts by which, for instance, citizens organised themselves to welcome migrants all along their route through southern and central europe. it was an imagination of people working together to help and alleviate suffering that arguably saw somany bring food, drive migrants across borders and even open their homes to them and their families. a comprehensive theory of political imagination needs to account for both sides and, in doing so, recognise the strong ethical dimension situated at the very core of this concept. if political imagination deals with otherness then it cannot but ultimately deal with values and the moral dilemmas that mark self – other relations. psychologists have a lot to say about this topic and our hope is to see more of our colleagues contribute to it. in the end, any crisis, including the european one, is also an opportunity. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 political imagination, otherness and the european crisis 562 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) in fact, while finalising this editorial the french capital has been hit by a major terrorist attack, the biggest on european soil since the madrid train bombing of 2004. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references anderson, b. 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(2015). imagination in human and cultural development. london, united kingdom: routledge. about the authors vlad petre glăveanu is associate professor at aalborg university, denmark, and associate researcher at université paris descartes, france and université de neuchâtel, switzerland. his research explores the intersections between creativity and culture, and develops a cultural psychology of creativity focused on creativity as distributed action. he has written numerous articles on this and related topics. his recent books include distributed creativity, thinking through creativity and culture, and the co-edited volume, with alex gillespie and jaan valsiner, rethinking creativity. constance de saint-laurent is a phd student and teaching and research assistant at the university of neuchâtel in switzerland. her doctoral thesis centres on collective memory, meaning making and reflexivity. she currently teaches seminars on collective memory and pragmatist epistemology and her latest publication is the article “i would rather be hanged than agree with you!”: collective memory and the definition of the nation in parliamentary debates on immigration’ (outlines. critical practice studies, 2014). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 557–564 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1085 political imagination, otherness and the european crisis 564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs12124-011-9176-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs12124-013-9234-2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en political imagination, otherness and the european crisis (introduction) imagination, otherness and society political imagination imaginative processes collective life symbolic experience political aims imagination and politics the processes of political imagination the ‘dark’ and ‘bright’ sides of political imagination concluding thoughts notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious correction there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious bernardo kastrup note the author wants to correct the following errors: 1. in the section titled "discussion," the segment of text that reads: for instance, a scientific american mind article penned by neuroscientist christof koch (2009) uses the word ‘consciousness’ multiple times when it in fact refers to meta-consciousness. whilst its title asks “when does consciousness arise in human babies?” much of the discussion is centered on self-reflection. should be replaced with: for instance, a relatively recent article (gabrielsen, 2013) talks about the emergence of consciousness in human babies when what is discussed is, as per the argument developed in this paper, likely to be the emergence of metaconsciousness. 2. in the "references," the reference: koch, c. (2009, september 1st). when does consciousness arise in human babies? scientific american: mind. retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-doesconsciousness-arise should be deleted. 3. in the "references," the reference: gabrielsen, p. (2013, april 18th). when does your baby become conscious? science. retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/04/when-does-your-baby-become-conscious should be added. [the author requested to add this note post-publication on 2017-09-19.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/04/when-does-your-baby-become-conscious http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ theoretical contributions there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious bernardo kastrup* a [a] independent scholar, veldhoven, the netherlands. abstract depth psychology finds empirical validation today in a variety of observations that suggest the presence of causally effective mental processes outside conscious experience. i submit that this is due to misinterpretation of the observations: the subset of consciousness called “meta-consciousness” in the literature is often mistaken for consciousness proper, thereby artificially creating space for an “unconscious.” the implied hypothesis is that all mental processes may in fact be conscious, the appearance of unconsciousness arising from our dependence on self-reflective introspection for gauging awareness. after re-interpreting the empirical data according to a philosophically rigorous definition of consciousness, i show that two well-known phenomena corroborate this hypothesis: (a) experiences that, despite being conscious, aren’t re-represented during introspection; and (b) dissociated experiences inaccessible to the executive ego. if consciousness is inherent to all mentation, it may be fundamental in nature, as opposed to a product of particular types of brain function. keywords: consciousness, co-consciousness, meta-consciousness, neural correlates of consciousness, unconscious, self-reflection, rerepresentation, dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, philosophy of psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 received: 2017-02-06. accepted: 2017-05-02. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: e-mail: bernardo@bernardokastrup.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the foundational theoretical inference of the clinical approach called “depth psychology”—whose origins can be traced back to the works of frederic myers, pierre janet, william james, sigmund freud and carl jung—is that the human psyche comprises two main parts: a conscious and an unconscious segment (kelly et al., 2009, pp. 301-334). the conscious segment comprises mental activity to which one has introspective access. the socalled “ego” is the felt sense of personal self that arises in association with a subset of this introspectivelyaccessible activity—e.g. some bodily sensations, images, thoughts, beliefs, etc.—and it is in this sense that i use the word ‘ego’ throughout this paper. in contrast, the unconscious segment comprises mental activity to which one has no introspective access. inaccessible as it may be, depth psychologists contend that mental activity in the “unconscious”—a term often used as a noun—still can and does influence one’s conscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors. a more modern articulation of the notion of a mental unconscious—as opposed to what has historically been called “unconscious cerebration” (kelly et al., 2009, pp. 340-352)—can be found in the writings of kihlstrom (1997), for example. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ recent empirical results seem to corroborate the hypothesis of a mental unconscious by revealing the presence of mental activity individuals cannot access through introspection, but which nonetheless causally conditions the individuals’ conscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors (e.g. westen, 1999; augusto, 2010; eagleman, 2011). hassin (2013) goes as far as insisting, “unconscious processes can carry out every fundamental high-level function that conscious processes can perform” (p. 196). he reviews empirical evidence indicating that the unconscious is capable of cognitive control, the pursuit of goals, information broadcasting and even reasoning (ibid., pp. 197-200). this echoes dijksterhuis and nordgren (2006), whose experiments indicate that the unconscious can encompass “all psychological phenomena associated with thought, such as choice, decision making, attitude formation and attitude change, impression formation, diagnosticity, problem solving, and creativity” (p. 96). even practitioners of cognitive therapy, who have traditionally ignored the unconscious, have more recently found clinical value in interpreting possible indirect manifestations of inaccessible mental activity in the form of dreams (rosner, lyddon, & freeman, 2004). this new scientific approach to the hypothesis of an unconscious has been called “the new unconscious” (hassin, ulleman, & bargh, 2005). clearly, there is significant evidence for the presence of causally-effective mental activity that we ordinarily cannot access through introspection. the question, however, is whether mental activity inaccessible through introspection is necessarily unconscious. it is true that, from the perspective of clinical psychology, these two modalities are operationally indistinguishable, since the clinicians’ sole gauge of their patients’ range of consciousness is the patients’ own introspective reports. however, from a theoretical standpoint, it is conceivable that mental activity the ego cannot access through introspection could still be conscious, in the sense of being phenomenally experienced somewhere in the psyche. if so, this has significant implications for our understanding of the nature of consciousness—and of its relationship to brain function—in the fields of neuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind. indeed, although the conflation between lack of introspective access and lack of consciousness is operationally justifiable in a clinical setting, the widespread use of the qualifier ‘unconscious’ today suggests an intrinsic dichotomy in the nature of mental processes: some supposedly aren’t experienced whilst others, somehow, are. this implies that consciousness is not fundamental to mentation, but a property that emerges from particular arrangements or configurations of neurons. primed and driven by this assumption, significant resources are spent in neuropsychology and neuroscience today in an effort to figure out what these arrangements or configurations are. hypotheses currently under investigation vary from vast topologies of information integration across neurons (tononi, 2004) to microscopic quantum processes within neural microtubules (hameroff, 2006). the present paper, on the other hand, elaborates on the possibility that these efforts are misguided, for introspectively-inaccessible mental processes may still be conscious: they may be phenomenally experienced in a manner—or in an area of the psyche—that escapes egoic introspection. this way, the notion of an unconscious, despite the broad use and influence of the term in today’s psychology, may at root be a linguistic inaccuracy originating from mere operational convenience. if so, then consciousness may not be the product of specific arrangements or configurations of neural activity, but a fundamental property of all mentation. the implications of this possibility for neuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind are hard to overestimate. there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 560 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ defining and gauging consciousness before we can meaningfully discuss unconsciousness—the alleged lack of consciousness—we must, of course, have clarity regarding the meaning of the word ‘consciousness.’ what does it mean to say that a mental process is conscious? in this paper, i shall use a rigorous definition well-accepted in neuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind: mental activity is conscious if, and only if, there is something—anything —it is like to have such mental activity in and of itself (chalmers, 2003; nagel, 1974). (a less rigorous but more easily understandable formulation of this definition is this: mental activity is conscious if there is something it feels like to have such mental activity in and of itself. the verb ‘to feel,’ however, is too ambiguous to be used in a rigorous definition, so philosophers of mind have reached consensus around the formulation i originally proposed above.) this way, if mental activity is unconscious, then there is nothing it is like to have such activity in and of itself, even if it, in turn, causes or influences conscious activity. notice that this definition of consciousness honors our intuitive understanding of the word: you only consider yourself conscious right now because there is something it is like to be you while you read this paper. otherwise, you would necessarily be unconscious. to remain consistent with our intuitive understanding of words, i shall also say that mental activity corresponds to experience if, and only if, it is conscious. you experience reading this paper because you are conscious of it right now. if you were not, what sense would there be in saying that you experience it? according to these definitions, higher-order thought (as defined in schooler, 2002, p. 340) is unnecessary for there to be consciousness. the presence of the mere qualities of raw experience—which philosophers of mind call qualia—is already sufficient for a mental process to be considered conscious. in this context, the categorization proposed by schooler (2002) is helpful: he distinguishes between “non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced), and meta-conscious (re-represented)” mental processes (p. 339). only the latter entails higher-order thought. now notice that direct insight into one’s conscious inner life is limited to those experiences one’s ego can access through introspection and then report to self or others. in the words of klein (2015), “it is only in virtue of knowledge by acquaintance that we know our mental states. … accordingly, the use of introspective reports as a reliable and informative source of information about mental states has seen a resurgence over the past few decades” (p. 361, original emphasis). for this reason, the study of the neural correlates of consciousness (nccs) still largely consists in correlating objective measurements of neural activity with introspective assessments (koch, 2004): patterns of neural activity accompanied by reported experience are considered nccs. indeed, as newell and shanks recently wrote (2014), “whereas issues about how to define and measure awareness were once highly prominent and controversial, it now seems to be generally accepted that awareness should be operationally defined as reportable knowledge” (p. 15). the problem is that, as i shall shortly elaborate upon, for the subject’s ego to access and report an experience there must be: (a) an associative link between the ego and the experience; and (b) a meta-conscious rerepresentation of the experience. therefore, while subjects can report non-dissociated meta-conscious processes, they fundamentally cannot distinguish between truly unconscious processes and conscious processes that simply aren’t meta-conscious, for both types are equally unreportable to self and others. this is kastrup 561 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ an alarming conclusion, for much of the work indicating the presence of an unconscious is based on (the lack of) introspective reports of experience. the next two sections expand on all this. in what follows, i shall assume that introspective reports are as good as “reliable, relevant, immediate, and sensitive” (newell & shanks, 2014, p. 3). this is charitable towards the hypothesis of an unconscious, for—as newell and shanks (2014) argued —much of the evidence behind this hypothesis can be attributed to methodological artifacts: delayed introspective assessments leading to impaired recall, experimenters not providing sufficient opportunity for subjects to report the introspective insights they actually have, cross-task confusion, etc. my goal is to show that, even if the research underpinning the existence of an unconscious were free of methodological artifacts, there would still be compelling reasons to posit that mental processes unaccompanied by introspective reports of experience can be conscious nonetheless. non-self-reflective experiences to gain introspective access to an experience it is not enough to merely have the experience; we must also consciously know that we have it. after all, what introspective insight could we gain about an experience of which we are not explicitly aware? schooler (2002) elaborates: critical to both the centrality of the conscious/non-conscious distinction, and its equation with reportability, is the assumption that people are explicitly aware of their conscious experiences. however, this assumption is challenged when subjective experience is dissociated from the explicit awareness of that experience. such dissociations demonstrate the importance of distinguishing between consciousness and ‘meta-consciousness.’ (p. 339.) the conscious knowledge of the experience—which comes in addition to the experience itself—is what schooler (2002) calls a “re-representation”: periodically attention is directed towards explicitly assessing the contents of experience. the resulting meta-consciousness involves an explicit re-representation of consciousness in which one interprets, describes, or otherwise characterizes the state of one’s mind. (pp. 339-340, emphasis added). although re-representation is necessary for introspection, it is largely absent, for instance, in dreams (windt & metzinger, 2007). this demonstrates compellingly that mental activity does not need to be re-represented in order to be experienced—after all, who can seriously doubt that dreams are experienced?—but only to be introspectively accessed. during ordinary dreams we simply experience, without consciously knowing that we experience. more formally, suppose that one has an experience x. to gain introspective access to x one must have conscious knowledge n of x. but n—the “re-representation”—is a separate experience in its own right. one experiences the knowing of x as a quality closely related to, but distinct from, x itself. n is not encompassed, entailed or implied by x. indeed, schooler (2002) highlights the fact that re-representations can even misrepresent the original experiences: once meta-consciousness is triggered, translation dissociations can occur if the re-representation process misrepresents the original experience. such dissociations are particularly likely when one there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 562 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ verbally reflects on non-verbal experiences or attempts to take stock of ambiguous or subtle perceptual experiences. (p. 340, emphasis added.) to make these abstract considerations more concrete, consider your breathing right now: the sensation of air flowing through your nostrils, the movements of your diaphragm, the inflation and deflation of your lungs, etc. were you not experiencing these sensations a moment ago, before i directed your attention to them? or were you just unaware that you were experiencing them all along? by directing your attention to these sensations, did i make them conscious or did i simply cause you to experience the extra quality of knowing that the sensations were conscious? clearly, even waking experiences can occur without re-representation. re-representations are the product of a self-reflective configuration of consciousness, whereby the latter turns in upon itself so to objectify its own contents (kastrup, 2014, pp. 104-110). in humans, this usually occurs through the use of “semiotic mediation” (valsiner, 1998), which is our ability to re-represent our experiences by naming them explicitly or implicitly. gillespie (2007) gives an example: “in order to obtain dinner one must first name … one’s hunger … this naming, which is a moment of self-reflection, is the first step in beginning to construct, semiotically, a path of action that will lead to dinner” (p. 678). naturally, nothing prevents experiences from occurring outside the field of self-reflection—that is, occurring without being explicitly or implicitly named. nixon (2010, p. 216), for instance, calls these “unconscious experiences,” which in my view is an oxymoron but illustrates the subtlety of the point. he lists several examples: blindsight (stoerig & cowey, 1997), prosopanosognosia (sacks, 1985), sleepwalking, post-hypnotic suggestion, etc. indeed, the emergence of so-called “no-report paradigms” in contemporary neuroscience attests to the abundant presence of waking experiences that are unreportable because they fall outside the field of self-reflection (tsuchiya, wilke, frässle, & lamme, 2015; vandenbroucke, fahrenfort, sligte, & lamme, 2014). moreover, the neural activity patterns of the nccs themselves suggest circumstantially—yet compellingly—that many nccs correspond merely to a self-reflective configuration of consciousness. to see this, notice first that the conscious knowledge n of an experience x is triggered by the occurrence of x. for instance, it is the occurrence of a sense perception that triggers the realization that one is perceiving something. n, in turn, evokes x by directing attention back to it: the realization that one is perceiving something naturally shifts one’s mental focus back to the original perception. so we end up with a back-and-forth cycle of evocations whereby x triggers n, which in turn evokes x, which again triggers n, and so forth. see figure 1 for an illustration. figure 1. illustrative caricature of oscillatory evocations between an experience (x) and the meta-conscious knowledge of the experience (n). kastrup 563 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as it turns out, recent characterizations of the nccs show precisely this pattern of reverberating back-and-forth communications between different brain regions (boly et al., 2011; dehaene & changeux, 2011; van gaal, lamme, fahrenfort, & ridderinkhof, 2011). when damage to the primary visual cortex presumably interrupts this reverberation, patients display blindsight (paller & suzuki, 2014, p. 387)—that is, the ability to correctly discriminate moving objects despite the reported inability to see them. this is precisely what one would expect if the reverberation in question were the oscillations between x and n: the objects are consciously perceived— therefore explaining how the patients can discriminate them—but the patients do not know that they consciously perceive the objects. i thus submit that many nccs are, in fact, the correlates only of a potentially very small subset of consciousness—namely, meta-consciousness or self-reflection—instead of consciousness proper. the introspectively inaccessible character of experience that isn’t re-represented constitutes the first mechanism through which seemingly unconscious mental activity may, in fact, be conscious. there is yet another mechanism, which will be explored in the next section. dissociated experiences dissociative states are well recognized in psychiatry today, featuring prominently in the dsm-v (american psychiatric association, 2013). their hallmark is “a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior” (black & grant, 2014, p. 191). in other words, dissociation entails fragmentation of the contents of consciousness. there are different forms of dissociation. klein (2015), for instance, discusses a form in which the subject’s ego loses the sense of ownership of some of the subject’s own mental states. this occurs when consciousness can no longer “relate to its object in a particular, self-referential way” (p. 362). he lists several examples, such as the case of a man who, after an accident, could accurately report the content of his memories but “was unable to experience that content as his own” (p. 368). notice, however, that the man’s ego could still access the content; just not identify with it. in what follows, i shall focus on a strong form of dissociation in which the ego cannot even access certain contents of consciousness. in its pathological variations, this is known as dissociative identity disorder (did). a person suffering from did exhibits multiple, disjoint centers of consciousness called alters. each alter experiences the world as a distinct personality (braude, 1995). although there has been debate about the authenticity of did as a psychiatric condition—after all, it is conceivable that patients could fake it—research has confirmed did’s legitimacy (kelly et al., 2009, 167-174 & 348-352). two recent studies are particularly interesting to highlight. in 2015, doctors reported on the case of a german woman who exhibited a variety of alters (strasburger & waldvogel, 2015). peculiarly, some of her alters claimed to be blind while others could see normally. through eegs, the doctors were able to ascertain that the brain activity normally associated with sight wasn’t present while a blind alter was in control of the woman’s body, even though her eyes were open. when a sighted alter assumed executive control, the usual brain activity returned. this is a sobering result that shows the literally blinding power of dissociation. in another study (schlumpf et al., 2014), investigators performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) brain there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 564 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scans on both did patients and actors simulating did. the scans of the actual patients displayed clear and significant differences when compared to those of the actors. undoubtedly, thus, did is real. normally, only one of the alters has executive control of the body at any given moment. the important question for the purposes of the present paper is then this: can the other alters, who are not in control of the body, remain conscious or do they simply fade into unconsciousness? if they can remain conscious, the implication is that a person can have multiple concurrent but dissociated centers of consciousness, as originally hypothesized by frederic myers and pierre janet (kelly et al., 2009, pp. 305-317). presumably, then, each center has its own private, parallel stream of experiences. occasionally, however, the dissociation isn’t bilateral: a first alter is able to gain partial access to the experiences of a second, without the second alter being able to access the experiences of the first. this rare kind of unilateral dissociation provides tantalizing indications that alters can remain conscious even when not in control of the body. in morton prince’s well-known study of the ‘miss beauchamp case’ of did, one of the alters —called sally—“was a co-conscious personality in a deeper sense. when she was not interacting with the world, she did not become dormant, but persisted and was active” (kelly et al., 2009, p. 318). sally maintained that she knew everything miss beauchamp … does at the time she does it,—knows what she thinks, hears what she says, reads what she writes, and sees what she does; that she knows all this as a separate co-self, and that her knowledge does not come to her afterwards … in the form of a memory. (prince, as quoted in kelly et al., 2009, p. 318.) stephen braude’s more recent work (1995) reinforces the view that alters can be co-conscious “discrete centers of self-awareness” (p. 67). he points—as evidence for this hypothesis—at the struggle of different alters for executive control of the body and the fact that alters “might intervene in the lives of others [i.e. other alters], intentionally interfering with their interests and activities, or at least playing mischief on them” (ibid., p. 68). it thus appears that alters can not only be concurrently conscious, but that they can also vie for dominance with each other. strong dissociation is not restricted to did—its extreme form—or to pathology, for that matter. indeed, the foundational hypothesis of depth psychology entails a form of natural dissociation between the conscious ego and the so-called “unconscious.” as such, it is plausible—in fact, there is overwhelming clinical evidence for it in the annals of depth psychology—that we all have at least one dissociated mental subsystem that we cannot access through introspection. ernest hilgard (1977) conceived of these dissociated subsystems as conscious, much as myers, janet and braude did. thus, the possibility that presents itself to us is that we may all have one or more conscious ‘others’ within ourselves, dissociated from our ego. if this is so, then (a) our ego ordinarily has no introspective access to the experiences of these ‘others;’ and, consequently, (b) the study of the nccs is largely blind to the potentially idiosyncratic patterns of neural activity corresponding to such dissociated experiences. this is the second mechanism through which apparently unconscious mental activity may, after all, be conscious. kastrup 565 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a model of dissociation wegner (2002) proposes an analogy for explaining alters: different operating systems running on the same hardware. this way, the transfer of executive control from one alter to another would be analogous to shutting down windows and rebooting the computer with linux. this, of course, only accounts for strictly alternating personalities and thus fails to explain much of the clinical data cited above. nonetheless, it still suggests a starting point for a plausible model of dissociation. if we define an experiential frame as the set of all qualities we experience at a given moment—encompassing our conscious perceptions, thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, imagination, etc.—conscious life can be modeled as a chain of experiential frames. this is graphically illustrated in figure 2, wherein experiential frames f1 to fn are shown. each frame is evoked by the previous frame through cognitive associations, in the sense that e.g. our particular thoughts in the present moment largely determine which emotions we experience in the next moment; or that our emotions in the present moment largely determine our actions—and therefore perceptions—in the next moment; and so on. these cognitive associations are represented by the arrows linking frames together in figure 2. figure 2. conscious life as a chain of experiential frames connected through cognitive associations. wegner’s suggestion can then be visualized as in figure 3. the chain of experiential frames—denoted f— corresponding to a first alter is interrupted by experiential frames—denoted f’—corresponding to a second alter. the key point is that, once executive control is assumed by the experiential frames f’ of the second alter, the corresponding experiential frames f of the first alter cease to exist. there is no parallelism of experience: either the mental contents of the first alter are experienced or those of the second alter; never those of both concurrently. as such, this is a sequential model of dissociation and, as we’ve seen, it isn’t sufficient to explain the clinical data cited. figure 3. the sequential model of dissociation in the context of did. alternatively, we can hypothesize that the chains of experiential frames of both alters are always present, concurrently and in parallel. executive control of the body simply switches between the two parallel chains, as shown in figure 4. experiential frames drawn in grey represent those without executive control, but still there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 566 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conscious. this is thus a parallel model of dissociation, which illustrates the hypothesis of “co-consciousness” (a term originally coined by morton prince, as discussed by kelly et al., 2009, p. 317). figure 4. the parallel model of dissociation in the context of did. we have seen that did is a pathological form of dissociation, but that we may all naturally have strongly dissociated mental subsystems that never—or very seldom—vie for executive control of the body. these would constitute the so-called “unconscious” of depth psychology. figure 5 illustrates how such strongly dissociated mental subsystems can be modeled under the proposed framework. for simplicity, only the ego and one dissociated subsystem are shown. the ‘other’ in this case—represented by the dissociated chain of experiential frames f’—is content to live its inner life in the background of egoic activity. it only manifests its presence through indirect, subtle influences on egoic experiences, as represented by the dashed arrows vertically linking the two chains. these subtle influences can take many forms, such as: dissociated emotions influencing our egoic thoughts and behaviors (lynch & kilmartin, 2013, p. 100); dissociated beliefs and expectations influencing our egoic perceptions (eagleman, 2011, pp. 20-54); dissociated drives manifesting themselves symbolically in the form of dreams (fonagy, kächele, leuzinger-bohleber, & taylor, 2012; jung, 2002; von franz & boa, 1994); etc. figure 5. the parallel model of dissociation in a depth-psychological context. admittedly, limitations in our ability to gauge consciousness currently prevent us from asserting with certainty, on an empirical basis, that the parallel model of dissociation is correct. however, by the same token, we can also not assert that it isn’t. the brain seems to have sufficient resources for this kind of parallelism and, if anything, the clinical data is suggestive of its validity (again, kelly et al., 2009, pp. 305-322 and braude, 1995). the parallel model should, therefore, be considered not only plausible but perhaps even probable, in which case it further substantiates the notion that the “unconscious” may be—well—conscious. kastrup 567 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion i have elaborated on the hypothesis that there may be no such a thing as an unconscious mental process. all mental processes may be conscious, in the sense that there may be something it is like to have such mental processes in and of themselves. our impression that some mental processes are unconscious may arise from (a) their consisting in non-self-reflective experiences not amenable to introspection or (b) their being strongly dissociated from the executive ego and, therefore, inaccessible to it. underlying this entire paper is the differentiation between consciousness proper and particular configurations of consciousness, such as self-reflection and dissociative states. it is rather disturbing how often these notions are conflated not only in general psychology, but also in neuroscience and philosophy of mind. for instance, a scientific american mind article penned by neuroscientist christof koch (2009) uses the word ‘consciousness’ multiple times when it in fact refers to meta-consciousness. whilst its title asks “when does consciousness arise in human babies?” much of the discussion is centered on self-reflection. dijksterhuis and nordgren (2006) also “define conscious thought as object-relevant or task-relevant cognitive or affective thought processes that occur while the object or task is the focus of one’s conscious attention” (p. 96, emphasis added). they insist, “it is very important to realize that attention is the key to distinguish [sic] between unconscious thought and conscious thought. conscious thought is thought with attention” (ibid., emphasis added). in appealing to attention, as opposed to experience or qualia, they are implicitly associating consciousness with self-reflection or re-representation, as discussed in section 3. even more strikingly, cleeremans (2011) explicitly defines consciousness as self-reflection. he overtly conflates experience with meta-consciousness and reportability: awareness, on the other hand, always seems to minimally entail the ability of knowing that one knows. this ability, after all, forms the basis for the verbal reports we take to be the most direct indication of awareness. and when we observe the absence of such ability to report on the knowledge involved in our decisions, we rightfully conclude that the decision was based on unconscious knowledge. thus, it is when an agent exhibits knowledge of the fact that he is sensitive to some state of affairs that we take this agent to be a conscious agent. this second-order knowledge, i argue, critically depends on learned systems of meta representations, and forms the basis for conscious experience. (p. 3.) this isn’t a recent problem. when one reads the original texts of the founders of depth psychology whilst holding the distinction between consciousness and meta-consciousness in mind, one quickly realizes that, when they spoke of unconsciousness, the founders often meant a lack of meta-consciousness—not of experience proper. this is abundantly evident, for instance, in an essay written by carl jung in the 1920s or early 1930s, called “the stages of life” (jung, 2001, pp. 97-116). it could be argued that the distinction between experience and meta-consciousness is merely a semantic point. however, consider this: by conflating consciousness proper with self-reflective consciousness, we also indirectly equate non-self-reflective consciousness with unconsciousness; we absurdly imply that dreams— which largely lack self-reflection (windt & metzinger, 2007)—aren’t experienced. instead of the three categories proposed by schooler (2002)—namely, “non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced), and metaconscious (re-represented)” (p. 339)—we are left with only two: non-conscious and meta-conscious. there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 568 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 http://www.psychopen.eu/ consequently, we are forced to collapse the conscious onto the non-conscious and, in the process, end up disregarding the extraordinary phenomenon of qualities of experience. clearly, this isn’t merely semantic. most importantly, the philosophical implications of mistaking consciousness for meta-consciousness are significant. if some mental processes were truly unconscious while others are conscious, it would follow that consciousness is the product of some specific anatomical and/or functional arrangements of brain activity. in other words, consciousness would be derivative, as opposed to fundamental. philosophically, this would corroborate the ontology of physicalism (stoljar, 2016) while contradicting alternatives like panpsychism (strawson et al., 2006), cosmopsychism (shani, 2015) and idealism (kastrup, 2017). it would leave us with no way to circumvent the arguably insoluble “hard problem of consciousness” (chalmers, 2003). on the other hand, if consciousness is inherent to all mental processes, then the specific anatomical and/or functional parameters of different processes correspond merely to different contents and/or configurations of consciousness—that is, to the particular qualities that are experienced—but do not determine the presence or absence of consciousness itself. this allows us to circumvent the “hard problem of consciousness” altogether, by inferring that consciousness is primary. while it’s not my intent in this paper to argue for or against any particular ontology of mind, it is significant that a lucid, critical interpretation of the available empirical data leaves more avenues of philosophical inquiry open. if we are true to the spirit of the words ‘consciousness’ and ‘experience,’ diligent in our interpretation of empirical observations—both experimental and clinical—and rigorous in our use of concepts, we are led not only to the conclusion that all mental processes may be conscious, but that consciousness itself may be fundamental. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i am grateful to the editors, vlad glăveanu and constance de saint laurent, as well as two of the anonymous reviewers, for insightful comments and suggestions that helped improve this paper significantly. i am also grateful to anil seth for very constructive feedback received on an earlier draft. references american psychiatric association. 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(2007). the philosophy of dreaming and self-consciousness: what happens to the experiential subject during the dream state? in d. barrett & p. mcnamara, the new science of dreaming (pp. 193-247). westport, ct, usa: praeger. about the author bernardo kastrup has a ph.d. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. he has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the european organization for nuclear research (cern) and the philips research laboratories (where the "casimir effect" of quantum field theory was discovered). bernardo has authored many scientific papers and philosophy books. his three most recent books are: more than allegory, brief peeks beyond and why materialism is baloney. there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious 572 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 559–572 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1388 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-5-42 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.10.002 http://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00530 http://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2010.21431 http://doi.org/10.1177/000306519904700404 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ there is an ‘unconscious,’ but it may well be conscious (introduction) defining and gauging consciousness non-self-reflective experiences dissociated experiences a model of dissociation discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author consequences of laughter upon trunk compression and cortical activation: linear and polynomial relations research reports consequences of laughter upontrunkcompression andcortical activation: linear and polynomial relations sven svebak*a [a] faculty of medicine, ntnu, norwegian university of science and technology, trondheim, norway. abstract results from two studies of biological consequences of laughter are reported. a proposed inhibitory brain mechanism was tested in study 1. it aims to protect against trunk compression that can cause health hazards during vigorous laughter. compression may be maximal during moderate durations and, for protective reasons, moderate in enduring vigorous laughs. twenty-five university students volunteered to see a candid camera film. laughter responses (lr) and the superimposed ha-responses were operationally assessed by mercury-filled strain gauges strapped around the trunk. on average, the thorax compression amplitudes exceeded those of the abdomen, and greater amplitudes were seen in the males than in the females after correction for resting trunk circumference. regression analyses supported polynomial relations because medium lr durations were associated with particularly high thorax amplitudes. in study 2, power changes were computed in the beta and alpha eeg frequency bands of the parietal cortex from before to after exposure to the comedy “dinner for one” in 56 university students. highly significant linear relations were calculated between the number of laughs and post-exposure cortical activation (increase of beta, decrease of alpha) due to high activation after frequent laughter. the results from study 1 supported the hypothesis of a protective brain mechanism that is activated during long lrs to reduce the risk of harm to vital organs in the trunk cavity. the results in study 2 supported a linear cortical activation and, thus, provided evidence for a biological correlate to the subjective experience of mental refreshment after laughter. keywords: cortical activation, laughter, linear, polynomial, trunk compression europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 received: 2016-01-07. accepted: 2016-05-04. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of neuromedicine, ntnu, norwegian university of science and technology, postboks 8905, no-7491, trondheim, norway. e-mail: sven.svebak@ntnu.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. many resent observations and studies have reported beneficial as well as harmful effects of laughter upon health. a recent review of 785 papers published on laughter over more than 65 years (ferner & aronson, 2013) reported benefits (85 reports) as well as harms from laughter (114 reports). they included psychological benefits, such as reduced anger, anxiety, depression and stress, but also cardiovascular (improvement of endothelial function), respiratory (improved lung function), metabolic (increase of energy expenditure) and obstetric effects: entertainment by a clown after embryo transfer increased successful fertilization with 16% (friedler et al., 2011). harmful effects of laughter included cardiovascular (syncope, arrhythmias, cardiac rupture) and respiratory effects (asthmatic attack, pneumothorax, interlobular emphysema), as well as effects upon the central nervous (cataplexy, cerebral infarct), gastrointestinal (hernia), musculoskeletal (dislocation of jaw) and urinary (stress incontinence) systems. despite the common idea that laughter is good for your health, trunk compression during vigorous laughter may escalate to levels of high internal pressure that can cause health hazards. this more complex idea was indicated europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ as a buffer against excessive pressure in the thorax cavity needed during intense laughter to protect vital organs from harm (filippelli et al., 2001). support to this protective mechanism was expected in study 1 by maximal compression during laughter responses (lr) of medium duration and that compression is moderate in short as well as long durations. in this way, vital organs would be protected from harms induced by forceful trunk compression during vigorous and enduring lrs. a linear relation between vigorous laughter and trunk compression would involve the increasing risk of harm with increasing duration of laughs. hilarious laughter typically is followed by a subjective state of refreshment. the second study to be reported here, assessed consequences of laughter upon cortical activation as indicated by parietal eeg changes from pre to post exposure to comedy. a linear relation between indices of cortical activation and duration as well as frequency of laughter was expected. in this way, study 2 tested a possible cortical correlate of the subjective experience of refreshment after laughter, whereas the focus in study 1 was upon biological consequences during laughter. one challenge in research on laughter is the reliability of the method used for the assessment of a lr. the most obvious approach would be to count vocal sounds that are intuitively recognized by the observer as laughter. however, this approach is not sensitive to laughter that sometimes, for social or personal reasons, may occur with marked trunk compression without being accompanied by any vocal expression or by any obvious facial sign of amusement. furthermore, participant observation is likely to be inaccurate in defining the onset, intensity and termination of a laughter response. however, this approach may still be useful in studies of laughter in everyday life and was recently termed “sidewalk neuroscience” (provine, 2016). participant observation has also been an adequate basis for assessment in patients with syncope following laughter (see e. g. kim & frishman, 2012) and in pathological laughter due to brain damage (lauterbach, cummings, & kuppuswamy, 2013). neural andmotor correlates of smiling and laughter have been studied by the use of a range of laboratory techniques in recent years, including the assessment of diaphragm movements by electromyography (emg; e. g. kimata et al., 2009), sometimes in combination with chest wall surface emg (see review by luo, moxham, & polkey, 2008), sometimes applied in combination with cervical magnetic and electrical phrenic nerve stimulation (e. g. luo et al., 1998). most of these techniques are invasive and ideal for use in clinical settings, but have questionable reliability when applied in settings when mirthful laughter is to be studied in the laboratory. this view extends to the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging in the investigation of brain neural correlates of laughter (e. g. wattendorf et al., 2013). in the present studies, laughter was scored by mercury-filled strain gauges that have been proven to be highly sensitive to trunk circumference changes and hardly noticeable by the subject when in use. svebak (1975, 1982, 1985) presented criteria for the operational scoring of lrs, and they were applied to identify instances of laughter in both studies. study 1 respiratory alterations are involved in the expression of all intense emotions. thus, bloch, lemeignan, and aguilera (1991) reported that specific patterns distinguish among the intense human expressions of joy-laughter, sadness, fear-anxiety, anger, erotic love and tenderness. in their research, respiration movements were measured by means of a strain gauge transducer attached to a slightly elastic belt around the waist. therefore, their research could not address the relative importance of the thorax and the abdomen nor the overall compression in the expieurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 457 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ration phase of emotional expression. however, they concluded that for anger, erotic love and tenderness, significant changes in amplitude, rate and duration of the expiratory pause were crucial, whereas the differentiation of joy, sadness and fear was best achieved by the inspiration over expiration time ratios and were further characterized by small amplitudes as well as high rate saccadic movements. the risk of harmful pressure in the trunk cavity during expression was not at focus in their research. the technologically advanced study by filippelli et al. (2001) applied a set of optoelectronic plethysmography sensors distributed across the front and the back, at seven levels of the trunk, in eleven subjects to three-dimensionally trace their trunk movements during laughter with infrared cameras positioned at the front and the back. they also applied pressure sensors and respiratory flow measures. they concluded that all fits of laughter were characterized by a sudden occurrence of expiratory movement, and that the upper and lower sections of the thorax, as well as the abdomen, contributed to the decrease in lung volume. their findings supported a significant role for the thorax muscles in the sudden increase of pressure upon all organs in the upper trunk, including the pleura cavity, during laughter. they reasoned that the diaphragm acts as a protecting buffer to the thorax cavity during laughter. however, their technology did not permit a relative comparison of the importance of the thorax and the abdomen in the production of moderate to intense expressions of laughter, taken that they did not measure trunk circumference changes with individually calibrated percentages of compression movements. and their data were analyzed by linear, and not by polynomial tests. specifically, the possible inhibition of trunk compression in the thorax during long and hilarious laughter may act to protect the heart, blood vessels and lungs from harms, whereas inhibition of the belly compression may act to reduce the risk of incontinence and hernia. in study 1, the frequency and duration of lrs were calculated as well as the trunk compression (amplitude) in every lr, relative to the resting circumference, in the abdominal and thoracic sections of the trunk. the limited research on trunk involvement in laughter implies that predictions in the present research could not be based upon previous findings. in study 1, the trunk movements, rather than the subjective experience of amusement, was at focus to test the hypothesis of a protective mechanism that may involve the thorax as well as the abdomen. possible gender differences in lr compression were tested for exploratory reasons. it was assumed that evidence in support of a linear relation between trunk compression and the duration of lrs would fail to support the idea of a protective brain mechanism that is activated during the longest lrs. in contrast, a polynomial (quadratic) relation between lr-induced trunk compressions and the duration of lrs would present support to the activation of a protective brain mechanism during particularly long lrs. compression in the thorax and the abdomen were tested separately in the present study.i method participants twenty-five students volunteered. they were recruited from lectures in introductory university courses in social sciences, one by one, to view an entertainment video program in the laboratory. mean age was 21 years (range: 19-32), and they were balanced across gender (13 females). they all were recruited at the end of a lecture class and were not compensated for their participation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 458 http://www.psychopen.eu/ apparatus the technology for measuring trunk circumference changes was identical to what has been described in previous reports (grossman & svebak, 1987; svebak, 1975, 1982). a beckman r dynograph recorded trunk circumference changes, with two 9875b couplers where the time constant switch was set to the dc position. a case illustration of the tracings of the abdomen is given in figure 1. figure 1. illustration of trunk circumference changes (compressions) during laughter induced by a video entertainment program (“dinner for one”). changes are traced by a mercury-filled strain gauge strapped around the abdomen, and regular breathing amplitudes are indicated to the far left in the figure. arrows indicate the occurrence of laughter. mercury-filled hg-gauges were made of silicone tubes with 0.5 mm inside diameter and 0.925 outside diameter. they were filled with standard triple distilled mercury, and platinum wires (1.125 mm diameter) of 2.5 cm were inserted about 8 mm into each end of the silicone tubes. the hg-gauges were plugged into a t-shaped double pin holder that was connected to the preamplifier of the dynograph. the length of a hg-gauge was chosen according to the circumference of the thorax, at the level of the armpits, and the abdomen (half way between the lowest point of the rib bones and the highest point of the hip bone) when the subject was seated. in this way, all gauges operated at a stretch of between 25 and 35% added to its resting length. this procedure assured reliable recordings of resistance changes during laughter. svebak (1986) documented the high sensitivity of these gauges for tracing trunk circumference changes. materials and procedure the entertainment material was composed of a twenty-five minute video presentation based on episodes from a series of candid camera presentations on norwegian tv, recommended by the producer based upon which episodes turned out to be the funniest according to feedback from the viewers. the participants were invited to the laboratory, one by one, a couple of days before recording, and informed by the experimenter about the laboratory setting, technical equipment and procedure. this orientation provided the establishment of an informal social relation between the participant and the experimenter. on the recording day, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 459 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the participant was seated in front of the tv screen, two meters away, and mercury strain gauges were strapped around the thorax and the belly. the recording session started with a resting period of ten minutes where the participant was instructed to relax with closed eyes, and resting respiration was sampled over the last minute of this period. then the experimenter entered and presented a brief description of the entertainment program. the social setting was facilitated by the use of headphones that provided a sound track and dubbed laughter to the participant, and the experimenter was seated one meter to the left. he also was equipped with headphones when watching the entertainment program. however, no sound was provided in these headphones and, instead, they gave the impression to the participant that the experimenter listened to the tv program. there was no emitted sound directly from the tv, but only via the headphones to the subject. this arrangement permitted the experimenter to listen to vocalizations from the participant and, in each case, take care to laugh about as often and as intensely as the participant. before start of the entertainment program, the participant was informed about a debriefing interview at the end of the program, where they could report their evaluation. the laboratory session ended with the unstructured debriefing interview. data scoring and statistics data were scored according to criteria given in previous publications (e. g., svebak, 1975, 1982). trunk circumference changes were calculated in percent as a fraction relative to the mean smallest abdominal and thoracic circumferences, respectively, over the initial one-minute resting period. a lr was scored as a sudden reduction in circumference, at least twice the mean amplitude of the resting respiration cycles, and the duration of a lr ended when the trunk circumference suddenly returned to the initial level (see figure 1). this scoring procedure was dependent upon the establishment of a metric scale in both trunk segments and for every subject. thus, when the subject had left, the two gauges that had been in use, were stretched stepwise, one by one cm, until pen deflection defined the whole scale for the operating pen deflection and for each channel (svebak, 1986). haresponses were calculated as the number of oscillations per second at the bottom of the lr-amplitudes (see figure 1), and scores were given for each trunk level as the mean number per second for the five longest lrs. scores were analyzed by use of the ssps-21 statistical package with t-tests (gender differences), product-moment correlations, as well as linear and polynomial regression analyses. results descriptive statistics are given in table 1. the mean number of lrs was 97.7 and their mean duration was 4.4 seconds. on average, the abdominal circumference was reduced by 1.4 percent during a lr, and the corresponding score for the thorax was 1.9. this difference in trunk amplitude was significant (paired samples test: t(24) = 3.51, p < .002). the frequency of ha-responses was 3.4 per second in the abdomen and 3.6 in the thorax (paired samples test: t(24) = 0.51, n. s.). a significant gender difference was seen for the abdominal lr compression amplitudes, and for the ha-response frequencies in the abdomen as well as thorax, with high scores in the males (see table 1). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 460 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for laughter responses (lr) and their trunk parametersa 95% cisex diff. (p-value)sex (m/f)range (std.)meanvariables 5 197 (52.3)total lr 41.67][-42.38,(n.s.)0.21/99.995.3.797 0.6 9.2 (2.3)duration of lr 0.75][-2.87,(n.s.)0.69/4.74.0.44 0.2 3.0 (0.8)abd. lr amplitudea 1.43][0.22,(<.010)2.81/1.01.8.41 0.4 2.3 (0.8)thor. lr amplitudea 1.14][-0.13,(n.s.)1.65/1.72.2.91 0.0 6.3 (1.7)abd. ha-frequency 3.17][0.83,(<.001)3.73/2.54.5.43 0.0 5.9 (1.6)thor. ha-frequency 2.69][0.36,(<.013)2.71/2.94.4.63 note. trunk parameters = abdominal and thoracic compression, i. e. circumference reduction, during lr; abdominal and thoracic ha-responses per second. means for males (m) and females (f) and related t-scores for sex differences are included with p-values (df = 23). confidence intervals are included (95% ci). acalculated as a percentage of the mean resting circumference at the end of the expiration phase for the abdomen and the thorax, respectively. figure 2. linear and polynomial relations between (a) total number of laughter responses (lrs) and (b) mean duration of the five longest lrs. the relation between total number and duration of lrs was tested by linear regression (see figure 2) and yielded a significant standardized beta score of 0.60 (p < .001), whereas the polynomial test presented a non-significant beta (-0.25). pair-wise linear trends between all variables except sex are given in table 2 where total lrs were positively correlated with the lr amplitudes of the thorax. the mean duration of the five longest lrs was not significantly associated with other variables. the compression amplitudes of lrs in the abdomen and thorax were positively correlated, and they were also positively correlated with the abdominal ha-frequency scores. ha-frequencies were high in the thorax when they were high in the abdomen. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 461 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between total number of laughter responses (lr), mean duration of the five longest lrs, trunk variables in the abdomen and thorax (compression, i. e. circumference reduction during lr) and frequency of trunk ha-responses. 654321variables –1. total lr .06.20.49**.26.80*** –2. duration of lr .09-.09.26.23 –3. abd. lr amplitude .34.53*.56** –4. thor. lr amplitude .46*.55** –5. abd. ha frequency .71*** –6. thor. ha frequency *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (df = 23; two-tailed tests). tests on linear and polynomial trends for the lr scores with the trunk compression amplitude and ha-frequency scores are given in table 3 (upper section) and illustrated in figure 3. the scores for the linear trends of the lr frequencies with the trunk parameters were mostly non-significant, and the 95% confidence interval included the zero in all cases but one (thorax lr-amplitudes). in contrast, the polynomial betas for the number of lrs with the thorax amplitudes and ha-responses were significant, and they were nearly significant for the abdominal scores. this meant that the lr compression amplitudes were high (abdomen: around 1.5%; thorax: around 2%; see upper panels of figure 3) with moderate numbers of lrs, and the ha-frequencies were high (around 4/sec. in the abdomen as well as the thorax) with moderate numbers of lrs (around 120 over the 25 minutes). both low and high numbers of lrs were associated with lower compression amplitudes as well as ha-frequencies in the abdomen as well as the thorax. table 3 linear and polynomial analyses (standardized beta: b) of relations between laughter responses (lr; upper panel: frequencies; lower panel: duration) and the related abdominal and thoracic compression (circumference) parameters. confidence intervals are included (95% ci). polynomiallinear pb (2/22)95% cipb (1/23)parameters total number of lrs by: n.s.abd. lr amplitude .071.65142.55][-9.66,.210 .013thor. lr amplitude .028.84157.08][7.59,.490 n.s.abd. ha frequency .060.74116.17][-12.29,.200 n.s.thor. ha frequency .014.22218.83][-6.74,.060 mean duration of five longest lrs by: n.s.abd. lr amplitude .017.1621.81][-0.53,.230 n.s.thor. lr amplitude .0004.2331.98][-0.46,.260 n.s.abd. ha frequency .035.9510.50][-0.76,.090 n.s.thor. ha frequency .019.1120.70][-0.46,.090 note. abd.: abdomen; thor: thorax; lr: laughter response; ha: ha responses; amplitude: trunk compression (circumference reduction) during laughter as a percentage of the resting trunk circumference. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 462 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. linear and polynomial relations between (a) the total number of laughter responses and (b) abdominal and thoracic compression amplitudes during laughter (upper panels) as well as frequencies of abdominal and thoracic ha-responses (lower panels). none of the beta scores for associations of the mean durations of the five longest lrs with the trunk compression parameters were significant in the linear analyses, and 95% confidence intervals enveloped the zero in all cases. however, all were significant in the polynomial analyses (lower section of table 3). thus, the amplitude of the abdomen, on average, tended to be high (just below 2% of the abdominal resting circumference), whereas the corresponding compression amplitude of the thorax was around 2.5%, and the greatest amplitudes occurred with moderate durations of lrs (around 5 sec.: see upper section of figure 4). correspondingly, the ha-frequencies were at their highest (just above 4/sec.), in the abdomen as well as the thorax, when the duration of the longest lrs were around 5 seconds (lower section of figure 4). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 463 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. linear and polynomial relations between (a) the mean duration of the five longest laughter responses and (b) abdominal and thoracic compression amplitudes during laughter (upper panels) as well as frequencies of abdominal and thoracic ha-responses (lower panels). discussion the total number of lrs was linearly associated with the duration of the longest lrs. on average, the participants laughed four times per minute, and the mean duration of the five longest lrs was between four and five seconds. consistent support was given in study 1 for polynomial relations between the number of lrs with all trunk parameters, and this trend was particularly strong for the duration of lrs, whereas linear trends with trunk parameters were mostly not supported. the results supported a greater role for the thorax, relative to the abdomen, in the polynomial relations and appeared to be particularly involved in the production of compression amplitudes during laughter. the findings can be taken as supportive to the assumption that in frequent and long lrs, the central nervous system activates an inhibitory influence on the respiratory muscles to induce a protecting buffer against excessive compression in the thorax cavity. the neural substrate for this influence most likely is one or more of the pathways from the prefrontal cortex to the basal ganglia, the thalamus, the hypothalamus and the amygdala as illustrated in figure 1 of the report by wild, rodden, grodd, and ruch (2003). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 464 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the cognitive activation of the proposed inhibitory mechanism most likely is based upon the evaluation of the amount of humorous potential that is experienced whenever a cognitive humor synergy is perceived (see apter & desselles, 2012, for definition of two forms of humor synergies). the mechanism must involve a calculation of the compression potential and the duration of the lr that is expected to follow. in this way the mechanism must act, not as a feedback mechanism, but as a feed forward mechanism. and the protective inhibitory drive appears to be triggered with expectations of lrs beyond around five seconds. moreover, this inhibitory mechanism may be triggered to suppress any lr for other reasons than to protect against harm to vital organs in the trunk cavity, such as for ethical reasons and for social or personal reasons. the seemingly secondary role of the abdomen, compared with that of the thorax, in the polynomial dynamics during laughter may be taken as support to a buffering mechanism that primarily aims at protecting the organs of the thorax, the heart and lungs in particular. gender differences were due to significantly greater compressions amplitudes in the abdomen of the males than of the females during laughter, and they presented significantly higher ha-frequencies than the females in both the abdomen and the thorax. moreover, the compression amplitudes for the thorax were significantly greater than for the abdomen in the males as well as the females. the most parsimonious explanation for the gender differences in trunk mobility during laughter perhaps is the anatomical fact that physical load due to the female breasts acts as a weight constraint to high compression amplitudes and ha-frequencies. this assumption was most consistently supported by the significant difference in the saccadic ha-frequencies where this load may be acting as a greater constraint than in the compression amplitudes of the lrs. a linear trend was supported in the relation between frequency and duration of lrs. this meant that lrs tended to be longer when they were more frequent (figure 2). this aspect of overt expressive behavior, however, did not reflect the measures of covert behavior scored as the trunk compression variables. there, in contrast, polynomial relations were particularly strong with the duration scores for the lrs. in this way, the present findings supported a need for the distinction between the overt social behavior and the biological significance of laughter. provine (2000: e. g. page 36) argued that several demands act simultaneously upon the breathing apparatus, from other sources than laughter, such as speaking and the continuous need for oxygen. the present polynomial results may be taken also as support to this view. it is possible that the inverted u-shaped relation is present in laughter whether it is induced by humorous amusement or by tickling, and that other concerns than the protection against excessive pressure to the trunk cavity may be activated in all normal causes of laughter. disregarding the number of potential causes of laughter and the concerns involved, protection against harm and possible adaptive behavioral as well as respiratory and other concerns can be met by an inhibitory brain control mechanism of the muscles involved in vigorous laughter, and the present results emerged as preliminary support to such amechanism. study 2 the focus in study 2 is on the consequences of laughter upon the parietal cortex immediately after a period of amusement, rather than on brain mechanisms that may protect against harm to vital organs of the trunk cavity during laughter. cortical activation should be expected as a consequence of humor appreciation and be a biologeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 465 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ical substrate to the subjective experience of refreshment that is often experienced after laughter. the bioelectric and neurochemical nature of this activation in itself involves no risk of biological harm. a linear trend, rather than polynomial, was expected between the number of lrs during exposure to a comedy and the subsequent cortical activation. alpha power is a classic indicator of a relaxed, but wakeful state, whereas beta power indicates active and conscious processing. increase of beta power, and decrease of alpha power, were therefore predicted as linear cortical consequences of laughter. these predicted changes would be consistent with the refreshing mental effect often experienced after mirthful laughter. the limited research in the behavioral and biological parameters of laughter was pointed out by stillman, baumeister, and dewall (2007) who themselves reported on the effects of asymmetrical social power relations in laughter. conversely, research on the expression of laughter in rats, dogs and primates (panksepp & burgdorf, 2000; ross, owren, & zimmermann, 2009), and the related biology, so far has not shed much light upon the brain consequences of laughter. neither has research into the neural brain substrates of laughter expression. results underline the general importance in humor appreciation of the frontal lobes, the right one in particular (shammi & stuss, 1999). a distinction should be made, for several reasons, between humor appreciation and laughter because laughter is released by tickling where humor appreciation often is not implicated. also, a number of brain abnormalities can cause the motor behavior of laughter without being accompanied by humorous amusement. source of laughter notwithstanding, it is dependent upon a complex interplay of many brain areas including the anterior cingulate gyrus, the thalamus, the hypothalamus, the amygdala and other limbic structures that are also involved in a range of other affective displays. however, progress is being made to identify brain areas involved in mirthful laughter, including the supplementary motor areas (osaka et al., 2003) and the nucleus accumbens, the latter probably being of importance in friendly humor taken its role in empathy (meeks & jeste, 2009; preston & de waal, 2002). recently, cerebellar involvement in cognition and the regulation of the expression of emotions has come into focus, including the control of laughter in depressed patients. however, the prevalent depression, rather than the cerebellar damage, may be of primary importance in the appreciation and expression of humor in these patients (frank et al., 2013). obviously, the social effects of contagious laughter, as well as the motor organization of the laughter response, have come more into focus in recent research. the extensive review of neural correlates of laughter as well as humor appreciation by wild et al. (2003) defined the most significant brain areas in the laughter network to include the prefrontal (medial, dorsolateral) areas, the premotor cortex, basal temporal lobes including the amygdala, the basal ganglia, the thalamus and hypothalamus, the periaquaductus gray, the cerebellum and cranial motor neurons. brain substrates to laughter were not the target in study 2. instead the idea was tested of a cortical substrate of activation after laughter and that, therefore, may explain the vitalizing effect typically experienced after mirthful laughter. method subjects fifty-six undergraduate university students volunteered to take part in the study (31 males; age range: 18-29; mean age: 20.3). they were not compensated for their participation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 466 http://www.psychopen.eu/ apparatus respiratory movements were estimated by use of the same technology as described above in study 1. monopolar left (p3) and right (p4) parietal eeg-recordings were derived by means of beckman eeg-electrodes located on the parietal surface according to criteria given in the 10-20-system (cooper, osselton, & shaw, 1980). a joint reference lead was applied to the right and left ear lobes. resistance between this joint reference lead and each of the active sites was below 2 kohm. bentonite paste was used on both active sites, and the beckman electrode paste was used at the ear lobes. the power spectrum scores were computed on-line for each of the alpha and beta bands by means of a hewlett packard 2100a computer with a sampling rate of 128/second. materials, procedure and statistical analyses the subject was seated in an electrically shielded and sound-proof compartment (2.5 by 3.5 m tegnér, stockholm). a two-way communication system was used for instructions. right and left power spectrum scores were computed on-line for each of the alpha (8-12 hz) and beta (13-30 hz) bands and for each hemisphere. the subjects were exposed one by one to the classic comedy “dinner for one” that lasted for 12 minutes. it was presented on a philips tc 1655 ur television screen by means of a panasonic nv 870 video recorder with sound transmission via a nad 3020 b power unit and beovox c 30 loudspeakers. the television screen covered the window of the compartment and was located at the outside. the subject was instructed to relax with closed eyes for 10 minutes before the video program, and for 2-minutes immediately after the termination of the program. resting with closed eyes in both baselines meant that eeg artifacts due to eye movements were assumed to be minimal and symmetrical across the preand post-baseline recordings. preand post-baseline power spectrum scores were computed over eight consecutive 8-second periods in the baseline periods, immediately before start of the comedy and at its termination. scores were summed across the hemispheres and for each frequency band. this meant that four power scores were computed for each subject. in the statistical analyses, difference scores for the pre-to-post comedy exposure change of power were computed for the alpha and beta bands. regression analyses were performed by use of the jmp software to test associations between number of laughter responses over the 12 minutes of comedy exposure and changes in power for the alpha and beta bands, respectively. results laughter responses ranged from 0 to 54 over the 12-minute comedy exposure. no gender difference was seen, and both parietal lobes contributed jointly to the power scores in the preas well as post-sampling period. it will be seen in figure 5 (left panel) that power scores for the beta band increased substantially from preto post comedy exposure, and this increase was strongly associated with the number of laughter responses. a marked linear trend can be seen due to high power scores after the comedy among those who responded with frequent laughter. the f-score for this linear test was 15.92 (df = 1/54; p < .0002; 95% ci [0,14, 0,43]; model fit: beta = 0.29). an even stronger, but opposite, trend was calculated for the alpha band due to strong reductions of alpha power after the comedy exposure among those with frequent laughter. the f-score for this linear change was 26.71 (df = 1/54; p < .00004; 95% ci [0,47, 0,21]; model fit: beta = 0.34). this trend is illustrated in the right panel of figure 5. the 95% confidence interval curves are illustrated with dotted lines in this figure. they are almost parallel to the regression lines and thus also support highly stable models (see privitera, 2016, p. 438). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 467 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. changes in parietal cortex eeg power (pre-to-post comedy change scores) as consequences of laughter during exposure to a comedy (“dinner for one”). left panel: beta band (eeg-b). right panel: alpha band (eeg-a). the 95% confidence intervals are given as dotted lines around the regression lines. discussion the results in study 2 supported the predicted linear trends for cortical activation after laughter. the beta power was strongly increased as a function of number of laughter responses. correspondingly, the alpha power of the parietal lobes was reduced as a linear function of frequent laughter after exposure to the comedy. in this way, the results of study 2 supported the conclusion that mirthful laughter activates the cortex of the brain and, therefore, may facilitate subsequent cognitive processing. the results should not be taken as conclusive evidence in support of a general effect across the hemispheres and lobes in light of the fact that recordings were derived from the parietal lobes exclusively. moreover, artifacts due to eye movements cannot be ruled out despite the fact that power measures were derived with eyes closed an under identical resting conditions before as well as after exposure to the comedy. however, the highly significant model fits for the beta as well as the alpha power scores with number of lrs provide strong preliminary support to the conclusion of cortical activation after laughter. eye movements most likely appeared as random artifacts in the resting periods before as well as after exposure to the comedy. summary and concluding discussion the results in study 1 supported the idea of an inhibitory brain mechanism that may be triggered to protect the trunk in general, and the thorax cavity in particular, from excessive compression due to enduring laughter (beyond 5 sec.). in study 2, results supported a cortical substrate for the experience of mental refreshment after laughter. there was a shift in cortical activation after comedy exposure, and this was seen both in the beta and alpha power changes from the preto the post-comedy resting period. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ both findings are preliminary in nature and the results from study 1 were obtained by use of a correlational design, whereas the results in study 2 were based upon the use of a combined correlational and pre-to-post predictive design. in study 1, gender of the participant experimenter was not balanced across gender of the subjects and, therefore, may have influenced the gender differences. in both experiments, two hg-gauges were applied, one at the level of the armpits and the other at the level of the navel. this means that not the whole trunk was monitored during compression due to laughter. the expiratory nature of trunk compression, when repeated in frequent laughter, such as in the two present studies, may cause a relative shift toward alkalosis that has been known for several decades to cause a diffuse excitation in all nervous tissue, including the central nervous system. frequent laughter is a potential cause of (mild) alkalosis induced by laughter and, therefore, can explain the parietal excitatory shift from preto post-exposure in study 2. acute alkalosis can be triggered by several causes including a panic attack and acute performance stress anxiety. alkalosis has mostly been investigated in relation to hyperventilation and panic disorders. research on causes of moderate shifts toward alkalosis may call for a wider causal context including a possible shift from acidosis to alkalosis following laughter. unfortunately, there appears to be no evidence published to shed light upon this possibility. most of this research still has a focus upon clinical problems such as panic and performance stress anxiety (e.g. meuret, wilhelm, ritz, & roth, 2008; studer et al., 2012). in his milestone analysis of the expression of emotions in man and animals, darwin (1872/1965) presented an extensive analysis of the expression of laughter with a focus on the muscles of the face. however, on page 200 he describes the role of the respiratory apparatus where “…laughter is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially of the diaphragm.” the present findings, and those reported by filippelli et al. (2001), did not support the initial inspiratory phase, proposed by charles darwin, because most of the trunk circumference changes in laughter started with a marked expiratory movement that exerts the acute increase of pressure in the trunk cavity (see figure 1). a primary role of the diaphragm can also be disputed due to relatively greater compression amplitudes of the chest in laughter, when compared with those of the abdomen (on average 1.4 versus 1.9% circumference reduction, respectively) according to the results in study 1. in contrast, the intercostal muscles of the rib cage appeared to be particularly active during laughter. with due respect, sensitive technology was not available for measurement of trunk involvement in spontaneous laughter around 1870. recently, emgmeasures were reported of front and back muscle tension during laughter yoga (wagner, rehmes, kohle, & puta, 2014). the involvement of five muscles (front: internal and external obliques, rectus abdominis; back: multifidus, erector spinae) was compared with their tension during the performance of traditional crunch and back lifting exercises. tension was high in the internal oblique muscles during laughter yoga, whereas the external oblique muscle tension was identical to that of the traditional exercises. the emg surface electrodes were not sensitive to tension changes in the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles of the rib cage. the internal intercostal muscles are of particular importance in forced expiration, and the present results extended their role to also include vigorous laughter. also, the fact that laughter was induced by yoga instructions, and not by amusement in humor, may have left these findings with poor validity for motor involvement in spontaneous laughter. furthermore, intense laughter may sometimes induce spasms in the muscles of the extremities that interfere with normal standing or sitting positions. other intense emotional expressions may also induce altered body positions. regardless of the source, the related cascade of muscle tension is not readily conveyed in participant observation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 svebak 469 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the present measurement technology has proven to be highly sensitive to trunk circumference changes and can easily detect changes below one millimeter both in the thorax and the abdomen (svebak, 1986). despite this advantage, it is a time consuming technology to apply, and it involves the need for production of many gauges with different lengths to allow for between 25 and 35 percent of stretching to assure accurate measurements when in use in participants with a range of trunk sizes. also, the elaborate calibration procedure at the end of a laboratory session, for every participant, provides the absolute metric scale for amplitude changes relative to the resting circumference at both trunk levels. however, the most obvious advantage of this hg-gauge technology probably is the non-invasive nature and the lack of sensory distraction to the subject when in use. notes i) the data matrix in study 1, with all the raw scores for the present analyses, was published on page 80 of the master’s thesis of the present author, submitted to faculty of social sciences at the university of oslo in 1969. polynomial analysis was not available at that time. the approach in study 1, therefore, permitted a new test to address the hypothesis of a protective mechanism in vigorous laughter and that seems not to have been properly addressed by others over the years that have passed. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the late professor bjørn christiansen at the faculty of psychology, university of bergen, supplied the technology used to measure trunk compression in this research. references apter, m. j., & desselles, m. 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(2013). exploration of the neural correlates of ticklish laughter by functional magnetic resonance imaging.cerebral cortex, 23, 1280-1289. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs094 wild, b., rodden, f. a., grodd, w., & ruch, w. (2003). neural correlates of laughter and humor. brain, 126, 2121-2138. doi:10.1093/brain/awg226 about the author professor emeritus sven svebak was a faculty member at the faculty of psychology, university of bergen, for 25 years and, from 1995, a faculty member at the department of neuromedicine, ntnu, norwegian university of science and technology, for 15 years. he has published on the sense of humor and laughter over more than 40 years. medical health has been in focus recently, including three prospective studies on effects of sense of humor on mortality. he also has published on psychogenic factors in musculoskeletal tension and pain, cardiovascular reactivity, respiratory and gastrointestinal complaints as well as motivational components in personality and everyday lifestyles. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 456–472 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1102 consequences of laughter 472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cub.2009.05.028 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2fbrain%2f122.4.657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167207305863 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1469-8986.1975.tb03062.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fbf00992460 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fbf00998677 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00222895.2013.844091 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2fcercor%2fbhs094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2fbrain%2fawg226 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en consequences of laughter (introduction) study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion summary and concluding discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author how positivity links with job satisfaction: preliminary findings on the mediating role of work-life balance research reports how positivity links with job satisfaction: preliminary findings on the mediating role of work-life balance hod orkibi*a, yaron ilan brandta [a] graduate school of creative arts therapies, university of haifa, haifa, israel. abstract the positive characteristics that can help people juggle their work and personal roles and experience greater job satisfaction are attracting increased research attention. this study presents a conceptual model to account for the association between employees’ positive orientation (i.e., the tendency to evaluate self, life, and the future in a positive way) and their job satisfaction (n = 108). as theorized, the results indicate that employees’ ability to manage their work-life balance fully mediates the relation between their positive orientation and job satisfaction. this suggests that a positive orientation serves as an adaptive personal resource that can facilitate employees’ ability to balance work and non-work demands and hence can foster job satisfaction. the practical implications for positive psychological interventions in organizational settings are discussed. keywords: work-life balance, positive psychology, job satisfaction, positivity europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 received: 2014-09-24. accepted: 2015-05-20. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; maria kakarika, neoma business school, reims, france *corresponding author at: graduate school of creative arts therapies, university of haifa, 199 aba khoushy av. mount carmel, haifa 31905, israel. e-mail: horkibi@univ.haifa.ac.il this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. most employees face the challenge of balancing work and personal demands (baltes, clark, & chakrabarti, 2010) to sustain efficiency in both domains and to protect their well-being (linley, harrington, & garcea, 2010; lunau, bambra, eikemo, van der wel, & dragano, 2014). it comes as no surprise that increasing attention has been paid to individual factors associated with positive outcomes in work and personal life, including people's self-esteem, life satisfaction, and optimism. although these three factors are highly and positively correlated, most studies have focused on the association of each with specific outcomes. for example, high self-esteem, which refers to how people regard and accept themselves (harter, 1993), has been associated with more effective coping approaches and persistence when facing problems and difficulties (kernis, 2003), and with having a greater sense of control over life events (tedeschi & norman, 1985). life satisfaction, which refers to an overall evaluation of one’s life as satisfying (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985), has been associated with positive coping strategies (jones, rapport, hanks, lichtenberg, & telmet, 2003), internal locus of control (yeung & chow, 2000), and better mental and physical health (siahpush, spittal, & singh, 2008). likewise, optimism, which refers to individuals’ general expectations to experience more good than bad things in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ their future, has been associated with desirable outcomes and health through active and effective coping in the face of hardships (rasmussen, wrosch, scheier, & carver, 2006; scheier & carver, 2003). nevertheless, an accumulating body of research suggests that self-esteem, life satisfaction, and optimism are at the core of a single trait-like construct termed positive orientation (hereafter: positivity); i.e., a basic predisposition underlying individuals’ evaluations of self, life, and the future in a positive way (heikamp, alessandri, laguna, petrovic, caprara, & trommsdorff, 2014). the structure of this construct has been supported in studies showing cross-cultural stability in western and asian (i.e., japan) samples (caprara, alessandri, trommsdorff, heikamp, yamaguchi, & suzuki, 2012), genetic twin studies (caprara et al., 2009), and longitudinal studies (alessandri, caprara, & tisak, 2012a). furthermore, positivity has predicted outcomes related to personal and interpersonal adjustment, including high positive affect and low negative affect, better self-reported health and perceived quality of friendship (alessandri, caprara, & tisak, 2012b). in a work-related study, positive orientation significantly predicted in-role and extra-role performance (organizational citizenship behaviors) (alessandri, vecchione, tisak, deiana, caria, & caprara, 2012). although the benefits associated with positivity seem clear, the ways in which positivity translates into job-related outcomes is largely understudied and unknown. scholars have argued that how positivity relates to job-related outcomes “represents a critical question since it may lead to more effective interventions and to successful strategies for employees to fully develop their potentials” (alessandri, borgogni, schaufeli, caprara, & consiglio, 2015, p. 2). to address this gap in the literature, this study presents a conceptual model that captures the mechanisms through which positivity translates into job satisfaction, which is defined as how individuals feel about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs, and the extent to which they like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their work (spector, 1997, p. 2). this relationship is particularly important given the strong impact of job satisfaction on indicators of physical and mental well-being (for a meta-analysis see faragher, cass, & cooper, 2005). this study also explores how personal resources exert their influence on other resources, which in turn can lead to more positive and adaptive outcomes (alessandri et al., 2015; hobfoll, 2011; scheier & carver, 2003). consistent with this line of thought, we theorized that positivity (as a personal resource) should be associated with greater job satisfaction through its influence on individuals’ ability to manage work-life balance, defined as the right combination of participation in paid work and other aspects of one’s life (hayman, 2005). in the following section, we present the theoretical lenses that contributed to hypothesis development. positivity as an adaptive personal resource the positive orientation framework addresses positivity directly as a unidimensional construct, rather than indirectly through other related but distinct constructs such as self-esteem, life satisfaction, and optimism (caprara, alessandri, trommsdorff, et al., 2012). according to this framework, “viewing oneself, life, and the future under a positive outlook attests to a basic predisposition that exerts an important biological function in making people prone to cope with life, despite adversities, failures, and loss” (alessandri et al., 2015, p. 4). this reasoning is based on earlier cognitive theories that negative views of the self, the world, and the future characterize depressed individuals (beck, 1967), whereas caprara and colleagues conceptualized a positive orientation as an adaptive propensity underlying individuals’ positive evaluations towards self, life, and future (caprara et al., 2009; caprara, steca, alessandri, abela, & mcwhinnie, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 orkibi & brandt 407 http://www.psychopen.eu/ themodel presented here draws on this notion of positivity and two supporting theories. the first is the conservation of resources theory, which argues that personal resources (e.g., positivity) tend to generate gains in other resources, which in turn lead to greater well-being (hobfoll, 1989, 2011). this leads to the supposition that more positive individuals are better equipped to balance work and non-work demands, such that positivity (as adaptive personal resource) should lead to greater work-life balance, and hence to greater job satisfaction. the model also draws on self-regulation of behavior theory according to which individuals who are self-confident and optimistic tend to expect positive outcomes across various life domains (carver & scheier, 1998; scheier & carver, 2003). because they are confident about their success in the future, these people tend to exert a continuing effort and to succeed more than individuals who are less confident and optimistic. in addition, these individuals tend to use more highly active problem-focused coping strategies, and when these are not possible, they turn to adaptive emotion-focused strategies such as acceptance, humor, and positive reframing (rasmussen, wrosch, scheier, & carver, 2006). in contrast, less optimistic individuals tend to experience more doubt, adopt avoidant behavior, and consequently may give up and experience a sense of failure when trying to reach their goals. based on these two complementary theories, we theorized that individuals who are more positive should be more satisfied with their job, at least partly because they are better able to manage their work-life balance. in other words, we expected that work-life balance would mediate the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction. work-life balance as a mediator empirical research has amply documented the direct links between positivity and job-related outcomes but the specific direct and indirect associations between positivity and job-satisfaction are largely neglected. the concept ofwork-life balance focuses onminimizing the tensions between work and other parts of one’s life (hayman, 2005; state services commission new zealand, 2005). this concept contrasts with work-family balance, which refers to the assessment of whether work and family resources are adequate to meet work and family demands, such that participation is effective in both domains (voydanoff, 2005). work-family conflict refers to incompatibilities between work and family responsibilities due to limited resources, such as time and energy (greenhaus & beutell, 1985). the current study employs the term work-life balance because it is also applicable to single individuals without a family, whereas the other two terms are, by definition, restricted to individuals with families. several studies have suggested that high self-esteem can help employees avoid stress and hardships as well as cope with challenges at work (grandey & cropanzano, 1999; nikandrou, panayotopoulou, & apospori, 2008; ruderman, ohlott, panzer, & king, 2002). other studies have found significant associations between life satisfaction and work-life balance (allen, herst, bruck, & sutton, 2000; fisher, 2002) and indicated that optimism helps employees achieve a better work-life balance (allen, johnson, saboe, cho, dumani, & evans, 2012; aryee, srinivas, & tan, 2005; luthans, avolio, avey, & norman, 2007). with respect to the direct link between work-life balance and job satisfaction, studies have shown that when personal life interferes with work it is negatively linked to job satisfaction (thomas & ganster, 1995) and positively linked to distress at work (frone, russell, & cooper, 1992). similarly, when work interferes with personal life it is negatively linked to job satisfaction and other outcomes (amstad, meier, fasel, elfering, & semmer, 2011; cortese, colombo, & ghislieri, 2010). only a few studies have examined the role of work-life balance as a mediator, for example, as regards the relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction (virick, lilly, & casper, 2007) or between work outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career accomplishment (marcinkus, whelan-berry, & europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction 408 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gordon, 2007). however, to the best of our knowledge, work-life balance has not been tested as a mediator in the specific relationship between positivity and job satisfaction. in this sense, the present study extends the literature by theorizing and examining whether a better work-life balance can be achieved by tapping personal resources such as positivity, and hence can translate into greater job satisfaction. study hypotheses this study contributes to the literature in two major directions that are largely under-studied. it simultaneously explores the empirical relations among positivity, work-life balance, and life satisfaction, and examines whether the indirect relationship between positivity and job satisfaction is mediated through work-life balance. by conceptualizing positivity as an adaptive personal resource that has a pervasive influence on other resources, we hypothesized that (1) there would be a positive correlation between positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction; and that (2) the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction would be mediated by work-life balance. method participants and procedure one hundred and eight participants were recruited from several advertising and accounting organizations via email. to encourage participation, contacts were told that three prizes would be raffled among participants in each organization. those wishing to take part in the raffle were required to submit an e-mail address. all participants were asked to fill out an anonymous online questionnaire that measured work-life balance, job satisfaction, and positivity. logging into the online questionnaire confirmed informed consent to participate in the study, but participants could withdraw at any time. the university human research ethics committee approved the study (approval no.081/13). the sample was composed of employees in an accounting firm (n = 23; 21%) and employees in three different advertising firms (n = 85; 79%). a preliminary multivariate analysis of variance (conducted with workplace as the independent variable and job satisfaction, work-life balance, and positivity as the dependent variables) revealed no significant differences by workplace. therefore, participants were treated as one sample in the remaining analyses. of the entire sample, 60% were female and 40% were male. the mean age was 31 with an age range of 22 to 48 (most respondents were between 28 and 32). the majority of the respondents (93%) were born in israel, 5% were born in the former soviet union, and the remaining 2% were born in europe and other countries. the majority of the participants (98%) identified themselves as jewish, and the remaining 2% identified themselves as christians and members of other religions. of the entire sample, 75% identified themselves as secular, 13% as traditional, 4% as religious-zionist, and 8% as other. the majority of all respondents were married (51%), lived in the center of israel (90%), rented an apartment with their roommates or partners (60%), and were currently childless (70%; number of children ranged from zero to three). the mean for years in the current job was 5, with a range of 2 months to 30 years. the majority of respondents held a bachelor’s degree (60%), followed by nondegree diplomas (18%), master’s degrees (15%), and others (7%). measures respondents completed three self-report questionnaires in hebrew that were translated into hebrew from english by bilingual professionals using brislin's back translation technique (cha, kim, & erlen, 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 orkibi & brandt 409 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work-life balance — a 15-item self-report scale (hayman, 2005) was used to measure perceived work-life balance across three dimensions: work interference in personal life (wipl, e.g., “i neglect personal needs because of work”), personal life interference with work (pliw, e.g., “my work suffers because of my personal life”), and work-personal life enhancement (wple, e.g.,“i have a better mood at work because of my personal life”). respondents indicated the frequency with which they had felt each item over the previous three months on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (all the time), where a higher score indicated greater work-life balance (wipl and pliw items were reverse coded to reflect balance because these dimensions are negatively worded and reflect “imbalance”). in the present study, the cronbach’s alpha for wipl was α = .89, pliw was α = .78, wplw was α = .68. the cronbach’s alpha for the entire scale was α = .86, and the scale dimensions were used as indicators of a latent variable in the model (see figure 1). job satisfaction — a short version of brayfield and rothe’s (1951) scale was used to measure employees’ job satisfaction based on their attitudes towards their work (judge, locke, durham, & kluger, 1998). the scale had five items (e.g., “i feel fairly well satisfied with my present job”), scored on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). good internal consistency reliability was reported (α =.88). the correlation with the original job description index (smith, kendall, & hulin, 1969) was high (.89). the correlations between self-reports and significant-others reports show an average of .69 (judge et al., 1998). in the present study, the cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency was α = .73. positivity — the positivity scale is an 8-item instrument that assesses the general tendency for a positive orientation as a unidimensional construct. the scale’s psychometric properties have been well established in different samples and cultures, including convergent and discriminant validity, internal validity, and temporal stability (for details see caprara, alessandri, eisenberg, et al., 2012). recent results provide evidence for gender and crosscultural invariance and construct validity of the scale in five different samples across europe (heikamp et al., 2014). participants responded on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). a sample item is: “i have great faith in the future.” previous studies showed that the alpha coefficient for the scale's internal consistency ranged from .75 to .79, the mean corrected item-total correlation was .48 (sd =.06), and the determinacy coefficient was as high as .89. in the present study, the cronbach’s α was .74. data analysis correlations were calculated to explore the relationships between all the variables. using amos software, structural equation analysis (sem) was run to provide estimates of the mediation model. the mediating effect was tested using bootstrap analysis with a confidence level of 0.95 and bootstrap bias-corrected samples set at 5000 (preacher & hayes, 2004). results as shown in table 1, the results confirmed the first hypothesis, indicating a positive correlation between positivity, work-life balance (total score), and job satisfaction. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction 410 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlations between study variables (n = 108) jswlbpositivitysdmean –positivity .450.843 –wlb .35**.810.343 –js .46**.19*.690.533 note.wlb = work-life balance; js = job satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. an exploratory multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was conducted with the demographic variables of interest as independent variables (age, gender, job title, number of children, marital status, and workplace seniority) with job satisfaction, work-life balance, and positivity as the dependent variables. the manova revealed significant differences between employees with different seniority (years) in the workplace (wilks’ lambda = .770, f(12, 1270) = 2.58, p = .007). significant positive correlations were found between workplace seniority and work-life balance (b = 0.048, t = 3.37, p < .001, ηp 2 =.098) and between seniority and job satisfaction (b = 0.027, t = 2.02, p < .005, ηp 2 =.037). therefore, workplace seniority was included as a control variable in the mediation model. mediation analysis sem was used to test the mediating role of work-life balance (as a latent variable) on the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction. the bootstrap test method for indirect effects was used with a confidence interval (ci) level set at .95 and bootstrap bias-corrected samples set at 5000 (preacher & hayes, 2004). acceptable fit parameters have been defined as x 2/df ≤ 3, a comparative fit index (cfi) ≥ .95, a tucker–lewis index (tli) ≥ .95, and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) < .080 (schreiber, nora, stage, barlow, & king, 2006). the measurement model for work-life balance, assuming second-order structure with three factors, showed a good fit to the data: cmin/df = 1.75 (p < .00), cfi = .93, tli = .91, rmsea = .08. further analysis of the mediation model in figure 1 indicated a good fit with the observed data on the following fit indices: cmin/df = 1.51 (p = .16), cfi = .97, tli = .93, rmsea = .07. bootstrap results provided support for the mediating role of work-life balance in the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction (p < .001, 95% ci [.187, 0.781]). because the confidence interval did not include zero, the null hypothesis of no mediation could be rejected. the direct effect of positivity on job satisfaction was not significant (β = .22, p = .10), indicating full mediation. in addition, the total effect was not significant (p < .123, 95%ci [–.070, 0.589]). as seen in figure 1, the path coefficients from positivity to work-life balance (β = .53, p < .001, 95% ci [.709, 0.318]) and from work-life balance to job satisfaction (β = .74, p < .001, 95%ci [1.152, 0.435]) were statistically significant; as positivity increased, work-life balance increased and as work-life balance increased, job satisfaction increased. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 orkibi & brandt 411 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. model depicting the hypothesized mediating role of work-life balance in the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction. note. workplace seniority was inserted as a control variable. all coefficients are standardized and significant at the p < .01 level. dashed paths are not significant. because sem only provides estimates of the total indirect effect between variables, we also used the recommended procedure to calculate each of the specific indirect effects within the model, which yielded a separate z-score for each indirect effect (taylor, mackinnon, & tein, 2008). a specific indirect effect represents the portion of the total indirect effect that operates through a specific intervening variable within a model. the test confirmed that worklife balance mediated the relationship between positivity and job satisfaction (z = 2.70, p < .01). discussion today, the role of positive psychological factors in helping individuals sustain optimal functioning in both work and personal life domains (baltes et al., 2010) is attracting growing attention. this study contributes to the literature not only by shedding light on the relationships between personal positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction, but also by providing initial evidence for the psychological mechanism through which a trait-like positive psychological resource such as positivity might lead to greater job satisfaction. this strengthens the emerging body of literature indicating the critical pervasive role of positivity as an adaptive personal resource that exerts its influence on other resources. specifically, the findings lend empirical weight to previous studies showing that individuals’ tendency to evaluate self, life, and the future in a positive way has adaptive value across many domains of functioning, including work (e.g., alessandri et al., 2015) and personal life (e.g., alessandri et al., 2012b). thus, individuals who have this type of positive orientation may be more likely to focus on the positive side of experiences; i.e., how work and personal life enhance each other rather than interfere with each other. this argument coincides with the idea that europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction 412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ shifting the focus of attention by reinterpreting threats as challenges can be an adaptive way to conserve positive resources (hobfoll, 1989, p. 519). hobfoll’s (1989, 2011) conservation of resources theory postulates that individuals are motivated to gain, obtain, retain, foster, and protect resources, as well as prevent resource loss. resources not only tend to aggregate and generate gains of other resources, but individuals with greater resources are less vulnerable to resource loss and more capable of orchestrating resource gain. hobfoll (2011) noted that gain cycles are critical to work-family interactions, as “both [are] jealous demanders of individuals’ resources, and to the extent that resources are built in one domain that facilitates the other domain, this ‘battle for resources’ can become a common agenda” (p. 118). in line with this view, the findings of this study imply that individuals with a positive orientation might be more likely to “orchestrate resource gain” in terms of being able to manage and cope with the challenges associated with “work interference with personal life” and “personal life interference with work” (hayman, 2005). thus, individuals with a positive orientation may experience a sense of mastery and achievement in balancing work and non-work demands. this positive experience may spill over and make them feel more satisfied with their jobs. the propensity for a positive orientation, therefore, may translate into greater job satisfaction because it facilitates the ability to balance work and non-work demands. furthermore, from a behavioral perspective, individuals with a positive orientation tend to succeed because they are more diligent in dealing with problems (scheier & carver, 2003). they make more effort, engage in more active problem-focused coping strategies, and therefore are more likely to reach their goals, or turn to adaptive emotion-focused strategies such as acceptance, humor, and positive reframing (rasmussen, wrosch, scheier, & carver, 2006). thus, a positive orientation may act as a motivational force that sustains an individual’s efforts to balance work and non-work demands. a positive orientation may help people make a continuing effort to deal with work-life balance problems, use adaptive coping strategies that mitigate their perception of these problems, and consequently experience more job satisfaction. because individuals with a positive orientation see events as predictable and generally in their best interests, they may perceive events in their life and work as less threatening, their life and work related goals as more attainable, and be more resilient to the impact of the challenges and stressors resulting from daily experiences and social interactions. a positive orientation may thus also contribute to work-life balance by fostering high tolerance to stress, resiliency, and commitment to valued goals such as family quality time (cf. grassi et al., 2014). in short, our findings help to explain how having positive orientation toward one’s self, life, and future may act as an adaptive personal resource that exerts its influence on other resources, such as translating into greater job satisfaction by means of facilitating the ability to balance work and non-work demands. limitations and future directions there are several limitations to this study that deserve attention. first, the cross-sectional design of the study precludes inferences of causality. future studies should include longitudinal data or interventions to examine work-life balance as a mechanism of treatment change. second, because the data were collected from self-report measures, future studies should collect data from respondents’ co-workers, supervisors, and/or employers to enhance validity. a related possible limitation is that the data collected from respondents regarding their work-life balance were self-perceived in that experiencing work-life balance was subjective. future studies should include a sample of employees’ actual work hours as well as reports of co-workers, supervisors, or family members. aleurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 orkibi & brandt 413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ though a pre-study sample size estimation was conducted, another limitation is the relatively small sample size and the focus on work in a specific industry. future studies should include a larger sample and employees from different job sectors. relatedly, the sample included respondents from the urban center of the country, which is typically characterized by a fast-paced lifestyle, compared to peripheral or rural areas. future studies should include a more heterogeneous sample with greater variance in socio-demographic characteristics. multi group sem analysis could be used to compare the model invariance across different groups of employees (byrne, 2004). in addition, because all the respondents were israelis, and the vast majority were jewish, future studies should include workers from other countries and religious affiliations to scrutinize the external validity of findings. finally, the current study focused on the contribution of positivity to the relationship between job satisfaction and work-life balance. future studies should examine other possible positive psychological variables that might contribute to this relationship as well, such as work social support, creativity, innovation, self-control, coping ability, and integrity. implications the model theorized in this study has practical implications for promoting employees’ potentials and strengths in balancing the demands of work and life, which may in turn lead to experiencing more satisfaction on the job. based on the current results, organizations would be wise to assess employees’ positive orientation, their ability to manage work-life balance demands, and job satisfaction. employees with a less positive orientation, difficulties balancing work-life demands, and poor job satisfaction could benefit from organizational interventions aiming at the amplification of a positive orientation and the skills needed to preserve the work-life balance. specifically, such interventions could employ psychological strategies for enhancing positive cognitions and emotions regarding one’s self, life, and future, which are the “ingredients” of positivity. a recent systematic review of research suggests that positive psychological interventions applied in the organizational context are a promising way to enhance employee well-being and performance, as well as to reduce stress, burnout, depression, and anxiety (see meyers, van woerkom, & bakker, 2013). nevertheless, future experimental studies should examine the extent to which implementing interventions that specifically aim at identifying, developing and broadening employees’ positive orientation can promote their ability to balance work-life demands and increase their job satisfaction. conclusion this study suggests that work-life balance may serve as a psychological mechanism that enables individuals to harness their positive orientation such that it translates into greater satisfaction with their job. individuals with a positive orientation appear to have more resources to balance work and life demands that may lead to experiencing more job satisfaction. the model presented here should be tested in future experimental studies, because a poor work-life balance and low job satisfaction can influence not only employees’ performance but also their well-being. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction 414 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alessandri, g., borgogni, l., schaufeli, w. b., caprara, g. v., & consiglio, c. 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(2000). correlates of subjective well-being of chinese elderly in hong kong. journal of social work research and evaluation, 1, 165-184. about the authors hod orkibi, phd, is a psychodramatist therapist, lecturer, and researcher. his research interests include adolescents’ wellbeing, psychodrama and positive psychology outcome and change process studies, and professional development and training. yaron ilan brandt, ma, is a psychodrama therapist working with clients suffering from mental illness and with youth at risk. he also works with organizations and teams. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 406–418 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.869 positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction 418 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/joer.99.6.323-338 http://dx.doi.org/10.4278/ajhp.061023137 http://www.ssc.govt.nz/node/6848 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1094428107300344 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.80.1.6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13620430710773772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00178.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en positivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction (introduction) positivity as an adaptive personal resource work-life balance as a mediator study hypotheses method participants and procedure measures data analysis results mediation analysis discussion limitations and future directions implications conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors motivational and ideological underpinnings of welfare preferences in eastern and western europe research reports motivational and ideological underpinnings ofwelfare preferences in eastern and western europe márton hadarics*a [a] political psychology research lab, eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract in our study we investigated the motivational and ideological correlates of the approval of welfare services in postsocialist central eastern andwestern europe. in the centre of our inquiry stood how the motivations of selflessness and conventionality, along with distributional justice principles, are related to our welfare preferences beyond our rational self-interest, furthermore, how these associations depend on social-cultural circumstances. we have found that the motivational background of egalitarian economic and welfare attitudes are substantially different in the two regions. while beside of the rationalisation of self-interest, it seems to be related to selflessness-driven solidarity in western europe, pro-welfare and egalitarian distributional views are primarily motivated by conventionality-driven norm adherence in postsocialist countries in the form of the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. our results highlight the benefits of a context-specific ’motivated social cognition’ approach to ideological and political attitudes. keywords:motivation, selflessness, conventionality, ideology, welfare services, distributional justice, postsocialist economic system nostalgia europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 received: 2015-08-31. accepted: 2016-01-30. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of social psychology, eötvös loránd university, 1064, budapest, izabella utca 46, hungary. e-mail: marton.hadarics@ppk.elte.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction one of the most important tasks of all democratic states is to ensure the emergence of two basic democratic values for their citizens, freedom and equality. although these two values can contradict each other, just like in the case of welfare services. by these services the state tries to ensure not just equal rights and opportunities, but also the equality of life conditions, mainly in order to alleviate economic inequalities evolved due to free market competition (thomassen, 2007). substantial variance can be found among different societies regarding how much they emphasize the basic values of freedom and equality compared to each other, and these differences strongly influence welfare preferences in any given society. according to fuchs and klingemann (2002) the two extremities among western democracies are represented by the „libertarian” united states and the young „socialist” eastern european democracies in this regard, and the „liberal” western european democracies are taking place in between. since very different ideological elements pervade public thinking in these countries, it can be assumed that the psychoeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ logically relevantmotivational characteristics underlying personal welfare preferences influence expectations towards the state through the acceptance or rejection of very different ideological elements, depending on social and cultural features of a specific country. essential differences might be discovered between the younger central eastern european and the older western european democracies in this regard. substantial individual differences can be found in welfare expectations towards the state, hence the question arises, what kind of motivational forces we can discover in the background as explanations for these deviations in public expectations. former studies have identified a number of psychologically relevant motivational factors that are closely related to personal preferences regarding welfare services. self-interest according to one of the most plausible explanations, a specific welfare service is supported mostly by those who have the opportunity to economically gain from it. this argument is built mainly on the homo economicus concept of rational choice theories, suggesting that the primary motivation for all of us is to maximize our own gains. in point of welfare services it means, those are much more in favour of a specific welfare service who share in it or feel themselves at risk of needing it at some point. that can explain why largescale governmental redistribution and a wide range of welfare services are supported much more by citizens with lower income, and by groups in an unfavourable position in the social hierarchy (iversen & soskice, 2001; svallfors, 1997). beside of this, it is a recurring finding that universal welfare services equally available for all citizens (e.g. education and healthcare services) partake of a significantly higher level of public support than means tested benefits with a limited scope of beneficiaries, like unemployment benefits (blekesaune & quadagno, 2003; skocpol, 1991). the direct relationship between the motivation of short-term self-interest and personal welfare preferences has been widely revealed and described in social sciences so far. at the same time, it has become obvious that the role of self-interest is not sufficient enough to explain the motivational background of individual differences in attitudes towards the welfare state utterly on its own, and it is necessary to take the role of other motivations into account. selflessness, empathy and altruism in social settings, one of the most important motivational factors that can prevent us from following our selfish interests is caring about the well-being of others. is has been recognized in social justice research for a while now that those possessing power and resources are often willing to help the needy, even if it is out of accord with their own rational self-interest (see blader & tyler, 2002; jost & kay, 2010 for a review). in accordance with that, several studies showed that people with psychological characteristics making them to care about and emphatically identify with the difficult situation of others – people with a higher level of selflessness motivation – are much more in favour of governmental welfare services and redistribution (duriez, van hiel, & kossowska, 2005; kulin & svallfors, 2013; van oorschot, 2002). social beliefs – ideology, social justice and stereotypes opinions about the necessity of governmental welfare services and benefits are in close connection with other ideological beliefs. one of the most important of these is the principle of allocation that is adhered by a respondent when making a judgment about the fairness of the distribution of resources within the society. two distributional justice principles must be highlighted here, the principles of equity and need. according to the principle of equity, everyone should receive rewards in proportion to the invested resources, while this proportionality can be modified europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 170 http://www.psychopen.eu/ based on the principle of need, in order to help those in the most difficult situation (deutsch, 1985). corresponding with this pattern, it is a reccuring finding, that those relying on the equity principle oppose more of any kind of governmental provision and tend to tolerate economic-income inequalities, considering them as just. but those emphasizing the principle of need are much more in favour of largescale governmental distribution, income equality, equal availability of welfare services, and helping the most needy groups by means tested benefits (e.g. kangas, 2003; sabbagh & vanhuysse, 2006; sachweh, ullrich, & christoph, 2007). social beliefs and stereotypes about the recipient group of a specific welfare benefit can determine public support for that given provision too. this is a substantial factor in the case of selective means tested benefits, like unemployment benefits or income support. the basic question here is, whether the target group of a given benefit is perceived as deserving based on the social stereotype constructed about it. several deservingness criteria have been identified that people consider while making a judgement about this question (de swaan, 1988; van oorschot, 2000). the criteria of control is especially important in this regard, which is an attributional decision about whether a disadvantaged group has gotten into an unfavourable position because of external circumstances or its own typical characteristics and acts. welfare services that are targeting groups perceived as unable to significantly influence their own life circumstances (e.g. children, old, sick and disabled people), seem to partake in a higher level of public support compared to others, irrespective of social and cultural factors in a given society. at the same time, more citizens think that groups like the unemployed, poor, or immigrants are responsible for their own disadvantaged economic and social status, consequently, they do not deserve the help of the state. but those explaining poverty and unemployment with external factors, and not tracing them back to negative stereotypes about these groups (like to the lack of efforts or ambitions, or the „culture of poverty”), are more in favour of the governmental relief of these groups (e.g. applebaum, 2001; lepianka, van oorschot, & gelissen, 2009; van oorschot, 2008). it is important to emphasize that social beliefs like distributional justice principles, political and ideological preferences, stereotypes and autostereotypes are not independent from each other, but they are organized into a clear pattern (e.g. hunyady, 2004; jost, glaser, kruglanski, & sulloway, 2003). welfare preferences are important elements of this pattern. the study of sabbagh and vanhuysse (2006), based on the examination of eight countries, argues that attitudes towards welfare services are organized into two negatively interrelating ideological metaframes. central elements of the first „market-based” metaframe are belief in individualism, meritocracy, work ethic and internal attribution of inequality, while the most significant elements of the second „welfare-statist” frame are egalitarian redistribution, a broad scope of welfare and external attribution of social inequality. another major result of this study was that although structural relationships between the ideological elements were identical in the eight examined countries, but there was a great variance among these countries regarding how strongly their residents approved the two ideological metaframes. it means that the social, political, and cultural characteristics of a given country might influence welfare preferences of its citizens on their own, independently of any other factors. the determining role of cultural background – ’socialist legacy’? a wide range of international comparison studies showed that although citizens of all societies are divided in their welfare preferences, however, these attitudes are explored on an aggregated level, systematic differences can be revealed between specific countries and groups of countries too. residents of certain countries are much more in favour of largescale governmental redistribution and a wide scope of universally available welfare services than europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 171 http://www.psychopen.eu/ residents of other countries. many authors trace this variance back to differences in the cultivated values and norms among these societies. it is worthwhile to note that western countries with old democratic traditions show a great variance regarding the welfare attitudes of their citizens (e.g. arts & gelissen, 2010; blekesaune & quadagno, 2003; espig-andersen, 1990; sabbagh & vanhuysse, 2006). at the same time the question arises, how have the historical experiences of the past, the ’socialist legacy’ affected welfare preferences of the citizens of the formerly socialist young democracies? in these countries the socialist state tried to eliminate economic-income inequalities by centralized dictatorial measures. this endeavor could be considered as a success in many regards, since in the years directly preceding the regime change, the central eastern european countries could be reckoned among the most equals in the world in terms of income distribution. if the assumption is true that the established economic and political institutional system has an effect on social beliefs and attitudes per se, then this must be observable in the public thinking of postsocialist countries too. two elements of the central eastern european public thinking seem to be especially peculiar. the common base of both elements is the substantial public need for governmental redistribution and paternalism. several international comparative studies confirmed that residents of the formerly socialist countries endorse more egalitarian economic attitudes than their western european peers, they prefer smaller income inequalities, and a stronger governmental role in the establishment and maintenance of that sort of equality. in addition, eastern european citizens hold more exaggerated expectations towards the state to provide a wide range of welfare services and provisions as well. these differences between the eastern andwestern european public thinking had been observed in the years following directly after the regime change (andreß & heien, 2001; austen, 2002; blanchflower & freeman, 1997; corneo &grüner, 2002; delhey, 1999; evans, 1998; mason, 1995), and as it seems, have endured to this day, especially in the case of income egalitarianism (alesina & fuchs-schündeln, 2007; lipsmeyer & nordstrom, 2003; redmond, schnepf, & suhrcke, 2002; roosma, gelissen, & van oorschot, 2013; suhrcke, 2001). conventionality and postsocialist economic system nostalgia the above mentioned differences in ideological preferences between eastern and western europe can easily modify the effect of a particular psychological characteristic with a significant influence on personal welfare preferences, namely the motivational force of conventionality. conventionality can be defined as a basic need to adhere to social conventions that are normative to accept in a given society. for someone with a high conventionality motivation, it is important to behave and act in accordance with normative views and conventions, which behaviour can fill one with the feeling of security and predictability. several psychological traits have been described so far, which make us more likely to conform ourselves to dominant social and ideological norms. such traits are conscientiousness, social conformity, (right-wing) authoritarianism, a low level of openness (see duckitt, 2001; sibley & duckitt, 2008), dogmatism (rokeach, 1960), need for structure (schaller, boyd, yohannes, & o’brien, 1995), or need for closure (kruglanski, 2004). according to the system justification theory (jost & banaji, 1994), and the theory of ideologies as motivated social cognitions (jost et al., 2003) these psychological characteristics, by enhancing norm adherence, make us to accept and approve the social, political, and economic system we live in, even if it is contradictory to our economic self-interest (jost & hunyady, 2005). the original intention of the system justification theory was to provide a psychological explanation to the political behaviour of disadvantaged groups in the united states. according to the theory, by europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 172 http://www.psychopen.eu/ accepting ideological elements like belief in meritocracy, the fairness of free market, or social mobility, these groups contribute to the maintenance of the unequal social and economic system. nevertheless the specific ideological elements to be accepted due to conventionality follow from dominant views in public thinking regarding a particular topic. that is why studies from formerly socialist countries – like russia, hungary, serbia or poland – showed that psychological traits related to conventionality correlate with the support for income egalitarianism, governmental redistribution, and economic intervention (see duriez et al., 2005; golec, 2002; korzeniowski, 2006; kossowska & van hiel 2003; mcfarland, ageyev, & abalakina-paap, 1992; todosijević, 2008). although these studies mostly ignored the role of rational self-interest, still they raise the possibility of a phenomenon that we can call postsocialist economic system nostalgia, a mechanism during which residents of a postsocialist country with a strong conventionality motivation are willing to approve income redistribution and welfare services, even if it is contradictory to one’s own self-interest. our study the primary intention of our study presented hereunder was to reveal possible differences between eastern and western europe on a whole regional level regarding how welfare preferences are influenced by the motivational factors of self-interest, selflessness and conventionality, and to determine through which social-ideological beliefs they affect welfare attitudes. we presumed that while economic-income egalitarianism is present in both regions, its motivational bases will differ due to the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. this presumption was tested via the approval of two welfare services. one of these was the governmental provision of healthcare services, which is a universally available service, while the other was a selective means tested service, namely unemployment benefits. method sample our research was based on the 2008/09 survey database of the european social survey (ess) programme. the european social survey is an academically driven iternational survey programme that has been conducted every two years with the participation of more than 30 european countries since 2001. the survey measures the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of diverse populations across a wide range of european countries, which makes it an ideal tool for international comparative studies. on the basis of the 2008/09 database we created an eastern european (n = 11367) and a western european sample (n = 11546), each including data of the representative samples of 6-6 countries. the eastern european sample included data from bulgaria, the czech republic, poland, hungary, romania and slovakia, while the western european sample from belgium, france, the netherlands, ireland, the united kingdom and switzerland. measures all variables were taken directly or calculated from the questionnaire of the fourth (2008/09) round of the ess research programme. a number of ess items have an inverse scoring, in case of such items the scoring was reversed so that the higher scores mark the greater extent of agreement with the content of the given item. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 173 http://www.psychopen.eu/ approval of welfare services in the case of both services, respondents had to sign their level of approval of these services on an 11-point scale. they were asked, how much responsibility they think governments should have to “ensure adequate health care for the sick” and “ensure a reasonable standard of living for the unemployed”, where “0” indicated “should not be governments' responsibility at all” and “10” indicated “should be entirely governments' responsibility”. self-interest the role of rational self-interest was caught by creating a dichotomous dummy variable for both welfare services. respondents were categorized as concerned in their self-interest relating to unemployment, if they had reported at least one of the following conditions: a. is currently unemployed, b. has already been unemployed and seeking work for a period of more than three months, c. it is likely that during the next 12 months he/she will be unemployed and looking for work for at least four consecutive weeks, d. his/her partner is currently unemployed, e. main source of income in household is unemployment benefit. someone was categorized as concerned in one’s self-interest relating to healthcare, if one had reported at least one of the following conditions: a. described his/her health in general as “bad” or “very bad”, b. is hampered in his/her daily activities in any way by any longstanding illness, or disability, infirmity or mental health problem “a lot” or “to some extent”, c. is permanently sick or disabled, d. his/her partner is permanently sick or disabled. selflessness motivation to measure selflessness, an index was created based on three items of the human values scale applied in the ess core questionnaire. these items assessed how important is the well being of others for the respondents, how opened they are to the perspective and needs of others. respondents were asked to indicate on a 6-point scale how much they agreed with the following statements: a. “she/he thinks it is important that every person in the world should be treated equally. she/he believes everyone should have equal opportunities in life.” b. “it is important to her/him to listen to people who are different from her/him. even when she/he disagrees with them, she/he still wants to understand them.” c. “it's very important to her/him to help the people around her/him. she/he wants to care for their well-being.” conventionality motivation to measure this motivation, an index was created based on five items of the human values scale. the items revealed how important it is to follow normative views and conventions, which can fill respondents with the feeling europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 174 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of security and predictability. respondents indicated on a 6-point scale how much they agreed with the following items: a. “she/he believes that people should do what they're told. she/he thinks people should follow rules at all times, even when no-one is watching.” b. “it is important to her/him to be humble and modest. she/he tries not to draw attention to herself/himself.” c. “it is important to her/him always to behave properly. she/he wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong.” d. “it is important to her/him to live in secure surroundings. she/he avoids anything that might endanger her/his safety.” e. “tradition is important to her/him. she/he tries to follow the customs handed down by her/his religion or her/his family.” (cronbach-α values for the motivational indices are presented in table 1) table 1 descriptive statistics of samples western europeeastern europe variable αsdm/nαsdm/n gender --5331--5086men (n) --6215--6281women (n) --age .37918.3648.05918.0748 --years of education .9923.9112.4683.9011 --objective income .7002.755.3102.924 --subjective income .785.811.855.542 .675.703conventionality .866.184.792.504 .611.602selflessness .717.884.791.594 --support for unemployment benefits .9871.246.5812.776 --support for healthcare services .6401.238.9891.598 --meritocracy .0431.383.1201.413 --egalitarianism .976.443.981.773 --stereotype unemployed .0661.043.1331.293 self-interest --3783--4523unemployment benefits (n) --2871--3242healthcare services (n) approval of the distributional principles of meritocracy and income egalitarianism approval of meritocracy wasmeasured by the following item: “large differences in people's incomes are acceptable to properly reward differences in talents and efforts.”, while the following statement indicated the acceptance of income equality: “for a society to be fair, differences in people's standard of living should be small.” respondents signed the level of acceptance on a 5-point scale. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 175 http://www.psychopen.eu/ deservingness criteria – attributional explanation for unemployment at the examination of the approval of unemployment benefits, social perception of the benecifiary group was considered to be important. we tried to assess the deservingness criteria of control through the following item, which was answered on a 5-point scale: “most unemployed people do not really try to find a job.” demographics in our statistical modeling procedure the effects of gender, age, educational level, subjective and objective income levels were also taken into account. since the education systems of the countries making up the sample differ to a great extent, we defined education through the number of years spent with studies. in the case of objective income situation the individual indicated on a scale his/her position on the basis of the whole income of his/her household. this 10-degree scale was developed individually for each country, following the same methodology. each degree of the scale means one decile of income distribution on the basis of the median income as a point of reference.i in the case of subjective income respondents were asked how they feel about their household's income. they could select one of four levels from the followings: a. “living comfortably on present income.” b. “coping on present income.” c. “finding it difficult on present income.” d. “finding it very difficult on present income.” procedure in order to investigate the associations we were interested in, we applied structural equation modelling (sem) procedure that is based on the analysis of covariances between variables (see table 2). separate so called saturated pathway models were set to explain the public approval of unemployment benefits and healthcare services both for the eastern and the western european samples, consequently, four models were created. motivational and demographic variables were set as input variables in all of the models, and were assumed to influence attitudes towards welfare services directly, and indirectly via distributional preferences and stereotypes towards the unemployed. the main reason for creating saturated models instead of unsaturated ones is that our primary inquiry was not about whether particular associations between the investigatedmotivations and ideological elements are observable in the two samples, we were much more curious about the relative strengths of these association between the two samples. we did not assume that a motivational variable might be related to an ideological element in one of the samples and not in the other, because all the investigated distributional and welfare beliefs function as integral elements of the public thinking in both regions. what we assumed is that particular associations might be stronger in one of the samples. to test this assumption, our aim was to verify the equivalence of certain effect sizes in the models between the two samples. for this aim, in each case a common two-grouped structural equation model was created based on the method described by byrne (2010), wherein the strength of the relevant relationships between the two groups was fixed one by one on a permanent level. if the χ2–based fit index of the common model deteriorated to a significant extent with this restriction, it indicated that the examined effect strength differed between the eastern and the western european groups to a significant extent. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 176 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 c ov ar ia nc es b et w ee n va ria bl es 14 . 13 . 12 . 11 . 10 . 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. va ria bl e .0 50 ** * (.0 06 ) -.1 16 ** * (.0 17 ) -.1 55 ** * (.0 26 ) 3. 50 ** * (.1 38 ) .0 56 ** * (.0 04 ) -.0 24 ** (.0 08 ) .1 59 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 19 * (.0 08 ) -.0 20 ** * (.0 04 ) .0 36 ** * (.0 03 ) .2 65 ** * (.0 19 ) .2 63 ** * (.0 15 ) .3 78 ** * (.0 07 ) e :. 62 9 w :. 75 0 1. c on ve nt io na lit y -.0 20 ** * (.0 06 ) .1 34 ** * (.0 17 ) .2 85 ** * (.0 26 ) .6 47 ** * (.1 34 ) .0 44 ** * (.0 04 ) -.0 10 (.0 08 ) .0 92 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 14 (.0 08 ) -.0 05 (.0 04 ) -.0 01 (.0 03 ) .1 54 ** * (.0 19 ) .2 35 ** * (,0 15 ) e :. 62 7 w :. 51 4 .2 01 ** * (.0 06 ) 2. se lfl es sn es s .1 59 ** * (.0 16 ) -.3 06 ** * (.0 43 ) -.5 04 ** * (.0 64 ) 2. 39 7* ** (.3 38 ) .0 36 ** * (.0 09 ) -.1 45 ** * (.0 21 ) .3 17 ** * (.0 19 ) -.0 94 ** * (.0 21 ) .0 22 * (.0 09 ) .0 63 ** * (.0 08 ) 1. 84 0* ** (.0 51 ) e :3 .9 55 w :2 .6 90 .1 18 ** * (.0 11 ) .0 30 * (.0 13 ) 3. su pp or tf or he al th ca re se rv ic es .4 67 ** * (.0 21 ) -.6 56 ** * (.0 56 ) -1 .5 45 ** * (.0 85 ) 1. 74 3* ** (.4 38 ) .0 47 ** * (.0 12 ) -.1 47 ** * (.0 27 ) .6 16 ** * (.0 24 ) -.6 32 ** * (.0 28 ) .0 77 ** * (.0 12 ) .0 63 ** * (.0 11 ) e :6 .6 62 w :3 .9 48 1. 07 0* ** (.0 32 ) .1 57 ** * (.0 13 ) .0 52 ** * (.0 16 ) 4. su pp or tf or un em pl oy m en tb en ef its .0 77 ** * (.0 04 ) -.2 82 ** * (.0 10 ) -.3 40 ** * (.0 15 ) 3. 36 3* ** (.0 83 ) .0 15 ** * (.0 02 ) -.0 36 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 39 ** * (.0 04 ) -.0 10 * (.0 05 ) -.0 21 ** * (.0 02 ) e :. 20 4 w :. 18 7 .0 40 ** * (.0 08 ) .0 29 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 06 * (.0 03 ) .0 30 ** * (.0 03 ) 5. se lfin te re st – h ea lth ca re se rv ic es .0 67 ** * (.0 04 ) -.1 00 ** * (.0 11 ) .0 03 (.0 16 ) -2 .1 35 ** * (.0 85 ) -.0 07 ** (.0 02 ) -.0 23 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 12 ** (.0 05 ) -.0 40 ** * (.0 05 ) e :. 24 0 w :. 22 0 .0 05 * (.0 02 ) .0 57 ** * (.0 09 ) .0 24 ** * (.0 07 ) -.0 03 (.0 03 ) -.0 34 ** * (.0 04 ) 6. se lfin te re st – u ne m pl oy m en tb en ef its -.1 75 ** * (.0 09 ) .3 79 ** * (.0 25 ) .3 49 ** * (.0 37 ) -.0 33 (.1 92 ) -.0 02 (.0 05 ) .0 93 ** * (.0 12 ) -.0 75 ** * (.0 10 ) e :1 .2 83 w :1 .1 36 -.0 26 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 25 ** * (.0 04 ) -.5 22 ** * (.0 20 ) -.1 30 ** * (.0 16 ) -.0 38 ** * (.0 07 ) .1 46 ** * (.0 09 ) 7. st er eo ty pe -u ne m pl oy ed .1 86 ** * (.0 08 ) -.3 22 ** * (.0 21 ) -.6 84 ** * (.0 33 ) 2. 21 6* ** (.1 68 ) .0 26 ** * (.0 05 ) -.2 10 ** * (.0 10 ) e :. 96 3 w :. 95 2 -.0 22 * (.0 10 ) .0 06 (.0 04 ) .0 23 ** * (.0 04 ) .3 11 ** * (.0 18 ) .1 24 ** * (.0 15 ) .1 01 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 78 ** * (.0 08 ) 8. eg al ita ria ni sm -.1 42 ** * (.0 09 ) .1 02 ** * (.0 24 ) .2 82 ** * (.0 37 ) -1 .6 90 ** * (.1 90 ) -.0 12 * (.0 05 ) e :1 .2 53 w :1 .0 87 -.2 57 ** * (.0 10 ) .0 69 ** * (.0 10 ) -.0 27 ** * (.0 05 ) -.0 26 ** * (.0 04 ) -.2 75 ** * (.0 19 ) -.0 87 ** * (.0 16 ) -.0 44 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 70 ** * (.0 08 ) 9. m er ito cr ac y .0 31 ** * (.0 04 ) -.1 08 ** * (.0 11 ) -.0 81 ** * (.0 16 ) .5 72 ** * (.0 84 ) e :. 24 7 w :. 24 8 -.0 33 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 28 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 15 ** (.0 05 ) -.0 10 ** * (.0 02 ) .0 04 * (.0 02 ) .0 10 (.0 09 ) .0 00 (.0 08 ) .0 51 ** * (.0 03 ) .0 19 ** * (.0 04 ) 10 .g en de r 2. 58 ** * (.1 47 ) -1 2. 43 ** * (.4 08 ) -1 3. 70 ** * (.6 01 ) e :3 26 .1 1 w :3 37 .7 .1 38 (.0 85 ) -.3 58 * (.1 78 ) 1. 42 3* ** (.1 67 ) .8 86 ** * (.1 83 ) -1 .7 97 ** * (.0 82 ) 2. 10 1* ** (.0 76 ) 1. 31 0* ** (.3 40 ) -.2 81 (.2 81 ) .4 10 ** * (.1 23 ) 4. 13 ** * (.1 53 ) 11 .a ge -1 .0 5* ** (.0 30 ) 4. 02 ** * (.0 84 ) e :1 2. 02 w :1 5. 93 -1 6. 76 ** * (.7 0) -.0 48 ** (.0 19 ) .1 71 ** * (.0 39 ) -.4 34 ** * (.0 36 ) -.8 47 ** * (.0 40 ) .0 82 ** * (.0 17 ) -.2 49 ** * (.0 16 ) .0 11 (.0 74 ) .4 17 ** * (.0 61 ) .0 82 ** (.0 27 ) -.5 71 ** * (.0 33 ) 12 .y ea rs of ed uc at io n -1 .1 0* ** (.0 21 ) e :5 .3 37 w :7 .2 89 3. 56 ** * (.1 06 ) -1 0. 04 ** * (.4 71 ) -.1 67 ** * (.0 13 ) .2 18 ** * (.0 26 ) -.3 58 ** * (.0 25 ) -.2 24 ** * (.0 27 ) -.1 63 ** * (.0 12 ) -.2 25 ** * (.0 11 ) -.5 71 ** * (.0 50 ) -.1 50 ** * (.0 41 ) -.1 10 ** * (.0 18 ) -.3 60 ** * (.0 22 ) 13 .o bj ec tiv e in co m e e :. 73 0 w :. 61 5 -.9 91 ** * (.0 22 ) -.4 82 ** * (.0 29 ) -.7 49 ** * (.1 34 ) .0 18 ** * (.0 04 ) -.0 88 ** * (.0 08 ) .0 79 ** * (.0 07 ) .0 58 ** * (.0 08 ) .1 03 ** * (.0 04 ) .0 50 ** * (.0 03 ) .0 97 ** * (.0 15 ) .0 82 ** * (.0 12 ) .0 18 ** * (.0 05 ) .0 46 ** * (.0 06 ) 14 .s ub je ct iv e in co m e n ot e. c ov ar ia nc es an d st an da rd er ro rs (in pa ra nt he se s) in th e e as te rn e ur op ea n (e )s am pl e ar e re po rte d ab ov e th e di ag on al ,c ov ar ia nc es an d st an da rd er ro rs in th e w es te rn e ur op ea n (w )s am pl e ar e re po rte d be lo w th e di ag on al ,v ar ia nc es ar e re po rte d in ita lic s al on g th e di ag on al . *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. ** *p < .0 01 . europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 177 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results before we examine the main findings of our sem models, it is worth having a look at table 3, where the national mean values are presented for the distributional justice principles and the support for welfare services. these values confirm the stronger egalitarian and paternalist preferences in the postsocialist public thinking compared to the western european. both at the support for healthcare services and unemployment benefits, mean values of the eastern european countries are in the upper half of the rank order created from the national mean values, with the exception of romania at the approval of healthcare services and slovakia at unemployment benefits. the pattern is very similar at income egalitarianism – with the czech republic as an exception – while in the case of meritocracy there is a tendency for polarisation among postsocialist countries. it is worth noting in reference to the later result, that meritocracy was measured from a prescriptive view, not from a descriptive one. respondents were asked, how important the principle of merit is to operate in the social sphere, and not to what extent it is operating currently in their country. citizens of the postsocialist countries are much more sceptical in the later descriptive view (csepeli, örkény, székelyi, & barna, 2004; örkény & székelyi, 2000). table 3 national mean scores of support for welfare services and distributional justice principles unemployment benefitshealthcare servicesmeritocracyegalitarianism : 7.71aromania: 9.09abulgaria: 3.85aromania: 3.96abulgaria : 7.24abulgaria: 9.03ahungary: 3.85aczech republic: 3.94ahungary : 6.85ahungary: 8.91apoland: 3.62apoland: 3.86aromania : 6.77ireland: 8.74united kingdom: 3.51united kingdom: 3.77aslovakia : 6.37apoland: 8.58ireland: 3.44ireland: 3.62switzerland : 6.30aczech republic: 8.39aslovakia: 3.41netherlands: 3.60apoland : 6.30netherlands: 8.38aczech republic: 3.37belgium: 3.53belgium : 6.27switzerland: 8.24netherlands: 3.35switzerland: 3.52france : 6.13france: 8.03belgium: 3.34abulgaria: 3.47ireland : 6.06belgium: 8.02france: 3.21france: 3.45aczech republic : 6.00united kingdom: 7.88aromania: 3.03aslovakia: 3.28united kingdom : 5.85aslovakia: 7.66switzerland: 2.56ahungary: 3.23netherlands note. mean scores are presented in a descending rank order. aeastern european country. in the course of statistical modeling, so called saturated sem models were created with all possible connections set between all variables (see figure 1). in the model explaining approval of governmental healthcare services in the eastern european sample, selflessness showed a positive relationship with both egalitarianism (be-eu = .05; p < .001) and the support for this welfare service (be-eu = .23; p < .001), but was not related to the acceptance of meritocracy (be-eu = -.02; p = .156). conventionality related also positively to egalitarianism (be-eu = .18; p < .001) and the approval of healthcare services (be-eu = .20; p < .001), but showed no relationship with meritocracy (be-eu = .01; p = .287). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 178 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fi gu re 1. s at ur at ed pa th w ay m od el s ex pl ai ni ng su pp or tf or w el fa re se rv ic es in w es te rn an d e as te rn e ur op e. n ot e. u ns ta nd ar di ze d re gr es si on w ei gh ts ar e fo llo w ed by st an da rd er ro rs in pa re nt he se s. d em og ra ph ic va ria bl es an d th ei r ef fe ct s ar e no td is pl ay ed fo r a be tte r tra ns pa re nc y of th e ch ar ts .o w n ca lc ul at io ns ba se d on e s s da ta . *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. ** *p < .0 01 . europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ beside of this, it is worth noting that both the acceptance of income egalitarianism and meritocracy had an effect on the approval of healthcare services, but in accordance with our expectations, with an inverse direction. in the postsocialist sample egalitarianism showed a positive relationship with the approval of this welfare service (be-eu = .22; p < .001), while meritocracy had a negative, and weaker effect on it (be-eu = -.05; p < .001). in the model explaining support for healthcare services in the western european sample, we could observe that selflessness related negatively to the acceptance of meritocracy (bw-eu = -.13; p < .001), but enhanced income egalitarianism (bw-eu = .18; p < .001) and the approval of the mentioned welfare service itself (bw-eu = .20; p < .001). conventionality related exclusively to the acceptance of meritocracy to a statistically significant extent (bweu = .16; p < .001). just like in the eastern european group, agreeing with the principle of meritocracy had a negative effect on the approval of healthcare services (bw-eu = -.04; p = .007), and egalitarianism had a positive effect on the same variable (bw-eu = .10; p < .001), but this later effect was significantly stronger in the eastern european sample than in the western european one (δχ2 = 23.4; δdf = 1; p < .001). we can see the regression coefficients from the models based on the national samples in table 4. on the whole, these confirm our findings on the regional level. conventionality enhanced the approval of income egalitarianism in all the eastern european countries, while this connection was non-significant in every western european national sample. on the other hand, the very same motivation intensified the acceptance of meritocracy in the western european countries – except for the netherlands – while there is a lack of this relationship in the eastern european samples, apart from the czech republic. table 4 regression coefficients of pathway models explaining support for healthcare services based on national samples healthcaremeritocracyegalitarianism country selflessnessconventionalityselflessnessconventionalityhealthcareselflessnessconventionalityhealthcare western europe belgium (.057).332***(.054)-.028(.041)-.131***(.039).183***(.034)-.035(.038).168***(.036).027(.037).131*** united kingdom (.043).171***(.037).007(.028)-.077**(.024).134***(.032)-.056(.028).126***(.024).042(.033).140*** france (.049).329***(.046)-.063(.036)-.182***(.033).251***(.031)-.087**(.032).158***(.030)-.012(.034).135*** netherlands (.050).239***(.043)-.009(.035)-.141***(.030).050(.035).036(.033).163***(.028).042(.037).054 ireland (.059).220***(.050)-.090(.036)-.149***(.031).142***(.039)-.118**(.034).160***(.028).056(.042).090** switzerland (.076).159*(.057)-.165**(.038)-.078*(.028).129***(.047)-.045(.032).208***(.024)-.014(.056).309*** eastern europe bulgaria (.051).178***(.053).164**(.035)-.024(.036).029(.031).013(.029).063*(.029).220***(.039).141*** czech republic (.069).193**(.073).388***(.033).044(.034).103**(.048).203***(.035)-.006(.036).230***(.044).140** poland (.065).047(.062).176**(.039)-.001(.037)-.019(.041)-.043(.036).027(.034).168***(.045).261*** hungary (.061).103(.065).090(.044)-.049(.046).032(.036)-.119***(.037).148***(.040).082*(.041).204*** romania (.089).240**(.093).159(.032).095**(.033)-.035(.061).200***(.033).019(.034).196***(.059).408*** slovakia (.081).188*(.084).439***(.037).043(.045)-.047(.045)-.066(.037).098**(.038).108**(.053).184*** note. this table shows the strength of the relationships with standard errors between the distributive justice principles, the motivational variables and the support for healthcare services. unstandardized regression weights are followed by standard errors in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 180 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is also interesting that conventionality had a direct positive effect on the approval of healthcare services in the postsocialist samples – although this effect was not significant in the case of hungary and romania – while this motivational variable influenced welfare preferences only in the case of switzerland among thewestern european samples, but here the direction of the relationship was the opposite, norm-follower respondents tended to disapprove healthcare services provided by the state. we can also observe that from the two distributional principles income egalitarianism influenced attitudes towards healthcare services to a substantially greater extent in both regions than meritocracy did. the relationship between egalitarianism and pro-welfare opinions regarding healthcare services was absent exclusively in the case of the netherlands, while meritocracy influenced these opinions to a significant extent only in the half of the eastern european and in the third of the western european samples. after examining the public support for governmental healthcare services, if we have a look at the sem models explaining unemployment benefits, we can find the followings in the case of eastern europe: selflessness was related neither to the attributional stereotype about the unemployed (be-eu = .03; p = .053), nor to meritocracy (be-eu = -.02; p = .172), and it showed no effect on the approval of unemployment benefits (be-eu = .06; p = .069). contrarily, income egalitarianism was intensified by selflessness (be-eu = .05; p < .001), just like in the case of the model explaining support for healthcare services. in this group, conventionality enhanced the approval of income egalitarianism (be-eu = .18; p < .001), an internal attributional explanation for unemployment (be-eu = .06; p < .001), and also the support for unemployment benefits (be-eu = .26; p < .001). at the same time, this motivational factor had no effect on the acceptance of meritocracy (be-eu = .02; p = .283). if we examine how distributional justice principles influence the support for unemployment benefits, the following pattern can be revealed: unfavourable views about the unemployed moderated (be-eu = -.41; p < .001), while egalitarianism enhanced (be-eu = .46; p < .001) the approval of unemployment benefits. the variable of meritocracy stood apart from this pattern due to its moderate positive relationship to the approval of this selective benefit (be-eu = .05; p = .008). in our saturated models explaining personal support for unemployment benefits in the western european sample selflessness related positively to egalitarianism (bw-eu = .18; p < .001), and this connection was significantly stronger in this group than in the eastern european one (δχ2 = 42.3; δdf = 1; p < .001). selflessness also amplified the support for unemployment benefits (bw-eu = .18; p < .001) but extenuated meritocratic beliefs (bw-eu = -.13; p < .001) and malevolent stereotypes towards the unemployed (bw-eu = -.15; p < .001). the motivation of conventionality showed a positive relationship to the acceptance of meritocracy (bw-eu = .16; p < .001), to the approval of this particular welfare service (bw-eu = .07; p = .003), and to the internal attributional stereotypes (bw-eu = .20; p < .001). this later connection was identified also in the postsocialist group, but with a significantly weaker effect size (δχ2 = 47.5; δdf = 1; p < .001). the direction of the connection between conventionality and the personal support for unemployment benefits was the same in both samples, but turned out to be stronger in the eastern european region (δχ2 = 19.1; δdf = 1; p < .001). beside of the results mentioned above, it is worth underlining that in the western european sample meritocratic views (bw-eu = -.15; p < .001) and unfavourable stereotypes attenuated (bw-eu = -.45; p < .001), while income europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ egalitarianism enhanced the approval of unemployment benefits (bw-eu = .22; p < .001). the later two relationships were observable also in the postsocialist group, but income egalitarianism had a significantly stronger effect there (δχ2 = 58.8; δdf = 1; p < .001), while there was no difference in the effect of stereotyping (δχ2 = 2.8; δdf = 1; p = .092). our semmodels set up to the national samples highly confirm our findings on the regional level. relevant regression coefficients from these models are presented in table 5. conventionality enhanced income egalitarianism in all the postsocialist countries again, while this connection was absent from the western european countries. on the other hand, this motivation, just like in the case of healthcare services, intensified the approval of meritocracy in every western european country – except for the netherlands – while this relationship was missing in the eastern european samples – except for the czech republic. furthermore, conventionality showed a direct positive relationship with the investigated welfare service in the postsocialist samples – except for hungary – while the very same connection was non-significant in the western european models. table 5 regression coefficients of pathway models explaining support for unemployment benefits based on national samples unemploymentmeritocracyegalitarianism country selflessnessconventionalityselflessnessconventionalityunemploymentselflessnessconventionalityunemployment western europe belgium (.073).240***(.069)-.005(.041)-.126**(.039).184***(.043)-.109*(.038).164***(.036).029(.047).263*** united kingdom (.060).193***(.053).094(.028)-.081**(.024).135***(.045)-.237***(.028).125***(.024).043(.046).261*** france (.056).174**(.053)-.032(.036)-.183***(.033).251***(.035)-.137**(.032).158***(.030)-.014(.039).270*** netherlands (.061).186**(.052).039(.035)-.141***(.030).049(.043)-.056(.033).164***(.028).042(.045).141** ireland (.079).207**(.061)-.108(.036)-.147***(.031).139***(.048)-.137**(.034).160***(.028).055(.051).152** switzerland (.074).115(.056).013(.038)-.079*(.028).126***(.046)-.185***(.032).208***(.024)-.013(.054).238*** eastern europe bulgaria (.082).257**(.084).189*(.035)-.018(.036).027(.051)-.006(.029).058*(.029).223***(.062).385*** czech republic (.078).052(.082).278***(.033).039(.034).101**(.054)-.027(.035)-.005(.036).230***(.050).536*** poland (.100).084(.096).298**(039)-.001(.037)-.017(.064)-.110(.036).024(.034).169***(.070).460*** hungary (.092).176(.098).139(.044)-.048(.046).034(.054).017(.037).148***(.040).082*(.062).228*** romania (.083).185*(.086).368***(.032).094**(.033)-.036(.056).081(.033).022(.034).197***(.054).385*** slovakia (.101)-.186*(.106).391***(.042).023(.045)-.048(.057).069(.036).104**(.038).109**(.066).264*** note. this table shows the strength of the relationships and standard errors between the distributive justice principles, the motivational variables and the support for unemployment benefits. unstandardized regression weights are followed by standard errors in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. our data showed that selflessness has a much more obvious effect both on the distributional principles and the approval of unemployment benefits in the western european region compared to the eastern european one. this motivational variable showed a significant connection with both distributional principles in every western european sample, and with one exception it was related to the support for unemployment benefits as well. on the other hand, selflessness was related to meritocracy only in one case among the eastern european countries, and only in three-three cases to egalitarianism and pro-welfare views. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 182 http://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding the distributional justice principles it is worth highlighting, that income egalitarianism fostered the personal support for unemployment benefits in every single investigated country, while meritocracy had the same effect in none of the eastern european countries, but almost in all the western european ones. discussion based on our findings from the analysed database it seems that income egalitarianism and paternalism, which had been important elements of both the ideology and the practical fruition of socialism, still maintain a stronger normative force in the public thinking of the central eastern european postsocialist countries than in their western european counterparts, more than twenty years after the regime change. the role of dissatisfaction with the new social, economic, and political system is incontestable in this phenomenon, since the disadvantageous changes in everyday life, the rapid lapse of security and predictability has fostered the nostalgic rehabilitation of economic egalitarianism and paternalism in the public thinking of this group of countries. the two investigated distributional justice principles have unequivocally different embeddedness in the public thinking of the two regions. it is conspicuous that meritocracy is not related to the motivational variables or welfare preferences among the postsocialist countries, while the same distributional principle has an obvious relationship with the investigated motivations and the personal approval of unemployment benefits among the western european countries. it seems that meritocracy has a deep embeddedness in the western european public thinking, while this embeddedness seems to be absent from the eastern european region. since there is no considerable tradition of the ideological element of meritocracy in the postsocialist region, because it had not been the part of the social discourse during the socialist era, meritocracy could not became a significant element of motivated social and political cognition. whatever individual motivations work in someone, those motivations do not stimulate the acceptance or refusal of meritocracy, and meritocracy does not substantially influence ideological views about the welfare state. we have seen a stronger diversity among young postsocialist democracies in the overall level of the acceptance of meritocracy compared to the older european democracies. the more or less persistent and steady social and economic development in western europe could have created a more suitable environment for individual merit, talent, and effort to prevail in the perception of the society, while the rapid and drastic changes during and after the eastern european regime change have not made it realistic to attribute the rise or fall of particular social groups to individual merit. presumably that is why these countries differ from each other to such a great extent in the prescriptive approval of meritocracy, and that is why the principle itself lacks strong embeddedness in public thinking. on the contrary, in western europe, with a considerably longer tradition of the idea of meritocracy, this ideological element constitutes an important part of motivated political cognition and reasoning. both the motivations of selflessness and conventionality force people to choose a standpoint regarding the principle of meritocracy. it is interesting that in this region, from the two welfare services, the approval of unemployment benefits was influenced by the personal acceptance of meritocracy to a larger extent than the other welfare service. in case of a selective welfare service it might become a significant question, whether the target group deserves public help. that is why those generally preferring a merit-based distribution can reject a selective means tested policy. on the contrary, universal welfare services are not related to intergroup conflicts, hence opinions about these services are less europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 183 http://www.psychopen.eu/ likely to be influenced by ideological elements that are conserving and legitimizing the existing group hierarchy, just like meritocracy. income egalitarianism has shown a positive relationship to the support for both welfare services in both regions. this is understandable in the case of healthcare services, since this welfare benefit is equally available for all citizens because of its universality. that is why someone preferring the distributional principle of equality, will presumably support this sort of welfare services. beside of this, in western european countries with a long tradition of free market, income egalitarianism can function as a counterweight for other ideological elements that are legitimizing the existing social status quo. that is how income egalitarianism can affect attitudes towards selective welfare services like unemployment benefits, where social group hierarchy can be a highly relevant question. as social dominance theory suggests, in this case ideological elements like meritocracy or unfavourable stereotypes about disadvantaged groups can function as hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths, while income egalitarianism can be considered as a hierarchy-attenuating myth to balance the former ones (sidanius & pratto, 1999). naturally we can not rule out that income egalitarianism serves the function described above also in the postsocialist central eastern european societies. although our results are indicating an alternative explanation, namely that in this region the aforementioned ideological element affects welfare preferences by the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. this conclusion becomes obvious in the first place, if we review how the motivational variables of selflessness and conventionality affect the acceptance of ideological elements. this pattern is specifically suggestive in the case of conventionality, which was related to normative ideological contents possessing a significant embeddedness in the public thinking of the given region of europe. this ideological content was meritocracy in western europe, and economic egalitarianism and governmental paternalism in eastern europe. it seems that in western european countries conventionality stimulates people to accept the principle of meritocracy, and through that to oppose selective welfare services independently from the motivational force of economic self-interest. the phenomenon of conventionality-driven economic system justification can be identified in this pattern, as it is described by system justification theory (jost & hunyady, 2005). in the course of this, western european citizens with a heightened conventionality motivation rationalize and conserve existing economic inequalities by approving legitimizing ideologies like meritocracy, independently from their rational selfinterest, or even directly contradictory to that. on the other hand, in the postsocialist countries the assumed mechanism of conventionality-driven postsocialist economic system nostalgia seems to show up. it is similar in the two mechanisms that in both cases the very samemotivation stimulates people to act even against their rational economic interests by accepting social beliefs that provide the sense of certainty and predictability by their normative nature. the difference is that in long-established liberal democracies these normative economic beliefs are mostly related to free market capitalism, while in postsocialist countries these views are attached to the economic system of the past, not the present. in this sense, we can talk about a timely shifted economic system justification that is based on the egalitarian and paternalist ideas of socialism, which could preserve their normative force against the principles of the currently existing economic system due to the general dissatisfaction with the present. we can see that income egalitarianism plays a significant role in the postsocialist public thinking, but to understand the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia, it is important to see its motivational background on the whole. in the western european region selflessness consistently correlated positively with the acceptance of income egalitarianism, and pro-welfare attitudes, and negatively with meritocracy and disadvantageous stereotypes europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ towards the unemployed. however it is not completely true in the young postsocialist democracies, since though selflessness was related to the approval of governmental healthcare services in the case of four countries, but the same motivation showed a positive connection to the support for unemployed benefits only in two national samples, and did not in the others. moreover, selflessness was unrelated to the acceptance of meritocracy in the eastern european region, and it enhanced the approval of income egalitarianism only in three national samples, what adds up to a substantially weaker relationship between these two variables in the eastern european region compared to western europe. this is an important result, because as we have seen, income egalitarianism is a significant predictor of welfare preferences and expectations towards the state in both regions, regardless of the selective or universal nature of welfare services. but we could reveal a widely different motivational background behind the expressed egalitarian attitudes. this motivational background seems to be selflessness-based social solidarity in western europe, but conventionality-based norm adherence in central eastern european. in the postsocialist region selflessness does not show a consistent relationship with egalitarian political-ideological beliefs like income egalitarianism or the rejection of meritocracy, or with tolerant opinions towards particular disadvantaged groups, like the unemployed. of course, we have to mention some considerable limitations of our study, mostly ensuing from the nature of the analysed dataset and the selected research methods. first of all, we have to emphasize that our study was a correlational one, consequently we can not be completely certain about the causal relationships between the investigated variables. for example, while it seems perfectly sensible to assume that our motivations and more abstract level value preferences influence our attitudes towards specific welfare policies, others assume also that the actual operation of the welfare institutional system can influence value preferences within any given society (espig-andersen, 1990). another serious limitation of our study is the operationalisation of the investigated variables. while we have to stress that analysing ess data is a perfect tool to maximise the external validity of our results, we also have to admit that construct validity is not the most significant strength of such a large-scale international survey programme. most of the selected variables were measured only by one single item, and not by thoroughly constructed and carefully validated attitude and personality scales. conclusions our findings seem to confirm that a more accurate description can be obtained about the psychological mechanism of attitude formation regarding the welfare state, if we consider these attitudes as results of a motivated social cognition process (see jost et al., 2003). this framework has been applied to a surprisingly limited extent by political science and sociology so far, the motivational base of individual welfare preferences has been identified mostly in the form of rational economic self-interest. nevertheless our results indicate that both selflessness and conventionality play a non-negligible role in our attitudes about welfare services, since they provide a convincing individual level psychological explanation to the acceptance or rejection of ideological element that are relevant to our expectations towards the welfare state. as we could see, income egalitarianism is an important predictor for personal demands for welfare services in both investigated regions of europe, but with a substantially different motivational background. this motivational background seems to be selflessness-based social solidarity in western europe, but individual motivations behind income egalitarianism are evidently more selfish in the eastern european region, since primarily they consist of the rationalisation of personal economic self-interest and themechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia. in the course of this, due to conventionality motivation, people conform to social beliefs that are normative in the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 hadarics 185 http://www.psychopen.eu/ public thinking of a given society. income egalitarianism is such a belief, which is a deeply cultivated norm of the former system in postsocialist countries. in this system, there had been little chance for true social solidarity to evolve, because according to the social perception, it was the responsibility solely of the regime to ensure the well-being of the whole society, and social welfare was not perceived as a result of cooperation among different social groups. consequently, the heightened economic egalitarianism and paternalism of postsocialist central eastern european countries can be regarded as resultants of the pursuit of rational self-interest and the mechanism of postsocialist economic system nostalgia, and not social solidarity. it is an interesting question, how the accumulating experiences in the new political and economic system will affect the motivational underpinnings of welfare attitudes, to what extent it will converge to the western european pattern, or preserve its peculiarity. since providing appropriate and high-quality welfare services is one of the most significant and costly responsibilities of any national government, it is vital for decision-makers to have an extensive understanding of the deeper motivational context behind the particular views or opinions about welfare services and specific welfare policies. with this insight, political actors have the opportunity to enhance the quality of goal-oriented decision-making and to work out more precise welfare policy solutions that are in accordance with the specific expectations of their voters. future directions as a future direction in our line of research, it would be important to investigate the specific causal relationships between individual motivations and cultivated ideological elements, including distributive preferences and welfare attitudes. by an experimental approach, it would be very interesting to test whether it is possible to enhance or reduce personal approval of specific welfare policies by the experimental manipulation of the individual-level motivations of selflessness and conventionality. based on the results presented above, it is likely that if our aim is to modify or reinforce one’s opinion about a specific welfare policy, we have to do that by influencing different personal motivations, depending on the cultural and social context. in the western european context we could probably reach this goal more efficiently by influencing selflessness, while in the postsocialist context manipulating the motivation of conventionality might be the appropriate way. as an additional direction, it would be also fruitful to investigate the possible boundaries of social solidarity, and put it into a motivational framework. it can be assumed that people with different motivations perceive social boundaries regarding the entitlement for welfare services in a different way. as we saw, people with a higher level of conventionality motivation in eastern europe tend to approve governmental welfare services, because welfare paternalism is still an integral part of the postsocialist public thought. but we can assume that people with this motivation will be apt to exclude cultural and non-conventional outgroups from the scope of welfare entitlement, and preserve that only for those who can be regarded as reliable and conventional ingroup members. it is probable, because conventionality might make people to approve governmental paternalism and disapprove non-conventional outgroups at the same time in the postsocialist context. that is how conventionality can serve as a motivational base for welfare chauvinism in eastern europe, which might be a very important potential topic for future research. notes i) for more information: http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 186 http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references alesina, a., & fuchs-schündeln, n. 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(2008). popular deservingness perceptions and conditionality of solidarity in europe. in w. van oorschot, m. opielka, & b. pfau-effinger (eds.), culture and welfare state (pp. 268-288). northampton, united kingdom: edward elgar publishing. about the author márton hadarics is an assistant professor at the institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university (elte), budapest, hungary. he obtained his phd in 2015 at the elte doctoral school of psychology. his interests center on social and political psychology. his basic research involves the study of motivated social and political cognition, attitudes towards social inequalities, and postsocialist system justification in central and eastern europe. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 169–190 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1045 motivational background of welfare preferences 190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2foxfordjournals.esr.a018219 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0888325408319103 http://dx.doi.org/10.1332%2f0305573002500811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1332%2f0305573022501557 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en motivational background of welfare preferences introduction self-interest selflessness, empathy and altruism social beliefs – ideology, social justice and stereotypes the determining role of cultural background – ’socialist legacy’? conventionality and postsocialist economic system nostalgia our study method sample measures procedure results discussion conclusions future directions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the relationship between humor styles and forgiveness research reports the relationship between humor styles and forgiveness william hampes*a [a] department of psychology, sociology, and education, black hawk college, moline, il, usa. abstract research has shown that a factor in a victim’s forgiveness of an offender is the victim’s ability to make more positive, or at least less negative, attributions of the offender’s behavior and that perspective-taking can be a factor in facilitating that process. self-enhancing humor has been found to be positively correlated with perspective-taking empathy and aggressive humor found to be negatively correlated with perspective-taking empathy. therefore it was predicted that self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with forgiveness and aggressive humor negatively correlated with forgiveness. the humor styles questionnaire, the absence of negative and presence of positive subscales of the forgiveness scale, and the forgiveness likelihood scale were administered to 112 college undergraduates. self-enhancing humor was significantly and positively correlated with all of the forgiveness measures, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor were significantly and negatively correlated with some of the forgiveness measures and affiliative humor was not significantly correlated with any of the forgiveness measures. the results were interpreted in terms of previous findings for humor styles, perspective-taking empathy, depression, self-esteem and anxiety. future research involving the extent to which other personality variables, such as perspective-taking empathy, mediate the relationship between self-enhancing humor and forgiveness was suggested. keywords: affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor, self-defeating humor, and forgiveness europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 received: 2015-06-29. accepted: 2015-11-13. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, sociology, and education, black hawk college, 6600 34th avenue, moline, illinois 61265, usa. e-mail: hampesw@bhc.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. forgiveness, defined as the victim letting go of negative affect (e.g. hostility), negative cognitions (e.g. thoughts of revenge), and negative behavior (e.g. verbal aggression) toward the offender (rye, loiacono, folck, olszewski, heim, & madia, 2001) has been associated with the victim making more benign attributions of the offender’s behavior (fincham, 2000; hall & fincham, 2006). fincham, paleari, and regalia (2002) studied the relationship between marital quality, attributions, empathy and forgiveness and found that a victim’s positive relationship with an offender promotes more positive attributions of the offender spouse’s behavior, which in turn, promotes the victim’s forgiveness both directly and indirectly through affective reactions and emotional empathy. a similar model was postulated by davis and gold (2011), who found that remorse on the part of an offender reduced the victim’s attribution of behavioral stability (causing the victim to be less likely to believe that the offender would commit a transgression in the future) and thus increased empathy and forgiveness. besides marital quality and the offender’s remorse, perspective-taking could be another variable that promotes positive attributions of the offender’s behavior and thus forgiveness. vescio, sechrist, and paolucci (2003) and galinsky and moskowitz (2000) found that those who engaged in more perspective-taking developed more positive europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ attitudes towards members of an outgroup. takaku (2001) found that those who engaged in perspective-taking were less likely to perceive the transgression of the offender as internal and stable and thus less likely to occur again. the results of another study (arriaga & rusbult, 1998) indicated that facilitating perspective-taking leads to more relationship-enhancing and fewer partner-blaming attributions. takaku, weiner, and ohbuchi (2001) found that being better able to understand another’s perspective by recalling oneself as a wrongdoer increased the individual’s ability to forgive an offender. these studies are thus consistent with the positive correlation between perspective-taking ability and forgiveness (rizkalla, wertheim, & hodgson, 2008). there is considerable research on the relationship between humor and perspective-taking, in particular in regards to reducing stress by taking a more positive perspective of one’s situation. martin (2007, p. 282) in his review of the research on humor, stress, and coping states: “many authors have noted that humor, because it inherently involves incongruity and multiple interpretations, provides a way for individuals to shift perspective on a stressful situation, reappraising it from a new and less-threatening point of view”. one particular measure of humor, the coping humor scale (martin & lefcourt, 1983, p. 1316), determines the extent to which a person copes with stress through the use of humor, including changing one’s perspective of a stressful situation to one that is less threatening (e.g. “i have often found that my problems have been greatly reduced when i tried to find something funny in them”, “i can usually find something to laugh or joke about in trying situations”). high scores on the coping humor scale have been positively associated with taking a philosophical and detached view of problems (fry, 1995), the conscious ability to successfully view problems from a more positive perspective (kuiper, mckenzie, & belanger, 1995), and viewing examinations as more as a challenge and less as a threat (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993). a study by hampes (2010) has demonstrated that a particular type of humor, self-enhancing humor, is associated with the ability to take the perspective of another person, thus understanding better that person’s thoughts and feelings. according to martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003) there are four types of humor: affiliative humor (the use of humor to amuse others, put others at ease and to improve relationships), self-enhancing humor (which enables a person to deal with stressful situations by taking a humorous perspective of them), aggressive humor (the inclination to use humor to put down or attack other people which involves teasing, ridicule, sarcasm, hostility, derision, or disparagement types of humor), and self-defeating humor (excessive self-disparaging humor to gain favor with others, laughing along with others when being disparaged or ridiculed, and going along with being the “butt” of others’ humor). according to davis (1980) there are four different types of empathy: perspectivetaking empathy, empathic concern, personal distress, and fantasy empathy. perspective-taking empathy is the cognitive ability to understand another person’s viewpoint, thoughts and feelings. empathic concern is how much a person feels compassion, warmth and concern towards individuals having negative experiences. hampes (2010) found that self-enhancing humor was positively correlated with perspective-taking empathy, but was not correlated with empathic concern. on the other hand, he found that affiliative humor was positively correlated with empathic concern, but was not correlated with perspective-taking empathy. aggressive humor was negatively correlated with both perspective-taking humor and empathic concern. self-defeating humor was not correlated with either empathy scale. the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the four humor scales and forgiveness. it was predicted that self-enhancing humor would be positively correlated with forgiveness due to its association with perspective-taking empathy, which in turn is positively correlated with forgiveness (hodgson & wertheim, 2007; konstam, chernoff, & deveney, 2001; zechmeister & romero, 2002). since those who are high in selfeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 hampes 339 http://www.psychopen.eu/ enhancing humor tend to be high in perspective-taking empathy, a victim high in self-enhancing humor would presumably be better able to take a perspective of those who have offended them that allows for a more positive attribution of the offender’s behavior towards them than the perspective taken by those who aren’t high in this style of humor. this would seem to make it easier for those high in self-enhancing humor to forgive the offender than those who are lower in self-enhancing humor. it was predicted that aggressive humor, which is negatively correlated with both perspective-taking empathy and empathic concern, would be negatively correlated with forgiveness since those high in aggressive humor lack the perspective-taking empathy that would help them to make the less negative attributions of the offender that would lead to forgiveness. method participants the participants were 112 students (39 men and 73 women) at a community college in the midwestern united states. they ranged in age from 17 to 57 (m = 22.82, sd = 7.96). procedure students in six psychology classes were asked to participate and those who volunteered were included in the sample. participants completed the humor styles questionnaire, the forgiveness scale and the forgiveness likelihood scale in their respective classes after completing a consent form which informed them of what their participation would involve and assuring them of confidentiality and the voluntary nature of their participation. the study was previously approved by the college’s institutional review board. materials forgiveness scale the forgiveness scale includes fifteen items divided into an absence of negative subscale with ten items stating negative feelings, thoughts and behaviors towards the offender (e.g. “i can’t stop thinking about how i was wronged by this person”) and a presence of positive subscale with five items reflecting positive feelings, thoughts and behaviors towards the offender (e.g. “i have been able to let go of my anger toward the person who wronged me”) that asks participants how they have responded to a person who has wronged or mistreated them. each item has five response options in a likert-type format (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). validity was established with significant correlations for both subscales in the expected direction with measures of religiousness, hope, trait and state anger, spiritual and religious well-being and the enright forgiveness inventory. the test-retest reliability was .76 for both the absence of negative and the presence of positive subscales and .80 for the total scale (rye et al., 2001). the cronbach alpha for the current sample was .84 for the total scale, .80 for the absence of negative subscale and .73 for the presence of positive subscale. forgiveness likelihood scale the forgiveness likelihood scale has ten items (e.g. “your significant other has a ‘one night stand’ and becomes sexually involved with someone else. what is the likelihood that you would choose to forgive your significant other?”, “a stranger breaks into your house and steals a substantial sum of money from you. what is the likelihood that you would choose to forgive the stranger?”) that asks the participants how likely they would be to forgive someone in an imagined scenario. each item has five response options in likert-type format (1 = not at all likely to 5 = europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 humor styles and forgiveness 340 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extremely likely). validity was supported with significant correlations in the expected direction with religiousness, religious well-being, trait anger and the enright forgiveness inventory. each of the two subscales of the forgiveness scale was significantly correlated with the forgiveness likelihood scale. the test-retest reliability of the forgiveness likelihood scale was .81. (rye et al., 2001). in the current study the forgiveness likelihood scale was significantly correlated with the total forgiveness scale (r = .41, p < .001) and the presence of positive subscale (r = .43, p < .001) and absence of negative subscale (r = .28, p < .01) of the forgiveness scale. the cronbach alpha for the forgiveness likelihood scale for the current sample was .85. humor styles questionnaire the humor styles questionnaire has 32 items. each scale, affiliative humor (e.g. “i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends”), self-enhancing humor (e.g. “if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor”), aggressive humor (e.g. “if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”), and self-defeating humor (e.g. “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh”) has eight items. each item has seven response options in likert-type format (1 = totally disagree to 7 = totally agree). the convergent validity for the affiliative humor scale was established by significant positive correlations with extraversion on the neo pi-r and miller social intimacy scale. discriminant validity for the self-enhancing scale was indicated by a significant negative correlation with scores for neuroticism on the neo pi-r, and convergent validity was indicated with significant positive correlations with the humor coping subscale of the coping orientation to problems experienced scale and the coping humor scale. convergent validity for the aggressive humor scale was estimated by a significant positive correlation with scores on the cook-medley hostility scale. discriminant validity for the self-defeating humor scale was supported by significant negative correlations with the rosenberg self-esteem scale and with the index of self-esteem (martin et al., 2003). the cronbach alphas for the humor styles for the current study were affiliative humor (.65), self-enhancing humor (.84), aggressive humor (.72), and self-defeating humor (.79). results product-moment correlations between each of the four humor styles with the forgiveness likelihood scale, the total forgiveness scale, and the absence of negative and the presence of positive subscales of the forgiveness scale were computed (see tables 1 and 2). in addition, four multiple regression analyses were conducted, with the four humor styles as the predictor (independent) variables and the forgiveness likelihood scale, the total forgiveness scale, and the absence of negative and the presence of positive subscales of the forgiveness scale as the dependent variables (see tables 1 and 3). the positive correlations between self-enhancing humor and the total forgiveness scale (r = .34, p < .001), both the absence of negative (r = .33, p < .001) and presence of positive (r = .25, p < .01) subscales of the forgiveness scale and the forgiveness likelihood scale (r = .29, p < .01) were all significant. none of the correlations between affiliative humor and the forgivenessmeasures, albeit positive, were significant. the correlations between aggressive humor and the total forgiveness scale (r = -.25, p < . 01) and the presence of positive subscale of the forgiveness scale (r = -.27, p < .01) were significant, but those between aggressive humor and the forgiveness likelihood scale and the absence of negative subscale of the forgiveness scale were not. the negative correlations between self-defeating humor and the total forgiveness scale (r = -.31, p < .001), the absence of negative subscale of europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 hampes 341 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means and standard deviations for the four humor styles, the forgiveness likelihood scale, the total forgiveness scale, and absence of negative and presence of positive subscales of the forgiveness scale sdmscale 5.8547.04affiliative humor 9.1339.61self-enhancing humor 7.8528.59aggressive humor 8.8027.00self-defeating humor 7.5725.19forgiveness likelihood scale 8.8851.81total forgiveness scale 4.1114.96presence of positive subscale 6.4036.82absence of negative subscale table 2 pearson-product moment correlations between the four humor styles and the four forgiveness measures humor styles scale sdaggseaff fls .09.18-.29**.06 tfs .31***-.25**-.34***.09 fspp .22*-.27**-.25**.02 fsan .27**-.18-.33***.12 note. aff = affiliative humor; se = self-enhancing humor; agg = aggressive humor; sd = self-defeating humor; fls = forgiveness likelihood scale; tfs = the total forgiveness scale; fspp = the forgiveness scale, presence of positive subscale; fsan = the forgiveness scale, absence of negative subscale. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the forgiveness scale (r = -.27, p < .01) and presence of positive subscale of the forgiveness scale (r = -.22, p < .05), but not that between self-defeating humor and the forgiveness likelihood scale, were significant. self-enhancing humor positively and significantly predicted the total forgiveness scale (beta = .36, p < .001), both the absence of negative (beta = .33, p < .001) and presence of positive (beta = .28, p < .01) subscales of the forgiveness scale and the forgiveness likelihood scale (beta = .30, p < .01). affiliative humor did not significantly predict any of the forgiveness scales or subscales. aggressive humor significantly negatively predicted the forgiveness likelihood scale (beta = -.24, p < .05) and the presence of positive subscale of the forgiveness scale (beta = -.21, p < .05), but did not significantly predict the total forgiveness scale or the absence of negative subscale of the forgiveness scale. self-defeating humor significantly negatively predicted the total forgiveness scale (beta = .26, p < .01) and the absence of negative subscale (beta = -.24, p < .01) of the forgiveness scale, but did not significantly predict the forgiveness likelihood scale or the presence of positive subscale of the forgiveness scale. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 humor styles and forgiveness 342 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 multiple regression analyses with scores involving the forgiveness likelihood scale and the forgiveness scale (dependent variables) and the four humor styles (predictor, independent variables) f (4,111)r regression betas for humor styles scale sdaggseaff .38-.05fls .41**4.17.24*-.30** .49-.06tfs .33***8.26**-.17-.36*** .40-.09fspp .09***5.16-.21*-.28** .43-.02fsan .22***6.24**-.09-.33*** note. aff = affiliative humor, se = self-enhancing humor, agg = aggressive humor, sd = self-defeating humor, fls = forgiveness likelihood scale, tfs = the total forgiveness scale, fspp = the forgiveness scale, presence of positive subscale, fsan = the forgiveness scale, absence of negative subscale. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. (note that the beta for aggressive humor predicting the forgiveness likelihood scale taken to three decimal places was -.235, just barely missing the .01 level, whereas the beta for self-defeating humor predicting the absence of negative subscale taken to three decimal places was -.243, just barely reaching the .01 level). discussion that self-enhancing humor positively and significantly predicted and was significantly and positively correlated with the four measures of forgiveness is entirely consistent with the positive correlation of self-enhancing humor with perspective-taking empathy. that aggressive humor negatively and significantly predicted two of the four measures of forgiveness and was significantly negatively correlated with two of them is partially consistent with the negative correlations of aggressive humor with perspective-taking empathy. however, affiliative humor was not correlated with any measure of forgiveness. the key to this could be that although affiliative humor is positively correlated with empathic concern, it is not correlated with perspective-taking empathy (hampes, 2010). in the zechmeister and romero (2002), hodgson and wertheim (2007) and konstam, chernoff, and deveney (2001) studies the correlations between perspective-taking empathy and forgiveness were higher than those between empathic concern and forgiveness and the correlations between empathic concern and forgiveness in the zechmeister and romero (2002) and hodgson and wertheim (2007) studies and between empathic concern and one measure of forgiveness in the konstam, chernoff, and deveney (2001) study were not significant at the .05 level. it would seem that the cognitive trait of perspective-taking empathy is a more crucial determinant of forgiveness than the emotional trait of empathic concern. this is consistent with the models of fincham, paleari, and regalia (2002) and davis and gold (2011), which postulate that positive attributions lead to situational emotional empathy for the offender which leads to forgiveness. to be able to develop those positive attributions it tends to be helpful for the victim to be able to be effective in perspective-taking (arriaga & rusbult, 1998; galinsky & moskowitz, 2000; takaku, 2001; takaku, weiner, & ohbuchi, 2001; vescio, sechrist, & paolucci, 2003). the trait of empathic concern, on the other hand, involves a person having compassion for other individuals because of those other individuals’ psychological or physical pain. in the case of a victim who has been hurt by an offender, the victim’s personality trait of empathic concern is not directly relevant since it is the victim who has been hurt, not the other individual, in this case the other individual being the offender. this would seem to lessen the effectiveness of the victim’s trait of empathic concern for leading to forgiveness. in fact, individuals’ empathic concern may make them less likely to forgive the offender when they empathize with other victims of the offender. fredrickson (2003) has found that negative emotions narrow an individual’s mental focus. by feeling the emotional pain and anger of a europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 hampes 343 http://www.psychopen.eu/ victim an individual’s perspective of the offender could be constricted, making it harder for that individual to make positive attributions of the offender’s behavior. although self-defeating humor negatively predicted three forgiveness measures (two significantly) and was significantly negatively correlated with three of them, it did not significantly predict nor was significantly correlated with the forgiveness likelihood scale. in fact, self-defeating humor was positively correlated with and positively predicted the forgiveness likelihood scale, albeit not significantly. this could be due to the fact that the items on the forgiveness likelihood scale represent hypothetical situations while the forgiveness scale involves items derived from actual situations in the participant’s life. those high in self-defeating humor tend to be psychologically vulnerable, given the positive correlation between self-defeating humor with depression and anxiety and negative correlation with self-esteem (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin et al., 2003) and positive correlation with anxious attachments (cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; kazarian & martin, 2004; saroglou & scariot, 2002). because of this vulnerability they might find the situations that happened to them in the items of the forgiveness scale, particularly the ten items that make up the absence of negative subscale (e.g. “i become depressed when i think of how i was mistreated by this person”, “i avoid people and/or places because they remind me of the person who wronged me”) too painful for forgiveness. however, it could be easier to forgive someone in the situations in the forgiveness likelihood scale since they may never have experienced them and are hypothetical. the current study has several limitations. first of all it is correlational in nature. it is not clear whether the humor style affects forgiveness, forgiveness affects the humor style, or some third variable is affecting both. secondly, the participant sample study was somewhat homogenous in terms of age. perhaps the relationship between the humor styles and forgiveness could change as a person matures. thirdly the sample size could be larger. finally, the cronbach alpha for affiliative humor (.65) is relatively low. replicating this study with a sample size at least twice as large and with a higher alpha for affiliative humor could strengthen the conclusions drawn from it. there are several directions that future research on humor styles and forgiveness could take based on the limitations of the current study. studies could be done teasing out the causal relationships between humor styles and forgiveness. researchers could possibly train participants to use self-enhancing humor better and then see if their forgiveness scores are higher than those of a control group. another study could use the method developed by van oyenwitvliet, ludwig, and vander laan (2001) to ask participants to imagine forgiveness toward real-life offenders and then determine if this affected their humor styles. longitudinal studies could also be conducted to see if the relationship between humor styles and forgiveness changes as one gets older, studying a group of participants as they age from adolescence to adulthood. if this would be too time-consuming or impractical, a cross-sectional study with participants of different ages could still illuminate how the relationship between humor styles and forgiveness changes as one grows older. future research also is needed to determine how much of the variance for forgiveness is accounted by variables that are correlated with self-enhancing humor. dyck and holtzman (2013), páez, mendiburo seguel, and martínezsánchez (2013) and ruch and heintz (2013) have found that the incremental validity of the four humor styles are low once other personality variables are accounted for. neuroticism is negatively correlated with and agreeableness is positively correlated with self-enhancing humor (martin et al., 2003) and forgiveness (mccullough & hoyt, 2002). that could possibly mean that the amount the variance of forgiveness predicted by self-enhancing humor could europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 humor styles and forgiveness 344 http://www.psychopen.eu/ be considerably reduced once neuroticism and agreeableness, and other variables such as perspective-taking empathy, are accounted for. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references arriaga, x. b., & rusbult, c. e. 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(2003). perspective taking and prejudice reduction: the meditational role of empathy arousal and situational attributions. european journal of social psychology, 33, 455-472. doi:10.1002/ejsp.163 zechmeister, j. s., & romero, c. (2002). victim and offender accounts of interpersonal conflict: autobiographical narratives of forgiveness and unforgiveness. journal of personality and social psychology, 82, 675-686. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.675 about the author william hampes is a professor emeritus of psychology/sociology from black hawk college with a ph.d. in experimental psychology. his research interests are in the area of humor and personality. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 338–347 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1012 hampes 347 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00224540109600567 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0261927x01020001007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2f1467-9280.00320 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.163 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.82.4.675 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor styles and forgiveness (introduction) method participants procedure materials results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author investigating the effects of cultural-mindset priming on evaluation of job performance behaviors research reports investigating the effects of cultural-mindset priming on evaluation of job performance behaviors vipanchi mishra* a, marcus bost jr.b [a] department of psychology, west chester university of pennsylvania, west chester, pa, usa. [b] human capital consultant, deloitte, philadelphia, pa, usa. abstract recent reviews of performance evaluation process and practices indicate that there is substantial variability in the structure and formalization of performance evaluations in organizations across cultures and call for further exploration of the role of cultural variables on the performance evaluation process. in the current study, we use self-construal priming procedures to evaluate the effects of cultural mindset on the performance evaluation process. specifically, the effects of independent (individualistic) and interdependent (collectivistic) mindset priming on relative importance given to performance behaviors when making judgments of overall job performance was investigated. participants first completed either independent (n = 87) or interdependent (n = 87) priming tasks by circling either i/me/my or we/us/our in a paragraph of text. following this, they completed a managerial role-play exercise in which they read employee performance vignettes (manipulated on task, citizenship and counterproductive performance behaviors) and rated the overall performance of each employee. rater policies were captured using regression analyses and relative weights placed on each performance behavior were computed. results suggest that when making judgments of overall performance, as compared to raters primed with interdependence, raters primed with independence placed less weight on citizenship behaviors and higher weights on counterproductive performance behaviors. no significant differences were observed in the weights placed on task performance behaviors. study limitations and implications for research are discussed. keywords: self-construal priming, collectivism, individualism, job performance, performance evaluation europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 received: 2018-03-12. accepted: 2018-06-08. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; andrew p. allen, maynooth university, maynooth, ireland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, wayne hall 527, 125 west rosedale avenue, west chester university of pennsylvania, west chester – pa, 19383. phone: 610-430-5942. e-mail: vmishra@wcupa.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. performance ratings play an important role in organizations; they are important not only in the traditional performance evaluation context but also in other employment practices, such as selection interviews and assessment centers. however, recent research has indicated that despite years of research and practice directed at improving the performance appraisal process in organizations, dissatisfaction with the process is at an all-time high (adler et al., 2016). specifically, it is estimated that more than 90% of managers, employees, and hr heads feel that their performance management processes do not deliver expected results, and many view their current processes as ineffective and/or inaccurate (corporate leadership council, 2012). given the ineffectiveness of this process, adler et al. (2016) raise some controversial issues regarding whether performance rating systems should be eliminated or not. one reason adler et al. (2016) identify for abolishing performance ratings europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ is low levels of interrater agreement between raters on the same performance dimensions. within a similar vein, cho and payne (2016) argue that cultural values may be related to the discrepancy observed in performance ratings. the purpose of the present study is to further explore the role of cultural values on evaluation of job performance behaviors and resulting performance ratings. recent research has indicated that rater values may play an important role in the performance evaluation and rating process. for example, in a recent study on understanding the effects of national culture on performance appraisal practices, ng, koh, ang, kennedy, and chan (2011) found that power distance was related to performance rating leniency. similarly, mishra and roch (2013) found that rater collectivism was associated with a preference for collectivistic ratees’ when assigning overall performance ratings. more recently, mishra and roch (2017) indicated that rater values of individualism and collectivism influenced the relative importance given to job performance behaviors when making decisions of overall performance, thus providing evidence that individual differences in rater values may influence performance appraisal ratings. however, while this research suggests that cultural values of individualism and collectivism may be responsible for the differential weighting of performance behaviors by raters when making overall performance ratings, it does not explain why this may be the case. specifically, the mechanism through which a specific cultural value orientation may influence weighting of performance behaviors is not identified. in fact, mishra and roch (2017) note that future research should focus on identifying “why” raters with individualistic and collectivistic values differ in the weights placed on performance behaviors when making overall performance ratings. we believe that one way to understand the mechanism through which raters’ values influence the evaluation of job performance behaviors would be to use self-construal priming procedures and show that the pattern of rating differences become systematically greater when the construct of interest, i.e. individualism or collectivism is made accessible and salient to the raters, thus suggesting that these values are indeed responsible for the observed effects. priming studies involve the activation of relevant mental representations (values, beliefs, attitudes) in an unobtrusive manner in one phase of an experiment, and the unconscious, unintended effects of this activation are assessed in a subsequent phase (bargh & chartrand, 2000). prior research has indicated that individuals in western (individualistic) cultures view themselves as more independent whereas individuals in eastern (collectivistic) cultures have a more interdependent view of self (markus & kitayama, 1991). this research has demonstrated that the degree to which a person thinks of himself or herself as relatively more independent or interdependent can be manipulated with priming tasks such as reading stories with independent versus interdependent themes (trafimow, triandis, & goto, 1991), or circling singular (i, me, my etc.) vs. plural (we, us, our) pronouns in a paragraph of text (gardner, gabriel, & lee, 1999). for example, gardner et al. (1999) found that a pronoun circling task affected the degree to which participants endorsed individualistic values (like freedom and independence) and collectivistic values (like belongingness and friendship). priming studies can therefore temporarily focus participants’ attention on culture-relevant content (values, norms, beliefs, and attitudes), culture-relevant goals, and cultural-relevant cognitive styles. thus, by comparing responses after individualism or collectivism is primed using self-construal primes, researchers can examine the extent to which psychological differences on dependent variables are actually due to the increased accessibility of individualistic or collectivistic mindset produced as a result of priming. while priming research has been done within the context of attention, visual perception and cognition (choi, connor, wason, & kahan, 2016; haberstroh, oyserman, schwarz, kühnen, & ji, 2002; kühnen & oyserman, 2002), no research till date has investigated its effects in performance appraisal context. in the current study we investigate the influence of inmishra & bost 847 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dividual level cultural values on the evaluation of job performance behaviors (i.e. task, citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors) by priming individuals with independent and interdependent cultural mindsets and assessing how the resulting variations in context impact participants’ evaluation of job performance behaviors. effects of cultural mindset priming on cognition self-construal has been broadly defined as “a constellation of thoughts, feelings and actions concerning one’s relationship to others, and the self as being distinct from others” (singelis, 1994, p. 581). in relation to cultural differences, markus and kitayama (1991) proposed two distinct types of self-construals (independent and interdependent self-construals), which are based on individuals’ perceptions of how connected or separate they see themselves from others. individuals with highly developed independent self-construals emphasize expressing their own thoughts and feelings, are interested in promoting their own goals, maintaining uniqueness and being direct in communication. the interdependent self, on the other hand, emphasizes fundamental connectedness of human beings to each other. highly interdependent individuals tend to think of themselves and others as intertwined with each other rather than as separate entities. originally, markus and kitayama (1991) had proposed that individuals in western or individualistic cultures have predominantly independent self-construals, whereas individuals in eastern or collectivistic cultures tend to have interdependent self-construals. however, subsequent researchers (e.g., choi, connor, wason, & kahan, 2016; kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001; suh, diener, & updegraff, 2008) have shown that individuals possess both independent and interdependent orientations of the self, and this sense of self influences cognition and behavior when individualistic or collectivistic value orientations are activated in a given situation. specifically, kühnen, hannover, and schubert (2001) developed a procedure called mindset priming to identify the mechanisms through which self-construal affects human cognitive processing. they proposed that self-construals activate different procedural modes of thinking that influences human cognition and behavior and referred to it as the semantic–procedural interface model of the self (kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001). according to this model, views of the self are stored in a semantic framework and currently active conceptual information can alter a person’s procedural mode of thinking. the authors further proposed that the acquisition of independent self-knowledge relies on context-independent thinking procedures as it requires one to generalize self-descriptive features across the various contexts one encounters. on the other hand, defining the self in terms of relationships implies viewing identity as bound to the social context in which one encounters significant others. thus, activation of independent self-construal induces context independent information processing modes, i.e. the tendency to process stimuli as if they were unaffected by the context, whereas, activation of an interdependent self-construal induces the tendency to process stimuli while paying attention to their relations to the entire field, i.e. context dependent information processing (kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001). these procedural modes of thinking may then spill over and affect the way the person sees and or interacts with the world. these predictions have been supported by many experimental studies that have used selfconstrual priming techniques (e.g., choi, connor, wason, & kahan, 2016; haberstroh et al., 2002; kühnen & oyserman, 2002). these effects have been very well summarized by oyserman and lee (2008) in a meta-analytic review of the cultural priming literature. overall, the results indicated that self-construal priming had a significant effect (mean weighted d = 0.34) on culture relevant content (such as values, self-concept, relationality) as well as cognition (context dependent vs. context independent thinking styles). with respect to self-concept, effect of priming was in hypothesized direction with an effect size of d = 0.26, thus suggesting that self-construal priming not only influences cognition, it also temporarily increases the accessibility of one self-concept versus the other. in the cultural priming and performance evaluation 848 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ context of the current study, these findings may be useful in identifying the mechanisms through which cultural values influence raters’ overall performance judgments. cultural values, priming and evaluation of job performance behaviors the current conceptualization of job performance includes three aspects: task performance, citizenship performance, and counterproductive performance (rotundo & sackett, 2002). task performance reflects behaviors that are consistent with completing job relevant tasks that relate to the core functioning of the organization (murphy, 1989). citizenship performance includes behaviors that are clearly related to organizational goals but do not necessarily contribute to the core functioning of the organization (borman & motowidlo, 1993) and are referred to as organizational citizenship behaviors (ocbs). the third domain called counterproductive performance represents behaviors that prevent or deter an organization from achieving its goals such as theft, drug abuse, etc. (robinson & bennett, 1995) and are referred to as counterproductive work behaviors (cwbs). there has been empirical evidence suggesting that these three job performance domains are empirically distinct (dalal, 2005; rotundo & sackett, 2002; sackett, berry, wiemann, & laczo, 2006). prior research has indicated that when making judgments of overall employee performance, managers take into account all three types of performance behaviors (e.g., mishra & roch, 2017; rotundo & sackett, 2002). furthermore, cross-cultural research has indicated that managers from collectivistic versus individualistic countries differ in the importance they give to performance related behaviors when deciding on a performance bonus or compensation. for example, beatty, mccune, and beatty (1988) used a policy capturing approach to compare compensation decisions made by managers in japan and usa. results indicated that managers from the united states placed the most importance on job performance whereas managers from japan considered factors such as job worth and organizational commitment to be relatively more important than job performance in their decisionmaking policy. similarly, zhou and martocchio (2001) examined the extent to which four variables (work performance, relationship with coworkers, relationship with managers, and personal needs) affected chinese and american managers’ compensation award decisions (about bonus amounts and non-monetary recognition). results showed that as compared to american managers, chinese managers put less emphasis on work performance when making performance bonus decisions. secondly, when making non-monetary recognition decisions, as compared to american managers, chinese managers placed more importance on employees’ relationship with managers and coworkers, thus giving higher ratings to employees who had better interpersonal relationships with the managers. in another study, hu, hsu, lee, and chu (2007) compared the reward allocation decisions of managers in taiwan and usa and found that the mean gap of the taiwanese managers’ bonus allocation for close affect subordinates and distant affect subordinates was larger than that of the u.s. managers, suggesting that taiwanese managers gave higher bonuses to subordinates with closer affective relationships, whereas, american managers gave higher bonuses to subordinates with higher task performance. in contrast to task performance, studies on managers’ perceptions of organizational citizenship behaviors suggest that ocbs are perceived as in-role behaviors in collectivistic cultures. for example, lam, hui, and law (1999) found that supervisors and employees from collectivistic cultures (japanese and hong kong) tended to view the ocb dimensions of courtesy and sportsmanship as required parts of their subordinates’ jobs, while their individualistic counterparts (americans and australians) did not. in addition, moorman and blakely (1995) found that individuals holding collectivistic values were more likely to perform ocbs than those holding individualistic values; these results were significant and remained robust even after controlling for procedural justice mishra & bost 849 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and common method variance. similarly, vandyne, vandewalle, kostova, latham, and cummings (2000) found that individual differences in collectivism predicted ocbs measured six months later, also suggesting that collectivistic individuals are more likely to perform ocbs. these findings imply that collectivistic supervisors may weigh citizenship behaviors more heavily because they may see them not as discretionary but as important behaviors necessary to complete work related tasks. in contrast to ocbs and task performance, very limited research has looked at the relative importance given to counterproductive behaviors in overall performance ratings in cultural contexts. in one study of managers across united states and canada, rotundo and sackett (2002) found that counterproductive behaviors were given equal weight as task performance in overall performance ratings by supervisors (β = .47 and β = -.47), whereas citizenship behaviors accounted for very little variance (β = .26). in a second study focused on counterproductive behaviors, rotundo and xie (2008) found that managers from china placed less weight on counterproductive performance as compared to task performance (β = -.43 and β = .65 respectively). more recently, mishra and roch (2017) found that as compared to raters with individualistic values, raters with collectivistic values gave less importance to task and cwbs, and more importance to ocbs when making overall performance decisions. one reason for these findings could be that since collectivistic individuals are focused on maintaining the harmony of the workgroups (jackson et al., 2006), they may be more likely to focus on positive behaviors and less likely to be critical of negative behaviors displayed by the workgroup members; hence giving less importance to cwbs than individualistic raters when making overall performance decisions. thus, based on the country level and individual level results described above, several conclusions can be drawn regarding the effects of individual differences in cultural values on performance evaluation process. firstly, because collectivists favor the goal of promoting group welfare (jackson et al., 2006), it may be possible that citizenship behaviors that are directed towards the benefit of others are perceived by collectivistic raters to be more important in making decisions of overall performance as compared to individualistic raters. furthermore, prior research suggests that in order to preserve their relationships, collectivistic individuals often choose not to be critical of others’ undesirable behaviors (bond, 1994); hence it may be possible that they may not give as high importance to cwbs as individualistic raters. on the contrary, because individualists emphasize personal outcomes and value competitiveness and achievement (triandis, 1993) when judging the performance of employees, the primary concern of managers in individualistic cultures may be on the accomplishment of performance related tasks and achievement of organizational performance goals (e.g., hu, hsu, lee, & chu, 2007; mishra & roch, 2013; rotundo & xie, 2008; zhou & martocchio, 2001). consequently, individualistic raters may be more likely to give higher importance to task and counterproductive performance behaviors when making judgments of overall performance. if indeed individualism and collectivism are responsible for cross-cultural differences observed in the importance given to different performance behaviors in these studies, the use of cultural-mindset priming should make these effects more salient. specifically, activation of interdependent self-construal should make collectivistic values more salient, evoking a context dependent thinking style. therefore, these raters would be more likely to consider contextual factors when evaluating overall performance of the ratees and may therefore place less importance on task performance than those primed with an independent self-construal. on the other hand, those raters primed with an independent self-construal may be less likely to focus on the workgroup context due to the activation of context independent thinking styles and may therefore place more importance on task performance behaviors as compared to unprimed raters. cultural priming and performance evaluation 850 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, by combining the research on cultural-mindset priming and the research indicating cultural differences in the importance given to different performance behaviors, the following hypothesis is proposed: hypothesis: when making judgments of overall employee performance, as compared to raters primed with an independent self-construal, raters primed with an interdependent self-construal will 1a) give higher weights to ocbs 1b) lower weights to cwbs 1c) lower weights to task performance behaviors. methods participants participants were 174 undergraduate students from a suburban university located in the northeastern region of the united states who received 1 research credit for participation in the study. sixty-three percent were women. majority of the participants were caucasian (67.3%), 11% were african american, 8.3% were asian american, and 3.3% identified themselves as belonging to the other ethnicity. most participants (93.7%) were between the ages of 18-22 years; 63% reported having performance appraisal experience. measures employee performance profiles we adapted nine customer service employee profiles and associated expert ratings of these profiles from mishra and roch (2017) for the purpose of this study. each profile included a description of employees’ task, citizenship and counterproductive behaviors at work, even though they were not labeled as such for the participants. each profile was independent of the others and consisted of two task performance behaviors, two citizenship performance behaviors, and two counterproductive performance behaviors, for a total of nine independent behavioral profiles of customer service representatives. presentation of performance behaviors was counterbalanced across the profiles (see sample profile in the appendix). priming tasks the “pronoun circling task” developed by gardner, gabriel, and lee (1999) was used in the current study. participants were provided with a short paragraph about a trip to the beach (adapted from oyserman, sorensen, reber, & chen, 2009) and asked to circle the pronouns as they read through the paragraph. in the independent prime condition, participants were asked to circle singular pronouns such as “i”, “me”, “my” etc. in the interdependent prime condition, participants were asked to circle plural pronouns such as “we”, “they”, “us” etc. self-construal measures for manipulation check in each priming condition, pre and post priming self-construal orientations were measured using singelis (1994) independent (cronbach α = .81) and interdependent self-construal measures (cronbach α = .77). the independent self-construal measure is comprised of 15 items. an example item is “i am comfortable with being singled out for praise or rewards.” the interdependent self-construal measure is comprised of 15 items. an example item is “my happiness depends on the happiness of those around me.” mishra & bost 851 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall performance rating participants rated the overall level of performance of each of the nine employees using a seven-point likert scale, anchored from 1 = low overall performance to 7 = high overall performance. demographic characteristics participants were asked to report their age, gender, ethnicity, major, year in school, work hours, and previous performance rating experience. procedure the study was conducted in a lab setting. after reading and signing the consent form, participants first completed a questionnaire that included measures of baseline self-construal that were embedded within other measures of individual differences not related to this study. they were then randomly assigned to one of the two priming conditions. in the independent prime condition, participants were asked to circle singular pronouns such as “i”, “me”, “my” etc. in the interdependent prime condition, participants were asked to circle plural pronouns such as “we”, “they”, “us” etc. following the priming task, each participant was asked to assume the role of a store manager and asked to review performance incidents in the last six months of nine customer service employees working in their store. upon review of each profile, they were asked to provide an overall performance rating to each employee. the presentation order of profiles was rotated across participants. participants then completed a post priming self-construal measure and a demographic questionnaire. the study sessions lasted approximately 45 minutes. results table 1 provides the means, standard deviations and inter-correlations among study variables. manipulation check paired sample t-tests on pre-post scores on self-construal measures were conducted. as expected, results indicated an increase in the independent self-concept after priming, md = .11, sd = .20, t(86) = 5.25, p < .001, for independent prime condition and an increase in interdependent self-concept, md = .08, sd = .20, t(86) = 3.24, p < .01, in the interdependent prime condition. computation of relative regression weights in order to determine the relative importance given by each rater to each of the performance behaviors (task, ocb and cwb) when making an overall performance rating decision, we first computed relative regression weights (johnson, 2000) for each rater. for this purpose, individual regression analyses were conducted for each rater, with mean expert ratings of task, ocb and cwbs for each profile as predictors and overall performance ratings across the nine profiles given by the rater as the dependent variable. this resulted in an overall estimate of relative regression weights placed by each rater on each of the performance behaviors when making an overall performance rating decision. these relative regression weights were then used in the primary analyses described below. cultural priming and performance evaluation 852 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 m ea ns , s ta nd ar d d ev ia tio ns a nd in te r-c or re la tio ns a m on g s tu dy v ar ia bl es b y p rim in g c on di tio n va ria bl e m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. in de pe nd en ce t 1 5. 18 a 0. 73 (.7 7) .9 3* * .0 2 .0 2 -.0 5 .0 9 .0 8 .0 4 .0 1 -.2 2* -.0 4 -.1 0 -.1 3 2. in de pe nd en ce t 2 5. 29 b 0. 75 .9 6* * (.8 1) .1 2 .1 5 -.0 7 .0 7 .0 6 -.0 5 -.0 5 -.2 5* -.0 7 -.1 7 -.2 1 3. in te rd ep en de nc e t1 4. 83 c 0. 61 .1 5 .1 2 (.7 3) .9 4* * -.0 3 -.0 3 -.1 6 -.0 8 -.0 5 -.1 0 -.1 2 -.1 7 -.1 8 4. in te rd ep en de nc e t2 4. 91 d 0. 68 .1 9 .1 7 .9 5* * (.7 6) -.1 0 -.0 2 -.1 1 -.0 9 -.0 1 -.1 7 -.1 6 -.2 1 -.2 4* 5. h a 1 2. 40 1. 05 -.0 6 -.1 0 -.1 4 -.1 5 – .1 4 .1 9 .2 9* * .3 9* * .3 5* * .2 6* .3 5* * .3 6* * 6. t a 1 4. 94 0. 97 .0 6 .0 4 .0 6 .1 0 .0 3 – .5 2* * .0 8 .1 9 .1 0 -.0 8 .2 4* .1 1 7. a l1 3. 49 1. 09 -.1 9 -.1 5 -.0 9 -.0 6 .1 0 .2 6* – .1 5 .1 2 .0 8 -.0 1 .1 6 .0 7 8. c h 1 4. 76 1. 19 .0 8 .0 7 -.1 2 -.0 9 .2 0 .2 8* * .0 1 – .6 2* * .4 0* * .4 4* * .4 1* * .4 6* * 9. d e 1 5. 00 1. 18 .1 1 .0 8 -.1 2 -.1 1 .3 4* * .3 5* * .1 9 .5 0* * – .4 9* * .3 7* * .3 0* * .4 5* * 10 . j e 1 4. 76 1. 18 -.0 6 -.0 6 -.0 8 -.1 0 .1 3 .1 1 .3 6* * .1 2 .4 0* * – .4 9* * .4 4* * .3 8* * 11 . j o 1 3. 51 1. 23 .0 3 .0 6 -.1 6 -.1 0 .2 7* .2 3* .1 4 .5 5* * .3 0* * .1 7 – .3 0* * .5 6* * 12 . r e 1 2. 80 1. 13 .1 0 .0 8 .0 8 .1 0 .3 5* * .2 3* .2 5* .2 4* .3 8* * .4 4* * .3 5* * – .3 3* * 13 . j a 1 4. 46 1. 07 .0 5 .0 5 .1 1 .1 6 .1 6 .2 6* .1 9 .3 4* * .4 3* * .2 5* .1 6 .3 5* * – n ot e. h a 1, t a 1, a l1 , c h 1, d e 1, j e 1, j o 1, r e 1, j a 1 o ve ra ll pe rfo rm an ce ra tin g gi ve n to n in e pe rfo rm an ce p ro fil es re sp ec tiv el y. v al ue s on th e to p di ag on al a re fo r p ar tic ip an ts p rim ed w ith in te rd ep en de nt (c ol le ct iv is tic ) m in ds et a nd v al ue s on th e bo tto m o f t he d ia go na l a re fo r p ar tic ip an ts p rim ed w ith in de pe nd en t ( in di vi du al is tic ) m in ds et . a, b m ea n be fo re a nd a fte r r at in gs o f i nd ep en de nt s el f-c on st ru al in in de pe nd en t p rim e co nd iti on . c, d m ea n be fo re a nd a fte r r at in gs o f i nt er de pe nd en t s el f-c on st ru al in in te rd ep en de nt p rim e co nd iti on . *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. * ** p < .0 01 . mishra & bost 853 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ priming effects on weights placed on performance behaviors a manova with relative regression weights placed on task, citizenship and counterproductive behaviors for each rater as the dependent variables and priming condition as the between subject factor was conducted. participants’ performance appraisal experience and presentation order of profiles were entered as covariates in the analysis. results indicated a significant multivariate main effect of priming condition on weights placed on task, citizenship and counterproductive performance behaviors (wilks lambda = .93, (f(3, 168) = 4.10, p < .01, partial η2 = .07). performance appraisal experience (wilks lambda = .97, (f(3, 168) = 1.72, n.s.) and presentation order of profiles (wilks lambda = .98, (f(3, 168) = .74, n.s.) did not have any significant effect on relative weights placed on performance behaviors. follow up analysis indicated a significant univariate effect of priming condition on weights placed on citizenship performance behaviors (f(1, 170) = 6.71, p < .05, partial η2 = .04). as compared to raters primed with an independent mindset (m = .10, sd = .11), raters primed with interdependent mindset placed higher weights (m = .15, sd = .14) on citizenship performance behaviors when assigning overall performance ratings, thus hypothesis 1a was supported. a significant univariate effect of priming condition on weights placed on counterproductive performance behaviors (f(1, 179) = 9.54, p < .01, partial η2 = .05) was also obtained. as compared to raters primed with an interdependent mindset (m = .35, sd = .20), raters primed with independent mindset placed higher weights (m = .45, sd = .22) on counterproductive performance behaviors when assigning overall performance ratings, thus hypothesis 1b was also supported. lastly, no significant univariate effect of priming condition on weights placed on task performance behaviors (f(1, 179) = .11, n.s). was found. thus, hypothesis 1c predicting that raters primed with an independent mindset will place more weight on task performance behaviors than raters primed with interdependence was not supported. a comparison of relative weights placed on all three types of job performance behaviors across the two priming conditions is presented in figure 1. figure 1. relative regression weights placed on performance behaviors by priming condition. cultural priming and performance evaluation 854 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the results show that the importance placed on different types of performance behaviors when making overall performance judgments may depend on the situation, i.e. relative importance given to performance behaviors may differ depending on whether the situation activates an individualistic (independent) or a collectivistic (interdependent) mindset. not only has previous research tended to assume that cultural values assessed on the country level translate to the individual rater but also, even more importantly, no research has simultaneously investigated differences in relative importance given to task, ocb and cwbs in judgments of overall performance from a cultural-mindset or state perspective. in accordance with the semantic-procedural interface model (kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001), we were able to demonstrate that priming individuals with independent vs. interdependent mindset influences their cognitive processing style, consequently influencing their judgments of overall job performance in a performance appraisal context. our findings therefore shed some light on “why” there are differences observed in the evaluation of job performance behaviors by managers with individualistic or collectivistic values as suggested by prior research (e.g., mishra & roch, 2017). these results add to the performance appraisal literature in two ways: a) in part, our study replicates the results observed at the cultural level, which has indicated cross-cultural differences in managers’ ratings of contextual performance behaviors when it comes to making decisions related to employee bonus, or compensation; b) our results demonstrate that situational characteristics may make the effects of cultural values on behavioral outcomes more salient, thus presenting an alternative method for researchers and practitioners interested in evaluating the effects of cultural values on workplace behaviors. specifically, our results indicate that in comparison to raters primed with independent (individualistic) mindset, raters primed with an interdependent (collectivistic) mindset gave significantly higher weights to citizenship behaviors when making judgments of overall performance. these findings are in accordance with previous research on mindset priming (kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001), which has shown that priming individuals with a collectivistic mindset increases their context-dependency in different types of social situations. prior research has shown that activation of an interdependent self-construal induces context dependent information processing, i.e. the tendency to process stimuli while paying attention to their relations to the entire field (choi, connor, wason, & kahan, 2016; kühnen, hannover, & schubert, 2001; kühnen & oyserman, 2002). the present study extends this phenomenon to the organizational context by demonstrating that increasing accessibility to a context dependent thinking style increases raters’ sensitivity to contextual behaviors and most likely that is why they tend to place higher weights on ocbs when making overall performance judgments. because organizational citizenship behaviors are not directly related to job performance but are related to the broader organizational context, it may be that when individuals were primed with an interdependent mindset it may have resulted in an increased focus on contextual performance behaviors resulting in higher weights placed on ocbs when assigning an overall performance rating as compared to those primed with an independent mindset. this suggests that when the characteristics of the situation require collective functioning of the group and interdependence among group members, ocbs may become more salient to the raters. this finding has implications for the practice of performance appraisal in organizations. for instance, it may be possible that in a team-based setting, where individual rewards and performance are tied to team performance, managers may perceive behaviors directed towards improvement of group performance more positively. hence, they would be more likely to reward and give higher importance to ocbs when making judgments of overall performance. mishra & bost 855 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ secondly, results indicate that raters primed with an interdependent mindset gave significantly lower weights to cwbs when making judgments of overall performance as compared to those primed with an independent mindset. previous research has shown that saving face for oneself and that of others is so deeply rooted in collectivistic individuals that they often choose not to be critical of others’ undesirable behaviors (bond, 1994); hence it may be that activation of a context dependent mindset may have increased the focus of the raters on positive behaviors and consequently they may have placed less importance on negative behaviors. on the contrary, given that individualists are more likely to engage in behaviors that benefit themselves (triandis, 1993), it may be that when raters were primed with an independent mindset they were more likely to focus on behaviors that were directly related to the achievement of performance goals. because cwbs inhibit the attainment of task performance, these behaviors may have been given significantly higher weights by raters primed with an independent mindset. finally, our findings indicate that raters in both priming conditions gave similar weights to task performance behaviors when making judgments of overall performance. one reason for these findings could be that because task performance is more of an objective indicator of one’s performance on a job as compared to citizenship or counterproductive performance, raters may have given these behaviors similar importance in ratings of overall job performance irrespective of how they were primed. taken together, these findings are an initial step in helping us understand the role of the cultural context on evaluation of performance behaviors, however, further replication using managerial samples is necessary to advance the literature in the field. study limitations one of the limitations of the present study was that this study utilized a paper people approach to investigate the effects of self-construal priming on weights placed on job performance behaviors, which has been criticized for its lack of applicability in field settings (murphy, herr, lockhart, & maguire, 1986). however, in a comparison of paper people vs. behavioral observation studies, murphy, herr, lockhart, and maguire (1986) found that the difference in these samples is of little practical importance. thus, although there is a need for replication of this study using either direct observation or actual employee data, the use of paper people should not be a topic of significant concern. another potential limitation of this study is that it was conducted in a laboratory with undergraduate student participants. it can be argued that practicing managers would have a better understanding of the position and the job itself and hence would provide ratings that are different from those given by undergraduate students. however, much research in the field of organizational behavior has suggested that student participants in the lab provide very similar and sometimes identical results to managerial field samples (e.g., dipboye, 1990). however, as with any research study, replication is needed. directions for future research the results of the current study provide several directions for future research. one limitation of this study was that it did not manipulate the purpose of appraisal. prior research has shown that individual differences in rating behaviors are likely to be observed as a function of the purpose of appraisal (denisi & williams, 1988). thus, it may be possible that activation of culture specific mindset may have different effects on overall performance ratings and relative weights placed on job performance behaviors as a function of appraisal purpose. for instance, raters primed with an individualistic mindset may give significantly higher weights to counterproductive work behaviors and task performance behaviors when the purpose of appraisal is to promote employees, cultural priming and performance evaluation 856 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ whereas raters primed with a collectivistic mindset may give more importance to citizenship performance behaviors as they prefer to reward those who contribute towards group well-being. secondly, the current study only focused on individualism/collectivism as a source of cultural value differences among raters. there are several other value dimensions such as power distance, long-term orientation vs. short-term orientation, masculinity vs. femininity etc. (hofstede, 2001), which were not considered in the current study. future research should look at the effects of other cultural mindsets on raters’ judgment policies to give a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of culture on performance judgments. for instance, there is some indication in the literature that in cultures characterized by high power distance, unequal distribution of power is preferred as a result of which managerial decisions are autocratic in nature and employee participation is discouraged (mendonca & kanungo, 1996). thus, individuals primed with high power distance may be more direct and forthright during the performance appraisal process and may be excessively concerned with task performance behaviors when making judgments of overall performance. these differences in managerial behavior can influence the practice of performance appraisal as well. practical implications our findings indicate that situational characteristics may influence the extent to which raters give weights to specific performance behaviors when determining overall performance ratings. one implication of these findings could be to develop rater training programs that are directed towards creating a common frame of reference for raters when evaluating performance behaviors, thus eliminating situational biases when it comes to evaluating performance dimensions (roch, woehr, mishra, & kieszczynska, 2012). secondly, understanding how cultural values influence rating behavior may help us to better understand the influence of individual differences, such as motivation, personality, etc. on performance ratings in a specific cultural context. for example, understanding how managers’ cultural values influence ratings may give upper management a better perspective of the ratings and allow for higher quality decisions among subordinates of different managers. thirdly, these findings have implications for the design of employee recognition programs. since activating a collectivistic mindset increases preference for ocbs, organizations can create reward programs such that employees exhibiting ocbs in team situations are rewarded thus increasing overall team performance in the long run. in summary, these results add to the performance appraisal research literature by demonstrating that in addition to the direct trait like effects of cultural values (i.e. measurement of individualism and collectivism) on overall performance ratings, there are possible state like effects of cultural values on relative weighting of performance behaviors as well, i.e. situational characteristics may make the effects of cultural values more salient. these findings may help explain why there are discrepancies in managerial performance ratings of the same dimensions and the resulting unhappiness from the performance appraisal process. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. mishra & bost 857 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adler, s., campion, m., colquitt, a., grubb, a., murphy, k., ollander-krane, r., & pulakos, e. d. 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(adapted from mishra & roch, 2017). about the authors vipanchi mishra is an assistant professor of industrial-organizational psychology at west chester university of pennsylvania, pa. she received her ph.d. from the university at albany, state university of new york, in 2012. her current research interests include cultural values, performance appraisal, effects of mindfulness training on workplace behaviors, and counterproductive work behaviors. mishra & bost 861 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 https://www.psychopen.eu/ marcus bost jr. is a human capital consultant at deloitte. he received his m.a. in industrial-organizational psychology from west chester university of pennsylvania in 2017. his current research interests include performance management, leadership and organizational development practices. cultural priming and performance evaluation 862 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 846–862 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1617 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ cultural priming and performance evaluation (introduction) effects of cultural mindset priming on cognition cultural values, priming and evaluation of job performance behaviors methods participants measures procedure results manipulation check computation of relative regression weights priming effects on weights placed on performance behaviors discussion study limitations directions for future research practical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: employee performance evaluation about the authors therapists’ experiences in their work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia: a literature review literature reviews therapists’ experiences in their work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia: a literature review maria hardeberg bach* a, carolin demuth b [a] department of psychology, southern university of denmark, odense, denmark. [b] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract this article presents a review of the literature that pertains to the experiences of therapists who work directly with child sex offenders and/or people with pedophilia. we draw together results from studies that attempted to identify how therapists experience such work and how they were personally impacted by it. usually, such studies are embedded within one of the following theoretical frameworks: secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization and burnout. most literature on the topic has therefore sought to determine to what extent and why, work-related stress responses may occur among these therapists. the aim of this paper is therefore to provide insight into this, arguably, important line of research, while evaluating the current knowledge as well as providing recommendations for future research efforts. keywords: sex-offenders, pedophilia, treatment providers, therapists, experience, personal impact, work-related stress, secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatization, compassion fatigue, burnout europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 received: 2017-07-12. accepted: 2017-12-28. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: university of southern denmark, department of psychology, the research group on interpersonal violence (thrive), campusvej 55, dk-5230 odense, denmark. e-mail: mhbach@health.sdu.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. since the 1980s, awareness and recognition of the problems related to the sexual abuse of children has grown drastically. while previously overlooked, it now commands the attention of professionals and lay communities alike as being a major societal issue (taylor & quayle, 2003). although the prevalence of child sexual abuse has been difficult to determine, it was reported in a recent meta-analysis, which included 32 international studies, conducted between 2002 and 2009, that about 13% of girls and 6% of boys have experienced sexual abuse during their childhood (barth, bermetz, heim, trelle, & tonia, 2013). as such, child sexual abuse is considered a prevalent, worldwide phenomenon. furthermore, it is well known that such instances can be harmful to children. studies on the long-term effects of child sexual abuse have, for example, consistently found that mental health problems are more prevalent among adults that experienced sexual abuse as children compared to those who did not (o’leary, coohey, & easton, 2010). in response to the public’s growing concern stemming from the aforementioned issues, criminal justice policies have expanded in an attempt to decrease the number of sexual offences against children. the psychological europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ treatment of sex offenders and people with pedophilia is thought to be an essential part of such prevention strategies (jahnke, philipp, & hoyer, 2015). in many countries, people who have been found guilty of committing a sexual offence against a child are therefore obliged by law to meet with a psychologist (chudzik & aschieri, 2013). in some countries, counseling options for people with pedophilia, who have not necessarily transgressed against a child, exist as well. the large german prevention project, “dunkelfeld”, launched in 2004, is an example hereof (cantor, 2014, p. 226). at this point, it is clear that the therapeutic work with people who are sexually attracted to children is thought to be an important line of work that employs an increasing amount of professional personnel. however, not much is known about what it is like to work with this client group, as most of the emerging research on the topic has focused on “the victim” or “the perpetrator”, while less attention has been brought to the role of “the healer”. furthermore, research that did focus on sex offender treatment tended to center on technique factors and its effectiveness, rather than the process of conducting such therapy (friedrich & leiper, 2006; sandhu & rose, 2012). method in the following, we draw together results from those studies that investigate how therapists personally experience the process of working with these clients. by gaining a clearer understanding of the challenges and rewards in this field, appropriate support can be given to treatment providers, ultimately strengthening the effect of psychological intervention for people who may commit sexual offences. to this end, we reviewed the existing literature on the topic in december of 2017 by consulting psycinfo in a systematic manner (boell & cecezkecmanovic, 2010). we searched for the following terms: pedophil* or sexual abuse, and different forms of the term therapist* (such as psychologist*). we only included publications available in english. additional, specific publications were also identified using different strategies like “snow-balling” (hart, 1998/2006) through several databases such as google scholar. publications that gave insight to one of the following questions where included, while excluding those that strictly focused on approaches to sex offender treatment and its effectiveness. • how is work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia experienced by the treatment provider? • what kind of impact can this type of work have on therapists’ psychological well-being? • what explanatory factors have been provided in the literature thus far? our search yielded 18 empirical studies, relevant to these questions. an overview of these studies is provided in the appendix (see table a.1). the terms “therapist”, “sex offender”, and “pedophile” were used as follows: “therapists” refers to professional personnel from different backgrounds that provide treatment to the aforementioned clientele. while the term “child sexual abuse” is difficult to define (haugaard, 2000), we understand the term as referring to any form of sexual contact between an adult and a minor. a “sex offender”, is therefore a perpetrator of a sexual offence against another person, in this review, almost exclusively those against children. the term “pedophilia”, on the other hand, refers to someone who is sexually attracted to children, regardless if that attraction is acted upon or not (cantor, 2014). hardeberg bach & demuth 499 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results reported experiences and effects among therapists working with sex offenders and people with pedophilia stress responses to interpersonally demanding work the experience of traumatic stress has historically been associated with those individuals who have been the primary victims of traumatic events. more recently, however, there has been a growing realization that individuals who have been indirectly exposed to traumatic events may suffer as well (ennis & horne, 2003). some occupations, such as that of the therapist, may entail continued exposure to other’s recollections of traumatic incidents. in turn, there may be a “cost to caring” (hatcher & noakes, 2010). while no consistent term is currently available for these effects, four theoretical constructs have primarily been used to measure responses to (interpersonally demanding) work: secondary traumatic stress (figley, 1995), compassion fatigue (figley, 1995), vicarious traumatization (mccann & pearlman, 1990) and burnout (maslach, 1982). all four share significant similarities but have evolved from different theoretical frameworks, resulting in some variations (jenkins, mitchell, baird, whitfield, & meyer, 2011). whereas the concept of burnout is thought to capture stress reactions to any work environment, the three remaining constructs were originally developed to assess therapists working with trauma survivors specifically (jenkins et al., 2011). over time, however, all constructs have been used on a variety of populations (such as policemen, nurses, and so forth), but were not used to assess sex offender therapists, specifically, before the early 1990s (crabtree, 2002). early contributions farrenkopf (1992) conducted what is thought to be the first of these studies. drawing on the secondary traumatic stress literature, he developed a questionnaire to assess the effects therapists faced from working with sex offenders. he found that more than half of the 24 therapists that participated in his study reported a negative shift in their perspective, as a result of working therapeutically with sex offenders. in more detail, participants experienced more anger and frustration, diminished hopes and expectations, and greater cynicism in their work. other effects, such as suspicion and “emotional hardening”, occurred as well, not only with clients but also beyond the consulting room. these results sparked an interest in this group of therapists. soon after his study was published, a handful of studies, using methods similar to that in farrenkopf’s study, were conducted. while the results of these studies were somewhat mixed (see clarke and roger, 2002 for a full review of these studies), farrenkopf’s study remains one of the most frequently cited studies within this field, despite the small sample (n = 24). in fact, most literature that has dealt with sex offender therapists has portrayed this line of work as mentally, physically, and emotionally draining (chassman, kottler, & madison, 2010; scheela, 2001). contemporary contributions in 2004 way, van-deusen, martin, applegate, and jandle conducted a study, which supported the hypothesis that sex offender treatment providers may be negatively impacted by their work. they found that 52% of their sample of 347 therapists, working with sex offenders and/or victims, scored within the clinical range on the impacts of events scale. nevertheless, the response rate for this study was low (23%), making it possible to questions the reliability of its results. sabin-farrell and turpin (2003), for instance, highlight that those who feel therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 500 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negatively impacted by their work could be more likely to participate in such studies, as they may find them useful and relevant. based on their interpretive phenomenological analysis, friedrich and leiper (2006) also concluded that sex offender treatment providers experience a considerable amount of negative feelings, due to their work. in 2012, sandhu, rose, rostill-brookes, and thrift also conducted a study using interpretive phenomenological analysis, in which similar results were obtained. it is, however, unclear to what extent positive experiences occurred as well. although the authors stated that the participants were asked about positive aspects of work, no information hereof was included in their results. several authors have, however, reported either low levels of stress and/or a variety of positive experiences among sex offender therapists (carmel & friedlander, 2009; elias & haj-yahia, 2016; ennis & horne, 2003; hatcher & noakes, 2010; moore, 2016; scheela, 2001; shelby, stoddart, & taylor, 2001). in example, carmel and friedlander (2009) obtained low mean scores on stress-related measures, yet high levels of compassion satisfaction, indicating that the 106 therapists, who returned their questionnaire, generally enjoy their work. scheela’s interview-study from 2001 generated similar results. according to her analysis via the constant comparison method, the participants felt like it was exciting to work in what was described as a new, challenging field. interestingly, such findings are, however, seemingly overlooked in most of the literature in this field. whether or not the majority of sex offender therapists, in fact, experience their work as mainly negative is therefore uncertain. finally, some studies of relevance to this issue have been inconclusive, reporting either mixed results or a lack of cut-off scores, making it difficult to evaluate the results (adams, 2017; crabtree, 2002; steed & bicknell, 2001; thorpe, righthand, & kubik, 2001). explaining factors while farrenkopf (1992) did not hypothesize about what, specifically, leads to negative impact among therapists, other researchers have (moulden & firestone, 2007). perhaps because of the dominant discourse within the literature (that sex offender therapy is strenuous work), most research efforts to date have sought to either locate stress-related symptoms within therapists or explain why they might occur. the following sections will examine these implicated factors, which can be organized into three explanatory categories: client-focused, therapist-focused and organizational-focused explanations (moulden & firestone, 2007). client-focused explanations the content of work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia is considered by many to be central to what has been referred to as the “high incidence of reported psychological damage” among treatment providers (clarke & roger, 2002, p. 84). from this perspective, negative impact should be seen as a consequence of interacting with the, supposedly, unique characteristics of the client group. according to pais (2002), unlike motivated clients who seek therapy voluntarily, sex offenders often try to deny, rationalize, and minimize their problems and are resistant to change. working with this combination of factors can easily lead to what is commonly identified as ‘burnout’ in clinicians (p. 90). hardeberg bach & demuth 501 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in other words, these clients are perceived to be especially difficult to work with, due to such behavior. categories like “sex offenders” may, however, be too heterogeneous to discuss as a single entity (goldsteindwyer, 2014). these explanations could therefore lead to unjustified generalizations. furthermore, it seems to be a common belief that sex offenders are especially difficult to successfully rehabilitate, thereby, potentially, explaining negative responses among treatment providers. defining “difficult”, “rehabilitation” and “success” in this context is, however, not an easy task (chudzik & aschieri, 2013). although recidivism rates are not true offence rates, as many instances remain unreported, they could still provide insight into this issue. while recidivism rates vary be study (e.g. as a result of measurement variation), sex offenders have higher rates of general recidivism than sexual recidivism (hanson & morton-bourgon, 2004). however, they have lower rates of general recidivism compared to non-sex offenders (langan, schmitt, & durose, 2003). as such, sex offenders may be easier to successfully rehabilitate than non-sex offenders. in addition, treated sex offenders have lower rates of any recidivism compared to untreated sex offenders, indicating that treatment is, in fact, successful in many cases (hanson, bourgon, helmus, & hodgson, 2009). consequently, difficulties in relation to rehabilitation, alone, cannot account for therapists’ distress. that many argue that sex offender therapy is difficult because of factors within the client, as opposed to the therapist, is, however, unsurprising. according to all of the introduced theoretical constructs, therapists’ distress should be seen as a reaction to something external to the therapist (clarke & roger, 2007). what is surprising, on the other hand, is that none of the quantitative studies on this topic explicitly examined the inferred relationship between offender characteristics and therapists’ distress (moulden & firestone, 2007). it is therefore unclear if the assumed problem stems mainly from the client’s characteristics, exposure to, or knowledge about, sexual offences against children, a mixture of these, or something else entirely. studies using qualitative methodologies did, however, provide insight into this. elias and haj-yahia (2016), who argued that existing research has merely sought to describe the consequences of work with sex offender, while neglecting how therapists perceive and cope with them, made the latter the aim of their research. according to one participant, negative impact was perceived to be a consequence of being confronted with their clients’ offences: “the emotions i carry with me are difficult. i think this intensive exposure to sexual deviance scars the psyche” (p. 10). this is in line with the argument put forth by kottler and markos (1997), claiming that, one of the most unique challenges for therapists is working with pedophiles. because of the reprehensible nature of the predatory behavior towards children, therapists need to be especially aware of how working with this type of offender will personally affect them” (p. 74). therapist-focused explanations many “moderating factors” within therapists have, however, been theorized. yet, few studies incorporated these factors into their research. the role of treatment providers’ individual differences, in relation to the experience of work-related stress, has therefore not been studied widely or systematically (sandhu & rose, 2012). in the following section, we discuss research that includes such therapist-focused explanations. demographic variables — studies that included therapist-factors tended to focus on demographic variables, such as age or gender, which were correlated with test-scores on questionnaires (crabtree, 2002; steed & bicknell, 2001). no clear patterns have emerged so far. generally, such studies may provide basis for further research but their utility in terms of explaining individual differences appear to be low. therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 502 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ coping mechanisms — some authors argue that the use of either positive or negative coping-mechanisms may mediate or moderate the effects of the work-content. according to wallace, lee, and lee (2010), who administered a questionnaire to 232 “abuse-specific counselors”, the use of “active” coping strategies were linked to lower levels of burnout. similarly, thorpe, righthand, and kubik (2001), demonstrated that “positive coping mechanisms” were linked to improved work performance. these results were based on the administration of a questionnaire, which is thought to capture coping strategies and burnout potential, among 17 participants. moreover, sandhu et al. (2012) suggested that staff used humor and various “emotional defenses” to deal with a range of negative emotions resulting from working with sex offenders. according to one participant, distress was managed by focusing on the social value of her efforts, actually hearing what they’re saying and how they’ve actually offended against a child or how they’ve managed to manipulate and rape a victim… is quite distressing and quite upsetting. but, you know you’re there to do a job and, and to help rehabilitate them so there are no more victims, that’s important” (pp. 300-301). therapists’ personal abuse histories — some research, which included therapist-factors, focused on therapists’ personal abuse histories. it has been hypothesized, that a large proportion of therapists who chose to work with sex offenders, were, in fact, abused as children, which in turn could account for the presumed high levels of work related stress among sex offender therapists (moulden & firestone, 2007). crabtree (2002) sought to test this hypothesis by correlating therapists’ reported childhood abuse incidences with test-scores on one of the abovementioned constructs. results from this study, indicated that therapist with a personal abuse history showed more disruptions, compared to those who did not have a history of personal abuse. furthermore, 75% of the 252 sex offender therapists, who returned a questionnaire by way et al. (2004), indicated that they had experienced some form of child abuse. based on these results, it appears that a large proportion of sex offender therapists are, indeed, victims of abuse. however, no research to date has compared the rates of child abuse across specializations, making it difficult to draw any number of conclusions (moulden & firestone, 2007). interestingly, this topic also surfaced in a grounded theory study conducted by chassman, kottler, and madison (2010). according to the therapists, who participated in the study and had experienced some form of abuse, such events had provided them with a particular lens, through which their clients were viewed. at times, this allowed them to see their clients with greater clarity. sometimes, however, it blurred their vision. based on these accounts, it may be the case that a personal history of abuse will affect how such clients are experienced – yet not necessarily in a negative direction. while such hypotheses are interesting, as it is not inferred that dealing with sex offenders is necessarily traumatic in itself, there is currently not enough evidence to draw firm conclusions. more research, focused on therapists’ personal abuse history, is therefore warranted. negative attitudes — therapists’ conceptions about this client group may well influence how work with them is experienced. while numerous studies have focused on therapists’ attitudes towards this population (adams hardeberg bach & demuth 503 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & betz, 1993; elias & haj-yahia, 2016; engle, mcfalls, & gallagher, 2007; gore-felton, arnow, koopman, thoresen, & spiegel, 1999; fortney, baker, & levenson; 2009; fuselier, durham, & wurtele, 2002; harnett, 1997; jahnke et al., 2015; mellor & deering, 2010; reidy & hochstadt, 1993), only one study focused directly on attitudes in relation to experience. elias and haj-yahia (2016), who conducted an interview-study that was analyzed via grounded theory, illustrated that therapists’ perceptions about sex offenders personally affected them in their work. according to one participant, “a sex offender is a damaged person. he didn’t start out that way” (p. 1160). as such, the participant was able to empathize with her clients, driving therapy forward. previously, it was noted that an increasing amount of therapists work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia. based on the following results, however, it would seem that, overall, few therapists chose this line of work, perhaps due to negative attitudes towards these types of clients. no more than 4,7% of the 86 german therapists that participated in a survey conducted by stiels-glenn (2010) indicated that they were willing to accept people with pedophilia for treatment. furthermore, only 3,5% indicated that they would work with child sex offenders. almost half of the participants that specified why they would not provide treatment for this group explained that such choices had been made due to negative feelings or experiences concerning these types of clients. the remaining half stated that they did not have enough knowledge about this client group to conduct treatment competently. lack of support — some therapists may decline such clients in order to prevent judgment from others in their community. results from the previously introduced study by scheela (2001), for example, suggested that sex offender therapists that spoke in opposition to the dominating, negative societal attitudes towards this population were viewed as the enemy as well. some therapists, who chose to work with these populations, may therefore feel uncomfortable sharing what they do for a living with others, in fear of being misunderstood (kottler & markos, 1997). for these reasons, among others, collegial support among sex offender therapists is thought to be an important moderator of the effects of such work (clarke & roger, 2002). value conflict — in order to conduct successful sex offender therapy many, potentially conflicting, demands require careful consideration. since therapy with these populations is often court ordered, a frequently asked question is, for example, how to define clear boundaries between therapy and punishment (chudzik & aschieri, 2013). it can therefore be assumed that many therapists are faced with a dilemma when considering to whom they owe their loyalty – society or the offender?i another widely debated question concerns which approaches to sex offender treatment are the most effective and ethical. this relates, for instance, to what kind of stance therapists should take towards such clients. one school of treatment specialists contended that the first step in treatment should be to break denial and obtain disclosure by adopting a “confrontational approach” towards clients (nori, 1992). in the 1990s this was the standard procedure in most sex offender treatment groups (nori, 1992). recommended therapeutic measures included various kinds of aversion therapy (priest & smith, 1992), for example, by pairing an arousing image with electrical shock (quinsey, 1973). drug therapy or “chemical castration”, which is still widely used in some countries but may entail intolerable side effects, is also an available tool (see panesar, allard, pai, & valachova (2011) for a detailed description hereof). castration has also been used in extreme cases (nori, 1992). although these strategies have been widely criticized (sandhu & rose, 2012), discussions are still ongoing. therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 504 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the abovementioned examples are included in this review because they highlight unique ethical dilemmas inherent in this line of work. while it is outside the scope of this review to discuss these questions in detail, we argue that such ambiguity may prove to be relevant in explaining potential negative effects from working with sex offenders, as such dilemmas may be strenuous to cope with. however, no researchers have, to our knowledge, focused on this potential relationship. additional research that includes ethical aspects of these therapists’ work is therefore necessary. organizational-focused explanations some researchers investigated more general aspects of sex offender therapists’ work, such as their caseload, which was found to be the only significant predictor of burnout in a questionnaire study by adams (2017). similarly, shelby, stoddart, and taylor (2001) identified the setting to be the only significant predictor of burnout in their study. in more detail, providing therapy for sex offenders in secure settings (such as prisons) was associated with greater stress among the 86 therapists, who participated in their study. this may be because secure facilities usually house sex offenders that are thought to be more dangerous. consequentially, therapists that provide therapy for this group of clients may feel unsafe in doing their work. these findings suggested that the work setting could be the most powerful moderator, with regards to work-related stress among sex offender therapists. as such, we should expect sex offender therapists to be exposed to general work-related stressors common across occupations. in other words, identified stress symptoms among sex offender may not (only) result from working with sex offenders. in some cases, then, negative impact may be better explained by drawing on theory from general work psychology. discussion in this review, we aimed at outlining the existing literature concerning sex offender therapists’ experiences and the effects of this line of work on these. these studies were, however, not without theoretical and methodological limitations, some of which will be assessed in more detail in this section. sampling bias? many research contributions within this field treated “sex offender therapists” as a homogenous group. however, therapists working with sex offenders come from a variety of educational backgrounds and provide counseling in various contexts. searching for general experiences and impacts among these practitioners may therefore prove difficult. additionally, to our knowledge, research to date has been conducted exclusively on english-speaking therapists, with the exception on one study (elias & haj-yahia, 2016). this is problematic as our conceptualizations about intergenerational sex are temporally and socially situated, which, in turn, will affect how therapists experience the process of working therapeutically with these clients, as well as what impacts we may expect hereof. research should therefore be sensitive towards cultural issues (angelides, 2005; de block & adriaens, 2013). taking this into account, the population validity in these studies may be questioned. nevertheless, this review only included publications available in english, meaning that publications in other languages, focusing on different populations, may have been overlooked. hardeberg bach & demuth 505 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ another sampling bias may be that most researchers drew their participants from organizations such as usabased atsa (association for the treatment of sexual abusers), which could further limit our possibilities to make any generalizations based on results from these studies. theoretical preconceptions? despite evidence to the contrary, working therapeutically with these clients was mostly portrayed as strenuous work in the discussed literature. one possible explanation for this apparent paradox may be that most researchers are aware of the results that were published by farrenkopf (1992). arguably, this awareness may have resulted in a heightened sensitivity towards negative experiences among therapists. researchers in this field should therefore be aware of this potential confirmation bias. moreover, most researchers, including farrenkopf (1992), based their research on one of the aforementioned theoretical constructs, in which therapists’ distress should be seen as a result to something external to the therapist, making the experience of distress among these therapists, to some extent, inevitable (clarke & roger, 2002). currently, there is, however, little evidence to support this claim. it is therefore problematic that it is being inferred that therapists’ symptoms are, by nature, a consequence of their work. nevertheless, such research may be challenging to conduct for a number of reasons. as mentioned, categories like “sex offenders” and “pedophiles” include heterogeneous individuals, making it difficult to determine whether or not it would be meaningful to search for a unified ”nature”, which, in turn, could account for therapists’ “symptomology”. similarly, “therapists” may not react uniformly to the demands of their work. taken together, the time may therefore be ripe to explore other theoretical perspectives, in relation to sex offender therapists’ work experiences, than those associated with work-related stress. methodological preferences? because the majority of research in the field is based on questionnaire studies, these studies seem to fail to address important aspects of the experiences of treatment providers within this field. while the validity of several of these questionnaires have already been criticized, in relation to the lack of profession-specific questionnaires (clarke & roger, 2002), the following questions should also be considered in relation to these: what kind of knowledge can be gained from “measuring” stress-related symptoms and comparing different professions in relation to these? how should “stress” be operationalized in this context? what can these questionnaires tell us about causation? what does it mean to have “an experience” and can they be quantified in a meaningful way? and, finally, what can they teach us about the meaning of our experiences, individual differences, and contextual and dynamic aspects? in reference to the latter, longitudinal studies would be of value, as little is known about how “impact” may change over time, but do not currently exist. in addition, no research to date included reference groups outside the field of sexual abuse, to our knowledge. also, no norms (base-rates etc.) currently exist for clinicians (moulden & firestone, 2007). at this time, it is thus uncertain to what extent these effects are specific to work with sex offenders and people with pedophilia. still, similar effects have been described in the literature pertaining to work with victims of sexual offences (knight, 1997). way et al. (2004), who compared counselors working with victims, against those working with offenders, found that levels of vicarious trauma did not differ between groups. according to the authors, “this is not to suggest that there is no relationship between vicarious trauma and client population. it is possible that the therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 506 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ clinician groups in this study were too similar (…) for example, sexual offenders may also share details of their experience of sexual abuse victimization as a child” (p. 66). additionally, the results of these questionnaires, which are typically based on one of the aforementioned theoretical constructs, where usually correlated with, for example, demographic variables thereafter. while correlations may provide some useful insight into a phenomenon, claims of causality should be made with great caution (coolican, 2009). conclusions we can conclude from the literature discussed in this review that some therapists who work with sex offenders are negatively affected by their work. there is, however, also sufficient evidence to determine that a considerable amount of these therapists find satisfaction in their work. overall, therapists working with sex offenders and people with pedophilia provide a vital contribution to our society. enhancing our understanding of the challenges these therapists may face is therefore of great importance. yet, in order to support treatment providers in their work, it should also be recognized that it is of equal importance to understand its rewards. as discussed in this review, most studies to date have, however, solely focused on determining the negative impacts of this line of work. furthermore, a pursuit to identify, measure, and separate the negative impacts from the positive may be a questionable endeavor because such features, in fact, could be interrelated and coexist. it was, for instance, precisely the challenging nature of sex offender treatment that made it exciting to work with as well (scheela, 2001). furthermore, we argue that “experience” must not be reduced to a concern with symptomology, as valuable aspects of human experience are left out. instead, individual differences as well as dynamic and contextual features must be taken seriously, in order to achieve a holistic understanding of the issues in question. while not dismissing the value of questionnaire-based research, qualitative strategies may be better suited for this endeavor. interpretive phenomenological analysis offers a promising avenue to this end, as a result of its consistent focus on the experiential content of consciousness (smith, flowers, & larkin, 2009). another line of research that might add important insights into the phenomenon, albeit from a different theoretical approach, is discursive psychology (potter, 2012), which, amongst others, addresses issues of identity construction in talk (macmartin & lebaron, 2007). notes i) to what extent these positions are really different is also a relevant discussion, albeit outside the scope of this paper. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. hardeberg bach & demuth 507 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adams, e., & betz, n. e. 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(2001). brief report: dimensions of burnout in professionals working with sex offenders. sexual abuse, 13(3), 197-203. doi:10.1177/107906320101300304 hardeberg bach & demuth 511 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 http://doi.org/10.1080/10538711003781251 http://doi.org/10.1300/j182v01n04_09 http://doi.org/10.3109/00048674.2011.568933 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb02166.x http://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2011.566633 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-3148.2011.00667.x http://doi.org/10.1080/01612840152713009 http://doi.org/10.1177/088626001016011006 http://doi.org/10.1177/107906320101300304 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wallace, s. l., lee, j., & lee, s. m. (2010). job stress, coping strategies, and burnout among abuse-specific counselors. journal of employment counseling, 47, 111-122. doi:10.1002/j.2161-1920.2010.tb00096.x way, i., van-deusen, k. m., martin, g., applegate, b., & jandle, d. (2004). vicarious trauma: a comparison of clinicians who treat survivors of sexual abuse and sexual offenders. journal of interpersonal violence, 19, 49-71. doi:10.1177/0886260503259050 quinsey, v. (1973). methodological issues in evaluating the effectiveness of aversion therapies for institutionalized child molesters. canadian psychology, 14(4), 350-361. doi:10.1037/h0082233 appendix table 1 description of empirical studies directly referring to the experience of working with sex-offenders and/or people with pedophilia publication input or evaluative component methodological paradigm results/contributions to the topic adams (2017) an exploration of 86 sex offender therapists’ level of burnout and their coping strategies. (origin: usa/atsa members). quantitative: self-report (maslach burnout inventory and the cope inventory along with demographic questions). although, “the purpose of the study is to explore the level of burnout” (adams, 2017, p. 53), there is no clear evaluation of the overall level of burnout among clinicians. similarly, cut-off scores were not provided. nevertheless, mean scores of ee = 21, dp = 8.5 and pa = 35, are not considered “high”, according to maslach & jackson (1986). caseload size was found to be a significant predictor of the depersonalization aspect of burnout dp (but not ee and pe). coping, gender, and years of experience were not significant predictors of burnout. carmel & friedlander (2009) an exploration of 106 sex offender therapists’ level of work related stress in relation to their perception of the working alliance with clients. (origin: usa/atsa members). quantitative: self-report (burnout, compassion-fatigue, secondary trauma and compassion satisfaction and demographic characteristics and perception of working alliance). analysis showed low mean scores on stress-related factors and high levels of compassion satisfaction, indicating that the participants enjoy their work. chassman, kottler, & madison (2010) to explore 18 counselors’ experiences of adolescents with sexual behavior problems. (origin: usa and australia). qualitative: interviews analyzed via grounded theory. positive and negative impacts and experiences were discussed. for example, the analysis revealed how the counselor’s own history of abuse could be seen as an advantage and a disadvantage in their work. crabtree (2002) an exploration of the impact of previous trauma and gender on the experience of secondary trauma among 158 sex offender therapists. (origin: usa/atsa members). quantitative: self-report (the traumatic stress institute belief scale, the impact of events scale and demographic information) no significant results were obtained on the impact of events scale. on the tsi belief scale, the respondents with histories of trauma did score significantly higher compared to those who did not, which, according to the author, means that therapists, who have suffered trauma, have greater disruptions in their cognitive schemas. nevertheless, no cut-off scores were provided, making it difficult to evaluate the results on a grouplevel. elias & haj-yahia (2016) exploring the responses to work with sex offenders among 19 therapists (origin: israel). qualitative: interviews analyzed via grounded theory. illustrated how therapists experience positive and negative impacts in their work and how these are dealt with. therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 512 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-1920.2010.tb00096.x http://doi.org/10.1177/0886260503259050 http://doi.org/10.1037/h0082233 https://www.psychopen.eu/ publication input or evaluative component methodological paradigm results/contributions to the topic elias & haj-yahia (2017) exploring the attitudes related to sexual offending among 19 therapists (origin: israel). qualitative: interviews analyzed via grounded theory. illustrated how attitudes towards sex offenders affected therapists in their work. ennis & horne (2003) an exploration of the experience of psychological distress among 59 sex offender therapists. (origin: usa and canada). quantitative: self-report (ptsd symptomology, family and peer support, work load and supervision hours). as a group, the participants experienced low levels of distress. while support was significantly predictive of lower levels of distress, workload was not. farrenkopf (1992) an investigation of the impact on 24 therapists from their work with sex offenders. (origin: usa). quantitative: self-report (impact of working with sex offenders, personal coping strategies and gender differences). based on an unspecified method of analysis the authors concluded that the respondents in their study experienced a negative shift in their perspective as a result of their work with sex offenders. friedrich & leiper (2006) an investigation of nine therapists’ responses to their work with a population of incestuous sexual abusers (origin: uk). qualitative: interviews analyzed via interpretive phenomenological analysis. the authors concluded that treatment providers experience a considerable amount of negative feelings in their work. it is, however, noted that some therapists experienced positive feelings in relation to their clients, too, but this aspect was left out of the results. hatcher & noakes (2010) an exploratory study on compassion fatigue, burnout, vicarious traumatization and compassion satisfaction among 48 sex offender therapists. (origin: australia). mixed methods: questionnaires (professional quality of life scale, impact of events scale revised, quality of work life) and contained open-ended questions. the analysis of the included questionnaires revealed low levels of vicarious trauma as well as low to moderate levels of compassion fatigue and burnout amongst the therapists. furthermore, more than 85% of the participants reported moderate to high levels of compassion satisfaction, which indicates that many of the participants found their work satisfying. moore (2016) the study aimed at uncovering countertransference issues among seven therapists working with male sex offenders. (origin: usa/atsa members). qualitative: interviews analyzed via the consensual qualitative research approach. the participants were provided questions that examined countertransference reactions with regard to positive feelings, negative feelings, and sexual feelings. steed & bicknell (2001) an exploration of the existence of work related stress in 67 therapists working with sex offenders. (origin: australia). quantitative: self-report (fatigue-self-test for helpers, impact of events scale revised and years of experience). none of the therapists were found to exhibit symptomology at a clinically significant level on the ies-r scale. from the results of the other scale, however, the authors concluded that, “as expected, working with perpetrators of sexual abuse was found to have a negative impact” (p. 5). in more detail, a mean score of 30.24 and sd of 13.6 were identified within the potential range of 0-115. it is, however, difficult to evaluate these results, since no cut-off scores were provided. it is, furthermore, indicated that the test tends to err on the side of over-inclusion (steed & bicknell, 2001, p. 3). moreover, the questions were changed from “past seven days” to “have you ever experienced…” (steed & bicknell, 2001, p. 3), also potentially resulting in over-inclusion. finally, the hypothesis that workexperience would moderate burnout was not supported. sandhu, rose, rostillbrookes, & thrift (2012) an exploration of the emotional challenges faced by staff (8) working on a sex offender treatment program. (origin: uk). qualitative: interviews analyzed via interpretive phenomenological analysis. according to the analysis, the participants mainly experienced negative emotions in relation to their work. scheela (2001) an investigation of 19 therapists, (scheela’s own colleagues) about their experiences in their work with sex offenders. qualitative: interviews were analyzed via the constant comparative method. while not denying the challenges of this work, the participants generally described their experiences as positive and rewarding. hardeberg bach & demuth 513 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ publication input or evaluative component methodological paradigm results/contributions to the topic (origin: usa). shelby, stoddart, & taylor (2001) to explore burnout 86 among sex offender treatment providers. (origin: usa). quantitative: self-report (mbi/burnout and informational questionnaire (gender etc.)) overall, sex offender treatment providers did not obtain high scores on the mbi scales (as subscale scores were well under 27 and 13; at 19,6 and 8.21, respectively). nevertheless, they scored higher than the mental health norm, yet lower than the social service worker norm. moreover, sex offender treatment provider scored higher on “personal accomplishment” than the norm for both other groups suggesting that sex offender treatment providers generally feel accomplished in their work. furthermore, those working with incarcerated sex offenders obtained higher scores on burnout measures than outpatient treatment providers. thorpe, righthand, & kubik (2001) details the development of a new questionnaire and two empirical studies, which were made within this framework: first, an exploration of burnout-potential among 17 sex offender therapists and later a mixed group of professionals (n = 70) who provide sex offender evaluations. (origin: usa). quantitative: self-report (professional impact questionnaire). the level of burnout differed between the groups of professionals. clinicians showed intermediate scores (on the “emotional impact” category, which is thought to reflect potential for burnout). while the authors hypothesized that the scale can “measure burnout experienced by professionals” (thorpe, righthand & kubik, 2001, p. 198), there is no clear evaluation of the overall level of burnout among clinicians. similarly, indication of cut-off scores was not provided. nevertheless, the use of positive coping strategies was linked to decreased burnout potential. wallace, lee, & lee (2010) to investigate if coping strategies play a role in reducing burnout levels among 232 counselors in abuse-specific fields. it is, however, relevant to question the rationale behind this sampling strategy: how is it (dis)similar to work with substance abuse or child sex abuse? (origin: usa/atsa members). quantitative: self-report (job stress scale, brief cope and counselor burnout inventory). the authors did not provide mean scores or cut-off scores, making it difficult to evaluate to what extent the participants should be considered negatively impacted by their work. nevertheless, the results showed some mediation and moderation effects: emotional coping strategies (such as humor) were linked to higher levels of burnout. conversely, “active coping strategies” were linked to lower levels of burnout. way et al. (2004) to explore and compare levels of vicarious trauma in a sample of 252 therapists who treat offenders and 95 therapists who treat victims. (origin: usa/atsa members). quantitative: self-report (impacts of events scale and trauma history). groups did not differ significantly in overall vt-score. for the total ies, the mean score was in the moderate range, and 52% of the sample scored in the clinical range. nevertheless, according to the authors, no cut-off scores are available for this questionnaire. moreover, the response rate was 23%, which raises questions concerning reliability. about the authors maria hardeberg bach is a phd fellow in the the research group on interpersonal violence (thrive), department of psychology, at the southern university of denmark. her research interests include topics related to sexual violence. carolin demuth is associate professor in the department of communication and psychology, centre for developmental and applied psychological science (cedaps) at aalborg university, denmark. her research interest lies in the dialogical interplay of self, culture and discourse with a focus on narrative identity as well as early childhood socialization and human development. her work is rooted in cultural and discursive psychology. she also holds a strong interest in qualitative methods and epistemologies in general. therapists’ experiences with sex offenders 514 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 498–514 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1493 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ therapists’ experiences with sex offenders (introduction) method results reported experiences and effects among therapists working with sex offenders and people with pedophilia explaining factors discussion sampling bias? theoretical preconceptions? methodological preferences? conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors clowning in health care settings: the point of view of adults theoretical contributions clowning in health care settings: the point of view of adults alberto dionigi*a, carla canestrarib [a] alberto dionigi, federazione nazionale clowndottori (fnc), cesena, italy. [b] department of education, cultural heritage and tourism, university of macerata, macerata, italy. abstract within the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in investigating the effects of clown intervention in a large variety of clinical settings. many studies have focused on the effects of clown intervention on children. however, few studies have investigated clowning effects on adults. this paper presents an overview of the concept of medical clowning followed by a literature review conducted on the empirical studies drawn from three data bases (pubmed, psycinfo, and google scholar), with the aim of mapping and discussing the evidence of clowning effects on non-children, namely adults. the following areas were investigated: adult and elderly patients (mainly those with dementia), observers of clowning, namely non-hospitalized adults who are at the hospital as relatives of patients or health-care staff, and finally clowns themselves. the main results are that 1) clown intervention induces positive emotions, thereby enhancing the patient’s well-being, reduces psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and prompts a decrease in negative emotions, such as anxiety and stress; 2) clown doctors are also well-perceived by relatives and healthcare staff and their presence appears to be useful in creating a lighter atmosphere in the health setting; 3) few pilot studies have been conducted on clown doctors and this lacuna represents a subject for future research. keywords: clown, clown doctor, humor, positive emotions, complementary and alternative medicine, adults, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 received: 2016-01-13. accepted: 2016-04-17. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: federazione nazionale clowndottori (fnc), via rovescio 2185 47522 cesena, italy. phone: 00390541697122. e-mail: presidenza@fnc-italia.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the history of clowning is a long and rich one. not only do clowns provide the gift of laughter, but it is widely believed that they also have the power to bestow the gift of healing (warren & spitzer, 2013). for example, clowns are thought to have worked in hospitals since the time of hippocrates, as the doctors of that time believed that humor had positive effects on one’s health (koller & gryski, 2008). in more recent times, the fratellini brothers, a famous clown trio, began working in french hospitals at the beginning of the 19th century: they occasionally visited hospitalized children to improve their moods (warren & spitzer, 2013). today clowns have a greater presence in medical settings and play an important role within the health-care system. in recent years, interest has grown in the area of research on clown intervention in health-care settings: a significant number of empirical studies has been conducted under different clinical conditions and using different patient groups. to date, only two overviews of these studies have been published in english (finlay, baverstock, & lenton, 2014; sato, ramos, silva, gameiro, & scatena, 2016), and one has been published in italian (gremigni, 2014). these studies have specifically focused on the effect of clown interventions on children as primary beneficiaries; therefore, we decided to conduct an extensive and updated literature review of empirical scientific papers on clowns related to the work with adults in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ health-care settings: moreover, aside from observations of the clown doctors themselves, our review includes discussions of the effects of clowning interventions on both patients and observers (e.g., health-care staff and relatives). the presence of professional clowns as members of hospital health-care teams started in 1986, when michael christensen, a professional clown with the big apple circus in new york, founded big apple circus clown care (koller & gryski, 2008). the program’s aim was to prepare professional clowns to visit hospitals and to assist in the healing process through humor and clowning skills. these new characters, called clown doctors, parodied the work of medical doctors so that they would appear less scary to young patients. the clown doctors used circus skills, tricks, and improvisation while making their “rounds” to bring smiles and laughter to patients. many clown care units (ccus) were soon established in the united states, and analogous units began to spring up simultaneously in france, germany, britain, italy, spain, switzerland, austria, canada, australia, brazil, and israel (ford, courtney-pratt, tesch, & johnson, 2014). state-of-the-art clowning in health-care settings assembles a diversity of practitioners, from well-intentioned volunteers to professional clowns, who have adapted their skills to serve patients undergoing medical care (koller & gryski, 2008). these practitioners, as well as child life specialists, are required to undergo comprehensive training through which they learn both artistic skills and strategies for dealing with psychological issues in the health-care system (dionigi, flangini, & gremigni, 2012; percelay et al., 2014). clowning in health-care settings represents a well-established way of entertaining children, adults, and the elderly during recovery (dionigi, ruch, & platt, 2014). clowning in health-care settings calls for a special way of interacting with patients and observers due to the variety of medical and emotional aspects involved; it therefore requires empathy and respect for each patient’s illness and psychological condition. when dealing with patients, clown doctors must be able to integrate artistic skills (e.g., music, comedy, mime, magic, or puppetry), which are useful in eliciting positive emotions, with personal qualities, such as empathy, emotional intelligence, and intuition. in this way, clown doctors can establish therapeutic relationships with patients and help to decrease their pain and other negative effects associated with their illnesses, as well as contribute to their well-being and create a lighter atmosphere (finlay, baverstock, & lenton, 2014). clown doctors generally conduct “clown rounds,” their version of medical rounds, which may prompt patients to forget their illnesses for a while. nevertheless, clown doctors must be able to actively work in conjunction with hospital staff to design programs that meet the hospital’s needs. several programs have been established over the years, such as those in which clowns visit both inpatients and outpatients, including those in intensive care, emergency rooms, and hematology/oncology units. in some programs, health-care clowns even accompany patients to the operating room (warren, 2004). different work models for clowns in health-care settings have been established. for example, big apple’s model states that clown doctors must always work in pairs in order to support each other and to free patients from the pressure to participate (linge, 2008). another approach suggests that clowns should work alone, which may promote greater intimacy with patients (koller & gryski, 2008). regardless of the approach used, how do clown interventions affect adults within the hospital setting? and with which adults do clown doctors interact? this paper aims to answer these questions by reviewing the literature on the topic. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 474 http://www.psychopen.eu/ literature review we first conducted a literature search in pubmed (using the publication dates january 1960–december 2015), since it is one of the most extensive and widely acknowledged databases used by science professionals with the aim to detect empirical studies that involved non-children. we used the following terms: “clown” or “clown doctor” or “clown therapy” or “medical clowning” or “hospital clown” or “clinic clown.” the search terms were used for all fields (including title, abstract, keywords, and full text), and only papers written in english were included. the search revealed 115 reports. we excluded 105 papers: some were not relevant (70); some comprised theoretical issues (15); and others concerned empirical studies conducted primarily on children (20). therefore, we reviewed a total of 10 empirical studies. the literature search proceeded with a focused exploration using the same terms as noted earlier, with the following preliminary criteria: 1) peer-reviewed full paper published in an international venue; 2) empirical study included; 3) studies published in english. figure 1. the flowchart summarizing the process of identifying the eligible studies. the next step consisted of screening other databases in the following order (the number of new papers found in each library is indicated in brackets): psycinfo (1) and google scholar (12). finally, a manual search revealed two additional articles. during this step, 15 papers were found. the 25 papers selected were screened on the basis of an additional four inclusion criteria. to be included in the review, papers had to (a) include empirical evieurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 475 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dence relating to the impacts and outcomes of clown intervention; (b) have been published during the period january 2005 to december 2015; c) include an abstract; and d) include participants over the age of 18 years. using these four conditions, we then screened titles, abstracts, and (where possible) the full text of the manuscripts in order to exclude non relevant reports. five reports were excluded, resulting in a final total of 20 papers that met the inclusion criteria and were identified as relevant to the current review. details of the chosen papers are given in figure 1. results our literature review revealed that the 20 selected papers concerned one of the four following topics: 1) the effects of clown intervention on adult patients (for the most part, these studies mainly used experiments designed by the researchers); 2) research conducted on the elderly (mainly those with dementia); 3) the effects of clown intervention on health-care staff and relatives (these studies used either evaluative interviews or questionnaires); and 4) research conducted in respect of the psychological and artistic aspects of clowns. a brief summary of the main features of the studies reported in the 20 papers discussed is provided in table 1. table 1 details of the reviewed studies chronologically listed. results and conclusionsmethodsaims/objectives of studysampleauthor(s) nurses’ anxiety was not reduced in the clown group and some nurses even showed increased anxiety when working with clowns. 8 nurses (2 male and 6 female). age range = 30 – 49 (m = 40). participants completed the stai (y1 and y2) during the work shift, for a to evaluate the role of clowns in decreasing nurses’ anxiety. nursesangotti et al. (2015) total of eight times each (4 times with clowns and 4 without). the main important practice utilized by clowns was the “relational presence” that can be 23 elderly participants with dementia (16 female, m = 87.8 years sd = 8.0) were involved in the to examine elderly-clown practice and techniques based elderly patients kontos et al. (2015) achieved through specific strategies betweenstudy. a clown duo visited the residents twiceon qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations. with dementia the clowns and the resident: (a) affectivea week over a 12-week period. each clown relationality; (b) reciprocal playfulness; and (c) co-constructed imagination. duo–resident visit was video recorded to facilitate subsequent analysis. in the clown group the perceived stress and anxiety were reduced as well as anxiety and 25 mothers were included in the clown group (age= 36.45 ± 5.71) and 25 in the non-clown to evaluate the efficacy of clown intervention in reducing parentsagostini et al. (2014) somatization did not increase after separation. compared with the non-clown group. one (age = 35.95 ± 3.99). mothers’ state and trait anxieties were measured at baseline and after separation from their children. preoperative anxiety in mothers whose children underwent surgeries. study 1: results showed that general mood scales do not include emotional states elicited by hospital clowns. study 2: amusement, transcendence, arousal, and uneasiness are the four factors which study 1: 119 adults (48.7% female) aged between 18 and 73 years (m = 30.66, sd = 13.53) watched videos of hospital clowns and circus clowns and completed a questionnaire to assess the elicited emotions. study 2: 183 adults (26.8% male) with ages ranging from 18 -63 (m = 28.50; sd = 9.31) to identify emotional states induced in observers of hospital clown interventions by using a list of clown-specific ratings (clem-29). adults (external observers) auerbach et al. (2014) emerged. circus clown and hospital clown performances elicited amusement. in addition, watched 15 videos of hospital clown hospital clowns elicited feelings of interventions, circus clown performances, and transcendence, whereas nurse-patient europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 476 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results and conclusionsmethodsaims/objectives of studysampleauthor(s) interactions stimulated transcendent experiences but not amusement. nurse-patient interactions, and filled in a questionnaire to assess the elicited emotions. four dimensions influence the clown shift: positive beliefs, cognitive interference, reflective 130 clowns (33 males and 97 females; age: 17 to 69 years) completed an online survey that to develop a questionnaire able to capture the shift in and out from the clown character. clownsdionigi et al. (2014) awareness, and anxiety. positive beliefs andincluded the clown shift questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire. reflective awareness denote facilitating factors of the clown shift, while anxiety and cognitive interference hinder the process. clowns provide an overall positive impact on the child in the moment of interaction (‘the encounter’) as well as during its anticipation. semi-structured, audiotaped interviews were conducted with 14 children (6 boys and 8 girls aged between 5 and 14 years) and their to assess the impact of clown doctors’ activities on children, their families, staff and clown doctors. children, parents, staff, clowns ford et al. (2014) families. a focus group was conducted with 11 members of the staff. students were touched by the principles underlining hospital clowning that promote 70 students from different undergraduate courses of a healthcare university attended two 64-hour weekly hospital clown trainings. to assess students’ perceptions about clown training. nurse students nogueira-martins et al. (2014) creative, respectful, and spontaneous relationships with others. clowns are perceived as bringing joy, happiness, laughter, amusement and a sense 12 parents whose children received clown interventions in various hospital wards. to describe the benefits and barriers of clown care through a qualitative approach. parentstan et al. (2014) of meaningfulness in life. they can provide relief breaking long periods of hospitalization. the workshop resulted useful to the majority of participants (employed in different areas), who 131 nursing students took part in the workshop and 40 participants responded to an 18-month follow-up evaluation survey. to examine the long-term effectiveness of the sensitivity training clown workshop (stcw). nurse students leef & hallas (2013) reported that they usually apply lessons learned in the workshop in their practice. the humorous approach (both the humor session and the clown intervention) did not clown group: 189 elderly patients in 17 nursing homes; control group: 209 residents in 18 nursing homes. to evaluate the clown effect on a large group of elderly home residents. elderly patients low et al. (2013) significantly reduce depression but significantly reduced agitation. clowns are well-trained, motivated and satisfied. clown intervention can reduce stress in patients, and be useful both for parents and staff. 87 hospital clowns, 37 parents and 43 hospital staff members completed an online questionnaire regarding general conditions, to provide an updated overview about hospital clowning in germany and how clown intervention is perceived. clowns, parents, staff barkmann et al. (2013) procedures, assessments of effects and attitudes, as well as thework satisfaction scale. eight nurses exhibited consistent changes in their response patterns when the clowns were semi-structured interviews were conducted on 13 nurses. the levels of physiological arousal, to assess clown perception by nurses working in a pediatric unit. nursesblain et al. (2012) present. nurses' negative moods were reducedemotion and anxiety were measured in 9 out of but no changes in anxiety were found.13 nurses under two conditions (the presence or absence of clowns.) qualitative data suggests that clown interventions also have a relational impact on nurses. the clown was able to bring pleasure and peace. the clown and the person with dementia clowns were required to report their activities and feelings experienced during their work. to illustrate the effect of clowns on patients with dementia from patients with dementia hendriks (2012) were involved in a positive process of mutual articulation. the point of view of the clowns themselves. three main dimensions were identified as important for the clown’s work: uncertainty about content analysis of the documentation of the work of two medical clowns over two years. to evaluate the role of medical clowns with adult outpatients suffering from chronic illnesses. clownsnuttman-shwartz et al. (2010) the definition of his role, lack of auxiliary skills, and appreciation of his intervention. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 477 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results and conclusionsmethodsaims/objectives of studysampleauthor(s) pregnancy rate in the women who had clown intervention was significantly higher compared with the control group. 219 patients (110 in the intervention group and 109 in the control group) who underwent ivf and et. only women in the experimental group received clown intervention. to evaluate the impact of medical clowning on pregnancy rates after in vitro fertilization (ivf) and embryo transfer (et). adult pregnant patients friedler et al. (2011) the intervention led to a reduction of total lung capacity (tlc) in the copd group but not in the control group. patients with severe copd (n = 19) and healthy controls (n = 10) received a clown intervention triggering regular laughter. to investigate the role of laughter in patients with severe chronic air flow obstruction adult patients brutsche et al. (2008) (copd) in reducing static lung volumes. 85% of staff appreciated the clown visits, and nearly 50% of them reported that the clowns 143 staff members and 51 parents filled in a questionnaire. to investigate the clown perception by parents and healthcare staff. staffkoller and gryski (2008) supported their own work. similar results were found in parents. a relational pattern, characterized by empathic preparedness as well as a communication descriptive analysis of reports after work by13 clowns (10 women and 3 men). to evaluate significant aspects about clown activity. clownslinge (2008) pattern, characterized by balanced synchronization of body language and verbal expressions were important. medical doctors reported the positive role of clown doctors on sick children and their families’ 49 children, 43 parents/cares, 17 doctors and 93 other health-care staff filled in a to elicit the perceptions of doctors, nurses, parents and children, parents, staff battrick et al. (2007) mood. 83 out of 93 nurses agreed or stronglyquestionnaire that included a mixture of closed and attitudinal likert-type questions. children regarding the efficacy of performances by clowns. agreed that clown doctors have a positive impact on the child. the intervention of the clowns reduced disruptive behaviors in general: attempted patients in a psychiatric ward of a general hospital received clown interventions two days per week during two 83-day-long periods. to investigate the effects of a humor-based activity on behaviors in psychiatrics. adult psychiatric patients higueras et al. (2006) escape, self-injury, and fighting were significantly reduced. clown intervention on adult patients clinic clowning, which may on the surface appear to be only a children’s issue, is increasingly being applied in the care of adults and the elderly. one of the first studies on the efficacy of clowning in the treatment of adult patients was conducted in switzerland: brutsche, grossman, muller, pello, baty, and ruch (2008) evaluated the effects of laughter induced by a clown in a group of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd). a small group of patients (n = 19) with severe copd and a control group (n = 10) were asked to complete the statetrait cheerfulness inventory (stci) and were tested using two pulmonary function tests, namely spirometry and plethysmography: the first one measures lung function as the volume and/or flow of air that can be inhaled and exhaled, while the latter measures the functional residual capacity of the lungs. a clown then performed for a mean duration of 30 minutes. during the intervention, the participants were videotaped for analysis through the facial action coding system (facs). the intervention led to a reduction of total lung capacity (tlc) in the copd group but not in the control group. the reduction of tlcwas associated with a similar decrease in the reserve volume, indicating that the intervention reduced air trapping and so improved their lung function. although results indicate a positive role of induced laughter in people affected by copd, limitations such as the small sample involved, with people grouped in different sizes, the lack of randomization and of crossover design must be taken europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 478 http://www.psychopen.eu/ into account. findings of this study need to be validated with larger samples and focused on a more reliable appreciation of the effect size and duration. a study by friedler et al. (2011) indicated that women entertained by a clown doctor after in vitro fertilization had more successful fertility treatments and increased pregnancy rates. this quasi-randomized study was conducted in an israeli hospital and included 219 patients (110 in the intervention group and 109 in the control group) who underwent in vitro fertilization (ivf) and embryo transfer (et). only women in the intervention group received a clown visit after the et. each encounter lasted 12–15 minutes and included a routine based on jokes, tricks, and magic. results showed that the pregnancy rate in the intervention group was significantly higher compared with that of the controls, perhaps due to stress reduction produced by the use of humor and medical clowning: stress reduction, in fact, might improve fertility, resulting in positive effects on the engraftment. what seemed to work best was that, during the encounter with the medical clown, the patient was actively involved in the relationship in which she responds spontaneously to the ongoing interaction leading to a better involvement. while the majority of studies conducted so far have investigated the role of clowns in reducing negative emotions, auerbach, hofmann, platt, and ruch (2014) focused on the positive emotions induced by clowns. the researchers conducted two studies to identify the emotional states induced in external observers via hospital clown interventions: in their first study, 119 adults (48.7% female) aged 18-73 years (m = 30.66, sd = 13.53), watched videos of hospital clowns and circus clowns and completed a questionnaire to assess the elicited emotions composed by the state-trait-cheerfulness inventory (stci-s<30>; ruch, köhler, & van thriel, 1997), the mood rating inventory (bske [ewl]; janke, hüppe, & erdmann, 2003) and the 29 clown emotion list (clem-29; auerbach et al., 2012). the authors found that several clown-specific experiences and judgments are not sufficiently well described in the existing models of emotional states and that the clem-29 could serve to fill this gap. in the second study, 183 adults (26.8% male) aged 18-63 (m = 28.50; sd = 9.31) watched 15 videos of hospital clown interventions, circus clown performances, and nurse–patient interactions, and completed questionnaires to assess the elicited emotions. the questionnaire responses showed that both circus and hospital clowns elicited amusement, but only the hospital clowns additionally elicited feelings of transcendence, constituted by feelings of being uplifted and surpassing the ordinary. nurses elicited transcendence, because of the caring elements, but not amusement. auerbach and colleagues tried to fill in a gap in the research in this field by providing an instrument able to evaluate the emotional states induced in observers of hospital clown. however, in this study, there was no real interaction with clowns: non-patient adults watched clowning and nursing video clips. this lack of active relationship needs to be overcome because influencing mood-influencing factors (both positive and negative) are involved in faceto-face interactions. clown intervention on the elderly and patients with dementia although few studies have been conducted on adult patients, research about clowns working in health-care has often focused on disabled patients, such as those affected by dementia or psychiatric diseases. higueras et al. (2006) conducted a quasi-experimental study to examine the effects of clown doctors in decreasing the disruptive behaviors of psychiatric patients in a general spanish hospital during two 83-day periods. during the first period (baseline), there were no interactions with clowns, while in the second period (intervention), patients were assembled in a common room and received two weekly 90-minute sessions of clown intervention. the efficacy of clown intervention was evaluated by the decrease of 10 behaviors considered to be disruptive, such as refusing to cooperate and shouting. researchers then recorded the frequency of disruptive behavior (db) during the day at three different time points. the results indicated that the intervention of the clowns reduced disruptive behaviors in general but europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 479 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that it reduced only three specific behaviors significantly (attempted escape, self-injury, and fighting). that was the first study conducted to evaluate the use of humor as a tool in therapy for severely ill patients. results are not equivocal as only some db decreased. nevertheless some db’s increased in frequency (such as refusal to cooperate and shouting) and authors related it to a higher disinhibition caused by the clown approach. however, the lack of control in the clown activity may have had an influence on this. clowning seems to also improve the quality of life of nursing home residents: hendriks (2012) conducted an autoethnographic study in the netherlands that focused on a special form of clowning for people who were at an advanced stage of dementia. the author revealed that the clown and the person with dementia were involved in a process of mutual articulation that helped patients to “be in touch” with their bodies. as a result of the clown activities, residents’ bodies became engaged in sensory conversations with other people. although the results are intriguing, they lack systematic rationale as well as solid methodology as the analysis primarily concerns sensory conversations in the here and now. future research should try to optimize and present robust data and results in order to generalize these. low and colleagues (2013) in a recent australian study used a single-blind, two-group, longitudinal cluster randomized controlled study to evaluate the effects of clowning on elderly residents in 35 sydney nursing homes. the intervention group comprised 189 elderly patients in 17 nursing homes; the control group consisted of 209 residents in 18 nursing homes. an integrated humorous approach that consisted of 1-day laughterboss training for each home’s nominated staff member, followed by 9 to 12 humor-therapy sessions by an elder clown, was used with the experimental group. participants were assessed for depression using the cornell scale for depression in dementia (csdd) and for agitation using the cohen-mansfield agitation inventory (cmai) at three different times: baseline (week 0), post-session (week 13), and follow-up (week 26). the humorous approach (both the humor session and the clown intervention) did not significantly reduce depression but significantly reduced agitation. the authors pointed out that most of the subjects scored very low (floor effect) in relation to depression, as only 29% of the sample was assessed to have probable or possible depression, which could have influenced the results. the limitations of this study concerned variations between residents in the number of elder clown sessions they received and unbalanced baselines in several outcome measures between the two groups. kontos, miller, mitchell, and stirling-twist (2015) conducted a study to evaluate a 12-week elder clown program involving 23 residents of a dementia unit in a long-term care facility. the study involved 23 elderly participants (16 females and 7 males) who were primarily affected by alzheimer’s disease (73.9%); the mean age was 87.8 years (sd = 8.0). two clowns visited the residents over a 12-week period, and each visit lasted approximately 10 minutes. in order to facilitate the analysis, every clown visit was video-recorded. the main finding of the analysis was what the authors have defined as “relational presence.” this term captures “the reciprocal nature of engagement during plays, and the capacity of residents to initiate as well as respond to verbal, embodied, emotive, and creative engagement” (kontos et al., 2015, p. 5). this peculiar presence is related to three core aspects: (a) affective relationality; (b) reciprocal playfulness; and (c) co-constructed imagination. again, more than humor, in this study the opportunity to be “in touch” between the elder and the clown was the most important aspect. however, future research should focus on which aspects are primarily important in creating this bond. finally, some criticism about this study arises regarding the use of the video camera that may have influenced individuals’ behavior in response to their awareness of being observed. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 480 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perceptions of clown intervention by relatives and health-care staff the studies reviewed so far are related to clowning effects on patients, whether adults in general or elderly in particular, namely hospitalized people. another set of empirical studies on -generally speakingnon-children, focuses on clowning effects on observers, namely non-hospitalized adults who are in hospital because they are relatives of patients or health-care staff. a cochrane review (yip, middleton, cyna, & carlyle, 2011) showed that parental anxiety is common during a child’s hospitalization and surgery due to parents’ perception of the child’s worries and pain. agostini et al. (2014) compared the anxiety rates of mothers whose children were scheduled to undergo general anesthesia for minor day surgery during the preoperative phase: 25 mothers and their children (m = 36.45; sd = 5.71) received the clown intervention (the experimental group), while the control group (25 mothers, m = 35.95; sd = 3.99) followed ordinary procedures, with no clown intervention. results showed that there was a significant decrease in the scores of state-trait anxiety inventory (stai) related to the state of anxiety only in the clown-intervention group. the major limitations of this study are given by the small sample involved, having evaluated only the mothers, the lack of inclusion of objective physiological measures (e.g. heart rate and respiratory frequency) that could have provided more specific indicators about stress and anxiety. tan, metsälä, and hannula (2014) conducted a qualitative study at a finnish university hospital for children in which 12 parents of children receiving clown care were asked to complete a semi-structured interview. parents reported that the clowns helped to create a positive emotional state, as well as to promote interaction between them and their children. according to the participants, barriers to the clown intervention included timing and context, the psychological and emotional states of the children and parents, and the gravity of the illness. in this study there are two main limitations: it was carried out in finland but interviews were conducted in english and this may have led some participants to refuse taking part in the interview both because they were not confident in using english, and because they had problems in articulating their thoughts. again the small sample involved inhibits the possibility of generalizing the data. humor is considered to be a positive trait that may help nurses and doctors to cope with their work and to create a better atmosphere on the ward (ruch, rodden, & proyer, 2011). some studies on the interaction between clowns, patients, families, and staff have revealed a general acceptance of the clowns. battrick, glasper, prudhoe, and weaver (2007) conducted a study to test the perceptions of clowns by children, parents, doctors, and nurses in an english hospital. the majority of the 16 children’s doctors who participated in the study stated that clown doctors have a positive impact on sick children and their families, although six of the doctors reported that they did not personally like clowns. in addition, a questionnaire was sent to nurses: of the 93 questionnaire returned, 83 nurses agreed or strongly agreed that clown doctors have a positive impact on the child and family. again, a large number of nurses (n = 22) indicated that they personally did not like clowns. in australia, ford et al. (2014) conducted a study aimed at investigating the impact of clowns on children, parents, staff, and on clown doctors themselves. the researchers utilized a mixed model consisting of observation, semistructured interviews, and focus groups. this study revealed that clown doctor interactions had positive effects on all groups and the positive effects of clowning are not limited to the length of intervention. while children experienced anticipation and excitement before the clown visits, the clown’s props (e.g., balloons) may promote interactions, unrelated to hospitalization and illness, among children, family, and staff. although this study also involved children we included it in the review as it provides useful information about the perception of clowns by relatives and staff. the study has a very simple rationale, and it would have benefited from an in-depth focus on the relaeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 481 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tionships among the various participants. moreover, the positive outcome of the clown interventions is based on the skills of the performer and it is not easy to evaluate the positive effect systematically. koller and gryski (2008) surveyed 143 staff members and 51 parents regarding the clown visits in a pediatric clinic in toronto. eighty-five per cent of the staff appreciated the clown visits, and nearly half of participants reported that the clowns supported their own work. similar results were found for parents. in a german study (barkmann, siem, wessolowski, & schulte-markwort, 2013), 87 hospital clowns, 37 parents, and 43 hospital staff members were recruited through an online survey aimed at clarifying the structural and procedural conditions of pediatric clowning. both parents and staff indicated that they, as well as the patients, benefited from clown intervention. results from this study are positive, questionnaires were developed for the study’s objective and frequencies about different appreciation variables were calculated. again, the perception (in the two countries) is good and this speaks in favor of a greater inclusion of clowns in health settings. however, it would be helpful to have a higher correlation between the appreciation and psychological aspects (e.g. personality traits) for both clowns and participants. a canadian study by blain, kingsnorth, stephens, and mckeever (2012) that involved 13 nurses investigated the effects of therapeutic clowns on hospitalized children. in addition to questionnaires, in nine cases, measurements of physiological arousal, emotion, and anxiety were obtained, both during the presence and the absence of clowns. results showed changes in the automatic nervous system signals of eight nurses during the clown interventions. moreover, the nurses’ negative moods were also reduced, although no changes in anxiety levels emerged. the main concern about this study lies in the small sample utilized and the lack of investigations of further personal variables such as the measures of emotional expressions and social interaction. two studies conducted in brazil (nogueira-martins, lima-costa, nogueira-martins, & nogueira-martins, 2014) and in new york city (leef & hallas, 2013) investigated the role of clown training for undergraduate nurses: students took part in clown workshops aimed at teaching nontechnical skills, such as improving emotional intelligence, empathy and communication skills. nogueira-martins et al. evaluated the perceptions of two groups of students (group a, 40 participants; group b, 30 participants) over a period comprising 64-hour weekly hospital clown trainings. results showed that the training process was taken seriously and resulted in improvements in the nurses’ relationships with family, friends, and patients, as well as in the enhancement of oral presentations. similarly, leef and hallas (2013) evaluated the efficacy of a sensitivity training clown workshop (stcw) provided to 131 baccalaureate nursing students. they conducted an 18-month follow-up evaluation survey: based on the 40 questionnaires returned, it was possible to establish that the majority of participants appreciated and went on to apply competences acquired during the workshop. the two studies vary in length and participation, but similar results emerged: the clown training exhibited a potential for professional attitude construction and the development of interpersonal competencies. unfortunately, in the first study, there was a high turnover of students that made generalizing the data difficult, while in the other it would have been useful to have had major information about the different specific aspects of participants. taking part in a workshop on clowning has a great potential, but often people work on their limits and failures (see lecoq, 2011) and this may lead to a strong refusal in taking part in the activity. angotti et al. (2015) investigated the role of clowns in decreasing nurses’ anxiety during children’s preoperative periods. the level of anxiety of eight nurses (two males and six females) aged 30-49 years (m = 40) was assessed via the stai (y1 and y2) during the work shift, after preparing at least two children a total of eight times each europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (four instances with clowns and four without). results showed that, compared to the control group, the nurses’ anxiety was not reduced but actually increased. this study shows specific limitations such as the very small number of participants and results which go in the opposite direction compared with the expected ones. future research with larger groupsmust be conducted in order to improve understanding of the role of clowns in decreasing staff anxiety. it must be hypothesized that, since clown intervention is primarily directed towards the patients, nurses (even if involved) may not perceive the intervention as a coping strategy to deal with anxiety. studies conducted on clowns: psychological and artistic aspects research has mainly focused on the overall effects of hospital clowns. although the importance of extensive training for clowns before entering the medical setting is acknowledged as important (e.g. dionigi et al., 2012), little is known about the psychological characteristics of clown doctors. some pilot studies have been conducted on clown doctors; however, they have included only small groups whose members often belong to the same clown care unit (sharing a common training and operative model). linge (2008) conducted a qualitative study on 13 clowns (three males and 10 females) in order to evaluate significant aspects of their activity: in this research, the artistic and psychological potential of working in pairs clearly emerged. nuttman-shwartz, scheyer, and tzioni (2010) evaluated the content analysis of documentation regarding the work of two israeli medical clowns with adult patients suffering from chronic illnesses. medical clowns each worked twice a week for three hours; at the end of the day, each of them was required to document his/her activity and the emotions elicited by the encounters with the patients. results showed that three elements emerged as important in determining the operative model: a) uncertainty about the definition of the clown role, as patients had difficulties in understanding this figure and in considering whether or not it was a part of the health-care staff; b) a lack of auxiliary skills, which led to the perceived frustration of clowns who had to cope with severely ill patients; and c) appreciation of the intervention, related both to the use of humor and to the ability to build relationships with patients. the two pilot studies show specific limitations due to the small number of participants, the relative restricted field of knowledge to be acquired and a lack of inter-difference in the approach utilized. however, the results may have an impact in developing more detailed and focused future research. for example, starting with the assumption that a clown doctor capable of differentiating himself/herself from his/her playing a clown is more often perceived to be a good clown (nuttman-shwartz et al., 2010), dionigi et al. (2014) designed a study aimed at capturing the essence of what it means to be a clown doctor. the authors claimed that assuming the clown role requires a cognitive shift that leads the clown doctor to perceive the world and to act in a different/unusual and foolish way, so that (almost) everything is permitted. the authors call this transition a “clown shift,” which represents the cognitive change that occurs when a person leaves the habitual state of mind to enter the clown’s state of mind and vice versa. people may differ in shifting in and out: dionigi et al. (2014) studied which factors may promote or hinder the shift. a large sample of italian clown doctors belonging to different associations (33 males and 97 females aged 17 to 69 years) participated in the study and completed an online survey that included the clown shift questionnaire and a demographic questionnaire. statistical analyses identified four dimensions as being significant in influencing this shift: positive beliefs, cognitive interference, reflective awareness, and anxiety. two of these (positive beliefs and reflective awareness) denote facilitating factors of the clown shift, while the anxiety experienced during the preparation and the presence of cognitive interference during the performance are two dimensions that hinder the process. although this was the first study conducted on a large sample of clown doctors, some limitations need to be acknowledged: firstly, even if the purpose was to define a questionnaire able to “capture” the real essence of the clown status quo, that was not completely achieved. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 483 http://www.psychopen.eu/ secondly, the study refers to data coming only from a specific population (italian clown doctors) and future studies with different participants are needed. discussion humor is an important part of life. in the last 30 years there has been a growing interest in its application in several contexts such as hospitals and homes, healthcare clowning now represents a well-defined approach. the small number of papers identified using our search terms confirmed that although there has been a surge of interest in healthcare clowning, as clowns are involved worldwide, little research has been conducted so far: empirical evidence of such interventions is very sparse. a large amount of studies (not related to this paper’s aim) is related to studying the efficacy of clown interventions on children (see finlay et al., 2014; sato et al., 2016). one possible explanation is that clown intervention is generally addressed to children: kids tend to be enthusiastic when encountering a clown who is able to capture their attention through comedy, gags, magic and props. nevertheless, the first clown care unit (set up in new york) worked specifically with children. this may have led to imprinting the use of clowns in health settings. however, the healthcare clowning movement is increasing as are the application fields: adults, the elderly, psychiatrics, healthcare staff are only some of the recipients of this approach, who have also received more attention from research. across the breadth of the literature reviewed, some studies have been conducted with the elderly or with patients suffering from psychiatric diseases: the core aspects of these studies were not restricted to the use of humor but also involved relational competences that every healthcare clown must possess. clown intervention with adults and the elderly is a promising practice for improving the quality of life of recipients. from a broader perspective, in fact, the work of clown doctors aims to empower interpersonal relationships and to modify the atmosphere within the care setting by breaking up the seriousness of the setting with something positive, unexpected, and unconventional. research should pay more attention to this field, as in recent years a large number of organizations is providing clown service to adult patients, especially elderly, psychiatric and disabled. so far results are positive, both when referring to the decrease of negative behaviors or negative emotions, and when evaluating the positive emotions elicited in recipients. the main gap in this respect is that only a few studies have focused on adults and on elderly and disabled people and the methodology used in these studies is very extensive and this makes comparing findings difficult. a number of studies conducted on relatives of hospitalized patients has focused on assessing whether this approach may be useful to them as well as to children. the literature review presented here shows how clown intervention is helpful in reducing stress and anxiety in parents of hospitalized children, although this evidence is very sparse. however a very small amount of research is primarily dedicated to investigating parental emotional states (e.g. agostini et al., 2014), while the majority of studies has been conducted in order to evaluate both the parental and healthcare staff perception of clowns, along with the children’s one. results show that the clowns are well perceived and integrated into health settings, by different people. the practice of involving clowns in health settings is constantly increasing, thanks to the positive appreciation provided by patients, relatives, doctors, and nurses). this aspect challenges what was postulated by vagnoli and colleagues (2005) who found that, although well perceived by doctors, clowns interfered with medical procedures. in this regard, a giant step forward has been taken with the increasing number of workshops aimed at introducing the role and functions of clowning within the healthcare setting to nurses, as well as involving them in the training in order to improve their relational skills. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 484 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rigorous evaluations of the therapeutic effects of clowning are complex, as clowning is a multimodal intervention that is set according to medical conditions, procedures, family functioning, and health-care teams (ford et al., 2014). moreover, clown intervention covers a large variety of activities: during their performances, clown doctors are required to adapt their techniques while keeping in mind that their goal is to change the emotional state of the patient and to improve the patient’s environment. finally, there is a paucity of studies about clown doctors themselves: two out of the three studies evaluated in this literature review are qualitative studies and have been conducted on very small samples (two and 13 clowns). however, these two studies provided the basis for a subsequent research about important aspects for playing the role/dressing the part of the clown (dionigi et al., 2014) even though specific limitations emerged about the construction of the main questionnaire and the sample involved. in this regard, further research should be undertaken to shed light on the psychological and artistic skills of clown doctors, which may contribute to identify those characteristics required to hire the best candidate with the potential to lead to positive patient interventions. to sum up, research in the field of healthcare clowning is very young: the first published article evaluating the efficacy of a clown intervention in decreasing children’s preoperative anxiety dates back to 2005 (vagnoli et al., 2005). since then there has been a growing number of studies, and these studies concerning the efficacy of clown doctors have indicated a general effectiveness in several fields. however, according to the presented results, further research should focus more on adult patients, within different hospital departments (such as oncology, orthopedics, etc.) on elderly and disabled people, where clowns have proven to be effective in inducing positive emotions, as well as on the perception of relatives and healthcare staff. in this regard, it would be important to set protocols and standardized approaches founded on evidence-based results in order to establish well-defined guidelines for different patients. from a broader perspective, the work of clown doctors aims to empower interpersonal relationships and to modify the atmosphere within the care setting by bringing something positive, unexpected, and unconventional (warren & spitzer, 2013). although research is progressing, there is still a gap in determining which aspects are more relevant in leading to positive results. undoubtedly, humor is an important aspect but not the only one: further studies should consider which features of affectivity are induced, as well as which positive emotions are elicited during the different gags. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references agostini, f., monti, f., neri, e., dellabartola, s., de pascalis, l., & bozicevic, l. 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(2016). clowns: a review about using this mask in the hospital environment. interface: comunicacao, saude, educacao, 20(56), 123-134. doi:10.1590/1807-57622015.0178 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 dionigi & canestrari 487 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f01459740.2012.674991 http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=33760104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2fecam%2fnem033 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1471301215580895 http://dx.doi.org/10.5480%2f1536-5026-34.4.260 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f17482620701794147 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136%2fbmjopen-2012-002072 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236%2fce.2014.58064 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00981380903520475 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0191-8869%2896%2900231-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590%2f1807-57622015.0178 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tan, a. k., jr., metsälä, e., & hannula, l. (2014). benefits and barriers of clown care: a qualitative phenomenographical study of parents with children in clown care services. the european journal of humour research, 2(2), 1-10. doi:10.7592/ejhr2014.2.2.tan vagnoli, l., caprilli, s., robiglio, a., & messeri, a. (2005). clown doctors as a treatment for preoperative anxiety in children: a randomized, prospective study. pediatrics, 116(4), e563-e567. doi:10.1542/peds.2005-0466 warren, b. (2004). treating wellness: how clown doctors help to humanize health care and promote good health. in p. twohig (ed.), making sense of health, illness and disease (pp. 201-216). amsterdam, the netherlands: rodopi. warren, b., & spitzer, p. (2013). smiles are everywhere: integrating clown-play into healthcare practice. london, united kingdom: routledge. yip, p., middleton, p., cyna, a. m., & carlyle, a. v. (2011). cochrane review: non-pharmacological interventions for assisting the induction of anaesthesia in children. evidence-based child health: a cochrane review journal, 6(1), 71-134. doi:10.1002/ebch.669 about the authors alberto dionigi, m.sc, ph.d. (federazione nazionale clowndottori, italy) is a cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist, as well as a member of the ishs (international society for humor studies). he is a professional clown doctor, and president of the italian federation of clown doctors (fnc). lecturing in the field of humor, he has delivered talks internationally on the subject at academic conferences and has published several articles on the subject of healthcare clowning. he is a trainer for medical clowns and he has taught social theater at bologna university. carla canestrari, ph.d. is researcher (assistant professor) in general psychology at the university of macerata (italy), department of education, cultural heritage and tourism and she is a member of the ishs (international society for humor studies). her main research topics are focused on the qualitative analysis of spoken and written communication, and on the cognitive processes involved in the understanding of humorous and ironic texts. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 473–488 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1107 clowning in health-care settings 488 http://dx.doi.org/10.7592%2fejhr2014.2.2.tan http://dx.doi.org/10.1542%2fpeds.2005-0466 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2febch.669 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en clowning in health-care settings (introduction) literature review results clown intervention on adult patients clown intervention on the elderly and patients with dementia perceptions of clown intervention by relatives and health-care staff studies conducted on clowns: psychological and artistic aspects discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors you are the real terrorist and we are just your puppet: using individual and group factors to explain indonesian muslims’ attributions of causes of terrorism research reports you are the real terrorist and we are just your puppet: using individual and group factors to explain indonesian muslims’ attributions of causes of terrorism ali mashuri*a, lusy asa akhrania, esti zaduqistib [a]department of psychology, university of brawijaya, malang, indonesia. [b]department of islamic education, stain pekalongan, pekalongan, indonesia. abstract the current study investigates the role of individual and intergroup factors in predicting muslims’ tendency to attribute domestic terrorism in indonesia to an external cause (i.e., thewest) or an internal cause (i.e., radical islamist groups). the results (n = 308) showed that intergroup factors of symbolic threat and realistic threat directly increased the external attribution and conversely decreased the internal attribution. within the context of the current research, symbolic threat refers to muslims’ perception that the norms and values of the west undermine islamic identity. realistic threat denotes muslims’ perception that the economy and technology of the west undermine islamic power. the individual factor of islamic fundamentalism, which has to do with muslims’ belief in the literal interpretation of and strict guidelines to islamic doctrines, indirectly predicted both external attribution and internal attribution of terrorism as hypothesized, via the extent to which muslims perceived the west as posing a symbolic threat, but not a realistic threat to islamic existence. uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension that describes the extent to which people view clear instructions as a pivotal source of concern to deal with societal problems, also significantly increased perceived symbolic threat and realistic threat, and this cultural dimension mediated the effect of islamic fundamentalism on each of the intergroup threats. finally, we found that the level of islamic fundamentalism was dependent upon cognitive response, but not emotional response to mortality salience. the cognitive response to mortality salience denotes what muslims are thinking about in coping with their own death whereas the emotional response denotes what muslims are feeling about such issue. in particular, we found the cognitive response, but not the emotional response to mortality salience significantly gave rise to muslims’ islamic fundamentalism. these findings shed light on the importance of combining individual factors and group factors in explicating the dynamics of muslims’ tendency to make attributions of causes of domestic terrorism. we discuss theoretical implications and study limitations, as well as practical actions policy makers could conduct to deal with muslims’ islamic fundamentalism and reduce the extent to which this particular group perceives the west as threatening their existence. keywords: islamic fundamentalism, symbolic threat, realistic threat, attribution of terrorism, uncertainty avoidance, cognitive and emotional responses to mortality salience europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 received: 2015-05-25. accepted: 2015-11-08. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of brawijaya, jl. veteran, malang, 65145, indonesia. e-mail: alimashuri76@ub.ac.id this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction extremism is not unique to a religion, but this phenomenon in islam has drawn special attention given the growing acts of terrorism that continue to be employed by some muslim radicals (esposito & mogahed, 2007). the most europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ up-to-date notorious example involves terrorist acts by islamic state (is) in syria and iraq, which have spread to other countries, from afghanistan, egypt, and libya to algeria (hoft, 2015). terrorism is a complex and often unanticipated event, which makes it hard to comprehend immediately its nature and causes. people have a general tendency to seek explanations for such events by spontaneously connecting them to certain causes (shaver, 2012). within social psychology literature, this tendency is captured in the term “causal attribution”, which has been investigated by prior empirical studies to reveal what groups people blame and view as responsible for perpetrating islamist terrorism. however, the approach of these studies tends to be particular in the sense that in explaining people’s attribution of terrorism, they distinguish between individual factors such as patriotism (sahar, 2008) and emotions (small, lerner, & fischhoff, 2006) and intergroup factors such as group membership (doosje, zebel, scheermeijer, & mathyi, 2007; kimhi, canetti-nisim, & hirschberger, 2009) or intergroup conflict and domination (sidanius, henry, pratto, & levin, 2004). studies that integrate individual and intergroup factors to elucidate attributions of islamist terrorism are therefore still lacking, which is the focal aim of our current paper. we conducted this study in indonesia, the largest muslim population in the globe, which is home to an estimated number of 225,000,000 muslims (budiman, 2013). over the past decade, terrorism has become one of the unresolved indonesian problems (arnaz & marhaenjati, 2013). among a series of terrorist attacks in this country, the bali bombings in 2002 were viewed as the most heinous ones (karmini, 2012). indonesian authorities have made much effort to crack down on terrorist groups by detaining and even killing somemembers and suspected members of these groups, as well as disseminating information that these radical groups are the real perpetrators of the terrorism (perdani & parlina, 2014). however, it is believed that much of the indonesian public has disregarded such official reports and even otherwise externalizes the problem by blaming thewest as having created terrorism in indonesia (jones, 2009; mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014a, 2014b). the west in this discourse is believed to be the real terrorists whereas indonesian radical islamists are just their puppets (hilmy, 2010). we demonstrate that the extent to which muslims perceive the west as posing a symbolic threat as well as a realistic threat to islamic existence is directly accountable for increasing their tendency to blame thewest as a perpetrator of domestic terrorism (i.e., external attribution of terrorism) and conversely decreasing their tendency to blame home-grown radical islamists as the perpetrator (i.e., internal attribution of terrorism). we also show that either uncertainty avoidance or islamic fundamentalism directly predicts symbolic threat, whereas the first but not the latter directly predicts realistic threat. moreover, as it will become clear in the following, cognitive response but not emotional response to muslims’ own death (i.e., mortality salience) is another individual factor that increases islamic fundamentalism. attributions of cause of terrorism as predicted by intergroup threats early social psychologists (heider, 1958; kelley, 1967) assumed that the people commit attribution because of their desire to find causes and explanations for daily events, in order to gain a sense of control and predictability over their environments. other theorists (e.g., bohner, bless, schwarz, & strack, 1988; olson, roese, & zanna, 1996) expanded this theory by positing that threatening events are most likely to trigger attribution. stephan, ybarra, and morrison (2009) theorized that within the intergroup relation context, people can feel threatened by two types of threats: symbolic and realistic threats. symbolic threat refers to a threat emanating from ingroup members’ perception that the norms, values, or cultures of their group are being undermined by those of the outgroup members. some muslims indeed view the west as symbolically threatening islamic existence because the current globalization underpinning the west’s dominance has brought new norms and values, which are to some extent in conflict with and even undermine traditional islamic ways of life (moghaddam, 2005). realistic threat has to do with a threat emanating from ingroup members’ perception that the economy, power, or security of their europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 69 http://www.psychopen.eu/ group has been challenged by those of the outgroup. the western supremacy in areas such as economy, technology, and politics has intensified muslims’ perception that the power of islam is under threat, which reflects how muslims indeed subjectively view the west as posing a realistic threat to islamic existence (fair & shepherd, 2006). prior studies have examined intergroup threat and attribution, but their focus was not on how the first directly impacts on the latter. rather, intergroup threat and attribution have been investigated in combination and found to interact to affect negative outgroup attitudes in terms of ethnic prejudice and anti-semitism (becker, wagner, & christ, 2011) or negative affect against the threatening group (costarelli, 2007). in addition, dietz-uhler and murrell (1998) found that identity threat did not significantly affect people’s internal and external attributions in such a way that people reported an equal level of the attributions under threatening condition and non-threatening condition, more particularly when they strongly identified with their own group. unlike those studies, we proposed a new venue of research where intergroup threat is predicted as a potent, direct determinant of attribution. we built our arguments upon the model of ethnocentric attribution of bias (weber, 1994). this model postulates that to protect their group esteem, ingroupmembers externally attribute their internal problems in such a way that they blame the outgroup rather than their group as responsible for their own problems. in contrast, to enhance their group esteem, ingroup members defensively deny their own group’s accountability for their own problems. these attributions, as found in the research by kenworthy and miller (2002), are in part fuelled by the perception of ingroup members that the outgroup poses a threat to their existence. stated another way, when people perceive outgroup as threatening their own group, they tend to blame the outgroup rather than the ingroup for causing their own problems. taken together, drawing on the model of ethnocentric attribution of bias, muslims’ perception of the west as symbolic and realistic threats to islamic existence may result in two opposing consequences: (1) an increased external attribution of the cause of terrorism, in which the west is blamed as causing terrorism and conversely, (2) a decreased internal attribution of terrorism, in which the radical islamists are the ones to blame. the impact of islamic fundamentalism on intergroup threats previous studies have examined the link between intergroup threat perceptions and islamic fundamentalism. altemeyer and hunsberger (1992, p. 118) defined religious fundamentalism as “the belief that there is one set of religious teachings that clearly contains the fundamental, basic intrinsic, essential, inerrant truth about humanity and deity”. this widely cited definition of religious fundamentalism, however, should be interpreted with caution. this is because, as pointed out by williamson, hood, ahmad, sadiq, and hill (2010), such definition originally derives from a particular historical context of protestant movements in america. as a result, whether such definition can generalize into fundamentalism across major religions other than christianity such as buddhism, hindu, or islam is still debatable (hood, hill, & williamson, 2005). despite this controversy, scholars however converge towards the notion that what fundamentalism across those major religions have in common is resistance against alternative worldviews, intolerance of ambiguity, and narrow-mindedness (moghaddam, 2008). with these characteristics, religious fundamentalism in general causes outgroup negativity including prejudice (johnson, rowatt, & labouff, 2010), hostility (rothschild, abdollahi, & pyszczynski, 2009), and discrimination (kirkpatrick, 1993). drawing on these findings, we posited that the impact of religious fundamentalism in fostering people’s negative attitudes against the outgroup translates into the perception that this outgroup threatens these people’s own group. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 70 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the studies by jackson and esses (1997), participants self-reporting as a protestant, catholic, jew, and others (e.g., muslim, hindu) who were high in religious fundamentalism perceived single mothers and homosexuals, but not native canadians and students as a symbolic threat, and this threat in turn prompted those individuals to hold the two groups to be responsible for their own social problems. high religious fundamentalists in this regard view the groups as symbolically threatening because mothers and homosexuals, but not native canadians and students are considered to have norms and values that are starkly different from their standard religious norms and values. duckitt (2006) found that among undergraduate students at auckland university, new zealand, a trait closely overlapping with religious fundamentalism termed right wing authoritarianism, which is characterized by conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, and authoritarian submission, gave rise to the perception that the threatening outgroups (i.e., drug dealers, feminists) posed a symbolic threat (i.e., threat to important norms, values, and traditions), but not a realistic threat (i.e., threat to social stability, security, and control) to the ingroup. in a similar vein, mashuri, zaduqisti, sakdiah, and sukmawati (2015) recently found that within the indonesian context, muslims’ islamic fundamentalism positively related to the extent to which this religious group perceived the west as a symbolic threat (i.e., threat to islamic traditions and culture), but not a realistic threat to islamic existence (i.e., threat to muslims’ economic and political power). all of these findings suggest that the more fundamentalist muslims are, the more likely it is that they perceive the west as posing a symbolic but not a realistic threat to islamic existence. this is because islamic fundamentalists are characterized by a desire to hold traditional norms and values, thereby prompting muslims high in islamic fundamentalism are more sensitive and curious to symbolic rather than realistic threat in their relations with the west (moghaddam, 2009, 2012). in a similar vein, monroe and kreidie (1997) stipulated that religious fundamentalism in general has to do more with identity crisis rather than political and economic crises. in particular, identity crisis denotes “a crisis of identity by those who fear extinction as a people or their absorption into an overarching culture to such a degree that their distinctiveness is undermined in the rush to homogeneity” (marty & appleby, 1991). the mediating role of uncertainty avoidance integrated threat theory (itt) describes that cultural dimension of uncertainty avoidance serves one of the antecedents of intergroup threat perceptions (stephan et al., 2009). as hofstede (1991, p. 113) put it, people high in uncertainty avoidance “feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations”. high uncertainty avoidance thus reasonably leads people to be susceptible to seeing an unfamiliar outgroup with different values, norms, and cultures as threatening (stephan et al., 2009). high uncertainty avoidance also ignites the heightened need for security, which makes people high on this cultural dimension to be prone to experience realistic threat (stephan et al., 2009). taken together, drawing on the rationales of the itt, uncertainty avoidance may augment both symbolic threat and realistic threat. furthermore, some studies have suggested that the extent to which people show high uncertainty avoidance depends on their level of religious fundamentalism. compared to less religious fundamentalists, high religious fundamentalists are more resistant to ambiguity (budner, 1962), more intolerant of inconsistency (feather, 1964), and reported an augmented need for closure (saroglou, 2002). brandt and reyna (2010) also found that religious fundamentalism significantly resulted in a greater preference for order and predictability, decisiveness, and discomfort with ambiguity, a cluster of psychological expressions of need for closure. as concluded by these authors, religious fundamentalism serves to attenuate instability and maintain certainty. deriving from these rational and empirical findings, we contend that muslims’ islamic fundamentalism may increase uncertainty avoidance. this cultural dimension in turn makes muslims perceive the west as posing an intergroup threat to islamic existence. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 71 http://www.psychopen.eu/ uncertainty avoidance, therefore, is expected to mediate the effect of muslims’ islamic fundamentalism on symbolic and realistic threat perceptions towards the west. mortality salience and islamic fundamentalism the mortality salience hypothesis within the terror management theory (tmt) posits that belief in the cultural worldviews functions to protect people from anxiety about their own death (pyszczynski, solomon, & greenberg, 2003). as a consequence, reminders over their own death (i.e., mortality salience) should boost people’s need for the belief. as pointed-out by salzman (2008), religious fundamentalism stands for the belief in the cultural worldviews that provides people with a defensive system to cope with the death-related anxiety. this implies that mortality salience and religious fundamentalism are two concepts that are presumably interconnected. nevertheless, previous studies have escaped their attention to investigate the nature of the connection between the two, in order to verify which one really has a causal effect on another. rather, existing studies are more interested in examining the combined effect of mortality salience and religious fundamentalism in molding a host of attitudes and behaviors such as hostility towards outgroups (rothschild et al., 2009) and refusal to medical treatment (vess, arndt, cox, routledge, & goldenberg, 2009). albeit not yet empirically investigated, mcgregor (2006) argued that mortality salience is a potent antecedent of religious fundamentalism. in particular, this scholar reasoned that mortality salience is one of anxiety provoking threats. to alleviate these threats, people respond to mortality salience with defensively zealous reactions characterized by, inter alia, value adherence and close-mindedness that mark religious fundamentalism (galen, 2011). in support of these arguments, a study conducted by gailliot, stillman, schmeichel, maner, and plant (2008) revealed that mortality salience increased people’s adherence to salient norms and values. previous studies (hunsberger, alisat, pancer, & pratt, 1996; hunsberger, pratt, & pancer, 1994) have revealed that people high in religious fundamentalism tended to think more about simple topics surrounding existential threats such as abortion and the death of the beloved one and demonstrated the same level of such cognitive complexity when persuaded to think about non-existential issues such as environmental dilemma. other studies demonstrate that more religious people are the greater they have positive emotions (christopher, drummond, jones, marek, & therriault, 2006) and the lesser they are anxious about death (cohen et al., 2005). corroborating these findings, friedman (2008) found that cognitive response to people’s own death (i.e., mortality salience), which particularly has to do with simple religion-related concepts such as hell and heaven, god, sin, physical decay and so forth, significantly increased religious fundamentalism. in contrast, negative emotions in response to people’s own death such as anxiety, depression, sadness, loneliness, and fear did not significantly predict religious fundamentalism. overview and hypotheses of the study we operationalized the term “thewest” in this study as the united states and its supposed allies, more particularly western european countries and israel. this operationalization built on some studies among indonesian muslims (khisbiyah, 2009; muluk, sumaktoyo, & ruth, 2013; putra & sukabdi, 2014; siegel, 2000; suciu, 2008; van bruinessen, 2002) revealing that members of this religious group have pervasive negative sentiments against these countries believed as having conspired to debilitate islam or muslims. in case of israel, these studies uncovered that some indonesian muslims’ hostility against this country is rooted at their unilateral claim that the u.s. has incessantly supported israel’s occupation of palestine. we accordingly provided participants with information on such operationalization at the beginning of the questionnaire. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 72 http://www.psychopen.eu/ we recruited only indonesian sunni muslims as participants in the current research. sunni in indonesia is a dominant islamic denomination that makes up 99% out of 225 million muslims, whereas the rest are shiites and ahmadis constituting the islamic minority groups (mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014c). while continuously persecuting minorities of shiites and ahmadis (amirio, 2015; fachrudin, 2015), some sunni muslims in indonesia have demonstrated a growing trend of complete anti-west sentiments (bayuni, 2015). these sentiments typically take form in call for the enforcement of islamic law to displace democracy they harshly criticize as the representation of the western liberal ruling system that is not aligned with the islamic norms and values (lestari & seiff, 2015). within the indonesian context, there is not yet available information regarding how shiites and ahmadis view the west and whether these islamic minorities equally demonstrate such negative sentiments. building on these contextual backgrounds, the inclusion criterion of participants in the current research focused on sunni muslims. we administered the questionnaire compiling all materials in the current research in indonesian, following the standard procedure of a backward-forward translation (de groot, dannenburg, & van hell, 1994). nevertheless, an exception wasmade for scales adopted from the previous studies that were originally administered in indonesian. the first author initially translated the original english scales into indonesian. an independent bilingual proficient in both english and indonesian then translated back the scales into english. in the third step, the first author compared those two english versions of the scales in an attempt of checking language biases. finally, we refined the indonesian version of the scales based on the existing language biases. drawing on theoretical rationales and empirical findings discussed above, we generated several hypotheses. the model of ethnocentric attribution of bias (weber, 1994) suggests that with the aim of protecting their collective self-esteem, ingroup members attribute their own problems to outgroup (i.e., an external cause) rather than ingroup (i.e., an internal cause). people perform such attribution more strongly when they view outgroup as threatening their existence (kenworthy & miller, 2002). drawing on these rationales, we predicted that both symbolic threat and realistic threat would increase external attribution of terrorism but decrease internal attribution of terrorism (hypothesis 1). people high in islamic fundamentalism are concerned more about maintaining traditional norms and values rather than power or economic status (moghaddam, 2009, 2012; monroe & kreidie, 1997), which render them to become more sensitive to symbolic threat instead of realistic threat perceptions. from this argumentation, we predicted that islamic fundamentalism would increase symbolic threat but not realistic threat (hypothesis 2), wherein symbolic threat but not realistic threat would mediate the effect of islamic fundamentalism on external attribution of terrorism (hypothesis 3a) and internal attribution of terrorism (hypothesis 3b). according to integrated threat theory, uncertainty avoidance can be a potential precursor of both symbolic threat and realistic threat (stephan et al., 2009). this cultural dimension may predict symbolic threat because people high in uncertainty avoidance are intolerant against different norms, culture, or values, which ultimately leads high fundamentalists to see them as a threat to their identity. uncertainty avoidance may predict realistic threat because people high in this cultural dimension tend to demonstrate high need for security, which makes them more competitive oriented and accordingly view other groups as a threat to their political or economic standings. building on these arguments, we subsequently predicted that uncertainty avoidance would increase both symbolic threat and realistic threat (hypothesis 4). people high in religious fundamentalism have reported several heightened needs as earmarks of people’s tendency to avoid uncertainty such as predictability, order, and decisiveness (brandt & reyna, 2010). this suggests that religious fundamentalismmay increase uncertainty avoidance. in light of these argumentations, we predicted that islamic fundamentalism would increase uncertainty avoidance and in turn, this cultural dimension would increase symbolic threat (hypothesis 5a) and realistic threat (hypothesis 5b). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 73 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these hypotheses denote that the effect of islamic fundamentalism on symbolic threat and realistic threat is mediated by uncertainty avoidance. finally, with reference to the findings in friedman’s (2008) study, we predicted that cognitive response and not negative emotional response to mortality salience would increase islamic fundamentalism (hypothesis 6). method participants and design of the 308 participants, 181 (58.8%) were undergraduate students from stain pekalongan and 127 (41.2%) were undergraduate students fromuniversity of brawijaya, both of which were in java, indonesia (210 were female, 93 were male, 5 did not mention their gender; mage = 19.20; sdage = 2.01). all participants self-reported as a sunni muslim. most of the participants (280) were ethnically javanese, the rest (19) were non-javanese, and 9 did not indicate their ethnicity. participants took part in this study voluntarily, in return of no rewards. by means of convenience sampling, we recruited participants on the basis of their willingness to take part in the current study and available access to approach them (creswell, 2013). we designed this study as a correlational survey, wherein unless otherwise indicated, all variables were quantitatively measured using a scale. our decision to choose quantitative design over qualitative design in the current study built upon one main consideration, taking into account arguments made by creswell (2013). in particular, we aimed to approach systematically the problems in the current study pertaining to individual and group factors that contribute to muslims’ tendency to attribute terrorist attacks to an internal cause or external cause. by doing so, we expected to obtain comparable data, make possible generalization to the wider population, and test the theories with hypotheses as elaborated above. procedure and measures the administration of this study was in a classroom, in which participants were handed a questionnaire compiling the relevant scales and other researchmaterials. we created the scales by averaging the items on which participants were asked to indicate their agreement on a 7-point likert scale ranging between 1 (not at all) and 7 (very much). a recent study led by dawes (2008) demonstrated no significant impact of the three different formats of 5-point, 7-point, and 10-point likert scales in affecting mean variation, skewness, and kurtosis of the data. however, we decided to use 7-point instead of 5-point or 10-point likert scales because psychometric literature (nunnally & bernstein, 1994) suggests that the first than the second and the third is more warranted to reach a good balance between having a measure with enough points of discrimination and having a measure without excessive response options. at the beginning of the questionnaire, participants were provided with informed consent on which they were asked to affix signature upon their agreement to take part in this study. the next parts of the questionnaire were a series of items to assess each of the variables including emotional and cognitive response to mortality salience, islamic fundamentalism, uncertainty avoidance, symbolic threat, realistic threat, external attribution of terrorism, and internal attribution of terrorism, respectively. responses to mortality salience were assessed with the procedure modified from the study conducted by greenberg, porteus, simon, pyszczynski, and solomon (1995) and by friedman (2008). first, the mortality salience was induced by providing participants with the instructions following a standard procedure by greenberg et al. (1995): “please imagine that your own death arouses in you” and “to what extent do you agree that as you physically die and once you are physically dead, you will feel emotions and europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 74 http://www.psychopen.eu/ think about the topics as the following?” then, participants were asked to rate the extent to which they will feel negative emotions such as sadness and fear and think of topics such as god, religion, and physical decay. the themes of these emotions and topics built upon the empirical findings in the study led by friedman (2008) pertaining to the quantitative text analysis on how people respond to mortality salience. overall, items to assess negative emotional responses were reliable (α = .79), so were those to assess cognitive responses (α = .78). islamic fundamentalism was assessed with 20 items modified from the study by altemeyer and hunsberger (1992). this modification of this original scale was based on the study by kunst, thomsen, and sam (2014), in which general terms were replaced by more specific ones, suited to muslim fundamentalism. general terms such “god” were replaced with “allah”, “sacred scripture” by “qur’an”, “religion” by “islam”. this modified scale (e.g., “allah has given mankind a complete, unfailing guide to happiness and salvation, which must be totally followed) had an acceptable reliability (α = .68). uncertainty avoidance was assessed with five items adapted from the study conducted by yoo, donthu, and lenartowicz (2011; e.g., “it is important to closely follow instructions and procedures”; α = .83). symbolic threat was assessed with six items, with item number one to five being adopted from the study conducted by mashuri, zaduqisti, sukmawati, sakdiah, and suharini (2015) and item number six was created by the authors in an exploratory way (e.g., “the possibility that the values and culture of the west will continue to displace and weaken the values and culture of islam is something that deeply worries me”; α = .91). realistic threat was assessed with six items adopted from the study conducted by mashuri, zaduqisti, sukmawati, et al. (2015; e.g., “i fear that the strong power of the western world will debilitate a bargaining position of the islamic world in the global competition”; α = .92). external attribution of terrorismwas assessed with six items (e.g., “thewest is the true perpetrator of terrorism in indonesia”; α = .79). internal attribution of terrorism was assessed with four items (e.g., “terrorism in indonesia is due to the errors radical muslim have done in interpreting islam”; α = .61). both of these scales were created by the authors in an exploratory way, to suit them to the indonesian context. at the end of the questionnaire, participants were asked to indicate their age, gender, ethnicity, university affiliation, and islamic denomination (i.e., sunni, shia, ahmadiyya, and others). upon finishing, participants were debriefed and thanked. results preliminary analyses descriptive statistics table 1 presented descriptive statistics and correlations among observed variables in the current study. inspections of a one-sample t-test revealed that all variables were high as they are significantly above the midpoint of 4, except for internal attribution of terrorism that was conversely low as it is significantly below the midpoint of 4. each variable tended to correlate with one another, except for emotional response to mortality salience that significantly correlated only with cognitive response to mortality salience. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 75 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlations among observed variables 87654321sdmvariable −1. emotional response to mortality salience .08-.08-.09.03.06.04.21**.351.85***4 −2. cognitive response to mortality salience .13*-.09.15**.19**.29**.31**.82.33***6 −3. islamic fundamentalism .03-.09.21**.30**.35**.67.85***4 −4. uncertainty avoidance .17**-.17**.25**.36**.83.22***6 −5. symbolic threat .24**-.31**.50**.231.75***5 −6. realistic threat .26**-.33**.461.32***5 −7. external attribution of terrorism .14*-.171.51***4 −8. internal attribution of terrorism .191.73***2 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. item parceling our focus in the current paper was on the relations among latent constructs instead of the relations among observed variables or items within these constructs. as such, we implemented item parceling to create indicators in our structural models (little, cunningham, shahar, & widaman, 2002). with such focus, item parceling is said to be less problematic and even warranted (rogers & schmitt, 2004). we transformed the observed variables into the latent variables by means of item-parceling. this procedure built upon the result of exploratory factor analysis (efa) with an oblique rotation (i.e., promax: little et al., 2002; hall, snell, & foust, 1999). if the efa revealed that the variable is unidimensional, we used an item-balancing technique to construct the item parceling (little et al., 2002; sass & smith, 2006). if the efa revealed that the variable is multidimensional, we used a domain-representative technique (kishton & widaman, 1994) to construct the item parceling. parcels may consist of unequal items. under this condition, the item-balancing technique can still maintain parcels with balanced factor loadings. however, unequal items can make one or more parcels no longer domain representative as these parcels do not cover items from all dimensions or facets (coffman & maccallum, 2005). we analyzed the data by means of mplus version 6 (muthén & muthén, 1998-2010). the data contained some missing values as one or more items were not completed by the participants. however, the missing values were only .92%, which is considered as very small and thereby inconsequential to bias the statistical analysis as they are far less than 5% (schafer, 1999). the mplus also revealed that the data contradicted the assumption of multivariate normality (skewness: 84.53, m = 40.57, sd = 1.47, p < .001; kurtosis: 619.44, m = 524.51, sd = 3.64, p < .001). based on these results, we decided to use mlr as an appropriate estimator for data that violate multivariate normality and that contain missing values (wang & wang, 2012). assessment of construct validity prior to hypotheses testing, assessment of the construct validity of the measurement model is highly recommended (anderson & gerbing, 1988; maccallum, 1986). this assessment could take form in both convergent validity and discriminant validity, using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa: brown, 2006; harrington, 2008). convergent validity connotes the extent to which theoretically overlapping indicators or constructs are highly correlated, whereas discriminant validity connotes the extent to which theoretically different indicators or constructs are not strongly interrelated. convergent and discriminant validities of the measurement model hold when cfa results in good fits to the data. the goodness of fits of the measurement model was assessed with various parameters including europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 76 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the relative chi-square (i.e., the value of chi-square divided by the degree of freedom), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cfi), and tucker-lewis index (tli). following recommendations (hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 1998), the measurement model is said to live up to very good fits to the data if the relative chi-square is less than 2 or 3, whereas rmsea should be less than .05 and cfi and tli should be more than .95. as shown in table 2, the hypothesized eight-factor oblique, which allowed all latent constructs or factors to correlate one another, resulted in very good fits to the data than either the eight-factor orthogonal, which allowed all latent constructs to be independent of one another, ∆χ2 (35) = 321.47, p < .001, or one factor, which specified all item parcels or indicators to load to a single latent construct, ∆χ2 (29) = 1449.23, p < .001. these findings overall confirmed that item parcels that serve as indicators in the hypothesized measurement model strongly loaded to their respective latent constructs (i.e., convergent validity), but weakly loaded to other latent constructs (i.e., divergent validity). i table 2 comparison of fit indices of the hypothesized measurement model (eight-factor oblique), the second measurement model (eight-factor orthogonal), and the third measurement model (one factor) fit index measurement model tlicfirmseaχ2/dfdfχ2 .96.97.04 (90% ci [.03, .05])1.48181(1) eight-factors oblique .05268 .83.84.08 (90% ci [.07, .09])2.96216(2) eight-factors orthogonal .23640 .25.31.17 (90% ci [.16, .17])9.59210(3) one factor .312013 assessment of item parceling model when a construct is measured by a scale consisting of multiple items, indicators within this construct could be derived from three different aggregation levels: total disaggregation, partial disaggregation, and total aggregation (coffman &maccallum, 2005). total disaggregation indicates that each item functions as an indicator for a construct. partial disaggregation is characterized by several items that are averaged or summed to create parcels as an indicator for a construct. in a totally aggregated model, all items within a scale are averaged or summed in such a way that a construct represents an observed variable rather than a latent variable. some studies have found that the use of partial disaggregation or item parceling model is more advantageous than total disaggregation model in the sense that the first more than the latter resulted in less biased parameter estimates and better overall goodness of fits to the data, either in real or simulation studies (bandalos, 2002). compared to a total aggregation model, both total disaggregation model and partial disaggregation model are more advantageous because they can take into account error variances, which are undeniable in any psychological measurements. as such, in a situation where a construct is assessed with multiple items, the use of a total disaggregation model or a partial disaggregation model is more recommended than a total aggregation model that unrealistically assumes no measurement errors (kline, 1998). table 3 presented comparison of the three aggregation models discussed above. as shown in this table, the partial disaggregation model as the hypothesized structural model in the current study turned out to have better overall goodness of fits to the data vis-à-vis a total disaggregation model and a total aggregation model. these europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 77 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results suggested that the partial disaggregation model more than the total disaggregation model and the total aggregation model is more reliable for use to test the hypotheses in the current study. table 3 comparison of fit indices of the total disaggregation model, partial disaggregation model, and total aggregation model fit index structural model tlicfirmseaχ2/dfdfχ2 .74.76.06 (90% ci [.06, .061])2.0315251. total disaggregation model .633089 .96.97.04 (90% ci [.03, .05])1.431952. partial disaggregation model .24279 .92.96.05 (90% ci [.01, .08])1.72143. total aggregation model .0424 hypotheses testing to test the hypotheses, we implemented a full model of structural equation modeling (kelloway, 1998). in particular, this full model built upon the partial disaggregation model discussed above. in this hypothesized model, we allowed variables within the same group of constructs to correlate (mcgartland rubio, berg-weger, & tebb, 2001). accordingly, emotional responses to mortality salience and cognitive responses to mortality salience were allowed to correlate, and so were symbolic threat and realistic threat as well as external attribution of terrorism and internal attribution of terrorism. overall, the hypothesized model resulted in very good fits to the data, relative chi-square = 1.43, rmsea = .037 (90% ci [.027, .047]), cfi = .97, tli = .96. this model explained 17% variance of internal attribution of terrorism (se = .05, p = .001), 20% variance of external attribution of terrorism (se = .05, p < .001), 9% variance of realistic threat (se = .04, p = .016), 26% variance of symbolic threat (se = .07, p < .001), 24% variance of uncertainty avoidance (se = .07, p = .001), and 18% variance of islamic fundamentalism (se = .07, p = .012). figure 1 presented path coefficients and factor loadings of the hypothesized full model. as shown in figure 1, symbolic threat significantly increased external attribution of terrorism (β = .31, 95% ci [.153, .456], se = .08, p < .001, squared semi-partial correlation [sr2] = .08, power = .98), but decreased internal attribution of terrorism (β = -.26, 95% ci [-.424, -.086], se = .09, p = .003, sr2 = .06, power = .84), and so did realistic threat—for the effect of realistic threat on external attribution of terrorism (β = .20, 95% ci [.039, .355], se = .08, p = .015, sr2 = .03, power = .76); for the effect of realistic threat on internal attribution of terrorism (β = -.21, 95% ci [-.402, -.018], se = .10, p = .032, sr2 = .04, power = .70).ii these results substantiated hypothesis 1. islamic fundamentalism significantly increased symbolic threat (β = .29, 95% ci [.087, .494], se = .10, p = .005, sr2 = .09, power = .95), but not realistic threat (β = .16, 95% ci [-.022, .348], se = .09, p = .083), in support of hypothesis 2. in line with hypothesis 3a, the effect of islamic fundamentalism on external attribution of terrorism was significantly mediated by symbolic threat (β = .09, 95% ci [.007, .171], se = .04, p = .032, kappa squared [k2] = .22, power = .84) and not realistic threat (β = .03, 95% ci [-.012, .076], se = .02, p = .149).iii symbolic threat but not realistic threat also significantly mediated the effect of islamic fundamentalism on internal attribution of terrorism—for the indirect effect of symbolic threat, (β = -.07, 95% ci [-.144, -.005], se = .04, p = .036, k2 = .22, power = .64); for the indirect effect of realistic threat, (β = −.03, 95% ci [-.086, .018], se = .03, p = .197). these findings were in line with hypothesis 3b. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 78 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the hypothesized full model of the relationships among external attribution of terrorism, internal attribution of terrorism, symbolic threat, realistic threat, uncertainty avoidance, islamic fundamentalism, cognitive response to mortality salience and emotional response to mortality salience. note. the numbers were standardized path coefficients and factor-loadings. extera−exterb = external attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; intera−interb = internal attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; syma = symbolic threat parcel a; symb = symbolic threat parcel b; symc = symbolic threat parcel c; reala = realistic threat parcel a; realb = realistic threat parcel b; realc = realistic threat parcel c; avoida−avoidb = uncertainty avoidance parcel a and parcel b; funda−funde = islamic fundamentalism parcel a, parcel b, parcel c, parcel d, and parcel e; emota−emoc = emotional response to mortality salience parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; coga and cogb = cognitive response to morality salience parcel a and parcel b. nsp ≥ .05 (not significant). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. all factor-loadings were significant at p < .001. uncertainty avoidance turned out to significantly increase both symbolic threat (β = .30, 95% ci [.126, .481], se = .09, p = .001, sr2= .05, power = .98) and realistic threat (β = .19, 95% ci [.030, .343], se = .08, p = .019, sr2 = .02, power = .67), as predicted in hypothesis 4. this cultural dimension also significantly mediated the effect of islamic fundamentalism on symbolic threat (β = .15, 95% ci [.046, .249], se = .05, p = .004, k2 = .16, power = .98) and realistic threat (β = .09, 95% ci [.009, .173], se = .04, p = .03, k2 = .09, power = .65), corroborating hypothesis 5a and hypothesis 5b. finally, we found in line with hypothesis 6 that cognitive response to mortality salience significantly increased islamic fundamentalism (β = .43, 95% ci [.265, .599], se = .09, p = < .001, sr2 = .25, power = 1.00), but emotional response did not too (β = −.03, 95% ci [−.168, .113], se = .07, p = 698). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 79 http://www.psychopen.eu/ alternative models some alternative models were examined to verify the plausibility of the hypothesized model. comparison of nested models was tested on the basis of chi-square difference test, whereas akaike information criteria (aic) and bayesian information criteria (bic) were employed for comparison of non-nested models. a model with lower aic and bic indicates a better fit to the data (nylund, asparouhov, & muthén, 2007). to be concluded as significant, the difference of aic and bic between two models should be at least 4 points (burnham & anderson, 2004). iv alternative model 1 the first alternative model was a non-nested model, in which uncertainty avoidance was specified as preceding islamic fundamentalism (see figure a.2 in appendix 2). uncertainty may directly lead to islamic fundamentalism given that heightened identification with groups, more typically those with high entitativity such as religious groups, serves as a defensive mechanism to mitigate the uncertainty (hogg, adelman, & blagg, 2010). the aic (19009.25) and bic (19307.66) of this alternative model were significantly greater than the hypothesized model (aic = 18999.52; bic = 19297.93), ∆aic = .9.73, ∆bic = 9.73. alternative model 2 the second alternative model was a nested model, in which the path from islamic fundamentalism to symbolic threat and realistic threat was made bidirectional (see figure a.3 in appendix 2). shaffer and hastings (2007) found that participants exposed to threat demonstrated a higher degree of islamic fundamentalism. in a more specific context, the political and cultural supremacies of the united states in particular and the west in general over islamic countries in the current globalization era constitute a situational factor that has augmented muslims’ islamic fundamentalism and radicalism (rogers et al., 2007). the chi-square of the hypothesized model (χ2 = 260.144, df = 195) was not significantly different from that of this alternative model (χ2 = 257.547, df = 193), ∆χ2 (2) = 2.60, p > .05.v alternative model 3 the third alternative model was another nested model by adding the direct path from cognitive responses to mortality salience to symbolic threat and realistic threat (see figure 4 in the appendix). greenberg et al. (1990) for example found that mortality salience directly gave rise to the ingroup’s negative evaluations of the threatening outgroup. the chi-square of the hypothesized model (χ2 = 260.144, df = 195) was not significantly different from this alternative model (χ2 = 250.412, df = 193), ∆χ2 (2) = .732, p > .05. discussion the current study aimed at simultaneously investigating individual factors and intergroup factors that affect the extent to which indonesian muslims perceive that terrorism in their country is caused externally by the west or internally by islamist radicals. we found the concerted effect of symbolic threat and realistic threat in increasing external attribution of terrorism and, in contrast, decreasing internal attribution of terrorism. as predicted, islamic fundamentalism resulted in greater symbolic threat, but not realistic threat. the former, but not the latter intergroup threat also turned out to mediate the effect of islamic fundamentalism on either external or internal attributions of terrorism. we also found that uncertainty avoidance augmented both symbolic threat and realistic threat, and ultimately this cultural dimension mediated the effect of islamic fundamentalism on each of these intergroup threats. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 80 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, cognitive instead of emotional response to mortality salience, as hypothesized, significantly prompted muslim to be more religiously fundamentalist. the finding in this study suggesting that symbolic threat and realistic threat substantially impacted on a greater external attribution of terrorism is in line with integrated threat theory (stephan et al., 2009). as concluded in a meta-analysis study by riek, mania, and gaertner (2006), both symbolic and realistic threats have been confirmed as triggering various negative outgroup attitudes including prejudice and discrimination. however, another finding in this study that symbolic threat and realistic threat have resulted in a lesser internal attribution of terrorism may develop and extend the itt. this is because itt has heavily focused on the effect of intergroup threats on negative outgroup attitudes, paying little attention to how these threats have empirical consequences on ingroup attitudes. however, stephan et al. (2009) suggested that intergroup threats potentially contribute to more favorable ingroup attitudes. one of the findings in this study has substantiated this argumentation in which we observed that muslims’ perception that the west has symbolically and realistically threatened islamic existence led them to deny the indonesian radical islamists as being accountable for the domestic terrorism. to develop these findings and verify their consistency, future studies, however, require investigating terrorist events outside indonesia, such as those in todays’ syria and iraq. existing studies regarding the effect of islamic fundamentalism on negative intergroup attitudes and behaviors have reported mixed findings. as reviewed by rothschild et al. (2009), fundamentalists across religions have supported or even actively taken part in international wars, terrorism, and violence. fundamentalism has also been found to ignite prejudice, religious ethnocentrism, and support for militarism. on another hand, some studies have revealed that islamic fundamentalism did not have a direct role in provoking such negativities, wherein such direct effect was moderated by some factors such as the belief in establishing islam peacefully and justification of violent actions (e.g., putra & sukabdi, 2014), and compassionate values (rothschild et al., 2009). the findings in this study thereby are parallel with the second line of studies, but with a different direction. more particularly, we found that the route from islamic fundamentalism to the negativities in terms of external attribution of terrorism did not pass a direct, toll road, but an indirect one, via symbolic threat, but not realistic threat. it is highly likely that the attributional effects as found in this study were not attributable to the specific characteristics of islamic fundamentalism per say, but were attributable to the extent to which participants identified with the radical islamists perpetrating the terrorist attacks. stated another way, islamic fundamentalism in our current study may have simply been a marker of the extent to which religious fundamentalists perceive the radical islamists as ingroup members. this can be the case because people high in islamic fundamentalism may view radical islamists as ingroup members and accordingly, engage in self or group-serving attributions. people low in islamic fundamentalism in contrast may not view the radical islamists as ingroup members and thereby do not engage in the same defensive attributions. to verify this possibility, future studies need to assess the degree to which muslims identify with the radical islamists, which presumably moderate the degree to which islamic fundamentalism predicts attributional biases. in the current study we measured internal attribution of terrorism after external attribution of terrorism, which would be criticized as being potentially problematic. we indeed assumed in this study that blaming radical islamists is conceptually the same as making internal attribution. nevertheless, the perception that radical islamists represent ingroup may be driven by the fact that participants first rated attributions to the west which could have shifted ingroup vis-à-vis outgroup boundaries such that radical islamists, who may have otherwise been considered an europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 81 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “external attribution target” became an “internal attribution target”. however, we contend that muslims are prone to categorize radical islamists as their ingroup whereas the west as outgroup, despite the fact that they are very moderate and hence lowly identify with radical islamists. the reason is that muslims, more specifically muslims in indonesia, regardless of their religious orientations, are vulnerable to malevolent conspiracy theories portraying that the west is suspected of engineering and masterminding domestic or even international terrorism (bowen, 2007; jones, 2002, 2009; mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014a, 2014b; perlez, 2002; smith, 2005). this type of negative thinking in part stems from an array of perceived deprivations such as injustice, defeat, and powerlessness muslims subjectively experience in their relations with the west (suciu, 2008). people in general tend to feel these deprivations as an aversive experience that threaten their group esteem, whereas belief in conspiracy theory in this regard serves a defensive mechanism to alleviate this threat (swami, 2012). we accordingly contend that owing to their proneness to such conspiracy theories, muslims deny that radical islamists are accountable for terrorism, even if they do not feel deeply attached to these extremist groups. to verify these argumentations, however, future studies can reverse the order of the attributional measures, in which internal attribution of terrorism is assessed prior to external attribution of terrorism. stephan et al. (2009) suggested that at a cultural level, intergroup threat perceptions are not only affected by how people respond to uncertainty (i.e., uncertainty avoidance) but also how they respond to power distribution and hierarchy within a society. this latter phenomenon is termed power distance as a cultural dimension that constitutes the extent to which people agree that power and social hierarchy within a society are distributed unequally (hofstede, 1991). people high in power distance, therefore, highly support such social disparities. as argued by stephan et al. (2009), given that cultures high in power distance are characterized with high indexes of aggression and conflict, the greater this cultural dimension is the greater are intergroup threat perceptions. next studies, therefore, may also assess power distance along with uncertainty avoidance to look at their effects on intergroup threat perceptions. the background of the current research was very particular, limited to the indonesian context where muslims constitute a religious majority group. muslims in the middle east and other countries in asia such as malaysia and pakistan are equally the majority group. however, in other parts of the world such as europe and america, muslims are the minority group and this fact may eventually raise the question whether the findings of the current research could generalize into muslims living in these regions. nevertheless, moghaddam (2006) as well as krueger and laitin (2008) argued that a major factor that ignites muslims’ hostility across the globe against the west is perceived discrimination and injustice. some studies have empirically verified this notion. muslims as a minority group in europe tend to perceive the west as posing a threat to their group existence because they feel that the west has discriminated and treated them unjustly (hopkins, 2011). these perceived discrimination and injustice ultimately provoke identity conflict among muslims in europe, which is characterized by strong ingroup identification with islam and weak national identification with the host country (hopkins, 2011; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). combined together, such identity conflict has been confirmed to render muslims in europe to have negative attitudes against the west (martinovic & verkuyten, 2014; verkuyten, 2007). in indonesia, a recent study has also been in support of these findings in which among some sunni muslims, such perceived injustice augmented this religious group’s support for islamic law (muluk et al., 2013) and religious radicalism (putra & sukabdi, 2014) that all together denote anti-west sentiments. with reference to this identical pattern of empirical findings across a different context, we believe that the current research could be applied to muslims living as a minority group in non-muslim regions such europe, america and so forth, which consequently helps broaden its readership. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 82 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a noteworthy limitation in the current study is that we did not measure participants’ group esteem as a muslim after the attributions of terrorism. this procedure is potentially of high importance to verify the truism of the model of ethnocentric attribution of bias (weber, 1994). as discussed earlier, this model posits that on one side, heightened external attribution serves a medium through which people protect their group esteem in dealing with the threatening outgroup. on the other side, when people encounter a problem that threatens their group, they respond to this problem by denying the responsibility on the part of their own group, in order to enhance their group esteem. implicatively, group esteem as a muslim assessed after the attributions of terrorism should positively correlate to external attribution of terrorism but negatively correlate to internal attribution of terrorism. future studies could empirically examine these hypotheses. another limitation that deserves discussing is that the effect of mortality salience on islamic fundamentalism in the current student is not causative but correlational in nature as it was measured rather than manipulated. to overcome this drawback, next studies thus can create a non-mortality condition and then compare it to a mortality salience condition as examined in the current study. this procedure is very pivotal to establish the causative effect of mortality salience on islamic fundamentalism and to assess whether the pattern of relationships among variables as found in the current study is stronger under mortality salience condition than non-mortality salience condition. we also acknowledge that convenience sampling that we used potentially limits the generalizability of the findings in the current study. to ameliorate this drawback, future studies may employ random sampling, in an attempt of getting more representative samples and extending the generalizability of the current research into much wider muslim populations in indonesia. finally, we recommend that future studies employ qualitative approach to complement the current research. this approach may use an in-depth interview or a focus group discussion, especially to grasp what are the precise meanings of the west according to muslims. we indeed constructed in the current research the meanings of the west as the u.s. and western countries as well as israel portrayed as it allies, with reference to reliable, empirical sources from existing studies among muslims in indonesia (khisbiyah, 2009; muluk et al., 2013; putra & sukabdi, 2014; siegel, 2000; suciu, 2008; van bruinessen, 2002). however, qualitative research is still highly beneficial to cultivate the specific reasons why muslims construe those countries as representing thewest that are perceived as threatening islamic existence. these reasons could enhance the objectivity of the meanings of the west within the context of the current research. we propose two practical implications. first, as suggested by rothschild et al. (2009), the religious community needs to accentuate the importance of compassionate values and teachings of love and acceptance, which are commonly shared by most religions. these authors found that inducing compassionate values among religious fundamentalists has attenuated their hostility against outgroups in dealing with mortality salience. the cultivation of compassionate values can be implemented through so-called omniculturalism (moghaddam, 2012), a policy to promote human commonalities more than human differences in all levels of educational institutions. by internalizing human commonalities, children in particular and the public in general are taught about the importance of a superordinate identity that transcends social particularities in terms of ethnicity, gender, or religion. omniculturalism in this manner can promote compassionate values of love and acceptance to others, and it is thereby said as a promising policy to reduce various ingroup extremism and ethnocentrism including islamic fundamentalism (moghaddam, 2012). second, intergroup threat perceptions can be reduced by enhancing intergroup contact, which is undeniable in the current globalization era. a meta-analysis by pettigrew and tropp (2008) has revealed that intergroup contact reduces intergroup threats and anxiety by fostering perspective-taking and empathy. however, as pointed-out by pettigrew and tropp (2008), such benefit of intergroup contact can backfire if it is not supported with common europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 83 http://www.psychopen.eu/ goals. practically, a common goal-driven intergroup contact could be actualized through endorsing an inclusive, open international policy with which muslim countries and the west are actively involved in mutual cooperation. this cooperation aims at achieving common goals in either technical domains such as water management, global warming, and health (nadler & shnabel, 2008) or general domains such as student exchanges and cultural exhibitions (mashuri, zaduqisti, & supriyono, 2012). notes i) the finding that the hypothesized measurement model was better fitted to the data than one-factor model also suggested that common method bias in the current research could be minimized (see iverson & maguire, 2000; korsgaard & roberson, 1995). common method bias refers to a systematic error that can inflate the correlations among variables in empirical studies. this bias occurs typically when scales are assessed from the same source (i.e., the same participants) and use the same item format as done in the current research (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003) so that they are vulnerable to social desirability, consistency motif, and so forth. ii) calculation of the effect size of the direct effect of each of the predictors in the hypothesized model was based on their latent scores using spss 18. more specifically, we calculated this effect size using a multiple regression analysis in which the semi-partial correlation for the respective predictor was squared by controlling for the relevant variable/s. power analysis was based on monte carlo simulation analysis using mplus. to ascertain the stability of model estimation, as recommended by muthén and muthén (2002), the simulation was conducted with 10.000 replications. iii) using process (model 4: hayes, 2013) in spss 18, we derived the squared kappa (k2) as a measure of indirect effect size by preacher and kelley (2011), wherein the latent data were resampled 5.000 times. iv) figures for each of the alternative models were presented in the appendix ii. v) following a procedure by satorra and bentler (2001), the chi-square difference test was done by rescaling the chi-square of the hypothesized model and its respective rival or alternative model. the chi-square difference test was based on the following website: http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/davis/375/popecol/tables/chisq.html funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to sincerely thank the reviewers who have generously helped us improve the english grammars of the current paper. references altemeyer, b., & hunsberger, b. 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(2011). measuring hofstede's five dimensions of cultural values at the individual level: development and validation of cvscale. journal of international consumer marketing, 23(3-4), 193-210. appendices appendix 1: a complete list of items wording emotional and cognitive responses to mortality salience “please imagine that your own death arouses in you” and “to what extent do you agree that as you physically die and once you are physically dead, you will feel emotions and think about the topics as the following?” 1. sadness. 2. fear. 3. loneliness. 4. anxiety. 5. depression. 6. heaven and hell. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 92 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2ffpsyg.2012.00280 http://dx.doi.org/10.5367%2f000000002101297035 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1368430207078695 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167207304276 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0015545 http://dx.doi.org/10.1006%2fjesp.1994.1023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f13674670802643047 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 7. physical decay. 8. allah. 9. religion. 10. sin. islamic fundamentalism 1. allah has given mankind a complete, unfailing guide to happiness and salvation, which must be totally followed. 2. all of the religions including islam in the world have flaws and wrong teachings (r). 3. of all the people on this earth, one group has a special relationship with allah because it believes the most in his revealed truths and tries the hardest to follow his laws. 4. the long-established traditions in islam show the best way to honor and serve allah, and should never be compromised. 5. islam must admit all its past failings, and adapt to modern life if it is to benefit humanity (r). 6. when you get right down to it, there are only two kinds of people in the world: the righteous, who will be rewarded by allah and the rest, who will not. 7. islam has different versions of the truth, and may be equally right in their own way (r). 8. the basic cause of evil in this world is satan, who is still constantly and ferociously fighting against allah. 9. it is more important to be a good person than to believe in allah and the right islam (r). 10. no one religion including islam is especially close to allah, nor does allah favour any particular group of believers (r). 11. allah will punish most severely those who abandon his true islam. 12. no single book of religious writings including qur’an contains all the important truths about life (r). 13. it is silly to think people can be divided into "the good" and "the evil." everyone does some good, and some bad things (r). 14. allah's true followers must remember that he requires them to constantly fight satan and satan's allies on this earth. 15. parents should encourage their children to study all religions not just islam without bias, than make up their own minds about what to believe (r). 16. islam is a religion on this earth that teaches, without error, allah's truth. 17. "satan" is just the name people give to their own bad impulses. there really is no such thing as a diabolical "prince of darkness" who tempts us (r). 18. whenever science and sacred qur’an conflict, science must be wrong. 19. there is no body of teachings, or set of scriptures, including qur’an, which is completely without error (r). 20. to lead the best, most meaningful life, one must belong to the one, true islam. uncertainty avoidance 1. it is important to have instructions spelled out in detail so that i always know what i am expected to do. 2. it is important to closely follow instructions and procedures. 3. rules and regulations are important because they inform me of what is expected of me europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 93 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 4. standardized work procedures are helpful. 5. instructions for operations are important. symbolic threat 1. i am very concerned about the western ways of life that that are not in line with moslem ways of life. 2. i worry at the west’s ways of life that contradict to muslim’s ways of life. 3. the possibility that the values and culture of the west will continue to displace and weaken the values and culture of islam is something that deeply worries me. 4. i think that the views or ideas of thewestern world are very alarming because they deviate from the views and thoughts of islam. 5. how the west interpret and judge the life i think is not in tune with how muslims do, thereby putting the values and culture of the west as a guide is something worrying. 6. i fear that in the current open society era, the influence of the values and norms of the west will compete with and even displace the values and norms of islam. realistic threat 1. i fear that the economy of the western world that is more developed and stronger than that of islamic world will weaken the influence of the islamic world in interstate competition. 2. i fear that the advancement of science and technology of the western world that significantly surpasses that of the islamic world will make the western world become more powerful. 3. i fear that the more powerful and influential position of the western world than that of islamic world will weaken the power of islamic world in interstate competition. 4. i fear that the western world with advanced economy and technology will intervene to manage natural resources in the islamic world so that the resources cannot be fully to increase the welfare of the muslim. 5. i fear that the strong powers of the western world will debilitate a bargaining position the islamic world in the global competition. 6. i fear that the strong power of the western world will make them easily intervening islamic world’s domestic affairs and problems. external attribution of terrorism 1. terrorism in indonesia is created by the conspiracies of the west. 2. terrorism in indonesia is a term popularized by the west as a scapegoat to blame muslims for the action they never did. 3. terrorism in indonesia is due to the west’s intervention to this country’s domestic problems. 4. terrorism in indonesia is clandestinely designed by the west’s intelligence. 5. terrorism in indonesia is engineered by the west to debilitate the image of islam. 6. the west is the true perpetrator of terrorism in indonesia. internal attribution of terrorism 1. terrorism in indonesia is due to the errors radical muslims have done in interpreting islam. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 94 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. radical islamists are the true perpetrator of terrorism in indonesia. 3. terrorism in indonesia is attributable to radical muslims’ misinterpretation of the meaning of jihad. 4. terrorism in indonesia originates from radical muslims’ narrow-mindedness in viewing and understanding the west. appendix 2: figures of the alternative models figure a.2. the alternative model 1 in which uncertainty avoidance is the antecedent of religious fundamentalism. note. the numbers were standardized path coefficients and factor-loadings. extera−exterb = external attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; intera−interb = internal attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; syma−symc = symbolic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; reala−realc = realistic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; avoida−avoidb = uncertainty avoidance parcel a and parcel b; funda−funde = religious fundamentalism parcel a, parcel b, parcel c, parcel d, and parcel e; emoa−emoc = emotional response to mortality salience parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c. coga-cogb = cognitive response to mortality salience parcel a and parcel b. nsp ≥ .05 (not significant). *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. all factor-loadings were significant at p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 95 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure a.3. the alternative model 2 by assuming the bidirectional relationships among religious fundamentalism, symbolic threat, and realistic threat. note. the numbers were standardized path coefficients and factor-loadings. extera−exterb = external attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; intera−interb = internal attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; syma−symc = symbolic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; reala−realc = realistic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; avoida−avoidb = uncertainty avoidance parcel a and parcel b; funda−funde = religious fundamentalism parcel a, parcel b, parcel c, parcel d, and parcel e; emoa−emoc = emotional response to mortality salience parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c. coga-cogb = cognitive response to mortality salience parcel a and parcel b. nsp ≥ .05 (not significant). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. all factor-loadings were significant at p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 96 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure a.4. the alternative model 3 in which cognitive response to mortality salience is predicted as not only indirectly affecting symbolic threat and realistic threat via religious fundamentalism but also directly affecting each of these intergroup threats. note. the numbers were standardized path coefficients and factor-loadings. extera−exterb = external attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; intera−interb = internal attribution of terrorism parcel a and parcel b; syma−symc = symbolic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; reala−realc = realistic threat parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c; avoida−avoidb = uncertainty avoidance parcel a and parcel b; funda−funde = religious fundamentalism parcel a, parcel b, parcel c, parcel d, and parcel e; emoa−emoc = emotional response to mortality salience parcel a, parcel b, and parcel c. coga-cogb = cognitive response to mortality salience parcel a and parcel b. nsp ≥ .05 (not significant). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. all factor-loadings were significant at p < .001. about the authors ali mashuri is a lecturer at the department of psychology, university of brawijaya, malang, indonesia. he is currently studying for a phd at the department of experimental and applied psychology, vu university amsterdam, the netherlands, as well as a guest phd student at the department of social and organizational psychology, leiden university, the netherlands. ali is interested in investigating various topics in social psychology including islamist radicalism and terrorism, intergroup helping, and separatist conflict. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 mashuri, akhrani, & zaduqisti 97 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lusy asa akhrani is a lecturer at the department of psychology, university of brawijjaya, malang, indonesia. lusy focuses her research interest on several topics in political psychology, more particularly islamist radicalism and voting behaviors. esti zaduqisti is a lecturer at the department of islamic education, stain pekalongan, indonesia. esti has dedicated her time and effort to investigate strategies to promote islamic inclusiveness. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 68–98 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1001 attributions of terrorism 98 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en attributions of terrorism introduction attributions of cause of terrorism as predicted by intergroup threats the impact of islamic fundamentalism on intergroup threats the mediating role of uncertainty avoidance mortality salience and islamic fundamentalism overview and hypotheses of the study method participants and design procedure and measures results preliminary analyses hypotheses testing alternative models discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendices appendix 1: a complete list of items wording appendix 2: figures of the alternative models about the authors personality, humor styles and happiness: happy people have positive humor styles research reports personality, humor styles and happiness: happy people have positive humor styles thomas e. ford*a, shaun k. lappia, christopher j. holdenb [a]western carolina university, cullowhee, nc, usa. [b] oakland university, rochester, mi, usa. abstract the present study examined the relationships between four personality traits, humor styles, and happiness. replicating previous research, happiness was positively correlated with four personality traits: extraversion, locus of control, self-esteem, and optimism. further, happiness positively related to self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles; it related negatively to self-defeating and aggressive humor styles. thus, happy people habitually engage in positive uses of humor and avoid engaging in negative uses of humor in daily life. we also found support for our hypothesis. people high in extraversion, locus of control, self-esteem, and optimism are happier because they engage in positive humor in daily life. keywords: happiness, subjective well-being, personality, humor styles europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 received: 2016-03-26. accepted: 2016-05-02. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, western carolina university, cullowhee, nc 28723, usa. e-mail: tford@wcu.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. jordyn wieber had this to say after winning a gold medal in the women’s gymnastics team competition in the 2012 summer olympics: “to have this gold medal around my neck right now is an indescribable feeling. i'm the happiest person right now.” it’s easy to understand why jordyn wieber would be happy after such a monumental achievement, but her happiness after winning an olympic gold medal is, itself, not evidence that ms. wieber is a “happy person.” the happiness of “happy people” does not depend on life circumstances. rather, happy people seem to have personalities that allow them to find happiness even in the midst of adversity and challenging life conditions. myers and diener (1995) identified four personality traits that characterize happy people: extraversion, locus of control, self-esteem and optimism. in the present research, we consider the possibility that people endowed with these personality traits habitually use humor as an adaptive strategy to maintain happiness. we present evidence that the relationship between each of the four “happy personality traits” and happiness is mediated by a self-enhancing humor style. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ happiness and its personality correlates happiness is a complex construct. it is obvious and unmistakable; people generally know and can readily report whether they are happy or not (lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999) yet they find it difficult to precisely define (freedman, 1978; lyubomirsky, tkach, & dimatteo, 2006). reflecting the intricacy of happiness, researchers generally define it as a multi-faceted construct, containing both a cognitive component—a subjective appraisal of life satisfaction, and an affective component—the relative preponderance of positive and negative emotions one experiences (e.g., emmons & diener, 1985; lyubomirsky et al., 2006; myers & diener, 1995). happy people, those high in subjective well-being (swb), report more positive than negative thoughts and feelings about their lives (myers & diener, 1995). research on the correlates of happiness has long been guided by a “bottom-up” approach emphasizing the impact of external life events and demographic variables (diener, 1984). consistent with this bottom-up approach, research has shown that desirable life events (e.g., marriage, birth of a child, winning an olympic gold medal) are associated with positive affect; whereas undesirable life events (e.g., divorce, health problems) are associated with negative affect (stallings, dunham, gatz, baker, & bengtson, 1997). however, it appears that people adapt to positive and negative events, and over time approach previous levels of overall happiness (brickman & campbell, 1971; headey & wearing, 1992). in their classic study, for instance, brickman, coates, and janoff-bulman (1978) found that people adapted their level of happiness after even an extremely positive life event—winning the lottery—or an extremely negative life event —becoming paralyzed (see also silver, 1982; suh, diener, & fujita, 1996). similarly, demographic variables and quality of life indices (e.g., sex, race, age, education level, marital status, religious faith, income) appear to have only a modest relation with long-term reports of life satisfaction (e.g., andrews & withey, 1976; argyle, 1999; campbell, converse, & rodgers, 1976; diener, lucas, & scollon, 2006). campbell et al. (1976), for instance, reported that only 17% of the variance in life satisfaction could be explained by 10 demographic variables. collectively, these “bottom up” findings highlight the importance of an alternative “top-down” approach (diener, 1984) that seeks to explain differences in happiness among people through stable personality traits. a large body of research has accumulated showing that personality traits are perhaps themost important correlates of happiness, explaining more of the total variance in happiness than demographic variables and quality of life indices (e.g., andrews & withey, 1976; deneve & cooper, 1998; diener, suh, lucas, & smith, 1999; gutiérrez, jiménez, hernández, & puente, 2005). myers and diener (1995) proposed that four personality traits, in particular, are strongly related to happiness: extraversion, locus of control, self-esteem, and optimism. these personality traits are thought to relate to happiness through two different mechanisms (lyubomirsky, tkach, & dimatteo, 2006; mccrae & costa, 1991). first, they can function through a temperamental mechanism; they predispose people to feel positive or negative emotions that influence self-reported happiness. second, they can function through an instrumental mechanism; personality traits predispose people to seek out certain situations or activities, which in turn influence happiness. extraversion among the four personality traits myers and diener (1995) identified, extraversion has received the most attention because it is one of the dimensions of the five factor model of personality, the predominant psychological paradigm for studying personality (e.g., gosling & john, 1999; mccrae & costa, 1999). in studies that group europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 321 http://www.psychopen.eu/ personality traits in terms of the five factor model, extraversion has emerged as a particularly important and consistent correlate of happiness (e.g., costa & mccrae, 1980; diener & lucas, 1999; diener, sandvik, pavot, & fujita, 1992; gutiérrez et al., 2005; hayes & joseph, 2003). hayes and joseph (2003), for instance, reported that extraversion and neuroticism were the best predictors of scores on the oxford happiness inventory. temperamentally, extraverts may be predisposed to experience positive emotions (costa & mccrae, 1980) and experience positive events more intensely than those low in extraversion (larsen & ketelaar, 1989). instrumentally, extraverts are happier because they have better social skills (argyle & lu, 1990a, 1990b) and experience greater social support (lu, shih, lin, & ju, 1997; lyubomirsky et al., 2006). locus of control rotter (1966) described locus of control in terms of people’s expectations about the degree to which reinforcement that follows behavior is under internal control (i.e., contingent upon behavior, determined by one’s own actions) versus external control (i.e., not contingent upon behavior, determined by outside forces). people with an internal locus of control believe that their behavior causes outcomes that follow; thus they believe they have control over outcomes in most situations. in contrast, people with an external locus of control do not believe in the causal effect of their behavior on outcomes they experience in most situations; they attribute outcomes in most situations to external sources (e.g., luck, chance, fate or other people). as myers and diener (1995) suggested, happy people are more likely to have an internal locus of control (cummins & nistico, 2002; larson, 1989; lu et al., 1997; pannells & claxton, 2008). larson (1989) found that people who reported a higher internal locus of control in their daily lives also reported greater happiness. consistent with this finding, cummins and nistico (2002) reviewed nine studies that examined the relationship between internal locus of control and life satisfaction. they reported correlations that ranged from .16 to .57 with an average correlation of .41. they also reported that the relationship between locus of control and happiness increases with age. lu et al. (1997) suggested that locus of control has primarily a direct, temperamental relationship with happiness, not mediated by social support like extraversion is. however, it is possible that locus of control has an instrumental link to happiness too. people high in internal locus of control tend to be more creative (glover & sautter, 1976; pannells & claxton, 2008). thus, they may be better able to engage in cognitive strategies to attain happiness. finally, argyle (2001) suggested that people attend less to negative life events insofar as they have an internal locus of control. self-esteem self-esteem refers to the evaluative aspect of self-knowledge that is concerned with the degree to which people like themselves (brown & marshall, 2006). in other words, self-esteem captures the amount of personal value that individuals place on their self, as whole, or in different domains (brown & marshall, 2006). self-esteem has been shown to have a strong relation to happiness (cummins & nistico, 2002; diener, 1984) particularly in individualistic cultures (diener & diener, 1995). in general, people high in self-esteem are happier than those low in self-esteem (argyle, 2001; campbell, 1981; cheng & furnham, 2003). in addition, lyubomirsky et al. (2006) found that self-esteem was positively correlated with optimism, and negatively correlated with hopelessness raising the possibility that self-esteem relates to happiness instrumentally, by predisposing people to view themselves as efficacious and to hold positive expectations about their lives (baumeister, campbell, krueger, & vohs, 2003). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 personality, humor styles and happiness 322 http://www.psychopen.eu/ optimism optimism is a dispositional quality that predisposes people to expect positive outcomes in life (scheier & carver, 1985). research has shown that optimism is strongly related to overall happiness (e.g., cummins & nistico, 2002; dember & brooks, 1989) and life satisfaction (lucas, diener, & suh, 1996) as well as greater positive affect (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and less negative affect (scheier & carver, 1992). optimism appears to relate to happiness instrumentally. when optimists encounter challenges they seem to employ more effective coping strategies, which in turn increases happiness (e.g., taylor, kemeny, aspinwall, schneider, & rodriguez, 1992). aspinwall and taylor (1992), for instance, found that college freshmen higher in optimism engaged in more active coping strategies; those low in optimism employed more avoidant strategies. humor styles historically, researchers have regarded sense of humor has an exclusively adaptive and positive unitary disposition (cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010). martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, andweir (2003), however, distinguished between four humor styles or ways that people habitually use humor in daily life. two of the humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing are positive or beneficial to the self or others; the other two, aggressive and self-defeating are negative or detrimental to the self or others. martin et al.’s (2003) model has greatly elucidated the complex and often counter-intuitive relationship between humor and well-being. it has revealed that, depending on how it is used in daily life, humor can positively or negatively relate to a wide variety of manifestations of psychological well-being. see cann and collette (2014) and martin (2007) for reviews. people who have an affiliative humor style use humor to attain interpersonal or social rewards. they use humor to entertain others in order to enrich the quality of social relationships. people who have a self-enhancing humor style use humor to achieve intrapersonal rewards, that is, to enhance or maintain positive psychological well-being and distance themselves from adversity. they maintain a humorous outlook on life, coping with difficult circumstances by viewing them from a humorous perspective. thus, self-enhancing humor is closely related to coping sense of humor (cann et al., 2010; martin et al., 2003). those with an aggressive humor style use humor, not to make interpersonal relationships more rewarding for the self and others, but rather as a means of criticizing or manipulating others. they tease and ridicule others to demonstrate their superiority over others, without concern for others’ well-being (martin et al., 2003). not surprisingly, the aggressive humor style has been shown to be detrimental to interpersonal relationships (e.g., cann, zapata, & davis, 2011; kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). finally, people who have a self-defeating humor style poke fun at their own weaknesses in order to ingratiate themselves to others. they also use humor as a means to avoid confronting problems and dealing with negative feelings (stieger, formann, & burger, 2011). humor styles and happiness there has been an increasing interest in recent years in the relationship between humor styles and psychological well-being (cann & collette, 2014). research has consistently shown that happiness is positively related to the two adaptive humor styles and negatively related to the two maladaptive humor styles (e.g., ford, mccreight, & richardson, 2014; martin et al., 2003). martin et al. (2003), for instance, reported that the ryff (1989) measure of psychological well-being related positively to affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and negatively to a europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 323 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-defeating humor style. furthermore, martin et al. noted that anxiety and depression correlated negatively with affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles but positively with self-defeating humor style. cann et al. (2010) further demonstrated that the two self-directed humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating) are particularly strongly related to happiness. when they regressed measures of subjective well-being onto all four humor styles simultaneously only self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles significantly predicted wellbeing. similarly, cann and collette (2014) reported that among the four humor styles, only self-enhancing humor reliably contributed to stable positive affect ratings over a seven-day period. in addition, researchers have found that positive and negative humor styles relate differently to personality traits associated with happiness. yue, hao, and goldman (2010), for instance, found that affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles correlated positively with optimism, whereas aggressive and self-defeating humor styles correlated negatively with optimism. similarly, self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor relate positively to self-esteem and judgments of self-competence. aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, in contrast, are associated with lower self-esteem, and negative judgments of self-competence (kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; lui, 2012; zeigler-hill & besser, 2011). finally, the two adaptive humor styles appear to mediate the relationship between personality traits and happiness. lui (2012) found that the relationship between self-esteem and happiness was mediated by self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles but not by self-defeating or aggressive humor styles. similarly, in a study of affective styles and happiness, ford et al. (2014) found that “approach-oriented” people, those scoring high on carver andwhite’s (1994) behavioral activating system (bas) scale, were happier in part, because they habitually used a self-enhancing humor style in daily life. thus, it appears that engaging in positive humor styles, perhaps especially a self-enhancing humor style, might be an instrumental strategy by which people attain happiness. the present research the findings of previous research converge on a consistent and coherent story. happy people tend to have four personality traits identified by myers and diener (1995): extraversion, high self-esteem, optimism, and internal locus of control that function temperamentally and instrumentally in the attainment of happiness. also, happy people habitually engage in adaptive humor styles, particularly self-enhancing humor. in the present research, we extend this literature by testing a new hypothesis about a mechanism by which these personality traits relate to happiness. based on the premise that personality traits relate to happiness instrumentally, through an active pursuit of positive experiences, we hypothesized that the relationship between the four “happy personality traits” and happiness is mediated by positive humor styles. that is, people with the four happy personality traits are happier because they engage in self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor in daily life—they maintain a humorous outlook on life, viewing adversity from a humorous perspective, and they use humor in interpersonal settings to enrich the quality of social relationships. method participants and procedure we distributed a link to our study to 107 male and 87 female residents of the united states through mechanical turk (mturk), an on-line participant pool sponsored by amazon.com (for more information on data collection europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 personality, humor styles and happiness 324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ through mturk, see buhrmester, kwang, & gosling, 2011). participants were paid $0.40 to complete the study. participants ranged in age from 20 to 67 years, with a mean of 32.59 (sd = 9.56). the mean age was 30.76 (sd = 8.15) for males and 34.95 (sd = 10.71) for females. there were 7 african-americans, 107 asians, 8 hispanics, 2 native americans, 66 whites, and 4 people who indicated their race as “other.” upon clicking a link to the study, participants accessed the study in qualtrics. participants first encountered the following instructions: “you are invited to participate in a study designed to determine how different personality traits are related to one another. for this study, you will complete six different personality surveys and five demographic questions.” after providing informed consent, participants completed the followingmeasures of the “happy personality traits”: the extraversion scale from eysenck and eysenck’s (1975) personality questionnaire (epqe), rotter’s (1966) locus of control scale (loc), rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale (rses), and scheier, carver, and bridges’ (1994) life orientation test-revised (lot-r). participants then completed martin et al.’s (2003) humor styles questionnaire (hsq), and hills and argyle’s (2002) oxford happiness questionnaire (ohq). measures eysenck’s personality inventory-extraversion (epi-e) participants responded “yes” (coded as “1”) or “no” (coded as “0”) to 24 questions from eysenck & eysenck’s (1964) epi-e designed to assess the degree to which they were generally extraverted or introverted (e.g., “generally, do you prefer reading to meeting people?”). higher scores indicate greater extraversion. cronbach’s alpha for the scale was .68. locus of control scale (loc) rotter’s (1966) loc consisted of 29 pairs of statements. one statement of each pair reflected an internal locus of control (e.g., “people’s misfortunes result from the mistakes they make.”), and one reflected an external locus of control (e.g., “many of the unhappy things in people’s lives are partly due to bad luck.”). participants indicated which statement of each pair they agreed with more. we coded internal loc statements as “1” and external loc statements as “0”, thus, higher scores indicated greater internal loc. cronbach’s alpha was .65. self-esteem scale (rses) rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale consists of 10 items (e.g., “i feel that i'm a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others.”). participants responded to each item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). we averaged responses to the 10 items to form an aggregate measure of self-esteem. higher scores indicated higher self-esteem. cronbach’s alpha for the 10-item scale was .80. life orientation test-revised (lot-r) scheier, carver, and bridges’ (1994) revised life orientation test consists of 10 statements; 6 were designed to measure optimism (e.g., “in uncertain times, i usually expect the best.”). participants indicated their agreement with each statement on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). we averaged responses to the six items to form an aggregate measure of optimism. higher scores indicated greater dispositional optimism. cronbach’s alpha for the 6-item scale was .66. humor styles questionnaire (hsq) martin et al.’s (2003) hsq consists of four 8-item subscales that measure the degree to which people habitually engage in affiliative humor (e.g., ‘‘i enjoy making people laugh”), selfenhancing humor (e.g., ‘‘even when i’m by europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 325 http://www.psychopen.eu/ myself, i’m often amused by the absurdities of life’’), aggressive humor (e.g., ‘‘if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down’’), and self-defeating humor (e.g., ‘‘i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh’’). participants indicated their agreement with each item using a 7point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). we averaged the responses for the four items of each subscale for each participant. cronbach’s alpha was .77 for affiliative humor, .73 for self-enhancing humor, .58 for aggressive humor, and .83 for self-defeating humor. oxford happiness questionnaire (ohq) hills and argyle’s (2002) oxford happiness questionnaire (ohq) consists of 29 items designed to measure enduring happiness or subjective well-being (e.g., “i am well satisfied with everything in my life.”). participants indicated their agreement with each statement using a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). we averaged responses to the 29 items to form an aggregate measure of dispositional happiness. higher scores indicated higher happiness. cronbach’s alpha was .92. results descriptive statistics table 1 displays the correlations among the four happy personality traits, the four humor styles and happiness. table 1 correlations and descriptive statistics for measures of the four happy personality traits, measures of the four humor styles and scores on the ohq sdm987654321scale ----1. epi-e .943.3411 ----2. loc .843.9012.23** ----3. rses .460.952.29**.13 ----4. lot-r .670.293.61**.33**.20** ----5. se-h .850.774.20**.30**.18*.32** ----6. aff-h .031.564.21**.27**.29*.17*.14* ----7. sd-h .171.194.30**-.07.36**-.38**-.16*-.10 ----8. agg-h .840.733.32**.08-.07-.26**-.19**-.10-.26** ----9. ohq .730.054.14*-.21**-.41**.35**.62**.71**.48**.37** note. epi-e = extraversion, loc = locus of control, rses = self-esteem, lot-r = optimism, se-h = self-enhancing humor style, aff-h = affiliative humor style, sd-h = self-defeating humor style, agg-h = aggressive humor style, ohq = happiness. *p < .05. **p < .01. consistent with previous research, happiness correlated positively with each of the four happy personality traits, and with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles. finally, happiness correlated negatively with self-defeating and aggressive humor styles. also, in keeping with our hypothesis, self-enhancing humor and affiliative correlated positively with each of the four happy personality traits. thus, people higher in extraversion, internal locus of control, self-esteem and optimism also reported that they habitually use self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor in daily life. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 personality, humor styles and happiness 326 http://www.psychopen.eu/ also, like cann et al. (2010), we regressed happiness simultaneously on all four humor styles. unlike cann et al., however, both self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor emerged as significant predictors of happiness (β = .29, se = 0.06, t = 4.51, p < .001; β = .31, se = 0.05, t = 4.62, p < .001 respectively). thus, both self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor significantly related to happiness when controlling for each of the other humor styles. in contrast, self-defeating and aggressive humor styles did not significantly predict happiness when controlling for the effects of the other humor styles (β = -.12, se = 0.04, t = 1.65, p = .10; β = -.06, se = 0.06, t = -0.93, p = .35 respectively). mediation analyses we conducted a series of four mediation analyses to test our hypothesis that the relationship between the four happy personality traits and happiness is mediated by the four humor styles, with a particular interest in self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor. more specifically, we tested a path model wherein each of the happy personality traits acted as predictor variables, humor style acted as a single mediator, and happiness as the outcome variable. that is, a separate analysis was conducted for each humor style. we evaluated both direct paths between the personality traits and happiness and the indirect paths by which personality traits relate to happiness through humor style. we present the path model in figure 1. figure 1. path model illustrating our mediation hypotheses including labels for direct and indirect paths. we hypothesized that the relationship between personality traits and happiness is mediated by self-enhancing humor. we used the process macro for spss to conduct the mediation analysis. this macro uses a bootstrapping procedure to obtain confidence intervals for the indirect effect (hayes, 2013), and has been demonstrated to have greater power than the causal steps procedures developed by baron and kenny, (e.g., baron & kenny, 1986). the bootstrapping procedure tests whether the indirect effect (i.e., the path from the personality traits to happiness through a humor style) is different from zero by providing a 95% confidence interval for the population value of the indirect effect (preacher & hayes, 2004). if zero is not in the 95% confidence interval the indirect effect is significant at p < .05. finally, we conducted separate mediation analyses for each of the four personality traits. however, a seeding procedure implemented in the process macro linked the analyses, ensuring that each bootstrapping process europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ begins with the same random number, in turn causing the confidence intervals between the four models to have the same bounds (see hayes, 2013, for an extended discussion). thus, although these analyses were conducted separately in process, they can be considered as parts of the same larger mediation analysis. in sum, our analysis consists of four models that examine the mediating role of self-enhancing humor, affiliative humor, selfdefeating humor and aggressive humor respectively. we present summary statistics for our mediation models in table 2, and further describe analyses for models 1 and 2i. table 2 summary of mediation analysis for personality traits and happiness (n = 195; 10,000 bootstraps) total effect (c) indirect effect (bias corrected intervals) (a)(b): 95% ci direct effect (c’) effect of m on cv (b) effect of pv on m (a) model number criterion variable (cv) mediating variable (m) predictor variable (pv) .02: [.0051, .0325]1happinessse-hextraversion .07***0.05***0.23***.07*** .01: [-.0004, .0238]2aff-h .07***0.060.26***.04* -.00: [-.0139, .0015]3sd-h .07***0.070.15***-.03 -.01: [-.0238, -.0053]4agg-h .07***0.08***0.22***-.06*** .01: [.0006, .0222]1happinessse-hloc .09***0.08***0.24***.04* .01: [.0012, .0245]2aff-h .09***0.08***0.24***.05* .00: [.0002, .0132]3sd-h .09***0.09***0.08*-.05*.00: [-.0008, .0111]4agg-h .09***0.09***0.09*-.02*.07: [.0197, .1564]1happinessse-hself-esteem .12***1.05***1.13**.55*** .10: [.0355, .1998]2aff-h .12***1.02***1.16**.66*** -.05: [-.1260, .0165]3sd-h .12***1.17***1.05**.97***.00: [-.0252, .0566]4agg-h .12***1.12***1.01-.34**.05: [.0090, .1183]1happinessse-hoptimism .67***0.62***0.20***.26*** .08: [.0241, .1559]2aff-h .67***0.59***0.19***.41*** -.01: [-.0504, .0382]3sd-h .67***0.68***0.01.62***-.00: [-.0457, .0364]4agg-h .67***0.68***0.01.33****p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as shown in table 2, a very similar pattern of results emerged across the four happy personality traits as predictors of happiness with self-enhancing humor (model 1) and affiliative humor (model 2) serving as mediators. therefore, we describe the findings from both models across each of the four happy personality traits. extraversion the total amount of variance in happiness explained by extraversion and self-enhancing humor in model 1 was significant, r2 = .38, p < .05. in addition, evidence of mediation emerged; extraversion had a significant positive indirect link with happiness through self-enhancing humor, as the 95% confidence interval did not contain zero. the total amount of variance in happiness explained by extraversion and affiliative humor in model 2 was significant (but less than model 1), r2 = .14, p < .05. however, unlike model 1, affiliative humor did not appear to mediate the relationship between extraversion and happiness. the 95% confidence interval did include zero. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 personality, humor styles and happiness 328 http://www.psychopen.eu/ locus of control the total amount of variance in happiness explained by locus of control and self-enhancing humor in model 1 was significant, r2 = .23, p < .05. in addition, evidence of mediation emerged. locus of control had a significant positive indirect link with happiness through self-enhancing humor; the 95% confidence interval did not contain zero. the total amount of variance in happiness explained by locus of control and affiliative humor in model 2 was the same as in model 1, r2 = .23, p < .05. and, like model 1, affiliative humor emerged as a significant mediator; the 95% confidence interval did not include zero. self-esteem similar results emerged for the two models in which self-esteem predicted happiness. the total amount of variance in happiness explained by self-esteem and self-enhancing humor in model 1 was significant, r2 = .51, p < .05. and, self-enhancing humor significantly mediated the relationship between self-esteem and happiness; the 95% confidence interval did not contain zero. the findings for model 2, which included affiliative humor as a mediator were identical to those of model 1. the total amount of variability in happiness explained by the model was r2 = .51, and affiliative humor emerged as a significant mediator; the 95% confidence intervals did not contain zero. optimism finally, the total amount of variance in happiness explained by optimism and self-enhancing humor in model 1 was significant,r2 = .39, p < .05. and, optimism had a significant indirect link with happiness through self-enhancing humor; the 95% confidence interval did not contain zero. similarly, optimism and affiliative humor in model 2 explained a significant amount of the variance in happiness, r2 = .38, p < .05. and, like model 1, affiliative humor emerged as a significant mediator; the 95% confidence interval did not include zero. discussion the results of our study contribute to the findings from several different lines of research. first, bivariate correlations replicate previous findings on the relationship between the happy personality traits identified by myers and diener (1995) and happiness. people reported being happy insofar as they were high in extraversion, personal (internal) control, self-esteem and optimism. second, bivariate correlations replicated research showing that happiness is positively correlated with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles (e.g., martin et al., 2003). unlike previous research (e.g., cann & etzel, 2008), however, we did not find that self-enhancing humor more strongly related to happiness than affiliative humor when examined in a regression equation that simultaneously controlled for the effect of each of the other humor styles. we found that both self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor predicted happiness when controlling for the other humor styles. this discrepancy could be due to differences between studies in the magnitude of the correlation between self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles. in our study, the correlation was relatively modest (r = .21), whereas cann and etzel found a much larger correlation (r = .43). thus, in our study, there appears to have been less conceptual overlap between the two adaptive humor styles. consequently, when we simultaneously controlled for the effect of each of the other humor styles in a regression analysis, we were better able to detect a unique association between affiliative humor style and happiness. in addition, the mediation analyses support our hypothesis and contribute to a growing body of research showing that humor styles mediate the relationship between personality and happiness (e.g., ford et al., 2014; lui, 2012). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 329 http://www.psychopen.eu/ positive humor styles mediated the relationship between each of the four happy personality traits identified by myers and diener (1995) and happiness. consistent with the theory that personality traits relate to happiness instrumentally, our findings suggest that people who are high in extraversion, internal locus of control, optimism, and self-esteem have developed adaptive strategies of using humor in daily life, which in turn help make them happy. they experience greater happiness because they are better at finding strategies to regulate their emotions (baumeister et al., 2003), and the habitual use of positive humor is one of those strategies. happy people may be adept at using positive humor styles as a means by which they frame or appraise life events to form positive, self-affirming views of the self (kuiper & mchale, 2009). indeed, people protect their psychological well-being by using self-enhancing humor as a means of reframing stressors in a more positive, light-hearted way (e.g., cann & etzel, 2008; cann et al., 2010; martin et al., 2003) the one surprising exception to this pattern is that affiliative humor did not significantly mediate the relationship between extraversion and happiness. perhaps the temperamental link between extraversion and happiness is particularly strong (e.g., argyle & lu, 1990a; brebner, donaldson, kirby, & ward, 1995; costa & mccrae, 1980; pavot, diener, & fujita, 1990), and thus overwhelms or obscures the instrumental influence of mediator variables, especially those that do not have a strong influence. collectively, our findings contribute to the broader literature on the relationship between humor styles, personality and well-being (e.g., besser, luyten, & mayes, 2012; cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009; kuiper & mchale, 2009; zeigler-hill & besser, 2011). one’s personality appears to function as a lens that colors the way people view themselves and social settings. the use of positive or negative forms of humor seems to follow from the valence of that general lens and thus contributes to a positive or negative sense of well-being. kuiper and mchale (2009), for instance, found that humor styles mediate the relationship between beliefs about the self and low self-esteem. people who disproportionately focus on their negative attributes are particularly prone to engage in self-defeating humor and thus experience lower self-esteem. in contrast, people who have more positive self-beliefs engage in more affiliative humor, which in turn increases self-esteem and decreases depression. these results make sense in light of the sociometer theory of self-esteem (leary & baumeister, 2000), which suggests that self-esteem functions as a gauge of the relational value others hold for you. that is, if others hold you in high regard, and are motivated to include you in their activities, you have high relational value. when individuals perceive that they have high relational value, their feelings of self-worth are bolstered, which results in high self-esteem. our results also support the sociometer theory. more specifically, self-esteem was positively associated with self-enhancing and affiliative humor, whereas self-esteem was negatively associated with self-defeating and aggressive humor styles. therefore, positive humor styles may be seen as desirable traits by others, and may function to foster relationships, whereas the negative humor styles may be seen as undesirable, or even offensive. additionally, the present findings have potentially interesting implications for future research on the relationship between humor styles and happiness. like other studies investigating the correlates of humor styles, the present research treated humor styles as a personality variable in a non-experimental, correlational study. the findings of the present research, however, raise the possibility that inducing people to engage in adaptive forms of humor can have positive psychological outcomes. future research could expand on the present findings by treating humor styles as an independent variable in an experimental design (see maiolino & kuiper, 2016; samson & gross, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 personality, humor styles and happiness 330 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2012) to investigate the effects of engaging in adaptive and maladaptive forms of humor on momentary (rather than trait) expressions of happiness. on the basis of the present findings, we hypothesize that engaging in adaptive forms of humor would enhance momentary happiness (i.e., increase positive affect, decrease negative affect), whereas engaging in maladaptive forms of humor would have the opposite effects. limitations our study makes a new contribution to our understanding of the relationship between personality traits, humor styles and happiness. it does, however, have limitations. for instance, kashdan (2004) criticized our measure of happiness, the oxford happiness questionnaire, for being too closely related to self-esteem and extraversion among other personality constructs. this conceptual overlap could inflate correlations between the ohq and our measures of self-esteem and extraversion, or potentially lead to suppressor effects (friedman & wall, 2005). although we agree that the conceptual overlap between the ohq and personality variables of interest is a problematic, we do not believe that it has compromised the test of our hypothesis. first, steel, schmidt, and shultz (2008) argued that the epi overlaps less conceptually with positive affect in comparison to eysenck and eysenck’s (1975) epq. accordingly, the epi should be less vulnerable to inflated correlations with our measure of happiness. indeed, the correlation between the epi and the ohq in our study was .37. second, even if the bivariate correlations were inflated, there is no reason to believe that the mediation models testing our hypotheses would be compromised by the problems kashdan (2004) has raised about the ohq. additionally, it should be noted that this study is correlational in nature, and relies on the use of self-report. therefore, the data are subject to sources of bias such as social desirability. furthermore, the internal consistency of some of the scales used was relatively low (e.g., α = .66). although the low alpha values warrant caution, they could be due, in part, to heterogeneity of the underlying constructs, and the number of items in the measures (nunnally & bernstein, 1994; tavakol & dennick, 2011). finally, it should be noted that although we tested an underlying process model wherein humor styles mediate the relationship between personality and happiness, other possibilities exist. for example, cann and etzel (2008) found that engaging in a self-enhancing humor style increases optimism, hope and happiness, which in turn decreases perceived stress in one’s life. self-enhancing humor seems to foster the development or activation of positive personality qualities that are associated with coping with the stresses of life. as cann et al. (2010) suggested, it is possible that there are complex connections between stable personality traits, dispositional happiness and psychological responses to life events, and that humor styles play multiple roles in those connections. for instance, humor styles might play a mediating role in the relationship between personality traits and dispositional happiness (e.g., ford et al., 2014). however, the relationship between humor styles and psychological responses to life events (e.g., stressors) can be mediated by other (instrumental) psychological variables or behaviors. conclusion personality is an important determinant of one’s happiness. as myers and diener (1995) stated, happy people tend to be extraverted, and optimistic; they tend to have a sense of locus of control, and high self-esteem. people with these personality traits engage in strategies that are instrumental in producing happiness. the present study reveals that the use of positive forms of humor, self-enhancing humor and affiliative humor, represents one such strategy. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 331 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) although each of the four mediation analyses were conducted, we chose to exclude the analyses for the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles for the sake parsimony. furthermore, these humor styles were not found to consistently mediate the relationship between the happy personality traits and happiness. aggressive humor style partially mediated the relationship between extraversion and happiness, whereas self-defeating humor partially mediated the relationship between self-control and happiness. these results are available from the authors upon request. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andrews, f. m., & withey, s. b. 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(2011). humor style mediates the association between pathological narcissism and self-esteem. personality and individual differences, 50, 1196-1201. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.02.006 about the authors thomas e. ford is a professor of psychology at western carolina university. his research interests include the social consequences of disparagement humor, and the relationship between humor and subjective well-being. shaun k. lappi is a m.a. student at western carolina university. he received his b.a. in psychology at western carolina university in 2014. his research interests focus on the social consequences of sexist humor, and the relationship between humor styles and happiness. christopher j. holden is a doctoral candidate in psychology at oakland university. he is interested in the connections between self-esteem and personality, and how these individual differences influence romantic relationships. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 320–337 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1160 ford, lappi, & holden 337 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f073346489701600106 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.134.1.138 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2010.11.025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.70.5.1091 http://dx.doi.org/10.5116%2fijme.4dfb.8dfd http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.63.3.460 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2011.02.006 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en personality, humor styles and happiness (introduction) happiness and its personality correlates humor styles humor styles and happiness the present research method participants and procedure measures results descriptive statistics mediation analyses discussion limitations conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors reconsidering the differences between shame and guilt theoretical contributions reconsidering the differences between shame and guilt maria miceli* a, cristiano castelfranchi a [a] institute of cognitive sciences and technologies, national research council of italy, rome, italy. abstract although most researchers maintain that shame and guilt are distinct emotions, the debate on their differences is still open. we aim to show that some of the current distinctions between shame and guilt need to be redrawn, and their adaptive and social implications need to be revisited. we suggest the following distinguishing criteria: the kind of self-evaluation involved (inadequacy versus harmfulness); one’s focus on the perceived discrepancy between actual and ideal self versus one’s focus on the perceived responsibility for one’s fault; and consequently the different domains of self-esteem involved. although these criteria have been in part suggested or alluded to in the relevant literature, we use and integrate them with each other in a novel way. this allows to better distinguish between shame and guilt, as well as to account for their possible coexistence or the shift from one emotion to the other. keywords: guilt, shame, self-evaluation, inadequacy, harmfulness, moral emotions, responsibility, self-esteem europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 received: 2017-11-17. accepted: 2018-04-10. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: istituto di scienze e tecnologie della cognizione del cnr, via san martino della battaglia 44, 00185 roma, italy. e-mail: maria.miceli@istc.cnr.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. shame and guilt have much in common: they are self-conscious emotions, implying self-reflection and selfevaluation (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012); they involve negative self-evaluations and feelings of distress elicited by one’s perceived failures or transgressions (e.g., tangney, stuewig, & mashek, 2007); they strongly correlate with each other (e.g., ferguson & crowley, 1997; harder, 1995), and often coexist (eisenberg, 2000; lewis, 1971). however, most researchers maintain that shame and guilt are distinguishable from each other, and that their differences matter. while agreeing with this general statement, we disagree with some of the criteria used for distinguishing between them, and with the prevailing negative view of shame which, in comparison with guilt, often plays the role of the “ugly” and anti-social emotion (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012). before discussing the most common criteria used for distinguishing between shame and guilt, and then suggesting our own criteria, we need to explain why it is important to distinguish between these emotions. in so doing, we will also outline the core of our proposal. as widely acknowledged, emotions accomplish both an informative function about our relationship with the environment, by signaling the (prospective or actual) failure or attainment of our goals (e.g., damasio, 1994; keltner & ekman, 2000; lazarus, 1991) and a motivational function (e.g., frijda, 1986; plutchik, 1984), by trigeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gering goals aimed at favoring the attainment, or avoiding the failure, of the desired states of affairs. therefore it is generally adaptive to understand what the experience of an emotion is “telling” us. both shame and guilt are “self-critical” emotions. however, self-criticism may take different self-evaluative forms: on the one hand, people may view themselves as ugly, stupid, handicapped, or morally defective—in a word, lacking (in physical attractiveness, intelligence, skills, moral worth, and so on); on the other hand, they may view themselves as wicked, unjust, sinful—that is, endowed with the power to violate norms and thwart others’ goals, and willing (or inclined) to do so. we suggest that it is adaptive to have differentiated emotional responses to different forms of self-criticism. as also pointed out by tangney, miller, flicker, & barlow (1996, p. 1256), “to the extent that emotions inform and foster change, one might expect humans to develop particularly well-articulated affective responses to negative events”. thus, it is worthwhile to explore what kind of information is conveyed and what kind of change is fostered by each self-critical emotion. as we will argue, guilt implies a negative moral self-evaluation. without attempting to give a definition of moral, we suggest that a necessary condition for regarding an evaluation as moral is that it should concern someone’s behavior, goals, beliefs or traits for which (s)he is regarded as responsible. the evaluation will be positive or negative depending on the beneficial or harmful quality ascribed to such behavior, goal, and so on. guilt is indeed concerned with one’s responsibility for a harmful attitude or behavior. by contrast, shame implies a nonmoral negative self-evaluation. note that “nonmoral” is not synonym to “immoral”. by “nonmoral” we mean that shame is not focused on responsibility issues. as we shall see, it is rather concerned with a perceived discrepancy between one’s actual and one’s ideal self. in fact, one may feel ashamed of one’s ugliness, disability, or any other flaw for which (s)he is not responsible. however, one may also feel ashamed (rather than guilty) of a responsible fault. we will suggest that even when a responsible fault is at stake, ashamed people do not focus on responsibility issues, but on the disappointing fact that such fault reveals their defectiveness with regard to their ideal self. to the extent that shame can make people care about the social order, it can be said to be a moral emotion (e.g., rozin, lowery, imada, & haidt, 1999). however, to the extent that this care is motivated by a self-focused concern (i.e., building one’s aspired-to identity), shame is not properly moral, in the sense we have outlined above. according to rozin et al. (1999, p. 574), both shame and guilt “involve ongoing assessments of the moral worth and fit of the individual self within a community”. we also suggest that shame is concerned with self-worth. but, first, it is concerned with both moral and nonmoral self-worth; second, when moral self-worth is at stake, what matters to the ashamed person is not his or her responsibility for the fault, but how this fault impacts on his or her ideal self. shame implies perceived lack of power to meet the standards of one’s ideal self, whereas guilt implies perceived power and willingness to be harmful, that is, to violate the standards of one’s moral self. these differences have important motivational consequences, both positive and negative: whereas guilt is likely to motivate either reparative or self-punitive behavior, shame is likely to motivate either withdrawal or increased efforts in building one’s aspired-to identity. more generally, distinguishing between shame and guilt has significant implications for basic research on human emotions as well as for clinical treatment, by helping understand if and how these emotions relate to a variety of phenomena, such as empathic concerns, narcissism, self-destructive behavior, and moral compliance. miceli & castelfranchi 711 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as we will try to show, the distinguishing criteria suggested in the relevant literature do not satisfactorily account for the differences between shame and guilt, whereas our own criteria allow to better identify the respective features of the two emotions. criteria used for distinguishing between shame and guilt we will group the most widespread distinguishing criteria into three categories: the kinds of failure or transgression that elicit these emotions; the action tendencies typically triggered by shame versus guilt; and the ascription of the fault to one’s self versus one’s behavior. in addition, we will consider a number of elements which are viewed as indicative of remarkable differences between shame and guilt in terms of their adaptive value: the cognitive states, as well as other feelings, that are associated with shame versus guilt; and the psychopathological symptoms related to shame-proneness versus guilt-proneness. kinds of failure or transgression three possible kinds of fault have been identified: the public versus private experience of the fault; its proscriptive versus prescriptive nature; and the moral versus the both moral and nonmoral nature of the fault. public versus private according to this distinction, shame is elicited by public faults, and (one’s fear of) others’ negative evaluations, whereas guilt is a private feeling, elicited by one’s own negative self-evaluation (e.g., benedict, 1946; combs, campbell, jackson, & smith, 2010; wallbott & scherer, 1995). the public versus private criterion has already been questioned, both theoretically and empirically. for instance, creighton (1990, p. 282) has objected that “the internal/external criterion cannot be used to distinguish guilt from shame, since at some point in the developmental process both are internalized”. empirical research has indeed shown that both emotions can be experienced either publicly or privately (e.g., tangney et al., 1996). still, this does not rule out that, when experienced privately, shame might imply either thinking that one’s fault can become public or imagining a judging audience. as often suggested, shame is more likely than guilt to imply a feeling of exposure to a judging audience (e.g., m. lewis, 1992). according to kaufman (1996, p. 28), “to feel shame is to feel seen, acutely diminished”—which is also supported by the person’s typical wish to disappear and tendency to hide (e.g., darwin, 1872/1965; h. b. lewis, 1971; m. lewis, 2008). in fact public exposure of one’s faults has been found to be associated more with shame than with guilt (smith, webster, parrott, & eyre, 2002). however, if one assumes that shame is elicited by (actual, or expected, or imagined) external sanctions, one might draw the inference that this emotion coincides with a mere fear of others’ disapproval, and that it can be experienced without evaluating oneself negatively—which is indeed stated by some authors (e.g., ausubel, 1955; calhoun, 2004; wollheim, 1999). differences between shame and guilt 712 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we question that shame coincides with being afraid of others’ disapproval. one can be afraid of other people’s negative evaluations while feeling no shame. for instance, a son who fails to live up to the standards set by his parents can be afraid to disappoint them or to be punished by them, and at the same time experience no shame. in agreement with a number of other authors (e.g., deonna, rodogno, & teroni, 2012; tangney & tracy, 2012; taylor, 1985), we suggest that shame (as well as guilt) implies a negative self-evaluation against one’s own standards. although personal standards result from the internalization of social ones, they are not necessarily absorbed in the same form as they are socially conveyed. internalization involves developing a personalized interpretation of social standards (e.g., baumeister & muraven, 1996; lawrence & heinze, 1997), consisting not only in the combination of existing social elements into new configurations, but also in the selective acceptance of some elements and rejection of others (e.g., grusec & goodnow, 1994). in our view, if a negative evaluation comes from outside, one has to share it in order to feel ashamed (as well as guilty). in fact, others’ evaluation and one’s self-evaluation may diverge, either because one may not share the evaluative standards of one’s “judges” or because, while sharing their standards, one may believe that their evaluations are mistaken in that no actual fault has been shown according to those standards. we suggest that in both the above cases the disapproved person will not experience shame (and certainly not guilt), but other possible feelings—fear of the consequences of the negative evaluation; disappointment and resentment for having received an “undeserved” evaluation; helplessness, elicited by the perceived inability to modify others’ judgment; or, most notably, embarrassment, which implies no necessary negative self-evaluation (e.g., sabini & silver, 1997), but mere discomfort at exposure (miller, 1985; nussbaum, 2004). embarrassment is supposed to be more focused on one’s self-presentation (klass, 1990), rather than on one’s self-evaluation. as shown by tangney et al. (1996, p. 1260), whereas shame could be felt in private, “embarrassment was almost universally a public phenomenon”. we also question that for feeling ashamed one should think that one’s fault can become public. one can even be certain that nobody will ever know about one’s own fault, and still experience shame. in the same vein, one does not need to imagine a judging audience. as claimed by deonna et al. (2012), although a real or imagined audience is typical of shame, it does not need to be constitutive of the emotion. of course, one learns socially what is “shameful”, but one also learns socially what is threatening, or disappointing, or saddening—which does not imply the necessary involvement of an audience in the experience of fear, disappointment, or sadness. what we have said so far, however, by no means excludes that shame involves “to feel seen”. even without any real or imagined audience, one can feel seen by one’s self in the role of self-evaluator, and experience shame. in kaufman’s (1996, p. 6) words, “[o]nly the self need watch the self and only the self need shame the self”. proscriptive versus prescriptive according to sheikh and janoff-bulman (2010), proscriptive violations (doing something one should not do) would elicit shame, whereas prescriptive violations (not doing something one should do) would elicit guilt. however, a proscriptive violation (e.g., lying) may elicit guilt, and a prescriptive violation (not reciprocating a favor) may elicit shame. as found by keltner and buswell (1996), the most frequent antecedents of shame were: miceli & castelfranchi 713 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ poor performance, hurting others’ feelings, failing to meet either others’ or one’s own expectations, and showing a role-inappropriate behavior. the most frequent antecedents of guilt were: failures at duties, lying, neglecting a dear one, breaking a diet, and cheating. both proscriptive and prescriptive violations seem capable of eliciting either shame or guilt. moral faults versus both moral and nonmoral faults according to some authors (e.g., sabini & silver, 1997; smith et al., 2002), guilt is elicited by moral transgressions, implying those faults one is held responsible for, whereas shame also includes nonmoral faults, that is, those attributed to flaws of character, incompetence or physical inadequacies for which the person is not held responsible. (for a discussion of perceived responsibility and guilt, see further on, “kinds of negative evaluation”, and “is perceived responsibility necessary for feeling guilty?”) but, when does a moral fault elicit shame rather than guilt? smith et al. (2002) suggest that guilt is associated with private moral faults, whereas shame is more closely linked to public ones. however the public-versus-private distinction is not decisive in that shame can be felt even privately. sabini and silver (1997) suggest that guilt pertains to the domain of moral evaluation, which is grounded in responsibility. however, they claim that, as long as a moral fault involves a connection with the self by indicating a flaw in one’s character, it also involves shame. they view shameless guilt as an “anemic” feeling. they even cast doubt on whether guilt is a distinct feeling, and suggest that it is “an umbrella that collects under itself a broad range of feelings having to do with transgressions” (p. 3), including shame. shame can be also elicited by nonmoral faults because it is “a fundamentally aesthetic response to our judgments of our character” (p. 12), that is, to evaluations of ourselves as ugly, repulsive, or inferior, even though we feel unable to be otherwise. in fact, self-worth includes both the moral and nonmoral (or aesthetic) domain: we can be ashamed of our wrongdoings as well as of flaws that are not our fault. thus, in sabini and silver’s (1997) view, shame takes the lion’s share, while (shameless) guilt is an “anemic” feeling. we will go back to this point when we discuss our own distinguishing criteria. (see “can perceived responsibility concern the self rather than specific behaviors?”, and “is perceived responsibility a sufficient cognitive component of guilt?”) kinds of action tendencies guilt has been found to lead to repair action tendencies, such as apologizing, amending, and undoing, whereas shame appears to favor withdrawal and escape behaviors, as well as hostile and self-defensive reactions (e.g., tangney & dearing, 2002). on the ground of such findings, shame has been stigmatized as an ugly and antisocial emotion, whereas guilt has been viewed as a moral and prosocial emotion (e.g., tangney & stuewig, 2004; tangney et al., 2007). however, the relationship between emotions and action tendencies is not so straightforward as one might expect. as shown by schwarz and clore (2007), emotions present a tenuous causal link with specific action tendencies, whereas their immediate effects are more mental than behavioral. action tendencies depend on contextual demands more than on specific emotion categories (e.g., barrett, 2006). no doubt, guilty people are likely to wish that they had not committed the wrongdoing, and to feel the need to make amends (e.g., gino & pierce, 2009; iyer, leach, & pedersen, 2004), but these motivations emerge on differences between shame and guilt 714 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ condition that people consciously recognize their responsibility. self-defensive maneuvers are not monopoly of shame. people also defend themselves from guilt (miceli & castelfranchi, 1998) by denying the intentionality of the misdeed (e.g., baumeister & wotman, 1992), downplaying its negative consequences (stillwell & baumeister, 1997), and derogating their victims (zechmeister & romero, 2002) so as to represent the wrongdoing as “deserved” by them. when responsibility is consciously acknowledged, guilt does not necessarily elicit prosocial reparative actions. acts of self-punishment have been found to be quite common (inbar, pizarro, gilovich, & ariely, 2013; nelissen & zeelenberg, 2009), and to be associated with non-prosocial and destructive tendencies (fedewa, burns, & gomez, 2005). turning to shame, although withdrawal is among the action tendencies it elicits, some aspects of withdrawal might be viewed in a prosocial light, by communicating surrender and appeasement (e.g., barrett, 1995; castelfranchi & poggi, 1990; fessler, 2007; izard, 1977; keltner & harker, 1998). displays of shame show similarities with the submissive and appeasement behavior of nonhuman animals (gruenwald, dickerson, & kemeny, 2007), and favor reconciliation (keltner & harker, 1998) and others’ empathy and forgiveness (keltner, young, heerey, oemig, & monarch, 1998). shame has been attributed the function to promote social cohesion through the individual’s compliance with social values and expectations (e.g., barrett, 1995; deonna et al., 2012; fessler, 1999; izard, 1977). if shame were to motivate plain conformity (gilbert, 2003) so as to avoid external sanctions, this function might be viewed in a negative light: shame would only favor a self-interested and unprincipled compliance. however, such charges lose their force if, when external sanctions are at stake, shame is experienced only if one shares the standards of one’s judges, and believes that their evaluations are correct. shame is not caused, but (often) triggered by external sanctions (deonna et al., 2012), thereby favoring one’s self-evaluation and sensitization to social values—provided one shares them. shame has been found to be associated not only with withdrawal, but also with an “undo” desire, which showed high scores for guilt as well (frijda, kuipers, & ter schure, 1989), with healthy behavior (harris & darby, 2009), inhibition of wrongdoings (ferguson, edmondson, & gerity, 2000), prosocial behavior (de hooge, breugelmans, & zeelenberg, 2008), and motivation for self-change (lickel, kushlev, savalei, matta, & schmader, 2014). de hooge, zeelenberg, and breugelmans (2010, 2011) found that shame activated both a motivation to restore one’s threatened self-image, and a protect motive to avoid further damage to one’s self-image. both motives, when acting jointly, induced approach behaviors such as developing new skills or redoing one’s performance. however, when restoration of the threatened self was perceived as too difficult, the restore motive declined, and approach behaviors diminished accordingly, whereas the relative strength of the protect motive increased, leading to withdrawal behaviors.i gausel, vignoles, and leach (2016) have addressed the “paradox” of shame, that is, the coexistence of selfdefensive and prosocial responses activated by perceived moral failure. they show that moral failure can cause two distinct appraisals: the appraisal of “specific self-defect”, that implies a concern for one’s own selfimage and leads to felt shame, which in turn predicts prosocial responses aimed at restoring the self-image; and the appraisal of “concern for social condemnation”, that focuses on the risk to one’s social image, and leads to feelings of rejection (rather than shame proper), which in turn predict self-defensive avoidance. by dismiceli & castelfranchi 715 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tinguishing social-image concerns from self-image concerns, and the effects of felt rejection from those of felt shame, these findings suggest that shame proper is unrelated to self-defensive action tendencies. therefore, based on the literature reviewed above, it seems unwarranted to conclude that shame is characterized by self-defensive action tendencies, and guilt by prosocial ones. both emotions can elicit both prosocial and self-defensive behavior. self versus behavior this distinction does not focus either on the motivational implications of shame versus guilt or on the different kinds of fault which would provoke these emotions. in fact, shame and guilt can be elicited by the same failure or transgression (e.g., a poor performance). according to the self-versus-behavior view, what matters is whether the fault is ascribed to the self or is circumscribed to one’s behavior: if it is ascribed to the self, which is supposed to imply a global negative self-evaluation (“i am a bad, inadequate person”), the emotional response will be of shame. if one’s own negative evaluation is circumscribed to one’s behavior (“i did a bad thing”), it will give rise to guilt (e.g., lewis, 1971; tangney & dearing, 2002). both shame and guilt imply internal attributions. however shame “is generated when people blame the stable, uncontrollable self for failure, whereas guilt occurs from blaming an unstable, controllable action taken by the self” (tracy & robins, 2006, p. 1349). the self-versus-behavior view is presently considered the mainstream one (see e.g., fontaine, luyten, estas, & corveleyn, 2004; gausel, 2012). however, we suggest that guilt is not necessarily circumscribed to one’s behavior—it may imply blaming one’s self; and shame does not necessarily imply a global negative self-view. one may feel guilty for being a cowardly (or selfish, inconsiderate, lazy) person. even when starting from a specific wrongdoing, one may generalize one’s negative evaluation to the self: “because i did something bad, i am bad”. it has been suggested that the behavior-to-self generalization implies a “fusion” between guilt and shame (e.g., tangney, burggraf, & wagner, 1995). however, as we will further discuss (see “can perceived responsibility concern the self rather than specific behaviors?”), this “fusion” assumption is questionable. shame, in turn, does not necessarily imply a global negative self-view. it may be confined to a specific selfdefect (e.g., gausel et al., 2016). the possibility of “state-specific feelings of shame” is admitted by tangney and tracy (2012, p. 454), who even observe that “the vast majority of people’s quotidian transgressions and errors do not warrant a shameful, global condemnation of the self”. we ask: if shame may imply a negative selfevaluation which does not involve the whole self, why build a model of shame in terms of global self-blame? although the self-versus-behavior view has received wide empirical support (e.g., tangney & dearing, 2002; tangney et al., 2007; tracy & robins, 2006), the test of self-conscious affect, or tosca (tangney, dearing, wagner, & gramzow, 2000; tangney, wagner, & gramzow, 1989), which is used in many studies addressing shame-proneness versus guilt-proneness, relies on the self/behavior distinction. the tosca items designed to assess shame-proneness mainly refer to global negative evaluations of the self, and to the tendency to withdraw; whereas those designed to assess guilt-proneness focus on specific negative evaluations of one’s behavior, and the tendency to make amends. moreover, the tosca shame scale has been found to correlate strongly with both chronic shame and chronic guilt, whereas the tosca guilt scale related to reparative action tendencies, but showed no (or weak) relation to guilt feelings (fontaine, luyten, de boeck, & corveleyn, 2001; differences between shame and guilt 716 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ giner-sorolla, piazza, & espinosa, 2011; luyten, fontaine, & corveleyn, 2002). thus, the self-versus-behavior view appears to be questionable. cognitive, emotional, and psychopathological implications of shame and guilt shame, especially shame-proneness, is often associated with anger (e.g., bear, uribe-zarain, manning, & shiomi, 2009; tangney & dearing, 2002). however, anger has been found to be associated with shame-related withdrawal action tendencies, but not with shame-related negative self-evaluations (cohen, wolf, panter, & insko, 2011). as shame does not necessarily induce withdrawal, its link with anger could be less robust than often assumed. the relationship between shame and anger has been explained in terms of a self-defensive reaction: to defend from self-blame, one would try not to take responsibility for one’s own fault by externalizing it (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012). the hostility that is initially directed inward would be redirected outward. we are not persuaded by this explanation. we view shame-related anger as a more immediate and “primitive” reaction to frustration – namely, the frustration of one’s self-esteem – and its causal attribution to another agent, regardless of any responsibility issue. in contrast with the most common view (e.g., averill, 1982; weiner, 1985), we in fact suggest that an attribution of responsibility is not a necessary antecedent of an angry reaction.ii in order to feel anger at somebody it is sufficient that one believes that the latter has caused the frustration of one’s own goals (batson et al., 2007; dubreuil, 2015). this causal attribution is different from an attribution of responsibility proper (see, e.g., smith & lazarus, 1993), which includes controllability and intentionality considerations. guilt has been found to be unrelated to anger, and negatively correlated with the externalization of blame (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012). actually, guilt implies viewing oneself as responsible for the fault. therefore, an angry outward reaction is out of place (provided one does not try to defend against guilt). guilt is also associated with perspective-taking and empathic concerns, that in turn favor prosocial behavior (e.g., batson, 1991), whereas shame seems to interfere with empathy, and to be associated with narcissistic concerns and personal distress responses (gilligan, 2003; tangney & dearing, 2002). this difference between guilt and shame has been explained in terms of the self-versus-behavior focus: “[p]eople experiencing guilt are relatively free of the egocentric, self-involved process underlying shame. instead, their focus on a specific behavior is likely to highlight the consequences of that behavior for distressed others, further facilitating an empathic response” (tangney & tracy, 2012, p. 450). by contrast, we suggest that the reason why guilt is associated with perspective-taking and empathic concern lies in its focus on one’s responsibility for the fault. as long as guilt implies the conviction of having responsibly broken a norm (which is supposed to promote and defend the collective welfare) or having injured someone (izard, 1977; lazarus, 1991; lewis, 1971; mcgraw, 1987; roseman & evdokas, 2004; smith & ellsworth, 1985), it does not merely favor, but requires perspective-taking (e.g., hoffman, 2000). for feeling guilty, one must feel responsible for one’s faults; and for feeling responsible one has to consider others’ needs and concerns, and see the consequences of one’s own behavior and attitudes through their eyes. miceli & castelfranchi 717 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we also suggest that the reason why shame is not associated with perspective-taking and empathic concern does not lie in the focus on oneself as a bad person as opposed to one’s own behavior. as we will further discuss (see “our distinguishing criteria”, and the subsection “is perceived non-responsibility a necessary cognitive component of shame?”), the crucial aspect is that responsibility is not an issue for shame. turning to the psychopathological symptoms associated with shame-proneness versus guilt-proneness, there is a wide consensus on the dysfunctional consequences of shame-proneness (depression, generalized anxiety disorder, low self-esteem), whereas there is less consensus on the psychopathological implications of guiltproneness (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012). however, it is unclear whether the findings on shame-proneness can be generalized to state-specific feelings of shame (e.g., de hooge et al., 2008; deonna et al., 2012). moreover, even sticking to shame-proneness, some measures used to assess it may be unable to detect adaptive aspects of shame, such as appeasement behavior, compliance with shared social standards, and attempts at skill acquisition. this in particular applies to the tosca shame scale, focused as it is on global negative self-evaluations and withdrawal action tendencies. conversely, tosca guilt, focused as it is on reparative action tendencies and negative evaluations of specific behaviors, may be unable to detect maladaptive aspects of guilt, such as obsessive rumination, self-punishment, and excessive self-criticism, which are related to depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and psychoticism (e.g., harder, 1995; o’connor, berry, & weiss, 1999). tosca suffers indeed from construct underrepresentation (ferguson & stegge, 1998; luyten et al., 2002; o’connor et al., 1999). therefore, it is unwarranted to conclude either that shame is an “ugly” and dysfunctional emotion or that guilt is constructive and adaptive. we suggest that many dysfunctional consequences that have been ascribed to shame depend on a global negative self-view, which may be associated with shame as well as guilt, when negative self-evaluations are generalized to the whole self. our distinguishing criteria as discussed so far, shame and guilt do not seem to be distinguishable from each other according to such criteria as the kinds of fault that elicit these emotions, their action tendencies, and their adaptive versus maladaptive implications. we have also questioned that the self-versus-behavior criterion adequately distinguishes shame from guilt. we do not see why guilt should be only felt about one’s own behavior, and will argue that it can also be felt about who the person is; on the other hand, we contend that shame is not necessarily focused on the self as a whole. we are going to suggest two criteria which in our view allow to better distinguish shame from guilt. the first criterion regards the different kinds of negative self-evaluation implied by these emotions: whereas shame implies a self-evaluation of inadequacy, guilt implies a self-evaluation of harmfulness. this is a new criterion. although a sense of personal inadequacy or powerlessness has been typically associated with shame (e.g., tangney, 1999), and one’s own perceived harmfulness has been associated with guilt (e.g., baumeister, stillwell, & heatherton, 1994), the kind of negative self-evaluation involved in shame versus guilt has, to our knowledge, never been raised to the dignity of a distinguishing criterion. our second criterion consists in the different focuses typical of these emotions: whereas shame is concerned with the discrepancy between a negative self-evaluation and the positive, desired one, guilt is concerned with differences between shame and guilt 718 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ responsibility for one’s faults. this criterion is not new in itself. that shame is triggered by the perceived discrepancy between one’s actual self and one’s ideal self has been already suggested (e.g., higgins, 1987; lazarus, 1991). in the same vein, responsibility has already been considered to be constitutive of the appraisal for guilt (e.g., lazarus, 1991; roseman & evdokas, 2004; smith & ellsworth, 1985). attributional models of guilt (e.g., tracy & robins, 2006) also seem to acknowledge the crucial role played in guilt by perceived responsibility, by relating guilt to internal, unstable, and controllable attributions for negative outcomes. however, the role of responsibility in shame has so far remained obscure. as pointed out by some authors (e.g., sabini & silver, 1997; smith et al., 2002), shame can be elicited by either responsible or non-responsible faults. but how is it possible that a responsible fault elicits shame (rather than guilt)? one might endorse the attributional view, which relates shame to internal, stable, and uncontrollable attributions (e.g., tracy & robins, 2006), and suggest that, independent of whether ashamed people are actually responsible for the fault, they perceive themselves as non-responsible, precisely because they trace back the fault to stable and uncontrollable causes. however, we are going to question the attributional account of shame (see next section), as well as the implication that the ashamed person should necessarily perceive themself as nonresponsible for the fault. (see “is perceived non-responsibility a necessary cognitive component of shame?”) kinds of negative self-evaluation: inadequacy versus harmfulness evaluations can be defined as beliefs about “what is good/bad for what” (miceli & castelfranchi, 2000). they imply the assignment of a (positive or negative) value to an entity, event, or world state x in that the latter is viewed as a good or bad means for some (class of) goal(s). evaluative beliefs can be either explicit (say, “this knife is good for slicing food”) or implicit (say, “this knife is sharp”). the positivity or negativity of the evaluation is contingent on the specific goal for which x is viewed as a means. for instance, a sharp knife is “good” for a cook’s goal of slicing food, whereas it is “bad” for a child’s goal of putting butter on the bread. negative (self-)evaluations can be of two kinds—harmfulness versus inadequacyiii (miceli & castelfranchi, 2000). a knife can be evaluated as “bad” either because it is blunt, and unable to cut properly, or because it is too sharp, and able to hurt. when appraised as inadequate, x is regarded as possessing insufficient power (properties, skills, attitudes) with respect to some goal (in our example, the goal of cutting something); when appraised as harmful, x is regarded as possessing sufficient power to attain a negative goal, that is, to realize a world state not-p which is the opposite of someone’s goal p (in our example, the goal of physical safety).iv whenever the power to thwart someone’s goals is associated with the corresponding goal or, at least, with the power to prevent such harm, (self-)evaluations of harmfulness are strictly linked to responsibility issues. in fact, to regard oneself as responsible for something, one should believe that: (a) one caused it (causal responsibility); and (b) one had the goal to cause it (goal responsibility), or at least (c) one had the power to prevent it (avoidance responsibility), but omitted to do so (miceli, 1992; weiner, 1995). feeling guilty implies perceiving oneself as a wrongdoer, which entails a self-evaluation of responsible harmfulness, that is, perceiving oneself as responsible for one’s harmful behavior or attitude.v when self-evaluations concern a lack of power which is perceived to be beyond one’s own control, one cannot feel guilty. people cannot feel guilty for their ugliness or handicaps—unless they view themselves as capable of self-improvement, miceli & castelfranchi 719 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and therefore responsible for not trying to self-improve. by contrast, they can feel ashamed of their ugliness or handicaps, because a self-evaluation of mere inadequacy is sufficient (as well as necessary) for feeling shame. so far, our distinguishing criteria seem to overlap with those suggested by attributional models of shame and guilt (e.g., tracy & robins, 2006). however, according to those models, guilt implies internal, unstable, and controllable attributions, whereas shame is qualified by internal, stable, and uncontrollable attributions. while endorsing the attributional model of guilt, we view shame as less cognitively sophisticated, and suggest that the only necessary and sufficient attribution is the internal one. the self-attributed inadequacy is not necessarily perceived as stable and uncontrollable. it is sufficient that people focus on the discrepancy between a negative self-evaluation and the positive one they would like to have. of course, a further attributional search can be performed: if one’s fault is traced back to uncontrollable and stable causes, shame will be associated with helplessness and hopelessness. conversely, if one’s fault is attributed to unstable and controllable causes, guilty feelings can arise—which may account for the frequent coexistence of shame and guilt, or more plausibly, the shift from one emotion to the other. but all of those consequences are possible implications of a further attributional search. the issue of perceived responsibility, however, needs to be better specified. we have to establish if it is actually necessary as well as if it is sufficient for experiencing guilt. we also need to explain how perceived responsibility can involve the self, without necessarily implying a fusion between guilt and shame. finally, we should clarify why perceived responsibility is not involved in shame even when it concerns moral faults. is perceived responsibility necessary for feeling guilty? some authors consider responsibility unnecessary for feeling guilty (e.g., baumeister et al., 1994; berndsen & manstead, 2007). in various instances of guilt, responsibility indeed seems to play no or little role. however, before discussing these counterexamples, two clarifications are in order. first, perceived responsibility does not necessarily coincide with actual responsibility—it may even be grounded on irrational beliefs (e.g., the thought that one may cause harm to others by simply wishing it). unsurprisingly, innocent rape victims often feel co-responsible for the rape because they think they provoked it through their appearance or behavior, or did not do everything possible to prevent the attack (e.g., janoff-bulman, 1979; meyer & taylor, 1986). second, we admit that an appraisal of personal responsibility proper – implying both causal and either goal or avoidance responsibility – is not a necessary antecedent of guilt (see, e.g., berndsen & manstead, 2007). for eliciting a first “pang” of guilt, it may suffice to assume one’s causal responsibility for a harm (e.g., frijda, 1993). developmentally speaking, perceiving oneself as a cause of another’s suffering is the core of guilt (e.g., zahn-waxler & kochanska, 1990). we suggest that an assumption of responsibility proper is a necessary constituent of guilt as a full-blown emotion, which may result from further elaboration of an initial, cognitively “poorer” emotional experience. however, once this cognitive elaboration has taken place, an assumption of responsibility proper is a necessary ingredient of guilt. if people are able to rule out both their goal responsibility and their avoidance responsibility for a transgression, they can get rid of the feeling, even when their causal role remains undisputed. unsurprisingly, therapeutic treatments aimed at removing feelings of guilt often focus on challenging the clients’ assumptions of responsibility (e.g., lamb, 1986). differences between shame and guilt 720 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ let us now discuss a few cases of guilt “without responsibility”. people who are over-rewarded tend to feel guilty when their advantage causes another’s disadvantage (e.g., hegtvedt & killian, 1999). even though they can view their advantage as undeserved, this condition seems insufficient to imply perceived responsibility for the inequity as long as they believe they neither did anything to cause it nor had the goal to cause it or the power to prevent it. however, they are now responsibly accepting an inequitable situation. they can feel responsible for not refusing the advantage, not trying to re-distribute what is undeserved, or not challenging the standards followed by the bestowers of rewards. responsibility can regard not only acts of commission but also omissions. another classical example of guilt without responsibility is survivor guilt (e.g., brockner, davy, & carter, 1985). in many such instances, people acknowledge that their guilty feelings are “illogical”, and still declare that they feel responsible. how can one feel responsible for not sharing others’ misfortunes? to start with, after an event people tend to overestimate their preexisting predictive capabilities—showing the well-known hindsight bias (e.g., fischhoff, 2003)—as well as their control over the situation. therefore, they may start a chain of counterfactual thoughts about what they could and should have (not) done (for instance, “i scrambled over others to escape”; or “i thought only of myself, without trying to save others”). second, let us suppose that a survivor fails to find some far-fetched responsibility to have (not) done something, and reaches the conclusion that being alive is a matter of luck. luck is often (irrationally) viewed in terms of a zero-sum game—to have good luck implies depriving another of it. although the survivor is not responsible for this deprivation (the “responsible” one is fate or god), (s)he is likely to feel happy that (s)he has escaped death, which somehow implies being happy that another died. the survivor can feel responsible for having experienced such a despicable feeling, which may be viewed as betraying a disposition to harm others as a means for pursuing one’s own interest. or, even without self-ascribing the wretched feeling of schadenfreude, the survivor may feel guilty for being happy while others are grieving over their losses, and view one’s own happiness as a sign of self-centeredness and hard-heartedness (e.g., jäger & bartsch, 2006). can perceived responsibility concern the self rather than specific behaviors? the negative evaluation of one’s behavior can undergo generalization to the self and elicit guilt, without a necessary fusion with shame. moreover, the mere reflection on one’s own “character”, independent of an actual wrongdoing, may elicit guilt. however, our emphasis on perceived responsibility seems to conflict with these claims. how can one perceive oneself as responsible for one’s own traits, rather than for specific wrongdoings? isn’t character something one cannot choose and be responsible for (e.g., sabini & silver, 1997)? many traits can be viewed as liable to change through one’s own effort, rather than as stable and uncontrollable features of the self. much depends on the perspective and implicit theories of the person. for instance, intelligence can be viewed either as a fixed entity or as a malleable quality (e.g., dweck, 1999). conversely, willingness (including effort and persistence) is not necessarily viewed as unstable and controllable. it may acquire an “ability” connotation—think of the notion of “weakness of will” (e.g., davidson, 1980). persistence can also be viewed as a stable disposition (e.g., hancock & szalma, 2008). therefore, we suggest that one can feel guilty for one’s negative traits, provided one feels responsible for them. and one feels responsible for them if one believes to be capable of modifying them – thereby preventing the (potential or actual) harm they engender – while omitting to do so. we acknowledge that guilt relates to the self miceli & castelfranchi 721 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as an agent, but this is different from assuming that guilt is exclusively concerned either with one’s behavior or with how one’s actual behavior reflects on the self. guilt is rather concerned with one’s self as an actual or potential wrongdoer. is perceived responsibility a sufficient cognitive component of guilt? the self-evaluation of responsible harmfulness is a twofold assumption—a self-evaluation of harmfulness plus a self-ascription of responsibility. responsibility is in itself a neutral notion. responsibility judgments assess whether one caused something, good or bad as it may be, and intended to cause it or at least could prevent it from occurring. assignment of responsibility and assignment of guilt should be kept distinct (e.g., shaver, 1985). one can acknowledge responsibility for a behavior, personal attitude or attribute without evaluating the latter as harmful. thus, perceived responsibility, albeit necessary, is an insufficient component of guilt. another necessary requirement is the self-evaluation of (potential or actual) harmfulness. as already pointed out, an evaluation of responsible harmfulness is a moral evaluation. therefore guilt, being concerned with one’s self as an actual or potential wrongdoer, implies a blow to one’s moral self-image. a blow to one’s moral image is insufficient for experiencing guilt. although one’s moral standards are largely a sociocultural product, and “different moral orders favour different moralities... in their members“ (benson, 2001, p. 231), others’ evaluation and one’s own self-evaluation may diverge. we possess “'a moral compass' which enables us to know when to turn towards our own feelings and when towards those of other people for guidance in the making of moral choices” (benson, 2001, p. 131). thus, one may even acknowledge to “deserve” others’ blame (according to their standards) without sharing in their negative judgment of harmfulness because one evaluates one’s own behavior or attitudes in terms of different standards. in these cases, one will suffer a blow to one’s own moral image, but not to one’s moral self-image. according to higgins (1987), different kinds of discrepancy between one’s self-concept and one’s self-guides qualify different kinds of unpleasant emotions. following self-discrepancy theory, we suggest that guilt is elicited by a discrepancy between the actual and the ought self, which prescribes how one should be and behave according to one’s own moral standards. when one feels guilty, one’s moral self-image gets (more or less temporarily) worsened. in other words, the negative self-evaluation implied in guilt involves the (moral) self, and is not confined to one’s specific behavior. in a sense, we agree with sabini and silver (1997) when they claim that a “strong” feeling of guilt should involve the self; otherwise guilt is an “anemic” feeling. what we disagree with is the equation of “involving the self” with “involving shame”. is perceived non-responsibility a necessary cognitive component of shame? unlike guilt, shame can be experienced when one’s self-evaluation concerns a mere lack of power. but this doesn’t necessarily imply that one should view oneself as not responsible for one’s own faults. many examples can be found of felt shame concerning a responsible wrongdoing. a child who consciously disobeys his parents, a student who neglects her homework, a soldier who cowardly tries to flee the battle may feel ashamed differences between shame and guilt 722 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rather than guilty. but, how is it possible to experience shame in such instances, rather than a misnamed guilty feeling? what makes the difference between shame and guilt is not the objective kind of fault, but how this fault is represented, and where one’s attention is focused. one can feel shame for a wrongdoing as long as one does not consider responsibility issues, and focuses on one’s own inadequacy with respect to one’s ideal self. that is, one compares one’s actual self with one’s ideal standard, and finds it is sub-standard. higgins (1987) also suggests that shame reflects an actual versus ideal self-discrepancy, independent of responsibility issues. however, he states that shame involves “feeling that one has been lowered in the esteem of others because one has disappointed their hopes and wishes for one” (p. 323). we view this condition as both insufficient for feeling ashamed (because a lowered self-esteem should also be involved) and unnecessary (because one may be certain that nobody will ever know about one’s fault, and still feel ashamed). while acknowledging that the ideal self (as well as the ought self) is socially constructed (e.g., argyle, 2017) and, developmentally speaking, others’ values and expectations play an important role in shame (e.g., ferguson, stegge, & damhuis, 1991), we suggest that the internalization of social standards involves their possible transformation. parental values, for instance, may be substantially modified, and even rejected (e.g., grusec & goodnow, 1994). in any case, for disappointment of others’ expectations to induce shame in an individual, (s)he should share those expectations. so, in any case, the ashamed one has disappointed one’s own expectations for oneself. the domain of self-esteem involved in shame is a nonmoral one, even when a moral fault is at stake. no doubt, a soldier who cowardly tries to flee the battle can feel guilty for such a responsible misdeed, suffer a blow to her moral self-image, and blame herself for being “evil”. however it is also possible that she feels ashamed, if she remains focused on the discrepancy between her actual self and her ideal self-image of a “brave soldier”. here, she suffers a blow to her nonmoral or “aesthetic” self-image (sabini & silver, 1998), viewing herself as “ugly”, defective with respect to her ideal self. this view of shame offers the remarkable advantage of explaining how it is possible to feel ashamed both of a physical handicap (which involves no personal responsibility) and of a responsible misdeed. in both cases, one compares one’s actual self with one’s ideal self, and is disappointed by the discrepancy between the two. shame is a kind of disappointment concerning the self. this view of shame can also account for the frequent association of this emotion either with depressive reactions (e.g., tangney & tracy, 2012) or with guilt (e.g., ferguson & crowley, 1997; harder, 1995), depending on the outcomes of a further causal search. in fact, as already mentioned, once the perceived fault is attributed to an internal inadequacy, one may trace back the latter to uncontrollable and stable causes, and in these cases depressive reactions, such as helplessness and hopelessness, are likely to ensue; if, conversely, the inadequacy is attributed to unstable and controllable causes, and responsibility implications come into focus, then shame will change into guilt, or “coexist” with guilt—which probably implies recurrent shifts from a mere disappointment in, and dislike of, oneself to guilty self-reproach, depending on where attention is focused. miceli & castelfranchi 723 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ guilt and shame concern different domains of self-esteem from freud (1923/1961) on, a distinction has been proposed between the “superego”, or moral conscience or ought self, and the ideal self, concerning one’s wishes and aspirations about oneself (e.g., higgins, 1987; kohut, 1977; piers & singer, 1971). self-esteemvi can as well be distinguished into “moral” and “nonmoral” or “aesthetic” (sabini & silver, 1998). the negative self-evaluations associated with guilt and shame both involve the self and imply a lowered self-esteem, but concern two distinct domains: the moral domain in guilt, and the aesthetic domain in shame. in a sense it is true that “shame and guilt are not equally ‘moral’ emotions” (tangney et al., 2007, p. 349): guilt is moral whereas shame is not moral. however, this does not mean that shame is morally reprehensible. it is simply nonmoral or amoral, because it implies an aesthetic perspective, even with respect to moral faults. whereas guilty people view themselves as “evil”, and reproach themselves, ashamed people view themselves as (physically, intellectually or morally) “ugly”, and dislike themselves. a lowered self-esteem, either in the moral or in the aesthetic domain, doesn’t necessarily imply a global negative self-view. the latter, although often considered typical of shame, is not necessarily involved in it. for example, going back to our ashamed soldier, her ideal self may include not only the standard of a “brave soldier” but also those of a “considerate friend” or a “loving parent”, which may remain untouched (e.g., deonna et al., 2012). moreover, a lowered self-esteem doesn’t necessarily imply stable and uncontrollable self-attributions. whereas the latter are incompatible with guilt, they are only compatible with shame, but not necessarily involved in it. our ashamed soldier may believe that she is utterly unable to keep up with her ideal standard of a brave soldier because cowardice is something she can’t help, like blindness or palsy. at this point, many dysfunctional consequences that have been typically attributed to shame may ensue—such as depressive symptoms, escape and/or denial, as well as a stable low self-esteem. but she can also believe that something can be done, and commit herself to become the person she aspires to be. concluding remarks shame and guilt are unpleasant emotions implying a negative self-evaluation against one’s own standards; both of them can be experienced either publicly or privately; both can be elicited by the same kind of fault; both can trigger either self-defensive or reparative action tendencies; both can have either adaptive or maladaptive implications; and both can involve the self. what are, then, the differences between these emotions? shame is an unpleasant emotion implying a self-evaluation of inadequacy to meet the standards of one’s ideal self. the self-attributed inadequacy may or may not imply a global negative self-view. moreover, it may or may not be perceived as stable and uncontrollable. only if it is perceived as uncontrollable and stable, shame will be associated with helplessness and hopelessness. ashamed people may regard themselves as either responsible or non-responsible for a fault, but in any case, when experiencing pure shame, they are not considering responsibility issues. as long as one focuses on one’s own inadequacy with respect to the ideal self, one can feel shame (rather than guilt) for a wrongdoing. in fact, although a self-evaluation of inadequacy may concern moral attributes – that is, harmful attributes for which one may view oneself as responsible – ashamed people are only considering the disappointing discrepancy between their ideal (good) self and their actual (not so good) self. of course this discrepancy implies a “good/bad” dichotomy, but the meaning of “good/bad” is not necessarily moral. “good/bad” may mean not only virtuous/wicked, but also competent/incompetent, beautiful/ differences between shame and guilt 724 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ugly, disappointing/satisfactory, and so on. shame is a nonmoral emotion, meaning that it involves the nonmoral or “aesthetic” facet of one’s self-esteem, which is concerned with the self’s adequacy with respect to its own wishes or aspirations. guilt is an unpleasant emotion implying a negative self-evaluation against one’s moral standards, that is, the standards concerning those behaviors, goals, beliefs or traits for which one regards oneself as responsible. the evaluation is negative in that such behaviors, goals, etc. are viewed as harmful. therefore, guilt implies a selfevaluation of responsible harmfulness, that is, wrongfulness. the wrongdoing can be either actual or potential, that is, a possible consequence of personal traits and dispositions—provided the person views such traits as modifiable through effort (thereby feeling responsible for not trying to modify them). therefore the self is involved in guilt, in that the fault can be ascribed not only to one’s behavior but also to the self. when one feels guilty, one’s self-image gets (more or less temporarily) worsened. however, in guilt it is the moral facet of one’s self-esteem – the facet concerned with the responsible harmfulness or beneficialness of the self’s behavior, attitudes, and dispositions – that suffers a blow. in our view, the distinguishing criteria we have suggested allow to account for both the similarities and the differences between shame and guilt, as well as to clarify the most problematic cases. they explain how a moral fault can elicit shame rather than guilt; or, conversely, how a flaw of character can elicit guilt rather than shame. we have also questioned the widespread view of shame as an ugly and maladaptive emotion, versus guilt as a prosocial and adaptive one. either emotion (and probably any emotion) can be adaptive or maladaptive depending on contextual factors and the regulation strategies used (e.g., barrett, 1995; ferguson & stegge, 1998). dysfunctionality is not intrinsic to the emotion, but depends on the emotion regulation skills of the experiencing person (e.g., gross, 1998; gupta, rosenthal, mancini, chaevens, & lynch, 2008). notes i) according to cross-cultural research (e.g., bedford & hwang, 2003; ho, fu, & ng, 2004), western, individualistic cultures have a negative attitude towards shame, whereas eastern, collectivistic societies value this emotion, and effectively use shaming techniques to motivate prosocial behavior. without exploring here the cultural issue, which would deserve an indepth treatment of its own, we acknowledge the possibility of cultural differences in shame, and in the responses that shame is more likely to elicit. however, it is worth pointing out that shame can motivate prosocial behavior even in western people, as found in the studies mentioned above. ii) a distinction is often neglected between anger and resentment. whereas a perceived harm elicits anger, a wrong (that is, a harm which is responsibly and unjustifiably inflicted) elicits resentment. not every experience of anger is perceived as grounded on a suffered wrong. iii) here inadequacy is not a synonym to inappropriateness, but to insufficiency. the meaning of inappropriateness is so wide to include both insufficiency and harmfulness. iv) admittedly, even a blunt knife will bring about a world state opposite of someone’s goal. however, in our example the blunt knife is viewed as lacking the power to realize someone’s goal, whereas the too sharp knife is viewed as endowed with the power to realize the opposite of someone’s goal. v) to be more precise, a self-evaluation of responsible harmfulness is still insufficient for perceiving oneself as a wrongdoer and feeling guilty, because one should also perceive the “responsibly inflicted harm” as unjustified. a harm is perceived as justified either when it is done in order to favor the victim’s interests or when it is a punishment proper, that is, a commensurate response to a previous wrong committed by the victim (miceli & castelfranchi, 2011). in the following, when speaking of self-evaluations of responsible harmfulness, we will presuppose that one also perceives the harm as unjustified. vi) self-esteem can be defined as a sense of self-worth derived from one’s self-evaluations, which are in turn contingent on perceived successes or failures with respect to one’s own goals. however, not every attainment or frustration of goals has equal impact on self-esteem, though it may lead to self-evaluations. some goals – the “self-defining” ones – (wicklund & gollwitzer, 1982) count more than others. successes and failures impact on the person’s self-esteem if they are related to miceli & castelfranchi 725 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “contingencies of self-worth”, that is if one believes one should attain a certain goal in order to be a “valuable” person (e.g. crocker, brook, niiya, & villacorta, 2006; crocker & wolfe, 2001). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable and helpful comments and suggestions. references argyle, m. 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(2002). victim and offender accounts of interpersonal conflict: autobiographical narratives of forgiveness and unforgiveness. journal of personality and social psychology, 82, 675-686. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.675 about the authors maria miceli, a social psychologist with a background in philosophy, is a senior researcher at the institute of cognitive sciences and technologies of the national research council of italy. she has published papers in emotion psychology, social psychology, cognitive modelling, and distributed artificial intelligence, focusing on the cognitive aspects of social mechanisms and processes and their interplay with motivational and emotional components. her most recent books include l’invidia (2012), and expectancy and emotion (2015). cristiano castelfranchi is associate director of research at the institute of cognitive sciences and technologies of the national research council of italy, and professor of economical psychology at the luiss university in rome. a cognitive scientist with a background in linguistics and psychology, also active in the multi-agent and social simulation communities, he has published papers on cognitive agent theory and architecture, cognitive foundations of social phenomena, cognition and emotion, multi-agent systems and social simulation. his most recent books include trust theory (2010) and expectancy and emotion (2015). miceli & castelfranchi 733 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 710–733 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1564 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167206290212 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.92.4.548 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.4.675 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ differences between shame and guilt (introduction) criteria used for distinguishing between shame and guilt kinds of failure or transgression kinds of action tendencies self versus behavior cognitive, emotional, and psychopathological implications of shame and guilt our distinguishing criteria kinds of negative self-evaluation: inadequacy versus harmfulness is perceived responsibility necessary for feeling guilty? can perceived responsibility concern the self rather than specific behaviors? is perceived responsibility a sufficient cognitive component of guilt? is perceived non-responsibility a necessary cognitive component of shame? guilt and shame concern different domains of self-esteem concluding remarks notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors authority relationship from a societal perspective: social representations of obedience and disobedience in austrian young adults research reports authority relationship from a societal perspective: social representations of obedience and disobedience in austrian young adults francesco fattoria, simone curlyb, amrei c. jörchelb, maura pozzi*a, dominik mihalitsb, sara alfieria [a]department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. [b]department of psychology, sigmund freud privatuniversität, vienna, austria. abstract obedience and disobedience have always been salient issues for both civil society and social psychologists. since milgram’s first studies on destructive obedience there has not been a bottom-up definition of what obedience and disobedience mean. the current study aimed at investigating the social representations young adults use to define and to co-construct knowledge about obedience and disobedience in austria. one hundred fifty four (106 females, 68.8%) austrian young adults (mean age = 22.9; sd = 3.5) completed amixed-method questionnaire comprising open-ended questions and free word associations. overall obedience and disobedience are respectively defined as conformity and non-conformity to regulations, ranging from implicit social norms to explicit formal laws. authority is multi-faceted and has a central role in orienting obedience and disobedience. further fundamental determinants of the authority relationship and relevant application of the results are discussed in this paper. keywords: social representations, obedience, disobedience, young adults, mixed-method approach europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 received: 2014-11-04. accepted: 2015-02-17. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology catholic university of milan, largo gemelli, 1 20123 milano, italy. phone: (+39) 02 7234 2347/2686. e-mail: maura.pozzi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the relationship with the authority is a fundamental element in every social context, since every social organization, whether it is a family or an institution, is based on an hierarchical structure to adequately function (passini & morselli, 2010c). the intrinsic hierarchical nature of authority relationship allowed the scholar to reduce complexity by referring to it in terms of obedience and disobedience (blass, 2012; bocchiaro & zamperini, 2012; milgram, 1965; passini & morselli, 2009). in fact obedience and disobedience can occur only within a hierarchical structure, as highlighted by milgram (1974) in his differential analysis between obedience and conformism. analyzing the state of the art within the authority relationship literature, morselli and passini (2011) moved further from classical studies on obedience and disobedience (blass, 2012) defending the need for an analysis of obedience and disobedience as social objects and specifically that: europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the authority relationship cannot be only considered an individual relational process, given that it has the function of regulating the life of the community. without wishing to reject any of the individual level explanations, the argument here is that they should be integrated within a societal level approach, thereby highlighting the link between the two levels (p. 298). thus, the importance of considering the societal level in the authority relationship analysis, going beyond individual and not ecological inquiry, can contribute to a full comprehension of these complex phenomena (morselli & passini, 2011; moscovici, 2011). according to these assumptions, several scholars (elcheroth, doise, & reicher, 2011; morselli & passini, 2011; staerklé, clémence, & spini, 2011) highlighted the relevance of studying authority relationship through the paradigmatic lenses of social representations theory (srt) (moscovici, 1961). in a concise definition, social representations are shared knowledge that people build together in order to act within the world (abric & tafani, 2009) and, according to these premises, this study aims to define and unveil the social representations of obedience and disobedience using a mixed-method research approach. obedience and disobedience as socio-psychological research objects in 1936, a cross-cultural study investigating the phenomena of obedience and disobedience to authority was conducted (fromm, horkheimer, mayer, & marcuse, 1936). the aim of that study was to establish psychological structures that determined the dependency of individuals on societies’ rules. the focus was on the family because, according to the authors, the very first instance to come into contact or experience authority occurs within the family. therefore the family has a crucial role in the development of one’s ability to assign and subordinate, reproducing the required social forms of living together and the necessary adaptation to the authorities, which are essential for the construction of social order. furthermore, referring to a broader social context than the family, there is no doubt about the pivotal role of obedience for “the success of most human groups and organizations, which in turn is crucial to the biological success of our species” (ent & baumeister, 2014, p. 575). this societal level was neither considered nor analyzed by social psychologists who focused their studies rather on a specific behavior: destructive obedience (burger, 2009; milgram, 1963). stanley milgram conducted experimental research searching for situational conditions fostering destructive obedience. the findings suggested that people are more than willing to implement inhumane behavior if requested by an authority (in a precise situation, up to 95% of the participants gave potentially lethal electric shock to another human being). the yale scholar admitted a “painful alternation in [one's] own thinking” (milgram, 1965, p. 74) as he observed how many subjects experienced deeply stressful sensations, yet they complied. since this extraordinary experiment, similar studies have been discouraged or even prevented by “sets of highly restrictive rules and regulations established by federal government” (elms, 1995, p. 3). despite heightened federal ethical regulations, burger (2009) investigated the question whether people would still obey today with a milder version of the experiment and concluded that “average americans react to this laboratory situation today as much the way they did 45 years ago” (burger, 2009, p. 16). milgram’s results were shocking but did not analyze disobedient behavior and explained only a small part of the authority relationship phenomena. only recently the interest has shifted to studying specific acts of disobedience to an authority, such as whistleblowing (bocchiaro, zimbardo, & van lange, 2012; fraschini, parisi, & rinoldi, 2011) and collective action (thomas, mavor, & mcgarty, 2012). examples of this specific disobedience can be seen in social actions such as occupy hong kong or the arab spring. a question like “why do people conduct gruesome tasks under the premise of obeying an authority?” has been the focus in studies such as milgram’s (1965) destructive obedience study and has now shifted to “when do people disobey authorities in order to stand up for a better society?” europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this unique focus on just one specific kind of authority relationship and, furthermore, only through experimental paradigm (blass, 2012), left uncovered what doise (1986) theorized as the ideological level of analysis. only recently, a growing number of studies is addressing the inquiry of authority relationship according to a constructive methodology (morselli & passini, 2012; pozzi, fattori, bocchiaro, & alfieri, 2014). morselli and passini (2012) identified some fundamental components of the representations of obedience and disobedience as, respectively, democracy, reciprocity, freedom, submission, passivity, and dictatorship and right, duty and transgression. in a recent study (pozzi et al., 2014) conducted according to the structuralist approach of social representations (abric, 2003a), these two representations have been defined as composed by common themes such as authority and norms, but differentiating for issues such as the degree of activation of the subjects enacting obedience or disobedience. societies develop systems of beliefs, values, norms and representations to understand and interpret the social events. in order to understand the behavior of people disobeying authorities and not blindly following state rules and regulations, we must first understand how people represent the concepts of obedience and disobedience (morselli & passini, 2011). in fact, in addition to hierarchical contexts, people are included in communicative contexts within which transmit, shape and negotiate their knowledge, values and attitudes (palmonari & emiliani, 2009). it is relevant to unveil the representations of authority relationship because the way people mean it and represent it influence social change and democracy processes (morselli & passini, 2011). in fact, people, sharing meanings and scripts, give order to reality and use social norms to establish the adequacy of a behavior (galli, 2006; moscovici, 2011). in this sense, when representations became pervasive in a social group they can assume normative functions and define the institutional asset of that specific community (morselli & passini, 2011). moreover many definitions of the authority relationship have been given throughout history and by different human sciences approaches (e.g. fromm, 1981; rattner, yagil, & sherman-sega, 2003; schlesinger, 1975; thomassen, 2007) but these theoretical definitions were based on assumptions of logic and top-down empirical evidence. according to these premises, what are the common meaning structures of the concepts of obedience and disobedience that guide and constrain actions?which are the bottom-up definitions of obedience and disobedience? to fill this gap in the literature on authority relationship we chose social representations theory (srt) (moscovici, 1961) as the theoretical frame for studying authority relationship. social representations theory (srt) the concept of social representation (sr), developed and advocated by serge moscovici (1984, 1988), plays a significant part in the field of social psychology as it focuses on how social (lay) knowledge is generated and influenced within the social environment and how it guides and constrains human behavior. while multiple variations of definitions exist also within moscovici’s own work, it is correct to define social representations as a system of ideas, practices, images and values with their own cultural meaning; the knowledge is acquired directly through experiencing the behavior in the family, friends and school peers and it includes all processes of memory, perception, and information-gathering which work together to provide knowledge within a social context (moscovici, 2001). within the field of srt there have been multiple developments (palmonari & emiliani, 2009). abric (1993) and his colleagues from the aix-en-provence school have theorized social representations as composed of a content and a structure. the content includes the information, beliefs and attitudes that a specific social group has referring to a social object. structural elements instead show the organization of the content and can be distinguished between nucleus and peripheral elements, in terms of the centrality and stability of certain beliefs. this approach europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ has come to be known as central nucleus theory (cnt; abric, 1994). accordingly, srs are organized around a stable central nucleus, which represents meaning and structure. as the central nucleus is the element most resistant to change, any modification of the central nucleus leads to a complete transformation of the representation. for two representations to be different, they must be organized around two different central nuclei (galli, 2008). furthermore, the organization of srs is determined by the combination of two systems: the central system reflecting the social environment and knowledge as a collective basis; and the peripheral system which depends on characteristics of the individuals, and suggests more flexibility and the possibility of integrating and processing knowledge. as two representations could have the same content but different structure and then different meanings (fasanelli, galli, & sommella, 2005), it is therefore fundamental to study both the content and the structure to enrich the comprehension of a social representation. to summarize, the aims of the present paper are: (a) to fill the gap in social psychology literature, giving a completely bottom-up definition of these two social objects; (b) to investigate the components defining obedience and disobedience to conduct a differential analysis and to highlight common themes and differences; and (c) to have scientific clues to further analyze, understand and interpret specific political psychological phenomena, such as current social protests (elcheroth et al., 2011). method participants one hundred fifty four participants, mostly psychology students at the sigmund freud privatuniversität (sfu vienna), were recruited and entered in the study on a voluntarily basis, signing participation consent. their mean age was 22.9 (sd = 3.5) and 106 participants were female (68%). our sample was composed of: 97 university students (63%), 28 student-workers (18.2%), 9 workers (5.8%), 15 unemployed or other (9.7%). seventy-one participants (53 females, 74.6%) completed the task referring to obedience while 83 (53 females, 63.85%) participants answered the questionnaire related to disobedience. measures and research design participants were administered a self-report questionnaire composed of: 1. an open-ended question aiming to investigate the content of the representation. participants were asked to report how they define obedience or disobedience (“in your opinion, what is obedience?” and “in your opinion, what is disobedience?”). 2. an exercise of free association aimed at uncovering the structure of the representation. participants were asked to associate five nouns and five adjectives to the inductor term (obedience or disobedience according to casual assignation to sub-samples). then they were asked to explain their choices in order to disambiguate the meaning of the selected terms. after this exercise, participants were asked to rank by importance, from 1 to 5, the terms freely associated. this procedure was run in accordance with the hierarchized evocation technique (vergès, 1992) in order to find nuclear and peripheral elements. with the open-ended question, we obtained qualitative data that were analyzed using thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006). the data set collected through free association (see point 2) was analyzed by running evoc2000 software (vergès, 1992), resulting in the structural organization of the content. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 200 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the thematic analysis method (braun & clarke, 2006) allows the researcher to extract the main components and themes forming the content of the representations. a theme represents patterned responses from the data that are relevant to the research question. thematic analysis include the following steps: familiarization of the data set, generating initial codes, identifying themes amongst codes, and defining and deducting themes into the summarized final narrative reports (braun & clarke, 2006). the structure of the representation was generated by running the free association answers through the evoc2000 software. this software runs in accordance with tcn (abric, 2003a; vergès, 1992) by crossing two criteria of prototypicality: the frequency of appearance and the rank of its importance, that is, the average position in which a word is classified. evoc2000 software generates a four-quadrant matrix taking into account the criteria of word frequencies and order of evocation (abric, 2003a). for example, the central nucleus (top left quadrant) is generated by words with the highest frequencies and ranked as most salient. this procedure is in accordance to the assumption that “only the intersection of these two [qualitative and quantitative] criteria allows for the identification of the statute of constitutive elements of the social representation being studied” (fasanelli et al., 2005, p. 113). the results come from the agreement of three independent researchers who completed the analysis of the categories obedience and disobedience. after a first phase of individual work on raw data, all three researchers compared their findings. the final analysis resulted from the comparison and the negotiated integration of the three analyses. results obedience thematic analysis— the analyses of the responses to the open-ended question yielded six labels (see table 1). obedience was defined as conformity with regulations, acceptance of laws without any questioning, and the ability to contemplate one’s conformity with regulation was stressed among the answers. especially in the upbringing of children, finding the middle ground seems crucial. there was mention of the fear of punishment when standing against or refusing to obey regulations. obedience was also seen as a sign of respect towards other people, whether they are children, parents, or older people. regulations were divided into rigid laws, social norms and conventions, within the family or school. obedience meant losing the possibility or quality of being oneself, being different from other people, while still recognizing the importance of obedience for the functioning of society. it also implies solidarity and protection of other members of the society. distinction between positive and negative aspects of obedience was contemplated. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 201 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 thematic analysis – obedience themes’ definitionthemes obedience is perceived as conformity with regulations, “to carry out commands” (participant 1). it is the willingness to follow and accept regulations and laws, for some participants it means to “take conformity orders and carry them out to 100%” (participant 22). one must adjust to the society, but it is also seen as a ranking of importance. in this category thoughts on obedience are summarized with/without reflection. it means to follow a person, regulation, or system without thinking about one’s reasons or behavior. for some with/out reflection participants it is a question of finding middle ground, to “follow without thinking about meaningfulness“ (participant 3). especially, in the upbringing of children it is important to find the right way of dealing with obedience “the right measure is the deciding factor” (participant 37). obedience is associated with a fear of punishment. this fear is a reason why people obey the law and submit to an authority. but it also is seen as a sign of respect, some set obedience as equal to respect “reason for obedient behavior is fear” (participant 4). fear of punishment participants perceive obedience to different types of authority. some see it as an acceptance of regulations and obligations; others identify authority in the form of social norms and conventions, types of authority to “observe the regulations and obligations” (participant 2). there is a blind and abstract obedience, and the word is connected to educating children, the process of bringing up “students who follow at school, children observe rules of parents” (participant 23). for many participants, obediencemeans no individuality because “thoughts and personal opinions do not matter” (participant 1). one might also obey out of self-compulsion or out of responsibility to protect other members of society. no-individuality another opinion on the subject is the distinction between positive and negative connotation of obedience, as well as healthy and unhealthy obedience. in some cases obedience can be dangerous “there is healthy and unhealthy obedience” (participant 78). positive/negative connotation note. the labels presented are listed in rank according to their frequency beginning with the label that scored the most answers. structure analysis — in table 2 the free word associations to the term obedience are organized according to evoc2000 output. while analyzing this table please refer to the following explanation: in the nucleus, upper left quadrant, characterized by a high frequency of appearance and by a high average rank of appearance, we have those terms constituting the core meaning; which gives unity and stability to the representation. in the first periphery, upper right quadrant, characterized by a high frequency of appearance and by a low average rank of appearance, we have those terms indicating behavioral tendencies (abric & tafani, 2009). in the element of contrast quadrant, in the lower left angle, low frequency and high average rank, we have those terms representing a minority group’s beliefs. in the last quadrant, lower right angle, low frequency and low average rank, we can observe those elements fading in or out from the representation. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 structure analysis – obedience first peripherynucleus rankfrequencywordrankfrequencyword noun (frequency ≥ 14; rank ≥ 2.6)noun (frequency ≥ 14; rank ≤ 2.6) 32upbringing19authority .13.32 17regulations .32 16power .22 adjective (frequency ≥ 7; rank ≥ 2.6)adjective (frequency ≥ 7; rank < 2.6) 40obedient9blind .82.02 7anxious9nice .33.62 7submissive .12 7important .62 second peripheryelements of contrast rankfrequencywordrankfrequencyword noun (5 ≤ frequency ≤ 13; rank ≥ 2.6)noun (5 ≤ frequency < 13; rank < 2.6) 13suppression10command .13.52 11consequences10laws .82.52 10military7compulsion .92.42 9punishment6discipline .63.32 6subordination6respect .23.32 6violence5will .53.42 5implementation .23 adjective (4 ≤ frequency ≤ 6; rank ≥ 2.6)adjective (4 ≤ frequency < 6; rank < 2.6) 6subordinate5authoritarian .23.42 5adjusted5restrained .62.42 5restrictive4structured .51 .62 4weak-willed .23 4punishing .23 4strict .53 4positioning .04 4disciplined .74 disobedience thematic analysis— the evaluation of the data demonstrates the complexity of this social object. the responses of the participants were reduced into nine labels as depicted in table 3. the majority perceived disobedience as non-conformity with existing regulations or authority regardless of whether that is a person or a system. according to their answers, authority can take on several forms, varying from familial surroundings, the political arena, institutional policies, social expectations, but also self-inflected rules. in particular, many participants associated disobedience as a phenomenon occurring within the familial context. another factor often mentioned in the answers refers to the ability to determine and control one’s actions. it implicates either a conscious and unconscious judgment or decision to oppose authority. individuality can also imply seeking attention or dealing with frustration. a superior-inferior relationship in which power is established is already a premise to accept and perceive authority. positive and negative aspects of disobedience have been collaborated upon, stating that in some situations or europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 203 http://www.psychopen.eu/ contexts obeying is just as important as disobeying. another way to describe disobedience is the reduction to that of “opposite of obedience” because only in connection with obedience, disobedience is possible. table 3 thematic analysis – disobedience themes’ definitionthemes the majority of participants sees disobedience as non-conformity with regulations, “to oppose regulations and laws, to disregard regulations and standards” (participant 2), regardless whether these regulations non-conformity make sense or not. in the case of regulations being absurd, non-conformity with laws is legally justified and “it lies in the hands of the acting person and not in the hands of the superior” (participant 45). disobedience is perceived with different types of authority, such as social, political, familial or institutional policies. more semantic difference is made between family and public “disobedience only at home, means types of authority violating of regulations” (participant 3). some perceived authority in the form of conventions “not to hold on to social norms” (participant 5); others even refer to regulation as “advice and opinion of others” (participant 75). opinions belong in this category of self-mastery that reflect disobedience as an act of self-determination, when one decides his/her destiny without accepting the commands from others “doing his own thing” self-mastery (determination) (participant 6). it also can be seen as an attempt to be different, special, or not following the mainstream, “to be unique” (participant 5). it can result in one`s frustration or be used to test boundaries. the different approach towards disobedience shows the answers of those participants who mentioned conscious-unconscious reactions to disobedience “a conscious or unconscious protest against demands made by a superior person or a system (participant 35). conscious/unconscious there is a distinction concerning disobedience between negative and positive connotation. some participants connect it to negativity because it reminds them of negative authority, and others to positivity negative/positive connotation because they refer to rebellion. one participant has more objectivity when he expresses his thoughts on the subject as “whether an action is to be evaluated as positive or negative depends on the case” (participant 10). disobedience has something to do with hierarchy as well. there has to be a superior-inferior relationship in order to act as an authority. without such a presumption there is no disobeying, “not following superiors’ instructions” (participant 34). hierarchy disobedience is associated with force and punishment. for some participants suppressing disobedience violently makes it possible to gain power over others “the alleged authority becomes real when force and punishment disobedience is violently suppressed” (participant 22). to stand up against authority can and will be punished, many associate disobedience in the family context, as in teaching or educating children to obey. disobedience can bring sanctions” (participant 58). it is also seen as a lack of respect for authority, regardless of whether in public or in the family. the category future orientation reflects on disobedience as an important part of an upbringing. it can have negative consequences for the future if children do not learn it in childhood “belongs to growing-up, to learning for the future (participant 25). future orientation some participants expressed their thoughts on disobedience as the opposite of obedience, claiming that only “in combination with obedience is a definition possible” participant 62). opposite of obedience europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ structure analysis — in table 4 the free word associations to the term disobedience are organized according to evoc2000. please refer to the previous section "obedience", subsection "structure analysis" for the explanation of the quadrants’ meanings. table 4 structure analysis – disobedience first peripherynucleus rankfrequencywordrankfrequencyword noun (frequency ≥ 13; rank ≥ 2.6)noun (frequency ≥ 13; rank ≤ 2.6) 37upbringing21regulations .82.12 37resistance17rebellion .82.62 23punishment .43 19individuality .82 adjective (frequency ≥ 12; rank ≥ 2.6)adjective (frequency ≥ 12; rank < 2.6) 61against17brave .92.12 31negative12reflective .42 .23 27regulated .03 19individual .72 18rebellious .92 14disrespect .23 second peripheryelements of contrast rankfrequencywordrankfrequencyword noun (6 ≤ frequency ≤ 12; rank ≥ 2.6)noun (6 ≤ frequency < 12; rank < 2.6) 12stubbornness10spite .73.32 8freedom8regulation breach .02 .62 8authority .72 7politics .33 6courage .23 6obedience .04 adjective (6 ≤ frequency < 11; rank ≥ 2.6)adjective (6 ≤ frequency < 11; rank < 2.6) 10young9self-confident .23.42 7selfish6free .33.32 discussion obedience results indicate a good correspondence between the thematic and structural analysis. the concept of obedience evoked the notion of conformity with regulations, acceptance of laws without question, while recognizing the importance of obedience for social order and the functioning of society. this definition is reinforced with terms from the nucleus: regulation and submissive. the former refers to the need of norms to be followed while the latter refers to the hierarchical position of the obedient person. one of the main theoretical components of obedience, which differs from conformism, is hierarchy (passini & morselli, 2010b): for the concept of obedience, it is necessary to have a person with a higher status, an authority (nucleus term), otherwise we are dealing with conformism, regulating social influence between peers. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 205 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in our data authority is conceived as a two-fold object: it is represented as a physical authority giving orders or as a social entity composed of a set of social norms, regulations and conventions. regarding physical authority, parents are the main actors objectifying it. familyi is the first social context requiring obedience from its members and it is the first place in which obedience is socially learned by children as future citizens (darling, cumsille, & loreto, 2007; fromm et al., 1936). the family, therefore, has a crucial role in developing the ability to comply and subordinate, reproducing the required social forms of living together and the necessary adaptation to the authorities which are essential for the construction of public order (xiao, 1999). within this perspective, it is pivotal for parents not to raise children as obedient machines who turn out to be future “sleeping” citizens, blindly accepting the authorities’ requests (fromm, 1981) that can lead to negative social consequences. within our data the notion of obedience further evoked different types of regulations, ranging from the most rigid to more lenient ones: rigid laws, social norms and conventions, and rules within the family or school. interestingly every category of regulations belongs to a specific authority, whether it is an informal order from a parent or a formal law written in the constitution. furthermore, obedience evoked the issue of individuality and reflection. within the literature several theories link obedience to blind submission, explaining this relationship as resulting from lacking individual reflection in response to authority’s requests (bandura, 1990; bocchiaro et al., 2012; milgram, 1974; pozzi et al., 2014; zimbardo, 2004). recently, the blind nature of obedient behavior has been discussed and milgram’s experiments re-analyzed, looking for further explanatory variables. results indicate, for example, that the participant’s willingness to contribute to the further progression of science was a fundamental component of their destructive behavior (haslam, reicher, & birney, 2014; reicher, haslam, & miller, 2014). another important theme outlined in our results is that fear of punishment encourages obedience (kelman & hamilton, 1989). ideally authority should govern without the use of punishment; exercising coercion usually is a sign of losing power over citizens and punishment becomes necessary in order to preserve the status quo. “social systems cannot be undermined each time the authority lacks legitimacy and its influence is not strong enough to guarantee a proper level of obedience. thus, disobedience to authority is limited and discouraged by establishing sanctions and punishments” (morselli & passini, 2011, p. 294). in our data set obedience evoked a consequence-based evaluation: it is not positive or negative per se but depends on the fairness of its actions and consequences. this result is coherent with recent definitions of obedience (passini & morselli, 2009): in this respect obedience can be defined as constructive when it preserves social order and destructive when its actions have negative consequences for people, groups or communities. disobedience the majority of the participants conceived disobedience as non-conformity with existing regulations or authority, regardless of whether these are persons or a social system. rebellion to unjust regulations, in terms of making a stand and not follow rules or formal laws despite possible consequences, requires courage and reflective skills. reflection is a component characterizing disobedience (pozzi et al., 2014) and it is connected to disobedience to the extent to which a person is able to process an authority’s request and answer accordingly to universal ethical standards (bocchiaro & zimbardo, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 206 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in our data set the associations to disobedience were described as unconsciousii reactions to regulations or authority requests. this dichotomy in the reflective nature of disobedience could be due to “a difference in their interpretation of the situation as one requiring a new immediate action on their part, of perceiving danger, or threat, or immorality that others may misidentify as less urgent” (bocchiaro & zimbardo, 2010, p. 167). within our results disobedience was related to authority figures that can take several forms, varying from familiar surroundings, the political arena, institutional policies, social expectations, to self-inflected rules. authority and hierarchy are binding requirements for disobedience, both on a personal and a community level (van zomeren, spears, fischer, & leach, 2004). when an authority and its requests lack legitimacy, disobedience is likely to occur and punishment is the easiest strategy an authority can use to maintain the status quo and its power (passini & morselli, 2010a). sanctions and punishment, both on a personal and a social level, such as stigmatization, either foster or inhibit a person’s disobedient behavior (zimbardo, 2007). yet, within the civil disobedience theoretical framework, disobedient behavior differs from deviant behavior in respect to dealing with punishment: persons acting in civil disobedience accepts the consequences of their actions, using punishment as an amplifier of their political message (arendt, 1985). on a personal level disobedience is strictly connected to self-determination in our data set; every person has the right and the duty to decide destiny. this issue has been discussed within the literature on the individual level, recalling the highest level of maslow’s pyramidiii (1943), but also at the socio-political level, for example community self-determination (wellman, 1995). while the former refers to persons’ needs of reaching their full potential, whatever it may be, community self-determination refers to the need of people belonging to the same ethnic group to re-draw national boundaries, to fulfill secession from its state, and to consequently annex to another state. these two processes and their respective aims often require disobedience: in our first case towards parents, social groups, or norms and in the case of community self-determination to national laws. in the latter case, rebellion or resistance may be enacted. while perceived as disobedience against rules and laws, also in case of injustice, they are acts of violation of a legal directive that can be justified when fundamental rights within a democracy are at stake (moraro, 2014). in correspondence with other studies on social representations of authority relationships in different cultural contexts (morselli & passini, 2012; pozzi et al., 2014), our results also show that evaluations of disobedience are consequence-based. while it has a negative connotation when it leads to disrespecting other people for one’s own benefit, it is considered positive when referring to rebellion for positive social changes (passini & morselli, 2009). in this respect disobedience is seen as positive whether related to important ethical issues, such as nuclear weapons (buttle, 1985), or aimed at increasing fundamental rights and well-being to disadvantaged social groups (thomas et al., 2012; van zomeren, leach, & spears, 2012). accordingly, rebellion is a nuclear element of disobedience and defines its necessary behavioral component (zimbardo, 2007). further confirmed in this study, disobedience as social representation has an intrinsic bond with obedience (morselli & passini, 2012). this relationship can be theorized referring to marková’s themata (marková, 2003). the czech scholar theorized common sense as composed of oppositional taxonomies (e.g. simplicity/complexity or analysis/synthesis) that can arise and become social representations under certain socio-historical conditions (marková, 2000). the current historical period is characterized by evident action of civil and pro-social disobedience that could have thematized the obedience-disobedience antinomy: “themata are such oppositional categories which, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the course of history, become problematized; for one reason or another they become the focus of attention, and a source of tension and conflict” (ibidem, p. 446). coherently, actual disobedient and protest actions can be interpreted referring to the social representations of obedience and disobedience described in this paper. authority relationship is here considered as a dynamic relation between the individual and the authority, between the will of self-mastery of the individuals and the limits imposed by the authority. as recalled by passini and morselli (2010c), a functional democracy is possible in the balance between obedience and disobedience. people protesting in these years for different causes (economic crisis, authoritarian governments, lack of free of speech, etc.) aim to decide for their future, consider authorities as illegitimate and strive for their self-mastery using disobedience as an instrument of active citizenship to change the unjust status quo (passini & morselli, 2011). a definition of obedience and disobedience the structure and thematic analysis complement each other for both obedience and disobedience. the two srs have several common themes: (a) (non) conformity with regulations; (b) multi-form regulations, ranging from formal laws to implicit social norms; (c) authority is a multi-faceted object. it can be a physical person, an institution or a social entity; (d) evaluation is context-based. obedience and disobedience cannot be evaluated per se but according to the social consequences of their actions; and (e) punishment is a strategy both to maintain obedience and to contrast disobedience. the main difference resulted in the degree of reflection attributed to obedience and disobedience. whereas obedience can be blind and enacted without reflecting on authority’s requests, disobedience always evokes a certain degree of reflection. this issue is connected with the individuality theme. obedience evoked a lack of individuality, recalling milgram’s (1974) agentic state, while disobedience is defined as a pathway to reach selfmastery (maslow, 1943). according to our results we can give a completely bottom-up definition of obedience and disobedience. obedience is conformity with a multi-form of regulations, ranging from implicit social norms to written formal laws, given by different authorities’ actors: people, groups, institutions, and society. obedience is evaluated according to its consequences. disobedience on the other hand is a lack of conformity to multi-form regulations created by multi-faceted authorities, often characterized by a high degree of reflection and enacted at personal and community level. conclusions this study analyzed the authority relationship, namely obedience and disobedience, according to a social representation structural approach (abric, 1994) to give bottom-up definitions of these two social objects, comparing their similarities and differences. in our opinion, as authority relationship is a social object that people deal with from childhood onwards and as it is a social phenomenon currently characterizing the socio-political world, it had to be investigated according to a constructivist approach (gelo, 2012), such as social representation theory. furthermore, this study followed the recent reflections assuming the strict bond between social knowledge and political behavior (morselli & passini, 2011; staerklé, 2009). the fundamental premise is the citizens’ inclusion in a specific political culture, permeated by a system of beliefs, ideologies and social values that are shared and that contribute to shape social behavior. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 208 http://www.psychopen.eu/ possible limitations of this study could be the use of a single technique, including both open ended questions and free associations, to unveil the social representations of the authority relationship. the open-ended question should ideally replace, in a short and parsimonious form, the semi-structured interview that is often adopted to uncover the representation content (fasanelli et al., 2005). despite numerous existing techniques to retrieve social representations according to the structural approach (abric, 2003b), this instrument allowed us to reach a broad sample and is an efficient alternative for conducting a rigorous, reliable and economical study. another limitations regards the sampling procedure because, despite of this selection was run according to moscovici’s indication of choosing a specific social group within the which inquiring a social object (galli, 2006), the sample was mainly composed by university students of a psychology course. being acquainted with psychological knowledge and theories (i.e. milgram experiment or freud theories) could have influenced the results. in order to overcome this limit, it is suggested to conduct further research on different samples, in order to verify the redundancy of the results. the claim of saturating the analysis and the comprehension of a concept so rich in content surely cannot be satisfied by a single study. in this respect future research should focus on integrated approaches at a methodological level (clark & creswell, 2011) and the societal level has to be considered as one of the fundamental fields of inquiry to understand the current real social world more accurately. notes i) the age of the participants can have influenced the reference to the family as themain authority figure within the representation. ii) the use of this term is probably due to participants being students of sigmund freud privatuniversität and consequently being acquainted with sigmund freud’s psychoanalytic theories. iii) maslow’s hierarchy of needs theorizes the role of motivation in the psychological development. starting from physiological needs as eating and drinking, people move to the higher need, that is, self-actualization, the realization of one’s full potential, passing through safety, love and belonging, and esteem. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abric, j. c. 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(2007). the lucifer effect: understanding how good people turn evil. new york, ny: random house trade paperbacks. about the authors francesco fattori psychologist and phd in social and community psychology. member of the department of psychology, his research interests concern authority relationship, pro-social disobedience and collective action. simone curly received a master’s degree in economical psychology (sigmund freud private university, vienna). she has supervised bachelor student at the aforementioned university, works as freelance psychologist at the red cross. her further psychological activities involve weight management counseling and sport motivation. amrei c. jörchel she received her ph.d. at the university of vienna. currently she is a member of the scientific staff at the sigmund freud private university (sfu) in vienna, where she teaches and conducts research in the fields of developmental and cultural psychology. her main research interests are the development of self from a cultural psychological perspective: in particular how various interrelated psychological levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal) function together and how persons actively develop in and with their ever changing environments. maura pozzi researcher and adjoin professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore). she received a ph.d. in social and developmental psychology. she is a member of the athenaeum centre for family studies and research. her research interests concern volunteerism, prosocial behaviors and intergenerational dynamics in families and communities. dominik mihalits bachelor degree in psychology at sigmund freud university (sfu), vienna and currently involved in postgraduate education of psychotherapy (freudian psychoanalysis) as well as psychology at sfu. his interests are in cultural psychology and psychotherapy linkages. he also works as editorial assistant for the sigmund freud university press, where he also got a teaching assignment for social psychology. beside research, he is engaged with clinical-psychological diagnosis in private practice. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 fattori, curly, jörchel et al. 213 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1088868311430835 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.649 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00026.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ sara alfieri she is psychologist and post doc researcher in the department of psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano (italy). her research focuses on family relationships with a particular emphasis on values, prejudice and stereotype. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 197–213 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.883 social representations of obedience and disobedience 214 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en social representations of obedience and disobedience introduction obedience and disobedience as socio-psychological research objects social representations theory (srt) method participants measures and research design results obedience disobedience discussion obedience disobedience a definition of obedience and disobedience conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors individual differences in anchoring effect: evidence for the role of insufficient adjustment research reports individual differences in anchoring effect: evidence for the role of insufficient adjustment predrag teovanović* a [a] faculty for special education and rehabilitation, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract although the anchoring effect is one of the most reliable results of experimental psychology, researchers have only recently begun to examine the role of individual differences in susceptibility to this cognitive bias. yet, first correlational studies yielded inconsistent results, failing to identify any predictors that have a systematic effect on anchored decisions. the present research seeks to remedy methodological shortcomings of foregoing research by employing modified within-subject anchoring procedure. results confirmed the robustness of phenomenon in extended paradigm and replicated previous findings on anchor’s direction and distance as significant experimental factors of the anchoring effect size. obtained measures of individual differences in susceptibility to anchoring were fairly reliable but shared only small portion of variability with intelligence, cognitive reflection, and basic personality traits. however, in a group of more reflective subjects, substantial negative correlation between intelligence and anchoring was detected. this finding indicates that, at least for some subjects, effortful cognitive process of adjustment plays role in the emergence of the anchoring effect, which is in line with expectations of dualprocess theories of human reasoning. keywords: anchoring effect, individual differences, dual-process theories, intelligence, cognitive reflection europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 received: 2018-06-30. accepted: 2018-12-11. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: visokog stevana 2, 11000 beograd, serbia. e-mail: teovanovic@fasper.bg.ac.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. anchoring effect refers to a systematic influence of initially presented numerical values on subsequent judgments of uncertain quantities, even when presented numbers are obviously arbitrary and therefore unambiguously irrelevant. a simple two-step procedure, usually referred to as a standard paradigm of anchoring, was initially introduced in the seminal work of tversky and kahneman (1974). first, people were instructed to make a judgment if some quantity, such as the percentage of african countries in the un, is higher or lower than value randomly generated by spinning a wheel of fortune in their presence. subjects were then asked to provide their own numerical estimates for the very same quantity. results showed notable effect of arbitrary values on participants’ estimates (e.g. percentage of african countries in the un was estimated on 25 and 45 for groups that were presented with anchors 10 and 65, respectively). exceptional easiness of experimental elicitation of the anchoring effect was demonstrated in various domains, in both laboratory and real-world settings, and for both novice and expert subjects (for reviews of literature, see bokulić & polšek, 2010; furnham & boo, 2011). anchoring effect is so pervasive that even highly implausible europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ anchors (e.g. “did gandhi lived to be 140?”) affect judgments. however, it seems that relation between anchor distance and the size of the anchoring effect is curvilinear moderate anchors lead to stronger effect in comparison extreme ones (mussweiler & strack, 2001; wegener, petty, detweiler-bedell, & jarvis, 2001). besides, the larger effect was observed for anchors set above, in comparison to anchors set below correct answer (hardt & pohl, 2003; jacowitz & kahneman, 1995; jasper & christman, 2005). according to tversky and kahneman (1974), anchoring effect is the product of anchoring and adjustment heuristic. estimates are made starting from anchor value which is then adjusted in a deliberate fashion, step by step until the satisfactory answer is reached. a number of steps is often insufficient since people stop adjusting as soon as they reach the first answer that seems acceptable. anchoring is seen as a consequence of this prematurely ended serial process. an alternative explanation of anchoring assumes that anchor automatically cues positive test strategy, i.e. intuitive search for pieces of evidence that confirm anchor as a possible true answer for target quantity. information that is consistent with the anchor is more easily accessible on successive estimation task, which in turn affects final estimates (chapman & johnson, 1999; mussweiler & strack, 1999; strack & mussweiler, 1997). recently, several attempts were made to integrate two competing accounts of anchoring (see e.g. epley, 2004; epley & gilovich, 2005, 2006; kahneman, 2011; simmons, leboeuf, & nelson, 2010). endorsing dual-process theories of human reasoning, kahneman (2011) noted that anchoring results from both automatic activations of anchor-consistent knowledge and re-adjustments from anchor as distinct cognitive processes – the first, fast and intuitive (type 1), and the second, more demanding, slow and effortful (type 2). latter requires controlled attention, and relies on working memory capacities. it has been shown that adjustment decreases when cognitive resources are depleted either by concurrent cognitive task or alcohol consumption (epley & gilovich, 2006), and increases when instructions aimed to enhance mental efforts are introduced (adame, 2016; epley & gilovich, 2005; mussweiler, strack, & pfeiffer, 2000; simmons et al., 2010). additional findings regarding the role of type 2 processing in the emergence of the anchoring effect are needed. since anchors may not affect all people equally, one of promising lines of research comes from the individual differences perspective. starting from the assumptions of dual-process theories which state that people reliably vary in capacities to successfully perform type 2 processes, and that these differences highly correspond to individual differences in intelligence (evans & stanovich, 2013; stanovich & west, 2000, 2008), one could expect to observe negative correlation between anchoring and intelligence. however, recent studies failed to reveal such association (furnham, boo, & mcclelland, 2012; jasper & ortner, 2014; stanovich & west, 2008; welsh, delfabbro, burns, & begg, 2014; for minor exceptions, see bergman, ellingsen, johannesson, & svensson, 2010; jasper & christman, 2005). apart from the ability to successfully perform them, individuals also vary in mere readiness to undertake type 2 processes at all (see e.g. evans & stanovich, 2013; stanovich, 2009). individual differences in this propensity are usually assessed by cognitive reflection test (crt; frederick, 2005), devised with the intention to differentiate between impulsive subjects who are prone to report response that first comes to mind (type 1), and reflective subjects, who are able to resist to the first response and try to provide more thoughtful (type 2) answer. no direct effect of cognitive reflection on anchored decision was observed in previous studies (bergman et al., 2010; jasper & ortner, 2014; oechssler, roider, & schmitz, 2009; welsh et al., 2014). however, following the assumptions of dual process theories, it seems plausible to hypothesize that effects of intelligence and cogniteovanović 9 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tive reflection on anchoring effects might be in interaction. more precisely, one could expect that individual differences in intelligence play role in the emergence of the anchoring effect only when type 2 processes are initiated, i.e. when subjects’ reflectivity is high. on the other side, intelligence and anchoring should not be related if subjects are more impulsive, i.e. prone to rely on intuitive type 1 processes. finally, it seemed practically worthwhile to empirically examine correlations that anchoring might have with personality traits. previous studies on relation between anchoring effect and big five personality traits have brought mixed results. for example, mcelroy and dowd (2007) detected a modest positive correlation between susceptibility to anchoring and openness to experience, while eroglu and croxton (2010) failed to replicate this finding, but encountered on significant, although relatively small, associations with agreeableness, conscientiousness, and introversion. on the other side, caputo (2014) reports that anchoring was negatively related to agreeableness and openness. other studies reported on sporadic and practically negligible correlations between big five personality traits and susceptibility to anchoring (furnham et al., 2012; jasper & ortner, 2014). research aims and hypotheses from the experimental perspective, research was aimed to examine how both direction and relative distance of anchor contribute to the anchoring effect size. a non-linear relationship between anchor distance and the size of the anchoring effect (mussweiler & strack, 2001; wegener et al., 2001), as well as a stronger effect of positively directed anchors (hardt & pohl, 2003; jacowitz & kahneman, 1995; jasper & christman, 2005), were expected. in order to ensure that relative distance of the anchor is closely the same for all participants, the standard paradigm was extended by introducing pretest session (see method section). this procedural intervention also allowed to examine if reliable individual differences in susceptibility to the anchoring effect could be collected. the main correlational aim of the research was to determine whether traditional psychometric constructs can predict anchoring effect, with an expectation that relation between anchoring and intelligence is moderated by cognitive reflection (evans & stanovich, 2013; kahneman, 2011; stanovich, 2009). on the other side, considering the inconsistent findings of previous studies, it was hard to come out with strong expectations regarding relation between anchoring effect and big five personality traits. method participants a total of 236 special-education undergraduate students (214 females; age m = 19.83, sd = 1.31) participated in this study that was part of a wider research on cognitive biases (see teovanović, 2013; teovanović, knežević, & stankov, 2015) in return for partial course credit. participants gave their informed consent before taking part in the study. individual differences in anchoring effect 10 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ anchoring experiment material a set of 24 general knowledge questions, all required numerical answers, was used in the anchoring experiment. relatively difficult questions, covering various topics, were chosen with the intention to induce conditions of uncertainty. participants were not expected to know the precise answers but to provide approximate estimates of target quantities. design the anchoring experiment employed 2 x 4 within-subject design, with anchor direction and anchor distance as repeated factors. anchor direction had two levels: positive, for anchors placed above, and negative, for anchors placed below the values of initial estimates. four levels of relative anchor distance were set by adding or subtracting the particular portion (20%, 40%, 60%, or 80%) of the initial estimate’s value. three different general knowledge questions were used in each of eight experimental conditions (see the first two rows in table 1), resulting in a total of 24 questions. procedure two-session anchoring experiment was administered via a computer program which was used for presentation of instructions and questions, recording of answers, and calculation of individual anchor values. in the first session, questions were presented in a randomized order, one at a time and the participants were instructed to state the answers by using a numeric keypad. answers were recorded as initial estimates (e1) and used in the subsequent session as the basis for the setting anchors (a) on various levels of distance and direction factors. as previously stated, for each participant (p) on each presented question (q), individual anchor values (apq) were calculated by multiplying initial estimates (e1pq) with predetermined values (which ranged between 0.2 and 1.8 across questions) and rounding decimals. at the beginning of the second session, which followed immediately, an instruction was presented on the screen: “in the previous session, you answered a set of questions. in the following one, you will be asked to answer the same questions again. you are allowed, but not obliged, to change your mind and provide amended answers”. same 24 questions were presented in a new random order, but the standard paradigm of anchoring was applied, i.e. for each question participants were administered a comparative task and a final estimation task. more precisely, the participant was first required to indicate if her/his final response was higher or lower than the value of the specific anchor (apq). after that, a participant would state the final response (e2pq) by using the numeric keypad. measure measures of the anchoring effect (ae) were calculated for each participant on each question by using the following formula: aepq = (e2pq e1pq) / e1pq * 100. as an index of relative amendment in estimation after introducing of anchor, ae tells about the difference between initial and final estimate in the units of percentage of initial estimate’s valuei. since relative anchor distance was also expressed in terms of percentage of the initial estimate, this enabled their direct comparison. for all questions, zero value of ae indicated an absence of difference between the initial and final estimate, i.e. lack of anchoring effect. maximum magnitude of anchoring effect was determined by the relative anchor distance on specific question (for negative anchors, it had negative values: -20%, -40%, -60%, -80%; for positive anchors, it had positive values: 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%). teovanović 11 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data trimming in order to control for the unwanted effect of outlying ae values, trimming procedure was applied. the absence of the anchoring effect and the maximum of the anchoring effect determined lower and upper bound of an acceptable range for ae measures. however, two type of data departures were both expected and observed. the first concerns under-anchoring, and it had been registered when ae was lower than zero for positive anchors, i.e. higher than zero for negative anchors. similarly, over-anchoring was indicated when values of final estimates were smaller than values of negatively directed anchors, i.e. higher than values of positively directed anchors. measures that had been outside of acceptable range were fenced to meet its boundaries. corresponding second estimations (e2) were also amended such that applied formula results in trimmed ae measure. a described procedure was applied on 17.5% of all ae and e2 measures (see the last two rows of table a1 in the appendix)ii. individual differences measures one week prior to the anchoring experiment, several cognitive ability tests and one personality questionnaire were computer administered to the same group of participants. personal identification numbers were used for matching participants’ data. raven’s matrices raven’s matrices (rm; raven, court, & raven, 1979). for each of 18 tasks, participants were asked to identify the missing symbol that logically completes the 3x3 matrix by choosing from among five options. participants were allowed six minutes to complete the test. previous studies that had used this instrument reported about its good metric properties (see, e.g., pallier et al., 2002; teovanović et al., 2015). vocabulary test vocabulary test (knežević & opačić, 2011) consists of 56 items of increasing difficulty. subjects were required to define the words (e.g. “vignette”, “credo”, “isle”) by choosing the answer from among six options. no time limit for the completion of this test was imposed. on average, the participants completed this test in 13.11 minutes (sd = 2.09). cognitive reflection test cognitive reflection test (crt) was devised as a measure of “the ability or disposition to resist reporting the response that first comes to mind” (frederick, 2005, p. 36). it consists of only three questions, each triggering most participants to answer immediately and incorrectly. as previously noted, crt was used to capture individual differences in propensity to engage type 2 processing. neo-ffi neo-ffi (costa & mccrae, 1992) was employed to quickly assess the big five personality traits neuroticism (n), extraversion (e), openness (o), agreeableness (a), and conscientiousness (c). each scale consists of 12 items, resulting in 60 items in total. individual differences in anchoring effect 12 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results experimental findings initial estimates were precisely correct responses only in 141 (2.5%) trials. when correctness was defined more loosely to encompass deviations up to five units (e.g. on „how many african countries there are in the un?“, all values between 48 and 58 were counted as correct responses), number of correct responses rose only to 440 (7.8%) indicating that questions used in this study were relatively difficult, as intended. descriptive statistics for initial and final estimates on each question, as well as results of difference tests between them and associated indices of anchoring effect sizes are all presented in table 1. final estimates for each quantity markedly differed from the initial ones (ps < .05) and these differences were highly significant (ps < .001) on the vast majority of questions. equally important, all of them were in predicted direction – final estimates were higher than initial estimates for positive anchors and lower for negative anchors. as much as 55.4% of initial estimates were amended toward anchors. besides, over-anchoring was observed far more frequently than under-anchoring, χ2(1) = 102.56, p < .001. such pattern of results confirms the experimental robustness of the anchoring effect. anchors accounted for between 2% and 50% of estimates’ variance across questions, as indicated by η2 values, while absolute values of cohen’s d ranged from 0.14 to 1.00. on average, magnitude of anchoring effect was medium and somewhat higher for positive anchors (danc+ = 0.50, ηanc+ 2 = .20) compared to negative ones (danc= -0.42, ηanc2 = .14). while standard indices of effect size are directly conditioned by the response variability across participants, ae measures relate initial to final estimates for each participant and hence are not dependent on differences between participants. as it is presented in penultimate column of table 1, final estimates were on average from 9% to 41% higher than initial estimates for positive anchors, i.e. from 4.5% to 33.4% lower for negative anchors. to enable their comparison and further aggregation, ae values were absolutized for negative anchors. for each of eight experimental conditions, anchoring effect measures were calculated as average ae score on three belonging questions (see figure 1). overall, participants amended their final estimates by 21.4 percent, 95% ci [20.3, 22.5], of initial estimates’ value. results of two-way analysis of variance for repeated measures revealed that degree of anchoring effect strongly depended on both anchor direction, f(1,235) = 76.53, p < .001, η2 = .25, and anchor distance, f(3,705) = 265.67, p < .001, η2 = .53. main effects were not qualified by the higher order interaction, f(3,705) = 1.47, p = .22. negatively directed anchors had a significantly lower impact (manc= 18.44, 95% ci [17.36, 19.52]) in comparison to the positive anchors (manc= 24.46, 95% ci [23.01, 25.91]), and this was the case for each anchor distance (ps < .001). the large effect of anchor’s direction is probably due to the fact that lower boundary of possible values on each question was (near to) zero. teovanović 13 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 d es cr ip tiv e s ta tis tic s an d r es ul ts o f t es ts o f d iff er en ce b et w ee n in iti al (e 1) a nd f in al (e 2) e st im at es fo r e ac h q ue st io n e m pl oy ed in th e a nc ho rin g e xp er im en t d is ta nc e q ue st io n (c or re ct r es po ns e) e1 e2 d iff er en ce te st s ef fe ct s iz e a e m sd m sd t(2 35 ) p d η2 m sd -8 0% h ow m an y sq ua re s ar e th er e on a s ho gi p la yi ng b oa rd ? (8 1) 54 .4 5 67 .2 7 34 .4 3 27 .9 5 -5 .5 4 < .0 01 -0 .3 6 .1 2 -3 3. 43 33 .4 5 h ow m an y ca st le s ar e th er e in v oj vo di na ? (6 7) 5. 84 11 .0 4 3. 71 7. 61 -5 .2 0 < .0 01 -0 .3 4 .1 0 -2 4. 14 29 .4 9 h ow m an y go ld m ed al s di d c hi na w in in 2 00 8 s um m er o ly m pi cs in b ei jin g? (5 1) 15 .0 3 24 .4 9 11 .1 7 21 .1 6 -6 .1 7 < .0 01 -0 .4 0 .1 4 -2 0. 96 28 .1 2 -6 0% h ow m an y ch ro m os om es d o pe ng ui ns h av e? (8 0) 16 0. 42 87 8. 80 11 3. 97 71 0. 69 -2 .0 8 .0 39 -0 .1 4 .0 2 -2 4. 45 26 .4 8 h ow m an y ci vi l a irp or ts a re th er e in g er m an y? (6 5) 90 .8 1 59 .5 3 68 .1 1 50 .2 3 -1 4. 17 < .0 01 -0 .9 3 .4 6 -2 5. 00 19 .9 4 h ow m an y tim es w as th e n in a w ar d fo r t he b es t n ov el b ee n aw ar de d? (5 8) 21 .4 9 46 .0 7 13 .9 5 23 .0 6 -4 .3 5 < .0 01 -0 .2 8 .0 8 -2 4. 67 24 .5 5 -4 0% h ow m an y a fri ca n co un tri es a re th er e in th e u ni te d n at io ns ? (5 3) 8. 84 11 .0 7 6. 95 8. 22 -7 .4 5 < .0 01 -0 .4 8 .1 9 -1 6. 13 17 .3 8 h ow lo ng d oe s m er cu ry re vo lu tio n ar ou nd th e su n ta ke ? (8 8) 23 0. 64 52 6. 29 18 2. 92 41 6. 89 -5 .7 5 < .0 01 -0 .9 4 .1 2 -1 7. 65 18 .2 8 h ow ta ll is s ai nt s av a te m pl e in b el gr ad e (in m et er s) ? (8 2) 11 7. 42 23 8. 92 97 .3 0 21 3. 47 -5 .8 7 < .0 01 -0 .3 8 .1 3 -1 7. 06 16 .0 3 -2 0% w ha t i s th e le ng th o f a n o ly m pi c si ze s w im m in g po ol (i n m et er s) ? (5 0) 10 0. 10 25 3. 23 93 .3 3 21 4. 80 -2 .2 7 .0 24 -0 .1 5 .0 2 -4 .4 5 8. 08 w ha t i s th e du ra tio n of h oc ke y ga m e in m in ut es ? (6 0) 53 .5 9 25 .5 7 49 .5 3 24 .7 0 -8 .7 7 < .0 01 -0 .5 7 .2 5 -5 .8 0 8. 88 h ow lo ng d id v uk k ar ad ži ć liv e? (7 6) 92 .7 3 31 1. 86 82 .7 8 24 8. 92 -2 .4 2 .0 16 -0 .1 6 .0 2 -7 .3 3 7. 93 +2 0% h ow o ld is b el gr ad e zo o? (7 5) 63 .1 9 43 .0 7 69 .9 7 45 .4 0 14 .5 0 < .0 01 0. 94 .4 7 11 .4 9 9. 58 h ow m an y ke ys a re th er e on a c on ce rt gr an d pi an o? (8 8) 57 .5 3 31 .8 4 64 .2 6 35 .2 7 15 .3 1 < .0 01 1. 00 .4 5 12 .5 9 9. 28 w ha t i s th e ho tte st te m pe ra tu re e ve r r ec or de d in th e w or ld ? (5 8) 11 1. 46 29 8. 69 12 1. 45 31 2. 95 5. 12 < .0 01 0. 33 .1 0 8. 60 9. 16 +4 0% w ha t i s th e le ng th o f s ta nd ar d pl ay in g ca rd s in m ill im et er s? (8 8) 15 4. 54 40 4. 80 18 7. 30 55 0. 02 3. 29 .0 01 0. 21 .0 4 14 .3 2 17 .8 8 h ow m an y no ve ls d id a ga th a c hr is tie w rit e? (8 2) 23 .6 0 28 .0 5 28 .6 9 33 .4 6 9. 47 < .0 01 0. 62 .2 8 23 .8 5 18 .6 6 h ow m an y a ca de m y aw ar ds fo r b es t p ic tu re w as g iv en to d at e? (8 4) 82 .9 3 14 2. 03 10 3. 92 18 1. 41 6. 84 <. 00 1 0. 45 .1 7 25 .8 7 18 .0 5 +6 0% w ha t i s th e la tit ud e of r ey kj av ik ? (6 4) 79 .9 0 17 5. 18 10 9. 94 26 7. 42 4. 67 < .0 01 0. 30 .0 9 35 .0 3 27 .8 9 w ha t a re 7 0 ya rd s in m et er s? (6 4) 11 41 .5 0 23 15 .8 0 12 27 .9 0 23 63 .6 0 4. 56 < .0 01 0. 30 .0 8 25 .2 1 28 .0 1 w ha t i s th e at om ic n um be r o f m er cu ry ? (8 0) 32 .5 4 45 .9 3 41 .9 9 55 .2 3 8. 72 < .0 01 0. 57 .2 5 34 .0 4 28 .1 9 +8 0% h ow m an y da ys a re th er e in e ac h se as on o f t he d is co rd ia n c al en da r? (7 3) 13 2. 53 64 7. 48 15 9. 21 65 1. 38 7. 93 < .0 01 0. 52 .2 1 34 .6 2 36 .6 6 w ha t i s th e di st an ce b et w ee n b ra tis la va a nd v ie nn a in k ilo m et er s? (6 4) 34 2. 04 62 3. 12 45 7. 51 71 7. 57 8. 44 < .0 01 0. 55 .2 3 41 .3 8 34 .4 9 h ow m an y ca lo rie s ar e th er e in a 1 00 g ra m s of a pp le ? (5 3) 80 .8 4 17 2. 01 99 .7 0 24 3. 37 3. 09 .0 02 0. 20 .0 4 24 .7 0 33 .5 4 n ot e. d = c oh en ’s d . η 2 = e ta -s qu ar e. a e = a m ea su re o f t he a nc ho rin g ef fe ct . individual differences in anchoring effect 14 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mean anchoring effect and 95% ci error bars for each experimental condition. anchoring effect measures were even more strongly influenced by relative anchor distance. there was general increase of anchoring effect for the first three anchor distance levels. an almost linear relationship was observed with ae measures on the approximately halfway between the initial estimates and the anchors. however, increase leveled off between 60% and 80% distances, for both positive and negative anchors. differences between mean aes for last two distances were not significant (ps > .10)iii. this pattern of results indicates that further increasing of anchor distance would probably not be followed by significant increase of anchoring effect size. susceptibility to anchoring effect considerable variability of ae measures was observed across participants on each question (see the last column of table 1). moreover, participants who were more susceptible to anchoring effect on one item were also more prone to amend their estimates toward anchors on other items. internal consistency of individual differences was acceptable (α = .71). the average correlation between ae measures for 24 items was relatively small (r = .11), but it was notably higher after aggregation for eight experimental conditions (r = .27). the first principle component accounted for 36.7% of their total variance (λ = 2.94). it was highly loaded by each ae score (rs ranged from .46 to .73) and approximately normally distributed (ks z = 0.54, p = .59). predictors of susceptibility to anchoring effect cognitive and personality measures were collected with the aim to explore their capacity for predicting individual differences in anchoring effect. results presented in table 2 suggest fair levels of reliability for all of the measures (αs ≥ .70), except for crt (α = .40). latter is not surprising considering that crt consisted only of three items. also, performance on crt was very poor. as much as 199 (84.3%) participants failed to give at least one correct answer. hence, a high reflective group of subjects in this study consisted of only 37 participants who scored at minimum one point on crt. a measure of overall susceptibility to anchoring effect was regressed on the set of potential predictorsiv and the results are displayed in the last three columns of table 2. zero-order correlations were relatively small, and only the trait of openness correlated significantly with anchoring effect (r = .24, p < .001). besides, openness was teovanović 15 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the only measure that significantly contributed to the prediction model (β = 0.27, p < .001). in total, relatively small portion of anchoring effect’s variance was accounted for by predictors (f(8,227) = 2.65, p = .008, r2 = 5.3%). table 2 descriptive statistics for predictors and results of multiple regression analysis predictors descriptive statistics regression analysis m sd n α r β p cognitive measures raven’s matrices (rm) 12.54 3.14 18 .79 .03 .02 .81 vocabulary 20.82 6.49 56 .73 -.04 -.09 .17 cognitive reflection test (crt) 0.20 0.50 3 .40 .00 -.04 .70 personality measures openness 3.26 0.53 12 .72 .24 .26 < .001 conscientiousness 3.71 0.57 12 .84 .13 .13 .07 extraversion 3.41 0.56 12 .78 -.01 -.08 .25 agreeableness 3.41 0.51 12 .70 .08 .03 .67 neuroticism 2.68 0.70 12 .84 .00 .06 .43 cognitive measures showed no direct correlation with anchoring. however, it was hypothesized that processes captured by ae measures may differ with respect to the degree of subjects’ reflectivity, i.e. that cognitive reflection might moderate the relationship between cognitive abilities and anchoring effect. results confirmed this expectation. standardized interaction term, entered in multiple regression analysis along with standardized crt and rm scores, was highly significant (β = -.24, p = .004). for the group of participants who performed poorly on crt (ncrt= 199), the correlation between rm scores and anchoring effect measures was not significant (r = .11, p = .13), while for the group of participants that had at least one correct crt answer (ncrt+ = 37), rm performance significantly correlated with anchoring (r = -.51, p = .001)v. furthermore, results of separate multiple regression analyses for the two groups, presented in table 3, indicate stronger effect of predictor set in high reflective group (r2 = 32.0%) in comparison to low reflective group (r2 = 5.3%), even after controlling for difference between size of groups (fischer’s z = 2.21, p = .027). table 3 results of regression analyses for two cognitive reflection groups predictor low crta high crtb β p β p raven’s matrices .08 .29 -.49 .003 vocabulary -.05 .50 -.29 .049 openness .26 .001 .19 .26 conscientiousness .10 .23 .18 .28 extraversion -.06 .44 -.19 .28 agreeableness .01 .84 .18 .28 neuroticism .08 .34 -.07 .72 af(7,191) = 2.592, p = .014, r2 (adjusted) = 5.33%. bf(7,29) = 3.422, p = .009, r2 (adjusted) = 32.01%. individual differences in anchoring effect 16 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion anchoring effect is a well-documented phenomenon. yet, studies that examine covariates of susceptibility to this cognitive bias are relatively recent and with mixed findings (bergman et al., 2010; caputo, 2014; eroglu & croxton, 2010; furnham et al., 2012; jasper & christman, 2005; jasper & ortner, 2014; mcelroy & dowd, 2007; oechssler et al., 2009; stanovich & west, 2008; welsh et al., 2014). relative inconsistency in reported results could be partly due to questionable psychometric properties of used instruments, but also due to the absence of the uniform procedure for reliable measurement of individual differences in susceptibility to anchoring effect. in respect to latter, at least two approaches can be distinguished. first, predictors of anchoring were examined by using interaction test in 2 x 2 anova with anchor condition (high/low) and dichotomized psychometric construct of interest as between-subject factors. in such way, mcelroy and dowd (2007) showed that participants who were high on openness to experience provided higher estimates for high anchors and lower estimates for low anchors in comparison to participants who were low on openness. a similar procedure was used in several subsequent studies (furnham et al., 2012; oechssler et al., 2009; stanovich & west, 2008). drawbacks of this approach lie in the inevitable arbitrariness of dichotomization criteria and practical inability to simultaneously examine effects of several predictors. as an alternative solution, welsh et al. (2014) proposed a multi-item measure of anchoring expressed as a correlation between experimentally provided anchors and participant’s numerical estimates across the number of trials on a specially constructed card game. in such way, several predictors could be simultaneously examined. however, authors missed to examine reliability of these measures, and the question of generalizability of findings beyond gambling setting can also be raised. the present study was designed with an intention to overcome some shortcomings of the previous studies. introduction of pretest session, in which participants stated their anchor-free estimates before appliance of standard paradigm, ensured that anchor direction and relative extremity were same for all participants. this also allowed direct comparability of the anchor distance and the anchoring effect measures. an additional benefit of applied within-subject procedure lies in the opportunity to collect measures of the anchoring effect for each participant on each question and to evaluate psychometric properties, which was mostly ignored in previous research (for the exception, see jasper & ortner, 2014). finally, proposed procedure opens the possibility for multilevel analyses aimed to explore whether effects of experimental factors are moderated by individual characteristics of participantsvi. the average size of the anchoring effect in the present study was medium. participants amended an initial estimate of uncertain quantity toward anchor in more than half cases, on average for slightly more than one-fifth of its value. in that sense, an experimental reliability of the anchoring effect was yet again confirmed, this time by using within-subject design. it seems plausible to suppose that anchoring effect would be even stronger if participants were not previously asked to express their anchor-free estimates, i.e. that reported results can be seen as conservative indications of the anchoring effect size. anchors showed asymmetrical effect. positively directed anchors produced larger effects in comparison to equally distanced negative anchors, which is in line with previous findings (hardt & pohl, 2003; jacowitz & kahneman, 1995; jasper & christman, 2005). this was probably due to fact that the degree of estimate change for negative anchors was both theoretically and psychologically limited by a fixed lower boundary of possible responses. unlike that, effects of positive anchors were not limited in this way, since upper boundaries of reasonable values on the most of questions were not fixed. besides, in both directions, more distanced anteovanović 17 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ chors led to a larger anchoring effect, but only to some point. for the most extreme anchors, no significant difference in effect was observed in comparison to the nearest anchors. this indicates that maximum of the anchoring effect was registered and that more distant anchors would yield same (mussweiler & strack, 2001) if not weaker (wegener et al., 2001) effect. considering the correlational aspects, results indicate fair internal consistency of the anchoring effect measures, thus preventing alternative interpretations of negligible correlations. anchoring effect was directly associated only with the trait of openness. as suggested by mcelroy and dowd (2007), this can be viewed as a consequence of enhanced sensitivity to external information which is a common characteristic of two phenomena. in other words, participants prone to take into account alternative points of view in general also show increased readiness to amend their answers toward externally suggested solutions on estimation tasks. other personality traits were not correlated with anchoring, although some previous studies suggested that possibility (e.g. caputo, 2014; eroglu & croxton, 2010). findings on the relations between cognitive variables and ae measures are of particular theoretical importance since they could shed some light on the discussion about psychological mechanisms that underlie anchoring effects. kahneman (2011) put previously emerged distinction between two competing theoretical accounts of the anchoring effect into the context of dual-process theories of human reasoning. an adjustment was explicitly described as deliberate type 2 process which is typically carrying out in multiple steps. after estimating if the correct value is higher or lower than the presented anchor, people adjust from the anchor by generating an initial value. afterwards, people evaluate if this value is a reasonable answer (in which case they terminate adjustment and provide an estimate), or it requires additional modification (in which case they readjust estimate further away from the anchor value). anchoring effect is hypothesized to arise partially because the capability to perform processes of evaluating and adjusting is limited by capacities of working memory. since individual differences in these capacities can be approximated by intelligence tests (e.g. evans & stanovich, 2013; stanovich & west, 2008), one would expect to observe a negative correlation between measures of intelligence and anchoring. in that sense, finding that ae measures were not directly related to cognitive measures, which is in line with previously reported results (bergman et al., 2010; furnham et al., 2012; jasper & ortner, 2014; oechssler et al., 2009; stanovich & west, 2008; welsh et al., 2014), could imply that adjustment, as effortful cognitive process is not involved in the emergence of the anchoring effect at all. nevertheless, a relation between intelligence and anchoring depended on cognitive reflection. in other words, readiness to involve in more demanding type 2 processes moderated the relation between cognitive capacities and susceptibility to anchoring effect. for the vast majority of participants, who were prone to mentally economize by hinging on intuitive type 1 processes, differences in intelligence indeed were not related to anchoring. it can be hypothesized that final estimates of these subjects have not resulted from serial adjustments but were outcomes of type 1 processing, i.e. relatively automatic activation of information consistent with the presented anchor. observed variability among these subjects might be due to variations in the dispositional sensitivity to external information, or due to individual differences in distortions of scale on which answers are provided (e.g. frederick & mochon, 2012), but unlikely due to capacities to repeatedly reconsider readjusted anchor as a possible answer to given question. however, for more reflective subjects, negative correlation between intelligence and anchoring was observed – participants with higher capacities to carry out type 2 processes adjusted further away from anchors. in other words, differences among more reflective subjects, who were prone to engage in processes of reevaluation and readjustment before stating their final estimates, were at least to some extent due to their caindividual differences in anchoring effect 18 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pacities to perform these processes. this indicates that (insufficient) adjustment, at least for some subjects, plays role in the emergence of the anchoring effect. this finding, though, should be taken with caution, considering the low reliability of three-item crt and relatively small size of high reflective subsample. future replications are neededvii. while more direct ones would seek to perform similarly designed study by using psychometrically improved instruments, such as seven-item crt (toplak, west, & stanovich, 2014), others could examine whether comparable results would be obtained if cognitive reflection is measured in other ways, for example by using typical performance measures, such as need for cognition or actively open-minded thinkingviii, as suggested by stanovich (2009). finally, studies that combine experimental and differential perspective could be also applied with the same purpose. for example, study could be organized with aim to explore if subjects with larger cognitive capacities benefit more from interventions previously shown to reduce anchoring effect, such as consider-the-opposite strategy (adame, 2016; mussweiler, strack, & pfeiffer, 2000), forewarnings (epley & gilovich, 2005, study 2), or accuracy motivation (epley & gilovich, 2005, study 1; simmons et al., 2010). the present study explored some of the potential benefits of novel within-subject procedure which allows simultaneous manipulation of experimental factors of anchor’s distance and direction and reliable measurement of individual differences in susceptibility to anchoring effect. although first results are promising, future studies are needed, especially those driven by theoretical expectations aimed to examine cognitive processes involved in anchoring effect. notes i) ae measures could not be calculated when denominator, i.e. initial estimate had zero value, which was the case in 92 trials (1.63%). distribution of missing ae data by questions is displayed in the third row of table a1 in the appendix. ii) although markedly smaller percent of measures was amended when more classical trimming procedures were applied (0.9% after following tabachnick & fidell, 2007; 2.1% after following procedure proposed by tukey, 1977), the pattern of results presented in this paper have remained the exact same. iii) accordingly, results of polynomial contrast tests showed that linear and quadratic components were significant for both positive (linear f(1,235) = 312.54, p < .001; quadratic f(1,235) = 25.87, p < .001) and negative anchors (linear f(1,235) = 329.45, p < .001; quadratic f(1,235) = 43.74, p < .001). iv) correlations among predictors are presented in table a2 in the appendix. v) two reviewers expressed consideration regarding the poor performance on crt and consequently the small size of the high reflective subsample. it should be noted here that poor crt performance was not consequence of deficient instruction or indication of non-understanding of a task. participants did understand the task, considering high rate of predictably irrational / intuitive responses (for example, to a question “if it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long it takes 100 machines to make 100 widgets?” as much as 78.1% of participants provided wrong intuitive answer “100 minutes”; similar pattern was observed for the other two questions). poor performance was expected since it was one of the first reported findings on crt (see e.g. table 1 on page 29 in frederick, 2005). considering this, it seems reasonable to set cut-off score to one out of three. however, when analysis was performed on a very small subsample of subjects who had at least two correct answers (n = 9), a similar pattern of correlations was observed (for rm r = -.36; for vocabulary r = -.57). vi) multilevel analysis was run on data gathered in this study, with aim to examine if different parameters of individual anchor distance functions intercept, linear term and quadratic term (as indicators of general susceptibility to anchoring, sensitivity to changes in anchor distance, and resistance to anchor extremity, respectively) are related to personality traits and cognitive variables. while results regarding general susceptibility to anchoring effect were similar to results reported here, low reliability of individual differences in two other parameters prevented any firm conclusion on their covariates. vii) considering the limited size of high reflective group (ncrt+ = 37), estimated correlation between raven’s matrices and anchoring (r = .51) was not highly precise (95% ci [.22, .72]). in the light of previous findings that indicate low to a medium correlation between anchoring and cognitive measures, it is far more plausible to suppose that effect size in population would be closer to the lower boundary of 95% confidence interval. correlational studies that seek to confirm that relationship between intelligence and anchoring do exist in a high reflective group (e.g. ρcrt+ = .30), but not in a low teovanović 19 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://www.psychopen.eu/ reflective group (ρcrt= .00), would have a power of only 50.1% if subsamples remained same in size. however, under the same condition, if the effect size in population were a little bit higher (e.g. ρcrt+ = .40), power would be 73.4%. anyhow, future studies are recommended to use larger samples, particularly subsample of high reflective participants. i would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for the encouragement to elaborate on this point. viii) previous studies on thinking styles as potential predictors of anchoring effect yielded inconsistent results (see e.g. cheek & norem, 2017; 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(2014). individual differences in anchoring: traits and experience. learning and individual differences, 29, 131-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.01.002 appendix table a1 distribution of missing and trimmed data in the anchoring experiment anchor target quantity (correct response) zero denominators over-anchoring under-anchoring -80% squares on a shogi playing board (81) 1 5 16 castles in vojvodina (67) 23 2 6 gold medals won by china in 2008 summer olympics (51) 3 0 33 -60% chromosomes in penguins (80) 5 6 9 civil airports in germany (65) 2 1 11 awarded nin prizes for best novel (58) 0 5 35 -40% african countries in the united nations (53) 20 6 14 mercury revolution around the sun in days (88) 3 13 22 heights of saint sava temple in meters (82) 0 6 7 -20% length of an olympic size swimming pool in meters (50) 0 15 15 duration of the hockey game in minutes (60) 0 12 8 years lived by vuk karadžić (76) 0 3 10 +20% belgrade zoo in years (75) 0 36 16 concert grand piano keys (88) 0 68 12 hottest temperature recorded in the world (58) 0 36 13 +40% length of standard playing cards in millimeters (88) 0 28 9 novels that agatha christie wrote (82) 5 80 7 academy awards for best picture (84) 0 75 17 +60% latitude of reykjavik (64) 2 56 12 seventy yards in meters (64) 5 34 18 atomic number of mercury (80) 5 93 4 +80% days in each season of the discordian calendar (73) 5 30 13 distance between bratislava and vienna in kilometers (64) 1 25 8 calories in a 100 g apple (53) 12 17 19 total 92 (1.63%) 652 (11.56%) 334 (5.92%) table a2 correlations among cognitive variables and personality traits variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 cognitive measures 1. raven’s matrices (rm) – 2. vocabulary .30** – 3. cognitive reflection test (crt) .23** .09 – personality measures 4. openness .23** .16* .18* – 5. conscientiousness -.11 -.06 -.05 .12 – 6. extraversion -.09 -.20* .08 .20** .22** – 7. agreeableness .09 .08 .00 .17** .17** -.02 – 8. neuroticism -.11 .03 -.03 -.12 -.40** -.37** -.19** teovanović 23 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.01.002 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the author predrag teovanović is an assistant professor of methodology and statistics at faculty for special education and rehabilitation, university of belgrade, and member of the laboratory for research of individual differences at the same university. individual differences in anchoring effect 24 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 8–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ individual differences in anchoring effect (introduction) research aims and hypotheses method participants anchoring experiment individual differences measures results experimental findings susceptibility to anchoring effect predictors of susceptibility to anchoring effect discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the author sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact: there is a connection? research reports sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact: there is a connection? sara alfieri*a, elena martaa [a] psychology department, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. abstract the literature on the socialisation of prejudice has concentrated on “vertical” processes (from parents to children), ignoring siblings’ contribution. this work aims to investigate the effect of contact (direct or indirect) with the outgroup that young people experience a) directly or b) indirectly through older or younger siblings’ friendships. our hypotheses are a) that young people with friends in the outgroup will report lower prejudice levels (direct contact), as will young people who have older or younger siblings with friends in the outgroup (indirect contact); b) that other forms of contact such as having classmates/coworkers, neighbours, or employees are not effective in reducing either direct or indirect prejudice. 88 sibling dyads were administered the blatant and subtle prejudice questionnaire (pettigrew &meertens, 1995) and some ad hoc items aimed at investigating the typology of the contact experienced. the analysis of mixed anova reveals that the first hypothesis was partially confirmed in that prejudice (subtle for the younger sibling and blatant for the older one) decreases in a statistically significant way only when there is the co-presence of direct and indirect contact. the second hypothesis is fully confirmed as no statistically significant differences emerged between the groups. keywords: sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct contact, indirect contact, socialization, family relation europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 received: 2015-03-03. accepted: 2015-09-11. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: psychology department, università cattolica del sacro cuore, largo gemelli, 1 20123 milan, italy. e-mail: sara.alfieri@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the recent global economic crisis has accentuated migratory phenomena and, consequently, also the contacts between different ethnic groups. often the encounter among outgroups is influenced by the prejudices of people from the host countries. among the various sources for these biases there is also the family, which numerous research has demonstrated plays a fundamental role in this process, mainly for the younger generations (see for example castelli, carraro, tomelleri, & amari, 2007; castelli, zogmaister, & tomelleri, 2009; o’bryan, fishbein, & ritchey, 2004; sinclair, dunn, & lowery, 2005). usually, when it comes to family influence, however, the parents come first to mind. even though the sibling relation is fundamental it has received little attention as regards processes of influence with respect to the theme of prejudice. the present work intends to investigate the sibling relation’s role in reducing ethnic prejudice. in this article, we present research based on the known theory of direct contact hypothesis (allport, 1954; williams, 1947) and indirect contact (wright, aron, mclaughlin-volpe, & ropp, 1997) applied to the sibling relationship. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ blatant and subtle prejudice prejudice is an unjustified feeling of dislike or hatred towards members of ethnic minority groups (brown, 1995). pettigrew andmeertens (1995; meertens & pettigrew, 1997) differentiate between two correlated but distinguishable forms of prejudice: blatant and subtle. blatant prejudice is “the traditional form; it is hot, close, and direct” (meertens & pettigrew, 1997, p. 54). this form is distinguished essentially by the threat perceived as regards to an external group and the resulting rejection of that group. the people characterized by higher levels of manifested prejudice perceive the outgroup as threatening or genetically inferior and this induces them to experience negative feelings (like fear, anger, and disgust) towards them and to avoid any contact with its members. consequently, there is a refusal to have intimate contact (friendship, romantic, or sexual relations) with persons in the outgroup. this resistance reveals itself to be a strong element of power because not only is intimate contact rejected, but also any relationship that entails the superiority of the outgroup discriminated against (for example, leadership positions held by the minority) (pettigrew & meertens, 1995). on the other hand “subtle prejudice is cool, distant, and indirect” (meertens & pettigrew, 1997, p. 54). the distinctive features of subtle prejudice are coldness and aloofness expressed in such an indirect way as to be seen as socially acceptable and in full compliance with the norms of civil society, allowing the person to have a non-discriminating and prejudice free image of him/herself. this is actualized, for example, in the fierce defense of traditional values and of the status quo (or even of the superiority of the ingroup), the exaggeration of the intercultural differences, and the belief that the outgroup enjoys unmerited rights and benefits. in addition, the rejection of positive emotional responses toward the outgroup is also conspicuous. (pettigrew & meertens, 1995). the contact hypothesis at the basis of the concept of prejudice is the idea that it is caused by limited acquaintance with the outgroup. it follows that increasing familiarity with a group can lead to greater acquisition of more correct opinions about it. the theory that has attempted to substantiate this supposition is the contact hypothesis by williams (1947); it was taken up by allport (1954) a few years later, and by many others after him (for a review, see brown & hewstone, 2005; dixon, durrheim, & tredoux, 2005; pettigrew & tropp, 2006, 2008). the efficacy of the contact hypothesis theory requires that the social groups satisfy the following conditions: 1. they promote a similar status: it is probable that contact between the members of two or more groups that differ in status and power reinforces, rather than decreases, prejudice and attitudes of superiority in the dominant group in that it reflects asymmetries already present in the social context; 2. they promote in-depth interactions: in order for the contact to be efficacious, it must be prolonged over time so as to allow for a deep, rather than superficial, acquaintance. allport (1954) maintained that the critical point is not physical proximity: people who live next to a chinese neighbourhood have occasion to see many people belonging to this ethnic group. nevertheless, such contacts are superficial. this type of contact does not undermine prejudice: on the contrary, it seems to increase it in that clichés, traditions, and stereotypes connected to a given group can be more accessible; 3. it is required, on the part of the groups involved, that they achieve common objectives. if the contact leads the hostile groups’ members to have a superordinate goal, it is possible to produce a variation in attitude; europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 alfieri & marta 665 http://www.psychopen.eu/ looking at the family as a group, and in particular at the sibling relationship, it can be characterized by all the above conditions. the efficacy of contact for reducing prejudice has emerged from numerous studies in different socio-cultural contexts, which can be differentiated as regards both the groups and social relations investigated as well as the methodologies used (pettigrew & tropp, 2006, 2008). pettigrew and tropp (2006) through an important meta-analysis revealed that the relation between contact and prejudice is statistically significant and negative. furthermore, they found that contact with friends belonging to an outgroup is more efficacious in reducing prejudice as compared to more generic types of contact. in synthesis, therefore, the contact hypothesis is generally valid (for different positions, see brown, 1995; dovidio, gaertner, & kawakami, 2003). one of this theory’s limitations consists in the problem of the generalisation of positive experience: often more positive attitudes develop toward real participants in the contact situation, but very limited changes toward other outgroup members, in general, are seen (hewstone, 1996; miller, 2002). ‘indirect’ contact starting from the “classic” contact hypothesis, many extensions and variations of it have been investigated. one of the most widely investigated forms of contact is the ‘extended’ (indirect) form. wright and colleagues (1997) proposed the concept of extended contact to indicate that even the mere fact of knowing that one or more members of one’s ingroup have friends in the outgroup can reduce prejudice. the principle is the following: if one of our friends can name in his circle of friends a person from the outgroup, whom we do not know directly, it is probable that we will not harbour prejudice toward this person but, rather, good will. the efficacy of this type of contact was confirmed in other works (cameron & rutland, 2006; de tezanos-pinto, bratt, & brown, 2010; turner, hewstone, voci, paolini, & christ, 2007; wright, aron, & brody, 2008). the most interesting aspect of this work resides in the fact that the relation between extended or indirect contact and a reduction in prejudice is significant even when there is no direct contact (see christ et al., 2010). this effect can be attributed to the fact that representatives of the ingroup provide normative information to their own group on how one should behave when interacting with members of cultures that are different from one’s own, and this would appear to reduce intergroup anxiety (wright et al., 1997). moreover, they can help spread the conviction that many commonly held prejudices do not correspond to reality, thus contributing to redefining the intergroup relation in less negative terms. however, pettigrew, tropp, wagner, and christ (2011) warn regarding the change of behaviour found through indirect contact. in fact according to the authors, such change is not as strong as that found through direct contact and can change more easily. the principle of contact theories (whether direct or indirect) applied to the set "friends of friends" is very interesting when thinking about the sibling relation in which it often happens that siblings tell each other about the vicissitudes of their relationships with friends (indirect contact talking about friends) or invite their friends home to play or study (direct contact becoming acquainted with the friends of one’s sibling). both of these situations are interesting in that these friends could belong to an ethnic outgroup generally discriminated against. nevertheless, direct and indirect contact with members of the outgroup on the part of siblings, whose dynamics are very interesting, have not been an object of interest in the literature. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact 666 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the sibling relation most of the literature on socialisation processes has mainly concentrated on “vertical” processes (that is, from parents to children) (see, for an example about prejudice, degner & dalege, 2013). although parents are the principal source of influence for offspring over the entire life cycle, they are not exclusively so (scabini, marta, & lanz, 2006). there is also, in fact, “horizontal” intragenerational socialisation in which it is the peer group (friends or siblings) that acts as a partner in the exchange. the sibling relationship differentiates from the parent relationship since, while the second is mainly complementary, that of the siblings is both complementary and reciprocal (dunn, 1983). siblings continue to have an important role in reach others lives into adulthood in spite of the fact that the incidence of contact diminishes after the childhood (pulakos, 1987). therefore, as the siblings’ link persists through adulthood, the potential remains for siblings to have influence on one another (cicirelli, 1991). the sibling relationship is therefore an important context in which socialization takes place (kavčič & zupančič, 2005; scabini & iafrate, 2003). yet this relation is unique in that siblings are a ‘social laboratory’ among peers, situated in the family where it is possible to encounter each other in a ‘horizontal’ manner by testing rules and learning the limits and boundaries that regulate and constrain one’s relationship with others. while attention has not been focused on the influence that the siblings can have on each another regarding attitudes, thus, not on prejudice either. in the recent meta-analysis conducted by degner and dalege (2013), for example, the authors take into consideration exclusively the socialization of the prejudice from parents to children, not mentioning the importance also of the influence of the sibling relationship. in the present study, we intend to analyse whether blatant and subtle prejudice in young people can be linked to contact (whether direct or indirect) experienced through the older or younger sibling’s friendships. in light of the literature discussed above and the considerations made, our hypotheses are the following: h1: a) direct contact hypothesis: the young people whose friendship circle includes members of the outgroup (africans) will be found to have lower levels of blatant and subtle prejudice as compared to those who do not have such friendships. b) direct contact + extended contact: the young people who, in addition to direct contact, have brothers and sisters who, in turn, have african friends will be found to have even lower prejudice values. c) only extended contact: the young people who do not have african friends but have siblings with african friends will not be found to have lower levels of prejudice as compared to the other typologies under investigation. d)no contact: finally, the young people who have neither african friends nor siblings with such friendships will be found to have higher levels of prejudice. h2: efficacious contact (whether direct or indirect) is contact that satisfies the requisites presented in the introductory section. since the friendship relationship includes these requisites, we predict that only it can be linked to a significant decrease in prejudice both for the young people who have friends in the outgroup and for their siblings. different contact typologies (direct and indirect) that do not respect the requisites europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 alfieri & marta 667 http://www.psychopen.eu/ called for by allport (1954) will not produce a reduction in prejudice, either for the young people or for their siblings. method participants and procedure data for 93 sibling dyads were collected (rate of response 93%). of these, 5 were eliminated because the siblings were twins, and their small number did not make it possible to carry out specific analyses for this typology. the final group of participants, therefore, consisted of 88 dyads (brothers and/or sisters), subdivided into younger brother/sister (13-29 years old, m = 18.78, sd = 3.31, 34.4% males) and older brother/sister (17-34 years old, m = 23.36, sd = 4.24, 27.2% males), for a total of 176 participants. younger and older siblings differ in a statistically significant way with respect to age, t(87) = 8.37, p < .001. all siblings live at home with their parents and are all italians, whose parents are both italian. recruitment took place in five different departments of three italian universities and in middle and high schools. each enlisted person was asked to bring home an envelope containing two questionnaires and to have them also completed by a brother/sister in order to obtain complete dyads. all participants to whom the questionnaires were distributed were informed in advance that participation was free and voluntary and that all data were to be used only for the purposes of research in an aggregate manner. instruments each dyad was administered a questionnaire containing the following measures, in addition to questions on the socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender, etc.): subtle and blatant prejudice —we used the subtle and blatant prejudice scales (pettigrew & meertens, 1995) in the italian version by arcuri and boca (1996). the scale is composed of two 10-item subscales, one of which measures blatant prejudice (e.g. “italians and africans can never feel at ease with one another, even if they become friends”) and another of which measures subtle prejudice (e.g. “it would be better if the africans who live in our country avoided the places where their presence is not welcome”). the scale provides for a 6-step response modality (from 1 = absolutely in disagreement to 6 = absolutely in agreement). for reliability, see table 1. contact frequency — 4 ad hoc items aimed at investigating contact occasion with persons of african ethnicity: “is or was there an african among your friends?”, “are there africans among your neighbours?”, “do or did you have africans as classmates or coworkers?”, “do or did africans work for your family as domestic help, handymen, etc.?” with yes/no response modalities. the target-outgroup chosen consists of persons of african descent in that they are one of the most prevalent and longstanding ethnicities in italy. data analysis to test the first hypothesis, 4 different contact typologies were created: 1. neither the older nor the younger sibling has african friends (32.9%); 2. the older as well as the younger sibling have african friends (30.7%); 3. the older europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact 668 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sibling has african friends, but the younger one does not (18.2%); 4. the older sibling does not have african friends, but the younger one does (18.2%). for the second hypothesis, 3 contact indicators were created (each one divided into the 4 levels mentioned above) in keeping with the logic previously presented for friendship, but with the other contact typologies taken under consideration (being neighbours, classmates or coworkers; having employees in the outgroup). in order to analyse the differences between means for the groups, in the presence of related data such as that between siblings (kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006), mixed variance analyses were conducted (mixed anova with 1 factor between and 1 factor within). the independent variable is having, or not having, friendship relationships with persons of african descent (h1) and the four typologies of contact with persons of african descent previously presented (h2); the dependent variable is the subject’s own prejudice (blatant and subtle) and that of his/her respective siblings. results table 1 shows the response means, sd, cronbach alpha, and correlations for the scales used, divided between older and younger siblings measuring blatant and subtle prejudice. table 1 means, sd, cronbach α and pearson correlations of blatant and subtle prejudice, divided between older and younger siblings 4321sdm younger siblings 1. blatant prejudice .89)(.430.073 2. subtle prejudice .87)(.38**.800.383 older siblings 3. blatant prejudice .92)(.50**.59**.101.812 4. subtle prejudice .83)(.90**.45**.52**.820.243 note. coefficient alphas are presented in parantheses along the diagonal. **p < .01. as to the frequency with which siblings stated that they have (or had) contact with the outgroup, it emerged that both older and younger siblings quite frequently have had classmates or coworkers who were of african descent (respectively, 47.2% and 63.0%) in addition to having africans as friends (48.3% and 47.8%). less frequent were situations in which persons of african descent were either neighbours (11.2% and 13.0%) or employed by subjects’ families (9.0% and 14.1%) (figure 1). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 alfieri & marta 669 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. percentages of “yes” responses regarding situations of contact and relation that siblings state that they have had with people of african descent. regarding the first hypothesis, the mixed anova showed that statistically significant differences exist for subtle prejudice in the younger sibling, f(3, 84) = 2.69, p < .05, and blatant prejudice in the older sibling, f(3, 84) = 3.77, p < .05, depending on the type of contact under consideration. in particular, the post-hoc tests reveal a statistically significant difference both for subtle prejudice in the younger sibling and for blatant prejudice in the older sibling in the group of subjects who have friends in the outgroup and whose sibling also has african friends, and all the other groups (thus, both conditions must be satisfied) (figure 2). figure 2. means of siblings’ blatant and subtle prejudice with respect to four categories. regarding the second hypothesis, that is, the analysis of the potential differences in the means of blatant and subtle prejudice in both older and younger siblings with respect to the different contact typologies, it emerges that having neighbours, classmates/coworkers, or employees does not influence any of the forms of prejudice under consideration (table 2), nor do these typologies influence prejudice in siblings. the only efficacious contact typology for oneself and for one’s siblings is thus friendship. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact 670 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 analyses of variance for the contact typologies investigated pf older siblings blatant prejudice .23neighbors .171 .46classmates/coworkers .860 .55having employees .700 subtle prejudice .35neighbors .091 .53classmates/coworkers .730 .63having employees .570 younger siblings blatant prejudice .23neighbors .451 .33classmates/coworkers .131 .90having employees .180 subtle prejudice .15neighbors .181 .37classmates/coworkers .061 .92having employees .160 note. df are 3,84 for all conditions. discussion the present research set for itself the objective of testing two hypotheses. we found substantial confirmation for the first hypothesis. the post-hoc tests reveal that the older sibling reports statistically lower blatant prejudice values when not only he/she has african friends, but also his/her younger sibling has such friends. at the same time, a symmetrical but reversed situation is found for the younger sibling’s subtle prejudice, which decreases in the same conditions reported for the older sibling’s blatant prejudice, that is to say, only when he/she has african friends and when his/her sibling also has them. these findings are of particular interest because they suggest that the more possibilities of contact and exchange (direct contact) there are, but also possibilities of having “second hand” sources (indirect contact) with respect to members of the outgroup, the more blatant prejudice, in the one case, and subtle prejudice, in the other, decrease. furthermore, this is a very important result because the prejudice scale used does not investigate the direct relationship with specific outgroup members known personally by the subject or through a sibling, but africans in general; therefore, we can hypothesise that this shows an effect of generalisation of a reduction of prejudice toward the entire outgroup, and not toward the individual member directly known by the subject, or about whom the subject has information. on the contrary, for as much as concerns the indirect contact, our results confirm the doubts on the efficacy of such relationships evidenced already by pettigrew and colleagues (2011). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 alfieri & marta 671 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the result shows that both the older sibling’s blatant prejudice as well as the younger sibling’s subtle prejudice decrease. a possible interpretation could be imputed to siblings’ roles connected to birth order: being the older sibling can cause one to feel obligated to manifest certain attitudes arising not so much from real conviction, but from what others (parents, in the first place) expect. moreover, the older sibling may be assigned the role of “example” for the younger one, so that he/she may feel more compelled to assume socially accepted attitudes even if they are not close to his/her own ideologies or positions. toman (1993) claimed that parents tend to have higher expectations of the older child than they do of younger siblings. as scabini and iafrate (2003) asserts, moreover, when there is an older sibling in a family, the parents may end up “delegating” parental care giving. thus, it is blatant, and not subtle, prejudice that decreases. in contrast, the younger sibling could have more freedom from role expectations (as the younger sibling, he/she is not compelled to “give a good example”) so that he/she could be less constrained to adapt to implicit and explicit norms. as kidwell (1982) asserts, younger siblings occupy a position just as unique as that of older ones in that norms and expectations are more relaxed, and parents’ attention is more focused on aspects of play and having fun (this is “the baby of the family”). this could free the younger sibling to take more personal positions and to manifest more openly his/her own attitudes. the second hypothesis was confirmed in full, that is, that typologies of direct contact (living near people of african descent, having them as classmates or coworkers, or having them as employees in one’s home) or indirect contact (siblings that have had these experiences), unlike friendship, do not influence blatant and subtle prejudice in young people independently of whether the contact experience was one’s own or of one’s sibling. it turns out, in fact, that the only truly efficacious contact typology, in agreement with the literature, is one that satisfies the requisites proposed by allport (1954) and pettigrew and tropp (2006). this research also presents some points that call for further study. first of all, the number of participants considered in the present study is small, and therefore not representative of the whole country. without a doubt, it would be of fundamental importance to expand the number of participants in order to be able to confirm the interesting results that emerged and to deepen the study, taking other variables into consideration as well. a more numerous sample would allow, for example, differentiating by gender, an aspect that was not possible to differentiate in the present work due to the limited number of males. as well, it would also have been interesting to be able to make analyses taking into consideration the age gap between the siblings, inasmuch as it is supposable that this variable could influence the relationships that are presented in this work. one last aspect in this regard concerns the fact that the data were gathered exclusively in italy, which is a special context as concerns family relationships, as has been amply explained. it would be interesting to be able to contrast the results obtained in other countries, in order to understand whether these results are due to the context in which the present research was conducted or generalizable to other realities. secondly, we do not have information regarding the quality of the direct contact had by the young people, but only whether it occurred or not. this variable is of great importance: if the contact with an outgroup member did not have positive outcomes, this will influence interactions with other members of the same or other outgroups and will not decrease prejudice levels. on the contrary, it will raise them (e. g. see prestwich, kenworthy, wilson, & kwan-tat, 2008). in the third place, the research design utilized is merely cross-sectional. it would be of unquestionable relevance to be able to use a longitudinal design, in order to detect any changes of manifest and latent prejudice over the course of time. this is especially crucial when considering a phase of the life cycle such as the transition to europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact 672 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adulthood, in which youth are still constructing attitudes, norms, and values (scabini et al., 2006). finally, it would also be interesting to investigate implicit attitudes as regards the contact experience. often, in fact, the attitudes and opinions that the subjects profess to have do not coincide with those actually manifested or enacted in everyday situations (arcuri & zogmaister, 2007). furthermore, it is possible to hypothesise that values and cognitions that are ambivalent vis-à-vis others can coexist in the individual. this ambivalence is not always reported by the subject during self-evaluation owing to social desirability and people’s limited introspective capacity. in addition, it is opportune to remember that the data that we are analyzing are familiar, and therefore not independent of one another (kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006). in this regard, it would be interesting to be able to apply other analyses that emphasize even more the dyadic nature of the sibling relationship. in this sense, future researches can take into consideration analyses of the dyadic correlation, just as done in previous researches by alfieri and marta (2012) and also subsequently reiterated by degner and dalege (2013). conclusions the present study is well suited to providing concrete suggestions for those who work in various capacities with young people and lays the groundwork for some practical considerations: in the first place, fostering opportunities for contact. establishing contact with the outgroup helps us come to know its merits, undo stereotypes, and change our minds regarding commonly held beliefs handed down from the past. however, this concept should not be limited to “involuntary” opportunities (such as chance encounters with neighbours, classmates, or coworkers), but the preconditions must be created so that spontaneous and desired contacts take place (such as, indeed, friendship relations, which are chosen). secondly, siblings are a source of influence for one another, not least because they belong to the same generation, and hence resemble and influence one another, at times even more then their own parents are able to do (alfieri, barni, rosnati, & marta, 2014). often they do not give tangible proof of understanding others’ points of view, but they “absorb” sometimes in a critical, sometimes in a stereotypical manner a shared feeling with respect to “others.” we should make use of this evidence in an attempt to implement interventions that are aimed not only at individuals, but are extended to the family circle, and to siblings in particular (scabini et al., 2006). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alfieri, s., barni, d., rosnati, r., & marta, e. 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(1997). the extended contact effect: knowledge of cross-group friendships and prejudice. journal of personality and social psychology, 73, 73-90. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.73.1.73 about the authors sara alfieri, phd, is a post-doc fellow in social psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). her specific research interests are: transition to adulthood, family relationships, attitude transmission, risk behaviour. sara.alfieri@unicatt.it elena marta, phd, is full professor in social and community psychology (università cattolica del sacro cuore di milano, italy). her specific research interests are: transition to adulthood, family relationships, civic participation. elena.marta@unicatt.it psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 664–676 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.958 sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact 676 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.73.1.73 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en sibling relation, ethnic prejudice, direct and indirect contact (introduction) blatant and subtle prejudice the contact hypothesis ‘indirect’ contact the sibling relation method participants and procedure instruments data analysis results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors perceived discrimination and psychological well-being among immigrants living in greece: separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator research reports perceived discrimination and psychological well-being among immigrants living in greece: separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator evangelia kateri 1, donna papastylianou 2, evangelos karademas 1 [1] department of psychology, university of crete, rethymno, greece. [2] department of psychology, νational and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 received: 2017-09-25 • accepted: 2019-10-22 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom corresponding author: evangelia kateri, department of psychology, university of crete, gallos campus, rethymno 74100, greece. e-mail: ekateri@gmail.com abstract the present study was based on the rejection-identification model regarding migrants acculturation. personal perceived discrimination, acculturation attitudes, self-construal, and psychological well-being were examined simultaneously in albanian and indian immigrants residing in greece (n = 233). it was hypothesized that perceived discrimination would be related negatively to immigrants’ psychological well-being, both directly and indirectly. a positive relationship was expected between perceived discrimination and separation and a negative relationship between discrimination and integration, or assimilation. it was, also, expected a positive relationship of perceived discrimination to interdependent self-construal and a negative relationship to independent self-construal. furthermore, it was examined the mediating role of separation in the association of perceived discrimination with psychological well-being and the moderating role of interdependent self-construal in the association of perceived discrimination with psychological well-being. according to the results, perceived discrimination was positively related to separation and negatively to integration, but was related neither to independent nor to interdependent self-construal. perceived discrimination was, also, positively related to depression directly and indirectly. fewer depressive symptoms were reported by those immigrants who face discrimination but also select separation. immigrants with high levels of interdependence, also, do seem to be protected from depression and anxiety. the interpretation of these findings signifies that, when immigrants who perceive discrimination choose separation from the host country, they may reduce their depression feelings, by fitting into relationships with in-group members. interdependence and the perception of immigrants self as a social unit, also, may act protectively for their psychological well-being, enhancing the identification with the in-group, as well. keywords acculturation attitudes, perceived discrimination, self-construal, psychological well-being, immigrants discrimination is one of the major stressors that confront ethnic minority and immigrant groups. even though discrim­ ination is a real and daily experience for many minority groups, it is difficult to determine it objectively (paradies, 2006). this paper considers only perceived personal discrimination, namely the perception of receiving an unfair and differential treatment on the basis of ethnicity or race (blank, dabady, & citro, 2004; schmitt, branscombe, posmes, & garcia, 2014). theoretically, the present study is based on the rejection-identification model (branscombe, schmitt, & harvey, 1999; cronin, levin, branscombe, van laar, & tropp, 2011; postmes & branscombe, 2002) that derives from social identity theory. social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986) suggests that individuals strive to maintain a positive social this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1531&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ identity being formed mainly from comparisons between in-groups and out-groups, in which in-group favouritism prevails, boosting self-esteem. social groups who face discrimination maintain psychological well-being by becoming more identified with their own ethnic in-group and rejecting the out-group members and their negative evaluations (branscombe et al., 1999; cronin et al., 2011; jasinskaja-lahti, liebkind, & solheim, 2009; postmes & branscombe, 2002). perceived discrimination and psychological well-being several studies have demonstrated that perceived discrimination holds a negative relationship to mental health and physical health outcomes (gee, michael-spencer, chen, yip, & takeuchi, 2007; paradies, 2006), like more depressive and anxiety symptoms (schmitt et al., 2014), higher suicide and psychosis rates, and various physical health problems (chakraborty & mckenzie, 2002; franzini & fernandez-esquer, 2004; pascoe & richman, 2009). furthermore, this relationship to health is direct and/or indirect (heim, hunter, & jones, 2010; lindert, korzilius, van de vijver, kroon, & arendstoth, 2008). the role of acculturation attitudes: separation as a mediator there is evidence that perceived discrimination is related to acculturation process, namely to all those changes that arise when individuals and groups of different backgrounds come into contact (sam, 2006). berry (1997) proposed that individuals may adopt different attitudes in their effort to maintain their cultural identity and participate in the larger society. thus, integration may facilitate maintenance of fundamental cultural traits, and, at the same time, enables the individual to participate in the wider social network. assimilation refers to a person’s lack of interest in maintaining his/her own cultural identity while focusing on daily interaction with other cultures. separation is defined as the immigrants’ tendency to remain separate from the host country and to focus on the culture of origin. finally, marginalization occurs when there is little interest in both cultural maintenance and contact and participation. longitudinal evidence (ramos, cassidy, reicher, & haslam, 2016), as well as a meta-analytic review by schmitt et al. (2014), suggest that perceived discrimination is a negative experience predisposing immigrants towards the pursue of particular acculturation attitudes. several studies suggest that individuals experiencing high discrimination may seek separation from the mainstream community (berry, 2001; berry, phinney, sam, & vedder, 2006). in contrast, when indi­ viduals perceive low discrimination, they are more likely to endorse either integration or assimilation (jasinskaja-lahti, liebkind, horenczyk, & schmitz, 2003; sam & berry, 2010). a number of studies indicate that integration is preferred by most immigrants as it can promote well-being and enhances adaptation (berry, 1997; berry et al., 2006; papastylianou, 1992, 2000). however, immigrants who pursue sepa­ ration seem to report more in-group contact and connectedness with their ethnic community and better psychological well-being (gungor, 2007; jasinskaja-lahti et al., 2003; musso, inguglia, & coco, 2015; safdar, calvez, & lewis, 2012; safdar, lay, & struthers, 2003). the mediating role of separation in the relationship of perceived discrimination to psychological well-being was not examined so far. however, other research findings suggest that the direct negative role of perceived discrimination to well-being could be suppressed by the positive effects of coping via ethnic identification and identification with in-group (awad, 2010; bergman, horenczyk, & abramovsky-zitte, 2017; branscombe et al., 1999; cronin et al., 2011; schmitt & branscombe, 2002). the role of self-construals: interdependent self-construal as a moderator the term self-construal describes how individuals from different cultural backgrounds define and make meaning of the self (kim, triandis, kagitcibasi, choi, & yoon, 1994; markus & kitayama, 1991; triandis, 2001). independent self-construal has been used to refer to individuals who perceive themselves to be separate from others, and having as an aim the accomplishment of personal goals (cross, hardin, & gercek-swing, 2011; markus & kitayama, 1991; singelis, 1994). in contrast, interdependent self-construal refers to individuals who perceive themselves to be defined by their relations to others, and having as an aim the acceptance by the in-group and the maintenance of harmony with significant others (cross & madson, 1997; markus & kitayama, 1991; singelis, 1994). immigrants with different self-construals tend to differ in their acculturation attitudes (liem, lim, & liem, 2000; yamada & singelis, 1999). while integration is related to equally advanced independence and interdependence (yamada kateri, papastylianou, & karademas 71 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & singelis, 1999), research findings relate separation to interdependent self-construal and assimilation to independent self-construal (liem et al., 2000). moreover, people with interdependent self-construal tend to keep a distance from outgroups (triandis, 1994), to maintain their culture of origin and perceive more discrimination (hunter, 2008). however, because they are more committed to their heritage culture group, they avoid rejection from their own ethnic in-group and report better psychological well-being (branscombe et al., 1999; ferenczi, marshall, & bejanyan, 2015; gungor, 2007; phalet & hagendoorn, 1996). the present study: the research context and hypotheses the research context in recent decades, an increasing number of people have immigrated to greece from the balkans and several asian coun­ tries (κuriakou, 2004). the present study included participants from two immigrant populations in greece, albanians and indians. regarding the albanian immigrant community, it represents the largest immigrant community in greece, while indian community, on the other hand, counts more than 10,000–15,000 (μarkoutsoglou, kassou, mosxobos, & ptoxos, 2006). most studies in greece suggest that albanian immigrants in greece prefer integration or assimilation (georgas & papastulianou, 1993; motti-stefanidi, dalla, papathanasiou, takis, & pavlopoulos, 2006; papastylianou, 1992, 2000), while immigrants coming from more culturally distant countries, like india, report separation (besevegis & pavlopoulos, 2008; kateri, tsouvelas, & karademas, 2019; tsouvelas & pavlopoulos, 2018). immigrants in greece are generally perceived as a threat to greek cultural identity, social security and welfare systems (triantafyllidou, 2000). however, high group discrimination in albanian and pontian immigrants in greece was not necessarily resulted in high personal discrimina­ tion if protective factors were present (e.g., high self-esteem, and fewer stressors in immigrants’ lives) (motti-stefanidi & asendorpf, 2012). social support was, also, associated positively with separation of indian immigrants in greece minimizing the levels of immigrant’s depression who choose separation (kateri et al., 2019). hypotheses based on the rejection-identification model (branscombe et al., 1999; cronin et al., 2011; postmes & branscombe, 2002), the acculturation attitude of separation and interdependent self-construal were examined as factors directing im­ migrants to their in-group, minimizing the negative effects of perceived discrimination to their psychological well-being. possible differences between albanians and indians in mediation and moderation analyses were, also, examined, given that these two groups are different regarding cultural traits, acculturation and psychological well-being (besevegis & pavlopoulos, 2008; μarkoutsoglou et al., 2006). (h1) it was hypothesized a positive relationship of perceived discrimination to separation and a negative relationship of perceived discrimination to integration and assimilation. (h2) it was hypothesized a positive relationship of perceived discrimination to interdependent self-construal and a negative relationship of perceived discrimination to independent self-construal. (h3) it was hypothesized a direct relationship of perceived discrimination to depression and anxi­ ety. (h4) it was hypothesized that the indirect effects of perceived discrimination on psychological well-being would be through the acculturation attitude of separation. moreover, a positive relation­ ship of perceived discrimination to separation was expected to result in turn in less anxiety and depression. (h5) it was hypothesized that the strength of the relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety/depression would depend on (or be moderated by) the level of interdependent selfconstrual. that is, at the higher levels of interdependent self-construal immigrants would report relatively lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator 72 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method measures factor analyses were conducted for all measures; analyses were carried out separately for indians and albanians. factorial agreement between the two samples was addressed next, by using tucker’s phi, coefficient of congruence. according to van de vijver and leung (1997), values higher than 0.090 indicate factorial similarity. perceived discrimination scale the perceived discrimination scale was developed by phinney, madden, and santos (1998). respondents reported to what extent they agreed or disagreed with statements about differential and negative treatment because of their ethnicity using a scale ranging from “never” (1) to “very often” (5). given that the scale has not been evaluated in a greek context, a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), using lisrel 8.30 (joresjog & sorbom, 1996), was conducted. the analysis confirmed the existence of a single general factor (χ2 = 17.53, df = 14, rmsea = 0.03, agfi = 0.95, nnfi = 0.99, cfi ≥ 0.99, p < .05). coefficient of congruence (tucker’s phi) was 0.99. in the current study, cronbach’s alpha was 0.86. acculturation attitudes scale this scale was developed for purposes of the international study conducted by berry et al. (2006). it consists of 20 items and measures four factors, namely, assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization. the items refer to five domains of life, including marriage, language, cultural traditions, social activities and friends. participants responded to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each statement, using a likert-type scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). in the present study, cfa conducted for this scale, given that it was the first time that the scale was used in greek. the four–factor model moderately fit the data (χ2 = 228.56, df = 144, rmsea = 0.05, agfi = 0.90, nnfi = 0.86, cfi = 0.90, p < .001). coefficients of congruence (tucker’s phi) were 0.98 for assimilation, integration and separation, and 0.93 for marginalization (5). cronbach’s alpha was 0.60 for integration, 0.71 for separation, 0.61 for marginalization and 0.57 for assimilation. self-construal scale the self-construal scale (scs) is a 30-item questionnaire that assesses both independent and interdependent self-con­ strual (singelis, 1994). each dimension is measured with 15 items. participants responded to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each statement, using a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). this scale was used in this study as adapted in greek by georgas, berry, van de vijver, kagitcibasi, and poortinga (2006). coefficients of congruence (tucker’s phi) was 0.92 for interdependent and 0.80 for independent self-construal. cronbach’s alpha was 0.62 for the independent self-construal and 0.63 for the interdependent self-construal. center for epidemiological studies depression scale (ces-d) depression was measured with the ces-d scale (radloff, 1977) as adapted in greek by fountoulakis et al. (2001). it consists of 20 items and participants responded to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each statement, using a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). coefficient of congruence (tucker’s phi) was 0.81. cronbach’s alpha was 0.83. state anxiety inventory anxiety was measured with the state anxiety inventory (spielberger, gorush, & lushene, 1970) as adapted in greek by liakos and giannitsi (1984), which evaluates the anxiety the person feels at the moment of measurement. this scale consists of 20 items and participants responded to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each statement, using a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 4 (very much). coefficient of congruence (tucker’s phi) was 0.55. cronbach’s alpha was 0.85. kateri, papastylianou, & karademas 73 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure the inclusion criterion for participants in the study was being first generation and older than 18 years old, due to various adaptation differences in these groups (berry et al., 2006; sam, 2006). immigrants were recruited mainly in their work place using a convenience sampling technique. completion of the questionnaire took place during their break and participation in the study was voluntary. each measure was translated to punjabi and albanian from english and translated back to english (brislin, 1970). the indian questionnaire was translated into punjabi by the department of the linguistic studies of the punjabi university in india and back translated into english by an indian living in greece for more than 10 years, with a msc. in sociology from a greek university. the translation into albanian was performed by an albanian living in greece for more than 20 years, with a bsc. degree of sociology from a greek university and back translated into english by a second generation albanian immigrant who was born in greece and was a student at school of education. in order to examine the indirect effects of perceived discrimination on anxiety and depression through acculturation attitudes as well as the moderation role of self-construal, a set of analyses were performed in process, which is a freely-available computational tool for spss and sas, developed by hayes (2013). participants two hundred and thirty-three immigrants in greece participated in the study. one hundred and fifteen were indians and one hundred and eighteen were albanian. in a preliminary analysis, albanians and indians were examined regarding their demographic characteristics. most of the participants were male (75.4% of indians and 56.4% of the albanian sample), married (77.1% of indians and 78.6% of albanians) and unskilled workers (62.2% of indians and 57.3% of albanians). the average age was 33.0 years for indians (sd = 8.0) and 35.0 years for albanians (sd = 8.0), while the age range for both albanians and indians was 18–64. their average years of education was 11.2 years (sd = 2.7) for indians and 11.8 years (sd = 2.4) for albanians. regarding the years of residence in greece, the average years were 7.7 (sd = 3.9) for indians and 10.7 (sd = 4.2) for albanians. as far as their religion was concerned, the majority of indians were sikhs (81.3%), while heterogeneity was noticed in the albanian sample: 31.2% were orthodox’s, 31.2% were muslims and 21.4% were atheists. also, in preliminary analyses, albanian and indian immigrants were compared regarding years of residence in greece, age, years of education, anxiety and depression. albanian immigrants had lived for in greece for longer compared to indians and this difference was statistically significant, t(219) = −5.38, p < .001. the differences between the two ethnic groups were not significant as far as age, t(223) = −1.23, p > .05, and years of education were concerned, t(214) = −1.58, p > .05. t-test indicated a significant difference, regarding anxiety, t(156) = −3.63, p < .001, and depression, t(187) = −2.12, p < .05, regarding ethnicity as well. for this reason, the mediation analyses were, also, performed separately for albanians and indians and moderation analyses were first performed without covariates and then with ethnicity as one. results table 1 presents the bivariate correlations among perceived discrimination, psychological well-being, acculturation atti­ tudes, and independent/interdependent self-construal. according to the results, perceived discrimination was positively related to separation (r = .46, p < .01) and negatively to integration (r = −.39, p < .01). it was not related to assimilation (r = −.02, p > .05) and marginalization (r = .03, p > .05) (h1). regarding self-construal, perceived discrimination was not related to independent (r = −.09, p > .05) or interdependent self-construal (r = −.10, p > .05) (h2). regarding the direct effects of perceived discrimination on depression and anxiety (h3), the results indicated a statistically significant direct effect of perceived discrimination on depression, b = 0.20, se = 0.09, p < .05, 95% ci [0.01, 0.40]. regarding the indirect effects of perceived discrimination on depression and anxiety (h4), it was examined whether separation, integration, assimilation, and marginalization acted as mediators. the indirect effect of perceived discrimination on depression through separation was statistically significant, b = −0.11, se = 0.05, p < .01, 95% ci [−0.24, −0.02] (see figure 1, table 2). however, the indirect effect of perceived discrimination on anxiety through separation was not statistically significant, b = −0.05, se = 0.07, p > .05, 95% ci [−0.21, 0.08]. no indirect effects on the separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator 74 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological well-being were found for integration, assimilation, and marginalization (see table 2). next, it was examined whether the indirect role of separation to the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression depend on ethnicity (i.e., albanians vs. indians). analyses revealed that the indirect role of separation was statistically significant for both albanians, b = −0.49, se = −0.06, 95% ci [−0.15, −0.00], and indians, b = 0.50, se = −0.08, p < .01, 95% ci [−0.22, −0.00]. table 1 means, standard deviations (sd) and bivariate correlations among psychological well-being, acculturation attitudes, perceived discrimination, independent and interdependent self-construal study variables m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. anxiety 44.50 10.74 1.00 2. depression 17.85 10.22 .63** 1.00 3. integration 19.78 3.72 .05 −.05 1.00 4. separation 14.50 5.47 −.02 −.14 −.36** 1.00 5. assimilation 9.02 3.72 −.03 .15 −.03 .13 1.00 6. marginalization 8.49 3.60 .04 .14 −.18* .30** .42** 1.00 7.perceived discrimination 11.99 7.82 .10 .06 −.39** .46** −.02 .03 1.00 8. independent self-construal 4.98 .66 −.10 .00 .21** −.05 .09 −.03 −.09 9. interdependent self-construal 5.08 .63 −.06 −.07 .20** −.16* −.03 −.08 −.10 note. n = 233. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 2 the indirect and direct effects of perceived discrimination on depression and anxiety through acculturation attitudes (mediation) bootstrapping 95% cisa acculturation attitudes b se p indirect effects b se p direct effects ll ul ll ul dependent variable: depression integration 0.00 0.05 .95 −0.11 0.09 0.04 0.10 .76 −0.17 0.25 assimilation −0.00 0.01 .28 −0.03 0.02 0.01 0.10 .88 −0.18 0.21 separation −0.11 0.05 .01 −0.24 −0.02 0.20 0.09 .03 0.01 0.40 marginalization 0.00 0.01 .06 −0.02 0.04 0.05 0.10 .61 −0.15 0.25 dependent variable: anxiety integration −0.06 0.05 .15 −0.20 0.01 0.20 0.12 .10 −0.04 0.46 assimilation 0.00 0.01 .44 −0.01 0.07 0.06 0.12 .60 −0.17 0.30 separation −0.05 0.07 .46 −0.21 0.08 0.20 0.12 .11 −0.05 0.46 marginalization −0.00 0.01 .65 −0.01 0.04 0.12 0.11 .29 −0.10 0.34 abootstrapping bias corrected and accelerated (5,000 bootstrap samples). indirect and direct effects are significant at p < .05 for the 95% bootstrap confidence intervals, when the derived intervals do not include values of zero. kateri, papastylianou, & karademas 75 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 graphical representation of the statistically significant indirect (mediation) effects (b-coefficients, se in parenthesis) note. perceived d. = perceived discrimination. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. subsequently, it was tested whether interdependent self-construal moderate the relationship of perceived discrimination to depression and anxiety (h5). the variables were mean-centered first (hayes, 2013). as shown in table 3, the correlation between perceived discrimination and depression, as well as between perceived discrimination and anxiety was statistically significant only at the higher levels of interdependent self-construal (+1 sd). no moderation effect of independent self-construal was found. the statistically significant moderation effects of interdependent self-construal on the relationship of perceived discrimination to anxiety and depression are presented in figure 2. when ethnicity was used as a covariate for the moderation analyses, the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression was statistically significant at the medium level of independent self-construal, b = 0.33, se = 0.13, p < .05, 95% ci [0.06, 0.61] and at the higher level of interdependent self-construal, b = 0.41, se = 0.13, p < .01, 95% ci [0.15, 0.67]. regarding the relationship between perceived discrimination and anxiety, it was statistically significant at the higher level of interdependent, b = 0.48, se = 0.14, p < .01, 95% ci [0.21, 0.76] and independent self-construal, b = 0.39, se = 0.15, p < .05, 95% ci [0.09, 0.69]. the statistical significant moderation effects using ethnicity as covariate are presented in figure 3. according to this figure, both independent and interdependent self-construal moderated the relationship of perceived discrimination to anxiety and depression. table 3 bootstrapping results for moderation effects of interdependent/independent self-construal on the relationship of perceived discrimination to depression and anxiety self-construal b se t p 95% cia ll ul dependent variable: depression t interdependent self-construal low (−1 sd) −0.21 0.12 −1.7 .08 −0.45 0.02 m 0.04 0.09 0.51 .60 −0.13 0.23 high (+1 sd) 0.30* 0.12* 2.3 .01 0.05 0.56 independent self-construal low (−1 sd) −0.12 0.12 −0.96 .33 −0.36 0.12 m 0.05 0.09 0.61 .53 −0.12 0.24 high (+1 sd) 0.23 0.13 1.76 .07 −0.02 0.50 separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator 76 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-construal b se t p 95% cia ll ul dependent variable: anxiety interdependent self-construal low (−1 sd) −0.12 0.18 −0.66 .50 −0.48 0.23 m 0.10 0.11 0.92 .35 −0.11 0.32 high (+1 sd) 0.32* 0.12* 2.62 .04 0.08 0.57 independent self-construal low (−1 sd) −0.01 0.16 −0.06 .95 −0.34 0.32 m 0.11 0.11 0.97 .33 −0.11 0.33 high (+1 sd) 0.23 0.14 1.64 .10 −0.04 0.51 note. sd = standard deviation; ci = confidence intervals; se = standard error; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. abootstrapping bias corrected and accelerated (5,000 bootstrap samples). intervals that do not contain zero are deemed to be significant. *p < .05. figure 2 graphical representation of the statistically significant moderation effects (b-coefficients, se in parenthesis) note. perceived d. = perceived discrimination; s-c = self-construal. *p < .05. figure 3 graphical representation of the statistically significant moderation effects using ethnicity as covariate (b-coefficients, se in parenthesis) note. perceived d. = perceived discrimination; s-c = self-construal. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion the results of the present study in albanian and indian immigrants in greece supported rejection-identification model (branscombe et al., 1999; cronin et al., 2011; postmes & branscombe, 2002). separation mediated the relationship of perceived discrimination to depression, reducing depressive symptoms, and, at the higher levels of interdependent self-construal immigrants reported relatively lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. kateri, papastylianou, & karademas 77 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ initially, in accordance to the study hypothesis, separation was positively related to perceived discrimination, whereas integration was related negatively (jasinskaja-lahti et al., 2003). interestingly assimilation was not connected to perceived discrimination at all. a possible explanation might be that assimilation promotes personal goals, acquisition of social skills, language proficiency and sustained contact with host community members (ataca & berry, 2002; kosic, mannetti, & sam, 2006). it is possible that perceived discrimination connects to assimilation indirectly, through factors acting as mediators, like acceptance by hosts (motti-stefanidi, pavlopoulos, & asendorpf, 2018). secondly, the relationship of perceived discrimination to self-construal was examined. contrary to the study hypoth­ esis, no statistical significant relationship of these variables was identified. in the context of the present study, perceived discrimination can be conceived as an ego-threat condition that may elicit interpersonal behaviours depending on the self-esteem of the individuals. in the case of independence, perceived discrimination of high self-esteem individuals may elicit self-serving bias, while, in the case of interdependence, perceived discrimination of low self-esteem individuals may elicit interpersonal appraisals (vohs & heatherton, 2001). future study of the role of self-esteem in the relationship of perceived discrimination to self-construal is needed to test these assumptions. third, it was examined the relationship of perceived discrimination to anxiety and depression. in accordance with the study hypothesis, a direct relationship of perceived discrimination to depression was identified, confirming previous studies which suggested that perceived discrimination is a negative factor regarding immigrants’ psychological well-being (gee et al., 2007; paradies, 2006; pascoe & richman, 2009). regarding the indirect relationship of perceived discrimination to psychological well-being, separation was found to operate as a mediator. fewer depressive symptoms were reported by those immigrants who face discrimination but also select separation. the experience of discrimination is conceptualized as a threat against personal identity and intensifies identification with the in-group (jetten, branscombe, schmitt, & spears, 2001). given that separation signifies maintenance of the culture of origin (sam & berry, 2010), it may enhance identification with the in-group (jasinskaja-lahti et al., 2003). furthermore, the avoidance of contact with host community members, as another defining feature of separation (sam & berry, 2010), may help immigrants feel safer from their rejection (mossakowski, 2003), by asking and receiving more social support by family and friends (kateri et al., 2019). however, it should be noted that, contrary to the study hypothesis (h3), no direct relationship of perceived discrimination to anxiety was found, nor separation was found to operate as a mediator. it is important to note that anxiety and depression are distinct from each other (crockett, iturbide, torres, & carlo, 2007). anxiety may be related to factors that were not measured in the present study, such as unemployment, difficulties in language, or lacking official documents or residence permits. it is possible that stress coping mechanisms (essau & trommsdorff, 1996) may affect anxiety more than perceived discrimination. regarding the role of interdependent self-construal in the relationship between perceived discrimination and depres­ sion/anxiety, the results support the moderation hypothesis. immigrants with high levels of interdependence do seem to be protected from depression and anxiety. it is plausible that the more the devalued groups recognize the prejudice against them, the more they increase their emotional investment in their in-group (where they feel accepted), protecting their psychological well-being (branscombe et al., 1999; cronin et al., 2011; ferenczi et al., 2015). the differences in the results when ethnicity was included in the analyses seem to be quite interesting. the indirect role of separation to the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression remained statistically significant for both albanian and indian immigrants, indicating that separation may prove helpful in the case of perceived discrimination, regardless of the immigrant’s ethnicity (gungor, 2007; jasinskaja-lahti et al., 2003; musso et al., 2015). regarding the moderation effects, both interdependent self-construal and independent self-construal seem to minimize the relationship between perceived discrimination and depression and between perceived discrimination and anxiety. it could thus, be assumed that both forms of construal coexist in the development of self, by satisfying the basic human needs of autonomy and relatedness, which are essential for the psychological well-being of any individual (kagitcibasi, 2005). separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator 78 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and conclusions a number of limitations need to be considered in the interpretation of the present findings. first of all, internal consistencies were low to moderate for the scales of acculturation attitudes and self-construal. moreover, although cfa seemed to confirm the existence of four factors (i.e., integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization) in the acculturation attitudes scale, the relevant indices are not considered to be satisfactory. furthermore, coefficients of congruence were low for the scales of depression, anxiety, and independent self-construal, indicating factorial dissimi­ larity between albanian and indians for these scales. all these findings are raising concerns about the cross-cultural validity of constructs in non-western cultures (heine, lehman, peng, & greenholtz, 2002). moreover, a convenient sample was used which also represents only a small sub-set of immigrants in greece, limiting the ability to generalize the results. furthermore, given the cross-sectional nature of the study design, the direction of causality assumed in the mediation analyses may not be accurate (maxwell & cole’s, 2007). nevertheless, the present findings make a unique theoretical contribution to the protective role of interdependent self-construal in immigrants who experience discrimination. social identity theories (tajfel & turner, 1986) stress the importance of inclusion for well-being and highlight the negative role of rejection from important social groups. how­ ever, interdependent individuals tend to perceive themselves more as a social unit (e.g., in connection with the social context) than as separate, autonomous and unique individuals (markus & kitayama, 1991; singelis, 1994) and this form of self-contrual may have positive consequences in the case of perceived discrimination. thus, there is a possibility that more interdependent individuals would avoid contacts with out-group members (triandis, 1994), exposing themselves to a lesser extent to discriminatory events and experience less stress. interdependent individuals, also, tend to rely more on the approval of the in-groups for their self-validation (gungor, 2007), increasing social support behaviours (morry & kito, 2009). we must be cautious with the interpretation of the result findings regarding separation. separation seems to be a tactic that temporarily might ensure wellbeing to some extend to migrants (berry, 2006). however, it is possible that sep­ aration might, be an obstacle in the case of their sociocultural adaptation (berry, 1997; berry et al., 2006). furthermore, separation in the long-term may end in out-group rejection and segregation (bourhis, montaruli, el‐geledi, harvey, & barrette, 2010), making immigrants feel more depressed. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ataca, b., & berry, j. w. 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(1999). biculturalism and self-construal. international journal of intercultural relations, 23, 697-709. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0147-1767(99)00016-4 about the authors kateri evangelia is an adjunct lecturer in clinical psychology at the department of psychology, university of crete, greece. her research interests are mainly focused on the combination of applied cross-cultural psychology and clinical psychology, and specifically include immigrants and refugees adaptation and the role of culture in psychological health, psychological disorders, psychotherapy and, interpersonal relationships. e-mail: ekateri@gmail.com antonia (dona) papastylianou is a professor in social psychology at the νational and kapodistrian university of athens (depart­ ment of psychology). her research interests are mainly focused in applied social psychology and cross-cultural psychology, and specifically include cross-cultural adaptation of migrants and remigrants, multicultural issues and psychosocial issues in the commun­ ity context, social values, social justice and social advocacy issues, emotions and group processes. e-mail: adpapast@psych.uoa.gr evangelos karademas is a professor of clinical health psychology at the department of psychology, university of crete, greece. he also collaborates with the foundation for research and technology—hellas (forth). he is currently the president of the european health psychology society. his research interests include patient adaptation to chronic illness, the role of stress and related factors in health and illness, individual differences in health, self-regulation and dyadic regulation. e-mail: karademas@uoc.gr kateri, papastylianou, & karademas 83 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 70–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1531 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.696169 https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-1298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejcop.v7i1.151 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-351481.6.1103 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0147-1767(99)00016-4 https://www.psychopen.eu/ separation as mediator and interdependence as moderator (introduction) perceived discrimination and psychological well-being the role of acculturation attitudes: separation as a mediator the role of self-construals: interdependent self-construal as a moderator the present study: the research context and hypotheses method measures procedure participants results discussion limitations and conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors romantic relationship length and its perceived quality: mediating role of facebook-related conflict research reports romantic relationship length and its perceived quality: mediating role of facebook-related conflict h. m. saidur rahaman*a [a] department of psychology, jagannath university, dhaka, bangladesh. abstract the purpose of this study was to investigate how facebook use is leading to negative relationship outcomes such as cheating and breakup by assessing users’ perceived relationship qualities. it was hypothesized that facebook-related conflict will be negatively related with users’ relationship length and will also be negatively related with their perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. facebook-related conflict further mediates the relationship between relationship length and perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. self-report data were gathered from participants (n = 101) in an online survey by employing standard questionnaires. a set of regression and mediation analyses confirmed all the hypotheses of the study. that is, facebook-related conflict mediates the relationship between relationship length and perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. moreover, the magnitude of mediation was highest for relationship satisfaction. implications for future research and contributions are discussed. keywords: facebook, perceived relationship quality, facebook-related conflict, relationship length europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 received: 2015-02-07. accepted: 2015-05-21. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, jagannath university, dhaka-1100, bangladesh. phone: +88-02-9583791, fax: +88-02-7113752. e-mail: sayeed@jnu.ac.bd this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. young people frequently use facebook, which is often considered the most popular social network site (duggan & smith, 2013). social scientists tend to focus on how facebook is influencing our social life (see wilson, gosling, &graham, 2012 for review). a recent study has showed that displays of emotion on facebook contagiously influence others (kramer, guillory, & hancock, 2014). this clearly indicates the extent of the influence facebook has on people’s daily life. excessive use of facebook and twitter can lead to negative relationship outcomes such as cheating, breakup, and divorce in the case of romantic relationship (clayton, 2014; clayton, nagurney, & smith, 2013). social network sites (snss) use can negatively influence marriage quality and happiness and also positively influence the experience of troubled relationships and thought of separation (valenzuela, halpern, & katz, 2014). from these findings, we may conclude that the impact of snss on an intimate relationship is pervasive, ranging from the pre-marital to the post-marital stage. though previous research identified the negative outcomes of snss use on intimate relationships, there is no study conducted yet that explores how these outcomes might emerge. the present research attempted to explore the relationship between facebook use and negative relationship outcomes by assessing users’ perceived relaeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ tionship qualities in the case of users who are currently involved in a romantic relationship. practically, this study aims to contribute to developing strategies (e.g., couple therapy, awareness programs, campaigning etc.) to improve people’s quality of life in the face of new interpersonal communication platforms. theoretically, it contributes to extending the implication of classical interpersonal communication theory and the relational turbulence model in the case of social networking and intimate relationships. snss have a potential influence on intimate relationships at a personal or impersonal level. social relationships demand interactions and snss are suitable platforms allowing this (tong, 2013). a growing body of research has demonstrated that romantic relationships between partners can be in danger in the advent of partner’s facebook jealousy, surveillance, ambiguous information presentation, compulsive internet use, and online portrayals of intimate relationships (kerkhof, finkenauer, & muusses, 2011; muise, christofides, & desmarais, 2009; papp, danielewicz, & cayemberg, 2012; tokunaga, 2011; utz & beukeboom, 2011). though sns usemight keep romantic partners in touch, its excessive use can be detrimental to the relationship (clayton, 2014; clayton et al., 2013; joinson, 2008; valenzuela et al., 2014). conflict may frequently occur in any intimate relationship (brehm, miller, perlman, & campbell, 2002). clayton et al. (2013) introduced the construct ‘facebook-related conflict’ in the context of intimate romantic relationship. they defined the construct ‘facebook-related conflict’ as “whether facebook use increases relationship complications in intimate romantic relationships” (p. 718). in their study, they found that the length of romantic relationship moderates the relation between facebook use and facebook-related conflict. and this conflict leads to negative relationship outcomes. this was particularly applicable for relationships that are lower in length and not fully matured. they pointed to the fact that perhaps due to lower relationship length, partners may keep track of their relational partners’ facebook activities as an information-seeking technique for better knowing each other. however, the moderating role of relationship length was not found in another sns (twitter) use study (clayton, 2014). this clearly indicates the inconsistent role of relationship length on facebook-related conflict and demands further investigation. the accurate role of relationship length may not be explicated by treating it as a moderating variable but as an independent variable. beside this, no study has been conducted yet to understand or explore how facebook use relates to the perceived romantic relationship qualities of the users. uncertainty reduction theory (urt) posits that people seek information about their relational partners in order to reduce uncertainty concerning those partners and continue or pursue the relationship (berger, 1979; berger & calabrese, 1975). the relational turbulence model further posits that relationships may experience different types of disruption even when the interaction between partners is working fine. at the beginning of any romantic relationship, partners want to know each other better. as the relationship grows mature and intimate, partners want to predict the future of the relationship. if they perceive any sort of relational uncertainty, they start to appraise one another negatively, experience jealousy and face difficulty in communicating with one another. if they cannot resolve that uncertainty, it is likely that they are going to end that relationship (solomon & knobloch, 2001; solomon & knobloch, 2004; knobloch, 2007). research demonstrates that jealousy is also a source of conflict in a romantic relationship (as cited in fleischmann, spitzberg, andersen, & roesch, 2005, p. 50). in this study i argue that, as the relationship grows, partners will be able to know each other better. relational uncertainty will be reduced and the relationship will be stable with less occurrence of facebook-related conflict. anderson and emmers-sommer (2006) define relationship satisfaction as “the degree to which an individual is content and satisfied with his or her relationship” (p. 155). perceptions regarding various attitudes of the partner, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 romantic relationship length and its perceived quality 396 http://www.psychopen.eu/ partner’s behaviors, and communications between partners usually influence relationship satisfaction (guerrero, 1994). partner surveillance behavior and cognitive jealousy promote relationship dissatisfaction among undergraduate college students who are currently in a relationship (elphinston & noller, 2011). and disagreements over facebook statuses with their romantic partners lower females’ relationship satisfaction (papp et al., 2012). cramer (2000) also found that conflict negatively correlates to relationship satisfaction. in line with these findings, i argue that facebook-related conflict promotes relationship dissatisfaction. according to anderson and emmers-sommer (2006), commitment is “the extent to which people in romantic relationships experience relational cohesion (togetherness), exclusivity, and anticipated continuance of the relationship (dedication)” (p. 156). studies showed that greater relationship commitment lowers the risk of infidelity (drigotas, safstrom, & gentilia, 1999; mcanulty & brineman, 2007). after starting any romantic relationship, partner’s facebook solicitation behavior is the marker of lower relationship commitment (drouin, miller, & dibble, 2014). excessive facebook use also promotes negative relationship outcomes (e.g., cheating, break up, divorce) via facebook-related conflict (clayton et al., 2013). these negative relationship outcomes are a sign of the partner’s lower level of commitment toward the relationship. it may be thus assumed that facebook-related conflict lowers user’s relationship commitment. the experience of love is central to any intimate relationship. a meta-analysis showed positive relationships between love and relationship satisfaction (graham, 2011). research also demonstrated that destructive conflict strategies negatively correlate to love (zacchilli, hendrick, & hendrick, 2009). thus, i argue that facebook-related conflict will also be negatively correlated with user’s perceived love. h1: relationship length and facebook-related conflict will be negatively related. h2a: facebook-related conflict will be negatively related with perceived relationship satisfaction. h2b: facebook-related conflict will be negatively related with perceived commitment. h2c: facebook-related conflict will be negatively related with perceived love. facebook-related conflict and twitter-related conflict play a mediating role in predicting negative relationship outcomes (clayton, 2014; clayton et al., 2013). combiningh1 andh2, i further argue that the lower the relationship length, the most facebook-related conflict will occur. and this conflict will negatively influence partner’s perception of relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. h3a: facebook-related conflict will mediate the relationship between relationship length and perceived relationship satisfaction. h3b: facebook-related conflict will mediate the relationship between relationship length and commitment. h3c: facebook-related conflict will mediate the relationship between relationship length and love. methods participants and procedure a total of 101 participants voluntarily responded to an online survey created for this study. a convenient sampling technique was used to recruit the respondents. at the beginning of the survey, a preface was included to obtain their consent, to provide information about the nature of the study, and to instruct them on how to fill up the survey form. only participants who were currently in a heterosexual romantic relationship (not married) and in the relaeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 rahaman 397 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tionship both partners used facebook were asked to complete the survey. for having one or more important missing measures, five participants were excluded from the analysis. among the participants, 61.46% were south asian, 28.13% were european, and 10.41% were north american. the majority of them were female (51.04%). their age ranged from 18 to 34 years (m = 24.73, sd = 3.32). all of the respondents were students (undergraduate, graduate, and ph.d. researcher). materials demographic questions (age, gender, and country of nationality), two standard survey questionnaires, and one single item questionnaire were used in the present study. relationship length. respondents were asked to report their relationship length in months in the online survey form. their reported relationship length ranged from 3 to 120 months (m = 38.60, sd = 28.78). the facebook-related conflict scale (clayton et al., 2013) is a six items questionnaire used to measure facebookrelated conflict (cronbach’s α = .85). it measures how facebook use may increase complications in an intimate relationship. items include: “how often do you have an argument with your boyfriend/girlfriend as a result of excessive facebook use?”, “how often do you have an argument with your boyfriend/ girlfriend as a result of viewing a friend’s facebook profiles?”, “how often has facebook led to a verbal dispute between you and your boyfriend/girlfriend (e.g., acceptance of a friend request, wall/picture comment, or a general post)?”, “how often do you feel jealous when other facebook users comment on your boyfriend's /girlfriend's wall, photos, and statuses?”, “how often do you use facebook to reconnect with individuals with whom you’ve had past romantic relationships?”, and “how often have you considered cheating on your boyfriend/ girlfriend with someone you have connected or reconnected with on facebook?”. the likert-type scale used ranged from ‘never=0’ to ‘always=5’. the cronbach’s α for the scale in the present study was .76. the perceived relationship quality component (prqc) scale (fletcher, simpson, & thomas, 2000) is a 18 items questionnaire consisting of six subscales which focus onmeasuring perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, intimacy, trust, passion, and love of the individuals with regard to their romantic/intimate relationship quality. in the present study, only the relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love sub-scales were used. each sub-scale consists of three items for which the likert-type scaling ranged from ‘not at all=1’ to ‘extremely=7’. sample items for relationship satisfaction included: “how satisfied are you with your relationship?”; for commitment: “how committed are you to your relationship?”; and for love: “how much do you love your partner?”. the cronbach’s α for the scales used in the present study were: relationship satisfaction = .89, commitment = .84, and love = .79. the composite cronbach’s α for the three factors of prqc scale was .90. control variables. age, gender, and country of nationality were used in the analysis only as control variables. confirmatory factor analyses. to ensure that facebook-related conflict, relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love were distinct constructs, confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. the result of one factor cfa revealed a poor fit (χ2 = 336.85, df = 90, p < .001; cfi = .64; rmsea = .17; srmr = .12) to data. however, a four factor cfa solution revealed a far better model fit (χ2 = 157.89, df = 80, p < .001; cfi = .89; rmsea = .10; srmr = .09). thus, in testing hypotheses related to facebook-related conflict, relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love, they were treated as distinct theoretical constructs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 romantic relationship length and its perceived quality 398 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results data obtained in the present study were analyzed by employing descriptive statistics, correlation, and mediation analysis. table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations among the variables. table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlations for variables 54321sdm -1. relationship length .17.16.06.23*-.7828.6038 --2. facebook-related conflict .36**-.33**-.37**-.91.131 ---3. relationship satisfaction .58**.53**.241.585 ----4. commitment .68**.151.805 -----5. love .071.026 note. n = 96. *p < .05. **p < .01. regarding the variables investigated, the mean score of love was highest as one of the three components of perceived relationship quality. correlation analysis showed that relationship length negatively and significantly correlates to facebook-related conflict. facebook-related conflict further significantly and negatively correlates to the three components of perceived relationship quality. moreover, the three components themselves positively and significantly correlate with each other. mediation analyses to test the mediating role of facebook-related conflict, the conditional bootstrap analysis of hayes (2013) was performed by employing his model 4 process macro for spss with 5000 bootstrap resamples. though there was no significant direct relationship between the predictor and outcome variables in the present study, according to recent perspective and recommendation, there is still mediation to test (see mackinnon, fairchild, & fritz, 2007; rucker, preacher, tormala, & petty, 2011; shrout & bolger, 2002 for review). firstly, relationship length was entered as an independent variable (x), relationship satisfaction (y) as an outcome variable, and facebook-related conflict (m) as a mediating variable in the model. a significant relationship was noted (b = -.0073, p < .05), demonstrating a negative relationship between relationship length and facebook-related conflict [this supports h1]. a second significant relationship emerged (b = -.52, p < .001), demonstrating a negative relationship between facebook-related conflict and relationship satisfaction [supporting h2a]. there was a significant indirect effect of facebook-related conflict on relationship satisfaction through relationship length, b = .0038, 95% bca ci [.0013, .0078]. by following the recommendation of preacher and kelley (2011) and guidelines of cohen (1988), it appeared that κ2 = .09, 95% bca ci [.0290, .1663] which indicates a medium level mediation effect. this supports h3a. secondly, relationship length (x) was entered as an independent variable, commitment (y) as an outcome variable, and facebook-related conflict (m) as a mediating variable in the model. a significant relationship emerged (b = -.0073, p < .05), demonstrating a negative relationship between relationship length and facebook-related conflict [supported h1]. a second significant relationship emerged (b = -.40, p <.01), demonstrating a negative relationship between facebook-related conflict and commitment [supported h2b]. there was a significant indirect effect of europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 rahaman 399 http://www.psychopen.eu/ facebook-related conflict on commitment through relationship length, b = .0029, 95% bca ci [.0008, .0063]. by following the recommendation of preacher and kelley (2011) and guidelines of cohen (1988), it appeared that κ2 = .07, 95% bca ci [.0206, .1506] which indicates a near medium level mediation effect. this supports h3b. thirdly, relationship length (x) was entered as an independent variable, love (y) as an outcome variable, and facebook-related conflict (m) as a mediating variable in the model. a significant relationship emerged (b = -.0073, p < .05), demonstrating a negative relationship between relationship length and facebook-related conflict [supporting h1]. a second significant relationship emerged (b = -.40, p < .01), demonstrating a negative relationship between facebook-related conflict and love [supporting h2c]. there was a significant indirect effect of facebookrelated conflict on love through relationship length, b = .0029, 95% bca ci [.0008, .0067]. by following the recommendation of preacher and kelley (2011) and guidelines of cohen (1988), it appeared that κ2 = .08, 95% bca ci [.0230, .1628] which indicates a near medium level mediation effect. this supports h3c. in sum, all three proposed hypotheses in the present study were supported. discussion in this study, i explored how facebook use is relating to negative relationship outcomes by assessing users’ perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. results support all the proposed hypotheses. that is, users’ relationship length correlates negatively with facebook-related conflict. facebook-related conflict also correlations negatively with users’ perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. furthermore, facebook-related conflict mediates the relationship between relationship length and perceived relationship satisfaction, commitment, and love. particularly, the magnitude of the mediation for relationship satisfaction appeared highest among the three. the present findings make three main contributions. firstly, the findings contribute to the growing body of literature pertaining to the domain of snss and their influence on intimate relationships by putting forward an explanation of how facebook-related conflict is negatively related to relationship qualities. secondly, this study contributes to the interpersonal communication and romantic relationship literature by suggesting the applicability of uncertainty reduction theory and relational turbulence model for explaining intimate relationships in the advent of new interpersonal communication platforms. more specifically, it explains the relationship among perceived relationship qualities, facebook-related conflict, and relationship length using the theoretical framework of urt and relational turbulence model. thirdly, it can contribute to developing relevant couple therapy and intervention techniques. the present study sheds light on the findings of clayton et al. (2013), clayton (2014), and valenzuela et al. (2014) as it brings evidence of the fact that facebook use has the potential to decrease a user’s perceived relationship satisfaction, love, and commitment. this decrement of perceived relationship qualities may relate to negative relationship outcomes. the findings of the present are also consistent with the study findings of mcdaniel and coyne (2014) which demonstrate that technoference relates to conflict increment in relationship, and this conflict is partially responsible for the perception of dissatisfaction in the relationship. studies employing urt as a theoretical framework revealed that level of uncertainty in any intimate relationship substantially and inversely influences relationship stability (knobloch & solomon, 2002; parks & adelman, 1983); the continuity of any relationship will also be in danger if uncertainty cannot be reduced (levine, kim, & ferrara, 2010). relational turbulencemodel also suggests on how uncertainty in a romantic relationship may induce jealousy, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 romantic relationship length and its perceived quality 400 http://www.psychopen.eu/ communication difficulties, and partners negative appraisal toward one another (knobloch, 2007; solomon & knobloch, 2001; solomon & knobloch, 2004). we can assume that facebook use is causing conflict/argument between partners who are experiencing potential uncertainty regarding the stability or future of their relationship. or, it induces the emergence of romantic jealousy between partners in case of a relatively new relationship that is still developing or maturing. this conflict eventually works towards lowering perceived relationship satisfaction. partners may be inclined to explore relational alternatives or seek emotional support from readily available/approachable alternatives on facebook, which indicates their decreased commitment towards the relationship. conflict also lowers the magnitude of perceived love between partners. in sum, facebook-related conflict negatively influences three aspects of the perceived quality of any romantic relationship. the extent of this negative influence depends on the length of that particular relationship. with increased relationship length, the facebook-related conflict will decrease and the possibility of negative relationship outcomes will also be decreased. on a practical note, it is important to understand how we can maintain a healthy relationship in the advent of new interpersonal communication platforms. the present study contributes in this regard by pointing to the relational factors which are potentially at risk because of snss use. knowing these factors can help us develop relevant couple therapy or intervention technique and awareness programs (e.g., training, workshops) for maintaining a healthy romantic relationship. one practical suggestion for facebook users, who are in a relatively new relationship, is that they should take part in open communication and honest discussion to reduce their relational conflict and uncertainty that may stem from facebook-related conflict for maintaining an intimate and healthy relationship (mcdaniel & coyne, 2014; theiss & solomon, 2008). limitations and implications for future research there are some limitations of the present study that should be mentioned. the cross-sectional nature of the data cannot capture how facebook-related conflict actually develops over time. in this survey, it was not possible to rule out other general conflicts that may influence perceived relationship quality. as it was specified in the online survey, the study was meant to examine how facebook use might influence relationship quality, so the data can be skewed due to desirability effects. data in the present study were obtained from respondents who are currently in a romantic relationship but not married, divorced or separated. this specification significantly limits the generalization of the present study findings to broader populations. the sample included people living on different continents and future research can consider if there are any differences among them. future research should also investigate how facebook-related conflict actually develops over time and how it influences perceived relationship quality by employing longitudinal designs. experimental designs can allow us to study how snss (facebook but also twitter, myspace, etc.) may influence, in causal terms, perceived relationship qualities. other possible mediating variables can be used (e.g., mutual understanding between partners, loneliness, and trust) as they might influence relationship quality alongside facebook-related conflict and this as well demands future research. conclusion this study explored the relation between facebook use and negative relationship outcomes. results indicate that users’ relationship length is negatively correlated with facebook-related conflict and that facebook-related conflict is also negatively correlated with perceived relationship satisfaction, love, and commitment. facebook-related conflict further mediates the relationship between relationship length and perceived relationship satisfaction, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 rahaman 401 http://www.psychopen.eu/ commitment, and love. as such, although facebook-related conflict negatively influences users’ perceived quality of romantic ties, the extent of these influences actually depends on the length of the relationship. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author sincerely thank the editor for his helpful comments on the earlier version of the manuscript before being send out for review that considerably improved it. the author would also like to thank george yancey, tijs besieux, jeroen camps, farjana ahmed, and khalid hossain for their assistance with regards to data collection of this study. references anderson, t. l., & emmers-sommer, t. m. 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(2009). the romantic partner conflict scale: a new scale to measure relationship conflict. journal of social and personal relationships, 26(8), 1073-1096. doi:10.1177/0265407509347936 about the author h. m. saidur rahaman is working as an assistant professor at the department of psychology, jagannath university, dhaka, bangladesh. he also worked as a ‘visiting scholar’ at the university of leuven, belgium. his research interests mainly pertain europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 romantic relationship length and its perceived quality 404 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0291 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.1983.tb00004.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022658 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2011.00355.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1082-989x.7.4.422 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407501186004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407504047838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2008.00335.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.014 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0549 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01552.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.034 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1745691612442904 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0265407509347936 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to the domain of work, organizational & personnel psychology, and applied social psychology. his recent area of interests includes leadership-followership, technology-life adjustment, social network sites, interpersonal relationship, and ethical-unethical behavior. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 395–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.932 rahaman 405 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en romantic relationship length and its perceived quality (introduction) methods participants and procedure materials results mediation analyses discussion limitations and implications for future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the centrality of events scale for italian adolescents: integrating traumatic experience into one’s identity and its relation to posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology research reports the centrality of events scale for italian adolescents: integrating traumatic experience into one’s identity and its relation to posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology chiara ionio* a, eleonora mascheroni a, paola di blasio a [a] cridee, department of psychology, università cattolica, milan, italy. abstract adolescents could develop areas of vulnerability, especially if they have had to deal with highly stressful and traumatic life events. stressful experiences can work as traumatic memories that become central to one’s life and core topics for one’s identity and for the attribution of meaning to life experience. the present work evaluates (a) the internal structures of the 20-item centrality of event scale in the italian context and (b) the impact of stressful and traumatic experience during adolescence. the present work includes a convenience sample of 872 italian adolescents -528 males, 344 femalesaged between 11 and 21 years (m = 15.85; sd = 2.09). we performed a confirmatory factor analysis that confirmed a three-factor solution. moreover, the perception of stressful event as central in the participants’ lives was significantly correlated with the presence of ptsd symptomatology, as measured by the impact of event scale revised. we found that participants with ptsd symptoms had significantly higher ces scores. these data show the validity of the ces with adolescent samples, emphasizing the sensitivity of this instrument in detecting the impact of negative life experiences even in a sample of adolescents. keywords: centrality of event scale, stress, trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, adolescents europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 received: 2017-05-26. accepted: 2018-01-08. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; michelle roley-roberts, the ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, oh, usa *corresponding author at: cridee, department of psychology, catholic university of milan, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: chiara.ionio@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. adolescence is a time of transition when several changes need to be addressed (adams & berzonsky, 2008; coleman & hendry, 1990). in addressing these changes, adolescents could develop areas of vulnerability, especially if they have had to deal with highly stressful and traumatic life events (ionio, olivari, & confalonieri, 2013; oransky, hahn, & stover, 2013). ammaniti, cimino, and petrocchi (2007) pointed out that it is very difficult to distinguish the impact of stressful and traumatic situations and their potential role on development from the typical characteristics of the adolescent growth process. however, adolescence is recognized as a highly risky developmental period for the onset of disorders related to exposure to negative or traumatic events (copeland, keeler, angold, & costello, 2007; ogle, rubin, & siegler, 2013). in fact, difficulties in psychological adaptation after a negative or traumatic event could lead to a critical development in the formation of a coherent self (habermas & bluck, 2000) and a definite identity (ogle, rubin, & siegler, 2013). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, a recent study has shown that adolescents consider stressful events to be central turning points that could impact their ability to build a coherent self-story at both the narrative and psychological levels (ionio et al., 2013). in fact, many previous studies have shown the important role of stressful and traumatic experiences on the construction of the self and of autobiographical memories (berntsen & rubin, 2006). in addition, previous research has underlined that the effects of negative events are amplified by the presence of some psychological difficulties usually experienced by adolescents (sutherland & bryant, 2005). different studies have suggested that negative experiences may become central turning points in one person’s life by organizing life experiences and autobiographical memories (berntsen, willert, & rubin, 2003) and becoming central to the process of building one’s personal identity and for the attribution of meaning to life experiences (vagos, da silva, brazão, & rijo, 2018). the centrality of event scale: theoretical background and prior studies research on the impact of stressful or traumatic experiences on the building of an individual’s self and identity has pointed out that traumatic memories are more accessible than other kinds of memories (reynolds & brewin, 1998, 1999). in particular, berntsen and rubin (2006) underlined that memories linked to negative and potentially traumatic events are more intrusive and recurrent and more frequently recalled and relived (berntsen, 2001). moreover, these memories are associated with evaluative thoughts about the trauma (reynolds & brewin, 1998, 1999) and rumination (nolen-hoeksema & morrow, 1991). trauma-related memories are also usually better remembered than other autobiographical events (berntsen, 2001; porter & birt, 2001; reviere & bakeman, 2001; rubin, feldman, & beckham, 2004). all of these characteristics have led berntsen and rubin (2006) to better investigate how stressful and traumatic events may become central to an individual’s identity over time. in their studies, berntsen and rubin (2006, 2007) found three aspects that could explain why an event might become central to one’s life experience. firstly, they pointed out that memories related to stressful or traumatic events can function as reference points in the attribution of meaning to past, present, and future experiences (vagos et al., 2018). secondly, this theoretical framework considers memories of highly relevant events as potential central components of one’s personal identity. high stress and trauma are viewed as emblematic for the person’s self and life story and for self-understanding, making them different from other people (berntsen & rubin, 2006, 2007). thirdly, berntsen and rubin (2006) believed that these trauma-related memories may become a turning point in one’s life story, according to a study that underlined how a traumatic or highly stressful event often causes deep changes in a person’s life (janoff-bulman, 1989). starting from this theoretical framework, berntsen and rubin (2006) designed the centrality of event scale (ces) to measure the extent to which the memory of a highly stressful and traumatic event may become central to a person’s life, in accordance with the theoretical framework of the ces. originally, berntsen and rubin (2006) underlined the unifactoriality of the ces; however, a subsequent factor analysis returned three factors (berntsen & rubin, 2007). these factors measure three ways in which a memory of a traumatic or stressful event may become interconnected with other personal and autobiographical memories. in particular, they assess the extent to which the memory of a traumatic or stressful event becomes (a) a reference point for everyday life, (b) a central component of personal identity, and (c) a turning point in the personal life story. traumatic experiences in adolescence 360 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the first factor that emerged from berntsen and rubin’s (2007) exploratory analysis referred to the extent to which a trauma memory becomes a reference point for everyday inferences. in particular, previous research observed that people use salient personal memories to guide their thoughts and choices (pillemer, 1998). in fact, it is well documented that memories of personally relevant events may function as anchor points for giving sense to other life experiences and for creating expectations for the future (berntsen & rubin, 2006). however, trauma-related memories may lead to unnecessary worries since they are usually highly accessible and perceived as involving several risks. the second factor evaluated the extent to which trauma-related memories may become components of personal identity. according to theorists of autobiographical memory, the way people compose their life stories is closely related to the way they understand themselves (fitzgerald, 1988). a stressful or traumatic experience may be perceived as emblematic for the person’s self. thus, the trauma could become a stable characteristic of the self that is relevant in several life situations and consequently could affect one’s personal identity. if a traumatic event memory is seen as a central component of one’s personal identity, it could also be considered a central turning point in his or her life story. in fact, the third factor measured the extent to which a trauma-related memory becomes a turning point in one’s personal life story. a traumatic or highly stressful event may cause deep changes in a person’s perspective (janoff-bulman, 1989), remaining accessible for years and coming to mind spontaneously in response to internal or external cues (berntsen, 2001). it may be seen as a way of maintaining the personal internal consistency of the life story at the expense of the multiplicity of meaning that normally characterizes personal life narratives (linde, 1993; robinson, 1996). the ces has proved to be a valid and reliable instrument with good psychometric properties (groleau, calhoun, cann, & tedeschi, 2013; robinaugh & mcnally, 2011; schuettler & boals, 2011). moreover, different studies demonstrated that the ces scores were related to ptsd symptomatology and severity (berntsen & rubin, 2006, 2007), even controlling for depression, anxiety, dissociation, and self-absorption. these results show that the ces could be an effective tool to better understand and assess individual differences in ptsd. other studies conducted on different samples—such as undergraduate students, combat veterans, and women abused in childhood (berntsen & rubin, 2006; brown, antonius, kramer, root, & hirst, 2010; robinaugh & mcnally, 2011)—have reported positive relations between ces scores and ptsd symptomatology. however, as far as we know, few studies have tested the ces in a sample of adolescents (cunha, matos, faria, & zagalo, 2012; ionio, mascheroni, & di blasio, 2018; vagos et al., 2018). although evaluating the centrality of events with adolescents whose identities and life stories are still developing could seem untimely, we believed that it is important to focus on this phase. in fact, studies have pointed out that meaning-making processes, as the integration of memories into the personal identity, are already present during adolescence (mclean, breen, & fournier, 2010; vagos et al., 2018). in addition, adolescents have to deal with developmental challenges associated with the building of their future identity and roles (kroger, 2004), which could be particularly demanding for adolescents who face peculiar life circumstances that may represent a central event to their personal identity and life story. moreover, traumatic memories are more accessible and inclusive than other memories. these characteristics of such memories may indicate that the trauma has increasingly become central to the subject’s identity over time. it is well documented that different aspects of stressful and traumatic memories, play a relevant role in the ionio, mascheroni, & di blasio 361 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ onset of ptsd across the life span (brewin, gregory, lipton, & burgess, 2010). however, these aspects of stressful and traumatic memories, such as the presence of recurrent and intrusive images, the sensory and emotional features of these type of memories and the fragmentation and disorganization relative to memories of the trauma, have generally been less widely investigated in adolescent samples (mckinnon, brewer, meiserstedman, & nixon, 2017). understanding the relative contributions of aspects of a stressful and traumatic event on adolescents’ identities could inform the profile of traumatic stress responses among youth. aim the main aim of the present study is to evaluate the impact of stressful and traumatic experience during adolescence. firstly, to this end, we evaluated the psychometric proprieties of the centrality of event scale using a sample of italian adolescents. we evaluated the internal structures of the 20-item version using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) to test both the one-factor and three-factor solution proposed by berntsen and rubin (2006). as observed by vagos and colleagues (2018), previous studies found inconsistent results when comparing ces scores between male and female participants. thus, we investigated invariance across gender to ensure that we were assessing the same constructs across both groups and thus avoid inference problems (chen, 2007). secondly, we evaluated whether a relationship existed between ces and ptsd symptomatology among a sample of italian adolescents. more specifically, we investigated whether higher ces scores were associated with higher levels of ptsd symptomatology, as tested by the impact of event scale revised. as previously suggested by cunha et al. (2012), we expected higher ces scores to be associated with higher levels of ptsd symptomatology. however, cunha and colleagues (2012) only studied the correlation between the total ces and total ies-r scores. to better investigate the relationship between ces score and ptsd symptomatology, we also tested the correlations between the total ces, the ces subscales, and total ies-r. furthermore, we expected to find significantly higher ces scores in those adolescents who obtained scores over the clinical cutoff in the ies-r. method participants the current work included a convenience sample of adolescents recruited from different high schools in italy. no adolescent refused to participate. the sample for this study included 872 italian adolescents—528 males (60.1%) and 344 females (39.2%)—aged between 11 and 21 years (m = 15.85; sd = 2.09). all of these participants were asked to think about the most negative event that they had experienced in their lives. this event was experienced at a mean age of 13.15 years (sd = 3.86), and an average of 3.24 years (sd = 3.85) had passed since this event. table 1 shows information about the mean age when the negative event happened, the number of years since the negative event, and maternal and paternal occupation. males and females did not differ on any of these variables. traumatic experiences in adolescence 362 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 information about male and female samples characteristic male (n = 528) female (n = 344) difference test statistic p age when the negative event happened, m (sd) 13.21 (3.99) 13.08 (3.72) t = .327 .744 time since the negative event, m (sd) 3.20 (3.92) 3.29 (3.78) t = -.288 .821 maternal occupation, % χ2 = 5.71 .769 office worker 23.1 25.5 artisan and worker 12.5 12.2 shopping activities 0.9 4.2 work in educational services 11.0 12.9 work in human and health services 8.4 6.1 manager 0.9 1.1 freelance 4.0 2.7 housewife 32.1 33.5 retired 0.9 1.5 unemployed 0.4 0.4 paternal occupation, % χ2 = 9.11 .612 office worker 16.1 16.2 artisan and worker 46.6 44.5 shopping activities 4.7 4.2 work in educational services 1.8 1.5 work in human and health services 3.6 6.4 manager 6.7 4.5 engineer 1.8 1.9 driver 4.9 6.8 policeman 2.5 2.6 freelance 9.4 7.9 retired 3.6 6.4 unemployed 0.2 0 measures written narrative demographic and event-related variables were collected from the adolescents’ written narratives about their most negative experience. they were free to tell their experience, without specific requests and without limit in terms of length of writing. centrality of event scale (ces) the ces (berntsen & rubin, 2006) was used to measure the extent to which the memory of a stressful and traumatic event was central to the adolescent’s (a) life story, (b) personal identity, (c) attribution of meaning to other personal life events. these three factors are evaluated through 20 items rated on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from totally disagree to totally agree. in previous studies the ces showed an excellent internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .94) (berntsen & rubin, 2006) and good convergent validity with the beck depression inventory (bdi; beck et al., 1988; .23, p < .01) and the post-traumatic stress disorder checklist ionio, mascheroni, & di blasio 363 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (pcl; blanchard, jones-alexander, buckley, & forneris, 1996; weathers, litz, herman, huska, & keane, 1994; .38, p < .01). impact of event scale revised (ies-r) the ies-r (weiss & marmar, 1997; italian version by pietrantonio, de gennaro, di paolo, & solano, 2003) was used to measure the presence of ptsd symptomatology among our sample of italian adolescents. it is composed of 22 items rated on a 5-point likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all to 4 = extremely). in particular, the items correspond directly to 14 of the 17 dsm-iv symptoms of ptsd: eight items regarding symptoms of avoidance (e.g., “i tried not to think about it”), seven items on intrusion symptoms (e.g., “i had dreams about it”), and seven items on hyperarousal symptoms (e.g., “i felt irritable and angry”). the sum of all items gives a total score ranging from 0 to 88. high levels of internal consistency have been previously reported (cronbach’s alpha ranged from .87 to .94 for intrusion, cronbach’s alpha ranged from .84 to .87for avoidance, cronbach’s alpha ranged from .79 to .91 for hyperarousal; creamer et al., 2003; weiss & marmar, 1997). test-retest reliability, collected across a 6-month interval, ranged from .89 to .94 (weiss & marmar, 1997). similar internal consistency have been found in an italian adolescent sample, specifically, α = .68 for avoidance, α = .87 for intrusion, α = .72 for hyperarousal, and .87 for the total (ionio, camisasca, milani, miragoli, & di blasio, 2017). the cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients for the present study were: .71 (avoidance), .88 (intrusion), .72 (hyperarousal), and .88 for the total. procedure the italian translation and adaptation of the ces were authorized by the authors. the original version of the ces was translated by two experienced italian researchers in psychology who are proficient in english. a native english speaker back-translated the scale into english. researchers compared the original to the italian translation and finalized the italian version. the university’s research ethics committee approved the current study. informed consent from both parents of each participant was necessary to take part in the study. informed consent for the protection of privacy (legislative decree 30 june 2003, no. 196; italian privacy code) was a prerequisite to participate in the study. data analyses the data were analyzed with the ibm spss amos software (version 23.0) and the ibm spss software (version 23.0). ibm spss amos was used for confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) and for multigroup analyses. after the best internal structure solution was defined—comparing the one-factor solution and the three-factor solution—cfa was further applied separately to the combined male and female sample. the fit of the models resulting from these cfas was considered on the basis of a two-index approach, namely using the comparative fit index (cfi) and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). conventional guidelines were followed, whereby the fit is considered adequate if cfi values are > .90 and rmsea is < .08 (bentler, 1990; marsh, balla, & hau, 1996). multigroup analyses were applied to gender. following the approach used by vagos et al. (2018) for the portuguese validation study, we tested configural invariance, followed by metric invariance and scalar invariance. configural invariance refers to the measurement model being an adequate fit for each group separately. metric invariance adds to this the constraint that the items’ loading values also are of similar magnitude for the groups being compared. scalar invariance, in turn, also constrains the intercepts of traumatic experiences in adolescence 364 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the items to be similar across groups. to determine measurement invariance, differences in the same fit indicators (cfi and rmsea) were considered. as suggested by vagos et al. (2018), metric invariance was determined based on ∆cfi ≤ −.01, combined with ∆rmsea ≤ .015, whereas scalar invariance was determined based on ∆cfi ≤ −.01, combined with ∆rmsea ≤ .015 (chen, 2007). ibm spss was used to calculate cronbach’s alpha as representative of internal consistency and perform a ttest for paired samples to test for a possible relationship between ces and the presence of ptsd symptomatology, as measured by the ies-r. results prior to the data analyses, the variables were examined for the presence of outliers, and the normal distribution of the items was tested (kurtosis and asymmetry ranging from −1 to +1). factor structure we conducted a cfa on the one-factor solution model. it did not get an acceptable fit (aic = 1,570.262; cfi = .881; rmsea = .058). a cfa was then applied to the three-factor measurement model based on berntsen and rubin’s (2006) findings. the factor structure achieved an acceptable fit (aic = 908.43; cfi = .912; rmsea = .066). the factor loadings of items of the three factors in the model are shown in table 2. table 2 factor loadings of the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) of the three-factor solution of the ces item factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 1 .60 2 .66 4 .69 9 .67 12 .78 13 .77 17 .73 20 .71 3 .72 5 .78 6 .76 7 .65 8 .71 19 .76 10 .80 14 .73 15 .81 16 .83 18 .82 note. in the original article of berntsen and rubin’s (2006) item 11 is not considered in items' structure. ionio, mascheroni, & di blasio 365 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ according to the three-factor measurement model for the 20-item version of berntsen and rubin’s (2006), factor 1 measured the extent to which the event had become a reference point for expectations and the attribution of meaning to other personal life events, with factor loadings ranging from .60 to .78. factor 2 measured the perception of the event as central to one’s personal identity with factor loadings ranging from .65 to .78. factor 3 measured whether the event was perceived as a turning point in one’s life story with factor loadings ranging from .73 to .83. cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were computed. the α coefficients for the three factors were .85 for factor 1, .82 for factor 2, and .86 for factor 3, which indicate acceptable reliability (anastasi & urbina, 1997; kline, 2000). multigroup analyses the fit indicators obtained separately for the male and female samples were acceptable (male: cfi = .903; rmsea = .079, female: cfi = .910; rmsea = .070), so further metric and scalar invariance across samples was tested. when applying the three-factor measurement model to gender—male and female—we found full metric invariance (∆rmsea = .002; ∆cfi = −.01) but not full scalar invariance (∆rmsea = .002; ∆cfi = .031). centrality of event scale and ptsd symptomatology the correlations among the ces and ies-r scores are reported in table 3. in particular, the overall scores and the three factors of the ces were significantly correlated with the presence of posttraumatic stress symptomatology of intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal. table 3 correlation among ces and ies-r scale ies-r ies-r int ies-r avd ies-r hyp ces .575*** .550*** .328*** .530*** ces f1 .501*** .470*** .300*** .457*** ces f2 .509*** .495*** .288*** .461*** ces f3 .559*** .537*** .302*** .534*** note. ies-r = impact of event scale revised; ies-r int = impact of event scale revised intrusion symptomatology; ies-r avo = impact of event scale revised avoidance symptomatology; ies-r hyp = impact of event scale revised hyperarousal symptomatology; ces = centrality of event scale; f1 = factor 1; f2 = factor 2; f3 = factor 3. ***p < .001. the participants obtained a mean score of 22.84 in the ies-r, ranging from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 64. as suggested by weiss and marmar (1997), scores that exceed 24 can be quite meaningful. in particular, 42.5% of the adolescents in our sample obtained a score over this cutoff. moreover, adolescents who obtained scores over 24 on the ies-r had significantly higher scores in each scale of the ces (see table 4). traumatic experiences in adolescence 366 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 difference in ces scores between adolescents that obtained scores below and above the ies-r cut-off of 24 scale scores below 24 at ies-r scores above 24 at ies-r tm sd m sd ces 43.09 15.47 60.13 15.91 -9.564*** ces f1 14.03 6.35 20.34 6.92 -8.419*** ces f2 16.70 6.45 22.40 6.14 -7.917*** ces f3 12.37 4.62 17.40 5.10 -9.155*** note. ies-r = impact of event scale revised; ces = centrality of event scale; f1 = factor 1; f2 = factor 2; f3 = factor 3. ***p < .001. discussion different studies observed that the ces is a valid and reliable tools in order to assess the extent to which the memory of a highly stressful and traumatic event may become central to a person’s life in different types of clinical and nonclinical samples (berntsen & rubin, 2006; brown et al., 2010; cunha et al., 2012; groleau et al., 2013; robinaugh & mcnally, 2011; schuettler & boals, 2011; vagos et al., 2018). however, to our knowledge, still few studies explored the psychometric properties of this tool among adolescents, especially considering the italian context (cunha et al., 2012; ionio et al., 2018; vagos et al., 2018). thus, the first aim of the present study was to evaluate factor structure of the ces in a sample of italian adolescents. we chose to focus on this specific life phase since meaning-making processes start during adolescence, which are the integration of memories into one’s personal identity (mclean, breen, & fournier, 2010; vagos et al., 2018) and the building of one’s personal future identity (kroger, 2004). we tested both the one-factor and three-factor solutions, in accordance with the theoretical framework of the ces, underlying the processes that characterize the centrality of event processing in autobiographical memory organization. after verifying the normal distribution of the items, we performed cfa, which showed that the one-factor solution, although previously advocated with adults (berntsen & rubin, 2006), did not achieve acceptable fit for this sample. our analyses demonstrated that the three-factor solution based on berntsen and rubin’s (2006) findings was a better solution for our data. however, this solution did not reach full scalar invariance across gender. as suggested by vagos and colleagues (2018), boys and girls may process and integrate stressful and traumatic experiences in different ways during adolescence. for example, males may generally split the negative effect of a stressful experience into each of its components, while females may have more difficulties in marking the different effects that traumatic events may have had on their life stories. moreover, we wanted to evaluate the impact of stressful and traumatic experiences during adolescence by exploring if a relationship existed between ces scores and ptsd symptomatology among a sample of italian adolescents. more specifically, we investigated whether higher scores on the ces were associated with higher levels of ptsd symptomatology, as tested by the impact of event scale revised, to better understand if the centrality of stressful or traumatic events among adolescents is related to the development of ptsd symptomatology. we found a significant positive correlation between ces and ies-r scores, considering both the total scores and the subscales’ scores. according to berntsen and rubin’s findings (2006, 2007), our results pointed out that the mechanisms measured by the ces are important to better understand the presence ionio, mascheroni, & di blasio 367 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of individual differences in ptsd symptomatology. our sample comprised a population of adolescents who experienced or did not experience a traumatic event, with or without ptsd symptomatology. we found that participants with an ies-r score over the critical cutoff indicating ptsd had significantly higher ces scores compared to the others. these results indicate and increase our knowledge about the large individual differences in the development of ptsd symptomatology in response to stressful events (brewin, andrews, & valentine, 2000; ionio & di blasio, 2014; ionio & mascheroni, 2014; mcnally, bryant, & ehlers, 2003). in particular, we confirm in our italian sample of adolescents what was found by the authors of the ces (berntsen & rubin, 2006, 2007): the impact of a one-time event changes according to the individual’s perception and evaluation of the event. this study is not without limitations, namely the fact that it did not include a wide range of ages. an important next step will be to test the invariance among different ages. moreover, we tested a nonclinical population of adolescents, which reduces the generalizability of our findings. we believe that to better understand the centrality of events in the organization of one’s autobiographical memory and cognitive processing during adolescence, it will be necessary to validate the ces also in in clinical samples of italian adolescents. a further next step will be to explore whether different traumatic events (for example, being sexually assaulted, child neglect and maltreatment, the death of a parent, etc.) are central to adolescents’ life story, to their personal identity, and to the attribution of meaning to other personal life events in the same or in different ways. in addition, in order to better understand the underlying psychological operations measured by the ces, an important issue for future research will be the relationship between the ces and other psychological scales that measure, for example, depression, anxiety, and maladaptive cognitive processing styles in response to stressful events. in conclusion, our findings suggested that the ces could be a valid measure in the italian context that is suitable for adolescents. we believe that this tool could be useful for the early identification of psychological disorders in adolescents. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. traumatic experiences in adolescence 368 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references adams, g. r., & berzonsky, m. 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(1997). the impact of event scale-revised. in j. p. wilson & t. m. keane (eds.), assessing psychological trauma and ptsd (pp. 399-411). new york, ny, usa: guilford press. about the authors chiara ionio, phd, researcher in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since june 2006. her major research interests are: the impact of traumatic events on children and adolescents; perinatal psychology (preterm birth, parent-child interaction and child’s neuropsychological development; twin births and parental stress during pregnancies and after childbirth; prenatal and postnatal attachment in women with oncological diagnosis during pregnancy). contact: cridee, department of psychology, catholic university of milan, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy (chiara.ionio@unicatt.it) (corresponding author). eleonora mascheroni, phd. her main research interest are: the impact of preterm birth on parent-child interaction and on child’s neuropsychological development; the impact of twin births on parental stress during pregnancies and after childbirth; risk and protective factors for the construction of prenatal and postnatal attachment in women with oncological diagnosis during pregnancy. contact: eleonora.mascheroni@unicatt.it paola di blasio, phd, full professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan. she is also director of the department of psychology, of the research centre for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, marital adjustment, and parenting stress. contact: paola.diblasio@unicatt.it traumatic experiences in adolescence 372 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 359–372 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1465 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2010.519273 http://doi.org/10.1348/014466505x64081 http://doi.org/10.1177/1073191116651137 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ traumatic experiences in adolescence (introduction) the centrality of event scale: theoretical background and prior studies aim method participants measures procedure data analyses results factor structure multigroup analyses centrality of event scale and ptsd symptomatology discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors guilt and proneness to shame: unethical behaviour in vulnerable and grandiose narcissism research reports guilt and proneness to shame: unethical behaviour in vulnerable and grandiose narcissism pauline georgees poless* ab, linda torstveit c, ricardo gregorio lugo b, marita andreassen b, stefan sütterlin de [a] department of psychosocial science, university of bergen, bergen, norway. [b] department of psychology, inland norway university of applied sciences, lillehammer, norway. [c] department of psychology, university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark. [d] chtd research group, division of clinical neuroscience, oslo university hospital, oslo, norway. [e] faculty of health and welfare sciences, østfold university college, fredrikstad, norway. abstract narcissists are described as individuals with dysfunctional personality traits such as lack of psychological awareness and empathy. theories of ethical behaviour assume that unethical actions trigger moral emotions of guilt and shame. currently, there is a lack of knowledge on moral emotions as dispositional traits and their potential influences on behaviour in individuals with narcissistic traits. the present study examined vulnerable and grandiose narcissism’s differences in the propensity to experience guilt and shame as a proneness, across a range of personal transgressions. guilt proneness was measured by negative evaluation of unethical behaviour, and whether this evaluation could influence reparation of tendencies of unethical action in vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. shame proneness was investigated by negative evaluation of the self, and then whether the previous tendency could affect unethical decision making and behaviour (e.g., hiding), in vulnerable and grandiose narcissism. two hundred and sixteen participants responded to the guilt and shame proneness scale, the narcissistic personality inventory scale and the hypersensitive narcissism scale in an online questionnaire. findings indicate that grandiose narcissism was negatively associated with guilt proneness, and the relation between the vulnerable narcissism and guilt proneness was negative. additionally, the results confirm a negative association between grandiose narcissism and shame proneness, especially related to the subscale ‘shame negative self-evaluation’. furthermore, guilt and shame proneness explained 20% of the variance in vulnerable narcissism and 11% in grandiose narcissism. this research indicates that both vulnerable and grandiose narcissism have the tendency to make unethical decisions, and they are more likely to enact in unethical behaviour. these findings are relevant for the detection of narcissistic individual’s propensity to act unethically in social context. keywords: shame and guilt proneness in narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism, unethical decision making in narcissism, unethical behaviour europe's journal of psychology, , vol. 14(1), 28–43, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 received: 2016-12-14. accepted: 2017-08-14. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom *corresponding author at: gimlebakken 14a, 5052, bergen, norway. phone-number: +47 984 72 962. e-mail: pauline_georgees@hotmail.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. narcissism: the grandiose and vulnerable type the term narcissism describes personality traits of individuals with a self-centric orientation, followed by thoughts of unlimited power and success, and an excessive need of encouragement and special treatment (american psychiatric association, 2013). narcissistic personality disorder has numerous detrimental europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ implications for social adaptation and interaction (beck et al., 2001; dickinson & pincus, 2003; schoenleber, sadeh, & verona, 2011). while individuals with strong narcissistic traits often show assertive and arrogant characteristics, they often experience anxiety, suspiciousness and hypersensitivity (murray, 1938). narcissistic qualities, such as a pronounced sense of entitlement and lack of empathy, coexist in line with increased vulnerability, the feeling of inferiority, discontentment with life and a higher risk of depression (kernberg, 1975). more recent research on these seemingly contradictory characteristics of narcissistic personalities led to the identification of the subtypes vulnerable and grandiose narcissism with different expressions of cognitive and behavioural features (cain, pincus, & ansell, 2008; pincus & lukowitsky, 2010). the grandiose subtype is characterized by both internal and external self-defensive attributes about oneself, a need for attention and special treatment, a high esteem of self-meaning, extraversion and social dominance, and is interpersonally manipulative (e.g., exploits others to gain personal goals). in contrast, the vulnerable subtype often suffers from inferiority, negative emotionality and dependency on external sources of admiration, high level of vigilance; but can also be characterized by entitlement and grandiose fantasy (ackerman, hands, donnellan, hopwood, & witt, 2017; cain et al., 2008, pincus & lukowitsky 2010; ronningstam, 2011). consequently, grandiose narcissism is associated with a dominating and exploitative social style, as opposed to vulnerable narcissism that displays higher proneness to feelings of inadequacy in social contexts, hypersensitivity based on others evaluation, and high aggression (dickinson & pincus, 2003; schoenleber et al., 2011). narcissism and moral emotions the psychological literature often connects narcissistic personality traits to maladaptive behaviour and social dysfunction, e.g., aggression, low agreeableness, impulsivity, psychopathy and lack of empathy (hepper, hart, meek, cisek, & sedikides, 2014; holtzman, vazire, & mehl, 2010; schoenleber et al., 2011; vazire & funder, 2006). lack of moral emotions such as guilt and shame might provide a possible reason for the observed maladaptive behaviour. a growing body of research supports the notion that individuals who are more inclined to ethical behaviours often show a lower threshold for experiencing guilt (cohen, panter, & turan, 2012; katchadourian, 2010; torstveit, sütterlin, & lugo, 2016). moral emotions play a crucial role in deterring unethical and antisocial behaviour (olthof, 2012; xu, bègue, & bushman, 2012). individuals who act in a manner inconsistent with their own moral ideals and standards, may experience negative emotions such as anger, aggression and/ or perception of guilt (stuewig, tangney, heigel, harty, & mccloskey, 2010). studies suggest that individuals who act in accordance with moral emotions are less likely to commit criminal offenses and are more reliable to others (stuewig & mccloskey, 2005). guilt and shame are characterized by feelings of distress arising in response to personal transgressions (tangney & dearing, 2002; tangney, stuewig, & mashek, 2007; wolf, cohen, panter, & insko, 2010). nevertheless, there are two differences between these emotional tendencies, the self-behaviour distinction and the public-private distinction (cohen, wolf, panter, & insko, 2011). guilt arises from behaviours which lead to negative feelings about specific actions that the person has committed (tracy & robins, 2004) and is an emotional response that is directed against the act, (e.g., “i have done something wrong”). in contrast, shame is a negative emotion that originates from a person's self-evaluation (e.g., “i am a bad person”), which leads to an experience of negative emotions about the public self (tracy & robins, 2004). people who tend to experience shame are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, high neuroticism, and personal distress. according to tangney and dearing (2002), individuals that score high in guilt are more likely to attempt to change their behaviour, while individuals low in guilt are more prone to retreat and conceal their negative actions. poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 29 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ narcissistic individuals, in particular the grandiose subtype, are negatively associated with guilt and shame (czarna, 2014; wright, o’leary, & balkin, 1989). furthermore, the vulnerable dimension of narcissism is positively associated with shame (freis, brown, carroll, & arkin, 2015; malkin, barry, & zeigler-hill, 2011), while there is a lack of knowledge regarding to the relationship between the vulnerable narcissism and guilt. both shame and guilt have been described as dispositions or proneness that may influence individuals’ ethical behaviour (cohen et al., 2011). the concept of the proneness to experience guilt is usually operationalized by the assessment of an individual’s evaluation of previously committed negative behaviour and the tendency to repair it. shame proneness is operationalized as negative self-evaluation and subsequent withdrawal when a transgression is public and the tendency to conceal it (cohen et al., 2011). while previous research primarily investigated the relation between narcissistic individuals and moral emotions typically operationalized as a subjectively experienced momentary state (e.g. giammarco & vernon, 2015; thomaes, bushman, stegge, & olthof, 2008; wright et al., 1989), there is a lack of research on the effect of moral emotions and prediction on ethical behaviour in these individuals. it remains unclear how associations between moral emotions and ethical behaviour affect the different subtypes of narcissisms. this study attempts to address some of the difficulties in current research, and aims to explore possible associations between proneness to experience moral emotions, based on guilt and shame, and ethical behaviour in individuals with narcissistic traits (e.g., vulnerable and grandiose narcissism). hypotheses because vulnerable and grandiose narcissism usually report different associations to shame (freis et al., 2015; malkin et al., 2011; wright et al., 1989), as well as the exploration of the relationship to guilt is still unexplored, it seems reasonable to investigate both subtypes separately. since vulnerable narcissism is usually associated with low levels of self-esteem, (a) we expect a positive association between the vulnerable narcissism subtype and shame based on negative self-evaluation. since narcissistic individuals tend to report a reduced ability to feel guilt and usually report low on empathy (hepper, hart, meek, et al., 2014; wright et al., 1989), (b) we further expect a negative association between vulnerable narcissism and guilt negative behaviour evaluation, as well as a negative association between the vulnerable narcissism and guilt repair. we further expect (c) a negative relation between grandiose narcissism and guilt negative behaviour evaluation, and a negative association between the grandiose narcissism and guilt repair. due to the nature of narcissistic behaviour, we (d) expect that guilt negative behaviour evaluation and shame negative self-evaluation will mediate ethical or unethical behaviour of narcissism. method research design and procedure data were acquired via online questionnaires. participation was anonymous and voluntary; no compensation was given. questionnaires were distributed and completed by using the online survey system soscisurvey (leiner, 2014, www.soscisurvey.de). the survey could be answered in two languages (norwegian and english). the study has been approved by the norwegian social science data services (nsd; project nr. 45524). narcissism and unethical behaviour 30 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 http://www.soscisurvey.de https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants (n = 216; 74.5% female) were recruited through social media and from universities. 40.7% reported norwegian as their first language and 59.3% other languages such as english, german, arabic, russian, spanish, danish, etc. mean age was 26.70 (sd = 11.3, range 15 70 years). eleven participants did not deliver complete questionnaires, presumably due to the length of the survey (15 minutes). this is the reason why this article will report two different sample sizes later in this section. questionnaires narcissistic personality inventory levels of grandiose narcissism were measured with the narcissistic personality inventory (npi; ames, rose, & anderson, 2006). the scale is based on dsm iv criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, but was developed to assess individual degrees of non-clinical narcissism in the general public. this study applied shorter version of the npi measures the most characteristic components of grandiose narcissism, which are authority, superiority, exhibitionism, selfishness and feeling of justice (ames et al., 2006). each of the 16 items consists of two statements. exemplary items are “i like to be in the center of attention” and “i feel uncomfortable when i’m in center of attention”. reliability was reported to be cronbach’s alpha = .86 (ames et al., 2006). hypersensitive narcissism scale the hypersensitive narcissism scale (hsns, hendin & cheek, 1997) was used to assess vulnerable narcissism. the hsns is based on the narcissism scale by murray (1938) and consists of 10 items responded to on a 5point likert scale. an exemplary item is “i dislike being with a group unless i know that i am appreciated by at least one of those present.”, where the participant is asked to rate from 1 (very uncharacteristic/untrue/strongly disagree) to 5 (very characteristics/true/strongly agree). the study of hendin and cheek (1997) reported a cronbach’s alpha of .76. guilt and shame proneness scale guilt and shame proneness was measured by guilt and shame proneness scale (gasp; cohen et al., 2011). gasp consists of 4 different subscales: guilt negative behaviour evaluation, guilt repair, shame negative selfevaluation and shame withdraw. it has 16 items intended to ask the respondents to imagine themselves in different situations, and afterwards ask what is the likelihood they would act, feel or think in a certain manner. an example of an item is “after realizing you have received too much change at a store, you decide to keep it because the salesclerk doesn't notice. what is the likelihood that you would feel uncomfortable about keeping the money?” the scale is a 7-point likert scale, ranging from (1) very unlikely to (7) very likely. this scale is reported to have a cronbach’s alpha of .60 (cohen et al., 2011). statistical analysis all statistical analysis was done by means of spss (version 20, ibm corporation, 2011). assumption of normality and homogeneity of variance was tested prior to further analysis. a pearson’s correlation was calculated for all relevant variables. a linear multiple regression was used to determine how much of the variance in the dependent variables vulnerable and grandiose narcissism could be explained by the independent variables guilt and shame proneness. finally, mediation analyses were employed to understand if the relation between narcissism and ethical behaviour (guilt repair)/ and unethical behaviour (shame withdraw) poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 31 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ may be affected by a mediator variable (e.g., guilt, negative behaviour evaluation, and shame, negative selfevaluation). the process model (hayes, 2013) for spss is used to conduct the mediation analyses. results reliability analysis all psychometric instruments used in this study were tested for internal consistency. shame withdraw showed low cronbach’s alpha (.506), therefore this scale underwent an exploratory factor analysis. the factor analysis confirmed the one-factor structure with one factor exceeding an eigenvalue > 1 (1.615) explaining 40.38% of total variance. cronbach’s alpha, descriptive statistics and reliability indices for the measurements are presented in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics (n = 216) variables cronbach’s α mean sd min. max. grandiose narcissism .711 3.62 2.84 0 14 vulnerable narcissism .663 28.73 5.10 15 47 guilt-nbe .759 21.98 5.10 4 28 guilt-repair .660 22.45 3.90 11 28 shame-nse .713 22.99 4.30 7 28 shame-withdraw .506 11.79 4.02 4 24 note. nbe = negative behaviour evaluation, nse = negative self-evaluation. correlation between variables pearson product-moment correlation was calculated to examine the relationships between vulnerable narcissism and shame proneness (negative self-evaluation), vulnerable narcissism and guilt proneness (negative self-evaluation and repair), and grandiose narcissism and guilt proneness (negative self-evaluation and repair). the results of this analytical procedure are shown in table 2. table 2 correlation between variables variable grandiose narcissism vulnerable narcissism guilt, negative behaviour evaluation -.282** -.175* guilt-repair -.235** -.227** shame, negative self-evaluation -.305** -.010 shame-withdraw -.068 .357** *p < .01. **p < .001. narcissism and unethical behaviour 32 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ standard multiple regression and the variance in the grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism to determine whether guilt proneness (negative self-evaluation and repair) would uniquely contribute to variance in grandiose narcissism, a standard multiple regression was performed, f(4, 197) = 6.093, p < .001, r2 = .11 (11%). guilt proneness has no unique contribution to explaining the variance in the grandiose narcissism (see table 3). table 3 standard multiple regression: grandiose narcissism predictor variable b se b β guilt, negative behaviour evaluation -.075 .054 -.134 guilt-repair -.031 .067 -.045 shame, negative self-evaluation -.125 .062 -.190 shame-withdraw -.047 .048 -.067 note. r2 = .110. when it comes to vulnerable narcissism and guilt (negative self-evaluation and repair) and shame proneness (negative self-evaluation), f(4, 203) = 12.435, p < .001, r2 = .20 (20%), the results of standard multiple regression indicated that guilt proneness (repair) (3%, rraj2 = .184), had the only unique contribution to explaining the variance in the vulnerable narcissism (see table 4). table 4 standard multiple regression: vulnerable narcissism predictor variable b se b β guilt, negative behaviour evaluation -.139 .091 -.138 guilt-repair -.329 .112 -.249** shame, negative self-evaluation .250 .104 .211 shame-withdraw .420 .080 .331** note. r2 = .197. *p < .01. **p < .001. mediation analysis grandiose narcissism and ethical behaviour by guilt repair the relationship between grandiose narcissism and ethical behaviour by guilt repair, was mediated by guilt, negative behaviour evaluation. the regression of the grandiose narcissism and ethical behaviour was significant, b = .515, t(200) = 2.91, p < .05, the regression of the grandiose narcissism predicting guilt, negative behaviour evaluation was also significant, b = .496, t(200) = 2.146, p = .03. the regression of the grandiose narcissism and guilt negative behaviour evaluation which combined predict unethical behaviour, were significant, f(2, 199) = 72.92, p < .001, r2 = .42 (42%), b = .482, t(199) = 11.5, p < .001. a sobel test was conducted and found mediation in the model z = 2.10, p < .05, ҝ2 = .239. (see figure 1 and 2). poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 33 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mediation analysis: without a mediator. figure 2. mediation analysis: with a mediator. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. vulnerable narcissism and ethical behaviour by guilt repair the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and ethical behaviour by guilt repair was mediated by guilt, negative behaviour evaluation. the regression of the vulnerable narcissism and ethical behaviour was significant, b = .172, t(205) = 3.33, p < .01, the regression of the vulnerable narcissism predicting guilt, negative behaviour evaluation was also significant b = .187, t(205) = 2.77, p < .01. the regression of the vulnerable narcissism and guilt negative behaviour evaluation which together predict ethical behaviour, was significant, f(2.204) = 73.63, p < .001, r2 = .42 (42%), b = .470, t(204) = 11.4, p < .001. a sobel test was conducted and found mediation in the model z = 2.68, p < .01, ҝ2 = -.089 (see figure 3 and 4). figure 3. mediation analysis: without a mediator. narcissism and unethical behaviour 34 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. mediation analysis: with a mediator. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. vulnerable narcissism and unethical behaviour by shame withdraw the relationship between vulnerable narcissism and ethical behaviour by shame withdraw was mediated by shame, negative self-evaluation. the regression of the vulnerable narcissism and ethical behaviour was significant, b = .287, t(205) = 5.488, p < .001, the regression of the vulnerable narcissism predicting shame, negative self-evaluation was not significant. the regression of the vulnerable narcissism and shame negative self-evaluation which together predict ethical behaviour, was significant, f(2, 204) = 15.213, p < .001, r2 = .13 (13%), but not significant between shame, negative self-evaluation (mediator) and shame withdraw (unethical behaviour). a sobel test was conducted, and the results were not significant, z = .106, p < .92, ҝ2 = .0005. grandiose narcissism and unethical behaviour by shame withdraw shame withdraw did not mediate the relationship between grandiose narcissism and ethical behaviour. a sobel test was conducted and the result was as following, z = .303, p = .76, ҝ2 = .0055. discussion guilt proneness in narcissistic individuals this study confirms that grandiose narcissism is negatively associated with guilt proneness (negative behaviour evaluation and repair). in addition, the vulnerable narcissism is also negatively associated with guilt proneness (negative behaviour evaluation and repair). if we consider guilt as only an emotional state (e.g., the state of guilt high or low at the moment), this finding is consistent with previous studies which also suggest that the narcissism is immune to feelings of guilt (giammarco & vernon, 2015; wright et al., 1989). the subscales of guilt proneness are related to tendencies usually arising in response to personal transgressions in private (e.g., “i did something bad.” response: repair the negative behaviour) (cohen et al., 2011). accordingly, guilt as a moral and negative emotion is associated with a private sense of having acted in a manner that violates one’s conscience. the negative relationship between narcissism and guilt proneness may be related to the lack of empathy and excessive sense of entitlement which often characterizes narcissism (american psychiatric association, 2013). according to other studies, guilt proneness is positively correlated to empathy (torstveit et poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 35 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2016; xu et al., 2012). individuals who are high in narcissism usually report negative associations to empathy, and it may reflect their inability to take other individual's emotional state, which also often may lead to antisocial behaviour (delič, novak, kovačič, & avsec, 2011; eisenberg, 2007; karremans, van lange, & holland, 2005; vonk, zeigler-hill, mayhew, & mercer, 2013). the sense of entitlement is considered as a salient trait among narcissistic individuals, through an unreasonable expectation of favourable treatment. they expect to be catered to, and may become aggressive if this does not happen (american psychiatric association, 2013). accordingly, it might be a reason why they are not able to take into account the needs and desires of others. in terms of personality, individuals with high guilt nbe (negative behaviour evaluation) scores are more prone to be more empathic, humble, conscientious, agreeable, and altruistic than those with low guilt nbe scores. in addition, individuals who are high in guilt nbe are more likely to show a desire to repair their behaviour and to prevent future negative behaviour (cohen et al., 2011). shame proneness in narcissistic individuals the current study indicates different responses among both dimensions of narcissism regarding shame proneness’ subtypes. there was a negative correlation between the grandiose narcissism and shame nse (negative self-evaluation), while there were no significant findings between vulnerable narcissism and shame nse. however, this study suggests that there is a positive correlation between vulnerable narcissism and shame withdraw, but there was no significant relation between grandiose narcissism and shame withdraw. previous studies confirm a positive relation between the vulnerable narcissism and shame (e.g., shame as an emotional state) (freis et al., 2015). shame proneness (negative self-evaluations and withdraw), arising in response to personal transgressions in public (e.g., “i’m a bad person.” response: withdraw or hiding behaviour from public). furthermore, shame is a negative emotion, often elicits when one’s transgressions are exposed publicly (cohen et al., 2011). the fact that the grandiose narcissism showed a negative correlation with shame nse, may be explained by grandiose narcissism’s high levels of self-esteem, unlike the vulnerable narcissism. self-esteem is usually defined as a psychological term that goes back to the subjective evaluations that a person makes on one’s self – worth (hewitt, 2009). some studies show that both dimensions of narcissism can vary in their self-esteem, where vulnerable narcissism is usually associated with low levels of self-esteem in contrast to the grandiose dimension of narcissism (wright et al., 1989). on the basis of previous studies, shame nse is strongly related to low self-esteem, more than guilt nbe (negative behaviour evaluation) (cohen et al., 2011; tangney & dearing, 2002). the current study, on the other hand shows a positive correlation between the vulnerable narcissism and shame withdraw. it can be explained by vulnerable narcissisms sensitivity to criticism, to others' evaluations, and low self – esteem (cain et al., 2008). in addition, there may be a reason why the vulnerable narcissism tends to hide their negative behaviour from the public (e.g., fear to criticism). as with guilt nbe, individuals with lower shame nse scores are more likely to make unethical decisions, commit delinquent behaviours, and lie for monetary gain (cohen et al., 2011). private and public distinctions of moral emotions and influences on ethical – or unethical behaviour an important perspective to understand are the distinctions between private and public moral emotion tendencies. guilt nbe (negative behaviour evaluation) is more linked to private evaluations of behaviour that narcissism and unethical behaviour 36 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ violates one’s moral standards (combs, campbell, jackson, & smith, 2010; smith, webster, parrott, & eyre, 2002). both of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism show a negative association with guilt nbe. shame nse (negative self-evaluation) in the other side, is more connected to evaluations of one’s publicly actions and behaviours that violates general ethical standards (combs et al., 2010; smith et al., 2002). grandiose narcissism is negatively associated with shame nse, while there was no significant association between the vulnerable narcissism and shame nse. thus, both vulnerable and grandiose narcissistic individuals tend to have dysfunctional moral standards which are inconsistent with acceptable moral and ethical ideals (e.g., moral: more related to personal perception of right and wrong; ethic: more related to common and social standards of right and wrong). this inability increases the tendency and frequency to commit delinquent offenses, which may lead to destructive consequences for the community (haidt & kesebir, 2010). the present findings indicate that guilt proneness (measured by negative behaviour evaluation and repair items) and shame proneness (negative self-evaluation and withdraw items) explained together 20% of the variance in the vulnerable narcissism, whereas the same predictors only explained 11% of the difference in the grandiose narcissism. tangney, stuewig, mashek, and hastings (2011) suggest that guilt and shame proneness have different influences on the self and behaviour. individuals who score positive and high in guilt proneness, report lower levels of antisocial personality disorder and criminogenic cognitions. in contrast, individuals who report high and positive levels of shame proneness are positively connected to antisocial personality disorder and criminogenic cognitions (tangney et al., 2011). cohen et al. (2011) discuss the importance of differentiation of moral emotions and their different effect on behaviour. shame proneness is positively associated with psychological dysfunctioning (e.g., neuroticism, personal distress), while guilt proneness is negatively correlated with unethical decision making (cohen et al., 2011). since there are different influences that both guilt and shame proneness have on ethical behaviour in future research, it might be furthermore useful to observe the variance of narcissism by guilt and shame proneness separately (e.g., grandiose narcissism and guilt proneness; grandiose narcissism and shame proneness etc.), and not together. results of a mediation analysis suggest that the grandiose dimension of narcissism would predict the ethical behaviour (negative relation), by guilt repair with 4%. on the other hand, grandiose narcissism and guilt nbe (negative behaviour evaluation) together would predict ethical behaviour (negative correlation) with 42%. the same results apply also in vulnerable grandiose and ethical behaviour, by guilt repair (see the figure 3 and 4 in the result section). when it comes to unethical behaviour the findings of this study showed different results between the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. vulnerable narcissism would predict unethical behaviour, by shame withdraw with 13% and with a mediator, shame nse (negative self-evaluation), together would predict unethical behaviour with also 13%. however, the grandiose narcissism and unethical behaviour by shame withdraw had no significant relation together. the last result may reflect the differences in personality between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, and their different responses to social circumstances. the distinction between the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in regard to their proneness to experience moral emotions, is of a great importance of both theoretical and practical approach. more research is needed to illuminate differences between these two dimensions of narcissism as two separately personality patterns; particularly in which traits they differ from each other; and how they tend to act in social contexts. the present study confirms the notion that the grandiose and vulnerable narcissism differ in their personality types. although both tend to have inability to experience guilt proneness and thus may not be able to repair unethical behaviour, it seems that vulnerable narcissism, in addition, tend to withdraw the unethical behaviour from public. this kind poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 37 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of knowledge may be important in job recruitment, e.g., employment of trustworthy people, and also in identification of unethical behaviour and tendencies in individuals with narcissistic traits. limitations and suggestions for future research because of the study’s electronic participation in an online survey, the selection attracted and consisted of many different age groups. the present study included low age of participants, and age range started from age 15. this particular issue may raise opportunities for new discussions; whether the sample is representatively enough for the normal population, since the phenomenon narcissism begins by early adulthood (e.g., according to american psychiatric association, 2013). to avoid such mistakes in future research, it will be more appropriate to inform participants that the desired age for participation is from age of 18. some of guilt and shame proneness subscales of our sample had poor reliability. especially shame withdraw (.506) and guilt repair (.660), due to the low number of items (four items) but these were similar to the original scale from cohen et al. study (2011), and also other studies which also reported low cronbach’s alpha (e.g., arli, leo, & tjiptono, 2016). this lower reliability compared to the original scale could be caused by the heterogeneous (18 different countries) sample compared to the original scale (one country). another limitation of the study was the educational background of the participants. the majority of the respondents seemed to be highly educated. this can also limit the variation in the sample, and therefore may not be representative for other social groups. in addition, the gender of this study was imbalanced, with 74.5% female. this restriction may be regarded as a less significance for the result of the study, because the phenomenon narcissism is usually gender independent, as other studies confirm (e.g., reinhard, konrath, lopez, & cameron, 2012). the sample size of this study consists of less than 250 participants (n = 216). according to schönbrodt and perugini (2013), it can be problematic for stable estimates. usually correlations stabilize when n approaches 250 (reinhard et al., 2012). in addition, since this study presents two sub-groups of narcissism, there is more need for a larger sample size to verify the validity of these findings and to avoid method-bias. future research in this area must therefore ensure that population size achieve at least 250 participants to secure the stability in correlations. some values of mediation analysis achieved significant values, p <.05. according to goodman (2001), p <.05 have a high probability of acceptance of null hypothesis up to 30%. therefore, this level of p values must be reported as one of the limitations of this study. hepper, hart, and sedikides (2014) found that narcissistic individuals are able to take another's emotional state at perspective-taking, by using a concrete example (e.g., items that are not instructional, but more illustrative and based on a specific situation). since there is a positive relation between empathy by perspective-taking and moral emotions (e.g., guilt) future research may aim to investigate guilt, shame proneness and narcissism in more specific cases (e.g. job context) with perhaps same reformulations of the gasp items. with a concrete example, it may be possible to observe whether narcissistic individuals still make unethical decisions. this kind of research can be interesting in job recruitment and may avoid unethical behaviour in job contexts (e.g., cheating). conclusion this study is among the first to examine the roles of shame and guilt proneness on the tendency to act ethically in individuals with narcissistic traits. findings of this research indicate that there were a negative narcissism and unethical behaviour 38 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ association between guilt proneness and vulnerable narcissism, and also a negative relation between grandiose narcissism and guilt proneness. in other words, both of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism are unable to take into account their unethical behaviour as negative tendencies for the community, and also unwillingness to change their unethical behaviour. in addition, we found no significant association between vulnerable narcissism and the subscale shame negative self-evaluation. this finding was inconsistent with our expectations. finally, the present research suggests a positive association between vulnerable narcissism and shame withdraw. this result suggests that individuals high in vulnerable narcissism may be more prone to conceal behaviour which transgress social norms and moral. future research in the area should include potential influences of moral emotions on behaviour, more specifically how shame and guilt proneness can influence the tendency to act unethically in individuals with narcissistic traits. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ackerman, r. a., hands, a. j., donnellan, m. b., hopwood, c. j., & witt, e. a. 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(2012). too fatigued to care: ego depletion, guilt, and prosocial behavior. journal of experimental social psychology, 48(5), 1183-1186. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.007 about the authors pauline georgees poless is master student of psychological science with specialization in social – and cognitive psychology at university of bergen, norway, and member of the research group for cognition, health, and performance at inland norway university of applied sciences (inn). linda torstveit is student of clinical psychology at university of copenhagen, denmark, and member of the research group for cognition, health, and performance at inland norway university of applied sciences. narcissism and unethical behaviour 42 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.12.005 http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070145 http://doi.org/10.1177/0093854811405762 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01226.x http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1502_01 http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1002_4 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.010 http://doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.6.2.217 http://doi.org/10.1080/15298860903106843 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2012.03.007 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ricardo g. lugo is health psychologist and assistant professor at the department of psychology, inland norway university of applied sciences, norway, and member of the research group cognition, health, and performance at inland norway university of applied sciences. marita andreassen, msc, is cognitive neuroscientist, assistant professor at the department of psychology, inland norway university of applied sciences, norway and member of the research group cognition, health, and performance at inland norway university of applied sciences. stefan sütterlin, phd, is vice-dean for research at østfold university college, norway and senior researcher at the cdht research group of oslo university hospital. he is member of the research group for cognition, health, and performance at inland norway university of applied sciences. poless, torstveit, lugo et al. 43 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 28–43 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1355 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ narcissism and unethical behaviour (introduction) narcissism: the grandiose and vulnerable type narcissism and moral emotions hypotheses method research design and procedure questionnaires statistical analysis results reliability analysis correlation between variables standard multiple regression and the variance in the grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism mediation analysis discussion guilt proneness in narcissistic individuals shame proneness in narcissistic individuals private and public distinctions of moral emotions and influences on ethical – or unethical behaviour limitations and suggestions for future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors braintrust: what neuroscience tells us about morality book reviews churchland, patricia s. (2012). braintrust: what neuroscience tells us about morality. princeton, nj, usa: princeton university press. 288 pp. isbn 9780691156347. braintrust: what neuroscience tells us about morality farid pazhoohi* a [a] department of basic psychology, school of psychology, university of minho, braga, portugal. europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 515–518, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1589 published (vor): 2018-06-19. *corresponding author at: human cognition laboratory, school of psychology, university of minho, 4710 – 057 braga, portugal. e-mail: pazhoohi@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. patricia smith churchland, professor emerita of philosophy at the university of california, san diego, and an adjunct professor at the salk institute, coined “neurophilosophy,” to refer to the application of neuroscientific concepts to traditional philosophical questions. in braintrust: what neuroscience tells us about morality, churchland asks where values come from, and incorporates biological sciences with philosophy to answer the related moral questions. in the first chapter, churchland criticizes current conceptions of morality by asking why there are still unanswered fundamental questions in the field, including questions surrounding the nature of fairness. she believes that contemporary moral philosophy is “in peril of floating on a sea of mere, albeit confident, opinion” (p. 2) and has no relation to the current scientific findings in evolutionary biology and neuroscience. she suggests that we can answer some of the remaining moral questions by combining new findings in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, and genetics within a philosophical framework. in the second chapter, churchland emphasizes the intricate neural circuitry of the pain and reward system corresponding to the painfulness of separation and the pleasure of company. after explaining the underlying neurobiological mechanism of attachment, she suggests that moral practices churchland, patricia s. (2012). braintrust: what neuroscience tells us about morality. princeton, nj, usa: princeton university press. 288 pp. isbn 9780691156347. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ are rooted in social desires, most importantly in an attachment to family members, care for friends, and the need to belong. the third chapter deals with the question how organisms care about others. churchland explains how the inner state of the body is translated to the generation of motivational emotions and perceptual cues assessing the risks and opportunities of the outside world. here pain and fear are identified as main emotions for corrective behaviors, as warning signals and as means of self-preservation. she then explains the neurobiology and the mechanisms of mate attachment, parenting behavior, and the physiology of behavioral responses. she argues that there is no need for a specific underlying mechanism to explain the neurobiology of moral behavior as “the pain of exclusion, separation, and disapproval, […] exploits, expands, and modifies what is already in place for physical pain and homeostatic emotions in premammalian species” (p. 46). in the fourth chapter, churchland focuses on the neurobiology of oxytocin and its effects on trust and caring relationships. she claims that morality originates in the neurobiology of attachment, and so depends on the function of the oxytocin-vasopressin network in mammals. she notes that trust between individuals has much to do with oxytocin and vasopressin. unfortunately, while churchland offers detailed explanations of the relationship between oxytocin in trust and cooperation (concentrating on the effect of this neurotransmitter on human and animal behaviors), she neglects the evolutionary biological point of view, thus overlooking some very important arguments. in the fifth chapter, churchland explains gene-behavior relationships and how changes in genes would affect behavior. she reminds the reader that the gene/behavior relationship is complicated and she provides different examples and arguments to show that the gene/behavior relationship is not straightforward. in the sixth chapter, she deals with the function of prefrontal cortex, which “yields the intelligence in human social behavior” (p. 119). then she explores mirror neuron systems, the underlying neural mechanisms in attributing mental states to others and to oneself. although she is an optimist in explaining the neural substrate for complex social behaviors, she acknowledges the inability of current neuroscientific findings to explain the brain’s mechanisms and functions. in addition, she is skeptical that the mirror neuron system alone could be responsible (and sufficient) for explaining human intentions. in the seventh chapter, churchland explains the classical notion of morality in philosophy and highlights the shortcomings of these notions in providing universal rules. she explores different ethical doctrines and concludes that “counting on pure rationality and consistency to undergird morality is mistaken” (p. 175) as all intuitions are products of the brain generated in some way by nervous systems while remaining dependent on experience and cultural practices; therefore, these intuitions cannot reveal any metaphysical truths. she rejects the idea that supernatural beings are the source of morality, as something that is good or just or right is rooted in the nature of humans, and because, likewise, it is human nature that determines whether some social practices are better than others. her main thesis is that morality is based on social behaviors shaped by brain processes that include caring for kin and kith, the ability to recognize and predict others’ mental states and intentions, our capacity to problemsolve in a social context, and learnt social practices. morality, to churchland, is “a natural phenomenon—constrained by the forces of natural selection, rooted in neurobiology, shaped by the local ecology, and modified by cultural developments” (p. 191). therefore, the pain we avoid and the pleasure of belonging, along with the imibook reviews 516 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1589 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tation of those we admire, “give rise to powerful intuitions about the absolute rightness or wrongness of classes of behavior” (p. 192). there are some shortcomings in this book that make her thesis ambiguous and the argumentation at times unconvincing. overall, the relationship between hormone and behavior, gene-behavior, gene-environment and the claim that the behavior is brain-based are not novel. there is a huge body of literature on these relationships, so it is not obvious from the content of the book what her thesis adds to this conversation. churchland herself confesses this, noting that “the core of the biological approach to human morality favored in this book is not new, though my particular way of synthesizing the data and encompassing the relevant philosophical tradition may be” (p. 11). in addition, she is unsuccessful in extending the approach to the realm of philosophy, as she fails to offer a detailed explanation of morality from a philosophical point of view. at some points, churchland discusses unrelated subjects (e.g., in chapter six she goes through a detailed description of fmri technique function), which seem unnecessary to the overall argument, and, occasionally, paragraphs or sections lose focus. finally, the book finishes rather suddenly, without specifically highlighting a conclusion. nikolaas tinbergen, a dutch biologist and the winner of the 1973 nobel prize in physiology or medicine, introduced four fundamental questions for an integrative explanation of behavior, that seek to, identify the function, causation, development and evolution of behavior (tinbergen, 1963). the proximate explanation answers how an organism's structure functions and the ultimate question considers why a species evolved the adaptations it has. churchland explains the neurobiology of caring and the underlying mechanisms of social norms and behaviors (i.e., the how question) but she is not successful in linking evolutionary biology with morality (i.e., the why question). in other words, she argues that the brain is responsible for all human emotions and hence morality, but she fails to explain why morality has been adaptive and why it evolved the way it did. however, there are successful examples of evolutionary approach to morality (baumard, 2016; baumard, andré, & sperber, 2013). the potential audience of this book includes those philosophers who are not familiar with neuroscience and biology, as the biological discussions in this book are classical concepts of these fields. at the same time, it seems unlikely that a scholar with a philosophical background would find himself interested in detailed neurobiological arguments and discussions that are provided in this book. however, putting the criticisms aside, this book tries to open a new perspective to the philosophers and moral researchers and could be considered a pioneering approach in separating morality from the body of philosophy. educated general readers interested in the neurobiology and the underlying mechanisms of cooperation, attachment, and pair bonding might also find the book interesting. funding fp receives funding from fundação para a ciência e a tecnologia (fct) portugal through grant sfrh/bd/114366/2016. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. pazhoohi 517 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1589 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references baumard, n. (2016). the origins of fairness: how evolution explains our moral nature. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. baumard, n., andré, j.-b., & sperber, d. (2013). a mutualistic approach to morality: the evolution of fairness by partner choice. behavioral and brain sciences, 36(1), 59-78. doi:10.1017/s0140525x11002202 tinbergen, n. (1963). on aims and methods of ethology. zeitschrift für tierpsychologie, 20(4), 410-433. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.1963.tb01161.x about the author farid pazhoohi is interested in human ethology, neuropsychology and human behavioral ecology. he has published articles in the fields of neuroendocrinology, physiology, human perception, cognition, experimental and evolutionary psychology. he is currently studying phd in experimental psychology at university of minho. book reviews 518 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 515–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1589 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x11002202 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1963.tb01161.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ book reviews (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author empathy, guilt proneness, and gender: relative contributions to prosocial behaviour research reports empathy, guilt proneness, and gender: relative contributions to prosocial behaviour linda torstveit*ab, stefan sütterlinb, ricardo gregorio lugob [a]department of psychology, university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark. [b] section of psychology, lillehammer university college, lillehammer, norway. abstract guilt is a moral emotion that is often looked upon as a negative trait. however, studies show that some individuals are more predisposed to think, feel and act in a more ethical manner because of a lower threshold to experience guilt. some theories of helping behaviour emphasize the evolutionary mechanisms, while other theories stress the importance of social variables. this study investigated whether guilt proneness as a dispositional trait can be associated with prosocial behaviour. five hundred sixty-nine participants reported in an online survey their own levels of guilt proneness, frequency of prosocial behaviour, and related cognitions such as empathy. this study is among the first to demonstrate how guilt proneness combined with empathy can explain additional variance in prosocial behaviour. the findings also indicate gender differences in the precursors of prosocial behaviour, suggesting women are more influenced by the effects of guilt proneness on prosocial behaviour than men. keywords: guilt proneness, guilt, empathy, personality, prosocial behaviour, helping behaviour, gender europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 received: 2015-12-23. accepted: 2016-05-04. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: dept. of psychology, lillehammer university college, gudbrandsdalsvegen 350, 2624 lillehammer, norway. phone: +47 90269350. e-mail: vck993@alumni.ku.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. during the past two decades there has been an extensive amount of research examining the role guilt plays in our cognitions and actions. guilt can have an impact on human actions and may sometimes motivate good deeds (estrada-hollenbeck & heatherton, 1998). research indicates a positive correlation between personal experience of or perceived guilt and helping behaviour (miller, 2010). the feeling of guilt may occur when someone feels responsible for another person’s negative state (estrada-hollenbeck & heatherton, 1998). prosocial or helping behaviour is voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another person. this is behaviour characterized by concern about rights, feelings and well-being of others (estrada-hollenbeck & heatherton, 1998). altruism, a related concept, is the practise of selfless concern for or devotion to the welfare of others. when a motivation for prosocial behaviour is to help others without any thought of what one might get in return, we generally talk about altruism (hogg & vaughan, 2011). recent research suggests there may be certain individuals that are predisposed to act more ethically than others even when wrongdoing is private (cohen, panter, & turan, 2012). these studies propose that some individuals share an inter-individual trait called guilt proneness (cohen et al., 2012). guilt proneness is a personality characeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ teristic related to “a predisposition to experience negative feelings about personal wrongdoing, even when the wrongdoing is private” (cohen et al., 2012, p. 2). there may be many reasons behind a prosocial act. the feeling of guilt before a transgression has taken place may be explained by the skill of the individual to anticipate consequences or to think before acting to a greater degree than others (cohen et al., 2012). however, guilt proneness may predispose the individual to think, feel and act ethically and therefore might have an effect on helping behaviour. the trait is often characterized by the expectation of a negative feeling before committing a transgression, rather than by guilty feelings in a particular moment as various studies have examined (miller, 2010; roberts, strayer, & denham, 2014). although guilt and guilt proneness are closely connected there is a difference between them that needs to be emphasized. guilt is an uncomfortable moral emotion that occurs when a person has transgressed a social norm. guilt proneness on the other hand is a personality trait that involves a lower threshold of experiencing guilt even when a transgression is private, or before the individual has done a transgression (cohen et al., 2011; miller, 2010). previous studies on guilt proneness indicate that there is a significant difference between men and women in levels of this personality trait. some studies suggest that the difference in socialization of boys and girls may impact the threshold of experience guilt (benetti-mcquoid & bursik, 2005; cohen et al., 2011; gilligan, 1977; katchadourian, 2010; tangney, 1991). further research is needed to replicate these findings in different samples. the opportunity to help or encourage others arises daily, such as by helping an elderly person across a street, giving a pregnant woman a seat on the bus or donating blood. much of the earlier research has looked at the phenomena at a group-level (darley & batson, 1973; darley & latané, 1968; markey, 2000). however, as other studies have shown helping behaviour at an individual level can be just as important since it can play a mediating role in environmental influences on behaviour (cohen et al., 2012; tangney & dearing, 2002; tangney, stuewig, mashek, & hastings, 2011; zemack-rugar, bettman, & fitzsimons, 2007). the gap between perceiving a situation where someone needs help and taking action may be affected by multiple factors, such as diffusion of responsibility, perceived personal risk or conflict with other goals (darley & batson, 1973). in this context it seems reasonable to investigate associated cognitions such as empathy). evidence from a study on emotions and prosocial behaviour suggest that empathic children score higher on adaptive feeling of guilt (roberts et al., 2014). empathy is the experience where one understands and feels another person’s emotions and it is closely linked with both guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour (estrada-hollenbeck & heatherton, 1998; larsen, buss, & wismeijer, 2013). current study the focus of this study was to examine the relationship between helping behaviour and guilt proneness. the hypothesis builds on the assumption that more guilt prone individuals may be predisposed to think, feel and act in a more ethical way, thus exert more helping behaviour than people with low guilt proneness. since empathy is closely linked to prosocial behaviour, another hypothesis tested was that guilt proneness adds additional power to the prediction of prosocial behaviour and thus improves classical models relying on empathy alone. while several previous studies showed that females score on average higher on guilt proneness (cohen et al., 2011; tangney, 1991; wong, 2003), the implications of these findings for associations with resulting prosocial behaviour remain unclear. we therefore hypothesized that gender differences in guilt proneness might contribute to the explanation of prosocial behaviour. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 torstveit, sütterlin, & lugo 261 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methods research design and ethics data used in this paper is based on self-report data collected by means of an online survey conducted with the software package soscisurvey (leiner, 2014). the survey has been approved by the norwegian social science data protection authority (nsd; project nr. 40376; http://pvo.nsd.no/prosjekt/40376). participants to increase generalizability, the sample of 568 participants was recruited internationally through social media, psychological forums such as psychological research on the net (krantz, 2015), from an upper secondary school in norway and different international colleges and universities (united kingdom: university of greenwich, usa: carleton college, st. louis/mn, macalester college, st. paul/mn; presbyterian college, clinton/sc; poland: university of gdansk; germany: university of jena, university of würzburg; netherlands: university of twente). the questionnaire had two language options norwegian and english. the norwegian language option was chosen by 345 (60.7%) respondents, while 223 (39.3%) participants responded in english. of them 396 (69%) were women. the average age was 30 (m = 30.32, sd = 13.33), with an age-range of 15-76. material guilt and shame proneness scale guilt proneness was measured by using the guilt and shame proneness scale (gasp; cohen, wolf, panter, & insko, 2011). this scale was based on another test called test of self conscious affect (tosca; tangney & dearing, 2002). gasp is a scale consisting of four subscales: guilt-negative-behaviour-evaluation, guilt-repair, shame-negative-self evaluation, and shame-withdraw. the subscale guilt-negative-behaviour-evaluation was the only subscale used as a measure of guilt proneness, since the focus in this project was to see how respondents evaluate themselves and their behaviour, not on how they compensated for the transgression (guilt-repair). respondents imagine themselves in situations where they have committed transgression and are then asked to indicate the likelihood they would act or feel in the way described. the scale goes from (1) very unlikely to (7) very likely. an example of an item used in this subscale is ”you lie to people, but they never find out about it. what is the likelihood that you would feel terrible about the lies you told?” the benchmark on the test quality parameter is set on .60 of each subscale and the subscale has shown to be reliable (cronbach’s α = .69; cohen et al., 2011). altruistic personality scale altruistic personality scale was used to measure the self-reported tendency and frequency participants engage in altruistic acts or helping behaviour (aps; rushton, chrisjohn, & fekken, 1981). this is a 20-item, 5-point scale, ranging from (1) never to (5) very often. the following are examples of items: “i have given directions to a stranger. i have done volunteer work for a charity. i have donated blood. i have offered my seat on a bus or train to a stranger who was standing”. the scale is highly reliable (cronbach’s α = 0.9; rushton et al., 1981). brief social desirability scale when studying topics of helping behaviour one might encounter the problem of social desirability. social desirability refers to the respondent’s tendency to give desirable responses instead of indicating what they really do, feel or think (hayes, 2000). a measure to address this particular issue is brief social desirability scale (bsds; haghighat, 2007). an item in this scale may be: “would you ever lie to people?”. the scale has satisfactory reliabeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 empathy, guilt proneness, and gender 262 http://pvo.nsd.no/prosjekt/40376 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ility (α = .60; haghighat, 2007) and was used to segregate responses of highly desirable responses from the reliable responses. toronto empathy questionnaire to assess the level of empathy toronto empathy questionnaire was used (teq; spreng, mckinnon, mar, & levine, 2009). this test consists of 16 items, each is rated on a 5-point scale from (0) never to (4) always. “i get a strong urge to help when i see someone who is upset” is an example of an item. cronbach’s α for the scale is .85 (spreng et al., 2009). statistical analysis all statistical analysis was done by spss (version 22.0). statistical requirements for multivariate testing were checked before statistical analysis. assumption of normality was checked via shapiro-wilks test. homogeneity of variance was tested via levene’s test. a bivariate pearson’s correlation was calculated for all relevant variables. a stepwise regression analysis will show the influence of empathy and guilt proneness on prosocial behaviours. gender specific effects will also be investigated. results reliability analysis normality and homogeneity of variance was ensured. in this study, all scales except the brief social desirability scale (bsds, α = .38) can be considered reliable. bsds was not included in further analysis. the subscale of guilt proneness showed a test quality parameter of .60. themeasure of prosocial behaviour, aps, had a cronbach’s alpha of .86, while the toronto empathy questionnaire had a reliability of .78. gender, empathy, guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour consistent with earlier research examining the personality trait guilt proneness (cohen et al., 2012) there was a correlation between guilt proneness and empathy. correlations indicated lower levels of guilt proneness and empathy r(373) = -.285, p < .01 in males. there was also a positive correlation between guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour, which supports one of the research hypotheses. prosocial behaviour did, in this study, significantly correlate with all investigated variables, but was not associated with gender (see table 1.) table 1 correlation between variables 4321variables -1. gender .285*-.000.309*-2. guilt proneness .273*.207* -3. prosocial behaviour .239* -4. empathy note. in gender, 0 = female, 1 = male. *p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 torstveit, sütterlin, & lugo 263 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a stepwise regression analysis was used to test a model to predict frequency of self-reported prosocial behaviour from the scores of empathy and guilt proneness. the two variables were entered in the regression analysis, whereas empathy was entered in step 1, explaining 6% of the variance of prosocial behaviour. after the entry of empathy and guilt proneness in step 2 the total variance explained by the model as a whole was 8%, f(1, 356) = 15.24, p < .001,r2 change = .02, fchange(1, 356) = 15.24, p < .001. the empathy score demonstrates a standardized beta value of β = .98 (p < .01), while the score of guilt proneness showed a standardized beta coefficient of .153 (p < .01). when separated by gender the model was significant for females showing a significant prediction of prosocial behaviour by empathy alone (model 1) and a significant improvement of explanatory power after addition of guilt proneness as additional variable (model 2) as you may see in table 2. for male participants, the additional predictor guilt proneness did not improve the regression model of empathy on prosocial behaviour as table 3 represent. the overall statistical model remained significant after entering guilt proneness. table 2 stepwise regression on prosocial behaviour in the female sample. guilt proneness predicts additional variance beyond empathy. ptβbvariable model 1 empathy .001<.703.223.439 model 2 empathy .001.323.197.387 guilt proneness .024.282.139.363 note. model 1: r2 change = .050; r2 adj = .050. model 2: r2 change = .019; r2 adj = .061. total r2 adj = .061. table 3 stepwise regression on prosocial behaviour in the male sample. guilt proneness does not predict additional variance beyond empathy. ptβbvariable model 1 empathy .001<.813.367.730 model 2 empathy .002.123.311.618 guilt proneness .063.881.188.405 note. model 1: r2 change = .135; r2 adj = .126. model 2: r2 change = .032; r2 adj = .149. total r2 adj = .149. in females, empathy explained 4.6% of frequency of prosocial behaviour, when guilt proneness is added the model improves. empathy combined with prosocial behaviour could explain 6% of the variance of prosocial behaviour in the female sample. however, in the male sample guilt proneness did not have any additional effect over empathy on helping behaviour as it had in the female part of the sample. however, the results indicate that the model is better fitted for males (r2 adj = .149) than for females (r 2 adj = .061). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 empathy, guilt proneness, and gender 264 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there was a wider distribution in reports of helping behaviour in men (sd = 13.2) compared to women (sd = 11.7), however this difference was not significant (t(483) = .010, p = .992). this is in line with previous research applying the altruistic personality scale (rushton et al., 1981). there are also some findings of ceiling effects in the guilt proneness responses. especially women tend to report greater levels of guilt proneness. the distribution of women`s responses tends to gather in the high end of the guilt proneness scale, whereas there is a more variance and distribution in the men's responses. discussion most people have the capacity to experience guilt, an uncomfortable feeling of having committed a transgression. it is regarded as a negative emotion, and it is often associated with mental disorders, such as major depression, and preservative thinking (nolen-hoeksema, 2014). however, the experience of guilt has an adaptive function that may help individuals to regulate themselves in order to decrease the possibility of future guilt experiences (izard, 1977; tomkins, 1963). moral emotions are adaptive for functioning and social cohesion, motivating individuals to make up for incorrect behaviours or to keep up with one’s standards. some individuals have a greater capacity to experience guilt even when a transgression is private and these people are considered to have higher levels of guilt proneness (cohen et al., 2011). guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour in this study guilt proneness was associated with prosocial behaviour or helping behaviour, which is consistent with previous research (benetti-mcquoid & bursik, 2005; cohen et al., 2011). zemack-rugar et al. (2007) reported similar findings showing helping behaviour was more likely in high guilt prone individuals compared to participants low in guilt proneness. in their study subjects were asked to do a tedious task to assist a charity. the time the participants were willing to spend on it was measured. findings suggested that highly guilt prone individuals spent more time on volunteering than individuals low in guilt proneness (zemack-rugar et al., 2007). different studies suggested that guilt proneness is related to different moral behaviours such as law abiding, altruistic behaviour, conscientiousness, agreeableness, empathy, perspective taking and self-actualizing (cohen et al., 2011; tangney & dearing, 2002; tangney et al., 2009; wong, 2003). overall, these qualities may increase the likelihood of more helpful behaviour and guilt proneness may also explain why an individual feel more responsibility for another person’s well-being (miller, 2010). in the current study there are indications that prosocial behaviour can be explained by empathy, a finding that is consistent with previous studies (cohen et al., 2011, 2012; tangney & dearing, 2002). guilt proneness is characterized by a great sense of responsibility to others (schaumberg & flynn, 2012). when a guilt prone individual perceives someone in need of help, they may feel a greater responsibility to act. once a guilt prone individual perceives or thinks they have failed or transgressed a norm or their own standards, they might feel a sense of increased obligation (schaumberg & flynn, 2012). ferguson, stegge, and damhuis (1991) suggest that the emergence of guilt proneness depends on a variety of socialization experiences combined with the child’s cognitively based skills such as empathy or sense of responsibility. guilt prone individuals do not need anyone else to prevent them for committing moral transgressions. their conscience activates moral cognitions europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 torstveit, sütterlin, & lugo 265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and this may prevent them to continue with behaviours that are incongruent with their standards (cohen et al., 2012). research on guilt proneness is relevant not only in the context of prosocial behaviour, but also in the field of criminology and to the rehabilitation process. tangney et al. (2011) conducted a study of 550 jail inmates on guilt proneness. results showed a substantial variation in guilt proneness among the inmates that was related to risk factors such as criminal history, psychopathy, violence and antisocial personality disorder. guilt proneness appears to be a protective factor and was related with lower levels of antisocial personality and psychopathy. inmates high in guilt proneness tend to show a smaller severity of criminal charges and fewer prior felony convictions (tangney et al., 2011). a longitudinal study showed that individuals high in guilt proneness were less likely to try drugs and alcohol, less likely to become a criminal and less likely to commit suicide (tangney & dearing, 2002). consistent with these findings other researchers also propose that guilt proneness can promote prosocial behaviours and inhibit aggressive behaviours, which may support the findings in this study (ferguson et al., 1991). this research has shown that empathy affects prosocial behaviour separately from guilt proneness even if they are directly correlated. prosocial behaviours may be dependent on empathic cognitions as well as guilt proneness. gender differences in prediction of prosocial behaviour the results from our study are consistent with previous research that has associated capacity to experience guilt with empathy (cohen et al., 2011; tangney, 1991). in the socialization of girls, the focus is on how to comply with friends, to make amends after a fight and to take responsibility of others well-being (benetti-mcquoid & bursik, 2005). parental styles are influenced by the child’s gender. research have proposed that boys develop a higher threshold of sensitivity to other’s emotions and therefore may be to a lesser degree consciously aware of the impact on their behaviour on others’ well-being (gilligan, 1977; robertson, snarey, & ousley, 2007). during upbringing, children learn about gender roles and what is expected of them. boys are nurtured to be more assertive, while girls are encouraged to be more caring (benetti-mcquoid & bursik, 2005; hogg & vaughan, 2011; kochanska, gross, lin, & nichols, 2002). these findings provide a plausible framework for the explanation of gender differences in the association of guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour. according to gilligan (1982), women are brought up to care for and be morally responsible for others, while men are raised to follow an ethic of righteousness and justice. this upbringing for men creates autonomy and some sort of separation of one’s moral judgment of others. on other hand ethics of care emerges from a sense of responsibility. gilligan (1982) suggests that boys are more likely to experience guilt for violating rules, while girls experience more guilt if their transgression is damaging their relation to others. another possible explanation of differences in the relation between guilt proneness, empathy and helping behaviour between genders could be that because of socialization, women tend to have an enhanced capacity to be aware and be attuned to the effects of their behaviour, that they might anticipate other people’s reaction to their actions. this is closely linked with guilt proneness and empathy (benetti-mcquoid & bursik, 2005). katchadourian (2010) argues that another important factor that leads women to be more guilt prone can be that they are brought up to be more sensitive to others feelings and well-being. men and women are as equally likely to observe a situation where someone needs help or comfort. however, women are more likely to be distressed and to express concern for that person than men. this can in turn be a possible explanation of why females have a lower threshold for feeling guilty (katchadourian, 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 empathy, guilt proneness, and gender 266 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a lower threshold to guilt has been associated with empathic responsiveness and perspective taking, whereas female students were more altruistic to first kin or close relatives (wong, 2003). this finding shows the complexity of the relation between guilt, empathy, helping behaviour, culture and biological explanations such as kin selection. findings from our study show similar results as previous research. the model shows better predictive effect sizes in males, but does not reach statistical significance (p = .063). guilt proneness combined with empathy can explain 14% of the variance in helping behaviour in men. in females these variables can only explain 6%. these findings suggest that there are more variables needed to explain helping behaviour in females. future research on gender differences should therefore account for potentially different degrees of complexity when it comes to the prediction of prosocial behaviour. prosocial behaviour is a complex behaviour and can be explained by multiple factors such as empathy, attention, attribution, perceiving a situation where someone needs help, have the opportunity to help, consideration of the risks of getting involved and social norm theory, to mention a few. even though the findings indicate a gender difference that is consistent with earlier findings, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of individual differences, meaning that the gender differences should not be generalized. cognitions, emotions and behaviour of men and women overlap in many ways (katchadourian, 2010). limitations and implications for future research although the findings support the main hypothesis of a relation between guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour, the completion rate is 73% and thus self-selection biases cannot be excluded. among the disadvantages in online surveys one may find transparency in process of responding, poor response rates and higher probability for dropouts. the strengths of online surveys can be that it is more convenient for the participants, there is more heterogeneous samples, have a lower probability of social desirability due to their anonymity and allows for international recruitment and thus more heterogeneous and generalizable samples. another methodological weakness in this study is concerning the convenience sample used in this project. sociodemographic information on geographical location, nationality/ ethnicity and native language is missing. studies show that culture may have an effect on guilt proneness (wong, 2003), therefore it would be appropriate to have an overview of different countries or cultures the participants are from. however, the study shows normal distributions in all variables regardless of cultural background. the survey consisted of a social desirability scale (bfsd; 2007), which was intended to identify responses affected by eagerness to please the researchers or to be perceived as more prosocial than one may be in reality. when dealing with a highly socially desirable behaviour such as prosocial behaviour one will most likely meet social desirability in the participants’ reports. however, there is more anonymity present in an online survey, which means that one can assume a lesser degree of social desirability. another limitation in this study was that guilt proneness scale did show ceiling effects in females. a plausible explanation for this could be that in females there are perhaps needed more items to observe more variation, than only four items. future research should try to avoid this, perhaps by adding another comprehensive measure of guilt proneness to ensure variation. ceiling effects can skew the results leading to possible type i errors. as in all correlational studies, the question of causality remains. future research should aim to corroborate the presented findings in an experimental setting, since self-reports could be affected by social desirability. an expereurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 torstveit, sütterlin, & lugo 267 http://www.psychopen.eu/ imental setting would also be able to investigate how the relation found in this study is affected by situational factors. conclusion normally, experience of guilt is regarded as something negative, however previous research has shown indications of the importance of guilt proneness in moral behaviour. some research has studied how guilt proneness relates to unethical behaviour (cohen et al., 2012; tangney et al., 2011). since many established theories of prosocial behaviour, such as social norm theory and social exchange theory, are group based theories, this project aimed to investigate how a dispositional factor within an individual could relate to self-reported helping behaviour. the original research hypothesis was confirmed and the findings demonstrate that there is an association between guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour. this study is among the first to demonstrate how guilt proneness combined with empathy explained additional variance in prosocial behaviour. the findings suggest that there are gender differences in guilt proneness explaining prosocial behaviour. although women tend to be more guilt prone as the findings suggest, the model works better on males, whereas 14% of the variance could be explained by the two variables (empathy and guilt proneness) in males. to explain prosocial behaviour in women, more determinants of behaviour might be needed, and this might be a possible aim for future research. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank all the individuals and participating institutions that generously shared their time and efforts for the purposes of this project. we also thank silke rost (dipl.-psych, university of luxembourg) for support with creating the online survey and per kristian halle (høgskolen i telemark) for assistance in translation of material. references 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(2009). proneness to shame and proneness to guilt. in m. r. leary & r. h. hoyle (eds.), handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 192-209). new york, ny, usa: the guilford press. tomkins, s. s. (1963). affect, imagery, and consciousness: vol. 2. the negative affects. new york, ny, usa: springer. wong, k. t. (2003). the relation of shame and guilt proneness to moral orientations in hong kong chinese adolescents. new horizons in education, 47, 26-38. zemack-rugar, y., bettman, j., & fitzsimons, g. (2007). the effects of non-consciously priming emotion concepts on behaviour. journal of personality and social psychology, 93, 927-939. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.6.927 about the authors linda torstveit is currently a postgraduate master student at copenhagen university. she obtained her bachelor degree at lillehammer university college. stefan sütterlin is professor in psychology at the department of psychology at lillehammer university college and the department of neurobiological medicine at oslo university hospital. his research interests include the role of emotion regulation in social exclusion, psychotherapy, cyber security, pain and social interaction. ricardo g. lugo is health-, developmental and sport psychologist, consultant and currently and head of psychology at lillehammer university college. he is member of the bps, aasp, apa and learning, development andquality committee/board. his research interests include pain, decision-making, cognitive development, and cyber security. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 260–270 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1097 empathy, guilt proneness, and gender 270 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2f0191-8869%2881%2990084-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0028127 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00223890802484381 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.61.4.598 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0093854811405762 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.93.6.927 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en empathy, guilt proneness, and gender (introduction) current study methods research design and ethics participants material statistical analysis results reliability analysis gender, empathy, guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour discussion guilt proneness and prosocial behaviour gender differences in prediction of prosocial behaviour limitations and implications for future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors prevalence, gender and age differences of dating aggression among italian adolescents research reports prevalence, gender and age differences of dating aggression among italian adolescents gaia cuccì* a, k. daniel o’leary b, maria giulia olivari a, emanuela confalonieri a [a] cridee, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] department of psychology, stony brook university, stony brook, ny, usa. abstract the present study represents an effort to expand and deepen the scant literature on adolescent dating aggression (ada) within the italian context; adolescent dating aggression is a public health issue of interest due to its increasing frequency among adolescents. the prevalence of verbal-emotional and physical ada was examined as well as gender and age differences in a sample of italian adolescents. participants included 436 adolescents (47.7% males; 52.3% females) living in northern italy, aged 16 to 18 years (m = 17.11). participants completed the conflict in adolescent dating relationships inventory measuring abusive behaviors between adolescent dating partners. non-parametric analyses were computed. verbal-emotional ada perpetration and victimization were much more common than physical ada perpetration and victimization. females reported higher levels of verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration than males. to fully investigate gender differences single behaviors were analyzed and described. finally, age differences emerged only for perpetrated verbalemotional abuse with such aggression being highest at age 18. this research suggests that in order to prevent the onset of dating aggression in teens in northern italy, prevention programs may need to begin earlier than previously provided in junior high school. another core conclusion is that physical aggression against partners is a problem for both males and females, thus intervention for the empowerment of interpersonal skills are needed. keywords: adolescence, dating aggression perpetration, dating aggression victimization, gender differences, age differences europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 received: 2018-11-18. accepted: 2020-03-09. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: dipartimento di psicologia, largo gemelli,1 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: gaia.cucci@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. adolescence dating aggression (ada) may be defined as a type of intimate partner violence that occurs between two adolescents in a close relationship (centers for disease control and prevention, 2016). it is believed that dating aggression in adolescence is due to immaturity and lack of experience, together with more adult-like efforts to dominate and control one’s partner, may lead an adolescent to resort to aggressive behaviors which do not represent fully adult-like pattern of violence (wolfe et al., 2001a, 2005). studies on dating aggression (cuccì, o’leary, olivari, bonanomi, & confalonieri, 2019; gonzález & santana, 2001; hird, 2000; jackson, cram, & seymour, 2000; katz, carino, & hilton, 2002; muñoz-rivas, graña, o’leary, & gonzález, 2007a, 2007b; olivari, cuccì, & confalonieri, 2017) have identified several types of aggressive behaviors that may occur in relationships. psychological aggression (both verbal and emotional abusive behaviors such as name calling, shaming, bullying, embarrassing on purpose) occurs most often, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ followed by physical aggression (e.g., shoving, hair pulling, slapping, punching), and sexual aggression (e.g., unwanted touching, kissing, sex). in young teens, such forms of aggression tend to increase over time (arriaga & foshee, 2004; champion, foley, sigmon-smith, sutfin, & durant, 2008; nocentini, menesini, & pastorelli, 2010) showing an escalation from minor forms of aggression (e.g., verbal-emotional violence) to more severe ones (e.g., physical or sexual violence). ada is associated with several risk-taking behaviors such as risky sexual behaviors and substance abuse (ackard, neumark-sztainer, & hannan, 2003; bonomi, anderson, nemeth, rivara, & buettner, 2013) and with many negative outcomes, such as eating disorders, depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts, stress, anxiety, lack of self-esteem, and lower school achievement (ackard et al., 2003; bonomi et al., 2013; callahan, tolman, & saunders, 2003; holt & espelage, 2005). many studies have also shown that ada may affect the way adolescents and young adults establish subsequent relationships (wolfe et al., 2001b) and be a precursor to aggression towards a partner later and in more stable relationships, including marriage (exner-cortens, eckenrode, & rothman, 2013; gómez, 2011; hamby, finkelhor, & turner, 2012; smith, white, & holland, 2003; o’leary, tintle, & bromet, 2014; temple, shorey, fite, stuart, & le, 2013). studies focusing specifically on ada prevalence were carried out in usa (foshee & matthew, 2007; foshee et al., 2009; o’leary, slep, avery-leaf, & cascardi, 2008), new zealand (jackson et al., 2000) and in europe (united kingdom: hird, 2000; windle & mrug, 2009; spain: muñoz-rivas et al., 2007b; italy: nocentini et al., 2010) demonstrating that psychological aggression is the most prevalent form of ada, while sexual aggression was the least prevalent (foshee & matthew, 2007; foshee et al., 2009; hird, 2000; jackson et al., 2000). as for gender differences in aggressive behaviors, studies on ada (e.g., giordano, soto, manning, & longmore, 2010; lewis & fremouw, 2001; offenhauer & buchalter, 2013; swahn et al., 2008) generally indicate that males and females are relatively equally likely to perpetrate such form of aggression in terms of frequency. however, the literature is characterized by a heated debate concerning the reasons behind the aggressive behaviors. according to white and kowalski (1994), the notion of “the less aggressive” woman is a socio-historical myth. the stereotype of gender differences in aggression has sustained men in maintaining a position of power over women. the authors noted that, although women are reported to commit fewer crimes than men do, this does not imply that they are not aggressive. this general misperception could be due to the fact that the situations in which women will display aggressive behaviors appear to be more circumscribed. traditionally, gender roles relegate women to the domestic sphere and there was little opportunity to engage in violence in the public sphere. conversely, men are more likely than women to express their aggression publicly and physically. in line with these considerations, feminist theorists have often contended violence perpetrated by women as acts of self-defense (e.g., hettrich & o’leary, 2007; stuart et al., 2006). moreover, aggressive behaviors perpetrated by women are qualitatively different because these acts usually do not cause fear or injuries (dobash, dobash, wilson, & daly, 1992), thus this theory highlights female power imbalance and emotional devaluation. though theses issue also are still debated in literature. among adolescents, as previously stated, aggressive behaviors within the romantic couple are perpetrated by both males and females. within the branch of research focusing specifically on gender differences in ada, results are quite heterogeneous. most of the studies reported higher rates of physical ada perpetration for females than males, and males generally reported being victims of physical ada more frequently than females. however, with regards to severity, males generally reported no physical injury whereas females suffered more dating aggression among italian adolescents 660 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ severe consequences by male partners who perpetrated more severe forms physical aggression (foshee et al., 2009; muñoz-rivas et al., 2007a, 2007b; windle & mrug, 2009). in particular, o’leary and colleagues (2008) found that both male and female adolescents reported engaging in physical aggression more than experiencing such form of aggression as victims. further, when physical aggression occurred, it was largely bidirectional (i.e., both partners were aggressive). in addition, those adolescents who were engaged to be married reported the highest rates of physical aggression. conversely, a united kingdom study (hird, 2000) showed that girls reported higher rates of perpetration and victimization for both psychological and physical ada, while in new zealand, similar percentages of psychological, physical and sexual ada were observed for both males and females (jackson et al., 2000). as for age differences, studies presented quite different findings probably due to methodological variability. a cross-sectional study carried out in spain with adolescents and young adults aged 16-20 years, showed very high rates of psychological ada that was stable across the age groups. conversely, rates of physical ada decreased significantly across the age groups, while health consequences resulting from aggression became more severe with age (muñoz-rivas et al., 2007b). on the contrary, longitudinal studies examining growth trajectories of ada observed different patterns. o’leary and slep (2003) observed a stable pattern for physical ada from the 10th grade to the 12th grade, while wolfe and colleagues (2003) found that the mean trajectories for physical and psychological ada were characterized by a steady decrease from ages 14–16 to ages 16–18. a study by foshee and colleagues (2009) showed that the development of physical and sexual ada perpetration decreased from ages 13 to 19, with peak ages ranging from 16 to 17 years of age. as for psychological ada perpetration, authors observed an increasing pattern from ages 13 to 19. concerning italy, ada is emerging as a public health issue. a survey carried out by telefono azzurro and doxakids (2014) with approximately 1500 italian male and female adolescents attending junior high school and high school, reported that 8% were threatened by a romantic partner; 33% were victims of psychological ada; 6% were physically beaten at least once by a romantic partner, and 6% were forced to have sex. to date, research on ada in italy specifically focused on relationship’s characteristics (e.g., support, power imbalance, conflict). menesini and nocentini (2008) found that with age relationships became gradually more supportive, but also more conflicted. in fact, in late adolescence, relationships are more characterized by expectations, emotional commitment and intimacy which may lead partners to overreact thereby increasing the intensity of the conflict (seiffge-krenke, 2003). a cross-cultural research, carried out in italy and canada (connolly et al., 2010), showed that levels of conflict were associated with ada in both countries, while power imbalance uniquely in italy. finally, menesini, nocentini, ortega-rivera, sanchez, and ortega (2011) in another cross-cultural study comparing adolescents from italy and spain, found that in both countries couples experiencing reciprocal psychological and physical ada were more likely to have higher levels of couple conflict and power imbalance. however, italian literature investigating ada prevalence, gender and age differences is scarce. the only longitudinal study carried out in a small city in the center of italy, found that moderate physical ada showed an average decreasing trend from 16 to 18 years (nocentini et al., 2010). our work represents an effort to expand and deepen the scarce existing literature on ada in the italian context, by employing a wide sample, in order to deepen aspects that, to date, are quite unexplored. it should be also cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 661 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ considered that ada is an emerging and increasing health problem within the italian context, thus it seems important to expand the knowledge base on this sensitive issue. therefore, the aims of this study are to: a) describe the prevalence of ada in a sample of italian adolescents; b) evaluate gender differences both in relation to each single aggressive behavior and two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical) perpetration and victimization. going through each single behaviors will allow a better understanding of the nature of the phenomenon and to identify which are the most frequent behaviors perpetrated by adolescents, in order to catch the possible meanings and functions that ada may play; c) evaluate age differences in relation to two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical) perpetration and victimization. no hypothesis will be formulated for the first aim, since its descriptive in nature. as for the second aim, in line with previous findings, we expect to find higher rates of verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration among female than male adolescents (foshee et al., 2009; muñoz-rivas et al., 2007a, 2007b; windle & mrug, 2009) and to find higher rates of verbal-emotional and physical ada victimization among male than female adolescents (fernández-gonzález, o’leary, & muñoz-rivas, 2014). as for the third aim, we expect to find stable rates of psychological ada across the age groups and decreasing rates of physical ada across the age groups (muñoz-rivas et al., 2007b). method participants and procedure participants were 859 adolescents (36.5% males; 63.5% females) living in northern italy (lombardy and piedmont) aged 16 to 18 years (m = 17.01 years, sd = 0.8 years). within this sample 709 participants (83.3%) were adolescents who have already experienced a romantic relationship (currently or in the past). starting from this sample, a subsample balanced for gender was randomly extracted, using spss (version 18). therefore, the final sample included 436 adolescents (47.7% males; 52.3% females) aged 16 to 18 years (m = 17.11 years, sd = 0.8 years). the average age was 17.18 years for males (sd = 0.8 years) and 17.05 years for females (sd = 0.8 years). there are three types of high school programs students in italy can select from: one that is more theoretically oriented (a school whose aim is to prepare students to enter university), another that is more professionally oriented (a school whose aim is to prepare students for employment after high school), one that is more technically oriented (a school whose aim is prepare students to enter technical schools). fifty percent of the participants attended a theoretical program, 32.3% attended a professional program, and 17.7% attended a technical program. approval for the study was obtained from the ethical commission of the università cattolica del sacro cuore of milan. the headmasters and class teachers of the involved schools provided permission for the study, and parents provided written consent for their children’s participation. the teenage participants also provided their consent. dating aggression among italian adolescents 662 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ instruments for this study, a specific assessment self-report instrument with different formats was administered in person: a) a series of questions with various response options that assessed relevant information concerning: • demographics, e.g., age, sex, nationality, type of school attended. • dating relationship variables, e.g., whether they have ever experienced a romantic relationship or not, type of relationship (current vs. past), duration of the relationship, age of the romantic partner, perceived importance of the relationship). • sexual behaviors variables, e.g., whether they have ever had a sexual intercourse, age of the first sexual intercourse). b) a short version of the conflict in adolescent dating relationships inventory (cadri; wolfe et al., 2001a). the original version is a 35-item instrument to assess multiple forms of abusive behaviors that may occur between adolescent dating partners. the instrument showed fair psychometric properties for verbal-emotional (α = .81; wolfe et al., 2001a) and physical abuse perpetration and victimization (α = .76; wolfe et al., 2001a). response choices for each item were measured on a 4-point step scale (1 = never to 4 = often). an interpreter translated the items of the cadri from english into italian and the items were preliminary administered to 100 adolescents in a pilot study. then, a native english speaker performed the back translation. in the present study, we employed only an adaptation of two subscales: verbal-emotional abuse perpetration and victimization (9 items; e.g., “i insulted her/him with put-downs”, respectively α = .79; α = .80) and physical abuse perpetration and victimization (4 items; e.g., “i kicked, hit or punched her/him”, respectively α = .73; α = .82). items scores are summed for the score for each subscale, as suggested by the authors (wolfe et al., 2001a). results dating behavior among participants, 61.6% reported that they were experiencing a romantic relationship at the time of the study and 38.4% had experienced a romantic relationship in the past. the mean age of the romantic partner was 17.73 (sd = 0.8 years) and no significant differences emerged between male and female participants in terms of age of partner, t(418) = -1.5; p = .127. the mean duration of the relationships was about 10.15 months (sd = 9.54), with significant differences between sexes, t(425) = -2.3; p = .017, with the females (m = 11.20 months; sd = 10.4) maintaining their relationships for longer periods of time than males (m = 9 months; sd = 8.4). among participants in a current relationship, males described their relationship as very important (63.4%), quite important (35.5%) and not very important (1.1%). female participants described their relationship as very important (83.2%) and quite important (16.8%), χ2(2) = 11.64; p = .003. among participants who experienced a relationship in the past, males described it as very important (21.5%), quite important (70.5%), and not very important (8%). female participants described their past relationship as very important (43.1%), quite important (50%), and not very important (6.9%), χ2(2) = 11.72; p = .003. cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 663 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prevalence of verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization firstly, at a descriptive level, frequency analysis was carried out to report the percentages of adolescents who have perpetrated or experienced at least once verbal-emotional or physical abuse. percentages of adolescents reporting to have perpetrated at least one act (i.e., participants who scored from 2 to 4) of verbal-emotional abuse was 96.1% while physical abuse was 30.7%. percentages of adolescents reporting to have experienced at least one act (i.e., participants who scored from 2 to 4) of verbal-emotional abuse was 97.9% while for physical abuse it was 32.1%. parametric assumptions were in fact verified for each item and since parametric assumptions were violated, non-parametric analyses were conducted. the wilcoxon signed-rank test was calculated to describe the prevalence of ada within our sample. analyses showed that the median score of verbal-emotional abuse perpetration (mdn = 2.00) was significantly higher than physical abuse (mdn = 1.00; z = -16.959; p < .001). the same result held for the mean score of verbal-emotional abuse victimization (mdn = 2.00), which was significantly higher than physical abuse (mdn = 1.00; z = -17.440; p < .001). verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization: gender differences to assess gender differences regarding each single ada behavior, chi square tests were calculated on cadri item describing verbal emotional abuse and physical abuse perpetration and victimization. because multiple comparisons were made, a bonferroni procedure was used to reduce the risk of inflating the type i error rate. the significance of each chi square test was evaluated at the .005 level (.05/10). as shown in table 1, the most commonly perpetrated behaviors among females were making the partner feel jealous, bringing up something from the past, keeping track of the partner’s movements, and accusing the partner of flirting with another person. making fun of the partner in front of friends was more frequent among males. table 1 reports of perpetration of verbal emotional abuse behavior male (%) female (%) χ2 i did something to make him/her feel jealous 68.3 77.2 4.388* i brought up something bad that he/she had done in the past 56.7 69.3 7.395** i said things just to make him/her angry 66.8 68.9 n.s. i spoke to him/her in a hostile or mean tone of voice 72.1 77.2 n.s. i insulted him/her with put-downs 67.3 68.9 n.s. i ridiculed or made fun of him/her in front of others 27.9 16.7 7.972** i kept track of who he/she was with and where he/she was 66.8 76.3 4.836* i blamed him/her for the problem 66.8 73.7 n.s. i accused him/her of flirting with another girl/boy 44.2 54.8 4.883* note. each of the chi square test was evaluated at the .01 significance level to control for family-wise error accompanying multiple comparisons. *p < .05. **p < .01. dating aggression among italian adolescents 664 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as reported in table 2, percentages of physical perpetrated behaviors were generally higher among females. in particular, female participants reported significantly higher rates of engaging in the following behaviors: throwing something at their partner and slapping their partner, or pulling their partner’s hair. table 2 reports of victimization of verbal emotional abuse behavior male (%) female (%) χ2 he/she did something to make me feel jealous 68.3 77.2 4.388* he/she brought up something bad that i had done in the past 55.8 59.2 n.s. he/she said things just to make me angry 67.3 70.6 n.s. he/she spoke to me in a hostile or mean tone of voice 73.1 75.0 n.s. he/she insulted me with put-downs 65.9 71.5 n.s. he/she ridiculed or made fun of me in front of others 33.2 22.4 6.366* he/she kept track of who i was with and where i was 69.7 76.8 n.s. he/she blamed me for the problem 76.9 69.3 n.s. he/she accused me of flirting with another girl/boy 50.0 51.3 n.s. note. each of the chi square test was evaluated at the .01 significance level to control for family-wise error accompanying multiple comparisons. *p < .05. as shown in table 3 for ada verbal-emotional victimization, female participants reported their partners made them feel jealous more frequently than male participants. the male participants reported more their partners made fun of them in front of friends more frequently than female participants. table 3 reports of perpetration of physical abuse behavior male (%) female (%) χ2 i threw something at him/her 14.4 23.2 5.493* i kicked, hit or punched him/her 13.5 20.2 n.s. i slapped him/her or pulled his/her hair 9.6 19.3 8.143** i pushed, shoved, or shook him/her 15.8 19.7 n.s. note. each of the chi square test was evaluated at the .01 significance level to control for family-wise error accompanying multiple comparisons. *p < .05. **p < .01. finally, as shown in table 4 for ada physical victimization, male participants reported that their partner threw something at them, slapped them or pulled their hair, and pushed, shoved, or shook them more frequently than female participants. cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 665 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 reports of victimization of physical abuse behavior male (%) female (%) χ2 he/she threw something at me 23.1 12.3 8.809** he/she kicked, hit or punched me 25.0 10.1 16.983*** he/she slapped me or pulled my hair 24.5 7.9 22.567*** he/she pushed, shoved, or shook me 22.6 13.6 5.997** note. each of the chi square test was evaluated at the .01 significance level to control for family-wise error accompanying multiple comparisons. **p < .01. ***p < .001. to assess gender differences regarding the two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical), mann-whitney test was calculated considering the two cadri subscales for both perpetration and victimization. gender differences emerged for perpetrated verbal-emotional abuse (u = 18460; p < .001) with females reporting higher levels of aggression (mdn = 2.11) than males (mdn = 2.00). the same was for perpetrated physical abuse (u = 19910; p = .001), with females reporting higher levels of aggression (mdn = 1.50) than males (mdn = 1.00). no significant differences emerged for the subscales assessing victimization behaviors. verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization: age differences kruskal-wallis h tests were carried out considering each of the two cadri subscales for both perpetration and victimization as dependent variables, and age (divided in three age classes, respectively 16, 17 and 18-year-old adolescents) as the independent variable. participants for each class were respectively: 118, 151, 167. analyses demonstrated significant differences only for perpetrated verbal-emotional abuse, χ2(2) = 8.125, p = 0.017. pairwise post hoc comparisons indicated that 16-year-old participants reported a significantly lower mean rank score (195.36) than 18-year-old males (238.01). no significant differences emerged for perpetrated physical abuse and for verbal-emotional and physical victimization. discussion since ada is an emerging and increasing health problem in italy and the existing literature on ada in the italian context is quite scarce, this study aimed at expanding the knowledge base on this sensitive issue. our work had three different aims. with the first one we aimed at providing a description of the frequency of ada in a sample of italian adolescents at a descriptive level. our findings confirmed the presence of ada among italian dating adolescents, as stated by previous research (e.g., nocentini et al., 2010; ortega et al., 2010). in our study, in particular, it emerged that 96% of the participants has perpetrated at least one act of verbal-emotional abuse and around 30% of the sample has engaged in physically aggressive behaviors towards their romantic partner at least dating aggression among italian adolescents 666 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ once. we believe that these data are important because they suggest that adolescents involved in a romantic relationship, even if rarely, may resort to dysfunctional interaction strategies to deal with the partner. around 98% of the sample experienced at least one act of verbal-emotional abuse victimization and 32% of the sample reported experiencing physical abuse victimization at least once. these findings are in line with previous evidence emerged in italy (e.g., nocentini et al., 2010; ortega et al., 2010) and spain (muñoz-rivas et al., 2007b). these data are particularly significant when considering that more than 60% of the study participants described their relationships as important, meaning that adolescent participants consider their relationships, even if partially characterized by aggression and conflict, as significant for themselves. this may indicate that these aggressive behaviors are becoming more common within adolescent romantic relationships. on the contrary, results are quite different from the ones emerged in the survey carried out by telefono azzurro and doxakids (2014) that showed higher percentages for both verbal-emotional and physical ada. this difference could be a function of using different measure use to asses ada. in the above-mentioned survey ada behaviors were measured using ad hoc items while in the present study we employed the cadri inventory (wolfe et al., 2001a). another possible explanation could be linked to the age of participants: our sample consisted of adolescents aged 16-18 years while no information was available on the exact age range of participants responding to the previous survey conducted in italy. as for the prevalence of the two types of ada perpetration and victimization, in our study it emerged that verbal-emotional abuse was much more common than physical abuse among adolescent participants. our participants appear to both perpetrate and experience such abuse, as was observed in other studies (foshee & matthew, 2007; foshee et al., 2009; hird, 2000; jackson et al., 2000). the second aim of our study was to evaluate the gender differences starting from the analyses of each single aggressive behavior, which allowed us to understand the nature of the aggressive behaviors in greater detail. moreover, we investigated gender differences across the two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical) perpetration and victimization, since in italian literature little attention has been paid on gender differences across the two types of ada. as for single-item analysis, regarding the perpetration of verbal-emotional aggression, girls tend to express their aggression though behaviors of jealousy and control (e.g., “i did something to make him/her feel jealous; i kept track of who he/she was with and where he/she was”), that may be an expression of feelings of personal insecurity towards the self or towards the future of the relationship. boys, on the other hand, seem to engage more in behaviors involving the social domain (e.g., “i ridiculed or made fun of him/her in front of others”), this may be in order to establish or maintain their social status within the peer context. regarding the victimization of verbal-emotional ada, in a specular way adolescents reported to be victim of the same behaviors they also reported to perpetrate more, suggesting the potential development of regular dysfunctional pattern of interaction within the couple. these behaviors may be perpetrated, indeed, as forms of revenge or imitation between the partners where each partner use the same behaviors to get even with the partner. regarding the perpetration of physical aggression, girls tend to engage more than their male peers in moderate aggressive actions, such as slapping and pulling the hair of the partner. however, the severity as well as the consequences of these physical injuries are less severe, as shown in previous studies where male partners cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 667 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perpetrated more severe forms physical aggression (e.g., cuccì et al., 2019; foshee et al., 2009; muñoz-rivas et al., 2007a, 2007b; windle & mrug, 2009). regarding physical aggression victimization, despite the low rates of frequency, for each behavior, male participants reported to be victimized more frequently than female participants. a possible explanation could be that, within the context of a heated situation (e.g., conflict within the couple), a lack of skills in female emotion regulation may resulted in ada as an expression of emotional discomfort rather than a real intention to physically harm the partner. these findings, indeed, support the idea that ada may develop as a dysfunctional strategy of interaction between the two partners. concerning gender differences in relation to the two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical) perpetration and victimization, girls engaged more frequently than boys in verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration. these findings confirm previous evidence (foshee et al., 2009; muñoz-rivas et al., 2007a, 2007b; o’leary et al., 2008; windle & mrug, 2009) showing higher rates of perpetration among female adolescents. these findings could be interpreted considering some relationship’s characteristics. the length of the relationship was, indeed, significantly higher for females and that most of them described the relationship as very important. this may imply that girls feel to be more invested in their relationships. therefore, it is possible to hypothesize that female adolescents resort to dysfunctional behaviors to maintain and protect their romantic relationships, not being able to engage in more adaptive conflict resolution strategies. our findings are in line with the developmental perspective that female adolescent aggression toward their partner may result from their relative inexperience in managing romantic relationships. this lack of skill would lead females to adopt more masculine aggressive behaviors to solve their conflicts with the romantic partner, as showed in previous studies (connolly et al., 2015; o’leary et al., 2008; rose & rudolph, 2006; wolfe, scott, & crooks, 2005). as suggested by some feminist theorists a small but significant percentage of females may also resort to violence as an act of self-defense to contrast male predominance in power (hettrich & o’leary, 2007; stuart et al., 2006; white & kowalski, 1994). female adolescents may also resort aggressive behaviors as an effort to restore balance when perceiving an imbalance of power in their relationships. previous studies have demonstrated that these characteristics are associated with ada (connolly et al., 2010; menesini & nocentini, 2009). at the same time, it is possible to consider that females engage more frequently in mutual aggressive relationships. this may mean that, within the romantic couple, partners tend to use aggressive behaviors as a form of interaction with each other. thus, it is possible that partners learn dysfunctional strategies, modeling their behaviors by observing each other (bandura, 1977). finally, it is important to consider that gender differences may also be due to social desirability bias, (i.e., the tendency of people to deny or underreport behaviors that are socially unacceptable). males may indeed find it difficult to admit they acted physically aggressive towards their female partner, while it might be easier to report ada victimization. this may also explain why no significant differences were found for ada victimization, differently from what we expected. as fernández-gonzález and colleagues (2014) reported, both males and females are less likely to report negative behaviors about themselves than about their partners. with a large sample of adolescents from madrid (~850), social desirability had a small but significant association with reports of ada, but covariance corrections for social desirability did not alter the conclusions about such aggression. because of the small correlation of social desirability with perpetration and victimization for females (-.19, -.16) and males (-.10, -.11), the corrections for social desirability did little to alter any overall conclusions based on uncorrected means. using uncorrected or corrected means for social desirability, males engage dating aggression among italian adolescents 668 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in more sexual ada and females engage in more psychological and physical ada. if one wants to obtain the maximal prevalence rates, fernández-gonzález and colleagues (2014) found that maximal dyadic reports (based on either the self or partner) significantly increased the prevalence rates of aggression. however, the overall conclusions about perpetration and victimization did not differ. if one wishes to estimate maximal rates of partner aggression but one only has self-reports, heyman and schlee (1997), and o’leary and williams (2006) have used correction factors with married couples and such an approach could be used with dating couples. our third aim was to evaluate age differences in relation to the two types of ada (verbal-emotional and physical) perpetration and victimization. findings in the literature are mainly focused on ada perpetration and victimization, and such findings have been mixed. in line with previous cross-sectional research, we expected to find stable rates of psychological ada across the age groups and decreasing rates of physical ada across the age groups (muñoz-rivas et al., 2007b). our results showed, on the contrary, that the different aggressive behaviors were stable across the ages sampled. significant differences emerged only for ada verbal-emotional perpetration with 18-year-old adolescents reporting higher rates of such aggression than 16-year-old participants. this different result could be due to the fact that we employed a smaller range of age (16-18) than the one of muñoz-rivas and colleagues (16-20). moreover, no significant decrease emerged for physical ada perpetration and victimization. in our sample physical ada perpetration and victimization rates seemed to remain stable across ages, similar to what was observed by o’leary and slep (2003) in their longitudinal study, carried out within the short range of time of three months. conversely, other longitudinal studies on physical ada showed a decrease over time (foshee et al., 2009; wolfe et al., 2003). in particular, our results differ from nocentini and colleagues’ (2010) findings on a sample of 181 italian adolescents reporting an average decreasing trend from 16 to 18 years. moreover, our results showing an increasing rate for verbal-emotional ada perpetration, are in line with the fact that among our participants verbal-emotional aggression was much more common than physical abuse. finally, it is possible that this difference could be due to methodological reasons: the research design (cross-sectional vs. longitudinal) and the measure use to assess ada (cadri vs. conflict tactics scale [cts2]). the choice of instrument should be considered when comparing results of different studies since the two scales measure psychological and physical dating aggression via different behaviors. in particular the cts2 (straus, hamby, boney-mccoy, & sugarman, 1996), includes more severe acts of physical ada compared with the cadri, such as beating, choking, burning, and scalding a partner (cascardi, blank, & dodani, 2019). moreover, though developed with a similar goal, the assessment of psychological and physical abuse towards a romantic partner is different, since cadri was developed specifically for adolescent samples (cascardi, blank, & dodani, 2019; wolfe et al., 2001a). our findings need to be evaluated with recognition of some limitations. the cross-sectional design, as in other previous studies on ada (muñoz-rivas et al., 2007a, 2007b), limits inferences about the developmental changes. longitudinal studies could help explain the development across time of this phenomenon. there are very few longitudinal studies that used the same measures of aggression. this need for longitudinal research seems crucial, especially since we have almost no research beginning in the teen years and extending into long-term adult relationships or marriage. such research is needed to learn which men and women cease their aggression and which continue or escalate their aggressive behaviors. moreover, in this study, we did not investigate participants’ sexual orientation, thus we do not know if they reported ada occurring in heterosexual or same-sex relationships. future studies may consider this aspect to cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 669 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://www.psychopen.eu/ obtain more generalizable results. finally, the cadri (wolfe et al., 2001a) is a frequency-based measure of ada, thus this scale does not investigate motivations for ada. in the future, qualitative studies, that allow a better understanding of perceptions and attitudes towards a phenomenon (e.g., olivari, confalonieri, & ionio, 2011), are warranted in order to gain more information to better understand the reasons linked to ada. future research should be also aimed at collecting dyadic data in order to assess mutuality of ada within the same couple in detail, considering relationship characteristics such as relationship length, partner age and balance of power. we believe our work could provide interesting clues for ada prevention in italian high schools. it is clear that both male and female adolescents engage in ada, so programs should target both male and female aggression. additionally, interventions should begin in high school or earlier since ada behaviors are already observed among 16-year-old adolescents. finally, considering that emotional-verbal and psychological abuse are the most common forms of ada, programs should also target these forms of aggression, as to date, the majority of attention on aggression has been devoted to physical and sexual forms. this change in focus may improve adolescent awareness and knowledge on all forms of ada and their consequences. finally, it is important to develop not only prevention interventions, but also programs of skills empowerment aimed at making adolescents better able to manage couple conflict and improving positive and adaptive interaction strategies. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank mrs. nicole barle (stony brook university) for her incredible work of 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(2001b). child maltreatment: risk of adjustment problems and dating violence in adolescence. journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 40(3), 282-289. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200103000-00007 wolfe, d. a., wekerle, c., scott, k., straatman, a. l., grasley, c., & reitzel-jaffe, d. (2003). dating violence prevention with at-risk youth: a controlled outcome evaluation. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 71(2), 279-291. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.71.2.279 about the authors gaia cuccì is a psychologist and a post-doc researcher at università cattolica del sacro cuore, department of psychology, cridee, milano, italy. she is a developmental psychologist with a phd in psychology. she mainly focuses her research on psychology of adolescence, studying adolescent romantic relationships and adolescent romantic competence. her research interest also included dating violence, sexting and risk-taking behaviors in adolescence. daniel o’leary is a distinguished professor of psychology at stony brook university. his awards include: distinguished scientist award, clinical division apa; lifetime achievement award, national family violence legislative resource center, 2009; family psychologist of 2015, apa, and elizabeth beckman award for mentoring, apa, 2015. he published over 300 manuscripts or chapters, and was among the top 100 cited psychologists in the english-speaking world. he published 13 books. the most recent include: understanding psychological and physical aggression in couples: existing evidence and dating aggression among italian adolescents 674 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.amepre.2007.09.020 http://www.west-info.eu/it/vamping-e-selfie-le-ossessioni-dei-giovani-italiani/osservatorioadolescenti_report_pdf/ http://www.west-info.eu/it/vamping-e-selfie-le-ossessioni-dei-giovani-italiani/osservatorioadolescenti_report_pdf/ http://www.west-info.eu/it/vamping-e-selfie-le-ossessioni-dei-giovani-italiani/osservatorioadolescenti_report_pdf/ https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10964-012-9877-1 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1471-6402.1994.tb01045.x https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10964-008-9328-1 https://doi.org/10.1007%2f0-306-48674-1_13 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1040-3590.13.2.277 https://doi.org/10.1097%2f00004583-200103000-00007 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-006x.71.2.279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ clinical implications, with e. woodin, 2009 and the couples psychotherapy treatment planner, 2nd ed., with heyman and jongsma, 2015. maria giulia olivari is a research collaborator at università cattolica del sacro cuore, department of psychology, cridee, milano, italy. she is a developmental psychologist, with a phd in psychology. her research interests regard the topic of developmental psychology; in particular, she has worked for several years on adolescent risk taking and parenting practices and styles. her research interest included romantic relationships, adolescent sexuality and dating violence. she is also interested in school motivation and school well-being. emanuela confalonieri is an associate professor at università cattolica del sacro cuore, department of psychology, cridee, milano, italy. she is a developmental psychologist with a phd in psychology. her research interests regard the topic of developmental psychology; in particular, she is interested in school motivation, school well-being, and school dropout. her research interest included adolescent risk taking and its association with parental practices and styles. recently she expanded her interest to romantic relationship and dating violence in adolescence. cuccì, o’leary, olivari, & confalonieri 675 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 659–675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1822 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ dating aggression among italian adolescents (introduction) method participants and procedure instruments results dating behavior prevalence of verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization: gender differences verbal-emotional and physical ada perpetration and victimization: age differences discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors control interactions in the theory of planned behavior: rethinking the role of subjective norm research reports control interactions in the theory of planned behavior: rethinking the role of subjective norm francesco la barbera* a, icek ajzen b [a] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] department of psychological and brain sciences, university of massachusetts amherst, amherst, ma, usa. abstract research with the theory of planned behavior (tpb) has typically treated attitude (att), subjective norm (sn), and perceived behavioral control (pbc) as independent predictors of intention (int). however, theoretically, pbc moderates the effects of att and sn on intention. in three studies dealing with different behaviors (voting, reducing household waste, and energy consumption) we show that greater pbc tends to strengthen the relative importance of att in the prediction of intention, whereas it tends to weaken the relative importance of sn. the latter pattern was observed in relation to injunctive as well as descriptive subjective norms, and it may help explain the relatively weak relation between sn and int frequently observed in tpb studies. keywords: tpb, perceived behavioral control, attitude, subjective norm, interaction effects, moderation europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 received: 2019-07-15. accepted: 2019-10-03. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: michael bosnjak, zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, trier, germany *corresponding author at: department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, via rodinò 22, 80138 napoli, italy. e-mail: francesco.labarbera@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. following publication of the seminal book on attitude research by fishbein and ajzen (1975), the theory of reasoned action (tra) became a leading framework for psychological explanations of human behavior (ajzen & fishbein, 1980; see sheppard, hartwick, & warshaw, 1988). the tra posited that the immediate antecedent of a particular behavior is the intention (int) to perform the behavior in question. intention, in turn, was said to be determined by attitude toward the behavior (att)—the individual’s favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior—and subjective norm (sn), the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior. a major limitation of the tra was the requirement that the behavior under consideration be under volitional control (fishbein & ajzen, 1975), a requirement that greatly limited the theory’s applicability. to enable prediction and explanation of behavior over which control is incomplete, ajzen (1985, 1991) reformulated the tra by adding perceived and actual behavioral control to the model, renaming it the theory of planned behavior (tpb). in the tpb, intentions are posited to predict behavior to the extent that the actor is capable of performing the behavior, i.e., to the extent that actual control over behavioral performance is high. in the relatively few studies that have examined this proposition, perceived behavioral control (pbc) has been used as a proxy for actual europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ control, with mixed results (see yang-wallentin et al., 2004 for a review). perhaps less know, pbc is also said to moderate the effects of att and sn on behavioral intentions (see ajzen, 1985, 2002). favorable attitudes and subjective norms should lead to the formation of a favorable intention only to the extent that people also believe that they are capable of carrying out the behavior, i.e., have high perceived control over the behavior, or a high level of perceived self-efficacy (bandura, 1997). despite the large number of studies stimulated by the tpb over the years, this interaction hypothesis has received little attention (yzer & van den putte, 2014). investigators have generally tested the simpler additive model in which int is predicted from att, sn, and pbc (ajzen, 2002). although the postulated moderating effects of pbc are intuitively compelling and grounded in theory, studies examining them have rarely obtained empirical support. this failure may in large part be due to methodological difficulties (ajzen, 2002; fishbein & ajzen, 2010; yang-wallentin et al. 2004; yzer & van den putte, 2014). one major problem is that the statistical power of interaction tests is very sensitive to the distribution of the predictor and moderator variables. as ajzen (2002, p. 667) has noted, “logically, perceived behavioral control, rather than having a direct effect, is expected to interact with attitudes and with subjective norms in determining intentions, and with intentions in its effects on behavior. empirically, however, interactions of this kind can be expected only if values of the predictor variables cover the full range of possible scores, such that the product term is fully expressed in the prediction” (see ajzen & fishbein, 2008 for evidence in support of this argument). unfortunately, the data collected in tpb studies often show floor or ceiling effects with accompanying low variance in at least one of the measured variables – a circumstance that poses a major challenge for research on interactions (yzer & van den putte, 2014). researchers interested in testing interactions involving pbc must make sure that their measures of att, sn, and pbc cover as much of the full range as possible and screen their data for excess skewness and kurtosis. in addition, there should also be sufficient variance in the dependent intention measure. avoiding these methodological problems usually involves choice of target behaviors that meet the necessary prerequisites, safeguards that are rarely evident in tpb research. aims and hypotheses in this article we report the results of three studies that tested the hypothesized interactions between attitude and perceived behavioral control (att x pbc) and between subjective norm and perceived behavioral control (sn x pbc) in the prediction of intentions. replications of this kind are needed in light of the “replicability crisis” in psychological science (nosek et al., 2015) and to generalize findings across behaviors that may vary in terms of meeting the prerequisites for testing interaction effects. several investigators (conner & mcmillan, 1999; hukkelberg et al., 2014; kothe & mullan, 2015; yzer & van den putte, 2014) have reported a significant interaction between att and pbc in the prediction of intention. in line with expectations, the higher the perceived control over the behavior, the stronger was the association between attitude and intention. in a multiple regression analysis, this interaction effect was evident in a significant positive regression coefficient for the att x pbc term. we expected to find a similar result in our studies. empirical findings regarding the sn x pbc interaction have been inconsistent. of the few studies that tested this interaction, some found a non-significant effect of pbc on the prediction of intention from sn (earle et al., 2020; kothe & mullan, 2015; umeh & patel, 2004); at least one study (yzer & van den putte, 2014) reported a positive effect, such that the prediction of intention from sn was better under high as compared to low control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 402 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pbc; yet another study (castanier et al., 2013) found a significant negative sn x pbc interaction coefficient, indicating that the prediction of intention from sn was weaker under high as opposed to low pbc. castanier et al. concluded that the more people felt control over performing a behavior (in their research, drinking and driving or disobeying road signs), the less they were influenced by peer pressure in forming their intentions. although perhaps unexpected for researchers in this field, the negative effect of pbc on the prediction of intention from sn is not unreasonable in light of past theory and research in social psychology. several classical experiments on conformity (e.g., sherif & harvey, 1952; see also latané & darley, 1968) have shown that degree of conformity increases as the behavioral task becomes more ambiguous or difficult—a situation that challenges the individual’s sense of mastery. research on self-efficacy (e.g., bandura, 1982) also suggests that perceived control is positively associated with autonomy and negatively associated with susceptibility to social pressure. as noted by jones (1986, p. 267), “individuals with low levels of self-efficacy may more readily accept definitions of situations offered by others.” finally, in a study guided by the tpb, hill et al. (1996) concluded that the influence of subjective norms may be especially important for novel behaviors that are challenging in terms of control. taken together, these considerations led us to hypothesize that the regression coefficient of sn in the prediction of intention declines as the level of pbc increases. study 1 overview in study 1 we tested the additive and interactive effects of att, sn and pbc in the prediction of voting intentions. specifically, as part of a research program on people’s views regarding the european union (eu), we collected data on intentions to vote in favor of eu integration, and we also assessed att, sn, and pbc with respect to this behavior. in addition, we included a measure of motivation to comply with the expectations of eight significant others identified in a pilot study. our hypothesis regarding the moderating effect of pbc on the sn-int relation is based on the idea that individuals high in perceived behavioral control are less influenced by social norms than are individuals low in pbc. this implies that motivation to comply with significant others should be negatively correlated with perceived behavioral control. materials and method participants four hundred and two participants (216 females, aged 18 to 82, mage = 37.22, sdage = 14.04), recruited in four public buildings in italy, completed the scales described below. the survey was conducted in italian (the items described in this paper are translations from the italian). measures intention — to assess participants’ intentions to vote in favor of eu integration, we used five items (e.g., “i would vote for eu to become a single country”) based on previous studies conducted on the topic (la barbera, 2015; la barbera, cariota ferrara, & boza, 2014). answers were collected on 7-point scales ranging from “definitely not” to “yes, definitely,” and then averaged across items to produce a single composite score, with higher values indicating a more favorable intention to vote for eu integration (cronbach’s α = .85). la barbera & ajzen 403 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attitude — attitudes toward voting in favor of eu integration were assessed by asking participants to rate “for me, voting in favor of european integration is:” on five 7-point bipolar adjective scales (e.g. “good – bad”, “unpleasant – pleasant”). responses were aggregated into a composite measure by averaging the scores on the five scales (cronbach’s α = .84). higher values indicate more positive attitudes. subjective norm — four items were used to measure subjective norm (e.g.: “most people who are important to me believe that i should/i should not vote in favor of european integration”) participants answered on 7-point scales. the answers were again aggregated into a single score by computing the mean across the scales (cronbach’s α = .67). higher values indicate greater social support for voting in favor of european integration. perceived behavioral control — four items were used to measure perceived behavioral control (e.g.: “whether i will vote in favor of european integration depends exclusively on me” (cronbach’s α = .64). responses on the 7-point scales were averaged. higher values indicate higher perceived control. motivation to comply — eight items were used to measure the individual’s motivation to comply with significant referents emerged in a pilot study (e.g.: “generally speaking, how much do you care about what your friends think you should do?”). participants answered on 7-point scales ranging from “not at all” to “very much.” the answers were aggregated into a single score by computing the mean across the scales (cronbach’s α = .86). higher values indicate higher motivation to comply. results and discussion as noted, distribution is a major issue when studying interactions. we first inspected the range of scores for the variables involved in moderation tests. the requirement that these scores cover the full range of the 7-point scale were met. they ranged from 1 to 7 for att and sn, and from 1.5 to 7 for pbc. intention scores also covered the full range. second, it can be seen in table 1 that the sample mean scores of all variables were close to the scale’s midpoint of 4.0. finally, we assessed the shape of the study variables’ frequency distributions. as a conventional rule of thumb, values of skewness and kurtosis should not exceed the threshold of ± 2 (field, 2009; gravetter & wallnau, 2014). for the variables assessed in our study, standard deviations exceeded 1.0, skewness ranged from -.166 to .312, and kurtosis ranged from -.030 to -.758. taken together, these findings suggest that our measures met all requirements for testing the hypothesized interactions. table 1 correlations, means, and standard deviations of study variables: study 1 variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. int 4.24 (1.58) 2. att .302*** 4.75 (1.35) 3. sn .252*** .552*** 4.57 (1.14) 4. pbc .249*** .521*** .422*** 4.99 (1.25) 5. mc .012 -.093 -.091 -.192*** 2.80 (1.28) note. the table shows pearson’s r correlation coefficients. diagonal cells report the variable means (standard deviations in parentheses). int = intention. att = attitude. sn = subjective norm. pbc = perceived behavioral control. mc = motivation to comply. ***p < .001. correlations, means, and standard deviations of the study variables are shown in table 1. control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 404 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as expected, the tpb constructs were significantly intercorrelated. interestingly, pbc was negatively correlated with motivation to comply. next, we used a hierarchical regression analysis to predict intentions from att, sn, and pbc (step 1), followed on the second step by the two hypothesized interactions. the variables were mean-centered before calculating the interaction terms. results are summarized in table 2. table 2 hierarchical regression analysis of the intention to vote for eu integration: study 1 predictor b 95% ci t step 1 (r2 = .114***) att 0.220** [0.07, 0.37] 2.89 sn 0.149 [-0.02, 0.31] 1.76 pbc 0.156* [0.01, 0.30] 2.08 step 2 (r2 = .134***; δr2 = .021*) att 0.217** [0.07, 0.37] 2.90 sn 0.187* [0.02, 0.36] 2.17 pbc 0.171* [0.03, 0.32] 2.30 att x pbc 0.099* [0.01, 0.19] 2.04 sn x pbc -0.169** [-0.29, -0.04] -2.69 note. unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. ci = confidence interval. int = intention. att = attitude. sn = subjective norm. pbc = perceived behavioral control. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. it can be seen that att and pbc were significantly associated with intention, whereas sn was not. on the second step, both hypothesized interactions proved significant, raising explained variance by 2.1%, f(2, 357) = 4.29, p = .014. however, the regression coefficients of att and sn had opposite signs, suggesting a different interaction pattern. we conducted a simple slope analysis to clarify the nature of the two interactions. the interaction between attitude and perceived behavioral control showed a pattern in line with our hypothesis and previous research. as can be seen in figure 1a, the relation between attitude and intention was stronger when pbc was high than when it was low. in fact, when pbc was 1sd below the mean the att-int relation was not significant (b = 0.09, t < 1), whereas it proved statistically significant when pbc was 1sd above the mean (b = 0.35, t = 3.44, p < .001). figure 1. simple slope analysis of the att x pbc (a) and sn x pbc (b) interaction: study 1. la barbera & ajzen 405 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the simple slope analysis also elucidates the contrary pattern of interaction between subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. when pbc was high, intention to vote in favor of eu integration remained relatively stable at the different levels of perceived social pressure. in fact, when pbc was 1sd above the mean the relation between subjective norm and intention was not statistically significant (b = 0.03, t < 1). by contrast, when pbc was below the mean, there was a significant positive relation between sn and int (b = 0.40, t = 3.12, p < .01). consistent with our hypotheses, the results of our first study suggest that in forming their intentions, participants rely on social pressure primarily when their sense of control is low rather than high. in other words, they seem to be more motivated to comply with the perceived normative expectations and behaviors of important social referents only when pbc is relatively low. to assess the validity of this interpretation, participants’ pbc was split at the median, creating a dichotomous variable with 0 (below median) representing low pbc, and 1 (above median) representing high pbc. in line with our interpretation, we found that motivation to comply with significant referents was higher for participants with low pbc, m = 3.01, sd = 1.27, compared to participants with high pbc, m = 2.58, sd = 1.24, t(385) = 3.33, p < .001. this result is in line with the significant and negative bivariate correlation found between motivation to comply and perceived behavioral control (see table 1). overall, these findings support our hypothesis regarding the prediction of intention from sn as moderated by pbc. study 2 overview in study 2, we replicated the first study using a different target behavior, namely reducing household food waste. in recent years, the topic of food waste reduction has been receiving a great deal of attention in scientific and public debates. this is primarily due to its negative impact on the environment (amato et al., 2019; del giudice et al., 2016; la barbera, del giudice, & sannino, 2014). recently, several articles have reported studies that addressed the issue in the framework of the tpb (e.g., la barbera et al., 2016; riverso et al., 2017; stancu et al., 2016; stefan et al., 2013). our second study went beyond these past efforts to examine the proposed moderating effects of perceived behavioral control, in relation to the prediction of intentions to reduce household food waste from attitudes and subjective norms. materials and method participants a total of 300 questionnaires were distributed in three public buildings of a metropolitan area in italy. the data of 18 questionnaires were dropped because participants failed to answer all questions. the final sample consisted of 282 participants (178 females), with age ranging from 18 to 76 (m = 33.44, sd = 12.64) who declared to be involved in cooking and shopping food at home. the survey was conducted in italian (the items described in this article are translations from the italian). it was adapted from stefan et al. (2013), who conducted a previous tpb study on reducing household food waste. control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 406 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures intention — two items were used to measure participants’ intentions to not throw away food: “i intend not to throw away food” and “in general, i try very hard not to throw away food.” answers were collected on 7-point scales and then averaged across items to produce a single composite score, with higher values indicating a stronger intention not to throw away food (spearman-brown rho = .77). attitude — attitudes toward throwing food away were measured by three items (e.g.: “throwing away food does not bother me” – reverse coded). participants responded on 7-point scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” responses were aggregated into a composite measure by averaging the scores on the three scales (cronbach’s α = .55). higher values indicate more negative attitudes towards throwing away food. subjective norm — two items were used to measure subjective norms: “most people important to me disapprove of me cooking/preparing more than enough food” and “most people important to me disapprove of me throwing food away.” participants answered on 7-point scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” the answers were again aggregated into a single score by computing the mean across the two scales (spearman-brown rho = .62). higher values indicate greater social support for reducing food waste. perceived behavioral control — three items were used to measure perceived behavioral control (e.g., “i am able to buy exactly the amount of food that my household needs”). responses on the 7-point scales (from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”) were averaged (cronbach’s α = .75). higher values indicate higher perceived control over avoiding food waste. results and discussion basic descriptive statistics of the study variables are provided in table 3, together with bivariate correlations. the scores of all study variables covered the full range on the 7-point scales, from 1 to 7. however, in contrast to the first study, the means tended to be positive except for pbc, which had a mean score close to the scale’s midpoint. skewness and kurtosis were within the thresholds of ± 2 for all variables. overall, then, the distributions of our study variables met the requirements for testing the hypothesized interactions. table 3 correlations, means and standard deviations of study variables: study 2 variable 1 2 3 4 1. int 5.58 (1.48) 2. att .154** 5.69 (1.29) 3. sn .363*** .055 5.02 (1.55) 4. pbc .413*** .181** .281*** 4.45 (1.32) note. the table shows pearson’s r correlation coefficients. diagonal cells report the variable mean (standard deviation in parentheses). int = intention. att = attitude. sn = subjective norm. pbc = perceived behavioral control. **p < .01. ***p < .001. we again used a hierarchical regression analysis for assessing the significance and size of the effects of the three tpb factors and their hypothesized interactions. on the first step, intention was regressed on attitude, la barbera & ajzen 407 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. on the second step the two-way interactions (att x pbc and sn x pbc) were entered as predictors of intention. the variables were mean-centered before calculating the interaction terms. results are summarized in table 4. table 4 hierarchical regression analysis of the intention to not throw food away: study 2 predictor b 95% ci t step 1 (r2 = .254***) att 0.093 [-0.03, 0.21] 1.53 sn 0.256*** [0.15, 0.36] 4.92 pbc 0.334*** [0.22, 0.45] 5.85 step 2 (r2 = .288***; δr2 = .034**) att 0.112 [-0.01, 0.23] 1.85 sn 0.258*** [0.16, 0.36] 5.03 pbc 0.305*** [0.19, 0.42] 5.86 att x pbc -0.04 [-0.14, 0.05] < 1.00 sn x pbc -0.111** [-0.18, -0.04] -3.05 note. unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. ci = confidence interval. **p < .01. ***p < .001. it can be seen that sn and pbc significantly predicted intention, whereas att did not. adding the interaction terms on step 2 increased explained variance by 3.4%, f(2, 275) = 6.61, p = .002, but only the interaction between sn and pbc proved statistically significant. a simple slope analysis (see figure 2) showed that when pbc was 1sd above the mean, the sn-int relation was non-significant (b = 0.08, t = 1.14, p = .25), whereas it was statistically significant when pbc was 1sd below (b = 0.38, t = 5.53, p < .001, respectively). in sum, the results with respect to the sn x pbc interaction showed a pattern similar to the results of study 1: only when pbc was low did subjective norm significantly predict intention to not throw away food. however, contrary to the results of the first study, which dealt with voting, intentions to not throw away food were unrelated to attitude toward this behavior and the interaction between attitude and perceived behavioral control was not significant. figure 2. simple slope analysis of the sn x pbc interaction: study 2. control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 408 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 3 overview in study 3, we further tested our interaction hypotheses on a different behavioral intention. in addition, we compared the moderating role of pbc with respect to two different kinds of subjective norms, namely injunctive and descriptive norms (cialdini & trost, 1998; fishbein & ajzen, 2010). injunctive subjective norms refer to the perceived behavioral expectations of important social referents, whereas descriptive subjective norms refer to whether these referents are themselves perceived to perform the behavior. we aimed to explore whether the particular interaction pattern between sn and pbc found in the previous two studies would be found in relation to each of these two different kinds of norms. in order to pursue these goals, we addressed the intention to reduce individual energy consumption, which is a pro-environmental behavior (peb). previous research on peb has often used the tpb framework with good results in terms of predictive validity (e.g., de leeuw et al., 2015). materials and method participants one hundred and fifty-eight university students (148 females, aged 18 to 24, mage = 19.25, sd = 1.09) completed a web-administered questionnaire during a class session, containing the scales described below. the survey was conducted in italian (the items described are translations from the italian). measures intention — three items were used to assess intentions to reduce energy consumption (e.g., “overall, i intend to reduce my energy consumption”). answers were collected on 7-point scales and then averaged across items to produce a single composite score, with higher values indicating intention not to throw food away (cronbach’s α = .75). attitude — attitudes was assessed by asking participants to rate “for me, reducing my energy consumption is:” on two 7-point bipolar adjective scales (“unpleasant – pleasant” and “not useful – useful”). responses were aggregated into a composite measure by averaging the scores on the two scales (spearman-brown rho = .67). higher values indicate more positive attitudes. subjective norm – injunctive (sni) — three items were used to measure injunctive norms (e.g., “most people who are important to me believe that i should reduce my energy consumption”). participants responded on 7-point scales ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” the answers were aggregated into a single average score (cronbach’s α = .58). higher values indicate greater perceived social pressure in favor of reducing energy consumption. subjective norm – descriptive (snd) — three items were used to measure descriptive norms: (e.g., “most students try to reduce their energy consumption”). participants answered on 7-point scales (“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). the answers were aggregated into a single average score (cronbach’s α = .76). higher values indicate descriptive norms in favor of reducing energy consumption. la barbera & ajzen 409 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived behavioral control — two items were used to measure perceived behavioral control: “i am able reduce my energy consumption” and “i feel capable of reducing my energy consumption.” responses on the 7-point “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” scales were averaged (spearman-brown rho = .85). higher values indicate higher perceived control. results and discussion descriptive statistics of the study variables are provided in table 5, together with bivariate correlations. the tpb constructs were significantly intercorrelated, except for the nonsignificant correlation of descriptive norms with injunctive norms and with perceived behavioral control. scores on all variables covered the full range, from 1 to 7, with means close to the midpoint except for pbc, which was about one scale point above the midpoint. importantly, for all study variables, skewness and kurtosis were under the threshold of ± 2, with skewness ranging from -.678 to .202, and kurtosis ranging from -.368 to .315. overall, then, the distributions of scores on all study variables met the requirements for testing interaction hypotheses. table 5 correlations, means and standard deviations of study variables’ aggregate scores: study 3 variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. int 4.59 (1.41) 2. att .694*** 4.45 (1.26) 3. sni .424*** .224** 4.75 (1.24) 4. snd .254** .268** -.037 3.32 (1.24) 5. pbc .526*** .563*** .281*** .078 5.06 (1.41) note. the table shows pearson’s r correlation coefficients. diagonal cells report the variable mean (standard deviation in parentheses). int = intention. att = attitude. sni = subjective norm (injunctive). snd = subjective norm (descriptive). pbc = perceived behavioral control. **p < .01. ***p < .001. hierarchical regression analysis was used for assessing the prediction of intentions from att, sni, snd, and pbc and of the hypothesized interactions. on the first step, intention was regressed on att, sni, snd, and pbc, and on the second step three two-way interactions were entered in the model, namely att x pbc, sni x pbc, and snd x pbc. the measures were mean-centered before calculating the interaction terms. results are provided in table 6. table 6 stepwise regression analysis of the intention to reduce individual energy consumption: study 3 predictor b 95% ci t step 1 (r2 = .585***) att 0.574*** [0.43, 0.72] 7.78 sni 0.309*** [0.19, 0.43] 5.02 snd 0.129* [0.01, 0.25] 2.09 pbc 0.157* [0.03, 0.28] 2.47 control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 410 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictor b 95% ci t step 2 (r2 = .621***; δr2 = .037**) att 0.502*** [0.35, 0.65] 6.76 sni 0.305*** [0.19, 0.42] 5.10 snd 0.119* [0.00, 0.24] 1.98 pbc 0.221** [0.90, 0.35] 3.32 att x pbc 0.104* [0.20, 0.18] 2.60 sni x pbc -0.117** [-0.19, -0.04] -3.07 snd x pbc -0.108* [0.19, 0.02] -2.47 note. unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. ci = confidence interval. int = intention. att = attitude. sni = subjective norm (injunctive). snd = subjective norm (descriptive). pbc = perceived behavioral control. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. it can be seen that all of the four tpb constructs significantly predicted intention to conserve energy. the model accounted for a substantive proportion of variance, r2 = .585. after entering the interaction terms on the second step, the model accounted for an additional 3.7% of the variance in intentions, f(3, 150) = 4.86, p = .003. all three interactions proved statistically significant. as in study 1, the interactions of pbc with attitude and the two norms had opposite signs. to explore the nature of these interactions, we again conducted a simple slope analysis (see figure 3). figure 3. simple slope analysis of the att x pbc (a), sni x pbc (b), and snd x pbc (c) interactions: study 3. la barbera & ajzen 411 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the simple slope analysis showed that the att-int relation was significant at different levels of pbc, but the strength of the relation increased as a function of pbc (see figure 3a). when pbc was 1sd below the mean, the relation was much weaker (b = 0.35, t = 3.37, p < .001) than when pbc was 1sd above the mean (b = 0.65, t = 8.01, p < .001). the relation between injunctive subjective norms and intentions was not significant when pbc was 1sd above the mean (b = 0.14, t = 1.70, p = .09), but it was statistically significant when pbc was 1sd below the mean (b = 0.47, t = 5.92, p < .001). furthermore, the results showed the same pattern for the relation between descriptive norms and intentions: when pbc was 1sd above the mean the snd-int relation was not significant (b = 0.03, t < 1) whereas it was statistically significant when pbc was 1sd below the mean (b = 0.27, t = 3.32, p = .001). these findings replicate the results of the previous two studies in relation to injunctive subjective norms and generalize them to descriptive subjective norms. general discussion and conclusion from a theoretical perspective, perceived behavioral control is expected to moderate the effects of attitude toward the behavior and of subjective norm on intention, and the effect of intention on behavior. however, although the theory of planned behavior has stimulated a great deal of research, tests of these interaction hypotheses have rarely been reported. this could be due to the absence of strong empirical support for these interaction effects in early research inspired by the tpb. the studies reported in the present article demonstrate the important moderating role of perceived behavioral control in the prediction of intention from attitude and subjective norms, suggesting that future research based on the tpb should pay renewed attention to interactions effects. in line with previous research (hukkelberg et al., 2014; yzer & van den putte, 2014), studies 1 and 3 supported the hypothesis that pbc moderates the extent to which attitudes predict intentions. in study 2, intentions to avoid food waste were unrelated to attitude, and the interaction between attitude and perceived behavioral control was not significant. these unexpected findings may be due to the fact that our measure of attitude in the second study was less reliable (cronbach’s alpha = .55) than in studies 1 and 3 (cronbach’s alpha = .89 and .67, respectively). the results of study 2 regarding the lack of an interaction between att and pbc must therefore be interpreted with caution. overall, however, and in line with the relatively few studies already existing on the topic, the current research supports the idea that the predictive power of attitude in relation to intention increases with pbc. in some cases, as in our first study, the relation between attitude and intention may not even be significant when pbc is low. as to the sn x pbc interaction, all three studies showed it as statistically significant. simple slope analyses revealed a pattern of relations opposite to the one involving attitudes and perceived behavioral control. in all three studies, subjective norms predicted intention better when perceived behavioral control was low rather than high. this pattern was found in relation to different populations and behaviors, injunctive as well as descriptive subjective norms, and slightly different measures of the tpb constructs. these findings provide early yet robust support for a pattern of interaction between perceived social pressure and perceived behavioral control that differs from the pattern for the att x pbc interaction. whereas greater perceived behavioral control control interactions in the theory of planned behavior 412 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tends to increase the relative importance of attitude in the prediction of intention, it tends to decrease the importance of subjective norm. as we noted in the introduction, results of previous studies on interaction effects in the tpb have been inconsistent. several studies found a non-significant sn x int interaction. these studies, however, failed to carefully consider the distribution of variables that are hypothesized to interact, a shortcoming that was remedied in our studies. another reason for the different results may be related to the fact that although the three studies reported in this article replicated results across three different behaviors, all three were behaviors collective in nature. to be sure, voting for european integration, reducing household food waste, and lowering energy consumption are behaviors that are performed by individuals, but attainment of their goals (passage of a referendum favoring greater eu integration, a significant reduction of food waste, and lower overall energy consumption) also depend on the behaviors of others. in contrast, in the study by yzer and van den putte (2014), which found that the relative importance of subjective norm increased as a positive function of pbc, the dependent variable was intention to quit smoking, arguably an individualistic behavior that does not depend on the actions of others. similarly, two studies that found a non-significant interaction between sn and int (earle et al., 2020; kothe & mullan, 2015) were also concerned with individualistic behaviors. the contrast between collectivistic and individualistic behaviors may explain why our results differed from those of previous studies. more research with individualistic behaviors is needed to confirm this conjecture. it is up to future research to explore whether the nature of the behavior (collectivistic, individualistic, addictive, health-related, consumer behavior, etc.) affects the pattern of interactions between sn and pbc. it is worth noting that in many tpb studies, subjective norms tend to have a relatively weak or nonsignificant regression coefficient in the prediction of intention (e.g., mahon, cowan, & mccarthy, 2006; white et al., 2008; see also the meta-analytic review by armitage & conner, 2001), leading to the conclusion that subjective norms are of little importance in determining behavioral intentions. the significant sn x pbc interactions revealed in the present studies suggest that this conclusion may be unfounded. our studies indicate that such results could be due to the neglect of the sn x pbc interaction term in the statistical model. thus, in our first study, sn had a non-significant regression coefficient in the prediction of intention, but our hierarchical regression analysis revealed a significant interaction with pbc, showing that prediction of intention from subjective norm was significant for participants with relatively low pbc. these findings draw attention to the important role subjective norms may play in the prediction of intention despite their frequently weak main effects. with respect to research guided by the theory of planned behavior, we can derive two important recommendations from our findings. (1) it is important to carefully consider the distributions of the tpb measures, making sure that att, sn, and pbc scores cover the whole range of the response scale; and (2) statistical analyses should include the interactions between att and sn on one hand, and pbc on the other. future research should also consider the subdimensions of att, sn, and pbc. the distinction between injunctive and descriptive subjective norms was taken into account in our third study, which found a significant interaction between both kinds of norm and pbc. it would also be interesting to test the att x pbc interaction in relation to the distinction between the two subdimensions of att, namely instrumental and experiential attitudes (see fishbein & ajzen, 2010). by the same token, it would be possible to examine the moderating role of pbc in relation to the two sub-dimensions of perceived behavioral control that have emerged in empirical research. fishbein and ajzen (2010) referred to these dimensions as capacity – the perceived ability to carry la barbera & ajzen 413 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ out a behavior – and autonomy – the extent to which performance of the behavior is viewed as being under one’s personal control. at least one study (castanier et al., 2013) seems to suggest that these two dimensions of pbc may have different moderation effects on the att-intention and sn-intention relations. future research could therefore examine the full set of interactions among the predictors of intentions: interactions between each of the two att factors and each of the two sn factors on one hand and each of the two pbc dimensions on the other. finally, we acknowledge that the three studies reported here were all conducted with italian convenience samples, which may raise questions regarding the generalizability of our findings. interestingly, recent work has established that, when findings are replicable, they tend to hold up across a wide range of populations and cultures (klein et al., 2018). nevertheless, additional studies with representative samples in other countries are needed to confirm the external validity of our findings regarding interaction effects in the context of the tpb. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ajzen, i. 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(2014). control perceptions moderate attitudinal and normative effects on intention to quit smoking. psychology of addictive behaviors, 28(4), 1153-1161. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037924 about the authors francesco la barbera completed his ph.d. in psychology at the university of napoli federico ii (italy). he is assistant professor at the department of political sciences of the same university, where he currently teaches social psychology. his recent research has been conducted on the theory of planned behavior, attitudes (explicit and implicit) and social identity, in relation to a variety of topics, such as food consumption sustainability, consumer behavior, and european identity. icek ajzen is a prof. emeritus at the university of massachusetts amherst (usa). he received his doctorate from the university of illinois at urbana–champaign and is best known for his work on the theory of planned behavior. ajzen has been ranked the most influential social psychologist in terms of cumulative research impact. he received the distinguished scientist award from the society of experimental social psychology in 2013 and the distinguished scientific contribution award from the society for personality and social psychology in 2016. his research has been influential across diverse fields such as health psychology, consumer behavior, and environmental psychology, and has been cited over 250,000 times. la barbera & ajzen 417 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 401–417 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.foodqual.2012.11.001 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f135910704322778704 https://doi.org/10.3200%2fsocp.148.4.473-492 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0037924 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ control interactions in the theory of planned behavior (introduction) aims and hypotheses study 1 overview materials and method results and discussion study 2 overview materials and method results and discussion study 3 overview materials and method results and discussion general discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression research reports cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression katerina rnica, david j. a. dozois*a, rod a. martina [a] department of psychology, the university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract cognitive distortions are negative biases in thinking that are theorized to represent vulnerability factors for depression and dysphoria. despite the emphasis placed on cognitive distortions in the context of cognitive behavioural theory and practice, a paucity of research has examined the mechanisms through which they impact depressive symptomatology. both adaptive and maladaptive styles of humor represent coping strategies that may mediate the relation between cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms. the current study examined the correlations between the frequency and impact of cognitive distortions across both social and achievement-related contexts and types of humor. cognitive distortions were associated with reduced use of adaptive affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and increased use of maladaptive aggressive and self-defeating humor. reduced use of self-enhancing humor mediated the relationship between most types of cognitive distortions and depressed mood, indicating that distorted negative thinking may interfere with an individual’s ability to adopt a humorous and cheerful outlook on life (i.e., use self-enhancing humor) as a way of regulating emotions and coping with stress, thereby resulting in elevated depressive symptoms. similarly, self-defeating humor mediated the association of the social impact of cognitive distortions with depression, such that this humor style may be used as a coping strategy for dealing with distorted thinking that ultimately backfires and results in increased dysphoria. keywords: cognitive distortions, humor, depression, dysphoria, negative beliefs, cognitive vulnerability europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 received: 2016-01-22. accepted: 2016-04-13. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, the university of western ontario, london on, canada. e-mail: ddozois@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. cognitive distortions are negatively biased errors in thinking that are purported to increase vulnerability to depression (dozois & beck, 2008). individuals experience automatic thoughts in response to events, which in turn lead to emotional and behavioral responses. the content of automatic thoughts is typically consistent with an individual’s core beliefs about important aspects of themselves, others, and the world. when negative core beliefs are activated and negative automatic thoughts elicited (comprised of errors in reasoning that are not evidence-based) a negative, neutral or even positive event may influence negative affect and maladaptive behaviours. overtime, this sequence among thoughts, emotions and behaviours can cause or maintain symptoms of depression. cognitive distortions were first listed and described by beck, rush, shaw, and emery (1979). burns (1980) subsequently expanded on their list and identified 10 common depressotypic thinking errors. these includemindreading (i.e., assuming that others are thinking negatively about oneself), catastrophizing (i.e., making negative predictions about the future based on little or no evidence), all-or-nothing-thinking (i.e., viewing something as either-or, without considering the full spectrum and range of possible evaluations), emotional reasoning (i.e., believing something to be true based on emotional responses rather than objective evidence), labeling (i.e., classifying oneself negaeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ tively after the occurrence of an adverse event), mental filtering (i.e., focusing on negative information and devaluing positive information), overgeneralization (i.e., assuming that the occurrence of one negative event means that additional bad things will happen), personalization (i.e., assuming that one is the cause of a negative event), should statements (i.e., thinking that things must or should be a certain way), and minimizing or disqualifying the positive (i.e., ignoring or dismissing positive things that have happened). cognitive errors may occur with differing frequency across social and achievement domains, particularly depending on the content of an individual’s core beliefs, which typically fall into two categories: unlovability/sociotropy/dependency, or helplessness/autonomy/achievement (beck, 1995; beck, epstein, harrison, & emery, 1983; clark, beck, & alford, 1999). given the importance of the interpersonal context for the onset and course of depression (see evraire & dozois, 2011; hammen & shih, 2014), cognitive distortions occurring in the social domain may be most relevant to depressive symptomatology. although cognitive distortions figure prominently in cognitive theory and therapy, a dearth of research has examined the mechanisms through which cognitive distortions impact subsequent psychological distress. humor styles are potential mediators of the association between cognitive and interpersonal vulnerability factors and psychological dysfunction, distress, or poor interpersonal functioning (e.g., cann, norman, welbourne, & calhoun, 2008; dozois, martin, & faulkner, 2013; fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009; kazarian, moghnie, & martin, 2010; kuiper & mchale, 2009). for example, past research has found that various humor styles mediated the relation of early maladaptive schemas (i.e., core beliefs about the self and others) and depressive symptoms (dozois, martin, & bieling, 2009). humor styles comprise the ways in which people use humor to cope and to communicate with others. because humor involves incongruity and can be interpreted in multiple ways, it can be used to shift perspectives regarding a stressful situation and as a way to gain a sense of mastery. past research has indicated that some humor styles accomplish this in a way that is beneficial (affiliative and self-enhancing humor), whereas other styles are maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating humor; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, &weir, 2003; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004). affiliative humor is used to facilitate relationships, amuse others, and minimize social tension through the use of spontaneous jokes, witty banter, and funny anecdotes. self-enhancing humor involves a humorous and cheerful outlook in life and a tendency to be amused by incongruities that facilitates emotion regulation and coping with stress and adversity. this type of humor encompasses a style of thinking, and therefore can be conceptualized as a cognitive construct. aggressive humor is used to posture in a relationship and to demean or manipulate others through the use of sarcasm, teasing, derision, and ridicule. this style of humor involves making disparaging comments and “putting down” others in an effort to enhance one’s self, but at the expense of relationship quality. self-defeating humor involves excessive self-disparagement as one says or does funny things at one’s own expense in order to gain approval, amuse others, or to avoid dealing with a problem. this type of humor is ingratiating and includes allowing oneself to be the “butt” of others’ jokes. this type of humor is associated with low self-esteem and is distinct from not taking oneself overly seriously and making light of one’s faults and errors in a self-accepting manner (which would comprise affiliative humor). the four styles of humor, as assessed by the humor styles questionnaire (martin et al., 2003), are differentially correlated with emotional and psychosocial well-being (see martin, 2007, for review). self-enhancing humor is associated with emotional well-being, including self-esteem, optimism, and positive affect, and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, rumination, perceived stress, and neuroticism. affiliative humor, in contrast, is more closely associated with relationship variables than with emotional well-being, and is related to intimacy, relationship satisfaction, social support, interpersonal competence, secure attachment, and extraversion. affiliative humor is europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 349 http://www.psychopen.eu/ inversely related to loneliness and social anxiety. likewise, aggressive humor is predominantly associated with relationship variables, and is negatively related to satisfaction, competence, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and positively associated with hostility and neuroticism. self-defeating humor is related to anxiety, depression, anxious attachment, and neuroticism, and negatively associated with self-esteem and optimism. whereas selfenhancing and low self-defeating humor are related to emotional well-being, affiliative and low aggressive humor are more closely associated with interpersonal functioning. the aim of the current study is to investigate how both beneficial and detrimental uses of humor influence depressive symptoms. humor styles are considered to be coping strategies, which may be used to cope with the experience of activated beliefs and distorted thinking. because cognitive distortions involve negatively biased thinking about self and others, it was hypothesized that individuals who experience cognitive distortions frequently and whose lives are impacted by them would tend to engage in maladaptive humor styles as these would be more congruent with automatic thoughts involving themes of incompetence, worthlessness, unlovability, and assumptions that others are perceiving and thinking negatively about them. given that these themes are relevant to low self-esteem, which self-defeating, not aggressive, humor is related to, cognitive distortions may be more robustly associated with a self-defeating humor style. a negatively distorted type of thinking is likely not conducive to the use of affiliative and self-enhancing humor (particularly in social contexts where humor is more likely to play a role), which require a sense of playfulness, the generation of positive statements, and an intention to connect with others. furthermore, given that low self-enhancing and high self-defeating humor have been found to be most closely associated with emotional distress, these variables were hypothesized to mediate the association of cognitive distortions (both frequency and impact) with depressive symptoms. mediating models were also tested separately for frequency and impact of cognitive distortions in interpersonal and achievement contexts in an exploratory manner. method participants participants were 208 first-year undergraduate psychology students at the university of western ontario, who were predominantly female (70% female, 30% male) and white (69% identified as white, 25% as asian, 2% as black, 1% as hispanic, and 3% as ‘other’ or mixed race). the mean age of the sample was 18.46 (sd = 1.73). measures cognitive distortions scale (cds) the cds (covin, dozois, ogniewicz, & seeds, 2011) is a 20-item self-report measure that assesses the frequency of 10 types of cognitive distortions (mindreading, catastrophizing, all-or-nothing thinking, emotional reasoning, labeling, mental filtering, overgeneralization, personalization, should statements, minimizing or disqualifying the positive) across both social and achievement related (e.g., school or work) situations. participants are presented with a definition of the distortion (referred to in the questionnaire as a ‘thinking type’ in order to reduce defensiveness) and provided with an example of that distortion in an interpersonal and achievement context. for example, for ‘should statements,’ the following definition is provided: “people sometimes think that things should or must be a certain way” and the example for interpersonal contexts is: “anne believes that she must be funny and interesting when socializing.” participants indicate the frequency with which they engage in the type of thinking on a europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 350 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 7-point likert-type scale (1 = never, 7 = all the time) in social and achievement situations. total, social, and achievement scores are obtained by adding items. past research has indicated that the cds has good psychometric properties in undergraduate (covin, dozois, ogniewicz, & seeds, 2011) and clinical samples (özdel, taymur, guriz, tulaci, kuru, & turkcapar, 2014), including internal consistency, test-retest reliability over two weeks, and construct, discriminant, convergent, and divergent validity. in the current study, participants were also asked to rate the impact that cognitive distortions have in social and achievement contexts on a 7-point likert-type scale (1 = not at all, 7 = totally). internal consistency of each subscale was good (total frequency = .91, social frequency = .81, achievement frequency = .85, total impact = .92, social impact = .85, achievement impact = .86). humor styles questionnaire (hsq) the hsq (martin et al., 2003) is a 32-item self-report measure that assess adaptive (affiliative, self-enhancing) and maladaptive (aggressive, self-defeating) styles of humor. sample items are: “i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends” (affiliative humor); “even when i’m by myself, i’m often amused by the absurdities of life” (selfenhancing humor); “if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it” (aggressive humor); and “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh” (self-defeating humor). respondents rate items by indicating the extent to which they agree with statements on a 7-point likert-type scale (1= totally disagree; 7 = totally agree). higher scores indicate that a particular humor style is descriptive of the participant. past research has demonstrated good reliability and validity of subscales (martin 2007; martin et al., 2003), including internal consistency, test-retest reliability over one week, and construct, criterion, discriminant, and convergent validity, as well as a stable factor structure. in the current study, the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of each of the subscales was good (affiliative = .81, self-enhancing = .82, aggressive = .68, self-defeating = .75). beck depression inventory-ii (bdi-ii) the bdi-ii (beck, steer, & brown, 1996) is a 21-item instrument that assesses the presence and severity of unipolar depressive symptoms. individuals rate each statement on a 0 to 3 scale according to how well it describes how they have felt over the past two weeks. a sample item is “sadness: 0 = i do not feel sad; 1 = i feel sad much of the time; 2 = i am sad all the time; 3 = i am so sad or unhappy that i can’t stand it.” total scores are yielded by summing items, with higher scores indicating greater depressive symptoms. the bdi-ii has been widely used with adult and undergraduate samples and is recognized for its strong psychometric properties, including internal consistency, test-retest reliability over several months, content, construct, criterion, convergent, and divergent validity (e.g., dozois, dobson, & ahnberg, 1998; see dozois & covin, 2004, for a review). in the current study, internal consistency was excellent (cronbach’s alpha = .92). procedure participants completed measures during group testing sessions. participants completed the cds, hsq, and bdiii, as well as additional measures as part of a larger study, in randomized order. participants were then debriefed about the nature of the study and compensated with course credit. statistical analyses mediation analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis that humor styles mediate the relationship between cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms. simple correlations between the predictor variables (cognitive distortions), mediator variables (humor styles) and the criterion variable (depressive symptoms) were first examined europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 351 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (see table 1). a prerequisite for mediation is that all correlations between a predictor and mediator, mediator and criterion, and predictor and criterion for a given analysis be significant (baron & kenny, 1986). mediation analyses were conducted only for the cognitive distortions and corresponding mediators that met this requirement. to test for the potential mediating effects of humor styles, the bootstrap sampling procedure developed by preacher and hayes (2008) was used. this procedure examines and tests the direct effect of the predictor variable on the criterion variable and the indirect (i.e., mediating) effect through the pathway of the mediator variable. the bootstrap procedure uses sampling with replacement to draw a large number of samples (1,000 in the present study) from the data set, and path coefficients are calculated for each sample. using estimates based on the 1,000 samples, the mean direct and indirect effects and their confidence intervals (cis) are computed. these cis are used to determine whether or not an effect is statistically significant. for each effect, the corresponding bias corrected 95% or 99% ci was examined; if the range did not cross zero, the effect was considered significant at the .05 or .01 level, respectively. an advantage of the bootstrap-driven approach is that it does not assume a normal distribution of variables, unlike product-of-coefficient approaches such as the sobel test. all mediation analyses were conducted using the macro provided by preacher and hayes (2008) for conducting the bootstrap procedure. note that in the figures and tables presented, path coefficients and corresponding p-values are based on mediation analyses without bootstrapping, since the bootstrapping procedure only provides bias corrected cis in the output. because the bootstrapping procedure provides a more robust analysis, the evaluations of significance in the analyses below are based on bootstrapping. all variables in the analysis were standardized (m = 0, sd = 1.0), to allow for a comparison of results across analyses. path coefficients can therefore be interpreted in a manner similar to correlation coefficients. results the means and standard deviations for the six cds subscales, the four hsq subscales, and the bdi-ii are presented in table 2 for descriptive purposes. pearson correlations between the cds scales, hsq scales, and bdiii are presented in table 1. cognitive distortion frequency was significantly negatively correlated with affiliative and self-enhancing humor. this variable was also positively associated with aggressive and self-defeating humor. the same pattern of correlations was found for cognitive distortion social frequency. cognitive distortion achievement frequency was significantly and negatively related to self-enhancing humor, and positively correlated with self-defeating humor. cognitive distortion impact was negatively correlated with affiliative and self-enhancing humor, and positively correlated with self-defeating humor. the same pattern of correlations was found for cognitive distortion social and achievement impact. all scales of the cds were significantly positively correlated with the bdi-ii, consistent with the idea that cognitive distortions are vulnerability factors for dysphoria and depression. furthermore, consistent with past research, the bdi-ii was negatively correlated with self-enhancing humor, and positively associated and self-defeating humor. it was also positively related to aggressive humor. multiple mediation analyses were conducted using the procedure described earlier to examine potential mediating effects of the humor styles on the relationships between each of the cds subscales and the bdi-ii. in the analysis using cds frequency as the predictor variable, hsq self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor styles were included as potential mediators, as these were the only humor styles correlated with both cds freeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 352 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 pearson correlation coefficients between depressive symptoms, cognitive distortions, and humor styles hsq-self-defeating humor hsq-aggressive humor hsq-self-enhancing humor hsq-affiliative humorbdi-iiscale cds-frequency .31***.17*.16*-.16*-.35*** cds-social frequency .39***.17*.20*-.17*-.33*** cds-achievement frequency .29***.14.10*-.13-.31*** cds-impact .23**.03.22**-.20*-.31*** cds-social impact .21**.04.25**-.19*-.31*** cds-achievement impact .22**.03.16*-.18*-.27** hsq-affiliative humor .11hsq-self-enhancing humor .23**hsq-aggressive humor .18** hsq-self-defeating humor .28*** note. bdi-ii = beck depression inventory-ii; cds = cognitive distortions scale; hsq = humor styles questionnaire. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 2 descriptive statistics for cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depressive symptoms sdmvariable cds-frequency .1618.0081 cds-social frequency .279.6041 cds-achievement frequency .2110.4139 cds-impact .1519.9680 cds-social impact .979.8241 cds-achievement impact .6010.1439 hsq-affiliative humor .396.6347 hsq-self-enhancing humor .488.2836 hsq-aggressive humor .317.6129 hsq-self-defeating humor .088.7626 bdi-ii .536.799 note. bdi-ii = beck depression inventory-ii; cds = cognitive distortions scale; hsq = humor styles questionnaire. quency and bdi-ii scores. results of this analysis are presented in figure 1. a significant mediating effect was found for self-enhancing humor (p < .05), but the mediating effects for aggressive and self-defeating humor were not significant. therefore, higher scores on cds frequency were associated with lower self-enhancing humor, which in turn predicted higher bdi-ii scores. in addition to the indirect effect of cds frequency on dysphoria through self-enhancing humor, a direct effect was also found (p < .01), indicating that self-enhancing humor only partially mediated this relationship. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 353 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mediating effect of self-enhancing humor on the relation between frequency of cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not statistically significant. in the mediation analysis for cds social frequency, hsq self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating humor styles were again included as potential mediators as determined by the pattern of correlations found earlier. the results are shown in figure 2. in this analysis, and similar to the analysis for cds frequency, a significant mediating effect was found for self-enhancing humor (p < .05), but the mediating effects for aggressive and self-defeating humor were not significant. therefore, higher scores on cds social frequency were associated with lower self-enhancing humor, which in turn predicted higher bdi-ii scores. furthermore, in addition to the indirect effect of cds frequency on dysphoria through self-enhancing humor, a direct effect was also found (p < .01), indicating that self-enhancing humor only partially mediated this relationship. figure 2.mediating effect of self-enhancing humor on the relation between frequency of cognitive distortions in social contexts and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not statistically significant. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 354 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the analysis using cds achievement frequency as the predictor variable, only hsq self-enhancing and selfdefeating humor styles were included as potential mediators based on the obtained pattern of correlations. the results are presented in figure 3. no significant mediating effects were found, however there was a direct effect of cds achievement frequency on dysphoria (p < .01). figure 3.nonsignificant mediating effect of humor styles on the relation between frequency of cognitive distortions in achievement contexts and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not statistically significant. in the analysis using cds impact as the predictor, hsq self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles were included as potential mediators, see figure 4. a significant mediating effect was found for self-enhancing humor (p < .05), and the mediating effect for self-defeating humor was nonsignificant. higher scores on cds impact predicted lower self-enhancing humor, which in turn predicted higher bdi-ii scores. the direct effect of cds impact on dysphoria was also significant, (p < .01), indicating a partial mediating effect of self-enhancing humor. figure 4. mediating effect of self-enhancing humor on the relation between impact of cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not statistically significant. figure 5 shows the results of the analysis for cds social impact, in which we entered self-enhancing and selfdefeating humor as potential mediators as determined by the pattern of simple correlations. in this analysis, sigeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 355 http://www.psychopen.eu/ nificant mediating effects were found for both self-enhancing (p < .05) and self-defeating humor (p < .05). higher scores on cdssocial impact predicted lower scores on self-enhancing and higher scores on self-defeating humor, which in turn predicted higher bdi-ii scores. the direct effect of cds social impact on dysphoria was significant (p < .01), indicating that the humor styles were only partial mediators. figure 5. mediating effect of self-enhancing and self-defeating humor on the relation between impact of cognitive distortions in social contexts and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. finally, in the analysis for cds achievement impact, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor were entered as potential mediators. only self-enhancing humor mediated the relation of cds achievement impact with depressive symptoms (p < .05). no mediating effect was found for self-defeating humor, see figure 6. therefore, higher scores on cds achievement impact predicted lower self-enhancing humor, which in turn predicted higher bdiii scores. the direct effect of cds achievement impact on dysphoria was also significant, (p < .05), indicating that self-enhancing humor was only a partial mediator. figure 6. mediating effect of self-enhancing humor on the relation between impact of cognitive distortions in achievement contexts and depressive symptoms. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not statistically significant. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 356 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships among cognitive distortions, adaptive and maladaptive humor styles, and depressive symptoms. another objective was to evaluate whether humor styles mediate the relationship between cognitive distortions and dysphoria. as predicted, the frequency and impact of cognitive distortions, as well as frequency and impact ratings of cognitive distortions in both interpersonal and achievement-related contexts, were positively and significantly associated with depressive symptomatology. this finding is consistent with cognitive theory, which posits that cognitive distortions are a form of automatic thoughts related to negative affect and depressed mood. this finding is also supportive of the practice of assessing and altering cognitive distortions as a treatment target in cognitive behavioral therapy for depressed individuals (see clark, 2014). consistent with past research, self-reported depressive symptoms were negatively related to use of self-enhancing humor and positively associated with self-defeating humor. however, inconsistent with past research, dysphoria was not related to affiliative humor in the present study, although pearson’s r was in in the expected direction (i.e., negative). past research has found modest negative correlations of affiliative humor with dysphoria (dozois et al., 2009; frewen, brinker, martin, & dozois, 2008) using an undergraduate sample that was similar in terms of age and gender distribution. however, the current sample exhibited a smaller mean and standard deviation in bdi-ii scores. it is possible that the current sample lacked sufficient severity and variance in self-reported depressive symptoms to detect a true correlation between dysphoria and affiliative humor. moreover, affiliative humor is both theoretically and empirically more pertinent to relational functioning than to emotional well-being (martin, 2007), so it is not entirely surprising that a significant relationship was not found in the current study. additionally, and also in contrast with past research, the current study found that dysphoria was associated with an aggressive humor style (e.g., dozois et al., 2009; frewen et al., 2008; see martin, 2007 for review). this is consistent with the finding that depression is predictive of greater generation of interpersonal conflict (i.e., interpersonal stress generation; hammen, 1991), such that some of this conflict may arise from the depressed individual’s use of aggressive humor. consistent with hypotheses, cognitive distortions were inversely associated with beneficial styles of humor, and positively correlated with detrimental humor styles. affiliative humor was significantly and negatively associated with all forms of cognitive distortions, with the exception of frequency of cognitive distortions in achievement situations, which was not associated with affiliative humor. this is likely because achievement contexts are less relevant for efforts to affiliate with others. affiliative humor is used to facilitate relationships and reduce tension, and involves a sense of playfulness and spontaneity. negatively distorted thinking, in contrast, involves a rigid pattern of thinking that lacks the openness, flexibility, and creativity required to generate funny comments and anecdotes. moreover, when individuals are thinking negatively, they are less able to access and retrieve information and memories that are incongruent with their current negative state (bower, 1981; ingram, steidtmann, & bistricky, 2008). moreover, depending on the content of negative distortions, individuals may be assuming that others do not think well of them or will not respond favorably to their efforts to be humorous. if the content of their thinking is self-focused, they may lack the self-efficacy and confidence to make a joke in an effort to bond with others or ‘lighten the mood.’ similarly, all types of cognitive distortions were associated with reduced self-enhancing humor. this finding is likely due to similar reasons as above. furthermore, it is likely difficult to adopt a humorous, cheerful perspective and to feel amusement when the valence and content of one’s thoughts are in direct conflict. as a predominantly cognitive construct, self-enhancing humor is unlikely to coincide with negative cognitive diseurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 357 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tortions. aggressive humor was only associated with overall frequency and social frequency of cognitive distortions, such that greater frequency of cognitive distortions was related to increased use of aggressive humor. cognitive distortions may involve thoughts that others are hostile or have bad intentions, leading the individual to engage in aggressive humor out of defensiveness or to retaliate for perceived hostility. the finding that aggressive humor was not associated with other facets of cognitive distortions is consistent with past research that aggressive humor is not related to self-esteem (martin et al., 2003), a construct that represents negatively biased views of the self, and therefore has overlap with cognitive distortions. it is possible that use of aggressive humor is driven more by other variables, such as hostility. finally, self-defeating humor was positively associated with all forms of cognitive distortions. individuals who engage in biased negative thinking about themselves may attempt to use humor to gain the approval of others to feel better but, because the content of their thoughts is negative, are more likely to retrieve negative self-relevant information and beliefs, and therefore generate humor that is consistent and is therefore self-disparaging. an additional goal of this study was to examine whether humor styles mediate the relation of cognitive distortions with dysphoria. humor styles can be conceptualized as emotion regulation, coping, and communication strategies that are likely influenced by the frequency and impact of cognitive distortions and that may in turn influence severity of depression. multiple mediation analyses indicated that humor styles partially mediated all types of cognitive distortions, with the exception of the frequency of cognitive distortions in achievement-relevant situations. it is possible that other, less socially relevant behaviours play a role in influencing dysphoria in these contexts, such as procrastination, avoidant coping, and rumination. all other cognitive distortions (overall frequency, frequency in social contexts, overall impact, and impact in social and achievement contexts) were mediated by selfenhancing humor, such that cognitive distortions predicted reduced use of self-enhancing humor, which in turn predicted greater depressive symptoms. this finding suggests that the experience of negative thinking may interfere with an individual’s ability to adopt a humorous and cheerful outlook on life (i.e., use self-enhancing humor) as a way of regulating emotions and coping with stress, thereby resulting in elevated depressive symptoms. in addition, use of self-defeating humor (along with decreased self-enhancing humor), partially mediated the relation of the impact of cognitive distortions in social situations with dysphoria. therefore, individuals who experience cognitive distortions in social situations may respond to these thoughts by attempting to connect with others by making jokes at their own expense. this strategy backfires, however, and results in increased dysphoria. the use of selfdefeating humor may reinforce the individual’s negative self-concept (thereby increasing negative affect), especially when others appear to agree with the individual’s humorous actions or statements, or to react to their use of humor in a rejecting manner. altogether, these findings are consistent with past research, which found that self-enhancing and self-defeating humor styles are more predictive of emotional well-being and distress, including depression, than are affiliative and aggressive humor, variables for which mediation was not found. among the positive humor styles, self-enhancing humor is more relevant to cognition, whereas affiliative humor is more relevant to relationships, which could explain why self-enhancing humor plays a role in the relationship of cognitive distortions and depression. among the negative humor styles, self-defeating humor is related to self-esteem, a variable associated with both cognitive distortions and depression, whereas aggressive humor is not, which similarly could explain why self-defeating humor was the only maladaptive humor style to demonstrate mediating effects. a limitation of this study was its cross-sectional design. we cannot rule out, based on the current data, whether humor styles actually precede the tendency to engage in distorted thinking, that prior depression predicts cognitive distortions and use of humor styles, or that an unmeasured third variable accounts for both cognitive distortions europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 358 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and humor style. moreover, current depressive symptomatology may have influenced the use or reporting of humor styles. although temporal precedence cannot be determined based on the current study, results are consistent with the hypothesis that the association of cognitive distortions and dysphoria is at least partially mediated by reduced use of adaptive humor and, in one case, increased use of maladaptive humor, to cope with stress. in addition, the generalizability of the study is limited by the nature of the sample, which was predominantly comprised of young adult caucasian females. whether the same results would be obtained in a clinical sample (e.g., individuals with major depression) with greater endorsement of cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms, or in a sample with a greater proportion of males, is an empirical question for future research. longitudinal research is needed to examine changes in the relationships between cognitive distortions, humor styles, and depression across the lifespan. moreover, future research should examine the relation of cognitive distortions with humor styles and depressive symptoms using behavioural and process measures. an examination of whether information processing influences the ability to use various styles of humor when an individual has recently engaged in distorted thinking is another question worthy of further study. this study demonstrates that cognitive distortions, which represent a cognitive vulnerability to depression, are mediated by low use of an adaptive humor style, self-enhancing humor (with the exception of frequency of cognitive distortions in achievement-related contexts) and, in one case (social impact of cognitive distortions), use of a maladaptive humor style (i.e., self-defeating humor). mediating effects were not found for affiliative and aggressive humor. furthermore, these findings add to the already extensive literature that supports the discriminant and construct validity of the four scales of the hsq (martin, 2015; see heintz & ruch, 2015). from a treatment perspective, increasing use of adaptive coping strategies for managing stressful situations (in particular use of selfenhancing humor) and decreasing use of maladaptive strategies may be useful for individuals experiencing depressive symptoms. targeting cognitive distortions themselves in order to shift an individual toward more evidencebased thinking may also be useful in altering use of humor and decreasing depressive symptomatology. however, future research is needed to examine these questions and to determine the specific mechanisms through which cognitive distortions and humor styles confer risk for depression. funding this research was supported in part by a standard research grant from the social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc) and a sshrc vanier canada graduate scholarship. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references baron, r. m., & kenny, d. a. 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(2003). individual differences in uses of humor and their relation to psychological well-being: development of the humor styles questionnaire. journal of research in personality, 37, 48-75. doi:10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00534-2 özdel, k., taymur, i., guriz, s. o., tulaci, r. g., kuru, e., & turkcapar, m. h. (2014). measuring cognitive errors using the cognitive distortions scale (cds): psychometric properties in clinical and non-clinical samples. plos one, 9, e105956. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0105956 preacher, k. j., & hayes, a. f. (2008). asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. behavior research methods, 40, 879-891. doi:10.3758/brm.40.3.879 about the authors katerina rnic is a phd candidate in the clinical psychology program at the university of western ontario. her research interests include cognitive vulnerability, stress generation in depression, and how cognitive and behavioural vulnerabilities relate to the generation of and response to depressogenic life events, particularly those involving rejection. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 rnic, dozois, & martin 361 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumor.2008.009 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-843x.100.4.555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumor-2015-0095 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v6i3.209 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumr.2004.002 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200%2fjrlp.143.4.359-376 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumor-2015-0096 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0092-6566%2802%2900534-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0105956 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758%2fbrm.40.3.879 http://www.psychopen.eu/ david j. a. dozois is a full professor of psychology and director of the clinical psychology graduate program at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on cognitive vulnerability to depression and cognitive-behavioral theory/therapy. rod a. martin is a professor emeritus of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on the conceptualization and measurement of sense of humor, and on the association between humor and psychosocial wellbeing. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 348–362 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1118 distortions, humor and depression 362 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en distortions, humor and depression (introduction) method participants measures procedure statistical analyses results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors memory, subjective memory and motor functioning in non-demented elders with and without parkinson’s disease research reports memory, subjective memory and motor functioning in non-demented elders with and without parkinson’s disease maria chiara fastame* a, paul kenneth hitchcott b, federica corona c, giuseppina pilloni c, micaela porta c, massimiliano pau c, maria pietronilla penna a [a] department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. [b] department of surgery, medical, molecular, and critical area pathology, university of pisa, pisa, italy. [c] department of mechanical, chemical and material engineering, university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. abstract parkinson’s disease (pd) is a progressive neurological condition characterized by motor and non-motor symptoms impacting life quality. the main aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of pd on objective (i.e., working memory and semantic memory) and subjective memory (i.e., self-reported seriousness of forgetting, mnemonic usage and actual memory efficiency) controlling for the effect of depressive symptomatology. the relationship of working memory performance to gait and mobility indices was also examined, as well as the factors predicting subjective memory were explored. fifty-four community-dwelling adults (mean age = 72.3 years, sd = 8.8) were recruited in sardinia, an italian island located in the mediterranean sea. specifically, 27 non-demented adults with mild, early-stage pd were matched for years of education, age, and gender with a sample of healthy individuals. participants completed a test battery assessing objective memory, subjective memory, and depressive symptoms, and an instrumental analysis of gait and functional mobility was performed. participants with pd had poorer objective memory across all indices measured and displayed a restricted set of gait and posture impairments. working memory performance was selectively related to gait and posture measures. moreover, participants with pd had lower trust in their memory efficiency relative to the past than the control healthy group. finally, 22% of the variance in seriousness of the consequences of forgetting was predicted by education and general cognitive efficiency. overall, the present findings confirm the presence of changes in both objective and subjective memory in pd, independent from depressive symptoms. keywords: parkinson’s disease, subjective memory, objective memory, depression, gait, posture europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 received: 2018-06-05. accepted: 2018-10-07. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari, via is mirrionis 1, 09123 cagliari, italy. tel: +39 070 6757502, fax: +39 070 6757291. e-mail: chiara.fastame@unica.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. parkinson’s disease (pd) is a progressive degenerative condition defined by characteristic motor symptoms (e.g., bradykinesia, tremor, rigidity). however, non-motor symptoms, such as cognitive deficits (e.g., dementia, memory deficits, reduced impulse control) and behavioral disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, apathy) are common even in the early stages of pd (postuma et al., 2015; rieu et al., 2016). cognitive impairments typically involve visuo-spatial perception, working memory (e.g., active sequential information processing), executive functions (e.g., inhibition, planning, attentional set shifting) and declarative (e.g., episodic) memory (di rosa et al., 2017; dubois & pillon, 1996; see also papagno & trojano, 2018). during disease progression, cognitive europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., memory loss, word-retrieval difficulties) and behavioral (e.g., depression) symptoms become more tightly coupled as worsening balance and gait deficits increasingly restrict patients’ independence and quality of life (barbosa et al., 2016; bohnen & cham, 2006; dirnberger & jahanshahi, 2013). indeed, cognitive resources are necessary to process and integrate sensory and motor information and to plan the motor responses for maintaining balance (e.g., kelly et al., 2015). there is evidence that working memory performance of individuals with pd is negatively impacted by the occurrence of depressive signs (foster, yung, drago, crucian, & heilman, 2013) and that cognitive performance, primarily working memory and/or executive functioning, has been found to predict various behavioral outcomes in pd patients including risk of falling (barbosa et al., 2016). overall, the pervasive impact of pd symptoms is widely recognized to significantly impair life quality, especially in the advanced stages of the disease (e.g., chrischilles, rubenstein, voelker, wallace, & rodnitzky, 1998; the global parkinson’s disease survey [gpds] steering committee, 2001; rieu et al., 2016). while mnemonic processes such as working memory and declarative memory are crucial for many the day-today activities (e.g., naming objects, learning new words, remembering an appointment) measures of subjective memory are increasingly appreciated as important sources of information about informants’ risk of actual cognitive decline and awareness of cognitive functioning. despite such recognition there have been relatively few studies of subjective memory and working memory in pd and no clear pattern of findings has emerged. this is significant since various aspects of subjective and objective memory are likely to play an important role in patient life quality, such as remembering to take medication, a crucial element in the daily life of a person with a chronic disease (gould, mcdonald-miszezak, & king, 1997; park & mayhorn, 1996). a further reason why the investigation of subjective memory and mnestic efficiency in individual with pd is relevant is that memory complaints may reflect emerging functional brain abnormalities not easily detected via objective memory tasks. furthermore, objective memory measures may identify individuals lacking awareness of mnestic impairment. however, the existing literature is quite mixed even with respect to which aspects of subjective memory are impaired in pd (ivory, knight, longmore, & caradoc-davies, 1999; sitek et al., 2011; souchay, isingrini, & gil, 2006). for instance, sitek et al. (2011) observed accurate self-assessment of memory performance in pd both in relation to objective memory performance and the judgements of proxies. in contrast, souchay et al. (2006) reported that while both healthy controls and people with pd underestimated their capacity to recall a set of words (i.e., global predictions of memory, when participants were asked to judge the likelihood of recall separately for each item, the group with pd overestimated memory accuracy. in addition, there are reports indicating that individuals with pd make less use of external (i.e., based on the use of environmental cues) memory strategies (e.g., diary, shopping list) than matched healthy controls, perhaps because such aids require greater fine motor efficiency (e.g., writing) (johnson, pollard, vernon, tomes, & jog, 2005). finally, the impact of pd on everyday cognitive performance may be selective rather than global. poliakoff and spark (2008) reported what while there was a non-significant increase in overall cognitive failures, significant increases on specific items related to distractibility and clumsiness were evident. while increased clarity concerning the impact of pd on objective and subjective memory and the relationship between them is highly desirable, such a goal is complicated by confounding variance in depressive symptomatology (dumas & newhouse, 2015; fastame, 2014). this is rarely considered in pd samples and, when it has, findings have been mixed (coutler, 1989; reynolds, hanna, neargarder, & cronin-golomb, 2017; sitek et al., 2011). for instance, sitek et al. (2011) reported an overestimation of memory defects in pd group due to selfreported depressive symptoms. in contrast, coutler (1989) found no differences in metamemory monitoring befastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 405 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tween depressed and non-depressed patients with pd when compared with non-depressed healthy controls. findings regarding the impact of depression on working memory are similarly mixed. some studies have found depression to negatively impact performance (dumas & newhouse, 2015) while other studies have found no impairment (reynolds et al., 2017). overall, systematic studies investigating this topic are lacking and as suggested by pannu and kaszniak (2005), the administration of different neuropsychological tools to patients at different disease stages is also likely to contribute to the variability in findings. the present study was undertaken with the aim of comparing subjective and objective memory function in nondemented people with and without pd independent from variance in depressive symptoms. the relationship of working memory to motor (gait and posture) performance was also examined. in short, the main aims of the current study were to examine: 1. the impact of pd at early stages of progression on objective memory processes, controlling for the effect of self-reported depression; 2. the impact of pd on subjective memory, controlling for the effect of self-reported depression and verbal long-term memory (i.e., vocabulary); 3. the impact of pd on gait and functional mobility; 4. whether disease status, general cognitive efficiency, self-reported depressive symptoms, education and hours per day spent reading predicted two indexes (i.e., seriousness of forgetting and mnemonic usage) of subjective memory; 5. the relationship between objective memory performance and quantitative measures of gait and functional mobility. in relation to these aims the following hypotheses were tested: 1. selectively poorer objective memory performance was expected in the pd group. on the digit span tasks, a deficit in backward but not forward immediate serial recall was predicted (poliakoff & spark, 2008). moreover, no differences in terms of vocabulary were expected between the pd group and controls (matison, mayeux, rosen, & fahn, 1982; wermuth, knudsen, & boldsen, 1996). 2. self-reported depression was expected to impact (dumas & newhouse, 2015) or have no effect (reynolds et al., 2017) on forward and backward immediate serial recall of non-demented adults with pd. no specific hypotheses can be proposed about the effect of depressive symptoms on vocabulary, because of the lack of previous evidence. 3. poorer subjective memory was expected in the pd group. across the dimensions of the memory functioning questionnaire (mfq, gilewski, zelinski, & schaie, 1990), the pd groups was expected to have reduced strategy-use and worse memory efficiency relative to the past, and increased seriousness of forgetting (ivory et al., 1999; johnson et al., 2005). however, it could also be hypothesized that selfreported memory functioning was relatively preserved in participants with pd but impacted by depressive symptoms (sitek et al., 2011). 4. poorer gait and functional mobility was expected in the pd group (corona et al., 2016; palmerini, mellone, avanzolini, valzania, & chiari, 2013; zampieri et al., 2010). psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 406 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 5. significant correlations were hypothesized between working memory performance and postural measures (e.g., dirnberger & jahanshahi, 2013; kelly et al., 2015). 6. to our knowledge no previous studies using the mfq have been conducted in participants with pd. nevertheless, subjective memory was expected to be predicted by general cognitive efficiency and selfreported depressive signs, since previous research has shown an association between memory complains and subtle cognitive decline and depression in preclinical patients with alzheimer’s disease (reisberg et al., 2008). moreover, educational attainment was expected to predict the mfq indexes, especially the use of mnemonic aids (gilewski et al., 1990). we believe this is the first study that has attempted to explore the nature of the relationship among measures of memory, mfq subscales, depression and motor functioning in a sample of elders with and pd at the early stages. such investigation in the early stages of the disorder may yield important knowledge about intervention strategies that may improve or preserve life quality. method participants fifty-four community-dwelling adults (mean age = 72.3 years, sd = 8.8) residing in the city of cagliari took part. twenty-seven participants with a pd diagnosis were matched for years of education, age, and gender with a group of peers without any signs of neurodegenerative or further chronic illnesses. participants with pd were recruited via the sardinian pd association (asampa), the neurology and physical rehabilitation departments of the general hospital “g. brotzu” located in cagliari. non-pd controls were recruited at the university of the third age located in quartu sant’elena, a village in the cagliari hinterland. to be enrolled in the study, participants with pd had to satisfy the following inclusion criteria: diagnosis of pd carried out according to the uk brain bank criteria (gibb & lees, 1988), ability to walk independently and the absence of cognitive impairment, psychiatric or severe systemic pathological conditions. all participants were administered the mmse as a screen for global cognition, however, the use of this instrument in pd has been questioned (athey, porter, & walker, 2005; zadikoff et al., 2008). for this reason, participants with an ageand education-adjusted mmse score <24 and a subnormal raven’s progressive matrices score (italian validation, belacchi, scalisi, cannoni, & cornoldi, 2008; raven, 1958) were excluded. these criteria resulted in the inclusion of two participants in the pd group with a borderline mmse score. the part iii of the unified pd rating scale (updrs-iii, movement disorder society task force, 2003) was used to assess the level of motor impairment and disability (m = 18.5, sd = 10.2). the severity of the motor symptoms was assessed according to the modified hoehn and yahr (1967) scale (i.e., h&y score) and the score ranged between 1 and 3 (m = 1.9, sd = 0.5). control group participants had to show no sign of cognitive decline (≥24 mmse score) and be free from any musculoskeletal and neurodegenerative diseases. overall, all the participants were cognitively healthy (m = 26.4, sd = 1.8) and no differences were found between the group with pd and the control one in terms of mmse score, t(52) = .19, p = .85. following similar previous research (e.g., fastame & penna, 2014; hitchcott, fastame, langiu, & penna, 2017), education was dichotomized in two levels: low (i.e., ≤8 years) and high (i.e., >8 years). gender was counterbalanced across the groups, χ2(1) = .092, p = .76. similarly, education level was counterbalanced in the fastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 407 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pd and control groups, χ2(1) = 2.53, p = .11. this outcome was replicated when education was assessed in terms of total years of school attending, that is, no differences were found between the pd group and controls, t(52) = 1.53, p = .13. overall the mean level of education of the current sample was relatively high (m = 13.9 years, sd = 5.2). table 1 summarizes the socio-demographic and lifestyle main information of the participants. table 1 socio-demographic information, global cognitive efficiency index (i.e., mean mmse score) and lifestyle characteristics of the participants with and without pd recruited for the study characteristic pd group control group sample size, n 27 27 gender, n males 20 19 females 7 8 marital status, n single/widowed 5 6 married/engaged 22 21 living with, n others 22 24 alone 5 3 education, n ≤ 8 years 9 4 > 8 years 18 23 mmse, m (sd) 26.41 (2.05) 26.5 (1.68) smoking, n yes 2 3 no 25 24 medicine intake, n yes 27 21 no 0 6 time spent reading, n maximum 1 hour per day 19 18 minimum 2 hours per day 8 9 time spent watching television, n maximum 1 hour per day 9 11 minimum 2 hours per day 18 16 outdoor hobbies, n yes 23 24 no 4 3 note. pd = parkinson’s disease; mmse = mini mental state examination. materials participants were presented the following inventories and tests: 1. the motor examination subscale of the unified pd rating scale (updrs-iii, movement disorder society task force, 2003), that is composed of 14 items assessing pd-related motor impairment (i.e., rigidity, tremor and bradykinesia) and balance and mobility behaviors (i.e., postural stability, gait, posture and arising from a chair) on a four-point likert scale (i.e., 0 indicates lack of impairment, whereas 4 indicates psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 408 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the severity of the impaired behaviors). as illustrated earlier, this tool provides an index of the disability level and motor symptoms. 2. the preliminary interview developed by fastame and penna (2012) to collect socio-demographic (e.g., gender, marital status) and lifestyle information about the participants. 3. the mini-mental state examination (mmse; folstein, folstein, & mchugh, 1975; italian validation, fava, 1983) that was presented to screen general cognitive efficiency. this test is composed of 20 items assessing spatial-temporal orientation, attention, short and long-term memory, visual–motor integration, and mental calculation abilities, respectively. the maximum total score is 30. in agreement with previous studies (magni, binetti, bianchetti, rozzini, & trabucchi, 1996), scores were adjusted for age and years of education. as suggested by turrina et al. (1993), a score ≤23 indicated the presence of suspected cognitive impairment. 4. the short italian version of the memory functioning questionnaire (gilewski et al., 1990) validated by pedone, cosenza, and nigro (2005) that was used to assess subjective memory. specifically, 18 items of the seriousness of forgetting (i.e., it is an index of the estimated severity of the memory problems), eight items of mnemonic usage (i.e., that is an index of the esteemed use of external aids and memory strategies in the daily life) and three items of the retrospective functioning subscales were presented. for the retrospective functioning index, participants were asked to self-rate their actual memory functioning relative to 1, 5 and 10 years before. for each item the participant had to self-report the frequency of occurrence of each situation on a seven-point likert scale ranging from 1 (i.e., always/very severe) to 7 (i.e., never/irrelevant). the sum of the scores relative to its items was computed for each subscale with possible total scores of 126 for seriousness of forgetting index and 56 for the mnemonic usage one. retrospective functioning items were considered individually. people reporting higher scores have less trust in their memory processes, report less memory failures and use mnemonics (e.g., notes on a calendar) to recover crucial information less frequently. 5. the centre for epidemiological studies of depression scale (ces-d; radloff, 1977; italian version, fava, 1983) that provides a measure of perceived depressive signs. each participant was asked to self-assess the occurrence of depressive symptoms during the past week on a four-point likert scale (from 0, never or rarely to 3, most days or every day). the maximum total score is 60. according to the italian normative data, a score ≥16 identifies risk of depressive illness, whereas a score ≥23 suggests the likely occurrence of clinical depression. 6. the forward digit span test (wechsler, 1981; italian validation de beni, borella, carretti, marigo, & nava, 2007) that is a passive verbal working memory task assessing the efficiency of sequential processes. each participant was asked to immediately recall an increasing sequence of digit numbers in the same order of presentation. the test is composed of 14 items each of which contains 3–9 digit numbers. two sequences of the same length were presented until the participant failed in the immediate recovery of both of them, after that the administration of the task was ended. one score was given for each sequence correctly recalled. the maximum total score was 14. 7. the backward digit span test (wechsler, 1981; italian validation de beni et al., 2007) is similar to the forward digit span test but has increased cognitive/attentional demand and was used to assess the efficiency of active sequential processes of verbal working memory. specifically, each participant was fastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 409 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ asked to immediately recall the digit sequences presented by the experimenter in the reverse order. the administration and scoring procedures are identical to that described for the forward digit span test. 8. the vocabulary subtest of the wechsler adult intelligence scale (wais, wechsler, 1981; italian version, orsini & laicardi, 1997) that assesses the efficiency of semantic memory and is usually considered a measure of crystalized verbal intelligence. this task requires the definition (i.e., lexical retrieval) of 35 stimuli-target consisting of common words having high or low frequency of use in italian. in agreement with the criteria provided in the manual of the test, scores assigned to each word definition range from 0 to 2, according to its correctness and completeness, that is, the highest score is given the more exhaustive definitions. the maximum total score is 70. 9. three-dimensional computerized gait analysis, performed using a motion capture system composed of eight infrared cameras (smart-d system, bts bioengineering, italy) set at a frequency of 120 hz. a number of anthropometric features (i.e., height, weight, anterior superior iliac spines distance, pelvis thickness, knee and ankle width, leg length) were collected, then 22 reflective passive markers (14 mm diameter) were placed on specific landmarks of individual’s lower limbs and trunk according to the protocol described by davis, õunpuu, tyburski, and gage (1991). participants were asked to walk at a self-selected speed on a 10 m walkway for at least six times, allowing suitable rest where needed in order to avoid fatiguing effects. the acquired data were processed using dedicated software (smart analyzer, bts bioengineering, italy) to calculate the following spatial-temporal parameters: gait speed, step length and width, cadence, stance, swing, and double support phase duration. 10. instrumented timed-up-and-go (tug) test. this functional mobility test was carried out using a wearable inertial sensor (g-sensor®, bts bioengineering s.p.a., italy) previously employed for similar investigations in individuals of the same age range (porta et al., 2018) that was attached to the subject's waist using a semi-elastic belt approximately at the l4-l5 inter-vertebral space position. to perform the test, participants were requested to sit on a standard office chair (seat height and width 48 cm, seat depth 40 cm) with a back support (34 cm high) and without armrests. their arms were crossed at the wrists and held against the chest. following a verbal start signal they stood up from the chair, walked for 3 m at a comfortable and safe speed, performed a 180° turn around a sign marked on the floor, walked back to the chair and performed a second 180° turn to sit down. the acceleration data measured along three orthogonal axes were acquired by the inertial sensor at 100 hz frequency and transmitted via bluetooth to a personal computer where dedicated software (bts g-studio, bts bioengineering s.p.a., italy) was used to calculate the following set of parameters:tug time (overall time needed to perform the test in s), sit-tostand time (s), first (intermediate) 180° turning (time to perform the turn necessary to reverse the gait direction, s), second (final) 180° turning (time to perform the turn necessary to begin the sitting maneuver, s) and stand-to-sit time (time needed to sit down at the end of the task, s). procedure after having signed a written informed consent, participants were individually tested and interviewed in a quiet room at the laboratory of biomechanics and industrial ergonomics of the university of cagliari, italy over 2 consecutive days. during the first visit, gait and mobility were assessed; the psychological tools were administered on the second day. the psychological measures were presented in a partially randomized order. for all participants, general cognitive efficiency was assessed first then the socio-demographic interview was presenpsychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 410 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ted. after completing these instruments, the subjective memory and depression tools were presented; order of presentation was counterbalanced (latin square) across participants. the objective memory tests were always presented after the metamemory and depression questionnaires, in order to avoid any feed-forward effects following from memory self-assessment. to minimize fatigue among the oldest participants, for all participants an examiner read aloud the items contained in the questionnaire/test and recorded verbally reported responses. each experimental session lasted about 60 minutes. results first, three separate analyses of covariance (ancovas) were conducted to investigate the effect of group (i.e., participants with pd vs. healthy controls) on forward digit span test, backward digit span test and vocabulary test conditions, in each case, controlling for the effect of self-reported depression. the effect of ces-d was not significant in any of the memory conditions, f(1,51) = 1.58, p = .21 for forward digit span, f(1,51) = 2.78, p = .10 for backward digit span and f(1,51) = 2.94, p = .09, respectively. the main effect of group was significant in terms of forward, f(1,51) = 4.28, p = .04, ηp 2 = .08, and backward, f(1,51) = 4.61, p = .04, ηp 2 = .08, digit span and vocabulary, f(1,51) = 4.41, p = .04, ηp 2 = .08, efficiency. controls outperformed participants with pd in forward digit span (m = 6.72, sd = 1.5 vs. m = 5.69, sd = 1.9), backward digit span (m = 6.03, sd = 1.4 vs. m = 5.04, sd = 1.8) and lexical competence (m = 53.30, sd = 15.2 vs. m = 43.82, sd = 17.1). next, to investigate the impact of pd on the two mfq indexes while controlling for the effect of depression and semantic memory, a multivariate analysis of covariance (mancova) was carried out, using group (i.e., participants with pd vs. healthy controls) as between-subject variable and ces-d and vocabulary as covariates. the multivariate tests documented the significant main effects of ces-d (wilks’ λ = .86, df = 2; 48, p = .03) and vocabulary (wilks’ λ = .76, df = 2; 48, p = .009), whereas the main effect of group was not significant (wilks’ λ = .96, df = 2; 48, p = .39). no group differences were found on seriousness of forgetting, f(1,49) = .67, p = .42) and mnemonic usage, f(1,49) = .91, p = .34, sub-scales. participants with pd had similar levels of complaints about the seriousness of their memory failures (m = 76.43, sd = 3.7, than matched controls (m = 71.90, sd = 3.8). moreover, the clinical group reported a similar use of external and internal memory strategies (m = 29.6, sd = 2.1) compared to the healthy controls (m = 32.6, sd = 2.2). the main effect of ces-d was significant in seriousness of forgetting condition, f(1,50) = 7.66, p = .008, ηp 2 = .13, but not in mnemonic usage one, f(1,50) = .20, p = .66, sub-scale. a similar pattern of results was found for vocabulary, f(1,50) = 14.69, p < .0005, ηp 2 = .23 for seriousness of forgetting and f(1,50) = .0001, p = .99 for mnemonic usage. furthermore, three separate ancovas where conducted to explore the impact of group on self-assessed actual memory efficiency relative to 1, 5 and 10 years before, using both ces-d and vocabulary as covariates. for self-assessed memory, relative to 1 year earlier, there were main effects of group, f(1,50) = 8.73, p = .005, ηp 2 = .15, and ces-d, f(1,50) = 11.83, p = .001, ηp 2 = .19, whereas the effect of vocabulary was not significant, f(1,50) = .47, p = .49. the same pattern was found for self-assessed memory relative to 5 years earlier, f(1,50) = 12.69, p = .001, ηp 2 = .20 for group; f(1,50) = 10.63, p = .002, ηp 2 = .17 for ces-d and f(1,50) = 2.72, p = .11 for vocabulary) and to 10 years earlier, f(1,50) = 5.40, p = .02, ηp 2 = .10 for group; f(1,50) = 4.70, p = .03, ηp 2 = .09 for ces-d and f(1,50) = .03, p = .86 for vocabulary. overall, participants with pd reported less trust in their memory functioning compared to the past. moreover, people with pd reported more depressive fastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 411 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ signs (m = 16.44, sd = 9.31) than controls (m = 11.37, sd = 8.5). table 2 summarizes the findings relative to all the above mentioned ancovas and mancova. table 2 summary of ancovas and mancova analyses examining the effect of group (participants with pd vs. controls) on the memory measures (i.e., forward digit span, backward digit span and vocabulary tests) and metamemory dimensions (i.e., seriousness of forgetting, mnemonic usage and retrospective memory) dependent variable df ss ms f p ηp 2 mpd mcontrols forward digit span 5.69 6.71 main effect group 1 13.10 13.10 1.58 .04 .08 covariate ces-d 1 4.85 4.85 1.58 .21 backward digit span 5.10 5.90 main effect group 1 12.28 12.28 4.61 .03 .08 covariate ces-d 1 7.42 7.42 2.79 .10 vocabulary 43.82 53.30 main effect group 1 1117.21 1117.21 4.41 .04 .08 covariate ces-d 1 744.99 744.99 2.94 .09 mfqseriousness of forgetting 76.43 71.90 main effect group 1 233.23 233.23 .67 .42 covariates ces-d 1 2678.31 2678.31 7.66 .008 vocabulary 1 .001 .001 14.69 < .001 mfqmnemonic usage 29.60 32.63 main effect group 1 104.23 104.23 .91 .34 covariates ces-d 1 22.48 22.48 .20 .66 vocabulary 1 .001 .001 < .001 .99 mfqretrospective functioning compared to 1 year before 3.66 4.53 main effect group 1 8.60 8.60 8.73 .005 .15 covariates ces-d 1 11.66 11.66 11.83 .001 .19 vocabulary 1 .46 .46 .47 .49 mfqretrospective functioning compared to 5 years before 3.24 4.46 main effect group 1 17.10 17.10 12.69 .001 .20 covariates ces-d 1 14.33 14.33 10.63 .002 .17 vocabulary 1 3.67 3.67 2.72 .10 mfqretrospective functioning compared to 10 years before 2.89 3.88 main effect group 1 11.29 11.29 5.40 .02 .10 covariates ces-d 1 9.84 9.84 4.70 .03 .09 vocabulary 1 .06 .06 .03 .86 note. ancova = analysis of covariance; mancova = multivariate analysis of covariance; ces-d = centre for epidemiological studies of depression scale; mfq = memory functioning questionnaire; pd = parkinson’s disease; ss = sum of squares; ms = mean square. selfreported depression (i.e., ces-d) with and without vocabulary score was used as covariate respectively for the mancova and ancovas. then, two separate stepwise regression analyses were conducted to explore whether group (i.e., people with pd vs. controls), general cognitive efficiency (i.e., mmse), depression (i.e., ces-d), years of education, hours per day spent for reading (i.e., ≤1 hour vs. ≥2 hours) predicted seriousness of forgetting and mnemonic usage mfq indexes. when seriousness of forgetting was entered as the dependent variable, it was found that years of education (b = -0.43, t = -3.53, p = .001) and mmse score (b = 0.29, t = 2.35, p = .02) predicted 22% of the variance in the abovementioned mfq subscale, corrected r2 = 0.22, f(1,50) = 8.38, p = .006. in contrast, none of the independent variables predicted the mnemonic usage measure. psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 412 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to compare the impact of disease status on gait and functional mobility measures a series of t-test comparisons were conducted. the effect of group (control vs. pd) was significant for the step length, t(46) = -2.27, p = .03, and approached the significance for the time of the first 180° (intermediate) rotation in tug, t(46) = 1.81, p = .08. the mean step length of participants with pd was shorter (m = .57, sd = 0.10) than that of matched controls (m = .67, sd = 0.21). finally, a series of pearson’s product moment coefficients were computed to investigate the relationship between forward and backward digit spans and the postural motor indexes. statistically significant correlations were found between forward digit span and step length (r = .37, p = .009), tug sit-to-stand time (r = -.30, p = .049), tug stand-to-sit time (r = -.39, p = .010) and time of final 180° turning in tug (r = -.37, p = .015), respectively. in contrast, backward digit span significantly correlated only with step length (r = .30, p = .037) and approached significance with overall tug time (r = -.29, p = .057). table 3 illustrates these outcomes. table 3 pearson's product-moment correlation matric among working memory measures (i.e., forward digit span and backward digit span) and postural motor indexes (i.e., cadence-step-min, stride-length-m, step-length-m, step-width-m, tug-time, tug-sit-to-stand-time, tugstand-to-sit-time, tug-first-180°-turning, tug-second-180°-turning) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. forward digit span – 2. backward digit span .51** – 3. cadence-step-min -.01 .05 – 4. stride-length-m .27 .17 -.69** – 5. step-length-m .37** .30* -.51** .94** – 6. step-width-m .09 .03 -.77** .95** .80** – 7. tug-time -.27 -.29 .008 -.57** -.67** -.45** – 8. tug-sit-to-stand-time -.30* -.12 -.22 .10 -.004 .18 .18 – 9. tug-stand-to-sit-time -.39* -.21 -.41** -.57** -.54** -.002 .55** .49** – 10. tug-first-180°-turning -.19 -.20 -.23 -.32* -.29 .18 .35* .51** .59** – 11. tug-second-180°-turning -.37* -.25 -.19 -.46** -.40** .21 .39* .44** .65** .72** – note. tug = timed-up-and-go. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion only a few studies have examined the subjective memory deficits that can accompany objective memory impairment in the early stages of pd and these have yielded inconsistent findings. the present study aimed to resolve this issue via concomitant measurement of depressive symptomatology and re-examine the association between objective memory and motor function. the sample was comprised of community dwelling individuals, with or without pd, all of whom were screened for signs of global cognitive impairment. the control and pd groups were age-, educationand sex-matched yet compared to the control group displayed objective memory impairment across all indices examined; forward and backward digit spans were lower, as was performance on the vocabulary subtest of the wais. these tests assess distinct components of memory (passive and active working memory and semantic memory, respectively) commonly reported to be impaired in pd (di rosa et al., 2017; gabrieli, singh, stebbins, & goetz, 1996; henry & crawford, 2004). the deficit in both forward and backward digit span was somewhat unexpected since demand characteristics can influence task sensitivity fastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 413 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (poliakoff & spark, 2008). indeed, the lowest accuracy of mnestic functions of people with pd was detected when an active manipulation of verbal serial information involving executive functions was requested (i.e., backward digit span test condition), and even when a reduced amount of cognitive resources was used to retrieve the sequential strings in forward order. similarly, despite similar education and global cognitive efficiency levels characterizing participants with and without pd, unexpectedly, differences in terms of vocabulary were found between the two groups (e.g., matison et al., 1982; wermuth et al., 1996). for what concerns the vocabulary performance, a possible explanation is that our participants with pd were older that those recruited by wermuth et al. (1996) and, in turn, the aging factor could be related to the lowest efficiency of the attentional/ control processes of the participants with pd that was reflected in poorer working memory functions. however, at present we cannot exclude that the lowest vocabulary efficiency of the group with pd could be the expression of a more general impairment of semantic memory (henry & crawford, 2004; see also gabrieli et al., 1996) or of a specific word-finding difficulty (e.g., matison et al., 1982) that have been observed in that clinical population. future research has to clarify this issue by the administration of specific tasks assessing this (e.g., semantic fluency tasks). use of the mfq permitted assessment of several aspects of subjective memory and revealed contrasting consequences of pd. control and pd groups rated the seriousness of forgetting similarly and, unlike some previous research (johnson et al., 2005), use of memory aids did not differ. these are odd outcomes given the evident impairment of objective memory and wider evidence showing that non-demented pd patients often experience difficulties completing everyday tasks (poliakoff & spark, 2008). two possible interpretations can be suggested. first, the pd patients may have been unaware of their declarative and working memory deficits and, as a result, did not compensate with increased use of memory aids. however, this seems unlikely, since self-rated memory performance (relative to 1, 5 or 10 years previous) was worse in the pd group suggesting intact awareness of cognitive decline. a second, and more likely, scenario is that motivation to use memory aids was reduced. apathy is a recognised feature of pd, known to be associated with cognitive functioning and independent from disease progression (pluck & brown, 2002). this would appear to provide a better explanation for the observed pattern of differences in subjective memory. despite from these suggestions, from an applied viewpoint, the current outcomes could have serious consequences in terms of medication adherence (gould et al., 1997) and suggest that our participants with pd could benefit of memory and metamemory interventions promoting life quality and enhancing the ability to deal with everyday problems. one implication of these findings is that concomitant targeting of reduced motivation may be a more effective means of developing self-regulation of memory impairments in pd. such an approach could be especially useful in those with depression (goedeken, potempa, prager, & foster, 2018) given that our findings confirmed that increased depressive symptomatology was associated with impairments of both objective and subjective memory (e.g., dumas & newhouse, 2015; fastame, 2014). however, additional research in this area is needed since prior research indicates that apathy and depression are not correlated in pd (pluck & brown, 2002). moreover, education and general cognitive efficiency predict seriousness of forgetting, but not memory usage and self-reported depressive signs did not predict any mfq measure. overall, these outcomes are partially consistent with previous evidence (gilewski et al., 1990; reisberg et al., 2008) suggesting a need for further investigation. psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 414 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ motor function was impaired in participants with pd, as expected; they walked with shorter steps and performed the 180° turn during the tug task less effectively. most previous studies on gait and mobility have reported similar gait and tug anomalies in individuals with pd (boonstra, van der kooij, munneke, & bloem, 2008; morris, morris, & iansek, 2001). that only a restricted set of motor impairments was evident is consistent with the mild disability level of the pd group (as indicated by their h&y scale scores) and the fact that they were tested while on medication. the observed significant correlations between digit span performance and indices of gait and posture are of greater interest. although previous studies have made similar observations (e.g., kelly et al., 2015), the present study confirmed that these associations are independent of variance in depressive symptoms. previous research shows that depression is frequently present in pd and that it may confound both motor and cognitive task performance (cummings, 1992). the most obvious limitations of the present research concern our sample and its size and composition. participants were non-demented, community-dwelling adults with or without early-stage pd; those with pd were medicated. overall, the sample had a relatively high education level and was actively engaged in leisure activities. extending the findings beyond this small homogenous group requires further, larger scale investigation. a further point is that the sample was recruited in sardinia, a region in which the prevalence of pd is reduced compared to the mainland italy and northern europe (pupillo et al., 2016; rosati et al., 1980). perhaps of greater significance is that older adults from this region have consistently been found to display unusual psychological characteristics relative to age-matched peers. these include some attributes examined in the present study (e.g., fastame, hitchcott, & penna, 2015; fastame & penna, 2014; hitchcott et al., 2017; hitchcott, fastame, & penna, 2018) and the extent to which this influenced the present findings is unclear without further investigation. in conclusion, future research extending these findings to broader groups with pd and investigation of the neural substrates underpinning the metamemory dimensions explored in the current study would be useful. funding this work was supported by the sardinia regional government under grant “crp-78543” entitled “invecchiamento attivo in sardegna: quali fattori influenzano il benessere psicologico negli anziani?” [active ageing in sardinia: what factors influence psychological well-being in the elderly?]” competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the sardinian association of patients with parkinson’s disease (asampa) and in particular the chairperson prof. carlo anchisi, for their valuable support. the authors also wish to thank dr. carlo casula and dr. giovanni cossu of ao “g. brotzu” hospital for their support during the participant's recruitment, all the participants which made this study possible and professor giovanna nigro for providing the italian version of the memory functioning questionnaire. ethics approval the study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments. written informed consent was given by all participants prior to participation. fastame, hitchcott, corona et al. 415 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references athey, r. j., porter, r. w., & walker, r. w. 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(2008). a comparison of the mini mental state exam to the montreal cognitive assessment in identifying cognitive deficits in parkinson’s disease. movement disorders, 23(2), 297-299. https://doi.org/10.1002/mds.21837 zampieri, c., salarian, a., carlson-kuhta, p., aminian, k., nutt, j. g., & horak, f. b. (2010). the instrumented timed up and go test: potential outcome measure for disease modifying therapies in parkinson’s disease. journal of neurology, neurosurgery & psychiatry, 81(2), 171-176. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.2009.173740 about the authors maria chiara fastame is associate professor in developmental psychology. her research topics include the investigation of the relationship between psychological well-being, cognitive and metacognitive efficiency in typically and atypically developing elders. paul k. hitchcott is a research fellow in ageing and wellbeing. his current research interests concern the impact of psychosocial factors and sleep on positive ageing. federica corona recently completed a ph.d. program at the department of mechanical, chemical and material engineering, university of cagliari. her research topics include the study of the motor functioning in people with and without parkinson’s disease. giuseppina pilloni is research assistant in mechanical bioengineering at the university of cagliari. one of her research topics include the study of walking dysfunction in clinical populations such as parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis. micaela porta is a ph.d. student in mechanical bioengineering at the university of cagliari. she is interested to the study of postural balance and motor functions in people with and without neurological diseases. massimiliano pau is associate professor of mechanical bioengineering. his research interests are centered on the application of quantitative techniques for human motion analysis in clinical, ergonomic and sports field. maria pietronilla penna is full professor in experimental psychology. one of her research interest concerns the study of the psychological factors impacting cognitive processes in successful ageing. psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease 420 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 404–420 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1672 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13803390590935453 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fgps.930080805 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1600-0404.1996.tb00164.x https://doi.org/10.1002%2fmds.21837 https://doi.org/10.1136%2fjnnp.2009.173740 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological and motor indexes in parkinson’s disease (introduction) method participants materials procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethics approval references about the authors the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations research reports the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations igor kotlyar*a [a] faculty of business and it, university of ontario institute of technology, oshawa, canada. abstract many organizations categorize employees in terms of potential, labeling some as “high potential” employees. this practice of labeling employees based on their performance potential can create differentiated expectations of performance and, thus, impact their attitudes and behaviors. however, research has not examined the impact of such labels on the recipients’ attitudes following performance feedback. in our laboratory study of 477 undergraduate business students from a large north american university, we examined the effect of “high potential” expectations on task commitment and satisfaction following positive and negative feedback. our results indicate that such labels can make individuals more sensitive to feedback and consequently create unintentional negative effects on commitment and satisfaction. keywords: feedback, “high potential” employees, labeling, satisfaction, commitment europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 received: 2013-04-28. accepted: 2013-07-07. published (vor): 2013-08-30. *corresponding author at: 2000 simcoe street north, oshawa, ontario, canada l1h 7k4. e-mail: igor.kotlyar@uoit.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. labeling individuals based on performance potential is a fact of organizational life and many companies attempt to identify high potential employees early in their employees’ careers (cappelli, 2008; collings & mellahi, 2009; karakowsky & kotlyar, 2011; slan-jerusalim & hausdorf, 2007). in this paper, we investigate whether the initial expectations reflected in the high potential label influence reactions to performance feedback. specifically, we are concerned with the effect of labeling individuals in terms of potential performance capabilities on their subsequent task commitment and performance satisfaction following positive and negative feedback. this study makes a contribution by demonstrating that a high potential label can act as a double edge sword, whereby, on the one hand, it can boost performance expectations, while, on the other, it can contribute to a sharper drop in performance satisfaction and task commitment, potentially reducing engagement and retention of the very employees organizations consider most valuable for their future success. literature review and hypotheses typically the label of high potential refers to those employees who are perceived as possessing the talents and abilities necessary for advancement in the organization (cappelli, 2008; collings &mellahi, 2009; iles, 1997; slanjerusalim & hausdorf, 2007). having identified their high potential employees, organizations tend to inform these individuals of their status to facilitate their career development, advancement and retention (ready, conger, hill, & stecker, 2010). while some organizations are secretive about their high potential list, even they acknowledge the challenges of protecting such information, since employees can usually figure out who the high potentials are europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ by the type of assignments people receive, who they have lunch with, who sponsors or mentors them, and their level of visibility in the organization (derr, jones, & toomey, 1988, p. 276). communicating high expectations to subordinates, which may include labeling them as high potentials, can have beneficial effects (e.g., eden, 1984; tierney & farmer, 2004). however, not much is known about the role of high expectations when performance feedback repeatedly falls short of such expectations. in organizations, evaluative feedback, including performance reviews (ashford, 1986), is considered essential for employee development and improvement (halpern, 2004; kluger & denisi, 1996; maki, 1998; morrison & brantner, 1992). in particular, negative feedback is seen as helpful in this regard, as it creates awareness of discrepancies and motivates individuals to either work harder or to modify their behavioral strategies in order to reduce these discrepancies (e.g., bandura, 1997; klein, 1989; locke & latham, 1990). however, people tend to feel dissatisfied and discouraged in response to negative feedback (brett & atwater, 2001; kluger, lewinsohn, & aiello, 1994), and, in particular, individuals labeled as high potentials may be especially sensitive to feedback, because the gap between high expectations and their actual performance challenges their alleged high potential. thus, we propose that individuals labeled as high potentials are likely to experience larger decrements in task commitment and performance satisfaction as compared to their counterparts who are not labeled as high potentials (i.e., non-high potentials) following negative performance feedback. people have a natural tendency to evaluate their relative status (wood, 1996) and pursue information for making comparative judgments. this is accomplished through a variety of channels including observations of conversations or interactions between the leader and peers or active information seeking (wood, 1996). in addition, research indicates that it is other individuals in one’s social group that provide the reference point and context for social comparison (turner, brown, & tajfel, 1979). according to cognitive-based research, individuals gather information through both conscious (controlled) and unconscious (automatic) processes (lord & mayer, 1991). such information seeking processes are aimed at detecting both similarities and differences between oneself and another for the purpose of judging one’s relative status on some attribute (wood, 1996). in line with this reasoning, it is likely that receiving the label high potential provides the recipient with information regarding their capabilities. thus employees labeled as high potentials would view their capabilities differently than the employees not granted such preferential status and would hold a different set of expectations prior to performance. there is research evidence to suggest that expressed expectations of high performance can have a positive impact on the recipient of such expectations. among the research attesting to the positive impact of high expectations are the studies demonstrating the pygmalion effect, whereby leader’s expectations of subordinate’s performance can impact subordinate’s self-expectations and, ultimately, behavior (eden, 1984, 1990a, 1990b, 1992; eden & shani, 1982). tierney and farmer (2004) observed that according to the pygmalion model, leader behavior boosts self-efficacy because of the performance expectations it signals. all this is consistent with the notion that publicly labeling an individual as a high potential performer can have a positive impact on their performance expectations. this can be summarized in the following hypothesis. hypothesis 1: individuals who are labeled as high potentialswill have higher expectations with regard to their future performance compared to those individuals not receiving such labels. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 582 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the question remains – what happens to recipients of the high potential label following performance feedback? research suggests that people interpret feedback by comparing it to expectations (or, standards) in order to evaluate its meaning (swann, 1990). the direction and the extent of the gap between feedback and expectations impact an individual’s interpretations, attitudes and responses (shrauger, 1975; swann, 1990; taylor, fisher, & ilgen, 1984). performance feedback that meets or exceeds the initial expectations of performance tends to be viewed as desirable and serves to reaffirm one’s self-image, thus generating favourable reactions (jussim, yen, & aiello, 1995). this type of feedback tends to result in a more pleasant mood and a greater degree of satisfaction (blakely, 1993; swann, griffin, predmore, & gaines, 1987; taylor et al., 1984). on the other hand, feedback indicating that the level of performance is below a certain standard tends to be viewed as undesirable and results in negative affect and dissatisfaction (taylor et al., 1984). a discrepancy between the expectations and the outcome can also be viewed as threatening to self-image (jussim, yen, & aiello, 1995) and create psychological discomfort that individuals seek to reduce (bandura, 1989; higgins, 1987; mento, locke, & klein, 1992). therefore, performance feedback perceived as falling below a standard could lower a person’s level of commitment to the task at hand (e.g., belschak & den hartog, 2009). the above-described tendency applies to both types of individuals, those labeled as high potential and those not labeled as high potential. however, high potentials and non-high potentials are likely to differ in terms of their expectations (e.g., eden, 1984, 1990a, 1990b, 1992; eden & shani, 1982; tierney & farmer, 2004) and, thus, in terms of their standards for interpreting feedback. therefore, high potentials are likely to interpret the same level of feedback (e.g., “above average”) differently than those not labeled as high potentials. in turn, the difference in their perceptions of feedback would generate differences in their attitudes – their level of satisfaction and commitment. for those labeled as high potentials, the highest expectations of performance (e.g., “outstanding”) would likely be used as the standard for evaluating feedback. given the high level of expectations set by the high potential label, any feedback indicating an exceptional or outstanding level of performance would further reinforce the positive expectations. however, any positive feedback (e.g., “above average”) that fails to meet such high standards would likely be perceived as unfavourable or unsatisfactory and would create a negative discrepancy. research supports this logic by demonstrating that individuals are less satisfied with feedback when their expectations (selfassessment) are extremely favorable (blakely, 1993; swann et al., 1987). discrepancies between expectations and outcomes create psychological discomfort that individuals seek to reduce (bandura, 1989; higgins, 1987; mento et al., 1992), which may take the form of reducing their commitment to the task at hand (e.g., belschak & den hartog, 2009). overall, given their initial expectations of performance well above the norm, individuals labeled as high potentials would be negatively affected by positive feedback framed as “above average”, especially compared to those individuals who were not given any initial expectations regarding their performance potential. for those not regarded as having high potential (i.e., non-high potentials), the expected performance standard would likely be lower. knowing that they are not among those who were identified as high potentials, the non-high potentials would likely be somewhat uncertain about their capabilities with respect to the task, other than realizing that their performance expectations should not be set as high as those of high potentials. nevertheless, all individuals prefer to view themselves as “above average” as they seek to maintain a favorable self-concept (steele, 1988; taylor & brown, 1988). in work environments, most employees consider themselves to be “above-average” performers (meyer et al., 1979) and tend to perceive “average” (or “satisfactory”) performance ratings as negative europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 kotlyar 583 http://www.psychopen.eu/ feedback (e.g., pearce & porter, 1986). therefore, it is reasonable to expect that in the absence of a high potential label, the “above average” level would likely serve as the standard for evaluating feedback. in other words, for non-high potentials, any feedback that is viewed as “above average” would serve to validate their capabilities and, therefore, would be viewed as image enhancing and favourable. based on our theorizing above, the following series of hypotheses can be generated. hypothesis 2: after receipt of positive feedback (framed as "above average" performance), individuals who were not labeled as high potentials will exhibit higher levels of performance satisfaction compared to those individuals labeled as high potentials. hypothesis 3: after receipt of positive feedback (framed as "above average" performance), individuals who were not labeled as high potentials will exhibit higher levels of task commitment compared to those individuals labeled as high potentials. our discussion above implies that the potential for discrepancies between positive feedback and expectations are greater for recipients of the high potential label compared to those without such a label. that is, for any given level of feedback, the discrepancy will likely be higher for those with raised expectations. in the case of negative feedback, both kinds of individuals will experience discrepancies upon the receipt of such feedback. there is research to suggest that negative feedback can result in decrements in commitment (e.g., belschak & den hartog, 2009) and satisfaction (stake, 1982). while this suggests that all individuals may respond unfavorably to negative feedback, this pattern will be more pronounced among individuals who have been primed to expect very high performance feedback. recipients of the high potential label, as indicated earlier, feel highly visible and under public scrutiny to “live up to expectations”. consequently, negative feedback will likely unsettle those labeled as high potentialsmuch more since their publicly known status is now being questioned. this is not the case for non-labeled individuals who have no perceived public expectations to “live up to”. consequently, negative feedbackwill have a significantly greater adverse effect on recipients of the high potential label compared to their non-labeled counterparts in terms of performance satisfaction and task commitment. based on the above theorizing, the following series of hypotheses can be generated. hypothesis 4: after receiving negative feedback, individuals labeled as high potentialswill experience a significantly greater drop in performance satisfaction compared to their non-labeled counterparts. hypothesis 5: after receiving negative feedback, individuals labeled as high potentialswill experience a significantly greater drop in task commitment compared to their non-labeled counterparts. hypothesis 6: after receiving negative feedback individuals labeled as high potentials exhibit significantly lower performance satisfaction compared to their non-labeled counterparts. hypothesis 7: after receiving negative feedback individuals labeled as high potentials exhibit significantly lower task commitment compared to their non-labeled counterparts. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 584 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants subjects included 477 undergraduate students participating in exchange for a partial course credit. the average age of the participants was 20.5 years (sd = 3.99), and 53.5 percent of subjects were female. the study was approved by the university research ethics board and was deemed not to involve any risks to participants from partaking in the study. task as part of the experiment, participants were required to complete several cognitive tasks. subjects were presented with a long list of four-digit numbers and instructed to derive a single-digit answer by following specific rules (similar to vancouver & tischner, 2004, p. 1094). for example, one rule involved identifying the absolute difference between the first two digits as well as the difference between the latter two digits and ultimately finding the difference between the two differences. a different rule was used in each round. participants were given 4 minutes to complete as many calculations as possible. upon completion of each task, the facilitator collected the booklets and his two assistants, stationed at the back of the room, quickly tabulated scores for each participant. participants were then privately provided with bogus "feedback" (with the exception of the practice task) and instructed to fill out a questionnaire containing measures (see measures below). the first task was considered to be a practice task, and subjects were told that this practice round would give them an idea of how the exercise works and that their performance in this round would not be considered as part of their overall performance in the actual exercise. procedure the study employed a 2 potential labeling (high-potential, non-high potential) x 2 performance feedback (positive, negative) between-subjects experimental design. participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions prior to the beginning of the experiment. sessions were conducted in groups of 6 to 12 individuals. the number of subjects in the high-expectation condition varied based on the total number of participants, such that in groups of 9-12 participants, 3 subjects were assigned to the high-expectations condition, and in groups of 6-8 participants, 2 subjects were assigned to the high-expectations condition. participants arrived and were seated in a large classroom, where they were briefed about the nature of the study and provided their informed consent. subjects were told that the study involved completing a series of cognitive tasks (they were not told howmany) and that their performance would be evaluated in relation to other participants in the study to date by comparing the total number of correct responses. in order to further increase their level of commitment to the task, participants were told that the task was a measure of mental processing speed and ability, which was developed by social scientists and was highly predictive of intelligence. participants were instructed to give their best effort so the researchers could make an accurate assessment of how well they could perform the task. participants were then provided with a verbal explanation of how their performance would be evaluated and shown a large poster at the front of the room displaying the five levels of performance (table 1). a smaller version of the display was also taped to the right top corner of each subject’s table. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 kotlyar 585 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 performance levels rankingperformance description you are in the top 10%. this means that you are performing better than 90% of the participants.outstanding you are in the top 20%. this means that you are performing better than 80% of the participants.very good you are in the top 35%. this means that you are performing better than 65% of the participants.above average you are performing on par with 50% of the participants.average you are performing in the bottom 35% of the participants.below average the facilitator told participants that “those students who do well on this task, especially those who perform in the top 10% or in other words perform better than 90% of their peers – tend to exhibit significantly higher mental processing ability.” he then asked the participants to indicate their desire to perform well on the ensuing tasks using a likert-type scale, anchored by “not at all” (1) and “very much” (7), which was used as one of our manipulation checks. next, the facilitator explained that before proceeding to the actual main task, he would like to give the participants a chance to practice the exercise in order to provide them with an idea of how it works and to make sure everyone properly understands it (the practice task). the facilitator distributed the practice task and instructed participants to complete as many items as possible in 4 minutes. upon completion of the practice task, the facilitator collected the response forms and had his two assistants, positioned at the back of the room, “evaluate” the results and “make sure everyone is on track with this exercise.” once the “evaluation” was completed, the facilitator informed participants that everyone had understood the task. he then publically informed them that several individuals performed exceptionally well in the practice round and he expected these individuals would perform in theoutstanding category in this exercise (seemanipulations below). participants then completed the questionnaire containing measures of dependent variables (see measures below). next, the facilitator distributed the first task and instructed participants to complete as many items as possible in 4 minutes. upon completion of the task, he again had the results “evaluated” with the help of his two assistants. this time, he privately provided participants with a form containing bogus feedback on their personal performance according to the condition. following that, the facilitator distributed the second task and instructed participants to complete as many items as possible in 4 minutes. upon completion of the task, he again had the results “evaluated” with the help of his two assistants and privately provided participants with a form containing bogus feedback according to the condition. the third task was then distributed and the participants were instructed to complete as many items as possible in 4 minutes. upon completion of the task, the facilitator again had the results “evaluated” with the help of his two assistants and privately provided participants with a form containing bogus feedback according to the condition. he then asked participants to fill out a questionnaire. finally, after the participants had completed the third task and filled out a questionnaire containing the measures of dependence variables, the facilitator announced that the last task was actually the final task in the experiment. he then asked participants to complete another short exit questionnaire containing questions designed as manipulation checks and demographic variables (age and gender). the manipulation check included the following questions with responses on a 7-point likert scale: “do you think the experimenter had any expectations of how you would perform on these tasks?”, anchored by “no, not at all” (1) and “yes, definitely” (7), and “how would europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 586 http://www.psychopen.eu/ you rate the quality of your overall performance on these tasks?” anchored by “very poor” (1) and “outstanding” (7). once participants submitted their forms, the facilitator provided a debriefing, explaining the nature of the experiment and reassuring them that these tasks do not necessarily accurately reflect mental processing capabilities. manipulations labeling based on performance potential.we created two labeling conditions: high-potential and non-high potential. the manipulation was carried out immediately after the completion of the practice round. participants assigned to the high-potential condition were publically told by the facilitator that they performed exceptionally well in the practice round and that, in this exercise, he expected them to perform in the top 10% of all participants. upon receiving the “results” of the practice task, the facilitator informed participants that everyone has understood the task, and then exclaimed in a delighted tone, as if in passing: “interesting, some of you have actually scored in the top 10% in this practice round (pointed to the outstanding category in the table). this doesn’t happen often in a group of this size. students with numbers x, y, z… you, you and you (pointing and smiling at each student one by one): congratulations on your outstanding ability! based on my experience… i expect you will perform in the outstanding category on the upcoming tasks. keep up the good work!” participants assigned to the non-high potential condition were not specifically told anything, but the researcher made sure that these subjects clearly heard his praise of the high-potential participants. the experiment was structured in line with how organizations commonly implement their high-potential programs in real life, whereby they identify certain individuals as high potentials early in their employees’ careers – and sometimes even at the point of hiring them right out of university – on the basis of their assessment of these individuals’ ability to perform in future roles and/or future tasks. organizations often make such judgment calls about their employees’ potential to perform in future roles and/or future tasks by observing their performance in their current roles and/or tasks. similarly, in this experiment, participants in the high potential label condition were told that based on their performance on a practice task they were considered to have an outstanding ability and were expected to perform at the highest level on a series of the upcoming cognitive tasks which were created specifically for the purpose of this experiment and were unfamiliar to the participants. we employed the claims about the subjects’ alleged performance on a practice task in order to administer a convincing manipulation by creating a credible rationale for assigning a high potential label. performance feedback. two performance feedback conditions were created: positive feedback and negative feedback. participants received bogus normative feedback from the facilitator about their performance in relation to other students (i.e., subjects received predetermined feedback regardless of their actual performance). in the positive feedback condition, subjects were told that their performance on the task was “above average”; in the negative feedback condition, subjects were told that their performance on the task was “below average.” in order to make the manipulation believable, the facilitator and his two assistants, positioned at the back of the room, pretended to analyze the results after each task. the facilitator then handed each subject a pre-printed piece of paper with that participant’s id number a checkmark next to a particular performance category, indicating how he or she “performed” on the previous task in comparison with other participants. the facilitator had no knowledge of the participants’ actual performance during the session. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 kotlyar 587 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures dependent variables—performance expectations.participants were asked to indicate their personal expectations of their performance on a 7-point likert scale: “how confident are you in your ability to perform this task effectively?”; “how well do you think you will perform on the next task?”; “how confident are you that you can perform either in the outstanding (top 10%) or the very good (top 20%) range on the next task?”; “how well do you think you will perform on the next task in comparison to other students?”. the cronbach's alpha for this 4-item measure was .92 following the practice round. task commitment. this construct was used to refer to the probability that a participant would persevere with the task, as opposed to leave the task (in line with the definition of job commitment; farrell, & rusbult, 1981, p. 79). wemeasured task commitment after each task (i.e., practice task, first task, second task, and third task) by asking participants to respond to the following two items on a 7-point likert-type scale: “would you continue with this task regardless of how many more tasks are remaining?” and “have you thought about quitting this activity?”. the reliability of this 2-item scale was α = .76 following the third task. performance satisfaction. we measured participants’ satisfaction with their performance on the task after each task (i.e., practice task, first task, second task, and third task) by asking participants to respond to the following two items on a 7-point likert-type scale: “how satisfied are you with your performance on the task?” and “are you at all disappointed with your performance?”. the second item was reversed in order to create a composite measure. the alpha coefficient of this 2-item measure was .72 following the third task. control variable. in our analysis we controlled for gender (f = 0; m = 1) given that women may react differently than men to raised expectation (dvir, eden, & banjo, 1995), experience emotions more intensely (e.g., barrett, robin, pietromonaco, & eyssell, 1998; fujita, diener, & sandvik, 1991; kring & gordon, 1998), and have been shown to respond differently to stress elicited by using mental arithmetic tasks (wang et al., 2007). results manipulation check we used three manipulation checks in this study. first, in order to check whether subjects took the study seriously, we asked participants at the beginning of the experiment to indicate their desire to perform well on the tasks using a likert-type scale, anchored by “not at all” (1) and “very much” (7). the mean response of 5.72 (sd = 1.26) indicated that the participants took this exercise seriously and were committed to doing well. second, to check the effectiveness of the manipulation of labeling, we asked participants at the end of the study to respond to this question “do you think the experimenter had any expectations of how you would perform on these tasks?” on a likert scale, anchored by “no, not at all” (1) and “yes, definitely” (7). we compared responses of high-potentials and non-high potentials using one-way anova. the results confirmed that subjects in the highpotential condition (m = 4.09, sd = 1.88) were significantly more likely to think that the experimenter had expectations regarding their success than those in the non-high potential condition (m = 3.25, sd = 1.90), f(1,475) = 18.99, p < .0001. third, to check whether the participants believed our manipulation of feedback, we asked participants at the end of the study to respond to this question “how would you rate the quality of your overall performance on these tasks?” on a likert scale, anchored by “very poor” (1) and “outstanding” (7). we compared responses of subjects europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 588 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the positive feedback and negative feedback conditions using one-way anova. the results confirmed that subjects in the positive feedback condition (m = 4.49, sd = 1.18) were significantly more likely to think that they had performed better than those in the negative feedback condition (m = 2.79, sd = 1.62), f(1,474) = 170.64, p < .0001. test of hypotheses the means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables are presented in table 2. prior to testing our hypotheses, we checked that our experimental conditions did not significantly differ by gender. no significant difference was found, chi-squared χ2 (1,n = 477) = .33, p = .56, indicating adequate randomization by gender in creating pre-experimental equivalence among treatment groups. in our hypothesis 1, we predicted that individuals who were labeled as high-potentials would have higher expectations of their future performance compared to those individuals not receiving such labels. we used a general linear model to compare performance expectations among subjects immediately following the manipulation of labeling (i.e., after the practice task), while controlling for gender. in the model, labeling was entered as a factor and gender was entered as a covariate. the results revealed a main effect for labeling f (1,474) = 55.24, p < .0001, partial η2 =.11. the average performance expectations reported by high-potentials (m = 5.38, sd = .81) were significantly higher than those reported by non-high potentials (m = 4.75, sd = .89), thus providing support for hypothesis 1. the main effect of gender was also found to be significant, f (1,474) = 16.12, p < .0001, partial η2 = .03, whereby men tended to have somewhat higher expectations than women. in hypothesis 2, we predicted that after receipt of positive feedback, non-high potentials would exhibit higher levels of performance satisfaction compared to those individuals labeled as high potentials. to test this hypothesis, we excluded all data involving negative performance feedback, and applied a general linear model to only the data where subjects received positive feedback. we entered labeling as a factor and gender as a covariate. the results showed that, following the final (i.e., third) task, the level of performance satisfaction was higher for nonhigh potentials (m = 4.42, sd = 1.46) than high potentials (m = 3.74, sd = 1.45), f (1,236) = 10.95, p < .001, partial η2 = .05. thus, hypothesis 2 was confirmed: after receiving positive performance feedback, high-potentials reported lower satisfaction with their performance than non-high potentials. in hypothesis 3, we proposed that after receipt of positive feedback, individuals who were not labeled as high potentialswould exhibit higher levels of task commitment compared to those individuals labeled as high potentials. to test this hypothesis, we repeated the process described immediately above with respect to the task commitment. the results revealed that, following the final task, the level of task commitment was higher for non-high potentials (m = 5.33, sd = 1.51) than high potentials (m = 5.13, sd = 1.65), but failed to reach a level of statistical significance, f (1,236) = .94, n.s. these results indicate that, in the positive feedback condition, labeling subjects as high-potential and, thus, assigning to them high performance expectations increased their expectations of their future performance, but also reduced their feelings of satisfaction with their performance, as compared to non-high potentials. in hypothesis 4, we stated that after receiving negative feedback high potentials would experience a significantly greater drop in performance satisfaction compared to their non-labeled counterparts. for the purpose of our analysis we excluded all data involving positive feedback, and ran a general linear model using only the data ineurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 kotlyar 589 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 means, standard deviations and correlations among variables spearman correlation coefficients 321feedbacklabelingsdm 4.941. performance expectations (practice task) .92)(.04.32**.91 3.482. performance satisfaction (task 3) .72)(.11*-.44**.13**-.721 5.103. task commitment (task 3) .76)(.19**.21**.10*.09*-.631 4. gender (f=0; m=1) .02-.01.16**.07.03note. n = 477. coefficient alpha is shown in brackets along the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. volving negative feedback. our dependent variable was computed as a difference in performance satisfaction measured after the practice task and measured after the final (i.e., third) task. we entered labeling as a factor and gender as a covariate. the results revealed a main effect for labeling f (1,225) = 86.81, p < .0001, partial η2 = .28, such that the average decline in performance satisfaction reported by high-potentials (m = -3.87, sd = 2.12) was significantly higher than that reported by non-high potentials (m = -1.41, sd = 1.66), thus providing support for hypothesis 4. in our hypothesis 5, we predicted that after receiving negative feedback, high potentials would experience a significantly greater drop in task commitment compared to their non-labeled counterparts. to test this hypothesis we repeated the above procedure with respect to task commitment. the results revealed a significant main effect for labeling f (1,235) = 15.33, p < .0001, partial η2 = .06, whereby the average decline in task commitment (between the practice round and the final task) was greater for high-potentials (m = -1.70, sd = 1.67) than non-high potentials (m = -.82, sd = 1.49), thus providing support for hypothesis 5. in other words, the results showed that following negative feedback, high-potentials experience amore rapid decline in their performance satisfaction and task commitment than non-high potentials. in hypothesis 6, we predicted that after receiving negative feedback individuals labeled as high-potentials would exhibit significantly lower performance satisfaction compared to their non-labeled counterparts. we used a general linear model to compare the level of performance satisfaction among high-potentials and non-high potentials in the negative feedback (i.e., below average) condition only while controlling for gender. the results revealed that in line with our prediction, subjects in the high-potential group (m = 2.49, sd = 1.68) reported lower levels of satisfaction following the final task than subjects in the non-high potential group (m = 2.82, sd = 1.59), however the difference failed to reach a level of significance at p < .05, f (1,232) = 1.93, n.s. therefore, hypothesis 6 was not supported. finally, in our hypothesis 7, we predicted that after receiving negative feedback individuals labeled as high potentials would exhibit significantly lower task commitment compared to their non-labeled counterparts. we again used a general linear model to compare task commitment among subjects after the final task, while controlling for gender. in the model, labeling was entered as a factor and gender was entered as a covariate. the results confirmed that, in the condition of negative feedback, high-potentials exhibited lower levels of task commitment (m = 4.51, sd = 1.83) than non-high potentials (m = 5.08, sd = 1.61), f (1,235) = 5.41, p < .05, partial η2 = .03. therefore, hypothesis 7 was supported. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 590 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in summary, in the negative feedback condition, both high potentials and non-high potentials reported a decline in performance satisfaction and commitment between the practice task and the final task. however this deterioration was more pronounced for high potentials, and after the final (i.e., third) task their level of commitment was actually lower than that of non-high potentials. discussion this study attempts to shed more light on a very topical, critically important and under-researched management issue. high potential programs are increasingly popular (e.g., ready et al., 2010) and many organizations regard the practice of identifying high potential employees as an important component of building a long-term competitive advantage (cappelli, 2008; corporate leadership council, 2005). however the results of this study indicate that labeling individuals in terms of their performance capabilities could represent a double edge sword. on the one hand, as has been demonstrated by earlier research, it can boost individuals’ expectations and, in turn, their selfefficacy and performance (e.g., tierney & farmer, 2004). on the other, as has been demonstrated by the results of this study, labeling individuals as high potentials could impact how they interpret performance feedback, potentially lowering their level of satisfaction and commitment. the extant research has provided ample evidence of the positive effects of communicating high expectations to subordinates that create a self-fulfilling prophecy and can result in higher performance (e.g., eden, 1984). for example, numerous studies have demonstrated the occurrence of the pygmalion effect, whereby leader’s expectations of employee’s superior performance have been shown to positively impact that individual’s self-expectations and behavior (eden, 1984, 1990a, 1990b, 1992; eden & shani, 1982). in fact, the findings of this study also show that labeling individuals as high potentials can indeed raise their performance expectations (hypothesis 1). however, much less is known about the role these expectations play following performance feedback that does not meet the performer’s expectations. that is, what happens if the individual feels that he or she has not lived up to these high expectations? what is the impact of performance feedback when it fails to affirm those initially high expectations? the extant research has not satisfactorily addressed these questions. this study specifically attempts to address the role of labeling and its influence on responses to performance feedback. the results of this study draw attention to a possible downside of high potential labeling. the practice of high potential labeling may create additional vulnerabilities to feedback. while people in general tend to feel discouraged by feedback that falls short of their expectations (brett & atwater, 2001; kluger et al., 1994; taylor et al., 1984), individuals labeled as high potentials could be particularly likely to be affected by feedback because of the heightened level of their initial expectations. in other words, labeling individuals as high potentials may cause them to perceive a greater gap between expectations and performance and possibly even a challenge to their alleged high potential status, leading to deterioration in satisfaction and commitment. in this study, we compared how individuals in the high potential and the non-high potential conditions reacted to positive (“above average”) and negative (“below average”) feedback. in the case of positive feedback, those labelled as high potentials reacted less favourably than those who did not receive such a label. by the end of the third task, individuals in the high potential condition, whose initial performance expectations were boosted through labeling, were less satisfied with their performance than non-high potentialswhen feedback was framed as “above average”. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 kotlyar 591 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the consequences of negative feedbackwere adverse for both high potentials and their non-labeled counterparts. however, the decrements in performance satisfaction and task commitment were greater for high potentials, whereby the non-high potentials were not as adversely affected by negative feedback. thus, our results suggest that while personal performance expectations are positively related to task commitment, building up performance expectations through labeling can create a false promise of commitment. when faced with “below average” feedback, both high-potentials and non-high potentials reported a decline in performance satisfaction and commitment; however high-potentials experienced a more rapid decline compared to non-high potentials. by the end of third task, high potentials exhibited lower task commitment than non-high potentials. thus, the double edge sword of high potential expectations: labeling individuals as high-potentials can increase their performance expectations, but may also reduce their satisfaction and commitment. implications the results of this study add value to a consideration of the role of labeling high potentials and responses to performance feedback. we believe this study is among the first to examine this issue. this research has important practical implications, as organizations are increasingly implementing high potential programs, in large part, to improve engagement and retention of their high potential employees. ironically, high potential programs may actually reduce satisfaction and commitment under certain conditions, thus potentially reducing engagement and retention of the very employees organizations consider most valuable for their future success. the findings of this study suggest that organizations should carefully consider how they communicate high expectations to their employees and how they manage expectations and attitudes when performance feedback falls short of the initial expectations. limitations and future research while this study has important implications for understanding how labeling individuals as high potentials can influence responses to feedback, there are a number of limitations in this study as well as questions raised that merit future research attention. first, the study employed students within a laboratory based setting, which limits the generalizability of our findings. although a laboratory study was used, it is promising that the present research demonstrated an effect of labeling in a situation with minimal consequences; in a field setting it is possible that such effects may bemore pronounced. field based studies that monitor employees who have actually been targeted as high potentials would be of great interest for future research. second, it is desirable to examine the interaction of the factors identified in this study in a “real” work context – among individuals within traditional organizational settings. our manipulation has likely created a more specific expectancy (performance in the outstanding category) on specific tasks, as compared to a “real” work context, where a high potential label doesn’t always specify either how good “high” is or how soon that “potential” is likely to manifest. this may have resulted in a more focused contrast between expectations and performance, and thus may have more explicitly activated processes related to expectancy disconfirmation and adaptation level theory when the task feedback contradicts the initial label, and, therefore, might have produced stronger results than a manipulation of perceived potential would produce. future field research should also examine how labeling an employee as a high potential might influence their attitudes toward performance feedback; and to what extent non recipients of the high potential label are motivated to improve their status and thereby might be more disappointed with feedback that does not reflect an improvement in their capabilities. third, future research should consider strategies for informing individuals of their potential and for communicating higher performance expectations that do not lead to a drop in satisfaction and commitment europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 592 http://www.psychopen.eu/ following poor performance feedback. we hope this study encourages further exploration of the impact of labeling on employee behavior and organizational outcomes. funding this 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(1996). what is social comparison and how should we study it? personality and social psychology bulletin, 22, 520-537. doi:10.1177/0146167296225009 about the author dr. igor kotlyar is an assistant professor at the faculty of business and it, university of ontario institute of technology in oshawa, ontario, canada. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(3), 581–596 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i3.620 the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations 596 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167296225009 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the double edge sword of “high potential” expectations (introduction) literature review and hypotheses method participants task procedure manipulations measures results manipulation check test of hypotheses discussion implications limitations and future research funding references about the author cross-cultural variation in political leadership styles research reports cross-cultural variation in political leadership styles petia paramova* a, herbert blumberg b [a] department of psychology, bpp university, london, united kingdom. [b] department of psychology, goldsmiths college, university of london, london, united kingdom. abstract guided by gaps in the literature with regard to the study of politicians the aim of the research is to explore cross-cultural differences in political leaders’ style. it compares the mlq (avolio & bass, 2004) scores of elected political leaders (n = 140) in bulgaria and the uk. the statistical exploration of the data relied on multivariate analyses of covariance. the findings of comparisons across the two groups reveal that compared to british political leaders, bulgarian leaders were more likely to frequently use both transactional and passive/avoidant behaviours. the study tests bass’s (1997) strong assertion about the universality of transformational leadership. it contributes to the leadership literature by providing directly measured data relating to the behaviours of political leaders. such information on the characteristics of politicians could allow for more directional hypotheses in subsequent research, exploring the contextual influences within transformational leadership theory. the outcomes might also aid applied fields. knowledge gained of culturally different leaders could be welcomed by multicultural political and economic unions, wherein understanding and allowances might aid communication. keywords: leadership, political leadership, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, passive/avoidant leadership, mlq, crosscultural europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 received: 2017-03-10. accepted: 2017-06-29. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, bpp university, 137 stamford street, london, se1 9nn, united kingdom. phone: 0207 7866 813; 07746537884. e-mail: petiaparamova@bpp.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. initial research in the area of behavioural leadership theory aimed to group behaviours under a common denominator (likert 1961; stogdill & shartle, 1955). this led to the emergence of two major groups that characterised two distinct styles. an array of names has been used to label these groups, but there is currently common agreement that one of the styles contains task-oriented properties while the other contains personoriented properties. research explored which of the two styles is superior (i.e. research by bales, 1950; lewin, lippitt, & white, 1939; likert, 1961; stogdill & shartle, 1955), with results proving largely fruitless (gastil, 1994), as most scholars agree that a combination of the two provides the most robust explanation of leadership (blake & mouton, 1978; sorrentino & field, 1986). burns (1978), however, refused to agree that a superior style is absent and looked to describe leaders who have emerged and ensured effectiveness in times of crisis. such leaders produced positive results by instigating change and they were seen as transformational. moreover, transformational leaders have been described as trustworthy, honest, motivational and encouraging (den europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ hartog, house, hanges, et al., 1999). avolio and bass (1988) and bass and avolio (1990) presented a more elaborate transformational leadership theory—the full range model—wherein transformational leadership style is contrasted with transactional and passive/avoidant styles. like burns (1978), avolio and bass (1988) described transformational leaders as: (a) those who raise subordinates’ awareness of the importance of achieving commonly set goals; (b) those who encourage subordinates to disregard what interests them for the sake of the common goal; and (c) those who develop their subordinates’ needs to a higher level, wherein they feel autonomous yet affiliated with the group. bass (1985) viewed the compared transactional leadership as descriptive of those leaders who recognise what subordinates want to get from their job, help subordinates get what they want (if their performance allows) and exchange rewards for effort. additionally, in this model the ‘passive/avoidant’ style signified a ‘negative’ leadership style, which was used as a baseline anchor point (avolio, 1999). in general, transformational theory is considered to have had a large impact upon leadership as a scientific domain. according to antonakis (2012), it helped leadership researchers by providing them with direction at a time when the field suffered much pessimism. it presented researchers with a set of behaviours that were considered superior for inducing effectiveness, compared to the set of behaviours measured in the so-called two-factor theories (i.e. taskand person-oriented behaviours). moreover, the full range model benefits from a specially designed test (the multifactor leadership questionnaire), currently used to measure the frequency of behaviours associated with the three styles. bass (1997) insisted on the universal relevance of transformational leadership and studies have cited that it is the most desired (den hartog et al., 1999) and the most effective of styles (barling, weber, & kelloway, 1996; derue, nahrgang, wellman, & humphrey, 2011; geyer & steyrer, 1998; judge & bono, 2000; judge & piccolo, 2004; lowe, kroeck, & sivasubramaniam, 1996; rowold & heinitz, 2007). despite support for the stability of transformational leadership across settings, some research suggests that in some respects it varies as a function of the environment. even though contextual factors were not seen to affect the effectiveness and the desirability of the style they were seen to affect its pervasiveness. according to findings the occurrence of the style is contingent on organisational and cultural factors (bruch & walter, 2007; jung, bass, & sosik, 1995; kuchinke, 1999; leong & fischer, 2011; ling, simsek, lubatkin, & veiga, 2008; lowe et al., 1996; ozorovskaja, voordijk, & wilderom, 2007; pawar & eastman, 1997). organisational structure, type, hierarchy level and size have been thought to affect the frequency of its use. transformational leaders have been seen to emerge mainly in the upper levels (bruch & walter, 2007) of the hierarchy in organic (bass, 1985) and public (lowe et al., 1996) organisations of small sizes (ling et al., 2008). similarly, cultures experiencing crisis (conger, 1999) are reported as providing better contexts for the emergence of transformational leaders. additional culture-contingent variables, such as political structure (alas, tafel, & tuulik, 2007; ozorovskaja et al., 2007) and differential values (jung et al., 1995; leong & fischer, 2011), have also played a role in determining pervasiveness. for instance, transitional democracies and collectivist/mastery-oriented cultures (jung et al., 1995; leong & fischer, 2011), show more transformational behaviours in their leaders. nonetheless, despite the widespread exploration of influences on transformational leadership practices, gaps in the literature are present. there is a notable absence of studies of political leaders even though transformational leadership theory is rooted in burns’s (1978) study of political leaders. the difficulty in approaching politicians could explain this trend. however, it does not fully justify the apparent near total absence of studies quantitatively exploring behaviours displayed by political leaders. other gaps in the leadership styles and political leaders 750 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ literature are also present. they concern the lack of studies considering all three styles within the full range model. trends relating to the pervasiveness of transactional leadership and the effects of context on it are not as clear, because, often, studies exploring transformational leadership have not contrasted its effects with those of transactional and passive/avoidant styles. the exploration of culture as a context variable also seems to have been limited and when investigated an interest in western cultures is predominant. while helpful, only few studies explore transformational leadership (den hartog et al., 1999) in developing and transitional democracies, and their regional clusters lack full diversity. for instance, within their eastern european postcommunist cluster, den hartog et al. (1999) included only central european cultures such as those of poland, hungary and the czech republic. these countries share some historical similarity with other post-communist cultures—like those of bulgaria or lithuania—which allows for some generalisations. however, one must generalise with caution because brodbeck et al. (2000) noted differences between historically similar cultures, which did not always share close geographical proximity. due to the aforementioned gaps, the transformational theory literature could benefit from studies exploring the presence and dynamics of the full range model styles (i.e. transformational, transactional and passive/ avoidant; bass & avolio, 1995) in the area of political leadership. the inclusion of political leader mlq (multifactor leadership questionnaire) self-ratings from direct leader assessment, the assessment of the transformational, transactional and passive avoidant leadership frequency data and the examination of the effects of variables such as culture might allow for more complete knowledge of political leadership style. the research question therefore explores the variance in the pervasiveness of the full range leadership style behaviours across cultures. a comparison between uk (developed western democracy) and bulgaria (developing post-communist south-eastern european democracy) is made. in general, the comparison of bulgaria to an established western democracy could inform the hypothesis formation of future research by underlining the difference in leadership variables in western and south-eastern europe. the comparison could also reveal much about the differences and similarities between cultures with varying historical, political and cultural profiles. any knowledge of the differences and similarities between bulgarian and british leaders could possibly be welcomed by structures such as the european union, where understanding and allowances in communication could aid collaborative work in areas such as immigration. furthermore, the findings could inform transformational theory by discussing variables which might have influence upon it and by noting the extent to which the full range model styles vary across cultural contexts. the results of past research (jung et al., 1995) describe leaders in collectivist cultures and cultures in critical conditions (conger, 1999)—such as bulgaria—as more transformational in nature. ozorovskaja et al. (2007) asserted that post-communist leaders—such as those in bulgaria—practice more transactional leadership behaviours, which as cited, is tied to high power distance (inequality) and authoritarianism. based on such findings the expected outcome is for bulgarian political leaders to rate themselves as displaying higher levels of both transformational and transactional leadership behaviours, compared to british leaders. in relation to passive/avoidant leadership we could expect cross-cultural equality, as both cultures are presumed equally likely to avoid any association with salient indicators of ‘bad leadership’, however due to the lack of findings it could be wise to form a question--as opposed to hypothesis—asking whether there are cross-cultural differences in passive/avoidant leadership style behaviours displayed by political leaders. paramova & blumberg 751 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method procedure the data collection was carried out in a single phase. invitations to participate were sent via e-mails to members of parliament and local councils in london and sofia, the respective capitals of the united kingdom and bulgaria. the letters described the purpose of the study (i.e. a study looking to explore cross-cultural leadership practices)—without revealing the hypotheses—and provided recipients with the researcher’s contact details. in addition, they assured all potential participants’ personal data would be kept confidential. a total of 1,756 invitations were sent to political leaders. the response rate at this stage (suggesting interest in participation) was 9.1%. those who expressed interest were then sent hard copies of the questionnaires, which were accompanied by an informed consent form. following the receipt of the questionnaires the response rate fell to 8%. this is considerably low, but similar to the response rates achieved by other researchers using similar samples (e.g. the response rate in caprara, barbaranelli, consiglio, picconi, & zimbardo’s [2003] study stood conservatively at 10%). the response rate is however likely be higher if one had accounted for e-mails not received or eliminated by filtering, as well as lost and forgotten questionnaires. nevertheless, substantial systematic cross-cultural data for existing major political leaders are, as noted, fairly rare in the literature, because such data are difficult to obtain. there was a considerable delay in response due to political leaders’ work commitments. some declined immediately, expressing concerns over confidentiality and the way in which the data would be used. the participants responded to a number of questionnaires (three closed and standardised questionnaires and one open-ended questionnaire) as part of a large investigation. all political leaders completed the self-form of the mlq (multifactor leadership questionnaire), which provided data on the style they utilise in addition to demographic information including nationality, gender, age, and political ideology, level of education, political post and voting behaviour. participants the sample was made up of elected political leaders (n = 140) currently holding office positions (i.e. as members of parliament or as local councillors). within the sample, 63 of the leaders were from bulgaria and 77 were from the united kingdom. table 1 represents demographic and political characteristics of this sample, arranged by nationality, age, gender, education, political involvement and political ideology. leadership styles and political leaders 752 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 political leader demographic characteristics characteristic bulgarian (n = 63) british (n = 77) total (n = 140) n % n % n % age 18–37 11 17.5 14 18.2 25 17.9 38–57 41 65.0 32 41.5 73 52.1 58+ 11 17.5 31 40.3 42 30.0 gender male 40 63.5 55 71.4 95 67.9 female 23 36.5 22 28.6 45 32.1 education secondary 0 0.0 2 2.6 2 1.4 further 14 22.2 8 10.4 22 15.7 higher 49 77.8 54 70.1 103 73.6 unknown 0 0.0 13 16.9 13 9.3 level of political activity local government 38 60.3 59 76.6 97 69.3 mp 25 39.7 18 23.4 43 30.7 political ideology left 14 22.2 26 33.8 40 28.6 right 21 33.3 27 35.0 48 34.3 centre 5 8.0 17 22.1 22 17.7 unknown 23 36.5 7 9.1 30 21.4 note. percentages refer to the respective column. research tools the mlq (multifactor leadership questionnaire – overview as suggested previously, many conceptualisations of leadership styles have been uncovered. early models were particularly interested in testing taskand person-oriented leadership styles (e.g. stogdill & shartle’s ohio state studies and likert’s michigan state studies, both in the 1950s), but, as neither style proved superior, interest shifted to a style that initiated and facilitated transformation in a positive manner. this led to the development of the full range leadership model (avolio & bass, 1988; bass & avolio, 1990). the full range model describes a broader range of leadership styles than the paradigms of initiation (taskoriented) and consideration (person-oriented) and uses the ‘multifactor leadership questionnaire’ (mlq; avolio & bass, 2004; bass, 1985; bass & avolio, 1995, 2000) to measure the transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant styles. the questionnaire is the most commonly employed measure of the three styles. it currently exists in four forms, under the names of ‘mlq-5x-short’ (leader and rater form) and ‘mlq-5x-long’ (leader and rater form). the former includes 45 items, while the latter includes 65 items. the 12 components of the 5x-short version, used in this research, measure key leadership and effectiveness behaviours empirically linked to individual and organisational success. five of the components describe transformational leadership (idealized attributes, paramova & blumberg 753 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ idealized behaviours, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration), two describe transactional leadership (management by exception–active and contingent reward) and two measure passive/avoidant leadership (management by exception–passive and laissez-faire). the remainder (three components, in total) deal with outcomes of leadership such as extra effort, effectiveness and satisfaction with leadership. when presented with the leader form, leaders completing the questionnaire are usually asked to describe their style by judging how frequently each of the 45 statements fit them. items are rated on a 5-point scale, anchored with 0 (not at all) and 4 (frequently, if not always). the mlq is considered a valid measure of the three leadership styles (i.e. transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant), with alpha coefficients for each component ranging from .74 to .94. such coefficients suggest good internal consistency, and the items appear to measure the components which they claim to measure (bass & avolio, 1995). even though bass and avolio (1995) presented the components of each style as independent (even within each style), high positive correlations (i.e. correlations above .8) have been noted, especially between transformational style components (bass & avolio, 1995). such high correlations might not be welcomed by the questionnaire designers, as they suggest a level of component redundancy. however, some studies have used component integration, which usually corrects for this issue (hetland & sandal, 2003; ross & offermann, 1997). high significant positive correlations have also been found between the five components of the transformational style and the contingent reward component of the transactional style. whilst not considered strength, avolio and bass (2004) suggested that the high association between the components is caused by both components representing active and positive forms of leadership. in addition, these correlations could be due to the claimed ability of leaders to be both transformational and transactional (avolio & bass, 2004). rationale for choosing the mlq while there are many leadership style questionnaires (e.g. the leadership behaviour description questionnaire [lbdq; hemphill & coons, 1957]; the transformational leadership behaviour inventory [tli; podsakoff, mackenzie, moorman, & fetter, 1990]; and the transformational leadership questionnaire [tlq; alimometcalfe & alban-metcalfe, 2001]), the mlq is, according to avolio and bass (2004), superior and widely used for targeting the measurements of transformational leadership and was therefore selected for this study. in addition, while many of the other leadership questionnaires originated in areas other than politics, the mlq relates to the work of burns (1978), who discussed the idea of transformational leadership, following observations of political leaders. this made the mlq appropriate for studying the present political leader sample. moreover, the structure of the mlq has been cross-culturally replicated (bass & avolio, 1995). widespread usage has resulted in many tested translations of the questionnaire, including a bulgarian translation. in general, standardised measures of any kind are rarely employed in countries such as bulgaria, posing problems for cross-cultural researchers keen to validly explore the constructs these questionnaires measure. the availability of a tested bulgarian translation of the mlq made it a suitable option from within the large array of available leadership behaviour tests. leadership styles and political leaders 754 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the test has also been warranted with good internal consistency making issues of exceedingly high transformational component correlations easier to discount. the availability of a short form was also welcomed, given the difficulties associated with testing political leaders and the difficulty associated with introducing multiple measures. analyses and results in order to explore the likely variations, political leader frequency scores on the mlq scales (i.e. five transformational leadership scales, two transactional leadership scales and two passive/avoidant leadership scales) within the two cultural samples were compared. the preferred test for these comparisons was mancova allowing for the exploration of multiple dependent variables and therefore reducing the likelihood of type i error. mancova also addresses the issue of covariate effects, often leading to an increase in withingroup error. aspects such as gender (eagly, johannesen-schmidt, & van engen, 2003; eagly & johnson, 1990) and age (kobacoff & stoffey, 2001; oshagbemi, 2008) have been previously shown to affect the frequency of leadership behaviours displayed by leaders; since these aspects were measured here, controlling for their effects helped when inferences about group variation were drawn. further variables, such as ‘political ideology’ could also bring on confounding effects. unfortunately, the large presence of missing data (see table 1), associated with this variable prevented us from including it in the analysis. in general the inclusion of unreliable variables in mancova is discouraged, as degrees of freedom and therefore power is lost with each addition of a variable. political ideology should nevertheless be considered in future work. while exploring assumptions for carrying out mancova, some of the requested analyses showed sizeable correlations between scales belonging to each of the measured styles. the finding posed problems similar to those experienced by others (e.g., hetland & sandal, 2003). in order to solve the possible presence of redundant dependent variables, variable integration was undertaken. combining the frequency scores of the five transformational scales into a single rating variable called the ‘transformational leadership frequency score’ and combining the scores of the transactional and passive/avoidant scales into two more single score variables (i.e. the ‘transactional leadership frequency score’ and the ‘passive/avoidant leadership frequency score’) was something other scholars in the area had done (hetland & sandal, 2003). the combination of variables reduced the original nine leadership style frequency variables into three new dependent variables: transformational, transactional and passive/avoidant leadership frequency scores. before this combination, exploratory factor analysis with varimax orthogonal rotation was carried out to investigate (independently of prior expectations) the higher order factor structure of the mlq, in order to confirm the five transformational, the two transactional and the two passive/avoidant scales loaded onto three separate factors. the need for this was further prompted by evidence (ardichvili & kuchinke, 2002; avolio & bass, 2004; geyer & steyrer, 1998; hetland & sandal, 2003) suggesting that the transactional leadership scale contingent reward is highly correlated with all transformational leadership scales. exploring the factor loadings was therefore necessary before variable integration took place. the emerged factor structure following the exploratory factor analysis is illustrated in table 2. paramova & blumberg 755 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 rotated factor matrix for the factor analysis of the mlq leadership behaviour scales mlq scale factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 idealised attributesa .724 -.023 .189 idealised behavioursa .779 .068 .117 inspirational motivationa .814 -.104 -.154 intellectual stimulationa .686 -.013 .086 individualised considerationa .684 -.158 .064 contingent rewarda .674 .006 .378 management by exception–activeb .149 .102 .949 management by exception–passivec .021 .894 .093 laissez-fairec -.129 .890 .017 % variance (total: 66.46) 37.54 19.10 9.82 note. loadings in bold in each column signify that their respective scale loads highly on one of the three factors: factor 1, transformational leadership style; factor 2, passive/avoidant leadership style; factor 3, transactional leadership style. atransformational leadership style. btransactional leadership style. cpassive/avoidant leadership style. as presented in table 2, the results note that, while the five transformational scales and two passive/avoidant scales loaded onto their respective factors, the transactional leadership scale contingent reward loaded quite highly onto both the transformational leadership factor and the factor containing the remaining transactional leadership scale management by exception–active. it can, therefore, be argued that contingent reward should be included in the combined transformational leadership frequency score variable, rather than in the combined transactional leadership variable, where it is thought to belong. however, past research (hetland & sandal, 2003) has noted otherwise and, despite its high loading onto the transformational leadership factor, contingent reward was still included in the transactional factor during variable combination. this common practice has been supported by the test publishers and by other researchers (avolio & bass, 2004; hetland & sandal, 2003), who insist contingent reward is applicable to both types of leadership and note its high loading onto two of the three leadership behaviour factors/styles. based on this, contingent reward was included in the transactional leadership frequency score variable. moreover, in terms of the remaining assumptions the data were suitable for a mancova. outliers were absent and all three dependent variables appeared as normally distributed for each level of the ivs (i.e. all skewness and kurtosis values were lower than the more stringent cut-off value of +/-1) (see table 3 and 4 for descriptive statistics and skewness and kurtosis values). missing values associated with the dependent variables (i.e. the three leadership styles) were not present and as described in table 1 such were only evident with regard to the demographic variables. heterogeneity was also absent, with all levene’s tests suggesting insignificance (see table 5). leadership styles and political leaders 756 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 means and standard deviations for the three mlq leadership style frequency scores for bulgarian (n = 63) and british (n = 77) political leaders dependent variable bulgarian political leaders british political leaders m sd m sd transformational leadership 3.05 0.42 2.92 0.53 transactional leadership 3.13 0.49 2.47 0.57 passive/avoidant leadership 1.28 0.58 0.87 0.60 table 4 ranges and skewness and kurtosis values for the three mlq leadership style frequency scores for bulgarian (n = 63) and british (n = 77) political leaders dependent variable bulgarian political leaders british political leaders skewness value kurtosis value range skewness value kurtosis value range min max min max transformational leadership -0.39 0.10 2.00 3.95 -0.41 -0.50 1.65 3.85 transactional leadership -0.18 -0.59 2.00 4.00 -0.03 0.25 0.75 3.75 passive/avoidant leadership 0.31 0.37 0.00 3.00 0.93 0.86 0.00 2.75 table 5 levene’s test statistics for the three mlq leadership style frequency scores dependent variable f p transformational leadership 3.41 .07 transactional leadership 1.11 .30 passive/avoidant leadership 0.14 .71 the results of the multivariate analysis of covariance revealed a significant main effect of culture, f(3, 134) = 26.94, p < .001. as hypothesised the follow up univariate analyses confirmed that bulgarian and british political leaders varied with regard to their transactional, f(1, 136) = 59.82, p < .001, and unexpectedly with regard to their passive/ avoidant style scores, f(1, 136) = 15.18, p < .001. a bonferroni correction to the alpha level was employed to prevent the type i error usually associated with multiple follow-up analyses. on both occasions, bulgarians appear to have scored higher (m = 3.13, sd = 0.49; m = 1.28, sd = 0.58, respectively), compared to uk nationals (m = 2.47, sd = 0.57; m = 0.87, sd = 0.6, respectively) (see table 3 for all means and standard deviations). no significant differences were found with regard to the transformational style where bulgarian and uk political leaders appeared to score similarly. in addition, the effect sizes can be considered too. where significance was reported, effect sizes (signified by eta squared [η2]) were medium to large (cohen, 1988) (see table 6 for η2). paramova & blumberg 757 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 effect sizes associated with significant main effects after analysis of covariance political leader self-reported leadership style comparison eta squared (η2) % of variance accounted for transactional style—significant main effect of culture 0.296*** 29.6% passive/avoidant style—significant main effect of culture 0.099** 9.9% *small effect size (η2 > 0.01), **medium effect size (η2 > 0.06), ***large effect size (η2 > 0.14). discussion the results of the analysis of culture differences in leadership styles partially supported the hypotheses. they suggest that, compared to british leaders, bulgarian leaders scored significantly higher only in terms of transactional and passive/avoidant leadership style behaviours. while the transactional style differences were predicted, the lack of transformational style differences was unexpected. moreover, the higher instances of passive/avoidant behaviours in bulgarian leaders is an interesting and noteworthy finding, which tentatively answers the question posed in the introduction. in order to explain the transactional leadership difference, one could explore the cultural value differences across the cultures studied. bulgaria, for example, has been found to score highly in terms of power distance (minkov, 2011), promoting authoritarianism, steep hierarchy, obedience towards those at the top, centralised power and reduced concern for employees in work settings. some of these aforementioned concepts—such as authoritarianism—are associated with task-oriented behaviours--also related to, and present in, transactional leaders. in this way, one can associate power distance with the elevated levels of transactional behaviours in bulgaria found in this research. the provision of explanations for the passive/avoidant style variation is more challenging. it was expected that behaviours detrimental to the completion of a task are equally and universally absent in the leadership arena. nevertheless, while passive/avoidant behaviours were still negatively associated with leadership in bulgaria, they were certainly more frequently enacted by bulgarian, than by british, leaders. no studies have looked at this in bulgaria, but studies exploring countries with similar historical challenges—like russia—have generated results similar to those obtained here. ardichvili and kuchinke’s (2002) findings presented low scores on the passive/avoidant leadership style scales laissez-faire and management by exception in all of the tested cultures. however, the scores were substantially higher for leaders from russia, georgia, kazakhstan and kyrgyzstan, compared to leaders from germany and the usa. similarly, puffer (1996)—who studied the leadership styles of russian leaders—suggested that these leaders display a collectivist attitude characterised by diffusion of responsibility (mazar & aggarwal, 2011), and a tendency to delegate decision making due to the wish to avoid the responsibility associated with unforeseen circumstances. a similarity between collectivismbased diffusion of responsibility and passive/avoidant leadership is evident, as both concepts are associated with decision making avoidance, delayed response and failure to interfere when needed. it is therefore likely that a high score on one (e.g. collectivism) could lead to a high score on the other (i.e. passive/avoidant leadership). bulgaria’s more collectivist nature (minkov, 2011) could explain its higher experience of inadequate leadership practices. moreover, after looking at denial and avoidance of threat-related information, metselaar leadership styles and political leaders 758 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (2012) described governments with authoritarian experiences—such as governments in bulgaria—as more likely to tolerate denial and avoidance, compared to stable democratic systems. interestingly, even though a difference in the enactment of transformational leadership behaviours in bulgaria and the uk was expected, such a difference was absent. the findings oppose those who characterise cultures in more critical environments (conger, 1999), cultures with collectivist values (jung et al., 1995) and cultures with authoritarian experiences (eisenstadt, 1968), as displaying higher instances of transformational leadership. in general, charisma—a crucial aspect of transformational leadership—is often treated as an anti-democratic force and its heightened presence in cultures with history of totalitarian ruling was therefore expected. one possible answer to why leaders in bulgaria and the uk scored similarly in terms of the practiced transformational leadership behaviours and therefore opposed what was hypothesised can be derived from weber’s (1978) work. according to weber, charisma can be equally developed in both dictatorial/autocratic and democratic situations. weber (1978) described charismatic appeal as highly interactive with bureaucratic administration, but also as a concept which had democratic ramifications. similarly, according to gerth and mills (1946), charisma can be ‘the vehicle of man’s freedom in history’; these researchers also suggested that, depending on its routinisation, charisma can exist equally in both democratic and undemocratic settings. moreover, bass (1997) agreed that transformational leadership can be both autocratic and directive, and democratic and participative. as noted earlier, he also advocated for the universality of transformational behaviours. propositions as such could explain why transformational leadership appeared equally in bulgaria and the uk. limitations the work is however not short of challenges. a theoretical area that could raise criticisms relates to the labels applied here. many would note that calling elected officials ‘political leaders’ is actually unreasonable. the achievement of rising to public office might not be sufficient for convincing others of one’s leadership abilities. thus, the use of electoral success as a proxy for leadership might be considered conceptually flawed, because, according to burns (1978), we need to distinguish between leaders and power holders. however, there is no formal criterion for distinguishing ‘real’ from ‘non-real’ leaders, and the discussion surrounding the relationship between leader ‘position’ and ‘behaviour’ is exceedingly complex. blondel (1987) noted that, often, one can have the position and the power, but not the behaviour that signifies leadership; however, while a distinction between the two must be made, he also agreed they affect each other. leadership, according to blondel (1987), is the product of holding office. additionally, a leader’s post has often been used as a proxy for leadership in studies that have concentrated on political settings (caprara & zimbardo, 2004; wolbrecht & campbell, 2007). a number of methodological constraints associated with the execution of cross-cultural research are also evident and likely to increase response bias, potentially affecting the reported differences found in the study. many models attempt to provide an outlook of what different cultures entail. hofstede (1980), kluckhohn and strodtbeck (1961), schwartz (1992) and trompenaars (1993) have all proposed measurable value dimensions of culture. the capacity for measuring values is, however, often absent, and it is common practice to use nationality as a proxy for culture, albeit nationality does not always equate to culture. nevertheless, in crosscultural studies, difficulties associated with increased expenses, overseas travel, unfamiliarity with respondents paramova & blumberg 759 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and language barriers lead many researchers to engage in such practices. indeed, the current study used nationality as a proxy for culture. similar to other cross-cultural work, the present lack of ability to measure culture was compensated for by the availability of published value benchmarks along hofstede’s dimensions for both bulgaria and the uk. this advantage, and the accepted robustness of hofstede’s model, allowed for its use and acknowledgement far beyond the academic world, in spite of its criticisms and presence of alternative options (magala, 2009). williamson (2002) agrees that some flaws are evident but he also notes a more plausible and satisfactory model is still absent. of course, the recommendation for future cross-cultural research would be to incorporate a measure of culture such as the values survey module (vsm-94; hofstede, 1994) which could provide more confidence in group differences resulting from actual variations in cultural values. other issues related to cross-cultural research are group equivalence and measure translation. group equivalence is difficult to accomplish due to differing cultural standards (e.g. the completion of an a-level in the uk might be substantially different from the completion of the equivalent in bulgaria – and furthermore, such differences could reflect a blend of cultural and non-cultural effects). subtle differences in meaning are also evident across cultures which affect the provision of valid translations. the forward and backward translation methods are considered as acceptable; however, the use of the emic approach supporting culture specific measure construction is advisable in future work. the extent and content of socially desirable responses also vary cross-culturally (silverthorne, 2005). the issue of impression management is not only relevant to cross-cultural research, but also to research employing politicians. in caprara et al.’s (2003) study political leaders scored significantly higher in terms of social desirability. such an effect was expected as political leaders are generally savvier in terms of impression management, which could cause response bias during self-assessment. such response bias could have accounted for the style differences found here. due to the difficulty of securing lengthy testing slots with politicians, social desirability scales were not employed in this research. fortunately, the evident group differences with regard to some, rather than all, positive qualities suggest the lack of large social desirability effect. nevertheless, future research should consider the use of social desirability scales, allowing researchers to control for biases deriving from dishonesty (which might be deliberate or unintended) before reporting group differences. additional methodological issue is that of the limited sample size. although some of the sample sizes may seem somewhat small, they are good for the present type of research, where the targeted population is difficult to access. moreover, the adequacy of effect sizes discussed in the results section makes the current samples and any findings related to them viable. some might also question the sample representativeness, as for example the number of sampled female mps from bulgaria equated to zero. again this is something that might need addressing in the future but as such a sample is hard to come by the analysis of associated data is still worth reporting. practical implications despite the shortcomings of this research a number of implications of the findings are present, such as one in the field of cross-cultural relations. the effectiveness of structures like the eu, where bulgarian and british political leaders must work together, is often facilitated by the presence of smooth collaborations. ensuring the leadership styles and political leaders 760 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ latter is especially important now as we experience the turbulent brexit era. the current results show bulgarian and british leaders differing in terms of the leadership styles they use. the findings reveal that the bulgarian and british leaders were equally transformational, but the bulgarian leaders proved more transactional and passive/avoidant, compared to the british leaders. this signifies that, in dealing with each other, british leaders must allow for bulgarian leaders to be more task-oriented, slower to intervene and, when making decisions, more likely to be absent if needed. furthermore, we often group cultures in dichotomies (i.e. east, west) or separate them according to geographic, language and religious regions. within europe, we sometimes describe countries branded ‘the former eastern bloc’ as similar to each other, but different from countries west of the ‘iron curtain’. this often leads to result generalisation and findings of research carried out in some eastern european cultures are applied to other cultures in the formerly referred to ‘communist bloc’. this may be akin to a well-known general gestalt perceptual phenomenon of ‘levelling’ within categories and ‘sharpening’ across category boundaries— often a helpful heuristic process, but a cognitive bias all the same. bulgaria, itself, has hardly been researched, but has always been grouped with the rest of the eastern european subset countries, which might have resulted in the formation of faulty inferences. recently, ardichvili and kuchinke (2002) cited that countries such as kazakhstan and kyrgyzstan--both former russian republics--are different in terms of the values they hold. such findings propose the routine homogenous treatment of cultures with common communist experience as inappropriate. compliance with a general categorisation could lead to misunderstandings in dealings between various leaders in multinational businesses and diverse political leaders in structures like the eu. on the other hand, acceptance of the notion of uniqueness and the need for studying cultures independently could lead to the provision of precise knowledge, aiding the development of leadership training programmes and improving eu relations. an independent study of bulgaria, the uk or any other eu country could have implications for effectiveness, and, while many differences across europe have not been noted, small but sometimes meaningful discrepancies could create a conflict, reduce productivity and block ‘good’ leadership. theoretical implications the unexpected findings suggesting universality of transformational leadership behaviours amongst political leaders of differing cultures have theoretical implications. the results oppose those who described the emergence of transformational leadership as culture contingent (jung et al., 1995; leong & fischer, 2011). possible discrepancies between the current and past research outcomes could be caused by the different samples used across studies. it is possible that participant variables could moderate the relationship between transformational leadership pervasiveness and culture. for example, aspects such as leadership arena (e.g. organisational, military, religious) could provide further clarity with regard to transformational leadership universality. it could be that cross-cultural universality is limited to a particular sample of leaders. the results therefore open up additional questions and provide grounds for further in-depth exploration. future research future studies should endeavour to continue research into political leaders with the use of direct measures. studying variables which might predict good leadership as well as variables potentially causing variance in the perceptions of good political leaders could inform areas such as political leader selection and political leader image management during electoral campaigns. studying within-culture style differences in terms of additional paramova & blumberg 761 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variables such as for example political ideology and personality could further fine tune the transformational leadership theory as well as underline diversity. more work looking at the effects of mediators on the transformational leadership-culture relationship could be valuable in informing and augmenting the transformational leadership theory. similarly, further exploration of cross-cultural differences might help explain the presence of disputes which often compromise peace. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alas, r., tafel, k., & tuulik, k. 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(2007). leading by example: female members of parliament as political role models. american journal of political science, 51, 921-939. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00289.x about the authors dr petia paramova is a lecturer in occupational psychology and statistics at bpp university. she obtained her bachelor’s degree in psychology, her master’s in occupational psychology and her phd from goldsmiths college, university of london. her expertise is in the area of political leadership. her special interests are in cross-cultural assessment and selection of politicians as well as in prejudice, discrimination, diversity, health and well-being in occupational settings. she has currently submitted manuscripts for publication based on her phd. petia is a chartered member of the british psychological society and an associate fellow of the higher education academy. dr herbert blumberg is reader emeritus in psychology at goldsmiths college, university of london. herb has twice been a visiting scholar at harvard university and also visiting professor at haverford college. he chaired goldsmiths (university of london) psychology's sub-board of examiners in the following msc programmes: psychological assessment in organisations (1994-2006), occupational psychology (until 2007) and research methods in psychology (2007). among his interests are the study of small groups and social cognition, of peace psychology and of social research methods. he is a fellow of the american psychological association, and also of the society for the psychological study of social issues and of the society for the study of peace, conflict and violence. herb has authored or co-authored about 50 articles in social psychology and research methods and has co-authored or co-edited several books on small group research and on non-violent conflict resolution (including peace psychology: a comprehensive introduction, cambridge university press). he has been an external examiner, primarily for psychology programmes, at several uk universities. leadership styles and political leaders 766 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 749–766 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1412 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.6.1091 http://doi.org/10.1177/00187267025511006 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00289.x http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ leadership styles and political leaders (introduction) method procedure participants research tools analyses and results discussion limitations practical implications theoretical implications future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation research reports a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation laura l. fazakas-dehoog ab, katerina rnic b, david j. a. dozois* b [a] st. joseph’s health care regional mental health care st. thomas, st. thomas, ontario, canada. [b] department of psychology, the university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. abstract although cognitive distortions and deficits are known risk factors for the development and escalation of suicide ideation and behaviour, no empirical work has examined how these variables interact to predict suicide ideation. the current study proposes an integrative model of cognitive distortions (hopelessness and negative evaluations of self and future) and deficits (problem solving deficits, problem solving avoidance, and cognitive rigidity). to test the integrity of this model, a sample of 397 undergraduate students completed measures of deficits, distortions, and current suicide ideation. a structural equation model demonstrated excellent fit, and findings indicated that only distortions have a direct effect on suicidal thinking, whereas cognitive deficits may exert their effects on suicide ideation via their reciprocal relation with distortions. findings underscore the importance of both cognitive distortions and deficits for understanding suicidality, which may have implications for preventative efforts and treatment. keywords: cognitive distortions, cognitive deficits, suicide, suicide ideation, hopelessness europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 received: 2016-07-07. accepted: 2017-01-21. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editor: michelle roley-roberts, the ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, oh, usa *corresponding author at: department of psychology, the university of western ontario, 313e westminster hall, london ontario n6a3k7; tel: 519-661-2111 x.84678; fax: 519-850-2554. e-mail: ddozois@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. suicide is a major public health concern in north america, where it is the 9th leading cause of death in canada, 10th in the united states, and the 2nd leading cause among college and university students. information obtained from the statistics canada mortality database (statistics canada, n.d.) indicates that 3,951 and 3,728 suicidal deaths were reported in canada for 2010 and 2011, respectively. in 2007, the suicide rate was approximately 35,000 in the united states, where suicide accounts for 1.5% of all mortality (centers for disease control and prevention, 2013). many of these deaths are potentially preventable with appropriate identification and intervention, highlighting the need for research that better delineates the etiology and escalation of suicidal thinking and behaviour. university students are a population that is particularly vulnerable to mental health problems and suicidality (garlow et al., 2008). most undergraduate students are in their late teens or early twenties, which is not only a major transitional period, but is when first episodes of many psychological disorders (e.g., depression) are most likely to appear. a survey of over 30,000 students from 34 colleges and universities in canada found that 89% of students feel overwhelmed, 54% are hopeless, 64% are lonely, 87% report feeling exhausted, 56% europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ experience overwhelming anxiety, and 10% had seriously considered suicide (american college health association, 2013). reasons for elevated risk of mental health and suicidal thinking and behaviour in students include the stress of moving, academic demands, financial and social pressures, parents’ expectations, a highly competitive job market, and an inability to “unplug” and relax. despite the large body of empirical research that has been devoted to identifying the risk factors associated with suicidality across university students and other populations, the majority of research has examined isolated risk factors, which on their own have limited utility for understanding and predicting suicidal behaviour. nonetheless, several cognitive vulnerabilities, including a number of deficits (e.g., becker-weidman, jacobs, reinecke, silva, & march, 2010; linda, marroquín, & miranda, 2012; richard-devantoy, szanto, butters, kalkus, & dombrovski, 2015) and distortions (e.g., jager-hyman et al., 2014; lakey, hirsch, nelson, & nsamenang, 2014; mcmillan, gilbody, beresford, & neilly, 2007), have emerged as possible mechanisms that may underlie the development and maintenance of suicidal thinking and behaviour. cognitive deficits “refer to a lack of certain forms of thinking (e.g., the absence of information processing where it would be beneficial)” (kendall & dobson, 1993, p. 10). in contrast, distortions “refer to active, but dysfunctional thinking processes” (kendall & dobson, 1993, p. 10; e.g., thoughts that are biased, contain logical errors, and are not well supported by evidence). internalizing disorders, such as depression, are associated primarily with cognitive distortions (ackerman, & derubeis, 1993), whereas externalizing disorders are associated with both cognitive distortions and pronounced cognitive deficits (crick & dodge, 1994; milich & dodge, 1984). these share bidirectional associations (e.g., distorted interpretations of stimuli [distortions] are in part a function of information processing deficits in selective attention [deficits], and the process of accessing possible responses to stimuli [deficits] is influenced by earlier occurring attributions about the stimuli [distortions; dodge & crick, 1990]), although a paucity of research has examined their reciprocal relations. the primary goal of this study was to test the components of an integrated cognitive model of suicide ideation which may have utility for understanding and predicting suicidal thinking and behavior. despite a paucity of research examining both cognitive deficits and distortions, researchers have found a number of negatively skewed or distorted cognitions that are associated with an increased risk of suicide ideation and attempts. suicide ideation is defined as “any self-reported thoughts of engaging in suicide-related behavior” (o’carroll et al., 1996, p. 247), whereas a suicide attempt is a “potentially self-injurious behavior with a nonfatal outcome, for which there is evidence (either explicit or implicit) that the person intended at some (nonzero) level to kill himself/herself” (o’carroll et al., 1996, p. 247). suicidal thoughts and behaviour can vary by the degree of suicidal intent, that is, the “individual’s desire to bring about his or her own death” (hasley et al., 2008, p. 577). increasingly distorted cognitions have been associated with increased severity of suicidality, and may have utility for differentiating among non-ideators, ideators, and attempters (beck, steer, kovacs, & garrison, 1985). compared to non-suicidal groups, suicidal individuals have a tendency to view their future (i.e., hopelessness), themselves, and their world, more negatively (e.g., jager-hyman et al., 2014; miller & esposito-smythers, 2013). hopelessness is a distortion corresponding to an overly pessimistic view of the future, and appears to have high specificity for depression, with past research indicating no association with other internalizing (i.e., anxiety) or externalizing pathology (alloy et al., 2012). researchers have consistently found a positive correlation between levels of hopelessness and degree of suicide risk, with higher levels of hopelessness associated with increasing levels of suicide intent and completion (boergers, spirito, & donaldson, 1998; kumar & steer, 1995) even when controlling for the effects of depression (e.g., beck, steer, & brown, 1993). hopelessness is a robust predictor for eventual suicide in clinical and nonclinical samples with fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 179 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ follow-ups as long as 13 years (e.g., beck, brown, & steer, 1989; beck, weissman, lester, & trexler, 1974; kuo, gallo, & eaton, 2004). furthermore, suicidal individuals evinced a cognitive distortion related to death, rating it as more positive than did their non-suicidal counterparts (gothelf et al., 1998; neuringer, 1979; orbach et al., 2007). several other cognitive factors that are associated with suicidal thinking are marked by an absence of an adaptive form of thinking, and therefore represent cognitive deficits. schotte and clum (1987) reported that an increased risk of suicide ideation is associated with marked problem-solving deficits in both impersonal and interpersonal domains, including the generation of significantly fewer potential alternatives and more irrelevant solutions to problems. further, relative to non-ideating controls, individuals with suicide ideation are less likely to implement viable solutions (schotte & clum, 1987). similar findings have been reported in individuals who have attempted suicide as compared to non-suicidal psychiatric controls (pollock & williams, 2004). problem solving deficiencies are also conceptualized as avoidance of and passivity toward solving problems, and research has found that suicide ideators and attempters demonstrate greater problem solving avoidance relative to nonsuicidal psychiatric controls (linehan, camper, chiles, strosahl, & shearin, 1987; orbach, barjoseph, & dror, 1990). in addition, compared to non-ideating controls, individuals who contemplate suicide demonstrate a higher level of cognitive rigidity, defined as low cognitive flexibility (litinsky & haslam, 1998; marzuk, hartwell, leon, & portera, 2005; upmanyu, narula, & moein, 1996). it is possible that, like cognitive distortions, these cognitive deficits have utility for differentiating individuals at each stage of the suicide continuum. however, research investigating this relationship has been limited, and results have been mixed. for example, there is some evidence that relative to non-ideators, suicide ideators have deficits in problem-solving (schotte & clum, 1987), whereas another study reported that problem-solving deficits do not differ appreciably between suicide ideators and non-ideators (yang & clum, 1994). these mixed findings are somewhat difficult to interpret. one possibility is that the samples in these studies differed significantly in terms of the degree of suicide ideation. however, as these authors did not report on the level of suicide ideation in their respective studies, it is unclear whether these mixed results can be attributed to sample characteristics. consistent with the observation that cognitive deficits are typically more closely associated with externalizing disorders, which are characterized by acting out, in the current study it is hypothesized that cognitive deficits will be less predictive of ideation and will vary less among suicide ideators and non-ideators than will cognitive distortions. when considered together, findings indicate that both cognitive deficits and cognitive distortions play a role in the development of suicidal thinking and behaviour, and that university students are a relevant population for examining these associations. as researchers have not proposed or studied this relationship, the degree to which deficits and distortions interact, or uniquely contribute, to suicidal thinking has yet to be examined. the primary goal of this study was to test a model of suicidal ideation in a sample of suicide ideators and non-ideators. given that suicidal ideation and behavior are common in university student populations (garlow et al., 2008), the integrity of the proposed model was assessed utilizing structural equation modeling in a large undergraduate sample. predictors for cognitive distortions and deficits, each represented as latent variables in the model, were selected based on research findings in the suicidology literature reviewed above. the cognitive distortions factor in the model was defined in terms of hopelessness, as well as the individual’s cognitive appraisals about self and future. the cognitive deficits factor in the model was assessed by each individual’s problem-solving deficits, approach to problem-solving (active approach versus avoidance), and cognitive rigidity (i.e., a deficit in cognitive flexibility). further, the individual’s degree of suicide ideation was utilized as the outcome variable in the model. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 180 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive distortions and deficits are expected to have a direct association with suicide ideation. further, cognitive distortions are expected to have a stronger relationship with suicide ideation than are cognitive deficits. it is also hypothesized that cognitive deficits and cognitive distortions will demonstrate reciprocal relations, such that increases in one will be associated with increases in the other. that is, deficits in problem solving, cognitive rigidity, and problem-solving avoidance are expected to be, in part, a function of greater hopelessness and negative appraisals about self and future, due to negative thought content interfering with effective cognitive processing (dodge & crick, 1990). similarly, distorted cognitions are likely related to cognitive deficits; the individual is unable to effectively manage problems, and therefore thought content has become increasingly negative over time. the proposed relationships in the model were examined by assessing whether significant differences were evident along the continuum between non-ideation and high levels of ideation. method participants given the characteristics and number of parameters to be estimated in the proposed model, a sample of at least 350 participants was required to assess the fit of the model. given that university students are considered to be an important vulnerable population, a sample of undergraduate students was recruited for the study. three hundred and ninety-seven undergraduate psychology students enrolled in an introductory psychology course participated in the study. the age of the participants (83 males and 314 females) ranged from 17 to 43 with a mean age of 18.69 years. of the sample, 98.7% had never been married and 94.2% were full time students. the demographic information for this sample is presented in table 1. table 1 participant demographic characteristics characteristic frequency percent sex male 83 20.9 female 314 79.1 age under 21 384 96.7 21-25 10 2.5 26-30 2 0.5 31-35 0 0 36-40 0 0 41-45 1 0.3 marital status single 392 98.7 married 2 0.5 common-law 2 0.5 separated 0 0 divorced 1 0.3 widowed 0 0 fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 181 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characteristic frequency percent children no 394 99.2 yes 3 0.8 education level completed high school 392 98.7 college 3 0.8 undergraduate 2 0.5 graduate 0 0 employment none 374 94.2 part-time 20 5.0 full-time 3 0.8 history of suicidal behaviour past suicide attempts 14 3.5 no past attempts 383 96.5 measures demographic information prior to completing the package of questionnaires, each participant completed a demographic information sheet. participants also provided information about their mental health history and treatment. suicide ideation the scale for suicide ideation (bss; beck & steer, 1993) was used to identify individuals who had been contemplating or thinking about suicide over the previous week, and to determine their level of suicidal ideation and intent. the first 19 items of the bss evaluate three dimensions of suicide ideation, including: active suicidal desire, specific plans for suicide, and passive suicidal desire. a total score on the scale is obtained by adding the values from the first nineteen items. scores may range from 0 to 38, with high scores representing high levels of suicidal ideation. the last two items of the 21-item bss, which are not included in the calculation of the bss scores, are used to identify a history of past suicide attempts and the individual’s level of motivation to die in the most recent suicide attempt. the bss has good internal consistency. coefficient alphas range from .87 (beck & steer, 1993) to .93 (beck, steer, & ranieri, 1988). cronbach's alpha in the current sample was .93. moreover, the validity of the bss has been well established. researchers have reported positive correlations between bss scores and other predictors of suicide, including subjective self-report and a history of previous suicide attempts (beck & steer, 1993), and clinician ratings of suicidality (beck et al., 1988). cognitive distortions the beck hopelessness scale (bhs; beck & steer, 1988) was used to assess each participant’s level of hopelessness. this scale is a self-report measure composed of 20 true/false items that assess the degree to which an individual has negative expectancies regarding events in his or her future. scores on the bhs range from 0 (no hopelessness) to 20 (extreme hopelessness). the bhs exhibits high levels of reliability. estimates of internal consistency range from .84 (hill, gallagher, thompson, & ishida, 1988) to .93 (beck, weissman, lester, & trexler, 1974). in the current sample cronbach’s alpha was .84. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 182 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research investigating the validity of the bhs has been extensive. the content validity of the bhs was deemed adequate by a panel of clinicians (beck et al., 1974). as well, high scores on the bhs are positively correlated with clinician ratings of patient hopelessness (ammerman, 1988) and suicide intent and completion (beck & steer, 1988; beck et al., 1974). in addition, the bhs has excellent predictive validity. based on the results of several longitudinal studies involving suicidal patients, beck and colleagues reported that a score of 9 or more on the bhs identified 94% of the patients who ultimately completed suicide (beck, brown, berchick, stewart, & steer, 1990; beck, steer, kovacs, & garrison, 1985). a general attitudes scale (gas) was developed for the present study to measure the degree to which each participant endorsed positive or negative attitudes about themselves, others (in general), his/her future, life, and death. participants were asked to rate their attitudes (over the past two weeks) for each of these categories (listed as “yourself,” “others (in general),” “your future,” “life,” and death”) using a likert-type scale, where 1 = extremely negative, and 7 = extremely positive. the psychometric properties of the gas have yet to be fully established. the first four items, those that represented positive appraisals of self, other, future, and life all yielded significant positive inter-item correlations ranging from .39 to .62 at (p < .01). the estimate of internal consistency for these first 4 items was .81. the positive appraisal of death demonstrated only one significant association, which was a negative correlation with positive appraisal of other (r = -.11, p < .05). in terms of concurrent validity, it is notable that the positive appraisals of self (gas-s) and of future (gas-f) both demonstrated significant negative correlations with the bhs, with coefficients of r = -.53, p < .01 and r = -.63, p < .01, respectively. cognitive deficits the social problem-solving inventory-revised (spsi; d’zurilla, nezu, & maydeu-olivares, 1995, 1998) was utilized to assess each participant’s problem-solving ability. the spsi is a 25-item self-report questionnaire comprised of five scales including: (1) positive problem orientation (spsi-ppo: a measure of positive orientation toward problem-solving), (2) negative problem orientation (spsi-npo: a measure of a dysfunctional and inhibitive cognitive set regarding problem-solving), (3) rational problem solving scale (spsir: evaluates the deliberate, rational, and systematic application of effective problem-solving strategies and techniques), (4) impulsivity/carelessness problem-solving scale (spsi-i: evaluates hasty attempts at problemsolving in the absence of planned and thoughtful deliberation), and (5) avoidant problem solving scale (spsir-a: assesses the tendency to avoid engaging in active problem-solving). for each of the 25 items on the spsi-r, participants are asked to indicate on a five-point likert–type scale (ranging from 0 = “not at all true of me” to 4 = “extremely true of me”) how they typically respond to problems in general. each scale score may range from 0 to 20. the spsi scales have demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability (α range = .65 – 96; d’zurilla & nezu, 1990; maydeu-olivares, rodríguez-fornells, gómez-benito, & d’zurilla, 2000; robichaud & dugas, 2005; sadowski, moore, & kelley, 1994). when assessing construct validity, researchers have found that within clinical populations, spsi-r scores are negatively correlated with hopelessness and an increased risk of suicidal behavior (faccini, 1992). further, researchers have reported that spsi-r scores have utility for discriminating between suicide attempters and both non-suicidal psychiatric patients and non-suicidal controls (fitzpatrick, witte, & schmidt, 2005; sadowski & kelley, 1993). the spsi-r and spsi-a both differentiated fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 183 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recent suicide attempters from a normative sample (ghahramanlou-holloway, bhar, brown, olsen, & beck, 2012). in the present study, only two of the scales of the spsi were utilized as indicators of problem-solving deficits in the proposed model. these two scales, which included the spsi-r and the spsi-a, were selected for use in the current study as previous research has demonstrated a significant relationship between suicidal thinking and behavior and ineffective problem-solving and problem-solving avoidance (e.g., orbach et al., 1990). in the current sample, the cronbach's alpha was α = .74 and α = .82 for the spsi-r and spsi-a, respectively. the embedded figures test (eft) was individually administered to assess each participant’s fielddependence/independence (i.e., cognitive rigidity/flexibility). the eft (oltman, witkin, raskin, & karp, 1971) consists of 18 simple geometric figures, the first two of which are used for practice. after the practice trials, the participant is sequentially presented with each of the remaining 16 figures. beside each simple figure is a more complex geometric design, with the simple figure embedded within it. using a felt-tipped marker, the participant was asked to outline the embedded figure as quickly as possible, while the test administrator timed the response. one point is given for each correct response, with a total possible score of sixteen for the complete test. the total number of correct responses and the total time to complete all correct responses were calculated. the mean time per correct response was then computed, and this value represents the participant’s score on the test. higher mean scores are associated with field-dependence (i.e., difficulty in overcoming field embeddedness) and, as such, represent a deficit in cognitive flexibility (i.e., high cognitive rigidity). good levels of reliability (parallel forms; r = .82) have been established for the eft (oltman et al., 1971). research examining the construct validity of this test has established that high measures of field-dependence are associated with measures of cognitive rigidity and an intolerance of ambiguity (witkin, 1965). procedure all participants completed an informed consent and the demographic form. participants were notified that the goal of the current study was to further our understanding of how mood and thinking processes contribute to the development of suicidal thinking and behavior. they were then administered the self-report questionnaires in a randomized order to control for any order effects. although small groups of individuals simultaneously completed the study, each participant worked privately and independently on his/her own questionnaires. each participant was asked in turn to accompany the investigator to an adjoining room to complete the embedded figures test, and then returned to complete the questionnaires. upon completion of the questionnaires, each individual was then thanked for his/her participation and debriefed. participants were given a list of community mental health support resources, and individuals who endorsed current suicidal thinking were contacted by the investigator by telephone. in the event that the participant reported distress, referrals were then made to qualified mental health care providers. participants were observed to be receptive to information on how to access mental health care. participants were compensated with credit towards an introductory psychology course. this study was approved by the university of western ontario research ethics board (uwo reb). all procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the uwo reb and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 184 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results the fundamental goal of this study was to assess the fit of the proposed model of suicidal ideation. cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits were hypothesized to be reciprocally related and associated with suicide ideation, as measured by total scores on the bss. furthermore, it was expected that cognitive distortions would have a stronger relation than cognitive deficits with suicide ideation. the correlation matrix for the factors in the model is presented in table 2. table 2 correlation matrix of all measures in the hypothesized model measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. bss total (suicide ideation) .41** -.29* -.34** .08 -.03 .21** 2. bhs (hopelessness) -.53** -.63** .06 -.16** .33** 3. gas-s (self-orientation) .62* -.02 -.48** -.21 4. gas-f (future-orientation) -.03 -.20** -.28** 5. eft-mean (cognitive rigidity) -.01 -.07 6. spsi-r (rational problem solving) .15** 7. spsi-a (avoidant problem solving) note. n = 397. bss total = beck scale for suicide ideation; bhs = beck hopelessness scale; gas-s = general attitudes scale-self orientation; gas-f = general attitudes scale-future orientation; eft-mean time = embedded figures test-mean time per correct response; spsi-r = social problem-solving inventory rational; spsi-a = social problem-solving inventory avoidant problem-solving orientation. *p < .05. **p < .01. although two of the cognitive deficit indicators (rational problem-solving and cognitive rigidity) were not significantly related to suicide ideation, all other indicators demonstrated significant correlations with the measure of suicide ideation. a further inspection of this correlation matrix indicated that the measure of cognitive rigidity (eft-mean) was not significantly correlated with any of the variables in the model. despite these findings, we tested the proposed model in accordance with our hypotheses, given the hypothesized model’s strong theoretical justification. structural equation modeling (sem) was used to assess the integrity and fit of the proposed model. we used the chi-square (χ2) test, as well as several relative fit indices that are less sensitive to sample size and less affected by model misspecifications (hu & bentler, 1999), including the tucker-lewis index (tli), the comparative fit index (cfi), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). values of the tli, gfi, and cfi that exceed .95, and values of the rmsea that are .05 or less are indicative of excellent fit to the data (schermelleh-engel, moosbrugger, & müller, 2003). analyses were conducted using mplus version 7.4. cognitive distortions and deficits model assessing the measurement model statistics for the cognitive deficits and distortions model are presented in figure 1. all indicators of cognitive distortions loaded significantly onto the factor, with bhs (.76, p < .001) loading in a positive direction, and gas-s (-.72, p < .001), and gas-f (-.84, p < .001) in a negative direction. for the cognitive deficits factor, spsi-r (-.31, p < .001) loaded negatively, whereas spsi-a (.51, p < .001) loaded positively. as was the case fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 185 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with the initial model, eft-mean loaded in a positive direction (.09, ns) onto the cognitive deficits factor, but the standardized regression weight was very low and was not significant. figure 1. sem statistics for the modified cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits model of suicidal thinking. note. suicide ideation = bss total score; gas-s = general attitudes scale-self; gas-f = general attitudes scale-future; bhs = beck hopelessness scale; spsi-r = social problem-solving inventory – rational problem-solving; eft-mean = embedded figures test-mean time; spsi-a = social problem-solving inventory-avoidant problem-solving. *p < .001. assessing the fit of the cognitive distortions and deficits model maximum likelihood estimation was utilized to assess the fit of the cognitive distortions and deficits model. the chi-square (χ2(12) = 21.34, p = .046) of the model presented in figure 1 was small, indicating a close fit. although the chi-square was significant, the cfi = .98, the tli = .97, and the rmsea = .044, all indicative of excellent fit. contrary to hypotheses, the path from cognitive deficits to suicide ideation was non-significant. the sem results indicated that eliminating the path from cognitive deficits to suicide ideation did not improve the overall fit of the cognitive deficits and distortions model. the resulting chi-square value actually increased to a value of (χ2(13) = 21.55, p = .06). although this change is not significant (δχ2[1, n = 397] = .21, ns), it marginally decreases the overall fit of the model, rather than increasing the goodness of fit. further, eliminating the path from cognitive deficits to suicide ideation did not result in any appreciable increases in the other adjunct fit indices. subsequent to the elimination of the cognitive deficits to ideation path, the resulting cfi was .98 and the gfi was .98. these resulting values are the same as the initial fit indices that were observed prior to the elimination of the deficits to ideation path. consequently, the elimination of the path between cognitive deficits and suicide ideation did not improve the overall fit of the model. the only notable improvement that resulted from eliminating the path from cognitive deficits to suicide ideation was a very small decrease in the rmsea value from .044 to .041, indicating that this modification provided a slight decrease in the estimate of residual error. overall, these resulting fit indices are not indicative of a relatively better fit in the model, and thus, do not support the elimination of the path from cognitive deficits to suicide ideation. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 186 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ considered together, the results of the sem analyses for the cognitive deficits and distortions model (figure 1) indicate that, consistent with hypotheses, cognitive distortions have a direct and significant relation with suicide ideation. further, also consistent with predictions, cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits have a significant reciprocal relationship. moreover, as was predicted, cognitive distortions had a much stronger impact on suicidal thinking than did cognitive deficits, which, contrary to hypotheses, did not relate directly with suicide ideation. however, cognitive deficits do have an indirect effect on suicide ideation through their impact on cognitive distortions. overall, the results of all of the sem analyses are supportive of the hypothesized model and of the initial hypotheses. discussion the primary goal of the current study was to assess the integrity of the proposed cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits model of suicidal thinking. the fit indices assessing the fit between the model and the data were all significant, indicating a close fit between the proposed model and the data. as was predicted, cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits had a direct and reciprocal relationship that was significant. cognitive distortions had a direct association with suicide ideation, whereas cognitive deficits had an indirect relation with suicide ideation through its association with cognitive distortions. the pathway of cognitive deficits to suicide ideation was kept in the model due to theoretical and empirical support for this association in individuals with more severe suicidality (e.g., attempters), and removal of the pathway did not significantly improve model fit. the results of the current study suggest that a lack of adequate problem-solving and a tendency to engage in problem-solving avoidance contribute to hopelessness and to negative evaluations about self and future, both of which are associated with greater suicide ideation. because the individual avoids solving problems or has difficulty solving them, his or her stressors may be exacerbated, and he or she may therefore feel unable to improve his or her situation, leading to hopelessness and negative thoughts about self and future. the relationship between cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits, and the specific contribution of each in the development of suicide attempts, remains more speculative though. additional research is required to more definitively assess how cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits interact over time to impact the development of suicide ideation as well as suicide attempts. the current findings should be interpreted in the context of the study’s strengths and limitations. although the sample size was considerably large, the study was limited by the fact that it was conducted with a sample of undergraduate students. while this sample was chosen due to the high incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviours in university students, the use of this sample limits the generalization of the results to a broader population. the relationships in the model need to be further examined in a community and/or clinical sample. further, the sample in the study was comprised of ideators and non-ideators. consequently, the proposed relationships in the model also need to be further assessed in a group of suicide attempters, whereby cognitive deficits likely play a more direct role in suicidality (richard-devantoy, szanto, butters, kalkus, & dombrovski, 2015). furthermore, the study used a cross-sectional design. future research is needed to examine how a range of cognitive distortions and deficits interact to predict suicide thinking and behaviours over time. other cognitive distortions and deficits not examined in the current study that could be important for predicting suicide thinking and behaviour (e.g., rumination) should also be included in future models. fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 187 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a concern regarding the tested model was the low inter-correlations between the indicators of cognitive deficits in the tested model. in particular, the measure of cognitive rigidity used in the current study (eft) did not correlate with the measures of problem-solving or with suicide ideation. consequently, there was a degree of misspecification in the measurement model. previous research has demonstrated that the eft is a valid and reliable measure of cognitive rigidity, which correlates well with measures of hopelessness and suicide ideation (upmanyu et al., 1996). however, these patterns were not found in the current study. one reason that could explain this finding is that eft was a behavioral measure, whereas all other measures were based on selfreport; this is an additional limitation of the current study. in addition, there were numerous differences between the current sample and those studied in previous research; other studies used older samples (litinsky & haslam, 1998; marzuk et al., 2005; upmanyu et al., 1996), who were culturally distinct (i.e., lived in india; upmanyu, narula, & moein, 1996), were inpatients with diagnosed depression (marzuk et al., 2005), or were psychiatric patients (litinsky & haslam, 1998). past findings may therefore not have been generalizable to the current sample. the current research makes an important contribution to suicidology research. the proposed cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation moves beyond examining suicidal thinking in terms of isolated risk factors. instead, in this new model, suicidal thinking and behavior are discussed in terms of vulnerabilities, including cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits. this new model was not designed to be all-encompassing, but rather, was developed to integrate basic psychological factors and processes that are known to be associated with suicidal thinking. with few exceptions, the proposed model is supported by the current research, and is consistent with extant research findings in the suicidology literature. the current findings are informative for the assessment and treatment of suicide ideation. consistent with past research (e.g., wang, jiang, cheung, sun, & chan, 2015), hopelessness was found to be an important predictor of suicide ideation, as were negative evaluation of self and future. these cognitive distortions are therefore important targets for assessment of suicidality and subsequent treatment. cognitive behavioral therapies, with their focus on testing negative cognitions, would be one recommended form of treatment (nock, millner, deming, & glenn, 2014). in conclusion, the current research study supports the proposed cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation. the results indicate an almost perfect fit between the data and the proposed model. while it has limitations, the cognitive distortions and cognitive deficits model has important implications for suicidology research and for the assessment and treatment of suicide ideation. funding this research was supported in part by a standard research grant from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada (sshrc) and a sshrc vanier canada graduate scholarship. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 188 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ethical approval this study was approved by the university of western ontario research ethics board (uwo reb). all procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the uwo reb and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. references ackerman, r., & derubeis, r. j. 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(1996). a study of suicide ideation: the intervening role of cognitive rigidity. psychological studies, 40, 126-131. wang, y.-y., jiang, n.-z., cheung, e. f. c., sun, h.-w., & chan, r. c. k. (2015). role of depression severity and impulsivity in the relationship between hopelessness and suicidal ideation in patients with major depressive disorder. journal of affective disorders, 183, 83-89. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2015.05.001 witkin, h. a. (1965). psychological differentiation and forms of pathology. journal of abnormal psychology, 70, 317-336. doi:10.1037/h0022498 yang, b., & clum, g. a. (1994). life stress, social support, and problem-solving skills predictive of depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and suicide ideation in an asian student population: a test of a model. suicide and life-threatening behavior, 24, 127-139. a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation 192 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 http://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2007.26.9.1010 http://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291703008092 http://doi.org/10.1002/gps.4138 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2004.02.008 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.61.1.121 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf02168087 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.55.1.49 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/help/bb/info/suicide http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2015.05.001 http://doi.org/10.1037/h0022498 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors laura fazakas-dehoog is a forensic psychologist at the southwest centre for forensic mental health care in st. thomas ontario as well as an assistant professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario. her research interests include the causes of suicidal thinking and behavior as well as the prediction of violence recidivism. katerina rnic is a phd candidate in the clinical psychology program at the university of western ontario. her research interests include cognitive vulnerability, stress generation in depression, and how cognitive and behavioural vulnerabilities relate to the generation of and response to depressogenic life events, particularly those involving rejection. david j. a. dozois is a full professor of psychology and director of the clinical psychology graduate program at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on cognitive vulnerability to depression and cognitive-behavioral theory/ therapy. fazakas-dehoog, rnic, & dozois 193 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 178–193 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1238 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ a cognitive distortions and deficits model of suicide ideation (introduction) method participants measures procedure results cognitive distortions and deficits model discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethical approval references about the authors psychophysiological research of borderline personality disorder: review and implications for biosocial theory literature reviews psychophysiological research of borderline personality disorder: review and implications for biosocial theory tara cavazzia, rodrigo becerra*a [a] school of psychology and social science, faculty of computing, health and science, edith cowan university, perth, australia. abstract according to the biosocial theory, borderline personality disorder (bpd) is developed by a biological predisposition to hyperarousal and hyperreactivity combined with an invalidating environment. although widely supported by subjective measures, the impaired insight present in bpd may skew results, and thus psychophysiological measures have been suggested as an alternative method of examining possible biological differences in bpd. the current review aimed to critically assess psychophysiological research of bpd by electronic searching of relevant databases, with 22 articles meeting inclusion criteria. results showed that in contrast to the hyperarousal proposed in the biosocial theory, bpd was associated with hypoarousal and hyporeactivity to non-emotionally valenced stimuli. however, there was also evidence of bpd hyperreactivity towards negatively valenced stimuli, and impaired habituation during stressor tasks. as current psychophysiological results were inconsistent, it has been postulated that there may be possible subtypes of bpd. further, evolutionary-based theories do not appear to adequately explain the complexity of emotion dysregulation in bpd, thus the emotional coherence theory has been proposed as an alternate method of conceptualising the role of psychophysiology in bpd. from the lack of clear or consistent findings, further research in the area appears necessary to determine the role of psychophysiology in bpd. keywords: borderline personality disorder, psychophysiology, emotion dysregulation, arousal, reactivity europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 received: 2013-08-25. accepted: 2014-01-17. published (vor): 2014-02-28. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: school of psychology and social science (room 30.129). faculty of computing, health and science, edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. e-mail: r.becerra@ecu.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the main theory which has dominated both academic and clinical spheres of the diagnosis, assessment and treatment of borderline personality disorder (bpd) is the biosocial theory by linehan (1993), which has become the principal model of bpd and has spurred substantial research and clinical progress in the area. the biosocial theory suggests that the core feature of bpd is emotion dysregulation, which is developed from a physiological vulnerability to hyperreactivity and hyperarousal, combined with an invalidating childhood environment where individuals were repeatedly invalidated by significant others, often through being ignored or punished for emotional expression. the biosocial theory argues that individuals with bpd show emotion dysregulation in three key areas: a) high baseline arousal b) hyperreactivity, with a reduced threshold for emotional reactivity to environmental stimuli, and c) impaired habituation, with prolonged hyperarousal and a slower return to baseline arousal (linehan, 1993). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the biosocial theory’s emphasis on hyperarousal, hyperreactivity and a slow return to baseline is widely supported by data from self-report measures (chapman, dixon-gordon, layden, & walters, 2010; chapman, leung, & lynch, 2008; cheavens & heiy, 2011; domes et al., 2006; ebner-priemer & sawitzki, 2007; glenn & klonsky, 2009; kuo & linehan, 2009; links, eynan, heisel, & nisenbaum, 2008; meyer, ajchenbrenner, & bowles, 2005; nigg, silk, stavro, & miller, 2005; reisch, ebner-priemer, tschacher, bohus, & linehan, 2008; russell, moskowitz, zuroff, sookman, & paris, 2007). however, as self-report measures are subjective, results can be skewed by multiple biases, such as mood state, accuracy of memories, and impression management (mauss, levenson, mccarter, wilhelm, & gross, 2005; podsakoff et al., 2003). particularly pertinent to research of bpd, self-report measures require the individual to be able and willing to verbally describe their emotional experience, and also be able to identify, recognise and accurately report a plethora of emotions, all of which is suspected to be impaired in those with bpd (cole, llera, & pemberton, 2009; putnam & silk, 2005). thus, objective measures of psychophysiological indicators have been considered as an alternate measure to investigate potential hyperarousal and hyperreactivity in bpd. therefore, the current review will explore whether the biosocial theory is supported by psychophysiological research of bpd, through measures of baseline arousal, reactivity to both non-emotional and emotional stimuli, and the potential persistence of hyperarousal. this research will then be compared to self-report data, discussed in light of the biosocial theory, and whether this theory provides a comprehensive conceptualisation of both the self-reported symptoms and psychophysiological characteristics of bpd. according to the current edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv-tr) (american psychiatric association [apa], 2000), bpd is an axis ii disorder characterised by a pattern of instability in mood, behaviour and interpersonal relationships, with a fragile/ unstable identity (meares, gerull, stevenson, & korner, 2011; paris, 2005). it is primarily diagnosed in women (friedel, 2006; holm & severinsson, 2008), and has a pervasive and severe impairment on psychosocial functioning (anderson & crump, 2004; bender & skodol, 2007; hill et al., 2008; holm & severinsson, 2008), a high rate of comorbidity with axis 1 diagnoses (pantoularis et al., 2008; zanarini, frankenburg, hennen, reich, & silk, 2004), increased psychiatric hospitalisation (van kessel, lambie, & stewart, 2002) and higher rates of suicide than other diagnoses from the dsm-iv-tr (commons treloar & lewis, 2007; friedel, 2006; holm & severinsson, 2008; linehan, 2000). bpd is typically evident by intense and rapid shifts of emotions, alternating between dysphoria, irritability, dissociation, anger, hostility, and panic (hill et al., 2008; kernberg & michels, 2009; trull et al., 2008). these emotions are experienced as extremely intense, with individual reporting heightened sensitivity and hypervigilance to both their internal and external realities, often displayed by behavioural impulsivity (kernberg & michels, 2009; russell et al., 2007; stanley &wilson, 2006). in contrast to this impulsivity, bpd is often found alongside chronic dysthymia, which is a dampening of mood and affect, and is related to the self-injurious and suicidal behaviours frequently found in bpd (chapman et al., 2010). at its core, theorists assert that bpd is a distorted, fragile and fragmented sense of self with self-loathing, an excessive level of shame, and beliefs of malevolence (bender & skodol, 2007; holm & severinsson, 2008). although individuals with bpd report experiencing high emotional intensity (links et al., 2008; reisch et al., 2008), these emotional states are very transient, frequently fluctuating every few hours or days depending on environmental stimuli (holm & severinsson, 2008). thus, in an attempt to cope with and control extreme emotional states, individuals with bpd often will engage in impulsive and maladaptive behaviours, such as being involved in abusive europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 186 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationships, using physical aggression and violence, misusing substances and engaging in frequent suicidal and self-injurious behaviours (hill et al., 2008; matsumoto et al., 2008; trull et al., 2008). the physiology of arousal and reactivity the autonomic nervous system (ans) is the intrinsic evolutionary component of the nervous system responsible for responding to environmental stimuli, and is divided into the parasympathetic nervous system (pns) and the sympathetic nervous system (sns) (ulrich-lai & herman, 2009). the pns aims to conserve energy and maintain homeostasis; whilst the sns aims to mobilise the body during activity. the process of neuroception occurs when the individual identifies a threat and activates the relevant system. following neuroception, the sns can initiate either defensive action, evidenced in fight-or-flight behaviours; or defensive immobility, where the individual ‘freezes’, and is automatically mobilised, hyperattentive, and primed to respond to threats. for some individuals, this freezing behaviour may occur when there is the absence of an escape option, as freezing can enhance survival (lang, davis, & ohman, 2000; roelofs, hagenaars, & stins, 2010). although all humans are believed to have evolved with these systems, the biosocial theory argues that these systems are maladaptive in bpd. the theory argues that the sns is overused, and therefore those with bpd report hypervigilance, impulsivity and frequent emotional lability (linehan, 1993). physiologically, it is postulated that compared to the general population, those with bpd have baseline hyperarousal, and hyperreactivity to stimuli. individuals with bpd are also expected to show impaired habituation with persistent hyperarousal (linehan, 1993). thus, the biosocial theory argues that the sns is chronically overused and thus the individual is constantly in preparation of a fight-or-flight response. given the dominance of the biosocial theory in both assessment and treatment, research has begun to study a potential biological basis for bpd. research examining psychophysiological characteristics of bpd has focused on markers of arousal and patterns of reactivity. psychophysiological measures are those which measure activity in the ans and include: a) heart rate (hr), which refers to heart beats, with increased hr related to increased sns activity; b) skin conduct response (scr), which measures skin conductance determined by the level of sweat secretion, with greater sweat secretion associated with increased scr, and therefore increased sns activity; c) respiratory sinus arrhythmia (rsa), the measure of fluctuations in heart beats after respiration, with greater fluctuations indicating greater sns activation; d) eye blink, which appears raised during sns activation, and is generally considered the most reliable measure of sns activity (lang et al., 2000); and e) blood pressure (bp), which measures the pressure from circulation of the blood in the arteries, and is generally elevated during sns activation (rosenthal et al., 2008). psychophysiological measures are believed to be good indicators of sns activity, arousal and reactivity to stimuli, and have been used with a variety of populations, including those with axis i (kuo & linehan, 2009; schmahl et al., 2004; weber et al., 2009) and axis ii disorders (herpertz et al., 2000; lobbestael, arntz, cima, & chakhssi, 2009). research using psychophysiological measures in bpd is sparse and has only begun receiving attention in the last 15 years (rosenthal et al., 2008). rosenthal et al (2008) provided an overview of psychophysiological, neuroimaging and self-report research to examine the possibility of a physiological predisposition towards hyperarousal and hyperreactivity in bpd. it was concluded that findings were mixed and that the research body was at an early stage of development, and thus further research was needed. since rosenthal and colleagues' (2008) review, the area of psychophysiological europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ indicators in bpd has steadily begun to increase, with a further 17 empirical studies published. hence, it appears timely to provide a dedicated review of the physiological research examining a potential biological basis for bpd. therefore, the purpose of the current review is to compare and contrast empirical research investigating biological hyperarousal and hyperreactivity to stimuli in individuals with bpd, and discuss these results in light of the biosocial theory. method this literature review was conducted through electronic searching of proquest, medline, psycinfo and ebsco databases for relevant articles. key words used in the search included: borderline personality disorder, psychophysiological response, psychophysiology, skin response, skin conduct response, heart rate, startle response, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, eye blink, blood pressure and emotional stimuli, which were used both separately and in combination with one another. a manual search of significant references in the topic area was also used. across these databases, 1,298 articles were found, which were then narrowed to publications that had been published in academic, peer-reviewed journals, and had used at least one psychophysiological measure. participants included those who were diagnosed with bpd, reached criteria for a bpd diagnosis, or who had clinically significant bpd features. from this narrowing, 22 articles were included in this review, which have been tabulated in appendix (table a1). all research collected was critically assessed by the first author, in areas such as the sampling and recruitment of participants, reliability of assessment and data analysis and the validity of research conclusions and generalizations made, with final inclusion of articles dependent on the agreement of both authors. this method of review has been used in previous literature reviews of bpd (holm & severinsson, 2008). results in the following section, the postulate of baseline hyperarousal will be reviewed, and it will be suggested that hypoarousal, rather than hyperarousal, is apparent in baseline levels of those diagnosed with bpd. from this, psychophysiological reactivity in bpd will be reviewed, with specific focus on whether the emotional valence of a stimuli affects reactivity. and lastly, it will be examined whether habituation may have a role in arousal and reactivity in bpd, followed by a discussion of the potential theoretical and research implications of these findings. baseline arousal in bpd baseline arousal is the level of psychophysiological arousal before the presence of a stimulus, and is considered to reflect the overall resting physiological state of an individual (e.g., the baseline scr before the presentation of a hypothesised emotionally-salient stimulus) (ebner-priemer et al., 2009). the biosocial theory postulates that individuals with bpd have a higher baseline level of arousal, which from self-report measures has been widely supported (bland, williams, scharer, & manning, 2004; cheavens & heiy, 2011; ebner-priemer & sawitzki, 2007; jacob et al., 2010; kuo & linehan, 2009; links et al., 2008; meyer et al., 2005; reeves, james, pizzarello, & taylor, 2010; reisch et al., 2008; russell et al., 2007; selby, anestis, bender, & joiner, 2009). research has shown significantly greater overall self-reported baseline emotional intensity of individuals with bpd (ebner-priemer & sawitzki, 2007; links et al., 2008) compared to controls (bland et al., 2004; jacob et al., 2010; kuo & linehan, 2009; reisch et al., 2008; russell et al., 2007), and those with axis i (cheavens & heiy, 2011; kuo & linehan, 2009; stanley & wilson, 2006), and axis ii disorders (meyer et al., 2005). thus self-report data lends support for the theorised biological vulnerability of those with bpd towards greater baseline arousal. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 188 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in contrast to self-report data, psychophysiological data of arousal have shown that during baseline, those with bpd show a significantly lower hr than controls (austin, riniolo, & porges, 2007; kuo & linehan, 2009; lobbestael et al., 2009; weinberg, klonsky, & hajcak, 2009; schmahl et al., 2004). they also show significantly lower rsa (kuo & linehan, 2009; weinberg et al., 2009), and bp when compared to controls during baseline (lobbestael et al., 2009; schmahl et al., 2004). thus, data using hr, rsa and bp measures indicate a trend towards lower baseline arousal, in contrast to both self-report data and the biosocial theory. although research using baseline measurements of hr, rsa and bp suggest hypoarousal in bpd, results of baseline scr are mixed. kuo and linehan (2009) measured physiological arousal and reactivity of 20 individuals diagnosed with bpd, to that of 20 individuals diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and 20 controls, who were all age-matched. participants engaged in a 5 minute baseline, during which the bpd group showed a significantly higher baseline scr compared to controls (kuo & linehan, 2009), suggesting increased sns activity during baseline. however, other studies using scr during baseline have found no significant differences between those with bpd and controls (herpertz et al., 2000; herpertz et al., 2001; lobbestael et al., 2009; schmahl et al., 2004; taylor & james, 2009), and those with axis i (schmahl et al., 2004), and axis ii disorders (lobbestael et al., 2009; taylor & james, 2009). there are multiple potential reasons for this inconsistency. firstly, kuo and linehan’s (2009) sample included participants who were taking psychoactive medications, and comorbid anxiety disorders were also permitted in the bpd group. both psychoactive medications and comorbid anxiety disorders could potentially influence psychophysiological measures, particularly anxiety disorders which are associated with hyperarousal (kuo & linehan, 2009), which could confound psychophysiological results, with findings unlikely to be a true representation of bpd. in summary, although kuo and linehan’s study (2009) reported scr hyperarousal, other research using scr has consistently found no significant differences in baseline scr (herpertz et al., 2000, 2001; lobbestael et al., 2009; schmahl et al., 2004; taylor & james, 2009). thus, overall it appears that research measuring baseline arousal indicates those with bpd have a significantly lower baseline arousal than either controls, or those with axis i or axis ii disorders. interestingly, these results are in contrast to the hyperarousal postulated in the biosocial theory, and findings from self-report measures. hence, although self-report data suggest bpd is associated with hyperarousal, physiologically bpd is associated with baseline hypoarousal. hence, the divergence between subjective and objective measures of baseline arousal in bpd requires further investigation. psychophysiological reactivity in bpd given the level of impulsivity in bpd, the biosocial theory considers that individuals with bpd not only are hyperaroused, but are also highly reactive to environmental stimuli. hyperreactivity has been indicated in bpd samples through both self-report (bland et al., 2004; cheavens & heiy, 2011; ebner-priemer & sawitzki, 2007; jacob et al., 2010; links et al., 2008; reisch et al., 2008; russell et al., 2007) and also laboratory studies using decisionmaking and learning tasks (chapman et al., 2008, 2010; domes et al., 2006; nigg et al., 2005). however, psychophysiological indicators are less clear. reactivity to non-emotionally valenced stimuli — stimuli can be either non-emotionally valenced, (e.g., aversive noise), or emotionally valenced with stimuli linked to prior memories (e.g., scripts featuring abandonment). research using non-emotional stimuli (e.g., auditory stimuli) has found no significant differences in reactivity using europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 189 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures of scr (ebner-priemer et al., 2009; herpertz & koetting, 2005; mauchnik, ebner-priemer, bohus, & schmahl, 2010; taylor & james, 2009), hr (taylor & james, 2009) or eye blink (herpertz & koetting, 2005). research using aversive auditory stimuli (e.g., startling tones), has shown that individuals with bpd have increased scr to stimuli (grootens et al., 2008), and increased eye blink responsivity (ebner-priemer et al., 2005). however in contrast to these findings, other studies which also used auditory stimuli found that the bpd group showed delayed scr, although no significant differences in scr amplitude when compared to controls, indicating that although their response was delayed, this response was not significantly different to controls (williams, sidis, gordon, & meares, 2006). this suggests that although those with bpd showed a delayed response to stimuli, they did not show any greater or lesser level of reactivity than controls. this inconsistency between findings using auditory stimuli could be partially explained by the nature of williams et al.’s study (2006). in williams and colleagues (2006) study, an auditory discrimination task was used, and thus over time individuals with bpd could become habituated to the auditory stimuli, unlike research (ebner-priemer et al., 2009; grootens et al., 2008) which used aversive intermittent or startling tones as stimuli. thus, aversive auditory stimuli are likely to have different results to that of an auditory discrimination task, where psychophysiological reactivity is likely to be influenced by habituation. these results suggest that in general, individuals with bpd do not show significant differences in reactivity to nonemotional stimuli when compared to controls, although this is limited only to auditory stimuli, and therefore further research is needed to investigate reactivity to other non-emotional stimuli. reactivity to emotionally valenced stimuli — given the mixed findings of non-emotionally valenced stimuli, some researchers have queried whether the type of stimuli and its emotional salience may impact the psychophysiological reactivity of individuals with bpd. picture slides from the international affective picture system (iaps) have been used to examine whether those with bpd show differences in reactivity to different types of photographic slides (herpertz et al., 1999). in the iaps, standardized slides are categorised into pleasant (e.g., smiling infant, food), unpleasant (e.g., snakes, violent deaths) or neutral slides (e.g., common household objects), and have been used with both axis i (weber et al., 2009) and axis ii (herpertz et al., 2000) disorders. the iapswas first used in bpd research that examined psychophysiological arousal and reactivity in bpd compared to controls (herpertz, kunert, schwenger, & sass, 1999). psychophysiological measures included scr, hr and eye blink. research found that when compared to controls, those with bpd showed no significant differences in either scr or hr reactivity when aggregated across the task. however, when results were analysed based on the emotional valence of stimuli, the bpd group showed significantly greater scr and hrwhen viewing unpleasant slides, above and beyond that of the control group. this suggests that in bpd the level of physiological reactivity is dependent on the emotional valence of a stimulus (herpertz et al., 1999). this result has been replicated in a number of studies using iaps in those with bpd, using measures of eye blink reactivity (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007). similar results using rsa as a measure of reactivity have also been found in research of adolescent females who engaged in frequent self-injury and who showed early signs of bpd (crowell et al., 2005). following herpertz and colleagues (1999) study, herpertz et al. (2000) administered the iaps to 70 females; 24 diagnosed with bpd, 23 with avoidant personality disorder (avpd), and 27 controls. psychophysiological measures included hr, scr and eye blink, with results showing no significant differences on any psychophysiological measures between the bpd group compared to either the avpd or control group when aggregated across the europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 190 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study, consistent with previous research (herpertz et al., 1999). however, when the stimuli’s emotional valence was analysed, individuals with bpd did not show any significant hyperreactivity to unpleasant slides, contradictory to previous research (herpertz et al., 1999). interestingly, significant differences between the groups became evident during pleasant slides, with the bpd group showing significant deceleration when viewing pleasant slides, in opposition to the hr acceleration of both the control and avpd groups (herpertz et al., 2000). this lowered sns activity during pleasant slides was consistent with self-report data, with the bpd group reporting significantly lower levels of arousal during pleasant slides, which was consistent with previous self-report data of bpd (herpertz et al., 1999). from these results, it appears that individuals with bpd are no more reactive in general than controls (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999), or those with axis ii disorders (herpertz et al., 2000), although when data are analysed via the stimuli’s emotional valence, those with bpd show significantly greater psychophysiological reactivity to unpleasant stimuli, as measured by eye blink, rsa and scr (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007), and significantly lower reactivity to pleasant stimuli (herpertz et al., 1999, 2000). from these findings, it could be argued that individuals with bpd appear primed to focus on negative stimuli, consistent with research showing those high in bpd features more accurately interpret negative facial expressions than controls, with a bias towards over attributing negativity in non-negative stimuli (scott, levy, adams, & stevenson, 2011). this preoccupation with negatively emotionally valenced stimuli, and impaired in enjoyment of pleasant stimuli may be implicated in the self-reported chronic dysphoria in bpd (cheavens & heiy, 2011; kuo & linehan, 2009; links et al., 2008; meyer et al., 2005; reisch et al., 2008; russell et al., 2007; selby et al., 2009; stanley &wilson, 2006). more recently research extended the iaps by pairing slides with acoustic startles (vitale & newman, 2012). participants included prisoners reporting low and high bpd features on the diagnostic interview for borderlines (dib). results showed no significant differences between groups, with the group classified as high in bpd symptoms failing to show greater reactivity to negative stimuli, contrary to previous results (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999, 2000). however, those with high-bpd features showed significant slowing of blink sensitivity when viewing pleasant slides. it was concluded that this slowing may be related to the focussed attention required to interpret positive, and thus less familiar stimuli (vitale & newman, 2012). these findings contrast with previous studies using the iaps (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999, 2000), although may be related to the decreased levels of self-reported pleasure (herpertz et al., 1999, 2000), and psychophysiological deceleration (herpertz et al., 2000) in response to pleasant stimuli. however, these results need to be taken with caution, as vitale and newman’s (2012) participants were derived from incarcerated and non-clinical populations, and thus may not be representative of the wider clinical bpd population. although research using the iaps has shown a general trend towards hyperreactivity to unpleasant stimuli (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999), with some evidence for impaired reactivity to pleasant stimuli (herpertz et al., 1999, 2000), some critics have argued that the iaps contains generalised images which are unlikely to be emotionally provocative of the diagnosed bpd individuals’ psychology, and thus it is postulated that scripts featuring schemas believed pertinent to bpd, namely rejection and abandonment may be more salient and thus provoke the theorised hyperreactivity of bpd. research by limberg, barnow, freyberger, and hamm (2011) used scripts containing either general emotional content or schema-specific content, particularly tailored to evoke the abandonment or rejection schemas. withineurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 191 http://www.psychopen.eu/ groups analysis showed that bpd individuals showed significantly greater reactivity, as measured by hr and scr, during the disorder-specific scripts compared to the general emotion-inducing scripts. further, betweengroups analysis indicated that the bpd group showed significantly greater reactivity to both disorder-specific and general emotion-inducing scripts, when compared to controls (limberg et al., 2011). it was concluded that those with bpd appear to be more hyperreactive to scripts which are considered salient to bpd symptomatology than general emotion-inducing scripts, and this difference is significantly greater to that of controls (limberg et al., 2011). following the hyperreactivity associated with schema-specific stimuli, researchers have queried whether there may also be differences in psychophysiological reactivity to imagery featuring self-injury, suicide attempts and accidental deaths (welch, linehan, sylvers, chittams, & rizvi, 2008). this follows the postulate that self-injury may elicit different levels of reactivity to that of suicide attempts and accidental deaths, with self-injury one of the diagnostic criteria of bpd (apa, 2000). results showed increased scr following scripts featuring self-injury, although found no difference in psychophysiological reactivity to scripts featuring suicidal imagery. it was concluded that self-injury appears to bemore emotionally provocative for those with bpd, than stimuli featuring suicide attempts (welch et al., 2008). given the frequent self-injurious behaviour in bpd, this finding suggests that self-injury elicits greater reactivity to that of suicide attempts, which could have multiple theoretical and clinical implications for this client group. given the implications of potential hyperreactivity to self-injurious stimuli, researchers have queried whether the significantly high rates of trauma history among bpd samples may be a confounding variable in psychophysiological research (paris, 2005). research by schmahl et al. (2004) attempted to reduce the potential impact of a trauma history on physiological reactivity using a sample which consisted of all participants reporting a history of childhood physical and/or sexual abuse; with the group delineated depending on diagnosis, either into the bpd group, post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) group, and those with no psychiatric diagnosis serving as a control group. stimuli consisted of scripts developed by incorporating the individual’s prior disclosure of their childhood experiences, featuring trauma and abandonment, into personally-salient narratives. these narratives were then read to participants’ several days later. in contrast to hypotheses, findings showed no difference between groups, with a non-significant although slight increase of scr of the bpd group to the scripts featuring abandonment (schmahl et al., 2004). this non-significant result was unexpected given previous research findings using schemabased scripts which elicited the proposed bpd hyperreactivity (limberg et al., 2011). however, schmahl and colleagues' (2004) research had a number of limitations, such as a small sample size (10 in the bpd group), and unequal sample sizes (10 bpd, 14 ptsd, 16 controls), which may have contributed to this non-significant result. in addition to these limitations, it could be argued that any such disclosure which features details of an individual’s trauma history is likely to elicit a degree of physiological reactivity (paris, 2005), and hence reactivity of participants was not influenced by diagnosis, rather by the commonality of a trauma history as previously theorised (schmahl et al., 2004). however, as schmahl and colleagues (2004) research did not include a control group, with no reported trauma history, this is merely a possibility. thus, rather than the diagnosis of bpd being characterised by hyperreactivity, it is possible that a history of trauma is a confounding variable which could induce hyperreactivity, and skew psychophysiological results of the bpd population. in summary, from the current research of reactivity, it appears that those with bpd are no more physiologically reactive to general stimuli than controls. however, they show greater reactivity and increased focus to negatively europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 192 http://www.psychopen.eu/ valenced stimuli, with some evidence for sns deceleration and lowered self-reported enjoyment of pleasant stimuli (gunderson, 1996; stanley & wilson, 2006). further, when the stimuli contained more salient information, such as bpd-relevant schemas of rejection and abandonment, there appears to be a general, although non-significant increase in physiological reactivity. research investigating the influence of past trauma provides some indication that trauma history, rather than a bpd diagnosis, may explain the theorised hyperreactivity, and potentially behavioural impulsivity in bpd. however, overall, it appears that bpd are no more physiologically reactive to general stimuli than controls, in opposition to the biosocial theory of bpd (linehan, 1993). the role of habituation in bpd arousal and reactivity from the current research of baseline arousal and reactivity, there appears to be little psychophysiological evidence supporting the biosocial theory. however, the third component of the biosocial theory argues that individuals with bpd are not only hyperaroused and hyperreactive, but remain hyperaroused for longer, having a slower return to baseline arousal levels. hence, it is theorised that habituation, which is a reduction in arousal over time in response to the continued presence of a stimulus, will be impaired in those with bpd (linehan, 1993). this proposed impaired habituation was evident in research by austin, riniolo, and porges (2007), who used a performance task where participants watched three 10 minute emotion-inducing films followed by a series of questions regarding each film. in contrast to the habituation trajectory as seen in controls, the bpd group showed a lack of habituation, with increased arousal, as measured by rsa, in response to prolonged exposure to emotioninducing films. this increase in sns activity across the task suggests that the bpd group began to physiologically engage in fight-or-flight responses, rather than the expected habituation with signs of sns deactivation as seen in controls (austin et al., 2007). further research using emotion-induction tasks with individuals diagnosed with bpd have also shown impaired habituation, with those with bpd showing a slower habituation than controls (dziobek et al., 2011). similar results were found in other research using learning tasks which used auditory tones paired with inkblots, which showed impaired habituation, as indicated by scr (ebner-priemer et al., 2009). further research investigating habituation in bpd using social stressor tasks have shown that those with bpd had significantly increased hr across the task, suggestive of increased sns activity (weinberg et al., 2009), which was in contrast to controls, who showed reduced sns activity across the task. although findings of impaired habituation are consistent across research using performance tasks and the biosocial theory, these results of increased sns activity are contradictory to previous studies of general reactivity in bpd (dziobek et al., 2011; hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999, 2000). it has been suggested that this divergence is due to the nature of stimuli used. thus when the experiment requires task performance, the bpd individual may become hypervigilant to avoid making errors, and therefore will show the theorised hyperreactivity and impaired habituation during these tasks, which is not present in experiments without such stressors or performance elements. weinberg and colleagues (2009) concluded that increased sns activity during performance tasks indicates that individuals with bpd are more likely to revert to the evolutionary fight-or-flight response during stressors. hence, individuals with bpd remain physiologically aroused for much longer than controls during performance tasks. however, it appears that this hyperreactivity is limited to occurring during performance tasks. given these findings, it is possible that the hyperreactivity in the biosocial theory is applicable to bpd, and the divergence with current psychophysiological research may be because the stimuli chosen in previous research does not adequately elicit the theorised bpd hyperreactivity. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 193 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in conclusion, bpd has long been considered a disorder where individuals are biologically predisposed to emotion dysregulation through baseline hyperarousal, hyperreactivity and impaired habituation. from self-report measures, findings have supported the biosocial theory, however psychophysiological measures show evidence of hypoarousal rather than hyperarousal, and significant differences in reactivity between those with bpd and controls. however, there appears to be some evidence of impaired habituation of psychophysiological markers in those with bpd. in summary, these results do not show support for proposed hyperarousal and hyperreactivity in those with bpd, however, do support the theorised impaired habituation described in the biosocial theory. given the mixed results of physiological arousal, reactivity and habituation in bpd, researchers have begun to query whether those diagnosed with bpd are part of a homogenous group, or alternatively the diagnosis of bpd may include multiple symptom trajectories. it is possible that psychophysiological arousal and reactivity re not only dependent on the emotional-valence of the stimulus, but may also be influenced by confounding variables such as trauma and dissociation. trauma is highly prevalent in those diagnosed with bpd (yen et al., 2002), and is known to influence psychophysiological measures (schmahl et al., 2004). dissociation may be another confounding variable (ludäscher et al., 2010; schauer & elbert, 2010; stiglmayr et al., 2001; watson et al., 2006), as the severity of dissociation significantly varies across bpd samples (ebner-priemer et al., 2005), and has shown to influence physiological reactivity and habituation (ebner-priemer et al., 2005, 2009). thus, the current biosocial theory appears relevant, however may not adequately describe all diagnosed with bpd, rather only a subtype of those with bpd, of which dissociation may be a core feature. although the potential of a heterogeneous bpd group requires consideration, the current psychophysiological research of bpd can also be considered via the emotional coherence theory. this theory argues that inconsistent results of psychophysiological measures across research of both reactivity and arousal suggests that evolutionary models of reactivity/survival are too simplified to adequately address the complexity of emotions (mauss et al., 2005). it is argued that these theories incorrectly assume that the three components of emotional responsivity, namely experience, physiology and behaviour are coherent and will respond to external stimuli in a functional manner in response to environmental demands. rather, it is argued that these components are rarely coherent, and respond in multiple ways (mauss et al., 2005). researchers investigated the possible emotional coherence between experiential, behavioural and physiological response systems, with results indicating significant coherence between experiential (self-reported amusement or sadness) and behavioural response systems (facial expressions), although found no significant coherence with psychophysiological measures (mauss et al., 2005). thus, although coherence was found between the experiential and behavioural response system, it appears that psychophysiological indicators may not be a comprehensive measure of emotional intensity (mauss et al., 2005). further investigation into the potential relationships between the physiological, experiential and behavioural response systems is needed to better understand how the emotion dysregulation in bpd is developed and maintained. the current psychophysiological research body has multiple implications for the assessment and treatment of bpd. firstly, the possibility of subtypes (whewell et al., 2000) which show different arousal and reactivity levels suggest the potential benefits of altering the diagnostic criteria of bpd to encourage more accurate assessment and tailored treatments. further, research showing hypoarousal, hyporeactivity and impaired habituation suggest europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 194 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that treatments for bpd need to incorporate gradual exposure to specific emotionally provocative stimuli to encourage habituation, and enhance the emotional coherence between the experiential, behavioural and physiological systems to environmental stimuli in those with bpd. however as discussed previously, much of the research of physiological arousal and reactivity has a number of limitations including small and/or uneven sample sizes; the use of different diagnostic tests which have different clinical cut-offs (scid-ii; pai; ipde; dib), which can alter who is included into bpd, as discussed by paris (2007). further, some samples were derived from non-clinical populations (e.g., university students, incarcerated populations), which may have influenced results, particularly those studies which used the level of bpd features reported to determine inclusion into the bpd groups, rather than obtaining a formal diagnosis of bpd (dixon-gordon et al., 2011; vitale & newman, 2012). further, some studies excluded all individuals with comorbid axis i or ii disorders (austin et al., 2007; ebner-priemer et al., 2005, 2009; limberg et al., 2011), although others incorporated those with comorbid diagnoses into the bpd group (grootens et al., 2008; hazlett et al., 2007; kuo & linehan, 2009; limberg et al., 2011; schmahl et al., 2004; taylor & james, 2009; weber et al., 2009; welch et al., 2008), which may have skewed results. in addition, some studies excluded all individuals who were prescribed psychoactive medications (hazlett et al., 2007; herpertz et al., 1999, 2000; limberg et al., 2011; mauchnik et al., 2010), although others included these (kuo & linehan, 2009; schmahl et al., 2004; taylor & james, 2009; vitale & newman, 2012), and given the potential dampening of arousal and reactivity associated with these medications, comparisons are limited. as studies were all conducted in laboratory settings, emotion induction may not be provocative of the emotional dysregulation in bpd. in addition, many of the studies only included female participants (austin et al., 2007; dixon-gordon et al., 2011; dziobek et al., 2011; ebner-priemer et al., 2005, 2009; herpertz et al., 2000; kuo & linehan, 2009; mauchnik et al., 2010; schmahl et al., 2004; vitale & newman, 2012), and thus these findings may not be representative of the psychophysiological markers of males with bpd. given these limitations, there remains an evident lack of empirically valid and reliable large-scale studies of the physiological arousal and reactivity of individuals with bpd. this literature review aimed to provide an overview of the current psychophysiological research of hyperarousal and hyperreactivity in bpd, however as with all research there are some limitations. firstly, the research collected was limited to academic peer-reviewed journals, and thus results which may have been non-significant are unlikely to be published, and therefore any analysis of published articles may be skewed. in addition, the research was limited to psychophysiological data, which excludes neurological research of arousal and reactivity in bpd, and thus conclusions are limited to psychophysiological response systems. hence, this review needs to be considered within the wider research body of emotion dysregulation and bpd. in summary, although current psychophysiological research findings are mixed, it appears that individuals with bpd tend to be generally hypoaroused, and are no more reactive to stimuli than controls, except when the stimuli are salient to the individual, at which point they show significantly greater reactivity than controls. however, dissociation further complicates the scene, and indicates a possibility of bpd subtypes. thus further investigation of the potential biological basis of bpd is required, to inform a reconceptualisation of the biosocial theory and in turn refine both the assessment and treatment of bpd to improve psychosocial outcomes for those diagnosed with bpd. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 195 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references american psychiatric association [apa]. 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(2004). axis 1 comorbidity in patients with borderline personality disorder: 6-year follow-up and prediction of time to remission. the american journal of psychiatry, 161(11), 2108-2114. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.161.11.2108 appendix table a1 details of psychophysiological research of bpd results psychophysiological measure assessment of bpdstimulisamplestudy no significant differences between groups during baseline, but bpd group showed opposite trajectory across task to controls. rsadib-remotion-inducing films, followed by questions 20 females:austin, riniolo, & porges (2007) • 9 bpd • 11 control those with high bpd features showed greater scr during task. hr, rsa, scrpaiproblem solving task87 female students rated on level of bpd features: dixon-gordon, chapman, lovasz, & walters (2011) • 26 high • 32 moderate • 29 low no effect of scr on either condition for bpd or control group. scrmini; scid-ii; bsl iaps; multifaceted empathy test 42 females:dziobek et al. (2011) • 21 bpd • 21 control bpd reported highest dissociation. higher dissociation was associated with lower eye eye blink, hr, scrscid-iistartling auditory tones 42 females:ebner-priemer et al. (2005) • 21 bpd blink response. bpd group required more trials for habituation. • 21 control bpd group showed increased scr to conditioned stimulus. bpd group with high scripdeaversive auditory stimuli paired with inkblots 68 females:ebner-priemer et al. (2009) • 33 bpd’s ranked on dissociation (10 high; 12 moderate; 11 none) dissociation levels had reduced acquisition of conditioning to controls and those with no dissociation. • 35 control bpd group showed greater responsivity to stimuli than controls. eye blinkscid-iiauditory stimuli (clicks) grootens et al. (2008) • 10 bpd • 13 control (exp1) • 38 bpd • 28 control (exp2) bpd group showed greater startle during unpleasant slides. overall, bpd group eye blinksidp-ivemotion-induction, auditory and word stimuli hazlett et al. (2007) • 27 bpd (18 m; 9 f) • 21 control (11 m; 10 f) showed slow responsiveness, indicating hypoarousal. no significant differences between groups.eye blink, scripdeauditory stimuliherpertz & koetting (2005) • 28 bpd (4 m; 24 f) • 28 control (4 m; 24 f) europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 201 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00005053-200208000-00003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.11.2108 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results psychophysiological measure assessment of bpdstimulisamplestudy bpd group showed greater startle during unpleasant slide. overall, bpd group showed hypoarousal. hr, scr,ipdeiapsherpertz, kunert, schwenger, & sass (1999) • 24 bpd • 27 control bpd showed scr hypoarousal. startle response showed bpd group experienced eye blink, hr, scripdeiaps81 females:herpertz et al. (2000) • 27 bpd pleasant stimuli as less positive than others. • 27 avoidant pd • 27 control bpd group less facially responsive than controls; no other differences. eye blink, scripdeiaps50 incarcerated males:herpertz et al. (2001) • 25 bpd • 25 psychopath • 25 control bpd group showed lower baseline rsa, and higher baseline scr. no differences in reactivity. rsa, scrscid-ii2 emotion induction conditions (generalised film, tailored script) 60 females:kuo & linehan (2009) • 20 bpd • 20 social anxiety disorder • 20 control bpd group showed greater startle during disorder-specific scripts than controls. no other differences. eye blink, hr, scrscid-iiscripts general; bpd specific (abandonment; trauma) limberg, barnow, freyberger, & hamm (2011) • bpd (37 f; 3 m) • control (27 f; 5 m) bpd group showed lower baseline hr. no differences in reactivity. bp, hr, scrscid-iistress-induction interview lobbestael, arntz, cima, & chakhssi (2009) • 45 bpd (12 m; 33 f) • 21 antisocial pd • 26 cluster c pd • 25 control no differences in baseline arousal, comorbid group showed continued scr scripdeink blots paired with aversive startles 33 females with bpd:mauchnik, ebner-priemer, bohus, & schmahl (2010) • 15 comorbid ptsd hyperarousal to stimulus after extinction, suggesting impaired habituation. • 18 no comorbidity bpd had slight, but not significant increased scr during abandonment scripts. bp, hr, scrscid-iischema-related scripts (personalized trauma and abandonment) 40 females:schmahl et al. (2004) • 10 bpd • 14 ptsd • 16 control europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 psychophysiology of bpd 202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results psychophysiological measure assessment of bpdstimulisamplestudy bpd group showed no significant differences to controls. hr, scrscid-ii; pdqauditory sounds (predictable and 182 university students:taylor & james (2009) • 52 substance dependent unpredictable white noise blasts) • 12 antisocial pd or bpd • 35 comorbid substance and pd • 83 control no significant differences when viewing unpleasant slides; but high-bpd group eye blinkdib-riaps62 female offenders:vitale & newman (2012) • 19 high-bpd features showed significant blink attenuation when viewing pleasant slides. • 43 low-bpd features bpd group showed no significant differences in arousal or reactivity compared to other groups. hrminiiapsweber et al. (2009) • 6 bpd (4 f; 2 m) • 19 mdd (10 f; 9 m) • 15 schizophrenia (3 f; 12 m) • 10 substance disorder (10 m) • 20 control (8 f; 12 m) those with high-bpd features showed greater sns activity and impaired hr, rsamsi-bpdsocial stressor taskall university students:weinberg, klonsky, & hajcak (2009) • 12 highbpd features habituation compared to controls which showed expected habituation trajectory. • 28 control the group showed increased scr following scripts featuring self-injury, but not after those featuring suicidal imagery. rsa, scripdeimagery scriptswelch, linehan, sylvers, chittams, & rizvi (2008) • 42 bpd (38 f; 4 m) no significant differences in amplitude of scr, but bpd group showed significant scr delays compared to controls. scrdib-rstressor task (auditory discrimination) williams, sidis, gordon, & meares (2006) • 15 bpd (11 f; 4 m) • 15 control (11 f; 4 m) note. bpd= borderline personality disorder; m= male, f= female; pd= personality disorder; dib-r= diagnostic interview for borderlines; rsa= respiratory sinus arrhythmia; pai= personality assessment inventory; scr= skin conduct response; iaps= international affective picture system; hrheart rate; mdd= major depression disorder; mini= mini-international neuropsychiatric interview; scid-ii= structured clinical interview; bsl= borderline symptom list; ipde= international personality disorder examination; sidp-iv= structured interview for dsm-iv personality disorders; pdq= personality diagnostic questionnaire; msi-bpd= maclean screening instrument for bpd. about the authors tara cavazzi completed her masters degree in clinical psychology at edith cowan university in 2012 and is now working fulltime in a suicide prevention program doing individual therapy in pethwestern australia. contact details: school of psychology and social science. faculty of computing, health and science edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. dr rodrigo becerra is a senior lecturer at edith cowan university and a senior clinical psychologist at alma street centre, fremantle hospital, perth, wa. he is the director of the psychopathology research group at edith cowan university and specializes emotions and psychopathology. contact details: school of psychology and social science (room 30.129). faculty of computing, health and science edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(1), 185–203 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.677 cavazzi & becerra 203 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en psychophysiology of bpd (introduction) the physiology of arousal and reactivity method results baseline arousal in bpd psychophysiological reactivity in bpd the role of habituation in bpd arousal and reactivity discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors the impact of personality in the selection of teacher students: is there more to it than the big five? research reports the impact of personality in the selection of teacher students: is there more to it than the big five? corinna koschmieder* a, barbara weissenbacher a, jürgen pretsch a, aljoscha c. neubauer a [a] department of differential psychology, university of graz, graz, austria. abstract the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma is a controversially discussed problem in personality measurement. in this study, we contrasted the utility of broad versus narrow personality traits in an admission exam for teacher students. we compared the big five and narrow personality constructs (social-communicative behavior, achievement behavior, health and recreation behavior), which were part of an assessment battery for teacher student selection (n = 1120), regarding overlap and predictive validity. as criterion variables, academic satisfaction (n = 184) and gpa (n = 680) were assessed later. reasonableness of including both questionnaires in one assessment may be questioned in terms of overlap of the personality inventories. results show that health and recreation behavior cannot be covered by the big five in a selection procedure. empirically, both broad and narrow traits show predictive validity for academic success and satisfaction. keywords: personality, bandwidth-fidelity dilemma, longitudinal study, academic success, teacher students europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 received: 2017-10-08. accepted: 2018-07-12. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; alessio gori, università di roma lumsa, rome, italy *corresponding author at: universitätsplatz 2, 8010 graz. e-mail: corinna.koschmieder@uni-graz.at this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma states that the bandwidth of a predictor has influence on the criterion validity. in most assessments, not only broad criteria, such as overall work success, are of interest but also narrow criteria, such as burnout. this is the case in a newly developed teacher student assessment in which two bandwidthwise different personality measures were used. keeping economical testing in mind, are both measures needed? teacher student selection if access to a certain academic discipline has to be restricted, suitable selection criteria and processes need to be established. but what could these criteria be? first, it is obvious that only people who are likely to succeed at university should be admitted. therefore, traits that are essential for academic success should be considered. but how do we define success? on the one hand, people who perform well (e.g. achieve a high gpa) may be regarded as successful. on the other hand, success can also be interpreted in terms of study satisfaction (rindermann & oubaid, 1999). second, the expected job success must be taken into account. when someone enrolls in teacher education, we can assume that this person aims to become a teacher (mayr, 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in other words, when selecting candidates applying for teacher education, it seems important to not only predict whether they will be successful in their studies but also whether they have the potential to be good teachers. recently, a new selection tool for teacher students was developed, which has been used since in almost all austrian institutions offering teacher education (neubauer et al., 2017). the selection tool involves three steps; here, we only examine the second part, namely a psychometric test battery. neubauer et al. (2017) showed that individual performance on this test battery accounted for 18% of variance in academic achievement in the first semester, for 15% of variance in academic satisfaction and for even 28% of variance in the intention to quit after four months in college. most of the variability was explained by linguistic knowledge/ability and by emotional competencies as well as by certain personality traits. the teaching profession can be described as one of the most exhausting ones involving high levels of emotional stress. therefore, personality traits are of particular importance for teachers’ health and associated job satisfaction. for this reason, selection processes for future teachers should aim at finding students whose personality fits the teacher profession and who are properly equipped to manage the challenges of this profession (schaarschmidt, 2005). although the use of self-report personality measures for selection purposes has been discussed controversially (e.g. klassen & tze, 2014), the current admission exam indicates that the validity of personality testing is not substantially limited by faking (krammer, sommer, & arendasy, 2017). the impact of personality on teachers’ academic and job success if we address the impact of personality traits on teaching success, previous research has not shown consistent results. numerous researchers found only weak relationships between personality traits and teaching performance and therefore conclude that “teachers are made, not born” (klassen & tze, 2014, p. 73). however, other researchers demonstrated the importance of personality in the context of academic success and actual job success in the teaching profession. hanfstingl and mayr (2007) meta-analyzed associations between the big five factors and different criteria of academic and work success of (future) teachers. they concluded that the impact of personality on the teaching profession rarely differed from other professions: conscientiousness and emotional stability were particularly important. extraversion emerged as a valid predictor of job performance and satisfaction but not of academic success. openness and agreeableness showed only weak or moderate correlations with selected aspects of academic and work success. a comprehensive longitudinal study about the teaching profession in germany discovered some narrow traits that are counterproductive for job success: poor resistance, poor social-communication skills and poor self-confidence (schaarschmidt, 2005). moreover, it was concluded that these traits could not be trained adequately within a few years of education studies and thereforehad to preexist when entering teachers’ college. one of the key traits in preventing burnout and dropout in teachers is health and recovery behavior (rudow, 1994). using broad and narrow traits in a selection procedure the question of whether broad or narrow traits are preferable for a certain assessment purpose has been discussed for a long time under the label bandwidth-fidelity dilemma (cronbach & gleser, 1965). it examines the question of whether personality assessments should rather focus on lower-level narrow traits or on higher-order broad traits. if narrowly defined personality traits are assessed, the measurement reliability is usually higher than when broadly defined traits are used. however, narrow traits also have a big disadvantage: they only covkoschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 681 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ er a small area of behavior. this means that the fidelity is higher if narrow traits are measured but that the bandwidth is higher if broad traits are measured. ones and viswesvaran (1996) recommend the use of broad traits for personnel selection purposes due to the advantage in predicting overall job performance. however, jenkins and griffith (2004) suggest identifying relevant narrow traits for a specific job because in their view, they predict performance better than broad traits and should therefore be used in personnel selection. the present study: comparing broad and narrow traits in the aforementioned newly developed test battery (tesat – teacher student assessment austria: neubauer et al., 2017), personality plays an important role. therein, we assess global (broad) as well as specific (narrow) personality traits; the latter are deemed especially important for situations that future teachers have to cope with. in this study, we focus our attention on the critical question if actually both types of personality traits provide unique contributions. as broad traits, the big five factors were assessed (john & srivastava, 1999). for assessing narrow traits, we used a work-related inventory, the ips (inventory for personality assessment in situations; schaarschmidt & fischer, 2007). it comprises 15 situational factors, which are assigned to three personality domains. the domain social and communicative behavior comprises the six factors (1) activity in familiar communicative situations, (2) assertiveness when communication is required, (3) tendency to confrontation in social conflict situations, (4) efficacy in a leadership role, (5) considerateness in social responsibility situations and (6) sensitivity to social frustration. compared to the big five model, factors (1), (2) and (4) seem close to extraversion, whereas (3) and (5) could be interpreted similarly to agreeableness and (6) captures aspects of emotional stability. the domain achievement behavior also consists of six factors, namely (7) commitment when high level of performance is required, (8) inertia when change of attitude is required, (9) stability when under stress, (10) selfconfidence in test situations, (11) career commitment and readiness to take risks in job-related situations and (12) optimism in the face of everyday demands. factor (7) appears similar to the big five factor conscientiousness, factors (9), (10) and (12) could be matched with emotional stability, (8) comprises aspects of both openness and emotional stability and (11) covers aspects of conscientiousness and extraversion. the domain health and recreation behavior includes the factors (13) ability to relax after the working day, (14) active recreation behavior in free time and (15) preventive health behavior in response to warning signals. these three factors cannot be assigned clearly to corresponding big five factors; however, (13) comprises aspects of emotional stability, (14) appears similar to aspects of extraversion and (15) covers aspects of conscientiousness. the aim of our study is to investigate if both questionnaires are useful. how distinct or redundant are the constructs measured? are both constructs necessary to identify the best future teachers? research questions the question of which personality traits have to be considered in teacher student selection should not be started at the point of predictive validity but with a clear theory and knowledge about the measured constructs. personality and teacher student selection 682 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ based on this view, the main goal is to investigate the relations and differences between the broad and narrow personality constructs. first, the associations between the broad and the narrow traits will be examined. we propose the following assumptions: 1. social and communicative behavior is highly positively related to extraversion. 2. achievement behavior is correlated positively with conscientiousness and emotional stability. 3. health and recreation behavior should be less related to the big five than the other two domains; however, we expect positive associations with emotional stability and conscientiousness. 4. all domains of the ips show small or zero correlations with agreeableness and openness. second, we want to investigate if it is useful to use both constructs, the ips traits and the big five traits. we contrast how much variance of the big five can be explained by the narrow personality traits and vice versa. paunonen (1998) observed that aggregated broad personality traits could be predicted better by lower trait level facets than vice versa. this is linked to the fact that aggregation leads to a loss of specific variance. based on these findings, we expect higher overlaps of the big five factors predicted by the ips facets than vice versa. third, the impact of broad versus narrow personality traits on two criteria of academic success, namely achievement and satisfaction, should be examined. we expect academic achievement to show the highest association with conscientiousness and academic satisfaction to be associated the highest with emotional stability. additionally, we expect a relationship between the ips domain achievement behavior and academic achievement as well as between health and recreation behavior and academic satisfaction. besides, we want to explore which ips facets are related to academic success. method sample the admission exam was conducted at four universities. the total sample consisted of 1120 candidates (675 women and 445 men; ages range from 17 to 49 years; age: m = 20.89 years, sd = 4.48). four people had to be excluded due to technical problems during the admission exam. in order to investigate the predictive validity, we used the results of two follow-up samples. subsample 1 comprised 680 students (408 female, 272 male; age: m = 20.00 years, sd = 3.06), who took exams in the first two years. subsample 2 included 184 people (141 female, 43 male; age: m = 20.55 years, sd = 3.86), who completed an optional follow-up questionnaire. measures personality for measuring broad personality traits, the german translation of the bfi-42 (big five inventory; john & srivastava, 1999; german version by lang, lüdtke, & asendorpf, 2001) was used. the reliability in the present sample was satisfying for all scales (n = 1116; openness: α = .81, conscientiousness: α = .81, extraversion: α = .83, agreeableness: α = .70 and emotional stability: α = .78). narrow personality traits were assessed by the german inventory for personality assessment in situations (schaarschmidt & fischer, 2007). this queskoschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 683 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tionnaire comprises 80 items on 15 factors, which can be assigned to three behavior domains (see introduction section 1.3). reliabilities range from α = .71 to α = .91. for every factor, a situation with five 4-point likert type items was presented (e.g. situation: “i am sitting in a sociable group with friends and acquaintances…”; item: “in such a situation, i will probably be talkative.”) ranging from “definitely true” to “not true at all”. the five items were aggregated for the factor score. for computing the three domain scores, weighted factor scores were used. academic success academic achievement was operationalized as the average of all courses completed in the first two years. the grades were obtained from university records. to facilitate the interpretation, the gpa mean score weighted by credits (krammer, sommer, & arendasy, 2016) was recoded so that low numbers indicated poor achievement. academic satisfaction consisted of three items on a six-point likert-scale (e.g. “i am satisfied with my choice of academic study.”). the scale had a satisfactory reliability of α = .68. procedure on three days, participants were tested in groups of maximum 250 people, each for three hours. for assessing academic satisfaction, the students were tested in regular college classes four months after the admission exami as part of a regular lesson. to generate the gpa for the first four semesters, the local student database was used. results relations between broad and narrow personality traits first, the correlations of the broad and the narrow traits were inspected (table 1). we found moderate to high correlations between the factors of the bfi-42 and the ips. the correlations of the three ips domains with the big five were mostly higher than the correlations of the 15 ips facets with the big five. personality and teacher student selection 684 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 d es cr ip tiv e s ta tis tic s an d c or re la tio ns o f t he b ig f iv e fa ct or s w ith th e ip s d om ai ns a nd f ac et s pa ra m et er a nd c on st ru ct m sd o pe nn es s ex tr av er si on em ot io na l s ta bi lit y c on sc ie nt io us ne ss a gr ee ab le ne ss m – – 4. 09 4. 18 2. 05 4. 20 4. 14 s d 0. 47 0. 48 0. 52 0. 48 0. 45 so ci al a nd c om m un ic at iv e be ha vi or 1. 87 1. 41 .3 4* * .7 0* * .5 6* * .4 9* * .4 0* * 1. a ct iv ity 16 .9 5 1. 86 .1 8* * .5 5* * .2 2* * .1 8* * .1 7* * 2. a ss er tiv en es s 16 .4 5 2. 44 .2 8* * .6 8* * .4 2* * .3 4* * .2 6* * 3. c on fro nt at io n 13 .7 0 3. 04 -.2 2* * -.2 7* * -.4 2* * -.4 6* * -.5 5* * 4. l ea de rs hi p 16 .9 3 2. 03 .2 0* * .3 5* * .2 5* * .2 3* * -.0 3 5. c on si de ra te ne ss 18 .0 5 1. 71 .2 1* * .2 2* * .1 6* * .2 8* * .4 1* * 6. s en si tiv ity 11 .9 9 2. 47 -.2 2* * -.3 9* * -.5 3* * -.3 4* * -.3 0* * a ch ie ve m en t b eh av io r 1. 85 1. 73 .3 6* * .5 5* * .5 9* * .5 3* * .3 9* * 7. c om m itm en t 15 .1 3 2. 49 .2 3* * .3 5* * .3 3* * .4 6* * .3 1* * 8. in er tia 9. 58 2. 29 -.2 2* * -.3 7* * -.4 3* * -.3 1* * -.2 8* * 9. s ta bi lit y 16 .8 3 2. 22 .2 8* * .3 3* * .4 2* * .3 7* * .2 7* * 10 . s el f-c on fid en ce 15 .2 6 2. 37 .1 9* * .3 4* * .4 9* * .2 7* * .2 0* * 11 . c ar ee r c om m itm en t 16 .9 7 2. 22 .2 7* * .4 1* * .3 3* * .3 3* * .2 3* * 12 . o pt im is m 17 .6 4 1. 93 .3 2* * .4 7* * .3 9* * .4 5* * .3 5* * h ea lth a nd re cr ea tio n be ha vi or 0. 98 0. 82 .3 1* * .4 7* * .4 4* * .4 8* * .3 9* * 13 . a bi lit y to re la x 17 .1 2 1. 78 .1 6* * .3 0* * .3 3* * .3 2* * .2 6* * 14 . a ct iv e re cr ea tio n 17 .7 4 1. 65 .3 1* * .4 4* * .3 4* * .3 6* * .3 1* * 15 . h ea lth p re ve nt io n 17 .3 9 1. 95 .2 3* * .2 8* * .3 1* * .4 1* * .3 1* * n ot e. n = 1 11 6. ** p < .0 1. koschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 685 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ shared variance of the personality inventories to evaluate the shared variance of the personality inventories, we performed several regression analyses. first, the big five were regressed on the ips domains (table 2a) and vice versa (table 2b). second, the big five were regressed on the ips facets (table 3). third, the ips facets were regressed on the big five (table 4). the domain-wise regressions (table 2a) indicated that 60% of social and communicative behavior could be predicted by the big five with extraversion being the strongest predictor (β = .51). 51% of achievement behavior could be predicted by the big five, especially by emotional stability (β = .32) and conscientiousness (β = .27). regarding health and recreation behavior, the big five only explained 37% of the variance (conscientiousness: β = .26, extraversion: β = .24). the reverse regression analyses showed that the ips domains could account for 15% (openness) to 50% (extraversion) of the variance in the big five. extraversion was predicted best by social and communicative behavior (β = .61), whereas achievement behavior (β = .36) and social and communicative behavior (β = .27) were the best predictors of emotional stability. for conscientiousness and openness, achievement behavior was the best predictor (β = .28 and β = .20). agreeableness could be predicted to similar extent by the three ips domains (.15 ≤ β ≤ .19). table 2a summary of regression analyses of the big five on the ips domains construct r2 r2 adj β openness conscientiousness extraversion agreeableness emotional stability social and communicative behavior .60 .60 .03 .19** .51** .08** .19** achievement behavior .51 .51 .10** .27** .24** .04 .32** health and recreation behavior .37 .37 .07** .26** .24** .12** .16** note. n = 1116. **p < .01. *p < .05. table 2b summary of regression analyses of the ips domains on the big five construct r2 r2 adj β social and communicative behavior achievement behavior health and recreation behavior openness .15 .15 .13** .20** .11** conscientiousness .33 .33 .16** .28** .22** extraversion .50 .50 .61** .08* .06* agreeableness .21 .21 .18** .15** .19** emotional stability .39 .39 .27** .36** .08* note. n = 1116. **p < .01. *p < .05. personality and teacher student selection 686 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 summary of regression analyses of the big five on the ips facets ips facet r2 r2 adj β openness conscientiousness extraversion agreeableness emotional stability social and communicative behavior 1. activity .31 .31 -.03 -.01 .60** .04 -.08** 2. assertiveness .48 .47 .00 .09** .61** .01 .08** 3. confrontation .38 .38 -.03 -.21** .02 -.37** -.18** 4. leadership .20 .19 .07* .20** .26** -.28** .14** 5. considerateness .20 .19 .08** .08* .11** .37** -.10** 6. sensitivity .32 .31 -.03 -.11 -.13 -.04 -.39** achievement behavior 7. commitment .26 .26 .03 .33** .16** .06 .09** 8. inertia .23 .23 -.04 -.11** -.16** -.05 -.27** 9. stability .25 .24 .13** .19** .07* .02 .27** 10. self-confidence .26 .25 .03 .09** .10** -.04 .41** 11. career commitment .22 .22 .09** .17** .26** .00 .11** 12. optimism .34 .34 .10** .25** .27** .09** .10** health and recreation behavior 13. ability to relax .17 .17 -.01 .18** .14** .06 .17** 14. active recreation .27 .27 .11** .15** .28** .10** .07* 15. health prevention .22 .21 .07* .28** .06 .09** .12** note. n = 1116. **p < .01. *p < .05. in table 3, the big five were regressed on the ips facets. although most ips facets were significant predictors of the big five, most beta coefficients were rather low. the ips facets accounted for 19% (openness) to 58% (extraversion) of variance in the big five. results in table 4 show that the big five accounted for 20 to 48% of the variance in the ips facets within the domain social and communicative behavior. between 22 and 34% of variance in the achievement behavior and 17 to 27% of variance in the health and recreation behavior facets could be explained by the big five. koschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 687 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 s um m ar y of r eg re ss io n a na ly se s of th e ip s f ac et s on th e b ig f iv e b ig f iv e d im en si on r 2 r 2 ad j β so ci al a nd c om m un ic at iv e be ha vi or a ch ie ve m en t b eh av io r h ea lth a nd re cr ea tio n be ha vi or activity assertiveness confrontation leadership considerateness sensitivity commitment inertia stability self-confidence career commitment optimism ability to relax active recreation health prevention o pe nn es s .1 9 .1 8 -.0 1 .0 6 -.0 1 .0 6 .0 9* * -.0 1 .0 0 -.0 3 .1 2* * -.0 3 .0 9* * .1 2* * -.0 6 .1 3* * .0 4 c on sc ie nt io us ne ss .4 1 .4 0 -.0 4 .0 1 -.1 9* * .0 7* .0 6* .0 0 .2 1* * -.0 1 .0 5 -.0 4 .0 4 .1 5* * .0 6* .0 5 .1 5* * e xt ra ve rs io n .5 8 .5 8 .2 5* * .3 9* * .0 3 .0 8* * .0 5* -.0 8* * .0 0 -.0 7 .0 0 -.0 1 .0 4 .1 3* * .0 1 .0 7* * -.0 5* a gr ee ab le ne ss .4 2 .4 1 .0 6* -.0 1 -.3 6* * -.1 7* * .2 2* * -.0 6* .0 4 -.0 2 .0 2 -.0 6* .0 1 .0 8* * .0 3 .0 8* * .0 7* e m ot io na l s ta bi lit y .4 4 .4 3 .0 0 .1 1* * -.1 2* * .0 5* -.0 2 -.2 1* * .0 0 -.0 8* * .1 0* * .1 9* * -.0 1 .0 5 .0 6* .0 2 .0 2 n ot e. n = 1 11 6. ** p < .0 1. * p < .0 5. personality and teacher student selection 688 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ criterion validity the satisfaction measure was substantially negatively skewed and leptokurtic (s = -1.28, z = -7.17, p < .01; k = 1.29, z = 3.62, p < .01) and academic achievement was platykurtic (s = -.19, z = -0.21, p > .05; k = -.45, z = -2.42, p < .05). we hence used non-parametric correlations (spearman) throughout the validity analyses. academic achievement and study satisfaction were positively correlated (rs = .27, p < .05). regarding academic achievement, the big 5 traits conscientiousness (rs = .26, p < .01), openness (rs = .11, p < .01) and agreeableness (rs = .10, p < .05) as well as the ips facets optimism (rs = .09, p < .05) and sensitivity (rs = .08, p < .05) showed positive correlations. predicting satisfaction, the broad ips domain achievement behavior (rs = .18, p < .05) as well as the big five factor emotional stability (rs = .17, p < .05) were correlated; on the narrow level, only career commitment (rs = .22, p < .01) was correlated with academic achievement. to examine the predictive validity, we calculated a structural equation model (sem) for each criterionii. conscientiousness (β = .26) and sensitivity (β = .17) could explain 9% of variance in academic achievement (χ2[11] = 31.21, p = .02; cfi = .98, rmsea = .027, srmr = .020). for satisfaction (r2 = 4%; χ2[6] = 11.45, p = .08; cfi = .96, rmsea = .029, srmr = .056), only career commitment (β = .22) was a signifiant predictor. discussion it could be shown that the broad big five traits and the narrow ips traits share variance and are able to predict each other at varying degrees. therefore, the question of whether both questionnaires should be used in a (teacher) student selection assessment can clearly be answered with a “no” for economic reasons. however, both questionnaires have their own advantages and provide unique contributions to the prediction of study satisfaction and academic achievement. arguing the case for the big five the big five predict two of the three ips domains well the regression analyses showed that the big five (mainly extraversion) accounted for 60% of the variance in social and communicative behavior. in particular, the ips facets activity and assertiveness can be predicted to a large extent by the broad trait extraversion (.60 ≤ β ≤ 61). consistent with our hypotheses, achievement behavior was associated with emotional stability and conscientiousness. about 50% of the variance in achievement behavior could be explained by the big five, particularly by emotional stability and conscientiousness. the amount of prediction was similarly high for all facets of achievement behavior (.22 ≤ r2 ≤ .34). only health and recreation behavior was predicted worse by the big five (37%). by contrast, the ips scales do not predict the big five very well. variance in openness and agreeableness could only be explained poorly by the ips domains (.15 ≤ r2 ≤ .21). however, when using the ips facets, agreeableness could be predicted much better (r2 = .42). especially the facet confrontation accounted for a considerable amount of variance (β = -.37). regarding openness, the amount of explained variance only increased marginally when considering the ips facets (r2 = .19). koschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 689 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ arguing the case for the ips the ips is able to predict important aspects of the big five approximately half of the big five trait extraversion’s variance could be explained by the ips domains (mainly by social and communicative behavior). on the ips facet level, assertiveness was the best predictor of extraversion (β = .38). approximately one third of variance in emotional stability and conscientiousness each could be explained by the ips domains. for emotional stability, social and communicative behavior (with the facet sensitivity) as well as achievement behavior (with the facet self-confidence) were predictive. conscientiousness could be predicted by all three ips domains, but on the facet level, only confrontation and commitment reached considerably high betas. however, one ips domain could not sufficiently be explained by the big five. the domain health and recreation behavior was predicted worst by the big five; only 37% of its variance could be explained. counterintuitively, it was marginally associated with emotional stability but instead higher with conscientiousness and extraversion. on the facet level, not every facet of the ips could sufficiently be covered by the big five: for example, only 20% of variance in the facet efficacy in leadership role – undoubtedly a key characteristic in a teacher (little & akin-little, 2008) – could be explained. validity regarding academic achievement, only the broad big five traits conscientiousness and openness showed substantial correlations; the correlations of the narrow traits, however, were negligible. explaining achievement using sem, only conscientiousness remained a significant predictor. these results support the use of the big five. additionally, the well-established big five provide an economically efficient assessment of personality traits that are relevant for multiple areas of behavior (paunonen & ashton, 2001). with respect to academic satisfaction, the broad traits emotional stability and achievement behavior as well as the narrow ips trait career commitment were significantly correlated. sem results indicated a predictive advantage of narrow traits: only career commitment could explain variance in satisfaction, which argues in favor of including narrow traits. the ips offers another advantage: it does not only assess general behavior tendencies but also takes the situational context into account. a benefit of situation-specific tests is the social validity and acceptance by testees. for example, media may argue whether young people applying for teacher education should uncover their attitudes about seemingly job-irrelevant issues as they are usually assessed in broad big five questionnaires. in this context, including a construct such as social and communicative behavior as a proxy for the daily life of a teacher could be accepted better because of higher face validity. questionnaires with higher face validity also lead to less faking and have been shown to be better predictors of later long-term achievements (holden & jackson, 1979; lievens, peeters, & schollaert, 2008). interpreting the criterion validity results, we need to consider that the amount of variance explained by personality predictors was generally low regarding the criterion satisfaction (only 4%). limitations apart from these promising results, we need to mention some limitations of our study. although the main sample was large, the follow-up sample for examining academic satisfaction was smaller than expected. the response rate for the questionnaire was approximately 27%. for future studies, we might prefer testing in regular college lessons with required presence to increase the follow-up sample. this would not only lead to a larger personality and teacher student selection 690 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sample but also to a better representation of those who are not as satisfied with their studies. it would also involve people who typically do not engage in online surveys. this might enhance the generalizability of the results. one part of our data was gathered in the actual admission exam. even though field studies offer important advantages over laboratory studies, we need to pay attention to one disadvantage: the possible effect of socially desired response behavior in the admission procedure could lead to higher correlations and overlaps. based on krammer and pflanzl (2015), who examined the effects of three different instructions (honest instruction, instruction to reproduce the faking of the admission exam and “faking-good”-instruction) on the answer behavior, our future studies could examine how social desirability influences the overlap of personality constructs. academic performance was already examined after the fourth semester. this allows a first estimation of the relationship between personality and academic achievement. however, the performance should be evaluated again in the future. furthermore, other criteria of academic and job performance should be investigated, including practical grades, classroom management and pedagogical knowledge. for the evaluation of the admission exam, we also need to examine the relationship with actual job performance and real-life dropout. follow-ups in the sixth semester as well as after one year in the teaching profession are planned. finally, potential mediators of the relationship between personality and academic success should be included. models on student dropout (tinto, 1975) and teacher job achievement (helmke, 2006; mayr, 2012) argue that the influence of personality on later achievement is mediated by factors such as the use of learning environments, motives and self-efficacy. conclusions the bfi-42 is a broad and comprehensive personality assessment, the ips a narrower but more fine-grained assessment. the big five offer a broad picture of an individual’s personality as a whole. the ips, by contrast, focuses on more specific aspects, namely on the manifestation of certain personality traits in different situations. the comparison of the different regression analyses – the ips regressed on the big five and vice versa – showed inconsistent results. the ips domains could be predicted better by the big five than the big five by the ips domains. on the facet level, we found contrary results: the ips facets could be explained worse by the big five than vice versa. however, most of the facets are only predictive of one or two big five traits and to a relatively low extent. this supports the assumption that aggregation is accompanied by a loss of specific variance (paunonen, 1998). in addition, the prediction of the global big five traits by 15 narrow ips facets does not seem very economic. apart from globally comparing the two personality tests, specific domains and facets can be related. social and communicative behavior shared a large amount of variance with extraversion as well as achievement behavior with conscientiousness and emotional stability. when comparing the variance overlaps of these constructs, we found that the big five factors could be predicted to a larger extent by the ips facets than vice versa. that means that we face a greater loss of information if the narrow traits are omitted in favor of the broad traits. however, the opposite is true when comparing the big five factors with the ips domains: here, the big five can account for more variability in the ips domains than vice versa. koschmieder, weissenbacher, pretsch, & neubauer 691 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, there is one important exception to this rule: the domain health and recreation behavior could not be adequately covered by the big five. however, especially this domain seems to be of high importance in professions that are particularly prone to burnout and related health problems, as it is the case with teachers (albisser, kirchhoff, & albisser, 2009). in addition, there is evidence for a relationship between health and recreation behavior and teaching achievement already in college (krammer et al., 2016). our study offers some evidence which of these narrow traits (e.g. career commitment) might be relevant for predicting academic achievement and satisfaction in teacher studies. further studies using our data to also assess later teacher success and satisfaction are planned. our findings can be seen as support for the concept of the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma: broad predictors should be used for a complex and diverse occupational profile but also complemented with narrower traits (here: a construct comparable to the domain health and recreation behavior) when testing for very specific criteria, for example, job-satisfaction or burnout-risk, in a specific field, such as teacher student admission tests. notes i) the admission exam consists of seven psychological tests. since this work only aims to analyze personality traits, information about the other tests will be omitted but can be obtained from neubauer et al. (2017) or the authors. ii) due to high multicollinearity between specific predictors (e.g. extraversion and social-communicative behavior), only predictors that were significantly related to the criterion were used for the sem. funding this work was supported by the hrsm fund from the austrian federal ministry of science, research and economy as part of the project – pädagoginnenbildung neu – development and implementation of a common selection procedure for teacher students. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references albisser, s., kirchhoff, e., & albisser, e. 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(1975). dropout from higher education: a theoretical synthesis of recent research. review of educational research, 45(1), 89-125. doi:10.3102/00346543045001089 about the authors corinna koschmieder is a ph.d. student of personality at the university of graz, austria. she has been engaged in a project for developing and implementing a common selection procedure for teacher education. barbara weissenbacher is a ph.d. student of personality at the university of graz, austria. she has been engaged in a project for assessing personality in career counselling. jürgen pretsch is a ph.d. student at the university of graz, austria. he has been engaged in a project for developing and implementing a common selection procedure for teacher students. aljoscha c. neubauer is a professor of differential psychology at the university of graz, austria. the main focus of his research is on human aptitude and all its facets (intelligence, creativity, social and emotional competences, practical intelligence) and neurophysiological bases. additional research topics are related to applied human resources psychology: personnel selection and development as well as leadership research. personality and teacher student selection 694 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 680–694 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1536 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.2.538 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.3.524 https://doi.org/10.1024//0170-1789.20.3.172 https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543045001089 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality and teacher student selection (introduction) teacher student selection the impact of personality on teachers’ academic and job success using broad and narrow traits in a selection procedure the present study: comparing broad and narrow traits research questions method sample measures procedure results relations between broad and narrow personality traits shared variance of the personality inventories criterion validity discussion arguing the case for the big five arguing the case for the ips validity limitations conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors associations between materialism, gratitude, and well-being in children of overseas filipino workers research reports associations between materialism, gratitude, and well-being in children of overseas filipino workers allan b. i. bernardo* a, roseann tan-mansukhani b, mary angeline a. daganzo a [a] department of psychology, university of macau, taipa, macau. [b] psychology department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. abstract children left behind by parents who are overseas filipino workers (ofw) benefit from parental migration because their financial status improves. however, ofw families might emphasize the economic benefits to compensate for their separation, which might lead to materialism among children left behind. previous research indicates that materialism is associated with lower well-being. the theory is that materialism focuses attention on comparing one’s possessions to others, making one constantly dissatisfied and wanting more. research also suggests that gratitude mediates this link, with the focus on acquiring more possessions that make one less grateful for current possessions. this study explores the links between materialism, gratitude, and well-being among 129 adolescent children of ofws. the participants completed measures of materialism, gratitude, and well-being (life satisfaction, self-esteem, positive and negative affect). results showed that gratitude mediated the negative relationship between materialism and well-being (and its positive relationship with negative affect). children of ofws who have strong materialist orientation seek well-being from possessions they do not have and might find it difficult to be grateful of their situation, contributing to lower well-being. the findings provide further evidence for the mediated relationship between materialism and well-being in a population that has not been previously studied in the related literature. the findings also point to two possible targets for psychosocial interventions for families and children of ofws. keywords: overseas filipino workers, materialism, gratitude, well-being, life satisfaction, self-esteem, children of migrants europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 received: 2017-11-06. accepted: 2018-03-13. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; flavia cangia, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: e21-3060 humanities and social sciences building, university of macau, avenida da universidade, taipa, macau. phone number: +853-88228394. e-mail: allanbibernardo@umac.mo this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recent official statistics of the philippine government estimate that there are over 2.2 million filipinos working overseas as temporary migrant workers, most of whom are deployed in countries in the middle east, asia, and europe (philippine statistics authority, 2017). many of these overseas filipino workers (henceforth, ofws) are also parents, with one estimate indicating that in about 45% of families with ofw members, the ofw is one or both of the parents in that family (edillon, 2008). there are no reliable data on the number of children left behind by these ofw parents, with estimates ranging from 3 to 6 million (bryant, 2005) to 9 million (parreñas, 2005). but the most conservative estimates suggest that around 10% of filipino children have at least one parent who is an ofw (bryant, 2005). for these children, there are material and economic benefits of their parents’ migration such as better education opportunities, access to leisure and recreation, and increase in material possessions (aguilar, peñalosa, liwanag, cruz, & melendrez, 2009; ecmi/aos, 2004; yang, 2008). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ but these material benefits might have some negative consequences as some studies assert that children of ofws tend to view the “money equivalent” of labor migration (reyes, 2008) and associate their parents with monetary benefits to compensate for their absence (melgar & borromeo, 2002). this view might lead to a materialistic orientation where the children are satisfied as long as the money from overseas parents comes regularly (reyes, 2008; scalabrini migration center, 2004). on the subject of materialism, previous research and theory have found a negative relation between materialism and various indicators of well-being (kashdan & breen, 2007; kasser & ahuvia, 2002) and that this relationship might be mediated by lower gratitude (froh, bono, & emmons, 2010; polak & mccullough, 2006). these studies are discussed in more detail later in the introduction, as the current study looks into the relationships between materialism, gratitude and well-being in children of ofws. but first we briefly review some research on the well-being of filipino children who are left behind by their ofw parents. well-being of children of ofws the rise in the number of ofw parents has created many transnational families, where one or both parents reside in another country separate from their children. these ofw parents still try to do some “transnational parenting” while abroad, using various strategies and forms of communication technology to maintain emotional ties with their children (parreñas, 2001). some psychology studies have looked into the well-being of the children left behind by the ofws in terms of their physical and mental health (carandang, sison, & carandang, 2007; scalabrini migration center, 2004), academic performance (asis & ruiz-marave, 2013; edillon, 2008), and risky behavior (melgar & borromeo, 2002). there are a few studies that have noted the difficulties experienced by children in families of ofw, despite attempts of their parents to maintain some form of transnational parenting. but as children of ofws experience difficulties related to adjusting with the parents who leave (asis, 2006; carandang et al., 2007), these children also have an array of coping strategies for these difficulties (asis, 2006; battistella & conaco, 1998). in terms of the children’s well-being, several studies have noted the experience of negative affect, such as feelings of loneliness and emptiness (carandang et al., 2007; melgar & borromeo, 2002), and sadness (battistella & conaco, 1998; scalabrini migration center, 2004). there are also some indications of psychological problems such as the experience of emotional distress (battistella & conaco, 1998), higher rates of dropping out of school, drug abuse, and other behavioral problems (melgar & borromeo, 2002). one potential explanation that has been proposed for the psychological problems of some children of ofws relates to the possibility that some children of ofws may view their relationship with their ofw parent primarily in financial and material terms (añonuevo & sopeña, 2002; reyes, 2008). there has been more extensive work done understanding how transnational parenting has given rise to the commodification of love as a coping strategy among ofw parents (parreñas, 2001, 2005). research suggests that ofw parents, and ofw mothers in particular, tend to cope with the emotional strains of transnational parenting by commodifying love (parreñas, 2001); they overcompensate for their absence by giving their children all the money and material goods that the children want. on the part of the children, studies have noted how some children of ofws tend to focus on the “money equivalent” of their parents’ migration (reyes, 2008) and associate their parents with monetary benefits to compensate for their absence (melgar & borromeo, 2002). other researchers have suggested that these children develop a strong consumerist and materialistic orientation, where the children are satisfied as long as the money from overseas parents comes regularly (reyes, 2008; scalabrini migration center, 2004). we note that these studies did not actually measure endorsement of materialistic values, and materialism, gratitude and well-being 582 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these proposals that this form of parent-child relationship gives rise to materialistic values in children of ofws were derived from intensive interviews of samples of children of ofws. but there are studies in other countries that show how parents’ use of material goods in parenting leads to materialism in the children (richins & chaplin, 2015). in the next section we review some studies on the negative consequences of such materialism on well-being. materialism, well-being, and gratitude materialism refers to “a strong desire for wealth and physical possessions” (kashdan & breen, 2007, p. 522) and has been known to decrease well-being (kashdan & breen, 2007; kasser & ahuvia, 2002; polak & mccullough, 2006). although much of the empirical research on the negative consequences of materialism has been done with adults, research also indicates that materialistic youth tend to have decreased well-being and mental health (kasser & ahuvia, 2002), show lower levels of psychological adjustment and social functioning (kasser & ryan, 1996), and are less socially integrated in the community (froh et al., 2010). materialism has also been consistently associated with higher levels of anxiety and unhappiness (kasser & ahuvia, 2002) and lower affective well-being (christopher, saliba, & deadmarsh, 2009). more materialistic children and adolescents also show less interest in school (goldberg, gorn, peracchio, & bamossy, 2003), have poorer motivation for learning in school (king & datu, 2017; ku, dittmar, & banerjee, 2012) and actually show poorer academic performance (king & datu, 2017; ku, dittmar, & banerjee, 2014). such negative consequences of materialism on well-being have been replicated in different cultural contexts (karabati & cemalcilar, 2010; ryan et al., 1999; stevens, constantinescu, & butucescu, 2011), including the philippines (king & datu, 2017) and other asian countries (choong, ong, & moschis, 2013; kasser & ahuvia, 2002; ku et al., 2012, 2014). why is materialism negatively associated with well-being? one typical explanation relates to the notion that the pursuit of materialistic values necessarily relates to excessive interpersonal comparison of one’s possessions relative to other persons (lyubomirsky & ross, 1997) and so one continuously feels dissatisfied with one’s wealth and status relative to other persons (ordabayeva & chandon, 2011). this continuous feeling of dissatisfaction also arises from the adaptation of the hedonic feelings relative to one’s possessions, as one will always see better things available (lyubomirsky, 2011). in this way, materialistic thinking is likely to result in negative emotions and low self-worth (kernis, brown, & brody, 2000). more importantly, materialistic values draw a person’s focus away from behaviors that satisfy basic psychological needs (e.g., relatedness, autonomy, competence), which are important sources of well-being (ryan & deci, 2000; sheldon, elliot, kim, & kasser, 2001). developmental studies suggest that materialism surges during late childhood and early adolescence, and then declines through late adolescence and most of adulthood (chaplin & roedder john, 2007), but that levels of materialism in late adolescence and early adulthood are strongly associated with levels of materialism in late adulthood (jaspers & pieters, 2016). the shifting levels of materialism during adolescence seems to be associated with the formation of identity and the sense of self (chaplin & roedder john, 2005), wherein material possessions are seen to express aspects of themselves, their enjoyment and social ties (kamptner, 1991). empirical studies show how later levels of materialism is associated with psychological needs’ satisfaction (wang, liu, jiang, & song, 2017), coping with loneliness (gentina, shrum, & lowrey, 2016), and earlier life satisfaction (ku, 2015). bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 583 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as noted earlier, the relation between materialism and lower well-being has been established across different cultural contexts, and as such it seems to be a “pan-cultural phenomenon.” however, there are specific contextual factors that seem to play a role in the development of materialism and that could also be seen as pointing to specific cultural sources of materialism. for example, for adolescents, parenting and family structure (chaplin & roedder john, 2010; roberts, manolis, & tanner, 2006), and especially having materialistic parents (kasser, ryan, zax, & sameroff, 1995) predict materialism. less advantageous socioeconomic circumstances also seem to be associated with higher levels of materialism (chaplin, hill, & roedder john, 2014; kasser et al., 1995), which also explains variations in levels of materialism across generations which face different socioeconomic conditions (twenge & kasser, 2013). adolescents also seem to be particularly influenced by marketing promotions and media exposure to consumerism values (gu, hung, & tse, 2005). many psychological processes have been proposed as mechanisms for the negative relationship between materialism and well-being. some researchers have proposed that gratitude might play a role in the negative relationship between materialism and well-being (tsang, carpenter, roberts, frisch, & carlisle, 2014). gratitude is defined as the “recognition and acknowledgement and appreciation of an altruistic act” (emmons, 2004, p. 9). it involves the understanding of the fact that one has gained a positive outcome and that an external agent is responsible for the outcome (mccullough, kilpatrick, emmons, & larson, 2001). in adult and youth samples, gratitude is consistently associated with various indices of well-being (wood, froh, & geraghty, 2010), such as life satisfaction (lavy & littman-ovadia, 2011; toepfer, cichy, & peters, 2012), positive affect (froh, kashdan, ozimkowski, & miller, 2009), decreased negative affect (froh, sefick, & emmons, 2008), decreased depression (emmons & mccullough, 2003; toepfer et al., 2012), higher self-esteem (rash, matsuba, & prkachin, 2011), among others. these positive outcomes of gratitude have also been observed with filipino adolescent samples (datu, 2014; datu & mateo, 2015; valdez, yang, & datu, 2017). materialism has been associated with lower levels of gratitude (froh et al., 2010; mccullough, emmons, & tsang, 2002; polak & mccullough, 2006). one study has shown that gratitude is one of the mediators of the negative relationship between materialism and well-being (tsang et al., 2014). the study suggests that individuals who show high materialism are seeking satisfaction in material possessions that they do not have; and because they keep comparing their possessions to other people, they constantly think about what they do not have in comparison (lyubomirsky & ross, 1997). this focus of one’s attention on what one does not have, draws away attention from what they have presently; the feeling fostered is one of continuous dissatisfaction with one’s current possessions (ordabayeva & chandon, 2011) to the detriment of feeling gratitude for what they have presently (tsang et al., 2014). this explanation might apply in the case of children of ofws who may be expecting constant material and financial gifts from their ofw parents, and who might define their life satisfaction with reference to how these material goals are met. the current study in this study, we investigate whether materialism in children of ofws also relates to lower well-being, and whether this relationship is mediated by lower levels of gratitude. note that we are not assuming that children of ofws all show high levels of materialism, and instead, we assume that materialism would be normally distributed among the children of ofws. but we hypothesize that those children of ofws who report higher levels of materialism are also likely to report lower levels of gratitude and well-being. to test this hypothesis, we look at four measures of well-being: life satisfaction, self-esteem, positive affect, and negative affect, the last being a materialism, gratitude and well-being 584 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measure of lower well-being. life satisfaction is the most frequently used measure of well-being according to a meta-analysis of studies on materialism, although its associations with materialism is not as strong as the others (dittmar, bond, hurst, & kasser, 2014). measures of positive self-appraisal or self-esteem were studied less frequently, but were found to have stronger negative relationships with materialism, perhaps because of the role of the sense-of-self in the development of materialism (chaplin & roedder john, 2005). both positive and negative affect are also frequently used as measurements of well-being in materialism research, and both measures of affective well-being having strong and consistent associations with materialism in the meta-analysis (dittmar et al., 2014). in summary, we used a general measure of subjective well-being (life satisfaction), a measure of positive self-worth (self-esteem), and two measures of affective well-being (positive and negative affect), all of which are frequently used in materialism and well-being research, and are found to have consistent associations with materialism. we summarize our hypotheses, as follows: 1. materialism will be negatively associated with life satisfaction, self-esteem and positive affect, but positively associated with negative affect; 2. materialism will be negatively associated with gratitude; 3. gratitude will be positively associated with life satisfaction, self-esteem and positive affect, but negatively associated with negative affect; and 4. gratitude will mediate each of the relationships between materialism and the four well-being measures. method participants participants were 129 undergraduates from two private universities in the philippines who reported that at least one of their parents was working abroad. their ages ranged from 18 to 20 years (m = 18.68; sd = 1.46) and most were female (75.2%). most (58%) reported that their father was working abroad, while 22% had their mother working overseas, and 20% had both parents working overseas. all participants were recruited to participate in the study through their teachers, and the invitation included information on the nature of the study, specifying that participation was voluntary, confidential, and involved no harm, and other pertinent ethics information.i only those who provided their informed consent, participated in the questionnaire. participants did not receive payment or get class credit for participating. instruments all the psychological scales used in the study are typically used in similar studies. the measures and scores for measuring materialism and gratitude are the most commonly used in related studies, and all measures of wellbeing are also among the most commonly used scales in psychology of well-being research. aspiration index to measure the participants’ materialism, the 22-item aspiration index (kasser & ryan, 1996) was used to measure intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations; intrinsic aspirations are goals congruent with basic psychological bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 585 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ needs (e.g., self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling) and extrinsic aspirations concern obtaining some material or social rewards (e.g., financial success) that are usually means to some other end. the scale items described different goals that a person may aspire to, and the participants were asked to rate how important each of these was for them using a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very important). for intrinsic aspirations (sample item: “you will have good friends that you can count on”), cronbach α = .87, and for extrinsic aspirations (sample item: “you will buy things just because you want them”), cronbach α = .68. materialism was measured by computing the difference between the mean score for the extrinsic and intrinsic aspirations. the actual scores ranged from -2.17 to 2.40, with a higher score indicating greater materialism. gratitude questionnaire–6 (gq-6) the shortest version of the gratitude scale developed by mccullough et al. (2002) was used. for each of the six items (e.g., “if i had to list everything that i felt grateful for, it would be a very long list.”) participants responded using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). the scale had adequate internal consistency for the current sample (cronbach α = .66); although α is below conventional criterion, the scale was still used because previous studies using the scale with similar filipino samples have shown acceptable internal consistency (e.g., datu, 2014). satisfaction with life scale (swls) the swls (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) was used to assess general well-being. the scale had five items (e.g., “the conditions of my life are excellent”) to which the participants indicated their agreement using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). the scale had good internal consistency for the current sample (α = .83). self-esteem scale rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item scale (e.g., “i take a positive attitude towards myself”) was used. participants indicated their agreement using a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). the scale had good internal consistency for the current sample (α = .85). positive and negative affect schedule (panas) the scale (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) consisted of 20 words that referred to 10 positive (e.g., excited, attentive) and 10 negative (e.g., hostile, ashamed) emotions. participants reported the extent of how they felt each emotion in the past week using a scale from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). both scales had good internal consistency for the current sample (positive affect, α = .88; negative affect, α = .88). results the descriptive statistics for all variables are presented in table 1. the correlations all support the first three hypotheses. in particular, materialism was negatively associated with gratitude and well-being (but positively with negative affect), while gratitude was positively associated with well-being (but negatively with negative affect). materialism, gratitude and well-being 586 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for all main variables variable m sd correlations (r) 2 3 4 5 6 1. materialism -0.05 0.71 -.32** -.20* -.19* -.32** .20* 2. gratitude 5.87 0.74 – .27** .43** .32** -.30** 3. life satisfaction 5.29 1.02 – .57** .50** -.18* 4. self-esteem 3.01 0.51 – .55** -.41** 5. positive affect 3.94 0.69 – -.15 6. negative affect 2.71 0.76 – *p < .05. **p < .01. prior to the mediation analyses, we conducted test of tolerance and variance inflation factor (vif) to ensure that there was no multicollinearity (i.e., high correlations between two or more of the variables) in the hypothesized mediation models. all tolerance scores were from .88 to .99 and all vifs were from 1.01 to 1.14, thus ensuring no multicollinearity. to test each hypothesized mediated relationship between materialism and each of the four measures of wellbeing we used the process macro for spss, which is a computational tool for conducting mediation and conditional process analysis with observed variables (hayes, 2013). to estimate the parameters of each equation in the path analysis of the mediated model, process uses ordinary least squares regression. unlike in the classical regression framework for mediation (baron & kenny, 1986; hayes, 2009), each equation is estimated separately, which means that the estimation of the regression parameters in one equation does not have any effect on the estimation of the parameters in any of the other equations defining the model. similar to sem, process produces estimates of the indirect effect (which is not estimated in the classic regression framework of baron & kenny, 1986), and does not require separate tests (e.g., sobel or aroian tests) to assess the significance of the mediation effect. but unlike sem, which requires normal sampling distributions and large sample sizes, process can be used with smaller sample sizes that may have irregular sampling distributions because the estimates of the indirect effects are based on bootstrapping methods (hayes, 2013; hayes, montoya, & rockwood, 2017). as bootstrap confidence intervals consider the irregularity of the sampling distribution, the inferences are more likely to be accurate and the test of a hypothesis has higher power compared to when normal theory approach is used (hayes, 2013), like when doing sem. separate process mediation analyses were conducted to test the indirect effect of materialism on life satisfaction, self-esteem, positive affect and negative affect with gratitude as mediator. the results of the process analyses are summarized in figures 1 to 4, which show the path coefficients and their respective 95% biascorrected confidence intervals. bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 587 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. materialism indirectly predicts life satisfaction through its relationship with gratitude, b = -.08, se = .05, 95% ci [-.22, -.02]. unstandardized coefficients shown with standard error in parentheses. **p < .01. figure 2. materialism indirectly predicts self esteem through its relationship with gratitude, b = -.06, se = .03, 95% ci [-.14, -.02]. unstandardized coefficients shown with standard error in parentheses. **p < .01. figure 3. materialism indirectly predicts positive affect through its relationship with gratitude, b = -.05, se = .03, 95% ci [-.13, -.01]. unstandardized coefficients shown with standard error in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. the direct effect of materialism on life satisfaction, self-esteem, and negative affect were not significant, as shown in figures 1, 2 and 4. but as shown in figure 3, there was a significant direct (negative) effect of materialism on positive affect. but the indirect effects as indicated in the bootstrap confidence intervals in all four figures were all significant, indicating a mediated relationship between materialism and each of the four measures of well-being. thus, even if the direct effect was significant in figure 3, the hypothesized mediated relationship between materialism and well-being, with gratitude as mediator was supported in all four measures of well-being. materialism, gratitude and well-being 588 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. materialism indirectly predicts negative affect through its relationship with gratitude, b = .06, se = .04, 95% ci [.01, .16]. unstandardized coefficients shown with standard error in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion the study aimed to investigate the relationship between materialism and well-being and the mediating role of gratitude in this relationship, in the case of children of ofws. consistent with much of the previous literature (kashdan & breen, 2007; kasser & ahuvia, 2002), we found support for our first hypothesis, and found that materialism was negatively correlated with the children’s well-being (and positively correlated with lower wellbeing, i.e., negative affect). the path analysis, however, showed that in three measures of well-being the direct relationship between materialism and well-being was not significant, which indicates that the hypothesized first relationship needs to be clarified to state that the negative relationship between materialism and well-being may be an indirect or mediated relationship. this clarification is expressed in the other hypotheses, which are supported by the correlations and path analyses; that is, materialism was negatively associated with gratitude, and gratitude was positively associated with well-being. most important and consistent with earlier proposals (froh et al., 2010; polak & mccullough, 2006), gratitude mediated each of the relationships between materialism and well-being. in earlier studies, tsang et al. (2014) suggest that people with high levels of materialism look for happiness and satisfaction from the material possessions they do not have, which “impairs the ability to be grateful for what one has now” (p. 63). indeed, materialists do tend to compare their material possessions to those that other people have, making them always think of what they do not have compared to others (lyubomirsky & ross, 1997) making them dissatisfied with whatever materials possessions they might already have (ordabayeva & chandon, 2011), thus enfeebling whatever feelings of gratitude one might have for the current possessions (tsang et al., 2014). our results suggest that these theoretical principles might also apply to children of ofws. note that the mean materialism score was slightly below zero, which suggests that on the average the children of ofws in our sample are not high in materialism, contradicting what has been proposed by some other researchers (e.g., reyes, 2008) who suggest that children of ofws might develop strong consumerist and materialist orientations. instead, what we see is a range in the materialism scores, and applying the principles discussed earlier, it seems that those children of ofws who are high in materialism seem to be less inclined to be grateful of their current situation, indirectly contributing to their lower well-being. this pattern is consistent with results of tsang et al. (2014), and extends their findings to a new type of sample (children of ofws) and to a wider range of measures of well-being. bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 589 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we did not hypothesize any differences in the relationships between the various measures of well-being and materialism, but it seems that the direct negative relationship of well-being is on the positive affect experienced by the children of ofws, which is not observed with the three other well-being measures. this result is consistent with a meta-analysis of research on materialism (dittmar et al., 2014), which indicated the strongest relationships between materialism and positive affect compared to all other positive well-being measures (including self-worth and life satisfaction). the association between gratitude and well-being seemed to be stronger with the more specific affect and self-esteem measures and weakest with life satisfaction, which is the most general measure of subjective well-being (i.e., sources of life satisfaction may vary considerably across individuals). we should underscore that the negative relationship between materialism and well-being and the mediating role of gratitude in this relationship is not unique or specific to the population of children of ofws, and is actually observed in other samples (tsang et al., 2014). other researchers have suggested that the negative effect of materialism on well-being can be explained in terms of how materialism might lead to the deprioritizing of other basic psychological needs (i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence) that are most important in experiencing well-being (kasser, 2016; kasser & ryan, 1996). moreover, the pursuit of materialist goals makes it more difficult to be grateful for their current possessions and other psychological needs, as these may be perceived as being in conflict with their material pursuits (burroughs & rindfleisch, 2002; tsang et al., 2014). but the negative relationship between materialism and well-being, and especially the mediating role of gratitude may have different nuances of meaning if we concretize this in the family experiences of children of ofws. popular media and social discourses about ofws in the philippines typically cast the ofw as heroes of the nation, who sacrifice their own well-being and endure separation from their families to contribute to the nation’s economy (encinas-franco, 2013; rodriguez, 2002), but children of ofws may construe their ofw parents’ actions in different ways. some children view their ofw parent’s migration as a means of helping their family improve their financial condition, while others see it as abandonment (battistella & conaco, 1998; reyes, 2008) even as they may be receiving the material benefits of their parent’s work overseas. the results of the study suggest that children of ofws who hold more materialistic values may be less likely to appreciate and experience gratitude in relation to their ofw parents’ migration. interestingly, research has shown how ofw mothers, in particular, give their children whatever material possessions they request as a way of overcompensating for their absence (parreñas, 2001, 2005); in a sense, satisfying the material needs, but not the relational needs. it might be tempting to assume that this commodification of love may contribute to materialism in some of their children. however, the results of the study cannot address that assumption, even as there is research which indicates that parenting plays a very important role in shaping materialism in children (flouri, 2004; goldberg et al., 2003). future research should explore further whether and how transnational parenting relates to ofw children’s materialism. further research should also investigate the role of the parents and guardians of the children, as well as other factors that may contribute to the development of materialism in individuals. related to the last point, we earlier noted that on the average, the children of ofws in our sample did not report high levels of materialism. but we underscore that our study involved a small sample, which is not representative of the growing population of such children in the philippines, and thus, not representative of the range of transnational parenting experiences and expectations of this population. there are several sociological studies that point to the use of materialism in some ofws transnational parenting (parreñas, 2001, 2005) and to how children perceive their relationships with their parents in financial terms (melgar & borromeo, 2002; scalabrini migration center, 2004), which has led some others to suggest that children of ofws might develop materialism, gratitude and well-being 590 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stronger materialist orientations (reyes, 2008). further research is needed with regard to the link between parenting practices, children’s experiences and expectations of their parents, and materialism in order to further explore this claim, particularly as our results point to materialisms’ negative relationship with the children’s wellbeing. previous research on children left behind by labor migration focused on the psychosocial consequences on well-being, and economic benefits of remittances, and only a few studies have emphasized the inner resources of children to deal with the challenges faced by ofw families (e.g., asis, 2006). research among other youth populations have suggested that character strengths like gratitude offer a means for fostering positive youth development (froh, miller, & snyder, 2007; froh et al., 2009). as such, it may be important to focus on the development of gratitude in children of ofws, particularly as one study has suggested that filipino youth may prioritize value types associated with materialism (i.e., power and stimulation) to a higher degree compared to “pancultural” norms (bernardo, clemente, & liem, 2014). while traditional filipino child-rearing practices placed the responsibility of values formation of children squarely on the shoulders of parents, the non-traditional ofw family structure has shifted the responsibility of care, and by extension, the socialization of values, on parent surrogates, whether members of the family or the community. programs or activities for enhancing gratitude among the youth may be conducted in schools (froh et al., 2007), particularly those that focus on the development of socially oriented gratitude (caleon et al., 2017). in this regard, there have been attempts to develop interventions programs that seek to provide information, assistance, and support for families of ofws. most of these programs take the form of psycho-educational and psychosocial support activities that target the children, and also the spouse and other family members of the ofw. although there has been no systematic or comprehensive documentation of such programs, those programs that have a psychosocial focus on children seem to focus on facilitating communication, values formation, and coping skills to help address the negative affect they experience (tarroja & fernando, 2013). tarroja and fernando (2013) noted that some schools provided psychological counseling programs for children of ofws but observed that these interventions are not programmatic; and there has been no explicit articulation of the potential problems associated with changes in the financial status of the children and their families, even as there is some suggestion that some children of ofws may view their relationship with their ofw parent primarily in financial and/or material terms (añonuevo & sopeña, 2002; reyes, 2008). the current findings suggest that psychological programs conducted for children of ofws may be correctly focusing on values formation, even as these programs actually aim to address adjustment and interpersonal difficulties in the ofw family (tarroja & fernando, 2013). the results indicate that some values that contribute to the well-being of ofw children may actually be diminished in the experience of ofw children who are more materialistic. thus, it may be worth considering helping children of ofws to develop stronger values related to gratitude, but also to nurture those value orientations that are the opposite of materialism, such as valuing competence, relationships, and contributing to society, which are already distinct value types in adolescence (liem, martin, nair, bernardo, & prasetya, 2011). we should note that although the mediated model seems to suggest some causal ordering of the key variables, our results are primarily correlations based on cross-sectional self-report data. future research should try to establish a clearer basis for understanding how these values relate to well-being, as these might provide better guides for psychological programs intended to improve and sustain the well-being of children of ofws. we also acknowledge that the children of ofws that we studied are older adolescents and young adults living in an bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 591 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://www.psychopen.eu/ environment that provides exposure to consumerist attitudes, and so the relationships we describe among the variables are likely to have been shaped by many other processes outside the ofw family structure. moreover, as noted in the introduction, materialism is higher among older children and younger adolescents (chaplin & roedder john, 2007), compared to older adolescents who comprise the current study sample. there might be developmental differences associated with materialism among younger and older children of ofws. and it would be interesting to understand whether younger children of ofws show the same or possibly stronger negative effects of materialism, and how materialism and well-being may change across the life of these children. notes i) all aspects of the research methodology (including recruitment of participants, research materials, among others) were reviewed and approved by the university research ethics committee. funding this research was supported by a grant from the research development and administration office of the university of macau (project reference no.: srg014-fsh13-abib). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of jose ma. diestro in data collection, and katrina fernandoresurreccion with data encoding. references aguilar, f. v., peñalosa, j. e. z., liwanag, t. b. t., cruz, r. s., & melendrez, j. m. 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(2008). international migration, remittances and household investment: evidence from philippine migrants’ exchange rate shocks. economic journal, 118(528), 591-630. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02134.x bernardo, tan-mansukhani, & daganzo 597 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672992510007 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.68 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.325 https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2011.565344 https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034312453399 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-011-9257-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.02.009 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213484586 https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2017.51 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.014 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.03.005 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02134.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors allan b. i. bernardo is professor of psychology at the faculty of social sciences, university of macau. his current research interests relate to the relational aspects of well-being in collectivist societies, the role of lay beliefs and values in intergroup relations, and social cognitions related to socioeconomic differences, inequality, and social mobility. roseann tan-mansukhani is associate professor at the department of psychology of de la salle university, philippines. her current research interest concerns the study of mental health literacy of filipino adolescents. she has previously done research on wisdom and spirituality. mary angeline a. daganzo is a phd candidate at the department of psychology, faculty of social sciences, university of macau. her current research focuses on the role of socio-economic factors in adolescent development, and she has also collaborated in research projects related to parenting, well-being of migrant workers, and political attitudes. materialism, gratitude and well-being 598 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 581–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1555 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ materialism, gratitude and well-being (introduction) well-being of children of ofws materialism, well-being, and gratitude the current study method participants instruments results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors emotional intelligence and self-perception in adolescents research reports emotional intelligence and self-perception in adolescents alejandra daniela calero* a, juan pablo barreyro a, irene injoque-ricle a [a] consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas (conicet), facultad de psicología, universidad de buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. abstract emotional intelligence includes self-perception regarding attention to feelings, clarity of feelings and mood repair. the aim of this work is to study the relationship between emotional intelligence, self-concept, and self-esteem. the sample included 137 adolescents from buenos aires city, that attended middle school, with a mean age of 13.12 years old (sd = 1.79). correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were performed. results showed significant positive correlations between self-esteem and clarity of feelings on the complete sample and the female subsample, and between mood repair and self-esteem on the male subsample. the linear regression analyses showed results on the same line. it´s concluded that positive self-evaluation regarding emotions, emotion comprehension and recovery can minimize the effect of negative experiences. keywords: emotional intelligence, self-concept, self-esteem, adolescence europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 received: 2017-08-02. accepted: 2018-04-09. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, institute of psychology, university of wroclaw, wrocław, poland *corresponding author at: instituto de investigaciones, facultad de psicología universidad de buenos aires (uba), gral. juan lavalle 2353, c1052aaa, caba, argentinia. e-mail: acalero@psi.uba.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the term emotional intelligence was coined by salovey and mayer (1990). is the ability to perceive, understand and control our emotions and those of others, and use them to guide our thoughts and emotions so that it is beneficial to the individual and the environment to which he or she belongs. salovey and mayer argue that it is a genuine intelligence based on the adaptive use of emotions and their application in our behaviors (fernández-berrocal & extremera, 2008; mayer, caruso, & salovey, 1999). according to salovey and mayer (1990), perceived emotional intelligence has aspects: attention to feelings, clarity of feelings and mood repair. these aspects explain the individual differences in the way people deal with emotions. attention to feelings refers to how people consider their emotions; clarity of feelings is how people think they understand and discriminate their feelings; and finally, mood repair is the subject's belief that he/she can modify his/her negative moods. the model of emotional intelligence by salovey and mayer (1990) allows to investigate the meta-knowledge of emotional states and, above all, how these abilities can affect other areas of a person (extremera & fernández berrocal, 2005). many of the studies based on salovey and mayer’s model found that emotional intelligence is europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ an important construct for the development of different cognitive, physical, and social skills (extremera, durán, & rey, 2009; extremera, salguero, & fernández-berrocal, 2011; jiménez & lópez-zafra, 2008; lopes, salovey, & straus, 2003; martinez-pons, 1997; martins, ramalho, & morin, 2010; mayer, dipaolo, & salovey, 1990; salovey, mayer, & caruso, 2002; salovey, stroud, woolery, & epel, 2002). in adolescence, several studies found a relationship between perceived emotional intelligence and psychological adjustment (jiménez & lópez-zafra, 2011; salguero, fernández-berrocal, ruiz-aranda, castillo, & palomera, 2011; salguero, palomera, & fernández-berrocal, 2012). furthermore, palomera, salguero, and fernández-berrocal (2011) found associations between high clarity of feelings and high mood repair with low levels of depression, anxiety and school maladjustment. also, fernández berrocal and ramos díaz (1999) argue that the belief in being able to prolong positive moods and interrupt negative ones ensures a good level of mental health. moreover, palomera et al. (2011) observed a correlation between high attention to feelings with high levels of depression, when levels of clarity of feelings and mood repair are low. at the same time, jiménez and lópez-zafra (2011) found that perceived emotional intelligence correlates positively with prosocial attitudes related to social competence, such as leadership, cooperation, and social sensitivity. furthermore, otero martínez et al. (2009) found moderate significant correlations between perceived emotional intelligence and academic achievement. in relation to the differences in emotional intelligence between genders, studies show that a tendency of higher levels of emotional attention in women (fernández berrocal & ramos díaz, 1999; lasa, salguero, fernández berrocal, & aritzeta, 2010; sánchez núñez, fernández berrocal, montañés rodríguez, & latorre postigo, 2008). self-concept and self-esteem are considered one of the most important variables of personal well-being (garcía pérez, musitu ochoa, & veiga, 2006). harter (1988) defines self-esteem as the general level of selfevaluation. it is a general judgment of self-worth. harter also defines self-concept as the evaluative judgment of the self, circumscribed to specific domains of life as being: physical appearance, intimate friendship, social acceptance, good behavior, school competition, job competence, and sports competition (harter, 1988). self-esteem is a supraordinal construct, of an order of abstraction superior to self-esteem (harter, 1999). in fact, the assessment that a person makes of him/herself in the different domains of self-concept, and the importance that he/she attributes to these domains, influence self-esteem. moreover, the overall judgment is determined by the degree of importance that the individual gives to success in each specific domain (harter, 1986). although in childhood the descriptions of the self are concrete, in adolescence reaches a more abstract level, where there is an increase in the number of domains of the self-concept (harter, 1983). this increase is due to cognitive development and to interactions with a greater number of contexts, that allows children to gradually recognize that their attributes and behaviors vary from one context to another (calero & molina, 2016). coleman and hendry (2003) found that in adolescents these variables are linked to the psychological adjustment that the adolescent shows. on the other hand, oliva delgado et al. (2010) consider them as central aspects for a positive development during adolescence. regarding gender differences in self-concept and self-esteem in adolescence, harter (1999) reported differences in physical appearance and sports competition in favor of males. for their part, pastor, balaguer, and garcía-merita (2003) found differences in academic competence and global self-esteem in favor of males, with women reporting higher levels of intimate friendship. calero, barreyro, & injoque-ricle 633 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ different studies found positive relationships between emotional intelligence and self-esteem (cabello, fernández-berrocal, ruiz aranda, & extremera, 2006; salovey, stroud, et al., 2002; schutte, malouff, simunek, mckenley, & hollander, 2002). additionally, matalinares calvet et al. (2005) reported positive relationships between emotional intelligence and self-concept. the aim of the present study is to study the relationship between emotional intelligence with self-concept and self-esteem in adolescents. on the other hand, it is sought to explore if any of the aspects of emotional intelligence has a predictive effect on global self-worth, that is, self-esteem. in addition, it is proposed to explore if there are differences in the relationship of emotional intelligence and self-esteem in both genders. method participants the sample consisted of 399 adolescents (263 women -69.9%and 136 males -34.1%-), with a mean age of 15.16 years (sd = 1.79), attending a high school in buenos aires city, argentina. the subjects participated with the informed consent of their parents and were assured anonymity of the participation and the confidentiality of the information. procedure the administration of the instruments was done in a single session during class hours. all the instruments were delivered in closed envelope and once the instruments were completed, returned to the evaluators also in a sealed envelope. teachers or staff of the educational institution were prevented from attending during the administration. materials trait meta-mood scale trait meta-mood scale (calero, 2013) assesses the perceived emotional intelligence through three dimensions: attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, and mood repair. the scale incudes 21 items (seven of each dimension), with five response options (from "totally agree" to "totally disagree"). a score of each of the components of perceived emotional intelligence is obtained from the sum of each item responses. higher scores reflect higher rates of perceived emotional intelligence. the scale shows adequate reliability indexes by internal consistency (cronbach's alpha): .81 (attention to feelings), .86 (clarity of feelings), and .85 (mood repair). likewise, adequate indicators of validity were found (see calero, 2013). self-perception profile for adolescents self-perception profile for adolescents (sppa, harter, 1988; adaptation: facio et al., 2006) is a scale that evaluates global self-esteem and self-concept across different specific domains. it consists of eight subscales of five items each (physical appearance, romantic appeal, close friendship, social competence, behavioral conduct, scholastic competence, athletic competence, and global self-worth or self-esteem). physical appearance assesses to what extent the adolescent is satisfied with his or her appearance; romantic appeal assesses the emotional intelligence during adolescence 634 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ extent to which the adolescent is considered attractive to people with whom he would be interested in having a love relationship; close friendship assesses the perception of your ability to make close friends; social competence evaluates to what extent the adolescent feels accepted by his peers; behavioral conduct assesses to what extent you are satisfied with your behavior, you believe you are doing the right thing and you avoid getting into trouble; scholastic competence evaluates how adolescents perceive their academic ability; athletic competence evaluates how the adolescent perceives his ability in sports; job competence, evaluates how the adolescent perceives himself in his ability to carry out a job; and global self-worth assesses the extent to which the adolescent likes his or her person, is happy with how he/she lives and how he/she is. it is a global value judgment. in each item, there are two contrary statements and the adolescent must choose one and then establish the degree of agreement with the chosen option. the scores of the items are summed and a score is obtained in each domain evaluated, the higher scores reflect a better self-perception. given the sample characteristics, the job competence domain was not administered. the instrument has adequate indicators of validity. cronbach's alpha was physical appearance .88, romantic appeal .74, close friendship .74, social competence .71, behavioral conduct .73, scholastic competence .67, athletic competence .84, and global self-esteem .75 (see facio et al., 2006). data analysis the kolmogorov-smirnov test indicates that distribution values deviate significantly from the theoretical percentiles of an asymptotic normal distribution (see table 1). for this reason, it was decided to use statistics that have as reference non-normal parameters. to carry out the correlation analysis between the perceived emotional intelligence and the levels of self-concept and self-esteem, spearman’s rho test was used. to evaluate the predictive power of emotional intelligence factors (attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, mood repair) on self-esteem a multiple linear regression was performed with the method of least squares estimation, having previously checked the assumptions of normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and independence of residues. table 1 descriptive statistics and kolmogorov-smirnov normality test variable m sd kurtosis skewness k-s df p attention to feelings 3.64 .67 .12 -.35 .07 398 < .001 clarity of feelings 3.39 .74 -.06 -.47 .10 398 < .001 repair to feelings 3.57 3.57 -.11 -.45 .09 398 < .001 self-esteem 2.93 .61 -.13 -.37 .10 398 < .001 physical appearance 2.44 .77 -.81 -.10 .11 398 < .001 romantic appeal 2.33 .61 -.10 .01 .07 398 < .001 close friendship 3.20 .58 1.21 -.88 .11 398 < .001 social competence 3.02 .51 .82 -.46 .12 398 < .001 behavioral conduct 2.78 .59 -.23 -.28 .10 398 < .001 scholastic competence 2.67 .58 -.25 -.13 .10 398 < .001 athletic competence 2.65 .73 -.57 -.29 .11 398 < .001 results table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the studied variables. calero, barreyro, & injoque-ricle 635 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ first, a correlation analysis between the components of emotional intelligence and self-perception will be carried out. then a linear regression analysis will be conducted in order to analyze the predictive power of emotional intelligence factors on self-esteem. analysis of correlations between emotional intelligence components and self-perception profile for adolescents domains yielded significant positive correlations between attention to feelings and close friendship (rho = .16, p < .01). likewise, there were significant positive associations between clarity of feelings and self-esteem (rho = .28, p < .01), physical appearance (rho = .17, p < .01), romantic appeal (rho = .17, p < .01), social competence (rho = .20, p < .01), and athletic competence (rho = .17, p < .01). finally, significant positive correlations were found between mood repair and self-esteem (rho = .29, p < .01), close friendship (rho = .16, p < .01), social competence (rho = .24, p < .01), and behavioral competence (rho = .19, p < .01) (see table 2). table 2 correlations between self-esteem and self-concept and emotional intelligence variable rho. total sample (n = 399) females (n = 262) males (n = 136) a c r a c r a c r self-esteem .06 .28** .29** .12 .29** .28** .01 .17 .30** physical appearance .00 .17* .11 .13 .13 .05 -.15 .12 .20 romantic appeal .02 .17* .03 .11 .12 -.01 -.14 .21 .09 close friendship .16* .06 .16* .08 .02 .10 .28* .21 .31** social competence .13 .20** .24** .13 .18* .21* .15 .24 .31** behavioral conduct .10 .13 .19** .12 .13 .15 .06 .18 .28* scholastic competence .11 .07 .14 .14 .00 .07 .07 .13 .26* athletic competence -.04 .17* .14 .02 .14 .13 -.10 .08 .11 note. rho: rho de spearman; r: repair to feelings; a: attention to feelings; c: clarity to feelings. *p < .05 bonferroni correction. **p < .01 bonferroni correction. when repeating the analyzes by sex, in the case of women, significant correlations were found between clarity of feelings and self-esteem (rho = .29, p < .001) and social competence (rho = .18, p < .01). between mood repair with self-esteem (rho = .28, p < .01) and with social competence (rho = .21, p = .001). in the case of men, significant associations were found between attention to feelings and close friendship (rho = .28, p < .01), mood repair with self-esteem (rho = .30, p < .01), close friendship (rho = .31, p < .01), social competence (rho = .31, p < .01), and behavioral conduct (rho = .28, p < .01). in all cases, the correlations were from low to moderate intensity (see table 3). table 3 forecast self-esteem with emotional intelligence self-esteem attention clarity repair β t p β t p β t p total -.023 -.53 .60 .20 5.11 < .001 .21 5.90 < .001 females .052 .89 .38 .20 3.80 < .001 .21 4.67 < .001 males -.08 1.30 .20 .13 2.10 .04 .20 3.75 < .001 emotional intelligence during adolescence 636 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the regression analysis performed to study the predictive power of emotional intelligence factors on self-esteem showed that the model tested was significant [f(3, 394) = 25.94, p < .01, r2 = .16]. when analyzing the effects of each of the predictor variables, clarity of feelings (β = .20) and mood emotional (β = .21) showed a significant effect on self-esteem. again, the same analysis was performed separately in females and males. the regression analysis in females showed that the model tested was also significant [f(3, 259) = 16.98, p < .01, r2 = .15]. when analyzing the effects of each of the predictor variables, it is observed that clarity of feelings (β = .20) and mood repair (β = .21) had a significant effect on self-esteem. finally, the regression analysis in the male group equally showed that the model tested was significant [f(3, 132) = 16.98, p < .01, r2 = .13]. when analyzing the effects of each of the predictor variables, clarity of feelings (β = .13) and mood repair (β = .20) showed a significant effect on self-esteem (see table 3). discussion the aim of this work was to study the relationship between perceived emotional intelligence and self-concept and self-esteem in adolescents. furthermore, by considering the supramodal level that the self-esteem has on the domains of self-concept, we studied if any of the factors of emotional intelligence had a predictive effect on self-esteem. to this end, we performed a correlation analysis finding significant positive relationships between the aspects of emotional intelligence and the components of self-esteem, and the domains of self-concept. then, through a linear regression analysis, we observed that clarity of feelings and mood repair predicted the functioning of self-esteem in the general sample, as well as in women and in men. the findings showed that the clarity of feelings and mood repair associate to self-esteem and various domains of self-concept, while attention to feelings was only associated with close friendship. these results appear to be in line with the findings in previous works. on the one hand, several studies found relationships between levels of clarity of feelings and mood repair, and variables associated with personal well-being (fernández-berrocal, salovey, et al., 2002; palomera et al., 2011; rey, extremera, & pena, 2011; salguero et al., 2011). on the other hand, in the case of attention to feelings, the findings of the previous research are not univocal (extremera, durán, & rey, 2007), and even this factor had an association with poor psychological adjustment indexes (salguero et al., 2011). the positive relationship found in this study between attention to feelings and the close friendship domain of self-concept could be since adolescents who are more attentive to their emotions also attend the other's emotions. this allows an increase in the perception about the intimacy of relationships, which may lead to positive evaluation in the close friendship domain. following this line, salovey, stroud, woolery, and epel (2002) found that attention to feelings positively correlated with greater empathy. in addition, the relationships found between clarity of feelings and mood repair with self-concept domains linked to social relations (social competence and close friendship) are like those found in previous research where positive emotional intelligence had an association with different social abilities (jiménez & lópez-zafra, 2011; salguero et al., 2011). moreover, people who are emotionally intelligent are also more able to extrapolate their perception, understanding and managing skills to other’s emotions, which would lead to more satisfying interpersonal relationships (extremera & fernández-berrocal, 2004). since we cannot establish the directionality of the relationship from a correlation analysis, two possible interpretations arise: that the adolescents' perception of having higher levels of mood repair and clarity of feelings allows them to have a good self-perception in social nature domains of self-concept, thanks to the transfer of these skills to their performance in social relations, calero, barreyro, & injoque-ricle 637 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ or, considering the fact that is the perception of their emotional intelligence is what is under evaluation, that a good self-perception in social domains could affect the perception of higher levels of clarity of feelings and mood repair. regarding the observed relationships between mood repair and behavioral conduct in the total sample and in the group of males, we hypothesize that adolescents who perceived themselves with more capacity to regulate their states of mind can have a better adjustment to the image of a balanced teenager who does not let himself be dragged by his negative moods. that is to say, if they fit the stereotype of a more emotionally stable adolescent, so does self-perception in relation to one's own behavior. perhaps is due to gender differentiation that this relationship does appear in the group of women since they have a greater social license to show negative feelings. in the group of males, we found that those who perceived themselves with better mood repair also had a better self-concept in the scholastic competence domain. perhaps this is a result of the fact that their negative moods do not interfere with their performance as presented by otero martínez et al. (2009), although it would be necessary to investigate if there is also an association between the scores obtained and the reported level of mood repair to confirm this assumption. the same interpretation could be valid for the relationship between clarity of feelings and athletic competence, which indicates that adolescents that perceived themselves with greater ability to catalog their emotions also reported a greater sports self-concept. that is, having a self-perception of a better ability to identify emotions may allow them to dedicate a greater share of attention focused on sports activity without having to focus on breaking down their emotions, which reflects in a better self-perception in this domain. salovey, stroud, et al. (2002) found a positive association between self-esteem and the three perceived emotional intelligence factors. while fernández-ozcorta et al. (2013), as in this work, found that the relationship of self-esteem was only with the clarity of feelings and mood repair factors. the fact that adolescents who have a clearer self-perception in identifying emotions and a greater ability to repair negative moods report higher self-esteem may be since the positive self-assessment of clarity and regulation of emotions allows them to minimize the effect of negative experiences (schutte et al., 2002). according to schutte et al. (2002), people with greater emotional intelligence will be able to face in a more adaptive way the negative events that provoke negative affections that could affect their value as a person. regarding the differences found between gender, we conclude that for women it is as important the clarity in perceiving their emotions as their capacity to recover for their global value as a person, whereas for men it is only important the perception to recover from negative moods. perhaps these differences obey the role differentiation, as proposed by gartzia, aritzeta, balluerka, and barberá (2012) and sánchez núñez et al. (2008). in the case of women, the emotional instruction received from the family nucleus is more permeable to emotional experience, which could reflect a greater appreciation of their ability to discriminate and label emotions. on the other hand, in males, socialization influences them to avoid expressing emotions, increasing the appreciation of the regulation of negative moods (sánchez núñez et al., 2008). thus, while in women it is only the perception about the emotional clarity that predicts the level of self-esteem, in men, along with emotional clarity, the perception of one's own ability to recover from negative moods acts. emotional intelligence during adolescence 638 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://www.psychopen.eu/ both the ability that adolescents perceive to have to catalog their emotions and the ability to repair their moods is related to central constructs during this life cycle for positive development. the positive relationships found to support the importance of emotional education, understanding that it would respond to social-emotional needs that are not being addressed in formal education (bisquerra alzina, 2003). this work is not exempt from limitations, the sample corresponds to a population of adolescents from the autonomous city of buenos aires. is necessary to expand the population to increase the external validity of research. finally, although the instruments are adapted for the local adolescent population, in particular the sppa presents some items that would not work as expected, affecting the alphas of some of the domains that make up the instrument. likewise, the possibility of analyzing the relationship between self-perception and measures that assess emotional intelligence along with measures of psychosocial adjustment would expand the conclusions found in the present work. funding this research was supported by the consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas (exp. nº002314/10 and exp. nº 003759/13). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bisquerra alzina, r. 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(2008). ¿es la inteligencia emocional una cuestión de género?: socialización de las competencias emocionales en hombres y mujeres y sus implicaciones. electronic journal of research in educational psychology, 6(15), 455-474. retrieved from http://www.redalyc.org/html/2931/293121924011/ schutte, n. s., malouff, j. m., simunek, m., mckenley, j., & hollander, s. (2002). characteristic emotional intelligence and emotional well-being. cognition and emotion, 16(6), 769-785. doi:10.1080/02699930143000482 emotional intelligence during adolescence 642 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 https://doi.org/10.1174/021037010791114562 https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3050366 https://doi.org/10.1174/021347403321645258 https://doi.org/10.5093/in2011v20n2a10 https://doi.org/10.30552/ejep.v4i2.71 http://www.redalyc.org/html/1293/129315468008/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-011-0063-8 https://doi.org/10.2190/dugg-p24e-52wk-6cdg https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440290025812 http://www.redalyc.org/html/2931/293121924011/ https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930143000482 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors alejandra calero is a doctor in psychology from universidad de la plata. has a postdoctoral researcher position at conicet and is an assistant professor at school of psychology in universidad de buenos aires. juan pablo barreyro is a doctor in psychology from universidad de buenos aires. has an associated researcher position at conicet and is an assistant professor at school of psychology in universidad de buenos aires. irene injoque-ricle is a doctor in psychology from universidad de buenos aires. has an assistant researcher position at conicet and is an assistant professor at school of psychology in universidad de buenos aires. calero, barreyro, & injoque-ricle 643 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 632–643 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1506 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional intelligence during adolescence (introduction) method participants procedure materials data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students: it’s not all about aging appearance concern research reports aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students: it’s not all about aging appearance concern béré mahoney* a [a] department of psychology, university of worcester, worcester, united kingdom. abstract fear and anxiety about aging have increased amongst female university students and these personal aging concerns are associated with disturbed eating, also prevalent in this group. evidence suggests concern about aging appearance could account for the link between aging anxiety and problem eating in young women due to their belief in the thin – youth ideal. however, whether appearance concern is the strongest aging anxiety predictor of global and specific disturbed eating behaviors is unclear. the study examines this in a sample of female students at a midlands university in the united kingdom (n = 200, 18 – 39 years) who completed the anxiety about aging scale and the eating disorders inventory-3. the findings show general and a model of four aging anxieties predicted significantly greater global disturbed eating with medium and large effects sizes respectively. however, greater anxiety about the psychological challenges and interpersonal losses associated with aging best predicted global and specific disturbed eating behaviors and aging appearance concern was a weaker predictor. implications for interventions targeting female students eating behavior are considered. keywords: female students, disturbed eating, aging anxiety, psychological losses, interpersonal losses europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 received: 2017-02-08. accepted: 2017-08-14. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom *corresponding author at: psychology department, university of worcester, henwick grove, worcester, worcestershire, wr2 6aj, united kingdom. email: b.mahoney@worc.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mental health problems are increasing amongst university students (pedrelli, nyer, yeung, zulauf, & wilens, 2015; royal college of psychiatrists, 2011) with prevalence rates greater than in the general population (bacigalupe, esnaola, & martin, 2016; stallman, 2010; cf. blanco et al., 2008). given that more young adults are entering university (oecd, 2016) it is vital to identify student groups at greatest risk of mental health problems, their psychological difficulties and factors harming their psychological health (seldon, 2015; universities uk, 2015). currently, females rather than males are one student group at greatest risk of mental health problems (stallman, 2010) and this gender gap is very apparent for disturbed eating (de) and diagnosable eating disorders (ed) (pedrelli et al., 2015; yougov, 2016). ed and de are more prevalent in women (keski-rahkonen & mustelin, 2016; makino, tsuboi, & dennerstein, 2004) particularly during late adolescence and early adulthood (makino et al., 2004; mental health foundation, 2016). however, women at university are especially at risk (eisenberg, nicklett, roeder, & kirz, 2011; keskirahkonen & mustelin, 2016; power, 2016). a survey of 1061 university students in the united kingdom found europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ that over twice as many females (18%) than males (7%) described their mental health difficulty as an eating disorder (yougov, 2016). identifying factors fostering de in female students is clearly important given problem eating is a precursor of ed (mental health foundation, 2016) and the group’s de is relatively stable during their university career (berg, frazier, & sherr, 2009). furthermore, the prognosis for women with ed is poor compared to other mental health problems and physical, psychological and social costs to sufferers are substantial (pwc, 2015). one factor that could be contributing to female students’ greater de is their attitude to aging. personal aging is a salient issue for young adults generally (wohlmann, 2012). however, those at university are increasingly anxious about the transition to adulthood and are more negative in their attitudes to aging (smith et al., 2017). attitudes to aging, measured through such constructs as ageism, fear of aging and aging anxiety (lynch, 2000; smith et al., 2017) can protect and harm health (world health organisation, 2016). positive attitudes are beneficial to health (keyes & westerhof, 2012) and those optimistic about aging engage in more health promoting behaviors such as being active physically and socially (doyle, mckee, & sherriff, 2012). conversely, negative attitudes are linked to poor physical and psychological health (brunton & scott, 2015; keyes & westerhof, 2012; swift, abrams, lamont, & drury, 2017) including poorer emotional well-being in young women (barrett & toothman, 2016). importantly, young women, defined broadly in studies as 18-39 year olds and including university students, are more negative about aging than their male peers as well as middle aged and older adults of both sexes (barrett & von rohr, 2008; brunton & scott, 2015; lynch, 2000; sargent-cox, rippon, & burns, 2014). young women are also more pessimistic about their aging appearance (barrett & robbins, 2008; brunton & scott, 2015; gendron & lydecker, 2016) and female university students negative about personal aging are more likely to ‘dread’ looking older (chonody & teater, 2016). young women also stigmatize their future aging appearance in their discourse about the transition to middle and later life (bybee, merisca, & wells, 1999; bybee & wells, 2002; bybee & wells, 2006). furthermore, women in general with negative attitudes to aging report greater global de, body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness (barrett & robbins, 2008; becker, diedrichs, jankowski, & werchan, 2013; gendron & lydecker, 2016; robert-mccomb & massey-stokes, 2014; runfola et al., 2014). this is consistent with evidence that aging and de have common appearance based determinants (keel & forney, 2013; stice, ng, & shaw, 2010). quantitative and qualitative studies also show concern about aging appearance and the body are central to women’s beliefs about aging and de (becker et al., 2013; twigg, 2004). thus, it is plausible that female students’ more negative attitudes to aging, and appearance concern particularly, could be contributing to their greater level of de and poor adjustment to developmental transitions across adulthood (smith et al., 2017). however, aging research often neglects the consequences of young adults concerns about aging for their health (smith et al., 2017; wohlmann, 2012). lasher and faulkender’s (1993) multidimensional sociocultural theory of aging anxiety provides a possible theoretical framework explaining why aging concerns and de are linked in women. aging anxieties are concerns and fears about getting older (lasher & faulkender, 1993; lynch, 2000). lasher and faulkender’s theory, developed using university student and community samples, differentiates these into four related but distinct dimensions measurable with the anxiety about aging scale (aas). the ‘fear of old people’ dimension reflects defensiveness about aging expressed through the avoidance of social interaction with the elderly; the ‘psychological concern’ and ‘appearance concern’ dimensions reflect anxieties about psychological challenges faced when adjusting to aging and associated appearance changes respectively; and, the ‘fear of losses’ dimension reflects concern about aging-related social and interpersonal losses. these anxieties are aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 8 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experienced across the lifespan and each has distinct psychological and social consequences for adjustment to aging and interactions with older people (harris & dollinger, 2003; lasher & faulkender, 1993). the meaning of these anxieties also varies between individuals (lasher & faulkender, 1993). aging appearance concerns are likely to be important to women given that the ‘double jeopardy’ of ageism and sexism is more salient to them (chrisler, 2011; fineman 2014) and aging appearance concerns are alleged to motivate activities the individual believes will “...preserve the look of youth” (lasher & faulkender, 1993, p. 248). similarly, research on problem eating shows the desire to appear young characterises de and ed (garner, olmstead, & polivy, 1983; gupta, 1990). measured with the eating disorders inventory (edi) maturity fears scale, these apprehensive thoughts focus on biological, psychological and social changes associated with physical maturity (garner et al., 1983) and similarly motivate individuals’ to engage in de behaviors they believe will achieve a slimmer physique and thus “experience themselves as younger” (garner, 2004, p. 77). however, maturity fears are not considered widely in research on aging attitudes and de despite their conceptual and functional similarities with aging appearance concerns. both are appearance based, involve an aversion to maturity-related physical changes such as weight gain, entail the belief that a youthful physique is desirable and motivate behaviours believed to retain a youthful body. this is consistent with recent evidence that female students endorse a so-called ‘thin youth ideal’ or the belief that ‘youthfulness’ is denoted by ‘slimness’, and this is associated with greater body dissatisfaction (gendron & lydecker, 2016). also, the edi maturity fears scale has been used to measure fear of aging amongst university students because of the apparent conceptual similarities of these measures (smith et al., 2017). thus, theoretically the link between aging anxiety and de in women might be strongest for aging appearance concerns and de behaviors but especially those problem eating behaviors related closely to belief in the thin – youth ideal; namely body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears. research findings suggest that women generally endorse the thin-youth ideal. they are more likely to engage in ‘body practices’ to achieve a slim physique they believe denotes youth and healthiness (carter, 2016) and anti-aging bodywork as a strategy to delay or reverse appearance aging and avoid the stigma of ‘looking old’ (chrisler, 2011; muise & desmarais, 2010). coupland’s (2007) discourse analysis of lifestyle magazines and skincare advertisements confirms women face social pressure to “remedy” (p. 48) the ‘problem’ of facial aging with antiaging “practices” (p. 48) and for young women “…the onset of aging (is) a serious issue” (p. 48). women also associate ‘old’ with ‘fat’ (rubinstein & foster, 2013; runfola et al., 2014) and those engaging in ‘fat talk’ or speech promoting the thin ideal, also have greater aging appearance concern, greater global de and drive for thinness (becker et al., 2013). women at university might be at particular risk of these experiences given attending university is a developmental transition that often triggers psychological problems in female students, including de (piontkowski, 2014; royal college of psychiatrists, 2011). younger women also experience greater social pressure to attain the thin ideal (pruis & janowsky, 2010) and when worried about aging prefer dietary restraint and food monitoring as weight management strategies (o’reilly, thomlinson, & castrey, 2003). young women’s appearance concerns also focus on their body shape (goodman, 1994) while women’s body dissatisfaction and ‘fat talk’ decline across adulthood (becker et al., 2013; field-springer, 2012; montemurro & gillen, 2013). female students with greater aging appearance concern also engage in more body surveillance activities indicating they define their bodies by how they look rather than feel (gendron & lydecker, 2016). however, whether the link between aging anxiety and de in young women is due largely to their high level of appearance concern is unclear from current evidence. quantitative studies sometimes use bespoke single-item measures with unknown psychometric properties to assess aging appearance concern, such as barrett and mahoney 9 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ robbins (2008) who asked women how frequently they worried about “being less attractive as a woman” as they became older; and, the aas appearance concern subscale has been used by researcher in isolation from it’s other subscales preventing comparisons of how different aging anxieties associate with de (becker et al., 2013; slevec & tiggemann, 2010). also, quantitative studies typically assess a narrow range of problem eating behaviors such as global de and cardinal risk behaviors (becker et al., 2013). for example, gendron and lydecker (2016) used the aas in full but body objectification and body image avoidance measures rather than explicit measures of de. similarly, qualitative studies provide rich data on broad themes in women’s discourses around aging, appearance and problem eating behaviour but are less clear on which aging concerns are associated with specific de behaviors (becker et al., 2013). thus, researchers have tended to assume or infer that aging appearance concern most strongly associates with de per se despite research suggesting otherwise. for example, specific aging-related concerns associate with different psychological maladaptations including de behaviors (barrett & robbins, 2008; benton, christopher, & walter, 2007; gendron & lydecker, 2016). furthermore, female university student’s satisfaction with their current life, self and physical appearance relate strongly to de (matthews, 2009) as do female students fear of their future appearance and health-related self (lucette, 2012). therefore, this study aims to investigate more explicitly than current research the link between aging appearance concern and other aging anxieties, and global and specific de behaviors in a sample of 18 – 39 year old women attending university. unlike much of the previous research both general and different aging anxieties are measured with the aas and used as two separate models to predict global and a broad range of de behaviors, including body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears. the following hypotheses were tested: first, aging appearance concern will be significantly greater than other aging anxieties and the mean level of maturity fears is expected to fall within the typical clinical range that is considered as relatively high for nonclinical populations (garner, 2004); second, the model of general aging anxiety will predict significantly more global and specific de behaviors, with the strongest prediction and effect size for body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears; and, the model of lasher and faulkender’s (1993) four aging anxieties will also predict significantly more global and specific de behaviors, with the strongest prediction and greater effect size also for body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears. in the second model appearance concern is expected to be the aging anxiety that best predicts global and specific de behaviors, and especially body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears. method design simple (model 1) and multiple (model 2) linear regression models were used to test if aging anxieties predicted de. the simple model used general aging anxiety (total scores on the aas) to predict global de (total scores on the eating disorders inventory-3) (edi-3) and specific de behaviours (scores on the twelve edi-3 scales). the multiple linear regression used scores on the four aas subscales (appearance concern, fear of losses, fear of old people and psychological concern) entered simultaneously as the model to also predict global de and twelve specific de behaviours. aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 10 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants a priori power analyses were run using g*power 3.1.9.2 (faul, erdfelder, buchner, & lang, 2009) to identify the minimum sample sizes needed to test the simple and multiple linear regression models. baseline equations with one (simple linear regression model) and four (multiple linear regression model) predictor variables were used with cohen’s (1992) recommended convention of testing a medium effect size for ƒ2 (medium = .15) at power = .80 with α level < 0.05. the minimum sample sizes needed for the analyses were n = 55 with one predictor and n = 85 with four predictors. the final opportunity sample recruited of 200 women aged 18 – 39 years (m = 21, sd = 4.50) attending a midlands university in the united kingdom exceeded both the samples sizes required. demographic information was collected on participant’s age (in years) and ethnicity (white, black, asian, mixed or other). self-reported reported height and weight were also collected and they have good concordance with objective measures amongst university students (quick et al., 2015). to screen for known eating disorders participants responded yes or no to the question “do you currently or ever have been diagnosed with an eating disorder?” materials lasher and faulkender's (1993) anxiety about aging scale (aas) was used. this 20-item self-report scale has four subscales with good internal consistency (lasher & faulkender, 1993): fear of old people (cronbach’s α = .78); psychological concern (cronbach’s α = .74); appearance concern (cronbach’s α = .71); and fear of losses (cronbach’s α = .69). these are correlated but independent factors (lasher & faulkender, 1993) and responses to items are rated on a five point scale (5 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree). high scores indicate greater anxiety and general aging anxiety is calculated by totalling subscale scores. recent research confirms the aas four factor structure, internal consistency (fear of old people cronbach’s α = .80; psychological concern cronbach’s α = .80; appearance concern cronbach’s α = .73; fear of losses cronbach’s α = .69), validity as a measure of aging anxieties in female and male adults aged 20 – 97 years and it’s generally age and gender invariant factorial structure (sargent-cox et al., 2014). the edi-3 (garner, 2004) was also used. clinicians and researchers use this 91-item self-report scale to measure psychological traits important to the development and maintenance of eating disorders. its twelve scales also measure the presence of de. drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction and bulimia scales measure cardinal de risk behaviors or weight preoccupation (garner, 2004). eight of the remaining nine scales form four strongly correlated pairs measuring domains of psychological maladjustment. personal ineffectiveness is measured by low self-esteem and personal alienation scales; interpersonal problems are measured by interpersonal insecurity and interpersonal alienation scales; affective problems are measured by interoceptive deficits and emotion dysregulation scales; and, over control is measured by perfectionism and asceticism scales. the maturity fears scale is not part of these domains. items are rated on a six-point scale ranging from ‘always’ to ‘never’, with the four most pathological responses in descending order weighted 4, 3, 2 and 1 with the two least pathological responses weighted 0. high scores indicate more de and global de is calculated by totalling scale scores. the edi-3 is the most recent version of the eating disorder inventory (edi) (garner et al., 1983) and has good internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .80) (garner, 2004), convergent, discriminant and external validity (clausen, rosenvige, friborg, & rokkedal, 2011; garner, 2004). the edi-3 consists of all 91 items from the earlier eating disorders inventory-2 (edi-2) but with scale revisions informed by contemporary eating pathology research (garner, 2004). detailed discussion of the revisions is beyond the scope of this mahoney 11 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ paper (see garner, 2004). however, relevant key changes are the use of nine rather than eight general psychological scales and reassignment of some edi-2 items to different scales in the edi-3 (e.g. items from the edi-2 interoceptive awareness scale have been reassigned to the edi-3 bulimia and body dissatisfaction scales) (garner, 2004). some psychological scales have also been renamed (e.g. edi-2 impulse regulation scale is relabelled as emotion dysregulation in the edi-3). the edi-3 also contains new scales consisting of items drawn from edi-2 scales (e.g. the edi-3 interpersonal alienation scale consists of items taken from edi-2 interpersonal distrust, impulse regulation and social insecurity scales) and responses are rated on a four-point rather than the three-point scale used in the edi-2 to increase the response range (garner, 2004). procedure female undergraduates attending a first year introductory psychology lecture were invited to take part in the study. each was given a participant information sheet and consent form to read at the start of the lecture. at the end of the lecture the researcher answered questions about the study and those not wishing to participate were permitted to leave. participants then completed their consent form and a questionnaire whilst in the room. the questionnaire asked first for demographic information and whether they currently or ever had been diagnosed with an eating disorder, followed by the aas and the edi-3. the process from consent taking to questionnaire completion took 20 – 30 minutes. the local research ethics committee approved the research. results a small number of values were missing from the data collected but these never reduced the usable sample size below those required. thus, the sample n was reduced in such instances rather than using data imputation and the resulting variable sample sizes shown in tables 1 and 2 (n = 198 – 200) reflect these adjustments. demographic information, body mass index and eating disorders table 1 shows the number and percentage of the sample in different age bands, ethnic groups, body mass index (bmi) categories and reporting currently having or ever being diagnosed with an eating disorder. bmi was calculated by dividing weight in kilograms (kg) by height in metres (m) and then dividing the answer by height again (national health service, 2016) the majority of the sample were 18 – 21 years of age (72%) and self-described their ethnicity as ‘white’ (99%). none of the sample reported currently or ever being diagnosed with an eating disorder and the majority (70%) had a bmi in the ‘healthy’ range (m = 22, sd = 5.0) (national health service, 2016). no further analysis was run using the data shown in table 1 due to sub-group small sizes. aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 12 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic information, body mass index and eating disorders characteristic n % age 18 21 144 72 22 29 25 13 30 39 30 15 ethnicity white 198 99 black 0 0 asian 2 1 mixed 0 0 other 0 0 eating disorders yes 0 0 no 198 100 body mass index underweight <18.5 28 14 healthy 18.5-24.9 139 70 overweight 25-29.9 16 8 obese 30-39.9 16 8 description of variables total aas scores ranged from very low to high (range = 27 to 90). the mean of 53.80 (sd = 11.56) is slightly higher than that reported by lasher and faulkender (1993) for women aged up to 35 years and female students aged 18 – 25 (gendron & lydecker, 2016) but similar to that in other research with undergraduates (allan & johnson, 2008; harris & dollinger, 2001). mean scores on the aas subscales also ranged from very low to high. fear of losses (range = 5 to 25, m = 15.0, sd = 3.80) was slightly greater than anxiety about appearance concern (range = 5 to 25, m = 14.30, sd = 4.20) followed by psychological concern (range = 5 to 25, m = 12.86, sd = 3.70) and fear of old people (range = 5 to 25, m = 11.70, sd = 3.40). a one-way analysis of variance was run to test if appearance concern was greater than the other aging anxieties measured. mauchley’s test indicated the assumption of sphericity had been violated, χ2(5) = 24.40, p < .001 and degrees of freedom were corrected with greenhouse-geisser estimates of sphericity (ϵ = .92). the results show a significant effect of aging concern, f(2.78, 554.7) = 51.5, p < .001 and bonferroni post hoc analysis shows scores on all aas subscales significantly differed from one another except fear of losses compared to appearance concern. this provides some support for the prediction that appearance concern would be high in the sample but only compared to psychological concern and fear of old people. table 2 shows the mean scores on the edi-3 with those in the typical clinical range (garner, 2004) flagged. mahoney 13 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mean scores on the eating disorder inventory-3 (edi-3) scale n m sd edi-3 total 198 95.70 49.60 drive for thinness 200 9.25 7.56 body dissatisfaction 200 17.44 10.40 bulimiaa 200 5.18 5.11 low self-esteem 200 6.20 5.48 personal alienation 198 6.43 5.44 interpersonal insecuritya 198 6.62 5.30 interpersonal alienationa 198 6.37 4.40 interoceptive deficits 199 8.70 7.30 emotional dysregulationa 198 5.90 4.64 perfectionisma 200 9.72 5.60 asceticism 198 5.11 4.40 maturity fearsa 200 8.70 5.80 amean scores in the typical clinical range (garner, 2004). global de scores (range = 9 to 257) and scales scores (range = 0 to 38) also ranged from very low to high. six of the edi-3 scale means were within the low, but six were within the typical clinical ranges although this is not unusual in nonclinical groups (garner, 2004). as predicted, de-related maturity fears were relatively high being one of six edi-3 scale score means within typical clinical ranges (garner, 2004). a one-way analysis of variance was run to explore whether levels of specific de behaviors differed in the sample. using standardised edi-3 scale scores, mauchley’s test indicated the assumption of sphericity had been violated, χ2(65) = 439.30, p < .001 and degrees of freedom were corrected with greenhouse-geisser estimates of sphericity (ϵ = .72). the results show scores on the maturity fears scales were not significantly higher than other scale scores and none of the edi-3 scale scores differed significantly from one another, f(7.93, 1562) = .008, p = 1.00. regression analyses simple and multiple linear regression models of aas total scores and the four aas subscale scores respectively were used to predict edi-3 total and scale scores. to reduce the likelihood of type i errors a bonferroni correction was applied for each wave of analysis (.05/13 = p < .003). the data met diagnostic criteria for running regression analyses. no standardised residuals exceeded the critical value of 3 and less than 1% had a value > 2.5 indicating the data met the assumption of normality. vif test values were < 2.5 and durbin-watson test values were neither >3 nor <1 indicating the data met the criteria for the absence of multicolinearity and the independence of errors respectively. the results of the simple regression analyses are in table 3. aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 14 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 results of regression model using total anxiety about aging scale (aas) scores to predict eating disorder inventory-3 (edi-3) total and subscale scores variable edi-3 dt bd b lse pa ii ia id ed p a mf constanta -35.80 -6.92 -4.78 -3.47 -6.78 -6.25 -3.58 -1.24 -6.64 -3.43 8.45 -2.31 1.45 aasa 2.44* 0.30* 0.41* 0.16* 0.24* 0.24* 0.19* 0.14* 0.29* 0.17* 0.02 0.14* 0.14* r2 .32 .21 .21 .13 .25 .24 .17 .14 .20 .18 .00 .13 .07 f 91.78* 51.50* 51.35* 29.33* 66.90* 64.10* 39.45* 30.65* 49.14* 43.97* .47 29.00* 15.00* note. r2 effect sizes: small = .10, medium = .30 and large = .50 (cohen, 1992); aas = total aging anxiety scale scores; edi-3 = eating disorders inventory – 3 total score; dt = drive for thinness; bd = body dissatisfaction; b = bulimia; lse = low self-esteem; pa = personal alienation; ii = interpersonal insecurity; ia = interpersonal alienation; id = interoceptive deficits; ed = emotion dysregulation; p = perfectionism; a = asceticism; mf = maturity fears. aunstandardised beta coefficients. *p < .003. the results support the hypothesis that greater general aging anxiety (model 1) will significantly predict more de, accounting for 32% of the variance in global de with r2 = .32 considered as a medium effect size using cohen’s convention for simple linear regressions (1992). the hypothesis that general aging anxiety will also account for significant variance and higher scores on the edi-3 scales was supported with the exception of perfectionism. the effect sizes were medium (cohen, 1992) for drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, low selfesteem, personal alienation, interpersonal insecurity, interoceptive deficits and emotion dysregulation (r2 = .17 – .25) although small (cohen, 1992) for bulimia, interpersonal alienation, asceticism and maturity fears (r2 = .07 – .14). thus, there was some support for the hypothesis that general aging anxiety will predict strongly body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness but not for maturity fears. the results of the multiple regression analyses (model 2) using aas subscale scores as a model to predict edi-3 total and scale scores are in table 4. the results support the prediction that lasher and faulkender’s (1993) model of four aging anxiety dimensions will account for significant variance in global de (35%) with a large effect size (cohen’s ƒ2 = .35) (cohen, 1992). the results also support the hypothesis that the model will account for significant variance in specific de behaviors with small to medium effect sizes (cohen’s ƒ2 = .02 .15) (cohen, 1992). however, there was no support for the hypotheses that the model and aging appearance concern will best predict body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears. fear of losses and psychological concern significantly predicted greater global de but appearance concern and fear of old people do not and only three of the four aging anxiety dimensions were significant individual predictors of higher scores on some edi-3 scales. greater psychological concern predicted lower self-esteem and greater personal alienation that combined indicate personal ineffectiveness, as well as interoceptive deficits and maturity fears. greater fear of losses also predicted greater personal alienation as well as greater drive for thinness and more interpersonal insecurity and interpersonal alienation that combined indicate greater interpersonal problems. appearance concern predicted only greater emotional dysregulation while fear of old people predicted no edi-3 scale scores. mahoney 15 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 r es ul ts o f r eg re ss io n m od el u si ng a nx ie ty a bo ut a gi ng s ca le (a a s ) d im en si on s co re s to p re di ct e at in g d is or de r i nv en to ry -3 (e d i-3 ) t ot al a nd s ub sc al e s co re s va ria bl e ed i-3 d t b d b ls e pa ii ia id ed p a m f c on st an ta -3 2. 34 -7 .7 4 -4 .5 7 -2 .7 8 -6 .1 8 -6 .1 0 -3 .5 5 -1 .0 0 -5 .2 3 -3 .2 2 7. 68 -2 .3 1 2. 71 fe ar o f o ld p eo pl ea 0. 06 0. 30 0. 22 -0 .1 0 0. 06 0. 07 0. 10 -0 .1 0 -0 .0 6 -0 .0 1 -0 .0 5 -0 .0 3 -0 .3 0 p sy ch ol og ic al c on ce rn sa 3. 16 * -0 .1 0 0. 20 0. 21 0. 56 * 0. 49 * .2 4 0. 24 0. 69 * 0. 11 -0 .1 4 0. 18 0. 41 * p hy si ca l a pp ea ra nc ea 1. 83 0. 41 0. 51 0. 14 0. 10 -0 .0 3 0. 04 0. 05 0. 01 0. 27 * 0. 02 0. 11 0. 18 fe ar o f l os se sa 4. 05 * 0. 59 * 0. 64 0. 29 0. 21 0. 39 * .3 6* 0. 32 * 0. 38 0. 27 0. 27 0. 26 0. 10 r 2 .3 5 .2 3 .2 1 .1 5 .2 9 .2 9 .1 8 .1 9 .2 4 .2 1 .0 3 .1 6 .1 4 f 26 .1 0* 14 .6 3* 12 .8 9* 8. 72 * 19 .6 9* 20 .1 0* 10 .5 8* 11 .4 0* 14 .8 9* 12 .8 5* 1. 24 9. 16 * 8. 00 * c oh en ’s ƒ 2 .5 4 .3 0 .3 0 .2 0 .4 0 .4 0 .2 0 .2 0 .3 0 .3 0 .0 3 .2 0 .2 0 n ot e. c oh en ’s ƒ 2 e ffe ct s iz es : s m al l e ffe ct s iz e = .0 2, m ed iu m e ffe ct s iz e = .1 5 an d la rg e = .3 5 (c oh en , 1 99 2) ; e d i-3 = e at in g d is or de rs in ve nt or y – 3 to ta l s co re ; d t = dr iv e fo r th in ne ss ; b d = b od y di ss at is fa ct io n; b = b ul im ia ; l s e = lo w s el f-e st ee m ; p a = p er so na l a lie na tio n; ii = in te rp er so na l i ns ec ur ity ; i a = in te rp er so na l a lie na tio n; id = in te ro ce pt iv e de fic its ; e d = e m ot io n dy sr eg ul at io n; p = p er fe ct io ni sm ; a = a sc et ic is m ; m f = m at ur ity fe ar s. a u ns ta nd ar di se d be ta c oe ffi ci en ts . *p ≤ .0 03 . aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 16 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the study investigated whether general and different aging anxieties predicted global and specific de behaviors in a sample of female university students. the results are broadly consistent with research showing their aging appearance concerns and maturity fears are high (brunton & scott, 2015; gendron & lydecker, 2016; smith et al., 2017). however, results were less consistent with evidence that suggests female students appearance concerns drive the link between their aging anxiety and de (becker et al., 2013; gendron & lydecker, 2016) and that their belief in the thin – youth ideal would lead their aging anxieties and appearance concern particularly to be strong predictors of de behaviors closely linked to this (i.e. body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears) (gendron & lydecker, 2016). the high level of appearance concern (cf. gendron & lydecker, 2016) and clinically typical level of maturity fears (garner, 2004) found are consistent with other studies showing that not only do young women fear aging but that looking ‘old’ and thus less physically attractive is an important part of these fears (barrett & robbins, 2008; bybee & wells, 2006). however, different to other studies (gendron & lydecker, 2016) aging–related social and interpersonal losses in addition psychological challenges faced adjusting to aging were equally or more anxiety provoking for the female students sampled than appearance concerns. this suggests that their personal aging concerns are not exclusively appearance based and confirms research findings suggesting students generally are increasingly anxious about developmental transitions per se (smith et al., 2017) and that young women negative about aging have poorer emotional well-being (barrett & toothman, 2016). despite some dissimilarities with other studies, the study findings suggest clearly that the greater aging anxiety reported by female students could be contributing to their high levels of de. the models using general aging anxiety (model 1) and lasher and faulkender’s (1993) four aging anxieties (model 2) produced similar results consistent with those in other studies showing negative attitudes to personal aging harm eating behaviors of women generally (barrett & robbins, 2008; becker et al., 2013). however, using lasher and faulkender’s (1993) model of four aging anxieties rather than general aging anxiety as a single predictor has value as a framework for describing how different aging anxieties associate with de in the female students sampled given different aging anxieties predicted relatively discrete de behaviors. this is consistent with available research (barrett & robbins, 2008; becker et al., 2013; gendron & lydecker, 2016) that younger women concerned about aging report they would engage in potentially maladaptive eating behaviors to control their weight (o’reilly et al., 2003), sociocultural models of de that identify psychosocial variables as risk factors (keel & forney, 2013; stice et al., 2010) and evidence that different aging anxieties predict different aspects of de (gendron & lydecker, 2016). worryingly, the findings show elevated general aging anxiety predicts almost all psychological maladjustments measured by the edi-3. this extends previous observations (becker et al., 2013; gendron & lydecker, 2016) and suggests the adverse psychological consequences of aging anxiety for de amongst female university students are more pervasive than available evidence indicates. this also confirms that even amongst women yet to reach later life and without a history of ed, having elevated concerns about personal aging is linked to a range of potentially maladaptive psychological responses in the form of most aspects of de (harris & dollinger, 2003; lasher & faulkender, 1993). an additional implication is using cardinal risk de behaviors (i.e. drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction and bulimia) as the sole measures of de could underestimate the impact of aging anxieties on more psychological aspects of de in this group. mahoney 17 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ support for the hypotheses that aging anxiety would predict body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and maturity fears more strongly than other de behaviors because they are linked closely to the thin–youth was partial. both aging anxiety models tested significantly predicted these specific de behaviors, consistent with gendron and lydecker’s (2016) finding that amongst female students all the aas subscales predict aspects of body consciousness that is linked to body dissatisfaction. however, both models predicted de – related low selfesteem and personal alienation more strongly and this is consistent with evidence that students generally report high levels of symptoms linked to these psychological characteristics such as anxiety, depression and stress (beiter et al., 2015). unlike other studies of female students (gendron & lydecker, 2016) the link between aging appearance concern was weak although similar to others, specific aging anxieties predicted different de behaviors and this confirms that different aging concerns associate with discrete psychological maladjustments (barrett & robbins, 2008; benton et al., 2007) and that all aging anxieties measured by the aas are important for different aspects of body dissatisfaction (gendron & lydecker, 2016). similarly, the inconsistent link between aging anxiety and maturity fears is notable. these constructs allegedly foster behaviours that are ‘youth preserving’ (lasher & faulkender, 1993) and lead individuals to “experience themselves as younger” (garner, 2004, p. 77) respectively. however, general aging anxiety’s effect size for maturity fears was small. this supports smith et al.’s (2017) argument that this edi scale measures more than young adults’ fear of aging and transition to later life. yet, anxiety about the psychological challenges associated with aging did predict maturity fears. this suggests the latter has some value as a measure of fears about the transition to later life, but ones that relate to its psychological challenges. furthermore, it suggests that lasher and faulkender’s (1993) argument that aging anxieties lead to ‘youth preserving’ activities that can be maladaptive requires further exploration. importantly, psychological concern and fear of losses best predicted both global and almost all other de behaviors. this challenges the emphasis in the research on aging appearance concern as most important for de generally (becker et al., 2013; rubinstein & foster, 2013) and the finding that elevated concern about the loss of physical attractiveness is the aging concern associated most strongly with greater psychological maladjustment in younger women (barrett & robbins, 2008). it is possible that the limited predictive value of aging appearance concern for de found could be an artefact of this aas subscale. its items assess feelings of dread if perceived as ‘old’ and lying to conceal one’s age. thus, it could measure dysphoric emotions connected with appearance concern rather than body shape concerns per se. appearance concern being the only aging anxiety dimension that predicted de emotional dysregulation that indicates mood instability, impulsivity and anger (garner, 2004) also suggests this. interestingly, gendron and lydecker (2016) found greater appearance concern amongst female students only predicted the surveillance aspect of objectified body consciousness that indicates a focus on how the body ‘looks’ rather than feels, but did not predict body consciousness shame, control and body image avoidance. it is possible that aging appearance concern is a relatively discrete measure of a heightened focus on the ‘look’ of aging and the negative emotions attached to this (becker et al., 2013). furthermore, research on body image and health in adult women often uses mistakenly body dissatisfaction as a measure of de (kilpela, becker, wesley, & stewart, 2015). the importance of conceptual relevance for fostering links between aging anxiety and de might also explain why psychological challenges and not aging appearance concern significantly predicted maturity fears. although the maturity fears scale measures fear of biological, psychological and social phenomena associated with physical maturity, these apprehensions entail beliefs about how psychologically challenging adjustment to these changes could be and not merely dysphoric emotions connected with appearance concerns (garner, 2004). similarly, fear of old aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 18 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ people, that lasher and faulkender (1993) claim is not a direct measure of concern about one’s own aging, failed to predict global and any specific de behaviors measured. this is inconsistent with research showing greater fear of old people predicts the control aspect of objectified body consciousness or the belief that one can and is responsible for controlling one’s appearance (gendron & lydecker, 2016). it is possible that fear of old people failed to predict any measure of de used in the study because it reflects how individuals control their behaviour (i.e. avoidance of older people). thus, fear of old could better predict other control based thoughts as found by gendron and lydecker (2016) rather than the measures of ‘over control’ in the edi-3 (i.e. the perfectionism and asceticism scales, garner, 2004) that are less explicit measures of control beliefs. appearance concern could also have been less intense than other aging concerns and hence a poor predictor. however, this is unlikely given its mean intensity in the sample used was comparable to, if not greater than, other aging concerns measured, confirming its salience for young women (barrett & robbins, 2008; mcconatha, hayta, rieser-danner, mcconatha, & polat, 2004; montemurro & gillen, 2013; yun & lachman, 2006). nevertheless, the findings suggest the link between aging anxiety and de in this group is not all about aging appearance concern. the predictive value of anxiety about the psychological challenges and interpersonal losses of aging for specific non-cardinal de behaviours also confirms that dissatisfactions with different life domains relate to specific de behaviors in female students (matthews, zullig, ward, horn, & huebner, 2012) and that changes in women’s self-image, esteem and worth relate to different de behaviors across adulthood (landa & bybee, 2007). for example, anxiety about the psychological challenges of adjusting to aging predict greater disturbance on edi-3 scales that similarly measure concern about one’s ability to cope with psychological challenges. namely, low self-esteem, an indicator of negative self-evaluation and the belief that one is unable to achieve one’s own personal standards; and, personal alienation that indicates emotional emptiness, aloneness, a desire to be someone else and a sense of separateness from others (garner, 2004). similarly, anxiety about aging’s social and interpersonal losses predict greater disturbance on edi-3 scales that measure concern about social relationships. namely, interpersonal ineffectiveness, an indicator of discomfort in social situations; and, interpersonal alienation an indicator of attachment impairments. these losses also predicted personal alienation (garner, 2004) as well as greater drive for thinness, an indicator of belief in the socially prescribed notion of the thin ideal (keel & forney, 2013; thompson & stice, 2001). crucially, personal alienation is the only de psychological maladjustment predicted by multiple aging anxieties and these all entail concern about negative evaluation by others, low self-worth and anxiety about physical as well as social appearance. this is unsurprising given fear of negative evaluation is fundamental to de (gilbert & meyer, 2005), aging anxiety and psychological maladjustment more generally (bellew, gilbert, mills, mcewan, & gale, 2006; lundgren, anderson, & thompson, 2004). aging anxiety and de are themselves linked to maladaptive personality traits (allan, johnson, & emerson, 2014; cassin & von ranson, 2005; gao, 2009; garner, 2004; harris & dollinger, 2003; keel & forney, 2013). this also suggests more general psychological maladjustments related to social appearance and self-esteem could have a role to play in their co-occurrence and qualitative research suggests health professionals delivering interventions enhancing body image view body dissatisfaction as an indicator of “... a greater sense of self-esteem problems that manifests through body image dissatisfaction” (moulding & hepworth, 2001, p. 313). the findings also suggest that aging anxieties could associate with de indirectly through psychosocial variables known to increase problematic eating. for example, anxiety about the psychological challenges and social and interpersonal losses associated with aging could make current and future life dissatisfactions salient. the link mahoney 19 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ between these aging concerns and scores on edi-3 scales that indicate personal and interpersonal ineffectiveness, along with personal alienation in particular, also suggest this and confirm research findings that de amongst female university students associates with greater interpersonal problems (stapleton & empson, 2013) and alienation (power & lazenbatt, 2015). those with less purpose in life also report more de (cottingham, davis, craycraft, keiper, & abernethy, 2014). similarly, different life dissatisfactions relate to specific de behaviors in this group (lucette, 2012; matthews, 2009; matthews et al., 2012). therefore, aging anxiety psychological concern and fear of losses could shape the content and frequency of negative thoughts about current and future social and physical appearance, phenomena linked to low self-worth and susceptibility to de (verplanken & tangelder, 2011) and future research could explore the links between women’s aging anxieties, de and other experiences known to influence these thoughts including pregnancy, the menopause, illness and bereavement (kilpela et al., 2015). nevertheless, these interpretations are tentative given the study’s limitations. it focuses on female university students aged 18 – 39 years and future research could test for age differences in the link between different aging anxieties and specific de behaviors in adult women given research shows these phenomena themselves change across the lifespan (barrett & von rohr, 2008; montemurro & gillen, 2013). although at greater risk of de and anxiety about their own aging, extrapolating its findings to young women not attending university is tentative and characteristics within the sample that could have influenced their appearance based concerns such as marital and parental status were not assessed but are important to consider in future research (kilpela et al., 2015). some mean edi-3 scale scores were also within the typical clinical range. however, aging anxieties predicted de behaviours both within and below typical clinical ranges with no significant differences between any edi-3 scale scores. furthermore, the reciprocal relationship between general psychological maladjustments and de (garner, 2004) make it unclear whether aging anxieties initiate or arise because of de and future studies using longitudinal designs could be valuable for exploring this causal relationship and whether previously having an ed shapes this relationship. despite these caveats, the findings suggest holding negative beliefs about aging can have adverse consequences for current psychological health in the form of de amongst women before they reach later life. given nearly half the population of females within the 18-39 age range in developed nations are now entering university or other tertiary education institutions (oecd, 2016) the findings suggest a need for further research on the aging anxieties of this group and their health consequences. the findings also have specific implications for the prevention of de in female students similar to those sampled in this study. first, aging anxiety is another psychosocial risk factor for de amongst female university students with aging concerns predicting global, cardinal and almost all de psychological maladaptations. given effective interventions for reducing de focus on altering attitudes and beliefs that foster de (stice et al., 2010), university-based interventions could benefit from adding anxiety-provoking beliefs about personal aging to those they challenge and beliefs about the psychological challenges and interpersonal losses associated with aging appear most important. furthermore, the study shows aging anxiety predicts greater de in a sample that excludes female university students with a known ed. this suggests aging anxiety might be another indicator of de risk and ultimately ed in preventative work. this is consistent with current research which suggests that effective de prevention programmes need to “zoom out” to consider more universal sociocultural factors that can encourage eating pathology (bell, rodgers, & paxton, 2017, p. 89). second, the findings signify female university students experience what could be a life transition double jeopardy that fosters de: the transition to university triggers de in this group whilst their concurrent anticipation of the future transition to later life, if sufficiently anxiety provoking, also worsens their aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students 20 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ de. third, current university-based approaches to tackling de in students use measurable individual differences to identify those at greatest risk of de (musiat et al., 2014) and aging anxiety is another measurable construct that could be used for such a purpose. in particular, concern about the psychological challenges and interpersonal losses they could experience in later life best predict de with personal alienation a correlate common to both. this confirms other research on female university students showing interpersonal concerns such as feelings of alienation and isolation associate strongly with de in this group (power & lazenbatt, 2015). finally, the findings challenge empirical and theoretical evidence suggesting the link between aging anxiety and de is driven by aging appearance concerns. in contrast, they indicate the link is not all about appearance concerns. consequently, interventions for preventing and reducing de in female university students should focus on their broad psychological health issues, and particularly their beliefs about the challenges and losses they could face in later life. including aging anxieties as additional risk factors when screening for de in female students and in the content of campus-based psychoeducational de and ed prevention programmes is consistent with the current mental wellness agenda in universities (universities uk, 2015). the apparent importance to de of aging anxieties relating to broader social losses and psychological challenges in female students also suggest education around these aging beliefs could be useful to include in de prevention programmes amongst students. such programmes are more effective when they focus on promoting general wellness, resilience and coping with developmental challenges (power, 2016), target those with sub threshold ed and focus on specific de risk factors rather than de and ed in their content (ciao, loth, & neumark-sztainer, 2014) and aging anxieties have some synergy with these qualities. funding this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references allan, l. j., & johnson, j. a. 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(2006). perceptions of aging in two cultures: korean and american views on old age. journal of cross-cultural gerontology, 21, 55-70. doi:10.1007/s10823-006-9018-y about the author béré mahoney is a chartered psychologist, chartered scientist, associate fellow of the british psychological society and senior lecturer in psychology. she has published research on beliefs about aging, perceptions of crime and criminality, victimization and health. her current research projects focus on sexuality and victimization, sexual orientation change efforts and the psychological experiences of adult with anaphylaxis. mahoney 27 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 7–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1390 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00144 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2003.09.001 http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/documents/2015/student-mental-wellbeing-in-he.pdf http://doi.org/10.1080/08870441003763246 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2011.08.003 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2016/discrimination-ageing-youth/en/ https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/obtomdatp4/survey_results.pdf http://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-006-9018-y https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ aging anxieties and disturbed eating in female students (introduction) method design participants materials procedure results demographic information, body mass index and eating disorders description of variables regression analyses discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author paradoxical personality and academic achievement in college students from buenos aires research reports paradoxical personality and academic achievement in college students from buenos aires agustín freiberg hoffmann*a, maría mercedes fernández liporacea [a] national council of scientific and technical research, university of buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. abstract this paper presents a study on paradoxical personality, defined as a distinctive feature in creative persons, developed with 350 college students from buenos aires. goals aimed at describing and analysing possible significant differences of paradoxical traits in students from diverse majors representing seven different fields of study, and examining the relationship between each bipolar trait and academic achievement. the sample was composed of 7 groups (n = 50 by group) representing fields of study typically offered in public universities, biology, computer science, engineering, law, nutrition, psychology, and history of art. analyses by career provided descriptive information about students of these majors, concerning their paradoxical personality profiles. correlational studies verified significant associations between academic achievement and most paradoxical traits in majors such as computer science, nutrition and psychology. results are discussed regarding practical outcomes and teaching programs. keywords: paradoxical personality, college students, academic achievement, creativity europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 received: 2014-12-13. accepted: 2015-09-13. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: gral. juan lavalle 2353, c1052aaa, buenos aires (argentina). e-mail: afreiberg@psi.uba.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction during 1999 unesco promoted means aimed at expanding and ensuring access to universities, as well as at improving learning quality (unesco, 2009a). world-wide statistics estimate an annual average increase of 4.6% in applications between 1970 and 2009, indicating that college students’ admission doubles every 15 years (unesco, 2009b). the argentinean system of higher education (public and private) observes a similar trend. data show an increment of freshmen, represented by an average annual growth rate of 1.7% from 2000 to 2010 (ministerio de educación, secretaría de políticas universitarias, 2011). despite this rise in admissions, high dropout rates and a decrease in academic achievement are repeatedly reported. from the total number of freshmen in every field of study at public universities, only 22.68% corresponds to new students, whereas the remaining 77.32% is due to changes from one major to another (ministerio de educación, secretaría de políticas universitarias, 2010). in fact, 58% of freshmen drops out or decides a change from one major to another (pintos, 2012). most institutions inform that only one in four freshmen achieves a college degree (“decanos y rectores,” 2012). official statistics show natural and formal sciences as the most affected europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ by dropout, with a graduation percentage of 5.58%, followed by applied sciences with 13.91%, human sciences with 16.88%,medicine and related careers with 18.67%, and social sciences with 27.71% (ministerio de educación, secretaría de políticas universitarias, 2010). it is openly admitted that the equity of accessing college must be improved but the pertinence and quality of contents must be addressed as well. such actions would have an impact on students’ well-being, increasing graduation rates, and training more competitive and competent professionals. in view of the above, analysing variables potentially related to academic achievement (taken as the official indicator of learning, beyond every reasonable debate) and to students permanence in the system arises as a matter of interest. particularly, international organisations (e.g. cepal, 2011; unesco, 1998), as well as recent research (e.g. hammershøj, 2014; karwowski, gralewski, lebuda, & wiśniewska, 2007; likeschová & tichá, 2013; salakhatdinova & palei, 2015; santamaría & sánchez, 2012; sawyer, 2006; wu & albanese, 2013) highlight the role of creative skills in the academic milieu, stressing the importance of research on the concept, facing the design of teaching programs to enhance learning processes. the relevance of creativity in higher education stands out considering future outcomes in professional life once a degree is obtained. the role of creativity in (higher) education diverse national and international organisations point out creativity as a major and desirable skill in college students. for instance, unesco states that creative analysis must be trained by higher education (unesco, 1998). thus, when obtaining a degree, former students would be proficient in learning self-management, as well as in trying new solutions for actual professional problems. in addition, new technologies demand the set in motion of policies oriented to stimulate creativity in students, in order to enhance the use of these skills as learning resources (cepal, 2011). two decades ago, both cepal and unesco coincided in asserting that knowledge and technologies are winning wider spaces in class. its gradual expansion produced academic transformations, demanding the development of new abilities in students (cepal-unesco, 1991). moreover, the importance of creativity has been locally recognised by the argentine law of higher education #24521, which declares that individual differences, teamwork, and personal and group creativity must be preserved and encouraged (ministerio de educación, secretaría de políticas universitarias, 2011). different studies tabled the potential benefits of creativity in class, verifying its positive relationship with academic achievement (e.g., getzels & jackson, 1962; ghayas & malik, 2013; naderi, abdullah, aizan, sharir, & kumar, 2010; pérez fabello & campos, 2007). some others found that different types of creativity are associated to different professional competences (cheung, rudowicz, yue, & kwan, 2003; esquivias serrano & de la torre, 2010; kelly & daughtry, 2008). besides, creative ability has been held as facilitating learning and the ability to relate informational items apparently unconnected (martínez zaragoza, 2010). creative processes are associated to intrinsic motivation, to higher levels of involvement in academic activities, and to the use of strategies to relate new contents to previous knowledge (miller & dumford, 2014). examining creativity entails multiple approaches, such as describing the process, the person, the products, and the environment. this study is set to the analysis of creativity through the personal dimension, particularly by means of personality traits (garbanzo vargas, 2007; tejedor tejedor & garcía valcárcel, 2007). research on personality provides evidences about the individual way of perceiving and processing information, since it emphasises personal feelings, thoughts, and actions (bridges, 1926; sutin, costa, evans, & zonderman, 2013). focusing on students arises as a matter of interest due to the fact that academic achievement is influenced by the interaction between personality traits and teaching methods (crozier, 2001). following these ideas, analysing personality traits linked to creative skills in college students aims at the comprehension of their relationships with academic europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 598 http://www.psychopen.eu/ achievement and, ultimately, with learning. that would allow the design of specific teaching programs and special guidance in every particular group or case. the creative person csikszentmihalyi (1996) describes the creative person as capable to get the modification of the field of his/her expertise using thoughts and actions. according to this assertion, the creative dimension can be analysed through multiple psychological dimensions – and skills to master the field, etc. such psychological dimensions include personality traits as a key notion (fernández fernández & peralta lópez, 1998; gonzález romo, tejada tayabas, martínez morales, figueroa rodríguez, & pérez jácome, 2007). the study of personality in creative individuals has been carried out using two main theoretical approaches. the classical one focuses on the description of fixed traits – personality styles or pathological dimensions. a new approach, based on the paradigm of complexity, has also been posed. it describes the phenomenon by means of a dynamic coexistence of antagonistic tendencies. creative personality: the classical approach classical research on personality dimensions in creative persons emphasises the description of certain accentuated and relatively stable traits in such individuals. the methodology employed comprises case studies as well as psychometric developments. sometimes the concept of creativity has been held as linked to pathological traits as suggested by eysenck (1995), especially to a high degree of psychoticism – aspect shared with psychotic patients. psychoticism would allow the generation of a considerable amount of ideas and associations in short periods of time, effected by the cognitive mechanism of over-inclusion, due to the lack of a cognitive inhibition. this hypothesis has been reinforced by studies reporting high levels of psychoticism in most creative individuals (e.g. abraham, windmann, daum, & güntürkün, 2005; burch, hemsley, pavelis, & corr, 2006; joy, 2008). nevertheless, most researchers are interested in the analysis of non-pathological traits related to creativity. from the traditional perspective, the creative profile described by guilford (1950) and lowenfeld (1947) is composed of qualities such as sensitivity, receptivity, adaptability to new events, originality, ability to modify the function of an object, synthesis capacity, and an adequate expressivity to transmit much information using very few means. amabile (1983) highlights self-discipline, ability to postpone satisfaction, perseverance, tolerance towards frustration, independence, a sustained effort and a permanent self-education – either explicit or implicit – by experimentation or by trial and error. from the same theoretical approach but assuming a more current perspective, davis (1989) states that creative persons are distinguished by being aware of such attribute in themselves. they are independent and energetic, perceiving in a refined way. they also take risks, are curious, have a good mood, an open mind and artistic sense, appreciate loneliness and they feel attracted to novelty and complexity. rogers (1975) points out their self-confidence, their openness to experience, nonconformity and occasionally, their cultural mismatch. gardner (1997) underlines their high motivation and their expressive ability to employ symbolic means, as well as their adequate tolerance towards uncertainty, along with a strong persistence. other remarkable notes include ignoring fears and a high tendency to socialise. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 599 http://www.psychopen.eu/ recently the concept of creative self-beliefs has been used to explain creative performance (glăveanu & tanggaard, 2014). the development of self-beliefs depends on the individual ability to get profit from his/her life events. such events, as well as the way each person experiences them are determined by some personality traits – extroversion, openness to experience, curiosity, etc. – which have been pointed out as related to creative processes (karwowski, 2012; kaufman & beghetto, 2009; silvia, beaty, nusbaum, eddington, levin-aspenson, & kwapil, 2014). creative personality in college students — creative profiles have been studied in college students taken as a whole population, considering pathological and adaptive traits. besides, differences by major were also analysed in order to comprehend specific features in every group, predicting possible outcomes on achievement. as hypothesized, psychoticism, hypomania and impulsivity were found as enabling thinking fluency, being a capital feature to produce novel ideas in undergraduates as a whole (e.g. acar & runco, 2012; carlsson, 2002; fulford, feldman, tabak, mcgillicuddy, & johnson, 2013; sapranaviciute, perminas, & sinkariova, 2010; schuldberg, 2001). regarding adaptive traits, a comparative meta-analytical study inventoried a group of traits which were present in the most creative persons when compared to those less creative individuals – autonomy, introversion, openness to new experiences, norm-doubt, self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-driving, ambitiousness, dominance, hostility, and impulsivity (feist, 1998). various of these traits, as well as some others were identified in creative college students – independence, extraversion, cognitive control, the willingness to overcome obstacles, tolerance to ambiguity, self-efficacy, and self-discipline (e.g. de acedo baquedano & de acedo lizarraga, 2012; dollinger, palaskonis, & pearson, 2004; esfahani, ghafari, emami, & baboli, 2012; runco &mcgarva, 2013; silvia, nusbaum, berg, martin, & o’connor, 2009; sternberg, 2006). particularly in fields such as art, engineering, social sciences, and physical education, creativity can be described by extraversion and meticulous attention attributes (sapranaviciute, perminas, & sinkariova, 2010; zare, heris, & bayat, 2011). students of business integrate extraversion and openness to experience (sung & choi, 2009). regarding art students, openness to experience was significantly associated to the ability of acquiring artistic knowledge, creative accomplishments, and daily creative actions. additionally, these individuals were aware on such traits in themselves (silvia & nusbaum, 2012). diverse studies have stressed the importance of some creative traits in learning processes in higher education. on one hand, extraversion and openness to experience arose as salient in creative individuals. openness to experience and extraversion were analysed simultaneously finding a joint effect on the commitment factor composing academic motivation (komarraju & karau, 2005). both stand out as having a direct effect on critical thinking (clifford, boufal, & kurtz, 2004). on the other hand, extraversion was strongly associated to active coping, favouring problem solving (contreras torres, espinosa méndez, & esguerra pérez, 2009). researchers have established relationships between certain traits of creative personality and academic achievement in college students in general, as well as by major. beginning with higher education in general, a meta-analysis reported a positive association between academic achievement and agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness (poropat, 2009). besides, a longitudinal study found a positive effect of conscientiousness on academic achievement (chamorro-premuzic & furnham, 2003). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 600 http://www.psychopen.eu/ additionally, some studies reported the positive influence of several traits observed in creative students on academic achievement – flexibility and openness to experience, efficacy, independence, cognitive control, integrity, honesty, intuition, acceptance of authority, self-confidence, curiosity, concern about other people and disciplined imagination (e.g. campos & gonzález, 1993; de acedo baquedano & de acedo lizarraga, 2012; dollinger, palaskonis, & pearson, 2004; runco & mcgarva, 2013; silvia, nusbaum, berg, martin, & o’connor, 2009; sternberg, 2006). analyses by major revealed that openness to experience and intuition have been recognised as related to achievement in students of economics (chowdhury, 2006; farsides & woodfield, 2003). conscientiousness was positively related to academic achievement in psychology students as well as in undergraduates of human medicine (ferguson, james, o’hehir, & sanders, 2003; peeters & lievens, 2005). the above mentioned have accounted for relevant features describing some personality traits – perceptive, cognitive, attitudinal, motivational and related to interests – hypothetically linked to creativity in higher education. noteworthy to mention, every result corresponds to the traditional approach of creative personality. the complex perspective proposes a different scenario, entailing two lines. the first one poses a specific configuration of traits – personality, ability, interests – for every academic domain, enhancing learning (ackerman, 1996; ackerman, chamorro-premuzic, & furnham, 2011). the second refers to the coexistence of antagonistic personality traits in the same individual. that will trigger opposite behaviours according to the situation (csikszentmihalyi, 1996), alluding to personality features which particularly distinguish creative people. this study addresses the latter. creative personality: the complex perspective and the concept of paradoxical personality as stated before, the classical study of creative personality aims at analysing different traits, trying to explain creative behaviours in such individuals. despite the consensus that there are certain features common to creative people, identifying a homogeneous and unique group of traits seems nearly impossible (helson, 1996). still, some regularity was observed in a series of case studies. it was the ability to modify the own actions by the adoption of antagonistic attitudes in situations perceived as completely different. the hypothesis asserts that human beings initially possess multiple contradictory qualities which become fixed or atrophied by the action of developmental processes. once atrophied, only one pole of that dialectical will be expressed, configuring a particular personality style. creative people, instead, will retain both poles, being able to express a wide range of attributes under diverse circumstances, resulting in the notion of paradoxical personality (csikszentmihalyi, 1996). paradoxical personality involves a whole range of personality styles, which are available to be used in different contexts. hence static traits lose prominence and behaviours fluctuate around a multiplicity of polarized attributes. the paradigm of complexity replaces the idea of a creative configuration in adults, featured by invariable notes, by the notion of coexistence of paradoxical tendencies and thoughts. a large majority of people do not experience this coexistence, leading to the hypothesis of a direct relationship between the complexity of personality – represented by the number of paradoxical traits – and the degree of creativity. thereby, this approach sets aside the notion of creative profile proposing the study of the level of complexity in personality (haller & courvoisier, 2010). the rationale which allowed introducing the concept of paradoxical personality can be situated in previous studies following a case study methodology. maslow (1973), from the humanistic approach, stated that, by a mechanism of resolution of dichotomies, creative people can sustain two opposite traits in a new synthesis. he highlighted europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 601 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pairs such as altruism-hedonism, instinct-reason, duty-pleasure, and work-play, among others. as this reasoning is applied to every area of human life, it has an impact on every specialisation field as well. for instance, the artist is able to combine opposite colours, shapes or notes which seem incompatible for most people. mcmullan (1976) addressed the conflict between attributes, posing eight polarities – delay closure, convergence/divergence, mindless perception/constructive discontent, detached involvement, disinterested selfishness, confident humility and relaxed attention. more recently, csikszentmihalyi (1996) joined these ideas under the name of paradoxical personality. he asserted that, though a great variety of qualities might be observed, ten pairs of traits apparently antithetical stand out from the rest in the cases analysed. although the author did not label these pairs, they could be named as hyperactivity-hypoactivity (energetic control), rationality-intuition, responsibility-irresponsibility, imagination-reality, extraversion-introversion, humility-pride, masculinity-femininity (androgynia), conservatism-iconoclasm, objectivity-subjectivity (passion), and suffering-pleasure. not every dichotomy is necessarily present in every creative person. moreover, the possibility of other new dichotomies not considered in this study stays open. the notion of paradoxical personality introduces a new way of understanding personality where the relevant issue is the number of contradictory traits present in every individual. the more opposite features present in the same person, the more complex his/her personality will be, and therefore, his/her creativity will be more developed. as mentioned before, the incipient research on the subject is based mainly on case studies, currently showing scarce psychometric developments. the present study addresses the notion of paradoxical personality, attempting to assess the degree of complexity in which it manifests in college students. its goals aim at: a) describing paradoxical personality traits in each major, b) analysing possible statistically significant differences in each trait according to majors, c) examining associations between traits and academic achievement as they apply to each specialisation field. results will contribute to increase the understanding of local college students, generating new information useful to adapt and to design teaching programs, especially for low achievers, in accordance with their personality features. besides, it could be employed to guide the students’ decisions according to these personality notes, aiming at the improvement of academic achievement and, in a wide sense, at learning enhancement. that will favour quality and equity in education (garbanzo vargas, 2007; tejedor tejedor & garcía valcárcel, 2007). method design a descriptive-inferential design was carried out, analysing differences between groups and correlating the behaviour of academic achievement by means of paradoxical traits. data were gathered using a non-probabilistic sampling (miles & banyard, 2007; scheaffer, mendenhall, & lyman ott, 2007). instruments personal and academic survey— it included information about age, gender, university, faculty, academic major, time elapsed from the beginning of studies, and number of passed classes. academic achievement was estimated through the operative definition describing it as academic success (tejedor tejedor, 2003). it comprises passing a class, course, term, cycle, or graduation, in the expected time by every europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 602 http://www.psychopen.eu/ institution. that allows the calculation of achievement employing the ratio between the number of passed classes and the time elapsed from application/admission, obtaining as a result an index positively correlated to academic achievement (demiguel & arias, 1999). notwithstanding this measure is open to debate, it has been used following diverse previous studies (e.g. di gresia, porto, ripani, & sosa escudero, 2003; ibarra & michalus, 2010; porto & di gresia, 2001). paradoxical personality test — a scale especially developed to assess this concept in college students from buenos aires (freiberg hoffmann, de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace, 2014) was employed. this measure accounts satisfactory content, face and construct validity evidences, as well as internal consistency and test-retest studies. following csikszentmihalyi (1996), it was initially designed to assess 10 paradoxical personality dimensions, but after being analysed by means of principal components in studies conducted with local college students, only 6 paradoxical dimensions were confirmed. the procedure involves a short examination, in which the 6 remaining dimensions of paradoxical personality are measured (table 1). they are represented by 30 items. every item consists of an assertion integrating two contradictory traits simultaneously, in order to represent each paradoxical trait in the best possible way (table a1). table 1 paradoxical personality dimensions (csikszentmihalyi, 1996). description descriptiondimension persons who are sometimes very energetic and some other times, they remain quiet and silent. they can work continuously for huge periods, and after that they use to take long breaks. they think that a given activity rhythm must be followed by another of reflection and leisure. hyperactivity-hypoactivity these people possess fantastic ideas with a strong anchorage in reality. their mental models account, at least, a minimal connection to some aspect of reality. imagination-reality these persons enjoy being in a crowd, though sometimes they remain aside and avoid participation. they use to watch or to listen to other persons’ ideas, exchanging impressions with others as well. however they tolerate loneliness, as necessary in the creative process. extraversion-introversion the most capable persons use to employ self-criticism, sometimes being shy. some other times they behave arrogantly and contemptuously. this polarity also manifests as ambition-cooperation or disinterest-competitiveness. these individuals humility-pride use to be ambitious and aggressive but on the other hand they are inclined to subordinate their own projects and interests to benefit the group or the team. this paradox is also represented by rebellion and traditionalism. creative products require some knowledge and acceptance of values, manners and cultural products which will be transgressed. rebellion and traditionalism are conservatism-iconoclasm necessary for allowing the creative process taking place. being only conservative leaves the field unmodified; and taking chances permanently without referring to the past rarely conduces to a novel production accepted as an improved product. openness and sensibility expose creative persons to suffering and pain, but to also to pleasure. inventors possess a low pain threshold. because of that when an artist has dedicated years to some composition – or a scientist to some suffering-pleasure development – it is devastating when nobody shows interest. on the other hand, the pleasure they experience when they can work in complete freedom is huge. worthy to mention that this format violates two of the main principles proposed in items composition standards (likert, 1932; moreno, martínez, & muñiz, 2004; thurstone, 1928). the first one poses to eliminate items containing europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 603 http://www.psychopen.eu/ two opposite propositions, in order to minimize their ambiguity. the second stresses the convenience of designing short sentences to avoid fatigue in examinees. the intentional noncompliance of both rules prioritizes the idea of shaping representative indicators of the kind of behaviour to be assessed (aiken, 2003; martínez arias, 2005). thus, in order to examine paradoxical behaviours, statements must refer to both opposite poles at once. it is supposed that such type of items will be suitable for persons possessing these paradoxical features, since the content reflects their self-perceptions about their own behaviours. oppositely, individuals possessing such paradoxical traits in a low degree will experience discomfort towards the content, responding in consequence. furthermore, instructions stress that examinees must respond to the whole proposition, and not only to one of its parts. high scores in some dimension would express more flexibility to move from one pole to the other. lower scores could be associated to more rigid behaviours. it is important to highlight that the scale does not measure every trait separately, but it assesses the alternation of antagonistic behaviours. responses use a 5-point likert scale where 1 represents the less possible agreement with the propositions and 5, the maximum degree. participants the sample was composed of 350 college students from buenos aires – 33.7% males; 66.3% females – with ages ranging from 20 to 35 – mage = 24.28; sd = 2.92. this age range represents the 80% of college population according to official statistics (universidad de buenos aires, 2011). examinees had accomplished half of their studies for their degree programs. the requirement of being in at least the third year of their studies was established as an inclusion criterion. the sample included homogeneous numbers of students (n = 50) from 7 different majors of public institutions (biology, computer science, engineering, law, nutrition, psychology, history of art). procedures data gathering was developed during classes by a trained psychologist. participants volunteered, not receiving any economical retribution and signing an informed consent. confidentiality of results and anonymity were always guaranteed, and examinees were informed about the possibility of stopping responses whenever they desired. the study was supported by institutional endorsements. data analysis data were analysed using spss 21 package (ibm corporation, 2012). since data verified the hypotheses of normality and homoscedasticity in every case, parametric tests were calculated. besides, and adequate statistical power of the analyses was ensured by estimating the effect size, considering the cut-off values established by cohen (1977). results in order to identify paradoxical personality traits in college students from different majors, raw scores were classified according to 5 percentile ranks established for every trait, considering the whole sample. these ranks express the degree in which each trait manifests in every student, given the following positions: low (pl), medium low (pml), medium (pm), medium high (pmh), high (ph) (table 2). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 604 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 paradoxical personality traits. presence according to raw scores row scores paradoxical traits phpmhpmpmlpl hyperactivity-hypoactivity ≥ 28-2726-2523-2219≤18 imagination-reality ≥ 13-1211-109-87≤6 extraversion-introversion ≥ 15-1412-1110-98≤7 8humility-pride ≥ 12-119-76≤5 conservatism-iconoclasm ≥ 19-1816-1514-1311≤10 suffering-pleasure ≥ 27-2622-2118-1714≤13 note. pi = i-th percentile; pl = p1-p19; pml = p20-p39; pm = p40-p59; pmh = p60-79; ph = p80-p100. next, means and standard deviations for every trait were calculated by major, using raw scores as well. after that, they were classified according to the former categories (table 2). table 3 paradoxical personality traits by major paradoxical personality trait statisticcareer spcihpeiirhh mbiology .4420.0414.128.7210.1610.1625 sd .916.074.033.543.313.394 pmpmpmpmpmpmpresence mcomputer science .7217.5014.409.6411.3610.0224 sd .006.773.322.733.273.085 pmlpmpmhpmpmpmpresence mengineering .0019.5615.789.2611.5410.2624 sd .936.233.972.264.113.335 pmpmpmhpmpmpmpresence mlaw .6621.7415.868.9010.689.2424 sd .445.573.932.773.373.734 pmpmpmpmpmpmpresence mnutrition .7620.2016.427.1811.389.0823 sd .167.983.902.973.633.345 pmpmhpmlpmpmpmpresence mpsychology .5018.8214.708.6010.629.9522 sd .945.574.243.274.683.945 pmpmpmpmpmpmlpresence mhistory of art .8022.6613.748.0411.6810.2024 sd .106.394.033.593.822.405 pmhpmlpmpmpmpmpresence note. hh = hyperactivity/hypoactivity; sp = suffering/pleasure; ci = conservative/iconoclast; ei = extraversion/introversion; ir = imagination/reality; ho = humility/pride; pi = i-th percentile; pl = p1-p19; pml = p20-p39; pm = p40-p59; pmh = p60-79; ph = p80-p100. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 605 http://www.psychopen.eu/ generally speaking each trait manifested in every major within the range of medium values, except for cases such as the hyperactivity-hypoactivity pair, which appeared showing a medium low level in psychology students. the trait humility-pride manifested in computer science and industrial engineering students in a medium high degree, and in nutrition students as medium low. the pair conservatism-iconoclasm arose in a medium high level in nutrition students, and medium low in history of art students. finally computer science students showed the trait suffering-pleasure with a medium low presence whereas history of art students presented it in medium high way (table 3). analysing differences in paradoxical traits by major, significant results were found for suffering-pleasure (sp), favoring history of art students when compared to students of engineering, psychology and computer science, and between the last group compared to law students, all of them with moderate effect sizes (es) (η2 = .066). the pair conservatism-iconoclasm (ci) also showed differences. they were exhibited between the nutrition and history of art groups, favoring the first, with a low-moderate es (η2 = .046). the last difference verified corresponded to humility-pride (hp) distinguishing students of nutrition versus engineering and computer science, favoring these two last groups, with a moderate es (η2 = .058) (table 4). table 4 paradoxical personality traits. differences by major. paradoxical personality traits statisticcareer hpireicisphh m biology (n = 50) .12ab8.1610.7210.04ab14.44abc20.1625 sd .033.313.543.074.926.394 m computer science (n = 50) .40b9.3610.6411.50ab14.72a17.0224 6sd .322.273.733.773.085 19abm engineering (n = 50) .78b9.5410.2611.56ab15.2624 sd .972.113.264.243.946.345 m law (n = 50) .86ab8.689.9010.74ab15.66bc21.2624 sd .932.373.773.583.445.734 m nutrition (n = 50) .42a7.389.1811.20b16.76abc20.0823 sd .902.633.983.983.167.355 m psychology (n = 50) .70ab8.629.6010.82ab14.50ab18.9622 sd .243.683.284.584.955.955 m history of art (n = 50) .74ab8.6810.0411.66a13.80c22.2024 sd .033.822.593.404.106.405 levene’s sig. .068.509.549.123.189.128 f .5433.1401.409.7862.0254.0551 p .002.338.873.012.001.389 η2 .058.020.007.046.066.018 note. different letters indicate statistically significant differences (p < .05) between groups. going on with the analysis of the relationship between paradoxical personality traits and academic achievement, the latter was calculated as a metric variable by means of the ratio between the number of passed classes and the number of years elapsed from the admission (de miguel & arias, 1999). after that each score representing each bipolar trait of paradoxical personality was correlated to academic achievement for each major (table 5). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 606 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 relationship between paradoxical personality traits and academic achievement for majors paradoxical personality traits career hpireicisphh -.417**computer science (n = 50) -.290**nutrition (n = 50) .295*.318*.327*psychology (n = 50) correlations verified significant results for paradoxical personality traits and academic achievement in the following majors: computer sciences, nutrition and psychology. additionally, computer sciences and nutrition showed negative associations between academic achievement and paradoxical traits such as suffering-pleasure for computer sciences and hyperactivity-hypoactivity for nutrition. on the contrary, psychology obtained positive associations between achievement and the pairs conservatism-iconoclasm, imagination-reality and humilitypride. discussion the study analysed paradoxical personality traits in college students from different academic majors. the ultimate goal aimed at the description of such traits, in order to establish if the idea of paradoxical personality – hypothesised as related to creative skills – could be useful when academic achievement matters. creative skills are posed as valuable by academic institutions considering educational outcomes in future professional life, where graduates must deal with unique problems permanently. following crozier (2001), academic achievement is influenced by the interaction between personality traits and teaching methods. hence, understanding these traits, and mainly those possibly linked to creativity, will contribute to adapt teaching to individual features, enhancing the final result of the whole learning process, as well as its future transference to professional situations. first, the presence of each bipolar trait was described in each major. generally speaking each attribute manifested in a medium degree in students of every discipline. a few exceptions were found though always moving within the medium range. most of them showed in a medium degree, whereas a few bipolarities manifested in a mediumlow or medium-high degree. there were no antithetical pairs exhibiting huge gaps concerning the degrees on which they appeared in any major. regarding this, significant differences between majors were analysed in order to identify distinctive features in students of each field, which could be employed as a guide to conduct teaching methods. when teaching strategies match students personality traits, academic achievement will improve, since learning processes could be enhanced (crozier, 2001). as for results obtained by the analyses of differences by major, history of art students distinguished significantly in the suffering-pleasure dimension, overcoming engineering and psychology, and surpassing evenmore computer science students. this implies that history of art students will be open and sensible, tending to experience pain as well as pleasure easily. this configuration facilitates creative activities, but teachers must be aware of the impression that their actions may cause in this group. because of that when a student has dedicated much effort to any particular activity it could be demoralising if nobody shows interest or when reprobation arrives. freedom and positive rewards seem to be the best strategy. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 607 http://www.psychopen.eu/ another difference verified by this analysis consisted in higher scores in conservatism-iconoclasm for nutrition students when compared to history of art. this finding could be beneficial for nutrition classes since, on one hand, conservatism leads to the acceptance of values, manners and cultural products, which is important when comprehending food habits in clients. iconoclasm, on the other hand, may favour healthier modifications in nourishment plans, even within a particular cultural framework. significant differences were verified for humility-pride, favouring the engineering and computer science group compared to the nutrition one. individuals showing this pair use to be ambitious and aggressive being, in addition, capable to subordinate their own interests to the group. this way, engineering and computer science students manifest these two skills, which can be exploited and stimulated in class. teamwork as well as individual activities arise as habitual ways of pursuing goals in these professional fields. engineering and computer science professional profiles proposed by academic institutions allude to collaborative activities, interacting with diverse organisational sectors. conversely, profiles for nutrition prioritize bonding with clients or patients (facultad de ciencias exactas y naturales, 2014; facultad de ingeniería, 2014; facultad de medicina, 2014). concerning the correlational analysis of paradoxical personality traits and academic achievement, statistically significant associations were found for three of the seven majors analysed, computer science, nutrition, and psychology. regarding computer science students, academic achievement decreased when the suffering-pleasure dimension manifested in a higher degree. the description of personality traits by major and the exam of group differences have shown less presence of the suffering-pleasure bipolarity in computer science students when compared to the rest of the sample. the first analysis found a medium-low presence of the trait (table 3), whereas the second reported that this group was surpassed by the history of arts and law groups in such pair (table 4). this sufferingpleasure bipolarity is posed to be triggered by a higher openness and sensitivity, sometimes considered as a pathological state configuring an emotional disorder. even existing some evidence on the link between emotional instability and creative skills (de acedo baquedano & de acedo lizarraga, 2012), in this case the former could obstruct academic achievement, since it is associated to isolation and feelings of incomprehension, which might affect persistence. computer science teachers should be trained in identifying these features in students, in order to suggest some consultations with tutors or counsellors. such guidance might help unstable students in managing their emotions, thereby coping successfully with academic stress. furthermore, teachers might avoid excessive criticism, providing more subtle feedbacks. they must encourage students to let them gaining stability, motivation and perseverance, along with tolerance towards frustration. correlations calculated for the group of nutrition indicated that academic achievement decreased when the hyperactivity-hypoactivity bipolarity increased. this might be expressing that these students have a little control of their own energies, which seem to be regulated by external factors (e.g., academic deadlines). it appears as logical when one of the aspects valued in the major profile alludes to goals accomplishment and deadlines. teachers must structure classes as much as possible, presenting examination dates in advance, as well as paths and goals to be accomplished in class. extraordinary activities and a permanent monitoring of learning could be added. this would allow students to get a progressive self-management of time, efforts, results, and, finally, of the own learning process. nutrition students require permanent monitoring, providing study aids and diverse types of practices. b-learning classes come up as profitable, allowing the integration of online exercises and materials, on one hand, and contents included in standard classes, on the other. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 608 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the analysis developed for the psychology group identified several associations indicating that academic achievement increased when humility-pride, conservatism-iconoclasm and imagination-reality rose. regarding the humility-pride pair, psychology students seem to be ambitious and individualist, being in the disposition to subordinate their personal interests to benefit the group at the same time. in view of that, teachers must promote individual and group activities, pursuing a balance between them. as for the conservatism-iconoclasm pair, future psychologists working in any field must deal with traditions, accepted values, beliefs and thoughts, designing guidance able to integrate that to changes, new ideas, novel solutions and different possible scenarios in people’s lives. they must base guidance on recovering the existent, improving it according to current and actual life in a creative way. this applies to clinical situations, but to educational and organisational fields as well, and even referring to public health campaigns. for instance imagination-reality arises as a useful bipolarity in view of that psychology curricula comprise two stages in learning (ministerio de educación, educación superior, 2009). the first one is aimed at the acquisition of knowledge entailing a wide variety of theoretical models, and the second, at the set in motion of diverse practices in different psychological professional fields. hence the hypothesis of imagination-reality as enabling the transference of theoretical contents to professional situations seems reasonable. teachers could be trained to integrate such types of contents in despite of the fact that habitually they are presented in separate classes. regarding limitations of the study, the first one appears to be the small number of majors assessed. future developments will expand their diversity in order to represent local college population, as well as to increase the number of participants as a whole. in addition, the measure employed to estimate academic achievement remains, indeed, as an object of debate. it ponders performance according to academic schedule – number of passed classes and time elapsed from admission – setting aside other indicators equally important – grade point average, number of credits, rate of success, delay and dropout, among others (de miguel & arias, 1999; martín, garcía, torbay, & rodríguez, 2008). further investigations must add some of these indicators in order to estimate academic achievement, therefore reaching a higher level of accuracy. limitations referred to the concept of paradoxical personality also arise as matter of concern. first, as a result of previous factor analyses the study examined only six of ten paradoxical pairs originally assessed for the first version of the scale (freiberg hoffmann, de la iglesia, stover, & fernández liporace, 2014), excluding as well other antagonistic traits potentially significant for college students. developments identifying new possible dichotomies must be carried out furtherly. additionally there are limitations linked to the scarcity of literature on paradoxical personality studies in college students. that fact has determined that the interpretation of the results obtained were performed regarding intrinsic features of majors and the professional profiles expected in the syllabi in force. however, this lack of literature reinforces the contribution of this study, since it becomes an antecedent in the field, tabling this research line as a matter of interest. about dimensions posed by researchers (lópez, corbalán, & martínez, 2006; mackinnon, 1978; pascale, 2005) when analysing creative dimensions – person, product, process, environment – this study has analysed only the person aspect. examining the rest of them will contribute to gather new evidence to test models on creativity in college students. besides, these results provide valuable practical information for professionals as well. paraphrasing csikszentmihalyi (1996), individuals can be identified as more or less – or diversely – creative taking into account the number – and quality – of antagonistic features exhibited, thus distinguishing configurations, since not every opposite pair manifests in the same person. considering this, the study identified bipolar traits of paradoxical personality useful europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 609 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to characterise students from diverse fields or specialisation areas, paying close attention to those related to academic achievement. findings show that not every creative bipolar trait is related positively to academic achievement. moreover, some of them could be detrimental. this is the point where the debate about creativity in the academic milieu comes up. even when creativity is posed as a valuable and desirable feature in learning as well as in professional profiles, academic institutions do not encourage creative skills in students. hence, some questions emerge: are teachers trained to teach to be creative being creative at the same time? is it possible to verify the hypothesised relationship between paradoxical personality and creative skills? is it possible to train creative skills based on paradoxical personality traits? creative skills will increase if students achieve more flexibility to fluctuate from one paradoxical pole to the other? anyhow, describing these features in our students, identifying differences between groups and establishing how these personality traits may relate to academic achievement appear as a preliminary step in analysing this notion. complexity involved in paradoxical traits seems logical when creative skills are regarded. these findings must be useful as a first stage, but they must be investigated in depth. as a beginning, the information presented might be useful as a practical resource in class. if academic institutions pay attention to individual differences in personality dimensions, teaching strategies could be adapted to particular cases or specific groups, enhancing educational efficacy. it is expected that what was reported here will help educational psychologists, pedagogues and teachers to make decisions oriented to improve academic achievement, reducing dropout rates and academic failure. this research line is expected to be extended in order to 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(2011). creativity and personality traits in college students. journal of iranian psychologists, 7(26), 155-164. appendix table a1 paradoxical personality test. preliminary translation of items into english (not being tested or validated) items in englishitems in spanish 1. facing the minimal negative event, i suffer, and facing the minimal positive event, i feel happy. 1. soy una persona que ante la menor cosa negativa sufro, y ante la menor cosa positiva me alegro. 2. i think i am a very sensitive and susceptible person, when experiencing pleasure and pain. 2. creo ser una persona muy sensible y susceptible a experimentar placer y dolor. 3. when i develop my activities, i often feel a huge satisfaction and i leave my worries away, but occasionally suffering begins to increase. 3. cuando realizo mis actividades, muchas veces me invade una gran satisfacción y olvido mis preocupaciones, pero en ocasiones el sufrimiento se acrecienta. 4. i have moments of melancholy which sometimes change towards moments of great joy. 4. tengo momentos de gran melancolía que suelen saltar hacia momentos de gran felicidad. 5. when i cannot do things well, i use to suffer quite a bit and to freeze, but sometimes, on the contrary, i take hold and i cope with those things. 5. cuando las cosas no me salen suelo sufrir bastante y permanecer inmóvil, pero a veces, por el contrario, tomo mayor energía y lo afronto. 6. i am so inclined to experience pleasure when somebody praises me, and a huge suffering when somebody criticises me. 6. soy muy susceptible a experimentar placer cuando se me elogia, y gran sufrimiento cuando se me critica. 7. i often experience suffering and pleasure very easily.7. a menudo experimento el sufrimiento y el placer con gran facilidad. 8. sometimes i do a lot of things at once, and sometimes i do nothing.8. por momentos hago muchas cosas a la vez, y por momentos no hago nada. 9. i am a person who can spend long time in activity, but who likes to sleep similar periods of time. 9. soy una persona que puede pasar largas horas en actividad, pero que a la vez le gusta dormir otra buena cantidad de tiempo. 10. i use to spend a big amount of energy in my activities for long periods, and later i take long periods to rest. 10. suelo dedicar gran cantidad de energía a mis actividades durante períodos de tiempo extensos, y posteriormente tomo prolongados descansos. 11. i use to spend time in leisure after long periods working.11. tengo por costumbre dedicar tiempo al ocio luego de haber trabajadomucho. 12. i spend long periods to reflexion and leisure, to could work hard for long periods after that. 12. dedico grandes períodos de tiempo a la reflexión y al ocio, para luego poder trabajar arduamente por grandes lapsos de tiempo. 13. i can stay concentrated and focused during long periods, and dispersed and unfocused by similar periods. 13. puedo permanecer atento y concentrado durante mucho tiempo, y disperso y desconcentrado durante otro. 14. i think i can stay concentrated when i need it; however i am distracted from time to time. 14. creo poder concentrarme cuando lo necesito, sin embargo cada tanto me distraigo con facilidad. 15. i am generally quite shy, but sometimes i am quite audacious.15. generalmente soy bastante tímido, pero por momentos soy bastante atrevido. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 freiberg hoffmann & fernández liporace 617 http://www.uba.ar/institucional/censos/estudiantes2011/estudiantes%202011.pdf http://www.psychopen.eu/ items in englishitems in spanish 16. under some circumstances i am very introverted, but sometimes i am very extroverted. 16. en ciertas circunstancias soy una persona muy introvertida, pero en otras soy muy extrovertida. 17. in some social situations i use to remain silent, but in some others i use to participate a lot. 17. en ciertas reuniones suelo quedarme callado, pero en otras suelo ser muy participativo. 18. being in parties or reunions i use to be introspective, ignoring people, but sometimes y participate a lot. 18. estando en reuniones suelo enfrascarme enmí mismo e ignorar a las demás personas, pero a veces soy muy participativo. 19. i am a person who has many fanciful ideas, but who not always permits being pulled by them. 19. soy una persona con muchas ideas fantasiosas, pero que no siempre se deja llevar por ellas. 20. i use to have pretty fanciful ideas with very little approval, and so ordinary ideas which are strongly accepted. 20. suelo tener ideas muy fantasiosas con poca aprobación, e ideas muy corrientes con mucha aceptación. 21. sometimes i try to create new realities, but some other times i prefer to stay comfortably in the actual reality. 21. por momentos intento crear nuevas realidades, pero otras veces prefiero quedarme cómodo en esta realidad preexistente. 22. i have got novel productions which use to be adapted to reality, though some other times they do not adapt so well. 22. tengo producciones novedosas que suelen adaptarse a la realidad, aunque otras veces no se ajustan tanto. 23. i feel safe being traditional, but i know that sometimes it is good to try different things. 23. me siento seguro siendo tradicional, pero sé que a veces es bueno probar cosas diferentes. 24. i use to be aware of the importance of previous contributions from other people to my activities, although some other times i think that my achievements are only due to me. 24. suelo ser consciente de la importancia del aporte previo de otras personas a mis actividades, aunque otras veces creo que mis logros son solo gracias a mi esfuerzo. 25. i use to explore new ideas by means of trial and error, although sometimes i prefer doing things in the most familiar and standard way as possible. 25. suelo explorar nuevas ideas mediante ensayo y error, aunque a veces prefiero hacer las cosas del modo más conocido y estándar posible. 26. i think i am a very traditional person, although sometimes i like to do things out of the ordinary. 26. creo ser una persona bastante tradicional, aunque a veces me gusta hacer cosas fuera de lo común. 27. i intend not to get away from conventions because of my fear to failure, but sometimes i take courage and i start with innovative activities. 27. trato de no alejarme de los convencionalismos por temor al fracaso, pero en ocasiones tomo coraje y emprendo actividades innovadoras. 28. occasionally i am quite self-criticism person, and sometimes i behave arrogantly. 28. en determinadas ocasiones soy una persona bastante autocrítica, y a veces me comporto un poco arrogante. 29. sometimes i feel superior to other people, but some other times i feel i am too much inferior. 29. en ciertas circunstancias me siento superior a los demás, pero en otras me siento demasiado inferior. 30. sometimes i behave as a very competitive person, but occasionally i am quite helpful. 30. a veces me comporto como una persona muy competitiva pero, en ciertas ocasiones, soy bastante cooperativo. about the authors agustín freiberg hoffmann is a ph.d. who accounts a previous degree in psychology (university of buenos aires). he obtained a postdoctoral fellowship by the national council of scientific and technological research (conicet). besides, he teaches at the university of buenos aires. mercedes fernández liporace is a ph.d. with a previous degree in psychology (university of buenos aires), and is a senior researcher at the national council of scientific and technological research (conicet). she is a senior professor at the university of buenos aires. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 597–618 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.898 paradoxical personality in college students 618 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en paradoxical personality in college students introduction the role of creativity in (higher) education the creative person creative personality: the classical approach creative personality: the complex perspective and the concept of paradoxical personality method design instruments participants procedures data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors gender variations in the effects of number of organizational memberships, number of social networking sites, and grade-point average on global social responsibility in filipino university students gender variations in the effects of number of organizational memberships, number of social networking sites, and grade-point average on global social responsibility in filipino university students romeo b. lee*a, rito v. baringb, madelene a. sta. maria c [a] behavioral sciences department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. [b] theology and religious education department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. [c] psychology department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. abstract the study seeks to estimate gender variations in the direct effects of (a) number of organizational memberships, (b) number of social networking sites (sns), and (c) grade-point average (gpa) on global social responsibility (gsr); and in the indirect effects of (a) and of (b) through (c) on gsr. cross-sectional survey data were drawn from questionnaire interviews involving 3,173 filipino university students. based on a path model, the three factors were tested to determine their inter-relationships and their relationships with gsr. the direct and total effects of the exogenous factors on the dependent variable are statistically significantly robust. the indirect effects of organizational memberships on gsr through gpa are also statistically significant, but the indirect effects of sns on gsr through gpa are marginal. men and women significantly differ only in terms of the total effects of their organizational memberships on gsr. the lack of broad gender variations in the effects of sns, organizational memberships and gpa on gsr may be linked to the relatively homogenous characteristics and experiences of the university students interviewed. there is a need for more path models to better understand the predictors of gsr in local students. keywords: global social responsibility, organizational memberships, social networking sites, grade-point average, gender, filipino university students europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, usa *corresponding author at: 4th floor, faculty center, 2401 taft avenue, manila 1004 philippines. e-mail: romeo.lee@dlsu.edu.ph this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. young people, including those in the philippines, are taught about global social responsibility (gsr) as part of their formal education in global citizenship (unesco, 2013). gsr is a crucial value to promote in this demographic sector, because the world’s burgeoning problems (e.g., climate change) demand both collective and cross-generational action. several studies have examined gsr in young people, but their main focus has been on the effectiveness of educational activities on gsr (e.g., bhandari & belyavina, 2011) as well as on the statistical relationships of gsr with other global citizenship elements (e.g., blake & reysen, 2014). there is a sparse amount of attention bestowed to investigating the effects of factors at the individual level. like other cultural values, gsr is likewise influenced by elements stemming from individual-based factors, such as one’s social activities and academic performance. this study discusses the effects of number of organizational memberships, number of social networking sites (sns), and grade-point average (gpa) on gsr. these effects are hypothesized to differ according to gender, which is known to influence the learning of human values (bowl, tobias, leahy, ferguson, & gage, 2012; severiens & dam, 1994). studying these factors is important as it would determine potential pathways to effectively foster gsr in young people. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ in their review of prominent theoretical and philosophical literature, morais and ogden (2011) define gsr in terms of interdependence and social concern for others, the society and the environment. according to them, these measures specifically indicate: 1) understanding global interconnectedness and personal responsibility; 2) knowing global issues and being emphatic of global justice and disparities; and 3) constructing an ethic of social service to help resolve social issues (morais & ogden, 2011). gsr clearly demands young people to situate themselves on a global scale and to embrace the call for service to the global community. the learning of the value may constitute a challenge, therefore, for many young people who are still in the process of forming their self-concept. fortunately, individual-based factors that are beyond the structures of formal instruction have elements or values that could help enhance the movement of young people towards inculcating gsr. these factors require exploration. though their participation rate in youth organizations is low (european commission, 2007), young people are continually encouraged to join organizations because of their developmental effects (klindera & menderwald, 2001). studies have revealed that young people with an organizational membership or involvement tend to hold values and behaviors related to social responsibility (not necessarily at the global level). for example, students in the us who are members of an organization were found to possess a community value of citizenship. that is, these students “believed in a process whereby an individual and/or a group become responsibly connected to the community and to society through some activity; and recognized that members of communities are not independent, but interdependent and that individuals and groups have responsibility for the welfare of others” (dugan & komives, 2007, p. 10). moreover, us students having an organizational membership, relative to those without, were observed to have developed more humanitarian values and civic engagement (hernandez, hogan, hathaway, & lovell, 1999); and to have devoted longer hours to volunteering (wolfe, 2014). these outcomes, which are likely influenced by the variety of activities that organizations commonly provide their members (e.g., organizing, networking and community service) (hall, 2012), are amplified and deepened as young people gain more organizational memberships. local social responsibility, which is commonly fostered by youth organizations, may serve as a springboard to fostering gsr in young people. sns play a very active role in connecting young people with others from countries all over the world. using sns represents a fundamental yet a significant practice among young people, including filipino students. facebook, the world’s most popular sns, has 1.44 billion active users each month and 936 million users every day (rushe, 2015); in the philippines, it has 34.0 million active users (kemp, 2012). in addition to facebook, young people use other sns; in fact, 71% of those in the us reported having more than one sns (lenhart, 2015). apart from serving as channels for building social connections (sheldon, abad, & hinsch, 2011) and inter-personal networks, sns also constitute as main channels for acquiring and sharing news and information, including that on global and social justice issues (ellison, lampe, & steinfield, 2009). these impacts are deepened as young people increase the number of their sns. having multiple sns predicts global awareness. young people with multiple sns were reported to have felt knowledgeable about the world and interconnected with other people in the world (lee, baring, sta. maria, & reysen, 2015). this global awareness is a precursor to the pro-social values of global citizenship (reysen & katzarska-miller, 2013). gpa is indicative of the quality of young people’s academic performance, but more importantly, of their hard work, conscientiousness, resilience and persistence. in large part, a high gpa is akin to gaining a mastery of and control europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 predictors of global social responsibility 192 http://www.psychopen.eu/ over one’s academic life. as a less normative student characteristic than joining organizations and using sns, a high gpa could potentially mediate rather than merely predict one’s inculcation of global values. a high gpa translates to a high self-esteem (davidson, metcalfe, mueller, molony, & vodouris, 2012; ruekberg, 2006). since gpa is likewise associated with job and earning prospects (oehrlein, 2009), a gpa-based self-esteem is by no means related only to school but also to broader life outcomes. thus, young people with a high gpa are also likely to feel able, ready and open to accept and carry out global-level responsibilities. gpa is both an antecedent to global awareness and gsr. young people with a high gpa have knowledge of the world and are concerned with global problems; value and respect cultural diversity and engage with other cultural groups; and most crucially, are willing to become global citizens (lee et al., 2015, p. 2). this study determines gender variations in the effects of number of organizational memberships, number of sns, and gpa on gsr. there are gender differences in organizational memberships, sns and gpa according to studies. for example, young women are more inclined to join organizations (ferris, oosterhoff, & metzger, 2013) and to volunteer (wolfe, 2014). there are more young women having multiple sns (jambulingam, selvarajah, & thuraisingam, 2014) whose main purpose for using social networks revolves around maintaining and deepening existing relationships, in contrast to youngmen who tend to continually establish new relationships in sns (mazman & usluel, 2011). with respect to gpa, young men have lower grades compared to those earned by young women (conger & long, 2010). as an overarching social structure (risman, 2004), gender guides young men and women how to learn and act according to some prescribed characteristics. for instance, as a consequence of their gender-role socialization, young women, compared to men, are more relationship-oriented, emotional and caring (tormey & gleeson, 2012), and are more involved in acts of caring and support (eagly, 2009). these gender characteristics are likely to define how youngmen and women would value and learn from organizational memberships, sns and gpa, which would then impact on their gsr. the purpose of the present study is to estimate gender variations in: 1) the direct effects of (a) number of organizational memberships, (b) number of sns, and (c) gpa, on gsr; and 2) the indirect effects of (a) and (b) through (c) on gsr among filipino university students. the structural path model estimated in this study is shown in figure 1. it is hypothesized that number of organizational memberships and number of snswould be positively associated with gsr in both genders. as a mediator, gpa would help enhance these positive associations. figure 1. structural path model. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 lee, baring, & sta. maria 193 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methods participants and procedure using an anonymized self-administered questionnaire, the study interviewed 3,173 students enrolled at one university in manila, philippines. of the sample, two-thirds were in first and second year levels. three-fourths were enrolled in liberal arts, humanities and education, while the rest were completing engineering, natural sciences, business and economics, education, and computer courses. the study presented in this report was part of a broader research that explored well-being, social and civic engagements, and relationships in young people. ethical clearance was sought from the college research ethics review committee of the university. the questionnaire was administered in classrooms in the first quarter of the 90-minute regular classes. those who consented to participate accomplished the questionnaire while attending an undergraduate general education class. participants provided answers to questions that queried them about their number of organizational memberships, number of sns, gpa and gsr. the average time to complete the questionnaire was 20 minutes. materials number of organizational memberships participants were asked to indicate their membership in youth organizations inside and outside of their university. number of social networking sites for this item, participants indicated if they are members of facebook (99.9%), twitter (78%), linkedin (5%), google plus (31.3%), tumblr (33%), and instagram (66.3%). these six are the most popular sites among filipino students. based on reported memberships, an index of number of sns was constructed. duration of using facebook one item was used to measure the number of hours that participants spent using facebook each day (1 = ≤5, 2 = 6-10, 3 = 11-15, 4 = 16-20, 5 = >20). grade-point average participants were asked to report their cumulative grade-point average. their answers ranged from 0 fail to 4 excellent. global social responsibility twelve items on gsr, which were drawn from the global citizenship scale of reysen and katzarska-miller (2013), were asked of participants. these 12 items are pro-social values related to intergroup empathy (2 items), valuing diversity (2 items), social justice (2 items), environmental sustainability (2 items), intergroup helping (2 items), and responsibility to act (2 items). the internal consistency of the whole scale, as examined in the current data set, was very satisfactory (α = .88). the social responsibility dimension of the global citizenship scale, like the dimensions of global competence and global civic engagement, were empirically validated and found to be theoretically grounded (morais & ogden, 2011). in each item, participants checked a response between 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. participants’ scores in all the mentioned items were added to form an index of gsr. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 predictors of global social responsibility 194 http://www.psychopen.eu/ data analysis path analysis, a form of structural equation modelling (hox & bechger, 2007), was used in this study. based on the path model in figure 1, factors were observed and tested to determine their relationships. number of organizational memberships, number of sns, and duration of using facebook were the original exogenous predictors in the path model. gpa was the endogenous mediator predicted to influence the endogenous outcome, gsr. path coefficient for the endogenous variable in the model was estimated. standardized and unstandardized estimates were obtained for the direct effects of (a) number of organizational memberships, (b) number of sns, and (c) gpa on gsr; and the indirect effects of (a) and (b) on gsr through gpa. results the descriptive characteristics of the sample are shown in table 1. mean gsr scores are statistically significantly lower for men than women (m = 48.2, se = .16 versus m = 50.6, se = .14, t = -2.43, p = .00). the gpa of men is similarly lower than that of women’s (m = 2.61, se = .01 versusm = 2.92, se = .01, t = -.32, p = .00). in addition, men in the study had fewer sns memberships (m = 2.45, se = .03 versus m = 3.16, se = .02, t = -.71, p = .00); and fewer organizational memberships (m = .89, se = .02 versus m = 1.00, se = .01, t = -.12, p = .00). both groups were almost identical with respect to duration of facebook use. table 1 descriptive characteristics of participants total (n = 3173)women (n = 1678, 52.9%)men (n = 1495, 47.1%) variables semsemsem .11.14.16global social responsibility .5049.60***50.20***48 .01.01.01grade-point average .772.92***2.61***2 .02.02.03number of social networking sites .832.16***3.45***2 .02.03.03duration of using facebook .281.271.291 .01.01.02number of organizational memberships .95.00***1.89*** note. se = standard error. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the correlations of the study variables are shown in table 2. except for one, all the exogenous variables are statistically significantly related with gsr. for men, the number of organizational memberships is shown to have the strongest positive correlation with gsr. for women, the variable with the strongest positive correlation with gsr is gpa. with its weak correlation with the endogenous variable, duration of using facebook is excluded from the path analysis. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 lee, baring, & sta. maria 195 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between global social responsibility and assessed variables by gender 54321variables men 11. global social responsibility 12. grade-point average .07* 13. number of social networking sites .02.13** 14. duration of using facebook .07*.03-.0115. number of organizational memberships .03.20***.12**.14** women 11. global social responsibility 12. grade-point average .10** 13. number of social networking sites .06*-.09* 14. duration of using facebook .07*.00-.0115. number of organizational memberships .00.06*.15**.07* *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the parameter estimates (unstandardized and standardized) for each path by gender are shown in table 3. based on the unstandardized coefficients (b), a lower number of sns is significantly associated with higher gpa for women but not for men. number of organizational memberships has a significant association with gpa for both men and women. as further suggested by unstandardized coefficients, number of organizational memberships, number of sns, and gpa are all statistically significant predictors of gsr for both groups, albeit the strengths of their associations vary betweenmen and women. amongmen, the strongest predictor is number of organizational memberships followed by gpa, and number of sns. among women, the strongest predictor is gpa, followed by number of organizational memberships, and number of sns. as implied by the comparative fit index (cfi) and root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the model with gpa as the mediator fit the data. table 3 sem coefficients for the structural relationships between assessed variables among men and women women (n = 1678)men (n = 1495) variables ßbßb grade-point average number of social networking sites .08*-0.04*-0.01-0.003-0 number of organizational memberships .16***0.13***0.12***0.10***0 global social responsibility grade-point average .09***0.10***1.06*0.74**0 number of social networking sites .08**0.47**0.11***0.68***0 number of organizational memberships .07**0.51**0.11***0.04***1 r2grade-point average .03*.02* r2global social responsibility .02*.03* cfi .001.001 rmsea .00.00 note. b = unstandardized coefficients. ß = standardized coefficients. cfi = comparative fit index. rmsea = root mean square error of approximation. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 predictors of global social responsibility 196 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the effects of gpa, number of sns, and number of organizational memberships on gsr were decomposed and the results are shown in table 4. the exogenous factors have statistically significant direct and/or total positive effects on gsr, whereby increases in these factors lead to increases in gsr scores. although the indirect effects of organizational memberships on gsr through gpa are statistically significantly robust, the indirect effects of sns on gsr through gpa are negligible. men and women significantly differ only with respect to the total effects of their organizational memberships on their gsr. in particular, men’s gsr is more strongly influenced by organizational memberships than women’s gsr (p < 0.01). overall, gender variations in the effects of the exogenous factors are sparse, based on the p-values of the invariant constraint on the associated path coefficients shown in the last column of table 4. table 4 gender variations in the effects of number of social networking sites, number of organizational memberships, and grade-point average on global social responsibility scale group invariance in parameterswomen (n = 1678)men (n = 1495) variables pbb direct effects number of social networking sites .170.47**0.68***0 number of organizational memberships .830.51**0.04***1 grade-point average .880.10***1.74**0 indirect effects number of social networking sites via grade-point average .050.04*-0.00-0 number of organizational memberships via grade-point average .400.13***0.10**0 total effects number of social networking sites .100.43**0.67***0 number of organizational memberships .010.64**0.14***1 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the study examined gender variations in the effects of number of organizational memberships, number of sns and gpa on gsr. the three factors have significantly increased gsr scores among the university students interviewed. as a mediator, gpa also has significant positive effects as hypothesized, but these effects are only true insofar as the relationships of organizational memberships and gsr are concerned. overall, men’s gsr can be significantly differentiated from that of women’s solely in terms of organizational memberships. the lack of broad gender variations may be accounted for by the homogeneous university life experiences, similarities in parental education, or common socio-demographic conditions among the university student population surveyed. for example, most students were young (mean age: 17.9) and freshmen who were completing general education rather than major subjects at the time of the survey, and were from high-income families. moreover, the lack of appreciable gender differences, which could have impacted on the relational outcomes of the variables examined, may be due to a narrowing of the gender gap in the emotional expressiveness among the younger europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 lee, baring, & sta. maria 197 http://www.psychopen.eu/ generation. the increasing numbers of young men coming to terms with their emotional side may mean shifts in the ways they will value and learn from their social and academic lives, which have implications for their gsr. the exogenous factors are highly effective most probably because the resultant outcomes of their provisions to university students are closely related to the elements of gsr. multiple organizational memberships help broaden young people’s sense of community service and volunteerism (dugan & komives, 2007; wolfe, 2014). multiple sns enable young people to establish and develop cross-cultural interactions and relationships in virtual networks (ellison et al., 2009; lee et al., 2015). as a robust indicator of academic fortitude and broad-based learning, gpa hastens young people’s global readiness, including their global awareness and gsr (lee et al., 2015). of the three factors, organizational memberships are the most significant predictor of young men’s gsr. the overall significance of organizational memberships in men may be linked to their learning process in organizations, which is mainly experiential and action-based. being activity-oriented themselves (cleveland, stockdale, & murphy, 2000), young men may be prone to learning more when the process is attuned to their learning style. in contrast, young women—with their propensities to be expressive (noller, 1986) and deep when discussing issues (cleveland et al., 2000), which are effective for learning social issues, may gravitate more toward classroom-based activities to acquire an in-depth knowledge of concepts such as gsr. the lack of gender variations in the effects of sns may be due to the possibility that the men and women interviewed are still in a formative phase of exploring the higher-level functions and benefits of the internet. similarly, the absence of gender differences in the effects of gpa could be because the students who were interviewed, being mostly freshmen, have only been given sparse information on gsr. the lack of appreciable mediating effects of gpa on sns-gsr nexus may be attributed to an absence of the intertwining between gpa and sns in terms of their respective functions. to date, gpa, which is largely academic and intellectual, and sns, which is largely personal and social, remain as two distinct and separate domains in the philippines. a fusion of the two, which would transform sns into a vital academic learning tool that young people could use to deepen their learning of social issues, is a rare university agenda. the significantly strong mediating effects of gpa on the relationships between organizational memberships and gsr could be attributed to the fact that gpa and organizational memberships are inter-related (broh, 2002; cooper, valentine, nye, & lindsay, 1999; darling, caldwell, & smith, 2005). organizational memberships enable young people to pursue their academic interests outside of the classroom, which in turn translates into school engagement and academic achievement (ferris et al., 2013). limitations and implications for future research the limitations of this study should be noted. the participants, who were from upper-income brackets, may not be representative of the entire university student population in the philippines. in addition, some correlation and beta coefficients obtained in the analyses are modest. this suggests that other variables might have greater effects on gsr in filipino students than those discussed in this report. for instance, international travels and overseas education (gordon, 2014), which are vital components of the curricular activities in global citizenship education, may be an important consideration in future studies. moreover, the explanations used to elucidate the effects of the exogenous factors on the exogenous outcome were inferred from related literature. future research needs to examine not just the numbers related to organizational memberships, sns and gpa but also their substantive and contextual aspects, such as the motivations for joining organizations and specific organizational activities, the purpose for using sns, and the content coverage of academic subjects from which aspects of gsr are europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 predictors of global social responsibility 198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ learned. these substantive details would be particularly useful for a more meaningful analysis of the effects of the exogenous factors. furthermore, the gender-based analysis would be better understood if these were based on reported gender roles among young people. prospective studies would need to conduct an inventory of gender roles and use the data to further elucidate on gender variations if any. finally, since this study is correlational, it could not ascertain causal relationships between the exogenous and endogenous factors. conclusion the findings have implications for university-based research and education on gsr involving young people. multiple organizational memberships and sns, and gpa lead to higher gsr scores. overall, organizational memberships are a strong predictor of gsr and may be used as a main pathway to effectively foster gsr in university students. in the context of the philippines, the path model presented here is important as it is a pioneering attempt at exploring the predictors of gsr in local young people. funding this study was carried out as part of the community engagement activities of the authors. no funding was received. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank the faculty members of the department of behavioral sciences and of the theology and religious education, de la salle university, for assisting us in the conduct of the survey in classrooms. we also express our sincerest gratitude to our study participants. references bhandari, r., & 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(2014). volunteering at heart of student experience (the university of texas at austin feature story). retrieved from https://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/volunteer.html about the authors romeo b. lee is chairperson and full professor, behavioral sciences department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. he completed his ph.d. in demography from the australian national university. rito v. baring is chairperson and associate professor, theology and religious education department, de la salle university, manila, philippines. he once headed the university’s manila catechetical center. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 lee, baring, & sta. maria 201 http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1028315310375308 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00049538608256414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00207594.2012.701749 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0891243204265349 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/22/facebook-shares-first-quarter-2015-revenues http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fbf01384906 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0022407 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f09540253.2011.646960 http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002241/224115e.pdf https://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/volunteer.html http://www.psychopen.eu/ madelene a. sta. maria is associate professor, psychology department, de la salle university. she obtained her phd in psychology from the university of cologne, germany. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 191–202 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1040 predictors of global social responsibility 202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en predictors of global social responsibility (introduction) methods participants and procedure materials data analysis results discussion limitations and implications for future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the mediational role of coping strategies in the relationship between self-esteem and risk of internet addiction research reports the mediational role of coping strategies in the relationship between self-esteem and risk of internet addiction rocco servidio* a, ambra gentile b, stefano bocab [a] department of languages and education sciences, università della calabria, arcavacata di rende, italy. [b] department of psychological, educational and training sciences, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the aim of the present study is to explore, through a mediation model, the relationship among self-esteem, coping strategies, and the risk of internet addiction in a sample of 300 italian university students. we submitted the data to a descriptive, mediational comparison between variables (t-test), and correlational statistical analyses. the results confirmed the effect of self-esteem on the risk of internet addiction. however, we found that the introduction of coping strategies as a mediator gives rise to partial mediation. a low level of self-esteem is a predictor of avoidance-oriented coping that, in turn, affects the risk of internet addiction. keywords: self-esteem, coping, internet addiction, university students, mediation model europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 received: 2017-04-28. accepted: 2017-08-23. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: department of languages and education sciences, università della calabria, via pietro bucci, cubo 20/b, arcavacata di rende, italy. e-mail: servidio@unical.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the advent of the internet and new media technologies changed different aspects of people’s way of life: for example, the organization of time (mokhtari, reichard, & gardner, 2009), and the interaction with other people and with the social group of peers (fioravanti, dèttore, & casale, 2012; ruggieri, boca, & garro, 2013). today, computer and mobile devices’ applications mediate the interaction among people, and communication technologies have become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous (boca, gentile, ruggieri, & sorce, 2013; jones, 2002). although the internet grants a number of advantages (e.g. faster information exchange, new communication forms), some habits, such as online gaming and gambling, or the use of social networking sites could be so persistent that it could turn into a real addiction to the internet. internet addiction disorder (iad) is generally described as an individual’s incapacity to control and manage the time and manner of using the internet. such incapacity may give rise to behavioural disorders (young, 2017). currently, there are no standard diagnostic criteria for accurately identifying individuals with iad. however, for europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the purpose of the present study we agree with griffiths (1995) who defines iad as an addictive behaviour characterized by behavioural dominance, mood alteration, tolerance, abstinence and conflicts. in an attempt to cover this diagnostic gap, different proposals have been advanced (beard & wolf, 2001; griffiths et al., 2016; panayides & walker, 2012). young and abreu (2011), for example, maintain that a method for clinically detecting the compulsive use of internet consists in the application of existing criteria on addiction behaviours as cited in the last edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disordersfifth edition (dsm-v; american psychiatric association, 2013). recent studies highlight that individuals who are not able to control the amount of time spent on the internet also tend to exhibit difficulty in stopping compulsive behaviours (zhang et al., 2015). they also exhibit personality traits that can increase the individual’s vulnerability (servidio, 2014; yao, he, ko, & pang, 2014) and other behavioural disorders (kuss & lopez-fernandez, 2016). the use of internet, however, is not the principal cause of the addiction but is an instrument through which people try to achieve a state of wellness (griffiths, kuss, billieux, & pontes, 2016). recently, researchers have focused their attention on the new generation of internet users, among whom are university students, who may be considered at risk for developing pathological behaviours since they are involved daily in the use of different kind of technologies (bahrainian, alizadeh, raeisoon, gorji, & khazaee, 2014; coniglio, sidoti, pignato, giammanco, & marranzano, 2012; servidio, 2014). among the factors known to contribute to the onset of the iad, the most relevant ones concern personality traits (kuss & lopez-fernandez, 2016), as well as the series of one’s major life events (li et al., 2016; zhou, li, li, wang, & zhao, 2017). besides personal history, stable features of the self are known to be related to internet addiction. for instance, a number of studies reveal that people with low levels of self-esteem tend to access the internet largely than those with higher self-esteem levels (i.e. andreassen, pallesen, & griffiths, 2017; bozoglan, demirer, & sahin, 2013). thus, self-esteem, insofar as it influences the compulsive use of new technological instruments, may be considered a good predictor of the risk of the iad. self-esteem is defined as the positive or negative attitude toward the self (coopersmith, 1967). people with high levels of self-esteem tend to use technology in a balanced manner, tend to cope positively with stressful situations, and develop a positive attitude toward life (taylor & brown, 1988). on the contrary, people with low levels of self-esteem try to find shelter in the internet network, which allows them to control the self-aspects they want to make public. similar to what is commonly observed with other forms of addictive behaviour, low levels of self-esteem should be associated with the iad. andreassen, pallesen, and griffiths (2017) directly tested this hypothesis, and found that participants’ self-esteem is negatively correlated with the compulsive use of social media applications. an increase in internet usage have been also documented in college students who had gone through adverse life events (e.g. academic failures, romantic break-up, difficulties with parents, etc.) compared to students that live under the family’s constant supervision throughout the day (tian, bian, han, gao, & wang, 2017). for this reason, it is interesting to analyse the role of coping strategies since they allow people to master their own behaviour and successfully face stressful life events. thus, differences in prevailing coping strategies should be associated to changes in the propensity for internet addiction. servidio, gentile, & boca 177 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the term “coping” includes cognitive, emotional, and behavioural strategies that individuals use when they are in stressful situations in order to control associated unpleasant experiences (folkman & lazarus, 1988; spagna, russo, & roccato, 2014). those strategies are commonly classified into three categories: appraisalfocused, emotion-focused, and problem-focused (endler & parker, 1994). few researches have explored the role that the coping strategies may play in predicting the risk of internet addiction (deatherage, servaty-seib, & aksoz 2014; mcnicol & thorsteinsson, 2017). the results of these studies point out that iad is systematically linked to avoidance coping, a way of coping that is characterized by the effort to avoid dealing with a stressor. cyberspace may represent a place to hide when things go wrong. in this sense, accessing the internet can be considered a negative coping strategy in facing stressful events. an excessive use of such a strategy may result in new forms of technology addiction because individuals, in the desire to escape from reality, completely avoid the source of stress (tang et al., 2014). the results of a recent integrative review show that personal dispositional coping style predicts problematic computer use in adolescence (trnka, martínková, & tavel, 2016). the authors of the review underlined the importance of further investigations because the current results indicate a higher differentiation of coping strategies in internet addiction, and this relationship is still not sufficiently covered by present studies. most of the present italian studies, in addition, focus on the predictors of the risk of internet addiction, thus leaving unexplored the variables that might mediate this relationship. the present study aims to fill this gap by testing a model for analysing the mediating effects that coping strategies have on the relationship between selfesteem and internet addiction. we propose an integrated model of the risk of internet addiction, providing some empirical evidences about the complex nature of this disorder. aims and hypotheses the present study aims at investigating, through a mediation model, the role of coping strategies in the relationship between self-esteem and internet addiction disorder. previous studies have confirmed that people with low levels of self-esteem spend more time on the internet, and are more susceptible to be addicted to information and communication technologies (bozoglan et al., 2013; yao et al., 2014). another frequently discussed issue concerns the role of the coping strategies. individuals who have difficulty in coping with stressful real-life events are more likely to develop internet addiction compared to others who can cope better with these stressful incidents (chou et al., 2015). generally speaking, self-esteem and coping strategies seem to be systematically related: individuals with low self-esteem tend to adopt avoidance strategies when facing stressful events (chapman & mullis, 1999). to date, there are scarce evidences in literature that coping strategies mediate the link between self-esteem and internet addiction. a study by chiu (2014) showed that self-efficacy was a mediator between academic stress and smartphone addiction; another study has pointed out that poor coping and cognitive expectations mediate the relationship between generalized internet addiction and factors such as self-efficacy and stress (brand, laier, & young, 2014). coping strategies, self-esteem, and risk of internet addiction 178 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the above-discussed results allow the definition of the following research hypotheses: self-esteem is an indirect predictor of the risk of internet addiction; low levels of self-esteem will increase the use of avoidance strategies in the students, and these strategies in turn will increase the vulnerability to dysfunctional behaviour when using internet in a maladaptive way. method participants a sample of 300 university students, who lived in the residential area of the campus, took part in this research. participants were 125 males aged 18-30 years (m = 23.82, sd = 3.42), and 175 females aged 18-30 years (m = 23.61, sd = 3.16) from humanistic (26.3%), scientific (22.3%), and economic courses (18.0%). informed consent was obtained for all participants before the beginning of the assessment. participants declared that they connect to the internet for at least 3 hours per day (36.7%). they generally use their smartphone to connect to the internet (57.7%) followed by notebook/pc (41.0%). the preferred time for connecting to the internet is the evening (38.0%) and the afternoon (32.7%). concerning communication, people use the internet for controlling their own facebook account (53.3%), for chatting (21.3%) and emailing (19.3%). finally, participants declared not to perceive their own behaviour as addictive (79%). measures demographic information a subject’s profile was designed to include questions such as gender, educational background, and other relevant information. then data about their internet activities based on time spent online per day, type of online activities engaged daily (communication, surfing, and interactive activities), and the preferred time to establish a new internet connection (morning, afternoon, evening and night) were obtained through a multiple-choice modality. the t-test results showed that males spend more time on the internet compared to females (mmale = 1.98, sd = 1.13, mfemale = 1.71, sd = 1.15; t(298) = 1.97, p < .05, d = .23). in addition, the risk of being addicted to the internet is higher in the male students than in females (mmale = 43.29, sd = 12.24, mfemale = 39.51, sd = 11.04; t(298) = 2.78, p < .05, d = .32). self-esteem the italian version of the rosenberg self-esteem scale (prezza, trombaccia, & armento, 1997) was used to measure the subjective feelings of self-value and self-acceptance. participants rated their agreement with 10 statements (e.g. “i feel that i have a number of good qualities”) on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). higher scores indicate higher self-esteem. the internal consistency in the sample of this present study was good (α = 0.83). coping orientation to problems experienced new italian version (cope-niv) the cope-nvi (sica et al., 2008) is a 60-item measure of how people respond when they deal with difficult or stressful events in their lives. every item is rated on a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1 “i usually don't do this servidio, gentile, & boca 179 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ at all “and 4 “i usually do this a lot”. its five subscales include social support (e.g. i try and get advice from someone about what to do), avoidance strategies (e.g. “i say to myself this isn’t real”), positive attitude (e.g. i restrain myself from doing anything too quickly), problem solving (e.g. i concentrate my efforts on doing something about it), and turning to religion (e.g. i seek god’s help). higher scores in a subscale indicate that participants tend to cope with stress by using those strategies. the internal reliability of the cope-nvi in the present study was good (α = .83), whereas the alpha’s value for each subscale was for social support (α = .88) avoidance strategy (α = .84), positive attitude (α = .63), problem solving (α = .73) and turning to religion (α = .75). young internet addiction test (iat) we used the self-administrated italian version of the internet addiction test (iat) to assess the participants’ severity of internet addiction risk (servidio, 2017). the iat includes 20 items rated on a five-point likert scale (i.e. “how often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the internet?”). the response format ranges from 1 (rarely) to 5 (always), and the overall score can range from 20 to 100 (cut-off is 80), with higher scores reflecting greater life and social problems caused by a misuse of internet services. for the current study, the cronbach’s alpha measure demonstrated good reliability (α = .90). procedure all the study participants were recruited individually throughout the university campus during the lesson breaks. the research assistant explained to the participants the general aim of the study, as well as the procedures and the methods of completing all the measures. participants were also informed that their participation was voluntary, anonymous, and without any incentive. in order to encourage honest reporting, the anonymity of the study was emphasized at the beginning of each collection session. after receiving the informed consent from the participants, the research assistant administered the questionnaires to collect the data, which took approximately 20 minutes. all the research materials and study procedures were designed according to the ethics in human research (associazione italiana di psicologia, 2015). finally, the collected data were analysed via the software spss v.23.0. the multiple mediation effect in this study was tested using the macro process for spss through model 4 (hayes, 2013). the bootstrapping method was used to test for the significance of the effect in order to obtain robust standard errors for parameter estimation. it produced 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals of these effects 10000 resamples of the data. in addition, t-test for independent samples was ran to verify differences among the main variables of the current study and correlation analyses were computed. results demographic characteristics by applying young’s (1998) iat cut-off criteria based on the severity impairment risk-index, the results showed that 60 students (20.2%) used internet correctly (scores 0-30). on the other hand, 179 students (59.3%) surfed the web longer than was usually called for, although they retained control over their online sessions (scores 31-49). the remaining 62 (20.7%) of the participants showed a moderate risk of experiencing occasional or coping strategies, self-esteem, and risk of internet addiction 180 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frequent problems due to internet usage, which should warn these subjects about the internet’s negative impact on their life (scores 50-79). for this current study, no severe internet addiction risk (scores 80-100) was found among the participants. mediation of coping strategies table 1 displays the correlations between the study variables. all the variables were significantly correlated in the expected directions. table 1 inter-correlations and descriptive results variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. self-esteem 30.23 5.14 – 2. internet addiction 41.08 11.72 -.25** – 3. social support 29.50 7.45 -.12* .11 – 4. avoidance strategies 26.80 7.35 -.36** .32** .17** – 5. positive attitude 30.25 4.68 .00 .05 .14* .10 – 6. problem solving 31.45 5.31 .14* .03 .23** -.10 .32** – 7. turning to religion 18.92 4.61 -.05 .03 .13* -.09 .01 .01 – note. sample = 300. *p < .05. **p < .001. after this preliminary assessment, we evaluated the partialisation of the common variance through a direct test of the hypotheses by applying a mediation model. the results of the mediation analysis are showed in figure 1. first of all, a significant total effect of self-esteem on internet addiction was found [c] (t = -4.53, p < .001; b = -.56, se = .12, 95% ci [-.77, -.24]). among all the coping strategies, only avoidance strategies mediated the relation between self-esteem and internet addiction. in fact, avoidance coping was predicted by self-esteem (t = -5.64, p < .001; b = -.51, se = .09, 95% ci [-.67, -.29]) and the internet addiction risk, in turn, was predicted by avoidance strategies (t = 4.34, p < .001; b = .43, se = .10, 95% ci [.26, .68]). this result means that people with low levels of self-esteem tend to spend time on the internet as a strategy to cope with stressful events. concerning the other coping strategies, although social support and problem solving are significantly predicted by self-esteem, they do not predict, in turn, the risk of internet addiction. the direct effect [c’] shows that avoidance strategies remain significant after partialising out the variance explained by coping strategies, thereby obtaining a partial mediation result (t = -2.60, p < .05; b = -.35, se = .13, 95% ci [-.62, -.09]). furthermore, a significant indirect effect of self-esteem on internet addiction through avoidance strategies was found (t = -3.76, p < .001, b = .22, se = .06, 95% ci [-.33, -.09]). a sobel test was conducted to confirm the partial mediation in the model (z = 3.69, p < .05). finally, the 39% of the total indirect effects of self-esteem on internet addiction is mediated by avoidance coping. servidio, gentile, & boca 181 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. visual representation of the mediation model including unstandardized results. note. the model reports both the significant (continuous lines) and not significant (dotted lines) relationships. the covariance relationships among the coping variables and the related values are depicted as well. *p <.05. **p < .001. discussion and conclusion the current study examines the mediation effect of coping strategies in the relationship between self-esteem and the risk of internet addiction. as hypothesized, the results obtained through the mediation analysis show that the effect of self-esteem is influenced by coping style, in particular by avoidance coping, that is, the degree to which people engage in actions such as negation, humour, substance abuse, behavioural and mental disengagement. low levels of self-esteem, in fact, are associated with a major use of avoidance coping that is pathologically expressed with the abuse of the internet. however, the results suggest a partial mediation effect. thus, people with low self-esteem are more at risk of developing a kind of “new-media psychopathology”, where the internet is the main tool of communication. on one hand, the current study puts the results in line with literature, confirming self-esteem as predictor of the risk of internet addiction (andreassen et al., 2017; bozoglan et al., 2013; zhang et al., 2015). on the other hand, it explains the way by which self-esteem effects are mediated by the tendency to make use of coping strategies. not all the coping strategies are involved in this relation: in fact, only the strategies based on avoidance play a significant role. social support, for example, did not reach any significance, in contrast with the results of naseri, mohamadi, sayehmiri, and azizpoor (2015). coping strategies, self-esteem, and risk of internet addiction 182 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, it is clear that people who are more at risk for internet addiction seem to be those who use the internet as a regular daily object of gratification for personal needs. nevertheless, it should be noted that the result of the current study provides only a partial view of the link between self-esteem and the internet addiction since coping strategies represent only one of the different factors that are able to mediate this relationship. another limitation of the present study concerns the specificity of the sample selected. university students are commonly a well-adapted population, therefore no clinical sample affected by pathological addiction to the internet took part in this study. thus, there is no evidence about possible direct or mediational effects of selfesteem and coping strategies for those who are seriously unable to control their internet behaviour. to adequately generalize what was obtained here, these results should be replicated with a larger and stratified sample. despite these limitations, however, the present study is the first to investigate the relation between selfesteem and the internet addiction, linking this relation with participants’ coping style. if high levels of selfesteem, associated with a low appeal for avoidance strategies, are factors that protect from the risk of internet addiction, these results can be used as guidelines in academic counselling. furthermore, understanding what are the risks factors of internet addiction could help in preventing the risk of some psychological consequences, such as avoidance of responsibilities, personality changes, social alienation and the risk of other forms of addictive behaviours (young, 2004). future research might investigate other potential predictors and mediators in the relation between self-esteem and internet addiction, such as perceived stigma, resilience, and affective relations. in this way, new evidencebased strategies could be defined for the promotion of wellness and the prevention of internet misuse. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors wish to thank the two anonymous referees and the editor john mccormick for their helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. the usual disclaimer applies. references american psychiatric association. 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(2017). big five personality and adolescent internet addiction: the mediating role of coping style. addictive behaviors, 64, 42-48. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.009 coping strategies, self-esteem, and risk of internet addiction 186 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 http://doi.org/10.1482/76366 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.12.010 http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.02.048 http://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-015-0693-8 http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2012.0710 http://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237 http://doi.org/10.1177/0002764204270278 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2015.05.016 http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131597 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2016.08.009 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors rocco servidio is currently assistant professor in social psychology at the university of calabria, italy. his areas of research focus on psychosocial impacts of new and emerging technologies, risk factors for internet, and social media addiction. ambra gentile is a phd student in health promotion and cognitive sciences. her interests focus on the effects of gender stereotype threat in sports activities and on the prevention of violence and social exclusion in sports. stefano boca is full professor in social psychology at the university of palermo, italy. his research interest involves studying the effects of new information technologies on social behaviour. servidio, gentile, & boca 187 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 176–187 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1449 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ coping strategies, self-esteem, and risk of internet addiction (introduction) aims and hypotheses method participants measures procedure results demographic characteristics mediation of coping strategies discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors evolution and rationality: decisions, co-operation and strategic behaviour book reviews okasha, samir, & binmore, ken (eds.). (2012). evolution and rationality: decisions, co-operation and strategic behaviour. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. 296 pp. isbn 9781107017788. evolution and rationality: decisions, co-operation and strategic behaviour farid pazhoohi*a [a] independent researcher, shiraz, iran. europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(2), 405–407, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.783 published (vor): 2014-05-28. *corresponding author at: baharan street moali abad street, shiraz, iran. e-mail: pazhoohi@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. okasha, samir, & binmore, ken (eds.). (2012).evolution andrationality: decisions, co-operation and strategic behaviour. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. 296 pp. isbn 9781107017788. evolution and rationality highlights the connection between the darwinian evolutionary theory and the theory of rational choice. this volume is based on an assumption that there is a conceptual connection between utility (in the economical sense) and fitness (in the biological sense) as the notions of optimization and maximization are central to both of these areas. evolution and rationality is emerged from a series of workshops and conferences by the eminent and leading researchers in the fields of evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, experimental economics, game theory and psychology which was held at the university of bristol between 2008 and 2011, edited by samir okasha, professor of philosophy of science at the university of bristol and kenneth binmore professor emeritus of economics at university college london. this volume contains notable remarks regarding the recent criticisms of the “model-based theories”, and in what follows the overview of all eleven chapters of this volume is dealt with altogether. in economics and game theory, nash equilibrium is a stable state of a system involving the interaction of different participants, in which no participant can gain by a change of strategy if the strategies of the others remain unchanged. firstly, in this volume, nash equilibrium, “the most successful solution concept of classical game theory” (p. 9) is criticized for not being applicable in realistic situations, purely theoretical and far from actual behaviour of real people as the agents are not rational and would rather act based on intuition and routine europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ teachings. organisms due to their different constraints cannot be maximizers in a perfect way and cannot even reach the optimality. also people because of different life experiences, environmental and knowledge changes would employ different strategies to fulfill the same evolved preferences which do not always match the predictions of rational choice models. in addition, possessing cognitive adaptations for problem solving, strategic thought, learning plasticity, behavioural flexibility and accumulative cultural knowledge in humans, make them unique and different from other non-human animals. furthermore, it is argued that not only rational behaviour, but also the irrational behaviour can also be given an evolutionary explanation. therefore, one criticism on model-based theories is the inability of economic tools in explaining organism's behaviour as humans strive “to maximize their inclusive fitness over their lifetimes, yet in imperfect and non-optimal, but often predictable, ways” (p. 42). not only stability of nash equilibrium is criticized, but also its refinement, evolutionary stable strategy (ess), (i.e., a state of a population, once reached, cannot be invaded by a small groups of mutants) fails because it is more simple than an explicitly dynamic methodology and “does not properly take into account the dynamic possibilities one already has in baseline dynamical models” (p. 81). in addition, it should be considered that the non-ess states are widespread and many of them evolutionary significant, “sometimes more significant than ess states” (p. 82). another point that we encounter in this volume is the criticism of the validity of models and their relevance to the outside world. through investigation of the relationship between organism and the environment the limitation and validity of the rational actor model regarding large worlds is considered. while it seems that the models in small worlds are optimal, in a large world the uncertainty affects the external validity of model and “when factors known to compromise the internal and external validity of the model are at play, declarations of rationality and optimality become less and less meaningful” (p. 95). although game theoretic models have been successful in illuminating many biological phenomena, next criticism highlights the inability of classical game theory in the prediction of the play related to notions of team reasoning and cooperation. for example, the prisoner’s dilemma and the stag hunt which are closely identified with the problem of cooperation have more than one nash equilibrium, therefore “standard game theory has no way to advocate one over the other without introducing new assumption” and consequently “playing a strategy that is not a part of a nash equilibrium is never rational” (p. 189). other problems with the theories of team reasoning are lack of common knowledge of group identification and the need to assume that there is a group objective for each player to reach the conclusion whether one should choose cooperation. rational decision theory is based on decision mechanisms that are optimized for a specific environment for maximizing organisms’ fitness. therefore another criticism of the rational decision model is that human behaviours are affected by the ecological constraints as it is argued that there exists a systematic connection between environmental challenge and agent response. evolutionary forces have shaped the rationality in human’s ancestral societies and it should be considered that our environment has changed and is changing dramatically from that of our ancestors. other scholars argue that human choice is not illogical and irrational, as deliberate decision making is one of distinguishing characteristics of human brain. they argue that the “coevolutionary process has endowed us with preferences that go beyond the self-regulating concerns emphasized in traditional and economical theory” (p. 215). additionally, optimal choices are state-dependent and the transitivity of choices would be violated if dependent on animal’s internal variables therefore, it seems that we do not have the correct view of the decision maker’s options. final caution is that models might not be applicable across all human history and indieurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 405–407 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.783 evolution and rationality 406 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vidual action might be influenced by variable cultural factors which make the model implausible in real-world system. overall it could be concluded that “educative models of maximization under constraint and evolutionary modeling are both somewhat weak. however without them…we will not be able to arrive at an adequate understanding of the world around us” (p. 130). evolution and rationality is a very interesting book and serves as a useful and an essential resource for professional readers, researchers and students interested in evolutionary biology, game theory, philosophy of science, and economics. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(2), 405–407 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i2.783 pazhoohi 407 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en evolution and rationality (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments better movers and thinkers (bmt): an exploratory study of an innovative approach to physical education research reports better movers and thinkers (bmt): an exploratory study of an innovative approach to physical education andrew dalziell*a, james boyleb, nanette mutriea [a]moray house school of education, institute for sport, physical education and health sciences, university of edinburgh, edinburgh, united kingdom. [b] school of psychological sciences and health, university of strathclyde, glasgow, united kingdom. abstract recent research has confirmed a positive relationship between levels of physical activity and academic achievement. some of these studies have been informed by neurological models of executive functioning (ef). there is a general consensus within the literature that the three core ef skills are; working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. the development of these core ef skills has been linked with learning and academic achievement and is an essential component in the delivery of pe using a new and innovative approach called ‘better movers and thinkers (bmt).’ a mixed methods design was used to investigate the effectiveness and feasibility of a 16-week intervention programme using bmt where 46 children were tested on two separate occasions for coordination and balance control, academic skills, working memory and non-verbal reasoning skills. one school acted as the control condition (21 students, aged 9 – 10 years) and another school acted as the intervention condition (25 students, aged 9 – 10 years). quantitative data revealed an effect between pre and post-test conditions in the areas of phonological skills (p = .042), segmentation skills (p = .014) and working memory (p = .040) in favour of the intervention condition. further analysis identified a gender-interaction with male students in the intervention condition making significant gains in phonological skills (p = .005) segmentation skills (p = .014) and spelling (p = .007) compared to boys in the control condition. analysis of qualitative data from a sample of students from the intervention condition and their class teacher indicated good acceptability of bmt as an alternative approach to pe. keywords: physical education, academic achievement, executive function, activity europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 received: 2015-02-25. accepted: 2015-08-01. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: university of edinburgh, moray house school of education, institute for sport, physical education and health sciences, st leonard's land, holyrood road, edinburgh, eh8 8aq, united kingdom. e-mail: s1269342@sms.ed.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction recent research has reignited interest into the physical and cognitive benefits of physical activity with some studies specifically highlighting beneficial aspects of activity on executive functioning (blair & razza, 2007; coe, pivarnik, womack, reeves, & malina, 2006; diamond & lee, 2011; trudeau & shephard, 2010). executive functioning (ef) is an umbrella term that describes the complex cognitive processes required to perform novel or difficult goal-directed tasks, including the ability to delay or inhibit responses, develop a plan of action sequences, and workingmemory. recent research has suggested plausible links between physical activity and the enhancement of ef including; physiological influences such as greater cerebral blood flow; increased secretion of neurotrophins as a result of increasing levels of physical activity; psychological influences such as an increase in self-esteem europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and a desire to learn and be part of the school (ahn & fedewa, 2011; strong et al., 2005; trudeau & shephard, 2010). other studies have identified that no decrease in academic performance has been observed despite a curtailing of time spent teaching academic subjects in favour of more time participating in pe (ahamed et al., 2007; trudeau & shephard, 2010). aside from the cognitive gains that can be attributed to increasing time allocated to pe (and consequently being physically active), there is a well-established link between increasing levels of physical activity and the general health of children (ahn & fedewa, 2011; kristensen et al., 2010). studies have investigated the impact of gentle, vigorous and chronic bouts of exercise on academic performance (coe, pivarnik, womack, reeves, & malina, 2006; davis & cooper, 2011). one study carried out in the united states reported an immediate increase in concentration levels in grades 2 to 4 following 15 minutes of stretching and walking (caterino & polak, 1999). whilst this demonstrates a positive impact between the engagement in physical activity and concentration levels, the activities carried out in this study are not normally part of a pe lesson and lasted for a much shorter duration. other larger-scale studies (hamre & pianta, 2001; hughes & graham, 2002; welsh & pennington, 1988) have shown that being physically active is known to increase an individual’s immediate level of arousal through an increase in neural activity in the reticular formation of the brain, although the long-term impact of this increase is less established (biddle & asare, 2011). similarly, endurance exercise (a sustained period of running and swimming, for example) leads to a substantial increase in systemic blood pressure where the overall perfusion of the brain typically increases by 14 – 25% (goswami, 2008; hamre & pianta, 2001). it would appear that the intensity, duration and frequency of physical activity may impact differently on an individual’s potential gains with respect to their academic achievement. there is little information on the different impact that comes from different modes of activity and further research is required in this area. despite discussions around the diverse nature of physical activity and how this may impact differently on academic achievement, the literature reveals two related findings. firstly, that increasing the time spent on pe and thus reducing the time spent on teaching academic subjects does not reduce academic achievement, and secondly, that when students are more physically active, this can often be associated with improvements in their academic achievement suggesting that there may be a link between physical activity and learning. these findings seem to correlate and do not appear to be influenced by variability in study design or by the different measurement techniques that are cited between studies, perhaps adding weight to the justification for increasing time allocated to pe provision in our schools. research further reveals divergent findings regarding the relationship between gender and academic achievement with some evidence favouring boys and some evidence girls (hyde, 2005; machin & pekkarinen, 2008). other authors (matthews, ponitz, & morrison, 2009; weaver-hightower, 2003) note that historically boys were largely advantaged in the school classroom and most academic settings. other studies, however, reveal that girls tend to build better relationships with their teachers, attain higher results, achieve higher levels of education and generally progress scholastically better when compared with boys (duckworth & seligman, 2006; ready, logerfo, burkam, & lee, 2005; silverman, 2003). however, within these studies there is a clear differential effect between gender depending on the subject being assessed and the nature of that assessment. the literature indicates a significant advantage for girls in language based tasks (duckworth & seligman, 2006) and an advantage for boys in standardised tests that may be based on their motivation within a competitive environment being greater than girls (gneezy, niederle, & rustichini, 2003). one of the plausible causes underpinning these gender differences is that strong behavioural regulation developed in the earlier years in the school sets precedence for successful academic achievement through increased school engagement and motivation (fredericks, blumenfeld, & paris, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 723 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2004; zimmerman & schunk, 2011) and studies have shown that girls are able to regulate their behaviours earlier than boys (fredericks, blumenfeld, & paris, 2004; zimmerman & schunk, 2011). to varying degrees, self-regulation tasks tap executive functions such as attention and inhibitory control which, according to some researchers, support self-directed classroom behaviours (blair, 2002; brook & boaz, 2005; howse, lange, farran, & boyles, 2003; ponitz et al., 2008; saracho & spodek, 2007). deficiencies in self-regulation present at a younger age may undermine academic achievement and predict outcomes (green & francis, 1988; vitaro, brendgen, larose, & trembaly, 2005) with one study suggesting that there is a particular link between inhibitory control (for example, delayed gratification, impulse control) and phonological awareness (for example, blending and segmenting of sound components and syllables within written and/or oral tasks) (blair & razza, 2007). this particular finding is of considerable relevance as research has shown that blending and segmentation of sounds and phonics has the greatest transfer to emergent reading and spelling (ehri et al., 2001). phonological awareness is known to develop earlier in girls with concomitant findings demonstrating that girls are better readers than boys (machin & pekkarinen, 2008). it would appear from other studies that this phenomenon may be universal and the result from large-scale international comparisons of reading literacy among 10-year olds and 15-year olds also showed that girls read better than boys in a wide variety of school systems and cultural settings (chiu & mcbride-chang, 2006; machin & pekkarinen, 2008). in summary, if time spent in pe enhances ef through participation and engagement in physical activities, then this in turn may lead to better levels of inhibitory control and attention which have been directly linked to phonological awareness. the levels of enhancement and progress may differ between boys and girls. historically, a common approach to pe for primary age children typically involves a skills-based session which is often teacher-led (bailey et al., 2009). an alternative approach has been developed which directly involves a shift in pedagogical practice where sports and other activities are used as a vehicle to develop three key constituent parts: thinking skills (decision making, problem solving, adaptability, working memory), human capacities (determination, perseverance, self-confidence) and physical literacy with no instruction provided with regards to the development of technical skills (see fig. 1). this approach consciously directs a specific focus towards the inclusion of ef skills and sets out to identify if this different approach to teaching primary pe, can lead to improvements in academic achievement. ‘better movers and thinkers (bmt)’ is designed to develop the ability to move and think in an integrated way within pe. exponents of bmt contend that if children have better quality and control over their balance and movements, this can then become more automatic potentially resulting in reduced levels of conscious thought having to govern movement and balance. to coincide with this development, ef have been specifically developed through the bmt approach, assisting the development of cognitive processes, which in turn will help them, succeed across the curriculum (diamond, barnett, thomas, & munro, 2007). there have been many studies identifying the impact of good ef skills in children (booth et al., 2013; diamond & lee, 2011; koziol & lutz, 2013; monette, bigras, & guay, 2011) but there are no studies that have used pe as the context for learning. the present study therefore acts as an exploratory study into the possible links between pe and ef skill development leading to educational gains. figure 1 represents the bmt learning framework that encompasses the three constituent parts that come together to make performance. physical literacy focuses on the development of key physical attributes that enhance physical performance such as balance, postural control, gross motor coordination, rhythm and timing. personal qualities relate to aspects of human characteristics such as determination, courage, motivation and perseverance which are considers by the proponents of bmt to be essential to remain engaged with the process europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 724 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of learning. thinking skills refers to the development of cognitive processes such as the development, enhancement and refinement of ef skills. figure 2 represents the bmt process that should occur in each individual session where there is the identification of the series of movement skills to develop physical literacy, the inclusion of a series of differentiated cognitive tasks to develop thinking skills, a specific focus on integrating and developing ef skills and encouraging the active engagement of the learner through the development of personal qualities. figure 1. the learning framework. figure 2. the bmt process. the purpose of this study was to evaluate if bmt positively influences academic skills, and to identify what the perceptions of students and staff are of this approach within primary education. the perceptions of these stakeholders will help to inform an understanding of the acceptability, feasibility and impact of bmt in the delivery of pe within the primary school. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 725 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methods design a mixed methods design (denscombe, 2008) utilising both quantitative and qualitative data was adopted for this study to provide information about the efficacy, acceptability and feasibility of bmt as an approach to delivering pe in primary schools. participants participants in this study were aged 9 – 10 years and were attending two mainstream state schools in a primary 6 class in scotland, uk. following ethical approval by the university of strathclyde and the local authority, two schools were recruited with one hosting the intervention and the other one serving as a control. the schools were identified as being similar in terms of school roll, school facilities and were within close proximity (i.e. less than one mile) from one another. once the schools were identified the selection of which schools acted as the control and which acted as the intervention was decided by the quality improvement officer representing the local authority. parents provided informed consent and students provided informed assent for participation and had the opportunity to opt out of the study. in the control condition, 21 students (9 boys and 12 girls) participated and in the intervention condition, 25 students (13 boys and 12 girls) participated. materials mabc2 — three balance subtests (one board balance, walking heel-to-toe forwards and hopping on mats) were taken from the movement assessment battery for children-2 (mabc2) (henderson, sugden, & barnett, 2007) to evaluate the movement and balance competency of each child. these 3 subtests were taken from the test due to the pragmatic limitations of running a study within school and limited access and time not being available to utilise the full scale test. studies reveal (croce, horvat, & mccarthy, 2001) that the mabc2 has test-retest reliability in the range .53 .95. the balance composite score has a high reliability (α = .90) when measuring internal consistency using cronbach’s alphas. lass 8–11 — the lucid assessment system for schools (lass 8–11) (singleton, 2007) consists of 8 subtests each of which assesses a different measurable component within the three categories; ef, academic skills and non-verbal intelligence (see table 1). the complete lass assessment programme was undertaken by each child in both schools. the children in each school went through the subtests in the prescriptive order as outlined in the procedures of the lass 8–11 assessor’s manual (singleton, 2007). z-scores were transferred into t-scores by the main researcher and used as the outcome measure to allow for a comparison to be made between conditions. the working memory composite score consisted of 2 items (α = .61), the reading composite consisted of 2 items (α = .28) and the phonological composite consisted of 2 items (α = .44). this demonstrates a moderate reliability for working memory, and low reliability for phonological composite and reading composite. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 726 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 subtest name, category, type and description for lass 8–11. test areasubtest name visual spatial memorycave auditory sequential memory (digit span)mobile phone phonological awarenessnon-words phonological decoding and encodingsegments sight word readingsingle-word reading cloze readingsentence reading spellingspelling non-verbal reasoning intelligencereasoning studies reveal that the lass 8–11 has test-retest reliability in the range .51 .93. this range suggests that the reliability of the assessment tools rates from fair to excellent (cicchetti, 1994; cicchetti & sparrow, 1981; fleiss, 1981) and that is suitable for this exploratory study. procedures both schools agreed to provide two 60-minute sessions of pe each week, for 16 weeks commencing on 17th january and concluding on 24th may 2012. most of the sessions took place on monday and thursday mornings in the control condition and tuesday and thursday mornings in the intervention condition. the control condition received their standard pe provision where the class teacher was supported in the delivery of pe by a pe specialist, with strategic input from national governing body (ngb) sports coaches. the students covered a range of activities such as team sports and gymnastics. the pe specialist, sports coaches and class teacher were unaware of the nature and content of bmt sessions throughout this study. the class teacher was aware of the study design and method. the intervention condition received the bmt provision from two pe specialists who have contributed to the development and design of bmt from its conception. each of these pe specialists took one session per week, and both liaised with one another each week in order to discuss how the students were performing and to establish the focus of subsequent sessions. quantitative data — pre and post-testing was conducted on a one-to-one basis by the main researcher and the students in both schools. physical testing using the mabc2 was carried out with each pupil, in a quiet room within the school before completing the lass 8–11 with each pupil on a separate day in the same quiet room. all testing was completed in december prior to the intervention commencing in january. qualitative data — the focus group (inclusive of 8 randomly selected pupils, 4 boys and 4 girls) and classroom teacher interview were carried out by a research team assistant who was not involved in the quantitative testing protocols or in the delivery of any of the pe/bmt lessons within the control or intervention condition. the research assistant was an experienced interviewer and facilitator of focus groups. the following three areas were covered in the pupil focus group: 1. the enjoyment levels of the students during the pe lessons 2. pupil perceptions on what they learned in the pe lessons europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 727 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 3. transferable skills from pe lessons to classroom-based learning these three areas were selected as they would inform the study about the experience the pupils had of bmt, and would provide an insight into the links between bmt and aspects of learning as perceived by the students. this would help to further inform the efficacy and feasibility of adopting bmt as an alternative approach to pe. the class teacher participated in an interview at the end of the study. the topics covered included: 1. differences in classroom behaviour prior to and after the bmt/pe sessions (i.e. change in attention and concentration) 2. changes in school attendance on the days that bmt/pe sessions were being delivered? 3. cross-curricular links between bmt/pe and classroom learning? data analysis quantitative data — baseline data collection was completed prior to the start of the intervention phase and posttesting was completed within 2 weeks of the intervention phase ending. statistical analysis was undertaken by analysis of covariance (ancova) using spss version 19 with baseline scores as covariate. mabc2 raw data from the three subtests were transferred into standard scores using a conversion table. analyses here are based on the composite standard scores following the outlined procedures of the mabc2 assessment (henderson, sugden, & barnett, 2007). lass 8–11 this is a computer-based assessment tool and automatically records and presents the performance of each of the 8 subtest into raw score, centile, z-score, z-score discrepancy and age equivalent data. for the purposes of comparing results from baseline to those at the end of the 16 week intervention, the z-scores were transformed into t-scores for each subtest using the formula: t = (z score x 10) + 50 the working memory composite score was calculated by adding the t-score from the visual spatial memory subtest (i.e. cave) to the t-score from the auditory sequential memory subtest (i.e. mobile phone) to produce an average score. similarly, a composite score for the phonological skills was calculated by adding the t-score from the phonological awareness subtest (i.e. non-words) to the phonological decoding and encoding subtest (i.e. segments). a composite score for reading was calculated by adding the t-score from the sight word reading subtest (i.e. single word reading) to the cloze reading subtest (i.e. sentence reading) producing an average score. composite scores were calculated using the following expression: composite = t-score + t-score/2 qualitative data — the first author transcribed the focus groups and class teacher interviews verbatim before analysing the results. themes were informed by the research questions and subthemes emerged from the data. illustrative quotes from the respondents were used to illuminate the categories. to ensure participant anonymity, pseudo names were used throughout the transcription and in the reporting of results. results 21 students (9 boys, 12 girls) participated in the control condition and 25 students (13 boys, 12 girls) in the intervention condition. all of the participants presented full data for both preand post-test conditions. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 728 http://www.psychopen.eu/ quantitative data mabc2— the results from the three subtests administered revealed a ceiling effect. the highest score achievable was 19, and all students met the criteria for this score in accordance with the procedures as laid out in the assessment manual. findings from these subtests will not be further reported. lass 8–11 — significant main effects for the intervention condition were revealed by the ancova for the working memory composite score (f(1, 41) = 4.52, p = .040), the phonological composite score (f(1, 41) = 4.43, p = .042), and the ‘segments’ subtest (f(1, 41) = 6.63, p = .014). no significant main effects were identified for reading composite (f(1, 41) = 1.74, p = .195) or reasoning (f(1, 41) = 0.92, p = .343) subtests or for spelling, although the latter approached significance (f(1, 41) = 3.00, p = .091). table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for the computer-based assessment system lass 8–11 for the control and intervention condition participants. table 2 means and standard deviation (sds) for working memory composite, phonological skills, reading composite, spelling and reasoning for intervention and control conditions preand post-test. mean scores (sd) at post-testmean scores (sd) at pre-test outcome measures interventioncontrolinterventioncontrol working memory (5.88)56.13(9.41)55.54(5.53)55.92(8.22)54.45 phonological skills (6.06)50.72(7.07)49.34(7.17)48.19(7.56)49.18 reading composite (6.35)50.64(6.58)51.18(10.37)54.04(7.48)58.53 spelling (6.27)51.82(6.50)51.32(7.25)50.79(6.97)52.51 reasoning (6.15)47.00(7.93)46.75(5.67)43.64(7.62)46.63 there were significant group by gender interaction in the case of the phonological composite scores (f(1, 19) = 9.85, p = .005), the ‘segments’ subtest (f(1, 19) = 10.48, p = .004), and ‘spelling’ (f(1, 19) = 10.97, p = .007) with boys in the intervention condition achieving significantly higher scores than boys from the control condition in all three measures. table 3 shows the means, standard deviations and p-values for the computer-based assessment system lass 8–11 for both conditions by gender. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 729 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 boys and girls means, standard deviation (sds) at preand post-testing for control and intervention conditions. mean scores (sd) at post-testmean scores (sd) at pre-test outcome measures pinterventioncontrolinterventioncontrol working memory boys .207(5.46)57.92(10.95)53.57(3.92)57.16(8.56)56.20 girls .129(5.91)54.19(8.26)57.02(6.80)54.59(8.06)53.14 phonological composite boys .005(3.42)52.50(6.07)45.95(5.53)50.85(7.62)48.14 girls .705(7.73)48.80(6.91)51.88(7.84)45.31(7.75)49.96 non-words boys .201(3.86)50.27(5.58)47.60(8.27)49.30(9.05)50.02 girls .597(9.39)49.94(8.26)52.79(7.53)44.74(9.64)48.69 segments boys .004(5.56)54.73(8.08)44.31(8.58)52.40(7.70)46.25 girls .547(8.54)47.66(7.71)50.97(10.07)45.87(10.85)51.23 read composite boys .351(5.78)51.30(6.35)48.82(10.22)52.95(5.40)58.76 girls .456(7.11)49.93(6.44)52.94(10.85)55.22(8.97)58.36 spelling boys .007(2.84)53.36(4.69)48.56(5.28)52.06(5.63)50.69 girls .813(8.43)50.16(7.06)53.40(8.97)49.41(7.78)53.87 reasoning boys .248(6.18)47.39(7.48)43.83(6.14)44.79(4.77)44.89 girls .713(6.36)46.48(7.85)48.94(5.07)42.40(9.20)47.93 qualitative data students theme 1: enjoyment levels— three sub-themes emerged from the analysis of the student’s perceptions of enjoyment of bmt: rules adherence, pedagogy, and perceived self-competence. the respondents felt that student enjoyment levels were enhanced if everyone in the class adhered to the rules of the task or activity. the respondents were also clear that if rules were not adhered to that this increased levels of frustration and prevented a successful experience of bmt: “it was really annoying because every time you were with a partner, like some of the partner, well one of my partners was really annoying and he wouldn’t actually do it and then when you got round to doing it he couldn’t actually remember what you were supposed to do.” (calvin) students commented on the teaching approaches adopted by the teachers, suggesting that the pedagogy used by the staff helped to enhance the student’s experience of bmt and enriched their enjoyment of the subject. “.. it’s good cause, when you do the patterns with your partner, mr dowens and mr french don’t say ‘oh, that’s rubbish.’ they’d say, positive things about it and then they’d say something about it that we should work on and that helps so that we know what we can work on next time.” (phoebe) feedback from the students on their own perceptions of how well they could perform physically in their bmt lessons revealed that if the respondents perceived the task to be too challenging this lowered their levels of enjoyment, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 730 http://www.psychopen.eu/ whereas, if the perception was that they were good at a specific physical task then this increased their levels of enjoyment. “i liked the gymnastics sequences because, if they didn’t tell you what you could do you just could go and do what you were good at, cause if they tell you to do something you might not be good at that so you could show everyone what you were good at and stuff like that and do it well cause you were gonna choose what, like, you’re best at doing.” (gemima) students theme 2: perception of what was learned — three recurring themes were extracted from analysis of the student’s perceptions of what was learned during their bmt lessons: technical skills, health and fitness and self-confidence. students fed back that they learned some technical skills in bmt. “.. better movers better thinkers taught me to do a forward roll because i couldn’t do a forward roll and then they told me to do this sort of thing where, with my hands up, roll then jump and it made me work better and in every sequence i used a forward roll in.” (kjeld) health and fitness was commented on by the students, but rather than a direct focus they seemed to perceive it as an indirect outcome from the bmt lessons. “well, i learned that even though exercise can be hard at some points better movers and thinkers gym was always fun and you didn’t really realise that you were exercising all those parts of your body and your muscle but eh, in this time you just thought about having fun and you still improved in your skills that you were doing gym.” (monica) students mentioned that bmt helped them realise that everyone has different things that they are good at and that it is important to embrace difference. this was clarified with their perception being that self-esteem and socialconfidence were improved during bmt sessions. “you kinda learned that, just because you can’t do something doesn’t meant that you’re a bad person or that you’re, you’re rubbish at everything but, better movers and thinkers say that, they say that it’s okay not to be good at a handstand but you might be good at something else so say someone could do a handstand and you couldn’t and you were, you feel that you’re rubbish inside and all that, but better movers and thinkers would say well maybe you’re not good at that but you can do something else that they can’t do and it makes you feel better about yourself.” (monica) students theme 3: transfer learning from pe to the classroom — students made a link between their bodies and brains both being challenged during bmt stating that ‘[bmt] gets the brain going.’ student comments were grouped into five different emergent themes which were; bmt gave you more energy for the day in the classroom compared to normal pe; “better movers and thinkers is good for class work because when you come to school usually, like see when i look at everybody in my group, including me, are all really tired and we all really need to get warmed up, well, like that’s what better movers and thinkers does, it warms up your body and gets your brain ready for all the work that you’re gonna do and it’s just really helpful for class work.” bmt exercised your brain, normal pe did not; “i learned that even though it’s about exercising your body it’s like exercising your brain as well cause it’s like testing it” europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 731 http://www.psychopen.eu/ after bmt, students felt they worked more efficiently and accurately; “after i got back from better movers better thinkers i kinda thought like i was so tired, i was like, i was so tired like, i just got changed and i sat down to do my work and i was so tired that i just wanted to kinda get through my work and i knew all the answers and everything and got through my work a lot faster.” pupils felt more successful in bmt sessions, which gave more confidence to learn in the classroom; “i think it was just because after the experience i’d learned a bit and, i got, i’m not sure, i just, i thought i’d learned a bit. it made me a bit more confident in my work.” improved concentration and more focus for the next lesson. “i think it was before better movers and thinkers on a tuesday we would get, music i think it is, right after gym and miss greer would come in and get us and i used to maybe, be like tired or something and i wouldn’t do it properly but now in music on a tuesday, like, before when, before better movers and thinkers finished, it was really, well, i could concentrate on what i was doing in music and i could, eh we got asked to make or eh compose some eh, eh music on the, eh,…xylophone and i, i got through it and it was really good.” class teachers theme 1: classroombehaviour (pe)— the class teacher reported that despite it being difficult for the children to concentrate for the entire lesson, she noticed that the students were entirely focussed from the beginning to the end of each session, and put this down to the nature of the bmt approach, and felt that the concentration from the pupils improved. she makes specific mention of the girls by stating ‘i think the girls who are maybe a wee bit body conscious at this age…they were totally engaged and involved.’ she outlined that the students would often be working in pairs which helped to develop the pupil’s confidence and that they were willing to try new things. she was particularly interested to note that ‘the children chose their own partners in the gym and it was, it changed, it wasn’t always the same partner so that was very interesting.’ class teacher theme 2: links between bmt and the class — the class teacher made direct links between bmt and curriculum for excellence (scottish executive, 2004) recognising the contribution that the sessions made to successful learners, effective contributors, and confident individuals. a further link was made between language development in the classroom and the physical sentence structure that was being developed in bmt, with specific mention of the ‘links and linking words and all that kinda of link, the, the language used and the children tuned in well to that too.’ she then went on to say that the focus and concentration that was developed in bmt raises the pupil’s enthusiasm for learning and that this continues into the classroom and beyond. she specifically recalls seeing the students in the playground doing some of the actions that were part of bmt. finally, the class teacher made a direct link between the sharing of ideas, appreciation of one another’s work, working in pairs and good demonstrations of good practice as being something that the children do in bmt and in the classroom stating ‘that is something we do in class a lot.’ class teacher theme 3: school attendance— the class teacher found no connection between school attendances being different on bmt days compared to non-bmt days. “i don’t think they’ve actually made their attendance better on a pe day as far as i know.” europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 732 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study aimed to provide information about the efficacy, acceptability and feasibility of bmt as an approach to delivering pe in primary schools. two schools received two pe lessons per week over 16 week duration between january and may with both conditions receiving the 32 planned sessions. the control condition received their pe provision from a combination of pe specialist, qualified ngb sports coaches and the class teacher. the intervention condition received all of their bmt sessions from the two experts who had contributed to the design and conception of bmt. the study was completed within the timescale allocated. the findings from this study revealed statistically significant improved overall score changes in measures of working memory, phonological awareness and segmentation abilities for participants recruited to the bmt intervention condition. significant group by gender interactions further revealed that boys in the intervention condition made greater gains than boys from the control condition in phonological composite scores, segments and spelling subtests. traditionally the literature has revealed girls showing advanced language-based skills when compared to boys (duckworth & seligman, 2006), yet findings from this exploratory study have shown boys to make more significant gains in scores on certain aspects of language-based tasks when compared to girls as a result of bmt. therefore, these results are potentially important findings and provide evidence in support of bmt having a positive impact on learning. the improvements identified in working memory hold specific significance to learning and educational processes as memory is considered the most basic and fundamental concepts required for learning (brown & minns, 1999). the statistically significant gains achieved in phonological awareness and segmentation scores are of similar interest to that of the working memory results as these are considered as the foundations of literacy development (justice & pullen, 2003). these foundations are known to develop as part of emergent reading and spelling capabilities and the literature has shown that this typically happens in girls ahead of boys (bruininks, 1978; ehri et al., 2001; flynn & rahbar, 1994; green & francis, 1988; machin & pekkarinen, 2008). however, the results from this study identified boys making more significant gains and present a different finding from these previous studies. this may be due to the specific focus that bmt has on the development of ef skills; and in particular the enhancement of working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. it could be suggested that improvements in ef skills may lead to concomitant improvements in attention and concentration levels as a result of improvements in selfregulatory behaviours. the literature has indicated a direct correlation between increased levels of attention and the development of phonological abilities (ehri et al., 2001; green & francis, 1988). qualitative findings support this theory as the class teacher made specific reference to the students having to concentrate throughout the duration of the bmt sessions inferring that this is not the case during traditional pe sessions. to substantiate this stance the class teacher remarked how the students remained engaged throughout the bmt session due to the ‘nature of the programme.’ it has been noted that the influence that improved levels of concentration can have on phonological awareness, and that phonological awareness positively influences spelling (muter, hulme, snowling, & stevenson, 2004). it may be suggested that the findings from this study indicate that bmt has supported the development of attention and concentration with concomitant influence on academic achievement and in particular a relationship between gains in phonological awareness and improvements in spelling amongst boys. as boys traditionally lag behind europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 733 http://www.psychopen.eu/ girls in this area of development (duckworth & seligman, 2006), these findings are interesting and provide evidence in support of bmt having a positive impact on learning. however, results from the reading tests identified no main effect for the intervention condition suggesting that there has not been a transfer of skills from improved phonological abilities to reading competency as previous research has suggested (bruininks, 1978; machin & pekkarinen, 2008). it may be the duration of the intervention phase was not sufficient enough to allow for transference, or possibly that emergent reading skills develop before the age of this study cohort. the significant findings from the lass assessment may have been a result of the levels of moderate-vigorous physical activity (mvpa) achieved by the intervention condition being greater than that of the control condition, and may perhaps help explain for the gender interaction identified in some of the subtests. as no measurement for mvpa was used during the intervention phase sessions it is not possible to account for the effect of this potential variable. similarly, no data were collected on the students’ participation in physical activity outside of school, yet many studies have identified this as a key factor when evaluating the impact that physical activity has on academic achievement (coe et al., 2006; davis & cooper, 2011; etnier, nowell, landers, & sibley, 2006). it could be suggested that limited engagement in mvpa may hinder the development of good coordination and balance control which may limit the direct engagement in physical activity and result in more sedentary behaviours. if there is a link between physical activity and academic achievement, then future studies should take cognisance of this to help account for the differences identified within this pilot study. the results from the mabc2 identified that balance and postural control scores did not change over the course of this study, as a ceiling effect was observed. these subtests were used as static balance reaches adult levels for open-eye conditionsi between 9 and 10 years of age (wolff et al., 1998) but in retrospect they may not have been sensitive enough for this particular cohort. it has been suggested that static balance maintenance supports the fundamental process of coordinated accurate movements (nashner, shumway-cook, & marin, 1983) and therefore it could be suggested that any flaws in static balance may limit the student’s access to a worthwhile and positive pe experience as it has the potential to detrimentally affect coordination. student feedback clearly identified that their enjoyment levels were often linked to their perceived physical competence and therefore poor self-image may result in a disengagement from pe (and physical activity) altogether. within this study perhaps students with under-developed static balance capabilities were not identified as a symptom of the limitations within the measurement tool used. however, the mabc2 is a popular instrument for the evaluation and identification of children with motor impairment and is used in many clinical and research contexts where studies on validity have shown 80% agreement between the mabc2 and ‘bruininks-oseretsky test of motor performance’ (bruininks, 1978; chow & henderson, 2003; croce, horvat, & mccarthy, 2001). variables that have not been investigated within this study, such as intensity of the physical activity and/or the individual student differences (i.e. motivation) may help explain for the different results. similarly, no evaluation of the level of teaching expertise or experience was taken into account but may also have impacted upon results. findings from the pilot study provide an opportunity for a larger-scaled study to be conducted. some key adjustments and additions need to be made to the measurement tools used in order to design a more robust study. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 734 http://www.psychopen.eu/ strengths of the study the schools used within the current study shared catchment areas, had a similar school roll and similar pe resources. this helped to reduce the possible influence of other known variables such as socio-economic status (rhoades, greenberg, lanza, & blair, 2011) and class sizes (wilson, 2007) from influencing the results. both the control and intervention condition received 16 weeks of pe with no omissions. this prevented time spent doing pe being a confounding variable as both conditions received 32 sessions during the 16-week intervention phase. testing was completed by the main researcher at both preand post-test in the same location within the school for all students. this standardised operational procedures and allowed the students to feel secure within the process. the validity and reliability of both assessment tools used were good for this exploratory study, and both were standardised for a uk population allowing for it to be free from any cultural interpretations as the study took place within scotland. pre-testing was completed in both conditions in december 2011 before the start of the intervention phase in january 2012, and post-testing was completed in both schools within two weeks from the end date of the intervention phase (may 2012). this reduced the influence that time of testing could have had on the data gained in either condition. the estimate of internal consistency associated with the composite scores for working memory was moderate (α = .61) suggesting good reliability and validity in using a composite score for the two memory subtests. the teachers and ngb sports coaches delivering the pe experience in either condition were not involved in the collection of the quantitative or qualitative data, or in the analysis of the results. similarly, the independent researcher who conducted the student focus group and class teacher interview was not involved in the analysis of the quantitative or qualitative data helping to reduce the level of bias as they were blind to the procedures of the intervention and other assessment tools. limitations of the study no measurement of the student’s overall level of physical activity was taken at preor post-intervention. there is a considerable amount of research that identifies school-aged students who have increased levels of time spent being physically active typically perform better in academic tasks than those who are less physically active (coe et al., 2006; davis & cooper, 2011; etnier et al., 2006; trudeau & shephard, 2010). there was no measure of the intensity levels of physical activity being achieved by the students during their pe lessons. studies have shown a different impact on academic performance depending on acute bouts of exercise or chronic bouts of exercise (ahn & fedewa, 2011; biddle & asare, 2011). the expertise and experience levels of the teachers as well as their adopted style when delivering pe was not evaluated or compared. studies (bailey et al., 2009; chatoupis, 2009; demetriou & höner, 2012) have shown that the approach adopted by the teacher can have a significant effect on the outcomes achieved during the lessons and therefore can have an impact on any benefits associated with this learning opportunity for students. in addition to this, the teachers delivering to the intervention condition contributed to the development of bmt and therefore may have beenmoremotivated to achieve significant results that those who conducted the control condition lessons. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 735 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the control condition received their pe provision onmondays and thursdays and the intervention condition received their provision on tuesdays and thursdays. it may be suggested that the delivery to pupils on different days of the week may have been a confounding variable as their attitudes and motivations to participate in the pe lessons may have been different given that one school received their first session of the week on mondays (immediately after the weekend) and the other on tuesdays. this could therefore have had the potential to influence the results realised from the outcome measures. the measurement tool used for evaluating the physical competence of the students was limited and this restricted the possibility of identifying students with movement difficulties. therefore, motor incompetence could not be taken into account during the results analysis. the estimate of internal consistency associated with the composite scores for reading was low (α = .28) and similarly the composite score for phonological subtests was low (α = .44) when conducting and interpreting internal consistency reliability analysis through cronbach alphas (sijtsma, 2009). the reading tests used within lass 8–11 did not best reflect a pure sight word reading test or cloze reading test as pictures are provided as part of these tests. the illustration represents a non-verbal process and may assist the students in identifying the correct word from 5 possible answers. this does not involve the pupil having to sound out the components of the word itself in order to read it correctly. the word is read out to the child which does result in the child’s need to process the information phonologically, but in the presence of the non-verbal information being provided (i.e. the visual representation of the picture), it reduces the level of reading and phonological processing that has to be done in order to complete this task. conclusion quantitative results showed there was an effect between school with the intervention making statistically significant gains in working memory, phonological awareness and segmentation abilities. the quantitative data analysis showed results in spelling that were approaching significance, though the small sample size did not allow for this. there was a group by gender interaction identified and in particular; male students in the intervention condition made significant gains in comparison to the male students in the control condition in measures of phonological awareness, segmentation abilities and spelling. gains being made, especially for boys, indicate a potential mapping between bmt and academic skills. the gains may be attributed to specific improvements in ef skills, and in particular to inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and working memory, though further research is required where a direct measure of these core ef skills could be included. this study only included measures of working memory. qualitative results indicated that students enjoyed bmt as a different approach to pe and the class teacher felt that it enhanced aspects of classroom learning and in particular the engagement of the girls in pe. the findings support bmt as one approach to pe with concomitant benefits to academic achievement and ef skills. notes i) other tests of static balance are performed with the eyes closed, but all of the subtest within the mabc2 are performed with the eyes open. funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 736 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ahamed, y., macdonald, h., reed, k., naylor, p. j., liu-ambrose, t., & mckay, h. 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(2011).handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance: new york, ny: routledge. about the authors andrew dalziell graduated frommoray house institute of education as a teacher of physical education. following a teaching post at university of glasgow, andrew has worked for over 12 years’ experience working with infants, children and young europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 better movers and thinkers (bmt) 740 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ecresq.2007.01.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1086%2f496905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2010.08.004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs11336-008-9101-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023%2fa%3a1025872421115 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jpeds.2005.01.055 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1559827609351133 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0663.97.4.617 http://dx.doi.org/10.3102%2f00346543073004471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f87565648809540405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fjor.1100160215 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adults with learning and behavioural difficulties within his own private practice. andrew is a final year phd student at university of edinburgh having transferred from an mphil at university of strathclyde at the end of his first year. andrew is a core member of the physical activity health and research centre (pahrc) at university of edinburgh and the national delegate in scotland for federation internationale education physique (fiep). james boyle is professor of psychology and director of postgraduate professional training in educational psychology at strathclyde university. he is a chartered psychologist with the british psychological society, a health and care professions council registered psychologist and honorary professor, moray house school of education, university of edinburgh. he has research interests in educational and developmental psychology which include the cognitive and educational benefits of physical activity and has experience of conducting systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials. he is a member of the scottish government’s national steering group on educational psychology and is also a member of the british psychological society’s committee on test standards. nanette mutrie is chair of physical activity for health at the university of edinburgh, scotland. nanette is a chartered psychologist with the british psychological society and has extensive experience of conducting interventions aimed at increasing physical activity. she is also an honorary fellow of bases. she has contributed to policy, for example, ‘let’s make scotland more active’, and the national institute of health and clinical excellence (nice) programmes on physical activity and the environment and the promotion of walking and cycling (www.nice.org.uk). nanette was awarded an mbe in the uk new year’s honours list 2015 for services to physical activity for health. she gets her own exercise by commuter cycling, dog walking and playing golf. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 722–741 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.950 dalziell, boyle, & mutrie 741 http://www.nice.org.uk http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en better movers and thinkers (bmt) introduction methods design participants materials procedures data analysis results quantitative data qualitative data discussion strengths of the study limitations of the study conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors rational emotive behavioural therapy: the evolution of a revolution interview rational emotive behavioural therapy: the evolution of a revolution interview with dr. debbie joffe ellis, work partner and wife of dr. albert ellis, the creator of rebt debbie joffe ellis*a, montse rovirab [a] licensed psychologist, australia; mental health counselor, new york, ny, usa. [b] licensed clinical psychologist, cádiz, spain. abstract recognized as one of the most influential thinkers and psychologists, albert ellis phd (1913-2007) revolutionized psychology when he created the first cognitive psychotherapy, rational emotive behavioral therapy. after he passed away, dr. debbie joffe ellis continues spreading his legacy around the world. psychologist, lecturer, writer, trainer, she dedicates her life to disseminate rebt and extend it through different statements, from the social to the educational, from the academic to the clinical. in this interview, she goes through her own history and her husband’s one, bringing us closer to understanding albert ellis as the leading figure in his field, and the oneness they experienced through their professional and personal relationship. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 published (vor): 2015-02-27. *corresponding author at: 75 west end ave., apt. c-14-j, new york, usa 10023. e-mail: debbiejoffeellis@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. new york january 2014 if next winter is not as cold as the last one, new york citizens will remember january 2014 as the iciest in decades. while the taxi was driving me from the airport to the city through a snowstorm my horizon was limited for the back part of the car that was ahead. we were going slowly through a viscous fog that made blurred the skyline of manhattan. i was going to interview dr. debbie joffe ellis, partner and widow of dr. albert ellis who revolutionized the psychology. interview dr. debbie joffe ellis is an enthusiastic woman. she is passionate about her work and about her beloved husband. i had seen them in the pictures looking at each other with pleasure, always smiling, holding their hands. i wanted to know who that woman was and is. montse rovira: who is the woman holding albert ellis’s hand? europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ dr debbie joffe ellis is a licensed psychologist (australia) and mental health counselor (new york), and is affiliated with several major psychological associations and societies − including being a member of the australian psychological society, and an international affiliate member of the american psychological association. dedicated to her husband, the great pioneering and remarkable psychologist albert ellis phd, they worked together for several years giving public presentations and professional trainings on rational emotive behavior therapy (rebt), as well as collaborating on writing and research projects, until his death in 2007. she continues to present, practice and write about his groundbreaking approach of rebt. she currently has a private practice in new york city, and also delivers lectures, workshops and seminars throughout the u.s.a. and across the globe. for further information see: www.debbiejoffeellis.com correspondence: 75west end ave., apt. c-14-j, new york, usa 10023. e-mail: debbiejoffeellis@gmail.com debbie joffe ellis: the woman who holds albert ellis’s hand is a human being, who admires the scientist, respects the person and loves the man. al and i shared the same values and the same interests. there was a huge age difference and yet it was irrelevant. we had a similar sense of humor. we loved helping other people and teaching them how to help themselves. we loved teaching and writing. we loved spreading rebt so that people could learn how to help themselves. we both were passionate about one another. we believed in what we did. we shared study and work. we shared life. montse rovira: “to debbie joffe ellis, the greatest love of my whole life, my whole life”. your husband and you shared work and life. what can you tell me about the doctor and the man? [dr. joffe ellis’s eyes shine when i remind her how dr. ellis dedicated his autobiography to her (ellis, 2010, all out! an autobiography). she looks at me in a caring way, breathes softly and smiles.] debbie joffe ellis: my husband was well known for many things. for changing the direction of psychology, for pioneering cognitive psychology, for his 85 books, for 1.500 plus articles, for running groups all over the world teaching, etc. he is known also for being a pioneer in the area of relationships and sex. he was one of the first people in the 1940’s and onwards to fight for women’s and gay’s rights, and it wasn’t so popular then! so he became an expert in relationships and love and sex and he wrote about that. one of his most famous books on this topic is “sex without guilt”. nowadays he’s recognized as a major contributor to the sexual revolution in america, which spread to other countries. al was brilliant, controversial, innovative, but besides all of that, he was an extraordinary man. al loved what he did. his work was his mission. he typically worked 18 hours or more each day. he loved his work. he loved love. he loved women. he was married the first time (for 18 hours!), but they stayed friends for the rest of her life. then he married again (that lasted 18 months!) and after they divorced still continued their friendship. he had relationships with many women. the relationship that al and i shared was something very rare, unusual, a very, very remarkable circumstance. my husband told me many times that he had not felt that depth of love in any of his previous relationships that he felt with me and from me. it was unconditional love. [dr. joffe ellis sips from her coffee and her sight loses in time.] europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 interview 8 http://www.debbiejoffeellis.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ “i first met al in my aunt’s library” debbie joffe ellis: as you may know, i was born in australia and raised there. my aunt was a psychologist and had a huge library. i loved reading and was strongly interested in psychology. so, i would frequently visit her home and that library was an enigmatic and surprising place for little debbie. i looked at all those books and asked my aunty about them. it was such a temple of wisdom and each book was a treasure. i distinctly remember that one afternoon a book caught my eye. its name was “reason and emotion in psychotherapy”, by albert ellis. i took it and read some paragraphs and they deeply impressed me. so it can be said i first met him in my aunt’s library! then some years later, i studied psychology, and during that time he visited australia and gave workshops at the university i studied at, university of melbourne. i saw him there. we spoke briefly, and i thought, “wow! albert ellis!” never did i think that one day in the future i would get married to him. then we met again, maybe 15 years after that, in san francisco, at the apa annual convention, and we started our friendship. profoundly close. i went back to australia and we wrote to each other frequently. we spoke by phone once or twice each month. then i started visiting new york once a year. [dr. joffe ellis’ sight gets darker before continuing with a quiet voice:] debbie joffe ellis: i was in new york in 2001 when world trade center was attacked, and i decided to make longer my stay. i volunteered in a place, which was opened 24 hours a day, and recovery workers and policemen, and firemen could come there anytime to get some food or drink. i would sometimes serve the food or clear the tables, and would mainly be there to listen to and to talk to the people. many of them were in a strange emotional zone of stoicism for getting the work done, looking for bodies, dealing with seeing shocking things like body parts or burned toys of children, and people's shoes and torn clothing and other things that were so upsetting. as the weeks went on, they were more exhausted at times. for some of them shock had changed to anger. i did not sit and give formal "therapy", but would be there for them, be with them, listen and care, and encourage any who wanted to talk to share, and when we found it appropriate we would talk about ways they could feel less angry or depressed or overwhelmed. during that time, i was also helping my husband who was working with little rest. several clients wanted to change their session’s in-person into phone ones because they were afraid of taking public transportation. we still gave our regular friday night workshops, and he also gave a talk on terrorism, discussing with the audience on what rebt could do to help people and possibly reduce their rage and panic and fear about terrorism. they were very intense days and we were working hard together. and we loved doing so.we were inseparable after our relationship began. our bond became stronger and finally we married. we had an enormous amount in common.we cherished life. i still do. i am grateful for my life and the good things in it. what brings me a great joy is to contribute to others, and i find very gratifying for me when i give presentations, and workshops and demonstrations. like al, i find happiness helping people to discover happiness through rebt and its tools. montse rovira: and if i would not know about rebt and its tools… what would you explain me about it? [dr. joffe ellis smiles and showing her training abilities explains:] europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 ellis & rovira 9 http://www.psychopen.eu/ debbie joffe ellis: rebt stands for rational emotive behavior therapy and it is the pioneering cognitive approach in psychology and counseling and therapy. my husband was really the first one to challenge freud in the nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties. at that time – at least in america – freud was the “god” of the psychology universe or psychiatry. my husband studied at columbia university and at that time, he had no choice but to study freud and psychoanalysis and to practice it with people. and as he did that, he noticed that some people were feeling better but they were not getting better, they were not getting to the root of the issue in order that they could stop creating their emotional suffering and start practicing healthy thinking and behavior. so more and more he became active-directive with his clients, and he would give them homework and he would give them the idea that they were responsible for creating their own emotions. they discussed what was creating emotional disturbance and was unhelpful to get their goals. so bit by bit, he was developing his approach in what in the beginning was called rational therapy, after it became rational emotive therapy and in 1993 he put in the “b” for behavior: rebt. montse rovira: he founded rebt, which was a revolution in the field of psychology and psychotherapy breaking with all the classical approaches, isn’t it? debbie joffe ellis: yes. al established the premises of a new therapeutic model that broke with the traditional work between client and therapist, with the classical approach to mental and emotional disturbances and with the methodology to solve them. an essential aspect of the cognitive revolution pioneered by my husband is: “it is not what happens or outer circumstances that create our emotions, but the way we perceive those events and circumstances”. montse rovira: what would you in your role as psychologist do with me if a suicide pilot crashes his plane into a building and kills my loved ones? debbie joffe ellis: the approach that i would use with you would be similar to the one i would use with anyone losing loved ones in both such tragic – and also non tragic – circumstances. grief is grief, whether it has added to it shock from unexpected and brutal death of loved ones, or their death after a long illness when it is not unexpected. i would provide listening, empathy, caring. at an appropriate time, we would discuss the fact that death is an inevitable part of life, and though we are deprived without our loved ones, we can choose to focus on our love of them, and to also focus on what still is good in our lives. [suddenly i realize that these words are pronounced by a woman who lost her beloved husband, and more recently her mother, and yet she makes the effort to focus on the good things she still has in her life.] debbie joffe ellis: your negative emotions can be unhealthy like depression, or healthy like sadness. we would distinguish between appropriate sadness and grief, which would be healthy, and depression, which would not be healthy. rebt reminds us that we have choice. we can choose to feel the depth of our loss, which is not depression, and we can choose to accept what we cannot change, and remind ourselves of the importance of self-care: choosing to live full lives, cherish life, as all of us will die someday. when we are willing to teach ourselves to think in healthy ways, we create healthy and appropriate emotions. when we are thinking in unhealthy ways, irrational ways, then we create debilitating unhealthy emotions, for example: anxiety, panic, depression, jealousy, shame, rage, guilt, and so on. we create these emotions through our irrational way of thinking. so rebt helps people learn that they have control of their emotional destinies. al europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 interview 10 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was a visionary, an idealist, and he was also a realistic. he reminded people that life passes quickly, and to enjoy what we can in this life, that life will include loss and suffering. but when we think in healthy ways and create healthy emotions, we minimize the suffering. we cope with it better, we are happier more of the time, and in doing so we can, – even if we are not psychologists –, help other people and create a healthier community, a healthier society, and a healthier world. that was his ideal. “you have to be a detective and find the thoughts that are hurting you” montse rovira: are appropriate thoughts the key to achieve our mental and emotional balance? debbie joffe ellis: healthy beliefs create healthy emotions, healthy emotions and healthy beliefs contribute to healthy behavior. they are all interlinked. one of the things i love about rebt is that it is so holistic, it is not just about the mind. it recognizes mind, behavior, emotions and body are all interconnected. another thing i love about rebt, which makes it unique, and sets it apart from the many other cognitive approaches that followed it, is its philosophical emphasis. and the emphasis on having compassion for ourselves and for others. and its vigorous push to practice unconditional self-acceptance, unconditional other acceptance and unconditional life acceptance. the other cognitive approaches would not disagree with that, but they don’t emphasize it in the same way. [dr. joffe ellis is very expressive. her corporal language is as expressive as her words. she sounds like she is really firm and convinced. she continues:] debbie joffe ellis: and the other thing i love so much about rebt is its precision, it does no just say change your thinking, it says look at your thinking, be a detective, be a scientist, you’ll find the thoughts that are hurting you. and don’t just change them, but first identify them, then dispute them, get them from their roots, get rid of them and then start thinking in healthy rational ways. it is more precise and specific, we are urged to identify the “should’s and the must’s”, and the precision of the disputing phase is emphasized more than in many other cognitive approaches. my husband gave credit to the people who influenced him. some of them were the ancient stoic philosophers, greek and roman philosophers of classical times, eastern philosophers, lao-tse, confucius. moving forward to my husband’s lifetime, contemporary philosophers of his time which include bertrand russell, john b. watson, john dewey and others. also alfred adler, and his approach of individual psychology. my husband had great respect for adler and gave credit to him for being an influence. adlerian psychology includes some cognitive approach. montse rovira: what about aaron t. beck, well known as the founder of cognitive psychology? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 ellis & rovira 11 http://www.psychopen.eu/ debbie joffe ellis: of course! tim beck and my husband had a respectful relationship. beck is younger than al, but if you look in my husband’s autobiography you will see some of their correspondence. beck sent some of his early papers and ideas to my husband, and my husband wrote back in detail every time. beck’s cognitive approach came ten to twelve years after rebt. historically rebt was the big pioneering approach and ct and cbt came later. the main differences between them are the philosophical emphasis of rebt, the emphasis on unconditional acceptance seen in rebt; and the precision of disputing irrational ideas that rebt has. in the nature of rebt and my husband’s style, many people say that there is more vigorous energy than may be seen in the other cognitive approaches. i’m not saying which is better or worse, they are similar but different. both recognize the great power of cognition. [during the last years the technological advances have allowed us to study the brain with techniques that were unthinkable just two decades ago. to understand how the brain works it is necessary to study it in vivo, to check which areas get activated in their answer to certain stimuli. see what happens on the neurological level when we act, feel or think in a certain way. disciplines such as psychoneuroinmunnoendocrinology, biopsychology or neuropsychology, have developed exceptionally thanks to technology, and there are more and more labs focused on brain research. i try to imagine which difficulties could find dr. albert ellis seventy years ago when he decided to quit with classical psychotherapy and he started talking to his clients about thoughts, reason, consciousness… in a time when those terms would be considered such as “paranormal” concepts. i tell my reflections to dr. joffe ellis. she nods and smiles:] debbie joffe ellis: many people don’t know that they have a choice in how they feel. some demand help from a therapist without realizing that they can themselves create changes in their feelings and thinking after they learn how to do so. a good therapist explains the reasons why they feel badly and teach them the tools to practice for the creation of healthy thinking and feeling and behaving. my husband realized that when we are aware of our irrational, illogical and unhelpful thoughts we have taken the first step on the path to achieve the change, but we have to be persistent in our efforts. being aware of our irrational beliefs is the first step. then comes the disputing, followed by the creation of effective new ideas and beliefs. montse rovira: several researches on neuroscience assure that a high percentage of mental functions are unconscious. how can we dispute and change our automatic thoughts if we are not aware of them? debbie joffe ellis: here is the thing! you see, rebt is mainly focused on the present. on what is the disturbing emotion now, in your life at this time that you want to change. that’s what we start with, you know, with a goal of greater happiness in life and less unnecessary suffering, which we create. no matter what happened in the past, rebt focus on the present. and then we do the detective job, we look for the “b”, the beliefs. and we dispute them and come up with new healthy beliefs and philosophies. so it works on your conscious beliefs. we know there are unconscious processes, but the unconscious has not been identified in a concrete way, or as a function centered in a particular area of the brain. maybe it is a processing working way of the brain itself. people who believe in the unconscious probably would say that conscious beliefs are influenced by the unconscious, and essentially we work with these conscious beliefs. montse rovira: i am not sure of being aware of all my thoughts. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 interview 12 http://www.psychopen.eu/ debbie joffe ellis: i will give you an example. some therapists do dream work, they analyze them. our dreams are the outcome of an unconscious process and we usually don’t manipulate them. ok, there is no problem! because when you are doing dream work you are consciously describing the dream you had. so you may say to me “i dreamed i was falling down from the empire state building”. and so, what was the emotion that you felt? and you might say: “terror, anxiety, panic!” and i might ask: well, what do you think you might have been telling yourself to create your terror, anxiety and panic? “oh! i shouldn’t be falling like this. oh! i’m going to die, that’s terrible!” can you see? you can even use dreams to stimulate the discussion and identify some of the irrational beliefs. so let’s ask: have you ever had some of these irrational beliefs in your conscious life? you see? rebt is not afraid of anything. it can be used in any situation, to look at any emotion, any thought, no matter wherever it comes from. a session starts from the present and may look to create healthy goals for the future. if you change your cognition, emotions and behaviors will also change. “when we change our mind, we also change our brain” montse rovira: when i change my way of thinking, am i also changing my brain? debbie joffe ellis: correct! yes, indeed! you are talking about neuroplasticity. you know, when my husband created rebt in the nineteen forties there was no technology to study the brain like there is now. this word, “neuroplasticity” it didn’t exist, although some scientists like ramón y cajal did talk about functional plastic changes in neurons. my husband was ahead of his time in so many ways! [dr. joffe ellis looks at me with complicity:] debbie joffe ellis: i’m going to tell you something that some people may not know. al was member of mensa, an international organization which condition of being a member is having exceptionally high iq. al had an exceptionally gifted and brilliant mind, his iq was in the highest percentile of iq along with the likes of einstein. but let’s go back to neuroplasticity. al gave people homework and said “do it for thirty days”. he had the intuition that this was an appropriate period to install new habits, both behavioral and mental ones. now research supports that 30 days is a good period of time to affect the synaptic behavior in the brain. today that’s obvious, but for him it was only a supposition, an intuition, a vision. new cognitive habits really create new mental routes, brain’s morphology changes. if we are persistent these new routes become stronger, and the old ones weaken or are extinguished. a very good example is that person who says “i’m a new man, completely different than i used to be”. in fact, it is the same person with new brain circuits, more rational. this rational way of thinking provides healthy emotions and effective behaviors to achieve goals. isn’t it prodigious? i could say the same about mindfulness. research now supports the effects of mindfulness and focus. al talked about mindfulness sixty years ago, when that termwas rarely used inwestern society. al recommendedmindfulness as homework because he knew it would be helpful to get the routine of focusing on the present and being aware of our thoughts. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 ellis & rovira 13 http://www.psychopen.eu/ al had a huge sense of humor. this is another of his unique qualities which he integrated into his methodology. he loved to write lyrics of songs and in his workshops, he and attendees together would sing his rational emotive songs. singing and music stimulate some parts of the brain. so yes, he didn’t call it neuroplasticity, the research wasn’t there, but he was already encouraging principles and actions which affect the psychology and physiology of the brain. “it is irrational to think that everybody will always act in a rational way” [time is passing while we share coffee and conversation. the frontal wall of the bar is a large panoramic crystal that brings us a wonderful view of the lincoln center surroundings. we look outside and realize that it is getting dark.] montse rovira: it is surprising to me that the city is hardly crowded. almost there are no pedestrians and no traffic on the street. debbie joffe ellis: it is because of the weather tonight. the temperature itself is no so low but the sensation is about -13ºf due to intense winds, and that is extremely cold for new yorkers, even local people here may not be used to it. meteorologists advised people only to go outside if it was urgent, especially after the sunset. but this is only a very little adversity! remember: if you are alive, no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse! you and me are now here, in a lovely place, sheltered from cold, sharing a coffee and a nice conversation. we can choose to enjoy it or we could also start complaining about how cold will be outside when we go back home. it is so much better if we focus on this delicious present moment. extrapolate this insignificant example to any circumstance in your life. you have the choice to focus on what you want. do it always on the good things that your life offers to you day by day, feel grateful about them. this is the way of thinking that my husband preached and he continued to remind everybody. he was an example of rational thinking and living. with that way of thinking, he could overcome his fear of public speaking, or his fear of rejection from women that he had suffered from when very young. al practiced rebt on himself and encouraged others to take healthy risks at times, even if afraid to do so. al was very, very assertive with his clients: “do it! and if you die, you die! we will give you a very nice funeral!” montse rovira: he was convinced about human capacity to transform, about our own potential. debbie joffe ellis: he was a visionary ahead of his times. however, we have the potential to transform ourselves, to be extraordinary in terms of not succumbing to the easy tendency to make ourselves anxious or depressed, for example. we can think of him as a model for doing so. we are fallible humans, and sometimes we may continue to think and act in an irrational ways, as can those who we have relationships with. it is irrational to think that everybody can always act in a rational way. people can significantly change their lives when they don’t give up making effort to do so: that is what al wanted to transmit. don’t give up. love, laugh, be grateful, cherish your life, accept what cannot be changed, put your sight in the present and have healthy goals for the future. [in my mind emerges the idea that we perpetuate our emotional disturbance when obstinately live in a wrong time, maybe in a distant perfect past or a conditional future. i stop the recorder and an intruder thought invites me to europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 interview 14 http://www.psychopen.eu/ wonder if i’m going to see dr. debbie joffe ellis again, but immediately i say to myself that that’s an unhelpful question, and absurd way to concern about the future. i come back to the present and tell her the only words that come up my mind: “thank you debbie”.] epilog six decades have passed by since rebt was presented to the american psychological association. dr. joffe ellis has explained through her professional and personal relationship with dr. albert ellis, howrebtwas originated, which were the main theoretical sources of it, its methodological bases and its protocols. how it has been developed from an initial version focused on cognitive processes to the holistic dimension that it already has, taking into account cognition, emotions and behavior as inherent aspects of human being, which interconnection has to be considered as the main goal of psychotherapy. the pioneer cognitive overturn that dr. albert ellis gave to psychology has developed into a “school of thinking” and its influence goes beyond the strictly clinical field. for further information see: www.debbiejoffeellis.com and ellis and ellis (2011). for a clinical demonstration of rebt: see the dvd, released in 2014, by debbie joffe ellis: rational emotive behavior therapy, produced by the american psychological association, washington dc (ellis, 2014). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ellis, a. (2010). all out! an autobiography. amherst, ny: prometheus books. ellis, d. j. (2014). rational emotive behavior therapy [dvd]. washington, dc: american psychological association. ellis, a., & ellis, d. j. (2011). rational emotive behavior therapy. washington, dc: american psychological association. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 7–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.911 ellis & rovira 15 http://www.debbiejoffeellis.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview new york january 2014 interview epilog (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society editorial organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society giovanni emanuele corazza* a [a] department of electrical, electronic, and information engineering "guglielmo marconi", marconi institute for creativity, university of bologna, bologna, italy. abstract the editorial dwells upon the technology-driven evolution from the industrial to the post-information society, indicating that this transition will bring about drastic transformations in our way of living, starting from the job market and then pervading all aspects at both individual and social levels. great opportunities will come together with unprecedented challenges to living as we have always known it. in this innovation-filled scenario, it is argued that human creativity becomes the distinctive ability to provide dignity at first and survival in the long term. the term organic creativity is introduced to indicate those conditions, attitudes, and actions that bear the potential to be at the same time productive in socio-economic terms and conducive to human well-being. as a consequence, the role of psychologists in an open cooperation with sociologists, economists, computer scientists, engineers and others, will be as central as ever in establishing healthy collaboration modes between humans and machines, and large investments in related multidisciplinary scientific research are advocated to establish organic creativity as a discipline that should permeate every educational level, as well as our professional and everyday lives. keywords: creativity, industrial society, information society, post-information society europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 published (vor): 2017-11-30. *corresponding author at: university of bologna, marconi institute for creativity, dei department, viale risorgimento 2, bologna, italy. e-mail: giovanni.corazza@unibo.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. when my friend and ejop editor vlad glăveanu asked me to write an editorial message to the journal’s readership, i felt both very honored and challenged in my responsibility to provide you with what i consider to be critical future-relevant information, from a sort of an insider’s point of view. indeed, my intellectual position can be considered to be rather peculiar: an electronic engineer who built his academic career on the development of mobile telephony and satellite communications, and who in 2011 founded an institute dedicated to human creativity studies in the name of the inventor of radio, the marconi institute for creativity (http://mic.fgm.it). it is from this quite atypical viewpoint that i want to anticipate here my main conclusion: the role of psychology in the future post-information society will be as fundamental as ever, given the unprecedented challenges and opportunities for the well-being of humanity, and it should be in the driving seat of a multidisciplinary endeavor involving as a minimum sociology, economy, computer science and engineering. increased investments in creativity research and applications are urgently necessary, in order to provide answers to fundamental questions that are both scientifically exciting and socially troublesome. in the development that leads to this conclusion, interesting resonance will be found with the two preceding ejop editorials by vlad glăveanu himself (glăveanu, 2017) and james kaufman (kaufman, 2017), thus forming a europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://mic.fgm.it http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ sort of continued discussion flow, threaded by the common fil rouge of identifying major endeavors for the benefit of humanity. i happened to start writing this editorial while travelling in moscow, where i was invited to speak at the open innovations forum, at the skolkovo technology park. there, the latest developments in artificial intelligence, robotics, nano-materials, digital infrastructures and services were presented to a very large audience, in a sort of positivistic celebration of the advent of new technologies, along the inevitable path towards the postinformation society. and, to be honest, the technological progress that we are witnessing is nothing less than impressive, in both substance and pace. it is not only a question of improving the performance of technologies we already know, but the introduction of completely new devices, solutions, and systems that have the potential to revolutionize all sectors in society, including healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, management, and entertainment, just to name a few. one could think that this will be yet another industrial revolution, as our species has witnessed since the eighteenth century, and that we have collectively proven our capacity to live through these periods of transition, notwithstanding the inherent challenges. however, this specific phase of technological progress appears to be different from all preceding ones, in that it sees the actual come into play of a new form of machine cognition, namely artificial intelligence; therefore, the interconnection between technology, human cognition and human life in general will become much more intrinsic, invisible, and impactful. clearly, artificial intelligence is not a new concept (see for a brief review the historical notes in simon, 1995); but now its level of maturity has overcome the threshold to really enter into our lives and affect them, and this proximity was indeed tangible at the open innovations forum. to give you a sense of the atmosphere, i attended a session entitled: “smarter than others. how humans are being replaced by artificial intelligence in corporations”. capital letters “a”, “i” not added by the author. it would have taken the panelists only a slight detachment from their love for technology advances to realize that the numbers they were presenting were dramatic in their potential impact. in a nutshell: while in the history of the industrial society the curves for productivity and employment always grew hand-in-hand as a function of time, since the start of the third millennium we have been facing a growing separation, which in the press has been identified as the “decoupling” (brynjolfsson & mcafee, 2012). decoupling entails that a direct proportionality between economic growth and population well-being cannot be taken for granted, anymore: productivity can continue or accelerate its growth while at the same time employment can stagnate or decline. the debate about the extent and the motivations behind this decoupling is today certainly open and non-obvious (in fact, it might easily become another politically charged argument, in some way similar to climate change discussions), but in any case there is no doubt that the new technologies are playing a key role in transforming industrial economy and the associated job market. to report an example: automated driving and self-driving cars, which are forecast to become a widespread reality in the next ten to fifteen years, producing an exciting estimated market in the order of 2 to 7 trillion dollars, bear the potential to produce a massive earthquake in the job market. in fact, approximately 10% of human jobs today involve operating a vehicle. the balance between lost professions and the introduction of new ones is a hot subject for open debates, involving economic, social, and political interests. but while the most immediate consequences of these transformations are visible in economy and specifically in the job market, the social and psychological implications are just behind the corner. indeed, at the open innovations forum the most recurring question from the audience was: “and what about the role of humans, given this abundance of new very efficient and smart technologies?” replies from speakers took on different forms of what could be defined as a smiling embarrassment. clearly, none of the presenters had really given serious thought about the psychological and social impact of these transformations, simply because it organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society 600 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was not their job. one fact should be very clear: this technological progress cannot be stopped or even slowed down. humans will transform society through machines and will have to learn to live well with them. therefore, it is imperative that we understand and possibly anticipate the foreseeable consequences, the opportunities as well as the threats that will be offered, and that we parallel technological developments with urgent work on the human side to enable new forms of well-being in the post-information society. the pace of transformation is simply too fast to wait for natural adjustments, reactions, and retroactions: radical change will occur in less than a generation. let’s enter into a few analytical observations. whereas the industrial society was based on standardization of products and concentration of resources, the information society came in as a technological revolution through personalization and distribution (corazza, vanelli-coralli, & pedone, 2010), leading to the complete destructuring of space and time, such that we can live, work, and interact almost irrespectively of the physical site in which we are at the present moment. it should be noted that this does not mean that cognition is disembodied, but rather that we are witnessing manifold embodiment into diversified physical and virtual realities. as a consequence of the introduction of distributed databases in cloud-based infrastructures, information has become a commodity, at the disposal of anyone with access to the internet and its search engines, that can actually be considered to be the first pervasive form of non-anthropomorphic artificial intelligence. these changes have raised a first set of proximal questions at the individual and relational levels, that invest the realms of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and education. many of these questions are presently under investigation (e.g., see loh & kanai, 2016, and the references therein), but definitive answers will of course require longer longitudinal efforts. how many times per day do we search the internet to find out facts that we ignore, or more basically to recall things that we seem to have forgotten? what are the effects of this daily behavior on our long-term memory and deep-learning skills? in particular, what will be the impact on the cognitive processes and abilities of a native digital, who cannot even imagine a world without a search engine? what are the effects on critical thinking skills and reflexivity, the lack of which could also lead to the rise of forms of post-truths, as hypothesized in the insightful editorial by vlad glăveanu (2017)? how should the education system be modified, given the pervasive knowledge connectivity provided by the information society? and finally a fundamental question: if a non-anthropomorphic form of artificial intelligence can in the limit provide all information to everyone instantaneously, what will be the key to make a difference between the endeavors of human beings, at both professional and everyday levels? as we have argued in (corazza, 2016), these characteristics of the information society bring as a consequence that it is virtually impossible to build a walled garden around one’s knowledge; therefore, the most and perhaps only distinctive behavior of a human being becomes creativity, exemplified as taking elements from the shared layer of information to generate ideas and actions bearing a potential to be both original and effective with respect to one’s goal. diversity will not reside anymore in know-how, but in the ability to generate outcomes that are not yet known to (and possibly out of reach of) the non-anthropomorphic form of artificial intelligence surrounding us. given these conditions, creativity cannot be a luxury for a few “geniuses” as was the case in the industrial society and throughout the preceding history, or a characteristic of outliers living at the margins of society, but it becomes a democratic necessity for everyone. as discussed in the passionate autobiographic editorial by james kaufman (2017), in this view it is a must to move away from a stereotypical view of creativity as related to forms of mental illness, or in any case to variants of non-belonging, and concentrate our efforts on what can be identified as organic creativity, defined as the potential for originality and effectiveness conducive to personal and social well-being. this definition builds on the dynamic definition for creativity (corazza, 2016) adding the general requirement of corazza 601 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ interrelationship with human health and happiness. an important note should be made here: it is evident that well-being can and should continue to be pursued in many alternative ways, that not necessarily involve any form of creative behavior. however, it is very important to underline that the critical peculiarity implied by organic creativity is that the pursuit of happiness is joint with a productive behavior, intended to exploit all of the potential benefits provided by the technological assets of the information society, and not at all detached from it. once established, this approach will call for new forms of psychological and social intervention. clearly, these are very ambitious goals, clarifying and pursuing which will require our studies to be organized into the form of a scientific discipline, striving to identify principles, traits, abilities, strategies and tools for practical application of organic creativity into everyday and professional lives. the central role of psychology in this endeavor cannot be overestimated: human dignity itself depends on creative behavior in the information society. certainly, new technologies can be of help in this framework through fruitful collaborations between humans and machines, possibly contemplating also the virtues and power of computational creativity (colton, de mántaras, & stock, 2009); but we should actively work to preserve and enhance the authentic, emotional, unique capacity of human minds to intentionally generate truly original and effective outcomes in our relational mesh leading to cultural accumulation. authenticity is a fundamental element in establishing originality. however, this is not the end of this editorial: while the above discussion might seem already to add up to a quite complex picture, it is still not sufficient to provide a medium/long-term look into our future. whilst we are still adjusting to the networked environments created by the information society, the technological evolution continues with an accelerating pace, shortening considerably the time span available for personal, social, as well as political adjustment. in 2017, we start to see clearly that evolved forms of anthropomorphic and nonanthropomorphic artificially intelligent systems are maturing and will shortly become part of our world, bringing many proximal benefits but also unprecedented challenges. the internet-of-things will interconnect not only personal devices, but all objects, forming a huge cyber-mesh of human and non-human nodes, much more powerful and pervasive than the internet we know today. as we enter into the post-information society, characterized by the so-called second machine age (brynjolfsson & mcafee, 2014), we should be aware of the fact that everything that happens on the internet of humans & things, sensed and collected by applications running on personal or distributed devices, produces pieces of data, that accumulated on millions and billions of everyday instances generate the so-called big data and the consequent discipline of data science, intended as the extraction of useful information out of mines of data through sophisticated analytical methodologies. in fact, while jobs are being lost in traditional professions, this is clearly a direction of rapid growth in terms of employment; so much so that the “data scientist” has been indicated as the sexiest job of the 21st century (patil & davenport, 2012). in that article, the opening anecdote describes how the linkedin social network entered its real expansion trajectory thanks to the introduction of an artificially intelligent algorithm able to suggest “people you may know”, based on analyzing the user’s profile and his/her present network of relationships. in other words: an intelligent machine suggesting who your next connection could be. the list of data science applications is extremely long, and yet open to unforeseen breakthroughs. the following are but a few examples: sentiment analysis, adaptive marketing, automatic fraud detection, cyber-security algorithms, extracting patterns of behavior that enable personalized predictions about the networks of social relationships, dna analysis that allows hyper-personalized medicine, as well as accurate lifetime span predictions by insurance companies. it is very important to maintain a balanced and wisely optimistic view on these advancements: all of these application scenarios will bring important benefits to humanity; at the same time, organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society 602 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ they also imply radical impact and need for rapid adjustment in our ways of living, as well as in our educational, social and political systems. future-readiness is crucial and yet very challenging to achieve. new fundamental questions will need to find answers without undue delay. what will be the meaning of privacy and intimacy in the post-information society? how will it be possible to ensure that the increased productivity of our interconnected systems goes for the benefit of a growing majority and not for a restricted part of the population? how will society facilitate growth and well-being while fighting against those who intend to make malevolent use of powerful and yet invisible technologies? and, coming closer to the individual: what will be the optimal collaboration point between the human biological brain and the various forms of artificial intelligence surrounding it? how will intelligence be defined and measured in this environment? how will personality, perception, cognition, and emotions be transformed when we will constantly live surrounded by hybrid physical, augmented, and virtual environments? what will be the overall impact of these new technologies on well-being, development, education, psycho-pathologies and their related therapies? will life be extended well beyond one hundred years, and what will it mean to live a happy life then? indeed too many interesting questions, that cannot even be approached in the small playground of an editorial paper. exciting research lies ahead of us, that should be fueled by appropriate funding. let’s only focus our attention on the first critical issue we discussed: the role of humans in the post-information society’s working eco-system, an environment shared with robotic as well as non-anthropomorphic artificial labor, and let’s try to draw the consequences on the emerging role of psychology, in collaboration with other disciplines. it is already clear that in the short term the probability of a specific job to be shifted from humans to computers is inversely proportional to its intrinsic creativity content (bakhshi, frey, & osborne, 2015). but what is at stake in the medium-long term is the meaning, if any will be left, of human employment itself. in fact, any form of routine work, or in the limit any sort of employee position, will progressively lose its appeal or sense for humans in the future. these tasks will much more efficiently be carried out by the artificial labor force. then, unless one believes that most human beings will simply not work and sustain themselves and their families with a guaranteed minimum salary, it can be argued that the new form of social justice will entail the possibility for everyone to exploit artificial labor in an entrepreneurial fashion, albeit possibly on a very small scale. in other words, in the biological-cyber mind collaboration, our organic creativity-driven role will be to generate surprising ideas, and then carry them on to realization to produce tangible or intangible goods or services, according to business models that will have extremely rapid lifespans. no one should be denied the right to take advantage of artificially intelligent systems. possibly this will become a constitutional principle. but then, our very existence, and not only our dignity, will be related one-to-one with our ability to generate ideas with a potential for originality and effectiveness, i.e. with our creativity, to successfully catch the opportunities that technology is offering us. hence the responsibility to study, understand, develop organic creativity as the discipline leading to productive survival, dignity, and well-being becomes more a sort of multidisciplinary mission, with psychology as its core engine. in conclusion, the post-information society is rapidly coming of age, and there is no way to slow down this transition. i argue that organic creativity will be essential for our survival in the necessary collaboration between humans and machines. we need to evolve our science of the human with large investments in research, and psychologists should be at the center of a multidisciplinary collaborative effort including sociologists, economists, computer scientists, engineers and all other relevant disciplines to establish creativity as a corazza 603 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scientific discipline in order to produce necessary radical changes in our behaviors and enable new forms of long-lived well-being. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author would like to thank sergio agnoli, vlad glăveanu, and maciej karwowski for fruitful discussions on the topic. references bakhshi, h., frey, c. b., & osborne, m. (2015). creativity vs. robots: the creative economy and the future of employment (nesta report). retrieved from https://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creativity-vs-robots brynjolfsson, e., & mcafee, a. (2012, december 11). jobs, productivity and the great decoupling. the new york times. retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/global/jobs-productivity-and-the-great-decoupling.html brynjolfsson, e., & mcafee, a. (2014). the second machine age: work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. new york, ny, usa: w. w. norton & company. colton, s., de mántaras, r. l., & stock, o. (2009, fall). computational creativity: coming of age. ai magazine, 30(3), 11-14. retrieved from https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2257doi:10.1609/aimag.v30i3.2257 corazza, g. e. (2016). potential originality and effectiveness: the dynamic definition of creativity. creativity research journal, 28(3), 258-267. doi:10.1080/10400419.2016.1195627 corazza, g. e., vanelli-coralli, a., & pedone, r. (2010). technology as a need: trends in the evolving information society. advances in electronics and telecommunications, 1, 124-132. glăveanu, v. p. (2017). psychology in the post-truth era. europe’s journal of psychology, 13(3), 375-377. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1509 kaufman, j. c. (2017). from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity. europe’s journal of psychology, 13(2), 173-177. doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 loh, k. k., & kanai, r. (2016). how has the internet reshaped human cognition? the neuroscientist, 22(5), 506-520. doi:10.1177/1073858415595005 patil, d. j., & davenport, t. h. (2012, october). data scientist: the sexiest job of the 21st century. harvard business review. retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society 604 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 https://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creativity-vs-robots http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/global/jobs-productivity-and-the-great-decoupling.html https://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2257 http://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v30i3.2257 http://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2016.1195627 http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1509 http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 http://doi.org/10.1177/1073858415595005 https://hbr.org/2012/10/data-scientist-the-sexiest-job-of-the-21st-century http://www.psychopen.eu/ simon, h. a. (1995). artificial intelligence: an empirical science. artificial intelligence, 77(1), 95-127. doi:10.1016/0004-3702(95)00039-h about the author giovanni emanuele corazza is a full professor and member of the board of directors at the alma mater studiorum-university of bologna, founder of the marconi institute for creativity, president of the cineca interuniversity consortium for supercomputing, president of the scientific committee of the fondazione guglielmo marconi, member of the marconi society board of directors, and member of the partnership board of the 5g infrastructure association. he was head of the department of electronics, computer science and systems (deis) in the years 2009-2012, chairman of the school for telecommunications in the years 2000-2003, chairman of the advanced satellite mobile systems task force (asms tf), founder and chairman of the integral satcom initiative (isi), a european technology platform devoted to satellite communications, member of the board of the 5g infrastructure association and vice-chairman of the networld2020 european technology platform in the years 2013-2016. in the years 1997-2012, he has served as editor for communication theory and spread spectrum for the ieee transactions on communications. he is author of more than 300 papers, and received the marconi international fellowship young scientist award in 1995, the ieee 2009 satellite communications distinguished service award, the 2013 newcom# best paper award, the 2002 ieee vts best system paper award, the best paper award at ieee isssta’98, at ieee ict2001, and at iswcs 2005. his research interests are in creativity and innovation, 5g systems, navigation and positioning. corazza 605 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 599–605 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1547 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ organic creativity for well-being in the post-information society (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author coping strategies of southern italian women predict distress following breast cancer surgery research reports coping strategies of southern italian women predict distress following breast cancer surgery rossana de feudis*a, tiziana lancianob, stefano rinaldi c [a] psycho-oncology, breast unit, “san paolo” hospital asl ba, bari, italy. [b] department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy. [c] general surgery unit, breast unit, “san paolo” hospital of asl ba, bari, italy. abstract the present study was aimed at investigating the role of coping strategies in predicting emotional distress following breast cancer, over and above the illness severity, operationalized in terms of the type of surgery performed. in order to achieve this goal, two groups of newly diagnosed breast cancer women were selected and compared on the basis of the type of surgical treatment received. a subsample of 30 women with quadrantectomy and sentinel lymph-node biopsy (slnb) and a subsample of 31 patients with mastectomy and axillary dissection (mad) filled in the brief cope scale and hospital anxiety and depression scale. summarizing, results showed that emotional support, venting, and humor explained a statistically significant increment of variance in psychological distress indices. implication for clinical practice and future research were discussed. keywords: breast cancer, breast surgery, coping, psychological distress, depression, anxiety europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 received: 2014-12-29. accepted: 2015-04-07. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: ateka contractor, warren alpert medical school, brown university, providence, usa; department of psychology, university of toledo, toledo, spain *corresponding author at: psiconcologia, uosd oncologia medica, p.o. “san paolo” asl ba, bari, via caposcardicchio, 70123, bari, italy. e-mail: r.defeudis@eidesis.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. screening for emotional distress is becoming increasingly common in cancer care (gandubert et al., 2009; grassi et al., 2013; holland, 2013; schou, ekeberg, karesen, & sorensen, 2008; vodermaier, linden, & siu, 2009), since the new paradigm of taking into consideration the patients’ emotions, as well as their family relationships, as primary healthcare issues is gaining more and more consent in the medical domain (engel, 1977; seaburn, lorenz, gunn, gawinski, & mauksch, 1996). the high incidence of breast cancer 94.2 yearly rate (age standardized european rate per 100,000) of eu women (118.0 of italian women; ferlay et al., 2013) indicates the extent of this serious illness as a social problem. many studies have demonstrated the pervasive, negative influence of breast cancer diagnosis upon quality of life (carlson & bultz, 2003; mehnert & koch, 2007; montazeri, 2008; henselmans et al., 2010). the short and long term emotional reactions, subsequent to the illness, may cause psychic suffering leading to serious psychological and health problems, such as chronic anxiety, depression, difficulties in sexual and social life (burgess et al., 2005; burke & kissane, 1998; de feudis, 2004; holland, 2013). in addition, physical symptoms, motivation and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ participation to treatment can be affected by the presence of psychological disturbances (burke & kissane, 1998; spiegel, 1997). furthermore, the increasing survival rate has induced to consider the quality of life of women years after diagnosis and treatment. in fact, although recovered from cancer, relational difficulties, emotional dissatisfaction, underfunctioning, compared to personal and socio-family expectations, may persist (andersen et al., 2008; bleiker, pouwer, van der ploeg, leer, & adèr, 2000; bower, 2008; shelby, golden-kreutz, & andersen, 2008; spiegel, 1997). modern psychosocial programs for cancer patients, therefore, are aimed at detecting early signs of distress that can provide cues into the patient’s way of coping with the illness and orient the clinician towards adequate interventions (carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989; glinder, beckjord, kaiser, & compas, 2007; stanton & snider, 1993; stanton et al., 2000). according to this theoretical and empirical evidence, each woman admitted to the breast unit at “san paolo” hospital of asl ba, in bari (italy) is given the opportunity of a psychological consultation two days after surgeryi. vos and colleagues (2004) found that in the period shortly after surgery, coping style, especially illness-specific coping, is highly relevant for psychosocial adjustment. the more women used an emotion-focused way of coping, the more distress and the less vitality was experienced. they also found that women who had breast-conserving treatment perceive their illness as less threatening than women who had mastectomy; in addition, they did not have to deal with the stress of having a mutilated body. in this vein, the aim of the current study is to investigate the role of coping strategies in predicting emotional distress of breast cancer, over and above the illness severity operationalized in terms of the type of surgery performed traditionally associated with it. in order to achieve this goal, two groups of newly diagnosed breast cancer women were selected and compared on the basis of the type of surgical treatment received. since the method of sentinel lymph-node biopsy (slnb) has been introduced in the breast surgery unit of “san paolo” hospital, partial removal of the breast and slnb is the treatment of election, given a diagnosis of breast cancer at a very early stage and negative slnb results. prior to the intervention, in fact, women have a consultation with the surgeon and the breast specialist in order to decide the most suitable type of surgery according to the initial diagnosis. sentinel lymph node biopsy should be the treatment of choice for patients who have early-stage breast cancer with clinically negative nodes. compared with standard axillary treatment, sentinel lymph node biopsy was associated with reduced arm morbidity and better quality of life with no increase in anxiety (mansel et al., 2006a, 2006b). in contrast to abstract information about tumor grade and other illness characteristics, the kind of surgery required has concrete meaning for the patients. in fact, they know that lymph node status is highly related to prognosis and to the likelihood of chemotherapy. for this reason, the necessity of mastectomy with axillary dissection was considered the most suitable indicator about disease severity from the patient’s perspective. it was assumed, therefore, that the women who had mastectomy and axillary dissection (mad) have a perception of a higher severity compared to the patients with quadrantectomy and slnb. according to lazarus (1993), coping refers to the intentional efforts in managing the sources of psychological stress. investigating the role of responses to stress, following a breast cancer diagnosis, glinder et al. (2007) and yang, brothers, and andersen (2008) distinguish between ‘engagement’ versus ‘disengagement’ coping responses, being the former characterized by a psychological attitude of moving towards the stressor, in order to exert control through various cognitive and emotional strategies. disengagement, in contrast, is characterized by “orienting away from the source of stress and one’s emotional responses. examples of disengagement coping include europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi 281 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive and behavioral avoidance, suppression of unwanted thoughts and emotions, and denial” (p. 338). other studies as well confirm that problem-focused strategies (engagement coping) are associated with decreased anxiety, decreased depression and less psychological distress (bussell & naus, 2010; stanton, danoff-burg, & huggins, 2002). belief that breast cancer would have a chronic timeline is strongly related to the use of cognitive avoidance and behavioral avoidance coping strategies, with less use of problem-solving strategies (hagger & orbell, 2003; rozema, völlnick, & lechner, 2009). we presume, therefore, that women who have a coping style more oriented towards avoidance will manifest higher distress. aims and hypotheses the present study adopted a descriptive correlational design in order to examine the role of coping strategies in predicting psychological distress (anxiety and depression), over and above the illness severity. on the basis of the aforementioned literature, we operationalized the illness severity construct in terms of type of surgery (mansel et al., 2006a, 2006b). we compared patients who had mastectomy and axillary dissection (mad) vs. patients with quadrantectomy and slnb. based on findings of the above quoted literature, we expected that: h1. patients with mad will exhibit higher levels of anxiety and depression than patients with slnb. h2. avoidance coping strategies will be positively associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. h3. engagement coping strategies will be negatively associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression. h4. coping strategies will explain statistically significant increment of variance in psychological distress (anxiety and depression), over and above type of surgery (slnb vs. mad). method participants women diagnosed with their first occurrence of breast cancer were eligible to selection for this study. exclusion criteria were recurrence of breast cancer, previous or current cancer diagnosis, different from breast cancer, severe mental or neurological impairment. patients were consecutive cases at the breast surgery unit of “san paolo” hospital of bari, during the year 2013. among all patients evaluated, only those who had fully completed both questionnaires were eligible. of these, 30 women were treated with quadrantectomy and slnb, and 31 patients were treated with mad. all women were southern italian and resident in puglia, primarily bari and its province (75%), middle aged (m = 54, sd = 11.90 years), married (75%). measures coping — coping strategies were assessed using the italian version of brief cope dispositional version, (carver, 1997; conti, 1999). it is a 28 item inventory that is a shorter version of the cope inventory (carver et al., 1989). it includes 14 scales that correspond to 14 different coping strategy: a) self-distraction (cronbach’s alpha = .37), b) active coping (cronbach’s alpha = .55), c) denial (cronbach’s alpha = .59), d) substance use (cronbach’s alpha = .24), e) use of emotional support (cronbach’s alpha = .67), f) use of instrumental support (cronbach’s alpha = .73), g) behavioral disengagement (cronbach’s alpha = .76), h) venting (cronbach’s alpha = .23), i) positive reframing (cronbach’s alpha = .63), l) planning (cronbach’s alpha = .48), m) humor (cronbach’s europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 psychological distress and breast cancer 282 http://www.psychopen.eu/ alpha = .69), n) acceptance (cronbach’s alpha = .57), o) religion (cronbach’s alpha = .86), and p) self-blame (cronbach’s alpha = .19). each scale has 2 items, each assessed on a four point likert scale ranging from 1 = ‘i haven’t been doing this at all’ to 4 = ‘i’ve been doing this a lot’. the scale scores define a “profile” for the subject’s coping style, which is how a subject usually responds to a stressor. psychological distress — the italian version of the hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads) (costantini et al., 1999; zigmond & snaith, 1983) was used to measure distress. the hads has been validated with cancer patients and it is very frequently used as screening tool for psychological distress in cancer care (moorey et al., 1991; smith et al., 2002). it consists of 14 items, rated on a 4-point scale, ranging from 0-3. items were averaged into two dimensions: a) hads-anxiety (cronbach’s alpha = .81), b) hads-depression (cronbach’s alpha = .65). procedure the initial psychological assessment, performed during hospitalization, two days after surgery, consisted of a semi-structured interview followed by two self-report questionnaires: the hads and the brief cope. all questionnaires were completed on the ward. all participants provided written, informed consent prior to taking part in the consultation. the first author, expert clinical psychologist, conducted all individual interviews that lasted an average of 45 minutes. a health status assessment was derived from both medical chart inspection and physician consultation. demographic data and general health status were recorded on a socio-demographic form. ethical approval from local research ethics committee was obtained. data analyses the independent-samples t-test and chi-square test of independence were run to assess that the two sub-samples were homogenous as regards demographic and medical characteristics. descriptive and reliability analyses were run on hads and brief cope indices. cronbach’s alpha values obtained in our study for each dimension are reported above in the measures section. the independent-samples t-test analysis was run to examine the surgery differences in terms of coping strategies and psychological distress. zero-order pearson’s correlation analyses assessed the associations between coping strategies and anxiety, depression, and separately for slnb and mad sub-samples. hierarchical multiple regression analyses tested a) the extent to which the type of surgery and patients’ coping style predicted psychological distress, and b) the role of coping strategies in explaining an incremental variance in psychological distress, over and above the type of surgery. results sample characteristics the two groups (slnb vs. mad) were homogenous as regards age, t(59) = .72, p = .48, education distributions, χ2(3, n = 61) = 1.69, p = .64, marital status, χ2(3, n = 61) = 4.43, p = .22, employment status, χ2(6, n = 61) = 9.37, p = .15, general health (i.e., having chronic disease, such as hypertension, thyroid dysfunction, diabetes, etc.; χ2(3, n = 61) = 2.33, p = .51, and previous experiences of cancer in a close relative, χ2(4, n = 59) = 2.71, p = .61). as table 1 shows, the major difference is in terms of occupation, which is also reflected in the total number of the cases examined in 2013 (n = 220), where housewives have higher percentage of mastectomy (50%) compared to working women (42%). it is possible that higher education and work play a role in preventive practices and early detection of breast cancer in our sample as well, as it is reported in other studies (montella et europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi 283 http://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 1995; wang, luo, & mclafferty, 2010). the demographic characteristics for the two subsamples are shown in table 1. table 1 demographics and medical characteristics of participants mad samplebslnb samplea characteristic %n%n 45146018higher level of education >12 years marital status 134134single 84266720married 0031separated/divorced 31175widowed employment status 5517309housewife 3100unemployed 32105717employed 103134retired 58187021other chronic illnesses cancer in close relative 48154313family of origin 0072nuclear family (spouse or child) an = 30. age: range = 40-78 years, m = 55.13 years, sd = 11.10 years. bn = 31. age: range = 26-80 years, m = 52.94 years, sd = 12.72 years. descriptive analyses table 2 displays the descriptive analyses outcomes of brief cope and hads measures. mean ratings showed that our sample used prevalently engagement coping strategies (especially acceptance, planning, religious support) than avoidance ones (especially substance use or behavioral disengagement; f(13,60) = 69.00, p = .001). furthermore, in regard to hads indices, mean ratings showed that patients reported medium level of anxiety and low level of depression. generally, they showed higher anxiety than depression (dependent-samples t(59) = 10.88, p = .001). additionally, the independent-samples t-test showed no difference between the two groups of patients in the coping strategies; instead women who had mastectomy exhibited higher levels of anxiety and depression than women who undertook slnb (see table 2). according to cohen (1977), the effect sizes can be considered moderate or high. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 psychological distress and breast cancer 284 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and t-test for brief cope and hads cohen’s dt(59) mad sample (n = 31)slnb sample (n = 30)total sample (n = 61) measures sdmsdmsdm bc-self-distraction .16.63.63.932.66.033.64.982 bc-active coping .14-.52-.67.033.78.932.72.982 bc-denial .43-.66-1.77.831.64.531.72.681 bc-substance use .12-.29-1.33.101.09.021.24.061 bc-emotional support .22-.81-.69.492.79.332.74.412 bc-instrumental support .51-.96-1.63.662.72.322.70.492 bc-behavioral disengagement .32-.30-1.80.551.40.351.61.451 bc-venting .47-.81-1.54.462.50.222.53.342 bc-positive reframing .11.43.64.702.80.782.72.742 bc-planning .47-.82-1.47.293.71.013.61.153 bc-humor .43-.62-1.78.172.74.851.77.012 bc-acceptance .07.24.56.223.65.263.60.243 bc-religion .03-.12-.80.113.051.083.93.103 bc-self-blame .01-.05-.70.222.69.212.69.212 hads-anxiety .51-.98*-1.47.541.57.281.53.411 hads-depression .76-.97**-2.38.98.45.67.44.83 *p < .05. **p < .01. correlations between coping strategies and psychological distress we conducted zero-order pearson’s correlations to examine the associations between coping strategies, anxiety, and depression for total sample and separately for slnb andmad sub-samples (table 3). the bonferroni correction was applied to our multiple correlations (84 correlations; 14 brief cope measures with 2 hadsmeasures for three samples; bonferroni corrected α = .05/84 = .001) to control the experiment-wise error rate. for the total sample, hads-anxiety was positively associated with coping strategies of denial and venting, while depression appeared to be positively associated with behavioral disengagement and venting strategy. for the slnb sub-sample, hadsdepression was positively associated with venting strategy, and negatively with acceptance coping strategy. for the mad sub-sample, hads-depression index was positively associated with brief cope-venting. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi 285 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 zero-order correlations between brief cope and hads measures mad sample (n = 31)slnb sample (n = 30)total sample (n = 61) measures hads-dhads-ahads-dhads-ahads-dhads-a bc-self-distraction .21-.12-.08-.11-.16-.13bc-active coping .03-.09-.16-.15-.07-.10bc-denial .32.38.11.31.27.37* bc-substance use .17.06-.38.24.23.05 bc-emotional support .18.33.10.23.16.29 bc-instrumental support .42.44.11-.04-.20.22 bc-behavioral disengagement .31.05-.39.11.35*.05 bc-venting .49*.25.50*.35.53*.34* bc-positive reframing .16-.15-.38-.26-.21-.22bc-planning .09-.09-.35-.10-.14-.03bc-humor .06-.47-.16-.24-.03-.27bc-acceptance .06-.31-.53*-.34-.31-.32bc-religion .27.35.04-.17-.09.04 bc-self-blame .11.17.36.40.23.28 note. hads-a = hospital anxiety and depression scale – anxiety; hads-d = hospital anxiety and depression scale – depression. *p < .01. the prediction of psychological distress to test a) the extent to which the type of surgery and patients’ coping style predicted psychological distress, and b) the role of coping strategies in explaining an incremental variance in psychological distress, over and above the type of surgery, we ran two hierarchical multiple regression model (hmr) analyses. for each hmr, the hads index was the dependent variable (hads-anxiety and hads-depression), with age at step 1, type of surgery at step 2, and the fourteen brief cope strategies at step 3. for the hads-anxiety index, as shown in table 4, at both step 1 and 2 the models and the incremental change are not significant (respectively, f = .65, p = .42; f = 2.15, p = .13, r2 change = .06, p = .06). at step 3, when the fourteen brief cope strategies are introduced, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 2.58, p = .007; r2 change = .42, p = .01), with emotional support, venting, and humor as the significant predictors. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 psychological distress and breast cancer 286 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 hierarchical multiple regression of hads-anxiety step 3step 2step 1 measures pβpβpβ step 1 age .98.00.52.08-.43.10step 2 surgery .09.23.06.24 step 3 bc-se .50.09bc-ac .001.00bc-de .23.19 bc-su .16.21bc-es .04.38 bc-is .50.13bc-bd .53.09bc-ve .05.33 bc-pr .91.02 bc-pl .75.05 bc-hu .02.36bc-acc .31.14bc-re .23.17bc-sb .37.13 r2 .01.48.13.07.42.01 δr2 .01.42.06.06 note: bc-se = brief cope – self-distraction; bc-ac = brief cope – active coping; bc-de = brief cope – denial; bc-su = brief cope – substance use; bc-es = brief cope – emotional support; bc-is = brief cope – instrumental support; bc-bd = brief cope – behavioral disengagement; bc-ve = brief cope – venting; bc-pr = brief cope – positive reframing; bc-pl = brief cope – planning; bc-hu = brief cope – humor; bc-acc = brief cope – acceptance; bc-re = brief cope – religion; bc-sb = brief cope – self-blame. for the hads-depression index, as shown in table 5, at step 1 the model is not significant (f = .58, p = .45). at step 2, when the surgery is introduced, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 5.02, p = .01; r2 change = .14, p = .003), with surgery as the significant predictor. at step 3, when the fourteen brief cope strategies are introduced, the model and the incremental change are significant (f = 2.48, p = .009; r2 change = .33, p = .046), with surgery and venting as the significant predictors. jointly considered, confirming our hypothesis 4, coping strategies (especially emotional support, venting, and humor) explained a statistically significant increment of variance in psychological distress indices. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi 287 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 hierarchical multiple regression of hads-depression step 3step 2step 1 measures pβpβpβ step 1 age .62.07.28.13.45.10 step 2 surgery .03.29.00.37 step 3 bc-se .53.09bc-ac .54.10 bc-de .71.06bc-su .44.11bc-es .50.12 bc-is .98.01bc-bd .11.23 bc-ve .03.38 bc-pr .98.00 bc-pl .48.12bc-hu .47.11bc-acc .25.16bc-re .94.01 bc-sb .36.13 r2 .00.47.01.15.45.01 δr2 .05.33.00.14 note. bc-se = brief cope – self-distraction; bc-ac = brief cope – active coping; bc-de = brief cope – denial; bc-su = brief cope – substance use; bc-es = brief cope – emotional support; bc-is = brief cope – instrumental support; bc-bd = brief cope – behavioral disengagement; bc-ve = brief cope – venting; bc-pr = brief cope – positive reframing; bc-pl = brief cope – planning; bc-hu = brief cope – humor; bc-acc = brief cope – acceptance; bc-re = brief cope – religion; bc-sb = brief cope – self-blame. discussion the present study was aimed at examining the role of coping strategies in predicting psychological/emotional distress of newly diagnosed breast cancer women, over and above the illness severity. confirming hypothesis 1, patients with mad exhibited higher levels of anxiety and depression than patients with slnb. previous studies tended to find a relationship between the type of surgery (mastectomy vs. lumpectomy) and emotional distress, but were not able to demonstrate any significant difference, except for body image, in terms of the psychological effect of the type of mutilation (bartelink, van dam, & van dongen, 1985; cohen, hack, de moor, katz, & goss, 2000; engel, kerr, schlesinger-raab, sauer, & hölzel, 2004; fallowfield, baum, & maguire, 1986; hack, cohen, katz, robson, & goss, 1999). partially confirming hypotheses 2 and 3, for the total sample, hads-anxiety was positively associated with coping strategies of denial, venting, and behavioral disengagement, while depression appeared to be positively associated with venting strategy. for the slnb sub-sample, hads-depression was positively associated with venting strategy europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 psychological distress and breast cancer 288 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and negatively with acceptance coping strategy. for the mad sub-sample, hads-depression index was positively associated with brief cope-venting. finally, confirming hypothesis 4, coping strategies will explain statistically significant increment of variance in psychological distress (anxiety and depression), over and above type of surgery (slnb vs. mad). more specifically, jointly considered, coping strategies (especially emotional support, venting, and humor) explained a statistically significant increment of variance in psychological distress indices. most studies are based on the assumption that cognitive understanding of the illness has an influence on coping strategies and, as a consequence, on psychological and physical health (keeling, bambrough, & simpson, 2013; mccorry et al., 2013). on the other hand, as it is reported in several meta-analysis, results from various studies about coping with breast cancer and illness severity are difficult to be compared due to the different assessment procedures and instruments utilized. taken together, the findings of the current study have important clinical practical implications for women with breast cancer: the dispositional coping strategies, that each individual has, appeared to be crucial to reduce distress and increase quality of life. not only is the illness severity to account for the emotional distress, but, above all, the coping strategies play a significant role. therefore, they should be considered as one of the most important factors when implementing effective interventions with breast cancer women. encouraging engagement coping could contribute to improve patients’ emotional well-being. however, our study is not without limitations. first, the reported findings are based on a mostly correlational study, so caution should be taken when inferring conclusions. second, some brief cope indices showed low reliability values for the sample in our study (especially self-blame). third, the small sample size does not allow for generalization. fourth, neither patient’s level of control nor individual differences or personality traits (i.e. extroversion and/or neuroticism trait) were considered, beyond the coping styles. far from being exhaustive and despite its limitations, the current study adds to our knowledge of salient variables and processes that underlie health and psychological functioning in breast cancer settings, yielding some immediate consequences for clinical practice and future research. whilst the clinical setting is an asset of this study – it allowed, in fact, for control of the variables intrinsic to the specific situation in which the examination occurred, that was the same for both subgroups – it is, at the same time, a limit, in that the lack of a standardized coding for the clinical interview did not allow to use this information for comparison with self-report results. on the research level, therefore, the integration of qualitative-observational and self-report methods needs to be thoroughly structured in order to obtain more reliable and objective results, arising from combined perspectives: a subjective evaluation form the patient’s side and a clinician’s evaluation. a more exhaustive assessment would imply to use the brief cope situational-actual version, in order to consider the coping strategies activated in response to the actual stressor (e.g., breast cancer diagnosis) and the evaluation of the emotional reactions and psychological distress through additional measures, besides hads, such as bsi (brief symptom inventory-18; derogatis, 2001), ipq-r (illness perception questionnaire-revised; moss-morris et al., 2002), and ies-r (impact of event scale-revised, weiss & marmar, 1997). additionally, further studies may test an alternative modelling approach that would look at potential interaction terms of coping strategy by type of surgery on degree of emotional distress. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi 289 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the literature highlights, in fact, the main factor that predicts psychological morbidity across the 1-year follow up of women diagnosed with primary breast cancer is their immediate post-operative state of distress (hack & degner, 2004; millar, purushotham, mclatchie, george, & murray, 2005; vos, garssen, visser, duivenvoorden, & de haes, 2004). therefore, on the clinical level, our study contributes to fostering the evaluation of psychological distress and of psychological resources (coping strategies) as crucial for implementing the development of tailored procedures, according to the woman’s specific needs and coping strategies, within the hospital program of psychological support for breast cancer patients. notes i) for a thorough description of the psychological program for breast cancer women implemented at “san paolo” hospital see: de feudis, 2003, 2004; de feudis, d’ovidio, ancona, luchinovich, and soleti, 2008. “san paolo” hospital is one of the main hospitals of asl ba (local healthcare agency), a large community healthcare institution that covers the entire province of bari (about 1.210.000 inhabitants) in southern italy that includes several hospitals and out-patient healthcare facilities. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to acknowledge antonietta ancona, md, breast specialist, director of the radiology department and nicola marzano, md, oncologist, head of the medical oncology departmental unit, both at “san paolo” hospital, for their collaboration and support to this study. we would also like to acknowledge rosarita quaranta, michela lorusso andmariantonietta montedoro, psychologists, for their contribution at collecting data. references andersen, b. l., yang, h.-c., farrar, w. b., golden-kreutz, d. m., emery, c. f., thornton, l. m., . . . carson, w. e., iii. 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(2008). stress and quality of life in breast cancer recurrence: moderation or mediation of coping? annals of behavioral medicine, 35(2), 188-197. doi:10.1007/s12160-008-9016-0 zigmond, a. s., & snaith, r. p. (1983). the hospital anxiety and depression scale. acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 67, 361-370. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x about the authors rossana de feudis, mft, is a clinical psychologist, working as a psychoncologist and psychotherapist in the breast unit and in the oncology unit of the “san paolo” hospital of asl ba, bari, italy. her current interests are psychoncology, couple therapy and quality of life in cancer patient and cancer survivors. tiziana lanciano, phd, is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari aldo moro, italy. her current research interests are emotion, memory, emotional intelligence, well-being, mental rumination, and latent-variable analysis. stefano rinaldi, md, is a breast surgeon head of the general surgery unit and coordinator of the breast unit at “san paolo” hospital of asl ba, bari, italy. his main interests are breast surgery, sentinel lymphnode surgery in breast cancer, videolaparoscopy. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 280–294 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.908 psychological distress and breast cancer 294 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djp336 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10865-004-0003-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/ijpp.2010.030606 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12160-008-9016-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en psychological distress and breast cancer (introduction) aims and hypotheses method participants measures procedure data analyses results sample characteristics descriptive analyses correlations between coping strategies and psychological distress the prediction of psychological distress discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a darker shade of love: machiavellianism and positive assortative mating based on romantic ideals research reports a darker shade of love: machiavellianism and positive assortative mating based on romantic ideals tamás ináncsi*a, andrás lángb, tamás bereczkeia [a] department of general and evolutionary psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. [b] department of personality, development and clinical psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. abstract machiavellianism is a personality trait that is characterized by manipulative and exploitative attitude toward others, lack of empathy, and a cynical view of human nature. in itself or as part of the dark triad it has been the target of several studies investigating romantic relations. nevertheless, the relationship between machiavellianism and romantic ideals has not been revealed yet. an undergraduate sample of 143 (92 females) with an average age of 19.83 years (sd = 1.51 years) filled out self-report measures of machiavellianism (mach-iv scale) and romantic ideals (ideal standards scale and neo-ffi-ideal). according to our results, machiavellianism correlated negatively with the importance of partner’s warmth-trustworthiness, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and with the importance of intimacy and loyalty in their ideal relationships. machiavellianism correlated positively with the ideal partner’s possession over status and resources. explorative factor analysis revealed three components of ideal partner’s characteristics. machiavellianism loaded significantly on two out of three components. results are discussed with regard to ideal standards model and the big five model of personality. keywords: machiavellianism, romantic ideals, partner preferences, positive assortative mating, ideal standards model, big five model of personality europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 received: 2015-06-09. accepted: 2016-01-21. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: vlad petre glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: robert-blum-str. 4, 60385 frankfurt, germany. e-mail: tengertudat@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. machiavellian personality and close relationship personality is a stable and permanent disposition accompanied by an individual pattern of interactions with the environment (carver & scheier, 2008). the literature has often discussed machiavellianism as a personality trait or a complex of personality dimensions (rauthmann & will, 2011). in their pioneering work, christie and geis (1970) described machiavellians as manipulative and cynical people who follow utilitarian morals. in bakan’s bipolar model of social orientation, machiavellians are characterized by agency and progress rather than connectedness to others and the community (bakan, 1966). in wiggins’ interpersonal circumplex that includes the two principal dimensions of love and dominance, machiavellianism falls into the quadrant including traits such as callous coldhearted, self-seeking and dominant (gurtman, 1992; jones & paulhus, 2011; wiggins, 1985). regarding the 16 bipolar trait dimensions proposed by cattell, eber, and tatsuoka (1970), machiavellianism may be delineated by europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ a combination of attributes such as dominant, self-seeking utilitarian, secretive, suspicious, norm-avoiding, retiring, thinking in concrete and pragmatic terms as well as emotionally unstable and anxious in the context of close relationships (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015). other personality psychologists have argued that the principal dimensions of personality are defined relatively accurately by the five personality traits known as the big five (mccrae & costa, 1997). previous research has revealed that machiavellianism showed a negative relationship with agreeableness and conscientiousness (austin, farrelly, black, & moore, 2007; jakobwitz & egan, 2006; lee & ashton, 2005; paulhus & williams, 2002; vernon, villani, vickers, & harris, 2008) as well as with openness to new experience (rauthmann, 2012) while it was positively related to neuroticism (austin et al., 2007; jakobwitz & egan, 2006; vernon et al., 2008). research has found no significant relationship between extraversion andmachiavellianism. this is possibly because the dimension of extraversion is polarized along emotional stability. extraversion accompanied by emotional instability is often conceptualized as striving for power and social dominance that are defining characteristics of machiavellians. at the same time, extraversion associated with emotional stability – self-confidence (mchoskey, 2001), self-disclosure (brown & guy, 1983; domelsmith & dietch, 1978), the ability to experience pleasure (egan, chan, & shorter, 2014) – is not characteristic of the machiavellian personality. previous studies onmachiavellianism and close relationship focused on several aspects of interpersonal functioning. christie and geis (1970) in their pioneering work on machiavellianism have already described the reserved and manipulative relational attitude of machiavellian individuals. since then machiavellianism has been found to be connected to pragma love style (jonason & kavanagh, 2010), low levels of intimacy and commitment in the relationship (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010), distrust towards the partner (ináncsi et al., 2015), low emotional intelligence (austin et al., 2007), low level of empathy (andrew, cooke, & muncer, 2008), dismissive and fearful attachment styles (gillath, sesko, shaver, & chun, 2010; ináncsi et al., 2015; jonason, lyons, & bethell, 2014) destructive relational strategies (pilch, 2012), short-term mate choice (holtzman, 2013) and unrestricted sociosexuality (mchoskey, 2001). however, studies on the relationship between machiavellianism and romantic ideals are still wanting. assortative mating based on romantic ideals according to the theory of assortative mating, people choose partners based on certain character traits (thiessen & gregg, 1980). such choice is necessarily discriminative since one seeks for a partner who best meets one’s goals, needs, demands and expectations. romantic ideals are organized around the person’s goals, and the preferred and expected character traits gain meaning and significance through the underlying goals. one’s partner ideal may be regarded either as one’s current concerns (klinger, 1977), or as one’s personal projects (little, 1983, 1989) since romantic ideals are personal conceptual-imaginative constructs (reference values, goal concepts) that determine precisely the optimal or desirable characteristics of a partner or relationship. field theory proposes that one’s ideal partner and relationship are currently brought into the focus of one’s mind (lewin, 1939). ideals are most similar to subjective values, attitudes or preferences (simpson, fletcher, & campbell, 2001) and they determine expectations towards the self, the partner and the relationship (campbell, simpson, kashy, & fletcher, 2001; fletcher, simpson, thomas, & giles, 1999; simpson et al., 2001). previous research has revealed that one’s self-perception is related to one’s conception of the ideal partner (murray, holmes, & griffin, 1996). for example, if one rates oneself high on a certain attribute, then one will also hold higher expectations towards one’s partner on the same dimension (campbell et al., 2001; fletcher, simpson, & thomas, 2000). figueredo et al. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (2006) revealed moderately positive correlations between the self and the ideal partner. they found that individuals seek for a mate being similar to them to a certain extent while they also seek for a partner who is somewhat more conscientious, more extraverted, more agreeable and emotionally less unstable than they themselves are. romantic ideals formulate specific expectations and they serve as a reference frame, a set of anchor points or standards (fletcher et al., 1999). ideals influence major relationship-related decisions and govern assortative mating through the appraisal of the partner and the relationship. during assortative mating, individuals assess each other by means of perceptual, emotional and cognitive mechanisms and continuously make comparisons between the partner’s perceived traits and the ideal image stored in their memory (overall, fletcher, & simpson, 2006). appraisal is based on three specific ideal dimensions: „(1) the prospective partners’ capacity for intimacy and commitment, (2) their attractiveness and general health, and (3) their social status and resources“ (simpson, fletcher, & campbell, 2001, p. 91). the process of ideal formation may be focused, on the one hand, on internal factors, that is, on directly not observable intra-individual traits and qualities (e.g. howmuch the partner is warm-hearted, commited and trustworthy). on the other hand, they may be focused on external factors which, being extra-individual, are more objective and more observable (e.g. status, material assets, physical attractiveness). partner preferences vary according to the type of relationship. internal attributes have much more importance in the development and stability of a longterm relationship while external characteristics gain more significance in short-term relationships (campbell et al., 2001; fletcher et al., 1999; fletcher, tither, o’loughlin, friesen, & overall, 2004). mate choice as a psychological event potentially involves several dilemmas and contradictions due to the uncertainty of the subjective estimations of the partner’s warm-heartedness and reliability. since partners are not able to directly read one another’s minds, internal qualities can only be inferred from external signals. consequently, situations of decision-making in mate choice are poorly structured, characterized by “bounded rationality” (simon, 1972, 1982). people cannot predict how much their chosen partners will be reliable or cooperating, how healthy they are and what amount of resources they are willing to invest in parenting offsprings. they do not know all important details of the partner, therefore in most cases they can only rely on intuition, presumptions, anticipation, ambiguous cues and seeming qualities (goffman, 1959). moreover, this uncertainty and unpredictability further increases during mate choice when partners attempt to manipulate and deceive one another by intentionally communicating false signals and information, as is often the case. previous research has demonstrated that the mach scale negatively correlates with the faith put in humanity and with the belief that most people are trustworthy and unselfish (christie & geis, 1970). this result also points out that machiavellians perceive an external locus of control regarding internal factors. in cases of machiavellians such a high level of uncertainty and distrust felt towards the partner and the relationship may result in negative expectations on the dimensions of the warm-heartedness trustworthiness intimacy romantic ideals (ináncsi et al., 2015). machiavellianism and positive vs. negative assortative mating people develop idiosyncratic conceptions of the character traits their ideal partner should have in a close relationship. depending on their preferences, they judge certain character traits as more important than others. in selecting their romantic partners, humans – irrespective of their culture – prefer warm, trustworthy and loyal partners (buss, 1989). fletcher et al. (1999, 2000) found in their studies that trust was consistently rated highest while cottrell et al. (2007) have demonstrated that people regard trustworthiness as the primary value. likewise, the most popular attributes according to subjects’ ratings of anderson´s 555 adjectives derived from dictionary entries are “sincere, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 139 http://www.psychopen.eu/ honest, understanding, loyal, true and trustworthy” while on the negative pole of the scale are “malevolent, unreliable, deceitful and lying” (anderson, 1968). considering the big five traits of personality, people regard such partners as ideal who are agreeable, extraverted, conscientious and emotionally stable (i.e. less neurotic) (figueredo et al., 2006; zentner, 2005). there are at least two main paradigms of partner selection and both can be evidenced with previous research to be relevant to the partner selection of machiavellians. on the one hand, similarity in level of affiliation, intimacy needs and personality traits has particular importance in ideal standards and mate choice. previous studies provided countless evidence supporting the similarity hypothesis (berscheid & reis, 1998; buss, 1985, 1999; kandel, 1978; markey & markey, 2007; wetzel & insko, 1982). in this sense, people would maintain an ideal of their romantic partner, whose personality is similar to their own. this means that people choosemates in a positive assortative manner regarding personality traits. evidently, this is because they hold that the similarity between themselves and their ideal partner is crucial for the maintenance and development of a close relationship. several authors emphasize the complex relationship between self-perception and models of the ideal partner (fletcher et al., 1999; simpson et al., 2001). meyer and pepper (1977) pointed out in particular that partners’ balanced level of affiliation was an essential condition of happiness and satisfaction in a relationship. accordingly, a machiavellian individual with low affiliative abilities potentially should have the most harmonious relationship with another, emotionally reserved and distant high mach person. novgorodoff (1974) confirmed such preference of high-mach women in a laboratory study. these high-mach women chose men who scored even higher on a measure of machiavellianism than themselves. on the other hand, several studies confirmed negative assortative mate choice, i.e., choosing romantic partners based on the complementarity of traits and needs (wiggins, 1979; winch, 1958). accordingly, it is also possible that a dominant high-mach who demands attention can form the most stable – though dysfunctional and asymmetric – relationship with a submissive and permissive low-mach partner who he or she can manipulate and exploit (buss, 1984; carson, 1969). touhey (1977) found evidence for this negative assortative choice in his study on attitude similarity. he found that high-mach individuals were more attracted to those who were the least similar to them. machiavellianism and personal goals people regard such romantic partners as ideal with whom they can realize their relationship goals (fletcher et al., 1999). since life is a course of realizing long-term and short-term interests and goals, relationship goals take the form of long-term and short-term strategies accordingly. regan and joshi (2003) also use the distinction between a “long-term romantic partner” and a “short-term sexual partner”. borrowing the notion proposed by dawkins (1976), people may follow the “strategy of family happiness” in so far as they take care of their offsprings or, alternatively, they can follow the feminine woman masculine man strategy if they strive to increase the number of sexual contacts with the opposite sex. the literature reflects that machiavellians prefer the latter: they follow a short-term mating strategy and they are inclined to promiscuity (holtzman, 2013; mchoskey, 2001). in investigating personal goal orientations, mchoskey (1999) found that machiavellians were more willing to pursue extrinsic, material goals (e.g., money, fame) than intrinsic, relational goals such as spending time in community or with family. accordingly, jonason and kavanagh (2010) found in their study that a more pronouncedmachiavellian attitude showed the highest correlation to pragma love style. lovers of this style are rational and realistic rather than romantic (lee, 1973, 1977). durkin´s (christie & geis, 1970) theory of encounter versus cognitive exchange europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 140 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of views also support that machiavellian individuals are likely to ‘encounter blind’. it means that in interactions with others, high-mach persons are unable to spontaneously disclose themselves, to be emotionally attuned to others and to become identic with common goals of the group or dyad. they rather tend to interact in a planned way that enables them to use interaction partners as a means to reaching their goals. accordingly high machs focus on goals governed by self-interest than form emotionally significant relationships with others. aims of our study, hypotheses empirical research may only provide information on assortative mating by studying and measuring accurately definable dimensions such as preferred attributes and personality traits, partner preferences and romantic ideals. we also chose this approach in the present study. the aim of our study was to investigate potential relationship between machiavellianism and characteristics of their romantic partners using the ideal standard model (fletcher et al., 1999, 2000) and a five-factor theory of personality (mccrea & costa, 1990). we tested the following hypotheses: 1. based on machiavellians’ high level of uncertainty and distrust felt towards the partner and the relationship, high-mach individuals were expected to conceive of an ideal partner as being less demanding, less emotional and less committed to the relationship. this would be reflected in such personality characteristics of the ideal partner as relatively low warmth, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness, and in the ideal of a less intimate and loyal romantic relationship. 2. given that machiavellian individuals prefer short-term romantic relationships (holtzman, 2013; mchoskey, 2001), we expected them to choose an ideal partner with traits that are important in short-term relationships. so, we expected high-mach individuals – relative to their low-mach peers – to prefer more attractive romantic partners with higher status. without formulating any particular hypothesis, we also wanted to reveal, if there were any latent dimensions (‘personality types’) underlying romantic partner personality traits and self-reported machiavellianism. method sample and procedure our sample consisted of 143 university students (92 females) studying law. average age of the participants was 19.83 years of age (sd = 1.51; min = 18; max = 25). after giving their informed consent, participants filled out a booklet in groups of 30 to 40 depending on the size of the class. the booklet consisted of questions regarding basic demographical data and the measures presented below. measures mach-iv scale (christie & geis, 1970) this 20-item instrument measures the agreement with machiavellian attitudes. participants had to indicate their level of agreement with statements (e.g., ‘the best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear’) on a 7-point likert-scale. although in several studies three or four subscales are used, we used the mach-iv scale europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 141 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as a unidimensional measure in this study. internal reliability for this scale in our study proved to be excellent (cronbach α = .81). ideal standards scales (fletcher et al., 1999) this measure consists of three parts including 46 adjectives that describe the ideal romantic partner, the ideal romantic relationship, and self as romantic partner. in the first and second parts, participants had to rate the importance of characteristics referring to the ideal romantic partner on three dimensions (warmth-trustworthiness, attractiveness-vitality, and possession over or potential to possess status-resources), and characteristics of the ideal romantic relationship on two dimensions (intimacy-loyalty, passion). in the third part, self-perception is evaluated on the same dimensions as the ideal romantic partner. all ratings were given on a 7-point likert scale. cronbach αs of the scales ranged between .72 and .91. neo-ffi-ideal (figueredo, sefcek, asquez, et al., 2005) this scale measures traits of the ideal partner on the five principal factors of the personality (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness) according to the big five theory (mccrea & costa, 1990). participants indicated the importance of personality characteristics of the ideal partner on a 5point likert scale. internal reliability of the factors were sufficient (.71 < cronbach αs < .89). statistical analyses for statistical analysis, we used spss 17.0 for windows software package. besides descriptive statistics, we used pearson’s correlation to investigate the relationship between machiavellianism and romantic ideal variables. we also used principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation to reveal complex ‘personality types’ of ideal romantic partners that might be associated with machiavellianism. results we used pearson’s correlation to reveal relationship between machiavellianism scores, ideal standards scale scores, and neo-ffi-ideal scores partner and relationship variables. results and descriptives of the variables are presented in table 1. weak to medium strength significant negative correlations were found between machiv scores and scores on warmth-trustworthiness of the ideal partner, intimacy-loyalty in the ideal relationship, agreeableness, extraversion, openness and of the ideal romantic partner. a weak but significant positive correlation was also found between machiavellianism and ideal partner’s possession over status-resources. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 142 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 r es ul ts of p ea rs on ’s c or re la tio ns b et w ee n m ac hiv s co re s, id ea lp ar tn er s ca le s co re s, an d n e o -f fi -id e a l s co re s w ith d es cr ip tiv es (m ± s d )i n th e d ia go na lc el ls . n eo -f fi -id ea l d im en si on s se lf d im en si on s id ea lr el at io ns hi p d im en si on s id ea lp ar tn er d im en si on s c a o e n 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 m ea su re 1. m a c h -iv ±1 1. 67 97 .7 2 2. w ar m th -tr us tw or th in es s ±. 78 6. 24 .2 41 ** 3. a ttr ac tiv en es svi ta lit y ±. 72 5. 45 .1 31 .0 22 4. s ta tu sre so ur ce s ±1 .1 5 5. 05 .3 22 ** .0 65 .2 14 * 5. p as si on ±. 80 5. 72 .2 63 ** .4 89 ** .2 23 ** .0 52 6. in tim ac ylo ya lty ±. 79 6. 23 .1 73 * .1 70 * .1 18 .7 86 ** .2 69 ** 7. w ar m th -tr us tw or th in es s ±. 86 5. 60 .5 24 ** .2 90 ** .1 05 .1 84 * .6 16 ** .1 43 8. a ttr ac tiv en es svi ta lit y ±. 96 5. 09 .2 53 ** .0 91 .4 39 ** .4 25 ** .5 80 ** .0 58 .1 47 9. s ta tu sre so ur ce s ±. 95 5. 57 .5 66 ** .1 22 .0 41 .3 28 ** .5 31 ** .3 88 ** .0 61 .1 51 n ±. 49 2. 17 .2 07 * .1 75 * .1 01 .0 47 .0 58 .0 91 .1 73 * .0 55 .1 33 e ±. 39 3. 69 .2 56 ** .1 38 .1 39 .2 43 ** .1 93 * .2 32 ** .0 56 .2 43 ** .2 44 ** .2 40 ** o ±. 55 3. 44 .2 55 ** .2 21 ** .0 29 .0 87 .1 15 .0 80 .0 69 .1 74 * .2 14 * .1 31 .1 89 * a ±. 58 3. 65 .2 35 ** .2 93 ** .2 83 ** .0 40 .0 59 .2 78 ** .4 45 ** .0 76 .0 72 .0 30 .4 24 ** .4 23 ** c ±. 45 4. 20 .2 63 ** .1 72 * .2 22 ** .3 59 ** .1 58 .0 92 .3 09 ** .3 74 ** .0 71 .2 12 * .0 66 .3 43 ** .1 25 n ot e. n = n eu ro tic is m ;e = e xt ra ve rs io n; o = o pe nn es s; a = a gr ee ab le ne ss ;c = c on sc ie nt io us ne ss . *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 143 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to find out whether there are certain types of ideal partners that are associated with machiavellianism, principal component analysis (with varimax rotation) was run on mach-iv scores and variables connected to the ideal partner (i.e., three ideal partner dimension scores from the ideal standards scale and five ideal partner personality dimension scores from neo-ffi-ideal). results are presented in table 2. analysis resulted in three components with eigenvalues over 1. we interpreted component 1 with the highest loadings for warmth-trustworthiness and agreeableness as ‘miss / mr. right’, the perfect choice for a committed, devoted, long-term relationship. machiavellianism loaded negatively (-.53) on this component. component 2 described an adventurous, attractive and socially charming ideal partner. this component was labeled ‘playmate’. machiavellianism loaded low (-.15) on this component. last, possession over status and resources, attractiveness-vitality, and machiavellianism loaded high on component 3. this component was labeled ‘top dog’, because this ideal partner is powerful and dominant. machiavellianism loaded positively (.50) on this component. it is important to note that attractiveness-vitality loaded heavily on both components ‘playmate’ and ‘top dog’. based on the context, attractiveness was interpreted as the halo characteristic of a socially well-liked interaction partner (e.g., dion, berscheid, & walster, 1972) in the case of ‘playmate’, whereas attractiveness was interpreted as a means of power and manipulation (e.g., chaiken, 1979; hawley, johnson, mize, & mcnamara, 2007) in the case of ‘top dog’. table 2 results of principal components analysis (with varimax rotation) of machiavellianism and ideal partner variables. component 3. top dog2. playmate1. miss / mr. right warmth-trustworthiness .092.024.770 agreeableness .250-.222.722 conscientiousness .338.222.612 machiavellianism (self) .500.154-.533openness to experience .352-.713.042 attractiveness-vitality .413.650.082neuroticism .108-.591-.224extraversion .024-.574.328 status-resources .864.067.100 eigenvalue .091.531.562 explained variance (%) .5516.3219.6721 discussion this study was aimed at exploring machiavellian individuals’ romantic ideals, their expectations towards partners and relationships as defined by their ideal formation processes and the resulting relationship goals that they strive to realize. a further aim of the study was to establish whether machiavellians, when choosing a mate assortatively based on personality, prefer an ideal partner similar to them or they prefer a partner who has complementary attributes. finally, we aimed to reveal whether there are specific latent personality types preferred by machiavellian individuals as romantic partners. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 144 http://www.psychopen.eu/ according to previous results, machiavellians learn during childhood that the significant others are dismissive, unhelpful and unreliable (jonason et al., 2014; kraut & lewis, 1975; láng & lénárd, 2015; ojha, 2007; touhey, 1973). such early experience prevents them from developing elaborate knowledge structures and models of a relationship based on warmth, intimacy, mutual acceptance and trust. since relationship patterns developed in childhood remain active in adulthood (hazan & shaver, 1987), machiavellians as adults are less willing to hold such demands towards their partner due to their negative expectations. their ideals of internal character traits remain under-represented: the lack of experience of warmth results in the lack of need for warmth. in this way, machiavellians’ internal mental working models developed in early childhood have direct influence on their idealization processes as well. the results of our study have partly confirmed our hypotheses and they are consistent with the results of the above presented studies. in harmony with the prediction of the first hypothesis, machiavellians expected less warm-heartedness, trustworthiness, extraversion, openness and agreeableness from their ideal partner. this is possibly because they themselves lack such intellectual abilities (wastell & booth, 2003). high scores on machiv also deemed the intimacy of their ideal relationship and the loyalty in this relationship less important than those who had lowmach-iv scores. these results indeed reflect that neither having a warm-hearted, loyal and trustworthy partner is machiavellians’ primary relationship goal, nor are they interested in building long-term partner relationships characterized by intimacy and loyalty (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010; dussault, hojjat, & boone, 2013). this is not surprising given that machiavellians are characterized by dismissive and fearful attachment styles (gillath et al., 2010; ináncsi et al., 2015; jonason et al., 2014) as well as by a pragma love style (jonason & kavanagh, 2010; lee, 1973, 1977) whose principal feature is the avoidance of emotions and intimacy. a possible consequence of this is that avoidance of intimacy becomes the focal theme for both machiavellians and their ideal partners. results obtained for hypothesis 2 provide the answer to the question what machiavellians’ major relationship goals are. results only partly confirmed this hypothesis. machiavellianism correlated positively with the ideal partner’s status and resources while no significant correlation was obtained between machiavellianism and the importance of the partner’s attractiveness and vitality. the results suggest that machiavellians’ primary relationship goal is finding a partner who possesses a large amount of financial and other material resources and a prominent status in the social hierarchy. due to their pragmatic attitude, they appraise their partners in term of constructs related to the partner’s utility for the machiavellian’s individual progress. our results are consistent with those obtained bymchoskey (1999) who found that machiavellians hold extrinsic material goals (e.g. status and resources) much more important than intrinsic relationship goals (community, family, romantic love). the presumable cause of this exclusive focus on external relationship factors for machiavellians might be due to their feelings of uncertainty and distrust towards others and relationships in general. they conceive of intimacy as dangerous involving such a high level of personal risk which exceeds their own capacity. the perceived external control results in their being afraid of engaging in sincere close relationships in which partners disclose their genuine private self. therefore machiavellian individuals are unable to participate in the relationship for the pleasure of communion led by intrinsic motivation (durkin, 1970) and they do not gain rewarding experience related to internal factors. thus, in part by the perceived external control and in part by expected external rewards, their behaviour becomes externally controlled and extrinsically motivated, and eventually the relationship is reduced to a mere means of achieving external goals (material assets, status and sexual satisfaction). these results are also consistent with machiavellians’ short-term mating strategies (holtzman, 2013; mchoskey, 2001; simpson & gangestad, 1991) as well as with their fatalistic perspective on the future (birkás & csathó, 2015). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei 145 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to personality traits, machiavellians assign little importance to such universally highly valued traits as extraversion, openness and agreeableness (figueredo et al., 2005). although self-confidence, spontaneity, activity, the ability to experience pleasure, intelligence, creativity, imaginativeness, curiosity, assertiveness, sociability and positive emotional orientation are generally highly valued during mate choice, machiavellians do not find them attractive when thinking of an ideal partner. there are at least two possible interpretations of these results. first, introverted, rigid, emotionally cold and egocentric partners provide the opportunity to establish a relationship which involves a low level of need for intimacy. second, more submissive, irresolute, adaptable and dependent partners are more easily influenced and more predictable. such partners offer machiavellians a feeling of control over the relationship which they hold particularly important (christie & geis, 1970). our results suggest that machiavellians choose partners who are mostly similar to them in personality traits, with especial regard to the central dimension of relationships, that is, warm-heartedness, trustworthiness and intimacy. this is in line with the position of meyer and pepper (1977) who propose that a balanced level of affiliation between the partners is a basic condition of happiness in the relationship. heider’s cognitive balance theory also suggests that people prefer partners who have similar attitudes and thereby reinforce their worldviews (heider, 1946, 1958). according to willi’s (1984) concept of collusion attraction between future partners is based on a mutual alarming theme, shared by both partners in order to be mastered together. the plausibility of this explanation is further strengthened by the results of krueger, moffitt, caspi, bleske, and silva (1998) who found evidence for positive assortative mating for antisocial behavior in 360 couples. our results are also compatible with the explanatory framework of positive assortative mating based on personality (arrindell & luteijn, 2000). machiavellians are characterized in the literature by low agreeableness, low conscientiousness, low openness, high neuroticism (jakobwitz & egan, 2006; lee & ashton, 2005; paulhus & williams, 2002; rauthmann, 2012; vernon et al., 2008) and theoretically low extraversion. according to our results, these characteristics are substantially the same as characteristics preferred by machiavellian individuals in their ideal romantic partners. although our results did not confirm the expected relationship between machiavellianism and the external factors of attractiveness and vitality, a relevant study found that machiavellianism is in a positive relationship with physically attractive self-presentation (holtzman & strube, 2012). consequently, machiavellians do not expect their ideal partners but do expect themselves to present attractive physical appearance thereby making a favourable impression. in revealing potential types of ideal partners, we found that machiavellian individuals disliked the ‘miss / mr. right’ type, who would be a perfect choice for a long-term, emotionally intense, and committed romantic relationship. machiavellians seemed to prefer ‘top dogs’, attractive and vital romantic partners who possess considerable status and resources. at first glance, this result contradicts our result considering machiavellians’ lack of preference for vitality and attractiveness in ideal romantic partners. in our opinion, attractiveness and vitality is not a matter of aesthetics for ‘top dogs’, rather a means of getting on in our more and more narcissistic society (verhulst, lodge, & lavine, 2010). these results lead to the conclusion that machiavellians’ choice of a mate is primarily mediated by sensory information instead of psychological dimensions and the major aspects of their preferences are of external-material nature. in their relationships, they presumably orient themselves towards gaining highly valued external resources and social positions rather than mutual self-disclosure. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 146 http://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and further directions our study has its limitations of course. since our results are based on self-report data considering romantic ideals we must stay reserved considering the ecological validity of our study. previous research proved (e.g., swami & barrett, 2011) that participants tend to report attitudes different from their actual, observed behavior in the domain of mate choice. so, further research might use couples’ reports of personality and machiavellianism, and test the relationship of these constructs with actual marital satisfaction, or forms of dyadic behavior. competing interests the second author is an associate editor of ejop but played no editorial role for this particular article. funding the authors have no funding to report. 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(2003). machiavellianism: an alexithymic perspective. journal of social and clinical psychology, 22, 730-744. doi:10.1521/jscp.22.6.730.22931 wetzel, c. g., & insko, c. a. (1982). the similarity-attraction relationship: is there an ideal one? journal of experimental social psychology, 18, 253-276. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(82)90053-1 wiggins, j. s. (1979). a psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: the interpersonal domain. journal of personality and social psychology, 37(3), 395-412. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.3.395 wiggins, j. s. (1985). the interpersonal circle: a structural model for the integration of personality research. in r. hogan & w. h. jones (eds.), perspectives in personality (vol. 1, pp. 1-47). greenwich, ct, usa: jai press. willi, j. (1984). the concept of collusion: a combined systemic-psychodynamic approach to marital therapy. family process, 23(2), 177-185. doi:10.1111/j.1545-5300.1984.00177.x winch, r. f. 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(2005). ideal mate personality concepts and compatibility in close relationshps: a longitudinal analysis. journal of personality and social psychology, 89(2), 242-256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.89.2.242 about the authors tamás ináncsi, is assistant lecturer of psychology. his research is focusing on the phenomenology and cognitions of machiavellianism in the context of close relationships (e.g., adult attachment, relationship quality). andrás láng, phd, is assistant professor of developmental and clinical psychology. his areas of research interest cover attachment theory, personality and clinical psychology. he has been recently involved in several research projects on the developmental and clinical aspects of machiavellianism and the dark triad. tamásbereczkei, phd, dsc is professor in psychology, with biological and philosophical background. his interest encompasses fields like machiavellianism, altruism and prosocial behavior, sexual attractiveness, mate choice, reproductive behavior, and socialization during childhood. his studies have been published in international journals, he is the author and editor of several books on evolutionary psychology. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 137–152 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1007 machiavellianism and romantic ideals 152 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2f0162-3095%2880%2990003-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307%2f2786566 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.2420070110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs10919-009-0084-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2007.09.007 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521%2fjscp.22.6.730.22931 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2f0022-1031%2882%2990053-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.37.3.395 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1545-5300.1984.00177.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.89.2.242 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en machiavellianism and romantic ideals machiavellian personality and close relationship assortative mating based on romantic ideals machiavellianism and positive vs. negative assortative mating machiavellianism and personal goals aims of our study, hypotheses method sample and procedure measures statistical analyses results discussion limitations and further directions (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments references about the authors genetic relatedness, emotional closeness and physical aggression: a comparison of full and half sibling experiences research reports genetic relatedness, emotional closeness and physical aggression: a comparison of full and half sibling experiences roxanne khan* a, gayle brewer b, john archer a [a] school of psychology, university of central lancashire, preston, united kingdom. [b] school of psychology, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom. abstract two studies investigated whether perceived closeness of siblings, and aggression between siblings, were associated with genetic relatedness. in following hamilton’s rule, we predicted that as the coefficient of relatedness between siblings increased, emotional closeness would also increase while conflict would decrease. contrary to the predictions, we found no effect of genetic relatedness in study 1 when we compared participants’ (n = 240) ratings of emotional closeness; participants also reported significantly higher levels of conflict with full siblings than with half siblings. in study 2, participants (n = 214) also reported a higher frequency of physical aggression with full siblings than with half siblings. these findings were contrary to the prediction from hamilton’s rule. we discuss them in relation to parental investment in biological and non-biological offspring. keywords: family violence, conflict, hamilton’s rule, sibling violence, weapon use europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 received: 2019-03-14. accepted: 2020-01-28. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: school of psychology, darwin building, university of central lancashire, preston, pr1 2he, united kingdom. e-mail: rkhan2@uclan.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. according to “hamilton’s rule” (hamilton, 1964a, 1964b), genetic relatedness predicts the form and frequency of altruistic and competitive behavior, such that people are most altruistic and least competitive with those to whom they are most closely related. within the familial environment, research has consistently documented the disparate treatment of genetically unrelated children by stepparents compared with their own biological offspring. in particular, stepchildren are at a far greater risk of neglect, physical maltreatment, and infanticide, than genetically related children (e.g., daly & wilson, 1994, 2008; harris, hilton, rice, & eke, 2007; tooley, karakis, stokes, & ozanne-smith, 2006; weekes-shackelford & shackelford, 2004; wilson, daly, & weghorst, 1980). the present studies explore the influence of genetic relatedness on closeness and aggression between siblings. genetic relatedness can be expressed by the coefficient of relatedness (r), from wright (1922), which denotes the likelihood that two people have the same gene as a result of common inheritance. from hamilton’s rule, we should expect people to report greater emotional closeness and less intentional aggression towards full (r = .5) than half siblings (r = .25). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional closeness previous research indicates that genetic relatedness predicts emotional closeness and social support (neyer & lang, 2003). for example, coalitions are more frequently formed with those who are closely related (dunbar, clark, & hurst, 1995) and people are more likely to incur costs for kin than non-kin (burnstein, crandall, & kitayama, 1994). the importance of genetic relatedness appears to extend to sibling relationships. fraley and tancredy’s (2012) exploration of national data on 28,169 sibling relationships showed that twins were more likely to be attached to their siblings than non-twin siblings and identical (monozygotic) twins were more likely than fraternal (dizygotic) twins to be strongly attached to one another. these findings are consistent with previous research that demonstrates that (1) non-twins are less positive towards each other than identical or fraternal twins, with unrelated siblings least positive of all (reiss, neiderhiser, hetherington, & plomin, 2000); (2) there is more severe grief following the death of a twin than a non-twin sibling (segal, wilson, bouchard, & gitlin, 1995); (3) there is greater cooperation between identical than fraternal twins (segal, 2005); and (4) there is greater contact between full than half siblings (pollet, 2007; tanskanen & danielsbacka, 2014; white & riedmann, 1992). furthermore, differences between full and half sibling interactions were found in a polygynous mormon community (jankowiak & diderich, 2000), where half siblings share a father and have different mothers but are reared in the same household as full siblings. despite attempts to reduce the significance of genetic relatedness in this community, in the interests of social cohesion, individuals reported greater affection for full than half siblings (jankowiak & diderich, 2000). these findings are consistent with the assertion that humans should have developed the ability to distinguish full from half siblings and to act more cooperatively with full siblings (buss, 1999; daly, salmon, & wilson, 1997). however, other studies report that genetically related siblings (full and half) were both more positive and more negative in their relationship than were unrelated siblings (hetherington et al., 1999; reiss et al., 1994). thus we investigate sibling relatedness in the context of both closeness and conflict. conflict and aggression while siblings provide a source of support in human families (tucker, mchale, & crouter, 2001), they also represent competition for valued resources, and this is apparent throughout the animal kingdom (mock & parker, 1997). as the number of children in the household increases, there is a decline in the amount of parental time and investment allocated to each child (black, devereux, & salvanes, 2005). more generally, larger family size is associated with lower offspring fitness in other animals (lack, 1947; roff, 2002). the number of siblings within the household is particularly detrimental to later-born children (lawson & mace, 2009). for example, children with additional older siblings have a lower height and growth rate (lawson & mace, 2008) and a lower level of educational attainment and wealth (steelman, powell, werum, & carter, 2002). consistent with the importance of household resources, short birth intervals (increasing the intensity of resource competition) are associated with a greater risk of child mortality (whitworth & stephenson, 2002) and sibling conflict often centers on personal possessions (felson, 1983; mcguire, manke, eftekhari, & dunn, 2000; raffaelli, 1992). competition for resources may be particularly intense within middle income or poorer households where parents may focus their investment on a few of their children, creating substantial inequalities amongst siblings (dahan & gaviria, 2003). sibling closeness and aggression 168 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aggressive altercations among siblings are commonplace, widespread, and occur in different cultures (rapoza, cook, zaveri, & malley-morrison, 2010; relva, fernandes, & costa, 2013), although it is often minimized (khan & rogers, 2015), not only by victims but also by family members and professionals (khan & brewer, in press; mcdonald & martinez, 2016; phillips, phillips, grupp, & trigg, 2009). indeed, physical aggression is often viewed as a normal part of the sibling relationship (caspi, 2012; hardy, 2001; kettrey & emery, 2006), despite the negative emotional and behavioral consequences of this behavior (caffaro & conn-caffaro, 1998; kashani, daniel, dandoy, & holcomb, 1992). the widespread acceptance of physical aggression against siblings is further reflected in the absence of laws to protect victims from this maltreatment (stock, 1993). hence, although sibling aggression is likely to be the most prevalent form of family violence (e.g., eriksen & jensen, 2006, 2009; finkelhor, turner, & ormrod, 2006; straus & gelles, 1986), a substantial proportion of those experiencing it being injured (khan & cooke, 2013; reese-weber, 2008), and a range of weapons being used to threaten or attack siblings, including knives, broken glass, and guns (kiselica & morrill-richards, 2007), this behavior has received much less research attention than other forms of familial aggression (dekeseredy & ellis, 1997; wiehe, 1997). this is surprising given that weapon use against siblings has been reported not only in clinical and forensic populations who might be deemed at higher risk for violence (kuay et al., 2016; tompsett, mahoney, & lackey, 2018) but also in lower-risk community and student populations (khan, 2017) and extreme sibling aggression also occurs (salmon & hehman, 2014). archer (2013) noted that while most studies of sibling aggression do not measure the genetic relatedness of perpetrator and victim, living with genetically unrelated brothers and sisters (i.e., stepsiblings) is a robust predictor of intentional and severe sibling aggression perpetration, including the use of weapons (khan & cooke, 2008). parents report less frequent conflict between full siblings than those who are not fully related (aquilino, 1991) and conflict between non-biological siblings is most intense (salmon & hehman, 2015). furthermore, children living in households with both full and half siblings are at greater risk of injury than those living with full siblings only (tanskanen, danielsbacka, & rotkirch, 2015) although conflict is less intense among half siblings than full siblings (salmon & hehman, 2015). the invisibility of sibling aggression in official crime databases or statistics has impinged on efforts to test this hypothesis using violence and homicide data. in a notable exception, michalski, russell, shackelford, and weekes-shackelford (2007) examined historical records to explore the influence of genetic relatedness on the nature of aggression used in siblicides. although they found a relationship between more brutal methods of homicide (e.g., beatings) and genetic relatedness of siblings, it was not statistically significant, and they concluded that there was insufficient reliable data available to examine this effect with full confidence. the current studies investigated closeness and aggression among full and half siblings. study 1 examined emotional closeness and conflict, and study 2 addressed the intentional use of aggression. for both studies, retrospective accounts of relationships with full and half sibling were gathered using self-report questionnaires. if hamilton’s rule is operating without any other considerations, we would expect that as the coefficient of relatedness decreased, emotional closeness would decline, while conflict and the use of physical aggression would be more frequent and/or more severe. specifically, we predicted greater emotional closeness and lower levels of conflict and intentional aggression within relationships with full (r = .5) than with half (r = .25) siblings. khan, brewer, & archer 169 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 1 method participants men and women (n = 243, 201 female) aged 16 to 21 years (m = 17.30, sd = .83) were recruited from a british college of further education. questionnaires were completed offline at the college campus. participation was voluntary and all participants provided informed consent. materials participants completed a questionnaire specifically designed for the study. it contained initial demographic questions, e.g., age and sex, and the age, sex, and type of sibling (full, half, or unrelated). these were followed by 15 statements relating to help and support, lending money and possessions, conflict, and relationship quality which were developed to assess sibling relationship closeness. the items are shown in table 1. three of these items concerned conflict (items 2, 4, and 6 in table 1), and these were analysed separately to provide a measure of conflict. participants responded to each item on a 5-point scale (1 = “not true at all”, 2 = “not really true”, 3 = “occasionally true”, 4 = “fairly true”, 5 = “very true”). seven items were worded in a positive direction, seven in a negative direction and one measured perceived similarity to the sibling. the overall sibling relationship quality scale demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .88). high scores indicated greater levels of sibling closeness. the sibling conflict sub-scale also demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .84); higher scores indicated greater sibling conflict. results participants reported having 462 siblings aged 1 to 39 years (m = 17.80, sd = 7.09). of these, 234 were male and 228 female; 349 were full siblings, 75 were half siblings, and 38 were unrelated siblings. only 23 participants reported having an unrelated sibling (adopted sibling or stepsibling) and 3 of these participants reported having only unrelated siblings. due to the few cases of unrelated siblings in the present study, we decided to omit all reports of unrelated siblings from the analysis, which thus focused on comparing full and half siblings. table 1 shows the frequencies reported for each of the 15 items in the sibling relationship closeness scale; on average emotional closeness scores were lower for full (m = 47.86, sd = 10.37) than for half (m = 52.93, sd = 9.77) siblings. table 1 percentages of reports in study 1 of different frequencies of each of 15 questions designed to assess perceived closeness of relationship to full siblings (n = 349) or half siblings (n = 75) closeness / sibling type not true at all not really true occasionally true fairly true very true 1. i get on well with this brother/sister full 3% 5% 25% 32% 34% half 4% 4% 11% 38% 45% 2. i argue with this brother/sister (r)a full 12% 22% 32% 14% 20% half 9% 11% 21% 21% 38% sibling closeness and aggression 170 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ closeness / sibling type not true at all not really true occasionally true fairly true very true 3. i would lend money to this brother/sister full 14% 14% 24% 14% 36% half 5% 7% 9% 29% 50% 4. this brother/sister gets on my nerves (r)a full 22% 15% 31% 15% 17% half 9% 14% 21% 25% 30% 5. i would happily lend my possessions to this brother/sister full 14% 17% 19% 29% 22% half 11% 14% 25% 16% 34% 6. i sometimes get angry and shout at this brother/sister (r)a full 25% 12% 41% 14% 89% half 13% 20% 13% 25% 30% 7. i feel i am in many ways similar to this brother/sister full 24% 19% 17% 27% 14% half 14% 16% 20% 25% 23% 8. i would not willingly lend my possessions to this brother/sister (r) full 19% 9% 17% 15% 41% half 7% 9% 11% 25% 48% 9. this person would help me in a time of difficulty full 3% 10% 15% 22% 49% half 4% 9% 13% 30% 44% 10. i do not miss this brother/sister when they are away (for example on holiday) (r) full 17% 19% 17% 15% 32% half 16% 21% 13% 18% 32% 11. when i am upset i would go to this brother/sister for advice full 24% 17% 20% 9% 31% half 27% 23% 16% 16% 18% 12. i would not willingly lend money to this brother/sister (r) full 9% 7% 25% 19% 41% half 5% 7% 14% 27% 46% 13. when i am upset i would go to this brother/sister for comfort full 25% 12% 24% 12% 27% half 27% 14% 14% 18% 27% 14. i would be happy to help this brother/sister if they were in a difficult situation full 2% 2% 3% 24% 70% half 4% 2% 7% 21% 66% 15. i don’t get on very well with this brother/sister (r) full 0 3% 19% 37% 41% half 2% 5% 7% 32% 54% note. percentages may not total 100% as all figures are rounded; (r) indicates a reverse-scored item. aitem denotes act of conflict. one of the central assumptions underlying analyses-of-variance is that all data points are independent. thus, where participants had more than one sibling and therefore contributed more than one response to the data set, responses were averaged across siblings for each participant. for participants with a half sibling, closeness scores were averaged for all half siblings and their closeness scores for any full siblings were removed khan, brewer, & archer 171 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from the data set. for the remaining participants (who had only full siblings), closeness scores were averaged for all siblings. this resulted in 194 mean closeness scores for full siblings and 46 mean closeness scores for half siblings. there were no differences between male and female participants in mean closeness scores, t(238) = .96, p = .34. the differences in age between the respondent and each sibling that contributed to the data were also averaged to give a mean age difference for each participant, both full siblings (m = -.11, sd = 6.03) and half siblings (m = -2.02, sd = 10.56). mean age difference was significantly correlated with mean closeness, r = .205, p = .001, indicating that participants reported being closer to siblings with whom there was a larger age difference, and that competition between similar age siblings is important. furthermore, there was a positive correlation between age difference and emotional closeness, r = .28, p = .001, for participants older than their siblings. this suggested that these participants reported feeling closer to their younger siblings if there was a larger age difference, but not siblings similar to their own age. on the other hand, there was a negative correlation between and emotional closeness, r = -.30, p = .001, when the participant was the younger sibling, indicating that these participants felt less close to siblings with a larger age gap. we therefore used mean age difference as a covariate in subsequent analyses of the effect of genetic relatedness on closeness scores. mean closeness scores for full siblings and half siblings were entered into a general linear model univariate ancova. after controlling for mean age difference, f(1, 237) = 10.01, p = .002, there was no effect of relatedness group on closeness, f(1, 237) = .22, p = .642, partial η2 = .001, indicating that participants did not report being closer to full siblings than half siblings. we then examined separately the three items in the closeness scale that addressed conflict (i.e., items 2, 4, and 6; see table 1). in this case, the items were not reversed so that the sum of the items formed a conflict score with higher scores indicating greater conflict. there were no differences between male and female participants in mean conflict scores, t(238) = .88, p = .38. age difference significantly correlated with conflict, r = .34, p < .001, and so mean age difference was entered as a covariate. after controlling for mean age difference, f(1, 237) = 13.26, p < .001, there was a significant effect of relatedness on conflict, f(1, 237) = 5.34, p =.022, partial η2 = .022, indicating that more conflict (d = .43) was reported with full siblings (m = 9.27, sd = 2.73), than with half siblings (m = 8.06, sd = 3.11).i given that the method of averaging across siblings for each participant was a somewhat unorthodox approach, we also adopted a second approach to data analysis which involved the inclusion of all reports of full and half siblings and treating them as independent data. this resulted in 424 reports of sibling relationships (329 full siblings, 75 half siblings) being entered into a univariate ancova with age difference treated as a covariate. again, after controlling for age difference, f(1, 421) = 26.46, p < .001, there was no effect of group on closeness scores, f(1, 421) = 2.00, p = .158, partial η2 = .005, but there was a significant effect of group for the three-item conflict score, f(1, 421) = 7.68, p = .006, indicating that more conflict was reported with full siblings, m = 6.61, sd = 2.19, than with half siblings, m = 5.12, sd = 2.59; d = .66. as we did not expect to find more conflict between full siblings than half siblings, and because there were only three items dealing with low level conflict (rather than actual aggressive behavior) on the emotional closeness scale, we conducted a second study that was specifically concerned with sibling aggression. sibling closeness and aggression 172 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 method participants men and women (n = 218, 163 female) aged 16 to 55 years (m = 23.50, sd = 7.16) were recruited from a british college of further education and university. questionnaires were completed offline at the college or university campus. participation was voluntary and all participants provided informed consent. materials participants completed a questionnaire, which requested the following: (1) demographic information (i.e., age and sex, number of siblings, and type of relationship (full, half, or unrelated) with each sibling). (2) for each sibling, participants responded to 13 items based on those used by straus et al. (1980) for their us national representative study of different forms of family violence. the items, shown in table 2, measured the frequency of various intentional acts of aggression against a sibling. participants were asked not to include any incidents which were accidental or the result of play-fighting. frequencies were rated along a 6-point scale (0 = “never”, 1 = “very rarely”, 2 = “rarely”, 3 = “sometimes”, 4 = “often”, 5 = “very often”). the overall sibling conflict measure demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = .87). high scores indicated greater levels of sibling conflict. results participants reported 422 sibling relationships, including 317 full, 81 half, and 24 unrelated siblings. table 2 shows the frequencies reported for each of the 13 items in the intentional aggression scale, for full and half siblings. table 2 percentages of reports in study 2 of different frequencies of each of 13 acts of aggression towards full siblings (n = 317) or half siblings (n = 81) act of aggression / sibling type never very rarely rarely sometimes often very often 1. kicked or bitten full 44% 11% 21% 17% 5% 2% half 68% 6% 10% 14% 3% 0 2. punched full 44% 13% 17% 16% 8% 2% half 69% 6% 6% 12% 6% 0 3. threw heavy/sharp objecta full 59% 10% 16% 10% 4% 1% half 78% 7% 6% 7% 1% 0 4. slapped full 45% 15% 18% 12% 7% 3% half 67% 10% 12% 9% 1% 1% 5. beaten full 77% 6% 9% 4% 3% 1% half 91% 1% 1% 4% 3% 0 khan, brewer, & archer 173 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ act of aggression / sibling type never very rarely rarely sometimes often very often 6. attempted to strangle full 92% 4% 3% 1% 1 0 half 96% 1% 0 1% 1% 0 7. threatened with knifea full 95% 3% 0 1% 0 0 half 96% 4% 0 0 0 0 8. used a knifea full 100% 0 0 0 0 0 half 100% 0 0 0 0 0 9. pushed full 36% 9% 22% 22% 9% 3% half 54% 9% 24% 10% 4% 0 10. threatened with guna full 100% 0 0 0 0 0 half 99% 0 0 0 1% 0 11. grabbed full 48% 10% 19% 17% 5% 1% half 69% 7% 12% 7% 4% 0 12. used a guna full 100% 0 0 0 0 0 half 100% 0 0 0 0 0 13. other serious acta full 98% 1% 0 0 0 0 half 97% 3% 1% 0 0 0 note. percentages may not total 100% as all figures are rounded. aitem denotes aggressive acts with the use or threat of weapons. following the same procedure used to recode the data from study 1, relationships involving unrelated siblings were removed from the dataset, responses from each participant with half siblings (n = 42) were averaged across all half siblings (and their full sibling relationships removed), and responses from each participant with only full siblings (n = 172) were averaged across all full siblings. an independent samples t-test showed that there were no sex differences in the overall level of aggression reported, t(212) = .06, p = .955, and so participant sex played no further part in the analyses. participants reported significantly more frequent physically aggressive behavior overall towards full siblings (m = 8.92, sd = 7.34) than towards half siblings (m = 4.42, sd = 5.58), t(212) = 3.71, p < .001, d = .64. following the analysis in study 1, we also took a second approach to data analysis that treated all responses as independent data rather than averaging across responses for each participant. the resulting analysis comparing all responses involving a full sibling (n = 317) with all responses involving a half sibling (n = 81) was consistent with the main analysis. participants reported more frequent aggressive behavior overall towards full siblings (m = 8.61, sd = 8.09) than towards half siblings (m = 4.93, sd = 7.36), t(396) = 2.39, p = .017 (d = .46). sibling closeness and aggression 174 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the present study investigated closeness and frequency of physically aggressive behavior in full and half sibling relationships. contrary to hamilton’s rule (hamilton, 1964a, 1964b), we found no effect of relatedness in study 1 for closeness when age differences were controlled. in both studies, we found higher levels of conflict or aggression between full siblings than between half siblings. to consider these findings within an evolutionary framework, we note that according to “hamilton’s rule” (buss, 1999, 2011), altruistic behavior will only occur when the benefits from helping relatives exceed the costs of doing so. these cost-benefit considerations can explain both altruistic behavior and aggression between close relatives, the latter reflecting competition for resources. although full, half, and unrelated siblings typically receive parental investment, parents favor biological over non-biological children (e.g., daly & wilson, 1994, 2008). hence, full siblings receive a greater proportion of parental investment and constitute a greater threat to the acquisition of valued resources. these resources have a substantial impact on sibling wellbeing (e.g., physical development: lawson & mace, 2008; education: steelman et al., 2002; and health: zeng et al., 2013). these findings are consistent with the suggestion that there is diluted resource competition over parental investment between half-siblings in societies with serial monogamy as sources of parental investment are only partly overlapping among half-siblings (tanskanen, danielsbacka, jokela, david-barrett, & rotkirch, 2016). a number of variables are predicted to increase the intensity of this competition and future research should consider the relative influence of these. for example, the level of household resources available to parents influences the allocation of parental investment (beaulieu & bugental, 2008). in non-human species, sibling aggression is greater when resources are limited (e.g., drummond & garcia chavelas, 1989; mock & parker, 1997), and in humans, a severe lack of resources may result in investment in one child only. however, an abundance of parental resources does not necessarily reduce the frequency or severity of sibling competition and greater access to resources may actually increase motivation for sibling-oriented aggression. consistent with this, gibson and lawson (2011) demonstrated that modernization and subsequent greater access to resources are associated with greater sibling competition. additional research is required to investigate the importance of resource availability, differential allocation of resources between siblings, and the extent to which perceived parental favoritism (goodwin & roscoe, 1990; hoffman & edwards, 2004; roscoe, goodwin, & kennedy, 1987) impacts on this association. as the extent to which competition is ‘local’ may influence the frequency and level of cooperative and competitive behavior (west et al., 2006) future research may consider the extent to which siblings shared resources (e.g., shared bedroom). the structure of the family unit (e.g., child birth order) is also likely to influence sibling dynamics. for example, the number of siblings may be detrimental to later-born children (lawson & mace, 2009), while young children can benefit from resources generated by older siblings (sawada & lokshin, 2009). closeness and aggression may further differ between maternal and paternal half siblings. due to paternity uncertainty and the prevalence of cuckoldry (platek & shackelford, 2006), a minority of paternal half siblings will be unrelated. overall, genetic relatedness is higher in matrilineal than in patrilineal kin (michalski & euler, 2008) and more frequent contact has been identified between maternal than paternal half siblings, although generational differences exist (tanskanen & danielsbacka, 2014). future research would benefit from comparing relationships with maternal and paternal half siblings, and the extent to which these differ from relationships with full siblings. khan, brewer, & archer 175 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study investigated full and half siblings. future studies may extend these findings and compare relationships with categories of unrelated siblings, i.e., adopted and stepsiblings. while adopted and stepsiblings are both genetically unrelated (and therefore fall into the same category of relatedness), their status is very different. for example, the circumstances that lead to children living with an adoptive parent or a stepparent are likely to be markedly different (kreider & lofquist, 2010). thus, an adopted child who joins a family in which they form part of a sibling-set is more actively ‘wanted’ or ‘desired’ than stepsiblings. consistent with this, there is greater maternal involvement in adoptive families (rhea & corley, 1994), and adoptive families invest greater resources (hamilton, cheng, & powell, 2007) particularly in the education (gibson, 2009) and health of the child (bramlett, radel, & blumberg, 2007). the extent of conflict between siblings is likely to be related to the amount of time that they spent living in the same residence (and thus, covary with the extent of competition for resources), although the number of cohabitation years is itself not a perfect measure of the extent of competition. in order to minimize the impact of variation in cohabitation years, study 2 asked respondents to report on the frequency of aggression rather than estimating the number of acts of aggression, using the rationale that the frequency of behavior transcends the time period over which that behavior occurs. nevertheless, the inclusion of cohabitation years alongside frequency estimates of aggression would allow a more comprehensive analysis of sibling conflict and future investigations should consider this approach. while sex differences in aggression are widely reported (archer, 2004, 2009; card, stucky, sawalani, & little, 2008), no sex differences were apparent in our data with respect to reported levels of conflict (study 1) or aggression (study 2). while our findings do not support the sex differences in sibling conflict found in some studies (e.g., campione‐barr & smetana, 2010; salmon & hehman, 2015; white & riedmann, 1992), they corroborate research that reports no difference between male and female siblings’ use of aggression (e.g., felson, 1983; minnett, vandell, & santrock, 1983; roscoe et al., 1987; stock, 1993). one explanation for our findings might be that the data from study 1 were reports of the frequency of low-level conflict (e.g., irritation, arguing) where the expectation of sex differences may be much less clear. it might also be that expectations of sex differences in aggressive behavior (i.e., more male than female aggression) are driven by observations of conflict interactions between strangers or acquaintances whereas a rather different picture emerges from observations of partner conflict and parental conflict. in these latter familial and partner relationships, it is not uncommon to find more female aggression than male aggression (archer, 2000; bates, graham-kevan, & archer, 2014; straus & gelles, 1986; straus et al., 1980).ii the diversity in sibling structures raises several measurement issues that can only be answered by subsequent studies that collect a wider range of background variables from participants. there are, for example, mixed results for the influence of sibling-dyad’s sex on aggression (see goodwin & roscoe, 1990; hoffman & edwards, 2004; pepler, abramovitch, & corter, 1981). however, salmon and hehman (2015) found this to be pertinent in relation to sibling conflict. though respondent sex did not predict the intensity of sibling conflict, more intense conflict occurred between siblings of the same than opposite sex. same-sex siblings are more likely to share bedrooms or spend time together on sports-teams or in social-clubs; hence there are more opportunities to compete for resources, peers, or mates. thus, for a fuller examination, future studies would benefit from measuring the influence of same/opposite sex of sibling as a contributory factor. longitudinal research is also recommended to explore these issues as sibling relationships change over time (pollet & hoben, 2011). future studies might also benefit from more specific measures of sibling closeness that separate this from related concepts sibling closeness and aggression 176 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ such as altruism. a single-item measure of emotional closeness may also be useful for comparison purposes (i.e., asking respondents “how close to you feel to this sibling?”). assessments of physical aggression were collected using self-reported ratings of the frequency of a range of violent behavior used against each sibling. it is noteworthy that these self-report data may have been influenced by social desirability and the ‘softening’ effect of memory bias (wilson & fromuth, 1997), possibly as a result of the normalization of sibling aggression during childhood (khan & rogers, 2015). nevertheless, there is a widespread history of using anonymous self-reports to assess aggression in adults where other methods used for children, such as observations, and peer or teacher reports, are not appropriate. finally, despite varying in grievousness, each form of behavior was equally weighted to aggregate an index of aggression; this is because we wished to record the frequency of aggression rather than the acuteness or intention to harm. nevertheless, aggression towards others may be indexed in terms of severity as well as frequency, and these individual facets of aggression may be independent of each other and not necessarily correlated. thus, future work could also assess how sibling relatedness impacts on the severity of physical aggression as well as its frequency. research addressing a range of covert and overt physical and non-physical behaviors would be beneficial, together with further investigation of prosocial cooperative interactions. the current study was reliant on a british student sample, consistent with the dominance of ‘weird’ participants (western, educated, from industrialised, rich, democratic countries) in psychological research (henrich, heine, & norenzayan, 2010). previous research has demonstrated cultural differences in cooperative and competitive sibling behavior which does not appear to be a consequence of differences in family structure (such as number of siblings) between cultural groups (knight, kagan, & knight, 1982). culture may also influence parental treatment of siblings and equality of sibling treatment (mchale, updegraff, shanahan, crouter, & killoren, 2005). future research should adopt a wider cross-cultural sample and consider factors such as the customs of child rearing and the environment in which the child lives (super & harkness, 1986). comparisons of individualistic and collectivistic cultures would be of particular interest (buist et al., 2014; oetzel et al., 2003). though previous research suggests that ethnicity does not impact on family conflict (e.g., formoso, gonzales, & aiken, 2000), studies recruiting from one country may also explore the importance of this demographic variable. to conclude, the present studies indicate that relationships with full siblings involve levels of emotional closeness that are no different to those with half siblings and that they involve higher levels of aggression than in relationships with half siblings. while apparently inconsistent with hamilton’s rule (hamilton, 1964a, 1964b), these findings may reflect the other side of this rule, the extent to which siblings constitute rivals for parental investment, which is disproportionately provided to biological offspring. we encourage further research that explores not only the influence of genetic relatedness on sibling aggression, but also their competition for resources, not least because blended sibling relationships are socially ubiquitous yet often overlooked by family aggression researchers. notes i) to explore the utility of including siblings who were very young, in a supplementary analysis, all siblings less than the age of 10 years (at the time of reporting) were removed. there were 50 siblings (18 half siblings, 32 full siblings) who fell into this category. while a majority of the affected participants had other siblings who were older, the removal of all very young siblings resulted in the complete removal of two participants from the full sibling group and one participant from the half sibling group. after controlling for mean age difference, f(1, 234) = 12.62, p < .001, there was no effect of relatedness group on closeness, f(1, 234) = 2.01, p = .158, partial η2 = .009. when we examined the non-reversed three items that khan, brewer, & archer 177 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://www.psychopen.eu/ referred to conflict, and after controlling for mean age difference, f(1, 234) = 8.81, p = .003, there was still a higher level of conflict with full siblings, m = 10.19, sd = 2.74, than with half siblings, m = 7.64, sd = 3.19, f(1, 234) = 9.94, p =.002, partial η2 = .041. ii) it is also noteworthy that straus et al. (1980, p. 87), upon which our study 2 measure of aggression was based, discuss sex differences in sibling violence, noting that boys are only slightly more aggressive than girls (83 v 74% overall). similarly, in our study 2 data, if we take an arbitrary cut-off for minimal violence a score of more than 3 on total aggression, 69% of men are aggressive and 73% of women are aggressive. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank jennifer bowling (university of central lancashire) and vanlal thanzami (monash university malaysia) for their contribution to this paper and alison tait for collecting the data used in study 1. references aquilino, w. s. (1991). family structure and home-leaving: a further specification of the relationship. journal of marriage and family, 53, 999-1010. https://doi.org/10.2307/353003 archer, j. 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(1997). characteristics of abusive sibling relationships and correlations with later relationships. paper presented at the 105th annual convention of the american psychological association, chicago. sibling closeness and aggression 184 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 https://doi.org/10.2307%2f352033 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f016502548600900409 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2014.04.034 https://doi.org/10.3389%2ffsoc.2016.00006 https://doi.org/10.1027%2f1614-0001%2fa000171 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f15374416.2016.1138409 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.evolhumbehav.2005.10.001 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0893-3200.15.2.254 https://doi.org/10.1891%2fvivi.19.1.75.33232 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cub.2006.03.069 https://doi.org/10.2307%2f353287 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs0277-9536%2802%2900002-3 https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs0021932000012876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wright, s. (1922). coefficients of inbreeding and relationship. american naturalist, 56, 330-338. https://doi.org/10.1086/279872 zeng, w., undurraga, e. a., nyberg, c., eisenberg, t. a., parida, s., zycherman, a., . . . tanner, s. (2013). sibling composition during childhood and adult blood pressure among native amazonians in bolivia. economics and human biology, 11, 391-400. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2012.08.002 about the authors roxanne khan, phd, is director of harm: honour abuse research matrix. a chartered psychologist at the university of central lancashire, she is a senior lecturer and course leader in forensic psychology. dr khan has a long-standing research interest in aggression and violence and has authored work on the psychology of sibling violence, honour based abuse, intimate partner violence, child and adult sexual abuse, coercion, and exploitation. gayle brewer, phd, is a senior lecturer at the university of liverpool, uk. she is an evolutionary psychologist and her primary research interests focus on the psychology of interpersonal relationships. dr brewer has published approximately 80 peer reviewed journal articles and numerous books and book chapters. john archer, phd, is emeritus professor of psychology at the university of central lancashire, united kingdom. he is the author of over 100 articles, mostly on human aggression. he is the author of several books including the behavioural biology of aggression (1988), the nature of grief (1999), and (with barbara lloyd) sex and gender (2002). he is a fellow of the british psychological society, and was editor-in-chief of aggressive behavior (2012-2018). he received the international society for research on aggression’s scott award, for lifetime achievement, in 2016. khan, brewer, & archer 185 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 167–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1620 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1086%2f279872 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ehb.2012.08.002 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sibling closeness and aggression (introduction) emotional closeness conflict and aggression study 1 method results study 2 method results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation research reports the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation fernando gordillo a, lilia mestas* b, josé m. arana c, miguel ángel pérez a, eduardo alejandro escotto b [a] department of psychology, camilo josé cela university, madrid, spain. [b] faculty of higher studies zaragoza, national autonomous university of mexico, mexico city, mexico. [c] department of psychology, university of salamanca, salamanca, spain. abstract mortality salience, or awareness of the inevitability of one’s own death, generates a state of anxiety that triggers a defense mechanism for the control of thinking that affects different human activities and psychological processes. this study aims to analyze the effect of mortality salience on the formation of impressions. the sample comprised 135 women who made inferences about a woman’s personality from information about her life (type of life, lt: positive, negative), provided through five words, all positive or negative, that appeared surrounding a photograph, together with a sixth word that indicated whether she was “dead” or “alive” at the time (mortality manipulation, mm: dead, alive). the results pointed to a more negative assessment of life (dead m alive m = -1.16, se = .236, p < .001), emotional stability (dead m alive m = -1.13, se = .431, p = .010), and responsibility (dead m alive m = -1.14, se = .423, p = .008) only when the participants had access to negative information about the person assessed, and she was known to be dead. we discuss the results within the framework of terror management theory, and analyze the different effects that the manipulation of mortality has on the formation of impressions depending on the type of information available. keywords: emotion, formation of impressions, terror management theory, personality, prominence of death europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 received: 2016-03-11. accepted: 2017-02-14. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: c/ batalla 5 de mayo s/n. esquina fuerte de loreto. colonia ejército de oriente. 09230 méxico df (méxico). e-mail: mesherli@comunidad.unam.mx this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. according to the terror management theory (tmt; greenberg, pyszczynski, & solomon, 1986), all human behavior is motivated by the fear of one’s own demise, giving rise to a state of anxiety that arises when we confront the awareness of our own mortality (ms: mortality salience) with the desire to survive. the anxiety produced when ms is activated is reduced via mechanisms for thought control, such as proximal and distal defenses (pyszczynski, greenberg, & solomon, 1999). proximal defenses are initiated when ms is activated; i.e., when thoughts about death enter our consciousness. they are rational, and allow us to escape such thoughts by fixing our attention on other things, reducing the attention focused on oneself, or trivializing one’s own vulnerability to death (arndt, cook, & routledge, 2004; pyszczynski et al., 1999). this can be achieved, for example, by enhancing our thoughts about our longevity (greenberg, arndt, simon, pyszczynski, & solomon, 2000), or by manifesting the intent to carry out more healthy activities (arndt, schimel, & goldenberg, 2003; taubman-ben-ari & findler, 2005). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ proximal defenses prevent thoughts about death from persisting in our awareness, although they continue to be accessible unconsciously. at this point, and at some time after proximal defenses have been raised, distal defenses are brought into play; these allow thoughts about death to be banished for longer. these distal defenses involve the cultural systems that give meaning and support to our existence (e.g., religion, politics) and also self-esteem, leading a person to feel special and important to the extent to which he or she is so according to cultural values (rodriguez & osorio, 2014). different methods allow ms and the consequent proximal defenses to be activated. in particular, participants in experiments can be asked to write what they think will happen when they die, and to express their feeling about the idea of their own death (e.g., kashima, halloran, yuki, & kashima, 2004). another possibility is the use of videos or images (e.g., greenberg, simon, pyszczynski, solomon, & chatel, 1992), and even subliminal information (e.g., arndt, cook, goldenberg, & cox, 2007). another way of activating ms and the consequent proximal defenses consists in bringing other people’s mortality into one’s consciousness (e.g., accidents, wars, terrorism) (e.g., arndt et al., 2007; pyszczynski, solomon, & greenberg, 2003). according to kashima et al. (2004), the ms that arises when we become aware of the mortality of others generates anxiety in the same sense as that generated by awareness of our own mortality, but also installs in the person the perception that the world is an unpredictable and dangerous place, although the effect would be greater in collectivist populations, and lesser so in individualistic ones (e.g., japan vs. australia). the tendency to reduce anxiety elicited by the awareness of death has an effect on a broad range of human behaviors, such as pro-social behavior, aggression, self-esteem, sexual attitudes, the tendency to take risks, the management of close relations (see pyszczynski et al., 2003; solomon, greenberg, & pyszczynski, 2013), group conflicts, political attitudes (greenberg & kosloff, 2008), and peace processes (niesta, fritsche, & jonas, 2008). likewise, its effects on different psychological processes have been noted, such as the perception of facial expressions (anaki, brezniak, & shalom, 2012) or decision-making in health matters (goldenberg & arndt, 2008). however, little is known about how the proximal defenses used to reduce anxiety about death may affect the formation of impressions. the formation of impressions is a classic line of research in social psychology (anderson & barrios, 1961; asch, 1952), which begins when we associate the personality traits of the individuals we perceive with the characteristics accumulated in our cognition (newman & uleman, 1990). these judgments can be made because people develop preconceived associations between personality traits and behavior (brown, 1986; fiske & taylor, 1991). this ability has high adaptive value insofar that knowing someone’s personality allows us to predict his or her behavior (bar, neta, & linz, 2006; knutson, 1996). in this sense, within the context of tmt it could be proposed that ms generates a bias in the assessment of the personality of someone who has died (with respect to someone living), which would allow the idea of mortality to be kept out of our awareness and have a marked rational character (proximal defense). one should therefore ask under what conditions and in which direction death will bias the assessment of the deceased’s personality. different studies have explored this topic, finding that death has a positive bias on the assessment of the deceased’s personality, specifically when the deceased is a recognized leader (allison, eylon, beggan, & bachelder, 2009). in a recent investigation (hayes, 2016), the participants were asked to name someone they knew well (relative, friend, etc.) and someone else they knew only superficially, and then they were asked to describe them, thinking either that they had died or that they were still alive. the data showed that death had a gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 287 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ positive effect on the assessment of personality traits. furthermore, the effects were independent of the degree of closeness maintained with the person assessed. hayes (2016) has conducted a second experiment to explore the role played by the fact that the person to be assessed, according to the same paradigm as the previous experiment, was considered pleasant or unpleasant by the assessor. this second experiment revealed that although the participants did not refrain from negatively assessing the person they found unpleasant when they knew that person was dead, this negative assessment was significantly tempered, thus revealing a “positive effect of death”. nevertheless, the experimental design used in these investigations did not allow a suitable control to be made of the type of life and emotional behavior associated with the person to be assessed, whereby no hypotheses could be formulated based on attributional processes, understood within tmt to be proximal defenses (to what should their death be attributed in order to banish my own mortality from my mind?). taking these data into account, it would be interesting to explore the effects of the emotional component related to the life of the person assessed. specifically, and considering tmt, one might expect that when faced with the death of a person for whom we have a negative life concept, there would be a tendency to make a more negative assessment of those internal and stable (personality) traits that could further explain the reason for their death, clearing one’s mind of one’s own mortality, and thereby reducing one’s own levels of anxiety (proximal defenses). this mechanism proposed as a proximal defense against attributional defenses is consistent with the so-called “ultimate attribution error” (pettigrew, 1979), defined as the tendency to attribute other people’s negative actions to internal, stable causes, and one’s own, in turn, to external, one-off causes. nevertheless, when the type of life a person has led is positive, their personality traits would not be variables that could explain their death. the aim of this work is to analyze the effect of the proximal defenses generated from ms on the formation of impressions (emotional stability, responsibility, sociability, friendliness, and creativity). in the context of tmt, proximal defenses are expected to have a negative effect on the evaluation of personality when the information about the life of a person who has died is negative. in this case, to expel thoughts of death from one’s consciousness and reduce anxiety, one’s own vulnerability to death would be trivialized by assuming that the death of that person is the result of the lifestyle he or she led, with an origin in stable internal variables such as personality (h1: differences are expected in the evaluation of personality between the group with a mortality manipulation of “dead” and “alive” when the information about the life of the person to be evaluated is negative). moreover, when the information about the life of the person to be evaluated is positive the effect of ms is expected be apparent in the lack of significant differences between the group with a mortality manipulation of “dead” and the one in which it is “alive”. when a person’s death cannot be attributed to internal causes because their life has been positively assessed, the dimensions of their personality variables would not be sensitive to the effect of ms. (h2: no difference are expected in the evaluation of personality between the group with a mortality manipulation of “dead” and “alive” when the information about the life of the person to be evaluated is positive). the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation 288 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample comprised 135 female psychology students at the national autonomous university of mexico (age: m = 20.82, sd = 2.76), who gave written informed consent to participate. materials five words with positive valence (family, excitement, adventure, sex, and optimism) and five words with negative valence (abuse, poverty, horror, nightmare, and depression) were used. they were obtained from the seminal study by redondo, fraga, comesaña, and pérea (2005). all were similar in levels of arousal. prototypical facial expressions were used, one of happiness and the other of sadness, obtained from the nimstim face stimulus set database (tottenham et al., 2009), to elaborate a neutral expression using the magic morph program (itinysoft, 2002) (50% happiness, 50% sadness). this program allowed one photo to be transformed into another, marking the transition points on each one of the images. thanks to its greater ambiguity, this type of expression favors the appearance of the effects sought (hassin, aviezer, & bentin, 2013). what’s more, the choice of the mixed neutral expression of a young woman is justified because it had similar characteristics to those of the sample, thus fostering empathy (stürmer, snyder, kropp, & siem, 2006), as a way of enhancing the effect of ms on the formation of impressions. for the assessment of personality, we took into account the dimensions of the neo five factor inventory of costa and mccrae (1985). the big five model derives from the analysis of the attributes that in natural languages describe individual differences (see costa & mccrae, 1992), and hence was the most suitable for this work, in which we used words to conform the levels of the independent variable. procedure stage i: coding and emotional assessment a color photograph on paper of the face of a woman with a neutral expression (50% happiness, 50% sadness) was given to the participants. the photo was shown in a circle surrounded by five positive or negative words associated with a particular age, together with a sixth word that allowed ms to be activated or not, and with information stating whether that person was alive or dead. in the upper part, the participants were told that the words described the life of the woman in the photograph, and that they had to observe the scheme for 60 seconds. they were then asked to give an emotional assessment of the life described by the words. the participants were asked to state to what extent the life of that person seemed to be positive or negative (very negative_1….9_very positive) (figure 1). gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 289 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. stages of the experiment in the negative type of life condition and dead mortality manipulation. stage ii: assessment of facial expression once the first page had been handed in, the participants were asked to continue with the second one. the photo of the mixed expression was shown again, but without the words, together with the following question: to what extent do you believe that the person in the photo is/was? emotionally stable: very little_ 1… 9_ a lot friendly: very little_ 1… 9_ a lot responsible: very little_ 1… 9_ a lot sociable: very little_ 1… 9_ a lot creative: very little_ 1… 9_ a lot variables and analyses independent variables 1. type of life (tl, negative, positive). this was established via words with a positive or negative emotional content referring to the life of the person whose personality was to be assessed. 2. mortality manipulation (mm: dead, alive): it was established by including the word “death” or “living”, together with the words conforming the tl. bearing in mind these variables, the participants were distributed randomly into four groups (tl/mm) [group 1: negative/dead, n = 38; group 2: negative/alive, n = 31; group 3: positive/dead, n = 35; group 4; positive/alive, n = 31]. dependent variables 1. life evaluation. the measurement was made in phase 1 by means of a scale from one to nine, in which the life described via words ranging from very negative to very positive was assessed. 2. personality. the measurements were taken during stage ii via five scales: emotional stability, friendliness, responsibility, sociability, and creativity. the values ranged between one and nine. the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation 290 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis we performed an anova with the type of life factor (tl: negative, positive) and the mortality salience factor (mm: dead, alive) as independent variables, and emotional assessment and personality (emotional stability, friendliness, responsibility, sociability, and creativity) as the dependent variables. results life evaluation a significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 828.08, p < .001, η2 = .86, p = 1.00], in favor of the positive tl (m = 7.39, sd = .94) with respect to the negative one (m = 2.39, sd = 1.78). a significant effect of mm was also observed [f(1, 131) = 20.71, p < .001, η2 = .14, p = 1.00] in favor of the alive mm condition (m = 5.26, dt = 2.46) with respect to dead (m = 4.38, dt = 2.80). the interaction effect also proved to be statistically significant [f(1, 131) = 5.55, p = .020, η2 = .04, p = .65]. an analysis of simple effects (bonferroni method for the control of the error rate) revealed that the differences between dead mm (m = 1.87, sd = .16) and alive mm (m = 3.03, dt = .18) were significant within the level of negative lt (mi–j = -1.16, se = .236, p < .000), but no significant differences were observed between dead mm (m = 7.11, dt = .17) and alive mm (m = 7.48, sd = .18) in the level of positive lt (mi–j = -.37, se = .241, p = .241) (figure 2). figure 2. interaction between type of life (tl: positive, negative) and mortality manipulation (mm: dead, alive) in the emotional assessment (stage 1). the error bars represent the standard errors. *p < .001. assessment of personality emotional stability a significant effect of the lt factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 10.620, p = .001, η2 = .075, p = .899] in favor of positive tl (m = 4.74, sd = 1.78) with respect to negative tl (m = 3.67, sd = 1.86). no significant effect of mm was observed [f(1, 131) = 1.096, p = .297, η2 = .008, p = .180]. the effect of the interaction proved to be statistically significant [f(1, 131) = 6.919, p = .010, η2 = .05, p = .742]. an analysis of simple effects (bonferroni method for the control of the error rate) revealed that the differences between dead mm (m = 3.16, sd = 1.93) and alive mm (m = 4.29, sd = 1.60) were significant within the level of negative lt (mi–j = -1.132, se = .431, gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 291 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p = .010). furthermore, significant differences were found between negative tl (m = 3.16, sd = 1.93) and positive tl (m = 4.97, sd = 1.71) within the level of dead mm (mi–j = -1.814, se = .418, p < .000). the results show that only when we know about the negative aspects of a person’s life and ms has been activated do we infer lower levels of emotional stability in that person (figure 3). figure 3. interaction between type of life (tl) and mortality manipulation (mm) in the assessment of emotional stability. error bars represent the standard errors. *p < .05. **p < .001. friendliness no significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 1.24, p = .267, η2 = .01, p = .20], nor of the mm factor [f(1, 131) = .002, p = .966, η2 = .00, p = .05]. the interaction was not significant either [f(1, 131) = 3.03, p = .084, η2 = .02, p = .41]. responsibility no significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 3.86, p = .052, η2 = .03, p = .50], nor of the mm factor (1, 131) = .090, p = .344, η2 = .01, p = .16]. the effect of the interaction was statistically significant [f(1, 131) = 7.94, p = .006, η2 = .06, p = .80]. an analysis of simple effects (bonferroni method for the control of the error rate) revealed that the differences between dead mm (m = 5.18, sd = 1.86) and alive mm (m = 6.32, sd = 1.54) were significant within the level of negative tl (mi–j = -1.14, se = .423, p = .008, η2 = .05, p = .76). furthermore, significant differences were observed between negative tl (m = 5.18, sd = 1.86) and positive tl (m = 6.63, sd = 1.61) within the level of death mm (mi–j = -1.44, se = .410, p = .001, η2 = .09, p = .94). the results show that only when we know about the negative aspects of the life of a person and mm has been dead do we infer lower levels of responsibility in that person (figure 4). the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation 292 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. interaction between type of life (tl) and mortality manipulation (mm) in the assessment of responsibility. error bars represent the standard errors. *p < .01. p < .005. sociability a significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 15.20, p < .001, η2 = .10, p = .97] in favor of positive tl (m = 5.76, sd = 2.06) with respect to negative tl (m = 4.33, sd = 2.06). the effect of the mm factor was also significant [f(1, 131) = 4.13, p = .044, η2 = .03, p = .52] in favor of alive mm (m = 5.44, sd = 2.06) with respect to dead mm (m = 4.68, sd = 2.22). however, the interaction was not significant [f(1, 131) = 2.54, p = .113, η2 = .02, p = .35]. creativity a significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 10.34, p = .002, η2 = .07, p = .89] in favor of positive tl (m = 5.26, sd = 1.99) with respect to negative tl (m = 4.12, sd = 1.98), and also of the mm factor [f (1, 131) = 4.57, p = .034, η2 = .03, p = .57] in favor of alive mm (m = 5.08, sd = 2.04) with respect to dead mm (m = 4.33, sd = 2.02). however, the interaction was not significant [f(1, 131) = 3.14, p = .079, η2 = .02, p = .42]. total personality a significant effect of the tl factor was observed [f(1, 131) = 13.21, p < .001, η2 = .09, p = 1.00] in favor of positive tl (m = 5.67, sd = 7.26) with respect to negative tl (m = 4.73, sd = 7.16). the effect of the mm factor was not significant [f(1, 131) = 2.82, p = .096, η2 = .02, p = .39]. the effect of the interaction was statistically significant [f(1, 131) = 7.72, p = .006, η2 = .06, p = .79]. an analysis of simple effects (bonferroni method for the control of the error rate) revealed that the differences between dead mm (m = 4.25, sd = 6.47) and alive mm (m = 5.32, sd = 6.93) were significant within the level of negative tl (mi–j = -5.38, se = 1.69, p = .002). furthermore, significant differences were observed between negative tl (m = 4.25, sd = 6.47) and positive tl (m = 5.79, sd = 6.81) within the level of death mm (mi–j = -7.74, se = 1.64, p < .0001). the results show that only when we know about the negative aspects of the life of a person and mm was “dead” do we infer lower levels of responsibility in that person (figure 5). gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 293 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. interaction between type of life (tl) and mortality manipulation (mm) in the assessment of responsibility. error bars represent the standard errors. *p < .01. **p < .0001. discussion the aim of this study was to analyze the effect on the formation of impressions of mortality manipulation (dead, alive) in interaction with information about the life of the person to be evaluated (positive, negative). the results pointed to a more negative assessment of emotional stability and responsibility only when the participants had access to negative information about the person assessed, and it was also known that she was dead. this effect could be explained in terms of a process of rationalization that would allow the idea of one’s own death to be removed from one’s consciousness through attributional processes (“that happened to her because she was emotionally less stable and responsible than me”). in daily life, what we know about others is neither all negative nor all positive, but when we have more negative information than positive about someone, and we also know that the person has died, there will be a tendency to trivialize our own vulnerability by seeking a cause for that death as far removed as possible from the circumstances of our own lives. when this happens, it is internal variables such as personality that are seen to be more sensitive to its effects, because the ability to infer the personality of others allows us to predict their behavior (stecher & counts, 2008), or, as in this case, to attribute past behavior to personality. the fact that the dimensions of emotional stability and responsibility were the most sensitive to this attributional process makes sense insofar as they allow a more direct type of reasoning congruent with the causes of death (having little stability and not being very responsible would increase the chances of dying), whereas the other three dimensions do not permit a direct type of reasoning about the causes of death (not being friendly, sociable or creative does not mean that the likelihood of dying would be increased). however, when we know more positive aspects than negative ones about the person who has died, the attributional processes cannot be achieved through the same reasoning. the absence of significant differences between the dead and alive levels of the mm variable within the positive level of the tl variable, as considered in the second hypothesis, would be explained by the fact that the negative evaluation of personality traits as a the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation 294 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stable, internal variable would suitably explain the reason for the death of a person who has had a negative lifestyle, but the same reasoning could not be applied in the case of a positive one. more specifically, and considering basic cognitive processes such as attention, a recent study has reported a bias towards the positive information generated by ms (kashdan et al., 2014); that is, when the idea of death enters our consciousness, a bias towards positive information occurs. this could be understood as a deviation of our attentional focus towards what is positive, thus preventing the entry of negative information. under this perspective, the positive content of the words used to generate the positive tl would have generated a certain neglect of the word “death”. this reasoning would not run contrary to that made regarding the attributional process, but instead complement it, albeit at a more basic level of analysis. regarding the data obtained when jointly considering all the dimensions of personality, it is noted that the data are consistent with those obtained considering the personality dimensions separately, obtaining significant differences between the dead and alive levels of the mm variable when the type of life was negative, but not when it was positive. it may be a general tendency to assess the deceased’s personality more negatively when their life has had a negative content, and that certain personality traits are more sensitive to this effect given their greater attributional capacity (e.g., a person’s death can be more readily explained by a lack of stability or responsibility than by a lack of creativity). this work has focused on the formation of impressions owing to their importance in different contexts of our lives. as stated above, the ability to infer personality is especially important because it allows us to predict behavior (stecher & counts, 2008), and hence governs the decisions we make with respect to others, with clear advantages in work (will this worker perform well?), personal (will the couple suit each other?), or legal (will the accused be found guilty?) situations. when making a decision in which a person is involved, the congruent information will be retrieved more easily with the personality we attribute to that same person (see stecher & counts, 2008; ferreira et al., 2012). ms may arise not only directly, associated with someone’s demise, as in the present research, but also through broader contexts (cultural), where the greater or lesser danger of the context in which a person lives could determine the frequency the concept of death enters one’s consciousness, affecting the formation of impressions with an important modulating effect on personal relationships. this research has analyzed a type of proximal defense based on the devaluation of the deceased’s personality traits when they are associated with a negative type of life. on this matter, social psychology long ago considered people’s tendency to attribute other people’s negative actions to internal, stable causes, whereas when they are referred to oneself they will be attributed to external causes (pettigrew, 1979); this finding would undoubtedly give consistency to the direction and operation of this type of proximal defense, which would allow attributing internal and stable causes to the death of someone who has been associated with negative behavior representative of their type of life. another relevant issue is whether the manipulation made in this study has been effective when inducing mortality salience in the participants’ consciousness; in other words, whether another person’s death has introduced the idea of one’s own mortality into consciousness. on this point, authors such as greenberg, pyszczynski, solomon, simon, and breus (1994) posit that ms occurs solely when an individual contemplates the possibility of their own death, although there are authors who contend that other people’s death could generate similar effects, but only on an unconscious level (see hayes et al., 2010), or else that variables such gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 295 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the population’s collectivism vs. individualism would be keys for understanding the efficacy of the death of others for generating an awareness of one’s own mortality. hence the reason this research has used the term mortality manipulation in the experimental design, leaving for future research the issue of whether the effects found ultimately derive from the awareness of one’s own or another person’s mortality. in this research, ms was introduced by the death of another person, and the results show that different effects are produced on the assessment of the personality of that person, although it is to be expected that the effect would persist when awareness of death is not directly related to the person who has died, and arises, as in the traditional studies of rosenblatt, greenberg, solomon, pyszczynski, and lyon (1989), from questions about one’s own death. from all the foregoing, it may be suggested that there are some very relevant variables to be taken into account when attempting to understand the effect of ms on behavior and cognitive processes, and in particular on the formation of impressions, such as: 1) the focus inducing ms (the fear derived from the death of others or one’s own death); 2) hedonic value of the type of life associated with the deceased (positive, negative); 3) internal variables such as personality (e.g., anxiety trait); 4) external variables such as culture (e.g., how the idea of death is processed in different cultures); and 5) differences in the capacity of personality traits to act as causal agents of the deceased (attributional power). the limitations of this work can be found in the number of stimulations used to identify the type of life (two sets of words). although the words used were selected by controlling the levels of activation, in future work it would be appropriate to use different sets of words that would allow the levels of activation to be manipulated, as this variable could be relevant for this type of research. future research should further explore and systematize the analysis of all the modulating variables of ms in order to understand their main effects and interactions on the formation of impressions. it would also be useful to study how distal 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(2009). the nimstim set of facial expressions: judgments from untrained research participants. psychiatry research, 168, 242-249. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 about the authors fernando gordillo is an associate professor at camilo josé cela university, madrid, spain. his research interests and projects include emotion, memory, decision making and nonverbal communication. lilia mestas is an associate professor at the facultad de estudios superiores zaragoza, national autonomous university of mexico. her research interests and projects include emotion, memory and recognition of emotion in facial expressions. josé m. arana is an associate professor at the university of salamanca, españa. his research interests and projects include prospective memory and emotion. miguel ángel pérez is an associate professor at camilo josé cela university, madrid, spain. his research interests and projects include emotion, psychopathology and nonverbal communication. eduardo alejandro escotto is is an associate professor at the facultad de estudios superiores zaragoza, national autonomous university of mexico. his research interests and projects include neuropsychology and neuroscience. gordillo, mestas, arana et al. 299 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 286–299 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1149 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.681 http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167206287363 http://doi.org/10.1080/08870440512331317661 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the effect of mortality salience and type of life on personality evaluation (introduction) method participants materials procedure variables and analyses results life evaluation assessment of personality discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder: a systematic review of the literature literature reviews mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder: a systematic review of the literature sanja bojic a, rodrigo becerra* a [a] school of psychology & social science, edith cowan university, perth, australia. abstract despite the increasing number of studies examining the effects of mindfulness interventions on symptoms associated with bipolar disorder (bd), the effectiveness of this type of interventions remains unclear. the aim of the present systematic review was to (i) critically review all available evidence on mindfulness based cognitive therapy (mbct) as a form of intervention for bd; (ii) discuss clinical implications of mbct in treating patients with bd; and (iii) provide a direction for future research. the review presents findings from 13 studies (n = 429) that fulfilled the following selection criteria: (i) included bd patients; (ii) presented results separately for bd patients and control groups (where a control group was available); (iii) implemented mbct intervention; (iv) were published in english; (v) were published in a peer reviewed journal; and (vi) reported results for adult participants. although derived from a relatively small number of studies, results from the present review suggest that mbct is a promising treatment in bd in conjunction with pharmacotherapy. mbct in bd is associated with improvements in cognitive functioning and emotional regulation, reduction in symptoms of anxiety depression and mania symptoms (when participants had residual manic symptoms prior to mbct). these, treatment gains were maintained at 12 month follow up when mindfulness was practiced for at least 3 days per week or booster sessions were included. additionally, the present review outlined some limitations of the current literature on mbct interventions in bd, including small study sample sizes, lack of active control groups and idiosyncratic modifications to the mbct intervention across studies. suggestions for future research included focusing on factors underlying treatment adherence and understanding possible adverse effects of mbct, which could be of crucial clinical importance. keywords: mindfulness, literature review, bipolar disorder, mindfulness based cognitive therapy europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 received: 2016-03-02. accepted: 2017-03-05. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, ny, usa *corresponding author at: school of psychology and social science (room 30.129), faculty of computing, health and science, edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. e-mail: r.becerra@ecu.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. psychological interventions implementing mindfulness, such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (mbct; segal, williams, & teasdale, 2002) and mindfulness-based stress reduction (mbsr; kabat-zinn, 1990), have gained popularity over the last 15 years. mindfulness is defined as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally” (kabat-zinn, 1994, p. 4). mindfulness meditation is postulated to be one of the ‘active ingredients’ of mbct and involves conscious awareness of the breath or body while noticing thoughts and feelings without judging them or attempting to alter them in any way (kabatzinn, 1990; segal et al., 2002). mbct has been reported to reduce symptoms associated with emotional regulation difficulties in a number of psychological disorders including, major depressive disorder (kumar, feldman, & hayes, 2008) and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ generalised anxiety disorder (hofmann, sawyer, witt, & oh, 2010; kabat-zinn et al., 1992) and these improvements were maintained over a 3 year follow-up (miller, fletcher, & kabat-zinn, 1995). furthermore mbct significantly reduced the risk of depressive relapse over a period of 12 months in those with three or more prior episodes of major depressive disorder (ma & teasdale, 2004; teasdale et al., 2000). mbct has also been associated with decreased rumination of unpleasant emotions (keng, smoski, & robins, 2011) such as worry, anxiety (chiesa & serretti, 2009; jain et al., 2007), feelings of distress (carlson, speca, patel, & goodey, 2003; shapiro, astin, bishop, & cordova, 2005), and decreased emotional reactivity (chiesa, brambilla, & serretti, 2010; chiesa, calati, & serretti, 2011) with consistently strong effect sizes (grossman, niemann, schmidt, & walach, 2004). furthermore, there is a body of literature supporting mbct interventions in enhancing self-compassion, positive emotions (keng et al., 2011), quality of sleep (brand, holsboertrachsler, naranjo, & schmidt, 2012; carlson & garland, 2005; shapiro, bootzin, figueredo, lopez, & schwartz, 2003), levels of attention, memory, executive functions (becerra, d’andrade, & harms, 2016; chiesa et al., 2011) and improved emotional regulation abilities (chiesa et al., 2010; segal et al., 2002). additionally, mbct has been shown to have equivalent results to a course of antidepressant medication maintained over a one-year follow up (kuyken et al., 2008). in contrast, a recent comprehensive meta-analysis of 209 studies found that mindfulness interventions were not more effective than traditional cbt and were associated with lower attrition rates (16.25%) compared to cbt interventions (22.5%) (khoury, lecomte, fortin, & hofmann, 2013). another review of 24 studies found that almost half of the studies did not find any significant interactions between mindfulness practice and treatment outcome (vettese, toneatto, stea, nguyen, & wang, 2009). in addition, it has been reported that mindfulness interventions is unrelated to reduction of symptoms of anxiety and depression (ramel, goldin, carmona, & mcquaid, 2004) or reduction in depression severity (jermann et al., 2013; van aalderen et al., 2012; williams, teasdale, segal, & soulsby, 2000). others reported that mindfulness interventions did not contribute to improvements in depression, anxiety or impulsivity in patients with borderline personality disorder (sachse, keville, & feigenbaum, 2011) and failed to achieve reduction in worry levels required to meet standard recovery criteria for people with generalised anxiety disorder (craigie, rees, marsh, & nathan, 2008). these mixed findings about the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions in reducing symptoms associated with various psychological disorders requires further research. bipolar disorder (bd) is a chronic mood disorder characterised by episodes of depression and/or mania (johnson, 2005; trede et al., 2005), emotional regulation difficulties (green, cahill, & malhi, 2007; gruber, eidelman, & harvey, 2008) and high comorbidity with anxiety disorders (approximately 62%) (simon et al., 2005). a number of recent studies have investigated the effectiveness of mbct on reduction of some of the symptoms associated with bd. despite several psychological interventions for bd and effective maintenance medication, 50% of bd patients relapse within the first year (rush et al., 2006) and 70-73% relapse within five years (gitlin, swendsen, heller, & hammen, 1995; perry, 1999). clinical and epidemiological studies have documented that despite pharmacotherapy, patients with bd often continue to experience residual mood symptoms even during the euthymic stage (judd et al., 2008). the high rate of relapse and reported experienced residual symptoms by many bd patients suggests that there is a gap in current bd treatment. the national institute of clinical excellence (nice, 2016) recommends mbct as a relapse prevention approach for patients with a history of depressive episodes, which appears to have prompted studies to investigate mbct in managing symptoms of bd. mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 574 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mixed findings have been reported on the effectiveness of mbct in bd, in particular when examining the effects of mbct on depressive symptoms. although the majority of the studies suggest that mbct is effective in reducing depressive symptoms associated with bd (deckersbach et al., 2012, kenny & williams, 2007; miklowitz et al., 2009; perich, manicavasagar, mitchell, & ball, 2013b; van dijk, jeffrey, & katz, 2013; williams et al., 2008), others have reported no difference between participants’ pre and post treatment scores (ivesdeliperi, howells, stein, meintjes, & horn, 2013; perich et al., 2013a). in fact, some studies have reported worsening of depressive symptoms for certain individuals when comparing their pre and post treatment scores (weber et al., 2010). given these inconsistent findings, a critical literature review is needed; specifically examining the effects of mbct on symptoms associated with bd. therefore, the aim of the present systematic literature review was to (i) critically review all available evidence on mbct in bd, (ii) discuss clinical implications of using mbct in treating patients with bd and to (iii) provide a direction for future research. method data sources and search strategies a systematic search was conducted through psychinfo, medline, pubmed, psycarticles, google scholar databases and reference sections of journal articles to obtain relevant literature from the first available date up to and including january 2015. key words used in the search were separated into two groups and joined by “and’ operators. the first group of words identified bd patients; “bipolar”, “bipolar disorder”, “bipolar depression”, “manic”, “mania”, “manic depression”, “manic depressive” and “manic disorder”. the second group identified mindfulness; “mindfulness”, “mindfulness*”, “meditation”, “mindfulness based cognitive therapy”, “mindfulness based stress reduction”, “mindfulness training meditation” and “breath counting”. inclusion and exclusion criteria studies were included in the review if they met the following criteria: (i) included bd patients (ii) presented results separately for bd patients and the control group (where a control group was available), (iii) implemented mbct, (iv) were published in english, (v) were published in a peer reviewed journal and (vi) reported results for adult participants. only original studies were included in the present review, no studies were included that were literature reviews. studies unrelated to the topic under consideration, studies that involved child participants, duplicate articles across searchers and studies that did not include both bd patients and a mindfulness intervention were excluded. there were 13 studies that met the selection criteria (see table 1). a flowchart of the study selection process is depicted in figure 1. bojic & becerra 575 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. flow chart of study inclusion/exclusion process. data extraction the following data were recorded for each study: information about the sample (e.g., the number of participants, diagnosis of bd and comorbidities); information about the intervention (e.g., duration of treatment, type of mindfulness treatment and attrition rates); information about the study (publication year and whether the study was randomized); information about the dependent measures used (e.g., clinical scales that were administered to compare the pre and post scores and to assess mindfulness); and the main findings of each study. comparison of some of the characteristics (e.g., number of participants, length of intervention, main findings etc.) of the 13 studies included in the present review are presented in table 1. studies were grouped into themes such as studies that found that mindfulness intervention was beneficial in reducing symptoms of bd and those that found no differences between pre and post test scores on relevant domains. the areas examined in the present review included effect of mindfulness on major symptoms associated with bd (emotional regulation, depressive, manic/hypomanic and anxiety symptoms); effects of mindfulness on cognitive functioning of bd patients; characteristics of mindfulness intervention in bd (e.g., measuring mindfulness, different changes to the mbct interventions authors made across studies, attrition rates and adverse effects); limitations of current research and recommendations for future studies. mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 576 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 s el ec te d s tu di es d ep ic tin g p ar tic ip an ts , g ro up s, a ttr iti on , c lin ic al s ca le s, m in df ul ne ss p ra ct ic e, a nd m ai n o ut co m e st ud y pa rt ic ip an ts c on tr ol g ro up a ttr iti on c lin ic al s ca le s m in df ul ne ss m ai n o ut co m e d ec ke rs ba ch e t a l. (2 01 2) • n = 1 2 • 12 e ut hy m ic b d p at ie nt s w ith m od er at e re si du al sy m pt om s • b d i (9 ) = 7 fe m al es , 2 m al es • b d ii (3 ) = 2 fe m al es , 1 m al e • n o co nt ro l g ro up • c om pa re d pr e, p os t tre at m en t a nd 3 m on th fo llo w u p • 25 % (3 ) • fi ve -f ac to r m in df ul ne ss q ue st io nn ai re (f fm q ) • h am ilt on d ep re ss io n s ca le (h a m -d ) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • p en n s ta te w or ry q ue st io nn ai re (p s w q ) • r es po ns e s ty le q ue st io nn ai re (r s q ) • e m ot io n r ea ct iv ity s ca le (e r s ) • c lin ic al p os iti ve a ffe ct iv e s ca le (c pa s ) • p sy ch ol og ic al w el l-b ei ng s ca le (p w b s ) • th e lo ng itu di na l i nt er va l f ol lo w -u p e va lu at io n –r an ge o f i m pa ire d fu nc tio ni ng to ol (l if e -r if t) • 12 w ee kl y 2h m b c t se ss io ns • in cr ea se d m in df ul ne ss , l ow er re si du al de pr es si ve m oo d sy m pt om s, le ss a tte nt io na l di ffi cu lti es , a nd in cr ea se d em ot io nre gu la tio n ab ili tie s, im pr ov ed p sy ch ol og ic al w el l-b ei ng , po si tiv e af fe ct , a nd p sy ch os oc ia l f un ct io ni ng . s ta ng e at a l. (2 01 1) • n = 1 2 • 12 e ut hy m ic b d p at ie nt s w ith m od er at e re si du al de pr es si ve a nd v ar yi ng de gr ee s of re si du al m an ic s ym pt om s. • n o c on tro l c on di tio n • 25 % • fi ve -f ac to r m in df ul ne ss q ue st io nn ai re (f fm q ) • h am ilt on d ep re ss io n s ca le (h a m -d ) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • th e fr on ta l s ys te m s b eh av io r s ca le (f rs b e) • th e b eh av io r r at in g in ve nt or y of e xe cu tiv e fu nc tio n (b r ie f) • 12 w ee kl y 2h m b c t se ss io ns • m b c t sh ow ed im pr ov em en t i n ex ec ut iv e fu nc tio ni ng a nd m em or y to le ve ls co m pa ra bl e w ith n or m at iv e sa m pl es . • im pr ov em en ts in m an y ar ea s of c og ni tiv e fu nc tio ni ng , p ar tic ul ar ly m em or y an d ta sk m on ito rin g, w er e m ai nt ai ne d at th e fo llo w -u p ev al ua tio n 3 m on th s af te r t re at m en t. c ha dw ic k et a l. (2 01 1) • n = 1 2 • 12 b d (7 m en , 5 w om en ) ex pe rie nc in g m ild to m od er at e de pr es si on o r el at io n sy m pt om s. • n o co nt ro l c on di tio n • 0 dr op pe d ou t • s em i s tru ct ur ed in te rv ie w • 90 m in m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks p lu s 6 w ee k bo os te r s es si on . (p ra ct ic ed m b c t fo r a t le as t 1 8 w ee ks ) • a ll pa rti ci pa nt s re po rte d su bj ec tiv e be ne fit s an d ch al le ng es o f m in df ul ne ss p ra ct ic e. s ev en th em es e m er ge d: f oc us in g on w ha t is p re se nt ; c le ar er a w ar en es s of m oo d st at e/ ch an ge ; a cc ep ta nc e; m in df ul ne ss p ra ct ic e in di ffe re nt m oo d st at es ; r ed uc in g/ st ab ili zi ng ne ga tiv e af fe ct ; r el at in g di ffe re nt ly to ne ga tiv e th ou gh ts ; r ed uc in g im pa ct o f m oo d st at e. w ill ia m s et a l. (2 00 8) • n = 6 8 • 33 e ut hy m ic b d (2 4 un ip ol ar , 9 b ip ol ar ) w ith a hi st or y of s er io us s ui ci da l id ea tio n/ be ha vi ou r • fo llo w u p da ta w as av ai la bl e fo r 2 8 pa rti ci pa nt s in m b c t (2 1 un ip ol ar a nd 7 b ip ol ar ) • 35 in w ai t-l is t c on tro l co nd iti on (2 7 un ip ol ar , 8 bi po la r) . • fo llo w u p av ai la bl e fo r 27 in w ai t l is t c on di tio n (2 0 un ip ol ar a nd 7 bi po la r) • 18 % (1 5) d id n ot a tte nd fir st a ss es sm en t • 15 % (5 ) d id n ot c om pl et e fo llo w u p fro m m b c t gr ou p an d 23 % (8 ) d id no t c om pl et e fo llo w u p fro m w ai t l is t c on di tio n. • m in i i nt er na tio na l n eu ro ps yc hi at ric in te rv ie w (m in i) • b ec k d ep re ss io n in ve nt or y (b d i-i i) • b ec k a nx ie ty in ve nt or y (b a i) • 2 ho ur s m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks • im pr ov ed a nx ie ty (s pe ci fic to b d g ro up ). • b ot h b d a nd m d d g ro up s in m b c t sh ow ed re du ct io ns in re si du al d ep re ss iv e sy m pt om s w he n co m pa re d to th os e in th e w ai tli st co nd iti on . h ow el ls e t a l. (2 01 2) • n = 2 1 • 12 e ut hy m ic b d p at ie nt s (1 0 fe m al es , 2 m al es ) • 9 he al th y co nt ro l pa rti ci pa nt s (7 fe m al es , 2 m al es ) • n ot re po rte dap pe ar s to be 0 • s tru ct ur ed c lin ic al in te rv ie w (s c id ) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • h os pi ta l a nx ie ty a nd d ep re ss io n s ca le (h a d s ) • 8 w ee k m b c t • b ra in a ct iv ity : i nd iv id ua ls w ith b d s ho w ed si gn ifi ca nt ly d ec re as ed th et a ba nd p ow er , in cr ea se d be ta b an d po w er , a nd d ec re as ed th et a/ be ta ra tio s du rin g th e re st in g st at e, ey es c lo se d, fo r f ro nt al a nd c in gu la te co rti ce s. • p os t m b c t in te rv en tio n th er e w as im pr ov em en t o ve r t he ri gh t f ro nt al c or te x bojic & becerra 577 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y pa rt ic ip an ts c on tr ol g ro up a ttr iti on c lin ic al s ca le s m in df ul ne ss m ai n o ut co m e (d ec re as ed b et a ba nd p ow er ) i n th e b d gr ou p. • b ra in a ct iv at io n: in di vi du al s w ith b d s ho w ed a si gn ifi ca nt p 30 0lik e w av e fo rm o ve r t he fro nt al c or te x du rin g th e cu e. p os t m b c t in te rv en tio n th e p 30 0lik e w av ef or m w as si gn ifi ca nt ly a tte nu at ed o ve r t he fr on ta l co rte x. m ik lo w itz e t a l. (2 00 9) • n = 2 2 • 22 e ut hy m ic b d (i = 1 4; b d ii = 8 ) p at ie nt s (1 6 fe m al es , 6 m al e) . • 16 c om pl et ed m b c t • n o co nt ro l g ro up • c om pa re d pr epo st m ea su re s • 27 % (6 ) d ro pp ed o ut • m in i i nt er na tio na l n eu ro ps yc hi at ric in te rv ie w • h am ilt on r at in g s ca le fo r d ep re ss io n (h r s d ) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • b ec k d ep re ss io n in ve nt or y (b d i-i i) • b ec k a nx ie ty in ve nt or y (b a i) • b ec k s ca le fo r s ui ci de id ea tio n (b s s i) • 2 ho ur m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks • r ed uc tio ns w er e ob se rv ed in d ep re ss iv e sy m pt om s an d su ic id al id ea tio n an d to a le ss er e xt en t m an ic s ym pt om s an d an xi et y. p er ic h et a l. (2 01 3a ) • n = 9 5 • 48 b d (i o r i i) • 47 b d t a u • 29 % • 14 (1 0 dr op pe d ou t, 4 di d no t s ta rt m b c t) • 22 (1 8 dr op o ut s an d 4 di d no t s ta rt) -4 7% t a u • s tru ct ur ed c lin ic al in te rv ie w fo r d s m -iv -t r d is or de rs (s c id -i) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • m on tg om er ya sb er g d ep re ss io n r at in g s ca le (m a d r s ) • c om po si te in te rn at io na l d ia gn os tic in te rv ie w (c id i) • d ep re ss io n a nx ie ty s tre ss s ca le (d a s s ) • s ta te /t ra it a nx ie ty in ve nt or y (s ta i) • d ys fu nc tio na l a tti tu de s s ca le 2 4 (d a s -2 4) • r es po ns e s ty le q ue st io nn ai re (r s q ) • m in df ul a tte nt io n aw ar en es s s ca le (m a a s ) • 2 h se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks . • th er e w as n o si gn ifi ca nt re du ct io n in ti m e to de pr es si ve o r h yp o/ m an ic re la ps e, to ta l nu m be r o f e pi so de s or m oo d sy m pt om se ve rit y at 1 2 m on th fo llo w u p. p er ic h et a l. (2 01 3b ) • n = 3 4 • 34 c om pl et ed m b c t • 23 b d (7 m al e; 1 6 fe m al e) c om pl et ed ho m ew or k • 22 (8 m al es ; 1 4 fe m al es ) co m pl et ed 1 2 m ot h fo llo w u p • n o co nt ro l g ro up • c om pa re d ba se lin e sc or es , p os t t re at m en t an d 12 m on th fo llo w u p m ea su re s. • 29 % d ro pp ed o ut o f m b c t • 68 % d id n ot p ro vi de in fo rm at io n ab ou t ho m ew or k • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • m on tg om er ya sb er g d ep re ss io n r at in g s ca le (m a d r s ) • c om po si te in te rn at io na l d ia gn os tic in te rv ie w (c id i) • s tru ct ur ed c lin ic al in te rv ie w fo r d s m -iv -t r d is or de rs (s c id -i) • d ep re ss io n a nx ie ty s tre ss s ca le d a s s , • s ta te /t ra it a nx ie ty in ve nt or y (s ta i) • m in df ul a tte nt io n aw ar en es s s ca le (m a a s ) • to ro nt o m in df ul ne ss s ca le (t m s ) • 2 ho ur m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks • fo llo w u p te st in g at 1 2 m on th s • a g re at er n um be r o f d ay s m ed ita tin g du rin g th e 8 w ee k tre at m en t w as re la te d to lo w er de pr es si on s co re s at 1 2 m on th fo llo w u p. • m b c t w as a ss oc ia te d w ith im pr ov em en ts in an xi et y an d de pr es si on if p ra ct ic ed fo r a m in im um o f 3 ti m es p er w ee k. w eb er e t a l. (2 01 0) • n = 2 3 • 23 b d (i , i i a nd n o s ) pa rti ci pa nt s • 15 b d a tte nd ed th e ov er 4 m b c t se ss io ns (1 1 fe m al e, 4 m al e) . • n o c on tro l g ro up • c om pa re d pr e an d po st sc or es o f v ar io us c lin ic al sc al es • 35 % • 8 dr op pe d ou t ( 6 dr op pe d ou t a fte r l es s th an 4 s es si on s an d 2 di d no t s ta rt in te rv en tio n) • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le (y m r s ) • m on tg om er ya sp er g d ep re ss io n r at in g s ca le (m a d r s ) • b ec k d ep re ss io n in ve nt or y (b d i-i i) • th e k en tu ck y in ve nt or y of m in df ul ne ss s ki lls (k im s ). • 2 ho ur m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks p lu s 2 ho ur s bo os te r s es si on 3 m on th s af te r 8 w ee k tre at m en t. • th er e w as n o si gn ifi ca nt in cr ea se in m in df ul ne ss s ki lls fo llo w in g tre at m en t. • m in df ul ne ss p ra ct ic e de cr ea se d ov er ti m e. • c ha ng e in m in df ul ne ss s ki lls w as si gn ifi ca nt ly a ss oc ia te d w ith c ha ng e in de pr es si ve s ym pt om s be tw ee n pr e an d po st m b c t. iv es -d el ip er i e t a l. (2 01 3) • n = 3 3 • 23 b d w ith m ild to m od er at e su bt hr es ho ld sy m pt om s (< 14 y m r s an d h a d s ) • 7 b d -w ai tli st • 10 -h ea lth y co nt ro ls • 16 -m b c t • 0 dr op o ut • fi ve -f ac et m in df ul ne ss q ue st io nn ai re (f fm q ) • s ym pt om s of s tre ss in ve nt or y (s o s i) • d iff ic ul tie s in e m ot io n r eg ul at io n s ca le (d e r s ) • b ec ks a nx ie ty in de x (b a i) • 8 w ee k m b c t • fo llo w in g m b c t th er e w er e si gn ifi ca nt im pr ov em en ts in m ea su re s of m in df ul ne ss , an xi et y, e m ot io na l r eg ul at io n, w or ki ng m em or y, s pa tia l m em or y an d ve rb al fl ue nc y co m pa re d to th e w ai tli st g ro up . mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 578 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y pa rt ic ip an ts c on tr ol g ro up a ttr iti on c lin ic al s ca le s m in df ul ne ss m ai n o ut co m e • e di nb ur gh h an de dn es s in ve nt or y (e h i) va n d ijk e t a l. (2 01 3) • n = 2 6 • 13 b d (i = 5 ; i i = 7 ) • 13 b d (i = 5 , i i = 7 ) o n w ai tli st • 7. 7% • 1 dr op pe d ou t i n m b c t gr ou p an d 1 dr op pe d ou t of w ai tli st c on tro l • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le • th e b ec k d ep re ss io n in ve nt or y (b d i-i i) • th e m in df ul ne ss b as ed s el f e ffi ca cy s ca le (m s e s ) • th e a ffe ct iv e c on tro l s ca le (a c s ) • 90 m in ut e 12 w ee kl y se ss io ns o f d b t an d m in df ul ne ss • m in df ul ne ss re du ce d de pr es si ve s ym pt om s, im pr ov ed a ffe ct iv e co nt ro l a nd im pr ov ed m in df ul ne ss s el f-e ffi ca cy in b d . • m in df ul ne ss re du ce d em er ge nc y ro om v is its an d m en ta l h ea lth re la te d ad m is si on s in th e 6 m on th s fo llo w in g tre at m en t. h ow el ls e t a l. (2 01 4) • n = 2 1 • 12 e ut hy m ic b d i (1 0 fe m al es , 2 m al es ) • 9 he al th y co nt ro ls (7 fe m al es , 2 m al es ) • n ot re po rte dap pe ar s to be 0 d ro p ou t. • yo un g m an ia r at in g s ca le • h os pi ta l a nx ie ty a nd d ep re ss io n s ca le • e m ot io na l p ro ce ss in g w as m ea su re d by ev en t r el at ed p ot en tia ls (e r p ) a nd h ea rt ra te va ria bi lit y (h r v ) • 8 w ee k m b c t • fo llo w in g m b c t, b d g ro up s ho w ed at te nu at io n of e r p n 17 0 am pl itu de a nd re du ce d h r v h f pe ak in di ca tin g th at m b c t m ay im pr ov e em ot io na l p ro ce ss in g in b d . k en ny & w ill ia m s, 2 00 7 • n = 5 0 • 50 s ym pt om at ic (b d i> 19 ) p at ie nt s (b d & m d d ) • 37 fe m al e (7 4% ) • n o co nt ro l g ro up • c om pa re d pr e an d po st b d i s co re s. • 10 % (5 ) • 1 dr op pe d ou t a nd 4 d id no t c om pl et e po st tre at m en t m ea su re s. • b ec k d ep re ss io n in ve nt or y (b d i-i i) • 2 ho ur m b c t se ss io ns fo r 8 w ee ks • m b c t im pr ov ed d ep re ss io n sc or es w ith a si gn ifi ca nt p ro po rti on o f p at ie nt s re tu rn in g to no rm al /n ea r n or m al le ve l o f m oo d. n ot e. b d = b ip ol ar d is or de r; m b c t = m in df ul ne ss b as ed c og ni tiv e th er ap y; m d d = m aj or d ep re ss iv e d is or de r; ta u = t re at m en t a s us ua l; n = to ta l n um be r o f p ar tic ip an ts . bojic & becerra 579 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results findings were divided into six sections. each section examined the impact of mindfulness on: emotional regulation, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, symptoms of mania/hypomania, cognitive functioning and subjective measures of mbct. each of the sections was subdivided to include a critical review of research studies that have found support for mbct and those that have found no significant effects of mbct on bd. emotional regulation the effects of mindfulness intervention on emotional regulation in bd patients were reported in four studies with a total of 92 participants. emotional regulation is defined as a process people engage in that influences the way people experience (e.g., duration, latency, magnitude and type) and express emotions (gross, 1998). it consists of physiological and subjective components and thus both aspects have been investigated in the present review. all four studies measured participants’ emotional regulation abilities prior to treatment and after eight weeks of mbct. howells, rauch, ives-deliperi, horn, and stein (2014) focused on physiological measures of emotional regulation, such as heart rate variability (hrv). this involved measuring event related potentials (erp), specifically the erp n170, and the high frequency (hf) peak of the hrv. the erp n170 is the most widely used erp marker of neural processing of faces (eimer, 2011), whilst the hf peak of hrv serves as a marker of ability to regulate emotions (telles, singh, & balkrishna, 2011), as it is influenced by changes in mood (hughes & stoney, 2000). howells and colleagues (2014) found that prior to treatment, patients diagnosed with bd (n = 12) were found to differ from healthy controls (n = 9) on physiological measures of emotional regulation (the effect size was not reported). the bd group had increased erp n170 amplitude and increased hrv hf peak, suggesting that the bd group had impaired emotional processing prior to treatment when compared to healthy controls (howells et al., 2014). when participants diagnosed with bd (n = 12) engaged in eight weeks of mbct, there was a decrease in their erp n170 amplitude and decreased hrv hf peak, indicating improved emotional processing (the effect size was not reported; howells et al., 2014). similar findings were reported by ives-deliperi and colleagues (2013), who used the difficulties in emotion regulation scale (ders) to measure participants’ emotional regulation abilities. the ders is a self-reported instrument that measures various aspects of regulating emotions (gratz & roemer, 2004). ives-deliperi and colleagues (2013) found that bd patients (n = 16) reported significantly more difficulties in managing emotions (prior to treatment) when compared to healthy controls (n = 10) (the effect size was not reported). this study reported that mbct intervention was effective in significantly reducing emotion dysregulation scores (the effect size was not reported) for bd patients who prior to treatment had mild or sub threshold symptoms (<14 on young mania rating scale and hospital anxiety and depression scale; ives-deliperi et al., 2013). van-dijk and colleagues (2013) used the affective control scale (acs), which is a 42 item self-report questionnaire developed to measure participants’ belief in their ability to control their emotions (williams, chambless, & ahrens, 1997). bd patients were found to struggle with regulating their emotions prior to engaging in mbct, when emotional regulation was measured using the acs scale (van dijk et al., 2013) (the mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 580 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ effect size was not reported). this study found that participants diagnosed with bd who participated in mbct (n = 12), reported increased self-efficacy and belief in having more control over their emotions, when compared to participants diagnosed with bd who were on the waitlist control condition (n = 12; the effect size was not reported). deckersbach and colleagues (2012) used the emotion reactivity scale (ers; 21-item) a self-report instrument designed to measure emotional sensitivity, intensity, and persistence (nock, wedig, holmberg, & hooley, 2008). bd participants who engaged in mbct reported that they were more aware of internal and external stimuli, were able to respond less judgmentally to their thoughts and feelings and were less reactive to their inner experiences (deckersbach et al., 2012). there was a medium to large effect size for decreased rumination (cohen’s d = 1.02), worry (cohen’s d = 1.33), reduced attentional difficulties (cohen’s d = 1.50) and increased emotional regulation measured by the ers (cohen’s d = 0.68) (deckersbach et al.). it was further noted that there was a linear improvement (from pre-treatment to follow up) in emotional regulation abilities and positive interpersonal relationships, which may suggest that improved abilities to regulate emotions had a positive impact on participants’ interpersonal relationships (deckersbach et al., 2012). the current research on mbct in bd consistently indicates that patients with bd have difficulty regulating their emotions prior to treatment and that engaging in mbct resulted in improvements in their emotional regulation abilities. these findings were supported by physiological measures (e.g., hrv; howells et al., 2014) and a number of subjective processes (e.g., ers, acs and ders) (deckersbach et al., 2012; ives-deliperi et al., 2013; van dijk et al., 2013). however, it remains unclear whether these treatment gains were maintained longterm, as this was not investigated by any of the current studies. depressive symptoms depressive symptoms were measured using various self-report and clinician rated scales in nine out of the 13 reviewed studies, with a total of 363 participants. the literature in this area reflected mixed findings with six studies reporting that mbct was effective at reducing depressive symptoms in bd, whilst three studies did not find significant differences in depression scores post-mbct treatment. perich, manicavasagar, mitchell, ball, and hadzi-pavlovic (2013a) measured symptoms of depression using the montgomery-asberg depression rating scale (madrs; montgomery & asberg, 1979), which is a 10 item clinician administered scale used to assess the severity of depressive symptoms with good internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = 0.85; hermens et al., 2006) and inter-rater reliability (0.76; davidson, turnbull, strickland, miller, & graves, 1986). perich and colleagues (2013a) conducted a randomized controlled trial comparing mbct (n = 22) for bd patients to treatment as usual (tau) (n = 12), over a 12-month period. this study found that the interaction of treatment by time for depressive scores was not significant, indicating that depressive scores did not significantly reduce over the 12-month period. this also implied that participating in mbct did not delay time to reoccurrence of a depression episode when compared to the tau group. those who continued to practice meditation throughout the 12month follow-up period did not report any significant reductions in psychiatric symptomatology compared to those that had not (perich et al., 2013b). bojic & becerra 581 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these findings were supported by ives-deliperi and colleagues (2013) who measured symptoms of depression using the hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads; zigmond & snaith, 1983), which has acceptable (cronbach’s alpha = 0.67) to good (cronbach’s alpha = 0.90) internal consistency (for the depression subscale; bjelland, dahl, haug, & necklemann, 2002). in this study the authors compared the effects of mbct (n = 33) on depressive symptoms in bd treatment group (n = 16), when compared to the bd waitlist control (n = 23) and healthy control group (n = 10) (ives-deliperi et al., 2013). this study found that mbct did not significantly reduce depression scores, as measured by the hads scale. similar findings were reported in another study (weber et al., 2010) where depression was measured using the madrs (this scale was used by perich et al., 2013b and is described above in more detail) and the beck depression inventory (bdi-ii), a well-established self-report questionnaire comprised of 21 items to measure the severity of depression (beck, steer, ball, & ranieri, 1996). weber and colleagues (2010) found no significant change between the baseline (n = 23), post treatment (8 weeks; n = 11) and the 3-month follow up (n = 9), on the madrs and the bdi-ii scores. in fact, this study found that four patients experienced an increase in their bdi-ii scores at the 3-month follow up. the underlying reasons behind increased depression scores in one scale (bdi-ii) measuring depressive symptoms, but not the other (madrs), were not investigated or reported in this study and therefore remain unclear. despite no evidence for reduction in the depressive symptoms in this study (weber et al., 2010), the majority of participants rated mbct as helpful in the program evaluation questionnaire. the questionnaire was administered to participants after 8 weeks of mbct intervention and once again following a one-hour booster session that occurred three months after the eight week mbct intervention. it was reported that 82% of participants in this study expressed that they benefited from the program. this was explored further, with 55% of participants reporting that mbct helped them manage unpleasant emotions and 45% found mbct helped them manage negative thoughts. at the 3-month follow up, 67% of bd patients reported that mbct improved their quality of life. one major difference between this study and other studies that also failed to find improvement in depressive symptoms in bd (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; perich et al., 2013a), was that weber and colleagues (2010) included a booster session. the effects of booster sessions in bd would need to be investigated further, as it could potentially be the missing link in helping manage depressive symptoms in bd. contrary to the above findings, six studies found that mbct was beneficial in significantly reducing depression symptoms for patients diagnosed with bd. for example van dijk and colleagues (2013) conducted a randomized controlled trial where the bd group (participants with moderate to severe depression; n = 12) was compared to a waitlist control condition (n = 12). depression was measured using the bdi-ii self-report questionnaire. following treatment (12 weeks of group mbct), the majority of participants in treatment were classified as having minimal to mild depression and this reduction in scores was significant (the effect size was not reported). similar findings were reported by kenny and williams (2007) where depressive symptoms were also measured using the bdi-ii scores. in this study bd participants who were currently experiencing depression symptoms (n = 50) participated in an 8-week mbct treatment. the study found that participants’ pre and post bdi-ii scores reduced significantly, with large effect size (cohen’s d = 1.04). these findings were further supported by williams and colleagues’ study (2008) where in a randomized controlled trial a significant reduction in bdi-ii scores was reported in the treatment group (euthymic bd patients with a history of suicidal ideation or mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 582 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviour; n = 28) when comparing the baseline and post treatment scores (the effect size was not reported). there was also a significant reduction in depressive symptoms when comparing the bd treatment group (who participated in eight weeks of group mbct) and the bd waitlist control group (the effect size was not reported). there was no significant difference between the pre to post bdi scores in the waitlist condition (n = 27), suggesting that reduction in depressive symptoms can be attributed to treatment. support for mbct in reducing depressive symptoms in bd was not exclusive to studies that measured depressive symptoms using the bdi-ii questionnaire. for example, deckersbach and colleagues (2012) used the clinician rated, hamilton depression rating scale (hdrs; hamilton, 1960), which has high reliability and validity (k = 0.73; rush, 2000). this study found that participating in mbct (n = 12) reduced depressive symptoms in bd with a strong effect size (cohen’s d = 1.02). moreover, miklowitz and colleagues (2009) measured depression using both the hdrs and bdi-ii (n = 14). the study found that symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation scores improved, as mean hrsd scores dropped by average of 0.37 sd (d = 0.37) and bdi-ii scores dropped on average by 5 points (cohen’s d = 0.49). there was also significant improvement on the beck scale for suicide ideation scores (cohen’s d = 0.51), suggesting mbct may be beneficial for bd patients with a history of suicidal ideation or behaviours. perich and colleagues (2013b) measured depressive symptoms using the madrs (this scale was also used by perich et al., 2013a and weber et al., 2010 and is described in more detail above) and found that for the bd group, the number of days spent practicing meditation (following eight weeks of group mbct) was significantly inversely correlated with the madrs scores. this means that bd participants (n = 22) that practiced mindfulness for more days had lower madrs scores at the 12-month follow up (the effect size was not reported). there was some evidence to suggest that mindfulness meditation practice was associated with improvements in depression symptoms if a certain minimum amount (three times a week or more) was practiced weekly throughout the eight-week mbct program. this suggested that when more time was dedicated to practicing mindfulness it provided protection for depression symptoms over time. considering that the same clinical scales were used in both groups of studies, those that have not found support from mbct in reducing symptoms of depression in bd (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; perich et al., 2013a) and those that have found significant improvement in depressive scores following mbct (deckersbach et al., 2012; kenny & williams, 2007; miklowitz et al., 2009; perich et al., 2013b; van dijk et al., 2013; williams et al., 2008), it appears that the mixed findings could be attributed to within group differences between the studies. for example each group of authors modified mbct in different way, as there are no evidence-based recommendations for implementing mbct in bd treatment. it was also observed that studies that found support for mbct in reducing symptoms of depression tended to include more hours of mindfulness during treatment. for example some of these studies implemented 12 weeks of two-hour mbct sessions (deckersbach et al., 2012; van dijk et al., 2013), while those that found no differences in depression scores, implemented only eight weeks (two-hour sessions) of mbct (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; perich et al., 2013a; weber et al., 2010). weber and colleagues (2010) included a booster session, three months after the eight-week intervention and although this study also failed to find significant differences, participants reported they found the intervention beneficial. therefore, it appears that when it comes to depression symptoms in bd, mbct seems to be more effective when treatment is held for a minimum of 12 weeks, or when booster sessions are included after 8 weeks. bojic & becerra 583 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ anxiety symptoms anxiety was reported in four out of 13 studies with a total of 157 participants. unlike the findings for depressive symptoms, the literature reflected more robust effects of mbct in studies that measured changes in anxiety symptoms. studies consistently reported that mbct was helpful in either significantly reducing or preventing anxiety symptoms from increasing over time. ives-deliperi and colleagues (2013) measured anxiety using the beck anxiety inventory (bai; beck & steer, 1990), which has shown good reliability (cronbach’s alpha = 0.82; contreras, fernandez, malcarne, ingram, & vaccarino, 2004) and the hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads; zigmond & snaith, 1983), which has adequate to good (cronbach’s alpha = 0.68 to 0.93) internal consistency (bjelland et al., 2002). this study found that prior to treatment bd participants (n = 16) reported significantly increased levels of anxiety when compared to the healthy controls (n = 10; ives-deliperi et al., 2013). eight weeks of group mbct resulted in significant reductions in anxiety in the bd treatment group (n = 16; the effect size was not reported), but not in the bd waitlist group (n = 7), indicating that decrease in anxiety could be attributed to treatment. these findings were consistent with another study, which also found modest improvements in the pre to post intervention bai scores of bd patients (cohen’s d = 0.23), following eight weeks of group mbct (miklowitz et al., 2009). williams and colleagues (2008) compared pre and post bai scores of bd patients in remission (with history of suicidal ideation/behaviour; n = 28) and a waitlist control group (n = 27). the study found that at baseline there were no differences between the bai scores of bd treatment and bd waitlist group. following eight weeks of group mbct, those who participated in the treatment condition had significantly lower bai scores compared to the waitlist group (the effect size was not reported). however, those that participated in treatment had no significant change in bai scores when comparing their pre and post treatment scores, whilst those on the waitlist had significant increase in bai scores over time (the effect size was not reported). in other words, although mbct did not decrease bai scores following treatment, participating in mbct prevented anxiety from increasing over time. the major depression group showed no differences in bai scores, suggesting that protective effect of mbct on levels on anxiety was specific to the bd group. perich and colleagues (2013b) measured anxiety symptoms using a self-report depression and anxiety stress scale (dass; lovibond & lovibond, 1995), which has adequate reliability for measuring symptoms of depression (cronbach’s alpha = 0.95; crawford & henry, 2003) and state/trait anxiety inventory (stai) scale (spielberger, 1983), with good internal consistency for the state (ranging from cronbach’s alpha = 0.90 to 0.91) and trait scales (ranging from cronbach’s alpha 0.86 to 0.85, spielberger, 1983). although the study (n = 34) found that anxiety scores did not improve over the 12 month follow up period following engagement in eight week mbct group intervention, bd participants had improvement in anxiety symptoms (stai trait anxiety scores; perich et al., 2013b). the improvements were noted when mindfulness was practiced once a day for at least three days a week during the eight-week treatment period (the effect size was not reported). this positive effect of mbct on levels of anxiety was consistent with studies investigating mbct in non-clinical populations (schenström, rönnberg, & bodlund, 2006). mbct has shown promising positive effects on managing symptoms of anxiety in patients with bd. three studies have reported that engaging in eight weeks of mbct resulted in significant decreases in anxiety scores (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; miklowitz et al., 2009; williams et al., 2008). one study had also reported that mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 584 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ engaging in mbct was protective in the sense that it stopped anxiety scores increasing over time (williams et al., 2008). most importantly mbct was effective at reducing anxiety scores when mindfulness was practiced for a minimum of three days per week (perich et al., 2013b). mania/hypomania symptoms six out of the 13 studies measured mania/ hypomania symptoms before and after mbct treatment (n = 209). other studies measured symptoms of mania prior to treatment, as an exclusion criterion for participating in the mbct intervention. all of the six studies measured symptoms of mania using the young mania rating scale (ymrs), which is a clinician-administered scale with good inter-rater reliability (young et al., 1978). out of the six studies that measured symptoms of mania post-mbct treatment, five found no significant differences in the ymrs scores after participating in mbct (deckersbach et al., 2012; howells et al., 2014; perich et al., 2013a; perich et al., 2013b; weber et al., 2010). only one study (miklowitz et al., 2009) reported significant reduction in the manic symptoms following participation in mbct. deckersbach and colleagues (2012) (n = 12) reported that participants in their study had no to low residual manic symptoms prior to participating in mbct. after treatment there was no significant difference in the ymrs scores. it was noted that there was an increase in ymrs for one participant, which appeared to be caused by elevation in his mood. similarly, weber and colleagues (2010) (n = 23) only included people with bd who were in remission and scored less than eight points on the ymrs. the study found no significant differences in the ymrs scores after participating in mbct, when comparing the baseline scores with the one month follow up and three month follow up scores. further to this, perich and colleagues (2013b) found that the number of days participants dedicated to engaging in mindfulness activities was not significantly correlated with ymrs scores post-treatment (n = 34). in addition, perich and colleagues (2013a) found no significant differences between the pre and post ymrs scores (n = 95), as well as no significant differences between the ymrs scores between the treatment group and the tau group following mbct treatment. this study concluded that mbct had no impact on reducing the risk of reoccurrence of hypo/manic symptoms, total number of episodes or mood symptom severity at the 12 months follow up. it is of note that all bd participants were euthymic and complying with mood stabilising medication for the duration of the studies. howells and colleagues (2014) also failed to detect significant differences in the pre and post treatment ymrs scores (n = 21), however they reported that although participants were already euthymic at the baseline measure, their ymrs scores reduced slightly after engaging in mbct (cohen’s d = 0.17). unlike other studies, miklowitz and colleagues (2009) included participants with subsyndromal mania and hypomania (n = 22). contrary to the above studies, this study found significant reductions in the ymrs scores when they compared the pre and post mbct scores (cohen’s d = 0.17). in summary, five studies have reported that participants with bd experienced no significant differences in symptoms of mania/hypomania following engagement in mbct (deckersbach et al., 2012; howells et al., 2014; perich et al., 2013a; perich et al., 2013b; weber et al., 2010). one of these studies reported a slight reduction in ymrs scores, although it was not significant (howells et al., 2014). one study found that participation in mbct significantly reduced symptoms of mania (miklowitz et al., 2009). it appears that when people with bd are euthymic and complying with their mood stabilising medication, practicing mindfulness does not provide bojic & becerra 585 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reduction of mania/hypomania symptoms or protection against future episodes. however, when people with bd are experiencing subsyndromal mania, it appears that practicing mindfulness helps reduce the severity of symptoms. considering that these findings were only reported in one study, they must be interpreted with some caution, and the effects of mbct on symptoms of mania need to be investigated further. cognitive functioning three studies investigated the effects of mbct on cognitive functioning of bd patients with a total of 66 participants. all three studies reported that bd patients exhibited deficits in various aspects of their cognitive functioning and that participating in mbct resulted in improvements in their executive functioning (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; stange et al., 2011), attentional readiness (howells, ives-deliperi, horn, & stein, 2012) and memory, which were maintained at a three month follow up (stange et al., 2011). ives-deliperi and colleagues (2013) compared healthy controls (n = 10) with a waitlist bd group (n = 7) and bd participants who took part in an eight-week mbct condition (n = 16). the study found that prior to the treatment bd participants scored lower on measures of executive functioning including working memory and inhibition. significant blood oxygenation level dependent (bold) signal decreases were noted in the medial prefrontal cortex in the bd compared to the control group. this indicated that the bd group had difficulty focusing on the tasks performed. following mbct, the study found that the bd treatment group improved in neuropsychological tasks measuring working memory (digit span backward), spatial memory (rey complex figure recall) and verbal fluency (controlled oral word association test). mbct resulted in significant improvements in executive performance in the bd treatment group, but not in the bd waitlist group (the effect size was not reported; ives-deliperi et al., 2013). significant bold signal increases were observed in the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex in the bd treatment group, compared to the bd waitlist group, during the mindfulness task (the effect size was not reported). these changes in bold signal resulted in an activation pattern more closely resembling those of healthy controls. howells and colleagues (2012) found that prior to engaging in mbct, brain activity for the bd group (n = 12) was greater over the frontal cortex and cingulate cortex and showed activation of non-relevant information processing, when compared to the healthy control (n = 9) group. this suggested decreased attentional readiness prior to treatment, as theta activity was decreased, beta activity was increased and theta/beta ratios were decreased over the frontal and cingulate cortices. this study found that bd participants had deficits in resting brain activity, which may have reduced their ability to attend to relevant information. after participating in eight week mbct, the bd group showed changes in the right frontal eeg activity (beta activity was decreased and theta and theta/beta ratios increased), which was associated with slight improvement in attention readiness (the effect size was not reported). stange and colleagues (2011) compared pre and post scores on two self-reported scales for measuring cognitive functioning (n = 12): the frontal systems behavior scale (frsbe; stout, ready, grace, malloy, & paulsen, 2003) and the behavior rating inventory of executive functioning (brief; roth, isquith, & gioia, 2005). prior to mbct treatment, cognitive functioning of bd patients (n = 8) was substantially lower than normative comparison samples. the greatest deficits were in the brief metacognition summary scores (comprised of initiate, working memory, plan/organize, task monitor and organisation of materials). after participating in mbct (12, two-hour group sessions) there were improvements in executive functioning and mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 586 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ memory to levels comparable with normative sample with large effects sizes (cohen’s d = 1.13 to 1.39) between pre treatment and post treatment scores on most subscales. effects of the treatment in terms of improvements in executive functioning, memory and task monitoring were maintained at a three month follow up. taken together, results consistently indicate that mbct is effective in improving cognitive functioning in bd. subjective measures of mbct three studies (n = 36) reported the effect of mbct on symptoms of bd using subjective measures, such as interviews, case studies and self-rating questionnaires about participants’ experience in taking part in a mindfulness intervention. chadwick, kaur, swelam, ross, and ellett (2011) conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 12) and analysed the data using thematic analysis. this study found that mbct helped participants with bd increase their ability to focus on the present moment, increase their self-awareness and acceptance and improve their ability to manage mood states and negative thoughts. the majority of participants reported that they had to adapt their mindfulness practice to different mood states, as mindfulness practice was more difficult when participants felt depressed (low mood) than when their mood was high (although no one reported experiencing mania). it appeared that having a choice of various mindfulness exercises allowed participants to be responsive to their moods and continue completing their home practice. participants reported that mindful movement exercise (such as walking mindfully or engaging in gentle yoga exercises) with short mindfulness exercises was particularly helpful while mindfulness of breath (focusing on one’s breathing while seated) was more helpful when mood was high. this information suggests that effective mbct interventions will need to consider the patient’s mood and energy levels to increase compliance with homework and appropriate level of engagement with treatment. weber and colleagues (2010) administered questionnaires to evaluate participants’ experience of eight weeks of mbct (n = 23). the study found that mbct was well received among participants with bd, with 82% reporting they moderately to very much benefited from mbct. one month post-mbct, 55% of participants with bd reported that mbct helped them to cope with emotions and 45% said it helped them implement more structure in their life and cope with negative thoughts. three months post-mbct, 67% reported that mbct helped them regulate their emotions and 67% reported it improved their overall quality of life. participants reported that mindful breathing, body scan, sitting meditation and mindful movement exercises were the most beneficial in managing symptoms associated with bd. miklowitz and colleagues (2009) included a case vignette of a 36-year-old woman, sarah, who was diagnosed with bd i. sarah reported that attending mbct group helped her “normalise” her experience of living with symptoms of bd. she reported that mbct helped her slow down her thoughts and take on more of an observer’s role instead of reacting to them. further to this sarah reported that mbct helped her identify her feelings and mood changes earlier. for example, she particularly benefited from the three-minute breathing space exercise to manage her feelings of anger and avoid angry outbursts, which she stated had a positive impact on her intimate relationships. bojic & becerra 587 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the present paper aimed to systematically review current literature on effectiveness of mbct on managing symptoms associated with bd. we reported findings from 13 studies (n = 429), which were categorised into six sections, namely, emotional regulation, depression, anxiety, mania, cognitive functioning and subjective measures of mbct in bd. mbct has shown promising positive effects on managing symptoms of anxiety in patients with bd (ivesdeliperi et al., 2013; miklowitz et al., 2009; williams et al., 2008) and preventing anxiety scores from increasing over time (williams et al., 2008). mbct was also associated with improved physiological health (e.g., hrv; howells et al., 2014) and improvements in a number of subjective measures (e.g., ers, acs and ders) of emotional regulation in bd (deckersbach et al., 2012; ives-deliperi et al., 2013; van dijk et al., 2013). furthermore participating in mbct resulted in improvements in executive functioning (ives-deliperi et al., 2013; stange et al., 2011), attentional readiness (howells et al., 2012) and memory, with treatment gains maintained at a three month follow up (stange et al., 2011). the current literature suggests that mbct does not provide reduction of mania/hypomania symptoms or protection against future episodes (deckersbach et al., 2012; howells et al., 2014; perich et al., 2013a; perich et al., 2013b; weber et al., 2010) in euthymic bd participants. however significant reductions in mania symptoms were reported when participants with residual manic symptoms participated in mbct (miklowitz et al., 2009). the mixed findings between studies that reported no significant differences in symptoms of depression (ivesdeliperi et al., 2013; perich et al., 2013a) and those that have found significant improvement in depressive symptoms following mbct, (deckersbach et al., 2012; kenny & williams, 2007; miklowitz et al., 2009; perich et al., 2013b; van dijk et al., 2013; williams et al., 2008) appear to be related to specific modifications of mindfulness interventions across groups. it was found that mbct was effective at managing symptoms of bd when mindfulness was practiced for a minimum of three days per week (perich et al., 2013b) or when booster sessions were included (chadwick et al., 2011; weber et al., 2010). some common limitations were observed in the literature including small sample size, lack of control group, various modifications to mbct intervention, noncompliance or non reporting of homework completion and a lack of adequate monitoring and reporting of any adverse effects and factors contributing to attrition rates. sample size and control conditions most of the studies reviewed in this paper had a small sample size, (ranging from n = 8 [stange et al., 2011] to n = 68 [williams et al., 2008]), consisting of predominantly female participants (72%), as many were ‘pilot’ studies in this area. some studies did not have an active control group (chadwick et al., 2011; deckersbach et al., 2012; miklowitz et al., 2009; stange et al., 2011; weber et al., 2010), which only allowed comparison of pre and post treatment scores. others included a waitlist condition (perich et al., 2013a; van dijk et al., 2013; williams et al., 2008), while more recent studies included a healthy control group as a comparison (howells et al., 2014; ives-deliperi et al., 2013). mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 588 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ modification of mindfulness interventions one of the limitations of current literature on mbct in bd is that mindfulness intervention was modified in some way in almost every study, which made it difficult to attribute treatment gains exclusively to mbct. considering that there are currently no published guidelines about how to implement mindfulness – based treatment for bd patients, it is understandable that researchers implemented changes to make mbct more applicable. it was observed that all 13 studies included in the current review based their mbct intervention on the program described by segal and colleagues (2002) and introduced various changes to make treatment more responsive to bd patients. some studies did not provide information about specific session outlines of their mindfulness treatment (e.g. howells et al., 2012; ives-deliperi et al., 2013; stange et al., 2011) while others provided a detailed account of their session plans (e.g. perich et al., 2013a). the inconsistent reporting of the characteristics of mindfulness interventions only allowed for a superficial comparison across studies, as information was limited. most of the studies in this review delivered the mindfulness intervention during a weekly two-hour group session for eight weeks. however, some studies (e.g., weber et al., 2010) reported that they included a twohour booster session three months after treatment. another study (chadwick et al., 2011) delivered mbct via 90-minute sessions for eight weeks, plus six-week booster sessions, which resulted in participants practicing in mbct for a minimum of 18 weeks. other exceptions to the eight week mbct intervention were reported in deckersbach and colleagues’ (2012) study where mindfulness was administered in 12 weekly, two-hour sessions, whilst van dijk and colleagues (2013) conducted 12, 90-minute sessions. some differences were observed in duration and types of mindfulness activities that were practiced during sessions. williams and colleagues (2008) reported that participants engaged in two-hour meditation practice during the last three weeks of intervention. other studies had brief mindfulness activities (e.g. body scan, mindfulness of sounds, mindfulness of feelings and mindful walking) of approximately 20 to 30 minutes (chadwick et al., 2011). most studies reported approximately 40 minutes of mindfulness meditation practiced during sessions (perich et al., 2013a) and most introduced mindfulness movement exercises to address attention difficulties (deckersbach et al., 2012). all of the reviewed mbct studies introduced some level of psychoeducation about bd. for example, weber and colleagues (2010) reported presenting information about mania and hypomania. similarly, perich and colleagues (2013a) reported introducing relapse prevention information about bd, depression, hypo/mania and anxiety. van dijk and colleagues (2013) extended the psychoeducation part of their intervention to include a session about medication and importance of self-care (e.g., sleep hygiene, eating healthy and abstaining from drugs and alcohol). deckersbach and colleagues (2012) incorporated daily mood monitoring, emergency plans if mood deteriorated and problem solving focused on reducing the likelihood of dropping out of treatment. as there are currently no specific guidelines for implementing mbct to manage symptoms of bd, each study included information in the psychoeducation part of their intervention as they saw fit, without providing any empirical evidence to support introducing that particular information. considering that there is evidence in the literature that psychoeducation alone is effective in managing symptoms of bd (colom et al., 2009; stafford & colom, 2013), this makes attribution of change to mbct more difficult. bojic & becerra 589 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ homework completion it appeared that many participants struggled to complete mindfulness homework, as significant data were lost due to participants forgetting to complete or keep a record of exercises. for example, perich and colleagues (2013a) reported that only 67% of participants that completed the mbct program provided information of their homework completion, which resulted in 33% of participants being excluded from the final analysis. the homework expected from participants also differed in duration, content and frequency across studies. it was observed that some studies required participants to complete a daily 10-minute mindfulness of breath exercise (focusing on one’s breathing; chadwick et al., 2011), while others required a minimum of 45-minute meditation, six days a week (williams et al., 2008). deckersbach and colleagues (2012) indicated that participants in their study completed 40-minute yoga exercises at home, while in another study participants’ homework involved 60 minutes of yoga exercises (kenny & williams, 2007). some studies provided their participants with a cd to help with required homework practice (weber et al., 2010) while others omitted the cd (perich et al., 2013b; weber et al., 2010). for example, perich and colleagues (2013a) stated that purchase of the book ‘full catastrophe living’ (kabat-zinn, 1990) was optional, the yoga cd was omitted and the dvd ‘healing from within’ was unavailable for purchase at commencement of the study. weber and colleagues (2010) reported that instead of providing above-mentioned cds/dvds, they recorded their own cd, which was given to participants to help with homework exercises. these inconsistences in the duration, type, and frequency of mindfulness homework made it difficult to compare across studies and attribute any treatment gains exclusively to mbct interventions. the high rate of noncompliance with mindfulness home practice also indicates that future research needs to investigate effective strategies to motivate homework completion. attrition rates reasons behind why participants decided not to engage in treatment or to stop attending mbct before completing the treatment were not explored in any of the studies included in the current review. the average dropout rate in reviewed studies was 16%, which indicated that 84% of participants adhered to treatment. this was comparable to other studies that investigated attrition rates in mbct interventions in participants with recurrent depression (crane & williams, 2010; kuyken et al., 2008). there was a trend for those allocated to a wait list condition to have higher dropouts and non-completion than those who participated in mbct (perich et al., 2013a). participants that dropped out from mbct tended to be younger than those that successfully completed treatment (miklowitz et al., 2009) and participants that reported a greater number of prior episodes engaged in fewer days of meditation. this appeared to reflect that this group of participants experienced greater difficulty in engaging in mindfulness. crane and williams (2010) investigated attrition rates in mindfulness treatment and found that those that dropped out were significantly younger, less likely to be taking antidepressants, had higher levels of depressive rumination and showed greater levels of problem solving deterioration, than those that completed treatment. this study suggested that participants with high depressive rumination and cognitive reactivity find it particularly difficult to engage in mbct (crane & williams, 2010). also when dropouts occurred they tended to happen early in treatment (before treatment has started or after attending only one session). another study (kuyken et mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 590 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2008) found that some of the common reasons for dropout included disliking the group format and the time commitment involved in mindfulness based treatment. attrition rates in studies examining effects of mbct on symptoms associated with bd need to be investigated in future studies. adverse effects potential adverse effects were not adequately investigated or reported in studies that examined effects of mbct in bd. one study (deckersbach et al., 2012) reported that there was a small increase in mood elevation at follow up, which was driven by one participant who experienced hypomania. in another study (miklowitz et al., 2009), one patient had worsening of mania symptoms, however it was noted that overall improvement with depression did not coincide with worsening of mania. kenny and williams (2007) reported that four participants had increased bdi (depression) scores. adverse effects appeared to be rare in mbct for bd, however it is possible that the numbers of patients that suffered from adverse effects were higher than reported and could include some of the participants that dropped out of treatment. it was noted that adverse effects were not monitored or recorded routinely in mindfulness interventions in general (dobkin, irving, & amar, 2012). there are documented cases of participants experiencing mania following participating in meditation (yorston, 2001) and more extreme cases of participants experiencing psychosis following intensive meditation training (chan-ob & boonyanaruthee, 1999; vanderkooi, 1997). for some patients with a history of psychosis it can be beneficial to engage in mindfulness during remission (bach & hayes, 2002; gaudiano & herbert, 2006), while for others it could aggravate their symptoms (dobkin et al., 2012). thus the potential adverse effects of mbct in bd require further research. conclusion and recommendations mindfulness research in bd is in the early stages and definite conclusions about effectiveness cannot yet be drawn. however, the current review of the literature indicated that mbct was associated with improvements in emotional regulation (howells et al., 2014) and reductions in symptom of anxiety (ives-deliperi et al., 2013) and depression in bd (kenny & williams, 2007). furthermore, mbct intervention was associated with improvements comparable to normative samples in several aspects of cognitive functioning (howells et al., 2014; stange et al., 2011). these gains were maintained at a three-month follow up (stange et al., 2011) and some were also maintained at a 12-month follow up (perich et al., 2013b), however a booster session appeared to be necessary (deckersbach et al., 2012). practicing mindfulness for a minimum of three days a week was associated with improvement of depression and anxiety symptoms, and this was recommended as the minimal effective dose of mbct for bd (perich et al., 2013b). mbct in euthymic bd patients resulted in no significant difference between pre and post mania scores (deckersbach et al., 2012; howells et al., 2014), however when participants reported residual mania or hypomania symptoms (prior to mbct intervention), significant reduction in their mania symptoms was documented, indicating that mbct may be effective for those patients (miklowitz et al., 2009). further studies are needed as symptoms of mania were not adequately examined in the available literature and were in fact considered an exclusion criterium for some studies. some of the current studies have not adequately reported and investigated attrition rates or the adverse effects of mbct. other limitations of reviewed studies included using various clinical scales to measure mindfulness bojic & becerra 591 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and modifying mindfulness interventions to varying degrees, which made comparisons across studies difficult and raising serious doubts about treatment integrity. it is recommended for future studies in this area, to focus on implementing a control group, larger sample size, and developing a standard mbct intervention specifically for bd patients. in addition, future studies should explore potential detrimental effects of mbct for some people with bd. overall it can be concluded that mbct is a promising treatment for bd in conjunction with pharmacotherapy, however further studies are required to investigate long-term effects. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge dr ken robinson, dr david ryder and jennifer hoare for their constructive comments and suggestions. references bach, p., & hayes, s. c. 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(1983). the hospital anxiety and depression scale. acta psychiatrica scandinavica, 67, 361-370. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x about the authors sanja bojic completed her masters degree in clinical psychology at edith cowan university in 2015. she has over 5 years experience facilitating rehabilitation programs in the areas of emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive skills, addictions and offending behaviour. dr rodrigo becerra is a senior lecturer at edith cowan university and a clinical psychologist in private practice. he is the director of the psychopathology research group at edith cowan university and specializes in emotions and psychopathology. mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder 598 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 573–598 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1138 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1891/0889-8391.23.3.198 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2010.03.007 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2007.08.022 http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.109.1.150 http://doi.org/10.1080/713685624 http://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.133.5.429 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ mindfulness-based treatment for bipolar disorder (introduction) method data sources and search strategies inclusion and exclusion criteria data extraction results emotional regulation depressive symptoms anxiety symptoms mania/hypomania symptoms cognitive functioning subjective measures of mbct discussion sample size and control conditions modification of mindfulness interventions homework completion attrition rates adverse effects conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors on the future of the humanities correction on the future of the humanities interviewwith professor mircea flonta, epistemologist and philosopher of science mircea flonta, beatrice popescu, andrei simionescu-panait note the authors want to add the following corrected funding statement: funding this paper is supported by the sectorial operational programme human resources development (sop hrd), financed from the european social fund and by the romanian government under the contract number sop hrd/159/1.5/s/136077. [the authors requested to add this note post-publication on 2015-07-14.] europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ interview on the future of the humanities interviewwith professor mircea flonta, epistemologist and philosopher of science mircea flonta*a, beatrice popescua, andrei simionescu-panaita [a] faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 published (vor): 2015-05-29. *corresponding author at: faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, romania, 204 splaiul independentei, bucharest, 060024. e-mail: mircea.flonta@yahoo.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. beatrice popescu and andrei simionescu-panait (ejop): the last decade has hosted a fast pace of publishing from your part. what was the project towards which your efforts were directed over the last three years? is it editorial? mircea flonta: many do not like to talk about their plans, about what they intended to do but never did. i can say certain things. i watched the daughter of serban ţiţeica who recently translated a work of heisenberg and one of bohr's i watched a project related to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, of the copenhagen school, plus the controversies that have erupted from it. all this concerns a subject that interests me: the philosophy of the researcher. i mean, there is a philosophy of philosophers, you know? the philosopher of science seeks a better understanding of science in general, or of a particular field of science, in terms of conceptual aspects, while the researcher has its own philosophy, but this faces the following question: what the scientific achievements of the present represent, especially of the fundamental theories, and which further direction of research these theories seem to indicate. in this regard, scientists can hold different views and, furthermore, despite discussions carried with perseverance for a long time, within which the prospects are better clarified, they do not get to an agreement. that is because they have different background representations of what a scientific description or a scientific explanation, for instance, would be. these things change even under the influence of scientific developments over time and sometimes even men of the same generation come to controversies and misunderstandings due to their background influence. it is an interesting thing, which has preoccupied me for a long time. in 1985, i wrote a book named “philosophical presuppositions in science” („presupoziții filosofice în știința exactă”), which refers to this type of discussions – i published another book that went unnoticed, as well – “images of science” („imagini ale științei”) – on the same subject. so during the last year and something i was caught up in this. i am not finished yet; i will get back to it, to reach a conclusion. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ mircea flonta is a romanian philosopher, professor of philosophy at the faculty of philosophy of university of bucharest, specialist in the theory of knowledge, epistemology, philosophy of language and corresponding member of the romanian academy. between 1951 and 1955 he was enrolled at the faculty of philosophy of the university of bucharest and obtained his phd in genetic epistemology. in 1972-1973, 1985 and 1991 professor flonta was humboldt scholar. he extensively translated from david hume, immanuel kant, ludwig wittgenstein, karl popper, albert einstein, thomas kuhn, bertrandrussell. his work covers broad domains, from philosophy of biology to religion and ethics and he also leads a seminar in “cultural, conceptual and epistemologic relativism” at the university of bucharest, faculty of philosophy. a selection of his most important publications: “presupositions in exact science” (1985), “cognition: a critical introduction in the problem of knowledge”, “gemäßigter und radikaler erkenntnistheoretischer naturalismus (2000)”, “ludwig wittgenstein in the xx century philosophy” (1998) and most recently “darwin after darwin. studies of philosophy of biology” (2010). correspondence: faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, romania, 204 splaiul independentei, bucharest, 060024. e-mail: mircea.flonta@yahoo.com there was another important preoccupation during the last year and a half. now, if you ask, i cannot hide it. i wrote a text, with the volume of a book, of about two hundred and something pages, entitled “my path to philosophy” („drumul meu spre filosofie”). i went to the faculty of philosophy between 1951 and 1955 and i have been at the university ever since, 60 years now, and my colleagues have prepared a volume of homage, a festschrift. to continue the text, i wrote another about 100 pages of comments on the work of my colleagues. this is what i did. the text should be published in summer or autumn. ejop: accomplishing works of this caliber requires a labor discipline that transpires especially in the process of writing. how does a day of work go and how do you outline the steps of preparing a philosophy volume? mircea flonta: i retired in 2002. this means that my work is reduced and i have more time. of course, as the years pass by, i do not have the same resources, but i have much more time at my disposal. i feel better if every morning i stay 4-5 hours and work on something. i can read as well, but always seeking something. i learned during a long time and going through hard enough lacks, that you can read well only if you already have certain representations about the problem in question, because only then can you show active reading and take what is important from the rest. if that derives satisfaction, it means that i am having a good day and i feel fine the rest of the time. about preparing manuscripts, i learned this: it is very bad when you have time, and i am referring here to doctoral theses. if you have a manuscript and do not stay on it for a few weeks, you will just leave it. turning to it, you can easily make improvements. usually, i do not impose restrictive time limits and i allow myself this opportunity to get back to that work a second time, perhaps even a third time, and it allows me to construct a better text than that i would have initially constructed. you can produce better things this way. ejop: we go back to the period when you were a professor. both writing and teaching require time and reinterpretation. what is the history of the two aspects and how did the two combine? mircea flonta: they are closely related. i fully agree with a close colleague fromgermany who told me when i retired that “it’s hard to imagine how to carry on with philosophy without students”, him being a very active author. i am talking about herbert schnädelbach. i agree, because the practice of philosophy as an exercise of thinking is stimulating that way. many of the things people do at some level is based on reading some other significant or first-rate authors, stimulators. if you discuss with students, for example at the seminars, such europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 interview 178 http://www.psychopen.eu/ texts, you have the opportunity to see some things that do not come to light if you read the text three times sitting alone in a room. it is very important. in addition, there is the need to clarify things. my mentors (e.g., wittgenstein) are people who felt this need to practice and are willing to go beyond clarification. for this, working with students helps a lot. beatrice popescu is a cognitive behavior psychotherapist at bellanima medical center, bucharest and the founding editor of europe’s journal of psychology. she has published papers and book reviews on clinical psychology, psychotherapy and psycho-practice politics. her research interests are cognitive behavior therapy, rebt, existential psychotherapy and philosophical counseling ethics. she is now undergoing a phd program at the university of bucharest with the thesis title: philosophical counseling and psychotherapy. ethical issues in philosophical counseling. correspondence: e-mail: beatrice.popescu@bellanima.ro on the other hand, there is something else. if you are a teacher, you must have a broader thematic scope, as opposed to someone who is employed as a researcher. there are those institutes of the academy, the philosophy and the psychology one at constantin radulescu motru. the researcher has a work to plan, chooses to participate in collective works with a specific theme, and focuses all the lectures on the topic. it is never constrained by its professional duties to encompass a much wider scope, while a teacher should have a culture in specialization. i must have, at least in the philosophy of knowledge, the philosophy of science, etc., the obligation of reading great classic and contemporary works. during the last two decades, we insisted on master and doctoral seminars, and this is how i proceed: hold an introductory statement for the theme, present a list of texts, and then discuss them all, each at a time and this is not just for the benefit of the students. moreover, i always take advantage of this and feel the thematic horizon constantly remodelling. therefore, i think the teaching profession and philosophical practice are closely linked. ejop: how was the philosophical atmosphere during doctorate, how did the meeting with piaget go and what impact did a change of air have for you? andrei simionescu-panait is a phd student at the faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, currently working on embodied cognition, kinesthetics and sartorial objects, with a phenomenological account of elegance at the core of his thesis. andrei is fond of artistic experience, out of which arose the motivation to pursue both phenomenology and the practice of arts as a way to fully grasp why is it that we are moved by cultural artifacts. correspondence: e-mail: tesimionescu@gmail.com mircea flonta: the doctorate was then considered a work of maturity. i do not think that this was a happy vision, because there were some who took the teacher’s chair for twenty years and gave up finishing their doctorate. for others, having the doctorate lasted for their entire life, you know? now, ph.d. is a first attempt to start researching on a topic, to get a minimum of experience and assess the possibilities, capabilities and perspectives of a person. to not run late on the matter. a french mathematician, the friend of a romanian mathematician, said that he had his doctorate quickly and the project's first sentence said this: “the main purpose of my work is to obtain the doctorate in mathematics.” it was a kind of statement of his, that he wanted to carry out research and that the doctorate was a first step; and i agree with that. as it regards piaget, genetic epistemology gave me a way out from the conventional dialectical materialism. back then, in 1967, i was teaching a course called theory of knowledge. i was a lecturer. then i read piaget, “biologie et conaissance” convinced me. piaget attracted me through the manner in which he stated that in the middle of the theory of knowledge there was the issue of the relationship between subject and object in building knowledge, whilst believing that it was not speculative, but based on clear research of genetic epistemology. of course, i exaggerated the importance that i gave it then, but it was a way i could discuss something more profeseurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 flonta, popescu, & simionescu-panait 179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sional at the time. then piaget came to romania in 1971 because he received a doctor honoris causa and then i met him, after which i went to him with a von humboldt scholarship. nevertheless, i was already beginning to get far from genetic epistemology, as in germany i had gotten in contact with analytic philosophy. it was a fleeting episode. ejop: we know that americans are working with major-minor axes when it comes to offering expertise, which would provide premises for imminent professional skills, which brings a high level of performance that ultimately meets market requirements. here, schools do not only become desirable, but they reconfigure their programs from a strictly mercantile perspective. because of the recession, greeks have recently wanted to take out organizational philosophy and psychology from the university of athens. what are your hopes for the next century philosophy? since the young philosopher does not have a domain in which to work, do you think that they can find a solution in interdisciplinarity, or would they better abandon philosophy? mircea flonta: many questions, i will try to answer, though. philosophy today prepares mainly teachers of philosophy, although there are more graduates than education could absorb today. the usual destiny is the following: secondary education. before, it was more room, with a single college in bucharest and two departments at the faculties of history in iasi and cluj. now things have changed. a graduate of philosophy can be used in a huge variety of activities, provided they think well independently, and speak and write well. in these conditions, you can be employed in any business! same with any psychology graduate with similar characteristics. it is only that most graduates of philosophy of the last 15 years do not satisfy this condition. it could be wrong, but philosophy is now the path of young people who just come to have a degree, and i think it is easier than elsewhere. on the other hand, universities need students and there is competition to attract students, hence the decisive factor of lowering requirements. there is no other way. we do not have the american situation, where someone is impressed that you have a doctorate in philosophy at harvard or at cuny, etc. here, grades are not representative and the faculty is not able to sort students. therefore, there are increasingly fewer students, especially in theoretical philosophy, because it is considered more difficult when telling stories about philosophical history seems easier and topics like politics and morals are more familiar than the logical themes of philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, etc. it is difficult to make a selection and there is no coverage for diplomas. my opinion is that both master and doctorate titles are given for the same qualifications to persons whose performances are very different, unacceptable different. i believe that things cannot continue in the current manner. i think that the future of philosophy at the university would be other. maybe a department of philosophy for the university, not for college. we give every student the opportunity to take a course in philosophy, or maybe two or three, to work and to obtain a degree, then those with a particular interest – a phd in philosophy. therefore, there are always students. i think intellectually active people, interested in ideas, in the company of such department and teachers with a professional attitude, who discuss topics of interest for good minds, can capitalize on opportunities and would take a bit of philosophy. my wife works with neuroscience and different projects in collaboration with universities in europe, and some years ago, she has brought us a colleague in hamburg. i did not know him, during our conversation, he asked me what i do for a living and i said philosophy. a, he says, i graduated from heidelberg university (strong in biology and medicine) and i remember that i went to all of gadamer’s classes. gadamer was a professor at heidelberg, i.e., if you have amodicum of pretention, you go there to see what people are talking about, right? it is as if you go to a show: they say there is a new play in town, right? people go; they should. this is how i see the future. however, it also takes another attitude from teachers from other faculties reeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 interview 180 http://www.psychopen.eu/ garding their disciplines’ fundamental issues, which inevitably fall in connection with philosophy. this is what a true university professor should be like, one who can give students guidance. i also have something more. wittgenstein did not have any appreciation for philosophy as a profession; instead, he considered that every man who thinks with his mind must dabble in philosophy because philosophy is an exercise of the mind. even if this exercise is not a routine, reaching towards philosophy is beneficial in key moments. many believe that it is a matter of erudition – what you know about plato, about toma, about descartes, kant, etc. but that is something that interests few people, and only esoterically. instead, this thing, what advantage we have regarding our contact with representative philosophers to help us think better on what interests us as people active in a certain field, and as people who think about life and our relationships with others, is a work that seems to be important. ejop: do you think the over-specialization in philosophy damages the philosophical work of an author? mircea flonta: this is often the condition for a person with possibilities of performance in research. it is also compulsory. let me tell you a little story. einstein, from the 1920s until his death, worked all the time, intensely, but unlike the period before, he published almost nothing. he gave the following explanation because i was only interested in matters of fundamentals and attempts to find a new path, i worked a lot with few results. well, the common person cannot afford that. he or she does not have that capital. with capital, you can engage in some intellectually adventurous undertakings, meaning that they have a higher risk rate. the researcher cannot usually do that. he or she specializes, knows very well the literature of that narrow field, works and thinks by himself or herself, waiting for a result that falls like in a mosaic of science, like a pebble right where it should fit. it is what thomas kuhn calls “normal science” and it is studied by most scholars, most of their lives. it is somewhat mandatory. of course, it is possible to obtain good quotations, academic positions, honors, influence, prestige, etc., but usually, this does not cause things to be remembered. those who managed the opposite escaped the normal and narrow specialization of research, with a few risks here and there, because such work does not favour undertakings of large scale, while those who were accustomed to 30-40 years like this will continue so for the rest of their lives. of course, they are very important as well. in philosophy, there are threemajor examples – the specialized researcher who can publish quality works anywhere, and there are few here. the second figure is the writer of philosophy, who looks down on it and writes for a wide audience. the last one is the teacher who can afford to have research interests in a broader horizon, because he or she does not fall under pressure like the one who only deals with research. it is good to have room for all. we usually exaggerate with the criticism of one direction or another. moreover, here, there is an editorial performance style, we do not have the peer-review system, the impartial referees, the conscientious, the ones who do not know who the author is, who have standards, read carefully, write a comprehensive report – we do not have that. from this point of view, we hold a peripheral position, we not master english as natives, plus many other aspects resulting from here we are not in relationships with people of important centres, etc. yet, not only research should be encouraged, as in romanian will appear only what is regarded as worthless, because it cannot occur in english! the other danger is the formally executed work, books written to qualify for various posts, usually compilations, and so on. we need a competent publisher, willing to invest time. we do not have the willingness to look seriously at things. you know how a journal rejecting an article looks like: it is a little piece of work, which is not paid for, perhaps only with prestige, according to the magazine and its board. things are done very conscientiously. it is considered a europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 flonta, popescu, & simionescu-panait 181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ second-class activity, like our situation. see doctoral papers. do we have the guarantee that the reviewer has read everything with all the attention necessary and that the reviewer is one of the people who knows very well the literature of that particular theme? i have reasons to doubt. ejop: do you think that the desire to write becomes more intense with age? mircea flonta: with age, something not desirable can happen, but it does happen very often. as the years pass, you become more independent, look things up and you tend to think you have to say things more important than before, but you lose sight of the fact that regarding inventiveness and creativity, you do not gain points over the years. therefore, many people are too active from a certain age, especially in the humanities, and if they hold a position, they cannot find anyone to say to them, with great respect, consideration and affection: “please know that you have written better before”. it is good to know where you can go once the years pass by. i read some things that i wrote when i was about 50-60 years old and i know i would not be able to do this thing, because i would not be able to hold and lead such a high number of threads in the analysis. there are disadvantages. ejop: dear professor, we thank you so much for the interview and we wish you the best. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 177–182 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.999 interview 182 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments culturally competent practice: a mixed methods study among students, academics and alumni of clinical psychology master’s programs in the netherlands research reports culturally competent practice: a mixed methods study among students, academics and alumni of clinical psychology master’s programs in the netherlands lennie r. c. geerlings* ab, claire l. thompson cd, vivian kraaij e, ger p. j. keijsers fg [a] institute of cultural anthropology and development sociology, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. [b] college of arts, society and education, james cook university, townsville, australia. [c] school of psychology, the cairnmillar institute, melbourne, australia. [d] department of psychology, james cook university, townsville, australia. [e] department of psychology, leiden university, leiden, the netherlands. [f] behavioural science institute, radboud university, nijmegen, the netherlands. [g] clinical psychological science, maastricht university, maastricht, the netherlands. abstract this is the first research into preparation for multicultural clinical psychology practice in europe. it applies the theory of multicultural counselling competency (mcc) to a case study in the netherlands. it was hypothesized that cross-cultural practice experience, identification as a cultural minority, and satisfaction with cultural training was associated with mcc. the multicultural awareness knowledge and skills survey was completed by 106 participants (22 students, 10 academics, 74 alumni) from clinical psychology masters’ programs. manova detected a main effect of cross-cultural experience on mcc for all groups and universities. the data were enriched with exploratory qualitative data from 14 interviews (5 students, 5 academics, 4 alumni). interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed three themes: limitations of clinical psychology, strategies for culturally competent practice, and strategies for cultural competency development. these outcomes suggest that cultural competency continues to require attention in master’s programs. the paper makes recommendations for further research enquiry related to training clinical psychologists to practice in europe’s multicultural societies. keywords: cultural competence, clinical psychology education, multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills survey (makss), interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa), netherlands europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 received: 2017-06-08. accepted: 2017-09-12. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: institute of cultural anthropology and development sociology, faculty of social and behavioural sciences, leiden university, p.o. box 9555, 2300 ra leiden, the netherlands. e-mail: l.r.c.geerlings@fsw.leidenuniv.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in 2008, an advisory report to the ministry of health in the netherlands recommended research into the effectiveness of competency profiles for cross-cultural practice (bekker & van mens-verhulst, 2008, p. 31). in the preceding years, a growing body of literature had been developed on skills for culturally sensitive practice (e.g., knipscheer & kleber, 2005; kramer, 2004; kramer & sbiti, 2007), in the context of sustained critique on the mental health care sector for excluding cultural minorities (knipscheer, drogendijk, & mooren, 2011; van dijk, 2008). cultural minorities, often referred to as allochtonen in the netherlands, currently make up about 20% of the dutch population (centraal bureau voor de statistiek, 2014). they are former migrants or refugees europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ from turkey, morocco, suriname, the (former) netherlands antilles, eastern europe or other regions of the world, or have one or both parents with such a background (centraal bureau voor de statistiek & sociaal cultureel planbureau, 2013). the cultural diversity is likely to further increase as a result of large numbers of people from the middle east and northern africa, among other regions of the world, seeking refuge in the netherlands (vluchtelingenwerk, 2015). it is thus of paramount importance that clinical psychologists are prepared to work cross-culturally. however, since the 2008 call for action, no research has been conducted on cultural competency for clinical psychologists in the netherlands. the present study aims to address this research gap. it focuses on preparation in universities for culturally competent clinical psychology practice. in the netherlands, clinical psychology postgraduate master’s degrees are the first professional clinical psychology training experience for future practitioners. master’s graduates work as therapists under supervision of more experienced clinical psychologists (called gz psycholoog). two additional years of training and supervised practice at a tertiary institution are required to work independently. however, these post-master training places are highly restricted, thus the master is frequently the last opportunity to prepare for multicultural practice. thus, it is pertinent to research how future psychologists are prepared for culturally competent practice in clinical psychology master’s education. this issue is explored with a theoretical focus on a standardised model of cultural competency. the model of multicultural counselling competency (mcc; sue et al., 1982) may potentially inform cultural competency training in the netherlands (kramer & sbiti, 2007). the tripartite model of mcc asserts that culturally competent psychologists need to develop awareness, knowledge and skills (sue et al., 1982). multicultural awareness refers to practitioners’ consciousness of their own biases, beliefs and values, and how these may affect clients. multicultural knowledge refers to familiarity with cultural groups and social and political systems in practitioners’ own country and the client’s country of origin. finally, multicultural skills refer to the ability to communicate adequately and appropriately with a variety of cultural groups, and to exercise adequate intervention skills on behalf of culturally diverse clients (sue et al., 1982). although the mcc model has been altered (e.g., campinha-bacote, 1994; sodowsky, taffe, gutkin, & wise, 1994; sue, arredondo, & mcdavis, 1992), the original 1982 mcc model remains most influential at research and policy levels. it is thus a logical starting point for exploring cultural competency training. research evidence suggests that psychologists with higher levels of mcc may be more effective in crosscultural practice. client outcomes are improved (worthington, soth-mcnett, & moreno, 2007), possibly through the practitioners’ enhanced cultural knowledge and self-awareness (sammons & speight, 2008), cultural empathy (burkard & knox, 2004; chao, wei, good, & flores, 2011), and decreased racial prejudice (castillo, brossart, reyes, conoley, & phoummarath, 2007; chao et al., 2011). in the netherlands, cultural training informed by the mcc model was positively appreciated by psychology professionals and students (kramer & sbiti, 2007). this suggests it is worthwhile to further assess the effectiveness of the mcc model in guiding cultural competency development. there may be several pathways in which psychologists develop mcc. american evidence shows that multicultural training is associated with self-reported mcc (d’andrea, daniels, & heck, 1991), especially when students were satisfied with the cultural training they received (tummala-narra, singer, li, esposito, & ash, 2012). in addition to training, mcc also developed with cultural exposure: psychology students or practitioners with more cross-cultural experience reported higher levels of cultural competency compared to their less geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 89 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experienced colleagues (allison, crawford, echemendia, lavome, & knepp, 1994; hansen et al., 2006; sehgal et al., 2011). in addition, students who identified as belonging to a cultural minority reported higher levels of mcc compared to their peers (pope-davis, reynolds, dings, & nielson, 1995). it needs to be assessed whether the possible pathways to cultural competency, including multicultural training, cross-cultural experience and belonging to a cultural minority, are applicable in a dutch context. therefore, research explores two questions. firstly: are multicultural training, cross-cultural experience and belonging to a cultural minority associated with culturally competency of students, academics and alumni of clinical psychology master’s programs? this will be examined through a standardised self-assessment of mcc, the multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills survey (makss; d’andrea et al., 1991). research indicates social desirability as a possible covariate of self-reported mcc (constantine & ladany, 2000). therefore, it was hypothesized that, after controlling for the effects of social desirability, satisfaction with cultural training crosscultural practice experience, and personal identification as a cultural minority would be associated with students’, academics’ and alumni’s multicultural counselling competency (study 1). as this is the first research using a standardised measure of mcc in dutch universities, this study also seeks to supplement the quantitative mcc data with more exploratory interview data. the second research question is: how do students, academics, and alumni of clinical psychology experience preparation for culturally competent clinical psychology practice? this qualitative question is explored using interview data (study 2). study 1: survey on multicultural counselling competency it was hypothesized that after controlling for the effects of social desirability: h1: satisfaction with cultural training was associated with students’, academics’ and alumni’s multicultural counselling competency. h2: cross-cultural practice experience was associated with students’, academics’ and alumni’s multicultural counselling competency. h3: personal identification as a cultural minority was associated with students’, academics’ and alumni’s multicultural counselling competency. method participants in total 132 participants responded to an online survey, however 26 participants responded to less than half of the questions and were excluded from the analysis, bringing the sample size to 106. the final sample consisted of 22 students of clinical psychology master’s programs (age: m = 25.09, sd = 3.77), 10 academics currently teaching into these programs (age: m = 43.00, sd = 10.71), and 74 alumni of these programs (age: m = 33.49, sd = 12.23). demographic information of survey participants is detailed in table 1. seventy participants were affiliated with university a and thirty-seven with university b. both universities provided a one-year master’s program in clinical psychology, with a very similar curriculum, however, one university differentiated itself by its rigorous research training, while the other university embedded clinical psychology with the other fields of applied psychology. one university was located in a densely populated cultural competency in the netherlands 90 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ multicultural region, the other bordered germany. both universities attracted a relatively large number of international students; one university had a separate international master’s program taught in english. table 1 questionnaire participant characteristics (n = 106) characteristic students (n = 22) academics (n = 10) alumni (n = 74) n % n % n % gender male 2 9.1 4 40 13 17.6 female 20 90.9 6 60 61 82.4 nationality dutch 16 72.7 10 100 62 82.2 doublea 0 – 0 – 1 .9 other 6 27.3 0 – 12 16.8 cultural identification cultural majority dutchb 15 68.2 10 100 60 80 cultural minority dutchc 0 – 0 – 4 5.3 other 7 31.8 0 – 11 16.3 cross-cultural experience yes 3 13.6 0 – 14 18.7 no 19 86.4 10 100 61 81.3 adouble nationality which includes the dutch nationality. bparticipants who identified as autochtoon. ccultural minority dutch includes participants who identified as allochtoon or netherlands antilles. instruments the online questionnaire included a demographic section, and assessments of satisfaction with cultural training, mcc, and social desirability. the survey was conducted in english, so no translation of the assessments was required, and international students, academics and alumni could participate. to assess readability and clarity, the questionnaire was piloted among one student and two alumni of a clinical psychology program at a university not otherwise involved in the study, and minor revisions took place based on the received feedback. demographics questionnaire — in line with previous studies on mcc (e.g., lee & khawaja, 2013; popedavis et al., 1995) the demographics section included age, gender, university affiliation and role, cultural background and cultural training or work experiences. satisfaction with cultural training — based on tummala-narra et al. (2012), four statements, such as “awareness, knowledge and clinical skills required for clinical psychology practice in multicultural netherlands are adequately addressed in my clinical psychology program”, could be responded to on a 7-point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. the sum of the item scores provided the measure of satisfaction with multicultural training with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction. multicultural awareness knowledge and skills survey (makss) — the makss (d’andrea et al., 1991) consists of 60 questions or statements that could be answered on a 4-point likert-scale, ranging from very limited or strongly disagree to very good or strongly agree. the three subscales reflect sue et al.’s (1982) mcc: geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 91 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ multicultural awareness (items 1-20, e.g., “at this point in your life, how would you rate your understanding of the impact of the way you think and act when interacting with persons of different cultural backgrounds?”), multicultural knowledge (items 21-40, e.g., “what do you think of the following statement?: the difficulty with the concept of ‘integration’ is its implicit bias in favour of the dominant culture.”) and multicultural skills (items 41-60, e.g., “in general, how would you rate your skill level in terms of being able to provide appropriate counselling services to culturally different clients?”). good psychometric properties have been reported, with cronbach alpha of .75, .90 and .96 for multicultural awareness, knowledge, and skills respectively (d’andrea et al., 1991), low inter-correlations between the subscales (d’andrea et al., 1991), and factor analysis confirming the three-scale structure (guy-walls, 2007). finally, a wilcoxon matched pairs test for comparison of preand post-test results has confirmed internal consistency and construct validity (ponterotto, rieger, barrett, & sparks, 1994). minor adaptations were made to the makss for cross-cultural application. explicit reference to the united states in items 35, 37 and 38 were replaced with references to the netherlands, and reference to “europe and canada” were replaced by two countries which were part of the broader research: australia and singapore (geerlings, thompson, & tan, 2017; geerlings, thompson, bouma, & hawkins, in press). the term “white” removed from the phrase “white mainstream clients” and the terms “gay men” and “gay women” were replaced with the phrases “men who are sexually attracted to men” and “women who are sexually attracted to women” respectively. marlow crowne social desirability scale short form (mcsds-sf) — the short form of the mcsds (reynolds, 1982) contains 13 short statements (e.g., “i’m always willing to admit it when i make a mistake”) with a true or false forced-choice response format. a kuder-richardson-20 reliability of .76 and a correlation of .93 with the full mcsds has been reported for the mcsds-sf. it is recommended as a viable short form for measuring social desirability in response tendencies (reynolds, 1982). procedure after institutional ethics clearance, students, academic staff teaching into clinical psychology master’s programs, and alumni of these programs were sent an email invitation by the program director, or senior staff members.i emails were standardised and included a link to the online questionnaire hosted on qualtrics survey software. as the recruitment emails were sent to program directors and senior staff members who forwarded the invitation to students, academic staff members and alumni, the response rate cannot be estimated. data were exported into ibm spss for analysis. statistical analysis after data screening and assumptions testing, correlational analysis was conducted to identify collinearity between the makss scales. additional correlational analysis and manova were used identify covariates for hypothesis testing, such as social desirability. likewise, mcc differences between groups (students, academics, alumni) and universities were analysed to assess covariates. two manovas were conducted with the makss subscales as dvs and group and university respectively as ivs. a correlational analysis tested the first hypothesis that satisfaction with cultural training (a continuous variable) was associated with mcc. to test the second and third hypotheses that multicultural experience and minority identification were associated with mcc, a one-way between-subjects manovas was conducted with cultural competency in the netherlands 92 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ multicultural experience and minority identification as ivs and the makss scales as dvs, with social desirability and age as covariates. results data screening and assumptions maximum likelihood estimation was used to manage occasional missing values in the makss and mcsds-sf of 27 participants. this method uses all available data to identify the parameter values that have the highest probability of producing the sample data. it is preferred over single imputation methods because it requires less stringent assumptions and provides a relatively unbiased solution to missing data (baraldi & enders, 2010). missing demographic data were deleted list-wise. the makss and mcsds-sf scores were normally distributed. the makss awareness and skills scales and the mcsds-sf had equal variances for the two universities, f(1, 105) = .05, p = .829; f(1, 105) = 1.77, p = .187; f(1, 105) = .30, p = .586, respectively, however, the makss skills scale had significant greater variability for university a, f(1, 105) = 4.63, p = .034. the makss awareness, knowledge and skills scales and the mcsds-sf had equal variances for the groups of students, academics and alumni, f(2, 104) = .28, p = .756; f(2, 104) = .65, p = .524; f(2, 104) = .16, p = .854; f(2, 104) = .59, p = .558, respectively. the reliability of the subscales of the makss and the mcsds-sf was acceptable, with cronbach’s alpha of .74 for knowledge, .88 for skills, and .72 for social desirability. cronbach’s alpha for awareness was low at .52. lower alpha for makss awareness is a known issue (d’andrea et al., 1991), so the scale was used in the analysis. correlations between the variables were calculated to assess collinearity and are listed in table 2. the makss subscales were significantly inter-correlated, suggesting the makss subscales each measured a related but distinct aspect of the mcc model. the correlation between skills and knowledge was quite high at r = .87, however, as highly inter-correlated dvs do not necessarily cause a loss of power in manova (cole, maxwell, arvey, & salas, 1994), all three makss scales were analysed. covariates and group differences social desirability and age were correlated with mcc to identify covariates. social desirability significantly correlated with skills, r = .38, p < .001, and was thus identified as a covariate for further analysis of the makss. age also significantly correlated with awareness, r = .20, p = .035, but not with knowledge or skills (see table 2). a one-way anova with group (students, academics, alumni) as between-subjects iv and age as dv indicated significant differences between groups, tamhane’s t2 f(2, 104) = 9.989, p < .001. tamhane’s t2 was used to adjust for unequal variances (indicated by a significant levene’s test, p < .001). post-hoc tests suggested significant differences between all three groups: academics were significantly older (m = 43.00, sd = 10.708) than students (m = 25.09, sd = 3.766, p < .001) and alumni (m = 33.49, sd = 12.230, p = .030), and alumni were significantly older than students (p = .006). therefore, both age and social desirability were covariates for subsequent analysis of the makss. geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 93 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between the study variables (n = 106) variable age satisfaction awareness knowledge skills satisfaction -.15 – awareness .20* -.09 – knowledge .18 .03 .31** – skills .05 .03 .27** .59** – mcsds-sf .06 -.01 -.04 .15 .38** note. satisfaction: satisfaction with cultural elements in clinical psychology training; awareness: maksss awareness scale; knowledge: makss knowledge scale; skills: makss skills scale; mcsds-sf: social desirability on mcsd-sf. *p < .005. **p < .001. table 3 shows variability in means for the mcc subscales for groups of students, academics and alumni. a one-way manova with group (students, academics, alumni) as between-groups iv and the makss scales (awareness, knowledge, skills) as dvs was conducted. using pillai’s trace, no significant differences between groups of students, academics and alumni on makss subscales were detected, f(6, 206) = 1.78, p = .105, so groups were combined in further analyses. table 3 means and standard deviations for variables (n = 106) variable students (n = 22) academics (n = 10) alumni (n = 74) m sd m sd m sd makss awareness 2.53 4.39 2.58 3.27 2.62 4.06 makss knowledge 2.44 5.11 2.36 6.23 2.57 5.54 makss skills 2.58 6.82 2.40 6.06 2.70 7.20 mcsds social desirability 0.46 2.62 0.56 3.23 0.52 3.10 note. makss scales score range: 1 – 4; mcsds score range: 0 – 1. a one-way manova with respondents’ university as between-groups iv of and the makss scales (awareness, knowledge, skills) as dvs was conducted. using pillai’s trace, no significant differences between universities in makss subscales were detected, f(3, 103) = 2.20, p = .092, so the two universities were combined in further analyses. hypothesis testing h1: a correlational analysis tested the hypothesis that satisfaction with cultural training (a continuous variable) was associated with mcc. associations between satisfaction with cultural training and the makss scales (awareness, knowledge, skills) were not significant (all ps > .05; see table 2). h2 and h3: a one-way manova with multicultural experience and minority identification as between-subjects ivs and the makss scales (awareness, knowledge, skills) as dvs, and with social desirability and age as covariates, tested the two hypotheses that multicultural experience and minority identification were associated with mcc. the variable for minority identification was constructed based on the self-reported cultural backgrounds; participants who identified as autochtoon were categorised as a cultural majority. the manova cultural competency in the netherlands 94 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ suggested that while controlling for the effects of social desirability and age, cross-cultural experience had a significant main effect on the makss subscales, f(3, 99) = 3.52, p = .018, minority identification was nonsignificant, f(3, 99) = 2.59, p = .057. univariate anovas detected a significant main effect of cross-cultural experience on makss knowledge, f(1, 101) = 4.00, p = .048, and on skills, f(1, 102) = 9.66, p = .002, but not on awareness, f(1, 101) = 0.00, p = .986. no interaction effects were identified, f(3, 99) = 1.26, p = .291. discussion it was hypothesized that satisfaction with cultural training, cross-cultural experience, and being a cultural minority would be associated with mcc. however, only cross-cultural experience had a significant effect on multicultural knowledge and skills, which is consistent with previous findings by sehgal et al. (2011). in addition, in the exploratory studies from hansen et al. (2006) and allison et al. (1994), psychologists reported that cross-cultural experiences were most valuable in their cultural competency development. study 1 confirms these findings using a standardised measure of cultural competency. the results highlight the importance of personal experiences with diversity for cultural competency. the present findings are consistent with allport’s (1954) influential contact hypothesis as well as more recent literature (e.g., binder et al., 2009; hewstone & swart, 2011; lemmer & wagner, 2015; pettigrew & tropp, 2008), which affirms that inter-group contact reduces prejudice between majority and minority group members. a recently conducted meta-analysis of 515 studies demonstrated that inter-group cultural contact decreases prejudice through enhanced knowledge, reduced anxiety about inter-group contact, and increased empathy (pettigrew & tropp, 2008). these reported pathways from inter-group contact to reduced prejudice are at close parity with sue et al.’s (1982) concepts of multicultural knowledge and skills. mcc research reported enhanced cultural knowledge (sammons & speight, 2008), increased cultural empathy (burkard & knox, 2004; chao et al., 2011), and decreased racial prejudice (castillo et al., 2007; chao et al., 2011) as pathways to cultural competency. in other words, the present findings are which is consistent with literature on intergroup contact and point out to the importance of cross-cultural contact for cultural competency development. in contrast to previous findings (d’andrea et al., 1991; tummala-narra et al., 2012), study 1 suggests that cultural competency is not dependent on the way students, academics and alumni perceive their graduate education. this inconsistency with previous findings may be related to the type of cultural training received. d’andrea et al. (1991) only detected an effect on cultural competency for tailored multicultural training in graduate programs. such tailored training was absent in the universities participating in study 1, possibly explaining the inconsistent result. in addition, tummala-narra et al.’s (2012) survey assessed the effects of multicultural training undertaken after formal education. as psychologists participate in specific multicultural workshops that suit their needs as professionals, it is likely that such tailored training had a more profound effect on cultural competency than standardised cultural training provided to students in postgraduate programs. consequently, the potential benefits of tailoring cultural training to students’ or professionals’ specific cultural competency needs could be explored in future research. finally, study 1 shows that cultural minority and cultural majority individuals are equally culturally competent. this result is inconsistent with american research, which reported higher self-reported cultural competency among students of colour (pope-davis et al., 1995). pope-davis et al. (1995) considered heightened cultural competency of minority students a result of their “different experiences” (p. 327). however, while the united geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 95 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ states and the netherlands both have a diverse population consisting of a ‘white’ majority with various minority groups, it cannot necessarily be assumed that american and dutch cultural minority individuals have similar experiences. this was reflected in the survey responses in study 1, which revealed that 41% of participants disagreed with the statement that “minority experiences in the netherlands are similar to experiences of minorities in neighboring countries.” thus, it is important to gain insight into the actual experiences of clinical psychology training and practice in the netherlands. study 2 was designed to address this. study 2: interviews on multicultural practice method participants fourteen people were interviewed, including 5 students (age: m = 26.4, age range: 25 – 34 years), 5 academics (age m = 50, age range: 31 – 66 years, one academic did not report age), and 4 alumni of a clinical psychology program (age: m = 45, age range: 27 – 58 years). eight participants were affiliated with university a, six with university b. eight participants identified as autochtoon (cultural majority) dutch, a further three as a cultural minority, and another three as a foreigner. further demographic information was collected but not reported in order to maintain confidentiality. procedure after institutional ethics clearing, students and academics of clinical psychology in two universities were invited to participate via the online survey of study 1 (n = 13), and through snowball sampling (n = 1). all semistructured interviews were conducted face-to-face at the participants’ universities or workplaces, or in public places nominated by the participant. all interviews were conducted in english by the same experienced interviewer for an average duration of 30 minutes (range: 20 – 45 min). interviews were audio-taped and were transcribed verbatim with nvivo software. participants were invited to check the transcripts for accuracy and sufficient de-identification; five participants provided feedback, including correction of minor grammatical errors and additional information related to the interview. an interview outline of open-ended questions was designed to invite participants to describe and reflect upon their experiences of studying (e.g. “how much consideration for cultural competency is included in the program?”), teaching (e.g. “how do you prepare students for culturally competent practice?”), or practicing clinical psychology (e.g. “can you tell me about a multicultural clinical practice situation you encountered?”). the outline was piloted with one clinical psychologist not otherwise involved in the study, and minor modifications were made. the outline was used in a flexible manner and interviewees were explicitly invited to introduce topics or ideas related to the research topic. data analysis qualitative analysis used an interpretative phenomenological analysis framework to gain insights into the lived experiences of events from the perspective of the participant (larkin, watts, & clifton, 2006; smith, flowers, & larkin, 2009). this approach allowed for discovery of new themes and constructs based on actual experiences, as opposed to the confirmatory approach used in study 1. to ensure validity and transparency of the analysis, one analysis was audited by a participant and a second by another researcher. while a lack of clear criteria for cultural competency in the netherlands 96 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ipa should be acknowledged, both auditors considered the researcher’s analysis highly plausible and sufficiently similar to their own interpretations of the transcripts, so it was decided that no further auditing was required. after data familiarization, descriptive, linguistic and conceptual comments on the transcripts were noted. based on these comments, themes were constructed that focused on the participant’s experiences. for each of the 14 transcripts, these themes were clustered based on similarity in meaning, with each group representing a superordinate theme. to form homogenous samples for ipa, student, academic and alumni interviews were then analysed in three separate groups. group analyses focused on identifying patterns and constructing master themes that summarised the experiences of each group (students, academics, alumni). however, as demonstrated in table 4, the themes showed considerable overlap between the groups. therefore, superordinate themes were renamed for consistency between the groups and collated into shared master themes. superordinate themes were included in master themes if they were present in at least half of the interviews in student, academic, or alumni interviews (smith et al., 2009). table 4 distribution of master and superordinate themes per participant group theme students academics alumni s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 ac1 ac2 ac3 ac4 ac5 al1 al2 al3 al4 limitations of clinical psychology a. western bias x x x x x x x x x x b. rigidness of science x x x x x x x x x c. limits of training x x x x x x x x x x x x x x strategies for culturally competent practice a. cross-cultural communication x x x x x x x x x x x b. professional relationship x x x x c. person-centred practice x x x x x x x x teaching and learning cultural competency a. cross-cultural experience x x x x x x x x x x x x x b. clinical psychology curricula x x x x x x x x x c. life experience x x x x x x x x x x x results the master themes cover student, academic and alumni experiences of the limitations of clinical psychology, strategies for culturally competent practice, and strategies for teaching and learning cultural competency. the themes are discussed below for students, academics, and alumni together. participant quotes are de-identified and italicized, and brackets are used to identify material that was omitted, added, or changed in the participant’s quotes for clarification and confidentiality. limitations of clinical psychology all participants experienced limitations of clinical psychology in cross-cultural application, including a ‘western’ bias, rigidness of psychological science, and limits to training. geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 97 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ western bias — students and alumni experienced clinical psychology as culturally biased: “the main root of psychology is western-orientated.” in their view, some of the western ‘roots’ of psychology were american behaviourism, cartesian mind-body dualism, and psychoanalysis, provocatively summarized as the knowledge of “old white men with beards.” these western origins have resulted in models and practices that are tailored toward working with clients who are highly educated, and who value individualism, atheism, and “rationalism”. frequently stated examples of experiences of these values are the aim of self-actualisation and the practice of discussing and analysing emotions in therapy. according to participants, culturally competent practitioners are aware of these biases. rigidness of science — academics and alumni experienced psychological science as insufficiently flexible for application in cross-cultural application. psychological science, influenced by biomedicine, is analytical rather than holistic. consequently, the resulting psychological knowledge and models neglect cultural and personal variation and are therefore not always useful to inform clinical practice: “if you truly treat patients, broad numbers and studies mean nothing. they are just a framework for you to treat the individual. the big groups […] tell you nothing about the individual.” identifying as scientist-practitioners, academics and alumni felt that in order to use different, more culturally appropriate approaches in training or practice “you need a theoretical and research-driven framework. and i am not aware of any such things.” participants experienced a shortage of research into cultural issues, causing a lack of knowledge and evidence-based practices to aid cultural competency. consequently, according to academics and alumni, an important cultural competency was the ability to apply generic, scientific knowledge while paying attention to client-specific circumstances. limits to training — a third and final factor limiting clinical psychology’s cross-cultural application was clinical psychology’s organisation into training programs. all participants experienced clinical psychology master’s degrees to be insufficient preparation for culturally competent practice. alumni recalled the difficulty of starting to practice cross-culturally: “i felt like i was walking on eggs because my whole training and outlook didn't match the outlook or the way these [culturally different] people were oriented towards their worlds.” in addition, participants expressed concern about how culturally unaware psychology master’s graduates are: i'm very heavily trained in one view, and while i believe it is a good view, i am not naive enough to believe it's the only view. […] but i fear… i don't think most psychologists fully realise it. and i don't blame them, because how can they? they've never been taught... academics acknowledged the need to pay more attention to cultural competency in master’s programs but felt that their hands were tied: “i think there isn’t really room for much anymore additions in the master because it’s only one year.” consequently, cultural training was not a structural part of the curriculum, and some academics expressed concern about their ability to meet the needs of the culturally diverse client and student populations: “i hope that there is intermingling between the international students and the dutch students. and i hope that that way students can [at least] learn something about cultural differences.” the structure of clinical psychology training thus limits cultural competency development. strategies for culturally competent practice participants identified three strategies for culturally competent practice: cross-cultural communication, building a good professional relationship, and person-centred practice. all three competencies are generally applicable. cultural competency in the netherlands 98 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cross-cultural communication — the ability to effectively communicate cross-culturally was identified by students, academics and alumni as an important cultural competency for practice and training. communication strategies were generally among the first cultural competencies participants introduced into the interviews, for example: i slowed my speech tempo in order to ensure that we were really understanding each other. […] and if a person has a certain non-verbal way of expression i enquire about what that means and try to elicit their stories as to what is going on. less taking for granted that you really understand each other without saying, as you might do with someone from your own culture. related cross-cultural communication competencies included recognising and adjusting to different communication styles and norms, identifying and alleviating communication and expression difficulties, effectively communicating verbally and non-verbally, and ensuring mutual understanding. professional relationship — in addition to cross-cultural communication, alumni identified the ability to establish a professional cross-cultural relationship as an important cultural competency. in cross-cultural practice, alumni reported to “take things more slowly and take more time to establish a personal relationship and building trust.” in order to build trust and set up the professional relationship carefully, alumni reported to openly display empathy and care for their clients, and to take more time to get to know one another. the professional relationship was a key strategy in cross-cultural practice: “i have to make sure that my client is really motivated and really wants and believes in me. i adapt a bit to their culture and so they'll think: oh yes, this one will support me.” person-centred practice — a third and final cultural competency, identified by academics and alumni, was person-centred practice. a generic therapeutic skill, person-centred practice involves trying to understand each client’s cultural and social circumstances as well as expressions of individuality and adjust the therapeutic approach to each unique individual. the identification of person-centred practice as a competency for multicultural practice de-emphasises culture and values the individual client: there is always this thing: do you really need to have cultural information or do you always need to adapt to your patients? and that is very fundamental question. […] i think the most important thing is to be able to sit next to your patient. to understand how they see things, how they experience it. strategies for cultural competency development all participants identified the need for cultural competency. three important experiences for developing cultural competency were revealed: cross-cultural social relations, clinical psychology curricula, and generic life experiences. social relations — students, academics and alumni considered their cross-cultural social relations as essential in their cultural competency development. every participant recalled experiences of cross-cultural intimate relationships or friendships, or cross-cultural interactions with colleagues, clients, or neighbours, or strangers, or a combination of these experiences. these have been key in participants’ cultural self-reflection, insights into other cultures, and generic feeling of cross-cultural competency. relatedly, some cultural minority participants felt that they had an advantage over cultural majority psychologists through increased understanding of cultural differences. this highlights the value of cross-cultural experiential activities for cultural geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 99 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competency: “if you experience for yourself that your basic assumptions are not the assumptions, then that experience may be worth it.” clinical psychology curricula — participants expressed the need for more cultural training opportunities. students and alumni opined that cultural training should be part of standardised clinical psychology curricula, to create a baseline exposure to cultural issues. establishing a baseline is especially pertinent as, despite diversification, most clinical psychology students, academics, and practitioners are still “white” and belong to the cultural majority group in the netherlands. they may be rarely exposed to cultural issues and unaware of the importance of culture: “what i see is the problem with my fellow students, because they didn’t really know how important [the cultural] background is for the client.” formal cultural training could thus raise cultural awareness, and also increase cultural knowledge. students and alumni experienced positive effects of having background cultural knowledge on their clients: “you have to know about their culture and religion in order for you to understand what their [mental illness] means to them and how it… how it expresses itself.” consequently, the integration of cultural issues into master’s programs could aid culturally competent practice through enhancing cultural awareness and knowledge. life experience — finally, students, academics, and alumni felt that having sufficient life experience is a prerequisite for cultural competency development. this recurrent theme in the interviews can be summarized as follows: “your question was, how do i... how did i learn [cultural competency]? i think it is based on experience…” as ‘experience’, some participants recalled their many years of clinical practice, others emphasised the importance of working in different environments, while others recalled their experiences of travelling or living abroad, or even life events such as marriage and having children. these experiences all signal that emotional maturity could be a precondition for cultural competency development. this implies that it may be difficult to ‘teach’ cultural competency to young, inexperienced students, which was reflected in interviews with academics: “well some of these students, they […] come in age twenty-one... live with their parents… and may not be ready yet.” discussion study 2 was designed to explore how students, academics, and alumni of clinical psychology experience preparation for culturally competent clinical psychology practice. the results show that despite the efforts to increase diversity in the sector, clinical psychology training and practice still does not cater for cultural diversity in the netherlands. study 2 indicates the ‘western’ cultural bias and ethnocentrism of the models and practices as one reason. in addition, as reported previously (e.g., henrich, heine, & norenzayan, 2010), psychological science continues to neglect diversity, leaving scientist-practitioners empty-handed with no information to guide their cultural training and practice. meanwhile, training and practice has become more regulated and structured. due to interplay of these factors, clinical psychology curricula do not reflect the increasing cultural diversity of the dutch society and are delivering practitioners who feel ill-equipped for multicultural practice. the need for cultural inclusiveness in the dutch mental health care sector has been acknowledged previously (e.g., bekker & van mens-verhulst, 2008; knipscheer et al., 2011; van dijk, 2008), and in study 2 it was expressed by participants who completed their training two decades ago, as well as by current students, suggesting that updates in curricula are past due. cultural competency in the netherlands 100 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the reported strategies for multicultural practice indicate to possible directions for cultural competency training. the most pertinent cultural competency identified in study 2 was the ability to effectively communicate crossculturally. this contributes to the growing recognition of the role of communication in cross-cultural relations in the netherlands (e.g., schinkel, schouten, & van weert, 2010; shadid, 2007; shadid & van koningsveld, 1999; universiteit utrecht, 2016). research has demonstrated that communication patterns differ when dutch medical doctors interact with cultural minority or majority patients. communication with cultural minorities was characterised by less empathy and involvement, and more emphasis on the patients’ symptoms (meeuwesen, harmsen, bernsen, & bruijnzeels, 2006). in clinical psychology practice, such patterns may interfere with forming a therapeutic alliance. thus, intercultural communication training may benefit cross-cultural practice. indeed, health care practitioners who were competent cross-cultural communicators expressed more empathy (gibson & zhong, 2005), were more culturally sensitive, and felt more culturally competent (ulrey & amason, 2001). thus, the potential benefits of training clinical psychologists in cross-cultural communication merit further research enquiry. the generic applicability of the cultural competencies identified in study 2 suggests that a model for cultural competency may help guide training efforts. the competencies reported in study 2 are not specific to cultural groups, which is important for preventing cultural stereotyping (epner & baile, 2012; kleinman & benson, 2006), and may assist multicultural practice through adaptations tailored to each individual client. similarly, the competencies of multicultural awareness, knowledge and skills, described in sue et al.’s (1982) mcc, are generally applicable across cultural groups. in study 2, sue et al.’s (1982) multicultural awareness and knowledge were reflected in the theme clinical psychology curricula. in addition, cross-cultural communication is one aspect of sue et al.’s (1982) multicultural skills. however, the competency of building an effective crosscultural professional relationship, also identified in study 2, is not reflected in sue et al.’s (1982) mcc. this competency resembles multicultural counselling relationship, described by sodowsky et al. (1994) as openness and warmth expressed toward culturally different clients. more research is required to assess which standardised model for cultural competency is most suitable, or, perhaps, if a new model of cultural competency should be developed for to guide cultural competency training in the netherlands. study 2 suggests that culturally competent practitioners are generally therapeutically competent, are emotionally mature due to myriad professional and life experiences, and are familiar with diversity. the importance of personal familiarity with diversity for cultural competency development is consistent with study 1 and existing literature (e.g., allport, 1954; binder et al., 2009; hewstone & swart, 2011; lemmer & wagner, 2015; pettigrew & tropp, 2008). cross-cultural contact may enhance cultural awareness and knowledge, and foster a sense of cultural competency. however, the need to integrate cultural components in master’s curricula, pointed out by students and alumni, suggests that commencing clinical psychologists may need more preparation for cultural competency. these practitioners miss the professional experience, and often also the life experience needed to feel culturally competent, as they are generally younger (study 1). this suggests that, apart from integrating cultural training into clinical psychology curricula, it may be beneficial to encourage crosscultural social encounters between cultural majority and minority students in the classroom, or to facilitate study abroad programs to increase students’ experiences with diversity. all interview participants were familiar with cultural issues in clinical psychology. this suggests the possibility of self-selection bias: those with strongest opinions may be more likely to volunteer to be interviewed. thus, the findings may not be fully representative of the population of clinical psychology students, academics and alumni geerlings, thompson, kraaij, & keijsers 101 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the netherlands. consequently, the importance of culture in clinical psychology training and practice may be overestimated. more research is needed to assess the validity of the present findings in other universities and regions of the netherlands. conclusion this is, to our knowledge, the first mixed-methods study of culturally competent clinical psychology practice in the netherlands using the theory of mcc. study 1 and 2 demonstrate the importance of experiences with diversity for cultural competency, as well life experience and cultural training. while the standardised model of mcc may be partly applicable, more research is needed to determine which model for cultural competency is best suited to guide cultural competency training in the netherlands. the present paper has made suggestions for further research that may assist in this enquiry. such research is timely. the experiences of students, academics and alumni indicate that cultural competency continues to need attention in research and practice, so that psychologists feel confident and well-prepared to cater for the mental health needs in the increasingly diverse society. notes i) as a separate list of clinical psychology alumni was unavailable for one university, so all alumni were emailed an invitation to participate. the email specified that the survey was targeted at clinical psychology alumni only, and a question to check whether the participant was indeed a clinical psychology alumnus was added. the survey automatically ended when participants identified as alumni from other programs. funding this research was financially supported by vsb fonds, fundatie van de vrijvrouwe van renswoude te ‘s gravenhage and vreedefonds. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments our sincere thanks to all participants who shared their experiences and dedicated their time, all university faculty who facilitated this research, and to associate professor anita lundberg, dr nenna ndukwe, dr joanna barlas, and dr jane tuomola for their contributions. references allison, k. w., crawford, i., echemendia, r., lavome, r., & knepp, d. 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(2007). multicultural counseling competencies research: a 20-year content analysis. journal of counseling psychology, 54(4), 351-361. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.54.4.351 about the authors lennie geerlings is a phd candidate at the institute of cultural anthropology and development sociology at leiden university and at kitlv/royal netherlands institute of southeast asian and caribbean studies. she is interested in the social effects of globalisation of knowledge and movements of people. this paper presents some of the findings from her mphil research project at james cook university. claire thompson is a research fellow evaluating community based psychology programs in melbourne, australia. she is also adjunct professor of clinical psychology and teaches and researches topics in ageing and mental health of older adults, trauma recovery for young children, and cultural aspects of clinical psychology training programs. vivian kraaij is associate professor in psychology at the department of clinical psychology at leiden university, the netherlands. her work at the university consists of a combination of research, development of evidence-based psychological interventions, course development, teaching (at the bachelor, master and post master level), and management tasks. ger keijsers is a big-registered clinical psychologist and expert in outpatient psychological treatments. he is chairing master and post-master training programs of psychologists in the field of mental health care. as a researcher, he is interested in psychotherapeutic change processes, either implicit change processes (trainings), motivational processes, or arriving at new personal meanings. thus far he has conducted studies on: treatment motivation and therapeutic alliance, prediction and measurement of treatment outcome, treatment of anxiety disorders, burnout, tics, embitterment, pathological hair pulling and pathological skin picking. cultural competency in the netherlands 106 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 88–106 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1461 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://www.uu.nl/masters/interculturele-communicatie http://tma.socsci.uva.nl/20_2/vandijk.pdf http://www.vluchtelingenwerk.nl/sites/public/vluchtelingenwerk/cijfers/vluchtelingen%20in%20getallen%202015%20definitiefst%20oo%2002092015.pdf http://www.vluchtelingenwerk.nl/sites/public/vluchtelingenwerk/cijfers/vluchtelingen%20in%20getallen%202015%20definitiefst%20oo%2002092015.pdf http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.54.4.351 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ cultural competency in the netherlands (introduction) study 1: survey on multicultural counselling competency method results discussion study 2: interviews on multicultural practice method results discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors meaning-making process related to temporality during breast cancer traumatic experience: the clinical use of narrative to promote a new continuity of life research reports meaning-making process related to temporality during breast cancer traumatic experience: the clinical use of narrative to promote a new continuity of life maria luisa martino*ab, maria francesca fredab [a] sinapsi centre, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] department of humanistic studies, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. abstract previous research has agreed that meaning-making is a key element in the promotion of patients’ well-being during and after a traumatic event such as cancer. in this paper, we focus on an underestimated key element related to the crisis/rupture of this meaning-making process with respect to the time perspective.we consider 40 narratives of breast cancer patients at different times of treatment, undergoing chemotherapy and biological therapy. we collected data through writing technique. we performed an interpretative thematic analysis of the data and highlighted specific ways to signify time during the different treatment phases. our central aspect “the time of illness, the illness of time” demonstrates that the time consumed by illness has the risk of becoming an illness of time, which transcends the end of the illness and absorbs a patient’s past, present, and future, thus saturating all space for thought and meaning. the study suggests that narrative can become a therapeutic and preventive tool for women with breast cancer in a crisis of temporality, and enable the promotion of new semiotic connections and a specific functional resynchronization with the continuity/discontinuity of life. this is useful during the illness and medical treatment and also after the treatment. keywords: breast cancer, meaning-making, health, trauma, temporality, narrative europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 received: 2016-03-12. accepted: 2016-07-18. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: ateka contractor, va boston healthcare system (massachusetts veterans epidemiology research and information center) boston, ma, usa *corresponding author at: department of humanistic studies, university of naples federico ii, via porta di massa, 1, 80100 naples, italy. e-mail: marialuisa.martino@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. researchers have generally found that breast cancer is a traumatic experience that disrupts women’s lives, particularly with regard to sense of being female, body, fertility, and motherhood (cordova et al., 2007; kirkman et al., 2014; koutrouli, anagnostopoulos, & potamianos, 2012; liamputtong & suwankhong, 2015; mehnert & koch, 2007). most studies have evaluated the negative outcomes of trauma or the effect of returning to normal life and work after a traumatic experience (calhoun & tedeschi, 2014; gotay, 2010; johnsson, fornander, rutqvist, & olsson, 2010; lindstrom & triplett, 2010). however, qualitative research on the meaning-making of the traumatic experience, especially focusing on subjective temporality during the different breast cancer treatment phases, is limited. researchers have been interested in the concept of time perspective since 1930, and different theoretical perspectives regarding the perspective have evolved (bakhtin, 2002; boniwell & zimbardo, 2003; brockmeier, 2000; frank, 1998; hoornaert, 1973; minkowski, 1933; ricoeur, 1980). life-threatening illnesses enforce a quest europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ for meaning, which must be addressed (horowitz, 1986; janoff-bulman, 1992; neimeyer, 2006). it represents a temporal framework crisis that becomes an important activator in the construction and transformation of meaning (del vecchio good, munakata, kobayashi, mattingly, & good, 1994; gillies & neimeyer, 2006; hall, 2011; martino, onorato, & freda, 2015; pals & mcadams, 2004; waters, shallcross, & fivush, 2013). women with breast cancer experience changes in their body image, the sense of being female, and sexuality, and the trauma interrupts their meaning-making processes, thus building the organization of the time perspective and subjective experiences (martino, onorato, d’oriano, & freda, 2013). furthermore, it leads to changes in their representation of the past and plans for the future (fobair et al., 2006; koopman, hermanson, diamond, angell, & spiegel, 1998; lundnielsen, müller, & adamsen, 2005; pelusi, 2006; sadler-gerhardt, reynolds, britton, & kruse, 2010). from a clinical perspective, supporting the meaning-making process with respect to a traumatic experience is an essential foundation for adapting, integrating trauma, and developing patient’s well-being (davis, wortman, lehman, & silver, 2000). it is crucial because it appears to be linked to health outcomes and reduction of symptoms (bower, kemeny, taylor, & fahey, 2003; park, edmondson, fenster, & blank, 2008; tolstikova, fleming, & chartier, 2005). this promotes cognitive and emotional processing, thus integrating the event into the patient’s personal life story (horowitz, 1986; janoff-bulman, 1992). meaning-making has positive effects, including protection against anxiety and reduced anxiety (davis et al., 2000). life with little or no meaning causes existential distress, and recent research has demonstrated that meaning-making improves breast cancer patients’ self-esteem, optimism, and self-efficacy (freda et al., 2016; lee, cohen, edgar, laizner, & gagnon, 2006). individuals who successfully complete the process of searching for meaning often emerge with a sense of renewal, greater self-awareness, and personal growth, as well as a greater appreciation for life, nature, and compassion for others (lee, 2008). breast cancer, narrative, and temporality studies focused on the illness narratives of women with breast cancer highlighted how the onset of cancer is narrated as a biographical disruption, temporal fracture, and discontinuity affecting temporal frameworks (bülow & hydén, 2003; freda, dicé, auricchio, salerno, & valerio, 2015; hillmann, 1984; kleinman, 1988). temporality is a basic and constituent dimension of human existence; everything is developed and signified in a time frame (barak & leichtentritt, 2014; brockmeier, 2000; broom & tovey, 2008; carr, teucher, & casson, 2014). a complex interplay of dynamic processes with multilayered meanings (biological, psychological, subjective, cultural, and social) guides an individual’s perceptual-cognitive phenomena, actions, social relationships, and life choices (sato & valsiner, 2010; tronick, 2009). generally, narratives of breast cancer generate a meaning fracture in patients, implying a representation of time that is characterized by a sense of uncertainty about the future, avoidance, and a sense of interruption of one’s lifetime that is strong enough to continue over the years (arena et al., 2007; de luca picione, dicè, & freda, 2015; farley, minkoff, & barkan, 2001; hjelmblink & holmström, 2006; martino & freda, 2016; rasmussen & elverdam, 2007). disrupted time organization caused by the traumatic experience immobilizes the mind in an infinite present, sometimes characterized by an obsession with the nostalgic past and sometimes with the future (bonomi, 2003). the dramatic discontinuity, a result of the quality of the event, opens a dichotomous view of life; staying alive in a past full of expectations and projects or staying rooted in the certainty of a future in which anything is possible. the crisis of temporality can lead to a block in the present, with no scope for progress (foa, 1997; minkowski, 1933). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 martino & freda 623 http://www.psychopen.eu/ within a constructivist and semiotic perspective (efran, mcnamee, warren, & raskin, 2014; valsiner, 2014), the narration of illness promotes the possibility of recounting past events and emotions through memory. narration calls to mind events, in the hic et nunc, supporting a meaning-making process and semiotic transformation of the experience. the narration, in its different devices (e.g., esposito, freda, & bosco, 2015; margherita, gargiulo, & martino, 2015), allows access to past events through memory and brings them to the present. the individual can comprehend these events, reconstruct the meaning of his/her own life story, and gradually construct him/herself within a specific cultural and temporal perspective (angus & mcleod, 2004; bruner, 1992; frank, 1998; hermans, 2003; neimeyer, 2002, 2004, 2006; pals & mcadams, 2004; thomas-maclean, 2004). temporality refers to the way a semiotic net is constructed. therefore, a narrative told in the present is a semiotic construction and reconstruction of past experiences and the context in which it is narrated (brockmeier, 2000). the narrative expresses everything about temporality; it is seen as a model of time and a linguistic and psychological framework that arranges the diachronic dimension of our activities. it becomes the most suitable form for constructing and reconstructing time, and it expresses an oscillation between the past and present while also sometimes referring to the future (brockmeier, 2000). narrative and temporality are strongly correlated. time becomes important for organizing the narrative experience. therefore, the narrative of traumatic experiences assumes the function of reconstructing the story of the continuity of life, including the personal story context, consolidating the interruption of time and creating a new connection between the continuity and discontinuity of the experience. this constructs a meaning that bridges the past, present, and future (freitag, grimm, & schmidt, 2011; hydén, 1997; murray, 2007). to increase awareness of the meaning-making of temporality during breast cancer, we explored the themes according to which women organize the meanings of their written narratives about being illness time. in particular, we extensively studied the relationship between the different phases of chemotherapy and biological therapy phases (martino, onorato, d’oriano, & freda, 2013) and potential different ways to signify the time of illness. this highlighted the clinical role and function of the narrative in a crisis of temporality. when discussing the two phases of the illness, we refer to not only the two different aspects of treatment but also the two different moments of the traumatic experience, that is, the phase of chemotherapy, which is closest to the traumatic experience of being diagnosed with the disease and its subsequent uncertainty, and the phase of biological therapy, which is closer to the phase of life in which reconstruction begins and patients begin to return to everyday life experiences. methods participants and tools participants included patients at two hospitals for the care and assistance of oncological illness in southern italy during 2014. the research was approved by the ethical committees of the participating hospitals. we considered 45 women with non-metastatic breast cancer undergoing drug treatment after surgery. participants’ cancer stage, phase of treatment, and year of diagnosis were determined with help from medical records and medical staff. participation in the research intervention was voluntary, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. we invited patients to participate in the study by asking them to come for a vis-a-vis appointment. five women declined because of lack of interest or time. thus, the final study group comprised women with non metastatic europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 meaning-making process during breast cancer traumatic experience 624 http://www.psychopen.eu/ breast cancer: 20 women in the first cycle of chemotherapy diagnosed for 6 months (mage = 45.3, sd = 10.6) and 20 women in biological therapy diagnosed for 12 months (mage = 49.1, sd = 8.78). within the paradigm of expressive writing technique (pennebaker, 2002), we constructed three different writing tasks according to the framework of the guided written disclosure protocol (duncan et al., 2007; gidron et al., 2002). in every meeting, the participants dealt with a different traumatic aspect of breast cancer: factual aspects, thoughts and feelings, change, and future perspective. this guided the participant to a narrative reconstruction of their traumatic experience. in the first session, the participants were asked to write events as they occurred and evolved eventually, in chronological order. in the second session, they were invited to write about their emotions at these times. in the last session, they were asked to think about their future, projects for the future, the effects that the disease had on them, and how they would deal with such difficult experiences in the future. the writing sessions were conducted approximately every 10–15 days to promote a transformation process with respect to their experiences between meetings. every meeting lasted 30–40 min. data analysis within a socio-constructivist and semiotic framework (efran, mcnamee, warren, & raskin, 2014; valsiner, 2014), we analyzed the collected narratives using interpretative thematic analysis of the written text according to the constructivist grounded theory approach (charmaz, 2003, 2006). contrary to the classic grounded theory approach (glaser & strauss, 1967), this analysis is suitable for highlighting the constructivist focus on the interpreted understandings of the participants’ meaning. the atlas.ti.7. software, computer assisted qualitative data analysis software, and a qualitative data analysis program were used to explore, interconnect, and analyze all data sources in depth. the analysis enabled the creation of thematic categories, which explain the interpretation of the meaning of these categories. using progressive abstraction, the categories were homogenized to reduce redundancies and subsequently aggregated within four families connected by a core category as per an interpretation criterion. results our findings are summarized in figure 1, which indicates the results from the core category and the four families that emerged from the analysis. figure 1. the time of illness, the illness of time. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 martino & freda 625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ our findings were organized into four categories that combine the narratives of women in the chemotherapy and biological therapy phases within different classes. in the upper left quadrant is the “the illness that breaks sense, body, and time” category; in the lower left quadrant is the “the trauma of diagnosis: the homogenization of time” category; in the upper right quadrant is the “back to life: the space to resignify the experience” category; and in the lower right quadrant is the “the memory of the illness: between time and space” category. the core category, “the time of illness, the illness of time” is a semiotic connector of the different worlds and ways of living through the time of illness. the narratives were collected into italian language and the authors translated the narrative extracts from italian into english language. the illness that breaks sense, body, and time and the trauma of diagnosis this category comprises themes regarding the “time/not time” of diagnosis. uncertainty and the precariousness of meaning-making were predominant in the narratives of women undergoing chemotherapy (hjelmblink & holmström, 2006; rasmussen & elverdam, 2007). the uncertainty and precariousness caused by the diagnosis are revoked in the narration’s hic et nunc, that is, the difficulty of constructing a meaning regarding what has happened and what will happen: “it was as if my head was elsewhere, as if i were muffled; the brain sensed what was happening but at the same time, i wondered if it was possible.” the narrative expressed and signified the experience of diagnosis as an internal watershed time that splits the emotion and thought regarding the traumatic communication of diagnosis like a liminality time (blows, bird, seymour, & cox, 2012; gargiulo et al., 2014). thinking lead to acting following routine care, clinical examinations, and searching for a solution. however, following the diagnosis, the patients began to seek an explanation for what had happened: “these feelings and confusion, like a vortex, lasted about a week; then suddenly there was a bright light, the doors were opened, and thoughts were changing because events were changing.” the diagnosis is immersed in a time full of other catastrophic events, often similar in nature. in the narrative space, the breast cancer diagnosis becomes negative and has a salient effect on everything: “earlier, almost a sign of fate, my father had died of cancer; i looked at myself in the mirror. i see the same face that my father had before he died.” the diagnosis breaks all of life’s certainties and leads to the unknown: “as soon as they gave me the diagnosis, i fell upon the world; i thought it was not real. my head was bursting with thoughts, and i thought about what would happen … without results.” time appears to be blocked in that particular instant, which consumes the construction of meaning. for women undergoing biological therapy, we found a different and specific narrative of the onset of breast cancer. these women described a lack of meaning caused on hearing the diagnosis. however, these women could reevaluate the time of diagnosis and interpret it in the hic et nunc as eliminating uncertainty; thus, they pointed the way forward: “fortunately, the diagnosis arrived; it arrived on time. i called my husband, and i communicated to him that the next day i would have to undergo the surgical operation. i was speechless.” women in the biological therapy phase describe that the communication of diagnosis produces a process of meaning-making where anger relents to the resumption of life and opens a space for reflection. thus, the diagnosis can be seen as a “salvation” that enables the dissolution of doubts and uncertainties, indicating a future direction. in these narratives, the women describe their experiences of condensation as a defense against the feeling of time slipping away. in the traumatic moment of the diagnosis, time appears to be too short and too close to the end: “it was thursday, thursday afternoon. i was asked to undergo the surgical operation immediately. now, not next friday? no, too late, better the next day.” the illness is not a chaotic category and is inscribed into her pereurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 meaning-making process during breast cancer traumatic experience 626 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sonal story. in some cases, it was seen as being inevitable, a part of life: “a kind of time bomb, which inevitably would break out sooner or later … maybe it had to happen.” the concrete memory of the onset of the illness is formed differently in the two groups of women. for women in the chemotherapy phase, the time of the communication of the diagnosis is when time stopped and this remains a concrete and indelible space in their memory. for women in the biological therapy phase, the memory of the onset of the illness leads to a future-oriented temporality. the space to resignify the experience and the memory of the illness this category condensed the question of space and future projects. the future, an undefinable time because it is unknown, is of particular significance in the illness narratives. the patients describe the future as flattened in the present, an eternal present. the past is a distant memory and the future is unthinkable. this lack of perspective is particularly evident in the narratives of women undergoing chemotherapy. the future is now and no perspective can go beyond the present, as they wrote: “it is a period of stalemate; i do not make plans because there is a risk that i cannot see them through. i try to live day-by-day; i cannot see anything in front of me, neither positive nor negative.” life appears static in these narratives. life is not seen as a process with its own trajectory and direction toward a definite goal. thus, patients live in a state of paralyzed memory, overwhelmed by an experience that is absorbing all possible developments like a black hole (brockmeier, 2000). it is as if an illness of the body becomes an illness of time; the body is “blocked” after the diagnosis and treatment, therapies and time separate it from its natural flow, and it becomes a passive body, which is resigned to submit to medical treatment; time is left to drain passively, without the patient actually living it. passivity toward the flow of time creates a sense of resignation and a sense of surrendering to fate, as expressed by the patients: “what will be, will be.” therefore, the path of the illness passively alters over time, floating on the flow of events: “i did not have the enthusiasm to do things because everything seemed useless. i went ahead by inertia; i was a passive viewer of my life.” this expresses a lack of the vital force that creates the future. the narratives of women undergoing biological therapy emphasize on the future. the future is not blocked, rather it starts to be symbolized and viewed. biological therapy occurs at a later phase when patients begin to think about short-term projects but are always uncertain about long-term plans: “i look to the future with caution. i try to enjoy the little things. i cannot make long-term plans. my thoughts about the future do not go far.” here, temporality carefully begins to dive back into the stream that had been stolen earlier. meaning can be attributed to the traumatic event, considering the unusual circumstances as reference, and the patient can slowly resume the other trajectories of life, such as family, children, and friends (ashing-giwa, padilla, bohórquez, tejero, & garcia, 2006). the illness becomes a part of the memory; the past and the future exist only in relation to the present. this event could not be born from that past and, therefore, must be seen as something that leads to the future (minkowski, 1933). therefore, during biological therapy, the women signify the chemotherapy period as a parenthesis, a time suspended and removed from the natural flow of time: “i lived the dark period of chemotherapy for more than a month, a month removed from life; you are dead, not alive.” the clear separation between the patient’s life before and after the diagnosis is the most prominent; it represents a suspended period of life in expectation of healing or death. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 martino & freda 627 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the time of illness, the illness of time our core category represents a semiotic connector of the specific and different ways of organizing the narration of breast cancer. when the crisis caused by the illness is not signified, (for example, women undergoing chemotherapy), the temporal perspective cannot be expressed. thus, the patient cannot develop in a manner that enables the implementation of relational systems. the illness acquires the configuration of a real illness of time, represented by the loss of continuity of life before the crisis and the loss of the ability to integrate and connect experiences. when the illness replaces an experience integrated into a broader framework of life, we observe that, in spite of the existence of painful memories and loss, the illness of time starts to become the time of illness, a period of semiotic transition that requires resignifying their lifestyles, reconstructing their the pasts, reconsidering their relationships, and reviewing their futures. the illness does not signify a crystallized meaning of one’s entire life but a process of transformation that offers the opportunity to construct and shape new connections within the trajectories of the continuity and discontinuity of life. therefore, all women configure the illness and its time as an event of discontinuity that undermines the continuity systems and puts a strain on the mediation processes between continuity and discontinuity, thus consuming the construction of meaning. conclusions and clinical implications our study is limited by the small sample size and its qualitative nature. however, our findings showed that time assumes particular meanings during different treatment phases of breast cancer. we also observed efforts to construct mediation processes of the relationship between continuity and discontinuity of life experiences. within a diachronic framework, the narration becomes a therapeutic and preventive device that promotes the integration and synchronization of the traumatic experience in relation to the continuity and discontinuity of social life. narratives are used to objectify and distance oneself from one’s problems to better understand, establish meaning, develop greater self-knowledge, and decrease emotional distress. in this study, we highlighted that the narrative changes over time. it is a synchronic process of experience reorganization and a diachronic process that continuously evolves and is organized in time (de luca picione & freda, 2016). these new semiotic connections do not imply that they are the best in terms of integration; however, the formation of these connections is a resynchronization process with the illness and with the continuity and discontinuity of life where different configurations of time can coexist (barak & leichtentritt, 2014). the narration of trauma associated with breast cancer indicates a temporal perspective crisis and is semiotically significant in the search for connections aimed at constructing a time of illness and reducing the illness of time. toward the end of treatment, we believe that the time of illness is at risk of becoming an illness of time, absorbing the past, present, and future and consuming all thoughts and meaning. we suggest that clinical health psychologists and health operators examine the importance of the personal narratives of women with breast cancer (zannini, cattaneo, jankovic, & masera, 2014). this represents a process of psychosocial recovery of a shared temporality in which the patient may live in her past and future and reconnect with psychosocial actors (family, friends, and children). the narrative device, in its various forms, assumes the therapeutic and preventive function of a semiotic device in relation to continuity and discontinuity of life experiences when seeking a new temporal synchrony based on the importance of meaning-oriented transformation (tang et al., 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 meaning-making process during breast cancer traumatic experience 628 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, we assume that continuing with life is based on the possibility of discussing the relationship between the continuity and discontinuity of patients’ experiences (sato & valsiner, 2010). the different phases of breast cancer treatment have personal meaning, and the narrative enables the communication of this meaning. through narration, we can meet the challenges of life in numerous ways. in conclusion, we suggest that narration promotes a dynamic resynchronization with the illness, creating a dynamic balance (boniwell, osin, linley, & ivanchenko, 2010). this respects the different treatment phases, both at the termination of the illness and when preventing the time of illness from becoming an illness of time from the time of diagnosis to the conclusion of treatment (de feudis, lanciano, & rinaldi, 2015). for future research, we suggest integrating qualitative analysis with external indicators to assess the effects of the meaning-making process on health during the cancer experience. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references angus, l., & mcleod, j. 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(2014). surviving childhood leukemia in a latin culture: an explorative study based on young adults’ written narratives. journal of psychosocial oncology, 32(5), 576-601. doi:10.1080/07347332.2014.936648 about the authors maria luisa martino, (marialuisa.martino@unina.it), phd, at the department of humanistic studies, federico ii university of naples, italy. post doc research, sinapsi centre, federico ii university, naples. her research field is clinical health psychology. she deals with psychological research-intervention in hospital institutions with particular regard to the use and evaluation of different narrative devices as tools to promote wellbeing. adopting quali-quantitative methods, she studies the processing of traumatic experience of illness with particular regard to the construction of meaning-making processes. maria francesca freda, (fmfreda@unina.it), associate professor of clinical psychology in the department of humanistic studies, federico ii university of naples, italy. she works on psychosocial interventions in institutions, with particular attention towards educational and health institutions. many of her studies are on innovative narrative method as a device to promote processing of traumatic experience of illness. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 622–634 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1150 meaning-making process during breast cancer traumatic experience 634 http://dx.doi.org/10.17744%2fmehc.32.3.q14777j84kx3285x http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~satot/tea/time%20in%20life%202010.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1300%2fj077v25n02_05 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0277-9536%2803%2900372-1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f105413730501300402 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f09658211.2012.705300 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f07347332.2014.936648 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en meaning-making process during breast cancer traumatic experience (introduction) breast cancer, narrative, and temporality methods participants and tools data analysis results the illness that breaks sense, body, and time and the trauma of diagnosis the space to resignify the experience and the memory of the illness the time of illness, the illness of time conclusions and clinical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the prospective association between the five factor personality model with health behaviors and health behavior clusters research reports the prospective association between the five factor personality model with health behaviors and health behavior clusters chelsea joyner a, ryan e. rhodes b, paul d. loprinzi* a [a] department of health, exercise science and recreation management, physical activity epidemiology laboratory, exercise psychology laboratory, the university of mississippi, oxford, ms, usa. [b] behavioral medicine laboratory, school of exercise science, physical and health education, the university of victoria, victoria, bc, canada. abstract to examine the prospective association of personality with individual behavior, multibehavior and clustered health behavior profiles. a prospective study design was employed. two hundred young adults provided baseline data and 126 (mean age: 21.6 yrs) provide complete data for a 5-month follow-up assessment (63% response rate). personality and health behaviors (and covariates) were assessed via validated questionnaires. a multibehavior index variable was created ranging from 0-5; two separate health behavior cluster indices were created, including high (4-5 behaviors) vs. low (2 or fewer) behavior adoption and an energy balance cluster (mvpa and diet). when examining mvpa as a continuous variable, the personality trait conscientiousness was prospectively associated with mvpa and a healthy diet. extraversion was prospectively associated with high (vs. low) behavioral clustering (or = 1.18; 95% ci: 1.00-1.40) and conscientiousness was prospectively associated with energy balance clustering (or = 1.09; 95% ci: 1.01-1.17). extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness were associated with select health-related behaviors. further, extraversion and conscientiousness were associated with health behavior clustering. keywords: alcohol, diet, epidemiology, exercise, psychology, sleep, smoking europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 received: 2017-04-29. accepted: 2018-07-13. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: the university of mississippi, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, physical activity epidemiology laboratory, exercise psychology laboratory, 215 turner center, university, ms 38677. phone: 662-915-5561; fax: 662-915-5525. email: pdloprin@olemiss.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. health-enhancing behaviors such as physical activity, smoking avoidance, non-heavy alcohol abuse, healthy eating, and adequate sleep, may help to prevent morbidity and mortality (loprinzi, 2016a; loprinzi, branscum, hanks, & smit, 2016; loprinzi & mahoney, 2014; noble et al., 2016). further, adopting such individual health behaviors may help to delay the onset of disability and attenuate the rate of functional decline (lee et al., 2012). strikingly, our recent work (loprinzi et al., 2016) demonstrates that few (<5%) adults in the united states concurrently adopts these health behaviors. thus, there is an urgent need to promote the concurrent adoption of multiple health-enhancing behaviors, as our recent work also demonstrates that those who adopt more health behaviors tend to have better cardiovascular disease risk profiles (loprinzi et al., 2016) and are at a reduced risk of premature mortality (loprinzi, 2016a). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition to the promotion of concurrent adoption of the above-mentioned health behaviors, our work (loprinzi, 2015a, 2016b) suggests that there may be a differential effect of unique health-behavior clusters on health status. for example, loprinzi (2015a) demonstrated that the adoption of more health behaviors was associated with reduced odds of multimorbidity, whereas the two health behavior clusters associated with multimorbidity were physical activity and sleep as well as physical activity and nonsmoking. the differential clustering effect may also be unique to the health outcome as, recently, loprinzi (2016b) demonstrated that the health behavior clusters of physical activity and nonsmoker as well as diet and sleep were associated with lower levels of systemic inflammation. similarly, other work (alzahrani, watt, sheiham, aresu, & tsakos, 2014; duncan et al., 2014; lee et al., 2012; meader et al., 2016; spengler, mess, mewes, mensink, & woll, 2012), across varying populations and health outcomes, also suggests that, in addition to the importance of concurrent adoption of more health-enhancing behaviors, health behavior clusters may have unique synergistic effects on health. identification of evidence-based approaches to increase the likelihood of concurrent behavioral adoption is of major public health interest. various theoretical models, such as the social cognitive theory, transtheoretical model and theory of triadic influence, provide insight on how to accomplish this (fisher, 2008; lippke, nigg, & maddock, 2012). additionally, and as we have discussed within various behavioral domains, including physical activity (loprinzi & walker, 2016; loprinzi, wolfe, & walker, 2015), diet (joseph, alonso-alonso, bond, pascualleone, & blackburn, 2011; loprinzi, 2015a) and smoking (loprinzi, herod, et al., 2015; loprinzi & walker, 2016; loprinzi, wolfe, et al., 2015), it is plausible that changing one health behavior may help to foster changes in other health behaviors. this may occur through a variety of mechanisms, including, for example, via changes in behavior-induced cognitions (e.g., executive function; loprinzi, 2015b) and psychological-based self-efficacy (loprinzi, wolfe, et al., 2015). in addition to these potential antecedents to multibehavior and behavioral clustering, personality trait characteristics plausibly play an important role in single, multibehavior, and behavioral clustering change. to describe personality, psychologists use a widely examined theory (big five) that suggests there are five broad dimensions of personality. this higher order trait taxonomy characterizes each of the five personalities, including, neuroticism (i.e., feelings of anxiety, anger, guilt, frustration), extraversion (i.e., manifested in outgoing, talkative, energetic), conscientiousness (i.e., vigilant, careful, organized, aim for achievement), openness to experience (i.e., intellectual curiosity, perceptive, creative, reflective), and agreeableness (i.e., kind, cooperative, sympathetic, trustworthy) (rhodes & smith, 2006). previous research suggests that personality is linked with a multitude of health-enhancing (e.g., physical activity, healthy eating, adequate sleep) and health-compromising behaviors (e.g., alcohol abuse, smoking) (magee, heaven, & miller, 2013). in regards to clustering of health behaviors, physical activity, like the other behaviors, is a key health behavior that has the potential to prevent numerous diseases (brugnara et al., 2016; hill, gardiner, cavalheri, jenkins, & healy, 2015). therefore, it serves importance to examine specific personalities that may exhibit lower levels of physical activity. for example, and as we have discussed elsewhere in a systemic review, individuals who express high levels of neuroticism tend to be less physically active than those who express lower levels of neuroticism (rhodes & smith, 2006). a potential explanation for this finding is that individuals with higher levels of neuroticism tend to experience high levels of anxiety and this may pose as a potential barrier to physical activity participation. furthermore, individuals who have higher levels of conscientiousness tend to be more physically active (rhodes & smith, 2006), which may be a result of their increased awareness of the importance of living an active lifestyle. the extant literature suggests there is no present evidence to associate agreeableness with joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 881 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ physical activity (rhodes & smith, 2006). with regard to openness to experience, the majority of research we addressed in our review paper demonstrates a null association with physical activity (rhodes & smith, 2006). personality has also been associated with other health behaviors such as smoking, dietary behavior, alcohol use, and sleep (magee et al., 2013). the personality trait neuroticism has been suggested to have a negative association with these health behaviors (magee et al., 2013). in contrast, conscientiousness has been shown to favorably associate with each of these health behaviors, i.e., positive association with diet and sleep, and inverse association with smoking and alcohol (magee et al., 2013). extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness have inconclusive findings in the literature when examining the relationship to these specific health behaviors (magee et al., 2013). collectively, these findings suggest that those with higher levels of neuroticism are more likely to engage in health compromising behaviors such as smoking, poor diet, not meeting sleep recommendations, and a poor diet. in contrast, individuals with higher levels of conscientiousness may be more likely to engage in health enhancing behaviors such as meeting sleep recommendations, consuming a healthy diet, and participating in regular physical activity. research studies have examined the associations between personality and these individual health behaviors (booth-kewley & vickers, 1994). indeed, we previously demonstrated that the personality trait consciousness was positively associated with physical activity behavior (joyner & loprinzi, 2018). less research has evaluated the association between personality and multibehavior as well as the clustering of health behaviors (raynor & levine, 2009). thus, to extend our previous findings that just looked at a single outcome behavior (joyner & loprinzi, 2018), herein we utilize data from our previous work to explore the effects of personality on multibehaviors and behavioral clustering. evaluating the concurrent adoption of multiple behaviors (multibehavior) and behavioral clustering is important, because as noted above, these behavioral patterns may have a unique influence on health, when compared to single behaviors in isolation. as a result, the purpose of this study was to overcome these gaps in the literature. specifically, the aim of this study was to examine the prospective association of personality with individual, multibehavior and clustering of behavior engagement and behavior change. based on findings in the literature, we hypothesize that the personality trait conscientiousness will be positively associated with health-enhancing behaviors (and clusters) and neuroticism, in particular, will be to be inversely associated with health-compromising behaviors. these findings may help to identify which personality traits may be susceptible to an overall unhealthy profile. methods design and participants the study design was a prospective study. details on the study design can also be found in our previous work (joyner & loprinzi, 2018), which evaluated the association between personality and physical activity and whether executive function moderated this relationship. in the present paper, we extend these previous findings by evaluating a multitude of additional collected variables, including other behaviors (e.g., smoking, diet, sleep, alcohol). this allows for the present paper to specifically evaluate the extent to which personality may be associated with multibehavior and behavioral clustering, which is the unique contribution of the present study. as described elsewhere (joyner & loprinzi, 2018), recruitment of individuals included 200 undergraduate and graduate students from a university in the south of the united states for baseline assessments. participants five factor model and health behavior clusters 882 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were recruited via a convenience-based sampling approach. when participants arrived at the laboratory, they were asked to complete an informed consent document. then, participants completed surveys assessing personality and the health behaviors. all baselines parameters were assessed via paper-and-pencil surveys. baseline assessments occurred between june 2016 and october 2016. after approximately five months from the participant’s baseline visit, all participants were reassessed. to minimize potential common method bias among the evaluated parameters (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003; wingate, sng, & loprinzi, 2018), baseline assessments (with the exception of measured body mass index) occurred in our laboratory via a paper-and-pencil survey, whereas the follow-up participants completed the survey via an on-line portal (qualtrics) that was sent to them via e-mail. among the 200 participants who were recruited, all 200 participants provided complete baseline data on the study variables (no missing values). among these 200 participants, 126 provided complete data for the followup assessment (63% response rate), with these 126 participants constituting our analytic sample. when comparing (baseline estimates) the analyzed sample (n = 126) to the sample lost to follow-up (n = 74), there were no differences in gender (p = .61), age (p = .72), ethnicity (p = .62), education (p = .07), perceived health status (p = .50), neuroticism (p = .64), extraversion (p = .71), openness (p = .95), agreeableness (p = .59), consciousness (p = .75), hours of sleep per night (p = .86), or dietary score (p = .62). however, those lost to follow-up were less likely to smoke at baseline (79.1% vs. 93.6%, p = .002), consumed more alcoholic drinks/month (6.8 vs. 4.1; p = .007) and were less active (287.5 min/week of mvpa vs. 428 min/week of mvpa; p = .003). additionally, a random 10% sample from the baseline 200 participants was asked to complete a one-week testretest reliability measure from baseline. the one-week test retest consisted of completing all of the health behavior and personality assessments for test-retest reliability purposes. the participants randomly selected for the one-week test-retest wore a pedometer for a week in an effort to assess the possible convergent validity of the self-reported physical activity assessment. measurement of personality in order to assess personality, the neuroticism-extraversion-openness five factor inventory (neo-ffi) questionnaire was used. the neo is a five factor inventory scale. the inventory consists of five 12-item scales (60 items total) that measure each domain of five factors (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness). there are 60 statements that describe people in a general way. a sample item from the neo questionnaire that assesses conscientiousness is “i keep my belongings clean and neat;” a sample item assessing extroversion is “i like to have a lot of people around me;” a sample item assessing openness is “i am intrigued by the patterns i find in art and nature;” a sample item assessing neuroticism is “when i’m under a great deal of stress, sometimes i feel like i’m going to pieces;” and lastly, a sample item for agreeableness is “i would rather cooperate with others than compete with them.” response options range from zero to four, with zero being strongly disagree and four being strongly agree. response option two stands for neutral. the neoffi provides a quick, reliable, and accurate measure of the five domains of adult (ages 17 years and older) personality (costa & mccrae, 1992). in our sample, internal consistency, as measured by cronbach’s alpha, was .85 (neuroticism), .75 (extraversion), .75 (openness), .76 (agreeableness), and .84 (conscientiousness). the test-retest reliability (icc) assessment of the 10% random sample was .92 (neuroticism), .95 (extroversion), .93 (openness), .98 (agreeableness), and .96 (conscientiousness). joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 883 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measurement of health behavior physical activity behavior physical activity was assessed using the international physical activity questionnaire (ipaq). the ipaq form asked participants about the time they spend being physically active in the last seven days. for example, a question on the form is “how much time did you usually spend on one of those days doing vigorous physical activities in the garden or yard?” participants can report their answer in hours per day or minutes. previous research shows the ipaq to demonstrate some evidence of being reliable and valid (craig et al., 2003). meeting moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (mvpa) guidelines was defined as at least 150 minutes/week. among the 10% random sample of the present study, the correlation between ipaq-determined mvpa and pedometerdetermined steps was, r = 0.43 (p < .001). the one-week test-retest reliability (for ipaq) of our 10% random sample was, icc = .79. smoking behavior participants were classified as smokers if they self-reported smoking cigarettes every day or some days; otherwise, classified as non-smoker. previous research demonstrates evidence of validity for self-reported smoking assessment (yeager & krosnick, 2010). the one-week test-retest reliability of our 10% random sample was, icc = .91. alcohol consumption behavior participants were asked to complete a survey assessing alcohol consumption. participants were asked whether in the past 12 months they “had at least 12 drinks of any type of alcoholic beverage (drink = a 12 oz beer, a 4 oz glass of wine, or an ounce of liquor)?” those who answered “yes” to this question were further asked, “in the past month, on those days that you drank, on average, how many drinks did you have (responses ranging from “i didn’t drink in the past month” to some numeric response)? this alcohol assessment was adopted from the nhanes alcohol assessment. although recognizing an inverted u-shaped relationship between alcohol behavior and health (smothers & bertolucci, 2001), due to cell size considerations, participants were ultimately scored as a heavy alcohol drinker or not, with heavy alcohol drinking defined as >30 alcoholic drinks/month for women and >60 alcoholic drinks/month for men (arndt, schultz, turvey, & petersen, 2002; shaw, schultz, sperling, & hedden, 2015). the one-week test-retest reliability of our 10% random sample was, icc = .76. sleep behavior based on the format of the pittsburgh sleep quality index questionnaire, sleep duration was assessed by asking the participants their typical nightly sleep duration over the past 30 days. participants were classified as meeting sleep guidelines based on sleeping 7-9 hrs/night (centers for disease control and prevention, 2011). a modest correlation (r = 0.47) has been observed between self-reported sleep duration and objectively-measured sleep duration (lauderdale, knutson, yan, liu, & rathouz, 2008). the one-week test-retest reliability of our 10% random sample was, icc = .62. dietary behavior participants also completed an 8 item starting the conversation (stc) dietary questionnaire, which assesses food patterns (vs. nutrient or fat intake) and has been used as a tailored approach for dietary counseling. an example item is, “in the past week, how many times did you eat fast food meals or snacks?” for each of the 8 items, there are three response options, which varies based on the item. as an example, response options infive factor model and health behavior clusters 884 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cluded “< 1 time, 1-3 times and 4+” for “how many times a week did you eat fast food meals or snacks?” for the item, “how many servings of fruits did you eat each day?” response options included, “5+, 3-4, or 2 or less.” ultimately, the summed dietary score ranged from 8-24, with higher scores reflecting a greater dietary behavior (some items reversed coded to reflect this). given that there is no established cut-point for the stc questionnaire, this variable was dichotomized at the sample median (i.e., 18) to reflect healthier vs. less healthy dietary behavior. the stc has demonstrated evidence of feasibility, validity and sensitivity to change (paxton, strycker, toobert, ammerman, & glasgow, 2011). the one-week test-retest reliability of our 10% random sample was, icc = .61. multibehavior and behavioral clustering a multibehavior index variable was created ranging from 0-5 indicating the number of positive health behaviors they engaged in. for example, those meeting mvpa guidelines (≥ 150 min/week), having a healthy diet (sample median score ≥ 18), meeting sleep guidelines (7-9 hrs/night), not abusing alcohol (≤ 30 alcoholic drinks/ month for women and ≤ 60 alcoholic drinks/month for men) and being a non-smoker were given a multibehavior index score of 5. the one-week test-retest reliability of our 10% random sample was, icc = .84. in addition to this 0-5 multibehavior index variable, we created two other primary index parameters. we evaluated the association between personality types and high vs. low behavioral clustering. taking into account cell sizes for the behaviors, high behavioral clustering was defined as having 4-5 of the health behaviors, with low behavioral clustering defined as having 2 or fewer health behaviors. additionally, we evaluated the association between personality types and energy balance clustering. energy balance clustering was defined as meeting physical activity guidelines and being above the median for diet behavior. other non-primary behavior clusters were evaluated and reported in the sensitivity analyses shown in the results section. data analysis all analyses were performed in stata (v. 12). multivariable linear and logistic regression analyses were used to assess the association between baseline personalities with each of the individual health behaviors (and multibehavior as well as behavioral clusters) assessed at the 5-month follow-up period. further, a multivariable ordinal regression model was used to assess the association of baseline personalities with the follow-up multibehavior index variable. for each of the health behaviors, two regression models were computed. for model 1, covariates included age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, perceived health status (excellent, very good, good, fair or poor), measured baseline body mass index (kg/m2), and follow-up duration (months; follow-up minus baseline). model 2 was the same as model 1 except in model 2 the baseline health behavior was also included as a covariate. additionally, for the health behaviors measured in a continuous scale (i.e., diet and mvpa), a third model was computed that included the “change” score for that respective variable in the model (e.g., mvpatime2 – mvpatime1). for both models, all 5 personality traits were included in the model. in all models, there was no evidence of multicollinearity (e.g., highest individual variance inflation factor was 1.9). statistical significance for all models was set at an alpha level of p < 0.05. in an effort to minimize regression dilution bias, i.e., measurement error in the exposure, we also estimated a corrected regression coefficient by calculating a reliability ratio, as described elsewhere (berglund, 2012). briefly, our calculated reliability ratio was the icc from the test-retest reliability assessment. the corrected regression beta coefficient for each personality trait (with the health behavior as the outcome) was calculated as the observed regression coefficient divided by the reliability ratio. this approach is only applicable to simple linear joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 885 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regression models (berglund, 2012); thus, this approach was applied to simple linear regression models (table 4) for diet (summed score ranging up to 24), mvpa (min/week), alcohol drinks (per month) and sleep duration (min/night of sleep); notably, this approach was not applied to the smoking data given that it was scored as a binary variable. results study variable characteristics are displayed in table 1. table 1 characteristics of the study sample (n = 126) study variable m / proportion sd age, mean years 21.6 2.3 gender, % female 61.9 education, % undergraduate students 81.0 ethnicity, percent non-hispanic white 66.0 bmi, mean kg/m2 25.9 6.9 health status % excellent 16.7 % very good 47.6 % good 31.0 % fair 4.8 mvpa at baseline, mean min/week 428.0 353.3 mvpa at follow-up, mean min/week 571.5 408.5 % meets guidelines at baselinea 78.5 % meets guidelines at follow-upa 89.7 % non-smoker at baseline 93.6 % non-smoker at follow-up 91.2 alcohol at baseline, mean drinks/month 4.1 3.9 alcohol at follow-up, mean drinks/month 4.3 6.7 % not a heavy drinker at baseline 84.1 % not a heavy drinker at follow-up 84.9 diet score at baseline, mean healthy diet 17.9 2.3 diet score at follow-up, mean healthy diet 17.7 2.5 % healthy diet at baseline 61.1 % healthy diet at follow-up 52.4 sleep at baseline, duration hrs/day 6.7 1.1 sleep at follow-up, duration hrs/day 7.3 1.2 % healthy sleep at baseline 46.8 % healthy sleep at follow-up 36.5 overall behavior score at baseline, mean 3.6 1.0 overall behavior score at follow-up, mean 3.6 0.9 % high behavioral clustering (4-5 behaviors) at baseline 54.7 % high behavioral clustering (4-5 behaviors) at follow-up 55.5 energy balance cluster at baseline, % meeting mvpa guidelines and above-median diet score 54.0 energy balance cluster at follow-up, % meeting mvpa guidelines and above-median diet score 50.8 follow-up duration, mean days 159.6 24.4 note. bmi = body mass index; mvpa = moderate/vigorous physical activity. amvpa for at least 150 minutes/week. b7-9 hours of sleep/day. five factor model and health behavior clusters 886 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants of the sample included 81% undergraduate students and the remaining 19% were graduate students. mean age for the participants was 21.6 years, ranging from 18-33. the mean follow-up duration was 159.6 days (approximately 5.3 months), ranging from 111-241 days (approximately 3.7-8.0 months). with regard to model 2 (table 2), which controlled for the respective health behavior at baseline (along with the other covariates), the personality traits extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness were associated with alcohol intake, respectively (or: 1.22, 95% ci: 1.0-1.48, p = .05), (or: 0.87, 95% ci: 0.76-0.99, p = .04), (or: 0.84, 95% ci: 0.72-0.99, p = .03). the health behaviors smoking and mvpa were not significantly associated with any of the personality traits. however, when examining mvpa as a continuous variable, the personality trait conscientiousness was associated with higher mvpa (95% ci: 4.08-29.75, p = 0.01). the personality trait conscientiousness was associated with a healthy diet (or: 1.11, 95% ci: 1.01-1.21, p = .02). table 2 multivariable logistic regression association between personality type and individual health behaviors factor odds ratio (95% ci)† meeting mvpa guidelines non-smoker non-heavy alcohol drinker healthy diet meets sleep guidelines model 1 model 2 model 3 model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 model 3 model 1 model 2 n 1.0 (0.92-1.09) 0.97 (0.88-1.08) 7.79 (-3.4-19.0) 1.02 (0.93-1.12) 0.98 (0.88-1.10) 0.96 (0.89-1.04) 0.96 (0.87-1.06) 1.01 (0.96-1.06) 1.01 (0.95-1.07) 0.02 (-0.02-0.08) 0.96 (0.91-1.02) 0.97 (0.92-1.03) e 1.08 (0.94-1.25) 1.0 (0.85-1.18) -0.03 (-16.7-16.6) 0.96 (0.83-1.10) 0.89 (0.74-1.07) 1.19 (1.04-1.36) 1.22 (1.0-1.48) 1.04 (0.96-1.13) 1.03 (0.94-1.12) 0.04 (-0.04-0.12) 0.94 (0.86-1.02) 0.91 (0.83-1.00) o 1.0 (0.90-1.11 0.97 (0.86-1.10) -6.8 (-19.5-5.8) 0.96 (0.87-1.06) 0.93 (0.83-1.05) 0.93 (0.84-1.03) 0.87 (0.76-0.99) 0.97 (0.91-1.03) 0.97 (0.91-1.04) -0.01 (-0.07-0.05) 1.04 (0.98-1.11) 1.04 (0.97-1.11) a 0.98 (0.86-1.11) 1.03 (0.89-1.18) 5.3 (-10.3-21.1) 1.09 (0.96-1.25) 1.12 (0.96-1.30) 0.83 (0.73-0.95) 0.84 (0.72-0.99) 0.97 (0.90-1.04) 0.96 (0.89-1.05) -0.04 (-0.12-0.03) 1.02 (0.94-1.10) 1.04 (0.95-1.13) c 1.02 (0.90-1.15) 0.98 (0.85-1.13) 4.4 (-10.8-19.7) 1.04 (0.92-1.17) 1.02 (0.89-1.17) 0.99 (0.88-1.11) 0.95 (0.80-1.13) 1.11 (1.03-1.20) 1.11 (1.01-1.21) 0.08 (0.005-0.16) 0.96 (0.89-1.03) 0.96 (0.88-1.04) note. model 1 included the following covariates: age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, bmi, follow-up duration; model 2 was the same as model 1, but also included the baseline assessment of the respective health behavior; model 3 employed a multivariable linear regression model instead of logistic regression model. this model evaluated the association of the personality traits on the “change” score in mvpa and diet. in addition to this change score variable, covariates included age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, bmi, follow-up duration. n = neuroticism; e = extraversion; o = openness to experience; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness; mvpa = moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. †for model 3 for mvpa and diet, the coefficients are unstandardized beta coefficients as opposed to odds ratios. bolded cells were statistically significant (p ≤ .05) associations. table 3 reports the multibehavior and behavioral clustering results. as shown in model 1, after adjusting for baseline multibehavior, age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, body mass index and duration of follow-up, neuroticism (β = -0.02; 95% ci: -0.07-0.02), extroversion (β = -0.01; 95% ci: -0.08-0.05), openness (β = -0.02; 95% ci: -0.07-0.02), agreeableness (β = -0.01; 95% ci: -0.07-0.05) and conscientiousness (β = 0.01; 95% ci: -0.04-0.07) were not associated with multibehavior. as shown in model 2 of table 3, extraversion was associated with high (vs. low) behavioral clustering (or = 1.18; 95% ci: 1.00-1.40). as shown in model 3 of table 3, conscientiousness was associated with energy balance clustering (or = 1.09; 95% ci: 1.01-1.17). although not shown in tabular format, we also evaluated other types of energy balance clusters by evaluating joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 887 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the association personality and the concurrent adoption of meeting mvpa and sleep guidelines, as well as being above the median dietary score, but none of the personality traits were associated with this 3-variable energy balance cluster (data not shown). similar, none of the personality traits were associated with the 2-energy balance clusters of mvpa and sleep or sleep and diet (data not shown). table 3 multivariable regression models evaluating the association between personality types and multibehavior and behavioral clustering at the 5-month follow-up factor model 1 model 2 model 3 β (95% ci) odds ratio (95% ci) odds ratio (95% ci) multibehavior score at follow-up high cluster vs. low cluster at follow-up energy balance cluster vs. not at follow-up n -0.02 (-0.07-0.02) 1.06 (0.95-1.20) 1.00 (0.95-1.05) e -0.01 (-0.08-0.05) 1.18 (1.00-1.40) 1.04 (0.96-1.13) o -0.02 (-0.07-0.02) 0.99 (0.87-1.13) 0.97 (0.91-1.03) a -0.01 (-0.07-0.05) 0.90 (0.78-1.05) 0.96 (0.89-1.04) c 0.01 (-0.04-0.07) 1.10 (0.95-1.26) 1.09 (1.01-1.17) note. n = neuroticism; e = extraversion; o = openness to experience; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness. 3 multivariate models were computed. the first model (ordinal regression) evaluated the association between personality types and the 5 month follow-up multibehavior index score (range = 0-5) as the outcome variable. independent variables included the 5 personality types, baseline multibehavior index score, age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, bmi and follow-up duration. the second model (logistic regression) evaluated the association between personality types and high vs. low behavioral clustering. high behavioral clustering was defined as having 4-5 of the health behaviors at follow-up, with low behavioral clustering defined as having 2 or fewer health behaviors at follow-up. independent variables included the 5 personality types, baseline multibehavior index score, age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, bmi and follow-up duration. the third model (logistic regression) evaluated the association between personality types and energy balance clustering. energy balance clustering was defined as meeting physical activity guidelines and being in the top median for diet behavior at the follow-up period. independent variables included the 5 personality types, age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, health status, bmi and follow-up duration. bolded cells were statistically significant (p ≤ .05) associations. table 4 displays the corrected regression beta coefficients for the individual health behaviors. notably, the slopes, for the association between each personality trait and the health behaviors, were similar when comparing the uncorrected vs. corrected slopes. five factor model and health behavior clusters 888 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 simple linear regression association between personality type and individual health behaviors, with correction for regression dilution bias β (95% ci) factor mvpa alcoholic drinks diet score sleep duration model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 n -6.39 (-14.7,1.93) -6.94 .08 (-.05,.22) .08 -.01 (-.06,.04) -.01 .82 (-.76,2.4) .89 e 11.69 (-.36,23.7) 12.30 -.21 (-.4,-.01) -.22 .06 (-.01,.13) .06 -.17 (-2.4,2.1) -.18 o -2.12 (-12.9,8.6) -2.27 .05 (-.12,.23) .05 -.02 (-.09,.04) -.02 .29 (-1.7,2.3) .31 a 3.73 (-7.8,15.2) 3.80 -.27 (-.45,-.08) -.28 .02 (-.05,.09) .02 -.09 (-2.2,2.1) -.09 c 15.27 (4.3,26.2) 15.90 -.04 (-.22,.14) -.04 .09 (.02,.16) .09 -1.13 (-3.2,.99) -1.17 note. model 1 is the unadjusted model with just the single personality type; model 2 was the same as model 1, but corrected for regression dilution bias. only the corrected regression coefficient is displayed (not the 95% ci). n = neuroticism; e = extraversion; o = openness to experience; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness; mvpa = moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. bolded cells were statistically significant (p ≤ .05) associations. statistical significance was only evaluated for model 1. discussion previous work demonstrates that concurrent adoption of multiple health-enhancing behaviors, as well as differing clusters/combinations of these health behaviors, may have profound effects on health. although previous research has evaluated the association of personality on individual health behaviors, mostly via cross-sectional designs, there has been limited investigation of the prospective associations of personality on multibehavior and behavioral clustering. this was the aim of this investigation. our main findings were that: 1) select personality traits were associated with select individual health-related behaviors, 2) extraversion was associated with high behavioral clustering (i.e., engaging in the majority of the health behaviors), and 3) conscientiousness was associated with energy balance clustering. the narrative that follows will discuss our findings in the context of the individual health behaviors, followed by the multibehavior and behavioral clustering results. when examining mvpa as a continuous variable, conscientiousness was associated with this health-enhancing behavior. conscientiousness may serve importance as it has been suggested to be pertinent in action control (de bruijn, de groot, van den putte, & rhodes, 2009). various studies looking at the personality trait conscientiousness have demonstrated that people with higher levels of this specific trait have better health practices and live longer (bogg & roberts, 2004). in alignment with this, the present study’s findings also demonstrate that conscientiousness was associated with meeting dietary behavior guidelines. individuals with high levels of conscientiousness are thought to be more dutiful, orderly, and self-disciplined (mccrae & costa, 1995). it is plausible to suggest that these characteristics of dutiful, orderly, and self-disciplined may play an integral part in action control and may explain why conscientiousness was associated with more physical activity and healthier eating. the most popular personality trait model defines neuroticism as the tendency to be in a negative emotional state, anxious, self-conscious, and vulnerable (rhodes & smith, 2006). the results of our study demonstrated that neuroticism was not associated with any of the individual health behaviors (or multibehavior). perhaps this joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 889 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ is due to the levels of self-consciousness and anxiety exhibited by neurotic individuals. research suggests that a high degree of harm avoidance or neuroticism is associated with a large activation in the insula during a risky response (paulus, rogalsky, simmons, feinstein, & stein, 2003). the degree of risk taking is largely related to the degree of activation in the insula. specifically, a large activation in the insula during a risky response is associated with a lower inclination to select a risky response (paulus et al., 2003). therefore, it is plausible to suggest that the present study did not observe any associations with the health behaviors because individuals with high levels of neuroticism tend to avoid harmful situations. additional unexpected findings were that, for example, extraversion was associated with a higher odds of not being a heavy alcohol drinker. our alcohol findings should be interpreted with caution as the majority of participants were not alcohol drinkers (potential floor effect). with extraversion being characterized by the tendency to be sociable, assertive, energetic, and seek excitement, it is understandable that this personality trait was associated with high (vs. low) behavioral clustering. providing additional plausibility for this extraversion-behavioral clustering relationship is that previous work has demonstrated that extraversion is associated with several of the health behaviors evaluated herein (magee et al., 2013; rhodes & smith, 2006). interestingly, the personality trait conscientiousness was specifically associated with energy balance clustering. rhodes and smith (2006) suggests that activity represents a disposition toward a fast lifestyle, representing high energy, fast talking, and keeping busy. while this facet is mainly organized under the extraversion trait, it has also been suggested as a sub-trait of conscientiousness. costa and mccrae (1995) suggests that conscientiousness displays organizational properties and goal achievement strategies necessary for this trait to manifest. further, conscientiousness displays self-regulation behavioral tactics which may explain why this personality trait was associated with energy balance clustering. this is in alignment with work demonstrating an indirect link between conscientiousness and dietary behavior, mediated by reduced emotional eating, restrained eating and reduced external eating (keller & siegrist, 2015); this suggests that highly conscientious individuals adopt regulatory dietary restraint and practice counter-regulatory emotional or external eating. in the context of the other behavior (physical activity) of this energy balance cluster, self-regulatory components (e.g., inhibition, set-shifting, goal-setting) play an important role in influencing physical activity behavior (buckley, cohen, kramer, mcauley, & mullen, 2014). the conscientiousness personality type may indirectly influence physical activity via enhanced self-regulatory abilities among such individuals (fleming, heintzelman, & bartholow, 2016). due to the self-report nature of the health behavior assessments, our results may be limited because of social or recall bias. with the population consisting of college aged students, a limitation of this study is the limited generalizability to other ages and populations. further, our analyzed follow-up sample differed than the initial baseline cohort for alcohol, smoking and physical activity, suggesting that our findings in these behavioral domains may have less generalizability. notably, however, personality is considered to be stable across cultures, and therefore, the findings of this study may relate cross-culturally (rhodes & smith, 2006). notable strengths of this study include the comprehensive assessment of individual, multibehavior and behavioral clusters, employing a prospective study design, incorporating a test-retest subsample (inclusive of pedometry assessment) and correcting for regression dilution bias, which is extremely uncommon in epidemiological studies (jurek, maldonado, greenland, & church, 2006). future research would benefit by overcoming our study limitations as well as investigating lower-order personality traits (type a personality) on changes in health behaviors (rhodes & pfaeffli, 2012). five factor model and health behavior clusters 890 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to provide substantial interventions tailored around personality type, future studies may consider utilizing a theory called dialectical behavior therapy (dbt). dialectical behavior therapy is a skills-based form of cognitive behavioral therapy and promotes acceptance of change (lee, cameron, & jenner, 2015). typically, dbt is used to treat borderline personality disorder, but research has demonstrated that it is effective in treating a wide range of issues, such as substance abuse and eating disorders. dialectical behavior therapy focuses on teaching four sets of skills; mindfulness, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and emotion regulation. learning interpersonal effectiveness may be beneficial because it teaches individuals how to ask for what they want and say no while maintaining respect and relationship with others (lee et al., 2015). another potential personality-matched intervention tool is grounded within the transtheoretical model (ttm) framework. the ttm has been used to promote health behaviors and develop effective interventions (choi, chung, & park, 2013; dishman, sallis, & orenstein, 1985). applying the ttm to personality traits susceptible to health-compromising behaviors may unfold the compromising behavior over time through a sequence of stages (choi et al., 2013). further, this model of behavior change may motivate change by enhancing the understanding of the pros and diminishing the value of the cons of unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol use, smoking, unhealthy dietary behavior, physical inactivity, and not meeting sleep guidelines. within the framework of ttm, personality-matched strategies may include a three-step process discussed elsewhere (conrod, stewart, comeau, & maclean, 2006; conrod et al., 2000). briefly, personality-matched interventions may include: 1) psychoeducation, 2) behavioral coping skills training, and 3) cognitive coping skills training. with regard to psychoeducation, intervention participants are educated about the personality variable in question and the problematic coping behaviors associated with that personality style. then, a motivational intervention (weighing the shortand long-term positive and negative consequence of a behavior) around the use of problematic behavioral strategies for coping with that personality type may be employed. lastly, interventions can utilize cognitive coping skills involved in identifying and challenging personality-specific cognitive distortions regarding the behavior of interest. a final note is that, most believe that personality is a stable “enduring” trait that is immutable, based on personalitybased stability coefficients in the range of 0.7-0.8 (mccrae & costa, 2003). however, this ~35-50% of unexplained variance questions this immutability of personality trait change. as stated previously, using psychoeducation, behavioral and cognitive coping strategies matched per the participant’s personality trait may be useful intervention strategies. additionally, a “bottom-up” model of change may serve to be highly effective, which targets changing basic personality processes, which may help to eventuate changes at the trait level (chapman, hampson, & clarkin, 2014). in conclusion, personality traits were differentially associated with select health behaviors; extraversion was associated with high behavioral clustering; and conscientiousness was associated with energy balance clustering. the strength of these observed associations were relatively small, which is in alignment with other personalitybehavior studies. determining personality types may be useful in identifying at risk populations. the results from this study suggest that when evaluating individual, multiple and behavioral clusters among the college aged population, it may serve importance to consider personality assessment. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 891 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 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(2010). the validity of self-reported nicotine product use in the 2001-2008 national health and nutrition examination survey. medical care, 48(12), 1128-1132. doi:10.1097/mlr.0b013e3181ef9948 about the authors chelsea joyner, ms, completed this project as part of her master’s thesis in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. joyner, rhodes, & loprinzi 895 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1701-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1053-8119(03)00251-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2010.10.009 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879 https://doi.org/10.3200/jach.58.1.73-82 https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2006.028860 https://doi.org/10.1089/brain.2014.0327 https://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.2001.62.467 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-1128 https://doi.org/10.15171/hpp.2018.05 https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0b013e3181ef9948 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ryan e. rhodes, phd, is an exercise psychologist, professor, and director of the behavioural medicine lab at the university of victoria. dr. rhodes’ research focuses on determining the behavioral and psychological aspects of physical activity. paul d. loprinzi, phd, is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. dr. loprinzi’s research focuses on the psychological and neurocognitive consequences of physical activity. five factor model and health behavior clusters 896 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 880–896 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1450 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ five factor model and health behavior clusters (introduction) methods design and participants measurement of personality measurement of health behavior results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors staying streetwise: accurate judgments of approaching aggression in older age research reports staying streetwise: accurate judgments of approaching aggression in older age liam paul satchell* a, lucy akehurst a, paul hayden morris a, claire nee a [a] department of psychology, university of portsmouth, portsmouth, united kingdom. abstract the extant literature has generally demonstrated that young adults can detect the trait aggression of another person with limited information. however, there is little research that investigates the life course persistence of aggression detection accuracy. here, we aimed to explore the accuracy of older adults at detecting potential aggressors. thirty-nine older adults (m = 71.49, sd = 7.59) and eighty-seven young adults (m = 20.24, sd = 1.74) made intimidation judgments, via video recordings, for nine people (targets). ‘aggression detection accuracy’ was shown in the relationship between the intimidation judgments made by participants and the targets’ responses to the bussperry aggression questionnaire. both age groups were highly accurate in their recognition of trait aggression and accuracy was maintained into older age, with no difference in accuracy between the older and young adults. there was, however, more variability in the ratings given by the older adults compared to the young adults, suggesting less consensus in judgment for the older compared to the young group. overall, the participants in this study were highly accurate at detecting trait aggression. there was no difference in average aggression detection between older and young adults but there was in sample agreement. these results are discussed in the context of age effects on intimidation, as well as research in accurate aggression detection. keywords: aggression detection accuracy, intimidation perception, older adults europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 received: 2017-01-05. accepted: 2017-08-18. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: university of portsmouth, psychology department, king henry building, king henry 1 street, portsmouth, po1 2dy, uk. email: liam.satchell@uwl.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. for some time the consensus in the literature was that older adults were more afraid of becoming a victim of crime than young adults (clarke & lewis, 1982; clemente & kleiman, 1977; kennedy & silverman, 1985; moeller, 1989; ortega & myles, 1987). however, more recently research has demonstrated that the relationship between age and fear of crime is not so clear, and the relationship is mediated by many factors; including the crime type, gender of the respondents and participants’ belief in being able to defend themselves (see acierno, rheingold, resnick, & kilpatrick, 2004; beaulieu, dubé, bergeron, & cousineau, 2007; jackson, 2009; kappes, greve, & hellmers, 2013; oh & kim, 2009). despite the evidence that fear or intimidation is situational, there is little experimental research investigating older adults’ detection of potentially dangerous others. it could be that fear of crime is relative to an individual’s ability to detect potentially dangerous others with ease. previous research has demonstrated that simply watching someone walk communicates aspects of dispositional aggression. in particular young adults were more accurate than teenagers at detecting aggression through europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ intimidation ratings (satchell, akehurst, & morris, 2017). the accuracy of older adults, when presented with a similar task, has not yet been investigated. it is important to make quick, but also accurate, judgments of the danger posed by others. even with limited interaction, people are generally good at detecting the trait properties of others (cheek, 1982; funder, 1980; letzring, 2015; mccrae, 1982; vazire & mehl, 2008) and previous work suggests that accuracy of ‘social perceptions’ is robust into older age (for an overview see; freund & isaacowitz, 2014). funder’s (1999) realistic accuracy model (ram) focusses upon the availability of relevant information regarding targets’ traits, which can then be detected by a judge to utilize for an accurate personality judgment. this focus on the detection of traits being as much a property of the targets as it is the judges is important, and often overlooked. this is especially important in the context of approaching people, as the information elicited by targets changes in quantity and quality as they approach a judge. as an unknown person approaches, it will frequently be their walk style and their body outline that are available (to use the ram term) to a judge first. most of the work on the judging of malevolent attributes of others relies on photographs of faces (such as; geniole, molnar, carré, & mccormick, 2014; hehman, flake, & freeman, 2015; hehman, leitner, & gaertner, 2013) and does not include other information potentially relevant to trait aggression, which would be available from an approaching person (such as walk style or body appearance). for example, recent research has shown that there is information, relevant to aggression, in how someone walks (satchell, morris, mills, et al., 2017). if older adults can use gait information to detect trait aggression, much like young adults can (satchell, akehurst, & morris, 2017; satchell, morris, akehurst, & morrison, 2017), then they will be able to make ‘approach or avoid’ responses when a stranger is walking towards them. research has shown that adults are able to accurately judge the dispositional aggression of a target person from simply viewing a photograph of their face (carré, mccormick, & mondloch, 2009). boshyan, zebrowitz, franklin, mccormick, and carré (2013) have even demonstrated that older adults are as accurate as young adults in detecting targets’ performance in a point subtraction aggression paradigm (carré & mccormick, 2008) from viewing brief presentations (3 seconds) of photographs of faces. if older adults are accurate at detecting the traits of others from viewing photographs of faces, then it is possible they will also be as accurate, if not more accurate, when judging realistic presentations of a target; a walking person. for the current experiment, we expected the judgments of intimidation would relate to each target’s trait aggression and refer to this relationship as accuracy (see funder, 2012). given that older adults have been shown to be as accurate as young adults in detecting aggression from photographs of faces, we were also expecting this to be the case in the current experiment. in fact, as our participants were presented with more realistic information than simply the face of a target, we expected our older and young adults’ judgments of aggression would be more accurate than those of previous research that only presented still photographs of faces. method participants the thirty-nine older adults (27 females and 12 males, mage = 71.49, sdage = 7.59, minage = 59, maxage = 91) were an opportunity sample recruited during public lectures delivered to members of an aging network satchell, akehurst, morris, & nee 45 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research group. these were individuals who engage with academic events hosted by a university. eightyseven undergraduate young adults (73 females and 14 males, mage = 20.24, sdage = 1.74, minage = 18, maxage = 28) were recruited as a comparison group. the young adults were recruited and took part in a similar forum to the older adult sample; in an undergraduate lecture. materials we filmed the targets walking at their preferred speed for 10 seconds on a treadmill. for the purpose of keeping the experiment efficient and retaining the engagement of all participants, a sub-set of nine targets (from our database of 23) were chosen for use in this study. these nine targets (5 females and 4 males, mage = 20.67, sdage = 2.40, minage = 18, maxage = 24) were randomly selected using a random number generator. we used the physical aggression subscale from the buss-perry aggression questionnaire (buss & perry, 1992) to capture our targets’ trait aggression. this subscale, when analysed using advised revisions (bryant & smith, 2001), gives a score between 3 and 21 and our nine targets were reasonably spread in the range of possible scores (maggression = 7.11, sdaggression = 5.09, minaggression = 3, maxaggression = 15). this subscale was chosen, as it is most pertinent to interpersonal aggression. the buss-perry questionnaire is well established in the aggression literature and has been used with various forensic and non-forensic populations to predict historic and laboratory expressions of aggression (see; archer & webb, 2006; bryant & smith, 2001; diamond, 2006; diamond, wang, & buffington-vollum, 2005; garcía-león et al., 2002; o’connor, archer, & wu, 2001). the physical aggression subscale has internal reliability of between α = .84 and α = .86 across three samples used by bryant and smith (2001). using 5 samples, webster et al. (2014) showed that the buss-perry aggression questionnaire – short form is internally reliable, shows strong test-retest reliability and predicts behavioural measures of aggression. procedure participants took part in groups but made their ratings privately on written response sheets, with instructions not to communicate about the ratings to any other participants. the targets were presented on a screen (measuring approximately 3m × 2.5m) and for each presentation (k = 3) the order of presentation of the nine targets was randomised. after the presentation of each target, the participants were given as much time as they required to make ratings, on 9-point likert scales, of how intimidating-not intimidating, friendly-unfriendly and masculinefeminine they perceived each target to be. analyses we conducted our statistical analyses in two different ways. it is typical of interpersonal perception experiments of this type to calculate the average rating received by each target and then correlate this value with the targets’ traits to demonstrate whole group accuracy (see ratings received by targets section of the results). we included this analysis for the purpose of comparison with other research but this ‘nomothetic’ approach to analysing judgment data has faced criticism. such analysis ignores the individual variation in judge ability and falsely increases the size of correlations (see; brand & bradley, 2012; hirschmüller, egloff, schmukle, nestler, & back, 2015; kolar, funder, & colvin, 1996; monin & oppenheimer, 2005). accurate aggression detection in older age 46 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as such, we also adopted the recommended ‘idiographic’ analysis (kolar et al., 1996; that is referred to as the ‘average of correlations’ by monin & oppenheimer, 2005), where an accuracy value is calculated for each participant. this is achieved by computing the correlation between judgments of each individual judge and the targets’ properties, thus producing a value between 1 (accurate; a target rated as more intimidating is more aggressive) and -1 (inaccurate; a target rated as more intimidating is less aggressive) and the size of each value denotes the strength of agreement (0 being random performance, ±1 being perfect [in]accuracy). the idiographic analysis allows us to report the distribution of judge variability, as well as to test for the effects of age on accuracy (see accuracy of participants section of the results). results ratings received by targets the average intimidation ratings the targets received positively correlated with the targets’ trait aggression, with notably large effects (young adults, r(9) = .85, 95% ci [.37, .99], p = .004; older adults, r(9) = .82, 95% ci [.48, .96], p = .007). thus, both the older and young adults demonstrated very strong accuracy at detecting trait aggression through intimidation ratings (there was no meaningful difference between the two groups’ accuracy correlations; z = .17, p = .865.) further, we found that the average rating received by the targets from the older and young adults strongly correlated (r(9) = .79, 95% ci [.46, 1.00], p = .012) suggesting similar allocation of intimidation ratings. in all measures in psychology it is typical to report both the mean and the standard deviation of a distribution. it is somewhat surprising that similar research does not report the variation in ratings received by the targets. variance in judgments demonstrates more guess work or a lack of consensus about the matter being judged. by calculating the standard deviation (σ) of intimidation ratings received by each target, we were able to test for differences in spread of intimidation judgments between the age groups. we found that the variation in intimidation ratings differed between age groups (t(8) = 2.70, p = .027, d = .76) with the older adults being more varied in their ratings (mσ = 2.02, sdσ = .28) than the young adults (mσ = 1.78, sdσ = .35). the implication of these results is that whilst, on average, the groups performed similarly, there was less consistency in ratings for the older adults compared to the young adults. accuracy of participants given the variation in ratings demonstrated above, it was important to consider the distribution of judge accuracy (see figure 1). thus, we report the distribution of individual accuracy correlations (r, where r = 1 is perfect accuracy, r = -1 perfect inaccuracy and r = 0 random responding). there was no real difference in accuracyi between the older adults (mr = .35, sdr = .26, minr = -.24, maxr = .91, skewness = -.24 [se = .38], kurtosis = -.35 [se = .74]) and young adults (mr = .43, sdr = .27, minr = -.48, maxr = .92, skewness = -.77 [se = .26], kurtosis = .84 [se = .51]) (t(124ii) = 1.61, p = .110, d = .31). it is important to note that accuracy was generally good across both age groups. satchell, akehurst, morris, & nee 47 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the distribution of participant accuracy (individual correlations) for each age group. it is notable that some participants were extremely accurate (six participants achieved r>.80, five of whom were in the young adults group). in some cases, there were very small differences in the self-report measures of the targets (in some cases a one point difference in their self-reported aggression), yet some participants were able to detect these subtle differences. discussion in this study, we found that older adults were as accurate as young adults at detecting the trait aggression of our targets. we found that the ratings received by the targets from both the older and young adult groups correlated strongly with each other and with the trait aggression of the targets. in fact, our measures showed that both age groups were reasonably good at indexing trait aggression through intimidation ratings, with some participants being notably good at using their intimidation ratings to reflect even minor differences in trait aggression for the targets. there was some evidence of a negative correlation between age and accuracy, but the sample lacked participants between the ages of 28 and 59 years so this finding should be treated with caution. our categorical analyses (young adults vs. older adults) demonstrated no difference between the groups in terms of accuracy. the only clear difference between the groups was in the spread of ratings received by the targets. the young participants showed more consensus in intimidation ratings than the older adults. whilst this did not impact upon accuracy (it is apparent that the discrimination between more and less dangerous targets is constant between groups), it may show that there is less specificity in what intimidation means to the older adults. the fact that intimidation ratings relate to the ordering of the targets’ aggression is interesting and somewhat surprising. given that some of the self-report aggression ratings made by the targets were very similar, it is accurate aggression detection in older age 48 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 https://www.psychopen.eu/ unexpected that some participants achieved such high accuracy. it is also important that, whilst the relationship is implicit, intimidation is not a direct reference to aggression. boshyan et al. (2013) asked participants to form explicit aggression judgments about photographs of targets and they told their participants about the paradigm through which the aggression values for each target had been attained (a computer task called the point subtraction aggression paradigm). in the current study, we did not inform participants of our intentions to test them for accuracy thus allowing them to make a general judgment of intimidation. our participants did not know that their judgments would be compared with the self-reported aggression of the targets. interestingly, the current findings replicated the findings of boshyan et al. (2013) and found evidence of strong accuracy in the older populationiii. the inconsistencies in the relationship between age and fear of crime could be due to individual differences. as previous research shows, the idiosyncrasies of respondents, context and crime type all have an effect on fear of crime judgments in older adults (acierno et al., 2004; beaulieu et al., 2007; jackson, 2009; kappes et al., 2013; oh & kim, 2009). it is possible that older adults who are reasonably accurate at detecting potential dangers may well be those adults who are less fearful of crime. asymmetry between feelings of intimidation and genuine danger could lead to psychological and physical health consequences. a growing body of literature has demonstrated that how much an individual fears crime in their local area affects the time they spend walking (foster, knuiman, hooper, christian, & giles-corti, 2014), cycling (kramer, maas, wingen, & kunst, 2013) and how much time older adults spend engaging in healthy activity programs (dawson, hillsdon, boller, & foster, 2007). perhaps dissemination of research findings that find that older people’s judgments of dangerous others are largely accurate may provide individuals with encouragement to engage with their environment. equally, it could be the case that those who feel more intimidated in general are those with poor accuracy. future research might usefully evaluate the possibility of improving accuracy through training. limitations and future directions we were interested in demonstrating that older adults can be accurate at judging danger via realistic presentations of targets. as our stimuli (videos) were time-consuming to present, only nine randomly-selected targets (from a larger sample) were presented to participants. future work could consider more targets and perhaps, rather than presenting targets one at a time, they could be presented in groups (something that many of the older participants self-reported as being important for their everyday judgments of intimidation). future work could also seek to study larger and more varied populations of both the older and younger participants. our current sample is based on specific populations (students and older adults who are comfortable enough to travel to a public talk), moving beyond these populations may find different results. in expanding the population there could be more attention paid to the aforementioned idiosyncratic fear of crime aspects affecting older adults (gender of the respondents and participants’ belief in being able to defend themselves; acierno et al., 2004; beaulieu et al., 2007; jackson, 2009; kappes et al., 2013; oh & kim, 2009). the study could also be conducted more privately, testing one participants one at a time. methodologically similar research on student populations finds complementary findings to the current study (satchell, morris, akehurst, & morrison, 2017), it is not clear what effect, if any, conducting the study in a group may have had on the participants. satchell, akehurst, morris, & nee 49 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it would also be of interest to investigate the detection of non-physical risk. as acierno et al. (2004) note, perceived risk of property crime is more relevant for older adults than a physical crime, so perhaps a test of accuracy in detecting a target person’s propensity to commit acquisitive crime could be of interest (for example, in the context of doorstep crime). conclusion in sum, older adults were as accurate as young adults at detecting the trait aggression of walking targets using ratings of intimidation. previous research has suggested that experience is essential for the acquisition of accurate intimidation judgments (satchell, akehurst, & morris, 2017) and so it is reasonable to suggest that accuracy does not decline as people attain experience throughout their lives. whilst the current findings need to be replicated, with more participants, more targets and a greater age range of participants and targets, they convey a positive message for older adults in that their gut reactions pertaining to the threat posed by approaching strangers are likely to be accurate. notes i) we opted not to use fisher’s z transformation of our correlational data for our analysis due to concerns about artificially increasing effect sizes after ‘normalising’ the distribution of r values. if transformed the data, the individuals appeared to be more accurate when reporting means in both the younger adults (mz(r) = .51, sdz(r) = .37) and older adults (mz(r) = .41, sdz(r) = .35). ii) variance in individuals’ accuracy between groups were relatively equal despite differences in group size (sdolder adults = .26, sdyounger adults = .27, levene’s w = .00, p = .959). iii) for the older participants in boyshan et al.’s study, they reported a fisher’s z transformed accuracy value of .20. for the current study the fisher’s z transformation of accuracy for the adults was .41. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments data collection for this project was assisted by the university of portsmouth’s ageing network. the authors thank dr amy drahota and mr gary dalton for their assistance with data collection. references acierno, r., rheingold, a. a., resnick, h. s., & kilpatrick, d. g. 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(2017). learning to be streetwise: the acquisition of accurate judgments of aggression. psychiatry, psychology and law, 24, 356-364. doi:10.1080/13218719.2016.1247420 satchell, l., morris, p., mills, c., o’reilly, l., marshman, p., & akehurst, l. (2017). evidence of big five and aggressive personalities in gait biomechanics. journal of nonverbal behavior, 41(1), 35-44. doi:10.1007/s10919-016-0240-1 satchell, l., morris, p., akehurst, l., & morrison, e. (2017). can judgments of threat reflect an approaching person’s trait aggression? current psychology. advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s12144-016-9557-5 vazire, s., & mehl, m. r. (2008). knowing me, knowing you: the accuracy and unique predictive validity of self-ratings and other-ratings of daily behavior. journal of personality and social psychology, 95(5), 1202-1216. doi:10.1037/a0013314 webster, g. d., dewall, c. n., pond, r. s., jr., deckman, t., jonason, p. k., le, b. m., . . . bator, r. j. (2014). the brief aggression questionnaire: psychometric and behavioral evidence for an efficient measure of trait aggression. aggressive behavior, 40(2), 120-139. doi:10.1002/ab.21507 about the authors dr liam satchell is a member of the international centre for research in forensic psychology and the centre for research in situated action and communication at the university of portsmouth. his research interests include the investigation of personality and individual difference effects in forensic, security and law contexts. dr lucy akehurst is a senior lecturer at the university of portsmouth and the deputy director of the international centre for research in forensic psychology. her research interests include interviewing and the assessment of credibility of vulnerable witnesses and the detection of malingering in medico-legal settings. dr paul morris is a principal lecturer at the university of portsmouth and a member of centre for research into situated action and communication. his research is focused on the ecological approach to psychology and has a diverse range of interests including embodiment of emotions and intentions. dr claire nee is a reader in forensic psychology at the university of portsmouth and the director of the international centre for research in forensic psychology. her current research projects include decision-making in burglars, stigma associated with offending behaviour and reducing risk in very young offenders and vulnerable children. satchell, akehurst, morris, & nee 53 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 44–53 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1369 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682x.1989.tb00101.x http://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2005.23.3.257 http://doi.org/10.1002/ab.2 http://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20269 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1987.tb00792.x http://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2016.1247420 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-016-0240-1 http://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9557-5 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0013314 http://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21507 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ accurate aggression detection in older age (introduction) method participants materials procedure analyses results ratings received by targets accuracy of participants discussion limitations and future directions conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the sensation seeking scale (sss-v) and its use in latin american adolescents: alcohol consumption pattern as an external criterion for its validation research reports the sensation seeking scale (sss-v) and its use in latin american adolescents: alcohol consumption pattern as an external criterion for its validation vanina schmidt* ab, maría fernanda molina ab, maría julia raimundi ab [a] national council of scientific and technique research (conicet), buenos aires, argentina. [b] research institute, faculty of psychology, university of buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. abstract sensation seeking is a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense situations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, and financial risks for the sake of such experience. the sensation seeking scale (sss-v) is the most widely used measure to assess this construct. in previous studies a variety of psychometric limitations were found when using the sss-v with latin american population. the purpose of this study is to present additional psychometric properties for its use with latin american adolescents. it was applied to a 506 adolescent sample (from 12 to 20 years). the result is a scale of 22 items that cover four factors. it seems that sensation seeking among latin american adolescents can be described in terms of four factors, but with some slightly content differences from what is usually found in adult samples from other countries. future lines of research are proposed. keywords: sensation seeking, adolescence, novelty seeking, risk europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 received: 2016-05-18. accepted: 2017-07-12. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: av. independencia 3065, autonomous city of buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: vschmidt@psi.uba.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. sensation seeking (ss) is “a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the sake of such experience” (zuckerman, 1994, p. 27). previous studies have identified biological and behavioural correlates of ss showing that this variable is a strong determinant of attitudes, interests, behaviours and habits. early in 1969, zuckerman proposed that ss was based on an optimal level of stimulation in terms of arousal. years later, a psychobiological model was presented changing the concept of the optimal level of arousal to an optimal level of catecholaminergic activity (zuckerman, 2007a). thus, a group of monoamines, enzymes and metabolites interacting in a complex way might be the biological substrate of ss (zuckerman, 1984, 1989, 2007a). from darwinist perspective, ss could be seen as a “stable evolutionary strategy” (dawkins, 1976), a behaviour that evolved through millions of years of evolutionary history, because it represents an adaptive advantage. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the ss construct has been related to various psychological traits such as impulsivity, dominance, surgency, autonomy, extraversion (as defined by eysenck, 1967), psychoticism (as re-defined by the same author in his last formulation; eysenck & eysenck, 1994), disinhibition (pelechano-barberá, 2000; zuckerman, 1994; zuckerman, eysenck, & eysenck, 1978), and it is negatively related to conscientiousness (costa & mccrae, 1992) showing in sensation seekers a tendency towards impulsivity and nonconformity (zuckerman, 2007b). it has been related as well to cognitive and perceptual styles (glicksohn, naftuliev, & golan-smooha, 2007), attention tasks (brocke, beauducel, & tasche, 1999; zuckerman, 1990), and different types of experiences with sex (donohew et al., 2000; mccoul & haslam, 2001), risk sexual behaviour (newcomb, clerkin, & mustanski, 2011) extreme sports (michel et al., 1999; zuckerman, 1984), gambling (mcdaniel & zuckerman, 2003; morris & griffiths, 2013; powell, hardoon, derevensky, & gupta, 1999), driving (e.g. peer & rosenbloom, 2013; smorti, 2014), risk perception (hampson, severson, burns, slovic, & fisher, 2001; horvath & zuckerman, 1993), risk behaviour (hansen & breivik, 2001), and to high risk professions like firemen, police and lifeguards (wismeijer & gomà-i-freixanet, 2012; zuckerman, 1994). numerous researchers and theorists have noted that ss (or related constructs) are the basis for many types of antisocial behaviour and a variety of behavioural disorders such as alcoholism (zuckerman, 1990), criminality (zuckerman, 1989, 1994), pathological gambling (zuckerman, 1994, 2005), agressive behaviour (zuckerman, 1989), antisocial personality disorder (gabel, stadler, bjorn, shindledecker, & bowden, 1994; zuckerman, 1989). a topic of widespread concern in our region is the consumption of alcohol, being the risk factor that contributes most to the total burden of noncommunicable diseases in latin american population (world health organization [who], 2000). international research has concluded that high ss subjects have a greater potential for being alcohol users and abusers because they constantly seek new experiences (gonzáleziglesias, gómez-fraguela, gras, & planes, 2014; latorre román, cámara pérez, & garcía pinillos, 2014; roberti, 2004; zuckerman, 1990). it is probably that in latin america samples ss trait is among the strongest correlates of alcohol use and misuse. all of the above shows the relevance of this construct and, therefore, of having the appropriate instrument for its assessment. in a wide range of researches differences between sex and ages were found. in england (zuckerman & neeb, 1980), usa (zuckerman, 1994), australia (roberti, 2004), canada (ridgeway & russell, 1980), spain (gonzález-iglesias et al., 2014; pérez & torrubia, 1986), france (michel et al., 1999), germany (brocke et al., 1999), men get higher scores in ss total score. to summarize, males get higher scores in ss and most of its dimensions than females, pointing out a pancultural feature (cross, cyrenne, & brown, 2013; smorti, 2014). associations with age are interesting because they describe a curvilinear relationship: ss increases with age from adolescence to adulthood and then decreases as the person gets older (zuckerman & neeb, 1980). in a spanish sample with adolescents it was found that age was positive related to different dimensions (subscales) of ss and ss total score (latorre román et al., 2014). no latin american study about differences in ss according to sex and age is available. given this background, it is important to study sex and age differences as additional contributions to construct validity. schmidt, molina, & raimundi 777 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the sensation seeking scale form v (sss-v; zuckerman et al., 1978 revised by zuckerman, 1994) is the most widely used self-report standardized measure to assess this construct. factor analyses (zuckerman, 1971) yielded four factors that allowed the developing of four subscales (extracted from zuckerman, 1979): • thrill and adventure seeking (tas) consists of items expressing desires to engage in sports or activities involving some physical danger or risk such as mountain climbing, parachute jumping, scuba diving, speeding in a car, etc. • experience seeking (es) contains items describing the desire to seek new experiences through mind and senses by living in a nonconforming lifestyle with unconventional friends, and through travel. • disinhibition (dis) was the name used for the items describing the need to disinhibit behaviour in the social sphere by drinking, partying and seeking variety in sexual partners. • boredom susceptibility (bs) items indicate an aversion for repetitive experiences of any kind, routine work, or even dull or predictable people. other items indicate a restless reaction when things are unchanging. zuckerman (1994) proposed that tas is the non impulsive-socialized way of ss and es, dis and bs are impulsive-unsocialized ways of ss. form v of the sss was a shortened version of form iv (zuckerman, 1971) and was developed by using large heterogeneous samples from england and north america. on the basis of the cross-sex and cross-national similarities in item loadings, the new form v was constructed. this form contains 10 items representing each of the four factors and uses a sensation seeking total score based on the sum of the four factor scores (zuckerman, 1979). in the 1980´s the author became aware of the datedness of some of the items and changed the wordings or explained some terms in the item itself (zuckerman, 2007a). thus, a revised version appeared in his second book on ss (zuckerman, 1994). the sss-v was translated into many languages and adapted to many countries and it is used in a variety of cultures. new versions were also devised to study ss in children and adolescents in different cultures. a junior sss (j-sss) was adapted in spain (pérez, ortet, plá, & simó, 1986) using the sss form v (zuckerman et al., 1978), translated into french and used for subjects aged 11-15 years (simó, santana, & pérez, 1991). no factor analysis was performed for these versions. sss for french adolescents (14-19 years) was devised (michel et al., 1999) using the french abbreviated form of sss (carton, jouvent, & widlöcher, 1992). the sss for children (sssc) was based on 72 items from the adult version of the sss (zuckerman & neeb, 1980) and was devised for children aged 7-12 years (russo et al., 1991). the second version of sssc included additional items and was completed by children aged 9-15 years (russo et al., 1993). a swedish scale inspired in zuckerman´s scales was devised for adolescents around age 14 (hansen & breivik, 2001). another spanish adaptation was presented by pérez and torrubia (pérez & torrubia, 1986) but no factor analysis was performed. for italian population, a recent study with a large sample analyzed the internal structure of the sssv by efa and cfa, finding a two-factor structure (tas and dis) (manna, faraci, & como, 2013). what is clear from these adaptations is that there are slightly differences from culture to culture in the way ss expressed itself among adolescents (see table 1). the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 778 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 comparative table of different versions of sss-v for adolescents country / adaptation data non impulsive ss impulsive ss england, usa zuckerman et al. (1978; zuckerman, 1994) 18 yrs. or older tas: risk sports and other physic activities (risky but socially accepted) dis: desinhibition through alcohol consumption, parties and a variety of sexual experiences es: seek for novelty experiences through nonconventional life style (including drug consumption but not exclusively) bs: aversion to the familiar, repetitive activities, people and predictable routine france russo et al. (1993) 9-15 yrs. tas: risk sports exclusively social dis: desinhibited behaviour in social (specially, peers context) aad: positive attitude towards alcohol and illegal drugs france michel et al. (1999) 14-19 yrs. tas: risk sports exclusively social dis es (very similar to original es) nc: nonconformism, nonconventional life style (similar to original es but including original bs) sweden björck-åkesson (1990) 12-16 yrs. tas: risk sports exclusively act (activity). measures the urgency to perform tasks quickly; impulsivity in social context (similar to dis) nes: novelty seeking, impulsivity and lack of control (similar to es) out: measures the desire to be the center of attention (contains es and bs items) italy manna et al. (2013) 13-24 yrs. tas: risk sports or other physically risky activities involving speed or danger. dis: seeking sensation through social activities, such as parties, social drinking and variety in sexual partners for latin american population, measures of ss are not adequately developed and validated (they have been merely translated). furthermore, ss in adolescents may differ from ss in adults, as some studies have suggested (michel et al., 1999; russo et al., 1993; schmidt, 2008). a sss for latin adolescents is, therefore, needed and has to be adapted and validated. present research was designed to fill this void by presenting additional data on validating process of sss-v for its use in latin american adolescent population. in previous studies (messoulam, abal, & molina, 2005; schmidt, messoulam, & molina, 2008; schmidt, messoulam, molina, & abal, 2006; schmidt, molina, messoulam, & abal, 2004) although good psychometric properties were found, content and metric analyses showed problems with some items. more than 85% of adolescents answered negatively to item 32. it is better if two married persons begin their sexual life together and to item 22. i stay away from anyone i suspect being “gay” or “lesbian”... showing low discriminant capacity in both cases. moreover, adolescents expressed their surprise and annoyance with both items. we think it was due to both items were outdated for our context and so they do not represent sensation seeking trends. finally, we considered that in countries where wide sectors of the population have difficulties in getting daily nutritional sustention it was not convenient nor ethical to ask if they “like to try new foods” as in item 14. that is why items 14, 22 and 32 were removed. other items needed to be revised (items 12, 16, and 19) because for our adolescents some words had no sense (“punk”, “swingers” and “water-skiing”). even though some of the items from the original version (1978) had been slightly modified by the author using terms more relevant to current times (zuckerman, 1994), we found in our previous studies that some difficulties still persisted. even after translating them, our adolescents could not imagine such activities. similar problems were found in other schmidt, molina, & raimundi 779 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adaptations, specifically with bs factor (chico-librán & vázquez-orellana, 1999; manna et al., 2013; ridgeway & russell, 1980). we proposed then modifications to these three items (for example, in item 16, “water skiing” was changed to “car race pilot” because they could have a clearer idea of what it was), and the words “swinger” and “punks” were omitted (instead of swingers, in item 12 we talked about people who are uninhibited and free about sex and instead of punks, in item 19 we talked about making friends in not conventional groups). finally, we generated three new ones as we had lost three items and two additional ones in case some of the three items did not work properly. in table 2 we present the first pull of items developed to create the latin american version of sss and we compare them with the original ones. table 2 linguistic and conceptual adaptation (items modified, removed and new items) original items items for latin america version 1. i like “wild” uninhibited parties original item 2. i can´t stand watching a movie… original item 3. i often wish i could be a mountain climber original item 4. i like some of the earthy body smells original item 5. i get bored seeing the same old faces original item 6. i like to explore a strange city… original item 7. when you can predict almost everything… original item 8. i usually don´t enjoy a movie or play where i can predict… original item 9. i have tried marijuana… original item 10. i would like to try some of the drugs that produce… original item 11. i sometimes like to do things… original item 12. i enjoy the company of real “swingers” i would enjoy the company of very liberal people with respect to sex. 13. i often like to get high… original item 14. i like to try new foods… item removed 15. looking at someone´s home movies, videos… original ítem 16. i would like to take up the sport of water skiing i would like to be a car racer. 17. i would like to try surfboard riding original item 18. i would like to take off on a trip with no preplanned… original item 19. i would like to make friends (…) like artists or “punks” i would like to have friends in some strange groups. 20. i would like to learn to fly an airplane original item 21. i would like to go scuba diving original item 22. i would like to meet some persons who are homosexual (men or women) item removed 23. i would like to try parachute jumping original item 24. i prefer friends who are excitingly unpredictable original item 25. i like to have new and exciting experiences… original item 26. i often find beauty in the “clashing” colors… original item 27. i get very restless if i have to stay around… original item 28. i like to dive off the high board original item 29. i like to date person who are physically… original item 30. keeping the drinks full is the key… original item 31. the worst social sin is to be a bore original item 32. a person should have considerable sexual experience… item removed 33. i could conceive of myself seeking pleasures… original item 34. i like people who are sharp and witty even if… original item 35. i enjoy watching many of the “sexy” scenes in movies original item the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 780 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ original items items for latin america version 36. i feel better after taking a couple of drinks original item 37. people should dress in individual ways… original item 38. i would like to sail a long distance in a small… original item 39. i have no patience with dull or boring persons… original item 40. i think i would enjoy the sensations of skiing… original item 41. i often find attractive bright and strong colors. (new item) 42. i would try drugs that have strange or dangerous effects. (new item) 43. i like to take risks for fun. (new item) 44. i like some strong odors. (new item) 45. i like the noise and the bustle around me. (new item) note. boldface indicates modifications in original items and italic indicates new items created for latin america version. in the present work, we decided to expand the sample and study the indicators of validity and reliability of the scale in greater depth, using currently recommended analysis and methods (lloret-segura, ferreres-traver, hernández-baeza, & tomás-marco, 2014). method participants it was a convenience sample. adolescents (n = 506) with a mean age of 14.96 (sd = 1.62; rank = 12-20) from four schools from buenos aires metropolitan area (buenos aires city and buenos aires province) completed the survey voluntarily and anonymously. informed consent forms were provided and completed by parents and students. the sample consisted of 314 females (62.10%). they lived in biparental homes (49.50%), monoparental homes (22.27%), extended families (12.52%), and the rest of them in some of the other forms of family composition. instruments • socio-demographic questionnaire to explore sex, age, grade at school, and family composition. • sensation seeking scale form v (sss-v; zuckerman et al., 1978; revised by zuckerman, 1994; latin american adaptation: schmidt, 2008; schmidt et al., 2004). in previous studies developed in argentina (schmidt, 2008; schmidt et al., 2004, 2006) a detailed content analysis including back-translation procedure, expert opinions, adolescent opinions, and a study of item metric properties when applying the scale to large samples were performed. some items were modified, others removed and new items had to be developed (see table 2). the adapted version consisted of 42 items with a forced choice form (subjects have to choose between two possibilities or different situations, one representing a high willingness to ss and the other, the opposite tendency). it assesses the four aspects of ss: thrill and adventure seeking (tas), experience seeking (es), disinhibition (dis), and boredom susceptibility (bs). • frequency x quantity alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking (hed) questionnaire. it was devised following the quantity-frequency approach and based on previous studies (cremonte, cherpitel, borges, peltzer, & santángelo, 2010). in this questionnaire the amount (e.g. when you take an alcoholic schmidt, molina, & raimundi 781 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ drink, how many drinks do you usually jacks on each occasion?), frequency (e.g. during the last twelve months/last month how often did you take at least one drink?), and heavy episodic drinking (hed) is assessed following graduated frequency approach (e.g., how often did you take six or more drinks on one occasion?). to distinguish low-risk drinkers from high-risk drinkers we consider both parameters: frequency and quantity. high-risk adolescents drinkers consume alcohol “1 or 2 times a week” or more (category called “frequent consumption”) and/or six or more drink units (du = 60 grams of pure ethanol or more) (category called “heavy episodic drinkers”). this questionnaire has proved to be adequate in our context. strong relationships between high-risk drinkers and unsocialized ways of ss are expected to be found, providing additional construct validity to the sss argentine version for adolescents. data analyses an exploratory factor analysis (efa) through classic parallel analysis (pa) was applied (horn, 1965). unweighted least squares (uls) for determining the number of factors to retain was applied (lorenzo-seva, 1999). this method works on a policoric matrix and is strongly recommended in an asymmetric distribution and with dicotomic response option scales (muthén & kaplan, 1992). promin (lorenzo-seva, 1999), a method for oblique factor rotation, was used as correlation among factors is expected. matrix adequacy was assessed by kmo test and bartlett esphericity test. the gfi was used to assess the adequacy of a four factor model. the criterion of loading chosen for retaining each item into each factor was greater than .30 (hair, anderson, tatham, & black, 2001). for double loading, a combined criterion that considers relevant to maintain conceptual consistency and psychometric quality was preferred (lloret-segura et al., 2014). percentage of variance for each factor and the total scale were calculated. alphas coefficients for each factor and for the total scale were also calculated. intratest policoric correlation is presented. non parametric test were performed as the distribution of the scores was not normal. males and females were compared on each subscale and the total score using mann-whitney u test. the relationship between age and ss was explored with spearman correlation. disciminant validity with regard to different alcohol consumption patterns was analyzed with mann-whitney u test. intratest differences (wilcoxon test) were performed. we study size effect with spearman’s rho. statistical analysis was conducted using the factor program (9.3.1 version) (lorenzo-seva & ferrando, 2015) and the ssps program (21 version). results efa results showed several items with low or double loadings. it was therefore necessary several iterations procedures, removing at each step the items with worse functioning, until both pursued conditions emerged: theoretical consistency and a metrically solid structure (lloret-segura et al., 2014). four factors were extracted that together explained the 56.18% of the variance. the kmo and barrett test showed the adequacy of the matrix (table 3). in every factor there are adequate loadings (items with loadings lower than .30 were eliminated). two items have double loading. following lloret-segura et al. (2014) criteria, we considered double loading when the difference between items is below .20. statistical and conceptual criterion was used to decide which item goes to which factor. for one item, a conceptual criterion was preferred without resignation of metric quality and, in the other case the criterion followed was statistical (retaining the item in the factor with the highest loading). the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 782 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 exploratory factor analysis of sss-v for adolescents item factora i ii iii iv 10. surfing .74 -.07 -.02 -.14 12. flying plane .79 -.04 .09 -.12 13. diving .54 -.01 .01 .03 14. skydiving .66 .05 -.04 .30 16. jumping from heights .81 .19 -.18 -.10 21. skiing .41 -.23 .15 .14 1. wild parties -.09 .40 .14 .31 8. disinhibited people .05 .37 .39 -.08 17. exciting people .04 .69 -.17 -.01 19. sexual content movies .25 .36 .12 -.13 20. alcohol -.04 .84 .23 -.29 2. body smells -.05 -.12 .42 .03 5. marihuana .04 -.11 .99 -.07 6. hallucinogens drugs .01 .06 .90 -.08 9. stimulants -.08 .27 .60 .17 22. dangerous drugs -.10 .34 .46 .14 3. unpredictable places .11 -.04 .02 .48 7. risk appetite .04 -.11 .13 .79 11. unplanned trip .14 .01 .03 .41 15. unpredictable friends .06 .21 -.09 .36 18. boredom rejection -.24 .28 -.10 .48 23. risk for fun .02 .27 .05 .44 eigenvalues 6.58 2.89 1.58 1.31 % of variance 29.91 13.13 7.19 5.96 reliability estimate .87 .82 .93 .77 akmo = .83, bartlett’s test: χ2(231, n = 506) = 2075.90 (p < .001). total explained variance = 56.18%. note. boldface indicates the highest factor loadings for each factor. the result is a scale of 22 items that cover four factors. it seems that sensation seeking among latin american adolescents (from 12 to 20) can be described in terms of four factors, similar to those found in adult version from other countries, but with some important differences in the content of each factor. two factors are similar to tas and dis original factors (there are slight differences as it will be shown below). es is now a dimension clearly assessing illegal drugs attitudes. and a new factor has emerged, which we have named risk and novelty seeking. factor´s description factor i “thrill and adventure seeking” (6 items): this factor reflects the desire to engage in sports or activities involving some physical danger or risk such as surf boarding, flying an airplane or scuba diving. all items are from the original tas subscale. this dimension was shown to be relevant for adolescents in other adaptations (michel et al., 1999; russo et al., 1993). although some items may vary, in every sss there is a factor referred schmidt, molina, & raimundi 783 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to outdoor sports and other experiences involving danger but all being socially acceptable activities and this is the factor with better psychometric properties through different adaptations. factor ii “disinhibition” (5 items): this factor assesses the tendency towards disinhibited behavior through parties, sex, alcohol, seeking sexually exciting partners. disinhibited behaviour (social and sexual) seems to be an important way of ss for our adolescents. factor iii “experience seeking” (5 items): this factor reflects the willingness to seek new and varied experiences through senses, specially through psychoactive substances and through smells. it keeps 5 items from the original es subscale. the tendency to seek novelty and intense sensations is expressed in this factor through the use (or intention to use) illegal drugs such as marijuana, hallucinogens, stimulants; but it is also expressed through the fondness of feeling strong smells. thus, a basic sensorial aspect seems to be closely related to the use of illegal drugs. factor iv “risk and novelty seeking” (rns, 6 items): this factor contains items from the original es subscale, but also items from bs, tas and new items were developed because of the problems detected in previous studies. although they belong to different factors (looking back to zuckerman’s scale), there is a content homogeneity. the items show the preference for a risky lifestyle full of novelty and variety, exploring strange places and taking off on no preplanned trips, and being involved in risky or frightening activities just for fun. we consider this factor might be assessing a general willingness to experience sensations through novelty and risky situations, so as to avoid boredom susceptibility. that is why we re-named this factor. as it usually happens in other standardizations (australia, canada, usa, spain, italy) tas is the subscale which receives the highest score (zuckerman, 1994, 2007b). the second more preferred subscale is nrs. and es and dis received the lowest scores. descriptive statistics for subscales are presented in table 4. table 4 descriptive statistics for each subscale subscale m sd ci 95% min. max. tas 4.19 1.70 [4.03, 4.33 ] 0 6 es 1.25 1.48 [1.11, 1.37] 0 5 dis 1.67 1.37 [1.55, 1.79] 0 5 rns 2.87 1.68 [2.72, 3.02] 0 6 total ss 9.98 4.37 [9.59, 10.36] 0 21 note. tas = thrill and adventure seeking; es = experience seeking; dis = disinhibition; rns = risk and novelty seeking; tss = total sensation seeking. the associations analyses among subscales shows that tas is positively associated to all the other ways of ss, but with low to medium coefficients (rs from .14 to .34). the highest association is with rns (rs = .34; p < .001). es is positively associated to all other ways of ss, with moderate coefficients with dis (rs = .49; p < .001) and rns (rs = .39; p < .001). rns is positively associated to all the other ways of ss with moderate coefficients (rs from .34 to .41) (table 5). the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 784 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 spearman correlations among subscales and correlations with age variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. tas .14** .18*** .34*** .62*** .04 2. es .49*** .39*** .67*** .22*** 3. dis .41*** .70*** .08 4. rns .78*** .04 5. tss .11** 6. age note. tas = thrill and adventure seeking; es = experience seeking; dis = disinhibition; rns = risk and novelty seeking; tss = total sensation seeking. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. correlation with age shows that ss total score is positively associated to age. among subscales, the only one positively associated to age was es. males got higher scores than females in tas (u = 23917, p < .001, r = .18), dis (u = 21623, p < .001, r = .24), rns (u = 25706.50, p = .005, r = .12), and ss total scale (u = 22139, p < .001, r = .22). there is no significant difference in es. the group of adolescents that consume alcohol showed greater tas (u = 5534.50, p = .025, r = .15), es (u = 3328.50, p < .001, r = .44), dis (u = 3885.50, p < .001, r = .36), rns (u = 4391, p < .001, r = .29) and overall ss (u = 3131, p < .001, r = .45) than adolescents that had never consumed this substance. adolescents who at the time of the survey consumed alcohol once or more a week got higher scores in tas (u = 1557, p = .009, r = .23), es (u = 1055, p < .001, r = .42), dis (u = 3885.50, p < .001, r = .50) and ss total score (u = 818, p < .001, r = .52) than adolescents who consumed alcohol once a month or even less. no difference in rns was found (u = 1778.50, p = .129, r = .13). heavy episodic drinkers (6 or more du in the same occasion) showed greater scores in es (u = 1374.50, p = .001, r = .29), dis (u = 1181, p < .001, r = .37), rns (u = 1651, p = .025, r = .19) and general ss (u = 1215.50, p < .001, r = .35) than adolescents who used this substance moderately (less than 6 du). no difference in tas was found (u = 1846.50, p = .160, r = .112). es, dis and total ss showed the biggest effect sizes (see figure 1). figure 1. effect sizes of the difference in sensation seeking, according to the pattern of alcohol consumption. note. hed = heavy episodic drinking; rns = risk and novelty seeking; dis = disinhibition; es = experience seeking; tas = thrill and adventure seeking. schmidt, molina, & raimundi 785 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion and discussion sensation seeking scale (sss-v; zuckerman et al., 1978; revised by zuckerman, 1994) is the most widely used measure to assess ss, but there was not a complete and adequate adapted version for its use in hispanic cultural context. therefore, a new version of zuckerman´s sss was required to assess ss in latin american adolescents. this local version shows adequate reliability, content and construct validity, and expected sex and age differences. the efa identified a four-factor structure similar to that found in many adolescent and adult scale versions (england, usa, spain, canada, australia) (zuckerman, 1994) but with some differences with regard to factor´s contents. tas and dis remain almost the same for latin american adolescents compared to adolescent and adult versions from others countries (michel et al., 1999; russo et al., 1993). but es in our version is different from es in adult versions. it is clear that for our adolescents the way of seeking experiences and intense sensations is mainly through illegal, dangerous and/or unknown drugs. in russo et al. (russo et al., 1993) version, similarly, a third factor emerged: drug and alcohol attitudes. this third factor is similar to our es factor although in our version the alcohol item was placed in dis subscale (as in the original version). boredom susceptibility (the fourth factor in the original version) was the most problematic factor, as the loading values for the items were low or did not coincide in the same factor; furthermore, a clear factor similar to bs never emerged in the different solutions that were tried. this factor happens to be the most problematic one in other adaptations too (manna et al., 2013; michel et al., 1999). for example, in the italian adaptation, 14 items failed to meet the retention criteria and were eliminated and a two-factor structure was found (tas with 7 items from the original tas subscale and dis with 5 items from the original dis subscale). in our version a fourth factor emerged, not comparable to any factors from adolescent or adult versions. the focus for this fourth factor is on risky and new situations and original items related to homosexual friends, artist friends, original clothes, etc. did not show loadings in this factor. therefore, this factor represents seek of novelty and risky experiences through a variety of situations like travelling, having exciting friends, being involved in frightening activities, and avoiding predictable experiences or friends. we called this facet “risk and novelty seeking” (rns). to sum up, sensation seeking in our culture may be well represented through four aspects (as it occurs in other countries) but these aspects are not just the same as those found in other contexts. the scale we finally obtained is different from sss-v used in england and usa, and different from previous adaptations conducted in spain (pérez et al., 1986), france (michel et al., 1999; simó et al., 1991) and italy (manna et al., 2013). relations between subscales (coefficients from low to moderate) suggest that we are assessing different aspects of the same construct, so it is important to consider this facets´ differentiation when assessing this phenomenon. es and dis are two clearly impulsive ways of ss, with higher association coefficients between them than with the rest of the subscales. tas, a non-impulsive way of ss, is mostly associated to brn, which is probably another non-impulsive way of sensations seeking in our context. in the present study, males get higher scores in ss total score and in almost every subscale than females. similar results regard differences according to sex were obtained in england: differences in tas, dis, bs and ss total scale were found in students at university of delaware (data from 1986-1992; n = 410 males, n = 807 females) (zuckerman, 1994); and in spain: men obtained greater scores again in tas, dis, bs and ss total scale. no differences were observed for the es scores (chico-librán & vázquez-orellana, 1999). in usa the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 786 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ samples, differences in tas and dis were also found (males higher than females). in australia, canada and spain, men got higher scores again in ss total score, tas and bs than women (roberti, 2004). in germany, males score higher than females for the sss-v total score, es, dis and bs (brocke et al., 1999). in sss for french adolescents, males got greater scores in tas than females and girls got greater scores in nonconformism (a factor obtained in their adaptation) (michel et al., 1999). the lack of differences in es for males and females may be showing a cultural phenomenon. in the last years, the prevalence of women consuming different substances is rising in the americas, reaching men levels of consumption for almost every substance (who, 2015). in the present study it was found that age was positively related to es through illegal drugs. this result is also observed in epidemiological studies (who, 2015) and in cross cultural research all around the world (arnett, 2012), and may be showing an adolescent normal growing process through which the individual gets more chances to do outdoors activities. the decreasing parental control and concomitant increasing independence and autonomy facilitate unconventional, risky and even illegal experiences (arnett, 2012). differences found in terms of sex and age, provide evidence for the scale construct validity. moreover, it has been found that those adolescents who consumed alcohol frequently got higher scores in tas, es, dis and ss total score but no difference in rns was found. it seems that frequent alcohol users have a trend to seek novelty and risky experiences similar to the one observed in the occasional alcohol user group. heavy episodic drinkers showed greater scores in es, dis, rns and general ss. in this case, the only nonsignificant difference was for tas (the only clear positive way of ss). dis was the variable that better that best distinguished the hed group from non-hed group. this way of ss is a major concern for parents, school community and health public policies. alcohol consumption is used in the west for disinhibition motives, especially in the social sphere (arnett, 2012; míguez, 2009). these results are important as the scale is supposed to discriminate different ways of using alcohol. that is why the differences observed here represent a contribution to the scale construct validity and show the possible utility of the scale. we hypothesized that the differences found in our version may be due to cultural or environmental aspects. other versions for adolescents or children (up to 15) from other cultures failed to find the same factors we have found. thus, we assumed we have captured cultural aspects of sensation seeking. this construct is undoubtedly universal but the way it expresses itself depends on the ways and customs of a particular group. identifying ss dimensions in particular groups is relevant for understanding this phenomenon in latin american adolescents. the adolescents studied showed a tendency to the search of sensations through forbidden and risky activities, disinhibited behavior, sports and novelty seeking. thus, ss cannot be considered only a risk. as we developed in the introduction of this paper, ss represents an adaptive advantage. going out to the world, to experience, to feel, to seek novelty, variety, sensations mean growing up, knowing, enriching, learning, challenging and daring. it is unimaginable an organism which rejects all kind of ss. low levels of ss may be associated to anhedonia, apathy, abulia or, at least, it may be a very poor way of living, and even a risk as far as the organism cannot be provided with the necessary information or enrichment. so, from both ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspective, ss is a need and an advantage for most of primates. schmidt, molina, & raimundi 787 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adolescents do not have many chances of practicing risk sports; these are very expensive activities and although they may be fond of them (as we can conclude from our results) they cannot reach them. being tas the only clear positive factor (at least socially accepted) of ss we asked ourselves which other protective factors are available for our adolescents when they have high levels of ss. the three other ways of ss (es, rns, dis) are more likely in latin american adolescents and the problem is that they seem to represent the negative side of ss. as we found in the present study, tas gets the highest score; it means that they would like to practice risk sports but we do not know if they do so. in fact, we assumed a reduced proportion of adolescents are involved in this kind of activity. what happens then with those adolescents that having high levels of ss cannot accede to this socialized way of ss? in the latin american population, drug consumption among adolescents is a growing health problem. it has reached levels never seen before: the age of initiation is decreasing, the prevalence is increasing and the way of consumption and the substances available are more dangerous; all this scenarios taking place in a socio-economic context characterized by extreme poverty. to these facts, which are similar all over latin american, we must add the poor capacity of public policies to give any effective response to these problems and to integrate the great amount of excluded youths to the system (social, educational, work system). as a consequence, the main ways for adolescents to experience intense and new experiences and to canalize this need for sensations, is undoubtedly by disinhibited behaviour (parties, alcohol, sex) and by stimulation seeking (through drugs). higher scores in tas do not mean that they practise risky sports more frequently than they consume substances. the opposite is more likely. but it is showing an interesting data: considerable amount of adolescents would like to practise risky sports. of course, drug abuse is a complex problem that has to be analyzed carefully and considering the influence of different kinds of determinants (socioeconomic, biological, behavioural, politic and even philosophical). but we cannot forget that at the psychobiological level, the best predictor is ss. how to encourage positive ways of ss? these findings would have important implications for prevention programmes, since ss is related to a variety of behavioural and social problems not only in adolescence but also in adult population. gradually other scales are being developed as arnett´s sss (arnett, 1994) or the brief scales devices by stephenson, hoyle, palmgreen, and slater (2003). but the creation of new scales does not mean that they are better (they show serious metric problems). it is important to note some limitations of this study. we did not work with a random sample but convenience one. all subjects recruited were from buenos aires metropolitan area. but there is an enormous cultural variation in latin america, even within each country. that’s why invariance of the present structure should be explored in several points of latin america. the structure presented was the best solution of the many attempted because it combines the two conditions that were pursued: a coherent theoretical proposal and a solid psychometric structure. to achieve this, several items had to be removed. which leads to another limitation of the present study: some content may be under-represented for some sensations seeking’s facets. some items remain double loading which is a weakness of the scale, but removing any of these items led us to the loss of the 4 factor-structure. in future studies, the pool of items will be extended so as to be able to remove those with double loading without altering the theoretical model. also in this line, in the future the dimensions proposed by zuckerman’s model will be confirm by means of confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) in an independent sample and the invariance of the structure will be explored when the scale is applied to a variety of samples: young athletes, chess players and musicians. on the other hand, the study of sensation seeking for the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents 788 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adult population of latin america is required, since the content of the current scale hardly reflect the sensation seeking in adult population. despite these limitations, this study showed that zuckerman´s sss is still valid and reliable even among latin american adolescents. funding this work was supported by the national council of scientific and technical research (conicet) and the secretary of science and technology of university of buenos aires. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we want to thank to adolescents, parents and authorities of schools that participated in this study. references arnett, j. 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(1980). demographic influences in sensation seeking and expressions of sensation seeking in religion, smoking and driving habits. personality and individual differences, 1(3), 197-206. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(80)90051-3 about the authors vanina schmidt. researcher at national council of scientific and technique research (conicet). research institute, faculty of psychology, university of buenos aires, argentina. correspondence: av. independencia 3065. autonomous city of buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: vschmidt@psi.uba.ar maría fernanda molina. postdoctoral research fellow at national council of scientific and technique research (conicet). research institute, faculty of psychology, university of buenos aires, argentina. correspondence: av. independencia 3065. autonomous city of buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: fernandamolina@psi.uba.ar maría julia raimundi. postdoctoral research fellow at national council of scientific and technique research (conicet). research institute, faculty of psychology, university of buenos aires, argentina. correspondence: av. independencia 3065. autonomous city of buenos aires, argentina. telephone: (+54) 011 4822-9233. e-mail: jraimundi@psi.uba.ar schmidt, molina, & raimundi 793 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 776–793 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1198 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/h0030478 http://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00018938 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1990.tb00918.x http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.01.012 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.03.021 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.46.1.139 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the sensation seeking scale in latin american adolescents (introduction) method participants instruments data analyses results factor´s description conclusion and discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors measuring the effects of self-awareness: construction of the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire research reports measuring the effects of self-awareness: construction of the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire anna sutton*a [a] business school, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, united kingdom. abstract dispositional self-awareness is conceptualized in several different ways, including insight, reflection, rumination and mindfulness, with the latter in particular attracting extensive attention in recent research. while self-awareness is generally associated with positive psychological well-being, these different conceptualizations are also each associated with a range of unique outcomes. this two part, mixed methods study aimed to advance understanding of dispositional self-awareness by developing a questionnaire to measure its outcomes. in study 1, expert focus groups categorized and extended an initial pool of potential items from previous research. in study 2, these items were reduced to a 38 item self-report questionnaire with four factors representing three beneficial outcomes (reflective self-development, acceptance and proactivity) and one negative outcome (costs). regression of these outcomes against self-awareness measures revealed that self-reflection and insight predicted beneficial outcomes, rumination predicted reduced benefits and increased costs, and mindfulness predicted both increased proactivity and costs. these studies help to refine the self-awareness concept by identifying the unique outcomes associated with the concepts of self-reflection, insight, reflection, rumination and mindfulness. it can be used in future studies to evaluate and develop awareness-raising techniques to maximize self-awareness benefits while minimizing related costs. keywords: self-awareness, mindfulness, reflection, rumination, insight, work europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 received: 2016-04-18. accepted: 2016-09-09. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: maciej karwowski, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: business school, manchester metropolitan university, manchester m15 6bh, united kingdom. e-mail: a.sutton@mmu.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction self-awareness has long been seen by practitioners and researchers as both a primary means of alleviating psychological distress and the path of self-development for psychologically healthy individuals. four decades ago, fenigstein et al. wrote that “increased awareness of the self is both a tool and a goal” (fenigstein, scheier, & buss, 1975, p. 522), while more recently an extensive review has demonstrated that different aspects of selfawareness, including mindfulness and rumination, mediate the impact of mindfulness-based interventions on mental health outcomes (gu, strauss, bond, & cavanagh, 2015). the importance of self-awareness goes beyond well-being and mental health to include substantial impacts on day-to-day functioning. it has important effects on performance, with reflection and mindfulness encouraging persistence with tasks despite performance-related stress (feldman, dunn, stemke, bell, & greeson, 2014) and rumination related to interpersonal difficulties (brinker, chin, & wilkinson, 2014). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ while the number of studies demonstrating the importance of self-awareness continues to grow, there is not yet a comprehensive measure available to capture this range of effects and outcomes. instead, it seems that each new study focuses on a different outcome, or that outcomes are investigated according to what is currently of wider interest in the psychological literature (as, for example, with the current interest in well-being). while this approach is certainly beneficial in establishing specific outcomes associated with self-awareness, it does leave the field somewhat fragmented. a single measure that could assess the whole range of potential outcomes of self-awareness would provide a dual benefit to researchers and practitioners. first, it would enable further theoretical differentiation of existing self-awareness concepts through a consideration of their differential impacts on individual lives. second, it would provide an effective means for evaluating the potential changes brought about by awareness-building interventions. this paper reports on a two-part study to develop one such self-report questionnaire, the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire (saoq). self-awareness can be broadly defined as the extent to which people are consciously aware of their internal states and their interactions or relationships with others (see for example, trapnell & campbell, 1999; trudeau & reich, 1995). viewed as an overarching theoretical construct, self-awareness is operationalized in different ways depending on the focus of the research. a distinction is often drawn, for example, between situational and dispositional selfawareness (brown & ryan, 2003), reflecting the different approaches of social psychologists and personality psychologists respectively. situational self-awareness is an automatic process by which we compare our current actions to our internalised standards, making changes where necessary to reduce inconsistency (silvia & duval, 2001). dispositional selfawareness (also known as self-consciousness or self-attentiveness) in contrast, is the trait-like tendency for an individual to focus on and reflect on their own psychological processes and inner experiences as well as their relationships to others (fenigstein et al., 1975). fenigstein further distinguished between public and private selfconsciousness, with the former being an awareness of how one appears to others (similar to the concept of selfmonitoring) and the latter being awareness of and reflecting on one’s internal states. this distinction has, however, been challenged, with more recent authors providing evidence that public and private self-consciousness are domains for self-awareness rather than different types of self-awareness (trapnell & campbell, 1999). there are several different measures of this dispositional self-attentiveness and the precise relationship between self-awareness and outcomes such as psychological well-being is dependent on which of these is used (harrington & loffredo, 2011). in the following sections, these different conceptualizations and measures are reviewed and their individual relationships with various outcomes are outlined. the self-reflection and insight scale (sris: grant, franklin, & langford, 2002) was developed as a measure of private self-consciousness which would assess internal state awareness (insight) separately from self-reflection. self-reflection is defined as the extent to which an individual pays attention to and evaluates his/her internal states and behaviours, while insight is the clarity of understanding of these states and behaviours that the individual has. grant et al. (2002) note that these abilities to monitor and evaluate are essential components of self-regulation and goal-directed behaviour. while self-reflection and insight are related to well-being, it is not a straightforward relationship. insight is related to increased psychological well-being and cognitive flexibility, while self-reflection is associated with higher anxiety but lower depression. a so-called ‘self-absorption paradox’ seems to exist: higher self-attentiveness is associated with both better self-knowledge and increased psychological distress (trapnell & campbell, 1999). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 646 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this paradox was partially resolved when trapnell and campbell (1999) introduced a different conceptualization of dispositional self-attentiveness by relating self-awareness to the big five personality traits. rumination, related to neuroticism, reflects a tendency to focus on negative self-perceptions and emotions. reflection, on the other hand, is related to the openness to experience trait and represents a tendency to reflect objectively. the differential impact of these two forms of self-attentiveness have been demonstrated in many areas, including the interpersonal arena: rumination is associated with impaired interpersonal skills and increased negative affect while reflection is associated with improved interpersonal skills (takano, sakamoto, & tanno, 2011). a comparison of the sris and reflection / rumination conceptualizations of self-awareness demonstrated that insight (from the sris scale) was the best predictor of six different dimensions of psychological well-being (harrington & loffredo, 2011). rumination negatively predicted autonomy, mastery and self-acceptance while reflection positively predicted personal growth. this study further demonstrated how a focus on self-awareness outcomes can help to elucidate theoretical distinctions within the self-awareness concept. a second and related conceptualization of self-awareness, namely mindfulness, has come under extensive scrutiny recently, with research generally indicating a positive relationship between mindfulness and well-being (brown & ryan, 2003) and mindfulness practice associated with long-term positive impacts on quality of life (morgan, graham, hayes-skelton, orsillo, & roemer, 2014). mindfulness can be defined as attention to and awareness of the present moment which does not seek to react to or classify experience (brown & ryan, 2003). this element of a receptive attitude is helpful in differentiating between mindfulness and other aspects of selfawareness, as brown and ryan note when distinguishing between two unique modes of self-regulation: monitoring (represented by mindfulness) and controlling (represented by private self-attentiveness). teasdale (1999) has suggested that this difference lies at the root of the differing effects of mindfulness and ruminative self-attentiveness, with the former being adaptive and the latter, due to its evaluative component, maladaptive. the mindful attention awareness scale measures trait mindfulness and has been used to demonstrate wide ranging positive relationships between mindfulness and psychological health and functioning (brown & ryan, 2003). despite this, there is emerging evidence that mindfulness is not always beneficial and can even, in certain circumstances, negatively impact on performance (zhang, ding, li, & wu, 2013). indeed, in their seminal review, brown, ryan, and creswell (2007) noted that being mindful could also potentially be harmful, for example by reducing the positive illusions that are associated with enhanced well-being. yet this potentially harmful side of mindfulness is rarely explored in the profusion of literature about its beneficial effects. this study seeks to provide a holistic understanding of mindfulness and other dispositional aspects of self-awareness by identifying both the positive and negative outcomes associated with each. unless specifically referring to one of the individual conceptualizations reviewed above, this paper uses the broad definition of self-awareness as a conscious awareness of one’s internal states and interactions with others. a significant volume of research has elucidated the relationship of various conceptualizations of self-awareness with health-related variables (e.g. ghasemipour, robinson, & ghorbani, 2013) and different psychological variables, particularly well-being (brown et al., 2007). however, research on the more behavioural outcomes of increased self-awareness tends to be fragmented and focus on one or two outcomes at a time. if self-awareness is to be promoted as of direct value to individuals, organisations and society, it is important to assess the full range of potential outcomes. a comprehensive measure of the outcomes and effects of self-awareness would not only europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 sutton 647 http://www.psychopen.eu/ give researchers a concise way of evaluating the wide impact of self-awareness interventions but would also help to elaborate the nature of the relationships between different conceptualizations of self-awareness. the following two-part study aimed to develop and evaluate one such measure, the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire. the saoq is an attempt to capture the range of effects that self-awareness has on an individual’s everyday life. study 1 developed the conceptual framework and established face and content validity for the questionnaire. study 2 established the factor structure, reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire, delineating the relationships between different measures of self-awareness and outcomes. study 1: conceptual framework for the saoq this study developed the content validity of the saoq questionnaire through identification, discussion and refinement of potential items with focus groups consisting of experts in the field of self-awareness. method sutton et al. (2015) report on a longitudinal study of the effects of workshops designed to enhance self-awareness and identify four main themes and twelve contingent themes in the outcomes that participants report. two of these twelve contingent themes were excluded from this study as not relevant: ‘no changes’ was excluded as the saoq is designed tomeasure only reported effects of self-awareness and ‘future development’ because the theme involved hopes or plans about future development which was not yet in evidence. an initial list of 61 self-awareness outcomes was developed based on the data from that study and these items were used as the basis for focus group discussions as follows. sample two expert focus groups were recruited through personal contacts, chosen to represent two different approaches to self-awareness development. the first consisted of four counsellors working within the person-centred (p-c) approach, who were also tutors on a p-c counselling course at a uk university. the development of self-awareness is a key aspect of the person-centred approach (rogers, 1951) and these counsellors hadmany years of experience within the therapeutic and educational arenas. the second focus group consisted of four therapists delivering first level psychological diagnosis and support as part of the nhs’s (national health service in the uk) increasing access to psychological therapy program. these therapists all had a nursing background and most of their therapeutic work used a cbt (cognitive behavioural therapy) approach. cbt also emphasises self-awareness on the part of both client and counsellor, though it is more focused on the client’s current situation than past experiences (nhs, 2012). procedure the first focus group was conducted in a conference room on site at the university, while the second was at a training venue used previously by the therapists. focus groups lasted approximately 90 minutes and were conducted by the author and a research assistant, with one leading the discussions and the other making detailed notes. the groups provided written informed consent and an audio recording of the discussions was made for later analysis. participants were given a small voucher as thanks for their participation and this was provided at the beginning of the time so as not to pressure them into staying should they wish to leave the study early. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 648 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were introduced to the study as an exploration of the effects of self-awareness on everyday life. the focus group discussions were initiated with a discussion about the participants’ own understanding of selfawareness and related concepts such as mindfulness, exploring how they as therapists viewed the concepts and drawing out their thoughts on how their clients understood them. each participant was then given cards with the potential questionnaire items on them (one per card) and asked to arrange them into themes or categories that made sense to them, and to give each theme a name. participants were allowed to discuss their ideas with other members of the group as they did this, although most of them undertook the initial sorting individually. group discussions were then initiated to explore the themes that emerged for each person, why they chose these groupings and what differences the group noticed between different people’s understandings. participants were then asked what effects of self-awareness they had noticed in their own, students’ or clients’ lives that were not recorded on the cards. answers here were probed for both positive and negative effects. results the items were grouped into between three and six categories by the participants. while the individual names given to the categories varied among the participants, four general themes emerged: insight into and effect on myself, self-development and progress, interactions with and acceptance of others, and work-related outcomes. participants in both groups were able to identify further effects of improved self-awareness from their own experience and their observations of clients and students, including for example i feel able to be different and i consciously choose to behave in certain ways rather than reacting instantly. another group of items the perceived costs of self-awareness was also identified by both groups (e.g. i am more self-critical, i sometimes think “what have i been doing all these years?”). besides these similarities between the two focus groups, participants in the second (cbt) group also focused on separating out cognitions / reflections from feelings, a reflection perhaps of the cbt approach to therapy. although clearly an important part of cbt therapy, this distinction did not surface in the later analyses of questionnaire items in study 2, where outcomes reflected the general themes agreed upon by both groups. some participants in the cbt group also labelled items as positive or negative, and this distinction is developed somewhat in the interpretation of the subscales in study 2, which identify both benefits and costs of self-awareness. the final result of this study was a comprehensive list of 83 items representing the outcomes of self-awareness as reported by experts in the field and previous research evaluations of self-awareness training. further, the themes and categories identified in this study provided context for interpretation of statistical results in study 2. study 2: development of the saoq study 2 aimed to refine the items from the first study into a psychometrically sound self-report questionnaire that could be used to measure the outcomes self-awareness. in addition, study 2 was designed to further explore the relationship between different self-awareness conceptualizations, including self-reflection, insight, reflection, rumination and mindfulness. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 sutton 649 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method this study adopted a stratified sampling approach in order to recruit participants who could be theoretically expected to differ in the extent of their self-awareness. as discussed previously, counselling demands a high level of self-awareness in practitioners and counselling training courses emphasize the development of self-awareness in students. counsellors and students on therapy-related courses were therefore expected to have higher levels of self-awareness than those employed in non-counselling fields or studying non-counselling courses. a sample of employed therapists and counsellors and a sample of students on counselling courses were therefore recruited. in order to provide amatched sample, participants were also recruited from two populations which were not engaged in self-awareness development: employees in non-therapy-related fields and non-counselling students. these participants were recruited via the author’s contacts in professional bodies and employing institution. in summary, four different groups were sampled: • therapists and counsellors • post-graduate, part-time students on therapy-related courses • human resources practitioners and business school staff (i.e. employed but not in the therapy field) • post-graduate, part-time students on business courses. the survey was advertised in professional newsletters, through personal contacts and on a forum for therapistsin-training, offering a small gift voucher as a thanks for their participation. respondents to the advert were sent an email with a unique link to the online survey. in total, 215 participants were recruited. sample the sample was 76% female with a mean age of 35.8 years (sd = 1.5), though it was skewed towards the younger end of the range, meaning that the mode age was 25 years. the majority of respondents were in work (77% fulltime, 15% part-time) and 41%worked as therapists, either paid or voluntary. students made up 47% of the sample, with an approximately even split between business-related and therapy-related courses. measures the 83 items from study 1 were reworded to allow the use of a frequency response scale and to ensure consistency in phrasing. they were arranged in random order and presented as a single questionnaire asking respondents to indicate how often they experienced each of the outcomes, with a five point frequency response scale from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always). in order to establish construct validity for the saoq, participants also completed the following measures: the reflection rumination questionnaire (trapnell & campbell, 1999) measures the extent to which a person tends to think about or reflect on self. the rrq consists of 24 items measured on a 5 point likert scale. the mindful attention awareness scale (brown & ryan, 2003) measures trait mindfulness. the maas consists of 15 items measured on a 6 point frequency scale. the self-reflection and insight scale (grant et al., 2002) measures the tendency to reflect on the self and the extent to which individuals have insight into their own behaviour. the sris consists of 20 items measured on a 6 point scale. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 650 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-awareness practices: participants reported the frequency with which they engaged in a list of six mindfulness and self-awareness practices on a scale from 1 (never) to 7 (every day). these items were gathered from a literature review and the focus groups in study 1 and included the following items: meditation, prayer, mindfulness practice, “talking therapy” (e.g. meeting with a counsellor), writing a journal, personal development group. results saoq questionnaire construction the saoq data was tested for suitability for factor analysis. the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure of sampling adequacy was .74, indicating that a substantial proportion of the variance in the items was likely due to underlying factors. bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant, indicating that the items were adequately related to each other. factor analysis (alpha factoring with promax rotation) was conducted and the scree plot indicated that a five factor solution explaining 36% of the variance was most appropriate. items which did not load clearly (above .4) on a single factor were excluded from further analysis and initial scales were constructed from the factor loadings of each item onto these five factors. scale reliabilities were analysed and four scales with a reliability of α > .7 were retained. factor correlations indicated that an oblique transformation was not recommended (tabachnick & fidell, 2001). a final analysis was run on the remaining 38 items using alpha factoring extraction with promax rotation: alpha extraction is best for maximizing reliability and promax rotation is best for clarifying factors which are correlated with each other. the resulting 4 factor structure explained 44.4% of the variance. the pattern matrix is shown in table 1 and, in combination with the qualitative analysis from study 1, was interpreted to provide names for each of the subscales. in line with recommendations by tabachnick and fidell (2001), variables with loadings above.32 were interpreted. as this was an initial study to establish the wide range of different outcomes associated with self-awareness, it was considered better to be more rather than less inclusive of items as long as the reliability of the scale remained high. items loading on more than one factor were interpreted within the factor with the highest loading. the reflective self-development subscale (rsd, 11 items, α = .87) contains items representing the development of continuous attention to the self, with a focus on conscious, reflective and balanced learning. the acceptance of self and others subscale (acceptance, 11 items, α = .83) represents outcomes including a positive self-image and confidence as well as a deeper understanding of others. the proactive at work subscale (proactive at work, 9 items, α = .81) consists of items specifically related to the outcomes of self-awareness in the workplace and represents an objective and proactive approach to dealing with work. the final subscale represents the emotional costs of self-awareness (emotional costs, 7 items, α = .77) and includes items representing the potential negative emotional impacts of being more aware of oneself, such as guilt, fear, vulnerability and fear. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 sutton 651 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 pattern matrix for saoq items 4321saoq item i "observe" myself .82 i have insight into myself .73 i look at why people act the way they do .63 i have learnt about myself and how i see the world .63 i am continuing to work on and develop myself .60 i focus on ways of amending my behaviour that would be useful .60 i feel generally positive about self-awareness .53 i reassess my own and others' responsibilities .50 i'm aware of my abilities and limitations .42 i am reflective .41 i am realistic about myself .35.38 i have a good self-image .77 i feel on the whole very comfortable with the way i am .75 i have fun .64 i am consistent in different situations or with different people .60 i have compassion and acceptance for others .57 i interact well with colleagues or peers .54 i understand myself well .42.33 i am confident .32-.42 i stop and think before judging .41 i understand my emotions .40 i am objective .36 i see my work life as something i have power to affect .64 i can “take a step back” from situations to understand them better .61 i am content with my work situation .57 i think about how my personality fits with my work role .57 i understand how i work within a team .53 i have changed the way i work .51.31 i take control of my work .47 i recognize the stress and worry in my current work .46 i think about how as colleagues or peers we interact with each other .45.35 i feel vulnerable .67 i feel exposed .66 i find making changes is difficult and scary .65 i feel guilty for criticizing others .56 i feel my emotions deeply .51 i find it scary to try something new or step out of what i know. .50 i have had to revisit difficult past experiences .42.38 note. loadings <.3 are not shown. relationship of saoq with self-awareness table 2 gives the descriptive statistics for the scales used in this study. the correlational analysis indicated that those who ruminate more are more likely to experience the costs of self-awareness and less likely to be accepting of themselves and others. those who reflect more are more likely to experience reflective self-development outcomes but also more likely to experience the costs. when measured with the sris-sr scale, self-reflection was europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 652 http://www.psychopen.eu/ also associated with increased proactivity at work. interestingly, mindfulness (maas) only showed associations with negative outcomes: decreased acceptance of self and others and increased costs. the negative association with acceptance runs counter to much published research and may indicate that this sample was somewhat unique in that a higher score on the maas was not associated a non-evaluative state of mind. uniquely, the srisinsight scale was associated positively with all the benefits of self-awareness (rsd, acceptance and proactivity subscales) and negatively with the emotional costs. finally, increased engagement in self-awareness practices is associated with increased reflective self-development and acceptance, but also increased costs. multiple regression analyses were conducted to establish how different conceptualizations of self-awareness were related to the outcomes measured in the saoq (table 3). self-awareness variables were entered as a block in individual analyses to predict each of the saoq subscales. overall, self-awareness measures explained between 12% and 41% of the variance in each of the four subscales and different conceptualizations of self-awareness predicted different subscale outcomes. rsdwas positively predicted by sris-sr and self-awareness practices. the acceptance subscale was predicted positively by sris-insight and self-awareness practices, and negatively by rumination. the proactive at work subscale was positively predicted by mindfulness and sris-sr and negatively by rumination. finally, emotional costs were positively predicted by rumination, mindfulness and self-awareness practices. between them, the sris subscales positively predicted the three benefits subscales. mindfulness predicted proactivity but also increased costs. rumination predicted a reduction in experienced self-awareness benefits (acceptance and proactivity) and an increase in costs. engagement in self-awareness practices predicted both benefits (reflective self-development and proactivity) and emotional costs. table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations for all scales 10987654321sdmscale 1. saoq rsd .87)(.58.943 2. saoq acc .83)(.50**.52.853 3. saoq pro .81)(.37**.42**.68.743 4. saoq cost .77)(.06-.18**-.16*.67.103 5. rrq rumination .92)(.51**.12-.40**-.05.78.343 6. rrq reflection .91)(.25**.25**.14.02-.50**.72.463 7. maas .88)(.09.47**.44**.03.32**-.07-.74.063 8. sris insight .84)(.51**-.05-.42**-.38**-.16*.35**.16*.79.104 9. sris-sr .93)(.05.01.77**.30**.25**.21**.01-.57**.89.414 10. self-awareness practices .75)(.37**.03-.04.41**.05.27**.14.24**.43**.98.941 note. alpha reliabilities in brackets. saoq = self-awareness outcomes questionnaire; rsd = reflective self-development; acc = acceptance; pro = proactive at work; cost = emotional costs; rrq = reflection rumination questionnaire; maas = mindful attention awareness scale; sris = self-reflection and insight scale; sr = self-reflection. *p < .05 (2-tailed). **p < .01 (2-tailed). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 sutton 653 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 predictors of self-awareness outcomes (saoq subscales): regression analyses costproaccrsd model r2 .38.12.27.41 f (6,188) .45***19.16**4.78***11.60***21 standardized betas rrq-rum .31***.23**-.27**-.06rrq-ref .02-.09-.05-.11 maas .22**.21*.11-.01sris-in .14-.15.19*.13 0sris-sr .10.31**.41*** practices .21**.06.28***.24*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. note. rsd = reflective self-development; acc = acceptance; pro = proactive at work; cost = emotional costs. saoq in different groups as expected, the subsamples differed in their levels of self-awareness. t-tests demonstrated that students on therapy-related courses were more reflective (rrq-reflection: t(81) = -3.3, p < .01, d = .74; sris-sr: t(79) = -2.5, p < .05, d = .56) and engaged in more self-awareness practices (t(76) = -5.16, p < .001, d = 1.18) than students on business-related courses. those respondents actively engaged in providing therapy (whether paid or voluntary) scored lower on rumination (t(204) = 3.6, p < .001, d = .5) and engaged in more self-awareness practices (t(193) = -3.3, p < .001, d = .48) than non-therapists. scores on the saoq demonstrated that these differences in self-awareness were reflected in different reported outcomes for each group as well. therapy students reported higher costs (t(78) = -4.08, p < .001, d = .92) than business students, while therapists reported more reflective self-development (t(197) = -2.93, p < .01, d = .42) and proactivity at work (t(199) = -2.13, p < .05, d = .30) than non-therapists. all these group differences showed medium to large effect sizes, using the ranges recommended by cohen. discussion this study aimed to extend our understanding of the self-awareness concept, particularly given the current interest in mindfulness, and to establish a questionnaire that could be used as a single measure of the wide range of outcomes of self-awareness in the general population. four factors emerged from the statistical analysis in the second study which showed substantial similarity to the themes identified by focus group experts in the first study: reflective self-development (a combination of the ‘insight into myself’ and ‘self-development’ themes identified in the qualitative study), acceptance of self and others, proactivity at work, and emotional costs. the correspondence between these qualitatively and quantitatively derived factors provides between-method triangulation support (denzin, 1970) for the structure of the saoq, indicating that it captures both statistically-sound and qualitatively meaningful outcomes of self-awareness. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 654 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one important finding to note is the relatively high correlations between the rsd outcomes scale and the two measures of reflective self-awareness (rrq-ref and sris-sr). while correlations above .5 indicate a strong relationship between the variables, there is still a substantial amount of unshared variance, indicating that the self-awareness scales and the outcomes scales are assessing different concepts. in addition, there is a conceptual difference to bear in mind. the rrq and sris scales were developed as measures of trait self-awareness, while the saoq-rsd scale was developed from participants’ and experts’ reports of the effects of self-awareness, specifically the further development of reflective self-awareness. as this was a cross-sectional study, it is not possible to identify whether trait reflection is the cause of greater experience of reflective self-development or whether reflective self-development results in an increase in trait reflection. however, previous work has indicated that engagement in self-awareness training can indeed have some impact on trait reflection (sutton, williams, & allinson, 2015) and it seems likely that reflection and development interact closely: increased reflection results in increased self-development, which in turn promotes higher levels of trait reflection in the long term. the three distinct types of self-awareness benefits identified here lend support to brown et al.’s (2007) review of the beneficial effects of mindfulness and extend their applicability to other conceptualizations of self-awareness. for example, the acceptance scale reflects the improved social interaction quality that brown et al identified. addressing their concern about delineating the processes by which mindfulness brings about these outcomes, the rsd scale may be useful in identifying how self-awareness is an ongoing, iterative process, where some of the outcomes are also part of the developmental process itself (e.g. i am continuing to work on and develop myself). it is plausible that enhancing self-awareness creates a virtuous cycle resulting in increasing benefits beyond the initial impact of any intervention. the saoq also identifies a distinct group of costs associated with self-awareness. this subscale deserves special consideration as it clarifies the specific negative outcomes that brown et al suggested were in need of further exploration. in addition, it helps to explore the self-absorption paradox which trapnell and campbell (1999) related to a ruminative or reflective tendency in self-attentiveness. in this study, rumination and mindfulness both predicted an increase in the experienced emotional costs of self-awareness. however, while rumination also predicted a decrease in proactivity at work and acceptance, mindfulness predicted increased proactivity at work. this is consistent with suggestions that mindfulness may be a multi-faceted concept and that the non-judging facet may be particularly important in determining the experienced benefits (peters, eisenlohr-moul, upton, & baer, 2013). it also reinforces the growing literature sounding a note of caution about the impact of mindfulness on everyday life (e.g. zhang et al., 2013) by highlighting a significant link with negative outcomes. in contrast to the mixed results of mindfulness, the sris scales (grant et al., 2002) predicted solely positive outcomes. insight predicted acceptance and self-reflection predicted both reflective self-development and proactivity. previous work has found the insight scale to be most predictive of positive well-being outcomes (harrington & loffredo, 2011), and this research contributes to our understanding of the positive impact of the self-reflection scale by taking account of factors beyond psychological well-being. while the self-attentiveness paradox highlights a certain increase in some negative well-being measures (grant et al., 2002), it seems that this negative impact does not carry through to wider outcome measures. further research comparing the impact of self-awareness interventions using both the saoq and measures of psychological well-being, or assessing potential suppressor variables (simsek, 2013), could help to explore this issue. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 sutton 655 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for professionals engaged in developing self-awareness, whether tutors on therapy courses, therapists in a mental health context, or consultants developing mindfulness-related skills in an occupational context, this study identifies important implications for practice. first, the saoq enables practitioners and researchers to measure the specific effects of self-awareness interventions. second, this study highlights the need for awareness of the potential costs of developing self-awareness. given the current high level of interest in and promotion of mindfulness in many different contexts, an awareness of these emotional costs is important in providing people with a balanced view of the effects that mindfulness is likely to have. in the wider business context, the saoq can provide a unique and comprehensive method for measuring outcomes of real-world relevance. for example, continuing professional development (cpd) is an essential component of expertise in many professions, from healthcare to human resource management, and professional bodies are increasingly emphasising the centrality of reflective ability in this process. the saoq’s reflective self-development subscale provides a useful way of measuring the extent to which professionals are improving in their ability to reflect and develop and to evaluate training designed to help them in this skill development. in addition, the acceptance subscale measures outcomes around improved teamwork and communication, which are highly valued and sought-after outcomes in most organisational contexts. overall, the saoq provides organisations with a way to capture the important changes that can be expected as a result of any self-awareness training that is undertaken. limitations although the saoqwas developed with a stratified sample, representative of the different levels of self-awareness in the population, it remains for future research to test the questionnaire with a more diverse sample. studies like this may identify differing effects of self-awareness dependent on context. given the relationship of self-reflective tendencies to personality traits (trapnell & campbell, 1999), future research could also investigate the extent to which personality may impact on the likelihood of experiencing different self-awareness outcomes. in addition, the saoq was developed as a measure of the effects of self-awareness which included work-based outcomes: future research exploring the effects of self-awareness in a range of occupational groups and cultures would help to extend our knowledge of the impact of self-awareness in different work contexts. while the proactivity at work scale is particularly useful for evaluating interventions in the workplace, it is less useful for nonworking populations. work to develop an equivalent scale containing items unrelated to work but still demonstrating proactive changes would expand the utility of this questionnaire. finally, the questionnaire construction in study 2 utilized a cross-sectional approach to relate the measured outcomes to self-awareness levels, which is of course limited in its predictive value. however, the design of the whole study, from the initial development of items from a longitudinal study of self-awareness training, to their development through expert focus groups on the effects of self-awareness, to the triangulation of findings through quantitative and qualitative approaches, can give a fair degree of confidence in the direction of influence from self-awareness to outcomes. further longitudinal research would help to confirm the utility of targeted self-awareness training in developing these outcomes. conclusion by developing a measure of the outcomes of self-awareness, this study has contributed to extending our understanding of the self-awareness concept and its effects in everyday life. the saoq identifies the main impacts of self-awareness on people’s day-to-day lives and provides initial evidence of the outcomes associated with the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 656 http://www.psychopen.eu/ practice of commonmindfulness and self-awareness techniques. it can be used in future studies of the comparative effect of these techniques in order to identify ways of improving self-awareness that can enhance reflective selfdevelopment, acceptance and proactivity while minimizing related emotional costs. funding this research was partially funded by a grant to the author from the research institute for business and management, manchester metropolitan university. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. 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(2013). task complexity matters: the influence of trait mindfulness on task and safety performance of nuclear power plant operators. personality and individual differences, 55(4), 433-439. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2013.04.004 about the author anna sutton is a senior lecturer in occupational psychology at manchester metropolitan university. a chartered psychologist with the british psychological society, she holds a phd in occupational psychology and her research focuses on the role of personality, self-awareness and well-being in the workplace. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 645–658 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1178 self-awareness outcomes 658 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jcbs.2014.05.001 http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cognitive-behavioural-therapy/pages/introduction.aspx http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2013.01.021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327957pspr0503_4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00207594.2013.778414 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108%2fejtd-04-2015-0031 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2011.05.010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0005-7967%2899%2900050-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.76.2.284 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2f0191-8869%2895%2900110-r http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2013.04.004 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en self-awareness outcomes introduction study 1: conceptual framework for the saoq method results study 2: development of the saoq method results discussion limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author validation of a newly developed instrument establishing links between motivation and academic hardiness research reports validation of a newly developed instrument establishing links between motivation and academic hardiness spiridon kamtsios*a, evangelia karagiannopouloub [a] independent researcher, ioannina, greece. [b] department of philosophy, pedagogy and psychology, section psychology, university of ioannina, ioannina, greece. abstract the purpose of the study was to establish the reliability, the structural and the convergent validity of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children. a sample of children (n = 1264) aged 10-12 years completed the questionnaire and the “athens coping scale”. multiple fit indices provided support that the 9-factor model had a good fit to the data. reliability coefficients ranged from .68 to .83. the study provided also preliminary evidence of convergent validity of the “dimensions of academic hardiness” scores with one theoretically related measure, the “athens coping scale”. the results enrich the notion of academic hardiness in late elementary school children as the role of awareness and the role of children’s previous experiences has been distinguished. the relation between the “dimensions of academic hardiness” and achievement goal orientations in children learning is also noted. these findings are discussed in the context of the relevant literature. keywords: academic hardiness, elementary school children, validation, convergent validity europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 received: 2015-05-06. accepted: 2015-10-25. published (vor): 2016-02-29. handling editor: izabela lebuda, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: arx. makariou 37, tk. 45221, ioannina, greece. e-mail: spiroskam@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction hardiness is well established as a pattern of attitudes and skills that helps one remain resilient under stress (maddi, 2006). hardiness has been theorized to have a buffering effect on stress and to influence the types of coping strategies utilized in response to the appraisal of stress (maddi, harvey, khoshaba, fazel, & resurreccion, 2012). according to maddi and kobasa (1984), hardiness consists of commitment (vs. alienation), control (vs. powerlessness), and challenge (vs. threat). persons strong in commitment believe that they can find something in whatever is going on that seems interesting or important. they are unlikely to engage in denial or feel disengaged. persons strong in control believe they can beneficially influence outcomes through effort and they are unlikely to feel powerless. those strong in challenge believe that life is best when they continue to grow in wisdom through learning from experiences, whether positive or negative. they are unlikely to expect uninterrupted comfort and security (maddi, 2005). it is the interactive combination of commitment, control, and challenge that defines hardiness europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the existential courage to face stressful circumstances openly and directly, and the motivation to do the hard work of dealing with them constructively (maddi, 2006; maddi et al., 2012). several studies indicated hardiness as a predictor of effective coping (chan, 2000; clarke, 1995; florian, mikulincer, & taubman, 1995; lambert, lambert, & yamase, 2003; paleologou & dellaporta, 2009). it has been proposed that high-hardy individuals engage in approach coping stylesi (problem focused coping strategies) for the purpose of transforming stressful events into situations that seem to be more manageable. hardy attitudes lead to maintenance and enhancement of performance under stress. in contrast, low-hardy individuals tend to engage in avoidance coping styles, such as cognitive and behavioral disengagement and denial, to deal with a stressful situation (maddi, 2006; sheard, 2009). given evidence that psychological hardiness helps insulate individuals from the effects of stress, questions naturally arise regarding its generalizability across contexts and its influence on outcomes other than health (cole, field, & harris, 2004). for benishek and lopez (2001), the initial question was: what might be the positive impact of hardiness in academic settings? to answer this question they suggested that two cognitively oriented theories, kobasa’s (1979) hardiness theory and dweck’s (2000) theory of academic motivation might be useful in understanding why some children persevere when faced with academic difficulties. they suggested the notion of academic hardiness, as their hypothesis was that children’s learning motivation and academic hardiness interact to predict children’s effective outcomes (benishek, feldman, shipon, mecham, & lopez, 2005; cole et al., 2004) and this interaction can increase understanding of the learning experience (cole et al., 2004). commitment was defined as students’ reported willingness to expend consistent effort and to engage in personal sacrifices in order to achieve academic excellence, irrespective of the content or demands of individual courses, instructors or personal interests. challenge was defined as the students’ purposeful efforts to seek out difficult academic coursework and experiences and to justify such actions as inherently for personal learning. control was defined as students’ beliefs that they possessed the capacity to achieve desired educational outcomes from personal effort and through effective emotional self-regulation in the face of academic stresses and disappointments (benishek et al., 2005). this conceptualisation guided to the development of the academic hardiness scale (benishek & lopez, 2001; benishek et al., 2005), reflecting commitment, challenge and control. the academic hardiness scale has been used in researchers with high school students and undergraduates without exploring the factorial validity of the scale (golightly, 2007; karimi & venkatesan, 2009; kinder, 2008). some other studies reported psychometric weakness of the scale (golightly, 2007; kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2011). although many studies with adults (maddi, harvey, khoshaba, fazel, & resurreccion, 2009) and undergraduates (hystad, eid, laberg, johnsen, & bartone, 2009; mathis & lecci, 1999) have shown that hardiness and academic hardiness provide a buffering effect to life-work stress and school-college stress respectively, there is no research in looking at the enhancement of hardiness and academic hardiness in elementary school children (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2011, 2013a) in which school and achievement is a major source of stress (compas, connorsmith, saltzman, thomsen, &wadsworth, 2001; nelms, 1999), even if they do not have examinations and weekly test as high school and senior high school children (kamtsios & diggelidis, 2008). also, there has been little work on hardiness in high school students, although the hardiness construct seems useful in assisting school students in dealing with school-related stressors (green, grant, & rynsaard, 2007). besides there are no validated scales measuring exactly academic hardiness components (benishek et al., 2005 mentioned that there are additional aspects of the academic hardiness construct that have yet to be identified), although the need to understand and europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 30 http://www.psychopen.eu/ examine the construct of hardiness and academic hardiness in different life stages, on different groups and in different cultural settings has been increasingly recognized (benishek et al., 2005; chan, 2000; green et al., 2007; kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a), and although hardiness construct seems useful in assisting students in dealing with school-related stressors (green et al., 2007). some scales are not validated in different age samples and cultures (benishek et al., 2005), whereas some others were modified with some wording changes to reflect a school situation rather than a work situation (morrissey & hannah, 1987). kamtsios and karagiannopoulou (2011, 2013a) mentioned this potential gap in our knowledge regarding concepts related with academic hardiness in education. they believe that, as the school environment is particularly complex, there may be other variables associated with children’s academic hardiness and children’s commitment, control and challenge. in their first study (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a) they explored the possible relevant aspects of academic hardiness and its components (commitment, control, and challenge), using qualitative methodology. their aim was to develop a broader conceptualization of academic hardiness through the children’s perspective. they look specifically at children’s perceptions and experiences concerning the way they cope with a school failure in terms of commitment, control and challenge. their findings bring into question additional aspects of academic hardiness and its components in primary school children (10-12 years) that have not been identified in the past and provided information to better understand the educational dynamics of academic hardiness constructs. in their second study (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b), drawing from the interviews, they developed a battery of items and they created the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire”. after a set of exploratory factor analyses, the confirmatory factor analysis results provided support for the 9-factor solution (36 items) which explained 55.15% of the total variance. scale scores showed adequate internal consistency and 2-week testretest reliability. the findings were supportive to the academic hardiness theory as each factor corresponded conceptually to one of the three characteristics of the original academic hardiness theory (commitment, control, challenge). their results also confirm and strengthen the relation between hardiness and achievement goal orientation in children learning. the nine factors which emerged (see table 1) reflect the different ways in which late elementary school children try to cope with the school failure. we believe in the importance to further examine the dimensions of academic hardiness. an integral part of the conceptualization of academic hardiness and its dimensions is that the educational circumstances (academic achievement, learning, school environment), for many children attending school, are inherently stressful (compas et al., 2001; pincus & friedman, 2004) and this stress may make achievement and learning more difficult. the dimensions of academic hardiness, mentioned by kamtsios and karagiannopoulou (2013a) and evaluated in their second study by the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b), may lead to hardy academic attitudes, which may influence how children experience and cope with stressful academic and school circumstances. the present study presents the third part of an ongoing project aiming to develop an academic hardiness questionnaire for late elementary school children. this study reports the validation of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b) in a sample of children aged 10-12 years. the hypotheses guiding this study are as follows: first, we expected to confirm the factorial structure of the questionnaire in a new sample, using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). second, children’s coping style and the “dimensions of academic hardiness” score are expected to be correlated. specifically, it is expected that the total score of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” will be statistically positively europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 31 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correlated with “approach” coping styles (problem focused coping strategies) whereas there will be no statistically significant correlation between the dimensions of academic hardiness and avoidance coping styles. also, we expect that high academic hardiness children will engage in approach oriented coping strategies, such as assistance seeking, family support, problem solving and revision-reorganization, whereas low academic hardiness children will engage in avoidance oriented coping strategies such as avoidance, giving up – distancing and isolation. finally, the relation between the “academic hardiness dimensions” and achievement goal orientations in children learning (task or performance orientation) is expected to be statistically established through a second order factor analysis indicating that motivation is underlying the dimensions of academic hardiness. such a relation will support the content validity of the scale that joins hardiness and motivation. method sample the participants of the study were 1264 children (647 boys and 617 girls) from 25 elementary public schools in northwest greece. grade 5 (580 children-45.9%) and grade 6 (684 children-54.1%) children took part in the study. participants’ age ranged from 10 to 12 years. the schools and the children were randomly assigned to contribute to the research. procedure children and their parents were provided with a letter informing them about the purpose of the study. the questionnaires were administered in the classroom to pupils who returned a signed parent consent form. an initial explanation concerning the research and instructions on how to answer the instrument was presented to the children. after the opportunity for clarification and questions, they responded to the measures. the completion of the questionnaires required 20-25 min. this phase of the study was conducted with the permission of the greek ministry of education and the children voluntarily chose to participate. measures the children questionnaires used in this study were the following: the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b). the questionnaire represents a full range of children’s experiences, energies and actions in order to cope with a school failure. the questionnaire consists of 36 items allocated into 9 factors. the item development for the questionnaire was based on the analysis of interview data (for details see: kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a). examples of the items are presented in table 1. pupils responded on a 4-point likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). there are no reversely coded items. a high score on the 4-option likert-scale indicated that the aspect being assessed by the question was perceived to occur frequently by the children. the questionnaire has shown internal consistency ranging from .68 to .83. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 32 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 factors of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children, description, number of items and example items example item number of itemsdescriptionfactorno “i do my best at school so as my marks to be higher than those of my classmates” 4indicate children’s commitment-comparison and acceptance by schoolmates. commitment: comparing oneself with peers and acceptance from peers. 1 “when my performance at school is not good, i try to find ways to face the problem” 6effectiveness of different strategies in order for the children to achieve mastery orientation goals control-awareness: use of effective coping strategies2 “i do my best at schoolwork to prove to my parents that i can make it” 4items mentioned that children can recognize what have value and importance for other individuals and be commitment to achieve them commitment: adults’ acceptance3 “i believe that everything taught and learnt at school now can be also used in both secondary and high school” 5children’s commitment to study further recognizing the usefulness of knowledge the next years of school life commitment: knowledge utility4 “i try not to get a low mark to avoid feeling disappointment and shame” 5children’s control and awareness for effort with regard to avoid the unpleasant feelings after a school failure control-awareness: attempt to avoid unpleasant feelings 5 “i try to finish my homework first before i spend time with my friends” 3children’s priority of learning and commitment to academic tasks and time management. commitment: regulating priority to learning vs. enjoyment 6 “i find interest in my school subjects even though they may be difficult” 3failure is perceived as an experience that leads them to put more effort on study challenge: dealing positively with hard subjects7 “when i have difficulties with my schoolwork i ask for my parents’ help” 3children’s attitude to seek support when they face difficulties or when they do not accomplish well with the school lessons commitment: looking for help contributing to learning8 “getting a low mark makes me try harder in order to get a higher one the next time” 3children’s attitude to insist on their effort even if they meet difficulties (e.g. low grade) in the learning process challenge: dealing with failure in a constructive way9 coping was measured by the “athens coping scale questionnaire” (besevegis, 1996, 2001), which comprises 32 items. the “athens coping scale questionnaire” served as a criterion measure to assess the convergent validity of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children. scores from the two scales were hypothesized to be correlated because the two questionnaires are theoretically related. the “athens coping scale questionnaire” has been especially designed for children aged 10 and above (besevegis, 2001). the questionnaire has been used widely in studies (in greece) with children and adolescents and its factorial validity has been confirmed (amponi-tsoura, 2006; argyropoulou, sidiropoulou-dimakakou, & besevegis, 2007; giavrimis, konstantinou, & hatzichristou, 2003). the questionnaire consists of seven coping strategies. students were asked to indicate on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (often), the extent to which they use each of the coping strategies: (a) assistance seeking (4 items: e.g., “i asked somebody to help me out”), (b) family support (5 items: e.g., “i talked to my parents and asked their help”), (c) avoidance (6 items: e.g., “i started doing other things to keep myself busy and not think of what bothered me”), (d) giving up-distancing (5 items: e.g., “i decided that i could not do anything”), (e) isolation (4 items: e.g., “i shut myself off, i locked myself in my room”), (f) problem solving (4 items: e.g., “i increased my efforts in order to solve my problem”), (g) revisionreorganization (4 items: e.g., “i decided to change behavior in order to achieve the solution of the problem”). aseurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 33 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sistance seeking, family support, problem solving and revision-reorganization are categorized in the approach coping styles, whereas avoidance, giving up – distancing and isolation are categorized in the avoidance coping styles (besevegis, 2001). data analysis initially means and standard deviations were calculated for all factors. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was used to test the structure of the 9-factor, 36-item “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” scores, using eqs 6.1 statistical package (bentler, 1995). a model was specified in which all items for each scale were allowed to load on the corresponding factor only. this measurement model was developed on the basis of the factor loadings from the exploratory and confirmatory analyses reported in a previous study (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b). maximum likelihood (ml) estimation was used to address the possibility of non-normal distribution (cantoni & ronchetti, 2006) and to estimate the model parameters and the fit indices. ml has been found to produce more accurate fit indices and less biased parameters than generalized squares estimation (olsson, foss, troye, & howell, 2000). hu and bentler (1998) and tanaka (1993) recommend examining multiple indices when evaluating the overall fit of a model in order to address these different aspects of fit. the present study used a series of fit indices and error estimates to evaluate the adequacy of the measurement model on the basis of recommendations presented in the relevant literature (hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 2000; tanaka, 1993): the chi-square divided by the degrees of freedom (χ2/df), the comparative fit index (cfi), the goodness-of-fit index (gfi), the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (agfi), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the root mean residual (rmr), the root mean square residual (rmsr), the normed fit index (nfi) and the non-normed fit index (nnfi). values of the chi-square divided by degrees of freedom (χ2/df) that are less than 2 are commonly taken to indicate a good model fit (hu & bentler, 1998), and according to kline’s (1998) recommendations, an acceptable proportion is 2:1 or 3:1. the cfi computes model fit by comparing the hypothesized model to a null model that assumes that are no relations among observed variables. gfi and agfi are indexes of absolute fit. they provide a measure of variance or covariance that can be explained by the model, which is similar to a squared multiple correlation (kline, 1998). agfi adjusts the gfi by taking into account the number of estimated parameters in the model (tabachnick & fidell, 1996). typically for these indices values > .90 indicate an acceptable fit to the data (hu & bentler, 1999; kranzler & keith, 1999). the rmsr is the square root of the mean of the squared discrepancies between the implied and the observed covariance matrices. the rmsea is also based on the analysis of residuals and compensates for the effect of model complexity. a rmsea value of less than .06 and a srmr value of less than .08 indicate a good fit (brown & cudeck, 1993; hu & bentler, 1999). we also used a second-order factor analysis as a tool to examine the regrouping of the nine factors into individual factors. these new factors would further strengthen the questionnaire construction, confirming achievement orientations dimensions that “penetrate” the notion of academic hardiness. second order factor analysis, in contrast with the traditional research on instrument development which focused on primary scale factors, exams the possibility that various scales may be correlatedii and that scales can be reduced further and explains more concisely by their underlying constructs (gorsuch, 1983). reliability of the scales was examined using cronbach’s alpha coefficient and guttman-split-half. these procedures are the most commonly employed to estimate the internal consistency of test scores among several variables of europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 34 http://www.psychopen.eu/ personality. pearson correlation was calculated to establish the convergent validity between the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” and late elementary school children’s coping strategies. in order to further investigate the convergent validity of the questionnaire in the frame of the theoretical convergence between the academic hardiness and coping, we conducted one-way analysis of variance (anova) to investigate the adoption of different coping strategies by children with low, medium and high scores in the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire”. results confirmatory factor analysis a cfa using items derived from the previous exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b) based upon data from 1264 late elementary school children was performed. ml estimation was employed to estimate the model. factor loadings and error variances of the cfa are presented in table 2. examination of the fit indices indicated a good fit of the proposed model to the data. the chi-square ratio to degrees of freedom was 1496.79/568, more than the desired 2:1 ratio; however this was not unexpected due to the sample size (floyd & widaman, 1995; jöreskog, 1969) and leads the researchers to the use of additional indices. the 9-factor model had good fit with the data as indicated by the following indices: cfi: .91, gfi: .91, agfi: .90, rmr: .05, srmr: .06, rmsea: .05, nfi: .84, nnfi: .90. reliability analysis alpha reliability provided measures of internal consistency. the alpha coefficient for the entire instrument was .91, which is high (henson, 2001; yang & green, 2011). alpha coefficients for the 9 factors ranged from .68 to .83. split-half ranged from .61 to .81. therefore, the factors of the questionnaire offered adequate psychometric properties for the evaluation of this construct (devellis, 2003). table 3 presents the alpha coefficients and spithalf for the 9 factors as well as the means and standard deviations for the 9 scales. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 35 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 fa ct or lo ad in gs an d e rr or va ria nc es of th e “d im en si on s of a ca de m ic h ar di ne ss q ue st io nn ai re ”f or la te e le m en ta ry s ch oo lc hi ld re n fa ct or ite m n o 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 .8 1 (.5 8) id o m y be st at sc ho ol so as m y m ar ks to be hi gh er th an th os e of m y cl as sm at es . 1 .8 2 (.5 7) id o m y be st at sc ho ol w or k be ca us e iw an tn ot on ly to ge ta go od m ar k bu ta ls o to be am on g th e be st pu pi ls of m y cl as s. 2 .7 3 (.6 8) id o m y be st at sc ho ol in or de rt o ac hi ev e th e m ar ks iw an ta nd to be be tte rt ha n m y sc ho ol m at es 3 .6 3 (.7 7) it ry to ha ve go od m ar ks be ca us e id on ’t w an tm y fri en ds to m ak e fu n of m e. 4 .4 9 (.8 7) w he n ig et a lo w m ar k it ry to "u nb lo ck "a nd th in k ra tio na lly . 5 .4 5 (.8 9) w he n m y pe rfo rm an ce at sc ho ol in no tg oo d, it ry to fin d w ay s to fa ce th e pr ob le m . 6 .5 9 (.7 9) g et tin g a lo w m ar k is so m et hi ng un pl ea sa nt ,b ut ib el ie ve th at if it ry a lo ti ca n m ak e it. 7 .6 0 (.7 9) it ry no to nl y to ca lm do w n, w he n m y pe rfo rm an ce at sc ho ol is no ts o sa tis fy in g, bu ta ls o to th in k ab ou tw ha ti ca n do to im pr ov e it. 8 .5 7 (.8 1) it ry to ca lm do w n an d re al iz e w ha tw en tw ro ng in or de rt o do so m et hi ng ab ou tt ha t. 9 .3 7 (.9 2) if ig et a lo w m ar k, it ry to do so m et hi ng ,i n or de rt o fo rg et ab ou tw ha th ap pe ne d fo ra w hi le be fo re im ak e a de ci si on ab ou tm y ne xt st ep . 10 .6 9 (.7 1) id o ca re ab ou tg et tin g a go od m ar k in or de rt o m ak e m y pa re nt s fe el pl ea se d/ sa tis fie d. 11 .7 3 (.6 7) id o m y be st at sc ho ol w or k to pr ov e to m y pa re nt s th at ic an m ak e it. 12 .6 3 (.7 7) th ro ug h m y go od pe rfo rm an ce ic an pr ov e to m y te ac he rt ha ti ca n m ak e it at sc ho ol . 13 .6 3 (.7 7) h av in g in m in d th at a po ss ib le fa ilu re in a te st ca n di sa pp oi nt m y te ac he r, id o m y be st to av oi d it. 14 .5 9 (.8 0) it ry to be re al ly at te nt iv e to m y sc ho ol w or k as so m e of th e su bj ec ts ta ug ht m ay be ha nd fu l/u se fu ll at er in m y lif e. 15 .5 2 (.8 5) ib el ie ve th at ev er yt hi ng ta ug ht an d le ar nt at sc ho ol no w ca n al so be us ed in bo th se co nd ar y an d hi gh sc ho ol . 16 .5 2 (.8 5) it is ve ry im po rta nt fo rm e pe rs on al ly to ge ta go od m ar k. 17 .5 7 (.8 1) is tu dy m y le ss on s ca re fu lly /th or ou gh ly be ca us e th e kn ow le dg e ac qu ire d ca n be ne fit m y lif e in th e lo ng te rm . 18 .4 8 (.8 7) im ak e an ef fo rt fo ra ll le ss on s. a ll le ss on s ta ug ht ca n he lp m e in m y fu tu re lif e 19 .5 5 (.8 3) m y co nc er n ab ou tm y pa re nt s’ po te nt ia lr ea ct io n to a lo w m ar k m ak es m e try ha rd er 20 .6 0 (.8 0) m y co nc er n ab ou tm y te ac he r’s re ac tio n to a po ss ib le fa ilu re m ak es m e st ud y m or e 21 .5 3 (.8 4) it ry no tt o ge ta lo w m ar k to av oi d fe el in g di sa pp oi nt m en ta nd sh am e 22 .6 2 (.7 8) id o m y ho m ew or k be ca us e, if ig et a lo w m ar k, im ay fe el ba d/ un pl ea sa nt 23 .4 2 (.9 0) a lo w m ar k m ak es m e fe el sa d bu ti fi st ud y m or e, th is is no tg oi ng to ha pp en ag ai n 24 .6 1 (.7 8) is pe nd tim e in af te rs ch oo la ct iv iti es (e .g .p la yi ng ou tw ith m y fri en ds )o nl y af te ri ha ve fin is he d m y sc ho ol ho m ew or k 25 .6 3 (.7 6) it ry to fin is h m y ho m ew or k fir st be fo re is pe nd tim e w ith m y fri en ds 26 .6 3 (.7 7) id o m y ho m ew or k fir st an d th en ip la y w ith m y fri en ds 27 .6 7 (.7 3) if in d in te re st in m y sc ho ol su bj ec ts ev en th ou gh th ey m ay be di ffi cu lt 28 .6 7 (.7 2) if in d in te re st in th e co nt en te ve n of th os e le ss on s co ns id er ed as di ffi cu lt 29 .5 3 (.8 4) it ry m y be st ,e ve n at th e di ffi cu lt su bj ec ts /le ss on s, th ro ug h da ily re vi si on s 30 .7 7 (.6 3) w he n ih av e di ffi cu lti es w ith m y sc ho ol w or k ia sk fo rm y pa re nt s’ he lp 31 .7 3 (.6 5) ia sk fo rm y pa re nt s’ he lp w he n ih av e qu es tio ns /d iff ic ul tie s 32 .6 3 (.7 7) w he n ih av e di ffi cu lti es ,i pr ef er as ki ng fo ra n ad ul t’s he lp 33 .6 0 (.7 9) id on ’t fe el di sa pp oi nt ed w he n ig et a lo w m ar k. o n th e co nt ra ry it ry ha rd er to im pr ov e m ys el f 34 .6 9 (.7 2) fa ili ng a te st do es n’ td is ap po in tm e, bu ti tm ak es m e try ha rd er 35 .5 2 (.8 5) g et tin g a lo w m ar k m ak es m e try ha rd er in or de rt o ge ta hi gh er on e th e ne xt tim e 36 n ot e. va lu es in pa re nt he se s ar e er ro rv ar ia nc es . europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 36 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 n um be ro fi te m s, m ea ns an d % of to ta lv ar ia nc e, c ro nb ac h' s α an d s pl ith al fo ft he “d im en si on s of a ca de m ic h ar di ne ss q ue st io nn ai re ”f or la te e le m en ta ry s ch oo lc hi ld re n -c or re la tio ns b et w ee n th e fa ct or s 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sp lit -h al f cr on ba ch 's α % of to ta l va ria nc e m (s d ) n um be r of ite m s fa ct or n o .8 1 .8 3 7. 3 2. 93 (.6 8) 4 c om m itm en t: co m pa rin g on es el fw ith pe er s an d ac ce pt an ce fro m pe er s 1 .0 7 .2 7* * .2 0* * .1 5* .4 5* * .1 8* .5 9* * .2 0* * .7 0 .7 4 7. 1 3. 21 (.4 2) 6 c on tro l-a w ar en es s: us e of ef fe ct iv e co pi ng st ra te gi es 2 .4 6* * .1 6* .4 3* * .4 1* * .4 5* * .5 6* * .3 3* * .7 2 .7 5 6. 3 3. 15 (.5 0) 4 c om m itm en t: ad ul ts ’a cc ep ta nc e 3 .1 6* .2 4* * .3 0* * .2 4* * .5 4* * .3 1* * .7 3 .7 4 6. 3 3. 64 (.4 4) 5 c om m itm en t: kn ow le dg e ut ili ty 4 .4 2* * .2 1* * .4 7* * .4 9* * .4 2* * .6 9 .7 0 6. 1 3. 20 (.3 4) 5 c on tro l-a w ar en es s: at te m pt to av oi d un pl ea sa nt fe el in gs 5 .2 5* * .2 3* * .3 6* * .2 7* * .6 2 .6 8 5. 9 3. 45 (.6 3) 3 c om m itm en t: re gu la tin g pr io rit y to le ar ni ng vs .e nj oy m en t 6 .3 8* * .1 6* * .4 1* * .5 7 .6 6 5. 5 3. 15 (.3 0) 3 c ha lle ng e: de al in g po si tiv el y w ith ha rd su bj ec ts 7 .3 9* * .1 6* .6 6 .7 7 5. 3 3. 05 (.4 2) 3 c om m itm en t: lo ok in g fo rh el p co nt rib ut in g to le ar ni ng 8 .1 2* .5 9 .6 4 4. 6 3. 30 (.4 0) 3 c ha lle ng e: de al in g w ith fa ilu re in a co ns tru ct iv e w ay 9 *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 37 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 c or re la tio ns b et w ee n th e 9 fa ct or s of th e “d im en si on s of a ca de m ic h ar di ne ss q ue st io nn ai re ”a nd th e c op in g s ty le s 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 fa ct or n o c om m itm en t: co m pa rin g on es el fw ith pe er s an d ac ce pt an ce fro m pe er s 1 .0 9 .0 3 .0 7 .0 6 .2 0* * .0 9 .0 1 .0 3 .2 0* * .1 5* * .1 0* .4 3* * .1 3* .5 7* * .1 4* * c on tro l-a w ar en es s: us e of ef fe ct iv e co pi ng st ra te gi es 2 .3 6* * .1 4* .0 5 .2 0* * .0 8 .1 2* .1 4* * .5 1* * .1 1* * .4 6* * .3 6* * .5 1* * .5 5* * .3 2* * c om m itm en t: ad ul ts 'a cc ep ta nc e 3 .1 6* .0 02 .0 9 .0 8 .1 3* .0 9 .0 05 .1 4* * .1 9* * .2 5* * .1 6* * .6 0* * .2 6* * c om m itm en t: kn ow le dg e ut ili ty 4 .3 1* * .0 8 .0 4 .1 9* * .1 4* * .0 4 .1 7* .4 4* * .1 6* .4 4* * .4 2* * .4 7* * c on tro l-a w ar en es s: at te m pt to av oi d un pl ea sa nt fe el in gs 5 .3 0* * .0 5 .0 6 .2 2* * .0 8 .0 3 .0 07 .2 8* * .1 5* * .3 7* * .2 7* * c om m itm en t: re gu la tin g pr io rit y to le ar ni ng vs en jo ym en t 6 .2 4* * .0 4 .0 3 .1 3* * .1 0* .0 1 .0 9 .3 0* * .0 7 .3 4* * c ha lle ng e: de al in g po si tiv el y w ith ha rd su bj ec ts 7 .2 2* * .1 1* .0 6 .1 2* .0 6 .0 2 .1 5* .3 8* * .0 8 c om m itm en t: lo ok in g fo rh el p co nt rib ut in g to le ar ni ng 8 .1 2* * .1 5* * .0 5 .1 1 .0 3 .0 8 .3 4* * .0 2 .-0 9 .-1 7* * c ha lle ng e: de al in g w ith fa ilu re in a co ns tru ct iv e w ay 9 .2 6* * .0 8 .0 7 .0 4 .1 4* .-0 2 19 * fa m ily su pp or t 10 .3 9* * .4 3* * .1 5* * .3 1* * av oi da nc e 11 .2 2* * .2 8* * .2 3* * .1 5* * .3 9* * .-0 8 g iv in g up 12 .1 6* .3 2* * .0 09 p ro bl em so lv in g 13 .4 4* * .2 5* * .2 5* * is ol at io n 14 .1 2* .3 4* * a ss is ta nc e ke ep in g 15 .2 9* * r ev is io nre or ga ni za tio n 16 *p < .0 5. ** p < .0 1. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 38 http://www.psychopen.eu/ convergent validity to provide preliminary estimates of convergent validity of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” we examined the relationship of the questionnaire with the approach and avoidance coping strategies, measured by the “athens coping scale questionnaire” (besevegis, 2001). this questionnaire was administered as a criterion validity measure to examine the relationship of the newly developed scale with children’s preferred coping strategies. correlations between the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” and coping styles (approach and avoidance) are displayed in figure 1. as anticipated, the total score of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” was correlated positively and highly with the approach coping styles (problem focused coping styles). figure 1. correlations between the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children and coping styles (approach and avoidance). *p < .05. results from correlation analysis also revealed a statistical significance relation between the 9-factors of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” with coping styles as family support, problem solving, assistance keeping and revision-reorganization (table 4). also, as expected, one-way anovas’ results revealed that children with high scores in the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” used approach coping strategies in order to cope effectively with a school failure such as problem solving and revision-reorganization (table 5). both results (correlation analysis and one-way anova analysis) provided support for the convergent validity of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” for late elementary school children”. table 5 one-way anovas’ results for the relation between different scores of the dimensions of academic hardiness and coping strategies. pf dimensions of academic hardiness coping strategy highmediumlow m (sd)m (sd)m (sd) .2943.04 (.80)2.97 (.80)2.89 (.84)family support .2281 .2342.55 (.64)2.42 (.68)2.40 (.65)avoidance .4591 .4201.87 (.58)1.86 (.47)1.79 (.56)giving up .871 .0033.31 (.89)3.11 (.47)3.03 (.58)problem solving .967*5 .1101.98 (.67)1.79 (.54)1.85 (.64)isolation .2222 .2912.50 (.79)2.37 (.67)2.35 (.68)assistance seeking .2401 .0003.53 (.45)3.33 (.49)3.17 (.63)revision-reorganization .254*3 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 39 http://www.psychopen.eu/ second order factor analysis a second order principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was computed on the nine scales identified by the cfa. a number of procedures were used to determine the number of factors to extract: examination of the scree plot (cattell, 1966), eigenvalues greater than one (kaiser, 1970) and magnitude of item loadings. the scree-plot indicated the presence of two second order factors. a two-factor model was specified. the nine scales of the “dimensions of academic hardiness questionnaire” were explained by two factors (figure 2). the first factor, which was labeled task orientation, included five of the nine scales composed by children’s mastery goals, whereas the second factor, which was labeled performance orientation, included four of the nine factors composed by children’s performance goals. figure 2. second order factor analysis results. discussion the study reports the validation of an instrument to measure dimensions of academic hardiness for late elementary school children. the result is an instrument with acceptable reliability that is appropriate for use in late elementary europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 40 http://www.psychopen.eu/ school children populations. multiple fit indices support that the 9-factor model had a good fit to the data. the acceptance to high level of internal consistency, based on the total sample, indicates that the questionnaire and its subscales are reliable and can be used in late elementary school children. the study also provided preliminary evidence of convergent validity for the “dimensions of academic hardiness” scores. results indicated a high correlation between the “dimensions of academic hardiness” scores and approach coping styles (problem focused coping strategies). the relation between the dimensions of academic hardiness and coping is consistent with research suggesting that high hardy people cope with stresses and stressful circumstances by the use of approach coping styles (chan, 2000; clarke, 1995; florian et al., 1995; lambert et al., 2003). results from the second order factor analysis support the research hypothesis that there is a relation between the dimensions of academic hardiness and achievement goal orientations in student learning, as children’s orientations to mastery or performance goals are noted. this section below will explain these results; will suggest directions for future research, limitations and will discuss potential implications of these findings for school settings. structural, convergent and content validity of the scale the nine factors which resulted from the cfa reflect the different ways in which late elementary school children try to manage school failure. the positive correlations between the factors (table 3) imply their complementarity; namely children’s way to cope with school failure. according to the results of the study this could be an important finding as problems in the school environment, because of a failure, are multifaceted and children use different ways and strategies to cope with them. the statistically significant correlations between the “dimensions of academic hardiness” and the “approach oriented” coping styles (figure 1) support the convergent validity of the scale. the findings of the study shed light on benishek’s, feldman’s, shipon’s, mecham’s, and lopez’s (2005) suggestions for further exploration of academic hardiness as there are additional aspects of the construct that are yet to be identified and cole et al. (2004) hypothesis for the interaction between academic hardiness and academic motivation. in particular, the results of the study set off dimensions of academic hardiness, dimensions of commitment control and challenge, which have not been reported in the existing literature. these theoretical dimensions are conceptually categorized in the three academic hardiness attitudes (commitment, control, challenge). they provide a framework for understanding and comprehension of children’s reaction to school failure. also the results point out the relation between academic hardiness and learning motivation. to our knowledge, this is the first study that provides statistical support for the relation between the dimensions of academic hardiness and academic motivation (pintrich, 2004). contribution of the present study concerning control the results of the study enrich the notion of academic hardiness in late elementary school children. in particular, from the second and the fifth factor (control-awareness: use of effective coping strategies and control-awareness: attempt to avoid unpleasant feelings) the role of awareness and the role of children’s previous experiences are distinguished. specifically, according to the conceptual content of the second factor, children’s “detachment” from the problem (the school failure) is distinguished, together with children’s volition to control their emotions in order to cope with the difficult situation (failure). children’s ability to “detach” from the problem the extent to which there is a sense of a perceptually distinct object being “observed” (lambie, 2008) through the control of negative emotions is particularly important. unpleasant emotions transmit a negative relation between achievement goals in children learning and the use of strategies with regard to their achievement (linnenbrink, ryan, & pintrich, 1999). this finding, with regard to children’s detachment from the problem could be important. if children deluge by the negative/unpleasant emotions are less likely to use deeper learning strategies and are less likely to elabeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 41 http://www.psychopen.eu/ orate properly their knowledge. as a result they have less control over the situation which consequently may lead to negative affect (dweck, 2000). the results of the present study strengthen the significance of control in children’s learning. the importance of their past experiences for the regulation of their behavior is distinguished as children, determine their behavior according to their previous emotional experiences, (e.g. fifth factor, question no 22: “i try not to get a low mark to avoid feeling disappointment and shame”; question no 20: “my concern about my parents’ potential reaction to a low mark makes me study more”). this finding, concerning children’s awareness, theoretically strengthens the significance of control. on the basis of previous experiences children try to avoid the unpleasant emotions which proceed due to the school failure. these emotions, referred to their previous experiences, have created emotional memories (eccles &wigfield, 2002). the results of the study point out that previous negative experiences concern the unpleasant/negative emotions and the negative consequences after a school failure. children’s awareness for the previous negative experience is activated and can lead to their further engagement. children’s choice is to try harder so as not to experience again the negative emotions that follow a school failure. children's control increases the possibility for them to cope with the experience as a result of their action mainly and not as an event that they do not expected or as something excessively. children can recognize and appraise both the causes and the consequences of their failure. they can also acknowledge the unpleasant/negative feelings they had experienced e.g. the low grade (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a). the two dimensions of awareness (control-awareness: use of effective coping strategies and control-awareness: attempt to avoid unpleasant feelings) are consistent with previous research mentioning that awareness crucially allows emotional responses to be inhibited: such inhibition is necessary for truly rational action selection (lambie, 2008). contribution of the present study concerning commitment the results of the present study, with regard to commitment, imply that commitment enriched with achievement goal orientations. these motivational orientations had not been determined in the initial approach of academic hardiness theory (benishek et al., 2005) and may have an influence on how information (school failure) is sought and how information is evaluated with respect to goal attainment. task and performance orientations affect the way late elementary school children cope with the school failure (e.g. commitment: knowledge utility, commitment: comparing oneself with peers and acceptance from peers). children’s future expectations also shape the behavior they choose to have in the present in order to cope with school failure (e.g. commitment: knowledge utility). contribution of the present study concerning challenge with regard to challenge, the results of the study are in line with hardiness theory (kobasa, 1979; maddi, 2006) and academic hardiness theory (benishek et al., 2005). the present study implies that challenge concerns children’s belief and appraisal of a particular stressor as an opportunity and motivation for learning, instead of thinking of it as something threatening (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a, 2013b) (e.g. challenge: dealing positively with hard subjects; challenge: dealing with the failure in a constructive way). in such a way children can be taught by their errors and they can develop learning strategies in order to confront future school and learning demands. the theoretical dimensions of academic hardiness revealed in the present study are important for interpretation and understanding of children’s behavior in a matter of school failure (low grade in a test). the dimensions of academic hardiness may be particularly significant for children’s ability to cope with difficulties in school environment. as seen in figure 1 the dimensions of academic hardiness were strongly correlated with problem focused coping strategies. the finding confirm research hypothesis and suggest that the dimensions of academic hardiness help europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 42 http://www.psychopen.eu/ late elementary school children to cope effectively with a school failure. similar support comes from anova results (table 4). these results are consistent with past research evidence that indicate a strong relationship between approach coping styles and high hardy persons (green et al., 2007; maddi, 2006; sheard, 2009) or academic hardy undergraduates (hystad et al., 2009; lifton et al., 2006). it can be suggested that the dimensions of academic hardiness have a buffering effect against school and learning related stressful events, which influences the type of particular coping strategies late elementary school children utilize. the results of the study revealed that the dimensions of commitment, control and challenge may have a buffering effect against school and learning related stress. from the conceptual meaning of the nine factors of the questionnaire we can hypothesize that the mechanism whereby this beneficial effect takes place seems to involve the tendency of high academic hardiness children to: (a) view school life events (e.g. failure) as less stressful (e.g. factor 7 & 9), (2) cope effectively with these events (e.g. factor 2), (3) avoid excessive psychological arousal and be aware of their feelings (factor 5) and (4) pursue positive practices (e.g. factor 2 & 6). this mechanism is similar to the original hardiness theory (maddi, 2006) whereby hardiness constitutes positivity and resiliency in meeting life’s changes (maddi, 2005). in relation to the original hardiness theory (kobasa, 1979; maddi, 2006) and academic hardiness theory (benishek et al., 2005), the newly developed and evaluated questionnaire, measuring academic hardiness dimensions for late elementary school children, describes academic hardiness dimensions as a children-personality variable which has cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b). the relation between academic hardiness dimensions andmotivation is also explored. motivation to learn influences the decisionmaking processes determining the direction, focus and level of effort children will apply to a learning-educational context (pintrich, 2004). implementation from a didactic point of view these findings are particularly interesting. high academic hardiness children appear more aware for the reason they experience the unpleasant situation. children’s control-awareness increases the probability for them to face the experience as a result of their action mainly and not as an event that they did not expect or as something excessive. children can also recognize and appraise both the causes and the consequences of their failure. they can also acknowledge the unpleasant/negative feelings that they experienced because of the low grade (kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013b). also high academic hardiness children use coping strategies that are most active and problem focused, whereas those who are low hardy tend to cope by avoiding or denying threat. study limitations and further research suggestions a number of study limitations and directions for future work warrant comment. the current study used fifth and sixth graders. future studies should include older children. although the current study has provided initial evidence of convergent validity for the “dimensions of academic hardiness” questionnaire, further research to establish the validity of the questionnaire is very much needed. the results of the study may hold important practical implications for educators. the more educators learn about their students, the more able they will be to meet the needs of their students. furthermore in terms of future research an important question is: are the dimensions of academic hardiness a stable personality trait or are they a personal resource that can be modified by the experience of everyday school events? future studies should also investigate whether the results in this study emerge as a consistent finding or as an artifact of the present sample. the researchers are encouraged to proceed with applying europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 kamtsios & karagiannopoulou 43 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the scale to other countries and educational settings and addressing further validity issues, such as its invariance among genders, educational level (elementary school, high school, and senior high school), cultures and contexts. such studies can stimulate research because their results can be directly compared, enriching our knowledge of “academic hardiness dimensions”, as a strong predictor of academic achievement, with other variables from the field of educational psychology. notes i) coping style is a person’s characteristic strategies used in response to life stress, mitigating the relationship between life stress and physical and psychological functioning (lazarus, 1999). lazarus and folkman (1984) indicate that coping styles can affect how a stressful event is perceived and how it is managed. ii) these scales correlations, called higher order factors, define broader constructs that encompass more than one primary factor. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references amponi-tsoura, l. 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(2009). hardiness, commitment, gender, and age differentiate university academic performance. british journal of educational psychology, 79(1), 189-204. doi:10.1348/000709908x304406 tabachnick, b. e., & fidell, l. s. (1996). using multivariate statistics. new york, ny, usa: harper collins. tanaka, j. s. (1993). multifaceted conceptions of fit in structural equation models. in k. a. bollen & j. s. long (eds.), testing structural equation models (pp. 10-39). newbury park, ca, usa: sage. yang, y., & green, s. b. (2011). coefficient alpha: a reliability coefficient for the 21st century? journal of psychoeducational assessment, 29, 377-392. doi:10.1177/0734282911406668 about the authors spiridon kamtsios, phd, is an independent researcher. his main research interests concern hardiness and its dimensions in school settings, stress interventions, coping, and school psychology. evangelia karagiannopoulou, phd, is an educational psychologist, assistant professor in department of philosophy, education and psychology, section: psychology, university of ioannina, greece. her main research interests concern learning in higher education, stress, and coping. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 29–48 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.997 links between motivation and academic hardiness 48 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348%2f000709908x304406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0734282911406668 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en links between motivation and academic hardiness introduction method sample procedure measures data analysis results confirmatory factor analysis reliability analysis convergent validity second order factor analysis discussion structural, convergent and content validity of the scale contribution of the present study concerning control contribution of the present study concerning commitment contribution of the present study concerning challenge implementation study limitations and further research suggestions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors daydream believer: rumination, self-reflection and the temporal focus of mind wandering content research reports daydream believer: rumination, self-reflection and the temporal focus of mind wandering content daisy shrimpton a, deborah mcgann a, leigh m. riby* a [a] department of psychology, northumbria university, newcastle upon tyne, united kingdom. abstract current research into mind-wandering is beginning to acknowledge that this process is one of heterogeneity. following on from previous findings highlighting the role of self-focus during mind wandering, the present study aimed to examine individual differences in rumination and self-reflection and the impact such styles of self-focus may have on mind-wandering experiences. thirty-three participants were required to complete the sustained attention response task (sart), aimed at inducing mind-wandering episodes, whilst also probing the content of thought in terms of temporal focus. self-report questionnaires were also administered after the sart to measure dispositional differences in style and beliefs regarding mind-wandering and assessments of individual differences in rumination and self-reflection. those individuals with reflective self-focus showed a strong positive association with positive and constructive thoughts. critically, ruminative selffocus was positively associated with a tendency for the mind to wander towards anguished fantasies, failures and aggression, but it was also positively associated with positive and constructive thoughts. furthermore, while dispositional differences in self-focus showed no relationship with the temporal perspective of thoughts when probed during a cognitive task, performance on the task itself was related to whether participants were thinking about the past, present or future during that activity. such findings are discussed in line with previous research, and provide a further step towards accounting for the heterogeneous nature of mind-wandering. keywords: rumination, self-reflection, mind-wandering, day-dreaming, sustained attention, self-generated thought europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 received: 2017-03-28. accepted: 2017-05-18. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, northumbria university, northumberland building, newcastle upon tyne, ne18st, uk. e-mail: leigh.riby@northumbria.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. human thinking is not always generated from the current external world, and often becomes focused internally on thoughts and feelings unrelated to the present moment. this state of mind-wandering, often defined as stimulus-independent thought, is experienced by all individuals, occupying as much as fifty per cent of our waking life (killingsworth & gilbert, 2010; singer & mccraven, 1961). previous research into mind-wandering has focused on why mind-wandering occurs in the first instance, and what potential outcomes it may have for the individual. with regards to the former, three key theoretical viewpoints have been proposed to explain the onset and frequency of mind-wandering. the distractibility account proposes that task unrelated thought reflects a failure to deal with distraction regardless of whether this distraction stems from the external environment or is self-generated (baird et al., 2012; barron, riby, greer, & smallwood, 2011; shaw & giambra, 1993). conversely, the executive-function account has suggested that europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ mind-wandering reflects a specific failure in executive control whereby individuals have impairment in processing task-relevant material and experience issues with inhibiting responses to irrelevant stimuli (mcvay & kane, 2010). in line with this view, when mind wandering episodes dominate, additional executive processing mechanisms are thought to be required for successful task completion (riby, smallwood, & gunn, 2008). finally, the decoupling account proposes that mind-wandering involves a dissociation in processing whereby the mind-wanderer’s attention becomes concentrated towards internal inner thoughts and feelings and disengaged from current external events in the environment (smallwood, 2010; smallwood et al., 2003). furthermore, past research has also began to establish what adaptive purpose mind-wandering may serve given how much time humans spend engaged in this process. on the one hand, research has revealed a number of positive outcomes, including the ability to mentally time travel (and thus maintain a coherent sense of self-identity), the ability to plan and prepare for the future, to manage long term personal goals and importantly such thoughts have been related to creative ability (baird, smallwood, & schooler, 2011; baird et al., 2011; smallwood, nind, & o’connor, 2009; smallwood, ruby, & singer, 2013; suddendorf & corballis, 2007; tulving, 1987). on the other hand, alternative lines of research have consistently revealed decrements in task performance as a result of mind wandering including impacts on reading comprehension, signal detection, memory and performance on tasks of sustained attention and response inhibition (mcvay & kane, 2012; smallwood, baracaia, lowe, & obonsawin, 2003; smallwood, beach, schooler, & handy, 2008; smallwood et al., 2004; smallwood, mcspadden, luus, & schooler, 2008; smallwood, mcspadden, & schooler, 2008). findings also suggest that this process comes at a detrimental cost to mood (killingsworth & gilbert, 2010; smallwood, fitzgerald, miles, & phillips, 2009; smallwood, o’connor, sudbery, & obonsawin, 2007). based on such mixed findings, recent suggestions have postulated that mind-wandering is a highly heterogeneous cognitive process with variable outcomes (smallwood & andrews-hanna, 2013). it has further been suggested that understanding thought content is critical when considering the variable costs and benefits associated with mind-wandering (e.g., andrews-hanna et al., 2013). thus, whilst previous research has been valuable for providing insight into how and why mind-wandering occurs, it fails to offer any understanding of how content may mediate variable mind-wandering outcomes. in view of this, it is now important for research to focus on the content of the mind-wandering experience and consider factors which may impact upon the nature of these thoughts. one factor to consider when explaining the heterogeneity observed in previous research is the temporal focus of mind-wandering. given how frequent prospective orientation is during episodes, it has previously been suggested that a focus on the future must be adaptive in some way, perhaps by facilitating the planning and preparation of future events (baird, smallwood, & schooler, 2011; riby et al., 2014; schacter, addis, & buckner, 2007). conversely, a retrospective focus does not appear to facilitate the processing of personal goals and a general over-focus on the past has been associated with symptoms of depression (baird, smallwood, & schooler, 2011; nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008). furthermore, links have been made between retrospective mind-wandering and low mood (poerio, totterdell, & miles, 2013; smallwood & o’connor, 2011). this variability in the temporal focus of mind-wandering has been partially linked to individual differences in mind-wandering content in an influential paper by singer (1975). he distinguished between three differing daydreaming styles which may provide some preliminary insight into the mechanisms involved during different mind-wandering episodes. the positive-constructive day-dreaming style, characterised by an acceptance of shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 795 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ daydreaming, involving pleasant and future focused thoughts and the generation of original ideas may reflect findings related to more adaptive mind-wandering outcomes, such as future planning and creativity. by contrast, the guilt and fear of failure daydreaming style, is characterised by anguished fantasies about the past and future, is often depressing and frightening and with an element of panic. finally, the poor attentional control daydreaming style, may reflect maladaptive mind-wandering outcomes, such as low mood and cognitive failure. the value of considering content of mind-wandering episodes has also been directly highlighted by andrewshanna et al. (2013). in such research, the content of mind-wandering was examined for variables such as valence, specificity and self-relevance. it was shown that individuals who rated their thoughts as more negative and more personally significant scored higher on measures of depression and trait negative affect. conversely, those who rated their thoughts as less specific scored higher on constructs linked to rumination, whilst individuals who viewed their thoughts as more positive, less personally significant and more specific yielded high scores on measures associated with increased wellbeing. researchers concluded that considering the content of mind-wandering episodes can account for some of the variability documented in previous research. when considering factors that might influence differing mind-wandering content, recent research has begun to examine in greater detail the tendency of mind-wandering to be internally orientated in terms of its focus (baird, smallwood, & schooler, 2011). marchetti, koster, sonuga-barke, and de raedt (2012) suggest that this internally-orientated focus is associated with greater self-focus during these episodes, the nature of which may vary. specifically, two distinct types of self-focus are frequently identified, rumination and reflective self-focus (trapnell & campbell, 1999). whilst rumination is defined as negatively evaluative and judgmental in nature with a passive dwelling on personal concern, self-reflection is characterised as an epistemic curiosity towards the self, allowing individuals to openly explore their inner experiences (trapnell & campbell, 1999). despite the lack of direct research examining these two distinct types of self-focus on mind-wandering, past research has suggested that they could each have a significant impact on its content. previous research has made associations with rumination and an over-focus on the past, pessimistic expectancies for the future, and more negatively toned thought content (lavender & watkins, 2004; lyubomirsky & nolen-hoeksema, 1995; nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008). research directed more so to mind-wandering has also drawn links between rumination and dysphoria experienced as a result of a wandering mind (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). it has also been found that internal focus during mindwandering is associated with a higher level of rumination, which was subsequently associated with a temporary reduction in mood (marchetti, koster, & de raedt, 2013). furthermore, research has theoretically implicated the role of rumination as a mediator between low mood and a retrospective bias during mind-wandering, based on the notion that this style of self-focus often involves passively dwelling on experiences (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). in view of research documenting certain cognitive decrements associated with mindwandering, research has also documented a relationship between rumination and impaired concentration on academic tasks (lyubomirsky, kasri, & zehm, 2003). conversely, research into self-reflection has been associated with reduced levels of depression when contrasted with its counterpart rumination, increased creativity and the formation of goals (takano & tanno, 2009; koestner, lekes, powers, & chicoine, 2002; verhaeghen, joormann, & aikman, 2014). research directly examining self-reflection alongside the mind-wandering experience has also demonstrated that a period of selfreflection can lead to a prospective bias during mind-wandering. it was suggested in such research that this reflection and rumination 796 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ style of self-focus is of importance for stimulus independent thinking which is directed toward the future (smallwood et al., 2011). based on these findings, it is clear that individual differences in style of self-focus are likely to impact upon the content of thought and the temporal focus during mind-wandering. as such, the current study aims to investigate whether individual differences relating to rumination and self-reflection are associated with specific content or temporal orientation when probed during mind-wandering. it is hoped that this research will begin to suggest potential mechanisms involved in variable mind-wandering episodes. it is hypothesised that rumination will be positively associated with past temporal focus when mind-wandering thoughts are probed during a cognitive task. furthermore, rumination will be positively related to dispositional tendencies toward mindwandering associated with guilt and fear of failure as well as poor attentional control. it is further hypothesised that self-reflection will be positively associated with a future temporal focus when thoughts are probed and a general tendency toward mind-wandering that is positive and constructive in content. based on findings from previous research revealing the impact of mind wandering on cognitive performance (including sustained attention, response inhibition and signal detection), a secondary concern of the current study is to examine the relationship between the content of mind-wandering and cognitive performance on a sustained attention task (smallwood, beach, schooler, & handy, 2008; smallwood et al., 2004; smallwood, mcspadden, & schooler, 2008). furthermore, the relationship between cognitive task performance and style of self-focus will also be explored. it is expected that task performance will be negatively associated with guilt-fear of failure mind-wandering, poor attentional control, past temporal focus, and rumination (lyubomirsky, kasri, & zehm, 2003). by contrast, task performance will be positively associated with positive constructive mindwandering, present temporal focus, and self-reflection. method design the study employed a correlational design with inclusion of the following variables; scores for the two rrq subscales (including the rumination subscale and the self-reflection sub-scale), scores on the three distinct daydreaming styles (positive constructive day-dreaming, guilt-fear-of failure day-dreaming and poor attentional control), temporal focus (indexed by the percentage of responses indicating participants were past, present or future focused when probed during the sart) and aspects of performance measured during the sustained attention response task (sart). that is, reaction time (rt), accuracy and the number of false alarms. participants an opportunity sample of 17 males (mean age = 36.71, sd = 22.22) and 16 females (mean age = 47.88, sd = 17.52) between the ages of 18-82 participated in the study. participants were recruited from areas within the north east of england through advertisements on social media websites. the study was advertised as research into differing types of self-focus employed during a computerised task. no compensation was offered for participation. individuals who were interested in participating were required to contact the researcher for further information. the exclusion criteria was kept as inclusive as possible and thus only excluded any individual under the age of 18. thirty-three participants were recruited in total, however there were instances whereby shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 797 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants did not provide complete data for every measure included. the participants who had provided incomplete data on some of the measures were still included in the study and as such sample sizes for each individual correlation range from 31 to 33. sample size considerations given the relative novelty of current research it was difficult to ascertain an effect size and carry out a power analysis. however, research from our lab (martinon et al., 2017) considering similar issues between daydreaming frequency and rumination demonstrated a cohen’s d = 0.98. given this effect size, a sample of 30 is appropriate with a power of 0.8. materials sustained attention response task the study employed the sustained attention response task (sart; robertson, manly, andrade, baddeley, & yiend, 1997). participants were required to respond as quickly as possible to frequent and relevant stimuli, whilst inhibiting their responses to infrequent stimuli. the program included x and y letter stimuli, both of which followed a cross hair to ensure that visual alignment was focused upon the stimuli. the letters x and y were identical in size and colour, and were presented on the same white background. the program was modified to ensure that the task would increase the likelihood of mind-wandering by using a 3000ms delay in between stimuli based on past research utilising a similar delay (birnie, smallwood, reay, & riby, 2015). prior to the task, participants were presented with the following instructions: “in this task you will see the letters x and y appear on the screen. your task will be to push the space bar whenever you see the letter x. do nothing when the letter y appears on the screen”. participants were initially allowed a practice phase to ensure that they understood the task instructions. during this practice phase, 10 sample stimuli were presented in a 9/1 ratio (x/y), with stimuli occurring 3000 milliseconds apart. once the practice phase was complete, the testing condition begun. this condition consisted of 13 blocks, with 20 stimuli presented in each block at a 16/4 ratio (x/y), with stimuli occurring 3000 milliseconds apart from each other. between each block, participants were presented with thought probes to assess the temporal focus of mind-wandering. each participant was required to respond to the following question: “did your mind wander? during the previous responses were you 1) thinking about the past 2) thinking about the ‘here and now’ 3) thinking about the future”. participants were asked to respond using the corresponding letters on the keyboard. rumination-self-reflection questionnaire (rrq) the rrq (trapnell & campbell, 1999) was used to measure dispositions of both rumination and self-reflection. the measure was suitable for the current study as it included two sub-scales (with 12 items for each) measuring the two relevant theoretical constructs. the first 12 items assessed self-reflection, including items such as “i love exploring my “inner” self”. in contrast, the next 12 items assessed rumination, including items such as “i tend to ruminate or dwell over things that have happened to me for a long time afterwards”. below each statement participants were provided with a likert scale from 1-5 with 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree. the meanings of each number were explained before the questionnaire statements. participants were required to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement to each statement by circling one of the scale categories. high scores on each subscale were indicative of high dispositions of self-reflection and rumination respectively. trapnell and campbell (1999) originally documented alpha estimates of reliability reflection and rumination 798 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ exceeding .90 for both sub-scales, as such the measure is considered to have excellent internal consistency. consistent with this, cronbach’s alpha was high for both the rumination and self-reflection subscales in the current study, αs = .90 and .89 respectively. the short imaginal processes inventory (sipi) the short imaginal processes inventory (sipi; singer, aneshensel, & antrobus, 1982) was used to assess styles of day-dreaming employed by the individuals as part of their daily functioning. the sipi was appropriate for the current study as it consisted of three relevant theoretical constructs corresponding to participant’s inner experiences. the sipi scored participants on three subscales, with 15 items for each respective category. subscales included1) positive-constructive daydreaming – characterised by the belief that daydreams are worthwhile, solve problems, help generate original ideas, are stimulating, generate pleasant thoughts and present a high degree of future orientation 2) guilt-fear of failure dreaming, characterised by depressing and frightening daydreams with panicky overtones and 3) poor attentional control, characterised by tendencies toward mind wandering and drifting thoughts due to boredom or a poor attention span (singer, 1975). the measure consists of statements such as “i am the kind of person whose thoughts often wander”. each item was followed by a likert scale in the form of 5 boxes, numbered from 1 to 5 with 5 indicating “very true or strongly characteristic of me”, and 1 indicating “definitely untrue or strongly uncharacteristic of me”. participants were provided with the following instructions prior to completing the questionnaire: “each statement says something about daydreams or daydreaming, indicate to what extent each statement applies to you or is true for you, by checking the box above the appropriate number”. the scale ranging from 1-5 was presented below these instructions and appeared on every subsequent page of the questionnaire to remind participants which numbers corresponded to each level of agreement. high scores on each daydreaming category were indicative of high levels of the respective daydreaming style they aimed to measure. singer et al. (1982) reported good internal consistency for the positive-constructive daydreaming, the guilt-fear of failure, and the poor attentional control subscales (αs = .80, .82, and .83, respectively) and adequate reliability was shown for these subscales in the current sample (αs = .75, .65, and .74, respectively). procedure ethical approval was received from the ethics committee at the department of psychology, northumbria university. each participant attended a quiet and controlled office for testing to take place whereby only the researcher and the participant were present. participants were initially provided with the participant information sheet and subsequently provided their informed consent. given that there is no standard order for the selfreport measures and the sart, judgement regarding order was made based on the notion that providing participants with the self-report measures prior to the sart may have inadvertently induced particular mood states which could have subsequently impacted responses to thought probes. furthermore, for similar reasons self-report measures and the sart were not counterbalanced. consenting participants were then given initial instructions with regards to the sart task which involved providing examples of the thought probes to ensure that participants fully understood the meaning of these questions. participants were then asked to follow the instructions on the screen in order to complete the sart, which took approximately 15 minutes. upon completion, participants were administered a brief demographic questionnaire, which asked them to state their age and gender, as well as the rrq and the sipi. completed questionnaires were then handed back to the researcher and participants were provided with a debrief form and given the opportunity to ask the researcher any questions with regards to the study. the whole procedure took approximately 30 minutes. participants who shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 799 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ expressed an interest to be informed of the results upon completion were subsequently emailed with a feedback sheet once data analysis had taken place. results analytical strategy self-reflection and rumination the impact of day dreaming in everyday life in relation to relatively more positive (self-reflection) and negative (rumination) thoughts were considered first. a series of one tailed correlations were carried out on 1) rumination scores in relation to temporal focus (past, present and future) and the styles of daydreaming elicited by the sipi 2) self-reflection scores in relation to temporal focus (past, present, future) and the styles of daydreaming elicited by the sipi. together these first analyses will contribute to our understanding the content of relatively more positive self-reflection and relatively more negative ruminations. behavioural performance subsidiary data analyses were carried out to further characterise the nature of the mind wandering episodes and importantly how different ‘types’ have a cost or benefit to cognitive performance. a series of one tailed correlations were carried out on sart task performance (indexed via accuracy, rt and false alarms) and 1) sipi factors, 2) the temporal focus (past, present and future) of thoughts and 3) the self-reflection and rumination factors. rumination factors on temporal focus inconsistent with the first hypothesis, no significant relationship was identified between rumination scores and a past temporal focus, p > .05. all other relationships between rumination scores and temporal focus were also non-significant, ps > .05. rumination factors on content in line with the second hypothesis, a positive relationship was identified between rumination scores and scores for the guilt-fear of failure category which was significant, r = .334, p = .033 (see figure 1). surprisingly, a positive relationship was also identified between rumination scores and scores for the positive-constructive daydreaming style which was also significant, r =.394, p = .028, (see figure 2). inconsistent with the third hypothesis, no significant relationship was identified between rumination scores and scores for the poor attentional control category, p > .05. reflection and rumination 800 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. scatterplot showing the relationship between rumination scores and scores on the guilt-fear of failure daydreaming category, n = 31. figure 2. scatterplot showing the relationship between rumination scores and scores on the positive-constructive daydreaming category, n = 31. self-reflection on temporal focus inconsistent with the fourth hypothesis, no significant relationship was identified between self-reflection scores and a future temporal focus, p > .05. no other significant relationships were identified between self-reflection scores and temporal focus, ps > .05. self-reflection on content in line with the fifth hypothesis, a positive relationship was found between self-reflection scores and scores on the positive-constructive category which was significant, r = .420, p = .009 (see figure 3). no significant relationships were identified between self-reflection scores and scores relating to the guilt-fear of failure and poor attentional control daydreaming categories, ps > .05. shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 801 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. scatterplot showing the relationship between self-reflection scores and scores on the positive-constructive daydreaming category, n = 31. subsidiary analyses sipi factors and sart task performance inconsistent with the second set of hypotheses, no significant relationships were identified between scores on the positive constructive day-dreaming category, poor attentional control category or the guilt-fear of failure category and performance during the sart, ps > .05. temporal focus and sart task performance results concerning the temporal focus and task performance offer partial support for the second set of hypotheses. a significant negative relationship was identified between the percentage of responses indicating participants were past focused and rt, r = -.510, p = .002. a positive relationship was also identified between the percentage of responses indicating participants were past focused and the number of false alarms made during the sart, r = .544, p = .001, however, no significant relationship was identified between past focus and accuracy, p > .05. a significant, negative relationship was identified between the percentage of responses indicating participants were present focus and number of false alarms made during the sart, r = -.360, p = .023. however, no significant relationships were identified between a present temporal focus and rt or accuracy, p > .05. no significant relationships were identified between future focus and performance during the sart, p > .05. self-reflection/rumination factors and sart task performance inconsistent with the second set of hypothesis, no significant relationships were found between self-reflection and rumination scores and performance during the sart, ps > .05. discussion current research examining mind-wandering has begun to acknowledge that this cognitive process is highly heterogeneous. it is assumed that through focusing on where in time individuals wander to during episodes and what individuals think about when off task will enable a greater understanding of the mechanisms driving reflection and rumination 802 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variable outcomes associated with mind-wandering. the current study aimed to examine the relationships between individual differences in self-focus (rumination vs. self-reflection) on the content and temporal focus of mind-wandering episodes. in line with predictions, when mind-wandering content was measured in terms of dispositional, everyday daydreaming style, self-reflection was found to be positively associated with a positive-constructive daydreaming style typically characterised by pleasant thoughts. a self-reflective style of self-focus allows individuals to openly explore their inner feelings in a positive light, with a sense of acceptance (trapnell & campbell, 1999). thus, it is plausible that this process of inner exploration could subsequently give rise to this more positive and constructive daydreaming style. support for this postulation can be drawn from past research highlighting a number of positive outcomes associated with periods of self-reflection, that are also in accordance with the beneficial outcomes of mind-wandering including creativity, goal planning, future planning and happiness (bryant, smart, & king, 2005; koestner, lekes, powers, & chicoine, 2002; smallwood et al., 2011; verhaeghen, joormann, & aikman, 2014). these results may be valuable in future research establishing how individuals may maximize more positive mind-wandering episodes, in line with the content regulation hypothesis (smallwood & andrews-hanna, 2013). as such, with further research this finding may offer some important insight into mechanisms driving more positive mind-wandering experiences, such as those yielding the adaptive outcomes observed in previous research. consistent with hypotheses, research also revealed a positive relationship between high levels of rumination and singer’s (1975) guilt-fear of failure daydreaming style (characterised by anguished fears, fantasies and aggression). this finding can be reconciled with previous research into the role of rumination, with associations between rumination and more negatively toned thought content (nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008). furthermore, findings are also in line with recent research revealing an association between ruminators and the propensity for negative mind-wandering (hoffmann, banzhaf, kanske, bermpohl, & singer, 2016). thus, the present findings may offer further explanation for the association between mind-wandering and negative mood identified in previous research, with rumination acting as a mediator in this process (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). somewhat surprisingly, high levels of rumination were also positively associated with singer’s (1975) positive constructive daydreaming style. this appears contradictory when considering that positive-constructive daydreaming is often characterised by the generation of pleasant thoughts (singer, 1975). however, along with the generation of pleasant thought content, the positive-constructive daydreaming style is also characterised by the belief that daydreams are worthwhile, solve problems and help generate original ideas. researchers have suggested that this finding may be due to how the sipi assesses positive-constructive daydreaming. for example, many of the questions relating to this measure focus on the attitudes individuals have with regards to their own inner experiences. thus, it may be that ruminators view their inner experiences as more constructive in nature, despite thoughts generally being negatively toned in terms of content. this is consistent with previous research suggesting that individuals view their ruminative thoughts as being useful, believing that this style of thinking helps them solve problems or make sense of past events, regardless of how much of a detriment it is to overall wellbeing (watkins & baracaia, 2001). in terms of the temporal focus of mind-wandering, current findings did not support the hypothesis that there would be a positive relationship between self-reflection and a prospective temporal focus. previous research has suggested that this style of self-focus may be vital for future thinking during mind-wandering, which in turn facilitates beneficial outcomes (smallwood et al., 2011). in such research, self-reflection was induced rather shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 803 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ than measured at a dispositional level. inconsistencies can perhaps therefore be explained through differing methodology. the mismatch between methods probing the wandering mind is clearly critical. the fact that we used a mixture of self-report and online measures could offer an explanation as to why we weren't able to replicate this finding. contrary to predictions, rumination was not positively associated with a retrospective temporal focus. these non-significant findings appear inconsistent in light of previous research suggesting that rumination is often associated with an over-focus on the past (nolen-hoeksema, wisco, & lyubomirsky, 2008). furthermore, findings are also inconsistent with research directly examining mind-wandering experiences in ruminators, revealing an association between ruminators and the propensity for retrospective mind-wandering (hoffmann, banzhaf, kanske, bermpohl, & singer, 2016). previous research has also speculated that rumination may account for the relationship between low mood and a retrospective bias during mind-wandering (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). one suggestion for this inconsistency may be due to low levels of meta-consciousness in ruminators. specifically, individuals identified as ruminators may have some level of awareness that they were not task focused when their thoughts are probed but experience difficulty when required to pinpoint where in time their thoughts were orientated towards. this suggestion is supported by previous research revealing that those who are less mindful (such as those who frequently ruminate) are less aware of their stimulus independent or task unrelated thoughts (stawarczyk, majerus, van der linden, & d’argembeau, 2012). alternatively, given that hoffmann and colleagues (2016) were able to identify a signification relationship between rumination and a retrospective focus, it may be the case that ruminators within the current study do not typically ruminate to the same extent as participants taking part in previous research, such as those with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (i.e. hoffmann et al., 2016). current research also aimed to examine relationships between mind-wandering characteristics and cognitive task performance. it was expected that, whilst task performance would be negatively associated with guilt-fear of failure mind-wandering and poor attentional, it would show a positive relationship with positive and constructive thoughts. contrary to such predictions, dispositional differences in mind-wandering style showed no relationship with cognitive task performance. similarly, no relationship between style of self-focus and task performance was observed. specifically, the predicted negative association between rumination and task performance was not observed, nor was the positive association between self-reflection and performance on the task. one possible explanation for the lack of significance is that individual differences measures asked participants to report their typical thinking and daydreaming styles, but these may not be accurate reflections of what participants were actually thinking about during the task itself. it has been suggested that the sampling method of probing the content of thoughts while participants are performing a task provides a more online measure of the content of mind-wandering. in view of this, future research could benefit from examining whether online probes into the emotional valence of mind-wandering thought using the experience-sampling method provide better predictors of task performance. furthermore, it is worth also directing future research towards whether measures of dispositional mind-wandering style are better at predicting outcomes when participants are asked to self-report on their typical levels of performance and mood. this suggestion is further supported in that in the current study, online probes into the content of mindwandering thoughts were measured in relation to their temporal perspective. when mind-wandering content was measured in this way, relationships between mind-wandering content and task performance were observed. specifically, it was found that reports of being focused on the past were positively associated with reflection and rumination 804 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ false alarm responses to the stimuli and negatively associated with reaction time. however, when participants reported that they were focused on the present they were less likely to make false alarm responses. one explanation for this is that when participants were mind-wandering about thoughts related to the past they were mindlessly pressing the response keys at a more rapid rate and were less focused on the status of the stimuli that were presented to them. consequently, where individuals were dedicating attentional resources to task unrelated past thoughts, effectively inhibiting a response to the infrequent stimuli became problematic. although accuracy did not improve when participants reported they were focused on the here and now, they were better at inhibiting a response when it was appropriate to do so (see greer at al., 2013). the findings of the current study have a number of important implications, particularly in relation to how researchers should investigate mind-wandering in the future. it is clear that mind-wandering is a complex phenomenon, influenced by a number of interconnected factors. as such, current research supports the suggestion that researchers should now focus their attention towards the content of mind-wandering episodes, which may in turn facilitate a greater understanding of the processes associated with mind-wandering episodes (smallwood & andrews-hanna, 2013). furthermore, current research also holds important implications with regards to acknowledging individual differences in mind-wandering and that as a result of this, research findings should not be generalised across every person or situation. despite findings being a valuable addition to the current body of research into mind-wandering, there are a number of limitations that must be addressed in further investigations. the report effects sizes (r’s ranging from 0.34 – 0.42 for self-reflection/rumination analysis; 0.36 to 0.54 for mental performance analysis) here suggest future studies building on our findings need to be sufficiently powered to disentangle the processes engaged during mind wandering episodes. one limitation of the current study is that the content of mind-wandering in terms of positive versus negative valence was only measured as a dispositional trait, using a retrospective selfreport questionnaire. similarly, the content of mind-wandering in terms of temporal perspective was only investigated using online experience sampling thought probes. future research should take a more systematic look at what these different methods of sampling thought content tell us about the factors that predict variable mind-wandering content, and the impact of this variable content on performance and well-being outcomes. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 805 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references andrews-hanna, j. r., kaiser, r. h., turner, a. e., reineberg, a., godinez, d., dimidjian, s., & banich, m. 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(2001). why do people ruminate in dysphoric moods? personality and individual differences, 30(5), 723-734. doi:10.1016/s0191-8869(00)00053-2 about the authors daisy shrimpton is a post-graduate student with interests in neuroscience, cognitive psychology and investigations aimed at disentangling the processes involved in day-dreaming. deborah mcgann is a senior lecturer in the department of psychology, northumbria university. dr. mcgann has interests in how positive psychology can inform our understanding of mind-wandering, particularly in relation to mindfulness, positive emotion, creativity, goal-realisation, and time-perspective. leigh riby is an associate professor in neuropsychology in the department of psychology, northumbria university with interests in using both behavioural and brain imaging methods to probe the nature of mind wandering episodes. shrimpton, mcgann, & riby 809 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 794–809 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1425 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.284 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0035594 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ reflection and rumination (introduction) method design participants sample size considerations materials procedure results analytical strategy subsidiary analyses discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors adolescent perceptions of parenting styles in sweden, italy and greece: an exploratory study research reports adolescent perceptions of parenting styles in sweden, italy and greece: an exploratory study maria giulia olivari*a, elisabeth hertfelt wahnb, katerina maridaki-kassotaki c, katerina antonopoulou c, emanuela confalonieria [a] psychology department, cridee, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] school of life sciences, university of skövde, skövde, sweden. [c] department of home economics and ecology, harokopio university of athens, athens, greece. abstract comparative research on parenting styles among nordic and mediterranean countries is still missing, despite the increasing number of studies on parenting styles in adolescence. this study explores similarities and differences in adolescents’ retrospective perceptions of parenting styles, for both parents, in sweden, italy and greece, using the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire. in particular, it examines the relation between parental role, adolescent gender, country of origin, ses and these perceptions. swedish, italian and greek adolescents (n = 702; 30.9% swedish, 39.6% italian and 29.5% greek) participated in the study. to test the principal effects three mixed 2(parent; mother and father)*2(gender; girl and boy)*3(countries; sweden, italy and greece)*3(ses; low, medium and high) anovas were conducted separately for each parenting style. to verify the interaction effects, a mixed 2(parent; mother and father)*3(countries; sweden, italy and greece)*3(ses; low, medium and high) anova was tested on authoritative style. regarding authoritarian and permissive two mixed 2(parent; mother and father)*2(gender; girl and boy)*3(countries; sweden, italy and greece) anovas were tested. mothers, as compared to fathers, were perceived as more authoritative, authoritarian and permissive. moreover, boys perceived their parents as more authoritarian and more permissive than girls. swedish parents were perceived as significantly less authoritarian than italian and greek parents and more permissive than italian parents; greek parents were perceived as less authoritarian and more permissive than italian parents. the study provides an interesting contribution to parenting styles literature, showing how country legislation concerning family matters and ses are related the perception of parenting behaviours. keywords: adolescents, parenting styles, psdq, country comparison, culture europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 received: 2014-11-14. accepted: 2015-03-09. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: dipartimento di psicologia, università cattolica del sacro cuore, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: mariagiulia.olivari@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. according to darling and steinberg (1993), parenting styles are a “constellation of attitudes toward the child that are communicated to the child and create an emotional climate in which the parents’ behaviours are expressed” (p. 493). in the literature, the most commonly investigated parenting styles are the authoritative, the authoritarian and the permissive styles (baumrind, 1991; moilanen, rasmussen, & padilla-walker, 2014; olivari, tagliabue, & confalonieri, 2013). authoritative parents are demanding and responsive. they enhance children’s involvement and participation in family life through democratic behaviours, trusting and supporting their children, and controlling them without being restrictive. authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directive, but not responsive. they exercise high control of their children and educate them through strict and punitive discipline measures. permissive europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ parents are highly responsive, but not demanding. they do not control their children and set few rules, warmly accepting their children and their behaviours. mothers and fathers shape their preferable parenting style by being or not responsive and demanding towards their child (confalonieri et al., 2010). parenting style research has often focused on the study of an overall parenting style, assuming that both fathers and mothers adopt the same style or interdependent styles, or it has concentrated on the mother’s parenting style, overlooking the role of the father (ge, best, conger, & simons, 1996; parke, 2000; rohner & britner, 2002; sentse, veenstra, lindenberg, verhulst, & ormel, 2009). according to belsky’s model on the determinants of parenting (belsky, 1984) and bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory (bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986), the social context plays an important role that can either support or thwart parental practice and behaviours. researchers have long argued that parenting styles are affected by socioeconomic status (ses), and several studies confirm this hypothesis (hoff, laursen, & tardif, 2002). bronfenbrenner (1958) highlighted that in middle-class families parent-child relationships were more acceptant and equalitarian, while in working-class families they were oriented towards discipline and obedience. chen, dong, and zhou (1997) highlighted that parental occupation and education correlated positively with authoritative parenting for both parents, while they correlated negatively with authoritarian parenting for mothers. additional evidence derives from von der lippe’s (1999) study, which shows that less-educated mothers reported less authoritative parenting compared to more-educated mothers. more recently, worden and carlson (2005), as well as gracia and herrero (2008), suggested that the higher-educated parents are more likely to reject the acceptability of physical punishment of children. besides the role played by ses, there is strong empirical evidence suggesting that parents from different cultures and countries can adopt some common and some different culture-specific child-rearing values and goals, according to which they develop appropriate parenting styles (bornstein, 1995; harkness, super, & van tijen, 2000; harwood, handwerker, schoelmerich, & leyendecker, 2001). within different countries, country legislation concerning family matters, as one element of the social context, may indirectly affect parental behaviours (garbarino, vorrasi, & kostelny, 2002). despite the growing interest in the investigation of parenting styles during childhood and adolescence (olivari et al., 2013), few studies have examined the above issue among european countries (ciairano, kliewer, bonino, & bosma, 2008), whereas there are no comparative data for nordic andmediterranean countries. in particular, sweden, italy and greece have different legislation and policies concerning the role of the family in the education and care of children, and these elements in policy-making may affect the family climate and family responsibilities. table 1 summarises the information regarding the legislation, the cultural norms and values related to parenting, and the main research results on parenting styles for each of these three countries. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 245 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 legislation, cultural norms and values related to parenting, and the main research results on parenting styles in sweden, italy and greece research on parenting styles cultural norms and values related to parentinglegislationcountry a recent study (trifan, stattin, & tilton-weaver, 2014) examined changes in authoritarian the political sphere directs a great deal of resources towards ensuring gender equality in in 1979, it was the first country in the world to pass legislation prohibiting the use of physical sweden swedish parenting practices across 50 years.family, where mothers and fathers share equalpunishment and other forms of insulting the findings suggest that authoritarian parentingresponsibilities and opportunities in theirtreatment toward children (durrant, 2003). practices have declined strongly and that familychildren’s education (allard, haas, & hwang, 2007; harkness et al., 2001). the swedish legislation has contributed to the formation of a negative attitude toward physical corporal punishment was explicitly prohibited in an amendment to the parenthood and guardianship code which states (art. 6.1): “children are entitled to care, security and a environments have moved toward a more egalitarian pattern. moreover, research on parenting practices has shown a decrease in the use of punitive parenting practices (durrant, rose-krasnor, & broberg, 2003; straus, 2010). punishment in sweden (deley, 1988; durrant, broberg, & rose-krasnor, 1999). according to good upbringing. children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and sorbring and gurdal (2011), swedish parentsmay not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment.” hold more progressive, in terms of valuing autonomy, than authoritarian attitudes. they emphasize the children’s rights to express themselves and their opinions; they see the children as individuals with their own rights and own potential and support them in their skills and potential. a recent study (confalonieri et al., 2010) examined and compared adolescents coming during the last 20 years, a passage from the “ethical family” to the “affective family” occurred in 1996, a supreme court judgment outlawed all violence in child-rearing (judge ippolito, italy from northern and southern areas as to theiramong italian culture. in the “ethical family,”supreme court of cassation, 18 march 1996). perceptions about paternal and maternalthere were strict rules and boundaries amongarticle 571 of the criminal code of 1975 states: parenting styles. the study found that italianthe generations. the parents’ roles were“whoever misuses means of correction or adolescents perceive their parents as beingdifferent: the mother was devoted to the care ofdiscipline to harm a person subject to his authority, or entrusted to him for purposes of more authoritative than authoritarian andchildren and the father was focused on providing education, instruction, treatment, supervision or permissive. considering the adolescent gender,rules and transmitting values (confalonieri et custody … shall be punished.” the offence of it found that boys perceived their parents as more authoritarian and permissive than girls. al., 2010). nowadays, in the affective family both mothers and fathers identify their main functionabuse of correctional methods is applicable if as ensuring the care for the children, no morethere is a relationship of authority between the providing rules of conduct and focusing only onabuser and the abused, if the abuse results in the transmission of love, to raise “happy”physical or mental injury, and if it involves children (pietropolli charmet, 1995, 2000;illegitimate correctional methods. since then, scabini & cigoli, 2000). this parental changecorporal punishment is no longer a legitimate seems to involve more the fathers (bacchini,method of discipline. however, there has been galiani, guerriera, & sbandi, 2003) who seemno law reform to confirm the judgment in to have left their ethical tasks, moving on to thelegislation by amending/repealing article 571 or affective tasks that traditionally belong to the maternal figure. enacting explicit prohibition of corporal punishment in the home, though a number of bills have been proposed over the years. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 parenting styles in europe 246 http://www.psychopen.eu/ research on parenting styles cultural norms and values related to parentinglegislationcountry greek parents were categorized into four types: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive and strict the country has been described as a collectivist society (hofstede, 1980) in which persons are in 2006, legislation against corporal punishment within the family context was approved. article greece (antonopoulou & tsitsas, 2011;considered integral members of larger social4 of law 3500/2006 on the combating of maridaki-kassotaki, 2009). the strict style bringsnetworks (georgas, 1993; georgas, berry,intra-family violence (in force 2007) states: together features from the authoritarian and theshaw, christakopoulou, & mylonas, 1996;“physical violence against children as a authoritative styles. strict parents are thegreenfield & suzuki, 1998). according todisciplinary measure in the context of their parents who criticize, scold and punish theirzervides and knowles (2007), traditional greekupbringing brings the consequences of article children as authoritarian parents do. they,culture enhances family loyalty, adherence to1532 of the civil code.” article 1532 of the civil code addresses abuse of parental authority. however, explain to their children why they punish them and try to improve their behavior. group norms and maintenance of harmony in relationships with group members. it has been they emphasize to their children that it issuggested that this type of value system is important to follow the rules of the family. thelinked to severe and controlling child-rearing above behavioral features are lacking in the behavior of the authoritarian parents. a recent study (antonopoulou, alexopoulos, & maridaki-kassotaki, 2012) investigated the role practices (rosenthal, 1984), underlying the importance of conformity and obedience to parental rules (papps, walker, trimboli, & trimboli, 1995; sprott, 1994; szapocznik & kurtines, 1993; triandis, 1989). of greek father’s in the psychosocial development of children, showing that the children who perceived their fathers as authoritative had higher levels of empathy and self-esteem compared to children who perceived their fathers as being authoritarian. therefore, the purpose of the present study was to explore similarities and differences in adolescents’ retrospective perceptions of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles for fathers and mothers in sweden, italy and greece, considering the potential role played by the country legislation on family matters in affecting parenting styles across the three different countries. in particular, it sought to examine the relation between parental role, adolescent gender, country of origin, ses and these perceptions. method participants participants were 805 adolescents (279 swedish, 301 italian and 225 greek) who filled in a questionnaire about their parents’ parenting behaviours during their childhood. data from 702 adolescents (87.20% of the sample; 46.4%males and 53.6% females; 30.9% swedish, 39.6% italian and 29.5%greek) who are natives in the country and answered at least 60% of the items regarding both their fathers and mothers are considered valid for the present study. missing data on single items were computed through em analysis (dempster, laird, & rubin, 1977). adolescents were 16 to 19 years old (mage = 17.07 years, sd = .86) and attended high school. table 2 presents the demographic profile of the participating adolescents. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 247 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 demographic characteristics of the participants by country country characteristic greece (n = 225)italy (n = 301)sweden (n = 279) %n%n%n type of school 137110117theoreticala .2%66.6%39.9%53 000056caringb .8%25 7016844technicalc .8%33.4%60.3%20 ses 351844low .0%17.2%7.6%20 4717278medium .8%22.8%68.4%36 1246092high .2%60.0%24.0%43 sdmsdmsdm age (years) .98.2217.87.9816.69.0617 alearning-goal centred school prepares students to enter the university. bsocial goal centred school strengthens students’ social skills. clearning-goal centred school prepares students to enter technical schools. research instruments socio-demographic characteristics — participants were given a socio-demographic questionnaire that ascertained information about participants’ gender, age, nationality, school, and fathers’ and mothers’ educational qualification. this last indicator was used to compute ses, a three-level variable: low (when both parents attended only elementary and/or middle school, or when one of them attended elementary/or middle school and the other one high school), medium (when both parents attended high school, or when one of them attended elementary/or middle school and the other one university) and high (when both parents attended university, or when one of them attended high school and the other one university). parenting styles anddimensionsquestionnaire— the retrospective version of the psdq (robinson, mandleco, olsen, & hart, 1995, 2001; tagliabue, olivari, bacchini, affuso, & confalonieri, 2014) was translated and adapted in the language of the country where it was administered by the researchers. each country followed the same translation procedure. first, independent translations were made and then the psdq was back translated by two english-speaking psychologists. adolescents were told, “you will find, described below, a list of behaviors that parents show with their children. please, think back and recall your childhood, and your relationship with your parents, and indicate how much both your father and your mother behaved in that manner with you.” the psdq consists of 62 items assessing the three parenting styles suggested by baumrind (1967, 1971): the authoritative, the authoritarian and the permissive. twenty-seven items belonged to the authoritative style (e.g., “my parents encouraged me to talk about my troubles,” cronbach’s alpha ranged .91-.96), 20 items to the authoritarian style (e.g., “my parents slapped me when i misbehaved,” cronbach’s alpha ranged .83-.87), and 15 items to the permissive style (e.g., “my parents stated punishments to me but didn’t actually do them,” cronbach’s alpha ranged .50-.71). two versions were evaluated, the first regarding the father’s parenting style and the second, the mother’s parenting style. adolescents were asked to answer using a 5-point scale anchored by 1 (never) and 5 (always). for further information on psdq reliability and validity, see the review of olivari et al. (2013). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 parenting styles in europe 248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure the participants were recruited from high schools in greece, italy and sweden. the purpose of the study was explained to the headmaster and class teachers, who gave their permission. moreover, in italy and greece, parents gave written consent for their minor children, whereas in sweden the parents do not have to give their consent when the adolescent is over 15 years old. approval to conduct the study in italy and in sweden was obtained, whereas such approval was not necessary in greece. the participating students were first informed of the purpose and usefulness of the study and the importance of their participation, and they were given appropriate instructions for completing the questionnaires in their classrooms. students completed the anonymous questionnaire during the school lessons in the presence of researchers. the completion of questionnaires took approximately 45 minutes. results three mixed 2(parent; mother and father)*2(gender; girl and boy)*3(countries; sweden, italy and greece)*3(ses; low, medium, high) anovas were conducted separately for each parenting style. only principal effects were tested in the model, due to the low number of cases within the interaction cells. regarding the authoritative style, parent (f(1, 664) = 137.66, p < .001; η2 = .17), country (f(2, 664) = 7.42, p < .01; η2 = .02), and ses (f(2, 664) = 5.60, p < .01; η2 = .02) principal effects were significant. regarding the authoritarian style, parent (f(1, 664) = 8.18, p < .01; η2 = .01), country (f(2, 664) = 19.60, p < .001; η2 = .06), and gender (f(1, 664) = 6.20, p < .05; η2 = .01) principal effects were significant. regarding the permissive style, parent (f(1, 664) = 6.66, p < .05; η2 = .01), country (f(2, 664) = 70.25, p < .001; η2 = .17), and gender (f(1, 664) = 5.80, p < .05; η2 = .01) principal effects were significant. in order to verify the interaction effects, we tested one mixed 2(parent; mother and father) *3(countries; sweden, italy and greece)*3(ses; low, medium, high) anova on authoritative style, considering only the independent variables which were significant in the previous model (see tables 3 and 4). regarding authoritarian and permissive styles, we tested a mixed 2(parent; mother and father)*2(gender; girl and boy)*3(countries; sweden, italy and greece) anova (see tables 5 and 6). table 3 principal and interaction effects for authoritative parenting style η2dffeffects .161, 661parent .17***122 .012, 661country .462 .012, 661ses .56*4 .022, 6616,62**parent*country 2, 6610,06parent*ses .014, 661country*ses .391 .014, 661parent*country*ses .491 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 249 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 descriptive statistics for authoritative parenting style country ses totalgreeceitalysweden sdmsdmsdmsdm father low .850.253.820.123.740.193.910.383 medium .830.413.011.313.800.323.750.673 high .790.533.740.623.780.363.840.533 total .820.443.840.463.790.323.830.553 mother low .730.593.660.563.610.483.830.663 medium .680.713.720.843.640.663.710.763 high .660.853.540.983.600.683.790.773 total .680.753.620.883.630.653.770.743 regarding authoritative style, a significant principal effect was found for parent (mothers were perceived as more authoritative than fathers) and ses, whereas significant interaction effect were found for parent*country (see tables 3 and 4). bonferroni post hoc analyses regarding the principal effect of ses revealed that parents with high ses were perceived as more authoritative than parents with low ses (mean difference = .27, p < .01). moreover, despite the significance of parent*country interaction effect, paired t-test analyses conducted on parent variable did not highlight differences with the principal effect, separately considering each of the three countries. regarding authoritarian style, a significant principal effect was found for parent (mothers were perceived as more authoritarian than fathers), gender and country, whereas significant interaction effect was found for parent*country (see tables 5, 6 and figure 1). table 5 principal and interaction effects for authoritarian and permissive parenting styles permissiveauthoritarian effects η2dffη2dff .011, 696.011, 696parent .63*6.45**7 .011, 696.011, 696gender .21*5.46*6 .172, 696.062, 696country .97***72.66***23 1, 6961, 696parent* gender .010.470 2, 696.012, 696parent*country .352.47*4 2, 6962, 696gender*country .98.751 2, 6962, 696parent*gender*country .013.55 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 parenting styles in europe 250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 descriptive statistics for authoritarian and permissive parenting styles country parenting style totalgreeceitalysweden sdmsdmsdmsdm father authoritarian girl .590.302.640.362.610.392.490.152 boy .600.432.560.362.640.582.560.302 total .600.362.600.362.630.482.520.222 permissive girl .500.102.450.332.490.831.390.232 boy .490.182.370.312.500.981.510.322 total .500.142.410.322.500.901.450.272 mother authoritarian girl .580.372.590.422.590.552.450.132 boy .610.472.550.412.600.662.620.292 total .590.422.570.412.590.602.540.202 permissive girl .490.132.410.352.460.861.420.272 boy .540.212.380.422.520.981.610.312 total .520.172.400.392.490.911.510.292 independent t-test analysis showed that adolescent males perceived as more authoritarian their mothers (t(700) = -2.20, p < .05) and fathers (t(700) = -2.81, p < .01) than females. bonferroni post hoc analyses regarding the principal effect of country revealed that swedish parents were perceived as significantly less authoritarian than italian (mean difference = -.33, p < .001) and greek parents (mean difference = -.18, p < .01) and that greek parents were perceived as less authoritarian (mean difference = -.15, p < .01) than italian parents. paired t-test analyses conducted on parent separately, considering each of the three countries, revealed that the only significant difference was found for italy where fathers were perceived as less authoritarian than mothers (t(277) = -3.87, p < .001). regarding permissive style, only principal effects for parent (mothers were perceived as more permissive than fathers), gender and country were found (see tables 5 and 6). independent t-test analysis showed that adolescent males perceived as more permissive their mothers (t(700) = -2.18, p < .05) and fathers (t(700) = -2.26, p < .05) than females. bonferroni post hoc analyses regarding the principal effect of country revealed that swedish (mean difference = .37, p < .001) and greek parents (mean difference = .44, p < .001) were perceived as more permissive than italian parents. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 251 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. interaction effect parent*country. discussion little attention has been paid in literature to the investigation of the differences between parenting styles among nordic and mediterranean countries. the present study attempted to explore differences and similarities in adolescents’ retrospective perceptions of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles for their fathers and mothers in sweden, italy and greece, considering the potential role played by the country legislation on family matters in affecting parenting styles across the three different countries. in particular, it examined the extent to which parental role, adolescent gender, country of origin and ses are related to these perceptions. moreover, this study examines differences between maternal and paternal parenting styles, because frequently in the literature these styles are jointly studied or the focus is directed towards the mother, leaving in the background the figure of the father (ge et al., 1996; parke, 2000; rohner & britner, 2002; sentse et al., 2009). the descriptive statistics showed that in sweden, italy and greece, the authoritative style, according to both boys’ and girls’ perceptions, is the most frequently adopted by both fathers and mothers. in all three countries, the legislations and policies concerning the family role in educating and caring for children stress the importance for parents to raise children by treating them with respect, supporting and protecting them, and prohibiting the use of physical punishment as a discipline method. at a psychological level, these government suggestions, together with other elements (i.e. personality, marital relations, work and social network) which are likely to influence parenting behaviours (belsky, 1984; bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986), have found their operationalization in the parental use of a parenting style that can be described as democratic and respectful of the children’s needs and personal inclinations. another interesting finding is that adolescents perceived their mothers as being more authoritative, authoritarian and permissive than fathers. a possible explanation for this result could be that, despite the increasing involvement europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 parenting styles in europe 252 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of fathers in the children’s education, the educational tasks are still perceived as more maternal than paternal by the adolescents. moreover, the results did not show any differences in perceptions about the authoritative style between boys and girls. however, boys perceived both their mothers and fathers as being more authoritarian and permissive than girls. these data are in line with previous results, suggesting that male adolescents, compared to females, reported higher scores for negative perceived parenting styles (brand et al., 2011). these data may reflect parents’ difficulty in using democratic upbringing approaches with boys. further studies should deepen the investigation of this aspect. regarding authoritarian parenting style, swedish adolescents believe that both their parents adopt this style less frequently, when compared with greek and italian adolescents. the restricted use of authoritarian parenting approaches in sweden may be linked with the long swedish tradition of considering children as equal (key, 1995) and as individuals that have to be supported and not directed (hallden, 1991). compared to swedish and greek participants, italian adolescents perceived their parents as more authoritarian. moreover, they believe that their fathers adopt a less authoritarian parenting style compared to their mothers. fathers seem to have left their ethical tasks, moving on to the affective tasks that traditionally belong to the maternal figure (bacchini et al., 2003). it is possible to hypothesize that now mothers are becoming more committed to authoritarian practices into fulfill the role that was once performed by fathers. finally, swedish and greek adolescents reported higher levels of permissive styles for both their fathers and mothers, when compared with their italian peers. this finding is in accordance with other findings showing that swedish parents have a more tolerant behaviour in regard to disobedience during childhood (durrant et al., 1999), suggesting the use of a more permissive parenting style. in the present work, we also considered the relation between ses and parenting styles. consistent with previous studies (bronfenbrenner, 1958; chen et al., 1997; von der lippe, 1999) parents with high educational levels were described as more authoritative than parents with low educational levels in sweden, italy and greece. on the contrary, in our sample, parents with low educational levels were not perceived as more authoritarian than parents with high education levels. this study has some limitations. first, these findings are based on a correlational study, so caution should be taken when inferring conclusions. secondly, psdq provides the possibility of assessing both paternal and maternal authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles; however, permissive parenting style in greece had a low cronbach’s alpha. thirdly, in this study we measured ses by a single indicator, multiple indicators or composite indices may have provided more complete information. further studies should consider the possibility of approaching this theme with a cross-informant method in order to assess the agreement between parents and adolescents across different countries. in sum, the present study, which is an attempt to compare one nordic country, sweden, and two mediterranean countries, italy and greece, provides an interesting contribution to parenting styles literature, showing how country legislation concerning family matters and ses could be related to parental behaviours (belsky, 1984; bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986; garbarino et al., 2002). moreover, throughout the choice of assessing parenting styles with psdq (robinson et al., 1995, 2001; tagliabue et al., 2014), we had the chance to assess both maternal and paternal parenting styles, an aspect frequently neglected in literature. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 253 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the data collection of the swedish author (elisabeth hertfelt wahn) was supported by the skaraborg institute for research and development. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are grateful for the reliable and helpful support that we have received from our colleague semira tagliabue. we wish to thank the skaraborg institute for research and development for supporting the 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(2007). generational changes in parenting styles and the effect of culture. e-journal of applied psychology, 3, 65-75. doi:10.7790/ejap.v3i1.81 about the authors maria giulia olivari is a research fellow at catholic university of the sacred heart of milan, italy. her research focuses on adolescent romantic and sexual development, sexual risk taking and parenting styles and practices. katerina maridaki-kassotaki is a professor at harokopio university of athens, greece. she is the director of the centre for family research of harokopio university. her research focuses on children's understanding of mind, fatherhood, parenting and emotional development of children. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 olivari, hertfelt wahn, maridaki-kassotaki et al. 257 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014072 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2011.585565 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(94)90227-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.48.4.400 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s0102-37722014000300002 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.96.3.506 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12124 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/016502599383766 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0886260505278531 http://dx.doi.org/10.7790/ejap.v3i1.81 http://www.psychopen.eu/ katerina antonopoulou is an assistant professor at harokopio university of athens, greece. her research focuses on the communicative competence of typically developing and non-typically developing children and the psycho-emotional characteristics of families of children with learning disabilities. elisabeth hertfelt wahn is a senior lecturer in nursing and midwifery and coordinator of midwifery program at school of health and education of skövde, sweden. her research focuses on the professional support during childbirth and young people's sexual health. emanuela confalonieri is an associate professor at catholic university of the sacred heart of milan, italy. she is coordinator of the research unit on school psychology of catholic university of the sacred heart. her research focuses on body image in adolescence, adolescent romantic and sexual development, parenting styles and school education. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 244–258 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.887 parenting styles in europe 258 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en parenting styles in europe (introduction) method participants research instruments procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors randomised controlled trial of an online version of compassion mind training in a nonclinical sample research reports randomised controlled trial of an online version of compassion mind training in a nonclinical sample júlia halamová* a, martin kanovský b, alexandra pačutová a, nuriye kupeli c [a] institute of applied psychology, faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university in bratislava, bratislava, slovakia. [b] institute of social anthropology, faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university in bratislava, bratislava, slovakia. [c] marie curie palliative care research department, division of psychiatry, university college london, london, united kingdom. abstract compassion mind training (cmt) is a therapeutic approach to guide highly self-critical individuals to generate compassion. the goal was to probe the efficacy of a short-term, online version of the cmt on self-compassion and self-criticism in a non-clinical population. we conducted a randomized controlled trial with pre-, post-measurements and two-month follow-up. out of 144 randomly allocated participants 26 and 20 of those allocated to the intervention and control groups, respectively, completed the follow-up measures. the intervention group was instructed through email to practice a different cmt exercise every day for 13 consecutive days. there was a significant effect of the intervention on self-criticism, especially hated-self and the self-uncompassionate responding. the cmt group reported a reduction in negative thoughts and feelings with effects present at the two-month follow-up. there was no significant effect of the intervention on selfreassurance and self-compassion. self-criticism is amenable to change following a short-term online intervention of cmt delivered to a non-clinical population with effects lasting at least two months. these findings are promising and suggest that interventions designed to reduce self-criticism can be provided to broader populations without direct involvement of mental health professionals. keywords: self-criticism, self-compassion, compassionate mind training, randomized controlled trial, experiment europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 received: 2018-06-25. accepted: 2019-09-10. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: institute of applied psychology, faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university in bratislava, mlynské luhy 4, 821 05 bratislava, slovakia. phone: 00421908604141, e-mail: julia.halamova@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. evidence suggests that self-criticism contributes to the development and maintenance of psychopathology (shahar et al., 2012), including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, self-harming behaviours, suicidal tendencies, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and borderline personality disorder. similarly, recent meta-analyses have identified a causal influence of self-compassion on well-being (zessin, dickhäuser, & garbade, 2015) and an inverse relationship between self-compassion and psychopathology (macbeth & gumley, 2012). according to gilbert and irons (2004), self-criticism is an essential focus for intervention in psychotherapy and can be treated by learning compassion and self-compassion. this is particularly important as research suggests that self-critical people have difficulties with self-compassion, self-soothing and self-warmth (gilbert, 2010b). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ compassion-focused therapy (cft) and compassion mind training (cmt) to date, compassion-focused therapy (cft) (gilbert, 2010b) is one of the most evaluated compassion-based intervention programs (kirby, 2017). in a systematic review of 14 studies, leaviss and uttley (2015) found evidence of the effectiveness of cft as a psychotherapeutic intervention across clinical and nonclinical samples. however, for cft to be considered evidence-based practice, large-scale and high-quality trials are needed (leaviss & uttley, 2015). the main goal of cft (gilbert, 2010b) is to harmonize and balance the following three emotion regulation systems: threat/ protection, drive/reward, and affiliation/soothing systems. the essential psychotherapeutic technique of cft is compassionate mind training (cmt), by which clients are taught the skills of compassion and self-compassion (gilbert, 2010a) and to be able to self-soothe at times of difficulty by improving accessibility to the affiliation-focused affect system. the impact of cmt on self-compassion and self-criticism a review of the studies examining the impact of cmt on self-compassion and self-criticism was conducted. the inclusion criteria for the present review were studies which have: (1) used cmt as an intervention or as part of a program, (2) recruited at least 5 participants, and (3) used quantitative measures of self-criticism and/or self-compassion. in summary, 10 studies have examined the impact of cmt on self-criticism and self-compassion (see appendix 1 for a summary). all but two (beaumont, irons, rayner, & dagnall, 2016; matos et al., 2017) of the studies have recruited clinical samples and all but two (matos et al., 2017; noorbala et al., 2013) of the studies were conducted in the united kingdom and thus published in english. noorbala, borjali, ahmadian-attari, and noorbala (2013) delivered cmt to a sample of patients with major depressive disorder in iran and matos and colleagues (2017) examined the psychological and physiological effects of the cmt in a nonclinical sample in portugal. matos et al. (2017) found that the experimental group reported significant increases in self-compassion, and a reduction in self-criticism. this group also experienced significant improvements in heart rate variability suggesting that cmt has positive influences on both perceived and physiological outcomes. however, this review also demonstrated some inconclusive findings. for example, cmt is suggested to influence changes in self-criticism (gilbert & procter, 2006) or self-compassion (gilbert & irons, 2004), whilst others found that cmt to impact both self-compassion and self-criticism (judge, cleghorn, mcewan, & gilbert, 2012; matos et al., 2017). a similar format of delivering cmt was used in majority of the studies. the intervention lasted approximately 6 to 12 weeks, with each session lasting between 1-2 hours, and was delivered in group meetings once or twice a week. however, matos et al. (2017) explored the impact of group-based cmt delivered over a shorter two-week period. although zettle, haflich, and reynolds (1992) originally found that self-critical people respond better to individual therapy compared to those who were assigned to group therapy, the majority of studies on cmt are in group format. to summarise, zessin, dickhäuser, and garbade (2015) suggested that a variety of interventions have been developed to increase self-compassion in the long term, but limited research has explored the short-term halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 263 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effects (krieger, martig, van den brink, & berger, 2016; matos et al., 2017). more importantly, it is well known that approximately two-thirds of people with mental health problems do not seek help from a health professional (who, 2001). therefore, it is essential to develop interventions which are accessible for a multitude of people. an online method of administering a cmt intervention will overcome the time and financial costs associated with psychological treatments and minimize the possible instillation of social stigma associated with direct contact with health professionals in interventions delivered in a group format. thus, the aim of this study was to explore the impact of an individual short-form version of cmt delivered through an online setting to be completed in the privacy of ones’ own home. aim in the current research study, our goal was to evaluate the impact of an online and abbreviated version of cmt in a 13-day version on self-compassion and self-criticism in a non-clinical population. method participants convenience sampling was used to recruit participants from the general community online through various social media and social networking sites. to increase motivation to participate, those who completed all three measurements of the study were entered into a prize draw to win a tablet (halamová, kanovský, varšová, & kupeli, 2018). the participants were part of a larger rct examining the impact of four different compassion-based interventions on reducing self-criticism and increasing self-compassion (results of the other compassion-based interventions are published elsewhere e.g. halamová, kanovský, varšová, & kupeli, 2018). the focus of this paper is the cmt intervention and for this a total of 144 participants completed the pre-intervention measures of which 91 participants were randomly allocated to the cmt group and 53 were randomly assigned to the control condition (halamová, kanovský, varšová, & kupeli, 2018). see figure 1. due to the level of commitment required for the intervention, we expected a higher dropout rate in this group compared with the control group. therefore we used a block randomization procedure to assign the first 15 participants to the intervention group followed by allocating the next eight participants to the control group until all participants were allocated to the groups. from this sample, 26 from the intervention group and 23 participants from the control group completed the post-intervention. a final sample of 46 participants completed the follow-up measures of which 26 participants completed the cmt task and 20 participants were assigned to the control group. the final intervention group consisted of 22 women and 4 men with mean age of 26.23 years (sd = 6.43) and the control group consisted of 17 women and 3 men with a mean age of 25.35 years (sd = 6.32). randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 264 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. flow chart for the number of participants who completed each stage of the study and attrition. instruments self-criticism/reassurance was assessed using the forms of self-criticism/reassuring scale (fscrs; gilbert, clarke, hempel, miles, & irons, 2004). the fscrs is a 22-item self-report measure requiring participants to rate a selection of positive and negative statements on a 5-point likert scale (“not at all like me” to “extremely like me”). items include “i am easily disappointed with myself” and “i am gentle and supportive with myself”. positive items reflect the ability to self-reassure (referred to as reassured-self [rs]) and negative items indicate self-critical thoughts and feelings (split into subscales of inadequate-self [is] and hated-self [hs]). this scale has been translated and validated across a number of cultures (e.g. halamová, kanovský, & pacúchová, 2017; halamová, kanovský, gilbert et al., 2018; petrocchi & couyoumdjian, 2016). the self-compassion scale (scs; neff, 2003) was used to measure self-compassion experienced during perceived difficulty. the scs comprises six components of self-compassion that measure kindness towards the self rather than critical self-judgement (similar to the constructs of self-reassurance and self-criticism, respectively), common humanity in which it is accepted that failure and pain are part of the human experience halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 265 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rather than a perceived isolation from this human experience, and mindful awareness of negative emotional states in which these are faced and accepted rather than denied or exaggerated as in over-identification of emotional states (neff, 2003). the scale consists of 26 items rated on a 5-point likert scale (“almost never” to “almost always). the scs has been validated and demonstrated that positively formulated items (self-judgement, isolation and over-identification) and negatively formulated items (self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness) scs subscales are recommended to be calculated separately (e.g. brenner, heath, vogel, & credé, 2017; halamová, kanovský, & pacúchová, 2018; lópez et al., 2015) even across different cultures (halamová, kanovský, petrocchi et al., 2020). procedure after completing sociodemographic information and the first (baseline) measurement, all were randomly allocated to the intervention group and control group. the control group did not receive any additional tasks until 13 days after completion of the baseline measures when they were asked again by an email to fill out the online self-report measures. again after two months they were asked to fill it out. participants allocated to the online intervention were required to accomplish a cmt exercise every day for 13 consecutive days which commenced the day after they were allocated to the condition. each participant received an email prompting them to complete the cmt task by following a link. each exercise was presented in the same format and order for each participant. following our experience of conducting interventions, we applied a simple formula: explain what the task is, what the potential impact of task could be for health why people should do it, let them do it and then reflect on the task to increase the potential impact of the exercise. the post-exercise questions required free-text responses to items such as “what aspect of the exercise will you use in your everyday life and how?” or “describe your safe place”. the additional function of the post-exercise task was a fidelity check. if the participant had not completed the exercise, they were sent an email reminder. the exercises were selected from a multitude of different exercises available in compassionate mind training (gilbert, 2010a). each exercise was included after reaching consensus of our research team based on representativeness of cmt and the expected motivation of participants to complete them. the first author of this article is an experienced psychotherapist trained in introduction to compassion-focused therapy and advanced clinical skills workshop in compassion-focused therapy. the exercises were translated and shortened by two of the authors (ap and jh). participants were able to access the intervention tasks on any computer or smartphone via a link on the day the email was sent. the exercises (see appendix 2 for a summary) selected and presented to participants in the following order were, “soothing rhythm breathing”, “compassionate body scan”, “imaging the self-critical part of self”, “creating a safe place”, “compassionate colour”, “developing the inner compassionate self”, “working with troubled self”, “working with anxious self”, “compassion flowing into you from others”, “compassion flowing out”, “compassionate letter writing”, “compassionate dialogue writing”, and "creating your ideal caring-compassionate image". following the final exercise, participants were sent an email with a link to the post-intervention (second) measures and again at the two-month follow-up (third measures). data analyses the statistical program r (version 3.4.0; r core team, 2013) was used for statistical analyses, library nparld (noguchi, gel, brunner, & konietsche, 2012). we admit that parametric analyses (anova) are commonly used randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 266 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for factorial research designs of our type (i. e. split-plot design). however, parametric anova analyses require strict assumptions to be met: normal distribution, equal error variances, sphericity, and absence of outliers. it is known that their non-parametric counterparts (kruskal-wallis test and, wald statistics) have poor performance for small sample sizes and designs unbalanced in terms of equal sample size of groups; see brunner, domhof, & langer, 2002; brunner, konietschke, pauly, & puri, 2017; brunner, munzel, & puri, 1999). in our data, the outcome variables are sum scores of categorial (ordinal) item scores, therefore we cannot assume normal distribution. moreover, homogenous error variances of control and experimental groups are unlikely – intervention usually transforms error variances in heterogenous ways. all these arguments provide justification for using nonparametric heteroscedastic methods. heteroscedastic anova-type statistics will be conducted (brunner et al., 2017) with estimation of relative effects as probabilistic effect size measures. the value of relative effect is the estimation of probability that an observation randomly chosen from the experimental group will have larger value than an observation randomly chosen from the mean distribution function. it follows that any relative effect which statistically significantly differ from 0.50 indicates that an intervention was effective. it was demonstrated that anova-type statistics (ats) has satisfactory performance for unbalanced groups and small sample sizes (brunner et al., 2002). some statistical experts recommend a slightly different version of rank-based non-parametric method, namely the adjusted rank transform test (art; see beasley & zumbo, 2009; leys & schumann, 2010), which is closer to the classical anova (for example, it allows one to compute the generalized eta squared measure, which is routinely used as an effect size indicator). the results of both methods will be reported, with a preliminary note that they converged so there is no need to explain any different outcomes. our split-plot design with repeated measures requires to test an interaction between control/experimental groups (factor g) and pretest/posttest time (factor t). we have a control group of participants without intervention (group 1) and an experimental group (group 2) with the active intervention. this design implies that the distribution functions at the start of the experiment (time point 1) are identical because the assignments of participants to the two groups were random. it immediately follows that if the intervention would be effective, it should produce nonparallel time curves of the measurements. we could therefore expect a statistically significant interaction between factor g and factor t. our hypothesis is that the active intervention is claimed as effective if and only if we reach the statistically significant interaction between groups (control vs. experimental) and time (three time points), not only the significant difference between time points and/or between control and experimental groups. we will not report main factorial effects, because they are of no interest for the purpose of this study. results to ensure random allocation of participants to groups we conducted preliminary analyses to check for differences between the control and intervention groups on all baseline scores. since distributions and variances of groups are almost equal, nonparametric wilcoxon-mann-whitney tests were computed and demonstrated that the groups did not differ on any baseline scores (p-values ranged between .56 .97). halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 267 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effect of cmt on self-criticism/reassurance a significant effect of the intervention was present on the total score and the self-criticism subscale (combined is and hs subscales) of the fscrs and more specifically, the intervention was found to significantly reduce the hs component of the self-criticism scale (see table 1). there was no effect of the intervention on rs and is scores. we can inspect in detail relative effects and their confidence intervals for each group and time point (see table 2): e. g. the relative effects of hated-self (see figure 2) and inadequate-self (see figure 3) demonstrate that there is a statistically significant change in scores of hated-self but no significant change is present for scores of inadequate-self. table 1 results for interaction effects of the fscrs scale fscrs scores ats art f df p f df p ηg 2 fscrs total score 7.06 1.74, ∞ .002 5.96 2, 88 .004 .12 fscrs reassuring 2.12 1.89, ∞ .123 3.19 2, 88 .056 .07 fscrs inadequate + hated 5.07 1.85, ∞ .008 3.74 2, 88 .028 .08 fscrs inadequate 2.63 1.72, ∞ .080 1.10 2, 88 .338 .02 fscrs hated 5.86 1.75, ∞ .004 5.85 2, 88 .005 .12 note. ats = anova-type statistics; art = adjusted rank transform test. table 2 relative effects, confidence intervals and variances of the fscrs scale group / time relative effect confidence interval variance fscrs total score control pretest .54 .45 – .63 0.108 posttest .52 .41 – .62 0.131 follow-up .53 .43 – .63 0.122 intervention pretest .56 .47 – .65 0.092 posttest .46a .38 – .49 0.082 follow-up .38a .31 – .47 0.081 fscrs reassured-self control pretest .52 .41 – .62 0.135 posttest .51 .40 – .62 0.152 follow-up .53 .41 – .63 0.154 intervention pretest .57 .48 – .65 0.129 posttest .44 .36 – .53 0.088 follow-up .46 .38 – .54 0.080 fscrs inadequate + hated-self control pretest .53 .43 – .63 0.102 randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 268 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ group / time relative effect confidence interval variance posttest .51 .41 – .61 0.121 follow-up .51 .42 – .60 0.126 intervention pretest .54 .44 – .62 0.097 posttest .46 .38 – .55 0.092 follow-up .41a .33 – .49 0.083 fscrs inadequate-self control pretest .51 .40 – .61 0.101 posttest .50 .39 – .62 0.139 follow-up .53 .43 – .62 0.160 intervention pretest .54 .46 – .62 0.102 posttest .48 .39 – .57 0.089 follow-up .44 .36 – .53 0.082 fscrs hated-self control pretest .57 .48 – .65 0.100 posttest .59 .50 – .67 0.100 follow-up .60a .50 – .68 0.080 intervention pretest .54 .44 – .64 0.114 posttest .42a .34 – .49 0.086 follow-up .34a .27 – .43 0.072 athe effectivity of an intervention is indicated by relative effect significantly higher (for increasing effect) or lower (for decreasing effect) than 0.50. figure 2. relative effects for hated-self. halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 269 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. relative effects for inadequate-self. effect of cmt on self-compassion a significant effect of the intervention on the total scs score was found with this effect specifically evident on combined scores from the self-judgement, isolation and over-identification subscales (table 3). the intervention had no effect on kindness, common humanity and mindfulness subscale scores which represent the positively formulated items of self-compassion. again, relative effects with their confidence intervals for each group and time point (table 4) enable to view the effect in more detail. table 3 results for interaction effects of the scs scale scs scores ats art f df p f df p ηg 2 scs sum score 5.17 1.82, ∞ .006 6.67 2, 88 .003 0.13 scs positive 2.34 1.97, ∞ .098 2.92 2, 88 .059 0.06 scs negative 4.32 1.85, ∞ .016 4.32 2, 88 .017 0.09 note. ats = anova-type statistics; art = adjusted rank transform test. randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 270 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 relative effects, their confidence intervals and variances of the scs scale group / time relative effect confidence interval variance scs sum score control pretest .54 .45 – .63 0.108 posttest .52 .41 – .62 0.131 follow-up .53 .43 – .63 0.122 intervention pretest .56 .47 – .65 0.092 posttest .46a .38 – .49 0.082 follow-up .38a .31 – .47 0.081 scs positive control pretest .52 .41 – .62 0.135 posttest .51 .40 – .62 0.152 follow-up .53 .41 – .63 0.154 intervention pretest .57 .48 – .65 0.129 posttest .44 .36 – .53 0.088 followup .46 .38 – .54 0.080 scs negative control pretest .53 .43 – .63 0.102 posttest .51 .41 – .61 0.121 follow-up .51 .42 – .60 0.126 intervention pretest .54 .44 – .62 0.097 posttest .46 .38 – .55 0.092 follow-up .41a .33 – .49 0.083 astatistically significant at .05 level. discussion the present study assessed the impact and longer term effects of a 13-day online version of the compassion mind training on perceived levels of self-compassion and self-criticism. to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to test the effect of cmt when delivered as an online-based intervention to a nonclinical sample. the findings demonstrate that cmt reduced negative thoughts and feelings specifically relating to hostility towards oneself as measured by the hated-self subscale of the fscrs (gilbert et al., 2004) and components of self-compassion relating to self-judgement, isolation and over-identification (neff, 2003). our study supports previous findings that cmt results in a reduction in self-criticism in a nonclinical sample (matos et al., 2017) and that cmt influences changes to hated-self but not inadequate-self (judge et al., 2012; lucre & corten, 2013). these findings are also consonant with gilbert (2010b) who distinguished inadequate-self as a corrective function and hated-self as a pathological attitude towards oneself. halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 271 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the current findings also indicate that whilst cmt may reduce the negative components of self-compassion, it highlights that it does not improve self-compassion, which is contrast in to mindful self-compassion training (neff & germer, 2013) which has been found to improve self-compassion (halamová, kanovský, jakubcová, & kupeli, 2020). these results support the idea that self-compassion and self-criticism are not structured as a dichotomous construct and therefore should not be used as opposites. yet, it implies that there may be benefit in combining these two approaches. however, this requires further research which is beyond the present study. recent psychometric evaluation of the fscrs showed that the scores from the three subscales can be used in either as a total score or as two factors consisting of self-reassurance and self-criticism or as three factors of hated-self, inadequate-self and reassured-self (halamová, kanovský, & pacúchová, 2017). although, a two-factor model of self-reassurance and self-criticism (by merging hated-self and inadequate-self) showed the best fit (halamová, kanovský, & pacúchová, 2017), the current study highlights that hated-self and inadequate-self are distinct forms of self-criticism and should be examined independently (judge et al., 2012; lucre & corten, 2013). these findings also support the idea that a combination of the scs may not be suitable for evaluating the efficacy of interventions. a recent international comparison of the factor structure of the scs suggests that selfcompassionate responding (positive subscales of the scs) and self-uncompassionate responding (negative subscales of the scs) are related, but are still different psychological constructs and so therefore should be measured separately (brenner, heath, vogel, & credé, 2017; lópez et al., 2015). in our study, the overall scs score increased significantly but only due to a reduction in self-uncompassionate responding. in summary, using the total scs score to assess the effect of an intervention may not distinguish if increases in the total scs score are due to improvements to self-compassion or a reduction in self-uncompassionate responding. therefore, it is recommended that the subscales of the scs should not be combined when assessing the effectiveness of interventions and treatments (brenner, heath, vogel, & credé, 2017; lópez et al., 2015). interestingly, the control group reported a significant increase in their hated-self score which is suggestive of the sensitisation effect. completing these measures three times may have resulted in more thoughts about the hostility they project on themselves and thus result in an increase in self-criticism. although cmt was designed as a group-based therapy (gilbert & irons, 2004), our research shows that it could successfully be implemented in an online, individual format with beneficial effects in a non-clinical population. these findings are promising as interventions can be developed using a similar easy-to-administer format to target wider populations and to determine how self-criticism can be treated in the most efficient form. our findings cannot be generalised to a clinical sample and future research should replicate the present study with a clinical sample to explore if an online-based cmt intervention is effective in reducing clinical levels psychopathology. it would also be beneficial to explore if an online-based psychological intervention of this type would be feasible and acceptable for people across clinical samples. to date, the majority of studies implementing cmt have been conducted in english in the uk. so far, two published studies have explored the utility of the cmt outside of the uk (portugal [matos et al., 2017]; iran [noorbala et al., 2013]). therefore, the current study is one of few studies which have explored the impact of cmt in a different language (slovak) and culture and contributes to the cross-cultural credibility of the cmt. randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 272 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strengths and limitations the current study did not collect data on participant’s psychological wellbeing both before undertaking the intervention and during, thus making it possible that the sample consisted of people with a clinical diagnosis of psychopathology. due to the level of commitment required to complete the intervention tasks and high attrition rate, it is possible that only those who were highly motivated or interested in the topic area remained in the study. however, this was not surprising as online-based interventions have been found to be at high risk of attrition (eysenbach, 2005) but this study has demonstrated that an online version of cmt is acceptable and feasible to implement with minimal facilitation. conclusion an abbreviated, online version of the compassion mind training has significantly reduced self-criticism, in particular thoughts and feelings of hostility as measured by the hated-self, subscale of the fscrs and self-uncompassionate responding as measured by the scs. in addition, these changes were still evident after two months. the results are promising and posit that interventions can be developed using virtual technology to reach wider populations without direct involvement of mental health professionals. these findings are particularly valuable relevant for those who might experience stigma as a result of mental health or be unable to contact a mental health care provider. funding this work was supported by the vedecká grantová agentúra vega (grant number: 1/0578/15 and 1/0075/19). nuriye kupeli is supported by an alzheimer’s society (as) funded fellowship (grant number: 399 as-jf-17b-016). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. data availability in order to comply with the ethics approvals of the study protocols, data cannot be made accessible through a public repository. however, data are available upon request for researchers who consent to adhering to the ethical regulations for confidential data. ethics approval the data collected was in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. informed consent form was obtained from participants. halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 273 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references beaumont, e. a., galpin, a. j., & jenkins, p. e. 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(1992). responsivity to cognitive therapy as a function of treatment format and client personality dimensions. journal of clinical psychology, 48(6), 787-797. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(199211)48:6<787::aid-jclp2270480613>3.0.co;2-d appendices appendix 1 table a1 description of previous research measuring effectiveness of cmt on the level of self-criticism and self-compassion study (country) participants (n) control / follow up sessions measure(s) significant outcomes (gilbert & irons, 2004), uk depression (8) no/no group sessions for 1.5 hours once a week over four weeks quantitative ratings of selfcriticism and selfcompassion in diaries increase in ease of generating selfcompassionate images and self-soothing in self-critical situations (gilbert & procter, 2006), uk personality disorders and/or mood disorders (6) no/no two-hour group sessions a week over 12 weeks fscrs, fscs reduction in self-criticism, is and hs; increases in rs (laithwaite et al., 2009), uk psychosis (18) no/yes: six weeks 20 group sessions over 10 weeks scs no change in selfcompassion (beaumont et al., 2012), uk trauma (16) no/no weekly group meetings for up to 12 weeks scs-sf increase in self-compassion (braehler et al., 2013), uk psychosis (22) yes/no two-hour group sessions per week over 16 weeks narrative recovery style scale (gumley et al., 2010) more compassion in narratives (judge et al., 2012), uk heterogeneous diagnosis (27) no/no two-hour group sessions over 12-14 weeks fscrs, fscs increase in rs and reduction in hs, is (noorbala et al., 2013), iran major depressive disorder (19) yes/yes: two months two-hour group sessions twice weekly over 6 weeks losc no change in self-criticism (lucre & corten, 2013), uk personality disorder (8) no/yes: one year group meetings over 16 weeks fscrs increase in rs and reduction in hs (beaumont et al., 2016), uk non-clinical (28) no/no three-day group training scs-sf, fscs increase in self-compassion and reduction in selfuncompassionate responding (matos et al., 2017), portugal non-clinical (56) yes/no two-hour group sessions at the beginning and at the end and two weeks of individual practicing fscrs, scs changes in selfcompassion, self-criticism, hs, is and rs the present study non-clinical (26) yes/yes: two months individual daily exercise for two weeks provided in an online format fscrs, scs changes in hs and selfuncompassionate responding note. fscrs = forms of self-criticism/attacking & self-reassuring scale (gilbert et al., 2004); fscs = functions of self-criticizing (gilbert et al., 2004) hs = hated-self; is = inadequate-self; losc = levels of self-criticism scale (thompson & zuroff, 2004); rs = reassured-self; scs = self-compassion scale (neff, 2003); scs-sf = self-compassion scale short form (raes et al., 2011). halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 277 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://doi.org/10.1111%2faphw.12051 https://doi.org/10.1002%2f1097-4679%28199211%2948%3a6%3c787%3a%3aaid-jclp2270480613%3e3.0.co%3b2-d https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix 2 table a2 description of selected exercises included in the short-term online cmt intervention exercise description of the exercise soothing rhythm breathing this exercise gently focuses on deep diaphragm breathing and finding a breathing rhythm which is personally soothing, comforting and calming. compassionate body scan during this exercise one gradually concentrates on different parts of body from legs to head whilst imagining release of tension and relaxing the body. imaging the self-critical part of self imagining own self-critical part as a person with specific appearance, nonverbal, paraverbal, and verbal communication and with a particular relationship to the participant. creating a safe place during this exercise the individual is encouraged to create a safe place in his/her imagination with specific sensations: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling and enjoying being there. compassionate colour this guided imagery exercise involves imagining a colour which one can associate with compassion, a colour which conveys warmth and kindness, support and strength. developing the inner compassionate self this exercise is about imagining yourself as a compassionate person, being able to think, act and feel compassionately and having qualities such as wisdom, responsibility, warmth, and strength. working with troubled self imagine watching a film of yourself while holding compassionate stance. compassionately see yourself how you get through the day and compassionately notice how you are troubled by self-critical feelings or thoughts. working with anxious self imagine watching a film with yourself while being compassionate. compassionately see how many things during the day make you anxious and feel compassion for the anxiety and help to reduce anxiety. compassion flowing into you from others this exercise encourages individuals to recall a memory when somebody was kind to them. they are guided to remember the person his/her appearance, tone of voice, what he/she said and focus on the feeling they experienced when they received compassion from that person. compassion flowing out imagine kindness flowing from you to others by recalling a memory when you felt kindness towards someone else. imagine pleasure of being kind to somebody else. compassionate letter writing during this exercise one writes a letter from own compassionate part to yourself having troubles. while writing, it is important to create as much warmth and understanding as possible. compassionate dialogue writing imagine dialogue with your compassionate self, a self that understands you completely and it is caring and accepting. imagine what would you say to each other and what would you feel during the dialogue etc. creating your ideal caringcompassionate image imagine creating and meeting your compassionate ideal image, its appearance, various sensations of it, relationship with it while remembering that the image values you and cares about you unconditionally wishing you happiness and free of suffering. note. the exercises were selected from a multitude of different exercises available from gilbert (2010a). randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training 278 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors associate prof. júlia halamová, phd. is a psychologist and works at the faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university in bratislava, slovakia. she is on the list of psychotherapists of the slovak republic and she has her own private psychological and psychotherapeutic practice. her most important publications include self-compassion and self-criticism: creating and measuring the effect of intervention (comenius university 2018), self-compassion and self-criticism: psychometric analysis of measuring instruments (comenius university 2017), psychological sense of community (palacky university in olomouc, 2014) emotion focused therapy i. textbook (comenius university in bratislava, 2013) and emotion focused therapy ii. workbook (comenius university in bratislava, 2013). she focuses on psychology of emotions, community psychology, counseling psychology and psychotherapy. she has been selected as the regional coordinator for slovakia within the european community psychology association and also selected for the international coordinator of the society for community and action research (scra) division 27 american psychological association. prof. kanovský martin, phd. is a social anthropologist and works at the faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university in bratislava, slovakia. his most important publications include the structure of myths (cargo, 2001), cultural and social anthropology (chronos, 2004) and robust statistical methods in social sciences (sasa, 2016) and journal publications in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, proceedings of the royal society, journal of cognition and culture. professionally focuses on cognitive anthropology, i.e. the ways in which culture and mind interact with each other in particular social settings. he is particularly interested in how people, especially pre-school children, represent social groups (race, ethnicity) and how social and institutional influences acting on such representation. he is also interested in advanced robust and bayesian statistical methods. he is a member of the european association of social antropology and also the slovak association of social anthropology. mgr. alexandra pačutová was a psychology student doing her diploma thesis under júlia halamová, and currently works in psychology practice. nuriye kupeli, phd. works as alzheimer's society fellow and senior research associate at university college london, uk. nuriye kupeli has been awarded a three-year junior fellowship from the alzheimer's society to explore family carers’ experiences of continuing compassion while caring for someone living with dementia. nuriye kupeli is also leading a workstream as part of a large economic and social research council – national institute for health research grant looking at unmet palliative care needs and care transitions experienced by people living and dying with dementia and their carers. her mixed methods expertise includes designing and conducting longitudinal and interventional health studies, assessing psychometric properties of self-report measures, conducting interview studies and analysing qualitative data. halamová, kanovský, pačutová, & kupeli 279 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 262–279 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1683 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ randomised controlled trial of online compassion mind training (introduction) compassion-focused therapy (cft) and compassion mind training (cmt) the impact of cmt on self-compassion and self-criticism aim method participants instruments procedure data analyses results effect of cmt on self-criticism/reassurance effect of cmt on self-compassion discussion strengths and limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability ethics approval references appendices appendix 1 appendix 2 about the authors improving temporal consistency of preferences: the influence of mental construal research reports improving temporal consistency of preferences: the influence of mental construal asli elif aydin* a [a] school of applied sciences, istanbul bilgi university, istanbul, turkey. abstract majority of the current literature on mental construal has focused on effects of varying construal levels on preference shifts whereas this research investigates the influence of mental construal on the change of preference consistency over time. building on construal level theory, we propose that high-level construal, which creates abstract, and decontextualized mental representations, leads individuals to more consistent preferences than low-level construal, which creates concrete, and contextualized mental representations. furthermore we examine the effect of having a matching versus non-matching construal level at two different evaluation instances, on achieving greater extents of consistency. to test this prediction a mixed experimental design is employed, in which participants evaluated electronic products at two different sessions. it is demonstrated that when participants have the same construal level at two points in time, their evaluations become similar since they mentally construe the objects in the same way whereas when the construal level differs at these two points, participants focus on different aspects of the products, form different evaluations and have less consistent preferences. keywords: preference consistency, construal level theory, mental representations, psychological distance, electronic products europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 received: 2017-01-26. accepted: 2018-05-17. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; mioara cristea, department of psychology, school of social sciences, heriot watt university, edinburgh, united kingdom *corresponding author at: eski silahtaraga elektrik santrali, kazim karabekir cad. no: 2/13, 34060 eyup, istanbul, turkey. e-mail: aslielif.aydin@bilgi.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. prior research supports the notion that individuals are motivated to be consistent (fishbach, ratner, & zhang, 2011). several theories within psychology literature demonstrate the inherent struggle of people to achieve consistency of beliefs, attitudes and behaviors (e.g. balance theory, heider, 1946; cognitive dissonance theory, festinger, 1957). these theories recognize that consistency seeking is a strong urge, which controls individuals’ behavior (cialdini, 2009). through creating tension in one’s state of mind, inconsistencies motivate individuals to seek out ways to restore a stable equilibrium. nonetheless, consistency is hard to achieve. the constructed nature of preferences, indicating that preferences are created whenever individuals faced a decision problem, hinders individuals’ ability to be consistent in their preferences (lichtenstein & slovic, 2006). even when individuals are satisfied with a previous choice, they may fail to be consistent due to numerous factors related to the task, choice context and characteristics of the decision maker (payne, bettman, & johnson, 1992). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ a valuable framework to recognize variations in individuals’ preferences comes from the construal level theory (clt), which suggests that when people mentally construe objects at a high level, the fundamental characteristics of the object are more discernible, yet if they construe objects at a low level the details become more salient (trope & liberman, 2000). while past studies (chang & liu, 2008; dhar, nowlis, & sherman, 2000; hsee, yang, gu, & chen, 2009; mishra, 2009) have mostly focused on the impact of mental construal on the types of information people selectively attend to in evaluating alternatives and forming preferences, the current study adopts a different perspective. we focus on examining the change in the degree of consistency at different construal levels. there has been only limited number of studies that have investigated the relationship between construal levels and degree of preference consistency and they have come up with conflicting results (e.g. fukukura, ferguson, & fujita, 2013; khan, zhu, & kalra, 2011; van kerckhove, geuens, & vermeir, 2015). from a theoretical standpoint it is essential to add to the scarce amount of research in this stream and provide support to either one side of the argument, in this case favoring the increased consistency of preferences with high level construal. furthermore, it is also imperative to reveal the type of mindset that will induce more consistent preferences from a practical standpoint. it has been demonstrated that decline in consistency of preferences leads to regret and dissatisfaction with choice (lee & zhao, 2014). therefore, understanding this relationship and providing individuals with tools and practices that will reduce inconsistencies and negate the adverse consequences will be valuable to attain contented individuals. through this study, an important contribution to the literature is made by shedding light on the impact of change in mental construal on the degree of preference consistency. in doing so, we employ a temporal measure of preference consistency which enables us to investigate the effect of having a matching versus a non-matching construal at two different evaluation instances on the degree of preference consistency. thus, we also contribute to the literature by demonstrating how changing the construal level impacts preference consistency over time. this inquiry is valuable considering the variable nature of construal levels with situational factors. consequently, drawing from construal level theory it is suggested that high-level construal, which creates abstract, global, and decontextualized mental representations, lead individuals to more consistent preferences than low-level construal, which creates concrete, local, and contextualized mental representations (trope & liberman, 2010). additionally, we look into the impact of the match of construal levels at different evaluations on the degree of preference consistency. by means of this, it is suggested that matching mindsets at two distinct points of evaluation should produce more consistent preferences than non-matching mindsets. this paper is organized as follows. first, the theoretical background on the construal level theory is reviewed. moreover the impact of mental construal on the change of preference consistency is outlined and hypotheses are developed. following that the method of the study is explained. next, the data is analyzed and the results of the study are demonstrated. finally, the findings are discussed together with their theoretical and practical implications. limitations of the study and directions for future research are also provided. theoretical background construal level theory construal level theory (clt, liberman & trope, 2008; trope & liberman, 2000) suggests that every behavior can be mentally represented in an abstract or a concrete manner. high-level construal is associated with abpreference consistency and mental construal 950 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stract mindsets, yet low-level construal is associated with concrete mindsets (freitas, gollwitzer, & trope, 2004; trope, liberman, & wakslak, 2007). construal level increases with psychological distance (e.g. temporal distance, spatial distance, social distance and hypotheticality), which causes more abstract mental representation of objects (liberman, trope, & wakslak, 2007; trope & liberman, 2003). besides, construal level can also be primed. it is stated that depending on the focus on how the behavior is performed or why it is performed, the level of mental abstraction can be shifted from low-level end to high-level end of construal continuum (vallacher & wegner, 1987; vallacher & wegner, 1989). clt is mainly related to the type of information that is selectively put to use while making an evaluation (lynch & zauberman, 2007). a number of studies attempted to sort out the characteristics, which receive varying weights in evaluations depending on the mental construal. one such characteristic is primary versus secondary nature of product attributes (kray, 2000; liviatan, trope, & liberman, 2008a). it is demonstrated that core features of objects (e.g. sound quality of a radio) have a more significant role in judgment than peripheral features of objects (e.g. timer of a radio) when construal level is high than when it is low (lee, deng, unnava, & fujita, 2014; torelli & kaikati, 2009; trope & liberman, 2000). likewise, it is indicated that benefit based appeals are more persuasive than attribute based appeals when construal level is high than when it is low (hernandez, wright, & ferminiano rodrigues, 2015). a further characteristic of construal levels is desirability versus feasibility aspects. desirability aspects refer to end state while feasibility aspects refer to means used to reach that end state (liberman & trope, 1998; sagristano, trope, & liberman, 2002). it is shown that high desirability and low feasibility options (e.g. getting 10 free cds as a promotion at an inconvenient location) are preferred to low desirability and high feasibility options (e.g. getting 1 free cd as a promotion at a convenient location) when construal level is high than when it is low (todorov, goren, & trope, 2007). additionally, it is determined that desirability aspects of an object have a stronger effect on purchase intentions for the distant future and feasibility aspects of an object have a stronger effect on purchase intentions for the near future (thomas, chandran, & trope, 2006). gift giving context displayed equivalent results. it is demonstrated that compared to the receivers of the gift, gift givers put more weight on desirability aspects and less weight on feasibility aspects as a result of their’ increased psychological distance (baskin, wakslak, trope, & novemsky, 2014). attribute alignability constitutes an additional varying characteristic between levels of construal. since nonalignable attributes, which have no corresponding features in the other alternative, require an abstract mental representation, they are emphasized more with high-level construal. likewise, alignable attributes, which are comparable features with the other alternative requires a concrete representation; hence they are emphasized more with low-level construal (pfeiffer et al., 2014; trope & liberman, 2010). consequently, alignable better alternatives are preferred when construal level is low and non-alignable better alternatives are preferred when construal level is high (malkoc, zauberman, & ulu, 2005). overall, as indicated in these sample studies, when construal level is high evaluations focus on abstract, decontextualized, core features and desirability concerns; and when construal level is low evaluations focus on concrete, contextualized, peripheral features and feasibility concerns (ledgerwood, trope, & chaiken, 2010). aydin 951 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between construal level and change in preference consistency as summarized above, an ample body of research on clt examined how changes in construal level shift individuals’ preferences. these studies focused on the influence of mental construal on the importance given to different types of attributes in evaluations (lynch & zauberman, 2007). however a related field of research investigating the extent of change in preference consistency between individuals with high versus low level construal levels received very limited attention. on top of that, those few studies that examined how mental construal influences the degree of preference consistency presented conflicting results. for instance, kardes, cronley, and kim (2006), suggested that preference formed on the basis of lower construal level should be more stable over time. in particular, it was indicated that stability of preferences increased in low-level construal as vividness and concrete details of the experimental stimuli ease preference formation process. it is indicated that since large amount of contextual detail create greater confidence in judgments (gill, swann, & silvera, 1998), and preferences made based on contextual details are more resistant to persuasion (kallgren & wood, 1986), a concrete mental representation of objects should produce more consistent preferences. in accordance with that van kerckhove et al. (2015) proposed that looking down to process proximal stimuli, which is connected with low construal levels, creates more consistent preferences than looking up to process distant stimuli, which is connected with high construal levels. based on their preliminary findings it was argued that high construal levels induce construction of preferences instead of recall of initial preferences since a varying set of choice related information is incorporated in decisions. contrary to that, khan et al. (2011) reported mixed findings regarding the effect of mental representations on context dependent trade-offs. specifically, in deliberative comparisons, context effects such as the compromise, and the background-contrast effects, produced decreased number of trade-offs with abstract mindsets compared to concrete mindsets. in other words, preferences were more stable with abstract mindsets regardless of the choice context. it is suggested that in effortful processing high-level construal shift attention away from detailed trade-offs; thus shield preferences from contextual effects. however, for the attraction effect, which emerges on account of intuitive processing, the opposite pattern is observed. earlier studies that suggest increased preference consistency with low-level construal employ overly simplistic stimuli that lack contextual details and don’t necessitate effortful processing. however for the majority of the choice problems, the nature of the alternatives and the decision circumstances are considerably more complex and detailed. further it is established that when there is a lot of information, abstraction improves decision outcome in terms of selecting the better alternative (fukukura et al., 2013). in the current study, it is expected that consistency of preferences increase when decisions are made with an abstract mindset rather than a concrete mindset. it is stated that high-level mental representations are more coherent than low-level mental representations (liberman, sagristano, & trope, 2002). furthermore, it is suggested that high-level mental representations reflect central features and omit incidental features. at a close distance representations highlight contextual details, yet as distance increases, representations convey the substance of the target object. these high-level features enable general evaluations that encapsulate constant aspects of a target object across multiple context, thus preferences will become more consistent (ledgerwood, wakslak, & wang, 2010). therefore it is proposed that: preference consistency and mental construal 952 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hypothesis 1: a high-level construal produces more consistent preferences than a low-level construal. above-mentioned studies all acknowledged that it is possible for an individual to adopt a different mental construal when faced with a previously encountered choice task and result in a change of preference due to the difference in individual’s mindset. yet, most studies employed an operationalization of consistency which is assessed by comparing the preferences of individuals in different treatment groups (lynch & zauberman, 2007). testing dynamic consistency of the same individuals with different construal levels in time has been a virgin territory in this stream of research. it is expected that repeated measures will present novel findings for construal studies. no prior work in clt literature, to the best of the author’s knowledge, has employed a procedure that enables to evaluate preference consistency at a temporal level. in just one conceptual work, kardes et al. (2006) predicted that evaluations would be more stable over time when construal levels at two points in time are similar. however, this conjecture has not been empirically confirmed. without using a different methodology to measure consistency of preferences across varying construals levels, it will not be possible to investigate the effect of having a matching vs. non-matching mental construal on the preferences of the same individual. similar to what kardes et al. (2006) suggested, it is expected that dynamic preferences will be more consistent in time when construal levels at two evaluation instances in time match. the main reasoning for this assertion is that same cues will be discernible at choice and retrieval. in particular, when individuals adopt a high-level mental construal at both instances of evaluation, they focus on same characteristics namely, core, primary features, and desirability aspects. consequently, their preferences will be consistent. on the other hand, if they adopt a low-level mental construal at the second evaluation, after adopting a high-level mental construal at the initial evaluation, this time they focus on different characteristics namely, peripheral, secondary features, and feasibility aspects. thus, their preferences will be inconsistent. as a result, it is suggested that preferences will be more consistent when the levels of mental construal at two points in time (t1 & t2) are matching than when they are non-matching. in other words, when the level of construal of the first evaluation matches that of second, preferences will be more consistent. accordingly it is proposed that: hypothesis 2a: preferences will be more consistent when a high-level construal at t1 is followed by a matching high-level construal rather than a non-matching low-level construal at t2. hypothesis 2b: preferences will be more consistent when a low-level construal at t1 is followed by a matching low-level construal rather than a non-matching high-level construal at t2. method participants and design the study took place at two universities where subjects were given extra course credits to participate. since the study had a within subject design with two sessions, the responses of only those who participated in both sessions were analyzed. of the 235 who participated in the first part of the study, 172 subjects attended the second part (%73.2). fourteen responses were eliminated since subjects did not accurately follow the instructions. the final sample consisted of 158 students. the sample consisted of third and fourth year undergraduate students with business major. 49% of the sample was female. aydin 953 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a 2 (construal t1: high vs. low) x 2 (construal t2: high vs. low) x 5 (product category: laptop, mobile phone, digital camera, tablet, e-reader) mixed between – within subjects quasi experiment design was employed. experimental procedure the study was conducted in two sessions that were two weeks apart. both sessions consisted of paper-andpencil tasks, which took around 30 minutes to complete. students were asked to write down a code with a minimum of 6 digits on their papers. this code is later used to collate the two separate completed questionnaires of the participants. in the first session participants initially completed a thought exercise for the mental construal manipulation task (freitas et al., 2004; hamilton & thompson, 2007). they were asked to focus and elaborate on “improving and maintaining health” activity for this exercise. those in the abstract (concrete) mental construal condition first read a passage about life goals (ways of achieving life goals), which explained why (how) people do things, they do. next, they were asked to provide three reasons for engaging in (three actions to reach) “improving and maintaining health” activity (goal) and rate the importance of each given reason. following that they were asked to complete a diagram in which they came up with successive higher-level reasons (lower-level means) for “improving and maintaining health”; hence thought progressively abstractly (concretely). in the next part, respondents were instructed to examine the descriptions of several electronic products, namely mobile phones, laptop computers, tablets, digital cameras, and e-readers and evaluate these products. electronic products were chosen as experimental stimuli for two main reasons. first, electronic products, especially the ones used in this study, have a significant place in the lives of the university students hence they are frequently exposed to these products and information about them. second, electronic products have adequate number of features that are all noticed and taken into account in choice process. due to the temporal nature of the study it is important to find products that have sufficient complexity in order to reduce memory effects. the products that are used in the study are chosen with a pretest. 35 student participants were asked to rate their level of involvement and familiarity with 10 electronic products and the five highest ranking products are selected for the study. for all five electronic products, eight product features were provided. some of the features were primary features (e.g. processor speed for a laptop) while others were secondary (e.g. smart cover for a laptop). a brief statement of product description, indicating the core benefit or essential characteristics, was mentioned as well. furthermore, customer ratings for ease of use and perceived value, specifically price-quality ratio, were presented on a five-point scale. ease of use represented feasibility aspect of the products while perceived value represented desirability aspect of the products (see example stimulus in figure 1). afterwards, participants evaluated product alternatives on a fifteen-point scale ranged from 1 (very negative) to 15 (very positive) as a measure of their preferences. in addition, participants responded to two questions that measured (a) their involvement in purchase decision: how important would it be to you to make a right choice of this product? (b) familiarity: how familiar are you with this product category? responses to these questions were all anchored on scales of 1 to 7 (not important at allvery important, not familiar at allvery familiar). preference consistency and mental construal 954 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. sample stimulus. in the second session of the study, a different mental construal manipulation task was used (liberman, trope, mccrae, & sherman, 2007). participants were informed that the study was about story building with the intention to investigate how people interpret and form impressions of different events. they were instructed to visualize each event and respond to following questions. six brief descriptions of actions were presented to participants in both conditions. participants in the abstract mental construal condition were asked why the events could have happened, whereas those in the concrete mental construal condition were asked how the events could have happened. in the next part, respondents were instructed to examine the product descriptions and evaluate the products again on a fifteen-point scale ranged from 1 (very negative) to 15 (very positive). preference inconsistency was measured as the absolute difference between the ratings of the first and the second sessions. a score of zero indicated totally consistent preferences whereas a score of fourteen indicated totally inconsistent preferences. participants evaluated ten products, specifically two alternatives for each of the five product categories, in both sessions. only one set of the alternatives was asked to be evaluated at both sessions. the other alternatives were placed to disguise the purpose of the study and prevent memory effects. the analysis utilized the ratings of the five common alternatives that were used in both sessions. results first, participants’ level of involvement, and familiarity for all product categories were examined. the level of involvement was highest for laptops and lowest for e-readers (mlaptop = 6.57, sdlaptop = 0.91; mmobile = 6.29, sdmobile = 1.17; mtablet = 5.62, sdtablet = 1.60; mcamera = 5.53, sdcamera = 1.42; me-reader = 3.72, sde-reader = 2.02). similarly, participants were most familiar with laptops and they were least familiar with e-readers (mlaptop = 6.32, sdlaptop = 1.03; mmobile = 6.29, sdmobile = 1.01; mcamera = 5.06, sdcamera = 1.70; mtablet = 4.59, sdtablet = 1.85; mereader = 2.96, sde-reader = 1.81). aydin 955 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ next, a 2 (construal t1) x 2 (construal t2) x 5 (product category) repeated-measure anova is conducted to examine the overall effects of construal on preference consistency for different product categories. the analysis revealed a significant main effect of construal level at t1, f(1, 153) = 5.06, p = .03, η2 p = .03, indicating that participants, who were in the high-level construal condition at t1, were more consistent in their evaluations regardless of their construal mindset at t2 of the study. a similar kind of effect is observed for the main effect of construal level at t2, yet it was not significant, f(1, 153) = 2.74, p = .10, η2 p = .02. more importantly, as predicted, the interaction between construal levels at t1 and t2 was also significant, f(1,153) = 6.32, p = .01, η2 p = .04. these findings held when controlling for participants’ sex. to break down the interaction between construal levels at t1 and t2, planned contrasts were performed comparing consistency levels for varying construal levels at t1 and t2. in hypothesis1 it was expected that high construal levels would produce more consistent preferences than low construal levels. as expected, the degree of inconsistency was lower for participants, who were in high-level construal conditions for both sessions (m = 2.01) compared to those, who were in low-level construal conditions for both sessions (m = 2.71, t(53.05) = -3.28, p < .01). therefore, hypothesis 1 was supported (see figure 2a). furthermore, the analysis revealed a significant main effect of product type on preference consistency, f(4, 150) = 7.48, p < .001, η2 p = .17) indicating a change of consistency levels across product categories (see figure 2b). figure 2a. overall mean preference inconsistency as a function of construal levels. figure 2b. mean preference inconsistency as a function of construal levels across product categories. preference consistency and mental construal 956 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the interaction effect of construal level at t1 and product type was also significant, f(4, 150) = 7.48, p < .001, η2 p = .17. other than that the interaction between construal level at t2 and product type, f(4, 150) = 1.05, p > .10, η2 p = .03, and triple interaction among product type, t1 and t2 construal levels, f(4, 150) = 0.20, p > .10, η2 p = .01, were not significant. in the second hypothesis, it was expected that when the levels of mental construal at two points in time are similar, preferences would be more consistent than when they are different. planned contrasts revealed that the level of inconsistency decreased significantly if a high-level construal at first evaluation is followed by a highlevel construal (m = 2.01) than a low-level (m = 2.75) construal at second evaluation, t(51.99) = -3.39, p < .01. therefore, hypothesis 2a was supported. similarly, the level of inconsistency decreased significantly if a low-level construal at first evaluation is followed by a low-level construal (m = 2.71) than a high-level construal (m = 2.86) at second evaluation, however this effect was not significant, t(76.9) = -.544, p > .10. therefore, hypothesis 2b was not supported. following that, the same planned contrasts were run for each product category separately (table 1). for laptop, tablet and digital camera results were parallel to overall analysis. for the mobile phone category, the findings were also similar yet the effect was not significant. for the e-reader, on the other hand, results with an opposite pattern were observed. the difference of preference inconsistency between high-level construal condition at both t1 and t2 and low-level construal condition at both t1 and t2 was not significant. moreover, the difference between low-level construal condition at both t1 and t2 and low-level construal condition at t1 followed by a high-level construal condition at t2 was marginally significant. table 1 contrasts of preference inconsistency for matching versus non-matching mental construal levels across product categories product categories matching construals non-matching construals t h2a (high construal at t1) overall 2.010 2.750 3.394** digital camera 1.175 1.947 2.087* laptop 1.600 2.974 2.997** tablet 2.150 3.316 2.303* mobile phone 1.900 2.615 1.556† e-reader 3.225 2.932 0.490 h2b (low construal at t1) overall 2.710 2.860 0.544 digital camera 1.949 2.561 1.135 laptop 3.184 2.854 0.720 tablet 3.342 2.732 1.213 mobile phone 2.184 2.268 0.182 e-reader 2.868 3.878 1.638† †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. aydin 957 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study provides support for the hypothesis that individuals with high construal levels are more consistent in their evaluations than individuals with low construal levels. it is indicated that when construal level is high, individuals adopt an abstract mindset and when it is low they adopt a concrete mindset (trope & liberman, 2000). with the abstract mindset, individuals mainly focus on overall attractiveness of the objects and primary features addressing desirability concerns (ledgerwood, trope, & chaiken, 2010). it is our prediction that abstract construal lead individuals to see the big picture and form global evaluations that remain intact. as the evaluations are made in a decontextualized manner, the essence of the evaluations remains the same instituting consistency. on the other hand, with the concrete mindset individuals focus on incidental aspects and peripheral features addressing feasibility concerns during evaluations. individuals turn their attention to secondary aspects and stray into the jungle of details. since the evaluations are made in a decontextualized manner in this case; they become inconsistent. this finding is validated across an assortment of product categories, namely digital camera, tablet, laptop, and mobile phone. an exception to this finding is observed for a relatively low involvement / low familiarity product category. for such a product, the e-reader in this case, preferences are more consistent when individuals adopt a low-level mental construal than when they adopt a high-level mental construal. this finding is also in line with findings of earlier studies that utilized low involvement products (e.g. kardes et al., 2006; van kerckhove et al., 2015). one probable account for this finding is that, with abstract representations concrete aspects of objects become vague and evaluations are made mostly based on information previously stored in memory (bar-anan, liberman, & trope, 2006). individuals, who are not much familiar with a product category, find it more difficult to form general evaluations since they do not have sufficient prior knowledge structures (bettman & park, 1980). they cannot identify relevant and important information and instead they base their decisions on easily understandable features (alba & hutchinson, 1987). consequently evaluations based on abstract representation lack a solid foundation and become unstable. on the other hand, evaluations based on concrete representations use heuristic cues that can be easily retrieved in following evaluations; hence relatively be more stable. another possible explanation for this result can be inferred based on action identification theory (vallacher & wegner, 1987). it is stated that when an activity is considered difficult to conduct as a result of lack of experience, individuals tend to focus on low-level details of the objects (wan & rucker, 2013). consequently, for those in the low-level construal condition the primed mindset were congruent with the focused information, hence performance improved resulting in more consistent preferences. another important finding of the present study is that having matching construals at two points at time produces more consistent preferences than having non-matching construals. this pattern exists both for high-level construals and low-level construals, yet statistically significant only for high-level construals. it is our prediction that with matching mental construals, individuals focus on similar aspects of the objects and consequently evaluations become more consistent. specifically, participants that are in high-level construal condition at both sessions pay more attention to similar primary features, and desirability concerns; therefore their evaluations at two sessions are parallel. contrary to that, participants that are in high-level construal condition in the first and lowlevel construal condition in the second session form their opinions based on different product attributes due to non-matching mental representations; therefore their evaluations are not as consistent. for instance, a participant that is trying to assess a digital camera with an abstract mindset in the first evaluation may attend to the preference consistency and mental construal 958 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ primary characteristics such as picture resolution and optical zoom. following that, if a concrete mindset is adopted in the second evaluation, participants may focus on secondary attributes such as vibration reduction and bluetooth connections. this may result in change in preferences causing inconsistencies. for low construal levels the matching hypothesis turned out to be not significant. one probable account for lack of significance is that with a high-level construal, individuals initially see the abstract representation and following that with a low-level construal they form their evaluations on concrete details that they did not pay attention to beforehand so they cannot be consistent whereas with a low-level construal, individuals initially construe concrete representations with an awareness of the details and following that with a high-level construal it is not as difficult to form global evaluations. consequently, evaluations may not differ as much for low construal levels compared to high construal levels when individuals adopted a non-matching mindset. once more, an exception to this result is discerned for a low involvement / low familiarity product category. it is seen that for the e-reader case the matching hypothesis is significant for low construal levels and not significant for high construal levels. it is established that individuals are most consistent with low-level mental construals at both sessions since they use concrete details as heuristic cues for retrieval of prior evaluations. in contrast when a low-level construal is followed by a (non-matching) high-level construal, the focus of attention shifts from the concrete details to the global aspects; in which case heuristics cannot be employed. as a result consistency is reduced for this particular case. theoretical and practical implications one of the main theoretical contributions of this research to the literature of construal effects on preference consistency is demonstrating that high-level mental construal generates more consistent preferences compared to low-level mental construal. even though a considerable amount of studies investigated the impact of mental construal on preference shifts, the prior literature is limited regarding research on construal effects on preference consistency. moreover, even the limited number of studies provides conflicting results. consequently, this finding makes a valuable contribution to research on mental construal and preference consistency. another important contribution of the present study is made through the measurement of preferences at two evaluation instances. prior studies (baskin et al., 2014; hernandez et al., 2015; lee et al., 2014; liviatan et al., 2008a) generally have examined the relationship between construal levels and preferences with a between subjects design. in the current research we examined the within subjects effect of mental construal on the consistency of preferences with the temporal measurement of the consistency. this study has been the first to employ such a methodological approach within this stream of research to the best of our knowledge. the operationalization of consistency with a temporal angle makes it possible to investigate the impact of matching and non-matching construal levels on evaluations. furthermore, this study employs a number of different products as experimental stimuli. therefore, the findings of the present study are not restricted to a particular item; rather evidence from different product categories corroborates each other. besides, selecting products that the participants were less familiar and involved with put forward different effects of construal on consistency while opening the door for future research for further developments. aydin 959 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ one major practical implication for individuals is to gain an understanding that mental construal can be used to influence consistency of one’s preferences. once the type of mindset that creates greater consistency is known, individuals can advance methods that will enable them to become more consistent. the present research suggests that adopting a high level construal, individuals can be more consistent in their choices. for example, considering the importance of a product rather than its concrete details corresponds to high-level construal (trope & liberman, 2000) resulting in temporally stable choices. furthermore, this study provides valuable implications for both consumers and marketing practitioners. both consumers and marketing practitioners presume consistency of preferences. from the consumers’ point of view, it is important to know that preferences won’t change rapidly; ergo, one can enjoy an item for a long while and won’t experience frequent regrets. on the other hand, from the marketing practitioners’ perspective it is equally important to be able to rely on the consistency of consumers’ preference since strategic marketing activities such as segmentation, targeting and positioning require some regularity and steadiness of preferences to be able to address them properly. therefore, marketing communications might be used to improve the consistency of consumer preferences by controlling their construal levels. for instance, messages focusing on near vs. distant future (khan et al., 2011; trope & liberman, 2000), close vs. far locations (henderson, fujita, trope, & liberman, 2006), similar vs. dissimilar people (liviatan, trope, & liberman, 2008b), and high vs. low probability events (wakslak, trope, liberman, & alony, 2006) will produce lower construal levels which makes consumer preferences more susceptible. additionally, communication content highlighting how one should use a product versus why one should use a product (lee, keller, & sternthal, 2010; white, macdonnell, & dahl, 2011) and the consequences vs. the causes of using a product (rim, hansen, & trope, 2013) will create low level construals, making it easier for the advertiser and the marketing manager to induce changes with consumer preferences. at a broader level the implication for the practitioners is that, market leaders, who primarily seek longevity and loyalty, should try to further consistency of its customers by promoting the high-level aspects of the offerings and inducing abstract mindsets through the marketing communications. they may be better off providing abstract representation of the products, emphasizing the general appeal, and benefit of using the product. on the other hand, market followers should try to prompt shifts in preferences by providing a concrete representation and they may be better off emphasizing the peripheral features and feasibility aspects of the offering. limitations and future directions current study used electronic products as experimental stimuli due to their level of complexity allowing deliberate appraisal. future research may explore the generalizability of the findings of this study in different product categories. for instance, studies comparing the effect of mental construal on preference consistency between affect based and cognition based evaluations would shed additional light on the topic. it is demonstrated that the intensity of affect diminishes as psychological distance increase (williams, stein, & galguera, 2014). examining whether high level construal will induce more consistent preferences for hedonic products as well as utilitarian products might have essential implications. furthermore, even though the products of the study were selected using a pretest based on the familiarity and involvement of participants, one product, namely e-reader, scored low on these dimensions with the actual sample. the results found were in the opposite direction for this particular product category. revealing the role preference consistency and mental construal 960 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of familiarity and involvement in the relationship between mental construal and preference consistency puts forward another path for future research. this study includes tasks with high cognitive demands. it is suggested that changes in mental construal might enhance or reduce task performance based on the compatibility between mental construal and task characteristics (förster, friedman, & liberman, 2004). accordingly, even though the results of this study supports most of our predictions, testing same hypotheses using tasks that are cognitively less demanding may provide stimulating results due to the interaction between task characteristic and mental construal. conclusion construal level theory suggests that individuals’ level of construal at the time of a product evaluation influences the type of features individuals attend to. consequently, their preferences vary depending on their mental construal and the way they mentally illustrate products. current study demonstrates that high level construal produces more consistent preferences than low level construal. additionally, the effect of having matching versus non-matching construal levels at two evaluation instances, on the degree of consistency is examined. the preferences become the most consistent when participants adopted a high level construal at both evaluations. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references alba, j. w., & hutchinson, j. w. 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(2014). the distinct affective consequences of psychological distance and construal level. the journal of consumer research, 40(6), 1123-1138. doi:10.1086/674212 about the author asli elif aydin is an assistant professor in mba programs at istanbul bilgi university. she has been a member of the faculty since 2008. asli completed her ph.d. in marketing at bogazici university, and her mba at bilkent university. she earned her undergraduate degree at istanbul technical university. her primary research interests are in consumer behavior. more specifically her work examines consumer preferences and mental processes. aydin 965 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 949–965 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1379 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.3.472 https://doi.org/10.1086/674212 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ preference consistency and mental construal (introduction) theoretical background method participants and design experimental procedure results discussion theoretical and practical implications limitations and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author intercultural profiles and adaptation among immigrant and autochthonous adolescents research reports intercultural profiles andadaptation among immigrant andautochthonous adolescents cristiano inguglia*a, pasquale mussoa [a] department of psychological, educational and training sciences, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. abstract few studies examine relationships between intercultural strategies and adaptation among adolescents using a person-oriented approach. framed from an intercultural psychology perspective, this study used such an approach in order to examine the influence of intercultural profiles, patterns of relationships among variables related to intercultural strategies, on the adaptation of adolescents of both non-dominant and dominant groups. two hundred and fifty-six adolescents living in italy and aged from 14 to 18 participated to the study: 127 immigrants from tunisia (males = 49.61%) and 129 autochthonous (males = 44.19%). data were collected through self-report questionnaires. using cluster analytic methods to identify profiles, the results showed that immigrant adolescents were divided in two acculturation profiles, ethnic and integrated-national, with adolescents belonging to the latter showing higher self-esteem, life satisfaction and sociocultural competence than the former. also among autochthonous adolescents two acculturation expectation profiles were identified, not-multicultural and multicultural, with adolescents belonging to the latter showing higher self-esteem and life satisfaction than the former. findings highlight the importance of using multiple indicators in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the acculturation process as well as suggesting implications for the social policies in this field. keywords: acculturation, immigrants’ adaptation, multiculturalism, person-centred approach, adolescence, profiles europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 received: 2014-10-02. accepted: 2014-12-22. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, academy of special education, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychological, educational and training sciences, università degli studi di palermo, viale delle scienze, ed. 15., 90128, palermo, italy. e-mail: cristiano.inguglia@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. italy is facing a rapid enlargement of immigrant population. from the second half of the 1970s the country has witnessed a solid influx of immigrants which have increased with a high rate of growth. in fact the total amount of legal immigrants who are permanent residents in italy has changed from about 1,000,000 in 2001 to about 5,000,000 in 2013 (caritas italiana & fondazione migrantes, 2013). this situation results in a patchwork of religions, people and cultures that requires innovative social policies in order to promote the intercultural dialogue and to overcome conflicts between groups, especially during a period of economic recession characterized by high unemployment rates and social dissatisfaction. psychology and social sciences can effectively contribute to an understanding of those factors which foster personal and societal development in multicultural contexts (berry, 2005, 2013). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ intercultural psychology has contributed to this understanding through two distinct approaches, named acculturation and ethnic relations (berry, 2005, 2006). the first approach has been concerned with the views held by nondominant groups (e.g., immigrants) regarding how they wish to live in the host society, using such concepts as acculturation strategies and adaptation. the second approach has examined the views and behaviours of the dominant group toward the non-dominant ones, using concepts such as acculturation expectations. however, both the approaches represent “one-way” views of intercultural relations which miss examining the reciprocal views held by non-dominant groups towards dominant group, and vice versa. in the current study we attempted to bring together the two approaches and to examine concurrently both nondominant and dominant groups following the guidelines developed by berry in the framework of the international collaborative project mutual intercultural relations in plural societies (mirips)i. the findings presented below come from the italian section of mirips and refer to adolescents, who are in a critical developmental period for the formation of acculturation processes (sam & berry, 2006). the paper is focused on the concept of intercultural strategies that designates individuals’ and groups’ preferences towards the ways in which they wish to engage with their own and other cultural groups (berry, 2013). they are referred both to non-dominant and dominant groups: in the first case they are called acculturation strategies, in the second case they are defined acculturation expectations (berry, 2003, 2005). the impact of intercultural strategies on adaptation of immigrant and autochthonous adolescents has been already analyzed by several authors (berry, phinney, sam, & vedder, 2006a, 2006b; brown & zagefka, 2011; giang & wittig, 2006; güngör, 2007; ljujic, vedder, dekker, & van geel, 2012; motti-stefanidi, berry, chryssochoou, sam, & phinney, 2012; nguyen & benet-martínez, 2013). however, these studies reveal the prevalent use of a variable-oriented approach (magnusson & bergman, 1988) centred on intercultural strategies without seeing at the individual in his/her totality. this approach focuses the analysis on variables and assumes that they are interrelated similarly and linearly across all groups under consideration (mcquitty, 1987). therefore, the variable-centred approach supposes that the meaning and covariation of all variables is the same for all groups (bergman, cairns, nilsson, & nystedt, 2000). although the studies that used this approach have revealed a great deal of information in the field of intercultural psychology, immigrant and autochthonous groups also exhibit patterns of several interrelated dimensions that are not captured by unidimensional analyses (berry et al., 2006b). hence, we used a holistic person-oriented approach that provides information concerning which combinations of factors related to intercultural strategies are significant and prevalent, and how such combinations may change for different subgroups of adolescents (bergman & trost, 2006; magnusson, 2003). we first created a classification of adolescents based on several dimensions related to intercultural strategies, then we examined the multidimensional relationships among dimensions (patterns). these patterns are here defined as intercultural profiles and consist of acculturation profiles with regard to non-dominant groups, and acculturation expectation profiles with regard to dominant groups. also, such an approach allows us to determine whether the influence of isolated intercultural variables (e.g., intercultural strategies), on adolescents’ adaptation keeps its actuality when we consider multivariable systems as intercultural profiles. starting from these considerations the paper tried to answer three critical questions in this field: a) what are the acculturation profiles of immigrant adolescents? b)what are the acculturation expectation profiles of autochthonous adolescents? c) how are these intercultural profiles related to adaptation of both immigrant and autochthonous adolescents? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 80 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from acculturation strategies to acculturation profiles acculturation strategies are a central concept in the well-known berry’s model of acculturation (berry, 1997) which considers two basic dimensions as important for the adaptation of immigrants: the preference for maintenance of the own ethnic culture (cultural maintenance) and the preference for involvement or contact with the host society (cultural contact). by combining these dimensions, four acculturation strategies can be distinguished: integration (highmaintenance and high contact), assimilation (lowmaintenance and high contact), separation (highmaintenance and low contact), and marginalisation (low maintenance and low contact). the role of acculturation strategies in affecting immigrant adolescents’ adaptation has been already analyzed by several studies showing that integration is the most adaptive outcome, whereas marginalization the worst (berry et al., 2006a, 2006b; giang & wittig, 2006; güngör, 2007; motti-stefanidi, pavlopoulos, obradović, & masten, 2008; neto, 2002; nguyen & benet-martínez, 2013). however, some authors (berry et al., 2006b; brown, gibbons, & hughes, 2013; brown & zagefka, 2011; rudmin, 2009; schwartz, unger, zamboanga, & szapocznik, 2010) have suggested to move from a variable-oriented to a person-oriented approach (bergman & magnusson, 1997) in order to identify some patterns of acculturation. in this perspective, the use of empirical ways of classifying individuals, such as cluster or latent class analysis, with acculturation data is seen as fundamental because clustering methods permit a more holistic approach to acculturation in order to identify more realistic profiles with respect to the acculturation outcomes (e.g., brown et al., 2013; schwartz & zamboanga, 2008). for instance, berry et al. (2006b) carried out a cluster analysis with factors associated to the acculturation process, such as acculturation strategies, ethnic and national identities, language use, ethnic and national peer social contacts, on data collected in the icsey (international comparative study of ethnocultural youth) project that are referred to immigrant adolescents living in different countries (e.g., australia, canada, france, israel, new zealand, portugal, and usa). following this procedure they have identified four acculturation patterns or profiles named integration, national, ethnic, and diffuse. adolescents who belong to the integration profile (36.40% of the sample) are characterized by a positive orientation towards both original and host society cultures with high levels of both ethnic and national identities, frequent social contacts with people who belong to both their own group and to the host society, and low levels of assimilation, separation, and marginalisation. adolescents who belong to the national profile (18.70%) are characterized by a strong orientation toward the host society with high levels of national identity, assimilation, social contacts with members of the national group, and low levels of ethnic identity. adolescents who belong to the ethnic profile (22.50%) show a strong orientation towards their own group with high levels of ethnic identity, separation, and social contacts with members of their ethnic group, together with low levels of assimilation and national identity. finally, adolescents who belong to the diffuse profile (22.40%) are uncertain about their role in the host society, showing high proficiency in the ethnic language, high levels of assimilation, marginalisation, separation, low ethnic identity, low national identity and social contacts with peers of the host country. other studies that employed similar methods have revealed more complex results that only partly coincide with the four acculturation strategies. for instance, schwartz and zamboanga (2008) conducted a latent class analysis on scores related to acculturation strategies, orientation toward heritage and american cultural practices in areas such as language use and entertainment among hispanic college students living in miami. they identified six classes corresponding to acculturation profiles. in particular, two of them resembled variants of integration (named full bicultural and partial bicultural), other two resembled a combination of assimilation and integration (american europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 81 http://www.psychopen.eu/ oriented bicultural and assimilated), one resembled a combination of separation and integration (separation), and one (undifferentiated) that did not remind any of berry’s typologies. the clusters characterized by a combination of assimilation and integration were the most frequent in the sample considered in the study. moreover, brown et al. (2013) conducted a cluster analysis using five clustering variables: (1) heritage practices, (2) u.s. practices, (3) heritage attitudes, (4) u.s. attitudes, and (5) heritage identity. following this approach the authors found four clusters among immigrant university students living in us. one cluster, labelled u.s. practices, was similar to assimilation, whereas cluster labelled heritage practices closely resembled the category of separation. the other two clusters, labelled bicultural attitudes, and bicultural practices & heritage identity, were similar to integration (i.e., biculturalism). none of the clusters resembled marginalization. taken together, these results highlight that not all of berry’s categories may exist in a sample or population, as stated by schwartz et al. (2010). in particular, some studies did not reveal a marginalization cluster (e.g., brown et al., 2013; schwartz & zamboanga, 2008). for many immigrant people, especially attending high schools or colleges, marginalization does not seem a relevant category. from acculturation expectations to acculturation expectation profiles according to phinney, berry, vedder, and liebkind (2006), it is also interesting to look at the intercultural strategies of the dominant group in the society of settlement which are better known as acculturation expectations. they refer to the views of autochthonous people about how immigrants should acculturate. the acculturation expectations are usually identified by asking autochthonous people whether immigrants should maintain their cultural attributes and/or seek contact with other cultural groups. on the basis of these two dimensions, four acculturation expectations can be derived: segregation (when autochthonous wish immigrants’ separation), multiculturalism (when autochthonous wish immigrants’ integration), melting pot (when autochthonous wish immigrants’ assimilation), and exclusion (when autochthonous wish immigrants’ marginalization). the acculturation expectations were examined in different surveys across the world (berry, 2011, 2013). however, the findings of some studies indicated that, rather than there being four distinct acculturation expectations, they could represent a unidimensional construct, with preference for multiculturalism anchoring one end of the dimension, and the other expectations anchoring the other end. although several authors have focused their interest on these expectations (berry, 2006; bourhis, moïse, perreault, & senécal, 1997; ljujic et al., 2012), there is a lack of studies that, similarly to immigrants’ acculturation profiles presented above, attempt to identify specific patterns of acculturation expectations (here named acculturation expectation profiles) using a person-oriented approach with variables involved in the process of multicultural acceptance (e.g., acculturation expectations, national identity, social contacts with people from national group and from other cultural groups). relationships between intercultural profiles and adolescents’ adaptation few studies deal with the relationships between intercultural profiles and adaptation. most of them are focused only on immigrants and investigate the relationships between acculturation profiles and adaptation of immigrant adolescents (e.g., berry et al., 2006b; brown et al., 2013). in these studies two forms of adaptation were considered: psychological and sociocultural adaptation (searle & ward, 1990). the former refers to mental and physical wellbeing, whereas the latter emphasizes immigrants’ success in effectively organizing their daily lives in the new europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 82 http://www.psychopen.eu/ context (e.g., in terms of acquiring facility with the new language, gaining cultural knowledge, and establishing a network of social relationships). berry and colleagues (2006b) have found that immigrant adolescents who belong to the integration profile show higher levels of psychological and sociocultural adaptation than the other profiles, whereas adolescents who belong to the diffuse profile display the lower levels of psychological and sociocultural adaptation than the other profiles. moreover, adolescents who belong to the national profile show relatively low levels of psychological adaptation in terms of self-esteem, life satisfaction and psychological problems, whereas they were not clearly distinct from other profiles with respect to sociocultural adaptation. finally, adolescents who belong to the ethnic profile show high levels of psychological adaptation but low levels of sociocultural adaptation, showing some difficulties in organizing their daily lives in the new context. however, these results need to be confirmed by other studies involving adolescents living in different countries from those considered by these authors. also brown et al. (2013) found that immigrants who belonged to either of the clusters resembling integration (bicultural attitudes, or bicultural practices & heritage identity) reported significantly higher life satisfaction than the participants who belonged in the cluster that resembled separation (heritage practices). these findings are concordant with berry’s integration hypothesis (berry, 2013) stating that individuals feel well and do well if they are engaged in both their own culture and that of the larger society. with regard to the autochthonous adolescents, there are no studies aimed at analyzing the relationships between acculturation expectation profiles and adaptation. however, some authors have found that a positive attitude towards multiculturalism is often associated with high levels of psychological well-being, especially for self-feelings, among adolescents (verkuyten, 2009; verkuyten & thijs, 2004). for example, verkuyten and thijs (2004) have observed that multiculturalism has a positive effect on self-esteem of both ethnic minority and majority adolescents living in the netherlands. in a similar way, verkuyten (2009) has found that the self-feelings of the dutch adolescents were positively associated with their attitude towards the cultural diversity and recognition for all groups in society. aims and hypotheses the general aim of the present study was to analyze emerging intercultural profiles in relation to the adaptation of immigrant and autochthonous adolescents living in sicily (italy). in particular, the study has four specific goals. the first goal was to identify some acculturation profiles among tunisian adolescents on the basis of their scores of acculturation strategies, ethnic and national identities, ethnic and national peer social contacts. in accordance with berry and colleagues (2006b), we expected to identify four acculturation profiles: integration, national, ethnic, and diffuse. the second goal was to identify some acculturation expectation profiles among autochthonous adolescents on the basis of their scores of acculturation expectations, national identity, ethnic and national peer social contacts. berry (2011) argues that in contexts characterized by a positive attitude towards multiculturalism it is likely to observe an unilinear structure of the acculturation expectations with multiculturalism at one end of the dimension, and the other expectations at the other end. considering that sicilian children and adolescents are generally characterized by positive attitudes towards other national groups (inguglia & musso, 2013), we hypothesized to find two cluster, one resembling multiculturalism and the other including a combination of higher rates of melting pot, exclusion and segregation. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 83 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the third goal of this study was to analyze the relationships between acculturation profiles and psychological and sociocultural adaptation of immigrant adolescents. on the basis of the integration hypothesis (berry, 2013), we expected that adolescents who belong to the integration profile would show higher levels of psychological and sociocultural adaptation than the other profiles, whereas those who belong to the diffuse profile would display lower levels of adaptation than the other profiles. finally, the fourth goal was to investigate the relationships between the acculturation expectation profiles and the psychological adaptation of autochthonous adolescents. following the suggestions from the literature on this topic we expected to find an association between the membership to a profile characterized by positive attitude towards multiculturalism and positive adaptation, especially in terms of self-esteem. method participants as alreadymentioned in the introduction, data came from the italian section of mirips project. data about immigrant adolescents referred to tunisian group that was chosen because it is one of the most prominent non-dominant groups in the research context, that is sicily. tunisian community is characterized by strong ties with the heritage culture that are facilitated by the presence of many resources available, such as tunisian primary schools, places of worship, community centres, and typical restaurants. despite the existence and the proximity of these resources, many tunisians are also interested in having good relationships with sicilian people (inguglia & lo coco, 2009). the total group of participants consisted of 256 tunisian and italian adolescents aged from 14 to 18 years, living in western sicily (italy) in towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants. tunisian adolescents were 127 (males = 49.61%; mean age = 15.64, sd = 1.19). the group included both first-generation (those who were born in the country of origin and arrived after the age of 6 years) and second-generation immigrants (those who were born in italy, or arrived before the age of 6 years). first-generation adolescents were 54 (males = 51.85%; mean age = 15.72, sd = 1.17). all of them were born in their country of origin, had arrived in italy at an average of 11.75 years (sd = 2.67), and had lived in italy for an average of 3.97 years (sd = 2.45). second-generation adolescents were 73 (males = 47.95%; mean age = 15.58, sd = 1.20). the majority (53.42%) of them were born in italy; adolescents who were not italy-born had arrived in italy at an average of 2.20 years (sd = 1.73) and had lived in italy for an average of 13.83 years (sd = 1.65). about eighty percent of immigrant youngsters attended a secondary school, while about 20.00% were workers. all of them were living in one household with their parents and 95.28% of them came from intact two-parents families, 3.94% had divorced or separated parents, and 0.78% came from a family in which one of the parents had died. socio-economic status (ses) of their families was prevalently low; based on a three-stratum classification of scores from the barratt simplified measure of social status (bsmss, barratt, 2006), 78.74% fell into the low stratum, 13.29% into themedium, and 7.97% into the high. italian adolescents were 129 (males = 44.19%; mean age = 15.92, sd = 1.46). they were randomly selected in the same schools and neighbourhood of the tunisian adolescents. about ninety percent of italian youngsters attended a secondary school, while about 10.00% were workers. all of them were living in one household with their parents and 83.72% of them came from intact two-parents families, 14.73% had divorced or separated parents, and 1.55% came from a family in which one of the parents had died. ses of their families was prevalently medium; 24.81% fell into the low stratum, 53.49% into the medium, and 21.70 into the high. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 84 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure and measures the study, as part of the mirips project, was approved by the local psychology department’s ethics committee and was performed in accordance with the italian association of psychology ethical principles for psychological research. data collection involved completion of two structured versions of mirips questionnaire, one for immigrant groups and one for the host group (annis, gibson, & berry, 2010). all participants were contacted in schools as well as in community centres. after having received permission from the respective principals, participants’ parents were informed about the purpose of the research, the voluntariness of participation and the anonymity of responses through specific parent meetings. during the meetings, parents provided informed consent for their son’s or daughter’s participation. less than 5% of the parents did not allow their son or daughter to participate. nonetheless, adolescent participants provided signed assent agreeing to participate, also. the data were collected by italian research assistants and young graduate trainees. questionnaires were single-administered with the support of two cultural mediators when needed for the tunisian group. both versions of the questionnaire assessed a wide range of variables. for the goals of this paper, only some measures were taken into account. these measures were successfully used in other relevant studies (e.g., berry et al., 2006b; lebedeva & tatarko, 2013; robinson, 2009; schmitz & berry, 2009) and were adapted in different countries, including italy (berry, 2014). demographic variables — respondents were asked to indicate their gender (0 = female; 1 = male), age, state of birth, age of arrival in the country of residence, and current occupation. using the information about the state of birth and the age of arrival in the country of residence, we constructed a generation variable (0 = first-generation; 1 = second-generation) and a length of residence variable, used both as a continuous variable and as a categorical variable (1 = 0-6 years, 2 = 6-12 years, and 3 = 12-18 years). family characteristics, number of parents, paternal and/or maternal level of school completed and their occupation were assessed using bsmss (barratt, 2006). immigrants’ acculturation attitudes — a 16-item scale assessed four acculturation attitudes: assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalisation (berry et al., 1989). the items concern four domains of life of nondominant group adolescents: cultural traditions, language, social activities, and friends. for example, the items in the social activities domain include four questions: “i prefer social activities which involve both italians and tunisians” (integration); “i prefer social activities which involve italians only” (assimilation); “i prefer social activities which involve tunisians only” (separation); and “i don’t want to attend either italians’ or tunisians’ social activities” (marginalisation). the items were presented as declarative statements and participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, the subscales had adequate internal consistency with cronbach’s α ranged from .63 to .76. host group’s acculturation expectation — a 16-item scale (berry, 2003) assessed four acculturation expectations: multiculturalism, melting pot, segregation, and exclusion. the items concern four domains of life of dominant group adolescents: cultural traditions, language, social activities, and friends. for example, the items in the social activities domain include four questions: “i feel that tunisians should engage in social activities that involve both italians and their own group” (multiculturalism); “tunisians should engage in social activities that involve their own group members only” (segregation); “tunisians should engage in social activities that involve italians only” (melting pot); and “tunisians should not engage in either italian or their own group’s social activities.” (exclusion). the items were presented as declarative statements; participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, the subscales had adequate internal consistency with cronbach’s α ranged from .62 to .74. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 85 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cultural identity — immigrants’ ethnic identity was measured with an 7-item scale assessing ethnic affirmation (e.g. sense of belonging, positive feelings about being group member) of non-dominant group adolescents (phinney, 1992). a sample item is “i feel that i am part of tunisian culture”. the items were presented as declarative statements; participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .82. national identity was assessed with a 3-item scale assessing national affirmation and the importance of one’s national identity of non-dominant and dominant group adolescents (phinney & devich-navarro, 1997). a sample item is: “i am happy that i am italian”. the items were presented as declarative statements; participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .90 and .87 for non-dominant and dominant group adolescents respectively. ethnic peer contact — two items assessed the number and the frequency of contacts with tunisian peers for non-dominant, and with ethnic minority peers for dominant, group adolescents (berry et al., 2006b). the items are respectively: “how many close tunisian (or ethnic minority) friends do you have?” and “how often do you meet with?”. participants responded on a scale ranging from none (1) to many (5) in the former case and from never (1) to daily (5) in the latter case. the ethnic peer contact was measured as a composite variable by extracting the square root of the product of the two items. national peer contact — two items assessed the number and the frequency of contacts with italian peers for non-dominant and dominant group adolescents (berry et al., 2006b). the items are respectively: “howmany close italian friends do you have?” and “how often do you meet with?”. participants responded on a scale ranging from none (1) to many (5) in the former case and from never (1) to daily (5) in the latter case. the ethnic peer contact was measured as a composite variable by extracting the square root of the product of the two items. psychological adaptation — it was measured with three scales assessing self-esteem, life satisfaction, and psychological problems. self-esteem was measured with the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1965; italian adaptation by prezza, trombaccia, & armento, 1997) which consists of 10 items. a sample item is “on the whole i am satisfied with myself”. the items were presented as declarative statements and participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .77 and .79 for non-dominant and dominant group adolescents respectively. life satisfaction was measured with a 5-item scale which assessed the overall degree of adolescents’ satisfaction with their lives (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). a sample item is: “i am satisfied with my life”. the items were presented as declarative statements and participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .82 and .84 for non-dominant and dominant group adolescents respectively. psychological problems were measured with a 15-item scale assessing depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic symptoms (berry et al., 2006b). a sample item is: “my thoughts are confused”. the items were presented as declarative statements and participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = very untrue to 5 = very true) the extent to which each statement was true for them. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .88 and .90 for non-dominant and dominant group adolescents respectively. immigrants’ socio-cultural competence — it was measured with a 20-item scale (ward & kennedy, 1999) assessing difficulty for non-dominant group adolescents to live in the host country. it focuses on the skills needed to cope with everyday social situations encountered in a new culture. a sample item is: “please indicate howmuch europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 86 http://www.psychopen.eu/ difficulty you experience living here in sicily in each of these areas: e.g., making friends”. participants were asked to indicate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = no difficulty to 5 = many difficulties) the extent to which each statement was true for them. the final score was reversed indicating few problems and high levels of socio-cultural competence. in the present study, cronbach’s α was .89. data analysis plan a cluster analysis was performed to determine whether it was possible to distinguish different profiles of tunisian adolescents on the basis of their acculturation outcomes (acculturation attitudes, ethnic and national identity, ethnic and national peer social contacts), and to determine whether it was possible to distinguish different profiles of italian adolescents on the basis of their acculturation expectations (multiculturalism, melting pot, segregation, exclusion), national identity, ethnic and national peer social contacts. chi-square analyses were carried out to determine if profile configurations were related to adolescents’ gender, length of residence and generation for tunisian adolescents and to adolescents’ gender for italian adolescents. in order to examine differences in psychological and sociocultural adaptation of tunisian adolescents, and in psychological adaptation of italian adolescents, associated to the profile configurations, a one-way manova was then performed. furthermore, a number of other manovas were carried out to examine the effects of gender (for tunisian and italian adolescents) as well as of length of residence and generation (for tunisian adolescents). results descriptive statistics and correlations table 1 means and standard deviations of, and pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between, study variables, for tunisian adolescents 151413121110987654321variable -1. integration -2. assimilation .12-3. separation .08.33***-4. marginalisation .07.07.17-5. ethnic social contact .08-.28***.19*-.09 -6. national social contact .14-.09-.36***-.09.23** -7. ethnic identity .01.19*.05.14.21*-.18* -8. national identity .15-.49***.13-.13-.37***-.21*.26** -9. self-esteem .21*.12.18*.01.01.22*-.12-.22* -10. life satisfaction .48***.26**.16.16.03.04.05-.05.24** -11. psychological problems .28***-.52***-.02-.02-.02.02-.00.09.06-.08-12. socio-cultural adaptation .43***-.30***.48***.23*.06.20*.14-.02.19*-.00.20* -13. gender .00.21*-.11-.01-.10-.03-.07.19*.11.16.09.02-14. length of residence .08-.15.13-.15.12.38***.11-.24**.21*-.25**-.25**-.03.04 -15. generation .94***.04-.15.16-.15.12.38***.12-.26**.19*-.21*-.29***-.03.07 m .570.0510.500.044.182.483.903.603.344.104.543.141.112.961.274 sd .500.615.500.640.670.900.630.111.580.021.081.200.770.940.730 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 87 http://www.psychopen.eu/ means and standard deviations of, and pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between, study variables for the tunisian and the italian participants are displayed in tables 1 and 2, respectively. table 2 means and standard deviations of, and pearson product-moment correlation coefficients between, study variables for italian adolescents 1110987654321variable 1. multiculturalism -2. melting pot .04-3. segregation .39***.08-4. exclusion .42***.55***.35***-5. ethnic social contact .05-.05-.06-.10 -6. national social contact .24**.07-.05.02-.21* -7. national identity .12.04-.14-.09-.16-.03 -8. self-esteem .31***.15.07.37***-.24**-.27**-.24** -9. life satisfaction .48***.36***.04.05.24**-.27**-.19*-.19* -10. psychological problems .53***-.53***-.36***-.10-.05-.10.30***.11.05 -11. gender .18*-0.04-0.22*0.040.26**0.26**0.080.21*0.18*0.01-0 m .44.382.653.114.803.444.491.491.911.701.144 sd .50.770.790.580.870.580.690.470.420.540.650 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. tunisian adolescents acculturation profiles we determined configurations throughward’s (1963) clustering algorithm on the standardized acculturation process variables. the similarity between adolescents’ acculturating profiles was measured by squared euclidean differences. the number of configurations to retain was decided by examining a scree plot of distance coefficients as a function of the number of configurations at each agglomerative step (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984). two configurations were retained because the scree plot indicated that the presence of additional configurations (more than two) did not reduce distance coefficients more than a minimal amount. table 3 shows the number and percentage of adolescents in each configuration, along with means and standard deviations of acculturating variables, and semantic labels for the configurations. for descriptive purposes, the value of ± 0.30 was used as a cutoff to distinguish above and below average mean scores. the acculturation configurations were labelled as follows. 1. ethnic profile (39.52%). mean scores above average on separation and ethnic social contact. mean scores below average on integration, national social contact and national identity. 2. integrated-national profile (60.48%). mean scores above average on integration, national identity and national social contact. mean scores below average on separation. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 88 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 means and standard deviations of tunisian acculturation variables (z-scores) by configuration (n = 124) integrated-national profile (n = 75, 60.48%)ethnic profile (n = 49, 39.52%) variable sdmsdm integration .810.360.051.51-0 assimilation .071.040.910.09-0 separation .750.51-0.820.760 marginalisation .980.07-0.051.130 ethnic social contact .101.27-0.630.410 national social contact .580.490.011.81-0 ethnic identity .031.03-0.900.120 national identity .750.480.890.76-0 note. means in bold represent values above and below the cutoff value of ± 0.30. three chi-square analyses determined if configurations were related to adolescents’ gender, length of residence, and generation. first, the analysis did not indicate an association between configuration membership and gender: χ2(1) = 1.13, ns. second, the two configurations showed a clear pattern of differences across the three length-ofresidence categories, χ2(2) = 12.76, p < .01 (see figure 1). figure 1. acculturation profiles by length of residence. the integrated-national profile was more frequent among adolescents with longer residence; the proportion of this profile among those born in italy or with 12 years or more of residence was almost the double that of those with 6 years or less of residence. in contrast, the ethnic profile was considerably less frequent in those with longer residence; over 60 per cent of those with 6 years or less residence showed an ethnic profile, while only about 26 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 89 http://www.psychopen.eu/ per cent of those with the longest residence showed this profile. third, the analysis indicated an association between cluster membership and generation: χ2(1) = 15.60, p < .001. specifically, 65.31% of ethnic profile was represented by first-generation adolescents, while 70.67% of integrated-national profile was composed of secondgeneration youngsters. table 4 and 5 show the number and percentage of adolescents in each configuration for first-generation and second-generation immigrant adolescents respectively, along with means and standard deviations of acculturating variables. table 4 means and standard deviations of tunisian acculturation variables (z-scores) by configuration in first-generation immigrant adolescents (n = 54) integrated-national profile (n = 22, 40.74%)ethnic profile (n = 32, 59.26%) variable sdmsdm integration .920.480.191.46-0 assimilation .001.15-0.960.040 separation .580.43-0.850.870 marginalisation .101.150.111.300 ethnic social contact .051.11-0.610.440 national social contact .440.420.990.80-0 ethnic identity .071.230.940.080 national identity .810.240.880.90-0 note. means in bold represent values above and below the cutoff value of ± 0.30. table 5 means and standard deviations of tunisian acculturation variables (z-scores) by configuration in second-generation immigrant adolescents (n = 70) integrated-national profile (n = 53, 75.71%)ethnic profile (n = 17, 24.29%) variable sdmsdm integration .760.310.770.59-0 assimilation .101.130.770.32-0 separation .810.54-0.750.560 marginalisation .920.16-0.870.20-0 ethnic social contact .131.34-0.680.360 national social contact .630.520.071.82-0 ethnic identity .001.14-0.860.210 national identity .710.570.860.48-0 note. means in bold represent values above and below the cutoff value of ± 0.30. maintaining the value of ± 0.30 as a useful cutoff for descriptive purposes, the levels of the mean z-scores in relation to the two generation categories differed on assimilation and marginalization for ethnic profile and on ethnic social contact and national identity for integrated-national profile. specifically, in the first case (ethnic profile) assimilation mean z-score was below average among second-generation adolescents and marginalization mean z-score was just above average among first-generation adolescents. in the second case (integrated-national profile) ethnic europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 90 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social contact mean z-score was below average and national identity mean z-score was above average among second-generation adolescents. italian adolescents acculturation expectation profiles cluster analysis was carried out with the variables associated with the host process, following the previous procedure. two configurations were retained because the scree plot indicated that the presence of additional configurations (more than two) did not reduce distance coefficients more than a minimal amount. table 6 shows the number and percentage of adolescents in each configuration, along with means and standard deviations of acculturation expectation variables, and semantic labels for the configurations. the acculturation expectation configurations were labelled as follows: 1. not-multicultural profile (36.34%). mean scores above average on melting pot, segregation and exclusion. mean scores below average on multiculturalism and national social contact. 2. multicultural profile (64.56%). mean scores above average on multiculturalism. mean scores below average on melting pot, segregation and exclusion. a 2 (configuration) × 2 (gender) chi-square analysis did not indicate an association between configuration membership and gender: χ2(1) = 0.14, ns. table 6 means and standard deviations of italians acculturation expectation variables (z-scores) by configuration (n = 129). multicultural profile (n = 82, 63.56%)not-multicultural profile (n = 47, 36.34%) variable sdmsdm multiculturalism .760.430.940.74-0 melting pot .880.30-0.990.520 segregation .870.31-0.990.540 exclusion .640.51-0.880.890 ethnic social contact .101.15-0.740.27-0 national social contact .700.20-0.311.35-0 national identity .960.080.061.15-0 note. means in bold represent values above and below the cutoff value of ± 0.30. relations between acculturation profiles and tunisian adolescents’ adaptation in order to examine differences in psychological and sociocultural adaptation associated to cluster membership among tunisian adolescents, a one-way manova was performed. there was a significant multivariate effect, wilks’ lambda = .81, f(4,117) = 6.74, p < .001, η2 = .19. univariate anovas revealed significant effects for selfesteem, life satisfaction, and socio-cultural competence. results are displayed in table 7. tunisian adolescents belonging to the integrated-national profile showed higher levels of self-esteem, life satisfaction and socio-cultural competence than those belonging to the ethnic profile. in the same way, we also examined how well immigrant youth were adapting as a function of gender, length of residence, and generation, using three different one-way manova with the four adaptation scores as dependent variables. there was only a significant multivariate effect for gender, wilks’ lambda = .92, f(4,120) = 2.65, p < .05, η2 = .08. univariate anovas revealed significant effects europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 91 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for psychological problems, f(1,123) = 5.14, p < .05, η2 = .04, with girls (m = 2.30, sd = 0.66) having higher scores than boys (m = 2.04, sd = 0.62). table 7 means and standard deviations of tunisian adolescents’ adaptation variables η2 f (1,120) integrated-national profileethnic profile variable sdmsdm .05self-esteem .99**6.580.004.650.713 .04life satisfaction .51*4.840.623.960.273 .00psychological problems .280.710.192.550.132 .11socio-cultural adaptation .17***14.550.204.680.783 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. relationships between acculturation expectation profiles and italian adolescents’ adaptation in order to examine differences in psychological adaptation associated to cluster membership among italian adolescents, a one-way manova was performed. there was a significant multivariate effect, wilks’ lambda = .83, f(3,125) = 8.38, p < .001, η2 = .17. univariate anovas revealed significant effects for self-esteem and life satisfaction. results are displayed in table 8. italian adolescents belonging to the multicultural profile showed higher levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction than those belonging to the not-multicultural profile. in the same way, we also examined how well autochthonous youth were adapting as a function of gender. there was a significant multivariate effect, wilks’ lambda = .90, f(3,125) = 4.61, p < .01, η2 = .10. univariate anovas revealed significant effects for self-esteem, f(1,127) = 6.58, p < .05, η2 = .05, and psychological problems, f(1,127) = 4.15, p < .05, η2 = .03. italian boys (m = 4.28, sd = 0.58) showed higher levels of self-esteem than girls (m = 4.01, sd = 0.56). in contrast, italian girls (m = 2.48, sd = 0.81) showed higher levels of psychological problems than boys (m = 2.20, sd = 0.64). table 8 means and standard deviations of italian adolescents’ adaptation variables η2 f (1,127) multicultural profilenot-multicultural profile variable sdmsdm .11self-esteem .23***16.530.254.560.853 .07life satisfaction .28***10.810.813.680.363 .00psychological problems .450.770.352.760.452 ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 92 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the general purpose of the present study was to analyze emerging intercultural profiles in relation to adaptation of immigrant and autochthonous adolescents living in sicily (italy). our results show that both immigrant and autochthonous adolescents can be divided into two groups or profiles which are associated to different psychosocial outcomes. the first specific goal was to identify some acculturation profiles among tunisian adolescents. our hypothesis was only partially supported since the findings produced two acculturation profiles, rather than four. one profile was named ethnic (39.52% of the sample) and it was characterized by a strong preference towards separation as acculturation strategy, and by a predilection for maintaining social contacts with people of the same ethnic group. the second profile was called integrated-national (60.48% of the sample) and it was characterized by a preference towards integration as acculturation strategy, a strong identification with autochthonous group (italians) and a preference towards social contact with italians. moreover, it is interesting to note that ethnic profile seems to be prevalent among first-generation immigrants, whereas adolescents of the integrated-national profile are prevalently second-generation immigrants. this is also confirmed by the results related to the association between acculturation profiles and adolescents’ length of residence because the ethnic profile prevailed in immigrants with a lower length of residence while the integrated-national profile was prevailing in adolescents who lived in the society of settlement from their birth or from their early school years on. thus, the more extended is the period of stay in the new country, the more immigrant adolescents tend to establish ties with the host country culture. this is particular evident for adolescents of the integrated-national profile because our findings showed that secondgeneration immigrants reported less social contacts with ethnic peers and an higher national identity than firstgeneration immigrants. perhaps, it could be hypothesized the existence of a developmental and adaptive process that goes from the prevalence of separation and ethnic social contact to a declarative form of integration along with a behavioural form of assimilation consisting prevalently of national social contact. this is in line with the results of schwartz and zamboanga (2008) showing that second-generation immigrants are more likely to evidence a combination of assimilation and integration, and first-generation immigrants are more likely to be classified as separated. in a certain way, we provided evidence that acculturation is a very complex process that, despite some general features, needs to be analyzed in relation to the context in which takes place (e.g., chirkov, 2009). the use of a priori classification rule assumes that all four categories (integration, separation, assimilation, and marginalization) exist and are equally valid (rudmin, 2003). however, our findings as well as those of other authors which used empirical rigorous ways of classifying individuals (schwartz et al., 2010; schwartz & zamboanga, 2008) suggest that not all of berry’s categories may exist in a given sample or population. in particular, we found evidence for the existence of only two categories of four, one mixing some features of integration and assimilation and the other resembling separation. these results can be better understood on the light of the features of two considerations about the research context. on the one hand, the migratory flows towards sicily are a relatively new phenomenon, typical of the last years, so it is likely that the acculturation process produce less differentiated outcomes than in other countries that are multicultural/plural from decades (e.g., canada, usa). on the other hand, the evident presence of an ethnic profile can be justified considering that tunisians living in sicily were able to keep strong ties with their own heritage culture as it is shown by the presence of many tunisian institutions (schools, places of worship, community centres, and restaurants) that are likely to contribute to the maintenance of their habits. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 93 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the last important consideration about the acculturation profiles is related to the absence of a cluster resembling marginalization. this is in line with other studies using empirically based clustering methods that have found small or nonexistent marginalization groups (e.g., schwartz et al., 2010; schwartz & zamboanga, 2008) and it is consistent with what argued by del pilar and udasco (2004) and rudmin (2003), who consider implausible for someone to develop a cultural sense of self without drawing on either the heritage or receiving cultural contexts. the second specific goal of the study was to identify some acculturation expectation profiles among autochthonous adolescents. the results confirmed our prediction that two acculturation expectation profiles could be identified. the not-multicultural profile (36.34%) was characterized by preferences towards melting pot, segregation and exclusion as acculturation expectations, and a general negative attitude towards multiculturalism. the multicultural profile (63.56% of the sample) was characterized by a positive attitude towards multiculturalism and low levels of melting pot, segregation and exclusion. these results are in line with the existing literature (e.g., arends-tóth & van de vijver, 2003; berry, 2011) indicating that acculturation expectations can be considered as an unidimensional construct with preference for multiculturalism anchoring one end of the dimension, and the preferences for melting pot, segregation, and exclusion, anchoring the other end. according to the authors, this unidimensional structure is likely to result in contexts where the attitudes are very positive for integration, and there is a common rejection of the other three ways. this explanation can be appropriate for the context of the research because sicily is characterized by high rates of openness towards cultural diversity, especially towards tunisian people who live on the other side of mediterranean sea very close to sicily. as a matter of fact, sicilians and tunisians have a long tradition of exchanges and of positive contacts that can promote positive intergroup attitudes (berry, 2013; lebedeva & tatarko, 2013). the third specific goal was to analyze the relationships between acculturation profiles and adaptation of the tunisian adolescents in terms of psychological (self-esteem, life satisfaction, and psychological problems) and sociocultural adaptation. our findings provided some empiric evidence for integration hypothesis (berry, 2013) stating that integration has a significant and positive relationship with both psychological and sociocultural adaptation. adolescents in the integrated-national profile showed higher levels of self-esteem, life satisfaction and sociocultural competence than those in the ethnic profile, but no significant differences were found with regard to the scores of psychological problems. in general, the present study matches with the others that report a positive association between a favourable attitude towards integration and adolescents’ adaptation, underlining the psychological relevance of the opportunities to both maintain the original culture and to be in contact with the culture of the host country (for a review, nguyen & benet-martínez, 2013). the fourth goal was to investigate the relationships between the acculturation expectation profiles and the psychological adaptation of the autochthonous adolescents. our results show that adolescents who belong to multicultural profile showed higher levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction when compared to their not-multicultural counterpart. this is in line with previous studies on similar topics (e.g., verkuyten, 2009) which have observed that recognition and acceptance of cultural diversity appears to be associated with better self-feelings of majority group members. thus, the results seem to support the idea that multicultural acceptance is related to the psychological well-being of majority group. to sum up, our study has interesting implications for the research in this topic as well as providing useful suggestions to elaborate settlement policies in italy. first, the findings advocate for a position midway between berry’s model (berry, 2013) and some of the criticisms addressed to it (e.g., rudmin, 2009; schwartz et al., 2010; schwartz & europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence 94 http://www.psychopen.eu/ zamboanga, 2008) using clustering techniques. the findings of our study lend support to the use of clustering methods as a way of including multiple indicators of acculturation, thereby gaining a more comprehensive understanding of acculturation. by this means research can overcome a “one size fits all” approach (rudmin, 2003) in order to adopt a more realistic approach with a more explanatory power. second, the study takes into account intercultural profiles of both immigrant and autochthonous adolescents as it is part of the mirips project. however, it does not consider yet the mutual interactions between the two groups since they are analyzed in a separate way. future studies need to focus more on the dynamic and interactional nature of the acculturation and intercultural relations. moreover, the study provides some evidence for the integration hypothesis with regard to the tunisian adolescents living in sicily, a group that has not already been considered by the scholars. our findings highlight also the importance of considering the relationships between intercultural profiles and adaptation in the members of dominant groups. these associations were neglected by previous research that was mainly focused on the effect of acculturation on immigrants’ adaptation. finally, the results of the study support the idea that social policies have to pursue the integration of immigrant adolescents providing them with opportunities to maintain their culture of origin and, concurrently, to participate at the larger societies and to have contacts with autochthonous people. at the same time, autochthonous adolescents have to be provided with more opportunities to develop a positive attitude towards multiculturalism, for instance, through intercultural education programs. however, our results should be interpreted in light of some limitations. first, the study involved a small sample size that needs to be enlarged in further researches. such a limited sample size did not allow us to perform a replication of cluster analysis splitting tunisian participants in firstand second-generation immigrants. similarly, we could not perform neither a 2 (profile) x 2 (gender) x 3 (length of residence) x 2 (generation) manova to examine the relations between acculturation profiles and tunisian adolescents’ adaptation nor a 2 (profile) x 2 (gender) manova in order to examine the relations between acculturation expectation profiles and italian adolescents’ adaptation. second, the study was focused only on a specific group of immigrants (tunisians) that is the most representative in the context of the research. however, it would be useful to extend the study to the analysis of other cultural groups living in sicily, such as people from china, bangladesh, romania, and central africa. third, more attention to the developmental processes underlying the formation of intercultural profiles during adolescence has to be spent through the use of longitudinal design. fourth, it would be interesting to set up further studies aimed to shed some light on the dynamic process in which perceptions of dominant group members’ preferences have an impact on non-dominant group members’ acculturation attitudes, as well as on the quality of intergroup relations itself (brown & zagefka, 2011). fifth, there is the need to integrate quantitative methods already used by the researchers in this field with qualitative methods, such as in-deep interviews and focus groups in order to better understand this complex phenomena. notes i) this study was part of the mirips project, led by john berry. mirips project is currently being carried out in a number of countries (e.g., australia, canada, greece, italy, new zealand, norway, etc.), using a common research framework and common research instruments. see http://www.victoria.ac.nz/cacr/research/mirips funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 95 http://www.victoria.ac.nz/cacr/research/mirips http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references 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(1990). the prediction of psychological and sociocultural adjustment during cross-cultural transitions. international journal of intercultural relations, 14, 449-464. doi:10.1016/0147-1767(90)90030-z verkuyten, m. (2009). self-esteem and multiculturalism: an examination among ethnic minority and majority groups in the netherlands. journal of research in personality, 43, 419-427. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.013 verkuyten, m., & thijs, j. (2004). global and ethnic self-esteem in school context: minority andmajority groups in the netherlands. social indicators research, 67, 253-281. doi:10.1023/b:soci.0000032339.86520.5f ward, c., & kennedy, a. (1999). the measurement of sociocultural adaptation. international journal of intercultural relations, 23, 659-677. doi:10.1016/s0147-1767(99)00014-0 ward, j. h., jr. (1963). hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. journal of the american statistical association, 58, 236-244. doi:10.1080/01621459.1963.10500845 about the authors cristiano inguglia is an assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology at the university of palermo (italy). coordinator of the italian staff of the international research programmirips (mutual intercultural relations in plural societies), promoted by prof. j. berry. his research interest include the study of psychological adaptation in children, adolescents and emerging adults of different backgrounds as well as the analysis of the intercultural relations during the development. pasquale musso holds a ph.d. in public relations at palermo university, italy. visiting student at ucla working with the group of prof. p. bentler on multivariate analysis with latent variables and structural equation modeling. component of the italian staff of the international research programmirips (mutual intercultural relations in plural societies), promoted by prof. j. berry. his research interests focus on ethnic identity development, mutual intercultural relations in a developmental perspective, citizenship and intercultural education and the role of community characteristics in the risk and promotive processes during adolescence. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 79–99 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.872 inguglia & musso 99 http://iaccp.org/sites/default/files/bremen_pdf/bremen%20proceedings.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019330 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012818 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(90)90030-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/b:soci.0000032339.86520.5f http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0147-1767(99)00014-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1963.10500845 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en intercultural profiles and adaption in adolescence (introduction) from acculturation strategies to acculturation profiles from acculturation expectations to acculturation expectation profiles relationships between intercultural profiles and adolescents’ adaptation aims and hypotheses method participants procedure and measures data analysis plan results descriptive statistics and correlations tunisian adolescents acculturation profiles italian adolescents acculturation expectation profiles relations between acculturation profiles and tunisian adolescents’ adaptation relationships between acculturation expectation profiles and italian adolescents’ adaptation discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors strategically funny: romantic motives affect humor style in relationship initiation research reports strategically funny: romantic motives affect humor style in relationship initiation theresa e. didonato*a, brittany k. jakubiakb [a] loyola university maryland, baltimore, md, usa. [b] carnegie mellon university, pittsburgh, pa, usa. abstract not all humor is the same, yet little is known about the appeal of specific humor styles in romantic initiation. the current experimental study addresses this gap by investigating how romantic motives (short-term or long-term) affect individuals’ anticipated use of, and response to, positive humor and negative humor. heterosexual participants (n = 224) imagined the pursuit of either a desired short-term or long-term relationship, indicated the extent to which they would produce positive and negative humor, and reported how their own interest would change in response to the imaginary target’s use of positive or negative humor. results revealed that individuals are strategic in their humor production as a function of relational motives. individuals produced positive humor in both contexts but limited their use of negative humor when pursuing a long-term relationship. the target’s positive humor increased individuals’ attraction, especially women’s, and although negative humor boosted attraction, it did not boost attraction more for short-term than long-term relationships. findings extend a trait-indicator model of humor and their implications are discussed in light of other theoretical perspectives. keywords: humor, humor styles, attraction, romantic motives, short-term relationship, long-term relationships europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 received: 2016-01-12. accepted: 2016-03-01. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: psychology department, loyola university maryland, 4501 n. charles st., baltimore, md 21210, usa. e-mail: tedidonato@loyola.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the pursuit of relationships is a worthwhile venture. an abundance of research shows that individuals in committed relationships experience greater subjective well-being (kamp dush & amato, 2005), report fewer mental health problems (braithwaite, delevi, & fincham, 2010), have better physical health (kohn & averett, 2014) and live longer (kaplan & kronick, 2006) than their single counterparts. attracting a suitable partner, however, can present a substantial challenge. while individuals may use an array of behavioral strategies to initiate relationships (clark, shaver, & abrahams, 1999), one approach, humor, may be particularly helpful. indeed, displaying a sense of humor is recognized as the most effective tactic that men or women can use to attract a partner (buss, 1988). humor, however, is not a unitary construct (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003), and how different types of humor are enacted or perceived in a social interaction may be tied to the players’ specific relationship motives (i.e., interest in a shortor long-term relationship). the current study assesses how experimentally-manipulated relationship motives shape the anticipated production and appreciation of different humor styles during relationship initiation. this research provides a nuanced understanding of how specific humor styles are used to europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ attain specific relationships and contributes to the broader discussion of humor’s function during relationship initiation. humor and attraction people strongly desire romantic partners who have a good sense of humor (boxer, noonan, & whelan, 2015; sprecher & regan, 2002). this preference appears cross-culturally (lippa, 2007) and is supported by both laboratory (bressler & balshine, 2006; mcgee & shevlin, 2009) and field studies (guéguen, 2010). why humor holds such wide appeal has been considered from multiple perspectives. one hypothesis contends that humor is a traitindicator, a sexually-selected behavior that reliably signals genetic fitness by demonstrating unobservable traits like intelligence and creativity (howrigan & macdonald, 2008; miller, 2000) or signals advantageous parent or coparent qualities, such as warmth and prosociality (hall, 2015). another popular theory is that humor may operate as an interest-indicator that allows individuals to test the reciprocity of romantic interest (li et al., 2009). other models suggest humor’s function is to signal shared knowledge and compatibility (the encryption hypothesis; flamson & barrett, 2008), or to create a pleasant, shared experience (hall, 2015). these proposed accounts for humor’s attractiveness largely draw on evolutionary theory. from an evolutionary perspective, sex-based differences in minimal contributions to bearing and rearing children produce sex-linked differences in mating behaviors and partner preferences (kenrick, sadalla, groth, & trost, 1990). for example, females’ larger minimal investment in any offspring (e.g., gestation) relative to males (i.e., sperm contribution) may explain why women tend to be choosier than men when selecting a romantic partner: their potential costs are higher. they tend to favor men who have the resources and status that demonstrate they can be effective providers (buss & barnes, 1986) and men who exhibit traits indicative of a good partner, companion, and coparent (e.g., warmth; li, bailey, kenrick, & linsenmeier, 2002). these selection pressures generate intrasexual competition among men, who must then vie to attract a woman’s attention (buss, 1988). using humor as a relationship initiation tactic may be one way men, in particular, attempt to gain a competitive advantage. evidence supports the effectiveness of humor use as a heterosexual mating tactic. women are attracted to men’s humor, specifically prioritizing men’s ability to produce humor over their willingness to appreciate humor (bressler, martin, & balshine, 2006; tornquist & chiappe, 2015). men tend to prefer the reverse pattern, desiring women who appreciate, rather than produce, humor (bressler et al., 2006). in line with these preferences, women tend to offer less humor production but engage in more humor receptivity (bressler et al., 2006) or evaluation than men (wilbur & campbell, 2011). accordingly, when making trade-off decisions for long-term partners, women judge men’s humor production as a necessity and their humor receptivity as a luxury, whereas men make the opposite trade (hone, hurwitz, & lieberman, 2015). these findings reflect the sex-linked differences predicted by a traitindicator hypothesis: men have the burden of displaying favored genetic and relational traits to elicit attraction, and women have the burden of selection in an ambiguous mating context. support for the trait-indicator hypothesis is balanced by evidence showing that both men and women initiate and respond to humor when an initial attraction already exists (li et al., 2009). this interest-indicator model suggests that humor may have evolved as a low-cost mechanism that enables individuals to discern whether someone reciprocates their romantic interest. humor initiators gather critical information from their target’s (ideally positive) response (e.g., genuine laughter). a test comparing multiple models, however, found minimal support for the interest-indicator model with evidence instead pointing towards trait-indicator models (tornquist & chiappe, 2015). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ despite considerable evidence in their favor (bressler et al., 2006; tornquist & chiappe, 2015) trait-indicator hypotheses for humor’s role in relationship initiation have also received mixed support. these hypotheses propose that humor is an honest signal of less-observable but highly favorable underlying traits, such as warmth (hall, 2015), compatibility (flamson & barrett, 2008), or intelligence (miller, 2000), but humor is not consistently linked to these traits (e.g., greengross, martin, & miller, 2012). perhaps humor use, generally, may not be a reliable proxy for these traits; instead, the use of specific styles of humor may convey underlying traits most informatively. in other words, the divergent findings linking humor use and favorable underlying traits in previous research might be explained by a failure to distinguish between types of humor. consider, for example, the potential link between humor and warmth. when no specific directions are provided to participants about which type of humor to produce, humor production ability is unrelated to producers’ agreeableness (greengross et al., 2012; moran, rain, page-gould, & mar, 2014). likewise, individuals who advertise more humor production skill on online dating websites do not reliably offer more warmth (wilbur & campbell, 2011). complicating the picture, an analysis of facebook profiles showed that individuals who produce more humor (in photos) are more agreeable (hall, 2015), while other work shows that romantic suitors are perceived as less trustworthy than their non-humorous counterparts (bressler & balshine, 2006). a closer look suggests that differentiating among humor styles could be a productive way to explain these inconsistent findings. for example, humor production was restricted to examples of negative humor (e.g., self-disparaging humor; flippant humor) in cases documenting an inverse relation between humor and trustworthiness (bressler & balshine, 2006; senko & fyffe, 2010) and humor and agreeableness (greengross & miller, 2008). likewise, for targets whose dating profiles used unassuming one-liner jokes, which tap the comic and witty style of positive humor, judgments of humor corresponded with perceived warmth (wilbur & campbell, 2011). the limited research that directly compares prospective partners’ production of different humor styles, albeit in vignettes, shows that individuals perceive witty or optimistic humor (i.e., positive humor) as indicative of more warmth than disparaging or sarcastic humor (i.e., negative humor; didonato, bedminster, & machel, 2013). differentiating among humor styles is clearly necessary in order to evaluate different theoretical explanations for humor’s function in an attraction context. humor styles and mate selection humor can be organized along four primary dimensions: two positive styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) and two negative styles (aggressive and self-defeating; martin et al., 2003). of the positive styles, affiliative humor often takes the form of wit, jokes, or amusing banter; individuals who use affiliative humor tend to be more extroverted and open, have higher self-esteem and report better psychological health. the other positive humor, selfenhancing humor, is more intrapersonal, focusing on the humorous side of life. like affiliative humor, its use predicts well-being, less depression, and less anxiety, but its use is also strongly associated with optimism (martin et al., 2003) and emotional management (yip & martin, 2006). aggressive humor, a negative humor style, entertains at the expense of others and might involve teasing, ridicule, or sarcasm. its use predicts hostility, aggression, and an inability to perceive others’ emotions; these outcomes are also associated with self-defeating humor (martin et al., 2003; yip & martin, 2006). self-defeating humor turns the lens on the self through self-disparaging remarks, making fun of the self, or pointing out one’s own weaknesses for amusement. the use of self-defeating humor predicts depression, anxiety, and a variety of psychiatric and somatic symptoms (martin et al., 2003), as well as machiavellianism and psychopathy (veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010a). these vastly different correlates underscore the need to consider positive and negative humor styles separately in order to understand humor’s role in relationship initiation. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 romantic motives affect humor style 392 http://www.psychopen.eu/ evidence suggests that both men and women discriminate between humor styles when evaluating potential longterm partners, reporting more romantic interest in hypothetical prospects who use positive humor over those who use negative humor (didonato et al., 2013). this is consistent with a trait-indicator model and a contemporary understanding of committed relationships, which acknowledges that both women and men make substantial investments to their relationships (geary & flinn, 2001) and are therefore highly selective in this context. that people who produce positive humor might be preferred for long-term relationships suggests that perceivers attribute characteristics prioritized for long-term partners (e.g., warmth) to individuals who produce positive humor. indeed, warmth inferences accounted for the link between positive humor style and long-term interest in previous research (didonato et al., 2013). in the short-term context, however, no evidence suggests either gender distinguishes between humor styles (didonato et al., 2013). it may be that humor quality (i.e., funniness) is more important than humor style for short-term relationships because humor quality may signal heritable traits (e.g., intelligence) and genetic benefits that women stand to gain in short-term relationships (gangestad & simpson, 2000). having a partner who displays warmth, such as through positive humor use (didonato et al., 2013), is typically a welcomed luxury but not a necessity in short-term encounters (li & kenrick, 2006). positive humor might boost a prospect’s attractiveness for a short-term relationship, but, provided the humor is funny, the use of negative humor might be acceptable as well. focusing on humor styles rather than general humor use may be one strategy to explain inconsistent findings linking humor and positive traits, as posited by trait-indicator models. however, an even more subtle and refined understanding of humor use may be necessary. given the evidence that humor style and relationship interest are linked, it stands to reason that suitors may manipulate the presentation of their own humor style as a function of their desire to secure either a short-term or long-term relationship. indeed, strategic self-presentation is common in relationship initiation contexts (ellison, heino, & gibbs, 2006) and men, who tend to be the humor producers (wilbur & campbell, 2011), may be particularly inclined towards strategic humor production. although humor quality is considered hard to fake (miller, 2000), skilled humorists may have little trouble adjusting their humor style to help advance their specific relationship goals. for instance, conveying warmth is an effective mating tactic specifically for long-term relationships (schmitt & buss, 1996), and if individuals are sensitive to inferences made from specific humor styles, they may strategically display their warmth through positive humor (and refrain from negative humor styles) when initiating a long-term relationship. in other words, triggering a long-term relationship motive could prompt individuals to shift their humor style use towards positive humor over negative humor. in the short-term context, however, the costs of displaying negative humor appear negligible (didonato et al., 2013). since producing negative humor generates more attraction than no humor (bressler & balshine, 2006), but may limit inferences of warmth (didonato et al., 2013), it may be an ideal strategy for pursuing a short-term relationship. this is echoed by popular pick-up artists who advise that well-timed insults, reminiscent of aggressive humor, are beneficial during relationship initiation (strauss, 2005). success at limiting relationships to short-term encounters requires strategic behaviors (jonason & buss, 2012), and displaying negative humor at the outset may be part of this repertoire. thus, negative humor styles (i.e., aggressive humor and self-deprecating humor) may enable individuals to attract others specifically for short-term relationships. if individuals (especially men) use specific humor styles strategically during relationship initiation, such a finding would support and also expand the trait-indicator model of humor. it would substantiate the idea that evaluators ascribe traits to humor producers based on their humor style, and add new evidence that humor producers anticipate evaluators’ preferences and strategically shift their humor use based on their relational motives. the tendency to use particular humor styles is traditionally viewed as an individual difference variable (martin et al., 2003); europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 393 http://www.psychopen.eu/ however, we propose that humor styles may be malleable based on motive, which calls into question humor’s suitability as an accurate trait-indicator. the current study humor is a multi-dimensional construct (martin et al., 2003) yet the majority of studies on humor use during relationship initiation have failed to discriminate among different styles (e.g., hall, 2015; wilbur & campbell, 2011). this failure has contributed to mixed support for different theoretical explanations for humor’s role in social interactions. the work that does differentiate among humor styles shows that positive humor triggers short-term and long-term interest, with inferences of warmth explaining the long-term attraction and offering support for a traitindicator model (didonato et al., 2013). consistent with this idea, negative humor may be unsuccessful at eliciting long-term interest as it was when individuals evaluated negative-humor producers in vignettes (didonato et al., 2013). to promote clarity among different theoretical explanations for humor, the current study examines how triggering different romantic motives affects anticipated humor use during relationship initiation. do people opt to strategically use different humor styles to promote their romantic goals? we predicted that both men and women, but particularly men, would demonstrate a refined skill when crafting their presentation of humor in light of their relationship motives, opting for positive humor in pursuit of a long-term relationship or a short-term relationship, and restricting use of negative humor to the short-term context. these results would support humor use as a strategically-modifiable trait indicator and would call into question whether humor producers are uniformly and accurately ascribed positive traits like warmth, as trait-indicator models tend to suggest. following from literature underscoring the roles of both humor production and humor appreciation (bressler et al., 2006) we further examined how the production of positive and negative humor in specific relationship contexts would influence romantic attraction. we expected that women, the evaluators (wilbur & campbell, 2011), would be particularly sensitive to underlying differences conveyed by humor style, and would report that positive humor increases their interest for both shortand long-term relationships but that negative humor increases interest primarily in shortterm contexts. method participants undergraduates at a mid-atlantic jesuit university (n = 149) and workers on the online labor market mechanical turk (n = 175) participated in this online study in exchange for psychology course credit or for a nominal fee ($.20), respectively. the advertised eligibility criteria were participant age (at least 18 years old), relationship status (single; not in a romantic relationship), and native language (english speakers). we limited the sample to individuals who met all stated criteria (n = 284). we further restricted our sample to those who correctly answered two simple attention check questions (n = 245) and completed the booster writing activity (n = 242). lastly, because the study required imagining a potential opposite-sex partner for a longor short-term relationship, we included only heterosexual participants, resulting in a final sample of 224 participants (167 female; mage = 27.12, sd = 12.20). participants predominantly identified as white/caucasian (80.4%) or black/african american (8.0%) and generally reported an expected salary of less than 25k (68.8%) or between 25k and 40k (11.6%). education varied, with 42.0% of participants reporting that they had completed some college, 28.1% reporting that they had completed an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, and 21.4% reporting that they had completed high school. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 romantic motives affect humor style 394 http://www.psychopen.eu/ design and procedure this study used a 2 (humor style: positive or negative) x 2 (relational motive: short-term or long-term) x 2 (gender: male or female) mixed-factor design to investigate the affect of romantic motives on individuals’ humor production and their response to an attractive others’ humor use. relational motive and gender were between-subjects factors, and humor style was a within-subjects factor. materials and measures relational motives manipulation and booster to manipulate mating motive, we used griskevicius and colleagues’ (2006) mating primes. participants read and imagined a detailed scenario in which they had the opportunity for a long-term (n = 117) or short-term romantic relationship (n = 107) with an opposite-sex individual. in the original mating primes, participants imagined themselves having a short-term or long-term relationship. wemodified the scenarios in order to maintain a relationship initiation focus: participants imagined that they had an opportunity for a shortor long-term relationship and daydreamed about a desired short-term encounter or long-term relationship. minor modifications were also made to make the primes applicable to non-students as well as students. all participants were reminded mid-study of their mating prime with a booster modeled after griskevicius and colleagues’ (2006). for 90 seconds, participants wrote in detail about the characteristics that they would desire in the target. manipulation check all participants reported their interest in a short-term and long-term relationship with the target from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). those primed with a long-term motive reported greater long-term interest in the target (m = 6.32, sd = 0.87) than participants primed with a short-term motive (m = 4.56, sd = 1.61), t(222) = 10.28, p < .001. as further evidence of the primes’ effectiveness, participants primed with a short-term motive reported greater shortterm interest in the target (m = 4.71, sd = 1.78) than participants primed with a long-term motive (m = 1.99, sd = 1.32), t(221) = 13.04, p < .001. following griskevicius and colleagues (2006), we also asked participants to rate their current feelings of romantic arousal and sexual arousal from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). as expected, the long-term prime generated greater romantic arousal (m = 5.26, sd = 1.35) than the short-term prime (m = 4.70, sd = 1.68), t(222) = 3.24, p = .001; however, there was no difference in sexual arousal between the short-term (m = 3.93, sd = 1.74) and long-term (m = 3.60, sd = 1.71) prime conditions, t(222) = 1.42, p = .158. humor production participants were instructed to think about the person they met in the imagination activity and indicate to what extent (1 = never or almost never; 7 = always or almost always) they would engage in each of 16 humor behaviors in order to secure a relationship with the target consistent with their primed motive (i.e., shortor long-term relationship). these humor behaviors were based on martin et al.’s (2003) humor styles questionnaire. responses to the affiliative humor (e.g., “i would think of witty things to say”) and self-enhancing humor (e.g., “i would bring attention to the funny side of any awkward situation”) items were combined to form a positive humor subscale (m = 4.69, sd = 0.84; α = .80). self-deprecating (e.g., “i would put myself down to make this person laugh”) and aggressive humor (“i would tease this person about something they do or say”) items were combined for a negative humor subscale (m = 3.46, sd = 0.97; α = .80). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 395 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor’s effectiveness participants were asked to imagine the target in their shortor long-term relationship scenario making them laugh by doing eight humorous behaviors (two representing each of the four humor styles). participants then reported how each behavior would impact their shortor long-term romantic interest using a scale from -5 (decreases) to 5 (increases). affiliative humor (e.g., “this person makes you laugh by making warm and witty comments”) and self-enhancing humor (e.g., “this person makes you laugh by commenting on a quirky truth about life”) items were combined to form a positive humor subscale (m = 3.16, sd = 1.19; α = .82). self-deprecating (e.g., “this person makes you laugh by making fun of his/her own behavior”) and aggressive humor (“this person makes you laugh by making an off-color joke about someone he knows”) items were combined for a negative humor subscale (m = 1.35, sd = 1.54; α = .69). procedure participants were directed to the online study hosted by qualtrics. after providing their informed consent, participants indicated their gender and were randomly assigned to complete the motives manipulation, an exercise in which they imagined their own goal of forming a short-term or long-term romantic relationship with an attractive oppositesex target. a brief manipulation check followed the prime. to test whether individuals alter their humor style based on their romantic motives, we then asked participants to indicate the extent to which they would produce positive and negative humor to secure a relationship with the target. next, participants completed a booster to remind them of the shortor long-term romantic motive and then reported on the extent to which their own interest in a relationship would be influenced by their partner’s humor use. finally, participants completed an attention check (i.e., “where did you meet the person in the story you read?”), provided relevant demographic information, and were debriefed and compensated. results correlations between the primary dependent measures are presented in table 1. anticipated humor production to test whether romantic motives shift individuals’ anticipated humor production towards positive or negative humor styles, we conducted a 2 (humor style: positive or negative) x 2 (romantic motive: short-term or long-term) x 2 (gender: male or female) mixed anova (see figure 1). we observed a main effect of humor style on anticipated humor production: participants rated that they would use more positive humor (m = 4.69, sd = 0.84) than negative humor (m = 3.46, sd = 0.97), f(1, 220) = 299.72, p < .001, η2 = .58. we expected that this main effect would be qualified by an interaction with romantic motive. specifically, we predicted that individuals pursuing both shortand long-term relationships would use positive humor, but that individuals pursuing short-term relationships would use more negative humor than those pursuing long-term relationships. supporting this prediction, we observed an interaction between humor style and romantic motive on anticipated humor production, f(1, 220) = 8.37, p = .004, η2 = .04. simple effect comparisons revealed that negative humor was chosen more by individuals pursuing short-term relationships (m = 3.61, sd = -.93) than long-term relationships (m = 3.32, sd = 0.99), f(1, 220) = 4.23, p = .041, η2 = .02. there was no difference in the preferred use of positive humor for individuals pursuing short-term (m = 4.67, sd = 0.91) and long-term relationships (m = 4.71, sd = 0.78), f(1, 220) = 0.49, p = .483. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 romantic motives affect humor style 396 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlations among measures by gender 321m (sd)male participants (n = 57) anticipated humor production 4.73 (0.80)1. positive humor 3.58 (1.00)2. negative humor .54** humor’s effectiveness 2.81 (1.35)3. positive humor .05-.26 1.43 (1.45)4. negative humor .44**.41**.29** 321m (sd)female participants (n = 167) anticipated humor production 4.68 (0.86)1. positive humor 3.42 (0.95)2. negative humor .50** humor’s effectiveness 3.29 (1.11)3. positive humor .09.46** 1.32 (1.57)4. negative humor .43**.52**.44** *p < .05. p < .01. contrary to expectations, participant gender did not independently predict anticipated humor use, nor did it interact with humor style or romantic motive to predict intended humor production (all f’s < 1.10). figure 1. the anticipated production of positive and negative humor as a function of primed relational motive and gender. note. error bars are 1 se above and below the mean. humor’s effectiveness we predicted that interest in the target would change as a function of the humor style used by the target. specifically, we anticipated that a target’s positive humor, relative to negative humor, would increase interest for those europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 397 http://www.psychopen.eu/ primed with a long-term motive and for those primed with the short-term motive. we expected the use of negative humor to increase interest more for those primed with the short-term motive than a long-term motive. for this analysis, we used the same mixed anova used to test humor production (see figure 2). figure 2. changes in romantic interest (humor’s effectiveness) as a function of humor style, relational motive, and participant gender. note. error bars are 1 se above and below the mean. as anticipated, the target’s use of positive humor (m = 3.17, sd = 1.19) increased participants’ interest more than negative humor (m = 1.35; sd = 1.54), f(1, 220) = 212.67, p < .001, η2 = .49. note that negative humor was still judged to increase attraction, t(223) = 71.34, p < .001, relative to the mid-point (no change) of the participants’ response scale. this was evident for individuals primed to imagine long-term, t(116) = 8.27, p < .001, or a shortterm relationship, t(106) = 10.50, p < .001. contrary to predictions, the observed main effect of humor style on interest was not qualified by motive, f(1, 220) = 0.61, p = .434. humor style, however, did interact with gender to predict interest, f(1, 220) = 6.41, p = .012, η2 = .03. positive humor increased women’s interest (m = 3.29, sd = 1.11) more than men’s (m = 2.82, sd = 1.35), f(1, 220) = 6.53, p = .012, η2 = .03. no gender difference (mwomen = 1.32, sd = 1.58, mmen = 1.43, sd = 1.45) was observed in responses to the target’s negative humor, f(1, 220) = 0.25, p = .621. no other effects were observed (fs < 1.00). discussion scholars have generally examined humor during relationship initiation without making distinctions between different humor styles, despite evidence that humor is a multi-dimensional construct (martin et al., 2003). additionally, research on humor styles and trait-indictor theories of humor tend to assume that individuals’ enacted humor styles are fixed and trait-like rather than malleable and motivationally-driven (martin et al., 2003; miller, 2000). perhaps as a result of these limitations, evidence has yet to converge on a specific theoretical explanation for humor’s function in relationship initiation and has supported and contradicted a number of leading hypotheses (hall, 2015; europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 romantic motives affect humor style 398 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tornquist & chiappe, 2015; wilbur & campbell, 2011). the current study builds on existing research (didonato et al., 2013) to reveal critical distinctions in the roles of positive humor and negative humor in initial, potentiallyromantic, social interactions. our evidence suggests that people are sensitive to subtle differences in humor styles and prefer to produce the styles of humor that strategically help them pursue specific relationship goals. individuals reported that they would likely generate positive humor to attract someone for a long-term or short-term relationship, but indicated more willingness to use negative humor when attracting someone for a short-term liaison than a long-term partnership. this distinction gives nuanced attention to how humor might shape others’ impressions and affect their romantic interest. on the receiving end, individuals were attuned to differences in humor style, with their interest increasing more in response to positive humor than negative humor regardless of relational motive. our results can be interpreted as partial support for a sexual-selection argument that contends that humor during relationship initiation reveals underlying desirable traits, and they extend this trait-indicator model by calling into question the accuracy of impressions based on humor use. individuals exhibited what appeared to be strategic inclinations towards using specific humor styles based on their relational motives. although participants did not actually produce these styles of humor, the observed link between participants’ anticipated humor styles and their primed relational motives renders the production of specific humor styles a potentially imprecise gauge of some underlying traits (e.g., warmth). it follows that humor may not be as honest a signal as proposed by trait-indicator models (miller, 2000). however, even strategic presentation of humor may rely on possessing the underlying trait to some degree. for instance, an individual who lacks warmth completely may not be able to generate affiliative humor or may generate humor that is only weakly affiliative. in other words, the presence of certain underlying traits may be necessary for the successful production of specific humor styles during courtship but not sufficient; the producer may require the appropriate relational motive as well. therefore, humor is likely a reliable indicator of underlying personality traits to some degree, with its honesty augmented by the knowledge of a suitor’s motives. prior work links positive humor to perceptions of warmth (didonato et al., 2013), and displaying warmth is an effective tactic for securing long-term relationships (schmitt & buss, 1996); it makes sense then that individuals would try to attract a desirable long-term partner by producing positive humor. such a strategy would reflect awareness of the selection pressures to be a good partner in courting for a long-term relationship. within-person links between the use of positive humor styles (over negative styles) and an array of good-partner traits, such as resiliency, emotional awareness, self-control, and well-being (vernon et al., 2015; veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010b) further underscores the possible appeal of displaying positive humor to potential long-term partners. interestingly, participants anticipated producing positive humor in pursuit of a short-term affair as well. perhaps this reflects a competitive tactic: offering warmth, a luxury in sexual encounters (li & kenrick, 2006), might give someone an edge over an attractive rival. alternatively, positive humor, like any high-quality example of humor, may be used in a short-term context to indicate creativity or intelligence (greengross & miller, 2011; howrigan & macdonald, 2008), traits that are desired regardless of relational motive (prokosch, coss, scheib, & blozis, 2009). unlike positive humor, producing negative humor, such as teasing or self-targeted humor, carries high risk: it could easily be misinterpreted or yield undesired assumptions about underlying traits (lampert & ervin-tripp, 2006). on account of this risk, individuals might avoid using negative humor when pursuing potential long-term partners because of the negative impression it might create. for instance, aggressive humor may indicate low warmth and discourage potential long-term relationship partners, who tend to prioritize warmth (li et al., 2002). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 399 http://www.psychopen.eu/ less stringent selection criteria for warmth in short-term relationships (li & kenrick, 2006) make that context a more viable opportunity to produce negative humor. alternatively, individuals might actively attempt to showcase negative humor when pursuing a short-term fling, as suggested by some previous research. specifically, less agreeable men tend to have more success securing casual sexual encounters (urbaniak & kilmann, 2006), and women, especially at peak fertility, report more short-term relationship attraction to men who enjoy aggressive behaviors compared to those who do not (giebel, weierstall, schauer, & elbert, 2013). the qualities potentially inferred from individuals who use negative humor (e.g., aggressiveness, hostility; martin et al., 2003) may make displaying negative humor a strategic method for initiating short term relationships. men may also use negative humor toward other men to demonstrate dominance and thereby secure shortor long-term romantic partners. indeed, men primed with a mating (courtship) motive aggressed more than un-primed men when the audience was male, but not when the audience was female (griskevicius et al., 2009). similarly, men may use aggressive humor toward other men but avoid producing negative humor in front of potential long-term mates. for both humor styles, a sexual selection-based argument anticipates that men would opt to use humor to a greater extent than women. not only do men typically produce more humor (wilbur & campbell, 2011) but humorproducing men and humor-appreciating (not producing) women tend to be favored in mate selection, according to previous research (bressler et al., 2006; hone et al., 2015). we did not observe a gender differences in preferred use of humor, which is consistent with other research that has not observed a gender difference in humor production (e.g., hall, 2015). however, we did not measure actual humor production or humor skill. anticipated use is not a perfect marker of actual use in a relationship initiation context, suggesting the need for a naturalistic study. additionally, it is possible that no gender differences were observed because of a relatively low proportion of men in our sample. our findings showed that participants’ romantic interest increased when they were on the receiving end of humor, particularly positive humor. this finding also counters an interest-indicator model and supports the idea that favorable information, be it “good parent” characteristics (e.g., warmth) or “good genes” (e.g., intelligence), may have been conveyed by positive humor, thus yielding heightened attraction. as anticipated by sexual-selection models, women were the primary evaluators of humor (wilbur & campbell, 2011), reporting greater increases in attraction in response to positive humor than men. of note, negative humor did not decrease, but rather, increased romantic interest, for both long-term or short-term relationships. this is consistent with studies that focus on negative humor (without referring to it as such) and report humor’s positive association with romantic desirability (bressler & balshine, 2006; lundy et al., 1998). there seems to be something fundamental about humor that benefits suitors, independent of their humor style. perhaps humor’s attractiveness rests in its capacity to signal intelligence regardless of humor style (greengross &miller, 2011; howrigan &macdonald, 2008). alternatively, as others have suggested, it could be that humor in general communicates shared knowledge and compatibility (flamson & barrett, 2008) or that shared humor suggests a future of pleasant and enjoyable experiences (hall, 2015). these ideas are not necessarily incompatible with trait-indicator models, as humor may serve many functions related to generating attraction. a study that measures inferred qualities and characteristics from humor in general as well as from different humor styles might add clarity to this question. this study advances our knowledge of humor in part through its experimental methods, which help reveal that specific relational motives influence individuals’ intended humor tactics and exposure to different humor styles affects romantic interest. the use of hypothetical relationship scenarios and self-report allowed for an initial test of our study’s hypotheses, but research using speed-dating paradigms, peer or observer report, or the coding of europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 romantic motives affect humor style 400 http://www.psychopen.eu/ observed one-on-one interactions would further substantiate the idea that humor styles are strategically adopted to achieve specific aims, especially if they measured actual, as opposed to anticipated, humor use. we restricted our investigation to romantic relationship initiation, but we would expect different humor styles to influence the beginnings of other relationships as well, such as those between friends, work colleagues, or therapists and clients. impressions form quickly (uleman, adil saribay, & gonzalez, 2008) and inferences made from a new acquaintance’s use of positive or negative humor, even if faulty, could have a sustained influence on future interactions (snyder & swann, 1978). research exploring the effect of humor style use in the initiation of non-romantic social relationships would add to our understanding. collectively, our findings suggest that humor, which is typically viewed as an honest signal (miller, 2000) may be, at times, a less reliable predictor of underlying relationship qualities than previously thought. perhaps the romantic advantage lies with those who choose to strategically generate funny examples of all types of humor. individuals who know how to tailor their humor style production to match the context may experience the most success obtaining whichever type of relationship they wish to pursue. notes 1) we tested whether the sample (student or mturk) moderated any of the results. there was an interaction between humor style and sample on anticipated humor production, f(1, 216) = 4.90, p = .028, η2 = .02. although the student (m = 4.72, sd = 0.78) and mturk (m = 4.67, sd = 0.90) samples reported similar preferences for positive humor production, f(1, 216) = 0.57, p = .452, the student sample reported a greater preference to produce negative humor (m = 3.65, sd = 0.87) than the mturk sample (m = 3.27, sd = 1.03), f(1, 216) = 7.50, p = .007, η2 = .03. no other results were affected by the sample. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references boxer, c. f., noonan, m. c., & whelan, c. b. 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(2006). sense of humor, emotional intelligence, and social competence. journal of research in personality, 40, 1202-1208. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.005 about the authors theresa didonato, ph.d., is an associate professor of psychology at loyola university maryland in baltimore, md, usa. her research interests focus on romantic relationships and include humor, forgiveness, attraction, and the self-concept. brittany jakubiak is a fourth year phd psychology student at carnegie mellon university in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, usa. in addition to research on romantic attraction and humor, she studies social support and affectionate touch in relationships. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 390–405 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1105 didonato & jakubiak 405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jrp.2005.08.005 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en romantic motives affect humor style (introduction) humor and attraction humor styles and mate selection the current study method participants design and procedure materials and measures procedure results anticipated humor production humor’s effectiveness discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors do work beliefs moderate the relationship between work interruptions, wellbeing and psychosomatic symptoms? research reports do work beliefs moderate the relationship between work interruptions, wellbeing and psychosomatic symptoms? zoi(e) zoupanou* a, leif w. rydstedtb [a] department of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, united kingdom. [b] inland norway university of applied sciences, lillehammer, norway. abstract the purpose of this study was to explore the moderating effects of work beliefs in the relationship between work interruptions and general health, wellbeing and reports of psychosomatic symptoms. self-report data were gathered from 310 employees from different occupational sectors. results revealed that beliefs in hard work and morality ethic moderated the positive appraisal of work interruptions and acted as protective factors on impaired general health and wellbeing. the relationship was stronger among employees who endorsed strong beliefs in hard work and did not have regard for morality/ethics as a value. likewise, beliefs in delay of gratification and morality/ethics moderated positive appraisal of work interruptions and reduced psychosomatic complaints. more specifically, the relationship was stronger among employees who had strong belief in the values of delayed gratification and weaker morality/ethics. these findings indicate that organisations should adopt work ideology or practices focused on work values particularly of hard work, delay of gratification and conformity to morality as protective factors that reduce the impact of work interruptions on employees’ general health and wellbeing. keywords: interruptions, health, psychosomatic symptoms, beliefs europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 received: 2016-04-06. accepted: 2017-01-16. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of surrey, gu2 7xh, united kingdom. e-mail: zoezoupanou@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. employees are constantly exposed to work interruptions, which are inevitable in many work environments. work interruptions interfere with completing important job tasks, leading to a loss of efficiency and postponement of an activity (zijlstra, roe, leonora, & krediet, 1999). on a related note, the rise of modern technology available twenty-four hours a day via emails, laptops or smart phones hinders recovery from work (boswell & olson-buchanan, 2007). users’ attention is disrupted at work when users respond to instant messaging via smart phones (rennecker & godwin, 2005). access to smart phones outside of working hours has been associated with fatigue and sleep problems (derks & bakker, 2014). how individuals interpret such demands is crucially important as interruptions can awaken ruminative thinking over work issues, and hence impair post work recovery. prior research has demonstrated that factors such as positive work values were positively related to job satisfaction, negatively related to physical symptoms, and moderated the relationship between work stressors and level of wellbeing (lu, kao, siu, & lu, 2011). thus, investigating employees’ work beliefs on wellbeing could provide important practical recommendations on how europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ to enhance employees’ motivation and performance. prior research has demonstrated that beliefs in delay of gratification, and in self-reliance were predictors of job performance and task efficiency among employees in a financial management organization (miller, woehr, & hudspeth, 2002). the present study aims to increase our understanding of the relationship between work interruptions, work beliefs and wellbeing. specifically, we draw on lazarus’ (1966) cognitive theory of stress and the effortrecovery model (erm; meijman & mulder, 1998) to examine whether employees holding particular work beliefs benefit more on psychological and physiological components of wellbeing. following lazarus’ stress approach, which consists of the appraisal of resources and coping options with an indirect or direct effect on stress, we examine work beliefs as a moderator between work interruptions and wellbeing. along similar lines, psychological and physiological costs are discussed in the erm (meijman & mulder, 1998) as the product of work effort and insufficient recovery. higher levels of work effort, according to the effort recovery theory, can increase the prevalence of chronic fatigue and sleep deprivation (åkerstedt, 2006; härmä, 2006). according to erm, physiological unwinding is an important aspect of the recovery process. erm underscores the association between the amount of effort put in at work and chronic overwork reactions (i.e., fatigue, physical health complaints and impaired sleep). chronic overwork occurs when employees are exposed to constant workload followed by inadequate relaxation from work (meijman & mulder, 1998). hassall, muller, and hassall (2005) showed that improved wellbeing was pronounced among employees endorsing positive beliefs in the values of hard work and work regard. in line with this, we examine whether work beliefs can moderate exposure to job demands such as work interruptions. in the following sections, we discuss the rationale. cognitive theory of stress and work beliefs lazarus’ (1966) cognitive theory of stress, posits that cognitive beliefs of demands and resistance resources are important determinants of stress. according to the transactional model of stress and coping (lazarus & folkman, 1984), a threatening event, which is interpreted by the person and the environment transactions, affects the person’s reactions. lazarus’ cognitive theory of stress has been further developed to a metatheoretical approach with focus on individuals’ coping processes (lazarus, 1991), and it posits that emotional processes are composed of antecedents, immediate effects of stress and mediating processes. antecedents refer to stressful experiences. immediate effects refer to physiological reactivity, and affect due to stress exposure. mediating processes refer to individuals’ cognitive appraisals of an event as stressful or positive (primary appraisals), and secondary appraisals based on evaluation of individuals’ coping efforts which have indirect effects on affect and physiological reactivity, and long-term effects on psychological wellbeing and somatic symptoms (lazarus, 1991; lazarus & cohen, 1977). cognitive appraisals refer to an individual’s evaluation of coping options such as competence, energy and support in order to encounter demands. while situations that are appraised as easy do not set off an alarm reaction, more harmful or threatening situations may lead to the onset of a stress reaction (lazarus & folkman, 1987). this study explores how work interruptions and beliefs affect physical and psychological wellbeing. our reasoning is that work beliefs would play a salient role in the relationship between work interruptions and physical and psychological wellbeing. zoupanou & rydstedt 215 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work ethic and beliefs work beliefs have been linked to work ethic (miller et al., 2002; weber, 1976). furnham (1990) refers to work ethic as comprised of beliefs in hard work, leisure beliefs, religious and moral beliefs, independence from others and asceticism beliefs. protestant work ethic (pwe) has been associated with certain types of work attitudes and behaviour e.g. delay of gratification, high responsibility for personal matters and increased interest towards work (mirels & garrett, 1971). mudrack (1997) defined four work beliefs related to hard work, asceticism, and negative views of others and anti-leisure. it has been argued that the work ethic beliefs are part of a robust belief system (furnham & rose, 1987). furnham and rose (1987) refer to leisure ethics as time for recreation rather than as human fulfilment, thus suggesting two things: first, work is accepted as a way of earning money. second, the work time is meaningful but individuals have the choice to pursue activities during leisure time (furnham & rose, 1987). in accordance with furnham and rose’s (1987) assertion, leisure ethics were negatively associated with work ethic. on one hand, anti-work beliefs such as “work is boring and stressful” were not correlated with a strong work ethic. on the other hand, pwe was positively related to others factors such as delay of gratification, economic beliefs and locus of control. anti-work beliefs, welfare ethic, wealth ethic e.g. “one works to live” and leisure beliefs e.g. “leisure is good for people” overlapped and were all positively associated with each other (furnham & rose, 1987). because of this strong relationship, beliefs have been an important measure of perceived attitude to work. effort recovery model work recovery has a prominent role in occupational stress models. in the erm (meijman & mulder, 1998), for example, recovery during off job hours is considered critical, and can lead to increased motivation, and work engagement as well as reducing stress. studies have shown that employees exhausted due to overtime that takes place outside normal work hours, experience cognitive decline, reduced physical vigour, cognitive liveliness and recovery (oerlemans & baker, 2014), and are disengaged from work (demerouti, mostert, & bakker, 2010). the erm states the importance of psycho-physiological systems to return to a baseline, and consequently the replenishment of resources. otherwise, employees are forced to put extra effort to compensate for their reduced vigour, which consequently may result in chronic load reactions such as fatigue and sleep problems (van hooff et al., 2005). in line with this reasoning, individuals with insufficient recovery experienced chronic stress and health impairments (geurts & sonnentag, 2006), and slow recovery after work was found to be related to elevated cortisol levels and various health problems (ganster, fox, & dwyer, 2001; rydstedt, cropley, devereux, & michalianou, 2008). work interruptions, work beliefs and wellbeing research has shown that work interruptions and strongly held beliefs in hard work and self-reliance can help employees detach from work. employees who possessed such work beliefs coupled with positive appraisal of work interruptions reported increased levels of detachment from work (zoupanou, cropley, & rydstedt, 2013). hassall and colleagues (2005) demonstrated that low psychological distress and increased wellbeing were noticeable among employed and unemployed adults endorsing strong beliefs in hard work, holding regard for work (i.e. doing a good job) labelled work regard belief and negative attitude to leisure. one interpretation of the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 216 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this was that work was valued as meaningful by the employed, in terms of, for example, self-esteem and financial advantages. these workers with a strong belief in hard work also did not have regard for the value of leisure, thus generating a so called anti-leisure belief: they worked hard and kept themselves busy and this was perceived as a means of improving their financial state and confidence. hassall et al. (2005) also found that unemployed participants associated a belief in hard work with improved wellbeing (hassall et al., 2005). they committed themselves to hard work leading to increase in self-esteem and wellbeing there is still, however, limited evidence regarding whether work interruptions are linked to this relationship between work beliefs and wellbeing. the results of a qualitative study on work interruptions highlighted work values as an important theme of work ideology among managers (zoupanou, 2015). core work beliefs which encapsulated beliefs in centrality of work and acceptance towards work interruptions were integrated into a clear philosophical framework “interruptions are part of the job” (zoupanou, 2015). furthermore, a study focused on the moderating role of work beliefs on work interruptions and work rumination (zoupanou et al., 2013), found that negative belief in leisure and belief in delay of gratification served as moderating factors on the relationship between appraisal of work interruptions and elevated problem solving in particular. employees who held lower beliefs in leisure time and in delay of gratification coupled with negative appraisal of work interruptions reported elevated pondering over work problems (zoupanou et al., 2013). however, employees who endorsed lower belief in the importance of work coupled with a negative appraisal of work interruptions reported limited pondering over solving work problems (zoupanou et al., 2013). in the present study we attempt to test the possible effects of work values on wellbeing in relation to the impact of work interruptions, and propose the following hypotheses: hypothesis 1: positive work beliefs will be associated with general health and wellbeing, as well as to lower levels of physical symptoms. hypothesis 2: employees’ work beliefs will moderate the relationship between work interruptions, general health and wellbeing, so that it is better for employees who endorsed high levels of positive work beliefs. hypothesis 3: work beliefs will moderate the relationship between the appraisal of work interruptions and physical symptoms, and this relationship will be stronger among employees who endorsed high levels of positive work beliefs. methods ethics statement the current study was a secondary data analysis collected for the purposes of a prior study (zoupanou et al., 2013), and did not require formal ethics procedure (grinyer, 2009). it was carried out in accordance with ethical guidelines of the university of surrey and the british psychological society. issues of confidentiality and anonymity (of the data) were guaranteed. participants were asked to give written consent to participate and could withdraw from the study if they wished. participants the study utilised a data set from the study ‘recovery after work’ (zoupanou et al., 2013), where the same individuals who had participated in self-report questionnaires on work ethic and on work interruptions measures zoupanou & rydstedt 217 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ were included in the present analyses. the original sample consisted of 310 white-collar employees particularly from the private business sector, recruited from a range of organizations: 73% worked in customer marketing services, 20% held managerial positions and 7% worked in the accounting and executive sector; 50% were males (n = 155) with a mean age of 35.2 years (sd = 10.7). the females (n = 155) had a mean age of 32 years (sd = 10.5). all employees worked full time with a mean of 40.6 (sd = 14.4) working hours per week. instruments stressors question this included the question “in general how stressful do you find your job?” (smith, johal, wadsworth, smith, & peters, 2000). this was a self-evaluative question previously used in the bristol stress study. the response format of the question utilized a five-point scale (1 = not at all stressful to 5 = extremely stressful). interruption questionnaire this measure comprised 13 items (duggan, 2009). due to content validity, two conceptually inconsistent items were deleted from the measure. a four-point scale was utilised (1 = strongly disagree; 4 = strongly agree). items included “i find being interrupted at work is a welcome distraction”, “it does not trouble me to leave work unfinished at the end of the day”, “interruptions can be a welcome break”, “interruptions reduce boredom”. principal component analysis revealed the presence of two components with eigen values exceeding 1, and accounted for 55.16% of the total variance. seven items were loaded on factor 1 (factor loading of .3 or greater on only one factor) which was termed negative interruption. three items loaded on factor 2, which was labelled positive interruption. the cronbach’s alpha values for the negative interruption factor was 0.85 (m = 16.44, sd = 3.12), and for the positive interruption 0.78 (m = 10.79, sd = 1.57). the correlation between the two factors was moderate (r = .35) (cohen, 1992). multidimensional work ethic profile measure (mwep) the mwep (miller et al., 2002) originally comprises 65 items rated on a likert scale (1 = strongly agree; 5 = strongly disagree), a lower overall score indicated greater belief in work. the mwep supported seven dimensions: centrality of work, delay of gratification, hard work, leisure, morality/ethics (e.g. “one should always take responsibility for one’s actions”, “stealing is all right as long as you do not get caught”, “one should not pass judgement until one has heard all of the facts”), self-reliance and wasted time. the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of the factors was good: wasted time (α = .72, 7 items), delay of gratification (α = .82, 7 items), centrality of work (α = .82, 10 items), hard work (α = .86, 10 items), leisure (α = .89, 10 items), morality/ethics (α = .78, 10 items). the morality/ethics measure was recoded on a likert scale (5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree). the pennebaker inventory of limbic languidness (pill) the short version of pill was used to assess 21 items of physical symptoms (e.g., ‘your mouth became dry’, ‘your muscles felt tight’). participants rated each of the symptoms on a five-point scale (1 = never; 5 = very often) to indicate how often they had experienced any of the symptoms during the past month. in the present study the cronbach’s alpha value coefficient was α = .89. the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 218 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ general health questionnaire (ghq) health and wellbeing was assessed using the 12 item version of the ghq (goldberg & hillier, 1979). the validity of the ghq-12 has been assessed in 15 different countries (goldberg et al., 1997; liang et al., 2016; wang & lin, 2011). in the current study we support the one factor model based on the argument that the ghq-12 was initially designed as a unidimensional scale which allowed the analysis to keep its simplicity. a health survey for england (hankins, 2008) also found the ghq-12 as a unidimensional model due to correlation errors on negative wording items. in the present study participants were asked to report recent feelings in relation to anxiety, depression, self-esteem and cognitive processing. participants had to respond, for example, to the question “how they have been feeling over the past few weeks”. items were rated using a four-point scale (1 = better than usual; 4 = much less than usual). the scale had high internal reliability with а coefficient α between 0.82 and 0.86 (politi, piccinelli, & wilkinson, 1994; sriram, chandrashekar, isaac, & shanmugham, 1989; winefield, goldney, winefield, & tiggemann, 1989). in the present study the cronbach’s alpha value coefficient for the scale was α = .86. results correlations, means and standard deviations for all variables used in the present study are presented in table 1. as further shown in table 1, ghq was positively related to beliefs in the importance of centrality of work and negatively related to beliefs in leisure. ghq was uncorrelated with self-reliance, morality, hard work, wasted time, delay of gratification age. ghq significantly correlated with stressful job. table 1 pearson’s r correlation coefficients between demographic variables and measures of wellbeing (n = 310) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. ni 2.35 0.44 2. pi 3.60 0.52 .38** 3. pill 1.59 0.49 .27** .08 4. ghq 1.93 0.44 .24** -.04 .54** 5. self reliance 2.64 0.59 -.18** .00 -.14* -.00 6. morality 3.09 0.97 -.05 .04 .02 -.01 -.20** 7. leisure 2.51 0.63 -.16** .18** -.27** -.22** .20** .01 8. hard work 2.44 0.60 .00 .05 -.04 .10 .43** -.30** -.00 9. cow 2.35 0.59 .04 -.04 .08 .13* .15** -.24** -.44** .40** 10. wasted time 2.37 0.54 -.15** -.23** .03 .04 .26** -.32** -.07 .47** .42** 11. dog 2.71 0.68 -.09 -.11 .13* .08 .28** -.14* -.05 .33** .23** .30** 12. age 34 11 .00 .22** -.17** -.02 -.00 .04 .29** .17** .00 -.07 .04 13. stressful job? 2.78 0.85 .25** .10 .26** .32** .05 .08 -.12* .08 .22** .03 .17** .03 note. ni = negative interruption; pi = positive interruption; pill = physical illness symptoms; ghq = general health questionnaire; cow = centrality of work; dog = delay of gratification; stressful job = in general, how stressful do you find your job? *p < .05. **p < .01. table 1 also shows a negative relation between physical symptoms and beliefs in self-reliance (r = -.14) and leisure (r = -.27) and positive relation between physical symptoms and delay of gratification (r = .13). negative interruption related negatively to self-reliance (r = -.18), leisure beliefs (r = -.16), wasted time (r = -.15). zoupanou & rydstedt 219 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ negative interruption related positively to general health and physical symptoms. positive interruption was positively correlated with leisure (r = .18) and negatively correlated with the importance of not wasting time (r = -.23) moderating effects of work beliefs moderated regression analysis (baron & kenny, 1986) was utilised to test the interaction effects of types of work belief on wellbeing and physical illness symptoms. we computed a two-step hierarchical multiple regression analysis (baron & kenny, 1986), using the centred variables of positive interruption, negative interruption and each dimension of work beliefs. the two dimensions of work interruptions and each dimension of work beliefs were introduced in step 1. interactions between work beliefs and the two dimensions of work interruptions with general health and psychosomatic symptoms were entered in step 2. two-way interactions between each dimension of work interruption and the seven dimensions of work beliefs assessed whether work beliefs moderated the relationship of negative and positive work interruption with general health and wellbeing, and then whether such work beliefs moderated the relationship of positive and negative work interruption with physical symptoms. interaction terms were composed of the product of the variables, and these were centred to avoid problems of multi-collinearity. evidence of moderation would be apparent if there was a statistically significant change in the variance accounted for by ghq and psychosomatic symptoms with the introduction of the interaction terms (cohen & cohen, 1983). table 2 reports standardized coefficients for the hierarchical regression analyses predicting ghq and psychosomatic symptoms. there was a significant positive correlation between psychosomatic symptoms and negative interruption (r = .37, p < .01). after centering the means for the interaction term, inspection of moderators of the relationship between negative interruption and work beliefs showed that none of the interaction terms was significant for the prediction of psychosomatic symptoms (table 2). the correlation between negative interruption and ghq was small but significant (r = .24, p < .01). however, interaction terms between negative interruption and work beliefs did not make any meaningful contributions to the prediction of ghq (table 2). table 2 results of regression analysis of negative, positive interruption and work beliefs on psychosomatic symptoms and general health dependent variable psychosomatic symptoms general health b se ß b se ß step 1 negative interruption 0.25 0.06 0.23* 0.20 0.05 0.21* leisure -0.18 0.04 -0.23 -0.13 0.04 -0.19* step 2 negative interruption x leisure -0.03 0.08 -0.02 0.01 0.08 0.00 step 1 negative interruption 0.28 0.06 0.25* 0.24 0.05 0.24* self reliance -0.07 0.04 -0.08 0.03 0.04 0.04 step 2 negative interruption x self reliance -0.16 0.09 -0.10 -0.05 0.08 -0.03 the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 220 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dependent variable psychosomatic symptoms general health b se ß b se ß step 1 negative interruption 0.29 0.06 0.27* 0.23 0.05 0.24* hard work -0.03 0.04 -0.04 0.07 0.04 0.10 step 2 negative interruption x hard work -0.07 0.10 -0.04 0.00 0.09 0.00 step 1 negative interruption 0.31 0.06 0.28* 0.25 0.05 0.25* delay of gratification 0.11 0.04 0.16* 0.07 0.03 0.11** step 2 negative interruption x dog 0.04 0.08 0.02 0.11 0.07 0.08 step 1 negative interruption 0.29 0.06 0.27* 0.23 0.05 0.24* morality/ethic 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.00 0.02 0.00 step 2 negative interruption x morality/ethic -0.10 0.18 0.03 -0.00 0.06 -0.00 step 1 negative interruption 0.28 0.06 0.26* 0.23 0.05 0.24* centrality of work 0.06 0.04 0.07 0.09 0.04 0.12** step 2 negative interruption x centrality of work 0.03 0.09 0.02 -0.04 0.08 -0.03 step 1 negative interruption 0.30 0.06 0.28* 0.25 0.05 0.25* wasted time 0.07 0.05 0.08 0.04 0.05 0.05 step 2 negative interruption x wasted time 0.00 0.11 0.00 -0.19 0.10 -0.11 step 1 positive interruption -0.03 0.05 -0.03 0.00 0.05 0.00 leisure -0.20 0.04 -0.26* -0.15 0.04 -0.22* step 2 positive interruption x leisure -0.01 0.07 -0.00 -0.07 0.07 -0.06 step 1 positive interruption -0.09 0.05 -0.09 -0.03 0.05 -0.04 self reliance -0.11 0.04 -0.13** -0.00 0.04 -0.00 step 2 positive interruption x self reliance -0.13 0.08 -0.09 -0.08 0.07 -0.07 step 1 positive interruption -0.08 0.05 -0.08 -0.04 0.05 -0.05 hard work -0.03 0.04 -0.03 0.07 0.04 0.10 step 2 positive interruption x hard work -0.09 0.08 -0.06 -0.19 0.07 -0.15* zoupanou & rydstedt 221 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dependent variable psychosomatic symptoms general health b se ß b se ß step 1 positive interruption -0.05 0.05 -0.06 -0.02 0.05 -0.02 delay of gratification 0.08 0.04 0.12** 0.05 0.04 0.08 step 2 positive interruption x delay of gratification -0.20 0.08 -0.14** -0.04 0.07 -0.03 step 1 positive interruption -0.09 0.05 -0.09 -0.04 0.05 -0.05 morality/ethic 0.00 0.03 0.01 -0.00 0.02 -0.00 step 2 positive interruption x morality/ethic 0.12 0.05 0.12** 0.10 0.05 0.12** step 1 positive interruption -0.08 0.05 -0.08 -0.02 0.05 -0.02 centrality of work 0.06 0.05 0.07 0.10 0.04 0.13** step 2 positive interruption x centrality of work 0.05 0.08 0.04 -0.04 0.07 -0.03 step 1 positive interruption -0.07 0.05 -0.07 -0.02 0.05 -0.03 wasted time 0.02 0.05 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.03 step 2 positive interruption x wasted time 0.00 0.08 0.00 -0.05 0.07 -0.04 *p < .01. **p < .05. moderators: hard work and morality/ethic on general health and wellbeing in step 2 of table 2 there are significant interaction effects between hard work and positive appraisal of work interruption on ghq (ß = -0.15, t = -2.63, p < .01). there was a significant interaction between morality/ethics and positive interruption (ß = 0.12, t = 2.07, p < .05) on ghq. graphical representations of the interactions are shown in figure 1 (c) and (d). figure 1c shows employees with a strong belief in hard work reported reduced psychological distress and more highly appraised positive interruptions compared to employees who endorsed a weak belief in hard work. furthermore, employees with weak morality/ethics reported reduced discomfort and highly appraised positively work interruptions compared to those with strong morality/ethics (figure 1d). hypothesis 2 is supported, indicating two significant moderator effects as predictors on general health and wellbeing. moderators: delay of gratification and morality/ethic on psychosomatic symptom in step 2 of table 2, addition of the cross-product interaction terms to the regression equation (positive interruption x delay of gratification, positive interruption x morality/ethic) made a significant contribution to the prediction of physical complaints. positive interruption and delay of gratification (ß = -0.14, t = -2.46, p < .05), and the effects of the interaction between positive interruption and morality/ethics (ß = 0.12, t = 2.17, p < .05) substantially contributed to psychosomatic symptoms. graphical representations of the interactions are shown in figure 1(a) and (b). figure 1b shows reduced psychosomatic complaints for employees who reported a high belief in delay of gratification when they appraised highly positively work interruptions, compared to employees the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 222 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ who endorsed a weak belief in delay of gratification. moreover, employees who had a weak belief in morality/ ethics when they appraised highly positively work interruptions reported low psychosomatic symptoms (see figure 1a). thus hypothesis 3 was supported, indicating two significant moderator effects on psychosomatic symptoms. the interactions between positive appraisal of work interruptions and other work beliefs did not make any significant contribution to the prediction of psychosomatic symptoms (table 2). discussion our results provided some support for the three general hypotheses underlying this study; work beliefs may serve as a link in the relationship between positive work interruption and general health and psychosomatic symptoms reports. in particular perceived job stress was associated with a negative attitude towards interruptions at the workplace. age was negatively associated with physical health complaints and was positively associated with beliefs in hard work and leisure. researchers found an increase in wellbeing among older employees compared to younger ones (amati et al., 2010; vandenberghe et al., 2011). one explanation could be that the experienced employees developed stress management techniques over time to better cope with work stressors (mauno et al., 2013). previous research has found that age adaption to stress improves figure 1. the moderating role of work beliefs in the relationship between positive work interruption, wellbeing and general health. zoupanou & rydstedt 223 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ over time, leading to a greater level of wellbeing (isaacowitz & blanchard-fields, 2012; staudinger & kunzmann, 2005). the correlation between age and positive attitudes towards interruptions is consistent with earlier research findings by knights and mccabe (1998), highlighting that inexperienced employees at a bank demonstrated greater stress responses and sickness in comparison to experienced staff. inexperienced staff conceived the “switching” from processing work to telephone calls as very difficult task, whereas the trained bank staff with prolonged years of experience in answering telephone calls perceived multi-tasking as an enjoyable and interesting experience. therefore, the question arising is whether older employees could cope with work interruptions more effectively due to higher work experience. the results support hypothesis 1 thus illustrating those employees with strongly held positive belief in the importance of centrality of work and negative attitudes towards leisure have better health and wellbeing. these data are some of the first to describe the relationship between work beliefs, general and physical health. consistent with previous findings (hassall et al., 2005), the importance of belief in centrality of work and negative attitudes towards leisure were associated with improved psychological wellbeing. employees who perceived work as important and meaningful had better psychological wellbeing (i.e. work reinforces selfesteem, provides financial reward and improves the quality of life). also, employees who endorsed strongly held beliefs in work as a value were more likely to achieve a better wellbeing. acknowledging this, it must be noted that the correlational nature of this type of research does not allow any causal association. the results also support hypothesis 2 suggesting that positive appraisal of work interruptions leads to reduced reports of distress, particularly when employees value the importance of hard work and do not hold the value of morality/ethics as important (disregard morality/ethics). these results are consistent with earlier research findings highlighting the important role of work beliefs related to improved general health (hassall et al., 2005). hassall et al. (2005) also supported the assumption that employees with strong beliefs in hard work and negative attitudes towards leisure demonstrated greater psychological wellbeing. furthermore, our results support the idea that some work beliefs moderate the relation between positive work interruption and psychosomatic symptoms as suggested in hypothesis 3. more specifically, results showed that strongly held positive beliefs in delay of gratification and not holding the importance of morality/ethics as a belief become protective factors able to mitigate the effects of positive appraisal of work interruptions on psychosomatic symptoms. these beliefs affect the strength of the relation among positive appraisal of work interruption and psychosomatic work stress. overall there is a very small number of significant interaction effects; just four out of twenty-four interactions tested. finally, the results of the present study showed that work beliefs did not moderate the relationship between negative attitudes towards work interruptions and psychosomatic complaints as well as between negative attitudes to work interruptions and general health and wellbeing. previous research has argued that situational constraints including hassles due to interruptions at work can predict negative affect and proactive behaviour that brings change to an organization (baethge & rigotti, 2013; sonnentag & starzyk, 2015). in our study, it is likely that negative affect might influence employees’ negative attitudes to interruptions regardless of work beliefs which, in turn, influenced general health and psychosomatic complaints. the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 224 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ implications intervention studies are needed to understand the role of work interruptions and the cognitive parameters of occupational wellbeing. based on our findings, particular attention should be paid to employees’ workload and working hours when promoting occupational well-being; more specifically, employees assigned many responsibilities and are work interrupted have increased job demands and encounter an overload of tasks to be completed within limited time available during work hours. hence, organizations need to develop action plans to cope with interruptions, and to also identify which work beliefs would be beneficial to promote occupational motivation and wellbeing. it is to be hoped that organizations will put in place suitable policies and incentives for developing a work ideology based on work beliefs and thus reinforce employees’ motivation. supervisors could support employees in increasing their engagement by stimulating work beliefs with questions and explore how such changes impact on different levels of work performance. previous research has shown that employees’ engagement was positively related to task performance (christian, garza, & slaughter, 2011) and led to less fatigue during the working day (sonnentag, mojza, demerouti, & bakker, 2012). in addition, the importance of work beliefs has implications for the theory of stress (lazarus, 1996). lazarus’ theory postulated that it is extremely important to analyse the role of cognitions or appraisals in the stress process, rather than only explore the objective environment. while cognitive factors have been recognized in occupational stress studies there has so far mainly been a focus on the negative consequences, for example of ruminating thoughts (brosschot et al., 2006, 2014; cropley & zijlstra, 2011; cropley et al., 2012). this study sheds light on how cognitive constructs and positive attitudes also may reduce the health impacts of work hassles. consequently, a new look at the area of work beliefs as cognitions merits attention. cognitive behavioural methods have been implemented with non-clinical samples as part of stress prevention training (van der klink et al., 2001). similarly, interventions focused on cognitive change have provided improvements in general health (daniels, harris, & briner, 2002). the results of our study underscore the importance of looking at health in the workplace from perspectives such as these. limitations and future research directions this study used self-report measures, which are vulnerable to bias and can give rise to common method variance. however, the correlations observed were not so high as to suspect this was a major issue in the present study. one argument against a method of variance in the present study is that independent variables showed different relationships with dependent variables (delayed gratification positively correlated with physical complaints but not related with general health). the existing literature is also somewhat inconsistent as to what degree method variance can inflate the observed relationships among variables. a previous study found that an increase in variables entered in a regression, attenuated the effect of method variance on coefficients (williams & brown, 1994) leading to increased interaction effects (williams & brown, 1994). similarly, evans (1985) argued that method variance did not inflate product terms in moderated regression. future research could also conduct observational studies and interviews in which employees can describe positive work interruptions and its relation to work beliefs and physical symptoms. future research should also assess whether work interruptions are associated with physiological parameters. the effort of being interrupted at work could cause an instant physiological reaction, such as a sharp rise in blood pressure and heart rate. the 10-work interruption items questionnaire also emphasizes the role of subjective cognitions for work interruptions. further studies with different samples are necessary to replicate the current findings and examine zoupanou & rydstedt 225 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 http://www.psychopen.eu/ whether the items of the interruption questionnaire are invariant across occupations (managers, supervisors). hinkin and schriesheim (1989) argued that a “best practice” would occur if the measure was administered to an additional sample to assess the stability of the scale across time. for this purpose, the test-retest reliability of the measure needs to be examined. moreover, further objective measures for work interruptions should be applied. future research should consider phone calls, chats with colleagues and subordinates and attendance of meetings to evaluate the impact of different types of work interruptions on employees’ health indices. conclusion this is the first study to examine the interrelationship between work interruptions, psychosomatic symptoms and general health. interaction effects between the high appraisal of positive interruption and not holding the value of morality/ethics belief, as well as strong beliefs in delay of gratification emerged for reduced physical symptoms reports. the findings also suggest that beliefs in the importance of hard work and not have regard for morality serve as protective factors in the relationship between appraisal of positive interruption and improved general health and wellbeing. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references åkerstedt, t. 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(2013). recovery after work: the role of work beliefs in the unwinding process. plos one, 8(12), article e81381. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0081381 about the authors zoi(e) zoupanou completed her phd in recovery process: the role of work beliefs and interruptions at work from the university of surrey, department of psychology, surrey, united kingdom. leif w. rydstedt is professor in work and organizational psychology, department of social sciences, inland norway university of applied sciences, lillehammer, norway. the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing 230 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 214–230 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1002/job.732 http://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.91.2.270 http://www.jstor.org/stable/40968803 http://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.844 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.024 http://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1994.1011 http://doi.org/10.3109/00048678909062592 http://doi.org/10.1348/096317999166581 http://www.eajournals.org/journals/international-journal-of-quantitative-and-qualitative-research-methods-ijqqrm/vol-3issue-1-april-2015/being-work-interrupted-a-qualitative-study-of-office-managers http://www.eajournals.org/journals/international-journal-of-quantitative-and-qualitative-research-methods-ijqqrm/vol-3issue-1-april-2015/being-work-interrupted-a-qualitative-study-of-office-managers http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0081381 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the relationship between work beliefs, work interruptions, and wellbeing (introduction) cognitive theory of stress and work beliefs work ethic and beliefs effort recovery model work interruptions, work beliefs and wellbeing methods ethics statement participants instruments results moderating effects of work beliefs moderators: hard work and morality/ethic on general health and wellbeing moderators: delay of gratification and morality/ethic on psychosomatic symptom discussion implications limitations and future research directions conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors what do physicians believe about the way decisions are made? a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context research reports what do physicians believe about the way decisions are made? a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context paola iannello*a, valeria peruccaa, silvia rivabc, alessandro antoniettia, gabriella pravettonibcd [a] department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. [b] department of health sciences, university of milan, milan, italy. [c] interdisciplinary centre for research and intervention on decision (iride centre), milan, italy. [d] institute of oncology (ieo), milan, italy. abstract metacognition relative to medical decision making has been poorly investigated to date. however, beliefs about methods of decision making (metacognition) play a fundamental role in determining the efficiency of the decision itself. in the present study, we investigated a set of beliefs that physicians develop in relation to the modes of making decisions in a professional environment. the solomon questionnaire, designed to assess metacognitive knowledge about behaviors and mental processes involved in decision making, was administered to a sample of 18 emergency physicians, 18 surgeons, and 18 internists. significant differences in metacognitive knowledge emerged among these three medical areas. physicians’ self-reports about the decision process mirrored the peculiarities of the context in which they operate. their metacognitive knowledge demonstrated a reflective attitude that is an effective tool during the decision making process. keywords: medical decision making, metacognition, self-awareness, emergency care, surgery, internal medicine europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 received: 2015-03-30. accepted: 2015-10-10. published (vor): 2015-11-27. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milan, italy. phone: +39 0272342557. e-mail: paola.iannello@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction in the field of the psychology of decision making, judgments and choices are usually investigated in laboratory situations, making it difficult to uncover the actual development of diagnostic processes in emergency departments (ers). in real work situations, it is necessary to consider the inherent limitations of our cognitive structure, making it impossible to examine all aspects of the situation. we must also consider the environmental restrictions that arise from a context, which is itself problematic for analyzing the interactions of crucial and unavoidable variables that constantly confront the clinician. these factors include: 1) the risks which has to be taken and the associated uncertainty when these risks are not known (kahneman, slovic, & tversky, 1982); 2) the need to update information on the basis of experience; 3) the simplification of thinking strategies (heuristics) to speed assessment (marewski & gigerenzer, 2012); 4) stress and lack of time, which trigger the paradox of avoiding decision making or of concentrating on a single source of information (allnutt, 2002); 5) an excess of confidence in one’s abilities and the consequent exclusion of other unpredicted intervening factors (croskerry, 2002); and 6) high emotional europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ impact, which can alter the calculation of probabilities and/or challenge rational selection processes (hogarth, 1980). metacognition constitutes a possible framework for considering this multiplicity of critical factors in a coordinated manner (yzerbyt, lories, & dardenne, 1998). metacognition primarily concerns the knowledge that everyone has about his/her own mental processes. this knowledge encompasses the thinking strategies used to deal with a cognitive task (solving a problem, remembering a notion, etc.), the emotional states that accompany them, the perception of effort made by the individual, and the obstacles encountered. metacognition also includes beliefs in personal attributes, one’s cognitive abilities, task characteristics (level of complexity, etc.), the context in which one works (time constraints, etc.), and the demands and expectations that others develop about an individual’s actions. metacognition can also be linked to the self-criticism that goes with professional competence, vigilance about one’s performance, availing oneself of advice, managing organizational conflicts, and recalling failures that are transformed into caveats for future behavior. metacognition refers to the ability to control one’s mental processes and the behaviors derived from them, based on a person’s awareness of such behaviors and on the conviction that he/she develops regarding his/her optimal method of proceeding. in particular, metacognition related to decision-making processes – a little-studied aspect of clinical reasoning (croskerry, 2000; marcum, 2012; pines, 2006) – refers to the level of knowledge an individual has regarding his/her method of making choices, the thinking strategies on which such choices are based, and the emotions experienced. metacognition is the basis of the beliefs that individuals develop about the dynamics of the decisionmaking process, both with reference to their own personal characteristics (limits and strengths) and to the characteristics attributed to the ideal decision-maker. during the process of clinical decision making, metacognition seems to play a monitoring role, controlling or regulating the diagnostic/therapeutic decision (marcum, 2012). recent research suggests that metacognition could be successfully utilized to correct “imbalances” that arise due to biases in clinical reasoning (lucchiari & pravettoni, 2012). additionally, metacognition allows the physician to evaluate the clinical decision-making process and to determine whether the process is worth applying to future decisions (marcum, 2012). a recent study suggests that individual differences in metacognitive competence may effectively predict the outcomes of clinical decision-making processes (jackson & kleitman, 2014). if the physician is fully aware of his/her method of decision making and reports adequate convictions about how decisions should be made, he/she should be able to exercise control over the decision-making process, plan it in a satisfactory manner, and change it when required. aims the objectives of this study were: 1) to explore the metacognitive knowledge that physicians possess about the way they make their decisions in the workplace; 2) to detect differences, if any, in metacognitive knowledge among various medical professions; and 3) to determine whether metacognitive knowledge differs according to the physician’s level of expertise. methods ethics statements participants in the experiments described here were treated according to the ethical standards of the american psychological association. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 692 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in accordance with the procedure adopted in the investigators’ department, which seeks to avoid submitting projects to the ethics committee that cannot be problematic from the ethical point of view, this project was submitted to the head of the department to assess the need for submission to the ethics committee. consultation with the chairman of the ethics committee determined that the research did not require submission to the ethics committee. the first page of the solomon questionnaire explicitly stated that participants would remain anonymous. researchers had no way to identify the physicians, which would have been possible if written consent was obtained from participants. after explaining the purpose of the study, potential participants were asked whether everything was clear and whether they consented to participate. participants the questionnaire was administered to 54 physicians: 18 er physicians, 18 general surgeons, and 18 internists. physicians were located at four hospitals in northern italy: ospedale di borgosesia (vercelli), ospedale di busto arsizio (varese), ospedale san carlo (milano), and ospedale valduce (como). the sample consisted of 36 men and 18 women, with more male surgeons and internists (83% men in surgery, 66% in internal medicine, and 50% in the er). participant age ranged between 26 and 60 years (mean (m) = 44.92 years; standard deviation (sd) = 9.21 years). the mean ages of the three groups of specialists did not significantly differ (er:m = 39.06 years, sd = 8.87 years; surgery: m = 46.51 years, sd = 9.65 years; internal medicine: m = 49.14 years, sd = 9.01 years; f(2, 53) = 1.67, p = .17, η2 = .02). additionally, differences in age among the four hospitals were not significant (borgosesia: m = 45.05 years, sd = 10.00 years; busto arsizio: m = 41.96 years, sd = 9.81 years; milano: m = 46.62 years, sd = 9.81 years; como: m = 43.32 years, sd = 9.63 years; f(3, 53) = 1.91, p = .20, η2 = .04). the experience of the physicians within each specialty varied between 1 and 34 years and was significantly correlated with age (r = .91). consequently, only data about experience were analyzed. seniority was considered to reflect the level of expertise of the responders and was divided into three categories: low (< 9 years; n = 22), medium (9-23 years; n = 14), and high (> 23 years; n = 18). the three levels of expertise did not significantly differ among the four hospitals, χ2(6, n = 54) = 21.24. once we verified the homogeneity of the four subsamples in terms of physician age and level of expertise, the subsamples were pooled. note that all four hospitals are situated within a 100-km radius, in an area with similar geographic and demographic features. the socioeconomic and educational levels of the patients in these hospitals are the same. all hospitals belong to the national health care system (none of them are private), and therefore they use the same rules and protocols. materials the solomon questionnaire (colombo, iannello, & antonietti, 2010) was used to investigate metacognition in decision making. a version of the original questionnaire was adapted to the specific medical contexts of the present study. the questionnaire (appendix) consisted of two parts. in the first part, metacognitive knowledge about the personal strategy for making decisions was investigated on two levels. the descriptive-behavioral level (items 1-6) defines the approach to decisions that the respondent generally applies during his/her working activity. the proceduralemotional level (items 7-8) concerns the processes involved in decision making and the cognitive strategies and europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 693 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional reactions that are triggered during decision making. the second part of the questionnaire addressed the respondent’s metacognitive knowledge about the decision process in general, as well as the individual characteristics that, according to one’s own ideas, identify a “good decision-maker” (items 9-15). categorization of responses to open questions in order to analyze the responses to the open questions in the solomon questionnaire, responses were grouped into semantic categories (table 1). table 1 semantic category system for coding questionnaire responses categorycorresponding questionfocus of the questionitems 2. describe briefly three typical decisions of your working day “typical” decisionitem 2 • admittance/discharge • therapy (prescribe or change) • surgery or invasive tests • diagnosis 8a. describe the general situation, i.e. the context in which you are required to make a decision decision contextitem 8a • urgency • routine • management and organizational problems • confusion (many patients at the same time, difficulty perceived) 8b. which is your first thought?first thoughtitem 8b • not to cause harm • focus on the patient (putting oneself in his/her shoes, concentrating attention on him/her) • asking oneself questions/reflection 8c. how do you feel when you make this decision?personal feelingitem 8c • calm/peaceful • stressed/inadequate • concentrated/absorbed • other (rage/excitement/fear/powerless) 8d. what do you do to make this decision?which actions?item 8d • alternative investigation/consultation with others • strategy (assessment of costs/benefits, preparation of an action plan) • accumulated knowhow • instinct 8e. do you face the situation by yourself or do you ask others for help/advice? confronting the problemwith others?item 8e • alone • others • it depends/if i do not have other means 8f. do you basically employ solutions that turned out to be effective in the past or do you tend to try out new solutions? learning from the past?item 8f • effective in the past • i experiment • it depends • both 8g. once you have made the decision, do you follow it or do you modify it (entirely or in part)? on the basis of adhering to the first plan?item 8g • i adhere to the decision • i change the decision during the process (due to new available data, changes in the condition of the patient) which thoughts/reflections do you modify/don't modify your decision? 9. which peculiarities characterize those people who are effective in taking their decisions? characteristics of the “good decision-maker” item 9 • experience/competence • intuition/strength of character • intelligence/metacognitive skills (equilibrium, reflection, self-awareness) 10. a good decision maker is someone who never regrets his/her decision? why? regret and the “good decision-maker” item 10 • it is possible to make mistakes • it is possible to learn from one’s mistakes • self-criticism (necessary) 13. how do you think a person can become a good “decision-maker”? how to become a “good decision-maker” item 13 • experience • training/teachers • increasing one’s own metacognitive awareness (understand how one makes decisions, awareness of one’s limits) europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 694 http://www.psychopen.eu/ categorycorresponding questionfocus of the questionitems 14. how can you help someone to make good decisions? the way to support “good decision making” item 14 • give advice • develop self-esteem/metacognition • act as an example 15. which could be a proper example of a “good decision-maker”? (you can mention historical or examples of a “good decision-maker”item 15 • colleagues/superiors • family members/friends • current politicians mythological characters, well-known people, but also colleagues, relatives or friends) • historical figures • fantasy/mythological figures results part 1 of the questionnaire: metacognitive knowledge about the personal way of making decisions self-reported data from the overall sample (table 2) indicate that a hospital physician makes an average of 31.5 decisions (range = 3-100 decisions) during a typical working day. a 6-h working day would yield ~5 decisions/hour. typical decisions mainly concern diagnosis (37%) and therapy (28%). of these decisions, 69.2% indicated that they involve direct physician responsibility, 56.3% are reversible, 38.9% said that they are mainly related to the physicians themselves, 23.4% require a lot of time to be reached, and 13% are accompanied by a feeling of regret – because the decision-maker believes, in retrospect, that a different choice would have been preferable. the context in which decisions was reported to be routine (37%) and urgent (31.5%). above all, decisions seemed to be accompanied by an attempt to not cause harm and to avoid aggravating the patient's clinical situation. feelings of stress and inadequacy or of peace and calm appeared to arise during the decision-making process. of the responding physicians, 37% declared that they rely on their strategic skills, whereas 22.2% reported that they base their decision on their knowhow. the majority of interviewed physicians said that they ask others for help when possible and use strategies that were effective in the past. finally, half of the sample reported that they change their initial decision when new elements emerge. one-way analysis of variance (anova) with medical specialty as an independent variable was carried out using the closed questions in the first part of the questionnaire (table 2, items 1 and 3-7). we detected significant differences among the categories of physicians for item 5 (f(2.53) = 3.79, p < .05, η2 = .18). bonferroni’s post-hoc test (p < .05) showed that decisions related to oneself were more relevant to er physicians than to surgeons. although the differences among specialty groups did not reach statistical significance, it is worth noting that according to these self-reported data, the greatest number of decisions are made in ers, especially compared to the average number of decisions reported by internists. direct responsibility for decisions did not differ among the three specialist groups. the data indicated the same trend for er physicians and internists, who reported a greater number of decisions with direct responsibility than surgeons. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 695 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 responses to questions in the first part of the questionnaire according to specialty ptotal sample specialty categoryitem – focus of the question internal medicinesurgeryemergency 31.5 (28.5)23 (4.4)40.4 (7.3)item 1 average number of decisions [m (sd)] .147.0% (7.6)31 item 3 decisions with direct responsibility .289.2%69.0%75.4%59.2%73 item 4 reversible decisions .628.3%56.5%58.4%56.1%54 item 5 decisions related to oneself .041.9%38.1%41.2%24.4%51 item 6 decisions that require a lot of time .594.4%23.0%25.1%21.9%23 item 7 decisions followed by regret .193.0%13.3%11.8%15.8%11 item 2 typical decision (frequency) .003 11128admittance/ discharge 151050therapy 8143surgery or invasive tests 20677diagnosis item 8a context (frequency) .102 17485urgency 201064routine 9333management and organizational problems 8116confusion item 8b first thought (frequency) .980 21777not to cause harm 11434focus on patient 21786ask oneself questions/ reflect item 8c feelings (frequency) .411 11632calm 20677stressed 15564concentrated/ totally absorbed 8125other item 8d what one does to reach a decision (frequency) .388 17647investigate alternatives/ consultation 20857strategy 12462accumulated knowhow 5032instinct item 8e decide alone/ with help (frequency) .218 16736alone 16286with others 22976it depends/if i can item 8f experiment with solutions (frequency) .366 319139effective in the past 4202i experiment 7421it depends 12336both europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 696 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ptotal sample specialty categoryitem – focus of the question internal medicinesurgeryemergency item 8g adhere to decisions made (frequency) .046 16277i adhere to my decisions 271467i change decisions in progress 4013i change after reflection 7241it depends the distributions of the categorized responses to the open questions were analyzed with contingency tables and the relative χ2 test (table 2, items 2 and 8a-g). there were significant differences in the types of decisions made by the specialists (χ2(6; n = 54) = 19.66, p < .005) based on the item “describe three typical decisions of your working day.” more specifically, er physicians reported that they more frequently had to make decisions about patient admission or discharge, whereas internists stated that they made more decisions about therapy. responses to item 8g (“once you have made a decision, do you adhere to that decision or do you change it? on what basis of thought process/observations do you change or not change your decision?”) were differently distributed among the specialty groups (χ2(6, n = 54) = 12.81; p < .05); internists reported that they changed decisions more frequently than did the other two specialty groups. one-way anova including the level of expertise as an independent variable was carried out using the closed questions in the first part of the questionnaire (table 3, items 1 and 3-7). results suggested that younger physicians make a greater number of decisions than older practitioners (f(2.53) = 2.98, p < .05, η2 = .17). although the differences among expertise groups did not reach statistical significance, younger physicians tended to make fewer decisions with direct responsibility than members of the other two groups. table 3 responses to questions in the first part of the questionnaire, according to level of expertise p level of expertise categoryitem – focus of the question highmediumlow 23.7 (6.1)30.3 (6.4)38.5 (6.8)item 1 average number of decisions [m (sd)] .049 item 3 decisions with direct responsibility .190.9%73.9%73.4%62 57.0%item 4 reversible decisions .546.9%53.6%58 42.0%item 5 decisions related to oneself .245.5%35.3%38 item 6 decisions that require a lot of time .764.9%23.2%22.7%23 item 7 decisions followed by regret .354.4%15.1%11.3%12 item 2 typical decision (frequency) .211 146admittance/ discharge 843therapy 413surgery or invasive tests 5510diagnosis europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 697 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p level of expertise categoryitem – focus of the question highmediumlow item 8a context (frequency) .097 548urgency 1154routine 234management and organizational problems 026confusion item 8b first thought (frequency) .982 759not to cause harm 335focus on patient 858ask oneself questions/ reflect item 8c feelings (frequency) .306 722calm 668stressed 447concentrated/ totally absorbed 125other item 8d what one does to reach a decision (frequency) .278 386investigate alternatives/ consultation 938strategy 525accumulated knowhow 113instinct item 8e decide alone/ with help (frequency) .865 637alone 457with others 868it depends/if i can item 8f experiment with solutions (frequency) .848 10912effective in the past 202i experiment 313it depends 345both item 8g adhere to decisions made (frequency) .150 439i adhere to my decisions 12510i change my decision in progress 022i change after reflection 241it depends the distributions of the categorized responses to the open questions were analyzed with contingency tables and the relative χ2 test (table 3, items 2 and 8a-g). no significant differences were detected. part 2 of the questionnaire: metacognitive knowledge about the characteristics of the “good decision-maker” data from the entire sample (table 4) highlighted the image of the “good decision-maker” as a person with experience and competence (57%). respondents also thought that a good decision-maker was a person who may feel regret (94.5%); self-criticism was considered an important quality that stimulates metacognition and aids learning (43%). in 90.7% of responses, being a good decision-maker was considered to arise from interactions between innate and learned skills. respondents reported that physicians can become good decision-makers through experience (47%) and consultation with others (30%) and can help others to be good decision-makers by setting a europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 698 http://www.psychopen.eu/ good example (52%) and promoting metacognition and self-esteem (34%). decisions made after careful thought were considered to be of higher quality (74%), and political figures and people from the past were given as examples of good decision-makers (35%). table 4 responses to questions in the second part of the questionnaire, according to specialty. ptotal sample specialty categoryitem – focus of the question internal medicinesurgeryemergency item 9 traits of a good decision-maker (frequency) .201 3191111experience/competence 11254intuition/strength of character 11722intelligence/ metacognitive skills item 10 a good decision-maker feels regret .250.5%94.5%94.0%100.9%88 item 10bis feels regret because (frequency) .856 12534one can make mistakes 13454one can learn from one’s mistakes 19847self-criticism item 11 the best decisions require careful thought .160.0%74.9%88.6%66.6%66 item 12 the ability of being a good decision-maker is (frequency) .551 3021innate 2101learned 49171616both item 13 how one can become a good decision-maker (frequency) .484 236107experience 15735training/teachers 11335increasing one’s metacognitive awareness item 14 how one can help others become good decision-makers (frequency) .790 11425giving advice 17575developing self-esteem/ metacognition 21777setting an example item 15 examples of a good decision-maker (frequency) .768 9333colleagues/superiors 9243family members/friends 6222current politicians 15276historical figures 3201fantasy/mythological figures one-way anova was conducted for closed questions (table 4, items 9 and 10bis), and the distributions of categorized responses to the open questions were analyzed with contingency tables and the relative χ2 test (table 4, items 9, 10bis, and 12-15). these analyses uncovered no significance differences. however, er physicians and surgeons tended to value experience as the major characteristic of a good decision-maker, whereas internists placed greater importance on intelligence and metacognitive skills. additionally, the entire group of surgeons (100%) considered regret to be a fundamental characteristic of a good decision-maker; fewer er physicians (88.9%) expressed this opinion. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 699 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one-way anova was conducted for closed questions (table 5, items 9 and 10bis) to explore the perceived effect of expertise on decision making. the differences among expertise groups were not significant for either item. our data indicated that all physicians with the highest level of expertise considered the ability to feel regret as fundamental for being a good decision-maker, whereas 90.0% of physicians with low and medium levels of expertise valued regret as a feature of the good decision-maker. fewer respondents with a medium level of expertise believed that the best decisions require careful thought (64.3%) versus physicians with a high level of expertise (83.3%). table 5 responses to questions in the second part of the questionnaire, grouped by level of expertise. p level of expertise categoryitem – focus of the question highmediumlow item 9 traits of a good decision-maker (frequency) .090 11713experience/competence 236intuition/strength of character 533intelligence/ metacognitive skills item 10 a good decision-maker feels regret .379.0%100.8%92.9%90 item 10bis feels regret because (frequency) .570 534one can make mistakes 418one can learn from one’s mistakes 658self-criticism item 11 the best decisions require careful thought .150.3%83.3%64.6%72 item 12 the ability of being a good decision-maker is (frequency) .702 102innate 101learned 161419both item 13 how one can become a good decision-maker (frequency) .554 779experience 339training/teachers 443increasing one’s metacognitive awareness item 14 how one can help others become good decision-makers (frequency) .080 317giving advice 359developing self-esteem/ metacognition 1056being of example item 15 examples of a good decision-maker (frequency) .908 324colleagues/superiors 414family members/friends 222current politicians 555historical figures 201fantasy/mythological figures χ2 values were calculated for the distributions of the categorized responses for each open question in terms of expertise (table 5, items 9, 10bis, and 12-15). two non-significant trends emerged. regarding the ways in which one can help a person become a good decision-maker, physicians with higher levels of expertise mainly opted for “setting an example,” whereas physicians with low levels of expertise preferred reflection and support over europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 700 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-esteem (p = .08). last, physicians with high and low levels of expertise more often attributed experience and competence to being a good decision-maker as compared to physicians with medium level of expertise (p = .09). discussion and conclusions the results of the current study highlight several interesting aspects of the metacognition of decision making by physicians. for example, the types of decisions made in the various medical departments were different. whereas er physicians reported that they more often make decisions about patient discharge and admission, internists reported that they are more involved with decisions related to therapy. this result is plausible because er physicians must deal with a large number of acute patients, whereas internists are required to identify a therapy after diagnosis. the present study underscores that physicians in the er generally make decisions about themselves more often than internists and surgeons do. this result may be better understood in light of the peculiar characteristics of ers, where physicians are more often called upon to reflect on and continuously review their conduct (antonietti, andolfi, & colombo, 2014). a further difference between the er and internal medicine lies in the number of decisions that are changed over time. the predominance of strategic changes following the availability of new data in internal medicine appears understandable due to the more routine structure in which internists operate, which consequently gives them more time to review their position. participants reported that most decisions are generally made quickly; few are followed by regret. in all specialties, nearly half of respondents in the present investigation said that the possibility of feeling regret is a significant characteristic of a good decision-maker, likely motivated by the conviction that a careful critical analysis of the decision can lead to an improvement of one’s metacognition skills and therefore in the quality of one’s decisions (riva, monti, iannello, & antonietti, 2012). the impossibility of concealing surgical errors and the practitioners’ years of experience may explain why the entire sample of physicians with high levels of expertise deemed fundamental the ability to feel regret (murphy, stee, & mcevoy, 2007). in line with the literature on anticipated regret (zeelenberg, 1999), our respondents indicated that the more difficult a decision (in medical decision making, this difficulty could be due to uncertainty about the risks and outcomes of each option), the more likely it is that individuals consider regret to be an integral part of the decision making process. results from the present study suggest that physicians not only take regret into account when deciding, but consider the emotional experience of regret as a fundamental feature of a good decision-maker. it is likely that both the anticipation and the postdecisional experience of regret may induce decision-makers to make better choices; regret causes them to think and reflect accurately during each step of the decision making process. as a form of reflection and a balance of costs/benefits, metacognition seems to be an appropriate approach modality to decision making by physicians. the importance of metacognition is confirmed by our observation that younger physicians in particular consider it fundamental to stimulate self-esteem and professional skills in order to become good decision-makers. in contrast to the assumptions of normative decision making models in which the decision-maker should rationally analyze all pieces of information available at that moment, this study showed that decisions are often based on acquired knowledge and on strategies that were effective in the past, irrespective of possible mismatches between the current situation and previous ones (riva, monti, & antonietti, 2011). here, experience accumulated over time europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 701 http://www.psychopen.eu/ seems to play a central role in the decision making process; it was highlighted as one of the most important characteristics that a good decision-maker should have (riva et al., 2014). the present work is a pilot study, and our findings require further investigation. the major limitation of this study is the sample size, which is relatively small to support broad generalizations. however, we hope that the present research will contribute to an interesting topic that is not yet well described in the literature. we anticipate that these data will be useful for establishing a tentative instrument for physicians to increase their metacognitive awareness in decision making. in conclusion, based on these self-reported data, we conclude that physicians are aware that they are acting and operating within a context of uncertainty, with a high risk of error. overall, the current results indicate a certain sensitivity to the attitude of reflection, which respondents deemed useful and effective for providing support to physicians during the decision making process. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allnutt, m. f. 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(1999). anticipated regret, expected feedback and behavioral decision making. journal of behavioral decision making, 12, 93-106. doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-0771(199906)12:2<93::aid-bdm311>3.0.co;2-s appendix: solomon questionnaire part a: “you as a decision-maker” a1. descriptive-behavioral section 1. how many decisions connected with your occupation do you make during a day on average? ……… 2. describe briefly three typical decisions you make in your working day: i: …………………………………………………. ii: …………………………………………………. iii: …………………………………………………. 3. think about the decisions you make at work in a day: decisions are you the only and direct person responsible for: how many? .....% decisions you share with others the responsibility and the consequences of: how many? .....% europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 703 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1365-2753.2011.01771.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1365-2753.2012.01900.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1378%2fchest.06-2420 http://dx.doi.org/10.1197%2fj.aem.2005.07.028 http://dx.doi.org/10.2147%2famep.s13004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0048297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0090941 http://dx.doi.org/10.4135%2f9781446279212 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2f%28sici%291099-0771%28199906%2912%3a2%3c93%3a%3aaid-bdm311%3e3.0.co%3b2-s http://www.psychopen.eu/ 4. some decisions could be defined as “reversible” since, once you become aware of their ineffectiveness and inappropriateness, you can modify them, partly or entirely; on the contrary, as for other decisions, which can be defined as “irreversible”, once you take them, you can not change them. think about the decisions you make at work during a day: how many of them are reversible? .....% how many of them are irreversible? .....% 5. think about the decisions you make at work: how many of them concern exclusively or mainly yourself? ....% how many of them concern also other people? ....% 6. thinking about the time you spend in making decisions at work: how many of them take a lot of time to be made? ....% how many of them are made quickly and immediately? ....% a2. procedural-emotional section 7. thinking about the decisions you make during your working day: how many times do you regret your decisions? ....% how many times don’t you regret your decisions? ....% 8. keep on thinking about your working day. identify a typical situation, or at least a situation that you often experience, in which making a decision is really demanding and difficult. 8a. describe the general situation, that is, the context in which you are requested to make this specific decision ……………………………………………………… 8b. which is your first thought? ……………………………………………………… 8c. how do you feel when you make this kind of decision? ……………………………………………………… 8d. what do you do to make this decision? ……………………………………………………… 8e. do you face the situation by yourself or do you ask others for help/advice? ……………………………………………………… 8f. do you basically employ solutions that turned out to be effective in the past, or do you tend to try out new solutions? ……………………………………………………… 8g. once you have made the decision, do you follow it, or do you modify it (entirely or partly)? on the basis of which thoughts/reflections do you modify /don’t modify your decision? ……………………………………………………… part b: “the good decision-maker in general” 9. in your opinion, which peculiarities characterize those people who are effective in taking their decisions? …………………………………………………………………… europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 704 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 10. a good decision maker is someone who never regret his/her decision? _ yes _ no why ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 11. best decisions are: _ intuitive _ analytical 12. according to your opinion, the competence of being “a good decision maker” is: _ innate _ learned _ partly innate, partly learned 13. if you believe that the competence of making good decisions can be learned or improved, how do you think a person can become a good decision maker? ……………………………………………………… 14. how can you help someone to make good decisions? ……………………………………………………… 15. which could be a proper example of a “good decision maker”? (you can mention historical or mythological characters, well-known people, but also colleagues, relatives or friends) ……………………………………………………… about the authors paola iannello, phd, is researcher in cognitive psychology and member of the research unit on “decision-making processes in emergency medicine” at the catholic university of the sacred heart. her research interests mainly concern medical and economic decision making and, specifically, how individual differences in personality affect decision-making processes. valeria perucca, an anthropologist and a clinical psychologist: she is cooperating with the catholic university of the sacred heart in a research project on decisional process in health and with the academy of emergency medicine and care on the doctors’ and patients’ medical and anthropological aspects. alessandro antonietti is full professor of cognitive psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart in milan, italy. he is the director of the research center for vocational psychology and career guidance and of the learning and educational psychology service. his interests concern learning, reasoning, decision making and creativity. silvia riva is a post-doc researcher at the university of milan. she studies the cognitive mechanisms underlying judgments and decisions and how they are influenced by the characteristics of the environment and the skills of the decision maker. her research is mainly focus on medical decision making europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 iannello, perucca, riva et al. 705 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gabriella pravettoni is full professor of psychology of decision making – dipo (department of oncology and hemato – oncology), university of milan, director of the applied research division for cognitive and psychological science at ieo – milan, coordinator of doctorate folsatec (foundations of the life sciences and their ethical consequences) – at semm (european school of molecular medicine), milan. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 691–706 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.979 a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context 706 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en a pilot study on metacognitive knowledge in the medical context introduction aims methods ethics statements participants materials categorization of responses to open questions results part 1 of the questionnaire: metacognitive knowledge about the personal way of making decisions part 2 of the questionnaire: metacognitive knowledge about the characteristics of the “good decision-maker” discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: solomon questionnaire part a: “you as a decision-maker” part b: “the good decision-maker in general” about the authors the mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf) in the argentinean context: confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance research reports the mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf) in the argentinean context: confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance maría laura lupano perugini* a, guadalupe de la iglesia a, alejandro castro solano a, corey lee m. keyes b [a] national scientific and technical research council (conicet), palermo university, buenos aires, argentina. [b] emory university, atlanta, ga, usa. abstract the present research aimed at studying the psychometric properties of the mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf; keyes, 2005) in a sample of 1,300 argentinean adults (50% males; 50% females). their mean age was 40.28 years old (sd = 13.59). the mhc–sf is a 14 item test that assesses three components (i.e., emotional, social, and psychological) of well-being. convergent and divergent evidence of construct validity was assessed by conducting confirmatory factor analysis, cross-validation, factorial invariance, and correlations with external criteria. internal consistency was studied using cronbach’s alphas. results indicated an adequate fit of a three-dimensional model. this structure was also confirmed, and was invariant throughout sex and age. the emotional well-being scores converged with life satisfaction and positive affect measures; the psychological well-being scale had a positive association with the presence of meaning in life; and the social well-being scores showed a positive and strong correlation with an external measure of well-being. also, all scores were negatively associated with negative affect, search of meaning in life, and presence of depression symptoms. internal consistency was .89 for the mhc–sf. furthermore, the findings supported the two continua model of mental health. keywords: mhc-sf, mental health, argentinean adaptation, construct validity europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 received: 2016-03-31. accepted: 2016-11-02. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: odin van der stelt, ejop senior editor, the netherlands *corresponding author at: national scientific and technical research council (conicet), mario bravo 1259 (cp: c1175abw), buenos aires, argentina. tel: 054-11-51994500 (1311). e-mail: mllupano@hotmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. setting the ground for possible cross-cultural comparisons, the importance of measuring mental health and well-being in latin america is highlighted. until now, research that has focused on studying mental health or well-being in latin america—using valid and reliable versions of internationally well-known instruments—has been scarce. for example, some data has been obtained through surveys, such as those conducted by tns gallup in argentina. a report published in 2011 showed that 8 out of 10 individuals claimed to be happy. in detail, younger people, women, and people who were in a relationship reported being the happiest groups (tns gallup, 2011). castro solano (2014) reviewed studies conducted in latin american countries that centered on well-being, and found that three countries—mexico, argentina, and peru—produced most of the research on this construct. furthermore, as michaelson and colleagues have mentioned, there are other benefits of measuring population well-being, such as it allows one to assess change over time; to review and evaluate policy decisions, assess europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ subgroup differences, identify future areas of need or opportunity, evaluate the potential impact of policy proposals, shape the content and delivery of policy, and inform targets of new policies according to population subgroups (michaelson, abdallah, steuer, thompson, & marks, 2009). traditionally, mental health has been characterized as the absence of psychological illness. however, it is clear that the absence of psychopathology does not imply the presence of mental health. the world health organization (who), since its inception, has defined mental health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being, and not as merely the absence of disease (who, 1948, 2008). from a psychological perspective, mental health has been operationalized as psychological well-being, which has given rise to two traditions of study: hedonic and eudaimonic. the hedonic conceptualization involves the study of happiness that focuses on positive emotions and life satisfaction (diener, 2000; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985; pavot & diener, 2008). research in this field has demonstrated that a happy person lives longer, has better physical health, acquires more fulfilling jobs, and establishes good-quality personal relationships (diener & biswas-diener, 2008). moreover, positive emotions play an important role in physical health, social commitment, and success. conversely, the eudaimonic approach retrieves concepts from the greek tradition, understanding well-being as the result of virtuous activities and the meaning given to life. toward the end of the 1980s, researchers on well-being, such as carol ryff, mentioned that happiness was more related to positive relationships as well as sense of purpose and meaning in life than to the experience of mere positive emotions. from this point of view, well-being means functioning well in life. thus, eudaimonic happiness is related to personal growth and fulfillment at an individual level, and associated with commitment to goals and shared values at a societal level (massimini & delle fave, 2000; ryff, 1989). the eudaimonic perspective of well-being integrates ryff’s theory of psychological well-being (ryff, 1989), antonovsky’s construct of sense of coherence (antonovsky, 1988), the self-determination theory (ryan & deci, 2000, 2001), the concept of optimal selection (csikszentmihalyi & massimini, 1985), and keyes’ social well-being construct (keyes, 1998), among others. whereas the hedonic and eudaimonic traditions in the study of well-being have remained separated, recently, the unilateral approach to the study of well-being has been the subject of intense debates (henderson & knight, 2012; kashdan, biswas-diener, & king, 2008; waterman, 2008). keyes (2002, 2005, 2007) tried to unify the study of hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives through the concept of flourishing, developing a specific instrument, the mental health continuum (mhc), that comprehensively assesses the degree of positive mental health across the dimensions of emotional, social, and psychological well-being (castro solano, 2014). in line with the who definition of mental health, for this model, positive mental health is not simply the absence of mental disorders, but the presence of positive qualities; that is, high levels of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. emotional well-being involves the presence of positive emotions and satisfaction with life (diener, suh, lucas, & smith, 1999). psychological well-being comprises aspects of individuals’ psychological functioning (e.g., autonomy and a sense of personal growth; ryff, 1989). social well-being indicates how well an individual functions in their social life as a member of a larger society (e.g., social integration and social contribution; keyes, 1998). keyes (2005, 2013) proposed a two continua model, and holds that mental illness and mental health are distinct, but related, dimensions. this mental health continuum consists of three levels of positive mental health: flourishing, moderate, and languishing mental health. individuals with flourishing mental health are high in hedonic and positive functioning. by contrast, individuals with languishing mental health report both low hedonic and positive functioning. in sum, languishing is the absence of mental health. languishing individuals the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 94 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ are those who are stuck in life, feel empty, and lack interest and engagement. individuals who are neither flourishing nor languishing are considered to have moderate mental health. regarding the importance of measuring population well-being, epidemiological studies using reports of flourishing—such as the mhc–sf—have shown that it is associated with superior physical, psychological, and psychosocial functioning (keyes, 2005). by contrast, it was found that languishing is related to poor emotional health, frequent limitations of daily living, and more missed days of work (keyes, 2002). given that many countries have adapted the mhc–sf, there is a considerable volume of evidence to support its utility, validity, and reliability. for example, factor analyses has confirmed the mhc–sf’s three-factor structure of emotional, psychological, and social well-being—found in earlier studies in the united states—in samples from south korea (lim, 2014), italy (petrillo, capone, caso, & keyes, 2015), poland (karaś, cieciuch, & keyes, 2014), south africa (keyes, wissing, potgieter, temane, kruger, & van rooy, 2008), and france (salama-younes & ismaïl, 2011). additionally, joshanloo and colleagues investigated the factorial structure and invariance of the mhc–sf across cultural groups from three nations—the netherlands, south africa, and iran —and the three dimensional structure was supported in all three groups (joshanloo, wissing, khumalo, & lamers, 2013). furthermore, the mhc–sf has shown excellent internal consistency and criterion validity in adolescents and adults across different countries, including the united states, the netherlands, egypt, italy, and south africa, among other countries (keyes, 2006; keyes & grzywacz, 2005; keyes et al., 2008; lamers, westerhof, bohlmeijer, ten klooster, & keyes, 2011; petrillo et al., 2015; salama-younes & ismaïl, 2011). petrillo et al. (2015) found that all the subscales of the mhc, on the one hand, have positively correlated with the corresponding aspects of functioning and well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life, positive emotions), showing convergent validity. on the other hand, the mhc’s subscales have negatively and moderately correlated with measures of mental illness (e.g., general health questionnaire 12 –ghq–), indicating divergent validity. in addition, lamers and colleagues reported test-retest reliability of the mhc–sf at four-time points over nine months, in a dutch sample, using item response theory (lamers et al., 2011). similar results were found by petrillo et al. (2015), who reported moderate test reliability. using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, most of the studies mentioned above have supported the two continua model of mental health (e.g., lim, 2014; karaś et al., 2014; keyes, 2005; keyes et al., 2008; petrillo et al., 2015). the model with two distinct, but correlated (oblique), factors demonstrated a better set of fit coefficients than did other models (e.g., models with a single factor or two orthogonal factors). these findings confirm that mental health and mental illness are not the ends of one bipolar continuum, but two distinct and related dimensions. based on the aforementioned reasoning, the present research aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of the mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf; keyes, 2005) in a sample of argentinean adults. both validity and reliability evidence were studied using a series of diverse statistical analyses, such as confirmatory factor analysis, cross-validation, factorial invariance, correlations with external criteria to assess convergent and divergent aspects, and internal consistency using cronbach’s alphas. also, this study aimed to obtain evidence for the two-continua model. lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano et al. 95 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants a convenience sample of 1,300 argentinean adults from the general population was studied. they were proportionally distributed by sex: 650 males (50%) and 650 females (50%). the mean age was 40.28 years old (sd = 13.59). the majority of the participants (83.5%; n = 1,088) lived in buenos aires, 3.9% (n = 51) lived in other provinces of argentina, and only 3.5% (n = 46) reported living abroad temporarily. the remaining percentage (8.8%, n = 115) did not provide information regarding their residence. regarding their education, 80.2% (n = 1,043) achieved higher educational degrees, such as college or postgraduate studies. the remaining 19.8% (n = 257) received at least an elementary and/or middle school education. concerning their occupation, 57% (n = 741) reported being employed; 17.1% (n = 223) were self-employed; 9.7% (n = 127) were managers or employers; 3.8% (n = 49) were housekeepers or non-paid workers; and the remaining 12.1% (n = 157) were unemployed or did not work. only 0.3% of the sample (n = 3) did not give any data regarding their occupation. when asked about their socioeconomic status, the highest percentage (73.1%, n = 951) described itself as belonging to the middle class, 16.6% (n = 216) to high or middle-high class, 10.2% (n = 132) to middlelow or lower class, and 0.1% (n = 1) did not provide any data. materials mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf) the original 14-item mental health continuum–short form (mhc–sf; keyes, 2005) was developed by keyes in response to demands for a brief self-rating assessment tool that combined the three components of wellbeing: emotional, social, and psychological. the emotional well-being subscale –ewb– (three items) is defined in terms of positive affect/ satisfaction with life. social well-being –swb– is assessed with five items that represent each aspect of the model described by keyes (1998): social contribution, social integration, social actualization, social acceptance, and social coherence. finally, six items represent each of the dimensions of psychological well-being –pwb– as described in ryff’s model (ryff, 1989): self-acceptance, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, personal growth, autonomy, and purpose in life. participants were required to respond to items on a 6-point likert-type scale based on the experiences they had had over the last month (never, once or twice, about once a week, 2 or 3 times a week, almost every day, or every day). this response option was selected to provide a clear standard of mental health assessment and a categorization similar to the method used by the dsm (american psychiatric association, 2002, 2013) to assess a major depressive episode (see the results section for psychometric properties). satisfaction with life scale (swls) the satisfaction with life scale (swls; diener et al., 1985; pavot & diener, 1993) was developed to obtain a measure of an individual’s general satisfaction with life. evaluation of quality of life—according to selfperception—is measured on a cognitive–judgmental level. it comprises five items that are judged using a 7point likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). cronbach’s alpha coefficient from the sample of this study was .87. positive and negative affect scale (panas) the positive and negative affect scale (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) was selected to measure positive (pa) and negative (na) affect. pa reflects the extent to which a person feels enthusiastic and active, the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 96 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ whereas na refers to being alert, or to being sad, anxious, and depressed. both dimensions are assessed by 14 descriptors each (a total of 28 items). responses were given in a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (low frequency) to 5 (high frequency). in this research, cronbach’s alpha for pa was .76 and for na was .85. meaning in life questionnaire (mlq) the meaning in life questionnaire (mlq; steger, frazier, oishi, & kaler, 2006; argentinian adaptation: góngora & castro solano, 2011) is an instrument to measure the presence of meaning in life. it refers to the extent to which people comprehend, make sense of, or see significance in their lives, accompanied by the degree to which they perceive themselves as having a purpose or mission in life. the adapted scale has two dimensions, presence of and search for, depending on whether people have goals and a purpose in life, or whether they believe they have to search for them. it comprises 10 items that are responded to on a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (absolutely false) to 7 (absolutely true). the analysis of the adapted version has demonstrated adequate psychometric properties, such as reliability and convergent and divergent validity. in this study, cronbach’s alpha for presence was .88, and for search was .87. well-being index (wbi) the well-being index (wbi; cummins et al., 2001; translation: tonon, 2012) contains 12 items of satisfaction that are answered on a 10-point likert-type scale, where 1 = completely unsatisfied and 10 = completely satisfied. each item corresponds to a quality of life domain, such as standard of living, health, achievement in life, relationships, safety, community connectedness, and future security. these domains are theoretically embedded as representing the first-level deconstruction of the global question: ‘how satisfied are you with your life as a whole? this measure not only includes subjective well-being, but also aspects of social life. cronbach’s alpha for the total score was .88. self-report depression scale for research in the general population (ces-d) the self-report depression scale for research in the general population (ces-d; radloff, 1977) is a short self-report scale designed to measure depressive symptomatology in the general population. the items of the scale are symptoms associated with depression that have been used in previously validated and longer scales. participants are asked to rate on a 20-item scale how often, over the past week, they experienced symptoms associated with depression, such as restless sleep, poor appetite, and feeling lonely. response options range from 0 to 3 for each item (0 = less than 1 day, 1 = 1–2 days, 2 = 3–4 days, 3 = 5–7 days). for the present study, cronbach’s alpha reliability was .87. symptom checklist-90-revised (scl-90-r) the symptom checklist-90-revised (scl-90-r; derogatis, 1977; argentinian adaptation: sanchez & ledesma, 2009) is a 90-item checklist used to measure the nine sets of psychological symptoms: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. the scl-90-r also contains a global severity index (gsi), which is used to estimate the “general psychiatric status” of a patient. the scl-90-r uses a 5-point scale (1 = no problem to 5 = very serious) to measure the extent to which they have experienced the listed symptoms in the last 7 days. studies with the argentinean adaptation of the checklist showed an adequate internal consistency for all of the scales (all alpha > .75) and also replicated the original factorial structure (e.g., sanchez & ledesma, 2009). cronbach’s alpha coefficient from the sample of this study was .97. lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano et al. 97 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure regarding sampling method, it was a non-randomized sample. all participants were volunteers, and no incentives were provided for participation. written informed consent was obtained before participation. questionnaires were administered by psychology students from a university located in the city of buenos aires as part of their professional practices in research program. a senior researcher supervised their work. the method used for translation of the mhc–sf was forward translation. two researchers were involved in the translation process. both have a ph.d. in psychology and a good command of the english language. they translated the mhc–sf independently and without any discussion. as judged by the translators, both versions did not differ noticeably. afterwards, adjustments were conducted to ensure understandability, psychological equivalence, and the accuracy of the translation from english to spanish. data were analyzed with spss 17.0 and eqs 6.2. results descriptive statistics first, univariate statistics were calculated for each item (table 1). most means had values around 3.5. skewness and kurtosis values indicated univariate normal distribution for all items. however, a normalized estimate of mardia’s coefficient of 51.20 indicated a non-normal multivariate distribution. table 1 mhc. descriptive univariate statistics. item m sd skewness kurtosis item 1 3.51 1.05 -0.77 0.55 item 2 3.93 1.11 -1.14 1.09 item 3 3.51 1.13 -0.82 0.50 item 4 2.68 1.54 -0.28 -0.95 item 5 2.69 1.69 -0.28 -1.16 item 6 1.49 1.50 0.64 -0.73 item 7 2.54 1.34 -0.20 -0.74 item 8 1.45 1.39 0.58 -0.76 item 9 2.89 1.35 -0.50 -0.40 item 10 3.59 1.15 -0.91 0.71 item 11 3.75 1.11 -0.99 1.74 item 12 3.47 1.37 -0.81 -0.09 item 13 3.70 1.17 -0.91 0.52 item 14 3.67 1.31 -0.98 0.34 confirmatory factor analysis confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was run to ascertain the factor structure of the mhc–sf. due to the categorical nature of the items (likert-type scale), the estimation method used was robust maximum likelihood (ml), using the polychoric matrix. to assess model fit, different indexes of fit obtained by the robust method were examined: satorra-bentler, df, nfi (normed-of-fit index), cfi (comparative fit index), ifi (incremental fit the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 98 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ index), and rmsea (root mean square error of approximation). different models were tested: (i) a single factor model with a unique measure of mental health, (ii) a two factor model were one latent dimension represented hedonic aspects of well-being –ewb– and the other dimension the eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing –both swb and pwb–), (iii) a three factor with independent measures for ewb, pwb, and swb as proposed by keyes (2002, 2005), and (iv) a second order model were the three first order dimensions proposed by keyes load in a general factor of mental health. table 2 shows that the three-factor structure is the bestfitting model and it replicates the proposed latent structure of subjective well-being (see also figure 1). table 2 confirmatory factor models of theories of the latent structure of the mhc–sf items model satorra-bentler df ifi nfi cfi rmsea (ic 90%) single factor 1678.5484 76 .918 .914 .918 .127 (.122 .133) two factor 1217.7772 74 .941 .938 .942 .109 (.104 .114) three factor 372.0408 71 .977 .973 .977 .065 (.059 .070) second order (three factor) 573.8704 67 .974 .971 .974 .076 (.071 .082) figure 1. confirmatory factor analysis of the mhc-sf (three factor model). cross-validation next, cross-validation analyses were conducted to test whether the three factor model fit prevailed in samples differentiated by sex and age. the sample was first divided in two: females (n = 650) and males (n = 650). as lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano et al. 99 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ presented in table 3, model fit indices showed excellent fit in both samples. then, the main sample was divided into two age groups: the first sample consisted of individuals between 18 and 40 years old (n = 678), and the second group consisted of those whose ages ranged from 41 to 86 years (n = 622). again, model fit was assessed using the robust method for ml. indices of fit showed the appropriateness of the measurement model (table 3). table 3 cross-validation: model fit by sex and age. sample cfi nfi ifi rmsea (ic 90%) sex males .979 .971 .979 .064 (.056 .072) females .975 .966 .975 .064 (.056 .072) age 18 to 40 years old .976 .967 .976 .064 (.056 .072) 41 to 86 years old .977 .969 .977 .067 (.058 .075) factorial invariance additionally, hierarchical models with constraints were studied in order to analyse factorial invariance. this was done twice: first, to test invariance between the female and male samples, and second, to test invariance between younger and older adults (18 to 40 years old vs. 41 to 86 years old). initially, model fit was tested without constraints (model 1) for both male and female samples. both cfi and rmsea values were adequate (see table 4). a second model (model 2) imposed constraints in all factor loadings. again, the model’s estimates fit the data at an acceptable level. the third and last model tested (model 3) also imposed constraints in covariances. data provided an adequate fit for this model. table 4 mhc-sf. factorial invariance across sex (males vs. females). model satorrabentler df cfi rmsea (ic90%) model comparison δ s-b δ df p δ cfi model 1 no constraints 541.8734 148 .977 .064 (.058 .070) model 2 factor loadings constrained 563.2271 159 .976 .063 (.057 .068) 2 vs 1 16.27 11 .131 .001 model 3 factor loadings and covariances constrained 567.5102 162 .976 .062 (.057 .068) 3 vs 1 20.55 14 .113 0 table 4 also shows values for model comparison. neither the difference in the satorra-bentler scaled statistic (δs-b) corresponding to the comparison of model 1 versus model 2, nor the one for the stricter model (model 3) that also imposed constraints in covariances, showed a significant change in the s-b scaled statistic (p > .05). moreover, the delta cfi indicated no change in fit (invariance) among the studied models. the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 100 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when testing for factorial invariances in age-compared groups, the same procedures were run. first, a model with no constraints was tested (model 1), then factor loadings were imposed (model 2), and finally, covariances were constrained (model 3). cfi and rmsea values were adequate in all models. model comparison showed no statistically significant difference in the satorra-bentler scaled statistic between model 1 and 2, nor between model 1 and model 3. no changes were found in the cfi, either (table 5). table 5 mhc-sf. factorial invariance across two age groups (18to 40-yrs vs. 41to 86-yrs). model satorrabentler df cfi rmsea (ic90%) model comparison δ s-b δ df p δ cfi model 1 no constraints 556.3623 148 .976 .065 (.059 .071) model 2 factor loadings constrained 573.7543 159 .976 .063 (.058 .069) 2 vs 1 10.16 11 .515 0 model 3 factor loadings and covariances constrained 576.6922 162 .976 .063 (.057 .068) 3 vs 1 10.05 14 .757 0 internal consistency table 6 summarizes the descriptive and correlational statistics obtained on the total mhc–sf scale and its three subscales. the highest means were obtained for emotional and psychological well-being, whereas the lowest value was obtained for social well-being. these results are consistent with those found in previous research conducted in other countries (e.g., keyes et al., 2008; lamers et al., 2011). also, the ewb and pwb subscales have a stronger association with each other than they do with swb. table 6 descriptive statistics and correlations of the mhc–sf subscales and total mhc–sf score mhc–sf m sd correlations 1 2 3 4 1. emotional well-being (ewb) 3.65 .94 – 2. psychological well-being (pwb) 3.51 .94 .62** – 3. social well-being (swb) 2.17 1.08 .45** .51** – 4. total mhc–sf 3.06 .83 .73** .89** .84** – **p < .01. cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated to study internal consistency. the alpha coefficients for the mhc–sf scales were satisfactory. reliability values above .70 are referred to as acceptable, and above .80 as high (kline, 2000; nunnally & berstein, 1995). the total mhc–sf scale yielded a high internal consistency (alpha = .89). the pwb subscale had the next highest measure of internal consistency (alpha = .84), followed by the ewb subscale (alpha = .82), and finally, the swb subscale (alpha = 0.78). convergent and divergent validity three hypotheses were formulated according to keyes’ conceptualization (keyes, 2002). it was first hypothesized that the emotional well-being subscale (ewb) would positively correlate with measures of lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano et al. 101 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ positive affect and satisfaction with life. second, it was hypothesized that the psychological well-being subscale (pwb) would have a positive correlation with measures of positive functioning (e.g., tests to assess purpose in life). finally, it was postulated that the social well-being subscale (swb) would have a positive association with measures that suggest well-being in different aspects of social life. moreover, it was also hypothesized that the total score of the mhc–sf would negatively correlate with measures of mental illness and negative affect. in order to test these hypotheses, spearman’s correlations were calculated among the mhc–sf and different measures of well-being and functioning. the total score of the mhc–sf scale generally revealed a consistent pattern of correlations with the criterion measures. as expected, the ewb positively correlated with satisfaction with life (swls) and the panas pa scale. also, the pwb showed a positive association with the presence of meaning in life (mlq). finally, the swb subscale had a positive and strong correlation with the wbi score, which is mainly considered a measure of social well-being. furthermore, the mhc–sf total score and its subscales negatively correlated with the panas na, the search for meaning in life (mlq), and a measure of depression symptoms (ces-d). most of the correlations obtained had moderate (rs ≥ .30) to large (rs ≥ .50) effect sizes (cohen, 1992; see table 7). table 7 mhc-sf. bivariate correlations with validation measures validity measure emotional well-being (ewb) psychological well-being (pwb) social well-being (swb) total mhc–sf panas pa (positive affect) .47** .30** .43** .44** panas na (negative affect) -.31** -.21** -.31** -.33** swls .56** .54** .35** .54** presence of meaning in life (mlq) .48** .49** .23** .46** search for meaning in life (mlq) -.23** -.17** -.32** -.14** wbi .52** .39** .56** .55** ces-d -.49** -.38** -.19** -.37** **p < .01. evidence of two-continua model the two-continua model suggests that mental health and mental illness constitute two distinguishable but related factors and that they are not two sides of the same continuum. in order to obtain evidence for the twocontinua model, two factor analyses (exploratory and confirmatory) were performed using the mhc-sf and scl-90-r subscales, which assess psychopathological symptoms. firstly, for the exploratory factor analysis a forced two factor solution with varimax rotation was performed. it was expected that the subscales of scl-90-r (indicators of mental illness) would load in one factor and the subscales of mhc-sf (indicators of well-being) in another one. the results showed the anticipated two separated factors: one with high loadings of all of mhc-sf’s subscales and the other with high loadings of all of the scl-90-r’s subscales (bartlett’s sphericity test = 6491.44, p < .001, kmo index = .97). the explained variance for this solution was 71% (see table 8). the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 102 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 exploratory factor analysis with two factors: mental health and mental illness subscale factor 1 mental health (mhc) factor 2 mental illness (scl-90-r) social well-being (mhc) .83 emotional well-being (mhc) .79 psychological well-being (mhc) .79 psychoticism (scl) .89 anxiety (scl) .88 interpersonal sensitivity (scl) .83 depression (scl) .83 somatizations (scl) .82 paranoid ideation (scl) .80 phobic anxiety (scl) .79 obsessions and compulsions (scl) .77 hostility (scl) .76 next, three models were studied using confirmatory factor analysis. the first one included one single factor with all the subscales from scl-90-r and from mhc-sf. the second model proposed a structure of two orthogonal factors (first with the subscales from scl-90-r, as the indicators of mental illness and second one with the subscales from mhc-sf as the indicators of mental health). the third model represented the two-continua model of two separated but correlated factors. the two-continua model is the best-fitting data model to these data, suggesting that the correlated two-factor model was the most tenable model of the structure of mental health and illness. rmsea was right on the expected limits (kline, 2000) but lower than those obtained in the other models. the correlation between the latent factors of mental illness and mental health was -.50 which indicated, as expected, a moderate correlation of two aspects which are related but are not the same construct. these results confirm the two-continua model (see table 9). table 9 confirmatory factor models -verification of the structure of mental health and mental illness. model satorra-bentler df ifi nfi cfi rmsea (ic 90%) single factor 538.3717 53 .837 .822 .836 .113 (.105 .122) two orthogonal factor 368.4632 52 .894 .878 .893 .093 (.084 .101) two correlated factor 284.2207 51 .922 .906 .921 .080 (.071 .089) discussion the mental health continuum, or mhc, represents a clinical approach to the continuous assessment and categorical diagnosis of states of positive mental health (keyes, 1998, 2002; keyes et al., 2008). the short form of the mhc scale, consisting of 14 items, is one of the instruments to assess well-being most widely used lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano et al. 103 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ internationally. for this reason, the main objective of this study was to validate the mhc–sf within an argentinian population. the current findings confirm that the argentinian mhc–sf is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used for assessing well-being within the argentinean population. in this study, robust evidence of construct validity was found for a three-factor structure of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. the same structure was found in earlier studies in the united states, and more recently, in samples from south korea (lim, 2014), italy (petrillo et al., 2015), poland (karaś et al., 2014), south africa (keyes et al., 2008), and france (salama-younes & ismaïl, 2011), among others. although item 4 and 5 had lower factor loading in comparison with other items, they were retained to maintain the original number of items and desirable for each factor. considering the sample size used, some authors argue that .32 can be acceptable because it would be equivalent to approximately 10% of the variance explained (tabachnick & fidell, 2001). in this research, the model fits well not only in the main sample, but also in the crossvalidation study, indicating that the fit prevailed in the female and in the male sample. moreover, excellent fit was also found when the sample was split into a group of younger and older adults. additionally, several tests of factorial invariance performed in the mentioned samples showed that model fit was appropriate even when constraints in loadings and covariances were imposed. data supports the adequacy of the three-dimensional model of the mhc for argentinean adults, regardless of sex or age. furthermore, the mhc–sf has shown excellent internal consistency and criterion validity because it positively correlated with measures of well-being and was negatively associated with measures of mental illness. the data support the hypotheses on convergent and divergent validity. these results are consistent with the two continua model, which has proposed that mental illness and mental health are distinct, but related, dimensions (keyes, 2005). also, evidence for this model was obtained using a measure of psychopathological symptoms (scl-90-r). in the studied sample, items 6 and 8 showed mean values lower than expected. although this results are not uncommon as similar results were obtained in samples from other countries (e.g. joshanloo et al., 2013), their interpretation in light of local aspects is not out of place as these items are related to social factors. it is possible that this is related to the insatisfaction argentinians have with some aspects related to society, especially regarding security. this aspect can also be observed in the differential association among presence of meaning in life (mlq) and mhc-sf’s subscales which were strong with emotional well-being and psychological well-being but weak with social well-being. future studies may use this instrument to obtain estimates of the prevalence of mental health categories in argentina (i.e., determining the percentage of flourishing, languishing, and moderately mentally healthy individuals). in addition to the importance of having an instrument to assess well-being in argentina, the psychometric evidence obtained for the three-factor structure allows cross-cultural comparisons and prevents possible variations in prevalence rates due to different versions of the instruments used. for example, hone, jarden, schofield, and duncan (2014) found important variation in the prevalence of flourishing among 10,009 adults in new zealand, based on the use of four different operationalizations: huppert and so (2013; 24%), keyes (39%), diener et al. (41%), and seligman et al. (47%). the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 104 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some of the limitations of the present study are related to the use of selfreported data and the utilization of convenience samples. future studies should employ non-self-report assessments and more representative samples. finally, more research should be done to (a) investigate the predictive validity of the mhc–sf in terms of health and illness outcomes and work productivity, among other important public health outcomes (karaś et al., 2014), and (b) explore the levels of well-being in specific groups of people (e.g., teachers; petrillo et al., 2015) in countries like argentina. funding this work was supported by the national council for scientific and technical research (conicet) under grant pip conicet 11220150100381co and by the university of buenos aires under grant ubacyt 20020150100037ba. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references american psychiatric association. 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(2008). integrating mental health into primary care: a global perspective. geneva, switzerland: author. about the authors maría laura lupano perugini has a phd in psychology (university of palermo, argentina). currently works as a researcher in conicet (national council of scientific and technological investigations) and is a professor at the university of buenos aires and university of palermo. guadalupe de la iglesia has a phd in psychology (university of buenos aires, argentina), and a degree of specialization in statistics for social sciences (university of buenos aires). currently works as a researcher in conicet (national council of scientific and technological investigations) and is a professor at the university of buenos aires and university of palermo. alejandro castro solano has a phd in psychology (complutense university of madrid, spain). currently is the director of the doctoral program in psychology from the university of palermo, works as a researcher in conicet (national council of scientific and technological investigations) and is a professor at the university of buenos aires and university of palermo. corey lee m. keyes has a phd in sociology (university of wisconsin, ee.uu.) and a ma in sociology (university of wisconsin, ee.uu.). he holds the winship distinguished research professorship at emory university. he was a member of a macarthur foundation research network on successful midlife development. he is a founding member of the society for the study of human development, was a member of the national academies of science keck future’s initiative on the future of human healthspan. he works on healthcare transformation and public mental health with governmental agencies in canada, northern ireland, australia, and the u.s. centers for disease control and prevent, the substance abuse and mental health services administration (samhsa), and the american association of colleges and universities. the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf 108 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 93–108 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1163 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80 http://www.palermo.edu/economicas/pdf_2012/informeobrefelicidad-combo.pdf http://doi.org/10.1080/17439760802303002 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the argentinean adaptation of the mhc–sf (introduction) method participants materials procedure results descriptive statistics confirmatory factor analysis cross-validation factorial invariance internal consistency convergent and divergent validity evidence of two-continua model discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the big five, aesthetic judgment styles, and art interest research reports the big five, aesthetic judgment styles, and art interest reza afhami* a, shahin mohammadi-zarghan a [a] tarbiat modares university, tehran, iran. abstract the current study aimed to examine the associations between the big five personality dimensions, aesthetic judgment styles, and art interest. participants (n = 253) were university students in tehran, iran. all participants completed measures of personality, aesthetic judgment styles, and general interest in art. results suggested that openness to experience was related to advanced styles of art judgment and interest in art-related activities. regression analyses showed that sex (β = .18, t = 3.18, p = .002), emotional stability (β = .14, t = 2.47, p = .01), openness to experience (β = .18, t = 3.14, p = .002), symbolic aesthetic judgment style (β = .31, t = 4.63, p < .001), and concrete aesthetic judgment style (β = -.19, t = -3.25, p = .001) significantly predicted art interest. the role of personality and individual difference constructs in aesthetic judgment and art interest is discussed and future directions are outlined. keywords: personality, big five, aesthetic judgment style, openness to experience, art interest europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 received: 2017-06-18. accepted: 2018-05-12. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; maciej karwowski, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of art studies, school of art and architecture, tarbiat modares university, tehran, iran. e-mail: afhami@modares.ac.ir this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. i acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often to time my walks so as to hear on weekdays the anthem in king’s college chapel. this gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. (charles darwin) social scientists have shown interest in scientific examination of art and aesthetic experiences. personality psychologists, in particular, have been increasingly paying attention to personality traits and emotional factors that can predict art-related behavior (see habibi & damasio, 2014). the universal aspects of art across cultures make aesthetic experiences an important aspect of human life that is both reflected in and predicted by personality traits across cultures (de smedt & de cruz, 2010). the present work examines the role of aesthetic judgment styles and normative personality traits in predicting general interest in art in a non-western culture. such investigation can potentially uncover the incremental role of aesthetic judgment styles in predicting scores on art interest scales. the five-factor model (ffm) or big five may be considered the most widely used taxonomy of personality traits. this comprehensive model was developed empirically by examining patterns of associations among trait descriptors (john, naumann, & soto, 2008). statistical analyses suggest that five factors underlie the structure europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of human personality trait descriptors. some debate still exists on construing and labeling the emerged factors; however, the strongest debate has surrounded the interpretation of the fifth factor, which has been explained in terms of culture, intellect, openness to experience, and imagination. the most widely used label for the fifth factor is openness to experience, or sometimes abbreviated as openness. yet, some scholars prefer to use openness/intellect, contending that openness to experience and intellect are equally important aspects of the broader factor (saucier, 1992). in lexical studies, intellect is reflected by adjectives such as intellectual, intelligent, clever, and philosophical. openness, on the other hand, is reflected by adjectives such as artistic, perceptive, poetic, and fantasy-prone. saucier (1994) proposed “imagination” as an alternative label for the openness/ intellect factor, as imagination can be manifest both intellectually and aesthetically (see nusbaum & silvia, 2011) since openness to experience consists of creativityand art-related facets, art researchers have shown increasing interest in this basic factor of personality (feist, 1998; mccrae, 2007; silvia & nusbaum, 2011). open individuals are not the passive recipients of experiences. openness to experience involves motivation, needs for variety (maddi & berne, 1964), cognition (osberg, 1987), and understanding. this active pursuit of experience can be fully understood in open individuals’ active curiosity, especially in aesthetic contexts. the clearest evidence of open individuals’ need for experience is evident in their appreciation of the arts. thus, psychology of creativity, aesthetics, and art is more related to this personality factor (deyoung, quilty, peterson, & gray, 2014; furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2004) rather than other big five dimensions (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism). obviously, some studies have reported significant associations between other big five dimensions and aesthetic experiences (e.g., swami, stieger, pietschnig, & voracek, 2010). specifically, agreeableness and conscientiousness have regularly shown weak negative correlations with art interests, activities, and knowledge. on the other hand, extraversion and neuroticism have usually shown weak positive correlations with these art-related variables (furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2004). therefore, it is important to consider all five factors of personality in examination of aesthetic experiences. an increasing number of studies have begun to investigate the associations between the big five, art interest, and aesthetic experiences. furnham and chamorro-premuzic (2004) examined the relationships between personality, intelligence, art interest, and art judgment. these authors found a positive association between openness to experience and art experience (i.e., art preferences), but not art judgment (i.e., ability). interestingly, intelligence was significantly associated with art judgment, but not with art experience. additionally, art judgment was correlated with extraversion and lower levels of conscientiousness. another study (chamorropremuzic & furnham, 2004) reported a positive association between openness to experience and art activities (e.g., visiting art galleries and purchasing artworks). higher openness to experience and lower extraversion predicted art knowledge. finally, low conscientiousness, low extraversion, art interest, and intelligence predicted art judgment (ability). psychologists have recently shown increasing interest in the utility of intelligence (as mental ability) and personality (as repeated styles of behavior and cognition) in predicting aesthetic experience. for example, visual aesthetic sensitivity has been historically conceived as an intelligence-independent and personality-independent disposition (see frois & eysenck, 1995). yet, recent studies suggest that aesthetic experience can be predicted by personality traits (furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2004; mccrae, 2007; rawlings, barrantes-vidal, & furnham, 2000) and is cognitively facilitated (leder, belke, oeberst, & augustin, 2004; reber, schwarz, & winkielman, 2004; silvia, 2006). more recently, myszkowski, storme, zenasni, and lubart (2014) examined the afhami & mohammadi-zarghan 765 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ visual aesthetic sensitivity test in young adults samples and found it to be predicted by intelligence, openness to aesthetics, and divergent thinking. the above-mentioned studies relied on the conceptualization of artistic judgment as a measure of ability (see myszkowski, storme, & zenasni, 2016). in fact, there have been a number of studies on constructing and validating tests of artistic judgment (e.g., eysenck & castle, 1971; graves, 1948; stallings & anderson, 1969). a more recent model of aesthetic judgment has been proposed by bahrami-ehsan, mohammadi-zarghan, and atari (2015). according to these authors, individuals have different styles of judging art and these aesthetic styles are significantly associated with cognitive styles and thinking styles. in other words, individuals perceive, evaluate, and experience art differently (see axelsson, 2007). this four-factor model of styles in aesthetic judgment posits that individuals tend to react to artworks differently and their reactions may be categorized into one of the following styles: concrete, analytical, symbolic, and emotional. concrete judgment style is typically considered a less developed/professional style of reacting to art. on the contrary, emotional aesthetic judgment is considered the most advanced style of reacting to art. these authors further proposed that aesthetic judgment styles have developmental roots and get more advanced as one masters more advanced cognitive faculties. pourhosein, mohammadi-zarghan, soufiabadi, and atari (2017) related ego development (loevinger, 1976) to aesthetic judgment styles and concluded that concrete style is the least advanced one, with emotional style being the most advanced one. the present study aimed to examine the associations between the big five dimensions of personality, aesthetic judgment styles, and interest in art. we hypothesized that openness to experience would be positively associated with emotional aesthetic judgment style (h1) and negatively associated with concrete aesthetic judgment style (h2). openness to experience was also hypothesized to be positively correlated with art interest (h3). further, we hypothesized that emotional aesthetic judgment style would be positively associated with art interest (h4) and that concrete aesthetic judgment style would be negatively associated with art interest (h5). finally, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis to examine the unique roles of the big five personality dimensions and aesthetic judgment styles in predicting art interest. methods participants and procedures we recruited 253 individuals (54.9% women) from university settings in tehran, iran. the mean age of the participants was 24.4 years (sd = 5.5 years). the majority of the participants (68.8%) were students in art-related fields. all participants were invited to take part in a psychological study regarding psychology and art. upon agreement, participants completed paper-and-pencil versions of a number of measures. of note, participants were not compensated. measures the big five the ten-item personality inventory (tipi; gosling, rentfrow, & swann, 2003) is a very short measure of the big five. each dimension (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience) is measured with two items, one of which requires reverse scoring. items are rated along a personality, aesthetic judgment, and art 766 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). the tipi has shown adequate psychometric properties across cultures (oshio, abe, cutrone, & gosling, 2013; storme, tavani, & myszkowski, 2016). the persian translation of the tipi has been used in previous studies in iran (atari & yaghoubirad, 2016). the internal consistency coefficients (cronbach’s alphas) for extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience were .53, .21, .50, .37, and .34, respectively. as noted by gosling et al. (2003) internal consistency coefficient is not a good way to assess two-item scales’ reliability. the present alpha coefficients are close to those of the persian tipi’s subscales previously reported by atari, barbaro, sela, shackelford, and chegeni (2017). aesthetic judgment styles we used the aesthetic judgment style scale (ajss; bahrami-ehsan et al., 2015) to measure each participant’s style in response to artworks. the ajss is a 32-item scale with adequate reliability and validity. the ajss measures four aesthetic judgment styles: concrete (sample item: “i prefer to observe artworks, rather than discussing them”), analytical (sample item: “i tend to assess artworks logically”), symbolic (sample item: “i enjoy reasoning about latent symbols in artworks”), and emotional (sample item: “each time i see my favorite artist’s artworks, i feel closer to them”). each subscale consists of 8 items. we averaged all 8 items to reach a total score on each subscale. all items are rated along a 4-point scale (1 = completely disagree, 4 = completely agree). in the present sample, internal consistency coefficients were satisfactory. specifically, cronbach’s α coefficients were .68, .76, .77, and .77 for concrete, analytical, symbolic, and emotional styles, respectively. art interest we used the following questions to measure participants’ general interest in art (see chatterjee, widick, sternschein, smith, & bromberger, 2010; tschacher, bergomi, & tröndle, 2015): (1) how much are you familiar with art schools and movements?, (2) how much information do you have regarding art in general?, (3) how much are you familiar with important artists?, (4) how regularly do you visit art galleries?, and (5) how regularly do you take part in art-related classes and workshops?. all questions were rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (very much). a principal-axis exploratory factor analysis (efa) suggested a unidimensional structure (kmo = .83, bartlett’s χ2 [10] = 580.34, p < .01, λ1 = 3.20, item-factor loadings = .65 .86), explaining 63.97 percent of the total variance. face validity of these items were initially confirmed by an independent panel of two art professionals. this scale was internally consistent in the current sample (cronbach’s α = .85). statistical analysis we categorized our analytic strategy into three consecutive steps. in the first step, descriptive statistics and sex differences in all study variables were examined. in the second step, bivariate correlational analyses were conducted. finally, we conducted a linear hierarchical regression analysis to predict participants’ interest in art according to their personality and aesthetic judgment styles. in the first block, we included personality dimensions. in the second block, we included aesthetic judgment styles. all analyses were conducted using spss 22.0. afhami & mohammadi-zarghan 767 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive analyses all descriptive statistics for men and women are presented in table 1. as shown in table 1, women were more interested in art compared to men (t = 4.14, p < .001, d = 0.51). men scored significantly higher on concrete aesthetic judgment style (t = -2.02, p = .044, d = 0.27). women scored higher on agreeableness (t = 3.34, p = .001, d = 0.41). all sex differences were small to moderate in magnitude, with art interest showing the largest effect size (d = 0.51). further, we examined all study variables across art (n = 174) and non-art (n = 78) students. one student had not indicated his/her field of study and was excluded from this analysis. art students scored significantly higher on art interest (t = 9.75, p < .001, d = 1.13), symbolic aesthetic judgment style (t = 3.59, p < .001, d = 0.49), and agreeableness (t = 2.29, p = .02, d = 0.31). non-art students, on the other hand, scored significantly higher on concrete aesthetic judgment style (t = 3.87, p < .001, d = 0.53). finally, we examined the associations between study variables and age. age was positively correlated with symbolic (r = .18, p < .01) and analytical (r = .22, p < .01) styles of judgment in artistic contexts. moreover, a significant, yet smallsized, correlation emerged between age and conscientiousness (r = .13, p = .04). table 1 descriptive statistics and sex differences in all study variables variable men (n = 114) women (n = 139) sex effect m sd m sd t p d art interest 2.27 0.71 2.62 0.63 4.14 < .001 0.51 emotional ajs 3.04 0.55 3.12 0.58 1.10 .274 0.14 symbolic ajs 2.70 0.54 2.84 0.57 1.94 .054 0.25 analytical ajs 2.81 0.53 2.74 0.58 -0.99 .323 0.13 concrete ajs 2.46 0.58 2.31 0.53 -2.02 .044 0.27 extraversion 4.18 1.53 4.54 1.58 1.80 .073 0.23 agreeableness 4.35 0.97 4.81 1.19 3.34 .001 0.41 conscientiousness 5.33 1.26 5.26 1.46 -0.41 .683 0.05 emotional stability 4.11 1.40 3.75 1.61 -1.91 .057 0.24 openness to experience 5.36 1.29 5.51 1.17 1.03 .306 0.12 note. ajs = aesthetic judgment style. correlational analysis the correlation coefficients between the study variables are presented in table 2. as can be seen, openness to experience was positively associated with emotional aesthetic judgment style (r = .19, p < .01), while negatively correlated with concrete aesthetic judgment style (r = -.26, p < .01). therefore, hypotheses 1 and 2 are supported. openness to experience was also significantly positively associated with interest in art (r = .28, p < .01), lending support to hypothesis 3. emotional aesthetic judgment style was positively associated with art interest (r = .18, p < .01). therefore, hypothesis 4 is fully supported. finally, a negative correlation emerged between concrete aesthetic judgment style and art interest (r = -.27, p < .01). thus, hypothesis 5 is supported by the correlational analysis. personality, aesthetic judgment, and art 768 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 associations between personality dimensions, aesthetic judgment styles, and art interest variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. art interest – 2. emotional ajs .18** – 3. symbolic ajs .40** .29** – 4. analytical ajs .19** .18** .52** – 5. concrete ajs -.27** .04 -.08 .14* – 6. extraversion .05 .01 .04 -.02 .02 – 7. agreeableness .03 -.01 -.06 -.08 .11 -.07 – 8. conscientiousness -.03 -.01 .07 .07 .01 .06 .02 – 9. emotional stability .15* .03 .11 .06 .04 .05 .01 .16* – 10. openness to experience .28** .19** .05 .11 -.26** .06 -.07 .04 .09 note. ajs = aesthetic judgment style. *p < .05. **p < .01. among other correlations, emotional stability was significantly positively correlated with art interest (r = .15, p < .05). regarding aesthetic judgment styles, symbolic aesthetic judgment style emerged as a very strong correlate of art interest (r = .40, p < .01). analytical aesthetic judgment style was also significantly positively associated with art interest (r = .19, p < .01). regression analysis as mentioned, in this step we conducted a linear, two-block, hierarchical regression analysis onto art interest. the first block included gender, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. in the second block, we entered concrete, analytical, symbolic, and emotional aesthetic judgment styles. the results of the regression analysis are presented in table 3. the big five in model 1 explained a significant proportion of variance in art interest, r2 = .16, f(6, 246) = 7.74, p < .001. in the first model, gender, emotional stability, and openness to experience emerged as significant positive predictors of art interest. the second model was also significant, r2 = .31, f(10, 242) = 10.83, p < .001. in the second model, emotional stability, openness to experience, and symbolic judgment style emerged as significant positive predictors and concrete aesthetic judgment style emerged as significant negative predictor of art interest. table 3 hierarchical regression analysis with art interest as dependant variable variable β t p model 1 gender .26 4.20 < .001 extraversion -.001 -0.02 .98 agreeableness -.003 -0.05 .96 conscientiousness -.06 -0.99 .33 emotional stability .17 2.78 .01 openness to experience .25 4.16 < .001 afhami & mohammadi-zarghan 769 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable β t p model 2 gender .18 3.18 .002 extraversion .01 0.17 .86 agreeableness .05 0.96 .34 conscientiousness -.08 -1.41 .16 emotional stability .14 2.47 .01 openness to experience .18 3.14 .002 emotional ajs .03 0.60 .55 symbolic ajs .31 4.63 < .001 analytical ajs .04 0.65 .52 concrete ajs -.19 -3.25 .001 note. ajs = aesthetic judgment style; gender was coded as 0 (male) and 1 (female). discussion the current study aimed to examine the associations between basic personality traits, aesthetic judgment styles, and art interest. based on previous findings, we made five a priori hypotheses. overall, we predicted that openness to experience would be positively associated with general interest in art activities and advanced aesthetic judgment styles. on the contrary, openness to experience was hypothesized to be negatively correlated with less advanced styles in artistic judgment. finally, art interest was hypothesized to be positively associated with emotional judgment style (as an advanced style), while negatively related to concrete judgment style (as the least advanced artistic style; pourhosein et al., 2017). our analytic strategy included three consecutive analyses: descriptive analyses and sex differences, bivariate correlational analyses, and hierarchical regression analyses. all hypotheses were supported by data analysis. in our descriptive and preliminary analyses, we found that women are more interested in art than men in the current sample. considering the items assessing art interest, it can be concluded that women allocate a greater time to art and are more likely to visit art galleries. this corroborates previous work (see dimaggio & mukhtar, 2004). for example, mcmanus and furnham (2006) found that men scored lower on overall aesthetic activities, literature, performance arts. men scored significantly higher on concrete aesthetic judgment style, meaning that men are more likely to react to artworks using superficial qualities of those works. another significant sex difference emerged in this study: women scored higher on agreeableness. this is in line with reported sex differences in the big five dimensions of personality in iran (afhami, mohammadi-zarghan, & atari, 2017) and across cultures (schmitt, realo, voracek, & allik, 2008). the positive correlation between age and symbolic and analytical aesthetic judgment styles are in line with pourhosein et al. (2017). these findings suggest that older individuals are more likely leave logical and conventional comments on works of art. furthermore, older individuals in the current sample were more likely to be interested in abstract ideas and symbolic elements of the arts. finally, age was positively associated with conscientiousness. this is also consistent with previous works. for example, mccrae et al. (1999) used convenience samples from germany, italy, portugal, croatia, and korea and found that self-reports of conscientiousness was higher in older participants. more recently, donnellan and lucas (2008) found that among individuals between 20 and 30 (the majority of the participants in the current study), age was positively associated with conscientiousness. personality, aesthetic judgment, and art 770 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in our correlational analyses, we found openness to experience to be positively related to interest in art activities and emotional aesthetic judgment style. this is generally in line with the notion that aesthetics is an important facet of openness to experience, even when openness to experience is measured using ultra short measures. those individuals who score higher on openness to experience are generally more imaginative, creative, and art-appreciating. these findings also suggest that open individuals are more likely to produce affective statements and comments when exposed to a piece of art. furthermore, open individuals feel emotionally connected to the artwork. in addition, those who have more advanced styles of responding to art are more interested in art activities (versus those who use concrete style of artistic judgment). the regression analyses suggested that sex, emotional stability, and openness to experience predict general interest in art, when all personality dimensions are simultaneously entered into the regression analysis. when aesthetic judgment styles were entered into the equations, sex, emotional stability, and openness to experience remained significant predictors of the dependant variable, and symbolic style (positively) and concrete style (negatively) emerged as significant predictors of art interest. the positive role of emotional stability in prediction of art interest is not consistent with positive correlations between neuroticism (the low pole of emotional stability) and overall aesthetic activity (mcmanus & furnham, 2006). however, the present findings are in line with the inverse relationship between neuroticism and aesthetic fluency (silvia, 2007). these differences may be attributable to the conceptual differences between “overall aesthetic activity”, “aesthetic fluency”, and “art interest”. other studies (furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2004) have reported null relationships between neuroticism and art interests. alternatively, cultural differences may account for this inconsistency. future research could replicate the associations between emotional stability and different aspects of aesthetic experience to get a clear image. these findings highlight the role of aesthetic judgment style to predict individuals’ general interest in art-related activities and artistic experiences. regression analyses showed more than fourth of the variance could be accounted for by personality and aesthetic judgment styles. one of the important implications of the present work is the utility of aesthetic judgment styles in predicting art interest. this can potentially be of interest to educational psychologists for art education. taking aesthetic judgment styles as fixed, trait-like variables would suggest that certain people would be more interested in art. of course, there is no reason to assume that these styles cannot be altered. further, it might be possible to manipulate these “aesthetic judgment styles” using experimental paradigms (see oyserman, sorensen, reber, & chen, 2009). it is also useful to examine how such styles of aesthetic judgement can influence ratings of artworks in museum settings. for example, aesthetic judgment styles might moderate the fluency-pleasure link (see graf & landwehr, 2015). therefore, it is important for future research to integrate different models of aesthetic preferences to better understand the cognitive, emotional, and personality correlates of general interest in art as well as contextual factors that contribute to aesthetic liking and pleasure when one is exposed to art. this study has important findings. first, this is among the first studies to explore the additional value of the fourfactor model of aesthetic judgment (bahrami-ehsan et al., 2015) in art settings. while swami and furnham (2014) suggested that aesthetic judgment as ability is no longer the focus of experimental aesthetics researchers, the present study highlighted the strong predictive role of aesthetic judgment “style” as an individual difference variable. second, we used a non-western sample. most of the psychological studies on art and aesthetic experience have been conducted in western societies, so the present findings may help expand the cross-cultural perspective in this line of research. third, in addition to the main results, this study has important implicaafhami & mohammadi-zarghan 771 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tions. for example, few studies have examined sex differences in the big five in iran. additionally, this is the first study to examine sex differences in aesthetic judgment styles. the present study’s limitations are worth noting. first, we used cross-sectional data and correlational analyses. therefore, the direction of the influences cannot be assured. for example, it is possible that art interest gradually influences and forms one’s aesthetic judgment style. alternatively, one’s repetitive exposure to art can influence self-reports of openness to experiences. future research could beneficially use longitudinal designs to overcome the methodological limitations of cross-sectional sampling and correlational analyses. second, we used a college sample. it is important for future research to replicate and extend these findings in community samples. third, we used a short measure to assess the big five (gosling et al., 2003). future research can use more up-to-date measures for assessment of the big five (soto & john, in press). fourth, we examined individuals’ interest in art in general. yet, future research can examine interest in specific arts or in specific art domains. finally, personality dimensions and aesthetic judgment styles may be used in future research to predict artistic preferences. in conclusion, the current study showed that art interest was significantly associated with a number of individual difference factors, particularly openness to experience, emotional stability, and aesthetic judgment styles. as chamorro-premuzic, reimers, hsu, and ahmetoglu (2009) noted, such results have a number of practical implications for wider society. for example, knowing the patterns of associations between individual difference variables and art-related activities can prove useful in order to promote art in the community and for its use in therapy. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing 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(2015). the art affinity index (aai): an instrument to assess art relation and art knowledge. empirical studies of the arts, 33, 161-174. doi:10.1177/0276237415594709 about the authors reza afhami is an associate professor of art studies at tarbiat modares university, tehran, iran. he is interested in psychology of art, experimental aesthetics, and history of art. his current projects use and combine a number of empirical methods to examine personality, cultural, and emotional correlates of aesthetic experiences. shahin mohammadi-zarghan is a researcher in the field of experimental aesthetics, psychology of art, and film studies. his current interests include the portrayal of death anxiety and moral dilemmas in different forms of modern art. afhami & mohammadi-zarghan 775 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 764–775 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1479 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2410060506 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2410080406 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.1.168 https://doi.org/10.2190/dx8k-6wea-6wpa-fm84 https://doi.org/10.1037/1931-3896.1.4.247 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021914 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-3984.1969.tb00676.x https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000204 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.02.013 https://doi.org/10.1177/0276237415594709 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality, aesthetic judgment, and art (introduction) methods participants and procedures measures statistical analysis results descriptive analyses correlational analysis regression analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors from militant voices to militant irony: examining identity, memory and conflict in the basque country theoretical contributions from militant voices to militant irony: examining identity, memory and conflict in the basque country ignacio brescó de luna* a [a] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract collective memory and identity so often go hand in hand with conflicts. alongside the use of violence, conflicts unfold against the backdrop of different narratives about the past through which groups constantly remind themselves of the supposed origin of the conflict, and consequently, what position individuals are expected to take as members of the group. narratives – as symbolic tools for interpreting the past and the present, as well as happenings that have yet to occur – simultaneously underpin, and are underpinned by, the position held by each warring faction. drawing on previous works, this paper compares different versions of the 2016 truce period in the basque country stemming from three subjects identified, to varying degrees, with the main political actors involved in that conflict. these three cases have been selected from a total of 16 participants who were asked to define the basque conflict and to provide an account of the 2006 truce period by using 23 documents taken from different spanish newspapers. on the one hand, the results show two narratives reproducing the versions of two of the main political actors involved in the conflict, and on the other hand, a narrative characterized by a more personal and ironic appropriation of those versions. results are discussed vis-à-vis the use of irony in history teaching in increasingly plural societies. keywords: identity, memory, conflicts, narratives, irony europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 received: 2016-10-27. accepted: 2016-12-08. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: niels bohr centre for cultural psychology, department of communication and psychology, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: ignacio@hum.aau.dk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. identity and memory are virtually inseparable concepts. on the one hand, it is a known fact that memory, understood as being the reconstruction of the past, is a deciding factor in respect of both individual and collective identity. according to certain authors closely associated with the narrative turn that took place in the human sciences (polkinghorne, 1988), the existence of a narrative is crucial in that it relates the past to the present on the basis of the same entity involved in the account, thus enabling us to believe in the permanence of that same entity throughout time, be it self (ricoeur, 1991) or an imagined community such as nations (anderson, 1983). on the other hand, we are also aware, from the pioneering work of halbwachs (1950/1980) and bartlett (1932), that the way in which we remember our past is strongly influenced by the groups in which we live and by which we identify ourselves. memory is social from the outset, insofar as groups provide us with both symbolic resources – language or narrative structures (wertsch, 2002) – and motifs for constructing and sharing our memories. furthermore, since infancy we are exposed to a constant barrage of accounts of the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ past, whether in informal contexts such as family or formal contexts such as school. these are narratives which, despite occurring prior to our own existence, end up forming part of our past and therefore our identity. we can thus say that our personal identity is irredeemably linked to collective identity, since by appropriating the group’s past accounts, we become emotionally involved in them and absorb the values, achievements, grievances and collective claims conveyed by those accounts. in fact, this socially shared sense of the past is what often leads us to identify with the positions defended by individuals who claim to represent certain groups or collectives, and to assume them as our own, in the first person plural. this way of transmitting the past and making it available and familiar to individuals has led some authors (bar-tal, 2014; liu & hilton, 2005) to study collective memory through the social representations theory (moscovici, 1984). from this perspective, memory is considered as something dynamic, “actively engaged, socially and materially situated, reconstructive and oriented to the future” (wagoner, 2015, p. 143). this dynamic implies, on the one hand, a process of objectification, by which the group’s historical past is conveyed through a range of stories, images, rituals, monuments etc., and on the other hand, a process of anchoring, whereby the group’s representation of the past becomes a framework against which to interpret the present and imagine the future. collective memory and identity so often go hand in hand with conflicts to the point that they seamlessly feed into each other. thus, on one hand, conflicts deeply mark groups’ collective memory and identity, whether in the form of deeds to be collectively remembered and celebrated or grievances and affronts not to be forgotten. on the other hand, memory and identity are elements that underlie many conflicts, insofar as certain ways of enhancing a common sense of belonging are built upon groups’ old – or recent – scars, grievances, resentments and hatreds, thus providing a rationale through which conflicts may be fuelled, reignited and perpetuated. in this sense, alongside the use of violence, conflicts unfold against the backdrop of different narratives about the past through which groups constantly remind themselves of the supposed origin of the conflict, and consequently, what position individuals are expected to take as members of the group. thus, narratives – as symbolic tools for interpreting the past and the present, as well as happenings that have yet to occur – simultaneously underpin, and are underpinned by, the position held by each warring faction (see harré & van langenhove, 1999). this gives rise to a symbolic and argumentative context (brescó & wagoner, 2016) saturated by different partisan narratives, these in turn being the symbolic tools or mediational means (wertsch, 1991) by which people come to give sense to conflicts and build a position according to the group with which they identify. in such divided and multivoiced contexts, the possible standpoints on the conflict are pretty much constrained by warring factions’ discourses and voices, which individuals – identified with different groups – tend to appropriate and make their own. this would explain why in conflicts deemed as intractable (bar-tal, 2013) – where groups are somehow locked in their own positions and versions of the conflict (see nicholson, 2016) – new favourable scenarios for reconciliation are usually perceived and anchored in light of the old narratives and ways of representing the conflict. in such cases, in which a window for peace seems to emerge, alternative approaches tend to be overshadowed by partisan ways of interpreting reality. brescó de luna 549 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ identity, memory, and conflict in the basque country the basque country conflict in spain – now on the way to be resolved – is a clear example of thisi. after fifty years of violence and social unrest, the armed group eta (acronym for euzkadi ta azcatasuna or basque country and freedom in english) announced a permanent ceasefire in march 2006. this announcement was surrounded by controversy since the very beginning due to the different ways in which the ceasefire was interpreted by the main political actors involved in the conflict. eta considered the ceasefire as the first step to negotiate the independence of the basque country from the spanish state. the spanish government (headed at that time by the socialist josé luís rodríguez zapatero) deemed the ceasefire as an opportunity to initiate a peace process which could lead to a negotiated solution to the conflict. by its part, the main opposition party (the right wing people’s party) considered the ceasefire as a “truce-trap” and accused the government of having secret deals with the terrorists and surrendering the country to eta. in december that year, eta planted a bomb at madrid airport, leaving two people dead. that attack – justified by eta as a response to the government’s passivity during the truce period – was the tragic outcome of nine months of political unrest during which the main actors involved resorted to different accounts in order to justify their own positions vis-àvis a process understood as a “democratic process” according to batasuna, a “peace process” from the government’s point of view and a “trick process” by the people’s party. thus, following the bombing attack at madrid airport, diverse ways of understanding that process were consolidated by means of various opposing accounts; accounts that also acted as tools by which people could interpret, recall and draw conclusions from the ceasefire according to their identification with the main figures involved. this is not to say that agency was vanished amidst warring factions’ narratives and voices. agency lays on the irreducible tension between those meditational means provided by a particular socio-cultural setting – in this case, the public narratives about the ceasefire period – and the way these are used by individuals as a resource in remembering (wertsch, 2002). in bakhtinian terms this implies different forms of multivoiced authoring (bakhtin, 1981; see also wertsch & o’connor, 1994) in that different voices (in this case, those pertaining to the main figures involved in the conflict) would be appropriated and adapted to individuals’ own intentions in different specific contexts. such a personal appropriation of social discourses may take different degrees of agency and authorship, ranging from reproduction and acceptance, at one end of the continuum, to entire rejection on the other (brescó, 2016; wertsch & o’connor, 1994). however, in polarised contexts saturated with partisan discourses, it is often the case that the rejection of one implies embracing some other. it is in these particular contexts – such as the basque conflict – where personal appropriation of these discourses in the form of irony or satire becomes a way of resisting – and mocking – the warring factions’ militant discourses saturating the public sphere. case study: remembering the 2006 truce period in the basque country drawing on previous works (brescó, 2009, 2016), this section aims to compare different versions of the abovementioned truce period stemming from three subjects identified to varying extents with the main political actors involved in that basque conflictii. these three cases form part of a wider study in which a total of 16 undergraduate students – from the university of the basque country and the autonomous university of madrid – were asked to define the basque conflict and to provide an account of the 2006 ceasefire period by using 23 short documents extracted from tv and different spanish newspapersiii. the documents used for this study – arranged in chronological order – consisted of five pictures, ten broadsheet headings and eight brief extracts of from militant voices to militant irony 550 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ statements delivered by some political actors during the truce period (see examples of each type in table 1). participants were allowed to use the documents in any way they wished (e.g., only using those supporting their views on the truce period, omitting those others they deemed unimportant or at odds with their viewpoints, and adding whatever extra information they considered appropriate). table 1 examples of the different type of documents provided to participants type of document example broadsheet heading “more detentions, reports of torture and prohibitions of batasuna’s demonstrations” (gara, pro batasuna newspaper) “eta steals 300 guns with large amounts of ammunition in the southeast of france” (abc, right-wing newspaper) political statement “the people’s party’s cooperation is key to achieving the end of violence” (spanish prime minister josé luís rodríguez zapatero) “pretty soon the government will go back to its bad ways and will negotiate with eta again” (ángel acebes, people’s party member) picture members of eta announcing the cease-fire (el país, centre-left wing newspaper) analysis of the accounts on the peace process yielded by participants focused on how their respective thematization and positioning vis-à-vis the conflict mediated the way this event was reconstructed – viz, which documents were used or ignored by each participant and what meaning and function these documents acquired within each account. of particular interest here is showing how these three subjects appropriate and use different narratives of the truce period in light of their respective identification with the main figures involved. along these lines, results include, on the one hand, two versions reproducing the story-line provided by two of these figuresiv, and on the other and, a version characterized by a more personal, critical and ironic appropriation of these narratives. participant 1: greenv is an 18-year-old male who studies psychology at the university of the basque country and who identifies with batasuna. the following is green’s definition of the basque conflict and his account of the ceasefire period: definition of the basque conflict: “it is a conflict between an oppressed nation and two oppressor states (spain and france) which refuse to recognize the right all democratic states have: the right to selfdetermination. this situation has led to an armed conflict.” account of the ceasefire period: “eta declares a truce and ceases all its actions. the government says that it is willing to meet with eta. batasuna expresses its willingness to negotiate the future of the brescó de luna 551 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ basque country. the spanish state keeps imprisoning, torturing and oppressing the basque people, especially batasuna and its supporters. given the course of events and the government’s inability to move forward, eta decides to send out a warning to the government by planting a bomb at madrid airport. the government doesn’t react and the truce comes to an end. then, eta returns to its armed struggle.” green clearly takes batasuna’s position and makes it his own, thus defining the conflict as one caused by the oppression of the basque people by both the spanish and french state. building up on such position, the participant justifies and delegitimizes the actions of the main figures involved in the ceasefire period. according to green’s version, despite eta’s good intentions, the spanish government failed in its democratic duty by not listening to the basque people, thereby causing eta to exercise its right to resume the armed struggle. it is also worth noting that in order to support this version, the participant omitted all documents (included among the material handed out to the subjects) referring to eta’s violent activities during the ceasefire, and instead used the news article from gara – a newspaper with close ties to batasuna – which spoke of arrests and torture vis-à-vis batasuna and its supporters. here, it is the government that is responsible for the truce’s failure by not responding to eta’s warning in the form of a bomb attack, this being conceived as a form of communication. participant 2: blue is an 18-year-old female who studies psychology in madrid and sympathizes with the right-wing people’s party. she sees the conflict and the ceasefire period as follows: definition of the basque conflict: “there is a group of people from that region who don’t feel spanish so they use violence.” account of the ceasefire period: “thanks to a series of secret agreements between eta and the socialist party, with many concessions made by the latter, a truce was achieved. during the supposed truce period, the government was completely willing to hold talks with the terrorists while they kept on committing terrorist acts. thousands of spaniards marched, demanding that zapatero stop yielding to eta’s claims. in turn, the people’s party split with the government due to zapatero’s erroneous strategy. this event ended with the terrorist attack on madrid airport, which caused two casualties (this is, in fact, the only way eta understands dialogue). after this attack, we are still supposed to believe that the government has dropped negotiations with eta.” blue considers the violence employed by a supposed anti-spanish faction as being the origin of the basque conflict, thus somehow assuming a connection between not feeling spanish and the use of violence. in analysing blue’s version, we can see how this participant takes people’s party stance on the truce period and makes it her own. in accordance to that, blue tends to use those newspapers closer to that party (see endnote iii). thus, unlike green’s version, she assesses the truce in quite a negative light, considering it as a “plot” between the socialist government and eta, pretty much in line with those right-wing newspapers and politicians who supported the conspiracy theory along the peace process. for example, blue’s words echo the statement by a people’s party member – included in the material – whereby eta’s ceasefire announcement was linked to zapatero’s supposed previous concessions to that group. along these lines, blue’s account refers to one of the pictures provided featuring numerous people demonstrating against government’s peace-making process. blue also includes in her account some of the news referred to some of the alleged eta’s terrorist activities during the truce period. additionally, blue explicitly refers to the terrorist attack and the two resulting casualties – an attacked depicted in one of the pictures provided to the participants. interestingly enough, her remark on this tragic outcome – which she describes as eta’s only way of understanding dialogue – echoes from militant voices to militant irony 552 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ green’s version in which the attack was conceived as a form of communication, in this case as a mere warning. all in all, blue´s version of the events would prove the uselessness of dialogue with the terrorists in line with the people’s party position against the government’s attempt to reach a peace agreement with eta. in light of this, the position taken by the people’s party throughout the peace process is no longer a failure, but a patriotic duty against a preceding immoral agreement. participant 3: gray is a 23-year-old male who studies psychology in madrid. he sympathises with the socialist party and izquierda unida (united left), a party to the left of the former which also supported the peace-making process. gray’s view on both the conflict and the truce period is as follows: definition of the basque conflict: “this is a somewhat fictitious conflict. i don’t think that it’s about the basque people’s claim for independence, or at least, it’s not just about that. i believe that both sides feed off each other’s positions and live off keeping the conflict alive to some extent.” account of the ceasefire period: “on the 22nd of march three gentlemen wearing hoods and fancy dress appear on tv announcing a truce. they pledge not to kill for a certain period of time whereas the government undertakes nobody knows what. everybody is very happy about what is deemed the beginning of a peace process and because the end of violence is thought to be near. immediately afterwards, all the political and media machinery is set in motion. the politicians start to calculate every move in terms of electioneering benefits. on the one hand, the people’s party, in order to discredit the socialists, insinuates that eta’s and the government’s interests are basically the same. on the other hand, the socialist party does everything in its power to prevent the process from getting out of hand, trying to please everybody with promises. as for the basque extreme nationalists, they try to appear as the champions of peace in order to obtain greater support among the people and thus reinforce their presence in the institutions. the constant attacks and innuendos launched by the people’s party end up undermining zapatero’s popularity, thus leading the government to adopt a tougher line against eta. at the same time, the members of eta who are not interested in giving up the struggle manage to impose their strategy which finally results in the bomb attack at madrid airport. with this tragic episode, both the peace process and the cheap farce set up around it come to an end”. gray’s stance is removed from the position of the main political actors as he sees the conflict as something fictitious, fuelled by the actors themselves. from this standpoint, the claims deriving from each actor’s position become meaningless insofar as they would constitute a resource for nourishing a conflict that all sides wish to keep alight. such a critical distance is reflected in the way the truce period is narrated. thus, from the very first sentence (on the 22nd of march three gentlemen wearing hoods and fancy dress appear on tv announcing a truce), gray makes clear his resistance to take seriously what the actors involved in the truce period claim to be doing. this ironic stance on what is considered a fictitious conflict is further reinforced by his explicitly likening the peace-process to a “cheap farce”. along these lines, the whole episode is narrated as if it were a play, one that starts off with the appearance on the stage (in this case, on television) of the three members of eta announcing the ceasefire and the activation of all the political and media machinery, which continues to operate until the bombing attack on madrid airport. this way of reconstructing the ceasefire period moreover underscores the fictitious nature of the position of the actors involved, actors whose ‘performance’ is aimed more at making their respective audiences happy – i.e., not losing popularity among their voters and supporters – than at having their claims satisfied – be it achieving independence, reaching an agreement through dialogue or defending the unity of the spanish state. brescó de luna 553 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ militant voices and militant irony in the basque conflict as we can see in these three examples, participants green and blue clearly identify themselves with certain political actors (eta and the people’s party, respectively), thus assuming and to some extent reproducing their corresponding versions of the truce period, including the claims, criticisms and justifications contained in such versions. as a result, we have two militant accounts in which each participant seems to accept and adopt the voice of one of those actors and make it their own. from a bakhtinian perspective, we could say that the actors’ voices speak through the participants’ accounts, or in other words, that participants have been to some degree talked—or ventriloquized—by those actors’ voices. contrary to green’s and blue’s acceptance of such voices, gray’s critical stance on both eta and people’s party positions is reflected through an ironic, even satirical, narrative style by which this participant criticises the absurd logic that characterises these actors’ conduct and by extension the whole conflict at large. this is carried out by means of a certain way of using the voices of the political actors themselves in order to highlight their absurdity during the truce period. this resource, linked to irony, is close to the bakhtinian concept of ‘double-voicedness’, “refer[ed] to the use of someone else’s words in order to express one’s own intentions and meanings that are hostile to others’ words” (marková, 2003, p. 63). we can see examples of this at the beginning of gray’s account, when he speaks ironically about both eta’s ceasefire (“they pledge not to kill for a certain period of time whereas the government undertakes nobody knows what”) and the general optimism and faith in relation to the truce and the end of the conflict (“everybody is very happy about what is deemed the beginning of a peace process and because the end of violence is thought to be near”). in gray´s case, we find a greater degree of agency in reconstructing the truce period compared to the cases of green and blue. thus, whereas in the latter cases the participants’ words expressed the view of the main political actors on the truce period, in gray’s case the words of those political actors are used to express the participant’s more personal view of it. in this regard, gray’s satirical and distant stance is not incompatible with the adoption of his own positioning on the episode in question. as frye (1957) points out in his work on tropics of discourse, “satire is militant irony: its moral norms are relatively clear, and it assumes standards against which the grotesque and absurd are measured” (p. 223). this moral dimension related to the use of tropes and genres is further developed by the philosopher of history hayden white who argues that the narrative forms used in reconstructing the past inevitably convey a moral content (white, 1986). in the particular case of irony, this author considers this genre as a meta-trope, a trope related to self-consciousness in the use of language when talking about the past. in white’s own words, “[irony] represents a stage of consciousness in which the problematical nature of language itself has become recognized” (white, 1973, p. 37). memory, identity and history teaching: towards an ironic citizenship? identity and memory are elements that can easily be found in many conflicts. groups transmit and use narratives about the past in order to underpin their identity as well as their respective position within conflicts. these narratives act as mediational tools through which the members of the group not only reconstruct the past – viz., how the conflict originated – but also anchor and give meaning to present events as well as the conflict’s future horizon. transmission of these narratives takes place in different contexts, such as the family and school. from militant voices to militant irony 554 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as for the latter, according to carretero (2011), history teaching continues to focus on “intimate emotional adherence to national identity symbols and narratives – in detriment to critical thinking” (p. 38). according to misztal (2003), this identity-based conveyance of historical narratives serves to both legitimize certain political structures and claim historically marginalized identities. in both cases, the objective lies in instilling loyalty towards the different collectives, leading individuals to assume as their own the collectives’ past and future, their defeats and victories, their heroes and enemies. as liu and hilton (2005) state, social representations of the past have a mobilizing power as they outline a trajectory telling “us who we are, where we came from and where we should be going” (p. 537). this leads us to highlight the role of imagination, or more specifically the politics of imagination (bottici & challand, 2011), both regarding collective identity – how our identity is imagined in opposition to a certain alterity (see glăveanu & de saint laurent, 2015) – and collective memory – how the imagined collective future affects the way of remembering the past (see de saint laurent, obradovic, & carriere, in press). in fact, the role of collective memory – in this case, regarding conflicts – can be understood as a way of reconstructing the past in light of different imagined futures in order to foster current actions, thus proleptically guiding the present towards certain political goals (see the notion of prolepsis applied to collective memory in brescó, 2017). from this point of view, it can be argued that collective memory conveys a script with guidelines for action as well as for interpreting the actions of other political actors involved in the conflict; a script that, in providing the story-line of the conflict, not only describes what happened in the past and how is the state of things in the present, but it also prescribes what lines of actions should be taken in the future. in making these scripts their own, individuals run the risk of becoming trapped in certain positions in the conflict, thus becoming actors of a ready-made story-line. this is usually the case whenever warring factions’ discourses saturate the public sphere, thus making it difficult for alternative versions and voices to be articulated, let alone heard. in such cases, in the absence of any alternative available discourse, the use of irony constitutes a way in which to resist the official versions of the conflict. as we have seen in the previous section, the theatrical metaphor used by the third participant in our study (gray), is not only a resource to mock official and partisan versions of the truce period; it also denotes a greater degree of agency through which that participant can denaturalize and distance himself from those versions, thus gaining more authorship over his own way of recounting this episode. identity and memory are highly flammable elements whose misuse in certain contexts may make them ignite into conflict. however, at the same time they can be important elements for an open and reflective citizenry. memory does not just keep hatreds alight. by looking at the past we can gain knowledge about our mistakes and wrongdoings, victims can be remembered and compensated, and more reflective ways of dealing with history can be promoted in order to avoid new conflicts in the future (wagoner & brescó, 2016). in the same vein, the presence of different identities, far from being a threatening reality, constitutes an opportunity to reconstruct the group’s inherited narratives about the past, which thus opens the door to rethinking and generating more complex and flexible identities and positions that are open to change and diversity (rosa & gonzález, 2012). history teaching, in this sense, is called upon to contribute to this endeavour by denaturalizing historical narratives and encouraging the democratic participation of citizens in the public affairs of plural societies (see rosa & brescó, 2017). in discussing the role of history teaching in an increasingly globalized world, authors such as rorty (1989) and turner (2002) see irony as a way in which to foster a sceptical attitude towards traditional national histories so that more open and cosmopolitan views can be promoted (see smith, 2007 for a discussion on this matter). brescó de luna 555 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 http://www.psychopen.eu/ irony can indeed be a means by which to prevent individuals from naturalizing certain narratives transmitted through the group, narratives which may hinder dialogue and reconciliation with others. in line with egan’s (1997) notion of ironic understanding regarding history teaching, blanco and rosa (1997) float the idea that “perhaps it would not be a bad goal to look for an ironic citizenship, but an irony based upon reflection and informed dialogue, not cynicism” (p. 15). maybe irony is not enough, but it is probably a necessary element in order to endow people with more agency so that they can gain perspective on identity, memory and conflicts. notes i) situated in the northeastern part of spain, the basque country is an autonomous region with specific cultural features (e.g., the basque language). a great number of people in that region do not feel part of the spanish nation and would like to form and independent country. this scenario is strongly marked by the presence of the terrorist group eta which started to operate in 1969 (at the end of franco’s dictatorship). since then eta has caused nearly 900 casualties, including policemen, politicians, civilians, and military men. over the last ten years, eta has been losing strength in terms of both its operational capacity and social support. in october 2011, the terrorist group announced the definitive termination of its armed struggle. nevertheless, the basque conflict is still open and unresolved as eta has not handed over its weapons. ii) these actors are: 1) the spanish government, presided at that time by the socialist party, who defended the legitimacy of the peace-making process; 2) the terrorist group eta and its political arm batasuna, who advocates for the independence of the basque country and legitimizes the use of violence; and 3) the right-wing people’s party – the main group of the opposition at that time – who delegitimized the peace-process by accusing the socialist government of making political concessions to eta in exchange for keeping the cease-fire. iii) the selected sources were: el mundo and abc (centre-right wing newspapers, close to the people’s party), el país (centre-left wing newspaper, close to zapatero’s socialist party), gara (newspaper close to batasuna – eta’s political arm –, and la vanguardia (a catalan centre-right newspaper). all political views on the basque conflict were balanced across sources. iv) these two cases appear in brescó (2009, 2016). v) all participants have code names in order to preserve their anonymity. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank the journal’s reviewers for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. references anderson, b. 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(1986). historical pluralism. critical inquiry, 12(3), 480-493. doi:10.1086/448346 about the author ignacio brescó de luna is currently working as an associate professor at the centre for cultural psychology, aalborg university. he received his ph.d. from the autonomous university of madrid, where he worked as an associate professor until 2014. his research interests revolve around collective memory and identity, the teaching of history, positioning theory and the narrative mediation of remembering. from militant voices to militant irony 558 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 548–558 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1324 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006068755 http://doi.org/10.1177/026327602128931215 http://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000147 http://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.4.4.04mul http://doi.org/10.1086/448346 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ from militant voices to militant irony (introduction) identity, memory, and conflict in the basque country case study: remembering the 2006 truce period in the basque country militant voices and militant irony in the basque conflict memory, identity and history teaching: towards an ironic citizenship? notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making: liminality of narrative processes theoretical contributions psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making: liminality of narrative processes raffaele de luca picione* a, jaan valsiner b [a] department of humanistic studies, university of naples “federico ii”, naples, italy. [b] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. abstract in this paper we discuss the semiotic functions of the psychological borders that structure the flow of narrative processes. each narration is always a contextual, situated and contingent process of sensemaking, made possible by the creation of borders, such as dynamic semiotic devices that are capable of connecting the past and the future, the inside and the outside, and the me with the non-me. borders enable us to narratively construct one’s own experiences using three inherent processes: contextualization, intersubjective positioning and setting of pertinence. the narrative process – as a subjective articulation of signs in a contingent social context – involves several functions of semiotic borders: separation, differentiation, distinction-making, connection, articulation and relation-enabling. the relevant psychological aspect highlighted here is that a border is a semiotic device which is required for both maintaining stability and inducing transformation at the same time. the peculiar dynamics and the semiotic structure of borders generate a liminal space, which is characterized by instability, by a blurred space-time distinction and by ambiguities in the semantic and syntactic processes of sensemaking. the psychological processes that occur in liminal space are strongly affectively loaded, yet it is exactly the setting and activation of liminality processes that lead to novelty and creativity and enable the creation of new narrative forms. keywords: psychological liminality, narrative process, semiotic borders, sensemaking process europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 received: 2016-02-28. accepted: 2017-04-03. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of humanistic studies, university of naples “federico ii”, via porta di massa, 1 – 80132 napoli (italy). e-mail: raffaele.delucapicione@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the human being is continuously engaged in organizing his/her own experiences through the process of narrating (brockmeier, 1995, 2009; bruner, 1986, 1990; polkinghorne, 1998; sarbin, 1986; schafer, 1992; spence, 1982). narrating one’s own experience always happens “on-line”i. this aspect is not always clear and could have deep implications, so at a common sense level it is reasonable to state that narration — talking — is the process of searching for a meaning that occurs post hoc, that is, after having lived an experience, we try to find a meaning for it. yet in a similar vein people can be involved in narrative activities of expected future events even before they happen — narratives of tomorrow’s weather forecast on tonight’s television programs involve the preparation of the subjective apperception for the meaningful nature of the expected future event. telling stories regarding the expected long-term future outcomes for tellers and their listeners — such as the predictions made by fortune tellers (aphek & tobin, 1990), economic experts, or believers in the coming of the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ “end of the world” (festinger, schachter, & riecken, 1956) involve the narration of expectancies that are at present unknown to the teller and the listeners. borders as functional structures the aim of this study is to deal with the notion of borders and liminality in order to discuss and broaden the dynamic perspective on the psychological aspects of narrative processes. liminality implies temporal, spatial, normative and subjective functions of borders (marsico, 2016; marsico et al., 2013). although they are commonly used to demarcate enclosed areas of space, borders can be viewed abstractly as any distinction made within a homogeneous field — be it space, time or distinguishing the self from the non-self (“the other”). figure 1 illustrates the various forms of borders in their abstract presentation. figure 1. making distinctions as an act of creating borders. let us consider the crossing of national frontiers, moving from one residence to another, changing one’s job, becoming a parent or suffering from an illness, we immediately feel and perceive our experience in various ways. during all of these different experiences, one’s own contextual semiotic borders are changing. the habitual and consolidated processes for articulating signs in our narrations are no longer available and useful for organizing and guiding our experience, agency and social relations due to the transformation of our semiotic borders. from a referential perspective (based on a static and objective “state of the world” – bamberg, 2011), we focus on the processes of narration starting from becoming, difference-making, discontinuities and times of crises. let us consider two examples of changes in story-telling. a rupture occurs during an informal meeting between colleagues who are chatting about a workplace episode. the boss suddenly enters the room and the employees stop telling the story. after a brief moment of silence and embarrassment, a situation of uncertainty takes place and after this momentary liminal transition they begin telling a different story about their day. nothing explicitly prevents them from continuing to tell the previous story, yet the collective recognition of the role of social power played by their boss and the workplace norms establish implicit borders that force the employees to change the topic of conversation. another example of borders is triggered by changes in symbolic environments. let us imagine two friends who are passing through the church doorway at the end of the service. one of them immediately begins telling his friend about his experience as a football player and his team’s hopes of winning the championship. from an attitude of contemplation induced by the sermon that they have just heard, they start discussing trivialities that de luca picione & valsiner 533 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ deeply affect them. the architectural border of the doorway is simultaneously a border between two normative domains for story-telling. according to thomas nail (2016), there are four principal characteristics of borders: borders are in-between, since they are not just the sides of a system that touches another system, borders are a fuzzy zone-like phenomena of inclusive disjunctionii (p. 3); borders are not static but in motion (p. 5); borders are a process of circulation. a perspective on inclusion/exclusion (p. 7) is not enough, «one of the main effects of borders is precisely their capacity to create a hybrid transition zone» (p. 8); the border is not reducible to space (p. 9), the border is a primary process and not a derivative process of spatial ordering. crossing borders is a human act (marsico, 2011; marsico, cabell, valsiner, & kharlamov, 2013; valsiner, 2014). passing from the church to the outside represents a liminal transitioniii. every day people pass from home to work, or go to school and back. this is not only physical passing from one location to another — the borders become symbolic thresholds with specified conditions of their passing. a new contextual framework comes into existence together when borders are established, which introduces other discursive possibilities and other kinds of narratives regarding one’s own experiences may unfold as these transitions are taking place. when a person crosses the border from a “traditional” beach to a “nudist” beach at a seaside resort, one tells oneself a story that supports one’s transition through the liminal zone of the new signified part of the seashore. signmediated borders are devices that enable psychological processes of differentiation, opposition, confrontation, connection, categorization and sense-making (de luca picione, 2015b; neuman, 2003; salvatore, 2016; valsiner, 2014). we do not use the concept of border in an ontological sense (border as an entity) but from a psychological perspective (borders as semiotic tools that enable dynamic psychic processes – klempe, 2016). a border enables us to define our own identity while distancing ourselves from the others in a correlative way at same time. a semiotic border triggers a dynamic process in which the counterpart, the alterity, the otherness, the strangeness are involved. it is impossible to define a me without a non-meiv. borders create an essential condition to start a process of identity and narration. a person subjectivises his/her own way of organizing a narration according to the contextual setting of semiotic borders. borders set the stage for positioning within a symbolic field. without borders there is no differentiation, no dynamism and therefore no development. borders have several functions: to create a framework of sense, to diversify subjects and objects and to differentiate identities and positionings. at same time, a simultaneous process of liminality constantly interplays, thus preventing a reification of identity and stiffening of narration regarding one’s own experience. the ongoing construction of semiotic borders and the liminal processes alongside borders are necessary conditions of working. narrating as an ongoing psychological process of sensemaking implies bordering and liminality. from the breach of canonicity to the border crossing when a psychological equilibrium is violated, narrative processes are triggered to restore the sense of our experience. this is merely one – and maybe the simplest – of the meanings bruner discussed in his lesson on narration. although it is very important, the aspect of breach of canonicity is in fact only one of the wide set of features that make narrative processes so interesting. bruner defines many other aspects of the process of narration: narrative diachronicity, particularity, intentional state entailment, hermeneutic composability, canonicity and breach, referentiality, normativeness, context sensitivity and negotiability, narrative accrual psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making 534 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (bruner, 1991). in dynamic terms, the narrative process entails a temporal perspective that goes beyond the linear connection between past and present: i believe that the ways of telling and the ways of conceptualizing […] become recipes for structuring experience itself, for laying down routes into memory, for not only guiding the life narrative up to the present but directing it into the future. (bruner, 1987, p. 31) in more general terms, narrating one’s own experience is an active process of construction and connection to the present time of what happened in the past and what it is expected in the future. signs and borders as dynamic devices of plastic sensemaking process narration is a process of connection, articulation and integration of fragments of time, experiences and social relations. a person constantly re-configures the narration of his/her own experience contextually and there is a recursive, open, intransitive cycle in mediating self-other-world (valsiner, 2008). the founding condition of realizing a process of this kind consists in the possibility of using signs (sebeok & danesi, 2000). from a semiotic point of view (lotman, 2005; neuman, 2003; salvatore, 2016; sebeok, 2001; valsiner, 2007, 2008, 2014), these processes are recursive (beckstead, 2015) and as such they lead to repeated but always modified efforts to make sense of the current ongoing experience. in fact, a sign, as well as the emergence, escalation and demolishing of dynamic hierarchies of signs (valsiner, 2014; valsiner & de luca picione, 2017), provides a meaningful form to experience through acts of differentiation, indication, representation, generalization and reification. it enables us to differentiate between before and after, between here and there, between me and non-me (de luca picione & freda, 2014). cancer patients’ narratives provide vivid evidence of such processes. (de luca picione, martino, & freda, 2017; martino, de luca picione, & freda, 2016; martino & freda, 2016). patients who had undergone surgery described their experiences and referred to the cutting of the skin and their wounds as a disquieting loss of borders. “with this cutting on my body, i do not recognize myself, i am no longer able to fend for myself… everything seems so different…” “i cannot see the wound that surgery has left on my breast, my appearance has changed and i feel confused… i feel as if i lack anchor points, something is broken…” “…i find it difficult to to narrate my illness experience… i cannot imagine the future, the present is suspended… there is a strain! i feel alone… other people seem so distant…” in these extracts of narrative texts, serious states of liminality are described. here the borders of body are affected and the sense of one’s own experience is confused, vague, disquieting (arcidiacono et al., 2009; freda et al., 2015; freda et al., 2016; rainone et al., 2017; simão, 2003). the skin and the body are like borders that were somatic, but are now symbolic and social devices at work to differentiate oneself and relate with others now are unable. the skin has become a semiotic mediating device (nedergaard, 2016). de luca picione & valsiner 535 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ narration implies a process of interweaving and articulation of signs. a plot is an open-dynamic web of signs in which the person lives her own experiences, transcends the present time and learns from and interacts with others. it is an ongoing natural process (bateson, 1979). narration means making sense of the integrative capacity of remembering/forgetting the past (bateson, 1979; brescó de luna, 2016; hoffmeyer, 1996; neuman, 2003) and anticipating the future (i.e. proleptic imagination) in regard to the changing world and its unpredictability. here is the focus point: narration is always an experience of difference, experience of liminality, experience of creating a space of multiple possibilities. narratives often become sclerotic for various reasons and due to a process of naturalization (barthes, 1964) they are confused with an undisputed and indisputable reality (e.g. the process of acquisition of common sense is based on a consensual taken-for-granted), resulting in "dominant stories" (castro cunha et al., 2011; ribeiro & gonçalves, 2011) that silence any alternative, thus becoming saturated and unable to transform and evolve. nevertheless, a narrative is always an ongoing process since the actual action of maintaining, stabilizing or stiffening a story requires energy, effort and actions against transformative pressures arising from comparison, dialogue and differentiation. each narrative implies passing through virtual and possible worlds, no-sense places, other points of view, turbulent zones for dismantling and confusing one’s own identity. in our argumentation, we aim to emphasize the semiotic dynamics of signs and their articulation. to this purpose, a deep and extensive discussion of two notions is essential: border and liminality. we intend to discuss various points of view and several theoretical perspectives. yet, in our opinion, there is an epistemological common ground on which we can deal with the issues of stability/change of making sense of one’s own experience. we intend to take into account the semiotic plasticity of narrative processes, since psychological phenomena are transient and inherently ambivalent. we consider the processes of organization and transformation of sense (de luca picione, 2015a; neuman, 2003; salvatore, 2016) as dynamic processes that occur along liminal areas created by the organization of borders. from semiosphere to semiodynamics the concept of semiosphere was introduced by the tartu semiotic school leader juri lotman in analogy with the notion of biosphere (lotman, 2005). it involves the demarcation of the whole domain of human cultural activities in various forms of differentiation of the person and the “outside” of cultural modelling systems. the organization of borders allows for both the stabilization and transformation of the identity process. a border is a device that enables us to distinguish me versus non-me (figure 1c above). it is precisely in this area that processes of sensemaking take place which lotman regarded as translation processes, aimed at codifying information between one system and anotherv. a simple model of communication involving a sender and a receiver does not cover the complexity of meaningful human relations. a simple tenet of communication is not sufficient (de luca picione, dicé, & freda, 2015). in lotman’s opinion, borders are areas of potentiality, characterized by great instability and faster transformation processes than those at the corevi of the semiotic system. the borders are peripheral spaces in contact with the otherness, the strangeness. the core of the semiotic system is characterized by gradual processes; in a topological sense (de luca picione & freda, 2016a), the central parts of a semiotic system psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making 536 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ take longer to change and are more stable. let us consider the normative values in people's lives, the ideologies, the established practices and the habits in attributing meaning that can all be slow in changing. on the contrary, explosive processes occur along the borders (lotman, 2009); on the one hand, they are a threat to the stability of the semiotic system, yet on the other hand, they also represent the possibility of development and the integration of new partsvii. the borders are able to absorb and to speed up the stimuli of peripheral areas and transmit them to the central structures (de angelis, 1996). similarly to a biological membrane (e.g. the membrane of a cell – rich in catalyzing enzymes – predisposes several functions of interaction between the inside and the outside), the border traces a transition profile allowing a dynamic stability between the maintenance of stability and the possibility of transformation. therefore we observe that although the notion of the border generally conveys meanings of separation, definition and demarcation between distinct entities, the flip side of the border is constituted precisely by its capacity and function of creating relationships, networking, allowing comparison, exchange and dialogue (de luca picione & freda, 2016b; freda & de luca picione, 2014; lotman, 2005; valsiner, 2014). in our opinion the semiosphere notion is limited because it fails to include the temporal side of the inevitable move from past to future in irreversible time (figure 1b above). the narration within the subjective dynamics of tension of borders narrative sensemaking of one’s own experience is an ongoing contextual and situated process that originates from the positioning of the narrator with respect to some pertinences (de luca picione & freda, 2014). contextualization, subjective positioning and pertinentization are processes made possible by creating temporary semiotic borders. such a dynamicity implies: 1. the definition of a context is not given once and for all but is achieved by organization of wide contextual frames of sense (implicit, unsaid, yet shared and comparticipate) that interpret the present experience and orients through an endless multitude of virtual future possibilities (de luca picione & freda, 2014; salvatore, 2013; salvatore & freda, 2011). semiotic borders are involved in the organization of discursive and contextual frames. 2. the position assumed by the subject is the effect of his/her relationship with otherness (it is always partly chosen and partly attributed). the subject organizes the cultural significance of his/her own experience through the bordering of mutual positioning with other social actors (harré & van langenhove, 1991), who can be both internal and external, both imaginary and real. however, all of the sensemaking processes require a form of otherness against which one can establish a position (lotman [2005] defines the asymmetry as the basic principle of every dialogical process of sensemaking). 3. pertinence is the local definition within a wider context of what in a certain moment is relevant and what is not, what is being treated, disputed or negotiated with others. in short, pertinence provides a local form of the object in question and enables a discursive process (de luca picione, 2015a, 2015b; de luca picione & freda, 2012, 2014, 2016b; freda & de luca picione, 2013, 2014; salvatore, 2016). the configuration of different levels of semiotic borders (consisting of signs and symbolizations) is achieved. de luca picione & valsiner 537 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rather than drawing a static and unchanging scenario, borders pose a dynamic semiotic grid of reference for actions, relations and narrativization processes. as already mentioned, in psychological terms the borders mainly realize differentiation processes, which are the differences between before and after (past/future), between inside and outside (subject/object), between me and non-me (subject/otherness) (figure 2). figure 2. liminal structure of the border of the self over time. figure 2 shows an abstract model of how the self moves within its immediate context of the non-self over time. the inner <> outer distinction at each and every moment is “buffered” by the semiotically created layer — the liminal zone of the self. it is the “semiotic skin” that the person superimposes on the biological skin (nedergaard, 2016) whose function is to allow for the semi-permeable referencing of the past. the me as it was in the past has become non-me over time: when referencing a traumatic event of one’s childhood during adulthood, one’s memories are mediated by the pathways made possible by the current border. similarly the future — me-to-become – is only accessible at present through the pathways afforded by the border of now. the semiotization by means of borders then allows for the organization of the pillars required for constructing a narrative and initiating a discourse: time, space and the relationship between subjects. these three points are the basis of the deictic process (bühler, 1934). the borders set up in the present time the incipit to narrate, starting from the differences mentioned above. every narration is a process of negotiation and transformation of one’s own relationship with the relational world starting from “borderized” positions where the subject is located. this abstract idea is already rooted in the concept of mind according to gregory bateson (1979): the mind is the process that unfolds in the relationship between the organism and the environment. deepening the relevance of differentiation, greimas (1983) revealed in his narratological studies how the fundamental structure of signification is rooted in a primary process of differentiation. he argued that according to the processes of signification, there is an oppositional process that articulates a semantic micro-universe ruled by a series of fundamental differential relations (traini, 2013, p. 97). the semiotic square of greimas is a useful tool for studying the processes of sensemaking. it is based on an abstract network of relationships: opposition, contradiction and complementarity. within this model, the terms are not defined in a substantial manner, but only according to their relationships with one psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making 538 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ another (traini, 2013). not only is the semiotic square useful for analysis and classification but also for creating increasingly complex syntactic sensemaking processes, starting from very basic operations of negation and affirmation. according to greimas, these transactions outline a path of generativity and designate the embryonal conditions of each narration processviii (traini, 2013). the transitional liminal zone: possibilities for stiffening or for transformation generating sense triggered by processes of differentiation along the border areas – enables us to complexify contextual relations between subject/world/otherness (simão, 2007, 2013). simão, when discussing the role of border process in the i/other/world relationships summarizes this key point very well: …human living, as they arise from the human potential condition of permanently looking and striving for coherence and stability, on one hand, while unceasingly realizing instability and difference, on the other. this means that what we realize in our i-world relationships we do in terms of pairs of opposites, according to a symbolic imbalanced combinatory movement between and among opposites […] (simão, 2016, p. 23) there are two possible directions of development and transformation (de luca picione & freda, 2016b; freda & de luca picione, 2013, 2014). on one hand there is a tendency towards defensive identity processes, stiffening of qualities that become entitiesix (peirce, 1935), hypostatization of the relational system along channeled and normative paths, story of ideological and dogmatic mythology (barthes, 1964), repetitive and saturating dominant narratives (castro cunha et al., 2011; gonçalves, matos, & santos, 2009). on the other hand, we observe tendencies towards the formation of an area of accessibility and multiplicity of possibilities, a virtual place for new connections, a noisy space of polyphony in which the narrative is constructed from various points of view and opinions (bakhtin, 1981). we observe an open space in which the narration can evolve along various lines of compossibilities (many simultaneous "as if"-s) and creative mixing of counterfactual conditions (i.e. innovative reformulations of the "if ..., then ...") of one’s own experience (smythe, 2005). depending upon the plasticity of borders, there is a continuum from a vision of a rigidly defined reality – from one’s own implicit and social sharing systems of representation and interpretation – towards fertile dynamics of new possibilities and the production of narratives translating the unexpected, the surprise and the uncanny into new messages. the transitional liminal space is the psychological zone in which it is possible to construct new narratives starting from differences (before/after, here/there, me/non-me) (figure 3). it is essential to cross the liminality for the sake of psychic and social development, although we are somehow aware of the risk and the danger involved. the rituals are symbolic forms aimed at fostering and canalizing a crossing of this kind in order to reach new i-other-world configurations. de luca picione & valsiner 539 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. dynamics of the liminal structure of the border. under certain conditions (i.e., k, y, m, n, w, etc. – see the process of catalysis in valsiner, 2007, 2014), the borders present different dynamics of opening/closure between inner and outer. three prototypical examples are presented: a. the first case may occur during a workshop in a group setting where the participant encounters other perspectives, opinions, narrations. the opening space of the liminal structure of border in this friendly atmosphere – enables him/her to create a temporary ambiguous space. in this fuzzy space me and non-me are able to create together novel and stories. b. the second case can occur when an insurer tries to convince a potential customer to sign an insurance policy. the former provides various reasons, stories and benefits and encounters the resistance of the latter. if the insurer achieves his/her purpose of persuasion (condition w takes place), he overcomes the resistance (i.e. a border is crossed) of the customer, who starts to tell (condition j takes place) a new story about the advantages of "his choice". c. the third case takes place during a political forum between two candidates from opposing parties. neither reserves any space of dialogue, so the borders between them are totally non-permeable to the other narrative perspectives. x is just a potential situation of a possible opening but the semiotic system is engaged in a defensive attitude of its core identity. it is blocked thus every possibility of entrance. crossing the threshold: intensive emotionality in semiotic terms the border crossing is configured as a threshold (de luca picione & freda, 2016c), namely a bifurcation point characterized by the loss of the old symbolic order (meaningful articulations of signs) and by the lack of a future order. the threshold marks the passage by reassuring stability (the previous narrations of self, others and world) to uncertainty and unpredictability (greco & stenner, 2017; salvatore & venuleo, 2017). according to lotman (2009), an explosive process is taking place. such an explosive process marks a discontinuity of unidirectional processes, creating a chaotic, irreversible situation which is potentially open to endless unpredictable possibilities. a new narration must be imagined and articulated in order to construct a new contextualization, pertinentization and positioning. that will permit a new relational and agentive configuration with the others and the world. let us to exemplify this point by revisiting a narrative taken from heft (2013): psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making 540 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the inuit of the nunavut region near baffin island rely on hunting and fishing to sustain their way of life, and they routinely travel considerable distances over what is snow and ice-covered terrain for much of the year. during their short summer months, the trails used for this essential travel disappear with the snow melt, and each fall, new trails need to be reestablished. […] how then are the networks of trails long traveled by sled, now with snowmobiles, recreated each year? aporta (2009) shows that the course of the trails is woven into narratives of previous trips that are shared between individuals and across generations. […] trails rarely are the shortest link between destinations but “usually go through fertile places, across or around lakes, valleys, or open water (on the sea ice) where fish, caribou, and sea mammals can be procured” (p. 10). and it is along the trails where much social interaction occurs, including the sharing of information about fish and game at other points along the trail networks, about travel conditions, and news concerning life events in the dispersed community, such as births, marriages, and deaths. the way-finding information that is woven into retellings of prior trips seems to be related mostly to features that are to be encountered along the way with little indication that these recountings involve survey representations. the trails to be followed are presented as itineraries composed of features to be encountered along the way (heft, 2013, p. 20-21, emphasis added). it is interesting to note that the potential innovation and the vertigo – with deep and great emotional implications – that liminal areas along borders are able to generate in those who experience this crossing. conclusions: elaborating the semiotic dynamics of subjective border zones in semiotic terms novelty emerges when the trajectories of routine sense are interrupted and discontinuity is introduced in habitual daily narratives. we are saying that a new narration is possible, in terms of creative exercise, if we overcome the semiotic border that establishes various differences. there is always a reciprocal presupposition between continuity and discontinuity in meaning-making processes (de luca picione & freda, 2014, 2016b; esposito, freda, & bosco, 2015; freda, 2011; freda & esposito, 2017). the continuity of sense on this side of the border presupposes the discontinuity of sense beyond the border and vice versa. in order to be performed narrative processes require an innovative, contingent and contextual configuration that not only marks the breaking of continuity but also a reconfiguration of the old in a new gestalt subject/world/otherness projecting into the future (de luca picione, 2015b; de luca picione & freda, 2014, 2016a). the ongoing creative processes of narration are permitted thanks to the permeability of the borders and the plastic models of life experiences. this perspective leads us to consider the reconfiguration of the borders as social and inter-subjective processes which are also deeply subjective and personal. the plastic and dynamic structure of the border provides the foundation for narrative-based processes of sensemaking of one’s own experience by defining the context, positioning and pertinence. as structure tending towards a dynamic balance, the border is in constant tension between stability and change (de luca picione & freda, 2016a). the psychological implication of this semiotic dynamic is relevant (tateo, 2013, 2015). in fact, when the border becomes too rigid, we observe forms of repetition of the same narration, a saturation of sense-making processes and a sclerotization of relations based on opposition systems. similarly, when the border is excessively blurred and fragile, it is impossible to realize a process of signification because it is impossible to define differences and diversity (in certain cases, the discontinuity of experiences could be so extreme that it is de luca picione & valsiner 541 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ impossible to attribute meaning). the experience of liminality – capable of generating new meanings, contributing to the generation of new narrations, projecting the subject into future scenarios – lies precisely in an ongoing, dynamic and contextual tension of oscillatory processes of configuration of semiotic borders. notes i) “narratives typically are shared and performed between people and for (interactive) purposes—in situ and in vivo. consequently, from a discursive perspective, particular attention needs to be placed on how and where identities and conventions from the past are confirmed and where and how they are contested. this space within the social dimension of discourse, that is, narratives-in-interaction as bodily performed, is the site to be explored with an eye on where and how the boundaries of traditional categories are conventionally handed down and tested out over time. in interaction, narratives form the location to try out, contest, subvert, and draw up new boundaries that, if reiterated and practiced over time, may result in constructions of alternative and new boundaries for new identity categories” (bamberg, 2011, pp 3-4). ii) the focus is on processes of bordering rather than on borders as things. borders emerge where there is a continuous process that reaches a bifurcation point (nail, 2016, p. 3). in the same way, klempe discussed the psychological nature of borders in contrast with ontological and philosophical assumptions (klempe, 2016) iii) victor turner (1974)—based on van gennep’s anthropological model of “rites of passage” (van gennep, 1960) emphasizes the importance of the transition phases. he elaborates the concept of limen ("threshold", "margin", "border" from latin) proposing the liminoid (꞊ limen + eidos, that is greek word that means “form”, “idea”, “model”). the liminoid is the space in which innovations take place, experimentations of new and different ideas emerge, new knowledge of the world is introduced. the novelty emerges through free recombination of familiar elements with non-familiar elements. liminoid is a space for play and recreation, which reassembles and often subverts the order constituted by the classifications and strictly social oppositions. van gennep’s and turner’s cultural anthropology acknowledges the crucial psychological and social function of defining/crossing/re-defining borders. the liminal area is a space of many virtual possibilities and potential opportunities. iv) in herbst’s co-genetic logic (herbst, 1995), the figure, the background and the border are mutually co-defining and simultaneously vanish together. this triplet emerges always as a whole and an individual atomicity is impossible since the relational structure is primary. v) albeit the codifying notion reminds us of the mechanistic and computational processing of information, we must consider this translation process as a way to transfer something from one place to another by transforming it. vi) some definitions of lotman’s views on the sensemaking process (as identity, core, periphery, mechanism of sense generation, borders, translation, codifying, speed, structure, etc.) may appear to be too mechanistic, reifying, linear or static. yet, the sense of his thought is so far from such a reductivst perspective. the power of lotman’s theoretical intuitions and theorization is so wide and general that the fields of literature, art, psychology, anthropology, biology, systemic sciences, etc. have been inspiring and orienting in dynamic sense. vii) while this study is being carried out, the phenomenon of migrants along the italian coastline and the borders of europe appears to embody identity defense and transformation processes in an intense and bloody manner. viii) according to greimas, the narrative process is progressively constructed through conversion processes passing from deep levels with abstract impersonal and binary categories, towards superficial levels characterized by more complex (enrichment of sense) and concrete categories (spatialization, temporalization, concrete manifestations of the actors in the actant roles) ix) the conceptual process by which quality is hypostasized into entity was described by peirce (1935) as a specific mode of abstraction and was named pre-scissions. funding this study was supported by international exchange program of short mobility of professors, scholars, researchers of university of naples federico ii d.r. n. 3520 15.10.2015. competing interests the authors declares that he has no conflict of interest. psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making 542 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. ethical approval this article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the author. references aphek, e., & tobin, y. 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(1960). the rites of passage. chicago, il, usa: university of chicago press. about the authors raffaele de luca picione, phd, graduated first in political science and then in clinical, dynamic and community psychology. he is interested in the processes of subjective meaning making in a psychodynamic, semiotic and cultural perspective. he deals with meaning making processes within healthcare relationships. his works are about affective semiosis, in reference to the relationship between thinking, emotion, and language. in his writings, there is deep attention on the issues of temporality and dynamics of the processes of transformation of meaning. he wrote several international works about emotion/affect, inter-subjectivity, narration, reflexivity, and semiotic process of modal articulation as well. he is interested to semiotics, paradigms of complexity, and connections between cultural psychology and clinical psychology in a psychodynamic frame. he wrote a book entitled “la mente come forma. la mente come testo” [“the mind as form. the mind as text”] (milano: mimesis, 2015). jaan valsiner is a cultural psychologist with a consistently developmental axiomatic base that is brought to analyses of any psychological or social phenomena. he is the founding editor (1995) of the sage journal, culture & psychology. he is currently niels bohr professor of cultural psychology at aalborg university, denmark. he has published and edited around 40 books, the most pertinent of which are the guided mind (cambridge, ma.: harvard university press, 1998), culture in minds and societies (new delhi: sage, 2007), and invitation to cultural psychology (london: sage, 2014). he has been awarded the alexander von humboldt prize of 1995 in germany, and the hans-kilian-preis of 2017, for his interdisciplinary work on human development, and senior fulbright lecturing award in brazil 1995-1997. he has been a visiting professor in brazil, japan, australia, estonia. germany, italy, luxembourg, united kingdom, and the netherlands. de luca picione & valsiner 547 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 532–547 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1136 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1177/0959354313488844 http://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-015-9296-4 http://hdl.handle.net/1911/63159 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf03172741 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological functions of semiotic borders in sense-making (introduction) borders as functional structures from the breach of canonicity to the border crossing signs and borders as dynamic devices of plastic sensemaking process from semiosphere to semiodynamics the narration within the subjective dynamics of tension of borders the transitional liminal zone: possibilities for stiffening or for transformation crossing the threshold: intensive emotionality conclusions: elaborating the semiotic dynamics of subjective border zones notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethical approval references about the authors living creatively, in and through institutions editorial living creatively, in and through institutions tania zittoun*a [a] university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 published (vor): 2016-02-29. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology and education, faculty of humanities, university of neuchâtel, espace louis-agassiz 1, ch – 2000 neuchâtel, switzerland. e-mail: tania.zittoun@unine.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. from basic processes to existentially significant questions psychologists, as many social scientists, try to describe and understand what is to live as humans in society. if many were interested and fascinated by distant social groups, or studied them for the reflexive distance their understanding allowed, there is still great need to understand our current social, cultural and political environment. this is a new task for many psychologists, because their discipline has dominantly preferred to examine “small” and clearly cut problems over the last fifty years: task resolution, attachment, attitude or reasoning. attempts to address serious and complex problems, such as goffman’s work on total institutions (goffman, 1961) or jodelet’s study of madness in a french village (jodelet, 1989) are considered as marginal if not off-discipline, and other attempts such as milgram’s to understand the conditions of nazism through submission to authority (milgram, 2009) are currently very critically reassessed (brannigan, nicholson, & cherry, 2015; mastroianni, 2015). more recently, and coming from different critical horizons – social psychology, political psychology, critical psychology, cultural psychology, dialogical approaches in psychology – many dare to address “big” questions. these always demand an understanding of the person-in-context, in relationship to others and their environment, and address complex psychological experiences (molenaar, 2004; valsiner, marsico, chaudhary, sato, & dazzani, 2016). among these, authors have examined the experience of trust in one’s social environment (marková & gillespie, 2008, 2011), the experience of growing up in conditions of great poverty (bastos, rabinovich, & valsiner, 2009), of living in conditions of social and political transformation (daiute, 2010; magioglou, 2014; wagoner, jensen, & oldmeadow, 2012), of migration and losing one’s home (bhatia, 2011; kadianaki, 2009; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ märtsin & mahmoud, 2012), or more simply – but not less complex – the experience of daily life in a complex society (dreier, 2007; schraube & højholt, 2016). transversal to many of these studies, an important challenge reappears: how can we fully understand how people deal with institutions, and how institutions guide, channel, enable or at times constrain people’s trajectories? and conversely, how to account for the basic or minimal conditions that allow people to find their own ways, or confer sense to their experience within institutions? it is these two questions, often reduced to the structure-agency or the determinism-freedom problems, that i wish to address. rather than a full theorization, i propose a sketch that may have a programmatic function. theorizing institutions the question of how to account for the “context” or the “environment” in which people live and their constraining role is not new in psychology, by any means (for reviews see grossen, 2001; marková, 2015). these attempts have usually drawn on abstract theories and models to then sketch complex systemic models, for instance to address the development conditions of the child (bronfenbrenner, 1979; van geert, 2003) or the working conditions of the adult (engeström, engeström, & kärkkäinen, 1995). combined with this, other theories have tried to qualify the “effect” of the sociocultural environment on influencing people (ratner, 2014), framing lives (goffman, 1974; grossen & perret-clermont, 1992), channeling or guiding conduct (toomela, 2003; valsiner, 2008), or some complex combination of giving shape to people’s motives, favoring certain means to get to some end, and shaping the meaning of actions (abramson, 2012). but how to specifically theorize the role of institutions in psychology? interestingly, neither the international encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (smelser & baltes, 2001), nor the more recent encyclopedia of critical psychology (teo, 2014) (nor any of the reference works consulted in various fields of psychology) define the term ‘institution’ (but some individual studies have, see for instance marková, in press) sociology had, in contrast, defined itself as the study of institutions, understood as “any system of beliefs, or collective modes of actions” (after durkheim, 2002, p. 15, my translation). and so these can be defined as such: an institution is the fixing of stereotyped social interactions in the form of rules. in most cases these rules are made explicit and there are sanctioning mechanisms behind them. yet sometimes these characteristics are absent, for example when people adhere to such rules simply because they feel urged to act in this way. an institution does not need to be a large organization. the largest institutions known are states or multinational organizations like the united nations, yet there are also much smaller institutions, as for example marriage or monthly meetings of a group at a certain pub. therefore, institutionalization is not a matter of size. (henning, 2007) it is striking that this sociological definition is imbued with psychological explanation: people “simply feel urged to act in this way” (above). how can we reread such proposition? we will first comment on the sociocultural nature of institutions, before turning to people’s experiences. from a sociocultural psychological perspective, which emphasized the semiotic, material and temporal nature of the sociocultural environment (valsiner, 2014), we could say that institutions are temporarily solidified meanings and patterns of interactions, which are usually crystallized in different forms: materiality (as the walls of a school), semiotic constructions (as written regulation or textbooks) or ideal or communicational constructions, such as europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 living creatively, in and through institutions 2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social representations. as solidified patterns, these usually change more slowly than other sociocultural realities – unless there is of course a sudden revolution, which reaccelerates the change (zittoun & gillespie, 2015), or important changes in the general conditions of life (e.g., a financial crises, see for instance ratner, 2014). from that perspective, different institutions do not differ in size, but in the nature of their composition, and therefore, resistance and inertia. in effect, it might be useful to distinguish institutions that are strongly bounded to a material setting, such as a school or a ministry, or more fluid institutions, such a football matches, that are highly regulated yet can take places in different places and dissolve again (zittoun et al., 2013, pp. 144-145). anyhow, what counts here is that institutions are usually “given” to people by the social environment. because of their material and symbolic composition and their particular temporality, they tend to be transmitted across generations. these are therefore often perceived by people that meet them as what is “out there” and that escapes to some extend to individual action. of course, constructionist approaches have shown us how much everything is constructed (berger & luckmann, 1966); more practically, all institutions are human made, and people usually often have more power than they think to participate to their evolution – whether explicitly in democratic societies, or through active or passive resistance in other situations. institutions create only the setting for people’s action and meaning making. institutions are given to many people, yet people do not experience institutions similarly: even the most totalitarian institutions do not turn every person into a copy of their neighbor. this is where it is useful to distinguish the socially given from the psychologically experienced, as indicated by phenomenological psychosociology (lewin, 1936, 2000; schuetz, 1944, 1951). drawing on this approach, we have thus distinguished the socially and materially given – the settings – from how people experience specific situations. we have used the term “spheres of experience” to designate this more subjective experience of being engaged in a recurrent pattern of activity, feeling, intentions, meanings, etc. this includes for example the sphere of experience of having a family dinner (which can take place in different physical spaces and around different dishes, yet feels quite “the same” for a given person over time as it has a certain emotional quality, touches identity aspects, demands the mastery of informal rules, or the sphere of experience of reading one’s students’ emails – which can take place in the same room or even at the same table where one does many other activities, yet which demand specific skills and orientations (zittoun & gillespie, 2015, 2016). this important distinction – between what is given and what is experienced – is central both to identify how the first one enables and constrains the second, and how people can still maintain freedom within constraining conditions. the work of institutions now that we have defined institutions, we have to identify the specific dynamics by which institutions, as sociocultural constructs, participate to the definition of people’s lives. like any other form of cultural constructs, institutions can act upon people from within, and from without. from within, in effect, they provide values, discourses and actions that have shaped the person’s conduct and that she or he has internalized and that can now guide her understanding of the world and her externalization. they also guide from without, because institutions create settings for interactions and the modalities of recognition of the person. it is thus possible to speak about a double orchestration of human conduct (baucal & zittoun, 2013). if we give a closer look at institutions, however, we need to identify at least a triple guidance. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 zittoun 3 http://www.psychopen.eu/ first, as they have been shaped through time, participate to a certain society, present people redundantly with certain discourses and ways of doing, they participate to the socialization of persons, the activities they develop, and therefore the semiotic means they have internalized. internalization itself of course can be more or less deep (valsiner, 1998). some values or discourses can be simply repeated by a person and forgotten. others can be consciously or deliberately called upon if necessary. still others can become deeply internalized and recombined and generalized through layers of a person’s experience. these become so to say transparent to the person – as can, for instance, be the respect to authority, or certain non-conscious ways to experience gender (ratner, 2014). others can even be internalized and repressed by other layers, and thus appear indirectly, for instance through dreams (beradt, 2004; zittoun, 2011) or other manifestation of unconscious material. second, institutions create time, material places and spaces, interactions and activities. a person’s action is thus guided in and by daily interactions. for instance, people in retirement home have to come to dinner at certain hours, move in specific spaces, obey to security instructions, or interact with health carers at certain imposed moments (salamin, 2015). concretely, thus, daily conduct is punctuated by strongly guided encounters. in each interaction, certain conduct, aspects of identity or attempt to confer meaning to the situation are encouraged, guided, validated by others, or at the contrary, not recognized, or forbidden. this can (but must not) change future conducts, or shape the internalization that will follow. hence, for instance, teachers can, during their interactions with students, make them feel that their way to invest a book or a movie is inadequate. students can feel that lack of recognition and disinvest learning (zittoun, 2014b). yet there also, people have usually unguided periods of time: moments to rest, or without surveillance, or breaks; little escapes watching out of the window, or bigger, leaving the walls of an institution; and people can learn despite repeated teachers’ rebuff (mehmeti, 2013). third, as a whole, representatives of institutions can also produce and diffuse discourses and other crystallized traces based on these interactions with specific persons – they produce institutional artefacts. these artefacts are most likely to be used by further representatives of institutions as resources when meeting the same person, further in his or her lifecourse. hence, schools produce grades which will be used by college admission boards, workplaces produce recommendation letters that will be used by future employers, doctors produce evaluations that will be used by insurance agents, or, as it is the case in certain regions of switzerland, police officers produce reports that can be used by civil officers in charge of deciding if the resident can receive the local nationality (zittoun, 2015). it is partly because the work of so many agents or gatekeepers of institutions rely on previous colleagues’ work that social reproduction (for example in education) can so blindly be conducted, or that administrative handicapping of life can be produced (mehan, hertweck, & meihls, 1986). finally, it is also because museums buy the paintings of an artist or schools put a bust of their teachers in the hall that some people become socially acknowledged and thus part of the “institution”. yet here also, there are always teachers that decide not to consult the students’ past records (zittoun, 2004), doctors that reassess the health of their new patients, or, at times, migrants that can have their application reexamined (di donato, 2014). there are also authors that refuse nobel prices (such as sartre) and thus escape becoming representative of institutions. these three aspects of institutional guidance – semiotic guidance, situated interactions and produced artefacts – can, of course, be more or less adjusted and consonant, or dissonant. institutions may promote values which are not put into daily interactions, or interactions might lead to expectations which are not followed up by the cultural artefact they produce. people usually feel these discrepancies, and experiences them as lack of justice, or absurdities – and these might be the origins of questions and the trigger for imagination and action, as we will see. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 living creatively, in and through institutions 4 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is important to note that, although the guidance of institutions is pervasive, it is not only negative. institutions are usually the warrant of some aspects of a cultural system and thus participate to its maintenance, transmission and renewal. schools give people means to learn to read and think, administration allows for social security, and hospitals still help to preserve personal health. whether these institutions treat people unequally, take advantage of their power, is a problem that needs to be addressed; yet the total lack of institutions is also the end of peaceful coexistence in a complex world. as much as the ecosystem is the condition of our biological existence as humans while being at times hostile, institutions are the basic conditions of our cultural lives, before being constraining or limiting freedom. people’s creativity in living institutions have a triple way to channel and guide people’s conduct and sense making, from within and from without. yet, as already suggested, people are most of the time not reduced to what institutions impinge on them, even when they do not actively resists or oppose an institutional order. students develop (sometimes) autonomous and critical thinking, old people in retirement homes define their “corner” in an unused corridor and feel at home, employees can enjoy their work as well as join workers unions to make propositions to their authorities, and prisoners escape their prisons in their daydreams, or materially. either way, people do not simply comply. scholars have proposed different notions to designate people’s capacity to stand as persons in front of, or within institutions; they have used the terms self-determination, autonomy, agency, subjectivity, and so forth. as these terms have all complex underpinnings which i will not discuss here, i would like to propose another one – that designates people’s creativity. for this, i will draw on winnicott’s propositions: it is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living. contrasted with this is one of compliance, the world and its details being recognized but only as something to be fitted in with or demanding adaptation (winnicott, 2001, p. 65). as a psychoanalyst and pediatrician, winnicott was interested in how people, sometimes in very difficult situations, could maintain their strive for life; he called creativity a specific meeting of the self and the world, by which one could have the experience of having “created” the given. grounded in early interactions, that experience expands in adulthood in the repeated experience we may have of seeing the world as-if it were new – seeing the tree at of one’s window as if it was for the first time. this experience is thus that of being proactive in one’s relation to the world, and not simply reacting – elsewhere, winnicott opposes it to the response to a stimulus (winnicott, 2004). this is partly because this creative response engages the person, with all her past experiences, memories and embodied emotions. i do believe that winnicott thus captured something very important about people’s engagement in their spheres of experience. my proposition is that there is something of this creativity that allows people not to be over-burdened by the triple guidance of institutions. basic creativity allows people to experience the institutions that they come to interact with or in not only as constraining, but also enabling; not only as imposing, but also as providing them with means to express themselves, explore their world, or experience their capacities and skills. more specifically, such creativity may allow people to live a meaningful life within or facing institutions in four related ways. first, it is the basis of a playful relation to the given, and thus allows defining an acceptable sphere of experience in a given setting: a possible way of understanding the classroom, a comfortable promenade in the retirement home, or a trustable colleague in the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 zittoun 5 http://www.psychopen.eu/ workplace. second, it is indeed the basis of imagination, thus allowing the exploration of distal experiences – imagining alternatives, distant, past or future experiences (zittoun & gillespie, 2016). as such, imagination and creativity allow simply writing a good essay, thinking about the future life of one’s grandchildren, or design a new piece of machinery; it also allows escaping institutional constraints through daydream, or parallel or underground activities. this might, third, lead to life-creativity (zittoun & de saint-laurent, 2015) – decide to quit an institution and reorient one’s life. it may finally even allow, fourth, proposing alternatives to the institutional guidance: oppose a grade, object an administrative decision, organizing a demonstration, or with others, propose an innovation or develop a new political imagination (glăveanu & de saint-laurent, 2015). it is important to note that such understanding of existential creativity goes beyond a naïve acceptance of one’s life conditions, and should not be reduced to the “symbolic violence” of accepting and internalizing otherwise oppressive powers (against ratner, 2014). in effect, people do not come naked in front of any institutions: they experience it as one in a long series of spheres of experience they will or they have met. people develop through time, and through many social settings; only in extreme cases do people live in total institutions. this implies that, over time, people internalize different values, meanings and discourses from different spheres of experience. it is with these layers of more or less integrated experiences that people interact with institutions. their past trajectories lead them to experience tensions and contradictions within what is offered to them, or between what is proposed and their past and imagined experiences, or can give them resources to deal with new demands (gillespie, cornish, aveling, & zittoun, 2008; gillespie & zittoun, 2015; zittoun & gillespie, 2015). it is the layered nature of human experience that allows inner dialogue (marková, 2006; zittoun, 2014a), and with it, such existential creativity. this is why being creative in an institution is not submitting to it; it is the way to meet it as unique person, facing some of the cultural construction of others – which need of course sometimes to be opposed. a programmatic stance the reading proposed here suggests that given the fundamental role of institutions in our lives in societies, it might well be time for psychologists to fully understand how they function, to further explore their triple modality of guidance, as well as how people interact with them, and how they develop their spheres of experiences within and across them. consequently, it is also very important for psychologists to understand at what conditions an existential creativity can be preserved or restored in every person. when basic conditions of safety, emotional security, recognition, dialogue, are threatened, great strains are put on people and their experience of creative life. when people choose, or feel forced, to comply to any institutional order – even well-intentioned ones – then societies are in trouble. in effect, without individual creativities, people cannot participate to the renewal, questioning and necessary correction of institutions. hence, if people loose individual creativity, societies are at risk of losing much more. conversely, when people feel too threatened, or in risk of alienation, they might also reject all societal institutions as well. if their permanent renewal is necessary, it might be preferable for all if this remains a dialogical process (marková, in press). learning from small and large institutions, present and past, we may have better tools to understand what is at stake for people’s trajectories in the general shivering of our institutions. this might be one of the tasks for psychologists in europe today. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 living creatively, in and through institutions 6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references abramson, c. m. 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(2013). human development in the life course: melodies of living. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. about the author tania zittoun is professor of sociocultural psychology, at the university of neuchâtel in switzerland. her interests include human development in the lifecourse, and the role of imagination within. she currently works on the trajectories of migrant families in switzerland, whether highly mobile or having to deal with the difficulties of obtaining the swiss citizenship, as well as the transition to the retirement home. her last books include human development in the lifecourse: melodies of living (cup, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 living creatively, in and through institutions 10 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.newideapsych.2013.05.006 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2013, with j. valsiner, d. vedeler, j. salgado, m. gonçalves & d. ferring) and imagination in human and cultural development (routledge, 2016, with a. gillespie). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 1–11 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1133 zittoun 11 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en living creatively, in and through institutions from basic processes to existentially significant questions theorizing institutions the work of institutions people’s creativity in living a programmatic stance (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author moral dilemmas and existential issues encountered both in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling practices theoretical contributions moral dilemmas and existential issues encountered both in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling practices beatrice a. popescu*a [a] faculty of philosophy, university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. abstract this paper stems from clinical observations and empirical data collected in the therapy room over six years. it investigates the relationship between psychotherapy and philosophical counseling, proposing an integrative model of counseling. during cognitive behavior therapy sessions with clients who turn to therapy in order to solve their clinical issues, the author noticed that behind most of the invalidating symptoms classified by the dsm-5 as depression, anxiety, hypochondriac and phobic complaints, usually lies a lack of existential meaning or existential scope and clients are also tormented by moral dilemmas. following the anamnestic interview and the psychological evaluation, rarely the depression or anxiety diagnosed on axis i is purely just a sum of invalidating symptoms, which may disappear if treated symptomatically. when applying the sentence completion test, an 80 items test of psychodynamic origin and high-face validity, most of the clients report an entire plethora of conscious or unconscious motivations, distorted cognitions or irrational thinking but also grave existential themes such as scope or meaning of life, professional identity, fear of death, solitude and loneliness, freedom of choice and liberty. same issues are approached in the philosophical counseling practice, but no systematic research has been done yet in the field. future research and investigation is needed in order to assess the importance of moral dilemmas and existential issues in both practices. keywords: cognitive behavioral therapy, philosophical counseling, moral dilemmas, existential issues, meaning of life europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 received: 2015-06-19. accepted: 2015-07-30. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: splaiul independentei 204, sector 6, 060024, bucharest, romania. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@bellanima.ro this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction themain topics of this paper refer to the moral dilemmas and existential issues encountered both in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling. moral dilemmasmay vary from personal dilemmas linked tomoral relativism, dilemmas related to academic performance, drugs and alcohol, up to a wide range of business ethical dilemmas. existential issues cover topics such as: scope or meaning of life, professional identity, fear of death, solitude and loneliness, freedom of choice and liberty. existentialist themes may be approached as well in existential psychotherapy and in philosophical counseling sessions, following different traditions or school of thoughts. psychotherapy practice in general gives rise to a lot of ethical and moral dilemmas and also deals with a large sum of existential issues. the same happens in the philosophical counseling practice. in this paper, i argue that both the mental health dimension and the moral dimension can be brought into the same integrative model of counseling, starting from the limitations of both fields. the paper also aims to theorize some of the main ethical dilemmas encountered both in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling practices, especially the dilemmas raised by the clients or europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ counselees, which sometimes can be noticed in the first session of the evaluation. the selection process of clients or counselees is also discussed, since it is crucial for the success of both therapeutic and counseling approaches. psychotherapy and philosophical counseling or the need for an integrativemodel of counseling psychotherapy and philosophical counseling as distinct domains have been developing in parallel for a few decades. even though philosophical counseling is much newer than psychological counseling or psychotherapy in the helping professions field, philosophical counselors, especially those who have mental health training such as tim lebon, eliott d. cohen, mike w. martin, john mills and are also trained in psychology except from philosophy, value also the methods of psychotherapy, mainly those used in cognitive behavior psychotherapy, rational emotive behavior therapy and existential psychotherapy. the methodological impact of psychoanalysis on philosophical counseling is rather limited. however, existential psychotherapy as a theoretical frame reminds us that philosophy, in this case existentialism does not only mean any kind of reflection, discussion or lecturing, but it is also a way of life and an existential attitude. (hadot, 1995). in schlomit schuster’s paper, “philosophical counseling and rationality”, she also mentions two articles in the international journal of applied philosophy that relate philosophical counseling to albert ellis's rational emotive behavior therapy (rebt). another author, the philosopher roger paden, argues that pc should be made even more similar to rebt. (schuster, 1999). in paden's paper, “defining philosophical counseling”, philosophical counseling is considered therapy, yet he considers pc different “from psychotherapy and pastoral counseling, very similar to rebt but lacking a fixed paradigm” (paden, 1998, p. 10). not only the theoretical proximity of the two domains, with psychology initially evolving from philosophy, makes us consider their synergistic approach, but also the methods and techniques used in both types of practices (psychotherapy and philosophical counseling) are very similar, with a focus on the methods used in cognitive behavior psychotherapy (cbt) and rational emotive behavior therapy (rebt). cognitive techniques commonly used in both practices are: rational analysis (anderson, 1991), disputing irrational beliefs inwindy dryden’s abcde scheme (ellis & dryden, 2007), changing one’s language, challenging client’s or counselee’s worldview (lahav, 1995), nelson’s method of socratic dialogue (kleinknecht & neißer, 1994), identifying the cognitive distortions (burns, 1989), common irrational beliefs (ellis, 1991) or logical errors, cognitive reframing, formulating practical syllogisms, as in cohen’s logic-based therapy, mindfulness meditation (drawn from the buddhist tradition) and critical thinking (feltham, 2010). other techniques discovered by de haas based on phenomenological tradition are: phenomenological epoché and reduction, by asking open and disenchanting questions and also language game analysis. (de haas, 2011). even more, the abc schema created by albert ellis, the father of rational emotive behavior therapy, one of the few evidence-based or bona fides psychotherapies used to treat a wide range of problems, is heavily relying on stoics’ thinking. it is inspired by epictetus’s enchiridion: “men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.” ellis describes people’s interpretations of external events as being influenced by core irrational beliefs (ellis, 1991). i can argue in this paper that an eclectic model of counseling can exist, based on the fact that “cognitive-behavioral approaches, transactional analysis, cognitive behavior therapy (cbt) and rational europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling 510 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotive behavior therapy (rebt) among others, brought forth a mixed bag of philosophical assumptions” (cohen, 2013, p. 11). looking at the analytical and methodical jargon of most philosophical counselors, leon de haas notices that it is not entirely derived from psychology, but also from philosophy, existentialism, stoicism or non-western sources of ‘sage wisdom’ such as buddhism (de haas, 2011). tim lebon, an uk cognitive behavior psychotherapist and philosopher, believes certain therapies, even evidence-based ones (such as cognitive behavioral therapy), don't go far enough in helping their clients. for instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophizing and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious. a philosophical counselor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you (lebon, 2001, p. 134). however, not all the philosophical counselors are seduced by this “marriage” of philosophical counseling with psychotherapy. lydia amir tries to delimit herself from this view, stating that “most people come to philosophical counseling in order to solve some predicament, usually after also having undergone psychological counseling” (amir, 2004a, p. 2), urging philosophical counseling practitioners to claim “complete independence from psychology” (amir, 2004a, p. 7). despite the inherent controversies the emergence of the new philosophical counseling field has created, especially when it comes to training requirements of its practitioners, a lot of voices still regard the “be wedding of philosophical and psychological practices” (cohen, 2004, p. 1) as a beneficial one, especially in the area of improving critical thinking of the psychological practitioners, far too long embedded in their concepts of emotionality and attachment theories and relying too little on rationality and logic. peter raabe believes that “the attainment of personal autonomy – thinking for oneself and being responsible for oneself – are particularly strong themes in both philosophy and most forms of psychotherapies” (raabe, 2013, p. 162). however, raabe’s opinion on mental illnesses (as mind diseases, not brain diseases) and medicalization is developed based on the theories and assumptions of two famous psychiatrists: thomas szasz and peter breggin. while breggin advocates for an empathic therapy as opposed of using medication, raabe militates for prescribing the client philosophical therapy instead of medication. regardless of the efficacy of medication for a variety of conditions considered today as treatable only in the medical model paradigm (schizophrenia and other psychoses), all practitioners and the vast majority of psychiatrists consider psychotherapy necessary at least as a support for compliance to medical treatment. however, latest meta-analyses (fournier et al., 2010) found that for patients with mild or moderate depression symptoms, drug response (compared with placebo), may be minimal or nonexistent, which leaves us with the supposition that there are a lot of ”clinical” situations in which medication is not considered the first choice. recent research in the area of the evidence-based psychotherapies (cognitive behavior psychotherapy and rational emotive behavior therapy) are also supporting the view that, with very few exceptions of childhood trauma, no matter what happened in the client’s past, focusing on present (mindfulness training) and future (solution focused training) are valuable steps for the success of the process and for the improvement of the person’s state of mind. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 popescu 511 http://www.psychopen.eu/ selection of clients, a conundrum for both practices this paper investigates the attitudes of philosophical counselors and psychotherapists in private practice towards various factors concerning the selection of clients. psychotherapists and counselors are influenced not only by diagnostic criteria, but also by other factors relating to the client. the most important selection criteria are: desire for change, motivation for therapy or counseling and evidence of psychopathology, although there is no clear consensus about the criteria overall. in both practices, philosophical counseling and psychotherapy, the selection of clients may be difficult, but it is a crucial task for the success of these processes. looking at the psychotherapy field, when the psychotherapist is using validated psychological assessment tools for detecting the client’s problems during the anamnestic interview, the practitioner may happen to diagnose as well a psychiatric disorder, such as paranoid schizophrenia or delusional disorder. however, the non-maleficence principle of bioethics stated in the “ethical framework for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy” (british association for counselling & psychotherapy, 2012) urges the psychotherapist to refer this particular client to a psychiatrist and, only then, the client can also enter in a psychotherapeutic process with the best chances of recovery. therefore, there will always be an overlapping of interventions in the case of a psychiatric patient: a psychiatrist’s intervention and a psychotherapist’s intervention, preferably one trained in an evidence-based psychotherapy (as cbt) and practicing a bona-fide therapy. looking at the philosophical counseling field, as lou marinoff acknowledged in one of his initial works, “therapy for the sane”, that philosophical counseling should address normal people who don’t have psychiatric problems that need to be dealt with by using medication (marinoff, 1999, 2003). at first glance, the selection of clients with the possibility of referring them to a psychiatrist may be done properly only if the philosophical counselor has clinical training or has acquired diagnostic skills. marinoff, also the author of “philosophical practice”, acknowledges that the philosophical dialogue is mostly “educational in intent and content, and is neither adversarial nor diagnostic” (marinoff, 2002, p. 81), reflecting the current opinion in mental health that using diagnostic labels is not useful for the client’s recovery. however, in order to be able to help a psychiatry patient find professional help, the philosophical counselor would be advised to use few clinical selection guidelines, also developed in the current paper. the psychotherapy profession is rather easily accessible worldwide, since people with all sorts of ba degrees: theology, sociology, medical school, nursing, psychology, are able to get training in psychotherapy, not always being required to hold a ma degree in psychology or psychotherapy. in a philosophical counseling practice, the selection of the counselee’s has the same degree of the difficulty as in a psychotherapy practice. one of the aspects that may differentiate a philosophical counselor from a psychotherapist is that the philosophical counselor did not acquire in the process of training the diagnostic skills that the psychological practitioner has, which may make the process even harder. apparently this fact would drastically limit their area of intervention to the ‘normal’i, nonsymptomatic persons who would only like to have few sessions meant to clarify their thinking regarding personal problems, moral dilemmas, moral conflicts or who would also like to achieve an eudaimonic well-being, in the aristotelian sense. eudaimonic well-being reflects traits concerned with personal growth, self-acceptance, purpose in life and autonomy (ryff, 1995). for a professional, it is much easier to decide if a person asking for psychotherapy or philosophical counseling should actually be referred to a psychiatrist, since the symptoms of a psychiatric disorder are usually florid and, during the interview, a trained eye could see if the person in front of the practitioner is in reality or is constructing his or her own reality. the problem of selection could get even more complicated when a person comes to a europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling 512 http://www.psychopen.eu/ philosophical consultation in order to ask for life advice or for help to solve a moral dilemma. if this person has also emotional disturbances or has previously been diagnosed with depression, anxiety or panic attacks, the philosophical counselor should refer this client either to a psychotherapist or to a psychiatrist. the selection of clients is a common issue also encountered in life coaching, since this sort of overlapping is usual in the counseling professions. another situation is also stated in the american philosophical practitioners association’s faq about philosophical counseling: “many clients of philosophical counseling have sensibly explored psychology as a prelude to philosophy, that means none of the psychological theories or methods suited them perfectly”; this could lead to the idea that they were dissatisfied with the solution offered by the psychologist or with the psychological approach (american philosophical practitioners association, 2015b). i would argue in this paper that there may also be a lot of clients for whom none of the theories or techniques of psychotherapy work on their particular type of problems (moral or ethical dilemmas) and here is where philosophical counseling or training in ethics may help. therefore selection, as simple as it may seem at first glance for an untrained eye, it is actually a difficult process which should be regarded with the highest concern. emmy van deurzen regards the selection issue in a more detached manner, in the sense that: “clients who come specifically for existential therapy usually already have the idea that their problems are about living, and are not a form of pathology” (van deurzen, 2006, p. 205). in other words, it is mainly the client’s responsibility to assess the type of approach he or she needs. in my view, this responsibility is shared between the counselor (psychotherapist) and the counselee (the client), with an emphasis on the counselor (or the psychotherapist) opinion, considering at least the temporary disorientation or heteronomy of the person entering the therapy or the consultation room. in the helping professions field there is an increasing need to establish a set of guidelines in order to determine which method should be applied in a specific clinical situation. moreover, we may consider the opportunity of using an ethical decision making strategy in this process. in this paper i will address the issue of developing a set of criteria when a new client enters the consultation room of a counseling professional, that would help the professional make a correct and informed decision, either keeping the client in his practice or referring him to another practitioner. in the initial interview or discussion, the client is usually asked first: 1. what is the reason of approaching a particular professional (a psychiatrist, a psychotherapist or a philosophical counselor)? 2. what are the objectives he or she would like to achieve in the sessions? the interview would be more successful in addressing the client issues if it followed some selection guidelines that are highlighted below. guidelines for referring the client to a psychiatrist: a. a psychiatric diagnosis of psychosis on axis iii (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.) and client being currently under medication; b. even though not been previously diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, the client currently has suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts. scores higher than 30 on bdi-ii-beck depression inventory indicate a severe depression that should be addressed with the highest care; europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 popescu 513 http://www.psychopen.eu/ c. there is evidence of drug addiction or substance abuse, even though the client is undergoing treatment; d. the client suffers from other debilitating symptoms not mentioned above that prevent him or her to function normally and also desires fast symptom relief. guidelines for referring the client to a psychotherapist: a. existence of symptomatology such as hypochondriac complaints, anxiety, phobia, conversive symptoms, somatization, depressive symptoms, that client desires to treat without medication, only via psychological methods; b. there is suspicion of a personality disorder (antisocial, borderline, dependent, etc.) on axis iiiii; c. there is a history of child abuse or trauma; d. even though not previously diagnosed with a psychiatric condition, the scores at bdi-ii indicate a mild or moderate depression (lower than 30); severe depression with suicidal ideation is considered a psychiatric emergency; e. even though the client is currently seen by a psychiatrist for depression or other psychiatric condition, he or she can still receive psychotherapy in order to prevent relapse and learn new coping skills. f. the client would like to have a specialist teach him how to develop skills in order to address issues such as lack of assertiveness, procrastination, self-esteem, how to cope with frustration, with difficult social situations, the type of non-clinical issues that can be addressed with talk therapy. guidelines for referring the client to a philosophical counselor: a. the client does not suffer from a psychiatric condition and he is not currently prescribed psychiatric medication; b. in the particular case the patient had a previous psychiatric condition that is in full remission e.g. a depression episode in the past that had been successfully treated using psychotherapy and/or medication, he/she does not have any symptoms at the time being and only wants to investigate other issues that could improve his/her wellbeing; c. the client wants to explore the meaning of his or her life, to explore existential issues, to develop his or her ability to understand personal problems, to solve conflicts or moral dilemmas; d. the client needs to develop critical thinking abilities in practical or theoretical contexts, to identify and eliminate cognitive distortions, argumentation errors and prejudice; e. the client wants to refine his world view, his set of beliefs that guide his daily actions and determine his choices or life options. the above criteria are drawn largely from the definitions of the three intertwined and frequently overlapping fields of the helping professions. however, perfect and accurate delimitation cannot be made since there will always be an overlapping area between psychiatry and psychotherapy (at least in mild and moderate depression and anxiety) and another overlapping between psychotherapy and philosophical counseling (at least in the existential issues and moral conflicts area), but we can strive for more and more accuracy in the future and hopefully this is the first attempt that will encourage other researchers to study the client selection topic. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling 514 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vignette – case study the client, a 27 years old man working in a corporate environment in a support role, comes into the therapy room with a set of complaints in the existential domain that would make him a good client for therapy, but also for philosophical counseling. his problems are: a not so fulfilling relationship with his partner (who has been for years involved in another relationship that she does not want to quit) and a corporate job that does not fulfill him neither creatively nor intellectually, only financially. there is no indication on axis ii diagnostic and the client had a very happy and protected childhood, no suspicion of infantile trauma whatsoever. since the client has not been previously diagnosed with a psychiatric condition and the bdi – ii and bai scores did indicate subclinical depression and anxiety scores, i have not referred the client to a psychiatrist, following his wish that he does not want to use psychiatric medication in order to improve his life. the therapy relied largely on investigating ways in which the client could change his romantic life and also his professional life for the better. the first objective, to improve his personal life, has started with the exploration of reasons for which he still remained in the unfulfilling relationship. many cognitive distortions and logical errors, especially catastrophizing and black and white thinking have been identified: “i am not good enough to have a woman who loves me for who i am”, “if she cannot give up the relationship with the other man for me, that means i am worthless and i will never find someone to love only me”, “i am not strong enough to remain single until i find someone who only loves me”. also, exploring the professional life domain, a lot of cognitive distortions have been also identified: “my job is worthless”, “i don’t think that my job has any valuable influence on the society”, “i find hard to secure a job that suits my personality”, “i don’t think that i have any real talents and abilities”, “staying in front of the pc all day long exhausts me”, “i don’t think my job involves anything remotely creative”. after analyzing all the data the client brought into the counseling room, after formulating his objectives collaboratively and also considering the selection guidelines, in this particular case the client’s problems could also be approached with philosophical counseling methods, therefore both psychological therapy and philosophical counseling would be equally efficient. no need to refer the client to a psychiatrist. moral dilemmas in psychotherapy and in philosophical counseling in this section, i will not focus on the key ethical issues that affect the work of a counseling professional, such as autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, confidentiality, justice or dual relationships (vyskocilova & prasko, 2013), but i mainly on ethical or moral dilemmas that may torment the client’s or the counselee’s lives and usually brings him/her to the consultation room in order to have a resolution. the client may come in the therapy room or in philosophical consultation room with all sorts of ethical or moral dilemmas that arise from his/her own experience or from his/her experience with others: decisions about whether to stay in a love relationship, how to cope with a divorce and the legal issues linked to it, overcoming lack of satisfaction with one's job, decisions whether to report a corrupt employer (professional ethical conflicts), working through a religious crisis, resolving fights with in-laws, accepting one's sexuality and gender identity, etc. ethical dilemmas raised by clients or counselees are the type of dilemmas that can have a huge or a limited impact on their lives, but nevertheless there is not a single psychotherapy client who does not have some sort of moral dilemma unsolved. pope & vasquez (2007) mention few typical circumstances encountered in sessions: either the client is in an delicate couple situation following an affair or a divorce, or in a dilemmatic situation in his or her professional life or perhaps thinking of changing’s one religion or gender. there is no guarantee that a philosopheurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 popescu 515 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ical counselor could better solve a moral dilemma than a psychologist with ethical training, but there are reasons to believe that a specialist in ethics is much more equipped at least theoretically to deal with all sorts of situations that may occur in practice that require specialization in ethics. many times, in psychotherapy practice, people come with difficult situations that cause them a great deal of anxiety. a common situation is when a client has a friend who is a drug addict and the client does not come easily to terms with the friend’s new status. the client has to face a distinction between “what is legal, what is ethical and what is moral”iv, he or she also needs to cope with conflicting values and duties. i believe that this type of dilemma could be solved by a practitioner with ethical training. there is counseling literature suggesting that “it is not useful to avoid dealing with dilemmas by retaining a neutral position and that common-sense-based interventions can be harmful rather than helpful” (van deurzen, 1999a, p. 581). in order to clarify the client’s conflicts and in the hope of solving their current existential issues, the same author recommends the psychotherapists a more thorough examination of philosophical and moral issues and rely less and less on common sense to guide their interventions. on the other hand, lydia amir’s view on resolving conflict and dilemmas is quite opposed to van deurzen’s view, suggesting that resolving moral conflicts in the counseling session is not always the case and humor only may help us in a more efficient way to cope with moral conflicts. amir (2004b) embraces the thesis that humor helps us to get self-knowledge, humor is ambivalent and least, but not last, humor enables deliberation. compassionate criticism is the key to well-being, not an attitude of obsessively seeking to resolve all conflicts. moral dilemmas, both in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling, are occasions to test the practitioner’s skills to help clients and counselees to solve their ambivalence and cognitive dissonance regarding various issues such as inappropriate romantic involvement, jealousy, coping with extra-marital affairs, etc. sometimes psychologists, blinded by the power of emotionality and less inclined to help clients exercise critical thinking, see those dilemmas more as opportunities to elicit strong emotions in their clients, hoping that the clients themselves will deliberate and get to resolution. they cannot do much in terms of helping them with acquiring new skills to actually resolve the issues that brought them into therapy. here is where a specialist in ethics or moral philosophy is expected to have a valuable unprejudiced opinion regardless of common beliefs on how things ‘should be done’. existential issues encountered in both practices many influential psychologists or psychiatrists coming from various psychotherapeutic traditions (psychoanalytical, person-centered, rational emotive behavior), such as jung, rogers, ellis, frankl, fromm and lately yalom, moved toward philosophical or existential ways of counseling. most philosophical counselors and also cbt or rebt therapists have similar views regarding the process: they appeal to higher aspects of our being than our emotions, such as our reason, which in the long run is a stronger force to be considered in our life. many clients of philosophical counseling have wisely explored psychology as a prelude to philosophy, that means none of the psychological theories or methods suited them perfectly. (american philosophical practitioners association, 2015a, p. 3). currently, irvin yalom and emmy van deurzen, both famous existential psychotherapists, consider the following philosophical issues or “fundamental worries” as causing many psychological disturbances or life crises: death as a main source of anguish, freedom – responsibility and existential guilt, existential isolation – a new approach europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling 516 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of interpersonal relationships and lack of meaning, which may have psychological and philosophical implications (yalom, 1980). existential psychotherapists, as opposed to cognitive behavioral therapists, focus also on emotions, both as means of detecting client’s values and as revealing objects of the client’sweltanschauungv (lebon, 2001). existential psychotherapy, being the only established form of psychotherapy that is directly based in philosophy rather than in psychology, can take many different shapes and forms, but it always “requires a philosophical exploration of what is true for the client” (van deurzen, 1999b, p. 232). clinical observations in psychotherapy practice following the anamnestic interview and the psychological evaluation session assisted by the use of validated psychological assessment instruments – bdi ii (beck depression inventory), bai (beck anxiety inventory), scl90 symptom checklist, whoqol-bref 26 items, inventory of interpersonal problems (iip-64) and sentence completion test (80 items) – i have noticed that behind most of the invalidating symptoms and current life issues or feeling of inadequacy, almost always lies a deeper, most profound cause, that is not necessarily a childhood traumatic event or an adult trauma. sentence completion test (sct80 items) is a psychological instrument of psychodynamic origin and high-face validity. when applying the test to a new client, the following existential issues may arise: meaning of life or lack of it, unclear professional identity, lack of professional identity or identity crisis, fear of death, fear of solitude and loneliness, issues linked to the freedom of choice and liberty. hypochondriac complaints are mainly linked to fear of death in a less obvious form, as fear of getting a terminal disease, such as cancer. cancer phobia complaints in their extreme forms are disguised forms of fear of death, which can be dealt with in different manners, using cognitive behavioral techniques or having an existential approach via desensitization to death (yalom, 1980, p. 16). there are 14 questions that elicit existential issues in sct-80: q13: the most awful thing that can happen to me is: q16: my life: q21: i haven’t succeeded in: q24: the future: q38: when i am honest with myself: q43: when i am alone: q44: when i work: q45: my dreams: q57: at my job: q65: to be: q66: my profession: q74: the truth is that: q75: i am afraid of: q80: to live: europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 popescu 517 http://www.psychopen.eu/ apart from the obvious phrases or sentences completed that reveal thoughts and considerations on meaning, scope, professional identity, in the actual anamnestic interview the therapist is also expected to explore all the fears experienced by the client and especially the fear of death, the most invalidating of all. the existential psychodynamic emphasizes a different form of fundamental conflict, a conflict “emerged from the individual confrontation with his or her existence” (yalom, 1980, p. 17). together with client’s emotions and cognitions, quality of life was evaluated using whoqol-bref, a 26 items instrument, which measures the following broad domains: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment and also the ors scale developed by miller & duncan, a self-report wellbeing instrument with 4 dimensions: individual, interpersonal, social and global. depression and anxiety levels were evaluated using the beck depression inventory ii and the beck anxiety inventory. symptom check-list (scl-90) is a brief selfreport psychometric instrument designated to evaluate a broad range of psychological problems and symptoms of psychopathology, such as somatization, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, etc. one of my research limitations was that psychological instruments were only used in order to assess the pretherapy and post-therapy states of the person evaluated and treated. i have not conducted real philosophical counseling sessions, neither have i evaluated the outcome of any philosophical counseling session. although i am trained in cognitive behavior psychotherapy and rational emotive behavior therapy, two of the few forms of evidence-based psychotherapies and also two of the therapies that use techniques similar to those used in philosophical counseling, nevertheless i regard the pc approach as a promising avenue for improving psychotherapy. conclusions ethical questions and moral dilemmas are an important part of the therapeutic or philosophical counseling process that cannot be neglected. the success of the therapeutic or counseling process depends on ensuring the best practices in the field (either psychotherapy or philosophical counseling). existential issues are of utmost importance in both types of practices, since issues like meaning, scope, death, freedom and isolation are intrinsic to the human conditions and not psychiatric topics. there is also a multitude of ethical and moral dilemmas to be solved, both in therapy and philosophical counseling, and it is preferable for the counselor or the therapist to have an active role rather than a neutral position. training recommendations are to be made to the philosophical counselors in order to be able to detect a serious psychiatric condition in a counselee and be able to recommend him or her to a psychiatrist, should this be the case. also, training recommendations in the ethical field are to be made to the psychotherapist, both in order to improve his or her understanding of ethical or moral dilemmas of the clients or counselees, and also in order to understand ethical challenges of his own field. the client selection issue is a complex one and it is more successfully done if proper training is provided. future research is needed in order to assess the importance of dilemmas and ethical issues in both practices. also, future research is needed in order to investigate whether it is possible to achieve in philosophical counseling certain results, such as a superior levels of well-being or quality of life, as in psychotherapy. notes i) normality is discussed here from the dsm or clinical psychology viewpoint, in the sense of inexistence of a psychiatric diagnostic. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling 518 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ii) a classification dimension used with the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv), which includes major mental disorders, autism, learning disorders and substance abuse disorders. iii) a classification dimension used with diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv), which includes personality disorders—paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, personality and nos (not otherwise specified)—and intellectual disorders, including mental retardation. iv) a classification dimension used with diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-iv), which includes personality disorders—paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic, dependent, obsessive-compulsive, personality and nos (not otherwise specified)—and intellectual disorders, including mental retardation. v) aweltanschauung is a comprehensive conception or theory of the world and the place of humanity within it. it is an intellectual construct that provides both a unified method of analysis for and a set of solutions to the problems of existence. the concept of a weltanschauung has played an important role in the development of psychoanalysis, critical theory, and nineteenthand twentieth-century hermeneutics. funding this paper is a result of a research made possible by the financial support of the sectoral operational programme for human resources development 2007-2013, co-financed by the european social fund, under the project posdru/159/1.5/s/132400 “young successful researchers – professional development in an international and interdisciplinary environment”. competing interests the author is a member of ejop’s editorial board but played no editorial role for this particular article or intervened in any 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(1980). existential psychotherapy. new york, ny: basic books. about the author beatrice popescu is a cognitive behavior psychotherapist at bellanima medical center, bucharest and a doctoral researcher at university of bucharest. she has published papers and book reviews on clinical psychology, psychotherapy and psychopractice politics. her research interests are cognitive behavior therapy, rebt, existential psychotherapy and philosophical counseling ethics. she is now undergoing a phd program at the university of bucharest, faculty of philosophy with supervision from ccny, with the thesis title: philosophical counseling and psychotherapy. ethical issues in philosophical counseling. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 509–521 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1010 popescu 521 http://www.rediviva.sav.sk/55i1/4.pdf http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en moral dilemmas and existential issues in psychotherapy and philosophical counseling introduction psychotherapy and philosophical counseling or the need for an integrative model of counseling selection of clients, a conundrum for both practices vignette – case study moral dilemmas in psychotherapy and in philosophical counseling existential issues encountered in both practices clinical observations in psychotherapy practice conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author a case-series evaluation of a brief, psycho-social approach intended for the prevention of relapse in psychosis research reports a case-series evaluation of a brief, psycho-social approach intended for the prevention of relapse in psychosis petrina brett*a, john sorensenb, helena priest c [a] ipswich integrated delivery team, norfolk & suffolk nhs foundation trust, ipswich, united kingdom. [b] psychological services, north staffordshire combined healthcare nhs trust, stoke-on-trent, united kingdom. [c]doctorate programme in clinical psychology, universities of staffordshire and keele, staffordshire/keele, united kingdom. abstract there is a wealth of research into relapse prevention in psychosis; however, specific research into the effectiveness of short-term, self-management strategies aimed to prevent relapse is lacking. this pilot study aimed to evaluate the effects of sorensen’s ‘relapse prevention in schizophrenia and other psychoses’ manual-based therapy (sorensen, 2006b) with 11 participants in one uk national health service trust. the intervention was delivered over four sessions and interviews were conducted pre and post intervention. the effect of the intervention on measures of hopelessness, perceived control over internal states, and satisfaction were recorded using validated questionnaires at one week, one month and two months follow-up, supported by measures taken from visual analogue scales. data analysis revealed significant improvements on hopelessness, perceived control over internal states, and satisfaction at one week follow-up, although these results were not maintained at one and two months follow-up. additionally, the attrition rate meant that results lacked statistical power at one and two months follow-up. the study also considered the clinical significance of the research findings with the jacobson-truax (jacobson & truax, 1991) method for measuring reliable change. a substantial number of clients attained clinically significant changes with regards to hopelessness and perceived control over internal states. future research is required in order to evaluate the use of self-management strategies to prevent relapse. it would be valuable to repeat the current study with the additional use of booster sessions in order to assess whether the positive impacts on hopelessness and perceived control over illness can be maintained at the longer term follow up. keywords: relapse, psychosis, cognitive behavioural intervention europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 received: 2014-06-24. accepted: 2014-09-05. published (vor): 2014-11-28. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: e-mail: petrina.brett@nsft.nhs.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction the term psychosis is understood as a cluster of disorders, characterised by psychotic symptoms that alter a person’s perception, thoughts, affect, and behaviour. the course of psychosis varies from person to person but is often characterised by relapse. a psychotic relapse is a recurrence of positive psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, and behavioural disturbances, which are of clinical significance, persist for a sustained period of time, and follow a period of partial or full remission. relapse prevention in psychosis is important because a relapse is potentially highly distressing for the client and their family, threatens to interrupt psychosocial recovery, increases the risk of treatment resistance (wiersma, nienhuis, slooff, & giel, 1998), and is associated with economic burden for individual families and the wider community because of increased costs of treatment (almond, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ knapp, francois, toumi, & brugha, 2004). the negative impact of psychosis means that the continuing development and evaluation of new treatments is of great importance. the stress-vulnerability model (zubin & spring, 1977) suggests that individuals have different levels of vulnerability or predisposition to certain symptoms, difficulties or illnesses (biological or psychological). this vulnerability interacts with the level of stress to which the individual is exposed, potentially leading to a psychotic episode. while symptoms of psychosis often improve with medication, there are limitations such as incomplete long-term effectiveness and non-adherence (weiden et al., 1994; yamada, barrio, morrison, sewell, & jeste, 2006). the stress-vulnerability hypothesis and emerging support for the impact of environmental and social factors on the disorder illustrates the need for a multimodal intervention strategy in order to optimise treatment (hultman, wieselgren, & öhman, 1997). people diagnosed with schizophrenia commonly experience feelings of hopelessness (bassman, 2000; bengtssontops & hansen, 1999; brekke & long, 2000; rooke & birchwood, 1998). hopelessness is a cognitive-affective state in which the person perceives the disorder and its consequences to be beyond their control, feels helpless, and has given up expecting to influence its course positively, thereby abandoning responsibility and active coping strategies (hoffmann, kupper, & kunz, 2000). people experiencing psychosis and hopelessness are also less likely to pursue their goals (hoffmann et al., 2000; lecomte et al., 1999). they have been shown to expect rejection by others and may have a sense that there is little point in persisting in the face of challenge (roe, 2003). hopelessness in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia has also been shown to affect social and occupational dysfunction (davis, nees, hunter, & lysaker, 2004; hoffmann et al., 2000). hope has been identified as a key factor in recovery from mental illness (noordsy et al., 2002; salyers & macy, 2005), and hopelessness as a key mediating cognitive characteristic between depression and suicide intent and behaviour (weishaar & beck, 1992). therefore, it is important to consider hopelessness in relation to people experiencing psychosis, because they also have an increased risk of suicide (harris & barraclough, 1997). between 20% and 40% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia attempt suicide (pompili et al., 2007) with the lifetime suicide risk estimated at 4.9% (palmer, pankratz, & bostwick, 2005). methods used are often violent and lethal (harkavyfriedman et al., 1999; hunt et al., 2006), and even relatively modest levels of hopelessness have been found to predict attempted suicide in people diagnosed with psychosis (klonsky, kotov, bakst, rabinowitz, & bromet, 2012). however, the perceived control that a person believes that they have over their illness appears to be a mediator between the experience of psychosis and depression (birchwood, mason, macmillan, & healy, 1993). perceived control is ‘the belief that one can determine one’s own internal states and behaviour, influence one’s environment and/or bring about desired outcomes’ (wallston, wallston, smith, & dobbins, 1987, p. 5) and is of importance for well-being, quality of life, and functioning in severe mental illness (bengtsson-tops, 2004; eklund, bäckström, & hansson, 2003). birchwood et al. (1993) found that the perception of clients with psychosis about the controllability of their illness powerfully predicted whether they would be depressed. in addition, perceived control over illness has been linked to the likelihood of relapse. gumley and power (2000) found that the most frequent thoughts reported by clients were fears of hospitalisation and its consequences. these fears triggered strong emotional responses, which in turn fuelled thoughts and accelerated relapse (gumley & power, 2000). given these findings highlighting relationships between depression, suicide, hopelessness, perceived control over illness, and relapse in people with psychosis, it is essential that well targeted and timely interventions are delivered europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 757 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and evaluated. the importance of relapse prevention and of providing psychosocial interventions for people with psychosis has long been recognised (department of health, 1999; national institute for health and care excellence, 2009). many psychosocial approaches to relapse prevention have been described and evaluated, including psychoeducation about pharmacological treatments (herz et al., 2000; weiden & glazer, 1997); cognitive-behavioural therapy (garety et al., 2008; wykes, steel, everitt, & tarrier, 2008); family interventions (álvarez-jiménez, parker, hetrick, mcgorry, & gleeson, 2011; pilling et al., 2002; pitschel-walz, leucht, bäuml, kissling, & engel, 2001); and multi-modal interventions (gleeson et al., 2009; gleeson et al., 2011), which have had varying levels of success and can be costly. therefore, the development of cheaper, short-term self-management interventions may be important. the development of self-management strategies for relapse prevention has followed research into the potential ability of clients with psychosis to predict their relapse (birchwood et al., 1989; jorgensen, 1998; subotnik & nuechterlein, 1988). there have been a number of initiatives for clients to develop their own relapse prevention plan, with the aim of increasing their understanding of the course of psychosis and responsibility in developing their own coping strategies to promote independence and hope. poor perceptions of control over the illness may lead to the individual panicking or failing to act on the occurrence of early signs (birchwood, spencer, & mcgovern, 2000). birchwood et al. further suggest that refining the relapse signature and improving the relapse drill increases control over the illness. a number of relapse prevention self-management strategies have been developed (copeland, 1997; plaistow & birchwood, 1996; smith, 2001); however, relatively few have been reviewed with this population. based on his ‘relapse prevention in bipolar disorder’ manual (sorensen, 2006a), sorensen (2006b) developed a manual-based intervention and handbook ‘relapse prevention in schizophrenia and other psychoses’, designed to reduce hopelessness and enhance ability to control internal states. the intervention draws on the stress-vulnerability model (nuechterlein & dawson, 1984; zubin & spring, 1977) in describing the development and relapse into schizophrenic episodes. the emphasis on biological vulnerability or stress factors has varied across approaches to treatment, but with approximately 85% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia not having any discernible family history of the disorder (wahlberg & wynne, 2001), sorensen argues that environmental stress factors are important in the expression of psychosis. sorensen aimed to address the need for effective short-term intervention to prevent relapse in psychosis, with maximum yield at an acceptable cost, suggesting that intervention should provide the client with the ability to take more control of the illness and to become proactive in managing the disorder. while sorensen’s (2006a) work on relapse prevention in bipolar disorder has been evaluated and demonstrated significant improvements in suicide risk, perceived control over mood and other internal states, and satisfaction with treatment (gutierrez, sorensen, & tomlinson, 2011; sorensen, done, & rhodes, 2007), his intervention for schizophrenia and other psychoses has not been evaluated to date. the aim of this study, therefore, is to replicate sorensen’s work on bipolar disorder with a psychosis population, and to test the claims of this short-term intervention via a case series evaluation. the research questions are: • does the short term intervention and use of the handbook reduce hopelessness at 1 week follow up (when compared with baseline) and are any changes maintained at 1 month and 2 month follow up? • does the short term intervention and use of the handbook increase perceived control over internal states at 1 week follow up (when compared with baseline) and are any changes maintained at 1 month and 2 month follow up? • are clients satisfied with the intervention offered? europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 758 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the research was independently peer reviewed by keele university. ethical and research governance approvals were granted by a local nhsresearch ethics committee and nhs trust research and development department. method recruitment participants were recruited via local consultant psychiatrists in the recruitment areas (west midlands, england). the psychiatrists identified potential participants based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and they or the care co-ordinator sent out a letter of invitation and participant information sheet. potential participants were invited to opt in to the study by contacting the researcher. following opt-in, an initial meeting with the potential participant was held to discuss the research in more detail. it was explained that participation in the study would involve trialling a previously unevaluated relapse prevention plan and that while it was hoped they would benefit, this could not be guaranteed. each potential participant was then given a consent form to return by the end of the following week. participants inclusion and exclusion criteria were designed to optimise ecological validity and not exclude the typical client with psychosis seen in routine secondary care services: inclusion criteria • english speaking • a known diagnosis of psychosis • a willingness to complete homework exclusion criteria • unstable medical problems • acute psychosis at start of treatment • known substance misuse (as assessed by the referring psychiatrist) • a known learning disability • major neurological problems • an organic mental syndrome/ seizures all participants who opted in met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. 14 people were recruited to the study but after initial interview, three did not wish to participate. thus 11 people (7 men and 4 women) completed the intervention. their ages ranged from 18 to 57 (mean age 31, sd = 12). other demographic information is given in table 1. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 759 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic information of participants on entry to the study ncharacteristic highest education level achieved 3no qualifications 5general certificate of secondary education or ordinary level qualification (gcse/o levels 2advanced level qualifications (a levels) 1first university degree accommodation 5rented accommodation 5live with parents 1homeowner employment 8unemployed 0paid employment 1voluntary employment 2student relationship status 10single 1stable relationship at the end of the study one participant had moved from living with parents to rented accommodation, and one from unemployment into employment. all other demographic information remained constant throughout the study. design this was a pilot study to evaluate the effectiveness of the ‘relapse prevention in schizophrenia and other psychoses’ treatment manual (sorensen, 2006b) using a case series evaluation with no controls, a-a-b-b-c-cc design (where a = pre-treatment baseline; b = during treatment; c = post treatment follow-up) (see table 2). participants completed pre, post and follow-up outcome measures and weekly visual analogue scales (vas). in addition, participants undertook a ‘pre intervention’ and ‘post-intervention’ interview about aspects of their psychosis and the intervention. table 2 data collection points data collectiondescriptor of time pointtime point bhs, csq-8, pcoissbaseline: 2 weeks prior to intervention (a)1 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, interview 1, questionnaire 1baseline: 1 week prior to intervention (a)2 questionnaire 2 (includes vas)following session 13 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, questionnaire 2 (includes vas)following session 2 (b)4 questionnaire 2 (includes vas)following session 35 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, questionnaire 2 (includes vas)following session 4 (b)6 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, interview 2, questionnaire 3follow up: 1 week post intervention (c)7 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, questionnaire 4 (includes vas)follow up: 1 month post intervention (c)8 bhs, csq-8, pcoiss, questionnaire 4 (includes vas)follow up: 2 months post intervention (c)9 europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 760 http://www.psychopen.eu/ materials the intervention comprised 4 sessions using the sorensen (2006b) treatment manual, which incorporates: • psycho-education regarding psychosis; the causes and the influences, the context in which it occurs and the stigma caused by the diagnosis • the development of a list of signs and symptoms of psychosis individual to the client • the development of an individual psychosis profile (thoughts, behaviours and feelings characteristic of the individual client’s psychotic episodes). • the development of a signs and symptoms timeline to determine at what point in the relapse particular symptoms appear • the development of a personal list of triggers for relapse into psychosis • determination of personal criteria for when to react to changes in the psychosis profile and development of a list of actions to take • psycho-education regarding how to sleep well • information on the importance of involving family in coping and on adaptive communication skills regarding psychosis • the development of a plan for how to manage work situations, including communication with employer. all 11 participants completed the full treatment programme and were followed up at one week post intervention. six participants were followed up at one month, and six at two months. however, these were not the same six participants. only four participants completed outcome measures at all follow-up points. measures measures comprised standard, validated scales of hopelessness, perceived control over internal states, and client satisfaction: • the beck hopelessness scale (bhs) (beck, weissman, lester, & trexler, 1974). this has been shown to be a reliable measure of hopelessness, reflecting negative expectations for positive future outcomes. • the perceived control of internal states scale (pcoiss) (pallant, 2000). this was adopted because it assesses the participants’ perceived control over internal states (emotions, thoughts and physical reactions) (permission was given by pallant to use this measure). • the client satisfaction questionnaire (csq-8) (larsen, attkisson, hargreaves, & nguyen, 1979). this has been used in a variety of studies as it supplies a quantitative measure of the participant’s satisfaction with treatment. in addition, 4 questionnaires were designed, together with a visual analogue scale (vas). the vas measured subjective feelings of hopelessness, confidence about ability to control symptoms, and satisfaction with treatment. it was a continuous measure depicted on a horizontal line with end-points in accordance with what is measured (e.g. very hopeless – very hopeful). it has a zero end-point and was measured as a percentage from 0 to 100. questionnaire 1 included items on participant demographic characteristics, current and past history of mental health, psychosis knowledge, and current treatments. questionnaire 2 included items about changes to participants’ lives (e.g. job, family, medication, alcohol use), in order to explain or rule out extra-therapeutic confounding factors, and also the vas. questionnaire 3 asked questions about psychosis knowledge, attitudes to taking medication, and usefulness of the intervention. questionnaire 4 included items on ease of understanding and usefulness of the information received, changes to participants’ lives as in questionnaire 2, use of the handbook, and the vas. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 761 http://www.psychopen.eu/ neither the questionnaires nor the vas were validated measures and had no established content validity. raw scores were used and they were not corrected for age or gender. procedure two weeks prior to the first session, participants were sent and asked to complete the three standard measures (see table 2) to provide baseline information. one week prior to the intervention, participants attended an appointment during which they were interviewed about their experience of psychosis and their expectations for treatment. they were also asked to repeat the baseline measures, to complete a demographic questionnaire, and to answer questions about their current situation and experiences in relation to psychosis. the intervention began one week later. each participant attended four, weekly individual 60 minute sessions delivered by the principal researcher (pb), a final year trainee clinical psychologist with a bsc (hons) in psychology, an msc in forensic psychology, and a pgcert in primary mental health. she received weekly supervision. during these sessions, using the sorensen (2006b) manual, participants were given information about psychosis and helped to develop a personal handbook to help them cope and live with it. throughout treatment, they were asked to complete the various outcome measures (see table 2). one week after the final session (session 4), they were re-interviewed about their experiences with the treatment and about their experience and understanding of psychosis. follow-up data was also collected during this interview. further follow-up data was then collected by post one month and two months following completion of the intervention. data analysis a statistical analysis of the mean differences between pre-treatment and one week follow up, pre-treatment and onemonth follow up, and pre-treatment and twomonths follow up was performed with a two-tailed paired-samples t-test as the assumptions of normality were met. it should be noted that running multiple t tests can increase the likelihood of making type 1 errors; however this procedure rather than using a multivariate test was followed in order to replicate sorensen’s (2006a) previous work. there are also two limitations with relying exclusively on group means. firstly, it ignores individual variability (barlow, 1981) and for clinicians in routine practice, there is an interest in determining how each individual has responded to the treatment. secondly, it has been accepted that changes can be statistically significant without being clinically meaningful (kazdin & wilson, 1978). in response to these limitations, the jacobsen-truax method was developed for defining clinical significance in psychotherapy (jacobson & truax, 1991). first, the use of a reliable change index (rc) is proposed to determine if a change is reliable and not due to measurement error. from this one can conclude with a 95% probability (p < .05) that the change is reliable and not the result of an unreliable measuring instrument. secondly, the client’s score at post-treatment must lie within the normal population range, rather than within the dysfunctional population range, for a clinically significant change to be said to occur. the reliable change score was calculated for participants in this study. baseline stability of measures baseline stability of the bhs, pcoiss and csq-8 was established by paired samples t-tests comparing the measurement points two weeks and one week before the intervention. a high degree of stability was found between these pre-intervention measurements, with bhs two-weeks pre-intervention scores (m = 8.36, sd = 5.41) and bhs one-week pre-intervention scores (m = 8.18, sd = 6.82), resulting in a non-significant t-test (t(10) = -.289, p = .779). for the pcoiss scores at two-weeks pre-intervention (m = 59.6, sd = 15.4) and at one-week pre-intereurope's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 762 http://www.psychopen.eu/ vention (m = 57.6, sd = 14.3) a non-significant mean difference was found (t(10) = 2.10, p = .062) showing stability of baseline measurement. equally for the csq-8 scores at two-weeks pre-intervention (m = 25.8, sd = 4.92) and at one-week pre-intervention (m = 24.9, sd = 4.35) a non-significant mean difference was found (t(10) = 1.66, p = .127) showing stability of baseline measurement. in the following results, the mean of the two baseline measurements are used to provide the most accurate basis for comparison with post-intervention scores. results hopelessness when comparing the mean baseline bhs score (m = 8.27, sd = 6.07) with the measurement taken one week post intervention (m = 2.09, sd = 2.70) a significant reduction in hopelessness was found (t(10) = 4.35, p = .001, cohen’s d = 1.32). however, when comparing the results derived from the hopelessness vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 31.2, sd = 23.2) with 1 week follow-up (m = 23.6, sd = 16.9) these findings were not supported (t(10) = 1.70, p = .120, d = 0.37). see figure 1. figure 1.mean scores for the 11 participants on the bhs and the vas for hopelessness taken at each time point up to 1 week follow-up. when comparing the mean baseline bhs scores (m = 6.42, sd = 5.66) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 1 month (m = 4.00, sd = 4.34) the effect was not maintained (t(5) = .755, p = .484, d = .48). when comparing the results derived from the hopelessness vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 24.0, sd = 11.4) with 1 month follow-up (m = 26.7, sd = 17.1) these findings (t(5) = -.39, p = .717) showed a small effect size (d = -.19). see figure 2. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 763 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2.mean scores for the 6 participants on the bhs and the vas for hopelessness taken at each time point up to 1 month follow-up. when comparing the mean baseline bhs scores (m = 5.50, sd = 3.85) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 2 months (m = 7.50, sd = 7.97) the effect was again not maintained (t(5) = -1.02, p = .357) and there was a small effect size (d = -.32). results comparing the results derived from the hopelessness vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 32.3, sd = 22.3) with 2 month follow-up (m = 43.8, sd = 18.4) support these findings (t(5) = -2.46, p = .057) with a medium effect size (d = -.56). see figure 3. figure 3.mean scores for the 6 participants on the bhs and the vas for hopelessness taken at each time point up to 2 month follow-up. as the six participants who completed measures at one month and two months post intervention were not the same individuals, figure 4 shows the mean scores for the 4 participants who were represented at all follow up points. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 764 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. mean scores for the 4 participants who were followed up on the bhs and the vas for hopelessness taken at each time point up to 2 month follow-up. perceived control of internal states measures of perceived control over internal states were obtained using the pcoiss, the relevant vas and interview data. when comparing the mean baseline pcois score (m = 58.5, sd = 14.8) with the measurement taken one week post intervention (m = 68.0, sd = 12.5) a significant increase in perceived control over internal state was found (t(10) = -3.22, p = .009) with a medium effect size (d = -0.69). results comparing the perceived control over symptoms vas measure at start of intervention (m = 54.3, sd = 25.1) with 1 week follow-up (m = 71.6, sd = 14.3) support these findings (t(10) = -4.23, p = .002, d = -.95). see figure 5. figure 5. mean scores for the 11 participants on the pcoiss and the vas for perceived control over symptoms taken at each time point up to 1 week follow-up. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 765 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when comparing the mean baseline pcoiss scores (m = 55.2, sd = 14.4) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 1 month (m = 67.8, sd = 12.0) the effect was not maintained (t(5) = -.201, p = .101, d = .96). results comparing the perceived control over symptoms vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 62.5, sd = 24.2) with 1 month follow-up (m = 67.1, sd = 28.6) support these findings (t(5) = -.615, p = .566) with a small effect size (d = -.17). see figure 6. figure 6. mean scores for the 6 participants on the pcoiss and the vas for perceived control over symptoms taken at each time point up to 1 month follow-up. when comparing the mean baseline pcoiss scores (m = 58.7, sd = 11.6) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 2 months (m = 59.5, sd = 17.5) the effect was again not maintained (t(5) = -.304, p = .774, d = -.05). results comparing the perceived control over symptoms vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 59.6, sd = 26.0) with 2 month follow-up (m = 58.3, sd = 19.9) support these findings at 2 month follow-up (t(5) = .269, p = .799, d = .06). see figure 7. figure 7. mean scores for the 6 participants on the pcoiss and the vas for perceived control over symptoms taken at each time point up to 2 month follow-up. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 766 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the six participants who completed measures at one month and two months post intervention were not the same individuals, figure 8 shows the mean scores for the 4 participants who were represented at all follow up points. figure 8. mean scores for the 4 participants who were followed on the pcoiss and the vas for perceived control over symptoms taken at each time point up to 2 month follow-up. satisfaction and perceived usefulness of the intervention the results reported above justify the conclusion that the relapse prevention intervention can effect positive change in hopelessness and perceived control over internal states, but in order to be a useful strategy in daily nhs practice the intervention must also be resistant to high dropout rates. none of the participants that began the intervention sessions dropped out, which may in itself indicate a level of satisfaction with the intervention offered. measures of satisfaction were also obtained using the csq-8, the relevant vas, and through the interviews. when comparing the mean baseline csq-8 score (m = 25.4, sd = 4.55) with the measurement taken one week post intervention (m = 28.6, sd = 3.88) a significant increase in satisfaction with services is found (t(10) = -4.38, p = .001, d = 0.70). results comparing the satisfaction vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 72.5, sd = 17.5) with 1 week follow-up (m = 71.1, sd = 19.6) do not support these findings (t(10) = .332, p = .747, d = .08). however, at one week follow up, 8 people scored in the high satisfaction range (27–32) and 3 in the medium satisfaction range (21-26) as defined by larsen et al. (1979). see figure 9. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 767 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 9.mean scores for the 11 participants on the csq-8 and the vas for satisfaction taken at each time point up to 1 week follow-up. when examining interview data at 1 week follow-up, 9 people indicated satisfaction with the intervention. for example: “interviewer: did treatment meet your expectations? participant 2: yes and more. i didn’t expect it to be good at all, i didn’t. i thought it was going to be like rubbish or a waste of time or something that wasn’t going to do me any good. and like it really has been interesting and good, from having the care and starting to work on the problem.” when comparing the mean baseline csq-8 scores (m = 26.1, sd = 5.13) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 1 month (m = 29.2, sd = 2.40) the effect was not maintained (t(5) = -1.62, p = .165). results comparing the satisfaction vas measure at the start of intervention (m = 78.8, sd = 11.9) with 1 month follow-up (m = 80.4, sd = 11.9) support these findings (t(5) = -.334, p = .751, d = -.13). however, 1 month follow-up satisfaction scores found that 5 people scored in the high satisfaction range and 1 scored in the medium satisfaction range. see figure 10. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 768 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 10.mean scores for the 6 participants on the csq-8 and the vas for satisfaction taken at each time point up to 1 month follow-up. when comparing the mean baseline csq-8 scores (m = 26.4, sd = 3.54) for the 6 participants who returned the follow-up data at 2 months (m = 26.2, sd = 3.55) the effect was again not maintained (t(5) = 3.61, p = .733). results comparing the satisfaction vas measure at the start of the intervention (m = 73.8, sd = 14.7) with 2 months follow-up (m = 67.9, sd = 19.1) support these findings (t(5) = 1.35, p = .234, d = .035). at 2 months followup, 2 people scored in the high satisfaction range and 4 in the medium satisfaction range. see figure 11. figure 11. mean scores for the 6 participants on the csq-8 and the vas for satisfaction taken at each time point up to 2 months follow-up. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 769 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the six participants who completed measures at one month and two months post intervention were not the same individuals, figure 12 shows the mean scores for the 4 participants who were represented at all follow up points. figure 12. mean scores for the 4 participants who were able to be followed on the csq-8 and the vas for satisfaction taken at each time point up to 2 month follow-up. summary of findings as detailed in table 3, the 95% mean difference confidence intervals enables us, despite the small n, to conclude with some confidence that at 1 week follow-up the differences in mean scores are significant. the confidence intervals at 1 month and 2 month follow-up are comparatively large and further data collection is required for followup. table 3 95% confidence intervals for the mean difference (md) of the bhs, pcoiss and csq-8 at baseline and follow-up. baseline to 2 months follow-upbaseline to 1 month follow-upbaseline to 1 week follow-up bhs = -2.0) ≤ 3.07-7.07 ≤ (md= 2.41) ≤ 10.6-5.81 ≤ (md= 6.18)* ≤ 9.353.01 ≤ (md pcoiss = -.83) ≤ 6.22-7.89 ≤ (md= -12.7) ≤ 3.57-28.9 ≤ (md= -9.50)** ≤ -2.92-16.1 ≤ (md csq-8 = .25) ≤ 2.03-1.53 ≤ (md= -3.08) ≤ 1.81-7.98 ≤ (md= -3.18)* ≤ -1.56-4.80 ≤ (md *p = .001. **p = .009. reliable change in line with the jacobson and truax (1991) methodology, the reliable change index (rc) was calculated for the bhs and pcoiss. results at 1 week follow-up showed that 8 of the 11 participants who completed the treatment showed a significant improvement in hopelessness as measures by the beck hopelessness scale (bhs). the results also showed that at 1 week follow-up, 5 of the 11 participants showed a significant improvement in perceived europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 770 http://www.psychopen.eu/ control of internal state as measure by the pcoiss. no participants made a significant deterioration on either of the measures at 1 week follow-up. of the 6 participants who completed 1 month follow-up data, 4 maintained the significant improvement in hopelessness; 1 participant made a significant deterioration in hopelessness at 1 month follow-up (although having made a significant improvement at 1 week follow-up) and 1 hadmade no change in hopelessness when compared to the baseline measure. interestingly, three of the six participants who returned the follow-up measures indicated that they were continuing to use the relapse handbook, and all of these maintained their improvements on the bhs at one month follow-up. with regard to perceived control over internal state at 1 month follow-up, none of the 6 participants showed a significant change compared to the baseline. of the 6 participants who completed 2 month follow-up data, 1 maintained the significant improvement in hopelessness, 2 made a significant deterioration in hopelessness (although these participants had made a significant improvement at 1 week follow-up) and 3 had made no change in hopelessness when compared to the baseline measure. interestingly, two of the six participants who returned the follow-up measures indicated that they were continuing to use the relapse handbook; however, only one of them maintained their improvements on the bhs at two month follow-up. with regard to perceived control over internal state at 2 months follow-up, none of the 6 participants showed significant change when compared to the baseline. a summary is presented in table 4 with clients’ scores on the bhs and pcoiss having to show a minimum change of 2.41 and 10.50 points respectively in order to demonstrate either reliable improvement or reliable deterioration depending on the direction of change. the percentages and frequencies of clients achieving reliable change are shown in table 4. (subjects were allocated a number from 1 to 11, shown in brackets). table 4 reliable change index at 1 week follow-up, 1 month follow-up and 2 months follow-up as measured by the bhs and pcoiss 2 month follow up n = 61 month follow up n = 61 week follow up n = 11reliable change index bhs n = 1 (8)n = 4 (4,7,8,9)n = 8 (1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9)significant improvement n = 2 (3,5) (see discussion)n = 1 (5)n = 0significant deterioration n = 3 (4,6,11)n = 1 (11)n = 3 (6,10,11)no significant change pcoiss n = 0n = 0n = 5 (3,6,7,8,11)significant improvement n = 0n = 0n = 0significant deterioration n = 6 (3,4,5,6,8,11)n = 6 (4,5,7,8,9,11)n = 6 (1,2,4,5,9,10)no significant change at 1 week follow-up, 6 of the 8 participants who showed a reliable change on the bhs confirmed this with statements during interview. for example: “interviewer: what changes if any have you noticed in yourself since therapy started? participant 8: well i am feeling quite good, i’ve got hope, like for example yesterday, you know i felt a bit, not depressed but a bit off and i thought shall i go for a drink with my friends and i know it doesn’t agree with me when i’m feeling a bit off so i thought i can remember writing it down in the book, that that’s not europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 771 http://www.psychopen.eu/ good for me, so that’s i probably would have gone if i hadn’t got that in my book. i think that this will keep me in line.” in relation to perceived control over internal state, at 1 week follow-up, the 5 participants who showed a reliable change on the pcoiss confirmed this with statements during their interview. for example: “interviewer: and have you experienced a change in confidence regarding your ability to control your symptoms? participant 4: yes i think so i mean definitely i think i certainly think you know things have come along, issues have come along which i have dealt with so i understand what had happened in the previous way and then better methods of dealing with it because one of the good things about talking about it is you can discuss like coping strategies and say well if this happens i can do this or i can do this, whether its relaxation techniques, exercise, or you know like sleep problems, i know it’s little things, but everyone has problems like that so discussing it with someone and working productively and proactively to figure it out.” the three people who showed no reliable change as measured by the pcoiss also confirmed this during their interview. a representative example is provided: “interviewer: and how confident are you, that you will be able to keep the symptoms of psychosis under control in the future? participant 3: not without medication, not even with medication no i’m not that confident, i mean it’s getting better with the medication but things are still not good” no participants indicated a deterioration in their perceived ability to control their symptoms. return to normal level of functioning— the second condition of the jacobson and truax (1991) methodology stipulates that a reliable change will be considered clinically significant only if the client’s score at post-test falls within the normal population range rather than in the dysfunctional population range. in observing norm scores for the measures used it was found that participants’ scores at post-intervention would have to be below 3.28 for the bhs and above 36.6 for the pcoiss for the change to be considered clinically significant. the number of clients returning to normal levels of functioning, regardless of whether or not the change experienced was reliable, is presented in table 5. there are some instances when this criterion is not applicable, i.e. when the client’s score at baseline was already within the functional range. this means that no matter how much their scores change in the desirable direction, their change can never be deemed clinically significant, according to the jacobsen-truax method. the results indicated that this was the case for 2 of the 11 participants measured by the bhs, and 10 of the 11 participants measured by the pcoiss. with regard to the other participants, of the 9 participants who were not functioning at a normal level with regard to hopelessness prior to intervention, 7 were able to make a positive change back to normal level of functioning at 1 week follow-up, although this was only maintained for 4 participants at 1 month follow-up and 2 participants at 2 months follow-up. the one participant who was not functioning at a normal level with regard to perceived control over internal state prior to intervention did make a return to normal level of functioning at 1 week follow-up and this was maintained at 1 month follow-up. unfortunately 2 month follow-up data was not available for this participant. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 772 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 frequency of participants showing a return to normative levels of functioning at 1 week follow-up, 1 month follow-up and 2 months follow-up as measured by the bhs and pcoiss 2 month follow up n = 61 month follow up n = 61 week follow up n = 11 bhs n = 2 (4,8)n = 4 (4,7,8,9)n = 7 (1,4,5,7,8,9,11)criteria achieved n = 3 (3,5,11)n = 2 (5,11)n = 2 (2,3)criteria not achieved n = 1 (6)n = 0n = 2 (6,10)criteria not applicable pcoiss n = 0n = 1 (9)n = 1 (9)criteria achieved n = 0n = 0n = 0criteria not achieved n = 6 (3,4,5,6,8,11)n = 5 (4,5,7,8,11)n = 10 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11)criteria not applicable overall summary of results a statistically significant difference for hopelessness, perceived control over internal states and satisfaction scores was found between baseline and one week follow-up. the direction of change was supported by the vas scales; however, only the vas for perceived control over internal states produced a statistically significant change at one week follow-up. these statistically significant changes were not maintained on any of the measures at either one or two months follow up. when observing the satisfaction scores, the majority of clients scored in the high satisfaction range at one week and one month follow up; however this decreased to the majority reporting only medium satisfaction at two months follow-up. the application of the jacobson-truax method provides information regarding individual variability and allows individuals to be classified into categorical ratings for clinical improvement. on the hopelessness scale (bhs) 8 out of 11, 4 out of 6 and 1 out of 6 people made a significant improvement at one week, one month and two months follow-up respectively. for the people who were not within the normal level of functioning prior to intervention, 7 out of 9, 4 out of 6 and 2 out of 7 people returned to a normal level of functioning at one week, one month and two months follow-up respectively. on the perceived control over internal states scale (pcoiss) 5 out of 11 people made a significant improvement at one week follow-up but this was not maintained at one month or two months follow-up. for the one person who was not within the normal level of functioning prior to intervention, this person returned to the normal level of functioning at one week and one month follow-up (this person could not be contacted at two months follow-up). these results support the statistical analysis and indicate that the intervention can have a positive effect on hopelessness and perceived control over internal states; however this effect diminished at one month and two months follow-up. on analysis of the questionnaires, no participants reported any extratherapeutic factors that could have caused the observed changes. discussion the results of this study show that the short term intervention and use of the handbook had the ability to decrease hopelessness and increase perceived control over internal states at one week follow-up as measured by the bhs and pcoiss. these findings are supported with reliable changemeasures showing that themajority of participants showed positive reliable change in hopelessness and had moved to within the normal level of functioning. when observing perceived control over internal states, the reliable change measures also supported the results. just europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 773 http://www.psychopen.eu/ less than half of the participants showed positive reliable change at one week follow-up; however the majority had scored within the normal level of functioning at baseline. this may be why the effect sizes are not as large as for the measure of hopelessness. the findings from the vas also support the findings of the validated measures (as shown in figures 1-8) and the pattern of change is very similar. the vasmeasuring perceived control produced a statistically significant result; however this was not the case for the vas measuring hopelessness. as the vass are not validated measures with an established content validity this may why they have been less sensitive at producing a statistically significant result. while it is not possible to assume a direct causal relationship between treatment intervention and results, the stability of the measures at baseline, the immediacy of change following the intervention, and the relatively large magnitude of change observed contribute to the argument that the intervention was responsible for the change. on this basis, and because no extra-therapeutic factors of importance were found, it is safe to say that the relapse prevention intervention has effected a significant and positive change in levels of hopelessness and perceived control over internal states at one week follow-up. unfortunately, these changes were not maintained at one month follow-up. however the rate of attrition meant that only six participants were followed up, meaning a lack of statistical power. although there was no statistical significance at one month follow-up, the effect size for the bhs was medium (d = .48) and large for the pcoiss (d = .96). power calculations using g*power (faul, erdfelder, buchner, & lang, 2009) revealed that to reach statistical power at the 0.8 level, the study would have required 35 participants at one month follow-up for the bhs, and 11 for the pcoiss. the pattern of results was supported by the jacobson-truax methodology and the vas scores. when observing hopelessness scores as measured by the bhs, at one month follow up four participants maintained the significant improvement and the same four participants remained within the normal level of functioning range. unfortunately one participant who had made a significant improvement at one week followup had made a significant deterioration at one month follow-up, although in examining the questionnaires it is unclear what may have caused this deterioration. when observing perceived control over internal states as measured by the pcoiss, no participants had maintained their significant improvement at one month follow-up; however the one participant who returned to normal level of functioning at one week follow-up remained within the normal level of functioning range at one month follow-up. when considering results from the jacobson-truax methodology along with the medium and large effect sizes, and the reasonable number of participants required to reach statistical power at one month follow-up, it is recommended that this study be replicated with no fewer than 35 participants. it is important to remember that due to the lack of power for the one month follow-up analysis, a statistically insignificant result cannot be presumed to be correct. unsurprisingly, the statistically significant results were again not maintained at two months, but again there was a significant attrition rate and only six participants were followed up, meaning a lack of statistical power. however, effect sizes at two months follow-up were small for the bhs (d = -.32) and pcoiss (d = -.05). these results were supported by the pattern of results on the vass and by the results of the jacobson-truax method. the reliable change index showed that one person maintained their significant improvement on the bhs at two months followup. power calculations using g*power (faul et al., 2009) revealed that to reach statistical power at the 0.8 level, 71 participants would need to be recruited on the bhs, and 2598 participants would need to be recruited on the pcoiss. rather than simply advising that the study be replicated with a larger sample, it is suggested that instead, the focus should be on thinking about how the effects observed at one week follow up can be maintained. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 774 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants showed a statistically significant increase in satisfaction with the intervention as measured on the csq-8 at one week follow up. however, this was not maintained at one month and two months follow-up. at one week follow-up 8/11 people scored in the high satisfaction range and 3/11 scored in the medium satisfaction range. satisfaction was maintained at one month follow-up when 5/6 people scored in the high satisfaction range and 1/6 scored in the medium satisfaction range. at two months follow-up, satisfaction scores decreased slightly but 2/6 people scored in the high satisfaction range and 4/6 scored in the medium satisfaction range. these results indicate that participants were satisfied with the intervention that was offered. the acceptability of the program was also suggested by the zero drop-out rate; all participants that experienced the first treatment session completed the intervention. relevance of the findings and clinical implications the results of this pilot study showed promising effects on hopelessness, perceived control over internal states, and satisfaction over the short-term but the study would require replication on a larger scale to address longer term effects. however, given the importance of the psychological constructs measured in this study, the results do contribute to the existing research into the efficacy of self-management strategies in relapse prevention. the sense of hopelessness and control that a person with psychosis has over their illness is considered of great importance. the results reported here support the wider research with people with a mental illness which has found that the development of a relapse prevention plan can positively affect hopelessness (copeland, 1997; gingerich & mueser, 2006; mueser et al., 2006; roe, hasson-ohayon, salyers, & kravetz, 2009) and perception of control over the illness (copeland, 1997; gingerich & mueser, 2006; jumnoodoo, coyne, & singaram, 2001; mueser et al., 2002; mueser et al., 2006). research into this area has shown that developing the necessary knowledge and skills can reduce the impact of the mental illness on people’s lives; they can achieve a sense of personal wellness and control over their illness and the development of personally rewarding goals (copeland, 1997; gingerich & mueser, 2006; mueser et al., 2006; mueser et al., 2002). it is proposed that the level of hopelessness and the perception of control that one has over the illness is linked to the likelihood of future relapse. this is because hopelessness is a key mediating factor between depression and suicidal intent and behaviour (weishaar & beck, 1992) and the perception of control one has over the illness is a variable mediating between the experience of psychosis and depression (birchwood, mason, macmillan, & healy, 1993). this could then develop in to a vicious cycle as with each relapse, individuals are more likely to have persistent and distressing psychotic experiences (wiersma, nienhuis, slooff, & giel, 1998), and to experience loss, depression and hopelessness (birchwood, mason, macmillan, & healy, 1993). the study demonstrated that participants were satisfied with the intervention and logically a certain level of satisfaction is necessary if the treatment is to possess effectiveness in daily nhs practice. the main implication of this study is that the positive results obtained on hopelessness and perceived control at one week follow-up, coupled with the fact that this is a very short low-cost intervention requiring little training on the part of the clinician, together with the high levels of acceptability from clients, provide enough support for the short term efficacy of this intervention. based on the results from follow-up, it is suggested that ‘booster sessions’ could be provided in order to maintain the positive effects. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 brett, sorensen, & priest 775 http://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and future directions the main limitation of this study was the lack of statistical power at follow-up. as the power calculations suggested very large numbers of participants are required at two month follow up, it is suggested that booster sessions are used and effects tested over longer periods to determine whether or not the results are maintained over a longer course. a further limitation may be that while participants were made aware that negative or critical views of the treatment were acceptable within the context of researching a new intervention, the person delivering the intervention also scored the measures. thus anonymity was not possible and may have resulted in participants improving or modifying an aspect of their behaviour in response to the fact that they knew they were being studied. this phenomenon, known as the hawthorne effect (parsons, 1974) has been well researched and needs even further investigation (mccambridge,witton, & elbourne, 2014). it is recommended that future research employs a researcher to conduct the interviews and collect the outcomes measures who is separate from the person delivering the intervention. the study cannot provide any evidence that actual relapse was affected in those who participated. however, it does suggest that factors that are likely to be important in the prevention of relapse, namely reduced feelings of hopelessness, greater perceived control of internal states, and high satisfaction with an intervention can be positively affected by that intervention. in addition to longer follow-up periods, a more sophisticated way of measuring relapse is required. a criteria to define relapse that has been used in recent studies has been an exacerbation of positive symptoms present for a minimum 2-weeks, which is accompanied by a change in management (e.g., an increase in antipsychotic medication, or frequency of appointments with the care coordinator/ psychiatrist) within 6 and 12 months of entering the study (barrowclough et al., 1999; vasconcelos e sa, wearden, & barrowclough, 2013). the study employed inclusion and exclusion criteria which may challenge the ecological validity of the results. however, it was considered that these criteria would be similar to those needed to engage a person with psychosis in developing a relapse prevention plan in the real world, and so this was not considered a major weakness. the participants took part as they showed an interest in this type of work, but again there may be a bias in terms of the psychological characteristics of the participants; they may have had a higher level of motivation or insight which may have positively affected the results. a limitation when evaluating the measure of perceived control over internal states was that the majority of participants did not meet the clinical criteria prior to the intervention. this meant that there was only so much change that the intervention could have affected. in addition, it meant that no matter how much the intervention did affect change, it could not be considered clinically significant when using the jacobson-truax methodology and is one of the limitations of this method. this may have had an impact on the apparent efficacy of the study, as becksander, griffiths, and friel (1998) found that participants with a perception of poor sense of control over their illness and poor ability to cope with symptoms at the beginning of an intervention appeared to have more beneficial effects than did people who at the onset had a perception of high degree of control over their illness and ability to cope with the symptoms. one way of addressing this would have been to ensure that at baseline all clients’ scores were within the dysfunctional range. this would, however, have the disadvantage of excluding clients for treatment who are dysfunctional in one of the other key areas of the disorder. a larger sample size may have accounted for this limitation. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 776 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants recruited to this study were interviewed about their understanding of psychosis, their expectations of treatment and their consequent experiences of the intervention pre and post intervention, but it has not been possible within the scope of this paper to report the interview findings fully. however, they will be written up in a separate paper and may be important, since awareness of factors that may influence hopelessness, perceived control and satisfaction is important if we are to be able to understand the subjective experiences of the participants and develop relevant future interventions. within current nhs services it would be of value if the relapse prevention intervention were to be implemented by the clients’ care co-ordinator. it is therefore recommended that additional research is undertaken examining the effectiveness of both delivery of the 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(1977). vulnerability: a new view on schizophrenia. journal of abnormal psychology, 86, 103-126. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.86.2.103 about the authors dr petrina brett is a clinical psychologist in secondary care mental health services in suffolk. she holds a bsc (hons) psychology degree, masters in forensic psychology, postgraduate certificate in mental health and doctorate in clinical psychology. this research was completed as partial fulfilment of her doctorate in clinical psychology which was completed in 2012 at the universities of staffordshire and keele. dr john sorensen is a consultant clinical psychologist in secondary care psychological services and has experience in the delivery of therapy to adults with a wide range of mental health problems. he routinely conducts research evaluations of his own treatment packages and has published in books and peer reviewed journals on topics ranging from ‘relapse prevention in severe mental illness to ‘emotional intelligence in nhs management’. dr helena priest is a senior lecturer in psychology (keele university) and research director for the staffordshire and keele doctorate in clinical psychology programme. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(4), 756–782 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i4.832 prevention of relapse in psychosis 782 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2005.12.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.86.2.103 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en prevention of relapse in psychosis introduction method recruitment participants design materials measures procedure data analysis baseline stability of measures results hopelessness perceived control of internal states satisfaction and perceived usefulness of the intervention summary of findings reliable change overall summary of results discussion relevance of the findings and clinical implications limitations and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the influence on perceptions of truthfulness of the emotional expressions shown when talking about failure research reports the influence on perceptions of truthfulness of the emotional expressions shown when talking about failure shlomo david*ab, shlomo hareliab, ursula hess c [a] graduate school of management, university of haifa, haifa, israel. [b] the interdisciplinary center for research on emotions, haifa, israel. [c] humboldt-university, berlin, germany. abstract the study aimed to assess whether showing emotion in an organizational inquiry into failure affects perceptions of truthfulness as a function of the match between the explanation of what caused the failure and the emotion expressed. two web-based studies were conducted. participants with work experience saw videos of an inquiry and rated the protagonist’s truthfulness. in both studies protagonists who expressed an emotion (anger or shame) were rated as less truthful than protagonists who expressed no emotion, regardless of what the failure was attributed to. in order to not confound effects of emotions with occupational stereotype effects only male protagonists were shown. showing emotions when questioned is normal. managers have to be aware of a tendency to count this against the employee. this is the only research focusing on the effects of showing emotions on perceptions of truthfulness in an organizational context. keywords: emotions, perceived truthfulness, organizational inquiry europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 received: 2014-10-28. accepted: 2015-01-04. published (vor): 2015-02-27. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: graduate school of management, university of haifa, haifa, 31905, israel. e-mail: shlomo@yuvalalon.co.il this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in an organization things may go wrong and the reasons for this need to be ascertained, since the consequences of errors and failures can include wasted working hours, product disqualification, lowered customer satisfaction, damaged reputation of the firm, harmed relationships between the failing employee and managers and/or coworkers, injuries, and even the loss of lives (kletz, 2001). thus, in order to prevent repetition, organizations need to examine the reasons for the adverse events. yet, one condition for such an inquiry to be effective is that the employee(s) involved provide a full and accurate explanation of what happened. under some circumstances, however, the employee may feel threatened by the inquiry, and as a result, withhold important information or provide a distorted explanation of what happened (schlenker, pontari, & christopher, 2001; schlenker & weigold, 1992; shaw, wild, & colquitt, 2003; sigmon & snyder, 1993; snyder, higgins, & stucky, 1983). that is, the truthfulness of the employee(s) statements needs to be evaluated. research on truthfulness has generally focused on the verbal and nonverbal cues that distinguish between people who lie and those who tell the truth (see e.g., depaulo et al., 2003; masip, sporer, garrido, & herrero, 2005; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ sporer & schwandt, 2006; vrij, granhag, & porter, 2010) rather than on the cues that humans use to detect lies. of the nonverbal cues that mark lies in the eye of the perceiver many are associated with emotional responding. specifically, acting nervously is one of the cues that laypersons most systematically report as a cue to deception (andrewartha, 2008; taylor & hick, 2007; vrij & semin, 1996) and nervous appearances (kraut & poe, 1980) as well as specific cues such as nervous gestures, changes in pitch and smiles are all used as indicators of deception (depaulo, 1988; riggio & friedman, 1983; zuckerman, depaulo, & rosenthal, 1981). nervousness in this context is seen as a sign of guilt about lying or apprehension about being detected and punished (davis, 1961). by contrast, in the more specific context of victim testimony showing emotions has been found to increase believability for laypeople (golding, fryman, marsil, & yozwiak, 2003; kaufmann, drevland, wessel, overskeid, & magnussen, 2003) and policemen (bollingmo, wessel, eilertsen, & magnussen, 2008) but not judges (wessel, drevland, eilertsen, & magnussen, 2006). also the effect has been found to be stronger for individual judgments; when mock-juries discussed credibility, a neutral expression was favored as more truthful (dahl et al., 2007). what is noteworthy in this context, is that when emotions enhance credibility at all, it is not the authenticity of the emotion – since a person who has experienced a trauma may well experience numbness and hence present flat affect – but the congruency with the normative expectations for the situation which seems to lead to perceptions of truthfulness. more generally, vrij and fischer (1997) propose that emotions increase credibility when they fit with the emotion rules for the situation such as showing despair when reporting on a traumatic event. in this same vein, bond et al. (1992), note that when nonverbal behavior seems “off” or as they call it “fishy” it is perceived as a signal of deception. however, it can be argued that anyone who wants to convince others of their position will be emotional to some degree (fiske, 2004). in fact, one function of emotions in speech is to provide emphasis (hamilton, hunter, & burgoon, 1990). the present research aimed to assess whether presenting an argument designed to convince someone else is more believable when presented emotionally or in a neutral manner. in particular, we investigated whether statements made by an employee involved in a failure event regarding his role in the event, were believed more when presented neutrally or in an emotional manner. specifically, when observers interpret emotion expressions they tend to consider not only the physical changes in the face (such as the corners of the lips being turned up in a smile), but also the knowledge that they have about the person and the situation (kirouac & hess, 1999). hence in a situation where the norm is for rational calm discussion, expressing emotions may elicit suspicion, because in the terms of vrij and fischer (1997) the emotion does not fit the emotion rule for the situation. in sum, emotions that accompany a statement about an event possibly caused by the expresser can have two possible results. first, as was the case for victims (bollingmo et al., 2008; golding et al., 2003; kaufmann et al., 2003) and complaints (hareli et al., 2009), statements may be perceived as more truthful when accompanied by a congruent expression rather than an incongruent or neutral expression. in this context, shame would be congruent with admissions of responsibility for the event, whereas anger would be congruent with statements blaming an external source. specifically, as suggested by appraisal theory (e.g., frijda, 1986; scherer, 1984), shame is elicited when the expresser perceives the undesirable outcome as caused by something internal to oneself. by contrast, anger is caused when attributing the outcome to someone else. people are aware of this connection between the emotions and their corresponding appraisals (hareli & hess, 2010) and may therefore interpret shame and anger europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 126 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as conveying admission of fault or as blaming others respectively. thus, one expectation was that an interaction between type of statement and emotion will emerge such that when a verbal statement is in congruent with the “message” contained in the emotion shown by the employee, the employee will be believed more than when these messages are incongruent. however, admitting responsibility for the failure, in and of itself, may increase perceptions of truthfulness because people are motivated to protect themselves and when they act against this motivation they may be believed more (jones, davis, & gergen, 1961; kraut, 1978). second, if being emotional at all is perceived as an attempt to hide something or to manipulate the observer, then a calm, neutral presentation should be perceived as more truthful. such a stance would also be more in line with organizational norms and hence may have specific effects on organizational consequences. in other words, employees may attempt to regulate any emotions – even those that are congruent with their verbal message, because they are in conflict with organizational display rules that demand neutrality. that is, they would engage in emotional labor to conform to organizational rules (hochschild, 1983). finally, one may expect that when workers refuse to take responsibility for the failure, they will be believed less. this is in line with findings on self-serving explanations, which suggest that deflecting guilt by blaming others reduces believability (jones et al., 1961; kraut, 1978). the present research two studies were conducted. in study 1 an actor played the role of an employee who was involved in a situation where a failure occurred which may have been due to his action, in study 2, two actors were employed. in both studies, the actor(s) presented their statements either neutrally or while showing anger or shame. the employee’s statement was either ambiguous, a rejection of responsibility or an admission of responsibility. the mere fact that an organizational inquiry had been conducted may be seen by participants as an indication that there is external evidence for the employee’s guilt. specifically, they may, as is the case in criminal proceedings (cf. babcock, 2005), assume that “where there is smoke there is fire” and that an innocent person would be diverted before it came to an inquiry. hence in study 1, participants received a preliminary report that commented on the fact that the employee was known to be reliable; in study 2, participants were provided either with a preliminary report that specifically corroborated the employee’s claims or with unrelated information about the organization. study 1 method participants — a total of 416 (254 men) individuals with a mean age of 47 years (sd = 10.94), participated in a web based study. fifty-five percent of the participants reported direct personal experience with organizational inquiries. participants were recruited via email from a list of over 1000 people including the pool of alumni of the graduate school of management of the university of haifa and friends of the authors with work experience. response rate was around 10% with no difference in response rate across experimental conditions. stimulus material — a video showed part of a staged organizational inquiry that was based on an actual failure event. specifically, a software technician in a company that develops software for electronic commerce is responsible for an upgrade of a customer's system. following that upgrade, the system crashed and was inoperative for a few hours, which caused considerable damage to the customer. the goal of the inquiry was to understand what europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 david, hareli, & hess 127 http://www.psychopen.eu/ caused the failure. participants were told that the short video they would be watching was an excerpt in which the employee answers the question "what in your opinion caused the problem?". prior to seeing the video, participants received information from a “preliminary report” that commented on the fact that the employee was known to be reliable. the employee responded by (a) a statement taking responsibility where the employee states that he assumed this to be just a routine installation and hence decided to skip the required diagnostics prior to installation or (b) a statement blaming someone else where he states that this was routine installation and his supervisor told him to skip the required diagnostics, at the time he did not question this, but now he thinks that this was the cause of the problem c) gives an ambiguous answer, stating that he really does not know what happened, he had followed the relevant instructions and done what he always did in similar situations but this time the system crashed. in each case, he further speculated that the fault was maybe a bug in the customer's system. a professional actor played the employee and answered the question in either a neutral manner or expressing anger or shame. this resulted in a 3 (type of answer: blames other, takes responsibility, ambiguous answer) x 3 (employee’s emotion: anger, shame, neutrality) design. procedure — list members received one of three different web-links that included the stimulus material and questionnaire for the experiment. this material contained information describing the organization and that the employee in question was generally known to be reliable. upon entering the web-site, participants first read the context information and then saw the video. following the video, they answered a series of questions. all ratings were made on 7-point scales ranging from 0 = "not at all" to 6 = "to a large extent." dependent variables— after watching the video, participants answered a series of questions. these also included questions regarding their understanding of the interview and their perception of the employee as well as about their emotional reactions to the event. these data will not be discussed in the framework of this report. truthfulness. participants were asked whether they believed the employee. consequences. participants were asked whether they would recommend firing the individual as well as whether they would consider promoting the individual in the future. manipulation check. following these questions participants were asked a couple of questions about their perception of the employee, which included a manipulation check. for this they rated the emotion shown by the employee on the scales: relaxed, anger, shame and guilt. all scales ranged from 0 – “not at all” to 6 – “to a large extent”. results manipulation check — a series of 3 (type of answer) x 3 (emotion expression) analyses of variance were conducted on the emotion ratings. significant main effects emerged for all four emotion scales, anger: f(2,260) = 147.99, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .53, shame: f(2,260) = 62.47, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .33, guilt: f(2,260) = 19.03, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .13, relaxed: f(2,259) = 80.93, ηp 2 = .39, p < .0001, (see table 1 for means and standard deviations). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 128 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 manipulation check conditions perceived employee emotion neutralshameanger sdmeansdmeansdmean study 1 angry .481.98b1.321.00b2.291.00a5 ashamed .531.36a2.441.34b4.681.91a1 guilty .711.68a2.521.89b3.911.52a2 relaxed .351.70c3.421.92b2.241.24a1 study 2 angry .361.84b1.211.69b1.171.90a4 ashamed .621.24a2.091.70b4.761.47a2 relaxed .221.70c3.361.64b2.211.10a1 note. subscripts based on fisher lsd tests at p <.05. numbers with different subscripts differ at p < .05.higher numbers represent higher ratings. overall the manipulation check confirmed that the actor was perceived as intended. specifically, in the anger condition the actor was perceived as most angry, in the shame condition the actor was perceived as most ashamed and guilty and in the neutral condition the actor was perceived as low in anger, shame and guilt as well as most relaxed. for guilt and relaxed significant main effects of type of answer emerged, guilt: f(2,260) = 17.27, p < .001, ηp 2 = .12, relaxed: f(2,259) = 5.36, p = .005, ηp 2 = .04, such that when accepting responsibility for the failure the employee was perceived as more guilty (m = 3.84, sd = 1.52) and relaxed (m = 2.99, sd = 1.69) than when blaming someone else (guilt: m = 2.57, sd = 1.89, relaxed: m = 2.49, sd = 1.65) or giving an ambiguous answer (guilt: m = 2.66, sd = 1.76, relaxed:m = 2.62, sd = 1.68) for which perceptions did not differ. the fact that when assuming responsibility for the event the employee was perceived as experiencing more guilt is congruent with the notion that this verbal statement is equivalent to an admission of guilt. it is possible that participants considered that an admission of guilt should have a positive, unburdening, effect and hence assumed him to be also more relaxed than when he seemed to be fending off an accusation. truthfulness — a 3 (answer type) x 3 (emotion expression) analysis of variance was conducted (see table 2 for means and standard deviations). main effects of answer type, f(2,258) = 9.08, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .07, and emotion expression, f(2,258) = 8.53, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .06, emerged. the answer type by emotion interaction was not significant, f(2,258) = 0.58, p = .676, ηp 2 = .009. overall, participants believed the employee more when he did not show any emotion than when he showed either anger or shame for which there was no difference. they also believed the employee more when he took responsibility than when he blamed someone else or gave an ambiguous answer for which there was no difference. consequences — three (type of answer) x 3 (emotion expression) analyses of variance were conducted on recommendations to fire the employee now and the possibility to promote the employee in the future. neither factor had an impact on the immediate consequences for the employee. by contrast, both a main effect of emotion, f(2,256) = 15.14, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .11, and of type of answer emerged, f(2,256) = 3.75, p = .025, ηp 2 = .03, for europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 david, hareli, & hess 129 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intentions to promote the employee in the future. the pattern of results was consistent with the perceptions of the employee’s truthfulness. that is, participants were more likely to consider promoting the employee when he showed a neutral expression rather than shame or anger as well as when he admitted guilt rather than blamed someone else or gave an ambiguous answer. discussion participants believed the employee most when he took verbally responsibility for the failure or when he showed a neutral expression. the same pattern was obtained for intentions to promote the employee in the future. the effects for answer type are congruent with the notion that admitting responsibility – which in this case is a direct admission of guilt with regard to the failure – increases perceptions of truthfulness congruent with the “ulterior motive rule” that self-serving explanations – in this case those that deflect guilt by blaming someone else or giving an ambiguous answer – are believed less (jones et al., 1961; kraut, 1978). consistent with kraut (1978) there was also a (non-significant) trend for ambiguous answers to be believed less. further, individuals who admit guilt should engender more trust with regard to their future behavior. specifically, frank (1988) maintains that guilt is a moral emotion that signals not only understanding of a misdeed but also intentions to do better in the future. hence such a person should be more likely to be promoted in the future. neutral expressions were perceived as most indicative of truth. this may suggest that participants perceived the emotion expression as a sign of nervousness indicative of lying (andrewartha, 2008; kraut & poe, 1980; taylor & hick, 2007) rather than as congruent with the message. also, in this study we explicitly mentioned that the employee was known to be reliable. that is, there was good reason for the participants to believe him. hence, it is possible that in an organizational context where the norm is for emotional neutrality (ashforth & humphrey, 1995), unwarranted emotion when the truth has largely been established, is a norm violation which elicits suspicion. we therefore conducted a second study, in which we varied whether information about the credibility of the employee was provided. we also used two different actors to assure that effects of credibility are not idiosyncratic to the actor. study 2 method participants — a total of 422 (159 men) individuals with a mean age of 32.1 (sd = 10.96) years participated in a web based study. a snowball system was employed where employees of various companies were contacted by email and asked to send the email on to other employees they know. the same overall method and procedure was employed. however, for this study two actors performed according to the same script. in the manipulation check guilt was not included. we also added the question whether the employee seemed credible in general to assess possible effects of personality attributions. as this question correlated r = .78 with the believability question, we combined the two. two hundred-seventeen participants were provided with information about a preliminary inquest in which the same information as provided by the employee in the video was given by another employee. the remaining participants received general information about the company. to assure that the information would be read, questions about its content were asked. all participants gave correct answers. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 130 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results manipulation check— a series of 3 (type of answer) x 3 (emotion expression) 2 (credibility information) analyses of variance were conducted on the emotion ratings. significant main effects emerged for all three emotion scales, anger: f(2,404) = 289.86, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .59, shame: f(2,404) = 122.01, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .38, relaxed: f(2,404) = 145.71, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .42, (see table 1 for means and standard deviations). overall the manipulation check confirmed that the actor was perceived as intended. specifically, in the anger condition the actor was perceived as most angry, in the shame condition the actor was perceived as most ashamed and in the neutral condition the actor was perceived as low in anger, and shame as well as most relaxed. for anger and shame a significant main effect of type of answer emerged, f(2,404) = 4.68, p = .01, ηp 2 = .02, and, f(2,404) = 12.05, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .06, such that when blaming someone else the employee seemed more angry (m = 3.06, sd = 1.93) and less ashamed (m = 2.68, sd = 2.02) than when accepting responsibility (anger: m = 2.58, sd = 1.90, shame: m = 3.53, sd 1.76) or giving an ambiguous answer (anger: m = 2.70, sd = 1.95, shame: m = 3.14, sd = 1.76) for which perceptions did not differ. for shame an emotion x type of answer interaction emerged, f(4,404) = 3.21, p = .013, ηp 2 = .03, such that when the actor showed shame, there was no significant difference in the shame ratings as a function of type of answer (m = 4.70, sd = 1.09). however, when the actor showed anger or neutrality he was perceived as experiencing less shame when attributing the blame to someone else (anger: m = 1.91, sd = 1.66, neutral: m = 1.37, sd = 1.42) then when taking responsibility (anger: m = 2.87, sd = 1.77, neutral: m = 2.83, sd = 1.62) or giving an ambiguous answer (anger: m = 2.64, sd = 1.74, neutral: m = 2.44, sd = 1.49). this interaction seems to reflect a context effect, where knowledge about the answer impacts on perception of shame, but only when shame is not actually shown. in this case, participants seemed to attribute lower levels of shame, when they thought the actor has no reason to feel shame. overall, the manipulation check confirmed, that the actors seemed to express the most anger in the anger condition, the most shame in the shame condition and neutrality in the neutral condition. truthfulness — a 3 (answer type) x 3 (emotion expression) x 2 (credibility information) analysis of variance was conducted (see table 2 for means and standard deviations). main effects of answer type, f(2,404) = 17.15, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .08, emotion expression, f(2,404) = 30.20, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .13, and credibility information, ηp 2 = .13, f(1,404) = 5.03, p = .025, ηp 2 = .01, emerged. the interaction between emotion and credibility information was significant, f(2,404) = 3.55, p = .03, ηp 2 = .02, but no further significant interaction effects emerged. overall, as in study 1, participants believed the employee more when he took responsibility than when he blamed someone else or gave an ambiguous answer, for which there was no difference. also as in study 1, the employee was believed more when he showed neutrality then when he showed either emotion, for which there was no difference. credibility information had an effect such that when participants were told that the employee gave the same answer as another employee they believed the employeemore (m = 3.69,sd = 1.38) than when they received information about the organization (m = 3.44, sd = 1.32). as expected, an interaction between emotion and credibility information emerged. credibility information only had a modulating effect for anger, such that participants believed the employee even less when he showed anger and no credibility information was given (m = 2.74, sd = 1.15). when credibility information was given, participants europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 david, hareli, & hess 131 http://www.psychopen.eu/ believed the employee somewhat more (m = 3.46, sd = 1.49), albeit less than when he showed a neutral expression. for the neutral and the shame expression credibility made no difference. thus, credibility information had only a limited moderating effect. in fact, it seems that if the employee shows any emotion, as in study 1, this is interpreted as a suspicious behavior, but this is aggravated when the employee shows anger without external evidence that he says the truth. in this case it seems that the anger expression is seen as a defensive effort to distract from guilt. consequences— three (type of answer) x 3 (emotion expression) x 2 (credibility information) analyses of variance were conducted on recommendations to fire the employee now and the possibility to promote the employee in the future. in contrast to study 1, main effects of emotion, f(2,404) = 17.15, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .08, type of answer, f(2,404) = 4.73, p = .009, ηp 2 = .02 and credibility information, f(1,404) = 30.80, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .07, emerged for intentions to fire (see table 2). table 2 means and standard deviations as a function of emotional expression and answer type for studies 1 and 2 promotefirebelieve answer sdmeansdmeansdmean study 1 answer type blames other .491.21a2.521.28a3.471.50a3 takes responsibility .481.66b2.461.23a3.421.09b4 ambiguous answer .331.17a2.491.46a3.511.19a3 emotion expression anger .491.21a2.421.53a3.611.31a3 shame .341.86a1.471.36a3.571.36a3 neutral .281.97b2.481.08a3.211.10b4 study 2 answer type blames other .331.53a1.521.22a2.431.41a3 takes responsibility .581.37a1.671.70b2.531.15b4 ambiguous answer .261.45a1.611.26a2.431.21a3 emotion expression anger .401.30a1.631.72a2.621.08a3 shame .141.20a1.531.67a2.481.41a3 neutral .231.11b2.421.82b1.191.24b4 credibility information information .321.59a1.501.00a2.581.71a3 no information .321.52a1.571.76b2.451.48a3 note. subscripts based on fisher lsd tests at p <.05. numbers with different subscripts differ at p < .05.higher numbers represent higher ratings. specifically, when the employee remained neutral, participants were less likely to recommend firing him, than when he showed an emotion. when the employee accepted responsibility participants were more likely to recommend that he should be fired than when he blamed someone else or gave an ambiguous answer. when participants europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 132 http://www.psychopen.eu/ received information about the organization (m = 2.76, sd = 1.57, they were more likely to recommend firing then when they received information about the credibility of the employee’s claim (m = 2.00, sd = 1.50). for the intent to promote the employee, only a main effect of emotion, f(2,404) = 22.81, p < .0001, ηp 2 = .10, emerged. the pattern of results was consistent with the perceptions of the employee’s truthfulness. that is, participants were more likely to consider promoting the employee when he showed a neutral expression rather than shame or anger. discussion overall, study 2 replicated the finding from study 1 that showing a neutral expression was perceived as more indicative of truthfulness than showing an emotion, regardless of type of emotion. further, taking responsibility is perceived as more likely to be truthful than blaming someone else or being ambiguous about the cause. specific information on the credibility of the employee interacted only weakly with emotional expression, such that anger was seen as more indicative of truthfulness when accompanied by information that supported the employee’s statement. general discussion the present research had the goal to assess the impact of showing an emotion while being asked about a failure event for the perceived truthfulness of the report. for this we manipulated the emotion shown (anger, shame, and no emotion), the type of response given (taking responsibility, blaming someone else, and staying vague about the cause) as well as in study 2 additional information about the truthfulness of the statement. as one may expect, the type of answer had an effect on perceived truthfulness. specifically, participants believed the employee more when he took responsibility. this is in line with general observations from attribution theory that self-serving explanations – in this case those that deflect guilt by blaming someone else or giving an ambiguous answer – are believed less (jones et al., 1961; kraut, 1978). however, there was no interaction between answer type and emotion shown. that is, independent of whether the employee gave a more or less believable verbal statement, the emotion shown had the same effect. specifically, the present research showed in two studies that an employee who did not show emotions was perceived as more truthful than one who did. interestingly, knowledge about the likely credibility of employee (study 2) had only an effect when the employee showed anger, such that the negative effect of emotion expression on credibility was aggravated when there was no additional evidence that he says the truth. in this case it seems that the anger expression is seen as a defensive effort to distract from guilt. these effects also generalized to decisions to promote the employee in the future. recommendations to fire the employee were only affected by the manipulations in study 2, but here also the overall recommendation was in line with the notion that the employee who showed no emotion was less likely to be fired. overall, these findings converge to support the notion that in a business context, showing an emotion when interrogated about a failure event is perceived as indicative of lack of truthfulness. the most likely interpretation is that being emotional is seen as a sign of nervousness in the case of shame and maybe a sign of defensiveness in the case of anger. the latter is suggested by the effect of external credibility information when anger is shown. when there is external credibility information, participants rated the employee as somewhat more truthful, which suggests europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 david, hareli, & hess 133 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that in this case the anger was interpreted as a righteous outrage at being accused. in the absence of such specific information (study 1) anger had the same effect as shame. the lack of differential attributions based on the type of emotion is in and of itself interesting. one could argue that anger – which is related to the core relational theme of being insulted (lazarus, 1991) should be interpreted as a sign of righteous outrage, whereas shame, which is typically shown by someone guilty of some transgression (lazarus, 1991), should signal guilt. hence, the employee who shows anger should be givenmore credibility when he declares himself to be innocent – especially when other external corroborating information is not provided, as was shown by hareli et al. (2009) for customers who complain, whereas the person who shows shame should be considered more truthful when taking responsibility and less truthful when blaming someone else. however, not only is the emotion by answer type interaction not significant, but the pattern of means is not congruent with such an interpretation. thus, in the present research the type of emotion shown had basically no influence on the perception of truthfulness. this finding is in line with the notion that emotional expressions -and the lack of expressions – have to be congruent with prevailing norms to support perceptions of honesty (vrij & fischer, 1997). as mentioned above, prevailing workplace norms tend to emphasize emotional neutrality, objectivity and professionalism (cf. ashforth & humphrey, 1995; weber, 1968), hence a calm, neutral stance is perceived as most truthful. one important limitation of the study was that we used only male actors. this was done for several reasons. first of all, many workplaces are still gendered in that one sex is considered generally more apt in that domain than the other. second, and more importantly, there is evidence that emotion expressions shown by men and women are not interpreted in quite the same way. thus, hess, adams, and kleck (2004, 2005, 2009) showed that anger and happiness are perceived differently when shown by men and women and that this interacts with perceived dominance and affiliation. brescoll and uhlmann (2008) showed that when women in a business context show anger, this is attributed to their personality and not as a reaction to the situation. given these considerations, gender and emotion manipulation would likely have given confounded effects. future research should be conducted to assess the role of emotion expression for perceived truthfulness for female employees. another limitation of the present research was that we limited the organizational failure to one context, which may have had a unique impact on our results due to stereotypes that people have about this type of occupation. likewise, we had only one level of damage caused by the failure. future research should assess the same research question in other occupational domains and also manipulate the severity of the failure. in sum, the present research shows that expressing emotions when making important statements about failure events can lead to impressions of lack of truthfulness. this is an important finding as people often express emotions when wanting to convince others (fiske, 2004) or to provide emphasis in speech (hamilton et al., 1990). for the manager this means that emotional utterances should not be readily discarded but the whole situation – and the degree that it engenders emotionality in the employee – needs to be taken into account. using participants with work experience is of particular importance in this context. on a more general level, using video stimuli to test the social perception of emotions proves as a promising strategy. funding the authors have no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 134 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andrewartha, d. 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(2001). excuses and character: personal and social implications of excuses. personality and social psychology review, 5(1), 15-32. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0501_2 europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 136 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.573 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930802613828 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.4.4.378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699930441000364 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0048514 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.842 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.36.4.380 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.5.784 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10683160410001726356 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.4.899 http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0501_2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ schlenker, b. r., & weigold, m. f. 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(2006). credibility of the emotional witness: a study of ratings by court judges. law and human behavior, 30(2), 221-230. doi:10.1007/s10979-006-9024-1 zuckerman, m., depaulo, b. m., & rosenthal, r. (1981). verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. in l. berkowitz (ed.), advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 4, pp. 1-59). new york, ny: academic press. about the authors dr. shlomo david's research focus is on the social function of emotion. dr. david is the research manager of the interdisciplinary center of research on emotions at the university of haifa. he is involved in research on the function of emotion in negotiation, social relationships and decisions. dr. shlomo hareli is a social psychologist, faculty member of the university of haifa's graduated school of management and academic director of the interdisciplinary center of research on emotions at the university of haifa. dr. hareli studies the social function of emotion by focusing on the link between emotions and social judgments in social and managerial contexts. for the past several years he has investigated the social implications of people observing the emotions of others. his research in this field is both theoretical and empirical. dr. ursula hess' current research is in the area of emotion psychology, in particular, the communication of affect with an emphasis on two main lines of research. first, using psychophysiological (e.g., electromyography) measures she studies the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 david, hareli, & hess 137 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.43.020192.001025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.3.444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/135532506x116101 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/026975809700400402 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1529100610390861 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02248715 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9024-1 http://www.psychopen.eu/ influence of a sender's expressive behavior on the receiver, in terms of mimicry and emotional contagion. second, she is interested in the role of social influences (e.g., beliefs about group membership) in the encoding and decoding of emotion expressions. more recent research efforts aim to combine these lines of research into a larger theoretical perspective. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 125–138 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.877 emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness 138 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en emotion expression and perceptions of truthfulness (introduction) the present research study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity editorial from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity james c. kaufman* a [a] university of connecticut, storrs, ct, usa. abstract the author contrasts an early research passion, creativity and mental illness, with his current interest in creativity and social justice. kaufman’s initial research revolved around the sylvia plath effect, yet was insensitive to broader implications or concerns. as his thinking about creativity has evolved, he is currently more focused on a more positive use for creativity – namely, how creativity can help issues of fairness and equity. keywords: creativity, creativity and mental illness, creativity and social justice europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 173–177, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 published (vor): 2017-05-31. *corresponding author at: university of connecticut, neag school of education, 2131 hillside road, unit 3007, storrs, ct 06269-3007, usa. e-mail: james.kaufman@uconn.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in being asked to write an editorial for europe’s journal of psychology by my dear friend and colleague vlad glăveanu, i decided to take the chance to reflect a bit on my career. instead of embarking on some type of fullfledged intellectual autobiography (which no one is clamoring for), i focused on two distinct research passions i have had over my intellectual life. i have been studying creativity for nearly twenty years now. one of my early studies was the sylvia plath effect (kaufman, 2001), which was a historiometric look at eminent writers and mental health. i found that female poets were more likely to show signs of mental illness compared to other writers (including male poets) and women well-known in other domains (art, politics, acting, and non-poetry writing). i did a few follow-up studies and theoretical papers that were generally consistent (kaufman, 2003, 2005a; kaufman & baer, 2002). i was young and stupid and when the media came calling, i was happy to brainstorm or suggest possible reasons for the effect. it took off and articles about the sylvia plath effect appeared on the new york times, cnn, and many, many others. i saw a lot of misinterpretation; many assumed it simply meant that all female poets were mentally ill (regardless of level of eminence), or else that all poets, writers, or anyone creative were more likely to have mental illness. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ years later, the phrase has spawned several indie rock songs, several blogs, and shows up sporadically in poetry and fiction (including a recent romance novel, curiously enough). i am still regularly interviewed about it. as i matured and studied more aspects of creativity, i was less thrilled about the sylvia plath effect legacy. for a while, i tried to tackle it head-on. i made several arguments against the importance of my own work. my study was based on brief biographies in reference works, and it is easy to over-extrapolate. there just aren’t that many biographies of completely normal people; happy folks aren’t the most interesting topic in the world (silvia & kaufman, 2010). a standard technique used to convince people that creativity is inextricably linked to mental illness is to offer endless lists of creative geniuses who have been (often erroneously) labelled as being mentally ill. that said, it’s easy to do that for anything. for example, here are two lists: list one: alexander the great, gracie allen, david bowie, benedict cumberbatch, robert downey jr, pitcher max scherzer, michael flatley (riverdance), kiefer sutherland, christopher walken list two: ray bradbury, joan ganz cooney (creator of sesame street), john denver, barbara kingsolver, lee marvin, art moreno (owner of the angels), linda ronstadt list one is people with heterochromia iridum, or having eyes of two different colors. list two is people associated with tucson, arizona (thank you, wikipedia!) so what? do i mean to say that there’s absolutely zero connection? no. there have been a lot of studies and as much contradiction exists, there are some broad points that reappear (i.e., higher rates of mental illness in artists and writers than businesspeople and scientists; increased renown may be associated with increased rates of illness). but there are too many questions. any attempt to synthesize the research (which i have nonetheless attempted; kaufman, 2014, 2016b) ends up merging disparate results. it’s the equivalent of having different studies that show (a) rhubarb leads to higher rates of diabetes; (b) popcorn lowers the rate of heart disease; and (c) eating thirty pounds of chocolate each day increases toenail cancer – and then making the grand claim that food is linked to health. although in my mind i’ve simply moved away from this area, i’m not sure if instead i’m trying for a mea culpa with the last few years of work. i do have to acknowledge that to the extent that my work has glamorized mental illness or associated it with being creative, then i’ve made the larger problem worse. a journalist recently asked me my thoughts on young women idolizing plath on social media, and it did make me think. it’s easy to say that of course, idolizing (and imitating) plath won’t make someone more creative or artistic. but people still do it, and that can be dangerous. romanticizing depression and pain can lead to self-injurious behavior or the belief that you need to have tragedy or illness to be an artist. my more recent focus is to emphasize how creativity can lead to good outcomes. certainly, creativity researchers tend to not study this angle very much. most papers use creativity as the dependent variable and not the independent variable. they want to know what leads to creativity, not what can come out of creativity (forgeard & kaufman, 2016). less than 10% of papers go into detail about why creativity is important or meaningful at all. after spending the first half of my career studying negative constructs associated with creativity, i am trying to work on the positive side. two different events that happened that sharpened my interest in one of my current passions, creativity and fairness. the first was that when i joined educational testing service in 2000, i was lucky enough to get to know measurement expert gwyneth boodoo. in addition to being one of the world’s from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity 174 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 173–177 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experts on the topic of fairness, she is also an incredibly nice person who took an interest in a naïve neophyte. i knew i wanted to learn from her; since her area was fairness, i decided to think about creativity and fairness. we didn’t end up publishing on the topic but had many fruitful conversations. a couple of years later, my dear friend cecil reynolds invited me to write a chapter on non-biased assessment for a handbook he was coediting. under his guidance, i first suggested some of the ideas that i have continued to explore (kaufman, 2005b). central among them was the idea of using non-cognitive constructs as a supplement to existing measures. non-cognitive constructs might include personality, resiliency, leadership, or emotional intelligence (kyllonen, walters, & kaufman, 2005). although creativity absolutely includes cognitive components, it still makes the list (one could argue that non-cognitive practically means anything that isn’t included on current ability or achievement tests). my argument is that adding creativity (or other constructs) can increase fairness and equity. the discrepancies in scores across ethnicity and gender on most ability and achievement tests do not necessarily mean that the tests are biased. however, the choice to only use these tests and nothing else can be problematic. most studies that examine creativity by ethnicity or gender (e.g., baer & kaufman, 2008; kaufman, baer, & gentile, 2004; see kaufman, 2016a, for review) find no differences; studies of self-perceptions of creativity sometimes shows an advantage for underrepresented groups (ivcevic & kaufman, 2013; kaufman, 2006). given that creativity is often seen as a core component of intelligence (kaufman & plucker, 2011), the decision to measure more traditional analytic abilities but overlook creativity may represent bias (kaufman, 2010, 2015). similar arguments can be made for giftedness encompassing creativity (kaufman, plucker, & russell, 2012) yet not always including it as a criterion for admissions (luria, o’brien, & kaufman, 2016), as well as the general lack of creativity in college or graduate school admissions (kaufman, 2010). at this point in my career, i am delving deeper into this topic. there is much to explore. beyond exploring the admissions angle, i want to explore the positive ways that creativity can enhance social justice. what positive effects might occur if we highlight the importance (and specifics) of creativity in teacher education programs? or if teachers then seek to nurture the creativity of their students? how might people be creative in their quest to fight for a more just world? how can creativity help voiceless and marginalized groups? i am actively working with colleagues such as vlad glăveanu, preston green, and ellen kaplan and students such as sarah luria and khalilah arrington (and following in the footsteps of my advisor, robert sternberg) to address such questions. the first recurring story of my research career was on creativity and mental illness – an emphasis on the negative that verged on exploitative. many years and stories later, i am trying to not simply look at the positive or hopeful aspect of creativity but to think about how creativity can help people. i hope that this shifting focus is a sign of maturity or character development (or, at least, an absence of regression). funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. kaufman 175 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 173–177 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references baer, j., & kaufman, j. c. (2008). gender differences in creativity. the journal of creative behavior, 42, 75-105. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2008.tb01289.x forgeard, m. j. c., & kaufman, j. c. (2016). who cares about imagination, creativity, and innovation, and why? a review. psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts, 10, 250-269. doi:10.1037/aca0000042 ivcevic, z., & kaufman, j. c. (2013). the can and cannot do attitude: how self-estimates of ability vary across ethnic and socioeconomic groups. learning and individual differences, 27, 144-148. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2013.07.011 kaufman, j. c. (2001). the sylvia plath effect: mental illness in eminent creative writers. the journal of creative behavior, 35, 37-50. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2001.tb01220.x kaufman, j. c. (2003). the cost of the muse: poets die young. death studies, 27, 813-821. doi:10.1080/713842357 kaufman, j. c. 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(2016a). creativity 101 (2nd ed). new york, ny, usa: springer. kaufman, j. c. (2016b). creativity and mental illness: so many studies, so many wrong conclusions. in j. a. plucker (ed.), creativity and innovation: theory, research, and practice (pp. 199-204). waco, tx, usa: prufrock press. kaufman, j. c., & baer, j. (2002). i bask in dreams of suicide: mental illness and poetry. review of general psychology, 6, 271-286. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.3.271 kaufman, j. c., baer, j., & gentile, c. a. (2004). differences in gender and ethnicity as measured by ratings of three writing tasks. the journal of creative behavior, 38, 56-69. doi:10.1002/j.2162-6057.2004.tb01231.x kaufman, j. c., & plucker, j. a. (2011). intelligence and creativity. in r. j. sternberg & s. b. kaufman (eds.), cambridge handbook of intelligence (pp. 771-783). new york, ny, usa: cambridge university press. from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity 176 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 173–177 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2008.tb01289.x http://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000042 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.07.011 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2001.tb01220.x http://doi.org/10.1080/713842357 http://doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1701_8 http://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1255 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0020133 http://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence3030059 http://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.6.3.271 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.2162-6057.2004.tb01231.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ kaufman, j. c., plucker, j. a., & russell, c. m. (2012). identifying and assessing creativity as a component of giftedness. journal of psychoeducational assessment, 30, 60-73. doi:10.1177/0734282911428196 kyllonen, p. c., walters, a. m., & kaufman, j. c. (2005). noncognitive constructs and their assessment in graduate education. educational assessment, 10, 153-184. doi:10.1207/s15326977ea1003_2 luria, s. r., o’brien, r. l., & kaufman, j. c. (2016). creativity in gifted identification: increasing accuracy and diversity. annals of the new york academy of sciences, 1377, 44-52. doi:10.1111/nyas.13136 silvia, p. j., & kaufman, j. c. (2010). creativity and mental illness. in j. c. kaufman & r. j. sternberg (eds.), cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 381-394). new york, ny, usa: cambridge university press. about the author james c. kaufman is a professor of educational psychology at the university of connecticut. he is the author/editor of more than 35 books, including creativity 101 (2nd edition, 2016) and the cambridge handbook of creativity (with robert sternberg; 2010). he has published more than 250 papers, including the study that spawned the “sylvia plath effect” and three well-known theories of creativity, including the four-c model of creativity (with ron beghetto). he is a past president of division 10 (society for psychology of aesthetics, creativity, & the arts) of the american psychological association (apa). james has won many awards, including mensa’s research award, the torrance award from the national association for gifted children, and apa’s arnheim, berlyne, and farnsworth awards. he co-founded two major journals (psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts and psychology of popular media culture) and currently co-edits the international journal of creativity and problem solving. he has tested dr. sanjay gupta’s creativity on cnn, appeared in the hit australia show redesign your brain, and narrated the comic book documentary independents. he wrote the libretto to discovering magenta, which had its nyc premiere in 2015, and co-authored a book on bad baseball pitchers with his father. kaufman 177 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 173–177 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1413 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1177/0734282911428196 http://doi.org/10.1207/s15326977ea1003_2 http://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13136 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ from the sylvia plath effect to social justice: moving forward with creativity (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the effectiveness of a parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children research reports the effectiveness of a parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children elahe vahidi a, amir aminyazdi* a, hossein kareshki a [a] department of education and psychology, ferdowsi university of mashhad, mashhad, iran. abstract the study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a parent training program for promoting cognitive performance of young children through enriching the parent-child interactions among mothers of preschool-aged children in mashhad, iran. a total of 29 couples of mothers and their children were assigned to an experimental group (n = 16 couples) and a control group (n = 13 couples). mothers in the experimental group participated in 12 weekly sessions and were trained how to enrich their daily parent-child interactions as such. children’s cognitive performance was assessed by three subscales of the wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (wppsi). the results of the analysis of covariance (ancova) indicated a significant difference between the experimental and control group. the findings support the effectiveness of the parent training program for enhancing cognitive performance in preschoolers. keywords: parent training program, parent-child interactions, preschool children, cognitive performance europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 received: 2017-01-28. accepted: 2017-05-08. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of education and psychology, ferdowsi university of mashhad, mashhad, iran. e-mail: yazdi@ferdowsi.um.ac.ir this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. understandings of child development indicate that child’s learning capacities along with mental health bases are established in childhood. in this sense, any impairment during the processes of childhood development can negatively affect children’s capacities to learn and communicate with others (zigler, shonkoff, & meisels, 2000). moreover, the all-round and optimal child development is the product of the interaction of multiple factors and the dynamic exchanges of biological structures, genetics, and environmental features. one of the important factors in this case is a child’s relationship with 'others' (especially with their mother) (mäntymaa, 2006). the quantity and quality of mother-child interactions can influence many features of child development, including social, emotional and cognitive ones. however, while nowadays the world is rapidly changing and children need to acquire knowledge and many skills to be qualified individuals, many parents are concerned about their children's cognitive development and want to know whether and how they can improve their cognitive abilities. a large number of theories and studies over the last three decades have highlighted the role of parents in promoting cognitive development in children. in particular, researchers suggest that if human interaction with others follows certain features, it can contribute the most to the cognitive development of children. researchers have put forth effective strategies and parental effective behaviors leading to improvements in thinking skills europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and cognitive processes in children. they include scaffolding (see wood, bruner, & ross, 1976), responsiveness (see bornstein & tamis-lemonda, 1990) and mediated learning (see feuerstein, feuerstein, falik, & rand, 2002; klein, 1996; tzuriel, 1996, 2001, 2011). although numerous studies have validated the significance of parent-child interactions in a child's cognitive performance, little research has already been conducted to see whether training parents to improve the quality and quantity of parent-child interactions can contribute to children's cognitive abilities. to answer this question, a group parent training program was developed in this study based on the theory of the structural cognitive modifiability (scm) and the developmental, individual differences, relationship-based model (dir). theoretical framework theory of structural cognitive modifiability and mediated learning experiences the theory of structural cognitive modifiability (scm) (feuerstein, feuerstein, & falik, 2015) is one of the groundbreaking theories of this training program. the major premise of this theory is to introduce intelligence not as a fixed structure, but as a variable capable of change and improvement. feuerstein considers man as a system open to change in which the cognitive structures are allowed for change and modification (feuerstein, feuerstein, & falik, 2015). he defines scm as the human capacity to learn from new experiences, learning opportunities, and ability to change the cognitive structures, which seeks to accommodate the ever-changing needs of life (mentis, dunn-bernstein, & mentis, 2008). feuerstein assumes that there are only a few people who can realize their full potential in individual learning contexts; however, using mediated learning experiences can help people not only reach their learning potential but also modify the actual cognitive structures (feuerstein, falik, & feuerstein, 2013). in mediated learning experience (mle), learning takes place through a more experienced individual (usually a parent) who mediates between the child and the world of stimulants. a mediator is a person who learns about the needs, interests, and capacities of the child and plays an active role in creating the child’s environment; in fact, a mediator changes stimulants in various ways, adjusts their frequency, order and intensity, and consciously raises children’s interest and curiosity to foster their basic cognitive functions (feuerstein & falik, 2010). now the question that comes to mind is what features an interaction should include to be a mediated learning experience. lidz (2002) has defined twelve features for mediated behavior in the adult-child interaction which leads to the promotion of higher cognitive functions in children. the first five mle criteria are operationalized and observed in interactions of mother-child (klein, 1996; klein & alony, 1993; tzuriel, 1999, 2001, 2011), peerassisted learning (tzuriel & shamir, 2007, 2010), siblings (klein, feldman, & zarur, 2002) and teacher-student instruction (remer & tzuriel, 2011). the first five mle criteria operationalized for research are as follows: 1) mediation of intentionality, including the mediator’s deliberate attempt to teach children through involving them in various assignments and changing the environment and stimulants so that he/she can capture children’s attention; 2) mediation of meaning, including the mediator’s use of gestures, sounds, facial expressions and body movements to enliven the interaction, and highlight what needs to be noticed; 3) mediation of transcendence, that is, to bridge across the ideas, experiences and events with the goal of expanding learning environment and creating new learning; 4) mediation of task regulation, that is, the mediator helps children consider different solutions, evaluate them and adopt the best one, and if necessary, teaches them the basics of planning and problem-solving; 5) mediation of praise and encouragement, including the mediator’s attempts to provide children with opportunities for success and praise, and encourage them at the time of success and parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children 520 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ also give them feedback as to which characteristics of the child’s approach in carrying out the task deserves encouragement. according to the theory of scm, parents have become aware of the possibility of enhancing learning potential in children based on the advantage of cerebral plasticity (feuerstein, falik, & feuerstein, 2013) and the prominent role they play in helping children learn. they understand that they can assist in making children’s learning potential flourish. by enriching their interactions with children using the features of mediated interactions (i.e. mediation of intentionality, mediation of meaning, mediation of transcendence, mediation of task regulation, and mediation of praise and encouragement), they also learn how to improve their children's cognitive functions. however, for parents to be able to function as effective mediators for children, they are required to have a comprehensive understanding of their children's needs, interests, capacities and cognitive strengths and challenges. as such, the dir model can help them achieve such an understanding. developmental, individual differences, relationship-based model (dir) greenspan and wieder (2006) have illustrated the course of emotional-functional development from birth to adulthood after several years of careful observation of early emotional signs, cognitive and motor processing differences, the relationship of caregiver with child, and family interaction patterns in children (both children with normal and impaired development). as a result, they have introduced the developmental, individual differences, relationship-based (dir) model with a bio-psycho-social approach to human development. the model suggests that human development is driven by the interaction of three dynamic components: 1) children’s biological and genetic conditions, including their abilities or challenges in sensory and motor processing; 2) children’s social environment, including their family and cultural characteristics and other environmental factors; and 3) patterns of children’s interactions with 'others' influenced by the dynamic interaction of the two aforementioned components and determined by children's developmental outcomes in all emotional, social and cognitive aspects (greenspan & wieder, 2006). the principle assumption forming dir or human integrated development model (see aminyazdi, 2012) is the vital impact that a child’s emotional relationship with the caregiver and their emotional and social interactions with 'others' can have on their psychological development (greenspan, 2007). dir model has numerous implications for enriching child-parent relationships, which aims at improving the child’s learning. as an example, this model assumes that each child influenced by genes and factors both during pregnancy and after birth possesses a unique biological and psychological structure. these individual differences in sensory modulation, sensory processing and motor planning lead to differences in child’s cognitive abilities and a variety of performance in learning situations. parents’ awareness of the unique biological characteristics of their children helps them adjust their interactions with the children’s individual differences, which provides them with learning experiences of higher quality as such (aminyazdi, 2012). in addition, the dir’s great emphasis on the importance of emotions suggests that parents’ attention to the emotional content of their relationships with children fine-tune the child-parent interactions more effectively. for example, if the parent is warm, calm and responsive, the child will be more attracted to the child-parent interactions, as parents need to consider children’s emotions for effective mediation. in fact, to teach their children, they should choose stimulants which arouse more interest, for instance. vahidi, aminyazdi, & kareshki 521 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the parent training program drawing upon the two theoretical approaches described above, it is inferred that the parent-child interactions play a key role in improving children’s cognitive development and learning. in fact, an optimal parent-child interaction can be described by combining the dir model with the theory of scm. such an interaction can significantly contribute to the improvement of a child's cognitive development and learning. that is, in addition to being warm, lovely, attentive, and not restrictive, the parent functions as a mediator between the child and the environment and consciously provides the experiences based on the child’s individual characteristics, level of development, interests and emotions, which results in better learning. in the present study, a group-parenting program was developed by the present researchers for mothers of normal preschool children in order to raise the quantity and quality of the optimal mother-child interactions. parent training programs are expected to not only enhance the parent’s knowledge and parenting skills but also to assist them in mastering the obtained skills. in addition to raising the mothers’ awareness of children’s fundamental issues along with the change and modification of their attitudes towards children’s learning, mothers learn strategies to boost the quantity and quality of their interactions with their children in this program with the aim of improving their children’s cognitive performance. changing mothers' attitudes and their implicit theories about intelligence and learning abilities is one of the main objectives of the program. dweck (2012) calls the individuals' implicit theories mindsets. mindsets are people’s lay beliefs about the nature of human attributes, such as intelligence (yeager & dweck, 2012). some people hold a fixed mindset (or an entity theory) and believe that human attributes are simply fixed traits. for example, they might believe that each person has a fixed amount of intelligence and cannot change it. in contrast, other people hold a growth mindset (or an incremental theory). for example, they may believe that all people, no matter who they are, can become substantially more intelligent through their effort and education (dweck, 2017). believing a growth mindset can enhance mothers' motivation to help their children boost their cognitive abilities. table 1 sessions' objectives session objectives 1. to become familiar with members and their goals and expectations. to learn about the role of parent in child development. to learn about the efficacy and necessity of parent training program. 2. to learn about the possibility of promoting children’s cognitive performance through mediational learning experiences. 3. to acquire knowledge about children’s biological and genetic characteristics, which lead to individual differences in learning. 4. to practice how to regulate environment, behaviors, and child-raising practices on the basis of children’s individual characteristics. 5. to familiarize with children’s interests, needs, cognitive strengths and challenges, and emotional tendencies through play. to learn about floortime play. 6. to practice floortime play techniques. 7. to learn about mediational strategies aimed at enriching daily parent-child interactions. 8. to learn how to transform daily situations into enjoyable activities and opportunities for teaching, solving multiple cognitive problems, and strengthening children’s language, memory, knowledge, and basic operations required for logical thinking via mediational learning strategies. 9., 10., 11. to practice the obtained skills. 12. to summarize and overview all the sessions. parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children 522 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the treatment objectives are outlined in table 1. method design this study was a quasi-experimental design which compared pretest and post-test measures. participants were divided into an experimental group and a control group. participants the parenting program designed in this study aims for both mothers and fathers. however, only mothers were involved and contributed in this study due to some administrative constraints and the fact that mothers in iranian culture are mostly responsible for child care and education at this specific age range. mothers living in mashhad, iran with a preschool-aged child and meeting the inclusion criteria for the study were invited to participate in it. the criteria for their selection include the following: (1) mothers should have children aged 4-6years old; (2) mother should have nine years education or more. to assure the homogeneity of the sample, single-parent mothers and also mothers and children with identified cognitive and learning problems were excluded from the early sample. a convenience sampling of 29 couples of mothers and their children were recruited during the school summer holidays in 2015. the mothers consciously (knowing the objectives of the study and how to do it) and voluntarily completed a form to show their willingness to participate in the project. as such, sixteen mothers were selected together with their children for the experimental group while thirteen couples of mothers and children were selected as the control group. the demographic characteristics of the participants are shown in table 2. there were no significant differences between the experimental and control groups in terms of demographic characteristics. measure: the wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (wppsi-r) wechsler intelligence scale is one of the most frequently used instruments for measuring a child’s cognitive ability. in this study, in order to measure the child’s cognitive performance, a combination of the three subtests of block design, arithmetic and similarities of the wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (wppsi) was utilized. the scores from the subscales of this test can be added up and the final score can be placed on an interval scale. the validation and standardization of the test in iran has been conducted by razavieh and shahim (2000). procedure a pre-test was administered right after selecting and placing the participants of the control and experimental groups. mothers in the experimental group participated in the training program, including 12 group-sessions. for nine sessions the mothers participated alone, whereas for three exercise sessions mothers brought their children for further practice of the acquired skills every session. the control group received no treatment while the experimental group was attending the sessions. a post-test was then administered two weeks after the last training session. vahidi, aminyazdi, & kareshki 523 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 demographic characteristics of participants experimental group (n = 16) control group (n = 13) number (%) number (%) gender of the childboy 10 (62.5) 9 (69.2) gender of the childgirl 6 (37.5) 4 (30.8) mother’s education12 years or less 11 (68.7) 8 (61.5) mother’s education13 years or more 5 (31.3) 5 (38.5) father’s education12 years or less 10 (62.5) 10 (76.9) father’s education13 years or more 6 (37.5) 3 (23.1) mother in employment 4 (25.0) 3 (23.1) mother not in employment 12 (75.0) 10 (76.9) father in employment 15 (93.7) 12 (92.3) father not in employment 1 (6.3) 1 (7.7) m (sd) m (sd) age of the child 5.20 (0.75) 5.28 (0.74) age of the mother 28.51 (3.56) 29.65 (3.21) age of the father 33.81 (3.49) 34.23 (4.32) the intervention the experimental group attended a parent-training program designed by the authors, consisting of twelve weekly 2-hour group sessions. the methods applied in the sessions included instruction by a trainer, sharing experiences, group discussions and role-plays. each session (except session 1) began with a review of the previous session and a discussion of the assigned homework. this was followed by mini-lectures on the new topics to be taught by the trainer along with group discussions and role-plays. finally, after summarizing the exchanged ideas, homework was assigned to master the skills and acquire further knowledge. the session ended when the instructor provided a short account of the shared viewpoints. there were 12 two-hour sessions altogether; the objectives of sessions are listed in table1 and content of the sessions are given in the following: session 1: at the beginning of the session, members introduced themselves and the instructor explained the rules of group discussions. next, the instructor elaborated on the importance of the role of mothers in child development, and the efficacy and necessity of participation in a parent training program. the session closed with a brief explanation of the objectives, method and plan of future sessions given by the instructor. session 2: in accordance with the principles of the theory of scm and mediated learning experiences, this session opened with raising mothers’ awareness of the possibility of enhancing children’s learning potential (cerebral plasticity) and their leading role in helping children learn. the instructor then explained that mothers need to have a thorough understanding of their children's needs, interests, capacities and cognitive strengths, and challenges in order to be efficient mediators. sessions 3 and 4: at first, the unique biological and genetic characteristics of the children determining their individual differences in learning situations were explained. mothers were then assisted to acquire an image of their children’s individual characteristics. in the end, mothers were informed that they should regulate and tailor their environment, behavior, and child-raising practices to their children’s individual characteristics to be parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children 524 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ considered as an efficient mediator for children. this is, however, made possible by learning about each child’s individual characteristics. sessions 5 and 6: the sessions opened with the trainer, defining ‘play’ as an enjoyable spontaneous activity for children and listing the functions of the ‘play’ in improving their development and learning. next, the parent-child ‘floortime play’ was introduced. ‘floortime’ is a quality of interactions abundant with plays in which parents strike up warm relationships with their children based on their individual characteristics and interests, follow their leadership (emotional interests), help them learn communicate with others, and finally challenge them to expand their emotional, social and cognitive capabilities (pajareya & nopmaneejumruslers, 2011). in the end, the mothers practiced their skills in ‘floortime’ through role-plays and make use of the trainer and other mothers’ feedback. sessions 7 and 8: at that stage, having acquired the knowledge about their children’s individual characteristics, interests, and emotional tendencies, mothers could help their children with their learning by applying the mediated learning skills in order to improve and enrich their interactions. in session seven and eight, mothers became familiar with the features of the mediated learning interactions. as such, the mediator transformed everyday situations (such as easting, shopping, etc.) into enjoyable activities opportunities for teaching, solving multiple cognitive problems, and strengthening children’s language, memory, knowledge, and basic operations required for logical thinking (categorization, classification, spatial visualization, etc.). sessions 9, 10, and 11: at the beginning of those sessions, the trainer gave some examples on how to utilize the mediated learning skills to transform ordinary real-life situations (such as cooking) into a mediated learning experience. the mothers then raised their questions and practice the skills through group discussions and roleplays. session 12: in the last session, after a general overview and summary of all the sessions, the mothers raised their questions, views and experiences, and receive feedback from the instructor and other mothers. this intervention program was conducted by an educational psychologist (the third author) under the supervision of the first author who is a developmental psychologist. the control group was not offered any extra services while the experiment group attended the parent-training program. the control group was offered a book (developed by the first author) after the experimental group had completed the program. it should be noted that the tester who administered the pre-test and post-test was blind to the treatment assignment. data analysis descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation, were used to describe the results of the pre-test and post-test. to compare the post-treatment results of the experimental and control groups, the analysis of covariance (ancova) was used. prior to the use of the analysis of covariance, it was assured that all its assumptions were met. the statistical package for social sciences (spss) software, version 22.0 for windows, was used for data analysis. vahidi, aminyazdi, & kareshki 525 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results table 3 depicts the descriptive results derived from the pre-test and post-test of the children’s cognitive performance variable. as shown in the table, the mean score of the cognitive performance variable has increased 2.07 for the control group and 7.62 for the experimental group. table 3 mean and standard deviation of pre-intervention and post-intervention tests preintervention postintervention pre and post intervention difference (d)m sd m sd experimental group (n = 16) 33.48 6.46 41.06 6.05 7.62 control group (n = 13) 32.85 11.14 34.92 10.24 2.07 to study the statistical significance of the difference between the means, the analysis of covariance (ancova) was conducted. prior to use of ancova, it was assured that assumption of normality using shapiro-wilk’ w test [pretest: p = .156, posttest: p = .776], assumption of homogeneity of variances using leven’s test [pretest: f(1, 27) = 3.114, p = .089 posttest: f(1, 27) = 2.127, p = .156], and assumption of homogeneity of regression slopes, f(1, 26) = 1.651, p = .210, were met. there was a significant difference between the two groups regarding the children’s cognitive performance, f(1, 26) = 17.48, p < .001, and the effect size (the partial eta squared value) compared with cohen’s guidelines is moderate (0.452). discussion there is a general consensus from cognitive developmental research that children benefit from new learning experiences through the advantage of cerebral plasticity (bonnier, 2008). in addition, a large body of theories and practices support the idea that adult-child interactions are of central importance in this process (farah et al., 2008; rao et al., 2010; vygotsky, 1980; wood, bruner, & ross, 1976). a large number of studies have shown that the quality of mother-child interactions is a direct predictor of children’s performance in cognitive tests and problem-solving situations (see tzuriel, 2013). theory of structural cognitive modifiability considers cognitive abilities, including thinking and problem-solving skills, not fixed structures but variables which can be modified and improved if children have access to an efficient mediator. kozulin et al. (2010) and salas et al. (2010) have demonstrated that providing children with mediated learning experiences by teachers improves their cognitive abilities. in another study, a year-long caregiver training program based on scm theory, mediational intervention for sensitizing caregivers (misc), was effective in teaching ugandan caregivers to enhance their children's cognitive development through practical and sustainable techniques applied during daily interactions at home (boivin et al., 2013). the hypothesis of the current study tested the impact of enriching mother-child interactions via a parent training program (as explained earlier in the paper) on the improvement of children' cognitive performance. the analysis of the research data revealed that the parent-training program significantly improved children's cognitive performance. to elaborate further on the result, the following can be inferred: parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children 526 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ based on mindset theory (dweck, 2012), as mothers became aware of the advantage of neuroplasticity and the prominent role of parent-child interactions in children’s cognitive development and their implicit theories of intelligence change to a growth mindset, they became motivated to provide new learning experiences for their children. klein and rye (2004) state that teaching mediational strategies to parent increases their intentional teaching behaviors. in the same vein, klein and alony (1993) have shown that even three years after receiving the mediation training the mothers in the experimental group have significantly more intentional teaching behaviors in comparison with those in the control group. in this study, mothers in the experimental group practiced to use different techniques to capture and maintain children’s attention to colors, shapes, animals, numbers, similarities, differences, etc. during their daily interactions. apart from expanding children’s learning opportunities in quantity, the quality of mother-child interactions improved as mothers learned how to match the interactions with their children's individual characteristics and to consider their emotions and interests as such. with an increase in the quantity and quality of the mediated mother-child interactions, the children’s knowledge increases; they learn the fundamental logical thinking skills (i.e. categorization, object assembly, comparison, etc.) and improve their language abilities (i.e. range of vocabulary, language comprehension, etc.) as such (feuerstein & falik, 2010). additionally, appropriate parent-child interactions raise children’s curiosity, create new questions for them, in which case they make children pay closer attention to their environment, experiment, question, compare, and consider similarities and differences, and make connections between environmental stimulants (klein, 2000). thus, children can also learn from their direct experiences with the environment and use their skills in new situations. furthermore, since these interactions are in line with children’s interests, needs, cognitive strengths and challenges, and the individual characteristics mainly carried out through play-like activities, they increase children’s motivation to learn (pintrich, 2002). slavin (2006) claims that the best way to improve children’s performance in cognitive problem-solving is the children’s extensive practice in different situations along with receiving feedback from adults. with an increase in the mother-child mediated interactions, children are provided with various situations where they can solve different cognitive problems and benefit from their mother’s feedback. in addition, children can observe their mother’ reaction to the problems and the ways they solve the problems, and then they internalize them as such. another possible explanation is that learning through real-life experiences provides strong possibility of transferring learning to other situations (santrock, 2004), whereas enriched parent-child interactions give children the opportunity for learning through real-life situations, such as cooking, bathing, shopping, etc. finally, consistent with the findings of studies showing the role of mediated learning experiences in enhancing children’s meta-cognition (adi‐japha & klein, 2009; feuerstein & falik, 2010), the enriched interactions lead to improved meta-cognitive skills in children. this is because parents, as the subject of the parent-training program, learn and practice to teach their children how to plan for what they want to do, ask for help if necessary, talk to themselves while problem-solving, encourage themselves, and continue their effort to the end of a task. the overall results offer evidence that the parent-training program was effective in enhancing children’s cognitive performance. vahidi, aminyazdi, & kareshki 527 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ although the parent-training program was first developed for iranian families in mashhad, it might potentially be useful for other iranian communities. it could also be used as a basis for similar programs in non-iranian communities. however, it is worth noting that although the results of the present study were promising, more research would be needed to establish the evidence-basis of the parent-training program used in the study. limitations this study is limited in terms of generalizability due to the small convenience sample used. another limitation of the study is that it was not possible for fathers to participate in this study due to some administrative constraints. it is suggested that the possibility of the pursuit of the project over a longer period of time along with the investigation of the effectiveness of teaching parents be considered in future studies. another limitation of this study is that a static tool was adopted to assess children's cognitive performance while dynamic tools are more compatible with cognitive variables targeted in parent training-programs. it is recommended that researchers consider the possibility of gaining access to a dynamic tool to obtain more reliable data for future studies. implications for research and practice in the present study, the program was offered to parents of children without any cognitive or learning problems; however, the effectiveness of the program for children with different types of learning problems would need to be examined. the effectiveness of the program for children less than four years old should also be investigated. the most important implications for practice from this study relate to the determination of the effectiveness of parental training program to enhance children’s cognitive performance. on the other hand, as the results supported the leading role of mother-child interactions in children's cognitive performance, the enrichment of mother-child interactions through parent training programs is a matter of utmost importance. conclusion this study addressed a gap in the literature by providing empirical evidence that the group-parent training program is effective in promoting children’s cognitive performance. most importantly, this study highlights the significance of parent-child interactions in preschool children’s cognitive performance. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests none of the authors of this paper has a competing interest, financial or otherwise, in any of the programs or interventions included in this review. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children 528 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references adi‐japha, e., & klein, p. s. 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(2012). mindsets that promote resilience: when students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. educational psychologist, 47(4), 302-314. doi:10.1080/00461520.2012.722805 zigler, e. f., shonkoff, j. p., & meisels, s. j. (2000). handbook of early childhood intervention. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. about the authors dr. amir aminyazdi is an assistant professor at department of education and psychology, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran. he identifies as a developmental psychologist with a focus on infants and toddlers mental health. he has taught different courses such as developmental psychology and learning theories. he has supervised several master and phd students and participated in eight research projects as supervisor. he has published more than 5 books and 25 articles in national and international journals and conference proceedings. dr. hossein kareshki is an assistant professor at department of education and psychology, ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran. he has taught different courses such as research methods, statistics and educational psychology. he has supervised several master and phd students and participated has published more than three book and 30 articles in national and international journals and conference proceedings. elahe vahidi is a m.a. student in educational psychology at ferdowsi university of mashhad, iran. vahidi, aminyazdi, & kareshki 531 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 519–531 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1381 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/0300443961260105 http://doi.org/10.1891/1945-8959.12.1.59 http://doi.org/10.1348/000709905x84279 http://doi.org/10.1891/1945-8959.9.1.48 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1976.tb00381.x http://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ parent-training program for promoting cognitive performance in preschool children (introduction) theoretical framework the parent training program method design participants measure: the wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (wppsi-r) procedure the intervention data analysis results discussion limitations implications for research and practice conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors relationships between individual endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts with prejudice relevant correlates among adolescents research reports relationships between individual endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts with prejudice relevant correlates among adolescents giovanni piumatti a, cristina mosso* b [a] department of psychiatry, university of oxford, oxford, united kingdom. [b] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. abstract the current study explored how individual differences in endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts relate to individual levels of tolerance and prejudice toward immigrants and established prejudice correlates such as social dominance orientation (sdo) and ethnic out-groups ratings among adolescents. participants (n = 141; age m = 16.08, 68% girls) completed the readiness for interpersonal aggression inventory, the tolerance and prejudice questionnaire, and measures of sdo and ethnic out-groups ratings. results indicated that higher individual endorsement of aggression was related to higher prejudice and sdo and lower tolerance and ethnic out-groups ratings. patterns of endorsement of aggression related to habitual and socially determined aggressive acts or stable needs to hurt others as a source of satisfaction were significantly correlated with prejudice. conversely, the relationship between prejudice and endorsement of impulsive actions lacking of emotional control resulted was less marked. the results highlight how in the cognitive spectrum of prejudice, individual levels of endorsement of aggression may play a significant triggering role during adolescence. these findings may have implications for future studies and interventions aimed at reducing prejudice already in young ages. keywords: endorsement of aggression, prejudice, sdo, adolescence, ethnic out-groups europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 received: 2016-06-19. accepted: 2016-10-24. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi 10, 10124 torino (italy). tel.: +390116702053. e-mail: cristina.mosso@unito.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. episodes of discrimination and violence towards any ethnic or immigrant groups, often perceived as “outgroups” by the members of the majority, are unfortunately often taking place in our modern multiethnic societies and contribute to foster the endorsement of prejudice by leveraging on national feelings and cultural or religious differences (safi, 2010; wrench, 2016). social sciences, including psychology, have long been interested in trying to understand the internalized individual differences that may explain how and in which circumstances individuals show manifestations of prejudice and rejection of out-groups in a given context (e.g., allport, 1954; dasgupta, 2004; devine, 2001). in particular, research on intergroup relations shows that childhood and adolescence developmental stages are critical to uncover the change over time in prejudice (kuhn, 2004; titzmann, brenick, & silbereisen, 2015). within the current social-developmental research literature on this topic (e.g., raabe & beelmann, 2011; tenenbaum & ruck, 2012), researchers are especially focused on trying to uncover individual and social factors that might contribute to the crystallization of prejudice and other forms of biased intergroup attitudes europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ during adolescence favoring the formation of steady prejudice late in life. adolescence is in fact a critical moment for changes in attitudes toward immigrants and out-groups members (la barbera, 2015; verkuyten & thijs, 2002). this age period is recognized as a delicate developmental period during which personal identity is shaped also exploring one’s own social (ethnic) identities (degner & wentura, 2010). moreover, adolescents are increasingly growing up in multiethnic societies, so it is critical to focus research in contexts such as schools were native adolescents’ prejudice may relate to higher levels of violence against immigrants and lower levels of tolerance (brenick, titzmann, michel, & silbereisen, 2012; kuhn, 2004; van zalk & kerr, 2014; walsh et al., 2016). accordingly, drawing from social learning theory (bandura, 1986) describing how beliefs about social norms directly influence behavior, the current study aims to gain more insight into how individual aggressive tendencies may affect prejudice and benevolence toward immigrants among high school students. focusing on the connection between internalized aggressive tendencies and prejudice may specifically help to promote future interventions aimed to tackle social exclusion in contexts such as schools before it can result in violence. in fact, as reminded by huesmann, guerra, miller, and zelli (1992) and by mcconville and cornell (2003), youth holding positive beliefs about the acceptability of aggression may be more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors simply because this type of response exists within their range of possible reactions to problems. thus, we aimed at looking more into details how different traits of readiness to aggress relate to relevant prejudice correlates among adolescents in a high school context. individual differences in prejudice social identity theory posits that people develop a set of beliefs and attitudes toward out-groups members during their own social identification process (tajfel & turner, 1986). specifically, some people develop neutral or favorable attitudes toward out-group members while others develop negative attitudes and prejudiced beliefs (alfieri & marta, 2015; jugert, noack, & rutland, 2011). some of the factors that have been associated with the occurrence of prejudice and negative attitudes toward out-groups include personality-level correlates such as callous–unemotional traits (van zalk & kerr, 2014) characterized by lack of empathy and hostility toward strangers (kimonis et al., 2006), political orientation (i.e., right-wing authoritarianism) (hodson & costello, 2007), and social dominance orientation (sdo; bäckström & björklund, 2007; perry & sibley, 2011). in addition, recent research findings have reported how already during adolescence, individual levels of endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts may play a significant triggering role for the development of negative attitudes toward members of the most rejected out-groups (piumatti, marengo, mosso, & rabaglietti, 2015). that is the case of immigrants, which are portrayed as a threat for public safety from mass media and political speeches and, thus, considered as undesirable outgroup from the host group (kosic, mannetti, & sam, 2005). indeed, özdemir, özdemir, and stattin (2016) have found that youths with negative attitudes toward immigrants are particularly likely to engage in ethnic harassment over time when they have high levels of impulsivity and lack of appropriate emotional control. nevertheless, although prejudice and aggressive tendencies have several characteristics in common, including negative reactions to a target and behavioral responses that might escalate in harming others (grossarth-maticek, eysenck, & vetter, 1989; kiesner, dishion, & poulin, 2000), few studies have looked at the association between attitudes toward ethnic out-groups and relevant prejudice related individual characteristics with levels of endorsement of aggressive tendencies and behaviors (miller, pedersen, earleywine, & pollock, 2003; reijntjes et al., 2013). accordingly, the aim of the present study was to explore how individual differences in endorsement of aggression relate to prejudice and established prejudice correlates among adolescents. we expected specific prejudice-prone individual differences to be explained as a function of individual differences in endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts. tendencies aggressive tendencies and prejudice in adolescence 48 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ characterized by intergroup dominance (sdo), low tolerance and high prejudice toward immigrants (i.e., xenophobia), and low ethnic out-groups ratings were therefore expected to be a function of a high endorsement of aggression. the north-western italian context the current research took place in northwest italy where immigration history is shorter than other rich european countries such as france, britain, or france. nevertheless, according to recent demographic surveys, about 8.3% of the current italian resident population is foreign (60% more than in 2002; istat, 2016). immigrants are unevenly distributed across northern and southern italy, with the striking majority living in the north where access to the labour market is less difficult than in the south (istat, 2016). despite the resulting multi-ethnic scenario in many urban centres of the north, italians’ tendency is to deny this reality, with political forces and media strengthening this position by relying on social tensions that are still part of the backlashes of the recent crisis in various economic sectors (ambrosini, 2013). as a result, the “immigrant outsider” is viewed as a threat for the national economic assets and for one’s own cultural values. thus, there is an impellent need to advise intervention strategies and policy making aimed at changing this trend already in the youngest generations so to promote social cohesion in key areas of the society such as schools (vezzali, capozza, giovannini, & stathi, 2011). method sample and procedures one hundred and forty-one high school students – 46 boys (32%) and 95 girls (68%) – from two high schools located in the urban area of the city of turin in the northwest of italy took part into this study. the two high schools were selected within the same urban district to reduce possible biases due to different geographical locations (e.g., urban versus suburban or urban versus rural). the inclusion criteria for every participants was the age range (between 13 and 18 years old) and being enrolled as a full-time student. socio-economic status was not assessed; however, students form these selected schools were representative of a wide range of social classes (from lower and working classes to upper-middle class). the average age was 16.08 years (range = 13-18; sd = 1.57). questionnaires were submitted online in an anonymous form. informed consent was given by the parents of the students who were less than 18 years old when the research was undertaken. all participants declared to have been born in italy and therefore had italian nationality. measures endorsement of aggression the authors adopted an italian version of the readiness for interpersonal aggression inventory (frączek, konopka, & smulczyk, 2009) to measure adolescents’ individual endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts. participants were asked to answer “yes” or “no” to thirty statements after being asked to consider if these statements corresponded to their personal attitude towards feelings of anger and aggressive states of mind or behaviors. three patterns of endorsement of aggression were measured through this inventory by grouping the items and summing the scores of each one (“yes” corresponds to a score equal to “1” and “no” corresponds to a score equal to “0”) to obtain a continuous score on a scale from 0 to 10 for each pattern. patterns of endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts (or readiness for aggression) are (1) emotional– piumatti & mosso 49 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ impulsive (e.g., “i have sudden angry outbursts”), describing function responsible for number and intensity of short-term aggressive responses to stimuli such as natural and conditioned ones, frustration or distress; (2) habitual–cognitive (e.g., “i think that some people don’t deserve to be treated very nicely”), defined by specific habits and beliefs both implemented into planned and social aggressive actions responding to requirements and/or role-oriented tasks; and (3) personality–immanent (e.g., “i sometimes feel like hurting someone without any obvious reason”), responsible for stable and immanent need to hurt other people and comprehending a return in positive emotions or satisfaction for the realization of the aggressive acts. the three factor structure of this measure has been previously tested and validated in a population of italian adolescents with good model results (see piumatti et al., 2015). for the current study, the analysis of internal reliability was also satisfactory, with cronbach’s alphas equal to .72, .66, and .78 for emotional–impulsive, habitual–cognitive, and personality– immanent respectively. sdo sdo was measured using pratto, sidanius, stallworth, and malle’s (1994) 14-item scale. students were instructed to read each item and to write a number from 1 to 7 that indicated how positively or negatively they felt about the statement (1 = extremely negative, 7 = extremely positive). sample items from the scale are “group equality should be our ideal” (reverse-scored) and “inferior groups should stay in their place”. internal reliability was good with cronbach’s alpha equals to .80. tolerance and prejudice toward immigrants we used the tolerance and prejudice questionnaire (van zalk, kerr, van zalk, & stattin, 2013) to measure tolerance and prejudice toward immigrants. the italian version of this instrument was formed by translation and back translation by english and italian mother tongues. prejudiced tendencies were assessed with four items describing negative generalized statements about immigrants, such as “immigrants increase criminality”. tolerance was measured by four items regarding equality between immigrants and non-immigrants, such as “immigrants and non-immigrant should have equal rights”. participants rated their agreement with each statement along the following scale: 1 = don’t agree at all, 2 = don’t particularly agree, 3 = agree pretty well, 4 = agree completely. confirmatory factor analysis run in mplus 6.11 (muthén & muthén, 2007) tested the a priori two-factor model (tolerance and prejudice) in the current italian sample. this model yielded acceptable fit results: χ2(19, n = 141) = 395.62, p < .01; rmsea = .05; cfi = .98; tfi = .97. all parameters that were freely estimated resulted significant at p < .05. in addition, the analysis of internal consistency was also satisfactory, with cronbach’s alphas equal to .77 for the tolerance scale and .77 for the prejudice scale. although the italian version of the present scale has not been used in previous studies adopting populations of italian adolescents, these current factorial results support its validity for its adoption in our sample. ethnic group ratings in order to assess individual preferences regarding different national and ethnic groups, participants were presented with three questions about their feelings on 8 groups: (1) “how much do you like the following groups?” (2) “how nice do you consider the following groups?” and (3) “how much can you trust people from the following groups?” for each question, participants responded using a 7-point scale (1 = not at all and 7 = very much; e.g. 1 = i don’t like them at all and 7 = i like them very much). the above three questions were addressed to each of the following groups: german, italian, chinese, north african, moroccan, french, albanian, and romanian. this list of national and ethnic groups was selected to provide different out-groups aggressive tendencies and prejudice in adolescence 50 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experiencing varying degrees of prejudice in the italian context. the italian group was included in the questionnaire as a control variable. responses along the three questions were averaged to give an overall preference/rating score for each group. this scale has already been tested previously in a sample of italian adolescents with good reliability scores (kiesner, maass, cadinu, & vallese, 2003). for the current sample the cronbach’s alphas for the three questions calculated separately for each group ranged from .81 to .96. results descriptive statistics there was less than 5% of missing data on any of the variables in the current analysis. full information maximum likelihood was used in the software package mplus 6.1 to handle missing data. prior to the analysis, data was also carefully examined for univariate outliers (classified as scores more than three standard deviations above or below the mean; see hoaglin & iglewicz, 1987). as a result of these preliminary analyses, no case was excluded from further analysis. figure 1 reports group ratings box plots for every groups in ascending order based on the value of their median rating score. to test if participants’ negative rating of one out-groups was related to negative rating or other outgroups we used a principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation. reading from kiesner and colleagues (2003), this analytical strategy allowed to determine whether participants consistently gave low ratings across all out-groups or whether some out-groups can be grouped together in terms of similar preference levels. using an eigenvalues’ threshold of 1 two factors emerged. factor analysis results (including factor loadings, eigenvalues, and variances explained by each factor) are presented in table 1. by looking at the factor loadings it is clear how the first factor describes out-group ratings while the second factor in-group ratings. in fact, except for german, all groups clearly loaded on only one factor. these results indicate that (1) out-group and in-group ratings are greatly independent, (2) the consistently high factor loadings for every outgroup on the same factor is a sign they are highly correlated. therefore, this would suggest that some individuals demonstrate a general prejudice tendency across a variety of out-groups. to further differentiate between out-groups based on participants’ ratings scores, we conducted one-sample t-tests for each group, using the midpoint of the scale along which ethnic groups were rated as the criterion value (i.e., 4). we did so following the same procedure adopted by kiesner et al. (2003) that employed this same type of measure for evaluating ethnic out-groups ratings in a sample of italian high school students. out-groups with a mean rating significantly lower than 4 were labeled “stigmatized” out-groups. on the other hand, out-groups with a mean rating not significantly below 4 were labeled “non-stigmatized” out-groups. moroccan, albanian and romanian reported mean ratings significantly below the scale midpoint (all p < .001; see figure 1). the other two outgroups, namely chinese and north african, were not different from the scale midpoint. finally, german, italian and french reported mean ratings significantly above the scale midpoint (all p < .01). therefore, the 5 outgroups (namely excluding italian, french and german groups) were divided into two categories, stigmatized out-groups (scoring significantly below the criterion midpoint value of 4; i.e., moroccan, albanian, and romanian) and non-stigmatized out-groups (scoring not significantly different from the criterion midpoint value of 4; i.e., north african and chinese). a composite score for these two categories was calculated through the mean of all the out-groups in that category. piumatti & mosso 51 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. box plots of group ratings for all 8 target groups. note. the line within each box indicates the median, the top of each box indicates the 75th percentile, and the bottom of each box indicates the 25th percentile. table 1 factor loadings for group ratings of all 8 groups on both factors target groupa factor 1 “out-group ratings” factor 2 “in-group ratings” german .49 .48 italian .06 .83 chinese .68 .37 north african .84 .28 moroccan .93 .14 french .35 .77 albanian .86 .27 romanian .87 .13 eigenvalue 3.90 1.80 variance explained 48.70 22.90 agroups are listed in the order listed in the questionnaire. the correlations among all variables included in the following analyses are presented in table 2. the strengths of the correlations present no problems of multicollinearity. aggressive tendencies and prejudice in adolescence 52 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations among all variables used in the regression analyses variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. age – 2. gendera -.04 – 3. tolerance toward immigrants .02 .09 – 4. prejudice toward immigrants .06 -.07 -.67** – 5. sdo -.04 -.14 -.53** .50** – 6. emotional–impulsive .09 .04 -.26** .21* .12 – 7. habitual–cognitive .07 -.11 -.32** .40** .35** .50** – 8. personality–immanent .10 -.14 -.30** .29** .35** .25** .64** – 9. non stigmatized out-groups ratings .08 .13 .48** -.48** -.34** -.08 -.19* -.25** – 10. stigmatized out-groups ratings .02 .06 .61** -.58** -.39** -.14 -.28** -.36** .79** agender was coded 0 for male and 1 for female. *p < .05. **p < .01. regression models predicting tolerance, prejudice, sdo and out-groups ratings in order to test how individual endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts explains individual difference in the prejudice measures included in the current study, we conducted five multiple hierarchical regressions. in each model the independent variables were entered in the following order: age and gender (coded 0 for female and 1 for male) as covariates in the first step; and the three dimensions of endorsement of aggression (emotional–impulsive, habitual–cognitive, and personality–immanent) in the second step. the five dependent variables for each separate multiple hierarchical regression model were: tolerance toward immigrants, prejudice toward immigrants, sdo, non-stigmatized out-groups ratings, and stigmatized out-groups ratings. all continuous variables included in the analysis were standardized to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of 1 to facilitate interpretation. together, the three dimensions of endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts explained significant portions of variance in each model except for the one predicting non-stigmatized out-groups (see table 3). together, emotional–impulsive, habitual–cognitive, and personality–immanent explained: 14% of the variance pertaining to tolerance toward immigrants, f(5, 140) = 4.25, p < .01; 16% of the variance pertaining to prejudice toward immigrants, f(5, 140) = 5.16, p < .001; 16% for sdo, f(5, 140) = 4.96, p < .001; and 13% of the variance pertaining to stigmatized out-groups ratings, f(5, 140) = 3.97, p < .01. overall, the three sub-scales of endorsement of aggression resulted negative predictors of tolerance toward immigrants and stigmatized outgroups ratings, while they resulted positive predictor of prejudice toward immigrant and sdo. in particular, higher scores on habitual–cognitive increased the probability of having higher scores on prejudice toward immigrants (β = .35, p < .01), while higher scores on personality–immanent increased the probability of having higher scores on sdo (β = .21, p < .05), and of having lower scores on stigmatized out-groups ratings (β = -.30, p < .01). piumatti & mosso 53 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 regression models predicting tolerance, prejudice, sdo and out-groups ratings steps and predictor variable tolerance toward immigrants prejudice toward immigrants sdo non stigmatized out-groups ratings stigmatized outgroups ratings δr2 β δr2 β δr2 β δr2 β δr2 β step 1 .01 .01 .02 .03 .01 age .06 .03 -.08 .11 .06 gendera .07 -.02 -.10 .12 .02 step 2 .14*** .16*** .16*** .08 .13*** emotional–impulsive -.17 .02 .02 -.03 -.05 habitual–cognitive -.12 .35** .20 -.04 -.06 personality–immanent -.16 .05 .21* -.18 -.30** agender was coded 0 for male and 1 for female. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion prejudice in adolescence is a threat to multicultural societies since it can lead to intolerance and manifestations of violence toward immigrants (beelmann & heinemann, 2014; dessel, 2010). thus, it is crucial to identify those factors that may help to develop strategies and interventions likely to reduce prejudice and negative attitudes. the present investigation explored relationships between individual differences in endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts with attitudes toward ethnic out-groups and prejudice-relevant correlates among adolescents. as expected, participants higher in individual endorsement of aggression significantly reported higher prejudice and sdo and lower tolerance and ethnic out-groups ratings. similar overall trends were observed in previous studies that noticed how stronger endorsements of aggressive humor styles is correlated with higher sdo and higher ethnic prejudice (hodson, macinnis, & rush, 2010; jonason, 2015). such results are also in accordance with previous research that stressed out how individual personality traits describing hostile tendencies toward out-groups predict fewer decreases in prejudiced attitudes toward immigrants in adolescents (van zalk & kerr, 2014). these findings indicate that the endorsement of aggressive behaviors and thoughts may fall into the cognitive spectrum of prejudice and as such may play a relevant triggering role for the manifestations of negative attitudes toward out-groups already during adolescence. future research focusing on the development of prejudice during this age period should therefore consider including this source of individual differences to demonstrate how prejudice may develop over time. reading our results through the lens of self-control theory (gottfredson & hirschi, 1990) we can interpret that adolescents with difficulties in regulating their negative thoughts and emotions may fail to see positive features of immigrants and may be preoccupied instead with negative ideas about them as a coercive consequence of their impulsivity. readiness for aggression traits related to habitual and socially determined aggressive acts (habitual–cognitive) as well as traits responsible for stable needs to hurt others as a source of satisfaction (personality–immanent) seems to better correlate with prejudice with respect to other traits responsible instead for lack of appropriate emotional control (emotional–impulsive). specifically, the habitual–cognitive type of endorsement of aggression was found to be positively correlated with prejudice toward immigrants while personality–immanent was positively correlated with sdo and stigmatized out-groups ratings. indeed, previous aggressive tendencies and prejudice in adolescence 54 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies (gottfredson & hirschi, 1990; jessor & jessor, 1977) suggests that feelings of prejudice projected against ethnic and racial out-groups may be associated with general problem-behavior. manifestations of prejudice can thus be part to a broader pattern of antisocial behavior (kiesner et al., 2003) including aspects of cognitive intentional aggression (shaffer, meyer-bahlburg, & stokman, 1981). moreover, negative manifestations and attitudes toward out-groups within the society may more often occur when individuals experience harsh or frustrating circumstances in their lives (berkowitz, 1981). this is the case for areas such the northwest of italy where economic difficulties and high rates of immigration occur together without being correlated. then, the relationship between hostility, aggressive tendencies and prejudice thoughts may result more easily to detect when it aims at immigrant out-groups (schnieders & gore, 2011). unlike religiously or gender defined minority groups, immigrants are often depicted as the ultimate out-group by natives. in times of economic and jobs crises, these can be targeted with contempt since they may be considered a cause for the lacking of job opportunities. these social mechanisms may thus help to explain how internalized aggressive tendencies can translate in prejudice tendencies and intolerance against specific social and ethnic out-groups. on a related note, it is worth to comment upon the results of perceived out-groups hierarchies reported by the current sample of adolescents. the fact that french and german out-groups resulted the closest to the italian in-group in comparison with the rest of the out-groups can be explained by the overall positive attitude of italians toward the european union (risse, 2003). in particular, italy and france share more compatible national and cultural identities (ruiz jiménez, górniak, kosic, kiss, & kandulla, 2004) and therefore french are more likely to occupy a closer position than german, that on the other hand are still ambivalent with regards to the european union (european commission, 2003). finally, this study had limitations that need to be mentioned. firstly, the cross-sectional data adopted here make it impossible to point out at any real effect between endorsement of aggression and prejudice correlates, while the analyses performed represent a descriptive attempt to test the relationship between these two constructs. secondly, individual differences in prejudice were examined only pertaining to ethnic groups. further research is needed to study prejudice and its correlates in a cross-domain manner. conclusions and final remarks this study evidences how prejudice in adolescence may be related to individual traits of endorsement of aggression. in particular, these findings are closely related to previous research conducted in recent years in italy (piumatti et al., 2015) aiming at investigating specific psychological correlates of prejudice among high school students. more specifically, these current results expand such previous work by evidencing how individual aggressive predispositions are in fact correlated to a much wider range of prejudice correlates in this age period, including social dominance orientation and xenophobic attitudes. these results have important implications for the development of interventions that may tackle both predispositions to behave aggressively and manifestations of ethnic prejudice in adolescents to promote positive school climate and multicultural integration. in particular, the current results suggest that such type of intervention strategies may be beneficial in normal populations of adolescents. funding the authors have no funding to report. piumatti & mosso 55 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge the valid support they received from dr. eleonora cugno, dr. stefania gulotta and dr. simonetta travaglini during all the phases of data collection for the present study. references alfieri, s., & marta, e. 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(original work published 2007) about the authors giovanni piumatti, phd, is a postdoctoral researcher in applied statistics at the university of oxford. cristina mosso, phd, is a professor in social psychology at the university of turin. piumatti & mosso 59 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 47–59 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1223 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01755.x http://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0256-6 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-014-0164-1 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-012-9694-8 http://doi.org/10.1080/01419870120109502 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0367-0 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ aggressive tendencies and prejudice in adolescence (introduction) individual differences in prejudice the north-western italian context method sample and procedures measures results descriptive statistics regression models predicting tolerance, prejudice, sdo and out-groups ratings discussion conclusions and final remarks (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors effects of individual differences and job characteristics on the psychological health of italian nurses research reports effects of individual differences and job characteristics on the psychological health of italian nurses maria clelia zurlo* a, federica vallone b, andrew p. smith c [a] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] department of humanistic studies, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [c] centre for occupational and health psychology, cardiff university, cardiff, wales, united kingdom. abstract the demand resources and individual effects model (drive model) is a transactional model that integrates demandscontrol-support and effort-reward imbalance models emphasising the role of individual (coping strategies; overcommitment) and job characteristics (job demands, social support, decision latitude, skill discretion, effort, rewards) in the work-related stress process. the present study aimed to test the drive model in a sample of 450 italian nurses and to compare findings with those of a study conducted in a sample of uk nurses. a questionnaire composed of ways of coping checklist-revised (wccl-r); job content questionnaire (jcq); eri test; hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads) was used. data supported the application of the drive model to the italian context, showing significant associations of the individual characteristics of problem-focused, seek advice and wishful thinking coping strategies and the job characteristics of job demands, skill discretion, decision latitude, and effort with perceived levels of anxiety and depression. effort represented the best predictor for psychological health conditions among italian nurses, and social support significantly moderated the effects of job demands on perceived levels of anxiety. the comparison study showed significant differences in the risk profiles of italian and uk nurses. findings were discussed in order to define focused interventions to promote nurses’ wellbeing. keywords: stress in nursing, coping strategies, job characteristics, anxiety, depression, cross-cultural psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 received: 2017-06-12. accepted: 2017-11-02. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, via l. rodinò 22, naples, 80138, italy. e-mail: zurlo@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, the interest in the field of occupational stress has increased and has globally involved different work environments, working conditions, and type of employment. a growing body of research about health care workers’ wellbeing (calnan, wainwright, forsythe, wall, & almond, 2001), and, in particular, a large number of studies conducted in many countries (burke, koyuncu, & fiksenbaum, 2011; drury, craigie, francis, aoun, & hegney, 2014; hasselhorn, tackenberg, & peter, 2004; kirkcaldy & martin, 2000; wu, chi, chen, wang, & jin, 2010) and in italy (lo presti, 2013; pino & rossini, 2012; pisanti, 2007; pisanti, van der doef, maes, lazzari, & bertini, 2011; pisanti et al., 2015; taddei, vieri, & vanni, 2010; viotti & converso, 2016; zurlo, capasso, & vallone, 2015) have recognised nursing as one of the professions subject to a higher level of stress. in particular, the shortage of staff and the consequent lack of nurses to deal with higher life expectancies and chronic illnesses, the issues related to a medically-dominated healthcare environment where nurses are still europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ defining their role, and the lack of resources in a system expecting a high standard of excellence, should be considered together as common problems which nurses are dealing with (greenglass & burke, 2000; who, 2000, 2009). research applied different models to investigate work-related stress in nursing, reflecting the transition to transactional approaches to analyse occupational stress dimensions. firstly, research on stress and health in nursing underlined in a transactional perspective the role played by coping strategies (golbasi, kelleci, & dogan, 2008; guido et al., 2009; guido, linch, pitthan, & umann, 2011; healy & mckay, 2000; lambert et al., 2004; lu, shiau, & cooper, 1997; pino & rossini, 2012; pisanti et al., 2015). transactional models of demands-control-support (dcs; karasek, 1979) and effort-reward imbalance (eri; siegrist, 1996) have been the most widely used to analyse work-related stress in nursing, demonstrating, on the one side, that dcs dimensions were significantly related to job dissatisfaction, turnover intentions (bourbonnais, comeau, & vézina, 1999; gelsema et al., 2006), burnout and somatic complaints (parkes, mendham, & von rabenau, 1994), and, on the other side, that effort-reward imbalance was significantly related to burnout (hämmig, braucheli, & bauer, 2012; hasselhorn, tackenberg, & peter, 2004; schulz et al., 2009; xie, wang, & chen, 2011), and psychological and physical disorders (rotenberg, silva-costa, & griep, 2014; schreuder, roelen, koopmans, moen, & groothoff, 2010). concerning italian nurses, research referred to the dcs model confirmed the important role played by high demands, low control and low support in predicting burnout and somatic complaints (pisanti, 2007) and the application of the eri model highlighted significant associations of perceived levels of effort and rewards with italian nurses’ psychological and physical health conditions (zurlo, capasso, & vallone, 2015). however, despite the consensus about nursing as one of the most stressful occupations (wheeler, 1998) and the attempts to unify the international policies developing the idea of transcultural nursing (leininger & mcfarland, 2006), countries’ specificities concerning health systems need to be acknowledged (chambers et al., 2010; schaufeli & janczur, 1994). in particular, considering comparative studies on italian and international healthcare contexts, research showed that the italian health care service is characterized as having one of the highest rates of perceived lack of nursing staff (pisanti et al., 2011), and higher levels of turnover intentions (hasselhorn, tackenberg, & peter, 2004), as well as annual salary at levels below the european standards of the nursing profession (arora et al., 2015). nursing research focused on the comparison between italian and uk healthcare contexts has highlighted that italian nurses reported significantly higher levels of disorganisation and lack of skill-set of staff than uk nurses (glazer & gyurak, 2008). moreover, even with the significant progress made in this area, nursing is often considered as an auxiliary profession in italy rather than in the uk, and the italian nurses’ expertise is often not fully accredited and recognised in terms of skills and independence, creating ambiguous demands from physicians, patients and co-workers (glazer & gyurak, 2008; prandstraller, 1995; rocco, cipolla, & stievano, 2015). the drive model in recent years, multi-dimensional approaches have been applied to evaluate occupational stress dimensions with a more complex perspective, and confirmed their validity to predict perceived levels of anxiety, depression as well as physical health conditions and sick leave in the nursing profession (bourbonnais, brisson, vézina, research reports 160 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ masse, & blanchette, 2005; gao et al., 2012a, 2012b; griep, rotenberg, landsbergis, & vasconcellos-silva, 2011). in this perspective, the demands resources and individual effects model (drive model; mark & smith, 2008) embodies the new scientific directions, integrating dcs and eri models, giving particular emphasis to the role of individual dimensions (such as coping strategies) in influencing workers’ wellbeing, and displaying, above all the other multi-dimensional stress models, the major advantage of striking a good balance between simplicity and complexity (mark & smith, 2008). the drive model has been successfully applied to evaluate occupational stress among various professional groups (capasso, zurlo, & smith, 2016a, 2016b, 2018; galvin & smith, 2016; mark & smith, 2012a; nelson & smith, 2016), and, considering the nursing profession, the authors demonstrated the validity of the model (mark & smith, 2012b) highlighting significant associations between individual characteristics (i.e., overcommitment and the coping strategies of problem-focused, seek advice, self-blame, and escape/avoidance) and job characteristics (i.e., job demands, social support, skill discretion, effort and rewards) in predicting perceived levels of anxiety and depression in a sample of 870 uk nurses. in particular, the risk model for anxiety and depression developed from a sample of uk nurses emphasised the negative role played by the individual characteristics of self-blame coping strategy and overcommitment (the latter being the best predictor for both anxiety and depression), as well as the protective role exercised by the individual characteristic of problemfocused coping strategy and by the job characteristics of rewards, social support and skill discretion. moreover, in line with the rationale of the drive model as a transactional model, the authors carried out interaction analyses, demonstrating that decision latitude played a significant moderating role among uk nurses, buffering the effects of job demands on perceived levels of anxiety. nevertheless, despite the interest of the drive model in predicting effects of work-related stress on health conditions accounting for the complexity of the stress process through a multi-dimensional and transactional approach, it has been applied only in the uk context and no such attempt has been still made for its application in the italian context. aims considering the interest in the drive model theoretical framework (mark, 2008; mark & smith, 2008) and in its application to the italian context, the present study aims to test this model analysing main and interaction effects of individual characteristics (i.e., coping strategies, overcommitment) and job characteristics (i.e., effort, rewards, job demands, social support, skill discretion, decision latitude) on perceived levels of anxiety and depression among italian nurses. moreover, considering that the drive model, which has been developed in the uk, has not been previously tested in a sample of italian nurses, and in order to adequately benefit from its application, the present study also aims at assessing, in a cross-cultural perspective, similarities and differences between italian and uk nurses, comparing results from the present study with those emerged from the original application of the drive model in uk nurses (mark & smith, 2012b). in line with the aims of the study, the following hypotheses have been tested: hypothesis one: the drive model dimensions of coping strategies (problem-focused, self-blame, wishful thinking, seek advice, escape/avoidance), dcs variables (job demands, skill discretion, decision latitude, social support), and eri variables (effort, rewards, overcommitment) have significant main and interaction zurlo, vallone, & smith 161 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effects on italian nurses’ perceived levels of anxiety and depression, and coping strategies significantly add to the explained variance in outcomes, over and above the use of dcs and eri models. hypothesis two: there are significant differences between italian and uk nurses with reference to the risk profiles defined by the drive model dimensions. method participants and procedure a cross-sectional study was conducted between may 2014 and june 2016 with the aims to test the drive model in the italian context and to compare findings with those of a study conducted in a sample of uk nurses, applying the original drive model (mark & smith, 2008, 2012b). chairmen of different public hospitals were contacted in order to achieve the authorization for submitting a questionnaire to the nursing staff. nurses were then contacted directly asking them to complete the questionnaire. the respondents were informed of the objectives of the study and informed consent was obtained from all participants. those who voluntarily enrolled in the study completed the questionnaire after a standardised oral introduction. altogether, 450 out of 550 nurses (men = 45.8%, n = 206; women = 54.2%, n = 244) completed the questionnaire (response rate = 81.8%). ages ranged from 20 to 65 years (m = 46.21, sd = 9.39). the study protocol was approved by the ethical committee of the university where this study took place, and the research was performed in accordance with the declaration of helsinki. measures a questionnaire consisting of five sections was used: 1. an information section dealing with socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., sex; age). 2. the ways of coping checklist-revised (wccl-r; vitaliano, russo, carr, maiuro, & becker, 1985), which consists of 42 items on a 4-point likert scale divided into five subscales: problem-focused (dealing with a stressful event using an optimistic and pragmatic attitude, e.g., “made a plan and action and followed it”; cronbach’s α = .88), wishful thinking (wishes and fantasies of changing the negative situation/feelings, e.g., “wished i could change the way that i felt”; cronbach’s α = .85), seek advice (talking to others and accepting their support and advice; e.g., “talked to someone about how i was feeling”; cronbach’s α = .75), self-blame (feeling responsible for the problem, e.g., “criticized or lectured yourself”; cronbach’s α = .78) and escape/avoidance (behaving as if nothing happened, e.g., “refused to believed it had happened”; cronbach’s α = .74). 3. the job content questionnaire (jcq; karasek et al., 1998), which consists of 27 items on a 4-point likert scale divided into four subscales: job demands (e.g., “do you have to work very fast?”; cronbach’s α = .68), social support (e.g., “how often do you get help and support from your immediate superior?” cronbach’s α = .85), skill discretion (e.g., “do you have the possibility of learning new things through your work?”; cronbach’s α = .68) and decision latitude (e.g., “do you have a choice in deciding how you do your work?”; cronbach’s α = .81). skill discretion and decision latitude subscales constituted the control dimensions. research reports 162 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 4. the effort-reward imbalance questionnaire (eri test; siegrist, 1996; zurlo, pes, & siegrist, 2010), which consists of 23 items on a 5-point likert scale divided into four subscales: effort (e.g., “over the past few years, my job has become more and more demanding”; cronbach’s α = .79), esteem reward (e.g., “i received the respect i deserve from my superiors”; cronbach’s α = .80), material reward (e.g., “considering all my efforts and achievement, my salary/income is adequate”; cronbach’s α = .84) and overcommitment (e.g., “work rarely lets me go, it is still on my mind when i go to bed”; cronbach’s α = .76). three subscales have been considered in the present study, and esteem reward and material reward were considered as one scale labelled as rewards. 5. the hospital anxiety and depression scale (hads; zigmond & snaith, 1983), which consists of 14 items on a 4-point likert scale divided into two subscales: anxiety (e.g., “worrying thoughts go through my mind”; cronbach’s α = .84) and depression (e.g., “i have lost interest in my appearance”; cronbach’s α = .78). scores were positively coded for each subscale and higher scores indicated the higher presence of that dimension. anxiety and depression scores were also converted into percentages and a score of 11 was considered the cut-off point in order to define the clinical cases (zigmond & snaith, 1983). data analysis this study applied a cross-sectional design and the analyses carried out using spss (version 20) were compared with findings from the uk application of the drive model among uk nurses. in order to test the drive model among italian nurses (hypothesis one), firstly, a number of descriptive analyses of all the study variables were conducted, and clinical levels of anxiety and depression among italian nurses were calculated (cut-off = 11; zigmond & snaith, 1983). secondly, pearson’s correlations were used to examine the associations between coping strategies (problem-focused, self-blame, wishful thinking, seek advice, escape/avoidance), dcs variables (job demands, skill discretion, decision latitude, social support), and eri variables (effort, rewards, overcommitment), and to explore their associations with perceived levels of anxiety and depression. thirdly, hierarchical multiple regression was carried out using the entry method to investigate the effects of individual and job characteristics in predicting perceived levels of anxiety and depression. the first block consisted of dcs variables, the second block consisted of dcs and eri variables and, finally, coping strategies were included into the third block. the variance inflation factor (vif) and tolerance values were used for diagnosing multicollinearity, using vif < 5 and tolerance > .40 as cut-off points (allison, 1999; belsley, kuh, & welsch, 1980). sex and age were also explored as independent variables included into the first block as control variables in order to consider their potential effects on model parameters. after hierarchical multiple regression, a further set of linear regression analyses were run to evaluate the interaction effects hypothesized between individual characteristics (coping strategies, overcommitment) and job characteristics (dcs and eri dimensions) in predicting perceived levels of anxiety and depression in italian nurses (cohen & cohen, 1983; cohen, cohen, west, & aiken, 2003). in order to compare findings from italian and uk studies (hypothesis two), a comparison was drawn to evaluate statistically significant differences in anxiety and depression mean scores (t-test), in percentages of clinical levels of anxiety and depression (chi-square) and in pearson’s correlations of individual and job characteristics with anxiety and depression between italian and uk nurses (fisher’ r-to-z; rosnow & rosenthal, 2003). zurlo, vallone, & smith 163 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results testing the drive model among italian nurses descriptive statistics, pearson’s correlations, hierarchical multiple regression, and linear regressions analyses were carried out to test the drive model among italian nurses (hypothesis one). descriptive statistics showed that italian nurses’ mean anxiety score was 6.12 (sd = 3.62) and the mean depression score was 4.31 (sd = 3.18). moreover, 19.3% of nurses showed clinical levels of anxiety and 5.1% clinical levels of depression. concerning the associations between individual characteristics (coping strategies, overcommitment) and job characteristics (dcs and eri dimensions), pearson’s correlations highlighted that problem-focused and seek advice coping strategies positively related to skill discretion, and that self-blame, wishful thinking and escape/avoidance coping strategies negatively related to skill discretion and decision latitude. moreover, perceived social support, skill discretion and decision latitude negatively related to perceived job demands and effort and positively related to perceived rewards (see table 1). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations between coping strategies, dcs and eri dimensions, anxiety and depression in italian nurses (n = 450) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1. problem-focused 24.58 8.16 2. self-blame 3.49 1.90 .37** 3. wishful thinking 9.38 5.49 .27** .62** 4. seek advice 8.88 3.77 .67** .43** .43** 5. escape/avoidance 9.27 5.35 .26** .52** .63** .25** 6. overcommitment 11.77 3.52 .07 .22** .23** .08 .24** 7. effort 5.08 4.93 .08 .06 .17** .06 .09* .25** 8. rewards 19.47 4.08 .03 -.05 -.16** .03 -.11* -.26** -.44** 9. job demands 1.58 0.49 -.07 .01 .02 -.06 -.03 .02 .23** -.26** 10. social support 1.77 0.78 -.01 -.01 -.11* -.01 -.14** -.11* -.19** .33** -.18** 11. skill discretion 1.87 0.44 .13** -.15** -.16** .11* -.18** -.03 -.11* .20** -.22** .22** 12. decision latitude 1.48 0.38 -.04 -.12** -.26** -.06 -.22** -.10* -.19** .27** -.23** .22** .26** 13. anxiety 6.08 3.62 -.07 .19** .33** .10* .18** .20** .44** -.31** .20** -.12** -.22** -.28* 14. depression 4.27 3.18 -.12** .08 .21** -.04 .18** .10* .30** -.29** .23** -.20** -.30** -.25** .59** *p < .05. **p < .01. concerning the associations of the individual (coping strategies; overcommitment) and job characteristics (dcs and eri variables) with perceived levels of anxiety and depression, data revealed significant correlations in the expected directions (see table 1). therefore, hierarchical multiple regression was also carried out to validate the drive model in the italian context by investigating the effects of the drive model’s individual and job characteristics in predicting perceived levels of anxiety and depression. research reports 164 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with respect to perceived levels of anxiety, data from the last block including dcs variables, eri variables and coping strategies showed that the individual characteristic of problem-focused coping strategy and the job characteristic of decision latitude were significantly associated with low perceived levels of anxiety, while the individual characteristics of seek advice and wishful thinking coping strategies and the job characteristics of effort were significantly associated with high perceived levels of anxiety (see table 2). moreover, with respect to perceived levels of depression, the individual characteristic of problem-focused coping strategy and the job characteristic of skill discretion were significantly associated with low perceived levels of depression, while the job characteristics of effort and job demands were significantly associated with high perceived levels of depression (see table 3). data also revealed that among italian nurses the eri variable of effort was the best predictor by standardized β weight for both anxiety and depression outcomes. the inclusion of coping strategies in the last block to test the validity of the whole drive model highlighted that it accounted for 35.1% of the variance in anxiety (r2 = .351) with delta r2 = .082 (see table 2), and for 24.4% of the variance in depression (r2 = .244) with delta r2 = .039 (see table 3). conversely, the inclusion of sex and age as control variables didn’t reveal significant effects on all our findings. finally, when checking for multicollinearity, the variance inflation factors (vifs) were < 5 and the tolerance values were > .40 for all the predictors, revealing the significant role of all the dimensions considered by the model. table 2 hierarchical multiple regression: dcs, eri and coping variables against anxiety (β values) predictor variable step 1 step 2 step 3 job demands .12* .04 .04 social support -.01 -.05 -.05 skill discretion -.14** -.13* -.08 decision latitude -.20*** -.14** -.11* effort .33*** .35*** rewards -.08 -.07 overcommitment .08 .04 problem-focused -.27*** self-blame .05 wishful thinking .20** seek-advice .15* escape/avoidance -.01 r2 .14*** .27*** .35*** delta r2 .13*** .08*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. controlled by sex and age variables. the validation of the drive model was carried out also considering linear regression analyses to test interaction effects, and data revealed a significant moderating effect of perceived social support in the relationship between job demands and anxiety (job demands × social support against anxiety: β = -.28; p = .044). indeed, figure 1 shows those individuals who perceived high levels of job demands were less anxious when they perceived more social support. zurlo, vallone, & smith 165 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 hierarchical multiple regression: dcs, eri and coping variables against depression (β values) predictor variable step 1 step 2 step 3 job demands .14* .12* .10* social support -.10* -.03 -.04 skill discretion -.21*** -.21*** -.16** decision latitude -.14* -.10* -.09 effort .19*** .19*** rewards -.10* -.09 overcommitment .01 .01 problem-focused -.18* self-blame -.01 wishful thinking .09 seek-advice .02 escape/avoidance .09 r2 .14*** .20*** .24*** delta r2 .06*** .04** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. controlled by sex and age variables. figure 1. interaction of job demands and social support in predicting anxiety in nurses. comparison of italian and uk nurses t-test, chi-square analyses and fisher’ r-to-z transformation analysis were used to compare findings from italian and uk studies (hypothesis two). with respect to the analysis of statistically significant differences in anxiety and depression mean scores (t-test), data revealed that italian nurses reported significantly lower mean levels than uk nurses for both anxiety (uk sample: m = 7.99, sd = 3.93; t(1318) = 8.410, p < .001) and depression (uk sample: m = 4.86, sd = 3.23; t(1318) = 2.959, p = .003). moreover, the comparison of the research reports 166 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ percentages of nurses reporting clinical levels of anxiety and depression (chi-square) showed that italian nurses revealed a significantly lower percentage of perceived clinical levels of anxiety than uk nurses (26.3%; χ2 (1, n = 1320) = 7.576, p = .005), while no significant differences emerged for clinical levels of depression (5.1%; χ2 (1, n = 1320) = .296, p = .603). concerning the associations of drive model variables with perceived anxiety and depression among italian and uk nurses, the analysis of pearson’s correlations highlighted that problem-focused coping strategy negatively related to depression, while wishful thinking coping strategy, escape/avoidance coping strategy and overcommitment positively related to anxiety and depression both in italian and uk nurses. moreover, self-blame coping strategy positively related to anxiety and depression in uk nurses, while it related only to anxiety in italian nurses. finally, seek advice coping strategy positively related to anxiety only in italian nurses. concerning job characteristics considered in the drive model, all the variables investigated (effort, rewards, job demands, social support, skill discretion, and decision latitude) showed a significant correlation with anxiety and depression in both studies and in the expected directions. moreover, with respect to the statistical comparison of the significant pearson’s correlations (fisher’ r-to-z transformation analysis), data revealed in italian nurses significantly smaller correlations of escape/avoidance coping strategy (anxiety: z = -2.96, p = .003; depression: z = -3.55, p < .001) and overcommitment (anxiety: z = -7.64, p < .001; depression: z = -7.26, p < .001) with anxiety and depression, and of self-blame coping strategy with anxiety (z = -5.68, p < .001). furthermore, concerning job characteristics, significant smaller correlations emerged for rewards (anxiety: z = 1.98, p = .047; depression: z = 2.77, p = .006) and social support (anxiety: z = 4.01, p < .001; depression: z = 3.79, p < .001) with anxiety and depression, and for job demands with anxiety (z = -2.41, p = .016) (see table 4). table 4 correlations of individual and job characteristics with perceived levels of anxiety and depression in italian and uk nurses italian sample (n = 450) uk sample (n = 870) characteristic anxiety depression anxiety depression problem-focused -.07 -.12** .04 -.10* self-blame .19** .08 .48** .38** wishful thinking .33** .21** .34** .28** seek advice .10* -.04 .04 -.08 escape/avoidance .18** .18** .34** .37** overcommitment .20** .10* .57** .48** effort .44** .30** .43** .40** rewards -.31** -.29** -.41** -.43** job demands .20** .23** .33** .26** social support -.12** -.20** -.34** -.40** skill discretion -.22** -.30** -.21** -.26** decision latitude -.28** -.25** -.21** -.24** *p < .05. **p < .01. zurlo, vallone, & smith 167 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion and conclusions findings showed that all the drive model dimensions had significant effects on italian nurses perceived levels of anxiety and depression, confirming the validity of its application to the italian context. firstly, data showed that 19.3% of nurses perceived clinical levels of anxiety and 5.1% clinical levels of depression, revealing significantly higher rates of psychological diseases than the italian general population (i.e., 5.1% suffering from clinical anxiety and 3% from depression; de girolamo et al., 2005, 2006; lora, 2009). these data confirmed that nursing is a profession at high risk of work-related stress and psychological diseases, similarly to other care and educational professions (zurlo & pes, 2012; zurlo, pes, & capasso, 2016). findings emerged from the hierarchical multiple regression demonstrated the significant role of the recourse to problem-focused coping strategies and of a higher perception of decision latitude and skill discretion in reducing the risk of developing anxiety and depressive symptoms. conversely, data highlighted the negative effect of the recourse to seek advice and wishful thinking coping strategies on anxiety, as well as of perceived job demands on depression. moreover, data emphasised the importance of acknowledging the negative role played by perceived effort in the definition of italian nurses’ risk profile, due to its higher weight in predicting psychological diseases among italian nurses. consequently, overall data gave specific indications to define both individual and organisational interventions, suggesting, on the one hand, to promote the use of problem solving coping strategies and to improve perceived control in terms of autonomy, decision latitude and variety of activities in nursing practice, and, on the one other hand, to reduce both the recourse to strategies focused on seeking advice and wishful thinking and the perception of high demands and efforts. furthermore, findings indicated perceived social support as a fundamental dimension, which played a significant moderating effect in the relationship between job demands and anxiety, suggesting, above all, the importance of increasing the social support network within the workplace to effectively counteract the effect of perceived high demands on nurses’ psychological health conditions in the italian context. in this perspective, the acknowledgement of the role played by individual characteristics, as well as the significant role played by perceived support in the italian context, could be helpful to define interventions, particularly for jobs in which the reduction of demands is not easily achievable, such as nursing. with respect to the comparative study (hypothesis two), data confirmed the hypotheses of differences in the risk profiles of italian and uk nurses. firstly, data showed that italian nurses reported significantly lower levels of both anxiety and depression than uk nurses and significantly lower percentages of clinical levels of anxiety than uk nurses. moreover, findings provided evidence for differences in the profiles of associations of the drive model’ dimensions with anxiety and depression between italian and uk nurses, particularly considering individual characteristics (coping strategies and overcommitment). if indeed, on the one hand, the protective role of problem-focused strategy and the negative role of wishful thinking coping strategy were strongly supported in both studies, on the other hand, the important role played by the recourse to self-blame and escape/avoidance coping strategies and the presence of the personality characteristic of overcommitment in association with the higher risk for psychological health conditions were mainly emphasised in the uk study rather than in the present study. conversely, the recourse to seek advice coping strategy represented a specific negative factor, which played a foremost role in determining italian nurses’ risk to develop anxiety and depressive symptoms. furthermore, considering job characteristics, all eri and dcs dimensions were research reports 168 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significantly related to anxiety and depression in both studies, but stronger evidence of negative effects of job demands and protective effects of perceived rewards were provided in the uk study. generally, the comparison between italian and uk nurses emphasised in particular the role played by different risk factors and resources. concerning risk factors, the recourse to seek advice coping strategy emerged as the most significant individual risk factor among italian nurses, while self-blame and escape/avoidance coping strategies and overcommitment were the most significant individual risk factors among uk nurses. moreover, perceived levels of effort were the most significant risk factor related to job characteristic among italian nurses, as were job demands among uk nurses. furthermore, concerning resources, perceived levels of rewards represented protective factors more specifically indicated to define interventions among uk nurses. in this perspective, data supported the theoretical and practical value of the multi-dimensional approach of the drive model, which allows the definition of a more comprehensive risk profile, addressing a wide range of risk factors and resources. in summary, data from both the testing of the drive model in the italian context and the comparison between italian and uk nurses provided theoretical and practical implications, allowing the identification of specific risk profiles referred to the articulation of eri and dcs dimensions perceived in the work context with the individual coping strategies adopted by nurses. therefore, the multi-dimensional and transactional perspective of the drive model should enable to define more complex and focused interventions both at individual and organisational levels to reduce perceived stress and to promote nurses’ wellbeing. in this perspective, with particular reference to the nursing profession in the italian context, interventions at the individual level should be focused on reducing the recourse to coping strategies centred on wishful thinking and seek advice, less adequate to deal with physical and emotional sources of stress in nursing (e.g., pain, suffering and death; difficulties in the interpersonal relationships with physicians, patients and co-workers). moreover, interventions should promote a more active way to deal with perceived work-related stress, increasing the use of coping strategies centred on individual competencies and pragmatic attitude. interventions at the organisational level should aim to promote a more supportive social network and to improve role definition and decision latitude in the nursing profession. nevertheless, despite these results, some limitations need to be addressed. firstly, the present study used a cross-sectional design, precluding any inference concerning the temporal associations between predictors investigated and outcomes, and no cause-effect relationships can be proposed. secondly, two subscales from the job content questionnaire revealed a low internal consistency, with cronbach alphas below .70 (i.e., job demands cronbach’s α = .68; skill discretion cronbach’s α = .68). thirdly, the total contribution of the considered variables to the explained variance was only acceptable, particularly with respect to depression levels, and, considering also moderation effects, both italian and uk studies supported only one significant interaction (i.e., respectively job demands × social support in predicting anxiety in the italian study and job demands × decision latitude in predicting anxiety in the uk study), suggesting that the influence of other explanatory variables should be further explored. all the limitations described above suggest the need for further research using the multi-dimensional perspective of the drive model, which has been developed to be a flexible framework, allowing also the addition of other significant variables that could be able to explain work-related stress process. in this perspective, the development of the drive model from its first application (mark & smith, 2008) has led to zurlo, vallone, & smith 169 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ more enriched versions in different professions (capasso, zurlo, & smith, 2016a, 2016b; galvin & smith, 2016; nelson & smith, 2016; williams & smith, 2016), and could be applied to further investigate occupational stress in nursing. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors wish to thank all the study participants for completing the questionnaire. 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(2016). personality characteristics, job stressors, and job satisfaction: main and interaction effects on psychological and physical health conditions of italian school teachers. psychological reports, 119, 27-38. doi:10.1177/0033294116656818 zurlo, m. c., pes, d., & siegrist, j. (2010). validity and reliability of the effort-reward imbalance questionnaire in a sample of 673 italian teachers. international archives of occupational and environmental health, 83, 665-674. doi:10.1007/s00420-010-0512-8 about the authors maria clelia zurlo, ph.d, professor of clinical psychology, psychodiagnosis and psychopathology, university of naples federico ii, italy. her research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology and focuses on models and tools for the evaluation of work-related stress dimensions and psychological and physical health conditions in teachers, immigrant workers and nurses. federica vallone, ph.d, received her doctorate in health psychology at university of naples federico ii in collaboration with cardiff university. her research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology with the major emphasis on work-related stress dimensions and psychological and physical health conditions in nurses. andrew p. smith, ph.d, professor of psychology and director of the centre of occupational and health psychology, school of psychology, cardiff university. his research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology with the major emphasis on well-being, stress and fatigue in both the workplace and life in general and effects of health-related behaviours on physical health conditions and susceptibility to illnesses. zurlo, vallone, & smith 175 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 159–175 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1478 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1177/0033294116656818 http://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-010-0512-8 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ research reports (introduction) the drive model aims method participants and procedure measures data analysis results testing the drive model among italian nurses comparison of italian and uk nurses discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the situational version of the brief cope: dimensionality and relationships with goal-related variables research reports the situational version of the brief cope: dimensionality and relationships with goal-related variables dario monzania, patrizia stecaa, andrea grecoa, marco d’addarioa, erika cappellettia, luca pancania [a] department of psychology, university of milano – bicocca, milan, italy. abstract this study is aimed at investigating the dimensionality of the situational version of the brief cope, a questionnaire that is frequently used to assess a broad range of coping responses to specific difficulties, by comparing five different factor models highlighted in previous studies. it also aimed at exploring the relationships among coping responses, personal goal commitment and progress. the study involved 606 adults (male = 289) ranging in age from 19 to 71. using confirmatory factor analysis, we compared five models and assessed relationships of coping responses with goal commitment and progress. the results confirmed the theoretical factor structure of the situational brief cope. all the 14 dimensions showed acceptable reliability and relationships with goal commitment and progress, attesting the reliability and usefulness of this measure to evaluate coping responses to specific events. keywords: coping, brief cope, confirmatory factor analysis, self-regulation theory, personal goals europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 received: 2015-02-10. accepted: 2015-03-25. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. coping coping is defined as the process of executing a response to a stressor, where stress is viewed as the experience of encountering relevant difficulties in one’s goal-related efforts (lazarus, 1966). within the framework of selfregulation theory, carver and connor-smith (2010) explicitly highlighted the relationships among stress, coping, and goals. these authors affirmed that stress is closely linked to the pursuit of goals or to the avoidance of threats. stress exists when an individual perceives the achievement of a desired goal as impossible or detects possible future punishments. people’s coping responses to threats and stressors are key determinants of their psychological adjustment and well-being. thus, it is important to reliably and validly assess individual coping thoughts or actions. the brief cope (carver, 1997) is one of the most frequently used self-report measures of coping responses. however, there is a lack of empirical evidence regarding its psychometric properties. the main aim of this study was to examine the dimensionality of the brief cope by comparing five different factor models highlighted by previous studies. moreover, given the theoretical link between coping and goals, second aim was to evaluate the associations between coping responses and goal-related variables of commitment and progress. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ coping is a very broad concept and several distinctions have been made within this broad domain. one important distinction in the study of coping is the difference between situational coping responses and dispositional coping styles. the former correspond to the ways people react and cope with specific difficulties and stressful circumstances, whereas the latter are defined as tendencies to use specific coping reactions to a greater or lesser degree under stress (carver & scheier, 1994). empirical evidence suggests that the adoption of situational coping responses is influenced by several different aspects, such as socioeconomic status (e.g., mcilvane, 2007), the dispositional coping style (carver & scheier, 1994), dispositional optimism (see solberg nes & segerstrom, 2006 for a review), causal attributions (see roesch & weiner, 2001 for a review), and the controllability of stressors (clarke, 2006; coyle & vera, 2013; landis et al., 2007). people generally exhibit high variability in their responses to threats and stressors, and several distinctions have been made between different types of coping. initially, folkman and lazarus (1980) distinguished between problem-focused coping (i.e., strategies aimed at solving and actively responding to stressful situations) and emotion-focused coping (i.e., strategies to manage or reduce emotions and feelings that are embedded within stressful situations). carver, scheier, and weintraub (1989) further distinguished between approach coping (i.e., strategies aimed at dealing actively with the stressor or related emotions) and avoidance coping (i.e., strategies aimed at avoiding stressful situations). the distinction between approach vs. avoidance coping is independent from the distinction between problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping (solberg nes & segerstrom, 2006). therefore, people may cope with a stressor’s emotional consequences by either approaching or avoiding them, and people may cope with stressors themselves by actively and directly approaching or avoiding problems. the relationship between coping strategies and personal goal pursuit is particularly evident when considering the effectiveness and adaptiveness of the coping responses adopted to face stressors. concretely, a coping response is generally considered adaptive when it leads to a greater likelihood of making more progress and attaining desired goals (carver & scheier, 1998; lazarus, 1991; wrosch, scheier, carver, & schulz, 2003). similarly, ineffective coping responses are more likely to interfere with goal-directed behaviors and subsequent levels of performance (weiss & cropanzano, 1996). the link between problem-focused, approach coping responses and goal-related behavior is deeply rooted in the self-regulation theory proposed by carver and scheier (1998). specifically, these types of coping strategies aim to actively manage the stressor itself. people who adopt both of these coping responses keep on be committed to and strive for their goals; consequently, they are more likely to report higher rates of progress or to attain their goals. thus, approach coping responses are more likely to facilitate goal attainment and the experience of positive affect (mackay, charles, kemp, & heckhausen, 2011). on the contrary, avoidance coping leads to at least temporary disengagement and abandonment of goal-related behaviors. consequently, it is more likely to impede and interfere with actual goal progress. empirical evidence has underlined the important relationship between coping strategies and goal achievement in different life circumstances. in particular, the influence of approach coping and problem-focused responses on levels of goal progress has been evaluated and demonstrated in the education (endler, kantor, & parker, 1994; struthers, perry, & menec, 2000) and sport domains (amiot, gaudreau, & blanchard, 2004; gaudreau & blondin, 2004). the situational version of the brief cope several self-report measures of coping responses have been developed and are currently available, including the ways of coping questionnaire (wcq; folkman & lazarus, 1988), the coping orientation to problems experienced (cope; carver, scheier, & weintraub, 1989), the multidimensional coping inventory (mci, endler & europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 296 http://www.psychopen.eu/ parker, 1990), the coping inventory for stressful situations (ciss; endler & parker, 1994), and the coping responses inventory-youth (cri-youth; moos, 1993). all of these measures validly and reliably assess both approach and avoidance coping responses and both problemand emotion-focused strategies. however, one possible drawback of these scales is their relatively extended length, ranging from 48 to 66 items, which may limit their usefulness in long research protocols and in clinical settings. to overcome this potential shortcoming, carver (1997) developed the brief cope, an abridged version of the cope. the brief cope measures 14 theoretically identified coping responses: self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance use, use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, behavioral disengagement, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame. it represents a way to rapidly measure coping responses because it is a short 28-item self-report questionnaire with two items for each of the measured coping strategies. the list below reports items of the brief cope. the situational version of the brief cope (carver, 1997; retrieved from www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/ccarver/sclbrcope.html) 1. i've been turning to work or other activities to take my mind off things. 2. i've been concentrating my efforts on doing something about the situation i'm in. 3. i've been saying to myself "this isn't real". 4. i've been using alcohol or other drugs to make myself feel better. 5. i've been getting emotional support from others. 6. i've been giving up trying to deal with it. 7. i've been taking action to try to make the situation better. 8. i've been refusing to believe that it has happened. 9. i've been saying things to let my unpleasant feelings escape. 10. i’ve been getting help and advice from other people. 11. i've been using alcohol or other drugs to help me get through it. 12. i've been trying to see it in a different light, to make it seem more positive. 13. i’ve been criticizing myself. 14. i've been trying to come up with a strategy about what to do. 15. i've been getting comfort and understanding from someone. 16. i've been giving up the attempt to cope. 17. i've been looking for something good in what is happening. 18. i've been making jokes about it. 19. i've been doing something to think about it less, such as going to movies, watching tv, reading, daydreaming, sleeping, or shopping. 20. i've been accepting the reality of the fact that it has happened. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 monzani, steca, greco et al. 297 http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/ccarver/sclbrcope.html http://www.psychopen.eu/ 21. i've been expressing my negative feelings. 22. i've been trying to find comfort in my religion or spiritual beliefs. 23. i’ve been trying to get advice or help from other people about what to do. 24. i've been learning to live with it. 25. i've been thinking hard about what steps to take. 26. i’ve been blaming myself for things that happened. 27. i've been praying or meditating. 28. i've been making fun of the situation. each item presents a coping thought or action that individuals may adopt under stress or in difficult situations. for each item, respondents indicate whether they have used the coping response on a four-point likert scale (1 = i haven't been doing this at all; 2 = i've been doing this a little bit; 3 = i've been doing this a medium amount; 4 = i've been doing this a lot). the items of the original version of the brief cope were in a format that was situational and retrospective, allowing for the assessment of situational coping responses to specific stressors. carver’s instructions of the brief cope adopt a procedure similar to the one developed by folkman and lazarus (1980). specifically, the brief cope asks participants to bring to mind a relevant stressor they encountered in the recent past and to indicate how they coped with it. accordingly, the items of the situational version are expressed in the present perfect tense. the brief cope has recently been used in empirical research evaluating the role of coping in facing different types of stressors, such as heart failure (bean, gibson, flattery, duncan, & hess, 2009; carels et al., 2004; klein, turvey, & pies, 2007; paukert, lemaire, & cully, 2009), hiv disease (sanjuán, molero, fuster, & nouvilas, 2013), terrorism (stein et al., 2013), and caregiving for a family member with mental illness (wrosch, amir, & miller, 2011). however, the brief cope’s theoretically based 14-factor structure (i.e., model a) has received little empirical support. specifically, the 14-factor structure has been confirmed only by muller and spitz (2003), who performed a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) on responses to the french situational version of the brief cope provided by only 178 university students. the dimensionality of the situational brief cope has been analyzed in three further studies. however, none of these studies performed a cfa to assess the 14-factor structure proposed by carver (1997). specifically, two (i.e., carver, 1997; miyazaki, bodenhorn, zalaquett, & ng, 2008) of the three studies performed an exploratory factor analysis (efa), whereas the fourth study (knoll, rieckmann, & schwarzer, 2005) performed a second-order cfa to further summarize the 14 dimensions into four higher-order factors. carver (1997) was the first to propose a factor structure different from the 14-factor model. he identified, through an efa, only nine factors with eigenvalues greater than one (i.e., model b). five a priori scales formed distinct factors: substance use, religion, humor, behavioral disengagement, and acceptance. another factor was formed by active coping, planning, and positive reframing items. similarly, three other factors were formed by items from two distinct a priori scales. the use of emotional support and use of instrumental support items loaded together on a single factor. another factor was formed by the venting and self-distraction items, and items from the denial and self-blame dimensions loaded together on another factor. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 298 http://www.psychopen.eu/ knoll et al. (2005) assessed the higher-order dimensionality of the situational version of the german adaptation of the brief cope. the sample consisted of only 110 patients subjected to cataract surgery. the participants were asked to think about their actions and thoughts regarding the upcoming surgery and to respond to the items of the brief cope. because of their low reliability, three subscales (i.e., self-distraction, substance use, and behavioral disengagement) were excluded from the analysis. thus, authors evaluated a first-order model (i.e., model c) with only 11 dimensions of the 14 dimensions of the brief cope. following suggestions by carver et al. (1989) and considering previous results on the dimensionality of the cope (carver et al., 1989) and correlations among the dimensions of coping response, the authors performed a second-order cfa to further summarize these dimensions into four higher-order factors (i.e., model d): focus on the positive (acceptance, positive reframing, and humor), support coping (use of instrumental support, use of emotional support, and religion), active coping (active coping and planning), and evasive coping (self-blame, denial, and venting). this tested model yielded acceptable fit statistics and gave support to their hypothesized factor structure of four second-order dimensions of coping responses. lastly, miyazaki et al. (2008) explored the dimensionality of the situational version of the brief cope in a sample of 555 international students in the united states. they performed an ordinal efa that extracted seven factors (i.e., model e). only three dimensions (i.e., substance use, humor, and religion) perfectly resembled the relative original domains, whereas the remaining four dimensions, labeled positive coping, self-blame, support seeking, and denial, were formed by items from different original domains. purpose of the study the inconsistent empirical evidence reviewed above may raise questions about the brief cope true dimensionality and thus may limit its usefulness in research and applied settings. specifically, the differences in the use of the brief cope and in the computing of its dimensions among studies may limit the comparability and validity of their findings. moreover, previous studies evaluated brief cope’s factor structure by performing analyses on homogeneous and small samples. these small sample sizes may bias the validity of the results, whereas homogeneity may limit their generalizability. consequently, the main aim of the present study is to shed light on the factor structure of the situational version of the brief cope. the identification of the best factor structure of this self-report measure is essential to properly assess coping strategies in empirical research and clinical practice. thus, the study examined the dimensionality of the questionnaire by considering the previously proposed factor structures. using cfa, we compared five models: model a, model b, model c, model d, and model e. table 1 summarizes these five models and their respective authors. in contrast to previous studies, we collected data on the brief cope from a large and heterogeneous sample ranging in age from 19 to 71. table 1 the five compared models, descriptions, and references referencedescriptionmodels carver, 1997; muller & spitz, 2003theoretically based 14-factor structuremodel a carver, 1997efa-based 9-factor structuremodel b knoll et al., 2005first-order 11-factor structuremodel c knoll et al., 2005second-order 4-factor structuremodel d miyazaki et al., 20087-factor structuremodel e europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 monzani, steca, greco et al. 299 http://www.psychopen.eu/ within the framework of the self-regulation theory and considering previous empirical evidence on coping responses and goal-related behavior, a secondary aim was to evaluate the relationships between coping responses and goal-related aspects of commitment and perceived progress. specifically, we assessed coping responses to a specific personal goal-related difficulty and analyzed the relationships between identified coping responses and personal goal commitment and progress. because of the cross-sectional design of this study, we considered goal progress as a proxy of goal performance but not goal attainment per se. we hypothesized the following: • goal commitment would be positively related to coping responses aimed at dealing actively with the stressors or related emotions and negatively correlated with coping responses aimed at avoiding stressful situations; • goal progress would be positively related to strategies aimed at dealing actively, solving and actively responding to stressful situations, and negatively correlated to responses aimed at avoiding stressors. method participants a convenience sample of 606 participants was recruited. the participants were part of a broader research project designed to evaluate the relations among individual differences, personal goals, and well-being. the sample comprised 289 male and 317 female young adults from northern italy. the mean age was 30.93 (sd = 12.51) years (range: 19-71 years). regarding occupational status, 41.5% of the participants were white-collar workers, 23.7% were university students, 12.8% were freelance workers, 9.9% were blue-collar workers, 4.2% were retired, 4.2% were homemakers, and 3.7% were unemployed. considering educational levels, most participants (59.2%) possessed a high-school diploma, and 27.1% possessed a university degree. the remaining 13.7% had a lower educational level. lastly, 46.9% of the participants were single, 48.9% were married and lived with their partner, 3.9% were divorced, and 0.3% were widowed. measures and procedure the research received approval from the ethics committee of the university of milan bicocca. using the snowball sampling method, the participants were recruited by trained students enrolled in an undergraduate psychology course. the target population was individuals aged 18 or older. the participants were asked to carefully read and sign the informed consent form and to individually complete the questionnaire and then to return the items to the principal investigator. the participants did not receive any incentive for participation. the situational italian version of the brief cope was developed using the method of forward-backward translation (brislin, 1970). the first author completed the translation of items of the brief cope. a second researcher blind to the content of the original english words performed the back translation. both translators are bilingual but native italian speaker. the results of the back translation were virtually identical to the original english version. to administer the brief cope, we adopted a slightly modified version of the guidelines adopted by folkman and lazarus (1980). our initial instructions asked participants to declare the most important goal they wished to achieve. the participants were then asked to describe a difficulty they faced in pursuing this goal during the last month. then, the participants answered the 28 items of the brief cope to indicate the way in which they had coped with this difficulty. the response format was a four-point likert scale ranging from “i haven’t been doing this at all” (1) to “i’ve been doing this a lot” (4). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 300 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to assess relationships of coping responses with goal commitment and perceived goal progress, the participants were also asked to respond to the short version of the personal goals variables scale (brunstein, 1993; italian version: monzani et al., 2015). this self-report measure asked participants to rate the personal goal they had declared in terms of a number of goal variables by considering the previous month. in particular, this questionnaire measures commitment to personal goals (three items; sample item: “even if it means considerable effort, i will do everything necessary to accomplish this goal”; α = .69), and progress in goal achievement (two items; sample item: “i have made a great deal of progress concerning this goal”; α = .60). the response format was a sevenpoint likert scale ranging from “completely disagree” (1) to “completely agree” (4). data analysis considering the participants’ responses to the brief cope, cfawas performed with mplus 6.0 (muthén &muthén, 1998-2010). because the brief cope has a four-point response format and the preliminary analysis showed positively skewed distributions of the responses of several items, cfa with maximum likelihood with robust standard errors (mlr) was performed. mlr is an estimation procedure robust to violations of normality. according to recommendations by hu and bentler (1998, 1999), the goodness of fit of the considered models was evaluated by several fit indices: the chi-square goodness of fit test (χ2), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cli), tucker-lewis index (tli), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr). the fit of the models was first evaluated by the χ2 statistic. due to the sensitivity of the χ2 statistic to sample size, other indices were used based on hu and bentler’s (1999) recommendations. good model fit was indicated by a cfi and tli above 0.95, an rmsea below 0.06, and an srmr below 0.80. in addition, the 90% confidence interval for rmsea (cirmsea) was used to test the null hypothesis of poor model fit more precisely: in a well-fitting model, the upper limit should be below 0.08 and the lower limit should be close to zero. lastly, the probability of close fit (pclose) was also considered. this measure provided a one-sided test of the null hypothesis of close fit (i.e., rmsea equals .05). jöreskog and sörbom (1996) suggested that the p-value for this test should be above .50. a reliability analysis was performed using the omega coefficient and the model-based approach to the reliability of a composite score (mcdonald, 1999; raykov & shrout, 2002). subsequently, the best fitting model was expanded to assess the associations of coping responses with goal commitment and progress. specifically, this model evaluated correlations among latent variables of coping responses and observed variables of goal commitment and goal progress. these latter two variables were computed as the mean of responses in their respective items. results the fit statistics for the five alternative models are shown in table 2. model a was the only model to exhibit good fit [χ2(259, n = 606) = 460.662; p = .000; rmsea = 0.036; cirmsea = 0.031 – 0.041; pclose = 1.000; cfi= 0.965; tli= 0.948; srmr = 0.039]. the four remaining models had inadequate fit. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 monzani, steca, greco et al. 301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 fit statistics for the five assessed models srmrtlicfipclosecirmsearmseapdfχ2model 0.0390.9480.9650.031 – 0.0410.036.000259model a .0001.662460 0.0810.8100.8420.065 – 0.0730.069.000314model b .000.1111209 0.1170.6700.7370.087 – 0.0950.091.000301model c .000.3091795 0.1280.6560.6910.089 – 0.0960.093.000339model d .000.6592093 0.1000.7480.7840.076 – 0.0850.080.000301model e .000.7331475 note. χ2 = chi-square goodness of fit test; df = degree of freedom; p = probability; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; cirmsea = 90% confidence interval for rmsea; pclose = probability of close fit; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; srmr = standardized root mean square residual. table 3 reports the standardized factor loadings and omega coefficients of reliability for the identified coping responses of model a. as shown, all items had significant and sizeable loadings on their respective factors. specifically, all standardized factor loadings, ranging from .439 to .959, were above the cutoff of .40 for item-factor retention (brown, 2006). considering the cut-off of the reliability coefficient recommended by nunnally and bernstein (1994) and kline (1999), all 14 coping dimensions exhibited excellent or good reliability. table 4 shows the estimated correlation matrix for the 14 latent dimensions of coping responses. pearson’s correlation among the nine identified factors showed that all of the significant correlations ranged from .110 to .899 in terms of absolute value. following guidelines by cohen (1988), we interpreted correlations in table 4 as measures of effect size. specifically, correlations were considered weak (|.10| < r < |.29|), moderate (|.30| < r < |.49|), or strong (|.50| < r < |1|). there were strong positive correlations between use of emotional support and use of instrumental support, between use of emotional support and venting, and between active coping and planning. these three high correlations between first-order factors suggested the potential applicability of a second-order factor model with two higher-order factors: the first comprised venting and the use of both emotional and instrumental support; the second factor comprised active coping and planning. the remaining dimensions (i.e., self-distraction, denial, substance use, behavioral disengagement, positive reframing, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame) were introduced in this second-order model as first-order factors. model a, a first-order factor model, is a less restricted baseline model to which the second-order model can be compared, given that the second-order model is nested within model a (yung, thissen, & mcleod, 1999). specifically, a chi-square difference test using the satorra-bentler scaled chi-square (satorra, 1999) can be used to compare the fit of the firstand second-order models. similar to model a, the second-order factor model displayed a good fit [χ2(290, n = 606) = 624.425; p = .000; rmsea = 0.044; cirmsea = 0.039 – 0.048; pclose = .986; cfi= 0.941; tli= 0.923; srmr = 0.049]. however, the chi-square difference test between the firstand the second-order model was significant (δχ2(31) = 167.916, p = .000), indicating that model a fits the data better than the second-order factor model. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 302 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 standardized factor loadings and omega coefficient for the 14 coping response dimensions omegastandardized factor loading (se)item numbercoping response .8491self-distraction (.045)***.535 19 (.054)***.822 .7442active coping (.035)***.697 7 (.023)***.858 .8793denial (.043)***.640 8 (.049)***.775 .9764substance use (.074)***.843 11 (.046)***.959 .950.863 (.016)***5use of emotional support 15 (.013)***.911 .93010use of instrumental support (.016)***.909 23 (.015)***.867 .862.709 (.041)***6behavioral disengagement .782 (.041)***16 .8639venting (.027)***.790 21 (.029)***.781 .82212positive reframing (.036)***.770 .720 (.036)***17 .88514planning (.026)***.816 25 (.023)***.811 .83718humor (.171)*.439 28 (.067)***.714 .83320acceptance (.058)***.549 24 (.064)***.796 .94522religion (.038)***.911 27 (.040)***.897 .70513self-blame (.048)***.759 26 (.039)***.562 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 monzani, steca, greco et al. 303 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 estimated correlation matrix for the 14 coping dimensions 1413121110987654321 -1 -2 .110* -3 .034.405*** -4 .523***.002-.256*** -5 .227***.379***.392***.432*** -6 .899***.192***.244***.455***.300*** -7 .064.158**.363***.578***.365***-.422*** -8 .228***.643***.724***.313***.478***.375***.498*** -9 .409***.077.448***.500***.185**.212***.462***.422*** -10 .443***.360***.329***-.437***.319***.023-.029-.858***.105 -11 .087.453***.399***.400***.231***.271***.313***.352***.003.378*** -12 .274*.501***.476***.394***.006.268***.253***.042.007-.533***.270*** -13 .149**.190*.170***.316***.182***.058.297***.310***.111.230***.198***.147** -14 .190***.355***.479***.561***.591***.501***.208**.395***.419***.195***.218**.368***.456*** note. 1 = self-distraction; 2 = active coping; 3 = denial; 4 = substance use; 5 = use of emotional support; 6 = use of instrumental support; 7 = behavioral disengagement; 8 = venting; 9 = positive reframing; 10 = planning; 11 = humor; 12 = acceptance; 13 = religion; 14 = selfblame. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. because model a exhibited the best fit among the tested models, it was expanded to assess the associations of coping responses with goal commitment and progress. specifically, this model evaluated correlations among latent variables of coping responses and observed variables of goal commitment and goal progress. these latter two variables were computed as the mean of responses in their respective items. this model exhibited good fit [χ2(287, n = 606) = 512.339; p = .000; rmsea = 0.036; cirmsea = 0.031 – 0.041; pclose = 1.000; cfi= 0.963; tli= 0.944; srmr = 0.038]. table 5 shows the correlations of 14 coping responses with both goal commitment and goal progress. there was a moderate and positive correlation between goal commitment and progress (r = .363, p < .001). as hypothesized, goal commitment was positively related to the coping response aimed at approaching both problems and emotions. specifically, the highest correlations were with active coping (r = .492, p < .001) and planning (r = .488, p < .001). regarding responses aimed at avoiding stressors, a negative and moderate correlation was found between commitment and behavioral disengagement (r = -.352, p < .001). similar patterns of correlations were obtained when considering goal progress, which was positively related to coping responses of approaching both problems and emotions. the highest positive correlations were between goal progress and active coping (r = .256, p < .001) and planning (r = .208, p < .001). goal progress was negatively related to coping responses of avoiding both problems and emotions. specifically, progress was inversely related to behavioral disengagement (r = -.419, p <.001), self-distraction (r = -.278, p <.001), denial (r = -.272, p <.001), and substance use (r = -.127, p <.01). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 304 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 correlations of coping responses with goal commitment and progress goal progressgoal commitment self-distraction .278***-.015 active coping .256***.492*** denial .272***-.008substance use .127**-.055use of emotional support .026.231*** use of instrumental support .094*.299*** behavioral disengagement .419***-.352***venting .099*-.209*** positive reframing .075.146** planning .208***.488*** humor .133*-.108acceptance .045-.129* religion .084.117** self-blame .100-.193** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the main purpose of the present study was to evaluate the factor structure of the situational version of the brief cope and to evaluate its relationships with goal commitment and goal progress. the identification of the best factor structure of the brief cope is a necessary step in order to validly and reliably assess coping strategies in clinical practice and research context. moreover, the chance of having a shared and common method for scoring coping strategies may permit to compare findings across different studies and thus better study this important aspect in psychological practice. the study represents the first attempt to compare and test the factor structure highlighted by previous research. the alternative models were tested by performing cfa with the mlr estimation method, which is assumed to be robust against violations of the assumption of normality. the results support the theoretically based 14-factor structure proposed by carver (1997). concerning the size of the standardized factor loadings, all items are good indicators of their respective factors. moreover, considering the omega coefficient of reliability, the analysis finds acceptable internal consistency for all 14 coping dimensions. thus, the empirical evidence supports the usefulness of the situational version of the brief cope for the valid and reliable assessment of 14 specific coping responses to stressors. specifically, as theorized by carver (1997), the 14 measured coping responses are self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance use, use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, behavioral disengagement, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame. the correlation analysis provides important information on the reciprocal relationships among coping responses adopted to face stressors and threats. in general, most of the coping strategies are correlated with each other from weakly to strongly. in particular, the strong positive correlations among use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, and venting and between active coping and planning suggest the possibility of advancing a second-order factor model that may better explain these relationships among first-order factors. however, the results of the second-order cfa demonstrate that the first-order 14-factor model fit the observed data better. aceurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 monzani, steca, greco et al. 305 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cording to the distinction suggested by solberg nes and segerstrom (2006), active coping, use of instrumental support, and planning could be categorized as approach problem coping responses. the use of emotional support, venting, positive reframing, acceptance, and religion may be classified as approach emotion responses. only behavioral disengagement could be categorized as avoidance problem coping, and self-distraction, denial, and substance usemay classified as avoidance emotion coping responses. humor and self-blame could be considered emotion-focused strategies, but they are indistinguishable on the approach vs. avoidance dimension. considering this theoretical distinction (solberg nes & segerstrom, 2006), stronger links were observed between coping strategies belonging to the same category. however, significant correlations were also observed between coping responses in different classes. future research should evaluate the applicability of the distinctions between the coping dimensions for approach problem, approach emotion, avoidance problem, and avoidance emotion. lastly, the results of our research showed significant relationships of the situational coping responses measured by the brief cope with goal commitment and goal progress. consistent with the self-regulation theory, goal commitment was closely linked to the adoption of the approach coping responses of active coping, use of instrumental and emotional support, and planning. when people are more committed to their goals, they are more likely to adopt strategies to actively address the stressor or related emotions. however, the relationship between coping dimensions and goal progress is more informative of the effectiveness and adaptiveness of this response to goalrelated difficulties. as suggested by lazarus (1991) andweiss and cropanzano (1996), effective coping responses are more likely to foster goal-directed behaviors and goal achievement. the results of our analysis demonstrated that coping responses of approaching problems are closely linked to goal performance. when people adopt active coping and planning responses to a specific goal-related difficulty, they are more likely to report progress toward a specific personal goal. in contrast, the coping response of avoiding both emotions and problems is more likely to interfere with personal goal pursuit. in particular, there are negative relationships among goal progress and behavioral disengagement, self-distraction, denial, and substance use. the current findings should be considered in light of three main limitations. first, the results regarding both the factor structure of the brief cope and its relations with goal commitment and progress are limited to the population considered in the study. although the participants in the current study represent a large and heterogeneous community sample, these individuals do not necessarily represent the general population. future studies should include representative and random samples of people of different provenances, cultures, and ethnicities. second, cross-sectional data and correlational analyses were performed to evaluate the relationships of coping responses with goal progress and commitment. future longitudinal research may also assess the causal effect of the adoption of specific coping responses on subsequent goal progress and performance and other variables, such as psychological adjustment and well-being. lastly, the present study did not evaluate the role of other relevant aspects, such as socioeconomic status, dispositional coping style, dispositional optimism, causal attributions, and the controllability of stressors, on the adoption of coping responses when facing specific stressors and threats. future research may evaluate their role in predicting the choice of coping strategy. despite these limitations, the results of the current study demonstrate the effectiveness of the 14-factor structure of the situational version of the brief cope. the situational version of this instrument asks people to report how they have coped with a specific stressor or threat. our results confirm that the brief cope measures 14 different strategies of self-distraction, active coping, denial, substance use, use of emotional support, use of instrumental support, behavioral disengagement, venting, positive reframing, planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-blame. as a practical consequence, we advise that future research and clinical psychologists should use europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 306 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these 14 distinct scores of coping responses. moreover, this study demonstrates that the brief cope is a useful self-report questionnaire to evaluate coping responses to specific difficulties and negative circumstances. given its brevity and ease of administration, the brief cope could be conveniently introduced in both long research protocols and clinical assessment. lastly, as previously suggested by carver (1997), the brief copemay assume a dispositional format by slightly changing the phrasing of its instructions and items. this latter version could be developed to evaluate people’s dispositional coping styles by changing the instructions to ask people to report how they generally cope when they encounter a difficult or stressful situation. similarly, the verb forms of items could be changed from the present perfect tense of the situational version to the present tense of the dispositional format. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references 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(1999). on the relationship between the higher-order factor model and the hierarchical factor model. psychometrika, 64(2), 113-128. doi:10.1007/bf02294531 about the authors dario monzani received a ph.d. in educational science and currently is a post-doctoral fellow at the department of psychology, university of milano bicocca, italy. his research interests include motivation, personality, and health psychology. specifically, his main research project is focused on personal goals and subjective well-being. patrizia steca received her ph.d in personality and social psychology from the university of padua and is currently associate professor in the university of milano-bicocca. her research interests includemotivation, personality and self-regulation processes in the health field as well as psychological and subjective well-being along the life span. she is author of several publications related to these topics. andrea greco received a ph.d in social, cognitive, and clinical psychology and currently he is a post-doctoral fellow at the department of psychology, university of milano bicocca, italy. his research interests include health-psychology, personality, and motivation in different context. he is author of various publications related to these topics. marco d'addario received his ph.d in psychology from the university of pavia and he is currently working as assistant professor at the department of psychology of the university of milano-bicocca, in milan. his main research interests are on psychology of thinking, judgment and decision making and psychology of communication. recently his focus has been on health psychology and health communication. erika cappelletti is a ph.d. student in social, cognitive, and clinical psychology at the university of milano – bicocca, since january 2012. her research interests include health-psychology, personality and communication. in particular, her research project is focused on the role of communication in chronic diseases management. luca pancani is a ph.d. student in social, cognitive, and clinical psychology at the university of milano – bicocca, since january 2012. his research interests include health psychology, psychological assessment, personality, andmotivation. currently, his main research project is focused on smoking behavior in young adults. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 295–310 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.935 the situational version of the brief cope 310 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1073191111411668 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1007094931292 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022873 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298860309021 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf02294531 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the situational version of the brief cope coping the situational version of the brief cope purpose of the study method participants measures and procedure data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors social support and symptom severity among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder or panic disorder with agoraphobia: a systematic review literature reviews social support and symptom severity among patients with obsessivecompulsive disorder or panic disorder with agoraphobia: a systematic review véronique palardy a, ghassan el-baalbaki* ab, catherine fredette a, elias rizkallah c, stéphane guay de [a] department of psychology, université du québec à montréal, montreal, canada. [b] faculty of medicine, mcgill university, montreal, canada. [c] department of sociology, université du québec à montréal, montreal, canada. [d] school of criminology, université de montréal, montreal, canada. [e] institut universitaire en santé mentale de montréal, montreal, canada. abstract panic disorder with or without agoraphobia (pd/a) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) are characterized by major behavioral dysruptions that may affect patients’ social and marital functioning. the disorders’ impact on interpersonal relationships may also affect the quality of support patients receive from their social network. the main goal of this systematic review is to determine the association between social or marital support and symptom severity among adults with pd/a or ocd. a systematic search of databases was executed and provided 35 eligible articles. results from ocd studies indicated a negative association between marital adjustment and symptom severity, and a positive association between accommodation from relatives and symptom severity. however, results were inconclusive for negative forms of social support (e.g. criticism, hostility). results from pd/a studies indicated a negative association between perceived social support and symptom severity. also, results from studies using an observational measure of marital adjustment indicated a negative association between quality of support from the spouse and pd/a severity. however, results were inconclusive for perceived marital adjustment and symptom severity. in conclusion, this systematic review generally suggests a major role of social and marital support in pd/a and ocd symptomatology. however, given diversity of results and methods used in studies, more are needed to clarify the links between support and symptom severity among patients with pd/a and ocd. keywords: obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social support, marital adjustment, accommodation, expressed emotion europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 received: 2016-07-23. accepted: 2017-08-11. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, ny, usa *corresponding author at: department of psychology, université du québec à montréal, c.p. 8888 succursale centre-ville, h3c 3p8, montréal, canada. e-mail: el-baalbaki.ghassan@uqam.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders (antony, 2011), with a 4.5% prevalence in the world population (vos et al., 2012). panic disorder (pd) is characterised by recurrent panic attacks and persistent concern about the attacks or their consequences (apa, 2013). a disorder commonly diagnosed with panic disorder is agoraphobia (a), which is anxiety about being in places or situations in which escape might be difficult or help might not be available in case of an attack, and often lead to complete or partial avoidance of the anticipated situations (apa, 2013). obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) is characterised by recurrent europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ obsessions (persistent and intrusive thoughts, ideas, impulses or images) that cause anxiety, and compulsions (repetitive behaviors or mental acts) that are performed in order to prevent or decrease obsessions-related anxiety (apa, 2013). although ocd is not categorized as an anxiety disorder in the latest version of the dsm (dsm-5; apa, 2013), anxiety is still considered one of its major components. moreover, the present review covers the time period when ocd definition was based on the criteria from the third and fourth versions of the dsm (apa, 1980; apa, 1994), which still classified ocd as an anxiety disorder. ocd and pd/a share common aspects in addition to anxiety. indeed, these disorders both include major behavioral disruptions that can heavily affect patients’ social and marital functioning (markowitz, weissman, ouellette, lish, & klerman, 1989). researchers investigating the impact of mental disorders discovered that it was distressing not only for the patients but for the family as well (maurin & boyd, 1990), which is partly caused by caregiving responsibilities toward the affected person (maurin & boyd, 1990). it can thus be expected that the relatives’ burden will affect the support that they provide to the suffering person. the following will present different concepts that are of importance when assessing social support in relation to ocd and pd/a. social support social support is defined as the process through which help is provided or exchanged with others in an attempt to facilitate one or more adaptational goals (cohen, gottlieb, & underwood, 2000). social support is a complex and multifaceted construct that can be broken down into different types. cohen (1992) distinguishes between perceived social support, received social support, and social networks. perceived and received social support both concern the quality of social support, whereas the assessment of social networks provides a more quantitative description of social support. more specifically, perceived social support refers to the respondent’s perception that his or her relationships will provide resources such as emotional support and information, and can be assessed with self-report questionnaires or interviews. received social support refers to supportive behaviors that a person does to help another face stressful life events. this type of support is observed or assessed in a more objective way, for example by asking if a specific supportive action has been performed (helgeson, 1993). also, this measure does not take into account the perception of the person receiving or providing the supportive behaviors. although social networks provide information about the existence, quantity, and types of social relationships, they appear to be less associated with wellbeing than are perceived and received social support (cohen & wills, 1985). indeed, many studies have shown a negative association between quality of social support and psychological distress (brown, andrews, harris, adler, & bridge, 1986; cramer, 1991; krause, liang, & yatomi, 1989; panayiotou & karekla, 2013). in addition to the different types of support mentioned above, there are two dimensions in social support: positive and negative (ray, 1992). positive social support concerns positive attitudes and behaviors from one person toward another, for example self-disclosure and validation (pizzamiglio, julien, parent, & chartrand, 2001; ray, 1992). manifestations of negative social support include irritation, frustration, critical comments, conflicts, misunderstanding and negative pressure from others (ray, 1992). marital adjustment support can be provided by different sources. although friends and family can provide emotional or instrumental support, the spouse or partner is generally considered as the principal source of support (boeding et al., 2013; brown & harris, 1978; caplan, 1974; cutrona & russell, 1990; jacobson, holtzworth-munroe, & palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 255 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ schmaling, 1989). when looking at support between spouses or partners, marital adjustment is of interest. it refers to the quality of the marital relationship and is comprised of four components: troublesome dyadic differences, interpersonal tensions and personal anxiety, dyadic satisfaction and cohesion, and consensus on matters of importance to marital functioning (spanier, 1976). it is of note that marital adjustment is a concept wider than marital support. however, given that most marital adjustment questionnaires assess some aspects of marital support (for example “do you confide in your partner”), it cannot be disregarded when looking at marital support. also, results from el-baalbaki and colleagues (2011) have shown that a higher level of marital adjustment was associated with more displays of support and validation during a problem solving interaction between spouses. since marital adjustment seems to be associated with an observational measure of marital support, it is likely that these two concepts share common aspects. expressed emotion it is known that psychiatric disorders cause distress and dysfunction for people suffering from them. however, these conditions can also affect patients’ relatives and friends, who may develop negative attitudes toward the patient. expressed emotion refers to emotions a relative expresses about a psychiatric patient (chambless, bryan, aiken, steketee, & hooley, 2001). this concept includes three dimensions: hostility, criticism and emotional over-involvement. emotional over-involvement can be described as intrusiveness, excessively selfsacrificing behavior, or exaggerated emotional response to the patient’s illness (el-baalbaki et al., 2011). criticism and hostility refer to critical comments and negative attitudes toward the patient about the disorder and, as such, are manifestations of negative social support. expressed emotion is generally assessed during an interview with the relative alone, the camberwell family interview (cfi; vaughn & leff, 1976). it can also be assessed with self-report measures, for example the perceived criticism scale (pcs; hooley & teasdale, 1989) that assesses the relative’s level of criticism toward the patient, as perceived by the patient. accommodation family accommodation is a term used to describe the behavioral involvement of patients’ relatives in some aspects of the disorder. an example would be the participation of a relative in the ritual of a patient suffering from ocd. this concept is often used in studies of ocd relatives, since they appear to be more involved in illness behaviors than relatives of patients with other mental disorders (cooper, 1996). studies have shown that accommodation is performed by more than 88% of ocd relatives (calvocoressi et al., 1995; calvocoressi et al., 1999; stewart et al., 2008; vikas, avasthi, & sharan, 2011) and that most of them accommodate on a daily basis (stewart et al., 2008). although participation in patients’ rituals is a frequent form of accommodation, relatives also accommodate by helping to avoid objects or places that exacerbate anxiety or by excessively reassuring the patient about the obsessions (calvocoressi et al., 1995). accommodation behaviors are generally aimed to support or help the person with ocd (boeding et al., 2013) and most relatives accommodate in order to decrease patients’ distress or anger (calvocoressi et al., 1999). it is thus considered as a positive and specific form of social support, because the supportive behaviors specifically concern the symptoms of the disorder. however, accommodation might be associated with longterm negative outcomes. although it may decrease immediate patients’ distress, it could maintain ocd symptoms by helping patients to avoid their anxiety, thus preventing them from becoming habituated to their fear and confronting their irrational beliefs (salkovskis, 1996). social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 256 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ accommodation is generally assessed with interviews or self-report questionnaires. the family accommodation scale (fas; calvocoressi et al., 1999) is the most used instrument to assess the level of family accommodation and associated burden. it is a 12-item questionnaire administered by a clinician to relatives of ocd patients. a self-rated version of the fas was also recently developed (pinto, van noppen, & calvocoressi, 2013). objectives and hypotheses the main objective of this systematic review is to assess whether social and marital support is associated with severity of ocd and pd/a. it this hypothesized that positive social support will negatively correlate with severity of the disorders, whereas negative social support will correlate positively with severity of the disorders. method selection of articles the search covered pubmed, psycnet proquest, cinahl, embase, isi, scopus, cochrane databases, from january 1 1980 to june 30 2014, for articles concerning the association between social/marital support and severity of ocd or pd/a symptoms before any treatment. it has been decided to select articles published since 1980 given that anxiety disorders were officially recognized for the first time in the third version of the dsm (dsm-iii; (apa, 1980), which was published in 1980. the generic query used was ("social support" or accommodation or "expressed emotion" or spousal or marital or couple) and ("panic disorder*" or agoraphobia or "obsessive-compulsive disorder*"). an independent search was also done in april 2016 to look for articles released since june 2014. all databases mentioned above were covered and the same generic query was used for the independent search. inclusion/exclusion criteria eligible articles included any article in any language published in final form, even if the abstract was not available in english, and that assessed the association between social/marital support and severity of ocd or pd/a symptoms. included studies were published after december 30 1979 and conducted among adult participants (18 years and over) with a primary diagnosis of ocd or pd/a. when possible, search limitations were set in order to only include articles dating from 1980 with participants aged 18 years and over. when this was not possible, manual selection was carried out. any type of study was included, except case report studies. finally, included studies measured severity of ocd or pd/a symptoms as well as social/marital support with self-reported questionnaires, observational instruments, or interviews by independent assessors. selection procedure two independent reviewers screened the studies for eligibility. if the title, abstract or keywords of the article contained clear indications that social or marital support was assessed, a full text review of the article was conducted. any disagreement on eligibility of articles between reviewers after full text review was resolved by consensus after consultation with a third independent reviewer. inter-rater reliability between the two palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 257 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ independent correctors after full text review was 97% (171/177). for the remaining six articles, a consensus was reached between the reviewers (three were included and three were excluded). results the electronic database search provided 4011 articles, from which 2010 duplicates were removed. the other 2001 articles were screened by title, abstract and keywords, and this first selection led to the removal of 1826 articles. two articles were impossible to retrieve (authors’ contacts could not be found; cohen, 1986; kitch, 1983), which led to 173 articles that went through a full text review. among these articles, 148 were written in english, six in chinese, six in german, four in french, three in italian, two in portuguese, one in japanese, one in korean, one in turkish, and one in dutch. finally, 30 of these articles were included in the present review. results from the independent search led to the inclusion of three other articles, for a total sample of 33 articles. reasons for exclusion of the remaining 143 articles are described in table 1. the article selection is described in detail in figure 1. figure 1. article selection following each step. social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 258 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 reasons for exclusion of 143 articles after full text review association not assessed between social or marital support and pd/a or ocd severity at pretreatment (number of excluded articles: 71) (abramowitz et al., 2013; albert, brunatto, aguglia, et al., 2009; almasi, akuchekian, & maracy, 2013; arnow, taylor, agras, & telch, 1985; arrindell & emmelkamp, 1986; barlow, mavissakalian, & hay, 1981; barlow, o’brien, & last, 1984; batinić, trajković, duisin, & nikolic-balkoski, 2009; beekman et al., 1998; byrne, carr, & clark, 2004; cerny, barlow, craske, & himadi, 1987; chambless, blake, & simmons, 2010; chambless, bryan, aiken, steketee, & hooley, 1999; chambless & steketee, 1999; cheng, jiang, & du, 1998; chernen & friedman, 1993; craske, burton, & barlow, 1989; daiuto, 1996; de berardis et al., 2008; el-baalbaki, bélanger, perreault, fredman, & baucom, 2010; emmelkamp, 1980; emmelkamp, de haan, & hoogduin, 1990; emmelkamp & de lange, 1983; emmelkamp et al., 1992; emmelkamp & gerlsma, 1994; fauerbach, 1992; ferrão et al., 2006; fisher, 1983; fisher & terence wilson, 1985; friedman, 1990; fukada, 2010; grunes, 1998; hafner, 1984; himadi, cerny, & barlow, 1986; hou, yen, huang, wang, & yeh, 2010; huang, li, han, & xiong, 2013; jansson, öst, & jerremalm, 1987; katerndahl, 2000; katerndahl & realini, 1997b; keijsers, hoogduin, & schaap, 1994a, 1994b; kleiner & marshall, 1987; koujalgi, nayak, patil, & chate, 2014; lebowitz, panza, su, & bloch, 2012; lelliott, marks, monteiro, tsakiris, & noshirvani, 1987; löhr, schewe, baudach, & hahlweg, 2003; mannetter, 1989; marchand et al., 1985; marchand, boisvert, baudry, berard, & gaudette, 1984; mccarthy & shean, 1996; nauta, batelaan, & van balkom, 2012; oatley & hodgson, 1987; omranifard, akuchakian, almasi, & maraci, 2011; pace, thwaites, & freeston, 2011; peter et al., 1998; pyke & roberts, 1987; renshaw, 2003; renshaw, chambless, & steketee, 2006; simon, 1988; smith, friedman, & nevid, 1999; steketee, 1987, 1993; steketee & chambless, 2001; svanborg, bäärnhielm, åberg wistedt, & lützen, 2008; telfer, 1991; thorpe, freedman, & lazar, 1985; torres, hoff, padovani, & ramos-cerqueira, 2012; turgeon, marchand, & dupuis, 1998; van minnen & kampman, 2000; yen et al., 2007; young, 1997) no valid measure of social support (number of excluded articles: 9) (addis et al., 2004; bond & guastello, 2013; franklin, 1989; hafner, 1983, 1988; shandley et al., 2008; tynes, salins, skiba, & winstead, 1992; xia & hai-yin, 2004; yan & cui, 2003) no valid measure of pd/a or ocd severity (number of excluded articles: 29) (albert, maina, saracco, & bogetto, 2006; chambless et al., 2001; chambless, floyd, rodebaugh, & steketee, 2007; green, grace, lindy, gleser, & leonard, 1990; katerndahl & realini, 1997a; korostil & feinstein, 2007; lincoln et al., 2010; ma, zhao, & luo, 2007; marchesi et al., 2014; markowitz et al., 1989; maulik, eaton, & bradshaw, 2010; mcleod, 1994; murphy, michelson, marchione, marchione, & testa, 1998; panayiotou & karekla, 2013; pankiewicz, majkowicz, & krzykowski, 2012; préville et al., 2010; priest, 2013; renshaw, chambless, & steketee, 2001; renshaw, chambless, rodebaugh, & steketee, 2000; renshaw, chambless, & steketee, 2003; simmons, gordon, & chambless, 2005; staebler, pollard, & merkel, 1993; steketee, lam, chambless, rodebaugh, & mccullouch, 2007; takeuchi et al., 1997; vázquez, torres, otero, & díaz, 2011; wang & zhao, 2012; whisman, 2007; wood, salguero, canovindel, & galea, 2013; xu, zhao, li, & lü, 2000; zaider, heimberg, & iida, 2010) not an adult sample (number of excluded articles: 2) (amir, freshman, & foa, 2000; grunes, neziroglu, & mckay, 2001) no clinical pd/a or ocd (for the whole sample or part of the sample) (number of excluded articles: 10) (amazonas, arcoverde, caldas, & da silva, 2010; bland & hallam, 1981; brown, harris, & eales, 1993; gomes et al., 2010; kenardy, heron-delaney, bellamy, sterling, & connelly, 2014; kong, 2008; landman-peeters et al., 2005; pinto, van noppen, & calvocoressi, 2013; powers, 1984; sochos, 2014) comprehensive review (number of excluded articles: 19) (bressi & guggeri, 1996; cobb, 1982; côté & gauthier, 1988; craske & zoellner, 1995; fokias & tyler, 1995; friedman & paradis, 2002; goldfarb, trudel, boyer, & preville, 2007; gore & carter, 2001; hand, 2000; jackson & wenzel, 2002; jacobson, holtzworth-munroe, & schmaling, 1989; kleiner & marshall, 1985; marcaurelle, bélanger, & marchand, 2003; marchand, comeau, & trudel, 1994; mester, 1981; rohrbaugh & shean, 1988; shean, 1990; vandereycken, 1983; wilson, 1984) case report (number of excluded articles: 2) (hafner, 1982; holmes, 1982) not a study (treatment guide) (number of excluded articles: 1) (van noppen & steketee, 2003) palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 259 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ support and ocd severity the association between ocd severity and marital adjustment two studies looked at the association between marital adjustment and ocd. in 2006, abbey conducted a study in order to examine romantic relationship functioning in individuals with ocd. the results indicated that relationship satisfaction negatively correlated with the obsessing (r = -.26, p < .05) and positively correlated with the neutralizing (r = .26, p < .05) subscales of the obsessive-compulsive inventory, revised (oci-r). selfdisclosure, which is an index of positive social support, negatively correlated with the obsessive subscale of the oci-r (r = -.30, p < .05). moreover, the obsessive subscale also negatively correlated with the emotional subscale (“my partner listens to me when i need someone to talk to”) of the personal assessment of intimacy in relationship (pair; schaefer & olson, 1981; r = -.27, p < .05). no other significant associations between measures of marital adjustment and ocd severity were found. riggs, hiss, and foa (1992) also looked at the link between marital distress and ocd symptom severity. the results indicated a significant negative correlation between marital adjustment and avoidance of the situation related to the main obsession (r (50) = -.28, p < .05), as rated by an independent assessor, but not between marital adjustment scores and ratings of main obsessions (r (52) = -.04, p > .70) or rituals (r (52) = .06, p > .65). for a summary of these results, see table 2. table 2 description of studies examining the association between marital adjustment and ocd author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of marital adjustment results 1 abbey 2006 64 ocd patients 25 men, 39 women oci-r (cut-off score of 4 on the obsessing scale) oci-r pair, sdi, and ras relationship satisfaction (ras) correlated with the obsessing (-.26, p <.05) and neutralizing (.26, p < .05) subscales of the oci-r. self-disclosure correlated with the obsessing subscale of the oci-r (-.30, p < .05). all subscales of the pair correlated significantly with the obsessive subscale of the oci-r. 2 riggs, hiss, & foa 1992 54 ocd patients 20 men, 34 women ns assessor rating lwmat significant correlation between lwmat and the assessor rating of avoidance (r (50) = -.28, p < .05), but not between lwmat scores and ratings of main obsession (r (52) = -.04, p > .70) or ritual (r (52) = .06, p > .65). note. oci-r = obsessive-compulsive inventory-revised; pair = personal assessment of intimacy in relationships; ras = relationship assessment scale; sdi = self disclosure index. the association between ocd severity and accommodation seventeen studies examined the association between accommodation and ocd. all but one study (drury, ajmi, de la cruz, nordsletten, & mataix-cols, 2014) found a significant association between the level of accommodation by the relatives and the severity of ocd. all of them (except for drury et al., 2014) used the family accommodation scale (fas) and the yale-brown obsessive-compulsive scale (y-bocs), which renders them easily comparable. given that some studies used the same sample (albert et al., 2010; albert, brunatto, maina, & bogetto, 2009; van noppen & steketee, 2009; van noppen, 2003), results are combined in the presentation of the data. social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 260 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ many studies found a significant positive correlation between accommodation and total scores on the measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder severity (boeding et al., 2013; calvocoressi et al., 1999; cherian, pandian, bada math, kandavel, & reddy, 2013; cherian, pandian, bada math, kandavel, & janardhan reddy, 2014; ferrão & florão, 2010; gomes et al., 2014; ramos-cerqueira, torres, torresan, negreiros, & vitorino, 2008; stewart et al., 2008; vikas et al., 2011; wu, pinto, et al., 2016), meaning that the more accommodation provided by the relatives, the more severe the ocd symptoms. some authors also found significant association between specific areas of accommodation and symptoms of ocd. indeed, vikas and colleagues (2011) found that participation in rituals was correlated with the level of obsessions (r = .52, p < .01) and compulsions (r = .54, p < .01). some results demonstrated that the level of accommodation was associated with contamination/cleaning compulsions (r = .18, p = .03, albert et al., 2010; r = .26, p = .007, stewart et al., 2008). also, albert and colleagues (albert, brunatto, maina, & bogetto, (2009; albert et al., 2010) found that accommodation total scores were significantly correlated with obsessions (r = .21, p = .013) but not compulsions (r and p are not available in the original article). however, results from beoding’s study (2013) indicated a significant positive correlation between accommodation and severity of compulsions (r = .39, p < .05) but not with severity of obsessions (r = .26, p > .05), which contradicts results obtained by albert and colleagues (2010). other authors also found that accommodation by the family could predict the severity of ocd symptomatology. indeed, van noppen and steketee (2003, 2009) reported that the level of accommodation, as rated by patients, predicted ocd severity in regression analyses (b = 0.47, p < .01, partial correlation = .42, r2change = .16, p > .01). accommodation was also predictive of ocd severity when rated by relatives (b = 0.50, p < .01, partial correlation = .46, r2change = .20, p > .01). accommodation alone as rated by patients and relatives explained 16 and 20%, respectively, of the symptom severity (f (1,44) = 9.19, p < .01; f (1.44) = 11.7, p = .001). they also found that among many factors (e.g. relatives’ attributions, emotional over-involvement, and criticism), accommodation was the strongest predictor of ocd severity, explaining 42% of the variance (direct causal effects .42, p < .05). on the other hand, other authors found that ocd symptomatology could predict accommodation behaviors among the relatives. for example, stewart and colleagues (2008) reported significant correlations between ocd severity and cleaning/contamination symptoms (r = .26, p = .007). when entered in a stepwise regression analysis, these factors remained significant. similarly, albert and colleagues (2010) also entered the significant factors in a regression analysis and reported that a higher fas total score was predicted by the contamination/cleaning symptom dimension score (β = 0.22, t = 2.87, p = .005). the only study that found negative results is the one by drury and colleagues (2014). they conducted a study on hoarders and their relatives in order to assess the impact of hoarding on functioning as well as burden for the relatives. they used a different measure, the family impact scale for hoarding disorder (fish), in order to assess both the level of family accommodation displayed by the relatives and the associated burden. the results indicate that hoarding severity did not predict fish scores (b = 0.20, t = 1.33, p = .190). finally, two recent meta-analyses investigated the association between family accommodation and ocd severity. in strauss, hale, and stobie (2015), results from 14 studies (seven with adults and seven on pediatric ocd) showed a statistically significant medium effect size (r = .35, 95% ci [.23, .47]), so that family accommodation accounts for approximately 12% of the variance in ocd symptom severity. in wu, mcguire, et al. (2016), 41 studies on accommodation and ocd severity were included. among those studies, 15 were on palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 261 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adults with ocd. results showed a medium positive effect (r = .42, 95% ci [.36, .47], z = 13.00, p < .001), which indicates that higher ocd severity is associated with increased family accommodation. also, there was no significant difference by categorical age groups (q(1)btwn = 1.36, p = .24) and no significant effect when examining participant mean age (β = -0.002, se = .003, z = -0.82, p = .41). this suggests that the association between family accommodation and ocd severity is similar whether participants are adults or children. for a summary of these results, see table 3. table 3 description of studies examining the association between accommodation and ocd author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of accommodation results 1 albert, brunatto, maina, & bogetto 2009, 2010 97 ocd patients and 141 relatives 49 men, 48 women scid-i y-bocs fas fas and y-bocs total scores were positively correlated. fas total score was significantly correlated with y-bocs obsession subscale. 2 boeding 2013 20 ocd patients and their partner 1 man, 19 women mini y-bocs fas fas and y-bocs total scores were positively correlated (.39, p < .05). fas total score was significantly correlated with y-bocs compulsion subscale (.39, p < .05). 3 calvocoressi et al. 1999 36 ocd patients and 36 relatives 19 men, 17 women evaluation by a psychiatrist y-bocs fas fas and y-bocs total scores were positively correlated (r = .49, p < .003, n = 34). 4 cherian, pandian, badamath, kandavel, & reddy 2013 100 ocd patients and their primary caregiver 57 men, 43 women ns y-bocs fas fas and y-bocs total scores were positively correlated. 5 cherian, pandian, badamath, kandavel, & reddy 2014 94 ocd patients and their primary caregiver 52 men, 42 women mini cgi and ybocs fas y-bocs total scores (r = .30, p < .01) and cgi (r = .34, p < .001) were correlated with fas total scores. 6 drury, ajmi, de la cruz, nordsletten, & mataix-cols 2014 41 ocd patients (hoarding disorder) and 60 relatives with hoarding 9 men, 32 women sihd hrs-sr fish ocd severity did not predict fish scores (b = 0.20, t = 1.33, p = .19) 7 ferrão & florão 2010 47 ocd patients and 47 relatives 22 men, 25 women scid-i y-bocs fas fas and y-bocs total score (.71, p < .001, n = 45) 8 gomes et al. 2014 114 ocd patients and 114 relatives 43 men, 71 women scid-i cgi, oci-r, and y-bocs fas-ir positive correlations (spearman) between fa and ybocs obsessions (r = .28, p = .002), compulsions (r = .26, p = .005) and total scores (r = .30, p = .001). social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 262 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of accommodation results positive correlation between fa and cgi (r = .34, p < .001). 9 ramos-cerqueira, torres, torresan, negreiros, & vitorino 2008 50 ocd patients and 50 caregivers 22 men, 28 women ns y-bocs fas positive correlation between y-bocs and fas total scores (r = .26, p < .001). 10 stewart et al. 2008 110 ocd patients and 110 relatives 58 men, 52 women assessment by both a psychiatrist and a behavior therapist y-bocs fas y-bocs and fas total scores were positively correlated (r = .35, p = .0003). fas was associated with cleaning/ contamination compulsions (r = .26, p = .007) 11 strauss, hale, & stobie (meta-analysis) 2015 14 included studies (7 on adult ocd) 849 ocd patients and 849 relatives 38% to 57% female dsm-iv criteria, y-bocs (score 16+), dcr-10 y-bocs fas the medium effect size was significant (r = .35; 95% ci: .23 to .47). family accommodation accounts for approximately 12% of the variance in ocd symptom severity. 12 van noppen & steketee 2003, 2009 50 ocd patients and 50 relatives 23 men, 27 women scid-i y-bocs fas fa made the largest contribution in the model, explaining 42% of the variance in ocd severity (direct causal effects .42, p < .05). 13 viskas, avasthi, & sharan 2011 32 ocd patients and 32 relatives ns (majority of patients were male) dcr-10 y-bocs fas participation in rituals was positively correlated with ybocs obsession (r = .52, p < .01), compulsion (r = .54, p < .01) and total score (.55, p < .01). total fa was positively correlated with all subscales of the y-bocs (obsession: r = .49, p < .01; compulsion: r = .50, p < .01; total: r = .51, p < .01). 14 wu et al. 2016 61 ocd patients and 54 relatives (18 were spouses) 27 men, 34 women clinical consensus between researcher and psychologist y-bocs, cgi fas-pv fa, as perceived by patients, correlated positively with y-bocs (r = .37, p < .01) and cgi (r = .53, p < .001). 15 wu et al. (metaanalysis) 2016 41 included studies (15 on adult ocd) 2509 ocd patients 50% female ns ns ns the random effects meta-analysis identified a medium positive effect, (r = .42, 95% ci [.36, .47], z = 13.00, p < .001). note. cgi = clinical global impression; dcr = icd-10 diagnostic criteria for research; fa = family accommodation; fas = family accommodation scale; fas-ir = family accommodation scale-interviewer rated; fas-pv = family accommodation scale-patient version; fish = family impact scale for hoarding disorder; hrs-sr = hoarding rating scale-self report; mini = mini-international neuropsychiatric interview; oci-r = obsessive compulsive inventoryrevised ; scid-i = structured clinical interview for dsm-iv axis i disorders; sihd = structured interview for hoarding disorders; y-bocs = yale-brown obsessive compulsive scale. palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 263 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the association between ocd severity and expressed emotion three studies were interested in the association between ocd severity and expressed emotion, with one of them demonstrating a significant association. indeed, cherian and colleagues’ (2014) results indicate that perceived criticism was associated with ocd severity as measured by the y-bocs (r = .24, p < .01) and the clinical global impression (cgi; r = .27, p < .01). finally, van noppen and steketee (2003, 2009) found no significant association between expressed emotions variables (criticism, hostility, emotional over-involvement) and ocd severity, when rated by patients or relatives. when accommodation of the family was entered in the model, criticism lost its significance (van noppen & steketee, 2003, 2009). see table 4 for a summary of the results. table 4 description of studies examining the association between expressed emotion and ocd author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of expressed emotion results 1 cherian, pandian, badamath, kandavel, & reddy 2014 94 ocd patients and their primary caregiver 52 men, 42 women mini cgi and ybocs feics (patient rated) perceived criticism (feics) was associated with ybocs total score (r = .24, p < .01) and cgi (r = .27, p < .01). 2 van noppen & steketee 2003 2009 50 ocd patients and 50 relatives 23 men, 27 women scid-i y-bocs irq, lee, pcm, prs, and rrq no significant association between ee variables (criticism, hostility) and ocd severity, when ee was rated by patients or relatives. note. bat = behavioural avoidance test; cfi = camberwell family interview; cgi = clinical global impression; feics = family emotional involvement and criticism scale; irq = influential relationships questionnaire; lee = level of expressed emotion scale; mini = miniinternational neuropsychiatric interview; pcm = perceived criticism measure; prs = patient rejection scale; rrq = relative’s reaction questionnaire; scid-i = structured clinical interview for dsm-iv axis i disorders; scid-p = structured clinical interview for dsm-iii-r – patient version; tsr = target symptom ratings support and pd/a severity the association between pd/a severity and social support three studies looked at the link between pd/a and social support, with two of them demonstrating that the level of support is associated with the severity of pd/a symptoms. huang and colleagues (2010) developed a structural equation model in order to investigate the effects of social support on panic and agoraphobic symptoms as well as suicidal ideation. they found that social support influenced panic symptoms (negative association, -.47), which then influenced agoraphobic symptoms (χ2 8 = 3.53; agfi = 0.95; p = .897). smith (1998) found a significant negative correlation between the size of support (number of friends) and the frequency of panic attacks (r (66) = -.25, p = .04) in a sample of african americans. although social support appraisal did not predict agoraphobia in a regression analysis, the authors did find a significant negative correlation between the two variables (r = -.27, p < .05). however, they did not find a link between social support appraisal and severity of panic symptoms. renneberg, chambless, fydrich, and goldstein (2002) conducted a study in order to investigate affect balance in dyads of patients and their relatives and its association with outcome following cognitive behavioral therapy. social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 264 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ given that the relatives were nine parents and 26 spouses, this study was included under both social and marital support (see paragraph below). in order to assess the level of affectivity in their sample, the authors used an observational measure, which assesses both verbal and non-verbal behaviors in an interaction between partners. based on these observations, they separated the group between affect-balanced and affectunbalanced dyads. the authors found that the two groups did not differ on pre-treatment scores of measures of agoraphobia and panic (t-tests p > .17 for all measures), which means that the quality of the interaction during a problem-solving task between partners was not associated with symptoms severity. refer to table 5 for a summary of these results. table 5 description of studies examining the association between social support and pd/a author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of social support results 1 huang, yen, & lung 2010 60 pda patients 30 men, 30 women mini pasc sss social support was a direct protector of panic symptoms (-.47), but not agoraphobic symptoms 2 renneberg, chambless, fydrich, & goldstein 2002 35 pda patients and 35 significant others (26 spouses, 9 parents) 12 men, 23 women scid-i mia kpi groups of affect-balanced versus affect-unbalanced dyads did not differ at pretreatment on measures of agoraphobia and panic (t-tests, all ps > .17) 3 smith 1998 81 pda patients 7 men, 74 women adis-iv bsq, fq, and mia ssas and ssrs significant correlation between size of support – friends and frequency of panic/month (r (66) = -.25, p = .04). note. adis-iv = anxiety disorder interview for dsm-iv; bsq = body sensations questionnaire; fq = fear questionnaire; kpi = kategoriensystem für parnerschaftliche interaktion (interaction coding system); mia = mobility inventory for agoraphobia; mini = miniinternational neuropsychiatric interview; pasc = panic and agoraphobic symptoms checklist; scid-i = structured clinical interview for dsm-iii-r; sss = social support scale; ssas = social support appraisals scale; ssrs = social support resources scale. the association between pd/a severity and marital adjustment eleven studies evaluated the link between marital adjustment and the severity of either panic disorder and\or agoraphobia. authors reported mixed results. since authors did not all use the same measure of marital adjustment, results will be presented by the type of measure utilized in order to compare similar articles. it is thus possible that one study gets described in several places due to its use of multiple questionnaires. self-report measures — three studies used the maudsley marital questionnaire (mmq) or its modified version (mmmq) as a measure of marital adjustment. more specifically, the mmq assesses three domains: marital adjustment, sexual adjustment and general life with the partner (e.g. domestic task, social activity). none of the studies found a significant correlation between marital adjustment and panic or agoraphobia symptoms. indeed, arrindell, emmelkamp, and sanderman (1986) found no significant correlation between the mmq marital scale and severity, as assessed by the fear questionnaire (fq) and an observation of phobic anxiety and avoidance by both the therapist and an independent observer (watson & marks, 1971; p > .02 for all measures (bonferroni adjustment)). cobb, mathews, childs clarke, and blowers (1984) evaluated whether integrating the spouse as a co-therapist would enhance the outcome of a behavioural therapy for agoraphobia. the authors found that there was no association between initial severity of marital problems, as assessed by palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 265 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the mmmq, and the severity of agoraphobia. however, no statistics were presented for this result. monteiro, marks, and ramm (1985) also used the mmmq and found that at pre-treatment, there was no significant difference in agoraphobic symptoms, as assessed by the fq, between participants qualified as being in a “good” versus a “less good” marriage (p > .05). although not explicitly reported by the authors of the original study, the authors of the present review based their results on graphs presented in the original study. chambless (1985) used the marital dissatisfaction questionnaire (mdq), which is a five-item questionnaire that assesses the discrepancy between the respondent’s perception of his/her actual and ideal spouse. the author did not find any significant correlations between the level of marital dissatisfaction and severity of agoraphobia (r = .10, p > .05) or frequency of panic attacks (r = -.10, p > .05). marcaurelle, bélanger, marchand, katerelos, and mainguy (2005) were interested to see the effects of marital conflicts and adjustment on severity of pda. they used the dyadic adjustment scale (das), which is a measure that assesses four areas of marital adjustment: cohesion, consensus, satisfaction and affection. their results demonstrate that patients with pda who demonstrated lower levels of marital adjustment had more frequent catastrophic thoughts (r = -.048, p < .0001) as well as stronger fear of bodily sensations (r = -.33; p < .007) and fear of consequences of anxiety (r = -.46, p < .002). no significant correlation was found between pda total clinical severity and marital adjustment. el-baalbaki and colleagues (2011) were also interested in marital interactions as a predictor of panic and agoraphobia symptom severity. comparable to the results of marcaurelle and colleagues (2005) described above, they found significant negative correlations between das and catastrophic thoughts (r = -.46, p < .01), fear of bodily sensations (r = -.31, p < .05), and fear of consequences of anxiety (r = -.49, p < .01). however, peter, hand, and wilke (1993) found no association between agoraphobic severity, as measured by the fq, and das scores. in their study, lange and van dyck (1992) utilized the interactional problem solving inventory (ipsi), which is a self-report questionnaire that measures the extent to which partners are satisfied with their problem-solving abilities. they did not find any significant correlation between relationship quality and agoraphobic severity before treatment, except for the avoidance of busy streets subscale of the fas-ir (r = -.29, p < .10). however, the significance level was set at .10 and there is no mention of whether or not the test was one-tailed or twotailed. finally, tukel (1995) divided his 45 participants with pda into three subgroups, those of housewives, working women, and working men. participants were assessed on severity of pda (fq) and quality of marital relationship (mmq). results indicated a significant positive correlation between severity of pda and quality of marital relationship for housewives (r = .61, p = .04). no significant correlations were found for the other subgroups (r = .15, p > .05 for working women; r = .10, p > .05 for working men). observational measures — two studies included an observational measure of the interaction between patients and their relatives. chambless and colleagues (2002) were interested in the marital interaction between couples in which one partner has pda and a control group. they used the kategoriensystem für parnerschaftliche interaktion (kpi), which is a system used to code a problem-solving interaction between two partners. during analysis of the interaction, each meaningful unit of speech is assigned a verbal and non-verbal code (e.g. positive, negative, or neutral). the authors found that panic frequency was not significantly related to any self-reported marital variables. however, they demonstrated that husbands whose wives were more social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 266 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ avoidant engaged in a higher rate of negative verbal behavior (r = .44, p < .006) and were more critical (r = .35, p < .031) during the problem-solving interaction. the renneberg and colleagues’ study (2002), described in a section above, also used the kpi. they did not find a significant difference between marital adjustment and severity of panic or agoraphobic symptoms. el-baalbaki and colleagues (2011) used a different observational measure, the global couple interaction coding system (gcis). it also evaluates partners during a problem-solving situation but it evaluates each partner on five components of their verbal and non-verbal marital interaction. the five components are divided into three negative dimensions: (a) avoidance of and withdrawal from the discussion, (b) dominance, asymmetry in the control of the conversation, and (c) hostility, criticism, and conflict; and two positive dimensions: (a) support and validation, which reflect active listening and warmth, and (b) problem-solving skills. behaviors are rated according to four levels of severity (absent, mild, moderate, excessive). the authors found many significant correlations between aspects of the interaction and symptoms of panic and agoraphobia. indeed, spouse’s criticism and hostility were positively correlated with fears of bodily sensations (r = .31, p < .05) and catastrophic thoughts (r = .39, p < .01). spouse’s dominance was also positively correlated with these two variables (r = .29, p < .05 and r = .38, p < .01, respectively). spouse’s support-valid action was negatively correlated with pda clinical severity (r = -.26, p < .05), catastrophic thoughts (r = -.31, p < .05), and agoraphobic avoidance (when accompanied; r = -.31, p < .05). spouse’s problem-solving skills and clarification/ negotiation were negatively associated with agoraphobic avoidance (when accompanied; r = -.26, p < .05). lastly, quality of solutions by the spouse was negatively associated with fear of bodily sensations (r = -.25, p < .05). for further information, refer to table 6. table 6 description of studies examining the association between marital adjustment and pd/a author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of marital adjustment results 1 arrindell, emmelkamp& sanderman 1986 23 pda patients and their partner 23 women clinical interview fq, phobic anxiety and phobic avoidance ratings by therapist and independent observer clinical interview by an independent assessor, and mmq no significant correlation between any measure of pda severity and measures of marital quality (all ps > .02). 2 chambless 1985 378 pda patients 64 men, 314 women diagnostic interview mi mdq no statistical correlation between mdq and severity of agoraphobia (r = .10, p > .05, n = 74) or frequency of panic attacks (t = -.10, p > .05, n =108) 3 chambless et al. 2002 22 pda patients and their partner 22 women scid-i mia kpi husbands whose wives were more avoidant engaged in a higher rate of negative verbal behavior (r = .44, p = .006) and were more critical (r = .35, p = .031). panic frequency was not significantly related to any marital variable. palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 267 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of marital adjustment results 4 cobb, mathews, childs-clarke, & blowers 1984 19 agoraphobic patients and their partner 4 men, 15 women diagnostic interview fq mmmq no assciation between the initial severity of marital problems and the severity of agoraphobia. 5 el-baalbaki et al. 2011 65 pda patients and their partner 19 men, 46 women adis-iv-l acq, adiscsr, asi, bsq, mia das and gcis pda severity correlated negatively with positive behaviors and positively with negative behaviors during the problem-solving interaction. marital adjustment, as reported by pda patients, was correlated with bsq (r = -.31, p < .05), acq (r = -.46, p < .01), and asi (r = -.49, p < .01) scores. 6 lange & van dyck 1992 25 pda patients ns ns fas-ir and fq ipsi no significant correlation between agoraphobic severity and problem solving. 7 marcaurelle, bélanger, marchand, katerelos, & mainguy 2005 67 pda patients 23 men, 44 women adis-iv-l adis-csr, asi, bsq, mia das marital adjustment was associated with acq (r = -.48, p < .0001), bsq (r = -.33; p < .007) and asi (r = -.46, p < .002) scores. 8 monteiro, marks, ramm 1985 27 agoraphobic patients 4 men, 23 women ns fq mmmq subjects with good and less good marriages did not differ at pretreatment on agoraphobic severity. 9 peter, hand, & wilke 1993 25 agoraphobic patients and their partner 3 men, 22 women evaluation by a psychiatrist, according to dsm-iii criteria fq das no association between severity of agoraphobia and marital adjustment. 10 renneberg chambless, fydrich, & goldstein 2002 35 pda patients and 35 significant others (26 spouses, 9 parents) 12 men, 23 women scid-i mia and panic frequency/week kpi groups of affect-balanced versus affect-unbalanced dyads did not differ at pretreatment on measures of agoraphobia and panic (t-tests, all ps > .17). 11 tukel 1995 45 pda patients 15 men, 30 women dsm-iii criteria fq mmq quality of relationship was positively correlated with pda severity for housewives (r = .61, p = .04). no other significant correlation. note. acq = agoraphobic cognitions questionnaire; adis-iv-l = anxiety disorders interview schedule, lifetime version; adis-csr = anxiety disorders interview scheduleclinician severity rating; asi = anxiety sensitivity inventory; bsq = body sensations questionnaire; das = dyadic adjustment scale; fas = fear and avoidance scalesinterviewer rated; fmss = five-minute speech sample; fss = fear survey schedule; fq = fear questionnaire; gcis = global couple interaction coding system; ipsi = interactional problem solving inventory; kpi = kategoriensystem für partnerschaftliche interaktion (interaction coding system); lwmat = lock and wallace marital adjustment test; mi = mobility inventory; mia = mobility inventory for agoraphobia; mdq = marital dissatisfaction questionnaire; mmq = maudsley marital questionnaire; mmmq = modified maudsley marital questionnaire; mq = marital questionnaire; ns = not specified; pcs = perceived criticism scale; scid-i = structured clinical interview for dsm-iii-r disorders. social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 268 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the association between pd/a severity and expressed emotion two studies assessed the level of expressed emotion in relation to the severity of agoraphobia. peter and colleagues (1993) reported significant associations between the severity of agoraphobia and the critics and emotional warmth subscales of the cfi (critics: r = .55, p < .01; emotional warmth: r = -.56, p < .01). in rodde and florin's (2002) study, 46 participants with pd/a and their partner were included. however, only results for 32 couples were reported (14 couples dropped out). expressed emotion status was assessed with the fiveminute speech sample (fmss), a five-minute monologue during which the partner is asked to talk about the patient and their relationship. there were no significant associations between expressed emotion status and fear of bodily sensations (bsq). for a summary, see table 7. table 7 description of studies examining the association between expressed emotion and pd/a author(s) year participants patients’ gender diagnostic measure measure(s) of severity measure(s) of expressed emotion results 1 peter, hand, & wilke 1993 25 agoraphobic patients and their partner 3 men, 22 women evaluation by a psychiatrist, according to dsm-iii criteria fq cfi severity was positively associated with criticism (r = .55, p < .01) and negatively with emotional warmth (r = -.56, p < .01) as perceived by the patient. 2 rodde & florin 2002 32 pd/a patients and their partner 12 men, 20 women dsm-iii criteria bsq fmss no significant association (statistics not provided by authors from original study). note. bsq = body sensations questionnaire; cfi = camberwell family interview; fq = fear questionnaire discussion ocd studies suffering from ocd can create major changes in the dynamics of an intimate relationship and the family. results presented above generally demonstrate that the level of support influence the severity of ocd. indeed, all but one study assessing family accommodation found significant results, indicating that the more accommodation behaviors performed by the relatives, the more severe the ocd symptoms. both metaanalyses also found a positive association between family accommodation and ocd severity. however, half of the sample of studies in the strauss et al. (2015) meta-analysis were studies on pediatric ocd. given that the authors did not examine the effect of age, it cannot be concluded that results would have been the same for adult patients only. although family members wish to alleviate the burden on the patients by modifying their habits and participating in the rituals, their behaviors seem to maintain and contribute to the severity of the disorder by favouring avoidance by the patients. it is also interesting to note that the authors of this study consider accommodation as a specific measure of social support because it is considered as support that is directly linked to the symptoms of ocd. a systematic review by fredette and colleagues (2016) also found that ptsd specific measures of social support tended to be more associated with the outcome of cognitive behavioral therapy than global measures of support. results relating to expressed emotion and ocd severity are mixed. cherian and palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 269 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ colleagues (2014) found that the level of criticism influenced ocd severity so that victims with relatives who are more critical of them seem to experience more severe symptoms. van noppen and steketee (2009) tested a model combining accommodation and measures of expressed emotion. criticism was indeed correlated to the severity of ocd. however, measures of expressed emotion did not predict severity when accommodation was considered. this latter result supports the other studies, which found a robust link between accommodation and ocd severity. finally, marital adjustment also seems to be associated with ocd severity, so that a better quality of relationship between partners is correlated with less severe symptoms. these results are based on two studies. pd/a studies studies analyzing the association between social or marital support and the severity of pd/a present mixed results. researches using measures of social support seem to indicate that people with good support, either in terms of their perception of the quality of their support or the size of their network, present less severe symptoms. concerning marital adjustment, results are mixed and the methods used were diverse. nine studies used self-reported measures, from which two found that better marital adjustment was negatively correlated with symptoms of panic and agoraphobia. interestingly, these two studies used the same questionnaire, the das, and found strikingly similar results. another study found a difference between satisfied and unsatisfied dyads on measures of symptom severity. however, significance was not assessed. surprisingly, one study (tukel, 1995) also found that marital adjustment between housewives with pda and their spouses was positively correlated with severity of disorder. there were no significant correlations between marital adjustment and pda severity among working men and women. these results may be understood using the assortative mating hypothesis, which suggests that partners choose each other on the basis of perceived attributes (hafner, 1977). for example, a woman with agoraphobia who has dependent traits may choose a partner with more dominant traits. both partners would thus benefit from a dynamic where the husband endorses more responsibilities and takes care of his agoraphobic wife. given that improvement in agoraphobic symptoms would lead to more autonomy from the wife and break this dynamic, it may also lead to a decline in marital satisfaction for both partners. thus, it is possible that housewives and their husbands are more likely to have these attributes that allow them to benefit from an agoraphobic dynamic, in comparison to working men and women. however, when patients are not distinguished according to their working status, most results seem to indicate that level of marital adjustment, as assessed by self-reported questionnaires, is not associated with the severity of panic and agoraphobic symptoms. given that marital adjustment is a concept that is larger than marital support, it would be interesting to create more specific measures of marital support in order to eliminate factors that are not directly in link with support (e.g. sexuality). three studies also assessed marital adjustment with observational measures, two of which found significant results. these results indicated that negative social support (e.g. criticism and dominance) is associated with more severe symptoms while positive support (e.g. proposing positive solutions) is associated with less severe symptoms. however, one other study (renneberg et al., 2002) found no significant differences between balanced-affected and unbalanced-affected dyads on measures of panic and agoraphobia severity. in order to understand the latter result, we performed statistical analyses to determine the effect sizes and statistical power, using descriptive data from table 2 in the original article. effect sizes were calculated between the social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 270 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ balancedand unbalanced-affected dyads on measures of agoraphobia and panic frequency. a medium effect size (cohen’s d = .48) was found for panic frequency. however, statistical power was low (27%), hence one cannot conclude that results between the two groups on measures of panic frequency are equivalent. more studies would thus be needed to have a clearer picture. finally, two studies analyzed the link between expressed emotion and severity of pd/a. in the first study (peter et al., 1993), it was found that criticism was negatively associated with the symptomatology of pd/a. also, positive aspects of support were assessed with the cfi, and it was found that emotional warmth was associated with less severe symptoms. given that expressed emotion assesses relatives’ attitudes and behaviors toward the patient’s illness, it is considered a specific measure of social support. as reported for the results concerning ocd, the specific way people deal with their partner’s symptoms seems to be correlated with the severity of the symptomatology. in the second study (rodde & florin, 2002), no significant association was found between expressed emotion and the severity of pd/a. however, no statistics were presented, which makes it difficult to draw conclusions. conclusion results presented in this systematic review generally indicate that social and marital support is associated with the severity of ocd and pd/a, which supports our hypotheses. indeed, negative social support seems to be associated with more severe symptoms whereas positive social support might be beneficial for people suffering from ocd or pd/a. these results stress the importance of relatives in helping people recover from their illness. living with someone suffering from a mental illness can be difficult for the relatives, as they might not know how to support or react to the patient’s behaviors. thus, solutions such as integrating the relatives in the therapy as well as providing them with tools (e.g. psychoeducation, personalized therapy for the relatives) on how to deal with the symptoms of the disorder might be beneficial to both the patient and the relatives. however, more studies would be needed to assess the level of support, using both observational and self-report measures of social support, as well as more specific measures as they seem to be more strongly correlated with the severity of ocd and pd/a. moreover, studies that assess and compare both the negative and positive forms of social support would be interesting, since negative social support has been found to be more strongly correlated with symptom severity in a study of post-traumatic stress disorder (zoellner, foa, & brigidi, 1999). to conclude, this systematic review has some limitations. indeed, the wide spectrum of questionnaires used by different researchers rendered it difficult to compare studies adequately. moreover, the authors of the present study did not always have full access to the description of the questionnaires, which at times made it necessary to infer their content (e.g. mdq). moreover, the authors decided to cover a broad spectrum of concepts relating to social support (e.g. accommodation and marital adjustment) in order to render this systematic review as exhaustive as possible. readers need to keep this in mind when interpreting the results. in order to compensate for this, the authors tried to only present results pertaining to social support when it was possible. for example, only fas total scores and results of the participation in the rituals subscale were used, since other subscales concerning the impact of accommodation on relatives were not manifestations of social support as it was defined in this review. also, results concerning emotional over-involvement were left out, since it is not included in our definition of social support. finally, some studies had limited statistics, which makes the interpretation of their results difficult. palardy, el-baalbaki, fredette et al. 271 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank ike bedikyan, linda kwakkenbos and yue zhao for their precious help with articles written in turkish, german and chinese, respectively. references abbey, r. d. 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(2007). correlations of quality of life with adverse effects of medication, social support, course of illness, psychopathology, and demographic characteristics in patients with panic disorder. depression and anxiety, 24(8), 563-570. doi:10.1002/da.20239 young, b. (1997). marital and sexual satisfaction among panic disordered women (doctoral thesis, the chicago school of professional psychology, ann arbor, mi, usa). available from proquest dissertations and theses database. (dp21278) zaider, t. i., heimberg, r. g., & iida, m. (2010). anxiety disorders and intimate relationships: a study of daily processes in couples. journal of abnormal psychology, 119(1), 163-173. doi:10.1037/a0018473 zoellner, l. a., foa, e. b., & brigidi, b. d. (1999). interpersonal friction and ptsd in female victims of sexual and nonsexual assault. journal of traumatic stress, 12(4), 689-700. doi:10.1023/a:1024777303848 about the authors véronique palardy is a ph.d candidate in psychology. her principal interests are anxiety disorders and personality disorders. ghassan el-baalbaki is a professor at université du québec à montréal. he also is an adjunct professor at mcgill university, and is clinical psychologist. his various interests include anxiety and mood disorders, personality disorders, health psychology, and marital relationships. catherine fredette is a ph.d candidate in psychology. her research interests are primarily anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. elias rizkallah is a professor at université du québec à montréal. his study interests are social and cultural representations as well as social sciences methodology. stéphane guay is a professor at université de montréal. he is also director of fernand-séguin research center (institut université en santé mentale de montréal). his research is focused on post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders and relationships. social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review 286 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 254–286 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1252 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.03.003 http://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000165 http://doi.org/10.1002/da.20239 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0018473 http://doi.org/10.1023/a:1024777303848 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ social support and ocd/pda severity: a systematic review (introduction) social support marital adjustment expressed emotion accommodation objectives and hypotheses method selection of articles inclusion/exclusion criteria selection procedure results support and ocd severity support and pd/a severity discussion ocd studies pd/a studies conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors can the factor structure of defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) contribute to our understanding of parental acceptance/rejection, bullying, victimization and perceived well-being in greek early adolescents? research reports can the factor structure of defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) contribute to our understanding of parental acceptance/rejection, bullying, victimization and perceived well-being in greek early adolescents? theodoros giovazolias* a, evangelia karagiannopoulou b, effrosyni mitsopoulou c [a] department of psychology, university of crete, crete, greece. [b] department of philosophy, education and psychology, university of ioannina, ioannina, greece. [c] department of psychology, university of southampton, southampton, united kingdom. abstract defense style questionnaire (dsq) is a self-report instrument designed to measure defense mechanisms. although commonly used, the dsq-40 has not been validated in early adolescent populations. the present study sought to determine the factor validity of the dsq-40 in a sample of greek primary school students (n = 265). further, it aimed to investigate the relationship between defense mechanisms and perceived parental acceptance/rejection, the participation in bullying (either as bully or victim) as well as self-reported well being. participants completed the greek version of dsq-40, adapted for use by this particular age group as well as measures in order to examine its convergent and discriminant validity. the findings support a four-factor solution as the most adequate for our data. further, it was found that defense mechanisms are related to perceived parental acceptance and rejection. finally, the results showed that the dsq-40 can effectively discriminate participants with high/low bullying/victimization and perceived well-being. our results indicate that the dsq-40 is appropriate for use in late childhood. implications for clinical practice and future studies that would confirm the appropriateness of the scale’s use in younger populations are also discussed. keywords: defense style questionnaire (dsq-40), parental acceptance/rejection, bullying, well-being, factor structure europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 received: 2015-12-04. accepted: 2016-12-24. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, usa *corresponding author at: department of psychology, school of social sciences, university of crete, rethymno, 74100, greece. e-mail: giovazot@uoc.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. anna freud (1966, p. 5) defined defense mechanisms as “the ways and means by which the ego wards off unpleasure and anxiety, and exercises control over impulsive behavior, affect and instinctive urges”. the concept of defense mechanisms is a useful heuristic in both clinical and research contexts (andrews, singh, & bond, 1993). up to date, the concept dominates mainly in psychopathology and psychiatric research on adults. the exploration of the psychometric properties of the relevant scales in young age samples is limited and mainly reported in the discrimination between clinical and non-clinical samples. in spite of cramer’s comprehensive studies (cramer, 2007), only recently there is an increasing interest in the influence of defense mechanisms on children and adolescents’ psychological adjustment. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the origins of the quantitative measurement of defense styles dates back to vaillant’s (1971, 1976) seminal studies, who used a hierarchy of defenses and reported that mature defenses were positively correlated and immature defenses negatively correlated with an objective measure of life success. bond, gardner, christian, and sigal (1983) taking into account vaillant’s hierarchical model, suggested an immaturity-maturity continuum and developed a self-report measure, the 67-item defense style questionnaire (dsq-67); the principal aim was the assessment of possible conscious aspects of defense mechanisms, with the underlying intention “to elicit manifestations of a subject’s characteristic style of dealing with conflict, either conscious or unconscious, based on the assumption that persons can accurately comment on their behaviour from a distance” (bond et al., 1983, p. 334). the dsq-67 discriminated between psychiatric patients and normal subjects, with patients reporting more immature defense mechanisms. the self-report methodology and the construct validity of the instrument was supported by a study in which scores of the dsq were correlated with clinical assessments (vaillant, bond, & vaillant, 1986). the 67-item dsq ended up to a revised 88-item version developed by bond and vaillant (1986). the latest version was modified by andrews, pollock, and stewart (1989) according to dsm-iii-r; they suggested a 72-item version which included 20 defenses loading on three factors, labeled mature, neurotic and immature. this version was further modified to a short 40-item questionnaire corresponding to 20 defense mechanisms which were organized into three second order factors: mature, neurotic, immature. the 40-item dsq has proved to be a valid and reliable instrument with moderate to high cronbach α values, split-half reliability, test-retest reliability and item-scale correlations and has been used in a range of studies (carvalho et al., 2013). the factor structure of the instrument in adults suggests a four-factor solution although the findings are inconsistent (andrews, pollock, & stewart, 1989). cramer (2015) suggests that: (a) different defense mechanisms predominate at different points in the development and (b) each defense mechanism has its own developmental history, and that each defense has its own time of emerging predominance, which is followed by the decline of that defense at subsequent developmental periods. she identified significant differences in denial, projection and identification between age 11 and age 18. although this work has indicated that defense mechanisms protect children from psychological distress, most of the studies have focused on late adolescents-emerging adults. indeed, a great number of recent studies focus either on university students (e.g. saint-martin, valls, rousseau, callahan, & chabrol, 2013) or late adolescents (lewis & white, 2009). studies in adolescent populations employ the dsq-40 because of its practical use and theoretical underpinnings (pour, nezhad, sabooni, & mir ahmadi, 2011; ruuttu et al., 2006). research has indicated that defense styles measured by the dsq-40 are associated with psychological adjustment and psychopathology (pour et al., 2011) with positive associations between immature defenses and maladjustment to dominate in adolescent samples (lewis & white, 2009). studies exploring the factor structure of dsq present altered versions revealing, three (muris et al., 2003), four (ruuttu et al., 2006) or five (saint-martin et al., 2013) factors. however, none of these versions has been used widely. bond suggests (personal communication) the use of the dsq-40 in late childhood and adolescence simply pointing out the need for some items to be appropriately reworded. the psychometric properties of the dsq-40 have not been widely explored in younger populations, apart from a fine-grained study carried out by ruuttu and colleagues (2006). in a sample of 211 adolescent psychiatric outpatients aged 13-19years and 199 defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 270 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ age-matched and gender-matched controls they yielded four factors corresponding to four defense styles: mature, neurotic, image-distorting and immature, and suggested the dsq-40 as a reliable and valid instrument for this age group. given that previous research has confirmed that defense mechanisms are associated with individual characteristics and psychological adjustment, perceived parenting as well as experiences with bullying and victimization and perceived psychological well being, these constructs have also been used in the present study to investigate the convergent and divergent validity of the dsq. research has suggested that perceived parental rejection and indifference is associated with the use of more immature defense mechanisms (duboiscomtois & moss, 2008). fonagy (2008) links defensive patterns of behavior with bullying, making links to attachment theory and youell (2006) fits bullying into the psychological account of splitting and projection. further, it has been shown that bullies often use projection in an attempt to escape from their own ‘painful’ experienced emotions (white, 2004), whereas victimized children seem to employ more defense mechanisms such as isolation, autistic fantasy (cilliers, 2012). lastly, studies have linked immature defense mechanisms with the development of various psychological difficulties such as anxiety and depression (blaya et al., 2007) as well as impaired self-esteem (zeigler-hill, chadha, & osterman, 2008). the shortage of studies using the dsq-40 in early adolescents indicate the need for further exploration of the appropriateness of the use of dsq-40 for this age group (cramer, 2007). furthermore, a range of greek studies have explored the psychometric properties of the dsq-88 and its associations with health/treatment dimensions in adults with particular medical illnesses (hyphantis, 2010). however, no study has explored the psychometric properties of the dsq-40 in younger populations (i.e. early adolescents). the aim of the present study is to explore (a) the factorial structure of dsq-40 (b) to identify the internal consistency of the factors (sub-scales) emerged from the exploration of the factor structure of the questionnaire, as well as its convergent validity and (c) to test whether the defensive styles emerged from the factor analysis could differentiate individuals according to their gender and age as well as to the extent they get involved in bullying and victimization and the level of their self-reported well-being. method participants two hundred and sixty-five children and early adolescents took part in this study, of which 133 (50.2%) were boys and 132 (49.8%) were girls. the sample includes 105 (39.5%) fifth grade students, and161 (61.5%) sixth grade students (mage = 11.19, sd = .66). the students come from different schools of athens, crete and ioannina, greece. measures the defense style questionnaire (dsq; andrews et al., 1993) is a self-report inventory that measures specific defense mechanisms in terms of dsm-iv concepts. dsq comprises of 40 items in a 9-point likert format that derive scores for 20 defense mechanisms, two items for each. these mechanisms are organized in four subfactors (immature, mature, image-distorting and neurotic), often referred to as defense styles. scores for giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 271 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ defense mechanisms and defense styles are formed by averaging the ratings for relevant items. all dsq items were translated in greek, and blindly back-translated by native english speakers. perceived parental acceptance and rejection was measured with the parental acceptance-rejection questionnaire– child version (parq_child, rohner, 2005). participants responded to two versions of the child parq, assessing their perceptions of maternal (parq_mother) and paternal (parq_father) acceptancerejection, respectively. both versions of the parq are translated and adapted into greek (papadaki & giovazolias, 2015; tsaousis, giovazolias, & mascha, 2012). higher scores in these scales indicate higher perceived parental acceptance. both scales (paternal, maternal) had high reliability with α = .93 and α = .92, respectively. the participants also completed the peer experiences questionnaire (peq; vernberg, jacobs, & hershberger, 1999), translated and adapted by giovazolias, kourkoutas, mitsopoulou, and georgiadi (2010) including two 9items subscales: victimization of self (vs) (e.g., “another student bothered me in a mean way”; 9 items) and victimization of others (vo). in the present study internal consistency estimates for individual subscales were: vs = .84 and vo = .86. we measured psychological adjustment with the psychological well-being scale (diener & biswas-diener, 2008). the psychological well-being scale (pwb) consists of eight items describing important aspects of human functioning ranging from positive relationships, to feelings of competence, to having meaning and purpose in life. high scores signify that respondents view themselves in very positive terms in diverse areas of functioning. the reliability for this study was high (α = .84). procedure the administration of the questionnaires took place in participants’ classrooms, during ordinary class sessions and lasted approximately twenty minutes. issues of anonymity and confidentiality were particularly highlighted, along with the voluntary participation in the study. permission to conduct the research was granted by the greek ministry of education. there was no payment or other incentive to participate in the study. after the completion of the questionnaires, children were debriefed and thanked for their participation. the data were collected during the 2013 spring semester. eventually, they were encoded, transferred, and analyzed with spss 21, at the university of crete. data analyses exploratory factor analyses (efa) was utilized instead of principal components analysis (pca). previous studies used pca to reduce correlated observed variables to a smaller set of independent composite variables (park, dailey, & lemus, 2002), however we chose efa for the following reasons: a. we wanted to test a previous theoretical model of latent factors underlying the variables observed b. we presumed correlated latent factors. therefore, a geomin (oblique) instead of a quartimax (orthogonal) rotation criterion was chosen c. efa is conceptually more realistic in identifying common factors. regarding the examination of other psychometric characteristics, we used correlations coefficient to test the dsq internal consistency. we also used pearson’s correlations to examine both the construct validity (i.e. defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 272 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ correlation coefficients between each of the four dsq-40 defense styles) and the convergent validity of the measure with other constructs (i.e. parental acceptance-rejection, psychological well-being and bullying/ victimization). we also examined the measure’s discriminant validity by testing gender and age differences (independent samples t-test) in the use of defenses. moreover, we investigated the ability of dsq to distinguish different groups of individuals, using logistic regression in order to predict participants’ self-reported well-being as well as their participation in bullying acts, either as bullies or victims. the allocation of participants in the high/low groups was made using median split analysis (high group = +1sd, low group = -1sd, respectively). results exploratory factor analysis (efa) the dsq-40 items were submitted to efa, to determine factor structure using the mean scores for each defense. geomin oblique rotation was employed. we used the mean-and variance-adjusted weighted least square (wlsmv) estimator in mplus 6 because both the univariate and multivariate normality of the data were not met (muthén & muthén, 2007). the goal was to see how the 20 individual defenses loaded onto factors, commonly referred to as defense styles. to determine the number of factors, we examined the goodness of fit for each proposed model based on criteria of goodness of fit, interpretability of the solution, and strength of parameter estimators. first, we examined the goodness of fit (root mean square of approximation-rmsea; root mean squared residual-srmr; comparative fit index-cfi), for each proposed model (oneto four-factor models). the findings supported a four-factor solution as most adequate for our data (table 1). table 1 summary of goodness of fit statistics for efa contrasting alternative models of dsq-40 model χ2(df) rmsea cfi tli srmr model 1: 1 factor – 20 defenses 426(170)*** .076 .685 .648 .079 model 2: 2 factor – 20 defenses 276(151)*** .057 .846 .806 .054 model 3: 3 factor – 20 defenses 175(133)*** .035 .947 .925 .039 model 4: 4 factor – 20 defenses 136(116)*** .026 .974 .958 .033 note. cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; srmr = standardized root mean square residual. ***p < .001. second, we examined the eigenvalues. the kaiser (1960) criterion, which recommends that the number of factors be equivalent to the number of eigenvalues greater than 1, suggested five factors. eigenvalues were 4.20 for the first and 1.12 for the fifth factor. next, we examined the scree plot as proposed by cattell (1966) as a graphical method for determining the number of factors. cattell recommended retaining all eigenvalues in the sharp descent before the point at which the plot begins to level off. the plot suggested that a model with four factor solution was most appropriate for consideration. giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 273 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lastly, we considered the interpretability of the results by examining the factor pattern loadings (table 2). table 2 exploratory factor analysis pattern coefficient matrix (4-factor model) defense style mature immature image-distorting neurotic suppression .18 (.22) sublimation (.18) (.19) humor .46 rationalization (.34) anticipation .53 (.37) projection .33 passive aggression .53 autistic fantasy .10 (.41) somatization .52 displacement .45 acting out .61 reaction formation .30 undoing .50 idealization .54 pseudo-altruism .65 denial .75 dissociation .60 devaluation .42 isolation .34 splitting .66 note. in parentheses we present the cross-loadings and in italics are the retained loadings on factors 1 and 2. in bold we present meaningful factor loadings (i.e. >.20). with regard to item selection for the four factors, factor loadings >.20 were considered meaningful. some defenses appeared to have double loadings on one or two factors (i.e., loadings of greater than .20) and were not interpretable on its factor and were excluded. on the basis of those criteria, two defenses were excluded; sublimation (mature factor), and realization (mature factor) had loadings on different factors than the original and it was difficult to interpret them. however, we retained two defenses: suppression (mature), and autisticfantasy (immature). the first had a double loading on two factors (with loadings of .18 and .22 on factors 1 and 3 respectively), but the first loading was sensible because of the defense’s nature. the second defense style had also a cross-loading more than .20, but an acceptable correlation with factor 2 (.40) and it was more interpretable to use it on this factor (immature). internal consistency dsq-40 psychometric characteristics (cronbach’s alpha values and defenses correlations are presented in table 3) suggested satisfactory reliability for the four dsq defense styles. defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 274 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 internal consistency indices for the four subscales of the greek-adapted version of dsq-40 (ν = 265) factor number of items cronbach’s α item-total correlations (range) 1. mature 3 .58 .31-.33 2. immature 7 .75 .42-.55 3. image-distorting 4 .61 .30-.49 4. neurotic 4 .60 .29-.43 construct validity table 4 presents the correlation coefficients between each of the four dsq-40 defense styles. the intercorrelations range from .20 (between image-distorting and neurotic style) to .62 (between immature and image-distorting style). table 4 means, standard deviations and inter-correlations among study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. parq_f 83.53 11.09 2. parq_m 86.12 11.18 .62** 3. mature 55.65 11.98 .08 .19** 4. immature 44.40 17.15 -.29** -.18** .29** 5. neurotic 44.37 11.10 .14* .18** .37** .25** 6. image-distorting 41.63 13.51 -.27** -.18** .35** .62** .20** 7. bullying 11.76 4.34 -.32** -.34** -.08 .21** -.04 .18** 8. victimization 14.62 6.00 -.31** -.24** -.13* .28** .05 .18** .55** 9. well-being 46.94 7.42 .47** .50** .20** -.22** .17** -.07 -.31** -.30** note. parq_f = paternal acceptance. parq_m = maternal acceptance. *p < .05. **p < .01. convergent validity the results in table 4 show that the mature factor was positively associated with psychological well-being whereas the neurotic factor was positively associated with paternal acceptance and psychological well-being. finally, the immature factor was negatively associated with both paternal and maternal acceptance and with psychological well being. discriminant validity we also compared use of defenses between genders; girls reported less use of mature and image-distorting styles than did boys. on the individual defenses, girls reported more use of reaction formation, but less anticipation, denial, and dissociation. further, we compared the use of defenses between participants of the 5th and the 6th grade. we found that 5th graders scored higher in the neurotic factor and less use in the immature factor. with regards to specific defenses, it was found that 5th graders scored higher in anticipation, pseudoaltruism and idealization, whereas 6th graders scored higher in passive aggression, displacement, dissociation, splitting and rationalization. giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 275 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as discriminant validity indicates also the ability of a scale to distinguish different groups of individuals, we performed three separate logistic regression analyses (see table 5) to investigate whether individual scores in the four defense styles (immature, mature, image-distorting and neurotic) could predict: a) the levels of selfreported psychological well-being, b) the participation in bullying behaviours and c) the experience of victimization. table 5 logistic regressions for the prediction of psychological well-being (pwb), bullying and victimization from dsq-40 sub-scales predicting variable predictor b se odds ratio 95% ci wald statistic pwb immature -.055 .02 .95 0.92-0.98 11.16*** mature .055 .02 1.06 1.02-1.10 7.06** image-distorting -.002 .02 1.00 0.96-1.04 -.001 neurotic .043 .02 1.05 1.00-1.09 3.98* bullying immature .040 .01 1.04 1.01-1.06 10.11*** mature -.009 .01 .99 0.96-1.02 -.364 image-distorting .024 .02 1.02 0.99-1.06 2.23 neurotic -.037 .02 .96 0.93-0.99 5.37** victimization immature .070 .02 1.07 1.03-1.12 11.70*** mature -.081 .02 .09 0.88-0.97 10.89*** image-distorting .009 .02 1.01 0.96-1.06 -.150 neurotic .018 .02 1.02 0.97-1.07 -.589 note. pwb = psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in the first analysis, it was found that immature, mature, image-distorting and neurotic factors were entered as predictor variables and psychological well-being as predicting variable. a test of the full model with the four predictors was statistically reliable, [χ2(4) = 26.20, p < .001], indicating that, as a set, the predictors reliably distinguished between high-level (hl) and low-level (ll) individuals in perceived psychological well-being. the variance in the hl status accounted for was large, with nagelkerke r2 = .39. prediction was good, with 62.1% of hl individuals and 78.3% of ll individuals correctly being predicted, for an overall success rate of 71.1%, while predictive values positive (sensitivity) and negative (sphericity) were 73% and 69%, respectively. table 5 shows the regression coefficient, wald statistic, and odds ratio for each of the three predictors. according to the wald criterion, the immature, the mature and the neurotic scores predicted hl status. this finding implies that the odds ratios of these predictors (.95, 1.06 and 1.04, respectively) show a great change in the likelihood of the individual demonstrating high levels of well-being on the basis of one unit change in these variables (i.e., immature, mature and neurotic factors). in the second analysis, we entered again the immature, mature, image-distorting and neurotic factors as predictor variables and bullying as predicting variable. a test of the full model with the four predictors was statistically reliable, χ2(4) = 32.19, p < .001, indicating that, as a set, the predictors reliably distinguished between hl and ll individuals in participation in bullying behaviours. the variance in the hl status accounted for was moderate, with nagelkerke r2 = .25. prediction was good, with 82.3% of hl individuals and 66.8% of ll individuals correctly being predicted, for an overall success rate of 75.4%, while predictive values positive defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 276 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (sensitivity) and negative (sphericity) were 75% and 77%, respectively. according to the wald criterion, the immature, and the neurotic scores predicted hl status. this finding implies that the odds ratios of these predictors (1.04, and .96, respectively) show a great change in the likelihood of the individual demonstrating high levels of bullying behaviours on the basis of one unit change in these variables (i.e., immature and neurotic factors). lastly, in the third analysis, we entered again the four dsq factors as predictor variables and victimization as predicting variable. a test of the full model with the four predictors was statistically reliable, χ2(4) = 34.57, p < .001, indicating that, as a set, the predictors reliably distinguished between hl and ll individuals in victimization. the variance in the hl status accounted for was large, with nagelkerke r2 = .38. prediction was good, with 80.9% of high-level individuals and 75.6% of low-level individuals correctly being predicted, for an overall success rate of 73.3%, while predictive values positive (sensitivity) and negative (sphericity) were 78% and 79%, respectively. according to the wald criterion, the immature, and the mature scores predicted hl status. this finding implies that the odds ratios of these predictors (1.07, and .92, respectively) show a great change in the likelihood of the individual demonstrating high levels of victimization on the basis of one unit change in these variables (i.e., immature and mature factors). discussion the study suggests that the dsq-40 is a valid and reliable instrument for use in late childhood/early adolescence. this instrument which was initially developed for adults seems, with minor phrasing changes, to be able to provide researchers and clinicians with valid information about children emotional maturityimmaturity styles, shedding light on their psychological adjustment. this suggestion is supported by appropriate scores found in different aspects of validity, tested in a non-clinical sample of greek children/early adolescents: construct validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity. to our knowledge, this is the first study exploring the psychometric properties of the dsq-40 in an early-aged sample. the present study failed to support the three factor solution suggested in the original study (andrews et al., 1993) with adults. the four factor structure comes out well, in spite of cross-loadings. cross-loadings also appear in studies with both adults (hyphantis, 2010) and adolescents (hayashi, miyake, & minakawa, 2004). the first factor consisted of three mature defenses: suppression, humor, anticipation often employed to reduce anxiety and distress. two defenses, sublimation and rationalization, failed to contribute to this factor. not having reached abstract thinking at this particular age possibly restricts the development of complex defense mechanisms. the second factor consists of immature defenses: projection, passive aggression, autistic fantasy, somatisation, displacement, and acting out. this factor involves maladaptive defense mechanisms, reported also by ruuttu et al. (2006), which very often appear in object relationships and dominate in clinical work, especially in psychoanalytic psychotherapy (e.g. youell, 2006). moreover, in consistency with previous studies (e.g. andrews et al., 1993; hyphantis, 2010; steiner et al., 2001), splitting gives a remarkable loading on this factor, although it is conceptually consistent with the third factor (image distorting). this factor differentiates from the third one, image-distorting, although they both depict immature personality patterns, in terms of actionorientation and image-orientation, respectively. the third factor, also in line with ruuttu et al. (2006), depicts an giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 277 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ image-distorting defense style. it comprises denial, dissociation, devaluation, isolation and splitting. the image distorting defenses, associated with borderline and narcissistic defenses (conte & plutchik, 1995) indicate coping that aims to distort self and object images to conform totally with a particular meaning or emotional state. the fourth factor comprises neurotic defenses indicating an intermediate defense style that appears more private comparing to immature (action-oriented) and image-distorting (image oriented) defenses. possibly, this is the reason of no cross-loadings (except the reaction formation) in this factor. the defense mechanisms loading on this factor are: reaction formation, undoing, idealization, pseudo-altruism. these are in line with those reported in the original study (andrews et al., 1993), and also in a range of studies in adolescents from different nationalities (hayashi et al., 2004). the four factors described above and the correlations amongst them support vaillant’s (1971) continuum from maturity to immaturity. concerning the internal consistency coefficients of the scale, the study supports previous findings reporting relatively low reliability coefficients for the mature defense style in both adults and adolescents but sufficient to high for the neurotic, immature and the image-distorting defense styles (karagiannopoulou, athanasopoulous, & hyphantis, 2015). perhaps, the lower alpha coefficients are affected by the fewer items comprising these two styles (zeigler-hill et al., 2008). nevertheless, all cronbach alphas were greater than 0.5, justifying the factorial structure of the four styles. overall, although our sample consists of children in late latency/early adolescence, our findings about the factor structure are consistent with the adult frontline studies (andrews et al., 1993; bond et al., 1983) and also with later studies in both adolescents and adults (e.g. sammallahti, holi, komulainen, & aalberg, 1996). our suggestion for two immature components corresponding to (immature/action-oriented and image-distortion/ image-oriented) possibly depicts the complexity of the states of mind associated with the latter part of latency (ten or eleven years) and those associated with the early part of puberty (twelve or thirteen years) (waddell, 2002). to our knowledge, the only recent study focusing on the factor structure of the dsq-40 (saint-martin et al., 2013) suggests a five factor structure depicting discrepancies with defense theory. the consistency of our findings with the only, comprehensive study on the exploration of the factor structure of the dsq-40 in adolescents (ruuttu et al., 2006), lends support to the appropriateness of this instrument for early adolescents. our study supports previous findings indicating links between defense mechanisms and adjustment problems, anxiety (e.g. blaya et al., 2007) parental acceptance/rejection (dubois-comtois & moss, 2008) and forms of children’s interaction with their parents (von der lippe, 2000). greater maturity of defense styles was associated with lower scores in bullying behaviours and with higher scores of psychological well-being and parental acceptance. these findings indicate meaningful strong associations mainly for the immature factor that was negatively related with parental and maternal acceptance and also with psychological well-being. it is suggested that mature defenses protect against bullying behaviours supported by a positive perception of psychological well-being and parental acceptance (fonagy, 2008). strength to this suggestion is lent by the negative relationship between immature defenses with well-being and parental acceptance. the study supports previous findings concerning gender differences in defense use. boys appear to use more mature and image-distorting defense mechanisms than girls. however, when focusing on particular defenses this was the case only for anticipation (previous studies indicate a higher score in suppression) while for two image-distorting defense mechanisms, namely denial and dissociation. possibly, boys fail to acknowledge some aspects of external reality (denial, dissociation) while girls seem to reside to less pathological defense defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 278 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mechanisms. this is possibly indicating either lower levels of stress for females of this age-range or a feminine defense in terms of changing the inner affect (cramer, 2007). interestingly, age differences were significant for defense styles, although the age range in the current sample was very small. latency (5th graders) implies a “quite” period without new upheavals but early adolescencepuberty (6th graders) seems to involve regression in the direction of infancy (waddell, 2002); internal conflicts and anxieties challenge internal structures and are met by a range of immature defense strategies. in particular, the 5th graders’ scored higher in two neurotic defenses: pseudoaltruism and idealization to sustain the self and on one mature defense: anticipation, indicating tolerance to future discomfort. moreover, the 6th grade students, in a possible attempt to bypass the complex and painful task of working through depressive anxieties (waddell, 2002), scored higher in three immature and one image-distorting defense, namely, passive aggression, displacement, splitting and dissociation, respectively. perhaps, intense anxieties and impulses stir in an intense need to displace and reside with passive aggression and splitting possibly strongly reinforced by the underlying oedipal fears (waddell, 2002); 6th graders avoid the recognition of some aspects of external reality to protect themselves from excessive anxieties, using dissociation. moreover, the study supports clinical findings suggesting emotional immaturity to be considered as a factor underlying both patterns of behavior; children’s involvement in high levels of both bullying behaviours and victimization was associated with the use of more immature defense mechanisms. also, mature defenses were associated with lower risk of victimization and neurotic defenses with lower risk of bullying possibly indicating that victims might be considered more emotionally mature than (fonagy, 2008). the study also supports associations between emotional maturity and psychological adjustment (benson & elder, 2011); children with higher levels of psychological well-being used more mature and less immature defense mechanisms. limitations – future directions in the present study, valid and widely used instruments provide evidence for the appropriateness of the adult version of the dsq-40 for use in late childhood-early adolescents. overall, this study supports the appropriateness of the use of the dsq-40 in early adolescence and provides important evidence to support the link of defense mechanisms with parental acceptance, psychological adjustment issues (both in the form of ivolvement in bullying behaviours and impaired well-being) as well as gender and age differences in the use of specific mechanisms. however, the study has some limitations. the study used a convenient sample, there was no comparison between clinical and non-clinical groups and the age range was small not allowing for direct comparisons with previous findings. also, our setting did not permit test-retest examination which would have provided a complete picture of the reliability of the dsq-40. the failure of sublimation and rationalization to contribute to the factor structure raises the need for future cross-sectional as well as longitudinal studies to test the contribution of these defenses in different age samples and also in clinical and non-clinical groups to further support the structure and the discriminant validity of the dsq-40 in late childhood. further, as we focused only on a greek sample, it would be interesting to extend this research to other cultural groups and compare how traditional ideas and cultural values among populations from various backgrounds can influence the use of defense styles in relation to the constructs explored in this study. giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 279 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. author contributions the first two authors have contributed equally to the paper. references andrews, g., pollock, c., & stewart, g. 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(2008). psychological defense and self-esteem instability: is defense style associated with unstable self-esteem? journal of research in personality, 42, 348-364. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.06.002 defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 282 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://doi.org/10.1097/01.nmd.0000198141.88926.2e http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.03.076 http://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.158.3.467 http://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1971.01750080011003 http://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1976.01770050003001 http://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1986.01800080072010 http://doi.org/10.1207/s15374424jccp280311 http://doi.org/10.1023/a:1005103926574 http://doi.org/10.1080/03069880410001723512 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2007.06.002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix: dsq-40_greek item no. original item greek item 1 ι get satisfaction from helping others and if this were taken away from me i would get depressed. με ευχαριστεί να βοηθάω τους άλλους και θα με λυπούσε πολύ αν μου το στερούσαν. 2 i'm able to keep a problem out of my mind until i have time to deal with it. μπορώ να βγάλω ένα πρόβλημα από το νου μου ώσπου να βρω χρόνο να ασχοληθώ με αυτό. 3 i work out my anxiety through doing something constructive and creative like painting or woodwork. εκτονώνω το άγχος μου κάνοντας κάτι εποικοδομητικό και δημιουργικό, όπως το να αθλούμαι, να παίζω μουσική ή να τακτοποιώ τα πράγματά μου κτλ. 4 i am able to find good reasons for everything i do. καταφέρνω να δικαιολογώ κάθε πράξη μου . 5 i'm able to laugh at myself pretty easily. μπορώ πολύ εύκολα να διασκεδάζω με τα λάθη μου (να σκέφτομαι τα λάθη μου και να γελώ). 6 people tend to mistreat me. νιώθω ότι οι άνθρωποι (έχουν την τάση να) μου φέρονται άσχημα. 7 if someone mugged me and stole my money, i'd rather he be helped than punished. αν κάποιος με λήστευε στο δρόμο, θα προτιμούσα να γίνουν προσπάθειες να βοηθηθεί παρά να τιμωρηθεί. 8 people say i tend to ignore unpleasant facts as if they didn't exist. οι άλλοι λένε πως έχω την τάση να αγνοώ (παραβλέπω) τα δυσάρεστα γεγονότα, σαν να μην έγιναν ποτέ. 9 i ignore danger as if i was superman. αψηφώ τον κίνδυνο σαν να ήμουν ο σούπερμαν. 10 i pride myself on my ability to cut people down to size. είμαι περήφανος/η για την ικανότητά μου να δείχνω στους ανθρώπους ότι δεν είναι τόσο σπουδαίοι όσο φαντάζονται. 11 i often act impulsively when something is bothering me. συχνά αντιδρώ παρορμητικά όταν κάτι με ενοχλεί. 12 i get physically ill when things aren't going well for me. μπορεί να αρρωστήσω όταν τα πράγματα δεν μου πηγαίνουν καλά. 13 i'm a very inhibited person. είμαι ένα πολύ συνεσταλμένο άτομο. 14 i get more satisfaction from my fantasies than from my real life. παίρνω περισσότερη ικανοποίησηαπό τις φαντασιώσεις μου απ’ ό,τι από την πραγματική μου ζωή. 15 i've special talents that allow me to go through life with no problems. έχω κάποιες ιδιαίτερες ικανότητες που μου επιτρέπουν να ζω χωρίς προβλήματα. 16 there are always good reasons when things don't work out for me. πάντα κάτι φταίει όταν τα πράγματα δεν μου πάνε καλά. 17 i live more of my life in my dreams than in real life [instead of: i work more things out in my daydreams than in my real life]. ζω περισσότερα πράγματα ονειροπολώντας παρά στην πραγματική ζωή μου. 18 i fear nothing. δεν φοβάμαι τίποτα. 19 sometimes i think i'm an angel and other times i think i'm a devil. μερικές φορές νοιώθω ότι είμαι ένας άγγελος και άλλες ότι είμαι ένας διάβολος. giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 283 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ item no. original item greek item 20 i get openly aggressive when i feel hurt. γίνομαι άμεσα επιθετικός όταν πληγώνομαι. 21 i always feel that someone i know is like a guardian angel. πάντα νοιώθω πως κάποιος άνθρωπος που γνωρίζω είναι κάτι σαν φύλακας άγγελος για μένα. 22 as far as i'm concerned, people are either good or bad. για μένα, οι άνθρωποι είναι ή καλοί ή κακοί. 23 if my boss bugged me, i might make a mistake in my work or work more slowly so as to get back at him. αν ο δάσκαλός μου μού έκανε τη ζωή δύσκολη, μπορεί με τη σειρά μου να συμπεριφερόμουν με τρόπο που θα έκανε τη δική του ζωή δύσκολη. 24 there is someone i know who can do anything and who is absolutely just and fair. γνωρίζω κάποιο άτομο που μπορεί να κάνει τα πάντα και είναι απολύτως έντιμος/η και δίκαιος/η. 25 i can keep the lid on my feelings if letting them out would interfere with what i'm doing. μπορώ να καταπιέζω τα συναισθήματά μου, αν νοιώθω ότι παρεμποδίζουν ό,τι κάνω. 26 i'm usually able to see the funny side of an otherwise painful predicament. συνήθως, μπορώ να δω την αστεία πλευρά μιας κατά τα άλλα δυσάρεστης κατάστασης. 27 i get a headache when i have to do something i don't like. με πιάνει πονοκέφαλος όταν έχω να κάνω κάτι που δεν μου αρέσει. 28 i often find myself being very nice to people who by all rights i should be angry at. συχνά πιάνω τον εαυτό μου να είμαι πολύ καλός με ανθρώπους που θα είχα κάθε λόγο να είμαι θυμωμένος μαζί τους. 29 i am sure i get a raw deal from life. σίγουρα η ζωή μου φέρεται σκληρά. 30 when i have to face a difficult situation, i try to imagine what it will be like and plan ways to cope with it. όταν ξέρω ότι θα πρέπει να αντιμετωπίσω μια δύσκολη κατάσταση, προσπαθώ να φανταστώ πώς θα είναι και σχεδιάζω έναν τρόπο να τα βγάλω πέρα. 31 doctors never really understand what is wrong with me. όταν πάω στο γιατρό, νιώθω ότι δεν καταλαβαίνει τι μου συμβαίνει (τι δεν πάει καλά σε μένα). 32 after i fight for my rights, i tend to apologize for my assertiveness. αφού αγωνιστώ για τα δικαιώματά μου, μετά έχω την τάση να απολογούμαι για τον ευθύ και έντονο τρόπο μου. 33 when i'm depressed or anxious, eating makes me feel better. όταν είμαι αγχωμένος ή στενοχωρημένος, το να τρώω με κάνει να νοιώθω καλύτερα. 34 i'm often told that i don't show my feelings. συχνά μου λένε ότι δεν δείχνω τα συναισθήματά μου. 35 if i can predict that i'm going to be sad ahead of time, i can cope better. όταν μπορώ να προβλέψω ότι θα στενοχωρηθώ, μπορώ να το αντιμετωπίσω καλύτερα. 36 no matter how much i complain, i never get a satisfactory response. όσο κι αν παραπονούμαι, δεν βρίσκω ποτέ την ανταπόκριση που με ικανοποιεί. 37 often i find that i don't feel anything when the situation would seem to warrant strong emotions. συχνά ανακαλύπτω ότι δεν νοιώθω τίποτα σε καταστάσεις που θα δικαιολογούσαν έντονα συναισθήματα. 38 sticking to the task at hand keeps me from feeling depressed or anxious. το να ασχολούμαι με προσήλωση με μια συγκεκριμένη εργασία, με προστατεύει από το άγχος και τη στενοχώρια. defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) 284 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 http://www.psychopen.eu/ item no. original item greek item 39 if i were in a crisis, i would seek out another person who had the same problem. αν αντιμετώπιζα μια κρίση, θα αναζητούσα κάποιο άλλο πρόσωπο που θα είχε το ίδιο πρόβλημα με μένα. 40 if i have an aggressive thought, i feel the need to do something to compensate for it. αν κάνω κάποια επιθετική σκέψη, νοιώθω την ανάγκη να κάνω κάτι για να εξιλεωθώ. about the authors theodoros giovazolias is an associate professor in counselling psychology at the department of psychology, university of crete. his research interests include interpersonal acceptance/rejection and its effects on psychological adjustment, bullying and victimization, student counselling. evangelia karagiannopoulou is an associate professor in educational psychology at the university of ioannina. her current research interests concern learning, understanding, students' experiences of teaching, stress, academic emotions and emotion regulation in higher education. effrosyni mitsopoulou is a phd candidate at university of southampton and member of the center for research on self and identity and social and personality psychology research group. her main research interests cover aspects of decision-making under risk and personality. in addition, she is also interested in psychological measurement and statistics. giovazolias, karagiannopoulou, & mitsopoulou 285 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 269–285 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1090 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ defense style questionnaire (dsq-40) (introduction) method participants measures procedure data analyses results exploratory factor analysis (efa) internal consistency construct validity convergent validity discriminant validity discussion limitations – future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author contributions references appendix: dsq-40_greek about the authors three decades investigating humor and laughter: an interview with professor rod martin interview three decades investigating humor and laughter: an interview with professor rod martin rod martin*a, nicholas a. kuipera [a] department of psychology, westminster hall, western university, london, ontario, canada. abstract since the start of the 21st century, the investigation of various psychological aspects of humor and laughter has become an increasingly prominent topic of research. this growth can be attributed, in no small part, to the pioneering and creative work on humor and laughter conducted by professor rod martin. dr. martin’s research interests in humor and laughter began in the early 1980s and continued throughout his 32 year long career as a professor of clinical psychology at the university of western ontario. during this time, dr. martin published numerous scholarly articles, chapters, and books on psychological aspects of humor and laughter. professor martin has just retired in july 2016, and in the present interview he recounts a number of research highlights of his illustrious career. dr. martin’s earliest influential work, conducted while he was still in graduate school, stemmed from an individual difference perspective that focused on the beneficial effects of sense of humor on psychological well-being. this research focus remained evident in many of professor martin’s subsequent investigations, but became increasingly refined as he developed several measures of different components of sense of humor, including both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. in this interview, dr. martin describes the conceptualization, development and use of the humor styles questionnaire, along with suggestions for future research and development. in doing so, he also discusses the three main components of humor (i.e., cognitive, emotional and interpersonal), as well as the distinctions and similarities between humor and laughter. further highlights of this interview include professor martin’s comments on such diverse issues as the genetic versus environmental loadings for sense of humor, the multifaceted nature of the construct of humor, and the possible limitations of teaching individuals to use humor in a beneficial manner to cope with stress and enhance their social and interpersonal relationships. keywords: humor, personality, stress, humor styles europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 published (vor): 2016-08-19. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, westminster hall, western university, london ontario, canada, n6a 3k7. e-mail: ramartin@uwo.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. nick kuiper: i would like to thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for this special humor issue of europe’s journal of psychology (ejop) that honors your many contributions to the psychological investigation of humor and laughter. over the past 30 years or so you have published numerous scholarly articles, chapters and books on various topics pertaining to humor and laughter. your creative approach, combined with a rigorous theoreticalempirical orientation to your research, has resulted in a very strong positive influence on the field. psychological investigations of humor and laughter have increased dramatically over the past decade, with the number of published research studies soaring. many different facets of humor and laughter have been explored, with several of these being represented in the articles presented in this special humor issue of ejop. taken together, these contributions further mark the importance of utilizing a rigorous theoretical-empirical approach to increase our understanding of the various psychological aspects of humor and laughter. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ perhaps we could begin this interview by going back to the start. what was it that first piqued your interest in examining humor and laughter from a psychological perspective? dr. rod martin completed his ph.d. in clinical psychology at the university of waterloo in 1984. since then, he has been a professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario. he retired in july, 2016, and is now a professor emeritus. a major focus of his research has been on the psychology of humor, particularly as it relates to psychological health and well-being. he has authored more than 100 scholarly journal articles, books, and book chapters, including a book entitled the psychology of humor: an integrative approach. he has developed several tests for measuring aspects of the sense of humor, which have been translated into numerous languages and have been used by researchers around the world. in recent years, his research has focused on the distinction between beneficial and detrimental styles of humor and their association with well-being and interpersonal relationships. he has served as president of the international society for humor studies and is on the editorial board ofhumor: international journal of humor research. he and his wife have three adult children and eight grandchildren. correspondence: department of psychology, westminster hall, western university, london ontario, canada, n6a 3k7. e-mail: ramartin@uwo.ca rod martin: soon after i began as a graduate student in the clinical psychology program at the university of waterloo in the fall of 1979, i began talking with my research adviser, herb lefcourt, about possible topics for my master’s thesis. there had previously been a lot of research showing the adverse effects of life stress on emotional and physical health, and lefcourt was interested in looking at personality traits that might potentially moderate these stress effects. lefcourt was really an early proponent of positive psychology before that label became popular. he was especially interested in the factors that make some people particularly healthy and resilient, rather than focusing on mental disturbance and emotional distress. my research advisor had become quite well-known for his earlier research on locus of control, and at that time he was conducting some studies on the potential stress-moderating effects of this personality dimension. so we began talking about what other traits or characteristics might also help people to weather stress and adversity without becoming overly distressed or ill, and we started thinking about sense of humor as an interesting research topic. there has long been a great deal of popular lore about the health benefits of a good sense of humor, but very little scientific research had been done on it. in fact, this was right around the time that norman cousins came out with his book anatomy of an illness (cousins, 1976), in which he described how he supposedly used laughter to cure himself of a life-threatening disease. so this was about to become quite a hot topic. looking back, i think i was fortunate to get into this line of research just at that time. nick kuiper: how did this interest in humor and laughter translate into research studies? rodmartin:given the individual differences approach that herb lefcourt took in his research (and which i have generally continued to follow), we first had to find a reliable and valid way of measuring people’s sense of humor. so i spent a couple of months delving into the scholarly literature looking at how earlier researchers had approached this topic. i quickly discovered that the concept of sense of humor is much more complex andmultifaceted than i had thought, and there weren’t any well-established measures that seemed appropriate for our purpose. most of the research on humor up till then had focused on humor appreciation, which involves asking participants to rate the funniness of different types of jokes, cartoons, and other humorous materials, and then looking at how these funniness ratings correlate with other chareurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 499 http://www.psychopen.eu/ acteristics of the individuals. this is a valid approach for some purposes, but i didn’t think it got at the aspects of humor that were relevant to what i was interested in. some people might find lots of jokes amusing and enjoyable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they produce humor, or that they are able to maintain a humorous outlook particularly during times of stress. so i started thinking about other ways of conceptualizing and measuring sense of humor, particularly using self-report scales. the only published self-report measure of sense of humor i could find was the one sven svebak had recently developed in norway, which seemed quite interesting but had not yet been used much in research and hadn’t really been validated. dr. nick kuiper has been a professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario since 1978. during this time, he has published numerous articles and chapters on the self-reference effect, depression and anxiety, psychological well-being, humor, and several other topics of interest. most of his current research pertains to various facets and implications of humor. this interest in studying humor began in the early 1990’s, with a special emphasis on personality and social psychological aspects of laughter and humor. much of this work has focused on individual differences in sense of humor, with implications for stress, coping, psychological well-being, physical health, and social interactions. further work has examined humor use in romantic relationships, the potential links between humor use and bullying in middle childhood, cross-cultural patterns in humor, the implicit theories of humor that individuals develop about themselves and others, and the potential links between various humor styles and different forms of anxiety. correspondence: department of psychology, westminster hall, western university, london, ontario, canada, n6a 3k7. e-mail: kuiper@uwo.ca one big concern we had at that time was that there might be a large social desirability bias in a self-report humor measure: a sense of humor is so positively valued that people might not be willing to admit that they don’t have one, and might not give valid answers on scales. i thought we might be able to get around this if we had participants recall past experiences of being in a variety of stressful and non-stressful life situations and asked them to report howmuch they would typically laugh in each situation. this led to the development of the situational humor response questionnaire, which became the main focus of my master’s thesis. i also created the shorter coping humor scale, which more directly asked participants to rate the degree to which they use humor to cope with stress in their lives (see martin, 1996 for an overview of research using these two humor scales). over the five years of working with lefcourt on my master’s and ph.d., we carried out a number of studies, first looking at the reliability and validity of these measures along with svebak’s scale, and then examining stress-moderating effects using life events scales and self-report measures of positive and negative moods. we also conducted some experimental studies in which we had participants watch a very stressful and rather gruesomemovie calledsubincision, under either humorous or non-humorous conditions, and assessed their level of emotional distress via behavioral observation and self-report. herb had quite an infectious sense of humor himself, and i remember having a lot of laughs with him and his other graduate students while doing that research. fortunately, we got some rather nice results from those studies, and we published them in some journal articles (e.g., martin & lefcourt, 1983) and later in our book, humor and life stress: antidote to adversity (lefcourt & martin, 1986). nick kuiper: what do you view as the most significant findings that emerged from this early work on sense of humor as a strategy for coping with stress? rod martin: those early studies focused on a stress-moderation paradigm, and did produce some evidence that individual differences in sense of humor moderate the association between stressful life events and negative moods (martin & lefcourt, 1983). in other words, individuals with higher scores on certain humor measures showed a weaker correlation between life stressors and distressed moods than did those with lower humor scores. these europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 500 http://www.psychopen.eu/ findings gave support to the idea that people who have more of a sense of humor are better able to cope with stress and therefore are less adversely affected by it. those early studies helped to stimulate more interest and research on this topic and were also picked up by the media, contributing to the development of the “humor and health movement” in the 1980’s and 90’s. nick kuiper: how do you see your early work addressing the broader issue of humor’s role in psychological wellbeing? rod martin: after i was hired as a faculty member at the university of western ontario in 1984, i started collaborating with you, as well as some of my graduate students, on further studies on humor and stress. my first phd student, james dobbin, was interested in the effects of stress on physical health, and we ran some studies looking at various components of the immune system (martin & dobbin, 1988). among other things, we were able to replicate the earlier stress-moderator findings using immunoglobulin a as the outcome variable, thus extending the earlier findings to physical health as well as emotional well-being. in the research with you, we explored some possible mechanisms of these stress-moderating effects. for example, we looked at how the humor measures related to cognitive appraisals of stress, and found that people with higher humor scores tended to perceive potentially stressful events as more of a challenge, whereas those with lower humor saw them more as a threat (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993). this gave support to the idea that the benefits of a sense of humor for coping may be partly due to the way it changes the individual’s appraisals of stressors. in other studies we found that those with high humor scores tend to have more stable self-concepts over time, suggesting another possible benefit of humor for coping (kuiper & martin, 1993). later we ran a number of studies looking at the correlations between the sense of humor scales and a variety of measures of psychological well-being, including positive and negative moods, self-esteem, optimism, mastery, purpose in life, and so on (kuiper & martin, 1998). surprisingly, we found that many of these well-being variables were unrelated or only weakly related to the humor scales. this got me thinking that our approach to measuring individual differences in humor may have been a little too simplistic. i started thinking more about ways that humor could be detrimental as well as beneficial for well-being, which led eventually to the development of the humor styles questionnaire (martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). nick kuiper: over your career you have devoted considerable energy to measuring a variety of individual differences in humor and laughter. some of your earliest work, for example, developed both the coping humor scale (chs) and the situational humor response questionnaire (shrq). what do you see as the primary theoretical reasons for taking this individual differences approach to humor and laughter? rod martin: i gravitated toward the individual differences approach mainly because that was the approach i learned in graduate school, so it has always been most familiar to me and consistent with the way i think about psychology generally. this also seems most consistent with the popular concept of “sense of humor,” which is generally viewed as a fairly stable trait or personality dimension. the major limitation of this approach, though, is that it lends itself most readily to correlational research, which has the drawback of not being able to demonstrate causal relationships between variables. if we find a correlation between a particular humor measure and some aspect of well-being, we don’t know whether the humor actually causes the well-being. an alternative approach would be the sorts of experimental methods taken by social psychologists, and certainly i see that type of research as also being very important in the study of humor and well-being. a drawback of the experimental approach, in europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 501 http://www.psychopen.eu/ my view, is that it can often be somewhat artificial, whereas the individual differences approach seems to have more external validity. so we need both approaches to offset each of their limitations. nick kuiper: although humor and laughter have been examined in many studies, these constructs can sometimes still remain a bit elusive. in this regard, how might we best define humor from a psychological perspective? rod martin: i view humor as quite a broad and multifaceted psychological phenomenon that encompasses several components (martin, 2007; martin, 2016). the first is the cognitive aspect, namely the perception of incongruity, which has also been referred to as “bisociation” or “cognitive synergy.” it seems to involve the simultaneous activation of two or more incompatible interpretations of a situation in the mind. it also tends to be associated with a playful, non-serious frame of mind and some degree of diminishment, in which things are viewed as being less important or admirable than they usually are. these cognitive elements are what make something “funny.” second, there is the emotional component. the cognitive processes activate a unique emotional response, which i refer to as “mirth.” in the english language, this word “mirth” has a long lineage and seems to be perfect as a technical term for this emotional aspect of humor. mirth is related to joy, but is somewhat different because of the element of “funniness” involved. it is accompanied by activation of the pleasure circuits in the limbic system as well as various autonomic and endocrine responses, and is what makes humor so enjoyable. third, there is the social or interpersonal aspect. i see humor as being fundamentally a social activity. we are much more likely to laugh with other people than when alone, and most humor arises in response to the behavior of other people or human-like traits in non-human animals. from an evolutionary perspective, i think humor evolved as a mechanism for enhancing group cohesion. the final component is laughter, which i see as a hard-wired nonverbal expression or communication of the emotion of mirth. laughter occurs also in other primates, so it has a long evolutionary history going back long before we evolved language and other higher cognitive abilities. so laughter is the way we let others know we are experiencing mirth, and it also has the effect of eliciting this emotion in the listener. that’s why laughter is so contagious. strong laughter can also intensify and amplify the emotion of mirth. usually this happens when people are in small groups, and they engage in intense bouts of laughter that are very enjoyable and create strong feelings of group cohesion. some theorists might define humor more narrowly, focusing only on the cognitive aspect, for example. but i think humor should be defined broadly enough to include the constellation of all these elements. in any one instance of humor, one or another of these elements might predominate. for example, in more cerebral types of wit the cognitive element might be primary, with very little mirth or laughter. at other times, laughter and mirth might predominate and the cognitive incongruity component may be minimal. sometimes people experience mirth and even some laughter when alone, so the social element may be lacking, but usually this occurs in a “pseudo-social” situation such as watching a comedy show on tv or remembering an amusing incident that involved other people. some researchers see laughter as something quite distinct from humor, and argue that it frequently occurs as a sort of social signal of friendliness that has nothing to do with humor (e.g., provine, 2000). however, the research evidence for that view is very limited, and i’m not convinced by it. i would draw the boundary of humor broadly enough to include most instances of social laughter. even though people may laugh when there is very little europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 502 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive incongruity present, i think the playfulness and diminishment aspects are typically still occurring, and certainly the mirth and social dimension. nick kuiper: to what extent do you think contemporary researchers are cognizant of the main distinctions between humor and laughter? what would you see as the most profitable directions for future research in this area? rod martin: i think some contemporary researchers are actually exaggerating the distinctions between humor and laughter. i agree that laughter sometimes occurs outside of humor, but that may be an anomaly. in general, i see laughter as one component of the broader constellation of phenomena of humor. however, i think it can be worthwhile to study each of these components individually. for example, psycholinguistic studies investigating cognitive aspects of humor can focus on the essential elements involved in the perception of incongruity and what makes something funny, without being concerned with the emotion of mirth or laughter or the social dimension. other researchers may be more interested in focusing on the emotional component and the neurological and physiological aspects. others may focus on the social dimension or on laughter. in fact, i think this kind of narrowing in on various sub-components might be the best way to make progress in understanding the broader phenomenon of humor. even for those of us who are particularly interested in psychological and physical health aspects of humor, it might be beneficial to focus on particular dimensions individually and see how they relate to various aspects of health and well-being. for example, the cognitive component of humor may be particularly important for coping with stress, whereas the emotional aspect may be particularly relevant for physiological health. nick kuiper: more recently you have developed an assessment instrument to measure four different humor styles, namely, the humor styles questionnaire (hsq). this scale provides a measure of individual differences in affiliative humor, self-enhancing humor, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor. could you please take us through the thinking and process that led to the development and validation of this scale? rod martin: in the late 1990’s i started thinking more about the idea that the relevance of humor to health and well-being may have more to do with the way people use humor than the overall degree to which they have a “sense of humor.” some people can be very funny and comical without necessarily being particularly healthy from a psychological perspective. we only need to look at comedians like chris farley and john belushi for examples of this. i went back to the writings of some earlier psychologists such as abraham maslow and gordon allport, and even sigmund freud, and looked at how they distinguished between healthy and unhealthy forms of humor. this led me to the idea of looking at the psychosocial functions of humor in everyday life, some of which may be beneficial for well-being while others may be detrimental. i worked particularly with one of my graduate students, patricia puhlik-doris, on the development of the humor styles questionnaire, and both her masters and ph.d. focused on this measure. in coming up with the four dimensions, we were influenced by the research on agency and communion as two primary, orthogonal dimensions underlying interpersonal traits and behavior. agency has to do with individual autonomy and control, whereas communion relates to social connectedness. so we saw self-enhancing and aggressive humor as being on the agency dimension – one healthy and the other unhealthy – whereas affiliative and self-defeating humor were healthy and unhealthy forms on the communion dimension. in developing the hsq, we quickly found out how difficult it is to assess these different functions of humor using a self-report format. i don’t think most people are consciously aware of the implicit goals and psychological effects that their humor may have at any given time. they’re only aware that they’re laughing because something seems europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 503 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funny to them. similarly, i don’t think most people use humor in a strategic way to achieve particular goals. we don’t say, “i’m going to say something funny now in order to cope with this stressful situation or to make that person look like an idiot.” instead, humor tends to occur quite spontaneously most of the time, arising out of unconscious processes. nonetheless, i think we can see that humor serves various functions by looking at the patterns of consequences over time. in our first attempts at creating items for the hsq we tried to ask research participants directly about the degree to which they engaged in humor for various purposes. but people had a hard time answering these questions, and we were unable to get any reliability. so then we worked on items that get at the functions of humor more indirectly, asking more about the typical context and consequences of their use of humor. over a couple of years we went through several revisions of the scales, using a number of different subject samples, before arriving at a final measure with four scales showing good reliability, discriminant validity, and a consistently stable factor structure (martin et al., 2003; martin, 2007). nick kuiper: the hsq has been a phenomenally successful assessment instrument, with over 125 published studies using the measure and more than 500 citations. why do you think the hsq has been so broadly endorsed and employed in contemporary humor research? what are its main advantages for research on humor? rod martin: it certainly has been gratifying to me to see how widely used the hsq has become. it has now been translated into over 30 languages, and i frequently get emails from researchers all over the world asking about it. i think it has gained such wide acceptance in part because it did turn out to be more strongly predictive of various aspects of psychosocial well-being than the earlier humor measures. the four scales do seem to have quite distinct patterns of correlations, both positive and negative, with a range of variables involving well-being, personal relationships, and personality more generally. so it does seem to have been quite successful in doing what we set out to do with it. the fact that we put so much care and effort into developing the hsq also likely helped, both with the strength of the results, and with its perceived usefulness for further research. also, i think the hsq came along just at a time when research on humor was starting to become more main-stream in psychology. previously, i think humor was seen as a topic that was perhaps not “serious” enough for respectable research. the positive psychology movement was probably a factor in making topics like this more respectable. also, some brain imaging studies came out around that time, showing that particular areas of the brain are activated in response to humor. there seems to be an odd perception that if something can be seen in the brain, it is more real and scientifically valid. as more researchers started getting interested in looking at humor, the hsq happened to be available as a reliable and reasonably well validated measure, so they naturally started using it, giving it further momentum. nick kuiper:what are some other ways that you see the hsq being used in the future? rod martin: in recent years, my students and i have been developing versions of the hsq for different purposes. for example, we have peer-report formats and also versions specific to particular relationships such as friendships and dating relationships. this has led to some interesting findings about the role of humor styles in different types of relationships. also, we’ve been developing versions for assessing humor experiences over shorter time frames rather than using it as a trait measure. we’ve used these in a number of daily diary studies, looking at the way within-person changes in the frequency of the different styles of humor from day to day are associated with corresponding changes in individuals’ positive and negative moods, relationship satisfaction, and so on. this has led europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 504 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to some interesting findings of different patterns of results within individuals over time as compared to the crosssectional findings. for example, one of my recent graduate students, kim edwards, found that, for people who don’t engage in self-defeating humor very often overall, this style of humor actually tends to be positively associated with psychological well-being on a day-to-day basis (edwards, 2013; edwards & martin, 2014). however, for people who use it a lot, it is negatively related to well-being. so this research helps to tease out some more fine-grained nuances of the humor styles. another avenue of research that i’ve been involved in with my students and my colleague lorne campbell is to develop an observational coding system based on the hsq framework. we’ve used this system to rate the humor that occurs naturalistically in dating couples while they’re engaged in conversations about conflict-related issues in their relationships, and also in friendship dyads discussing stressful experiences in their lives (campbell, martin, & ward, 2008). we found that these humor style ratings were predictive of various outcomes such as feelings of satisfaction and perceptions of problem resolution following the conversations. by observing humor in “real time” like this, we can start to see how different styles of humor may lead to various outcomes. i think there is still a lot of potential for further research using these different kinds of methodologies based on the hsq framework. nick kuiper: in the hsq two of the humor styles are generally considered to be adaptive (affiliative & self-enhancing) whereas two are generally considered to be maladaptive (aggressive & self-defeating). how hard and fast do you see this distinction to be? could you envision instances were maladaptive humor use may actually prove to be facilitative (e.g., a small amount of self-defeating or aggressive humor used in the right context)? how might researchers develop a means of examining this issue? what is necessary for investigators to consider in order to come to a more complete understanding of the function of humor from an adaptive versus maladaptive perspective? rod martin: from the outset, we saw the different humor styles as having rather fuzzy boundaries. some styles of humor may be benign or even beneficial when used sparingly, but detrimental when used excessively. the diary study findings with self-defeating humor that i mentioned previously are a good example of that. as long as you don’t use it too much, it may actually be beneficial. also, i think the differences between healthy and unhealthy forms of humor can be very subtle. for example, i think there is a difference between self-defeating humor and self-deprecating humor. self-deprecating humor is a healthy form of humor in which you don’t take yourself too seriously and are able to laugh at your own mistakes in a self-accepting way. i think this comes out of healthy self-esteem. in contrast, self-defeating humor arises from low self-esteem, and involves excessively self-disparaging humor that is used to ingratiate oneself with others. however, it’s often difficult to distinguish between the two in any single instance. similarly, friendly types of teasing can be a form of healthy affiliative humor, whereas more destructive teasing is part of aggressive humor. again, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between them. also, it’s important to recognize that we conceptualized the four humor styles as being relatively independent of each other, meaning that people can be high or low on more than one of them. some people who are high on affiliative humor also engage in a lot of aggressive humor, and in fact the two styles tend to be weakly positively correlated, at least in western cultures. i certainly don’t see the hsq as the final word on healthy and unhealthy forms of humor, and i have no doubt that it will eventually be replaced by something else, as research progresses. i think it has been useful for identifying some broadly-defined functions of humor and showing different overall patterns of associations with aspects of well-being. but i think future research will need to become more fine-grained, breaking these humor styles into europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 505 http://www.psychopen.eu/ smaller components, and also looking at them in various combinations. there may also be other relevant humor styles that are not currently included in the hsq that will be identified by future researchers. it will also be useful to pay more attention to the interpersonal context of the humor. for example, aggressive humor is likely to be less detrimental when directed towards a member of an out-group than when directed at someone within the ingroup. for this kind of research, we may need to move away from the trait approach and self-report scales and do more observational and experimental studies. nick kuiper: when talking about humor styles, what has research indicated in terms of the relative genetic and environmental loadings for each style?what are some of the broader ramifications of these loadings? for instance, what do these loadings suggest for any attempts to alter an individual’s characteristic pattern of use for the four humor styles? rod martin: i’ve collaborated with my colleague tony vernon and others on some twin studies to determine the heritability of the humor styles. the first study seemed to show that the two positive humor styles have a sizable genetic contribution, whereas the two negative styles are entirely influenced by environmental factors (vernon, martin, schermer, cherkas, & spector, 2008). however, in subsequent studies we found that, for all four humor styles, about half of the variance can be explained by genetics and half by environmental influences (vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008). this is very similar to what researchers have found for most personality traits, such as extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and so on. in fact, the twin studies also show that part of the variance in humor styles is due to the same genetic factors underlying these broader personality traits. in other words, the different humor styles can be viewed as expressions of particular personality traits, at least to some extent. affiliative humor tends to be an extraverted style of humor, for example. i would interpret these findings as indicating that humor styles can be changed to some degree, but it would be difficult to change them a lot. just as it’s very difficult for an introverted person to become an extravert, it would be hard for a person who is low on affiliative humor to become someone who is always telling jokes, engaging in witty banter, and making others laugh. nick kuiper: in considering “sense of humor”, it is clear that current researchers view this construct as being multi-dimensional in nature. one prominent example, of course, is the hsq, with two of the humor styles often thought of as being more adaptive (e.g., affiliative and self-enhancing humor) and two being more maladaptive (e.g., aggressive and self-defeating humor). in addition, the hsq also considers the self versus other focus of the humor style being used (e.g., self-defeating versus aggressive). it is also the case, however, that sense of humor can be divided up in many other ways. just one example distinguishes between humor appreciation (the ability to enjoy or appreciate humor in one’s environment) versus humor generation (the ability to generate humorous or witty comments in response to various interactions with one’s environment). if you were to build upon the hsq, what other dimensions or facets of sense of humor would you consider adding? rod martin: i certainly agree that “sense of humor” is a multifaceted concept. when we think of the different components of humor that i talked about earlier (cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, expressive), it’s clear that there are many different humor-related dimensions along which people can differ from one another. these different dimensions are not necessarily correlated with each other, and some may even be negatively correlated. humor creation ability seems to be completely unrelated to humor appreciation, for example. so i don’t think we’ll ever be able to capture all the relevant dimensions in one measure alone. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 506 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when we developed the hsq, we were interested in certain aspects of humor that might be particularly relevant to psychosocial health and well-being. we were not trying to create a comprehensive measure of “sense of humor.” there are lots of other dimensions, such as humor appreciation and humor creation ability that are likely not very relevant to psychological well-being. overall, i don’t believe that someone needs to have a good sense of humor to be psychologically healthy. some very funny people who laugh and joke a great deal have a lot of emotional disturbance and dysfunctional relationships, and some very serious, introverted people are well adjusted and have healthy personal relationships. so i don’t think i’d try to incorporate these other dimensions into the hsq, since this was not the purpose of it. nick kuiper: do you see it as being possible to try and develop a very broad-based sense of humor measure that would incorporate themost important facets or dimensions of sense of humor, as described in the contemporary humor literature? what might such a measure look like? rod martin: i think it would need to be more of a battery of tests rather than a single measure. i’m thinking of something like the wechsler intelligence tests that have a dozen or so sub-tests, each designed to assess a different aspect of intelligence. in a comprehensive humor test battery there would need to be different sub-tests for getting at different humor dimensions, such as humor appreciation, humor creation ability, humor styles, and so on. they would also need to be different types of tests, some being maximal performance-type tests to assess humor-related abilities, others assessing typical trait-like behaviors, some involving behavioral observation or peer reports, and others using self-report methods. instead of leading to one overall “humor iq” score, this test battery would produce a profile of scores on a number of different dimensions, mapping out each individual’s unique combination of humor-related abilities, preferences, styles, strengths, and weaknesses. nick kuiper: how might such a broad-based sense of humor measure be used in research to help advance our understanding of an individual difference approach to humor and laughter? rod martin: for the most part, i think each dimension would likely need to be studied independently in relation to other variables, because i’m assuming that they’re largely independent factors. thus, i think they would each show different patterns of relationships with other personality traits, well-being variables, abilities, and so on. there might also be some interesting interactions among different humor dimensions, such that one dimension might moderate the relationship between another dimension and some other personality trait or ability. the possibilities here are endless! nick kuiper: let’s talk a bit more about the ways that humor may be related to stress and personal well-being. underlying this type of research is a major distinction between humor that an individual might be exposed to (for example, watching a comedy film) versus humor that is a personality characteristic or trait of the individual (for example, having a “good sense of humor”). perhaps you could comment on the usefulness of this basic distinction in humor theory and research, while also highlighting some of the major findings in this domain. what might you suggest for future research directions? rod martin: i think the distinction you’re talking about also relates to a broader distinction that i make between what i call “performance humor” versus “conversational humor.” performance humor includes things like television sit-coms, stand-up comedy, humorous books and movies, which are mostly produced by people who make their living on humor. conversational humor involves everyday joke-telling, humorous personal anecdotes, witty banter, irony, and other funny comments that tend to occur spontaneously in all sorts of social interactions. performance europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 507 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor is certainly an interesting topic for research, but i’ve always assumed that conversational humor is much more relevant for health and well-being, which is what i’ve been most interested in. spending a lot of time laughing at sit-coms on tv is likely to make you less healthy, rather than more healthy! in my view, if there really are any emotional or physical health benefits of humor, they’re more likely to come from conversational humor. at the same time, though, i think it can be very useful to employ comedy videos and other types of humorous materials in experimental studies to investigate psychological and physiological effects of humor. there have been quite a few studies in which participants are randomly assigned to view either humorous or non-humorous videos, in order to examine the effects of humor on mood, blood pressure, heart rate, immune system functioning, etc. these are the sorts of experimental investigations that are useful for demonstrating causal effects, as i mentioned earlier. i certainly think there’s a need for more of these kinds of studies in this area of stress and wellbeing, rather than relying too much on correlational research. however, i would tend to see the comedy videos and other humorous materials in these types of experimental studies as being a sort of “stand-in” for the conversational humor that occurs in everyday life. if an experiment shows that watching a comedy video causes participants to be less adversely affected by some sort of laboratory stressor, i wouldn’t think the take-home message is that people should spend more time watching television comedy in order to cope better with stress in their lives. instead, i’d extrapolate the findings to the kinds of humor that people can generate and enjoy in their everyday social interactions. this gets back to my earlier comment that experimental approaches can often be somewhat artificial. it would be good for experimental researchers to develop more realistic ways of manipulating humor in the laboratory besides videos, in order to increase the external validity. but greater external validity often comes with less control over the variables being manipulated. so again, there’s always a trade-off with different research approaches, and we need to use multiple approaches to triangulate on the truth. nick kuiper: to what degree do you think it is possible to teach individuals how to use humor in a positive adaptive manner to manage stress? similarly, can individuals also be taught to stop using maladaptive humor that is detrimental to their well-being? along the same lines, what is your take on the current state of empiricallybased research on humor-based interventions for improving psychological well-being? rodmartin: i think it’s probably more difficult to teach people to improve their ability to create humor than to teach them to use the humor they already have in a more adaptive way. if someone is not very funny to begin with, it’s very hard for them to learn to be more witty. but someone who is already constantly cracking jokes, but doing it in a maladaptive way, might be able to learn more adaptive ways of being funny. overall, if we’re trying to help people with psychological difficulties and disorders, i think it’s more beneficial to target broader psychological issues rather than to try to modify humor directly. this is why i’m not very keen on the idea of humor-based therapies. i think that more established approaches like cognitive-behavioral therapy can be very beneficial for helping people to modify their maladaptive cognitions, behaviors, and emotions. more healthy styles of humor are likely to come along with the resulting improvements in mental health, without necessarily needing to target them directly. at the same time, though, i think many psychotherapists could benefit from being more aware of the functions of humor in their clients’ lives and in the client-therapist relationship, and more alert to ways in which maladaptive europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 508 http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor may play a role in their clients’ psychological dysfunctions. so some targeting of humor styles in therapy could be beneficial, as an adjunct to other therapeutic techniques. on the other hand, for people who are already reasonably healthy psychologically, some sort of humor training might potentially be useful for enhancing their well-being further. i think it might be worthwhile for researchers to investigate these sorts of interventions more as a way of enhancing well-being rather than treating disorders. this is in line with a positive psychology approach, where the focus is on developing simple exercises that can enhance happiness and life satisfaction in generally healthy people. one of my recent graduate students, kim edwards, focused her research on the role of humor in positive psychology. as part of her phd, she developed a humorbased intervention for enhancing well-being based on the humor styles framework, and found that it produced significantly greater improvements in positive mood compared with a no-treatment control group, but no reduction in negative moods (edwards, 2013). a few other studies have come out recently showing fairly promising results with some of these types of humortraining programs (e.g., falkenberg, buchkremer, bartels, & wild, 2011), but i don’t think we’re at the point yet where we can have much confidence in their effectiveness. more research is needed to identify which components of the interventions are most effective, what types of people are most likely to benefit, and to compare them with other non-humor interventions. i’ve always frowned on those who jump on what i call the “humor promotion bandwagon” and run far ahead of the research evidence, making unsubstantiated claims about benefits of humor. i think they risk doing more harm than good. nick kuiper: humor is also quite relevant to close interpersonal and social relationships. in your research you have conducted a number of studies that have looked at various aspects of close interpersonal and social relationships that bear on humor. can you tell us a bit about this research and what you consider the major findings to be? rod martin: i’ve always viewed healthy personal relationships as being an essential component of overall psychological health. i think of humans as fundamentally social animals. we evolved in small groups, and to function well we need to be able to get along well with others, both in our close relationships and in more casual interactions. there is a lot of research supporting these ideas. also, as i said earlier, i see humor as being essentially a social phenomenon. so in studying potential benefits of humor for mental health, it was quite a natural step for me to look at interpersonal relationships in addition to emotional well-being. quite a lot of the research that i’ve done with my graduate students over the past 10 or 15 years has focused on relationships using the humor styles framework. we’ve looked particularly at the role of humor in dating relationships and in close friendships. a lot of this research made use of daily diary techniques to get at within-person, day-today changes in humor styles in relation to relationship satisfaction and related variables. not surprisingly, these studies have shown that, on days when people engage in more positive humor styles with their partners, particularly affiliative humor, they tend to have higher levels of satisfaction in their relationships, whereas negative humor styles on a given day, particularly aggressive humor, are associated with more dissatisfaction that day (caird & martin, 2014). recent research by my student sara caird was designed to examine potential mediators of these effects (caird, 2015). she found that these day-to-day associations between humor styles and relationship satisfaction were mediated by changes in intimacy and positive and negative moods. in other words, when individuals engage in more adaptive forms of humor with their partners, they experience an increased sense of intimacy and more positive and less negative moods, which in turn lead to greater satisfaction with the relationship. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 martin & kuiper 509 http://www.psychopen.eu/ other research on interpersonal relationships made use of observational methods. another one of my graduate students, jennie ward, had pairs of close friends come into the lab and engage in a videotaped conversation in which one of them (the “discloser”) talked about some stressful situation that he or she was currently dealing with, while the other (the “supporter”) was to respond supportively (ward, 2008). we then coded the humor styles of both friendship partners in each dyad, and looked at how these were related to their moods and perceptions of how helpful the conversation was. interestingly, we found that different styles of humor were important, depending on which role the individual was playing. for the disclosers, their expressions of affiliative and self-enhancing humor were particularly related to how well they felt afterwards. on the other hand, for the supporters, the absence of aggressive humor was more important than the presence of the positive humor styles. another one of my recent graduate students, dave podnar, investigated the role of friendly teasing in relationships (podnar, 2013). he found that even friendly teasing is not as benign as commonly thought. people who engage in a lot of this sort of kidding tend to be less well liked by others, and tend to have aggressive, non-empathic personalities. nick kuiper: in closing, i would like to thank you once again for sharing your comments and views with us. i would also like to note that you have just recently retired this summer, and i was wondering if you would share with us some of your plans for retirement. rod martin: i’m looking forward to having some time to relax, read, travel, and pursue other hobbies. my wife, myra, and i now have eight grandchildren, so that’s enough to keep us busy! we also just bought a motorhome and are looking forward to doing some traveling across canada and the united states over the next few years. we plan to take some trips overseas as well. i’m hoping also to have some time for hobbies like oil painting and woodworking. however, i also hope to have some ongoing involvement in humor research. the publisher of my book, the psychology of humor (2007), has been encouraging me to write a revised edition, so i expect to be working on that in coming months. i also hope to continue attending the annual conferences of the international society for humor studies, which meets in different countries each year. looking back over the years, i value the many good friendships i’ve made with humor scholars from various disciplines all over the world, and i hope to keep in touch with them and keep up on developments in their research. nick kuiper: any last words? rod martin: i’d just like to thank you, nick, for editing this special journal issue on humor research. it’s a real honor for me. i appreciate also the opportunities you and i have had to collaborate on research together over the years. i’ve enjoyed having you as a colleague. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have 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(2008). a behavioral genetic investigation of humor styles and their correlations with the big-5 personality dimensions. personality and individual differences, 44, 1116-1125. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.003 ward, j. (2008). humor used during two types of discussion between friends: associations with coping and interpersonal well-being (unpublished doctoral dissertation). the university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 498–512 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1119 interview 512 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs0092-6566%2802%2900534-2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1375%2ftwin.11.1.44 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2007.11.003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references the meaning of voices in understanding and treating psychosis: moving towards intervention informed by collaborative formulation literature reviews the meaning of voices in understanding and treating psychosis: moving towards intervention informed by collaborative formulation aoife lonergan* a [a] department of psychology, university college dublin, dublin, ireland. abstract from a medical perspective, hearing voices is perceived as a symptom of mental illness and their content as largely irrelevant. the effectiveness of antipsychotic medication has made it central to the treatment of psychosis. however pharmacological treatment alone is rarely sufficient for this disabling condition. this review examined the feasibility of formulating an understanding of the meaning of voices in psychosis to inform intervention. examination of the literature demonstrated the need for a paradigm shift to a recovery model, drawing on biopsychosocial factors in formulating an understanding of the meaning of voices in the context of a person’s life. providing the opportunity to talk about their experiences may aid the development of an interpersonally coherent narrative representing opportunities for psychological growth. findings have implications for treatment planning and assessment of outcome. collaborative formulation regarding the subjective meaning of voices may aid in understanding their development and maintenance and guide intervention. hearing voices with reduced negative effects on wellbeing and functioning may reduce distress and improve quality of life even in the presence of voices. cft, cbt, relating therapy and open dialogue may be effective in applying these principles. findings are limited by the lack of controlled studies. further controlled studies and qualitative explorations of individual experiences are recommended. keywords: psychosis, hearing voices, formulation, recovery approach, biopsychosocial europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 received: 2016-05-19. accepted: 2016-12-10. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university college dublin, stillorgan road, belfield, dublin 4, ireland. e-mail: aoife.lonergan@ucdconnect.ie this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. population based studies demonstrate that the presence of symptoms of psychosis is higher than previously considered, with a recent meta-analysis identifying prevalence rates of 5-8% in the general population (nesse, 2009). the most frequently reported type of hallucinations are auditory in nature, with a lifetime prevalence of 70% in those diagnosed with schizophrenia and related difficulties (landmark, merskey, cernovsky, & helmes, 1990). voices can be described as a sensory perception with a vivid sense of reality that occurs without the presence of external sensory stimuli (american psychiatric association, 1994). voices such as this have characteristics of speech and are wrapped in personal meaning to the voice hearer (anthony, 2004). while voices can be linked with psychological distress, there is evidence that voices can provide constructive guidance and reduce feelings of social isolation (honig et al., 1998; miller, o’connor, & dipasquale, 1993; van der gaag, hageman, & birchwood, 2003). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the national institute for health care excellence (nice, 2014) recommends that all individuals diagnosed with psychosis ought to be offered a form of talking therapy. nevertheless, the majority of people with psychosis are not currently given the opportunity to access such interventions (jolley et al., 2012). the medical model categorises psychosis as an illness requiring medication. the division of clinical psychology (dcp, 2013) state that while antipsychotic medication has been found beneficial in the treatment of psychosis, its limitations in managing psychotic phenomena have increased calls for a paradigm shift that contextualizes human distress (dcp, 2013). a formulation approach, allows exploration of the meaning to the individual of the experiences, relationships and social circumstances of their life in shaping their current difficulties (bps, 2014). within this approach, the individual experiencing distress works collaboratively with the clinician to develop a shared understanding of their difficulties and develop an intervention plan (dcp, 2013). a recovery approach adds to the medical model in that it’s goal is to assist a person in their personal growth by building their self-esteem, sense of identify and developing a meaningful purpose in society (allott & loganathan, 2003). the recovery model suggests that while the condition is not ‘cured’, the recovery process can continue in the context of ongoing symptoms (roberts & wolfson, 2004). the move from a model which views voice hearing as a medical symptom alone, to an awareness of voice hearing as a meaningful experience, shaped by biopsychosocial factors, which may guide personal growth and recovery has garnered support from many who hear voices, their families and clinicians (corstens, longden, mccarthy-jones, waddingham, & thomas 2014). in this regard, a recovery model may add to the medical approach by helping direct the most suitable form of intervention for each person. therefore, this paper will review the feasibility of formulating an understanding of the meaning of voices in psychosis to inform choice of intervention and improve distress and quality of life. medical model medical approaches to psychosis argue that conceptualising psychosis as a mental illness removes stigma from the individual (world psychiatric association, 2001), facilitates a shared language among professionals and promotes access to resources, treatment and care (campbell, 2007; pitt, kilbride, nothard, welford, & morrison, 2007). this illness conceptualization can provide a way of communicating about groups of people and can make people feel less alone in what they are experiencing (pitt et al., 2007). however, a diagnosis can have detrimental consequences for the individual’s wellbeing, such as feelings of hopelessness and decreased confidence (bps, 2014). diagnosis may shift focus away from the potential meaning that voice hearing could possess for the individual and from possible triggering social-emotional difficulties that could be managed in a reparative manner (cooke, 2008). the widespread acceptance of the concept that diagnostic labels, like schizophrenia are biological illnesses has meant that it is frequently believed that voice hearing always results from a brain based difficulty (bps, 2014). this has contributed to a culture where the primary treatment tends to be medication alone (bps, 2014). the results of randomized controlled trials (rcts) indicate that the use of antipsychotic medication during the initial incidence of psychosis can be effective in preventing the development of structural changes to the brain that are linked with psychosis (lieberman et al., 2005; nakamura et al., 2007). furthermore, the common use of antipsychotic medication has reduced what can be the more impairing presentations of schizophrenia e.g. lonergan 353 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ catatonia and highly disorganised symptoms (van der heijden et al., 2005). this highlights the important role of medication in reducing the most severe impairments frequently associated with psychosis (van der heijden et al., 2005). however, there is an increasing acknowledgement that pharmacological treatment alone is rarely sufficient for this disabling condition (pilling et al., 2002), with factors such as compliance, limited effectiveness of medication and side effects limiting the benefits of antipsychotic medication alone (pilling et al., 2002). there is evidence that psychological interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy (cbt), in combination with medication can be effective in the management of psychosis (nice, 2014). however, there is minimal evidence for cbt alone, without anti-psychotic medication (nice, 2014). developing different approaches for the treatment of psychosis is crucial frequent number of individuals who may; decline to take anti-psychotic medication, experience no benefits from it, or encounter negative side effects (nice, 2014). mental health diagnoses such as psychosis can be critiqued for being ways of categorising experiences as a medical disorder, rather than explaining them or exploring where they fall on a continuum of normality (bps, 2014). as with other psychological problems, experiences like hearing voices occur on a continuum where normality mixes with abnormality (david, 2010). for example, many people can occasionally experience voices during periods of high stress, while for other people they can be more extreme and upsetting (bps, 2014). hearing voices is often associated with intense emotions and feelings e.g. anxiety, low mood or by difficult experiences (bps, 2014). this highlights the importance of understanding the meaning of voices in the context of individual’s life stress and underlying biological vulnerability. biopsychosocial model it is well established that stressful life experiences, such as childhood maltreatment increases the risk of developing psychosis (varese et al., 2012). however, this is also the case for other psychiatric disorders (barker, gumley, schwannauer, & lawrie, 2015). currently, the causes of a person’s susceptibility to different psychiatric difficulties is uncertain due to comparable environments, however, a probable contributing factor is a genetic predisposition (barker et al., 2015). hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (hpa) axis activation takes place in reaction to stressors in the environment and has been associated with the progression from chronic stress to a variety of psychiatric disorders (barker et al., 2015). research indicates that people with schizophrenia possess a different hpa stress reaction and hpa axis hyperactivity may facilitate the connection between chronic stress and psychosis (walker, mittal, & tessner, 2008). the stress-diathesis model proposes that it is the interaction between biological vulnerability and influences in the environment that result in a person’s difficulties (zubin & spring, 1977). however, currently a more cohesive biopsychosocial framework is required in order to shed light on how these interacting factors develop into the presentation of psychosis (barker et al., 2015). as auditory voice hallucination’s (avh) often persist when antipsychotic medication is administered (shergill, murray, & mcguire, 1998), a greater awareness of contributing factors may help develop more effective interventions (mccarthy-jones, 2012). the biopsychosocial model attempts to understand voices in light of multiple, interacting factors. the experience of hearing voices likely results from the interplay between the context of an individual’s life, one’s perception and interpretation of life events and biological vulnerability (bps, 2014). psycho-social influences that heighten the risk of psychosis are primarily due to relational stress which the meaning of voices in psychosis 354 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ can impact on the quality of relationships with other people, mediated by psychological and brain adaptations to the original stressors (read, bentall, & fosse, 2009). in a study of british children raised in economic deprivation, individuals with no family history of psychosis were found to be seven times more likely to develop schizophrenia (harrison, gunnell, glazebrook, page, & kwiecinski, 2001). other social risk factors which have been identified for psychosis are; maternal health, and stress during pregnancy, being an unwanted pregnancy, early loss of a parent, childhood physical, sexual and emotional abuse, childhood neglect, and trauma (bentall & fernyhough, 2008; conus, cotton, schimmelmann, mcgorry, & lambert, 2010; janssen et al., 2003; larkin & morrison, 2006; read, fink, rudegeair, felitti, & whitefield, 2008; welham, isohanni, jones, & mcgrath, 2009). evidence suggests it is crucial for professionals to understand the meaning individuals attribute to their voices if they are to help alleviate distress (lakeman, 2001) and promote a process of recovery (royal college of psychiatrists, social care institute for excellence and care services improvement partnership, 2007). one study found that mental health practitioners commonly felt that their clinical work may be adversely impacted if they gave attention to the content of psychotic phenomenon (aschebrock, gavey, mccreanor, & tippett, 2003). understanding the experience of voice hearing from the viewpoint of the hearer is fundamental to developing useful approaches for formulation and clinical practice (holt & tickle, 2015). this is reflected in increasing grey literature and first person perspectives of voice hearing (beavan, 2011; romme, escher, dillon, corstens, & morris, 2009). many genetic and brain researchers, have neglected the psychosocial causes of psychosis (read et al., 2009). examining both the important biological and psychosocial factors influencing psychosis may lead to improved understanding and interventions for voice hearers. mccarthy-jones et al. (2014) examined the phenomenology of avh of 199 people in a psychiatric population. the authors found that 39% of respondents stated that their voices were repetitions of memories or previous conversations, 45% reported the theme or content never changed, and 55% reported that new voices possessed the same theme as previous ones (mccarthy-jones et al., 2014). based on their findings, mccarthy-jones et al. (2014) argue that the existence of subtypes of auditory hallucination indicates that it may be beneficial to adapt therapeutic interventions based on the specific subtype that characterises the person’s symptoms. the frequent number of repetitive avhs identified indicates that trials of anti-obsessional medication may be worthwhile (stephane, polis, & barton, 2001) and the cbt employed with ocd patients may also be beneficial (whittal & mclean, 1999). mccarthy-jones et al.’s (2014) finding that 64% of participants had a relationship with their voices, indicates that while psychotherapeutic approaches aiming to alter the hearervoice relationship (whittal & mclean, 1999), can be helpful for some people, it will not necessarily be helpful for all. formulation and the hearing voices movement the dcp (2013) has suggested that one alternative for the current system of psychiatric diagnosis in clinical practice is collaborative formulation with service users. unlike diagnoses, formulations are developed based on the premise that no matter how atypical the distress or experience, it is understandable within the context of the individual’s life events and current circumstances (dcp, 2013). a formulation of the person’s difficulties incorporates potential predisposing factors, triggering events, maintaining factors, and the protective factors that the individual can utilize (bps, 2014). the individual experiencing distress engages collaboratively with the lonergan 355 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ clinician to develop a shared understanding of why they may be experiencing voices in the context of their life and their interpretation of these experiences (bps, 2014). this approach places the meaning of voices as central to understanding individual’s difficulties and informing intervention. the international hearing voices movement (hvm) is a mental health service-user approach that highlights the needs and views of the voice hearers and professionals working collaboratively to reframe medical understandings of voice-hearing and develop coping and recovery frameworks (longden, corstens, & dillon, 2013). the main proposition of the hvm is that voice hearing is an experience filled with meaning (corstens et al., 2014). interventions that are focused on eradicating voice presence are typically not reliably achieved (lepping, sambhi, whittington, lane, & poole, 2011). consequently, therapeutic approaches have moved away from symptom eradication towards exploration of the personal meaning of the experience to reduce the distress (romme & escher, 2000). voices hearing has frequently been found to be precipitated and maintained by difficult emotional experiences that flood the individual with voice content, often associated with more global difficulties in their life (longden, madill, & waterman, 2012; romme et al., 2009; romme & escher, 1993). peer support and hearing voices groups have been developed as a result of the hvm (corstens et al., 2014). within the hvw, some voice hearers experiencing abusive voices, have been found to become progressively more positive or impartial while other people negotiate with their voices to clarify what it wants or gain more time alone (jones & shattell, 2013). however, arguments that have been key to the development of the hvm are grounded in limited evidence and require formal testing (corstens et al., 2014). cognitive behavioural therapy one intervention which attempts to help formulate an understanding of the voice hearer’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs and response to voices is cognitive behavioural therapy (cbt). cbt for psychosis has been widely researched with studies demonstrating its efficacy as an intervention (wykes, steel, everitt, & tarrier, 2008). the primary supposition in cbt is that distress is associated with the manner in which individuals interpret and react to events (freeman & garety, 2003). the therapist works with the person to develop a formulation, to develop a shared understanding of what may be occurring, such as any maladaptive cycles that may be present, and to map out possible avenues for change (bps, 2014). nice (2014) advises that cbt should be offered to all those diagnosed with schizophrenia. studies examining the effectiveness of group cbt identified improvements in symptoms of psychosis, self-esteem, hopelessness, social functioning and perceived voice control and power (chadwick, sambrooke, rasch, & davies, 2000; gledhill, lobban, & sellwood, 1998; wykes, parr, & landau, 1999; wykes et al., 2005). in contrast, two rct studies of group cbt for voice hearers found no significant effect of treatment on severity of symptoms (barrowclough et al., 2006; wykes et al., 2005). however, the primary aim of cbt for psychosis is not to reduce psychotic experience, rather it is to decrease the distress experienced in response to psychosis (chadwick, birchwood, & trower, 1996). owen, sellwood, kan, murray, and sarsam (2015) found that a four week group cbt for psychosis (cbtp) with inpatients demonstrated significant reductions in distress and increased confidence (owen et al., 2015). while traditional cbtp focussed on recognising and altering maladaptive thoughts and beliefs, third wave acceptance based theory and practice (hayes, follette, & linehan, 2004) build on this through a focus the way in which individuals relate to voices (dannahy et al., 2011). person based cognitive therapy (pbct) builds upon the cbt formulation by explicitly emphasising acceptance of the voice hearing experience, identifying and testing the meaning of voices in psychosis 356 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ positive self-beliefs, acceptance of self and a greater focus on relationship with voices (chadwick et al., 1996; chadwick & birchwood, 1994; dannahy et al., 2011; hayward, 2003). dannahy et al. (2011) examined pbct groups for people hearing distressing, treatment-resistant voices and found significant improvements in wellbeing, voice distress and voice control. the findings of cbt for psychosis reviewed support the recovery model as cbt was found to increase participants’ confidence more than it reduced symptoms, suggesting participants were developing their ability to accept and cope with challenging experiences, rather than necessarily reducing there frequency (dannahy et al., 2011; owen et al.’s., 2015). relationship with voices approaches that have attempted to identify what the psychological elements are that may impact the level of emotional distress caused by hearing voices have predominately emphasised cognitive factors, such as the individual’s beliefs about the voices control and purpose (birchwood & chadwick, 1997; chadwick & birchwood, 1994). recent developments in theory and research have built on this by highlighting the role of the relationship between the voice hearer and the voice (hayward & fuller, 2010). hayward and fuller (2010) qualitatively examined ‘relating therapy’ that aimed to modify distressing relationships with voices. the authors found evidence for a model that proposes to bring about positive change by altering relationships with voices (hayward & fuller, 2010). the voice hearing phenomenon occurs in a relational context (hayward & fuller, 2010). for example, phenomenological studies have found that voices are often linked with important people in the voice hearer’s life (garrett & silva, 2003; nayani & david, 1996). within this framework for formulation, the feeling of helplessness experienced by voice hearers in response to upsetting voices is reflected within their social relationships (birchwood et al., 2000). the paralleling of voice and social relationships may create opportunities to intervene therapeutically to promote change in one area with the goal of subsequent positive change in the other (hayward & fuller, 2010). therapists highlighted the value of ongoing formulation with hearers to shape interventions based on their experience of voice hearing, and described the therapy as helping clients see connections between their voices and what is going on in their lives (hayward & fuller, 2010). the process of exploring clients’ interpretations of relationships has been found to improve voice hearers views of themselves, their relationship with their voices and self-esteem, and social relationships more generally (birchwood et al., 2002; hayward, 2003; hayward & fuller, 2010). these outcomes support the recent focus on a recovery model emphasising quality of life (hayward & slade, 2008). however, in their qualitative study chin, hayward, and drinnan (2009) found that participants both accepted and rejected the concept of a relationship with their voice, with rejection most strong in those adopting illness/symptom narratives about their voices. research has indicated that while voices can reflect attributes of significant relationships, more discrete relational qualities differed across interactions between the hearer and the voice and the hearer and the significant people in their life (beavan, 2011; mawson, berry, murray, & hayward, 2011; mawson, cohen, & berry, 2010). a possible explanation for this difference is that when hearers thought they suffered stigma in relation to their voices, they demonstrated a greater likelihood to perceive their voices as upsetting events (hayward, berry, & ashton, 2011). therapeutic interventions focused on the relationship with the voice may need to be framed within the context of the voice hearers possible interpersonal history of low rank/power, bullying and high shame (hayward et al., 2011). lonergan 357 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results of studies suggest that relationally based interventions, such as developing assertiveness and forming a more equal relationship with strong voices, may be helpful in reducing distress and improving the relationship between the voice hearer and the voice (hayward et al., 2011). a comprehensive formulation of the voice hearer experience may be supported by clinicians eliciting a detailed interpersonal history, allowing voices to be understood within the context and idiosyncrasies of the hearer’s relational history (hayward et al., 2011). forums such as hearing voices groups and family meetings have been found to assist voice hearers in the meaning-making processes through hearing others stories, sharing their own stories, exploring theirs and others reactions and the process of developing alternative understanding of themselves as voice hearers (mccarthy-jones, 2012; taylor & murray, 2012). the most non-directive of family meeting approaches, ‘open dialogue’, offers an opportunity for individuals to listen to each other’s understanding of what is occurring (bps, 2014; seikkula & arnkil, 2006). this has been found effective in reducing symptoms and the frequency of service use, and increasing rates of return to the work place (seikkula et al., 2006). however, the evidence base still requires more rigorous, controlled evaluation. compassion focused therapy compassion focused therapy (cft) was developed for individuals who experience enduring and complex mental health difficulties associated with high shame and self-criticism, often within the context of difficult backgrounds (leaviss & uttley, 2015). it offers imagery-based interventions aimed at activating the emotion regulation system linked with self-soothing, the counterpart to the threat-focused emotion regulation system that is related to anxiety reactions (gilbert, 2010). a sense of threat can develop from changes in feelings/ sensations and subsequent fear related to their possible meaning (gumley, braehler, laithwaite, macbeth, & gilbert, 2010). there may be activation of trauma memories from previous episodes and voices arising can further increase internal self-attacking and threat processing (gumley et al., 2010; longe et al., 2010). one of the primary goals of cft is to support people in developing a compassionate, reflective view of their experiences, to foster greater awareness of their interactions with self and others, and to improve emotional and interpersonal problem solving skills (gumley et al., 2010). lincoln, hohenhaus, and hartmann (2013) examined the effectiveness of a cft group for people with sub-clinical symptoms of psychosis and found it reduced participant’s paranoia, negative emotions, and increased self-esteem. the effectiveness of imagery on paranoid beliefs was facilitated through a reduction in anger, shame, anxiety and sadness (lincoln et al., 2013). beavan and read (2010) examined the impact of voice hearer's auditory hallucinations and found that the content of the voice's was the only significant predictor of emotional distress and the strongest predictor of mental health service use (beavan & read, 2010). the authors found that individuals who had an unhelpful emotional response were significantly more likely to experience voices that commented on them or argued/ conversed with each other (beavan & read, 2010). furthermore, studies have found that the processing and regulation of threat are areas of difficulty in psychosis (braehler et al., 2013) as threat emotions, such as fear, anxiety and anger have been found to contribute to hallucinations (freeman & garety, 2003). mounting evidence suggests that the content of voices may be key to understanding and supporting voice hearers (beavan & read, 2010). these findings highlight the need for a formulation approach which gives attention to the content and meaning of voices and their impact on emotional well-being. the meaning of voices in psychosis 358 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion this paper aimed to examine the feasibility of formulating an understanding of the meaning of voices in psychosis to inform intervention. examination of the literature demonstrated that it may be time to move away from seeing voice hearing as a purely biological illness, to a recovery model which integrates biopsychosocial factors. this may add to the medical model by formulating an understanding of the meaning of each individual’s voice hearing experience in the context of their life history and biological vulnerabilities (bps, 2014). this may help develop individualised care pathways for voice hearers experiencing distress (corstens et al., 2014). this could aid in the development of a helpful and interpersonally coherent narrative that values voices as messengers representing opportunities for psychological growth (corstens et al., 2014). rather than symptom eradication, experiencing voice hearing with reduced negative impact on subjective wellbeing may reduce distress and improve quality of life (bps, 2014; corstens et al., 2014). these findings have implications for treatment planning and assessment of outcome. cft, cbt, relating therapy and open dialogue are some of the approaches examined which may be effective in drawing on these principles to support individuals who hear voices. however, findings are limited by the lack of controlled studies exploring the meaning of voices and their treatment in psychosis. this qualitative review is limited by a non-systematic search strategy, meaning the possibility of selection bias cannot be ruled out. there is currently considerable research examining the biological factors influencing psychosis and its treatment. as a result, this review focused on highlighting the psycho-social factors which may benefit from greater integration into a biopsychosocial model of psychosis. consequently, this review is limited by the lack of detailed examination of the biological factors underlying psychosis. further controlled studies examining the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic interventions for voice hearing is needed. this could be done by gearing therapeutic models to service users based on the formulation of their voice hearing experiences to inform the most suitable intervention e.g. cft, cbt, open dialogue. in this way, approaches are sufficiently tailored to each case to meet individual needs, while maintaining the core components of the most appropriate therapeutic model. this effectiveness of these approaches could then be compared to treatment as usual groups. further qualitative explorations of individual voice hearing experiences and systematic reviews are also recommended. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the advice of dr. muireann mcnulty is gratefully acknowledged. references allott, p., & loganathan, l. 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(1977). vulberability – a new view of schizophrenia. journal of abnormal psychology, 86, 103-126. doi:10.1037/0021-843x.86.2.103 about the author aoife lonergan is a psychologist in clinical training in university college dublin. her current research interests are psychosis, executive functioning, neuropsychological functioning and chronic pain. lonergan 365 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 352–365 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1199 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.4.022007.141248 http://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbn084 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2005.03.013 http://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.175.2.180 http://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbm114 http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.86.2.103 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the meaning of voices in psychosis (introduction) medical model biopsychosocial model formulation and the hearing voices movement cognitive behavioural therapy relationship with voices compassion focused therapy conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the dark side of humor: dsm-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles research reports the dark side of humor: dsm-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles virgil zeigler-hill*a, gillian a. mccabea, jennifer k. vrabela [a] department of psychology, oakland university, rochester, mi, usa. abstract basic personality traits (e.g., extraversion) have been found to be associated with the humor styles that individuals employ. in the present study, we were interested in determining whether pathological personality traits were also associated with humor styles. we examined the associations between the pathological personality traits captured by the personality inventory for the dsm-5 (pid-5) and humor styles in a sample of college students (n = 594). negative affectivity and detachment were negatively associated with the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles. antagonism was positively associated with the aggressive humor style but negatively associated with the affiliative humor style. disinhibition was positively associated with the aggressive humor style, whereas disinhibition and psychoticism were both positively associated with the self-defeating humor style. discussion focuses on the implications of these findings and how they can expand our understanding of the connections between the darker aspects of personality and humor. keywords: humor, personality, pid-5, pathology, dark europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 received: 2016-01-16. accepted: 2016-02-14. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, oakland university, 212a pryale hall, rochester, mi 48309, usa. e-mail: zeiglerh@oakland.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction researchers have approached the study of humor in a wide variety of ways. for example, classic psychodynamic perspectives concerning humor usually suggested that people employ humor as a defense mechanism to deal with feelings of anxiety or express unconscious desires (e.g., freud, 1928), whereas more recent theories have suggested that humor serves a variety of intrapsychic and interpersonal functions (see martin, 2007, for a review). studies concerning humor have often focused on the relatively positive aspects of humor which include comforting the self or forging social bonds with other people (e.g., carroll & shmidt, 1992; dillon & totten, 1989; kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993; martin & lefcourt, 1983, martin & lefcourt, 1984; svebak, 1974). although the positive aspects of humor are certainly important, there are also darker aspects to humor that involve inflicting damage to the self (e.g., belittling one’s own abilities or accomplishments) or harming others (e.g., disparaging a particular person or an entire group; baron, 1978; ford & ferguson, 2004; greengross & miller, 2008). the present study will capture the positive and negative aspects of humor by employing the humor styles model developed by martin and his colleagues (e.g., martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003) and examine whether these humor styles are associated with pathological personality traits. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ humor is largely an interpersonal phenomenon despite the fact that certain aspects of humor are considered to be important in intrapsychic processes (martin et al., 2003). in social contexts, humor fulfills various functions including social control, status maintenance, group cohesion, and integration (martin, 2007). for example, the use of humor has been found to decrease the social distance between individuals during initial encounters which provides a distinct social advantage to those with greater skill at both employing and recognizing humor (graham, 1995). the framework developed by martin et al. (2003) suggests that there are two underlying dimensions that are essential for understanding humor. the first of these dimensions concerns the fact that humor can take either a benign or an injurious form. the second dimension reflects the target of enhancement such that humor is believed to either enhance relationships with others or enhance the self. these two underlying humor dimensions combine to form four distinct humor styles that are referred to as affiliative humor (benign humor that is used to enhance relationships with others), self-enhancing humor (benign humor that is used to enhance the self), aggressive humor (injurious humor that is used to enhance the self), and self-defeating humor (injurious humor that is used to enhance relationships with others). affiliative humor involves the use of humor in social situations as a way to strengthen relationships, increase group cohesion, and reduce tension through strategies such as telling humorous anecdotes or engaging in witty banter in order to put others at ease. an individual who is characterized by the affiliative humor style may say funny things in order to increase interpersonal cohesiveness while maintaining a sense of self-acceptance (martin et al., 2003; vaillant, 1977). the self-enhancing humor style refers to the use of humor as a way of coping with stressful events and it has been found to be associated with intrapsychic processes (e.g., martin et al., 2003). for example, someone who is characterized by the self-enhancing humor style may possess the ability to find humor in unpleasant situations which may, in turn, prevent the person from being overwhelmed by negative emotions. aggressive humor is a harmful form of humor that is focused on hurting others by insulting, ridiculing, or teasing them. an individual who is characterized by the aggressive humor style will engage in humor that is likely to have a negative impact on others but may sometimes fail to understand the negative impact of this injurious form of humor (martin et al., 2003). self-defeating humor involves the use of excessively self-disparaging humor (e.g., a person making disparaging remarks about his or her own intelligence) in order to ingratiate oneself to others. individuals who rely on the self-defeating humor style may use humor as a way to avoid underlying issues (e.g., fear of failure; kubie, 1971; martin et al., 2003). a rapidly expanding body of research has shown that the benign and injurious humor styles are differentially related to psychological well-being in the ways that would be expected (see schermer et al., 2015, for a review). the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles – which are characterized by the use of benign humor – have been found to have positive correlations with a wide range of outcomes including happiness (ford, mccreight, & richardson, 2014), satisfaction with life (dyck & holtzman, 2013), resiliency (cann & collette, 2014), and social competence (fitts, sebby, & zlokovich, 2009). the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles have also been shown to have negative associations with outcomes such as trauma-related symptoms (besser, weinberg, zeiglerhill, ataria, & neria, 2015), depressive symptoms (dyck & holtzman, 2013; tucker et al., 2013), neuroticism (dyck & holtzman, 2013), and social anxiety (tucker et al., 2013). in contrast, the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles – which are characterized by the use of injurious humor – have been found to be negatively correlated with happiness (ford et al., 2014) and positively correlated with depressive symptoms (tucker et al., 2013). further, individuals with stable high self-esteem have been found to report relatively low levels of injurious humor compared to individuals with unstable high self-esteem or low self-esteem (vaughan, zeigler-hill, & arnau, 2014). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 dark side of humor 364 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition to these shared associations, the aggressive humor style has been found to be positively correlated with engagement in risky behaviors (cann & cann, 2013), whereas the self-defeating humor style has been found to be negatively associated with social competence (fitts et al., 2009) and perceived social support (dyck & holtzman, 2013). taken together, these results suggest that the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles are associated with psychological adjustment and positive interpersonal relationships, whereas the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles are linked with poor psychological adjustment and unsatisfying interpersonal relationships. the connections between the humor styles and personality traits have been examined in previous studies. the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles have generally been found to be positively associated with the basic personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, and openness, whereas the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles have often been shown to be negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness but positively correlated with neuroticism (e.g., galloway, 2010; greengross & miller, 2008; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002; vernon, martin, schermer, cherkas, & spector, 2008; vernon, martin, schermer, & mackie, 2008; see mendiburo-seguel, páez, & martínez-sánchez, 2015, for a review). further, the humor styles have also been found to be linked with darker aspects of personality. for example, the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles have been linked with psychopathy and machiavellianism (martin, lastuk, jeffery, vernon, & veselka, 2012; veselka, schermer, martin, & vernon, 2010) as well as borderline personality features (schermer et al., 2015). however, it is important to note that not all dark personality features are associated with aggressive and self-defeating humor styles because narcissism has been shown to be positively correlated with the use of affiliative humor but it is not associated with aggressive or self-defeating humor (martin et al., 2012; veselka et al., 2010). the goal for the present study was to extend what is known about the connections between humor styles and the darker aspects of personality by examining the broad array of pathological personality traits that were described in section iii (“emerging measures and models” in need of further study) of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013). this alternative model of personality pathology focuses on maladaptive variants of the big five personality dimensions of extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness (thomas et al., 2013). this alternative model of personality pathology led to the development of the personality inventory for the dsm-5 (pid-5; krueger, derringer, markon, watson, & skodol, 2012) which is used to capture the following pathological personality traits: negative affectivity (i.e., the tendency to experience an array of negative emotions), detachment (i.e., characterized by introversion, social isolation, and anhedonia), antagonism (i.e., aggressive tendencies accompanied by assertions of dominance and grandiosity), disinhibition (i.e., impulsivity and sensation seeking), and psychoticism (i.e., a disconnection from reality and a tendency to experience illogical thought patterns). research concerning the pid5 is still in its nascent stages but this instrument has already demonstrated its efficacy due to its ability to assess extreme or atypical levels of basic personality traits that are not captured by other instruments. for example, the pathological personality traits captured by the pid-5 have been found to have associations with a wide range of phenomena including interpersonal functioning (southard, noser, pollock, mercer, & zeigler-hill, 2015), moral judgments (noser et al., 2015), mate retention behaviors (holden, roof, mccabe, & zeigler-hill, 2015), and aggression (hopwood et al., 2013). overview and predictions the present study examined the associations that the pid-5 pathological personality traits had with the humor styles identified by martin et al. (2003). our goal was to use the alternative model of personality pathology presented europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel 365 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the dsm-5 as an organizing framework to gain a clearer understanding of these humor styles. various studies have suggested that individuals with high levels of pathological personality traits may have problematic interpersonal relationships characterized by aggression, manipulation, and exploitation (e.g., holden et al., 2015; strickland, drislane, lucy, krueger, & patrick, 2013). for example, individuals with high levels of antagonism may lash out against others who have personal desires that conflict with their own goals and desires (harkness, reynolds, & lilienfeld, 2014). this is important because pathological personality traits are often accompanied by interpersonal difficulties and the present study may shed light on the role that humor plays in these difficulties (e.g., humor may be used as a means for dominating or belittling others). relatively little is known about the connections between the darker aspects of personality and humor styles so it is important to examine the possibility that the pathological personality traits captured by the pid-5 may be associated with how individuals employ humor. for example, it seemed likely that some of these pathological personality traits – such as antagonism – may be associated with the use of injurious forms of humor. therefore, we sought to extend previous research concerning both pathological personality traits and humor by assessing the relationship between the pid-5 pathological personality traits and humor styles. our approach was conceptually similar to previous studies that have employed the pid-5 in order to represent the distinct trait profiles for constructs such as narcissism and psychopathy (e.g., strickland et al., 2013; wright et al., 2013). more specifically, we followed the basic analytical approach adopted by wright et al. (2013) when examining the connections between narcissism and the pid-5. first, we calculated the zero-order correlations that the pid-5 traits had with the humor styles. second, we examined the unique associations that the pid-5 traits had with the humor styles because these pathological personality traits are often associated with each other. the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles are benign forms of humor that are used to enhance relationships with others or affirm the self, respectively. we expected that negative affectivity, detachment, and antagonism would be negatively associated with these benign humor styles. the rationale for these predictions is that previous studies have shown these benign humor styles to be negatively associated with neuroticism but positively associated with extraversion and agreeableness (e.g., mendiburo-seguel et al., 2015). we did not have clear predictions for the associations that disinhibition and psychoticism would have with the benign humor styles but we included these pathological personality traits in the present study for exploratory purposes and reportorial completeness. the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles are injurious forms of humor that are used to enhance the self or strengthen relationships with others, respectively. we expected that all of the pathological personality traits captured by the pid-5 would be positively associated with these injurious forms of humor. the rationale for these predictions is that previous studies have shown these injurious humor styles to be positively associated with neuroticism, psychopathy, machiavellianism, and borderline personality features as well as negatively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness (e.g., martin et al., 2012; mendiburo-seguel et al., 2015; schermer et al., 2015; veselka et al., 2010). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 dark side of humor 366 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedures participants were 594 undergraduates (148 men, 446 women) enrolled in psychology courses at a university in the midwestern region of the united states who participated in exchange for partial fulfillment of a research participation requirement. participants completed measures of pathological personality traits and humor styles – along with other measures that are not relevant to the present study (e.g., self-esteem level) – via a secure website. the mean age of the participants was 20.19 years (sd = 3.58) and their racial/ethnic composition was 78%white, 8% black, 5% asian, 3% hispanic, and 6% other. measures pathological personality traits pathological personality traits were assessed with the brief form of the personality inventory for the dsm-5 (pid5-bf; krueger et al., 2012). the pid-5-bf is a 25-item instrument designed to assess the following five broad pathological personality trait dimensions: negative affectivity (5 items; e.g., “i worry about almost everything” [α = .74]), detachment (5 items; e.g., “i don’t like to get too close to people” [α = .70]), antagonism (5 items; e.g., “i use people to get what i want” [α = .72]), disinhibition (5 items; e.g., “people would describe me as reckless” [α = .75]), and psychoticism (5 items; e.g., “my thoughts often don’t make sense to others” [α = .77]). participants were asked to rate how accurately each of the items of the pid-5-bf described them using scales ranging from 0 (very false or often very false) to 3 (very true or often true). humor styles the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) is a 32-item measure of the frequency with which respondents employ benign or injurious styles of humor that are either focused on enhancing the self or enhancing relationships with others. the hsq yields scores for each of the following four styles of humor: affiliative humor (benign humor that is focused on enhancing relationships with others; e.g., “i laugh and joke a lot with my friends”; α = .83), self-enhancing humor (benign humor that is focused on enhancing the self; e.g., “if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor”; α = .76), aggressive humor (injurious humor that is focused on enhancing the self; e.g., “if i don’t like someone, i often use humor or teasing to put them down”; α = .70), and self-defeating humor (injurious humor that is focused on enhancing relationships with others; e.g., “i will often get carried away in putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh”; α = .81). participants were asked to respond to these items on scales ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). the hsq has demonstrated adequate discriminant and convergent validity in previous studies (e.g., martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002; see martin, 2007, for a review) and each humor style had adequate internal consistency in the present study. results the correlations between the pathological personality traits and humor styles are presented in table 1. the pathological personality traits generally had negative associations with the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles and positive associations with the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. sex differences emerged for many of the variables that were examined in the present study (see table 2). men reported higher levels of pathological personality traits than women on each dimension except for negative affectivity where this pattern europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel 367 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was reversed (i.e., women reported higher levels of negative affectivity than were reported by men). men reported greater reliance on aggressive and self-defeating humor styles than were reported by women. despite the emergence of these sex differences, it is important to note that sex did not moderate any of the results reported in the following section so these sex differences will not be discussed further. table 1 intercorrelations and descriptive statistics 987654321variables —1. negative affectivity —2. detachment .39*** —3. antagonism .39***.27*** —4. disinhibition .41***.27***.22*** —5. psychoticism .45***.40***.43***.44*** —6. affiliative humor style .09*-.04-.18***-.26***-.17***—7. self-enhancing humor style .48***.02-.08*-.13***-.19***-.18***—8. aggressive humor style .09*-.12**-.22***.29***.33***.13**.08 —9. self-defeating humor style .36***.17***.05-.29***.26***.21***.15***.13** m .373.443.404.395.021.800.530.720.421 sd .111.870.990.011.680.600.500.550.690 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests). table 2 sex differences for pathological personality traits and humor styles womenmen variables t(sd)m(sd)m negative affectivity .36***-4.670.491.720.211 detachment .00**3.520.680.600.840 antagonism .46*2.490.500.520.620 disinhibition .37*2.590.770.620.900 psychoticism .14*2.680.990.660.121 affiliative humor style .37-0.970.405.111.375 self-enhancing humor style .420.001.394.980.434 aggressive humor style .65***4.860.353.830.733 self-defeating humor style .51*2.111.303.111.563 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. we used a series of simultaneous multiple regression analyses to examine the unique associations that pathological personality traits had with aspects of humor. the results of these analyses are presented in table 3. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 dark side of humor 368 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 regressions of humor styles on pathological personality traits self-defeating humor styleaggressive humor styleself-enhancing humor styleaffiliative humor style variables βr2βr2βr2βr2 model .11***.14***.07***.08*** negative affectivity .01-.05-.17***-.09*detachment .00.03-.16***-.22***antagonism .07.26***.08-.12*disinhibition .14**.17***.05-.06 psychoticism .21***.07.07.06 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. affiliative humor style the results of the analysis concerning the affiliative humor style found main effects for negative affectivity (β = .09, t = -1.96, p = .05), detachment (β = -.22, t = -4.69, p < .001), and antagonism (β = -.12, t = -2.51, p = .01) such that individuals endorsed using more affiliative humor when they reported lower levels of negative affectivity, detachment, and antagonism. no other significant effects emerged for this analysis. self-enhancing humor style the results of the analysis concerning the self-enhancing humor style revealed effects for negative affectivity (β = -.17, t = -3.63, p < .001) and detachment (β = -.16, t = -3.34, p < .001) such that individuals reported employing more self-enhancing humor when they possessed lower levels of negative affectivity and detachment. no other significant effects emerged for this analysis. aggressive humor style the results of the analysis concerning the aggressive humor style revealed associations with antagonism (β = .26, t = 5.68, p < .001) and disinhibition (β = .17, t = 3.85, p < .001) such that individuals relied more heavily on aggressive humor when they reported higher levels of antagonism and disinhibition. no other significant effects emerged for this analysis. self-defeating humor style the results of the analysis concerning the self-defeating humor style revealed effects for disinhibition (β = .14, t = 3.02, p = .003) and psychoticism (β = .21, t = 4.21, p < .001) such that individuals employed more self-defeating humor when they reported higher levels of disinhibition and psychoticism. no other significant effects emerged for this analysis. discussion the purpose of the present study was to examine the connections that the pathological personality traits included in the alternative model of personality pathology that was presented in the dsm-5 had with the humor styles identified by martin et al. (2003). previous work has established the connections that basic personality traits have europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel 369 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with humor styles such that the benign humor styles (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing) have generally been found to be positively associated with extraversion, agreeableness, and openness, whereas the injurious humor styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) have often been shown to be negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness but positively correlated with neuroticism (e.g., mendiburo-seguel et al., 2015). further, the injurious humor styles have also been shown to be associated with some of the darker aspects of personality including psychopathy, machiavellianism, and borderline personality features (martin et al., 2012; schermer et al., 2015; veselka et al., 2010). the results of the present study were largely consistent with our predictions such that the pathological personality traits had unique associations with the humor styles. as expected, negative affectivity and detachment had unique negative associations with the benign humor styles (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles). this suggests that individuals with high levels of negative affectivity or detachment may be uncomfortable using humor to enhance either themselves or their relationships with others. although both of these pathological personality traits are negatively associated with benign humor styles, the underlying reasons for these associations may be different. for example, it is possible that individuals with high levels of negative affectivity refrain from using affiliative and self-enhancing forms of humor due to their concerns about how these attempts at humor will be interpreted by others, whereas individuals with high levels of detachment may simply lack the motivation to enhance themselves or their relationships with others through the use of humor. we expected negative affectivity and detachment to also have unique positive associations with the injurious humor styles (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating) but these associations did not emerge. negative affectivity had a unique negative association with the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles. these results are consistent with previous findings showing that the negative emotions experienced by individuals with high levels of negative affectivity (e.g., krueger et al., 2012) have been found to be negatively associated with interpersonal satisfaction (ozer & benet-martinez, 2006) and positively associated with interpersonal self-consciousness (cuperman & ickes, 2009). moreover, neuroticism has also been found to have a positive association with emotion-focused and avoidance coping strategies (boyes & french, 2009) which may inhibit individuals with high levels of negative affectivity from successfully employing the self-enhancing humor. individuals with self-enhancing and affiliative humor styles tend to have a humorous outlook on life and are frequently characterized by positive moods and emotions (martin et al., 2003), whereas individuals with high levels of negative affectivity are expected to experience frequent negative emotions (wright et al., 2012) which may inhibit these individuals from successfully employing the benign forms of humor. detachment had a unique negative association with affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles. these findings are consistent with previous research showing that individuals with high levels of detachment are interpersonally cold and avoidant (wright et al., 2012). further, individuals with high levels of detachment report low levels of communal values and engage in relatively few expressions of warmth (ackerman & corretti, 2015). the negative associations between detachment and the benign forms of humor are consistent with the results of these earlier studies (ackerman & corretti, 2015; wright et al., 2012). antagonism had a unique negative association with the affiliative humor style and a positive association with the aggressive humor style. these results are consistent with the characterization of antagonistic individuals as being cold, callous, and manipulative in their dealings with others (hopwood et al., 2013; southard et al., 2015; strickland et al., 2013). for example, individuals with high levels of antagonism are relatively unconcerned with how their europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 dark side of humor 370 http://www.psychopen.eu/ choices could potentially harm others when making moral decisions (noser et al., 2015). it is important to note that the present results are consistent with previous studies showing that psychopathy and machiavellianism – which are antagonistic in nature – are associated with similar humor styles (veselka et al., 2010). furthermore, the trait of antagonism is thought to be connected to evolved psychological systems concerning agenda protection (harkness et al., 2014) which is consistent with the possibility that individuals with high levels of antagonism may employ aggressive humor – and refrain from using affiliative humor – in order to serve their own needs even if doing so is unpleasant for others (e.g., using aggressive forms of humor to dominate or intimidate others). disinhibition had unique positive associations with the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. these results are consistent with previous findings showing that aspects of disinhibition are connected to behaviors that are harmful to the self and others (e.g., cyders, coskunpinar, & vanderveen, in press). further, individuals with high levels of disinhibition tend to display self-destructive impulsive behaviors while under emotional distress (american psychiatric association, 2013) so it seems reasonable that individuals who display these tendencies may also spontaneously engage in forms of humor that are harmful to either themselves or others. psychoticism had a unique positive association with the self-defeating humor style but it was not associated with the aggressive humor style. this pattern may be explained, at least in part, by the unusual patterns of behavior that often characterize individuals with high levels of psychoticism and may lend themselves to self-disparaging forms of humor. these results may be considered to be conceptually consistent with those of previous studies showing positive associations between psychoticism and the tendency to engage in physical self-harm (e.g., hopwood et al., 2013). the results of this study extend our knowledge concerning the connections between the darker aspects of personality and humor styles. for example, individuals with high levels of antagonism tend to rely on aggressive forms of humor which may play some role in their unsatisfying interpersonal relationships. further, the tendency for individuals with high levels of antagonism to avoid using affiliative forms of humor may further detract from their interactions with others and deprive them of access to social support. although the present study had a number of strengths (e.g., large sample, captured a wide array of pathological personality traits), it is important to acknowledge some of its potential limitations. the first limitation is that the direction of causality between pathological personality traits and humor styles cannot be determined due to the correlational nature of the data. the underlying process model for the present study was that certain pathological personality traits would lead individuals to adopt different humor styles (e.g., antagonistic individuals would choose to employ aggressive forms of humor). however, this causal sequence cannot be established using the present data. for example, it is quite possible that consistently utilizing certain humor styles may have influenced the development of pathological personality traits (e.g., people who adopt aggressive humor styles may develop more antagonistic personality traits) or that a third variable may have impacted the development of both pathological personality traits and humor styles (e.g., common genetic factors, early experiences in a harsh social environment). future research should attempt to gain a better understanding of the causal links between pathological personality traits and humor styles by using experimental designs or longitudinal studies. the second limitation concerns the generalizability of the present results beyond our undergraduate sample. for example, it is possible that the associations between pathological personality traits and humor styles differ across development periods. the third limitation is that the present study relied exclusively on self-report measures of pathological personality traits and humor styles which make it possible that our findings may have been influenced by socially desirable respondeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel 371 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ing. for example, it is possible that some individuals may have been reluctant to acknowledge their aversive personality traits or tendency to employ injurious forms of humor. future research would benefit from utilizing strategies that are designed to capture pathological personality traits and humor styles that are not completely reliant on self-report (e.g., observer ratings). the fourth limitation is that the present study had far more female participants than male participants. sex was included in the analyses but it failed to emerge as a moderator of the effects. this suggests that sex does not moderate the associations that pathological personality traits have with humor styles but it would be helpful if future research attempted to replicate these findings with a sample that had a more even balance of men and women. the fifth limitation is that the pathological personality traits used in the present study capture only a limited range of pathological features of personality. for example, the pid-5 pathological trait of antagonism captures extremely low levels of agreeableness but the pid-5 fails to capture extremely high levels of agreeableness (e.g., gullibility, self-effacement) which may have unique connections with humor styles (e.g., self-effacement may be positively associated with the self-defeating humor style). despite these limitations, the results of the present study expand the current understanding of the connections between the darker aspects of personality and humor by showing the links between pathological personality traits and humor styles. conclusion the results from this study revealed that pathological personality traits were associated with specific humor styles. more specifically, negative affectivity and detachment each had unique negative associations with the affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles. antagonism was positively associated with the aggressive humor style but negatively associated with the affiliative humor style. disinhibition had unique positive associations with the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles, whereas psychoticism was positively associated with the self-defeating humor style. taken together, these results suggest that individuals with pathological personality traits tend to employ humor styles that are harmful to themselves and others and avoid using benign forms of humor that may enhance either themselves or their connections with others. these results suggest the intriguing possibility that humor may play at least some role in the interpersonal difficulties that often accompany pathological personality traits. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 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(2013). conceptions of narcissism and the dsm-5 pathological personality traits. assessment, 20, 339-352. doi:10.1177/1073191113486692 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 zeigler-hill, mccabe, & vrabel 375 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2014.11.010 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.psych.57.102904.190127 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2fper.430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2015.07.043 http://dx.doi.org/10.1521%2fjscp.2015.34.7.555 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1073191113486691 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9450.1974.tb00597.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1073191112457589 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2012.11.023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00224545.2014.896773 http://dx.doi.org/10.1375%2ftwin.11.1.44 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2007.11.003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2010.01.017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1073191112446657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1073191113486692 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors virgil zeigler-hill, ph.d. is an associate professor in the department of psychology at oakland university. he is a socialpersonality psychologist and currently serves as an associate editor for the journal of personality, the journal of personality assessment, and self and identity. his research interests include the “darker” aspects of personality (e.g., narcissism, psychopathy, spitefulness), self-esteem, and interpersonal relationships. gillian a. mccabe, ms is a graduate student in the department of psychology at oakland university who is working under the supervision of dr. zeigler-hill. jennifer k. vrabel, ba is a graduate student in the department of psychology at oakland university who is working under the supervision of dr. zeigler-hill. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 363–376 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1109 dark side of humor 376 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en dark side of humor introduction overview and predictions method participants and procedures measures results affiliative humor style self-enhancing humor style aggressive humor style self-defeating humor style discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors more is not always better: the differentiated influence of empathy on different magnitudes of creativity research reports more is not always better: the differentiated influence of empathy on different magnitudes of creativity sven form* a, christian kaernbach a [a] institute for psychology, christian-albrechts-university, kiel, germany. abstract recently, researchers have argued about the importance of social aspects in creativity. based on these arguments, one could hypothesize that if creativity is indeed about social aspects, then a social ability, such as empathy, will be relevant for creativity as an “interface” allowing the person to connect with others. a thorough review of the literature suggests that the association between empathic abilities and creativity may not be as straightforward as this hypothesis and also two recent empirical studies have suggested. this could be attributed to the fact that creativity may involve quite different levels such as creative achievement or everyday creativity. we suggest that social interaction, and with it empathy, plays a larger role in creative achievement than in everyday creative activities. furthermore, we argue that too much empathy hinders everyday creativity. to explore the impact of empathy on different magnitudes of creativity, we applied two different selfreport measures of creativity: creative achievement was measured by the creative achievement questionnaire, while everyday creative activity was measured by the creative behavior inventory. we used the interpersonal reactivity index to measure empathy. empathy had a positive correlation to achievement, but an inverted-u relationship to everyday creativity. we conclude that more connectedness is not always better for creativity. therefore, the relevance of social aspects for creativity should not be generalized, but may depend on the magnitude of creativity considered. keywords: empathy, everyday creativity, big c creativity, little c creativity, social interaction europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 received: 2017-04-02. accepted: 2017-07-22. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; karwowski maciej, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: allgemeine psychologie i, olshausenstr. 62, 24118 kiel, germany. e-mail: form@psychologie.uni-kiel.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. there has recently been an intense debate among creativity researchers, whether social processes and aspects are relevant for creativity or not (elisondo, 2016; glăveanu, 2014; gralewski, 2015; lebuda, galewskakustra, & glăveanu, 2016; runco, 2015), or—if one wants to avoid dichotomies (glăveanu, 2015)—how much is creativity related to the influence of social aspects. the “how important” or “how much” raises the question whether the influence of social interactions on creativity can be quantified. a possible method to shed some light on this, in a quantitative way, is to look to what extent being connected or “tuned to” each other influences creativity: if social aspects and processes are important, as studies in eminent creative individuals suggest (glăveanu et al., 2013; simonton, 1984, 1992), a creative person will benefit from being connected to other people's minds and feelings. expressed in quantitative terms, the better a person understands other’s minds and feelings, the better social aspects and processes could be included, and, thus, the more one's creativity should benefit from it. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the other hand, there are also theoretical reasons why too much connectedness could hamper being creative. creative individuals sometimes shield or withdraw themselves from the social environment (feist, 1999). a high degree of connectedness is contradiction to the creative persons' need for autonomy. autonomy, in turn, is important as it can facilitate creativity (elsbach & hargadon, 2006). the violation of social norms, commonly attributed to creative individuals, will be made more difficult, if one is concerned (or merely aware) that such behaviour might hurt other's feelings. in the most extreme cases, concern with the issues of other's may simply take away time from one’s own projects. why empathy? the present study will explore the relevance of empathy, as it is a key factor to being connected to others. it can be defined as “the ability to understand and share in another's emotional state or context” (cohen & strayer, 1996). in this way, empathy connects the creative person to the individual worlds of other's. it is a multidimensional construct that not only includes affective, but also cognitive aspects, like the ability of taking someone else’s perspective (davis, 1983). while there have been scattered empirical results, simply reporting a possible relation between empathy and creativity (see below), current research lacks theoretical reasons why specifically empathy should have a beneficial effect on creativity. the observed correlations could also be simply explained by the fact that empathy and creativity have a common neural basis as takeuchi et al. (2014) discussed. for this reason, we offer some explanations, why empathy could be beneficial for creativity. while the first two mechanisms might be considered as improving the quality of a creative product, the latter mechanisms deal with the appreciation or the public perception of a product. first, taking on another person’s perspective strengthens the association between intrinsic motivation and creativity, which leads to highly creative ideas (grant, berry, & carolina, 2011). given that perspective taking is a facet of empathy, this is a first hint that the overall construct could also be relevant for creativity. second, another aspect of empathy is the tendency to identify strongly with fictitious characters in books, films, or plays (davis, 1980). such a tendency should be useful in creating and depicting characters more authentically and thus making creative products more successful. the same might even apply to the depiction of characters in art work. third, empathy is a basic aspect of social skills (riggio, tucker, & coffaro, 1989), probably because the ability to correctly receive and process interpersonal stimuli is essential for competent interpersonal functioning (reviewed in morrison & bellack, 1981). as such, empathy should be beneficial in social interaction, when persuading other's of the value of one's ideas and products (see also kasof, 1995). finally, another application of empathy in the context of creativity might be derived from considerations by simonton (2000): [t]he creative individual must not produce work that is excessively original, for the product may then become incomprehensible, even to a degree that it provokes unpleasant emotional arousal (berlyne, 1971). for example, empirical studies have found that the impact of an artistic product is often a curvilinear, inverted-u function of originality and similar aesthetic features (e.g. kammann, 1966; simonton, 1980, 1986, 1987; steck & machotka, 1975; vitz, 1968). as a consequence, creators must form & kaernbach 55 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ somehow identify just the right amount of originality that will maximize success. (simonton, 2000, p. 286) empathy could help the creator in anticipating the reaction of the social environment to one's creative product and adjust its features to “the right amount of originality”. previous empirical studies although these theoretical considerations underline the benefits of empathic abilities, empirical studies, investigating the relation of empathy or closely related constructs to creativity, present an inconsistent picture. for example, creative students from copy-writing advertising courses differ not in their empathy to students of journalism (auer, 1976). (it should be noted, however, that auer defined and measured empathy not only with regard to understanding another individual, but also included the sensitivity to the social norm of a group. this is an aspect that is no longer included in more recent definitions of empathy [davis, 1980, 1983]). other studies investigated possible associations to creativity by using the teique (sánchez-ruiz, hernández-torrano, pérezgonzález, batey, & petrides, 2011; sánchez-ruiz, pérez-gonzález, romo, & matthews, 2015). the self-report measure teique (trait emotional intelligence questionnaire) assesses, among other emotion related factors, emotionality. emotionality is here of interest, as it incorporates the facets empathy and emotion perception (petrides, 2009). while the term empathy is specifically used in the teique for the capability of taking someone else’s perspective, emotion perception reflects clarity about other people’s feelings. the emotionality factor was neither significantly correlated with creative personality traits nor creative cognition (sánchez-ruiz et al., 2011, 2015). another study found similar results with no connection between constructs in question applying the eq-i:yv with 5-17 year old students (ferrando, 2006). the eq-i:yv (baron emotional quotient inventory: youth version) is designed to measure emotional intelligence in non-adults with an interpersonal dimension as one dimension among others (bar-on & parker, 2000). the test inventors defined this interpersonal dimension as understanding other people’s emotions, feelings and needs. there was no association between creative cognition and the interpersonal dimension (ferrando, 2006). while the studies mentioned so far did not find an association between creative and empathic abilities, other studies found a positive connection between both constructs. for example, a correlational analysis found a positive relation between past creative activities and empathy (carlozzi, bull, eells, & hurlburt, 1995). in this study, empathy was measured with the affective sensitivity scale, a media-based, multiple-choice test focusing on the affective aspects of empathy (kagan & schneider, 1980; werner, kagan, & schneider, 1977). a japanese study also found a correlation between empathizing and creative cognition (takeuchi et al., 2014). empathizing, defined as the ability or drive to identify another person’s thoughts and emotions, was measured with the japanese version (wakabayashi et al., 2007) of the empathizing quotient questionnaire (baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004). however, a critic might argue that the low correlation found (r = .17) was only significant due to the large sample size (n = 895). most recently, an even larger study (n = 1112) took great effort to explore the association between the czech version of the empathizing quotient questionnaire and different aspects of self-reported creative behaviour (dostál, plháková, & záškodná, 2017). empathizing was especially correlated to intrapersonal and empathy and magnitudes of creativity 56 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interpersonal creativity (r = .49), which was measured with items like “being able to work through my personal problems in a healthy way” or “helping other people cope with a difficult situation” (kaufman, 2012). other aspects of creative behaviour correlated with r = .19 or lower with empathizing (dostál et al., 2017). although all the studies mentioned differ in the way that they label and measure the construct empathy, the core aspect is the same regarding the perception of other's feelings and minds. from the empirical results mentioned, the two most recent studies (dostál et al., 2017; takeuchi et al., 2014) seem to be able to give support in favour of a weak association between empathic abilities and creativity, simply due to their large sample size. however, it is worth mentioning a meta-analysis that included about 4,000 individuals (feist, 1998) as its results are also relevant here. a comparison of groups showed different results concerning characteristics related to empathy: artists and scientists were more egocentric and hostile (and accordingly, presumably less empathic) than non-creative individuals. furthermore, artists particularly demonstrated more coldness, which also leads to the assumption that they consider other's feelings and thoughts less. a similar conclusion can be derived from a more recent study, in which marketing students and artists scored lower than the control group in a subscale, consisting of friendliness and the concern for others (martinsen, 2011). the present hypothesis a possible solution for these seemingly contrasting results could lie in the different significance of the social environment for different magnitudes of creativity. on the one hand, there is big c creativity, focusing on publicly acknowledged achievement, as creative work should be “accepted as tenable or useful or satisfying by a group” (stein, 1953, p. 311). in contrast, little c creativity is possible in private without appreciation or social recognition (runco, 1995, 2015). such everyday creative activity is more about the personal experience during the process (moran & john-steiner, 2003). accordingly, the different relevance of other people for the magnitudes of creativity is meant when speaking of “internal and external frames of reference” (stein, 1953, p. 312). as the social environment has different importance, the ability of empathy as an “interface,” connecting environment and person, should have a different impact as well, depending on the magnitude considered. what is seen as achievement needs to be communicated and is judged by the social environment, representing an external frame of reference. the higher one climbs the “achievement ladder”, the more social interactions probably occur and the more they become important (e.g. book signings for authors, contact with publishing agents). everyday creative behaviour certainly does not completely exclude social interactions. thus, a certain level of empathy should be helpful for those interactions. however, everyday creativity is not subject of evaluation by others as much as achievement. if one wants to practice one’s creative activities in private, one can easily do so, representing an internal frame of reference. in fact, everyday creative activity is more associated with being creative independently from the social environment than achievement (form, schlichting, & kaernbach, 2017). while a certain level of empathy is needed (or at least helpful) for social interactions arising from creative activity, too much empathy should be a drawback. for example, high empathy could make it difficult to address one's own conflicts or work through negative experiences, which are known benefits from everyday creativity (richards, 2010). more generally, high empathy will marginalise the creative experience in the act of making. in form & kaernbach 57 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ other words, the focus should shift from an internal frame of reference to an external frame of reference. thus, high empathy should do more harm than good for everyday creative activity. we accordingly hypothesized an inverted-u relationship between empathy and everyday creative activity. in regard to creative achievement, we expect a positive linear relation with empathy, due to the stronger interaction and dependence on the environment. material and methods participants and satistical analyses participants were recruited via notices displayed in public locations, via personal networks and by personally approaching individuals at the campus of the muthesius art academy in kiel. thus, twenty percent of individuals were from the field of fine arts, communications design, industrial design, arts education or spatial design. the rest were students from the university of kiel, mainly psychology undergraduates. the whole sample included 106 individuals (54.7% females). the mean age was 25.2 years (sd = 7.9 years, range = 18-58 years, mdn = 22 years). all participants gave informed consent prior to participation. analyses were performed with spss statistics 20.0 software (ibm spss inc. chicago, il). as creative achievement generally shows right-skewed distribution, we log-transformed the caq-scores for all statistical analyses as has been suggested earlier (silvia, wigert, reiter-palmon, & kaufman, 2012). instruments in order to measure creative achievement, participants gave self-reports in the form of the german version (form et al., 2017) of the creative achievement questionnaire (caq, carson, peterson, & higgins, 2005). the caq specifically asks for accomplishments in ten creative fields, so called domains such as “visual arts”, “creative writing” or “scientific discovery”. it emphasizes the “big c-creativity” (silvia et al., 2012) or in another terminology “pro c-creativity” (kaufman & beghetto, 2009): highly creative contributions, accepted and acknowledged by the social environment. example items are “i have had a showing of my work in a gallery.” or “i have sold one of my inventions to people i know.” the german version of the caq has good concurrent and discriminant validity (form et al., 2017). because items of the caq scale are not like likert-items, but based on a step-wise model, we do not report cronbach’s alpha for the caq (silvia et al., 2012). see table 1 for descriptive statistics of the present sample. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations scale min max m (sd) skewness (sd) kurtosis (sd) cbi logcaq cbi 7 167 63.3 (32.6) 0.7 (0.2) -0.4 (0.5) logcaq 0 1.6 0.9 (0.3) -0.6 (0.2) -0.6 (0.5) .45** spf 21 47 42.3 (8.5) -0.4 (0.2) 1.3 (0.5) .19 .22* note. n = 106, cbi = creative behavior inventory, logcaq = log-transformed caq, spf = sum of the three subscales of saarbrücker persönlichkeitsfragebogen (empathy). *p < .05. **p < .01. empathy and magnitudes of creativity 58 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we measured creative activity with a self-translated german version of the creative behavior inventory (cbi, hocevar, 1979). the german versioni is a 74-item questionnaire asking about (extracurricular) creative activities and behaviours and how often they had occurred in the past. participants rated items (“i painted an original picture” or “i designed and made my own greeting cards”) according to frequency, on a 5-point ordinal scale. although cbi and caq-scores correlate, the correlation is low enough (r = .45, p < .01) to support the discriminant validity of both tests. cronbach's α for the original cbi is in the range 0.63-0.89 (hocevar, 1979, 1980). in our sample, cronbach's α was .83. scores were normally distributed (shapiro-wilk, p > .05). we used the spf (saarbrücker persönlichkeitsfragebogen, paulus, 2009) to measure empathy. it is the newest revised german version of the iri (interpersonal reactivity index, davis, 1980). participants give information on 16 items, using a 5-point likert scale, about the frequency of certain feelings and behaviours. it was validated in 812 individuals, with satisfying reliability (α = 0.78). cronbach's α was .83 in our sample. while davis (1983) originally did not recommend a general overall score with summing up the four different scales measured in the test, the four scales are correlated (ranging from .21 to .48, paulus, 2012). accordingly, the scales (respectively their factors) cannot be seen as independent. using structural equation modelling, cliffordson (2001) found that adding three of the four subscales serves best as a measure of a general empathic disposition. a comparison of models later confirmed this approach for the german version to be the best fitting method (paulus, 2012). thus, we follow this procedure by adding up the scores of the subscales perspective taking, fantasy and empathic concern [the latter also labeled as compassion (leiberg, klimecki, & singer, 2011) or sympathy (hortensius, schutter, & de gelder, 2016)]. the resulting spf scores were normally distributed in our sample (shapiro wilk, p > .05). results to determine whether empathy has a differentiated impact on varying levels of creative behaviour, we performed different regression analyses. for the first regression analysis, the empathy score was the independent and cbi the dependent variable representing the linear regression. then, empathy was squared and added to the regression equation to test for curvilinearity. in the first model, empathy was a marginally significant predictor of everyday creativity (p = .052, β = 0.19, adjusted r2 = .03). for the second model (adjusted r2 = .19) the linear term (spf: p < .001, β = 4.07) and the quadratic term were significant predictors (spf2: p < .001, β = -3.90) (see figure 1). both the linear (spf: p < .001, β = -3.72) and the quadratic term (spf2: p < .001, β = -3.57) remained significant, when age (p > .05) and gender (p = .002, β = -0.27) were added as control variables. given that gender was a significant predictor of cbi and previous studies suggest significant gender differences for empathy (eisenberg & lennon, 1983; schulte-rüther, markowitsch, shah, fink, & piefke, 2008), we checked whether the quadratic relationship between spf and cbi is moderated by genderii. that is, does the extent of the bend of the function (its steepness or direction) depend on gender? the moderation analysis indicated neither the curvilinearity was more pronounced in one gender (spf2 x gender: p = .33, β = 1.23), nor did the direction depend on gender (spf x gender: p = .31, β = -1.32). form & kaernbach 59 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we examined the influence of empathy on creative achievement using another regression analysis. empathy was a close to significant predictor of creative achievement (adjusted r2 = .05, p = .057, β = .27). when spf2 was included in the regression equation, the model did not improve. discussion the current study investigated whether empathy contributes in specific ways to different magnitudes of selfreported creative behaviour. in accordance with our hypotheses, empathy was associated with creative achievement in a linear fashion, while empathy had an inverted-u relationship with everyday creative activity. the effect even remained when controlling for age and gender, despite being female had also a positive effect on creative activity. the observation that achievement is linearly influenced by empathy, while creative activity is not, is reminiscent of stein's (1987) argument that “we should not assume that the psychological characteristics associated with creativity little c are the same as those associated with creativity big c’’ (p. 420). creative behaviour is possible in private (runco, 1995, 2015), and thus involves less social interaction and is less dependent on judgement. the present results could be interpreted as taking this a step further: they suggest social interaction is not only less necessary, but a too pronounced connectedness to others can obviously be an obstacle, if one wants to focus on the experience in the creative act. our results are not necessarily in conflict with other studies, but add a more differentiated picture. while two studies found no association between creative cognition and empathic abilities (ferrando, 2006; sánchez-ruiz et al., 2015), a larger japanese study provided evidence for such an association (takeuchi et al., 2014). this does not yet imply a relevance of empathy for creativity in general, but can also be explained by a common neural basis of both constructs as the authors argue themselves. in fact, when creativity was instead measured in terms of real-life creative activities, in an even larger study, empathy seemed to have a meaningful influence only on the specific aspect of interpersonal and intrapersonal creative behaviour (dostál et al., 2017). for overall creativity, the effect of empathy was negligible, both in terms of creative activity and achievement. in regard to achievement, this result seems to contrast with the present result, which suggested an association figure 1. a scatterplot comparing self-reported empathy (spf) and self-reported everyday creativity (cbi), which shows a curvilinear relationship (n = 106). empathy and magnitudes of creativity 60 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with empathy. however, the contrast to the present study can be explained by differences in data transformation of the caq data. while dostál et al. (2017) transformed raw scores into the ordinal categories low, medium, and high, we used a log-transformation as silvia et al. (2012) suggested. an influence of empathy may have not been detected neither for overall (non-achievement) creative behaviors in dostál et al.’s (2017) study, nor for studies using creative cognition tests (see earlier) due to a non-linear relationship. a limitation of the present study is that we did not differentiate the effect of empathy for different domains, but a meaningful differentiation was not possible due to the present sample size. another limitation is certainly the constrained focus on the creative person. if being connected to others is differently important for different magnitudes of creativity, then differences should be also found on the product and process level. for example, studies should ask whether there is a difference in experiencing the creative process between people, who show the same level of creative activity, but differ in their level of empathy. more precisely, are people with low empathy more concerned with their own feelings and thoughts and what happens to them in the act of making? does someone high in empathy try to anticipate the reaction of audiences to one’s product? investigating such questions would be opportunities to further tests the considerations from the introduction. as glăveanu (2014) recently criticized, creativity articles rarely offer practical implications or by being vague about them, we want to point out a possible consequence of our findings regarding the theory of creativity. while there probably is a consensus among creativity researchers that social aspects and processes have their influence, there is less consensus how far this influence goes. as an initial step to examine this issue, the present study suggests that the emphasis on the relevance of other's for creativity is justified as long as one talks about big c creativity, but that the topic could be more complicated for small c creativity and deserves more in-depth investigation. notes i) the questionnaire can be downloaded from the first author's homepage. ii) we thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this possibility. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references auer, e. 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(1977). the measurement of affective sensitivity: the development of an instrument. annual conference on research in medical education, 16, 187-193. about the authors sven form is a phd student at the institute for psychology of kiel university. so far, he worked on mentoring creativity. his main interest is in understanding how a creative individual becomes creative high achiever. christian kaernbach is a senior professor and head of the unit for basic psychology at the institute for psychology of kiel university. although his specific field is the psychology of emotion, he likes to see the bigger picture. form & kaernbach 65 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 54–65 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1432 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.2190/jlap-jrk1-0tdy-dbrm http://doi.org/10.2190/b94k-cp9n-vut8-rlkh http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167292184009 http://doi.org/10.1006/drev.1999.0504 http://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.1.2.170 http://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1953.9712897 http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00921 http://doi.org/10.1037/h0043402 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-006-0316-6 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ empathy and magnitudes of creativity (introduction) why empathy? previous empirical studies the present hypothesis material and methods participants and satistical analyses instruments results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the theory of planned behavior and the social identity approach: a new look at group processes and social norms in the context of student binge drinking research reports the theory of planned behavior and the social identity approach: a new look at group processes and social norms in the context of student binge drinking loren willis* a, eunro lee b, katherine j. reynolds c, kathleen a. klik d [a] research school of psychology, australian national university, canberra, australia. [b] school of health and biomedical sciences, royal melbourne institute of technology, melbourne, australia. [c] research school of psychology, australian national university, canberra, australia. [d] department of psychology, university of south carolina, sumter, sc, usa. abstract the current study investigates the theory of planned behavior with important additional predictors from the social identity approach. the study explores whether social identity might function as a driver of the theory of planned behavior and help explain how abstract group processes might impact student binge drinking behavior. adopting a controlled statistical analysis, the hypothesized model expands the theory of planned behavior’s current conceptualization of group norms and considers how the behavioral content of a specific group, with group identification, impacts binge drinking behavior (n = 551 university students). a path analysis that simultaneously mapped all the hypothesized relationships supported a reconceptualization of social identity as a predictor within the theory of planned behavior. the interaction between group identification and the importance of drinking to the group’s identity significantly predicted an individual’s attitudes towards binge drinking and perceived social binge drinking norms (subjective, descriptive and injunctive), which in turn predicted intentions to binge drink. intentions to binge drink predicted self-reported binge drinking behavior two weeks later, above and beyond relevant covariates. the implications of these findings are discussed, with recommendations for future research. keywords: theory of planned behavior, social identity approach, binge drinking, social norms, group membership europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 received: 2019-01-30. accepted: 2020-01-05. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: michael bosnjak, zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, trier, germany *corresponding author at: research school of psychology, the australian national university, science road, building 39, canberra, act 2601, australia. e-mail: loren.willis@anu.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. despite considerable effort, researchers are still striving to understand binge drinking behavior, as alcohol remains a leading contributor to burden of disease. harmful alcohol use is responsible for 1 in 20 deaths worldwide, which is an estimated 3 million people a year (world health organization, 2018). the population that reports the highest rates of single occasion risky drinking and the highest levels of alcohol-related accidents or injuries is disproportionately young people (aged 18-24) and students (australian institute of health and welfare, 2016; national health and medical research council, 2009). in order to decrease harmful binge drinking behavior, particularly amongst student populations, it is crucial to understand what influences individuals to drink. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ many researchers have utilized the theory of planned behavior (tpb; ajzen, 1985, 1991) to understand what leads individuals to participate in drinking. the tpb suggests that an individual’s intentions, defined as one’s readiness to perform a behavior, are the best predictors of whether an individual will undertake a given behavior (godin & kok, 1996). in turn, one’s intentions are thought to be predicted by their attitudes (one’s positive or negative evaluation of performing the behavior), subjective norms (perception of whether important others think they should perform the behavior or not) and perceived behavioral control (pbc; one’s perceived sense of control over performing the behavior). underlying attitudes, subjective norms and pbc are behavioral, normative and control beliefs respectively. the tpb has proven to be a successful prediction tool, with a recent meta-analysis concluding that the tpb has a medium to large effect size in predicting intentions to consume alcohol and alcohol consumption (cooke, dahdah, norman, & french, 2016). the tpb also recognizes a range of possible background variables that might explain why individuals hold certain beliefs, which inform their attitudes, norm perceptions and pbc in a given context. depending on the target behavior, different salient background variables, such as education, media exposure and neighborhood quality, might indirectly impact intentions and behavior or affect the relationship between attitudes, subjective norms and pbc with intentions (fishbein & ajzen, 2010). many past researchers have explored how demographics, such as age and gender, function as a tpb background variable to predict drinking (armitage, norman, & conner, 2002). similarly, numerous studies have explored how individual differences and personality traits, like sensation seeking, act as background variables in health behavior prediction (turchik & gidycz, 2012). however, psychosocial background variables in the tpb, such as one’s psychological group membership, are not well documented. based on past binge drinking research, it is evident that group identification can have a considerable impact on student attitudes, norm perceptions and drinking behavior (hagger, anderson, kyriakaki, & darkings, 2007; johnston & white, 2003). therefore, it might be wise to consider social identity processes as a background factor in the tpb when predicting student binge drinking. in the current study, a possible extension of the tpb is proposed with respect to further emphasis on the social identity approach and group norms. a central idea is that people belong to a number of different groups which can shape their self-concept. shifts in self-identities may impact on attitudes and inform which ‘others’ and standards will be proponent in shaping one’s own behavior. as a result, when explaining behaviors such as binge drinking, it may be helpful to look at group-level processes in more detail. more specifically, it might be important to consider people’s group memberships, whether drinking is central to what it means to be a group member and the level of connection the individual has to the group (social identification). as is explained in more detail below, these social identity predictors have rarely been explored in relation to the tpb. the current research proposes that in some instances, social identity might function as a driving background variable in the tpb and therefore make a significant contribution to explaining behavior. being oriented to a situation as a group member may help explain variability in attitudes, norms and pbc. these key tpb constructs, in part, could be viewed as outcomes of different self-concepts becoming salient in any given context. furthermore, if a group identity is made salient, specific group norms might have a direct impact on intentions and become highly relevant to behavioral decisions. tpb and social identity processes 358 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the tpb and the role of group norms the tpb has received extensive support, but there is still scope to improve the current model’s predictive power. one area of improvement that warrants attention is the model’s conceptualization of normative influence. the only direct variable in the original tpb that considers social pressure is subjective norms. yet, subjective norms fail to significantly predict health intentions across a number of studies (godin & kok, 1996; johnston & white, 2003; terry, hogg, & white, 1999). armitage and conner's (2001) meta-analysis concluded that the relationship between subjective norms and intention is consistently the weakest relationship within the model. however, instead of concluding that social norms are not relevant to intentions, perhaps we need to expand our understanding of social norms within the tpb. while the concept of subjective norms intends to consider all kinds of important social expectations, the way it has been traditionally measured, both directly and indirectly, might limit this process. participants are usually asked whether most people who are important to them approve or disapprove of the target behavior. particularly in the context of drinking, this additive approach raises the issue that in an individual’s social network some would typically approve of drinking, such as peers, whereas others would typically disapprove of drinking, such as parents. similarly, as items do not specify who participants should think about, some participants might answer questions with individuals in mind, such as their grandmother, and others with larger groups, such as their extended family, making the results hard to interpret. to understand more about which ‘others’ participants are thinking about when perceiving subjective norms, ajzen and fishbein (1980) proposed that in pilot studies, participants should identify which individuals and groups would support or not support their participation in a target behavior. although eliciting these normative beliefs can help us understand who participants have in mind when completing direct subjective norm measures, it is common for participants to also list irrelevant people or groups that do not play a significant role in their decision making. for example, french and cooke (2012) found that out of 190 participants, 23% listed ‘role models’ and 12% listed non-drinkers, as people who would disapprove of drinking. however, when analyzed further, these groups appeared to have no significant effect on subjective norms or intentions to drink alcohol. additionally, as participants are asked questions about ‘important people’, this can implicitly lead to a focus on specific individuals, such as a sister or brother (donald & cooper, 2001). other groups that could be highly important to the individual and have an impact on their decisions, such as their nationality or their university, are potentially overlooked. abstract groups might be neglected, as they are harder to consciously recognize as influencers and they are not as salient or readily available as important individuals (donald & cooper, 2001). unless participants are directly asked to think about a specific group when completing normative measures, it is unlikely that we will be able to understand how large groups influence intentions and behavior. to understand more about social influence, it might be necessary to narrow the scope for participants and explicitly mention the group norms we are interested in exploring. a common extension of the tpb, which has been recommended by ajzen and fishbein (2005), is to expand the definition of social norms within the model to include both group specific descriptive norms and injunctive norms. the descriptive norm is an individual’s perception of behavior that is typical for most people to do within the defined group (cialdini, reno, & kallgren, 1990). the injunctive norm is an individual’s perception of what is morally approved, or disapproved, conduct for the defined group (cialdini et al., 1990). using the descriptive willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 359 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and injunctive norm, we can be group specific about which norms we are interested in exploring, such as what “the typical students at university x” would do. not only does this make the measurement of social influence easier to interpret, it is also useful in informing social marketing campaigns, that communicate with widespread messaging about largely relevant groups. indeed, the addition of both descriptive and injunctive norms as direct predictors of intentions often has increased the predictive power of the tpb (rivis & sheeran, 2003), significantly explaining variance in intentions even after subjective norms have been taken into account (park, klein, smith, & martell, 2009). for example, a meta-analysis conducted by rivis and sheeran (2003) concluded that there was a medium to strong correlation between descriptive norms and intentions, with descriptive norms contributing five per cent of explained variance in intentions beyond that of the original tpb variables. knowing not only what group members approve of, but also whether members act in line with these moral values, can have a large impact on group member intention. however, this extended model still falls short of capturing the group-based processes that affect the perception and impact of social norms (reynolds, subašić, & tindall, 2015). one influential approach called the social identity approach (sia) might offer some further insights. the sia incorporates both social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1979) and self-categorization theory (turner, hogg, oakes, reicher, & wetherell, 1987), into one comprehensive approach. it provides a detailed analysis of how social processes such as norms can influence drinking and other behaviors. through the idea that a person’s self-concept is variable depending on the context a person encounters (being at home or at work, thinking of themselves as a woman or australian) their attitudes, perceptions and motivations will also vary. this approach may provide a deeper understanding of how group norms and group processes function in the tpb model. the social identity approach the sia argues that people’s behaviors are influenced by how much they identify as a member of a group. a social identity refers to a person’s knowledge that they belong to a group and that group membership has some emotional and valued significance (haslam, 2004). it is argued that individuals can identify with multiple groups and as such, have multiple interdependent categorization of the self. as people come to identify and view the group as psychologically meaningful, they internalize the norms, values, and beliefs that define the group, which will help to shape their self-concept (turner et al., 1987). once the group characteristics have been internalized, the group members will have an intrinsic motivation to act in line with the group norms. the group norms impose an internal sanction on the individual to uphold the prototype of the group, which become self-defining and self-reinforcing, as the individual tries to conform to their own self-concept (hogg & reid, 2006). therefore, a group such as one's university is not just an external organization but can be intrinsically tied to an individual’s identity and can have an impact on his or her behavior (ashforth & mael, 1989). thus, it would be advantageous to consider the sia in conjunction with the tpb to gain a greater understanding of how psychological group processes can impact behavior (cooke, sniehotta, & schüz, 2007; reynolds et al., 2015). the tpb and social identity processes building on these ideas, there is a growing body of research that has incorporated group identification with a specific reference group in the tpb model. in the context of the tpb, most studies have analyzed social tpb and social identity processes 360 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ identification as a moderator of the relationship between group norms and intentions (johnston & white, 2003; terry & hogg, 1996; terry et al., 1999). for example, terry and hogg (1996) found that the perceived norms of a salient reference group influenced intentions to engage in health behaviors, but only for individuals who identified strongly with the in-group. similarly, johnston and white (2003) found that beyond the variance explained by attitudes, subjective norms and self-efficacy, group norms moderated by group identification, significantly predicted binge drinking intentions. the group norm was only important for individuals who identified strongly with the student group. these are important developments that reveal psychological connection to the group of interest can help explain drinking and other health behaviors. although social identification has been shown to moderate the relationship between perceived norms and behaviour, some researchers have found little support for this relationship. for example, norman, clark, and walker (2005) found that although the addition of descriptive norms did increase the amount of variance explained for aggressive behavior, “little evidence was found to support the moderating role of group identification on tpb-intention relations” (p. 1008). similarly, louis, davies, smith, and terry (2007) in a longitudinal study found that student group identification and the perceived healthy eating norm interaction was non-significant in predicting three different measures of healthy eating behavior. therefore, it may be timely to consider other functions of social identity when it is explored in the context of the tpb. perhaps following fishbein and ajzen’s (1975) conceptualization that certain background variables operate in the tpb might help us understand more about the role of social identity beyond acting as a moderator in the normintention relationship. ajzen (2011) stated that the tpb variables, particularly attitudes and subjective norms, would be affected by context and vary as a function of the specific population. if the context is conceptualized as the social context and the specific population is thought to be the reference group of interest, then it is possible that social identification might directly influence the variables within the tpb. a salient social identity could make accessible certain beliefs that provide the foundation for norm perceptions, attitudes and pbc. as stated by hogg and smith (2007) “self-categorization transforms self-conception to match the identity described by the category, and transforms one’s perceptions, attitudes, feelings and conduct to conform to the category prototype” (p. 96). in other words, when individuals identify with a salient group, a depersonalization process occurs where the groups norms, values and beliefs, become their own. if a group has positive attitudes towards drinking, it is likely that highly identifying group members will exert aligning attitudes to reflect their valued group membership. if drinking is not central or particularly relevant to the prototype of the group, members attitudes towards drinking will vary based on individual or other group evaluations. similarly, if many in-group members engage in drinking, this can act as a trusted heuristic and a persuasive cue to drink, affecting individual pbc (hogg & smith, 2007). however, if individuals don’t identify with the salient group, they are more likely to rely on personal beliefs, resulting in higher pbc. it is through our understanding of the sia that we can begin to understand how group processes might impact the tpb variables. a study by hagger, anderson, kyriakaki, and darkings (2007) was also interested in the impact of social identity on tpb constructs and, in turn, intentions and behavior. their results indicated that social identity positively influenced attitudes, subjective norms and pbc for binge drinking, highlighting that it could be a predictor driving the behavioral model. however, social identity did not significantly predict attitudes, pbc or subjective norms in relation to exercise and dieting behavior. a potential reason for the mixed results is that willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 361 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hagger et al. (2007) incorporated less widely used measures of social identity, characterizing it more as an individual quality related to the importance of popularity and social connections. moreover, hagger et al. (2007) explain that exercise and dieting were not seen as social behaviors, and therefore social identity was less likely to have an impact. however, it is possible that exercise and dieting where not important to the group’s identity, and therefore one’s identification with the group did not predict engagement in those behaviors. whereas binge drinking could have been central to the group’s identity. this interaction between identification and how important a behavior is to the group has not been explored in the context of the tpb. past research has predominantly focused on measuring a form of group identification, such as “how much do you feel you identify with (insert group)?” (terry & hogg, 1996). however, just knowing whether someone identifies with the group is not enough. we need to understand group identification in the context of what it means to be a part of the group. it is important to understand what behaviors and values characterize the group and are central to the group’s identity, as they form the group content and differentiate it from out-groups (hogg & reid, 2006). it is the characteristics that define the group that will shape a group member’s behavior when the group is salient and there is a high level of psychological connection with the group. along these lines, livingstone and mccafferty (2015) demonstrated in an experiment that personal attitudes and group identification moderated whether norm information impacted intentions, but only when the behavior in question was central to the group’s identity (drinking alcohol as opposed to drinking coffee). when norm information was supplied about a behavior that was not group defining, one’s level of identification with the group did not impact intentions to behave. similarly, livingstone, young, and manstead (2011) found that when they tried to manipulate the descriptive norm to decrease drinking behavior, if binge drinking was perceived as central to the student identity, one had positive attitudes towards drinking and the individual highly identified, a backlash effect occurred, as the group felt their identity was under threat. therefore, the importance of the behaviour to the group’s identity and meaning (its’ raison d'être) needs to be taking into consideration in conjunction with identification levels when predicting student drinking. the present study by exploring group processes and social norms from a sia perspective, we can begin to understand how the social context shapes binge drinking behaviour in the context of the tpb. there are three major gaps in the literature that the current research seeks to address. first, in addition to the subjective norm variable, group specific injunctive and descriptive norms will be added to the model to understand how larger social group norms directly impact intentions to binge drink. second, instead of exploring social identification as a moderator of the norm – intention relationship, it is proposed that social identity processes act as a background variable within the tpb. third, instead of just focusing on whether one identifies with a group in order to predict behavior, we will explore how the perceived importance of the behavior relative to what it means to be a group member will impact one’s decision to engage in binge drinking. the current project also adopts more controlled statistical analyses to understand the tpb. the majority of studies in the tpb drinking literature used multiple hierarchical regressions for analysis (for examples see barratt & cooke, 2018; hasking & schofield, 2015; johnston & white, 2003; norman, armitage, & quigley, 2007). a limitation of multiple regression is that it can only have one dependent variable, meaning that the predictors of intention and the predictors of behavior are not entered simultaneously. however, the current tpb and social identity processes 362 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study utilizes path analysis within the program mplus (version 8.3), which can model multiple dependent variables with simultaneous estimation and account for both direct and indirect effects for a more sophisticated analysis (jeon, 2015). although binge drinking has been a popular focus of past literature, the term ‘binge drinking’ is not well defined and lacks consistency. in the current study, binge drinking is defined as consuming seven or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion (cooke et al., 2007; courtney & polich, 2009; palmer, fryer, & kalafatelis, 2009). research has shown that after seven or more drinks have been consumed on a single occasion, individuals are at a greater risk of suffering from alcohol related problems and injuries (fillmore & jude, 2011). furthermore, most research in the area has been conducted in the usa, with most researchers using five standard drinks as the binge drinking definition (gabbiadini, cristini, scacchi, & monaci, 2017; neighbors, lee, lewis, fossos, & larimer, 2007). as a standard drink in the usa corresponds to 14g of alcohol, whereas a standard drink in australia is 10g of alcohol, five standard drinks in the usa is the equivalent to seven standard drinks in australia (kerr, patterson, koenen, & greenfield, 2009). therefore, the current study’s definition of binge drinking is comparable to most of the past literature within the field.i in line with the tpb, it is hypothesized that pbc (h1a) and intentions (h1b) will directly predict drinking behavior. as pbc decreases and binge drinking intentions increase, binge drinking behavior will increase after all covariates are considered. furthermore, attitudes towards drinking (h2a), subjective norms (h2b) and pbc (h2c) will significantly predict binge drinking intentions. as positive attitudes towards binge drinking increase, subjective drinking norms increase and pbc decreases, one’s intentions to engage in binge drinking will increase. in addition to the traditional tpb model, it is hypothesized that as group specific descriptive norms increase (h3a) and group specific injunctive norms increase (h3b), binge drinking intentions will also increase. it is further predicted that the interaction between group identification and the importance of drinking to group identity will significantly predict drinking attitudes (h4a), subjective norms (h4b), descriptive norm (h4c), injunctive norm (h4d) and pbc (h4e). the importance of drinking to group identity will be more strongly related to drinking attitudes, drinking norms (subjective, descriptive, and injunctive) and pbc for high group identifiers than for low group identifiers. method pilot study an online study was conducted prior to the main study to confirm whether the traditional method of gathering normative beliefs lead participants to neglect larger groups. the pilot consisted of 39 university students; 25 females (64.1%), mage = 21.1 years, mtime spent at university = 5.8 semesters. participants were asked open-ended questions about their drinking behavior, such as which individuals or groups would approve or disapprove of their drinking.ii two markers reviewed and categorized the responses. when listing people or groups who approved of binge drinking behavior, only six participants (15%) mentioned a wider social group (such as their residential college or their gender). similarly, only three participants (8%) mentioned a wider social group (such as health organizations or religious groups) who disapproved of drinking. willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 363 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the remaining participants listed people who were specific to them, such as their parents, older sibling or significant other. it appears that if researchers want to explore the influence of social groups, which might be more relevant when designing large-scale interventions, the group may needs to be explicitly named when measuring social norms in the tpb. main study participants in an australian university with 25,000 enrolments, a total of 551 students participated in the study. of the participants, 281 (51%) were living at university residencies (eight different residencies in total) and 270 (49%) had other housing types, such as the family home or rented share houses. the mean length of time spent enrolled at the university was 4.18 semesters (sd = 2.75). the sample consisted of 158 (28.7%) males, 325 (59%) females, and 6 (1.1%) people who identified their gender as ‘other’, with the mean age of participants being 20.5 years (sd = 2.67, range 18 42). of the 551 people who completed the initial survey, 274 (50%) completed the follow-up behavioral survey after two weeks. of those respondents, 90% could be linked to their initial survey response via research codes, which resulted in 246 (45%) participants with data from both the initial survey and the follow-up. following missing value analysis and attrition analysis, measures for participants who did not respond to the follow-up were imputed using multiple imputation in mplus (version 8.3), as is recommended for statistical rigor over listwise deletion (asendorpf, van de schoot, denissen, & hutteman, 2014; graham, 2009; newman, 2014). procedures participants were recruited through an internal research database, on the university’s social media pages and in person. after reading a participant information sheet, all participants completed an online or paper-based questionnaire. following a two-week period, participants were sent an email asking about their drinking behavior since completing the initial survey. a research code was used to link their responses between the initial survey and the follow-up to maintain anonymity. at the start of the questionnaire a visual representation of australian standard drinks was presented. the surveys were customized to reflect a relevant reference group for the participant. if the participant was a member of a university residency, their reference group became ‘other (college) students’, with their residential college name inserted in each relevant item. if a participant was not a remember of a residency, their reference group became ‘other (university) students’, with the university’s name inserted in each relevant item. measures were constructed in line with ajzen’s (2006) instructions, using the target, action, context, time (tact) method (conner & sparks, 2005; francis et al., 2004), with “7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next 2 weeks” as the stem of all questions. unless otherwise stated, responses were recorded on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). measures control variables — the covariates of binge drinking in the current study include the participants’ age, gender, how many semesters they have been enrolled at the university and the participants’ past binge drinking behavioriii. past research has indicated that these control variables are associated with student drinking behavior (barratt & cooke, 2018; neighbors et al., 2010; reed, lange, ketchie, & clapp, 2007; rimal & real, 2005). past drinking behavior was measured using the daily drinking questionnaire (ddq; collins, parks, & marlatt, tpb and social identity processes 364 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1985; dimeff, baer, kivlahan, & marlatt, 1999). the participants were asked to report the number of standard drinks they consumed on every day of their heaviest drinking week within the past monthiv. if the participant indicated that they had drunk seven or more standard drinks on at least one occasion within the week, then their past behavior was coded as ‘1’ for binge. if there was no occasion where the participant drunk seven or more standard drinks, they were coded as ‘0’ for no binge. the ddq has been used extensively in past research on student drinking and has good test-retest reliability and good convergent validity (marlatt et al., 1998; neighbors, lewis, bergstrom, & larimer, 2006). group identification — group identification was measured on a three-item scale of identity centrality (α = .89), adapted from leach et al. (2008). items included “the fact that i am a student at [insert group] is an important part of my identity” and “being a student at [insert group] is an important part of how i see myself”v. importance of drinking to the group — the importance of drinking to the in-group was measured on a 7-item scale (α = .88) adapted from livingstone et al. (2011). items included “if i had to pick one thing that defines being a student at [insert group], it would be drinking alcohol” and “drinking is central to the image of being a student at [insert group]”. attitude — attitude was measured using a 7-point semantic differential scale with seven differential adjectives (α = .92). participants responded to the statement “drinking more than 7 standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks would be…” anchored with semantics such as unenjoyable-enjoyable, good-bad, foolish-wise. higher scores indicate pro-drinking attitudes. perceived behavioral control — pbc was measured with two items (α = .60). the items measured were “i feel in complete control of whether i drink more than 7 standard alcoholic drinks in a single occasion over the next two weeks” and “how much personal control do you have over whether you drink 7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks?” from no control at all (1) – complete control (7). subjective norms — subjective norms for pro-drinking were measured using three items (α = .83). all items referred to ‘most people who are important to me’, with items such as “most people who are important to me expect me to drink 7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks” and “most people who are important to me think i should not (1) should (7) drink 7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks”. injunctive norm — injunctive norms for pro-drinking were measured using two items (α = .69) on a 7-point scale. the items included “most student at [insert group] think i should not (1) should (7) drink 7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks” and “if i drank 7 or more standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks, most students at [insert group] would approve (7) disapprove (1)”. descriptive norm — the drinking norms rating form (dnrf; baer, stacy, & larimer, 1991) was used to measure perceptions of the drinking descriptive norm. participants were asked to estimate the number of standard drinks consumed on each day of a typical week within the last month by a typical member of their group. if an estimation on any day of the week indicated the norm was seven or more standard drinks, the willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 365 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ descriptive norm was coded as ‘1’ for binge. if there were no days were seven standard drinks was exceeded, the norm was coded as ‘0’ for no binge. intentions — intentions were measured on a three-item scale of generalized intentions to drink (α = .97). participants responded to the items “i intend/i want/i expect to drink more than 7 standard alcoholic drinks on a single occasion over the next two weeks”. descriptive statistic results showed that intentions were over-dispersed and polarized, with people either having extremely low or extremely high intentions to drink. therefore, based on the distribution of the data, a binary variable of intentions was created. if participants’ intentions fell on or below the midpoint of 4, they were coded as ‘0’ for low intentions and if their intentions fell above the midpoint of 4, they were coded as ‘1’ for high intentions. behavior — binge drinking behavior was measured during a follow-up, two weeks after the initial questionnaire. participants were asked to recall their drinking behavior since the initial survey, recording the information using the ddq (collins et al., 1985). if the participant indicated that they had drunk more than seven standard drinks on one occasion within the two weeks, they were coded as ‘1’ for binge. if there was no occasion where the participant drunk more than seven standard drinks, they were coded as ‘0’ for no binge, to create an overall binary binge drinking variable.vi analysis overview descriptive statistics analysis was conducted in spss (version 22). the nested nature of the data was considered, as students from the same residential college could be more correlated compared to students from other residential colleges, or non-residents. therefore, mplus (version 8.3) was used to calculate interclass correlation coefficients (icc) and design effects to determine whether the assumption of independent observations had been violated (hox, 2010). as all the iccs were greater than zero (range .04 .21) and the design effects were greater than two (range 3.22 12.25) residency was used as a cluster variable with type = complex in mplus (version 8.3) for the imputation and the main analysis (muthén & satorra, 1995). missing values analysis was conducted in spss using em with 50 iterations. little’s missing completely at random (mcar) test was non-significant (χ2 = 159.79, df = 141, p = .133) indicating that missingness was completely at random. therefore, as recommended with mcar and mar data, multiple imputation with 40 iterations in mplus was used to impute the missing data (newman, 2014) and mplus combined the results into a single set of estimates and standard errors. all study variables had a significant shapiro-wilk statistic (all p < .001), with visual inspection of histograms and q-q plots suggesting that the data was non-normal, as many of the variables were skewed. therefore, the maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors (mlr) in mplus was used to account for the non-normality violations. construct validity of the measures was examined with the measurement models in mplus, with modification indices applied. cfa confirmed that all items adequately loaded onto their respective latent factor, ranging from .56 (good) to .98 (excellent), except for item 4 in the ‘importance of drinking to the group’ measure, which had a poor loading of .36 (comrey & lee, 1992) and was subsequently dropped from the main analysis. logistic regression path analysis was conducted to model all the predictors of binge drinking behavior (refer to table 4). the tpb explanatory variables, social norms, group identification and the importance of drinking to tpb and social identity processes 366 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the group were included in the final model, while the demographic covariates and past drinking behavior were taken into account. the main effects of group identification and the importance of drinking to the group (along with the interaction terms) were entered into the model because the significance of the multiplicative term cannot be tested without controlling for the component main effects (cohen & cohen, 1983). the main effects of group identification and the importance of drinking to the group on tpb variables will only be interpreted if the interaction effect is non-significant. mediators were pbc, attitudes, subjective norms, injunctive group norms and descriptive group norms, which in turn were hypothesized to impact binge drinking intentions. it was also predicted that the final outcome variable, binge drinking, would be impacted by pbc and the proximal mediator drinking intentions. odds ratios were reported for the relationships with binary variables, by exponentiating the estimated coefficients. as the odds ratio terms are multiplicative, positive effects are odds ratios that are greater than one and negative effects are between zero and one. mcfadden’s adjusted r2 was utilized to determine model fit, with values above .2 representing excellent model fit (mcfadden, 1977). results descriptive statistics means, standard deviations, skew, kurtosis and alpha levels are presented in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics of the scale scores variable m sd skew kurtosis α injunctive norm 4.2 1.33 -.22 -.06 .69a subjective norm 3.45 1.56 .11 -.67 .83 perceived behavioral control 5.87 1.33 -.12 .82 .60a attitudes 3.70 1.43 -.37 -.51 .92 social identity 4.48 1.6 -.42 -.65 .89 importance of drinking 3.42 1.15 .34 -.12 .86 athe injunctive norms and pbc measures showed a cronbach α smaller than .7, the recommended reliability level. however, the measures only had two indicator items respectively, so the α is simply a correlation of the two items. considering the sensitivity of the α to measures with a small number of items, the measures were retained in the model. in the last month, 192 students (35%) recorded that they had participated in binge drinking within a typical week and 302 (55%) participated in binge drinking during a heavy week of drinking. overall, 250 (45.5%) participants were coded as intending to binge drink during the two weeks following the questionnaire. most students perceived that the descriptive norm involved binge drinking, as 308 (58.4%) students indicated that the typical student in their group would binge drink at least once in a typical week. of the 245 participants who completed the follow-up, 82 (33.5%) self-reported binge drinking behavior within the two-week period. the number of drinks on a given day ranged from 0 to 25 drinks. correlations among the study variables are presented in table 2. willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 367 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations among variables variable correlation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1. behavior 2. intentions .54** 3. pbc -.35** -.39** 4. attitudes .47** .60** -.34** 5. subjective norm .40** .57** -.36** .64** 6. injunctive norm .26** .34** -.21** .39** .49** 7. descriptive norm .28** .36** -.23** .31** .35** .38** 8. importance .19** .21** -.25** .12** .27** .38** .23** 9. identification .06 .07 -.13** .05 .07 .07 .10* .10* 10. past behavior .51** .62** -.39** .57** .54** .32** .45** .18** .09* 11. age -.09 -.17** .09* -.15** -.15** -.16** -.10* -.08 .01 -.15** 12. time at university .06 -.01 .08 .03 .05 .05 .10* .02 .06 .05 .44** 13. female -.05 -.09 .05 -.12* -.09* .06 .09* .08 .06 -.09 -.10* -.02 14. other gender -.02 -.07 .07 -.08 -.11* -.03 -.06 .01 -.01 -.05 -.01 -.01 -.16** note. behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. intentions: 0 = no intentions to binge, 1 = intentions to binge. descriptive norm: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. past behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. female: 0 = male, 1 = female. other gender: 0 = male, 1 = other gender identifiers. *p < .05. **p < .01. attrition analysis attrition analysis was conducted in spss (version 22) before the missing data imputation, as seen in table 3. due to the unequal group sizes between the initial and follow-up participants, regression analysis was conducted to see whether people who completed the follow-up behavior measure were significantly different on variables of interest compared to the people who dropped out. the results showed that people who participated in the follow-up were significantly more likely to report lower drinking behavior in the past for both a typical week (m = 6.87 compared to 9.74) and a heavy drinking week (m = 14.2 compared to 17.3), lower perceptions of subjective norms for drinking (m = 3.27 compared to 3.63), higher pbc (m = 6.07 compared to 5.67), more negative attitudes towards drinking (m = 3.49 compared to 3.9) and were more likely to be female. all other variables were not significantly different between the two groups. multiple imputation was used so that a more representative sample would be analyzed, but the results should be interpreted with caution considering the attrition results. tpb and social identity processes 368 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 attrition analysis results: regression coefficients variable β se past behavior: heavy -0.09* 1.54 pbc 0.15*** 0.12 intentions -0.05 0.20 attitudes 0.04*** 0.13 descriptive norm 0.03 0.81 group identification 0.04 0.10 injunctive norm -0.00 0.12 importance of drinking 0.01 0.10 subjective norm -0.11* 0.14 note. dropout group = 0. group with follow-up data = 1. pbc = perceived behavioral control. se = standard error. *p < .05. ***p < .001. main logistic regression: path analysis logistic regression path analysis with observed variables was utilized to test the hypotheses, with a hierarchal model presented in table 4. the final hypothesized model results are discussed below and presented in figure 1. the global model fit significantly improved when all the hypothesized predictors were included compared to the intercept model, χ2(df = 27, n = 551) = 6516.68, p < .001, with mcfadden’s adjusted r2 = .58, showing excellent model fit (veall & zimmermann, 1996). figure 1. logistic regression path analysis of the hypothesized model (model 4). note. behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. intentions: 0 = no intentions to binge, 1 = intentions to binge. descriptive norm: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. past behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. female: 0 = male, 1 = female. other gender: 0 = male, 1 = other gender identifiers. coefficients are unstandardized. dashed lines represent non-significant pathways, while dotted grey lines depict the main effect paths that were significant but overridden by the significant interaction effects. nonsignificant main effect paths, error terms, and correlations are excluded from the diagram for visual simplicity. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 369 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ past drinking behavior was the only covariate to significantly predict binge drinking behavior (b = 1.08, p < .001), as the odds ratio of binge drinking behavior increases by a factor of 2.95 for every unit increase in past drinking behavior. if a participant self-reported binge drinking behavior anytime in the month prior to the survey, they were more likely to report binge drinking in the follow-up. all other demographic variables were nonsignificant in predicting binge drinking behavior. it also appeared that pbc did not directly predict binge drinking behavior (b = -0.21, p = .087). contrary to predictions, a decrease in pbc did not predict an increase in drinking behavior (h1a). intentions positively influenced binge drinking behavior (b = 1.51, p < .001), as the odds ratio of binge drinking behavior increases by a factor of 4.52 for every unit increase in drinking intentions. as hypothesized, the more an individual intended to binge drink, the more likely they were to participate in binge drinking within the two-week follow-up (h1b). in support of the original tpb, drinking attitudes, subjective norms and pbc all emerged as significant predictors of binge drinking intentions. attitudes positively determined intentions (b = 1.06, p < .001). the odds ratio of binge drinking intentions increases by a factor of 2.89 for every unit increase in positive attitudes towards drinking. as positive attitudes towards binge drinking increased, intentions to engage in binge drinking increased significantly, as was originally hypothesized (h2a). subjective norms positively determined intentions (b = 0.50, p < .001), with the odds ratio of binge drinking intentions increasing by a factor of 1.65 for every unit increase in subjective norms. in line with predictions, if an individual perceived that most people who were important to them approved of binge drinking, they were more likely to intend to binge drink themselves (h2b). pbc negatively predicts intentions (b = -0.42, p = .012), as the odds ratio of binge drinking intentions is 0.66 times as likely for every unit increase in pbc. as feelings of pbc decreases, intentions to binge drink increase, as was hypothesized (h2c). group-specific descriptive drinking norms and group-specific injunctive drinking norms were predicted to have a significant relationship with drinking intentions. perceived descriptive norms positively predicted intentions (b = 0.88, p < .001), with the odds ratio of binge drinking intentions increasing by a factor of 2.42 for every unit increase in descriptive norms. in accordance with the hypothesis, the more an individual perceived that a typical member of their group would engage in binge drinking behavior in a typical week, the greater their own binge drinking intentions (h3a). unexpectedly, injunctive norms did not significantly predict intentions (b = 0.06, p = .52). hypothesis h3b was not supported, as the approval or disapproval of the specified student group did not appear to impact individual intentions to binge drink. it was also predicted that the group identification and importance of drinking to the group identity interaction would directly predict attitudes, perceived social norms and pbc. the interaction between identification × importance did significantly predicted attitudes (b = 0.132, p = .005), subjective norms (b = 0.146, p < .001), descriptive norms (b = 0.168, p < .001) and injunctive norms (b = 0.077, p < .001). as was hypothesized, drinking attitudes (h4a), subjective norms (h4b), descriptive norms (h4c) and injunctive norms (h4d) were all influenced by whether one identified with the relevant group and whether drinking was important to the group’s identity. however, identification × importance did not significantly predict pbc (b = -0.027, p = .463). contrary to the hypothesis, there was no moderated relationship between importance of drinking to the group, group identification and pbc (h4e). yet, the main effects of identification (b = -0.096, p = .018) and importance of drinking to the group (b = -0.255, p < .001) were significant negative predictors of pbc. although they were not predicted effects, it appears that the higher one’s identification with the group, the lower their pbc. additionally, as one’s perception of the importance of drinking to the group identity increases, their pbc decreases.vii tpb and social identity processes 370 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 coefficients of logistic regression path analysis: hierarchical models to explain binge drinking behavior and intentions with tpb and sia predictors model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 b se or b se or b se or b se or behavior predictors past behavior 2.06*** 0.29 7.85 1.08** 0.26 2.95 1.08** 0.26 2.95 1.08** 0.26 2.95 age -0.11* 0.07 0.9 -0.09 0.07 0.92 -0.09 0.07 0.92 -0.09 0.07 0.92 time at uni 0.07* 0.06 1.07 0.08 0.06 1.08 0.08 0.06 1.08 0.08 0.06 1.08 female -0.17 0.25 0.84 -0.09 0.28 0.92 -0.09 0.28 0.92 -0.09 0.28 0.92 other gender -1.21 1.23 0.3 -0.65 1.08 0.52 -0.65 1.08 0.52 -0.65 1.08 0.52 intentions 1.51*** 0.33 4.52 1.51*** 0.33 4.52 1.51*** 0.33 4.52 pbc -0.21 0.12 0.81 -0.21 0.12 0.81 -0.21 0.12 0.81 intention predictors pbc -0.45** 0.17 0.64 -0.42** 0.17 0.66 -0.42** 0.17 0.66 attitudes 1.07*** 0.12 2.9 1.06*** 0.13 2.89 1.06*** 0.13 2.89 sub norm 0.58*** 0.11 1.78 0.50*** 0.1 1.64 0.50*** 0.1 1.64 des norm 0.88*** 0.2 2.42 0.88*** 0.2 2.42 injun norm 0.06 0.1 1.06 0.06 0.1 1.06 pbc predictors identification -0.10* 0.04 importance -0.26*** 0.05 iden x imp -0.03 0.04 attitude predictors identification 0.05 0.06 importance 0.14* 0.06 iden x imp 0.32** 0.05 subjective norm predictors identification 0.05 0.05 importance 0.33*** 0.07 iden x imp 0.15*** 0.04 descriptive norm predictors identification 0.13** 0.05 1.11 importance 0.42*** 0.08 1.48 iden x imp 0.17*** 0.03 1.19 injunctive norm predictors identification 0.03 0.05 importance 0.39*** 0.05 iden x imp 0.08 0.02 model information loglikelihood difference (χ2) χ2(df = 5, n = 551) χ2(df = 5, n = 551) χ2(df = 2, n = 551) χ2(df = 15, n = 551) = 60.75, p < .001 = 184.71, p < .001 = 6.86, p < .05 = 137.99, p < .001 note. se = standard error. or = odds ratio. sub norm = subjective norm. des norm = descriptive norm. injun norm = injunctive norm. importance = importance of drinking to the group. iden x imp = interaction between identification and importance of drinking to the group. behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. intentions: 0 = no intentions to binge, 1 = intentions to binge. descriptive norm: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. past behavior: 0 = no binge, 1 = binge. female: 0 = male, 1 = female. other gender: 0 = male, 1 = other gender identifiers. coefficients are unstandardized. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 371 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the main model interaction effects group identification moderating the impact of importance of drinking to the group on attitudes, perceived behavioral control and social norms a second set of analyses plotted the significant group identification × importance of drinking to the group identity effects, in order to visualize the relationships. the significant interaction effects were explored in spss (version 22; as seen in figure 2) and simple slopes estimated from parameter estimates are presented, with identification split into low identifiers and high identifiers, and perceived importance of drinking to the group on the x-axisviii. however, spss (version 22) does not have a cluster analysis option, therefore the following results include confounding from intraclass correlations within residency groups and should be interpreted with caution. figure 2. group identification as a moderator of perceived importance of drinking to the group in explaining (a) subjective norms, (b) attitudes, (c) descriptive norms, and (d) injunctive norms. tpb and social identity processes 372 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective norms — the positive association between perceived subjective norms and the importance of drinking to the group was stronger for students who highly identified with the group compared to students who had low levels of identification. attitudes — there was a positive association between attitudes towards drinking and the importance of drinking to the group when students highly identified with the group. however, the opposite was true for low identifiers; there was a negative association between importance of drinking to the group and attitudes when the student had a low level of identification. descriptive norms — as the perceived importance of drinking to the group increase, so did the perceived descriptive norm. the positive relationship between descriptive norms and the importance of drinking to the group was stronger for students who highly identified with the group compared to students who had low identification levels. injunctive norms — the positive association between perceived injunctive norms and the importance of drinking to the group was stronger for students who highly identified with the group compared to students who had low identification levels. discussion the present study sought to explore sia constructs as background variables within the tpb and to understand how group specific norms predict intentions. the aim was to explore whether group membership (including identification and identity meaning) could be reconceptualized to act as a driver of the tpb when predicting binge drinking in university students. overall, there appears to be support for exploring social identity as an additional predictor in the tpb, with group processes predicting individual perceptions, including group specific norms, that affect drinking behavior. with regards to hypothesis 1b, intentions did significantly predict binge drinking behavior, as was expected and consistent with past research. if a student intended to participate in binge drinking, they were more likely to self-report binge drinking behavior two weeks later. in line with the original tpb, it was also hypothesized that pbc would directly predict behavior (h1a), which was not supported. however, numerous studies have found the relationship between pbc and drinking behavior to be non-significant (cooke et al., 2007; hagger et al., 2007; terry & hogg, 1996; terry et al., 1999). a meta-analysis conducted by cooke et al. (2016) confirmed that the relationship between drinking behavior and pbc was small, negative and non-significant, with many of the reviewed studies showing inconsistent results. therefore, it appears that the current study’s results are consistent with other tpb models in the context of student binge drinking. the other hypotheses regarding the original tpb model were supported, as attitudes (h2a), subjective norms (h2b) and pbc (h2c) all predicted drinking intentions. as attitudes towards drinking became more positive and perceptions of pro-drinking subjective norms increased, overall intentions to engage in binge drinking increased, as is consistent with the tpb. furthermore, the less pbc one felt they had over the decision to binge drink, the more likely that they intended to drink. although the relationship between pbc and intentions is sometimes theorized to be positive, in relation to drinking behavior, the significant negative relationship is in line with past research (cooke et al., 2016; gabbiadini et al., 2017). it is possible that for negatively evaluated willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 373 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and/or traditionally socially undesirable behaviors, greater perceptions of control lead to lower intentions to act (cooke et al., 2016; eagly & chaiken, 1993). hypothesis 3 was partly supported. binge drinking descriptive norms did significantly predict intentions (h3a), but injunctive norms did not (h3b). as is consistent with past research, the more one perceived everyone else in the group was binge drinking, the greater their intentions to engage in binge drinking themselves (rimal & real, 2005; rivis & sheeran, 2003). although it was hypothesized that the more one perceived members of their group to approve of drinking, the more one would intend to drink, injunctive norms did not significantly predict intentions. looking back at past research, when most studies have extended the tpb to include injunctive norms, researchers have used a measure of ‘group norms’, which combines both descriptive and injunctive norm items (for examples see johnston & white, 2003; terry & hogg, 1996; terry et al., 1999; white, smith, terry, greenslade, & mckimmie, 2009). as descriptive and injunctive norms have been shown to operate differently when affecting drinking intentions and behavior (cho, 2006), using a group norm measure means that it is impossible to disentangle the normative influence. of the research that does specifically measure injunctive group norms and drinking intentions, the results are mixed. some researchers have concluded that the main effect of injunctive norms on intentions and/or drinking behavior is only significant when the reference group is in close proximity to the individual (cho, 2006; park et al., 2009). for example, reed, lange, ketchie, and clapp (2007) found that injunctive norms predicted drinking behavior when the reference group was friends, but not peers or greek-letter members. it is possible that the reference group in the current study was too distal for the injunctive norms to influence intentions. additionally, a common occurrence when injunctive and descriptive norms are entered into a model simultaneously, is that injunctive norms acts as a suppressor variable, resulting in a strong relationship between descriptive norms and intentions, and a non-significant relationship between injunctive norms and intensions (chawla, neighbors, lewis, lee, & larimer, 2007; manning, 2009, 2011; neighbors et al., 2008). alternatively, as subjective norms predicted intentions, but injunctive norms did not, it is possible that the approval of important individuals, like one’s best friend and parent, is more relevant than the approval of larger groups when an individual decides to binge drink. more research is needed to clearly understand the relationship (or lack thereof) between injunctive norms and drinking intentions. the interaction between group identification and the importance of drinking to the group did significantly predicted attitudes (h4a), subjective norms (h4b), the descriptive norm (h4c) and the injunctive norm (h4d). although this interaction has never been directly tested, the results are in line with past theoretical observations that social context influences individual attitudes and how normative information is perceived (hogg & smith, 2007; livingstone & mccafferty, 2015). however, the interaction term did not successfully predict pbc (h4e). only the main effects of group identification and the importance of drinking to the group identity were significant in predicting pbc. it seems that the higher one’s identification level, the lower their pbc over drinking. it is possible that someone who identifies highly with the group sees drinking as a social activity that involves less pbc, whereas someone who does not identify with the group could view drinking as an individualistic behavior. similarly, as the importance of drinking to the group identity increases, one’s pbc over drinking decreases. it is possible that regardless of one’s level of identification, if the social group believe that drinking is important, there will be a perceived increase in social pressure to conform and engage in drinking. tpb and social identity processes 374 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, the current study has been able to both replicate and extend the tpb. whilst taking into account all the tpb variables simultaneously with advanced statistical analysis, the current study was able to confirm the findings of past research and concluded that attitudes, subjective norms and pbc predict binge drinking intentions, which in turn predict binge drinking behavior. the current study also helped to clarify the mixed evidence with regards to normative influence within the tpb. it appears beneficial to differentiate between the different types of social norms (subjective, descriptive and injunctive) as all three appear to have distinct effects on intentions. it is advised that when descriptive and injunctive norms are added into the tpb, they should not be measured as one construct, nor should they replace subjective norms, as the concepts are not interchangeable. similarly, the results also demonstrate that measuring the descriptive and injunctive norms of the group is not the same as measuring the importance of the behavior to the group’s identity. it appears that one’s experience of the group and what it means to be a part of that group affects their perception of associated social norms. most notably, the current study demonstrates the sia has much to contribute to understanding behavior in the context of the tpb. the present study revealed that it is not enough just to measure whether one identifies with a group or not when trying to predict behavior. it is beneficial to understand what behaviors are central to the salient group’s unique identity, in conjunction with how much an individual psychologically identifies with the group, as both will affect an individual’s perception of reality and ultimately their behavior. as four of the five interaction effects that were tested between group identification and the importance of the behavior to the group were significant predictors within the tpb, there is compelling evidence to argue that researchers could pay more attention to group processes when trying to predict one’s attitudes, pbc and perceptions of social norms in relation to drinking. furthermore, being oriented to a situation as a group member may help explain the source of tpb constructs and variability across social contexts. in relation to binge drinking behavior, the tpb constructs can be viewed as outcomes of particular self-concepts becoming salient in a particular situation. therefore, the current study has highlighted that a more comprehensive understanding of how the sia can contribute to the tpb is highly valuable, as it advances our understanding of how to predict and potentially influence behavior. limitations and future directions despite the current study’s important implications, there are some limitations that should be noted and rectified in future research. first, the current study only explores correlations between cross sectional variables, meaning that the causal direction of the relationships could be misinterpreted. for example, instead of one’s group membership predicting attitudes, it is possible that one’s attitudes will determine which group they chose to be a part of, as they seek out similar individuals (kahler, read, wood, & palfai, 2003). similarly, instead of the importance of drinking to the group predicting perceived drinking norms, perceived drinking norms could influence whether one sees drinking as a behavior that is important. therefore, future research needs to investigate the proposed relationships in both longitudinal and experimental designs to make stronger claims about the casual direction. second, some of the measurements used in the current study could be improved upon. injunctive norms and pbc were only measured on two-item scales, which have been recognized as problematic (marsh, hau, balla, & grayson, 1998). future studies could expand the number of items to capture these complex constructs in an attempt to increase content validity and measurement reliability (eisinga, te grotenhuis, & pelzer, 2013). willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 375 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the current study also measures descriptive norms, past behavior and drinking behavior in a way that is common within the social norm approach literature (for examples see moore, williams, moore, & murphy, 2013; neighbors et al., 2010; lewis & neighbors, 2007), but not frequently utilized within the tpb. although the measures have good test-retest reliability, good convergent validity (marlatt et al., 1998; neighbors et al., 2006) and are similar to common tpb measures, it is possible that this could affect the generalizability of the results. additionally, using a variable centered perspective and turning descriptive norms, intentions and binge drinking behavior into binary variables could have resulted in losing valuable information. in future research, other ‘person-centered’ analysis options, such as latent profile analysis, might be able to preserve additional information. similarly, it is possible that when students are physically engaging in binge drinking within a social setting (such as a party or in a club), different and potentially conflicting social identities could be salient and affect behavior in a currently unknown way. it is necessary to see whether the current results can be replicated when other reference groups are made salient. furthermore, as the current study was focused on specifically understanding binge drinking in university students, it would also be beneficial to replicate the proposed model with other health behaviors that range in social motivation (such as exercise, applying sunscreen, healthy eating etc.) and with other samples in the wider population, to further generalize the results. in sum, the findings from the current study appear to offer promising extensions to the tpb when predicting binge drinking. it appears that viewing social identity processes as a background variable in the tpb offers insight into how the social environment can play a role in one’s drinking behavior. more specifically, group membership, including group identification and what behaviors are central to a group’s identity, seems to shape an individual’s perception of related attitudes, social norms and pbc. therefore, perhaps a greater focus on social processes in line with the tpb should be encouraged in order to advance our ability to predict binge drinking behavior. notes i) although some researchers propose gender specific definitions of binge drinking (wechsler, dowdall, davenport, & rimm, 1995), there is evidence to suggest that dual definitions are problematic, and a single definition is adequate (ford, 2001; johnston & white, 2003; livingstone, young, & manstead, 2011). furthermore, the australian national health guidelines are not gender specific and advise both men and women to adhere to the same behavior (nhmrc, 2009). therefore, the definition of binge drinking in the current study is seven or more standard drinks on a single occasion for both men and women. ii) participants were also asked about the advantages/disadvantages and the barriers/enablers of binge drinking, which two reviewers categorized into a list of modal accessible beliefs that represented 75% of the mentioned beliefs. the modal responses were used to create items for behavioral beliefs, normative beliefs and control beliefs in the main study. however, the beliefs were not analyzed in the current study, as the belief-based and direct measures are indicators of the same underlying constructs, and the direct measures are more relevant to the current research aims. although the beliefs are not modelled in the current study, they might be used in future research to inform a relevant behavioral intervention. iii) there is debate in the field as to whether past behavior should be considered a predictor of behavior (theoretically as an indicator of habit strength) or a statistical control (theoretically as an indicator of temporal stability; for a discussion on the topic see sommer, 2011). the current paper aligns with ajzen (2002) and includes past behavior as a temporal stability control variable to add predictive value. iv) participants also indicated the number of standard drinks they consumed on every day of a typical week within the past month. however, it appeared that this measure was a poor predictor of binge drinking behavior and significantly decreased the model’s fit. therefore, it was removed for the main analysis. v) leach et al. (2008) complete 14-item identification scale was measured in the initial survey. however, the sub-scale of centrality was the most relevant to the current study’s research aims. therefore, the centrality measure was utilized in the final model. tpb and social identity processes 376 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.psychopen.eu/ vi) although many researchers use the dnrf and the ddq to create an aggregated sum of how many drinks a typical student is thought to consume over a week and how many drinks a student consumes over a week respectively, this does not give insight into binge drinking behavior. the binge drinking variable was also explored as a count variable (how many times in the follow-up period did a participant binge drink). however, this variable was over-dispersed and positively skewed, as 67% of the participants did not record binge drinking in the follow-up period. therefore, a binary variable seemed more appropriate for the aims of the current study and for the recorded distribution. vii) the same hypothesized path analysis was conducted with the mplus default imputation for the dependent variable on the dataset (n = 478) without the imputation of the missing data in the explanatory variables, in order to compare the results (graham, 2009). almost identical results were found to the main results. all the same main effects and interaction effects were significant in the overall path analysis. the only paths that differed were those in the non-imputed dataset, pbc significantly predicted behavior (b = -0.285, p = .044), age significantly predicted behavior (b = -0.17, p = .028) and time spent at the university significantly predicted behavior (b = 0.142, p = .007). viii) based on theoretical considerations from the social identity approach, group identification was conceptualized as the moderator of the relationship between the importance of drinking to the group’s identity and the tpb variables. it is also possible to interpret that the importance of drinking to the group is the moderator, affecting how social identification correlates with the tpb variables. funding the corresponding author receives a financial scholarship from the commonwealth of australia. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. previously presented some preliminary findings of this study were presented at the conference of the society of australasian social psychologists (sasp) in sydney, australia, april 2019. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ajzen, i. 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(2018). global status report on alcohol and health 2018. who. retrieved from https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274603/9789241565639-eng.pdf. about the authors loren willis is a social psychology researcher working in canberra, at the australian national university and for the behavioural economics team of the australian government (beta). in the past, loren’s research looked at how organizational climate and organizational identification impacted individual outcomes, such as levels of stress and self-esteem. more recently, she has been interested in understanding how social identity and social norms can be utilized to understand behavioral decisions surrounding health and lifestyle. dr. eunro lee’s expertise lies in research design and statistics in social psychology. her knowledge in advanced statistical modelling has been applied to research projects in organizational psychology, educational psychology and forensic and legal psychology. her research topics include social identity perspectives concerning learning, job involvement, and wellbeing in students and staff, group dynamics and decision making, and restorative justice and therapeutic jurisprudence. she is currently developing new research projects concerning neuro-social psychology topics using brain imaging technologies. katherine reynolds is a professor of psychology at the australian national university (anu). her research addresses group processes (leadership, influence, norms) and intergroup relations (prejudice, discrimination, cohesion, social change), and is informed by the social identity perspective. she has served on several executive committees of professional societies, editorial boards and as associate editor of personality and social psychology bulletin and political psychology. currently, she is president of the australasian society of social psychologists (2017-2019) and immediate past-president of the international society of political psychology. dr. kathleen klik is currently a lecturer at the university of south carolina sumter and was a research fellow at australian national university. she graduated with her phd in psychology from east tennessee state university (johnson city, tn, usa). dr. klik is a social psychologist that conducts research at the intersection of social, political, clinical, and developmental psychology. within her research she takes a translational approach attempting to bridge between different sub-disciplines of psychology as well as across basic and applied research. her research focuses on exploring the impact of group memberships on individual functioning. in particular, dr. klik has investigated the following core areas of social psychology: stigma and intergroup relations, social identity, social cohesion, and educational outcomes among students. willis, lee, reynolds, & klik 383 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 357–383 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-6419.1996.tb00013.x https://doi.org/10.2105%2fajph.85.7.982 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f014466608x295207 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274603/9789241565639-eng.pdf https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ tpb and social identity processes (introduction) the tpb and the role of group norms the social identity approach the tpb and social identity processes the present study method pilot study main study analysis overview results descriptive statistics attrition analysis main logistic regression: path analysis the main model interaction effects discussion limitations and future directions notes (additional information) funding competing interests previously presented acknowledgments references about the authors relating rational and experiential thinking styles with trait emotional intelligence in broader personality space research reports relating rational and experiential thinking styles with trait emotional intelligence in broader personality space biljana jokić* ab, danka purić cd [a] center for study in cultural development, belgrade, serbia. [b] social psychology laboratory, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. [c] department of psychology, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. [d] laboratory for research of individual differences, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract the usual distinction between rational and intuitive thinking styles is still a subject of scientific debate, as there is no consensus about their nature, mutual relations and relations to other personality constructs. cognitive-experiential self-theory (cest) proposes rational and experiential thinking styles as original personality constructs not fully explainable by five-factor personality models. following cest, we aimed to examine: 1. the uniqueness of rational and experiential dimensions by relating them to other personality constructs: trait emotional intelligence (tei) and hexaco; 2. thinking style profiles defined through combined rational and experiential dimensions, and the possible role of tei in understanding them. a total of 270 undergraduate students (82% females) completed the teique-sf, rei-40, and hexaco-pi-r. our results showed that constructs from all three paradigms were low to moderately correlated to each other. tei had incremental validity in explaining both rational and experiential dimensions, but large amounts of their variances remained unexplained by both tei and hexaco. we revealed four thinking style profiles defined through combined rational and experiential dimensions. tei was the highest when both dimensions were high and the lowest when both were low, which could be related to processes of understanding and managing emotional functioning – proposed as an essential part of tei, while within cest they are seen as the way in which rationality influences experientiality. this finding might be of specific significance for understanding irrationality as not exclusively related to high intuition, but to low rationality as well. keywords: trait emotional intelligence (tei), cognitive-experiential self-theory (cest), rational experiential inventory (rei-40), thinking styles, hexaco europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 received: 2018-07-01. accepted: 2018-09-26. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: center for study in cultural development, rige od fere 4, 11000 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: biljana@beograd.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. many authors acknowledge reflective/analytic and intuitive/automatic thinking styles, recognizing individual differences in their habitual use as relatively stable tendencies throughout time and situations (phillips, fletcher, marks, & hine, 2016). there is strong empirical support for the assumption that these are two independent dimensions rather than the opposite ends of a bipolar continuum (akinci & sadler-smith, 2013; hodgkinson, sadler-smith, sinclair, & ashkanasy, 2009; wang, highhouse, lake, petersen, & rada, 2017). this assumption is also in line with cognitive-experiential self-theory (cest) which provided one of the most often used instruments for measuring individual differences in thinking styles, the rational-experiential inventory (rei) (epstein, 2003, 2016; pacini & epstein, 1999). moreover, cest is proposed as a personality theory defining rational and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiential thinking styles as unique constructs, which cannot be reduced to or entirely explained by classical personality traits from the big five model. in this study, we were interested in determining the relations between thinking styles and some other personality constructs, namely the six-factor personality model and trait emotional intelligence. in general, connecting different paradigms and testing uniqueness and mutual overlapping of constructs proposed to explain personality space could further our understanding of human behavior – in this particular case, one’s preference for rational or/and experiential thinking styles, and moreover preference for irrationality. cognitive-experiential self-theory according to cest, an experiential system (es) is preconscious, automatic, effortless, rapid, and associated with affect, while a rational system (rs) is conscious, analytical, effortful, slower than experiential, and affectfree (epstein, 2016)i. each has its advantages and disadvantages, and it might be reasonable to use one over another depending on context (epstein, 2010). the authors of cest emphasized that their theory did not offer new insights about rs, but rather considered es in a way different from the usual understanding of automatic/ preconscious processes. es is understood as an organized system with heuristics as primarily adaptive processes. this is essentially different from conceptualizing heuristics as mutually unrelated cognitive shortcuts for making decisions under uncertainty (as in tversky & kahneman, 1974), when people rely on so-called “subjective probabilities” – beliefs about the likelihood of events (e.g. outcomes of elections). es is proposed as an alternative for the freudian unconscious system, but unlike the maladaptive unconscious in psychoanalysis, es is considered an adaptive learning system. in fact, both es and rs are learning systems – es learns from experience and outcomes, while rs learns through inference. the assumption is that both es and rs have their own form of intelligence – the intelligence of rs corresponds to the constructs assessed by classical iq tests, while the intelligence of es is proposed as an original construct, assumed to include practical intelligence, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence, and an original instrument has been created for measuring it (constructive thinking inventory, cti) (epstein, 1998, 2010). the cest assumption is that the experiential system is necessary for survival and evolutionarily much older than the rational one. however, es is also proposed to be a source of superstitions, prejudices, and biases in reasoning, which is empirically supported (aarnio & lindeman, 2005; king, burton, hicks, & drigotas, 2007; stojanov, 2015). the influence of es on rs could be automatic, outside of awareness, and mediated by feelings. the identification of these feelings is supposed to be a first and important step in controlling that influence (epstein, 2003). the successfulness of this process may depend on the specific combination of experientiality and rationality dimensions, based on the assumption about their orthogonality. an empirical study that examined interrelated rationality and experientiality effects on several criterion variables revealed four thinking style profiles: rationally dominant (high rationality / low experientiality), experientially dominant (high experientiality / low rationality), dual preference (high experientiality / high rationality), and disengaged (low experientiality / low rationality). moreover, rationally dominant participants had the lowest scores on a superstition scale – significantly lower than experientially dominant participants, with dual preference participants in-between (fletcher, marks, & hine, 2012). although this study confirmed the role of the experiential dimension in irrational thinking, it implied that the rational dimension was important as well. this is evidenced by the difference in superstition scores between the dual-preference and experientially dominant participants, as both groups had high experientiality scores, but differed in their preference for rationality. jokić & purić 141 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thinking styles in relation to classic personality traits since cest is proposed as a personality theory, its authors tested how it fared by some classical personality models. they demonstrated that rei provides information not covered by classical five-personality trait topologies, e.g. big five as a predictor of rei explains only 37% of the variance of rationality and 11% of experientiality (epstein, 2003; pacini & epstein, 1999). besides the conclusion that rei and big five measure different constructs, cest authors also stated that big five models provide information mainly related to the rational (or conscious) thinking style, while they cannot capture psychological constructs associated with automatic (preconscious) information processing. similar results were reported cross-culturally in dutch and spanish samples, with even lower percentages of explained variance: 22% for rationality and 7% for experientiality, respectively, in the dutch sample and 6% and 2% in the spanish sample (witteman, van der bercken, claes, & godoy, 2009). however, with regards to specific relations of big five traits with rational and experiential dimensions, the results were not entirely consistent, e.g. in the dutch, but not the american sample, rationality was positively correlated to agreeableness, while a low correlation between the experiential dimension and conscientiousness was positive in the american and negative in the dutch sample. since results on all three samples are consistent in that both rational and experiential dimensions kept specific variance, beyond that overlapping with personality traits from classical five-factor models, we were interested in exploring a possible contribution of another personality construct to the understanding of thinking style dimensions. for this purpose, we chose trait emotional intelligence (tei) or trait emotional self-efficacy, defined as a constellation of emotional perceptions assessed via questionnaires and rating scales (petrides, pita, & kokkinaki, 2007). the possible role of trait emotional intelligence in understanding thinking styles tei has been established as a recognized construct, widely tested and empirically supported (andrei & petrides, 2013; andrei, siegling, aloe, baldaro, & petrides, 2016; lea, qualter, davis, pérez-gonzález, & bangee, 2018; petrides et al., 2016; rubaltelli & pittarello, 2018), although there has been a debate around both the term (emotional intelligence) and the sense of the construct (since it overlaps with classic personality traits). concerning the term emotional intelligence (ei), it is important to note that unlike the classical ei construct which represents a specific form of ability, tei represents emotional self-perceptions. critics argue that, because it does not represent intelligence in the common sense of the concept, tei contributes to the confusion in ei literature (mayer, salovey, & caruso, 2008). as previously mentioned, cest proposes its own specific understanding of emotional intelligence as a form of es intelligence: it is the intelligence of automatic thinking that underlies emotions (epstein, 1998, 2016). having in mind the different meanings of the concept emotional intelligence in all those paradigms, our aim was not to compare them in terms of their plausibility or advantages of one over another but to explore possible relations between tei and both rational and experiential dimensions. why should we expect tei to be related to rational and experiential dimensions from cest? tei has been introduced as a second order personality trait that incorporates emotion-laden characteristics which are mostly spread over different personality traits of the big five model (de raad, 2005; petrides & furnham, 2001; van der linden, tsaousis, & petrides, 2012). tei includes 15 facets (e.g. self-esteem, social awareness, empathy, emotion perception, emotion regulation, stress management, etc.), with 13 of them formrei thinking styles in broader personality space 142 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ing four factors (self-control, emotionality, sociability and wellbeing), and the remaining two (adaptability and self-motivation) contributing directly to the global tei score (andrei et al., 2016; petrides, 2009). as such, tei considerably overlaps with constructs from the big five taxonomy, especially with neuroticism and extraversion, as these dimensions are particularly emotion-laden (saklofske, austin, & minski, 2003; siegling, furnham, & petrides, 2015). however, the authors of tei treat these high correlations (over .60 with neuroticism and over .50 with extraversion) as expected and theoretically incorporated in the model (de raad, 2005; petrides & furnham, 2001; van der linden et al., 2012). moreover, research has shown that tei has unique contributions in predicting various psychological variables, beyond the variance explained by the big five model (jolićmarjanović & altaras-dimitrijević, 2014; siegling, vesely, petrides, & saklofske, 2015). therefore, based on the nature of rationality and, even more so, experientiality, it would not be surprising if tei had an incremental contribution in predicting these two constructs as well. namely, as a constellation of emotional self-perceptions, tei could be expected to capture processes related to the experiential system from the cest paradigm. cest assumes that es is closely associated with affect (influencing affect and being influenced by affect) and rei also includes self-report measures about ability and preference in relying on affect (e.g. i trust my initial feelings about people; i tend to use my heart as a guide for my actions). additionally, a broad definition of tei which incorporates various variables from the domains of social relations, self-control, or more general well-being, also corresponds to past findings from the cest paradigm which showed that the intelligence of the experiential system (measured by cti) was positively correlated with social competence, leadership ability, ability to cope with stress, emotional adjustment, physical wellbeing, etc. (epstein, 2003). however, it is possible that tei is not exclusively related to the experiential dimension. tei also includes selfperceptions about regulation and management of emotions, which implies an understanding of emotional functioning – from the cest perspective, the rational dimension has an important role in that process by aiding the understanding of how the experiential system operates and by correcting it to have more appropriate initial reactions (epstein, 2003, 2016). to our knowledge, no empirical research has systematically related cest rationality and experientiality with the tei paradigm. a study that tested the relation between rei and self-reported emotional intelligence revealed that both experientiality and rationality positively relate to ei, but this study did not control for other personality traits, and more importantly, although the construct of ei was discussed as both a trait and an ability, the instrument for measuring it operationalized ei as an ability, rather than a trait (schutte et al., 2010). current study the general goal of the current study was to examine thinking style constructs from the cest paradigm by relating them to tei, while also taking into account the variance shared with basic personality traits. unlike past studies which included big five models, we decided to employ a six-factor model, hexaco. the specific goals of our study were: 1. assessing the relations between the constructs from cest, tei, and hexaco paradigms, with particular emphasis on the amount of thinking style variance explained by hexaco, and in addition by tei; 2. identifying thinking style profiles through combined rational and experiential dimensions (as in fletcher et al., 2012) and further exploring their relations to tei. jokić & purić 143 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relations between constructs in order to determine the relations between rei, tei, and hexaco, we planned to establish zero-order correlations between these three personality domains. while hexaco, to our knowledge, has not been empirically connected to rei so far, this model has already been tested in the tei paradigm: tei had a high positive correlation with extraversion, a moderate negative correlation with emotionality, while correlations with other traits were all positive and low to moderate in intensity (veselka et al., 2010). it is important to note that hexaco incorporates a large amount of variance not captured by five-factor models (ashton & lee, 2007; lee & ashton, 2018). this primarily refers to the inclusion of an additional, broad honesty/humility factor. however, the authors suggest that hexaco may also have predictive advantages over fivefactor models in the domain of emotionality. namely, hexaco emotionality and agreeableness are rotational variants of neuroticism and agreeableness from the big five model, excluding some and including other domains. having in mind the inconsistent past findings concerning the relations between big five personality traits and thinking styles (pacini & epstein, 1999; witteman et al., 2009), we were particularly interested in testing rei in relation to hexaco in order to get new insights into the nature and interrelations of these dimensions. as our study is exploratory in nature, we did not have empirically based hypotheses regarding relations between thinking styles and tei. however, based on the theoretical considerations above, we did expect some amount of overlap between trait emotional intelligence and both experientiality and rationality. after testing for correlations between constructs, we planned to determine the percentage of variance of rational and experiential dimensions explained by hexaco personality traits. based on past findings of big five model contributions to explaining the variance of thinking style dimensions, we expected that personality traits would explain less than half of rei dimensions’ variance and that the variance explained will be higher for rationality than for experientiality (pacini & epstein, 1999). furthermore, we sought to examine the incremental validity of tei in predicting rational and experiential dimensions. this would allow us to determine the amount of overlap between tei and rei constructs after basic personality traits have been controlled for and, at the same time, test whether tei, as a second-order personality trait, does indeed have a significant additional contribution in predicting other constructs. in other words, we could simultaneously test both tei and cest paradigm assumptions that the constructs they propose provide additional information to understanding personality space, beyond the explanation already provided by the classic personality models. we considered tei as a predictor of rei (and not vice versa, which would also be plausible), only because our primary interest was related to possible predictors of thinking styles, and not of emotional intelligence. the role of tei in understanding thinking style profiles defined though combined rational and experiential dimensions if rationality and experientiality truly are independent dimensions, simple correlation-based analyses may fail to capture more complex relationships between thinking styles and other variables. as fletcher et al. (2012) have demonstrated, four thinking style profiles were differentially related to measures of superstition. following this approach, we aimed to further explore the relation of tei with thinking style profiles defined through combinations of rational and experiential dimensions. based on the theoretical consideration of the expected positive relation between tei and both rationality and experientiality, we expected that tei would be most pronounced rei thinking styles in broader personality space 144 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the high rational / high experiential thinking profile, while it would be the least present in the low rational / low experiential profile. intriguingly, a recent study showed that, in a clinical sample, tei had a significant direct negative effect on irrational beliefs (measured by the irrational beliefs test; petrides, gomez, & perezgonzalez, 2017). if we assume that tei does consistently determine (or correlates with) irrationality, based on findings showing that high rationality / low experientiality profile was the least, and high experientiality / low rationality the most related to superstitions (fletcher et al., 2012), it could also be hypothesized that tei would follow this pattern. method participants and procedure a power analysis indicated that a sample of at least 211 participants is needed to detect a .20 correlation with a power of .90 (and the alpha probability level of .05). this number rises to 266 if the power is set at .95. detecting an incremental contribution of a predictor of r2 = .05, after six other predictors have already been entered in the hierarchical regression, with the alpha probability .05 and power .90 requires 202 participants, or 249 if power is set to .95. as we did not have specific hypotheses regarding the latent profile analysis, we relied on the results of simulation studies that indicated sample size to have low relevance in detecting the true number of classes when the sample size is n > 100 or n > 200 (wurpts & geiser, 2014), as well as the fletcher et al. (2012) study which identified four thinking style profiles with a sample size of n = 304. the present study was conducted on a sample of 270 students from the department of psychology at the university of belgrade (82% females, average age m = 21.3, sd = 2.3). the high percentage of females in the sample reflects the gender structure of the population of psychology students at belgrade university. the research was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki, as well as the serbian psychological society ethical guidelines. students were invited to take part in the study in exchange for partial course credit. the questionnaires were administered online, with about half of the students completing the battery from their home and others completing it in a computer classroom at the university, as part of their regular classes. all students provided informed consent before filling in the questionnaires and alternative course credit awarding activities were offered to those who did not wish to participate. instruments hexaco personality inventory-revised the hexaco personality inventory-revised (hexaco-pi-r; ashton & lee, 2007) assesses six personality dimensions: honesty/humility (h), emotionality (e), extraversion (x), agreeableness (a), conscientiousness (c) and openness to experience (o). we employed the serbian translation of the 100-item version of this scale (međedović, čolović, dinić, & smederevac, 2017). participants responded by indicating their level of agreement with each statement on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of dimensions were satisfactory, ranging from .78 for emotionality to .84 for conscientiousness for the serbian version of the scale and the factorial structure of the serbian version of the instrument corresponded to the original (međedović et al., 2017). jokić & purić 145 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rational-experiential inventory-40 the rational-experiential inventory-40 (rei-40; pacini & epstein, 1999) is a 40-item self-report instrument measuring rational and experiential thinking styles. we used the serbian translation of this scale (branković, 2012). responses are given on a 5-point likert scale (1 = definitely not true of myself to 5 = definitely true of myself). apart from the two higher-order scores, the rational and the experiential thinking style, four lower-order factors relating to self-perception of ability and preference of using these two thinking styles can also be calculated – rational ability (ra), rational engagement (re), experiential ability (ea) and experiential engagement (ee). both rationality and experientiality scales comprise 20 items, while ra, re, ea, and ee are assessed by 10 items each. the original study obtained high rationality and experientiality scale cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of .90 and .87, respectively, while subscale reliabilities ranged from .79 for ee to .84 for re. trait emotional intelligence questionnaire-short form the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire-short form (teique-sf; petrides, 2009) is a 30-item scale assessing trait emotional intelligence. in our study, we used the serbian translation of teique-sf (jolićmarjanović & altaras-dimitrijević, 2014). responses are given on a 7-point likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). apart from the global tei score, the instrument provides scores for four tei factors: well-being (6 items), self-control (6 items), emotionality (8 items) and sociability (6 items). teique-sf was reliable for both male and female samples, with cronbach’s alpha reliabilities of .84 and .89, respectively (petrides & furnham, 2006). results descriptive statistics with the exception of openness, all variables were approximately normally distributed (kolmogorov-smirnov test did not indicate significant deviations from the normal distribution, table 1). considering that we had a young, student sample, the positively skewed and leptokurtic openness distribution was not unexpected. the deviations from normality were, however, not large, so we decided to proceed with parametric analyses of the data. cronbach alpha reliabilities were very good for all scales. only rational ability subscale reliability was slightly below .8, but considering that this subscale has only 10 items, the obtained value is satisfactory. relations between constructs as expected, hexaco traits were mostly unrelated to one another with the exception of a moderate positive correlation of honesty/humility and agreeableness, a small positive correlation of honesty/humility and conscientiousness and a small negative correlation of openness to experience and emotionality (table 2). in line with cest assumptions, experiential and rational dimensions were uncorrelated, while ability and engagement subdimensions within rationality and experientiality were highly correlated both with one another, as well as with their superordinate dimensions (to an even higher degree). rationality and its subdimensions showed low to moderate correlations with extraversion, conscientiousness and openness traits from the hexaco model. rational ability had a small negative correlation with emotionality, while rational engagement had a small positive correlation with honesty/humility. experientiality, on the other hand, had no significant correlations with either of the hexaco traits, save for a small negative correlation between experiential engagement and conscirei thinking styles in broader personality space 146 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ entiousness. tei had a strong positive correlation with extraversion, and low positive correlations with agreeableness and conscientiousness, which is in line with theoretical expectations. it also correlated positively with both rationality and experientiality and their subdimensions, although correlations with rationality were in the moderate range, while those with experientiality were low. table 2 correlations of hexaco, rei and tei dimensions measure h e x a c o rd ra re ed ea ee e .09 x -.07 -.06 a .31** -.04 .03 c .15* .04 .09 .07 o -.06 -.14* .02 -.10 -.07 rd .11 -.12 .24** -.02 .26** .41** ra .01 -.15* .22** -.03 .25** .26** .90** re .18** -.08 .21** -.01 .22** .46** .92** .66** ed -.05 .07 .11 -.06 -.10 .07 -.09 -.14* -.02 ea -.07 .04 .08 -.12 -.03 .07 -.04 -.07 -.01 .92** ee -.03 .09 .12 .00 -.16* .06 -.11 -.19** -.03 .93** .69** tei .05 -.06 .61** .15* .21** .01 .37** .35** .32** .19** .17** .17** note. h = honesty/humility; e = emotionality; x = extraversion; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness; o = openness to experience; rd = rational thinking style dimension; ra = rational ability; re = rational engagement; ed = experiential thinking style dimension; ea = experiential ability; ee = experiential engagement; tei = trait emotional intelligence. *p < .05. **p < .01. table 1 descriptive statistics for all used measures measure n m sd min max sk ku ksd α h 248 3.60 0.63 1.38 4.88 -.56 .09 .08 .83 e 248 3.43 0.64 1.56 4.94 -.21 -.16 .05 .84 x 248 3.36 0.77 1.31 4.88 -.44 -.26 .07 .91 a 248 3.03 0.66 1.31 4.69 -.04 -.40 .06 .86 c 248 3.68 0.63 2.06 5.00 -.13 -.53 .05 .86 o 248 3.84 0.58 1.55 5.00 -.95 1.76 .09* .83 rd 268 3.86 0.55 2.00 5.00 -.32 .03 .06 .88 ra 268 3.84 0.56 2.10 5.00 -.25 -.30 .06 .78 re 268 3.88 0.64 1.00 5.00 -.60 .94 .06 .83 ed 268 3.30 0.61 1.50 4.65 -.16 -.29 .04 .91 ea 268 3.38 0.66 1.70 4.90 -.03 -.46 .04 .85 ee 268 3.14 0.70 1.20 4.89 -.29 -.22 .07 .85 tei 270 5.09 0.74 2.67 6.70 -.52 .35 .06 .89 note. sk = skewness; ku = kurtosis; ksd = kolmogorov-smirnov most extreme absolute difference; α = cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient; h = honesty/humility; e = emotionality; x = extraversion; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness; o = openness to experience; rd = rational thinking style dimension; ra = rational ability; re = rational engagement; ed = experiential thinking style dimension; ea = experiential ability; ee = experiential engagement; tei = trait emotional intelligence. *p < .05. jokić & purić 147 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hexaco and tei as predictors of rational and experiential dimensions in order to evaluate whether hexaco traits were significant predictors of rational and experiential thinking styles, as well as whether tei had an incremental contribution in prediction, we used the hierarchical method of linear regression. rationality and experientiality were used as dependent variables, hexaco traits were entered as predictors in the first step of the analyses and tei was added in the second step. as shown in table 3, rationality was significantly predicted by hexaco personality traits, namely honesty, extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness, while this was not the case for emotionality. tei, on the other hand, was a significant predictor of both rationality and experientiality, even after accounting for the variance explained by hexaco traits. it is also interesting to note that extraversion was no longer predictive of rationality after tei was entered in the regression, indicating that even though there is a substantial overlap between extraversion and tei, tei may be a more useful construct in predicting certain specific traits and behaviors. table 3 results of the hierarchical regression analyses predicting rationality and experientiality by hexaco traits and tei predictor standardized regression weights rational thinking style experiential thinking style step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 honesty/humility .14* .13* -.02 -.03 emotionality -.08 -.07 .09 .10 extraversion .22*** .03 .12 -.05 agreeableness -.05 -.08 -.04 -.08 conscientiousness .25*** .21*** -.11 -.15 openness .41*** .41*** .07 .07 tei .30*** .29** f(df) 17.78 (6,239)*** 19.26 (7,238)*** 1.66 (6,239) 3.34 (7,238)** r2 change .31*** .05*** .04 .05** note. tei = trait emotional intelligence. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in order to account for the gender disbalance in our sample, we ran two three-step hierarchical analyses, with rationality and experientiality as criterion variables and binary-coded gender as the first-step predictor, adding hexaco traits in the second and tei in the third step. gender was, however, not a significant predictor of either rationality or experientiality in either step of the analyses, so we excluded it from the final model for clarity. we also ran the analyses using tei facets as predictors in the second step, instead of the total score. the percentage of explained variance was essentially the same, so we kept global tei for further analysis. tei and combined thinking style dimensions: latent profile analysis in order to assess the relationship of tei with the combination of rationality and experientiality, we employed a latent profile analysis (lpa). the aim of lpa is to identify latent groups in the data, thereby explaining the manifest correlations of continuous variables (oberski, 2016). in other words, when running a latent profile analysis, we assume that the correlations between manifest variables can (fully, or to a certain degree) be explained by the fact that participants belong to one of several latent groups, which differ in their scores on the manifest variables. as previous research had demonstrated that thinking style profiles can be readily identified (fletcher et rei thinking styles in broader personality space 148 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2012), we were particularly interested in determining, via lpa, whether tei was differentially pronounced in these thinking style profiles. the analysis was done using the tidylpa r package (rosenberg, schmidt, beymer, & steingut, 2018). all solutions were fitted under the so-called model 1 (table 4), which assumes varying means between groups and equal variances, while variable covariances within groups are fixed to zero. other models differ with respect to how they model group variances (equal or varying) and covariances between groups (set to zero, equal or varying). table 4 possible model specifications in latent profile analysis parameter model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 model 5 model 6 means varying varying varying varying varying varying variances equal equal varying varying equal varying covariances zero equal zero equal varying varying model 1 is the most restrictive model, as it assumes that practically all correlations between variables can be explained by latent group membership, but was suitable for our data, considering the cest assumption of experiential and rational dimensions’ orthogonality. moreover, this model is considered to be the most parsimonious and some authors suggest that the use of other, more complex models should be justified by significant model fit improvements (pastor, barron, miller, & davis, 2007; rosenberg et al., 2018). we estimated a range of profile solutions, from two to six latent groups, using rei facets and tei summary score as input variables. despite not expecting rei ability and engagement facets to behave differently from one another based on correlations, including them in the analysis allowed for possible identification of more differentiated profiles than just low/high rationality/experientiality. we also tested a number of lpa models using only the rational and experiential dimensions. the results were essentially the same as reported here, but with lower entropy values for the whole range of solutions. therefore, we interpreted the solutions obtained on rei subdimensions. table 5 shows fit indices of all tested profile solutions. good models are characterized by low aic and bic values and high log-likelihood and entropy values. table 5 fit indices for tested profile solutions profile solution loglik aic bic entropy numbers in classes 2 1823.04 3678.08 3735.54 0.92 139, 129 3 1779.99 3603.98 3682.98 0.86 74, 85, 109 4 1746.57 3549.14 3649.68 0.85 47, 91, 64, 66 5 1722.63 3513.26 3635.35 0.85 25, 39, 81, 67, 56 6 1714.26 3508.52 3652.16 0.84 24, 38, 75, 70, 4, 57 note. loglik = log likelihood; aic = akaike’s information criterion; bic = bayesian information criterion. the loglik, aic and bic values decreased with the increase in the number of latent groups, but seemed to plateau after the 4-profile solution (and even increase in case of bic for the 6-profile solution), whereas entropy jokić & purić 149 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ values were relatively high and similar for all solutions. taking the number of participants per class into consideration, as well as theoretical expectations, we retained the solution with four latent profiles. we also examined the fiveand six-profile solutions, but the additional profiles were merely extreme versions of already existing profiles from the four-profile solution. as shown in figure 1, the four profiles corresponded to the rational, dual preference, experiential and disengaged profiles, previously identified by fletcher et al. (2012). tei was the most pronounced in the dual preference profile, and the least pronounced in the disengaged profile, while its standardized mean was essentially zero in both rational and experiential profiles. this indicates that the relationship of trait emotional intelligence with thinking styles is best understood when experientiality and rationality are observed in combination, rather than individually. figure 1. standardized means and 95% confidence intervals for the four-profile solution. numbers in parentheses indicate cluster size. discussion regardless of perceiving themselves as more rational or more intuitive, most people recall at least one situation when their decision was based on affect even when knowing that the other option was “more rational”; or when they perceived an event as “just right”, though unable to explain it or provide rational reasons. however, it seems that some people rely on intuition more often than others, while some prefer logical thinking, regardless of context, or do not have a clear preference for any of these styles. from the perspective of classical personality models, it was meaningful to expect that some personality traits could predict the tendency towards intuitive vs. rational thinking, but past research showed that personality traits were not strong predictors of thinking styles – just like the cognitive-experiential self-theory proposed (epstein, 2003, 2016; pacini & epstein, 1999). cest assumes that the way people process information relies on the experiential and rational learning systems – which are proposed as too specific and fundamental to be explained by other personality constructs, especially es with its automatic, rapid and preconscious processes (epstein, 2010). still, we believe it is important to examine such intriguing and well-known constructs within the framework of other personality paradigms – in order to further extend the scientific knowledge about the human behavior through conceptual replications or rei thinking styles in broader personality space 150 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ applications of different models (e.g. exploring hexaco as a predictor of rationality and experientiality, instead of big five traits), as well as through exploring new relations and possible predictors (e.g. trait emotional intelligence). although our study was not specifically designed to examine irrationality, we consider a deeper insight into constructs previously related to irrationality (fletcher et al., 2012; petrides et al., 2017) as having implications for the construct of irrationality itself. can irrationality be understood through experientiality alone, without taking the rational dimension into account? could tei provide additional information about the preference for an irrational thinking style? relations between constructs since the variables which correlated with rationality and experientiality also proved to be significant predictors of these thinking styles, we will discuss these analyses jointly, placing emphasis on the results of the regression analysis. similar to studies using the big five model (pacini & epstein, 1999; witteman et al., 2009) we found that hexaco personality traits predicted a small portion of the variance of rationality (31% vs. 37%, pacini & epstein, 1999, vs. 22%, witteman et al., 2009). in our sample, most likely to rely on rational thinking were participants high in openness to experience, conscientiousness and to a certain degree honesty/humility. emotionality and agreeableness were not predictors of rationality, while extraversion was, but only when tei was not included in the models. these results are generally consistent with those of past studies (pacini & epstein, 1999; witteman et al., 2009) and also conceptually expected, as self-perceived ability and engagement in complex problem-solving activities, characteristic of the rational thinking style, correspond well with those aspects of openness to experience which refer to inquisitiveness and intellectual activities, as well as with organization and diligence aspects of conscientiousness (ashton & lee, 2007). to our knowledge, our study is the first to establish a positive contribution of honesty/humility in explaining rationality, which may be interpreted in line with the view of the rational thinking style generally being associated with positively evaluated psychological traits (pacini & epstein, 1999). it should be noted, however, that this contribution is low, and the zero-order correlation was only obtained for the rational engagement subscale, suggesting that this result should be replicated. previous studies reported neuroticism to have a negative contribution in predicting rationality, which was not obtained in our study. as already mentioned, hexaco emotionality and big five neuroticism share only some of their facets, so this lack of a relationship with emotionality is not entirely surprising. it is possible that changes in the structure of both emotionality and agreeableness have resulted in null correlations between rationality and these two dimensions in the hexaco model, while correlations had been found for big five neuroticism and (sometimes) agreeableness. on the other hand, the variance of experientiality remained essentially unexplained by hexaco personality traits, which is not entirely in line with previous studies that reported low positive correlations with practically all big five traits (pacini & epstein, 1999; witteman et al., 2009). as the current study is the first relating hexaco with cest constructs, it is unclear whether this pattern of results is a consequence of model differences or some sample characteristics. however, our results do confirm the thesis that intuitive, experiential and preconjokić & purić 151 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scious thinking processes are poorly explained by traditional personality topologies (epstein, 2003, 2010). a recently proposed model of disintegration as an additional basic personality trait reflecting psychosis proneness and including facets such as enhanced awareness and magical thinking (knežević, savić, kutlešić, & opačić, 2017) might fare better with regards to explaining experientiality. this idea, however, should be empirically tested. we extended the findings regarding the variance of rei explained by basic personality traits by showing that tei significantly predicts both rationality and experientiality, even after taking hexaco personality traits into account. moreover, tei was the best predictor of experientiality and second-best predictor of rationality (after openness for experience), indicating its importance for understanding preference for both of these thinking styles. these results are similar to those of schutte et al. (2010), who measured emotional intelligence as an ability. still, the contribution of this variable was moderate (5% for both thinking styles), meaning that individual differences in rationality and even more so in experientiality (which correlated to tei to a lesser extent than rationality) cannot be reduced to classic personality traits, including tei. the finding that experientiality remained largely unrelated to tei is in line with the cest assumption of preconscious automatic processes as an essential part of the evolutionarily old experiential system – related to but not reducible on affect-laden characteristics. an interesting finding from the perspective of the tei paradigm was that hexaco extraversion lost its predictive power for rationality after tei was included in the regression model. even though extraversion and tei are highly correlated, tei proved more informative for the rationality construct, making extraversion a redundant predictor. this is fully in line with how the authors of the tei model claim it should behave (siegling, vesely, et al., 2015). we have also found tei to be positively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness, which, along with the high correlation with extraversion, replicates previous findings, except that we did not find the negative correlation between tei and emotionality, which should be further tested (veselka et al., 2010). combined thinking style dimensions and their relations to tei looking at the data from a strictly correlational perspective, we observed that tei was weakly positively related to experientiality and moderately to rationality, whereas the two thinking styles were independent of each other. their distinction is further demonstrated by a differential pattern of relations with basic personality traits. this gives support to the dual view on thinking styles where rationality and intuition are seen as two orthogonal dimensions rather than two sides of the same coin (wang et al., 2017). however, cest proposes that these dimensions can influence one another, and it is also expected that different combinations of high/low experientiality and rationality can produce differential adaptive outcomes (epstein, 2003). therefore, in order to better understand the relationship of tei with cest thinking styles, we performed a latent profile analysis aiming to uncover latent groups of participants with specific combinations of rational and experiential dimensions together with tei. our results replicated those of fletcher et al. (2012) in that we also obtained a four profile solution with thinking style profiles being best described as rational, experiential, dual preference and disengaged. moreover, tei was sensitive to these profiles – dual preference (high experientiality and rationality) was followed by highest tei scores. disengaged participants, on the other hand, had the lowest tei scores, while participants who primarily relied on rationality or experientiality did not differ in their tei scores. in other words, both rational and experiential dimensions seem to be important for emotional intellirei thinking styles in broader personality space 152 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gence and relying on one of them alone is not the characteristic of highly emotionally intelligent people – at least not when ei is conceptualized as the trait emotional self-efficacy. tei is conceptualized as a construct that collects variance related to affect-laden psychological processes, so its positive correlation with rationality (which was, in our sample, even stronger than with experientiality) might seem surprising. however, this is only so if rationality is considered isolated from the other cest thinking style – experientiality. as we have already elaborated, the rational processes play an important role in emotional functioning by mediating the automatic influence of the experiential system on the rational one (epstein, 2003, 2016). therefore, the very processes of understanding and managing emotional functioning, proposed as an essential part of rationality within cest, are inherent to the construct tei. in light of the discussion about irrationality, our results provide slightly more complex implications. based on past findings that tei directly negatively predicted irrationality (petrides et al., 2017), our results imply that preferences for both experiential and rational thinking styles provide a good basis against irrationality, which is not in line with past findings that showed the lowest superstitions to be related to high rationality / low experientiality, and the highest superstitions to high experientiality / low rationality thinking styles (fletcher et al., 2012). however, the percentage of variance shared between rei and tei was only moderate in our study and, moreover, the shared variance was not necessarily related to irrationality. on the other hand, fletcher et al. (2012) used a specific superstition scale, so the implications of their results for the general construct of irrationality should also be further tested. from the cest perspective, it is worth remembering that although es is a source of irrationality, it is also proposed as an evolutionarily old system, essential for survival (epstein, 2016). a recent meta-analysis demonstrated that although intuition is often considered “irrational” and less accurate than rational thinking, in certain complex or subjectively evaluated situations decisions based on intuition were more successful (phillips et al., 2016). accordingly, cest assumes that the adaptive response is not to suppress the influence of es, but to understand it and learn the way to correct it when it is wrong or inadequate, where rs has an important role (epstein, 2003, 2016). in other words, even though high experientiality reflects the tendencies towards superstitions and irrational thinking, if the rational dimension is also high, there is a possibility for a person to overcome irrational beliefs. in contrast, if rationality is low, irrational beliefs are less likely to be replaced by more rational and logical thinking. since our study design did not include specific criterion variables to measure irrationality/ superstitions, it was not possible to test these assumptions directly. future research should reveal more detail about the relation between irrationality and specific combinations of rational and experiential styles, as well as about the way people approach the world when they perceive themselves as poor on both thinking styles. study limitations as instrument validation was not the primary goal of our study, we did not assess the structural validity of either rei or teique-sf. future studies should validate the serbian versions of these instruments, preferably on a larger sample. it is important to note that the experiential dimension has been further theoretically and empirically developed with three factors: intuition, emotionality, and imagination (norris & epstein, 2011). in our study rei-40 was employed as an original and widely used instrument, also validated in other languages (e.g. slovakian: ballová mikušková, hanák, & čavojová, 2015; swedish: björklund & bäckström, 2008), although not previously validajokić & purić 153 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ted in serbian. we assumed that rei-40 is appropriate for our study design, but in order to further examine the possible predictors of the experiential dimension it is still recommended to do this separately for the three experiential dimension factors as criteria variables. we chose to use only the global tei score, since the use of subscales did not bring any additional information to the analyses. however, it is possible that factors (and facets) of the full-length instrument could provide more specific information on the tei-rei relationship, which should be further investigated. finally, even though we did not observe a restriction of range for any of the scales, participants in our study were drawn from a student population. furthermore, our sample was gender-imbalanced and the number of male participants was too small to warrant separate analyses by gender. therefore, future studies should replicate these results in more representative samples. conclusion our study contributes to the accumulation of knowledge about personality space, showing that personality constructs such as trait emotional intelligence and rational and experiential thinking styles could explain the unique variance of complex psychological processes, beyond those provided by classical personality models. moreover, relating constructs from different personality paradigms opens possibilities for a better understanding of complex phenomena, such as the way we process information about the world and ourselves. finally, our results support the position that searching for possible predictors and adaptive consequences of not only rational and experiential thinking styles separately, but also of their specific combinations is worthwhile. notes i) in this paper, we use the term thinking styles for labelling different ways of information processing proposed by cest. funding this research has been supported by the ministry of education, science and technological development of serbia (grant 179018). the funder had no role in either the research design, execution, analysis, interpretation or reporting of this manuscript. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aarnio, k., & lindeman, m. 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(2014). is adding more indicators to a latent class analysis beneficial or detrimental? results of a monte-carlo study. frontiers in psychology, 5, article 920. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00920 about the authors biljana jokić is a researcher at the center for study in cultural development, serbia, and a psychotherapist, certified by the european association for body psychotherapy. she obtained her ph.d. from the faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade (field: psychology, subfield: social cognition). her interests are decision making, thinking styles, changing of attitudes and behavior, with emphasis on the effects of emotions and sensations on these processes. danka purić is an assistant professor at the department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade where she teaches psychometrics. she obtained her ph.d. in the field of individual differences investigating the relation of executive functions with personality traits. her interests are intelligence, cognition and personality, with emphasis on various assessment methods. rei thinking styles in broader personality space 158 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 140–158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.25.1.39 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00920 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ rei thinking styles in broader personality space (introduction) cognitive-experiential self-theory thinking styles in relation to classic personality traits the possible role of trait emotional intelligence in understanding thinking styles current study method participants and procedure instruments results descriptive statistics relations between constructs hexaco and tei as predictors of rational and experiential dimensions tei and combined thinking style dimensions: latent profile analysis discussion relations between constructs combined thinking style dimensions and their relations to tei study limitations conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors sickness absence due to chronic musculoskeletal pain: the exploration of a predictive psychological model including negative moods, subjective health and work efficacy in an adult county population (the hunt study) research reports sickness absence due to chronic musculoskeletal pain: the exploration of a predictive psychological model including negative moods, subjective health and work efficacy in an adult county population (the hunt study) sven svebak* a, hallgeir halvari b [a] norwegian university of science and technology, department of mental health, trondheim, norway. [b] university college southeast norway, school of business and social sciences, hønefoss, norway. abstract the relation between musculoskeletal pain and sickness absence was tested in an adult county population. maximal explained variance in absence from work due to chronic musculoskeletal pain (sickness absence) was tested in a model in which subjective health was expected to mediate the associations between such pain and dysphoria, respectively, and work efficacy. in turn, work efficacy was expected to mediate the link between subjective health and sickness absence. all the residents in the county of nord-trøndelag, norway, aged 20 and older, were invited to take part in a public health survey during 1995-97 (hunt-2), and 66,140 (71.2%) participated. prevalence of musculoskeletal pain, dysphoria, subjective health and work efficacy were assessed, as well as sickness absence last year due to musculoskeletal pain. the model test was performed by use of the lisrel procedure based upon data from 30,158 employees reporting chronic musculoskeletal pain last year. the measurement model fitted the data well: χ2 = 9075, df = 52, p < .0004, critical n = 1041, rmsea = 0.038, cfi = 0.99, srmr = 0.020. the structural model fitted the data equally well, and the best prediction of sickness absence was obtained with lower back pain, upper and lower extremity pain, as well as dysphoria as the primary variables affecting subjective health that, in turn, was the convergent predictor of work efficacy that, finally, best explained the variance in sickness absence (56%). the data supported an indirect sequence of complaint-health-efficacy (che-model) as the best predictor of sickness absence due to musculoskeletal pain. keywords: dysphoria, musculoskeletal pain, sickness absence, subjective health, work efficacy europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 received: 2017-05-31. accepted: 2018-01-09. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of mental health, ntnu, faculty of medicine and health sciences, boks 8905, 7491 trondheim, norway. email: sven.svebak@ntnu.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the pioneering report by taylor (1968) firmly stated that the etiology of absenteeism from work involves more than strictly biomedical causes. patient records showed that some employees with verified medical diseases subjectively reported being healthy and presented with low absenteeism, whereas many employees with no verifiable medical condition subjectively reported having poor health and scored high on absenteeism. musculoskeletal pain is at focus in the present report as one of the major causes of absenteeism. in recent years, psychological factors have become increasingly more important in the study of causal factors, interventions and rehabilitation procedures related to work absenteeism. one example of this broadened scope europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of etiology is the acknowledged importance of fear of movements due to the experience that certain movements may induce pain, resulting in “fear-avoidance” that, in turn, induces passivity that causes degenerative hypotrophy in skeletal muscles and reduced load tolerance due to the related reduction of strength and endurance (christensen et al., 2013; george, wittmer, fillingim, & robinson, 2006; grotle, vollestad, veierod, & brox, 2004; vlaeyen, crombez, & linton, 2016; vlaeyen, de jong, geilen, heuts, & breukelen, 2002; vlaeyen & linton, 2000). due to these developments, it has become increasingly important to avoid passivity by active and coordinated multidisciplinary support in prevention, intervention as well as rehabilitation. accordingly, clinical procedures have been encouraged to combine medical, physiotherapeutic and psychological approaches with a focus upon overcoming fear-avoidance and other dysphoric consequences of longstanding musculoskeletal pain (flor, fydrich, & turk, 1992; sieben et al., 2005; storrø, moen, & svebak, 2004). this report is based on a county population and compared a direct effect of musculoskeletal pain on sickness absence with the modern view of indirect effects via dysphoria, subjective health and perceived work efficacy. prevalence of age adjusted chronic musculoskeletal pain and discomfort “last year” was 44.6 percent. among those reporting such pain, age-adjusted reduced work capacity due to this pain was reported to be 62.3 percent for men and 65.1 percent for women “last year” among a non-selected adult county population of 64,690 norwegians (svebak, hagen, & zwart, 2006). the criterion for being chronic was set to three months or more and had to be continuous over the period. the percentage of sick leave due to such pain was 25.2 for men and 27.7 for women, which meant that almost 75% of people with enduring musculoskeletal pain reported no sickness absence “last year” due to this problem. neck, shoulder and lower back pain were the most prevalent, with corresponding percentages of 13.5, 15.7 and 13.4 for men and 18.7, 20,2 and 16.9 for women. in this adult county population, there was an effect upon sick leave of number of body areas with chronic pain. only one area, such as the lower back, resulted in 25.2% of the males and 27.7% of the females reporting sick leave, whereas those reporting pain in seven or more body areas reported around 50% of sick leave last year. interestingly, prevalence of chronic headache (migraine and non-migrainous) was more than four times higher (or = 4.6; ci 4.0-5.3) in those adults who reported musculoskeletal symptoms than in those without in this county cohort (hagen, einarsen, zwart, svebak, & bowim, 2002), thus indicating a more complex role for pain in sickness absence due to headache than due to pain restricted to the skeletal muscles, and neck pain was more strongly associated with headache than pain from other muscle sites. it has long been assumed that psychological characteristics can buffer as well as mediate pain sensitivity (melzack, 1999; melzack & wall, 1965). a number of brain neurotransmitters are involved in pain perception. they also are involved in dysphoria. such transmitters include serotonin and, therefore, offer treatment by reuptake inhibitors in depression that often is the consequence of chronic musculoskeletal pain (basbaum & jessell, 2000). thus, undiagnosed psychiatric disorders are frequent in chronic musculoskeletal pain, as seen in scores on the beck depression inventory (olaya-contreras, persson, & styf, 2010). moreover, the endogenous opioids have been explored over the last twenty years (bruehl, carlson, wilson, & norton, 1996). all implicated neural mechanisms involved in pain perception influence mood, attention and cognition, as proposed in the dynamics of the fear-avoidance model where negative affect and harm representation maintains nociception, whereas positive affect and optimism mediate recovery (vlaeyen, crombez, & linton, 2016). these recent insights favor an indirect, rather than a direct, effect of musculoskeletal pain on sickness absence. sickness absence 374 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it is assumed that coping resources are challenged when individuals are faced with the stressor of pain in everyday life and, consequently, are reflected in perceived self-efficacy (bandura, 1997) that, again, is influenced by moods (bower, 1981; eich, 1995) including anxiety and depression (alloy, clements, & koenig, 1993). in this way, negative moods challenge mental resources for pain control (bandura, cioffi, taylor, & brouillard, 1988) that also relate to personality dispositions such as neuroticism and the sense of humor (svebak et al., 2000). increase of perceived self-efficacy has long ago been proven to influence sickness absenteeism. pioneering studies of selected samples involved programs for the development of self-regulation of own motivation to handle personal and social problems, including the development of behavioral skills, and resulted in significant reduction of sickness absence (frayne & latham, 1987; latham & frayne, 1989). the present study explored the predictive power of a complaint-health-efficacy (che) model in explaining the absence from work (sickness absence) due to chronic musculoskeletal pain. based upon previous research, pain in the neck, shoulders and lower back as well as mental complaints (dysphoria) were seen as primary sources of risk, with pain in the upper and lower extremities as additional risks of reduced subjective health that, again, influence the subjective perception of work efficacy that, finally, is a major cause of sickness absence. method study population the present study is based on data from one of the largest population health surveys in the world. between 1995 and 1997, all inhabitants above 19 years in the county of nord-trøndelag in norway were invited to participate in the nord-trøndelag health study (hunt-2) described in detail elsewhere (holmen et al., 2003). out of 92,936 invited individuals, 66,140 (71.2%) participated, with more women than men in all age groups under 70. participation was age dependent, with highest participation in the age group 60-69 for both sexes (men: 84.3%; women: 87.0%) and gradually lower participation rates in the younger and older groups. the county population is fairly representative of norway as a whole, except that there is no large city, and the average educational and income levels are somewhat lower than the nation average. the population is stable and ethnically homogeneous with only a minor percentage (3%) of lapps and people of non-caucasian origin. a non-participation study was performed in a 2.5% random sample of non-attendants. the main reasons for not attending in the age group 20-44 were lack of time or having moved out of the county. in the age group 70+ many reported to have regular follow-up by a doctor or hospital and, therefore, did not need to attend the health survey (holmen et al., 2003). survey measures and procedure for all eligible inhabitants, a questionnaire (q1) was enclosed along with an invitation to a clinical examination. when attending to the screening site, the participants received a second questionnaire (q2) to complete and return by mail. both questionnaires included an extensive set of variables addressing health issues, and both q1 and q2 included questions about musculoskeletal pain adopted from the standardized nordic questionnaire. in the present study, however, data only from the q1 are at the basis for prediction of sickness absence. the standardized nordic questionnaire has previously been validated and found to give reliable estimates for lower back, upper extremities as well as neck pain, in particular for symptoms during the past svebak & halvari 375 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ year (franzblau, salerno, armstrong, & werner, 1997; kuorinka et al., 1987; palmer, smith, kellingray, & cooper, 1999). to our knowledge, information about pain in other parts of the body has not been validated. in q1 participants who responded “yes” to the question “have you during the last year continuously for at least three months suffered from pain or stiffness in muscles and joints?” were defined as having chronic musculoskeletal pain (n = 30,158). they were asked to indicate locations by “yes” (2) or “no” (1) responses to the following areas of the body: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists/hands, chest/abdomen, upper back, lower back, hips, knees, and/or ankles/feet. they also responded to a question on if pain had reduced their work capacity last year (including home work), with four response alternatives: no/hardly noticeable (3) to some degree (2) to a great degree (1), or do not know. this variable was labeled “work efficacy.” they were also asked if pain had forced them on sick leave by responding: “yes” (2) or “no” (1); note that n may be less than 30,158 in some analyses due to lack of relevance of certain pain area variables for any particular individual or due to missing data. one item in q1 assessed subjective health by asking: “how is your current health?” answers were given according to a four-step format: poor not too good fair very good, weighted by 1 to 4, respectively. a fourstep format also assessed prevalence of dysphoric moods over “the last couple of weeks” by two questions: “have you felt nervous and tense?” and “have you suffered from anxiety?” (no to some degree quite a bit very much, weighted by 1 to 4, respectively, for both items). memory for moods appears to be fair over the past few weeks (bower, 1981). data scoring and statistical analyses scores on chronic musculoskeletal pain (sum of scores on two items), dysphoric moods (sum of scores on two items), and single-item variables of subjective health and work efficacy were all included as predictors of sickness absence. analyses were performed by the lisrel statistical package (bollen, 1989) and explored the sequence and relationships among these predictors for best explanatory power in the latter (dependent) variable. results descriptive statistics it will be seen in table 1 that skewness was fair in all variables except for dysphoric moods where most of the population reported relative absence of tension and anxiety over the weeks preceding their responding to the survey (see note). in variables with two items comprising the model index, cronbach´s alpha supported homogeneity of the index. bivariate relations table 1 also presents a correlation matrix for all variables included in the study. physical (pain) and mental (dysphoria) complaints were negatively correlated with subjective health that, in turn, was positively correlated with work efficacy. the complaint and subjective health variables were positively and negatively associated with sickness absence, respectively. work efficacy was most strongly correlated with sickness absence. sickness absence 376 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means (m), standard deviations (sd) and zero order correlations among variables variable m sd skewness 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. neck/shoulder 1.78 0.41 -1.26 .81 2. lower back 1.63 0.41 -0.49 .27 .78 3. dysphoria 1.36 0.60 2.23 .09 .09 .82 4. upper extremities 1.42 0.43 0.36 .30 .35 .11 .72 5. lower extremities 1.50 0.44 0.17 .20 .48 .12 .54 .72 6. subjective health 2.57 0.65 -0.17 -.15 -.32 -.26 -.18 -.36 7. work efficacy 2.02 0.74 -0.01 -.11 -.33 -.17 -.30 -.31 .46 8. absenteeism 1.27 0.44 1.07 .08 .18 .06 .18 .13 -.23 -.45 9. sexa 1.57 0.50 -.01 .11 .19 .08 .15 .16 -.05 -.05 .03 10. age 53.21 16.06 0.37 .06 .16 .01 .10 .26 -.31 -.20 -.09 .02 note. reliability coefficients for variables 1-5 are given in the diagonal as cronbach´s alpha. a1 = males; 2 = females. structural equation models tested in lisrel according to anderson and gerbing (1988), the measurement model at large should first be tested for overall acceptable fit before testing the power of the structural model that is presented in figure 1. this requirement was met by a confirmatory factor analysis (maximum likelihood) on the specified relations and lack of significant relations between the latent variables. model fit indices were the chi-square likelihood ratio (χ2) and its p-value, the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the comparative fit index (cfi) and the standardized root-mean-square residual (srmr). these different indices are recommended in order to evaluate model fit in covariance structure analyses (bollen, 1989; byrne, 2001; hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 1998). a good fit should have a value close to or lower than .06 for the rmsea, a value close to or lower than .08 for the srmr, combined with a value close to or higher than .95 for the cfi, and the p-value of the chi-square should be .05 or above. however, when the sample is large, as in the present study, the p-value of the chi-square is a poor fit estimate. thus, with large samples it is suggested that the critical-n statistics should exceed 200 for accepting the fit of a model for the chi-square test (hoelter, 1983). hu and bentler (1999) compared all fit indices and found that the smsr is most sensitive to misspecification in simple as well as complex models and less sensitive to sample size and violations of distributional assumptions. the measurement model did fit the data well (χ2 = 9075.82, df = 52, p < .0004, critical n = 1041, rmsea = 0.038, cfi = 0.99, ifi = 0.99, srmr = 0.020). this final model included all indicators (items) for the latent measures (variables) that are described in the method section. item reliabilities indicated by squared factor loadings were for neck / shoulder .83 and .88, for lower extremities pain .75 and .77, for upper extremities pain .70 and .78, for lower back pain .64 and .89, and for the index of dysphoria .82 and .98. for the observed single item variables, the error variance was set to 15% (reliability = .85, which is expected for variables like subjective health and work efficacy) of the squared standard deviation for each variable. when using lisrel this is recommended because the error variance for single-item construct indicators must be assumed (anderson & gerbing, 1988, p. 415; hayduk, 1987, pp. 119-123). svebak & halvari 377 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. standardized parameter estimates are given for the structural model. all paths are significant at or beyond p < .001. note that the explained variance in each given path is calculated as the squared estimate. factor loadings for the indicators of latent variables (ovals) are given in the method section. the complaint-health-efficacy process model of sickness absence hypotheses were tested by structural equation modeling (lisrel) for the relations among variables in the process model that appears in figure 1. the model fitted the data well (χ2 = 13574.84, df = 66, p < .0004, critical n = 666, rmsea = 0.47, cfi = 0.98, ifi = 0.98, srmr = 0.036). the standardized parameter estimates are given in figure 1. tests of indirect associations the indirect links emerging in figure 1 were tested in lisrel (see table 2). the results indicated that all of them were significant. estimation of indirect effects was performed by the multiplication of the unstandardized parameter estimates in indirect associations. a sample illustration of the indirect effect of subjective health on sickness absence is obtained by multiplying the unstandardized parameter estimate, linking subjective health to work efficacy, by the unstandardized parameter estimate linking work efficacy to sickness absence (diamantopoulos & siguaw, 2000). sickness absence 378 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 lisrel tests of indirect associations emerging in figure 1. independent variable mediator dependent variable indirect effect se z 95% ci lower upper 1. lower back pain ➔ neck/shoulder pain ➔ upper extremities pain 0.33 0.004 102.4*** 0.322 0.338 2. lower back pain ➔ upper extremities pain ➔ lower extremities pain 0.77 0.005 168.0*** 0.760 0.780 3. lower back pain ➔ mental complaints ➔ lower extremities pain 0.04 0.005 26.4*** 0.032 0.052 4. lower back pain ➔ lower extremities pain ➔ subjective health -0.02 0.040 -104.2*** 0.248 0.232 5. lower back pain ➔ mental complaints ➔ subjective health -0.05 0.005 -10.9*** 0.070 0.060 6. lower back pain ➔ subjective health ➔ work efficacy -0.22 0.004 -104.6*** 0.228 0.212 7. neck/shoulder pain ➔ upper extremities pain ➔ lower extremities pain 0.48 0.005 126.8*** 0.470 0.490 8. neck/shoulder pain ➔ upper extremities pain ➔ subjective health -0.12 0.010 -69.7*** 0.140 0.100 9. neck/shoulder pain ➔ subjective health ➔ work efficacy -0.10 0.010 -55.5*** 0.120 0.080 10. mental complaints ➔ lower extremities pain ➔ subjective health -0.06 0.004 -49.3*** 0.068 0.052 11. mental complaints ➔ subjective health ➔ work efficacy -0.18 0.004 -92.2*** 0.188 0.172 12. upper extremities pain ➔ lower extremities pain ➔ subjective health -0.22 0.005 -100.8*** 0.230 0.210 13. upper extremities pain ➔ subjective health ➔ work efficacy -0.21 0.010 -102.6*** 0.230 0.190 14. lower extremities pain ➔ subjective health ➔ work efficacy -0.20 0.004 -100.1*** 0.208 0.192 15. subjective health ➔ work efficacy ➔ sickness absence -0.76 0.011 -132.7*** 0.782 0.758 note. ci = confidence interval. ***p < .001. discussion the findings clearly supported the indirect effects of musculoskeletal pain on work efficacy, and perceived work efficacy was the best mediator between subjective health and sickness absence. the present data were based on self-report. a recent meta-analysis (johns & miraglia, 2015) examined the test-retest reliability, convergent validity and accuracy of self-reported absence. it was concluded that testretest reliability was adequate and that, compared with organizational data, employees tended to underreport their absenteeism although the validity is fairly good. interestingly, accuracy was boosted when sickness absence was tested, compared with absence for any reason. a total of thirty-four studies were included in their analyses. the zero order correlations reported in table 1 were all in line with theoretical expectations and empirical findings (see introduction). from this perspective, the present findings from an adult county population corroborated research on psychological factors that influence the relation between subjective health, perceived work efficacy and sickness absence. however, the present complaint-health-efficacy model (che-model) was more powerful in predicting sickness absence than we expected. it is rare in empirical research to be able to explain more than half (.752 = 56%) of the variance in the target variable by a model applied to data derived from an adult population (see figure 1). therefore, the results may be seen as a strong support to the powerful role of psychological variables as mediators in the explanation of sickness absence due to musculoskeletal pain. svebak & halvari 379 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ only 9% of the variance in subjective health was uniquely explained by dysphoria. this variable reflects a much broader approach to negative moods than is assessed by fear-avoidance that explicitly orients to fear of movement-induced pain. taken together, dysphoria and musculoskeletal pain explained only 32% of the variance in subjective health. the present findings clearly illustrate the importance of searching for other sources of sickness absence attributed to musculoskeletal pain than the fear of pain itself. for example, vlaeyen, crombez, and linton (2016) argued that pain is not always associated with avoidance. the context often involves competing goals where the value of another outweighs the value of avoiding pain. this point represents a strong basis for rehabilitation to focus, not on negative affect, pain and risk of harm, but on positive affect, coping and optimism. in the clinical setting, the importance of this shift from a negative spiral to a positive one was described by svebak (2007). self-efficacy theory defines three main sources of perceived efficacy: personal and collective efficacy as well as efficacy to exercise control behaviorally (bandura, 1997). the collective and behavioral sources of efficacy were not included in the hunt population study and, therefore, may represent some of the unexplained variance in the che-model. resent publications have pointed out the importance of personality and job characteristics for sickness absence. thus, ree et al. (2014), from the perspective of response outcome expectancies, investigated the effects of socioeconomic status and physical and psychosocial workload upon subjective health. they concluded that the level of perceived coping (helplessness) is a significant mediator in the relationship of physical workload and subjective health. the present dysphoria measure reflected poor coping with more than load at work, but addressed no personality differences, whereas hystad, eid, and brevik (2011) addressed the effects of psychological hardiness, job demands and job control on sickness absence among 7,239 employees. they concluded, after controlling for age, sex and baseline absence, that baseline hardiness predicted sickness absence. a complex interaction was observed due to more sickness absence among those scoring low on hardiness, when job demands were high among those who also reported high job control. such interactions were not tested in the present approach and may further contribute to the unexplained variance in subjective health and in work efficacy. results from other studies of work efficacy have supported its predictive role in sickness absence. one of these studies followed a danish cohort of 5,357 employees including 106 employees with long-term sickness absence (labriola et al., 2007). they concluded from their prospective study that self-efficacy was lower among employees with sickness absence than in the general working population, but no significant association was reported for self-efficacy and a later onset of sickness absence or with return-to-work. interestingly, these authors suggested that reduced self-efficacy is the consequence of sickness absence as much as a precursor. another study of the relationship between self-efficacy and sickness absence followed 233 swedish employees with long-term sickness absence due to musculoskeletal pain (busch, göransson, & melin, 2007). the results stated that those with negative recovery beliefs, a low sense of mastery, perceived high mental demands at work and prior experiences of long-term sickness absence, had increased probabilities of being in need of sickness benefits at work. long-term sickness strongly increased a sense of helplessness, reduction in selfefficacy and a reduced probability of returning to work. also in the present multivariate correlational study, perceived work efficacy emerged as a powerful predictor of sickness absence and, therefore, calls upon interventions with a focus on the improvement of perceived work-related efficacy. people with a high sense of general self-efficacy feel frustrated by limited opportunities at work and by organizational constraints that reduce collective work efficacy (jex & gudanowski, 1992). however, the present sickness absence 380 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study dealt with personal efficacy to fulfill job demands. low such efficacy typically reflects anxiety and other underlying dysphoric moods triggered by, if not also causing, musculoskeletal pain. the seemingly strong impact of these variables on subjective health and work efficacy, calls upon every effort to provide personal work environments that facilitate a sense of accomplishment. obviously, the perception of work efficacy is the consequence of personal as well as organizational efforts with a broad approach including social support at work (sommer, svendsen, & frost, 2016) in helping employees to develop a sense of efficacy across the personal, social as well as behavioral domains. in such efforts, one should keep in mind that the effects may be due to complex processes. thus, de jonge, reuvers, houtman, bongers, and kompier (2000) reported both linear and nonlinear relations between psychosocial job characteristics, subjective outcomes and sickness absence in a study of musculoskeletal pain. in their three-year prospective study, baseline data supported a linear additive model for health complaints and sickness absence, whereas a curvilinear model was superior for emotional exhaustion and depression. their initial sample of 2,064 employees was drawn from various sectors including industry and services in the netherlands. clearly, there are complex processes addressed in the efforts to reduce sickness absence, and they are not all explicitly defined in the che-model described in figure 1, although most of the complexity appeared to be located in the transitions between complaints and subjective health as well as between subjective health and self-efficacy. these unaddressed complexities notwithstanding, the latter variable explained a high level of variance in sickness absence. the present results and those reported by busch et al. (2007), labriola et al. (2007), de jonge et al. (2000) and others, taken together, suggest a dynamic cascade of events where reduced work efficacy, for reasons that may or may not relate to work, strongly increase the risk of sickness absence that may further induce a perception of reduced self-efficacy that, again, increases the risk of long-term sickness absence. efforts to maintain and increase self-efficacy are clearly supported in the present as well as other reported findings. a final note on the qualities of the present study would have to include the unusual size and the relatively unselected nature of the population that was addressed. the high number of subjects offered powerful statistics in the multivariate model testing. it also should be underlined that the present methodological approach is basically correlational and, therefore, calls upon caution in conclusions about causal relationships. in conclusion, the che-model supported a role for mediating psychological variables in the relation between musculoskeletal pain and sickness absence. this role has been increasingly supported in research over the last fifty years. never before has this mediating role for psychological variables been statistically supported in data from a relatively unselected adult county population. funding the study was supported by a grant from the norwegian research foundation to the first author. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. svebak & halvari 381 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the nord-trøndelag health survey (hunt) was formed as the collaboration between the hunt research center at the faculty of medicine and health sciences, ntnu; norwegian university of science and technology; the national institute of public health; the national health screening service of norway and the nord-trøndelag county council. references alloy, l. b., clements, c. m., & koenig, l. j. 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(2000). fear-avoidance and its consequences in chronic musculoskeletal pain: a state of the art. pain, 85, 317-332. doi:10.1016/s0304-3959(99)00242-0 about the authors professor emeritus sven svebak was a faculty member at the faculty of psychology, university of bergen, for 25 years and, from 1995, a faculty member at the department of neuromedicine, ntnu, norwegian university of science and technology, for 15 years. he has published pioneering research on the effects of sense of humor on morbidity and mortality. he also has published on psychogenic factors in musculoskeletal tension and pain, the prevalence of musculoskeletal pain as well as motivational components in personality and everyday lifestyles. professor hallgeir halvari has been a faculty member at the department of coaching and psychology, university of sport sciences, oslo, norway, since 2001, and a faculty member at the department of business and social sciences, university college of southeast norway, since 1994. halvari is an international expert in research on motivation and self-determined behavior and has published numerous research articles on well-being, physical health, and performance-related factors in the fields of health, work, education, and sport. svebak & halvari 385 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 373–385 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1470 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000000574 http://doi.org/10.1097/00002508-200207000-00006 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sickness absence (introduction) method study population survey measures and procedure data scoring and statistical analyses results descriptive statistics bivariate relations structural equation models tested in lisrel the complaint-health-efficacy process model of sickness absence tests of indirect associations discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors knitting mochilas: a sociocultural, developmental practice in arhuaco indigenous communities research reports knitting mochilas: a sociocultural, developmental practice in arhuaco indigenous communities lilian patricia rodríguez-burgos*ab, jennifer rodríguez-castrob, sandra milena bojacá-rodríguezb, dwrya elena izquierdo-martínezb, allain alexander amórtegui-lozanob, miguel angel prieto-castellanosb [a] universidad del valle, cali, colombia. [b] universidad de la sabana, chía, colombia. abstract the purpose of this article is to analyze the psycho-cultural processes involved in knitting “mochilas” (traditional bags), a common craft in the arhuaco indigenous community located in the sierra nevada de santa marta, colombia. the article is structured in three parts, as follows: first, issues related to child development are discussed; then, the analysis method used to study the processes involved in the practice of knitting is presented and, finally, we reflect on the importance of recovering the sense and meaning of this everyday practice as a way to study child development. keywords: development, culture, daily practices, mochilas, knitting, childhood, colombia europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 received: 2015-08-17. accepted: 2016-05-02. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: universidad de la sabana, km 7 autopista norte campus, chía, cundinamarca, bogotá 11001000, colombia. e-mail: liliam.rodriguez@unisabana.edu.co this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction perspectives on human development the study of development has been undertaken from different perspectives by biologists, nativists and culturalists, among others, which have undoubtedly contributed to the understanding and explanation of the processes associated with the change and emergence of cognitive, emotional and social skills in children. nevertheless, these approaches have generated fragmentation in psychology because they tended to consider development from a limited point of view or disconnected perspectives (lewis, 2000). the research presented here recognizes and values these different perspectives used to study human development but also aims to achieve a more integrative understanding. we approach child development from a perspective europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ centered on processes, scenarios, paths and players that contribute to the strengthening and emergence of new skills in childhood and adolescence (lyra, 2010; rodríguez-burgos, díaz-posada, rodríguez-castro, izquierdomartínez, & nassar-pinzón, 2014). therefore, our work is closer to a cultural perspective as we intend to analyze how the daily practices that different communities perform contribute to emergence and strengthening of skills in childhood and adolescence (valsiner, 2012; vygotsky, 1978). in connection with the aforementioned perspective, the work of silva, correa-chávez, and rogoff (2010) is of great interest in the context of this paper since they have worked extensively with members of indigenous communities in mexico and, inspired by the ideas of vygotsky, they focused their interest on showing how children can learn and develop certain skills without necessarily going through processes of formal education (for instance, in school). more specifically, they advocated for a view of children’s development as closely linked to his/her own cultural activities. the authors share the proposals, since they consider that a child is born with certain basic skills, such as perception, attention and memory. however, through interaction with peers and adults, these abilities are transformed and become stronger as the child participates in activities and processes of cultural appropriation, including the appropriation of values and norms of behavior. another example of research adopting this theoretical position is represented by barbara rogoff’s (2012) studies in mexico, where she worked with 34 children, ages 8 to 10. collaborative participation and learning processes were observed in the purépecha indigenous community. the study showed that these children were involved, on a daily basis, in almost all activities of the community until the evening. during school holidays, children live with people of all ages instead of a nuclear family as it is considered that this is where children learn social norms, respect, and reciprocity, as well as different crafts such as weaving, housekeeping, and cooking. this research concluded that parents are the ones who guide these types of participation in indigenous children; children, in turn, develop more complex conceptions and ideas about what activities they like, corresponding to their age. in this manner, parents begin to involve their children in communicative and work activities. mejía, keyser, and correa (2013), who also studied indigenous children in mexico, brought evidence, through observation and collaborative participation, of the fact that indigenous boys and girls acquire cultural knowledge as they identify the implicit rules within their community, such as 'greeting all those who come to their homes or are met on the way'. responsible for guiding and orienting all these behaviors are both parents and other community members. in 2010, silva, correa-chávez, and rogoff conducted a study which brought further evidence of the fact that children of indigenous communities in mexico, honduras and guatemala learn through observation and participation in their own community’s activities. one of these activities is knitting. often, girls learn to knit without someone teaching them explicitly how to do it. it almost appears as if, spontaneously, the girls just grab a needle and start knitting a bag; this could indicate strong cultural guidance, often implicit, that these girls assimilate and, in turn, appropriate when they start being engaged in this activity. according to the above, it is considered that indigenous children have the opportunity to learn while watching ongoing events, such as watching their grandmothers and mothers as they weave, or watching their fathers and elder brothers planting or working the land. in addition to the work of barbara rogoff and collaborators, the research of patricia greenfield (2006) is of particular interest for the present study. for two decades, she studied weaving blankets and the development of creativity in the mexican community of chiapas, nabenchauk. this research allowed her to analyze the changes in the main types of basic subsistence for the community, from agriculture to europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 243 http://www.psychopen.eu/ commerce, boosted by knowledge of making rugs, textile design, weaving existing patterns and creating new ones among weavers in the mayan population. in her studies, greenfield (2004) showed how the creative processes involved in weaving blankets evolved over time and pointed to the fact that a strong family influence is evident in the processes carried out in creating the blanket, which involves interaction and mutual influence among family members, particularly when weaving is treated as a process of sharing knowledge. the research, for example, portrays a dialogue between a mother and a daughter: the girl says: “my mother is teaching me to knit blankets, she showed me the different shapes of knitting”. then the mother answers “if i am teaching is because she has to learn, my mother thought me to knit blankets since i was little”. the women of this community proudly displayed their weaving of blankets saying: ‘it was our mothers who taught us to weave" (p. 478). the researcher concludes that blanket weaving is based on social teachings and that creativity is subject and adapted to the means of economic livelihood. in fact, greenfield’s research (2006) argues for how the model of an organization had been transformed from a community and creativity one into a family model and, finally, into an individual model. in this order of ideas, it went from amodel of economic subsistence to a commercial one and not only the commercial model had changed, but also the creative process since it has evolved into a more independent one than previously seen by other researchers. in addition, it is proposed that such adaptations of creative processes and types of learning have also evolved from a family model to one based on trial and error, fostered by the new economic environment (greenfield, 2000). the same principles could be applied to other communities because of a large globalized economic change leading towards a more commercial and larger economy (greenfield, 2004, 2006), hence, in this study we approach development and community craft from an auto-ethnographic perspective. from an epistemological point of view, this approach values the study of the community life, taking into account the multiple contexts the person lives in throughout his/her existence (blanco, 2012). we will explain this approach further in the methodology section. understanding development it is important to express that our perspective on development does not seek to answer questions related to how much the child ‘has’, in terms of ability and knowledge, or what the child lacks to ascend to another stage, and we do not study or measure skills in an experimental laboratory not do we use tests to determine where the child can be placed on a normal curve. conversely, our perspective focuses on studying how change happens and how cognitive and emotional processes emerge in children. that is why we take our departure in a dynamic perspective of development that will now be explained. we believe that development is a complex and dynamic process, a key feature of systems that are open in nature is characterized by the interaction between their multiple levels. this implies recognizing that the emergence of change requires organization and structural hierarchies encompassing multicellular, genetic, physiological, psychological, social and cultural levels. development is dynamic because it takes place on different time scales that ranges from seconds, minutes, hours, and days, to years and decades (lewis, 2000; lewis & stieben, 2004; molenaar, brown, caile, & smith, 2002; molenaar & valsiner, 2009; valsiner, 2004; van dijk & van geert, 2007; van geert, 2000). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 244 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in consequence, we start from a dynamic perspective of development that, according to the contributions of vygotsky (1978) recognizes several things: (1) children do not develop alone but through interactions with parents, siblings, friends and teachers which foster the children’s development; (2) daily practices are scenarios that contribute to their development; and (3) as researchers, we must restore the fine and detailed observation of developmental phenomena in order to identify and understand how new skills arise, who participates in this development, and what processes underlie the practices of everyday life. in this sense, the words of cynthia rodriguez resonate with the methodological approach that underpins the present study: "there was a time when psychology was in no hurry. perhaps for that reason it watched well. and everyone knows that to watch well, you need three things: watch slowly, watch a lot, and above all, with pleasure". (cintia rodríguez, 2006, p. 9.) the arhuaco community the arhuaco community is geographically located on the north coast of colombia, in the sierra nevada of santa marta. the members of this indigenous community are known as the arhuacos. in spite of colonizationi, the community has largely managed to maintain its own, distinctive cultural identity. even following centuries of colonization, the arhuaco community remains culturally one of the strongest indigenous populations in colombia, mainly because it preserves important traditions related to spirituality, an original mother language, typical costumes, and a philosophy and worldview specific for the arhuaco people. the latter are related to the laws of originii, a set of rules and values members of the community live by and teach to future generations (gómez, 2014). the main economic activity of the arhuacos consists of agriculture and knitting. the members of the community are peaceful and spiritual people who enjoy following their philosophy, and consider the sierra to be the heart of the world. in relation to this, aty dwryaiii, a member of the arhuaco community and one of the authors of this research, says: "the sierra is the origin, it is a gift given (kakuserankwa) to us by god so that it can be taken care of, cultivated and protected. it’s my home, the center of my life. it is the land of my ancestors and it will be the land of my children and my children's children. it is the place where we make offerings. it is and will be the storeroom of the world and it contributes to sustaining humanity. it's a beautiful and magical place. i think it is the only place in the world where mountains, ocean and snow-capped mountains converge. for years we have been struggling to maintain our territory, even when the government wanted to build hotels here on several occasions. we are an indigenous reserve protected by gods. we have not allowed any displacement or invasions. tourists can visit here and eat for a while, but they have to respect the area and our traditions." research objective and question the main objective of this article is to analyze the psycho-cultural processes involved in knitting mochilas (traditional bags) in the arhuaco community, located in the sierra nevada de santa marta, colombia. in practical terms, this leads us to the following general research question: how do knitting practices support the emergence of cognitive, social and emotional skills in arhuaco girls? europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 245 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methodological aspects how can we study the knitting practice? in order to study development, we turn to tools such as observation, interviews and the task analysis method (pascual-leone, 1991; pascual-leone & johnson, 2004). the latter methods allow us to analyze a particular situation or activity – in this case the knitting of mochilas – in order to identify the processes involved in it. we adapted this method because we are more interested here in psycho-cultural processes. therefore, we focused on both the task (making mochilas) and the person (social psychological aspects involved in the task). it is important to add that both processes are integrated within the activity system. the first one is the task perspective – the making of mochilas. the aspects studied in relation to it are captured by questions such as: • what does the situation or weaving practice consist of? • what objects or materials does the activity require? • how does the person perform the process of knitting? • what instructions or rules are given to perform the activity properly? • are there distinguishable times or stages in the activity of knitting a mochila? • how does the person perform the process of knitting? the second approach is related to the person and the social and psychological aspects involved in the task. relevant questions include: • what cognitive, emotional and cultural processes are involved in the activity of knitting and how to they develop? • who participates in and accompanies the development of this practice? • how does the person resolve the difficulties or impasses that arise in the process of knitting? • what are the meanings of the practice of knitting for the person? • how multiple players and broader historical-cultural processes influence the activity of knitting? method and participants themethodological approach we used in our research is based on ethnography and autoethnography, which allows us know understand the life perspective of a person from ‘within’, in an emic manner (blanco, 2012). ellis, adam, and bochner (2011) describe autoethnography as a method that combines characteristics from both autobiography and ethnography, “the storyteller and scientist; the closer the reader of an ethnography comes to understanding the native’s point of view, the better the story, and the better the science” (liamputtong, 2009, p. 152). in relation to ethnography, angrosino (2012) defines it as the science of describing the culture of a human group, “the art and science of describing a human group: its institutions, social behaviors, material productions and and beliefs” (p. 35). enabling us to observe changes in the life of the participants (marvasti, 2004; angrosino, 2012; gobo, 2008, as cited by liamputtong, 2009), autoethnography can add value to cultural and indigenous studies by providing opeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 246 http://www.psychopen.eu/ portunities for researchers to be self-critical of their role as researchers. accompanied visits, visual ethnography and participant stories afford the research rich data about dialogues associated with the meanings and transformation of culture and lifestyles, providing direct information about the lived reality of the person (o'brien & varley, 2012). angrosino (2012), for instance, explains that the method of ethnography has three characteristics: it is a field method due to it taking place in everyday environments; it is personalized, researchers are participants and observers; and it offers multifactorial support to others research methods such us participant observation in-depth interview, group interview, life history, focus group, etc. in our research, dwrya is both one of the researchers of our team and a member of the arhuaco community from the sierra nevada of santa marta. according to gobo (2008, as cited by liamputtong, 2009) ethnographers entering a community use participant observation, learn the social code and understand the meaning of their actions through interaction with the participants in their natural environment. from this perspective, in our research dwrya, due to her training in psychology, is both a lead ethnographer and an auto-ethnographer (by reflecting on what she observes, knows and learns about her own community in dialogue with the other researchers). in this study we explore this double role of researcher and participant as we try to uncover, with dwrya’s help, and that of other members of her community, important information regarding the practice of knitting mochilas within the arhuaco community. we are mindful in this context of both the opportunity this type of access and research offers (e.g., more direct access to participants that are not easily accessible for research, the possibility of understanding better local culture), but also the challenges inherent to it (e.g., the need for increased reflexivity in the process of research and data presentation). a note on materials the mochilas themselves and the setting of this activity represent the material aspect being studied. knitting mochilas is an activity assigned exclusively to women. the materials required by the task are: sheep wool, needle and spindle. the wool is washed and dried in the sun. subsequently, it is wound on the spindle and finally the bag begins to be knitted with the needle; this process is reflected in figure 1. girls aged four and older are engaged in this practice along with their grandmothers. figure 1. process of mochila knit. photos by dwrya izquierdo (2015). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 247 http://www.psychopen.eu/ findings the arhuaco women usually start knitting since early childhood (see figure 2 for a mochila and its main parts and figure 3 for two arhuaco girls knitting). while many other tasks are also entrusted to them, the one seen as most important by the community is knitting because its outcomes are considered to represent thought (in its material form). the woman is the one who carries life and wisdom: “she is the weaver of dreams and this is the role given by the creator because she is a patient, delicate and generous dreamer. the creator has awarded her with the power to do things with her hands, to knit, which symbolizes the earthly and the divine” (dwrya) figure 2. mochila parts. photo by dwrya izquierdo (2015). figure 3. two arhuaco girls knitting. photos by dwrya izquierdo (2015). analysis of the mochila knitting practice when analyzing this practice, we have identified four moments that are important. first, the grandmother teaches the girl the importance of knitting. second, the girl learns about parts of the mochila. third, the girl learns the meanings of the symbols depicted on every mochila. last but not least, the girl knits her first mochila and offers it to the mamo (the spiritual leader of the community). we briefly describe each of these stages, followed by a europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ general analysis. our aim in this discussion is to articulate different moments of knitting with the cognitive and social processes that emerge during the entire process. first step: grandmother teaches knitting fique (a vegetal fiber used to make ropes) "the first thing to learn when knitting fique is that wool is removed from maguey. grandmothers teach us to know the plant and scrape it to extract fique, then wash it, place it in the sun until it unravels and then make rows of wool from it (figure 4). this thin wool can be handled very well. grandmothers teach us how to spin fique spinning on our legs. when we have the material ready, we are taught to use the needle carefully not to sting ourselves with it. we are taught how to make thick stitches and handle the needle. then we are shown a “mochilón” a big and simple bag from fique (see figure 5) used to carry bananas and yucca. with the help of their grandmothers, the girls have to make big “mochilones” (see figure 6) for our families, and if we demonstrate that we can make them, then we can go ahead and weave bags, not any sooner". (dwrya) figure 4. grandmother teaches knitting fique. photo by dwrya izquierdo (2015). figure 5. “mochilón” knitted by an arhuaco girl. photo by dwrya izquierdo (2015). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 249 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 6. arhuaco women and her daughter knitting one mochila and one “mochilón” respectively. photo by dwrya izquierdo (2015) it is very interesting to analyze how grandmothers’ collaboration and support play an important part in being introduced, from a very young age, to the practice. older women in the family play an active role and teach young girls how to recognize and identify the plant. it is also significant to see how the child uses her body, in this case her legs and hands, while applying the new knowledge. knitting involves bringing two elements together, namely the needle and the wool. the girls have to establish a relationship between the needle, wool and, in the end, the knowledge of how to make the mochilón. they must coordinate visual schemas, but also should simultaneously integrate what is expected of them (to knit well) and observe some restrictions, e.g., paying attention not to sting themselves and not to make wrong stitches. various studies explain how this series of activities are related to the frontal lobe, which is closely associated with executive functions such as cognitive flexibility, choice of objectives, planning, self-control, working memory and problem solving, among others (capilla et al., 2004; soprano, 2003). on the other hand, it is important to emphasize that the process of knitting involves a readiness drive that is important. this readiness implies a regular direction by mothers and grandmothers in order for the young girl to develop the ability to knit correctly. but, beyond teaching how to use the needle, what is more important is the meaning that the girl invests in the development of these special objects bags for her family. it is an object that will have an end and the girl is not a mere spectator who observes and copies, but rather knits, creates, and brings an object into her home. the knitting practice involves several cognitive and social processes that one cannot learn with the “naked eye”. this means that it is not easy to learn just by looking at it once, the knitting practice involves a series of abilities and dedication during a lot of time in a particular context. according to young shin and soo ha (2011), in their research about the korean knitting practice, knitting is not only a craft production but also a form of consumption europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and is composed of some basic elements: purchase of materials, designing, physical labor and production of material goods (p. 105). also, they describe knitting as a practice that implies a close relationship among the physical, mental, and emotional dimensions of the artisan. they explain these emotional effects as “the combination of simple and repetitive physical movements and control of the overall process by paying attention to regular changes within knitting patterns generate a state of high concentration” (p. 109). these rhythmic movements immediately instill a feeling of familiarity that gives people great comfort. second step: the bag and its components the production of the bag begins with cutting the goat or sheep wool, washing and drying it with its natural colors. then follows the spinning process and bonding of fibers”. following that, dwrya remembers how her grandmother usually showed one model bag (see figure 6) and said: “we are going to make stitch by stitch. first, we are going to create a background that is like knitting a circle or a plate and then continue knitting around it”. the grandmother explains that there are five stitches, which will then be increased. then, they will continue in sequences 6, 7 and so on, thus giving the bag a shape. she also teaches how to alternate 5 black lines, then 5 white lines. "then to give it height, we put our hand on the bottom of the plate. the bag should fit around the forearm, to see whether it is already finished. finally, we make the handle that is of a different material similar to macramé, which is woven with a thread one side, which is attached to a piece of wool. it is weaved one on the top and the other one on the bottom. in the end, this would be the handle we're going to put on the bag. the handle can be made slightly longer or the size we want. now we finish the handle, stick it onto the bag and then we go on to make another row. that is the cold sore, which is another larger row that remains at the top of the bag". (dwrya) certainly, counting is also part of learning, because the girls are told to make five black stitches, then return and make five white ones. it is indeed a trick used to be able to count and exercise the imagination because, while looking at other designs, the girls will make one design of their own. at this point in the process of knitting the bag, it is important to emphasize the aesthetic details and design of the bag. the grandmother starts giving very specific instructions that will enable the child to successfully complete her bag. here, it is important for the child to pay particular attention to two things. first, the instructions must be followed and the knitting done step-by-step according to them. second, the child must take into account the numerical sequences and concepts for knitting that are usually very precise. as the girl is making stitch by stitch, it is explained to her that a part of the history of culture of her community is also being recorded in her knitting. studies, such as the one of adamski and borowik (2014), show that the activity of knitting and development of these skills in childhood promotes problem solving and development of fine motor skills as well as visual motor coordination, results that apply perfectly to the activity of arhuaco girls. at the neuropsychological level, we can note from the studies of garcía, enseñat, tirapu, and roig (2009) that there is a critical period in the development of the child within his/her first five years as it is at this time that the brain has higher growth, known as processes of myelination and synaptic pruning, which promote synaptic connections and, in turn, the development of the frontal lobe (capilla et al., 2004). in other words, this practice builds neural plasticity, defined by narbona and europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 251 http://www.psychopen.eu/ crespo (2012) as the ability to model the nervous system’s structure and function under the influence experience, resulting in learning processes. third step: symbols and the bag producing the bag follows a specific order. first,mochilones are made from fique, then bags fromwool with stripes or single color, which are part of the basic form of knitting, and then begins the teaching of how to depict symbols that can be highly sophisticated. "granny presents one design, although i think there are more than 20 designs. each design has a meaning (see figure 7). carry bags or indigenous drawings depict animals and other objects related to the worldview and everyday life of the arhuacos. grandma teaches design and how it represents the elements of nature, and then she explains how the design is made. some of the most important designs are the gamako (frog), symbol of fertility, aku (rattlesnake), kaku serankua (the father creator of the sierra), gwirkunu (hills and lakes), urumu (snail), kunsamunu a'mia (woman thoughts), kunsamunu cheyrua (man thoughts), kanzachu (tree leaf), chinuzatu (four corners of the world), kambiru (scorpion's tail or scribble) and phundwas (snowy peaks of the sierra)”. (dwrya) figure 7. arhuaco designs used in the weaving and knitting of the bag. photos by dwrya izquierdo (2015). in the final part of knitting the bag, the cultural significance is delved into, along with all the symbols represented on the bag. there are a number of drawings that can be captured on each bag, which all have a specific meaning. during knitting, they become a way of telling and remembering the meanings of the arhuaco culture on the bags. this activity speaks of cultural memory which, according to van dijk and van geert (2007) is the accumulation of various elements that are telling a story over time; they begin to be appreciated as mediated memories that are part of individual identity, as well as collective identity in a community. in research conducted by mege (1990), everything that is expressed in the community’s weaving carries a specific intention. colors and designs are not chosen randomly, but they depend on who they are intended for: the hierarchy of who is going to receive them. in the case of the arhuaco community, the first bag that is knitted, for example, is intended for mamo. every bag has a different connotation and specific meaning. fourth step: the completed bag, an offering to be given to the mamo "the first bag is carried to mamo who is the spiritual leader of the indigenous community (see figure 8). he grants the spiritual permission so the child can continue weaving and complying with the order and permanence of life. since this bag is a tribute to be surrendered to the land for all the benefits received, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 252 http://www.psychopen.eu/ such as water, food, air, plants, animals and all the resources that allows her to create her own spiritual and material world" (dwrya) figure 8. one of the arhuaco community’s mamos. photo donated by kasokaku busintana mestre (2014) themamo is the most important authority in la sierra nevada, he is the owner of the traditional knowledge intended to guide the development in the life cycle of each of individuals inside the community. his role is to share and cultivate the bond between nature, the territory and communities themselves. he is considered indispensable for people to keep their own values and preserve the origin laws. in the quote above, the mamo is presented as the one who possesses the ancestral wisdom of the indigenous communities and his responsibilities as leader include being a spiritual and political leadership, medic, priest and advisor. themamos give voice to the community: “we, the natives, were located in sacred territories to take care of the spiritual equilibrium and sustainability of life in the whole dimension of the world and the universe; it is our duty to contribute with payments, through the spiritual rituals” (gómez, 2014, p.159). the mamo’s main function is to preserve the equilibrium between nature and man, but also to preserve the traditions, and defend mother earth. to do so, he performs different kinds of rituals to pay off the debt of other persons. he seems to be the coach of the community and he is the one whomust share and help them, so they can take care of nature together. the declaration to humanity of the mamos in the sierra nevada notes: “sierra nevada it is the hearth of the world, the primary and vital source of the whole world, origin of life and spiritual equilibrium of mother earth… to us, it is everything that owns a sacred spirit and must be respected. that is why everything is sacred and we feel it like part of our family: the air, the fire, the trees, the insects, the stones, the mountains… we live in a constant communication with them through our powers of knowledge and spiritual activities” (gómez, 2014, p. 169). in consequence, being a mamo implies a huge responsibility that is entrusted on an individual since childhood. the elder mamo thus decides, from early on, who is the next mamo, taking in to account his physical and family features. once he is selected, the process of teaching him the community’s traditions, history, and rituals that are transmitted from generation to generation begins. the preparation of themamo requires discipline. this depends on how he assumes the role as the biggest public authority, spiritual leader, and economic advisor of the community during his entire life. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 253 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the first mochilas made by young girls (see figure 9) it is important to note that, once they are finished, the grandmother and granddaughter take them to the mamo and they put inside as a gift a load of coffee, yucca, and plantains. he receives the gift, checks the knitting and congrats the young girl for the mochila. also he explains to the girl why it is important to make mochilas and ends this rite with a prayer. from our perspective, the actions and words of themamo represent one of so many ways in which this community passes on its own cultural identity. finally, it is essential to recognize the fundamental value that the mochilas have for the community due to their meaning, elaboration and direct relation with the preservation of an indigenous culture. besides, related to the economic aspect of the mochilas, the activity of selling them is oriented towards supplying the needs related to the home context, to buying the food, the clothes and the shoes needed. even more, the activity of selling mochilas can be motivated by gaining popularity inside the market of crafts in colombia (zalabata, 2008). on the other hand, women, as they thread the material and knit the mochila, imprint emotion, thought, traditional practices and their vision of the cosmos. this is why, the mochila, more than being just an element used by the indigenous people, is a social archive that has inscribed in its knits ancestral, social and technical practices that assign a social and economic role to women in society (rodríguez-burgos et al., 2014). figure 9. arhuaco girl and woman knitting mochilas, respectively. photo by dwrya izquierdo (2015). conclusion the objective of this paper was to analyze the cognitive, social and emotional processes involved in the practice of weaving traditional bags. we started from the premise that “development is a dynamic and complex process that behaves like an open system” (lyra, 2010; rodríguez-burgos et al., 2014; valsiner, 2004). this becomes evident in the task analysis performed here (pascual-leone & johnson, 2004), in which an activity of daily life europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 knitting as a daily practice to study development 254 http://www.psychopen.eu/ facilitates the development of new skills. in that sense, researchers are invited to explore further and restore the value of daily activities for human development. we are convinced that, in order to study development, it is not always necessary to resort to sophisticated laboratory studies. our data show that everyday scenarios and fieldwork are extremely rich and should be the basis for further investigations. for instance, related to knitting practice we find some studies that show how knitting is like threading a story. for example, lutton (2012) explains how, in the waldorf school of chicago, knitting and weaving practices are part of the curriculum: children are learning to focus and concentrate. they are gaining fine motor skills needed for writing. they see patterns. they move from left to right, the same way they read. they are gaining confidence. besides, riley, corkhill, and morris (2013), in their study of adulthood, conclude that knitters who knit frequently are calm, happy and experience higher cognitive functioning. this kind of research supports the idea that knitting offers many benefits for development. furthermore, these researchers write about how knitting helps knitters learn about valuable life skills, such as perseverance, patience and creativity in the context of education. some teachers are beginning to use knitting in the classroom in order to teach key life skills to their students. for instance, in bogotá, colombia, there is a school project called “tejiendo sueños” (knitting dreams), where two professors teach their students different types of knitting and, through this activity, the students learn to be patient, which ultimately improves their school life (secretaría de educación del distrito, 2013). as such, future studies on the topic could focus on longitudinal research meant to capture the way these and other skills emerge by performing daily practices. this is in line with our commitment to promote practices that preserve cultural identity, studied through direct and detailed processes of observation, interviews and analysis. as such, piaget's words are inspiring for this kind of work: “[…] a good analysis surpasses all statistics” (piaget, 1936, p. 69-70) this research contributes to the transmission of cultural knowledge in narrative terms; the narratives in this study outline the origins and meaning of knitting as an important part of the daily activity of indigenous women and cultural development within the arhuaco community. besides, using an ethnographic approach, we can evidence how the development of young indigenous girls is permeated by beliefs, patterns and traditional principles that shape how they act in daily life beyond the knitting of mochilas. this investigation aims, at a broader level, to return to the arhuaco indigenous women the acknowledgement for their work and admiration for the management of social responsibility, their contribution to the construction of identity remembering that is imprinted in the item knitted by their own hands and in the cotton and vegetable fiber they use (rodríguez-burgos et al., 2014). there is also a practical side to conducting and continuing this line of research. it has been repeatedly noted that the arhuaco community enjoys tremendous cultural richness and plenty of opportunities to scaffold the development of children, the practice of knitting being only one of these opportunities. it is important thus to study, understand, and foster such daily practices in order to support child development in indigenous communities and also gain new insights into other forms of community life and their importance for socialization and growth. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 255 http://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) due to the spanish colonization of the americas, the arhuaco community decided to move to higher lands in la sierra, in order to preserve their spirituality and social organization as a method of resistance. however, the contact with the spaniards led to meaningful cultural changes (agencia de la onu para los refugiados, 2011). in the xvii century, the capuchins (a catholic religious community) arrived to sierra nevada, in order to convert the local population to catholicism and this had a great impact on arhuaco doctrines. around 1980, due to the process of claiming a distinct ethnic identity, the capuchins were expelled from the arhuaco community. nowadays, the arhuaco are being victim of illegal armed groups through acts of violence and the exploitation of natural resources. this context generated many struggles related to cultural and spiritual practices in the community (agencia de la onu para los refugiados, 2011). ii) millenary laws ruling the arhuaco community are written on stones considered sacred and conveying the thoughts of the ancestors. for instance, the “origin law” says indigenous are in the sierra because they are appointed by the gods to take care of nature. therefore, one important ritual is to pray and ask permission to the earth for cultivating it. another example is apologize to nature for cutting down trees and another important rule is to listen to the advice of elders. iii) aty dwrya izquierdo is her full name inside the arhuaco community (where it means “mother of good”). she is a student of psychology at universidad de la sabana (colombia) since 2011. funded by a university scholarship, dwrya committed to returning to la sierra after graduation and contribute to the development of her community. dwrya will be the first indigenous graduate student of la sabana within a larger inclusion program developed in recent years. funding this study was supported by the research project psi-51-2015 of the universidad of la sabana. by research group ‘‘cognition, learning and socialization’’ and the seedbed ‘‘culture and development’’ (from which this project was started). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the research group are grateful with people of the arhuaco indigenous community, they let us to know their daily life through their narratives. thanks to the authorities that approved this research. besides, we want to give special gratitude to dwrya izquierdo, whose collaboration was instrumental for this research and the mamo kasokaku busintana mestre izquierdo who facilitated the photographic material used in this paper. references adamski, a., & borowik, b. 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(2008, february). justicia propia entre los arhuacos: proyecto para la progresiva optimizacion de la justicia propia en el pueblo arhuaco [own justice inside arhuacos community]. valledupar, colombia: usaid y la confederacion indígena tayrona. about the authors lilian patricia rodriguez-burgos is phd in psychology, at the center for psychological research, cognition and culture at the universidad del valle (cali, colombia) supported by colciencias. her research focuses mainly on cognitive and emotional child development, education and cultural practices; in this last field, she has collaborative work in progress with york university (canada). she is also a recurrent visiting scholar of clark university (usa) and aalborg university (denmark). currently, she is a deputy director of psychology master of universidad de la sabana, in colombia. jennifer rodríguez castro is psychologist and she works in the center students department as educative psychologist, at universidad de la sabana. her work and research interests has focus in education and psychology development, specifically in the area of child development, guided by phd. lilian patricia rodríguez. her research work has been reflected in different articles publication, conferences participation, an award for her thesis qualified as meritorious, coordinated a research group in psychology department and participated in an international internship at clark university (massachusetts, usa). contact information: jenniferroca@unisabana.edu.co sandra milena bojacá rodríguez is psychologist at universidad de la sabana (chía-colombia). her research interest focus on development, culture and cognition psychology. member of the research group cognition, learning and socialization. at present she is professional of the research direction of the universidad de la sabana. contact information: sandra.bojaca1@unisabana.edu.co dwrya elena izquierdo martínez is a psychologist graduated from universidad de la sabana. she belongs to the arhuaca community of la sierra nevada de santa marta. her thesis work was focus around psychological processes and cultural practices from arhuaca community. contact information: dwrya.izquierdo@unisabana.edu.co allain alexander amortegui lozano is a psychologist, young researcher formed at universidad de la sabana (chiacolombia), he is studying right now a master degree in psychology at the same university, with emphasis on research in the cognitive and development line. development, culture and cognition has been the main interests of this young researcher. at present she is working at the sabana university in the research field of development and cognition with lilian patricia rodriguez-burgos. contact information: allainamlo@unisabana.edu.co miguel angel prieto castellanos is a last year student of psychology and philosophy at universidad de la sabana (chiacolombia), practitioner in the investigation group “cognition, culture and development” headed by dr. lillian rodriguez. he is also working on his thesis work for the degree of psychologist. developmental psychology, culture and cognition as well as criminal psychology are his main fields of interest in which he is currently working in his practices and thesis. contact information: miguelprca@unisabana.edu.co psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 242–259 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1039 rodríguez-burgos, rodríguez-castro, bojacá-rodríguez et al. 259 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en knitting as a daily practice to study development introduction perspectives on human development understanding development the arhuaco community research objective and question methodological aspects how can we study the knitting practice? method and participants a note on materials findings analysis of the mochila knitting practice conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors “frontrunners”: an investigation of the discursive construction of “women politicians” intersectional identity research reports “frontrunners”: an investigation of the discursive construction of “women politicians” intersectional identity patrizia milesi* a, augusta isabella alberici a [a] department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. abstract this paper explores how female politicians discursively construct their intersectional identity as “women politicians.” we interviewed 10 female politicians in charge of local political offices and examined how they talked about the boundaries and contents of their “women politicians” identity. when talking about identity boundaries, the interviewees first presented “women politicians” as an exclusive minority within their gender group. second, they constructed intergroup categorizations by comparing women who meet the requirements to enter politics versus women who do not. when talking about identity contents, the interviewees constructed intergroup categorizations along the ideological axis only. thus, they overlooked the differences between men and women who share the same ideology while they enhanced the differences among women of different ideologies. overall, the interviewees constructed their “women politicians” identity as a subordinate identity within their overarching ideological identity rather than as a real intersectional identity. these results are discussed also in terms of discursive de-politicization of the “women politicians” intersectional identity. keywords: intersectional identity, politicized identity, gender discrimination in politics, women politicians, women politicians’ competence europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 received: 2017-11-10. accepted: 2018-12-14. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: kevin r. carriere, georgetown university, washington, dc, usa *corresponding author at: department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, largo gemelli 1, 20123 milan, italy. e-mail: patrizia.milesi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. this paper aims at examining how female politicians in charge of local political offices discursively construct their unique social identity as “women politicians.” we start from the idea that this identity stems from the intersection between female politicians’ gender and their ideological memberships. we will analyse how female politicians discursively construct their intersectional identity, focussing on how they manage and make sense of its multiple and potentially conflicting aspects. in this investigation, we start from a view of social identity as a social product that arises from group members’ discursive interactions (reicher & hopkins, 2001). according to this view, social identity can be studied as it emerges in discourses when group members dispute the boundaries and contents of their group membership—that is, when they construct and negotiate through their discourse who are part of the “we”, what makes “us” special and better, what “we” should do, and what “we” want to achieve in the political arena (stuart, thomas, donaghue, & russell, 2013). in our analysis, we will pay special attention also to how female politicians discursively manage the politicization of their intersectional identity. the development of a politicized identity is a necessary condition for memeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ bers of a disadvantaged group to mobilize collectively against discrimination (kelly & breinlinger, 1996; klandermans, 2014; simon & klandermans, 2001; van stekelenburg, 2013). to our knowledge, how an intersectional identity may become politicized has been investigated only recently (banfield & dovidio, 2013; klandermans, van der toorn, & van stekelenburg, 2008; simon, 2011; simon, reichert, schaefer, bachmann, & renger, 2015). moreover, how politicization of an intersectional identity is constructed through group members’ discourses has never been analysed. politicized identity does not imply only a consensus upon group norms, interests, and goals. it implies also shared adversarial attributions of the group disadvantaged condition and shared awareness that the collective disadvantage needs to be challenged in the public arena (simon & klandermans, 2001). so, we will analyse how discursive constructions of boundaries and contents of “women politicians” intersectional identity are related to discourses about gender discrimination in politics and to discourses about female politicians’ competence. negotiating the boundaries of intersectional identities as regards group boundaries, the threshold for entering the in-group may be constructed either as low and soft, if the speakers’ aim is to include more and more people in the in-group, or as prescriptive and impermeable, if their aim is to construe a distinct and oppositional identity (stuart et al., 2013). in the context of women’s underrepresentation in politics, how female politicians discursively construct the thresholds for being admitted among the “women politicians” might be linked to how they explain current gender discrimination in politics. indeed, the way those thresholds are constructed in discourse might either challenge or legitimise women’s under-representation in politics. santos and amancio (2016) analysed semi-structured interviews of portuguese male and female politicians and examined how they talked about gender inequalities in politics. they observed that both male and female interviewees “naturalized” gender inequalities in politics, that is, they attributed them to society and to history, and gendered the issue of merit. that is, instead of blaming male gatekeeping practices or biased media representations of women, they blamed the women themselves, who, according to the interviewees, should display more interest and commitment in politics. the gendering of merit along with the naturalization of gender inequalities combined to determine an overall disengagement from the issue of social change. as a result, in the interviewees’ discourses, the social problem of gender discrimination in politics was transformed into an individual-level problem, where mainly the victims are deemed responsible for their condition. indeed, both male and female interviewees disapproved gender quotas and instead supported the principle of merit. the principle of merit was also closely linked with discourses about women’s competencies, both in terms of women’s failure to attain the competencies necessary in politics and in terms of doubt or mistrust. discursive construction of women’s competence in politics is key to the construction of female politicians as effective political agents. however, the issue of competence is much more delicate to manage for female politicians than for male ones. probably as a result of traditional socialisation, female politicians are less likely to self-perceive as qualified for a public office than are males (burrell, 1998). at the same time, when they decide whether to enter politics or not, women rely on their competence more than do men, as a means to gain legitimisation both in front of male colleagues and among the electorate (fox & lawless, 2004). as a result, female politicians’ discourses about who is admitted within the in-group of “women politicians” and who is not are very likely to focus on competence. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 460 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discursive construction of women’s competence can be also potentially problematic for its incongruence with conventional stereotypes regarding femininity. on the one hand, women are confronted with widespread gender stereotypes whereby women are associated more with communal traits (warmth, empathy, and sensitivity) than with agentic traits (strength and dominance). as a consequence, their ability to act as effective leaders, who are commonly stereotyped as agentic and dominant, is questioned. on the other hand, women who display agentic, stereotypically masculine traits are often depicted as cold and distant (bligh, schlehofer, casad, & gaffney, 2012). as a consequence, for example, discursive construction of women’s ambition is delicate. female personal ambition can be more acceptable either if its beneficiary is said to be the nation rather than oneself, or if ambition is combined in discourse with communal traits (hall & donaghue, 2012). even female politicians who are prime ministers construct for themselves a non-ambitious identity (sorrentino & augoustinos, 2016). studies on how women nominated to public offices, for example as ministers or prime ministers, are discursively represented in the media show that women are trapped in a double bind. actually, either media representations question women’s capacity of carrying out their political duties, as they are depicted as conflicting with their motherhood obligations, or they represent women who display full commitment to their political duties as evil mothers who overlook their family’s well-being (garcia-blanco & wahl-jorgensen, 2012; verge & pastor, 2018). moreover, even when female politicians are unmarried and child-free, this lack of family can be imputed against them as a reason for their inability to get in touch with ordinary families (sorrentino & augoustinos, 2016). discursive constructions of gender discrimination in politics and of female politicians’ competence might be relevant to the discursive politicization of the “women politicians” intersectional identity. actually, the construction of a disadvantage as collective and blameable upon a powerful out-group contributes to identity politicization (iyer & ryan, 2009; simon & klandermans, 2001). interestingly, when members of a disadvantaged group do not perceive their collective condition as unfair discrimination perpetrated by a more powerful out-group, identity politicization is likely to be deterred (simon et al., 2015). indeed, perceived group discrimination leads to increased politicized identity (branscombe, schmitt, & harvey, 1999). for example, women in counter-stereotypic occupations show augmented gender identification when they recognize gender-based disadvantages (redersdorff, martinot, & branscombe, 2004). also the discursive construction of female politicians’ competence might be relevant when examining how the intersectional identity of “women politicians” is constructed and politicized. indeed, discourses about female politicians’ competence can speak to the capacity of female politicians as a group to collectively challenge gender discrimination in politics (mummendey, kessler, klink, & mielke, 1999; van zomeren, spears, fischer, & leach, 2004). negotiating the content of intersectional identities as hinted above, through their discourse group members also construct the contents of their identity, that is, “our” distinctive features, “our” interests and goals, what “we” should do and what “we” pursue collectively. in the realm of political activism, activists often face the challenge of having to manage and negotiate potentially conflicting aspects that stem from their multiple identities (e.g., antaki, condor, & levine, 1996; hopkins, 2011; jaspal & cinnirella, 2010; stuart et al., 2013). in this regard, female politicians may experience peculiar complexities linked to their intersectional identity that result from their simultaneous gender and ideological memberships. studies on intersectional identities have shown that people vary in their focus on intragroup similarities that arise from a shared identity and in their sensitivity to intragroup differences that spring from multiple memberships. as a consequence, individuals may recognize that their identity is rooted in multiple grounds milesi & alberici 461 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., black women may experience both their race and gender memberships as meaningful), take multiple axes of intergroup categorization as the source of their collective condition (e.g., gender and race), and develop their collective goals consistently. alternatively, they may construct their identity on a single axis (e.g., black women may experience just their race membership as meaningful) and develop the belief that social change can be pursued by targeting that axis, solely or primarily (e.g., race; crenshaw, 1991; greenwood, 2008). similarly, one could explore how female politicians discursively construct their intersectional identity of “women politicians”, analysing how they base it on their gender and ideological memberships. ideological membership is likely to pose a divide in the discursive management of intersectional identities. actually, ideological membership implies the endorsement of values that are perceived as absolute and non-negotiable principles. indeed, values are represented in discursive interactions as very different along the ideological axis (e.g., milesi, 2016; sani & reicher, 1998; tetlock, kirstel, elson, green, & lerner, 2000). this is relevant to the discursive politicization of the “women politicians” intersectional identity. actually, perceived similarity of values within the in-group is an important condition for individuals to construct themselves as a politicized group. the process of identity politicization implies that, thanks also to intragroup communication, individuals’ values and moral motivations are transformed into group concerns (alberici & milesi, 2016, 2018; milesi & alberici, 2018; turner-zwinkels, van zomeren, & postmes, 2015; van zomeren, 2015; van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2012). indeed, when political activists perceive a basic diversity and heterogeneity in core values within their group, their perception of the group as an entity decreases, as does their identification with the group itself, which can even result in group schism (sani, 2005). as a consequence, the discursive construction of the “women politicians” intersectional identity might be especially challenging for female politicians as they have to manage their gender similarity and simultaneous ideological diversity with women of different political groups. aims following other researchers who have adopted the intersectional perspective to social identity (e.g., greenwood, 2008; hopkins & greenwood, 2013), we assumed that interview data could provide insight into how female political officers experienced and made sense of their unique identity that resulted from the intersection between their gender and ideological memberships. actually, the literature on the discursive construction and management of multiple social identities has acknowledged the value of qualitative methods (antaki et al., 1996; hopkins, 2011; linden & klandermans, 2007; stuart et al., 2013). based on this, we interviewed women who had been elected in the lists of right-wing and left-wing political parties in local elections and were currently in charge of political offices. right-wing parties favoured policies that support free market economy, law and order, and traditional families. in contrast, left-wing parties advanced policies in favour of equal opportunities, civil liberties, and tolerance for diversity. consistently, supporters of right-wing parties endorse conservation and self-enhancement values (e.g., tradition and success) while supporters of left-wing parties endorse self-transcendence values (e.g., universalism and benevolence; caprara, schwartz, capanna, vecchione, & barbaranelli, 2006). we examined the interviews by focussing on how the interviewees discursively constructed their intersectional identity of “women politicians” and on how they managed its multiple and potentially conflicting aspects. within this overarching theme, we explored: 1) how the interviewees constructed the boundaries of their intersectional identity, taking into account also their discourses about gender discrimination in politics and about female politi"frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 462 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cians’ competence; 2) how they constructed the content of the “women politicians” identity, focussing our attention also on the interviewees’ discourses about their own and other women’s values. the research context in italy, female politicians are still a minority. on the whole, according to the global gender gap index 2017, italy is in 82nd position out of 144 countries examined in terms of gender equality.i and the situation is even more worrying for what concerns women representation in politics. at the level of national politics, none of the main political parties is led by a woman, and the gap between men and women widened in 2017 compared to previous years; in 2016 italy was in 25th place, and in 2017 it went down to 46th. this result seems also in contrast with the recent european trend; 2017 elections held throughout european countries increased parliamentary representation of women up to 27.1 per cent, up from 26.3 per cent in 2016. within the european region, however, italy’s overall performance in terms of gender equality in politics is rather negative, as it is placed among the last positions among the european countries, above only cyprus, portugal, romania, croatia, and slovakia.ii the 2018 italian national elections were carried out by applying a recent electoral law that states that at least 40 per cent of the candidates must be women. despite this, in all major parties the percentage of women elected was around 30 per cent, significantly below the minimum threshold of 40 per cent. this is probably a consequence of how italian major parties have chosen women candidates, versus men. for example, it is possible that men were more frequently nominated as candidates within those electoral colleges where election was guaranteed, making it more difficult for women to have a chance to be elected. at the level of local politics, women are slightly better represented, especially in small to medium municipalities. currently, the percentage of women who are seated in municipal councils is 39 per cent in municipalities with fewer than 15.000 inhabitants and 40 per cent in municipalities with more than 15.000 inhabitants. however, in capital cities, the percentage of women who are seated in municipal councils is 22.2 per cent. overall, women mayors are only 14.1 per cent of the total. as regards the territorial distribution, women representation is greater in the north of italy, with 30.6 per cent in the north-west and 31.7 per cent in the north-east, while in the centre it is 29.7 per cent and in the south and in the islands it is 26.8 per cent. as regards the distribution of political offices, there is a clear territorial gap with respect to the number of mayors, since north-west female mayors represent almost half of the overall number of italian mayors (46.5 per cent), and a similar percentage has been shown for female deputy mayors. albeit a minority, women involved in politics are much more educated than their male counterparts. for women involved in local politics, 46.2 per cent have a degree or a phd, versus 31.6 per cent of men. for men who are involved in local politics, 21.1 per cent have barely completed compulsory education, compared to 9.8 per cent for women (anci, 2017).iii method participants and interviews the present research was carried out in italy in 2015. at the time of the interviews, all interviewees held a political position at the local level, in particular in the municipalities or the provinces of north-west italy. as reported above, this area of the italian territory is characterized by having a higher presence of female administrators than other italian areas. thus, interviewees developed their political career in one of the most favourable contexts in italy. the interviewer initially contacted 15 women personally, and 10 of these agreed to be interviewed. milesi & alberici 463 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the sample is both small and unrepresentative, and we do not make any generalizations from our findings to other italian female politicians. participants were informed that their anonymity would be preserved and that their privacy rights would be strictly observed so that it would not be possible to identify them from the results. all interviews were held at the offices of female politicians and were audiotaped and then transcribed verbatim.iv non-linguistic features of speech (e.g., pause lengths and stress) were irrelevant for the purpose of the present paper and thus were not transcribed. interview lengths ranged from 39 to 113 minutes (average of 77 minutes). interviewees were also informed that they could ask to switch off the audiotape or to withdraw immediately from the research at any time and that, if this were the case, their answers would not be considered. moreover, participants were assured that their answers would be used for research purposes only. no participant withdrew during the interview. after the interviews, all participants were fully debriefed about the aim of the research and offered to receive the research final results. as reported in table 1, five interviewees belonged to centre-right parties and five to centre-left ones. participants’ ages ranged from 35 to 59 years, and their political experience ranged from 8 to 40 years of previous political activism. seven interviewees reported having a degree, while three received an upper secondary education. all interviewees were married/cohabitating, and only two of them did not have children. table 1 details about the interviewees interviewee political role political orientation age marital status/ marital cohabitating number of children political activism length education 1 municipal councillor centre-left 52 yes 35 years master’s degree 2 province councillor centre-right 35 yes 1 15 years master’s degree 3 province vice-president centre-left 59 yes 2 40 years master’s degree 4 municipal councillor centre-right 46 yes 8 years master’s degree 5 municipal councillor centre-right 58 yes 1 39 years master’s degree 6 municipal council vice-president centre-right 53 yes 1 17 years upper secondary education 7 municipal councillor centre-right 47 yes 1 9 years upper secondary education 8 deputy mayor centre-left 47 yes 1 30 years upper secondary education 9 province councillor centre-left 41 yes 2 26 years master’s degree 10 province councillor centre-left 52 yes 1 35 years master’s degree interview schedule through semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to talk about their political careers and to reflect on the condition of women in politics. the topics included the initial decision of the interviewees to engage in political activity (how did you get involved in politics?), to enter political competition (could you describe how you started your political career?); their perceptions of parental and familiar support (what does your family think about your political activity?); their understandings of political activism, their political careers, and the costs and benefits of being a politician (what does politics mean to you? what does it mean to be a politician?); their perceived ties with both other women and men politicians within their own and other parties (what is your attitude toward your political colleagues, females and males, both of your and other parties?); their explanations for the under-representation of women in italian politics (how do you explain female under-representation in italian politics?). the interviewer relied on an interview guide that contained the key questions reported above but it also oriented questions and cues according to participants’ response. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 464 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analytic strategy we followed other research based on the social identity approach that examined speeches and texts in order to explore how social identities and category relations are actively constructed and understood through discourse in the political arena (hopkins & greenwood, 2013; pehrson, stevenson, muldoon, & reicher, 2014; rooyackers & verkuyten, 2015). more specifically, we explored how the interviewees discursively managed their intersectional identity of “women politicians” and its potentially conflicting aspects (e.g., their position as an under-represented category, the similarities and differences within this category that stem from the intersection between gender and ideology). our analytical approach was focussed on how participants accounted for their experience of “women politicians” in terms of the identities they saw as relevant. our investigation was informed by the developments in research on intersectional identity and identity politicization reviewed above. we interpreted interviewees’ accounts as reflecting the experiences that we assume they have had during their political career and, above all, as reflecting the meaning that they attached to them. in doing this, we also assumed that the social categories the interviewees referred to in their discourse should be intended as the outcome of how participants interpreted and made sense of their experience, and as a consequence as fluid and negotiable. our analysis unfolded through three stages (pehrson et al., 2014; rooyackers & verkuyten, 2015). first, both the researchers read the transcripts several times. the sections of the interviews that touched on the issues regarding women in politics, what it meant for the interviewees to be “women politicians,” what had been required from them to become so, and how they related with other women in politics were spotted and highlighted within the transcripts. second, these sections were closely analysed with special attention to how the interviewees constructed the boundaries of the “women politicians” category as well as its contents. within the topic of category boundaries, we focussed on how the interviewees talked also about women’s under-representation in politics and about female politicians’ competence. within the topic of category contents, we focussed on how the interviewees constructed similarities and differences among “women politicians.” finally, within each of these interrelated topics, we illustrated the patterns of meaning that the interviewees attached to the “women politicians” intersectional identity and to their experience of it. analysis an exclusive intersectional identity first of all, we explored how the interviewees discursively constructed their intersectional identity of “women politicians” by focussing on how they constructed its boundaries, that is, the thresholds for being admitted to the category. moreover, we explored how interviewees’ discourses about this issue were linked to how they constructed and explained women’s under-representation in politics and to how they talked about female politicians’ competence as a means to collectively challenge gender discrimination in politics. the intersectional identity of “women politicians” is constructed as highly exclusive. interviewees often highlighted that only a restricted minority of exceptional women are “admitted” in politics. for example, paolav (interviewee 8), a centre-left deputy mayor of a small town, believed that the group of “women politicians” includes “frontrunners” only, that is, special women who are better than other women. milesi & alberici 465 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ extract 1 paola (interviewee 8): unfortunately, women who enter politics are either immediately successful or they burn out, lose their way, and quit. […] women have smaller margins for error than men do. if they are not frontrunners, they are relegated to secondary positions. as we can see in extract 1, the process whereby women are admitted in politics is constructed as a sort of a natural selection process. this process is presented as a descriptive norm that descends from the widespread gender discrimination in politics. such a discursive construction may go to the extreme and close the “women politicians” category to potential newcomers. this happened when the interviewees transformed the descriptive norm of how women politicians are into the prescriptive norm of how women politicians should be. for example, when caterina (interviewee 6), the municipal council vice-president of a centre-right party, called for more power for female politicians, she retained stricter criteria for women to enter politics than for men to do so. extract 2 caterina (interviewee 6): i think that some laws should be written first by women only and later revised by both women and men. we must not leave some issues in men’s hands only. […] i believe that women should play a more important role in the country’s political life. i hope and fight for this. but these women should be worthy and prepared to win and gain power by being really better than men. as a result, intergroup categorization shifts from “women versus men” to “women who meet the requirements to enter politics versus women who do not.” we can see such a shift in extract 3, where camilla (interviewee 4), a centre-right councillor in a small municipality, established strict criteria for admitting new members in the group of women politicians: extract 3 camilla (interviewee 4): women elected in parliament achieved such positions because they had an edge over the others and because they were better than other women. we must send a message to italian women, a message that says that although everybody can do politics, there must be something that elevates you above other women, that makes you special and better, because politics is a serious thing that needs skill and patience, passion and dedication, and the time and the desire to test oneself. exclusiveness as a result of a stable hostile context when interviewees talked about the exclusiveness of the “women politicians” category, they often explained it with reference to the toughness of the political context. indeed, according to all interviewees, gender discrimination in politics is widespread; interviewees unanimously agreed that there are deep prejudices and hostile behaviour toward female politicians. in extract 4, matilde (interviewee 7), the municipal councillor of a centreright party, was explicit in saying that female politicians are targets of male prejudice and discrimination, and she voiced her negative affective reactions about it. at the same time, she constructed discrimination against women as a stable feature of politics. extract 4 matilde (interviewee 7): i believe that unfortunately politics is still a male chauvinist environment, where men join together to make fun of women and to exclude them from power. […] in my opinion, the obsta"frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 466 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cles that we as women encounter when striving for public offices are due to the male chauvinist traits of politics, traits that can be found across parties. […] i realize that there is deep prejudice against me and against my women colleagues. we are women, we are newcomers, and there are always some critics of us. […] i have just realized this and i am furious; i mean it is frustrating and not reassuring. discourses on gender discrimination in politics were intertwined with discourses about the traditional gender roles the interviewees are required to play outside politics. for example, when the interviewees focussed on female politicians’ underinvestment in social capital, they explained it with reference to the traditional care role they play in the family. while no interviewee discussed the stability of those traditional gender roles, all of them emphasized that it was really very hard for them to find a balance among their different roles in the family, at work, and in politics. according to interviewees’ discourses, they sought a balance between these different roles, which leaves women with so little time to socialize with male colleagues that it is almost impossible for them to build the social networks that are necessary for political success. for example, in extract 5, angela (interviewee 10), a centre-left province councillor, attributed women’s under-representation in politics to their underinvestment in social capital due to the heavy family burdens that women in politics have to bear. extract 5 interviewer: how do you explain the low percentage of female politicians in italy? angela (interviewee 10): i think that, when a woman chooses to do active politics, she is aware of the toughness of the context, and she is aware that this will bring about family problems. it is paradoxical that men are requested to develop gender politics in favour of women when politics is organized as a function of male time. conciliation is the greatest problem. […] men are much more sponsored; they are enabled to build social networks and social relationships that are much wider than those of women. actually, contrary to men, women do not have time to hang around with friends and to meet new people. so while the interviewees acknowledged gender discrimination in politics, at the same time they attributed it to societal features that were described as stable and really unlikely to change or to be challenged. exclusiveness as a result of high standards of competence the interviewees constructed politics as an environment that generally is hostile to women because it sets very selective thresholds for women to enter. interviewees’ discourses often focussed on competence as a necessary requirement for women to enter politics. moreover, when interviewees talked about who is admitted in the “women politicians” category and who is not, they highlighted that there are special criteria that women are required to meet while men are not. thus, competence is constructed as a source of discrimination insofar as it is presented as checked and required from women but not from men. consequently, exclusiveness of the “women politicians” category is attributed to the fact that women are required to show a level of competence that men are not. interviewees often stressed that they, as women, are confronted with continuous competence tests. in this regard, as we can see in extract 6, matilde emphasized that women politicians are constantly required to show they are capable and suitable for their offices, while men are not. extract 6 matilde (interviewee 7): we are asked to meet requirements that nobody would dream to ask of men. […] i believe that things such as competence and expertise are required to women as a pretext to slam milesi & alberici 467 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the door in their faces. […] i believe that women in politics are so few because men do not want them and act in a way so as to create a number of obstacles that are impossible for women to overcome. […] it is painful to think that for all her life long, along all her political activity, a woman has to keep showing that she is suitable for her office, while i clearly perceive that this is not required of a man. quite paradoxically, interviewees often presented themselves, as competent and successful as they are, as an exceptional, fortunate case compared to other women. in extract 7, camilla stated that she represented a rare and fortunate case, and she attributed her success not so much to her competence as to an external factor, that is, her good luck to encounter people who trusted her—as well as to her decision not to have children. extract 7 camilla (interviewee 4): i have to admit to myself that, unfortunately, not all women had my fortune, that is to have a chance in politics. i had someone who believed in me, and i was so fortunate of being able to manage my public and private life. […] i can also say that i have the fortune or misfortune not to have children, which is one problem less. competence was prevailingly presented as the technical and sectorial knowledge that the interviewees achieved thanks to their individual hard work and study. only in a few isolated cases did the interviewees report that their party provided them with relevant training opportunities when they started their public activities. quite the contrary, most interviewees said that they attained their competencies through huge individual effort and by overcoming a number of situational obstacles, often represented by duties of care for young children and/or elderly parents. as a result, interviewees constructed their personal competence as an instrument that they individually achieved thanks to great personal sacrifices rather than as a means that other female politicians are likely to possess and that female politicians as a group could employ to achieve gender goals. so discursive construction of female politicians’ competence is based not only upon the intergroup categorization “women versus men” but also, and sometimes primarily, upon the intergroup categorization “women who have the competence required to enter politics versus women who do not.” “women politicians” are often constructed as exceptionally competent and as exceptionally lucky; in contrast, women who do not enter politics are depicted as unable and/or unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve the level of competence that is required from female politicians. in either case, the outcome of the interviewees’ discourses is that “women politicians” were described as exceptional cases within their gender group. moreover, the interviewees focussed on the issue of competence in a way that mirrors the tension between women’s widespread self-perception of being not qualified enough for public office, compared with men, and one’s own personal hard work to gain competence as a means of legitimisation. quite often the interviewees associated female politicians’ competence with anxiety, represented as a (stereotypical) stable female feature that men do not have. such a feature is sometimes constructed as a sort of an extreme conscientiousness that drives female politicians to strengthen their credentials and eventually to make them even more competent than men. in most cases, however, it was presented as a drawback, a basic female lack of self-confidence that impedes the success of most women in politics. for example, in extract 8, francesca (interviewee 3), the centreleft province vice-president, argued that women often doubt their political competence because they have greater anxiety and insecurity than men. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 468 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ extract 8 francesca (interviewee 3): politics makes women worry much more than men. i often ask myself whether i am able to make it; men are different. as women, we always question ourselves about our abilities, and we are much more anxious than men, and sometimes this has negative consequences. to summarize, interviewees constructed the boundaries of the “women politicians” intersectional identity as highly prescriptive and impermeable, generating a distinct, minority oppositional identity. moreover, the intersectional identity of “women politicians” was contrasted not only against men in politics but also, and sometimes primarily, against women who are not engaged in active politics. as a result, this discursive construction of category boundaries sounded like a legitimisation of women’s under-representation in politics as, by definition, exceptional women are a minority. the gender ingroup as affected by deep ideological differences as to the contents of the intersectional identity of “women politicians”, we explored how the interviewees discursively managed the potentially conflicting aspects stemming from their gender similarity and simultaneous ideological diversity, as compared with women of different political groups. generally speaking, ideological membership emerged as the main axis along which the interviewees accounted for their experience as “women politicians”. as a consequence, in most cases, the interviewees managed the conflicting aspects of their intersectional identity by emphasizing the ideological differences among female politicians. the complex intersection between gender and political memberships is clearly constructed with the aim of showing one’s deep loyalty to core cherished values, above and beyond gender similarities. emphasis on ideological membership brought to the foreground different and often opposed political goals among women politicians. lucia (interviewee 9), a centre-left province councillor, was explicit in saying that female solidarity and unity among female politicians of different parties is very unlikely, since differences among them in core values are too deep. interestingly, hypothetical solidarity towards another member of the same gender group but different ideological group was constructed as a bias. extract 9 lucia (interviewee 9): i do not think there’s a female solidarity across different parties. […] we basically refer to core values, and i do not believe i can share values and worldviews with those who made choices that are radically opposed to mine, even if they are women. […] i do not allow my political judgment to be biased, for example, by the mayor being a man or a woman. with the former centre-right mayor, who was a woman, there was neither common ground or shared values because our political ideals were profoundly different. some shared gender goals were constructed when the interviewees referred to the specific contexts of boards for equal opportunities. interviewees who worked for gender equality in local boards reported cooperation among women of different parties and ideologies. under those specific circumstances, just for the sake of women’s interests, they stated that they overlooked ideological divisions. the interviewees, however, constructed such a collaboration as an exceptional and restricted condition. as can be seen in extract 10, angela combined the description of sharing values with women of different political parties with an emphatic reference to the ideological differences that otherwise divide them, so that ideology rather than gender emerges as the main axis for intergroup categorization. milesi & alberici 469 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ extract 10 angela (interviewee 10): it is becoming more and more difficult for women in politics to find a common ground because party interests are very strong. maybe, at the local level, like a province, an allegiance for women interests can be made, but at the national level it is much more difficult because parties have to show their strength. i have met centre-right women who share some ideals and values with me and also the desire to make italy better and fairer. moreover, it is worth noting that the interventions promoted by local boards for gender equality aimed mainly at improving the condition of working women in general (e.g., proposals of change in the opening and closing times of nursery schools or proposals of support to families with children with physical or psychological disabilities). in no cases did the boards deal with the specific disadvantaged condition of female politicians. differences within the interviewees’ gender group were often constructed also at the level of interpersonal relations. indeed, the interviewees constructed interpersonal conflicts among women as much more divisive than conflicts among men, and they explained this divisive female attitude by referring to a stable feature of the female gender. the interviewees described the category of “women politicians” as affected by deep inner conflicts around the achievement of powerful positions. women politicians were presented to be much more inclined to fight against each other than to act in a united way and to provide reciprocal gender solidarity. according to the interviewees’ accounts, women politicians would prioritize their individual interests over gender ones, unlike male politicians, and competition for power among women would be stronger than among men. this account hindered a discursive construction of shared collective gender goals. in this regard, caterina reported: extract 11 caterina (interviewee 6): i see when i go to municipal councils to discuss with women councillors belonging both to centre-left majority and to my own political party, there is no agreement. for several reasons, both political reasons but also human reasons. in short, while men never put forward dislike or envy as reasons for not to vote for a fellow, women do so. the ideological ingroup as providing support to women consistent with constructing their experiences as a function of the ideological axis, when the interviewees talked about their ideological membership, they discounted gender differences. as a consequence, the interviewees constructed their own party as rid of biases against women’s political career. actually, most interviewees were proud to say that their own parties had provided them with a chance for political careers and that their male party colleagues were supportive of rather than prejudiced against women. paola and camilla, for example, compared the context of politics in general, where the relationships between female politicians and their male counterparts are hostile, with the specific context of their own party, where they said they had found wide support from their male colleagues. extract 12 paola (interviewee 8): i feel myself as a “woman politician”, and i have had to build my own defences, but for years i have had a party that has made me grow and that has protected me. […] my colleagues, even if mostly men, chose me as mayoral candidate and i accepted it. […] when someone has the potential to run for a political office, even if she is a woman, the party does not boycott her. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 470 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ extract 13 camilla (interviewee 4): in my party, the atmosphere is completely different. women are much considered and not just because of gender quotas but because the party wants to acknowledge the role they deserve. it is a message that as women play a key role in the family, they can play a similar role also in civil society. so it is within the discursive framework of one’s own ideological membership that the identity of “women politicians” is provided with a meaning. being nested in ideological membership, the “women politicians” identity is discursively managed more as a subordinate identity rather than as a real intersectional identity. moreover, such a favourable description of one’s own party is functional to protect the in-group from the overall negative evaluation of politics as prejudiced against women. however, at the same time, it conveys that gender discrimination is not so widespread, thus making it a problem of other parties rather than one’s own. only in the case of right-wing interviewees did gender become the main axis along which the interviewees accounted for their experience. this is consistent with the high cognitive centrality of gender categorization in right-wing people (peterson & zurbriggen, 2010; schreiber, 2002, 2008). for example, elisabetta (interviewee 5), a centre-right municipal council councillor, employed the “women versus men” intergroup categorization to account for all her experiences across various life domains: from family, where male members are not expected to help their female counterparts, to politics, where male colleagues are ready to take advantage of women. she stated that gender equality had consistently been at the top of her political agenda within the local board and, as we can see in extract 14, she wished that, sooner or later, women politicians as a group could subvert their disadvantaged condition. extract 14 elisabetta (interviewee 5): when meetings for the municipal council began at 7 p.m., my husband and my son arranged for dinner. of course, i cooked something and then they arranged something else. it was a matter of arranging: i do not expect any help from men. […] women are much stronger than men. i mean, men cannot bear the rhythm of women. […] women in politics must show that they are stronger than men, since, otherwise, in three minutes men trample on you and you stay blocked in the kitchen. […] there are only a few women in politics because only a few of them believe in themselves. in my opinion, women have terrific potential but, as i said before, there are women who let men prevaricate. why do they accept subordination? it is not fair. i know that, if we wanted, we could really make a cultural revolution. in elizabetta’s words, two ingredients of discursive politicization of the intersectional “women politicians” identity can be found: the reference to gender discrimination in politics, and the reference to women politicians’ strength and potential. however, it is not only commonality of values and goals among “women politicians” that is still lacking. gender discrimination is also attributed internally to women’s lack of self-confidence. so, although elisabetta wished for a “cultural revolution”, her wish was embedded in a discursive context where no real politicized intersectional identity was constructed. other right-wing interviewees mentioned some women-only training courses that aimed to promote the careers of women politicians, but these courses were embedded within the party boundaries and never involved women of different ideologies. milesi & alberici 471 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion and conclusion this paper explored how female politicians discursively construct their intersectional identity as “women politicians” (greenwood, 2008). with this aim, we interviewed female political officers and examined how they talked about the boundaries and contents of their “women politicians” identity (e.g., reicher & hopkins, 2001). we also analysed how interviewees’ discursive constructions of the “women politicians” intersectional identity were related to their discourses about gender discrimination in politics and to their discourses about women politicians’ competence. as a consequence, our results can also speak to the discursive politicization (or depoliticization) of the “women politicians” intersectional identity (simon & klandermans, 2001; simon et al., 2015). our analysis reveals the complexities of the interviewees’ discursive management of their intersectional identity as well as its discursive (de)politicization. when talking about identity boundaries, first, the interviewees constructed “women politicians” as an exclusive minority within their gender group, a restricted elite among ordinary women. actually, the thresholds to be admitted to this group are constructed as so demanding that only a minority of women are allowed to enter. indeed, the interviewees constructed intergroup categorization along the axis of “women who meet the requirements to enter politics versus women who do not” rather than along the gender axis of “women versus men”. those discursive constructions of intergroup categorizations were embedded in a description of politics overall as hostile to women. as a result, interviewees’ discourses sounded like a justification of women’s under-representation in politics rather than like a challenge to their collective disadvantaged condition. the discursive justification of women’s under-representation in politics was accompanied by descriptions of male gatekeeping practices and traditional gender roles as stable features of politics (francescato, mebane, sorace, giacomantonio, & lauriola, 2008). second, the interviewees constructed the boundaries of the “women politicians” identity also by referring to the continuous tests of competence with which women politicians are confronted. the interviewees constructed it as a source of discrimination, as women would be required to show their suitability for office throughout their career while men would not be. however, the interviewees constructed their level of competence, and the process whereby they achieved it, as so exceptional within their gender group that once again the intergroup categorization was constructed along the axis “women who meet the requirements to enter politics versus women who do not” rather than along the “women versus men” gender axis. moreover, although the interviewees presented themselves as exceptionally competent among women, they generalized the basic lack of self-confidence to their whole gender group, thus mirroring the stereotypical belief that women would not be up to the task of political competition (fox & lawless, 2004). finally, by focussing on the heavy personal sacrifices the interviewees made to achieve competence, the interviewees constructed a distance between themselves as successful women in politics and other (less successful) members of their gender group. this discursive construction is consistent with the finding that the so-called “queen bees”, that is, women who are successful in male-dominated contexts, underline dissimilarities and distance themselves from other women who have been less successful (derks, van laar, & ellemers, 2016). third, when interviewees talked about the contents of their intersectional identity as “women politicians” (i.e., what makes “us” special and better, what “we” should do, and what “we” want to achieve), they did not construct intergroup categorization along the gender axis, but rather along the ideological one. indeed, the differences between men and women who shared the same ideology were overlooked in interviewees’ discourses. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 472 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consistently, the interviewees’ own party was constructed as fully supportive towards women’s political careers. instead, the differences among women of different ideologies were enhanced, often thanks to discursive reference to non-negotiable values. in the discursive construction of the “women politicians” intersectional identity, interviewees associated such deep meanings to their ideological identity that the differences in central beliefs and core values within the group of women in politics were emphasized more than the similarities. discursive focus on conflicts among women is consistent with a widespread tendency to problematize same-sex conflict when it occurs between women much more than when it occurs between men, which deflects attention away from structural obstacles that women encounter and towards women’s alleged deficiencies, thus justifying women’s disadvantaged condition (sheppard & aquino, 2017). consistently, cooperation among women was presented either as restricted episodes due to contextual aims (e.g., equal opportunities boards) if it involved interaction among women of different ideologies, or as part of the interviewees’ party activities if it involved women of the same ideology. thus, being constructed as sporadic episodes or nested in interviewees’ ideological membership, the “women politicians” identity was managed discursively more as a subordinate identity within the interviewees’ ideological identity than as a real intersectional identity. these results are also relevant in terms of discursive de(politicization) of intersectional identity. actually, on the one hand, women’s under-representation in politics was acknowledged in interviewees’ discourses; on the other, however, it was justified rather than challenged, and no likelihood of social change was envisioned. while discursive acknowledgement of women’s under-representation in politics might have the potential to politicize the intersectional identity of “women politicians”, its discursive justification defuses such a potential. furthermore, the challenges that the interviewees associated with their individual achievement of competence and with its public deployment impeded them from generalizing their own competence to the whole gender group, while they did generalize the stereotypical female lack of self-confidence. as a result, the intersectional identity of “women politicians” was constructed as a restricted category of extraordinary women. the exceptionalism that results from these discursive constructions of identity boundaries was inconsistent with discursive politicization of the “women politicians” intersectional identity. the present study reveals the discursive complexities arising from the interviewees’ simultaneous gender and ideological memberships. previous research on women’s under-representation in politics, especially in leadership positions, has found a labyrinth of obstacles that women encounter, from male gatekeeping practices to fewer opportunities for women to access the media and biased media representations of women, from difficult conciliation among family, work, and political roles to women’s underinvestment in social capital (e.g., eagly & carli, 2007; francescato et al., 2008). our research adds to these findings by suggesting that a further obstacle can be found in how female politicians understand and discursively construct their intersectional identity of “women politicians”, basically depoliticizing it. although our qualitative methodology does not allow us to establish causal relationships, these findings suggest that self-perceived exceptionalism could undermine a discursive construction of politicized identity, gender discrimination, and group efficacy that would be strategic to collectively challenge the status quo. we acknowledge that this study is limited by the restricted sample and by its being focussed on a specific sociocultural context. although female politicians constitute a minority that is hard to reach, we hope that future studies will examine larger samples of participants and will extend the investigation to different contexts. findings obtained in the present research indeed deserve further investigation also through quantitative methods. milesi & alberici 473 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, it would be interesting to enlarge the investigation to less successful female politicians in order to explore how they construct the intersectional identity of “women politicians” (e.g., whether they embed it within an overarching ideological identity or they construct intergroup categorization also along the gender axis) and whether and how they politicize it through discourse. finally, we observed that in their discourses the interviewees widely used modal categories referring to “women politicians” (i.e., women politicians must/have to/can do…). although an analysis of the use of modal verbs and modal expressions is out of the scope of the present research, we acknowledge that this could be a fruitful avenue for future research. actually, the modal articulation contributes to shaping the positioning of the subject and his/her relationship with other actors in terms of duties, responsibilities, or degrees of free will, as well as with his/her sense of agency (de luca picione, martino, & freda, 2017, 2018). at an applied level, our research suggests that group-level interventions are needed to nurture the intersectional identity of women politicians. previous studies of female networking and women-only training opportunities in non-political organizations have shown that such practices, under given conditions, can play a social identity function (hersby, ryan, & jetten, 2009; kirton & healy, 2004). actually, female networking can provide women with a sense of belonging and a professional shared identity; women-only courses, by privileging women’s issues, can acknowledge perceived gender discrimination and, through shared learning, provide a sense of personal and collective efficacy, which might favour the politicization of the intersectional identity of women politicians. indeed, it would be interesting to investigate whether and when these practices could play a similar function also in the political context, where, beyond gender membership, strong ideological identities are present. notes i) global gender gap 2017, https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2017 ii) eige gender equality index 2017, http://eige.europa.eu/rdc/eige-publications/gender-equality-index-2017-measuring-gender-equality-europeanunion-2005-2015-report iii) data provided by the ministry of interior, updated 29th october 2016, http://documenti.camera.it/leg17/dossier/pdf/ac0294.pdf iv) interviews were collected in italian, and then a linguistic revision was carried out to verify the correct english translation of the interviews. v) all names are pseudonyms. funding università cattolica del sacro cuore contributed to the funding of this research project and its publication. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. 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(2012). on conviction’s collective consequences: integrating moral conviction with the social identity model of collective action. british journal of social psychology, 51, 52-71. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2010.02000.x van zomeren, m., spears, r., fischer, a. h., & leach, c. l. (2004). put your money where your mouth is! explaining collective action tendencies through group-based anger and group efficacy. journal of personality and social psychology, 87, 649-664. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.649 verge, t., & pastor, r. (2018). women’s political firsts and symbolic representation, journal of women, politics & policy, 39, 26-50. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477x.2016.1268878 about the authors patrizia milesi holds a ph.d. in social psychology. she is assistant professor at the catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy, where she teaches organizational communication and communication psychology. her current research interests focus on moralization of socio-political attitudes, on online discussion in collective action, and on gender discrimination in political and organizational contexts. augusta isabella alberici holds a ph.d. in political psychology. she currently teaches social psychology and psychology of communication at the catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. her research interests deal with political psychology, and especially with psychosocial processes underlying collective action. recently, she has studied the influence of online communication on political engagement and collective action, and gender discrimination in political and organizational contexts. "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction 478 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 459–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1557 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002%2fcasp.2206 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fbjso.12138 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fpops.12016 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.78.5.853 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167215569494 https://doi.org/10.1027%2f1016-9040%2fa000156 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.newideapsych.2015.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.2044-8309.2010.02000.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.87.5.649 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f1554477x.2016.1268878 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ "frontrunners": an investigation of the discursive construction (introduction) negotiating the boundaries of intersectional identities negotiating the content of intersectional identities aims the research context method participants and interviews interview schedule analytic strategy analysis an exclusive intersectional identity exclusiveness as a result of a stable hostile context exclusiveness as a result of high standards of competence the gender ingroup as affected by deep ideological differences the ideological ingroup as providing support to women discussion and conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors from the collective unconscious to the narrative unconscious: re-imagining the sources of selfhood editorial from thecollectiveunconscious to thenarrativeunconscious: re-imagining the sources of selfhood mark freeman*a [a] college of the holy cross, worcester, ma, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 published (vor): 2016-11-18. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, college of the holy cross, 1 college street, worcester, massachusetts 01610, usa. e-mail: mfreeman@holycross.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the shock of history during the course of a symposium at the most recent conference on the dialogical self, a question was posed in which jung’s idea of the collective unconscious was brought to bear on the matters being discussed. that idea has never had much currency in the more traditional quarters of psychological inquiry. like much of jung’s work, it hints of a kind of mysticism most academic psychologists are reluctant to entertain. worse still, it also hints of a kind of volk-inspired way of thinking that, according to some (e.g., noll, 1994), is a too-short step to nazism and other such mythological fetishizations of the psyche. at least partially valid though some of these criticisms are, it’s unfortunate that the idea of the collective unconscious has met with the rather icy reception it has. my main reason for saying so is that there are dimensions of experience—religious experience and aesthetic experience, especially—that point in the direction of a kind of ecstatic primordiality that appears difficult to account for without invoking something akin to the jungian idea. what’s more, the quite extraordinary continuities of symbolism, in religion, mythology, and across the course of history more generally would seem to suggest that the idea isn’t as farfetched as many a modern-day psychologist assumes. having said all this, i was quick to distinguish jung’s idea of the collective unconscious from what i have come to call the narrative unconscious (see, e.g., freeman, 2001, 2002). the idea began with an extremely intense experience i had the first time i was in berlin, which i described as follows (in freeman, 2002): although i approached visiting berlin with somemeasure of uncertainty over how i would respond to being there—given my own jewish background, the books i had read, the movies i had seen, and so on—i didn’t experience any particular intensity about the prospect. for one, the first few days were to be spent at an academic conference, where the topics had little to do with germany and its past. for another, i would be with friends who lived in berlin and were eager to show me around, share some food and drink, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and have a good time. as it turned out, the conference was in fact uneventful as were the first couple of days touring the city. we saw lots of sights, we shared some meals, and, in the face of all the cranes dotting the landscape, we talked a good deal about the challenges the city faced as it sought to rebuild itself, literally and figuratively. it was all fascinating to me, but in a somewhat distanced way. there were emotions, to be sure, but they were blunted and rather generic: “how terrible it must have been.” “it’s all so hard to imagine.” “it’s incredible how fresh the wounds still seem to be, all those buildings, pieces ripped out of them by shells, the commemorative plaques, the armed guards in front of synagogues, even now.” and so forth and so on. but then something strange, and utterly unexpected, happened. i still don’t know quite how to make sense of it. i was traveling on a bus through the city when everything that had been at a distance suddenly came near: the cranes, the buildings, the gardens, the brandenburg gate, the reichstag. everything that had been a fascinating or disturbing spectacle, an object to be beheld, taken in—as when one takes in the sights of any city—had become a kind of living, breathing presence. when i initially tried to explain this to someone, i said that i had never had such an intense experience of history as i had had then, during those moments. as for my response to this sudden transformation from spectacle to presence, it was something like a deep grief, a mixture of sorrow and horror, rolled into one. i was either weeping or on the verge of it for a good amount of time afterward. it was very strange and very powerful. lest this episode be construed as an index of my emotional stability, i am not given to this sort of thing. there was, in other words, something truly extra-ordinary about the entire set of experiences. it was extremely disturbing. (pp. 196197) the question, of course, was: what had happened? initially, i found myself entertaining “an almost mystical path . . . as if death was in the air,” and “i couldn’t help but wonder whether it was possible for the events of the past—terrible ones, in particular—to somehow leave traces, in the form of disturbed energy fields or some such thing.” i wondered whether “the past could somehow become inscribed in the present,” whether “it remained alive and operative. . . . would someone who stumbled upon a piece of land where a concentration camp once stood, without knowing where he or she was, feel anything different? would there be traces or echoes, even ghosts of a sort? it’s possible.” it’s also possible that what i was beholding somehow tapped into ancient memory, jungstyle, and activated some sort of archetypal image of death and destruction, one that was palpable enough to send me reeling. “but,” i had written, “the modern mind—including my own—finds it difficult to move into regions like these, intriguing though they are” (p. 198). i wouldn’t be one to rule out either of these ideas. they don’t easily square with the way most of us have come to think about the world. and, they are speculative in a way that can’t help but make the empirically-oriented psychologist ontologically and epistemologically squeamish. could there be weird energy fields in the world, deposited by the awful crimes of the past?could there be a collective unconscious, waiting, as it were, for an encounter like this one to kick it into gear? who knows? these possibilities were enticing then and remain so now. “but then i had to pull back a bit. somehow or other,” i ventured, “i must have ‘brought’ things with me that set in motion the experiences of the day. that is to say, i must have been hermeneutically ‘prepared’ in some way, hermeneutically ready, to experience all those things in the way i did. but how?what exactly was it that i had brought there?” (p. 198). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 re-imagining the sources of selfhood 514 http://www.psychopen.eu/ here, of course, my interpretive stance is no less speculative than the ones just considered; they simply square better with how we have come to think about the world. i am not trying to suggest that all of the different interpretive stances one might adopt are equally valid. nor am i suggesting that the one i landed upon is arbitrary. on the contrary: everything i know about the world, at this particular point in time, at this particular place, points me in the very direction i am about to outline. and so i ask again: what exactly was it i had brought there? first and perhaps foremost, i had brought aworld to that trip to berlin, a cultural horizon—or what gadamer (1975) and others (e.g., allan, 1993; jauss, 1989; shils, 1981) have referred to as tradition. this dimension of tradition—comprising those “implicit and unthematized . . . habits of the heart or mind or muscles” (p. 24) that ground our experience—was surely operative that day, conditioning what i saw and sensed. there is no question but that i had also brought a good deal of concrete knowledge with me, “from books and movies and photographs and any number of other such things” (freeman, 2002, p. 199), all of which seemed to have “activated the undercurrents,” as i had put it, of what i was witnessing. all of these had become part of my “memory,” and while second-hand, they surely served to condition some of what i saw and felt that day. “‘memory,’ in this context,” thus emerges as “a curious amalgam of fact and fiction, experiences and texts, documentary footage, dramatizations, movies, plays, television shows, fantasies, and more” (p. 199). finally, for now, it seemed clear that my jewish background needed to be figured into the equation too. as i indicated at the time, it was difficult to say exactly how. i don’t consider myself particularly religious. nor did i know of family members who had suffered at the hands of the nazis; all of my grandparents had landed in the united states before 1920, my parents were both born in the states, and, although we did have some relatives who perished at the hands of the nazis (which i didn’t know at the time), i hadn’t come to berlin with any discrete expectations of what i would find. would i have responded the same way if i wasn’t jewish? it’s impossible to say. but i would guess not. i therefore went on to question how this might have factored in. “why, given my own ambivalences and uncertainties and hesitations” about my jewish heritage, “had there been such a powerful encounter? was it despite all these things? was it because of them? was it due to there being an admixture of identification and nonidentification, approach and avoidance, connection and dis-connection?” the answer: “i do not know” (p. 199), i said. what i did know was that there existed dimensions of my history and my identity about which i had been largely unaware. this is where the idea of the “unconscious” enters the picture, which i use “not so much in the freudian sense [of that which has been repressed, banished from consciousness] . . . but in a more explicitly cultural sense, having to do with those largely unrecognized and in turn uncognized aspects of our own histories that have been bequeathed to us by virtue of our status as historical beings of a specific sort” (2002, p. 201). more simply, what we are considering here are “those culturally rooted aspects of one’s history that have not yet become part of one’s story” (p. 193). as for the idea of the narrative unconscious, we encounter it “precisely during those moments when our own historical and cultural situatedness comes into view” (p. 201). my history comprises more than what i can consciously know and tell. moreover, it is not to be restricted to that stretch of time between my birth and the moment of reflection. in a distinct sense, i am born into a history and carry it with me throughout the course of my life, often in ways unbeknownst to me. and when i come upon experiences that serve to jar this history loose and bring it into view, it can be quite startling and revelatory. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 freeman 515 http://www.psychopen.eu/ memory, meaning, mediation let me turn now to someone else’s story, someone for whom the narrative unconscious loomed particularly large. the person in question is eva hoffman, whose remarkable book after such knowledge: memory, history, and the legacy of the holocaust (2004) does well to flesh out some of the ideas just introduced. as hoffman notes early on in the book, i had grown up with a consciousness of the shoah from the beginning. my parents had emerged from its crucible shortly before my birth. they had survived, in what was then the polish part of the ukraine, with the help of polish and ukrainian neighbors; but their entire families perished. those were the inescapable facts—the inescapable knowledge—i had come into. but the knowledge had not always been equally active, nor did i always want to make the inheritance defining. indeed, it was not until i started writing . . . that i began discerning, amidst other threads, the holocaust strand of my history. i had carried this part of my psychic past within me all my life; but it was only now, as i began pondering it from a longer distance and through the clarifying process of writing, that what had been an inchoate, obscure knowledge appeared to me as a powerful theme and influence in my life. until then, it had not occurred to me that i was in effect a receptacle of a historical legacy, or that its burden had a significance and weight that needed to be acknowledged. now, personal memory appeared to me clearly linked to larger history, and the heavy dimensions of this inheritance started becoming fully apparent. (p. x) it was made that much more apparent by the fact that most of those who had had first-hand experience of the holocaust had died. so it was that hoffman had felt more and more palpably that the legacy of the shoah was being passed on to us, its symbolic descendants and next of kin. we were the closest to its memories; we had touched upon its horror and its human scars. if i did not want to the ‘memory’ of the holocaust to be flattened out through distance or ignorance, if i wanted to preserve some of the pulsing complexity i had felt in survivors’ own perceptions, then it was up to me. (pp. x-xi) hoffman thus “needed to reflect on [her] own and [her] peers’ link to that legacy, to excavate our generational story from under its weight and shadow—to retrieve it from that ‘secondariness’ which many of us have felt in relation to a formidable and forbidding past. in a sense,” she explains further, “i needed to address frontally what i had thought about obliquely: the profound effects of a traumatic history, . . . the kinds of knowledge which the shoah has bequeathed to us, and the knowledge we might derive from it” (p. xi). this meant exploring and interrogating the narrative unconscious, the “secondariness” at hand being explicitly linked to hoffman’s membership in the “second generation.” on her account, the second generation’s story is a strong case study in the deep and long-lasting impact of atrocity; and . . . children of survivors’ very personal transactions with the past are a strong clue to the problems we must grapple with if we would grasp the meaning and consequences of historical horror. in their mediated but immediate relation to the holocaust, children of survivors have had to live out and struggle with some of the defining issues that follow from atrocity: the internal impact of gratuitous violence and the transmission of traumatic memories across generations; the emotional intricacies of dealing with victims of persecution and the moral quandaries implicit in dialogues with perpetrators; the difficulties of witnessing the pain of europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 re-imagining the sources of selfhood 516 http://www.psychopen.eu/ others and of thinking about tragic pasts; and the relationship of private memory to a broader understanding of history. (p. xii) needless to say, hoffman’s story brings us a significant step closer to the holocaust than my own. she wasn’t there either, so strictly speaking, “we who came after do not have memories of the holocaust. even from my most intimate proximity,” she continues, “i could not form ‘memories’ of the shoah or take my parents’ memories as my own” (p. 6). at the same time, her awareness of their pain and suffering “created an unconscious, or preconscious, ethics, and . . . in this system, just as war was the ground of being, so pain was the ground of personhood” (p. 13). the result: she had “absorbed [her] parents’ unhappiness through channels that seemed nearly physical. the pain of their psyches,” she writes, “reverberated in my body almost as if they were mine” (p. 14). hoffman also speaks of larger events, such as thewarsaw uprising, that reverberated in her as well. these “would become my meaningful history, the history it is urgent to know because it belongs to one’s life, because it shapes ancestral fate and one’s own sensibility” (p. 18). such are “the paradoxes of indirect knowledge,” a knowledge that continues to “haunt” hoffman and others who “came after”: the formative events of the twentieth century have crucially informed our biographies and psyches, threatening sometimes to overshadow and overwhelm our lives. but we did not see them, suffer through them, experience their impact directly. our relationship to them has been defined by our very “post-ness,” and by the powerful but mediated forms of knowledge that have followed from it. (p. 25) hoffman is not entirely comfortable framing things in the way she as. indeed, she admits, “it did not occur to me to think of myself as a ‘child of holocaust survivors’ for many of my adult years. other threads of causality, influence, development seemed more important; or at least i gave them other names. . . . identities are malleable and multidimensional,” hoffman notes, “and i am reluctant to fix my own through reifying labels. and yet, we do not only define ourselves; we are also defined by our circumstances, culture, the perceptions of others and—perhaps most of all—the force of an internalized past” (p. 27). the notion of “mediation” is central to hoffman’s account: “those who have not lived through the shoah received its knowledge, at this late date, through mediations—sometimes several layers of them. we view it no longer directly, but through memorials, artistic representations, literature, film” (p. 178). this is also true for those who did live through the shoah; now that years have passed, they too view it—or at least some of it—through much the same mediations. this is in no way to diminish their experience or to render it problematically “impure.” the narrative unconscious is a region neither of purity nor impurity. rather, it is a region of what i have referred to as “deep history” and, in turn, “deep identity” (see freeman, 2010a, 2010b) and is thus an inevitable fusion of our own contemporaneous experience, which is itself mediated, and those more distant mediations that derive from without. the burden of the past in order to round out the picture i have been painting in this essay, i want briefly to turn to one last case, one that deals not only with the ways in which one’s deep history is constitutive of one’s identity but the ways in which one may be implicated by a history far removed—in time if not in feeling—from one’s own life. i am referring here to the case of my colleague and friend roger frie, who several years ago shared with me his discovery that his beloved grandfather had in fact been a member of the nazi party. as frie asks in a recent (2014) article, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 freeman 517 http://www.psychopen.eu/ what does it mean to be caught in a web of history, to be part of a traumatic past over which we have no control? we are born into history and culture and it is through our family that we are connected to these larger dimensions of experience. our families provide us with narratives, stories that enable us to make sense of what we see and that implicitly shape what we know and remember at any moment in time. these narratives are an integral part of who we are, yet are not consciously organized. they remain largely unconscious, a compass by which our lives are pre-reflectively organized. at some stage, or at some point in life, we may be able to reflect on certain aspects of the narratives we inherit, and begin to question them, thus revealing new ways of seeing the world around us. i say “may,” because a reflective, conscious understanding on our situation is never a given. . . . initially at least, our place is made for us, unconsciously structured by the language we speak, the history we inherit, and the culture and traditions that constitute who we are. (p. 2) frie’s discovery was a painful one. “my grandfather was caring and kind, artistically gifted, and maintained a sense of humor in the face of the destruction and hardship wrought by war,” he writes. “although i knew early on that my grandfather belonged to the side of the perpetrators, i was always relieved that his history, and by extension my own, was not one of perpetration” (p. 3). upon making the discovery, through a photograph, that his beloved grandfather may have been closer to perpetrator status than had been assumed, i found myself suddenly upended. my understanding of the narratives and memories by which i came to see the past had inalterably shifted. knowledge of my grandfather’s identity as a nazi meant that i was the inheritor of an indelibly tainted history, connected however directly or indirectly with the perpetration of unimaginably heinous crimes. the fact that my grandfather appeared to be a “minor nazi” was hardly consoling. it was the support lent by the rank and file that enabled the perpetration of mass murder to unfold. no matter how much i might want to disown this history, it is a part of my past, a part of who i am. (p. 8) here, we begin to move more fully into the moral dimension of the narrative unconscious. just as hoffman had been something of a “victim” of the holocaust, frie, it would seem, was something of a perpetrator—not, of course, for the actual crimes that had been committed but for his own distanced stance in relation to them. as he puts the matter, “it seems to clear to me now that i had been dissociating historical facts as a way of maintaining intact memories of my grandfather and avoiding uncomfortable, even forbidden family discussions. i may also have been protecting my mother and her siblings by not speaking more directly to the possibility of my grandfather’s involvement” (p. 10). judging by this statement, frie had had some subliminal awareness of what had gone on. that, at least, is what he says now, looking backward. “when i initially reflected on the questions i posed,” frie admits, i found myself wavering about whether to fully engage the past. after all, my grandfather’s actions took place long ago, in an entirely differently time and place from my own. how was his political allegiance, his support of an immoral regime, possibly connected to me? in a purely chronological sense, i am one of those who “came after,” and as such bear no direct responsibility for what happened before me. but any attempt to erase, or relativize the meaning of history in this way, is surely motivated by a singular wish for an unburdened past, for memory of a grandfather that is free of conflict. (pp. 12-13) and this is a wish, frie recognizes, “that must ultimately fail” (p. 13). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 re-imagining the sources of selfhood 518 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when i initially heard frie’s story, and saw the guilt and shame it had created in him, my initial impulse was to protect him, to do what i could to reassure him that he was a good man. as i put the matter back then (i was discussant for the first paper he gave following his discovery), the ultimate reference of the situation at hand was to the victims of the holocaust themselves, to “the great mass of absent others whose call had gone unheeded. roger seems to be hearing their call now,” i said, “sounding more loudly, perhaps, than ever before. the fact that he wasn’t there, the fact that he couldn’t be there, hurts. this bespeaks the depth of roger’s ownmoral and ethical world. you should take some solace in this, roger. the fact of your shame, and pain, is important” (freeman, 2014a, p. 277). i then went to address one last issue that seemed worth thinking about: so much of what you’ve said in this excellent, provocative, courageous paper is about our belonging in and to history. as i know you know, i wouldn’t want to challenge any of it. but i would want to add something to it—something that can somehow accommodate your own shame and pain, your own sense that what went down, years ago, is a transcendent evil, one that is, at once, utterly and completely within history as well as beyond it. this, in turn, points in the direction of some sort of transcendent good—the very good that informs the judgments being made, however unconsciously. here, then, i shall just ask: what is the nature of this call you have heard? where does it come from? and why does it speak with the urgency and intensity it does? i ended my response (and the paper that was eventually published documenting it) right there. thinking otherwise about the narrative unconscious perhaps, as i bring this essay to a close, i can begin to answer these very difficult questions. this “call” is the call of the other—in this case, other people, whose lives had been broken and destroyed by evil (see freeman, 2012, 2014b). as for where it comes from, i can only conclude that it comes from somewhere either deep within us, perhaps some quasi-jungian primordial history reverberating through the years, or, more likely, something outside of us, something other, drawing us beyond ourselves, beyond our particular histories and cultures. as much as my own jewish identity may have paved the way for that experience in berlin, my own humanness may have been even more formative. here, i am referring to my own confrontation with the sheer monumentality of suffering that was wrought during the nazi era and the massive loss it left in its wake. as i had noted at the time, “it was as if there was a great hole in the middle of history. a part of us was missing from humanity. and a part of humanity was missing from us” (freeman, 2002, p. 198). those words still seem right to me, and they signal the existence of a dimension of human reality that is less easily contained by the idea of the narrative unconscious. for hoffman (2004) too, there was something excessive in her experience, something unable to be contained by any purely cultural-historical account. she recalls, for instance, her parents’ first communications, and how their “fragmentary phrases lodged themselves in my mind like shards, like the deadly needles i remember from certain fairy tales, which pricked your flesh and could never be extracted again” (p. 11). there were images too: “fields, trenches, pits of death, . . . barbed wire, skeletal figures, smoke, intimations of mass death.” according to hoffman, “every child has such images available right behind the eyelids.” and eventually, “through literature and film, through memoirs and oral testimony, these components of horror became part of a whole generation’s store of imagery and narration” (p. 12). this implies that there is a dimension of experience that precedes these various europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 freeman 519 http://www.psychopen.eu/ media and that allows them to take hold in the psyche. the result was “an unconscious, or preconscious, ethics,” grounded in pain. some of this pain was surely her own. but its source was those others—her mother and father, most notably—who had felt this pain first-hand. roger frie’s situation was, of course, very different, not least because he had been on the side of the perpetrators rather than the victims. as we observed, this yielded its own brand of pain. but it was a pain that issued from the depths of his conscience, his intense shame serving to signify, even if from a distance, his own felt implication in the horrific crimes of the past. “as much as i might want to step out of my historically defined position as a thirdgeneration german,” he said at one point, “i am unable to” (p. 13). despite my inclination to console frie on some level, essentially by reminding him that the very fact of his shame testified to his moral depth, i also had to say that, irrespective of what he might have suspected or even known about his grandfather’s potentially dastardly deeds, this “historically defined positon” was his to reconcile. in the end, it wasn’t clear to me how much it mattered what his grandfather had or hadn’t done, for the history at hand would be virtually the same in either case. along the lines being drawn, it could be that frie’s discovery simply served to concretize and thereby awaken heretofore unformulated thoughts and feelings that were part and parcel of his own cultural-historical experience as a german, living in the wake of catastrophe. what i have come to see more clearly in my own continued reformulation of the idea of the narrative unconscious is the ethico-moral dimension. it’s not just that we belong to history and culture in ways unbeknownst to us. it’s that our way of belonging often seems to bear within it strong valuations regarding what is right and good—and wrong and evil. it is of course possible that these strong valuations are themselves products of history and culture, tied to the specific ways in which we are socialized and enculturated. this is surely part of it. but i have come to wonder whether these valuations also bespeak something beyond these processes, something that comes with the realities of being human and feeling the pull—and the priority—of the other. so it is that i have come to speak not only of the narrative unconscious but the ethical unconscious. i don’t mean to suggest that this is some wholly different register of the unconscious. indeed, it may be that the narrative unconscious, the ethical unconscious, the “classical” unconscious of psychoanalysis, and even that seemingly far-out notion of the collective unconscious are all of a piece, differentially distributed in accordance with our life circumstances and our varying degrees of awareness of what, in us, may be operative behind the scenes. as always, there is a much more to think about. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 re-imagining the sources of selfhood 520 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references allan, g. (1993). traditions and transitions. in p. cook (ed.), philosophical imagination and cultural memory: appropriating historical traditions (pp. 21-39). durham, nc, usa: duke university press. freeman, m. (2001). tradition und erinnerung des selbst und der kultur [tradition and memory in self and culture]. in h. welzer (ed.),das soziale gedächtnis:geschichte, erinnerung, tradierung [social memory: history, remembrance, tradition] (pp. 25-40). hamburg, germany: hamburger edition. freeman, m. (2002). charting the narrative unconscious: cultural memory and the challenge of autobiography. narrative inquiry, 12, 193-211. doi:10.1075/ni.12.1.27fre freeman, m. (2010a). the space of selfhood: culture, narrative, identity. in s. r. kirschner & j. martin (eds.), the sociocultural turn: the contextual emergence of mind and self (pp. 137-158). new york, ny, usa: columbia university press. freeman, m. (2010b). hindsight: the promise and peril of looking backward. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. freeman, m. (2012). thinking and being otherwise: aesthetics, ethics, erotics. journal of theoretical and philosophical psychology, 32, 196-208. doi:10.1037/a0029586 freeman, m. (2014a). the fourfold unconscious: comments on roger frie’s “limits of understanding: psychological experience, german memory, and the holocaust.” psychoanalysis, culture & society, 19, 272-278. doi:10.1057/pcs.2014.23 freeman, m. (2014b). the priority of the other: thinking and living beyond the self. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. frie, r. (2014). limits of understanding: psychological experience, german memory and the holocaust. psychoanalysis, culture & society, 19, 255-271. doi:10.1057/pcs.2014.21 gadamer, h.-g. (1975). truth and method. new york, ny, usa: crossroad. hoffman, e. (2004). after such knowledge: memory, history, and the legacy of the holocaust. new york, ny, usa: public affairs. jauss, h. r. (1989). question and answer: forms of dialogic understanding. minneapolis, mn, usa: university of minnesota press. noll, r. (1994). the jung cult: origins of a charismatic movement. princeton, nj, usa: princeton university press. shils, e. (1981). tradition. chicago, il, usa: university of chicago press. about the author mark freeman is professor and chair of the department of psychology and distinguished professor of ethics and society at the college of the holy cross in worcester, massachusetts. his writings include rewriting the self: history, memory, narrative (1993); finding the muse: a sociopsychological inquiry into the conditions of artistic creativity (1993);hindsight: the promise and peril of looking backward (2010); the priority of the other: thinking and living beyond the self (2014); and numerous articles on issues ranging from the psychology of memory and identity to the psychology of art and religion. winner of the 2010 theodore r. sarbin award in the society for theoretical and philosophical psychology, he is also a fellow in the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 freeman 521 http://dx.doi.org/10.1075%2fni.12.1.27fre http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0029586 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057%2fpcs.2014.23 http://dx.doi.org/10.1057%2fpcs.2014.21 http://www.psychopen.eu/ american psychological association and serves as editor for the oxford university press series “explorations in narrative psychology.” psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 513–522 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1325 re-imagining the sources of selfhood 522 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en re-imagining the sources of selfhood the shock of history memory, meaning, mediation the burden of the past thinking otherwise about the narrative unconscious (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author parents’ sport socialization values, perceived motivational climate and adolescents’ antisocial behaviors research reports parents’ sport socialization values, perceived motivational climate and adolescents’ antisocial behaviors francesca danioni* a, daniela barni b [a] family studies and research university centre, catholic university of milan, milano, italy. [b] department of human sciences, lumsa university of rome, rome, italy. abstract parents play a key role in young athletes’ sport experience. in particular, parents’ sport goals for children may influence young athletes’ morally relevant sport behaviors. the present study involves 172 italian adolescents (female = 51.7%; age m = 15.41, sd = 1.73) practicing team sports and analyzed whether and the extent to which parents’ sport socialization values, those values adolescents perceived their parents wanted them to endorse (i.e., moral, competence, status values), were associated with young athletes’ antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents. adolescents’ perceptions of the prominent motivational climate (i.e., mastery and performance) within their team were also considered. participants were asked to fill out questionnaires, including the youth sport values questionnaire-2, adapted to measure adolescents’ perceptions of parental socialization values, the perceived motivational climate in sport questionnaire and the prosocial and antisocial behavior in sport scale. the results of multiple linear regression analysis and relative weight analysis showed that mastery motivational climate, as protective factor, and mothers’ status values, as risk factor, were the most important variables in predicting adolescents’ antisocial behavior towards teammates. as far as adolescents’ antisocial behavior towards opponents was concerned, performance motivational climate and mothers’ status values were the most relevant predictors: the more adolescents perceived their coaches and mothers as giving importance to performance and status, the higher was the frequency of their antisocial behavior in sport. implications and further developments of the study are discussed. keywords: adolescents’ antisocial behaviors, parents’ sport values, perceived motivational climate, relative importance, team sport europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–##, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 received: 2018-02-02. accepted: 2019-04-05. published (vor): 2019-12-20. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: family studies and research university centre, catholic university of milan – largo gemelli 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: francescavittoria.danioni@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the extent of morally-relevant topics in youth sport is a question of considerable cultural, psychological and educational interest (shields, bredemeier, lavoi, & power, 2005). in recent years, psychosocial research has devoted growing attention to the role of sport in the development not only of young athletes’ physical abilities, but also of moral attitudes and values. indeed, it has been widely proposed that sport develops character (lee, whitehead, ntoumanis, & hatzigeorgiadis, 2008; shields & bredemeier, 1995). competitive sports are often addressed as a potentially positive environment for youth (larson, 2000), since they create opportunities to teach young athletes beneficial mental skills (e.g., steiner, mcquivey, pavelski, pitts, & kraemer, 2000) and to transmit relevant human values (e.g., danioni, barni, & rosnati, 2017). however, competitive sports may also be a negative environment for youth by promoting undesirable behaviors (e.g., europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ kavussanu, seal, & phillips, 2006). due to their social nature, sport contexts may provide occasions for prosocial but also for antisocial behaviors, such as cheating, or injuring an opponent on purpose, or verbally abusing a teammate (kavussanu, 2008). given the various possible outcomes of team sport participation during youth and the active role sport holds in the socialization process (kremer-sadlik & kim, 2007), the present study aimed at analyzing the relation between parents’ socialization sport values (i.e., the values related to sport that parents would like their children to endorse), the team’s motivational climate, and young athletes’ morally relevant behaviors (specifically, antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents). this will be done by considering a group of italian adolescents continuously practicing a team sport. parents’ role in children’s sport: the socialization values human values, which influence individual decision making on a day-to-day basis, have been defined as “transsituational goals that vary in importance and serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or a group” (schwartz, 2007, p. 712). because they are trans-situational, they influence attitudes and behaviors in the many contexts—including sports—of an individual’s life (lee et al., 2008). however, only in recent years has psychosocial research focused on the internalization of values through sports, and on behaviors in sport contexts by young athletes (e.g., danioni et al., 2017; danioni & barni, 2017; holt, tink, mandigo, & fox, 2008). studies dealing with young athletes’ personal values show consistent results. young athletes tend to give more importance to competence (e.g., achievement and skill) and moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience) than to status values (e.g., public image and winning) (e.g., danioni et al., 2017; goggins, 2015; lee et al., 2008). these values were found to be related to athletes’ prosociality and antisociality. athletes’ status values support antisocial behavior and attitude, whereas moral values promote prosociality (lee et al., 2008; lucidi et al., 2017). some of the studies considered were carried out in the italian context, which is the specific focus of our research. similarly, šukys and jansonienė (2012), in their study involving 318 university students practicing sport at national or international level, found that moral sport values are negatively correlated to moral disengagement in sport. compared to athletes’ personal values, the topic of parents’ values in shaping their children’s sport experience has received less attention so far, this despite the fact that the available literature shows that parents play a key role in children’s sport activity (e.g., d’arripe-longueville, pantaléon, & smith, 2006). it has been recognized that young athletes are greatly influenced by parental attitudes towards their child’s sport performance (gould, lauer, rolo, jannes, & pennisi, 2008; kavussanu, white, jowett, & england, 2011). parental influence on children’s sport activity has been addressed mainly in terms of parental involvement (e.g., teques, serpa, rosado, silva, & calmeiro, 2018). hellstedt (1987) theorized parental involvement as a continuum ranging from underinvolvement to overinvolvement. both ends of the continuum may have negative effects on adolescent players: in case of underinvolvement, adolescents can feel a lack of emotional, financial or functional investment on the part of their parents, thus making it more difficult for them to pursue a career in sport. in case of overinvolvement, instead, parental pressure can be harmful, as the parents’ needs are satisfied through their children’s sport activity and parents may not be able to differentiate their own expectations from those of their children. of course, the quality of the parent-child relationship influences an adolescent’s perceptions of his/her parent’s attitude towards the sport activity practiced (lee & maclean, 1997). parental praise and understanding moral behaviors in youth sport 2 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ towards children’s sport activity (lee & maclean, 1997), which elicit children’s perception of parental empathy displayed towards the sport they practice, promote an increase in players’ enjoyment and motivation for sport (sánchez-miguel, leo, sánchez-oliva, amado, & garcía-calvo, 2013), as well as facilitate the transmission of values (danioni et al., 2017). in contrast, parental pressure in the sport context might enhance feelings of distress, guilt and burnout (donnelly, 1993; udry, gould, bridges, & tuffey, 1997), and cause a decrease of enjoyment (anderson, funk, elliot, & smith, 2003). also parental goals and beliefs about their children’s sport experience have been investigated, even if to a lesser extent: athletes’ perception of parental beliefs regarding effort, learning, and enjoyment versus outcome indirectly influences athletes’ achievement-related cognitions and personal beliefs (white, kavussanu, tank, & wingate, 2004). goggins (2015) emphasized instead the role of parents’ values in shaping their children value priorities: indeed, parents’ own values and children’s perceptions of their parents’ values significantly predict a child’s own status values, namely those values that prioritize public image and winning. goggins (2015) has focused on the influence of parents’ own sport values and on children’s perceptions of their parental sport values, but, to our knowledge, no studies have focused on children’s perceptions of their parents’ sport socialization values. parental socialization sport values as perceived by their children can be defined as the values children believe their parents want them to endorse with regard to the sport activity they practice. indeed, children may consider their parents as wanting them to endorse specific sport values and this might have an impact on the way they experience and behave within the sport context. generally speaking, parental socialization values may be different from parents’ personal values (barni, rosnati, & ranieri, 2013; tam, lee, kim, li, & chao, 2012), especially when parents recognize that their children are growing up in a social context that differs from the one in which they themselves were reared (alwin, 1988) and that they need to prepare their children for social life (e.g., benish-weisman, levy, & knafo, 2013). parents may therefore modify their socialization values from their personal values to make them correspond to what they think is really beneficial for their children (knafo & galanski, 2008). coaches' role in children’s sport: the perceived motivational climate coaches enhance young athletes’ strengths and personal resources (côté & gilbert, 2009; fraser-thomas, côté, & deakin, 2005), and their conduct during trainings and competitions influences young athletes’ motivation to participate (rottensteiner, laakso, pihlaja, & konttinen, 2013; smith, quested, appleton, & duda, 2017). however, coaches might also induce anxiety and burnout and their actions may drive adolescents to drop out from sport (smith, smoll, & cumming, 2007; weiss, amorose, & wilko, 2009). interestingly, the coaches’ influence has been attributed, at least in part, to the motivational climate they create (jõesaar, hein, & hagger, 2012). perceived motivational climate in achievement contexts tends to activate selfversus other-referenced criteria for the evaluation of competence (nicholls, 1989). the first attempts to investigate the motivational climate derive from the educational context. originating from the school domain (ames & archer, 1988), the situational goal structure, namely the motivational climate, has been distinguished into mastery climate, where the emphasis of the context is on participation, individual progress and task mastery, and performance climate, where the emphasis is instead on normative success and outperforming others. more recently, in the sport context the perception of motivational climate within the team has been found to deeply influence young athletes’ sport experience (e.g., fry & gano-overway, 2010), for example with regard to the desire to continue playing. boiché and sarrazin (2009) found the mastery-oriented team motivational climate to be positively associated danioni & barni 3 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with sport persistence. on the contrary, athletes’ perceptions of a performance-oriented motivational climate were associated with dropout. how do parents and coaches influence children’s moral behaviors in sport? to our knowledge parental influence has been scarcely investigated in relation to children’s moral behaviors in sport. one of the few exceptions is the work carried out by guivernau and duda (2002), who argued that athletes’ perceptions of their parents’ approval for cheating and aggression (e.g., trying to injure an opponent) is related to athletes’ views about appropriate behavior within sports. according to the authors, parents—together with the coaches—“shape” the moral atmosphere operating in youth sport teams. stuart and ebbeck’s study (1995), involving athletes aged 9–15, found instead that for adolescents (grades 7 and 8), the perceptions of significant others’ (including the parents) approval for antisocial behavior are inversely related to reason, prosocial behavior and the intent to exhibit moral behavior. with regard specifically to morally relevant behaviors, parental goals that promote a performance-oriented climate were found to discourage participants’ prosocial sport behavior and to encourage acceptance of cheating (wagnsson, stenling, gustafsson, & augustsson, 2016), and a father-initiated performance climate was found to be positively associated with athletes’ antisocial sport behaviors (lavoi & stellino, 2008). adolescents’ perceptions of their team’s goals, promoted mainly by the coach, also need to be taken into consideration when analyzing the multiple sources of adolescents’ moral behaviors (e.g., kavussanu, roberts, & ntoumanis, 2002; miller, roberts, & ommundsen, 2005; nicholls, 1989; rutten et al., 2011; shields & bredemeier, 1995). indeed, nucci and kim (2005) identified the coach as an important person within the sport context, who is also in a position to influence adolescents’ social behavior. not only are young athletes’ personal goal orientations assumed to mediate the effects of values on their prosocial and antisocial attitudes and cheating (lee et al., 2008; lucidi et al., 2017), but also the motivational climate promoted by the coaches is likely to influence morally relevant behaviors in youth sport. recent works on this topic have shown that the perception of a mastery climate is positively related to sportspersonship orientations (d’arripe-longueville et al., 2006; wells, ellis, arthur-banning, & roark, 2006), such as commitment, respect for social conventions, for rules and officials (miller et al., 2005). in a sample of 279 soccer players aged 12–14 years, perceptions of a mastery climate were found to be positively associated with moral reasoning, and negatively with amoral intentions and behaviors (ommundsen, roberts, lemyre, & treasure, 2003). in a performance climate, instead, athletes are more likely to engage in inappropriate behaviors (bortoli, messina, zorba, & robazza, 2012). to our knowledge, only a few studies have investigated how parents’ and coaches’ goals interact to affect moral behavior in young athletes (e.g., guivernau & duda, 2002; stuart & ebbeck, 1995). however, this is an important topic since young athletes’ moral development is exposed to both parents’ and coaches’ desirable or undesirable influences. moreover, in order to address the topic of morally relevant behaviors in sport in terms of antisocial behavior, it is important to distinguish with regard to the recipient of the specific behavior (teammates vs. opponents) (kavussanu & boardley, 2009). in particular, it is likely that teammates being an ideal example of an in-group elicit more positive behaviors compared to opponents (the out-group) (danioni & barni, 2017). moral behaviors in youth sport 4 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ present study in the light of all the above considerations, the present study mainly aims at understanding the role of parental socialization values with regard to sport, as perceived by adolescent children, in shaping their antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents. as already mentioned, parents’ sport socialization values refer to those sport values (i.e., moral, competence, status) adolescents perceive their parents want them to endorse. the review of the literature clearly suggested that, in order to consider the different sources of antisocial behavior in youth sport, we cannot exclude adolescents’ perceptions of the goal structures created by their coach, namely the perceived motivational climate of their team (kavussanu, 2006). based on the goals young athletes perceive as being promoted within their team, the sport motivational climate has been distinguished into mastery climate, where the emphasis of the context is on participation, individual progress and task mastery, and performance climate, where the emphasis is instead on normative success and outperforming others. we therefore considered both parental socialization values with regard to sport and motivational climate in shaping young athletes’ antisocial behavior. by using a relatively recent analytical strategy, that is, the relative weight analysis (rwa) (johnson, 2000), which is able to take the interrelations among variables into account, we addressed three main questions: “how much of the variation among adolescents with regard to antisocial behaviors can be explained by parents’ sport socialization values and by the team’s motivational climate?”; “which is the most important predictor of adolescents’ antisocial behaviors: the parents’ sport socialization values or the team’s motivational climate?”; “are there differences in predicting antisocial behavior in sport when the recipient is a teammate versus an opponent?” for the first question, we expected the variables under examination to make a large contribution to explain adolescents’ antisocial behaviors towards both teammates and opponents. in particular, adolescents’ perceptions that their parents attribute importance to moral values should discourage the adoption of antisocial behaviors (h1). in contrast, we expected that the more adolescents perceived their parents as wanting for them to win and to promote their public image (status values) the more they would adopt antisocial behaviors in sport contexts (h2). these two hypotheses are in line with the available literature dealing with adolescents’ personal values (e.g., danioni & barni, 2017; lee et al., 2008), since to our knowledge, no information is available on parental sport socialization values. based on the available literature on team motivational climate (e.g., kavussanu, 2006; sage & kavussanu, 2008), we expected performance climate to be positively related to antisocial behaviors (h3) whereas athlete’s perception of a mastery climate was expected to be negatively linked to antisocial behaviors (h4). in relation to the second question, despite the coach and the motivational climate promoted tend to emerge as important sources in influencing young players’ decisions to engage in an antisocial behavior (guivernau & duda, 2002; nucci & kim, 2005), we can hypothesize the significant role played also by parents in influencing these behaviors (e.g., danioni & barni, 2017). we expect therefore both to be related to this specific behaviors (h5). with regard to our third question we expected motivational climate (both mastery and performance oriented— although with different patterns) to have greater implications for antisocial behaviors towards teammates rather than opponents (h6), as a within-team variable is more likely to influence within-team behaviors rather than between-teams behaviors (e.g., boardley & kavussanu, 2009). danioni & barni 5 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure participants were 172 adolescents (51.7% female; age 13–19, m = 15.41, sd = 1.73), from northern and central italy, continuously participating in team sports. most of the participants were born in italy (97%), while 3% was born abroad (albania, ethiopia, france, philippines). eighty-nine percent of the adolescents lived with both parents, while the remaining 11% lived with only one parent (in general, the mother). most participants (86.6%) had at least one sibling (m = 1.31, sd = 0.62). their mean age at the beginning of their sport activity was 6.20 years (sd = 2.17). the majority of the participants played volleyball (60.4%), followed by soccer (19.8%), basketball (12.2%) and rugby (7.6%). all adolescents were amateur athletes. participants were recruited with the collaboration of their sport teams and were informed by letter about the main objectives of the present study. those adolescents whose parents consented individually filled out a selfreport questionnaire either before or after a regular training session, in the presence of both of their coach and a research team member (response rate: 86%). in case of questions or concerns, they were addressed to the research staff member and not to the coach, who was not allowed to see participants’ responses. participants were told that their responses were completely anonymous. the study was approved by the scientific committee of the family studies and research university centre, catholic university of milan, italy, and followed the apa ethical guidelines for research. measures socio-demographic information participants were asked to provide personal information (age, gender, and country of birth) and family characteristics (family structure and number of siblings), as well as details of their sport activity (age they began the sport activity and type of sport practiced). adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ sport values the youth sport values questionnaire-2 (ysvq-2; lee et al., 2008) was adapted to measure adolescents’ perceptions of those sport values their parents wanted them to endorse. the original 13-item instrument intends to assess the importance athletes give to three core sport value dimensions (moral, competence and status values). in this study, adolescents were asked to rate how much their own parents wanted them to give importance to each value (e.g., “how important is it for your father/mother that you try to be fair?”) on a 7-point likert scale (from −1 = the opposite of what my father/my mother would like to 5 = extremely important to my father/my mother). adolescents answered twice, once for fathers and once for mothers. the importance score for each value dimension was calculated as the mean of the items tapping that perceived parents’ sport value dimension: moral values (α = .85 for fathers and α = .88 for mothers), competence values (α = .74 for fathers and α = .80 for mothers) and status values (α = .83 for fathers and α = .81 for mothers). the items used were the ones translated into italian; the original version of the scale, aimed at measuring one’s own personal values, supported the three factors structure of the scale that showed satisfactory internal consistency (lee et al., 2008). moral behaviors in youth sport 6 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived motivational climate the perceived motivational climate in sport questionnaire–12 (pmcsq–12; drawn from newton, duda, & yin, 2000; for the italian version of the scale, see bortoli & robazza, 2004) was used to measure adolescents’ perception of the prominent motivational climate. the 12-item scale aims at assessing two kinds of sport motivational climates, namely mastery (e.g., “on this team, each player contributes in some important way”) and performance climate (e.g., “on this team, only the top players ‘get noticed’ by the coach”). participants were asked to rate on a 5-point scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) the extent to which they perceived the climate described within their sport team. both dimensions showed acceptable internal consistency (α = .74 for mastery climate, α = .71 for performance climate). the two-factor structure of the italian version of the scale was supported in a study carried out on almost 600 soccer players aged between 16 and 25 and showed satisfactory reliability (bortoli & robazza, 2004). adolescents’ antisocial behavior an italian translation of the subscales of antisocial behavior towards teammates and opponents drawn from the prosocial and antisocial behavior in sport scale (pabss) (kavussanu & boardley, 2009) was used. adolescents were asked to rate the frequency with which they adopted each behavior described on a 5-point likert scale (from 1 = never to 5 = very often). examples of items are “while playing sport this season, i verbally abused a teammate” (antisocial behavior towards a teammate) or “while playing sport this season, i intentionally distracted an opponent” (antisocial behavior towards an opponent). both dimensions showed acceptable internal consistency (α = .79 for antisocial behavior towards teammates, α = .78 for antisocial behavior towards opponents). this is a widely recognized measure aimed at assessing this construct, which showed good convergent, concurrent, and discriminant validity together with good test–retest reliability (kavussanu, stanger, & boardley, 2013). data analysis preliminary analysis — the study variables were described in terms of means, ranges and standard deviations; bivariate pearson correlations between them were calculated. predicting antisocial behaviors: adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ sport values and perceived motivational climate — to assess whether and the extent to which parental sport values and the motivational climate, as perceived by adolescents, were associated with adolescents’ antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents, both multiple regression (mr) and relative weight analysis (rwa) were performed, with the three parental sport socialization values and the two dimensions of perceived motivational climate as predictors, separately for antisocial behavior towards teammates and opponents as criterion variables. the mr was used in order to estimate the overall r2 and determined the statistical significance of individual regression coefficients. regression coefficients inform as to the extent to which the criterion variable would change based on a given increase in a predictor while the other predictors are held constant (i.e., unique contribution). however, when predictors are highly correlated—as is likely in the case of the parental sport values and of the motivational climate—mr is not enough to adequately divide variance in the criterion among the predictors (kraha, turner, nimon, reichwein zientek, & henson, 2012). when faced with correlated predictors, researchers should therefore combine mr with other techniques available for interpretation, such as rwa (johnson, 2000). rwa focuses on the impact of a particular predictor relative to others in the model: that is, the proportionate contribution each predictor makes to r2, taking into account both the unique relationship with the danioni & barni 7 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ criterion and its relationship when combined with other predictors (i.e., relative contribution). relative weights can be estimated by creating a set of variables that are highly related to the original one but are uncorrelated with each other. the criterion variable can then be regressed on the new uncorrelated variables to approximate the relative weights of the original variables (for further details, see barni, 2015; johnson, 2000). the importance weights provided by the analysis can then be scaled in the metric of relative effect size by dividing the relative weights by the model r2 and then multiplying these values by 100. in this way, the rescaled weights are interpreted as the percentage of predicted criterion variance attributed to each predictor. results preliminary analysis means and standard deviations of the study variables are reported in table 1. table 1 adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ sport values, mastery and performance climate, and antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents variable moral values competence values status values mastery climate performance climate antisocial behaviors fa mo fa mo fa mo towards teammates towards opponents m 3.66 3.58 3.51 3.26 1.75 1.45 4.12 2.60 2.12 2.27 range .0 to 5.0 −1.0 to 5.0 .0 to 5.0 −1.0 to 5.0 −.8 to 5.0 −1.0 to 5.0 1.67 to 5.0 1.00 to 4.33 1.00 to 4.60 1.00 to 4.83 sd 1.07 1.23 1.06 1.21 1.51 1.39 0.60 0.76 0.78 0.87 note: fa = fathers; mo = mothers. table 2 person bivariate correlations between the study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. mother’s moral values .62** .08 .61** .33** −.11 .32** −.15 −.31** −.17* 2. mother’s competence values .49** .39** .69** .23** .21** −.04 −.08 −.04 3. mother’s status values .03 .40** .79** −.05 .16* .30* .32** 4. father’s moral values .48** −.03 .36** −.15 −.23** −.12 5. father’s competence values .46** −.02 .18* .07 .09 6. father’s status values −.18* .18* .33* .35** 7. mastery climate −.42** −.36** −.14 8. performance climate .25** .26** 9. antisocial behavior towards teammates .59** 10. antisocial behavior towards opponents *p < .05. **p < .01. generally speaking, adolescents perceived their fathers and mothers to give great importance to moral values and to competence values, and little importance to status values. they also perceived their team to be highly mastery oriented, rather than characterized by a performance oriented motivational climate. finally, adolescents reported low to moderate levels of antisocial behaviors. moral behaviors in youth sport 8 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in table 2 we reported the correlations between the study variables. the correlation coefficients range from −.42 (p < .01) between mastery and performance motivational climate to .79 between mothers’ and fathers’ sport status values (p < .01). predicting antisocial behaviors: adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ sport values and perceived motivational climate table 3 shows both the mr models and the rwa results. table 3 the importance of perceived parental sport values and motivational climate in predicting adolescents’ antisocial behaviors value multiple regression relative weight analysis β p raw importance estimates rescaled estimatesa adolescents’ antisocial behavior towards teammates mother’s moral values −.08 .274 .042 14.1% mother’s competence values −.18 .057 .022 7.4% mother’s status values .23 .004 .059 19.8% father’s moral values −.07 .326 .023 7.7% father’s competence values .21 .027 .019 6.4% father’s status values −.07 .357 .034 11.4% mastery climate −.35 .001 .074 24.8% performance climate −.05 .477 .025 8.4% total r2 = .298 100% adolescents’ antisocial behavior towards opponents mother’s moral values .03 .753 .010 4.7% mother’s competence values −.26 .023 .018 8.5% mother’s status values .25 .007 .066 31.3% father’s moral values −.08 .343 .007 3.3% father’s competence values .17 .124 .013 6.2% father’s status values −.01 .866 .048 22.7% mastery climate .02 .882 .005 2.4% performance climate .21 .023 .044 20.9% total r2 = .211 100% arescaled estimates (%) were computed by dividing the relative weights by the total r2 and multiplying by 100. as previously mentioned, we conducted a preliminary mr separately for antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents, with parental sport values and perceived team motivational climate as predictors and antisocial behaviors as criterion variables. overall, the eight predictors yielded a r2 of 0.298 for antisocial behavior towards teammates and 0.211 for antisocial behavior towards opponents. from the exploration of β, in both models, mothers’ status values were a significant predictor: the more adolescents perceived their mothers as wanting them to endorse status values, the more they adopted antisocial behaviors both towards teammates and opponents. only with regard to adolescents’ antisocial behavior towards teammates, the same was true for fathers’ competence values, whereas mothers’ competence values discouraged antisocial behaviors towards opponents. mastery motivational climate as perceived by adolescents appeared instead to discourage antisodanioni & barni 9 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cial behaviors towards teammates, whereas antisocial behaviors towards opponents were encouraged by a performance motivational climate. comparing the mr results with those of rwa, it is possible to confirm the importance of mothers’ status values, which explained 19.8% of the predicted variance of antisocial behavior towards teammates and 31.3% of the predicted variance of antisocial behavior towards opponents, and of mastery and performance climate, which explained 24.8% of the predicted variance of antisocial behavior towards teammates and 20.9% of antisocial behavior towards opponents respectively. rwa also pointed out the role of fathers’ status values in predicting antisocial behaviors towards opponents, which contributed to explain 11.4% of the predicted variance of antisocial behavior towards teammates and 22.7% towards opponents. discussion and conclusions research in the field of sport morality is recognizing not only the role of athletes’ personal values (e.g., danioni & barni, 2017; lee et al., 2008; lucidi et al., 2017; šukys & jansonienė, 2012), but is also focusing on significant adults’ (parents and coaches) values and goals in children’s sport experience (e.g., danioni et al., 2017; goggins, 2015; kremer-sadlik & kim, 2007; rutten et al., 2011). this study aimed at understanding the influence of adolescent athletes’ perceptions of parental sport socialization values (namely, the moral, competence and status values parents would like their children to endorse in relation to the sport activity) and of the motivational climate promoted within the team (which is deemed to be mastery or performance oriented) in shaping their antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents. the findings of the current study showed that adolescents perceived their parents—both fathers and mothers— as giving the greatest importance to moral (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience) and competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill) compared to status values (e.g., leadership and winning); this is similar to the results dealing with adolescents’ personal sport values (e.g., danioni & barni, 2017; lee et al., 2008) and with children’s perceptions of their parents’ sport values (goggins, 2015). that is, in the sport context, young athletes perceive status values as important neither for themselves nor for their parents, both in terms of parents’ personal values and, as the present study suggested, even in terms of parents’ expectations for their children. with regard instead to the perceptions of the motivational climate promoted by the coach, our study showed that adolescents perceived their team as characterized mainly by a mastery-oriented climate, where the emphasis of the context is on participation, individual progress and task mastery, rather than by a performanceoriented climate, where the emphasis is instead on normative success and outperforming others. in line with the literature on this topic (e.g., bortoli et al., 2012; reinboth & duda, 2006), since a performance-oriented climate is associated with dropout (e.g., boiché & sarrazin, 2009), it is likely that the adolescents who keep playing in their team sport are the ones who mostly perceive a positive environment. moreover, it is also likely that parents who enhance moral values in the sport activity their children practice may push them to take part to sport environments which are perceived as more positive, such as the ones characterized by a mastery-oriented climate. with regard instead to the adoption of morally relevant behaviors, antisocial behaviors appeared to be quite infrequent among our participants. moral behaviors in youth sport 10 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parents’ socialization sport values and the prominent motivational climate within the team turned out to be significant predictors of adolescent athletes’ antisocial behaviors towards both teammates and opponents, even though there were different patterns depending on the recipient of the behavior and, in the case of values, on the parent. as we hypothesized (h2), mr results indicated that the more adolescents perceived their mothers as wanting them to endorse status values, the higher was their tendency to adopt antisocial behaviors towards both teammates and opponents. this means that the more adolescents perceived their mothers as encouraging, for example, their winning, the more they justify the adoption of antisocial behavior in sport, probably as a means to reach the goal. surprisingly, and in contrast with our first hypothesis (h1), perceived parents’ moral values were not involved in predicting antisocial behavior. that is, even if adolescents perceived their parents as wanting them to endorse moral values, this influence is not strong enough to discourage antisocial behaviors, as it is instead the one of the adolescents’ personal values (e.g., danioni & barni, 2017). we might also speculate that the reasons why adolescents adopt antisocial behaviors can explain this result; adolescents may perceive antisocial behaviors in sport as a way to affirm themselves and their supremacy over the opponents, therefore they perceive them as more related to the self-enhancement domain, rather than being related to morality. fathers’ competence values were instead found to be a positive significant predictor of antisocial behaviors towards teammates, whereas whenever adolescents perceived their mother as wanting them to endorse these values, not only did the recipient of the behaviors change, thus becoming the opponent, but also the direction changed, with these values discouraging antisocial behavior towards opponents. it is very important to note that the inconsistent contribution of competence values, which showed different directions when was encouraged by the mother rather than the father, was extremely reduced by using the rwa. more in general, parents (fathers and mothers) seem to play a different role in influencing their children antisocial behaviors in sports. in considering the possible reasons of this results, we could speculate that children perceive their parents as being differently motivated in their sport value transmission, as they are in value transmission in general (barni, donato, rosnati, & danioni, 2017) and this may cause, as a consequence, a difference in the way these values then influence adolescents’ behaviors. finally, mr also supported our last two hypotheses (h3 and h4) about team motivational climate, although showing different patterns of influence depending on whether the recipient was a teammate or an opponent: the more adolescents perceived their team as characterized by a mastery oriented motivational climate, the less they engaged in antisocial behaviors towards teammates. differently, the more adolescents perceived the promotion of a performance-oriented climate within the team, the more they adopted antisocial behaviors towards the opponents, thus partially disconfirming our hypothesis (h6). despite that team motivational climate in general is more likely to affect within-team variables—as it is in our case with the relation between mastery climate and antisocial behavior towards teammates—it is likely that performance motivational climate is more strongly related to antisocial behavior in adolescent athletes than it is in adult players (boardley & kavussanu, 2009), thus explaining the relations we found between performance climate and antisocial behavior towards opponents. when adolescent athletes perceive the context as highly focused on achievement, this may strengthen the possibility of adopting antisocial behavior towards the ones that may be the obstacle to reach the goal, namely opponents. danioni & barni 11 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rwa results were consistent with those of mr, confirming the importance of mothers’ status values in predicting antisocial behavior towards teammates and opponents, and the mastery and performance motivational climates as predictors respectively of antisocial behaviors towards teammates and opponents. more interestingly, rwa reevaluated the role of fathers’ status values in predicting antisocial behavior towards opponents, thus strengthening our second hypothesis (h2) and confirming the relevant role played by parental values influencing this specific kind of behavior (h5). likely due to the high correlation between mothers’ and fathers’ socialization status values (see table 2), the mr did not show this result. our findings suggest that both parents and coaches play a significant role in influencing the young athletes’ morally relevant behavior, specifically their voluntarily adopted antisocial behaviors both towards teammates and opponents. however, their effect appears to be quite different and therefore needs to be specifically considered, this in line with the literature that considers both their influences, for example, in the field of athletes’ motivation (keegan, harwood, spray, & lavallee, 2009) or talent development (wolfenden & holt, 2005). generally speaking, parents’ sport socialization values seem to work more as “risk factors” in enhancing antisocial behaviors, such as status values predicting antisocial behaviors, rather than “protective factors” discouraging them, since moral values were not found to reduce the frequency of their adoption. the only evident protective factor towards antisocial behaviors, and only with regard to teammates, was the mastery oriented motivational climate promoted by the coach, whereas the performance-oriented climate tended to encourage antisocial behavior towards opponents. thus, it would be important for youth sport teams to enhance this protective factor and find a way to make it “work” even when opponents are the recipients of the behavior. in considering simultaneously these two important social agents in adolescence, parents and coaches, our results highlighted how they both play a key role in children’s moral behavior. in particular, parental influence in terms of socialization values clearly emerged here. this result is partly in contrast with the still scarce literature that has considered both agents, since the coach usually tends to emerge as the most important source in influencing young players (carr, weigand, & hussey, 1999; guivernau & duda, 2002; lee & balchin, 1996). it is, moreover, consistent in our findings that even if adolescents do not differ in the frequency of the adoption of antisocial behaviors towards a teammate or an opponent, these two patterns of the same behavior differ in their predictors. this study includes some strong points. first, to our knowledge, it is the first study to focus on parents’ sport socialization values as perceived by their children, and it is clear from our results that this neglected topic deserves wider attention. second, the study connected sport and family that, together with the school, are fundamental agents of socialization in daily interaction for adolescents (prunelli, 2011). indeed, it is essential to take into account the complex system of social relationships occurring in adolescents’ lives to fully understand the socialization process (vandell, 2000). third, we supplemented regression analysis with rwa, a relatively new data analysis strategy. as our predictors consisted of both parents’ socialization sport values and of the two patterns of motivational climate, which were highly correlated, this strategy allowed us to reevaluate the importance of some predictors, like the role of fathers’ status values, and to scale down the importance of others, such as parental competence values. however, some limitations must be kept in mind when considering the results of this study. first, its cross-sectional design limited both causal inferences from the data and considerations regarding the bidirectionality of the associations found. thus, a longitudinal development of the present research perspective would be very moral behaviors in youth sport 12 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ informative. second, the sample was one of convenience, as participants were selected according to the willingness of their sport team to take part in the study, and the study was carried out in a single country, namely italy. third, adolescents were our only informants; it would be in our opinion extremely interesting as a future research direction to analyze the relation between actual parental socialization sport values—and not just children’s perceptions—with young athletes’ morally relevant behavior. fourth, test-retest reliability of the adapted version of the ysvq-2 was here not considered, and the consistency of the scale over time is considered as a major psychometric issue. moreover, future studies should also take into consideration, for example, athletes’ gender since this plays a role also in terms of value transmission process (barni, 2009) and the kind of sport practiced, since this is likely to influence and foster the adoption of specific behaviors. also age differences (pre-adolescents vs. late adolescents) could merit attention when considering the variables under investigation. this study illustrates the importance of considering different factors in explaining young athletes’ morally relevant behavior in sport. it seems to us fundamental for parents and coaches to become aware of the consequences of the context they enhance and the goals and values they promote to their adolescent children and athletes. because the relationship between parental socialization sport values and the motivational climate promoted by the coaches and the morally relevant behaviors appears evident and quite complex, significant adults such as parents and coaches need to recognize it in order to enhance children’s positive moral development. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alwin, d. f. 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(2005). talent development in elite junior tennis: perceptions of players, parents, and coaches. journal of applied sport psychology, 17(2), 108-126. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200590932416 about the authors francesca danioni received a ph.d. in social psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart of milan, italy, where is now a post-doc researcher. her research interests mainly focus on family relations, human values and their assessment. moral behaviors in youth sport 18 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 https://doi.org/10.1123%2fpes.7.3.270 https://doi.org/10.33607%2fbjshs.v1i84.300 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167212443896 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs12144-016-9507-2 https://doi.org/10.1123%2fjsep.19.4.368 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0012-1649.36.6.699 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.psychsport.2016.05.003 https://doi.org/10.1123%2fpes.21.4.475 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1600-0838.2003.00314.x https://doi.org/10.1080%2f10413200590932416 https://www.psychopen.eu/ daniela barni, ph.d., is an associate professor of social psychology at the department of human sciences, lumsa university of rome, italy. her main research interests focus on human values and family relations, especially with regard to parentchild transmission of values during adolescence. danioni & barni 19 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), ##–## https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1598 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ moral behaviors in youth sport (introduction) parents’ role in children’s sport: the socialization values coaches' role in children’s sport: the perceived motivational climate how do parents and coaches influence children’s moral behaviors in sport? present study method participants and procedure measures results preliminary analysis predicting antisocial behaviors: adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ sport values and perceived motivational climate discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in bulgaria and greece – cross-validity of the questionnaire snep and cross-cultural comparison research reports sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in bulgaria and greece – cross-validity of the questionnaire snep and cross-cultural comparison stanislava yordanova stoyanova* a, vaitsa giannouli b, teodor krasimirov gergov a [a] department of psychology, south-west university "neofit rilski", blagoevgrad, bulgaria. [b] bulgarian academy of sciences, sofia, bulgaria. abstract sentimentality and nostalgia are two similar psychological constructs, which play an important role in the emotional lives of elderly people who are usually focused on the past. there are two objectives of this study making cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia among bulgarian and greek elderly people using a questionnaire, and establishing the psychometric properties of this questionnaire among greek elderly people. sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in bulgaria and greece were studied by means of sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people questionnaire (snep), created by gergov and stoyanova (2013). for the greek version, one factor structure without sub-scales is proposed, while for the bulgarian version of snep the factor structure had four sub-scales, besides the total score. together with some similarities (medium level of nostalgia and sentimentality being widespread), the elderly people in bulgaria and greece differed cross-culturally in their sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past in direction of more increased sentimentality and nostalgia in the bulgarian sample. some gender and age differences revealed that the oldest male bulgarians were the most sentimental. the psychometric properties of this questionnaire were examined for the first time in a greek sample of elders and a trend was found for stability of sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people that could be studied further in longitudinal studies. keywords: elderly people, nostalgia, sentimentality europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 received: 2016-05-22. accepted: 2016-11-22. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: 66, ivan mihailov street, 2700 blagoevgrad, bulgaria. e-mail: avka@abv.bg this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. this paper has two objectives that are related to each other. one objective is making cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia among bulgarian and greek elderly people using a questionnaire (sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people questionnaire – snep, by gergov & stoyanova, 2013) in crosscultural research. in order to achieve this objective of the study, another objective of the study should also be met, that is establishing psychometric properties of snep among greek elderly people, i.e. checking reliability, construct validity, and cross-validity of the questionnaire snep in the sample of greek elderly people, and creating norms on snep for the greek sample of elderly people. establishing the psychometric properties of snep measuring reliability is necessary for deciding about the use of only such data that are stable and consistent. an instrument that is not reliable cannot be applied (see for example anastasi & urbina, 2006) that is why reliability of snep in the new greek sample of elderly people should be established. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ cross-validity means validation of a questionnaire for a new sample differing from the one for which this questionnaire has been created (anastasi & urbina, 2006, p. 513); a method that is first applied for one sample of a population is later applied for another sample from the population (“cross-validation”, n.d.) – in this case, the population of elderly people. the items in snep have been created for bulgarian elderly people (gergov & stoyanova, 2013) and cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia between bulgarian and greek elderly people requires establishing cross-validity of snep for greek elderly people – using snep in another sample different from the initial one for which it has been created (bulgarian elderly people), but a part of the total population of elderly people. construct validity means establishing correspondence between the results from a method and a theoretical model by means of checking the factor structure of the questionnaire, making inter-group comparisons, such as age-group comparisons for example, etc. (anastasi & urbina, 2006, pp. 148-149). construct validity of the questionnaire snep in a bulgarian sample was checked by means of comparing the different social categories of the elderly bulgarians and finding the factor structure of snep (gergov & stoyanova, 2013). cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia in two groups of elderly people in two countries, as well as their comparisons between different social groups could be dealt with also as establishing construct validity of snep. realizing together these both objectives is attempted to avoid redundant publication, because construct validation and cross-validation of the questionnaire in this case mean cross-cultural comparison to be performed. cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia of elderly people has been already made between bulgarian roma elderly people and hungarian elders living in romania (stoyanova, doseva, gergov, & virginás-tar, 2015) that indicates that the questionnaire snep could be applied successfully for cross-cultural comparisons and is cross-validated for minority elderly samples. research of sentimentality and nostalgia is important because mental commitment to the past happens to every human being at different ages. however, this problem has been rarely studied by the researchers, especially in cross-cultural studies few examples are the studies conducted by de la sablonnière, tougas, and lortie-lussier (2009), stoyanova, doseva, gergov, and virginás-tar (2015), suls and mullen (1983-1984). the average age of the population in europe is growing older (durand, 1945; fernández-ballesteros, 2005; fernández-ballesteros, 2006). the growth of elderly populations in europe is significant (blotevogel & king, 1996) and it seems important to study mental commitment to the past among this significant growing part of the population. the longer a person has lived, the stronger the culture may influence the human mentality that is why sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people should be more influenced by the culture than in youth. this study aims to compare cross-culturally sentimentality and nostalgia among elderly people in greece and bulgaria. gergov and stoyanova’s (2013) questionnaire measuring sentimentality and nostalgia has been adapted in a greek sample of elderly people in order to investigate further this issue. sentimentality means sensitivity, emotionality (“sentimental,” 2009; “sentimental,” 2013). it includes a positive attitude towards the past (yaybob, 2008). such definitions make the concept similar to this one of nostalgia. sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 110 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ johannes hofer created the term “nostalgia” in 1688 for indicating the pain felt by a person who is not in his/her native land, who yearns for returning home and who fears never to see it again (as cited in “dying to go home,” 2008; as cited in scanlan, 2008). hofer considered as the symptoms of nostalgia sadness, hopelessness, fear, lack of appetite, muscle weakness, sleeping problems, etc. (as cited in “dying to go home,” 2008; as cited in scanlan, 2008; as cited in stefanenko, 1999, pp. 280-282). modern theories have developed the notion of nostalgia as related not only to the past memories of the homeland, but to the past in general. the following concepts illustrate this tendency. • nostalgia is an attachment to the past (jobson & wickham-jones, 2010), a preference of the experiences, the products (cattaneo & guerini, 2012) and the places (chan, 2011) from the past. • nostalgia refers to a longing, a yearning for the past, a fondness for possessions and activities associated with days of yore. nostalgia involves consumer tastes continuing over time and proneness to patterns of preferences (holbrook, 1993, p. 245). nostalgia means that people consider that the products are not made like they used to and that things used to be better in the past (holbrook, 1993). • holbrook and schindler (1991, p. 330) define nostalgia as a preference, liking, positive attitude, or favourable affect toward people, places, or things that were more common, popular, fashionable, when one was younger. the past shapes how people determine themselves creating security and self-acceptance (stamatov, 2010). elderly people evaluate their abilities applying more frequently temporal comparisons than social comparisons (suls & mullen, 1983-1984). there is a growing tendency to re-evaluate one’s life throughout the whole period of old age (petrov, 1978). this re-evaluation is a purposeful activity aimed at balancing the individual with the environment, besides it increases the value of life experience. the older people assess more realistically past events (gradev, 1987) when they consider the influence of the past events on their current life. on the one hand, the presence exercises a kind of pressure on the past. gradev (1987) conducted a study and 70% of people indicated that significant events for them in the past had lost their original value over time. gradev (1987) explains this finding by weakening of the initial emotional burden and loss of pathos. events fade when the present situations require a radical reassessment of the past. in these cases, the memories of the past are deliberately restructured and some separate facts and events that do not conform to the newly living concept are displaced. gradev (1987) noted another aspect of the interaction past-present. according to him, there is a mechanism by means of which the present life is a source of enrichment of the past memories. people look for an explanation of their significant life events. sometimes unconsciously, on a pale memory, they begin to accumulate interpretations and judgments that overexpose the original event beyond its recognition. not all events, however, can be a source of sentiment, but only those that are subjectively experienced as significant and carry a positive emotion. according to georgiev (2003), among the most emotional life events are: graduation, marriage, the childbirth, and success in the professional field. they are the sources of selfesteem and mental stabilization for the individual. the significance of the past life for the elderly people is described by erickson (1996), who called the last stages of life "integrity versus despair." depending on the reevaluation of the previous stages, one gets to enjoy a life of full value or one experiences varying degrees of hopelessness. at this late stage, the results of the previous stages are integrated, and a wise attitude to life follows or the person falls into despair. stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 111 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ most elders tend to adapt to aging (daatland, 2003). good adaptation to old age is expressed as the lack of serious health problems, doing better things based on previous experience, having friends and not feeling lonely and bored, getting on well with one’s family, relatives and friends, planning one’s activities, feeling useful, etc. (efklides, kalaitzidou, & chankin, 2003). optimal aging includes good health, maintaining high cognitive and physical functioning, emotional balance, and engagement with life (fernández-ballesteros, 2005). successful aging depends on self-efficacy, physical activity, social support and social functioning (melehin, 2015). tenacious goal pursuit in old age is important for experiencing positive affects, and flexible goal adjustment is important for escaping negative emotions (heyl, wahl, & mollenkop, 2007). flexibility is difficult to be achieved by the elderly, because typically they are conservative (blotevogel & king, 1996). the elderly people are perceived as having poor health and memory impairment, being rigid and inflexible, with low activity (fernández-ballesteros, 2006). they need special health care and old-age assistance (blotevogel & king, 1996). there is a decrease of cognitive functions, in intellectual functioning in old age, often after 65 years old, such as memory diseases, problems with time orientation (daatland, 2003; melekhin, 2015), as well as a small decline of extraversion and positive affects, while emotional loneliness and external locus of control increase (daatland, 2003). loneliness is a frequent feeling among elderly people in greece and bulgaria (dykstra, 2009) that suggests some cross-cultural similarities between elderly people in both countries. the cultures in southern and eastern europe are considered more sultry (gelhaar et al., 2007, p. 150). southern (especially latin) crowds claimed to be the most feminine (lebon, 1896), i.e. sentimental, emotional, etc. because of this stereotype, sentimentality may be an important part of greeks and bulgarians’ life. bulgarian and greek cultures are homogeneous in similar degrees regarding their cultural beliefs and norms of work, family, religion and morality (uz, 2015). bulgaria and greece have similar indexes of individualism/ collectivism – 30 and 35 respectfully that means a tendency to collectivism compared with the indexes of usa and guatemala – 91 (individualistic) and 6 (collectivistic) respectfully (stavrova, schlösser, & fetchenhauer, 2013, pp. 934-935). greek society has been found to share collectivist values (efklides, kalaitzidou, & chankin, 2003). the elderly people are among the most vulnerable categories of population who are partially blamed for their situation in the individualist cultures (hill, felice, & ainscough, 2007). as bulgaria and greece tend more to collectivism than to individualism, the social attitude towards elderly people in both countries should be more favourable than unfavourable that could slightly decrease the levels of elderly people’s sentimentality and nostalgia to the past. greek community has a generalized attitude of support towards the elderly (caftanzoglou, 1994). social benefits for elderly population in greece were bigger than for the non-aged population in the past (katrougalos, 1996), and other europeans also demonstrate solidarity towards elderly people seeing them as deserving support and state protection. informal solidarity towards elderly people is similar in greece and in bulgaria (van oorschot, 2006), but the family solidarity with elderly people is slightly more strongly expressed among bulgarians than among greeks (kankaraš & moors, 2009). the trust in social support from other citizens is also similar in bulgaria and greece and slightly higher in greece (gërxhani & koster, 2012). the index of state responsibility for social support is similar in bulgaria and greece with a slightly higher index of state responsibility for social support in greece than in bulgaria (salmina, sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 112 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2014). greek elderly people above 65 years old received more at-home care than their bulgarian counterparts in the period between 1996 and 2006 (saraceno, 2010). the elderly people are claimed to lose from transition process in the society (marks, hooghe, nelson, & edwards, 2006). the elderly people in bulgaria as a country of transition of political system could be more sentimental and nostalgic to their past than the elderly people in greece that is not a country of transition. bulgarians perceive income differences in bulgaria as too large and themselves as not being rewarded enough for their efforts and skills (suhrcke, 2001). bulgaria has a high corruption index (schwartz, 2008). bulgarian pensioners are the poorest in the european union. they use the coping strategies of living in multigenerational households; complementing pension income with earnings from small jobs; migrating from urban to rural areas (asenova & mckinnon, 2007, p. 393). they could experience more sentimentality and nostalgia to the past than greek elderly people. greek pension reform attempted to reduce pensions (casey, 2012) and this could increase the number of elderly people who need assistance, and respectfully – sentimentality and nostalgia to their past may also increase. of course, there is a further differentiation, since there are two types of elderly people – some of them (“young old”) are active and economically independent, the others (“old old”) are poor and submissive, often alone, needing medical care (blotevogel & king, 1996, p. 138). more and more elderly people work because of the changes in the state policy regarding retirement age (blotevogel & king, 1996). older elderly people could be more sentimental and nostalgic because they are more dependent on their social environment than young olds. a study reveals two most typical social representations of the elderly person – nurturant (courteous, helpful, kind, supportive, friendly, generous, and happy) and curmudgeon (rude, ill-tempered, mean, greedy, arrogant, selfish, and snobbish) (liu, ng, loong, gee, & weatherall, 2003). theater also stereotypes the elderly people as unkempt, ludicrous, stooped, and functionally disabled (gamliel, 2012, p. 623). there are some research findings about the shared stereotypes of elderly people in different countries. the elderly people in the different cultures are commonly perceived as being dependent and needing long-term care (assous, 2001). they could feel nostalgic for the past independence and autonomy. loss of physical attractiveness in elderly people in all cultures is a common factor that could contribute to their nostalgia to their past attractiveness. women lose more than men their social value by growing old considering their physical appearance, their media portrayal as less successful (hatch, 2005). that is why it is expected elderly women to be more sentimental and nostalgic towards their past than elderly men. bulgaria and greece have similar indices of gender equality (medalia & chang, 2011), so it is expected elderly women to be more sentimental and nostalgic towards their past than elderly men in both countries. satisfaction with life is found to be higher in greece than in bulgaria (van de vliert & janssen, 2002). that is why it is expected greek elderly people to be less sentimental and nostalgic towards their past than bulgarian elderly people. stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 113 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the expected differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between bulgarian and greek elderly people are also supported by some research findings that reveal some cross-cultural difference in several values. elderly people in both countries differ in the values like strongly expressed power distance that is more typical for elderly people in bulgaria than in greece (davidkov, 2004). bulgarians value hierarchy (schwartz, 2008). greek culture is more egalitarian than the bulgarian culture (schwartz, 2006; schwartz, 2008). bulgarians value tradition (schwartz, 2006) that is why bulgarian elderly people could be more sentimental and nostalgic to their past than greek elderly people. hypotheses of the study the main hypothesis of our study was that together with some similarities related to perceived importance of the past for the elderly people in both countries, the elderly people in bulgaria and greece would show crosscultural differences in their sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past such as bulgarian elderly people would be more sentimental and nostalgic than greek elderly people. as stated above, the other variables taken into account are age and gender it was expected older elderly people to be more sentimental and nostalgic than young olds, and elderly women to be more sentimental and nostalgic towards their past than elderly men. it was also expected that the questionnaire snep would have good psychometric properties (reliability and validity) among greek elderly people in order to be interpreted the results on it. method sample the total number of the respondents in bulgaria and greece were 283 participants. they participated voluntarily in the study and were purposefully selected to be elderly people above 60 in good mental health (with no previous psychiatric history) and to be able to understand the questions in order to reply. all of the participants in the study were retired. about 1.3 millions (19.3%) out of the whole bulgarian population was in the age group 65 years and over (cia world factbook, 2014a). about 2.1 millions (20.2%) out of the whole greek population was in the age group 65 years and over (cia world factbook, 2014b). the needed sample size for elderly people in bulgaria and greece was 96 in each country (confidence interval 10; confidence level 95%) that was computed by means of an online sample size calculator (creative research systems, 2012). 125 elderly people of greek origin were studied in 2014 in greece. the majority of the greek participants lived with their families in drama (n = 103, of which 50 came from the nearby villages of the drama prefecture) and some lived in the city of kavala (n = 22). 45 were males (36%) and 60 were females (64%). their ages ranged from 60 to 89 years old. their mean age was 72 years old, sd = 7 years. the young elders (between 60-75 years old, lambert-shute & fruhauf, 2011, p. 32) were 79 (63.2%) and the oldest old (above 76 years old) were 46 (36.8%). a similar age classification indicates that the elderly people could be differentiated in two age groups advanced age (55-75 years old) and old age (75-90 years old) (melekhin, 2015). sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 114 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 158 elderly people of bulgarian origin (ethnic majority) were studied in 2013 and 2014 in bulgaria. they lived in blagoevgrad (n = 80), dobritch (n = 20), kostenets (n = 3), sofia (n = 37) and several villages in south-west and north-east bulgaria (n = 18). 61 were males (38.6%) and 97 were females (61.4%). they were from 60 to 92 years old. their mean age was 73 years old, sd = 8 years. the young elders (between 60–75 years old, lambert-shute & fruhauf, 2011, p. 32) were 92 (58.2%) and the oldest old (above 76 years old) were 66 (41.8%). 62 (39.2%) lived with their families. 39 (24.7%) lived alone. 57 (36.1%) lived in institutions for elderly people. elderly people living in small or large cities, or villages were not compared, because of their unequal number – a big deal of bulgarian participants lived in large cities, and because the study that established the psychometric properties of snep in the bulgarian sample of elderly people did not found any statistically significant differences between bulgarian elders living in different types of places in their nostalgia and sentimentality (gergov & stoyanova, 2013). the participants were not compared also regarding if they lived alone, with their family or in an institution, because all greek participants lived with their families and such differences have not been found to be statistically significant in the bulgarian sample of elderly people that was used for establishing the psychometric properties of snep when it was created (gergov & stoyanova, 2013). in 2015, another study with 81 elderly people (46 bulgarians and 35 greeks) from the same sample was conducted in order to establish test-retest reliability of the questionnaire. they were contacted again and agreed voluntarily to answer the same questionnaire. the period between both tests was about 6 months, so a test-retest reliability coefficient could be computed. instrument a questionnaire measuring sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people – snep (gergov & stoyanova, 2013) was used in bulgaria in 2013 and 2014. it was translated from english to greek in 2014 and vice versa. it consisted of 14 items. in bulgaria, alpha for the total score was .871; for the scale “past emotions continue in the present” α = .836; for the scale “nostalgia of the past” α = .754; for the scale “sentimental compensation” α = .678; and for the scale “one’s past perceived by the others” α = .685 (gergov & stoyanova, 2013). the total cronbach’s alpha above .8 is considered to be very good (price, 2012, p. 117; wigdor & green, 1991, p. 118). the results were statistically processed by means of spss 16 applying descriptive statistics for presenting mean tendencies in sentimentality and nostalgia among the elderly in both countries. factor analysis was performed in the greek sample for extracting the components of sentimentality and nostalgia and reliability analysis was also performed for adapting the questionnaire in the greek sample. for group comparisons (gender, age, country), chi square analysis, t-test and anova were used. stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 115 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results psychometric properties of snep in greece the frequencies of the answers of greek elderly respondents to every question from snep are presented in table 1. table 1 frequency of agreement with the items of the scale sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past in elderly people in greece item agreement (both strongly agree and agree) uncertain disagree n % n % n % 1. the past is very important for me. 109 87.2 14 11.2 2 1.6 2. the past in a great degree determines my present and my future. 84 67.2 37 29.6 4 3.2 3. i often think about the past. 99 79.2 17 13.6 9 7.2 4. when i think about the past, i become full of positive emotions. 63 50.4 37 29.6 25 20.0 5. the emotions related to the past are a big deal of my present feelings. 106 84.8 18 14.4 1 0.8 6. i think that the biggest part of the important events in my life have happened in the past. 109 87.2 13 10.4 3 2.4 7. i am proud of my past. 68 54.4 51 40.8 6 4.8 8. i would live again my life in the same way. 67 53.6 33 26.4 25 20.0 9. the past inspires me for the future. 74 59.2 17 13.6 34 27.2 10. in the past, i have remained unemotional even in situations where most people get very sentimental. 80 64.0 28 22.4 17 13.6 11. i think that in a certain degree by means of good deeds now i could recompense my past negative acts. 78 62.4 28 22.4 19 15.2 12. i am more sentimental than most people. 90 72.0 19 15.2 16 12.8 13. if the people know my past, they estimate me positively 70 56.0 28 22.4 27 21.6 14. i want the others to know my past 76 60.8 24 19.2 25 20.0 according to the data, the past was very important and related to positive emotions for the majority greek elderly people (see table 1). sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 116 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor analysis in the greek sample was not good enough to be interpreted – kmo = .565, in spite of bartlett's test of sphericity = 304.675, p < .001. because of the poor factor solution, only the total score on the questionnaire measuring sentimentality and nostalgia was interpreted. alpha for the total score was .629 indicating that the full version of the scale could be used for measuring sentimentality and nostalgia among elderly people in greece. in greece, the test-retest reliability coefficient for a period of six months between the two studies was r = .91, p < .001. this coefficient is very high and it means not only good psychometric properties of snep, but also stability of sentimentality and nostalgia among elderly people in greece. the norms on the scale for the greek sample of elderly people are presented in table 2. they are in the form of mean and standard deviation, as for the bulgarian version of the questionnaire snep (gergov & stoyanova, 2013). table 2 norms in the greek sample on total scale snep sentimentality and nostalgia m 37.53 sd 4.71 the same number of the elderly subjects in greece had low (n = 21; 16.8%) and high (n = 21; 16.8%) levels of sentimentality and nostalgia. the most greek elderly people had medium levels of sentimentality and nostalgia (n = 83; 66.4%). the elderly greek respondents with medium levels of sentimentality and nostalgia prevailed over the respondents with high and low levels (χ2(2, n = 125) = 61.504, p < .001). there were not any significant gender differences on the total score of snep in greece (see table 3). table 3 differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between genders in greece scale age group n m sd t df p sentimentality and nostalgia elderly women 80 37.6 4.60 0.188 123 .852 elderly men 45 37.4 4.90 there were not any significant age differences on the total score of snep in greece (see table 4). table 4 differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between two age groups in greece scale age group n m sd t df p sentimentality and nostalgia (full form) young elders 79 38.10 4.60 1.799 123 .074 oldest old 46 36.54 4.79 stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 117 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ summarizing the findings regarding the psychometric properties of snep in greece, it was found that the questionnaire could be used in its full form without any sub-scales, differing from the bulgarian version of snep that had four sub-scales besides the total score. results from snep in bulgaria the frequencies of the answers of bulgarian elderly respondents to every question from snep are presented in table 5. according to the data, the past was also important and related to positive emotions for the majority bulgarian elderly people (see table 5). sentimentality and nostalgia were also stable in bulgarian elderly people, because the test-retest reliability coefficient for a period of six months between the two studies was r = .764, p < .001 in bulgaria. table 5 frequency of agreement with the items of the scale sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past in elderly people in bulgaria item agreement (both strongly agree and agree) uncertain disagree n % n % n % 1. the past is very important for me. 117 74.0 29 18.4 12 7.6 2. the past in a great degree determines my present and my future. 118 74.7 36 22.8 4 2.5 3. i often think about the past. 134 84.8 13 8.2 11 7.0 4. when i think about the past, i become full of positive emotions. 99 62.7 47 29.7 12 7.6 5. the emotions related to the past are a big deal of my present feelings. 95 60.1 40 25.3 23 14.6 6. i think that the biggest part of the important events in my life have happened in the past. 112 70.9 39 24.7 7 4.4 7. i am proud of my past. 133 84.2 15 9.5 10 6.3 8. i would live again my life in the same way. 106 67.0 38 24.1 14 8.9 9. the past inspires me for the future. 103 65.2 34 21.5 21 13.3 10. in the past, i have remained unemotional even in situations where most people get very sentimental. 82 52.0 51 32.2 25 15.8 11. i think that in a certain degree by means of good deeds now i could recompense my past negative acts. 89 56.3 52 32.9 17 10.8 12. i am more sentimental than most people. 96 60.8 50 31.6 12 7.6 13. if the people know my past, they estimate me positively 87 55.0 45 28.5 26 16.5 14. i want the others to know my past 97 61.4 37 23.4 24 15.2 sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 118 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ more elderly subjects in bulgaria had low (n = 36; 22.8%) than high (n = 26; 16.5%) levels of sentimentality and nostalgia. the most bulgarian elderly people had medium levels of sentimentality and nostalgia (n = 96; 60.8%). the elderly bulgarian respondents with medium levels of sentimentality and nostalgia prevailed over the respondents with high and low levels (χ2(2, n = 158) = 54.43, p < .001). cross-cultural comparisons between sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in bulgaria and greece sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in both countries were compared only on the total scores of the scale. the answers on each item of the scale were also compared in both countries. elderly bulgarians were more sentimental and nostalgic than greek elderly people and the effect size was large (see table 6). the past was more important for bulgarian elderly people (53.2% strongly agreed) than for the greek elderly people – 32% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 37.354, p < .001, phi = .363 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often considered that the biggest part of the important events in their life had happened in the past (45.6% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 35.2% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 23.786, p < .001, phi = .29 – small effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often thought about the past (38.6% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 17.6% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 15.528, p < .05, phi = .234 – small effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often considered that the past in a great degree determined their present and future (34.2% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 5.6% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 34.04, p < .001, phi = .347 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often declared being proud of their past (44.9% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 9.6% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 59.847, p < .001, phi = .46 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often would live their lives in the same way (32.3% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 8.8% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 25.773, p < .001, phi = .302 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often were inspired by the past (30.4% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 12% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 22.625, p < .001, phi = .283 – small effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often felt positive emotions when they thought about the past (43% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 10.4% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 44.315, p < .001, phi = .396 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often considered that the emotions related to the past were a significant part of their present emotions (37.3% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 15.2% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 67.237, p < .001, phi = .487 – medium effect size). table 6 differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between the elderly people in bulgaria and greece scale country n m sd t df p cohen’s d sentimentality and nostalgia bulgaria 158 40.86 7.85 4.423 263** <.001 1.327 greece 125 37.53 4.71 **levene’s test was f = 48.56, p < .001. stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 119 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ bulgarian elderly people more often considered themselves being more sentimental than most people (32.9% strongly agreed) compared to the greek elderly people – 8.8% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 47.945, p < .001, phi = .412 – medium effect size). bulgarian elderly people more often remained unemotional in the past in situations where most people got very sentimental (26.6% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 6.4% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 37.14, p < .001, phi = .362 – medium effect size). these findings are not contradictory, because they mean that bulgarians are now more sentimental, but they considered themselves more unemotional in the past. bulgarian elderly people more often thought that in a certain degree by means of good deeds in the present one could recompense his/her past negative acts (19% strongly agreed) than the greek elderly people – 8% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 14.295, p = .003, phi = .225 – small effect size). these negative acts should be interpreted mainly in moral terms, because elderly people in all countries are less likely to commit crime than young people and men (in sun, sung, & chu, 2007). greek elderly people more often wanted the others to know their past, because there was no reason for shame (20% strongly agreed) than the bulgarian elderly people – 15.2% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 31.8, p < .001, phi = .335 – medium effect size). greek elderly people more often considered that if the others knew their past they would estimate them positively (21.6% strongly agreed) than the bulgarian elderly people – 16.5% strongly agreed (χ2(3, n = 283) = 19.599, p < .001, phi = .263 – small effect size). concerning the opinions about the perception of one’s past by the other people, bulgarian elderly people were more uncertain and less determined then greek elderly people. oldest olds in bulgaria were more sentimental and nostalgic (see table 7) than oldest olds in greece (plsd < .001), young elders in greece (plsd < .001) and young elders in bulgaria (plsd < .001) and the effect size was large. table 7 age differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between the elderly people in bulgaria and greece age group and country n m sd f(3, 279) p eta squared oldest olds in bulgaria 66 43.86 8.22 15.316 <.001 0.141 oldest olds in greece 46 36.54 4.79 young elders in bulgaria 92 38.71 6.85 young elders in greece 79 38.10 4.60 note. scale: sentimentality and nostalgia. bulgarian male elders were more sentimental (see table 8) than greek male elders (plsd < .001), greek female elders (plsd < .001) and bulgarian female elders (plsd = .026), and the effect size was medium. bulgarian female elders were more sentimental than greek female elders (plsd = .02) and greek male elders (plsd = .037). sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 120 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 gender differences in sentimentality and nostalgia between the elderly people in bulgaria and greece scale gender and country n m sd f(3, 279) p eta squared sentimentality and nostalgia full form men in bulgaria 61 42.34 7.62 7.573 <.001 0.075 men in greece 45 37.42 4.95 women in bulgaria 97 39.93 7.90 women in greece 80 37.59 4.60 discussion it has been established that the questionnaire snep has good psychometric properties in the sample of greek elderly people. its reliability in greece was high enough and it was higher over time – test-retest reliability, than across items – internal consistency. in the sample of greek elderly people, cronbach’s alpha of .629 means marginal reliability (between .6 and .7, according to wigdor & green, 1991, p. 118) and test – retest reliability of .91 means very good reliability (above .8, according to price, 2012, p. 117) or excellent reliability (above .9, according to wigdor & green, 1991, p. 118). the test – retest reliability of .764 in bulgarian elderly people is acceptable (between .7 and .8, according to wigdor & green, 1991, p. 118). these results mean a tendency of stability in expression of sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people for a six-month period, especially in greek elders. concerning construct validity of snep, its factor structure has not been confirmed in the greek sample, because of poor adequacy of the factor model revealed by kmo index, and only the total score on snep has been used for intergroup comparisons, but the theoretical model that expected some cross-cultural, age and gender differences was confirmed. the theoretical model expecting higher sentimentality and nostalgia among bulgarian elders than among greek elders, as well as among older elderly people (bulgarians as indicated the results) compared with young elders (greek and bulgarians, according to the results) was confirmed. it has been found that bulgarian female elders were more sentimental than greek male elders, as the theoretical model for construct validity expected, but bulgarian male elders were more sentimental than bulgarian and greek female elders. traditionally the stereotypes of women describe them as more emotional, irrational, and incompetent than men (secker, 1999). men often are associated with qualities such as activity, instrumentality, and determination (dragneva, 1990; kotseva & todorova, 1994). men seem to have suffered more in retirement, because they lost their utility in their job that was a way of being valuable and significant, while the women seem not to be able to escape the obligations of housewife, and still feel responsible for harmony and order at home (alexandrova, 2006, p. 273). loss of different professional and social activities by men could make them more nostalgic to the past when they felt themselves more useful and valuable, so their sentimentality increased as they got older, poorer and socially excluded – like bulgarian oldest old men. socialization factors could make women become more sentimental like bulgarian elderly women compared to elderly people in greece. one cross-cultural study has already revealed more emotionality (higher anxiety and sad emotions) in bulgarian women than in greek women (giannouli & ivanova, 2016). stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 121 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the main hypothesis of the study was confirmed. in both countries, the elderly people with medium level of sentimentality and nostalgia prevailed and the past was important for them. on the other side, the elderly people in bulgaria and greece differed significantly in their sentimentality and nostalgia related to the past. the differences were expressed mainly in the direction of more increased values of the studied phenomena in the bulgarian sample. these differences could be due to many factors. one of them is the different socialeconomic status of bulgarian and greek pensioners. the mean pension in bulgaria is about 159 euro (national social security institute, 2014), while in greece it is about 942 euro (vasileva, 2014). besides, 35% of greek pensioners receive a second pension, and 12% of them receive even a third pension (blitz, 2014; gr reporter, 2014). retail expenditures per capita are higher in greece than in bulgaria, related to economic freedom, access and availability (kshetri & bebenroth, 2012). these differences in the standard reflect on the attitudes towards the past. in bulgarian pensioners, they may have played an important role on the high levels of nostalgia and sentimentality. the sudden change of income after retirement makes difficult for a lot of people to survive, and this in turn affects the subjective assessment of the past, giving it an outstanding value. the low income makes impossible for older people to maintain their previous social activity and it contributes to their social exclusion. the new standard imposes some limits of any kind and the past becomes more and more important. another possible explanation of the resulting differences is the transition of bulgarian society between two economic systems during the last twenty-five years. this transition lasted extremely long and it was painful for a significant part of the population. it was accompanied by disturbances of all levels. uncertainty has appeared in the society. the value system has changed. the primordial attitudes and perceptions devaluated. the aging personality has difficulties to adjust oneself to new realities. a peculiar fixation on the past is the result from this maladaptation, on the time when the personality was formed and realized. the longer a person has lived in a socio-economic system, the more affectionate and sentimental s/he is to this system. the past is more and more often compared to the present and there are some possible expectations of reversibility of the parameters describing the old times. a cross-cultural study among the elderly people revealed that greek elders received more social support, especially family support compared to the elders in portugal, italy, germany, spain and sweden (melchiorre et al., 2013). a part of the bulgarian participants in this study lived in institutions for elderly people, while no greek respondent lived in such an institution. this difference between the samples in both countries could also explain why the bulgarian elders were more sentimental and nostalgic towards their past than the greek elders, who continued feeling the support by their families. higher sentimentality and nostalgia among bulgarian elderly people compared with greek elders could be related to higher depression because of not feeling family support in institutions. as some authors state, lack of social integration of individuals because of divorce and absence of children raises the suicide rate, whereas marriage lowers it (neumayer, 2003). ex-communist nations have high suicide rate related to lower selfexpression (lenzi, colucci, & minas, 2012). the different social and economic conditions of the elders in both countries were one of the limitations of this study. future studies of sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people should focus on the cognitive factors which may influence the way that elders think about the past and at the same time they should clarify the stereotypes related to ageism. this future research will prove if there is a cognitive explanation for the nostalgia and sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 122 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sentimentality in elders or if the possible differences in the stereotypes towards elders in both countries are solely responsible for the way that the elders see and feel about their current and previous personal history. the established tendency for stability of sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people for a six-month period could be studied further in longitudinal research. the psychometric properties of the questionnaire snep may be studied further in different samples and populations that would permit other cross-cultural comparisons. funding the authors have no 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[online forum comment]. retrieved from http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080520145636aairoqj stoyanova, giannouli, & gergov 127 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 http://doi.org/10.1111/0047-2786.00019 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sentimental http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentimental http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213485902 http://doi.org/10.5964/psyct.v8i1.116 https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/iwp89.pdf http://doi.org/10.2190/33ux-54wu-avmh-082t http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624x07299225 http://doi.org/10.1177/0022022114563611 http://doi.org/10.1177/00222102033004002 http://doi.org/10.1177/0958928706059829 http://www.dnes.bg/balkani/2014/02/04/srednata-pensiia-v-gyrciia-941-59-evro.214785 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080520145636aairoqj http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors prof. stanislava yordanova stoyanova, phd is a lecturer in psychological measurements, experimental psychology and social psychology at south-west university “neofit rilski”. vaitsa giannouli, phd is a neuropsychologist/cognitive psychologist and researcher at the aristotle university of thessaloniki (auth), greece. she is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the bulgarian academy of sciences. she is involved in several cross-cultural research projects focusing on issues of cognition and lifespan development. contact: giannouliv@hotmail.com teodor krasimirov gergov, phd is a full-time lecturer at department of psychology at south-west university “neofit rilski”. his professional interests are in the areas of developmental psychology, gerontopsychology, educational psychology, etc. he is the author of more than 30 scientific publications. contact: teodor@swu.bg sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders 128 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 109–128 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1202 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ sentimentality and nostalgia in greek and bulgarian elders (introduction) establishing the psychometric properties of snep cross-cultural comparison of sentimentality and nostalgia hypotheses of the study method sample instrument results psychometric properties of snep in greece results from snep in bulgaria cross-cultural comparisons between sentimentality and nostalgia in elderly people in bulgaria and greece discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors freeze or forget? virtual attack effects in an emotional sternberg task research reports freeze or forget? virtual attack effects in an emotional sternberg task thomas edward gladwin* a, matthijs vink bc [a] department of psychology and counseling, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [b] department of psychiatry, brain center rudolf magnus, utrecht university medical center, utrecht, the netherlands. [c] departments of developmental and experimental psychology, utrecht university, utrecht, the netherlands. abstract emotionally salient stimuli have the ability to disrupt cognitive processing. this kind of disruption involves effects on working memory and may be related to mental health problems. to explore the nature of such emotional interference on working memory, a virtual attack emotional sternberg task (vaest) was used. neutral faces were presented as distractors and warning signals, which were sometimes followed by a virtual attack, created by having the neutral face turn angry while the image was enlarged. the attack was hypothesized to have one of two effects: to disrupt cognitive processing and thereby increase interference effects, or to terminate a state of freezing and thereby reduce interference effects. the task was successfully completed online by a sample of 59 students. results clearly show that the virtual attack caused a reduction of interference relative to no-attack trials. the apparent cognitive disruption caused by emotional distractors may thus reflect freezing, which can be reversed by a freeze-terminating stimulus. keywords: emotional sternberg, freezing, virtual attack, faces, interference europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 received: 2017-06-02. accepted: 2017-12-16. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology and counselling, university of chichester, college lane, chichester, po19 6pe, united kingdom. tel.: +447895625183. e-mail: thomas.gladwin@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. dual-process or dual-system theories posit a distinction between “hot” and “cold” cognitive systems, functions or processes (metcalfe & mischel, 1999; prencipe et al., 2011; van den wildenberg & crone, 2005), using a variety of broadly related terms (evans, 2008; gladwin & figner, 2014; moors & de houwer, 2006) such as automatic versus controlled (schneider & chein, 2003; schneider & shiffrin, 1977) or impulsive versus reflective (strack & deutsch, 2004). one kind of process is “hot”, emotional, fast, stimulus-driven and inflexible, and tends to produce impulsive behavior. the other kind of process is “cold”, controlled, effortful, long-term focused, allowing reflective thought and the inhibition of impulses. theoretical concerns about the validity of a strict separation between opposing hot and cold systems have been raised (keren, 2013; keren & schul, 2009), as, for instance, cognitive processes can have both hot or automatic and cold or reflective attributes (bargh, 1994). nevertheless, it does appear to be the case that “hot” emotionally salient stimuli can disrupt cognitive processing necessary for “cold” cognition, for instance by evoking intrusions and rumination which demand cognitive resources (curci, lanciano, soleti, & rimé, 2013; curci, soleti, lanciano, doria, & rimé, 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ one source of evidence for such interference is the emotional sternberg task (sternberg, 1966; unsworth & engle, 2007; wickens, hyman, dellinger, taylor, & meador, 1986). trials in the basic sternberg task consist of three phases: an encoding phase in which participants are presented with a memory set of items; a maintenance phase in which the memory set must be held in working memory (baddeley, 1992, 2012; kane & engle, 2003; petrides & baddeley, 1996; postle, 2006); and a probe phase in which it is tested whether the memory set has been successfully maintained. variants of the sternberg task have been developed to tax additional aspects of working memory by presenting distractors during the maintenance period (unsworth & engle, 2007; unsworth, redick, heitz, broadway, & engle, 2009). this allows disruptive effects of various kinds of stimuli or tasks to be tested. in the emotional sternberg task, distractors are emotionally salient stimuli; that is, stimuli that draw attention due to their emotional content. emotionally negative distractors have been shown to cause greater interference, in terms of slower or less accurate responses to probes, than neutral distractors (dolcos & mccarthy, 2006; oei, tollenaar, elzinga, & spinhoven, 2010; oei, tollenaar, spinhoven, & elzinga, 2009). at a neural level, emotional distractors increase activity in regions related to emotion, such as the amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and reduce activity in regions related to working memory, such as dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex (dolcos & mccarthy, 2006; oei et al., 2010, 2009). conversely, increased working memory load decreases activity related to emotional distractors (erk, kleczar, & walter, 2007; van dillen, heslenfeld, & koole, 2009). however, the effect of negative emotional stimuli can also be seen as evoking defensive responses such as fight or flight. previous studies have used emotional stimuli and virtual attacks to induce defensive responses (gladwin, hashemi, van ast, & roelofs, 2016; heesink, gladwin, et al., 2017; mobbs et al., 2007; montoya, van honk, bos, & terburg, 2015; nieuwenhuys, savelsbergh, & oudejans, 2012). of particular interest to the current study is the defensive response of freezing, a fundamental defensive response that has been argued to be a state involving simultaneous inhibition and preparation for action (gladwin et al., 2016; roelofs, 2017). as long as the freeze state persists the organism is highly prepared to “leap into action” and generate fast responses to potentially threatening stimuli (gladwin et al., 2016; lojowska, gladwin, hermans, & roelofs, 2015) but is inhibiting action in parallel (roseberry & kreitzer, 2017). from this perspective, emotional stimuli could exert effects on performance by evoking a behavioral freeze state rather than by disrupting working memory itself. to the aim of investigating whether emotional distractors cause "freezing" versus "forgetting", a virtual attack emotional sternberg task (vaest) was developed allowing the study of time-dependent effects of dynamic, threatening distractors on cognitive processing. the distractors in this task consisted of neutral faces that could randomly perform a virtual attack by turning angry and visually zooming in towards the participant. the task thus involved two kinds of interference: that due to the presentation of the neutral face, and that due to the virtual attack. as neutral faces in the task predicted a possible attack, they were expected to evoke this anticipatory freeze and thereby delay responses to probe stimuli of the “cold” task. attack trials could have two possible effects. if interference effects are due to emotionally salient stimuli capturing processing resources, interference should be greater following an attack. however, attacks could also have the effect of breaking the freeze state, as the anticipated threat has then actually occurred. in that case, interference effects would decrease relative to trials when the attack does not occur, in which situation participants are still in the freeze state when probe stimuli occur. any such effect could be time-dependent, reflecting the time course of cognitive processes underlying interference, as found previously in an alcohol sternberg task (gladwin & wiers, 2012). the task thus included a manipulation of the time between distractor-events and probe stimuli. gladwin & vink 343 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants participants were recruited from a student population and received study credits for completing the study, which was performed online. participants gave informed consent and the study was approved by the local ethics review board. 62 participants completed the experiment, of which three were rejected due to very low accuracy (below 75% over the whole task, or below 50% on any condition), leaving 59 participants for analysis (48 female, 11 male; mean age 21.3, sd = 2.15). participants were not in treatment for psychiatric or neurological problems. virtual attack emotional sternberg task (vaest) figure 1 shows an illustration of the vaest (programmed in javascript; source code is available on request). trials began with the presentation of a memory set of three different numbers from 1 to 9, positioned in a vertical column, for 1200 ms. this was followed by a maintenance period of 800, 1200, or 1800 ms; the duration was selected randomly per trial with equal probabilities. a probe stimulus subsequently appeared, consisting of two different numbers, each from 1 to 9, appearing next to each other. either the left or right number (randomized per trial) had been presented in the trial’s memory set; the other number had not. participants had to press a left (“f”) or right (“j”) response key to indicate which of the numbers was in the memory set. there was an inter-trial interval of 500 ms. there were two variants of the task, which differed in terms of which distractors could occur during the maintenance period: a baseline and a full variant. in the baseline task, there were two distractor types, which were equally likely to occur. null distractors consisted only of a fixation cross. neutral face distractors consisted of one of a set of 11 male computer generated faces from the besst (thoma, soria bauser, & suchan, 2013) with a neutral expression. the distractors were onscreen during the full maintenance period. this task consisted of three blocks of 24 trials each. the baseline task was included in order to be able to consider effects of the neutral faces as natural distractor stimuli, i.e., without their role as cues for attack stimuli as in the full task described below. in the full task, a third distractor type, attack, was introduced. attack distractors initially started as neutral face distractors for the first 600 ms of the maintenance period. after this time, the expression was changed to anger and the size of the face was increased by 50%, creating a zoom-in effect. these changes occurred at the same time and instantaneously. the angry and zoomed-in face remained on-screen for the remainder of the maintenance period, i.e., for an additional 200 ms, 600 ms, or 1200 ms interval after the change. the full task consisted of seven blocks of 24 trials each. virtual attack in an emotional sternberg task 344 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. illustration of the task. note. illustration of the virtual attack emotional sternberg task. trials consisted of a fixation cross, presentation of the memory set, maintenance period, and probe stimulus. the figure shows an attack trial, in which the first 600 ms of the maintenance period contained a neutral face. at 600 ms, the face’s expression turned angry and the face “jumped out at” the participant by increasing in size, suggesting approach. 200, 600 or 1200 ms following the attack, the probe stimulus was presented. the probe remained onscreen until a left-key or right-key response was given, indicating which of the numbers was in the current memory set. correct answers were followed by a feedback screen briefly showing “correct” in green, and incorrect answers were followed by “incorrect” in red. on neutral face trials, the attack did not occur and the neutral face remained onscreen until the probe. on such trials, the face remained onscreen for the initial 600 ms plus the varying 200, 600, or 1200 ms. on null trials, no face appeared, and only a fixation cross was shown during the maintenance period. procedure participants first filled in questionnaires (demographics, buss-perry aggression questionnaire, phq-9, tsq, stai-6 and ad-hoc questions); please see the appendix for further details and purely exploratory analyses involving questionnaires data. subsequently they performed the baseline and full emotional sternberg tasks. following these tasks, two further tasks were performed that were part of different studies. statistical analyses preprocessing steps consisted of the removal of trials likely to deviate from normal task performance: the first four trials of the baseline task, the first trial per block, and trials with very long rts above 2500 ms. for the full task the first block was removed, as this block was considered a learning block in which subjects experienced attacks for the first time. gladwin & vink 345 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ within-subject repeated measures anovas with greenhouse-geisser correction were used to analyze effects of interval (the 200, 600 or 1200 ms following the initial 600 ms period) and distractor type (null, neutral face, attack). effects were tested on median rt and mean accuracy. we used median rt to reduce the influence of outliers, without having to specify somewhat arbitrary criteria for the rejection of fast and slow trials, which would be necessary when using the mean. interactions were probed using simple tests of effects using pairwise t-tests. the original data are available on request. results figures 2a and 2b shows the rt data for the vaest. in the baseline task, within-subject analyses showed an effect of distractor type, f(1, 58) = 24, p < .001, η2 p = 0.29, due to slower responses following neutral face than null distractors. in the full task, effects were found of distractor type, f(2, 116) = 23, p < .001, η2 p = 0.29, duration, f(2, 116) = 7.4, p = 0.0013, η2 p = 0.11, and distractor type by interval, f(4, 232) = 3.2, p = 0.017, η2 p = 0.052. all three distractor types significantly differed from each other (p < .001), neutral face being slowest, followed by attack, followed by null. the shortest interval was slower than the longer intervals (p = .013). these effects were modulated by the interaction, as clearly visible in the figure as the decrease in interference over time for the attack trials. on attack trials only, the shortest interval (200 ms post-attack) led to slower responses (p = .0011) than the longer intervals (600 ms and 1200 ms post-attack). figure 2a. reaction times: a. baseline task. virtual attack in an emotional sternberg task 346 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2b. reaction times: b. full task. note. the figure shows reaction time for the baseline task (a) and full task (b). lines show mean values, and vertical bars show standard errors after correction for between-subject variability (as tests involved within-subject effects). the x-axis shows the interval between the 600 ms timepoint of maintenance period, when attacks could occur, and the presentation of the probe stimulus. in the baseline task, the presentation of a neutral face can be seen to cause slower rts at all intervals. in the full task, this effect remains. rts on attack trials are similar to rts on neutral face trials at the shortest interval, but then strongly decrease, dropping close to the level of trials on which no face was presented as distractor. no within-subject effects were found for accuracy, which was generally high (0.93 proportion correct in the baseline task, 0.91 in the full task). discussion in the current study we investigated interference effects in an emotional sternberg task in which virtual attacks could occur, the vaest. the primary question was whether virtual attacks would result in increased interference due to disruption of cognitive resources, or reduced interference due to the termination of a freeze state. a basic result was that reaction times increased when showing a neutral face versus when no face was presented, even before any attacks had been shown. this can be contrasted to effects in a previous study (gladwin, 2017), in which the presentation of the same computer-generated faces was facilitative, speeding responses. in the previous study, the task involved a simple speeded choice task, with a clear stimulusresponse mapping involving left and right arrows mapped, respectively, to the left and right response keys. thus, the effect of the facial distractor stimuli depends on task features. even though the task in the current study was easy, it did require responses to be dependent on information held in working memory, as opposed to immediately available stimulus features. this difference appears likely to have induced a slowing versus facilitative effect on rts. an interesting implication of these conflicting results is that while effects of emotional gladwin & vink 347 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ distractors are usually considered to reflect automatic, involuntary processes, they nevertheless depend on task-related factors (wells & matthews, 1996). the primary question involved the effect of the occurrence of the virtual attack in the full task. this clearly had a facilitative effect. the rt slowing induced by the neutral face was strongly decreased when the attack occurred, as long as sufficient time was provided between the attack and the probe. this would not be expected if interference can be explained by emotionally salient stimuli capturing processing resources. the angry expression has previously been shown to evoke stronger emotional responses than the neutral expression (gladwin, 2017), and the sudden zoom-in would also be expected to evoke an emotional response (montoya et al., 2015). the pattern of results has better agreement with the hypothesis that attacks serve to release participants from an inhibited state of freezing. that is: the neutral face evokes a freeze state, in which the expression of prepared actions is inhibited, which causes slowing on responses to probe stimuli. however, if an attack actually occurs, this serves as a trigger for ending the freeze state (gladwin et al., 2016; roelofs, 2017), which removed the slowing effect. a limitation of the current study is that the neutral face distractor was already a very effective “natural” distractor in the baseline task. most of its effects cannot therefore be interpreted purely within the experimental context, in terms of anticipation of the virtual attack. it would be interesting for future work to use visually neutral cues to predict attacks. another interesting line of research could be to further investigate the attack stimulus. in the current study, this was a combination of a zoom-in effect and a change of expression from neutral to angry. thus, the current results cannot determine which of these stimulus features was necessary or sufficient to cause effects, or which other stimuli could serve as effective attacks or freeze-terminating stimuli. a methodological limitation is that only 200, 600 and 1200 ms post-attack intervals were used. as the major drop in slowing occurred from the 200 to 600 ms interval, future work should sample this region more extensively. another methodological limitation is that the working memory aspect of the task was very simple, and it could be of interest to compare the current results with those found using a more taxing or complex task. finally, our interpretation of results in terms of freeze is based on the fit of the pattern of behavioral results with previous work on freeze. however, psychophysiological data such as body sway, heart rate, and emg are needed to more directly measure whether freeze occurred and how it was related to effects. in conclusion, virtual attacks in an emotional sternberg task were found to strongly reduce response slowing due to an initial distractor. this fits with a “freeze-release” model, in which the virtual attack triggers the end of an inhibited state. the results may be of interest for further research, in particular by raising the question whether slowing effects are due to interference with cognitive processing, versus due to a reversible inhibitory state. finally, the interference effect could be of interest as a target for cognitive-emotional conditioning methods such as cognitive bias modification. the vaest could be converted to a training task in the same way as, e.g., approach-avoidance tasks (wiers, eberl, rinck, 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analyses was solely to provide indications that could be useful for future confirmatory studies: it is important to note that this correlational aspect of the current paper does not attempt to control for multiple testing in order to reach statistical significance for each test. the goal is to aid in the generation of specific a priori hypotheses for future study, not to provide relatively conclusive statistical evidence. nevertheless, we felt that including these analyses could provide a helpful first step in connecting disorders to effects on the vaest. such connections seem likely from the dual-process perspective: certain mental health disorders could occur when automatic attentional processes select harmful information or inhibit helpful information, and when reflective processes are not evoked when needed to correct maladaptive impulses when this pattern of information is used for response selection (gladwin, figner, crone, & wiers, 2011; pessoa, 2009). for example, in attentional control theory, anxiety is posited to reduce attentional control and assign cognitive resources to threat-related stimuli (eysenck & derakshan, 2011; eysenck, derakshan, santos, & calvo, 2007). processes underlying various mental health disorders could thus be expected to increase interference, as has indeed been found in a wide range of literature. aggression and violence are associated with slowing effects on emotional stroop tasks involving threat-related stimuli (brugman et al., 2016; chan, raine, & lee, 2010; domes, mense, vohs, & habermeyer, 2013). individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) also show increased interference to trauma-related stimuli (aupperle, melrose, stein, & paulus, 2012), e.g., in combat veterans with ptsd after deployment in iraq to combat-related words (ashley, honzel, larsen, justus, & swick, 2013) and in vietnam veterans with ptsd to pictures related to vietnam (chemtob et al., 1999). depression is associated with increased interference on depression-related words such as “hopeless” (gotlib & mccann, 1984; mathews & macleod, 1994; williams & nulty, 1986). finally, anxiety is associated with increased interference by threat-related words (macleod, mathews, & tata, 1986; mcnally, 1995; phaf & kan, 2007). we therefore tested whether subclinical symptoms in the current sample, involving aggression, trauma, depression and anxiety, were associated with increased interference effects on the vaest. in line with the above literature, a number of questionnaires were used that were considered of potential interest for future studies. the questionnaires concerned aggression, depression, psychological trauma and state anxiety and were filled in online, via custom html, php and javascript. all items had to be answered to progress. for aggression, the buss-perry aggression questionnaire (buss & perry, 1992), was used, which provides four subscales: physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. subscales are the sum of the (if necessary, reverse-scored) respective set of items, each scored on a 1 through 7 likert scale. example items are, for the subscale physical aggression, “once in a while i can't control the urge to strike another person”; for verbal aggression, “i can't help getting into arguments when people disagree with me.”; for anger, “i sometimes feel like a powder keg ready to explode.”; and for hostility, “i am suspicious of overly friendly strangers.”. the buss-perry scales have been found to have adequate reliability and validity (bernstein & gesn, 1997; buss & perry, 1992; harris, 1997). for depression, the depression module of the patient health questionnaire, the phq-9, was used, which provides a brief but reliable and valid measure of depression (cameron, crawford, lawton, & reid, 2008; kroenke, spitzer, & williams, 2001; titov et al., 2011). responses required indicating to which extent a certain problem had been experienced over the last two weeks, on a likert scale from 1 to 4, represented by response categories "not at all", "several days", "more than half the days", and "nearly every day". the score is the sum over all items. an example item is “feeling down, depressed, or hopeless”. the trauma screening questionnaire, tsq (brewin et al., 2002), was used to measure post-traumatic stress symptoms. the tsq score is the sum of ten 0 or 1 coded items reflecting a yes or no response to having experienced a given reaction at least twice in the last week. an example item is “upsetting thoughts or memories about the event that have come into your mind against your will”. the tsq has been shown to provide a close approximation to gold standard diagnostic interviews for post-traumatic stress disorder, using a cut-off score of 6, and has adequate reliability and validity (de bont et al., 2015; walters, bisson, & shepherd, 2007). finally, the six-question spielberger state-trait anxiety inventory, stai-6 (marteau & bekker, 1992), was used to measure state anxiety. the stai score is the sum over six items about how the participant feels, each scored on a likert scale from 1 to 4 (for positive items) and gladwin & vink 355 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ -1 to -4 (for negative items), with response categories labelled "not at all (1)", "somewhat (2)", "moderately (3)", and "very much (4)". an example item is “i feel calm”. the stai-6 has been found to have adequate reliability and validity comparable to the full stai (marteau & bekker, 1992). in the exploratory secondary analyses, pearson's correlations were calculated between various contrast scores involving task performance and questionnaire scores. contrast scores were, first, neutral face versus null, for interference effects due to the appearance of the neutral face versus no distractor during the maintenance period. this contrast was calculated both for the baseline and for the full task. further, there was the contrast neutral face versus attack, reflecting effects related to the virtual attack versus the absence of a virtual attack occurring. finally, an anticipation contrast was calculated as the difference between the contrasts for neutral face versus null in the full versus baseline tasks. this contrast was interpreted as representing effects caused by the anticipation of the virtual attack in the full version: there is then an additional contextual effect of presentation of a neutral face, which was absent when the neutral face was presented in the baseline task when no attacks could yet occur. table a.1 shows descriptive statistics of the questionnaires. table a.1 descriptive statistics variable m sd n bp: physical aggression 21.60 10.20 58 bp: verbal aggression 17.50 7.08 58 bp: anger 16.50 5.78 58 bp: hostility 19.30 7.57 58 phq9 13.80 3.74 59 tsq: total 2.45 2.27 58 tsq: cutoff6 0.12 0.33 58 stai-6 -4.31 3.60 59 note. means, standard deviations and sample size for questionnaire data. for some questionnaires, data for one subject was lost due to technical issues. the variables are the buss-perry aggression questionnaire subscales, the phq9 scale for depression, the tsq questionnaire, and the six-item stai scale for state anxiety. two values were included for the tsq: the total score, which was the number of endorsed items concerning re-experiencing and arousal symptoms, and a cut-off score. the cut-off score was 0 if the total score was below 6, and 1 otherwise. results of the correlation analyses are shown in table a.2a and table a.2b. on rt, the only effect involved depression: higher phq-9 scores were associated with slower responses specifically on the neutral face trials in the full task. this effect was found for the contrast between neutral face trials and null trials, the contrast between neutral face trials and attack trials, and the anticipation contrast. thus, depressive symptoms appeared to lead to increased slowing when an attack was anticipated and did not occur. on accuracy, a number of effects were found in which symptoms were related to lower accuracy on neutral face trials. anger and the binary score for reaching the cut-off tsq-score for ptsd were associated with lower values on the neutralnull (baseline) contrast, while depression and total symptom score for ptsd were associated with lower values on the neutral-null (full) contrast. however, physical aggression was associated with higher values on the neutral-null (full) contrast. the anticipation contrast (neutral-null for the full versus baseline task) was positively related to physical aggression, verbal aggression, and anger. that is: these aspects of aggression all resulted in relatively high accuracy when anticipating an attack. virtual attack in an emotional sternberg task 356 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table a.2a significant correlations involving contrast scores and questionnaire data: a. reaction time scale neutral-null (baseline) neutral-null (full) neutral-attack anticipation bp: physical aggression bp: verbal aggression bp: anger bp: hostility phq9 .29 (1200 ms) .26 (1200 ms) .33 (1200 ms) tsq: total tsq: cut-off stai-6 table a.2b significant correlations involving contrast scores and questionnaire data: b. accuracy scale neutral-null (baseline) neutral-null (full) neutral-attack anticipation bp: physical aggression .28 (200 ms) .33 (200 ms) bp: verbal aggression .30 (200 ms) bp: anger -.29 (200 ms) .29 (200 ms) bp: hostility phq9 -.28 (1200 ms) tsq: total -.31 (1200 ms) tsq: cut-off -.26 (200 ms) stai-6 -.28 (600 ms) note. correlations between contrast scores derived from the vaest and questionnaire data. the contrast scores were calculated as follows, for rt and accuracy in tables a.2a and a.2b respectively. the contrast “neutral null (baseline)” is the difference score for neutral face trials minus null trials in the baseline task. the contrast “neutral null (full)” is the difference score for neutral face trials minus null trials in the full task. the contrast “neutral attack” is the difference score for neutral face trials minus attack trials in the full task. finally, the “anticipation” score is the double-difference score between neutral null (full) and neutral null (baseline). this reflects effects of knowledge of a possible attack, as in the full task neutral faces predict a possible attack. the questionnaires are as in table a.1. note that due to the varying cue-stimulus intervals, each contrast can be calculated for each of the three possible intervals. intervals for which the reported contrast scores were calculated are given in brackets behind the correlations: the durations are the time of a possible attack (600 ms into the maintenance interval) to the presentation of the probe (after a further 200, 600 or 1200 ms). thus, despite the preliminary and exploratory nature of these analyses, there were some consistent patterns. depressive symptoms were related to increases in three contrast scores, all of which could be interpreted as slowing due to anticipation of the virtual attack. this agrees with literature showing automatic cognitive biases in depression (johnstone, van reekum, urry, kalin, & davidson, 2007; macleod & rutherford, 1998) and suggests a potential target for cognitive bias modification (macleod, koster, & fox, 2009; wiers, gladwin, hofmann, salemink, & ridderinkhof, 2013). another consistent effect involved three subscales of the buss-perry aggression questionnaire (physical aggression, verbal aggression, and anger), all of which were related to an improvement in accuracy in the context of a potential attack. aggression is known to involve hypervigilance and arousal (heesink, kleber, et al., 2017; jaworska et al., 2012), and increased arousal may have improved performance in this relatively simple task. alternatively, aggressive individuals may be more used to interpreting neutral faces as potentially aggressive (dodge et al., 2015). various other effects were found, most of which involved reduced accuracy for only one of the contrasts involving freezing on neutral faces, with increasing psychological trauma and anxiety. such effects agree with results and theories on trauma, in which effects of trauma on emotionally important schemata render individuals more vulnerable to automatic interference by emotional stimuli (beck, freeman, shipherd, hamblen, & lackgladwin & vink 357 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ner, 2001; bryant & harvey, 1995; chemtob et al., 1999; mcnally, kaspi, riemann, & zeitlin, 1990; pineles, shipherd, mostoufi, abramovitz, & yovel, 2009; pineles, shipherd, welch, & yovel, 2007). future studies are needed to further elucidate relationships between interference effects and problems related to the integration of negative information into schemata. a potentially important focus could be disentangling aspects of repetitive negative thinking and intrusive thoughts (ehring et al., 2011; ehring, frank, & ehlers, 2008; horowitz, wilner, & alvarez, 1979; mcevoy et al., 2017). however, it must be acknowledged that any interpretation is limited due to the exploration of effects over many tests and the relatively small student sample. the results are hoped to provide clear directions and a basis for methodological choices (e.g., contrast score definitions) for future work, e.g., comparing clinical populations. about the authors thomas edward gladwin is a senior lecturer at the department of psychology and counseling at the university of chichester. he studies the interplay between controlled and automatic processes, emotion regulation, implicit measures, and applications of this research to clinical interventions, e.g., for addiction. matthijs vink is an assistant professor at the departments of experimental and developmental psychology of the utrecht university, in the group of prof chantal kemner (http://www.uu.nl/staff/ckemner). his research is focused on the frontostriatal network and its role in schizophrenia and other disorders. he has developed inhibition and reward tasks that are used worldwide. virtual attack in an emotional sternberg task 358 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 342–358 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1473 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://www.uu.nl/staff/ckemner https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ virtual attack in an emotional sternberg task (introduction) method participants virtual attack emotional sternberg task (vaest) procedure statistical analyses results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: exploratory correlational analyses about the authors children’s understanding of self-focused humor styles research reports children’s understanding of self-focused humor styles lucy amelia james*a, claire louise foxa [a] school of psychology, keele university, keele, staffordshire, united kingdom. abstract it has been proposed that four main styles of humor exist, two which are thought to be adaptive (affiliative, self-enhancing) and two which are thought to be maladaptive (aggressive, self-defeating). whilst the existence of these four humor styles has been supported in older children, it is suggested that for younger children, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor may develop at a later point. to investigate this further, the current research involved five semi-structured paired interviews with children aged eight to eleven years to explore the use and understanding of self-enhancing and self-defeating humor in this age group. findings indicated that use of both self-enhancing and self-defeating humor were apparent in some children, but not all. it therefore seems appropriate that attempts to investigate humor in this age group should aim to include all four styles of humor. the current research also demonstrated the value of paired interviews when carrying out this sort of research with children. keywords: children, humor, humor styles, paired interviews, qualitative research europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 received: 2015-10-29. accepted: 2015-12-14. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: school of psychology, keele university, keele, staffordshire, st5 5bg, united kingdom. e-mail: l.a.james@keele.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003) proposed four types of humor which have been previously measured in adults using the humor styles questionnaire (hsq). whilst two of the humor styles, affiliative and self-enhancing, can be considered adaptive, the remaining humor styles, aggressive and self-defeating are considered to be maladaptive. furthermore, the humor styles can also be categorised into self-focused and otherfocused humor styles. affiliative and aggressive humor can be considered as other-focused, whereas the focus of the current article, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor, are thought to be self-focused (kuiper, kirsh, & leite, 2010). whilst work exploring the role of these humor styles has been plentiful, research exploring their development in children has been limited. the first of the four humor styles, affiliative humor was described by martin et al. (2003) as using humor to amuse others and facilitate relationships, often through the use of jokes and funny stories. this friendly and non-hostile form of humor has been found to be positively related to variables such as self-esteem and well-being and negatively related to anxiety and depression (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; martin et al., 2003). aggressive humor on the other hand can be described as using humor at the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ expense of others, often without regard for their feelings. this can include the use of teasing and sarcasm. this less benign form of humor has been found to be related to hostility and aggression (chen & martin, 2007; martin et al., 2003). turning to the self-focused humor styles, self-enhancing humor is thought to be closely related to the concept of coping humor and is consistent with the freudian definition of humor as a healthy defence mechanism (freud, 1928). it is described by martin et al. (2003) as the type of humor used to maintain a positive outlook on life, to boost the mood or to deal with difficult situations. as stated by martin, kuiper, olinger, and dance (1993) having a humorous perspective can help people to distance themselves from their problems which could make them appear less threatening and help them to view difficult situations in a more objective way. this style of humor was again found to be positively related to variables such as self-esteem and well-being and negatively related to anxiety and depression (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2006; kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). moreover, in terms of social relationships, users of self-enhancing humor may appear confident and self-assured which could ultimately increase others’ positive opinions of them (klein & kuiper, 2006). as found by kuiper and leite (2010), self-enhancing humor was associated with higher ratings for socially desirable personality attributes compared to the maladaptive humor styles. self-defeating humor involves an individual’s attempts to use humor at their own expense often by putting themselves down or letting themselves be the butt of others’ jokes. as martin et al. (2003) highlighted, self-defeating humor refers to excessive selfdisparagement often to ingratiate oneself or to gain acceptance from others. whilst this type of humor may appear amusing, it can reflect an inner neediness or lack of self-confidence. for example, in children it may be used by class clowns, victims of bullying and those of low social status (fabrizi & pollio, 1987; klein & kuiper, 2006). as found by kuiper and leite (2010), self-defeating humor can have serious detrimental effects on the impressions formed by others. it often involves both belittlement of the self and also the repression of an individual’s emotional needs, and so self-defeating humor may be particularly damaging (martin et al., 2003). hence, this style of humor has been found to be negatively related to well-being and self-esteem and positively related to anxiety and depression (chen & martin, 2007; kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003; saroglou & scariot, 2002). as discussed by fox, dean, & lyford (2013) self-defeating humor may reinforce negative self-beliefs which could perpetuate these symptoms further. a number of studies have highlighted relationships between children’s humor and their psychosocial adjustment. for example, sherman (1988) found that children rated by their peers as humorous were also rated as less socially distant; whilst masten (1986) found that better humor production and comprehension were associated with better social competence. similarly, freiheit, overholser, and lehnert (1998) found a negative relationship between humor and depression in adolescents. klein and kuiper (2006) stated however, that although these findings are encouraging, they are based on the assumption that humor is predominantly positive. they argued that martin et al.’s (2003) humor styles model should be extended to consider the positive and negative aspects of humor during childhood and particularly the impact on children’s social relationships. in response to this, fox et al. (2013) successfully adapted the humor styles questionnaire for children, finding a number of associations between humor and psychosocial adjustment. for example, self-defeating humor was found to be negatively related to social competence and self-worth and positively related to anxiety and depression. whilst the measure was found to be suitable for secondary age children above the age of eleven, it was not found to be suitable for children below the age of eleven. fox et al. (2013) therefore suggested that attempts to measure humor in younger children should initially include just affiliative and aggressive humor. they argued that due to their reliance on cognitive processes, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 421 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-enhancing and self-defeating humor may develop at a later point. moreover, younger children may not be fully aware of their own use of humor. it is suggested however, that children’s potential to use all four types of humor should not be ignored, particularly as evidence of coping humor has been found in younger children (dowling, 2014; führ, 2001). furthermore, it has long been proposed that children use humor for emotional mastery and to deal with many of the challenges of socialisation (mcghee, 1979). similarly, altshuler and ruble (1989) showed age related increases in children’s ability to manage emotions using more cognitive strategies. they argued that younger children can recognise that thoughts can be manipulated and that with age, children learn how to use strategies to effectively manage their emotions. additionally, in terms of self-defeating humor, children have also been found to display selfderogatory attributions which have been linked with depressive symptoms (nolen-hoeksema, girgus, & seligman, 1991). when children begin to externalise these thoughts to make others laugh however is a question which remains unanswered. dowling (2014) used focus groups with children aged seven to twelve years to investigate understanding of humor. she found that children used humor to deal with a range of stressors associated with personal relationships, school and home life and were able to give examples to support the benefits of using humor. dowling (2014) also argued that researchers make assumptions about children’s experiences of humor and that understanding humor from a child’s point of view is necessary to offer insight into its use as a coping strategy. führ (2001) conducted interviews with children aged six to twelve years to investigate humor as a coping tool. it was found that whilst children indicated that humor is a useful coping strategy for dealing with problems or events, it is not helpful when dealing with serious issues or deep-felt emotions. the current work therefore adopted a qualitative approach as used by führ (2001) and dowling (2014), to explore the potential use of self-enhancing and self-defeating humor in primary aged children and also children’s understanding of these humor styles. whilst previous attempts to investigate children’s humor have included the use of interviews and focus groups, paired interviews have not been extensively utilised. as discussed by highet (2003) paired interviewing is a fairly novel approach to interviewing young people. this approach, however, is thought to have a number of benefits including obtaining a better balance between the interviewer and participants, building trust and rapport, and creating a comfortable, supportive setting (highet, 2003; mauthner, 1997; mayall, 2000). moreover, interaction between participants may also be valuable (arksey & knight, 1999). if the interviews suggest that children are able to both use and understand self-focused humor styles, it should be concluded that all four humor styles should be examined in children between the ages of eight and eleven. method participants ten children who were members of the school council at a uk primary school were recruited. the participants were aged 8-11 years and in school years 4, 5 and 6 with a mean age of 9.60 years (sd = 1.08) consisting of seven girls and three boys. parental consent was gained using the opt-in method, whereby a letter detailing the research was sent to parents and guardians a week prior to the interviews. they were then required to return an attached consent form to give permission for their child to participate. the process and nature of the research europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 children and self-focused humor 422 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was explained to the children and they were asked if they would like to take part. they were assured that participation was not compulsory. the interviewees were as follows: interview a – a male and female, emily and tim, both aged 10. interview b – two females, natalie and bella, both aged 11. interview c – two females, samantha and rachel, aged 9 and 10. interview d – a male and female, catherine and jay, aged 9 and 10. interview e – a male and female, gregory and laura, both aged 9. nb: all names have been changed. materials twelve interview questions suitable for upper primary aged children were developed to investigate self-enhancing and self-defeating humor. to assess the suitability of the questions for this age group, the flesch reading ease score and flesch-kincaid grade level of the interview questions were examined (flesch reading ease score of the questions = 81.1, us grade level = 5.6). this suggested that the questions would be suitable for children in year 6 (aged 10-11). as the questions would be read aloud to the children, they were deemed to also be appropriate for those in years 4 and 5. six questions asked about self-enhancing humor and six asked about self-defeating humor. for example, for self-enhancing humor, the children were asked questions such as ‘when you are feeling sad, do you ever think of something funny to cheer yourself up?’ for self-defeating humor, an example question was, ‘do you think letting others laugh at you is a good way to make friends? the questions were developed based on both the child humor styles questionnaire (fox et al., 2013) and the adult humor styles questionnaire (martin et al., 2003). in the case of a child answering only “yes” to a question, indicating use of self-enhancing or self-defeating humor, to elicit more detail they were then prompted to expand or discuss a time when they used that form of humor. for example, they were asked ‘can you tell me a bit more about a time when you did that?’ or ‘can you tell me a little more about what happened?’ when children responded to a question with “no”, it was indicated that their answer was adequate by moving onto another question. procedure a local primary school head teacher was approached by email and agreement to participate was received. due to the need for interviews to be recorded and to be conducted outside of the classroom a parental opt-in method was used. interviews were conducted after school during school council sessions to avoid interrupting lessons. to allow the children to talk freely, participants met with the researcher in the school meeting room. prior to the paired interviews, a standardised preamble was used to ensure that information was delivered to children consistently. it was stressed to the children that participation was their choice and that it was acceptable for them to withdraw at any point. to encourage the children to talk honestly, the recording device was pointed out and it was emphasised that the recordings would not be heard by anyone else. the children were however made aware that a teacher might be informed in the case of them mentioning something that raised concerns regarding safety. taking into account the presence of two children, it was also suggested that children should not discuss the interviews with other children to ensure confidentiality. following the end of the interview, the children were fully debriefed. data analysis procedure after the recordings had been transcribed verbatim, the transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis using the process outlined by braun and clarke (2006). firstly, they were read through a number of times and brief notes were made surrounding the parts that initially seemed of particular interest to the topic. following on from europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 423 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this, particular relevant words and phrases were highlighted, drawn out and treated as initial codes. these initial codes were then interpreted further with similar phrases collated together to aid the search for reoccurring themes. after themes had been identified they were reviewed. this process involved considering whether themes needed to be broken down into subthemes and checking that all themes were supported by enough data. subsequently, suitable names for the themes were decided upon. as described by shenton (2004), a number of provisions were made to address guba’s (1981) criteria for trustworthiness in qualitative research. in terms of data analysis, this was carried out with the assistance of a colleague with previous experience of qualitative methods. to reduce bias, based on the researcher’s previous knowledge of the four humour styles, the colleague had no prior knowledge. during the analysis process it was ensured that the final themes represented the majority of the data, a previously identified theme relating to using humor to disguise feelings was abandoned due to having less data to support it. results through the completion of thematic analysis, three main themes were identified, ‘humor for the benefit of the self’, ‘laughing alone’, and ‘humor at the expense of the self’. the themes are explored in the order in which they became apparent from the transcripts. humor for the benefit of the self on a number of occasions throughout the interviews, several participants referred to humor being able to change their feelings for the better. this often occurred when children were asked if being a funny person stopped them from being sad, “i don’t want to be a sad person, if you think on the bright side and think of something funny it usually cheers you up. you want to be cheered up you don’t want to be dull and sad” (interview d, jay). it seems here that jay believes that thinking of something funny is an important part of being cheered up and part of the process of being able to “think on the bright side”. use of the word “usually” also suggests it is something he does regularly that often works. this was again demonstrated by another child when the same question was asked, “because it could easily change your emotions. instead of being sad you’ll also feel like you’re lonely and desperate but when like you’re a funny person, you can always think of something that’s funny” (interview a, tim). here, the ease with which thinking of something funny can change the way you feel is emphasised. however, it may be that the child is drawing some kind of distinction by referring specifically to “a funny person” perhaps implying that this is a strategy that is not used by everybody. when some children were asked if humor helps them to cope with situations that are hard or difficult, they were able to refer to particular circumstances where humor could be used. for example, one child mentions having to say goodbye to someone, “probably when you have to say goodbye to somebody, so you try to think of the good things and funny things for when you’re next going to see them and the good times and the funny times you’ll have” (interview c, samantha). not only is the child here acknowledging that humor could be used in a difficult situation like having to say goodbye to someone, but they also seem to know how humor could alleviate particular feelings. it seems they are able to envisage how humor could change their experience of the situation, specifically by thinking back to funny times and imagining those they will have in the future. other children also referred to specific situations in which humor would, or has, been used as a sort of coping strategy, “yeah, i think of like if everyone’s gone against me like catherine said, i would think of the times when it was funny. like the time in the hall with that yogurt, it went a bit wrong” (interview d, jay). here, as the child refers to others going against him, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 children and self-focused humor 424 http://www.psychopen.eu/ he seems to be referring to conflict with his peers. it may be that humor helps him to feel better about the situation, but humor in this instance may also help the child to deal with or confront the situation perhaps by appearing to others as if he is coping. as well as using humor to deal with emotions, a child also referred to an incident in which thinking of something funny helped to alleviate physical pain. “erm, we were playing and someone tugged me and it really hurt, so i just thought of something funny and it didn’t hurt anymore.” (interview c, samantha). the specific manner in which humor functions as a coping tool needs to be considered. for example, it may be suggested that humorous thoughts can mask negative ones or allow them to be thought about in a more positive way. however, in the case of dealing with physical pain it would seem its role may be different. for instance, perhaps humor here is purely acting as a distraction to the pain that is being felt. whilst many of the children agreed that humor can help, some children did disagree. this seems to indicate the presence of individual differences. for example, this was evident for one child when asked if thinking of something funny can help when they are feeling worried. “most of the time if it’s really serious probably not because that might get you thinking, oh this is funny so that you don’t need to think this is too important” (interview e, laura). here laura indicates that she believes humor might have a negative role, perhaps in preventing a situation from being approached as it should be. this could indicate that potentially, she does not understand that using humor may be beneficial in facing problems. however, in referring specifically to serious problems, it is not clear what her thoughts may be for less serious problems. perhaps by thinking about situations where humor may or may not be an effective strategy, laura is showing a good understanding of this style of humor. similarly, another child also revealed that she doesn’t believe that thinking of funny things would help to cheer her up: “i can’t really make myself happy, i just usually think of sad things and then i get even more sadder” (interview d, katherine). this may again represent individual differences and also that the child doesn’t really understand or know how humor can be used to improve her mood. she may therefore be lacking in the necessary skills to use humor in this way, skills which if acquired could prove valuable. laughing alone at many points throughout the interviews, it became clear that children believe that humor is something that can still be used or experienced when they are alone, “we had a test today and i finished and everyone else was like checking their work and i’d already done that so i just thought of funny things” (interview c, samantha). it seems that humor in this case is something that has been created in the mind probably as an entertaining way to fill the time. most notably, children don’t just see humor as something that occurs in a social context with the need for others to be involved. it also seems that thinking back to occasions where something humorous has occurred is something children do when alone, “when i’m alone in my bedroom i normally, if i get bored and i’m doing homework i normally think back to the work we did in the classroom and then if something funny went on i’ll laugh about that” (interview a, emily). again, humor is occurring when the child is alone, but involves a process of reflecting back, something which could also be used as a coping method. another instance where a child refers to thinking back involves him talking about his mum, “i would think back to my mum and think that she always says something funny to me so i would think of mum and she would say something funny and i’ll laugh” (interview a, tim). thinking about a specific europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 425 http://www.psychopen.eu/ person who makes them laugh and about what they would say doesn’t involve the need for others. it can also be argued that for tim spending time with his mum, who seems to use humor frequently, may have helped him to adopt positive uses of humor. for instance, tim may also have learnt to try and use it regularly even when others are not present. finally, when asked if they still find things to laugh at when they are on their own, one child suggests that the things they laugh at when alone are different than when they are with other people, “i do something funny that i wouldn’t do if other people were watching if it’s a bit weird or embarrassing” (interview e, laura). this suggests that careful thought may go into the humor that children use when in the company of others. this may be positive in that children take fewer risks regarding what is appropriate and are aware that boundaries of what is acceptable exist. on the other hand, being over conscious could be restrictive. in general laughing when alone seems to offer children the chance to enjoy their own humor without the concerns of being judged by others, and perhaps also further develop their humor skills. humor at the expense of the self when children were asked if they let people laugh at them more than they should, it seemed they were recalling specific incidents in their minds when they had done this. for example, one child referred to others making fun of her appearance, “like people laugh at me for being so tall and it really bugs me sometimes” (interview b, bella). it is proposed that although the topic being discussed was ‘letting others laugh’ it could be very difficult for the child to confront the laughing children and explain her feelings regarding being the butt of their jokes. this seems like a key example of a child experiencing being on the receiving end of aggressive humor and the negative impact it can have. it is not however clear whether the child may have used her height previously with the intention of making others laugh. neither can it be known whether it is something she might consider in the future. it does seem apparent in some cases, that children may let others laugh at them intentionally; for example, as shown when asked if they ever talk about things they are not very good at in a funny way, “yes because they might think that you trust them to keep it, like because it might be a bit personal. so you could feel like you could trust that person and they might feel that too” (interview a, emily). although the child agrees with the question, they believe this may actually help to build their relationship through demonstrating trust. whilst the child seems to believe this is a useful strategy, it can be argued that negative consequences are possible. in this case, the child may become more focused on the things they are not very good at, which in turn may have a negative effect on their self-esteem. similarly, in response to the same question, another child also talks about letting others laugh about something she is not very good at, “i agree but sometimes it’s nice like i don’t really like gymnastics and i’m not good at it so we always sometimes have a little joke about that” (interview c, samantha). while it may be the case that it is healthy and constructive for her to joke with her friends about gymnastics, there may be the potential for detrimental consequences in similar situations, particularly if the joking were to become excessive. for instance, other children may not understand or respond the same way and feel they need to discourage them. the child seems to be unaware of these potential responses. in addition, it is perhaps debatable whether young children actually possess the skills to successfully make jokes at their own expense. it is also possible that others may in the future use the things they have laughed about to make jokes or tease, perhaps in front of others. this may be particularly worrying as the outcome of regular teasing may in some cases be similar to those of bullying. when asked if making fun of yourself makes others laugh, one child suggests that it doesn’t. however, when referring to the reactions of others, one child suggests that making others laugh by making fun of herself is something europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 children and self-focused humor 426 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that she has done, “no, because they always say ‘oh that’s not true’” (interview a, emily). gaining this sort of reaction from people may have resulted in the child refraining from making fun of themself in front of others and some awareness of the negative consequences may have been acquired. this can be regarded positively in that a humor style considered to be maladaptive might no longer be being used. nevertheless, in using this form of humor, the child may have inadvertently portrayed an inner neediness or caused others to tire of reassuring them, possibly putting strain on their relationships. in not gaining the desired response of others laughing, this may also have deterred the child from attempting to use humor in a more positive way in the future. in addition, it seems important to consider whether the other children genuinely don’t find the self-defeating humor funny, or whether they just feel it is their role to build their friend’s confidence. as demonstrated above, during the interviews some children did agree that they use or have used humor at the expense of themselves. comments were also made however which suggest that some children don’t use this form of humor, and are perhaps confused as to why it would be used, “well i think you really shouldn’t do that because that’s not really true friendship and it’s nice to have a laugh but you shouldn’t have to laugh at yourself” (interview c, rachel). this implies that the child believes that making fun of yourself is wrong which seems positive in indicating avoidance of negative humor styles. it could also represent that some children may not fully understand the concept of self-defeating humor or why anyone would purposely make fun of themself. this may also be indicated by a further comment, “no because they’re laughing at you. it’s fine to laugh with people but laughing at yourself is really not nice at all” (interview c, rachel). it seems that some children are able to draw a distinction between being laughed at and laughing with others. they put particular emphasis on the unpleasantness of being laughed at which again could point towards confusion as to why this style of humor would ever be adopted. additionally, some children seemed to consider the humor they use when meeting or making friends with new children, “if a kid comes in the class you don’t want to embarrass yourself because then they’d think of you as the class clown maybe and might like you even less” (interview d, jay). in this case, jay seemed to reveal that they think letting others laugh at you can be bad for your reputation or the impression you make on others. whilst this may be a well-adjusted child, cautious of the humor they use, it could also indicate a lack of awareness for the form of humor. the child did, however, go on to reveal when asked if making fun of themself makes people laugh, that they are aware that other people do purposely make fun of themselves to create humor, “[because] lots of people, they become comedians by doing that” (interview d, jay). a number of things can be noted about the statement. firstly, the child refers to this type of humor being used in terms of comedians, a group of people known specifically for the humor they use and who are also adults. children may therefore associate this type of humor with adults and not necessarily with children. in addition, using this type of humor as a performance or to entertain may be considered very differently to using this type of humor in a typical personal or social situation. discussion to our knowledge, this is first study to adopt a qualitative approach to explore children’s use of the humor styles proposed by martin et al. (2003). although work has been carried out to investigate the links between children’s humor styles and adjustment, less is known about the way children actually use and understand different styles europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 427 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of humor. moreover, whilst children’s use of aggressive and affiliative humor may be highly visible, their use of the self-focused humor styles may be harder to detect. in summary, the majority of children seemed to have an understanding of the concept of self-enhancing humor, as well as indicating that it is a form of humor that they use, predominantly to make themselves feel better. a small number of children did however seem to show less understanding of this humor style as well as indicating that they probably would not use it. this seems to highlight the existence of individual differences in using humor to cope. conversely, children unanimously agreed that they can still laugh about things when alone as opposed to with others, representing their belief that humor is not just something that can be used socially. individual differences were more notable for self-defeating humor. some children indicated that they have used this form of humor, but seemed unaware of the negative consequences its use may result in. others implied that they wouldn’t use it at all and seemed to show confusion towards why humor would be used in this way. asking children more specifically about the potential consequences of using different styles of humor may therefore be beneficial in future research. using a qualitative approach offered important insight into the ways that different humor styles are understood and used. considering self-enhancing humor, as found by führ (2002), it seemed evident that some children firmly believed that humor can change emotions and that it can be particularly useful in preventing or alleviating negative emotions. this also supports previous research that implies that children are aware that thoughts can be manipulated (altshuler & ruble, 1989). this seems to be strong evidence to back up the notion that humor can act as an important coping tool even in children younger than eleven years. it could also be used to challenge the views of those such as høffing (1916) who believed that children are not yet mature enough to use humor as an attitude towards life. children also referred throughout to incidences in which they used humor when alone without the presence of others, often through reflecting back. this non-social use of humor again seems to be a probable indication that for younger children, as well as older, humor can be used for the benefit of the self. being able to use humor when alone, it seems, may provide children with an enjoyable opportunity to use humor which theymay feel uncomfortable sharing with others. it may also be a way for children to develop their humor skills for example, by encouraging them to consider what is appropriate, especially when meeting new people. creating the wrong impression through using too much or the wrong kinds of humor early on seemed concerning to the children. furthermore, it appears possible that by being raised or surrounded by others, perhaps parents, who regularly use or introduce humor at times of upset, may lead to children acquiring these strategies for themselves. dowling (2014) also suggested that family may influence children’s humor skills. thus, creating awareness of the different forms of humor in caregivers may be worthwhile in the future. it is acknowledged that children could have agreed with the interview questions to please or because they felt uncomfortable disagreeing, particularly if the other child had answered differently. however, it was apparent that children could refer to specific situations in which they might be able to use humor to make themselves feel better. as dowling (2014) stated, research was needed to investigate under what circumstances children might use humor to cope. this insight could be particularly useful when contemplating how to approach raising awareness of the benefits of adaptive humor styles with young children. also, children seemed aware of the way in which humor could help, for example, being able to look at a situation, such as saying goodbye to someone, in a more positive light, can help individuals to approach events differently (martin, kuiper, olinger, & dance, 1993). evidence of humor masking negative feelings seemed to be noticeable although it could also be that humor has the potential europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 children and self-focused humor 428 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to function as an effective distraction technique. this became apparent when humor was discussed in relation to its role in reducing physical pain. this evidence seems supportive of claims made by goodenough and ford (2005) who suggested that for hospitalised children employing distraction strategies; humor could be used as an effective way of dealing with pain related distress. it also seems relevant to question whether children specifically decide to think of funny things. whilst use of humor as a coping mechanism could be an automatic reaction or trait, it could also be a deliberate strategy or a skill which has been learnt (martin, 1998). as stated by dowling (2014), work is still needed to investigate the deliberate choice of humor as a coping technique. for children who didn’t agree that humor can be used as a coping tool, they may not have acquired this skill or strategy. for example, one child said that they can’t use humor to make themselves happy. whilst this lack of ability to use humor could be a reflection of the child’s mood, it could also represent a lack of awareness of the potential positive outcomes of humor. another child however suggested that humor should not be used when problems are serious. this supports the findings of führ (2001) who found that children believed that humor could be useful only when dealing with less serious issues. in relation to this, lefcourt, davidson, prkachin, and mills (1997) proposed two forms of coping strategies that may be related to humor. firstly, emotion focussed coping – finding humor in a difficult situation to reduce negative reactions and secondly problem-focussed coping – using humor to alter a stressful situation (abel, 2002). for some situations, whilst taking a problem-focussed approach to using humor may be useful, for other issues, where the situation cannot be changed, it may be less appropriate. using emotion-focussed humor coping, for example using humor as a distraction mechanism may still be beneficial however. in the same way, for situations that need to be addressed, emotion-focused humor coping might not be appropriate. turning to self-defeating humor, individual differences in both use and understanding were more pronounced. some children indicated that they would be unlikely to use self-defeating forms of humor and appeared to show confusion as to why it would be used. for example, they referred to the difference between being laughed at and laughing with others. in terms of understanding however, they were able to refer to its use by comedians, showing an awareness of its existence. as discussed, this may suggest it is a style of humor they may associate more with adults, and with those for which creating humor is a profession. children may therefore see this as more acceptable compared to its use by peers. for example, klein and kuiper (2006) suggested that self-defeating humor is used by class clowns. whilst these children may appear amusing, their use of humor often reflects an inner neediness which may be seen as less acceptable. whilst it was assumed by some children that no harm would come from making jokes at their own expense, it is suggested that frequent use of these sorts of jokes, may have potentially harmful consequences that children may be unaware of. for example, as fox et al. (2013) discussed, through regularly referring to their shortcomings, these beliefs could be reinforced which may in turn have a negative impact on their self-esteem. as martin et al. (2003) pointed out, self-defeating humor refers to excessive self-disparaging humor with a key element being belittlement of the self. one response from a child alluded to reactions from peers who dismissed the self-defeating comments, possibly to provide reassurance. this kind of reaction however, could also hint that children may be put off by the lack of confidence or neediness that is portrayed, which could in turn lead to rejection or weak relationships. the interviews indicated however, that some children may believe that sharing this sort of humor with others is an effective way to build close relationships. as previously mentioned, children may not possess the skills to use humor at their europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 429 http://www.psychopen.eu/ own expense. they may also be unaware of the point at which self-depreciating humor becomes excessive, for example when laughing with others about things they are not good at. through not receiving the desired reaction from peers in response to use of humor at their own expense, the risk is that these children may be discouraged from attempting to use other, more positive forms of humor in the presence of others. ultimately, if children lack understanding and are unaware of the potentially negative consequences of self-defeating humor, it seems important to find ways to raise their awareness. it also seems apparent that in some cases children let others laugh at them, not through choice but because they do not know how to make it stop, highlighting the unpleasantness of being on the receiving end of aggressive humor, as discussed by shapiro, baumeister, and kessler (1991). this could perhaps have been delved into further; however, using paired interviews may have made it more difficult for some children to expand due to the presence of another child. interviewing children in pairs did however have a number of benefits. for example, the children appeared relaxed and were able to interact freely and bounce ideas off each other (arksey & knight, 1999). there are a number of limitations to the current research which should be acknowledged. firstly, the small sample size which consisted of only school council members. it is possible that these children may be well adjusted and therefore more likely to use self-enhancing as opposed to self-defeating humor. more evidence of self-defeating humor might have been apparent if the sample was more diverse, whilst self-enhancing humor may have been less evident. moreover, the study took place in only one school and therefore one location, meaning it would be premature to conclude that the findings can be generalised. however, it must be acknowledged that this should never be a goal of qualitative research. lastly, the study aimed to explore both children’s use and understanding of the self-focused humor styles. the interview questions however only directly asked participants about their use of humor. asking more specifically about the consequences of humor may allow for a greater level of understanding. overall the current study provided understanding and seemed to indicate use of both self-enhancing and selfdefeating humor in some children, but not all. this highlights the need to raise children’s awareness of the existence of adaptive and maladaptive styles of humor. in addition to this, the questions used during the interviews appeared to be well understood by the children. this being the case, it was concluded that the same questions should be adapted in questionnaire based research to be carried out with larger and more diverse samples. this would then allow for the examination of differences based on gender, age and culture to also be explored. ultimately, further research examining children’s humor styles should aim to utilise qualitative methods alongside the more traditional quantitative approaches that are typically used in this field. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are extremely grateful to the children who took part in this research and to the schools, teachers, and parents who allowed them to do so. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 children and self-focused humor 430 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references abel, m. h. 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(1988). humor and social distance in elementary school children. humor: international journal of humor research, 1, 389-404. doi:10.1515/humr.1988.1.4.389 about the authors lucy james is a final year phd student in psychology at keele university. during her undergraduate degree, supported by an award from the british psychological society, lucy worked with dr fox on a project investigating the links between children’s humor styles and peer victimization. since then she has been working to develop a measure of humor styles suitable for primary aged children. claire l. fox is a senior lecturer in psychology at keele university, uk. claire is interested in researching vulnerable groups of children and young people, including those affected by bullying and domestic abuse, with a view to informing interventions in schools. she was the principal investigator on the esrc-funded project, ‘humour and bullying in schools’. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 420–433 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1067 james & fox 433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fhumr.1988.1.4.389 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en children and self-focused humor introduction method participants materials procedure results humor for the benefit of the self laughing alone humor at the expense of the self discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a window into the bright side of psychology: interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi interview a window into the bright side of psychology: interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi mihaly csikszentmihalyi a, izabela lebuda* b [a] claremont graduate university, claremont, ca, usa. [b] the university of wroclaw, wrocław, poland. abstract mihaly csikszentmihalyi is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era. his ideas, such as flow, or the systems model of creativity, have inspired numerous studies, theoretical analyses as well as pedagogic and psychological interventions. alongside martin seligman, he founded positive psychology and continues to work to promote it. in this interview, he shares the stories behind his scientific interests, sources of scientific ideas and the process of promoting the concepts he had written about. he also shares his thoughts about academic work performance. keywords: mihaly csikszentmihalyi, positive psychology, interview europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 published (vor): 2017-11-30. *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, the university of wroclaw, j. wl. dawida street, 1, 50-527 wroclaw, poland. e-mail: izalebuda@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. mihaly csikszentmihalyi is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era (diener, oishi, & park, 2014). his ideas, such as flow, or the systems model of creativity, have inspired numerous studies, theoretical analyses as well as pedagogic and psychological interventions. alongside martin seligman, he founded positive psychology and continues to work to promote it (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). in this interview, he shares the stories behind his scientific interests, sources of scientific ideas and the process of promoting the concepts he had written about. he also shares his thoughts about academic work performance. izabela lebuda: what is the achievement that you are proudest of? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: it depends on the point of view on my life. as a professional, i am proud of having helped psychology move into the direction of humanistic approach, into positive directions, which have been lost in the past. so that means the work on creativity, the work on flow. when i think about my achievements as a human being, not as a professional, i am the proudest of being able to have a life that i feel good about, with the children and my wife being so important. that is more important than the other kinds of achievements. izabela lebuda: i would like to ask you about your childhood. what kind of child were you? did you like school? what were your interests and what did you like to do? were you a well-behaved kid or rather not? europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ mihaly csikszentmihalyi: well… i don’t know. i remember that what i liked the most was probably lying in bed before i fell asleep or after i woke up in the morning and imagining things, day dreaming about being a warrior in the middle age. i remember that was a way to escape reality because home life wasn’t too good. my father was very busy, my mother, she was a very nice lady, but she didn’t know how to deal with children, so we had usually a german nanny. if the nannies didn’t work out, my parents used to let them go after 6 months, so the new nannies were coming and leaving all the time. i usually had more interaction with those nannies than with my parents. nannies were not very imaginative; they just wanted you to follow the rules. therefore, these stories that i imagined were partly based on my readings. i liked to read, i started when i was 6 years old. it was usually novels that little boys liked, sir walter scott or sienkiewicz, that kind of things. i didn’t go out to play with other children because we lived in an apartment in the middle of the city and there was nowhere to go. occasionally we went back to hungary for holidays. there, my grandparents had a place in the countryside near the mountains and slovakia. that time was different but then i felt… in italy, where we lived, they considered me a hungarian, still a foreigner; they didn’t know how to understand me. in hungary, they thought that i was an italian. when the war came, we didn’t suffer much, because in italy my father had a diplomatic status, which meant that each member of the family had three times as many tickets to buy things while everything was rationed. so we had enough food, we weren’t hungry, but life became even more restricted in a way. i was reading more, in fact my father thought i was reading too much, so he often said ‘no more books, no more books!’. books back then were like television, like video games now. after the war, luckily i joined the boy scouts in italy and that was very liberating. we went hiking, camping, mountain climbing, etc. then i became a squad leader and troop leader so i had to learn how to deal with other people and motivate them to do things. i had to take a responsibility for them. from an educational point of view, that was more important than anything else. by the time i was 14 i left school, i didn’t like school anymore so i started working. i worked as a translator, then in a hotel in milan. for some years i was a correspondent in rome for the french newspaper le monde. i used to send articles and photography to them. so i did a little bit of everything, waiting in the restaurant my father built in rome after he left the embassy. he was an ambassador until 1948 and then, after that, we had no place to go, we couldn’t go back to hungary. in italy there wasn’t much for him to do, he was already in his 50s, so he started a restaurant and i helped him there as a waiter. it became a very fashionable restaurant in rome so we had all the american actors who came to do movies in rome. it was like hollywood, except cheaper, so a lot of american movies, with all the fights of gladiators, were done in rome. i waited a table for humphrey bogart. and also the hungarian football team that came to italy to play was there. the shah of persia with his wife were there too, they were very nice. that was kind of fun and it was more interesting than school, so i left school and i did all those things. mihaly csikszentmihalyi is distinguished professor of psychology and management at claremont graduate university, director, of quality of life research center, both at claremont graduate university. hi is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era (diener, oishi, & park, 2014). his ideas, such as flow, or the systems model of creativity, have inspired numerous studies, theoretical analyses as well as pedagogic and psychological interventions. alongside martin seligman, he founded positive psychology and continues to work to promote it (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). correspondence: division of behavioral and organizational sciences, claremont graduate university, 123 e. 8th st, claremont, ca 91711, usa. email: miska@cgu.edu csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 811 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ izabela lebuda: i’d like to ask you about leaving the school. why didn’t you like it? what was the reason you left school? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: well, you know, i think it was partly because schools were strange. after world war ii, by the age of 10, you started latin and the classes of latin took 2 hours every day, from monday to saturday. then, by the time you were 12 you stared greek, another 2 hours every day. ancient latin, ancient greek. now i like latin, i like to read in latin, but at that time i thought it was a waste of time, it had nothing to do with the world, with what was happening around me. the teachers were very serious about the importance of studying latin and it didn’t matter to me really. i saw during the war that many of my family members, the friends of family, who were well educated, were professors etc., how they were completely disintegrated when they lost their job, their title or money, so i thought: what good does it do to be so well educated and so knowledgeable about abstract things, how is it that when things turn bad you can’t rely on it? and you can’t say ‘ok, i know what to do, doesn’t matter what happens outside, it matters how i experience my life.’ that was a kind of constant realization that made me think that schools were really missing more important things in life, they just got you to remember what happened in the past but didn’t give you the strength and the knowledge to face the future. so i started reading a lot, trying to find out myself what i could find that would be useful: religion, philosophy, literature, and so on. and there were good things in all of those disciplines but, on the other hand, they didn’t have a rigorous way of thinking about the issue, so you never knew if this is really true. some things sounded true and were right, but i also saw the differences. on the one hand, science is building nuclear bombs and airplanes and rockets… and how much you can accomplish by disciplined thinking. i wanted to do something like that and try to understand human behavior so i was looking for something more modern, in a sense of more disciplined, more logical, and that was based on some knowledge of human behavior. then, just by chance, when i was about 15, i saved some money so i was going to go skiing in switzerland. i had enough money to travel there, in zurich i stayed in a youth hostel (very cheap), then i was going to go to the alps but it turned out that, that winter, spring came very early, so the snow was very mushy. it was better if you went up very high, but i didn’t have enough money to cover the expenses to go too far up. i stayed in zurich and i wondered what to do, there were no good movies and i didn’t have money to go to the movies anyway. i saw in a zurich newspaper a small advertisement that there was a free presentation, a talk by some swiss professor on flying saucers. i thought that was ok, it was free, and it sounds like an interesting thing. i went there and the speaker turned out to be very different from what i thought. i thought he would talk about science fiction kinds of things but instead he talked about the need for europe to find something to believe in after all the values had collapsed because of the war and that we have this real need to feel there’s something that makes sense. and we see the flying saucers because it is an archetype for unified knowledge and the values that hindi call ‘the mandala’. this sounded very strange but this professor was so precise and so logical in his exposition that i started buying and reading his books. izabela lebuda: do you remember his name? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: yes, it was carl gustav jung. world famous, a star, student of freud’s. so i started reading jung’s books and they were not exactly what i was looking for but they had some elements of what was lacking in philosophy. namely, observation of human behavior and trying to understand it and understand izabela lebuda is assistant professor at institute of psychology at the university of wroclaw. her main research interests are psychology and pedagogy of creativity. correspondence: institute of psychology, the university of wroclaw, j. wl. dawida street, 1, 50-527 wroclaw, poland. e-mail: izalebuda@gmail.com the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi 812 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ why these things happen, and so forth. after that i decided that maybe i should start studying psychology but, at that time in europe, there was no psychology. you could take a course in psychology if you wanted to be a doctor or a philosopher. so i decided to come here (to usa) to study psychology. it took me about a year to get a visa. finally, i got one and when i arrived in chicago i had only $1.25 with me. there, the catholic relief service found a place for me to stay with an old hungarian lady, who was renting rooms to immigrants from hungary. she gave me credit for first two weeks and i was supposed to find a job in that period and start paying. i found a job which i thought paid really well, but it started from 11pm until 9am. i wanted to go to school too so, finally, after 6 months i took the exams that gave me the chance to go to college. i hadn’t been in school for about 8 years but i passed because i had been reading so much. so i started going to school but i also worked from 11pm to 9am, so i would sleep only few hours and then go to school. that went on for 4-5 years, i had no life except work, sleep and school. i did my homework and the reading on weekends. it was interesting, challenging, although that was a bad time, i was very disappointed with psychology, because here, psychology was essentially about rats, everyone thought that carl jung was crazy. and that was my idea of interesting work, so it took time, many, many years so i could do the psychology that i was hoping to do. now it’s much easier. izabela lebuda: how did it happen that you managed to work in the area of positive psychology? what was the beginning of that? i believe that it was a hard time for positive psychology, nobody had interest in that at the time. mihaly csikszentmihalyi: luckily, i came with that interest, that was my interest before i even knew that there was psychology. i knew that somehow we have to find a better life after the war. i was lucky in the war, i had a really good half-brother who was 10 years older and one who was 20 years older. the one who was 10 years older was killed and we were very close, he was killed during the seizure of budapest. he was an engineering student at the university. they had 1400 engineering students at the university of budapest and, as the russians were coming in, they gave a gun to each of those students and told them ‘now you are to protect this part of the perimeter’. after three weeks of fights there were only three of those students left alive, my brother wasn’t one of them. the oldest brother already had two children but he was captured by the russians and taken to siberia for six years. this just didn’t make sense, i don’t think anyone was happy with this way, with all the killing. people had to start again with nothing. it was such a wasteful and horrible way of living; on the other hand, humans could do all the other wonderful things. so that was the basis for my attitude towards knowledge, towards learning, it was to learn somehow to make life better. psychology was trying to imitate physics and be very objective, but we can’t take humans as molecules and systems. it is a different problem with humans and trying to be abstract and scientific is not appropriate when it comes to understanding them. so i was concerned, all along i wanted to understand, to make a difference. luckily, i started in a very simple and modest way to talk about play and playfulness, feeling the freedom and enjoyment that comes in ways that we can feel. why can’t we have a life like before? that was the simple question that hasn’t been asked by psychologists. for instance, originally, my first understanding of ‘flow’ came from teaching a class in a college i was teaching at in 1968-69. while teaching a class, i asked my students ‘what should we focus on this term?’ and i gave them several choices, one of which was ‘play’. and they said ok. this was in the spring and the course was to start in september, so between spring and the fall i read everything i could find on play in psychology. it was strange because all the great psychologists like erikson, piaget and so forth, they wrote about play, but they wrote form a very strange perspective. for me it was strange, because they always looked csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 813 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ at play as a practice for adult life, chess makes you think as an engineer or accountant, basketball makes you healthy and makes you learn group cooperation. you learn social graces by pretending to be a doctor. so it is all utilitarian and it develops competences as an adult. and it didn’t make any sense to me, because i think children play to feel in control, they develop skills, they master something and they feel good about that. it is a different perspective, so we tried to describe it. i asked my students to study some play but with adults, not with children, so they found very strange people who spend time doing very strange things. mainly it was sports, music and things like chess or bridge, poker or something like that. one thing i told them to ask was ‘how does it feel when they are doing it?’. just describe it phenomenologically, how it is experienced as you do this. after three weeks or so, they came back with interviews and we started analyzing the themes from the interviews. it was very strange, as i didn’t expect this, but whether you talk to a hockey player or a musician or chess player, whatever they said they loved to do, they described it in a similar way. they talked about the things like: ‘i like to do this because i am good at it, i meet challenges, i find this thing challenging and i feel good when, through my skill, i am able to maser the challenge. i know clearly what i have to do, i get constantly the feeling of knowing how well i am doing’. then i realized that is it not so much the form of the play that is important, but it is the experience of playfulness that people have when they do it. it took 2-3 years before i gave it the name ‘flow’ because ‘flow’ was very often mentioned by people (‘oh, i am being carried by the river, i don’t have to think, i just do it, spontaneously, automatically’). ‘flow’ was the name that came out, as i say, it was a very simple thing, it was something that i did for a class but it resonated so much with people, after a while. it became something that people talk of as if it was a really important thing, which i think it is, but i am surprised that it came out like that. izabela lebuda: what was your first experience in the scientific arena with this new area of study in psychology? what was the reaction of the other psychologists? how did they react to your area of interest with their “serious” approach to psychology? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: it took probably almost ten years for psychologists to notice it. the first ones to notice it were the anthropologists. a couple of anthropologists who were famous said ‘yes, that is what we noticed when people danced around the fire in primitive societies’. they wrote it down and they started to use this term. then, the second group was sports psychologists, they noticed it in the subjects they studied. these were the first two groups that started writing about flow. and then there was not much interest, a few psychologists would write about it but without too much repercussion in psychology. that was between 1975 and 1990, so for 15 years it wasn’t really accepted or noticed. but then, for some reason, a journalist in new york read some of my work on ‘flow’, which was not read by many people, and he published an article in new york times health section. that was nice, i was very pleased, it was interesting. then i got a letter from a literary agent from new york, who read the article and decided it was a very interesting issue and asked me to write a book about it. i told him i didn’t have enough data for the book. he said he didn’t mean ‘that’ kind of book, he wanted me to write a book for normal people, intelligent people, who even without the data would recognize the idea because of their own experience. at the beginning i didn’t take it seriously but then after a month or so, he sent me a list of all the scientist for whom he was an agent, these included some of the great physicists, biologists, chemists, astronomers, etc. it looked interesting, i thought that maybe i should try it. so, i signed a contract with him and i began to write a book on ‘flow’. as a “standard” writer i felt liberated that i didn’t have to do the micro analytic work that you have to do to publish in journals. it was a great experience, i enjoyed writing but i didn’t think that much would come out of it. before i started writing the book, the agent from new york asked me to send two pages of description of what i would write when i was ready. after a the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi 814 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ period of thinking i wrote it for him. after two weeks, he started auctioning the proposal to publishers. i didn’t think i knew what that meant, but he explained he would take it to ten of publishers in new york and say that they have two weeks to make an offer. if one of them said that he would buy it for $10000 the agent would call up the other publishers up to inform them about the offer so they would come up with a higher one. he started doing that and, in the meantime, with my wife isabella and our two kids i went to europe, visited friends in switzerland and so forth. every afternoon i would go out with a lot of metal coins to put in a public phone. then i would call the agent and ask ‘what is happening?’. and he always replied ‘it is all going well’. about five days later he said that we were ready, harpercollins offered $70000, we couldn’t get more than that. so now i had to write the book. when i started writing it was really fun and i am very glad now that it was published. that agent is a very interesting man actually, john brockman, he publishes many things, collections of authors’ work. every year, in the middle of december, he asks the people whom he represents a question like ‘what are you optimistic about?’. some of these people are well known, jerry diamond, he is a very important writer, stephen pinker, famous psychologist. there are all these various essays, they are all very short, they are supposed to be very short. i have two or three of these books. one is on childhood ‘how did you become a scientist?’ he is interesting in terms of how to spread ideas quickly. he has all these antennas open to the most interesting things in several fields, mostly science. and then he can help transfer those ideas from the domain into the culture. so he is a connector in that way. he is unique, i have to say. izabela lebuda: i would like to ask you about people: who helped you develop your scientific interests, scientific creativity? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: i was lucky that, at the university of chicago, i had a professor who came from poland. he was from a jewish family, his name is jacob w. getzels. he had just published in 1956 a book called ‘creativity and intelligence’. it was the first study that showed that these two things are pretty orthogonal. you can be high on both, or low on one, high on the other, or vice versa. that was a very influential book in education. especially because it showed that children who are high on intelligence but low on creativity are considered to be much better that children who are high on creativity but low on intelligence. when i saw how little there was to do in psychology that was interesting i thought that this area is interesting for me. so we worked together, he was supportive and he was a good example of a real scholar. there’s an english expression ‘a scholar and a gentleman’ and he had those qualities. when he died, about 10 years ago, his wife asked if i could write an obituary for him in the new york times. it was good to be able to do that, he had been a really good mentor. even though the first class i took with him was a class on values, the psychology of value. on the first day, there were maybe 15, 16 students, graduate students, all sitting at the table. he asked each one of them to explain why they took that class, why they signed up for that course. and when he came to me, i said ‘i am not sure if value still matters much or if there is anything interesting about it. but i had had free time in that period and i thought i would take it’. when i said that, he just pointed at the door and told me to leave the room. so, for a while i avoided him. but after a while, he knew that i did some good work in other classes. he was quite brusque too, he would ask me ‘why don’t you come and talk to me?’ once in an elevator i actually told him that i would like to do some work on creativity. i think he didn’t answer then, but two weeks later said something. after that, we really worked well because i respected his integrity, intellectual integrity. i was a fast worker, i could do things very quickly. it is because i worked for a newspaper for so many years. when something happened in rome, i had to write it down and quickly send it to paris. that ability to focus and try to get to the csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 815 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ central issue and work quickly – that is something i learned from journalism. it helped me in graduate school a great deal. so that was our collaboration (with jacob w. getzels): we wrote one book together and many, many articles, about 15 or so. when i left, when i got my phd i got several offers, including from harvard. but harvard had a bad reputation because they hired smart, young people, kept them for 3-4 years, then they let them sign off and get new ones. harvard wasn’t interesting, some of the others weren’t either. but, instead, a friend of mine was teaching in a college in the department of sociology and anthropology, so he asked me to come to see him and talk. so i drove outside chicago, two hours away, not that far but it is in a beautiful place, right by the lake, with beautiful lawns and huge houses. it was a small college (lake forest college) but a very nice one, where the students were doing very interesting things. you know, it was around 1965 when i finished, with all the student movements happening. and there they had the department of sociology and anthropology which was really on the edge of this new, changing spirit of america and europe too at the time. they offered me a job there in sociology and anthropology, a topic i had never studied but i took that job. it was fun because every year i learned more and more about these topics. that was a period of about six years there, it was really good because i was free there, i could do things that were not sociology or even psychology, it was more creativity that i was doing there. that is why, at the beginning, as i said, it was mostly anthropologists who were interested in my idea. i was thinking like a sociologist or anthropologist for a while. my background in journalism was very helpful. then i met some people whom i didn’t know that well but were very helpful, for instance the psychologist donald t. campbell. he was the first psychologist who paid attention to me. donald t. campbell became the president of the american psychological association. he was very wellknown; we became friends, he really helped me by mentioning my work and saying how important it was. he was the first psychologist to do that. izabela lebuda: what did your parents think about your decision of leaving school and going abroad? what was their reaction to your choice of a not very popular type of science at the time? did they have anything against your life choices? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: my parents had been kind of shocked by the war. they had lived a comfortable and good life but after the war they were not sure what was the right thing to do. when i decided to leave school they couldn’t tell me what was better to do. i moved away from the family. one of my jobs when i was just 15 was to work as a translator in one of the institutes of the university of rome. they had a big, beautiful building in a park. because of one of my friends from boys scouts, whose father was a head of this institute, they offered me to stay there for free, i could eat there and sleep there. i was sleeping in a huge bathroom that wasn’t used in one of the corridors of the hospital. they put some wood planks and the mattress on the bathtub and that was my bed. the only problem was that, occasionally, there would be a rat coming out. once i woke up and a rat was biting my nose. they gave me breakfast and lunch. i translated medical stuff for them, i hope nobody got hurt because i didn’t know if i was doing it right. i was trying to improvise a little bit. they didn’t know much english at the time, very few people in italy knew english. i didn’t know much either but i knew german, and i figured that it is similar to english. anyway, that left me free, i did the translations but otherwise i was free, so i could do other jobs, do a lot of reading. i was pretty happy so my parents were ok with that. then, when i left for the us, my parents were glad that i planned to start studying again. but then they moved to belgium. you asked me what did my parents think. well, at the age of 14 i was no longer living with them. my the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi 816 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ parents stayed in a kind of refugee camp, i was there for some time too but then i left to work. they stayed in this camp until they went to belgium. they couldn’t really help me much, so i had to find what i could do, given that there was not much i could do. izabela lebuda: you have mentioned isabella, your wife, and your sons. what do they think of your work? do you work with them? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: yes, occasionally we get invited to speak together. my oldest son, mark, who is chair of the department of far eastern civilizations at berkley, and i had a conversation with all the psychologists at the second world conference on positive psychology about solitude and its consequences in china. i appeared with my youngest son at two or three conferences where he was talking about his robots (he is a professor of robotics at the university of madeira) and i was talking about flow and creativity. they don’t want to do it too often because they don’t want to consider that they are kind of an opening act for my appearance. and they are also a little suspicious of psychology, although both of them are good scientists. so we have quite long arguments about evolution and so on. i respect both of them, they are fantastic, serious, committed, very uninterested in materialistic things, even less than we are. they have their practice, they are not religious or spiritual, and that’s because of their secular humanism. they are interesting people. izabela lebuda: what was the most important thing to teach them while they still were small children? and now what do you want to pass on to your grandchildren? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: i think one of the things is not to be afraid of the world and to do what you think is important. do not let people push you around and make you think differently from what you believe. be independent and yet love other people, i mean, be open to other people. so this kind of balance. in some things it is important to be balanced but in the others you just think on one side, you can’t go back and forth to certain issues. but most of life is not like that, throughout most of your life you have to realize that you don’t know enough, that you are prejudiced, that you have a wrong understanding of things because of your background, ethnic group, whatever. then you should be able to listen and empathize with others. izabela lebuda: as you have mentioned balance, i would like to ask you: how important for you is the balance between your work and your private life? is it important, helpful? or would you rather agree with some of eminent people that you have to make a choice between these two things? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: i try to balance as much as possible. i married isabella in 1961 and i think that for the first 20 years of marriage i had to work very hard outside. she didn’t like chicago once we moved back there. she thought it was dangerous and confusing and cold. then, when we came once here (to california) for a year, she loved it so much, the winter here, that we decided she spent already too much time in chicago so i would move from chicago. i didn’t want to move, it was not a good choice for professional reasons to come here. but i figured she was happy here and i could be happy too. it wasn’t my choice but i was ok. i don’t regret it, i am glad that we moved. it meant a whole different type of work, trying to make this positive psychology work out which is not really my strength. i am not an organizer or a planner. but i think somebody had to do it. now i am still away most of the time but at least isabella is much happier now when i am not here because it is a nicer environment. csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 817 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ izabela lebuda: how does you usual day look like? are your days usually similar, do you have your daily routine? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: of course i try not to have routine days but then i do. somehow each week there are two classes that i teach, they structure the rest of the week because i have to prepare for it two days in advance. after that i have to read the papers that students write. so those are the routine parts. around it varies a lot. one thing about this school here, which is different from chicago, is that there are very strong expectations for students. it’s up to the professor that they make sure they do it. that is so different from chicago, it’s incredible. this is better for people who are not scholars, who are interested in doing things. in chicago they just wanted to stay students, the average time from entering the graduate school and finishing it was 16 years. that is just because students just love to be students. they would go to tibet or south america for a year, come back. they read, they write, they also teach. they are like medieval scholars. it is nice if you can afford it. izabela lebuda: do you like teaching? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: i like to teach students who are really interested, that’s the problem. i started teaching business students, even when i was in chicago they asked me to give some courses. and there the students were mostly older people, who were already working. i would come in, start talking about interesting things conceptually and within 5-10 minutes almost all of them were reading the wall street journal and taking notes from it. i realized that they need something else, they don’t know what to do with what i say. so i tried to change my teaching there and it became more interesting for them. they began to appreciate it and that was good. when i came here (to california) originally i was hired by the drucker school of management, which is all about business and i liked that, i liked their students. i like business people, i like to teach them, but none of them wants to do research so that was not so good for me and i didn’t enjoy that part. i felt like i was just repeating things and stagnating. so, then i decided to offer the psychology department this new positive psychology idea, and they were interested. izabela lebuda: what would you advise young people who want to develop in science? what should they do, how should they plan their career? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: i have a slide (in teaching) with a famous composer of music telling his students: ‘don’t do it for the money, don’t do it to be famous, do it because you love to do it, otherwise is not worth it’. i believe that is 100% true. in music that is the only thing but in science it is not the only thing. you can really make a good career, make money and change things. but still, there are many other things to motivate you, like money and an interesting new job. of course, ethics is important, which you often don’t learn until it’s too late. i am surprised by how many of the scientists, nobel prize winners who i interviewed, had comfortable, satisfying lives. at some point of their career maybe they were very aggressive but basically they just enjoyed understanding how the world works. and trying to add something to the knowledge-base of humanity. but otherwise, they had kind of a bourgeoisie existence. so, it is a good career if you love it, it can’t be better. izabela lebuda: what do you think is crucial in science? intellectual, personal or social skills? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: ideally, they are all important. the social one is important to get ideas from many people, talking to them just informally and getting ideas. also it is important to get other people to listen to you the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi 818 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and your ideas. if you are sociable you can present your ideas in more interesting and convincing ways. as for the personal skills, what you need is curiosity and perseverance. if you don’t have those two traits you are not going to go very far. those things are a little bit conflicting, although not that much. intellectual skills are less important than you would expect but still quite vital. i think that personality and social skills are almost as important. izabela lebuda: i would like to ask you a question that is very interesting for me. how do you manage to write so many publications? there’s so many of them and each of them is highly fascinating and helps me discover something completely new. mihaly csikszentmihalyi: well, i think partly this was also the heritage of journalism. i always liked to write, i liked to write even at school when we had essays to write. and those were things that my teachers liked best when i was doing it. i think that nobody in my family… my mother wrote, she wrote a history of the world from a religious point of view, the evolution of religion and so on. however, she wasn’t educated, i mean she graduated from high school but never went to college. she read a lot, and wrote a lot, i believe i must have inherited some of that because i like to write. there are many people who wrote more than me, in psychology for instance sternberg or simonton. but they are much more specialized, i mean they only write on the same topic. what i like about the books and the articles i write is that each of them is about something different, that is very enjoyable. i don’t get bored, it is a challenge for me. izabela lebuda: and do you think that scientists should have very broad interests or rather very focused, specialized ones? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: the advice that people usually get when they go to graduate school is that you should write a lot about small things. you have to become known for being the best at a particular topic. and then, after probably 10 years you can write about anything you want. however, i started to write about the things i wanted to write about from the beginning. my first publication is about how in different cultures you have different ways of drinking. it was called ‘socio-cultural differences in group drinking’. it was interesting, because you can find so many different stories. when hitler started building the national-socialist party, he started in some wine shops around munich, where the people used to go, in the open air with grapes and stuff. there were all these little tables and families sat around them, ate and drunk. he would stand there somewhere on a podium and try to talk to them. he found out that it didn’t work, people listened but didn’t really pay attention. so after a couple of years he started to hold his meetings in the beerhouse, which were kind of underground, low ceilings, long tables and people sat at these tables. they were too far from each other to talk and he was at the podium at the end, when he started talking, people turned and they had nothing else to do but listen to him. that change the whole chemistry, the dynamics of the presentation, and that was interesting. then you look like at france the impressionist painters in france who used to meet at little coffee tables and talk to each other all the time. the interesting thing was also how important it is in history, not just in the west, when people eat a lot and drink a lot. there were times when the social structure was about to change, for example when a new archbishop in england was appointed, he invited everybody and they would eat and drink all week. the same thing was when a king married a queen from another country, where there was not much trust between people, they had a big party and everybody was happy afterwards. for instance, when the dutch csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 819 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ became very important and rich traders, in the 1600-1700, they found that doing much of the business with other merchants at tables when they ate and drunk, that smoothed things out. it was so successful that the mayor of amsterdam had to put a new law that in effect you couldn’t hold a lunch for that lasted more than four days, or a dinner more than seven days. because the people just slept under the table. but the church got really upset that people were just drinking and eating all the time so they put pressure on the mayor to change the law. then, for instance, how the bars, the american bar came up. they began to appear in england and then in america during the industrial revolution, when suddenly all the people came before the opening of the factory and then left together after closing, and they had to serve hundreds of people and take it to the tables. so, instead of tables, the bar became an assembly line for drinking. izabela lebuda: i believe that this interest motivates you to work, but maybe there is something else that also stimulates you to work? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: it is a good life but it is very hard actually. it is something that you can continue doing after you are very tired, you don’t have to stop thinking, you can still write. that gives you the skills to do things that are important. i worked so much before, when i went back to school. i worked for many years, so i knew what work was like from the inside. i knew that the kind of work that i could do was teaching and doing research at university. it was better than anything else i could think of. well, actually i had a question just before finishing by phd, before i passed my final exams. at that point i felt that it was too much, too much hassle, too much pressure. i was thinking that maybe i should have chosen some regular job. because i published two stories in the new yorker, which is considered to be the best magazine in usa. i wrote to them asking whether they had some job as editor because i would like to do it. i like to write, i like to think of how to improve the writing of others and so forth. luckily, the new yorker wasn’t looking for anyone at that time. izabela lebuda: do you feel that you influence other people’s work? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: yes, it is a nice feeling. last week there was an article in the new york times that i am getting so many emails about. it is an article by a composer who describes how ‘flow’ helped him to become a composer. izabela lebuda: do you feel successful? mihaly csikszentmihalyi: frankly, i don’t think much about that. it was much easier to think about ‘flow’ before i wrote the book, the most popular of my books. now, to get any kind of free time is really hard. before i could do whatever i wanted to do, now i have too many things to do. but on the other hand, i figure that, hopefully, some of it will be of use to others, that i will have time to travel with isabella for a year before it is too late. we have been traveling a lot, still, for instance recently we spent five weeks in northern italy, just the two of us, and our kids came as well as several grandchildren. i had my computer with me but i didn’t really use it. otherwise, it was all free time. the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi 820 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding izabela lebuda was supported by a grant from the polish ministry of science and higher education (iuventus plus program, 0252/ip3/2015/73). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references diener, e., oishi, s., & park, j. y. (2014). an incomplete list of eminent psychologists of the modern era. archives of scientific psychology, 2, 20-32. doi:10.1037/arc0000006 seligman, m. e. p., & csikszentmihalyi, m. (2000). positive psychology: an introduction. the american psychologist, 55(1), 5-14. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 csikszentmihalyi & lebuda 821 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 810–821 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1482 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/arc0000006 http://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.5 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the interview with mihaly csikszentmihalyi (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references on the very-long-term effect of managing one’s own memory: the intention to forget improves recognition after a year’s delay research reports on the very-long-term effect of managing one’s own memory: the intention to forget improves recognition after a year’s delay veronika v. nourkova* a, alena a. gofman a, mikhail d. kozlov b [a] department of general psychology, lomonosov moscow state university, moscow, russia. [b] luisenklinik, department of psychology, bad duerrheim, germany. abstract while such factors as demand characteristics, encoding, and retrieval inhibition were shown to be significant in producing the directed forgetting effect, no attention was paid to whether the intention to manage one’s own memory, per se, matters. in the present article, we addressed this important gap in the literature. to control the quality of encoding we ensured that both the to-be-remembered (tbr) and tobe-forgotten (tbf) items were genuinely learned before the manipulation. we used extremely long delays between the memory instructions and testing to release inhibition associated with the content of instructions. 98 participants demonstrated flawless recall of 12 russian made up language word pairs. they then viewed each russian word from a pair once, with randomized instructions “forget”, “remember”, “repeat”, or a short cognitive task. self-reports on the mnemonic strategies were collected. free recall and recognition tests were administered three times 45 minutes, a month and a year (n = 58) later. despite a strong incentive to recall all word pairs, fewer tbf pairs were recalled in comparison with tbr pairs, both after 45 minutes and after one month’s delay. recognition among all conditions was equally high. a year later free recall was close to zero. in contrast, the tbr and tbf pairs were recognized equally better than pairs presented in “repeat” and “task” conditions. thus, our results show that the intention to manage one’s own memory enhances the accessibility of memories at a very long time delay, no matter what type of instruction is issued. keywords: intentionality, intentional forgetting, mnemonic goal, mnemonic strategies, free recall, recognition europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 received: 2018-02-20. accepted: 2018-05-10. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; tiziana lanciano, university of bari "a. moro", bari, italy *corresponding author at: lomonosov moscow state university, mokhovaya str, 11-9, room 213, 125009 moscow, russia. phone: +7 495 6293723, fax: +7 495 6295828. e-mail: nourkova@mail.ru this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. people often make efforts to forget incorrect information. are they really able to succeed in doing so? does the intention to forget decrease the probability to retrieve the wrong information later on, or is it that the harder one tries to forget something the easier it pops into mind (see wenzlaff & wegner, 2000, for review)? is it possible that the very intention to manage one’s own memory stands behind the striking inability to ban the unwanted memories? to address these questions, we first survey the main findings relevant to the problem of voluntary forgetting and then report our empirical study, devised to shed light on the role of mnemonic goals in memory accessibility. the fact that participants show poor memory performance when instructed to forget in a lab setting is known as directed forgetting (basden, basden, & gargano, 1993; bjork, laberge, & legrand, 1968; macleod, 1998). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ typically, dozens of items are presented at a rapid rate followed by the instruction to forget (to-be-forgotten items tbf) or to remember (to-be-remembered items tbr). the effectiveness of directed forgetting has been documented by various kinds of tests: free recall, cued recall, recognition (benjamin, 2006), word completion task (macleod, 1989; mckinney & woodward, 2004; paller, 1990), lexical decision task (fleck et al., 2001), priming (marks & dulaney, 2001), remember-know judgments (gardiner, gawlik, & richardson-klavehn, 1994), reaction time of visual detection (zacks, radvansky, & hasher, 1996), and eye-tracking (thompson & taylor, 2015). there is an inverse relationship between the sensitivity of the final memory test and the magnitude of the effect, in such a way that the more indirect the test, the smaller the effect (basden et al., 1993). although the effect of directed forgetting appears to be temporary and vanishes after a period not exceeding one week (nørby, lange, & larsen, 2010; wheeler, 1995), it has received extensive attention due to both practical and theoretical reasons, opening an avenue to understanding the basic processes of human memory. the general aims of the present study were: 1. to replicate the basic directed forgetting effect using a small set of genuinely learned items after realistically long delays between the memory instructions and testing, and both direct (free recall) and indirect (recognition) tests. 2. to examine whether a mnemonic goal (like the intention to remember or to forget), might actually yield better memory in comparison with control conditions. mechanisms underlying the directed forgetting effect the most trivial explanation of the directed forgetting effect is the good participant hypothesis (nichols & maner, 2008). on this view, participants tend to interpret the instruction to forget as a demand to not report the tbf items on the subsequent recall test. in such a case, worse recall of the tbf items would not necessarily have anything to do with forgetting. instead, it attests the excellent memories for study-phase instructions. however, macleod (1999) demonstrated that demand characteristics cannot fully account for the deficit in reproducing the tbf items. participants did not reproduce significantly more tbf items after they were told that they would be paid for each previously unreported item. further, relatively poor recall and recognition observed after the instruction to forget may indicate a lack of encoding. since the typical research procedure employs novel material at the learning phase, it seems likely that upon receiving the forget and remember instructions participants simply cease rehearsal of the tbf items and enhance rehearsal of the tbr items. thus, the directed forgetting effect might merely reflect better memorizing of the repeatedly rehearsed tbr items rather than forgetting of the tbf items (bjork, 1972; macleod, 1998; taylor, cutmore, & pries, 2018). accordingly, recognition increases for both the tbr and tbf items as a function of time available for rehearsal before any instruction (either to remember or to forget) is issued (woodward, bjork, & jongeward, 1973). similarly, it has recently been shown that the prevention of rehearsal by articulatory suppression reduces the directed forgetting effect at recognition probes, leveling the differences between the tbr and tbf items (festini & reuter-lorenz, 2017). more interestingly, the prolongation of a blank time interval after the specific instruction, when the rehearsal of the tbf items is assumed to be terminated, actually provoked higher recognition for both the tbr and tbf items (lee, lee, & tsai, 2007). the latter result allows us to speculate that rehearsal continues automatically in the absence of a competing stimulus (lee & lee, 2011). nourkova, gofman, & kozlov 777 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, the maintenance of rehearsal is not the only process engaged during encoding. to our knowledge, only one study has attempted to control the quality of encoding as an outcome of level-of-processing manipulations (dulaney, marks, & link, 2004). three conditions addressing different levels of processing were employed. in the first condition, participants counted the number of vowels in the words by pressing the appropriate number (shallow level), in the second, participants read the words and then pressed one of three response keys (medium level), and in the third, they read the words and then pressed a key corresponding to their subjective rating of the word’s pleasantness (deep level). words were then randomly assigned to the tbr or tbf conditions. the results revealed that the deep processing (pleasantness) led to better recall and recognition for both the tbr and tbf items. it is worth noting that in all studies mentioned above the effect of encoding was clearly pronounced at recognition tests, only. in free recall the data were quite mixed. thus, the directed forgetting effect can only partly be explained in terms of encoding quality; another mechanism, related to consciousness and working memory functioning, seems to be in play. anderson, for instance, posits that directed forgetting is produced by inhibitory processes acting over the tbf items. according to this powerful account, fulfillment of the instruction to forget is achieved by an active, cognitively effortful process of retrieval inhibition (for reviews, see anderson & hanslmayr, 2014; anderson & huddleston, 2012). paradoxically, similar to the demand characteristic account, inhibition control theory implies that a person remembers the unwanted stimulus extremely well, being able to keep it out of retrieval even if a reminder is present. in anderson’s “think / no-think” paradigm participants are trained to respond to a reminder word paired with a target word. next, they are asked to retrieve target words associated with half of the reminders and to avoid retrieving in response to the other half. at the final memory test, the standard directed forgetting effect appears: people exhibit better memory for words that they were instructed to retrieve compared to words that they were instructed to suppress (anderson & green, 2001; anderson et al., 2004). there are at least four research paradigms that provide substantial empirical support to inhibition control theory. first, there is a large number of findings showing that memories that are thought to be forgotten, may be retrieved later. the spontaneous recovery of the previously intentionally forgotten material was demonstrated employing both the so called list method and the so called item method. in the former method, two lists are learned, and afterwards one is designated as to-be-forgotten (wheeler, 1995). in the latter method, items are presented one at a time, each followed by an instruction to remember or forget (geiselman & bagheri, 1985). secondly, according to the executive deficit hypothesis (levy & anderson, 2008), people with an impaired executive control ability (due to cognitive aging or various mental diseases) reported to experience difficulties with inhibiting unwanted memories (anderson, reinholz, kuhl, & mayr, 2011; gardiner et al., 1994). in this vein, it would be indicative if the reversible release from inhibition appears after sleep deprivation or alcohol consumption. third, there is the cognitive load hypothesis, even though the authors consider this hypothesis as independent or even partly competing (lee, 2012). according to this hypothesis, a cognitive resource is employed for active forgetting. if so, the more resources are assigned to the tbr items processing, the fewer resources are assigned to the forgetting of the tbf items. hence, tbf items would be recalled better. lee’s results were consistent with this prediction: participants recalled fewer tbf items when tbr items had to be just named (low resource consuming condition), than when receiving a direct instruction to remember tbr items (high resource consuming condition). in other words, the cognitive resource is required to keep the target items forgotten. quite similarly, participants performing focused breathing techniques as a secondary task during the itemthe intention to forget improves recognition 778 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method directed forgetting later recognized the tbf items better than controls (gamboa, garcia-campayo, müller, & von wegner, 2017). finally, one of the most important pieces of evidence for an active inhibitory framework behind the intentional forgetting phenomena is that this process operates strategically. analyzing self-reports, collected after the directed forgetting trials, levy and anderson (2008) discerned 16 forgetting strategies, for instance, generating a masking mental image or thinking of an alternative word. although, as the authors noted, there are various ways to achieve successful suppression of unwanted memories, they may be classified as relying upon either substitution, that is, occupying the limited focus of awareness with another material, or upon direct suppression (benoit & anderson, 2012). indeed, different brain regions associated with those two mechanisms were identified. during substitution interactions between left caudal and midventrolateral prefrontal cortex were detected, while systemic inhibition of hippocampal processing that originates from the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was observed during direct suppression (benoit & anderson, 2012). moreover, results from foster and sahakyan (2011) suggested that significant directed forgetting was detected only among those participants who reported engaging in forgetting strategies, for example, stopping rehearsal or starting to think about unrelated things. accordingly, elderly participants in murray et al.’s studies were able to suppress target memories only after being explicitly instructed in strategies to keep the tbf words out of mind (murray, anderson, & kensinger, 2015; murray, muscatell, & kensinger, 2011). however, it seems that there is still much to learn about the variety of strategies people might employ to inhibit “forbidden” memories especially in respect to their effectiveness. the concern of intentionality taking additionally into account that memory traces may decay with time or because of other reasons (for discussion see, hardt, nader, & nadel, 2013; roediger, weinstein, & agarwal, 2010), it appears that forgetting is a multi-factorial process. such factors as demand characteristics, encoding, processing, and retrieval inhibition proved to play significant roles in producing the directed forgetting effect. however, there are important themes that often go unappreciated. ironically talking about the intentional action of forgetting, psychologists often pay little attention to intentionality. for instance, retrieval inhibition in directed forgetting is viewed as identical to automatic retrieval-induced forgetting, which, however, occurs without a goal to forget (storm et al., 2015). to date, there has not been any systematic research isolating a conscious mnemonic goal from other variables thought to affect forgetting. is it necessary to remember the initial intention to forget to keep the item forgotten or inaccessible? some evidence suggests that it is. for instance, it has been demonstrated that the more attempts to confront reminders to unwanted memories participants made, the more they succeed in suppressing recall (anderson & huddleston, 2012). this result implies that learning not to recall specific items constitutes an automation of voluntary inhibition. in contrast, taylor et al.’s (2018) data show that the magnitude of the directed forgetting effect was not contingent upon whether participants were informed about the initial conditions that the items were presented in. yet another possibility is that any intentions to manage one’s own memory induces a specific mode of processing, improving the strength of memory traces. if the goal is to remember, it facilitates retrieval, while if the goal is to forget it inhibits retrieval. thus, assuming possible differences in encoding are controlled for, both the tbr and tbf items should be equally accessible in recognition tests after a long delay, when the initial instructions no longer matter. in contrast, we would observe non-directed forgetting of control items not involved in voluntary processing. in support of this prediction, gao et al. (2016) showed lower recognition accuracy for items prenourkova, gofman, & kozlov 779 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sented in the control condition, in which remember/forget instructions were not given to participants, compared to both the tbr and tbf items. however, given that the interval between the study phase and test phase was only 5 minutes, the ecological validity of that study is questionable (an issue that incidentally applies to the majority of studies on directed forgetting). the present research the main aim of the present research was to examine the hypothesis that a conscious mental action, performed with the intention to manage one’s own memory, leads to improvement of memory. we argue that this hypothesis is best tested at long delays between experimental manipulation and retrieval, when people stop being aware of the specifics of their previous mnemonic intentions (to remember or to forget). because of that reason, free recall and recognition tests were administered three times 45 minutes, a month, and a year after the experimental manipulation. since we assumed that the mnemonic goal makes an independent impact on the subsequent accessibility of the material, we intended to isolate as many extraneous variables in the design as possible. first, to avoid concerns of encoding differences across conditions we ensured that all items were genuinely memorized before the main experimental manipulation. indeed, we maintain that only material that has been securely encoded in the first place can be considered to be forgotten later on. in this strict interpretation of forgetting we followed tulving’s (1974) definition of forgetting as “the inability to recall something now that could be recalled on an earlier occasion” (tulving, 1974, p. 74). second, to reduce the possibility of prior associations affecting memorability of the tbr and tbf material, we used made-up words consisting of two syllables, each. third, to disentangle the natural conjunction of a goal and the means that are used to achieve that goal, we modified the typical item-method directed forgetting paradigm by adding a “repetition without a mnemonic goal” condition. the condition “repetition” was included in the experimental design because rehearsal was demonstrated to be the most common strategy for intentional remembering. we assumed that the difference in performance between the typical tbr condition (mnemonic goal + repetition) and the “repetition without a mnemonic goal” condition would discern the role of the intention. method participants one hundred and sixty-six students enrolled in a psychology course conducted by one of the authors (vn) at the lomonosov moscow state university, were invited to participate. as part of a course assignment, the students were provided with a printed list of 12-word pairs, where a russian (native language) word was always paired with a corresponding made up “foreign language” word. the students were asked to learn the word pairs over the next two weeks. of the 166 students, 98 (aged 19-22, 83% females) succeeded in flawlessly recalling all 12-word pairs in a free recall test administered two weeks later, requiring the recall of each russian word with its corresponding “translation” and vice versa. these 98 then took part in the main experimental manipulation. all of them were tested after 45 minutes and one month after the experimental procedure described below. a year later 58 of them volunteered to participate in a re-test. the intention to forget improves recognition 780 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials an item-cued directed forgetting paradigm was used in the study. for the experimental manipulation an ms powerpoint presentation featuring the 12 russian words, one word per slide, was used. at the beginning of the presentation, detailed explanations of the experimental instructions were provided. the participants were informed that the “remember” instruction meant that the corresponding made up translation of the featured word was to be retained in memory. seeing the “forget” instruction meant that the corresponding made-up word was to be forgotten. the “repeat” instruction meant that the russian word featured on the slide was to be repeated out loud 10 times, in unison with the experimenter who set the pace. finally, if a slide featured a cognitive task, the participants were to solve it and write down the answer on a blank sheet of paper in front of them. these explanations were followed by a practice block to ensure that the participants knew what each experimental instruction required of them. each slide was presented, with the instruction underneath the russian word, for 10 seconds. each word was randomly assigned to the instruction “remember”, “forget”, “repeat”, or a short cognitive task (e.g. “solve: (15-5)*2=…”). to account for word-item based confounds, each quarter of the sample presentation was altered in the way that the word pairs were counterbalanced with respect to conditions. design the study was a within-subjects repeated measures design with two independent variables. the first independent variable was the condition at manipulation (remember, forget, repeat and task), the second independent variable was the time interval between manipulation and test. the dependent variable was the mean number of word pairs that were freely recalled and recognized per participant. a free recall test was administered 45 minutes, a month and a year after the main manipulation. a recognition test was administered a month and a year after the main manipulation (recognition after 45 minutes was assumed to be at ceiling). procedure the 98 students who had demonstrated flawless recall of the 12-word pairs in individual examination attended the 10 minutes long powerpoint presentation containing the experimental manipulation, separately in four groups (23/24/25/25) at the beginning of their classes on the same day. the powerpoint presentation was given only once. after the classes, that is, 45 minutes later, participants were encouraged to recall and write down all of the initially learned 12 russian words with the corresponding translations. cheating was forbidden; adherence to that rule was monitored by 3 research assistants and the participants were seated in the classroom so that each participant occupied a separate desk. to exclude not reporting a tbf item due to demand characteristics, participants were told that the most successful quartile of participants would be announced and released from filling in a lengthy questionnaire specially constructed for participants with poor memory abilities. in fact, they were all told that they had succeeded. self-reports on the methods, which participants used to accomplish the instructions were collected after the first test. one month and a year after the experimental manipulation two further free recall tests were administered. after these free recall tests, participants also performed recognition tests wherein they had to recognize the 12 made up words among 24 lures. these tests took about 15 minutes to complete. for a one year follow-up, the participants were contacted via departmental e-mail and those who responded were tested individually. at the final test session, after completing the recognition procedure, participants were presented a list with all the initially learned 12-word pairs and were asked to mark the tbr pairs as “r” and the tbf pairs as “f”. nourkova, gofman, & kozlov 781 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results only those participants who took part in all three tests (n = 58) were included in the main calculations. only word pairs where the appropriate, and correctly spelled, “translation” of a russian word had been written down at free recall were counted as correct. however, all data collected on self-reported strategies of remembering and forgetting (n = 98) was analyzed. recall a 3 (time: 45 minutes, 1 month, 1 year) x 4 (instruction: remember, forget, repeat, task) mixed anova, revealed a significant effect of time, f(2, 56) = 423.183, p < .001, mse = .751, η2 p = 0.881, a significant effect of instruction, f(3, 55) = 12.241, p < .001, mse = .386, η2 p = 0.177, and a reliable “time x instruction” interaction, f(6, 52) = 4.034, p = .001, mse = .318, η2 p = 0.066. to clarify the differences between tests within each condition and between conditions at each time point we employed bonferroni-corrected paired-sample t-tests for dependent samples (p < .008 for 6 comparisons), and cohen’s weighted d effect sizes were estimated (cohen, 1988). not surprisingly, free recall significantly decreased from time 1 to time 2 and from time 2 to time 3, and this was true across all instructions at p < .001 (see figure 1). nevertheless, the standard directed forgetting effect was observed at free recall tests 1 and 2. while word pairs presented during manipulation in the “remember” and “task” conditions did not differ from each other both at test 1 (t(57) = 1.211, p = .231) and at test 2 (t(57) = 0.843, p = .403), the tbf items were significantly inhibited in comparison to the tbr items (for test 1 t(57) = 3.160, p = .003, cohen’s d = 0.511; for test 2 t(57) = 3.563, p = .001, cohen’s d = 0.496). the differences between the tbf condition and the “task” condition reached significance at test 2 only t(57) = 3.953, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.574). the “repeat” condition failed in producing a recall benefit relative to the tbr condition at both tests (for test 1 t(57) = 3.657, p = .001, cohen’s d = 0.479; for test 2 t(57) = 3.947, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.557). rather, free recall performance after rehearsal of the russian words without the intention to keep remembering was equal to the tbf condition (for test 1 t(57) = 0.864, p = .391; for test 2 t(57) = 0.127, p = .899). at test 3, a year later, free recall in all conditions was extremely poor with no differences between them (f(3, 55) = 0.892, p = .447, mse = 0.135, η2 p = .015). the main findings are described in figure 1, which depicts the mean free recall for each condition on the three tests. the intention to forget improves recognition 782 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mean of correctly recalled word pairs in each condition on recall tests administered 45min, 1 month and 1 year after the manipulation. the error bars correspond to one standard error. recognition we did not employ recognition tests at the first memory examination (45 min.) expecting performance to be at ceiling. a 2 (time: 1 month, 1 year) × 4 (instruction) mixed anova showed a significant effect of time f(1, 57) = 86.703, mse = .906, p < .001, η2 p = 0.43, a significant effect of instruction f(3, 57) = 4.396, mse = .294, p = .005, η2 p = 0.037, and a reliable “time x instruction” interactions, f(3, 55) = 4.479, mse = .324, p = .004, η2 p = 0.037. after one month, all participants showed a high and statistically indistinguishable level of recognition of the 12 target made-up words in array of 24 lures (f(3, 55) = .277, p = .842, mse = .182, η2 p = .005). in contrast, the results of the recognition test administered after a one year detected a specific positive effect for both conditions, which involved a mnemonic goal. inspecting figure 2, it is quite clear that more made-up words were recognized accurately in both the tbr and the tbf conditions than in the “repeat” and the “task” conditions (f(3, 55) = 2.992, p = .032, mse = 0.442, η2 p = 0.05). a t-test corroborated this observation, showing that significantly more items were correctly recognized in the tbr condition (μ = 2.362, sd = 0.828) than in the “repeat” condition (μ = 2.07, sd = 0.953), t(57) = 3.143, p = .002, cohen’s d = 0.464, or in the “task” condition (μ = 2.086, sd = 0.938), t(57) = 2.969, p = .004, cohen’s d = 0.44. accordingly, the recognition in the tbf condition (μ = 2.31, sd = 0.817) was higher than in the “repeat” condition, t(57) = 2.718, p < .009, cohen’s d = 0.384, and marginally higher than in the “task” condition, t(57) = 2.402, p < .02, cohen’s d = 0.359. at the same time, differences between the tbr and the tbf conditions and between the “repeat” and “task” conditions were not observed, t(57) = 0.645, p < .53, and t(57) = 0.245, p = .807, respectively. nourkova, gofman, & kozlov 783 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. mean of correctly recognized word pairs in each condition on the recognition tests administered 1 month and 1 year after the manipulation. the error bars correspond to one standard error. taken together, these findings suggest that over the course of one year, the level of recognition prevails for the mnemonic goal-driven conditions, regardless of the exact content of the goal (to forget or to remember). instructions and memory strategies forty-five minutes after the main manipulation and immediately after the first memory tests, 98 participants were asked to indicate how they attempted to comply with instructions to keep remembering or to forget the word pairs. the majority of participants (70 / 71%) reported that they were rehearsing the pair during exposure to the “remember” instruction. 17 participants (18%) declared that they were trying to establish phonological or visual associations to the made-up counterparts of the russian words. the rest of the sample (11 / 11%) described unique methods of memorizing (e.g. “drew a mental picture”, “visualized an image of the typed word”, “stared at the screen”, “imagined oneself photographing the word pair”, “tried to make a connection between the neighboring student’s face and the word”, “ordered oneself to remember”, “wrote down the made-up word”, “allowed own brain to do whatever it wanted to do”, “let the right word come into mind”, “knocked my fingers to activate remembering”, “articulated the word very intensively”). while repetition seemed to be the most popular action for remembering, there was no comparable common strategy for forgetting. about one-third of participants (34 / 35%) reported that they switched their attention toward irrelevant thoughts or images when the instruction to forget appeared on the screen. 23 participants (23%) portrayed their forgetting action as a kind of direct mental effort to not remember. 20 participants (20%) stated that after noticing the instruction to forget, they continued to rehearse the word pair from the previous “remember” condition. 10 participants (10%) preferred not to look at the screen at all after the “forget” instruction was received. the rest of the sample (11 / 12%) tried to fulfill the instruction by performing unique techniques such as: “counted in silence”, “pretended to be surprised by the word on the screen”, “imagined the word written on the sheet of paper then crumpled it and threw it away”, “nominated wrong words to damage association”, “tried to fill my consciousness with a big forthe intention to forget improves recognition 784 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ get word”, “deconstructed the word on the screen into isolated letters to lose the meaning”, “imagined the screen on fire”, “clenched my fists repeatedly”, “moved eyes from left to right and vice versa”, “imagined oneself washing memory”, “been waiting for another instruction”, “convinced oneself not to remember”. in contrast to previous data obtained by foster and sahakyan (2011), nobody reported doing nothing in response to the instructions. however, we did not detect any privileged strategies for later recall neither for the “remember” condition (χ2 = 6.887, p = .332) nor for the “forget” condition (χ2 = 7.054, p = .854). the recollection of the initial instruction a year after the experimental manipulation, after completing the free recall and recognition tests, participants were provided with a printed list of the study material. no correlations were found between accuracy of recognition and accuracy of the recollection of the initial instruction either for tbr items (r = .142, p = .068) or for tbf items (r = .098, p = .464). moreover, it looked like generally, participants classified the word pairs as tbr or tbf by chance since the ratio of correct attribution was 0.63 for the tbr items and 0.56 for the tbf items. discussion the methodology of the present research differed from a typical directed forgetting paradigm in three important ways. first, the small set of experimental items was fully learned ahead of the manipulation. second, we conducted memory tests at very long time delays (a month and a year after the manipulation). third, an additional condition of rehearsal without the explicit goal to remember or to forget was included in the procedure. in the first and second free recall tests, we replicated a typical intentional forgetting effect, with genuinely learned material. due to the fact that this effect was detected at free recall only, despite a strong incentive to recall all the learned word pairs, we attribute the result to the aftereffects of the action of inhibition. the ceiling level of recognition one month after the experimental manipulation provides additional support for this view. quite surprisingly, the number of recalled items in the “repeat” condition was similar to the number of items recalled in the “forget” condition, thus, in a way producing the standard directed forgetting effect. in our opinion, there are at least two possible explanations for this result. the first refers to research on extinction, suggesting that the associative link between two stimuli can be weakened if one stimulus is repeatedly presented in absence of the other (schiller et al., 2010; xue et al., 2012). this would mean that a sequence of intense repetition of the native language words, in absence of retrieval of the made-up words, could weaken or sever the link to the associated made-up words. another explanation comes from alfonse jost’s (1897) law of forgetting. he posited that if two memories have the same strength but different ages, the older will benefit more from repetition than the younger one and the younger one will lose strength more rapidly than the older one. if so, we can speculate that the repetition of the native word could enhance old associations and weaken fresh ones (with made-up words). it is further curious that recall performance in the “task” condition was rather similar to recall performance in the “remember” condition. this outcome makes somewhat sense though, if one bears in mind, that the item pairs had been genuinely memorized ahead of the manipulation. thus, whether participants were told to actively nourkova, gofman, & kozlov 785 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ keep remembering what they already knew, or were simply told to do a cognitive task should not have, and has in fact not, impacted recall performance. it did, however, impact recognition performance after a year’s time; a result that is in line with our “no-mnemonic goal — no mnemonic effect” reasoning. certainly, the most striking results of the study we obtained at the one-year follow up. not surprisingly, after 12 months free recall was just slightly above zero, the same for all conditions. this leads us to believe that the aforementioned inhibition process was released, opening up a possibility to examine the state of memory traces by recognition. indeed, participants were hardly able at this point to indicate the instructions accompanying items at the experimental manipulation. accordingly, participants generally failed in indicating the instructions accompanying items at the experimental manipulation. in contrast to free recall, after a year, the tbr and tbf words were recognized significantly better (78.7% and 77.0% respectively) than words that were not processed in the context of any conscious mnemonic goals (69.0% for the to-be-repeated items and 69.5% for control “task” condition). this result brings us to the conclusion that the intention to achieve any goal with mnemonic content itself protects material from forgetting at long time intervals. it should be noted, that in our study there were overall five occasions when participants had to retrieve the originally learned material. the first free recall took place after 45 minutes, then after a month and finally after a year both recall and recognition was performed. we have to concede therefore, that the results could have been affected by the so called testing effect, that is, the improvement of memory performance after retrieval trials (roediger & karpicke, 2006; roediger & nestojko, 2015; wheeler, ewers, & buonanno, 2003). the authors report that this outcome was observed on both explicit and implicit memory tests (roediger, gallo, & geraci, 2002). roediger et al. (2002) have argued that testing operates by the elaboration of existing memory traces and by strengthening and multiplying the number of ‘‘retrieval routes’’ to stored items. this suggests that even if our results had been affected by the testing effect, the effect should have uniformly acted upon participants’ performance; the observed differences between conditions can hardly be attributed to it. to accommodate our novel results on the independent impact of mnemonic goals on delayed memory performance we look towards reconsolidation theory (mckenzie & eichenbaum, 2011; sara, 2000). this theory stresses that encoding (consolidation) is not a unique event. instead, memory traces are labile when in an active state. during reconsolidation, memories can be enhanced, impaired, or updated with new information. agren’s review (agren, 2014) indicates that the most often used reactivation method in declarative memory reconsolidation studies is retrieval. on the other hand, not every retrieval attempt necessarily entails a reconsolidation. it only does so in situations that favor new encoding, that is, a mismatch between expected and actual contexts (coccoz, sandoval, stehberg, & delorenzi, 2013). therefore, it is possible to interpret mnemonic goals, aimed at previously consolidated memory traces, as unexpected cues producing a reconsolidation strengthening effect. it is also worth noting that memories that cannot be consciously retrieved still can be the target of a reconsolidation process (coccoz, maldonado, & delorenzi, 2011). conclusion to sum up, in the present study we observed two, possibly competing, processes. the first one was memory inhibition. the second one was memory enhancement through a goal-driven elaboration. our results suggest that the instruction to forget inhibited respective memories at two free recall tests, but in fact, it enhanced the memory traces after a year’s delay. by that time retrieval was released from inhibitory control mechanisms, so the intention to forget improves recognition 786 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://www.psychopen.eu/ both the tbr and tbf pairs were recognized significantly better than the other items. in our opinion, this extralong-time delay enabled us to make out the effects of goal-driven elaboration without the competing influence of voluntary inhibition. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references agren, t. 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(1996). studies of directed forgetting in older adults. journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory, and cognition, 22(1), 143-156. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.22.1.143 the intention to forget improves recognition 790 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.7.2.73 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08637 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.12.004 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-014-0820-2 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.59 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.21.1.173 https://doi.org/10.1080/09658210244000414 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5371(73)80040-4 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1215070 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.22.1.143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors veronika v. nourkova is a professor of psychology at lomonosov moscow state university. her research focuses on autobiographical memory, social determination of cognition, and methodology of cultural-historical psychology. alena a. gofman is a phd student at lomonosov moscow state university. she specializes in memory research, particularly forgetting. michail d. kozlov obtained his phd in cognitive psychology from cardiff university. he then worked as a postdoc researcher at the knowledge media research center in tuebingen, germany. since 2017 he is training to become a clinical psychologist at the luisenklinik in bad duerrheim, germany. he has authored several renowned publications on memory processes in individuals and groups. nourkova, gofman, & kozlov 791 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 776–791 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1606 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the intention to forget improves recognition (introduction) mechanisms underlying the directed forgetting effect method participants materials design procedure results recall recognition instructions and memory strategies the recollection of the initial instruction discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychobiography training in psychology in north america: mapping the field and charting a course research reports psychobiography training in psychology in north america: mapping the field and charting a course joseph g. ponterotto*a, jason d. reynoldsa, samantha morela, linda cheunga [a] fordham university at lincoln center, new york city, ny, usa. abstract psychobiography holds an important position in the history of psychology, yet little is known about the status of psychobiographical training and dissertation research in psychology departments. this brief report identified psychobiography courses throughout north america and content analyzed a sample of 65 psychobiography dissertations to discern the theories and methods that have most commonly anchored this research. results identified few psychology courses specifically in psychobiography, with a larger number of courses incorporating psychobiographical and/or narrative elements. with regard to psychobiography dissertations, the majority focused on artists, pioneering psychologists, and political leaders. theories undergirding psychobiographical studies were most frequently psychoanalytic and psychodynamic. methodologically, a majority of the dissertations were anchored in constructivist (discovery-oriented) qualitative procedures, with a minority incorporating mixed methods designs. the authors highlight the value of psychobiographical training to psychology students and present avenues and models for incorporating psychobiography into psychology curriculums. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 received: 2015-02-15. accepted: 2015-06-26. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: division of psychological & educational services, room 1008, fordham university at lincoln center, 113 west 60th street, new york, ny, usa. e-mail: ponterotto@fordham.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a long-standing definition of psychobiography is “the explicit use of formal or systematic psychology in biography” (runyan, 1982, p. 201). more recently, this definition has been expanded upon as follows: psychobiography is “the intensive life-span study of an individual of historic significance in socio-cultural context using psychological and historiographic research methods and interpreted from established theories of psychology” (ponterotto, in press, p. 3). psychobiography is a topical specialty and sub-discipline within psychology, and psychobiographical research methods employ primarily qualitative and historiographic research approaches (elms, 1994, 2005, 2007; schultz, 2005b), but also quantitative (simonton, 1998; wiggins, 2003), and mixed methods designs (ponterotto & reynolds, 2013). by its very nature, psychobiography is interdisciplinary, drawing on the intellectual disciplines of history and psychology. from history, psychobiographers draw on historiographic, biographic, and hagiographic methods, and from psychology they draw on its theories of personality and human development across the lifespan (elms, 1994; ponterotto, 2014a; runyan, 1982). figure 1 locates psychobiography at the intersection of history and psychology along with the specialty of psychohistory. whereas psychobiography focuses on the intensive study of an individual life in socio-cultural-historic context, psychohistory is concerned with broad psychological interpretations of signieurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ ficant events or groups in history (hofling, 1976; runyan, 1982). for example, whereas an intensive psychological study of sigmund freud would constitute a psychobiography, a study of the birth of psychoanalysis and the evolution of the vienna psychoanalytic institute, would constitute a psychohistory. figure 1. locating psychobiography at the intersection of history and psychology. the roots of psychobiography as a discipline in psychology have been traced to early work in biography and hagiography (the edifying study of saints and religious figures) (kőváry, 2011; mitchell & howcroft, in press; runyan, 1982). however, psychobiography became firmly established as a specialty in psychology when freud (1910/1957) published his psychoanalytic profile of leonardo da vinci. freud’s work at the turn of the 20th century ignited a strong interest among psychoanalysts in profiling historic figures throughout history (see dooley’s 1916 review). in fact, psychoanalytic profiles of historic figures became so popular in the first three decades of the 20th century that the practice took on its own moniker, “applied psychoanalysis” (runyan, 1988b). by mid-20th century, the popularity of and production of psychobiography decreased as psychoanalysis fell out of favor in academic psychology, and as the positivist, experimental and quantitative emphasis took hold in psychology, particularly in europe and north america (runyan, 1982, 1988a, 1988b). during the second half of the 20th century, however, a renewed interest in psychobiography emerged, stimulated in part by the international impact of erikson’s (1958, 1969) psychological profiles of martin luther and mahatma gandhi, respectively. simultaneous to erikson’s psychological profiling, other harvard university psychologists such as henry murray (1967) and gordon allport (1965) were also studying the whole person and promoting the new specialty within personality psychology called personology, or the intensive psychological study of the individual person. whereas psychobiographies most often focus on deceased “historic” figures, personology often emphasizes the intensive study of living persons who may represent more “average” individuals (ponterotto, 2014a). the senior harvard university professors along with their younger colleagues and students created a domino effect in promoting a resurgence of interest in narrative psychology generally, and psychobiography, specifically (ponterotto, in press; wiggins, 2003). systematic annual content analyses of psychobiography publications documented the trend of increasing interest and publication in psychobiography in both article and book form (runyan, 1982, 1988a, 1988b, 2005; schultz, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 460 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 2005b). in recent years the first handbook of psychobiography (schultz, 2005a) was published and there have been a slate of modern-day multi-theoretical psychobiographies of presidents, artists, writers, and a variety of intellectual giants written by psychologists in multiple specialty areas (e.g., kasser, 2013; mcadams, 2011; ponterotto, 2012; schultz, 2011a, 2011b, 2013; sharma, 2011). furthermore, comprehensive reviews of psychobiographical research in the u.s., europe, and south africa have confirmed the increasing popularity of psychobiography internationally (barenbaum & winter, 2013; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; howe, 1997; kőváry, 2011; mcadams, 2001; ponterotto, 2014a, 2014b). presently, the journal of psychology in africa is devoting a whole special issue (october, 2015) to psychobiography (fouché, in press). recently, in tracking the “narrative turn” (laszlo, 2008) in personality psychology research over the past two decades, kőváry (2011, p. 739) declared that the psychology field is currently in the midst of “a renaissance in psychobiography.” at this time, however, it is not clear whether this resurgence in psychobiography interest is reflected in academic training programs across psychology departments in north america. questions that need to be addressed include: do psychology departments offer a course in psychobiography? might psychobiographical theory and methods be integrated into traditional core courses in psychology, such as “personality psychology” or the “history of psychology”? how do students and faculty feel about the importance and relevance of psychobiography to their training in psychology? are doctoral students in psychology conducting psychobiographical dissertations, and if so, what psychological theories and research methods are anchoring these dissertations? onemodest goal of the present study is to begin to map the current status of psychobiography training in psychology through an assessment of course offerings in north america and through the identification of specific psychology departments offering such courses. a second goal is to examine a sample of psychobiography dissertations to ascertain which departments/universities are supporting such research and to identify the theories and methods used to guide the dissertations as well as the nature of historical subjects studied. a final goal is to provide some direction and ideas for faculty and students interested in expanding their department’s training in psychobiography. method and procedures the method for this study involved three distinct components: random sampling of psychology departments in north america; purposeful listserv and snowball sampling of professors who teach in the psychobiography area; and a review of psychobiography doctoral dissertations. this study was approved by the authors’ home institutional review board. the method and procedure for each component of the study is described next. random sample of north american universities to gather a general sense of the extent to which formal psychobiography courses are available in psychology curriculums, we examined a random sampling of 100 universities in the united states, and 10 randomly selected canadian universities, to see if they offered a course in psychobiography. given there are roughly 2000 colleges and universities in the united states (the university of texas at austin, 2015a) and 100 in canada (“list of universities,” 2015), our sampling represented 5% of u.s. institutions and 10% of canadian institutions. u.s. institutions were selected based on a stratified random sample from the “list of u.s. universities by state” (the university of texas at austin, 2015b). one large state and one large private university from each of the country’s 50 states were identified for review. canadian institutions were randomly selected from the “international europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 461 http://www.psychopen.eu/ colleges & universities” website (http://www.4icu.org/ca). selection criteria required that the psychology course listings and descriptions were available online. specialty universities such as art or music schools, medical schools, photography schools, among others were not included. once appropriate institutions were identified, the authors examined the list and descriptions of all courses offered in the undergraduate and graduate psychology curriculums. first, the curriculums were examined to locate any courses specifically in psychobiography [or psychohistory, lifestory, or narrative psychology]. second, the traditional core courses of “personality psychology,” and “history of psychology,” which are more likely to incorporate psychological biography or lifestory methods, were also reviewed to see if any included psychobiographical components in their course descriptions. finally, courses on research methods or qualitative research were also examined to determine if the courses included psychobiographical research methods as a component of the course. clearly quantitative courses with titles such as experimental psychology or quantitative research methods were excluded. if links to course syllabi were available on university websites, we examined the syllabi for psychobiographical content. the frequency of relevant offerings and the specific professors and departments were logged. purposeful listserv and snowball sampling anticipating that there would be few psychobiography courses offered in a random sampling of psychology curriculums, the authors incorporated purposeful listserv sampling in an effort to identify courses in psychobiography and the professors who taught them. more specifically, we sent a brief course survey (described below) to listservs or discussion groups affiliated with the following divisions of the american psychological association (apa): 2 (teaching of psychology), 8 (personality and social psychology), 17 (counseling psychology), 44 (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues), 52 (international psychology), and 5 (division of quantitative and qualitative methods in psychology’s qualitative interest group). we also sampled the listserv associated with the association for research in personality. each of these groups were open to using the listserv to send out a brief survey on “psychobiography in the curriculum.” other listservs we investigated were not open to research participation queries. in addition to the listserv sampling, we also identified potential professors of psychobiography and related courses through the qualitative procedure known as “snowball sampling” (patton, 1990). individuals known to work and publish in the psychobiography area through a literature review were contacted by email and also asked to recommend other colleagues they knew working in psychobiography. for professors responding to the listserv inquiry or the snowballing efforts, they were sent a brief five-question open-ended survey to gather specific information on their relevant course and to ask their opinions on the relevance and importance of such courses. the survey questions were as follows: 1. please specify the name of the course; whether it is an elective or required course; undergraduate, graduate, or open level course; and taught on-campus, on-line, or hybrid. 2. how has the course been received by students and your department faculty? 3. how is this content area and its relevant methodologies/approaches useful to the training of psychologists and other social and behavioral scientists? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 462 http://www.4icu.org/ca http://www.psychopen.eu/ 4. from your perspective, where do psychobiographical and/or narrative methods fit within the field of psychology? 5. if your department offers master’s or doctoral degrees, would a “psychobiography proposal” be approved for a master’s thesis and/or a doctoral dissertation? dissertation review in an effort to examine original research in psychobiography generated by graduate students, we content-analyzed a sample of psychobiography doctoral dissertations. to locate doctoral dissertations focusing on psychobiography, we entered the word “psychobiography” in the “title,” “abstract,” or “keyword” search categories of the proquest dissertation on-line catalogue. initially, 72 dissertations were identified of which 65 met our criteria of being written in english and being completed at institutions in the united states and canada. we developed a content analysis template and coded each dissertation in the following 13 categories: author, year, title, biographical subject, profession of subject, major contribution of subject, life space of subject, length of dissertation, mentor/chair of dissertation, university, university department, anchoring psychological theories, and research methods employed. to ensure consistency of coding, the first three co-authors of this study proceeded as follows. first the team worked together on five randomly selected dissertations from the larger pool of 65 to decide on and practice the coding procedures. subsequently, the senior author (who is more versed in psychobiography) completed coding a set of eight dissertations, four of which were also coded independently by the second author, and the remaining four which were also coded by the study’s third author. the team then met to examine consistency across both sets of coded dissertations. consistency was generally quite high, with minor differences in the amount of detail presented when coding theories undergirding each study and in coding the variety of research methods employed. after discussion and consensus gathering, the remaining dissertations were divided among the three authors. the team would then meet once a week to discuss and clarify any confusion in coding. a supplemental reference list of the 65 psychobiography dissertations reviewed in this study is available from the senior author. results: mapping the field psychobiography courses in the curriculum the first goal of our analysis was to map psychobiography training nationwide in terms of the extent and locales of psychobiographical training. the random survey of 110 psychology departments in north america revealed zero courses specifically in psychobiography, and 12 courses that though not named psychobiography, incorporated psychobiographical elements into the design of the course. through our second procedure, snowball and listserve sampling, 28 professors responded indicating they taught in the area of psychobiography or knew of colleagues who did so. of this group, 17 professors completed the five-question course survey. table a1 lists the psychobiography and related courses identified through both sampling methods. only six courses with “psychobiography” in its title were located, and all were targeted for upper-division undergraduate audiences. an examination of six psychobiography syllabi submitted led us to develop an integrative version that is available from the senior author. an additional 48 courses were located (12 through the random survey and 36 through the listserve and snowball sampling) that appeared directly related to psychobiography and/or required psychobiography readings and aseurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 463 http://www.psychopen.eu/ signments. these courses are listed in table a1 along the categories of personality psychology, narrative and life story, culture, biography, and autobiography, history of psychology, genius and creativity, political psychology, and “other” content areas (see table a1). open-ended survey responses to the open-ended survey questions were examined using basic phenomenological theme analysis (creswell, 2013). meaning unit (sentences or full paragraphs) responses for each of the five questions were extracted and reviewed for common themes within each of the five questions. representative quotes were chosen to highlight participant voice on each question or each subtheme within the broader question. examining the results of the survey along the five questions posed reveal the following highlights: 1) the majority of the courses offered were elective, taught on campus (rather than on-line) and targeted for upper-division psychology majors or graduate students. 2) all 17 professors responding indicated that the course was very well received by students, and generally admired by faculty colleagues. sample quotes in this vein include: “students have absolutely loved it – some of the best teaching evaluations i have ever received. the faculty have also been happy with it.” “the course has been very well-received. the faculty in the critical social/personality psychology program value lives, narrative, and psychobiography as critical to our work as social scientists.” “the psychobiography component has been well received. the most common comment i get is ‘why don’t more psych courses talk about this,’ and ‘why isn’t there more research employing this approach’?” “psychobiography has been really well received by students, my department, and the college! i taught it as an elective in the department before being encouraged by students and the director of the honor’s college to make it an honor’s course. the students enjoy it and my colleagues appreciate the engagement students get with theory at a practical, immersive level.” “i received positive feedback from students on the psychobiography component in lab; several of my colleagues reported to me that their students (advisees or common students) reported positively about that component as well.” a minority of respondents (two of the 17) noted that their students responded very well to the course, but that many fellow faculty members, though supportive, were unaware of psychobiography and narrative approaches. for example, “in my own research lab, students received it well. most faculty members, however, do not know or understand narrative theory or method in general and psychobiography in particular.” “student evaluations of the course are consistently positive. department faculty do not really know enough about the course to evaluate it.” 3) all respondents thought the content area and methodologies of psychobiography are critical to professional development of psychologists and other behavioral scientists. responses to this question clustered in three areas. first, respondents believed that psychobiography and other narrative approaches in psychology increased students’ understanding of themselves and helped them understand psychological theories as applied to individual lives. second, such methods promoted the understanding of qualitative research approaches and the complementarity of qualitative and quantitative approaches in an in-depth understanding of an individual in social context. third, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 464 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychobiographical and narrative methods were particularly salient to students wishing to practice as mental health professionals and held relevance for others specialties in psychology. below, we include quotes from these areas separated into six content areas. self-understanding and theoretical application “i first used lifestory method to teach my students in my research lab how to conduct in depth interviews to explore cultural identity development. students struggled with analyzing the data collected. i found psychobiography was a helpful tool for the students to examine their own lives and gain deeper insights.” “it makes students grapple with a number of important questions – e.g., how well do psychological theories and concepts work to understand individuals? can we use them without pathologizing or labeling the individual, or reducing his/her behavior to some simplistic explanation? what are the many different factors we need to consider if we want to understand a person?” “i think this focus is useful on two fronts. first it forces students to engage with theories and concepts in a more concrete manner. as allport said, idiographic research really represents the proving ground for psychological theories. second, it is useful because i believe that one of the major goals of personality psychology is to describe individual lives.” promotes qualitative research skills and complementary research approaches “students leave this course with a solid grasp of interviewing and other qualitative methodologies. they also practice using a number of interpretive strategies for interpreting individual life stories in the pursuit of psychologically relevant research questions to better understand how individuals internalize and/or resist larger social structures, policies, and life challenges. the focus on ethics and ‘narrative relationships’ is also central to all doctoral students in psychology.” “psychobiography is, in my mind, a critical tool for training at any level. at an advanced level, i see psychobiography as part of a cycle of the research process and an important part of determining how theory and quantitative data play out in an individual lived life. by deeply immersing ourselves into how theory and data are manifest in one person, we can generate new, creative questions broadening and deepening both theory and research. it is also incredibly useful for undergraduate learning as it gets students working with theory and exploring data in a creative, fun way that they generally enjoy engaging with more than just a traditional research paper. they put theory and research to practical use to understand someone they are interested in which stimulates their research skills, catalyzes creative thought, and facilitates at a deeper level than what would happen in traditional undergraduate pedagogy.” “i like the idea of different layers of research and understanding within personality and examining the stories people tell are definitely a useful way of understanding them. i also think it is helpful for psychologists (and others) to take a step back from the tightly controlled experiments and examine the real lives of people. if your aim is to understand people, then ignoring the utility of the narrative approach is ignoring a huge part of who a person is.” “the course is highly relevant, as it widens students’ perspectives to the variety of epistemological positions and research methods available within the broad field of psychology. it reminds students that psychology is grounded in the study of individual people. it gives them an approach for understanding individuals that augments the methods from other psychological approaches.” europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 465 http://www.psychopen.eu/ relevance to clinical training “one of the things clinicians do is listen to life stories and attempt to help clients make sense of the stories. life stories illustrate personality development, helping future researchers and practitioners as well to learn how to take a life narrative and how to use it with their clients or research participants is useful for training.” “the approach taken in this course helps students develop an appreciation for the history of the discipline, and how that history informs and shapes current theory and research in one area of personality study. in addition, i feel that understanding how people narrate their lives is an important tool for clinical psychologists and counselors to have (most of our students aspire to be mental health professionals). furthermore, there is a strong emphasis in the course on psychobiography as a scientific enterprise, one that uses rigorous methods and psychometrically sound measures to study life narratives.” 4) most respondents believed that psychobiography and related topics (narrative knowing) are central and critical to the field of psychology. responses to this question clustered into three areas: the importance of studying the individual life in socio-cultural context, the importance of psychobiography and narrative as approaches to balance traditional quantitative study, and specific specialties in psychology where these methods seem particularly important. individual life in cultural context “the study of individual lives should be at the center of psychology, so psychobiographical and/or narrative methods should be too; these methods can be used in other kinds of studies as well, once we realize how important it is to consider the many factors that shape people’s experience and their views of themselves and the world.” “i tend to think of narrative less in terms of discrete methods and more in terms of conceptualizing human lives and persons…. narrative knowing is at the very heart of the field of psychology. much of psychology simply doesn’t know it yet!” “[these approaches] sit at the nexus of epistemological approaches, blending both paradigmatic and narrative (to use bruner’s terms) worlds. they provide an option for studying personality, development, and culture.” “psychobiographical method is a helpful tool for students to gain a deeper understanding of how culture operates in their own lives; this in turn impacts how they can carry out research and clinical practice. narrative analysis has been a fruitful way to conduct research on cultural identity development.” supporting quantitative approaches to studying lives “i see psychobiography and other related narrative methods as an essential part of the testing and building of theory that should be paired with quantitative data. by bringing what we know from quantitative data and theory to the life or lives of an individual we can not only gain more insight into the individual, which is in and of itself a useful contribution, but can also discover new directions to take in theories and in quantitative data collection. therefore, i see such methods as highly generative and essential pieces to the empirical process in psychology.” “i believe that it is central and can be very much in dialogue with other approaches to understanding human behavior. most centrally, psychobiography enables us to examine the degree to which more nomothetic europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 466 http://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses and ‘findings’ particularize to the life story of an individual person. it allows us to more fully engage the emotion of ‘persons-in-context’ and lives and structures.” relevance to other specialties in psychology “i think that narrative methods operate primarily within developmental and personality psychology and to a lesser extent within social and cognitive psychology, much of clinical is more or less narrative and psychobiographical but does not necessarily identify as such.” “i see these methods closely tied to clinical, social, personality, developmental, industrial/organizational, and evolutionary psychology.” “i would say personality, though there is a clear connection to clinical/counseling, and health research.” 5) finally, with regard to whether departments allowed psychobiography master’s theses or doctoral dissertations, 10 of the 17 respondents were in graduate degree-granting institutions. of this subsample, six responded that psychobiography projects were acceptable, one said no, and three responded that psychobiography theses and dissertation would be acceptable if combined with other research approaches, for example: “a dissertation focused on psychobiographical research but included additional complementary methodologies (qualitative and/or quantitative) would absolutely be acceptable and recognized as an important contribution.” “psychobiography would be acceptable for a doctoral dissertation, but we have a commitment to multimethod education, so students are likely to use this approach in conjunction with others in their research.” psychobiography doctoral dissertations with regard to the 65 dissertations reviewed, the overwhelming majority (80%) were conducted to complete final requirements for the ph.d. degree, while a minority (18%) fulfilled psy.d. requirements and the doctor of nursing science (2%). the dissertation copyright dates ranged from 1978 to 2014. in terms of production trends over time, results indicated 2% appeared during the 1970s, 20% during the 1980s, 40% in the 1990s, and 38% in the 2000s. sixty percent of the dissertations were completed in the more traditional north american “university,” whereas 40%were conducted in “professional schools” (e.g., california school of professional psychology, wright institute). further, 74% of the studies were conducted in departments of psychology, with the remainder (26%) spread out across various departments and disciplines or combinations of disciplines (e.g., history, counseling, religion, human and organization systems, joint program in psychology and religious studies). the dissertations were advised by a wide array of mentors, with four scholars mentoring multiple psychobiography dissertations: george stricker at argosy university, peter m. newton at the wright institute, hilary e. bender at the massachusetts school of professional psychology, and stephen j. hobbs, formerly at the wright institute and now in private practice. the most prolific mentor of psychobiography dissertations in out sample was dr. newton with five. data analysis revealed geographic trends in the production of psychobiography dissertations. themajority emanated from the west coast (44%) and the northeast (34%), with smaller output in the midwest (14%), south (3%), mountain region (2%), and from canada (3%). u.s. states particularly well represented in psychobiographical dissertation research were california (44%) and new york (20%), with new jersey and ohio following along at 6% each. academic institutions producing the most psychobiographical dissertations were the wright institute europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 467 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (n = 8), the california schools of professional psychology (n = 6), and adelphi university’s derner institute for advanced psychological studies (n = 6). psychobiography, like its cousin biography, often focuses on deceased historic and public figures (see elms, 1994; runyan, 1982). the present data supports this trend as all but two dissertations focused on deceased individuals. one dissertation focused on a living and incarcerated serial killer (joel d. rifkin; by desantis, 2002), and one on a fictional character (horace benbow; by meixner, 1992). of the historical figures, 32% were born in the 20th century, 56% were born in the 19th century, while the remainder (12%) were born during the 18th century or before. the subjects ranged in life span from 28 years (psychobiography of egon schiele; by walrod, 1978) to 94 years (psychobiography of frances crosby; by albertson, 1992), with a mean age at death of 64 years. with regard to gender of historical subjects, the majority were male (63%) versus female (32%), with the remaining focused on multiple figures or an entire family (5%). the careers or notable contributions of the psychobiographical subjects could be partitioned into the following six areas: various artists (51%, e.g., sculptors, painters, novelist, poets, and playwrights), psychologists (14%), political leaders (9%), religious healers/leaders (6%), incarcerated adults (3%), a diverse miscellaneous group (8%), and an “undefined” career group (9%). in terms of theoretical lenses anchoring the psychobiographical research, the majority were either traditionally psychoanalytic (32%), object relations focused (11%), or other dynamic variants (8%); while levinson’s (12%) adult developmental model and erikson’s (11%) psychosocial model were also popular. less frequent among theoretical anchors were humanistic/existential models (3%; e.g., bugental). finally, roughly 23% of the dissertations used a scattering of other theories (e.g., family systems, racial identity, feminism, big five). interestingly, 60% of the psychobiography dissertations were anchored primarily in a single theory, while 5% relied on multiple theories within the same school of thought, and 35% relied on multiple theories representing different schools of psychology. a wide variety of research methodologies were employed in the conduct of the psychobiographical research. historiographic and qualitative methods predominated and included archival document reviews (including biographies/autobiographies, letters, diaries, photos, recorded interviews, speeches, and creative productions [analysis of drawings, poems, films, paintings]). in the case of the living subject (serial killer, joel d. rifkin) and more recently deceased subjects, recorded interviews with subject and/or surviving friends and relatives were incorporated. it would be fair to say that qualitative research anchored in the emergent, discovery-oriented constructivistinterpretivist paradigm (see guba & lincoln, 1994) was most prominent among the studies. finally, a minority of the dissertations also included a post-positivist element by incorporating some quantitative analysis and thus served as mixed-methods designs. for example the study of joel d. rifkin included document analysis, personal interviews, and the analysis of a wide spectrum of objective and projective personality tests as well as tests of intelligence (desantis, 2002). discussion: charting a course the present limited study identified few psychobiography courses offered in psychology departments nationwide. a larger number of courses were anchored in psychobiography and/or incorporated psychobiographical elements (e.g., readings, assignments), but were not specifically marketed as courses in “psychobiography.” it is somewhat surprising that given the historic and influential role of psychobiography to the fields of personality, human develeurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ opment, psychological theory, and individual differences (including exemplar model of “genius,” “goodness,” and “evil”) that more attention to psychobiography as both a topic and method is not extant. complimenting study in psychobiography, there were a number of professors who incorporated more general personologic and narrative research approaches in the curriculum. particularly influential in this regard was mcadams’s (1993) the stories we live by. respondents to our five-item open-ended survey where in unanimous agreement that psychobiography and other narrative approaches to studying individual lives was central and critical to training in psychology. such approaches equip students in psychology with critical skills in self-understanding and cultural awareness, in applying theories of psychology to whole lives in historical context, in understanding the importance of working with qualitative data in addition to the traditional quantitative emphasis, and these approaches have direct relevance to enhancing clinical skills for practitioner-oriented students. with regard to psychobiography, the texts of elms (1994), runyan (1982), and schultz (2005a) were deemed as essential training for all psychologists. similarly the life story method outlined in mcadams (1993) was identified as required reading for all psychology students. the present study was able to identify a good number of doctoral dissertations focused on psychobiography. in fact, the output of dissertations seemed disproportional to the few psychobiography courses identified, and therefore it may be likely that doctoral programs promoting psychobiography as a dissertation topic may not offer actual “psychobiography” courses in the curriculum. this raises some concern in that doctoral students may be pursuing a complicated methodology in their dissertations without formal training in the procedure. it is likely that students are learning psychobiography on their own or may have mentors qualified to supervise their work. alternately, our limited sampling proceduresmay havemissed professors working in departments where psychobiography training is well integrated. certainly the benefits of training students in psychobiographical research merits increased discussion on the place of psychobiography and other narrative approaches in the curriculum. among the benefits of training in psychobiography are understanding the individual person in historic and cultural context, mastering multiple psychological theories, emphasizing the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative research methods, and gathering knowledge in related disciplines of history, journalism, and political science (elms, 1994; howe, 1997; kőváry, 2011; ponterotto, 2013, 2014a, 2014b; runyan, 1982; schultz, 2005a). perhaps the most comprehensive approach to psychobiography mastery is the development of full courses on the subject, along with promoting and supervising psychobiography research studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. as noted in figure 1 discussed earlier, psychobiography is an interdisciplinary endeavor and psychology programs can consider joining with other departments such as history, political science, and journalism to offer joint courses and thus drawing on the expertise of interdisciplinary faculty. an alternate, though less comprehensive route, may be to embed psychobiography into pre-existing core psychology courses and including relevant readings and projects. natural nominees for such courses would be personality, human development, history, research methods, political psychology, the psychology of the gifted and talented, and forensic psychology. a number of courses in table a1 follow this model. the psychology profession, with its momentum toward methodological diversity (e.g., gergen, josselson, & freeman, 2015; josselson, 2013), can advance with more doctoral level research in psychobiography. the present study found roughly one-half of psychobiography dissertations being generated by traditional universities, and the remainder by professional schools and institutes. perhaps psychology departments in traditional universities europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 469 http://www.psychopen.eu/ can partner with colleagues in professional schools to share resources and expertise and provide doctoral (and masters) students with expanded research options. kőváry (2011) is convinced that the psychology profession, internationally, is in the midst of a renaissance of psychobiography; it will be interesting to see how this prediction unfolds in north america in the coming decade. naturally, the present brief report has marked limitations in terms of design and generalizability. the random sampling of universities was limited though reaching all 50 states in the united states as well as major universities in canada. from the dissertation component of the study it was clear that a good amount of psychobiographical research is being conducted in non-traditional universities, such as institutes and professional schools of psychology, which were not included in the random survey component of this study. therefore it is likely that there may be more psychobiography courses offered in some of these institutions. the convenience sampling procedure relied on snowballing procedures and select list-serve e-mail requests, and the random sampling was limited to large universities in north america. it would be important in follow-up research to randomly select a large sample of university and professional psychology curricula in europe and world-wide to evaluate with certainty whether and where psychobiography courses are offered. it would be of value to assess (using quantitative surveys, focus groups, and in-depth personal interviews) both student and faculty opinions on the place and quality of psychobiographical training in their respective departments. our hope is that this study stimulates discussion in psychobiography among undergraduate and graduate departments of psychology. kőváry (2011, p. 739) claims that the psychology profession is in the midst of a “renaissance in psychobiography.” it will be important to test this prediction worldwide and examine how a resurgence in psychobiography is manifested in psychology 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(2003). paradigms of personality assessment. new york, ny: guilford. appendix table a1 psychobiography courses and courses incorporating psychobiographical training* specific courses with “psychobiography” in title 1. pacific university oregon, forest grove campus, psy-444, “psychobiography,” william todd schultz, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 2. amherst college, amherst, ma, psych-38, “psychobiography: the study of lives,” amy p. demorest, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 3. university of the south, sewanee, psy-406, “psychobiography seminar,” nicole b. barenbaum, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 4. monmouth university, “psychobiographical research,” frances k. trotman, hybrid elective course 5. canisius college, undergraduate honors 270, “psychobiography,” jennifer lodi-smith 6. marquette university, “psychobiography,” ed de st. aubin, department of psychology, undergraduate level specific courses anchored in (or incorporating) psychobiography personality-oriented psychology 1. russell sage college, troy, ny, “personality theory” (persons in the personality theory), susan c. mueller, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level (see mueller, 1985) 2. amherst college, amherst, ma, psych-338, “personality and political leadership,” amy p. demorest, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 3. rutgers university, new jersey, “seminar in personality psychology,” dan ogilvie, department of psychology, graduate seminar level 4. rutgers university, new jersey, psych 16-830:541, “seminar in personality psychology,” dan ogilvie, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 5. simon fraser university (canada), psyc 370, “theories of personality,” bob ley, department of psychology 6. university of north carolina at chapel hill, psychology 501, “advanced personality,” department of psychology 7. duke university, psy 629s, “social behavior and personality,” rick hoyle, department of psychology europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 473 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00018 http://www.utexas.edu/world/univ/alpha https://www.utexas.edu/world/univ/state http://www.psychopen.eu/ 8. canisius college, psy 302, “personality psychology,” jennifer lodi-smith, upper division undergraduate course 9. university of prince edward island, “theories of personality,” scott greer, department of psychology 10. depauw university, “the psychology of personality” (with lab), ted bitner, department of psychology 11. marquette university, “personality,” ed de st. aubin, department of psychology, clinical psychology program 12. university of dayton, “personality,” jack bauer, department of psychology 13. university of british columbia, “personality psychology,” katherine h. rogers, department of psychology, 300-level undergraduate elective 14. university of california at riverside, psyc 226, “theories and concepts in personality psychology,” will dunlop, required graduate course 15. university of california at riverside, psyc 150, “personality psychology,” will dunlop, undergraduate elective course 16. northeastern university, “personality research methods,” randy colvin, department of psychology 17. john jay college of criminal justice, psyc 74003, “historical and theoretical foundations of critical social/personality psychology,” susan opotow, department of psychology narrative and life story-oriented psychology 1. university of california at berkeley, “life histories and case studies,” william mckinley runyan, school of social welfare 2. lemoyne college, syracuse, new york, psy 444. “story in psychology: narrative perspectives on human behavior,” vincent w. hevern, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 3. college of the holy cross, “life and literature,” mark p. freeman, psychology department, undergraduate level 4. college of the holy cross, “time, memory, and the life story,” mark p. freeman, undergraduate course in first-year program 5. kalamazoo college, psyc 430, “interviewing and narrative analysis,” psychology department 6. olin college, psych 221/ ahse 2199, “narrative psychology,” jonathan adler, psychology department, undergraduate elective course 7. lewis and clark college, cpsy 590, "narrative therapy," steve berman, graduate school of education and counseling 8. city university of new york (cuny) graduate center, psyc 80102 (27651), “the study of lives,” jason vanora, interdisciplinary course for critical social/personality, environmental psychology, and social welfare programs, doctoral level 9. marquette university, “narrative psychology,” ed de st. aubin, department of psychology, advanced undergraduate level 10. boston graduate school of psychoanalysis, “narrative research,” stephen soldz 11. the university of chicago, chdv 28900 (psyc 27600, sosc 28900), “the study of lives: psychology and biography,” bertram j. cohler culture, biography, and autobiography 1. smith college, psychology 333, “identity through psychology, fiction, and autobiography,” bill e. peterson, elective undergraduate senior seminar course, undergraduate course in first-year program 2. arizona state university eng 420, “multicultural autobiographies”, thomas v. mcgovern 3. arizona state university, ias 220, “psych/multicultural narr/relig,” thomas v. mcgovern 4. rice university, reli 430/584, “religion, psychology, & culture,” william parsons, school of humanities, department of religious studies 5. morgan state university, engl 473, “literary biography and autobiography,” english department, undergraduate elective course 6. fuller graduate school of psychology, “cultural/spiritual narratives in psychology,” jenny h. pak, doctoral course in clinical psychology 7. fuller graduate school of psychology, “narrative, culture, and attachment in psychotherapy,” jenny h. pak, clinical psychology program, elective graduate psychology course 8. university of minnesota, psy 1905-001, “the cultural psychology of storytelling,” moin syed, department of psychology, freshman seminar course history-oriented psychology 1. 1. university of california at davis, psych 185, “the history of psychology,” dean keith simonton, department of psychology, undergraduate level 2. university of california at davis, psych 220, “the history of psychology,” dean keith simonton, department of psychology, graduate level 3. fordham university graduate school of education, psge 6615, "history and systems of psychology," joseph g. ponterotto, required course for phd in counseling psychology genius and creativity 1. university of california at davis, psych 175, “genius, creativity, and leadership,” dean keith simonton, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 2. concordia university – portland, “beautiful minds: a seminar course on the psychology of genius,” kevin e. simpson, department of social sciences, open to all psychology majors europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 psychobiography training in psychology 474 http://www.psychopen.eu/ political psychology 1. university of california at los angeles, m236a/m261a, “proseminar: political psychology”, david o. sears 2. university of north carolina at chapel hill, poli 417, “advanced political psychology,” timothy j. ryan, department of political science, undergraduate elective other course content areas 1. rutgers university, new jersey, “abnormal psychology,” george atwood, department of psychology, upper division undergraduate level 2. college of the holy cross, “time, self, and the good life,” mark p. freeman 3. fordham university graduate school of education, psge 7680, “qualitative research methods in counseling psychology,” joseph g. ponterotto, required course for phd in counseling psychology 4. university of dayton, “adult development and aging,” jack bauer, department of psychology 5. university of texas austin, “psychology of literature class,” jennifer beer, department of psychology, undergraduate level *note. some of these courses are not offered at the current time or are now taught by different professors. about the authors josephg. ponterotto, ph.d., is professor of counseling psychology and coordinator of the mental health counseling program in the graduate school of education at fordham university – lincoln center, new york city. he maintains a small private practice in new york city. an active psychobiographer, he is best known for his book, “a psychobiography of bobby fischer: understanding the genius, mystery, and psychological decline of a world chess champion” (2012). he also specializes in the area of multicultural counseling. jason d. reynolds is a ph.d. candidate in counseling psychology at fordham university. he has been an active researcher in the areas of psychobiography, transracial international adoption, multicultural and masculinity issues, social justice and community advocacy, and successful aging and goals for centenarians. he has worked in a variety of clinical settings throughout boston and new york city including schools, universities, community agencies, and hospitals. samantha morel graduated from the mental health counseling program at fordham university in 2014. she has worked as a mental health professional servicing the medicaid population and will begin attending the apa accredited ph.d. program in counseling psychology at purdue university in fall 2015. linda cheung is a doctoral student in the school psychology program at fordham university in new york city. she has previously worked as a behavior specialist in a day rehabilitation program for individuals with developmental disabilities. her research and practice interests are: effective education techniques, behavior interventions, culturally diverse populations and working with young children. currently, she is assisting with two grants related to school policy and providing training for general education teachers, who work with children with high needs in inclusive classrooms. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 459–475 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 ponterotto, reynolds, morel et al. 475 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en psychobiography training in psychology (introduction) method and procedures random sample of north american universities purposeful listserv and snowball sampling dissertation review results: mapping the field psychobiography courses in the curriculum open-ended survey psychobiography doctoral dissertations discussion: charting a course (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors adolescents’ and young adults' naïve understandings of the economic crisis research reports adolescents’ and young adults' naïve understandings of the economic crisis anna emilia berti a, anna maria ajello b, carmela aprea c, ilaria castelli d, elisabetta lombardi* e, antonella marchetti e, davide massaro e, viviana sappa f, annalisa valle e [a] department of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, and applied psychology, università di padova, padova, italy. [b] department of social and developmental psychology, sapienza università di roma, rome, italy. [c] friedrich-schiller-university jena, jena, germany. [d] department of humanities and social sciences, università degli studi di bergamo, bergamo, italy. [e] research unit on theory of mind, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. [f] swiss federal institute for vocational education and training (sfivet), lugano, switzerland. abstract over the last decade, financial literacy (fl) and interventions aimed at improving it, that is financial education (fe), have been the focus of increased attention from economists, governments, and international organizations such as the world bank and oecd, but much less by scholars in the fields of learning and instruction. we examined open-ended written answers on the causes of the economic crisis that started in 2007-2008, as given by 381 italian secondary school and university students, and 268 swiss italian-speaking secondary school students. most italian students mentioned internal political causes (i.e., corrupt politicians or inefficiency of the government), whereas swiss students mentioned banks more often. international factors were rarely mentioned by either group, and explanations were generally very poor, listing a few causes without making connections between them. these findings indicate the need for economics education aimed at making people more knowledgeable of the workings of the economic system and the effects of financial systems on the real economy. keywords: financial literacy, lay explanations, student's conceptions, economic crisis, secondary school, university students, financial education europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 received: 2016-05-06. accepted: 2016-11-14. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: largo gemelli, 1 – 20123, milan, italy. e-mail: elisabetta.lombardi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. since the beginning of the twenty-first century there has been an upsurge of interest in the fields of financial literacy (fl), recently defined by the organization for economics co-operation and development (oecd, 2016, p. 85) as the “knowledge and understanding of financial concepts and risks, and the skills, motivation and confidence to apply such knowledge and understanding in order to make effective decisions across a range of financial contexts, to improve the financial well-being of individuals and society, and to enable participation in economic life” and financial education (fe), intended as interventions aimed at fostering fl. a further burgeoning took place after the financial and economic crisis began in 2007-2008. the number of studies on fl have increased (see atkinson & messy, 2012; lusardi & mitchell, 2014; oecd, 2014), as have the interventions of fe promoted by international and national public organizations (e.g. australian securities europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ and investments commission, 2003; oecd, 2005; u.s. department of the treasury, office of financial education, 2006; world bank, see carpena, cole, shapiro, & zia, 2015). there are also financial firms (e.g., visa, 2015) and private organisations and networks that have been dedicated to economic education for several decades (e.g., junior achievement, https://www.juniorachievement.org) or which have been established in the last few years with the mission of enhancing the financial capabilities of children and youth (e.g., children & youth finance, http://www.childfinanceinternational.org). schools are becoming increasingly involved in fe: at least twenty-one countries have implemented fe programmes in schools (russia trust fund, 2013), and in some states (e.g., uk, usa, see pang, 2010) various aspects have been incorporated as a statutory part of the national curriculum. however, the education and learning sciences community seems to be scarcely aware of, or interested in, this issue. with few exceptions (e.g., davies, 2015; marchetti, castelli, massaro, & valle, 2016; pang, 2010), all papers on this topic have been published in economics, business, or financial journals. concern for the level of fl and initiatives aimed at its improvement have been stimulated by the conviction that a “lack of financial literacy was one of the factors contributing to ill-informed financial decisions and that these decisions could, in turn, have tremendous negative spill-over” (oecd, 2013) and that higher levels of financial literacy will improve economic growth and help to reduce poverty in all economies (oecd, 2005, p. 35). the lack of fl has recently been testified by the results of the pisa 2012 survey of 15-year-olds from 13 participating oecd countries, which showed that “only one in ten students, on average [...] can analyze complex financial products and solve non-routine financial problems. they show an understanding of the wider financial landscape, such as the implication of income-tax brackets and can explain the financial advantages of different types of investments” (oecd, 2014, p. 34). in addition of the definition of fl proposed by oecd (2016) presented above, there are other numerous and various implicit and explicit definitions. an examination of how financial knowledge is operationalized in questionnaires measuring fl shows that it falls into four categories: budgeting, saving, borrowing and investing, which comprise an understanding of money, interest, and risk (remund, 2010). several scholars have criticized fe, and the underlying concept of fl, highlighting its limitations or challenging its premises. according to some authors (see, for instance, bernanke 2006; lusardi & mitchell, 2014) many fe interventions have been successful in terms of both increased financial understanding and its effects on financial outcomes. however, according to a recent meta-analysis of the relationship between fe or fl, and financial behaviours, “financial education as studied to date has serious limitations that have been masked by the apparently larger effects in correlational studies.” (fernandes, lynch, & netemeyer, 2014). lauren willis (2008) has examined the knowledge and skills necessary for making sensible financial decisions, concluding that they are too complex to be provided by a fe program. those programs are therefore likely to have the adverse consequence of increasing consumers' self-confidence and over-optimism about financial risks. according to willis (see also williams, 2007) fe appears to be an alternative to regulatory interventions on financial markets. rather than empowering consumers, as its proponents claim, this policy makes them responsible for the consequences of their financial choices, leaving financial firms free to sell risky or even toxic financial products. other authors stress that fe is based on too narrow a view of what fl means a view focused only on the knowledge and skills needed for consumers of financial products, disregarding those necessary for citizens to naïve understandings of the economic crisis 144 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 https://www.juniorachievement.org http://www.childfinanceinternational.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ participate in the financial and economic policies of their country, as the electorate or as persons more deeply committed to political activities. the strongest criticisms are delivered by those who “view fe as responding to the interests of the states and firms in expanding consumer markets for financial products, and as facilitating a shift from the state to the individual of responsibility for personal economic security.” (williams, 2007, p. 227; in the same vein see arthur, 2012). focusing on citizens instead of consumers widens the scope of the definitions fl and fe. these definitions should include an understanding of the behaviour of financial systems and the role of banks or governments in their operations (e.g.: davies, 2015), leading to fe being seen as part of an integrative concept of economic education (arthur, 2012; mittelstaedt, lutz, & wiepcke 2013; remmele & seeber, 2012). for instance, mittelstaedt et al. (2013) propose that the history of financial crises, the social and political consequences, and the different measures taken by governments to face them, should be included in the secondary school social science curriculum, integrated with other disciplines (such as civic education, mathematics, history). planning and delivering effective teaching of these topics requires a wide knowledge base about learners' conceptions, as is the case in other school subjects (see vosniadou, 2013, for reviews of students' conceptions of traditional school subjects and how they affect learning), but there is a dearth of research in students' conceptions of economics and, more generally, society (see berti, 2005; lundholm & davies, 2013; webley, 2005, for reviews). surveys of fl are numerous and broad (see world bank, 2013 for a review), but they have examined a limited range of topics, mainly regarding financial services and products, rather than the workings of the financial system or its components. a few studies on children's understanding of banking were conducted before the deregulation of banks in the last decade of 20th century, which brought about radical changes in the structure and operation of banks (see stiglitz, 2010 for usa; gual, 1999 for european countries). these studies have shown that several adolescents do not understand how a profit can be realized through the difference between loan and deposit interest (see berti & monaci, 1998; webley, 2005 for reviews). this suggests that the more complex operations permitted by deregulation are far beyond what ordinary people can envisage. the only studies that, although indirectly, have investigated ordinary people’s conceptions of the operations of the financial system are those that have examined lay perceptions or explanations of the 2007-2008 crisis. they are rather heterogeneous studies, conducted independently of each other and involving adults in diverse countries such as france, the usa, russia, germany, israel, and sub-saharan africa (leiser, bourgeoisgirone, & benita, 2010), ireland (o’connor, 2012), and france (roland-lévi, pappalardo boumelki, & guillet, 2010). only aprea (2015; aprea & sappa, 2014) examined secondary school students (from germany). a broad on-line research, promoted by the association of european economic education (aeee), addressed to 17-19 year old european students (from italy, austria, germany, ireland, france and uk) is still continuing (http://www.economicseducation.eu/research/student-survey-on-the-economic-crises), although some results collected in 2012 have been summarized by weber (2013). although an account of the crisis is beyond the scope of the present paper, before examining the results of the above studies, we will provide a brief outline of the economists’ explanations. these explanations refer to a complex sequence of actions, involving different actors, such as political authorities, financial enterprises, banks, firms, and ordinary people. the events and processes resulting in the 2007-2008 financial crisis were legislative acts (such as the laws deregulating financial institutions); the creation of new financial products (e.g., mortgage securitizations and their bundling in collateralized debt obligations; credit default swaps); increased berti, ajello, aprea et al. 145 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.economicseducation.eu/research/student-survey-on-the-economic-crises http://www.psychopen.eu/ interest rates; the inability of homeowners to meet mortgage payments; the repossession and selling off of houses by lenders, resulting in slashed prices and foreclosures; the collapse of banks holding “toxic” products, or state intervention to save them; the fall of stock markets around the world. the impoverishment of people who lost their houses, and the reduced credit available to businesses and families, caused the crisis to spread to other economic sectors, through a vicious cycle of reduced consumption and the collapse of production and employment (see baily, litan, & johnson 2008; stiglitz, 2010; weber, 2013). with the exception of aprea's studies, conducted using semi-structured interviews, investigations into lay perceptions or explanations of the 2007-2008 crisis asked participants to mark on a likert-scale their degree of agreement with statements describing possible causes of the crisis such as, for instance, capitalism, the stupidity of decision-makers (leiser et al., 2010); self-serving motives of politicians, the greed of individual bankers, self-interested actions by the general population (o’connor, 2012); the globalization of production and import, actions by the national government (aeee, ongoing) or their attitudes about the crisis (roland-lévi, pappalardo boumelki, & guillet, 2010). factor analyses highlighted different and heterogeneous factors. some factors referred to individual characteristics of economic actors, including the immorality of economic players and stupidity of decision makers (leiser et al., 2010) and materialistic culture, extravagant life styles of ordinary people (o’connor, 2012). others factors referred to impersonal, structural processes, such as economic trends beyond anyone's control, dependence on the economies of other countries (o’connor, 2012), capitalism, globalization, and the complexity of the economy (leiser et al., 2010). although these data give a glimpse into how people perceive the crisis, they do not reveal what explanations came spontaneously to their minds, nor whether and how they interweave different causes in complex explanations. aprea (2015), who tapped spontaneous explanations, scored the answers in terms of their elaborateness, that is whether or not a certain component of the crisis (i.e., onset, causes, progression, impact), was mentioned, and in what detail. elaborateness turned out to be generally low. although most participants mentioned subprime crises as the origin of the financial crisis, “only about 35% mentioned spill-over effects to the banks, and only six students could explain the interbank transfer mechanism. potentially detrimental features of innovative financial products, such as the securitization of accounts, were only stated in three cases, and more systemic reasons such as deregulation, over-leveraging, incorrect pricing of risk, or inherent instabilities of financial capitalism were not mentioned at all.” (aprea, 2015, p. 18). these results suggest that open-ended questions can give a different glimpse of lay people's explanations of the crisis by highlighting which factors they represent and how, and which factors are missing or misinterpreted. on these grounds, we aimed to enrich the picture of students' spontaneous explanations of the crisis starting in 2007-2008 with a study conducted using open-ended questions, involving a large group of participants, and comparing students from different countries (italian vs swiss), with and without economic education. for this reason, we asked students to write their answers to broad open-ended questions. in order to draw a detailed picture of students' views, we first identified and described the types of causes mentioned, then we examined whether and how they were connected. this study was exploratory and did not test specific hypotheses. however, given the results of the reviewed studies above, the complexity of the financial system and the sequence of events resulting in the crisis, we expected to find very superficial answers from the participants without economic education. that is, we expected answers to mention the events closest to everyday experience (for instance, increased unemployment, the inefficiency of the political system), without linking them naïve understandings of the economic crisis 146 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to more remote events (such as laws deregulating financial institutions), and the operations of the international financial system. method participants as table 1 shows, the study involved a total of 649 secondary school (grades 10th and 12th) and university students, 381 italians (from milan, padua, rome, florence, l'aquila) and 268 swiss (from lugano, in the italian speaking region of switzerland). females accounted for 49.8% of the sample. the mean age of secondary school students was 17.61 years (sd = 1.710) and the mean age of university students was 20.16 years (sd = 2.689). the majority of italian students (n = 222, 58.27%) attended secondary schools. more than half (n = 141, 63.5%) were enrolled in a school specialized in business and economics, called “administration, finance and marketing”, the others in a liceo scientifico, where economics is not taught. among the university students (n = 159, 41.73%) about one third (n = 56, 35%) were attending a bachelor of economics course, whereas the others were studying for a bachelor of education or humanities. table 1 sample description education italian students (n = 381) swiss students (n = 268) secondary school (n = 222) university (n = 159) secondary school male female male female male female n % n % n % n % n % n % with economic education 74 52,5 67 47,5 35 62,5 21 37,5 49 31 108 69 without economic education 44 54 37 46 20 19 83 81 104 94 7 6 the majority of swiss students (n = 157, 59%) attended a cantonal school of commerce that provides a solid general education, in particular in business, administration, economics and law. the rest of the swiss participants (n = 111, 41%) were recruited from a school of arts and crafts, where we specifically selected the following professional profiles: mechanical, computer, chemical and electrical. although in the whole sample there was more or less the same proportion of male and female students, this was not the case in the subgroups. for this reason, gender comparisons were not made. questionnaire students were given a two pages questionnaire. at the top they had to indicate their school level, gender and age. the first question for the italians was: 1) “you know that italy is going through a severe economic crisis. what do you think are the causes of this crisis?”. the rest of the page was left for writing the answer. this question was slightly different for the swiss participants, as switzerland was not undergoing a financial and economic crisis directly, but was indirectly affected by the eurozone crisis. therefore, the first question was worded in the following way: “you may know that various european nations, and in part also switzerland, are berti, ajello, aprea et al. 147 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ going through a severe economic crisis. what do you think the causes of this crisis are?” the second page contained two questions, each followed by about half a page for the answer: 2) “what could the government do to cope with the crisis?” (in the swiss version the questions referred to “the swiss government and other european governments”; 3) “do you feel that this crisis has had any effects on your daily life? if yes, in what way?” the current paper presents only the answers to questions 1 and 3. all students completed the questionnaire in the classroom, and had about 45 minutes to perform this task. the data were collected between march and june 2013, a little after the early national election in italy (which took place at the end of february) and a hot electoral campaign, and during the formation of the new government (settled on april 28th), or some weeks later. scoring there were two levels of scoring. the first consisted in classifying the answers in a coding scheme constructed inductively by two coders who examined a sample of 100 questionnaires in order to identify categories of perceived causes (question 1) and personal impact (question 2). although we had expectations about students' answers, a bottom-up procedure seemed to ensure a better fit of coding categories to students' answers than a top-down procedure. the coders read the answers independently and underlined words or sentences that seemed to express distinct concepts, and listed a first set of possible categories. they then compared and discussed the categories proposed, decided which could be merged or split, and prepared a scoring manual with the name and description of categories. the second level of scoring involved only question 1, and was carried out on the answers indicating two or more causes. whether these causes were only listed or were linked to one another was analysed, and the number of linked causes counted. a judge scored all the questionnaires. a second judge scored a sample of 100 questionnaires. inter-coder agreement ranged from k = 0 .72 to k = 1, which, according fleiss’s (1981) guidelines (k over 0.75 as excellent), is to be considered as reliable. the causes of the crisis were coded in the following categories (the numbers in brackets are the percentage of participants in the total sample – both italian and swiss – who gave responses in the various categories, in descending order). • inefficiency and responsibility of the government or politicians (53.7%). answers refer to corruption or inefficiency and incompetence (or both). e.g.: “bad government, too much egoism in the management of financial resources”; “politicians are corrupt and incompetent”. • reduced purchasing power (23.1%). answers refer to the drop in consumption due to poverty or the increased cost of living, or inflation. • banks (18.6%). answers range from mentioning banks or speculation only, to blaming banks for lending money excessively, to describing the collapse of lehman brothers. • unemployment or wage cuts (18.2%). this category also includes answers referring to bankruptcy in business. • international factors (15.9%). answers refer to usa, “international causes”, multinational corporations. • tax fraud /evasion (12.9%): answers refer to tax evasion by common tax-payers as well as undeclared work by employers. naïve understandings of the economic crisis 148 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ • over-taxation (12.7%). answers refer generically to excessive, or too many, taxes, or to specific taxes for citizens or companies (e.g. “the government are putting so much tax on work”). • public overspending (11.9%). answers refer to the government's excessive expenditure generally, or to specific expenses such as the salaries of pm being too high, chauffeur services, personal privileges (i.e. free passes for highways / rail / sea / air), financing political parties, and the cost of public services. • public debt (9.5%). this includes answers which simply mention the public debt and those regarding it as a cause of increased taxes. • inadequate behaviour of consumers, businesses (9.3%). this category refers to behaviour in terms of reduced consumption because of exaggerated fears on the part of consumers, misguided investments by citizens and/or businesses and companies, and the reduced flexibility and adaptability of citizens in the new situation. • european union and euro (8.9%). the european union and the euro are simply mentioned, or their negative impact is attributed to increased prices. • social causes (8.7%). this refers to causes involving people in general or criminal groups, such as egoism, criminality, corruption, a decline in moral values. e.g.: “people are egoistical and give in to, or seek out the mafia for help. corruption is everywhere, not only in the political system”. • globalization (7.3%). this includes answers mentioning the words “globalization”, or “delocalization”, or referring to international competition and its consequences on salaries and business. • immigrants (4.9%). reference is made to “foreigners”, “immigrants”, “non-eu citizens” and, in switzerland, cross-border workers. • increased economic inequality (4%). e.g.: “now the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer”. • private debt (2.4%). this refers to the increased debt of citizens or companies and businesses. • don’t know (3%). this includes answering “don’t know” and not answering at all. in addition, a variety of other factors were mentioned by less than 2% of participants. among them there were the increased spread, overproduction, inefficiency of the school system, depletion of raw materials, the older retirement age, the collapse of capitalism, and the failure of liberalism. these factors were scored as others (23.3%). if a factor was identified in a subject's answer, it was scored 1, otherwise 0. each factor was coded only once for each subject, even if it occurred more than once in his or her answer. for instance, if an answer mentioned mps' privileges and high salaries, and the cost of the political system, it was scored 1 in the category public overspending. the answers regarding the impact of the crisis on personal life were coded (as 1 or 0) with respect to the following categories: • effects on self and family (53%), such as having to cut expenses for leisure activity (cinema, restaurants, holidays, music) and even necessary goods. berti, ajello, aprea et al. 149 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ • social effect (33.6%), perceived directly, or known through the media, such as factories or hospitals having to close, people losing their jobs or barely able to make ends meet. • concern for future work (12.7%), expressed in personal terms (e.g.: “without this crisis, i certainly would find a job”) or as a member of a cohort (“there are hardly any opportunities for us young people to find decent jobs”). • concern for one’s own future (10.5%), expressed in generic terms, without mentioning a job (e.g.: “this crisis affects the way i look at the future”). • emotional effects (5.9%), such as anxiety, fear, anger, guilt (regarding spending), felt personally, or perceived in family members or other people. results we begin with the results of the first level coding of answers of the italian sample (which comprises secondary school and university students); we then present the results of the swiss sample and compare them with those of the italian secondary school students. lastly, we describe the second level of coding (identification of links between the causes mentioned) in the whole sample. italian sample to provide explanations for the current crisis (question 1) students should be aware that there was, in fact, a crisis. this awareness was testified by the answer to questions 2, regarding the perceived effect of the crisis. as table 2 shows, the great majority of italian students stated that the crisis affected their everyday lives and most described changes occurring in their personal and family consumption. a minority also mentioned concerns for their future, in general terms, or with respect to their future employment. differences emerged between secondary school and university students. secondary school students, who turned out to be more affected by the crisis, represented a wider range of socio-economic status. in the years 2010 to 2015, only about 60% of students graduating from secondary school entered university (italian national institute of statistics, n.d.) and university in italy is usually attended by the middle and upper middle classes, and even more so in the last ten years (“la ‘nuova classe operaia’”, 2015). table 2 consequences of the crisis perceived by italian students (percentages) category secondary school (n = 222) university (n = 159) total % χ2(1) p the crisis affected my daily life 87.7 75.2 82.0 10.1 .001 changes in personal and family life 72.0 41.8 57.6 32.2 <.001 changes in other people's lives 36.6 26.1 31.5 4.3 .037 experience or perception of emotional distress 11.4 3.6 7.6 7.3 .007 uncertainty about one's future job 13.1 13.3 13.2 ns general concern about one's future 13.1 12.1 12.6 ns naïve understandings of the economic crisis 150 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 shows the overall percentage of italian participants who mentioned different causes of the crisis, ordered for increasing frequency, and highlights the causes in which significant between-group differences emerged. it can be seen that most participants attributed the crisis to causes related to the political system (inefficiency and responsibility of the government or politicians, public debt, public overspending, high taxes) or mentioned aspects of the crisis affecting people, and which are likely to be perceived directly, or known through talks and the media (reduced purchasing power, unemployment or wage cuts, increased economic inequality, increase in private debt) or mentioned causes referring to inappropriate behaviour on the part of some people (tax evasion, inadequate behaviour by consumers or businesses, social causes such as criminality and a decline in moral values). causes related to the financial system and international processes were rarely mentioned. table 3 causes of the economic crisis mentioned by italian students. percentage of answers in the italian sample and significant between group differences category secondary school (n = 222) university (n = 159) total % χ2(1) p inefficiency and responsibility of government or politicians 75.2 70.3 73.1 ns reduced purchasing power 27.5 13.9 21.7 10.2 .001 unemployment or wage cuts 23.0 14.5 19.4 4.3 .038 tax increases 23.4 14.5 19.1 6.2 .013 tax fraud /evasion 20.7 15.2 18.3 ns public overspending 20.3 13.4 17.3 ns social causes 14.9 13.3 14.2 ns banks 10.8 16.4 13.2 ns international factors 12.2 11.5 11.9 ns public debt 14.4 8.5 11.9 ns inadequate behaviour of consumers or businesses 5.4 19.4 11.4 18.2 <.001 globalization of production 3.6 11.5 7.0 9.2 .003 european union or euro 5.4 3.0 4.4 ns increased economic inequality 2.7 3.0 2.8 ns immigrants 1.8 2.3 2.3 ns private debt 0.5 1.8 1.0 ns secondary school students mentioned aspects of the crisis affecting everyday life more often than university students possibly because the first group had a more heterogeneous socio-economic status than the second (as suggested by the answers described above about the personal impact of the crisis). on the other hand, they mentioned globalization and inadequate behaviour of consumers or businesses less often. university students’ higher awareness of these factors might result from their higher education, as well as from their being the only part of the sample who vote, which might result in a greater interest in economic and political questions. unexpectedly, there were very few differences between those who did, and did not, study economics. whereas there were no significant differences in the perception of the consequences of the crisis between those who studied and those did not studied economics, some differences emerged in the explanations of the crisis. those who studied economics mentioned less often globalization of production (3.5% vs 10.8%, χ2(1, berti, ajello, aprea et al. 151 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ n = 381) = 7.8, p = .005), inadequate behaviour of consumers of business (8.0% vs 15.0%, χ2(1, n = 381) = 4.9, p = .027), and increased economic inequality (1.0 vs. 4.8, χ2(1, n = 381) = 5.2, p = .023). the most salient aspect of the above data is the high frequency of political causes being mentioned. there are two ways this can be explained, one more general, the other focused on the italian situation: 1) political causes (often intended as dishonest or inadequate behaviour by politicians) are personal, and represent “sequential processes”, more easily understood than the functioning of financial markets, which are instances of “emergent processes” which cannot be conceived without explicit instruction (chi, roscoe, slotta, roy, & chase, 2012), the high level of perceived corruption in italy and the recurrent difficulties of the italian political system (transparency international, 2015). these features were particularly salient in the news and in political debate when the data were collected (a few months before or after the elections). a comparison with the answers of the swiss students helped to weigh up these two explanations. swiss sample table 4 shows that a high (although lower than italian) percentage of swiss students perceived the personal and family impact of the crisis. as in the italian group, no significant difference emerged between participants who did, and did not, study economics. table 4 consequences of the crisis perceived by swiss students (percentages) category swiss (n = 268) italians (n = 222) χ2(1) p the crisis affected my daily life 63.1 87.7 38.0 <.001 changes in personal and family life 43.6 72.0 29.0 <.001 changes in other people's lives 37.8 36.6 ns experience or perception of emotional distress 1.7 11.4 13.1 <.001 uncertainty about one's future job 11.6 13.1 ns general concern about one's future 6.4 13.1 4.5 .035 table 5 shows that the frequency with which different causes of the crisis were mentioned by swiss students follows a different order compared with italian students. the cause cited most often was the banks, which ranked ninth in the italian sample. in addition, swiss students mentioned more often international causes, such as the euro and the european union, globalization and immigration (which was largely represented by crossborder workers in the area where the students live). on the other hand, they mentioned political causes less often (although inefficiency and responsibility of government or politicians ranked second). the great relevance of political causes for italian students appears, therefore, to reflect the italian situation. naïve understandings of the economic crisis 152 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 percentage of answers in the swiss sample and italian secondary school category swiss (n = 268) italians (n = 222) χ2(1) p banks 26.5 10.8 19 <.001 inefficiency and responsibility of government or politicians 25.7 75.2 119 <.001 reduced purchasing power 25.0 27.5 ns international factors 21.0 12.2 7.6 .006 unemployment or wage cuts 16.5 23.0 ns european union or euro 15.3 5.4 12.3 .001 immigration 8.6 2.6 5.5 .006 globalization 7.8 3.6 3.9 .048 inadequate behaviour of consumers or businesses 6.3 5.4 ns public debt 6.0 14.4 9.8 .002 increased economic inequalities 5.6 2.7 ns private debt 4.5 0.5 7.6 .006 public overspending 4.1 20.3 31.3 <.001 increased taxes 3.4 23.4 44.9 <.001 tax fraud /evasion 2.6 20.7 41.3 <.001 social causes 0.7 14.9 36.5 <.001 complexity of the explanations until now we have considered only the individual causes mentioned in participants' explanations of the crisis, extracting them from the whole answer. in order to evaluate the complexity of the explanations for the crisis, and to put the individual causes back into the original context, we first computed the number of causes mentioned (including those coded as others), and then examined if, and how, the causes were linked to one another. of the total sample of italian and swiss students, 3% did not mention any cause; 23.5% mentioned only one cause, 31% mentioned two causes, 21% mentioned three causes, and 21% four or more causes. in sum, most students (58%) mentioned 2 causes or less, giving explanations with a very low complexity. the criterion we used to identify a link between two or more causes was rather loose, such as describing a specific causal mechanism or the occurrence of adverbs such as therefore, thus, hence (in italian, quindi, perciò, così), or verbs such as to affect (influire), to prevent (impedire), to drag (trascinare), even when no specific mechanisms were described. expressions that might be regarded as synonymous, e.g., drop in purchases (diminuzione degli acquisti) and market paralysis (blocco del mercato), drop in employment (diminuzione del lavoro) and unemployment (disoccupazione) have been considered as referring to distinct causes, when connected with the above adverbs. for instance, by applying this criterion we have identified a chain of three causes in the sentence “the state that does not work as well as before (cause 1), which has also affected the area of employment, and has brought about a reduction in jobs (cause 2) and therefore also employment (cause 3)”. a few students answered with diagrams. in this case we considered the arrows as causal links. berti, ajello, aprea et al. 153 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in counting how many causes where linked, we only considered the causes actually linked together. for instance, if an explanation contained five causes, and four of them where linked in pairs, but there were no links between the pairs, the explanation was scored as linking two causes. these loose criteria notwithstanding, most participants (72% of those who mentioned two or more causes, that is 53% of the whole sample) listed only the causes, without linking them in any way, as in this excerpt: “the world is risking a serious economic crisis. i think that this arises from three big problems: the state debt, the slowing down of economic growth, and the crisis of the government”. of the other students, 16% (that is, 11.5% of the whole sample) linked only two causes together, as in the sentence “macro-economic causes, such as the collapse of the new york stock exchange, that pulled down with it all the securities and stocks in the international market”. only 12% (9% of the whole sample) described more complex causal relations, as in the following excerpts: “excessive state debt and excessive public expenditure. this has brought about a series of cuts and an increase in taxes on business. this has brought the world of work to a standstill and has restricted recruitment”. other examples are presented in the appendix. we selected the answers mentioning 2 or more causes which referred to the american origin of the crisis, to analyse if and how students explained how it affected italy (or, for the swiss students, european countries). we found only 12 answers fitting this criterion (5 from swiss students). in five of them, the american crisis was only mentioned, but not connected to the italian or european crisis. five stated that the crisis “spread to” or “impacted on” other countries, without explaining how this happened. only two answers mentioned specific financial mechanisms. according to one, the fall of the ny stock market “dragged with it all the shares and securities of the international market”. according to the other, the crisis affected the whole world because other countries had taken on american mortgages (see the last excerpt in the appendix). discussion most participants in the present study stated that they were affected by the crisis and described its impact. italian secondary students were affected more than university students, and swiss students more than italian probably due to differences in economic status. the swiss gdp per capita is among the highest in the world (see central intelligence agency, 2017). the crisis students were asked to explain was therefore familiar and significant. both italian and swiss students mentioned the more visible effects of the crisis, such as the fall in employment and wages, but they reported different causes with different frequencies, possibly mirroring the different ways in which their countries were affected by the crisis and the issues which were more prominent in the media and public debate. political causes were mentioned more often by italian students, and banks, euro and international factors by swiss students. this difference mirrors the different impact of the crisis in the two countries, and the perceived high relevance of inefficiency and corruption in italy’s political system (transparency international, 2015). it might also be affected by the different wording of the questions for the two samples. the crisis was presented to italian students as affecting their own country, and to swiss students it was presented as affecting “various european nations, and in part also switzerland”. however, similar findings emerged in the data collected in 2012 in the on-going research conducted by association of economics education in europe aeee: “italians (mostly students in economic courses) blamed the action of their own government, but also tax evasion and the growing gap between the rich and poor” (weber, 2013, p. 6). naïve understandings of the economic crisis 154 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ other causes, mentioned by both italian and swiss students (but more often by italian students) were the european union or euro, immigration, globalization, and the inadequate behaviour of consumers and businessmen. nobody mentioned laws deregulating the financial sector, which laid the ground for the speculation at the origins of the crisis, and very few mentioned the american subprime crisis. thus, on the whole, students showed a very poor knowledge of the international factors and the sequence of events which led to the financial crisis and its spread to other economic sectors and the whole world. another relevant findings in the present study were those regarding the complexity of the explanations. the average number of causes mentioned was about 2, certainly too few to account for a sequence of events that involved actors and actions (such as those outlined in the introduction) that the majority of participants (sometimes all of them) did not appear to know. what most participants mentioned among the causes (closing businesses, unemployment, reduced purchase power) were, instead, the effects of this sequence, that they may have experienced personally or through the media (in italy, people were struck by the numerous suicides of entrepreneurs facing bankruptcy, see sironi, 2013). upstream events, involving operations of the financial system, the laws that allowed them, and their effects on the real economy, seem to be generally unknown by most participants, as shown by aprea (2015). this does not come as a surprise. how financial systems operate cannot be perceived directly, but can only be known through information provided by books, the media and expert explanations. the news of national and international economic events as delivered daily by television and newspapers can only be understood if related to an economic framework, that only explicit teaching can provide. these results point to some topics that fe should address, similar to those suggested by davies (2015), for example, how the political system affects the financial system and more generally the economy, through regulation and deregulation of financial and economic activities, and more direct actions; the transformation taking place in banks, financial operations, and the numerous forms of market malpractice that can take place. the present paper adds to the limited literature on people's understanding of financial crises by showing spontaneous explanations that complement those tapped through forced choice questionnaires. on the whole, these explanations appear very poor, with little or no knowledge of the operation of financial institutions and their links with the real economy. this study, despite offering some interesting and quite new evidences about adolescents' and young adults' naïve understandings of the economic crisis, presents some methodological issues that need to be carefully evaluated for the interpretation of the results. first of all, the participants were not representative of their respective populations. furthermore, the task of giving written answers might have fostered short shallow explanations. in particular, the request to describe the causes of the crisis might have suggested writing a simple list, rather than clarifying the connections between the causes identified. future research should explore this aspect by using in-depth interviews able to grasp the argumentative structure of the responses, and then have a deeper qualitative analysis of the collected narratives. also, the use of differently worded written questions could help to discover whether, and how, students can connect different causes and explain how they operate. for instance, “how did the crash of one country’s stock exchange spread to other countries?” “how does a financial crisis spread to the real economy?” a more detailed picture of students understanding of the financial systems is a necessary step for planning a fe aimed a promoting and understanding not only financial products, but also the financial sector and government finances. berti, ajello, aprea et al. 155 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aprea, c. 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(2008). against financial literacy education (faculty scholarship, paper 199). retrieved from http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/199 world bank. (2013). making sense of financial capability surveys around the world: a review of existing financial capability and literacy measurement instruments. retrieved from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16251/806140wp0revie0box0379807b00public0.pdf? sequence=1&isallowed=y appendix: excerpts of answers' with causal chains of different lengths only one cause-effect link the age of retirement is too high, and this does not allow young people to get a job. the crisis of the government we are experiencing means that we do not inspire confidence and stability in other countries. emerging countries compete with europe by producing commodities at a cheaper prize. more and more people are unemployed also because there are many cross-border workers that firms take on for lower wages. i think that among the main causes of the serious economic crisis that is affecting italy is bad political organization that is reflected particularly in the financial situation. as a consequence of the up-and-down exchange rates, the european economy also goes up and down. i think the cause is the too many debts (public debt is very high). as a consequence there are all the taxes we have to pay, and pensions are halved. link between two causes (chained or concurrent) (after talking about tax evasion) there is capital that has not been declared to the state, and thus has made a few people richer, but has also brought about an imbalance in the state revenue, causing higher taxes for people with low or average wages. our crisis started at the end of the 1980s. european and extra-european trade began to decline perhaps, leading some businesses to start dismissing workers. families become poor and spend less, so the crisis is fuelled because there is no revenue (circle). the crisis began with the shift from the lira to the euro. prices began to increase, people stopped buying, and the market stalled, firms began to close and many people become unemployed. references to american crisis i think the causes started in america. the speculative bubble of 2001, and then something more in 2008. although america is very far away, it affected europe. the subprime crisis in usa; this crisis also had a strong impact on europe the banks lent money to people who needed help. some of them could not pay back the loans, putting the banks in difficulty. at this point, the banks took their assets (houses), but the price of houses fell. berti, ajello, aprea et al. 159 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/199 https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16251/806140wp0revie0box0379807b00public0.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16251/806140wp0revie0box0379807b00public0.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16251/806140wp0revie0box0379807b00public0.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y http://www.psychopen.eu/ these mortgages were given to people with insecure income, and so there was the possibility that they could not pay back their debts to the banks. when house prices began to fall, banks increased interest rates, and many people lost everything. the problem was also that other countries had taken on these mortgages (and thus the crisis affected all the world). a financial meltdown of american banks then caused a meltdown of european banks, which then led to a world financial crisis the high debt of a nation (the netherlands, i think), which borrowed money from the usa but never gave it back, caused a crisis on the usa stock exchange. the crisis spread around the world, because financially, i think, all nations are connected. about the authors anna emilia berti: full professor in developmental and educational psychology at the department of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, and applied psychology. università di padova; main interests: students naïve conceptions and effect of teaching. anna maria ajello: full professor in developmental and educational psychology at sapienza university of rome 1. president of invalsi (national institute for evaluation of educational and training); main inerests: evaluation. economic knowledge and economic learning. social reasoning and argumentation. gender differences. carmela aprea: chair of economics and business education, friedrich-schiller-university jena, germany; main interests: mental representations. curriculum, learning and assessment as well as teacher development in the domain of business and economics. ilaria castelli: associate professor in developmental and educational psychology at the department of social and human sciences, università di bergamo, italy; main interests: theory of mind in typical and atypical development in the life span. the development of decision making ability. the neural basis of theory of mind. elisabetta lombardi: phd candidate, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. member of the research unit on theory of mind, main interests: theory of mind development. decision making. mentalizing training programs for children. antonella marchetti: full professor in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. head of the research unit on theory of mind, coordinator of the phd programme in person and formation sciences. main interests: theory of mind development in typical and atypical conditions. decision making. links between theory of mind and the reasoning biases. art perception in a life-span perspective. irony understanding in children. neural basis of theory of mind. davide massaro: associate professor in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. member of the research unit on theory of mind, main interests: theory of mind development. irony understanding in children. decision making. outcome and hindsight bias in children. art perception in a life-span perspective. viviana sappa: senior researcher, swiss federal institute for vocational education and training (sfivet), lugano, switzerland; main interests: learning and motivation in pet/vet system, financial literacy, individual conceptions, school workplace connectivity, school-to-work transition, identity development, teachers resilience and well-being. naïve understandings of the economic crisis 160 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ annalisa valle: researcher in developmental and educational psychology at the faculty of educational sciences, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. member of the research unit on theory of mind, main interests: theory of mind development in a life-span perspective. irony understanding in children. emotional development in children and adolescents. mentalization in a life-span perspective. berti, ajello, aprea et al. 161 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 143–161 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1187 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ naïve understandings of the economic crisis (introduction) method participants questionnaire scoring results italian sample swiss sample complexity of the explanations discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: excerpts of answers' with causal chains of different lengths only one cause-effect link link between two causes (chained or concurrent) references to american crisis about the authors in defence of machine learning: debunking the myths of artificial intelligence editorial in defence of machine learning: debunking the myths of artificial intelligence constance de saint laurent* a [a] department of information engineering, university of bologna, bologna, italy. abstract there has been much hype, over the past few years, about the recent progress of artificial intelligence (ai), especially through machine learning. if one is to believe many of the headlines that have proliferated in the media, as well as in an increasing number of scientific publications, it would seem that ai is now capable of creating and learning in ways that are starting to resemble what humans can do. and so that we should start to hope – or fear – that the creation of fully cognisant machine might be something we will witness in our life time. however, much of these beliefs are based on deep misconceptions about what ai can do, and how. in this paper, i start with a brief introduction to the principles of ai, machine learning, and neural networks, primarily intended for psychologists and social scientists, who often have much to contribute to the debates surrounding ai but lack a clear understanding of what it can currently do and how it works. i then debunk four common myths associated with ai: 1) it can create, 2) it can learn, 3) it is neutral and objective, and 4) it can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems. in a third and last section, i argue that these misconceptions represent four main dangers: 1) avoiding debate, 2) naturalising our biases, 3) deresponsibilising creators and users, and 4) missing out some of the potential uses of machine learning. i finally conclude on the potential benefits of using machine learning in research, and thus on the need to defend machine learning without romanticising what it can actually do. keywords: artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, learning, creativity, bias, ethics europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 published (vor): 2018-11-30. *corresponding author at: marconi institute, viale risorgimento 2, 40136 bologna, italy. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. artificial intelligence (ai) and its latest advances have regularly made headlines over the past few years, giving the impression to many observers that the creation of a fully cognisant machine might be around the corner. the promises of ai, of building a perfectly objective, rational, and unfatigable intelligence, have indeed led to a variety of futuristic headlines, from those claiming that medical doctors would soon be obsolete, to the announcement that the first humanoid robot had been granted citizenship in saudi arabia. beyond the more or less sensationalist reporting, claims that ai could solve many of humanity’s problems – from misinformation on social media to the administration of justice – have increasingly been gaining traction with the general public, following impressive advances made in computer science over the past decade. as more and more every day technological applications incorporate ai elements, however, concerns over its risks have also been mounting, most notably on issues of privacy – ai applications often requiring vast amounts of personal data – and of the control machines could one day exert over us – leading, for instance, stephen hawkins to warn us, in 2017, that ai could be the worst thing to ever happen to civilisation. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ from the perspective of psychology and the social sciences, ai and its recent advances have been at the heart of two important debates. first, it has reignited discussions on whether machines can reproduce human cognition and what cognitive science could learn from them, in particular through the current popularity of neural networks. frequent claims that neural networks have produced unexpected results – as if the machine had created or learned something new – have led some to believe that the possibility of a full-fledged cognisant agent emerging from the complex combination of ‘simple’ artificial neurons might not be that far-fetched after all. second, the incorporation of smart machines in more and more areas of our lives has been at the origin of much research and debate on human-computer interactions, how we represent machines, and what may be the psychological and social consequences of the increasing presence of technology in our lives – from how care robots may be perceived to the role of ai in online misinformation. the aim of this paper is thus to discuss and debunk some of the claims that have been made around the recent advances in ai, in particular when they relate to issues of concern to psychologists and social scientists. ultimately, however, my aim is not to undermine the efforts of computer and data scientists, quite the contrary. machine learning, the area of research that has produced most of the recent breakthroughs in ai, has proven, over the past few years, to have tremendous potential – some of which has already been realised, for instance, in the advances made in computer vision. but misconceptions as to what ai is and what it can currently do represent a twofold problem. first, they make having a debate about the real risks and benefits of using machine learning in different domains impossible. they leave the proper evaluation of the social and psychological consequences of using these technologies in the hands of the few who do understand how they work, and yet often lack the expertise of social scientists to fully foresee their consequences. second, they may lead us to miss some of the most useful applications of machine learning, either because these misconceptions hide some of its potential, or because we end up throwing the baby with the bathwater, assuming that machine learning is as bad as the dangers represented by ai in some of its current application. the goal of this paper, therefore, is to defend the potential of machine learning, in particular for psychologists and social scientists, by debunking some of the myths surrounding artificial intelligence. in a first section, i briefly summarise what ai and machine learning are, and how they work. the explanations are aimed at a general audience, and footnotes are added, where needed, to keep the text as light as possible. based on this presentation, i discuss four main misconceptions around what ai can currently do: 1) it can create, 2) it can learn, 3) it is neutral and objective, and 4) it can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems. in the third and final section, i argue that these misconceptions lead to four main dangers: 1) avoiding debate, 2) naturalising our biases, 3) deresponsibilising creators and users, and 4) missing out some of the potential uses of machine learning. much of the arguments presented here are the result of numerous discussions with colleagues at psychology conferences over the summer of 2018. they have thus greatly benefited from their input. de saint laurent 735 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ artificial intelligence and machine learning: a very brief introduction artificial intelligence ai can be defined as “a cross-disciplinary approach to understanding, modeling, and replicating intelligence and cognitive processes by invoking various computational, mathematical, logical, mechanical, and even biological principles and devices” (frankish & ramsey, 2014, p. 1). in general terms, the aim of ai is thus to develop machines able to carry out tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence. behind this simple definition, however, hide many “misunderstandings caused by associations evoked by the name 'ai' [that] cannot be clarified by […] a definition” (born & born-lechleitner, 2018, pp. vii–viii), “primarily because of our varied conceptions of intelligence” (martínez-plumed et al., 2018, p. 5180). discussing the conflicting understandings of intelligence that permeate ai research is beyond the scope of this paper, but one distinction is useful here, that between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ ai. while weak ai refers to the development of algorithms able to reproduce or supplement human intelligence in very specific areas – from chess to image recognition – strong ai designates the attempts at creating machines capable of equalling or surpassing human intelligence in general – the creation of a fully functioning artificial mind or agent. weak ai is already a reality, and it has very much been the case since the creation of the first computers. whether strong ai is a possibility or not is, however, still a topic of debate. although it is, at this point, more a theoretical and philosophical question than a technical one – we are still light years away from the robots of asimov or of the more recent marvel movies – it has permeated much of the discussion about what ai is already capable of doing or not. indeed, partisans of a strong ai have tended to overestimate the significance of very local advances in the field, while others have remained more sceptical. a striking example of this is the way different researchers have described the importance of deep blue, the ibm computer that defeated gary kasparov at chess in 1997. arguing that ai will soon be the engine of scientific discovery, autonomously formulating and testing hypotheses based on the existing literature, kitano claimed that deep blue demonstrated that “a computer can exhibit human-level intelligence in a specific domain” (kitano, 2016, p. 40). in contrast, others have described the same event by saying that although “there is no doubt that the ai deep blue ii won […], it is still probably one of the dumbest software alive” (borana, 2016, p. 66), in particular because of remaining doubts about whether “it was ever a fair fight to begin with” (ibid.) given that it had to be reprogrammed between every game. more recently, researchers have pointed out that sophia, the first humanoid robot to be given a citizenship, is actually a poorly performing ‘chatbot’ with a face, and amounts more to a publicity stunt that anything else. yet, it has made headlines around the world, often giving the impression that a fully functioning ai was around the corner. what these examples point out is that the way both researchers and lay people represent ai and what it can do is often more the product of what we want to see in it than its actual capabilities. they also show that ai is, at times, a primarily ideological question rather than a clear-cut scientific or technical field within which specific or undebatable advances are being made. that said, there is little doubt that the field has indeed made major advances in the past few years, fuelled by increasing computing and memory capacities. this is particularly the case in the area of machine learning (ml) and artificial neural networks, a subfield of ml. indeed, if the topic of in defence of machine learning 736 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ai has been the object of renewed passion and fantasy, it is in large part because of the recent promises of these two fields. machine learning machine learning was born at the meeting point between statistics – where it is often called statistical learning – and computer science – where the required computational algorithms have been developed. simply put, ml refers to any statistical method where the parameters of a given model are ‘learnt’ from a dataset through an iterative process, usually to predict an output (a given value or category)i. this is done by minimising an error or loss function that calculates the difference between the values predicted by the model (based on the independent variables) and the values actually observed in the dataset (the dependent variable). in other words, the algorithm ‘learns’ how to best reproduce an existing dataset, in order to be used for categorisation or prediction in the future. because the models used in ml tend to be extremely complex, the exact parameters that will minimise the error function cannot be calculated directly, but only estimated through a gradient descent – an iterative process that looks at derivates to calculate in which direction the parameters should be updated, at each cycle, to lower the error rate. this ‘training’ of the model requires a large amount of labelled data (where the outcome is known), and this is all the more the case for particularly complex models, where a multitude of parameters needs to be estimatedii. indeed, most ml methods use complex combinations of originally rather simple models – such as decision treesiii or generalised linear models.iv this allows researchers to simulate datasets that elude classical statistical methods, or to improve existing results. unfortunately, while they can be extremely efficient, they often run the risk of being unintelligible, making their interpretation difficult and the detection of mistakes or biases, in some cases, almost impossible (weld & bansal, in press). one of the biggest challenges posed by ml, however, is the sheer number of parameters and hyperparameters that need to be tuned in by researchers to appropriately fit or select a model, and that cannot be learnt during the training of the model. the non-exhaustive list includes choosing a type of modelv and its hyperparametersvi, what measures of error will be employed for training and for testing the modelvii, how the parameters are to be updatedviii and how the data is to be fitted at each cycleix, when to stop training the modelx, and, finally on what basis to compare different modelsxi. this is, as with any other statistical modelling, after having decided which variables should be used and how in the first place. as a result, the selection of the model is done, in the end, on the basis of the experience and more or less subjective impression of coherence of the researcher, who decides what models should be explored, how they should be deployed, and how they should be evaluated. in other words, ml requires the intervention of experts who tell the machine, very precisely, what it is that it needs to learn, and how it should learn it. the role of the machine, then, is to carry out calculation that would be much too long and much too complicated for researchers to perform themselves. the example of neural networks artificial neural networks (nn) are one type of machine learning models particularly popular in ai applications, for two main reasons. first, they are extremely good at picking up complex patterns in the data to classify information and have been especially successful in areas such a computer vision (i.e., recognising images) or autode saint laurent 737 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mated translations. second, they require large amounts of data with great numbers of features (variables), as is exactly the case with big data. recognising an image, for instance, involves manipulating data where each pixel is a feature,xii and requires training sets of millions of labelled images, due to the large number of parameters that needs to be learned.xiii in the case of big data, researchers are also confronted with a multitude of variables whose individual significance is often unclear as is, for instance, the significance of a single pixel in recognising that an image represents a cat. nn thus presents the great advantage of allowing researchers to input all the available data without crafting themselves more meaningful or simple variables.xiv nn are usually explained as working – as their name indicates – just like a simplified neural network. while this is one way of understanding them, and the analogy certainly inspired their creation, it is not the only one. another way, illustrated in figure 1, is to see them as a series of transformations of the data, each representing a ‘layer’ in the network. the transformations are most often linear: each variable is multiplied by a weight and the results are added together.xv each layer, then, is made of a series of weights by which the variables are multiplied. nn do also include some non-linear transformations, however, using more complicated functions. this is, at minimum, the case for the final layer in the case of a nn classifying observations (which is most often the aim of such a model). a function is then used, as a final layer, to transform the values calculated by the network into probability-like values, where 1) each possible category is given a probability between 0 and 1, and 2) all the probabilities add up to 1. figure 1. example of an artificial neural network globally, and without excessive oversimplification, an nn can thus be understood as the successive application of often relatively simple mathematical operations. as such, it has less in common with the biology of a human brain, and more with traditional statistical models. their power, however, resides in the combination of these simpler operations in a multitude of large layers. and, in practice, nn lead to mathematical operations that are much beyond what could be calculated by hand – and, until quite recently, by a computer – for three main reasons. first, as they use data with a large number of features, each of the layers of the network includes a proportionally large number of weightsxvi. second, they can be composed of many layers combined in complex ways – producing what are called deep neural networks. the nn used to translate text, for instance, are usually composed of two separate networks of dozens of layers, one for each of the languages, that are combined in the in defence of machine learning 738 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ end to match the original text to its translation. finally, the numerous weights on each of the layers of the nn need to be learn during a training phase, as with other machine learning models. this is done by using backpropagation, a method to update the parameters of nested models. the deeper and the more complex the model, however, the more difficult the outcome of backpropagation is to predict, and nn can produce unexpected results.xvii for all of these reasons, neural networks represent a very good example of machine learning: it combines rather simple operations in often extremely complex models that are trained to learn to reproduce an existing dataset. as such, they also share the main advantages and disadvantages of machine learning methods. on the one hand, they can accurately model complex situations and automatically detect patterns that so far eluded humans and machines alike. on the other hand, they can produce quite unexpected results that are difficult to understand, even for the researchers who produced them. they also need a lot of fine tuning to find the best model and are in no way a magical method where the machine learns, on its own, to select the best possible model. instead, they require the expertise and constant supervision of researchers. while the general aim of this section on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and neural networks was to set the grounds for the arguments made in the rest of this paper, this lengthy and rather technical explanation has another objective. that is to highlight that these methods are, first and foremost, technical solutions developed by mathematicians, computer scientists, and statisticians in order to answer a simple question that, nonetheless, calls for a complex answer: how to best predict, given a series of information, the outcome of a situation or the category to which it belongs? this, in practice, allows us reproduce functions that are typically considered to be the product of human intelligence, for instance, inferences. however, claiming that these methods will one day lead to the elaboration of a fully functioning artificial mind is clearly jumping the gun. but could there be, already, signs that something ‘more’ is emerging from these complex combinations of simple operations? it is to this last question that i now turn. common misconceptions in what follows, i review four common misconceptions surrounding what the algorithms and models used in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and neural networks can do: 1) they can create, 2) they can learn, 3) they are neutral and objective, and 4) they can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems. because they share some characteristics, they are considered in groups of two. ai can create and can learn one of the claims on ai that has gathered the most interest recently is that it can create novelty, which has taken two main forms. first, several ai applications have made headlines, in the past couple of years, by showing that they could produce ‘original’ artwork in the style of known artists, with the first ai generated painting to be sold at an art auction last month gathering almost half a million dollars (bryner, 2018). second, some ai powered programmes have led to unexpected results, some of which may look quite creative. this was the case a few years ago, for instance, when google released pictures of how its computer vision ai processed images, which looked like psychedelic artworks (del prado, 2015). de saint laurent 739 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ but can these examples be considered as forms of creativity – that is as producing something both novel and meaningful (stein, 1953)? some of the paintings produced by ai do seem like original works of known artists, but this is exactly where lies the rub: they have been trained to reproduce existing patterns, and these are simply recombined, randomly, in new forms. so far, however, no ai has (voluntarily) invented a new painting style. similarly, the psychedelic pictures produced by google’s image recognition ai are actually the results of the neural networks finding known patterns – like eyes or spirals – where there were sometimes none, resulting in odd but striking images. and, more importantly, if they appear to be meaningful – instead of the random outcomes we would expect of an unthinking machine – it is because researchers and journalists alike cherry-pick examples that do appear to be meaningful to them. they could similarly focus on the many occasions where ai led to ridiculous or useless results, as when a model supposed to detect the malignancy of skin cancer found that pictures containing a ruler for scale were the most likely to be of cancerous lesions, or that the best way to build fast moving machines was to create giant devices and let them fall over (day, 2018). ai can indeed lead to unexpected results, but this is because we do not always control perfectly the algorithms we create. and even in the best-case scenarios, ai does what it is programmed to do, which is not always what we want it to do. the creativity of algorithms, then, is very much in the eyes of those who produce and use them, and who select examples that are meaningful to them (for a discussion of the role of audiences in creativity, see glăveanu, 2014). there has also been, over the past few years, claims that algorithms can learn new things, and extrapolate results to new situations. after all, the most advanced ai models nowadays almost all use machine learning. however, the term is rather misleading: iteratively approximating the best parameters for a given statistical or mathematical model can hardly be considered as learning in the classical sense. similarly, saying that ai learns from new situations to predict outcomes – to the point of being able to predict what you want before you even know it (dormehl, 2018) – is simply restating, in anthropomorphic terms, what machine learning is set out to do. if an algorithm works well then, indeed, it will produce a model that can be used to predict the outcomes of novel situations; this is exactly why it was developed in the first place. this is, after all, one of the main aims of science: to develop, based on existing data, empirical and theoretical models that can be applied to new or more general situations. in some cases, it works, and the results can be extrapolated further. in others it does not, and new models have to be proposed. focusing mainly on successful examples is here again cherry-picking. it could be argued, however, that i am the one cherry-picking here: creativity does at times emerge out of randomness in humans too (e.g., simonton, 1999), and learning can also fail to generalise to new situations. is it possible that seeing ai as capable of creating and learning is not naively attributing anthropomorphic characteristics to a machine, but that, instead, refusing to recognise the abilities of ai is denying that humans are machines too – albeit biological ones? a thought experiment proposed by searle in the 80’s is particularly useful in this regard. indeed, searle proposed that “a way to test any theory of the mind is to ask oneself what it would be like if one's own mind actually worked on the principles that the theory says all minds work on” (searle, 2018, pp. 19–20). based on the descriptions made in the previous section of how machine learning and neural network work, how does it compare to the act of learning to recognise if a picture is of a cat or a dog – as you did as a child, for instance, when shown picture books – or of attempting to create a painting? yes, the outcome of a neural netin defence of machine learning 740 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work might be the same as what a human would produce, and it may sometimes be even more accurate or appropriate for the given task. but this does not mean in any way that the process is the same, with all of its consequencesxviii: while for a human learning to recognise a cat or a dog means learning the concepts of cats and dogs, for a machine it simply means be able to recognise patterns of pixels and matching them to a certain category. as searle (2018, p. 35) put it, the difference is: because the formal symbol manipulations by themselves don't have any intentionality: they are meaningless; they aren't even symbol manipulations, since the symbols don't symbolize anything. in the linguistic jargon they have only a syntax but no semantics. such intentionality as computers appear to have is solely in the minds of those who program them and those who use them, those who send in the input and who interpret the output. ai is neutral and objective, and can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems another category of misconceptions about ai that has gathered much attention – and hope – is that it produces models that are neutral and objective, and thus can deal with complex social issues better than human beings would by removing our pesky biases. indeed, some law scholars, such as eugene volokh, have argued that in the future justice could be carried out by ai, because it is possible to build models taking better decisions than human judges would, and that would yet display mercifulness and compassion (waddell, 2018). in a similar vein, social media companies such as facebook have invested sizeable resources in the development of ai automated content moderation, hoping to solve the major social and ethical challenges posed by this task and the search of a balance between freedom of speech and protection against abuse (gillespie, 2018; vaidhyanathan, 2018). the main belief that underlies this position is that algorithms can produce results that are both neutral and objective. as naively put by borana (2016, p. 65): one of the major advantages of artificial intelligence is that its decisions are based on facts rather than emotions. even after our utmost efforts, it is a well-known fact that human decisions are always affected in a negative way by our emotions. while this is a rather extreme take on the neutrality of ai, it does reflect some of the underlying assumptions shared by both experts and lay people. as a result, some have argued that ai could actually be a solution to human bias – as assumed above by borana – and could thus help us deal with situations that are known to have been riddled by prejudice. this has been the case, for instance, in candidate selection for jobs in the tech industry, where several companies have used ai models to help them choose future employees, with the belief that it would remove existing biases (rosenbaum, 2018). in practice, however, it has resulted in exactly the opposite (oppenheim, 2018). this is because there are three fundamental issues with this view. first, it misunderstands the role of neutrality and objectivity in taking decisions, in particular when it concerns social issues. indeed, it ignores the fact that knowledge always serves the interests of some over those of others, simply because it facilitates some actions more than others (cornish & gillespie, 2009). choosing what information is relevant in a given context to take a decision is thus never neutral, and methods that simply attempt to maximise overall happiness have long shown their limits (e.g., shaw, 1999). it also overlooks social and cultural differences, assuming that what is de saint laurent 741 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ considered appropriate and desirable is the same everywhere. yet, issues such as online content moderation, for instance, pose unique problems in different countries, where what is seen as obscene, violent, or dangerous can widely vary (gillespie, 2018). second, ai models can only learn to reproduce existing classifications and they are, thus, at best, only as fair as humans have been in the past. in some cases, they may even lead to reinforced discrimination, by picking up on existing patterns and overly exploiting them to improve results. this is because the training data used can either be incorrectly labelled or tainted by historical biases (hacker, in press). for instance, in the case of employment tools, they can rely on measures of performance where human coders have systematically underestimated the performance of people of colour or women, or on data where these categories are underrepresented, because they historically have been hired less by companies (ibid.). models can quickly pick up on these patterns and reinforce them, as was for instance the case of amazon’s ai recruitment tool, that learnt to badly evaluate resumes containing the word ‘woman’ (oppenheim, 2018). third, ai models tend to lack transparency and intelligibility, making it difficult to measure exactly if they are discriminating and on what basis (hacker, in press). arguing for the need to create tools to make the results of ai more understandable, weld and bansal (in press) take the example of a study on the risk of developing pneumonia. by looking closely at the model constructed through machine learning, researchers discovered that it was predicting very low risks of pneumonia for asthmatic patients. this runs contrary to all other evidence and was due to the fact that many of these patients were already receiving treatment for lung diseases, which was not included in the model. this discovery was possible because the model used was still relatively simple, but the issue would have been much more difficult to spot with a neural network or a more complex machine learning model. this makes ai solutions almost impossible to apply in sensitive contexts: not only they may be picking on problematic variables, but they may have been developed on data that is too different from what it will encounter ‘in the wild’ (weld & bansal, in press). because we do not always understand these models well, it is often extremely difficult if not impossible to predict whether they are indeed ecologically valid. the dangers of misunderstanding ml and ai in this final section, and as a conclusion, i would like to highlight the four main dangers that the misconceptions outlined above represent: 1) avoiding debate, 2) naturalising our biases, 3) deresponsibilising creators and users, and 4) missing out some of the potential uses of machine learning. the first danger brought by the myths surrounding ai is that it can lead us to believe that it will solve all or most societal issues we are currently confronted with, and thus that debate is unnecessary. social media companies, for instance, and as mentioned above, have invested much hope and money in automated content moderation. yet, ai cannot answer the questions raised by social media, such as what role these companies should play for societies; how they should be regulated and by whom; how they could strike a balance between freedom of speech and protection against abuse; or how and whether they should collaborate with states who are looking to police, for better or for worst, what their citizens say online. all these questions are, however, at the heart of content moderation, and our failure to collectively address them is at least partially responsible for the terrible impact social media has had on democracies and societies worldwide – from elections marred by misinformation in the us or brazil, to the violent deaths hate-filled speech has led to in myanmar or the philippines in defence of machine learning 742 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (gillespie, 2018; vaidhyanathan, 2018). that is not to say that machine learning cannot help with content moderation, quite the contrary: once some guidelines and practices have been agreed on, models can be developed to scale the moderation to the millions of contents posted every day, and to avoid the trauma caused to content moderators by the worst the internet has to offer. but for this to be possible, a proper debate on the place social media has and should have in our societies needs to happen. second, believing that ai powered decisions are neutral and objective runs the risk of naturalising our biases, by making them appear as the product of a reasonable decision process. arguments defending biased models already proliferate on internet forums: if ai discriminates against minorities and women, it is argued, it is only because the data proved that they are less efficient, trustworthy, or intelligent. the lack of social debate on these issues, as well as the tendency, in the silicon valley, to overlook social sciences and the critical perspectives they have produced (cohen, 2017), are partially to blame for this kind of uncritical outlook. however, the blind belief that reason can be automated in ai and that it will produce an unbiased look at facts does have the lion share. yet, as hacker (in press, p. 35) has argued: the application of machine learning to ever more important economic and societal decisions should not only be perceived as a risk, but also as a potential opportunity: of precisely constructing decision rules, of detecting and correcting discrimination with statistical and technical methods. […] algorithmic fairness cannot, of course, address the roots of injustice in society, but it can mitigate some of its outcomes. this points to one great advantage of algorithmic vis-à-vis human decision making: its design parameters can be consciously chosen. the law of the algorithmic society only has to make the right choices. third, the misconceptions of ai highlighted in this paper have led to the deresponsibilisation of those who produce ai models as well as those who use them. by attributing too much agency to ai and giving it too much responsibility for learning and creating the models produced, we overlook the role of those who, after all, do select the models to build, decide how they should be built, for what purposes, which ones to keep, and whether they should be used or not. yet, they can have tremendous consequences. when a team of data scientists at stanford developed an algorithm capable of guessing, above chance, a person’s sexual preferences (wang & kosinski, 2017), they explained that their aim had only been to explore the potential dangers of ai (levin, 2017). however, the choice to develop said algorithm – knowing that several countries around the world actively seek and prosecute people based on their sexual preferences – as well as the decision to present its results to media across the world, insisting on the high predictions rates in some categories – while overlooking the much more damning overall error rate – were all taken by the researchers, and to a certain extend by the journalists who reported on the story. ultimately, the consequences of the use of ai are the responsibility of those who engineer it and of those who decide to deploy it. but overestimating the agency of ai models could deresponsibilise them, in particular in cases where ai is used to administrate justice, police populations, or evaluate risk. this is not to say that machine learning cannot play a positive role in these areas: it has been successfully used, for instance, by police investigators to comb through the large quantity of digital evidence they are now confronted with in criminal investigations (mendick, 2018). this brings us to the final danger that the misconceptions surrounding ai represent: that of overlooking the remarkable applications machine learning could have and, in some cases, already has. by overly considering ai in human terms – attributing it agency and reason – we forget that machine learning is first and foremost a brilliant tool to detect patterns in large amounts of data, enabling both prediction and recognition at levels unimade saint laurent 743 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ginable before. as such, it represents a unique tool not to replace human cognition, but to supplement it. just as computers have revolutionised the way we work, machine learning will, if used properly, revolutionise the way we think. however, this cannot and should not be done by attempting to reproduce exactly human capabilities: it is precisely because word processing software operate completely differently than writing with a paper and pen does, or using a typewriter, that it is so useful – and also why most of us still use a paper and pen daily. separating machine learning from the myths of ai, then, could ensure that we do exploit its potential to the fullest, and yet avoid falling into its pitfalls. i do not believe that the future of machine learning is to replace researchers, asking the questions for us and answering them as well, conversely to what some have argued (kitano, 2016). algorithms will never know how to ask the right questions, to think critically about the literature, to formulate relevant and useful hypotheses, or to interpret results, in large parts because none of these tasks has a unique and universal answer. however, they can be used to analyse large and complex datasets, explore the exponentially growing literature most of us are confronted with, transcribe audio data, annotate videos, or thematically code text, to name only a few potential applications. that is, machine learning could be the unfatiguable assistant so many researchers wish they had, freeing us time to focus on the most interesting parts of research. under the irreplaceable supervision of human experts, machine learning could thus revolutionise the way we do research, as so many other technological tools have in the past. notes i) ml also includes unsupervised learning, where there is no known dependent variable and the aim is usually to find patterns in the data to form clusters of observation. in practice, these methods tend to be much less used, in particular where ai is concerned. ii) they also require keeping a test set on which the goodness of fit is estimated, as they run the risk of overfitting (representing very well the given data, but very badly predicting the outcomes of unseen data). iii) where specific values for the independent variables are used at cut-off points to decide where to classify an observation. iv) where non-linear functions, for instance polynomials, are used to transform an independent variable in such way that a linear regression can be used. v) and in some cases, how multiple models should be combined using an ‘ensemble’ method (multiple decision trees, for instance, can be combined using tree bagging, random forests, or gradient boosting). vi) parameters that cannot be ‘learnt’ by training the model (for instance, the number of layers to use in a neural network). vii) the loss function is generally determined by the type of dependent variable that is being predicted, although different functions can be appropriate for a given model. a different measure of error – that will not be algorithmically optimized – is also often used to measure the quality of the model over a test set. viii) a gradient descent only indicates the direction in which the parameters should be updated, but not the amplitude. a variety of methods exist to calculate what could be the optimal amplitude of the update. ix) large datasets tend to use stochastic or mini batch gradient descents, where only a small portion of the dataset is used at each cycle (the size of the batches being then considered one of the hyperparameters of the model to be trained). x) either based on a specific number of iterations or, most often, a threshold under which the parameters updates are considered negligible and the training is stopped. xi) this involves selecting the size of the test set, how it should separated from the training set, the measures of error to be used on it, how many times should the model be trained (to account for randomness), and, most importantly, what should be optimised (e.g. intelligibility, speed, types of errors, etc.). xii) for black and white images. colour images actually involve three-dimensional data where each pixel is separated in three layers, each representing a colour on the rgb scale. xiii) the number of parameters being proportional to the number of features and of layers of the network, particularly deep nn can have millions of parameters. xiv) this is because the first layers of a nn will themselves engineer features, for instance grouping certain parts of an image together to recognise a shape. in defence of machine learning 744 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 https://www.psychopen.eu/ xv) more exactly, in the case of one-dimensional data, the vector of variables is multiplied by a matrix of weights, outputting a vector. saying that “each variable is multiplied by a weight and the results are added together” actually corresponds to how one value in the vector is calculated. for this aspect of nn, a representation with artificial neurones is often more straightforward. xvi) equal to the number of features inputted in the layer times the number of features in the output. xvii) either through a ‘vanishing gradient descent’, where the parameters of the model cannot be updated anymore, or through an ‘exploding gradient descent’, where the model constantly overcorrects the parameters. much work is currently done to understand exactly when this is likely to occur and why, and some methods have been developed to produce nn that encounter this kind of problems less often. however, they are not always appropriate or do not always work, and the problem does persist. xviii) as noted by searle, this is also an argument against the turing test (turing, 1950), which suggested testing artificial intelligence based on whether a human being could make the difference between the output produced by a machine, and the one produced by another human being. funding this work has been supported by a post-doctoral mobility grant from the swiss national science foundation (p400ps_180686) competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the 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(in press). the challenge of crafting intelligible intelligence. communications of the acm. retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04263 about the author constance de saint-laurent is a post-doctoral fellow for the swiss national science foundation at the department of information engineering, university of bologna, italy. she received her msc in social and cultural psychology at the london school of economics, uk, and completed her phd on the sociocultural psychology of collective memory at the university of neuchâtel, switzerland. she is currently working on misinformation on social media, combining methods and insights from computing social sciences and sociocultural psychology to explore the effects of post truth politics on how we understand others. her latest publications include an article on “making sense of refugees on social media: perspective-taking, political imagination, and internet memes” (with vlad glăveanu and ioana literat) published in the american behavioral scientist, and an edited book on “imagining collective futures: perspectives from social, cultural and political psychology” (with sandra obradović and kevin carriere), published by palgrave macmillan. de saint laurent 747 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 734–747 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1823 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.axios.com/artificial-intelligence-judges-0ca9d45f-f7d3-43cd-bf03-8bf2486cff36.html https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000098 https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04263 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in defence of machine learning (introduction) artificial intelligence and machine learning: a very brief introduction artificial intelligence machine learning the example of neural networks common misconceptions ai can create and can learn ai is neutral and objective, and can solve ethically and/or culturally sensitive problems the dangers of misunderstanding ml and ai notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author exploring the relationship between callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence in a general population research reports exploring the relationship between callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence in a general population emma m. lethbridge* a, paul richardson a, lisa reidy a, naira a. taroyan a [a] sheffield hallam university, sheffield, united kingdom. abstract callous–unemotional (cu) traits are personality attributes, which are associated with a deficit of affective valence and reduced empathetic responding in high cu trait clinical populations. the aim of the research was to explore whether a similar pattern of empathy and emotional responding correlated with cu trait manifestation in the general population. a total of 124 participants completed the inventory of callousunemotional traits, the interpersonal reactivity index, the empathy quotient, an expression recognition task, and a measure of affective response. negative correlations with cu trait score were observed for both cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. accuracy in the identification of fearful expressions presented a negative association with cu trait score. self-rating of affective valence, when viewing both positive and negative images, indicated a universal reduction in emotional response associated with increased cu trait manifestation. keywords: callous–unemotional traits, cu traits, emotion, empathy, affective valence, personality europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 received: 2016-04-19. accepted: 2016-10-11. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: steven hertler, psychology department, college of new rochelle, new rochelle, usa *corresponding author at: sheffield hallam university, collegiate campus, collegiate crescent, sheffield, s10 2bp. e-mail: emmamarielethbridge@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. callous–unemotional (cu) traits were originally identified in an effort to define the heterogeneity of the population diagnosed with conduct disorder (cd) and antisocial personality disorder (aspd) (hill, 2003; frick & ellis, 1999). a lack of emotional valence and reduced empathy processing ability are key criteria for identifying these high cu trait subgroups (guay, ruscio, knight, & hare, 2007). heterogeneous in nature, empathy is a psychological construct regulated by both cognitive and affective components (feshbach, 1978). cognitive empathy is the ability to attribute mental states to another given their environment and individual characteristics, whilst acknowledging that the individual’s mental processing may not be similar to one’s own; whereas, emotional empathy processes include both emotion recognition and emotion contagion (blair, 2008, 2005). the congruency of both affective signals and higher cognitive inference is necessary to produce an empathetic response (shamay-tsoory, aharon-peretz, & perry, 2009). in clinical research, those with high cu traits typically present with an impairment of emotional empathy (blair, 2005). for example, psychopathic participants are consistently less accurate at identifying fearful, sad, disgusted and happy facial affect (blair, 2005; hastings, tangney, & stuewig, 2008). despite high cu trait clinical individuals manifesting disrupted emotional empathy processing, there is little evidence of an atypical europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive empathic ability (blair et al., 1996; jones, happé, gilbert, burnett, & viding, 2010; richell et al., 2003); however, dadds et al. (2009) reported a dual deficit in cognitive and emotional empathy associated with high cu trait manifestation. high cu trait clinical populations also present with reduced emotional reactivity, particularly to emotive stimuli which are negative in nature, such as those invoking anger, fear and pain (loney, frick, clements, ellis, & kerlin, 2003). there is some evidence of reduced emotional reactivity to positive stimuli (kimonis et al., 2008), although this association is not consistently reported (verona, patrick, curtin, bradley, & lang, 2004). cu traits are typically investigated in clinical populations; a paucity of research exists into the relationship between cu trait manifestation and the emotional and cognitive components of empathy processing, as well as emotional reactivity, in general populations. edens, marcus, lilienfeld, and poythress (2006) postulate that cu traits are normally distributed within this demographic; suggesting that, rather than there being a categorical dichotomy between clinical and general populations, cu traits may exist dimensionally across the two demographics. the objective of the hereto within described research was to explore whether a similar pattern of empathy and emotional responding correlated with cu trait manifestation in the general population. it was predicted that a disruption in emotional empathy processing would be associated with higher levels of cu traits and that intact cognitive empathy ability would be probable at these same levels. it was also hypothesised that a reduced affective valence would be observed in response to negative emotional stimuli, and possibly, also to positive stimuli. method participants in total, 124 participants completed the research tasks. the age range of the included participants was 18-45 years (m = 21.16, sd = 5.08). of the recruited participants, 84 of the participants were female. a combination of students and graduates were included in the sample. none of the participants included in the data disclosed a history of high cu trait clinical disorders, such as conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder, during screening. materials self-report measures cu trait manifestation and empathetic processing were scored using validated and commonly used self-report measures and an indirect measure of emotional valence. the inventory of callous–unemotional traits (icu; frick, 2004) is a 24-item questionnaire (e.g., “i do not show my emotions to others”) with responses given via a four point likert scale ranging from 0 “not at all true” to 3 “definitely true”; potential scores range from 0 to 72. within the icu, there are three subscales; these are uncaring, callousness and unemotional. an internal reliability of α = .73 has been demonstrated for the icu (kimonis et al., 2008). the empathy quotient (eq short-version; baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004) consists of 40 items (e.g. “i really enjoy caring for other people”), which the respondent rates on a four-point scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ an individual scores two points if they strongly agree, and one point if they slightly agree lethbridge, richardson, reidy et al. 163 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g. each item is scored 2, 1, 0, 0); potential scores range from 0 to 80. principal components analysis suggests a three-factor solution for the eq: cognitive empathy, emotional reactivity (used as a measure of emotional empathy) and social skills (berthoz, wessa, kedia, wicker, & grèzes, 2008; lawrence, shaw, baker, baron-cohen, & david, 2004). cronbach’s alphas have been observed for the eq varying from .85 (muncer & ling, 2006) to .88 (wakabayashi et al., 2006). the eq has also been demonstrated to have good test–retest reliability (lawrence et al., 2004). furthermore, the eq has established convergent validity with the interpersonal reactivity index (iri), the other self-report measure recruited for the described research (lawrence et al., 2004). the interpersonal reactivity index (iri; davis, 1983) consists of 28 items (e.g. “i often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me”) rated on a scale from a-e where a is scored as 0 and denotes ‘does not describe me well’ and e is scored as 4 and denotes ‘describes me very well’. scores may range from 0-112. within the iri, four subfactors are assessed, these include; the perspective taking scale, the fantasy scale, the empathetic concern scale and, finally, the personal distress scale (davis, 1983). the empathetic concern and perspective-taking subscales measure emotional and cognitive empathy respectively (davis, 1983). internal reliability as tested via cronbach's alpha has been found to be good for the iri (subscales range from α = .70 to α = .78); furthermore, the iri measure demonstrated good test–retest reliability (subscales range from .62 to .81) (davis, 1983). facial expression emotion recognition and response task included in the task were 48 photographic stimuli which depicted the six basic emotions: happiness, fear, disgust, sadness, anger and pain. the images were selected after pilot testing found an agreement level of over 70% for each expression image; a level of agreement previously considered acceptable (e.g. ebner, riediger, & lindenberger, 2010). stimuli were portrait shots of individuals balanced for ethnic and gendered demographics. these were pseudo-randomly presented on a plain, light-coloured background. the selfassessment manikin (sam; bradley & lang, 1994) was used to record the participant’s emotional response to photographic stimuli in the emotional expression and emotional valence tasks. the sam comprises two scales of five simple figures; these scales were labelled such that the design would test whether the participants felt negative or positive during their viewing of the stimuli and how intensely participants felt regarding the stimuli (figure 1). the figures gave an additional pictorial cue to the scale to indicate valence or intensity. figure 1. the adapted sam (bradley & lang, 1994). callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence 164 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ affective reactivity to emotive scenes task the emotional valence task investigated participants’ reactions to scenes containing emotional content. the emotional content consisted of 29 photographic stimuli from online sources, each photograph depicting a scene, which contained emotional subject matter. stimuli were divided in to two distinct categories: those depicting positive and negative scenes, and stimuli concerning human and non-human subjects. the chosen stimuli included a total of 12 positive emotive scenes. negative stimuli (specifically pain and fear) included a total of 17 photographic stimuli. again, the sam scales provide a measure of emotional reactivity. procedure the self-report measures were presented via a pc, alongside clear instructions on how to complete the tasks. in addition to the self-report measures, the participants completed the facial expression recognition and response task, as well as the affective reactivity to emotive scenes task. for the emotional recognition task, the participants were required to note the emotion depicted using a drop down menu facility, which contained all six expressions as options. participants completed the sam scales to indicate how negatively/positively and how intensely they felt whilst viewing the stimuli. during the affective reactivity task, the participant rated the emotive scene stimuli on the two scales of the sam in a manner that accurately reflected their own emotional experience. all tasks were completed in one testing session lasting up to 45 minutes. ethics participants were comprehensively briefed regarding their rights and the purpose of the study before giving their informed consent in line with apa guidelines. on completion of the data collection a debriefing procedure was completed. results the descriptive statistics for the self-report measures of cu trait manifestation and empathy are given in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics for the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy measure subfactor [possible scores] m sd inventory of callous unemotional traits total [0-72] 18.03 6.38 callousness [0-27] 2.33 2.41 uncaring [0-24] 7.78 3.46 unemotional [0-15] 7.92 2.79 empathy quotient cognitive empathy [0-22] 11.61 4.73 emotional reactivity [0-22] 10.79 4.62 interpersonal reactivity index perspective taking [0-28] 17.64 4.63 empathic concern [0-28] 20.06 4.60 lethbridge, richardson, reidy et al. 165 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ distribution and reliability of the callous-unemotional trait the icu total shows scores within the parameters of a normal distribution (see figure 2). this is also true for two of the three icu subscales; the uncaring and the unemotional subfactors. however, the callous subfactor revealed a positively skewed distribution (1.43). internal reliability analysis with cronbach’s alpha shows appropriate internal reliability for the icu total scores (24 items: α = .78). cronbach’s alpha values above α ≥ .7 are commonly reported to be acceptable indicators of internal reliability (e.g., dancey & reidy, 2008). the unemotional subscale (5 items: α = .80) and uncaring subfactor (8 items: α = .73) showed good internal reliability, though the callousness subfactor (9 items: α = .62) was just outside this. figure 2. distribution of cu trait scores on the icu. the results for the eq and iri lie within the necessary parameters to be considered a normal distribution. the internal reliability for the eq cognitive empathy subscale (11 items: α = .85) and the emotional reactivity scale (11 items: α = .82) was good. when explored for internal reliability, both the iri subfactors of empathetic concern (7 items: α = .77) and perspective taking (7 items: α = .79) were reliable. an amalgamated score of the emotional empathy subfactors of the iri and eq were used to form a composite score for emotional empathy (m = 30.85, sd = 8.51); the same assimilation was performed to form the cognitive empathy measure (m = 29.25, sd = 7.16). the integrated emotional and cognitive empathy measures had a good level of internal reliability (18 items: α = .89 & 18 items: α = .81 respectively). the use of a composite score limited the reliance on any one measure and is argued to produce a more valid measure of each construct (reniers, corcoran, drake, shryane, & völlm, 2011). the composite scores were within the parameters for normal distribution. correlations between the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy the amalgamated, self-report measure of emotional empathy negatively correlated with scores on the icu measure of cu traits (r(122) = -.66, p < .001), as did the self-reported cognitive empathy score (r(122) = -.51, callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence 166 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p < .001). finally, the association between emotional and cognitive empathy was significant (r(122) = .69, p < .001). when gender is considered the expected differences are observed; females have higher mean scores in emotional and cognitive empathy, and males have higher cu trait scores (see table 2 below). however, within the male and female groups, the negative relationship between cu traits and emotional and cognitive empathy was preserved (see table 3 below). table 2 differences in the male and female scores on the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy measure mean t-test for equality of means female male t df p cu traits 16.65 20.93 -3.65 122 <.001 emotional empathy 33.25 25.80 4.51 60.89 <.001 cognitive empathy 30.72 26.15 3.47 122 .001 table 3 correlations between the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy in males and females gender emotional empathy cognitive empathy r p r p female -.63 <.001 -.50 <.001 male -.59 <.001 -.40 .005 disassociation between emotional and cognitive empathy a significantly stronger negative association was observed between the cu trait and emotional empathy coefficient, than for the cu trait and cognitive empathy coefficient (zh = 2.13, p = .03). dysfunction in emotional empathy is therefore correlated more strongly with higher cu trait manifestation, than deficiencies in cognitive empathy. furthermore, using a standard multiple regression analysis the amount of variation in cu traits explained by the cognitive and emotional empathy predictors was found to be significant (f(2, 123) = 47.40, p < .001). the empathy predictors and cu traits were correlated at 0.663 with an adjusted multiple r2 of 0.43, indicating that 43% of the variation in cu trait scores could be predicted by empathy scores. inspection of the regression coefficients and associated beta values revealed that only emotional empathy scores are a significant predictor of cu trait score (β = -.59, p < .001 (tolerance = .52; vif = 1.93)). conversely, cognitive empathy was not a significant predictor of cu trait scores (β = -.095, p = .35 (tolerance = .52; vif = 1.93)). facial emotion recognition and response analysis revealed that the ability to correctly identify negative facial expression stimuli (negative stimuli included depictions of disgust, fear, pain, anger and sadness) (m = 86.15%, sd = 8.92%) was significantly, positively associated with emotional empathy (r(122) = .25, p = .006) but did not correlate with levels of cu traits (r(122) = -.17, p = .065) nor the measure of cognitive empathy (r(122) = .15, p = .093). considered individually, only correct identification of fearful expressions (m = 83.25%, sd = 18.09%) associated negatively with cu traits (r(122) = -.31, p = .001) and positively with emotional empathy (r(122) = .22, p = .015). lethbridge, richardson, reidy et al. 167 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis of the positive-negative valence scale of the sam reveals that higher cu trait scores were associated with negative facial expressions being self-rated more positively (r(122) = -.24, p = .009). in addition, more negative scoring of negative facial expressions (m = 6.43, sd = .91) correlated with higher emotional empathy scores (r(122) = .40, p < .001); a pattern of scoring also observed for cognitive empathy (r(122)= .21, p = .018). this pattern of response was borne out over all 5 negative emotions. higher cu trait scores were also correlated with more negative valence scores in response to happiness stimuli (r(122) = .39, p < .001), whereas, a higher score in emotional empathy or cognitive empathy was associated with more positive reports of experience to happiness stimuli (r(122) = -.44, p < .001 and r(122) = -.28, p = .001 respectively). cu traits were associated with lower intensity to expressions of sadness and happiness (see table 4). higher emotional empathy was, however, associated with a global increase in emotional intensity to the combined negative emotions (r(122) = -.30, p < .001). table 4 correlations between the sam intensity scores for emotional expressions and the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy emotion of intensity scored expression cu traits cognitive empathy emotional empathy r p r p r p happiness .22 .02 -.18 .04 -.33 <.001 sadness .19 .02 -.24 .003 -.40 <.001 note. lower scores indicate more intense responses. empathy valence task the nine point positive-negative valence scale of the sam (1 being the most positive score and 9 the most negative), observed that scoring higher on cu traits was associated with scoring less negatively on the scale when viewing negative images (r(122) = -.33, p < .001). whereas, participants scoring highly on the measures of emotional empathy tended to score themselves as feeling more negatively when viewing the negative images (r(122) = .50, p < .001). this pattern of response was also observed for those higher in cognitive empathy (r(122) = .32, p < .001). higher cu trait score was associated with a pattern of response which indicated less positive affect in response to positive images (r(122) = .45, p < .001). whereas, higher emotional empathy was associated with more positive scores for positive images (r(122) = -.50, p < .001); this pattern of correlation was also observed for measures of cognitive empathy (r(122) = -.41, p < .001). intensity of the participants’ feelings when observing the stimuli was reported using the sam; a 1 on the scale indicated that a high intensity of emotion was experienced and a 9, low intensity. those scoring highly on the cu trait measure tend to score themselves as experiencing less intensity of emotion when viewing both positive (r(122) = .18, p = .046) and negative (r(122) = .24, p = .008) images. whereas higher emotional empathy was associated with increased intensity of affective valence for both positive (r(122) = -.27, p = .002) and negative (r(122) = -.47, p < .001) images. cognitive empathy results mimic this pattern with smaller coefficients for both the positive (r(122) = -.19, p = .034) and negative (r(122) = -.27, p = .002) images. callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence 168 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study aimed to explore the relationship between cu traits, empathy processing and affective valence in a general population. consideration of the icu indirect measure of cu traits suggests that not only do cu traits manifest throughout the general population, measurement seems to suggest that cu traits present in a continuous distribution and within the parameters necessary to be considered normal. this finding is in agreement with previous research into cu traits (edens et al., 2006). therefore, disorders that are associated with the manifestation of high cu traits may represent the extreme high tail of this distribution, rather than being an isolated population of clinical high cu trait individuals. emotional empathy is evidenced to be dysfunctional within high cu traits clinical samples, however, cognitive empathy is usually reported intact (blair, 2008, 2005). despite this established empathy paradigm existing within the clinical populations, the results of this research into the general population did not evidence this same disassociation; suggesting instead that both emotional and cognitive empathy negatively correlated with cu traits. however, it is also revealed that the negative correlation observed between self-reported emotional empathy and cu traits is significantly larger than the corresponding cu trait correlation with cognitive empathy. thus, the outcomes of the research suggest a difference in the magnitude of emotional and cognitive empathy processing reduction associated cu traits, rather than the clinical non-association of cognitive empathy with the reduced empathy processing being restricted to emotional empathy components. the reduction in fear recognition accuracy associated with high cu traits demonstrated patterns of response concordant with clinical research, which has established a reliable dysfunction in the ability of those with high cu trait conditions to recognise fearful facial expressions (blair, 2005; hastings et al., 2008). no further reduction in recognition accuracy was observed; therefore, general population demographics may be specifically sensitive to modulation in fearful expression recognition with regards to cu trait manifestation. those high in cu traits consistently revealed a lower level of emotional intensity and valence in response to both positive and negative affective stimuli. this result mirrors the reduction in emotional responding evidenced in high cu trait disorders, such as psychopathy and conduct disorder, such disorders are associated with reduced empathetic response towards humans and sentient non-humans (dadds, whiting, & hawes, 2006; soderstrom, 2003). this pattern of negative association between emotional reactivity and cu traits, thus maybe a stable and permeating factor associated with cu trait manifestation. to conclude, cu traits have been found to be present in a continuous distribution in the general population. particularly, a lower reporting of both cognitive and emotional empathy is evidenced in those with higher cu traits. however, this finding lies counter to the disassociation of the construct processing associated with clinical populations. the deficit in affect recognition was not strongly evidenced in the results, with the exception of the fear condition. deficiencies in emotional valence associated with elevated cu trait individuals were supported through indirect measurement of affect in the general population. as a constellation of results, the assimilated data suggests that cu traits are associated with modulations in both the empathy processing and affective reactivity in the general population. lethbridge, richardson, reidy et al. 169 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references baron-cohen, s., & wheelwright, s. 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(2006). development of short forms of the empathy quotient (eq-short) and the systemizing quotient (sq-short). personality and individual differences, 41(5), 929-940. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.017 about the authors dr emma lethbridge holds a phd in cognitive neuropsychology, mphil in neurology and behaviour and a degree in neuroscience from the university of sussex. she is currently employed as a researcher in the fmri and psychology research of the imagen project at the university of nottingham. imagen is a collaborative european research project which aims to discover the biological and environmental factors that potentially effect mental health in adolescents in order to facilitate the development of prevention strategies and interventions. dr paul richardson graduated with a degree in psychology and honed his interest in neuropsychology with a specific focus in childhood amnesia via his msc and phd in the psychology department at essex. he then gained a post-doctoral position at the neuroscience and psychiatry unit at the university of manchester working on an fmri project investigating the neural correlates of impulsivity and empathy in antisocial personality disorder. his current position is as principal lecturer in psychology at sheffield hallam university, teaching predominantly at post-graduate level. dr lisa reidy conducted her phd research on the special abilities of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (asd). her postdoctoral research was on the cognitive profiles of individuals with asd and their relatives. now a principal lecturer at sheffield hallam university, she retains an interest in asd, but also study typical social and emotional development. she also has an interest in animal psychology, the special abilities of individuals with asd and the cognitive profiles of individuals with asd and their relatives. dr naira taroyan obtained an undergraduate degree in biology and msc in psychophysiology at yerevan state university, armenia. naira's phd work in visual psychophysiology was carried out at moscow state university. after postdoctoral research at neuroscience department of brown university (usa) she worked at the university of sheffield on psychophysical aspects of stereo vision with subsequent phd in cognitive neuroscience of dyslexia. she joined sheffield hallam university in 2007, where she is a senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience and msc clinical cognitive neuroscience course leader. callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence 172 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 162–172 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1179 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-003-0338-y http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843x.113.1.99 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.017 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ callous-unemotional traits, empathy processing and affective valence (introduction) method participants materials procedure ethics results distribution and reliability of the callous-unemotional trait correlations between the self-report measures of cu traits and empathy disassociation between emotional and cognitive empathy facial emotion recognition and response empathy valence task discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors heuristics in judgment tasks with unrecognized elements research reports heuristics in judgment tasks with unrecognized elements miguel dimase* a [a] faculty of psychology, university of buenos aires, argentina. abstract according to published studies in the field, random choice and random estimation are the only options for tackling judgment and decisionmaking tasks where the elements from which to infer a required criteria are not recognized. in campitelli and labollita (2010), participants were asked to estimate the nationality and elo rating of chess players based on their surnames. in the present study i re-analyze those 123 participants from campitelli and labollita (2010) who declared not to have recognized any player. even in this scenario of null recognition, they managed to correctly infer the russian players' nationality and elo ratings; it is likely that successful and ecologically rational heuristics were used. i found evidence of new structured probabilistic environments external to the lab, likely to have generated a number of undirected and involuntary associations in the memories of the participants, who may have used them in their heuristics to infer the criteria requested. the results support the models of limited rationality: despite the scarcity of available information, the fact that the heuristics did not guarantee success, and the risk of overestimating the heuristics’ effectiveness while underestimating their own biases, participants still favored them over random guesswork, thus suggesting an adaptive use. i invite a revision of what is considered “good reasoning” when applied to problems in environments of uncertainty that call for satisfactory, rather than optimal, solutions. this research provides the basis for new studies in the field of heuristics under previously unexplored conditions, and a new perspective for the analysis of prior works, towards a better understanding of the relationship between cognition and the environment. keywords: heuristics, recognition, bounded rationality, decision-making europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 received: 2018-06-28. accepted: 2019-01-29. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, united kingdom *corresponding author at: peron 4083 7 16, c1198aaay, buenos aires, argentina. e-mail: miguel.dimase@gmail.cou this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. historically, philosophy and psychology have tried to define human rationality in terms of its relationship with the rules of logic, offering models that ranged from complete adherence to total independence from said rules. meanwhile, research on how people make judgments and decisions have generally relied on the criteria of coherence, correspondence and pragmatism for the purposes of gauging truthness and correctness (dunwoody, 2009). research so far has mostly used the criterion of coherence to evaluate the truthness/correctness or falsehood/incorrectness of a given process against a normative system. the program heuristics and biases initiated by kahneman and tversky (e.g., kahneman, slovic, & tversky, 1982; kahneman & tversky, 1973) applied this criterion when it concluded that humans’ heuristics (inferential strategies that guide the search for solutions) exhibit biases (systematic errors) compared to the norms of classical logic and probability. by contrast, the program fast-and-frugal heuristics1 initiated by gerd gigerenzer (e.g., gigerenzer & todd, 1999) used the criteria of correspondence (coincidence with facts of the world) and pragmatism (utility) to characterize these europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ heuristics as inferential abilities adapted to cognitive limitations and varying environments. the recognition heuristic (gigerenzer & goldstein, 1996) used these criteria for evaluating forced decisions such as the following: which of these german cities has the largest population? (a) hamburg (b) kassel the heuristic was defined thus: "if one of the two objects is recognized and the other is not, then infer that the recognized object has the higher value with respect to the criterion" (goldstein & gigerenzer, 2002, p. 76). criterion refers to a characteristic of reality about which one must judge or decide (e.g., population). in this example, hamburg would be chosen more frequently because it tends to be more generally recognized, and since this city is indeed the most populated, this would yield average success rates above random chance. the recognition heuristic predicted the results of the 2003 and 2005 wimbledon tennis matches with equal or greater precision than experts and atp rankings (scheibehenne & brödder, 2007; serwe & frings, 2006); in the north american and german stock markets, the heuristic’s average performance equaled or surpassed that of major investment funds, market indices, random stock portfolios and portfolios built with stock from less recognized companies (borges, goldstein, ortmann, & gigerenzer, 1999). recognition-based judgments applied to predicting electoral results of political parties have performed as well as or better than opinion polling (gaissmaier & marewski, 2011). when both of the elements involved in a decision or all of the elements involved in a judgment can be recognized, the recognition heuristic is no longer applicable, forcing subjects to either search their memories for additional information or change the heuristic (for an introduction to various strategies, see pohl, 2011). published studies postulate that when no element is recognized, choosing or judging at random are the only remaining options (e.g., gigerenzer & goldstein, 1996; goldstein & gigerenzer, 2002; pohl, 2011). however, human beings find themselves routinely compelled by social, political and economic circumstances to make decisions or estimations based on various criteria (e.g., distances, weights, prices, ages, manufacturing qualities, ethnic origins, ethical issues, intentions) that involve new and unrecognized elements (e.g., faces, ideas, consumer goods, physical spaces, surnames). example scenarios in a social context include picking the right people out of a group of strangers for a given task, evaluating the best way to act in a new place or situation; assessing which new foods, movies, books or music to consume; judging among different possible solutions to new problems; etc. overview of the present study in the present study i re-analyzed part of the data presented in campitelli and labollita (2010). said article reports a study in which participants were asked, among other tasks, to estimate the nationality and elo2 rating of a set of chess players on the sole basis of their surnames. one of the tables contained only non-argentine players, including players with russian nationality and non-russian players with slavic surnames.3 another table contained only argentine players, some of them with slavic surnames. the participants recognized almost none of the players' surnames. seeing that the estimation of nationality and elo rating yielded success rates above chance, campitelli and labollita conjectured that the participants must have resorted to indirect knowledge (inferences) for their answers (e.g., they may have assigned russia to an unrecognized karpov on the basis of the suffix -ov; they may have estimated a high elo rating for him on the assumption that russians —or those with the suffix -ov— are heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 532 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ better at chess). the authors assumed that the participants: (a) had found some surnames that “seemed russian” (p. 187); (b) knew that "surnames ending in -ov tend to be russian" (p. 186); (c) knew that russians "are good at chess" (p. 184); (d) knew that "russians have been dominating chess for a long time" (p. 188); (e) had used this knowledge to infer nationalities; (f) had used this knowledge to infer elo ratings. the goal of this study was to test those assumptions with the purpose of providing evidence regarding how decisions and judgments are made in the face of unrecognized elements, and the environments that facilitate this process. hypothesis (1) in the estimation of nationality, the surnames of slavic origin (surnames ending in -ov, -ev and -enko, listed in table a.1 in appendix a) will lead to significantly higher average success rates for russian players than for non-russian players; (2) in the estimation of elo ratings, the surnames of slavic origin (surnames ending in -ov, -ev, -enko and -cki, listed in table a.2 in appendix a) will lead to significantly higher average success rates for slavic players than for non-slavic players. to theoretically support these hypotheses, i will now describe: how humans can use inferences and heuristics to decide and estimate on the basis of limited information; why these heuristics are ecologically rational; the probabilistic structure of the environments in which they are developed, particularly the recognition heuristic; the components necessary (and the evidence that supports them) to compose a heuristic capable of yielding success without recognition; the ecological rationality of these heuristics with regard to those environments. finally, i will offer an explanation as to how all these elements may have facilitated the inference of the russian players’ nationality and the slavic players’ relative elo ratings. inferences and heuristics with limited information to infer is to arrive at a conclusion from another certain element (real academia española [rae], 2012). for example, looking into someone’s eyes to infer a suspected guilt, or inferring the size of a toad from the loudness of its croak (gigerenzer & goldstein, 1996). these cues are unreliable because the eyes can deceive, and a small toad can have a deep croak. heuristic means “to find or discover”. humans use heuristics to guide their decisions and solutions when facing limitations of time, information and cognitive resources, or simply because of their adaptiveness to a given environment (gigerenzer & brighton, 2009; goldstein & gigerenzer, 2002). for example, baseball players use the gaze heuristic to estimate where the ball will fall (gigerenzer, 2007). heuristics and environmental structures ecological rationality, as it applies to a heuristic, refers to a model of rationality based on correspondence and to the way humans correlate with their environment (brunswik, 1943; hammond, 2001; simon, 1990). for example, the recognition heuristic is based on an ecologically rational cognitive adaptation (goldstein & gigerenzer, 2002), since recognition memory is expandable, sensitive and reliable enough to act as a basis for inferences (galef, 1987; pfennig, gamboa, reeve, reeve, & ferguson, 1983; standing, 1973). however, in any given environment some data will be usually unavailable (e.g., which city has a higher relative population size). figure 1 (compare with figure 2-2 of goldstein & gigerenzer, 1999, p. 42) models the probabilistic relationship of the elements in an environment appropriate for the recognition heuristic. an inaccessible criterion dimase 533 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., a city’s population) is reflected by a mediator (e.g., newspapers, where usually the most populous cities are mentioned), thus influencing the probability of recognition by the subject (cities mentioned more frequently tend to have higher recognition rates), who will use it later to infer the criterion. a recognition validity of 1 indicates that a recognized city always has more inhabitants than an unrecognized one. figure 1. ecological rationality of the recognition heuristic in a probabilistically structured environment. note. an inaccessible criterion (e.g., population) is reflected by a mediator (e.g., number of mentions in newspapers) that influences recognition probability. the subject can use recognition to infer the criterion. heuristics without recognition although most published studies agree that participants must be able to recognize the element or elements presented to them before they can access additional information, the participants involved in the present study seem to have managed the latter despite the lack of recognition. i posit that the environment they were exposed to before the study of campitelli and labollita (2010) must have reflected said inaccessible data through their components and relationships, from which the participants extracted the information they needed to derive their subsequent inferences. i will thus consider: (a) the possibility that surnames in that environment had included cues, more precisely suffix morphemes (hereinafter suffixes), linguistic elements located at the end of a word; (b) the capacity of human beings to detect proper names in an environment; (c) the ability to detect and record suffixes in words, including proper names; (d) the ability to detect and record regularities and linguistic relationships, including proper names and morphemes; (e) that certain experiences may have favored the association between slavic suffixes (such as the russian -ov and -ev, but also the ukranian -enko) and russian nationality above other nationalities; (f) that certain experiences may have favored the association between slavic suffixes (not only the russian ones) and chess. assuming that participants had no prior knowledge of these cognitive and environmental aspects, it can be surmised that they were able to detect and register said aspects without direct instruction and through implicit learning.4 indeed, slavic surnames have characteristic suffixes (álvarez, 1968). for example, in russia it is common to add -ov to the name of a child (also -in and -ich); in poland, -sky or -skiy; typical of ukraine are -nko and -enko. however, no univocal correspondence can be drawn between suffixes and nationalities, for suffixes can spread geographically. human beings are able to detect surnames (e.g., birch & bloom, 2002; gelman & taylor, 1984), as well as their suffixes (e.g., crepaldi, rastle, & davis, 2010) without instruction, unconsciously and after only brief exposures. in these same conditions they can detect linguistic regularities, such as that slavic suffixes tend to appear around occurrences of russia and related terms, such as russian, ussr (e.g., marcus, vijayan, bandi rao & vishton, 1999), and create relationships between those elements in their memories (e.g., pruden, hirsh-pasek, golinkoff, & hennon, 2006). during the cold war, the tension between the ussr and the heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 534 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ united states enabled a global environment that favored associations between slavic suffixes and russian nationality above other slavic nationalities (calvert, 2011; dietrich, 2005; gerbner, 1991; mertin, 2008). finally, two different associations derived from environmental features may have led participants to assign more elo points to the chess players with slavic-looking surnames, that is, with the suffixes -ov, -ev, -enko and -cki (including players like gashimov, from azerbaijan, and the argentines kovalyov and zarnicki), not just the russian players with surnames ending in -ov and -ev: (1) the association of russia with chess, which resulted in the estimation of higher ratings for russian-looking surnames, with suffixes used as cues for their identification; or (2) the association of certain suffixes with chess, which resulted in the estimation of higher ratings for the surnames that included said suffixes. let's consider the plausibility of each scenario. the dominance held first by the ussr and later by russia in the field of international chess (riordan, 1993) is reflected by the fact that between 1948 and 1991 almost all the chess world champions were soviet, while from 1992 to 2007 they were mainly russian and of other slavic nationalities. a large number of players in the top 50 of the world ranking from 1970 to 1999 were soviet, and after 1991 from slavic countries (howard, 1999). however, the same data supports the alternative scenario: countless surnames with slavic suffixes were linked to world-class chess performance, some persistently so. the suffix -ov was found in the surnames of five of the nine world champions between 1975 and 2006. see the supplementary material for a more in-depth discussion about the topics covered in this section. inference of russian nationality figure 2 shows the environmental and cognitive characteristics that may have led the participants to infer russian nationality. figure 2. the probabilistic structure of an environment that may enable the inference of the russian nationality of a surname, without recognition: the inaccessible criterion is reflected by an accessible mediator (e.g., the frequency with which surnames with slavic suffixes —not only russian— are reported by the media in proximity or in reference to russia. thanks to the mediator, the subject associates the suffixes with russia and uses them later to infer this nationality. the criterion inaccessible to the subject (the russian nationality of a player) is reflected by an accessible mediator (the frequency with which the surnames with slavic suffixes —not only russian— are reported in proximity or in reference to russia). the subject thus associates the suffixes with russia, and uses them later to infer this nationality. this is an environment of high uncertainty, as defined by brunswik (1943), hammond (2001) and simon (1990): a given suffix may not always appear clustered near a single nationality, or it could prove insufficient for discriminating between countries, or the frequency of its occurrences in the proximity of russia or related terms might not be representative of its prevalence in russian surnames. the ecological correlation indicates how frequently surnames with slavic suffixes are mentioned by the mediator in proximity or in reference to russia (a correlation of 1 means it happens always). the substitute correlation indicates to which exdimase 535 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tent those mentions match the associations that the subjects created between the suffixes and russia (in contrast with the recognition heuristic, the frequency of media reports on the specific surnames presented in campitelli and labollita, 2010, is nor relevant for this study, as participants were not able to recognize them). the suffix validity referred to in figure 2 indicates the actual relationship between russian nationality and surnames with slavic suffixes in that external environment (it could be calculated for one or for the whole set). in this task, the suffix validity shows the extent to which surnames with slavic suffixes actually belonged to russian players and thus allowed the inference of their nationality. for example, the suffix -ov got .43, as three of the seven foreigners with surnames ending in -ov were russian (table 5). a heuristic like "all surnames ending in -ov are russian" would yield 43% of correct inferences and 57% of incorrect ones, but it would still outperform a random assignment of russian nationality. in light of the cognitive and environmental characteristics described, the consistent association of slavic suffixes (russian and non-russian) with russia is to be expected. inference of ratings for slavic players figure 3 shows the environmental and cognitive characteristics that may have led the participants to infer a higher elo rating for the slavic players. figure 3. the probabilistic structure of an environment that may result in the inference of higher elo ratings for slavic players, with no recognition: the inaccessible criterion is reflected by an accessible mediator (e.g., the frequency with which surnames with slavic suffixes —not only russian— are reported by the media in the context of chess, usually in proximity or in reference to russia). thanks to the mediator, the subject associates slavic suffixes or russia with chess, which leads to the inference of more points for chess players whose surnames include a slavic suffix or who are russian (using the suffix as the sole basis for discrimination). the criterion inaccessible to the subject (the slavs’ higher relative ratings) is reflected by an accessible mediator (the frequency with which surnames with slavic suffixes —not only russian— are mentioned by the media in the context of chess, usually in proximity or in reference to russia and related terms). the subject thus associates these suffixes or russia with chess, which leads to the inference of a higher relative rating for chess players whose surnames include slavic suffixes or who are russian (using the suffix as the sole basis for discrimination). there’s uncertainty here as well: it may be that not all players with slavic suffixes mentioned by the media have relatively higher elo ratings, or they might be mentioned for reasons other than their performance in chess. the ecological correlation indicates the frequency with which slavic suffixes are mentioned by the media within the context of chess and in proximity or in relation to russia and related terms; the substitute correlation indicates to what extent these mentions correspond with the subject’s associations. the suffix validity measures the actual relationship between slavic suffixes and elo ratings for this external environment. in this task, it represents the proportion of players with slavic suffixes that actually had a comparatively higher elo rating. table 5 shows that the rank correlation between all players with slavic suffixes and their actual points heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 536 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was .44, which suggests that the heuristic of assigning them comparatively more points generally leads to better estimates. method in the present study i re-analyzed part of the data presented in campitelli and labollita (2010). that article reports a study in which participants were presented with the cognitive reflection test (frederick, 2005; a number of risky choice and intertemporal decision-making tasks), and a number of judgment tasks. in this article i’ll focus on the task of judging the nationalities and elo ratings of a group of chess players. i will explain the relevant aspects of campitelli and labollita (2010)’s study, and the specific aspects of the current re-analysis. participants the study by campitelli and labollita (2010) included 157 volunteers —47 men and 110 women— from the metropolitan area of buenos aires. the average age was 24.4 (sd = 5.4, range 16-43). of the 157 participants, i excluded the 34 that recognized at least one of the chess players, as my interest lies only with those who declared not to recognize any. i then removed the few illegal values received (e.g., estimated elo ratings below or above the limits set in the instructions — see instruments section) without disqualifying the participants; outliers were preserved. one participant who submitted too many illegal responses was excluded. the mean age of the remaining 123 participants is 23.8 (sd = 4.9, range 16-43). material the participants of campitelli and labollita (2010) were given a booklet they had to fill out with their answers. the section of interest for the present study included four tables (two of them built randomly, two systematically) containing surnames of chess players. two were filled in with names of argentine chess players, and the other two with names of non-argentine chess players. the present analysis considers only the following: (a) the systematic-design table containing non-argentine players (the only table that included non-argentine players of russian nationality along with players with slav surnames) and (b) the systematic-design table containing argentine players (the only table that included argentine players with slav surnames). the tables had four columns. the first column contained the names of the players. in the second column, the participants had to indicate whether they recognized each player; in the third column they had to indicate the nationality of each one (nationality information was pre-filled in the table with argentine players); in the fourth column they were asked to indicate their estimated elo ratings. appendix a includes adapted versions of these tables, as well as two extra tables with the correct responses (which, of course, were not accessible by the participants). variables i coded all the items shown in table a.1 and table a.2 of appendix a in the following variables: (a) actual elo rating (1200 to 2850), (b) argnonarg (argentine/non-argentine), (c) rusnonrus (russian/non-russian), (d) slavnonslav (slavic/non-slavic), and created a number of dummy variables for the suffixes: (e) suffix -ov (with -ov/without ov), (f) suffix -ev (with ev/without ev), (g) suffix -enko (with -enko/without -enko), (h) suffix -cki (with dimase 537 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ -cki/without -cki). also, for each player, it was codified (1/0) the success or failure of the judgment of their nationality. the dependent variables were: (a) nationality accuracy (i.e., whether the participant assigned the nationality correctly), and (b) estimated elo rating. for nationality estimation, the mean (m) hit rate was calculated for all the values of each independent variable. in the case of the elo rating, the mean estimated rating was calculated for each value of each independent variable. in both cases, the standard deviation (sd) and the standard error (se) of the mean were calculated for all levels or values, with a confidence interval (ci) of 95%. correlations were used to analyze the existence, direction and strength of the relationships between the variables. to test the hypotheses, inferential analyses were performed using t tests for paired or related samples (the data to be compared came from the same participants), with a significance (α) of .05. the p values were obtained through two-tailed tests, and the size of the cohen effect d was calculated. results estimation of russian nationality the 123 participants were able to correctly estimate the nationality of all players in 21.5% of the cases. table 1 shows the hits disaggregated by variable. table 1 nationality hits, disaggregated by variable variable m sd 95% ci rusnonrus  russians 0.45 0.35 [0.39, 0.51]  non-russians 0.11 0.08 [0.09, 0.12] suffix -ev  with -ev 0.33 0.47 [0.25, 0.42]  without -ev 0.21 0.13 [0.18, 0.23] suffix -enko  with -enko 0.36 0.48 [0.27, 0.44]  without -enko 0.21 0.13 [0.18, 0.23] suffix -ov  with -ov 0.23 0.18 [0.20, 0.26]  without -ov 0.21 0.14 [0.18, 0.23] combined  russians with -ov 0.52 0.42 [0.45, 0.60]  russians without -ov 0.35 0.38 [0.28, 0.41] note. n = 123. the success rate was significantly higher for the russian players than for the non-russians; t(122) = 11.26, p < .001, cohen’s d = 1.02. to investigate the extent to which the slavic suffixes correlated with the correct estimation of russian nationality, i compared the hits obtained by the one player whose surname contained the suffix -ev, corresponding to heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 538 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the russian bareev, with the hits of the players without said suffix; that is, everyone else. the differences were significant: t(122) = 3.14, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.285. the success rate of the one surname with the suffix -enko, corresponding to the russian jakovenko, was significantly higher than the success rates of the surnames without said suffix; t(122) = 3.75, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.34. as expected, the difference in success rates between surnames with the suffix -ov and surnames without it was not significant; t(122) = 1.35, p = .18, cohen’s d = 0.12. unlike the two surnames with the suffixes -ev and enko, not all surnames with the suffix -ov belonged to russian players. table 2 shows virtually no hits for the surnames ending in -ov that belonged to non-russian players. table 2 nationality hits, disaggregated by player player actual country m karpov russia 0.55 malakhov russia 0.54 wang china 0.50 tregubov russia 0.47 jakovenko russia 0.36 bareev russia 0.33 gustafsson germany 0.29 adams england 0.20 van wely holland 0.13 ponomariov ukraine 0.02 timman holland 0.02 carlsen norway 0.02 nielsen denmark 0.01 gashimov azerbaijan 0.00 aleksandrov belarus 0.00 topalov bulgaria 0.00 i then compared the surnames of russian players that included the suffix -ov with all the surnames that didn’t include it: the difference was significant, t(122) = 9.16, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.83; this despite the fact that the set of surnames without -ov included surnames with the suffixes -ev and -enko, both of which had yielded significant success rates when tested against surnames without those suffixes. to more accurately establish the influence of the suffix -ov, i compared all the russian surnames that included the suffix -ov with the russian surnames that did not, i.e., surnames with the suffixes -ev and -enko, both of which had yielded significant success rates. the results remained significant: t(122) = 4.68, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.42. table 3 shows the suffix validity for russian nationality expressed as proportions and percentages, as well as the success rate for each suffix. dimase 539 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 suffix validity for russia, and correct estimation of russia suffixes russians/total validity (%) success rate for russians (%) all 5/9 56 45 -ev 1/1 100 33 -enko 1/1 100 36 -ov 3/7 43 52 note. all = non-argentines with surnames ending in -ev, -enko and -ov. russians = number of russian players with those suffixes. total = number of players (russians + non-russians) with surnames including those suffixes (1 with -ev, 1 with -enko, 7 with -ov; 9 in total). validity = percentage of russians with those suffixes against the total number of players with those suffixes. success rate for russians = percentage of hits for russian players with those suffixes. the second and third columns show the actual number of players of russian nationality in each suffix group; the fourth column shows the percentage of players identified as russian by the participants. thus, the validity of russia for the whole set of suffixes was 56%, since five of the nine surnames with slavic suffixes belonged to russian players. the participants correctly assigned 45% of that 56% to russia. these successes reveal the strength of the associations binding these suffixes to russia in the participants’ memories, which influenced the level of adherence to the applied heuristics (e.g., when presented with the suffixes -ev and -ov, only 33% of the participants applied a heuristic such as “ev is a russian suffix,” whereas a heuristic like “ov is a russian suffix” was much more prevalent: the set of russian players with surnames ending in -ov yielded a success rate of 52%). estimation of elo ratings for the slavic players averages for both estimated and actual elo ratings were calculated for all chess players, showing a correlation r(123) = .70 between these variables. table 4 shows the analysis of the estimated ratings. the participants tended to assign more points to the slavic players. a t-test on paired samples of estimated ratings for the slavs and for the non-slavs showed significantly higher estimates for the former: t(122) = 2.89, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.56. at least part of this difference could be explained by the low ratings estimated for argentines overall, considering that the set of slavic players included only two argentines (kovalyov and zarnicki) against the eight argentines included with the non-slavs. i then compared the average estimated ratings for argentines and non-argentines, which indeed revealed that rating estimations for non-argentines had been significantly higher: t(122) = 6.15, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.56. to ascertain the extent to which slavic and argentine origins accounted for the difference seen in the ratings estimated for slavs and non-slavs, i investigated the relation between suffixes and the ratings estimated for the slavic players. the surnames with the suffix -ov had got significantly higher estimates than those without the suffix ov; i.e., all the other surnames: t(122) = 6.46, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.58. because again there were two argentines among the players with surnames ending in -ov and eight argentines among the rest, it was clearly feasible that the lower ratings estimated for the argentines in general had brought heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 540 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ down the relative ratings of the group without the suffix -ov. however, even the ratings estimated for the nonargentines with surnames ending in -ov were significantly higher than the ratings estimated for the non-argentines with surnames not ending in -ov; t(122) = 2.89, p = .005, cohen’s d = 0.26. table 4 estimated elo ratings, disaggregated by variable variable m sd 95% ci all players 2484.94 106.38 [2465.98, 2503.95] slavnonslav  slavs 2509.72 114.87 [2489.22, 2530.23]  non-slavs 2466.71 111.64 [2446.78, 2486.64] argnonarg  argentines 2435.52 136.44 [2411.17, 2459.87]  non-argentines 2516.20 121.63 [2494.49, 2537.91] suffix -ov  with -ov 2519.93 122.18 [2498.12, 2541.73]  without -ov 2469.41 109.74 [2449.83, 2489.00] combined  non-argentines with -ov 2530.03 130.21 [2506.79, 2553.27]  non-argentines without -ov 2505.57 130.73 [2482.23, 2528.90]  non-argentines non-slavs 2507.89 133.23 [2484.11, 2531.67]  argentines slavs 2451.96 171.96 [2421.27, 2482.66]  argentines non-slavs 2430.85 137.14 [2406.37, 2455.33]  argentines with -ov 2451.03 178.64 [2418.73, 2483.32]  argentines without -ov 2443.84 146.55 [2417.34, 2470.33] note. n = 123. by contrast, the surnames with the suffixes -ev and -enko received the lowest estimates among the non-argentine slavs, and ranked in the bottom four of all non-argentine players. to find out if these ratings accounted for the significantly lower estimates obtained by the surnames of non-argentines that didn’t include the suffix -ov compared to those non-argentines that did, i compared the surnames of non-argentines ending in -ov against the surnames of the non-argentines that didn’t have a slavic origin (i.e., excluding bareev and jakovenko): even here, the non-argentines with surnames ending in -ov showed higher ratings than the rest of the non-argentines; t(122) = 2.57, p = .011, cohen’s d = 0.23. the slavic argentines, however, did not get higher ratings than the non-slavic argentines; t(122) = 1.93, p = .056, cohen’s d = 0.17. despite the relation between the suffix -ov and higher estimated ratings, the argentine player whose surname included the suffix -ov, kovalyov, did not get a higher rating than the rest of the argentines; t(119) = 0.61, p = .545, cohen’s d = 0.06. table 5 correlates suffix validities with actual elo ratings for this task, and shows the relationship between suffixes and estimated elo ratings. dimase 541 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 suffix validity against actual elo, and relation between suffixes and estimated elo suffixes validity against actual elo relation with estimated elo all .44 .43 -ov .41 .47 note. all = -ev, -enko and -ov. numbers express correlations. the second column shows the associative strength of the slavic suffixes with the actual ratings of the players whose surnames contained those suffixes, and summarizes their relative position as shown in table b.1 in the appendix b. the rank correlation of .44 shows that the slavic players chosen by campitelli and labollita (2010) tended to have higher real-world elo ratings than the non-slavs. the correlation of .43 shown on the third column illustrates the relational strength of these elements in the participants' memories. the actual elo ratings of the players with surnames ending in -ov was generally higher than the ratings of the rest of the players, and the participants thought along the same lines: the correlation between the estimated and actual ratings of the players with surnames ending in -ov was .47 (.61 between estimated and actual ratings for slavic players; .70 between estimated and actual ratings for all players). discussion inference of russian nationality even without recognizing the players’ names, the participants correctly estimated russian nationality to a significantly higher degree than other nationalities. i propose that the participants resorted to previously created memories that allowed them to detect the suffixes -ov, -ev and -enko present in the surnames, and evaluate them as useful based on basic cognitive abilities and environmental characteristics, namely: the suffixes -ov, ev and -enko appear in slavic surnames; the participants were able to identify surnames without direct instruction and without intention; they could also indirectly and implicitly identify and retain regularities appearing in surnames, such as suffixes, after only a handful of brief exposures (marquis & shi, 2012; pacton, fayol, & perruchet, 2005). the heuristics based on the three slavic suffixes (not only the russian -ov and -ev) may have resulted in the higher success rates seen in the estimation of russian nationality, even though the suffix ev showed the weakest relation, followed by the suffix -enko (whose link to russia was corroborated despite being ukrainian). the russian players whose surnames included the suffix -ov scored a higher number of hits than the rest of the players (including russians with surnames ending in -ev and -enko), corroborating that -ov was not associated to nations such as gashimov’s azerbaijan or aleksandrov’s belarus. alternative explanations considering that participants were asked to estimate the nationality of chess players, it is plausible to think that mass-assigning russian nationality to all players based on the association between russia and chess would have sufficed to get success rates above random chance. however, the evidence suggests this was not the strategy applied, given that: • the hit rate for the russian players would have been 100%, and not 45%. heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 542 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • the hit rate for the non-russian players would have been 0% and not 11%. • a quick examination of individual results reveals that no subject estimated the nationality of all russians correctly without estimating some other nationality correctly as well. there is another improbable, but not impossible explanation: that the significant success rates were the result of a set of participants massively assigning russia except for some other nationality which they also assigned correctly, while most of the hits for non-russian nationalities came from another set of participants who did not mass-assign russia and failed to identify any russian player. this scenario, however, doesn’t account for the significant differences in success rates between the russians with surnames ending in -ov (52%) and the russians with surnames not ending in -ov, i.e., with the suffix -ev or -enko (35%). there is another, more unlikely scenario: that a set of participants mass-assigned the russian nationality except for some other nationality which they also assigned correctly, while the hits for non-russians were scored by another set of participants who also identified correctly some of the russian players based on the suffixes in their surnames, particularly -ov. this would explain the hit rates for the russians overall as well as the differences between the russians with surnames containing the suffix -ov and those without it. but this scenario can also be ruled out: even if a second set of participants had acted as described, a quick glance at the results reveals that only 17 subjects correctly assigned the russian nationality to all russians. considering that they also assigned correctly at least one other nationality, it follows that not even them assigned russia blindly. could the russian successes be ascribed to chance? in fact, why did i compare the hits for the russians with those for the rest of the players, instead of comparing them against random chance? the comparison with chance requires establishing the absolute number of nationalities out of which russia could have been chosen. if all world countries were considered, the probability of choosing russia by chance would be close to 1/200. if we then consider the probability of correctly assigning russia to one or more russian players by chance, the expected hits would be much lower than those achieved. however, it would be incorrect to assume that the participants knew all the countries in the world. what would be an appropriate number? one hundred nationalities? fifty? it’s anyone’s guess. a relative comparison with the hits obtained for the other nationalities avoids this problem. if, nevertheless, an approximation is wanted, it could be assumed conservatively that this sample of subjects knew on average 25 nationalities, in which case the probability of choosing russia by chance would be 1/25. compounding this with the probability of correctly assigning russian nationality to one or more russians, the expected successes should still be much lower than those obtained. on the other hand, the request to estimate the nationality of chess players could have triggered an association with russia that eliminated the need for choice, but even the expected success rate of one russian correctly identified in five attempts would still be significantly lower than the results obtained. inference of points for the slavic players even with no recognition, participants assigned significantly higher ratings to the slavic players with surnames ending in -ov than they did to the rest of the players, a result supported by the cognitive abilities and environmental characteristics explained. the slavs with surnames ending in -ev and -enko, on the other hand, were assigned comparatively low ratings. the superior performance associated with the suffix -ov persisted even when argentines were excluded from both subsets (they obtained a significantly lower average rating than nondimase 543 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ argentines), and even when the slavs with surnames ending in -ev or -enko were excluded from the non-argentines subset. alternative explanations the reason why chess players with surnames ending in -ov were assigned higher ratings may be explained by (a) an association between russia and good chess performance, which led to the assignment of more points to surnames with the suffix -ov because they looked russian (it was one of the suffixes associated with russia) or (b) an association between -ov and good chess performance, which led to the assignment of more points to surnames with that suffix. the first association is based on russia's dominance in the field of international chess (howard, 1999; riordan, 1993), a fact that has been widely disseminated (calvert, 2011; gerbner, 1991). the second association is derived from the historical media coverage of countless players with surnames ending in -ov, including world champions such as the very well-known kasparov. the results support the latter scenario; if the heuristic that produced higher ratings for the surnames with the suffix -ov had been based on the connection between russia and good chess performance, the surnames with the suffixes -ev and -enko should also have received significantly higher scores in relative terms, since they were correctly identified as russian. therefore, the heuristic that in this study led to the estimation of higher average elo ratings for the slavs emerged from the association of the suffix -ov with good chess performance, an association which is compatible with the human ability to detect and retain relationships between elements of different words based on repetition and proximity, implicitly, and without direct instruction. compensatory usage the ratings estimated for the argentines were significantly lower than for non-argentines, a result which reflects argentina’s middling performance in the field of international chess and the relatively low elo ratings achieved by argentines compared with other nationalities (see appendix b, table b.1). not even the single argentine player that did have a surname ending in -ov (kovalyov) scored significantly higher points than the rest of the argentines. although the evidence is limited to a sample of a single player, the heuristic that led to the assignment of high ratings to the surnames with the suffix -ov may have been applied to kovalyov in a compensatory way (as opposed to non-compensatory or indiscriminate — kurz-milcke & gigerenzer, 2007). the temporary suspension of a heuristic on account of additional knowledge (the argentine nationality as pertains to chess performance) and the compensatory use of additional cues for judgment-making is consistent with previous studies (e.g., pachur & hertwig, 2006; see pachur, 2011, for a broad discussion). detection and processing of suffixes it may be tempting to attribute to recognition the participant’s detection, and at least part of their processing, of the suffixes present in the surnames of the chess players. it is advisable, however, not to yield to this temptation: not only is the data collected in this study insufficient, but also the disagreements in the current theoretical field would make it difficult to attribute their detection and processing to familiarity, fluency, availability, recognition, etc. (see the supplementary material for a more in-depth discussion). however, these existing controversies make the findings in this research even more relevant, since the use of linguistic cues in the large number of heuristics studies where the participants recognized the elements presented cannot be ruled out. the implications are huge, since at least part of these investigations might have included variables that introduced confusion or interactions unsuspected until now. for example, many city names heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 544 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ used in recognition tasks may have contained suffixes (perhaps also prefixes or infixes) that influenced the participants’ decisions when facing not only two unrecognized cities, but also two recognized cities or even a recognized city and an unrecognized one. additionally, in each case these morphemes might have exerted some influence before or after the subjects detected the degree of familiarity, fluency, availability, recognition, etc., of the cities presented to them. exploitation of the environment and ecological rationality the results provided evidence on the exploitation of information present in a probabilistic environment external to the laboratory (brunswik, 1943; hammond, 2001; simon, 1990) by way of heuristics that without recognition were ecologically rational thanks to their adaptation to said environment (gigerenzer & todd, 1999). the evidence provided by the successful estimates of russian nationality is consistent with the environment depicted in figure 2. although the value of its ecological correlation could not be obtained, the assumption is that surnames containing slavic suffixes had been mentioned repeatedly by mediators in proximity or in reference to russia and related terms, with a higher frequency than other nationalities. although the substitute correlation could not be obtained either, the assumption is that the mediators had disseminated a larger number of surnames with slavic suffixes in connection with russia and related terms than they did in connection with other countries, although perhaps unevenly: the associative force was greater for the suffix -ov than for -ev or enko. table 3 shows the suffix validities for russia in this task, although the actual validity of each suffix with respect to russia in that external environment remains unknown (i.e., to what extent people of the world with surnames containing the suffixes -ov, -ev or -enko are actually russian). the evidence provided by the assignment of higher ratings to slavic players in the absence of recognition is consistent with the environment depicted in figure 3. although the value of its ecological correlation could not be obtained, it must be assumed that mediators had repeatedly mentioned surnames including the suffix -ov in the context of chess (the results do not directly require that these mentions be made in the proximity of or connected with russia and related terms). the value of the substitute correlation could not be obtained either, but it must be assumed that mediators had disseminated at least the suffix -ov in the context of chess, since the surnames with this suffix scored significantly higher ratings. table 5 shows the suffix validities as related to actual elo points for this task, although the actual validity for each suffix in terms of elo points is unknown for that external environment (i.e., to what extent chess players of the world whose surnames contain the suffixes -ov, ev or -enko actually have higher relative ratings). limitations the re-analysis of the judgment-making task described in campitelli and labollita (2010), which required participants to estimate the nationality of chess players, was based on the correct and incorrect estimations of the players’ actual nationalities. naturally, the answer set included the countries assigned incorrectly as well as the correct ones. unfortunately, the actual contents of each answer were lost during the digitization process undertaken by the authors, and only their correctness values were preserved. this missing information would have allowed me to analyze in greater depth the link between suffixes and countries, as well as the structure of the environments that generated those associations. for example, while the significant assignment of russia to the russian player jakovenko (whose surname contains a ukrainian suffix) corroborated the hypothesis that the suffix -enko would be associated with russia, we can only guess which countries were picked by the particidimase 545 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pants with incorrect answers. ukraine? which other nationalities were assigned to the russian players with surnames containing the suffix -ov? were gashimov, alexandrov and topalov, who were not russian and did not score any hit, also considered russians? we have no answer for these questions. the stimuli did not include non-argentine players with the suffix cki, who could have provided additional information about this suffix, nor were included argentines with the suffixes -ev and -enko. no data could be obtained from the real environments in terms of ecological correlation, the substitute correlation, the suffix validity for russian nationality and the suffix validity for elo ratings. these would have allowed me to analyze the results in more depth. it was not possible to carry out an individual, per-subject analysis (it would have required many more answers), which is a mandatory requirement for the study of heuristics according to some researchers of the fast-andfrugal heuristics program (despite the fact that the heuristics presented here were not classified as fast or frugal). for an introduction to the aforementioned requirements, the debate they elicited and the analytical methodology adopted, see brighton and gigerenzer (2011); gigerenzer and brighton (2009); gigerenzer and goldstein (1996); goldstein and gigerenzer (2002); hilbig and richter (2011). conclusions according to published studies in the field, random choice and random estimation are the only options for tackling judgment and decision-making tasks where the elements required to infer a criteria are not recognized (e.g., gigerenzer & goldstein, 1996; goldstein & gigerenzer, 2002; pohl, 2011). the present re-analysis revealed heuristics that led to the correct inference of russian nationality and relative elo ratings for unrecognized chess players. these heuristics were ecologically rational due to the correspondence of their results with reality (gigerenzer & todd, 1999) and the relationship of the participants with the environment that facilitated them (brunswik, 1943; hammond, 2001; simon, 1990). the results support the use of models of limited rationality to characterize human psychology, since participants applied heuristics to achieve success rates above chance level, despite the risk of overestimating the heuristics’ effectiveness and underestimating the participants’ own biases, a behavior justified in evolutionary terms (e.g., haselton & nettle, 2006). i thus invite a revision of what is considered “good reasoning” when applied to human beings facing problems in environments of uncertainty that typically call for satisfactory, rather than optimal, solutions. my hope is that this study will provide a basis for new studies in the field of heuristics under previously unexplored conditions, and a new perspective for the analysis of previous works, towards a better understanding of the relationship between cognition and the environment. notes 1) “frugal” in the sense of using few cognitive resources. 2) competitive chess performance is rated through a scoring system named elo after its creator, arpad elo (1978). the elo points obtained by players in each tournament are periodically computed by the international chess federation and determine the players’ position in the international ranking. 3) surnames linked to nations with slavic languages. in the current political division, this includes the languages of poland, ukraine, bulgaria, macedonia, slovenia, serbia, bosnia-herzegovina, montenegro, croatia, czech republic, slovakia, heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 546 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ belarus and russia (browne, 2014). virtually all of these territories were part of the soviet union, along with other countries whose languages belong to other linguistic groups but which also had a strong slavic influence (e.g., azerbaijan, nationality of the player gashimov —see table 3 in the appendix— whose surname is of slavic origin). 4) the cited papers use different terms for the type of instruction the participants resorted to ("direct," "explicit", "deliberate"). these terms should all be considered equivalent, as they comprise some of the following: an instructor makes explicit the intention that an instructee learn about a particular subject; encourages them to reflect on the content they are being exposed to; ensures they are aware of any rules; deliberately directs their attention towards certain attributes or regularities of the stimuli (see, e.g., ellis, 2010). also, the terms "implicit", "incidental" and "unconscious" learning refer to certain common characteristics, such as: learning new information without trying; adapting to environmental regularities without intention; learning without realizing it; evidencing knowledge without being aware of it (e.g., pacton et al., 2005; perruchet and pacton, 2006). 5) my hypothesis stated that i would look for evidence of the use of suffixes via the indirect method of comparing the success rates of russian players with the rates achieved by non-russians. as the additional comparisons that i will describe next have not been outlined, certain methodological schools might demand that they be treated as post-hoc tests (tests generated by a researcher a posteriori of a study’s known data/results), and that their significance (p values) be adjusted through some of the methods designed for unplanned multiple tests. failure to do so, it may be argued, would artificially inflate the probability of finding significant differences. for articles in favor of this adjustment, see holm's (1979) foundational study or shaffer's (1995) review. for articles against, see perneger (1998) or o'keefe (2003). although i agree with those who consider it generally incorrect to adjust multiple tests (even unplanned ones), i adjusted them using the benjamini-yekutieli method for dependent tests (e.g., benjamini & yekutieli, 2001): their significance did not change, so i will report the unadjusted p values. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author 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(1973). learning 10000 pictures. quarterly journal of experimental psychology, 25(2), 207-222. https://doi.org/10.1080/14640747308400340 tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1973). availability: a heuristic for judging frequency and probability. cognitive psychology, 5, 207-232. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 appendices appendix a instructions and tables presented to participants of campitelli and labollita (2010) in the following two lists you will find names of argentine and non-argentine chess players. you must complete the following for each of them: 1. indicate if you knew a chess player with that name before this investigation. 2. indicate country of origin for each non-argentine player. heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 550 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8624.2005.00848_a.x https://doi.org/10.1007%2fbf00299677 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8624.2006.00869.x http://www.rae.es/recursos/diccionarios/drae https://doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.ps.41.020190.000245 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ijforecast.2007.05.006 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fbdm.530 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f14640747308400340 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0010-0285%2873%2990033-9 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 3. assign elo points for each chess player. keep in mind that chess ranking is measured in points ranging from 1,200 (low level amateurs) to 2,850 (best player in the world). table a.1 non-argentine players. surname ¿do you know her? (yes/no) country elo points van welly nielsen bareev gustafsson jakovenko wang karpov malakhov gashimov aleksandrov tregubov topalov carlsen adams ponomariov timman table a.2 argentine players surname ¿do you know her? (yes/no) country elo points villanueva argentina flores argentina kovalyov argentina hase argentina lorenzini argentina adla argentina amura argentina zarnicki argentina peralta argentina luconi argentina appendix b chess players’ countries and real elo points presented in campitelli and labollita (2010) table b.1 countries and actual elo points (ordered by elo) surname actual country actual elo points topalov bulgaria 2,813 carlsen norway 2,772 jakovenko russia 2,742 ponomariov ukraine 2,741 dimase 551 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ surname actual country actual elo points gashimov azerbaijan 2,740 wang china 2,736 malakhov russia 2,715 nielsen denmark 2,687 adams england 2,682 van welly holland 2,651 tregubov russia 2,649 aleksandrov belarus 2,639 bareev russia 2,633 gustafsson germany 2,622 karpov russia 2,619 flores argentine 2,607 timman holland 2,588 kovalyov argentine 2,577 peralta argentine 2,565 zarnicki argentine 2,515 adla argentine 2,498 lorenzini argentine 2,458 amura argentine 2,335 villanueva argentine 2,326 luconi argentine 2,293 hase argentine 2,279 about the author miguel dimase is an independent teacher and writer. he has completed studies in the fields of computer science (universidad católica de salta, argentina), pedagogy (universidad tecnológica nacional, argentina) and cognitive psychology (master’s degree in universidad de buenos aires, argentina). he has specialized in teaching learning strategies and techniques. his current writings encompass the fields of learning, psychology and electricity. heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements 552 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 531–552 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1687 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ heuristics in judgments with unrecognized elements (introduction) overview of the present study inferences and heuristics with limited information heuristics and environmental structures heuristics without recognition inference of russian nationality inference of ratings for slavic players method participants material variables results estimation of russian nationality estimation of elo ratings for the slavic players discussion inference of russian nationality inference of points for the slavic players detection and processing of suffixes exploitation of the environment and ecological rationality limitations conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendices appendix a appendix b about the author refinement of outcome bias measurement in the parental decision-making context research reports refinement of outcome bias measurement in the parental decisionmaking context kaja damnjanović* a, sandra ilić a, irena pavlović a, vera novković a [a] laboratory for experimental psychology, department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract the aim of this study was twofold: one was to test the impact of the involvement on the parental outcome bias, and the second was to refine the measurement of outcome bias, normally reported as the difference between evaluations of a single decision, with different outcomes assigned to it. we introduced the evaluation of a decision without an outcome, to induce theoretically normative evaluation, unbiased by outcome, from which the evaluation shift could be calculated in either direction. to test this refinement in the parental decisionmaking context, we produced childcare dilemmas with varying levels of complexity, since the rise of complexity induces stronger bias. complexity was determined by the particular combination of two factors: parental involvement in a decision the amount of motivation, interest and drive evoked by it – and whether the decision was health-related or not. we presented parents with the decisions for evaluation, followed by a positive and a negative outcome, and without an outcome. the results confirm the interaction between involvement and domain on decision evaluation. highly involving decisions yielded weaker outcome bias than low-involvement decisions in both health and non-health domain. results also confirm the validity of the proposed way of measuring ob, revealing that in some situations positive outcomes skew evaluations more than negative outcomes. also, a highly-involving dilemma followed by negative outcome did not produce significantly different evaluation compared to evaluation of a decision without outcome. thus, adding a neutral position rendered ob measurement more precise and our involvement-related insights more nuanced. keywords: outcome bias, parents, involvement, decision domain, health decisions, neutral position evaluation europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 received: 2018-07-04. accepted: 2019-01-22. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: čika ljubina 18-20, 11000 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: kdamnjan@f.bg.ac.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. involvement in a decision decision making is a fundamental cognitive process which occurs on a daily basis. people have to make decisions about what to wear, whether to accept a new job position and move to a different city, or whether to vaccinate their child or not. a very basic feature by which all of these decisions differ is the domain of life in which people are forced to decide. when making decisions, not only are people differentially sensitive to experimental manipulations of stimuli from different domains, such as health, money, morals, shopping etc., but they also use different strategies when making decisions in different domains (goldstein & weber, 1995). the domain in which a decision maker (dm) is expected to decide, also determines the importance of the decision (damnjanović, 2013; gvozdenović & damnjanović, 2016; tanner & medin, 2004; tanner, medin, & iliev, 2008). the importance of a decision shapes the level of involvement in that decision. involvement is defined as a state europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of motivation, arousal or interest regarding an activity or an object (damnjanović, graeber, et al., 2018; rothschild, 1984), or as an internal state variable that indicates the amount of motivation, interest and drive evoked by a stimulus or situation (bloch, 1982; jevtović & damnjanović, 2015; mitchell, 1981, 1979). in behavioral terms, the level of involvement pertains to the level of the energy spent, the number of alternatives examined, and the extent of the decision-making process (engel & blackwell, 1982). in line with this, decisions vary on a continuum from quite ordinary and unexceptional to those that require considerable thought and induce higher levels of involvement, reserved for issues or objects that carry great meaning for the dm (solomon, bamossy, askegaard, & hogg, 2006). one of the decision-making domains that stands out for its high level of importance is the domain of health (wroe, turner, & salkovskis, 2004; zikmund-fisher, sarr, fagerlin, & ubel, 2006). in the health domain itself, certain decisions are more important and involving than others, depending on their specific content (thompson, 2007). deciding whether or not one should give vitamin c to their child to prevent a cold is important, but less so than deciding whether one should engage in similarly preventive behavior such as vaccinating one’s own child. parental involvement in a decision the level of involvement in the decision differs depending on dm’s role relative to the object of the decision (arora & mchorney, 2000; donovan & jalleh, 2000); that is, does the dm serve a proxy, or not. deciding whether one's own child should be vaccinated is more involving than deciding whether some or all children should be vaccinated. the level of involvement is therefore influenced by decision content (e.g. vitamin c or a vaccine), the role of the dm relative to the object of the decision (e.g. a parent of the object), and the object itself (e.g. a dm’s child) (gvozdenović & damnjanović, 2016; liu, polman, liu, & jiao, 2018; polman & emich, 2011; wang, 1996a, 1996b). findings from the field of rationality in decision making which focus on the decision maker provide empirical support for this stance: dms decision (e.g. risky choices) depends on what he/she is deciding about (e.g. money or health; wang, 1996a, 1996b); is dm deciding for him/herself, or is dm a proxy (liu, polman, liu, & jiao, 2018); how big is the psychological distance from the object, e.g. did dm earn money he is gambling with or did he get it by chance (damnjanović, 2013; polman & emich, 2011). on top of all of that, and in the accordance with the concept of the intensive parenthood (arendell, 2000; smyth & craig, 2017) parents, for one reason or another, share some preconceptions about not only specifically their own children, rather about children in general. decision making performed by parents for their children has some distinct aspects, like specific involvement, or the inherent proxy role of the dm. for example, in the contemporary societal context of intensive parenting (arendell, 2000; smyth & craig, 2017), parents are encouraged to take an active role in their children’s healthcare (pyke-grimm, degner, small, & mueller, 1999), which places an even greater responsibility on them, due in part to the number of choices available (wagenaar, keren, & lichtenstein, 1988). parents have to make decisions regarding matters in which they often have little to no expertise while receiving various information from sources of varying levels of credibility (chaudry, henly, & meyers, 2010, hussain, ali, ahmed, & hussain, 2018). in other words, parents who have to make a decision about their child’s care might face cognitive obstacles during the decision-making process, which might hinder them in making a truly informed choice. hence, shedding light on the level of influence decision domain and involvement exert on parents when they are deciding about their children, and the way their decision-making strategies are affected by the context of said decision could offer valuable insight for understanding and potentially providing solutions for the various issues which abound in childcare decisions. parental involvement in outcome bias 42 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome bias in addition to the extent of information processing required for highly involving choices, the decision-making process is further complicated by patterns of deviations from normatively defined rationality, namely cognitive biases (solomon, bamossy, askegaard, & hogg, 2006). as choice complexity rises, people tend to simplify decision-making processes by relying on simple heuristics (payne, bettman, & johnson, 1988, 1993). according to normative models of rational decision making, differentiating between a good decision and a positive outcome should be the basis of every decision-making analysis (baron & hershey, 1988). however, people tend to judge decisions with negative outcomes as being of significantly lower quality compared to the same decisions resulting in positive outcomes. for example, because one of the main components contributing to vaccine hesitancy is the circumstantial, temporal connection between vaccination and various health issues which occur in early childhood (salmon, dudley, glanz, & omer, 2015), one of the possible reasons why parents might be hesitant to vaccinate their children (either at all or according to an official schedule) is that the decision about vaccination is strongly focused towards its outcome (goldenberg, 2016; miton & mercier, 2015), and considered good or bad based on the consequences which are ostensibly but not actually connected with it. the systematic tendency to evaluate decisions based on their outcomes is called outcome bias (ob) (baron & hershey, 1988). from the perspective of normative theories of reasoning, outcome-based evaluations are considered irrational, due to the normative request that the order of preferences must be immune to the descriptions of the outcomes or the situations (von neumann & morgenstern, 1945). contrary to this, different reasoning patterns stemming from zones of gains and losses are postulated in the value function of the prospect theory (tversky & kahneman, 1982, 1992), or in concepts of appetitive and defensive motivation, linked with goaldirected and goal-determined behaviors (lang & bradley, 2013). finally, from the perspective of the theory of ecological rationality, which posits that some deviations from normatively defined rationality are actually rational in particular environments, the aforementioned biased evaluations might be adaptive in specific contexts (gigerenzer, 2008; gigerenzer & brighton, 2009). the main question this theory poses is which context will serve to facilitate adaptive use of judgments deviating from the normative. measurement of the outcome bias aside from the opposing theoretical perspectives that consider biased reasoning to be an adaptive feature versus ion or a bug, another issue is the measurement of cognitive biases, that is – what is a biased estimation or decision deviating from. namely, ob is usually measured in an evaluation task standardly used in the judging and decision-making paradigm. participants are presented with the same decision once followed by a positive and once by a negative outcome and asked to evaluate the decision, regardless of the outcome, most often on a scale (e.g. ranging from 1 very bad to 7 very good) (baron & hershey, 1988). when the calculated difference between mean evaluations of decisions followed by the positive and the negative outcomes is statistically significant, researchers deem that ob has occurred (baron & hershey, 1988; damnjanović, graeber, et al., 2018, mazzocco, alicke, & davis, 2004; sezer, zhang, gino, & bazerman, 2016). as is the case with some other cognitive biases (e.g. framing effect), such a measuring technique is not quite correspondent with the theoretical model it stems from. namely, if the outcome, or both the outcome and consequences of a given decision are always presented and indeed turn out to skew subjects’ evaluations, such task design renders the measurement of outcome bias quite imprecise and our conclusions drawn from it rather limited. for example, if the participants, after being presented with the decision followed by a negative and then by a positive outcome, evaluate these decisions on a scale from 1 (the worst possible decision) to 7 (the best possible decision), by damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 43 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ marking 1 and 3, respectively, we say that they were biased by the outcomes of those decisions. however, what can we conclude from this difference, aside from the difference itself? what did their evaluation deviate from? if, for example, we assume that marking the number 4, that is the middle position (a decision is neither good nor bad) is the normatively correct answer, marking 1 after the negative outcome and 3 after the positive outcome both differ from this position, but in the same direction. in other words, in this case we cannot claim that our participants were biased by the outcome, seeing as how biased evaluation comprises deviation from the normative position. however, as some decisions are considered good or bad to start with, the normatively correct evaluation, not biased by outcome, does not have to be the middle position. this unbiased evaluation is missing from most outcome bias studies, because the participants never get the chance to evaluate (as good/bad or neither good nor bad) a decision prior to or without knowing its outcome. in other words, a missing component in ob studies is a true "control situation", i.e. a situation in which we might learn the "base" value of a certain decision. this base value can be determined by asking participants to evaluate a decision without a presented outcome (or consequence). applying this procedure to ob measurement might answer a few largely neglected questions: what is the normatively correct answer, to what extent does the outcome skew evaluations and which ones, and are the participants’ evaluations skewed more by negative or positive outcomes? this new approach to measuring ob can provide insight into the base value of a certain decision and relative contribution of positively and negatively valenced outcomes to the dm’s evaluation shift which would add on to the existing descriptive theories of reasoning. the present study had more than one aim. first, we aimed to demonstrate that the strength of the ob is determined by the level of the dm’s involvement in the decision, which stems from his/her role relative to the object of the decision, the domain, and the content of the decision. accordingly, we expect that high-involvement situations in which participants (who are also parents) evaluate a decision pertaining to highly important health content, made by a fellow parent and regarding a child, will yield stronger ob, in comparison to their evaluations in low-involvement situations. in order to overcome the challenge set before commonly used measurements of outcome bias, we introduced the new approach to measuring outcome bias. by establishing the reference point for further comparison between evaluations of decisions with positive and negative outcomes, the measurement of ob susceptibility could be refined. we expect that the relative effect of a positive outcome will be weaker than that of a negative outcome. altogether, these findings should aid in examining the parental decision-making process regarding their child in different contexts and understanding if and how this process is skewed across various domains. method sample for calculating the sample size the power analysis was used. the probability of detecting a statistically significant outcome bias effect by a bivariate f-test (at level p < .01) of the effect size of .7, as reported by baron and hershey (1988), for a sample of 20 subjects per experimental group amounts to 99.9%. parental involvement in outcome bias 44 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the final sample comprised 46 parents of children under the age of 7, as the order of the presentation of tasks was counterbalanced two groups were formed. participants were recruited via the internet by using the combination of posting the links to experiments on parental facebook groups and the snowball method. the final sample comprised only subjects who participated in both experimental sessions. dropout rate between sessions was 29%, that is 65 parents took participation in the first session, while 46 parents participated in both sessions. the mean age was 37 (sd = 3.368); 76% of the sample was female. as an incentive for the participation all participants were told that, provided they participate in both experimental sessions, they will be included in a lottery in which two participants will be randomly selected and awarded a book published by the university of belgrade. materials for the purposes of measuring the susceptibility to outcome bias, evaluation tasks were used. each task was a vignette and consisted of a prologue a description of a situation that contains a dilemma, and the option the decision maker opted for, which was or wasn’t followed by the either positive or negative outcome of that decision. participants in the main experiment were instructed to evaluate the presented decision on a scale from 1 (the worst possible decision) to 7 (the best possible decision). prior to the construction of the tasks, a focus-group discussion with 9 parents, members of the pta in a nearby preschool facility, was organized. first, they listed situations in which a child-related decision occurs and that they or other parents encounter. together, they listed 24 situations. then, they individually categorized those situations as high involving or low involving. the definition of involvement has not been provided for parents, rather they conveyed the subjective meaning of it, usually by the time spent for deliberation and by potential consequences of the decisions. with the aim of constructing reliable pairs of tasks, a pilot study was conducted. from every situation, two evaluation tasks were constructed (with positive and with negative outcomes). other group of parents (n = 50), recruited via teachers in preschool facility, of children younger than 7 (mean age: 36.19, sd = 6.69, 74% female) evaluated decisions in 24 pairs of tasks with various content, in a withinsubjects design, in two experimental sessions. the design was 2 (role of the dm: parents and non-parents as protagonists) x 2 (outcomes: positive and negative). the dependent variable was evaluation of each decision, made by participants on a 7-point scale (1 – the worst possible decision, 7 – the best possible decision). the measure of the outcome bias was average differential score calculated as the difference between estimations of situations with opposite outcomes. the registered difference between evaluations of decisions followed by opposite outcomes was significant for each pair of tasks that is each pair of tasks yielded outcome bias. the sizes of the main effects of the outcome factor (cohen's d coefficients) for each pair of stimuli were ranging from .223 to 1.604, with mean value of .957. the effect sizes served as the criterion for selection of the tasks for the main experiment. in the final twelve tasks used in the main study (appendix), each dilemma described was either non-health or health related, with highor low-involvement content. all structural aspects of the tasks had been made uniform: they all contained a nameless set of parents, who were making decision about a nameless child’s care under advisement from an authority figure, and who made the decision to abstain from the advised action which was followed by a positive or a negative outcome, or no outcome at all. damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 45 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ design the study employs a 2 (domains of the decision: health and non-health) x 2 (levels of involvement: high and low) x 3 (outcomes: positive, negative and without outcome) repeated design. the involvement and domain factors are both within-subjects factors. the intersection of the levels of these two factors results with the following 4 dilemmas: high-involvement health decision (vaccination), low-involvement health decision (car sickness), high-involvement non-health decision (first grade application), and low-involvement non-health decision (recreational sports). the outcome factor is also a within-subjects factor, with the following levels: positive outcome (po), negative outcome (no) and without outcome (wo). in total, there were twelve tasks: 4 dilemmas x 3 outcomes. the dependent variables (dv) were susceptibilities to outcome bias measured in two different ways. the first dv was the traditionally used measure of ob, calculated as the mean difference between evaluations of po and no decisions. the second and the third dv were calculated by using the aforementioned newly proposed way of measuring susceptibility to ob and represented the differences between average evaluations of po and wo decisions (positive shift) and no and wo decisions (negative shift). procedure the experiment was conducted via an online questionnaire created using google forms platform. in the first week of experimentation, half of the participants received a questionnaire containing a set of 4 wo tasks, as well as two sets of 2 po and 2 no tasks, while the other half received a questionnaire containing the same 4 wo tasks, and two sets of 2 po and 2 no tasks counterbalanced against the first half’s questionnaire. participants were instructed to carefully read the text of each task presented to them and to evaluate the described decision on a 7-point scale (1 – the worst possible decision, 7 – the best possible decision). participants were then asked to provide their e-mail addresses in order to receive the link to the second questionnaire. it has been emphasized that their e-mail addresses will not be in any way connected to the data they have provided us with, or used for the purposes other than enabling participation in the second session. after a week, they received the link to the second questionnaire, which contained only 4 tasks: 2 po and 2 no counterbalanced against the po and no tasks they completed one week earlier. the instructions remained unchanged. personally generated codes were used for matching data from two sessions. all participants signed a consent form prior to participation and were debriefed once the experiment was completed. results factors of the outcome bias in the first step of the analyses, for measuring whether there was a significant difference registered between evaluations of decisions with opposite outcomes the paired samples t-test was used. as the dependent variables, two new variables were formed, both calculated as average evaluations of all decisions followed by only positive and by only negative outcomes. the t-test revealed that the difference between average evaluations of all the decisions with positive and with negative outcomes was significant, that is, the outcome bias was registered on the level of the total sample, t(45) = 11.474, p = < .001, d = 1.692. for determining whether the effect of the outcome, that is outcome bias, was registered on each of the tasks a series of four pairwise t-tests was parental involvement in outcome bias 46 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performed. participants’ evaluations of decisions followed by positive outcome and by negative outcome for each dilemma were used as dependent variables. the average evaluations of the decisions described in tasks, standard deviations, confidence intervals, t-test and cohen’s d statistics for outcome bias obtained from the 4 experimental situations (2 domains x 2 involvement) are presented in table 1. the analysis showed that significant outcome bias was registered on all four dilemmas. however, the effect sizes of the outcome factor were different for each dilemma. the lowest standardized difference between mean evaluations of decisions with opposite outcomes was observed in the vaccine related situation (health related high involvement), while the outcome had the greatest effect on the evaluations of sports related decision (non-health related low involvement). table 1 group differences in evaluations of the decisions with positive and negative outcome in four experimental dilemmas of decision making task (dilemma) domain x involvement outcome m sd 99% ci t cohen's d pll ul sport non-health, low 8.231 1.214 < .001 positive 5.196 1.558 4.58 5.81 negative 2.848 1.349 2.31 3.38 school non-health, high 6.626 .977 < .001 positive 5.000 1.687 4.33 5.67 negative 3.217 1.474 2.63 3.80 travel health, low 6.324 .932 < .001 positive 4.826 1.495 4.23 5.41 negative 3.000 1.265 2.49 3.50 vaccine health, high 2.949 .435 .005 positive 1.761 1.058 1.34 2.18 negative 1.261 .535 1.05 1.47 note. n = 46; ci = confidence intervall; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. a repeated measures anova was conducted in order to test for differences in outcome bias yielded by different pairs of tasks, that is – the dilemma factor. as dependent variables four new variables, one for each dilemma, were created, each calculated as the difference between evaluations of decisions with opposite outcomes. the significant difference in outcome bias was registered between different levels of the dilemma factor, f(2.051, 92.294) = 9.923, p < .001, η2 = .181i. a two-way (health, non-health) x involvement (high, low) anova for repeated measures was run to examine the effects of the involvement and the domain of the decision on the outcome bias. again, as the dependent variables differences between evaluations of decisions with opposite outcomes for each dilemma were used. the analysis of variance revealed that the interaction between the effects of the involvement and the domain of the decision on evaluation of decisions was significant, f(1, 45) = 7.203, p = .01, η2 = .138. significant main effects of the involvement, f(1, 45) = 15.159, p < .001, η2 = .252, as well as the domain, f(1, 45) = 7.562, p = .009, η2 = .144, on participants evaluations of decisions were also registered. post hoc tests using the bonferroni correction revealed that participants evaluations were significantly higher for low involvement decisions (p < .001), with the mean difference between low and high involvement decisions of .946. analysis also showed that participants evaluations for non-health related situations were significantly higher compared to health related situations (p = .009), with mean difference of .902. simple main effects analysis showed that in the domain of health, highly involving decisions were yielding significantly weaker outcome bias than low-involvement decisions, f(1, 45) = 19.351, p < .001, and the effect had the same damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 47 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ direction in non-health situations, f(1, 45) = 4.747, p = .035, albeit with significantly less influence. strongest influence of the outcome was observed in low-involving non-health dilemma, while the weakest was registered in high-involving health dilemma (figure 1). in short, subjects were more prone to be biased toward the outcome when evaluating less involving dilemmas. figure 1. interaction between involvement and domain. note. y-axis maximum is 3.5, since the range of the ob (measured as differential score between estimations of decisions with opposite outcomes) does not exceed 2.5 points; high – high-involvement decision, low – low involvement decision. factors of the evaluation in the second step, with the aim of further decomposing the outcome bias effects and to describe the dynamics of the evaluations in more detail, evaluations of the decisions were again used as dependent variables, but the outcome factor had three levels: positive, negative, and without outcome. second factor in the analysis was the dilemma, with four levels (sport, school, vaccine, travel) stemming from the intersection of levels of the involvement and the domain factors. a repeated-measures anova was used to examine the effect of the direction of the outcome (3 levels: positive, negative, without outcome) and the dilemma (4 levels) on evaluations of the described decisions. the interaction between the two factors was significant, f(3.661, 164.765) = 8.074, p < .001, η2 = .152ii. also, both the outcome, f(2, 90) = 74.621, p < .001, η2 = .624, and the dilemma, f(3, 135) = 95.343, p < .001, η2 = .679, had significant main effects on participants’ evaluations. post hoc tests using the bonferroni correction revealed that participants evaluations were significantly lower for decisions followed by negative outcomes compared to decisions without outcomes (p < .001), with the mean difference of -.853. the same goes for pairwise comparison between decisions without outcomes and decisions followed by positive outcomes (p < .001), with mean difference of -.761. however, pairwise comparisons of mean evaluations of different dilemmas, using the bonferroni correction showed that the mean difference of -.123 between evaluations of travel and school dilemmas, .188 between evaluations of travel and sport dilemmas, and .312 between school and sport dilemmas were not statistically significant (p = 1.000, p = 1.000, p = .624, respectively). pairwise comparisons of the interaction of these two factors, again with the bonferroni correction, showed that participants’ evaluations of decisions were differently biased by opposite outcomesiii. in the vaccination dilemma only the positive outcome made statistically significant shift from the neutral position, that is – participants evalparental involvement in outcome bias 48 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ uated decision with positive outcome as better than the decision without outcome with the mean difference of .391 (p = .043). this was not the case with the decision followed by negative outcome, as the mean difference between evaluations of the decision with negative and the decision without outcome was not significant (p = 1.000) and amounted to .109. in both travel and school dilemmas only the negative outcome produced statistically significant shift from the evaluations of the same decisions presented without outcomes. for travel related dilemma the mean difference between evaluations of the decision with negative and without outcome was 1.391 (p < .001), while for school related dilemma it amounted to 1.152 (p < .001). when it comes to the positive shift from the neutral position, the mean difference between decisions with positive and without outcome for travel related dilemma was not significant (p = .071), and amounted to .435, and the same goes for the school related dilemma – mean difference was .630 (p = .075). only in the sport related dilemma both the positive and the negative outcome induced significantly different evaluations of decisions, that is the outcome bias was registered in both directions. namely, participants evaluated sport related decision with negative outcome as significantly worse than the same decision without outcome, with the mean difference of .761 (p = .001), and the decision without outcome as worse than decision with positive outcome, with the mean difference of 1.587 (p < .001). the simple main effects analysis showed that the direction of the outcome had significant simple main effect on three out of four levels of situation factor, in sport, f(2) = 55.804, p < .001, school, f(2) = 31.777, p < .001, and travel, f(2) = 35.385, p < .001, dilemmas, but outcome did not affect the evaluations of the vaccine decision (p < .07). the dilemma had significant impact on all three levels of the outcome factor, for evaluations of decisions with positive, f(3, 150) = 103.350, p < .001, negative, f(3, 150) = 31.040, p < .001, and without outcome, f(3, 150) = 78.870, p < .001. evaluations of decisions in four dilemmas for each level of outcome are shown in figure 2. overall, direction of the outcome influenced the evaluations of decisions in the expected manner: all the decisions with negative outcome were estimated as worse (average m = 2.58, sd = 1.16) than those without stated outcome (average m = 3.44, sd = 1.46, 99% ci [2.86, 4.02], and those were also evaluated as worse than decisions with positive outcome (average m = 4.19, sd = 1.45, 99% ci [3.61, 4.77]). in addition to the direction, the proposed novelty in assessing the outcome bias enabled analyzing the valence of the influence of the outcome. the valence of the influence was calculated as the differential score between situations with outcome, on one side, and the situation without outcome, on the other side. therefore, there were two dependent variables in this step. first one was the negative shift, calculated as the difference between evaluations of decisions without outcome and with negative outcome. second dependent variable was the positive shift, calculated accordingly. again, interaction between the content and the shifting was significant, f(3, 135) = 4.677, p = .004, η2 = .094. negative outcome produced bigger shifting from the neutral position than the positive outcome in school and travel dilemmas. in sports and vaccine dilemma the estimations were affected in opposing manner (see figure 2). damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 49 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. evaluations of the decisions as the function of the outcome level in all four dilemmas. note. negative = negative outcome; without = without outcome; positive = positive outcome. discussion parents decide on behalf of their offspring on a daily basis, with varying levels of success, involvement, and rationality. but what would be the norm for rationality in these high-stakes decisions? where do parents put their trust and what is an anchor for the decision? for example, the decision about vaccination can be viewed as a socially forced choice, due to the existence of two conflicting, but intense and explicit societal influences, in both the normative-medical and lay-experience form (damnjanović, graeber, et al., 2018). cognitive system, in terms of imprint, does not necessarily discriminate between the two. so, what would be a rational decision from parental point of view? the normative model of rationality proposes that the sequence of our preferences should be invariant to the description of the preference (von neumann & morgenstern, 1945). this means that mental representations of the preference, e.g. to vaccinate or not to vaccinate, should be ordered neatly in our cognitive system. one way of measuring this feature is to observe patterns of cognitive biases in parents. factors of the outcome bias in our research, we started with a few assumptions about domain, content and involvement in a decision which will briefly be outlined. a decision’s importance varies depending on the life domain about which a person is deciding (gvozdenović & damnjanović, 2016). although the domain of health, and decisions belonging to its scope, showed to be of great importance (wroe et al., 2004; zikmund-fisher et al., 2006), all health-related decisions are not of equal importance, which depends on the decision’s content. the content, along with the object of the decision (e.g. a child) and the decision maker’s role relative to said object of the decision (e.g. a parent to a child), affect the extent of the decision making process, i.e. the involvement in the decision (arora & mchorney, 2000; donovan & jalleh, 2000; thompson, 2007). the level of involvement in the decision further affects the level of the decision’s complexity, which induces systematic patterns of deviations from rationality (damnjanović, graeber, et al., 2018). namely, when the complexity of the decision-making process rises, people tend to rely more on simple heuristics (payne, bettman, & johnson, 1988, 1993). because health-related decisions are also inherently strongly focused towards their outcomes or consequences (goldenberg, 2016; parental involvement in outcome bias 50 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ miton & mercier, 2015), one of the ways to simplify decision-making processes is by neglecting the difference between a good decision and a positive outcome that is, to make judgments which are biased by the valence of the decision’s outcome. however, our results do not confirm these assumptions. firstly, highly involving decisions yielded significantly weaker ob as opposed to decisions which were presumed to require lower levels of involvement. when presented with highly involving decisions from both health and non-health related domains, parents’ judgments were more resistant to the influence of the outcomes than when presented with health and non-health related decisions, which induce lower levels of involvement. secondly, and contrary to our expectations, parents from the sample were more prone to making judgments biased by outcome when judging about less involving as well as non-health-related dilemmas. participants generally judged non-health decisions as better, compared to health-domain decisions, with the strongest ob observed in the low-involving non-health situation, and the weakest in the high-involving health situation, which is in line with the notion that some decisions of particular importance are not as susceptible to the impact of external influence. when people are deciding about something less involving, they are more interested in outcomes, rendering their judgment prone to bias. on the other hand, assigning highly involving decisions to the good or bad categories is not based on consequences, but on moral reasoning (tanner & medin, 2004; tanner, medin, & iliev, 2008). this finding, that parents show less biased evaluations of highly involving decisions made by fellow parents also indicates that there might be some sort of “parental empathy” moderating our results. factors of the evaluation the second and equally important aim of this research was gaining further insight into the dynamics outcome effects on decision evaluations through the aforementioned approach to measuring ob. the new approach includes evaluations of decisions in 'neutral situations', and comparison of evaluations across the three levels of situations. this measurement shift indeed revealed some details that were not apparent with the usual way of measuring ob, and allowed us to examine and map certain regularities in irrational judgements. negative vs. positive shift. when participants are presented with negative outcome, the difference between this evaluation, and the evaluation of a decision without outcome is greater than the difference between evaluations of decisions with a positive outcome and without any outcome in half of the tasks. in other words, negative outcomes have a stronger effect and tend to skew the participants’ judgments more, compared to the neutral situation in high involvement non-health related (school) and low involvement health related (travel) dilemmas. this particular shift is in accordance with our expectations, and with the prospect theory value function, which proposes the very same regularity about risky decision making: loss aversion (kahneman & tversky, 1979). in the context of our research, decisions followed by losses are deemed as poorer and as such, should be avoided. in line with the ecological rationality perspective, as well as the concepts of appetitive and defensive motivation, linked to goal-directed and goal-determined behaviors (lang & bradley, 2013), danger really proves to be the stronger cue in some situations, as emphasizing negative consequences has proven to be more powerful than listing positive ones. however, when evaluating decisions regarding sports and vaccination, participants were more biased by a positive outcome. in other words participants were partially sensitive to our outcome direction manipulation, depending on the experimental situation. while they consistently judged sports-related, travel-related, and school-related decisions with negative outcomes as worse than decisions without any outcome at all, and decisions without outcomes as worse than decisions with positive outcomes, this difference in evaluations damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 51 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was not observed with vaccination-related decision. participants evaluated the vaccine-related decision with a negative outcome as having almost the same quality as the decision without outcome: as an extremely low quality decision. the vaccination dilemma was also the only one that did not yield a normatively proposed rational or “correct” answer as a middle position. taking into account that evaluations of sport-, school-, and travel-related decisions not followed by outcomes were evaluated mostly as neither good nor bad decisions, it seems that those dilemmas do not incorporate a social norm defining the “correct” decision, and the answers in those situations followed by outcomes rely more on individual preferences compared to vaccination-related decisions. with vaccination, according to our data, the social norm should be and indeed appears to be unambiguous, being that not vaccinating a child is a poor quality decision. to summarize, although parents from the sample were not biased when judging the discernment of the fellow parent who made the decision, they failed to produce a normatively correct answer. accordingly, aside from implying that parents from the sample do not discriminate the decision not to vaccinate with negative outcome from the same decision without outcome, our results indicate that the vaccination dilemma produced a floor effect, which is supported by the ecological rationality notion that sometimes deviations from normatively defined rationality are actually adaptive in environments with particular characteristics (gigerenzer, 2008, gigerenzer & brighton, 2009). it seems that the vaccination context actually served as a facilitator for the adaptive use of biased judgments. a plausible explanation is that because the matter of childhood vaccination is a subject of an ever-growing debate, adaptive behavior might mean choosing a safe position that is, one’s own (outcome-proof) attitude towards the matter. even though this finding might seem promising, the positive outcome yielded small, but observable ob, indicating that the norm regarding vaccination has been disturbed to some extent rendering its influence weaker in the only possible direction. our findings suggest that some decisions, if of particular importance, are not susceptible to the impacts of their respective outcomes. in other words, when parents are judging decisions regarding highly involving health-related decisions, they do not obey the assumptions of proposed descriptive models of reasoning and decisionmaking. this observation was enabled by the new approach to measuring ob. when faced with descriptions of such important dilemmas with following outcomes and consequences, parents demonstrate less biased judgments of fellow parents’ decisions. because danger proved to be a strong cue, and because it might be too ambitious to rely on trying to make norms regarding vaccination more solid and unambiguous, when applied to the real world, one of the possible implications of these findings, might be that if we were to combat anti-vaccination movements, those who should be addressing parents are fellow parents, not experts, although further research is needed to fully substantiate this proposition. at the end of the day, the perceived danger cue associated with vaccination, stemming from parent-to-parent communication about “anecdotal cases” is how the anti-vaccination movements themselves have risen in the first place (arendell, 2000; smyth & craig, 2017). because the ultimate aim of this study was to shed light on the parental decision-making process and its specificities, and perhaps aid the development of customized measures to support parents to overcome biases regarding high-stakes decisions, it’s crucial to point out that insight into what skews their decisions and how, would not be possible with the conventional way of measuring ob. it was only through this addition of the neutral situation to the ob measurement that we were able to give an exact numerical value to the shift in evaluation the parents exhibited, with the “outcome-less” assessment serving as a firm anchor for calculation. thus, any potential need to make assumptions on the whereabouts of the “true” value of a decision in the parents’ eyes, not influenced by ob, was eliminated. parental involvement in outcome bias 52 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the main limitation to our study stems from the content of our stimuli. namely the sports-related item has proven to be more highly involving than we assumed it to be, while the travel-related item had shorter-term consequences (ariely & zakay, 2001) compared to the other 3 categories of items. so, in order to claim that being a proxy decision maker makes parents more “irrational” when deciding about children, extending this line of research should incorporate a non-parent control group. also, it would be desirable to expand the sample used in the potential studies furthering the exploration of this phenomenon, considering the fact that the parents in our sample showed very low bias in highly involving health situations, perhaps somewhat extremely so. this finding would need to be confirmed on a larger sample for us to draw conclusions about the generalizability of the phenomenon to other parents with more certainty. another avenue of improvement for future research on this topic would be the further refinement and validation of the stimuli used. in other words, providing a higher quantity of stimuli for each of the four combinations of involvement and domain would lend a higher level of credence to any claims made based on the data extracted from the research, both regarding the measurement of outcome bias, and the impact of complexity on its manifestation. notes i) mauchly’s test of sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity has been violated, x2(5) = 36.918, p < .001, therefore degrees of freedom were corrected using greenhouse-geisser estimates of sphericity (ε = .684). ii) mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, x2(20) = 84.187, p < .001, therefore degrees of freedom were corrected using greenhouse-geisser estimates of sphericity (ε = .61). iii) in further text all reported mean differences will be reported as absolute values because, compared to the mean evaluations of decisions without outcomes, the shifts induced by negative outcomes were uniformly negative, and the shifts 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https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix translation of stimuli, originals were in serbian. vaccine dilemma (high involvement – health domain) without outcome: the doctor has recommended to the parents to get their child vaccinated. the parents are indecisive, because of the debate going on in the media about this subject. they decide not to vaccinate their child. negative outcome: later, the child contracted the disease he/she wasn’t vaccinated against, he/she barely managed to recover and it damaged his/her immune system for the rest of his/her life. positive outcome: the child didn’t contract the disease against which he/she was supposed to be vaccinated and didn’t have any significant health problems throughout his/her life. trip dilemma (low involvement – health domain) without outcome: the parents and their child are driving to the seaside. the pediatrician advised them to give the child antinausea medicine before the trip, just in case. the parents decide that there is no need for that and set off for the sea. negative outcome: the child was very sick during the ride and he/she vomited several times. positive outcome: everything was fine and the child didn’t get sick during the ride. class dilemma (high involvement – non-health domain) without outcome: a psychologist advised the parents to enroll their child in the first grade of elementary school, instead of a pre-school kindergarten programme, because, according to his assessment, the child is ready to start school. the parents decide not to enroll their child into the first grade, enrolling him/her in pre-school instead. negative outcome: their child is very bored in pre-school and the kindergarten in general, refuses to go to kindergarten and isn’t progressing very well. positive outcome: their child is overjoyed about the prospect of spending another year with his/her old friends, can’t wait to go to kindergarten and is still making great progress. sport dilemma (low involvement – non-health domain) without outcome: the school councilor advised the parents to sign their child up for a team sport, like volleyball or soccer. they are indecisive, because the child is already taking karate lessons. they decide not to sign up their child for a team sport. negative outcome: the child kept taking karate lessons, never developing teamwork skills, not learning to cooperate, which presented a problem for him/her in several situations in later life, especially during group activities and tasks. positive outcome: the child kept taking karate lessons, focused all his/her energy on it, made great progress and developed his/her determination and self-confidence. damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković 57 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors kaja damnjanović is a researcher at the laboratory of experimental psychology, university of belgrade. the scope of her work encompasses the fundamental and applied approaches to complex cognition, reasoning, and jdm. vera novković is a bachelor of psychology and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology, with a field of interest encompassing higher cognition, machine learning and artificial intelligence. irena pavlović is a master’s student of psychology and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology, university of belgrade. her main interests include applied social and cognitive psychology, mainly through the domain of intergroup relations, dynamics and higher cognition. sandra ilić is a senior student of psychology at the university of belgrade, and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology. the scope of her interests covers the field of cognitive, social and developmental psychology, mainly in regard to higher cognition, reasoning, judgement, and decision-making. parental involvement in outcome bias 58 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 41–58 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ parental involvement in outcome bias (introduction) involvement in a decision parental involvement in a decision outcome bias measurement of the outcome bias method sample materials design procedure results factors of the outcome bias factors of the evaluation discussion factors of the outcome bias factors of the evaluation notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors working with underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity book reviews freda, maria francesca, gonzález-monteagudo, josé, & esposito, giovanna (eds.). (2017).workingwith underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity. abingdon, united kingdom: routledge. 170 pp. isbn 978-1-138-96291-0. working with underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity laura nota*a [a] university of padova, padova, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 687–691, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1321 published (vor): 2016-11-18. *corresponding author at: dipartimento di filosofia, sociologia, pedagogia e psicologia applicata (fisppa), università degli studi di padova, italy. e-mail: laura.nota@unipd.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. freda,maria francesca,gonzález-monteagudo, josé, & esposito, giovanna (eds.). (2017).working with underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity. abingdon, united kingdom: routledge. 170 pp. isbn 978-1-138-96291-0. the book working with underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity (2016) edited by maria francesca freda, josé gonzález-monteagudo, and giovanna esposito, is a very interesting and innovative work for those who wish to engage in a critical reading of the relation between academic inclusion, narration and reflexivity. the book stems from a european action-research project, install (innovative solutions to acquire learning to learn), which was founded in 2011 by the european commission within the erasmusmultilateral project measures. it presents an innovative narrative methodology, the narrative mediation path (nmp), which is aimed to foster reflexive competences and to improve the academic performance of underachieving college students at risk of drop-out and university exclusion. the book is divided into three sections. the first part (chapters 1–4) presents key issues in the research (reflexivity, academic inclusion, and narrative) that formed the basis of the theoretical and methodological approaches in the install project. specifically, this section aims to present an innovative model of academic inclusion and offer the theoretical background to reflexivity and narration. moreover it discusses the need europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of promoting academic inclusion for students at risk of dropping-out, such as non-traditional, disadvantaged and underachieving students. the second part (chapters 5–10) is devoted to the narrative mediation path, the most significant phases of the training process in the four participating european countries (italy, spain, ireland, and romania) and its main products from a cross-cultural perspective. finally, the third part (chapters 11-12) concerns the implications of the nmp training program for policy and formative practice, by providing suggestions about the need to adopt reflexive training and narrative methods within the higher education (he) field. as a reader and a researcher in the field of counselling for students at risk to be excluded, my attention drew to some points of interest that makeworkingwith underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity a very useful book for many audiences– researchers, professionals, policy makers. first, the book presents an innovative model of academic inclusion which focuses on the educational context resources that institutions have to provide to all students, regardless of their backgrounds; moreover, it puts the spotlight on the need to improve the students' resilience, namely the competence in recognizing and using the resources available. furthermore, i found interesting the idea that inclusion requires both reflection and resilience: to be included, students need to reflect on their position in the university context and to be aware of their personal needs and desires; at the same time, students need to develop resilience, in order to find the necessary resources and use them strategically to achieve their learning goals. and for doing so, the university context has to promote these capacities, in particular to the most vulnerable students. second, the book introduces a semiotic and psychodynamic conceptualization of reflexive processes by considering the multidimensional and intersubjective nature of this construct. nowadays, many scholars (e.g., burkitt, 2012) agree that there are no unique reflexive processes, instead there are diverse levels of reflexivity with differing complexities. the book provides an overview of the reflexivity construct as it has been addressed in various humanities disciplines (e.g., psychology, pedagogy, and sociology) to highlight points of differences and connections. moreover, the book conceptualizes reflexivity as a process that cannot be confined to individual minds but is the product of the intersubjective and dynamic exchange between subjects who share the same psychological context. this conceptualization constitutes an important shift of focus, from an idea of reflexivity as an individual and acontextualized psychological function to the idea of reflexivity as a collective product that assumes different configurations due to the relation between subject and context. moreover, reflexivity has to be conceived as a tool (not the aim) of an intervention. in so doing, reflexive awareness can lead to the implementation of actions appropriate for the context. this is of particular interest in the he field: at university, reflexivity development can allow students to assess a situation, and take appropriate actions to meet their developmental and learning aims. in this regard, i found particular interesting the development of a multi-dimensional evaluation model to measure both improvements in the reflexive competence of participating students, as well as the relationships between reflexive competence, agency, and academic performance. as stated in the book, agency is a complex construct that refers not only to the set of possible actions implemented in a specific context, but also to actions, decisions, choices and behaviors related to other and all aspects of an individual's life (caston, 2011). the authors developed an evaluation model that includes indicators for assessing the "objective change" in terms of improvements in the academic performance (gps, ects, number of examinations passed, etc.), as well as some self-perception measures to assess the development of "agentic" dimensions (e.g., relational competences, self-esteem, etc.) and to evaluate the students' self-perception of change. in other words, the model stems from the hypothesis that it is important to understand not only if change occurred in the academic field, but to analyze if the students have europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 687–691 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1321 book reviews 688 http://www.psychopen.eu/ also implemented different agentive actions and become self-authors (baxter magolda, 2009) of their lives and university experience. moreover, my attention was drawn to the methodology, the narrative mediation path (nmp), developed and implemented in order to foster reflexivity with underachieving university students. from my perspective, nmp allows students to deeply reflect on their university experiences by providing, on the one hand, a multimodal narrative methodology based on metaphors, vignettes, written narratives and sculpture, and on the other, by using the group as a narrative device to amplify the reflexive processes. the value of narrative methodologies has been widely recognized in the clinical/psychotherapeutic (e.g., angus & mcleod, 2004), as well as in the counselling field (savickas, 2005). nevertheless, i found highly original the adoption of a multimodal narrative approach which seeks to promote personal resources and reflexive competences using four narrative modes (metaphoric, iconographic, writing, and the bodily) and related narrative media (proverbs/mottos, vignettes, written narratives, sculpture). according to the nmpmodel, the narrative multimodality approach can strengthen and amplify reflexive processes by providing different "reflexive mirrors" which allow students to "return" on their university experience and give a new meaning to it (esposito & freda, 2016). the nmp approach is widely discussed in the second part of the book that presents a broad overview of various qualitative methods and tools capable of handling the complexity of meaning-making processes in the narratives of students at risk of dropping-out. the book is also a rich source of cases illustrating research using some qualitative narrative methods, such as the analysis of narrative functions (ochs & capps, 2001), idiographic approaches to the study of reflexive processes (salvatore & valsiner, 2010) and the interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) (smith & osborn, 2003). readers will find it very useful to read and reflect on these concrete experiences collected with the help of multiple qualitative methods within narrative analysis. the analytic description of the training experiences conducted in different european countries also constitutes a resource for many he professionals (counsellors, educators, tutors) who constantly have to deal with the difficulties intrinsic in their professional tasks and who need practical guidelines to work with students at risk of exclusion and to evaluate the effectiveness of their work. finally, i appreciated the importance the book gives to the implications of this research for he polices and institutions. as an academic, i am constantly facing the difficulties that universities encounter in this time of crisis that is characterized by the increasing globalization, diversity, complexity, uncertainty, and competitiveness. there is a growing need to develop policy and good practices centred on students at risk of being excluded, such as nontraditional, disadvantaged, and underachieving students who need appropriate learning environments and innovative interventions. the install project described in this book offers, frommy perspective, an interesting approach to develop innovation in education and training by focusing, on the one hand, on the role of international cooperation and collaboration between institutions, and on the other, on the voices and experiences of students through the use of narratives. for this reason, i think that this book is potentially useful to policy makers and he staff developing narrative approaches in research, intervention, student psychological support, tutoring, teaching, and working with small groups. in conclusion,workingwith underachieving students in higher education: fostering inclusion through narration and reflexivity gives us an important opportunity to consider carefully students at risk of university drop-out and exclusion and learn about possible activities and interventions to increase the quality of life for all. i consider this book interesting, capable of cutting across different disciplines with ease but without ever slipping into banality or speculation. it deserves to be read not only for its innovative narrative methods and techniques of intervention europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 687–691 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1321 nota 689 http://www.psychopen.eu/ but also, beyond the specific target group, because it offers theoretical insights, methodological criteria, and practical techniques for working with higher education students. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references angus, l., & mcleod, j. (eds.). (2004). the handbook of narrative and psychotherapy: practice, theory, and research. thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage. baxter magolda, m. b. (2009). authoring your life: developing an internal voice to navigate life's challenges. sterling, va, usa: stylus. burkitt, i. (2012). emotional reflexivity: feeling, emotion and imagination in reflexive dialogues. sociology, 46(3), 458-472. doi:10.1177/0038038511422587 caston, j. (2011). agency as a psychoanalytic idea. journal of the american psychoanalytic association, 59(5), 907-938. doi:10.1177/0003065111422541 esposito, g., & freda, m. f. (2016). reflective and agentive functions of narrative writing: a qualitative study on the narratives of university students. integrative psychological & behavioral science, 50(2), 333-357. doi:10.1007/s12124-015-9323-5 ochs, e., & capps, l. (2001). living narrative. cambridge, ma, usa: harvard university press. salvatore, s., & valsiner, j. (2010). between the general and the unique: overcoming the nomothetic versus idiographic opposition. theory & psychology, 20(6), 817-833. doi:10.1177/0959354310381156 savickas, m. l. (2005).the theory and practice of career construction. in s. d. brown & r. w. lent (eds.),career development and counseling (pp. 42-70). hoboken, nj, usa: john wiley. smith, j. a., & osborn, m. (2003). interpretative phenomenological analysis. in j. a. smith (ed.), qualitative psychology: a practical guide to research methods (pp. 51-80). london, united kingdom: sage. about the author laura nota is professor of career construction and career counseling and psychological counseling for the inclusion of social disadvantage at the department of philosophy, sociology, education and applied psychology, university of padova. she is the director of the larios laboratory (laboratory for research and intervention in vocational designing and career counseling) europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 687–691 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1321 book reviews 690 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0038038511422587 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0003065111422541 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs12124-015-9323-5 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f0959354310381156 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and of the university centre for research and services on disability, rehabilitation and inclusion, at university of padova, and of the post-graduate master course in 'coaching for career guidance, school and work inclusion'. she is co-editor of the international journal for educational and vocational guidance. prof. nota is also the author of many international and national articles and more than ten books and editor, with jérôme rossier, of the handbook of life design: from practice to theory and from theory to practice (hogrefe). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 687–691 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1321 nota 691 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en book reviews (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author online discussion and the moral pathway to identity politicization and collective action research reports online discussion and the moral pathway to identity politicization and collective action augusta isabella alberici* a, patrizia milesi a [a] catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. abstract research on the mobilizing potential of the internet has produced some controversy between optimistic vs. skeptical perspectives. although some attention has been paid to the effects of online discussions on collective participation, very little is known about how people’s experience of online interactions affects the key psychosocial predictors of collective action. the present research investigated whether use of the internet as a channel for deliberation influenced the moral pathway to collective mobilization by shaping users’ politicized identity, thereby indirectly influencing collective action. results showed that when people perceived online discussions as a constructive communication context, their politicized identity was imbued with the meaning of responding to a moral obligation, and willingness to participate in collective action was sustained. however, when participants perceived that online discussions were not constructive, their identification with the movement did not refer to moral obligation, and intention to participate in collective action was not sustained. our discussion focuses on the need to deepen investigation of how people experience the particularities of interacting online, and on how this can affect psychosocial processes leading to collective action. keywords: collective action, computer-mediated communication, moral obligation, online deliberation, online discussion, politicized identity europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 received: 2017-08-03. accepted: 2017-11-01. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, catholic university of milan, l.go gemelli, 1 20123 milan, italy. e-mail: augustaisabella.alberici@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. with the impressive rise of new communication technologies, the mobilizing potential of the internet has been explored. new communication tools such as facebook, twitter, and instagram have deeply changed the way in which people interact and discuss public issues. a number of studies have investigated the effects of computermediated communication (cmc) on political engagement and on willingness to take part in collective actions (e.g. brunsting & postmes, 2002; castells, 1996; rheingold, 1995), and some controversy has emerged (e.g. farrell, 2012; margolis & resnick, 2000; sunstein, 2002). according to many, online interactions have the ability to increase offline and conventional forms of political participation (cho et al., 2009; mazzoni & alberici, 2016; mossberger, tolbert, & macneal, 2008; rojas & puig-i-abril, 2009; shah, cho, eveland, & kwak, 2005; xenos & moy, 2007). the internet would especially have the potential to support collective action of emerging political groups, as well as peripheral movements previously incapable of political action. the arab spring protests would be one example (e.g. kerkhof, krouwel, van stekelenburg, & klandermans, 2013; tufekci & wilson, 2012). it was proposed that, during this activity, social media acted as a catalyst helping activists europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ consensualize about mass opposition to the existing oppressive regimes (mcgarty, thomas, lala, smith, & bliuc, 2014). on the other hand, some scholars are more skeptical and argue that the internet erodes political engagement, political efficacy and trust (for an extended discussion see ansolabehere and iyengar, 1995; nie, 2001). some suggest it encourages self-segregation into homogenous and extremist groups (e.g. douglas, 2007; wojcieszak, 2011), and fosters pursuit of personal rather than collective benefits (bennett & segerberg, 2012; morozov, 2009). in this manner, it is argued, it stimulates less valuable forms of participation, such as ‘clickactivism’ or ‘slacktivism’ (gladwell, 2010; vitak et al., 2011). within this line of research, some attention has been placed on the characteristics and implications of online political discussions (valenzuela, kim, & gil de zuñiga, 2011). conversations via the web bear some particularities, such as being mostly text-based, asynchronous, and poor in nonverbal cues. as we will discuss later, research on deliberation practices (i.e. the exchange of rational–critical arguments) has produced some controversy regarding the positive vs. negative relation between online interactions and political learning and engagement (see min, 2007). recently, some studies found that the way in which people experience online discussions transforms the effect of the key psychosocial predictors of collective action (alberici & milesi, 2013; kende, van zomeren, ujhelyi, & lantos, 2016). the amount and perceived quality of online discussions seem especially to influence the way in which people develop a sense of politicized identity. this is consistent with the idea that through their discourses people construct and reconstruct their social identities dynamically (hopkins & kahani-hopkins, 2009; postmes, haslam, & swaab, 2005; reicher, cassidy, wolpert, hopkins, & levine, 2006). however, very little is known on how people’s perceptions of the specific characteristics of online discussions influence the way in which politicized identities develop, indirectly stimulating (or deterring) willingness to participate in collective actions. therefore, the purpose of the current paper is to deepen investigation of the implications of online discussions for collective action, focusing on the role played by a range of specific characteristics of interacting online. special attention was placed on how online discussions lend moral meaning to activists' sense of politicized identity. indeed, when activists interact online, they exchange opinions about how the world should change. otherwise put, they feel a conflict between ‘the way the world is’ and ‘the way the world should be’ (smith, gavin, & sharp, 2015). by consensualizing on this discrepancy, people’s individual sense of moral obligation to act may become a socially validated norm that can contribute to foster politicized identity. in the following introductory sections, we first focus on the psychosocial predictors of collective action. we then analyze how the unique features of online discussions can impact the development of a sense of politicized identity and, indirectly, the intention to act collectively. the psychosocial predictors of collective action collective action can be defined as acts that individuals or psychological group members undertake in a political context to achieve personal or group goals, such as defending their moral principles or improving conditions of an entire disadvantaged group (thomas, mcgarty, reese, berndsen, & bliuc, 2016; van zomeren, 2016). psychosocial literature has highlighted various motivations that drive people to join collective action. among them, a special role is ascribed to politicized group identity, as it plays a pivotal role in connecting other psychosocial motivations to action. online discussion and collective action 144 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ politicized group identity is based upon group members’ awareness that they share grievances and that their unsatisfying condition can be attributed to an opponent. as compared with non-politicized group identity, politicized group identity has a stronger normative content. injunctive norms about ‘the way the world should be’, ‘how it should change’, and ‘what we should do to make it change’ lie at the core of its contents. as suggested above, these norms are socially validated and consensualized through intragroup discussion (postmes, haslam, & swaab, 2005; postmes, spears, lee, & novak, 2005; smith et al., 2015). as a result of the latter, group members converge on what defines them as a group: their collective interests and goals, the necessity to act collectively, and the specific actions they should undertake as a group. indeed, group members develop a fully politicized group identity when they become aware they need to bring their fight into the political arena and make other parties (e.g., public opinion) take sides (simon & klandermans, 2001). politicized group identity plays a key role in predicting collective action: the politicization process implies an encapsulation of other motivations to action and, feeding back, it further facilitates them (thomas, mavor, & mcgarty, 2012; turner-zwinkels, van zomeren, & postmes, 2015; van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2008). those motivations include both group-based variables and individual variables. with respect to group-based variables, attention has focused on group efficacy and group-based anger. group efficacy includes subjective beliefs that members are capable of joining efforts and achieving collective goals, so as to change the situation in the desired direction (van zomeren et al., 2008; van zomeren, spears, fischer, & leach, 2004). groupbased anger stems from the appraisal that the status quo is unjust and that actions need to be taken against those responsible for the existing injustice (leach, iyer, & pedersen, 2006; van zomeren et al., 2004). in terms of individual variables, recent psychosocial literature has focused on individual differences, such as sociopolitical beliefs or values, life experiences, and personal moral motivations (duncan, 2012; milesi & alberici, 2018; thomas et al., 2016; van zomeren, 2013). personality and life experiences are considered as distal antecedents of politicized group identity; on the contrary, moral motivations have been shown to be directly associated with it. actually, the very process of politicization relies heavily on the moralization of the collective cause (milesi & alberici, 2018; zaal et al., 2017). moral motivations include moral convictions and a moral obligation to act. moral convictions are metacognitions that one’s own individual attitude towards the collective cause is rooted in one’s own moral principles (skitka & morgan, 2014). moral obligation to act corresponds with the feeling that action is what should be done, independent of personal interest, others’ approval, or likelihood of success, because it is one’s personal conscience that demands it (vilas & sabucedo, 2012). while both are associated with politicized group identity and, through it, they contribute to predict collective action (alberici & milesi, 2016; van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2012), moral obligation seems to be more closely involved in the politicization of group identity. this is probably because it also interacts with intragroup communication, and implies a stronger commitment to act in a public context (alberici & milesi, 2016; milesi & alberici, 2018; vilas & sabucedo, 2012). we start, then, from the idea that online discussions are a communication context where people, in specific ways, can ascribe a moral meaning to their sense of politicized identity. online discussion and collective action discussing politics via the internet has become a primary feature of contemporary political communication. a growing number of people use social media, online networks and blogs not only to stay informed, but also to alberici & milesi 145 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exchange opinions, develop common understandings and, in some cases, learn how to mobilize for a collective cause. this is especially true for emerging social movement activists (brunsting & postmes, 2002). as suggested above, according to many (e.g., brunsting & postmes, 2002; shah et al., 2005), online interactions bring the potential to increase civic engagement and collective participation. in this regard, some recent studies found that online interactions may affect people's beliefs and emotions that, in turn, bring them to collective action. moreover, it has been shown that discussions among group members can contribute to develop a sense of politicized identity, indirectly sustaining collective action (alberici & milesi, 2013, 2016). these studies highlighted the importance of taking into account not only how often people discuss online, but also how they perceive the quality of online interactions. some preliminary results showed that those who perceive discussions as being of high quality charge their sense of politicized identity with the idea that collective action responds to an individual moral duty (alberici & milesi, 2016). the present research is aimed at deepening such preliminary results by: a) focusing on a larger range of specific characteristics and implications of discussing online, and b) analyzing how activists' perceptions of these characteristics affect the moral meaning of politicized identity. indeed, the exchange of personal ideas about social reality can convert subjective individual perceptions into socially validated injunctive norms, upon which politicized identity can develop (mcgarty et al., 2014; smith et al., 2015). this, in turn, could indirectly affect the intention (or not) to mobilize collectively. compared to face-to-face discussions, online discussions present some specific features: they are mostly textbased, asynchronous, poor in visual and social cues, and often occur under conditions of anonymity (valenzuela et al., 2012). some have suggested that the text-based and asynchronous character of online interactions may stimulate more reflexive, rational, and argumentative conversations (coleman & gotze, 2001; stromer-galley & wichowski, 2010). some studies conducted on deliberative interactions showed that deliberation facilitates political participation (katz, 1992; warren, 1992). deliberation corresponds to the process whereby a group of individuals think over a common or public problem and exchange rational and critical arguments about it with the aim of finding a solution that is likely to be agreed upon by those who are involved (habermas, 1989). to be deliberative, discussions require a number of characteristics, such as rationality and reflexivity. for example, online deliberation is sustained when interactions rely on well-founded arguments (halpern & gibbs, 2013). deliberation also is facilitated when individuals have the chance to learn new perspectives from others. in this regard, as online discussions often rely on networks characterized by weak ties, participants are likely to be provided with non-redundant and diverse information that may stimulate political learning (valenzuela et al., 2012). min (2007) compared the effects of face-to-face and online deliberation in experimental settings, and found that the latter was almost as effective as face-to-face deliberation in increasing participants’ political engagement. there also is evidence, however, that some features of online interactions may present an obstacle to deliberation. text-based and asynchronous communication has been defined as a ‘poor’ form of communication, where the lack of non-verbal cues can easily produce misinterpretations and misunderstandings (daft & lengel, 1986; walther, 1992). according to this view, text-based online interactions would not be efficient for empathizing with others or for exchanging emotions (cheshin, rafaeli, & bos, 2011). this drawback also is associated with the degree of conversational coherence of online discussions, that is, the extent to which messages relate to prior comments or the initial post (halpern & gibbs, 2013). online discussion and collective action 146 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, on the one hand, some specific features of interacting online may lead to constructive and reflexive discussions where participants exchange and learn well-founded arguments; on the other, however, online discussions may be perceived as being non-constructive. this is due to a low conversational coherence which can foster a lack of understanding among users. starting from these studies, we aimed at investigating how the way in which activists of a social movement experience online discussions affects: a) their sense of politicized identity and, particularly, b) the perception that collective action responds to an individual moral duty. our core expectation was that when activists perceive online discussions as being reflexive and argumentative, the sense of moral obligation would be strongly associated with participants’ politicized identity. this, in turn, would indirectly stimulate collective action. from a different standpoint, when activists participate in online discussions where conversational coherence is low and users frequently misunderstand each other, the sense of moral obligation might not be associated with activists' politicized identity. as a consequence, intention to participate in collective action would not be sustained. method research context activists of the italian water movement (forum italiano dei movimenti per l’acqua) participated in the present research. this movement was started to fight against the liberalization of public water services in italy. this is a trend that began during the nineties and ultimately was ratified by a law in 2009. to protest against privatization of water services, citizens’ local committees developed across the country and finally joined together to form the italian water movement. both the local committees and national italian water movement organized their activities and coordinate their initiatives through the internet: they developed their own websites and blogs and established a network through facebook, twitter, and youtube accounts. the movement was further successful in promoting offline activities, such as national demonstrations in 2010 and, as well, a 2011 national referendum that demanded complete abrogation of the liberalization law. voters in this referendum supported rescinding the privatization law. however, no government to date has changed it. the movement has carried on its fight, mainly at the local level. supporters continue to organize campaigns and public activities and to forward proposals for laws against the liberalization of water management. participants one hundred and forty-three activists of the italian water movement (90 men, mage = 49.2 years, sd = 12.5 years) were approached during national meetings and rallies between january and may 2013, and were asked to complete a short questionnaire. all defined themselves as supporters of the movement. measures politicized identity politicized identity was measured through four items (e.g. ‘i feel i have much in common with other activists of the water movement’) (cronbach’s α = .90). responses to this and the following measures were submitted on 7-point scales (1 = do not agree to 7 = totally agree). alberici & milesi 147 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ collective efficacy participants were asked to rate their agreement with the following items: ‘i think the water movement is able to get public opinion’s attention on issues related to water as a common concern’, ‘united, the water movement is able to change the situation in our country’, ‘i think the water movement will be kept united in the face of obstacles or difficulties’ (cronbach’s α = .63). anger anger was measured through the following three items: ‘i get angry when i think that’: a) ‘since july 2011 until now, no provider in the whole country has lowered the water fees’; b) ‘the outcome of the june 2011 referendum has been largely ignored by water providers’; and c) ‘the european law allows privatisation of water management’ (cronbach’s α = .81). moral obligation participants rated their agreement with two items: ‘i think that every citizen has the responsibility to fight against privatization of water services’, ‘i feel an inner obligation to defend access to water as a common right’ (r = .71, p < .001). frequency of online political discussion through seven items, participants rated how often during the last year they had joined online political discussions (e.g. ‘… joining political discussion through facebook or twitter’) (1 = never; 7 = very often) (cronbach’s α = .90). only respondents who reported they had participated in online political discussions were invited to answer the following questions about their perception of some specific features of same (n = 111). perceived characteristics of online discussion participants were asked to report how often they participated in online discussions where: a. participants exchanged well-founded arguments (‘in your opinion, how often do you participate in online discussions where well-founded arguments are exchanged?’; 1 = very rarely; 7 = very frequently); b. interactions contained misunderstandings among participants (‘in your opinion, how often do you participate in online discussions where messages contain misunderstandings?’; 1 = very rarely; 7 = very frequently); c. participants were provided with new information (‘in your opinion, how often do you participate in online discussions where new information emerges?’; 1 = very rarely; 7 = very frequently); d. interactions were characterised by a low conversational coherence (‘in your opinion, how often do you participate in online discussions where messages are not related to previous comments or the initial post?’; 1 = very rarely; 7 = very frequently); collective action intention collective action intention was measured through three items (‘how often during the upcoming year will you sign online petitions?’, ‘… join offline rallies?’, ‘… contribute to organising public events or marches?’; 1 = never; 7 = very often) (cronbach’s α = .81). online discussion and collective action 148 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results to test whether the four characteristics of online discussions were empirically distinct, we carried out principal axis factoring analyses with oblique rotation. actually, the factor analysis extracted two factors that predicted 79.55% of the variance. perceived soundness of argumentation and the perception that online discussions provided new information loaded on the first factor (47.48% of variance explained; both factor loadings were .92), while perceived presence of misunderstandings and perceived conversational coherence loaded on the second factor (32.06% of variance explained; factor loadings ranged from .81 to .86). thus, while the first factor referred to the perception that online discussions were reflexive and relied on well-founded argumentation, the second factor referred to the perception that online discussions contained misunderstandings and a lack of conversational coherence. based on this, we computed two separated indexes of these two different dimensions: a) reflexivity and b) lack of conversational coherence. these were then employed in the following analyses. table 1 provides means, standard deviations and correlations among all the investigated variables. perceived reflexivity of online discussions was significantly and positively correlated both with politicized identity and collective action intention. lack of conversational coherence of online discussion did not show significant correlations with either politicized identity or collective action intention. moreover, the two perceived dimensions of online discussions did not correlate with each other, indicating that they referred to two conceptually different perceptions of the characteristics of online discussions. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. collective efficacy 6.18 .71 2. anger 6.02 1.09 .29** 3. moral obligation 6.64 .75 .48*** .07 4. politicized identity 6.51 .67 .50*** .42*** .35*** 5. frequency of online discussion 4.91 1.54 .30*** -.03 .11 .16* 6. online reflexivity 4.66 1.18 .36*** .12 .24** .30** .53*** 7. lack of online conversational coherence 5.05 1.46 -.10 -.08 -.01 .13 .27** .13 8. collective action intention 5.68 1.01 .36*** .30*** .09 .52*** .50*** .40*** .13 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. to test the predicted moderating effects of the activists' perceptions of online discussion, we performed separate hierarchical regressions with politicized identity as the criterion. moral obligation and the other groupbased motivations (i.e., anger and collective efficacy) were entered in step 1, followed by the frequency of online discussion and the perceived characteristics of online discussion in step 2, and by each interaction term (moral obligation☓perceived reflexivity/lack of conversational coherence of online discussion) in step 3. all variables were centred before entering the regressions. as shown in table 2, step 1 revealed significant main effects for moral obligation, as well as for collective efficacy and anger on politicized identity. frequency of online discussion and the perceived characteristics of online discussion did not show main effects in step 2. step 3 revealed significant effects for both the interaction terms. as predicted, moral obligation interacted alberici & milesi 149 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ positively with perceived reflexivity of online discussion (b = .11, se = .04; p < .01), and negatively with lack of conversational coherence (b = -.15, se = .06; p < .01). table 2 hierarchical regressions of politicized identity on moral obligation, group-based motivations, frequency of online discussion, perceived features of online discussion, and interactions. step and predictor variable step 1a step 2b step 3c b (se) b (se) b (se) b (se) b (se) step 1 collective efficacy .31 (.09)*** .29 (.09)** .29 (.09)** .26 (.09)** .25 (.09)** anger .17 (.04)** .16 (.05)** .16 (.05)** .14 (.05)* .15 (.05)** moral obligation .16 (.08)* .17 (.08)* .17 (.08)** .27 (.09)** .22 (.08)** step 2 frequency of online discussion .04 (.05) .06 (.05) .07 (.05) .04 (.05) online reflexivity .06 (.05) .05 (.05) lack of online conversational coherence .02 (.03) .05 (.04) step 3 moral obligation*online reflexivity .11 (.04)** moral obligation*lack of online conversational coherence -.15 (.06)* δr2 .31*** .04* .03 .03* .05* total r2 .35 .34 .38 .39 amoral obligation and group-based motivations. bstep 1 + online political discussion, perceived features of online discussion. cstep 2 + each of the two-way interactions between moral obligation and features of online discussion. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. simple slope analysis of moral obligation☓reflexivity of online discussion interaction revealed that the influence of moral obligation on politicized identity was significant for respondents who reported participating in online discussions featured by high reflexivity (b = .40, se = .1; p < .01). it was not significant for participants who reported engaging in discussions featured by low reflexivity (b = .13, se = .08; p = .11). consistently, simple slope analysis of the moral obligation☓lack of conversational coherence interaction showed that the influence of moral obligation on politicized identity was not significant for those who reported participating in online discussions featured by low conversational coherence (b = .03, se = .09; p = .74). it was significant for participants who reported engaging in online discussions featured by high conversational coherence (b = .42, se = .13; p < .05). last, we investigated whether these interactions had an indirect effect on collective action intention through politicized identity. we tested mediated moderation effects for each of the independent variables investigated according to the specifications set out by hayes’s process macro for spss, using model 8 (hayes, 2013) (see figure 1). in each analysis, we controlled frequency of online discussions, collective efficacy, and anger. online discussion and collective action 150 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mediated moderations testing the indirect effects of the emerged interactions (moral obligation x reflexivity of online discussion; moral obligation x lack of conversational coherence of online discussion) on collective action intention through the mediation of politicized identity. first, testing the model for mediated moderation showed that politicized identity mediated the effect of the interaction between reflexivity of online discussions and moral obligation on collective action intention (ie = .06, se = .03; 95% ci [.0093,.1563]). thus, as expected, the (indirect) effect of moral obligation on intention to mobilize collectively was enhanced when activists participated in reflexive and argumentative online discussions. however, when participants perceived online discussions as being scarcely argumentative, politicized identity did not mediate the effect of moral obligation on collective action. second, results showed that politicized identity mediated the effect of the interaction between lack of conversational coherence of online discussions and moral obligation on collective action intention (ie = -.07, se = .03; 95% ci [-.1606, -.0228]). consistent with the first mediated moderation, moral obligation maintained its (indirect) effect on willingness to collective action when activists perceived online discussion was characterised by high conversational coherence. however, when online discussions were perceived as having low conversational coherence, politicized identity did not mediate the effect of moral obligation on intention to collective action. thus, collective action was not sustained through the investigated path when activists perceived they were participating in nonconstructive online discussions. discussion on the whole, results of our study support the claim that people’s experience of online political discussions can shape the moral pathway to collective action. findings showed that when activists perceived that the online discussions they joined were a constructive and reflexive communication context, where they exchanged wellfounded arguments and learned new information, their identification with the movement was imbued with the sense of responding to a moral duty. in contrast, when participants perceived that online discussions were not a constructive communication context, where there was low conversational coherence and people misunderstood each other, their identification with the movement did not refer to a moral duty. thus, depending on users’ alberici & milesi 151 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experience of online discussion, the sense of moral obligation may or may not contribute to shaping the meaning of their politicized identity. findings also showed that, through this process, perceptions of online discussion can indirectly affect willingness to participate in collective action. indeed, when activists perceived online discussions as being reflexive, the moral pathway to collective action (through the mediation of politicized identity) was sustained. however, when online discussions were perceived as being poor in conversational coherence, then willingness to take part in collective actions was not stimulated by this path. thus, our findings enlarge research on the relation between computer-mediated communication and political participation, and they suggest some possible directions for future research. first, results suggest it is important to investigate not only how interacting online per se affects collective action, but also people’s experience of online discussions. this latter factor, with its specific features, affects the psychosocial processes underlying the development of politicized identity that, in turn, gives rise to action. our study confirmed that new technologies are not neutral for what concerns effects on collective action (see spears & postmes, 2015), in that group identities are influenced and transformed over time during online interactions (alberici & milesi, 2016; mcgarty et al., 2014). moreover, by reaching consensus online about the desired social reality, people define their group identities as aimed toward obtaining social change (thomas, mcgarty, & louis, 2014). the current study deepens the investigation of how online interactions moderate the moral path to collective action (mazzoni & cicognani, 2013; vilas & sabucedo, 2012). it seems that when activists interact online, and such interactions support deliberative practices, individual moral judgement about social reality is strengthened. this may contribute to politicizing group identity by reinforcing the idea that there is a moral requirement for struggle in the public arena. the exchange of personal opinions about the desired social reality is likely to convert individual views of moral responsibility in a shared and socially validated norm, which forms the basis for developing a politicized identity. it is also possible that, when people participate in reflexive and well-argued discussions, they are likely to engage in post hoc moral reasoning; that is, they put forward arguments to support an a priori moral judgement (haidt, 2001). this process would not be sustained, however, when online discussions are perceived to be non-constructive in terms of their conversational coherence. a further point concerns the importance of more deeply investigating how people experience the specific features of interacting online. as suggested above, online discussions have some unique features, not experienced in face-to-face conversations. depending on how people experience these aspects, online interactions may sustain collective participation on the one hand, but on the other, weaken the psychosocial processes underlying willingness to mobilize. this result could enrich the ongoing debate regarding the mobilizing potential of the internet. it suggests attention should be focused not only on effects of the amount of online interactions, but also on the ways in which people use and experience new technologies (kende et al., 2016). in this regard, people may show individual differences in the way they perceive the same online discussions. for example, our results showed that online discussions were perceived to be more or less constructive. individual interest and knowledge of politics could be relevant here: more interested and expert participants could rely on different standards when they evaluate argumentative quality of online discussions, when contrasted with less interested or knowledgeable participants (catellani & alberici, 2012; catellani, milesi, & alberici, 2014; kahn & kenney, 1999; milesi, 2016). research into online deliberation, and on its effects on political engagement, could certainly help in this direction (see halpern & gibbs, 2013). online discussion and collective action 152 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this study, to be certain, is in large part explorative. to corroborate our results, the investigation should be extended to other movements and contexts, and should involve larger samples. we also acknowledge that the current study considered only some of the specific features of online interactions. further research could focus on other well-known characteristics of communicating through social media (e.g., halpern & gibbs, 2013), investigating their interaction with the psychosocial motives for collective action. for example, the perceived degree of civility of online discussions (i.e. the promoted respect and tolerance among users) could moderate the effect of action-relevant emotions (e.g. anger, contempt) on politicized identity and collective action. moreover, it must be acknowledged that there are different degrees of both participation in online interactions and engagement in online discussions. the questions we used in the present research may not have captured the full range of these factors. not only can people just read the discussions as they unfold without intervening; they also can participate in the interactions in a variety of ways (e.g. asking or giving information, asking or making suggestions), and with different levels of intensity (e.g. vaccari et al., 2015). future research should investigate how these different ways and levels of engagement in online discussions interact with psychosocial predictors of collective action in influencing politicized identity and collective action. despite these limitations, our findings suggest it is worthwhile continuing to investigate those features of contemporary cmc that may be relevant to shaping the meaning of people’s collective identities, thus sustaining or weakening their willingness to take part in collective actions. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alberici, a. i., & milesi, p. 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(2017). you’re either with us or against us! moral conviction determines how the politicized distinguish friend from foe. group processes & intergroup relations, 20, 519-539. doi:10.1177/1368430215615682 about the authors augusta isabella alberici holds a ph.d. in political psychology. she currently teaches social psychology and psychology of communication at the catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. her research interests deal with political psychology, and especially with psychosocial processes underlying collective action. recently, she has studied the influence of online communication on political engagement and collective action. patrizia milesi holds a ph.d. in social psychology. she is assistant professor at the catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy, where she teaches organizational communication. her current research interests focus on moralization of socio-political attitudes and on online discussion in collective action. online discussion and collective action 158 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 143–158 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1507 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1177/1368430215615682 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ online discussion and collective action (introduction) the psychosocial predictors of collective action online discussion and collective action method research context participants measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors moral foundations and voting intention in italy research reports moral foundations and voting intention in italy patrizia milesi* a [a] department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. abstract based on the view of morality proposed by the moral foundations theory, this paper investigates whether voting intention is associated with moral foundation endorsement in not perfectly bipolar electoral contexts. three studies carried out in italy from 2010 to 2013, showed that controlling for ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement is associated with voting intention. in study 1 and 3, in fictitious and real national elections, intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals was associated with sanctity, confirming previous results obtained in the u.s. furthermore, as a function of the specific competing political groups in each of the examined contexts other moral foundations predicted voting intention. in study 1, care and authority predicted voting intention for the major political groups rather than for an autonomist party that aimed at decreasing central government’s fiscal power in favor of fiscal regional autonomy. in study 3, loyalty predicted the intention to vote for the major parliamentarian parties rather than for a movement that aimed at capturing disaffection towards traditional politics. in study 2, at real regional elections, loyalty predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing governor rather than for the challengers and fairness predicted voting intention for left-wing extra-parliamentarian political groups rather than for the major left-wing party. thus multiple moral concerns can be associated with voting intention. in fragmented and unstable electoral contexts, at each election the context of the competing political groups may elicit specific moral concerns that can contribute to affect voting intention beyond ideological orientation. keywords: moral foundations, vote, ideological orientation, morality, politics europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 received: 2017-02-08. accepted: 2017-06-10. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, largo gemelli 1, 20123 milan, italy. e-mail: patrizia.milesi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, increasing attention has been given to moral concerns as an individual motivation to vote (or not vote). voters are said to vote for their vision of a good society, that is, what the moral priorities of a society should be, and how they should be achieved (e.g., lakoff, 2002). when attitudes towards candidates and political issues are perceived as moral convictions, that is as being strong, absolute, and non-arbitrary judgments that reflect personal core moral beliefs, they become especially compelling and they increase both intention to vote and real voter turnout (morgan, skitka, & wisneski, 2010; skitka & bauman, 2008). this paper investigates the relationship between moral concerns and voting by making use of the pluralistic view of morality developed by the moral foundations theory. based on a broad conceptualization of morality, the moral foundations theory (see graham et al., 2013 for a review; haidt, 2001) proposes five innate universal moral concerns, or moral foundations, upon which people decide whether something is morally right or wrong. moral foundations have been shown to be related to political ideology as well as to a host of political europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ attitudes (e.g., graham, haidt, & nosek, 2009; graham et al., 2011; koleva, graham, iyer, ditto, & haidt, 2012) and judgments about candidates (iyer, graham, koleva, ditto, & haidt, 2010). the association between moral foundation endorsement and voting has received comparatively more recent attention and limited to u.s. electoral contexts. johnson and colleagues (johnson et al., 2014) showed that, at the 2008 and 2012 u.s. presidential elections, low endorsement of moral foundations was associated with non-voting behavior. franks and scherr (2015) found that, at the 2012 u.s. presidential elections, moral foundation endorsement was associated with voting choice beyond relevant socio-demographic variables. thus vote seems to be motivated by voters’ moral concerns. given that moral concerns are associated with ideological orientation (graham et al., 2009) and ideological orientation itself is associated with vote (e.g., freire, 2006; van der eijk, schmitt, & binder, 2005), the association between moral concerns and vote might be partly accounted for by the individual’s ideological orientation. in this paper, we argue that, although ideological orientation is a strong predictor of vote, it does not capture all the moral concerns that can underlie voting; rather, depending on the features of each electoral context, specific moral concerns would retain a unique predictive power on vote choice. in the following sections, first we briefly review the literature on moral foundations and their association with ideological orientation and vote. then, we present three studies where we examine the association between moral foundations and voting intention taking into account the individual’s ideological orientation. moral foundations, ideological orientation, and vote the moral foundations theory has highlighted a set of five basic universal moral concerns that guide judgments of right and wrong (e.g., graham et al., 2013): 1) the care/harm foundation that deals with the protection and nurture of those who are vulnerable, suffering or in need; 2) the fairness/cheating foundation that is concerned with the relevance of cooperation and of trustworthy and fair relationships; 3) the loyalty/ betrayal foundation that has evolved from the need to build and maintain coalitions and is focused on the value of being loyal to one’s group, team or a coalition; 4) the authority/subversion foundation that deals with obedience to hierarchies and authorities and respect for established social institutions; and 5) the sanctity/ degradation foundation, that includes concerns for the safeguard of physical and spiritual purity and emphasizes the sacredness of life. the care and fairness foundations focus on how to protect individuals and on how to teach them to respect each others’ rights. accordingly, they are called “individualizing foundations.” care and fairness concerns are especially likely to be activated by issues related to an equitable balance of power and distribution of resources, and they are positively associated with preferences for social relations being equal rather than hierarchical. the loyalty, authority, and sanctity foundations aim at binding individuals into roles and duties in order to strengthen groups and institutions. accordingly, they are called “binding foundations.” loyalty, authority and sanctity concerns are especially likely to be activated by issues related to the protection of traditional communal norms and identities, and they are positively associated with preferences for conformity rather than openness to change (federico, weber, ergun, & hunt, 2013; graham et al., 2009). moral foundation endorsement is related to ideological orientation. early studies showed that conservatives, or people who self-place on the political right, emphasize all the five moral foundations to equal extents, while liberals, or people who self-place on the political left, are likely to give more weight to care and fairness moral foundations and voting intention in italy 668 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ foundations than to the binding foundations (graham et al., 2009; see also graham, nosek, & haidt, 2012). more recent studies argue that the association between moral foundations and ideological orientation is likely to be more complex than initially thought. particular constellations of moral foundation endorsement are associated with political self-definitions that the liberal-conservative divide, or the left-right continuum, cannot capture, for example the self-definition as “libertarian” (iyer, koleva, graham, ditto, & haidt, 2012). moreover, individuals who self-define ideologically in a similar way, e.g. as liberals or as conservatives, may show distinct constellations of moral concerns. in this regard, based on a view of ideology as multifaceted (feldman & johnston, 2014), weber and federico (2013) highlighted six different subtypes of liberal and conservatives. each subtype showed a distinct pattern of moral foundation endorsement. as a result, a given moral foundation could be endorsed to different degrees by people who share similar ideological orientation. for example, individuals who were slightly left of centre on fiscal issues but endorsed very liberal positions on all social issues except for immigration and abortion, the so-called inconsistent liberals, endorsed sanctity concerns more strongly than the consistent liberals, who took liberal positions on both economic and social issues. similarly, individuals who were relatively moderate on fiscal issues but very conservative on social issues, i.e. the so-called social conservatives, also endorsed sanctity concerns more strongly than the consistent conservatives who took conservative positions on both economic and social issues. in the u.s., moral foundation endorsement has turned out to be associated also with electoral behavior, or voting intentions. across four studies carried out during the 2008 and 2012 u.s. elections, johnson and colleagues (2014) showed that low endorsement of moral foundations predicts non-voting: people who selfdefined as liberal, or conservative, but scored low on endorsement of the moral foundations that are stereotypically associated with their self-identified political group, were more likely to have not voted in the past and to intend not to vote in the future. the mismatch between one’s political group and one’s own individual moral profile probably weakened the motivation to support either party during the elections. these results suggest that high endorsement of moral foundations that are stereotypically associated with a political group, may increase the intention to vote for the candidate of that group. they also imply that ideological self-definition may be not sufficient per se for people intending to vote, but it needs to be combined with relevant moral concerns. at the 2012 u.s. presidential elections, franks and scherr (2015) carried out three studies to investigate whether moral foundation endorsement is associated with vote choice by examining voting intention as well as retrospective self-reported voting behavior. the most reliable unique foundation predictor of candidate choice was sanctity, which led participants to choose the republican romney rather than the democratic obama. although franks and scherr controlled for the effects of gender, income, ethnicity, and religiosity, they did not control for the effect of ideological orientation. given that ideological orientation is associated with both moral foundation endorsement (graham et al., 2009) and vote (freire, 2006; van der eijk, schmitt, & binder, 2005), those results leave open the question as to whether ideological orientation accounts for the association between moral foundations and vote choice. our basic idea is that the comparative context in which voters have to make their choice, that is, the voting alternatives represented by the competing political groups, could activate distinct moral concerns that would not be completely captured by the individual’s ideological orientation. in this regard, iyer and colleagues (2010) observed that distinct moral foundations can be associated with judgments about different candidates although they share similar ideological orientation and similar policy positions. actually, in the u.s. 2008 democratic primary elections, both candidates belonged to the democratic party and all the participants were self-identified democrats thus probably prioritizing the milesi 669 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ individualizing foundations over the binding ones (graham et al., 2009). while ideological orientation did not predict any favorability judgments about the competing candidates, fairness endorsement predicted favor for obama over clinton, while loyalty and authority endorsement predicted favor for clinton over obama. aim the present research aims to investigate the relationship between moral foundation endorsement and voting intention, controlling for respondents’ ideological orientation, in electoral contexts where the competition involves more than two political groups, some of which located at the opposite sides of the left-right continuum, some others at the same side. figure 1 visualizes the investigated associations between ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement, and voting intention in such electoral contexts. figure 1. conceptual diagram of the association between ideological orientation, moral foundation endorsement, and voting intention. our basic idea is that, although ideological orientation is the strongest predictor of voting intention, in each electoral context distinct moral foundations would retain a unique predictive power of voting intention. previous research supports this view. first, ideological orientation does not predict judgment about candidates who are located on the same side of the left-right spectrum and share similar policy positions; however, moral foundation endorsement does predict it. iyer and colleagues (2010) showed that ideological orientation did not correlate with favorability for clinton over obama, or vice versa, at the 2008 democratic primaries, where only democratic candidates were competing, while some moral foundations did. second, the relationship between moral foundations and ideological orientation is more complex than initially described. weber and federico (2013) not only showed that different subtypes of liberals and conservatives displayed distinct profiles of moral foundation endorsement, but also that individuals who are self-placed in similar positions along the left-right spectrum can give different weight to the same moral concerns. for example, consistent liberals and consistent conservatives placed less emphasis on sanctity concerns than, respectively, inconsistent liberals and social conservatives. that research suggests that specific moral concerns can be associated with voting intention in a way that is not completely captured by the individual’s ideological orientation. the present research was carried out in italy between 2010 and 2013. in the examined electoral contexts, the choice always involved a main right-wing political group and a main rival left-wing group; in this, they can be considered as partly similar to the u.s. bipolar electoral contexts. as described above, at the 2012 u.s. presidential elections, the most reliable unique foundation predictor of candidate choice was sanctity, which drove participants to support the conservative rather than the democratic candidate (franks & scherr, 2015). firstly, we expected that the individuals’ ideological orientation would be the strongest predictor of their voting moral foundations and voting intention in italy 670 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ intention. however, we also expected that, across studies, sanctity concerns would be associated with the intention to vote for the main right-wing political group rather than for its main left-wing rival, beyond the effect of respondents’ ideological orientation. finally, we expected that the intention to support a political group in a given electoral context might be imbued also with other moral concerns than sanctity. which moral foundation is associated with voting intention would depend on the comparative context where participants make their choice because different competing political groups and their distinct programs would elicit different moral concerns. for more detailed explanations see the individual studies. study 1 when study 1 was carried out, there were three main political groups in the italian parliament. the major rightwing party, popolo della libertà, was in government. this party supported typical right-wing policies in favor of free market economy, law and order, and traditional family values. the parliamentary opposition was led by the major left-wing party, partito democratico: this party supported typical left-wing policies that favored equal opportunities, civil liberties, and tolerance for diversity (marangoni & verzichelli, 2015; massetti & toubeau, 2013). this led us to expect that, similarly to previous studies carried in the u.s., voting intention for the major right-wing party rather than for the major left-wing one would be associated with sanctity concerns. the third political group in parliament was an autonomist party, lega nord, which was the main ally of the major rightwing party. this party aimed at decreasing central government’s fiscal power in favor of regional fiscal autonomy. if regional fiscal autonomy had been implemented as this party wanted, this would have advantaged the richer regions while leaving the poorer ones without basic public services, and it would have deprived the central government of much of its power. we reasoned that those requests could raise both concerns for care of vulnerable people and concerns for the respect of established institutions like central state, i.e. care and authority concerns. participants were asked to indicate which of these three political groups they would vote for if there had been national elections. method participants in 2010, 319 italian students were contacted during classes. only participants who answered the moral foundations questionnaire and stated their ideological orientation along the left-right continuum as well as their voting intention were included in the analyses. this left 216 participants (67.7% of those who were initially contacted; 176 women, age m = 21.12 years, sd = 4.15 years; political interest m = 3.74, sd = 1.62 on a 7point scale from 1 = not interested at all to 7 = very interested; religious attendance m = 3.09, sd = 1.64 on a 5point scale from 1 = never to 5 = once a week). measures moral foundations — participants completed the italian version (bobbio, nencini, & sarrica, 2011) of the moral foundations questionnaire (mfq30, july 2008; full version by graham, haidt, & nosek, available at www.moralfoundations.org; care α = .69; fairness α = .66; loyalty α = .52; authority α = .59; sanctity α = .74). for some scales, the reliability scores are not very high but they are close to those obtained in previous studies milesi 671 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.moralfoundations.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., federico et al., 2013; graham et al., 2009); this could be due to the mfq’s aim of capturing the greatest scope of each foundation. ideological orientation — participants were asked to self-locate along the left-right continuum using a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. the scale also included an answer option to exclude those who refused to self-identify along the left-right continuum (i do not self-define by any one of these labels). participants who did not self-define along the left-right continuum were excluded from the analyses. eighty participants self-defined as leftor centre-left; 19 as centre; 117 as rightor centre-right. voting intention — participants were asked to state their voting intention as if they were to vote at the national elections the next day. one hundred and one participants stated they would vote for the incumbent right-wing party, popolo della libertà; 78 participants for the opposition left-wing party, partito democratico; 37 participants for the autonomist right-wing party, lega nord. results first, we carried out bivariate correlations between participants’ moral foundation endorsement, their ideological orientation, and their voting intention. in the bivariate correlations, voting intention was coded to distinguish between voting intention for the incumbent right-wing party popolo della libertà, coded as 1, and voting intention for the opposition left-wing party partito democratico, coded as 0. as shown in table 1, the correlations between moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation were fairly consistent with previous findings regarding the association between moral foundation endorsement and ideology (e.g., graham et al., 2009). table 1 bivariate correlations between moral foundation endorsement, ideological orientation, and voting intention for the incumbent right-wing party popolo della libertà vs. the opposition left-wing party partito democratico in 2010, study 1 (n = 179) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. care 2. fairness .60*** 3. loyalty .34*** .28*** 4. authority .13 .11 .65*** 5. sanctity .34*** .26*** .55*** .56*** 6. ideological orientation -.14† -.21** .14† .33*** .22** 7. voting intention -.13 -.11 .15* .29*** .28*** .79*** note. ideological orientation: from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. voting intention coded as 0 = intention to vote for the opposition left-wing party partito democratico; 1 = intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing party popolo della libertà. †p < .06. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. being right-wing oriented also correlated positively with the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the opposition left-wing party. more interestingly, both authority and sanctity endorsement were positively associated with participants’ intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the opposition left-wing party. moral foundations and voting intention in italy 672 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ then, we carried out a nominal regression of voting intention on ideological orientation and socio-demographic variables, i.e., gender, age, religious attendance, and political interest. voting intention was treated as a nominal variable with three levels: voting for the incumbent right-wing party, voting for the autonomist right-wing party, and voting for the opposition left-wing party. voting for the left-wing party served as the reference group. only ideological orientation significantly predicted participants’ voting intention. the further participants leaned towards right-wing, the greater they intended to vote for the incumbent right-wing party (b = 2.103, se = 0.322, wald = 42.573; or = 8.190, 95% ci[4.354, 15.403]; p < .001) and the autonomist right-wing party (b = 3.505, se = 0.534, wald = 43.082; or = 33.281, 95% ci[11.686, 94.782]; p < .001) rather than for the left-wing one. in order to investigate whether moral foundation endorsement would predict participants’ voting choice among the incumbent right-wing party, the autonomist right-wing party, and the opposition left-wing party, we ran a second nominal regression including as predictors the five moral foundations and, once again, ideological orientation. as shown in table 2, ideological orientation was the strongest predictor of participants’ voting intention. consistent with our expectation, however, also sanctity endorsement emerged as a unique predictor of voting intention for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the left-wing party. moreover, endorsement of care and authority uniquely predicted participants’ intention to vote for the left-wing rather than for the autonomist right-wing party. table 2 nominal regression of voting intention in 2010 on moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation, study 1 (n = 216) predictors b se or 95% ci wald p voting intention for the incumbent right-wing party, popolo della libertà care -0.787 0.500 0.455 0.171, 1.214 2.473 .116 fairness 0.543 0.630 1.722 0.501, 5.917 0.744 .388 loyalty 0.043 0.568 1.044 0.343, 3.180 0.006 .940 authority -0.427 0.533 0.652 0.230, 1.853 0.643 .423 sanctity 0.888 0.397 2.430 1.116, 5.291 4.999 .025 ideological orientation 2.069 0.311 7.916 4.302, 14.568 44.206 < .001 voting intention for the autonomist right-wing party, lega nord care -1.556 0.629 0.211 0.061, 0.724 6.115 .013 fairness 1.082 0.746 2.951 0.684, 12.734 2.105 .147 loyalty 0.907 0.737 2.478 0.584, 10.514 1.514 .218 authority -1.352 0.671 0.259 0.070, 0.963 4.064 .044 sanctity 0.609 0.520 1.839 0.664, 5.094 1.372 .241 ideological orientation 3.654 0.547 38.623 13.213, 112.899 44.576 < .001 note. voting intention for the opposition left-wing party, partito democratico, was the reference group. ideological orientation: from 1 = leftwing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. another nominal regression, where voting intention for the autonomist right-wing party served as the reference group, showed that, always controlling for ideological orientation, endorsement of care (b = 0.770, se = 0.395; wald = 3.791; or = 2.159, 95% ci[0.995, 4.685]; p = .052) and endorsement of authority (b = 0.925, se = 0.423; wald = 4.776; or = 2.521, 95% ci[1.100, 5.778]; p = .029) also predicted the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the autonomist right-wing party. milesi 673 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 visualizes the association between moral foundations and voting intention, controlling for ideological orientation, as it emerged in study 1 where the two major right-wing and left-wing parties and the autonomist right-wing party were competing in fictitious national elections. figure 2. the association between distinct moral foundations and voting intention in fictitious national elections, study 1. visualization of the main results obtained in regression analyses, controlling for ideological orientation. discussion consistent with the literature on ideology and vote (e.g., freire, 2006; van der eijk et al., 2005), the strongest predictor of voting intention turned out to be participants’ ideological self-definition. however, obtained results showed that also sanctity concerns were associated with the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the opposition left-wing party. this result confirms our general expectation that sanctity endorsement would predict voting intention for the main right-wing political groups rather than for the main leftwing competitors beyond participants’ ideological orientation. moreover, as expected, distinct moral concerns were associated with voting intention for the right-wing autonomist party. actually, care and authority concerns predicted support both for the right-wing popolo della libertà and for the left-wing partito democratico rather than for the autonomist right-wing lega nord. the emphasis that lega nord placed on regional fiscal autonomy might have raised concerns in supporters of other parties for the care of inhabitants of poorer regions, who would be deprived of basic public services if lega nord’s autonomist plans had been implemented, as well as concerns for the diminished authority of the central state. study 1 examined hypothetical elections. one could ask whether similar results would emerge in real elections, as in real-life elections electoral campaigns might raise the accessibility of both ideological orientation and moral concerns. study 2 study 2 examined the 2010 lombardy regional elections. in 1999, institutional reforms introduced the direct election of regional presidents. although the direct election of regional presidents can provide a chance for national parties to increase their strength at sub-national levels through support for their presidential candidates, it is very often the case that regional powerbrokers who can rely on widespread local networks take advantage of regional elections to further strengthen their territorial power and get to challenge national party elites (wilson, 2015). as a result, a territorial logic often governs italian regional elections in a way that is quite moral foundations and voting intention in italy 674 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ independent from national dynamics (passarelli, 2013). in the 2010 lombardy regional elections, the incumbent right-wing candidate (roberto formigoni) had been governing the region for fifteen years and had built a solid territorial powerbase by establishing strong links with regional economic, health, and educational institutions. the major left-wing challenger (filippo penati) was a candidate explicitly supported by the national left-wing party. a range of other minor left-wing challengers represented extra-parliamentary political groups (e.g., a labor unionist, a representative of the no-global movement) and ran independently from the candidate that the national left-wing party supported. in such a context, sanctity concerns might be associated with the intention to vote for the main right-wing candidate rather than for the left-wing challenger (franks & scherr, 2015). however, the territorial logic that governs regional elections could also raise moral concerns about the importance of being loyal to one’s in-group and promoting its interests. method participants in march 2010, one month before the regional elections, 302 italians who lived in lombardy were approached in public spaces and asked to complete a short questionnaire. only participants who answered all the questions about their moral foundation endorsement, self-defined along the left-right continuum, and reported their voting intention at the upcoming elections were included in the analyses. one hundred and sixty-four participants constituted the final sample (54.3% of those initially involved; 94 women, age range = 18 – 72 years, age m = 40.42, sd = 13.90 years). fifteen participants had compulsory education, 77 had secondary education, 71 had tertiary education, and one participant did not answer the question about educational level. measures moral foundations — as in study 1, moral foundation endorsement was measured through the mfq30 (care α = .66; fairness α = .61; loyalty α = .80; authority α = .82; sanctity α = .71). ideological orientation — participants stated their ideological orientation along the same scale used in study 1. participants who refused to self-define along the left-right continuum were excluded from the analyses. seventy-two participants self-defined as left or centre-left; twenty as centre; 72 as right or centre-right. voting intention — participants were asked which candidate they intended to vote for at the upcoming regional elections. sixty-one participants answered that they would support the right-wing candidate (formigoni), 44 answered that they would vote for the major left-wing challenger (penati) and 59 said that they would vote for one of the independent left-wing challengers. results as in study 1, first we carried out bivariate correlations between participants’ moral foundation endorsement, their ideological orientation, and voting intention. voting intention distinguished between the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing candidate formigoni, coded as 1, and the intention to vote for the major left-wing challenger penati, coded as 0 (table 3). milesi 675 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 bivariate correlations between moral foundation endorsement, ideological orientation, and voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate (formigoni) vs. the major left-wing challenger (penati), study 2 (n = 105) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. care 2. fairness .54*** 3. loyalty -.02 -.13 4. authority -.08 -.11 .86*** 5. sanctity .31*** .09 .61*** .63*** 6. ideological orientation -.20* -.22* .57*** .63*** .44*** 7. voting intention -.22* -.18† .65*** .69*** .49*** .91*** note. ideological orientation: from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. voting intention coded as 0 = intention to vote for the major left-wing challenger (penati); 1 = intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing candidate (formigoni). †p < .06. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as shown in table 3, once again the pattern of correlations between moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation was consistent with previous findings (graham et al., 2009). right-wing ideological orientation strongly correlated with the intention to support the incumbent right-wing candidate rather than the major left-wing challenger. more relevant to our purpose, care endorsement was associated with the intention to vote for the major left-wing challenger rather than for the incumbent right-wing candidate. loyalty, authority, and sanctity endorsement positively correlated with the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing candidate rather than for the major left-wing challenger. similarly to study 1, firstly, we performed a nominal regression of voting intention on ideological orientation and socio-demographic variables, i.e., gender, age, and educational level; no information was collected in study 2 about participants’ religious attendance or their political interest. voting intention was treated as a nominal variable on three levels: voting for the incumbent right-wing candidate, voting for the major left-wing challenger, and voting for one of the independent left-wing candidates. voting for the major left-wing challenger served as the reference group. once again, ideological orientation was a significant predictor of participants’ voting intention and no other significant predictors emerged. right-wing orientation predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate (b = 2.325, se = 0.374, wald = 38.556; or = 10.230, 95% ci[4.910, 21.313]; p < .001) as well as for the independent left-wing challengers (b = 0.546, se = 0.225, wald = 5.859; or = 1.726, 95% ci[1.109, 2.684]; p = .015) rather than for the major left-wing challenger. to examine whether moral foundation endorsement would predict participants’ voting choice among the incumbent right-wing candidate, the major left-wing challenger, and the other independent left-wing challengers, a nominal regression was carried out, with the five moral foundations and the ideological orientation as predictors (table 4). moral foundations and voting intention in italy 676 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 nominal regression of voting intention at the 2010 lombardy regional elections on moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation, study 2 (n = 164) predictors b se or 95% ci wald p voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate (formigoni) care -0.514 0.469 0.598 0.238, 1.499 1.202 .273 fairness 0.483 0.511 1.621 0.596, 4.410 0.894 .344 loyalty 0.585 0.298 1.795 1.001, 3.217 3.858 .050 authority 0.230 0.337 1.259 0.651, 2.435 0.467 .494 sanctity 0.410 0.340 1.506 0.773, 2.935 1.450 .228 ideological orientation 2.241 0.403 9.406 4.269, 20.726 30.923 <.001 voting intention for the independent left-wing challengers care -0.250 0.328 0.779 0.409, 1.481 0.582 .446 fairness 0.915 0.376 2.497 1.195, 5.219 5.919 .015 loyalty 0.123 0.179 1.131 0.797, 1.605 0.476 .490 authority -0.028 0.241 0.972 0.606, 1.560 0.014 .907 sanctity 0.146 0.243 1.157 0.718, 1.862 0.359 .549 ideological orientation 0.691 0.248 1.995 1.227, 3.244 7.762 .005 note. voting intention for the major left-wing challenger (penati) was the reference group. ideological orientation: from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. as displayed in table 4, ideological orientation was the strongest predictor of participants’ voting intention. loyalty endorsement also emerged as a significant predictor of voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate rather than for the major left-wing challenger. moreover, fairness endorsement was a unique predictor of voting intention for one of the independent left-wing challengers rather than for the major left-wing challenger. in another nominal regression, where voting intention for one of the independent left-wing challengers served as the reference group, always controlling for ideological orientation, loyalty endorsement also marginally predicted voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate rather than for one of the independent leftwing challengers (b = 0.462, se = 0.266, wald = 3.014; or = 1.587, 95% ci[0.942, 2.672]; p = .083). figure 3 visualizes the association between moral foundations and voting intention, controlling for ideological orientation, as it emerged in study 2 where the two major right-wing and left-wing candidates and other minor independent left-wing challengers were competing in regional elections. milesi 677 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. the association between distinct moral foundations and voting intention in 2010 lombardy regional elections, study 2. visualization of the main results obtained in regression analyses, controlling for ideological orientation. the dashed arrow represents a marginally significant association. discussion study 2 shows that, although the individual’s ideological orientation was the strongest predictor, specific moral concerns were associated with voting intention in 2010 lombardy regional elections. differently from most studies where sanctity concerns were associated with the intention to support the major right-wing candidate rather than the major left-wing one, in study 2 participants’ voting intention for the incumbent right-wing candidate rather than for the left-wing challengers turned out to be associated mainly with their concerns for being loyal to their in-group. thus, beyond participants’ ideological orientation, it was their moral concern for safeguarding and promoting their in-group’s interests that led them to support the incumbent right-wing candidate. this result is consistent with the territorial logic that often governs regional elections in italy (passarelli, 2013) and it may have been due to the candidate’s long regional presidency and to his strong influence on the financing of regional institutions. the results of study 2 also suggest that, in the 2010 lombardy regional elections, participants who intended to vote for one of the representatives of extra-parliamentary left-wing groups rather than for the candidate the national left-wing party supported probably responded to a basic moral concern for justice that went beyond their ideological orientation, as well as beyond the requests advanced by the national party. study 3 study 3 was carried out during the month before the 2013 italian national elections. the context of the 2013 national elections was peculiar. the government formed by the right-wing party that had won previous national elections collapsed in november 2011. instead of calling for national elections, thanks to a special mandate of the republic president, the former eu commissioner mario monti formed a new technocratic government that was supported by a grand coalition between the two major rightand left-wing political groups. despite this, at the end of 2012, the technocratic government was forced to resign and this led to the 2013 national elections. within such a complex context, citizens’ ideologies became weaker in influencing their voting choice, their political disengagement grew, and their propensity not to vote for traditional parties increased. as a consequence, before the 2013 national elections the percentage of undecided or reticent voters was exceptionally high (vegetti, poletti, & segatti, 2014). at the 2013 national elections, italian voters could choose moral foundations and voting intention in italy 678 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ between four political groups. on the one hand, there were two traditional political coalitions, that is, the main right-wing coalition and the main left-wing coalition: this led us to expect that, consistent with previous studies, sanctity concerns would be associated with intention to vote for the right-wing coalition rather than for the leftwing one. however, also two outsiders of traditional politics participated in the electoral competition: another right-wing coalition led by the incumbent prime minister monti, con monti per l’italia, and the populist movimento cinque stelle spiritually led by political activist and comedian beppe grillo. the electoral list led by monti entered the race only at the beginning of january 2013, less than two months before the election. on the contrary, the movimento cinque stelle was born in late 2009: since regional elections in 2010, the movement had been very successful in capturing widespread disaffection and mistrust towards traditional political parties, and had attracted many disappointed voters from both the right-wing and the left-wing major political parties. therefore, at the 2013 national elections, the movement represented an important voting alternative (baldini, 2013; donovan, 2015; fella & ruzza, 2013). while we had no specific expectations about the moral concerns raised by the monti coalition since it was very recently founded and mainly technocratic in character, we expected that support for traditional right-wing and left-wing parties rather than for the movimento cinque stelle could be associated either with concerns for loyalty towards one’s own political in-group or with concerns about the respect due to established institutions like traditional parties, i.e. either with loyalty or with authority concerns. in the month before the election day, participants were asked to state which of these four political groups they would vote for at the upcoming elections. method participants two hundred and ninety-one participants were invited to complete an online questionnaire through the surveymonkey platform during the month before the 2013 italian national elections. as in previous studies, only participants who answered the mfq, self-defined along the left-right continuum, and stated their voting intention were retained in the analyses. only 34.3% of those who were contacted responded to all these questions: the high dropout of participants is consistent with the unusually high percentage of undecided or reticent voters before the 2013 elections (vegetti et al., 2014). the final sample thus comprised 100 participants (62 women; age range = 18 – 79, age m = 43.22, sd = 16.35 years; political interest m = 4.84, sd = 1.57 on a 7-point scale from 1 = not interested at all to 7 = very interested; religious attendance m = 3.09, sd = 1.68 on a 5-point scale from 1 = never to 5 = once a week). seven participants had compulsory education, 38 had secondary education, and 55 had tertiary education. measures moral foundations — participants completed the mfq20 questionnaire, which is a shortened version of the mfq30 questionnaire (www.moralfoundations.org), care α = .66; fairness α = .60; loyalty α = .70; authority α = .63; sanctity α = .78). ideological orientation — participants self-defined along the left-right continuum using the same scale used in previous studies. participants who did not self-place along the left-right continuum were excluded from the analyses. fifty-nine participants self-defined as left or centre-left, 13 centre, and 28 as right or centre-right. milesi 679 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.moralfoundations.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ voting intention — participants were asked to state their voting intention at the upcoming elections. forty-one said they would vote for the left-wing coalition; 15 said they would vote for the challenging right-wing coalition; 23 said they would vote for the incumbent right-wing coalition led by monti, con monti per l’italia, and 21 said that they would vote for the movimento cinque stelle. results similarly to previous studies, first we ran bivariate correlations between participants’ moral foundation endorsement, their ideological orientation, and their voting intention. voting intention was coded to distinguish between the intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing coalition (con monti per l’italia, coded as 1), and the intention to vote for the challenging left-wing coalition (coded as 0). as shown in table 5, the association between moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation is quite consistent with those of previous studies. once again, right-wing orientation correlated positively with the intention to support the incumbent right-wing rather than the left-wing coalition. moreover, authority and sanctity endorsement positively correlated with participants’ intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing rather than for the left-wing coalition. table 5 bivariate correlations between moral foundation endorsement, ideological orientation, and voting intention for the incumbent right-wing coalition, con monti per l’italia, vs. the challenging left-wing coalition, study 3 (n = 64) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. care 2. fairness .49*** 3. loyalty .36** .22 4. authority .26* .08 .59*** 5. sanctity .41*** .27* .53*** .54*** 6. ideological orientation -.03 -.33** .11 .34** .29** 7. voting intention .03 -.19 .12 .35** .36** .62*** note. ideological orientation: from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. voting intention coded as 0 = intention to vote for the challenging left-wing coalition; 1 = intention to vote for the incumbent right-wing coalition, con monti per l’italia. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. subsequently, we carried out a nominal regression of voting intention on ideological orientation and sociodemographic variables i.e., gender, age, educational level, religious attendance, and political interest. voting intention was treated as a nominal variable with four levels: voting for the incumbent right-wing coalition, con monti per l’italia, voting for the challenging right-wing coalition, voting for the left-wing coalition, and voting for the movimento cinque stelle. voting for the left-wing coalition served as the reference group. no sociodemographic variable emerged as significant predictor. right-wing ideological orientation predicted intention to vote for the challenging right-wing coalition (b = 3.128, se = 0.666, wald = 22.049; or = 22.835, 95% ci[6.188, 84.272]; p < .001), for the incumbent right-wing coalition (b = 1.325, se = 0.397, wald = 11.153; or = 3.760, 95% ci[1.728, 8.181]; p = .001), and for the movimento cinque stelle (b = 1.104, se = 0.395, wald = 7.832; or = 3.017, 95% ci[1.392, 6.540]; p = .005) rather than for the left-wing coalition. moral foundations and voting intention in italy 680 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, in order to investigate whether moral foundation endorsement would predict participants’ voting choice, we ran another nominal regression including participants’ moral foundation endorsement and, once again, their ideological orientation as predictors (table 6). table 6 nominal regression of voting intention at the 2013 italian national elections on moral foundation endorsement and ideological orientation, study 3 (n = 100) predictors b se or 95% ci wald p voting intention for the incumbent right-wing coalition, con monti per l’italia care 0.093 0.698 1.097 0.280, 4.307 0.018 .894 fairness -0.783 0.814 0.457 0.093, 2.252 0.926 .336 loyalty -0.613 0.503 0.542 0.202, 1.452 1.485 .223 authority 0.745 0.541 2.106 0.730, 6.076 1.898 .168 sanctity 0.966 0.497 2.627 0.991, 6.961 3.773 .052 ideological orientation 1.270 0.420 3.560 1.564, 8.105 9.151 .002 voting intention for the challenging right-wing coalition care -1.563 1.135 0.210 0.023, 1.937 1.897 .168 fairness -0.307 1.096 0.735 0.086, 6.300 0.079 .779 loyalty 0.327 0.836 1.387 0.270, 7.140 0.153 .695 authority -0.605 0.922 0.546 0.090, 3.328 0.431 .512 sanctity 2.033 0.972 7.638 1.136, 51.337 4.374 .036 ideological orientation 3.120 0.721 22.641 5.515, 92.940 18.748 <.001 voting intention for the movimento cinque stelle care -1.319 0.723 0.267 0.065, 1.102 3.334 .068 fairness -0.568 0.837 0.567 0.110, 2.924 0.460 .497 loyalty -1.285 0.509 0.277 0.102, 0.749 6.387 .011 authority 1.025 0.609 2.786 0.845, 9.185 2.833 .092 sanctity 1.241 0.523 3.460 1.241, 9.642 5.633 .018 ideological orientation 0.963 0.430 2.621 1.128, 6.087 5.019 .025 note. voting intention for the challenger left-wing coalition was the reference group. ideological orientation: from 1 = left-wing oriented to 5 = right-wing oriented. as shown in table 6, ideological orientation was a strong predictor of voting intention. moreover, consistent with our expectation and with study 1, sanctity endorsement predicted participants’ intention to vote for both the right-wing political groups (the con monti per l’italia coalition and the challenging right-wing coalition) rather than for the left-wing coalition. table 6 also reveals that sanctity endorsement predicted the intention to vote for the movimento cinque stelle rather than for the left-wing coalition. moreover, moral concerns for loyalty predicted the intention to vote for the left-wing coalition rather than for the movimento cinque stelle. another nominal regression, where voting intention for the movimento cinque stelle served as the reference group, showed that, always controlling for ideological orientation, loyalty endorsement predicted also the intention to vote for the challenging right-wing coalition rather than for the movimento cinque stelle (b = 1.613, se = 0.790; wald = 4.167; or = 5.017, 95% ci[1.066, 23.602]; p = .041). milesi 681 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 visualizes the association between moral foundations and voting intention, controlling for ideological orientation, as it emerged in study 3 where the incumbent coalition con monti per l’italia, the two major rightwing and left-wing coalitions, and the movimento cinque stelle were competing in 2013 national elections. discussion study 3 confirms that, at real national elections, voting intention can respond to a variety of moral concerns whose influence is not completely accounted for by ideological orientation. consistent with study 1 and with previous studies on national elections where a major right-wing candidate and a major left-wing candidate competed (e.g., franks & scherr, 2015), sanctity endorsement was associated with the intention to vote for both the right-wing coalitions rather than for the left-wing one, even when ideological orientation was controlled for. moreover, study 3 shows that, in the peculiar electoral context of the 2013 italian national elections, sanctity endorsement also nourished participants’ intention to vote for the movimento cinque stelle rather than for the left-wing coalition. thus, supporters of the movimento cinque stelle endorsed a category of moral concerns that is typically associated with support for right-wing policy positions and groups. this result uncovers a basic similarity between the movimento cinque stelle and right-wing political groups. moreover, it was participants’ loyalty concerns for keeping faithful to one’s political in-group that fostered their intention to support the insiders of the political system, that is, the rightor the left-wing coalitions, rather than an outsider such as the movimento cinque stelle. general discussion the present research investigates the association between moral foundation endorsement and voting intention in italy, controlling for the individual’s ideological orientation. ideology is associated both with vote (freire, 2006; van der eijk et al., 2005) and with moral foundation endorsement (graham et al., 2009, 2012; weber & federico, 2013); thus it could account for the association between moral concerns and vote. however, here we argue that voting intention can respond to moral concerns that the individual’s ideological orientation does not completely capture. figure 4. the association between distinct moral foundations and voting intention in 2013 italian national elections, study 3. visualization of the main results obtained in regression analyses, controlling for ideological orientation. moral foundations and voting intention in italy 682 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results obtained showed that as far as the two major rightand left-wing national political groups are concerned, the intention to vote for the right-wing political groups rather than for the left-wing rivals is associated with sanctity concerns, and that this happens independently from the individual’s ideological orientation. this result is consistent with and extends previous u.s. findings that sanctity endorsement predicts conservative vote choice (franks & scherr, 2015). thus, the basic moral concern for avoiding contamination and for promoting and preserving physical and spiritual purity is a moral concern that the ideological divide cannot capture but that orient significantly people’s political choices (see also koleva et al., 2012). this result is also consistent with the finding that people who self-locate in similar ideological positions give different importance to sanctity (see above weber & federico, 2013). second, the present research highlights that also moral concerns other than sanctity can underlie voting intention. study 1 showed that moral concerns for care of vulnerable people and for respect of established authority turned supporters of both right-wing and left-wing political groups away from voting the autonomist party. study 2 suggested that moral concerns for equality and justice can be associated with the intention to support extra-parliamentary left-wing political groups rather than the more moderate national left-wing party. furthermore, study 2 and study 3 highlighted that also loyalty concerns can be associated with voting intention. a closer inspection of the electoral contexts examined in study 2 and study 3 suggests that, in each context, this basic moral concern might have taken two specific distinct meanings. in study 2, moral concerns of loyalty probably mirrored the perceived righteousness of supporting a (right-wing) candidate deeply based in one’s territorial in-group; in study 3, moral concerns of being loyal towards one’s political in-group motivated supporters of established (left-wing and right-wing) parties to turn away from a populist movement. finally, study 3 showed that supporters of a political group that on the surface claimed to be an outsider of traditional politics indeed shared the same moral concern for sanctity that traditional right-wing voters endorse. this result hints at the possibility that moral motivations underlying voting choice may be quite different from the ones that are openly stated (moral dumbfounding; haidt, 2001). so the investigation of moral foundations associated with vote choice may lead to uncover unexpected similarities (or differences) among supporters of different (or the same) political groups. taken together, results obtained suggest that voting choice can be motivated by multiple moral concerns that are not completely accounted for by the individual’s ideological orientation. on the one hand, the examination of moral foundations enables to predict voting intention for political groups that are located on similar sides of the left-right continuum, as well as for extra-parliamentary political groups that distance themselves from traditional political parties and often refuse, at least in words, the left-right dialectic. on the other, it can highlight that voters who seemingly have opposite political positions do share some moral concerns when it comes to complex voting choices. therefore, extending the examination to fragmented electoral contexts like the italian ones examined in this research can give us a more complex picture of the relationship between moral foundations and voting choice than the one offered by previous studies carried out in the u.s. bi-polar electoral context. the present research was limited by the use of convenience and restricted samples. this problem is further exacerbated by the existence of more than two political groups which broke the samples down into small subgroups, especially in study 3, where there are four political groups. thus, although the obtained results are fairly consistent across all studies, this caveat should be considered and future studies involving larger and milesi 683 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ representative samples are needed. moreover, the present research investigated voting intention rather than real voting behavior. franks and scherr (2015) examined both voting intention and voting behavior at u.s. presidential elections and found consistent results across their studies. voting intention usually correlates strongly with voting behavior (e.g., granberg & holmberg, 1990). this is also the case for italy. for example, roccato and zogmaister (2010) analyzed voting intention and voting behavior at the 2006 national election using a representative sample and found a strong correlation (phi = .93, p < .001). however, we cannot equate behavioral intention with real behavior and hope that future studies will investigate the association between moral foundation endorsement and vote by analyzing real voting behavior. obtained results suggest that political candidates might be advantaged by framing their electoral appeals in terms of moral foundations. recent studies have shown that when a message elicits moral concerns that are relevant to the audience’s prevailing ones, e.g. a sanctity-framed pro-environmental message that highlights how contaminated the environment has become and how important it is to clean it, addressed to a right-wing audience, it turns out to be especially persuasive (feinberg & willer, 2013). message frames based upon moral foundations can partly shift the audience’s political attitudes, mainly by reinforcing them, if they are based on the foundations that the audience is likely to endorse (day, fiske, downing, & trail, 2014). future experimental studies could investigate whether candidates’ electoral appeals that are framed in terms of relevant moral foundations can affect also participants’ intention to vote for them. as compared with unframed appeals, morally framed appeals could strengthen participants’ voting intentions by adding a sense of moral obligation to vote. overall, our investigation of the multiple categories of moral concerns that can be associated with vote in fragmented and complex electoral contexts suggest that voters can charge their choice with a range of moral concerns that do not descend from their ideological orientation only. rather, the comparative context in which voters have to make their choice, i.e. the simultaneous consideration both of the supported candidate and of his/her competitors, can contribute significantly to charge the voters’ choice with specific moral concerns. our results suggest that the comparative context of each election can contribute to determine which moral foundation would be more effectively elicited in order to foster the intention to vote for a given candidate or political group. not only should political candidates consider the categories of moral concerns that are typically associated with the ideological position of their political group; they should also take into account and leverage the categories of moral concerns that their competitors are likely to elicit in the electorate. to conclude, this research shows that voting choice can respond to a range of moral concerns in a way that is not completely accounted for by the individual’s ideological orientation. studying the association between vote and the individual’s moral concerns based on the pluralistic view of morality proposed by the moral foundation theory in fragmented and not perfectly bipolar electoral contexts has the potential to shed light on this issue and to offer a multifaceted view of the various meanings voters can associate to their choice. funding the author has no funding to report. moral foundations and voting intention in italy 684 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author would like to thank maruska nizzi for her help in language editing of the manuscript. references baldini, g. 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(2015). direct election of regional presidents and party change in italy. modern italy, 20, 185-198. doi:10.1080/13532944.2015.1024213 about the author patrizia milesi holds a ph.d. in social psychology. she is assistant professor at the catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. her current research interests focus on moralization of socio-political attitudes and on online discussion in collective action. milesi 687 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 667–687 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1391 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1424/76410 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00922.x http://doi.org/10.1080/13532944.2015.1024213 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ moral foundations and voting intention in italy (introduction) moral foundations, ideological orientation, and vote aim study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion study 3 method results discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author identifying with how we are, fitting with what we do: personality and dangerousness at work as moderators of identification and person–organization fit effects research reports identifying with how we are, fitting with what we do: personality and dangerousness at work as moderators of identification and person– organization fit effects emmanouela mandalaki* a, gazi islamb, urszula lagowska c, camila tobace d [a] department of organizations, university of los andes, bogota, colombia. [b] department of people, organizations and society, grenoble ecole de management, grenoble, france. [c] brazilian school of public and business administration, fundação getulio vargas, rio de janeiro, brazil. [d] department of administration, insper institute for education and research, são paulo, brazil. abstract using a sample drawn from a brazilian electric company exposing employees to both dangerous and non-dangerous working conditions, the current study provides evidence on the differential underlying mechanisms guiding the relationships of organizational identification and person-organization-fit (p-o fit) with job performance. we suggest that despite their relatedness in current literature, organizational identification operates as a largely self-centered process and p-o fit as a predominantly context-dependent one, leading to distinct workrelated processes deriving from each construct. our findings suggest that p-o fit serves as a pathway through which job identification induces job performance. in this mediating path, personality and in particular neuroticism, hinders the effects of identification, whereas job dangerousness, a contextual factor, undermines work-related effects of perceived environmental congruence (p-o fit). discussing these results, we provide novel insights on the distinct mechanisms driving organizational identification, p-o fit and their contingencies. keywords: person-organization fit, identification, dangerousness, job performance, neuroticism europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 received: 2017-08-22. accepted: 2018-10-16. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: emmanouela mandalaki is now at neoma business school, 1, rue du maréchal juin, 76130 mont-saint-aignan, france. email: em_mandalaki@yahoo.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. organizational identification, defined as perceived belongingness to the organization (tajfel, 1978), is a key driver of employee motivation and performance (e.g., ashforth, harisson, & corley, 2008; brickson, 2012; riketta, 2005; van knippenberg, 2000). some research suggests that identification effects depend on how one sees one’s relation to the collective, which involves the cognitive activation of group-related constructs by workers (ashmore, deaux, & mclaughlin-volpe, 2004; simon & klandermans, 2001; van knippenberg, 2000). among these constructs is the subjective sense of perceived alignment with the organization, or person-organization fit (e.g., edwards, 2008). even though the latter overlaps conceptually with identification (ashforth et al., 2008), it remains distinct in that it involves perceptions of an environmental match between the individual and the collective (edwards, 2008; edwards, cable, williams, lambert, & shipp, 2006). on the other hand, identification mainly centers on self-definition (ashforth et al., 2008; postmes & jetten, 2006); driven by categorization processes and attachment to the collective (ashmore et al., 2004; simon & klandermans, 2001). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ despite differentiations in the literature between identification and subjective organizational fit perceptions (e.g., nolan & harold, 2010; pratt, 1998), a clear understanding of how they differ conceptually and empirically to affect workplace outcomes remains elusive. given that identification and p-o fit share similar correlates, such as organizational values, goals and objectives (ashforth et al., 2008; besharov, 2014) and that they both involve relations between the self and the context, they can be easily conflated in practice. to understand how identification processes interface and differ with subjective p-o fit perceptions, it is crucial to disentangle the distinct ways in which they drive employee outcomes, such as job performance. responding to calls for more research on factors affecting p-o fit and identification-related processes (he & brown, 2013; kristof-brown, zimmerman, & johnson, 2005), we empirically test the distinct underlying mechanisms guiding work-related outcomes of each of the two constructs (cha, chang, & kim, 2014; chen, chi, & friedman, 2013; edwards, 2008; van knippenberg, 2000). identification centers on perceptions of oneself as integral to the organization and perceptions of the organization as integral to oneself (albert, ashforth, & dutton, 2000; ashforth et al., 2008; simon & klandermans, 2001), while subjective p-o fit reflects the consideration of the self vis-a-vis the organizational context (kristof-brown et al., 2005). thus, we would expect job-related identification effects to depend more on identifying personal characteristics, like personality, whereas fit effects to be conditional upon situational factors affecting motivation and job performance, such as dangerousness at work (sousa-poza & sousa-poza, 2000). first, we investigate how personality characteristics -namely agreeableness and neuroticismguide organizational identification’s work-related effects (schneider, 2007). second, building on literature citing contextual attributes as drivers of p-o fit at work (e.g., edwards, 2008; jansen & kristof-brown, 2006), we discuss how dangerousness, an extreme contextual characteristic, drives perceptions of subjective p-o fit effects on work outcomes (lambert, hogan, paoline, & clarke, 2005; price, 1997). our results extend literature discussing the role of personality characteristics in shaping work-related outcomes of organizational identification (e.g., nicol, rounding, & macintyre, 2011; schneider, 2007; swann, 1990; vignoles, regalia, manzi, golledge, & scabini, 2006), while examining contextual demands influencing p-o fit outcomes. we propose a conceptual model linking personality characteristics with identification perceptions, and contextual characteristics with p-o fit perceptions, in affecting job performance. we argue that who one is and how one sees themselves in relation to the collective (i.e., identification) is particularly sensitive to personality factors, whereas how one fits (i.e., p-o fit), as a result of their perceived organizational identification and relation to the context, shapes job performance depending on contextual factors. our results suggest that neuroticism negatively guides the relationship between identification and performance, while dangerousness at work undermines links between perceptions of subjective p-o fit and job performance. by shedding light on individual vs. contextual factors jointly driving the effects of identification and p-o fit on job performance, we contribute to current debates calling for a better understanding of the underlying processes driving work-related outcomes of the two constructs (nolan & harold, 2010; pratt, 1998). we discuss the implications of our research for theory and for managerial practice. mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 381 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ identification and p-o fit as distinct workplace processes identification with organization, p-o fit and job performance understanding the distinct psychological bases of identification vis-a-vis other states of employee organizational embeddedness has led scholars to explore the role of social identity in organizations (cf. mael & ashforth, 1995; ashforth et al., 2008; brickson, 2012; van knippenberg & hogg, 2003). social identification relates to self-definition in terms of group membership, reflecting belongingness and emotional attachment to the group (mael & ashforth, 1992; tajfel, 1978). according to dutton, dukerich, and harquail (1994, p. 242), organizational identification is the “psychological attachment that occurs when members adopt the defining characteristics of the organization as defining characteristics of themselves.” even though scholars discuss the collective aspect of identity (ashmore et al., 2004; simon & klandermans, 2001), literature suggests that identity remains largely dependent on the self; since it is the individual that evaluates the group and their relationship with it (eidelman & silvia, 2010; vignoles, schwartz, & luyckx, 2011). a growing body of organizational behavior literature has identified links between identification at work and other organizational constructs like participation, collective effort, and job performance (e.g., ashforth et al., 2008; kramer, 2006; van knippenberg, 2000). particularly, van knippenberg (2000) argued that identification with the work environment is positively related to both motivation as well as task and contextual performance. similarly, literature cites identification both as a moderator and mediator guiding the relationship between several antecedents and job-related outcomes, like job performance (e.g., blader, 2007; chen et al., 2013). the latter suggests that identification serves as a proximal cause of job outcomes. tajfel (1982) posits that identification involves three basic constituents: a cognitive component, an evaluative component, and an emotional one. more recent accounts cite emotions as an important element guiding organizational identification development (hermans & dimaggio, 2007). considering the group-affiliative and emotional nature of identification, focusing on group-oriented personality characteristics, like agreeableness, and emotionally laden ones, such as neuroticism, as underlying mechanisms potentially driving its work outcomes, makes sense in this context. however, because identification refers to self-perception in a group context, its relation to specific aspects of the workplace is likely mediated by more proximal comparisons between the self and the context. further, the self-oriented aspect of identification (postmes & jetten, 2006) with regards to the collective, might explain its points of differentiation from other overlapping constructs, like p-o fit, which refers more directly to the organizational environment (edwards et al., 2006). in fact, a substantial body of literature has discussed the relationship between identification and p-o fit (as opposed to other similar notions), while the conceptual differences between the two have raised an interesting debate in academic literature (e.g., chatman, 1989; werbel & gilliland, 1999). exploring p-o fit vis-a-vis identification work-related outcomes enables us to identify distinct dynamics guiding the two to induce job performance. person–organization fit werbel and gilliland (1999, p. 217) define p-o fit as “the congruence of employees’ needs, goals, and values with organizational norms, values, and reward systems.” the latter considers fit in terms of a “match” between the individual and the organizational environment, depending on an evaluation of how one’s individual characteristics, needs and perceived identification match with those of the context. a growing body of organizational identification & person-organization fit 382 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behavior literature cites the positive effect of p-o fit on employee commitment, satisfaction and feelings of competence and identifies positive p-o fit effects on organizational performance and effectiveness (edwards, 2008; jansen & kristof-brown, 2006; o’reilly, chatman, & caldwell, 1991; werbel & gilliland, 1999). literature also cites some conceptual similarities between organizational identification and subjective p-o fit (foreman & whetten, 2002; meyer, becker, & vandenberghe, 2004). however, although they both consider employees’ identity and one’s relation to the environment, they also demonstrate important conceptual differences (ashforth et al., 2008). for instance, pratt (1998) notes that fit is a broader concept relying on contextual assessments including both similarities and congruities based on difference or complementarity, whereas identification is a self-related judgment derived from group membership (ashforth et al., 2008). identification should thus relate to the context to the extent that the latter internally guides self-image formation. by contrast, in p-o fit assessments consider evaluation of oneself but remain largely context-dependent, whereby the person and the organization remain two different entities (edwards et al., 2006). such assessments can be thus re-produced in other organizational contexts, as long as the person perceives a relational match with the environment. with regards to the relationship between these two concepts, literature suggests that p-o fit may be affected by organizational identification. specifically, it has been shown that organizational identification satisfies meaning creation needs, leading to group cohesiveness and commitment to organizational values (hogg, 2003; hogg & mullin, 1999); the latter also being an antecedent of p-o fit (edwards, 2008). further, tajfel (1982) characterizes identification as a cognitive state whereby the person develops awareness of group membership to proceed to an evaluative state enhancing congruence with their working environment. thus, while self-centered in nature, identification should be considered when individuals evaluate perceptions of subjective p-o fit. as such, job identification and subjective p-o fit are conceptually related, with identification providing a basis for fit. in terms of outcomes, p-o fit enhances work motivation and commitment (chatman, 1989; o’reilly et al., 1991); psychological states also regarded as outcomes of identification leading to job performance. however, unlike identification, which has been cited to indirectly induce job performance (van knippenberg, 2000), p-o fit is argued to have a direct link to it (edwards, 2008; werbel & gilliland, 1999). the latter might imply that p-o fit could result from identification to influence job performance. considering the above and the fact that identification is a self-oriented psychological process shaping one’s self-image as part of a group, it should lead to performance to the extent that it triggers more proximal processes, such as subjective p-o fit. in other words, while not reflecting any urge for action in itself, identification should guide the development of feelings of congruence, in turn leading the person to perform better at work. that said, identification with the organization should lead to job performance through p-o fit. thus: hypothesis 1: p-o fit mediates the relationship between organizational identification and job performance, such that organizational identification leads to job performance through subjective p-o fit. given the above, identification and subjective p-o fit are best seen as working together to produce work outcomes. however, due to their conceptual differences, we would expect distinct processes underlying their effects. as mentioned above, we examine personality and contextual factors to enhance our understanding of the differential underlying patterns guiding the work-related outcomes of identification and p-o fit, respectively. mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 383 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality and contextual characteristics given the conceptual differences identified above, we would expect the effects of identification, as a mainly self-oriented process, to be affected by identifying personal characteristics, like personality traits. conversely, we would expect those of p-o fit, as a mainly context-laden process, to be more dependent on situational factors. research has investigated the dynamics guiding each of these two components (e.g., steele, 1988; swann, 1990; vignoles et al., 2006) and has established the importance of personality characteristics for adaptation, performance, interpersonal relations and identification with the working environment (e.g., cheek & briggs, 1982; edwards, 2008). a personality factor which has long been studied and suggested as a driver of job performance is conscientiousness (resick, baltes, & shantz, 2007; salgado, 1997). however, only a few studies discuss the effects of other personality characteristics, like agreeableness and neuroticism (john & srivastava, 1999), on group identification and performance (barrick & mount, 1991; johnson, morgeson, & hekman, 2012; mount, barrick, & stewart, 1998). responding to calls for more research of how personality characteristics drive identification processes at work (he & brown, 2013), we focus on two understudied personality traits in relation to organizational identification—agreeableness and neuroticism—due to their conceptual similarities with the group-affiliative and emotional aspects of identification, respectively. considering that identification involves evaluations of the self and its relation to the collective as well as the fact that agreeableness, as a personality characteristic, involves pro-social attitudes towards interpersonal relationships and cooperativeness within groups (hogan & holland, 2003), agreeableness should be relevant to organizational identification’s job-related effects. similarly, given that identification reflects an emotional investment in group membership (tajfel, 1982), we would expect neuroticism, an emotionally laden personality characteristic (denson, spanovic, & miller, 2009), to guide identification effects. particularly in contexts of high personal or emotional tension (such as stressful work; chen & spector, 1992; lambert, kelley, & hogan, 2012), we would expect neuroticism to influence identification effects because of its association with high emotional arousal (denson et al., 2009). conversely, compared to personal characteristics, situational characteristics are likely to be more closely related to perceptions of congruence with the working environment (jansen & kristof-brown, 2006). thus, we would expect dangerousness, an understudied, extreme contextual factor, to shape p-o fit effects at work. our examination of dangerousness allows the evaluation of context in a way that is salient and important in many sectors of work and blue-collar populations, which are likely to face major safety hazards at work; especially in less developed economies (ilo, 2003). indeed, satisfying job security needs has traditionally been cited as a basic condition leading to satisfaction at work (herzberg, 1974). moreover, recent research cites lack of job safety as a job stressor undermining satisfaction and job performance (pasupuleti, allen, lambert, & cluse-tolar, 2009; sousa-poza & sousa-poza, 2000). based on the above, exploring job dangerousness as a situational factor seems particularly relevant in the context of job outcomes. agreeableness and neuroticism agreeableness involves personal qualities of cooperativeness, social adaptability, and interpersonal sensitivity (john & srivastava, 1999; oh & berry, 2009) with tendencies to act pro-socially (hogan & holland, 2003). much identification & person-organization fit 384 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ like with organizational identification (ashforth et al., 2008), literature cites a positive association between agreeableness and compliance (organ & ryan, 1995) or interpersonal facilitation (hurtz & donovan, 2000). the latter implies that agreeableness and identification might interact to enhance environmental congruency states. similarly, recent research posits that emotional regulation and identification enhance agreeable individuals’ perceived organizational well-being (larsen, 2000), suggesting that agreeableness might also explain links between organizational identification and p-o fit perceptions. yet, consistent with research citing very weak links between agreeableness and job performance (barrick & mount, 1991; judge, livingston, & hurst, 2012), we would not expect agreeableness to affect job performance directly. instead, considering the group-oriented and affiliative aspect of agreeableness (witt, burke, barrick, & mount, 2002), and its connection to identification, which also focuses on establishing belongingness to a group (hermans & dimaggio, 2007; mael & ashforth, 1992), agreeableness is likely to influence work outcomes of identification. some research suggests that agreeable individuals tend to experience adverse affective reactions in situations of conflict at work (moskowitz & coté, 1995), while they perform better in jobs requiring high cooperation with others (witt et al., 2002). agreeableness also moderates the relationship between organizational interaction beliefs and feelings of work congruence (ehrhart, 2006), implying that it might also enhance states of p-o fit. as such, we would expect the cooperative and conflict avoidance tendencies associated with agreeableness to amplify the impact of organizational identification on perceived subjective fit, such that highly identified individuals at higher levels of agreeableness would reach states of higher fit as opposed to individuals at lower levels of agreeableness. based on the above, we hypothesize that: hypothesis 2: agreeableness moderates the relationship between organizational identification and po fit, such that the effect of organizational identification on p-o fit will be higher for agreeable as opposed to less agreeable individuals. while agreeableness reflects relational qualities between individuals, neuroticism, the opposite of emotional stability, involves negative affective experiences. neuroticism is linked to tension, anxiety (costa & mccrae, 1992; john & srivastava, 1999), irritability, anger, depression, and emotional vulnerability (john & srivastava, 1999) and is thought to indirectly affect work-related outcomes, like job performance (e.g., barrick & mount, 1991; judge & bono, 1999). further, the emotional distress associated with neuroticism is negatively associated with self-concept clarity and social conformity attitudes (froming & carver, 1981; scheier, carver, & gibbons, 1979). finally, typical for neurotic individuals, low self-esteem negatively impacts compliance attitudes (brockner, 1984). notably, literature suggests broad links between neuroticism and identification (johnson et al., 2012). as discussed above, organizational identification is driven by the need to establish belongingness to a group and has positive implications for performance (mael & ashforth, 1992). however, given that neurotic people have low self-esteem (eysenck, 1990; watson & clark, 1984), demonstrate broad tendencies of low social conformity (furr & funder, 1998), react more negatively to critical feedback (larsen & ketelaar, 1989) and have ill-defined self-concepts (judge, eres, bono, & thoresen, 2002), we would expect the positive work-related outcomes of high identification to be undermined at higher levels of neuroticism. this may be explained by the fact that as a mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 385 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ result of their unstable emotional structure, neurotic individuals tend to take things more personally under conditions of high identification, with possible implications for job performance. as such, in situations of high organizational identification, the emotional instability associated with neuroticism would likely reduce work-related identification effects. consequently, even though neuroticism does not directly affect job performance (e.g., barick & mount, 1991), it is likely to shape it indirectly. thus: hypothesis 3: neuroticism moderates the relationship between organizational identification and job performance, such that the effects of organizational identification on job performance will be lower at high levels of neuroticism as opposed to low levels of neuroticism. dangerousness at work literature has often discussed the effects of contextual and situational factors on p-o fit (jansen & kristofbrown, 2006). considering the context-laden nature of p-o fit (jansen & kristof-brown, 2006; resick et al., 2007), we explore dangerousness at work, a relatively understudied extreme situational characteristic, which is argued to impact job performance and p-o fit effects on work-related outcomes (demerouti, 2006; lambert et al., 2005; viscousi, 1979). dangerousness at work is defined as the extent to which a job can be physically dangerous and/or unsafe (kim, 1996). some scholars see dangerousness and work hazards as job stressors (lambert et al., 2005; pasupuleti et al., 2009; price, 1997; triplett, mullings, & scarborough, 1999), although this point is controversial (viscousi, 1979) since it might depend on individuals’ profiles. for instance, for individuals high in sensation seeking, who usually display negative attitudes towards safety in the workplace (henning et al., 2009), dangerousness might be faced as less of a negative aspect of work. however, we argue that in mundane physical work, such as construction or industrial work, dangerousness levels would likely be experienced as something to be avoided and would likely be counterproductive to work motivation and performance. indeed, literature suggests that dangerousness might adversely affect the ability to complete work tasks (price, 1997), and discusses its negative implications for job satisfaction and performance (pasupuleti et al., 2009; sousa-poza & sousa-poza, 2000). similarly, research suggests that dangerousness at work enhances conflict, frustration and work stress, and impacts moral and affective job commitment (lambert et al., 2005; triplett et al., 1999). as such, reflecting risky and perilous working conditions, dangerousness has implications for work outcomes (kim, cyphert, & price, 1995; sousa-poza & sousa-poza, 2000) resulting from subjective perceptions of congruence with the working environment (lambert et al., 2012). thus, we argue that dangerousness should negatively underlie p-o fit effects (potentiate misfit) (mcgrath, 1976) on job performance. as such: hypothesis 4: dangerousness at work moderates the relationship between p-o fit and job performance, such that in non-dangerous jobs, the perceived p-o fit would lead people to exhibit better performance, as opposed to (highly) dangerous jobs. method sample and procedure the sample of the study consists of electrical workers working under different levels of dangerous working conditions, in a medium sized firm in the interior of sao paulo state, in brazil. one hundred and nine out of 508 identification & person-organization fit 386 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ employees participated in the study (21%). the survey was given to the hr department, which distributed it to the supervisors and asked them to apply it anonymously upon employees’ arrival at work. all scales were translated and back translated from english to portuguese by native speakers. on average, survey participants had completed high school (m = 1.76, in a scale 1–3, where 1 = primary school, 2 = high school, 3 = university degree), 43 months of employment in the firm, and earned an average monthly salary of 1,642 brazilian reais (approximately 400 u.s. dollars). to date, most research evidence on identification and p-o fit effects has been based on white-collar worker samples from the global north. we complement the latter approach, by studying a blue-collar sample drawn from an objectively dangerous working environment in the interior of brazil. doing so allows us to provide novel perspectives on the relationships that we study. measures identification with organization we measured organizational identification using the 6-item organizational identification scale by mael and ashforth (1992). the scale’s reliability in the current study is acceptable (α = .79) based on a widely adopted threshold of cronbach’s alpha (nunnally, 1967). person–organization fit person–organization fit was measured with a 3-item scale by cable and derue (2002). the cronbach’s alpha score for this scale (α = .75) indicated acceptable reliability. considering the theoretical overlap between organizational identification and fit, as well as their relatively high correlation (r = .58, p < .01), we calculated and compared the square root of average variance extracted (ave) of both constructs with the value of the correlation between them to test for discriminant validity (fornell & larcker, 1981). we found that the square root value of the ave of each construct, identification (√ave = .69) and p-o fit (√ave = .71), was higher than the correlation between them (.58). the latter indicates that the requirement of discriminant validity was met. job dangerousness job dangerousness was assessed according to objective, dichotomous criteria given by the organization, based on functional area. non-dangerous jobs were coded as 1 and dangerous ones as 2. dangerous jobs (69 % of the sample) were defined as those requiring direct exposure to power lines and involving accidents resulting in severe injury (e.g., bursting a kidney or losing a hand), electrical shock or death, in areas like construction, technical maintenance and service of electrical equipment. contrastingly, tasks that were not considered dangerous were performed in such departments of the company as logistics, administration, it support, and finance. job performance job performance was measured using a 3-item one-dimensional scale, first used in the brazilian context by lazzarini, islam, and mesquita (2011). because this scale measured performance at the unit level in 3-year intervals, we adapted the items by changing the referent (chan, 1998) and focusing on the last year’s performance to fit the current work context. the three items used are: my individual performance over the last year was mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 387 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ above average, my individual performance over the last year was excellent, and my group’s performance over the last year was excellent. the measures of scale reliability were acceptable with cronbach’s alpha score equal to .68 and composite reliability index exceeding the commonly adopted threshold of .7 (cr = .71) (hair, ringle, & sarstedt, 2011). additionally, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis of the construct using structural equation modeling (sem) and confirmed that all the factor loadings were significant and above .50. further, the results indicated that the one factor model fit the data well (rmsea < 0.08, cfi > 0.95, cfi > 0.95, srmr < 0.08). the latter in conjunction with the straightforward nature of the questions and their prior use in the brazilian organizational context, provide sufficient evidence that the adaptation of the scale did not significantly change its psychometric properties. agreeableness and neuroticism agreeableness and neuroticism were each measured using the 10-item scale by goldberg et al. (2006). the cronbach’s alpha for this study were .60 and .57 for neuroticism and agreeableness respectively, with composite reliability coefficients higher than .6 (cragreeableness = .61 and crneuroticism = .64). these values remain acceptable, even though the scale has demonstrated better properties in other studies. this might be due to the cultural context where our scale was administered, the relatively low educational level of the sample (36% of the participants attended only primary school and 51% had a high school diploma), and the specific context of the study; an electrical company in the interior of brazil. table 1, in the results section, shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations between study variables. data analysis to analyze our data, we used process in spss (hayes, 2013); a bootstrapping technique used for mediation and moderated mediation models. following the recommendations from the most recent studies on mediation analysis (mackinnon, 2008; preacher & hayes, 2004; preacher, rucker, & hayes, 2007; zhao, lynch, & chen, 2010), we tested hypothesis 1 by first assessing the presence of an indirect effect of the independent variable (organizational identification) on the dependent variable (job performance) via the mediator (p-o fit), using a bootstrapping technique with 5,000 repetitions. we then evaluated if after controlling for the presence of the mediator, the direct effect of organizational identification on job performance was significant. in contrast to the traditional, unidimensional approach to mediation by barron and kenny (1986), the method applied here does not exclude the existence of the mediating effect in the absence of a significant total effect of identification on performance. in fact, most recent studies argue that the condition necessary to clearly demonstrate and justify the presence of a mediating effect between two variables of interest, is to confirm the significance of an indirect effect between the two, regardless of the presence of “an effect to be mediated” (hayes, 2009, 2013; preacher et al., 2007; zhao et al., 2010). this approach has been gaining increasing popularity in the organizational and psychology literature (e.g., mostafa & bottomley, 2018; romani, grappi, & bagozzi, 2013; santos, zanette, kwok, heyman, & lee, 2017) as it allows for more rigorous testing of mediating effects. to test our 1st hypothesis, we used process model 4 designed to test simple mediation (preacher et al., 2007). for hypotheses 2, 3 and 4, we used process model 59 (preacher et al., 2007) (also known as total effect moderation model, [edwards & lambert, 2007]) designed to test moderated mediation. using model 59 allowed us to test all the potential moderating routes of each moderator on the mediation established in hypothesis 1, and identification & person-organization fit 388 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus confer conclusions on the nature of characteristics (personal vs. contextual) affecting identification and po fit work-related outcomes. below we report the results of these analyses. results the results of process model 4 from the spss software that we used to test the 1st mediating hypothesis, showed significant un-hypothesized effects of organizational identification on p-o fit (b = 0.45, p < .01) and of p-o fit on performance (b = 0.30, p < .01). further, the results of the bootstrapping analysis confirmed the existence of a significant indirect mediating relationship between organizational identification and job performance through p-o fit (zero was not interceding in the value interval [0.0457, 0.2699]). the latter provides support for our 1st hypothesis. we also found a non-significant direct effect of organizational identification on job performance (b = -0.03, p = .69); a surprising result given the significant correlation in past studies (riketta, 2005; van knippenberg, 2000). according to the typology of mediation effects proposed by zhao et al. (2010), we were able to find an indirect-only mediation effect, which occurs when the indirect path is significant while the direct path is not. the lack of direct effect in this study might be due to the particular nature of our sample which is recruited from a very different population to the white-collar one usually used in academic research. to test for possible reverse causality effects, we inverted the order of the mediation, testing the possible mediating effect of identification on the p-o fit—job performance relationship. the results were not significant (zero interceding in the value interval, [-0.1863, 0.1003]). table 1 means, standard deviations, correlations and reliabilities variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. identification 5.13 1.45 (.79) 2. p-o fit 5.65 1.13 .58** (.75) 3. job performance 5.53 1.14 .12 .27** (.67) 4. neuroticism 2.23 0.81 -.15 -.11 -.10 (.60) 5. agreeableness 5.89 0.76 .13 .21* .22* -.33** (.57) 6. dangerousness 1.70 0.46 -.29** -.09 .08 .07 .06 note. n = 109. alpha coefficients in the diagonals. sd = standard deviation. *p < .05. **p < .01. to test our 2nd, 3rd and 4th hypotheses, we separately repeated the process model 59 to identify potential moderating effects of neuroticism, agreeableness and job dangerousness on the mediating effect reported above. a non-significant interaction was found between identification and agreeableness on p-o fit (b = -0.16, p = .07). agreeableness was not found to moderate either the identification-performance or the p-o fit-performance relationships. those results do not provide support for our 2nd hypothesis. additionally, neuroticism significantly moderated the relationship between identification and job performance (b = -0.31, p = .03). however, neuroticism neither significantly interacted with identification to induce p-o fit nor with p-o fit to induce job performance. pairwise comparisons revealed a positive significant main effect of identification on job performance for low (b = 0.33, p = .01), but not for highly (b = -0.13, p = .37) neurotic people. those results provide support for our 3rd hypothesis and are depicted in figure 1. mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 389 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. interaction of identification and neuroticism on performance. note. black and grey depict low vs. high levels of identification respectively. low vs. high levels of neuroticism are depicted in the x-axis. finally, dangerousness at work was only found to significantly moderate the relationship between p-o fit and job performance (b = -0.55, p = .04). dangerousness was not found to guide the identification—performance relationship nor that between identification and p-o fit. our results showed a positive main effect of p-o fit on job performance for non-dangerous jobs (b = 0.51, p < .01) but only a marginal effect for dangerous jobs (b = 0.21, p = .07). the latter results support our 4th hypothesis and are depicted in figure 2. the interaction results are shown in table 2, while figure 3 illustrates the results of our full model. figure 2. interaction of dangerousness and p-o fit on job performance. note. black and grey depict low vs. high levels of p-o fit, respectively. dangerous vs. non-dangerous environments are depicted in the x-axis. identification & person-organization fit 390 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 interaction effects of identification with neuroticism, agreeableness, and dangerousness predictor variable criterion variables job performance job performance person-organization fit identification with organization 0.63 1.35 neuroticism 0.73 p-o fit 1.27* dangerousness 1.88 agreeableness 1.05 identification × neuroticism -0.31* identification × agreeableness -0.16† p-o fit × dangerousness -0.55* note. the bs’ weights are reported after each step. †p < .10. *p < .05. figure 3. reported effects of identification and p-o fit on performance. discussion our results suggest that the relationship between organizational identification and job performance is enabled through p-o fit. additional analyses showed that personality and contextual characteristics differently guide identification and p-o fit work-related outcomes. personality appears more closely related to the former and context to the latter. our results extend research treating personality and context as direct antecedents of identification and fit (jansen & kristof-brown, 2006; schneider, 2007). they also build on recent attempts to study the interactive effects of personality and states of perceived work alignment on work-related outcomes (guan, deng, risavy, bond, & li, 2011; resick et al., 2007). similarly, our findings extend recent research citing positive reciprocal links between personal resources (stable individual differences) and work-related outcomes (laguna, razmus, & zalinski, 2017). mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 391 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ corroborating our intuition and previous research arguing on the self-based nature of identification (postmes & jetten, 2006) versus the context-laden nature of p-o fit (edwards et al., 2006; pratt, 1998), we provide evidence that links between identification and job performance are moderated by neuroticism, a trait reflecting different levels of emotional stability. conversely, the p-o fit job performance relationship was only found to be guided by job dangerousness. together those findings indicate that the underlying factors guiding the outcomes of p-o fit and identification on job performance differ in nature. our results also confirm previous findings citing indirect links between identification and job performance (chen et al., 2013; van knippenberg, 2000) and extend those. particularly, van knippenberg (2000) argued that identification only affects performance when high performance is viewed as a shared goal of the group and social identity in the group is strong. similarly, recent research cites the role of work-group identification in enhancing the identification-performance relationship (chen et al., 2013). extending those findings, our study reveals an indirect relationship between identification and job performance, enabled through p-o fit. the latter suggests that fit perceptions might provide a conduit through which organizational identification leads to job performance. proposing that organizational identification relates to work outcomes to the extent that it triggers more proximal relational states, namely p-o fit, we demonstrate how p-o fit can link cognition–organizational identificationwith action–job performance-. further, by investigating the distinct underlying mechanisms shaping identification and p-o fit work outcomes, we show how the two may rely on distinct processes. we find that while personality, particularly neuroticism, does not directly lead to work outcomes (barrick & mount, 1991; judge & bono, 1999), it neutralizes the workrelated outcomes of organizational identification. namely, as expected, neuroticism appeared to negatively moderate the relationship between job identification and performance. as emotional instability, neuroticism may be undermining the positive emotional effects of identification that could affect job performance. however, agreeableness, curiously, did not appear to enhance the link between identification and p-o fit. one could argue that a ceiling effect might exist concerning the extent to which agreeableness can further enhance an already strong relationship between identification and p-o fit. specifically, the effect of agreeableness may be stronger when the employees do not identify highly with their company such that their agreeable personality has a compensatory effect on the perceptions of fit between them and their organization. in fact, additional pairwise comparison analysis revealed a significant effect of agreeableness on p-o fit among low identifiers (b = 0.30, p < .05), yet weaker and insignificant for high identifiers (b = 0.90, p > .1). future studies could explore this venue further to confirm and extend these results. we also consider contextual characteristics, namely dangerousness, to further disentangle differential underlying processes guiding identification and p-o fit work outcomes. our findings suggest that work dangerousness shapes the relation between subjective p-o fit and job performance, such that p-o fit work outcomes are weaker in dangerous job contexts. this finding extends past research arguing that dangerousness affects employee ability to complete job tasks and reduces performance at work (e.g., pasupuleti et al., 2009; price, 1997; sousa-poza & sousa-poza, 2000). we suggest that as a contextual factor, dangerousness primarily changes how people relate to their environment (p-o fit), rather than how they define themselves as members of their group (organizational identification). taken together, our model indicates that work-related outcomes of organizational identification and p-o fit are driven by distinct factors. particularly, we propose that one’s feelings of belongingness and oneness with the identification & person-organization fit 392 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ working context are personality and not context-driven, while work effects of subjectively perceived organizational congruence are context and not personality-driven. our results are in line with previous literature discussing identification as a mainly self-focused process (postmes & jetten, 2006) and subjective p-o fit as a largely contextual one (edwards, 2008; pratt, 1998). considered globally, our findings extend research studying direct identification and p-o fit job outcomes (jansen & kristof-brown, 2006; schneider, 2007) by demonstrating how individual and contextual characteristics can differently drive their respective work-related processes in an underlying manner. similarly, our findings complete and extend research citing linkages between behavioral characteristics and states of perceived employee alignment in predicting job-related outcomes like job performance (nicol et al., 2011; schneider, 2007; vignoles et al., 2006). further, our results contribute to debates on the role of understudied personality traits on organizational identification’s job-related outcomes (e.g., barrick & mount, 1991; hogan & holland, 2003; mount et al., 1998). more broadly, we build on literature citing mutual links between personal resources (such as self-efficacy) and work-related outcomes, such as job engagement (laguna et al., 2017). last but not least, responding to recent calls for research on the individual and contextual factors driving the effects of organizational alignment states (kristof-brown, 2005), we contribute to existing discussions around the differential mechanisms guiding organizational identification and p-o fit (edwards, 2008; pratt, 1998). in doing so, we enhance clarity on the conceptual differences between the two constructs. limitations and future research some limitations to our study remain. first, measuring job performance and personality characteristics with a self-report measure, increases the risk of common method bias and should be interpreted with caution (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). however, since our subjects’ job categories were incommensurable, objective criteria of performance did not exist across categories, making subjective criteria more comparable. precedent for this usage is drawn from past literature (cook, young, taylor, & bedford, 2000; dabke, 2014). further, interaction effects are less likely to be subjected to common method effects (podsakoff et al., 2003) and the main effects of both variables have been established in past literature (ashforth et al., 2008; edwards, 2008; jansen & kristof-brown, 2005). lastly, additional robustness comes from the fact that dangerousness was an objectively measured job characteristic, while the personality instrument used has been widely validated in previous research (hunter et al., 2013). additionally, p-o fit was measured with a 3-item scale potentially disregarding the impact of specific factors shaping employees’ perceptions of subjective fit at work. building on our findings, future research could use longer measures of p-o fit to account for more elements shaping such perceptions of work-place alignment. further, the lack of a longitudinal study design limits our ability to draw conclusions about causality. future research could extend our findings. finally, a relatively small sample size may limit our results’ generalizability. given that the survey was distributed by the hr of the company, its extent was limited, and we could not engage in snowball sampling or global surveying at the company. future research could use bigger samples to replicate those results. in addition, although we have performed additional analyses testing the psychometrical properties of the job performance scale by computing its reliability and performing confirmatory factor analysis, additional tests of construct validity can be performed. for instance, future studies can probe into the criterion validity of the scale mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 393 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and test its ability to predict some well-established job performance outcomes, such as pay-related performance measures or career satisfaction (welbourne, johnson, & erez, 1998). given the extent of scholarly discussion around identification and p-o fit, the integration of these constructs within a framework simultaneously considering both personal and situational moderating variables, seems crucial to the literature. proposing that organizational identification and p-o fit may be operating on different parts of the motivational process (personal engagement vs. situational alignment), we contribute to the debate on the theoretical overlap between these two constructs and delineate conceptual differences between the two. future research could build on our findings and look for other self and context-related constructs differently affecting organizational identification and p-o fit. further, given our current focus on psychological, cognitive and behavioral factors, future research could investigate the role of emotions in guiding the dynamics of our proposed model. for instance, it would not be unexpected to see a neutralizing effect of positive emotions on the way neuroticism drives organizational identification work outcomes. finally, yet importantly, one could test whether objective situational characteristics (i.e., dangerousness) and p-o fit can jointly predict emotional work-related responses, such as trust or anxiety. managerial implications in terms of managerial implications, untangling the effects of identification and p-o fit can be useful in informing organizational policies around worker motivation. specifically, to the extent that companies encourage employees to “wear the hat” of the enterprise, identifying with its culture or brand, it is important to note that such categorization mechanisms may rely on more proximal forms of alignment to be effective, and that such effects are likely to vary by personality and job type. in the absence of fit perceptions, identification alone may be insufficient to provide desired outcomes. similarly, our study suggests that while managers who supervise teams working in safe environments should enhance the employees’ subjective fit with the organization in order to increase their performance, such efforts are not likely to be effective in dangerous contexts. in other words, initiatives enhancing alignment of personal and team goals (downes, kristof-brown, judge, & darnold, 2017) are more likely to promote p-o fit and job performance in administrative departments rather than in areas where the workers are exposed to risks of injury or death. therefore, knowing that dangerousness prevents employees from performing better, even under conditions of high p-o fit, managers should minimize employee exposure to dangerous conditions or try to counterbalance them with the provision of health protection and safety measures (e.g., generous health insurance packages, etc.). in addition, the positive indirect relationship of organizational identification on job performance through p-o fit has implications for managers of employees, who are hired despite potential incompatibility between their and the company’s values. our findings show that such employees are able to improve their alignment with the company, and consequently perform better, once they start to identify with the company. this can be achieved through team building activities, positive communication efforts and favorable climate within the team (albert et al., 2000; smidts, pruyn, & van riel, 2001). also, having shown that neuroticism underlies identification’s effects on job performance, managers in charge of recruitment should consider candidates’ personality profiles. in particular, they should be aware that highly neurotic individuals tend to underperform even under conditions of high identification. thus, they may either identification & person-organization fit 394 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 https://www.psychopen.eu/ give precedence to the emotionally stable candidates or ensure the provision of psychological support to particularly neurotic individuals. conclusion the current paper studies the different underlying processes guiding work-related outcomes of organizational identification and p-o fit. our model proposes that neuroticism underlies job outcomes of organizational identification, whereas dangerousness at work shapes the relationship between perceptions of p-o fit and performance. our results support theory citing identification as a self-oriented process, whose work-related effects are largely shaped by personality characteristics. on the other hand, we find that as a mainly context-dependent variable, p-o fit work outcomes are contingent on contextual characteristics. if considered by managers, our results can help to enhance employee and work environment management and allow employees to achieve the desired performance levels across various working conditions. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references albert, s., ashforth, b. e., & dutton, j. e. 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(2010). reconsidering baron and kenny: myths and truths about mediation analysis. journal of consumer research, 37(2), 197-206. https://doi.org/10.1086/651257 about the authors emmanouela mandalaki is assistant professor of organizations at neoma business school, in france. emmanouela has also served as faculty at the university of los andes, in colombia. emmanouela´s research interests focus on the antecedents and consequences of individuals’ ethical and affective interactions in organizations as well as on factors guiding identity development in organizational settings. some of emmanouela’s scholarly work has been recently published in internationally recognized academic outlets and other is expected for publication in the near future. gazi islam is professor of people, organizations and society at grenoble ecole de management. he has served as faculty at insper, tulane university, and the university of new orleans. he is currently section editor for psychology and business ethics in the journal of business ethics. his current research interests include the organizational antecedents and consequences of identity, and the relations between identity, group dynamics and the production of group and organizational cultures. urszula lagowska is a researcher at escola brasileira de administração pública e de empresas, getulio vargas foundation (fgv/ebape) in rio de janeiro. urszula’s research interests are centered on value-oriented leadership in the context of identity work in organizations. more specifically, her work examines the effects of leadership styles in the context of social identity threat experience, as well as differential outcomes of leadership structures and styles on employee outcomes. camila tobace is a financial planning analyst, specializing in the energy sector. her previous affiliations include the insper institute for education and research, and the institute for administration foundation (fia), sao paulo. her academic interests include the financial and human aspects of management in the energy industry. mandalaki, islam, lagowska, & tobace 403 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 380–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1518 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1086%2f651257 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ identification & person-organization fit (introduction) identification and p-o fit as distinct workplace processes method sample and procedure measures data analysis results discussion limitations and future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors representations of death among italian vegetarians: an ethnographic research on environment, disgust and transcendence research reports representations of death among italian vegetarians: an ethnographic research on environment, disgust and transcendence ines testoni* a, tommaso ghellar b, maddalena rodelli a, loriana de cataldo a, adriano zamperini a [a] fisppa department, university of padova, padova, italy. [b] clinical and social psychologist, padova, italy. abstract this paper focuses on the motives for vegetarian choices in contemporary italian food culture, with specific reference to the role of the representations of death. the study adopts a qualitative research design aimed at an in-depth exploration of the reasons for avoiding meat, following an ethnographic method. twenty-two participants (55% women, 45% men) aged 19-74, all vegetarians or vegans, mainly from northern and central italy, were involved. data from the interpretative phenomenological analysis were examined according to the qualitative thematic analysis: the results show the role of death in the construction of disgust towards meat, running parallel with an emphasis on spirituality, ethical treatment of animals and the environment as reasons for avoiding meat, in particular, the concerngenerating disgust and its relationship with the representation of death as a contaminating essence. the basis of disgust lies in this connection, from which the idea that oral consumption of contaminants characterized by corruptive properties, passing through the flesh of dead animals to humans, derives. the role of anti-speciesism is considered as a latent perspective, which may influence the vegetarian and vegan choices. keywords: vegetarianism, veganism, representations of death, anti-speciesism, transcendence, animal dignity, environmentalism europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 received: 2016-09-18. accepted: 2017-04-17. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of philosophy, sociology, pedagogy and applied psychology (fisppa), via venezia 14, 35131 padova – italy. tel. 00390498276646. e-mail: ines.testoni@unipd.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the importance of social factors in food choices has been thoroughly examined in various studies, exploring how motivations are prioritized in various cultures (bisogni, connors, devine, & sobal, 2002; drewnowski, 1997; steptoe, pollard, & wardle, 1995). italy is famous for its artistic historical artefacts, and its cuisine is an important part of this cultural heritage. indeed, food and how to cook it are very popular topics, and people of differing ages and backgrounds happily engage in conversations about food, restaurants and where to eat well. italians are domestic tourists, precisely because food is an important feature of their travels. this interest is testified to by countless cookery magazines, inserts in newspapers and tv programs, which emphasize the diversification of regional food-related traditions. the media also represents a strong influence, on one hand, nurturing the wish to have a varied diet and try out new foods and, on the other, maintaining the importance of diversification. tradition and home cooking still occupy a prominent place in an omnivorous diet, especially eating meat, which is one of the essential ingredients in almost all the most important recipes of main courses, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ which include pork, lamb, veal, mutton, poultry and game birds, and even horsemeat. indeed, vegetarianism is still considered as the unusual choice of an eccentric minority which, however, has been recognized as passing through culinary traditions thanks to a worldwide process promoted by the mass media, which alert population to the fact that low consumption of vegetables and excessive meat are associated with diet-related diseases (farragher, wang, & worsley, 2016; wang et al., 2014). this social awareness is now an important public health goal so that vegetarianism is progressively becoming more popular, and meat-free products are more readily available (coveney, 2006). the denial of animal products is expressed in various forms, ranging from vegetarianism to veganism. the latter requires humans to avoid all animal products used for food, clothing or other purposes, whereas the former (“lacto-ovo vegetarianism”) allows them to consume dairy products and eggs. today, the emergence of a vegetarian-oriented dietary style is supported by multifactor motivations related to new forms of ethical awareness, which are principles resulting from various moral viewpoints ranging from the improved quality of life to the personal sacrifice inherent in renunciation. the former belong to secular perspectives respecting healthy motivations, including personal shape and weight benefits, the dignity of animals, disgust or repugnance at eating flesh, and environmental and ecological advantages (beardsworth & keil, 1992; hoek, luning, stafleu, & de graaf, 2004; povey, wellens, & conners, 2001; rozin, markwith, & stoess, 1997; whorton, 1994). in this sphere, “food mavenism” (competences regarding food shared among members of groups) is an important factor concerned mainly with keeping the body free of the pollution associated with meat (somers, worsley, & mcnaughton, 2014). conversely, beyond the concerns inherent in the quality of food, the abstention from meat also characterizes religious ethics. historically speaking, this kind of habit has, in fact, motivated people since ancient times (spencer, 1993), to the extent that it remains a fundamental element of many eastern religions, such as hinduism, buddhism, jainism, confucianism, sikhism and taoism (fraser, 2002; simoons, 1994; walters & portmess, 2001). in these countries, vegetarianism has been firmly established for centuries, being associated with tradition, power and status, and has inspired both religious and secularist perspectives. in western countries, the decision to convert from a meat-eating diet is made for a range of reasons, including concerns about animal welfare, rights and martyrdom, environmental sustainability, personal health, values, gender roles, and other cultural factors (farragher et al., 2016; thomas, 2016; ruby, 2012), which are intertwined with oriental symbolisms. this complexity confirms that vegetarianism is not just a matter of taste but rather implies the most profound dimensions, assigning significance to the existence of both individuals and the entire planet (lindeman & sirelius, 2001). this idea has been discussed from various perspectives, among which one is the antispeciesism (cohen & regan, 2001; regan, 2004). anti-speciesism, which is not a widespread perspective, denounces the anthropocentric orientation and its predetermined criteria for defining the species membership, notably the domination of humankind over other animals. it tries to confute the supposed right of humans to manage the death processes (killing) of animals, considering the difficulties deriving from the fact that equality among species is impossible, as their capacities and intelligence are so variable (cohen & regan, 2001; regan, 2004). from this viewpoint, the vegetarian choice is a way of respecting a different understanding of the systemic interactions between individuals, societies and the environment (fox & ward, 2008). disgust can be considered an elective emotion expressing this interaction. however, the literature has not yet sufficiently stressed the latent relationship between this effect and the representations of death inherent in this alimentary testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 379 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ style. the rozin school proposes that disgust is functional to protect the body from eating pathogens and toxic substances (rozin, haidt, & mccauley, 1999). although disgust is intimately linked to defending the body or self from contamination, it is easily extended to death-related domains. the terror management theory (tmt), which emphasizes the role of the fear of death in the social construction of culture and in the construction of an individual’s values (greenberg, solomon, & pyszczynski, 1997), has amply shown how disgust is fundamentally linked to reference to the animality of humans, which reminds them of their own mortality (haidt, mccauley, & rozin, 1994; goldenberg et al., 2001). tmt researchers argue that many aspects of disgust help defend against the existential anxiety accompanying the realization of one's own mortality. disgust is, therefore, a defensive emotion which maintains and emphasizes the line dividing humans, characterized by an immortal principle (the soul) and animals (mere biological flesh) (testoni, de cataldo, ronconi, & zamperini, 2017; testoni, parise, visintin, zamperini, & ronconi, 2016). indeed, the hierarchy between the inferiority of the finitude of flesh vs. the superiority of human thought (wolfe, 2009) also characterizes the conflictual intergroup relationships (haslam, 2006), where the reference to the animality of the outgroup members arouses negative emotions, disgust, rejection and violence towards such individuals (testoni et al., 2017; zamperini & menegatto, 2013, 2015). similarly, concerns about reducing the human essence to the animal state produce many bioethical discussions in the management of death and dying (capozza, visintin, falvo, & testoni, 2015; testoni, falletti, visintin, ronconi, & zamperini, 2016). in all such complex social behaviours, the representations of death (testoni, ancona, & ronconi, 2015) along with the anti-speciesism result to be particularly important. it is possible to consider vegetarianism and veganism as behavioural expressions of the individually unknown anti-speciesist view; that means, as the result of cultural dynamics involving more and more societies and individuals in the salvation of the planet equilibrium, reducing the right of humans to kill other animals. in this paper, we explore the ways in which dietary practices may lead to the emergence of the implicit role of life–death representations. in particular, we examine whether vegetarianism is symbolically mediated by disgust and whether this emotion ostensibly prevents us from being afraid of death. we analyse the cultural factors involved in refusing to eat meat, considering values linked to the representations of food and the body and their relationship with the representations of death and spirituality. from our point of view, vegetarianism may be considered an antispecist practice, which does not differentiate animality from humanity, but which aims at unifying these dimensions to save both of them from death. the ecological perspective assumed by vegetarians and vegans, therefore, represents the integration of the health needs of both the environment and individuals. from this perspective, the fear of death may be recognized as inherent not only to single individuals but as the connotation of an ecological ethics which expresses, through vegetarianism, the will to give a future to the entire planet, including its animals. materials and methods this study has two main aims. one is to consider the theme of vegetarianism and veganism in its phenomenology; the other is to analyse the role of the representation of death in order to offer a new construct not yet present in the literature on this theme. our standpoint is that vegetarianism is an anti-speciesist practice, which assimilates animality to human nature, instead of differentiating them, aimed at saving both representations of death and vegetarianism 380 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from death. we used qualitative data in order to understand how vegetarians represent the relationships between death and the choice to live. the literature shows that the range of vegetarianism to veganism is complex. in the opinion of ruby (2012), there are six types of vegetarians: type i are those who consider themselves vegetarian, yet occasionally eat red meat or poultry; type ii avoid consuming meat and poultry; type iii also avoid fish; type iv also exclude eggs; type v exclude dairy products produced with rennet, and type vi (vegans) consume only vegetablederived foods, avoiding all animal-derived food products. in our research, the inclusion criteria were the following: (a) being at least vegetarian type ii; (b) eliminating meat from daily food must have lasted uninterruptedly for at least one year; (c) speaking italian; (d) aged at least 18 years old; (e) being motivated to participate in the research. participants and procedure the italian master's course in death studies and the end of life provided organizational support to this study by contacting several religious and health associations. an independent and trained interviewer, with no previous contacts with these associations, recruited the participants. a total of 22 participants included 12 women (55%) and 10 men (45%), vegetarians (55%) and vegans (45%), predominantly from northern and central italy, aged 19 to 74. they had eliminated animal products from their lives for a minimum of one year and a maximum of 34 years (average 7.7). four participants were atheists and 3 agnostics; 7 defined themselves as “spiritual, but not religious” and 8 were members of a catholic prayer community. since people’s motivations for being vegetarian are not static and may change widely over time (beardsworth & keil, 1992), we asked participants to think about all the reasons they could remember why they had adopted their aim. in order to help them, we suggested some specific prefigured themes, derived both from the literature and the research aims: (a) diet description (participants were asked to provide information about their dietary choices); (b) period and context of their change in diet (when they made their vegetarian/vegan choice, i.e., the underlying reasons for their renunciation); (c) influence of diet on quality of life (in particular, whether their vegetarian/vegan diet had improved their quality of life); (d) spirituality, religious beliefs and belonging to religious groups; (e) representation of life and death (with participants' own definition of death and life through metaphors); (f) representation of animals' lives and death. all interviews were conducted from may to june 2016, using participant observation and interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa: gill, 2014; denzin, 1995) and taking part in many formal and informal meetings (food-related gatherings, spiritual and prayer meetings). after participants had signed the informed consent form, they were encouraged to talk freely; interruptions and time restrictions were avoided. each interview lasted about 60 minutes. all participants were interviewed individually, face-to-face, while their narrations were recorded and transcribed, to be further analysed. data analysis this study pertains to the field of qualitative research in psychology (camic et al., 2003; pedrazza & berlanda, 2014), through the interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) (gill, 2014; denzin, 1995) within the grounded ethnographic method (glaser & strauss, 1967). the combination of the emic view of the participants and the interpretative etic view of the researchers helps the understanding of cultural issues about health (oliffe & bottorff, 2006; pedrazza & boccato, 2012; pedrazza et al., 2016; sanjek, 2000). following the core-q testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 381 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ check-list (tong, sainsbury, & craig, 2007), our analysis is theory-driven, framing interpretations within the theories of rozin and collaborators (1997), the tmt (greenberg et al., 1997), and furthermore informed by antispecist and ecologist perspectives. the object of the analysis is the interpretative repertory, which is a system of terms used to characterize and to value choices and considered as the gleaming of wider symbolic systems able to indicate the sense of avoiding meat. data have been analysed using the framework method for thematic qualitative analysis, which allows sources to be examined in terms of their principal concepts or themes (marshall & rossman, 1999). two researchers used this approach, which is particularly appropriate, especially in ethnographic health care research (pope, zeibland, & mays, 2000). the process was developed on the basis of both prior categories and categories which only became clear as analysis proceeded. the former were the basic “pre-fabricate themes” from which the latter emerged as unexpected topics. the process was divided into six main phases: preparatory organization; generation of categories or themes; coding data; testing emerging understanding; searching for alternative explanations; writing up the report (marshall & rossman, 1999). this method applies some of the principles of argumentation theory (toulmin, 1958), which explores connections between explicit statements and implicit meanings of discourses (attride-stirling, 2001). thematic analysis was performed with atlas.ti, which is a software that allows us to identify thematic networks. the analysis results in network graphs, describing logical relationships between concepts and categories identified by researchers. the topic areas then form the basis for the structure of the report, within which extracts may be used to illustrate key findings. results and discussion the analysis allowed us to highlight three dominating themes: (a) death as basis of disgust; (b) life as quality of environment; (c) spirituality of life. death as the basis of disgust in an individual’s reasons for avoiding meat at the heart of this first prevalent semantic area is the view that animals should not be mistreated since their sacrifice is also deleterious to human health (see [8:40], table 1). the individual perspective is linked on one hand to the perception of disgust and, on the other, to the representation of health (see figure 1). as in rozin et al. (1997), we collocated this first motivation factor in the area of “health vegetarianism”. in this area, dietary choices were perceived as central to good health and longevity (see [2:15], table 1). in fact, the experience of conversion was often linked to physical unease and to a desire to become a better person, and the change to a vegetarian diet was directly linked with an improvement in health (see [12:5], [5:7], table 1). as emphasized by rozin et al. (1997), the perception of disgust is an important component in the maintenance of this kind of choice (see [23:44], table 1). although health reasons were an initial motivator, they were also a justification for continuing to follow a meat-free diet. animalistic ethics represents meat eating as both immoral and dangerous for human equilibrium. as described by hamilton (2006), we observed a constant representation of the consumption of meat as a viaticum of contamination and sickness (see [8:7], table 1). as reported by fox and ward (2008), the principle of identity “you are what you eat” intervenes as a crucial element in the motivation. in fact, in our research too, we found that respect for animals was associated with the belief that not consuming meat causes desirable changes in human personality and psychobiological representations of death and vegetarianism 382 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ health: (see [18:51], table 1). our in-depth interviews traced an essential element of this concern generating disgust: the representation of death as a contaminating essence. the principle of corruption, which passes through meat, is death since flesh derived from dead animals is represented as part of a corpse which transmits its deadly principle and the suffering of killing (see [16:18], table 1). the disgust derives from the oxymoron structured on the representation of animals as corpses and their state when they were alive. table 1 health vegetarianism codes grounded quotation adulterated meat 2 [8:7] it's also a health issue because, in fact, it is known that meat is often full of hormones to inflate it, that’s why it loses volume when you cook it, it’s because it was just full of water. aesthetic/ideal weight 5 [5:2] when i was in eighth grade i started gaining weight, so our family doctor suggested that mother takes me to have some tests done and the results showed that i had thyroid problems. so i went to a centre for childhood obesity in montebelluna, and there they found that i had an insulin resistance and thyroid problems. figure 1. death as the basis of disgust. note. in each box of the graph, the first number in brackets indicates the quotations size (total number of quotations of the code), while the second number indicates the quotation cited in the text as examples. testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 383 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ codes grounded quotation animals are defenceless, eating them “is upsetting” 2 [4:19] most animals are defenceless creatures. bothered by the texture of the meat between the teeth 1 [17:5] i have never liked to eat meat because of its taste and texture. i mean, the texture of the meat between my teeth had always bothered me. decreased negative emotions 5 [18:51] it decreases your aggressiveness . . . and especially the agitation of the mind so that you have less violent, angry and passionate thoughts. disgusted by the visualization of the entire body of the animal 2 [8:3] it upsets me to clean fish, i know how to do it, but now it repels me if it is a whole fish. eating meat is dangerous 2 [8:7] it's also a health issue because, in fact, it is known that meat is often full of hormones to inflate it, that’s why it loses volume when you cook it, it’s because it was just full of water. eating meat is immoral 3 [4:19] most animals are defenceless creatures. food renounce produces wellbeing 3 [5:7] i ate mainly salad for six months and my thyroid settled down. health impairment 3 [12:5] for example, as concerns my joint pains, i had serious problems of periarthritis and in the last years i completely resolved them with alimentation; so, when my shoulders hurt, i know that i need to further restrict my diet, that is, stop eating even dairy products and eggs, eliminate yeast and a number of other things; however, further restrictions within a vegetarian diet make you feel much better. improved lifestyle 4 [1:7] it has surely improved my lifestyle. increased wellbeing 7 [2:15] yes, yes. no well, but i really feel much better since i do not eat meat. loss of energy 1 [19:42] at some point, i felt a great fatigue, a really chronic fatigue. i could not climb the stairs in my house anymore, go out, go to work, i was struggling. natural = healthy 6 [20:10] changing and going back to basics and origins, with the food for excellence, that is fruit, vegetable etc, direct products from the earth. positive psychological influence/reduced the cognitive dissonance 5 [6:13] well, it has become more honest! precisely for that reason! my values coincide with what i do. slaughtered meat is not food, is death 1 [16:18] you can find more death than life in supermarkets. animals brutally raised and murdered to end up in pieces, wrapped up in plastic wrap. smell of meat 2 [23:44] however, over the years you develop a special sensitivity, so that the idea of eating meat repels you, really even the smells, because your body is no longer accustomed to it; also the very strong smells of meat bother you. the meat of animal that has suffered in life it's not health/it has a worse taste 2 [8:40] because i am also sure that the mistreatment suffered by farmed animals affects the body in some way; i mean that . . . i am not able to explain it clearly, so it may seem that i am saying rubbish . . . i cannot explain you in what sense, and i am willing to think that it is just my imagination; i'm not talking about magic influences or negativity or things like that which, in my opinion are not quite tangible, but … i: so, this would affect your well-being in the end? yes, in the end, yes! i think it's not healthy to eat the flesh of a body that has suffered in life. visualizing the animal alive 2 [8:11] i remember that the last time i ate meat it was hard for me to separate the emotional value from what i was doing, i mean that i was eating this piece of chicken, chicken with potatoes, a very normal thing . . . i remember exactly the physical sensation of discomfort! because i could not stop thinking about the live animal. visualizing the animal’s death 1 [8:20] when i used to eat meat, i thought about the animal while he was being killed. this really bothers me. note. the table reports the codes related to the different motivations underpinning a vegetarian diet, the number of quotations identified by each code and one example of quotation for each code. the quotations are translated literally from a plain and not always correct italian into english. life is the quality of the environment, and the lack of quality is death the first reason for constructing an ecological health, which guarantees a future for the planet by limiting pollution, is the further and more transcendental basis of the vegetarian choice (wilson, weatherall, & butler, 2004) (see figure 2). representations of death and vegetarianism 384 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. life as environmental quality. note. in each box of the graph, the first number in brackets indicates the quotations size (total number of quotations of the code), while the second number indicates the quotation cited in the text as examples. following rozin et al. (1997), we set this second cluster of motivations within the area of semantic prevalence inherent to “ethical vegetarianism” (table 2). the literature shows that vegetarianism has been linked to concerns about the environmental and ecological impact of meat production (gaard, 2002; hoek et al., 2004; kalof, dietz, stern, & guagnano, 1999). this kind of motivation describes vegetarianism not as a mere diet but as an efficient way of confirming the validity of a broader lifestyle orientation (see [7:30], table 2). even though we have not found that this was the reason for refusing meat, this reason always appeared in all the narrations, assuming a tripartite form. the first component was in regard to the environmental benefits, running in parallel with personal health and spiritual advantages (see [20:22], table 2). many participants, whose first explanations were personal health, also described a range of environmental commitments aimed at protecting the life of the earth (see [6:8], table 2). in this context, vegetarianism and veganism are part of a wider view in which humans are considered as destructively affecting life on the planet (see [5:29], table 2). testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 385 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 ethical vegetarianism codes grounded quotation changing diet, changes the relationship with animals 4 [20:25] it is only over time and over the years that i started to feel there was a different relationship between me and animals, precisely because i stopped seeing them as food. criticizing the economic model and the market logic 9 [6:8] well, if we have a critical approach, it is far too evident; if we do not want tropical forests to be cut down, maybe, it would be better for the world not to eat meat, because we could feed much more people with field products than with meat. denial of human arrogance 1 [8:37] it is not so much the fact that there is no sense, it is arrogance with no right to appeal that bothers me. eating like non-human primates: man is an animal 6 [19:19] if we observe non-human primates, with whom, anyhow, we share about the 98 percent of our dna, we can see that they live on nature’s wild fruits. otherwise, to get animal proteins, they live on small insects or, anyway, animals… i mean small animals. anyway, their main source of food is fruit….fruit and vegetables. environmental criticism: intensive farming and pollution 17 [10:11] i definitely agree when people say we must eat organic stuff deriving from non-intensive farms and from the farmer. humans guests of the planet 5 [7:30] we are not the masters of this world, and we have no right to destroy it before both animals and people will be able to benefit from it in the future because we have abused of its resources. life of animals: everybody at the same level 7 [19:35] in my opinion there aren’t form of life superior to others. love for animals 6 [14:3] i am vegan because i fight for the animal rights. because i love animals. moving away from nature is wrong 12 [5:29] if we look at what we are doing to nature, maybe we can say we are acting against it. that is, if we look at the way the world runs, we are acting pretty much the opposite way; just think about pollution or about all these factors…. and, to tell the truth, we are just acting against ourselves because nature might take revenge on us afterwards; this is not a useful way of living. natural = healthy 6 [20:22] we are nature, we are an integral part of it and living in the separation we normally experience can lead only to illness. nonviolence/denial of death 16 [18:13] my position is not radicalism, but if someone who is defenceless must be defended, we have to do it; if justice must be defended, we have to do it, but avoiding killing is a great ideal; therefore, eating without killing is important. not wanting to contribute to the suffering of animals 7 [7:14] then when i found out some more information, i saw documentaries and i discovered many other things. i said: “ok, i do not want to contribute to this.” philanthropic factor 8 [7:2] i would not limit it only to that because, when i can, not only do i avoid eating animal products, foods of animal origin, and so on, but i also try to buy fair-trade foods and, now, i would also like to try to reduce waste. respect for life cycles and for seasonality 1 [19:8] at least, during the summer or during periods when there is plenty of fruit and vegetables; otherwise, it is more difficult during the winter because there is less variety… so i always add to my diet steam-cooked vegetables, or foods that, let's say, are a compromise, such as whole foods, brown rice, whole-grain pasta or potatoes. even though these are cooked, let’s say they are acceptable. sacrifice 3 [2:8] it was not easy, not at all. as a matter of fact, i started four years ago, but with breaks, well not really breaks, with periods during which i ate meat because i felt the desire to eat it, in other words, it’s not easy! or, maybe, you feel you have some deficiencies, you really don’t know what they are, so you start to think “i don’t know, maybe it is because i don’t eat meat”. well, yes, this transition has been a little hard in the first years; now i would say i can do it. the life of animals is important as human life/ animals have emotions as humans 16 [14:15] animals have different emotions as we do, and this fact is undeniable. animals are afraid, happy, hungry and thirsty just like us. why should their destiny be different from ours? only because they are not protected by someone that can speak up for them, but cows and pigs are afraid and suffer just like we do. waste 3 [23:31] there are animals that are farmed and brutally killed so that we can eat, sometimes even excessively, really excessively. there is an excessive consumption of meat; it is also a waste, isn’t it? so, i mean, many more animals than what we can really eat are killed. and they are also reared in a brutal way. note. the table reports the codes related to the different motivations underpinning a vegetarian diet, the number of quotations identified by each code and one example of quotation for each code. the quotations are translated literally from a plain and not always correct italian into english. representations of death and vegetarianism 386 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the second reason was the production and consumption of organic food seen as the final result of environmental equilibrium (see [10:11], table 2). control of the food production chain, which implies consumers' mavenism, is based on competence about the state of health of the earth. therefore, our participants indicated a number of pledges, such as reducing the use of energy and petrol for cars, limiting the amount of waste, promoting recycling, planting trees, growing vegetables in kitchen gardens, volunteering for environmental clean-ups (see “i help the earth to survive by doing a little work for the oceans”; see [16:16], [5:29], [7:2], table 2). the third reason was respect for animals. this element of ethical vegetarianism aims at minimizing harm to animals to be used as food or for other reasons (fessler, arguello, mekdara, & macias, 2003). the wish to avoid killing animals for human consumption was one of the main reasons given for becoming vegetarian (see [18:13], [14:15], table 2). both human health and animal health are part of a nexus which contributes positively to the environment: “we too should be part of nature but, at the same time, nature must be able to live without us; in my opinion, in the end, we are just guests here” (see [5:27], table 2). not consuming meat is thus a sacrifice to be made by individuals as part of an ethical commitment, which includes the wellbeing of both animals and humans (see [2:8], table 2). against death: the spiritual dimension of life is beyond meat and religion our participants reported a wide range of issues beyond examples of diets and contributing to their existential reflection (see figure 3). figure 3. against death. note. in each box of the graph, the first number in brackets indicates the quotation size (total number of quotations of the code), while the second number indicates the quotation cited in the text as examples. testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 387 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the third dimension consists in the awareness that, in western cultures, vegetarianism is an alternative way of life, holistically oriented by mystical practices influenced by eastern but also universal symbolism: “from a very spiritual point of view, it helps the state of prayer, it promotes deification, it promotes the contact with the divine world because in some way we are re-assimilated to it, by eating in a way unrelated to violence and killing; it also makes your glands work in a different way, your mind works in a different way, you develop clairvoyant and sensitive abilities and prophetic qualities. above all, meditation, which was widely practiced in early christianity, and deep prayer are less disturbed. they are facilitated” (see [18:21], table 3). health often triggered these people's choice but, once adopted, eliminating meat from the diet became an aim in itself, a vector of ideological and philosophical commitment extending beyond health: “as for me, i realized it was thanks to the lifestyle choice i made, it was therefore related to meditation. in order to meditate, you have to stop eating meat because it does not help you to get deeper inside yourself”; “everything is in relation to meditation and, in my opinion, meditation means well-being. that is, since i have been practicing it, i am much calmer. i mean, everything is functional, that's not why i do it” (see [23:42], [17:24], table 3). not eating meat conveyed much more than physical engagements; it also involved a plethora of cognitive, emotional, cultural and philosophical relations with concepts of purity, integrity and holism: “eating meat, fish and taking a lot of medicines can be dangerous if you practice the headstand yoga position, blood inversion. your blood must be quite clean”, “meat increases aggressiveness a lot and this can be felt clearly”; “they say that, from a mental and psychological point of view, the vegetarian diet helps clarity of mind, memory, the ability to concentrate. and this was also written in ancient texts . . . even the ancient greeks said this, and the same idea was later accepted by all the christian fathers. it decreases your aggressiveness . . . especially agitation of the mind, so that you have fewer violent, angry, passionate thoughts, and so on” (see [24:36], [12:8], [18:20], table 3). this third level of justification explicitly translated the concept of health into that of salvation. this kind of enlightenment unified both atheists and religious believers in a common perspective, independently of faith in god: “other people came to meditate with us . . . some sufi friends, so they were muslims, and until recently there was an indian monk who stayed with us. he also meditated with us . . . so we are very open-minded. but what we are trying to do is to help people just a little, to discover the spirituality existing inside everybody” (see [23:14], table 3). biocentrism seems to unify these two opposite groups of vegetarians, allowing religious believers to go beyond the doctrinal perspective which considers animals as mere biological matter, without souls and thus merely as objects satisfying human desires: “the manifestation is spirit, the spirit is in everything. in plants, in animals, in things . . . yes, reality is one, we are . . . if we knew how to vibrate spiritually, as we are made for, we would be in communication with everything, with everyone and everything” (see [24:23], table 3). these participants showed that they were aware that science demonstrated that there is no clear line separating humankind from other animals and that human exceptionalism remains central to the human sense of communal self-worth. representations of death and vegetarianism 388 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 spiritual vegetarianism codes grounded quotations decreased negative emotions 5 [18:20] they say that, from a mental and psychological point of view, the vegetarian diet helps the clarity of mind, the memory, the ability to concentrate. and this is written in ancient texts eh . . . even the ancient greeks said this, then this same idea was picked up by all the christian fathers afterwards. it decreases your aggressiveness . . . and especially the agitation of the mind, so that you have less violent, angry, passionate thoughts, and so on. denial of human arrogance 1 [8:37] it is not so much the fact that there is no sense, it is arrogance with no right to appeal that bothers me. importance of the ingroup 11 [23:9] as soon as i learnt about the “ricostruttori” movement, i stopped eating meat. increased perception 13 [15:25] i was happy while i was walking, when i went out for a walk i had a more real perception of the world around me, like if everything was alive. the colors are brighter and the perception is more immediate. meat increases aggressiveness 1 [12:8] meat greatly increases aggressiveness and this can be felt clearly, so also in this sense. meditation = wellbeing 3 [17:24] everything is in relation to meditation and, in my opinion, meditation means well-being. that is, since i have been practising meditation i am much more calm. i mean, everything is functional, it is not that i do it for . . . meditation as prayer 9 [23:17] people consider meditation in various ways, for somebody it could be just a form of relax. in my opinion meditation is a form of prayer. and because it’s a prayer it allows you to reach the infinity, to stay with the lord. meditation in order to find equilibrium 2 [11:31] i am full of contradictions, they are the engine that had led me here; they pushed me to search for something else, maybe happiness, serenity. a better balance of what i have. a strong push for change, to be better, to feel better than i am. meditation: preparing to die 22 [12:23] the manifestation is spirit, the spirit is in everything. in plants, in animals, in things . . . yes, reality is one, we are . . . if we were, if we knew how to vibrate as we are made for, we would be in communication with everything, with everyone and everything. meditation: technique not related to a specific religion 6 [23:14] other people came to meditate with us . . . some sufi guys, who therefore are muslims, and until recently there was this indian monk who stayed with us. and he also meditated with us . . . so we are very open minded. but what we are trying to do is help people just a little, to discover the spirituality existing inside everybody. nonviolence / denial of death 16 [18:11] at the very beginning it was just an ethical choice. so, once they told me that you can also eat without killing animals, it made sense to me, so if you can, it is better to avoid killing. not wanting to contribute to animal suffering 7 [11:6] although i liked meat, i understood it meant a lot of cruelty. practising yoga while eating meat is dangerous 2 [12:36] they explained to me that eating meat, fish and taking a lot of medicines can be dangerous if you practice the headstand yoga position, of the blood inversion. the blood must be rather clean. it bothered me not to go on with this things, so i decided to try. promotes prayer 4 [18:21] from the very spiritual point of view, it helps the state of prayer, it promotes deification, it promotes the contact with the divine world because in some way we are re-assimilated to it, by eating in a way unrelated to violence and killing; it also makes your glands work in a different way, it makes your mind work in a different way, you develop clairvoyant and sensitivity abilities, the ability to penetrate in . . . (missing audio) and prophetic qualities. and, above all, meditation, which was widely practised in early christianity, and deep prayer are less disturbed. they are more facilitated. sacrifice 3 [11:11] sometimes i feel tempted, there are things i still miss. useful for the meditative practice 24 [23:42] as for myself specifically, i realized it, thanks to the lifestyle choice i made, therefore related to meditation. in order to meditate you have to stop eating meat because it does not help you to go deeper inside. note. the table reports codes related to the different motivations underpinning a vegetarian diet, the number of quotations identified by each code and one example of quotation for each code. the quotations are translated literally from a plain and not always correct italian into english. the perspective delineated in this research substantially seems to corroborate the idea that the concept of human uniqueness, which consists of denying animals psychological characteristics (see, secondary testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 389 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions), is a strategy of meat-eaters’ moral disengagement (bilewicz, imhoff, & drogosz, 2011; marino & mountain, 2015). in particular, vegetarians ascribe to animals emotions and characteristics that are commonly perceived as unique to humans (bilewicz et al., 2011) and are less likely to endorse hierarchic domination than omnivores (allen, wilson, ng, & dunne, 2000). we may, therefore, assume that vegetarians have a protectionist orientation (blouin, 2013) characterized by bio-centric rather than anthropocentric orientation towards animals, viewing them as beings with elevated status and their own rights, and this biocentrism is spiritually linked to the idea of salvation of the earth from death, considered as a transcendental living dimension. conclusions among the 22 participants in this study, different initial motivations for vegetarianism were identified: personal health, disgust, animal welfare, environmentalism, and transcendence. health was a significant motivator, both in terms of reducing symptoms of illness or discomfort and as a preventive measure to avoid a range of minor and major illnesses. ethical reasons concerning animal welfare and the environment further motivated almost all participants for both affective and philosophical reasons, evoking transcendence and spirituality. these results show that it is impossible to reduce disgust for meat to the fear of being similar to animals. the representations of death certainly play an important role, but it is different from tmt. first, death is considered as a contaminating principle, which passes from meat to the body. since actions are assembled and understood through a process in which different kinds of phenomena are instantiated at different levels of experience, the anti-speciesism theory may help interpretation of our results. our participants feel as an integral part of the earth. therefore, they consider each other not only as individual alone but rather as a part of the environment in which the can find themselves and where they act. much of the subject matter of motivations, such as morality and causation, relies heavily on basic metaphors derived from the experience of contact with nature growing progressively. in fact, although environmentalism is not a primary motivator for vegetarianism, it finally emerges as part of a generalization of a narrower original focus, perhaps as awareness of the sense of one's initial behaviour. as the anti-speciesism indicates, this means that not only do values and beliefs affect behaviour, but behaviour, starting from existential and moral experiences, in turn, also influences perspectives and beliefs. the representation of the environmental feedback inherent in the manipulation of animal death may imply perception on the part of the body of the return of the mortal action to the agents: killing animals and eating their flesh signifies murdering the environment and the human body as well. the behaviour of vegetarians and vegans seems to be possibly considered part of a wider moral perspective, in which humans could be represented as detrimentally affecting life on the planet. if so, dietary choices would be the first element of a concern to redress this damaging impact. we conclude that the motivations for vegetarianism are complex, following trajectories which extend, in both terms of behaviours and values, initially adopted unwittingly, along the path of a shared reflexive awareness, becoming public. the visible component of ongoing practices, used to build the systematic action of eating, is a manifestation of a universal need for survival of which humans are an expression. vegetarianism and veganism are becoming increasingly embedded within environmentalism although they are not in themselves the initial motivation for a meat-free diet. indeed, from the starting point of bodily instances, additional reasons for this decision are progressively added, as individuals become increasingly complex but also more and more conscious as individuals. we may thus conclude that both ethics and the healthy behaviour of vegetarians seem to partly belong to anti-speciesist commitments, ranging from eating organic food to a variety of activities representations of death and vegetarianism 390 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 http://www.psychopen.eu/ which contribute to an environmentally friendly lifestyle. even though we cannot generalize our results because they have been obtained by idiographic methodology, we can affirm with a sufficient certainty that all this does not correspond to a mere refusal of similarity to animals but, on the contrary, to the awareness of communality deriving from sharing a common destiny. our findings seem to indicate that an important element of the vegetarian trajectory is the incorporation into respondents' practices and beliefs of a number of broader environmental commitments. future research may further the exploration of ethnography as a research method to provide cultural insights for other cross-cultural differences and to locate more culturally unique food choice factors. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments this study was undertaken thanks to the organizational support of the master's course in death studies and the end of life of the university of padova. references allen, m. w., wilson, m., ng, s. h., & dunne, m. 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(2013). la violenza collettiva e il g8 di genova: trauma psico-politico e terapia sociale della testimonianza [collective violence and the genoa g8: psycho-political trauma and social testimonial therapy]. psicoterapia e scienze umane, 47(3), 423-442. doi:10.3280/pu2013-003002 zamperini, a., & menegatto, m. (2015). giving voice to silence: a study of state violence in bolzaneto prison during the genoa g8 summit. in f. d’errico, i. poggi, a. vinciarelli, & l. vince (eds.), conflict and multimodal communication: social research and machine intelligence (pp. 185-205). doi:10. 1007/978-3-319-14081-0_10 about the authors ines testoni is a professor in psychology of death studies and the end of life at university of padua, italy. dr. tommaso ghellar is a clinical and social psychologist in padua, italy. maddalena rodelli is a ph.d. student in social science at the university of padua, italy. loriana de cataldo is a clinical psychologist in padua, italy. adriano zamperini is a professor in psychology of violence and psychology of social discomfort at the university of padua, italy. testoni, ghellar, rodelli et al. 395 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 378–395 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1301 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.3280/pu2013-003002 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ representations of death and vegetarianism (introduction) materials and methods participants and procedure data analysis results and discussion death as the basis of disgust in an individual’s reasons for avoiding meat life is the quality of the environment, and the lack of quality is death against death: the spiritual dimension of life is beyond meat and religion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors three holy men get haircuts: the semiotic analysis of a joke theoretical contributions three holy men get haircuts: the semiotic analysis of a joke arthur asa berger*a [a] broadcast and electronic communication arts at san francisco state university, san francisco, ca, usa. abstract this article deals with a typology of 45 techniques of humor that i found when doing research on the mechanisms that generate humor in texts, lists the techniques and applies them to a jewish joke. it references the work of vladimir propp on folktales as analogous in that both are concerned with mechanisms in text that generate meaning. it also deals with four theories about why people find texts humorous, defines the joke as a short narrative with a punch line that is meant to generate mirthful laughter and defines jewish humor as being about jewish people and culture as told by jewish people. it offers a paradigmatic analysis of the joke, and offers some insights into why jewish people developed their distinctive kind of humor. this article is an enhanced and expanded version of an article which was published in a chinese semiotics journal (doi:10.1515/css-2015-0022). keywords: humor, techniques, jokes, syntagmatic, paradigmatic, jewish, masochism europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 received: 2015-08-25. accepted: 2015-10-04. published (vor): 2016-08-19. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: 118 peralta avenue, mill valley, ca 94941-3519, usa. e-mail: arthurasaberger@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. this article1 is about different approaches to humor and the difference between so-called “why” theories of humor and a list of 45 mechanisms that i suggest generate humorous responses to texts. let me begin with an overview of the four dominant theories of humor. these theories claim to explain why people laugh. the four why theories of humor the first theory argues that humor is based on a sense of superiority. aristotle said humor is based on (mckeon, 1941, p. 1459) “an imitation of men worse than average; worse, however, not as regards any sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the ridiculous, which is a species of the ugly. the ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others.” thomas hobbes explained that “the passion of laughter is nothing else but the sudden glory arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” (quoted in arthur koestler, 1949, insight and outlook, p. 56). the second “why” theory, and most widely held one, is incongruity theory which argues that laughter is created when there is a difference between what we expect and what we get. the punch line in jokes generates an inconeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ gruity that we find amusing. schopenhauer describes what we call the incongruity theory as follows (piddington, 1963, pp. 171-172) “the cause of laughter in every case is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real object which have been thought through it in some relation, and laughter itself is just the expression of this incongruity.” in jokes, the sudden perception that schopenhauer mentions is caused by the punch lines which generate this recognition of an incongruity. in a good joke, we don’t know what to expect in the way of a punch line. the third “why” theory is the psychoanalytic theory of humor which suggests that humor is primarily a form of masked aggression.” as freud wrote in his book, jokes and their relation to the unconscious (freud, 1963, p. 101) “and here at last we can understand what it is that jokes achieve in the service of their purpose. they make possible the satisfaction of an instinct (whether lustful or hostile) in the face of an obstacle that stands in its way.” (freud, 1963, p. 101). “the wonderful thing about humor, from a psychoanalytic perspective, is that when we hear a joke we can participate in the aggression without any sense of guilt. the fourth “why” theory ties humor to communication paradoxes and suggests that humor results from the use of paradox, play and the resolution of logical problems. as william fry wrote in his book sweet madness (fry, 1963, p. 158) “during the unfolding of humor, one is suddenly confronted by an explicit-implicit reversal when the punch line is delivered…inescapably, the punch line combines communication with meta-communication.” in the final analysis, these theorists argue that what goes on in jokes may be too complicated for us to understand at our present level of development. the problem with these theories is that they don’t explain how humor arises in the events that take place in jokes. for example, incongruity theorists deal with surprises in jokes. since all jokes contain punch lines, which generate unexpected resolutions to jokes, all my 45 techniques can be subsumed under the incongruity theory of humor. but there is a difference between talking about incongruity and about the various techniques i deal with in my typology: insult, facetiousness, exaggeration and so on. now that i’ve discussed the four “why we laugh” theories, let me say something about how i developed my list of the 45 techniques of humor. in vladimir propp’smorphology of the folktale he offers us thirty one functions that describe actions by characters who play an important role in folktales. these functions help us understand how narrative texts work. some typical functions are interdiction, violation, trickery, and the receipt of a magical agent. propp chose to focus on functions of characters in folktales because other approaches, such as studying themes or kinds of heroes and heroines, didn’t work. he defined a function as (propp, 1968, p. 21) “an act of a character, defined from its point of view of its significance for the course of action.” these functions, he added, are stable and their number is limited. i had not read propp’smorphology of the folktalewhen i started doing my research into what i describe as the techniques of humor. but after i read propp’s book (i had already finished my research and found 45 techniques that are similar in nature to his functions) i considered using it as a title for one of my books on humor, and calling it the morphology of the joketale. i settled for an anatomy of humor. i have been interested in humor for many years and have dealt with it in a scholarly way frommy 1965 dissertation on a humorous comic strip, li’l abner, to my books such as an anatomy of humor, the genius of the jewish joke, blind men and elephants, and the art of comedy writing, all of which appeared in the 1970s. in the early seventies, i did some research on what it is that generates humor in texts and found 45 techniques that, i argue, inform all humor. my first article in which i dealt with these techniques was “anatomy of a joke,” published in the journal of communication in the summer of 1976. i argue that these techniques are at work in all humorous texts europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 semiotics of the joke 490 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to generate mirthful laughter. they tell is what makes us laugh which is different from why we laugh. now let me offer a great jewish joke. a priest, an imam and a rabbi get a haircut this joke was told to me by a jewish friend from israel. i found it very funny and had a good laugh when i heard it but some people who are not jewish might not “get” it. a barber is sitting in his shop when a priest enters. “can i have a haircut?” the priest asks. “of course,” says the barber. the barber than gives the priest a haircut. when the barber has finished, the priest asks “how much do i owe you?” “nothing,” replies the barber. “for you are a holy man.” the priest leaves. the next morning, when the barber opens his shop, he finds a bag with one hundred gold coins in it. a short while later, an imam enters the shop. “can i have a haircut?” he asks. “of course,” says the barber, who gives the imam a haircut. when the barber has finished, the imam asks “how much do i owe you?” “nothing,” replies the barber. “for you are a holy man.” the imam leaves. the next morning, when the barber opens his shop, he finds a bag with a hundred gold coins in it. a bit later, a rabbi walks in the door. “can i have a haircut?” the rabbi asks. “of course,” says the barber, who gives the rabbi a haircut. when the haircut is finished, the rabbi asks, “how much do i owe you?” “nothing,” replies the barber, “for you are a holy man.” the rabbi leaves. the next morning, when the barber opens his shop, he finds a hundred rabbis. the problem with the “why” theories is they don’t deal with the mechanisms in the joke i’ve just “told”—and we will be dealing with jokes here—short texts that generate the humor. i should point out that supporters of the various “why” theories spend a lot of time arguing with supporters of the other “why” theories about which theory is best. but what is important, from my perspective, is that the “why” theories don’t deal with the specifics of jokes to explain what it is, in a given joke, that evokes mirthful laughter. superiority theorists would say we feel superior to the rabbi and the hundred rabbis who are crowded in the barbershop, hoping to get a free haircut. incongruity theorists would say we are surprised by the punch line, though anyone familiar with jewish humor might possibly have been able to anticipate the kind of resolution we find in the joke. psychoanalytic critics would say the joke allows guilt-free aggression against jews, who are the main protagonists in the joke and the subject of the punch line, and communication theorists would say the resolution is ultimately paradoxical and involves a communication, the punch line, and a meta-communication— laugh, but don’t take this story seriously because it is a joke. but these “why” theories don’t adequately explain what is going on in the joke. rather than arguing which “why” theory is best, i chose a different path. as the result of a large research project i conducted—a content analysis using all the books i had in my house with humorous content: joke books, books of folklore, comic strips, cartoons, humorous poems, theatrical comedies, humorous short stories, etc., etc. with a focus on what it was, in each text i examined, that was funny and that generated laughter. i came up with a list of 45 techniques which, i suggest, in various combinations, can be found in jokes and all other forms of humor. these techniques, we might say, are the dna of humor. we often find two or three, or more, of these techniques in a joke. these techniques, i claim, inform humor from different time periods (for example, plautus used them in his roman comedies, shakespeare used them in his comedies and ionesco used them in his play the bald soeurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 berger 491 http://www.psychopen.eu/ prano) and in different cultures. i define and offer examples of humorous texts with each of the 45 techniques and then apply the techniques to humorous texts in my books an anatomy of humor and the art of comedy writing. what makes us laugh: the 45 techniques found in humor after i came up with my list, i discovered that the techniques could be classified into four categories: jokes involving language, jokes involving logic, jokes involving identity and jokes involving gestures and similar actions. 45 techniques of humor by category actionidentitylogiclanguage chasebefore/afterabsurdityallusion slapstickburlesqueaccidentbombast speedcaricatureanalogydefinition eccentricitycatalogueexaggeration embarrassmentcoincidencefacetiousness exposurecomparisoninsults grotesquedisappointmentinfantilism imitationignoranceirony impersonationmistakesmisunderstanding mimicryrepetitionover literalness parodyreversalpuns/wordplay scalerigidityrepartee stereotypetheme/variationridicule unmaskingsarcasm satire in order to make these techniques easier to apply, i put them into alphabetical order and numbered them. techniques of humor in alphabetical order 31. parody16. embarrassment1. absurdity 32. puns17. exaggeration2. accident 33. repartee18. exposure3. allusion 34. repetition19. facetiousness4. analogy 35. reversal20. grotesque5. before and after 36. ridicule21. ignorance6. bombast 37. rigidity22. imitation7. burlesque 38. sarcasm23. impersonation8. caricature 39. satire24. infantilism9. catalogue 40. scale, size25. insults10. chase scene 41. slapstick26. irony11. coincidence 42. speed27. literalness12. comparison 43. stereotypes28. mimicry13. definition 44. theme and variation29. mistakes14. disappointment 45. unmasking30. misunderstanding15. eccentricity europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 semiotics of the joke 492 http://www.psychopen.eu/ i will show how these techniques function in the joke about a priest, an imam and a rabbi who go to a barbershop to get a haircut. but first, we must decide what a joke is and then what makes a joke a jewish joke. defining the joke i will define a joke as “a short narrative, with a punch line, meant to evoke mirthful laughter.” the narrative may have a number of events in it but if it is a joke, it will always have a punch line that is meant to generate mirthful laughter. the structure of the typical joke is shown below: f (punch line)e →d →c →b →a → ↓ g mirthful laughter this diagram shows that jokes are short narratives and it offers an x-ray of the syntagmatic nature of this kind of text. with this definition of the joke in mind, let me use my list of techniques to analyze the priest, imam and rabbi joke. techniques of humor in the priest, imam and rabbi joke what follows are my suggestions about which techniques of humor are found in this joke. it is not unusual for a joke to make use of a number of different techniques. technique 44: theme and variation (logic humor) the first technique we find in the joke is 44, theme and variation. in the art of comedy writing i define theme and variation as follows (berger, 1997, p. 44): by theme and variation i refer to the technique comedy writers use to take some matter (a belief, an activity) and show how different nationalities, religions, occupations, members of social classes, etc. vary with regard to this belief or activity. part of the humor here comes from seeing how the theme is varied by the different groups, and by the way this technique plays with stereotypes people have of the different groups. there are three holy men and for most of the joke we find them doing the same thing—getting a haircut, asking to pay for the haircut but being told by the barber the haircut was free, and, for two of them, leaving the barber a hundred gold coins the next day. the three holy men are from different religions and the third holy man, the rabbi, doesn’t leave a hundred gold coins but a hundred rabbis. that is the variation. technique 19: facetiousness (linguistic humor) in an anatomy of humor i define facetiousness as follows (berger, 1993, p. 34): facetiousness is generally taken to mean a joking, nonseries us of language. there is an element of ambiguity, for the person does not really mean (or take seriously) what he or she says and this must be europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 berger 493 http://www.psychopen.eu/ communicated one way or another…facetiousness is similar to irony, but is weaker. in both techniques wemust “read” or “decode” the message; in irony there is a reversal, in facetiousness there is a discounting. i understand facetious to mean a jesting, frivolous, nonserious use of language. the idea of having a hundred rabbis packed into a small barbershop is far-fetched and the joke’s humor is based, in large measure, on the ridiculous nature of the idea. technique 1: absurdity (logic humor) i deal with absurdity in my an anatomy of humor and explain (berger, 1993, p. 19): absurdity and its related forms—confusion and nonsense—seems to be relatively simple, but it is not, and its effects may be quite complicated, as freud pointed out in his discussion of nonsense humor. absurdity works by making light of the “demands” of logic and rationality. this absurdity doesn’t necessarily take the form of silliness (though in many children’s jokes it does) but may be an example of a relatively sophisticated philosophical position….we all seem to need to impose our sense of logic and order on the world, and when we come across situations or instances where our logic doesn’t work, we react by being puzzled and, in certain cases, amused. i usually reserve the technique of absurdity to deal with the kind of plays one finds in the theater of the absurd, but it is reasonable to suggest that the idea of packing a hundred rabbis into a barbershop is absurd and that this absurdity helps generate the humor. absurdity, which is based on logic and irrationality is not the same as facetiousness, which is based on a certain attitude. technique 43: stereotypes (identity humor) my discussion of stereotypes, found in an anatomy of humor, relies on sociological theories about the subject. as i explain in my discussion of this technique (berger, 1993, pp. 52-53): jokes involving stereotypes can be described as generalized insults—attacks on races, religions, ethnic groups, etc. but there is more to the humor of stereotypes than that. stereotypes are useful to writers and comedians because they are instant (pseudo) “explanations” of behavior and they enable people to understand “motivation”….stereotypes are, from a sociological point of view, group-held notions people have about other groups. stereotypes can be negative, positive or mixed, but in all cases they are extreme over-simplifications and generalizations. the joke also alludes to the stereotype that jews are cheap—a stereotype that is widely held but also quite inaccurate. instead of a hundred gold coins, the barber finds a hundred rabbis. technique 14: disappointment (logic humor) in my description of the humor of disappointment and defeated expectations in an anatomy of humor i write (berger, 1993, p. 31): the technique of disappointment involves leading people on about something and then denying them the logical consequences they expect. it is very similar to teasing and is funny to the extent that we find minor disappointments amusing. a good deal depends upon the frame or situation in which the disappointment is staged. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 semiotics of the joke 494 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the structure of the barbershop joke, with the first two holy men leaving a hundred gold coins, sets the listener of the joke up to expect that the rabbi will also leave a hundred gold coins. instead, he “leaves” a hundred rabbis. this humor is based upon defeated expectations. we can say the “formula” for this joke (that is, the techniques used in it) is: 44-19-43-14. reducing a joke to a formula is, in itself, humorous. there are, in fact, jokes that use the idea of jokes having numbers to differentiate them from other jokes. for example, consider the following joke: at a conference of comedians, all the comedians know all the jokes so they now tell jokes by referring them to number. a comedian stands up and says “35-16-9-45” but nobody laughs. a comedian in the audience turns to a friend and says “he never could tell a joke well.” now let us turn to a paradigmatic analysis of the priest, imam and rabbi joke. the paradigmatic structure of the priest, imam and rabbi joke in the “introduction to the second edition” of propp’s morphology of the folktale (propp, 1968), alan dundes writes (1968, p. xi): there seems to be two distinct types of structural analyses in folklore. one is the type of which propp’s morphology of the folktale is the exemplar par excellence. in this type, the structure or formal organization of a folkloristic text is described following the chronological order of the linear sequences of elements in the text….following lévi-strauss (1963, p. 312) this linear sequential structural analysis we might term “syntagmatic” structural analysis….the other type of structural analysis in a folklore seeks to describe the pattern (usually based upon an a priori binary principle of opposition) which allegedly underlies the folkloristic text. this pattern is not the as the sequential structure at all. rather, the elements are taken out of the “given” order and are regrouped in one or more analytic schema. it was claude lévi-strauss who suggested that the paradigmatic analysis of a text showed what it means in contrast to the syntagmatic analysis of a text, which shows what happens in it. we obtain the paradigmatic analysis of a text by finding the set of bipolar oppositions found (hidden) in the text. i believe the basic opposition in this joke is between paying for a haircut and not paying for a haircut. we see this opposition in the chart below. don’t pay for haircutpay for haircut the rabbithe priest, the imam asks how much it costsask how much it costs rabbi leaves 100 rabbispriest and imam each leave 100 gold coins so this joke is about paying for haircuts and the punch line is about the way the rabbi responded to the barber’s statement that holy men don’t have to pay for haircuts. it reflects an aspect of the jewish psyche that offers an absurd resolution to the events in the joke. but what is a jewish humor and what makes a joke a jewish joke? europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 berger 495 http://www.psychopen.eu/ what is jewish humor freud said he knew of no people who made so much fun of themselves as the jews and this joke reflects a common jewish sensibility—to laugh at human foibles, whether they are in lay people or in religious figures like rabbis. this joke is an example of jewish humor, which we can define as humor in which jewish people are the main characters and jewish character traits and culture play an important role in generating the humor. avner ziv, an israeli humor scholar, defines jewish humor and explains its origins in eastern europe. he writes, in his book jewish humor (ziv, 1986, p. 11): from my standpoint, a jew is a man who considers himself jewish and identifies with the jewish people. thus, jewish humor can be defined as humor created by jews intendedmainly for jews, and which reflects special aspects of jewish life….naturally, jewish humor changes as a result of important changes in the life of the jewish people. thus, one can speak of eastern european jewish humor, moroccan jewish humor, american jewish humor or israeli jewish humor. nevertheless, what is identified in worldwide professional literature as jewish humor originated in 19thcentury eastern europe. there jews lived under special and extremely harsh conditions confronted with a real danger to their lives. in these conditions, humor developed which had particular characteristics what helped the jews cope with their terrible ordeals. the fact that this jewish joke has an imam in it, instead of the characters we would find in earlier american jokes about holy men, namely a priest, a protestant minister and a rabbi, reflects important changes that have taken place in american culture and society. america is now amore multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. conclusions there are, in this joke, two other holy men: a priest and an imam. but the punch line involves a rabbi and thus i would suggest this is a jewish joke. many jewish jokes involve people from other religions, ethnicities, races, countries, etc. but if the punch line involves jews, it is generally safe to conclude that we have a jewish joke. the rabbi in the joke wanted to pay for the haircut, but when the barber told him he didn’t charge holy men for haircuts, the rabbi took advantage of his generosity and sent a hundred other rabbis to the barber. one could argue that the technique of literalness, technique 27, is also at play here since the barber told the rabbi he doesn’t charge holy men for haircuts and that comment led to the punch line in the joke. the punch line, “he found a hundred rabbis,” plays on our expectations that there will be a hundred something in the joke as well as the realization that if the rabbi left a hundred gold coins and nothing else happened there would be no joke. the fact that jewish people are able to make fun of their rabbis, and often do in their jokes, suggests a different sensibility when it comes to relating to holy men and women (since there are now women rabbis) than you find in many other religions. notes 1) this article is an enhanced and expanded version of an article which was published in a chinese semiotics journal (berger, 2015). funding the author has no funding to report. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 semiotics of the joke 496 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank the editor of chinese semiotic studies for permission to publish this revised and enhanced version of an article initially published in the abovementioned journal. references berger, a. a. (1993). an anatomy of humor. new brunswick, nj, usa: transaction. berger, a. a. (1995). blind men and elephants: perspectives on humor. new brunswick, nj, usa: transaction. berger, a. a. (1997). the art of comedy writing. new brunswick, nj, usa: transaction. berger, a. a. (1997). the genius of the jewish joke. new york, ny, usa: jason aronson. berger, a. a. (2015). a priest, an imam, and a rabbi get a haircut: a semiotic analysis of a jewish joke. chinese semiotic studies, 11(3), 397-405. doi:10.1515/css-2015-0022 freud, s. (1963). jokes and their relation to the unconscious. new york, ny, usa: w.w. norton. fry, w. (1963). sweet madness: a study of humor. palo alto, ca, usa: pacific books. koestler, a. (1949). insight and outlook. new york, ny, usa: macmillan. mckeon, r. (ed.). (1941). the basic works of aristotle. new york, ny, usa: random house piddington, r. (1963). the psychology of humor. new york, ny, usa: gamut press propp, v. (1968). morphology of the folktale (2nd ed.). austin, tx, usa: university of texas press. ziv, a. (ed.). (1986). jewish humor. tel aviv, israel: papyrus at tel aviv university. about the author arthur asa berger, professor emeritus of broadcast and electronic communication arts at san francisco state university, is the author of more than one hundred articles and more than sixty books on media, popular culture, semiotics, tourism and humor. he has been a fulbright scholar in italy, germany and belarus, and has lectured in more than a dozen countries, most recently in iran. his books have been translated into ten languages. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(3), 489–497 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i3.1042 berger 497 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515%2fcss-2015-0022 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en semiotics of the joke (introduction) the four why theories of humor a priest, an imam and a rabbi get a haircut what makes us laugh: the 45 techniques found in humor defining the joke techniques of humor in the priest, imam and rabbi joke technique 44: theme and variation (logic humor) technique 19: facetiousness (linguistic humor) technique 1: absurdity (logic humor) technique 43: stereotypes (identity humor) technique 14: disappointment (logic humor) the paradigmatic structure of the priest, imam and rabbi joke what is jewish humor conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author training at the gym, training for life: creating better versions of the self through exercise research reports training at the gym, training for life: creating better versions of the self through exercise ceren doğan*a [a] department of psychosocial studies, birkbeck college, university of london, london, united kingdom. abstract the present study draws on scott’s (2011) notion of the re-inventive institution and explores how gymmembers make sense and give meaning to their exercise regime. overall, it is argued that for many participants gym exercise is more than physical training; it is also training for life. based on a thematic analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews it is argued that gym workout is a means to create better versions of the self on mainly three levels. first, gym participants perceive themselves to be efficient and productive in general. second, gym training is believed to increase the control they have over their lives. third, gymmembers associate their gym workout with amplified emotional resilience, believing that fitness workout makes them not only fitter in a physical sense but also fitter and better equipped in a psychological sense. surprisingly, a small group of regular gym users displayed more critical sentiments and distanced themselves from the images and values the gym stands for. the results of this study can be linked to broader political discourses on health and fitness that make use of corporate managerial vocabularies and are based on ideals of rationalization and efficiency. keywords: fitness, gyms, re-inventive institutions, total institutions, thematic analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 received: 2015-02-25. accepted: 2015-05-26. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: flaadenweg 59, 24536 neumünster, germany. e-mail: ceren_dogan@gmx.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction whether in the basement of a commercial complex, half-hidden between two corner stores, next to the tube station or on a wide green field in the suburbs, gyms have conquered urban space. every european and north american city, and even small towns, seem to have a fitness gym. gyms are one of the most pursued leisure places in western societies and can be said to have established themselves as part of a white, middle-class culture (featherstone, 2010; howson, 2013; phillips, 2005; sassatelli, 2010; shilling, 2005, 2008, 2012; stebbins, 2009). in the uk, for example, almost 13% of the uk population is registered as members of a private health and fitness gym or a publicly-owned fitness facility, with london having the most registered users (european health & fitness association, 2014). fitness gyms vary in location, membership fees and serve different social and economic milieus. most urban gyms are located in the city centre and are at their busiest during lunch time and after work hours. in order to attract customers, most gyms offer more than a plain and functional working out environment but present themselves europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ as lifestyle or family oriented places. depending on the size and the target group, multi-purpose amenities encourage preor post-training activities, for example at their spas and beauty centres or they organize social activities at the weekend (stewart, smith, & moroney, 2013). as bryman (2004) notes, “hybrid consumption”, that is, consumption of several goods and services within one single place, tends to extend the time spent by the customers there. consequently, one may think that the more time gym users spend at their gym, the more they engage with its material and social environment, and the more they are affected by the same so that the gym becomes more than just a training site for them. literature review a substantive body of work on gyms deals with participants’ motivation to go to the gym (crossley, 2006; dworkin, 2003; dworkin &wachs, 2009; laverty &wright, 2010; stern, 2008; stewart, smith, & moroney, 2013). it is argued that one of the main motives is the desire to achieve a certain physique that conforms to contemporary aesthetic ideals (e.g. dworkin, 2003). crossley (2006) asserts, that for some participants the gym is an escape from everyday life where people can ‘turn off consciousness and submerse themselves in exercise’ (crossley, 2006, p. 43). laverty and wright (2010) assert that going to the gym may provide individuals with a heightened sense of morality as going to the gym is in itself ‘a demonstration of desire to be a good citizen, to achieve and practice individual health responsibilities’ (laverty & wright, 2010, p. 79). drawing on the premise that femininities and masculinities are historically and culturally produced, the impact of fitness performances upon gendered identities has been addressed by various scholars (e.g., craig & liberti, 2007; dworkin 2003; heyes, 2007; johansson, 1996; johnston, 1996; mccreary & saucier, 2009; salvatore & marecek, 2010; tiggemann & williamson, 2000). dworkin (2003) writes that for most of its existence the gym has been associated with masculinity. the body building gym especially promoted and celebrated characteristics associated with male-ness, such as strength, power, competition and aggression, so that one could argue that through cultivating a muscular physical exterior, men were able to re-emphasize their superiority and dominance. whilst this still may be true for bodybuilding gyms, contemporary fitness gyms seem to work in more complex ways. women’s participation in gyms has widely increased and women entering the weight training area have become more common. nonetheless empirical studies show that men and women tend to have very different objectives and motives for attending the gym (e.g., haravon collins, 2002; salvatore & marecek, 2010). whilst male gym goers seem to be disproportionally concerned with arm, back and chest strength in contrast to lower body strength female participants are primarily interested in weight loss, and thus engaging more in cardio-vascular exercises. as featherstone (2010) puts forward, in contemporary western societies, the body is understood as a reflection of one’s inner self so that one may argue that body modification technologies and body enhancement regimes can be understood as attempts to construct not only a beautiful, strong and fit appearance but also a beautiful, strong and fit self. one may then ask if people work out at gyms for more than body-related reasons, that is to say, if gyms also function as places in which people seek to alter and “re-invent” themselves in a more general sense. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 443 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from total to re-inventive institutions with her notion of re-inventive institutions scott (2011) draws on and expands goffman’s (1961) concept of total institutions. in the following, i shall first outline goffman’s conceptualization and then present scott’s elaboration on it. according to goffman (1961), institutions fulfil certain functions in society. they serve either the majority ˗ the general public comprising normal, healthy and well-functioning citizens ˗ or they are designed to contain malfunctioning, deprived, sick or threatening minority groups. schools, army barracks, work camps, and ships are only a few examples of the first mode of functioning whereas prisons, psychiatric hospitals, orphanages, retirement homes and hospitals are illustrative of the second. these localities are in some cases established to protect the majority from a threatening minority or, in other cases, to support an underprivileged population. goffman’s analyses are mainly concerned with the latter category and most notable, in the theorization and empirical study of what he terms total institutions. a total institution is ‘a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life’ (goffman, 1961, p. 11). goffman describes different types of total institutions in which each of them can be qualified according to their function, degree of totality and mode of entering. by function he refers to the societal rationale of the institution (e.g. to care for the underprivileged, to contain those with an infectious illness, to protect society from dangerous others etc.). by totality goffman refers to four common principles of institutional life: (1) a daily round ‘in the same place and under the same authority’; (2) activities carried out in the company of similar others; (3) timetabled activities that follow clear rules in the presence of designated officials; (4) scheduled activities that are part of a plan, designed to realise the goals of the institution (goffman, 1961, p. 6). the last category of which goffman speaks is the mode of entering, or, what may also be called the mode of recruitment. access to a total institution can either be performed involuntarily with the prison being the typical case, or voluntarily. however, even where entering is a voluntary act it can nevertheless be subject to a selection procedure (see for example application procedures to high-ranking universities or monasteries). in any case, a total institution ‘can be viewed as a place for generating assumptions about identity’ (goffman, 1961, p. 170). scott argues that in late modernity total institutions have become rare. the twenty-first century, she argues, is characterized by ‘institutions without walls’ (scott, 2011, p. 3) that participants seek out to re-invent themselves on a voluntary basis. examples of re-inventive institutions range from therapeutic clinics to spiritual retreats, academic hothouses, secret societies and virtual communities. those institutions are characterized by members’ active engagement, by self-regulation and a desire to undergo deep personal change. in contrast to total institutions, they are often permeable, have flattened hierarchies and a cohesive inmate culture. as they are voluntary, and often costly there tends to be lack of overt resistance. high degrees of interaction amongst participants enable mutual surveillance and conformity to institutional norms. indeed, as scott argues, members of re-inventive institutions actively look for out for other people’s company because they consider it pivotal to their own success, ‘wherein members gaze at each other and monitor their relative progress towards a shared role. this mutual surveillance implies a network of connections between inmates, who exercise an equally penetrating, ubiquitous gaze’ (scott, 2011, p. 49). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 444 http://www.psychopen.eu/ given that participants of re-inventive institutions actively and willingly reproduce institutional discourses, one may consider the power through which the sense of self is transformed as qualitatively different from the power operating in total institutions where changes of the self are somehow motivated from without, and not necessarily from within. whereas traditional ti [total institution, author’s note] inmates were committed against their will, and new identities imposed upon them, now we find people choosing voluntarily to enter institutions, believing that they need to change, and that it is their responsibility to do so. (scott, 2011, p. 2) scott suggests here that people seek out those institutions because they feel a responsibility towards changing and shaping their identities. this moral imperative, she further argues, stems from the fact that we live in what furedi (2004) calls a therapy culture, a culture that calls for constant introspection and self-engineering in order to obtain happiness and personal satisfaction. discipline and goal-orientedness is a pivotal element in organisations when the idea of success or progress is being emphasized. progress can refer here to any category such as the physical, mental or psychological. scott’s concept is fruitful because it invites us to think of seemingly neutral, or innocent, practices and places as psychologically meaningful. indeed, scott’s own examples of re-inventive institutional sites are often everyday spaces on the boundary between work and leisure and may be easily overlooked. they involve ostensibly relaxing, even self-indulgent activities, pursed on one’s spare time and hence are prone to be regarded as irrelevant for people’s sense of self. however, each re-inventive institution: offers a different way of rethinking and transforming an incomplete self, and discursively produces different subjectivities (…) individuals are encouraged to regard their fate as lying in their own hands, accept responsibility for their mistakes and free themselves from their shackles of deviant or unhealthy behaviour…taking control of one’s own correction is viewed not as a punishment but as a privilege, a positive opportunity to boost self-esteem. (scott, 2011, p. 98) as stated above, members undergo re-inventive regimes not only because they regard it as a positive opportunity to boost self-esteem but also partly because they believe they have a moral responsibility to be healthy or to feel better. in the context of the gym one may then ask what participants hope to gain through the correction of their bodies and the advancement of their fitness levels, and relatedly, in which ways they feel incomplete or insufficient if they fail to do so. in this vein, the present study addresses the questions of how and to what extent the gym functions as an active and reiterative attempt to create better versions of the self. in other words, it asks to what extent gym participants seek to re-invent themselves other than on a physical level. methodology participants the data for this study consisted of 32 semi-structured interviews with active gym members of whom 20 were women and 12 men, all students or working adults, ages 23 to 69. respondents were recruited through a combination of personal contacts and snowball technique/referrals. the snowball technique itself has its limitations, selfselection being the most significant in the context of this project. the inclusion criteria for interviewees were minimal: 18 years old or over, english speaking, current gym membership and regular gym attendance with at least one gym workout session per week. gym members who frequented the gym less often than once a week were europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 445 http://www.psychopen.eu/ excluded from this study. members using the gym for other than exercise, such as the sauna or the jacuzzi, were also not included to the data set. ethics this research project followed the recommended ethical guidelines of the birkbeck school of social science, history and philosophy ethics committee. all interviewees were afforded the right to anonymity and confidentiality. whilst participants’ actual age and occupation are provided throughout the research report, every participant is given a pseudonym so that their responses cannot be matched to their personal details by anyone other than the researcher. procedure after establishing initial contact, by phone or email, and setting up a date, time, and location, interviews were conducted either in the cafeterias of their gyms or at a public place, at the respondents’ convenience. each interviewee was provided with a form of consent that explained the rationale of the study, a confirmation of confidentiality and contact information. the interview schedule entailed questions about participants’ initial reasons to join a gym, the impact they considered their gym training had on their everyday lives and what they liked most about going to the gym. interviewing process initially an interview schedule was constructed in accordance with the research questions, the literature on gyms and the theoretical concerns of this project. after conducting three pilot interviews, some questions and issues were narrowed or expanded while others were changed substantially or abandoned altogether. each participant was interviewed once; the shortest interview lasted 24 minutes and the longest 110 minutes. all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. i employed braun and clarke’s (2006) steps of theoretical thematic analysis for all transcripts, which means that the analytic procedure was driven by my theoretical and analytic focus. the benefits of thematic analysis is not only that it helps to identify, organise, analyse and report patterns (themes) within a data set but also its theoretical flexibility which means that it can be applied across a range of theories and epistemologies. in the following, i shall present the three key themes that i have identified as a result of this analytic process. results the results of the analysis revealed three key themes related to participants’ expectations andmotives for exercising at the gym. participants believed that exercise at the gym grants: a) more efficiency and productivity, b) a higher sense of control over their lives and c) an increase of psychological well-being. in addition, there was also a group of respondents who displayed (self-) critical sentiments towards the gym. increasing efficiency and productivity all participants agreed that the gym visit would positively affect the quality and “flow” of their day. many talked about how they actually plan their gym visits in order to optimize this perceived effect. according to rosiei (age 24, post-graduate student), the gym gives her day a point of reference, a place either to depart from or arrive at. interviewer: when do you usually go to the gym? europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 446 http://www.psychopen.eu/ rosie: i like going [to the gym] in the mornings i use the gym to structure my day. i get up around seven, then go to the gym for an hour or one hour and fifteen minutes. and then i will have my breakfast and a shower and get some work done between nine-thirty and ten. and i find when i don’t go, i get up later and then things move a lot slower. like the process of going to the gym speeds up the day. it sets like a precedent to the way you want your day to go. like if you get up and you have to do something, like going to the gym and you do it very quickly, it’s quite a motivating thing, running or whatever. maybe it’s because maybe you are physically moving so far and everything is so fast, that sets a precedent and you are like wanting things to get done. what is striking about rosie’s account is the richness of details, describing how she follows a clearly structured morning routine split into different units of time. it indicates how carefully she organizes her day, making sure the gym is an integral part of it. the reason why she likes exercising in the morning before work is because it enables her to start and continue her day in a fast, efficient manner.ii if she does not go to the gym, she feels that ‘things move a lot slower’. the gym, so it seems, accelerates other daily routines and sets ‘a precedent to the way you want your day to go’. rosie reflects upon her own perception and hypothesizes that it might be related to the quick physical movements during the training that make her more driven over the course of the day. for rosie, the gym regimen is strongly related to her work in-so-far as it creates a sense of efficiency. indeed, the idea that the gym provides users with a sense of productivity, a sense of achievement that highly impacts the course of their daily lives in positive ways was a reoccurring theme in the interviews. a similar experience is captured in the following two quotations: rebecca: there is something kind of sluggish about the pace of your day unless you go. you kind of feel that things need to speed up at some point. or you just sit around all day and sit on the tube, sit at work, sit at home, sit on the couch (…) boris: in life the urge to procrastinate is very strong and the gym helps me, becomes part of my program and for that, makes me more efficient (…) and since i’ve started exercising i am better at writing my thesis actually. whilst rebecca (age 29, administrator) comments rather generally on how the gym responds to her ‘need to speed up’ things, boris (age 27, full-time phd student) refers to how the gym exercise increases his personal and professional efficacy. he has established the gym as part of his “program” by which he refers to his work schedule as a phd student. boris exercises at the gym not just to control and enhance his physical fitness but primarily to increase his work productivity. such an approach to the gym was not exceptional in my sample. many respondents, most notably young professionals, hold a similar view. one of the reasons why participants feel a higher sense of efficacy in their lives may be related to the ways in which gym reinforces ritualized self-discipline, something a large number of respondents referred to. being disciplined and in control as my interviews revealed, being disciplined during training is considered to be helping gym participants to be more disciplined outside the gym, as well. gym practice was often described as something that may require extra effort and time, but it was often regarded as an investment that will ultimately decrease the effort and time that is needed for other things in life. when i asked alexander (age 28, sales manager) whether he reported that the gym has an effect on his life in a broad sense: europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 447 http://www.psychopen.eu/ alexander: i find that you've started going to the gym and it's become part of your routine it gives you more energy to do other things just because you’re used to being active after a while and so all of a sudden say it's like ten at night and i need to go to the shop to get something, all of a sudden, i'm like yah, i'll just go and get it whereas beforehand, i'd be like, forget it i'll do it tomorrow, or another day or another day or another day. as this quote illustrates, discipline and efficiency inand outside the gym are thought to reinforce each other. the discipline, and perhaps rigour, gained at the gym is thought to be “contagious”, spilling over to other areas of life, bringing about an ease of handling everyday tasks. shawn: going to the gym even though you're like spending loads of energymakes you a lot more disciplined in general i find. and it makes you just a lot more up for doing things in general. i like going to the gym because it keeps me going a bit more even when i'm not at the gym. and then you're probably a lot happier with yourself when you've been going to the gym a lot really. whereas when i start going to the gym everything becomes more do-able. shawn associates the gym workout with being disciplined, efficient and ‘up for things.’ crucially, he believes that the gym makes him happier, too, something that will be elaborated upon below. alexander: i think there's a hell of a lot of self-control that you achieve from going to the gym. i always think it's almost like you know how in like eating disorders you know it's so much about control which people never talk about in the media for some reason it's always about the self, the image that magazines are giving off and stuff and it's not, it's about control (…) i think it's about a feeling that going to the gym makes you feel. i get really proud of myself when i've been to the gym a lot in the week and done and feel really good about myself. you know it is sort of, a bit of it's not a challenge, well it is a challenge but not you know a sort of type of challenge which you do feel good when you pass your challenge. alexander reflects here on what might motivate him and other people to go the gym. he argues that aesthetic reasons are only one side of the coin, however, self-control is just as important. pride and feelings of accomplishment are actually the ‘real’ reasons why people go to the gym, he believes. popular discourse fails to see gym regime and eating disorders as closely related, he says, for both are based on self-discipline. given that gym exercise is typically highly structured containing goals and sub-goals, it is likely for participants to see the gym as a challenge. indeed, as the interview excerpts throughout this chapter have illustrated, feelings of accomplishment generated in the gym are not restricted to the locale but transcend its boundaries, leaving traces in the everyday life of its users. one may also argue that discipline is inscribed into the gym’s material practices. what is common in all exercise equipment is a minute and precise utilisation, and management of bodily forces. the numerous calibrations, calorie counts, heart rate measures, repetitions and so on reveal one of the gym’s most significant logics, namely the utilization of optimum forces to effect self-improvement – a process that requires disciplining of bodies and minds and calls for the micro-management of movements, self-evaluating practices and self-rectification. each machine sets little ‘challenges’ (weights, repetitions, sets, etc.) that users can either master or fail to master. training at the gym, in other words, encourages a form of discipline that is directed towards the self. gymmembers are complicit in the process of the disciplining their bodies; they learn how to work upon themselves according to given calibrations. this form of discipline elicits and fosters participants’ sense of accomplishment and gratification. in other words, because gym exercise is underpinned by a range of disciplinary procedures that primarily target europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 448 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the body and enhance its qualities, it evokes affective response related to self-mastery such as self-contentment, pride and enjoyment. when i asked meredith (32, client executive) how often she trains at the gym, she describes how her working-out pattern depends on the workload at her job: meredith: i try to go three to four times a week. it helps me to perform better at work (…) i exercise more when i am stressed. i certainly do, because i certainly exercise more when i am stressed, i can make that correlation. it makes me feel as if i had a bigger sense of control in my life. it seems that for meredith exercise at the gym helps her to control her life. although it takes time and effort to incorporate the gym into her daily schedule, she is convinced that the gym will ultimately help her to accomplish more and perform better in the realm of professional life. my analysis indicates that some participants regard it as a form of what might be called ‘rehearsal’, or training, for life; if one succeeds at this type of training, so the thinking of many participants goes, one will also succeed in other areas of life, becomemore productive and efficient. personal qualities demanded by a serious fitness regime such as diligence, devotedness, and discipline, are expected to be echoed in the world outside the gym. gaining emotional resilience the majority of the interviewees mentioned a general quest for better health and fitness as their primary motivation to join a gym. however, there was a wide range of other issues participants expect to resolve, or tackle, with their gym regimen that go beyond fitness concerns. matthew (age 31, part-time phd student and it manager), for example, described the gym’s benefits as follows: matthew: i sleep better, i eat better, yes, i look better, larger, bigger. i quite like it to be honest; it makes me more confident somehow. but this point is not as important as it was when i was twenty. it’s now more, i can feel that my testosterone level has increased constantly. and this makes me more confident, too. i’m more like ready to combat daily stress and i’m ready for situations where i need more power and stability. so the increased testosterone level is an important point for me in terms of the gym. being more confident, prepared, better equipped and resilient to external threats is regarded by him as a major gain of the gym. as he says, looking better, larger and bigger gives him the confidence and the ability to combat stress. further, being ready for situations that require power and stability are, according to matthew, achieved through the strong gym-shaped physique, and the increased level of testosterone. the firm, muscular body – so the thinking goes – not only projects but also causes psychological strength. the emphasis on themale sex hormone testosterone can be read at least as implying, if not openly stating, the supposed effects of exercise for the male sexual drive and potency. matthew seems to imply that what one overcomes with exercise is ‘weakness’ and what one gains is power, stability and confidence, which can be translated into sexual energy and confidence, or, ‘manliness’. indeed, the link between sexual potency and muscularity is continually being made in the world of fitness. one of the main strategies is to do so, is through the visual display of the muscly body. shaved, smooth and tanned, the male body carries the aura of physical potency and yet goes further than that, implying sexual strength. referring to the bodies of muscular public figures, miles observes that “each [body] becomes a public phallus, huge, rock-hard, gleaming and veined with blood” (miles, 1991, p. 111). in other words, the body’s ‘material’ qualities such as its contours, surfaces and textures become the locus of potency display. at the same time, it is implied that once one has all those physical qualities, one is also in possession of sexual power. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 449 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a further implication of the gym that was mentioned by interviewees is an expected increase in psychological wellbeing. diane joined the gym to get fitter but also, as she explicitly states in the interview, to overcome a difficult time in her life. diane: psychologically you feel better (…) i lost three of my closest relatives within four years. it was a difficult time and it’s good to do some exercise, to go out. it helps. your brain – i don’t know much about it. the articles that i have read, it’s good for your body. endorphins, isn’t it? (…). at the time of the interview diane (age 64, free-lance translator) has been a gym member for nine months. it was after the losses of some close family members that she decided to sign up. following the advice in magazines, she hoped the gym would have therapeutic effects, helping her in this vulnerable life situation. olivia (age 33, administrator) employed the gym also as a therapeutic strategy: olivia: back then i had some serious problems with my job and my relationship <laughing> basically my contract had ended and with the recession and all that i had a really really tough time finding new employment. i don’t know how many applications i’ve sent out (…) i got seriously depressed. my gp wanted to prescribe some medication but i didn’t want that (…) that was when i gave the gym a thought, just to do something for myself and keep on going. instead of taking the antidepressants her general practitioner advises her to take, olivia decides to work out at a gym, hoping that the exercise will help her to “keep on going”. given the recent break up with her boyfriend and the loss of her job she uses the gym as a ways to ‘pull herself together’. both diane and olivia remain vague in their descriptions about how the gym workout exactly might have helped them to overcome a difficult time in their lives. shawn (35, technical assistant) and jessica (43, art historian) emphasize the gym’s positive effects on their psyche, too: shawn: it [the gym] blows off steam. you have a way of blowing off steam; you have a way of escaping. but not having that escape, i think allows frustration and depression and everything builds into you, it's not good. jessica: if i am not exercising at all, i am usually more stressed out and in worst moods. my stomach is more sensitive and upset to the foods i eat. i am like getting super bloated because all the stress goes to my stomach. … physically i feel good because i take out my stress out in a workout; it doesn’t manifest itself in my stomach. stress, depression, bad moods and frustration are expected to be combatted by the gym regime. it is almost as if these negative states run the risk of manifesting themselves into the body (e.g. ‘the stress goes to my stomach’). exercise, so the thinking goes, is purgative; it releases stress and frustration by relocating it to the exteriors of the body and soul. critical voices although most respondents emphasized the positive effects of the gym, a small number of interviewees expressed more ambivalent and self-critical sentiments. interestingly, many of these critical voices came from respondents who are members of up-market fitness clubs but nonetheless wish to distance themselves from what their gym stands for. meredith: it’s mostly society saying that in order to fit in, or put your life together you need to have a gym membership just as you have a house, the best car, the spouse, the best children. if you are part of the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 450 http://www.psychopen.eu/ really nice gym, like the one here, that has a spa and things like that. the more i talk about the gym the more i realize how much i hate it <laughing> however, some interviewees commented critically on how their gyms seek to establish a link between the gym membership and a distinctive sense of identity and how they had personally refused to take it up. shawn, for example, is a member of an up-market club and describes the place as follows: shawn: the club is very sleek and cool. some of the exercise rooms are decorated with purple lights, like a night club. the place promotes this kind of yuppie lifestyle. you have got the job, the apartment, you have the cool gym, you have this and that. but it’s all bullshit really. most of these people don’t have cool jobs and all that. kate: the one i go to, it’s mostly young, professional crowd. i would prefer a gym that is not about how it looks, having the latest machinery and all, like aesthetically looking very cool, urban and hip but just like people that are just there to work out and aren’t focussed on images. alex: i think some people go to maintain image and appearance and this gym specifically promotes this nouveau, sophisticated very hip and cool and – i mean you walk into the gym and everything is white, it’s not functional at all. the quotes above prompt us to think that gyms can function as re-inventive spaces in a sense that they that invoke the sense in people that they have bettered themselves and moved ‘up’ as well as ‘out’ of their own social class and thus obtained a more desirable social standing (watt, 2007). by signing up to up-market gyms people may feel more urban, hip and, perhaps, as if they were wealthier and more sophisticated than they actually are. it might be worthwhile in future studies to explore why people continue go to the gym even though they ‘look through’ these strategies, that is to say, even though they experience a dissonance between what they do and what they think. a few respondents also mentioned discomfort in relation to the ways in which trainers treat gym members. jennifer: fitness trainers seem to want to arrive at where they are and the conversation seems to be ‘you must do this’, ‘you must push yourself’. i can push myself hard enough and i am not in this big competition in life. and this feeling i have always had with them was ‘work harder’, ‘work faster’, ‘push more’. i just want to get to this level. it might not be hugely ambitious but i’m ok with that. and i didn’t like the fact that they were always like. ‘c’mon i can do this, i can do this.’ and you are like, ‘ok but i’m not you’. kate: this whole motivational thing goes onto my nerves sometimes. ‘run faster’, ‘keep it up’, ‘smile’. really?! due to the limited scope of this study, the tensions between trainers and trainees could not be elaborated upon in more detail. however, the accounts above suggest that some participants may not follow the ambitions of their trainers, or the ethos of their gym. they may not want to “re-invent” themselves in the ways their trainers want them to, for example. to what extent people resist their trainers’ views or reject the idea of self-optimization that their gyms perpetuate must remain a topic for future research. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 451 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion according to the results of this study, the gym can be said to be a re-inventive institution first and foremost because of its, what might be called, “spill-over effects”. all respondents agreed that gym exercise has positive effects on other areas in life. members expect the gym to optimize their work performance, their psychological well-being and ultimately their selves. as scott (2011) writes, institutions that are concerned with physical appearance, beauty, fashion and ‘healthiness’ promote ideas and discourse that consume an actor’s consciousness throughout the day. hence, one may argue that the impetus on self-discipline, self-optimization and on “becoming” becomes omnipresent for members’ also outside the gym. ritzer (1983) writes that a society characterized by rationality is one which values efficiency, predictability, calculability and control over uncertainty and puts a great deal of emphasis on finding the best or optimum means to any given end. this resonates with the results presented above. as interviewees state, fitness training at the gym can be considered a means by which transformation of and control over one’s life is achieved. one of the reasons why this may the case is that exercise in gyms itself requires disciple, self-surveillance and ambition. indeed gym membership usually starts with the diagnostic procedure of a health check where weight, height, body fat, blood pressure, body mass index, etc., are measured and compared to what has been established as a scientific norm so that goals for further training can be identified and changes noticed. this may facilitate an experience of having control over one’s body and the power to alter. the gym, in this sense, can be said to be a path to perfection. in his historical analysis of fitness gyms, chaline (2015) writes that the gym has always been more than a place to train physicality. ancient gymnasiums, as the author notes, were places for social interaction, recreation and leisure, but they were first and foremost educational institutions where the intellectual and athletic training of a military character was supposed to be accomplished. the greek gymnasium, for example, was a popular recreational space for the members of the aristocratic class as it provided them with an opportunity to perform and enhance “one’s own outstanding persona and family” (kah & scholz, 2004, p. 14, translation of the author). the interconnectedness between physical training and personal development or self-optimization seems still to persist. my results resonate with a particular stream in the literature on gyms that puts the idea of self-improvement, selfregulation and self-assessment at the center (e.g., gill, henwood, & mclean, 2005; markula, 2003; markula & pringle, 2006). it has been noted that neoliberal understandings of health as a private matter increased people’s willingness to engage in ‘care of the self’ practices which lead to an increase of what may be referred to as the ‘body industry’ (straughan, 2010). it is argued that the health and fitness industry is at pains to show how ‘imperfect’ bodies can be sculpted and corrected by the right diet, exercise and cosmetic products. advertisements suggest that individuals are personally responsible for monitoring and controlling their bodies so that a slim and fit-looking physique does not only signify attractiveness but also self-control and ambition (e.g. becker, 1993). in this context, it is also argued that the logics of paid labour have infiltrated leisure time in general and the relationship to one’s body in particular (e.g., miller & rose, 2008; smith-maguire, 2008a, 2008b). baudrillard (1998) is one of the bestknown advocators of this approach, arguing that the way in which individuals’ relations to their bodies is organized in a society mirrors the ways in which social relations and the relation to things are organized. he argues that private property and the accumulation of capital as the key tenets of capitalism are applied to the physical sphere, too: individuals understand their bodies as “things” that can be invested in, worked-upon and optimized. fitness, according to this line of thought, is far from being playful or disengaged but a strategy to enhance the body’s qualities and value on the social and economic market, where it is surveyed and consumed by the gaze of the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 452 http://www.psychopen.eu/ other (frew & mcgillivray, 2005; sassatelli, 2010; turner, 1999). the gaze of the other can be said to be crucial for people as it is linked to self-esteem. people strive towards other’s approval and recognition to enhance and regulate their self-worth (brown, 2014). if one of the gym users’ motives and hopes is to create better, stronger and more resilient versions of their selves, as it is argued in this study, one may assume that there is a relative perceived lack thereof. the gym might then work as a place in which people work upon themselves to generate others’ recognition through self-enhancement, and therefore to increase their self-esteem. one may further speculate whether the correlation between physical exercise and self-esteem, that is repeatedly demonstrated in empirical studies, is indeed related to the fact that one gains social approval though physical fitness (e.g. bowman, cole, dodsworth, fenzi, & burns, 2014; joseph, royse, benitez, & pekmezi, 2014). one can argue that the logics of the free-market exceed the economic sphere and are internalized by individuals who go to the gym in a two-fold way: first, individuals allocate their time to the gym, that is to say, they choose to train there partly because they hope to produce a state of being that harmonizes with desirably attributes of the free market such as efficiency, productivity and emotional resilience. second, the very ways in which gym participants engage with their bodies can be characterized in analogy to the working principles of the market. the division of the gym into separate areas as well as the different machines that address a limited number of muscles and not others, for example, strongly remind of the division of labour. to give another example, most machines “translate” bodily effort and time into calories and other numbers. this invites a way of thinking about the body as something that can be quantified, invested in and produced. one may speculate what other forms of relating to the body and the self may be invented in future, not just in terms of fitness but perhaps also in terms of mental capabilities or even interpersonal relationships. the “quantified self” movement is perhaps the beginning of such a trend (till, 2014). the use of digital self-tracking devices here takes the quantification of the body to its extreme: little detectors track what one eats, how one sleeps, how often one exercises, which friends one meets, how often one calls one’s parents, what books one reads and which emotions and physical reactions during these activities occur. these activities are then transformed into digital data, which are uploaded to servers that allow users to analyse their progress and share their information with other users (till, 2014). as lupton (2013) argues, the quantified self movement might be said to be an expression of neoliberal entrepreneurialism, celebrating self-maximisation and promoting self-critique through the presentation of “objective” measures of performance. to produce data about one’s self, to know one’s self better and eventually to improve seems to be one of the core tenets of contemporary society. conclusion this study has shown that the reasons for why people join the gym as an ‘institution without walls’ are manifold. to invoke scott (2011), when people join institutions to alter themselves, it is often that they feel a personal desire and responsibility to create an optimized self. what participants expect to achieve at the gym is a better version of their selves in several ways. firstly, many of the interviewed gym participants hope, and indeed perceive themselves to be more productive and efficient. second, they feel they have more control over their lives when they train at the gym regularly. third, they associate their gym workout with increased psychological resilience. it can therefore be said that these people engage in regular gym training to create a better, fitter and stronger version of themselves, that enables them to “keep on going”, to master their everyday lives, to cope psychologically with their stresses and strains. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 doğan 453 http://www.psychopen.eu/ important to note, the sample of this study was limited for it consisted of students and working adults only, that is to say, of people who either sell or prepare to sell their labour force at the market. it would be interesting to explore how people out of employment such as retirees and other non-workers make sense of their gym exercise. tulle and dorrer’s (2012) study, for example, reveals that gym participants over 65 years old tend to come to the gym not only for physical training but also to form social bonds that exceed the boundaries of the fitness locale. in general, people who have been referred to the gym as a result of a medical condition might experience the gym differently than participants who come there for leisure, perhaps more as a compulsory “homework”. in an interesting case study, nash (2012) shows that pregnant women do not only use the gym to get fitter for birth but also, quite paradoxically, to manage anxieties about weight gain. the author shows how pregnant gym users, more than non-pregnant women, compare the size and shape of their bellies to those of other pregnant women in aerobics classes. as she writes, the fact that body related anxieties manifest themselves in the embodied experience of group exercise challenges research suggesting that prenatal exercise has largely positive effects on mood and body image. for some of her informants, nash maintains, pregnancy fitness means a third shift of work on top of their continuing commitment at home and in paid employment. for the recruited participants exercise in a gym was obviously an important enough part of their lives for they volunteered and were interested to talk about fitness in general and their own fitness practices and histories in particular. it would be worthwhile to look at the motives of gym members for whom the gym is not that important or who train only occasionally as this may yield different results. relatedly, it might be interesting to interview people who have strong feelings towards the gym because of their negative experiences there. in future studies, it would be fruitful to explore to what extent gym-related practices resonate with broader discourses on health and fitness in a given society. it has been noted that in the last three decades or so, corporate managerial vocabularies have infiltrated governmental understandings and handlings of health with ideals of rationalization and efficiency, customer satisfaction, producer/consumer relations and performance targets (numerato, salvatore, & fattore, 2012; tonkens, bröer, van sambeek, & van hassel, 2013). with the progressive abolishment of the social welfare state in many european countries, health is increasingly treated as a private responsibility and as something that one can purchase it might be worth discussing the gym as a social practice ˗ as an element of the commercialization of health services. gyms can be said to speak directly to such neoliberal agendas, which try to increase the number of active and self-reliant citizens and to decrease the number of those who are dependent on the state and others. when gyms motivate their members to take responsibility for their own physical strength, they frame health as a feature of the self that individuals can and should responsibly manage. taking on responsibility for one’s health has a normative and moral impetus, too, for lack of health ‘clashes too uncomfortably with the image of the “good citizen” as someone who actively participates in social and economic life, makes rational choices and is independent, self-reliant and responsible’ (galvin, 2002, p. 107). comparing and contrasting the results of this study with contemporary discourses and policies on health would help us to widen our understanding of not only participants’ motives to do gym exercise but also of the societal functions of gyms. notes i) to ensure confidentiality, all interviews were anonymized. ii) at the time of the interview rosie was working on her application to get into a very competitive postgraduate programme at an ivy league university. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 454 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references baudrillard, j. 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(2007). from the dirty city to the spoiled suburb. in b. campkin & r. cox (eds.), new geographies of cleanliness and contamination (pp. 80-91). london: i.b. tauris. about the author ceren doğan is a clinical psychologist and a doctoral student at birkbeck college, university of london. she is about to complete her training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. her research interests include the social, cultural and ideological construction of femininities and masculinities, the (female) body, and the intersection between space and subjectivities. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 442–458 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.951 creating better versions of the self through exercise 458 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1357034x99005002003 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en creating better versions of the self through exercise introduction literature review from total to re-inventive institutions methodology participants ethics procedure interviewing process results increasing efficiency and productivity being disciplined and in control gaining emotional resilience critical voices discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author psychological meanings of eating disorders and their association with symptoms, motivation toward treatment, and clinical evolution among outpatients research reports psychological meanings of eating disorders and their association with symptoms, motivation toward treatment, and clinical evolution among outpatients marie-pierre gagnon-girouard a, marie-pier chenel-beaulieu b, annie aimé c, carole ratté d, catherine bégin* b [a] department of psychology, université du québec à trois-rivières, québec, canada. [b] school of psychology, université laval, québec, canada. [c] department of psychoeducation and psychology, université du québec en outaouais, québec, canada. [d] faculty of medicine, université laval, québec, canada. abstract unlike patients suffering from egodystonic disorders, people with eating disorders sometimes attribute positive meanings to their symptoms, and this attribution process contributes to the maintenance of the disorder. this study aims at exploring psychological meanings of eating disorders and their associations with symptoms, motivation toward treatment, and clinical evolution. eighty-one adults with an eating disorder (anorexia nervosa, n = 46 and bulimia nervosa, n = 35) treated in a day-hospital program were asked, each week over an 8week period, to identify the psychological meanings they ascribed to their eating disorder. avoidance was the most frequently identified meaning, followed by mental strength, security, death, confidence, identity, care, and communication. avoidance was more frequently mentioned by participants with bulimia than in cases of anorexia. security and mental strength were associated with less motivation toward treatment. death was associated with more depressive and anxious symptoms. an exploratory factor analysis showed that these meanings formed three main dimensions: avoidance, intrapsychic, and relational. findings suggest that psychological meanings associated with eating disorders can be assessed and used as a clinical tool to increase treatment acceptability and effectiveness. keywords: bulimia, anorexia, depression, anxiety, motivation, maintenance factors, ambivalence toward treatment europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 received: 2018-03-22. accepted: 2018-11-12. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: école de psychologie, pavillon félix-antoine-savard, 2325, rue des bibliothèques, université laval, québec (québec) g1v 0a6. e-mail: catherine.begin@psy.ulaval.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. treating eating disorders (ed) is challenging, notably since a significant number of patients deny being sick, or show ambivalence toward change (abbate-daga et al., 2013; campbell, 2009; zerbe, 2007). chronicity and relapse rates have been suggested to be as high as 50% (keel & hersog, 2004; keel & mitchell, 1997). treatment dropout rates are worrisome, ranging from 20 to 51% within inpatient samples, and from 29 to 73% in outpatient care (fassino et al., 2009). the mere description of eating symptoms severity and frequency do not entirely reflect the complexity of ed (andersson & ghaderi, 2006). a review of 24 qualitative studies supports the idea that many patients suffering europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ from anorexia nervosa (an) value their problematic eating behaviors, viewing them as a way to face personal issues (espíndola & blay, 2009). ed symptoms may compensate for low self-esteem, feelings of ineffectiveness, cognitive rigidity, and interpersonal mistrust (brusset, 1998; bulik et al., 2005; mitchell & bulik, 2006; palmer, 2008). since the psychological positive meanings that patients attribute to their ed symptoms may contribute to the maintenance of their dysfunctional eating behaviors and to their reluctance to change, a growing number of authors have proposed a more subjective, patient-centered, approach to better understand the underlying complexity of ed symptoms (corstorphine et al., 2006; deaver et al., 2003; lee & miltenberger, 1997; marzola et al., 2016; serpell et al., 1999; vitousek, watson, & wilson, 1998). understanding the subjective psychological meanings of ed symptoms may explain patients’ resistances to change, which influences therapeutic alliance and adherence to treatment (fox, larkin, & leung, 2011; mcmanus & waller, 1995; nordbø et al., 2006). serpell and colleagues (1999) were among the first to study the psychological meanings of ed. they asked 18 women undergoing treatment for an to wrote two letters to their ed, one addressing it as a friend and the other as an enemy. based on these letters, they identified ten themes describing different psychological meanings of an: guardian (providing protection, security, and stability), control (giving structure), attractiveness (allowing to feel more attractive), confidence (increasing self-confidence), feeling special and different (allowing to see oneself as superior to others), ability (succeeding in something difficult to achieve), avoidance (avoiding emotions and distress), communication (communicating distress to others), appearance and amenorrhea. when replicated among patients suffering from bulimia nervosa (bn) (serpell & treasure, 2002), two additional themes were identified: eating without gaining weight and coping with boredom. these results were coherent with the clinical reports demonstrating that, apart from their weight regulation function, bulimic behaviors contribute to the regulation of affect and internal states (corstorphine et al., 2006; deaver et al., 2003; lee & miltenberger, 1997; milligan & waller, 2000; stickney & miltenberger, 1999; waller, quinton, & watson, 1995). in order to get a clearer understanding of patients’ perception of their life with an, nordbø and his colleagues (2006) used interactive semi-structured interviews with a focus on the subjective experience of patients. these 90to 120-minute interviews allowed interviewers to clarify and deepen the perspective of each patient regarding the psychological meanings of their ed. eighteen women suffering from an were asked to describe “how it is to have an?.” text analyses were then completed based on interviews verbatim. eight psychological themes were extensively described: security, avoidance, mental strength, self-confidence, identity, care, communication, and death. this typology overlaps with serpell’s classification, and is relevant for both an and bn (fox, larkin, & leung, 2011). nordbø’s classification was also supported by a systematic review (espíndola & blay, 2009). to date, the efforts devoted to the exploration of the psychological meanings of ed symptoms were based on qualitative studies. very few quantitative studies have empirically investigated the meanings of ed symptoms, and to our knowledge, only one study examined the association between these self-reported meanings and the clinical profile of patients (marzola et al., 2016). based largely on nordbø’s classification and the systematic review conducted by espíndola and blay (2009), marzola and colleagues (2016) developped a self-report questionnaire designed to assess triggers of an onset as well as meanings and impact of an. they reported that psychological meanings ascribed to an can be regrouped in three independent factors (intrapsychic, relational and avoidance), and that these factors are all associated with eating psychopathology, depressive symptoms as well as personality traits. factors also showed differential associations with age and motivation to treatment. psychological meanings of ed and clinical profile 368 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ considering that the study conducted by marzola and colleagues (2016) focused only on an, the inclusion of both an and bn should be prioritized as most ed treatments are now based on a transdiagnostic approach to ed. finally, it is important to determine whether psychological meanings ascribed to ed symptoms predict treatment evolution and outcome because differential treatment responses might be expected depending on specific meanings attributed to ed. in this context, the present study aimed to further study nordbø and colleagues’ classification (2006) with an open-ended question, in a sample of individuals suffering from an or bn, and to examine the link between selfreported ed meanings and 1) ed diagnosis (an or bn), 2) ed symptoms severity and general symptoms (depression and anxiety), 3) motivation toward treatment, and 4) evolution of symptoms and motivation throughout treatment. results from the present study will also be compared to those recently obtained by marzola and colleagues (2016) to assess whether the three-factor structure (intrapsychic, relational and avoidance) is robust across clinical samples and if these factors predict symptoms severity, therapeutic motivation, and treatment response. methods participants and procedure eighty-one adult women suffering from an (n = 46) or bn (n = 35) participated in the study (aged from 18 to 65 years old). from 2006 to 2010, all women who were admitted to the day-hospital program of the treatment program for eating disorders at the centre hospitalier universitaire de québec (canada) were included. no woman refused to participate in the study, as it was integral part of the treatment program (see procedure for more details). they all received a diagnosis by a psychiatrist specialized in ed who applied dsm-iv criteria to diagnose an or bn. measures ed and clinical symptoms eating symptoms were measured using the french version (leichner et al., 1994) of the eating attitude test (eat-26), a 26-item self-reported questionnaire (garner et al., 1982). a higher score indicated greater symptoms and concerns regarding ed. the french version has demonstrated good internal consistency, which was comparable to the original version (cronbach’s alpha = .90) (gauthier et al., 2014; jonat & birmingham, 2004). its test-retest reliability in the long term is controversial, mostly because symptoms may vary massively with treatment, which was expected in our study (banasiak et al., 2001). depressive symptoms were measured using a french version (bourque & beaudette, 1982) of the 21-item beck depression inventory (bdi-ii) (beck, steer, & brown, 1996), one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring depression. a higher score indicated more severe depressive symptoms. the french version has demonstrated good internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = .92) and adequate stability over a 4-month period (bourque & beaudette, 1982). anxiety symptoms were measured by the french version (freeston et al., 1994) of the beck anxiety inventory (beck & steer, 1990), which is a well-known self-reported 21-item questionnaire that assesses physiological symptoms associated with anxiety. again, a higher score indicated worst physiological symptoms related to gagnon-girouard, chenel-beaulieu, aimé et al. 369 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ anxiety. the french version has demonstrated good internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha = .93) and adequate test-retest reliability (r = .63) (freeston et al., 1994). motivation toward treatment motivation toward treatment was measured with an adapted version of the treatment self-regulation questionnaire (tsrq) (williams, freedman, & deci, 1998), an 8-item questionnaire, which was translated in french by our team (double translation process). the original version of the tsrq assesses reasons for staying in a weight-loss program and this instrument was modified to measure reasons to stay in an ed program. a higher score indicated higher motivation toward ed program. the original version has demonstrated good internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.81 to 0.86). psychological meanings of ed the psychological meanings that participants attributed to their ed were documented through an open-ended question: what does my ed mean to me (what purpose does my ed fulfill)? participants could write as many meanings as they wanted. procedure the detailed study protocol was reviewed and approved beforehand by the ethic committee of the hospital where the study took place. on the first day of the program, a doctoral student informed the patients about the purpose and procedure of the study. all participants were invited to participate in the study and were informed that, during the treatment program, time would be reserved to complete the questionnaires. if they agreed to participate, they signed an informed consent form approved by the ethic committee of the hospital. then, questionnaires were filled in by participants every friday morning for the entire length of the 8-week treatment program. all questionnaires were completed in the same order as presented in the measures section. accordingly, the question regarding psychological meanings of ed was completed at the end of the protocol each week. data analysis classification procedure based on nordbø and colleagues’ classification (nordbø et al., 2006), we categorized participants’ statements into ed psychological meanings. classification procedure was based on the model proposed by taylor-powell and renner (2006) and consisted of four steps: 1) a priori description of themes, 2) preliminary reading of the data, 3) improvement of code definitions, and 4) coding. this procedure allowed preserving the nature of the data generated by participants while allowing the replication of previous structures (nordbø et al., 2006). based on nordbø and colleagues’ denominations, we first defined an a priori list of eight themes representing proposed psychological meanings. two independent raters with ed clinical experience made a preliminary reading of all the available data to ensure that no additional theme was needed, after which the definitions of themes were refined, leading to a detailed description of all meanings (summarized in table 1). for example, at this step, it was proposed to add the theme death, to include statements related to self-destruction in general. the two raters used the final version of the typology to code all participants’ statements. inter-raters agreement was tested on a sub-sample of 15 participants at the beginning of classification and at mid-process. psychological meanings of ed and clinical profile 370 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 brief description of meanings based on the classification from nordbø and colleagues (nordbø et al., 2006) function description examples from the present study security a way to obtain a sense of stability and security. "to keep my body and life under control" avoidance a way to avoid negative emotions and experiences. "to regulate my unease, my emotions" "to avoid my responsibilities" mental strength a way to get an inner sense of mastery and strength. "to make me feel strong" "to give me the feeling that i am more disciplined" confidence a way of feeling worthy of compliment and acknowledgment. "others have a more positive image of me" "to make me feel more desirable" identity a way of creating a different identity or personality. "to be different" "to become someone else" care a way of eliciting care from other people. "to be closer to my mother, there is more support and complicity between us" communication a way of communicating difficulties to other people. "to express my distress and unease" death a way of starving to death, of serving self-destructive purposes "to disappear" "to punish myself" "to destroy myself" statistical analyses statistical analyses were performed with the spss statistical software (version 19.0). for each participant, a score from 0 to 8 was assigned for each meaning, based on the weekly identification of the meaning. a score of 0 was attributed if the meaning was never mentioned by the participant whereas a score of 8 was attributed if the meaning was mentioned every week of the program. for example, a participant who identified only avoidance from week 1 to 8 and security from week 2 to week 8 obtained a score of 8 on the avoidance meaning, 7 on the security meaning, and 0 for all the other meanings. consequently, for each participant, each meaning had an endorsement score (from 0 to 8) that represented the frequency of its adoption in the participant’s responses. t-tests were computed to compare ed diagnosis groups (an vs. bn) on the eight meanings endorsement’s scores. pearson’s coefficients were computed to assess the relationship between meanings endorsement scores on one hand, and the clinical symptoms, motivation toward treatment and evolution throughout treatment, on the other hand. the evolution of symptoms and motivation throughout treatment was calculated as the difference between the mean score at the end of treatment and the mean score at baseline. pearson’s correlation analyses were also computed to assess the relationships between the eight meanings endorsement scores. an exploratory factorial analysis was also performed with the varimax rotation method in order to obtain a more easily interpretable structure. the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) indicator was used to measure the sampling adequacy, with a kmo of 0.7 considered as acceptable. a confirmatory factorial analysis was computed to verify the fit of the factorial structure in the data from the sample. indices of adjustment were the chi-square test, the comparative fit index (cfi), and the root mean square error of approximation gagnon-girouard, chenel-beaulieu, aimé et al. 371 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (rmsea). a chi-square value close to zero and a chi-square p-value greater than 0.05 indicate a good fit, as well as a cfi value of 0.90 or greater and a rmsea of 0.06 or less. results classification inter-raters agreement for classification of statements was excellent, with a kappa coefficient of 0.91. most statements (79.68%) were classified within nordbø and colleagues’ classification (2006). statements that did not fit into any category were labelled “others.” these statements were either non-psychologically oriented or very vague (for example, i don’t know why). no consistent new theme emerged from these statements. mean scores for each meaning are presented in table 2. avoidance was the most frequently identified meaning, followed by mental strength, security, death, confidence, identity, care, and communication. table 2 means and standard deviations for meanings function total (n = 81) an (n = 46) bn (n = 35) difference between an and bn m sd m sd m sd t d avoidance 3.12 2.19 2.59 1.73 4.00 2.47 -2.884** 0.66 mental strength 1.49 1.93 1.78 2.17 1.14 1.56 1.478 0.34 security 1.11 1.44 1.13 1.54 1.00 1.19 0.415 0.09 death 0.62 0.99 0.65 1.40 0.63 1.00 0.084 0.02 confidence 0.52 1.15 0.52 1.09 0.57 1.27 -0.189 0.04 identity 0.46 0.90 0.59 1.02 0.31 0.72 1.408 0.32 care 0.43 1.25 0.48 1.38 0.40 1.12 0.274 0.06 communication 0.33 0.99 0.28 0.91 0.43 1.12 -0.647 0.15 note. an = anorexia nervosa; bn = bulimia nervosa. **р < .01. ed diagnosis mean scores for psychological meanings according to ed diagnosis are presented in table 2. participants suffering from bn endorsed significantly more often the avoidance meaning than participants suffering from an (d = 0.66). participants suffering from an mentioned more often the mental strength and identity meanings than participants with bn, and even if the differences did not reach significance, the effect size were moderate (d = 0.34 and 0.32). no difference was noted for other meanings. for participants with bn, avoidance was endorsed 3.5 times more than the second most frequent meaning which was mental strength, whereas for participants with an, the difference between avoidance and mental strength was of lesser magnitude (avoidance 1.5 times more frequent than mental strength). short-term and long-term links with clinical profile correlations between meanings and symptoms, motivation, and their evolution are presented in table 3. death was positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms, meaning that the more a participant enpsychological meanings of ed and clinical profile 372 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dorsed the death meaning, the more this participant reported being depressed and anxious at the beginning of treatment. security and mental strength were negatively associated with motivation toward treatment, meaning that the more a participant endorsed these meanings, the less she reported being motivated at the beginning of treatment. there was no other significant correlation between meanings and ed symptoms. there was no significant association between meanings and the evolution of symptoms and motivation throughout treatment. table 3 pearson’s coefficients for relations between meanings and the severity of eating symptoms, depression, anxiety, motivation, and their evolution from pre-treatment to post-treatment symptoms/function security avoidance mental strength confidence identity care communication death eating symptoms .095 -.052 .153 .088 .061 .041 .006 .198 depression .073 .034 -.099 -.163 -.014 -.070 -.119 .315** anxiety .139 .041 -.175 .002 .031 .011 .046 .328** motivation -.249* .115 -.241* .073 -.006 .123 .129 -.028 changes in eating symptoms .147 .039 .077 .048 .241 .008 .063 .181 changes in depression -.060 .157 -.003 .027 .109 .066 .038 .238 changes in anxiety -.001 .114 .246 -.022 .091 -.127 -.142 .050 changes in motivation -.034 -.013 .077 -.169 -.218 -.140 -.121 .069 *р < .05. **р < .01. correlations between meanings are shown in table 4. confidence, care and communication were positively associated with one another (moderate coefficients), as were confidence, identity, and mental strength (strong coefficients). table 4 pearson’ coefficients for correlations between meanings function 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. security -.028 .175 -.010 .150 -.040 .080 -.129 2. avoidance -.071 -.062 -.072 .144 .151 .059 3. mental strength .275* .317** .040 .127 -.142 4. confidence .276* .437** .599** -.158 5. identity .164 .204 -.193 6. care .775** .015 7. communication -.010 8. death *р < .05. **р < .01. an exploratory factor analysis yielded three factors, based on the presence of three eigenvalues greater than 1, for a percentage of explained variance of 62% (table 5). the kmo for the factorial structure was 0.62, which shows a poorly fitted model. based on the structure proposed by marzola and colleagues (2016), the three factors were named avoidant (avoidance), relational (confidence, care, and communication), and intrapsychic (mental strength, identity, and death). security loaded significantly on both the avoidant and intrapsychic factors, and it was considered part of the intrapsychic factor, to be coherent with marzola and colleagues’ (2016) typology. moreover, the magnitude of the correlation coefficients was more important between security and the gagnon-girouard, chenel-beaulieu, aimé et al. 373 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subscales of the intrapsychic factor (r = .129 to .175) than the avoidant one (r = .028). the confirmatory factor analysis revealed a better adjustment to the data (χ² = 21.79, p = .295; cfi = 0.97, rmsea = 0.042). this confirmatory factor analysis suggests that the replication of this analysis in a larger sample could validate it, notably with a sample of at least 10 subjects per variable, as previously suggested (hair, 1998). correlations between factors and symptoms, motivation, and their evolution were also performed. there was no significant association (r ranging from −0.04 to −0.18). table 5 meanings’ loadings following the exploratory factor analysis function avoidance relations intrapsychic security .55 -.16 .57 avoidance .81 .16 -.22 confidence -.22 .74 .31 care .12 .88 -.06 communication .16 .91 -.08 mental strength .02 .12 .69 identity -.04 .24 .66 death .15 .04 -.54 discussion the present study aimed at exploring the subjective psychological meanings that ed patients attribute to their ed, based on a previous typology by nordbø and colleagues (2006), using a simple self-reported statement instead of interviews. this study adds to existing literature by exploring the links between self-reported ed meanings and ed diagnosis (an or bn), ed and general symptoms severity, and motivation toward treatment, as well as evolution of symptoms, and motivation throughout treatment, in a sample of women suffering from either an or bn. first, the very high inter-rater agreement (k = 0.91) as well as the high percentage of statements that could be categorized (79.68%) showed that the classification from nordbø and colleagues (2006) has clinical significance among patients suffering from an and bn, and can be used to classify simple self-reported statements. in previous studies, the meanings were identified through carefully conducted interactive semi-structured interviews, which greatly deepened the understanding of underlying meanings attributed to ed by participants, but which were costly and required a lot of time and resources. the present study replicates this typology with a simple self-reported question repeated throughout treatment, which is significantly less costly and complex. findings give empirical support to this method of assessing psychological meanings of ed in clinical settings. participants in this study identified mainly avoidance, mental strength, and security as the primary meanings of their disorder, which is similar to previous studies’ findings (nordbø et al., 2006; serpell & treasure, 2002; serpell et al., 1999). when ed diagnosis was taken into consideration, it was found that the adoption of disturbed eating behaviors to soothe or avoid aversive internal states, as described by the avoidance meaning, was more frequently reported by participants suffering from bn than by those with an. these results are in concordance with the literature, suggesting that binge eating may serve to escape or temporarily reduce negative affects such as anxiety, anger, irritation, depression, and boredom (deaver et al., 2003; heatherton & psychological meanings of ed and clinical profile 374 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ baumeister, 1991; kaye et al., 1986; mcmanus & waller, 1995; milligan & waller, 2000; stickney & miltenberger, 1999; waller, quinton, & watson, 1995), by shifting the attention focus on food, while purging behaviors can serve to reduce guilt and worry associated with binge eating (corstorphine et al., 2006; kaye et al., 1986; milligan & waller, 2000). among participants with an, the security and mental strength meanings were the most frequently endorsed meanings, although they did not appear to be as common as in previous studies, avoidance being the most frequent meaning (nordbø et al., 2006; serpell et al., 1999; vitousek, watson, & wilson, 1998). such dissimilarity might be related to our sample composition, in which both subtypes of an patients (restricting and bingeeating/purging) were included. security and mental strength are possibility more prevalent in purely restrictive an patients, who are known to show high self-control. control over one’s body and food could artificially compensates for feelings of ineffectiveness and low self-esteem, as an attempt to internally control external reality (chassler, 1994; gabbard, 2000; vitousek, watson, & wilson, 1998). considering the aggregation of meanings into three main dimensions, results from our study not only replicate the three-factor structure proposed by marzola and colleagues (2016) but the theoretical content of our factors is similar to the one obtained by this research team. the avoidance factor represents a strategy for escaping negative emotions and experience. the relational factor represents a way of communicating patient’s own messages via problematic symptoms (ex. a way of communicating difficulties to other people, of eliciting care from other people, of feeling acknowledged). the intrapsychic factor is more oriented toward patients own motives and internal world (ex. a way of obtaining a sense of stability and security, of getting an inner sense of mastery and strength, of creating a different identity or personality). in the present study, the three factors were not related to ed symptoms. nevertheless, subscales from the intrapsychic factor were associated with greater psychopathology (death) and less motivation toward treatment (mental strength and security). these results are similar to those obtained by marzola and colleagues (2016), who found more depression and less motivation in relation with the intrapsychic factor. intrapsychic motives may be related to less favorable prognostic (marzola et al., 2016). it is however important to note that death being part of our intrapsychic factor was a novel finding, and this should be replicated. the absence of difference within the three factors regarding ed symptoms in the present study might be explained by the fact that we used a rather general measure of eating problems, instead of a more specific one, as marzola and colleagues (2016) did. as such, they found different associations between the factors and ed problems depending on the facets measured. still, they did not find associations between their factors and bmi, duration of illness as well as duration of treatment/psychotherapy. according to them, the independence of ed meanings from duration of illness and treatment supported their results since it ensured that psychological meanings were not contaminated by illness or over-rationalization following treatment. from a clinical point of view, our study underlines the relevance of considering the subjective reality of ed patients, rather than only describing eds as observable and discrete behaviors. as nordbø and colleagues (2006) mentioned, patients describe the psychological meanings of ed as precipitating, contributing and maintaining their disorder. adding interventions specifically targeting psychological meanings of eds to existing treatment could increase treatment acceptability and effectiveness, especially if these interventions address ed’s benefits such as a greater sense of security, identity and mental strength. for the patient, it could carry a feeling of being more fully understood (as the therapist would understand the meaning of problematic behaviors) and could give sense to the healing process, which helps developing the therapeutic alliance, as well as ensuring motivagagnon-girouard, chenel-beaulieu, aimé et al. 375 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tion and adherence to treatment (fox, larkin, & leung, 2010; nordbø et al., 2006). furthermore, by targeting the prominent ed meanings for each patient, interventions would be more personalized and adapted to the patient discourse, which may reduce the heterogeneity of the clinical response. finally, considering that ed develops at a relatively young age, it would be very interesting for future studies to investigate ed meanings among teenagers to validate the different themes that we have found and their frequency among those patients. this will support future interventions on ed meanings with adolescents. although the present study has a number of strengths (a single question to assess ed psychological meanings, distinction between an and bn, reference to a theoretical framework), results must be interpreted in light of some limitations. first, considering that all patients were recruited at their admission session of a day hospital program in a specialised ed unit, we cannot ensure that their ed diagnosis (an or bn) remained stable throughout the study as diagnosis crossover may have happened. second, although the sample size was larger than previous studies, it was still not large enough to examine subtypes of an. further studies should test these associations within sub-samples of individuals with an (restrictive or binge-eating/purging), bn and bed separately, with more refined measures of eating symptoms. finally, given the correlational nature of the present study, the direction of causality between ed psychological meanings and clinical symptoms, motivation, and their evolution cannot be assumed. in sum, the present study adds to previous empirical investigations by showing that ed psychological meanings can be assessed rigorously by a simple self-reported statement, which is less expensive and time-consuming than semi-structured interviews. in addition, findings suggest that the inclusion of explicit interventions specifically targeting psychological meanings of ed could increase treatment acceptability and effectiveness. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abbate-daga, g., amianto, f., delsedime, n., de-bacco, c., & fassino, s. 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(2007). eating disorders in the 21st century: identification, management, and prevention in obstetrics and gynecology. best practice & research clinical obstetrics & gynaecology, 21(2), 331-343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2006.12.001 about the authors marie-pierre gagnon-girouard, ph.d., is a professor of psychology at the department of psychology in université du québec à trois-rivières. her research interests converge around binge eating disorder, body image and weight bias. she is also a clinical psychologist who works with individuals suffering from eating disorders and body image difficulties. marie-pier chenel beaulieu is a psychologist at the integrated health and social services centres (cisss) affiliated to laval university. she is working with adults suffering from mental health disorders, including eating disorders. her doctoral research focussed on the psychological meanings underlying eating disorders. annie aimé is a professor at the université du québec en outaouais. her research and clinical interests mainly focus on eating disorders, body satisfaction, weight bullying and weight-based stigmatization, and emotional well-being. she focuses on youth, adults and parents who suffer from weight, shape and eating problems. carole ratté is a retired professor of psychiatry at the faculty of medicine of laval university. she founded the intervention program for eating disorders provided in quebec ciuss. her research interests include the etiology and treatment of eating disorders. catherine bégin is a professor of psychology at the school of psychology of laval university. she is the director of a multidisciplinary clinic specialized in the treatment of eating and weight disorders. her main research interests stands on profiling people suffering from eating and weight issues. she is also interested in the etiology and treatment of eating and weight disorders. gagnon-girouard, chenel-beaulieu, aimé et al. 379 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 367–379 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1623 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002%2f%28sici%291098-108x%28199903%2925%3a2%253c177%3a%3aaid-eat7%253e3.3.co%3b2-4 https://doi.org/10.1002%2f%28sici%291098-108x%28199909%2926%3a2%3c195%3a%3aaid-eat9%3e3.0.co%3b2-2 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs0272-7358%2898%2900012-9 https://doi.org/10.1002%2f1098-108x%28199509%2918%3a2%3c189%3a%3aaid-eat2260180212%3e3.0.co%3b2-b https://doi.org/10.2337%2fdiacare.21.10.1644 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.bpobgyn.2006.12.001 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological meanings of ed and clinical profile (introduction) methods participants and procedure measures procedure data analysis results classification ed diagnosis short-term and long-term links with clinical profile discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span research reports compassionate love for a romantic partner across the adult life span félix neto* a, daniela c. wilks b [a] faculty of psychology and educational sciences, universidade do porto, porto, portugal. [b] school of business and social sciences, universidade europeia, lisbon, portugal. abstract compassionate love has received research attention over the last decade, but it is as yet unclear how it is experienced over a lifetime. the purpose of this study was to investigate compassionate love for a romantic partner throughout the adult life span, exploring individual differences in the propensity to experience compassionate love in regard to age, gender, religion, love status, love styles, and subjective well-being. the results showed that religion and love status display significant effects on compassionate love. believers experienced greater compassionate love than nonbelievers, and individuals in love presented greater compassionate love than those who were not in love. love styles and subjective well-being were found to be related to compassionate love. these findings corroborate studies that indicate that individuals who experience higher compassionate love for a romantic partner are more likely to report eros, agape, and subjective well-being. keywords: aging, compassionate love, love styles, subjective well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 received: 2016-05-23. accepted: 2017-05-14. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: faculdade de psicologia e de ciências da educação, universidade do porto, rua alfredo allen, 4200-135 porto, portugal. e-mail: fneto@fpce.up.pt this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. interest in understanding love has been growing since the mid-twentieth century, but much remains to be understood. in a recent contribution to the scientific study of love, berscheid (2010) lays out a quadrumvirate model in which compassionate love (cl) is one of the four types of love experienced by romantic partners, along with passionate love, companionate love, and attachment love. she posits that, although these types of love can co-occur in romantic relationships, they are distinct from each other. considerable research has been directed at understanding passionate love, companionate love, and attachment love, however, cl is still poorly understood (e.g., berscheid, 2010; fehr & sprecher, 2009; neto & menezes, 2014; oman, 2011). cl is “the kind of love that ultimately centers on the good of the other” (underwood, 2009, p. 3) and, although it is important to understand the course of cl across the lifespan (fehr, harasymchuk, & sprecher, 2014), this area has not yet been investigated. the current study responds to calls for further investigation of cl (e.g., berscheid, 2010; fehr et al., 2014), aiming at extending research on cl for a romantic partner throughout the adult life span, and exploring individual differences in propensity to experience cl. with this purpose, an europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ empirical study was conducted in portugal focusing on the relationship between cl for a romantic partner and age, gender, religion, love status, love styles, and subjective well-being through time. compassionate love most definitions of cl contain the theme of giving of oneself for the goal of another (shacham-dupont, 2003). for example, cl was defined by underwood (2009, p. 4) as “attitudes and actions related to giving of self for the good of the other”. along the same lines, sprecher and fehr (2005, p. 630), defined cl as an “attitude toward other(s), either close others or strangers or all of humanity; containing feelings, conditions, and behaviors that are focused on caring, concern, tenderness, and an orientation toward supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), particularly when the other(s) is (are) perceived to be suffering or in need”. cl can be experienced for a romantic partner, family, friends, peripheral ties, and humanity (sprecher & fehr, 2005). more recently, fehr, harasymchuk, and sprecher (2014) reviewed the extant conceptualizations of cl and concluded that a common aspect is that they involve “extending beneficence to another” (fehr et al., 2014, p. 580). the current study the current research analyzed the cl for a romantic partner throughout the adult life span, and explored individual differences in propensity to experience cl. more specifically, the objectives of the current investigation were three-fold, as follows: objective 1 the first objective was to explore whether there were differences in cl according to age, gender, religion, and love status. age — to date, there is relatively little investigation on the relationships between aging and the experience of cl. this is a serious lacuna. researching the experience of older adults of cl is particularly relevant given the increase in life expectancy (hatfield & rapson, 2014). past research on the relationship between age and cl is mixed. smith (2009) found that empathy and altruistic values were most common in mid-life. however, this was not found for feelings of normative obligation to help kinfolk (marks & song, 2009) and altruistic behaviors (smith, 2009), which were quite high among older adults. given these mixed findings, we are not in any position to advance a specific hypothesis regarding the influence of age on cl, but we will address the following research question: how is age related to cl? gender — past investigation has found gender differences in cl among college students (neto, 2012b; sprecher & fehr, 2005), where women experienced cl for others to a greater degree than men, regardless of the target of cl. hence, in this study, women were expected to experience more cl than men. religion — cl is a key element of religion and spirituality (see e.g., oman, 2011). in her comprehensive model of cl, underwood (2002) posited that the religious socialization of an individual affects the likelihood of being compassionate. furthermore, research findings displayed an association between religiosity and the experience of cl (sprecher & fehr, 2005). portuguese society has been dominated by catholic tradition hence it was expected that believers would experience more cl than nonbelievers. neto & wilks 607 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ love status — falling in love is difficult to define. it is a selective orientation towards a particular individual (hendrick & hendrick, 1988) that can mirror hormonal changes and physical attraction, and “can actually lead to giving of self for the good of the other” (underwood, 2009, p. 5). given that someone in love is dominated by feelings of caring for one specific person, cl may increase with being in love. thus, in this study, it was expected that individuals in love would experience higher cl for a romantic partner than those not in love. objective 2 the second objective of this study was to examine the relationship between cl and other psychological constructs, namely love styles and subjective well-being. love styles — lee (1973) put forward a comprehensive six-style model of love, with three primary styles and three secondary styles, by analogy with chemical compounds. the primary styles include eros (passionate, romantic love), ludus (game-playing love), and storge (friendship love). compounds of two of each of the primary styles form the three secondary styles: pragma (rational, shopping-list love, a compound of storge and ludus), mania (possessive, dependent love, a compound of eros and ludus), and agape (all-giving, selfless love, a compound of eros and storge) (neto & pinto, 2015). all the above love styles are different ways of loving as there is not just one way of loving (hendrick & hendrick, 1986). the love attitudes scale is based on lee’s typology and measures attitudes towards love. it was tested cross-culturally (neto, 1994; neto et al., 2000). research with college students showed that cl is significantly and positively associated with erotic and agapic orientations, negatively associated with ludic and pragmatic orientations, and without association with storgic and manic orientations (neto, 2012b). subjective well-being — subjective well-being (swb) focuses on personal evaluations of one’s life experience and has three components: satisfaction with life, positive affect, and negative affect (diener, 2000; updegraff & suh, 2007). satisfaction with life is a cognitive evaluation of one’s life satisfaction either globally or with respect to specific life domains based on criteria chosen by each person (pavot & diener, 2008). in the present work we considered global satisfaction and two specific life domains, namely satisfaction with love life and satisfaction with sex life. positive affect concerns occurrences of positive emotions such as joy, contentment, and happiness. negative affect concerns the experience of negative emotions such as shame, sadness, and anxiety. although cognitive and affective components of swb are correlated, they form distinct factors (lucas, diener, & suh, 1996) and thus, a comprehensive evaluation of swb requires measuring both components. past research reveals that individuals who experience cl for other partners are happier in their relationships. for example, diener and lucas (2000) found love to be a prominent predictor of swb (e.g., diener & lucas, 2000), and smith (2009) showed that altruistic love was related to happiness (smith, 2009). other studies have documented that satisfaction with love life is linked to happiness and satisfaction with sex life (apt, hurlbert, pierce, & white, 1996; neto, 2012a). based on the above, it was expected that satisfaction with life, satisfaction with love life, satisfaction with sex life and positive affect would be positively correlated with cl; and negative affect would be negatively correlated with cl across the adult life span. compassionate love across the adult life span 608 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ objective 3 predictors of cl — the third objective was to explore the best predictors of the cl for a romantic partner. therefore, the following question was addressed: what are the best predictors of cl for a romantic partner? in order to answer this question, multiple regression models would be used to examine the relative strength of background variables, love styles, and subjective well-being in predicting cl. significant predictors of cl were expected within each of the three sets of variables. method participants all participants were dating someone or had a partner (were in a relationship with at least one month). the sample comprised 614 participants, 49% women and 51% men. the ages ranged from 26 to 90 with a mean age of 44.70 years (sd = 15.80). the mean age of the participants by gender was not significantly different, f(1, 613) = 0.001, p > .05. the participants were classified into three age groups in accordance with erikson (1963)’s psychosocial stages: young adults (26-30 years old, n = 149), adults (31-59 years old, n = 315) and the elderly (60-90 years old, n = 150). concerning religion, 73% of the participants reported being believers and 27% non-believers. regarding the level of education, 21 percent had not concluded secondary education, 29 percent had completed the secondary level, and 50 percent had attended university. as for the marital status, 35 percent reported being single, 42 percent married, and 23 percent were separated, divorced or widowed. assessment instruments the participants were assessed using six scales, previously adapted to the portuguese population, in addition to questions pertaining to age, gender, religion, and aspects of relationships. all scales were scored in such a way that higher numerical values corresponded to higher levels of the construct being measured. a. love attitudes scale – the 42-item love attitudes scale (hendrick & hendrick, 1986) was utilized. participants assessed their degree of agreement with the statements using a 5-point likert scale. the portuguese adaptation of this scale was previously performed by (neto, 1994; neto & pinto, 2015). on this sample, cronbach standardized alphas were .79 for eros, .72 for ludus, .78 for storge, .83 for pragma, .81 for mania, and .79 for agape. b. satisfaction with life scale – this scale, originally developed by diener et al. (1985) and adapted to the portuguese population by neto (1993), was applied. it consists of five items, such as: “i am satisfied with my life.” respondents rated their degree of agreement with the statements using a 7-point likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). this scale showed reliability and validity in the portuguese population (neto, 1993; muñoz sastre et al., 2003). on this sample, the cronbach standardized alpha was .82. c. positive and negative affect were assessed through the positive and negative affect schedule (watson et al., 1988) and adapted to the portuguese population by simões (1993). this is a measure of positive and negative affectivity that includes 22 emotion adjectives. respondents are asked to use a 5-point scale to neto & wilks 609 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ indicate how often they generally experience each emotion. on this sample, the cronbach standardized alphas were .81 and .90, respectively. d. the satisfaction with love life scale was previously developed by neto (2005). this a five-item scale and an example item is: “the conditions of my love life are excellent.” respondents were asked to rate their degree of agreement with the statements using a 7-point likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). the reliability and the validity of this scale have been previously demonstrated (neto, 2005). on this sample, the cronbach standardized alpha was .90. e. satisfaction with sex life scale was previously developed and its reliability and validity demonstrated (neto, 2012a). this scale includes five items, such as “so far i have got the important things i want in sex life.” respondents were asked to rate their degree of agreement with the statements using a 7-point likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). on this sample, the cronbach standardized alpha was .88. f. compassionate love for partner (sprecher & fehr, 2005). the 21-item relationship – specific version of the compassionate love scale (cls) comprises items such as, “one of the activities that provides me with the most meaning to my life is helping ___ [the partner].” respondents rated their degree of agreement with the statements using a 7-point likert scale (from 1 = not at all true to 7 = very true). the portuguese adaptation of this scale was previously performed by neto (2012b). on this sample, cronbach standardized alpha was .89. procedure data was collected by psychology researchers and respondents were contacted in a range of venues, such as, universities, shopping centers, and community groups. the response rate was high (71%). the questionnaire was completed in less than 30 minutes. the survey was conducted in accordance with the legal and ethical norms in the country and all participants were unpaid volunteers. results background variables and compassionate love for a romantic partner the mean score for the compassionate love scale was 5.16, with a standard deviation of .89. mean values for compassionate love scale were calculated separately for each gender and for each age group. as previously said, participants were classified into three age groups (table 1). the young adults ranged in age from 26 to 30, adults from 31 to 59, and elderly from 60 to 90 years old. the data were analyzed by means of a 2 x 3, gender x age group design. anova results showed non-significant effects for gender [f(1, 614) = 0.87, p > .05] and age differences, [f(2, 614) = 1.15, p > .05]. the interaction gender x age was also not significant, f(2, 614) = 1.27, p > .05. compassionate love across the adult life span 610 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics for compassionate love as a function of selected background variables variable m sd sex, f(1, 614) = 0.87 women 5.18 .87 men 5.15 .89 age, f(2, 614) = 1.15 26-30 years 5.22 .92 31-59 years 5.18 .84 60-90 years 5.08 .91 religion, f(1, 607) = 4.26* believers 5.21 .85 non-believers 5.04 .93 in love now, f(1, 613) = 16.22*** yes 5.21 .85 no 4.76 .97 *p < .05. ***p < .001. the effect of religion on cl was significant, f(1, 607) = 4.26, η2 = .007, p < .05. participants who reported being believers experienced more cl (m = 5.21, sd = .85) than those who were not believers (m = 5.04, sd = .93). there was also a significant effect of love status [f(1, 613) = 16.22, η2 = .026, p < .001]. participants who reported to be in love experienced greater cl (n = 547, m = 5.21, sd = .85) than those who were not love (n = 66, m = 4.76, sd = .97). the greater the mean, the greater was the cl score. within each column, for each variable, means with no superscripts in common differed at the 0.05 level, either by f test directly for a pair of means or by scheffe test for three or more means. correlations with other variables it was expected that the cls would correlate with other psychological measures in predictable ways (table 2). in the three age groups cl scores correlated significantly with eros, ludus, pragma, and mania. cl was positively and significantly correlated with eros and agape, and negatively with ludus and pragma. the only exception to this pattern was the non-significant correlation between cl and pragma among older adults. as predicted, all three satisfaction scores were significantly associated with cl scores, except satisfaction with sex life among older adults. cl was also positively and significantly correlated with positive affect and negatively with negative affect across the three age groups. as the pattern of correlations in the three age groups was quite similar, multiple regression models were employed to identify the relative strength of the variables in predicting cl for the whole sample. on the first step socio-demographic variables (gender, age, religion, and love status) were entered into the model. on the second step the love styles were entered, and on the third step the well-being variables were added. neto & wilks 611 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations between compassionate love scale scores and other variables variable compassionate love scale young adults (n = 149) middle-age adults (n = 315) elderly (n = 150) total (n = 614) eros (romantic) .39*** .22*** .30*** .28*** ludus (game playing) -.17* -.11* -.21*** -.14** storge (friendship) -.02 .07 .14 .07 pragma (practical) -.22*** -.11* -.02 -.12** mania (possessive) -.14 .02 -.02 -.03 agape (altruistic) .44*** .25*** .37*** .33*** satisfaction with life .18* .32*** .27*** .29*** satisfaction with love life .41*** .18** .28** .26*** satisfaction with sex life .36*** .27*** .14 .26*** positive affect .17* .42*** .46*** .35*** negative affect -.16* -.23*** .23** -.21*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as shown in table 3, the first set of socio-demographic variables predicted only 3 per cent of the variance in cl scores. table 3 multiple regression analyses of background, love styles, and subjective well-being predictors on compassionate love for a romantic partner variable r r2 beta t step 1 socio-demographic predictors (stepwise) 1. in love now .16 .03 -.16 -4.03*** step 2 socio-demographic and love styles predictors (stepwise) 1. agape .32 .10 .32 7.77*** 2. pragma .41 .17 -.27 -6.52*** 3. eros .44 .19 .16 3.87*** 4. ludus .45 .20 .13 -2.84** 5. in love now .46 .21 -.08 -2.09* step 3 socio-demographic, love styles nd well-being predictors (stepwise) 1. positive affect .35 .12 .35 7.99*** 2. agape .47 .22 .32 7.89*** 3. negative affect .54 .29 -.25 -6.37*** 4. satisfaction with life .57 .31 .17 4.07*** 5. pragma .58 .33 -.14 -3.25** 6. in love now .59 .34 -.12 -3.08** 7. eros .60 .35 .09 2.10* note. the beta and t values are for the step at which the variables entered. *p < 0.05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. compassionate love across the adult life span 612 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ by adding the love styles variables, agape, pragma, eros and ludus emerged as significant predictors of cl scores. in addition, being in love remained a significant predictor. these variables predicted 21 per cent of the variance in cl scores. when the well-being variables were included in the final model, positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life emerged as significant predictors. moreover, agape, pragma, being in love and eros remained significant predictors. overall, the variables predicted 35 percent of the variance in cl scores. discussion this work extends the investigation on cl to the entire adult life span. the cls was presented as regards to a specific close other, most often a dating or marital partner. there are individual features that favor the expression of cl in individuals (underwood, 2009), and in this study individual differences were explored in relation to the propensity to experience cl by focusing on age, gender, religion, love status, love styles, and subjective well-being. in what concerns age variations in cl, the research reported here shows similarities over the adult life span. this result indicates that, rather than being a phenomenon largely confined to a specific age group, cl encompasses the entire life span. hence, cl for a romantic partner is similar through life, which suggests that this construct, rather than being specific to a certain age, may represent a more universal standard. no gender differences were found among people ranging from 26 to 90 years old in cl for a specific romantic partner. this finding is not consistent with previous research, which revealed gender differences across targets (romantic partner, friends, and strangers/humanity) (sprecher & fehr, 2005; sprecher, fehr, & zimmerman, 2007). however, we must keep in mind that past research has been conducted among college students (neto, 2012b), in contrast to the present research that covers the adult life span. future investigation is needed to clarify whether gender differences in cl are specific to young people. as expected, religion influenced positively cl, and believers experienced greater cl than non-believers. this finding is in accord with other studies. for instance, oman, thoresen, and hedberg (2010) show that spiritual meditation encourages greater cl among health professionals, which in turn improves caregiving efficacy. this line of enquiry deserves attention due to its potentially important practical applications. the study reported here also explored the relationship between cl and being in love, and it was expected that individuals in love would experience higher cl for a romantic partner than those who are not in love. the results confirm this expectation, which suggests that love status affects one’s views and that lovers do wear rose-colored glasses (hendrick & hendrick, 1988). regarding cl and love styles, findings indicate that eros was positively associated with cl. for hendrick and hendrick (1992), the erotic lover values a strong focus on the partner, and along similar lines underwood (2009) argues that cl is not the same as “the often hormonally driven” romantic love. however, for berscheid (2010), both kinds of love can be experienced in intimate relationships. current findings are in accordance with berscheid, and suggest that these two kinds of love overlap across the adult life span. the agapic love style is defined as “an ethereal, altruistic love that takes no thought of the self but only of the beloved other” (hendrick & hendrick, 1987, p. 144). altruism is an important characteristic for both agape and neto & wilks 613 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cl, and in both constructs the partner’s well-being is more important than one’s own well-being. agapic love has much in common with cl, raising the question of whether they are different constructs. results reported here show that, although measures of the two constructs were associated, the associations were not so large as to suggest that they are redundant. furthermore, the multiple regression analyses showed that four love styles (agape, pragma, ludus, and eros) emerged as significant predictors of cl, and not just of the agapic love style, and thus support the claim that cl is not synonymous with agape. these results indicate that cl is related to, but distinct from, agape. ludus is a manipulative, game-playing love and the ludic lovers are frequently reluctant “to commit themselves to love” (lee, 1988, p. 50). therefore, it was expected that a game-playing approach to love should be negatively correlated with cl. this prediction was confirmed. similarly, cl was negatively related to pragma. the “shopping-list lover” has a pragmatic approach to love and selects a partner according to required attributes (hendrick & hendrick, 1992, p. 66). in this study, cl scores were not related to mania and to storge and therefore, the pattern of correlations previously found among college students (neto, 2012b) seem to be generalizable across the adult life span. in sum, different love styles such as eros, ludus, pragma and agape were found to be significantly correlated with cl. this is not surprising given that different kinds of love are likely to co-occur in relationships (berscheid, 2010). as previously thought, subjective well-being was significantly associated with cl. past research shows that the experience of cl for others has positive benefits for the self (sprecher & fehr, 2006), and the current findings confirm the positive benefits for the subjective well-being across the adult life span. the more cl individuals experienced for a romantic partner, the higher their levels of global, sex and love satisfaction. the emotional components of subjective well-being (positive affect and negative affect) were also correlated with cl, and positive affect was the strongest predictor of cl. hence, experiencing subjective well-being can be beneficial to cl for a romantic partner. in sum, this study evidenced more similarities than differences between older partners and young partners regarding cl. first, no differences were found for cl across the adult life span. second, generally the constellations of correlations between cl and love styles, and subjective well-being were similar across the adult life span. only two differences were found: among older partners no associations were found between cl and pragma, and satisfaction with sex life. these findings may be interpreted as reflecting the pragmatism of older lovers (neto, 2001), who may be slightly less satisfied with sex life (sprecher & cate, 2004) than their younger counterparts. this study makes a contribution to the literature on cl, however, limitations should be acknowledged. first, the compassionate love scale is self-reported and the use of multiple methods would help to enhance our understanding of cl. second, data were cross-sectional and causal implications cannot be drawn. in particular, we examined whether subjective well-being predicts cl. however, the relationships between subjective wellbeing and cl are likely to be involved in reciprocal causal relationships. future longitudinal or experimental works could analyze more causal explanations. third, the present study examined only cl for a romantic partner. future research should investigate cl for close others and humanity in general. compassionate love across the adult life span 614 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references 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(2002). the human experience of compassionate love: conceptual mapping and data from selected studies. in s. g. post, l. g. underwood, j. p. schloss, & w. b. halbut (eds.), altruism and altruistic love (pp. 72-88). new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. underwood, g. (2009). compassionate love: a framework for research. in b. fehr, s. sprecher, & l. underwood (eds.), the science of compassionate love: theory, research, and applications (pp. 3-25). malden, ma, usa: blackwell. updegraff, j. a., & suh, e. m. (2007). happiness is a warm abstract thought: self-construal abstractness and subjective well-being. the journal of positive psychology, 2, 18-28. doi:10.1080/17439760601069150 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 about the authors félix neto is professor of psychology at the university of porto (portugal). his research interests include cross-cultural psychology and social psychology (especially migration and subjective well-being). he is author of 18 books in the areas of social psychology and cross-cultural psychology, and over 300 papers published in portuguese, english, french, catalan, spanish and italian. daniela c. wilks is an associate professor at universidade europeia – laureate international universities in lisbon. she is a psychologist by training holding degrees from universidade do porto, okayama university and the university of sheffield. she has carried out research on different topics and published several articles in scholarly journals. neto & wilks 617 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 606–617 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1204 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/17439760701756946 http://doi.org/10.1177/0265407505056439 http://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9192-6 http://doi.org/10.1080/17439760601069150 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ compassionate love across the adult life span (introduction) compassionate love the current study method participants assessment instruments procedure results background variables and compassionate love for a romantic partner correlations with other variables discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mothers and fathers in nicu: the impact of preterm birth on parental distress research reports mothers and fathers in nicu: the impact of preterm birth on parental distress chiara ionio*a, caterina colombob, valeria brazzodurob, eleonora mascheronia, emanuela confalonieria, francesca castoldib, gianluca listab [a] centro di ricerca sulle dinamiche evolutive ed educative (cridee), department of psychology, catholic university of milan, milan, italy. [b] neonatal intensive care unit (nicu), v. buzzi-ospedale dei bambini, icp, milan, italy. abstract preterm birth is a stressful event for families. in particular, the unexpectedly early delivery may cause negative feelings in mothers and fathers. the aim of this study was to examine the relationship between preterm birth, parental stress and negative feelings, and the environmental setting of nicu. 21 mothers (age = 36.00 ± 6.85) and 19 fathers (age = 34.92 ± 4.58) of preterm infants (ga = 30.96 ± 2.97) and 20 mothers (age = 40.08 ± 4.76) and 20 fathers (age = 40.32 ± 6.77) of full-term infants (ga = 39.19 ± 1.42) were involved. all parents filled out the parental stressor scale: neonatal intensive care unit, the impact of event scale revised, profile of mood states, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support and the post-partum bonding questionnaire. our data showed differences in emotional reactions between preterm and full-term parents. results also revealed significant differences between mothers and fathers’ responses to preterm birth in terms of stress, negative feelings, and perceptions of social support. a correlation between negative conditions at birth (e.g., birth weight and neonatal intensive care unit stay) and higher scores in some scales of impact of event scale revised, profile of mood states and post-partum bonding questionnaire were found. neonatal intensive care unit may be a stressful place both for mothers and fathers. it might be useful to plan, as soon as possible, interventions to help parents through the experience of the premature birth of their child and to begin an immediately adaptive mode of care. keywords: prematurity, nicu, parental stress, parenting, caring europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 received: 2015-12-09. accepted: 2016-07-07. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: ateka contractor, va boston healthcare system (massachusetts veterans epidemiology research and information center) boston, ma, usa *corresponding author at: cridee, catholic university of milan, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: chiara.ionio@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction preterm birth is defined by the who as birth that occurs before 37 weeks of gestation. until the nineties, prematurity was defined on the basis of birth weight, however, in recent years gestational age has been considered as the main indicator of physical and neurological maturation of preterm babies (sansavini & faldella, 2013). preterm birth is a multi-problematic event that presents two main consequences: first of all, the medical and neurophysiological conditions of the new born baby put him or her in danger (particularly for infants with a weight lower than 1.500 grams and with a gestational age less than 32 weeks), and secondly, it could have a negative impact both on the mother and father’s relationship and on parent–child interactions (müller-nix & ansermet, 2009). although europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ it has been widely demonstrated that preterm infants are at risk for developing deficit and delays, the underlying causes of these poorer developmental outcome, and the role of parents, are still less understood. in particular, as far as we know still few studies investigate mothers’ and fathers’ initial experience and reactions immediately after the premature birth of their child (aagaard & hall, 2008; arnold et al., 2013; jackson, ternestedt, & schollin, 2003; maroney, 1994; orapiriyakul, jirapaet, & rodcumdee, 2007). furthermore still few studies examined fathers’ experiences of preterm birth, although these studies highlighted the importance of fathers’ experiences (candelori, trumello, babore, keren, & romanelli, 2015; lundqvist & jakobsson, 2003; pohlman, 2005). preterm delivery potentially combines both biological and environmental risk factors, therefore, simple cause-andeffect models that identify preterm birth itself as the only cause for developmental disorder are lacking of predictive efficiency (sameroff & chandler, 1975). sameroff and chandler (1975) proposed a transactional model that described that children and parents influence each other. this model predicts that preterm birth itself does not cause negative developmental outcomes alone but that the stressful conditions following early delivery moderates the risk for later developmental difficulties. one month after preterm birth, parents are shocked by the physiological and psychological conditions of their baby (hoffenkamp et al., 2015; singer et al., 2003). the event could interfere with their transitions into parenthood: the adverse medical condition of their baby prevents parents from taking care immediately of their new born child (axelin, lehtonen, pelander, & salanterä, 2010; feldman, weller, leckman, kuint, & eidelman, 1999). when their baby stays in nicui, parents usually feel powerless and helpless; therefore, they may be more stressed and vulnerable to emotional difficulties than parents of full-term babies (clottey & dillard, 2013; sansavini & faldella, 2013). furthermore, preterm birth could be a traumatic event that affects parents’ everyday lives. in most cases premature birth is the unexpected result of medical complications for the mother, which makes necessary the immediate interruption of pregnancy, often in emergency situations, in order to avoid serious threats to the baby’s and mother’s health (coppola & cassibba, 2004). referring also to the eight criteria for defining a potentially traumatic event, identified by green (1990), premature birth could be a traumatic event since it is a threat to the physical integrity of the mother and a threat to the integrity of a loved one, the baby. this trauma could lead parents to develop post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms of avoidance, hyperarousal, and intrusion (lefkowitz, baxt, & evans, 2010), preventing parents from having a normative transition to parenthood (watson, 2011) and damaging the new relationship between them and their baby (ionio & di blasio, 2014). furthermore after birth the difficult medical conditions of premature babies and the mechanical environment in the nicu usually prevent a skin-to-skin relationship between children and their parents, and this could be dangerous for the future development of the babies (wigert, berg, & hellström, 2010). several studies have demonstrated the importance of parents’ extended presence and skin-to-skin contact with their infants for the infants’ long-term outcomes. positive effects of skin-to-skin contact between children and their parents are related to effects on the parents (de macedo, cruvinel, lukasova, & d’antino, 2007; feldman, eidelman, sirota, & weller, 2002; green & phipps, 2015). these findings are particularly important since a recent study pointed out that although the majority of units in different european countries reported a nicu policy that encourage both parents to take part in the care of their babies, parental involvement as well as the role played by mothers and fathers are generally more limited in italy. tasks involving more responsibility such as supporting the baby during uncomfortable procedures were commonly europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 605 http://www.psychopen.eu/ allowed in sweden, united kingdom and the netherlands, but less in italy. furthermore in italy many units applied restrictions regarding the frequency and the time of parents' admission to nicu and fathers are usually less involved than mothers as regards skin-to-skin contact and kangaroo care (pallás-alonso et al., 2012). parents of premature babies also have to leave their regular routines and spend many hours in the nicu, where they continue to experience the infants’ fragility and mortality (clottey & dillard, 2013). they live in a state of psychological and physical separation from their babies, aggravated by the artificial environment of the neonatal intensive care unit (nicu), in which the medical staff takes care of their infant’s neuropsychological and behavioral development and wellbeing, which often causes parents further pain and distress (montirosso, provenzi, calciolari, borgatti, & neo-acqua study group, 2012; sansavini & faldella, 2013). the sense of powerlessness and impairment could alter the parental role, and it could also increase anxiety, depression, helplessness, frustration, guilt, and anger (müller-nix & ansermet, 2009). in parents of preterm infants also external infant characteristics, associated with immaturity and severity of medical status, could be stressors that could further impair the very first relationship between parents and their baby (demier et al., 2000; müller-nix & ansermet, 2009). the appearance of preterm babies is perceived as less physically attractive than the features of full-terms: they are immature and show less infantile facial features (goldberg & divitto, 2002; hildebrandt & fitzgerald, 1979; hoffenkamp et al., 2012). in general parents should try to establish a balance between adaptive or non-adaptive behaviors in order to complete a functional transition to parenthood (cena, imbasciati, & baldoni, 2010). in order to make this transition, fathers and mothers have to perform different roles and develop specific competences. different studies showed that after premature birth fathers usually have a supportive role. they are expected to help their wives, to contain their negative feelings such as sufferance, anxiety, and depression, and to think about both their wives and their babies, giving them proper support (alkozei, mcmahon, & lahav, 2014; lindberg, axelsson, & öhrling, 2007). only after the discharge of their babies do fathers seem to be safer and more confident trying to establish a new active relationship with infants (jackson et al., 2003). on the other hand, mothers try to establish a positive relationship with their newborn babies also by improving their abilities to take care of them and by learning new techniques from the medical staff. sometimes, this type of interaction allows mothers to recover their self-esteem and their capacity to respond to their infants as an “expert” caregiver (sansavini & faldella, 2013). furthermore only few studies on non-clinical sample have tried to identify the presence of significant differences between mother-child and father-child interaction. in particular some studies have shown that fathers are more prone to physical contact with their babies than mothers during the interaction (lamb & lewis, 2010). furthermore this physical contact searched by fathers may affect the cognitive and socio-emotional child’s development both directly and indirectly, encouragingmother-child exchanges and supporting the triadic interactions within the family (brown, mcbride, bost, & shin, 2011). other studies have pointed out that parental stress experienced during the infant’s admission in nicu could influence the psychological and behavioral development of the baby (dudek-shriber, 2004; howe, sheu, wang, & hsu, 2014). thinking about their babies as sick and in danger is very stressful for parents, and it may bring them to an emotional crisis (alkozei et al., 2014; franck, cox, allen, & winter, 2005). for this reason, parents need to be informed about all the medical procedures carried out on their sick baby. moreover, having a good relationship with medical staff and an active listener to their fears could reduce their anxiety (müller-nix & ansermet, 2009). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 606 http://www.psychopen.eu/ teti, hess, and o’connell (2005) reported that parents of premature babies are “preterm parents”: negative feelings, stress, anxiety, and the uncertain future of their babies put them in a position of fragility that could damage their attachment relationship with their babies (coppola & cassibba, 2004). therefore, supporting parents during the hospitalization of infants could protect the development of the “preterm family” (korja et al., 2010). since most of the studies examined focused on experiences over the longer period of the infant being hospitalized, they may analyze situations which have already become ‘normality’ for many parents. the main aim of the present study was to explore mothers’ and fathers’ experiences immediately after the premature birth of their babies and their first experience of nicu in order to increase our knowledge about mothers’ and fathers’ initial experience and reactions. in particular this study wanted to identify the most stressful factors for parents of premature babies and to specify the role of mother and father inside the nicu. in particular we wanted to investigate how mothers and fathers experience preterm birth immediately after the delivery and how they deal with the difficulties of this event and to understand how their feelings are linked to the nicu. furthermore, we wanted to analyze the relation between the parents’ feelings and their premature children’s characteristics soon after their birth in order to better understand how this event influences the maternal and paternal response. aim several studies (matricardi, agostino, fedeli, & montirosso, 2013; miles, holditch-davis, schwartz, & scher, 2007; sansavini & faldella, 2013) have shown how premature birth (< 37 weeks) is often a traumatic event for parents that could cause in mothers and fathers trauma-related symptoms, such as symptoms of avoidance, intrusion and hyperarousal, negative states of mind and feelings, such as anxiety, hostility, inertia, depression, and bewilderment, and stress related to the nicu perception, the baby’s conditions and the perception of an altered parental role (ionio & di blasio, 2014; lefkowitz et al., 2010; müller-nix & ansermet, 2009). one of the aims of this study was to investigate maternal and paternal responses immediately after the premature birth of their child in terms of trauma-related symptoms, negative states of mind and feelings and stress related to the nicu perception, the baby conditions and the perception of an altered parental role by comparing a clinical sample of parents of preterm children and a control sample of parents of full-term children. furthermore, according to previous studies that showed that mothers experienced higher level of stress than fathers after their baby’s premature birth and nicu stay (jackson et al., 2003), we wanted to better understand if mothers and fathers faced in a different way the premature birth of their babies in terms not only of trauma-related symptoms and negative states of mind and feelings but also of how they perceive the nicu, their baby conditions and their parental role and external support. finally, we wanted to understand how parental trauma-related symptoms, negative states of mind and feelings and stress related to the nicu perception, the baby conditions and the perception of an altered parental role in the preterm children sample were linked to the neonatal characteristic of the babies and to the hospitalization condition. based on previous studies (ionio & di blasio, 2014; lefkowitz et al., 2010; matricardi et al., 2013; miles et al., 2007; müller-nix & ansermet, 2009), we expected: europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 607 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. the parents of preterm children would to show higher levels of trauma-related symptoms, negative states of mind and feelings and stress related to the nicu perception, the baby conditions and the perception of an altered parental role than parent of full-term children; 2. mothers to show more trauma-related symptoms, to feel more stressed, anxious, depressed and angry than the fathers and to respondmore negatively to the situation, in particular as regards the nicu perception, the baby conditions and the perception of an altered parental role; 3. a correlation between higher levels of trauma-related symptoms, negative states of mind and feelings and stress related to the nicu perception, the baby conditions and the perception of an altered parental role in parents and the poor biological condition at birth, such as low gestational age and birth weight. methods participants twenty-one italian couples (21 mothers and 19 fathers) of preterm infants and 29 italian couples (29 mothers and 23 fathers) of full-term babies were contacted, who were recruited for a larger, longitudinal study that wanted to investigate the role of mothers and fathers on the neuropsychological development outcome of healthy preterm babies from birth until preschool age. the sample’s characteristics are summarized in table 1. the clinical sample inclusion criteria were infant gestational age (ga) ≤ 37 weeks, absence of congenital anomalies. parents of preterm children were approached inside nicu, while parents of term children were approached inside the maternity ward by research psychologists, introduced by the medical doctors of the wards. after a brief meeting conversation, the research psychologists introduced the research to parents, explaining them that they would be involved in a longitudinal study in order to investigate preterm children development from birth till preschool age. if parents agreed to participate in the follow up study the researcher explained them the content of the questionnaire. approximately 50% of parents refused to participate in our research because they were totally focused on their child. parents who agreed initially, usually did not change their mind, refusing to participate, except for two fathers who refused after reading the questionnaires, because they did not want to express their personal states and feelings. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 608 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic and medical characteristics of the sample differences full-term (29 mothers and 23 fathers) preterm (21 mothers and 19 fathers)characteristics demographic characteristics maternal age (years) , p = .19t(34) = -1.35, sd = 4.56m = 34.92, sd = 6.85m = 36.00 paternal age (years) , p = .87t(32) = -.17, sd = 6.77m = 40.32, sd = 4.76m = 40.08 χ2(2, n = 50) = 1.82, p = .40maternal education <high school .7%7.0%0 high school .2%19.2%18 >high school .1%73.8%81 χ2(2, n = 42) = 3.01, p = .22paternal education <high school .0%5.0%25 high school .0%35.0%25 >high school .0%60.0%50 χ2(4, n = 50) = 3.78, p = .44maternal profession elementary occupation .0%0.6%4 craft worker .7%3.0%0 service and sale worker .7%3.0%0 technicians .5%55.5%45 professional .1%37.9%49 χ2(5, n = 42) = 1.93, p = .86paternal profession elementary occupation .2%11.5%10 craft worker .1%7.5%10 service and sale worker .8%27.4%26 technicians .6%5.0%0 professional .7%42.6%52 managers .6%5.0%0 infant medical characteristics ga (weeks) , p < .001t(36) = 13.13, sd = 1.42m = 39.19, sd = 2.97m = 30.96 birth weight (g) , p < .001t(55) = 14.57, sd = 553.15m = 3428.55, sd = 461.57m = 1439.23 hospitalization (days) , p < .001t(25) = -6.79, sd = 0.85m = 3.87, sd = 27.13m = 40.00 measures parents filled out the following questionnaires; giving these questionnaires to parents, researchers specified that they have to complete them in regards to the recent birth of their child and their time spent in hospital: impact of event scale revised (ies-r; weiss & marmar, 1997; italian version by pietrantonio, de gennaro, di paolo, & solano, 2003). this scale investigates trauma-related symptoms that characterize parents immediately after a potential traumatic event, in our case the premature birth of their child. it is composed of 22 items divided into 3 clusters rated on a 5 point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all), to 4 (extremely) that measure the presence of posttraumatic stress symptomatology: 8 items regarding symptoms of avoidance (parents’ avoidance of feelings, situations, memories; e.g. “i tried not to think about it”), 7 items regarding symptoms of intrusion (flashbacks, nightmares, images; e.g. “i had dreams about it”), and 7 items regarding symptoms of hyperarousal (fear, irritability, hypervigilance, and difficulties in concentration; e.g. “i felt irritable and angry”). there is also another scale europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 609 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that shows the total score obtained from the sum of others scales (avoidance, intrusion, hyperarousal). this scale showed good psychometric properties: internal consistency was cronbach’s alpha = .96. for the current study cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of mothers for the subscales were .85 (avoidance), .69 (intrusion), .86 (hyperarousal), and .66 for the total. cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of fathers for the subscales were .61 (avoidance), .91 (intrusion), .77 (hyperarousal), and .60 for the total. profile of mood states (poms; mcnair, lorr, & droppleman, 1971; italian version by farnè, sebellico, gnugnoli, & corallo, 1991). this instrument investigates parents’ affective states and describes both negative and positive states of mind. it is used to define mothers’ and fathers’ profiles after preterm birth. it is composed of 58 items rated on a 5 point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all), to 4 (extremely) in order to examine 6 affective dimensions: tension–anxiety (e.g. “tense”, “nervous”), anger–hostility (e.g. “angry”, “furious”), fatigue–inertia (e.g. “fatigued”, “exhausted”), depression–dejection (e.g. “unhappy”, “blue”), vigor–activity (e.g. “active”, “energetic”), and confusion–bewilderment (e.g. “bewildered”, “muddled”). this measure showed excellent psychometric properties: internal consistency in the subscale ranged from cronbach’s alpha = .63 (confusions) to cronbach’s alpha = .96 (depression–dejection) (curran, andrykowski, & studts, 1995). in the present study internal consistency range from cronbach’s alpha = .69 (confusion–bewilderment) to cronbach’s alpha = .93 (vigor–activity) for mothers and from cronbach’s alpha = .70 (vigor–activity) to cronbach’s alpha = .96 (depression–dejection) for fathers. multidimensional scale of perceived social support (mspss; zimet, dahlem, zimet, & farley, 1988; italian version by prezza & principato, 2002). the mspss is a 12-item self-report questionnaire scored on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree). there are three sub-scales addressing different areas of support, namely family (e.g. “my family really tries to help me”), friends (e.g. “my friends really try to help me”) and significant others (e.g. “i have a special person who is a real source of comfort to me”). this measured showed good psychometric properties: internal reliability is high (cronbach’s alpha = 0.88). the authors report test-retest reliability of .85 over a 2-3 month period, along with moderate construct validity. for the current study cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of mothers for the subscales were .92 (significant others) .98 (family) .98 (friends) and .96 for the total. cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of fathers for the subscales were .81 (significant others) .80 (family) .97 (friends) and .87 for the total. post-partumbondingquestionnaire (pbq; brockington, fraser, &wilson, 2006; italian translation bymontirosso, fedeli, provenzi, & brockington, 2009). this questionnaire investigates possible difficulties and disorders in the relationship between the mother and father and their new born baby. the instrument is composed of 22 items rated on a 6 point likert scale ranging from 0 (always), to 5 (never) divided into 4 subscales: the impaired bonding subscale (e.g. “i feel happy when my baby smiles or laughs”), the rejection and pathological anger subscale (e.g. “i feel angry with my baby”), the infant-focused anxiety subscale (e.g. “my baby makes me feel anxious”), and the incipient abuse subscale (e.g. “i feel like hurting my baby”). for the current study only impaired bonding subscale, rejection and pathological anger subscale and infant-focused anxiety subscale were used for analysis. authors (brockington et al., 2006) indicated that scale 1 had a sensitivity of .82 for identifying all mother-infant relationship disorders; scale 2 (rejection and pathological anger) had a sensitivity of .88 for identifying rejection of the infant, but only .67 for identifying severe anger. the performance of scale 3 (infant-focused anxiety) was unsatisfactory. authors (brockington et al., 2006) indicate that scale 4 (incipient abuse) selected only a few mothers, but was of some value in identifying those at high risk of child abuse. for the current study cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of mothers for the subscales were .62 (impaired bonding) .60 (rejection and pathological anger) and .60 for the total. cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of fathers for the subscales were .70 (impaired bonding) .60 europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 610 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (rejection and pathological anger) .80 for the total. the performance of scale 3 (infant-focused anxiety) both for mothers and for fathers was unsatisfactory as brockington et al. (2006) version. parental stressor scale: neonatal intensive care unit (pss:nicu; miles, funk, & carlson, 1993; italian version by montirosso et al., 2012). this questionnaire was administered only to parents of preterm babies. this instrument describes parents’ stress and perceptions related to the nicu. this scale is composed of 34 items and is divided into 3 clusters: sights and sounds (of the machines of the nicu, e.g. “the presence of constant noise of monitors and equipment”), infant behavior and appearance (stress related to the infants’ status, e.g. “the small size of my baby”) and parental role alteration (stress related to the perceptions of parents’ strength to become a caregiver, e.g. “being separated from my baby”). parents had to rate each item on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all stressful) 5 to (extremely stressful), the scale demonstrated high test–retest reliability, with correlations ranging from .69 for the subscales and .87 for the total scale. internal consistency has also been demonstrated, with cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from .73 to .92 for the subscales and from .89 to .94 for the total scale. in the current study this measure showed excellent psychometric properties with cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of mothers and fathers ranging from .93 to .98. procedure ethical approval was gained through the hospital’s research ethics committee, which required informed consent from each participant. so, informed consent for the protection of privacy (law no. 196 of 2003) was a prerequisite to participating in the study. parents both of preterm and full-term babies were recruited to complete all the questionnaires within 7–14 days from their infant’s birth. the parents were recruited from january 2013 to march 2014 in the neonatal intensive care unit and the maternal care unit of a hospital in northern italy. analysis data were analyzed with spss statistics release 20.0. since that the assumptions of parametric statistics were not satisfied (shapiro wilks test was significant for each variable) and because of the limited sample size the intergroup comparison between parents’ scores of preterm and full-term infants was done by an independent samples mann-whitney u non-parametric test. the comparison between mothers’ and fathers’ scores of preterm and full-term infants was done by a related sampleswilcoxon signed rank non-parametric test. finally, correlations between parental questionnaire scores and gestational age, birth weight, and length of hospitalization in the preterm sample were done by the pearson correlation test. the level of significance was set at p < .05. results parents of preterm children vs. parents of full-term children some significant differences in the poms (mcnair et al., 1971) scales were found (table 2). mothers of preterm babies showed higher scores than mothers of full-term babies in almost all the subscales of poms (mcnair et al., 1971), namely tension–anxiety (line 1), depression (line 2), anger–hostility (line 3), and fatigue (line 5). at the same time, these mothers appeared less strong than mothers of full-term babies: there is a significant difference between them in the vigor subscale (line 4). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 611 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 comparison of preterm and full-term mothers’ and fathers’ scores (poms) p full-termpreterm dimensionsline no. sdmsdm mothers .010tension1 .5428.9745.67511.7653 .000depression2 .3355.6243.5749.4349 .020anger3 .3326.4843.09413.5751 .000vigor4 .45610.7662.70711.1950 .030fatigue5 .0608.4147.24210.9052 fathers .004anger6 .2306.3043.50016.0051 .008vigor7 .8606.4363.52010.2654 fathers of preterm babies had a lower level of vigor–activity (line 6) and a higher level of hostility–anger (line 7) than full-term fathers had. no significant differences were found in mspss (zimet et al., 1988) and ies-r (weiss & marmar, 1997), even if mothers of preterm babies had generally higher scores. mothers vs. fathers in the preterm sample no differences between mothers and fathers of preterm babies related to the poms score (mcnair et al., 1971) were found. significant differences between mothers and fathers of preterm babies were found in the ies-r (weiss & marmar, 1997). table 3 shows that mothers of preterm children had higher levels of intrusive feelings (line 1), a higher tendency to be hyperactive (line 2), and a significantly higher level of general stress (line 3) than fathers of preterm babies. table 3 comparison of the scores of mothers and fathers of preterm babies fathermother scalesline no. psdmsdm .00intrusive feelings (ies-r)1 .590.630.620.321 .04hyperarousal (ies-r)2 .770.460.790.900 .01total stress (ies-r)3 .251.611.891.792 .01anger (pbq)4 .212.921.371.800 .01total score (pss:nicu)5 .262.437.242.279 .02parental role alteration (pss:nicu)6 .790.452.860.063 .00infant behavior and appearance (pss:nicu)7 .281.762.940.733 note. ies-r scores are rated on a 5-point likert scale (0 = not at all – 4 = extremely); pbq scores are rated on a 6-point likert scale (0 = always – 5 = never); pss:nicu scores are rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = not at all stressful – 5 = extremely stressful). significant differences were found in the pbq (brockington et al., 2006): fathers showed significantly higher levels of anger than mothers (line 4). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 612 http://www.psychopen.eu/ some significant differences were found between mothers and fathers in pss:nicu (miles, funk, & carlson, 1993) scores: the alteration of parental role is higher in mothers than in fathers (line 6), and mothers feel more stress related to the appearance of the babies than fathers do (line 7) (table 3). some significant correlations between the parental questionnaires scores of preterm children and gestational age, birth weight, and days of hospitalization were found in the preterm sample. gestational age correlated negatively with anxiety and avoidance in fathers (ies-r) and with anger in mothers (pbq). this means that the higher is the gestational age, the lower the stress and anger in parents will be. birth weight correlated negatively with avoidance in fathers (ies-r) and anger in mothers (pbq). the days of hospitalization correlated positively with mothers’ anger (pbq), fathers’ avoidance, fathers’ total stress (ies-r), fathers’ depression, and fathers’ hostility (poms). that means stress, anger, and negative feelings are higher when the baby spends more days in the nicu (table 4). table 4 correlation among parents’ scores and preterms’ biological condition at birth in preterm children’s sample paternal depression (poms) paternal general stress (ies-r) paternal hostility (poms) paternal anxiety (poms) paternal avoidance (ies-r) maternal anger (pbq)variable days in nicu .414*0.373*0.397*0.373*0.565**0.487*0 gestational age .452*-0.491*-0.491*-0 birth weight .605**-0.474*-0 *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. discussion different studies widely demonstrated that preterm infants are at risk for developing deficit and delays, however the underlying causes of these poorer developmental outcome, and the role of the parent, are still less understood. in particular, since there is still a gap in literature about mothers’ and father’s initial experience and reactions to the premature birth of their child (arnold et al., 2013), the main aim of the present study was to explore mothers’ and fathers’ experiences immediately after the premature birth of their babies and their first experience of nicu. in order to respond to this main question, the first aim of this study was to investigate maternal and paternal responses immediately after premature birth of their child. our results suggest that immediately after preterm birth parents of premature children experience the preterm birth as a stressful event that could increase stress and negative feelings such as anger, anxiety, and depression (sansavini & faldella, 2013). in particular our results pointed out that mothers of preterm children feel more anxious andmore depressed thanmothers of term children. our results are in line with those researches that found that, at least one month after delivery, mothers of premature babies exhibited more negative feelings, in particular, anxiety and depression, than did the mothers of full-term children (ravn et al., 2012; vigod, villegas, dennis, & ross, 2010). furthermore our results pointed out that in our sample both mothers and fathers of preterm babies were angrier than mothers and fathers of term babies. as sansavini and faldella (2013) showed, high levels of hostility, fear, and reactivity are dysfunctional to parenthood, and they may impair the relationship with the baby. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 613 http://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we found that after the birth of their child both mothers and fathers of preterm babies were more tired and less strong than mothers and fathers of full-term babies. previous studies suggested that preterm birth usually causes negative thoughts in mothers and fathers: generally, they are not ready to deal with this event, and they may feel more weak and tired than parents of full-term children (cena et al., 2010; clottey & dillard, 2013; wigert et al., 2010). as these studies suggest, in our sample too mothers mostly because of their physical conditions and fathers exhibited higher levels of weakness and weariness. in fact, wigert et al. (2010) highlighted that parents are tired after the birth of their baby, and some mothers needed care after a complicated and exhausting delivery. parents needed to leave the nicu to recover themselves to be with their child. a further aim of this study was to compare maternal and paternal experience and responses to the premature birth of their children. our results, according to our initial hypothesis, show that immediately after the premature birth of their babies mothers had higher levels of stress and traumatic symptoms than fathers. indeed previous studies about this topic showed that mothers, after their baby’s premature birth and nicu stay, felt more stressed than their husbands (jackson et al., 2003) and sometimes, mothers could show significantly higher levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms such as avoidance, intrusion, and hyperarousal (holditch-davis, bartlett, blickman, & miles, 2003). on the other hand, fathers were angrier, more frightened, and less reactive than mothers (lindberg et al., 2007). even if there are still few studies that take into consideration the fathers’ prospective (candelori et al., 2015; lindberg et al., 2007; lundqvist & jakobsson, 2003; pohlman, 2005), our results, according to these studies, added further evidence that underline that fathers need to be supported and understood (lindberg et al., 2007). indeed ametasynthesis of qualitative studies of fathers’ experiences identified themes of fear, frustration and issues of support (steen, downe, bamford, & edozien, 2012). furthermore, as regard how mothers and fathers experience the nicu environment our findings showed that mothers had higher levels of stress than fathers. this agrees with previous studies on mothers and fathers experience after preterm birth that pointed out that they participate in their infant’s care differently after birth (pallásalonso et al., 2012; trombini, surcinelli, piccioni, alessandroni, & faldella 2008). mothers left their regular routines and spend many hours in the nicu, where they continue to experience the infants’ fragility and mortality (clottey & dillard, 2013). furthermore they felt guiltier than fathers for the impairment of their premature child (olshtainmann & auslander, 2008). this could also infer that, as our results showed, mothers are more afraid than fathers about the behavior and appearance of their baby. indeed, olshtain-mann and auslander (2008) claim that mothers feel guiltier than fathers for their infant's prematurity. furthermore, our results underline that the parental role is worse and more damaged in mothers than in fathers. in fact fathers usually are not expected to be actively involved in their infant’s care as mothers, and their participation helps them to cope with stress and empowers them in their paternal role (lindberg & öhrling, 2008). our results therefore pointed out that fathers don’t experience the nicu as mothers do (pallás-alonso et al., 2012; trombini et al., 2008). finally, the last aim of the present work was to understand how parental stress and negative feelings only in the preterm children sample were linked to the neonatal characteristic of the babies and to the hospitalization. we found that poor conditions at birth such as low gestational age, low birth weight and longer hospitalization are linked to higher levels of stress and more negative feelings such as anxiety, depression, and anger both in mothers and in fathers as literature suggests (busse, stromgren, thorngate, & thomas, 2013). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 614 http://www.psychopen.eu/ this study has also some limitations. first of all the cross-sectional data in this report cannot demonstrate how consistent these differences between the clinical and control samples are across time. a longitudinal design would allow a clearer vision of this. an additional benefit of a longitudinal design would be that it would allow an understanding of how differences between preterm and full-term parents are linked with their children’s development. secondly our exploratory findings are taken from a single nicu and involved a limited sample size and his makes difficult to drawn strong conclusions. an important next step would be to include more participants in order to better understand our results. including more participants could allow us to perform a regression model instead of correlations; indeed the correlational nature of our results prevents the examination of causality. a further limitation of the present study was that we included both first-time parents and parents that already have children and this may have an impact on the results since they could experience different levels of stress due to the novelty of the event birth. including more participants could allow us to consider this variable as an independent variable that may have an impact on parental reactions after the preterm birth of their child. finally the use of only self-report questionnaires to assess the constructs could be a further limit. it will be important to include new kinds of measures in the research design such as observational measure both of parents’ very first interaction with their babies and of parent’s interaction with the nicu environment and medical staff. moreover, in order to better explain our results and go deeper in the parents’ experience it will be important consider qualitative measures as well, such as a semi structured interview addressed not only to parents but also to the medical staff. conclusion this study investigated mothers and fathers’ experiences immediately after the premature birth of their babies and their first experience of nicu. our findings have different implications. first of all our findings suggested that parents of premature babies, in particular mothers, since the birth of their babies, are at risk of developing higher levels of anxiety, depression, anger and stress. furthermore, the preterm infants’ external characteristics and signals associated with immaturity and severity of medical status could be a further stressor especially for mothers. from previous studies (diego, field, jones, & hernandez-reif, 2006; feldman & eidelman, 2007; müller-nix & ansermet, 2009), we know that all these factors could have long-term effects on the quality of parent–infant interactions in the postnatal period. for these reasons our findings suggested that starting to support parents of preterm children from the very first moment after birth in order to reduce possible further negative consequences on preterm babies would be necessary. furthermore, considering both mothers’ and fathers’ point of view, we found that, even if in different ways, both parents are at risk after preterm birth. for this reason our findings suggested that a family-centered intervention is necessary in order to improve parents’ involvement in the care of their infant from the very first moment, to make them more conscious that they may have an active role in their infant’s development. notes i) abbreviations used in the text: neonatal intensive care unit (nicu); impact of event scale revised (ies-r); profile of mood states (poms); multidimensional scale of perceived social support (mspss); post partum bonding questionnaire (pbq); parental stressor scale: neonatal intensive care unit (pss:nicu); gestational age (ga); birth weight (bw). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 615 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aagaard, h., & hall, e. o. 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(2010). parental presence when their child is in neonatal intensive care. scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 24, 139-146. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6712.2009.00697.x zimet, g. d., dahlem, n. w., zimet, s. g., & farley, g. k. (1988). the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. journal of personality assessment, 52, 30-41. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 about the authors chiara ionio, phd: researcher in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since june 2006. her major research interests are: the impact of traumatic events on children and adolescents; drawings as a mean of communication; the impact of post-traumatic stress symptoms after childbirth on early mother-child interactions. contact: cridee, catholic university of milan, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy (chiara.ionio@unicatt.it) (corresponding author). caterina colombo is a psychologist and psychotherapist in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at v.buzzi children's hospital of milan, asst fatebenefratelli sacco since 2004 and in nicu at v.buzzi children's hospital of milan, asst fatebenefratelli sacco since 2005. she is an ordinary member of the italian association of child psychoanalitic psychoterapy (aippi). her major research interests are: pregnancy; mother-child interaction; the effects of psychotherapy on children and adolescents. contact: caterinacolombo4@gmail.com valeria brazzoduro is a psychologist at v.buzzi children's hospital of milan, asst fatebenefratelli sacco and a trainee psychotherapist. her major research interest are: the impact of preterm birth on mothers and fathers; neurodevelopmental outcome of premature children. contact: valeria.brazzoduro@gmail.com eleonora mascheroni is a phd student in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since 2014. her main research interest are: the impact of preterm birth on parent-child interaction; the impact of preterm birth on child’s neuropsychological development; the impact of twin births on parental stress during pregnancies and after childbirth; parental principle and practice about the child care after childbirth. contact: eleonora.mascheroni@unicatt.it emanuela confalonieri, phd: associated professor in developmental and educational psychology at catholic university of milan, since march 2004. her major research interests are: typical and atypical issues in adolescence and self-construction; physical and body developmental perception in pre-adolescent and adolescent; pregnancy as life critical events both for selfconstructions and for mother-child interactions; school psychology. contact: emanuela.confalonieri@unicatt.it europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 parents and premature birth 620 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1651-2227.2008.00849.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1471-0528.2009.02493.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1365-2702.2010.03311.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1471-6712.2009.00697.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327752jpa5201_2 http://www.psychopen.eu/ francesca castoldi, md: she is in charge of the neonatal intensive care unit at the v.buzzi children's hospital of milan, asst fatebenefratelli sacco. her major reseach interests are: delivery room resuscitation; neonatal respiratory diseases and neonatal ventilation; parent-neonate interactions in nicu. contact: francesca.castoldi@asst-fbf-sacco.it gianluca lista, md: neonatologist in chief of neonatal intensive care unit of the “v.buzzi” ospedale dei bambini-milan (italy). his major area of interest : pulmonology; intensive care and nutrition of preterm infants; neuroimaging and neurodevelopment of newborn ad high risk of brain damage. contact: v. buzzi children’s hospital, asst fatebenefratelli sacco, via l. castelvetro, 32, 20154 milano, italy (gianluca.lista@asst-fbf-sacco.it) psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 604–621 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1093 ionio, colombo, brazzoduro et al. 621 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en parents and premature birth introduction aim methods participants measures procedure analysis results parents of preterm children vs. parents of full-term children mothers vs. fathers in the preterm sample discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors acknowledgement of reviewers, 2015 editorial acknowledgement of reviewers, 2015 vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(1), 12–13, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1134 published (vor): 2016-02-29. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. we are grateful for the reliable and helpful support that we have received from the following colleagues, who provided us with valuable editorial help in the peer review process for europe's journal of psychology in 2015: handling editors natalia wentink martinmaria kakarikaandrew p. allen rhian worthmaciej karwowskiateka contractor nicholas a. kuiperconstance de saint-laurent izabela lebudasteven hertler reviewers pavlina charalampidoucaterina bonninandrew p. allen ying-he chene. boraanonymous russell claytonbelinda bradleyfrans orsted andersen peter colemandavid brendelruggero andrisano ruggieri daniel davidstephanie breuxgamze arman incioglu constance de saint-laurentdamien breverscatherine aubier carolin demuthronald j. burkesavita bakhshi anand colin deppcarla canestraribaptiste barbot nicolas deuschelflavia cangiaclaude belanger japinder dhesimiguel angel carrascoraoul bell jacqueline dowlingkevin carrierevictoria bellou david dozoisjanine carrollromain boissonnade europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ bohdan roznowskinicholas a. kuiperdorota dziedziewicz stefan schmertztiziana lancianoghassan el-baalbaki keith schofieldandrás lángalexandra fiocco jennifer sheehy-skeffingtonizabela lebudaaleksandra gajda david silveraolga lehmannpanagiotis gkorezis vlad glăveanu jonathan n. steaemmanouela mandalaki susan g. goldberg coralia suleamartínez-arán alessio gori joanna szen-ziemianskajohn mccormick jacek gralewski grzegorz szumskiricardo garcia mira william peter hampes ida toivonenmelissa mitchell jennifer harrison taròk totanrona moss-morris steven hertler eirini tsachouridialireza moula nicoletta isar odin van der steltaustin lee nichols dan ispas martijn van zomerenmichael p. o'driscoll myrthe jacobs tony vernonpanayiotis panayides michael jenkins-guarnieri daljinder ritu virkdanielle polage sian jones t. joel wadebeatrice popescu maria kakarika natalia wentink martinpeter raabe pavlo kanellakis koa whittinghamjoanna rajchert maciej karwowski hedia zannadrosana reis theano kokkinaki tomasz zoltakgiulia righi zoltan kovary michelle roley psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(1), 12–13 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i1.1134 glăveanu 13 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en acknowledgement of reviewers, 2015 handling editors reviewers psychological well-being in italian families: an exploratory approach to the study of mental health across the adult life span in the blue zone research reports psychological well-being in italian families: an exploratory approach to the study of mental health across the adult life span in the blue zone paul kenneth hitchcott a, maria chiara fastame* a, jessica ferrai a, maria pietronilla penna a [a] department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. abstract self-reported measures of psychological well-being and depressive symptoms were examined across differently aged family members, while controlling for the impact of marital status and personal satisfaction about family and non-family relations. twenty-one grandchildren (i.e., ages 21-36 years) were recruited with their parents (i.e., 48-66 years old) and grandparents (i.e., 75-101 years of age) in the ‘blue zone’ of ogliastra, an italian area known for the longevity of its inhabitants. each participant was individually presented a battery of questionnaires assessing their lifestyle and several perceived mental health indices, including the warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale (wemwbs, tennant et al., 2007), and the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (i.e., ces-d, radloff, 1977). after assessing the level of concordance among adults sharing the same context, the hierarchical linear modeling (hlm) approach was used to assess the nested dataset. it was found that family membership (i.e., grandchildren versus parents and grandparents) predicted the wemwbs score but not the ces-d when the impact of marital status and personal satisfaction about social (i.e., family and non-family) ties was controlled for. moreover, two separate repeated-measure analyses of variance (anovas) documented similar level of personal satisfaction about social relationships across the three family groups. in conclusions, satisfying social ties with friends and family members together with an active socially oriented life style seems to contribute to the promotion of mental health in adult span. keywords: adult development, aging families, psychological well-being, depression, blue zone europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 received: 2017-03-14. accepted: 2017-05-04. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: university of cagliari, via is mirrionis 1, cagliari, 09123, italy. e-mail: chiara.fastame@unica.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. substantial research indicates that psychological and socio-cultural factors play a role in psychological wellbeing in late adulthood (e.g., diener & chan, 2011; diener, lucas, & oishi, 2002). subjective (or psychological) well-being refers to a multidimensional psychological construct that de beni, borella, carretti, marigo, and nava (2007) defined in terms of one’s personal satisfaction (i.e., the level of self-appreciation with one’s past and present and the expectations of satisfaction in future), coping strategies (i.e., the ability to tackle problems in the daily life) and emotional competences (i.e., the ability to establish stable relationships with others and share emotional status with them). within a developmental psychology framework, there is evidence that aging is a complex phenomenon characterized by the continuous development of cognitive, metacognitive, social, and emotional abilities (baltes, lindenberger, & staudinger, 1998), as a direct effect of many factors, including family and non-family europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ relationships. in this regard, antonucci and akiyama (1987) proposed the ‘convoy model’ according to which individuals are immersed in dynamic social networks within which reciprocal exchanges shape an individual’s mental health across the entire life span. more recently, margrett et al. (2011) found that greater perceived social support was associated with various outcomes including increased life satisfaction, greater extroversion and lower loneliness in a sample of american octogenarians and centenarians. consistent with this, there is empirical evidence that positive family ties provide instrumental support for the maintenance of adequate levels of psychological well-being (e.g., antonucci, birditt, sherman, & trinh, 2011), especially in midto late-life (e.g., ward, spitze, & deane, 2009). however, the impact of number of family ties on mental health of family members is quite controversial. indeed, peek and lin (1999) found fewer depressive signs in people with a higher number of relatives in their social network than in individuals with a lower numbers of family members. in contrast, haines, beggs, and hurlbert (2008) did not find any effect of the family proportion in shaping psychological well-being in adult life span. more recently, fuller-iglesias, webster, and antonucci (2015) conducted a longitudinal study on almost nine hundred young, middle-aged and elderly family members. the authors found that the size and composition of the family did not influence self-reported psychological wellbeing (i.e., occurrence of depressive signs) in young (i.e., 18-34 years) and middle-aged (i.e., 35-49 years) participants. in contrast, older adults (i.e., 50-80 years) receiving greater support from many family members reported fewer depressive signs over time, whereas young and middle-aged participants reporting a higher negative quality of family relationships (i.e., negative aspects such as conflict and burden) presented more depressive symptoms. growing evidence indicates that social support from friends is also relevant for the maintenance of physical and mental health in late adult span (e.g., antonucci, 2001; fuller-iglesias, 2015; fuller-iglesias et al., 2015; poon & cohen-mansfield, 2011). more specifically, recent studies have documented that active involvement in social activities provides elderly people with positive relationships that contribute to well-being (e.g., everard, lach, fisher, & baum, 2000; litwin & shiovitz-ezra, 2006) and perceived physical health (fuller-iglesias, 2015). this seems crucial because further evidence highlights that depressive symptoms are highest among the oldest-old (gostynski et al., 2002), who are most vulnerable to loneliness and a lack of social support (dykstra, 2009). this is consistent with a wider literature (e.g., cornwell & laumann, 2015; poon & cohen-mansfield, 2011) that confirms that social connectedness, even in late adulthood, can facilitate the access to social opportunities, improve self-esteem, increase physical activity and significantly reduce loneliness. one possible scenario is that the support of family members and friends across adult life span lowers psychological stress and depression, enhances cooperation and thereby reduces loneliness (dykstra, 2009; stroebe, zech, stroebe, & abakoumkin, 2005). additionally, it has been documented that in collectivistic cultures (e.g., japan), which reinforce interpersonal dependency, harmonious relationships with family and non-family networks supports psychological well-being (e.g., life satisfaction; kitayama, markus, & kurokawa, 2000; kwan, bond, & singelis, 1997). the foregoing evidence is also consistent with findings from the italian context, where the current study was conducted. for example, there are indications that more intense social support from family members and neighbors is associated with fewer depressive symptoms in later life (e.g., carpiniello, carta, & rudas, 1989). in addition, de belvis et al. (2008) found that fewer social contacts with friends is predictive of a decline in life quality among non-institutionalised italian older people (i.e., individuals aged 60 years or more). most recently, fastame, penna, and hitchcott (2015) found that young adults and older people living in urban and rural area psychological well-being in italian families 442 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ of sardinia, a mediterranean isle having a high prevalence of successful aging, were significantly less depressed than participants recruited in rural areas of northern italy, where the respondents were more socially isolated. further details about this population are of interest. compared to peers residing in northern italy, elderly people from the inner mountainous areas of sardinia are more physically active, more involved in community social life, have lower loneliness and express greater confidence in their cognitive efficiency, as well as report higher personal satisfaction and emotional competence (fastame & penna, 2014; fastame, penna, rossetti, & agus, 2014). moreover, fastame, penna, rossetti, and agus (2014) reported that higher selfperceived support from non-family members (i.e., respect and support from the younger generations) was associated to greater general psychological well-being, better self-efficacy and fewer depressive signs in late adulthood. according to fastame, penna, and rossetti (2014), these positive outcomes may be because collectivist principles are highly valued in traditional sardinian culture. such speculation is consistent with previous studies (e.g., martin, hagberg, & poon, 1997; rook & pietromonaco, 1987) indicating that the number and/or quality of social contacts represent a vital resource for older people. the living arrangements of traditional sardinian families typically promote collectivistic values; during late adulthood people are more likely to cohabit with adult children or to receive significant support from them (e.g., de jong gierveld & van tilburg, 1999; hank, 2007). although this suggests that familial networks may maintain the mental health of sardinian adults, direct empirical support is lacking. the current study was aimed at exploring the role of family membership (i.e., grandchild versus parent and grandparent) as a predictor of various mental health (i.e., psychological well-being and depressive symptoms) outcomes. potentially confounding effects of marital status, and self-reported measures of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships were statistically controlled for. an additional aim was to examine whether the mental health outcomes (i.e., psychological well-being, depressive measures), perceived physical health, satisfaction with family, and non-family ties varied across the three generations. in the present study, psychological well-being was assessed using a recently validated italian version (gremigni & stewart-brown, 2011) of the warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale (i.e., wemwbs; tennant et al., 2007). depressive symptoms were determined using the italian version of the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (i.e., ces-d, radloff, 1977). despite the wide use of these tools, to our knowledge, this is the first investigation using them to assess the impact of social networks on mental health. this would also appear to be the first study assessing mental health outcomes among family members recruited exclusively within the sardinian ‘blue zone’, a longevity hot-spot (poulain et al., 2004). in addition, to our knowledge, no previous studies reported the use of the wemwbs (tennant et al., 2007) to assess psychological well-being in very old italian adults (i.e., over 82 years of age). the lack of prior evidence limits speculation about certain aspects of this study; however, various hypotheses can be stated. first, it was hypothesized that family membership, together with marital status, perceived personal satisfaction about family and friend relationships would predict self-reported psychological well-being and depressive symptoms (e.g., fastame, penna, rossetti, & agus, 2014; fastame, penna & hitchcott, 2015; fuller-iglesias et al., 2015; kitayama et al., 2000). second, mean depression scores were expected to be significantly lower than the italian cut-off score as previously reported (e.g., fastame, penna, rossetti, & agus, 2014). finally, in a collectivistic rural community where the current data were collected (e.g., fastame, penna, hitchcott, fastame, ferrai et al. 443 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & rossetti, 2014), similar level of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships were expected across the three family generations (i.e., grandchildren versus parents and grandparents) (e.g., kwan et al., 1997; kitayama et al., 2000). method participants sixty-three cognitively healthy community dwelling adults were recruited in twenty-one families residing in arzana, a small village (i.e., approximate population 2500) located in the sardinian ‘blue zone’ area of ogliastra (poulain et al., 2004), which is known for the longevity of its inhabitants and their successful aging (e.g., fastame, hitchcott, & penna, 2015; fastame, penna, & rossetti 2014). participants were volunteers and were assigned to one of three family status groups, as appropriate: grandchild, parent, or grandparent. participants were required to meet all of the following inclusion criteria: (a) have been born and currently reside in arzana; (b) live in a private house, with or without other members of the family; (c) be descendant of people that lived in that sardinian area for at least two previous generations; (d) be cognitively healthy, that is, having a score ≥ 24/30 on the mini-mental state examination test (mmse; folstein, folstein, & mchugh, 1975); (e) each participant of the grandchildren group had to take part in the study with his/her parent and grandparent, that is, a granddaughter could participate only if her cognitively healthy mother and grandmother accepted to take part in the study (i.e., female lineal descendants), so did the young male adults with their fathers and grandfathers (i.e., male lineal descendants). although these criteria restricted recruitment they were deemed necessary to isolate the influence of the sardinian context and to be compatible with related previous research. volunteers were recruited through personal contacts of the third author and via direct appeals to local community groups. respondents did not receive any reward (e.g., financial support) for their participation. table 1 illustrates the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. table 1 socio-demographic characteristics of the sample characteristic young (children) middle-aged (parents) very old (grandparents) n 21 21 21 gender (n) males 9 9 9 females 12 12 12 age (years) range 21-36 48-66 75-101 m 26.90 54.30 84.05 sd 4.10 4.40 6.60 education (years) males females males females males females 0-8 0 1 4 6 9 12 > 8 9 11 5 6 0 0 psychological well-being in italian families 444 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gender, χ2(2, n = 63) = 0.00, p = 1.00, was counterbalanced across the three family groups. following de beni et al. (2007), education was dichotomized according to low (i.e., 1-8 years) and high (> 8 years) levels. as one can see in table 1, education was higher among grandchildren relative to their grandparents, χ2(2, n = 63) = 38.20, p < .001. this is not surprising. younger generations from this region now have far greater opportunities to remain in formal education whereas older generations typically entered farming-related occupations following only basic formal education. materials each participant first read and provided written informed consent to participate and were then presented the following questionnaires/test: the mini-mental state examination (mmse; folstein et al., 1975) is a pencil-and-paper screening test composed of 30 items assessing general cognitive efficiency (e.g., short-term and long-term memory, attention, visuo-motor coordination, spatial-temporal orientation). this tool provides a general cognitive efficiency score that according to the authors has to be corrected as a function of age and years of education. internal consistency is expressed by a cronbach's alpha ranging between .68 and .96. test-retest reliability coefficients fall between .80 and .95. the level of sensitivity to correctly identify those individuals classified as cognitively impaired is .87, whereas the specificity coefficient which is used to identify those individuals who earlier were classified as cognitively intact is .82 (see tombaugh & mcintyre, 1992). the interview developed by fastame and penna (2012) was presented to collect information on lifestyle (e.g., time spent for outdoor leisure activities or gardening, type of hobbies, intake of medicine) and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, years of education, marital status, people with which the respondents live). self-assessed personal satisfaction about family relationships index is a 10-point likert-type scale containing two items assessing how much during the previous week the respondent was satisfied about his/her ties with family members. zero indicated lack of satisfaction, whereas 10 denoted maximum satisfaction. the average score between the answers provided to the two items was calculated. self-assessed personal satisfaction about friendships index is a two-items measure asking participant to rate how much he or she was satisfied about his or her friendships and relations with the neighbors during the previous week along a 10-point likert scale. the procedure used to calculate this index is identical to that adopted to rate the level of personal satisfaction about family relationships. the ces-d (radloff, 1977; italian adaptation, fava, 1983) contains 20 items measuring depressive signs experienced during the previous seven days on a four-point likert scale (from 0, never or rarely to 3, most days or every day). the maximum total score is 60. a score ≥ 16 suggests the presence of clinical depression. in the current study the internal consistency was expressed by a cronbach’s alpha of .83. the wemwbs (tennant et al., 2007; italian adaptation by gremigni & stewart-brown, 2011) is composed of 12 items assessing perceived mental health during the two previous weeks, along a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (i.e., never) to 5 (i.e., always). the maximum score is 60. the normative data for the italian adult population (gremigni & stewart-brown, 2011) documented that the mean score for the young adult 25-30 years hitchcott, fastame, ferrai et al. 445 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ old is 43.62 (sd = 5.74), the mean score for the middle-aged (i.e., 43-57 years old) group is 41.23 (sd = 4.5), whereas the mean score for the over 57 years old is 43.8 (sd = 6.7). in the current sample the internal consistency reliability is expressed by a cronbach’s alpha of .73. procedure each participant was interviewed individually in a quiet room of his/her home. to minimize fatigue among older people, all participants responded verbally. all instructions and statements contained in the questionnaires used in the current study were read aloud by the third author who also recorded responses. typically testing sessions lasted ~60 minutes. within each family group, the oldest participant (i.e., grandparent) first completed the mmse. if the score indicated no cognitive decline (≥ 24), the socio-demographic interview was presented. following this the order of the remaining measures was counterbalanced according to a latin square procedure. this was repeated for the parents and grandchildren. if signs of cognitive decline were found in any participant, the entire family triplet was excluded by the study. this resulted in the exclusion of only one triplet and was due to mild cognitive decline in the grandparent. results the interview by fastame and penna (2012) revealed that the marital status (i.e., being single vs. being engaged or married) was counterbalanced across the participants, χ2(1, n = 63) = 1.30, p = .26, but not across the three family groups, χ2(2, n = 63) = 22.2, p < .001. indeed, as expected, 76.2% of the grandchildren were single, whereas 95.2% of their parents were married. marital status was counterbalanced across the grandparents group, χ2(1, n = 21) = 0.05, p = .83, since 50% of the older participants were married. the majority (90.4%) of participants reported sharing daily life with other family members (i.e., living with partner or parents or children vs. living alone). specifically, 81% of the grandparents and 95% of the parents lived with their partner or children, and 95% of the young group lived with their partner or parents. intake of medicines (i.e., yes vs. no) was not counterbalanced across the three family groups, χ2(2, n = 63) = 22.23, p < .001. as expected, the use of drugs increased as a function of the age of the participants. regular use of medicines was reported by 19% of young adults, 75% of their parents and 90.5% of their grandparents. attendance of socially-oriented activity (i.e., yes versus no) was counterbalanced across the participants, χ2(1, n = 63) = 2.70, p = .10. overall, 62.3% of the respondents reported involvement in recreational/cultural or sport activities involving their social network. the breakdown across age groups was as follows 66.7% of grandchildren, 76.2% of their parents and 38.1% of their grandparents. sporting activities were the main pastime of grandchildren (i.e., 57.1%) and parents (i.e., 47.6%) relative to participation in recreational/cultural activities (i.e., 9.5% and 28.6%, respectively). as expected, grandparents reported higher participation in recreational/cultural activities (i.e., 23.8%) relative to sporting ones (i.e., 14.3%). a high proportion (73%) of participants reported involvement in gardening/farming activities, χ2(1, n = 63) = 13.35, p < .001. this was expected considering agro-pastoral nature of this region of sardinia. psychological well-being in italian families 446 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as participants were enrolled within the same families, the degree of intra-family correlations between the various mental health indexes (i.e., psychological well-being, personal satisfaction about family and non-family ties, depression) were calculated in terms of intraclass correlation coefficients (icc), using the methods suggested by donner and koval (1980). asymptotic variance for the estimate of iccs was also obtained. following cohen (1988), concordance was considered high if icc values exceeded 0.60, moderate if in the range 0.30-0.60 and low below 0.30. coefficients for the wemwbs, ρ = .12, f(2,42) = 1.15, p = .33, and cesd measures, ρ = .18, f(2,42) = .26, p = .77, family resemblance were low. similar coefficients were found when icc was calculated with regard to personal satisfaction about family relationships, ρ = .05, f(2,42) = .75, p = .48, and personal satisfaction about non-family ties, ρ = .09, f(2,42) = 1.5, p = .24. next, a multilevel modeling approach was used to investigate whether family membership (i.e., grandchildren, parents or grandparents enrolled within the same family) predicted self-reported psychological well-being (i.e., wemwbs and ces-d, respectively), while controlling for the effect of marital status (i.e., single vs. engaged/ married), personal satisfaction about family relationships and personal satisfaction about non-family relationships. a random intercept was included, assuming simply that intercepts for the relationships between family members and psychological well-being (when controlling for marital status, and personal satisfaction about family relationships and personal satisfaction about non-family relationships) vary over families. the linear model also included random slopes, because it was hypothesized that psychological well-being scores could vary across grandchildren, parent and grandparent groups. maximum likelihood was the method of estimation used to produce the parameter estimates. the relationship between family membership and wemwbs scores did not show any significant variance in intercepts across participants when the effect of the covariates was controlled for, var(u0j) = 2.07, χ2(1, n = 63) = 0.00, p > .05. therefore, one can conclude then that the intercepts for the relationship between family membership and perceived psychological well-being (when controlling for the impact of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships and marital status) did not vary significantly across the different families. in addition, the slopes did not vary significantly across participants, var(u1j) = 2.68, χ2(1, n = 63) = 0.00, p > .05. moreover, adding the covariance between slopes and intercepts did not make a significant difference to the model, cov(u0j, u1j) = 1.3, χ2(8, n = 63) = 2.26, p > .05. by allowing the intercepts to vary over families, wemwbs scores were found to be significantly predicted by family membership, f(2, 26.8) = 3.56, p = .04, personal satisfaction about family relationships, f(1, 41.2) = 29.2, p < .001, personal satisfaction about non-family relationships, f(1, 29.5) = 11.3, p = .002, and marital status (i.e., single vs. engaged/married), f(1, 39.6) = 6.3, p = .02. controlling for the effect of the covariates, the person-level intercept for grandchildren had an estimated mean in the wemwbs scale of 21.67 (95% ci for the difference was .53 to 4.67), that was significantly higher than that for their grandparents, 19.08, 95% ci [9.9, 28.2], t = 2.61, p =.016. in contrast, the intercept for the parents was 20.48, that was similar to the intercept for the older family members, t = 1.3, p = .22, 95% ci for the difference was -.86 to 3.67. ignoring the effect of family membership, every one point increase in the personal satisfaction about family relationship score was associated with a 1.62 to 3.6 increase in wemwbs score while the effects of the personal satisfaction about non-family relationships and civil status were controlled for, t = 5.4, p < .001. similarly, the increase in the mean score of the person-level slope for personal satisfaction about non-family relationship was associate with a .30 to 1.24 increase in the wemwbs score, t = 3.36, p = .002, controlling for the impact of civil status. finally, the mean wemwbs score decreased 0.51 to 4.70 points from engaged/married participants to single ones, t = -2.50, p = .02, while controlling for personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships. in conclusion, family membership significantly hitchcott, fastame, ferrai et al. 447 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ predicted wemwbs index after controlling for the effect of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships and civil status, b = 1.21, t(63) = 2.24, p = .03. the same analyses were replicated using cesd score as dependent variable. the relationship between family membership and depression did not show significant variance in intercepts across participants, var(u0j) = 9.15, χ2(1, n = 63) = 1.82, p > .05, suggesting that similar ces-d scores were found across the families. in addition, the slopes did not vary across participants, var(u1j) = 5.12, χ2(1, n = 63) = 0.00, p > .05, and the slopes and intercepts did not significantly covary, cov(u0j, u1j) = 4.4, χ2(8, n = 63) = 6.60, p > .05. personal satisfaction about family relationships, f(1, 45.2) = 15.4, p < .001, and personal satisfaction about non-family relationships, f(1, 37.4) = 6.51, p = .01, both did significantly predict self-reported depression, whereas family membership, f(2, 28.5) = .75, p = .48, and civil status, f(1, 39.3) = .003, p = .96, did not significantly predict ces-d score. ignoring the impact of family membership, every one point increase in the personal satisfaction about family relationship score was associated with a 1.28 to 3.98 decrease in ces-d score while the effects of the personal satisfaction about non-family relationships and civil status were controlled for, b = 2.63, t(45.2) = 3.9, p < .001. furthermore, the increase in the mean score of the personal satisfaction about non-family relationships score was associate with a .17 to 1.48 decrease in the ces-d score, b = -.82, t(37.4) = 2.5, p = .01. finally, two repeated-measures analyses of variance (anovas) were conducted to explore the effect of family membership (i.e., grandchildren vs. parents and grandparents) on personal satisfaction about family and nonfamily relationships. grandchildren reported scores similar to those of their parents and grandparents on personal satisfaction about family relationship, f(2,40) = .75, p = .48, and personal satisfaction about nonfamily, f(2,40) = 1.5, p = .24, scales. table 2 illustrated the mean scores reported by the three family groups on the afore mentioned measures as well as on the wemwbs and ces-d scales (while controlling for the effect of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships measures). table 2 mean (i.e., m) scores relative to the warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale (i.e., wemwbs), depressive signs (i.e., ces-d), after controlling for perceived satisfaction about family (i.e., satisf. family), and perceived satisfaction about nonfamily (i.e., satisf. friendships) measures measure grandchildren parents grandparents m sd m sd m sd wemwbs 47.8 4.7 47.8 4.7 46.1 4.1 ces-d 11.0 6.8 11.5 5.5 12.2 6.0 satisf. family 8.6 0.9 8.5 0.9 8.8 0.7 satisf. friendships 7.6 1.5 6.8 2.3 6.9 1.3 discussion the main aim of the current study was to explore whether family membership (i.e., grandchildren versus parents and grandparents) is a predictor of various measures of mental health (i.e., psychological well-being and depressive signs) in sardinian families residing in the ‘blue zone’ of arzana (poulain et al., 2004), while controlling for the effect of marital status and perceived personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships. psychological well-being in italian families 448 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, several meaningful findings emerged from this preliminary investigation. first, considering that the respondents were raised in the same context (i.e., families living at arzana), the calculation of icc provided meaningful information, because it represents the proportion of the total variability in the outcome that is attributable to the families. with respect to the assessment of several mental health self-reported measures (i.e., depression, psychological well-being, personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships) icc values (i.e., < .30) reflected a marginal degree of similarity among participants enrolled within the same families (see cohen,1988). then, taking into account that family context had a little effect on the respondents, an hlm method was warranted to deal with the nested design of the dataset, since each participant belonged to one unique family. therefore, the people tested for the study was the level 1 variable, whereas the family to which they belonged represents the level 2 variable. overall, considering the main outcomes coming from the proposed models, one can conclude that, as suggested by the wider literature (e.g., fuller-iglesias et al., 2015; poon & cohen-mansfield, 2011), the current findings document that apart from marital status, personal satisfaction about exchanges with family and non-family members, family membership played a crucial role for the assessment of wemwbs score. indeed, young adults reported greater life satisfaction than their grandparents. in contrast, ces-d score was significantly predicted only by the level of personal satisfaction about family and non-family relationships. moreover, as hypothesized, similar level of satisfaction about family and non-family relationships were found across the three family generations (e.g., kwan et al., 1997; kitayama et al., 2000). various findings are also consistent with the lifestyle information provided by the respondents. most participants attended socially oriented leisure activities (i.e., recreational/cultural and sport practices), that represent a good opportunity to establish or strength their friendships, reduce loneliness and improve physical activity. such outcomes are known to be beneficial to mental health (cornwell & laumann, 2015). furthermore, in agreement with previous studies conducted in the sardinian ‘blue zone’ (e.g., fastame, penna, rossetti, & agus, 2014), an active lifestyle was characteristic of the sample and few participants were sedentary. in addition to spending time in socially oriented activities, the participants were often involved in gardening or farming. as suggested by previous authors, gardening has a positive impact on psychological well-being in adulthood (heliker et al., 2001) and high participation is characteristic of rural areas of ogliastra (fastame, penna, & rossetti, 2014). moreover, in line with previous findings (e.g., de jong gierveld & van tilburg, 1999; fastame, hitchcott, & penna, 2015; hank, 2007; kitayama et al., 2000; kwan et al., 1997) the current outcomes also show that family support promoted psychological well-being across adult life span (dykstra, 2009; margrett et al., 2011). most participants lived with other family members and reported a very high level of personal satisfaction (i.e., mean score ≥ 8.5) about their relationships with relatives. as suggested by fuller-iglesias et al. (2015), collectivistic contexts, such as that of ogliastra (e.g., fastame, penna, & rossetti, 2014), engender both high personal satisfaction about one’s relationships with his or her relatives and friends. this may represent a significant resource for the protection of mental health. in the present study, wemwbs and ces-d scores suggested high levels of mental health were present across the three generations of the families studied. levels of depressive symptoms were low relative to normative data and diagnostic cut-offs for the italian population. similarly, levels of psychological well-being (i.e., wemwbs) exceeded normative levels for the italian population (gremigni & stewart-brown, 2011). therefore, unlike the findings reported by fuller-iglesias et al. (2015), the current outcomes suggest that the socio-cultural context of the sardinian ‘blue zone’ is a protective factor for mental health throughout adult life span. hitchcott, fastame, ferrai et al. 449 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to summarize, the present observations build on previous reports that superior mental health among inhabitants of the sardinian ‘blue zone’ can be traced to the impact of various psychosocial factors (e.g., fastame & penna, 2012; fastame, penna, & hitchcott, 2015). the present study identifies a novel effect, arising from close, satisfying interpersonal relationships and suggests this has a pervasive influence across adult life span (e.g., carpiniello et al., 1989; fastame, penna, rossetti, & agus, 2014). however, this is a very preliminary investigation, therefore it presents some limitations. first, the sample size is small and the participants were recruited only in the sardinian ‘blue zone’. although the tendency to look after and support elderly people is typical of mediterranean countries (e.g., de jong gierveld & van tilburg, 1999; hank, 2007) further investigation with larger samples of differently aged adults from other regions is necessary. this would help determine whether highly context-specific combinations of psychosocial factors, including the characteristics connected with family and non-family networks, promote successful aging within the sardinian ‘blue zone’. however, if the current findings can be generalized, it would suggest that this population may represent a valuable resource for the investigation of successful ageing. second, to our knowledge it is the first involving use of the wemwbs scale among italian the oldest-old (i.e., over 80 years old) participants. an obvious limitation is that the stringent inclusion criteria constrained the number of families that could be recruited from such a small village (i.e., population < 2500 inhabitants). while the strict inclusion criteria enhance the reliability of the findings cautious interpretation of the findings is essential. third, the impact of social desirability on the self-assessment of psychological well-being and depressive signs was not investigated. future research has to address this issue, because a recent trend of research (fastame & penna, 2012; fastame, hitchcott, & penna, 2017; hitchcott, fastame, penna, & agus, 2016) suggests that socially desirable responding style should be taken into consideration when self-rated mental health measures of mental health are administered, because social desirability scores tend to increase with age and in women. in conclusion, replication of the current findings, would promote understanding of mental health and successful ageing and, possibly, shape health service policies aimed at promoting quality of life in italian adults. funding this work was supported by the sardinia regional government under grant “crp-78543” entitled “invecchiamento attivo in sardegna: quali fattori influenzano il benessere psicologico negli anziani?” [active ageing in sardinia: what factors influence psychological well-being in the elderly?]” and awarded to the authors except the third one. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychological well-being in italian families 450 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references antonucci, t. c. 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(2009). the more the merrier? multiple parent-adult child relations. journal of marriage and the family, 71, 161-173. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00587.x about the authors dr. maria chiara fastame is assistant professor in developmental psychology at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy of the faculty of human studies of the university of cagliari, italy. her research topics include the investigation of the relationship between psychological well-being, working memory and metacognitive efficiency in elderly people, especially those living in the sardinian ‘blue zone’. dr. paul k. hitchcott is a research fellow in ageing and wellbeing at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy of the faculty of human studies at the university of cagliari, italy. his current research interests concern the influence of psychosocial factors on positive ageing. miss jessica ferrai recently received a master degree in psychology at the university of cagliari in italy, discussing a research project concerning the impact of psychological factors on well-being of sardinian families under the supervision of dr. fastame. professor maria pietronilla penna is full professor in experimental psychology at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy of the faculty of human studies of the university of cagliari, italy. one of her research interest concerns the study of the psychological factors impacting cognitive processes in active agers. psychological well-being in italian families 454 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 441–454 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1416 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-63 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1992.tb01992.x http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00587.x http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological well-being in italian families (introduction) method participants materials procedure results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a psychobiographical study of intuition in a writer's life: paulo coelho revisited research reports a psychobiographical study of intuition in a writer's life: paulo coelho revisited claude-hélène mayer* ab, david maree b [a] institut für therapeutische kommunikation und sprachgebrauch, europa-universität viadrina, frankfurt (oder), germany. [b] department of psychology, university of pretoria, pretoria, south africa. abstract intuition is defined as a form of knowledge which materialises as awareness of thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. it is a key to a deeper understanding and meaningfulness. intuition, used as a psychological function, supports the transmission and integration of perceptions from unconscious and conscious realms. this study uses a psychobiographical single case study approach to explore intuition across the life span of paulo coelho. methodologically, the study is based on a single case study, using the methodological frame of dilthey's modern hermeneutics. the author, paulo coelho, was chosen as a subject of research, based on the content analysis of firstand third-person perspective documents. findings show that paulo coelho, as one of the most famous and most read contemporary authors in the world, uses his intuitions as a deeper guidance in life, for decision-making and self-development. intuitive decision-making is described throughout his life and by referring to selected creative works. keywords: psychobiography, paulo coelho, intuition, life study, rationality, writer europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 received: 2016-04-27. accepted: 2017-05-15. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: institut für therapeutische kommunikation und sprachgebrauch, europa-universität viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany. tel: +49 16096837366. tel: +27 71 200 71 21. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. "i believe in intuitions and inspirations... i sometimes feel that i am right. i do not know that i am." albert einstein during the past few decades, researchers have explored the topics and interconnections of cognition (frederick, 2005), intuition (dane & pratt, 2007) and emotion (bechara, damasio, & damasio, 2000) in the context of decision-making across disciplines (simon, 1987). the key questions of research are how cognition, intuition and emotions are defined and how they contribute to construct meaningfulness and meaningful decisions in life (mayer, 2015a). psychobiographical research, as the study of the life of "historically significant and extraordinary individuals" (fouché & van niekerk, 2010, p. 2) and contribute to explore the topic over their entire life spans with the aim to uncover and reconstruct the lives of individuals psychologically with regard to intuition and intuitive decisioneurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ making. intuition has until now hardly been addressed in psychobiographical research – psych biographical studies often rather use developmental or health-related theories which are then applied to a person's life (burnell, 2013). particularly during the past years, psychobiographies as research method, as well as a theoretical approach have gained international recognition (alexander, 1990; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; van niekerk, 2007), exploring the lives of outstanding individuals, such as politicians, actors, religious leaders, psychologists, artists and writers (eliastam, 2011). in psychobiographic studies, a general research gap has been identified to contribute to a new and complex psychological understanding of extraordinary individuals to act as role models (mayer, 2015b, 2015c). the constructive use of intuition and the positive intuitive decision-making process are aspects of a positive psychology perspective which is according to luthans (2002) needed in research and according to mayer (2015c, 2017) needed in psychobiographical works. this is particularly required with regard to the long tradition of pathogen orientations in psychobiographical research which need to be expanded, if not overcome (kőváry, 2011). the extraordinary person studied is paulo coelho, the world-known writer and novelist who has overcome many difficulties and challenges in his life to become a healthy and faithful person (mayer, 2015b, 2015c; mayer & maree, in press). in this article, it is assumed that this development of a person is based to a large extent on intuition and constructive, positive decision-making processes. although the writer and his work have been studied extensively (martin, 2012; mertel, 2000; morais, 2009), no psychobiographical work could be found that deals with intuition and intuitive decision-making processes in psychobiographical studies in general or with regard to paulo coelho in particular. therefore, a research gap has been identified in research on psychobiographical research on paulo coelho, and on intuition and intuitive-decision making with regard to qualitative studies across the life span. however, it is assumed that studies across the life span could contribute to new information on how intuition and intuitive decision-making are used and/or developed across a course of a lifetime. the purpose of this study is, therefore, to uncover and reconstruct the selected individual's life through the focus on intuition and intuitive decision-making by exploring conscious and unconscious life decisions. in doing so, this study provides new insights and a new understanding and perspective on the writer paulo coelho his life, health, faith and success. the study aims to explore the uniqueness of paulo coelho by focusing in-depth on intuition and intuitive decision-making processes over his life span, with special attention to psychological descriptions of the behaviour, achievements and failures (elms, 1988) of this extraordinary writer to, for example, provide inspiration for self-reflection (runyan, 1984) or general psychobiographical interest and the development of the theories applied (carlson, 1988). psychobiography psychobiographies have become a vivid research area in psychology (kőváry, 2011). they have gained international interest (fouché, 2015; van niekerk, 2007) and have also reached beyond disciplinary borders. psychobiography is defined as "the study of historically significant and extraordinary individuals over their entire life spans with the aim to uncover and reconstruct their lives psychologically" (fouché & van niekerk, 2010, p. 2). mayer & maree 473 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extraordinary individuals, such as politicians, artists and writers, are studied in psychobiographies in single (eliastam, 2011) or multiple case studies (schultz, 2005). in these studies, the person becomes the "focus of attention" (perry, 2012, p. 134). psychobiographies are anchored in biographical and psychological studies (mcadams, 2006). often freud's study on leonardo da vinci is emphasised as a first psychobiography, analysing a life of an outstanding person based on a psychological theory (kőváry, 2011). psychobiography has been criticised by mainstream psychology perspectives as elitist, simplistic, reductionist and holistic (schultz, 2005; stroud, 2004), whilst it has been valued for empowering and in-depth visions on single lives and personal histories (schultz, 2005). this study on paulo coelho focuses on the topic of intuition in the writer's life and selected creative accounts. psychobiographical research on writers has flourished during the past decades and several works have been published (holm-hadulla, 2013; kasser, 2013; neumann, 2003; runyan, 2005). the life of paulo coelho this psychobiographical study focuses on the extraordinary life of the brazilian writer and novelist paulo coelho. he was born on 24 august 1947 in rio de janeiro, brazil and was raised by devout catholic parents, his father being an engineer with a very logical, reasonable and clear vision and worldview (morais, 2009). during adolescence coelho was sent to a mental hospital three times by his parents because he did not comply with his parents expectations and due to the fact that he just wanted to become a successful writer at any cost. in his twenties, he was arrested and tortured in brazil (encyclopaedia britannica, 2013), but always kept dreaming his dream of becoming a writer. after his release he started studying law, but dropped out to travel. he changed his life radically at the age of 36 years, after a pilgrimage to santiago de compostela in spain, when he experienced a spiritual awakening and felt inspired to write the book, the pilgrimage (coelho, 1987). only one year later, he wrote the alchemist (coelho, 1988) in the course of a two-week spurt of creativity. the alchemist was paolo coelho's break-through as an international author. since then he has published books at a rate of about one every two years. in 2013, approximately 150 million copies of his books were published in a least 71 languages. several of his books are autobiographic in nature (sheme mary, 2013). intuition research has highlighted the questions, how cognition, intuition and emotion interact, relate and influence each other (hänsel, 2002), particularly in key situation in life. part of the discourse is the question how intuition influences intraand inter-personal cognitive understanding and action-related systemic processes (hänsel, 2002). research shows that the emotional system plays a mediating role between cognition and behaviour in decision-making processes which refers to the importance of intuition in these processes (de martino, kumaran, seymour, & dolan, 2006). intuition and intuitive decision-making have therefore become a relevant part in the psychological discourse on decision-making in important life decisions (rand & epstein, 2014). in early decision-finding process research (simon, 1987), rational and intuitive decision-making processes have been defined as separated. only from the 1990's onwards, the interplay of rational (cognitive) and intuitive decision-making processes have become of interest in research (gigerenzer, 2007; kahneman, 2011; a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 474 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ kahneman & frederick, 2002; kahneman & klein, 2009; klein, moon, & hoffman, 2006). several of these discourses touch on the theories about "sense-making" (klein, moon, & hoffman, 2006) and are thereby connected to the question of "how people make sense out of their experience in the world", as highlighted during the 1990's by duffy (1995). some of the discursive ideas on intuition and intuitive decision-making have also been associated with the creation of sense-making, meaningfulness and systemic theories, such as system theories, and contexts (mayer, 2015a; mayer & boness, 2013). according to mayer (2015a), intuition might fulfil the purpose, task and function to create systemic perceptions and base decision-making on a more holistic level, including rationality, emotion, conscious thoughts and unconscious knowledge than just base decision-making on the narrower and more linear concept of rationality only. intuition is biologically determined and which is an emotional reaction based on the anticipated consequences of a valued decision-making process (bechara, damasio, tranel, & damasio, 1997). it is a form of knowledge that expresses itself in thoughts, feelings and physical sensations in connection with a deeper perception and understanding of sense-making (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004, p. 76). jung (1933, pp. 567-568) emphasises that intuition is a psychological function which transmits perceptions in an unconscious way. this psychological function is connected to terms of "thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and prior to rational analysis" (kahneman, 2011, p. 697). intuition is, however, also defined as "acts of recognition" (simon, 1996, p. 89). therefore, it is understood as a key competence to create comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness which are at the same time the key components of a sense of coherence (mayer, 2015a). intuition as knowledge system for decision-making accoding to bechara, damasio, tranel, and damasio (1997) and klein (1998) cognition, intuition and emotion and their complex interplay seem to be a complex intra-personal knowledge system and thereby create the basis for decision-making processes in individuals. based on research in real-world scenarios, individuals use various conscious and unconscious abilities, skills, perceptions and sources of energy to make decisions (klein & klinger, 1991). it has been pointed out that deductive and logical thinking processes or the analysis of statistics and probabilities are not practical or relevant to make useful decisions (klein, 1998, p. 3), such as the slow processes. klein (1998) highlights that in real-world scenarios, decision-making methods need to be practical and based on holistic perceptions which draw in as many data and information as possible, including consciously and unconsciously perceived systemic knowledge which is based on intuition, mental stimulation in terms of mental activity, metaphoric knowledge, narrations and feelings. thereby, intuition and expertise are not to be understood as contraries and conflictual (kahneman & klein, 2009), but rather as integrative: intuitive decision-making is based on a qualitative and valuable judgement of the natural environment. it is anchored in a distinct assessment and analysis of the real world situation which is associated with a holistic experience and perception of the situation. hogarth (2001) emphasises that this holistic experience and perception is improved with each and every experience and intuitive decision-making process. through the repeated use of intuition and intuitive decision-making processes, adequate intuitive decisions can be made even in extraordinary and irregular situations, based on the access of holistic experiences and perceptions. however, the subjective experiences are not necessarily an indicator of precise decision-making (kahneman & klein, 2009). an intuitive synthesis is usually based on three complex aspects: the judgement of a situation, the previous experiences and the manifestation in a "gut feeling" (khatri & ng, 2000, p. 67). intuition therefore involves cognitive processes (and is not contrary to them) and emotions (which are not the only source of intuition). very strong mayer & maree 475 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions towards an experience or situation, however, might interfere with an adequate intuitive operation and perception (ray & myers, 1990) and it might occur that strong emotions interfere with transferring valuable intuitive messages into the consciousness and thereby into conscious intuitive decisions (vaughan, 1990). during the past decade, evans (2007) highlights that the "dual model" of decision-making is strongly relevant: in system 1 operations, decisions seem to be automatic, non-voluntarily and without effort. in system 2 operations – which are usually used during self-reflection or in conscious mathematical problem-solving scenarios – consciously decisions and actions are relevant and are based on effort and conscious rationality (kahneman & klein, 2009, p. 519). system 1 and system 2 operations are two parallel existing knowledge systems which are interacting with each other and which are described as "knowing (intuition-as-expertise) and sensing (intuition-as-feeling)" (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004, p. 76). also kahneman (2011) emphasises that there is a dichotomy between two modes of thought, referring to the system 1 (fast, instinctive, automatic, frequent, stereotypic, subconscious and emotional) and the system 2 (slow, deliberative, effortful, infrequent, calculating, conscious and logical). these two knowledge systems combine rationality and intuition within decision-making and contribute to a more holistic understanding, interpretation and managing of the world and the decisions to be made. research methodology this research study uses a psychobiographical research methodology. it is based on a research design based on a person-centered single case (elms, 2007; yin, 2009) within the frame of dilthey's modern hermeneutics (dilthey, 2002). the study uses a holistic approach of the individual to explore the concept of intuition throughout the life of the writer. through the hermeneutical approach, "verstehen" (understanding) is created (dilthey, 2002) by applying a self-reflective attitude of the researcher towards the exploration and interpretation of the text of lived experiences (ratner, 2002) in the life of paulo coelho. dilthey’s understanding is defined as an appropriate and suitable approach to this study, due to the fact that it integrates the main aim of interpreting ideas, purposes and other mental states expressed in reality (babbie & mouton, 2006; dilthey, 1976). dilthey`s (2002) hermeneutic tradition was chosen due to his strong emphasise on biography on the one hand and on self-reflection in hermeneutics (in comparison to heidegger, gadamer, ricoeur or levinas) on the other hand. his approach was chosen due to his pioneering work in the humanities which particularly focused on the uniqueness and wholeness of the individual whilst referring to the analysis and descriptiveness in psychology (kőváry, 2011). sampling paulo coelho was purposefully chosen as a subject of research. this purposeful sampling, which is defined as being based on a variety of sampling criteria including the specialist knowledge of the research issue (oliver, 2006), includes the personal interest in the life and creative works of the writer by the authors, the importance of intuition in the creative works and the life of the writer and the person paulo coelho, as an outstanding author. a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 476 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ data collection and analysis data was collected through firstand third-person documents (allport, 1961). these documentsi included autobiographical accounts and selected literary products of the author (altogether 33), twelve internet sources, journal and newspaper articles, three interviews (two online and one in print; arias, 2001), and one video documentary (first-person documents; binding & mirow, 2010), coelho’s biography (morais, 2009), one interview (arias, 2001), and two case studies on selected creative works (e.g., mihály, 2012) were used for the analysis. data were analysed through content analysis based on the five-step process of terre blanche, durrheim, and kelly (2006, pp. 322-326): (a) familiarisation and immersion; (b) inducing themes; (c) coding; (d) elaboration; and (e) interpretation and checking. the content analysis led to the definition of themes, categories and codes (yin, 2009). in the beginning of the analysis the researchers identified several life themes, such as health, faith, spirituality, creativity and intuition which were identified throughout the writer's life. they then coded the first and third data according to the theories applied and induced codes using inductive and deductive processes of analysis. as organising criteria, the researchers used the different life stages, reaching from birth to the end of the sixties, thereby emphasising incidents which occurred in the context of intuition throughout the life of paulo coelho. data are presented in a qualitative form of a narrative – highlighting outstanding incidences –, reporting the findings on intuition along the writer's life's stages. the authors defined the life stages as an organising principle of reporting the findings, as often done in qualitative psychobiographies (e.g., eliastam, 2011; perry, 2012). the authors further decided on a combined data presentation, integrating analysis, findings and discussion and thereby integrating descriptions of the findings and their interpretation. this way of presenting the findings, results in establishing the qualitative research criteria mentioned below and the creation of meaning, whilst presenting the findings (sandelowski, 2010). qualitative research criteria to ensure qualitative research quality, the researchers applied qualitative research criteria (yin, 2009), particularly referring to trustworthiness, credibility, dependability, transferability and confirmability (sinkovics, penz, & ghauri, 2008). further on, we applied the triangulation of theories, research methods and data (casey & murphy, 2009). ethical considerations ethical clearance was provided by the university of pretoria in pretoria, south africa. research ethics included particularly the respectful treatment of intimidate details of the writer (elms, 1994) and non-maleficence (schurink, 1998). research ethics are valued as strongly important in this psychobiographical study due to the fact that the subject of research is alive and not deceased yet (elms, 1994). mayer & maree 477 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ findings intuition during paulo coelho's childhood (1947-1959) paulo coelho de souza was born on 24 august 1947 to lygia araripe coelho de souza and pedro queima coelho de souza. he experienced a complicated birth in rio de janeiro, brazil, that he hardly survived (morais, 2009). pedro, his father, was a logical and rational person who worked as an engineer. he had a linear thoughtstyle and a clearly defined vision, whilst lydia, the mother, was focused on a strong christian, catholic belief (coelho, 2006, p. 11). paulo's life started with an act of faith and prayer by his mother, lydia, who intuitively started praying to saint joseph when she realised that her son was struggling to survive his birth (morais, 2009). she understood that her son would not survive – which was a key situation in her personal life – and began to connect her cognitive understanding of the situation with the intuitive wish to act (as described in hänsel, 2002). her emotions thereby played a mediating role between cognition and behaviour whilst making the decision to pray (as described in de martino, kumaran, seymour, & dolan, 2006). surprisingly, paulo survived the challenges of his birth and in an act of "sensemaking" (klein, moon, & hoffman, 2006) responded to the question posed by duffy (1995, p. 6) "how people make sense out of their experience in the world". she then dedicated paulo's life to st joseph (morais, 2009). based on paulo's introduction to life, childhood was strongly influenced by defining and living his relationship with god through prayers (morais, 2009). at the age of six, paulo started school in the context of a strict catholic-based primary school system which enforced the values of faith, respect and hard work (morais, 2009). however, paulo intuitively new that he was born to read and to write books and started to focus on reading books extensively from the age of eight years, whilst loosing interest in his work at school. already at this time of his life, paulo was aware of his emotional pull towards reading and towards books which can be interpreted as an intuition as a psychological function according to jung (1933) who defined this psychological function as connected to thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and prior to rational analysis (kahneman, 2011). however, these unconscious preferences might be viewed as the first "act of recognition" (intuition), as defined by simon (1996, p. 89). this first "act of recognition" on paulo's way of becoming a world known writer, must be seen as being based on his probably conscious decision to prefer reading, stories and books to school. integrating intuitive and rational decisions towards becoming a writer during adolescence (1959-1966) six years later, paulo started writing a diary. he "knew" that he only wanted to become a writer and developed the idée fixe of becoming one (morais, 2009, p. 62). at this point in time, coelho combined and integrated a rational and cognitive and conscious decision-making process with his intuitive and emotional (kahneman & klein, 2009) and up to this point in time rather unconscious idea from his childhood to spend most of the time reading which seems in retrospect to having been an unconscious, but intuitive decision for preparation for his own career in writing as he highlighted later in his biography (morais, 2009; as described in klein & klinger, 1991). coelho attended a school with a strict jesuit tradition which he did not enjoy (morais, 2009), struggled a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 478 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with his belief in god, feelings of guilt, the interest in religion on the one hand and the desire to break free from his strict educational and familial background and experienced a deep crisis when he lost his grandfather (arias, 2001). he made new friends who included him into the youth scene of artists, left-wingers and the world of theatre. he thereby entered a new world which was a strong alternative model to his familiar upbringing. morais (2009) describes that coelho, as almost by accident, met his new friends that introduced him to this new, fascinating world. he did not consciously connect to this scene, but found himself in midst the scene, getting inspired by the artistic worldviews of the fellows. his first introduction to the artistic world is described as happening coincidentally (morais, 2009), almost as the application of system 1 operations which happen "automatically" and without effort (evans, 2007, p. 5). however, being torn apart between his parents desire to make him a successful engineer and his personal dream to become a writer, coelho experienced strong emotional instability (morais, 2009). his parents admitted him to a mental hospital thrice between 1965 and 1967 (jeffries, 2013) which impacted strongly on his doubts towards life, the implementation of his dream to become a writer and his self-doubts (arias, 2001; morais, 2009). the rationality of the belief in the devil and the intuitive return to christianity in the twenties (1967-1976) in the next life decade, paulo consumed drugs and entered a new world of personal freedom, away from his parents. he left university and broke off with his studies in law and engaged more and more in theatre play productions whilst he continued writing (morais, 2009). through the rational decision to stop studying a subject he was not interested in, coelho served intuitively his dream to become a successful and famous writer. intuitively, coelho knew – as described in sadler-smith and shefy (2004) through his intuition as expertise that he would not be happy to become a lawyer, whilst he could feel strongly on the level of sensing and "intuitionas-feeling" (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004, p. 81) that his world was the world of the artists, actors and writers. his quick decision to leave the university was thereby based on his "gut feeling" (khatri & ng, 2000, p. 67), as well as on his rational decision that he did not want to become anything else than a writer. during his middle twenties, coelho was often depressed and frustrated that he had not started to become a famous writer (morais, 2009) and therefore made the conscious and rational decision to turn away from his christian background completely and to believe in the devil and the occult (arias, 2001). he believed he was "a magician preparing for his dawn" (morais, 2009, p. 181) and made a contract with the devil: he sold the devil his soul and expected in return the dark forces to support him in reaching his aim to become a famous writer (morais, 2009). coelho consciously made the pact with the devil, following his strong inner desire to excel. he thereby applied a new view of the world, good and evil and used a new cognitive understanding of the world to implement new action-related systemic processes (as described in hänsel, 2002): he used his new belief system consciously to promote himself as a writer and moved away from his more intuitive knowledge and belief in god and the world. coelho thereby turned his frustration that he had experienced of his failure to become a famous writer into a new occult and rather rational and strategic approach to reach his aim and thereby he made sense out of his negative experiences (as discussed in duffy, 1995; klein, moon, & hoffman, 2006) whilst knowing intuitively, particularly through the intuition-as-feeling throughout the decade that he was striving towards the right aim and his personal dream to become a writer. his new belief therefore became a meaningful way of dealing with his mayer & maree 479 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ frustrations of his stagnations as a writer and represents a way of trying to manage his inability to proceed with his career by himself (as described in mayer, 2015a; mayer & boness, 2013). besides his involvement in constructing a new belief system and active magical influence to fulfill his dream, paulo married gisa, his first wife, met raul seixas who became his friend and business partner and got into music productions whilst practicing magic to boost his success (morais, 2009). because of his frustrations of being unsuccessful, coelho defined himself as the "prince of darkness", sold his soul to the devil to make his dream come true and dissolved the contract one hour later and turned away from satanism completely after having been introduced to the first initiation tire of the sect he had joined which he related to as the phenomenon of the black cloud (arias, 2001). he panicked and turned back to his childhood belief: christianity (morais, 2009). his rational decision to sell his soul to his devil was revised by coelho by his intuition-as-feeling that he was not doing a right thing. he also decided intuitively to return to christianity after he experienced fear and after he had realised his wrong and limited decision to become a satanist through a more holistic understanding, through the recognition of the anticipated consequences of the decision-making process (bechara, damasio, tranel, & damasio, 1997). through the initiation experience, coelho developed a deeper understanding and perception of his sense in the world (as described in sadler-smith & shefy, 2004). he realised immediately, without effort (evans, 2007) and through "thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and prior to rational analysis" (kahneman, 2011, p. 697) that it was the right point in time to return to christianity to realise his dream and live his life. he underlined the correctness of his decision by using his "knowing-as-expertise" (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004, p. 76) and coelho dedicated his life once more to st joseph (coelho, 2006), whilst integration a rational approach to celebrate his life and by intuitively knowing holistically that this was his right way to go the intuitive spurt after the walk – the thirties (1977-1986) after coelho had divorced gisa, he had married his second wife, but got divorced quickly again during his twenties. it was only during his thirties that coelho met his life partner christina. he knew immediately that she was the woman he had waited for (arias, 2001) by applying his intuition-as-feeling (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004) and his system 1 operation (kahneman & klein, 2009). they travelled through europe and coelho experienced his calling to become a writer while listening to church bells tolling in the concentration camp in dachau and he realised once again that his time as a writer was to come (arias, 2001, p. 141). it was during the thirties that coelho made promised to different saints (nhá chica; jesus of prague, st. theresa) to honour them and return to them when they helped him to become a famous writer (arias, 2001; morais, 2009). coelho thereby combined his rational understanding that he needed help to move towards realising his dream whilst following his intuition stepwise to walk on into this chosen direction (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004). during one of christina and paulo's trips to europe, he was invited by a member of the catholic order of ram ("regnus agnus mundi") to join the order as a disciple of a man called j. (arias, 2001). paulo had one night to decide and was challenged by this decision. morais (2009) and arias (2001) both describe that this decision was a difficult one for coelho who was term apart by his rational and intuitive decision-making processes (as described in evans, 2007). he finally decide for the order, based on his "gut feeling", the judgement of the strange situation and offer and his previous experience within the satanic sect (khatri & ng, 2000) a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 480 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with his decision for ram, paulo had to follow his master's advice in many respects and was sent on a pilgrimage to santiago de compostela in spain after he had failed to gain his sword to become a master of ram, too (morais, 2009). after this pilgrimage and a several month long depression, coelho wrote his first world bestseller (coelho, 2003): "the pilgrimage" in a two weeks spurt of creativity. it might be assumed that coelho connected during this journey deeply to his intuitive knowledge as expertise and as feeling and a deeper and even more holistic experience and perception (hogarth, 2001). however, coelho got into a depression due to his failure to immediately apply his knowledge and then managed to access his knowledge whilst applying his expertise, his feeling and his rationality towards the process of writing (kahneman & klein, 2009). in the two weeks act of creativity, coelho found himself in "acts of recognition" (simon, 1996, p. 89) and wrote his bestseller, describing himself as a magus: "yes, i am a magus, but so is everyone who knows how to read the hidden language of things in pursuit of their personal destiny" (arias, 2001, p. xix). he had found an effective way to approach and apply his intuition as expertise and knowledge. an integrative approach to rationality and intuition – the forties (1987-1996) paulo’s fourth life decade was characterized by his establishment as a writer and his spiritual development (coelho, 2003). during this decade, coelho combined his rational knowledge, his logical thought processes, statistical and management knowledge to manage his success and to expand his celebrity status to make useful decisions on the one hand (klein, 1998) and his systemic knowledge of networking, mental stimulation, metaphoric knowledge, narrative approaches to life and life narration and access to feelings on the other hand (klein, 1998). coelho's success might even be mainly based on his personal competence to combine system 1 operations and system 2 operations during his life and with regard to writing his books and marketing them. as described by kahneman and klein (2009), coelho became during his forties not only a master in ram, but also a master in integrating intuition and expertise, rationality and intuition whenever needed. he analysed the market for his narrations on the one hand (arias, 2001; morais, 2009) and accessed a deeply intuitive knowledge of spirituality on the other hand (e.g., coelho 2011). the combination of rational thought and intuitive spirituality as a content of his books and as a strategy in the real world to market his book shows that coelho does not see the differentiation of rationality and intuition as contradictive or conflictual, but that he is able to integrate and combine these two systems in a meaningful and applicable manner. this potential and knowledge to combine rationality and intuition is not only part of coelho's books written in the forties, such as "the alchemist" (coelho, 2002), "the valkryries" (coelho, 1992), "brida" (coelho, 1990), but also in the way how coelho developed his marketing strategies, his holistic approach to write and sell his books, his life as a writer and his life as a disciple and master of ram, his business and political contacts and networks, as well as his meditative and contemplative practices. during the forties, coelho travelled also to the road to rome and developed a feeling and expertise to judge his subjective experiences as either important and/or unimportant for his work as a writer (as emphasised in kahneman & klein, 2009; khatri & ng, 2000). situational experiences and/or new relationships were perceived as intuitively important and valuable intuitive messages were transferred into valuable intuitive messages that were then consciously used in selected narrations, scenes and/or descriptions in his books, thereby connecting the visible and the invisible worlds (coelho, 1990). mayer & maree 481 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ combining resources for success in life and creative works – the fifties (1997-2006) in the fifties, coelho decided intuitively that he was now able to review his experiences made in the youth in the mental hospital and wrote the book "veronica decides to die" (coelho, 1998). the book deals with the “acts of recognition” (simon, 1996, p. 89) that a rational approach to life only and rational decisions might not always lead to the appropriate decisions which are the best for the person. during the fifties, coelho wrote several more books in which he explored belief systems, values and norms on a deeper level (e.g., coelho, 2007) and in which coelho discussed the question of how important the combination of values and intuition is in comparison to a rational approach to life and sensemaking. in several books, coelho describes the importance of recognising the complex interplay of cognition, intuition and emotion (bechara et al., 1997; klein, 1998) and a complex holistic understanding of the world (klein, 1998), based on intuition-as-expertise and intuition-as-feeling (sadler-smith & shefy, 2004) and backed-up by a combination of system 1 and system 2 operations (evans, 2007). in "veronica decides to die" (coelho, 1998), for example, coelho describes the struggle of the protagonist – which coelho explains is his personal representative (arias, 2001) – who knows intuitively by feeling what is good for her, but acts against her intuition by making rationally based decisions (i.e., not living her dream, following routines she does not like, holding back her emotions instead of showing them). in the end of the book, the protagonist manages to follow her intuition more wisely whilst taking care of herself through rationally integrated decisions and thereby experiences a personal growth. in his real life, coelho applied even more improved the combination of rational and intuitive power to become more successful: he applied for a seat in the brazilian academy of letters, a renowned brazilian writers' society by applying rational decisions, such as the application as such, and by applying intuitive decision-making by moving to france and waiting patiently for the reaction of the society without interfering more in the process, exploring his own intuition through using the i-ching (morais, 2009). during the fifth decade in coelho's life, the writer aimed at applying holistic knowledge and combining deep and reflective life knowledge on system 1 and system 2 levels in his life, as well as in his books. it might be assumed that this combination of describing the struggle, the conflictual relationship between rationality and intuition as well as attempt to apply rationality and intuition in his life as well as in the characters in his narration is part of his overwhelming success. whilst coelho accepts both systems as interpretations of the world and whilst he applies both systems 1 and 2 (kahneman, 2011), he repeatedly shows in his narrations, as well as with regard to his life story and the fulfilment to become a famous and successful writer that intuitive approaches and practices are often the ones that a person should follow to reach his/her aims, whilst the rational approaches to life do often limit a person's perceptions, abilities and actions. in his narrations, coelho pleads for a careful and mindfully applied combination of system 1 and system 2 decisions which might be addressed in affirmations, such as "follow your dream in a mindful way". the world beyond – the sixties (2007-2015) the sixth decade of coelho's life started with a quite birthday in france and was followed by a huge birthday party on st. joseph's day in spain (morais, 2009). this decade of coelho's life is characterised by more book publications (coelho, 2008) a documentary on coelho (binding & mirow, 2010), and the bestseller "aleph" a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 482 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ (coelho, 2011). particularly the creative work "aleph" (binding & mirow, 2010) refers again to a combination of coelho's ability to combine rational thought and strategic management of his career in the context of negotiations with his publisher and the application of intuition in the development of the relationship with a young woman on the train. again, coelho plays with the system 1 and 2 by describing his thoughts, his dilemmas and his fulfilment of spiritual development in the context of this new relationship by exploring intuition and worlds beyond a rational reality (binding & mirow, 2010). several of coelho’s books deal with socio-political criticism during this life's decade. however, "aleph" is one of the most personal accounts of coelho's struggle between the two systems 1 and 2 (kahneman, 2011) and he is asking himself what source can we actually trust? which knowledge do we trust, what are the "real intentions" in life, what is the desired development? coelho reflects on holistic perceptions, on values and the deeper levels of existence, purpose in life and which decisions impact how on the individual, his/her life purpose and development? (coelho, 2011). coelho seems to use the decade of the sixties to get into deeper levels of exploring life and lives beyond life by applying his knowledge-as-expertise, his knowledge-as-feeling and trying to resolve the purpose of life and its meaningfulness on a deeper level of reflection and feeling, consciousness and unconsciousness in a holistic way. discussion limitations of the study the study is subject to theoretical (intuition) and methodological limitations (schultz, 2005), as well as to the researcher's bias (nortjé, fouché, & gogo, 2013), the defined qualitative quality criteria (mayer, 2015c) and the general criticism that this study falls into the category of elitist research which focuses on one single famous, prominent celebrity. conclusion and recommendations the focus of this study was the analysis and interpretation of intuition in the life of paulo coelho. the life was reconstructed psychobiographically (fouché & van niekerk, 2010) to review the life of paulo coelho and his creative works in the context of intuition and intuitive decision-making. the study shows that the career of becoming a successful and international writer did not only start for coelho with the pilgrimage through france and spain in 1987 to santiago de compostela or the realisation of the "call to become a writer" in the concentration camp in dachau, germany, but already at the age of eight years when paulo coelho preferred reading, stories and books to his school work through the intuitive "act of recognition". the reconstruction of the life of paulo coelho refers to the question of the role of intuition and rational and intuitive decision-making in the life of paulo coelho, as well as in his creative thoughts. by responding to this question, the study provides new in-depth insights and understanding to the impact of intuition in the life and works of this outstanding writer. mayer & maree 483 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ focusing on the life of paulo coelho, the study shows that the focus cannot be on intuition only, but also needs to integrate rationality as an important aspect of decision making throughout the life span (see figure 1). figure 1. intuition and rationality across the life span. this psychobiographical study emphasises that intuitive decision-making process to become a writer is already expressed unconsciously and intuitively by paulo coelho at the age of eight years and not, as highlighted before during adolescence. the intuitive preparation of coelho during childhood might play a very important and outstanding role as a marker for his success later in life. the strong urge of reading in coelho's childhood is therefore interpreted as an early intuitive decision towards the profession of becoming a writer. during adolescence, coelho realises consciously his idée fixe to become a writer and thereby starts exploring and integrating rational and intuitive decisions to expand his writing abilities and experiences in artistic, theatre and writing competition contexts. in the following decade, coelho loses contact to his intuitive system and decides consciously for a pact with the devil and satanism to reach his aim of becoming a successful and famous writer. however, through a fearful and outstanding initiation ritual into a satanistic sect, he bethinks his inner values and returns to christianity and his childhood belief. thereby, coelho, re-accesses his intuitive knowledge and returns onto a path of intuition. following this inner revolution, coelho expresses his intuitive knowledge of expertise and feeling through a spurt of intuition and creativity after having joined ram and walked the pilgrimage to santiago. it happens in the forties that coelho starts to integrate a balanced approach to rationality and intuition during life, but also in his creative works and narrations. coelho starts exploring intuitively his spirituality which he shares with the readership whilst aiming to balance rationality with intuition to become spiritually fulfilled, successful and famous. a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 484 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ during the fifties, coelho explores on a deeper level to combine intuitive and rational thinking through integrating different values in his life and creative works and by expressing his struggles to find out what his actual path looks like – is it the one his rationality opens to him or is it the one that his intuition provides for him? it is only during the sixties that coelho finds a way of combining rational and intuitive thoughts and decisions within his narration – particularly in the creative work aleph (2011) – on faith for himself, on resolving life's riddles based on combining rational and intuitive approaches to meaningfulness. the findings of this study lead to some theoretical and practical implications, referring to the idea that more long-term studies on intuition and the application of intuitive and rational thinking is needed. psychobiographies could provide new and important information how intuitive decision-making develops across the life span and the ways in which system 1 and system 2 operate might be consciously explored and integrated to come to holistic and meaningful decisions throughout the life span. on a practical level, this psychobiographical study might provide new insights into the development, process and expression of intuition and intuitive decision making throughout the life span of a single person. it provides the reader with new ideas on how to balance system 1 and system 2 decisions and might create consciousness around the topic of intuition and the importance of in-depth self-reflection and conscious exploration of the two decision-influencing systems. notes i) we included the number of the main documents used for analysis in the following. however, not all of these sources are included in this manuscript, due to manuscript length restrictions. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alexander, i. e. 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(2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage. about the authors claude-hélène mayer is adjunct professor at the institut für therapeutische kommunikation und sprachgebrauch at the europa-universität viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany, and a senior research associate at the department of management, rhodes university, south africa. her research interests are mental health and well-being in organisations, faith development, psychobiography, transcultural conflict management and mediation, and women in leadership. professor david jacobus francois maree is an established, rated, registered research psychologist and head of the department of psychology at the university of pretoria, from which he obtained all his undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications. his research interest include cognitive psychology, research methods, rasch modeling and psychometrics, as well as critical realism and philosophy of science. a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho 490 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 472–490 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1184 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-008-0103-z http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ a psychobiographical study of intuition in paulo coelho (introduction) psychobiography the life of paulo coelho intuition intuition as knowledge system for decision-making research methodology sampling data collection and analysis qualitative research criteria ethical considerations findings intuition during paulo coelho's childhood (1947-1959) integrating intuitive and rational decisions towards becoming a writer during adolescence (1959-1966) the rationality of the belief in the devil and the intuitive return to christianity in the twenties (1967-1976) the intuitive spurt after the walk – the thirties (1977-1986) an integrative approach to rationality and intuition – the forties (1987-1996) combining resources for success in life and creative works – the fifties (1997-2006) the world beyond – the sixties (2007-2015) discussion limitations of the study conclusion and recommendations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conversion disorder theoretical contributions conversion disorder a review through the prism of the rational-choice theory of neurosis yacov roféab, yochay rofé*a [a] interdisciplinary department for social sciences, bar-ilan university, ramat-gan, israel. [b] ashkelon academic college, ashkelon, israel. abstract conversion disorder remains a mystery that has only become more complicated with the decline of the scientific status of psychoanalysis (e.g., piper, lillevik, & kritzer, 2008; rofé, 2008) and recent neurological findings suggest that this behavior is controlled by biological mechanisms (van beilen, vogt, & leenders, 2010). moreover, existing theories have difficulty explaining the efficacy of various interventions, such as psychoanalysis, behavior therapy, drug therapy and religious therapy. this article reviews research and clinical evidence pertaining to both the development and treatment of conversion disorder and shows that this seemingly incompatible evidence can be integrated within a new theory, the rational-choice theory of neurosis (rctn; rofé, 2010). despite the striking differences, rctn continues freud's framework of thinking as it employs a new concept of repression and replaces the unconscious with self-deception. moreover, it incorporates freud's idea, implicitly expressed in his theory, that neurotic disorders are, in fact, rational behaviors. keywords: choice of symptom, conversion disorder, repression, therapy, unconscious, unawareness, self-deception europe's journal of psychology, 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868, doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 received: 2013-04-30. accepted: 2013-07-28. published (vor): 2013-11-29. handling editor: rhian worth, bangor university, bangor, united kingdom. *corresponding author at: ashkelon academic college, ashkelon, israel. e-mail: rofeja@mail.biu.ac.il this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction conversion disorder is a deviant somatic symptom where patients display deficits in voluntary motor or sensory function that is incompatible with neurological diseases (american psychiatric association, 2013). prevalent rates of this disorder vary widely across cultures and the population studied (e.g., see brown & lewis-fernandez, 2011; feinstein, 2011). while the dsm-5 estimated the prevalence to be 2-5/100,000 (american psychiatric association, 2013), others reported somewhat higher rates (e.g., see brown & lewis-fernandez, 2011). prevalence is generally higher when clinical populations are sampled and it may vary between 1% to 14% (e.g., american psychiatric association, 2013; brown & lewis-fernandez, 2011; feinstein, 2011). despite tremendous theoretical and research efforts, the causes of this disorder and the process by which it develops remain a mystery (e.g., see kanaan, carson, et al., 2010; rowe, 2010; stone, vuilleumier, & friedman, 2010). psychoanalytic theory, which initially coined the concept of conversion, attributes the cause of this disorder to repressed childhood trauma or unacceptable sexual or aggressive impulses (e.g., breuer & freud, 1895; fenichel, 1946; freud, 1894). however, studies refute the existence of repression (see review by mcnally, clancy, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ & barrett, 2004; piper, lillevik, & kritzer, 2008; rofé, 2008), which constitutes the "cornerstone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests" (freud, 1914, p. 16). many others question the soundness of "freudian unconscious", the second pillar of the psychoanalytic theory of neuroses and claim that it needs to be abandoned (e.g., greenwald, 1992; o'brien & jureidini, 2002; rofé, 2008). furthermore, although some investigators reported a relatively high rate of sexual abuse among conversion patients (e.g., roelofs, keijsers, hoogduin, näring, & moene, 2002), others found this result among only a small minority of patients (6.6%; see kuloglu, atmaca, tezcan, gecici, & bulut, 2003). additionally, sexual abuse is associated with a wide range of other deviant behaviors (e.g., dissociative identity disorder, eating disorders, suicide and depression) yet about a third of those abused are found not to be affected (e.g., see review by rofé, 2008). nevertheless, it might be premature to altogether abandon freud's theoretical framework. a recent theory, the rational-choice theory of neurosis (rctn; rofé, 2010), shows that a new concept of repression and an alternative model of unawareness can explain in a more parsimonious way the development of neuroses and integrate all therapies relating to these disorders into one theoretical framework. moreover, while freud attributed neurotic symptoms to irrational forces, rctn's theoretical achievement only became possible by incorporating freud's idea, implicitly expressed in his theory, that neurotic disorders are, in fact, rational behaviors. as noted by herbert simon (1978), the late cognitive psychologist and nobel prize-winning economist, it is perhaps … surprising to discover how pervasive assumptions of rationality are in psychoanalytic theory – confirming the suspicion that there is indeed method in madness. (p. 3) thus, the present article aims to demonstrate that rctn, which regards neurotic disorders to be conscious and rational behaviors, can provide the most appropriate explanation for the development of conversion disorder. a secondary objective of this article is to suggest an improved model of self-deception by which, according to rctn, unawareness of self-involvement occurs. however, in order to provide an integrative theory of conversion disorder, rctn needs to account for research supporting the behaviorist theoretical position (e.g., see rimm & somervill, 1977; szasz, 1975; ullmann & krasner, 1975), the historical rival of psychoanalysis, that conversion disorder is intentionally adopted in response to current stressful demands (e.g., ironside & batchelor, 1945; miller & forbes, 1990; mucha & reinhardt, 1970; rajmohan, thomas, & sreekumar, 2004). it is also necessary to address studies suggesting that biological factors may be involved in the development of conversion disorder, which led some investigators to suggest changing its name to "functional neurological disorder" (e.g., stone et al., 2011). these studies include: 1) findings indicating abnormal cerebral functioning in conversion patients (e.g., fink, halligan, & marshall, 2006; rotge et al., 2009), such as an increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and associated regions in patients suffering from hysterical paralysis or paresis in their attempts, imaginary or real, to move the affected limb (e.g., de lange, roelofs, & toni, 2007; marshall, halligan, fink, wade, & frackowiak, 1997); 2) research showing that hypnotic suggestions can produce behaviors similar to conversion symptoms, such as paralysis, and evidence indicating that hypnotic patients in these states display a similar pattern of neurological activity (e.g., deeley et al., 2013; halligan & oakley, 2013); 3) studies revealing that injury or physical illness frequently proceeded the onset of this disorder (e.g., spierings, poels, sijben, gabreëls, & renier, 1990; stone et al., 2009). a theory that attributes conversion disorder solely to psychological factors must provide an adequate explanation for the above indications that this disorder is at least partly controlled by biological causes. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 833 http://www.psychopen.eu/ one additional cardinal problem that needs to be addressed concerns the variability of conversion symptoms. if this disorder is indeed a homogenous type of deviant behavior that is controlled by the same mechanisms, it is necessary to explain how the wide variety of symptoms, such as paralysis, blindness, psychogenic movements, and seizures, are caused. an additional challenge of an integrative theory of conversion disorder is to provide an understanding of how therapeutic change comes about. how is it that varied therapeutic methods, such as psychodynamic therapy (e.g., viederman, 1995), behavior therapy (e.g., blanchard & hersen, 1976; campo & negrini, 2000; goldblatt & munitz, 1976) and drug therapy (e.g., cybulska, 1997; pu, mohamed, imam, & el-roey, 1986; voon, 2006; voon & lang, 2005), exert similar outcomes? another puzzling issue, unexplained by traditional theories, concerns the efficacy of religious therapy (e.g., shaman) in the non-western countries and certain sections in the western society (e.g., chowdhury, nath, & chakraborty, 1993; witztum, grisaru, & budowski, 1996). the rational-choice theory of neurosis: an application to conversion disorder. basic assumptions a new conceptualization of repression rctn agrees with freud (1914) that repression is the key to understanding neurotic disorders, such as conversion disorder. however, given the numerous studies which refute the freudian repression, rctn suggests to maintain only the essence of this concept defined by freud (1915) as "turning something away and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious" (p. 147). thus, repression is seen as a conscious coping mechanism which deliberately eliminates threatening stimuli from attention through the employment of distractive maneuvers. this definition is consistent with freud's original thinking since as noted by erdelyi and goldberg (1979), "the unconscious nature of repression was simply not a critical theme in freud's treatment of the topic… in his very earliest writings (e.g., freud, 1894) repression was treated as a potentially conscious mechanism… at least at times, repression is a conscious, deliberate act" (p. 365; see also erdelyi, 2006). moreover, the conception of repression as a conscious and deliberate withdrawal of attention is also consistent with the bulk of experimental studies which examined the nature of repression in a laboratory setting (see review by holmes, 1974, 1990). hence, this new definition restricts repression to a deliberate distraction, removing the other three components that comprise the psychoanalytic conception of this term, namely the forgetting of trauma, the unconscious, and the casual relationship between the forgotten trauma and neurotic disorders, as they have not received empirical support (see review by rofé, 2008). another significant changemade by rctn is its distinction between normal repression and pathological repression. normal repression refers to socially accepted means of distraction, such as reading or social activities. repression becomes pathological when individuals are faced with stress that exceeds their coping abilities, to the extent that normal repression is insufficient for warding off stress-related thoughts. under these circumstances, some individuals will consciously and rationally choose a neurotic behavior which heavily occupies their attention to the extent that they become unaware of their stressor. thus, contrary to psychoanalysis, neurosis arises in response to current stressors, rather than historical events, and most importantly, repression is the consequence, rather than the cause, of neurosis. indeed, both research (e.g., bhatia & sapra, 2005; malhi & singhi, 2003; mucha & reinhardt, 1970; sar, akyüz, dogan, & öztü, 2009; srinath, bharat, girimaji, & seshadri, 1993) and case studies (e.g., ironside & batchelor, europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 834 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1945; lovinger, 2006) demonstrate that stress precedes the development of conversion disorder. these findings are consistent with the dsm's diagnostic requirement (criterion b) stating that "the initiation or exacerbation of the symptom or deficit is preceded by conflicts or stressors" (american psychiatric association, 2000, p. 492). however, as noted by malhi and singhi (2003) "the relationship between stressors and conversion symptoms is not immediately apparent during history taking and usually only a detailed psychosocial history and psychological testing is required…" (pp. 233-234). hence, conversion symptoms enable patients to ward off stress-related thoughts from their attention and thereby reduce the level of their distress. accordingly, the name "conversion" needs to be preserved, despite the inadequacy of the psychoanalytic theory, since the preoccupation with the stressor is replaced with symptom-related thoughts. in freudian terms, the individual's psychological energy is converted into preoccupation with a fictitious physical ailment. choice of conversion symptom similar to the consumer decision-making process (e.g., wänke & friese, 2005), rctn claims that the choice of a specific conversion symptom is determined by three main principles: needs, availability, and the cost-benefit analysis. the need of controllability — cumulative findings indicate that both humans and animals have a strong need to gain control over their life circumstances, and that lack of control has a detrimental cognitive, emotional, and physiological impact (e.g., hofmann, 2005; wellman, cullen, & pelleymounter, 1998; white, lehman, hemphill, mandel, & lehman, 2006). while some form of controllability is obtained through the distractive value of the symptom, research and clinical evidence indicate that people often choose a specific neurotic symptom if that behavior will enhance their ability to reduce the potential damage of the stress and/or motivate others to comply with their unique needs (see rofé, 2000, 2010). accordingly, both research (e.g., bhatia & sapra, 2005; grattan-smith, fairley, & procopis, 1988; ironside & batchelor, 1945; malhi & singhi, 2003; mucha & reinhardt, 1970; srinath, bharat, girimaji, & seshadri, 1993) and clinical evidence (e.g., blanchard & hersen, 1976; lovinger, 2006; rajmohan, thomas, & sreekumar, 2004) indicates that patients usually choose a specific conversion symptom if it will enhance the individual's ability to escape a stressful situation. as noted by dohrenwend and dohrenwend (1969) regarding conversion symptoms developed by soldiers during world war ii, "the patient's symptoms became his means to escape from further combat, and, not surprisingly, few recovered to the point where they could be returned to the front" (pp. 114-115). similarly, ironside and batchelor (1945), who examined 40 aircrew members with ocular manifestations of hysteria during world war ii, noted that "it is understandable that in pilots and other members of aircrews manifestations of hysteria should affect the eyes rather than the limbs, for what his legs are to an infantryman, his eyes are to a pilot" (p. 88). conversion symptoms may also be used to solicit attention and social privileges. for example, by developing hysterical blindness, a 15-year-old girl compelled her parents, who appeared very busy pursuing their own activities, to spend time with her reading her homework assignments (grosz & zimmerman, 1970). similarly, in a case study of hysterical blindness (brady & lind, 1961), the patient succeeded, through a display of conversion symptoms, to put an end to the constant demands and criticisms of his wife and mother-in-law, which required him to work nights and weekends and perform various chores under their supervision. in the same way, blanchard europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 835 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and hersen (1976) described four case studies where conversion symptoms manipulated the social environment to provide the desired social rewards following stress that resulted from interpersonal conflicts (e.g., marital stress). symptoms were abandoned when patients were "taught new ways of seeking and obtaining attention from the social environment" (p. 127). availability — findings show that patients utilize their personal experiences to develop a conversion disorder that suits their coping demands. this may explain the fact that physical illness and injury are often reported among patients who subsequently developed conversion disorder (e.g., jones, 1980; merskey & buhrich, 1975; stone et al., 2009). moreover, the symptoms are "commonly placed in some organ that was the site of a previous injury or disability" (white & watt, 1981, p. 216; see also mucha & reinhardt, 1970; weinstein, eck, & lyerly, 1969). accordingly, ironside and batchelor (1945) reported that a significant number of military air crew members who developed ocular hysteria had a prior history of eye trouble. similarly, as noted by merskey and buhrich (1975), "patients who have epileptic fits may learn the pattern of their attacks and, when it is convenient to solve a conflict with this technique, they may use their knowledge of organic fits in order to develop hysterical ones" (p. 65). this is consistent with findings that show that 10% to 60% of patients with hysterical, non-epileptic seizures also suffer from true epilepsy (e.g., see duncan, oto, martin, & pelosi, 2006; mellers, 2005). further evidence shows that 70% of conversion disorder patients had parents who suffered from illnesses in the same organs that were affected by their hysterical symptoms (mucha & reinhardt, 1970; see also siegel & barthel, 1986), and patients with non-epileptic seizures often have a family history of seizures (e.g., see mellers, 2005). the choice of conversion symptomsmay also become available through peer groups. for example, in their investigation of contagious hysteria among west bengali women, nandi, banerjee, bera, nandi, and nandi (1985) reported that episodes of hysterical seizures were usually precipitated by a husband beating his wife. as soon as the victim fell into a fit, other women suffering from similar stressors began to have hysterical seizures as well (for additional examples, see chowdhury et al., 1993; stevens, 1969; ullmann & krasner, 1975). cost-benefit analysis — in accordance with economic principles, human behavior is based upon rational calculations of cost-benefit in the interest of maximizing personal utility (e.g., aumann, 2006; becker, 1976; lekachman, 1976; march, 1978; simon, 1956). the incorporation of these ideas into psychology "may enable us to shed light on decisions which previously would have had to be classified as non-rational, irrational, or unexplained" (williams & findlay, 1981, p. 15). in fact, as noted before, freud himself viewed neurosis as a goal-directed behavior rather than an arbitrary one. however, in freud's theory the chosen symptom is to some extent unwise behavior (e.g., dollard & miller, 1950) as it is determined primarily by a past event. in contrast, rctn attests that the symptom is developed in response to current stressful demands to help increase the individual's coping ability. the principle of cost-benefit can also account for the low prevalence of conversion symptoms among men. men tend to avoid these symptoms, as they would increase the risk of unemployment, which is far more threatening to them than to women (e.g., artazcoz, benach, borrell, & cortes, 2004). as noted by sanborn (1990), men "overvalue their business powers to the exception of everything else, and this puts them at risk if their business falls apart" (p. 152). an additional factor is the lower social tolerance for weaknesses in men. men are expected to be "independent, masterful, assertive, and instrumentally competent" (eagly & wood, 1991, p. 309), and to "repress emotions that might be associated with vulnerability" (good, sherrod, & dillon, 2000, p. 64). socialization processes encourage men "not to be sissies" (sanborn, 1990, p. 151) and not "to express their desires for emotional support during stressful situations because it would be perceived as an inappropriate feminine coping europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 836 http://www.psychopen.eu/ strategy" (eisler & blalock, 1991, p. 50). the idea that gender differences in conversion disorder may be the result of cost-benefit considerations was also suggested by jones (1980). jones noted that considering the viewpoint of learning theory (i.e., reinforcement for appropriate behavior), psychoanalysis (i.e., primary and secondary gains), and sociological theory (i.e., culturally appropriate role models), "it is likely that the usefulness of conversion symptoms is greater for women, generally, than for men" (p. 436). the cost-benefit principle also integrates research conducted by behavioral investigators showing that patients tend to abandon their symptoms either by reduction of the benefit (e.g., withdrawal of attention, monetary rewards, and hospital privileges) or by increasing the cost through punishment (e.g., see blanchard & hersen, 1976; goldblatt & munitz, 1976; gooch, wolcott, & speed, 1997). the phenomena of unawareness the rctnmodel of neurosis distinguishes between the patient's choice of symptom and the actual implementation of this behavior. the choice of a specific conversion symptom may be unconscious or spontaneous with no prior planning. however, the actual implementation of this choice is fully under conscious control. nothing other than the conscious can impose complicated behaviors, such as hysterical paralysis and epileptic seizures, in the absence of neurological damages. the psychological processes by which patients spontaneously choose a specific conversion symptom and then become unaware of their conscious implementation of this choice are described below. a) intuitive choice of the symptom—numerous studies indicate that decisions, problem-solving and judgments can be made in an analytic or an intuitive manner (e.g., see dane, baer, pratt, & oldham, 2011; glöckner & witteman, 2010; hogarth, 2010; kahneman, 2003; pretz, 2008; sarmány-schuller, 2010). unlike in an analytic choice, where the individual consciously examines the various options and relevant information before reaching a decision, an intuitive decision is made with little or no conscious awareness and thus is rapid and effortless. as noted by hogarth (2001) an intuitive decision is "often experienced in the form of feelings (not words)…. the correlated are speed, and confidence … are reached with little apparent effort, and typically without conscious awareness … we know, but we do not know why [italics added]" (pp. 9-31). similarly, kahneman (2003) asserted that "a defining property of intuitive thoughts is that they come to mind spontaneously, like percepts" (p. 699; see also sadler-smith, 2008; sinclair, ashkanasy, & chattopadhyay, 2010). intuitive decisions are often taken in stressful situations "when an in-depth analysis is not possible and the decision-maker must move quickly to a plausible solution" (sayegh, anthony, & perrewe, 2004, p. 183). intuitive decisions are based on the individual's experiential resources stored in the long-term memory and usually are no less rational than conscious deliberate decisions (e.g., glöckner & witteman, 2010; sayegh et al., 2004). sayegh et al. noted in this respect that "theories of rationality have come a long way since descartes proclaiming the superiority of cognitions. we now acknowledge that the human mind and the nature of our existence are defined by more than our ability to reason … rationality … [it] is partly defined through our ability to experience emotions … especially under crisis conditions…" (p. 196). based on the aforementioned studies and given the intolerable emotional state of the pre-neurotic patients, it seems likely that the choice of the specific symptom, determined by rctn's three choice principals, is intuitive, i.e., with little or no conscious awareness. b) conscious implementation of the intuitive choice — the integration of studies on intuitive choice is critical in understanding the unawareness of neurotic patients. however, the intuitive decision to choose certain behavior is, in and of itself, insufficient to account for a patients' unawareness of their knowledge of self-involvement (ksi) europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 837 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the conscious implementation of these choices. this state of unawareness is the consequence of two psychological processes: creation of unawareness, caused by factors that facilitate the forgetting of ksi, and preservation of unawareness, that is obtained mainly through self-deceptive beliefs that prevent the retrieval of this information. i) creation of unawareness: forgetting of ksi. in order that patients will be unaware of the ksi, it must be recorded weakly in the individual's memory, thus its retrieval will be difficult. this necessary condition for the creation of unawareness is obtained immediately after the conscious implementation of the intuitive choice of the symptom through a number of factors that disrupt the encoding of ksi, along with several memory-inhibiting mechanisms that prevents its retrieval. a) encoding-disrupting factors. • brief exposure to ksi. one critical variable that determines the probability to forget the ksi immediately after the adoption of the conversion symptom is the duration of the patient's exposure to this information. this is consistent with evidence that the duration of exposure to a stimulus is a critical factor in determining the strength of the memory and thus the likelihood to forget this information (e.g., see dinardo & rainey, 1991; memon, hope, & bull, 2003; mensink & raaijmakers, 1988). indeed, clinical evidence indicates that patients' conscious exposure to the ksi is very brief as the conversion symptom is automatically implemented once this behavior is spontaneously chosen. one example of this process is a case of an unhappily married man whose wife became pregnant despite their agreement to remain without children (malamud, 1944). on the way to the hospital to visit his wife and newly born child, the man was slightly injured in a car accident and spontaneously developed hysterical blindness. a second example (see brady & lind, 1961) concerns a 40-year old man who had trouble keeping even a semi-skilled job and was constantly harassed by his wife and mother-in-law on this matter. the patient received a small pension from the army for an eye infection which resulted in a partial loss of vision in one eye. while shopping for food with both women, he suddenly, without any precipitating event, became totally blind in both eyes. these occurred at a time when his wife and mother-in-law were unusually demanding, requiring him to work nights and weekends, and complete various chores under their supervision. similarly, masserman (1946) describes a 40-year old woman who suffered through several years of severe depression during an unhappy marriage. the woman tolerated being in this state until her favorite child died from an illness, when she suddenly developed a dissociative fugue. in another case (abse, 1959), a man spontaneously developed total paralysis of his legs after his wife left him for another man. the husband had a strong impulse to pursue his wife in order to kill her and her lover, but the sudden paralysis prevented him from carrying out this impulse. in all of the above cases the symptom was chosen spontaneously without prior planning. why do patients automatically implement their intuitive decisions without carefully considering the negative consequences of the neurotic symptoms in terms of the serious disruption to their daily activities and the social embarrassment that they may cause? here too, studies from the economic field conducted by shiv and fedorikhin (1999, 2002) can help to understand the seemingly irrational decisions of neurotic patients, such as those with conversion disorder. these researchers reported that when subjects are minimally preoccupied, choices are driven by higher cognitive processes and, as a result, they favor products that enable better long-term consequences (e.g., fruit salad). however, when subjects are maximally preoccupied, the decision-making process is controlled by "lower order affective reactions, arising from relatively automatic processes" (shiv & fedorikhin, 2002, p. 344). consequently, individuals tend to spontaneously choose a product associated with an intense positive affective reaction, enabling short-term gratification (e.g., europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 838 http://www.psychopen.eu/ chocolate cake). thus, since neurotic patients are intensively preoccupied with their stressors and suffer from a high level of emotional distress, they seek for an immediate discharge, overlooking the long-term harmful consequences. • impaired cognitive functioning. conversion patients often suffer from depression (e.g., ballmaier & schmidt, 2005; shiri, tsenter, livai, schwartz, & vatine, 2003), and impaired attention (e.g., brown, poliakoff, & kirkman, 2007; james, gordon, kraiuhin, & meares, 1989; roelofs et al., 2003). other studies show that emotional distress distracts attention and interferes with the encoding process, resulting in poor learning and memory (e.g., christopher & macdonald, 2005; roberson-nay et al., 2006; rose & ebmeier, 2006). considering these findings, it seems likely that the encoding of ksi is disrupted when the patient consciously decides to implement the intuitive choice of the symptom. • intentional forgetting. ksi is anxiety-provoking information, since it reminds patients that they deliberately chose the symptom. additionally, as stated previously, the symptom would have little distractive/repressive value if patients were to remain aware of their conscious involvement in this process. this means that patients are highly motivated in forgetting their ksi. accordingly, since individuals possess the ability to disrupt the encoding of unwanted information (e.g., anderson, 2005; gottlob, golding, & hauselt, 2006), it can be assumed that once the conversion symptom is adopted they will deliberately direct their attention away from the ksi. • symptom distractibility. the conscious implementation of the conversion symptom must intensively preoccupy the individual's attention, especially at the initial stage in which they experience a dramatic change in their behavior. this is consistent with van pelt's (1975) theoretical position, which noted that neurotic symptoms cause "super concentration of the mind, [inducing] a state of what may be called accidental hypnosis…. a patient suffering from a psychoneurosis behaves in every way as though under the influence of a post-hypnotic suggestion…" (pp. 28-29; see also bliss, 1983, 1984). furthermore, according to social cognitive theories of hypnosis which view this state as an intentional goal-directed behavior, individuals become unaware of the intentional production of the hypnotic behaviors by becoming fully absorbed in their goal-directed fantasies (see review by lynn, kirsch, & hallquist, 2008). therefore, considering rctn's claim that conversion patients consciously implement their intuitive choice as a coping mechanism, it can be argued as in hypnosis, that here too patients become unaware of their ksi by intentionally focusing on the actual production of the conversion symptom. this is consistent with evidence indicating that patients with hysterical paralysis fail to display their symptoms when they are distracted (e.g., cassady et al., 2005; kihlstrom, 1994; merskey, 1995; spence, 1999). along the same lines, research data indicates that self-hypnosis (i.e., intense concentration) is in fact a central characteristic of various psychological groups (bliss, 1980, 1983, 1984; frankel, 1974). for example, a multiple personality patient, in describing her psychological state, observed that, "she creates personalities by blocking everything from her head, mentally relaxes, concentrates very hard … clears her mind, blocks everything out and then wishes for the person, but she isn’t aware of what she is doing" (bliss, 1980, pp. 1392). accordingly, based on studies showing that encoding is often disrupted when attention is preoccupied by factors unrelated to the memory task (e.g., tremblay, nicholls, parmentier, & jones, 2005; wolach & pratt, 2001), here too the preoccupation with symptom-related stimuli should disrupt the encoding of ksi. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 839 http://www.psychopen.eu/ b) retrieval-inhibiting mechanisms. encoding-disrupting factors may not be sufficient to block the encoding of ksi into long-term memory. however, even if the ksi is weakly encoded, several memory-inhibiting mechanisms will significantly decrease patients' ability to retrieve this knowledge. • state-dependent memory. given the controllability and distractive qualities of the conversion symptoms, it is expected that they will relieve the individual's emotional distress. additionally, patients become preoccupied with symptom-related thoughts rather than with stress-related cognitions. hence, based on studies indicating that retrieval becomes difficult when the individual's cognitive or emotional condition is different from that of the original learning situation (e.g., eich, 1995; eich, macaulay, & ryan, 1994), it can be assumed that patients' emotional and cognitive changes will inhibit the retrieval of ksi. • suppression. experimental findings by various groups of researchers show that people can intentionally inhibit retrieval of unwanted memories even after the encoding stage by reduced allocation of processing resources to this information (e.g., anderson et al., 2004; anderson & green, 2001; shane & peterson, 2004). these findings are consistent with the psychoanalytic concept of suppression which was seen as the conscious effort to forget undesirable material (e.g., freud, 1936). accordingly, it seems likely that conversion patients can intentionally suppress the retrieval of ksi by directing their attention elsewhere. • distraction. distraction affects the individual's cognitive processes not only during the encoding stage but also at the retrieval of the encoded information. this claim is demonstrated in experimental studies on repression which initially claimed that material was forgotten due to unconscious repression but was in fact later discovered to be the consequence of distraction (e.g., see holmes's review, 1974). thus, the preoccupation with the dramatic change in behavior must be so intense that it should temporarily block, together with the aforementioned factors, patients' accessibility to their ksi. ii) preservation of unawareness: self-deceptive belief. an additional factor that needs to be taken into consideration in the temporary creation of the unawareness, and most importantly in the preservation of this cognitive state, is patients' self-deceptive belief regarding the underlying causes of their symptoms. nisbett and wilson (1977) noted that people have beliefs concerning the causal factors of various situations, which they acquire from their culture and employ to account for these events. moreover, "people may be able to generate hypotheses linking even novel stimuli and novel responses" (p. 248). one cultural type of beliefs concerns the etiology of deviant behaviors, such as psychoanalytic thought in western society (e.g., spanos, weekes, menary, & bertrand, 1986) or spirit possession in less developed countries (e.g., claus, 1979; grisaru & witztum, 1995; kua, sim, & chee, 1986; mischel & mischel, 1958), which the individual incorporates through socialization (e.g., ravenscroft, 1965) or other channels of information (e.g., reading or television; see leonard, 1927, pp. 324, 410; mcandrew, 1989, p. 316; spanos, weekes, & bertrand, 1985, p. 363). for example, as a result of freudian's influence on western society, "many people learn to conceptualize interpersonal problems as resulting from an ‘unconscious process’ and as stemming from early negative experiences with parents" (spanos, 1986, p. 300). accordingly, it seems that conversion patients actively focus their attention during the actual implementation of the conversion symptoms on their culturally acquired belief and thus they further disrupt the encoding and retrieval processes of ksi. however, while this belief is one of several factors in the creation of unawareness (i.e., the forgetting of the ksi), it becomes exceptionally important in the preservation of this state immediately after the initial episode of the conversion symptom. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 840 http://www.psychopen.eu/ given the rational nature of mankind, conversion patients may become preoccupied with questions posed by themselves or by others regarding the cause of their radical behavioral changes. this inquiry is anxiety-provoking for the patient since awareness of ksi would threaten the newly developed pathological copingmechanism. patients succeed in preventing this threat by employing their self-deceptive beliefs. these beliefs become much stronger than at the initial adoption of the symptom as now patient are face with two types of validating evidence. one is the extrospective observation of a physical disability (e.g., hysterical paralysis), and the second is the introspective experience of loss of control (e.g., the inability to move a limb). this evidence will lead to a self-deceptive diagnosis of illness where patients believe that there is something physically wrong with them that are beyond their control. as a result, self-inquiry regarding the cause of the behavioral change will be focused on factors other than conscious involvement, and consequently the retrieval of ksi will be hindered. patients may also selectively focus on suitable information that can strengthen their self-deceptive explanation. as noted by peterson and djikic (2003), "we are always pursuing the limited goals we construe as valuable, from our particular idiosyncratic perspectives. we pay attention to, and remember, those events we construe as relevant, with regards to those goals. we do not and cannot strive for comprehensive, 'objective' coverage" (p. 88). accordingly, "the hysteric misinterprets evidence and selectively attends to only a certain part of the overall evidence" (bass, 2001, p. 139). for example, conversion disorder patients utilize the high prevalence of organic illnesses and physical injuries which were present prior to their disorder (e.g., blanchard & hersen, 1976; jones, 1980; merskey & buhrich, 1975) to strengthen the belief that their symptoms are caused by biological factors (see also stone & sharpe, 2006). as noted by weinstein et al. (1969), conversion disorder patients "stressed their injuries in the belief that they were etiologically significant" (p. 337; see also case studies by brown et al., 2007; de vignemont, 2009). an additional source of information that can strengthen patient's self-deceptive explanation is therapy. patients tend to select a therapeutic intervention which is consistent with their belief, thereby increasing the strength of their deception (e.g., see csordas, 1987). for example, pattison and wintrob (1981) noted in reference to spiritual possession that "concordance of belief systems of subject and healer concerning the causes and appropriate treatment of illness is usually the primary determinant of choice of healer" (p. 17). the greater the individuals' knowledge of medicine the greater the difficulty of attributing the conversion symptoms to factors other than biological causes, therefore making it harder to obtain unawareness of ksi or self-deception. this may account for the fact that "conversion disorder has been reported to be more common in rural populations, individuals of lower socioeconomic status, and individuals less knowledgeable about medical and psychological concepts" (american psychiatric association, 2000, p. 495; see also ahmad & riaz, 2007; deveci et al., 2007; jones, 1980; nandi, banerjee, nandi, & nandi, 1992; weinstein et al., 1969). for the same reasons uneducated people "are more likely to display dramatic or bizarre conversion symptoms [e.g., glove anesthesia; see white & watt, 1981] based on primitive or religious notions" (engel, 1970, p. 651; see also viederman, 1995). more sophisticated people however will "manifest symptoms consonant with prevailing notions of physical illness" (engel, 1970, p. 651; see also jones, 1980). experimental findings showing that high self-deceptive individuals tend to ignore information indicating failure, despite the maladaptive consequence of their behavior (peterson, deyoung, et al., 2003), may seem inconsistent with the aforementioned clinical reports that conversion patients selectively attend to self-deceptive evidence indicating that they suffer from a physical illness. however, considering peterson and djikic's (2003) claim that people attend to events and experiences that construe as relevant to their motives and goals, it seems that while europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 841 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in the above experimental setting reduction of anxiety is obtained by ignoring failure experiences, conversion patients achieve this goal by attending to available experience that concur with their self-deceptive belief of illness. iii) stabilization of unawareness. the creation and preservation of unawareness discussed above concerns patients' unawareness of ksi at the initial presentation of the conversion symptom. however since the conscious is the sole cognitive system responsible for the reactivation of the symptom it is necessary to clarify: a)which situations cause patients to consciously reactivate their symptoms? b) how do patients succeed in remaining unaware of ksi, despite repeated displays of this behavior? a) symptom reactivation situations. • stress. one situation which causes patients to reactivate their symptom is stress. this reaction enhances both their ability to repress/distract stress related thoughts and to exercise control over the stressor. for example, blanchard and hersen (1976) described a case of a 14-year-old girl who developed aphonic hysteria following a quarrel with her mother of which she spontaneously recovered in several weeks. however, when she subsequently quarreled with one of her sisters and was severely scolded by her mother, her voice was reduced to a whisper. a full relapse occurred when the mother sharply questioned the patient about her sexual relationships with her cousin. in another case, the reactivation of the subject's conversion symptom coincided with a variety of environmental stressors. "among these were his role as 'housewife,' difficulties with his 18 year-old son, being discharged from the national guard after 20 years of service, and his strong opposition to his youngest daughter's marital plans" (blanchard & hersen, 1976, p. 124). similarly benzick (2001) mentions a case of a 17-year-old female who suffered from pseudoseizures, and whose symptom was worsened in the presence of the stressor (her father). likewise, nandi et al. (1985) reported that a patient with hysterical seizures usually displayed her symptom when she was beaten by her husband. • belief-challenging conditions. the second situation that causes the reactivation of the symptoms is beliefchallenging conditions. the self-deceptive belief is crucial for preserving unawareness of ksi and for providing a rationale for maintaining the symptom. accordingly, it is expected that challenging the patient's self-deceptive belief will cause the reactivation of the symptom. failure to do so may invalidate the belief, and therefore threaten the patient's ability to maintain the symptom. this theoretical position can account for an experimental study by levy and jankovic (1983). in this study, a hysterical patient displayed a variety of dramatic pseudo-neurological symptoms when given a placebo, which she believed it to be a certain drug that, according to her medical knowledge, should intensify her symptoms. thus, the patient was obliged to consciously display her symptom because failing to do so would sabotage her self-deceptive belief and, consequently, the maintenance of her pathological coping mechanism. in another experimental study (grosz & zimmerman, 1965; zimmerman & grosz, 1966), a patient suffering from hysterical blindness identified the presence or absence of visual stimuli below the chance level. the experimenter manipulated the patient's behavior through a collaborator by telling him that the doctor thought he could see and that a truly blind person identifies a higher number of correct responses than chancelevel performance. as one would expect, in a subsequent visual test, the subject’s correct responses increased to chance level. here too, when the self-deceptive belief was threatened, the patient adjusted his symptomatic behavior accordingly. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 842 http://www.psychopen.eu/ • demand characteristics. another condition that causes the return of the symptom is the demand characteristics of the faked "illness". thus, patients suffering from psychogenic movement must routinely display their symptom at a certain frequency, and must activate it soon after waking from sleep. failure to do so would challenge their self-deceptive belief of illness, and may be interpreted by others either as faking or as their condition not being serious. the same claim is true for hysterical paralysis and hysterical blindness where they must routinely behave in a similar way to people suffering from true paralysis or blindness. hence, the hysterically paralyzed patient must consistently display his handicap whenever the effected limb is in use, such as washing or going to the bathroom. b) the deceptive cycle. figure 1 describes the self-deceptive cycle where patients consciously reactivate the symptom in response to the aforementioned three situations and repeatedly cause themselves to be unaware of ksi. basically, the same psychological processes, which were involved in the creation and preservation of unawareness at the initial adoption of the symptom, are repeated in each new display of this behavior. at this stage, however, unawareness of ksi occurs at a much faster rate due to two factors which were absent in the initial adoption of this behavior. one is the automatic reactivation which gradually becomes like a conditioned reflex. this automatization is the consequence of both practice (i.e., repeated display of the symptom) and emotional relief (i.e., reinforcement) caused by the distractive and controllability values of this behavior. the automatic display of the conversion symptom reduces the amount of attention allocated to both the decision to reactivate this behavior as well as to its actual performance, and consequently the awareness of ksi. this explanation is consistent with lynn et al. (2008) claim' who noted with regard to hypnosis that once an intention to respond a suggestion is formed, it is no longer requires much conscious control. instead, the response is triggered as an automatic or quasi-automatic operation that intervenes in initiating, correcting, interrupting, inserting, continuing and terminating action (p. 126). this effect is also shown in the unconscious performance of motor skills which is attributed to the reduced amount of attention allocated to the execution of these behaviors as a result of practice (e.g., kihlstrom, 1987; lewin, 1982; moore & stevenson, 1991; morris, 1981). studies on motor skills which show that minimal attention is always necessary for an adequate performance (e.g., reason, 1983, 1984a, 1984b) can also help us to understand the previously mentioned evidence (see p. 8) that conversion patients failed to display their symptoms when attention was diverted (e.g., cassady et al., 2005; kihlstrom, 1994, p. 382; merskey, 1995; spence, 1999). additionally, although the reactivation of the symptom becomes automatic, patients can regulate the presentation of the symptom in order to reduce potential damage (e.g., see leary, 2003; mischel & mischel, 1958; nicol, 1969), and can even stop their behavior when the cost exceeds the benefit (see blanchard & hersen, 1976; goldblatt & munitz, 1976). the second factor disrupting the encoding of ksi is self-deceptive belief. once established, the belief becomes a powerful distractive tool which, like the symptom itself, hinders the encoding of ksi. the self-deceptive cycle by which patients become unaware of their conscious involvement at each new presentation of the same symptom is presented below. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 843 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the dececptive cycle. no. 1 in figure 1 refers to three situations that stimulate the conscious re-activation of the symptom: stress, beliefchallenging conditions, and symptom demand characteristics. no. 2 relates to the automatic reactivation of the symptom where the patient modifies or inhibits the display if rapid assessment indicates potential damage. nos. 3 & 4 represent the automatic release of the symptom and patients' minimal awareness of ksi, respectively. nos. 5 & 6 represent the self-deceptive belief and the symptom which constitute the two barriers that block the accessibility of ksi through their powerful, distractive effects. hence, like hypnosis where individual becomes unaware of the intentional production of their hypnotic state by focusing on the hypnotic suggestion and their behavioral change (e.g., see lynn et al., 2008), the intense preoccupation with the symptom and self-deceptive belief enables patients to direct their attention away from ksi. two additional memory-inhibiting factors are intentional forgetting and state-dependent memory caused by substantial emotional and cognitive changes. once unawareness is created as a result of the aforementioned factors, patients are faced with the same psychological state to which they were exposed immediately after the initial display of the symptom. one is the observation of maladaptive behavior in the form of physical symptoms and the second is the introspective experience of loss of control (nos. 7 & 8, respectively). hence, these two observations reconfirm that the patient is physically ill, which constitutes a new deceptive proof that revalidates patients' initial self-deceptive belief. explanation of the functional neurological findings. the deceptive cycle can shed light on previously mentioned studies, where hysterically paralyzed patients displayed antagonistic neurological activities, of both activation and inhibition when they were instructed to move their affected limb. while biologically oriented investigators interpreted these reciprocal neurological activities as a genuine inability to move the affected limb, rctn attributes these findings to the physiological concomitants of contradictory conscious messages. the first message is the conscious decision to move the affected limb when instructed to do so (nos. 3 & 4), which stimulates the brain area responsible for the moving. the second message is the simultaneous employment of the self-deceptive belief of the illness to inform the brain of an inability to move the affected limb. this explanation may account for van beilen et al. (2010)'s statement "i want to move my arm, but i cannot" (p. 156). thus, the antagonistic brain activities in the europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 844 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aforementioned studies parallel to the antagonistic conscious messages. this theoretical position can also account for the previously mentioned studies showing that hypnotic suggestions of limb paralysis produce similar pattern of neurological activities when attempting to move the affected limb (e.g., deeley et al., 2013; halligan & oakley, 2013). this neurological evidence does not necessarily support the mechanistic explanation of conversion disorder or hypnosis. as noted by lynn et al. (2008), in reviewing studies relating to cognitive theories on hypnosis, "all subjective experiences are assumed to have physiological substrates or correlates with potentially identifiable brain activity" (p. 128). inadequacy of rival models of unawareness. rctn is not alone in accounting for conversion disorder by using the concept of self-deception; however, none of other models can adequately address patients' unawareness. for example, sackeim and gur (1978; see also gur & sackeim, 1979) developed a psychoanalytic model of selfdeception stating that under certain motivational conditions, individuals can maintain two contradictory beliefs, one of which remains outside the conscious. in support of this theory they found that subjects, who had experienced failure, were unable to identify their own voices heard from a recording device, while simultaneously displaying elevated levels of gsr (galvanic skin response). this theoretical model was then applied by sackeim, nordlie, and gur (1979) to account for a case study of a hysterically blind girl, previously reported by grosz and zimmerman (1970), who supposedly held two contradictory cognitions: (1) the patient consciously believed herself to be blind; and (2) she "unconsciously knew" that she was not blind, because she accurately identified visual objects in 480 experimental trials. in other words, from the standpoint of sackeim et al., hysterically blind patients can display accurate visual performance without actually being aware that they can see. however, sackheim et al.'s position is complicated by the fact that the girl never claimed to be totally blind. "her behavior showed no signs of any visual deficits except when asked to read small or large print . . . [and] she scored 100% loss of vision for reading in both eyes" (grosz & zimmerman, 1970, pp. 118-121). this evidence suggests that the girl suffered from selective hysterical blindness similar to air force patients in world war ii who complained of selective ocular hysteria (ironside & batchelor, 1945). the latter authors reported 40 cases of aircrew members who exhibited visual disturbances (e.g., blurred vision or defective night vision) that prevented them from fulfilling flight-related tasks. according to ironside and batchelor (1945) these patients suffered from problems related to "looking" rather than from disturbances in "seeing". in looking, "the interference is with the will of the patient, and such functions as perception, appreciation, attention and response are involved; in other words it is the patient who is at fault, and not his visual mechanism" (p. 89). thus, it appears that the aforementioned girl deliberately failed to read by consciously disrupting the focus of her eyes. the patient could simultaneously eliminate ksi from her conscious and reinforce her self-deceptive belief of physical illness based on this seemingly objective evidence of blurred vision and the sense of introspective evidence of lack of control of the physical "defect", as specified in figure 1. this coping strategy enabled the girl to compel her parents, who "appeared to be very busy pursuing their own activities and seemed always to be in a rush to go somewhere or work on some project" (grosz & zimmerman, 1970, p. 117), to fulfill their parental duties (e.g., helping with homework). kanaan (2010), addressing the difficulty in distinguishing between conversion disorder and malingering, noted that "it may make perfect sense to consider hysteria as a form of deception, without the ethical implications we associate with lying" (p. 55). according to kanaan hysteria is a form of deception where the patient has no intention of influencing others' beliefs or behaviors, as opposed to lying "where i intend through my assertion to make you believe something that i think is false" (p. 57). however, kanaan ignored studies showing that increasing the cost of the conversion symptom motivates patients to abandon their deviant behaviors, which indicates that these beeurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 845 http://www.psychopen.eu/ haviors are intentionally adopted. moreover, he did not clarify how patients become unaware of the underlying causes of their symptoms. a more systematic theoretical approach to the issue of self-deception among the general population in everyday life was made by von hippel and trivers (2011). however, it is difficult to see how their self-deception model, which constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of everyday life, can promote the understanding of neurotic behaviors such as conversion disorder. one of the challenging problems of this model is that "one cannot deceive oneself into believing something while simultaneously knowing it to be false" (bandura, 2011, p. 16). rctn resolve this problematic issue by stating that patients initially forget (i.e., become unaware) of their ksi and then, immediately afterward, validate a self-deceptive belief on the basis of an extrospective observation that their behavior is maladaptive and an introspective experience of loss of control. it is also difficult to see how such explanation could integrate the various therapeutic interventions relating to conversion disorder, as this is demonstrated below. as stated, according to cognitive theories of hypnosis, subjects experience the hypnotic behavioral changes as involuntary occurrences, though they are goal-directed behaviors, mainly because they become fully absorbed in the hypnotic suggestions (lynn et al., 2008). thus, one may argue that cognitive theory of hypnosis can account for the unawareness of conversion patients without postulating the brief exposure to ksi. however, hypnosis is not a continuous state of behavioral change that may last for an extended period of time where the individual repeatedly displays this change as in conversion disorder. moreover, hypnotic theories would have difficulty to account for the efficacy of therapy. therapy one of the most difficult issues that challenge traditional theories of psychopathology is their inability to integrate findings relating to the success or failure of different therapeutic interventions into a single theoretical framework (e.g., see reviews by feixas & botella, 2004; lampropoulos, 2000, 2001). in the absence of such an integrative theory, investigators in the field focused on empirical evaluations of therapeutic techniques, neglecting to address the underlying mechanism of change. consequently, while some believe that that all therapies have similar efficacies, and suggested that a number of common factors, such as therapeutic alliance, empathy, support and emotional catharsis are responsible for therapeutic changes (e.g., see feixas & botella, 2004; lampropoulos, 2000; luborsky et al., 2002; reisner, 2005), others lists a number of empirically supported therapies (ests), claiming that they have been found to be more effective than other therapies for specific disorders (chambless, 2002; reisner, 2005). however, one of most central goals of traditional theories of psychopathology was to uncover the underlying mechanisms of therapeutic change, and as noted by tryon (2005) "the absence of empirical support about these theories… does not diminish the need for an explanatory context" (p. 68). as noted by power and brewin (1997), some therapists simply bury their heads in the sand and continue with their favorite techniques. others, like ourselves, are puzzled and are asking if there are common mechanisms that apply across different therapies that might explain both their effectiveness and their (sometimes) lack of effectiveness? (p. xi). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 846 http://www.psychopen.eu/ similarly, tyron (2005) stated that "[the] effectiveness of efforts to persuade clinicians to adopt ests may depend substantially on the extent to which science can explain why ests work and thereby provide clinicians with an empirically supported explanatory context in addition to effective interventions" (p. 68). rctn has already proven its integrative approach (rofé, 2010) due to its ability in accounting for the differential efficacy of various therapeutic methods pertaining to neurosis, such as behavior therapy, religious therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (cbt), psychodynamic therapy and drugs, using one set of theoretical principals. each of these therapies obtains its efficacy by affecting different mechanisms which according to rctn maintain the specific symptom. the purpose of this section is to demonstrate the integrative utility of rctn with specific regard to conversion disorder. behavior therapy: removal of the controllability as specified before, punishment procedures, such as withdrawal of attention or the application of noxious stimuli, motivate patients to abandon their conversion symptoms (e.g., blanchard & hersen, 1976; campo & negrini, 2000; goldblatt & munitz, 1976). while behaviorists account for the efficacy of this therapy by learning concepts, rctn attributes it to the disruption of the cost-benefit equilibrium of the symptom. once the symptom ceases to be beneficial, patients are motivated to consciously abandon their symptom. however, symptom substitution or relapse is likely if patients lack the ability to cope with the stressor following behavior therapy which coerces them to abandon their pathological coping mechanism (e.g., see blanchard & hersen, 1976; chou, weng, huang, & chen, 2006). religious therapy: sabotaging self-deceptive belief another therapeutic intervention which is commonly used in non-western countries and certain sections of western society is religious therapy (e.g., see alonso & jeffrey, 1988; endrawes, o'brien, & wilkes, 2007; razali, 1999; wijesinghe, dissanayake, & mendis, 1976; witztum et al., 1996). it seems that the efficiency of this treatment results from the psychological power of a religious figure to sabotage the patients' ability to deceive themselves that the symptoms are maintained by supernatural forces beyond their conscious control. in other words, when individuals attribute their symptoms to supernatural forces, the most preferable therapeutic intervention would be a prestigious religious figure of the same faith who leads the patient, using certain religious rituals, to the conviction that he was freed from these evil forces. resistance to believe in the efficacy or authority of the religious figure would be considered heresy. consequently, once the deceptive function of the self-deceptive belief is sabotaged, it would be difficult for patients to rationalize the prolongation of the symptom and thus increase their tendency to abandon it. for example, razali (1999) described a case of a 38-year-old female malaysian muslim, who suddenly developed hysterical paralysis after her husband had taken a second wife. she was unsuccessfully treated by a number of traditional healers and medical practitioners, before agreeing to participate in a popular malaysian "spirit-raising séance (main puteri), which lasted 3 days. the patient's symptom was completely removed on the third day of the "performance", which was attributed to the departure of the "evil spirits" from her body. thus, since the patient deceived herself that her symptoms were controlled by evil forces and also believed that the "therapist's" rituals "cured" her from these forces, she could no longer rationalize the maintenance of her deviant behavior and therefore she was obliged to abandon it. three additional case studies of conversion disorder in which religious rituals, including the recitation of passages from the qur'an and offerings of a goat's head or a number of eggs, had a curative effect are described by kok (1975). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 847 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychodynamic therapy: removal of distraction there is no empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic claim that the efficacy of this treatment results from the lifting of repression, i.e., awareness of the childhood traumatic events (see review by bachrach, 1996; barber & lane, 1995; charman, 2003; rofé, 2008). moreover, some researchers attribute this outcome to the placebo effect (e.g., see grünbaum 1986, 2002). as noted by jopling (2001), psychodynamic-insight therapies, including freudian and neo-freudian psychoanalysis, do not provide authentic self-knowledge. rather, they are "highly susceptible to generating placebo insights, that is, illusions, deceptions and adaptive self-misunderstandings that convincingly mimic veridical insight but have no genuine explanatory power". (p. 19). nevertheless, rctn maintains the psychoanalytic fundamental idea of removal of repression (rofé, 2010) only if therapy increases patients' insight to the current stressor rather than childhood trauma. once a patient becomes aware of their current stressor, which is the underlying factor that motivates the adoption and maintenance of the symptom, this behavior loses its distractive value and increases the patient's wilingness to abandon it. for example, temple (2001) treated a hospitalized 15 year old girl suffering from hysterical limb paralysis, using the psychodynamic interpretative method. the patient was in a conflict with her mother concerning her sexual autonomy. the conversion symptoms allowed her to distract her attention from the source of her conflict (i.e., the autonomy over her sexuality), distance herself from her mother (i.e., the stressor) and manipulate her parents to provide sympathy and attention through hospitalization. the psychodynamic interpretive therapy focused on the patient's current stressor and thus increased her awareness of the underlying causes of her behavior. consequently, the symptom lost its distractive value and "enabled her to find more appropriate ways of recognizing her feelings and the necessity for her to be paralyzed gradually reduced" (p. 292). however, since the patient did not have sufficient coping abilities, she redisplayed her pathological coping mechanism, i.e., conversion symptom, "when she was under stress or when a discussion about her return home took place" (p. 292). in another case study (viederman, 1995), the son-in-law of a 68-year old orthodox jew and successful businessman influenced the local rabbi to exclude his father-in-law from the synagogue. knowing the father-in-laws aggressive temperament and fearing that he might do "something destructive to his reputation", the family decided to send him on a trip to florida. upon his return when he learned about the family's "conspiracy", he developed conversion symptoms expressed by rigidity of the legs and weakness in the neck muscles. from rctn's standpoint, the symptoms improved the patient's emotional condition as they enabled him to: a) repress his angry feelings resulting from his perception of his family's "subversive" behavior and their "los[s] of confidence in him"; b) rationalize his absence in the prayer services at the synagogue; and c) receive sympathy and support from his wife, children, and perhaps even from the community members. the brief psychodynamic interpretativemethod, consisting of 6 weekly meetings, was aimed to increase the patient's awareness of his current stressor. for example, the patient was told "you have been unable to walk, because you are afraid to walk into the synagogue. you are afraid of how angry you are. your confidence has been undermined... i think your symptom will go away with this knowledge. now get up, and walk around the room comfortably and without the cane" (p. 406). the increased awareness of the stressor decreased the distractive/repressive value of the symptoms, and thus increased the patient's tendency to abandon these behaviors. additional factors which contributed to the therapeutic outcome were the therapist's suggestions, encouragement and sympathy as well as the participation of his wife in therapy, where the couple "spoke openly and freely to one another of their affections and their dissatisfactions" (p. 405). europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 848 http://www.psychopen.eu/ stress management given rctn's claim that current stress is the underlying cause of conversion disorder, it would appear that the removal of stress would motivate patients to abandon their symptom. for example, iglesias and iglesias (2009) described a case of a 17 year-old boy held in a juvenile detention center, who developed hysterical leg paralysis once he was informed of his transfer to a reputedly violent unit. shortly after announcing that this particular unit was full and consequently all transfers would be redirected to other units, he spontaneously recovered. in a another case, an 11 year-old girl developed a loss of peripheral vision in her right eye after witnessing her alcoholic father beating her mother and being ordered by the father to "keep her eyes glued to the television" and "not to stare at what went on." shortly after the intervention of child and family services, which apparently addressed the patient's stressor, the child's symptoms were completely remitted. similar clinical evidence indicating that the removal of stress results in spontaneous remission of conversion symptoms was illustrated in two case studies by leary (2003). since stress plays a crucial role in the development of conversion disorder, it is essential to strengthen the patients coping skills. otherwise, symptomatic therapy such as behavior therapy may result in symptom substitution. for example, blanchard and hersen (1976) described a number of case studies where symptom substitution occurred after a symptom was successfully removed through behavioral therapy. effective and long lasting therapy was secured only when this therapy was accompanied by coping skills training. in their concluding remarks, the author noted that: it would appear that because of a faulty learning history this type of patient has not developed the requisite social skills needed to cope with both the usual and more unusual stresses encountered in life. therefore, training or retraining in social skills becomes a needed ingredient in a comprehensive therapeutic regime. (p. 127) drug therapy since depression is relatively high among conversion disorder patients (e.g., goldstein & mellers, 2006; menza, 1989; sar et al., 2009; voon & hallet, 2006), and given rctn's claim that the symptoms are defense a against intolerable levels of emotional distress, it is expected that the reduction of depression using antidepressants would motivate patients to abandon these behaviors. the very few studies which examine the effect of this treatment with conversion patients are consistent with this expectation (e.g., cybulska, 1997; pu et al., 1986; voon, 2006; voon & lang, 2005). however, since drug therapy does not address the underlying causes of the symptom, i.e. current stressors, it is likely that discontinuation would result in a relapse. while this is true with other neurotic disorders (for a review see rofé, 2010), there is no evidence to evaluate the validity of this claim with regard to conversion disorder. another type of drug therapy found to be useful in the treatment of conversion disorder is abreaction, which involves interviewing patients under the influence of a drug. a systematic review using the meta-analysis method shows that this type of treatment may be beneficial for acute and treatment-resistant conversion disorder (poole, wuerz, & agrawal, 2010). in their attempt to account for this efficacy, poole et al. (2010) noted that "the use of suggestions augmented by the drama of the procedure is likely to raise the expectancy of recovery and challenge dysfunctional health beliefs [italic added] that cause and maintain the condition" (p. 93). thus, from rctn's perspective, abreaction treatment may be effective as it helps to sabotage the patient's self-deceptive belief. however, this type of treatment may be harmful if the patient lacks adequate coping skills to address the increased level of depression europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 849 http://www.psychopen.eu/ which the abandonment of the symptom may cause. for example, menza (1989) observed a 31 year-old male, who developed hysterical leg paralysis following severe depression caused by a laminectomy surgery which produced no improvement to his chronic back pain. the patient refused to accept that his symptom had resulted from psychological problems and was therefore given a drug abreaction interview to facilitate recall of repressed materials. although the patient's symptom temporarily disappeared, one hour later he was found attempting suicide. after three days of physical restraint and sedatives for behavioral control, the leg paralysis returned and he remained paralyzed during the two month follow up. from rctn's standpoint, the drug abreaction interview sabotaged the patient's self-deceptive belief that his symptoms were the consequence of organic cause. indeed the patient "insisted that his ability to walk was merely the effect of the drug on his legs” (p. 137), which indicates that the drug was effective because it sabotaged his belief that the symptom was the consequence of organic damage. thus, the patient abandoned his symptom because he could no longer rationalize the maintenance of his symptom. once he lost his pathological distractive copingmechanism, the depression returnedmotivating his suicide attempt and the re-manifestation of the symptom. placebo sometimes individuals may wish to rid themselves of their symptoms either because the stressor no longer exists or because they have adjusted to it. however, they may hesitate taking such action because they must explain to themselves and others the dramatic "cure". under such conditions, the mere participation in a therapy can provide the patient a self-deceptive excuse to rationalize the abandonment of a symptom. as noted by ullmann and krasner (1975): once the person has made the act, and performed the new role, he cannot shift back into his prior role…this is one reason why a placebo may be effective: it gives the person an "out," saves face and avoids many of the aversive consequences in "giving up" the "sick" behavior. (p. 256; see also mooney & gurrister, 2004). for example, when carl gustav jung (1963) informed a middle-aged female patient, who had been suffering from hysterical paralysis for many years, that he was going to hypnotize her, the patient immediately fell into a deep trance, before the therapist started the process. she talked without pause for over a half-hour, resisting jung's attempts to awaken her. soon afterward she declared herself cured, threw away her crutches and proceeded to walk. jung, whose theoretical framework could not account for this unexpected result, announced to his students, "now you've seen what can be done with hypnosis" (p. 120). however, he noted that "in fact i had not the slightest idea what had happened" (p. 120). from rctn's standpoint, it seems likely that after so many years of suffering from the fake symptoms, the stressor was either removed or she adjusted to it. the symptom became a burden and jung provided her with the deceptive excuse required to abandon this behavior. discussion as shown, rctn's intuitive-intentional model of neuroses succeeded to integrate seemingly incompatible observations by rival theories into a single theoretical framework. this includes: 1) freud's clinical observations that neurotic patients repress the underlying causes of their disorders and that they are unaware of the mechanism that controls their behavior; 2) behaviorists' claims that conversion disorder is merely role-playing that aims at either escaping stressful situations or motivating others to comply with their unique needs; 3) neurologists' studies indicating abnormal cerebral functioning, such as when hysterically paralyzed patients display antagonistic neureurope's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 850 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ological activities when instructed to move their affected limb; and 4) findings showing that illnesses and injuries often precede the development of conversion disorder. rctn also accounts for several other issues that are unexplained by traditional theories, such as gender and educational differences in the prevalence of conversion disorder, and factors affecting the heterogeneity of conversion symptoms. additionally, rctn has resolved the confusion regarding the name of "conversion disorder". the adoption of this disorder enables patients to eliminate/repress stress-related thoughts from their attention as it replaces their stress-related thoughts with illness-related symptoms. hence, despite radical differences between rctn and psychoanalysis with regard to the concept of repression, in both theories "conversion" is the most appropriate term. furthermore, like psychoanalysis, rctn claims that a necessary condition for the understanding of neuroses, such as conversion disorder, is to account for patients' lack of awareness to the underlying cause of the radical change in their behavior. however, rctn attributes this effect to the intuitive choice of symptoms, the rapid conscious implementation of this spontaneous suggestion, and several factors that disrupt the encoding and memory of ksi along with the self-deceptive belief that preserves this state of unawareness. this new insight into the mechanisms through which patients' unawareness concerning the causes of their symptoms constitutes an important factor in understanding the process of therapeutic change, and in accounting for the successes and failures of various therapeutic methods pertaining to neurosis. although this issue was already discussed in the original paper (rofé, 2010), the present article focuses specifically on conversion disorder and thereby demonstrates the integrative ability of rctn using much greater amount of relevant research and clinical evidence. onemay argue that the idea that conversion symptoms are intentional eliminates the distinction betweenmalingering and this disorder, and contradicts the dsm's diagnostic requirement that the conversion symptom "is not intentionally produced or feigned" (american psychiatric association, 2000, p. 492). however, as noted by delis and wetter (2007), "many clinicians are reluctant to use diagnoses such as malingering, factitious disorder, and conversion disorder at least in part because of difficulty in objectively assessing the presence or absence of intentionality in the generation of the excessive symptom" (p. 593). similarly, krahn, bostwick, and stonnington (2008), noted that "the task of determining whether the actions the patient takes is feigning illness or intentional, voluntary, conscious or unconscious, is problematic in that these behaviors represent an ‘untestable diagnostic hypothesis for many cases'" (p. 278). these arguments, which are becoming more common, strengthen miller's (1999) earlier claim that the distinction between malingering and conversion disorder is worthless, and have led current investigators to suggest that the dsm requirement for "the exclusion of feigning [as a diagnostic criteria for conversion disorder] should be dropped" (kanaan et al., 2010, p. 428). indeed, in its latest version, the dsm abandoned the aforementioned requirement as now it states that "the diagnosis of conversion disorder does not require the judgment that the symptoms are not intentionally produced (i.e., not feigned)…" (american psychiatric association, 2013, p. 320). nevertheless, despite these justified critiques, it would be mistaken to neglect clinicians' impression, since freud, that conversion patients are unaware of the mechanism that controls their behavior. therefore, instead of the dsm's unempirical diagnostic criterion, a more precise description of patients' cognitive state would simply be unawareness, i.e., patients' inability to account for the underlying causes of their radical change in behavior. an additional criterion that may help to distinguish conversion disorder from malingering is whether the behavioral europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 851 http://www.psychopen.eu/ change is response to an extreme level of stress, as is typical to conversion disorder, or that the response is motivated by a desire to obtain some valuable social rewards a further issue that worth discussion concerns the dsm-5's (american psychiatric association, 2013) decision to add the name functional neurological symptom disorder to conversion disorder. although this name was proposed by some researchers that reviewed the relevant data (e.g., stone et al., 2011), there seem to be little scientific justification for this suggestion. the overall evidence, particularly studies showing that the same pattern of seemingly abnormal cerebral activities were also observed in hypnotic subjects and that psychological interventions cause the removal of the conversion symptoms, dismiss the possibility that biological factors have any involvement in causing this disorder. a more problematic issue is the dsm-5's decision to reclassify conversion disorder as somatic symptom disorder in light of the growing dissatisfaction to dsm-iii's decision to categorize it as somatoform disorder (e.g., dimsdale & creed, 2009; jablensky, 1999; kanaan et al., 2010; mayou, kirmayer, simon, kroenke, & sharpe, 2005; noyes, stuart, & watson, 2008; stone et al., 2011). in re-evaluating the scientific validity of this decision it is worthwhile to consider the harsh critiques against the dsm. researchers argued that the dsm's classifications were implicitly affected by medical models so that it was never truly as atheoretical as it claimed to be, that these categories were determined by consensus rather than by data, that the task force consisted of mostly psychiatrists rather than representatives from the main schools of thought, and that the decision to remove neurosis was affected by political and economic pressures from pharmaceutical and insurance companies (e.g. burstow, 2005; follette & houts, 1996; pilecki, clegg, & mckay, 2011; warelow & holmes, 2011). moreover, even if the dsm would have been atheoretical, such diagnostic approach is undesirable and it may hinder the scientific progress (e.g., acton & zodda, 2005; grinker, 2010; follette & houts, 1996). as noted by grinker (2010) "without the structure of underlying explanations, the manual became a list of symptoms for an expanding list of diseases, from a few dozen disorders in the first edition to well over 200" (p. 169). similarly, warelow and holmes (2011) noted that now the dsm contains "three times as many disorders as it did in 1952, and it is more than seven times longer than the first edition" (p. 385). further, the dsm-iii decided to exclude neuroses as a diagnostic category because the task force arrived at the conclusion that "there is no group of conditions which together comprise the 'neuroses'" (american psychiatric association, 1976, p. 11). however, based on research and clinical evidence rctn has demonstrated in its original version that neuroses not only share five empirical criteria that can effectively separate neuroses from other disorders (rofé, 2000, pp. 98-118) but also accounts for the development and treatment of these disorders using a single set of theoretical concepts (rofé, 2000, 2010). therefore, taking the aforementioned arguments into account, we should consider the reinstatement of neuroses as a diagnostic category and conversion disorder its sub-category. from this standpoint, it seems that the dsm-5's decision to classify conversion disorder as somatic symptoms and related disorders along with the new diagnostic category "psychological factors affecting other medical conditions" is most unfortunate. while the former is a coping strategy that patients intentionally adopt when facing intolerable levels of stress, the essential feature of the later is "the presence of one or more clinically significant psychological or behavioral factors that adversely affect a medical condition by increasing the risk for suffering, death, or disability" (american psychiatric association, 2013, p. 322). the dsm's biased attitude towards medical models and its antagonism towards psychoanalytic theory is also reflected by its attempt to rationalize the categorization of conversion disorder, which according to the dsm itself europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 852 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is "medically unexplained" (p. 310), together with medical conditions, such as diabetes, cancer and coronary disease, that have a clear medical cause but were exacerbated by psychological factors. the dsm's rational for this decision is as follow: the reliability of determining that a somatic symptom is medically unexplained is limited, and grounding a diagnosis on the absence of an explanation is problematic and reinforces mind-body dualism. it is not appropriate to give an individual a mental disorder diagnosis solely because a medical cause cannot be demonstrated (p. 309). thus, although evidence supporting the medical models is lacking and many findings reviewed in this article seriously question the likelihood of this possibility, the dsm favored the position of these models. furthermore, while it is true that research seriously questions the validity of psychoanalysis (e.g., rofé, 2000, 2008), which maintains the mind-body dualism (e.g., see carella, 1974), it seems that freud's approach made amore valuable contribution to the understanding of conversion disorder and neuroses in general than rival theories. although rctn radically differ from psychoanalysis in many fundamental respects, it was essentially freud's line of thought that enabled rctn to gain a comprehensive understanding of conversion disorder. it can be argued that rctn does not meet the scientific criteria for the acceptance of a new theory, as it lacks supportive evidence of its own. however, although the original article provides a case study demonstrating the efficacy of rctn's therapeutic method (rofé, 2010), the acceptance of a new theory does not necessitate new supportive data. researchers in the philosophy of science noted in this respect that the ability of a theory to explain existing data is even more important than its ability to present new supportive evidence (e.g., brush, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2005; proctor & capaldi, 2001; see also haig & durrant, 2002). as claimed by brush (1989) "a successful explanation of a fact that other theories have already failed to explain satisfactorily … is more convincing than the prediction of a new fact, at least until the competing theories have had their chance (and failed) to explain it" (p. 1127). similarly, tryon (2005) noted that although hypothesis testing is undoubtedly important "at some point the resulting facts need to be placed into explanatory context. mature sciences provide explanatory theories in addition to making testable predictions" (p. 69). in support of this claim, proctor and capaldi (2001) noted, in reference to the new idea of plate tectonics, which placed existing geological data into a coherent explanatory context, that european colleagues accepted plate theory well before the american geologists as they valued explanation as well as prediction whereas american scientists limited themselves to prediction and testing hypothesis. additional example demonstrating the importance that science places on explanation is the fact that "darwin's evolutionary theory remained on the margins of biology approximately 75 years until population genetics provided the missing causal explanatory mechanisms" (tryon, 2005, p. 69). moreover, according to snyder (1994; see also schlesinger, 1987) the difference between prediction and explanation is a mere technicality. although the necessary condition for the acceptance of a new hypothesis is evidence, it makes no difference whether this became available before (explanation) or after (prediction) the formulation of the theory. from this standpoint many research findings could in fact be predicted by rctn. one example is the aforementioned evidence that hysterical paralyzed patients fail to display the symptoms when their attention is diverted (e.g., cassady et al., 2005; kihlstrom, 1994, p. 382; merskey, 1995; spence, 1999) or when awakened during sleep (e.g., lauerma, 1993). another example is the research and clinical evidence, such as the experimental study by levy and jankovic (1983) specified above, showing that challenging patients' self-deceptive belief motivates them to redisplay their conversion symptoms. both types of studies could be predicted by rctn and it is difficult to see how these findings can be explained by rival theories. europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 rofé & rofé 853 http://www.psychopen.eu/ at this stage it is difficult to specify rigorous ways in which rctn could be tested. one way that may also expand the theoretical domain of rctn is to examine the efficacy of rctn's rational insight therapy (rofé, 2010) compared to psychoanalytic intervention. like freud, rctn claims that the best therapeutic intervention is insight, whereby therapy increases patients' awareness to ksi. while in some exceptional cases effective results can be obtained by telling patients at the very early stage of therapy that they intentionally adopted their symptoms (see merskey, 1979, pp. 264-265), usually such type of intervention is likely to cause strong resistance. insight's intervention may be more fruitful after establishing therapeutic trust by exposing patients, individually or in a group, to various theoretical options and lead them to a conclusion using the socratic questioning method, that rctn provides the best explanation for their symptoms. a control group can be conversion patients that are led through the same methodology into believing that psychoanalytic theory is most appropriate explanation and that childhood trauma, such as repressed sexual abuse, is the underlying cause of their symptoms. after creating their respective insights, both groups will be given coping skills training to face their respective stressors. two dependent variables can be used to examine the validity of rctn: 1) examining brain activity of hysterical paralyzed patients when attempting to move their affected limb. these measures can be taken at the beginning of the experiment and immediately after creating the respective insight before addressing their stressors using coping skills training. it is expected that a significant reduction in inhibitory brain activity will be seen in rctn's group rather than in the psychoanalytic subjects; 2) reduction in conversion symptoms which will be more significant in the rctn than the psychoanalytic group. in conclusion, despite the profound differences, rctn can be seen being similar to psychoanalysis as both 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(2001). the mode of short-term memory encoding as indicated by event-related potentials in a memory scanning task with distractions. clinical neurophysiology, 112, 186-197. doi:10.1016/s1388-2457(00)00501-0 zimmerman, j., & grosz, h. j. (1966). visual performance of a functionally blind person. behaviour research and therapy, 4, 119-134. doi:10.1016/0005-7967(66)90052-0 about the authors yacov rofé phd is a professor of psychology in the interdisciplinary department of social sciences at bar-ilan university, israel. he is also a lecturer at the ashkelon academic college. he has developed a new theory of psychopathology originally published in a book titled the rationality of psychological disordershe is currently writing a new book titled insanity & madness: indefensible defense yochay rofé is a research associate and lecturer in the interdisciplinary department of social sciences at bar-ilan university, israel. he has graduated with a masters in public health and health system management and is currently a med. student. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2013, vol. 9(4), 832–868 doi:10.5964/ejop.v9i4.621 conversion disorder 868 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1996.tb01865.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s1388-2457(00)00501-0 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(66)90052-0 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en conversion disorder introduction the rational-choice theory of neurosis: an application to conversion disorder. basic assumptions a new conceptualization of repression choice of conversion symptom the phenomena of unawareness therapy behavior therapy: removal of the controllability religious therapy: sabotaging self-deceptive belief psychodynamic therapy: removal of distraction stress management drug therapy placebo discussion references about the authors needed in psychology: theoretical precision editorial needed in psychology: theoretical precision jaan valsiner* a [a] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 published (vor): 2018-03-12. *corresponding author at: department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg ø, denmark. e-mail: jvalsiner@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. psychology is a strange science. its practitioners adhere to the deep belief that claiming it to be “empirical science” makes it into a solid science. the glorious image here is that of the active and diligent data collector who follows all the rules of making scientific inference from some ever larger data sets. the inductive pathway to knowledge becomes glorified. the belief in quantification of phenomena into data and the belief that the data accumulation that follows (“big data”) leads to solid basic knowledge becomes an accepted belief. “evidence based science” is an inductive exercise based on collections, rather than careful theory-based entrances into crucially relevant human psychological worlds. while glorifying “the evidence” we forget to ask: what kind of evidence is needed for what kind of theoretically relevant question? it is as if the data—accumulated to huge data bases—will start to “speak for themselves” and psychology’s future as a “true” science will be ensured. i happen to doubt this scenario of a positive future for psychology as a data-accumulative science. there are good reasons for my doubts. psychology was—like chemistry—in a state in late 18th century that made immanuel kant deny the futures of both as sciences. neither were seen by him as open to mathematical clarity of pure thought. he was wrong about chemistry that from the 1830s onwards developed its elaborated system of multitude of formal languages (valsiner, 2012, chapter 19) and generalized framework of organization in the form of mendeleev’s periodicity table. yet kant was right about psychology, that has substituted efforts to build linkages with basic mathematics (rudolph, 2013) in favour of applied mathematics in the form of statistics, and allowed the latter to take over the role of theoretical argumentations. tools—statistical techniques like analysis of variance—have been turned into theories (gigerenzer, 1991). the result is stagnation in the methodological advancement of the field (toomela & valsiner, 2010), stagnation that reaches even to the contemporary favourite area of neuroscience (toomela, in press). psychology resembles a powerful machine that is set to rush ahead in high gear—but cannot remove its self-set brakes. i belong to the rare species of theoretical psychologists for whom the often used label “contemporary research” means not the work of the past two, but rather that of the past 200 years. from that somewhat extended europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perspective, it becomes evident that one of the limitations of our contemporary psychology is the erosion of the term “empirical”. back in the times when our contemporary psychology parted with its philosophical predecessors—the 1870s—that term meant experiential (brentano, 1874). experience—rather than accumulated data—were the source of empirical investigation. in the century that followed, it is this focus on experience as a crucial base for phenomena that got lost (cairns, 1986; molenaar, 2004). i see a way out in the restoration of this original notion of “empirical” as direct, unique, and complex experience, as the focus of theoretically based empirical research. some examples already exist (lehmann & valsiner, 2017). this has implications to the kind of data that psychology needs to advance its theoretical precision—a quality that is needed for making sense of phenomena of experience. we are used to think of the precision of the instruments we utilize—together with the kind of data these instruments can provide. i claim the same demand for precision is applicable in the theoretical realm. psychology has very limited theoretical precision. consider an example: “variable x may be linked with variable y” this claim has low precision—the kind of link implied is not elaborated (there are many possibilities of how a link can be conceptualized) and the “may be” is immediate contrasted with “need not be”. a modified version of a similar statement does not fare better: “variable x is found to be significantly linked with variable y” here the link is specified by the vague mentioning of significance. that term is ambiguous—it confounds statistical significance (which is well defined) with loosely referenced general significance. that kind of significance needs to be further specified. for instance, it can take the form of a “fixed link” (e.g., two electronic gadgets linked with a wire), or of a dynamically stable process of mutuality (x feeds into y and y reciprocally feeds into x). it is not clear if the presumed link is independent of other links, or catalyzed by some external conditions (see cabell & valsiner, 2014, on catalytic models). in sum, it is precisely where the inductive generalization ends (something is significantly linked with something else) where the theoretical precision needs to begin. one rarely sees that in recent psychology. i would like to put forth a call for establishing nanopsychology—psychology where the empirical data base is purified to include humanly important existential experiences (focus on selected data that are given in their minimalistic form) which are then put to rigorous theoretical scrutiny. for such innovation, we start from carefully pre-selected and inevitably unique psychological phenomenon. it can be a relevant rupture in a person’s life course (zittoun, 2006). or it can start from a single poetic instant (lehmann, 2015) in experiencing the serene moment of silence in a norwegian countryside. likewise, the phenomena of personal importance can be the moments of orgasm—deeply subjective and rarely described (matte blanco, 1998, pp. 441-442). these are all minimal moments of deep experiences that lead our general life courses into the silence of our subjectivity. nanopsychology starts from these—very small, unique, and transient—particular phenomena. but, of course, our deep subjective life-worlds are socially guided. evidence for such guidance can be massive —our environments are saturated by redundant messages in different forms suggesting how to feel, think, and act. yet the integration of these socially suggestive representations into my personal life-world is unique to me, and happens at a moment of affective synthesis (vygotsky, 1971—on ivan bunin’s legkoe dykhanie). where needed in psychology: theoretical precision 2 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and when precisely such synthesis would happen remains unpredictable—but the massive social guidance of any person towards it is socially visible. if we dare to look, of course. let me illustrate this general idea—massive social guidance for deeply personal feelings that are expected to integrate into basic personal values at some unique moment—as an example of unique data point that needs thorough theoretical analysis. the persian tale—which also found its reflection in the bible (book of genesis) of the desires of zulaikha and resistance by joseph, her husband potiphar’s maidservant—is a story of love and revenge, as well as of adultery and honorable respect. the story may be partially a myth of 6th century bc possible real event in egypt that moved from oral folklore to written texts of islamic and christian kinds over the first millennium of our age, and became a widely popular topic for artists’ depictions in europe in the 16th to 18th centuries ad. an early example is given in figure 1. figure 1. marcantonio raimondi’s engraving joseph and potiphar wife (1520) (work in the public domain). joseph is potiphar’s household slave who is given the role of the head of his household and, within the household, potiphar’s wife zulaikha becomes drawn to joseph and wants him to be her lover. joseph— dedicated to potiphar—refuses. zulaikha, in her anger, accuses joseph for making advances on her, and potiphar arrests joseph on the basis of this accusation. the story continues with joseph being pardoned later, but it is the single specific moment from the story—where zulaikha reaches out towards joseph in her desire for him (and joseph resists or runs away) that was the recurrent theme to depict by artists. valsiner 3 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this moment depicted in the scene (figure 1) encodes the two universal notions of desire and resistance into the process of interpreting one pictorial image. by picturing the tension in the unity of the two in the picture it leads to further consideration of sign complexes of love, adultery, honor – all constantly in use in human lives. an elaborate and precise theoretical analysis of the multiple pathways the affective guidance it would trigger under different interpretations would give us a glimpse into the field of possibilities that can be activated by a recipient of the social suggestion. without any interpretive guidance the picture is simple—a woman reaches out towards a man who is in the process of escaping from her. different pathways emerge on the basis of co-interpretation of the picture. the first pathway is the moralistic tension of adultery <> honor. joseph’s resistance to zulaikha’s advance creates a border that publicly suppresses desire through honorable resistance. joseph cannot succumb to zulaikha’s advances given his role in potiphar’s household and given the adulterous nature of her desire. note that this contextual condition is not encoded into the picture; it needs to be complemented by the recipient’s knowledge of the story. honor leads to resistance which blocks the desire (of hers) since that desire was to cross the border of marital relations (adultery). this structure of social representations used to build the interpretation sets joseph up as a hero and zulaikha as a villain (who, in the continuation of the story—not in the painting—accuses joseph for making advances on her—breaking the honor of marriage). a second pathway is completely different. zulaikha is considered deeply in love (shafak, 2005) with joseph and her desire is an act of heroic defiance of the bounds of marriage. adultery here is an act of courage, and joseph’s resistance—an act of cowardice hidden behind his social commitment to potiphar. neither of these two pathways are in the picture itself, but both are possible in the unique personal acts of cointerpreting the picture based on the tacit knowledge about the story. there may be still other pathways not considered here. the co-interpretive set is much richer than its immediate input—the picture. our theoretical analysis charts out all of that set, specifying the particular ways in which the social representations form a new gestalt of meanings. each version of that new gestalt leads to different ways of “feeing into” the picture. the picture is a catalyst to keep the tensions of the story reverberating in the human minds. nanopsychology starts from the particular relevant event in human lives—tension at crossing some border— and ends up finding general principles in the selected “minimal data”. this is possible only on the theoretical basis that suggests what kinds of data are relevant and how to find them. this, in turn, requires theoretical precision well ahead of any empirical investigation. jaan valsiner aalborg, february 2018 funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. needed in psychology: theoretical precision 4 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references brentano, f. (1874). psychologie vom empirischen standpunkt. leipzig, germany: duncker & humblot. cabell, k. r., & valsiner, j. (eds.). (2014). the catalyzing mind: beyond models of causality. new york, ny, usa: springer. cairns, r. b. (1986). phenomena lost: issues in the study of development. in j. valsiner (ed.), the individual subject and scientific psychology (pp. 97-111). new york, ny, usa: plenum. gigerenzer, g. (1991). from tools to theories: a heuristic of discovery in cognitive psychology. psychological review, 98(2), 254-267. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.98.2.254 lehmann, o. v. (2015). poetic instants in daily life: toward the inclusion of vertical time in cultural psychology. in b. wagoner, n. chaudhary, & p. hviid (eds.), integrating experiences: body and mind moving between contexts (pp. 165-177). charlotte, nc, usa: information age publishers. lehmann, o. v., & valsiner, j. (eds.). (2017). deep experiencing: dialogues with the self. cham, switzerland: springer. matte blanco, i. (1998). the unconscious as infinite sets (2nd ed). london, united kingdom: karnac books. molenaar, p. c. m. (2004). a manifesto on psychology as idiographic science: bringing the person back into scientific psychology, this time forever. measurement, 2, 201-218. rudolph, l. (ed.). (2013). qualitative mathematics for the social sciences. london, united kingdom: routledge. shafak, e. (2005, december). women writers, islam, and the ghost of zulaikha. words without borders. retrieved from https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/women-writers-islam-and-the-ghost-of-zulaikha/ toomela, a. (in press). thoughts on the contextual cognition: another déjà vu. in a. ibañez & a. m. garcia (eds.), contextual cognition: the invisible sensus communis of a situated mind. new york, ny, usa: springer. toomela, a., & valsiner, j. (eds.). (2010). methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? charlotte, nc, usa: information age publishing. valsiner, j. (2012). the guided science. new brunswick, nj, usa: transaction publishers. vygotsky, l. s. (1971). psychology of art. cambridge, ma, usa: mit press. zittoun, t. (2006). transitions. charlotte, nc, usa: information age publishing. about the author jaan valsiner is a cultural psychologist with a consistently developmental axiomatic base that is brought to the analysis of any psychological or social phenomena. he is the founding editor (1995) of the sage journal, culture & psychology. he is currently niels bohr professor of cultural psychology at aalborg university, denmark. he has published and edited around valsiner 5 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.98.2.254 https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/women-writers-islam-and-the-ghost-of-zulaikha/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 40 books, the most pertinent of which are the guided mind (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1998), culture in minds and societies (new delhi: sage, 2007), and invitation to cultural psychology (london: sage, 2014). he has been awarded the alexander von humboldt prize of 1995 in germany, and the hans-kilian-preis of 2017, for his interdisciplinary work on human development, as well as the senior fulbright lecturing award in brazil 1995-1997. he has been a visiting professor in brazil, japan, australia, estonia. germany, italy, luxembourg, united kingdom, and the netherlands. in november 2017, he was elected to as an international member of the estonian academy of sciences. needed in psychology: theoretical precision 6 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 1–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1602 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ needed in psychology: theoretical precision (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author intellectual performance and educational attainment of mexican adolescents in poverty research reports intellectual performance and educational attainment of mexican adolescents in poverty joaquina palomar-lever a, amparo victorio-estrada* a [a] department of psychology, universidad iberoamericana, mexico city, mexico. abstract the objective of this study was to determine factors that can predict the intellectual performance and educational attainment of adolescents living in poverty. data of mexican adolescents from rural and urban areas (n = 1,093, 55.8% male, 61% urban) and their mothers were analyzed. the data came from a probabilistic sample with national representativeness of beneficiary households of the governmental program to fight poverty oportunidades. mothers and children were surveyed separately at home using questionnaires. results from structural equations modeling revealed that higher intellectual performance was determined by older age, higher maternal intellectual performance and education, more adequate parenting practices, fewer siblings, and less insecure neighborhoods. higher educational attainment was predicted by older age, higher intellectual performance, and more psychological resources. data explained 25% of the variance of intellectual performance, and 39% of the variance of educational attainment. results are discussed regarding the possibility of enhancing intellectual performance and education. keywords: intellectual performance, adolescents, parenting, mexico, poverty europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 received: 2017-10-16. accepted: 2019-02-06. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: departamento de psicología, universidad iberoamericana, prolongación paseo de reforma 880, lomas de santa fe, 01219, ciudad de méxico, méxico. e-mail: victorioconsulting@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. educational attainment has been proposed as the most important mechanism to promote social mobility (faas, benson, & kaestle, 2013), and intellectual performance is probably the most influential factor to promote educational attainment (firkowska-mankiewicz, 2011; subotnik, olszewski-kubilius, & worrell, 2011). in this sense, children’s intellectual performance affects their life expectations and attainments and influences their future social position and success (subotnik, olszewski-kubilius, & arnold, 2003). however, the cycle of poverty and low educational attainment perpetuates itself because poverty adversely affects the children´s educational achievement (donlan, prescott, & zaff, 2016) and hinders their progress toward higher education levels. it has been found that the more pervasive the poverty in their environment, and the earlier and the more prolonged the experience of poverty during their development, the more deleterious the effects of poverty on children´s educational outcomes (chaudry & wimer, 2016). hence, the identification of predictors of the intellectual performance of youth who live in poverty is of social relevance in a country with high levels of social inequality like mexico. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ intelligence has been defined as several interrelated intellectual abilities, organized as independent systems consisting of general abilities (g factor), and specific abilities, such as “crystallized” knowledge (bolger, mackey, wang, & grigorenko, 2014). intelligence is no longer viewed as strictly genetically determined, but as determined by genetic as well as by environmental factors (bolger et al., 2014; subotnik et al., 2011; tucker-drop & harden, 2012). that is, the interaction between genetic, brain, and evironmental factors creates the diversity of cognitive functions that are regarded as human intelligence: genetic factors establish the basis for the neurocognitive systems and the interaction between genetic and environmental factors determines the individual variation in intelligence (bolger et al., 2014). both the general and specific intellectual abilities determine the global intellectual achievement; however, the general intellectual abilities derive from genetic and environmental factors, whereas the specific abilities are consciously acquired (subotnik et al., 2011). in this regard, genetic factors explain aproximately 50% of the individual variance of the general intelectual abilities; and the general intellectual abilities explain most of the individual differences in intellectual achievement, but they cannot explain the individual differences in specific cognitive domains, such as verbal, mathematical or musical ability (tucker-drop & harden, 2012). the cognitive abilities underlying the intellectual functions develop with age until they reach the complexity that characterizes adult intelligence (qin et al., 2014). in this sense, early childhood is a critical period for neurocognitive development; but adolescence is also a crucial period for the development of intellectual abilities, because some brain structures, like the prefrontal cortex, and some executive functions, like abstract thinking, are still evolving during this period (wachs, georgieff, cusick, & mcewen, 2014). it is possible to determine individual differences in intellectual abilities operationalized as intelligence quotient (iq). these measures are relatively stable in time, and although intelligence scores may vary during life, they remain strongly correlated (osler, avlund, & mortensen, 2012). regarding the operationalization of intelligence through the results of intelligence tests, iq scores can be seen as revealing the individual ability to learn difficult material and the rate at which new material is learned (torres, 2013). intelligence tests can also be viewed as measuring learned knowledge, more than general ability. this argument can be based on the finding that one additional year of education added more to the intelligence scores than an additional year of age, suggesting that the measurement of intelligence depends on the acquisition of specific domain knowledge retrieved from long term memory (tricot & sweller, 2014). in contrast, it has been posited that iq scores are only related to academic knowledge as far as knowledge is related to the general intelligence factor, but that the specific intellectual abilities cannot predict achievement further than the g factor (subotnik et al., 2011). a plausible explanation for the relation between intellectual performance and academic achievement is the posibility of multiple genetically independent brain mechanisms that underly both intellectual performance and learning abilities and create intercorrelations with both of them (trzaskowski et al., 2013). individual differences in intellectual performance, measured as iq scores predict most of the children´s future achievement, for example, their future success in life when they reach adulthood. it has been found that children and youth with higher iq scores attain higher levels of education and better jobs, and achieve better economic situation as adults (firkowska-mankiewicz, 2011). this is related to the fact that intellectual ability predicts most of the variance of socioeconomic status, like the kind of job an individual can perform well, and therefore the earned income (torres, 2013). intellectual performance 554 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in sum, even though the origin of individual differences in intelligence or the causal relation between initial individual differences in intelligence and future achievement are still controversial issues, individual differences in iq scores can validly predict several concurrent academic achievement issues (subotnik et al., 2011) that are related to future academic and profesional achievements in life. additionally, intellectual performance can also mediate the relation between adversity and psychological health, and protect the individual against the development of psychopatology resulting from adversity (flouri, hickey, mavroveli, & hurry, 2011), thus safeguarding the children´s future mental health. predictors of intellectual performance beside genetic factors, some environmental aspects (e.g., nutritional, familial, socioeconomic, cultural, and educational) play an important role in the determination of children´s intellectual performance (tapia et al., 2013). parental socioeconomic status (ses) affects offspring´s cognitive development in different ways. ses is related to intellectual performance so that children who are raised in better socioeconomic conditions obtain higher iq scores (midterm effect), and better initial familial economic conditions are related to more successful outcomes later in life (long term effect), despite the children´s initial iq level (firkowska-mankiewicz, 2011). family ses may also affect children´s cognitive abilities through nutritional factors, since children from underpriveleged families are exposed to higher risk of malnutrition because of their household precariousness. adequate nutrition during early childhood is particularly critical to promote healthy brain development, and the required competencies to initiate their school education (wachs et al., 2014). early exposition to detrimental nutritional conditions negatively affect the children’s semantic memory, learning, concentration capacity, excutive control, and linguistic performance (fortunato araújo, giatti, chor, azeredo, & barreto, 2014); putting at risk their intellectual, motor, and social development, necessary for academic achievement (prado & dewey, 2014). the effect of the family ses on children’s intellectual performance may be affected by their parent´s intellectual performance, since the positive effect of a better family ses on children´s abilities decreases as maternal intellectual performance increases (torres, 2013). that is, higher household ses benefits more the children of lower iq parents, than the children with higher iq parents, suggesting that being raised by high iq parents is related to children´s higher intellectual performance, in spite of the household ses. in contrast, the combination of lower household ses and lower iq parents results in a double disadvantage for the children´s cognitive development (torres, 2013). besides the effect of the household precariousness, children are also exposed to the effect of parental educational attainment, which is usualy low in households with a low ses. maternal educational attainment is possitively related to their children´s healthier development and better learning environment, with more intellectual stimulation and better academic guidance; all of wich affect the offspring´s cognitive development and their educational attainment (fortunato araújo et al., 2014). in this regard, lower parental educational attainment is associated with decrements on their children´s verbal iq, that affect their cognitive and social functioning (wachs et al., 2014). so that children from mothers with lower education perform worse on all their cognitive functions and this effect remains during their development into adulthood, in spite of their later educational attainment (fortunato araújo et al., 2014). some plausible mechanisms of the relationship between household ses and children´s intellectual performance are the insufficient cognitive stimulation the children receive, due to the scarcity of economic resources; palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 555 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as well as the strong association between low parental educational attainment and crystallized inteligence measurements, like verbal iq (jensen, dumontheil, & barker, 2014). in this sense, higher household ses children are offered more oportunities to benefit themselves from learning experiences more akin to their intellectual interests (tucker-drop & harden, 2012), while parental poverty exposes the children to a stimulation precariousness, that is later associated with the offspring´s lower cognitive funtion (osler et al., 2012). that is, besides the parental intellectual abilities, the household ses affects the children´s intellectual performance through early nutritional conditions, cognitive stimulation, and parental educational attainment (fortunato araújo et al., 2014; tapia et al., 2013; torres, 2013). additionally, the familial environment in which children grow up also affects their intellectual performance. it has been found that non-authoritarian parenting practices promote the offspring´s intellectual performance (firkowska-mankiewicz, 2011). also parenting practices that emphazise children´s independence, critical thinking, and creativity stimulate the children´s talent development and their motivation to excell (subotnik et al., 2003). in contrast, a familial environment with high levels of interpersonal stress hinders the development of children´s attention capacity, adversely affecting their intellectual performance and social funtioning (jensen et al., 2014). poverty is associated with negative outcomes on children´s cognitive development and educational achievement (chaudry & wimer, 2016). household poverty negatively affects children´s educational attainment (parker, jerrim, schoon, & marsh, 2016); so that higher ses is related to higher college enrolment in adolescents (maxwell, mcneely, & carboni, 2016), while college enrolment and graduation rates are notoriously lower in communities with higher levels of poverty (donlan et al., 2016). some possible mechanisms through which poverty adversely affects educational outcomes are an inadequate development context, deficient cognitive stimulation, and familial stress, as well as the household precariousness (chaudry & wimer, 2016). furthermore, familial adversity, like economic hardships and neighborhood insecurity, is also related to negative academic outcomes, like school failure, through its effect on children´s mental health (porche, costello, & rosenreynoso, 2016). in sum, growing up in poverty exposes the children to the risk of nutrimental, economic, and stimulation deficits, which hinder their intellectual development and academic attainment. this underscores the importance of predicting intellectual performance and educational achievement, with the aim of designing possible interventions to promote both in underprivileged youth. the present study proposes the identification of social and psychological predictors of intellectual performance and educational attainment in a sample of adolescents living in poverty. age, number of siblings, neighborhood insecurity, and adversity (e.g., unemployment of a family member, conflict between the parents, illness of a family member) were included as social variables, while individual and familial characteristics (e.g., resilience, intern locus of control, parenting practices, and peer relationships) were included as psychological variables. intellectual performance and educational attainment are the outcomes of interest. the present study hypotheses are: 1) higher intellectual performance is predicted by better social environment (fewer siblings, less neighborhood insecurity, and less adversity); and by 2) better familial environment (higher maternal intellectual performance and educational attainment, and more adequate parenting practices). additionally, it was hypothesized that: 3) higher educational attainment is predicted by higher intellectual performance; and that 4) psychological resources (resilience, intern locus of control, direct coping style, peer relationships, and social support) moderate the relation between adversity (life events) and intellectual performance. intellectual performance 556 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants offspring data from 1,093 adolescents were analyzed, 61% of them living in urban localities, 55.8% were of male gender, with average age 14.92 (sd = 1.29) years, average educational attainment 8.33 (sd = 1.71) completed years of education, and average number of siblings 2.67 (sd = 1.73). mothers participants were the main beneficiaries of the governmental program against poverty called oportunidades. this is a conditioned cash transference program for households under the line of poverty. the cash transfers are conditioned to children´s health and educational outcomes and the mothers are usually registered as the main beneficiary of the program. mothers were of average age 40.57 (sd = 8.9) years, and average educational attainment 4.66 (sd = 3.5) completed years of education. sample access to the national registry of beneficiary households of oportunidades was obtained to extract a random sample of households. non-spanish speaking localities, localities with less than 45 households, and households without economic information were excluded from the sampling process. two-stage sampling was performed for the rural and urban domains separately. localities were selected through probability proportional to size (pps) within each domain in the first stage, and households were selected through simple random sampling within each previously selected locality in the second stage. a more detailed description of the sampling design and procedure is presented in palomar lever (2015a). a two-wave survey was implemented. the first wave survey resulted in 2,112 households with valid data out of 2,139 surveyed. a further selection of the households with adolescent offspring resulted in a second wave survey with valid data from 1,093 adolescents out of 1,275 initially surveyed. measures offspring reported variables validation data on mexican adolescents of the measures reported by offspring are described more extensively in palomar lever (2015b). the descriptive data correspond to the present sample. intellectual performance adolescent intellectual performance was measured with verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. the barranquilla rapid survey intelligence test barsit (del olmo, 1985) is a verbal test that measures general intelligence and learning aptitude through the intellectual abilities represented in five subtests: general knowledge, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, logical reasoning, and numerical reasoning (60 items, score = 0–1, cronbach´s α = .94, range = 0–60, m = 31.53, sd = 10.29). the raven´s progressive matrices test (raven, raven, & court, 1993) is a nonverbal test of intelligence that measures general capacity of analogic reasoning, perception and abstraction. the advanced scale series i was used (12 items, score = 0–1, cronbach´s α = .74, range = 0–12, m = 6.57, sd = 2.68). palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 557 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ resilience it refers to the capacity to face and overcome adverse conditions, measured by the factorial scale resilience (palomar lever & gómez valdez, 2010), that assesses the perception of personal strength in the face of adversity (14 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .86, range = 1–4, m = 3.21, sd = 0.50). internal locus of control it refers to the tendency to attribute events to one´s behavior, measured with the factorial scale locus of control (reyes, 1995), which assesses the extent to which one attributes outcomes to one’s own efforts (9 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .85, range = 1–4, m = 3.39, sd = 0.54). direct coping style items come from the revised ways of coping scale (folkman & lazarus, 1985), measuring the tendency to ponder and plan how to solve what causes stress due to unmet environmental demands (6 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .72, range = 1–4, m = 3.22, sd = 0.55). adversity the occurrence of adversity was measured through a factorial scale derived from items appropriate to adolescents from the social readjustment rating scale (holmes & rae, 1967). the scale assesses the experience of several adverse life events (13 items, score = 0–1, cronbach´s α = .71, range = 0–1, m = 0.15, sd = 0.16). neighborhood insecurity this was measured with items from another instrument (molnar, gortmaker, bull, & buka, 2004), which assess the perception of one´s neighborhood as insecure and dangerous (12 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .91, range =1–4, m = 2.04, sd = 0.72). parenting practices the tendency to apply parenting practices was assessed with several subscales from the parenting practices scales (andrade & betancourt, 2010) like paternal practices of psychological control (8 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .84, range =1–4, m = 2.72, sd = 0.92), paternal practices of imposition (8 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .81, range = 1–4, m = 1.44, sd = 0.59), and maternal practices of imposition (8 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .76, range = 1–4, m = 3.09, sd = 0.74). these subscales measure the parental tendencies to use coercive methods of discipline and to impose their criteria over those of their children. permissive parental style this factorial scale was derived from other instruments (arnold, o'leary, wolff, & acker, 1993; robinson, mandelco, frost, & hart, 1995), and assesses the parental tendency to be inconsistent in applying disciplinary actions and to allow and tolerate their offspring´s disruptive behavior (6 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .57, range = 1–4, m = 1.94, sd = 0.56). social support this factorial scale (zimet, dahlem, zimet, & farley, 1998) assesses the perception of the availability of people in their environment who give them support, encouragement, and understanding (12 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .93, range = 1–4, m = 3.28, sd = 0.64). intellectual performance 558 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ positive peer relationships this factorial scale (dubois, felner, brand, phillips, & lease, 1996) assesses the self-perception as gregarious and popular among their peers and friends (7 items, score = 1–4, cronbach´s α = .83, range = 1–4, m = 3.12, sd = 0.60). additionally, the adolescents´ age, educational attainment, and the number of siblings was also recorded. mother reported variables the validation data in mexican adults of the measurements assessed in the mothers of the adolescents are described in palomar lever (2015a). the descriptive data refer to the present sample. intellectual performance the same verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests applied to adolescents were used to assess mother´s intellectual performance: the barrranquilla rapid survey intelligence test barsit (del olmo, 1985), (60 items, score = 0–1, cronbach´s α = .95, range = 0–60, m = 27.90, sd = 11.26), and the raven´s progressive matrices test (raven et al., 1993), (12 items, score = 0–1, cronbach´s α = .78, range = 0–12, m = 4.50, sd = 3.0). additionally, maternal educational attainment was also recorded. procedure beneficiary mothers and their adolescent offspring were assessed separately using two different surveys. mothers were assessed in the first survey and their offspring in the second one. in both surveys participants were interviewed face to face individually at their homes by professional interviewers using questionnaires. interviews lasted approximately an hour. informed consent was obtained from mothers and informed consent and permission was obtained from adolescent´s mothers to authorize their adolescent offspring´s participation. participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and independent from their program involvement and were assured of their data confidentiality. results covariance analysis of the dependent variables of interest (intellectual performance and educational attainment) by gender and type of locality, while controlling for age, indicated that there were no significant differences in verbal and nonverbal intelligence scores by gender, nor were there significant differences in nonverbal intelligence scores or educational attainment by type of locality (p > .066 ). however, significant differences were found in verbal intelligence scores by type of locality: mrural = 30.66, sd = 10.29, n = 426, murban = 32.09, sd = 10.23, n = 667, f(1,1090) = 4.62, p = .032, ηp 2 = .004, and in educational attainment by gender: mmen = 8.19, sd =1.79, n = 610, mwomen = 8.52, sd = 1.58, n = 483, f(1,1090) = 14.03, p < .001, ηp 2 = .013; favoring urban and feminine adolescents, respectively. the data reported by the adolescents and their mothers were analyzed with structural equations modeling (sem) using the maximum likelihood method. sem is a multivariate statistical analysis technique that can combine factor analysis and path analysis to define latent variables using observed variables, and to test structural models that impute relationships between latent variables. palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 559 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ one model was fitted to the entire sample, since the aforementioned covariance analyses did not show generalized group differences. the tested model consisted of latent variables like offspring intellectual performance (verbal and nonverbal intelligence test scores), inadequate parenting (permissive parental style, paternal practices of psychological control and imposition and maternal practices of imposition), maternal intellectual performance and education (verbal and nonverbal intelligence test scores and educational attainment), and offspring psychological resources (resilience, internal locus of control, direct coping strategies, positive peer relations, and social support). adolescent´s age, number of siblings, adversity (life events), and their perception of neighborhood insecurity were also included as predictors. the model tested the prediction of adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment. figure 1. modeling of familial, social, and psychological predictors of adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment. note. all coefficients were significant. errors are not depicted and r2 coefficients are depicted in italics. verbal = barsit; nonverbal = raven; m education = maternal educational attainment; m intel = maternal intellectual performance and education; adversity = adverse life events; insecurity = neighborhood insecurity; siblings = number of siblings; p imposition = paternal parental practices of imposition; m imposition = maternal parental practices of imposition; psychological control = paternal parental practices of psychological control; permissive style = permissive parental style; parenting = inadequate parental practices; psychologic = psychological resources; o intel = offspring intellectual performance; internal locus = internal locus of control; direct coping = direct coping strategies; peer relations = positive peer relations; o education = offspring educational attainment. intellectual performance 560 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the tested model showed that higher offspring intellectual performance was predicted by older age, higher maternal intellectual performance and education, more adversity, fewer siblings, lower levels of inadequate parenting, and lower levels of neighborhood insecurity. further, higher offspring educational attainment was predicted by older age, higher intellectual performance, higher levels of psychological resources and lower levels of inadequate parenting. additionally, higher levels of psychological resources were predicted by higher intellectual performance. finally, lower levels of maternal intellectual performance and education covaried with higher levels of inadequate parenting, and older age and higher neighborhood insecurity covaried with more adversity. no significant covariance was found between adversity and psychological resources (p = .077). the model attained an acceptable fit (hu & bentler, 1999), taking into account its complexity and the sample size: χ2(143) = 559.35, p < .001, cfi = 0.922, tli = 0.907, rmsea = 0.052, 90% ci [0.047, 0.056], pclose = .264. the variables included in the model explained approximately 25% of the variance of the offspring intellectual performance, 39% of the variance of their educational attainment, and 6% of their psychological resources, corresponding to r2 coefficients of 0.245, 0.388, and 0.055, respectively. the figure 1 shows the model with the standardized regression and correlation coefficients. all coefficients were significant at the p < .05 level. discussion the objective of the present analysis was to identify predictors of the intellectual performance and educational attainment of youth living in poverty. to this effect, data from adolescents and their mothers, beneficiaries of a governmental program against poverty, were analyzed. early analyses showed few differences by gender and type of locality controlling by age in favor of women´s educational attainment, and of urban adolescents´ verbal intelligence scores. additionally, the sem analysis indicated that the proposed model predicted both the adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment. the gender difference in educational attainment is consistent with previous results indicating positive effects of the oportunidades program on female educational attainment (darney et al., 2013). and the difference in verbal intellectual abilities by type of locality is in line with previous data stressing the disadvantage concerning academic resources that youth living in rural environments are confronted with (culliney, 2014). regarding the proposed hypotheses, results partially supported the first hypothesis, since fewer siblings and less neighborhood insecurity, but not less adversity (e.g., better social environment), predicted higher intellectual performance. contrary to what was expected, more adversity (life events) predicted higher intellectual performance. data supported the second hypothesis, since higher maternal intellectual performance and education and a lower level of inadequate parenting practices (e.g., better familial environment) predicted higher offspring intellectual performance. also the third hypothesis received empirical support, since higher intellectual performance predicted higher educational attainment by the adolescents. however, the fourth hypothesis was not supported by the data, since psychological resources do not moderate the effect of adversity on intellectual performance. on the contrary, there was no relation between psychological resources and adversity, while adversity positively predicted intellectual performance, and intellectual performance positively predicted psychological resources. a possible explanation could be that adolescents with higher intellectual performance are palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 561 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ more aware of stressful events and have more psychological resources to counteract the negative impact of adversity. one of the stronger predictors of adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment was their age. this relation is not surprising because the present sample comprises young people in academic formation, who have not yet reached their full intelligence potential nor have they completed their educational instruction. as has been previously found, an additional year of age is associated with increases in youths’ intellectual performance and educational attainment (tricot & sweller, 2014). present results are congruent with others that signal the close and positive relationship between intellectual performance and various aspects of academic achievement and educational achievement (subotnik et al., 2011; tricot & sweller, 2014), as well as with those that underscore the positive influence of maternal educational attainment (fortunato araújo et al., 2014; wachs et al., 2014), and maternal intellectual performance (torres, 2013) on their offspring´s intellectual performance. results are also consistent with other analyses that highlight the importance of parental intellectual wealth on the development of their offspring´s intellectual abilities (firkowska-mankiewicz, 2011; torres, 2013), and their educational attainment (fortunato araújo et al., 2014), emphazising the importance of the richness of the household´s knowledge base in conditions of high levels of poverty. inadequate parenting practices like coercion, imposition, permissiveness and inconsistent disciplinary practices, showed an inverse relationship with offspring´s intellectual performance. this underlines the importance of the familial evironment in which the adolescents are growing up, and concours with other results documenting the adverse effect of coercive practices on the cognitive development of children (jensen et al., 2014). present data indicated that lower maternal intellectual performance and education covaries with higher levels of inadequate parental practices such that low maternal education has a double negative effect on offspring´s intellectual performance: the effect due to the possible insufficiency of maternal crystallized intelligence, and the effect through the promotion of inadequate parental practices. two social variables, number of siblings at home and neighborhood security, were directly related to offspring intellectual performance. a greater number of siblings predicted lower intellectual performance, a result that may be associated with the availability of parental economic, cultural, and time resources which decrease, as the number of children among whom parents must divide household resources increasses. furthermore, a social stressor like neighborhood insecurity negatively predicted adolescent´s intellectual performance, consistent with other results documenting the negative effect of insecurity on youth´s cognitive and academic development (johnson, 2008). life events were included in the model as an adversity measure with the purpose of taking into account the possibility of adversity affecting intellectual performance (fortunato araújo et al., 2014; osler et al., 2012). data showed that youth who were more exposed to adversity also achieved a higher intellectual performance. this result is unexpected and at odds with the asumption that adversity negatively affects intellectual performance through the stress it causes (jensen et al., 2014) and through its negative effects on psychological health (porche et al., 2016). on the contrary, experiencing more adversity seems to incentivize intellectual performance. while this result seems counterintuitive, it is consistent with the view that difficult home environments may lead some children to seek refuge in intellectual and creative activities (subotnik et al., 2003); thus improving their crystallized intelligence. intellectual performance 562 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ similarly, psychological resources were proposed as moderators of the possible negative effects of adversity on intellectual performance. results indicated that higher intellectual performance predicted higher levels of psychological resources, consistent with other results previously pointing to this positive relation (shoshani & slone, 2013). however, the experience of adversity had no relation with psychological resources, which is inconsistent with their proposed moderating role. on the contrary, data revealed that adversity increases intellectual performance, and this in turn increases psychological resources. that is, intellectual performance mediates between adversity and psychological resources, and the psychological resources do not mediate the relationship between adversity and intellectual performance, as was initially proposed. it has been previously found that intellectual performance may moderate the negative impact of adversity (flouri et al., 2011); but present data rather suggest a catalytic role for adversity, as if it would encourage adolescents to achieve higher intellectual performance. a closer look into the correlations between age, neighborhood insecurity, and adversity reveals that they were in the expected direction. that is, older age and higher levels of neighborhood insecurity covaried with more adversity, so an error measurement seems less plausible as an explanation for the present results. more research would be necessary to explain the relationship between adversity, psychological resources, and intellectual performance. in sum, results are congruent with the proposition that the intellectual performance of adolescents living in poverty is positively predicted by familial environments with a richer parental knowledge base, less coercive parenting, and fewer siblings, and by less insecure neighborhoods. adolescents’ educational attainment was positively predicted by higher intellectual performance, greater psychological resources, and less coercive parenting. additionally, the adolescents´ age had an important role in the predictition of their intellectual performance and educational attainment. limitation and future direction the present study provides information about a less studied population sector based on data from a national probabilistic sample of households beneficiaries of a government program against poverty. however, some weaknesses of the study, like the crosssectional design of the study and the use of self-reports as measurements of some variables, should also be mentioned. our data on a national sample of households enable the present results to be extended to other benefiaries of the program nationwide, and to design strategies tailored to this population sector, with the purpose of preventing the transgenerational transmission of poverty. present results allow the suggestion of possible intervention strategies aimed at enhancing the intellectual performance of adolescents living in poverty and supporting their educational attainment. some of these possibilities encompass the implementation of informative actions directed to parents about the deleterious effects of inadequate parenting practices and how to avoid them, as well as government actions to reinforce public security. an additional strategy is to promote parental educational attainment. there is already a government institution dedicated to adult education, so that the promotion of educational attainment of mothers beneficiaries of the oportunidades program would be advantageous for them and their children, taking into account the possible positive effects of parental education on the intellectual performance of their offspring. palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 563 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this work was supported by the instituto de investigación sobre desarrollo sustentable y equidad social at the universidad iberoamericana, mexico city; 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(1988). the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. journal of personality assessment, 52, 30-41. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 about the authors joaquina palomar-lever (phd, national autonomous university of mexico). professor at the department of psychology, universidad iberoamericana, mexico city, mexico. dr. palomar-lever is deceased. amparo victorio-estrada (dr. rer. nat., university of cologne). research assistant at the department of psychology, universidad iberoamericana, mexico city, mexico. dr. victorio-estrada is a private consultant. palomar-lever & victorio-estrada 567 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 553–567 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1542 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10648-013-9243-1 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10519-013-9594-x https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8624.2011.01721.x https://doi.org/10.1111%2fnyas.12314 https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327752jpa5201_2 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ intellectual performance (introduction) predictors of intellectual performance method participants measures procedure results discussion limitation and future direction (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors understanding the association between humor and emotional distress: the role of light and dark humor in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress research reports understanding the association between humor and emotional distress: the role of light and dark humor in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress alberto dionigi 1, mirko duradoni 2, laura vagnoli 3 [1] studio psi.co., cattolica, italy. [2] department of education, languages, interculture, literatures, and psychology, university of florence, florence, italy. [3] meyer children’s hospital irccs, pediatric psychology, florence, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 received: 2022-08-05 • accepted: 2023-03-28 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: elisabetta lombardi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: alberto dionigi, studio psi.co., piazza mercato 20, 47841 cattolica, italy. e-mail: albe.dionigi@gmail.com abstract despite increasing interest in the relationship between humor and psychological distress, investigations have failed to focus on specific categories of humor and negative mental conditions. a sample of 686 italian participants (187 men and 499 women), aged between 20 and 76 years, completed an online survey, data from which was used to investigate the relationship between eight comic styles, depression, anxiety, and stress. findings from the multiple linear regression demonstrate benign humor as a protective factor of all three variables considered, while irony was positively associated with anxiety and stress. wit was a protective factor associated with anxiety, while sarcasm was positively related to depression. no significant correlations emerged between the other variables considered. these findings highlight how specific categories are linked to varying dimensions of emotional distress, which are discussed with reference to the extant literature. keywords comic styles, humor, depression, anxiety, stress there has been an increased interest in the significant role humor plays in the lives of individuals, particularly its contribution to the promotion of mental health over the past 40 years; several studies in this context have focused on the relationship between humor and well-being (martin, 2019; ruch & mcghee, 2014). humor allows people to distance themselves from problems, thereby increasing positive emotions and easing tension—it operates as an effective coping strategy to be adopted in the face of stress (crawford, & caltabiano, 2011). despite the universality of humor, it remains a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, occurring as an amalgamation of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral compo­ nents (martin & ford, 2018; ruch, 2008). humor has the potential to contribute to the well-being of individuals, through certain components such as; a) a cognitive, a stimulus that a person perceives as funny; b) an emotional response, which leads to mirth; and c) a physiological response, such as a laugh or smile (martin & ford, 2018; wellenzohn et al., 2016). according to recent evidence, while certain forms of humor are psychologically positive and adaptive, the expression of other forms of humor represents less desirable and less healthy modes of interaction (dozois et al., 2009). in this study, we aimed at investigating how specific categories of humor (namely the comic styles) relate to depression, anxiety, and stress. the relations between humor and psychological well-being have been analyzed by various authors, most frequently with the support of the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) (martin et al., 2003). the associated framework indicates four humor styles, two of which are positive (affiliative, which involves the use of jokes and friendly banter to facilitate interpersonal bonds; and self-enhancing, which involves humor as a coping strategy to this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10013&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ deal with life stressors), and two that are negative (aggressive, which involves the teasing and ridiculing of others to enhance the self; and self-defeating, which involves excessively self-disparaging humor to amuse others at one’s own expense to ingratiate oneself or gain approval). generally, the two adaptive humor styles are positively associated with extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and well-being, while they are negatively correlated with neuroticism. conversely, the two negative styles demonstrate a negative association with agreeableness and conscientiousness, while they are positively associated with neuroticism and poor well-being (fritz, 2020; martin et al., 2003; plessen et al., 2020; vernon et al., 2008). however, the hsq uses a theoretical model of humor at a general level, which is based on the description of humor and how and when it is used. in this conceptualization, humor mainly reflects two functions represented by enhancing oneself and enhancing relationships with others. people can accomplish these functions in a adaptive way, using affiliative and self-enhancing humor or maladaptively, using aggressive and self-defeating humor. to further the efficiency of detailed investigations regarding the nature of humor, comic style markers (csm), which focuses on a list of eight lower-level styles, was developed recently (heintz, 2023; ruch, heintz, et al., 2018). the eight comic styles were established to identify specific categories of humor and to describe individual differences in their use. research shows that these styles reflect established categories of humor (in the broad sense) and that they are narrower than the ones in the humorous behavior q-sort deck (hbqd) and hsq, which allows for a more fine-grained differentiation of humor-related styles (heintz & ruch, 2019). the eight comic styles can be differentiated as lighter or darker styles of humor, which collectively include fun, humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism (ruch, heintz, et al., 2018). the four lighter styles, which relate to benign and social affect, behaviors, cognitions, and goals are; (1) fun, aimed at spreading good mood and good companionship; (2) humor, aimed at arousing sympathy towards the shortcomings of a fellow human, discovering discrepancies in everyday experiences, and treating them in a humorous and benevolent manner; (3) nonsense, based on experimentation with incongruities and ridiculousness with no specific purpose; and (4) wit, which relates to the ability to create clever connections between ideas and thoughts. conversely, the darker styles that lack this benevolent affect are mostly based on mockery and ridicule. these include; (1) irony, reflecting a contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and reality, characterizing the opposite of the expressed meaning; (2) satire, directed at criticizing and correcting shortcomings, misconduct, and moral wrongdoings with the intent to improve the world; (3) sarcasm, grounded on the need to be critical of others and convey contempt; and (4) cynicism, aimed at devaluing commonly recognized values (see appendix). previous research that compared the humor styles and the comic styles showed that three of the 12 styles overlap (i.e., fun/affiliative, benevolent humor/self-enhancing, sarcasm/aggressive) (heintz & ruch, 2019). however, this do not mean that the styles are interchangeable as they are based on detecting different aspects: generally, the comic styles are more sophisticated than the humor styles. previous studies revealed that the association between humor and emotional distress were conducted only using the humor styles model showing how each humor style is differently related to emotional distress and specific associations with anxiety, stress, and depression emerged (martin & ford, 2018; schneider et al., 2018). to this end, the current study documents our investigation of how benign and malicious categories of humor, as defined by the comic style markers, relate to depression, anxiety, and stress. humor, depression, anxiety, and stress multiple studies have previously investigated the relationship between humor and negative psychological states such as depression, anxiety, and stress. in this context, while benign humor, aimed at amusing others and pointing out the funny side of adversities in a good-natured manner, was found to yield better regulation of negative emotions, malicious, or “dark” humor, based on injurious, mean-spirited goals and attitudes has been positively associated with negative emotions (papousek et al., 2017). the following subsections examine the relationship between humor, depression, anxiety, and stress, with a brief review of salient points put forward by existing literature. humor and depression humor and depression are capable of maintaining a mutually influential relationship. for example, each humor style has a unique effect on the quality of one’s social relationships, likeability, and attractiveness ratings. according to research, dionigi, duradoni, & vagnoli 359 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ depressive symptoms are moderately negatively correlated with affiliative and self-enhancing forms of humor, while positively correlated with the use of self-defeating humor (frewen et al., 2008; martin et al., 2003). moreover, the appear­ ance of depressive symptoms was correlated with the perception of support from one’s social circle, which has been associated with the use of specific humor styles (dyck & holtzman, 2013). many studies showed positive correlations between depressive symptoms and aggressive and self-defeating humor styles while negative correlations were observed between depression and self-enhancing uses of humor (rnic et al., 2016; schermer et al., 2017). specifically, as depression as to do with a negative view of self, it is reasonable to find a positive relationship with self-defeating humor that is mainly directed to hurting oneself (kfrerer et al., 2019). in a recent meta-analysis, humor interventions were reported to significantly reduce depression and anxiety levels among adults, with an increase in the quality of sleep (zhao et al., 2019). to date, no studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between depression and the eight comic styles, but certain studies have examined the relationship between the latter and general and subjective well-being, which can represent an indicator of negative affect: experiencing a loss of satisfaction, happiness and/or psychological well-being may lead to clinical depression (cummins & lau, 2006). positive affectivity was positively correlated to the lighter styles and negatively with cynicism; negative affectivity demonstrated positive relations with sarcasm and cynicism and negative associations with benevolent humor (ruch, wagner, & heintz., 2018). in another study, humor and fun were positively related to psychological well-being, while no significant negative predictors were detected (dionigi et al., 2021). this result is similar to previous research that has shown controversial findings between aggressive humor and depression: for example, some studies found no significant relationship between them (besser et al., 2011; martin et al., 2003). humor and anxiety humor, as an effective strategy for reducing non-clinical and clinical anxiety (abel, 2002; ford et al., 2012), is mediated by various functions in its relationship with anxiety, such as emotion regulation, distraction, and reframing strategies for stressful events (kuiper et al., 2014). the use of benign humor is considered a powerful coping strategy as it can facilitate the reinterpretations of the subjective meaning of an emotionally negative event, thereby altering its emotional impact (perchtold et al., 2019). according to existing studies, individuals using positive sense of humor are less prone to developing anxiety and stress and are less prone to perceive negatively stressful life events, relative to those with a lower sense of humor (kuiper, 2012). research illustrates the differential relationship of positive and negative styles of humor with the prediction of anxiety levels. benevolent humor styles, such as affiliative humor and self-defeating humor, were linked to low anxiety (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003) and negatively associated with social anxiety (tucker et al., 2013). self-defeating humor was found to be related to higher levels of anxiety in some studies (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003; schneider et al., 2018), while there was a lack of correlation in others (ford et al., 2017). aggressive humor was generally unrelated to anxiety level (schneider et al., 2018). when considering specific categories of humor through the lens offered by the comic style markers, research demonstrates that individuals with greater habitual use of benevolent humor and lesser habitual use of dark humor were found to be more involved in relatively more significant use of these particular reappraisal strategies (perchtold et al., 2019). more recently, a significant negative relationship was determined between worry (the cognitive component of anxiety) and the two benevolent styles of fun and humor, while a positive relationship emerged between cynicism and worry (dionigi et al., 2021). humor and stress humor represents a protective factor that helps to cope with stress through its role as a moderator between negative life events and mood disturbance (martin & ford, 2018). individuals who use humor as a coping strategy are more likely to approach stressful situations using a relatively positive perspective, engaging in cognitive and behavioral strategies more often, and thereby experiencing relatively lower stress (kuiper &. harris, 2009). moreover, the use of humor has been evaluated as an adaptive emotion regulation strategy (kugler & kuhbandner, 2015; samson & gross, 2012). in this regard, self-defeating humor showed positive relationships with increasing stress levels, meanwhile individuals using affiliative humor reported lower level of stress (cann & collette, 2014; putz & breuer, 2017). humor is employed both as a cognitive and behavioral strategy to deal with stress. while humor physiologically decreases the level of pro-stress humor and emotional distress 360 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factors, it improves mood-elevating anti-stress factors, thereby resulting in a reduction of stress responses (bennett & lengacher, 2009). in a recent study (fritz et al., 2017), humor was found to have stress-buffering effects and a negative relationship with stress in a sample of patients with diagnosed fibromyalgia syndrome. aim of the study the present study was aimed at investigating how specific categories of humor relate to depression, anxiety, and stress. considering extant research focused on this subject (dionigi et al., 2021; perchtold et al., 2019; ruch, heintz, et al., 2018), the specific hypotheses of this cross-sectional study are as follows: h1. benevolent humor, which represents the form of benign humor (correlated to coping humor), is expected to share a relationship with lower depression, anxiety and stress. fun, wit and nonsense, will be tested exploratively. h2. the mockery styles, particularly cynicism, would demonstrate a positive association with depression, anxiety, and stress due to their positive influence on emotional distress. a similar pattern is expected for irony due to its ambivalent content. satire and sarcasm will be tested exploratively. method participants data were collected from 686 italian participants (187 men and 499 women), aged between 20 and 76 years (m = 42.88 years; sd = 12.53). participants were well-educated adults (4.2% of the sample had a lower secondary school diploma, 40.1% had an upper secondary school diploma, 31.9% had a university degree, 17.2% had a master’s degree, and 6.6% had a doctorate). in terms of marital status, 231 (33.7%) were unmarried, 371 (54.1%) were married or cohabiting, 79 (11.5%) were divorced, and five (0.7%) were widowed. measures the comic style markers (csm) (ruch, heintz, et al., 2018) is a self-report questionnaire wherein participants rate the extent to which 48 statements apply to their typical expressions of humor on a 7-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). total scores correspond to the mean of the six items, with higher scores corresponding to higher use of a specific comic style. this study adopted the italian version of the questionnaire (dionigi et al., 2022). the eight scales demonstrated good to acceptable reliabilities (mcdonald’s ω: fun = .84; humor = .72; nonsense = .86; wit = .82; irony = .78; satire = .78; sarcasm = .72; cynicism = .82). the depression anxiety stress scales-21 (dass-21) (lovibond & lovibond, 1995) is a self-reporting questionnaire with a total of 21 items distributed across three subscales, each of which is based on a four-point rating scale to measure varying categories of emotional distress (depression, anxiety, and stress). the severity of the emotional distress increases with the score. the current study adopted the italian version of the scale (bottesi et al., 2015). the three subscales in this study were demonstrative of optimal reliabilities (mcdonald’s ω: depression = .90; anxiety = .86; stress = .88). procedure data were collected utilizing an online survey (i.e., google forms web-link). the link to the survey was posted on social media and sent using mailing lists. the research design was cross-sectional, and the inclusion criteria were: a) individuals aged 18 years or older; and b) being an italian citizen. the survey also contained an explanation of the aim of the study and consent to participate. the study was performed in accordance with the local ethical guidelines, and all participants were guaranteed anonymity. dionigi, duradoni, & vagnoli 361 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis all data were analyzed using spss 25.0 (ibm). first, a power analysis was performed to determine the adequate sample size, based on the needs of the analysis type. this was accomplished using the g*power software (faul et al., 2007, 2009). the correlations among csm and dass-21 were analyzed using pearson correlation coefficients. for pearson’s correlation, a sample size of n = 616 would be required to achieve a statistical power of .80, while being able to capture even a small effect size (r = .10) and assuming a significance level of .05. moreover, as our study is primarily based on correlation, we accounted for the required sample size to achieve a stable measurement-error-free correlation. in the context of this study (i.e., population correlation ρ = .10; composite score reliability derived from other works ω = .70–.80), a stable measurement-error-free correlation would be met at n = 380–510 (kretzschmar & gignac, 2019). measurement-error-free correlation is a condition where estimate deviations should fluctuate only within a predefined “corridor of stability” that should have upper and lower bounds equal to |0.10| (schönbrodt & perugini, 2013). for linear hierarchical regression analysis, however, a sample size of n = 213 individuals would be sufficient to ensure a statistical power of .90, assuming a very small effect size (f 2 = .05) and a significance level of .05. thus, the sample size of n = 686 participants was deemed adequate for the purposes of this study. eventually, for each pearson correlation, we assessed the variable normality (asymmetry and kurtosis values), homoscedasticity, and linearity. hier­ archical regression of the comic styles with anxiety, stress, and depression was conducted following the testing for potential multicollinearity issues. results as a first step, descriptive statistics of the collected variables were generated and presented for the entire sample and disaggregated by gender (table 1). table 1 descriptive statistics of the collected variables m (sd) variable total females males 1. age 42.88 (12.53) 41.95 (12.16) 45.35 (13.19) 2. gender 72.7% (females), 27.3% (males) — — 3. depression 4.81 (4.24) 4.84 (4.19) 4.73 (4.38) 4. anxiety 6.47 (3.27) 6.68 (3.39) 5.90 (2.87) 5. stress 7.17 (4.21) 7.26 (4.22) 6.90 (4.18) 6. fun 4.27 (1.25) 4.19 (1.24) 4.50 (1.26) 7. humor 5.24 (0.86) 5.20 (0.87) 5.36 (0.85) 8. nonsense 4.80 (1.25) 4.68 (1.22) 5.13 (1.28) 9. wit 4.87 (0.98) 4.81 (0.98) 5.03 (0.96) 10. irony 4.23 (1.11) 4.17 (1.10) 4.41 (1.12) 11. satire 4.44 (1.09) 4.32 (1.08) 4.76 (1.06) 12. sarcasm 3.38 (1.11) 3.24 (1.06) 3.78 (1.14) 13. cynicism 3.63 (1.24) 3.47 (1.17) 4.05 (1.31) relationship between demographics, humor, depression, anxiety, and stress inter-scale correlations between all the variables were provided in table 2. humor and emotional distress 362 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 full correlation matrix of the collected variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. age 2. gender -.12** 3. depression -.16*** .01 4. anxiety -.17*** .11** .61*** 5. stress -.19*** .04 .76*** .64*** 6. fun -.04 -.11** .04 .05 .05 7. humor .11** .09* -.12** -.11** -.10** .39*** 8. nonsense .10** -.16*** .10** .02 .07 .43*** .46*** 9. wit .06 -.11** -.04 -.08* -.01 .42*** .55*** .36*** 10. irony -.02 -.10** .16*** .09* .15*** .46*** .36*** .40*** .51*** 11. satire .14*** -.18*** .01 -.03 .02 .38*** .48*** .35*** .51*** .55*** 12. sarcasm -.03 -.20*** .08* .01 .07 .37*** .24*** .29*** .44*** .60*** .55*** 13. cynicism -.01 -.21*** .17*** .06 .12*** .30*** .23*** .40*** .33*** .57*** .54*** .61*** note. n = 686. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. since both age and gender appeared to affect both csm and dass-21 scores, the relationship between these two scales was analyzed controlling for age and gender through partial correlation analysis, as shown in table 3. our sample showed specific differences with reference to the relationships among the variables. table 3 partial correlations among variables controlled for age and gender variable fun humor nonsense wit irony satire sarcasm cynicism depression .04 -.11** .12** -.03 .16*** .02 .07 .17*** anxiety .06 -.09* .05 -.07 .10* .01 .03 .08* stress .05 -.08* .10* .00 .16*** .05 .07 .13** note. n = 686. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 3 shows how two lighter styles and two dark styles reported significant correlations that can be deemed as relatively small in terms of effect size. specifically, benevolent humor was generally negatively correlated to depression, anxiety, and stress, while nonsense was positively related to depression and stress. conversely, in consideration of the dark styles, both irony and cynicism demonstrated positive correlations with depression, anxiety, and stress. predictors of negative emotional states to test how much variance within each dimension of the dass is explained by the comic styles, a hierarchical regression of the comic styles with depression, anxiety, and stress as components of the criteria (controlled for age and gender) was employed. statistical assumptions for the model, such as homoscedasticity, multivariate normality, and absence of multicollinearity, were all met. the general results of the hierarchical linear regressions analyses are summarized in table 4. dionigi, duradoni, & vagnoli 363 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 hierarchical regression of the comic styles with dass, controlled for age and gender variable fun humor nonsense wit irony satire sarcasm cynicism δr 2 depression -0.002 -0.20*** 0.13** 0.06 0.20 -0.04 0.06 0.13* 0.09*** anxiety 0.07 -0.14** 0.06 -0.11* 0.15** 0.01 -0.06 0.04 0.04*** stress 0.01 -0.18*** 0.10* -0.03 0.18** 0.02 -0.05 0.06 0.08*** note. n = 686. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the regression analyses demonstrated that the lighter and darker styles were differently related to the three facets of emotional distress. overall, benevolent humor was the only style of humor related to all three constructs, while varying relationships emerged in other categories of humor. depression was negatively predicted by benevolent humor and positively predicted by nonsense and cynicism (9% explained variance); anxiety was positively predicted by irony, while negatively predicted by benevolent humor and wit (4% explained variance); stress was best predicted by irony, cynicism, and nonsense, while negatively predicted by benevolent humor (8% explained variance). discussion the current study investigated how specific categories of humor related to three facets of emotional distress, namely depression, anxiety, and stress. overall, the results of this study showed that the eight comic styles related differently to these facets. the findings of the present research propose negative links between the habitual use of benign humor and emotional distress while nonsense, irony, and cynicism were primarily associated with emotional distress. when considering the lighter styles, benevolent humor showed the strongest (negative) correlations with the three dimensions considered, while nonsense was a positive predictor of depression and stress. with reference to darker styles, irony was found to be unrelated to depression but was observed as the best predictor of anxiety and stress. further, cynicism was the only (positive) predictor of depression, and no relationships emerged with regard to satire or sarcasm. clinical depressed people were found to use self-defeating humor more and self-enhancing humor less than non-depressed (kfrerer et al., 2019). cynicism is aimed at devaluing commonly recognized values and cynics exhibit a negative and destructive attitude, that can be reflected in poor well-being by lowering the quality of relationships (ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018). it can be assumed that depressed people, having a negative view of self, may prove envy and frustration towards people, that are often associated with depression (leahy, 2021). cynicism may become a way to directly attack others and express their discomfort. the main finding that emerged from this study is the negative relationship between benevolent humor and depres­ sion, anxiety, and stress, a finding that aligns with existing literature, which confirms the negative relationship of this style of humor with emotional distress. previous studies have established links between good-natured humor and more effective emotion regulation (samson & gross, 2012). moreover, individuals who habitually use benign humor tend to produce a greater share of positive reinterpretation, thereby resulting in minor stressful, anxious, and depressive experiences in their day-to-day life lives (perchtold et al., 2019). moreover, social and interpersonal aspects related to benevolent humor may influence health and well-being by increasing one's level of social support (martin, 2019). as the intent of benevolent humor is to arouse sympathies toward the shortcomings of fellow humans by discovering dis­ crepancies in everyday experiences and treating them with humor and benevolence, it represents an effective strategy for coping with stressful experiences (lefcourt & martin, 2012). thus, benevolent humor can help one understand the incongruities of life and the imperfections of the world, enabling them to treat others benevolently, encouraging the reappraisal of negative situations, and consequently, decreasing negative emotions and improving well-being (dionigi et al., 2021; perchtold et al., 2019). further, recent findings reveal that benevolent humor is negatively related to neuroticism (dionigi et al., 2022; ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018), which, in turn, is related to depression, anxiety, and stress (friedman, 2019). neuroticism is an important risk factor for psychiatric traits such as depression (kendler humor and emotional distress 364 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & myers, 2010; klein et al., 2009), and is longitudinally associated with episodic life stress (schneider, 2004), which represents a major risk factor for anxiety symptoms and disorders (clark et al., 1994). nonsense was found to be positively related to depression and stress, which may be explained by the unresolved incongruity within nonsense, which relates to experimentation with strangeness and ridiculousness with no specific purpose (ruch & heintz, 2016). many studies have linked rumination, defined as repetitive thoughts about emotionally relevant experiences, with mood disorders, particularly exacerbated stress and depression (whisman et al., 2020). rumi­ native thinking has also been linked to distorted interpretations of life events and augmented pessimism concerning positive events in the future (lyubomirsky & nolen-hoeksema, 1995). people who enjoy nonsense allow their minds to play with sense and nonsense without the need for resolving such incongruities (ruch, heintz, et al., 2018), and thus, may be more vulnerable to harboring repetitive thoughts regarding the negative aspects of their lives, thereby causing higher psychological distress. irony was found to be the best predictor of anxiety and stress. this comic style reflects a contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and its actuality, intending the opposite of the expressed meaning. similar to anxiety and stress, irony relates to emotional experience and leads to emotional responses. anxiety is a subjective feeling of fear or tension that leads to the perception of diverse and objectively harmless situations as threatening, causing individuals to react inappropriately to them (spielberger, 1966). the association between anxiety and cognitive distortions in the face of emotionally ambiguous situations is well-proven, as anxious individuals frequently interpret and evaluate such contexts more negatively, thereby intensifying their anxiety (hayes & hirsch, 2007). due to the ambiguity involved in irony, it is capable of conveying stressful stimuli for some people (milanowicz et al., 2017). additionally, worrying can direct cognitive resources in a specific direction, without posing attention to other important information and irony may lead to a more ambiguous perception of events, thereby cognitively orienting the individual to select only the negative aspects of the events and ignore the situational factors that could otherwise have altered their negative interpretations. irony may also be explained as a maladaptive coping strategy that individuals used to be perceived by others as capable of dealing with unpleasant and stressful situations while maintaining a high level of anxiety and stress. in this regard, existing empirical research has determined that coping with humor is positively related to worry, the cognitive aspect of anxiety (davey, 1993), further demonstrating that the functions of worry are frequently associated with active cognitive coping while anxiety is linked to avoidant coping. irony, as expressed in interactions, aims to create a mutual sense of superiority among others by stating things different from their intended meaning. since depression is characterized by prolonged depressed feelings for most of the day, markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities, feelings of worthlessness, or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day (apa, 2013), it seems reasonable that depression and irony. while cynicism was unrelated to anxiety and stress, it was a positive predictor of depression. this style of humor aims to devalue commonly recognized values, characterizing a negative and destructive attitude. cynics use disillu­ sionment and mockery to highlight weaknesses in the world. previous studies showed how cynicism was positively correlated to neuroticism (dionigi et al., 2021; ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018), which, in turn, relates to anxiety and negative affectivity (friedman, 2019). furthermore, the use of dark humor, namely cynicism, sarcasm, and irony has been associated with antagonism (perchtold et al., 2019), which represents the maladaptive extension of low levels of the classic “big five” trait, agreeableness (suzuki et al., 2017). using mockery to highlight weaknesses in the world may lead to a negative influence on well-being by lowering the quality of relationships (ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018). moreover, as cynicism was positively related to worry (dionigi et al., 2022), we expected a positive relationship across all three constructs. the missing link between cynicism, stress, and anxiety in this research may have occurred as a result of the instrument used to assess emotional distress. the depression anxiety stress scale (dass-21) evaluates anxiety and stress involving items focused more on physical, rather than, psychological aspects (e.g., “i was aware of dryness of my mouth” and “i experienced trembling” (e.g., in the hands). the few research works conducted thus far using the comic style markers highlighted the negative relationship between the mockery style, particularly cynicism, and cognitive facets of anxiety, such as worry (dionigi et al., 2022) and cognitive reappraisal (perchtold et al., 2019). thus, we assume that the comic style markers may be more centered on capturing psychological, rather than physical, aspects. it is worth mentioning that the correlations reported in the study are relatively small. at the time of writing there is little research conducted using the comic styles model, therefore a comparison with other studies is limited. however, dionigi, duradoni, & vagnoli 365 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ previous studies that investigated the relationship between the comic styles and subjective well-being (ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018) and comic styles and worry (the cognitive component of anxiety) and well-being (dionigi et al., 2021) found similar pattern of correlations. moreover, previous studies showed how personality traits represent the best predictors of psychological well-being while humor styles added only a small portion of explained variance (jovanovic, 2011). again, páez et al. (2013) investigated the incremental validity of humor styles in predicting happiness and psychological well-being, showing that, after controlling for personality traits, only two humor styles (self-enhancing and self-defeating) remained significant predictors of the two variables, adding only 2% of explained variance to the model. these results showed that the role of humor in predicting psychological well-being is limited (ruch & heintz, 2013), therefore we can state that our findings are in line with previous results. although these findings highlight a subject that has yet not been investigated, certain limitations regarding the findings require acknowledgment. first, the study was conducted on a sample of italian participants, and hence, further research is essential to confirm these results for other cultures and nationalities. second, only self-reports were employed. another limitation of our study is that the increase in the familywise error rate was not controlled for in the reported statistical analyses. overall, we consider our findings to be relatively preliminary and encourage replication. future research should extend the assessment to multimethod data, such as other-reports to extend forms of obtained data beyond self-perceptions. third, due to the correlational nature of the study, implications of causality cannot be established. finally, the relationship between humor and emotional distress may be bidirectional. other research designs are required to investigate the relationships of these variables even further. in conclusion, the present study first investigated the relationships between the eight comic styles, and the three facets of emotional distress, namely depression, anxiety, and stress. benevolent humor was negatively related to all three constructs and was the best (negative) predictor of depression. irony was positively related to anxiety, which was best predicted by stress, while cynicism was found to relate positively to depression. these results support the proposition that specific categories of humor may affect emotional distress in various ways. funding: the authors have no funding to report acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: no potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. data availability: the datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. references abel, m. h. 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(2019). fear and humor appeals in “the real cost” campaign: evidence of potential effectiveness in message pretesting. american journal of preventive medicine, 56(2), s31–s39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.07.033 appendix the eight comic styles can be differentiated as lighter or darker styles of humor, which collectively include fun, humor, nonsense, wit, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism (ruch, heintz, et al., 2018). these styles were originally developed to describe literary work and are used here to describe individual differences. specifically, the features are intention/goal (examples taken from wit: to illuminate like a flashlight; desire for being brilliant), object (words and thoughts), attitude of the agent (tense, vain, takes oneself seriously), behavior towards other people (callous, malicious; without sympathy for “victims”), ideal audience (educated society that appreciates wit), method (surprising punch line; “sensation” of the unusual combination), and linguistic peculiarities (brief, pointed, enjoying contrasting stylistic devices) (ruch, wagner, & heintz, 2018). the four lighter styles, which relate to benign and social affect, behaviors, cognitions, and goals are: dionigi, duradoni, & vagnoli 369 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 358–370 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000063 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00006 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118315927.ch10 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2011.585069 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.05.042 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2004.04.005 https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12432 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.05.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-1-4832-3131-0.50006-8 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12235 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.003 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1137624 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.09.035 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2018.07.033 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. fun: aimed at spreading good mood and good companionship. people using this comic style are considered to be social, jovial, and also agreeable. 2. humor: aimed at arousing sympathy towards the shortcomings of a fellow human, discovering discrepancies in everyday experiences, and treating them in a humorous and benevolent manner. 3. nonsense: based on experimentation with incongruities and ridiculousness with no specific purpose. it is mainly based on presenting ridiculous aspects of things that play with sense and logic, enjoying contradictions and absurdities. 4. wit: which relates to the ability to create clever connections between ideas and thoughts, that are not necessarily connected. conversely, the darker styles these are generally negative styles of humor that lack this benevolent affect are mostly based on mockery and ridicule. darker styles of humor include: 1. irony: reflecting a contrast or incongruity between expectations for a situation and reality, characterizing the opposite of the expressed meaning. it is often used to state things in opposition to their meaning, thus confusing those who are not “part of the group”. 2. satire: directed at criticizing and correcting shortcomings, misconduct, and moral wrongdoings with the intent to improve the world. although it appears similar to sarcasm and cynicism in its criticism and ridicule, it is combined with the moral aim of correcting others. 3. sarcasm: grounded on the need to be critical of others and convey contempt. sarcasm can be used to criticize and ridicule others people, institutions or topics. 4. cynicism: aimed at devaluing commonly recognized values, ridiculing the weaknesses in the world and disdaining moral concepts, which are considered ridiculous. about the authors alberto dionigi is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist who received his phd in psychology of communication and cognitive processes at the university of macerata (italy). he is a member of the ishs (international society of humor studies), co-editor-inchief of the rivista italiana di studi sull’umorismo (risu.biz) and his main interests concern the psychology of humor and healthcare clowning. mirko duradoni received the ph.d. degree in information engineering in 2020 and holds a master’s degree in psychology from the university of florence, italy. he is currently a member of the virtual human dynamics laboratory at the university of florence. he has been involved in three eu level projects, namely inspires (id: 741677), erasmus+ restore (it02-ka204-063248) and “phoenix: the rise of citizens’ voices for a greener europe” (id: 101037328). laura vagnoli is a psychologist in education and development at the pediatric psychology services of meyer children’s hospital in florence (italy). she co-founded the international research group “healthcare clowning research international network” (h-crin+). she is a member of international society for humor studies (ishs) and co-editor-in-chief of the rivista italiana di studi sull’umoris­ mo (risu.biz). she has published extensively on the use of non-pharmacological techniques to reduce pain and anxiety in hospitalized children. humor and emotional distress 370 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ humor and emotional distress (introduction) humor, depression, anxiety, and stress aim of the study method participants measures procedure statistical analysis results relationship between demographics, humor, depression, anxiety, and stress predictors of negative emotional states discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references appendix about the authors believing is doing: emotion regulation beliefs are associated with emotion regulation behavioral choices and subjective well-being research reports believing is doing: emotion regulation beliefs are associated with emotion regulation behavioral choices and subjective well-being catherine nicole marie ortner* a, esther lydia briner b, zdravko marjanovic a [a] department of psychology, thompson rivers university, kamloops, canada. [b] department of psychology, carleton university, ottawa, canada. abstract research in emotion regulation has begun to examine various predictors of emotion regulation choices, including individual differences and contextual variables. however, scant attention has been paid to the extent to which people’s beliefs about the specific consequences of emotion regulation strategies for the components of an emotional response and long-term well-being predict their behavioral regulatory choices and, in turn, their subjective well-being. participants completed measures to assess their beliefs about the consequences of functional and dysfunctional strategies, behavioral choices of emotion regulation strategies in negative scenarios, and subjective wellbeing. the model that fit the data indicated partial mediation whereby beliefs were associated with approximately 9% of the variance in choices. emotion regulation choices were related to subjective well-being, with an additional direct effect between beliefs and well-being. this suggests beliefs play a role in people’s regulatory choices. future research should explore how beliefs interact with individual differences and contextual variables to better understand why people regulate their emotions in different ways and, ultimately, to help individuals make healthy emotion regulation choices. keywords: emotion regulation, subjective well-being, beliefs, affect, emotional intelligence europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 received: 2016-07-19. accepted: 2016-10-30. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: nicholas kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: thompson rivers university, 900 mcgill road, kamloops, british columbia, v2c 0c8. e-mail: cortner@tru.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. emotion regulation—the maintenance or modulation of the various components of emotional experience (gross & thompson, 2007)—is fundamental to human performance, health, and well-being (aldao, nolen-hoeksema, & schweizer, 2010; balzarotti, biassoni, villani, prunas, & velotti, 2016; desteno, gross, & kubzansky, 2013; tamir, 2009). the process model of emotion regulation (gross, 2001) proposes that emotion regulation strategies can be described in terms of whether they occur early (antecedent) or late (response-focused) in the emotion response. for example, reappraisal, thinking about a situation in a different way in order to change one’s feelings, is thought to operate early in the generation of an emotion response. similarly, attentional deployment (reorienting one’s attention to alternative stimuli), situation selection, and situation modification are all thought to occur before the emotion has fully unfolded. in contrast, strategies such as suppression of facial expressions and acting out are thought to occur after the emotional response has started to unfold. early research on emotion regulation in adults assessed the consequences of such strategies (in particular reappraisal and expression suppression) for expressive behavior, subjective experience, physiology, and cognition, as well as social relationships and well-being, and distinguished between putatively adaptive and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ maladaptive strategies (gross, 2001, 2002; gross & john, 2003). recent findings have honed this distinction, suggesting that flexibility in emotion regulation, rather than rigidly favoring one strategy, is beneficial for psychological health (aldao & nolen-hoeksema, 2012a, 2012b; kashdan & rottenberg, 2010). it has been argued that no emotion goes unregulated (campos, frankel, & camras, 2004; kappas, 2011; thompson, 2011). however, our understanding of why people choose to regulate their emotions in different ways is limited. several variables might drive the selection of one or another strategy in a given situation, such as the intensity of the emotional stimulus (sheppes & gross, 2011; sheppes, scheibe, suri, & gross, 2011), external incentives (sheppes et al., 2014), emotional intelligence (peña-sarrionandia, mikolajczak, & gross, 2015), and other internal (e.g., cognitive control) and external (e.g., access to social support) resources (urry & gross, 2010). research has also shown that beliefs about the benefits of particular emotional states for subsequent task performance predict emotion regulation choices (tamir & ford, 2012). however, little is known about how knowledge or beliefs about the outcomes of emotion regulation strategies for emotional responding and wellbeing predict implementation of those strategies and, in turn, actual well-being. in a survey of lay beliefs about down-regulation of negative emotions, loewenstein (2007) found that students endorsed the use of strategies that have been shown in the literature to be adaptive, such as reappraisal (changing how one thinks about a situation in order to change how one feels) and distraction, as well as strategies that have been shown to be maladaptive, such as suppression. participants also reported that both kinds of strategies (adaptive and maladaptive) could be effective. however, the study was purely descriptive in nature and examined only a limited number of strategies in response to a small number of vignettes. other researchers have examined how beliefs about the controllability of emotions predict emotion regulation and well-being. believing that negative moods can be alleviated is associated with higher positive affect (catanzaro et al., 2014) and less negative affect and depression (catanzaro & mearns, 1990; catanzaro et al., 2014). in addition, such beliefs predict use of adaptive coping strategies (kirsch, mearns, & catanzaro, 1990). similarly, research on implicit beliefs about emotions suggests that believing emotions are malleable, rather than fixed, is associated with the use of reappraisal (schroder, dawood, yalch, donnellan, & moser, 2015; tamir, john, srivastava, & gross, 2007) and that reappraisal implementation mediates the relation between implicit beliefs and well-being outcomes, including life satisfaction, self-esteem, stress, and depression (de castella et al., 2013). in sum, believing that one can control one’s emotions predicts greater use of adaptive strategies, such as reappraisal, and subsequent well-being. the emotional intelligence literature has also tackled the relation between emotion regulation knowledge and well-being (maccann & roberts, 2008). in these studies, emotion regulation knowledge is assessed by asking people to select the best response to a number of vignettes (maccann & roberts, 2008; mayer, salovey, caruso, & sitarenios, 2003). on these measures, emotion regulation knowledge is positively associated with well-being (burrus et al., 2012; maccann & roberts, 2008). however, these studies do not address people’s beliefs about the specific consequences of individual emotion regulation strategies, such as their effects on affect, physiology, and long-term well-being. an important, and as yet, unanswered question is whether or not believing that particular emotion regulation strategies have specific beneficial consequences for emotional experience and well-being predicts greater use of these strategies and, in turn, well-being. for example, does believing that reappraisal will result in advantageous changes in subjective feelings and physiology predict greater use of that strategy? do people ortner, briner, & marjanovic 61 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ who believe adaptive emotion regulation strategies to be beneficial over maladaptive strategies actually use them more often? the current study was a preliminary exploration of this issue. we used a recently developed measure, the emotion regulation profile – revised (erp-r; nelis, quoidbach, hansenne, & mikolajczak, 2011), which was designed to assess people’s emotion regulation preferences in response to emotionally evocative scenarios. the erp-r measures down-regulation of negative emotions and up-regulation of positive emotions. these factors are moderately correlated and both are associated with well-being (nelis et al., 2011; quoidbach, berry, hansenne, & mikolajczak, 2010). however, because of constraints on testing time, we focused on downregulation of negative emotions for the present study. a strength of the erp-r is that it assesses self-reported preferences for the use of both functional and dysfunctional strategies, which have been deemed as such by the empirical literature. instead of just focusing on suppression and reappraisal, the most commonly studied strategies in the early research on emotion regulation, the erp-r asks about the use of four functional strategies (situation modification—changing the situation, attention reorientation—shifting attention to an alternative stimulus, positive reappraisal—thinking about the situation in a positive way, and emotion expression—sharing feelings with others) and four dysfunctional strategies (learned helplessness—doing nothing to improve one’s feelings, substance use—using alcohol or other substances to change one’s feelings, rumination—focusing on negative thoughts and feelings about a situation, and acting out—behaving in a way dictated by the emotion, e.g., yelling when angry) in each of several emotionally evocative scenarios. in order to examine participants’ beliefs about the consequences of these emotion regulation strategies, we developed items to assess beliefs about five dimensions of emotional responding: facial expressions, bodily changes, subjective feelings, long-term well-being, and cognition. these dimensions of interest were selected based on the extant literature on the consequences of various emotion regulation strategies. for example, research has shown that attempts to suppress facial expressions of emotion are successful in changing expressions but can result in increased physiological responses and are cognitively costly (richards & gross, 1999). on the other hand, reappraisal, although also cognitively effortful (ortner, zelazo, & anderson, 2013), results in reduced subjective feelings and better long-term well-being (gross & john, 2003). we hypothesized that emotion regulation behavioral choices would mediate the relation between beliefs and well-being—i.e., that believing functional strategies to be beneficial over dysfunctional strategies would be associated with more adaptive emotion regulation choices overall and, in turn, enhanced subjective well-being (figure 1). the relation between beliefs and well-being may be both indirect (mediated by emotion regulation behavioral choices) and direct (whereby beliefs are self-confirming and directly result in changes in well-being) (cf. kirsch et al., 1990). therefore, we tested different models to determine which best accounted for the findings. believing is doing 62 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. hypothesized model of the relation between emotion regulation beliefs, emotion regulation behavioral choices, and subjective well-being. method participants one hundred and seventeen undergraduate students from the introductory psychology participant pool at a small university took part in the study. ethical approval was granted from the university research ethics board. all participants gave informed consent to take part in the study and received a 2% course bonus credit for their participation. from the original sample of 117, we deleted five cases that contained ≥ 10% of missing data based on the premise that these data were likely to bias our statistical analysis (bennett, 2001). in sem particularly, missing data necessitates greater sample sizes to compensate for their biasing effect (wolf, harrington, clark, & miller, 2013). moreover, all five of the deleted cases contained non-random missing data, such that in each case responders stopped answering items partly through the questionnaire and left the later items in the questionnaire blank, showing a lack of motivation to answer items conscientiously. an additional nine were eliminated due to their low crs scores, which identified them as random responders (i.e., cases with crs sum score ≤ 3). this constitutes a random responding rate of 7.69% and is consistent with random responding rates found in other undergraduate samples surveyed with the crs (e.g., marjanovic, holden, struthers, cribbie, & greenglass, 2015; marjanovic et al., 2014) and similar validity measures (see meade & craig, 2012). (note that all statistics and indices were strengthened and improved after the deletion of the nine identified random responders). the final sample (n = 103) identified themselves as 69.90% “female,” 29.10% “male,” and 1.00% “other.” their mean age was 20.00 (sd = 3.28). materials and design participants completed a battery of self-report measures to assess: 1) participants’ choices of emotion regulation strategies in negative scenarios; 2) participants’ beliefs about emotion regulation strategies; and 3) participants’ subjective happiness and life satisfaction, as part of a larger study. measure of emotion regulation beliefs in the absence of measures to assess beliefs about the consequences of emotion regulation, we developed several items to assess participant beliefs about each of the eight strategies assessed by the erp-r in five domains of emotional responding (cognitive effort, subjective feelings, facial expressions, bodily responses, and well-being). participants were reminded of the eight emotion regulation strategies (four functional and four ortner, briner, & marjanovic 63 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dysfunctional) assessed in the erp-r in statement form (e.g., for emotion expression, “sharing your emotions with other people...”). for each strategy, participants rated on a seven-point scale (1 = not at all to 7 = very much) the extent to which they believed responding in that way would be “…mentally effortful for you,” “…reduce your negative feelings,” “…decrease your bodily reactions (e.g., heart rate, stomach butterflies, etc.),” “…decrease your facial expressions of emotion,” and “…increase your overall well-being.” a single score on the erb was derived by first examining the item-total correlations for the five beliefs for each emotion regulation strategy separately. in each case, “mentally effortful” correlated poorly (from r = .00 to r = .39) with the other items. furthermore, for each strategy, cronbach’s α ranged from .65 to .78 when including all five beliefs but rose to between .81 and .91 when excluding mental effort. therefore, the mental effort item was dropped. subsequently, to obtain a summative estimate of the extent to which participants believed functional strategies were overall more beneficial than dysfunctional strategies, we computed mean scores for beliefs about functional strategies and dysfunctional strategies, and finally a composite score whereby beliefs about dysfunctional strategies were subtracted from beliefs about functional strategies. higher scores reflected the tendency to believe that functional strategies are beneficial over dysfunctional strategies. emotion regulation profile-revised (erp-r) the erp-r (nelis et al., 2011) was developed to assess individual differences in the choice of emotion regulation strategies in response to examples of real-life situations that would normally elicit mildly negative and mildly positive emotions. for the purposes of the current study, we administered only the nine scenarios eliciting negative emotions (two for each of anger, sadness, and fear, and one for each of shame, guilt, and jealousy). each scenario was followed by eight possible reactions: four strategies deemed by previous empirical research to be functional or adaptive (i.e., associated with positive indicators of mental and somatic health), and four strategies considered dysfunctional or maladaptive (i.e., associated with negative indicators of mental/somatic health). the functional strategies were situation modification (e.g., getting help from a friend to prepare for a presentation), attention reorientation (e.g., thinking about a happy memory), positive reappraisal (e.g., looking for the positive side of a situation), and emotion expression (e.g., sharing emotions). the dysfunctional strategies were learned helplessness (e.g., doing nothing to make a situation better), rumination (e.g., focusing on negative thoughts), substance abuse (e.g., using alcohol to escape a situation), and acting out (e.g., yelling when angry). for each scenario, respondents were asked to select the strategy or strategies that best described their most likely reactions in the situation. total scores are obtained by summing 1 point for each functional strategy selected and -1 point for each dysfunctional strategy selected. a total overall score for the down-regulation of negative emotions was computed, higher scores reflecting more adaptive emotion regulation overall. prior research has shown that the erp-r correlates with measures of cognitive emotion regulation and predicts positive affect and mental health, while being distinct from non-verbal and verbal abilities (nelis et al., 2011). the reliability for overall choices (functional-dysfunctional strategies) in the current study was α = .76. subjective well-being we assessed the three components of subjective well-being (lyubomirsky, sheldon, & schkade, 2005), by examining life satisfaction and positive and negative affect. the satisfaction with life scale (swls; pavot & diener, 1993) assesses the life satisfaction component of subjective well-being. previous research has shown 2-month test-retest reliability of .82 (pavot & diener, 1993). the swls shows good convergent validity with other measures of well-being (diener, emmons, larson, & griffin, 1985). it consists of five items (e.g., “the believing is doing 64 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conditions of my life are excellent.”), to which participants respond on a seven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, to 7 = strongly agree). a mean of scores across all items was computed. following huta (2013), participants responded to four items assessing positive affect (“happy,” “enjoyment/fun,” “joyful,” and “pleased”) and five items assessing negative affect (“unhappy,” “frustrated,” “depressed,” “angry/hostile,” and “worried/ anxious”). for each item, the instruction was to “please indicate how much you typically feel each of the following states” on a seven-point likert scale (1 = not at all, to 7 = extremely). mean scores were computed for positive and negative affect separately. huta (2013) found that while life satisfaction resulted from motives to pursue both eudaimonic and hedonic activities, positive affect and negative affect was associated with motives to pursue hedonic activities. conscientious responders scale (crs) the crs (marjanovic et al., 2014) consists of five items that are embedded amongst other items in a questionnaire to identify non-conscientious responders. the items are instructional (e.g., “to respond to this question, please choose option number five, ‘slightly agree’”) and scored as correct (1) or incorrect (0). following guidelines from marjanovic et al. (2014), participants scoring a total of 0, 1, or 2, out of a possible 5, were considered random responders and were omitted from the analyses. procedures participants completed the measures in a group session, taking approximately 35 minutes to complete the full battery of measures. after the questionnaires were collected, participants were fully debriefed. results descriptive statistics and correlations for all the study variables are presented in table 1. in addition, regarding demographics, sex (male = 0, female = 1) was negatively correlated with erp-r scores (r = -.20, p = .040) and marginally positively correlated with negative affect (r = .18, p = .067). in other words, women reported less adaptive emotion regulation and more negative affect than men. age was uncorrelated with the other variables. regarding the study variables of interest, as predicted, beliefs (i.e., the sum of functional-dysfunctional belief scores) positively correlated with erp-r (i.e., the sum of functional-dysfunctional behavioral choices) scores and satisfaction with life, and negatively correlated with negative affect. erp-r scores correlated positively with satisfaction with life and positive affect, and negatively with negative affect. specifically, individuals who reported using more functional behavioral strategies than dysfunctional strategies reported higher levels of subjective well-being. finally, all three subjective well-being measures were strongly and significantly intercorrelated, all rs were above .50 and all ps were below .001. ortner, briner, & marjanovic 65 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, and cronbach’s alpha) and pearson correlation coefficients among emotion regulation beliefs, choices, and subjective well-being. 1 2 3 4 5 1. er beliefs – 2. er choices .31* – 3. pa .33* .30* – 4. na -.29* -.41** -.66** – 5. swls .34** .44** .56** -.53** – m 9.72 6.79 5.05 3.27 23.84 sd 4.88 6.65 1.01 1.24 6.06 α .76 .88 .85 .84 note. α = cronbach’s alpha statistic. er beliefs = beliefs about functional-dysfunctional strategies; er choices = emotion regulation profile-revised down-regulation of negative emotions; pa = positive affect; na = negative affect; swls = satisfaction with life scale. *p < .01. **p < .001 (two-tailed). model analysis structural equation modeling was conducted using amos software with maximum likelihood estimation (arbuckle, 2013). model fit indices were evaluated with the standards recommended by hu and bentler (1999) and kline (2011). good or acceptable model fit was assessed with χ2-p-value ≥ .05, goodness-of-fit index (gfi), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker-lewis index (tli), incremental fit index (ifi) ≥ .95, and, standardized root mean square residual (srmr) ≤ .08. emotion regulation beliefs (functional-dysfunctional beliefs) and emotion regulation behavioral choices (assessed by the erp-r) were analyzed as discrete variables, whereas a latent variable was created for subjective well-being, which was comprised of positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life as indicators (kline, 2011). bootstrapping was used for the analysis of mediating effects. the hypothesized model produced results which indicated a significantly mediated relationship between beliefs and subjective well-being (the 1,000 samples bootstrapped p-value of the indirect relation = .008). all of the fit indices were within the acceptable range: χ2(4, n = 103) = 8.50, p = .075, gfi = .969, cfi = .968, tli = .920, ifi = .969, srmr = .041. review of the standardized parameter estimates (see figure 2) of the model showed that, as predicted, emotion regulation beliefs were significantly predictive of emotion regulation behavioral choices (β = .31, p = .001), which in turn were significantly predictive of subjective well-being (β = .40, p < .001). the latent variable for subjective well-being was strongly associated with its three indicator variables, all of which yielded standardized betas above .70. the model showed a significant indirect relation between regulation beliefs and well-being (bootstrapped p = .008). however, the direct path between emotion regulation beliefs and subjective well-being was also statistically significant after controlling for the influence of the mediator—behavioral choices (c' = β = .29, p = .004 vs. c [the relation between variables without accounting for a mediator variable] = β = .38, p < .001). altogether, the path between regulation beliefs and well-being and the fit statistics indicate the relation between beliefs and well-being is only partially, not fully, mediated by emotion regulation behavioral choicesi. beliefs predicted 9.3% of the variance in emotion regulation choices. together, emotion regulation beliefs and choices predicted 31.4% of the variance in subjective well-being. believing is doing 66 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. model showing standardized regression coefficients for the relation between emotion regulation beliefs, emotion regulation behavioral choices, and subjective well-being. emotion regulation choices partially mediated the relation between emotion regulation beliefs and subjective well-being. *p < .05. discussion the goal of the current study was to examine how beliefs about the consequences of emotion regulation strategies for emotional responding predict emotion regulation behavioral choices and, in turn, subjective wellbeing. we hypothesized a model where emotion regulation choices mediate the relation between emotion regulation beliefs and well-being. results indicated that a model with partial mediation resulted in the best fit to the data. the findings are novel in demonstrating emotion regulation beliefs as a predictor of emotion regulation choices and subsequent well-being. prior research has examined other predictors, such as stimulus intensity (sheppes & gross, 2011), emotional intelligence (peña-sarrionandia et al., 2015), and beliefs about the consequences of emotion regulation for task performance (tamir & ford, 2012). we took a new approach by asking people about their beliefs about the consequences of various emotion regulation strategies for specific dimensions of emotional responding and well-being. specifically, participants reported on the extent to which they believed functional strategies (such as reappraisal and attention reorientation) and dysfunctional strategies (such as learned helplessness and rumination) would change subjective feelings, physiological responses, facial expressions of emotion, and overall well-being. importantly, we found that the more people believed functional strategies to be beneficial (i.e., reduce subjective feelings, physiological responses, and facial expressions, and increase well-being) relative to dysfunctional strategies, the more people reported they would choose to use those functional strategies relative to dysfunctional strategies. furthermore, emotion regulation choices partially mediated the relation between beliefs and self-reported subjective well-being. that is, beliefs predicted wellbeing directly, but also via their prediction of emotion regulation choices. the results have important implications for our understanding of why people choose to regulate their emotions in different ways. previous research has shown that lay individuals may believe both adaptive and maladaptive strategies to be effective for regulating emotions (loewenstein, 2007), but has not examined the relation between these beliefs, emotion regulation choices, and well-being. believing a strategy to be beneficial might be just one precondition to using it and potentially experiencing its benefits for down-regulation of negative emotions and subsequent well-being. for example, someone may know that reappraisal is effective for changing their subjective experience of emotion, but they may not always desire to implement it, they may lack ortner, briner, & marjanovic 67 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the cognitive resources to be able to implement it effectively, or the strategy may only be effective in certain contexts. we found that beliefs predicted 9% of the variance in emotion regulation choices, demonstrating that they do play a theoretically important (when considering the numerous other variables that might predict such choices in any given moment) role in predicting emotion regulation behavioral choices. in addition, beliefs and emotion regulation choices together predicted 31% of the variance in subjective well-being. four of the dimensions of regulatory consequences that we examined (decreases in subjective feelings, physiological responses, and facial expressions and increase in overall well-being) had high internal consistency for each emotion regulation strategy. that is, if people believed a particular strategy to be effective for reducing their subjective feelings, they also tended to believe that it would be effective in producing the other consequences. however, beliefs about the cognitive effort required for engaging in a particular regulatory strategy did not correlate with the other consequences and so was not included in our final composite beliefs score. the finding that beliefs about mental effort did not correlate with beliefs about other consequences of emotion regulation is perhaps not surprising: people may expect that controlling their emotions will have similar consequences for their physiology, subjective experience, and facial expressions, and that these may contribute to well-being. in contrast, the mental effort required to regulate one’s emotions is related more to the process of regulating one’s emotions rather than the consequences for emotional experience. in addition, the extent to which regulating emotions in a particular way is effortful does not necessarily predict the effectiveness of that strategy. other research has suggested that people do modulate their choice of emotion regulation strategy according to stimulus intensity, and hence the effort required for regulation, especially in the case of reappraisal (sheppes et al., 2014). future work could examine this issue in more detail with the scenarios and the range of strategies assessed in the erp-r. the current results also add to the existing literature on how emotion regulation choices relate to well-being and the criterion validity of the erp-r. in the published research on the erp-r to date, healthy emotion regulation choices (whether looking at down-regulation of negative emotions, up-regulation of positive emotions, or a score reflecting overall downand up-regulation) have been shown to predict a range of outcomes, including mental health, physical health, and happiness (nelis et al., 2011). in the current study, we found that subjective well-being, assessed by the three components of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction (lyubomirsky et al., 2005), was also related to emotion regulation choices. limitations and future directions a limitation of the current study is its correlational nature. mediation analyses imply causal relations among variables and yet we cannot be certain of the direction of the relationships examined in the models. although we examined one plausible alternative model (that emotion regulation choices predict beliefs, rather than the other way round), there are other models that could have been tested. an important next step would be to demonstrate experimentally that modulating beliefs about emotion regulation would change emotion regulation choices and subsequent well-being. future treatment studies could test this model. longitudinal research would also enable us to establish temporal precedence in the current model. it would also be important to explore how beliefs and other variables, such as personality, cognitive resources, experience, motivation, and context, might interact to predict emotion regulation choices. a second limitation is in our measurement of people’s emotion regulation choices. rather than assess emotion regulation implementation in real-time in response to a real emotionally evocative event, we asked participants, believing is doing 68 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ via the erp-r, to reflect on what their regulatory choices would be in response to several scenarios. this approach assumes that participants are willing and able to accurately report on what their behaviour might be in such scenarios. participants may be motivated to respond in socially desirable ways about how they would behave in emotionally evocative situations. in addition, we know that at least some emotion regulation is implicit, taking place outside of conscious awareness (gyurak, gross, & etkin, 2011; hopp, troy, & mauss, 2011; williams, bargh, nocera, & gray, 2009). therefore, people’s ability to report on how they would regulate their emotions in given situations may be limited, even if they have previously encountered similar events. in addition, although the erp-r was designed to assess regulation of both positive and negative emotions, we only assessed responses to negative scenarios. future work should examine whether the same model holds for the relation between beliefs about the regulation of positive emotional states, emotion regulation choices in pleasant scenarios, and well-being. another limitation of the current study is the restricted range of the sample, which was a convenience sample of undergraduate students. emotion regulation strategy use and ability, as well as experiences of positive and negative affect, change with age (opitz, gross, & urry, 2012). therefore, future research could examine the developmental trajectory of beliefs about the consequences of emotion regulation and the relation between beliefs and strategy choice, as well as how beliefs interact with other variables to predict age-related changes in emotion regulation. we only examined the down-regulation of negative emotions. previous research has shown that up-regulation of positive emotions is also predictive of well-being and mental health (nelis et al., 2011; quoidbach et al., 2010). down-regulation of negative emotions and up-regulation of positive emotions are moderately correlated: while there is some overlap in these constructs, they are also distinct and so may have different predictors and consequences. therefore, it would be important to examine whether beliefs also play a role in predicting emotion regulation in response to positive events. finally, one might say that the study sample size was on the small side (n = 104) to satisfy some recommendations for sem analysis. we argue, however, the sample size was sufficiently large given the simplicity of the model. the model we tested contained only two observed variables and 1 latent variable with three indicator variables, and the data were all normally distributed with no missing values (see wolf, harrington, clark, & miller, 2013). with only 10 parameters in the model to estimate, it meets the conservative rule-of-thumb standard of 10 times the number of cases-to-parameters (the n:q rule; kline, 2011). moreover, recent simulation studies of sem sample size requirements have shown that small samples (e.g., n < 100) are adequate when models lack complexity. for example, in a recent study researchers showed a sample as small as 50 to 70 was sufficient to achieve satisfactory fit statistics for a sem of functional brain connectivity containing four latent variables (sideridis, simos, papanicolaou, & fletcher, 2014). thus, although our sample appears small, it is sufficient for sem purposes given the simplicity of our model. despite the above limitations, the current study adds to existing experimental and correlational evidence indicating an association between both explicit and implicit emotion regulation with well-being (denny & ochsner, 2014; gross & john, 2003; hopp et al., 2011) and further confirms the validity of the negative scenarios in the erp-r (nelis et al., 2011). ortner, briner, & marjanovic 69 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions in sum, we found that beliefs about the consequences of emotion regulation strategies are associated with their use, and in turn, subjective well-being. further work assessing these constructs with positive emotional scenarios and measuring multiple contextual and individual difference predictors will help add to our understanding of the role of beliefs in emotion regulation choices. notes i) we also tested the alternative model that making adaptive emotion regulation choices would predict emotion regulation beliefs and, in turn, subjective well-being. all model fit indices (i.e., χ2, gfi, cfi, tli, ifi, and srmr) indicated poorer fit than in the hypothesised model. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aldao, a., & nolen-hoeksema, s. 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(2013). sample size requirements for structural equation models: an evaluation of power, bias, and solution propriety. educational and psychological measurement, 73(6), 913-934. doi:10.1177/0013164413495237 about the authors catherine ortner is an associate professor at thompson rivers university, canada. she studies the predictors and consequences of emotion regulation, with the goal to understand ways in which we can facilitate adaptive emotion regulation and improved well-being. ortner, briner, & marjanovic 73 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-014-9652-6 http://doi.org/10.1177/1088868310395778 http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611418350 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0030831 http://doi.org/10.1177/0013164414525397 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01617.x http://doi.org/10.1037/a0027223 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.4.731 http://doi.org/10.1177/1754073910380969 http://doi.org/10.1177/0963721410388395 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0017745 http://doi.org/10.1177/0013164413495237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ esther briner has a background in biological sciences and psychology. currently she is a graduate student at carleton university, in ottawa, canada. her research interests focus on contributing to the area of health psychology by identifying factors to improve health outcomes and psychological well-being for individuals and community. zdravko marjanovic studied psychology at york university in toronto, canada. his research examines the intersection of social, personality, and health psychological factors. in particular, he examines how economic crises affect perceptions of personal financial vulnerability and psychological health, and how to identify random responders in questionnaire data. believing is doing 74 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 60–74 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1248 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ believing is doing (introduction) method participants materials and design procedures results model analysis discussion limitations and future directions conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors effect of congruence between sound and video on heart rate and self-reported measures of emotion research reports effect of congruence between sound and video on heart rate and selfreported measures of emotion sebastián calderón a, raúl rincón a, andrés araujo b, carlos gantiva* b [a] department of engineering, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. [b] department of psychology, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. abstract most studies of emotional responses have used unimodal stimuli (e.g., pictures or sounds) or congruent bimodal stimuli (e.g., video clips with sound), but little is known about the emotional response to incongruent bimodal stimuli. the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of congruence between auditory and visual bimodal stimuli on heart rate and self-reported measures of emotional dimension, valence and arousal. subjects listened to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant sounds, accompanied by videos with and without content congruence, and heart rate was recorded. dimensions of valence and arousal of each bimodal stimulus were then self-reported. the results showed that heart rate depends of the valence of the sounds but not of the congruence of the bimodal stimuli. the valence and arousal scores changed depending on the congruence of the bimodal stimuli. these results suggest that the congruence of bimodal stimuli affects the subjective perception of emotion. keywords: bimodal stimuli, congruence, heart rate, valence, arousal europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 received: 2018-01-25. accepted: 2018-04-06. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia, department of psychology, neuroscience and neuropsychology laboratory, address: cr 8 h # 172-20. e-mail: cgantiva@usbbog.edu.co this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. emotion is a prerequisite for action that results from the activation of one of two primary motivational systems (i.e., appetitive and defensive) by the perception of a stimulus (lang, 1995). when the appetitive motivational system is activated, approach behaviors are generated, with the goal of consummation, procreation, or nurturance. conversely, when the defensive motivational system is activated, defense behaviors to protect the organism from threat are generated. the activation of these two systems modulates reflex responses (e.g., heart rate) that are compatible or incompatible with the required behavior (alpers, adolph, & pauli, 2011). emotional reactions to external cues are modulated by valence and arousal dimensions. valence dimension (i.e., pleasure or displeasure) is related to the active motivational system, and arousal dimension is related to the intensity of emotional response (bradley, codispoti, cuthbert, & lang, 2001). the heart rate response is one of the most used physiological measures in studies of emotion (barry, 1984; berntson, quigley, & lozano, 2007; lang, 1995; obrist, 1981; turpin, 1986). heart rate is sensitive to the interaction between valence and arousal europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ (bradley et al., 2001) and is a reliable indicator of attentional engagement that is generated by the stimuli (bradley, 2009; campbell, wood, & mcbride, 1997). previous studies have reported the effects of affective stimulus presentation on heart rate. bradley et al. (2001), found a pattern of initial deceleration of heart rate during the presentation of affective pictures. higher deceleration occurred in response to unpleasant and pleasant pictures with high arousal compared with neutral pictures. similar results were found with the presentation of affective sounds (i.e., initial deceleration, followed by acceleration and deceleration). unpleasant sounds that evoked high arousal generated greater initial heart rate deceleration than pleasant sounds that evoked high arousal and neutral sounds (bradley & lang, 2000). these results suggest that initial heart rate deceleration occurs as a result of the response of attention that is generated by the interaction between valence and arousal and parasympathetic dominance of the autonomic nervous system (bradley & lang, 2007a). studies with motion pictures compared with still pictures have reported greater heart rate deceleration while viewing motion pictures, and movement affected self-reported valence and arousal (detenber, simons, & bennett, 1998; simons, detenber, roedema, & reiss, 1999). studies with videos found greater heart rate deceleration in response to unpleasant film clips compared with pleasant and neutral film clips (bos, jentgens, beckers, & kindt, 2013; codispoti, surcinelli, & baldaro, 2008; gomez, zimmermann, guttormsen-schär, & danuser, 2005). however, when the pictures contained a phobic stimulus (e.g., snakes or spiders; hamm, cuthbert, globisch, & vaitl, 1997) or when the videos contained an explicit threat or a phobic stimulus (courtney, dawson, schell, iyer, & parsons, 2010; palomba, sarlo, angrilli, mini, & stegagno, 2000), initial heart rate acceleration was observed, consistent with a sympathetic response of the autonomic nervous system. in everyday life, emotional experience is often influenced by both visual and auditory information. the bimodal integration of these stimuli is important for understanding the emotional experience. studies of emotional responses to bimodal stimuli have been performed using self-report measures and physiological responses. for example, cox (2008) used self-report measures to evaluate the interaction between unpleasant sounds and pictures that were either associated or not associated with the sounds. this author found that pictures that were associated with sounds (with the exception of disgusting sounds) increased the level of sound aversion in some cases. scherer and larsen (2011) evaluated the effect of cross-modal priming, a phenomenon that occurs when a prime that is presented in one sensory modality (e.g., auditory) influences responses to a target in a different sensory modality (e.g., visual). they used affective sounds (i.e., pleasant and unpleasant) as a prime for affective visual stimuli (i.e., pleasant and unpleasant words) and found significant cross-modal priming effects but only for unpleasant primes (i.e., the participants evaluated the positive words as negative after listening to an unpleasant sound). studies that have used electrophysiological measures showed that event-related potential (p100 and p200) amplitudes increased in response to all types of pictures (i.e., pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant) that were accompanied by emotional sounds compared with pictures that were accompanied by neutral sounds (gerdes et al., 2013). brouwer, van wouwe, mühl, van erp, and toet (2013) presented unimodal and bimodal stimuli that were composed of affective pictures and sounds. their results showed no differences in heart rate, heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, or self-report measures in response to pleasant and unpleasant stimuli, indeeffect of congruence between sound and video on emotion 622 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pendent of the modality (i.e., unimodal or bimodal). the authors recognized that these results may be attributable to the fact that the bimodal stimuli were not optimally congruent. neuroimaging studies have shown that the processing of incongruent bimodal stimuli requires greater cognitive control, reflected by activation of the inferior frontal cortex. the processing of congruent bimodal stimuli was shown to activate temporal regions (belardinelli et al., 2004; van atteveldt, formisano, goebel, & blomert, 2007). from a functional perspective, these data imply a greater investment of cognitive resources to evaluate incongruent bimodal stimuli compared with congruent bimodal stimuli (doehrmann & naumer, 2008). research that evaluates congruence between bimodal stimuli has been limited because only sounds and pictures are typically used (gerdes, wieser, & alpers, 2014), thus generating less of an emotional response than videos (courtney et al., 2010; detenber et al., 1998; simons et al., 1999). such bimodal stimuli (pictures and sounds) are also less familiar compared with everyday experiences, which often contain movement stimuli. additionally, the most commonly used affective stimuli are pictures that are contained in the international affective picture system (iaps; lang, bradley, & cuthbert, 2008) and sounds that are contained in the international affective digitized sound system (iads; bradley & lang, 2007b). finding absolute congruence between these two types of stimuli is very difficult because each stimulus group was built independently (i.e., the iaps has over 1000 pictures, and the iads has 167 sounds). furthermore, the sounds are dynamic, and the pictures are static, which limits evaluations of the effects of congruence between bimodal stimuli. the objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of congruence between bimodal stimuli that were composed of emotional sounds in the iads (bradley & lang, 2007b) and videos on heart rate and self-report measures of valence and arousal. our hypothesis was that congruent bimodal stimuli that are more realistic and captivating than incongruent bimodal stimuli (because they make more sense to the subject) would have a stronger emotional impact, reflected by subjective measures. in contrast, incongruent bimodal stimuli require a higher workload to be processed and thus would generate heart rate acceleration. the results of this study will provide evidence of the mechanisms by which information from the environment is integrated. methods participants thirty right-handed undergraduate students (24 males and six females), ranging in age from 20 to 27 years (m = 22.67 years, sd = 2.26 years), participated in the study. the participants were recruited from a university in bogota, colombia. the exclusion criteria were current medical or psychological treatment and visual/auditory problems without correction. all of the participants provided written informed consent. the study was approved by the university of san buenaventura review board. stimuli and procedure thirty sounds (10 pleasant with high arousal, 10 neutral with low arousal, and 10 unpleasant with high arousal) were selected from the iadsi according to normative ratings that were proposed by bradley and lang (2007b). significant differences were found between sound categories in the valence dimension (all p < .001). for the arousal dimension, significant differences were found between affective sounds (pleasant and unpleasant) and calderón, rincón, araujo, & gantiva 623 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ neutral sounds (all p = .001). pleasant and unpleasant sounds were not significantly different in the arousal dimension (p > .05). sixty videos were selected from different web pages (e.g., youtube or google videos). half of the videos had high congruence with the selected iads sounds, and the other half had no congruence. to obtain bimodal stimuli, videos with and without content congruence were added to each sound. bimodal stimuli with congruence had credibility between the sources of the sound and video (e.g., for the sound of a roller coaster going downhill, the congruent video showed a rollercoaster going downhill). in contrast, bimodal stimuli without congruence had no credibility between the sources of the sound and video (e.g., for the sound of a roller coaster going downhill, the incongruent video showed a roller coaster going uphill). before the experiment, each bimodal stimulus was evaluated by 52 subjects on a scale of 1 to 9 (1 = complete non-congruence, and 9 = complete congruence). congruent bimodal stimuli had a mean score of 8.03 (sd = .40). incongruent bimodal stimuli had a mean score of 1.55 (sd = .75). none of the subjects who participated in the initial evaluation of the bimodal stimuli participated in the experiment. sounds and videos were edited using adobe premiere pro cc software. each bimodal stimulus pair was presented for 6 s at a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels and frame rate of 24 frames per second. the 60 bimodal stimuli were presented on a 19-inch flat-screen monitor that was located approximately 60 cm from the subject and through headphones. the sound level was 65 db. two different pseudo-randomized bimodal stimulus presentation orders were prepared (each order was applied to 15 subjects). each order had the constraint of not presenting the same sound category consecutively and not presenting congruent or incongruent bimodal stimuli consecutively. each bimodal stimulus pair was presented once. after each bimodal stimulus pair presentation, the emotional experience of each participant (i.e., valence and arousal ratings) was evaluated using digital versions of the self-assessment manikin (sam; bradley & lang, 1994). the intertrial interval (iti) varied randomly from 10 to 14 s. self-report measures valence and arousal ratings were obtained using digitized versions of the sam (bradley & lang, 1994), which depicts a graphic figure that varies along two dimensions of pleasure and arousal on a 9-point scale. the sam ranges from smiling and happy (9) to frowning and unhappy (1) when representing the valence dimension. for the arousal dimension, the sam ranges from excited and wide eyed (9) to relaxed and sleepy (1). data acquisition and reduction the bimodal stimuli were presented using e-prime 2.0 software (psychology software tools, pa, usa). electrocardiogram (ekg) recordings were continuously collected at a sampling rate of 1000 hz with a 10-500 hz frequency band filter using powerlab 26t equipment (adinstruments, australia) using three large sensormedic electrodes filled with electrolyte paste at lead iii. all of the ekg data was manually inspected prior to analysis. heart rate was derived from the ekg. r-wave–to–r-wave (r-r) intervals were extracted from the ekg using labchart 7.3 software (adinstruments, australia), which were then imported into matlab 8.0 (mathworks, ma, usa) for analysis. heart rate responses were determined by averaging across each half-second during the 6-s bimodal stimulus presentation and subtracting that activity from the activity that was obtained 1 s before bimodal stimulus onset. effect of congruence between sound and video on emotion 624 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis heart rate responses were analyzed using a 3 × 2 × 12 repeated-measures analysis of variance (rm-anova), with sound (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant), video congruence (with and without), and time (the 12 halfsecond time bins throughout the duration of bimodal stimulus presentation) as the repeated measures. sam ratings were analyzed using a 3 × 2 anova, with sound and video congruence as the repeated measures. greenhouse-geisser correction was applied to correct any violation of sphericity. post hoc analyses of mean values were performed using the paired multiple-comparison least significant difference (lsd) test. the level of significance for all of the analyses was p < .05. the partial eta squared (η2 p) is also presented. all of the analyses were performed using spss 20.0 software. results heart rate response the anova revealed a significant main effect of time (f(11, 319) = 3.689, p = .041, η2 p = .11). we identified two deceleration phases: one phase between 0.5 and 1.5 s (with significant differences between 0.5 s and 1 and 1.5 s; both p < .02) and one phase between 3 and 5.5 s (with significant differences between 3 s and 5 and 5.5 s; both p < .02). significant differences at all time points between 0.5 s and 3.5-6 s were found (all p < .05). a trend analysis was performed to identify the pattern of heart rate responses, showing a significant linear trend (f(1, 29) = 4.752, p = .038, η2 p = .14). a significant sound × time interaction was found (f(22, 638) = 2.574, p = .049, η2 p = .08), suggesting that the valence of the bimodal stimuli generated differential heart rate response patterns at different time points. the deceleration of heart rate was greater during the presentation of unpleasant bimodal stimuli compared with neutral bimodal stimuli between 1.5 and 2.5 s (all p < .02). similarly, the deceleration of heart rate during the presentation of pleasant sounds was greater compared with neutral sounds between 2 and 3 s (all p < .02). at 4.5 s, a significant acceleration of heart rate was found during the presentation of unpleasant sounds compared with pleasant sounds (p = .04; figure 1). a significant linear trend was found for pleasant (f(1, 29) = 6.011, p = .02, η2 p = .17) and neutral (f(1, 29) = 9.761, p = .004, η2 p = .25) sounds. no significant main effects or interactions were found for video congruence (all p > .05). calderón, rincón, araujo, & gantiva 625 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. heart rate response to sounds. bpm, beats per minute. subjective ratings valence the anova of the valence dimension revealed a significant main effect of sound (f(2, 58) = 132.41, p < .001, η2 p = .82). as expected, significant differences were found between pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant sounds (all p < .001). a significant main effect of video congruence was found (f(1, 29) = 15.13, p = .001, η2 p = .34). sounds without video congruence had lower valence scores (p = .001). a significant sound × video congruence interaction was found (f(2, 58) = 11.17, p < .001, η2 p = .27). pleasant sounds were evaluated as less appetitive when they had no video congruence (p < .001; figure 2). arousal the anova of the arousal dimension revealed a significant main effect of sound (f(2, 58) = 75.04, p < .001, η2 p = .72). as expected, pleasant and unpleasant sounds were perceived as more arousing than neutral sounds (both p < .001). a significant main effect of video congruence was found (f(1, 29) = 22.52, p < .001, η2 p = .43). sounds without video congruence were perceived as less arousing (p < .001). a significant sound × video congruence interaction was found (f(2, 58) = 17.22, p < .001, η2 p = .37). pleasant and unpleasant sounds without video congruence were perceived as less arousing than pleasant and unpleasant sounds with video congruence (both p < .002; figure 2). effect of congruence between sound and video on emotion 626 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. subjective ratings of valence and arousal for the sounds with and without video congruence. bars indicate the standard error of the mean. *p < .05. discussion the objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of congruence between bimodal stimuli (emotional sounds that are contained in the iads and videos) on heart rate and self-reported measures of valence and arousal. the results suggested that the congruence between the sound and the video did not affect the heart rate response but affected the subjective evaluation of valence and arousal. pleasant sounds without video congruence were evaluated as less appetitive, and pleasant and unpleasant sounds without video congruence were perceived as less arousing. these results suggest that the absence of congruence between bimodal stimuli changes the subjective emotional experience (i.e., it diminishes the level of arousal of the affective stimuli). in contrast, congruent stimuli are more real and captivating, leading to stronger emotional effects (i.e., greater arousal). the absence of congruence also affected the valence of pleasant sounds but not the valence of unpleasant sounds. these data suggest a functional bias toward aversive stimulation because greater responsiveness to aversive stimuli than to appetitive stimuli is more adaptive for survival (bradley & lang, 2007a; lang, davis, & öhman, 2000), independent of their congruence. therefore, the valence of unpleasant sounds is more important than the congruence between auditory and visual stimulation. this bias toward aversive stimuli has been found in several studies that used affective pictures (bradley et al., 2001; gantiva & camacho, 2016; gantiva, guerra, & vila, 2011; vila et al., 2001) and affective sounds (bradley & lang, 2000; fernández-abascal et al., 2008). congruence did not significantly affect heart rate, but a greater initial deceleration was observed in response to pleasant and unpleasant sounds compared with neutral sounds, indicating a greater attention response that was caused by the interaction between valence and arousal and dominance of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system (bradley & lang, 2007a), at least during the first phase of bimodal stimulus presentation. similar results have been reported by studies that used pictures (bradley et al., 2001), videos (bos et al., 2013; codispoti et al., 2008; gomez et al., 2005), and affective sounds (bradley & lang, 2000). calderón, rincón, araujo, & gantiva 627 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, the unpleasant sounds subsequently generated an acceleration of heart rate. this acceleration was not observed when pleasant and neutral sounds were presented, indicating activation of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system that was associated with a motivational and behavioral response (courtney et al., 2010; palomba et al., 2000). nevertheless, pleasant and neutral sounds maintained a relatively constant deceleration of heart rate. the present results suggest that the congruence of bimodal stimuli increases the subjective emotional response, especially the perception of arousal. however, contrary to our hypothesis, the absence of congruence between bimodal stimuli did not increase heart rate. similar results were previously found by brouwer et al. (2013), who used bimodal stimuli that consisted of pictures and sounds. this suggests that the cardiac response is more influenced by the valence of the stimuli than by the degree of congruence, suggesting greater behavioral relevance of valence compared with congruence. several previous studies have shown the influence of valence on heart rate, in which aversive stimuli generated greater heart rate deceleration compared with appetitive and neutral stimuli (bradley et al., 2001; bradley & lang, 2000). in fact, sustained heart rate deceleration is the most common initial response to a threatening stimulus (campbell et al., 1997). according to the defense cascade model (lang, bradley, & cuthbert, 1997), defensive responses begin with a stage of oriented attention (e.g., distant threat) and progress to a stage of defensive action (e.g., imminent attack). heart rate deceleration is a characteristic physiological response of the first stage. in conclusion, the present results suggest that incongruent bimodal stimuli affect subjective emotional experiences (i.e., cognitive processing), decreasing arousal perception and appetitive valence in the case of pleasant stimuli. this could happen because the cognitive processing of incongruent bimodal stimuli is more demanding than the processing of congruent stimuli (gerdes et al., 2014; gerdes et al., 2013). this implies a greater investment in cognitive processing while interpreting incongruent bimodal stimuli, thus leaving fewer resources for interpreting emotional subjective experiences. conversely, congruence between stimuli does not require additional investments in cognitive resources, thus generating a greater subjective emotional impact. in the present study, the cardiac response was unaffected by the congruence of stimuli, but it was affected by valence. this suggests that with regard to the physiological component of the emotional response (e.g., heart rate), the valence of the stimulus prevails over congruence. nonetheless, congruence later modulates the perception of the emotional response. this corroborates the defense cascade model, in which physiological emotional reactions are a function of the valence of the stimulus (lang et al., 1997). for example, when a stimulus that indicates a threat is perceived, heart rate initially decelerates, the skin conductance response increases, and the startle reflex is enhanced. these responses are generated to favor a fight or flight response and subsequent survival of the individual (bradley & lang, 2007a). the relevance of our findings should be evaluated while considering several possible limitations. first, the sample did not include a balanced number of men and women. similar studies should be conducted with broader samples and a balanced distribution of men and women, which would allow comparisons between sexes. second, our study only revealed an effect of congruence of bimodal stimuli on heart rate responses and self-reported valence and arousal. future studies should use other physiological measures to increase our understanding of the impact of the congruence of bimodal stimuli on the emotional response. effect of congruence between sound and video on emotion 628 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 https://www.psychopen.eu/ notes i) pleasant sounds: 360, 215, 201, 817, 311, 815, 353, 717, 808, 365. neutral sounds: 262, 708, 700, 705, 720, 374, 382, 373, 252, 322. unpleasant sounds: 424, 712, 134, 276, 709, 711, 281, 420, 115, 719. funding this study was funded by universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia (grant number chs 012-10). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alpers, g. w., adolph, d., & pauli, p. 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(2007). top–down task effects overrule automatic multisensory responses to letter–sound pairs in auditory association cortex. neuroimage, 36(4), 1345-1360. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.03.065 vila, j., sánchez, m., ramírez, i., fernández, m., cobos, p., rodríguez, s., . . . moltó, j. (2001). el sistema internacional de imágenes afectivas (iaps): adaptación española. segunda parte. revista de psicología general y aplicada, 54(4), 635-657. about the authors sebastián calderón: earned his b.a. in engineering at the universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his research interests deal with the effects of sound in emotions. raúl rincón: m.a. is an associate professor at the department of engineering, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his research interests deal with the effects of sound in emotions. andrés araujo: earned his b.a. in psychology at the universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions and psychophysical health. carlos gantiva: ph.d., is an full professor at the department of psychology and the neuroscience and neuropsychology laboratory, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions, addictions and social neuroscience. calderón, rincón, araujo, & gantiva 631 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 621–631 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1593 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.50.5.372 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022588 https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8986.3650619 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1986.tb00583.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.03.065 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ effect of congruence between sound and video on emotion (introduction) methods participants stimuli and procedure self-report measures data acquisition and reduction statistical analysis results heart rate response subjective ratings discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors acknowledgement of reviewers, 2014 editorial acknowledgement of reviewers, 2014 vlad glăveanu*a [a] ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(1), 5–6, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.939 published (vor): 2015-02-27. *corresponding author at: department of communication & psychology, aalborg university, kroghstræde 3, 9220 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: psy.journal@gmail.co this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. we are grateful for the reliable and helpful support that we have received from the following colleagues, who provided us with valuable editorial help in the peer review process for europe's journal of psychology in 2014: handling editors maciej karwowskiandrew p. allen nicholas a. kuipercherie armour izabela lebudadan ispas rhian worthmaria kakarika reviewers anna czarnahussain alkharusi daniel davidandrew p. allen aoife de brúnfrans orsted andersen constance de saint-laurentruggero andrisano ruggieri nicolas deuschelgamze arman incioglu japinder dhesikevin askew kamila dobrenkosavita bakhshi anand dorota dziedziewiczbaptiste barbot orlando espinoclaude belanger alejandro jose estudilloflavia cangia diana fleischmanmelissa care krzysztof fronczykjan cieciuch aleksandra gajdacarlo combi fabienne gfellerjennifer henderlong corpus europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ kengatharan navaneethakrishnanleigh gibson belgin okay-somervillepanagiotis gkorezis susan g. goldberg daniela onaca helena gonzalez panayiotis panayides alessio gori elpida keravnou papailiou nobuhiko goto jose perez jacek gralewski maria pertl william peter hampes michael pirson rebecca harris artur pokropek steven hertler 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europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(1), 5–6 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i1.939 acknowledgement of reviewers, 2014 6 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en acknowledgement of reviewers, 2014 handling editors reviewers effects of religious priming concepts on prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup research reports effects of religious priming concepts on prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup jame bryan l. batara*a, pamela s. francoa, mequia angelo m. quiachona, dianelle rose m. sembreroa [a] department of psychology, university of san carlos, cebu city, philippines. abstract several studies show that there is a connection between religion and prosociality (e.g., saroglou, 2013). to investigate whether there is a causal relationship between these two variables, a growing number of scholars employed priming religious concepts andmeasure its influence on prosocial behavior (e.g., pichon, boccato, & saroglou, 2007). in the recent development of religious priming, ritter and preston (2013) argued that different primes (agent prime, spiritual/abstract prime, and institutional prime) may also have varying influence on prosocial behavior specifically helping an ingroup or an outgroup target. with this in mind, a 2 (social categorization of the target of help) by 3 (agent prime, institutional prime, spiritual prime) experiment was conducted to directly investigate this hypothesis. results suggest that priming religious concepts especially the spiritual prime can increase prosocial behaviors. however, no significant effect was found on the social categorization which implies that filipino participants elicit prosocial behavior regardless of the social categorization (be it ingroup or outgroup) of the target of help. the present study’s findings contribute to further the literature on religious priming and its influence on prosocial behavior. keywords: religion, priming, prosocial behavior, ingroup and outgroup, religious primes europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 received: 2016-04-06. accepted: 2016-07-30. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, ejop editor; aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: philip van engelen building, talamban campus, talamban, cebu city, philippines 6000. e-mail: jamebatara5@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction helping as a social behavior is influenced by different factors. a growing bulk of studies, both correlational and experimental, point to the influencing factor of religion towards helping. however, experimental investigations through priming religious contexts and concepts have led to mixed results (for recent review, see shariff, willard, andersen, & norenzayan, 2016). in his review on the studies of religion and helping (saroglou, 2013), religiosity has been more salient in helping the ingroup. for example, there was unwillingness to help illegal immigrants among those with orthodox religious beliefs (pichon & saroglou, 2009) and preference to help an ingroup family (than outgroup) move in (preston & ritter, 2013). it has been suggested that the priming concepts employed in the experiments investigating the influence of religion to prosocial behavior need to be clarified so as to arrive to more meaningful results. ritter and preston (2013) suggested that the three different religion-related primes (agent, spiritual, institutional) may lead to different levels europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ of prosocial behavior. with this in mind, the present study looked into the influence of the three priming concepts on prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup targets. it is the aim of this study to provide a clearer picture of the influence of religion-related primes on prosocial behavior. religion is social in nature (mccullough & willoughby, 2009). this clearly indicates that engaging in religion also has social repercussions. human beings make connections to which they believe as divine, spiritual, sacred, and holy (mehanna, 2003). the basic element of most religions is to worship and make deeper connection with a supreme being (helble, 2006). hill and colleagues (2000) conceptualized religion as the psychological processes in relation to the recognition of the sacred and the engagement in religious practices in the presence of a community of believers. the same authors indicated that spirituality is related to psychological process in search for the sacred that is done in one’s private sphere. in light of this, the present study focuses on religious priming that can be reflective of spirituality and religion. it has long been argued and is empirically supported that religion has an impact to the different areas of an individual’s life (oviedo, 2015). one of these areas is its influence towards prosocial behavior (saroglou, 2013). prosocial behavior is an action that serves to benefit an individual or group (eisenberg, fabes, & spinrad, 2007). several correlational studies indicate that religiosity increases willingness to volunteer (park & smith, 2000), and that religious people are participative in activities for charity in both secular and religious contexts (lam, 2002). even among those low-income religious individuals, acts of charity are still observed (myers, 2012). experimental investigations also indicate that religion influences prosocial behavior. one of the most employed methods for these experimental investigations is priming. priming involves activating related conceptual representations in an individual’s memory which can lead to thinking and behaviors in line with such activated representations (bargh, chert, & burrows, 1996). for example, when primed with “god”, participants provided more monetary allocations in an anonymous economic game (shariff & norenzayan, 2007). university students who were primed with a watching god through listening to an english song and then translating it into one’s language offered more time for volunteer work compared to those who did not listen to and did not translate a religious song (batara, 2016). word primes related to religion also increased intention to help (pichon, boccato, & saroglou, 2007), willingness to volunteer (sasaki et al., 2013), and honesty (randolph-seng & nielsen, 2007). finally, contexts related to church and religion increase willingness to help and actual helping behavior (ahmed & salas, 2013; pichon & saroglou, 2009; ruffle & sosis, 2010). these interesting religious priming studies indicate that activating thoughts about one’s religion can increase prosocial behavior. however, saroglou (2013) suggested that religion has been found to be more salient in helping an ingroup than an outgroup, a phenomenon he called “minimal prosociality”. other studies found that religious primes reduced prosocial thoughts and behaviors. for example, ginges, hansen, and norenzayan (2009) found in their cognitive priming experiment that those primed with frequency of synagogue attendance demonstrated more support to suicide attacks compared to those primed with frequency of praying to god. another study found that students primed with religion-related words (e.g., church, bible, sermon) showed slightly higher racial prejudice compared to those primed with neutral words (e.g., shirt, butter, switch) (johnson, rowatt, & labouff, 2010). it is noticeable in these two aforementioned studies (e.g., ginges et al., 2009; johnson et al., 2010) that the primes being used somehow pointed to the institutional nature of religion (e.g., church and synagogue attendance) which may have some varying influence to prosocial behaviors compared to those primed with different religion-related primes. with this, ritter and preston (2013) suggested that the varying religion-related primes previous researchers europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 religious priming and prosocial behavior among ingroup and outgroup 636 http://www.psychopen.eu/ usedmay have also activated varying religion-related prosocial behaviors in the participants. these different religious primes activating different psychological functions could have been one of the reasons for these mixed results. the three religion-related primes are religious agents (e.g., god, angel), spiritual/abstract prime (e.g., divine, sacred), and institutional/concrete prime (e.g., ritual, scripture). agent primes were facilitative of prosocial behavior towards both ingroup and outgroup (ritter & preston, 2013). agent primes are concepts that depict an entity (or entities) known to have divine qualities. some identified religious agents are as follows: god, saint, prophet, and angel (ritter & preston, 2013). previous empirical evidence showed that priming these religious agents can increase certain behaviors toward two targets, the ingroup and outgroup. for example, priming participants with the word “god” increased likelihood of cooperation with an outgroup compared to those primed with “religion” (preston & ritter, 2013). another religious concept that can be manipulated to increase prosocial behavior is the spiritual/abstract prime. spiritual/abstract primes are priming concepts that relate to the connection of an individual with the sacred such us faith, miracle, revelation and heaven (ritter & preston, 2013). religious words such as faith and beliefs increase prosocial behavior (pichon, boccato, & saroglou, 2007). lastly, institutional prime relates to the institutional aspect of religion. graham and haidt (2010) identified institutional prime as an influence of the culture that constitute people into moral communities. people who pray inside the church created a sense of kinship towards their religious circle and have resulted to eliciting parochial altruism (choi & bowles, 2007). exposing participants to a picture of a person in need in front of a church resulted to more generosity; however, this effect was limited to proximal in-group (homeless) and was not extended to distant, outgroup-like targets (i.e., illegal immigrants) (pichon & saroglou, 2009). although a growing number of studies used priming methodology to study the causal connection of religion and prosociality, there is still a need to investigate whether the three kinds of religious primes have varying influence to prosocial behavior between ingroup and outgroup targets. methods research design a 2 (social categorization of the target of help) by 3 (agent prime, institutional prime, spiritual prime) experimental design was used for this study. for each condition, a priming concept (agent, institutional, and spiritual) and the target of help (ingroup and outgroup) were shown in a video clip. the present study has undergone ethics review and has been given clearance under ethical considerations by the university of san carlos institutional ethics review committee. complete experimental protocol is available upon request. participants one hundred seventy three participants completed the experiment (97 males and 76 females). the age range was 16 – 21 years old (m = 18.6, sd = 11.7). participants were all undergraduates of the university of san carlos – talamban campus. there were six conditions in the experiment. these conditions were abstract-ingroup (n = 27; 17 males, 10 females), abstract-outgroup (n = 29; 20 males, 9 females), agent-ingroup (n = 30; 12 males, 18 females), agent-outgroup (n = 30; 17 males, 13 females), institutional-ingroup (n = 30; 13 males, 17 females), and institutional-outgroup (n = 27; 18 males, 9 females). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 batara, franco, quiachon et al. 637 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures the researchers used video clips and coupons. priming concepts and the social categorization of the target of help were shown in the video. the coupons measured the level of prosociality. the more coupons the participants asked from the experimenters, the higher the level of prosociality. further details are stipulated in the succeeding paragraphs. in the video, a person who is the beneficiary of the organization appeared and was interviewed. religious contexts such as image of god (agent prime), dove (abstract prime), and church (institutional prime) appeared in the video according to the experimental condition the participants was randomly assigned into. the said beneficiary introduced himself as a carolinian (student from the same university) for the ingroup condition and as a student (no specific university coming from) for the outgroup condition. crisp and beck (2005) demonstrated that the ingroup and outgroup categorization among university students is present. however, indicating the overlap of the ingroup and outgroup university students may decrease the intergroup bias between the two. in the present study, no further introduction of the university-related similarities (or overlap) of the ingroup and outgroup students except the idea that they need help in terms of education support. thus, the present study’s procedure was able to produce an ingroup-outgroup impression of the student in help. during the interview shown on the video clip, the beneficiary stated a line with the priming concept (depending on the condition) as also part of the manipulation of prime. a quote related with the priming concept appeared before the video ends. prosocial behavior was measured through the number of coupons the participants were willing to sell to help the beneficiary. in this connection, a pilot experiment was conducted to ensure that the experimental procedure and the necessary experiment materials are fit and ready for the actual experiment. the results of the pilot experiment led to improvement of the experiment methodology in general (e.g., improved procedure, improved video clips for priming manipulation). the concepts (dove for spiritual prime, god for agent prime, church for institutional prime), as empirically validated by ritter and preston (2013), were representative of religious primes. in the case of the present study, these concepts were presented in a video clip. procedure the researchers gathered participants by making an event through social networking sites and any other media of communication. the said event was a cover story to minimize suspicion from the participants. the said orientation was held in an available classroom inside the university. researchers also wore shirts with an “abuno foundation” as uniforms and as part of the cover story. it has to be noted that deception was employed to conceal the true nature of the activity. the deception was about misleading the participants by telling them that abuno foundation is a new organization in the university. the deception is employed so as to elicit real-life behavior from the participants. batson (2002) suggested that it may be preferred to measure actual behavior from a seemingly actual event so that it can represent a more real-life prosocial behavior. the deception only entailed minimal risk to the participants and were given proper debriefing after the entire experiment. participants were randomly assigned into conditions. each participant underwent only one condition. ostensibly introduced as an orientation about the university’s newly registered organization which is “abuno foundation”, the experimenters (abuno foundation representatives) waited for the number of participants to be at least five or maximum of ten. upon reaching this number, experimenters randomly assign (through simple draw by lots) this europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 religious priming and prosocial behavior among ingroup and outgroup 638 http://www.psychopen.eu/ group of participants into one experimental condition. the participants were not allowed to sit near their friends to avoid comparing of responses and filled-up information. the participants were given an informed consent before the orientation started. experimenters introduced themselves and told the participants to watch the video. there were six (6) videos which were shown in a classroom with a projector. one video was shown per condition. video a contained an agent prime and the beneficiary presented himself as a carolinian (ingroup). video b contained the same prime with video a but the beneficiary presented himself as a college student (outgroup). the primes used for video a and b were the image of god as a background and the word “god” was mentioned by the beneficiary and was shown as an ending quotation. video c contained spiritual/abstract prime and the beneficiary presented himself as a carolinian (ingroup). video d contained the same prime with video c but the beneficiary presented himself as a college student (outgroup). the primes used for videos c and d were the image of the dove as a background and the word “faith” was mentioned by the beneficiary and was shown as an ending quotation. video e contained an institutional prime and the beneficiary presented himself as a carolinian (ingroup). video f contained the same prime with video e but the beneficiary presented himself as a college student (outgroup). the primes used for video e and f were the church as the setting and the words “simbahan” (church) and “mag-ampo” (praying) were mentioned by the beneficiary and were shown as an ending quotation. after the video was shown, the experimenter announced about selling the coupons that could help the student in need. another experimenter led the participants to the corner where the coupons were displayed. it was up to the participants how many coupons they pledged to sell. an experimenter outside debriefed the participants at the end of the experiment. results the present study looked into the influence of the three priming concepts on prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup targets. although the age of the participants was relatively homogeneous, it is noticed that the number of males and females in each experimental condition was not evenly distributed. thus, the number of males and females were controlled in the main analysis. controlling for gender category, f(1, 166) = 0.018, p = .893, two-way analysis of covariance (see table 1) shows no interaction between priming concepts and social category, f(2, 166) = 1.432, p = .242, as well as no main effect in social category, f(1, 166) = 1.683, p = .196. table 1 two-way analysis of covariance summary of results fmsdfsssource 1gender (covariate) .018ns0.3970.3970 main effects 2priming concept .146**5.415112.830224 1category of target .683ns1.76536.76536 2interaction effect .432ns1.27431.54862 166within groups .84421.1073626 172total .6303959 **p < .01. nsnot significant. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 batara, franco, quiachon et al. 639 http://www.psychopen.eu/ priming concepts showed significant main effect, f(2, 166) = 5.146, p = .007. the effect size was moderate (partial eta squared = .058). post-hoc comparison using tukey’s hsd indicated that spiritual prime (m = 7.6, sd = 6.1) elicited the most prosocial behaviors measured by the number of coupons the respondents were willing to distribute. there was no significant difference between agent prime (m = 5.1, sd = 3.7) and institutional prime (m = 5.2, sd = 3.9). see table 2 below for the mean and standard deviation of all conditions. table 2 mean and standard deviation of the 6 experimental conditions sdmprime agent (total) .723.085 ingroup .444.475 outgroup .852.704 institutional (total) .953.215 ingroup .902.404 outgroup .764.116 abstract/spiritual (total) .086.647 ingroup .615.706 outgroup .466.528 social category ingroup (total) .464.485 outgroup (total) .105.436 in general, spiritual/abstract prime elicited the most prosocial behavior. interestingly, the social category of the target of help did not matter in influencing prosocial behavior; that is, no matter who the target of help is, the participant still engaged in prosocial behavior. general discussion several studies have used priming methodologies to investigate the effect of religious concepts to prosocial behavior; however, there is a need to directly compare the three priming concepts namely agent prime, spiritual/abstract prime, and institutional prime and its influence to ingroup and outgroup targets of help. the goal of the present study was to investigate the effects of priming concepts and social categorization towards prosocial behavior. the present study found that priming concepts, specifically spiritual primes can increase prosocial behavior. it can be construed that religious words seem to reflect either concrete objects or abstract concepts. in line with the construal level theory, abstract thinking and concrete thinking have different effects on the people’s cognition and behavior (trope & liberman, 2010). ritter and preston (2013) suggested that spiritual prime activates abstract thinking and such thinking is related to universality in treating and dealing with people. for example, abstract thinking led christians to exhibit less prejudice towards outgroup (luguri, napier, & dovidio, 2012). thus, among the three primes, spiritual prime elicited the most prosocial behavior because it appears to activate abstract thinking which in turn leads to nonbiased and increased engagement in prosocial behavior. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 religious priming and prosocial behavior among ingroup and outgroup 640 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in a recent review on religious prosociality, it has been consistent that religiosity is more associated with helping the ingroup (saroglou, 2013). however, in the present study, no distinction was found in prosocial behavior between ingroup and outgroup targets. interestingly, this reflects the collectivist nature of the filipino participants. same findings were found among filipino respondents’ willingness to help regardless of the social categorization of the target (batara, 2015). filipinos tend to give more importance in maintaining harmonious relationships than in categorizing people as ingroup/outgroup (del prado et al., 2007). this may be the reason why social category of the target of help has no effect on prosocial behavior. regardless of who is in need, filipino participants were still willing to help the beneficiary. kapwa theory indicates that filipinos treat both close and distant others as part of their shared inner self and this somehow reflects in interacting with others (enriquez, 1992). kapwa denotes a filipino’s awareness and sense of shared identity with others and it has been practiced early in the family which then extends beyond one’s family as one grows and socializes with others (enriquez, 1978). indeed, it is not about maintaining smooth interpersonal relationship alone but filipinos are most concerned with pakikipagkapwa or treating others as fellow (clemente et al., 2008). thus, the non-distinction of prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup reflects the filipinos’ sense of oneness with co-filipinos. direct investigation of the sense of maintaining harmonious relationship as a possible mediating factor for the link between religion and prosociality may provide further insights. the present study was able to address the need in directly comparing the three priming religious concepts and its influence to ingroup and outgroup targets of help. however, several limitations have to be noted. the experimental setting used in the present study was in a classroom setting providing limited space, leading to interaction towards the participants creating suggestive changes or influencing other participants on how many coupons to get. the researchers were not also able to measure the religiosity of the participants which can also be an important influencing factor in the study. participants were college students with age ranging from 16 to 21 years old. extending the age range of participants may strengthen the generalizability of the results. the present study showed that one can increase their prosocial behavior by just being exposed to religious contexts and concepts. priming may be temporary but still it can increase one’s prosocial behavior in certain situations. people, particularly filipinos, tend to help those in need regardless of the social categorization. conclusion helping other people is one of the central values of religion (batson, 1990). one of the purposes of many religions is to unify people in helping the community (graham & haidt, 2010). with this in mind, the present study provides valuable insights into the link of religious priming, social categorization and prosociality. in summary, people who are primed spiritually had the sense of helping others more than those who were exposed to other known religious primes (agent and institutional). depending on the cultural context, there may be some differences in helping an ingroup or outgroup. in the case of filipinos, no distinction was found. the present study helps to clarify the varying influence of religious priming concepts on prosocial behavior towards ingroup and outgroup members. funding the present study has been financially supported by the office of research of the university of san carlos, academic year 2015 – 2016. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 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(2013). religion priming differentially increases prosocial behavior among variants of the dopamine d4 receptor (drd4) gene. social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 8, 209-215. doi:10.1093/scan/nsr089 shariff, a. f., & norenzayan, a. (2007). god is watching you: priming god concepts increases prosocial behavior in an anonymous economic game. psychological science, 18, 803-809. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01983.x shariff, a. f., willard, a. k., andersen, t., & norenzayan, a. (2016). religious priming: a meta-analysis with a focus on prosociality. personality and social psychology review, 20(1), 27-48. doi:10.1177/1088868314568811 trope, y., & liberman, n. (2010). construal-level theory of psychological distance. psychological review, 117(2), 440-463. doi:10.1037/a0018963 about the authors jame bryan l. batara is a faculty member at the university of san carlos, philippines. holding a master’s degree in social psychology, his research interests and projects include health behaviors, social rejection, and religion/spirituality and prosocial behaviors. pamela s. franco is a psychology graduate from the university of san carlos, philippines. mequia angelo m. quiachon is a psychology graduate from the university of san carlos, philippines. dianelle rose m. sembrero is a psychology graduate from the university of san carlos, philippines. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 635–644 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1170 religious priming and prosocial behavior among ingroup and outgroup 644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fjssr.12042 http://www.ec.bgu.ac.il/monaster/admin/papers/1002.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2fscan%2fnsr089 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9280.2007.01983.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f1088868314568811 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037%2fa0018963 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en religious priming and prosocial behavior among ingroup and outgroup introduction methods research design participants measures procedure results general discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors addiction, passion, or confusion? new theoretical insights on exercise addiction research from the case study of a female body builder research reports addiction, passion, or confusion? new theoretical insights on exercise addiction research from the case study of a female body builder attila szabo* ab [a] institute of health promotion and sport sciences, elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. [b] institute of psychology, elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract exercise addiction is widely studied in sport science and psychology, but at this time it is not recognized as an independently diagnosable mental or psychiatric disorder. indeed, studies on exercise addiction assess a level of risk for disordered exercise behaviour, characterized by lack of control and negative personal consequences. it is argued that commitment and passion are two overlapping features of high exercise involvement which obscure the fine line between healthy and unhealthy exercise. the present case study examined a successful female body builder who initially claimed that she was addicted to exercise. during an interview she also completed three questionnaires and her appraisal of well-being in eight life domains were assessed at present, as well as retrospectively before her intensive involvement with exercise. she was screened under the non-substance related disorders category of substance-related and addictive disorders classification of dsm-5 for gambling, by replacing the word "gambling" with "exercise". although she was susceptible to exercise addiction, attained high scores on obsessive passion, exhibited more than four symptoms on the dsm list, she exhibited no signs of loss of control and she mainly reported positive experiences associated with her exercise behaviour. she has obtained a nearly maximum score on commitment to exercise and high score on harmonious passion. almost all aspects of her life have changed in positive direction after getting intensely involved in exercise. this case illustrates that the current scholastic path to the study of exercise addiction may be obscured by ambiguous assumptions and unilateral quantitative focus. keywords: commitment, dependence, deprivation, mood, sport europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 received: 2017-10-23. accepted: 2018-03-02. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: institute of health promotion and sport sciences, faculty of education and psychology, elte eötvös loránd university, bogdánfy u. 10/b, h-1117 budapest, hungary. telephone: +36 70 243 7123. e-mail: szabo.attila@ppk.elte.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the dark side of exercise behaviour physical activity embodies all forms of movements that require energy expenditure to sustain the work performed by the skeletal muscles; sports and exercise are its two subcategories (caspersen, powell, & christenson, 1985). exercise is considered as a health-oriented behaviour in the contemporary increasingly sedentary human lifestyle (foulds, bredin, charlesworth, ivey, & warburton, 2014). however, there is a pathological aspect of exercise as well (szabo, 2000). exercising to the point where the person loses control over the pattern and the volume of exercise, which then becomes an obligatory, or a must do activity, results in negative physical and/or mental consequences. the emerging dysfunction is defined as exercise addiction (griffiths, 1997; szabo, 2010). some authors also refer to the condition as exercise dependence (hausenblas & europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ downs, 2002). however, dependence is incorrect, or rather incomplete, as goodman (1990) noted earlier, since dependence is only one of the two aspects of addiction, the other being compulsion. to establish the presence of dependence, tolerance and withdrawal symptoms should be associated with the behaviour (miele, tilly, first, & frances, 1990). compulsion may be defined as a strong "egodystonic" (distinct from self) urge to engage in an activity to remove the anxiety triggered by the urge (brewer & potenza, 2008). considering this definition, compulsion is a component of addiction that involves negative reinforcement. the latter refers to the elimination, alleviation, or avoidance of something unpleasant/undesired through which the rate of the successful/rewarding behaviour increases in the future (doggett & koegel, 2013). further, dependence might have a positive outcome and it could be mediated by positive reinforcement, defined as the granting of a desired/pleasant stimulus, conditional upon a behaviour, that results in greater frequency of the behaviour in the future (doggett & koegel, 2013). while addiction may involve both positive reinforcement (a pleasant gain) and negative reinforcement (successful avoidance), the outcome in addiction is always negative (goodman, 1990; szabo, 2010). the obligatory nature of the exercise behaviour (i.e., it must be accomplished to avoid something noxious, like anxiety or withdrawal symptoms) reflects its primary regulation through negative reinforcement (egorov & szabo, 2013; szabo, griffiths, & demetrovics, 2013b). exercise addiction exercise addiction is classified as a behavioural addiction (egorov & szabo, 2013) akin to gambling disorder, but due to insufficient empirical evidence for being a mental dysfunction, the condition is not listed in the latest (fifth) edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013). to date, there are only a few published case studies in the literature that report genuine cases of pathological exercise addiction (szabo, griffiths, de la vega, mervó, & demetrovics, 2015). most of these reports were published over the past two decades (e.g., an early report by veale, 1995, and a recent case by hausenblas, schreiber, & smoliga, 2017). they usually present the symptoms and the aetiology of the dysfunctional behaviour accompanied by a theoretical analysis. what is common between these case reports is that in all instances the affected individual evidences exercise abuse and, consequently, experiences severe negative health and social ailments. the first case study in exercise addiction was a presented by veale (1995) on a 27-year female runner who apart from her exercise had no other interests in life. a more frequently cited case study, published later by griffiths (1997), covered the morbid exercise pattern of a 25-year-old female martial artist. seven years later the case of a 50-year-old cyclist man, who also had a history of psychopathology and sexual addiction, was brought into the attention of the scholastic community (kotbagi, muller, romo, & kern, 2014). then in a recently published book about exercise addiction, schreiber and hausenblas (2015) present eight cases of exercise addiction, starting with the case of the first author, then presenting the story of five women and two men mainly from the patients’ subjective perspective to make readers aware of how exercise addiction feels like. therefore, dysfunctional behaviour in which the affected person uses exercise for either escape from hardship, coping with stress, hiding from responsibilities or conformity, or for any other reason, clearly exists. although not all exercise addicts will share their story, the few reported cases do not justify the high volume of research on this topic. indeed, if one runs a title-based search in google scholar™ using the paired words "exercise addiction" and then again using "exercise dependence" (another term used for the dysfunction), will find over 500 records. therefore, the better understanding of exercise addiction, and its psychopathological aspects, is warranted. szabo 297 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a gap in the exercise addiction literature a major dilemma in the current literature is whether exercise addiction occurs only among recreational exercisers or professional athletes as well. since behavioural addictions, in general, reflect an escape from a psychological problem (griffiths, 1996), some authors argue that athletes are unlikely to escape into an activity that dominates their daily lives (szabo et al., 2015,). also, the characteristics of exercise addiction in light of the interactional model (egorov & szabo, 2013) distinguishes therapeutically oriented exercise from that performed for mastery reasons. finally, the unusually high scores reported by athletes on various exercise addiction scales prompted scholars to suspect that high athletic commitment may be confounded with exercise addiction (szabo et al., 2015). one approach to elucidate the problem is to use interviews with athletes thinking or claiming to be addicted to exercise and/or scoring high on exercise addiction measures (szabo et al., 2015). this method could answer the question whether the interviewed (suspect to the disorder) athlete exhibits a dysfunction associated with specific patterns and high volumes of exercise or simply misinterprets the notion of addiction in relation to sport. prevalence of the risk for exercise addiction the prevalence of the risk for exercise addiction is relatively rare, ranging from 0.3% to 0.5% as revealed in a representative sample from the general population (mónok et al., 2012). however, in specific samples higher rates were found. in five studies with university students, hausenblas and downs (2002) reported prevalence rates ranging between 3.4% and 13.4%. griffiths, szabo, and terry (2005) fund that 3.0% of university students were at risk of exercise addiction, but in a later work the rate emerged to be higher (6.9%) among sport science students (szabo & griffiths, 2007). further, another study that surveyed 95 ultra-marathoners found only three people (3.2%) at-risk for exercise addiction (allegre, therme, & griffiths, 2007). however, higher figures were reported for university athletes (7%–10%) and even higher for ultra-marathon runners (17%; szabo, de la vega, ruiz-barquín, & rivera, 2013a). it should be emphasized that the reported figures were derived from questionnaires which only measure the presumed risk for exercise addiction and, therefore, cannot be considered as diagnostic tools (szabo, 2010). passion in sport and exercise heavy athletic involvement in sport is associated with passion (vallerand et al., 2006). passion seems to explain the exaggerated time devoted to sports or exercise, which is a common feature of athletic training and exercise addiction. recently, based on a strong link established between exercise addiction and passion, it was suggested that "the concept of exercise addiction is not a plain and independent construct and may not reflect a psychological dysfunction in the athletic population" (de la vega, parastatidou, ruíz-barquín, & szabo, 2016, p. 325). there is a dual model for passion comprised by obsessive and harmonious passion (vallerand et al., 2003). as we have described in a recent study (kovacsik et al., 2018), obsessive passion surfaces when the individual internalizes an activity in a controlled way and involvement is rigidly controlled; it is positively related to negative affect (stenseng et al., 2011; vallerand et al., 2003; vallerand et al., 2007; vallerand & miquelon, 2007). the obsessively passionate person attaches great importance to activity contingencies, such as self-esteem and escape from problems which makes it hard for them to stop the passionate activity (vallerand, 2010). harmonious passion emerges when an activity is internalized autonomously and the individual engages in the activity with flexibility; it is associated with positive affect and it is inversely related to negative affect (stenseng, rise, & kraft, 2011; vallerand et al., 2003; vallerand et al., 2006; vallerand & miquelon, 2007). untangling passion from addiction 298 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exercise addiction and passion: new research findings few empirical studies have examined the relationship between exercise addiction and passion. obsessive passion was positively associated with exercise addiction in endurance sports as well as other leisure physical activities (schipfer & stoll, 2015; stenseng et al., 2011). it was shown that obsessive passion is associated with all the dimensions of exercise addiction, including time, reduction in other activities, tolerance, withdrawal, continuance, intention effects, and absence of control. this link was not demonstrated for harmonious passion which was only related to time and tolerance (paradis, cooke, martin, & hall, 2013). further, it was shown that harmoniously passionate exercisers can increase their exercise volume without neglecting life responsibilities. this is not the case for the obsessively passionate exercisers who spend exaggerated amounts of time on exercise while neglecting important responsibilities (paradis et al., 2013). these findings are supported by a greek research showing that obsessive passion has a stronger link to exercise addiction than harmonious passion (parastatidou, doganis, theodorakis, & vlachopoulos, 2014), and a swedish study demonstrating that those at risk for exercise addiction also score higher on obsessive passion than those who are not at risk (back, 2016). the link between exercise addiction and passion, as a function of the athletic level of competition, was examined in a recent work studying a large sample of lowand high-level competitive athletes, and noncompetitive leisure exercisers (de la vega et al., 2016). in line with parastatidou et al. (2014), the findings revealed that, by accounting for 37% of the total variance, obsessive passion was a predictor of exercise addiction while harmonious passion was not. these findings may not be surprising in the view of the controlling and being controlled aspects of passion and addiction, nor considering negative and positive reinforcement that could be related to the emergence and persistence of harmonious and obsessive passion. with the recent evidence showing that passion may influence the measures of exercise addiction, in a similar manner as commitment to exercise does, the re-evaluation of the approach to the study of exercise addiction may be necessary. it is accepted that the common denominator between the healthy skill-oriented athletic training and the unhealthy escape into exercise is the unusually great time devoted to workouts (szabo et al., 2015). therefore, it is important to understand how a competing athlete feels about her/his exercise behaviour when she presents signs of exercise addictions on the bases of the current conceptualizations of the dysfunction. aim of the current study the aim of the current work was to examine the presence or absence of the currently known components of exercise addiction, in a young successful athlete who identified herself as addicted to exercise. the study relied on a personal interview in which apart from the verbal answers the interviewee also completed some popular questionnaires assessing the risk for exercise addiction, passion for exercise, exercise deprivation symptoms, as well as commitment to exercise, not for quantitative purposes, but to complement the interview with her relative (i.e., high-low) scoring directions on these questionnaires to check the agreement between the two methods (i.e., if she claims high commitment to exercise, is that also reflected in a high score on the commitment to exercise scale?). in past works it was suggested that for getting the sharpest image of exercise addiction nomothetic data (i.e., questionnaire scores) should be followed up with interviews (szabo et al., 2015). the two methods jointly could provide the most accurate picture about one’s feeling states by blending the conscious with the first impression-based semi-conscious aspects. szabo 299 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method the research method as predicted by the interactional model, which states that personal predispositions, exercise experience, and life stress interact in the aetiology of exercise addiction (egorov & szabo, 2013), the studied dysfunction is highly idiosyncratic. whether a person is affected by exercise addiction can only be established by using a personal interview that considers the antecedents, current situations, training habits, and subjective psychological outcomes (szabo et al., 2015). indeed, questionnaires used in nomothetic research could only establish a "level of risk", but cannot clearly identify those who are affected by exercise addiction. nevertheless, the inclusion of the usually adopted nomothetic measures might yield additional information to the qualitative data and reflect the match or the mismatch between the two. therefore, as part of the interview the participant was also asked to rate the commonly accepted measures of exercise addiction. her well-being was evaluated based on swarbrick's (2006) eight life domains. the participant after a campus-wide search for participants in an interview listing the conditions for participation that included the typical symptoms of exercise addiction (griffiths, 2005) and high volume of exercise training one female participant came forward and volunteered for the study. her motive for volunteering was the expression of interest in better understanding her affinity for exercise and her exercise behaviour that (she claimed) has changed her life. the current case study was conducted with the ethical permission of the research ethics committee in the faculty of education and psychology at elte eötvös loránd university in budapest. prior to the study, the participant provided written consent for taking part in this work. her fictive name in this work is evelyn. at the time of the interview, she was a 24-year-old university graduated woman who lived in budapest, hungary. she worked in a managerial-assistant position, which was important to her. during her university studies she attended a gym relatively sporadically, but gradually she got increasingly involved in body building. after experiencing subjective and objective results, less than a year before the current interview, she has started to compete under the guidance of a coach and took part in two national and a major international competition. thus, a shift from exercise to sport, or from an exerciserto the athletic status, took place within the year of the current interview. her early athletic results were very good considering her brief sporting history; she may be regarded as a highly successful athlete who has achieved three remarkable competition results within six months. she trained at least five times a week, for at least one and a half hour each time. occasionally, evelyn felt like working out in addition to her scheduled training. the reason for the extra workouts was guilt for not having enough training or missing a training session, as well as lack of personal satisfaction with the planned progress or the self-set goals. she received notable support, but also criticism, from friends on social media in context of her sport and her athletic physical appearance. this change in her appearance, however, was perceived positively by evelyn. she had little time for socialization due to her work and training. the lack of a fulfilling social life appeared to be the greatest concern at the time of the study. instruments: measurements complementing the interview it should be emphasized that this is not a nomothetic or quantitative study. it is a case study. therefore, the tools used to complement the interview, while gathering numerical scores, should be still interpreted in a merely untangling passion from addiction 300 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ qualitative manner, such as low, medium, or high (like the needle of the odometer) within a given range. these tools were adopted to assess the concordance between interview data and the relative (i.e. high-low) scoring on the commonly used measures in exercise addiction research. for example, if the participant would claim that she is highly addicted to exercise, but would score on the lower end of the exercise addiction inventory, her answers would be questionable. the six-item exercise addiction inventory (eai; terry, szabo, & griffiths, 2004) was used to assess her risk for exercise addiction. items of the eai include statements like: "exercise is the most important thing in my life." or " if i have to miss an exercise session i feel moody and irritable.". these statements are rated on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from 'strongly disagree' to 'strongly agree'. the maximum score is 30. a score of 24 or over suggest high risk for exercise addiction. the scales' internal reliability (cronbach α) ranges between .61 to .80 in several cross-cultural samples (griffiths et al., 2015; mónok et al., 2012; terry et al., 2004). the concurrent validity of the eai, established through correlations with the obligatory exercise questionnaire (pasman & thompson, 1988) and the exercise dependence scale (hausenblas & downs, 2002), was .80 and .81, respectively. its two-week test-retest reliability was .85 (griffiths et al., 2005). passion was assessed using the revised passion scale (ps: marsh et al., 2013). its items include statements like: "my sport is in harmony with the other activities in my life." or "if i could, i would only do my sport.". this scale gauges harmoniousand obsessive passion across two 6-item subscales that are rated on a 7-point likert scale, ranging from 'not agree at all' to 'very strongly agree'. the scales' internal reliability (cronbach’s alpha) is .83 for harmonious passion and .86 for obsessive passion (marsh et al., 2013). these values are higher in the exercise context, .88 for harmonious passion and .91 for obsessive passion (parastatidou, doganis, theodorakis, & vlachopoulos, 2012). the scale’s convergent validity was established through a series of statistically significant correlations with various passion determinants and passion outcomes (parastatidou et al., 2012; tables 2 and 3, pp. 129-130). the test-retest validity of the scale was established in a gambling context and it was .84 and .89 in two studies (rousseau, vallerand, ratelle, mageau, & provencher, 2002). this scale also has a 5-item subscale that can be used for measuring a person's affinity for sport or any other activity. in the current study a validated hungarian version of the scale was used with internal reliabilities of .80 and .88 (tóth-király, bõthe, rigó, & orosz, 2017). the 9-item deprivation sensations scale (robbins & joseph, 1985) was used to measure nine symptom of exercise withdrawal, such as irritability or frustration, rated on a 7-point likert scale. the scales' internal reliability is .81 (szabo, frenkl, & caputo, 1996). there are no reports about other psychometric properties of the scale. finally, nine symptoms-based non-substance related disorders category of substance-related and addictive disorders classification of dsm-5 for gambling (american psychiatric association, 2013) was used by replacing 'gambling' with the word 'exercise'. these were built into the interview since the mere presence or absence of a symptom was the point, while the rest were presented in scalar-form using paper and pencil tools. (this is not a questionnaire, so no psychometric properties should be reported for the nine distinct categories, which was another reason for not presenting it as a paper and pencil instrument.) procedure: the interview the interview took place in a quiet place without distraction and lasted approximately one hour. evelyn completed the questionnaires and subsequently answered questions in the context of her training and szabo 301 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional aspects of her sport. she then described and compared eight domains (swarbrick, 2006) of her current well-being with the period preceding her intense involvement with body building. while, the author of this case study was (is) aware that retrospective answers could be biased, her subjective perception of the change (or difference) in the two situations was the most important. with evelyn's consent the interview was recorded with a smartphone's sound recorder application. the participant has approved the here published version of the interview. results quantitative measures on the eai, evelyn scored 20 out of 30 of the maximum score, which classifies her as 'symptomatic' based on the criteria of interpretation recommended by terry et al. (2004), but not 'at risk' for exercise addiction for which the cut-off point is 24. her mean eai value was 3.33, which is like the mean score (3.15) of 384 regularly exercising university students (sicilia, alcaraz-ibáñez, lirola, & burgueño, 2017) and 78 spanish women athletes (mean score 3.04; szabo et al., 2013a). on the passion scale she scored 33 out of the maximum of 42 on the harmonious passion, yielding a mean of 5.50, which is comparable, but slightly lower than the mean value (6.22) recently reported for exercising university students (sicilia et al., 2017), however it matches closely the mean values (5.00, 5.56 and 5.84) reported in three studies with recreational and competitive athletes by vallerand et al. (2006). evelyn scored 40 out of 42 on obsessive passion. this score yields a mean value of 6.67 that is higher than the mean values (3.07, 3.84, and 4.34) reported by vallerand et al. (2006), or the mean value (4.83) found in a recent spanish work (sicilia et al., 2017). further, on the affinity or commitment items she scored 33 out of the possible 35 points, which obviously is near the maximum possible, so clearly it indicates a high score. on the deprivation sensation scale evelyn scored 44 out of 63 possible, which is higher than the values reported for exercisers in five different forms of exercise ranging from 19/63 in bowlers to 34/63 in aerobic exercisers, with a score of 30/63 (gender not reported) for eight body builders (szabo et al., 1996). her scores cannot be interpreted by considering the scores of other female body builders, because no such reports exist in the literature. finally, she reported 6 out of 9 symptoms on the non-substance related disorders category of the dsm-5, that would classify her with disordered exercise behaviour (as an analogy to gambling disorder in the dsm-5). her relative scores, in terms of percentages of the maximum (simply to illustrate the relative position [i.e., low, medium, high] of her answers), are summarized in figure 1. untangling passion from addiction 302 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. evelyn's scores in percent (%) of the maximum (vertical axis range 0-100) on six measures of exercise behaviour. qualitative measures training evelyn's training is scheduled. she trains in a team with 30 other women in which every person gets limited personal attention from the coach. she is not happy about that, but since the training routines are identical, evelyn feels that she can manage her own training. the athletes are on a strict personalized diet designed, but not provided, by the coach. evelyn does not take performance or growth stimulating agents. she is not keen about the strict diet that she must follow, in fact she considers it as the most inconvenient aspect of her training regimen. otherwise, evelyn shows no signs of any eating-related problems. she usually has two rest days a week, but sometimes once biweekly it happens that she feels the need to exercise in addition to her scheduled training. this happens when she misses a workout or does not attain a set goal in time. while she reports no major injuries due to her exercise, she has some backache that she manages with waist support and lower-weight use in some exercise routines. she claims that working out helps her in dealing with life stress. evelyn believes that she has experienced some losses due to her intense involvement in exercise primarily in her social life and personal relationships, as well as in her study progress during the last term of her university studies. she has experienced conflicts at work due to exercise. her major aspiration is to perform better in competitions and to get sponsors for her sport, so she can spend more time with the sport and have a more stable financial outlook. in fact, she would like to blend her sport into a career. matching the components model for addiction (griffiths, 2005), evelyn admits that her training represents the highest priority in her life. she is also aware of the distressing withdrawal symptoms if training is not possible for a reason. she often uses exercise for mood alteration, especially in dealing with stress. while, she thinks that she had no major interpersonal conflict because of her exercise, some conflict has occurred at her workplace. two components that were rated low on the eai could not be detected during the interview either. these were tolerance and relapse; she did not increase her amount of training in the past few months and she had no intention to stop or reduce her training. szabo 303 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ life domains the interview was centred around well-being in eight life domains: health (physical), environment, intellectual growth, occupation, health (emotional), social life, financial status, and spiritual life (swarbrick, 2006). initially she had to consider the momentary aspect of well-being in these domains and then she had to recall her wellbeing in these life domains before her intense involvement in body building (i.e., performing it as a sport and competing in it). the outcome measure was the perceived difference between her past and present, recorded as positive change, no change, or negative change. as illustrated in table 1, evelyn perceives her well-being better in six out of eight life domains at present in contrast to the past when exercise was not as important as today. the fact that work and exercise take a tool on her social life is manifested as a partially negative change compared to the past, while no major change could be detected in her spiritual life. this trend of improvement after her intense involvement in exercise is also justified by her answer to a sort of summary question asking her to show on a ruler where is her overall well-being now and where was it before her dedication to body building; the current rating corresponded to a 7-8 on 10 partition while the rating of her past well-being was only between 3-4. clearly, if one considers the middle point (5) as the separation between negative and positive appraisal, it might be assumed that the intensified involvement in sport triggered positive changes in evelyn's well-being. table 1 perceived well-being in eight life domains life domain at the time of interview before the heavy involvement in exercise training emotional 1. appears balanced, self-confident, aware of the situation. 1. experienced emotional distress, due to family, financial, and relationship issues; had to seek professional help. physical 2. perceives to be in good physical health. 2. experienced stomach and cardiac problems. environmental 3. lives independently, has control over her life. 3. lived with a parent, was dependent on others. occupational 4. works in a full-time job. 4. studied, had no or part time job only. intellectual 5. faces work-related intellectual challenge at work. 5. faced challenges related to student life and studies. financial 6. the financial situation is good, but it is not yet ideal. 6. it was very unsatisfactory, had major financial hardship. social 7. it is not satisfactory, because work and training leaves no time for socialization, or for developing a lasting relationship. 7. it was slightly better than now, but still not fully satisfactory. spiritual 8. no change in this domain; she is a believer with some interest in astrology. 8. it was not different before; she was a believer with some interest in astrology. note. currently perceived well-being in eight life domains (swarbrick, 2006) as compared to the recalled well-being before evelyn's intense involvement in body building. the latter is also a current appreciation of past events; therefore, the important outcome measure is the current state of the mind or thought. in bold fonts are the areas perceived as negative by evelyn. untangling passion from addiction 304 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion considering her quantitative responses, evelyn could be classified as symptomatic based on the eai and on the dsm-5 classification, as extrapolated from gambling to exercise, she would be diagnosed with disordered exercise behaviour. the diagnosis would be justified by the nearly maximum score on obsessive passion (refer to figure 1). however, her data on deprivation sensations are far from the maximum, she scored relatively high on harmonious passion and reported nearly maximum scores on commitment to exercise. at first glance, these figures appear to be controversial, but they are not as it should become clear after a deeper evaluation. exercise addiction inventory (eai): the scoring compared with the interview the eai was built upon six symptoms commonly observed in all addictive behaviours (terry et al., 2004). salience, or high priority and preoccupation with exercise is the first of the six symptoms. evelyn scored five, which is the maximum when completing the scale and she also reaffirmed during the interview that basically her life revolves around her sport. on "withdrawal symptoms" again she gave a maximum rating and during the interview she confirmed the ever presence of these symptoms and even listed some of its forms, which were guilt, insomnia, and nervousness. however, on the deprivation sensation scale, evelyn scored 44 out of 63 possible, which is just slightly over than two thirds maximal score, yet it is higher than that reported earlier (30) for body builders (szabo et al., 1996). this issue will be treated separately below, not only because of an apparent discrepancy between the eai score plus interview and the deprivation sensation scale results, but also because early research relied solely on the presence of withdrawal symptoms in establishing the existence of exercise addiction (szabo, griffiths, & demetrovics, 2016). evelyn scored four, representing agreement, on the "mood modification" item of the eai and she justified her answer by stating that she often uses exercise in dealing with life-stress. on "conflict" her scale and interview scores were dissonant, because on the former she gave a score of two, reflecting the rather disagree answer, but during the interview she claimed that she has experienced some conflict at work. this discrepancy was followed up during the interview and it turned out that when she was rating the questionnaire she focused on her close relationships only. on the final two symptoms gauging "tolerance" (rated as 1, which means strongly disagree) and on "relapse" (rated as 3, meaning neither agrees nor disagrees) the scale results were consistent with the interview. when these questions were further probed during the interview, evelyn explained that she has a stable training plan for a while that needs no adjustment in volume. concerning relapse, she explained her rating through the fact that since she became heavily involved in her sport, she never tried to cut down the amount of training that she performs, so she has perceived this item as not applicable to her sport and thus could neither agree or disagree. the study shows that in the current case study the quantitative assessment of the eai was mostly in accord with the responses gained during the interview. however, the misinterpretation of the conflict item led to a lower score on the eai. nevertheless, even if she would have scored 5 (maximum) on this item, she would have had a total score of 23 that is still not reaching the cut-off score of 24, which draws the line between symptomatic and at-risk exercise behaviour (terry et al., 2004). thus, according to the eai score, evelyn could be classified as symptomatic, but the eai items (which reflect the common symptoms of addictions based on the components model [griffiths, 2005]) have a justifiably different interpretation in evelyn' and perhaps other athletes’ cases (szabo et al., 2015). indeed, salience is an expectable characteristic of the athletes trying to get higher on the competition ladder. withdrawal symptoms are “normal reactions” to all activities that one adopts as a part of the daily life; in fact, bowlers also have experienced deprivation feelings at the times when they szabo 305 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ could not bowl, even though their symptoms were milder than those reported by body builders (szabo et al., 1996). conflict has the lowest factor loading on the eai (lichtenstein, christiansen, bilenberg, & støving, 2014), but its presence is also “normal” in the highly committed athletes' life, because the training demands and associated obligations could result in interpersonal conflict (szabo et al., 2015). the item “mood modification” in evelyn's case (as complemented by the interview) reflects her coping with life stress. while this item could be related to good performance, appearance, and exercise-induced feeling states in evelyn's case it emerges as a coincidental coping mechanism. i stress the term “coincidental”, because her motive for participation in sport is not to cope with stress per se, but to develop into a successful athlete. at the same time, she realizes that sport helps her in dealing with stress and she simply profits from the opportunity. while tolerance and relapse also have different meaning for exercise addicts and elite competing athletes (szabo et al., 2015), these symptoms were not relevant in evelyn's case. summing up the eai-based findings for evelyn, the paper and pencil tool emerged to be in accord with the interview except for one item. the eai would classify evelyn as symptomatic for the risk of exercise addiction, and although four symptoms' presence out of six could be backed up with the results of the interview, evelyn showed no signs of maladaptive exercise behaviour. she did not lose control over her training, even though occasionally she felt like doing a little surplus exercise above her usual training programme. apart from a cut back in her social life, and her last university term studies suffering because of her training, she had no major losses in her life that could be attributed to her training. thus, it can be argued that evelyn shows no signs of exercise addiction, even though her quantitative (questionnaire) data would classify her as symptomatic. making sense of the withdrawal symptoms evelyn scored the maximum (5) on the eai withdrawal symptoms item and during the interview she also admitted experiencing unpleasant symptoms for the times when training is not possible. however, she only scored 69.8% of the maximum score on the deprivation sensations scale. the slightly confounding results may be blamed on the tool's or response's reliability; but that would be a hazardous option. the fact is that the eai is an agreement-disagreement scale on which the maximum score reflects a total agreement with the statement (i.e., that the respondent experiences withdrawal symptoms when exercise is not possible). this rating was corroborated by her responses during the interview. so why does it appear to be in discord with the deprivation score obtained on the deprivation sensation scale? the answer is that the latter is a frequency scale on which the frequency of experiencing the symptoms yields a measure of the severity of the deprivation feelings. for example, if all symptoms are always present then they are quite severe compared to when only 5 out of 9 are being present with moderate frequency. now this point may seem farfetched, but it is an important point that is being overlooked in the extant literature. as szabo et al. (2016) have clarified, the mere presence of withdrawal symptoms is not indicative of exercise addiction, but their severity might be (figure 2). in evelyn's case the actual presence of the withdrawal symptoms for the times when she must miss a training session were confirmed, but they were not maximal in severity (refer to figure 2), which explains the discord between the results of the eai, backed up with the interview, and her ratings of the deprivation sensations. untangling passion from addiction 306 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the conceptual link between the presence and the severity of withdrawal symptoms in exercise addiction, indicating the approximate position of evelyn's scores with the black dot. obsessive passion and harmonious passion evelyn scored a close to maximum score on obsessive passion (refer to figure 1). given the reported relationship between exercise addiction and obsessive passion (de la vega et al., 2016; schipfer & stoll, 2015; stenseng et al., 2011), her score may be an index of maladaptive, controlled exercise, characterized by a rigid involvement (stenseng et al., 2011; vallerand et al., 2003; vallerand et al., 2007; vallerand & miquelon, 2007). however, competitive athletes seem to score higher on obsessive passion as well as harmonious passion than recreational exercisers (de la vega et al., 2016). evelyn's score on harmonious passion was lower (33) than on obsessive passion (40), but it was higher than the mean score of the recreational exercisers (29.1) in de la vega et al.'s. (2016) study, while it was fitting the mean values reported for competitive athletes (33.3 33.9) in that work. these results make sense if one thinks about the controlling and rigid aspects of competitive sports; these characteristics stem from the discipline to follow a strict and demanding training regimen that, for the sake of success, virtually controls the athletes' lives. the high harmonious passion reflects the autonomously internalized activity, pride in success, and the joy of increasingly better performance. thus, competitive athletes could be expected to exhibit high scores on both obsessiveand harmonious passion, one reflecting a surrender to conformity (e.g., “i must do it to ..., i must do an extra session to..., unless i push myself, i will not...”, and so on). these selfand coach-imposed pressures are not mere choices, but perceived obligations to which the athlete needs to succumb to succeed. they are controlled internalizations that could stem from both intraand interpersonal pressures (vallerand, 2012). evelyn justified the cases of the extra training sessions with feelings of guilt when she missed a training session and with perceived lack of achieving her goals in time, or a sort of dissatisfaction with her progress, which mirrors her intrapersonal pressure. on the other hand, high levels of harmonious passion reflect the chosen aspects related to sport behaviour. they could involve the dedication, aspiration, and strong commitment mediated through the positive reinforcement of the regular training, stemming from an internal motivationi. however, it is more than internal szabo 307 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ motivation, because the dedicated athlete identifies herself with what she is doing (vallerand, 2012), that is part of her identity. the greater this part is, the higher the passion scores will be; obsessive passion surfaces with conformity and self-imposed pressure to achieve her goal, while harmonious passion rises with pride, enjoyment, and satisfaction. her scores on these scales (figure 3), in accord with de la vega et al.'s. (2016) findings, support the conjecture that there is a two-dimensional nature of passion in sport. figure 3. the conceptual association between obsessiveand harmonious passion, indicating the approximate position of evelyn's scores with the black dot. non-substance related disorders category of the dsm-5 evelyn scored six out of nine of the symptoms enlisted for exercise disorder under the non-substance related disorders category of the dsm-5; scoring four or more on this category is an index of disordered behaviour (american psychiatric association, 2013). while adopting the symptoms of gambling disorder to exercise addiction could be criticized, there appears to be a valid ground for the practice (potenza, 2014). the exercise dependence scale (eds; hausenblas & downs, 2002) was conceptualized based on the dsm-4 criteria for substance dependence. the problem is not with the drawn analogy between the two behavioural addictions, because analogy also exists between behaviouraland substance-related addictions (alavi et al., 2012), but with the interpretation of these symptoms by elite athletes when they are presented for the evaluation of their training (see table 2). evelyn only denied three out of the nine dsm criteria: a) item 3: trying to cut down on exercise; b) item 7: lying about her exercise; and c) item 9: relying on others to do things for her. all the other six criteria can be interpreted as part of who she is, or being an elite athlete. they are no longer pathological symptoms, but normal aspects of her training, whereas for a recreational exerciser may not be as “normal”. indeed, evelyn thought that those criteria suited her exercise behaviour. examining the right column in table 2, perhaps most readers would agree that those criteria, which could be symptoms for recreational exercisers, are natural aspects of the elite athletes' lives. same with the eai, which was developed with recreational untangling passion from addiction 308 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exercisers, athletes usually show very high scores because the items have a different meaning to them (szabo et al., 2015). therefore, a great deal of confusion exists in the literature, unless high level of athletic involvement is paired with psychopathology. indeed, evelyn's appraisal of the dsm-5 criteria reflect the subjective appraisal of her athletic life as a successful body builder who longs for much more, and clearly does not reflect any sort of maladjustment. table 2 adaptation of the dsm-5 criteria for gambling disorder to exercise addiction and the possible interpretation of each criterion by the elite athlete (last column in bold letters) dsm-5 gambling disorder criteria as it applies to exercise addiction what the symptom-criteria mirror in case of elite athletes 1. need to gamble with increasing amount of money to achieve the desired excitement. 1. needs to exercise more to achieve the same satisfaction as before. 1. needs to exercise to reach higher goals. 2. restless or irritable when trying to cut down or stop gambling. 2. restless or irritable when must cut down or stop exercising. 2. hard feelings when losing training for an unwanted or unexpected reason. 3. repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back on or stop gambling. 3. repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back on exercise. 3. does not normally want to cut down on training (unless injured). 4. frequent thoughts about gambling (such as reliving past gambling experiences, planning the next gambling venture, thinking of ways to get money to gamble). 4. frequent thoughts about exercise (such as reliving past experiences, planning the next exercise session, thinking of ways to get more exercise). 4. a normal salience for the elite athlete who must plan and evaluate workouts and schedule the days around the training. 5. often gambling when feeling distressed. 5. often exercising when feeling distressed. 5. may rely on exercise or training to deal with stress. 6. after losing money gambling, often returning to get even (referred to as “chasing” one’s losses). 6. after insufficient or missed exercise, pushes hard to make up for it. 6. emerges as conformity, self-imposed pressure, obsessive passion; part of elite athletes' training. 7. lying to conceal gambling activity. 7. lying to conceal problematic exercise behaviour. 7. it s not applicable in most cases of elite athletes. 8. jeopardizing or losing a significant relationship, job or educational/career opportunity because of gambling. 8. jeopardizing or losing a significant relationship, job or educational/career opportunity because of exercise. 8. being an elite athlete takes sacrifices. 9. relying on others to help with money problems caused by gambling. 9. relying on others to help with issues, neglected chores, or obligations caused by exaggerated exercise. 9. due to the demand of training, time constraints, travel to competitions, may rely on others' help. commitment to exercise evelyn scored nearly maximum points commitment measured with the 'passion criteria' subscale of the passion scale (figure 1) that reflects self-reported time-investment, affiliation, importance, involvement, and identity in the context of the athletic activity (de la vega et al., 2016; marsh et al., 2013). although, interpreted as a positive feature of exercise behaviour, early research went so far to interpret high scores of commitment as szabo 309 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ addiction (szabo, 2010). a high score of commitment reflects how hard a person wants to achieve a goal and the extent to which she is willing to make sacrifices (locke, 1996). high level of commitment cannot be separated from obsessive passion, which embodies the internal pressure to do something, or to engage in an activity (forest, mageau, sarrazin, & morin, 2011). evelyn's high scores on both commitment to exercise and obsessive passion may appear controversial at the first glance, but they are not, since a nearly maximal score of commitment reflects one's willingness to push herself to the extremes, and thus apply strong internal pressure in working towards a desired goal. well-being in eight life domains now and before the transition from exercise to sport out of the eight life domains of well-being (swarbrick, 2006), evelyn reported noticing improvements on six. thus, although there was no change in her spiritual life and she suffered losses in social relationship, most areas of well-being have been improved, showing that her heavy involvement in exercise, now a sport, brought primarily positive changes in her life. nevertheless, she experiences a major void in her life due to dissatisfaction with her social life. she sees this problem as an ongoing and stress-causing issue, because her work, training, and personal care do not leave sufficient time for socialization. she perceives this negative aspect in her well-being as a sacrifice for her dream-goals to become a successful and sponsored athlete and eventually blend her professional life with her sport. the sacrifice is in concordance with her high obsessive passion scores reflecting the self-imposed pressure to comply with training even at the expense of a muchdesired need in another life domain. while unsatisfactory social life may be a negative experience due to exercise, it is not a form of loss, or ill consequence, that is reported in most case studies of exercise addiction (i.e., schreiber & hausenblas, 2015). while these results suggest that evelyn feels much better in most life domains today than in the past, it should be appreciated that the latter appraisal of the events may be subject to memory distortion. synopsis while many people like evelyn may claim that they are addicted to exercise (szabo, 2010), they refer to their high commitment to training. the latter, as noted in evelyn's case, is paired with high obsessiveand harmonious passion, one reflecting the self-imposed pressure while the other the benefits of training. therefore, in accord with evelyn's results, it is fair to anticipate high obsessiveand harmonious passion coupled with high level of commitment in successful athletes. together, they are healthy adaptations in striving towards a noble life-goal. evelyn is not addicted to exercise, even though she thought so, or may appear to be so based on the relatively high quantitative measures, as confirmed via the interview, which is a contradiction that supports szabo et al.'s (2015) view that athletes interpret the symptoms of exercise addiction differently than recreational or leisure exercisers. the different interpretations gave rise to a false alarm in the literature suggesting that numerous athletes are prone to exercise addiction (mcnamara & mccabe, 2012), often more prone than nonathletes (blaydon & lindner, 2002; szabo et al., 2013a). evelyn's proneness to exercise addiction, paired with no notable maladjustments in life, suggests that proneness (or risk determined with exercise addiction questionnaires) alone is not an index of dysfunction. future studies should compare the differences in the levels of exercise addiction between non-competing recreational and competitive athletes, not simply on the bases of questionnaires, but by using follow-up interviews in the cases of established proneness or exercise addiction. untangling passion from addiction 310 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while evelyn experiences deprivation sensations when she must miss her training, her scores reflecting the severity of the symptoms, in terms of type and frequency, were lower, which supports earlier contentions that the presence of withdrawal symptoms, or deprivation sensation, does not pair up with exercise addiction, but their severity does (szabo, 2010). finally, in the period following her intense involvement in exercise, turning into sport, evelyn had experienced positive changes in most life areas, which underpins the conclusion of the study that she has a passion for, but not addiction to exercise. these results suggest that actual cases of exercises addiction may be occur less frequently than expected based on the risk assessment (using a nomothetic/ questionnaire approach) in the literature. limitations the study is not without limitation. the lack of generalizability is one obvious limitation. lack of random selection (which is impossible in this area) and the participant's knowledge about the topic of the interview could have biased her responses. like in most case studies, the author must rely on the inferred honesty of the participant. further, the exercise per se and competition aspect of evelyn's sport cannot be untangled, but so is that of competitive athletes studied in dozens of nomothetic investigations. perhaps the explanation of the difference in the prevalence of exercise addiction, attributed to different interpretation of exercise addiction items by recreational and competing athletes (szabo et al., 2015) is an issue of an additional variable (i.e., competition) in the latter group. this feature should be systematically investigated in future works by a direct comparison of two matched groups, one recreational and one competitive. still another limitation, is in comparing the eight life domains (swarbrick, 2006) at present and in the past, since the latter relied on retrospective answers that could be subject to memory distortion. perhaps only longitudinal studies could overcome this limitation. conclusions the presented case study provides a real-life example of how self-perceived exercise addiction is only a mere reflection of both obsessive and harmonious passion in the maximal commitment to a sporting activity in a female body builder. the case study supports previous contentions that not the presence, but the strength of the deprivation sensations associated with exercise addiction may be instrumental in separating healthyfrom unhealthy exercise pattern. the parallel between very high scores of obsessive passion and commitment in the examined person suggest that high internal pressure related to conformity in the training regimen may be part of the high commitment and that high obsessive passion can co-occur with high harmonious passion, the latter reflecting the joy and satisfaction derived from the results of training. the case study also revealed that the dsm-5 criteria for non-substance related disorders, when adopted for disordered exercise behaviour, may not apply, because of valid alternative interpretation of the nine criteria by the highly committed athlete; the lack of concordance of the dsm-5 outcome and the scores on the exercise addiction inventory further justifies this point. the message from this case study is that future studies should look at passion and commitment too while examining the risk for exercise addiction, and more importantly that questionnaire-based risk scores may not reflect actual risk for dysfunction, thus their conceptual internal validity needs to be revisited. take home message it is possible that nomothetic (quantitative) research, assessing the risk for exercise addiction, embeds a confounding overlap between passion, commitment, and exercise addiction, which yields false estimate of the szabo 311 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ actual risk and prevalence of the dysfunction. despite self-perceived exercise addiction, confirmed by various measures used in nomothetic research and dsm criteria for addiction, no signs of dysfunction and/or psychopathology could be detected in a female body builder, who is a competing athlete. the bulk of past research on exercise addictions should be re-evaluated with a view on the unlikely problematic behaviour mirrored by questionnaire scores. notes i) external motivation would likely be a controlling factor and, therefore, it would increase scores on obsessive-, but not harmonious passion; future research should test this relationship outside the realms of exercise addiction. funding this study was supported by the hungarian national scientific research fund k 111938. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments evelyn (h. g.) is thanked for her voluntary participation in the study. the editor and three anonymous reviewers of the europe' journal of psychology are thanked for their excellent, clear, and constructive feedback that helped substantially in drafting a clearer version of this article. references alavi, s. s., ferdosi, m., jannatifard, f., eslami, m., alaghemandan, h., & setare, m. 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(1995). does primary exercise dependence really exist? in j. annett, b. cripps, & h. steinberg (eds.), exercise addiction: motivation for participation in sport and exercise (pp. 1-5). leicester, united kingdom: british psychological society. about the author attila szabo is a full professor in the institute of health promotion and sport sciences in the faculty of education and psychology at elte eötvös loránd university in budapest. he is a member of the behavioural addictions research group in the institute of psychology at the same university, and doctor of the hungarian academy of sciences (dsc) in the field of psychology. untangling passion from addiction 316 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 296–316 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1545 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01968 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0026377 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.4.756 http://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.28.4.454 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00447.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ untangling passion from addiction (introduction) the dark side of exercise behaviour passion in sport and exercise aim of the current study method the research method the participant instruments: measurements complementing the interview procedure: the interview results quantitative measures qualitative measures discussion exercise addiction inventory (eai): the scoring compared with the interview making sense of the withdrawal symptoms obsessive passion and harmonious passion non-substance related disorders category of the dsm-5 commitment to exercise well-being in eight life domains now and before the transition from exercise to sport synopsis limitations conclusions take home message notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the flow engine framework: a cognitive model of optimal human experience literature reviews the flow engine framework: a cognitive model of optimal human experience milija šimleša* abc, jérôme guegan b, edouard blanchard a, franck tarpin-bernard a, stéphanie buisine bc [a] sbt group, paris, france. [b] lati, university paris descartes, paris, france. [c] lineact, cesi, paris, france. abstract flow is a well-known concept in the fields of positive and applied psychology. examination of a large body of flow literature suggests there is a need for a conceptual model rooted in a cognitive approach to explain how this psychological phenomenon works. in this paper, we propose the flow engine framework, a theoretical model explaining dynamic interactions between rearranged flow components and fundamental cognitive processes. using an ipo framework (inputs – processes – outputs) including a feedback process, we organize flow characteristics into three logically related categories: inputs (requirements for flow), mediating and moderating cognitive processes (attentional and motivational mechanisms) and outputs (subjective and objective outcomes), describing the process of the flow. comparing flow with an engine, inputs are depicted as flow-fuel, core processes cylinder strokes and outputs as power created to provide motion. keywords: flow, optimal experience, flow components, ipo model, cognitive processes, theoretical model europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 received: 2017-01-09. accepted: 2017-09-02. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; andrew p. allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: sbt group, 114 boulevard malsherbes, 75017 paris – france. tel. +33140150102. e-mail: m.simlesa@sbt-human.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. studying the creative process (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002), csikszentmihalyi began to investigate a psychological phenomenon that he named flow (csikszentmihalyi, 1993; csikszentmihalyi, 2008; csikszentmihalyi & lefevre, 1989; ghani & deshpande, 1994). flow corresponds to a state of optimal experience and maximal concentration, when people act at the peak of their capacity. it may lead to high levels of performance, creativity and pleasure. encompassing specificities of various domains, a large variety of enjoyable human activities share the same flow characteristics (csikszentmihalyi, 1994). csikszentmihalyi and other researchers found this experience by interviewing people that have left a significant trace in history with considerable achievements in literature, science, music, rock climbing, dancing, chess (csikszentmihalyi, 2013); but also other domains such as sailing, line-work in industry (csikszentmihalyi, 2008), and computer programming (rogulja, tomić, & olčar, 2011). the account of the flow state is particularly robust, confirmed through numerous studies (csikszentmihalyi, 2013; csikszentmihalyi & robinson, 1990; perry, 1999). an eminent pianist performing in front of an audience could describe her psychological state as a europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ fulfilling, absorbing experience of merging action and awareness while moving fingers across the keyboard, interpreting the piece and sharing beauty with her audience. if we ask a chess player how it feels when the tournament is going well, he will probably give a similar description like a pianist would give of a good concert. providing a promise for a full life worth living, flow both improves subjective well being and has a potential for socially useful consequences (csikszentmihalyi, 1994). the more time that is spent in this state, the better the quality of life is: people experiencing flow report higher levels of concentration, creativity and positive emotions (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). a wide range of empirical evidence indicates the adaptive importance of positive affects. besides mere pleasure, positive affects bring numerous, interdependent benefits (fredrickson & losada, 2005). for example, positive feelings reshape people’s mindsets: research showed that induced positive affect stretches the scope of attention (fredrickson & branigan, 2005; rowe, hirsch, & anderson, 2005), broadens behavioural range (fredrickson & branigan, 2005), boosts creativity (isen, daubman, & nowicki, 1987), and increases intuition (bolte, goschke, & kuhl, 2003). therefore, flow appears to be important for human well being, and its scientific understanding becomes a requisite for contributing to the improvement of human lives. describing, explaining and predicting this phenomenon may help act upon and change behaviours for the best. three decades of empirical research on this topic have yielded results and insights about domain-related flow, notably music (e.g. byrne, macdonald, & carlton, 2003; macdonald, byrne, & carlton, 2006; wrigley & emmerson, 2013), sports (e.g. catley & duda, 1997; kimiecik & jackson, 2002; stein, kimiecik, daniels, & jackson, 1995), education (e.g. bakker, 2005; clarke & haworth, 1994; lee, 2005), video games (e.g. bryce & rutter, 2001; cowley, charles, black, & hickey, 2008; thin, hansen, & mceachen, 2011; weibel, wissmath, habegger, steiner, & groner, 2008), work (e.g. fullagar & kelloway, 2009; lavigne, forest, & crevier-braud, 2012; nielsen & cleal, 2010), and other domains. these empirical studies assessed flow with standard measures such as experience sampling method or esm (csikszentmihalyi & hunter, 2003; csikszentmihalyi & larson, 1987; csikszentmihalyi, larson, & prescott, 1977; hormuth, 1986; larson & csikszentmihalyi, 1983). this method consists in equipping the respondents with an electronic pager and a booklet of self-report forms. participants wear the pager and whenever it beeps, they have to fill out a page of booklet indicating activity, location, companionship and the quality of experience at that moment on a variety of dimensions (task type, challenges and skills, quality of experience, affect, potency, concentration, creativity, motivation, satisfaction, relaxation, etc.). there are several other methods to measure flow such as the flow scale (mayers, 1978), the flow questionnaire and flow scale (delle fave & massimini, 1988), activity flow state scale – afss (payne, jackson, noh, & stine-morrow, 2011), dispositional flow scale-2 (jackson & eklund, 2002), flow short scale (rheinberg, vollmeyer, & engeser, 2003), and some other paper-and-pencil scales used in sports (jackson & marsh, 1996) or psychotherapy (parks, 1996). characteristics of flow this state which allows individuals to achieve an ordered state of mind and that is highly enjoyable (csikszentmihalyi, 2008) is characterised by the following features: (1) balance between perceived challenges and perceived skills, (2) clear proximal goals, (3) immediate feedback, (4) intrinsic motivation, (5) hyper focus, (6) temporary loss of reflective selfawareness, (7) distortion of time-perception, (8) feeling of control, and (9) šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 233 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ merging of action and awareness (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002) to whom may be added a tenth characteristic (10) attentional-involvement (abuhamdeh & csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). hamari and koivisto (2014) have suggested that flow should be regarded as divided between the conditions for reaching the flow and the psychological outputs that follow from reaching the optimal experience. some flow dimensions are considered conceptually closer to one another. for example, theoritizations have considered challenge-skill balance, clear goals, control and feedback as conditions required to attain flow, while loss of self-consciousness, time distortion, concentration, and merging action-awareness have been regarded as outcomes (csikszentmihalyi, 2008; hamari & koivisto, 2014; nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). furthermore, evidence from psychometric data such as a stronger covariance between certain dimensions and weaker covariance between other dimensions, is coherent with the idea that there might be a possible conceptual diversity of flow dimensions (boffi et al., in press; fournier et al., 2007; hamari & koivisto, 2014). csikszentmihalyi (2014) seems to differentiate conditions (clear goals, skill-challenge balance, and immediate feedback), characteristics (concentration, merging action and awareness, loss of reflective self-consciousness, control, time distortion, and autotelic experience) and outcomes (persistence, commitment, achievement, less anxiety, etc.) of the flow experience. however, this differenciation between conditions, characteristics and outcomes was never directly put in perspective of a theoretical model. similarly, landhäusser and keller’s (2012) model organizes the flow experience as a sequence of (1) preconditions (i.e., goals, feedback, demandskill balance), (2) components of the experience (e.g., sense of control, reduced self-consciousness) and (3) consequences of flow (i.e. affective, cognitive, physiological, and quality of performance). possible retroactions from the experience and consequences of flow onto the preconditions of further flow experience in an autoalimentation phenomenon are not considered in this model. moreover, cognitive functions are categorized as consequences of flow, which suggests that flow is viewed as a fully-fledged process emerging independently from them. our approach mainly differs in two respects. firstly, we believe that flow experience arises from the combination of favorable contextual factors (preconditions) and activation of specific cognitive functions (attentional and motivational processes) likely to mediate and/or moderate flow process. this may result in a more parsimonious and dynamic model drawing both on previous flow research, which has mainly taken place in domains of positive psychology and applied sciences (e.g., education, sports, information technologies and management), and on the framework of cognitive psychology. this attempt of linking flow to fundamental cognitive processes may also offer a conceptualization of flow inside, instead of beside, the domain of cognitive psychology. furthermore, the continuous evolution of challenge-skill balance refreshed by constant feedback and adaptation to changing proximal goals leads us to believe that flow is a dynamic psychological process, rather than a mere state. happening in real-time, the task of the person experiencing flow provides a dynamic context of interaction between the doer, his/her environment and the activity. already vividly described in literature (e.g., csikszentmihalyi, 2008, 2013), at the present moment we lack a cognitive explanation of the flow process. given these issues, we argue that a theoretical model describing the functional nature of flow is needed – giving a comprehensible explanation of this concept in a dynamic framework. now that we are able to name, depict, notice, and recognize it, the next mandatory phase is explaining it. this indispensable step in studying psychological phenomena opens new possibilities for predicting flow and acting upon it. to our best knowledge, there haven’t been other attempts to produce a dynamic and cognitive conceptualization of flow. the flow engine framework 234 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our theoretical model the flow engine framework just like an engine converts gasoline into motion, flow inputs are ignited by strokes of core processes, producing flow dynamics which consequently generates changes to the status quo: absorption, achievement and positive feelings. this theory seeks to provide a functional mechanism for the process of flow by using an ip-o (inputs-processes-outputs) framework adding retroaction loops. i-p-o models have demonstrated their utility in the context of empirical research (e.g., campion, medsker, & higgs, 1993; gladstein, 1984; guzzo & dickson, 1996) and they seem particularly appropriate to study causal systems in terms of mediating and moderating variables. in this respect, the analysis of mediators and moderators has long been recognized as fruitful in theoretical, strategic and statistical ways to offer a deeper comprehension of psychological phenomena (baron & kenny, 1986). inputs, the fuel of the flow engine, stand for conditions that exist prior to the task or so-called performance episode. performance episodes can be defined as periods over which performance accrues and feedback is available, while processes stand for how inputs are transformed into outputs. finally, outputs are all results and by-products of activity that are produced (mathieu, heffner, goodwin, salas, & cannon-bowers, 2000). this ip-o model should not be understood literally as a strictly sequential, time dependent model. rather, this should be taken as a logical structure allowing simultaneous change in parameters appearing in different structural sections, interdependency and feedback loops. i-p-o flow framework the model consists of three structural sections: inputs, core processes and outputs. among inputs, the i-p-o model incorporates (1) the skill-challenge balance, (2) clear proximal goals and immediate feedback. core processes rely two key cognitive processes that are: (1) attention, and (2) motivation. finally, outputs consist of three sets of flow outcomes: (1) subjective experience of absorption, (2) task achievements, the fruits of invested effort, and (3) positive affects (see figure 1). figure 1. flow engine framework. note. the simple arrows represent causal relationships between elements. the double arrows represent the loops of interdependence. šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 235 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ inputs inputs reflect the resources that individuals have at their disposal for entering the process of flow. rather than chronological, those are time-independent dimensions that seem like logical pre-requirements for engaging in a flow-genic activity. similarly to landhäusser and keller (2012), we posit that these inputs comprise: (1) challenge-skill balance, (2) clear proximal goals and immediate feedback, which are merged into a single precondition. balance between perceived challenges and perceived skills in order to get into the flow, a person’s perceived skills must match the perceived difficulty of the task – “a sense that one is engaging challenges at a level appropriate to one’s capacities” (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). if the doer underestimates or overestimates his skills or challenges, reaching a state of flow is not possible. playing a difficult piece that has not been practiced enough represents a big challenge. if the pianist does not have enough skills to overcome the challenges of the piece, the result will be a state of anxiety or even panic. on the contrary, if s/he is given pieces that are too simple, s/he risks falling into states of boredom and apathy. however, if the difficulty of the piece is corresponding to her skills (technique, work, practice, sensibility, etc.) the musician is likely to enter the zone of optimal experience. an initial balance between challenges and skills or a very slight misbalance between them (zone of control or zone of excitement) provides a starting point for an absorbing autotelic experience (meaning that it is done for the sake of doing rather than for the sake of something else). without this pre-condition, there is no flow. for example, if perceived challenges are considerably superior to perceived skills, the person would be unable to invest his attention in the effective way, but will rather get lost in self-reflective rumination and sensations of anxiety. clear proximal goals and immediate feedback the person experiencing flow needs clear proximal goals of where the action is leading him/her (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002), where he or she is heading and what the next step is. landhäusser and keller (2012) argue that flow inputs can be simplified and reduced to perceived skills and challenge. proximal goals refer here to small within-activity goals that arise out of the interaction and that are identifiable thanks to continuous feedback rather than the structure of the task. this means that the structure of the task is unfolding during the experience itself. depending on the task, it can be more or less transparent and visible. for example, while playing a known piece, the musician will have a clearer view of the structure of the task (meaning the sequence of proximal goals). on the contrary, a skier on a new slope will have a less transparent image of the sequence of his proximal goals. for this reason, we reckon that the component of clear proximal goals should be maintained separated from skill-challenge balance even though they are obviously very much related. in the context of a musical interpretation, clear proximal goals can be translated in terms of expressing a certain emotion in a given sequence, or giving a certain colour to a staccato that is supposed to depict grasshoppers. clear proximal goals allow certain cognitive and conative unburdening to the person so that his or her emergent long-term goals do not encumber her or his consciousness while doing the task. ergo, these small proximal goals are indirectly related to motivational process as well. in our view, clear proximal goals and immediate feedback are gathered in a single input because we consider them as closely interdependent: proximal goals may not be perceived without feedback on the activity, and immediate feedback may contribute to triggering flow only in conjunction with clear proximal goals. like a signal the flow engine framework 236 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that is looped back to update a process within itself, immediate feedback on an activity progression is necessary in order to optimally engage with an activity. clear feedback helps the musician to adapt his performance to the context, which is itself largely dependent on his experience, skills and knowledge. the person has an immediate feedback of how well his or her action is progressing (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002); at any time, he or she can evaluate whether the previous sequence was done well or not. our pianist will probably have a rather good track of whether her playing was good or not. a false note, disharmony, uncontrolled change of rhythm or inappropriate colour of tone will be immediately heard and recognized as a failure. further, a perfectly performed piece will be instantly perceived as well. according to these contextual cues, the pianist will be able to adjust her action, to correct, highlight certain moments or to bedim them. immediate feedback is also closely related to the notion of challenge-skill balance. new feedback (either external or subjective) will provide new environmental cues on the relationship between the person’s actual skills and contextual challenges. the continuity of immediate feedback is dependent on attentional involvement as well. without paying close attention to what we are doing, we cannot really have an idea of how well we are doing. in this sense, we can imagine that this instant feedback mediates between skill-challenge balance on the one side, and attentional involvement on the other side. core processes core processes are the mediating and/or moderating mechanisms that transform inputs into outputs. in our model, those processes designate instantiations of certain fundamental cognitive mechanisms. if we imagine that inputs are the fuel for flow, then we could comparably say that core processes are ignition to the flow engine. our schema of flow mechanics includes two core processes: (1) attention, and (2) motivation. attentional process the first core process in our model is attentional involvement. the flow experience relies on a unique configuration of attentional mechanisms. the attentional involvement was found to be a mediating variable for the relationship between optimal challenge and enjoyment, and the relationship between competence valuation and enjoyment. using experience sampling method, abuhamdeh and csikszentmihalyi (2012a) have examined the relationship between challenge and enjoyment on undergraduate students. the measure comprised questions concerning enjoyment (e.g., were you enjoying yourself?), balance of challenges and skills (e.g., how challenging was the activity?), competence valuation (e.g., was doing well important to you?). their analysis indicated that attentional involvement accounts for 62% of the total effect between skill-challenge balance and enjoyment. further, the attentional involvement fully mediated the relationship between competence valuation and enjoyment, accounting for 80% of the total effect. this means that when attentional involvement increases, a big part of attentional resources are devoted towards the task, and features of activity engagement therefore can be experienced more fully (abuhamdeh & csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). this finding highlights the importance of attentional involvement in intrinsic motivation processes. in this paper, we have allowed ourselves to go a step further in discussing the nature of this attentional involvement. the component of attentional involvement in flow is unlikely to correspond to sustained or directed attention (e.g., posner, 1994) – those that enable maintenance of vigilance, selective and focused attention response persistance, and effort despite changing conditions. otherwise, it would not be described as a phenomenon of effortless attention (see bruya, 2010). hence, the attentional involvment in flow is closer to šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 237 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ some less costly, more implicit attentional mechanisms with eventual ad-hoc interventions of certain control mechanisms. in our flow model, the attentional component is composed of two sub-components: automatic attention – referring to implicit investment in the task, and executive attention – referring to explicit intervention of executive control. dietrich (2004), for instance, proposes a neurocognitive account of flow as a special case of transient hypofrontality – a state where the focused part of the brain (explicit system), which is responsible for top-down processes, gets a rest while other parts and functions, reponsible for bottom-up processes (implicit system), become more predominant. dietrich (2004) differentiates two distinct information processing systems: (1) the explicit system and, (2) the implicit system. dietrich (2004, p. 746) proposes a thesis that classifies the flow state as a period where a highly practiced skill that is represented in the implicit system’s knowledge base is implemented without interference from the explicit system. it is proposed that a necessary prerequisite to the experience of flow is a state of transient hypofrontality that enables the temporary suppression of the analytical and meta-conscious capacities of the explicit system. flow would then be defined as a „state of hypofrontality with the notable exception of executive attention, which enables the one-pointedness of mind by selectively disengaging other higher cognitive abilities of the prefrontal cortex“ (dietrich, 2004, p. 757). schematically, if we imagine flow as a constant micro-disbalance between perceived skills and challenges, we could represent it as an upward, wavy motion through the flow channel (see figure 2). figure 2. the flow channel and micro-disbalance between skills and challenges. inside the channel, the person would function on an autopilot, in a state of hypofrontality. however, once the skill has evolved, the trend will head downwards to boredom zone which potentially brings task-irrelevant thoughts (smallwood et al., 2004). in order to maintain the flow, an executive punch is needed such that fresh challenges readjust, matching these newly strengthened skills. conversely, if the challenge exceeds the skills, the flow engine framework 238 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ drawing the person into the anxiety zone, a special effort is needed to bring the requirements back into the channel where they match the skills. overall, the attentional involvement in the flow process mostly corresponds to automatic processing where the person feels she operates without explicit effort. this suggests that the prefrontal cortex is not required for the successful execution of the task (dietrich, 2004), in the short term. in the long term, this state of hypofrontality is occasionally interrupted by an executive intervention that aims restoring the implicit, hypofrontal state. recent, but scarce literature about neural correlates of flow yield unclear and contradicting neuroimaging results when it comes to hypofrontality hypothesis. on the one hand ulrich, keller, hoenig, waller, and grön (2014) find decreased activity in medial prefrontal cortex, implying that there is decreased self-referential processing while in flow. on the other hand, harmat et al. (2015) find no association between cortical oxygenation and flow, and therefore no support that flow is related to a state of hypofrontality. however, it is very important to point out methodological and instrumental differences between these two studies: in terms of the administered task (mental arithmetic task in the first case and a tetris game in the second), neuroimaging instrument (magnetic resonance imaging versus functional near-infrared spectroscopy) and experimental subjects (exclusively male sample versus exclusively female sample). the great methodological discrepancy between the studies makes it very risky to conclude on the neural basis of hypofrontality in either way. more future studies are required in this field in order to gain better understanding of neural basis of flow process. motivation to be motivated means to be moved to act, to accomplish or do something. “a person who feels no impetus or inspiration to act is thus characterized as unmotivated, whereas someone who is energized or activated toward an end is considered motivated” (ryan & deci, 2000, p. 54). being involved in an activity providing flow requires a certain kind and certain level of motivation that moves the doer’s will to continue being invested in the activity. initial clear proximal goals allow the emergent higher-order motivation to take place and to ignite the flow mechanics. once in place, motivation (together with attention) allows one to maintain the momentum in flow activities. there are essentially two types of motivation: (1) intrinsic motivation, which refers to being involved in an activity because it is interesting itself or enjoyable, and (2) extrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it leads to a detachable outcome (ryan & deci, 2000). intrinsic motivation means being motivated for an activity purely for the sake of that activity itself (deci & ryan, 1985; lepper, greene, & nisbett, 1973). people pursue intrinsically motivated activities voluntarily, when external constraints are absent (deci & ryan, 1985; harackiewicz, manderlink, & sansone, 1984). these activities are pursued for the enjoyment of experience (abuhamdeh & csikszentmihalyi, 2012a). amabile (1996) defines as intrinsic any motivation coming from the person’s positive reaction to qualities of the task itself, while defining extrinsic motivation as any motivation that arises from sources outside of the task. according to this author’s intrinsic motivation hypothesis, the intrinsically motivated state is conductive to creativity, whereas the extrinsically motivated state is mostly detrimental to creativity with very few exceptions concerning external motivators, in service of intrinsics, that are perceived as informational, enabling or socially empowering (e.g., recognition). deci (1971) also found that extrinsic motivators do not all work the same way and not all of them hinder intrinsic motivation: for example, rewards such as social approval do not seem to affect a person’s intrinsic motivation as negatively as monetary rewards do (deci, 1971). šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 239 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ inasmuch as flow activity is autotelic (done for the sake of doing) and associated with creative achievements, it is considered to involve intrinsic motivation. motivation, together with activity type, was found to be a moderating factor in a relation of perceived challenge and reported enjoyment (abuhamdeh & csikszentmihalyi, 2012b). moreover, the link between challenge and enjoyment was bigger for intrinsically motivated, goaldirected activities than for non-intrinsically motivated, goal-directed activities and intrinsically motivated, nongoal directed activities. the involvement of intrinsic motivation in flow is also consistent with the absorbing aspect of the flow experience: although flow activities can be motivated by a spark of some kind of extrinsic goal in the contextual precondition factors, during the task execution (or core process) there is no space in consciousness for contemplation of extrinsic goals. in line with this argument, amabile (1996) draws a conceptual link between the type of motivation and attentional involvement in order to give an account for the underlying cognitive mechanism. the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is compared to the difference between divided and undivided attention to task-relevant information and to the task itself. attentional ressources are not limitless. an extrinsically motivated person will use at least some of those resources in monitoring if the action is meeting the extrinsic goal or not (amabile, 1996). consequently, extrinsically motivated people will be less able than intrinsically motivated people to completely focus their attention to the task and task-relevant environmental cues. narrowly linked to the attentional process, intrinsic motivation can be seen as a catalyst of the flow process. therefore, in our model, intrinsic motivation appears as a very important moderating variable of the attentional mediation between inputs and outputs. outputs psychological outputs from reaching the optimal experience follow three sets of outcomes: (1) subjective experience of absorption, related to phenomenon of hyper focus, lack of reflective self-awareness and time distortion, (2) positive affects such as satisfaction, pleasure, joy, feeling alive; and (3) results, the fruits of invested effort such as relative performance, creativity and other forms of achievements. outcomes of flow may nourish the inputs in the sense of creating a virtuous circle of flow. absorption while attentional involvement refers to a core process in flow, composed of two mechanisms (automaticity and executive attention), the absorption refers to a subjective feeling resulting from the flow process. experience of absorption covers the following characteristics: lack of self-awareness, hyper focus and distortion of temporal experience. we argue that those three characteristics are close enough to be grouped into one output and for the sake of parsimony, we decided to group them under the umbrella term absorption. tellegen and atkinson (1974) interpret absorption as a disposition for having episodes of “total” attention that fully engage one’s representational ressources. they suggest that the type of attention involved in absorption experience is centered, amplifies the experience of one part of reality, involves a full commitment of available perceptual, motoric, imaginative and ideational ressources to a unified representation of the attentional object (tellegen & atkinson, 1974). in our view, this dispositional account of absorption seems closely related to dietrich’s (2004) hypothesis of hypofrontality, on which we rely to elaborate on the attentional processes in action in the core process of flow. the flow engine framework 240 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ due to being focused, the person experiencing flow has neither time nor cognitive resources to invest in autoreflexion. the activity becomes spontaneous; the self becomes absent from the consciousness. this means that while flowing, an individual temporarily pauses the thoughts that refer to self – how do i look, am i hungry, does my body hurt, etc. in flow, “one acts with a deep but effortless involvement that removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life” (csikszentmihalyi, 2008, p. 49). this is true for most of the domains except maybe for some autoreflexive activities such as certain forms of meditation or prayer. due to the lack of research on flow in this kind of activities, where the reflexion upon the self is in the heart of the task itself, we cannot make further assumptions. narrow, task-related hyperfocus characterizes the flowing experience. the person gets so intensely immersed in the activity that awareness and action merge in the present moment: here and now. during performance, the pianist is so immersed in playing that not much can get her out her element: a cell phone ringing in the audience, the sound of rain outside, the memory of her grandmother who passed away two days ago, etc. the contrary of hyper focus is psychic entropy, a disorganization of the self that impairs its effectiveness. the absorption corresponds to hypofrontality (dietrich, 2004) where the explicit system is unburdened or inhibited. early research into the psychological aspects of time demonstrated that human temporal perception was not a simple chronometric record of reality (hancock & weaver, 2005). while flowing, a person is deeply involved attention-wise. consequently, the perception of time passing can be significantly altered. when flowing, people usually report that time seems to pass very quickly (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). however, this might not be completely generalizable to all domains of activities. the flow in strictly time-dependent activities such as competitive running might be an exception because the awareness of time passing constitues the structure of the task itself. in conclusion, we gather in this first output of flow process the subjective experience of absorption, the lack of self-awareness, hyper focus and distortion of temporal experience. this series of phenomena are directly related to the attentional mechanism of hypofrontality highlighted in flow core processes. positive affects research investigating the nature of autotelic experiences by consulting rock climbers, chess players, dancers and other professions showed that the enjoyment was the main reason why individuals pursued the activity (csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000, as cited in nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). the genuine enjoyment that surgeons, rock climbers, and other professionals routinely find in their activities depict how an organized set of challenges and a corresponding set of skills result in optimal experience (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). research using experience sampling method in order to test flow has confirmed that subjects report the best subjective experiences when both perceived challenges and skills are high and well balanced. when flowing, they report feeling more active, alert, concentrated, higher levels of happiness, satisfaction, and creativity— although not necessarily more cheerful or sociable (carli, 1986; massimini, csikszentmihalyi, & carli, 1987; nakamura, 1988; wells, 1988). seligman and csikszentmihalyi (2014, p. 8) make a clear distinction between positive experiences that are pleasurable and those that are enjoyable. pleasure is the good feeling that comes from satisfying homeostatic needs such as hunger, sex, and bodily comfort. enjoyment, on šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 241 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the other hand, refers to the good feelings people experience when they break through the limits of homeostasis – when they do something that stretches them beyond what they were – in an athletic event, an artistic performance, a good deed, a stimulating conversation. task achievements task achievements include feeling of control and performance (e.g., productivity and creativity). merged into one output, they represent objective (productivity) and subjective (feeling of control) performance in a given task. adaptive goal-directed behaviour includes monitoring of ongoing actions and performance outcomes, and resulting adjustments of learning and behaviour (ridderinkhof, ullsperger, crone, & nieuwenhuis, 2004). thanks to the balance between perceived skills and perceived challenges and attentional involvement, the person experiencing flow has an impression of being in control of the situation. the sense of control is one of the main indices of flow (csikszentmihalyi, 2000). the idea that the control of consciousness improves the quality of life has been present for a long time: in almost every eastern spiritual tradition (csikszentmihalyi, 2008, p. 20). this control of the consciousness sometimes reminds one very much of mindfulness meditation, “the awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (kabat-zinn, 2003, p. 145, as cited in luken & sammons, 2016). research has shown a significant relationship between flow experiences and mindfulness (e.g., wright, sadlo, & stew, 2006). kee and wang (2008) found that higher levels of mindfulness in university athletes related to higher levels of flow components, such as: the balance between skills and challenges, merging of action and awareness, concentration, clear proximal goals and loss of self-consciousness (kaufman, glass, & arnkoff, 2009). in an interview with an art and design student, allen and loughnane (2016, p. 684) offer a vivid illustration of mindfull involvement: speaking from an artist's point of view, you can get so involved in being present with the creative process that involvement with an art activity can be hugely stress relieving; you are so focused on the present moment that nothing else permeates the process. it's an effective tool for mindfulness, i personally find. however, the experience of flow considerably diverges from mindfulness. according to dane’s (2011, pp. 1001-1002) classification in terms of attentional scope (large versus narrow) and the focus on the present moment (high versus low), there are four types of of attentional states: (1) mindfulness (large attentional scope and high focus on the present moment), (2) absorption/flow (narrow attentional scope and high focus on the present moment), (3) distraction/mind-wandering (large attentional scope and low focus on the present moment), and (4) prospective thinking/counterfactual thinking (narrow attentional scope and low focus on the present moment). in line with this categorization, flow and mindfulness both correspond to high levels of focus in the present moment, but they contrast in terms of attentional scope. while mindfulness refers to a maximum openness to all stimuli (internal and external), flow covers a very narrow focus field, therefore often leading to the lack of self-consciousness. this relative lack of reflective self-consciousness makes these two phenomena incompatible in a given moment (sheldon, prentice, & halusic, 2015). therefore, mindfulness cannot be an output of the flow process. the flow engine framework 242 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ some literature suggests there is a positive relationship between flow and performance, especially in learning settings (e.g., engeser, rheinberg, vollmeyer, & bischoff, 2005; schüler, 2007; schiefele & rheinberg, 1997, as cited in schüler & brunner, 2009), artistic and scientific creativity (e.g., perry, 1999; sawyer, 1992, as cited in schüler & brunner, 2009). engeser and rheinberg (2008) found that flow predicted academic performance in two out of their three studies (learning for an obligatory course in statistics and learning in a voluntary french class). according to engeser and rheinberg (2008), there are at least two good reasons why flow should be related to performance. first, flow is a phenomenon of high functioning that should in itself encourage a good performance. furthermore, individuals experiencing flow feel more motivation “to carry out further activities, and in order to experience flow again, they will set themselves more challenging tasks” (bakker, oerlemans, demerouti, slot, & ali, 2011). likewise, schüler and brunner’s (2009) observations suggested that flow experience during a marathon is associated with the motivation for future running but not with the present race performance. “flow functions as a reward of the running activity, which leads to the desire to perform the activity again” (schüler & brunner, 2009, pp. 173). this body of results is in line with the argument that the links between flow and performance may be both direct (with performance resulting from the flow process) and indirect (with feedback loops fueling either the skill-challenge balance or the intrinsic motivation core process). however, we may also mention that these potential interrelations between flow and performance are not always supported empirically: divergent and inconsistent results were reported in the domains of sport (bakker et al., 2011; jackson, thomas, marsh, & smethurst, 2001), music (iusca, 2015), and work setting (demerouti, 2006). these inconsistencies might be due to various reasons: the big disparity of nature of tasks measured, heterogeneity of flow assessment methods and plurality of performance measurements. finally, there is some empirical evidence that flow is related positively to creativity. macdonald, byrne, and carlton (2006) used the experience sampling method to measure flow in tasks of musical group composition. their results clearly show higher levels of flow are associated to higher levels of creativity (macdonald et al., 2006). similar findings appear in the domain of work psychology. namely, zubair and kamal (2015) gathered data from 532 workers in software companies discovering that work related flow was a strong predictor of employee creativity (zubair & kamal, 2015). on the other hand, the research in visual arts is somewhat less clear. flowing participants performing creative mental synthesis to simulate creative process of drawing exhibited an affect improvement in visual creativity (cseh, phillips, & pearson, 2015). in their experiment (cseh et al., 2015) using creative mental synthesis task (finke & slayton, 1988), researchers found that the change in affect was related to productivity and self-rated creativity. however, it was not linked to other objective or subjective performance measures evaluated by judges. even though flow, measured by pre-task and post-task questionnaires was not related to all performance measures, it was notably correlated with self-related creativity. this study aiming to understand flow in visual creativity concludes that flow motivates perseverance towards eventual excellence rather than providing straight cognitive improvement (cseh et al., 2015). conclusion flow states have escaped, in many ways, the attention of cognitive psychology and neurosciences. mostly studied in the context of correlational studies, with quite limited data collected in the context of controlled experiments, flow seems to be implicitly considered as an applied concept from positive psychology or as an esoteric discipline. our main aim in this paper was to try to integrate it into the framework of mainstream cognitive psychology and relate it to the major cognitive functions of human psyche. šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 243 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the flow engine framework explains the relationship between flow characteristics using an engine metaphor. skill challenge balance, clear proximal goals and immediate feedback fuel the process and represent necessary logical requirements for flow. skill-challenge balance allows attention to be used in an optimal way. immediate feedback and clear proximal goals fuel the attention, which in turn gives an update about new skills and challenges relation. these combustibles are then ignited by strokes in the cylinders – the core processes. like interdependent sparks, attentional involvement, composed of automaticity and executive attention, and intrinsic motivation start the dynamism of this flow machine. adequate attentional involvement results in outcomes linked to absorption. the overall process corresponds to a moderated mediation between inputs and outputs, with attention (automaticity and executive attention) as mediator and intrinsic motivation as moderator. as a result of a well-done task, task achievements occur often (but not always) as an outcome of flow process. when this happens, task-achievement results immediately in an update of skill-challenge balance, modifies proximal goals, multiplies positive affect and therefore reinforces the motivation for future engagement in the task. unlike landhäusser and keller (2012), we focus on putative dynamic and causal relations between flow components involving generic attentional and motivational processes. one of the important implications of this model is that flow is regarded as a processing mechanism rather than a mere mental state or performance state (e.g. jackson et al., 2001). this implies that existing indicators of flow might not be optimally adapted in regard to the nature of phenomena. this means that actual flow-scales and tools capture flow components retrospectively or quasi-retrospectively, as if they were of the same essence. our model does involve these flow dimensions and sorts logically their structural order in a dynamic and interdependent framework. it holds that flow represents a macro-process embracing two core cognitive processes: (1) attention (automaticity with sparks of executive attention) and (2) intrinsic motivation. from this perspective, it appears necessary to step back and review how these two processes function in the context of optimal experience and how their variation modulates the episodes of flow. future directions firstly, the model proposed here should be empirically validated. actual lack of methods to test for causal effects of flow experiences should be overcome by novel approaches of examining flow. despite 30 years of empirical attention that has been given to the flow research, nearly all of it has been correlational in nature (csikszentmihalyi, 1975; moller, meier, & wall, 2010). the concept itself originated from observational and interview-based research on creativity (moller et al., 2010). this heavy reliance on correlational methods results is a major weakness, resulting in unresolved questions about causality and the direction of relations observed between flow, contextual factor and personality traits (spencer, zanna, and fong, 2005; as cited in moller et al., 2010). in order to validate our model and causal relation between inputs, core processes and outputs, experimental research is needed. by experimentally varying the inputs, the causal relationship with outputs, as well as the hypothesized effects of mediators and moderators, can be assessed. the inputs could be manipulated through, for example varying skills (via training), challenges (rapidity or difficulty of a task), and feedback (the transparency of the task progression structure). video games seem to be a very convenient kind of task for experimentally testing such hypotheses (e.g., cabo, kleiman, mccauley, & parks, 2004; moller, csikszentmihalyi, nakamura, & deci, 2007; parks & victor, 2006). the flow engine framework 244 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to validate the moderated mediation, it is required to accurately measure both core processes. situational intrinsic motivation can be easily assessed through standardized scales such as sims (16-item situational motivation scale by guay, vallerand, & blanchard, 2000). on the other hand, the fine interplay of the two attentional elements: automaticity and executive attention, seems more challenging to grasp, but not impossible. as suggested in the hypofrontality framework, automaticity might be measured through neurophysiological indicators of the decrease in the need for effortful control (e.g., poldrack et al., 2005; kübler, dixon, & garavan, 2006). executive attention, which helps in coping with irrelevant or distracting items while experiencing flow, might be assessed thanks to the presence of such interfering stimuli. for instance, if the flow-generating activity is conducted while visual or auditory irrelevant stimuli are delivered, the effectiveness of coping with distraction may be measurable through the habituation of electrodermal orienting response (naveteur, buisine, & gruzelier, 2005; waters, mcdonald, & koresko, 1977), antisaccade paradigm or implicit learning of unattended stimuli (engle, 2002). we can easily think of a tangible example of an experimental scenario taking into account most of the framework’s components using candy crush game. practically speaking, the participants can be given a match-three puzzle video game with occasional interference of banner ads that appear on the screen during the gameplay. in that way, the players need to use their executive attention in order to ignore the ads. varying skill-challenge relation could be done by designing boredom, adaptive (flow), and overload conditions like in keller and bless (2008). while playing the candy crush game with one hand on a smartphone or tablet, the other free hand can be used to measure electrodermal response to distracting ads. at the end, performance achievement (e.g. number of puzzles completed, points gained) can be collected, standardized scales assessing intrinsic motivation, absorption and positive affect can be administrated, as well as a recognition test of the ads (supposedly low in flow conditions) in order to evaluate the effectiveness of executive attention. this is just one idea among numerous empirical possibilities that can be envisioned for the purpose of examining and validating the conceptual framework. finally, since its formalisation, there has been rich and vast research concerning flow in individual settings. nevertheless, the majority of human activity is social and happens in a group setting. there has been extremely little research about flow in group-like, team-based, collective or interdependent activities (e.g., salanova, bakker, & llorens, 2006; sawyer, 2003, 2012; walker, 2010). therefore, it would be highly valuable to explore the phenomenon of flow in groups. effort has been made to study flow in certain group tasks (e.g., school activities and team sports), but mostly treating the individual as the focus of analysis (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). thus, the question arises: is there something similar to flow in groups and how does it work? in the studies of csikszentmihalyi (2008) on the quality of daily experience “it has been demonstrated again and again that people report the most positive moods overall when they are with friends”. “a key characteristic that the flow model shares with other contemporary theories is interactionism (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). rather than focusing on the person, abstracted from the context (i.e., traits, personality types, stable dispositions), flow research has emphasized the dynamic system composed of person and environment, as well as the phenomenology of person-environment interactions” (nakamura & csikszentmihalyi, 2002). in the case of group flow, social psychology theories might be explored in order to understand group processes leading to optimal collaboration. šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 245 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this research was supported by anrt cifre grant n° 2015/0333. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abuhamdeh, s., & csikszentmihalyi, m. 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(2015). work related flow, psychological capital, and creativity among employees of software houses. psychological studies, 60(3), 321-331. doi:10.1007/s12646-015-0330-x about the authors milija šimleša is a ph.d. student in psychology at university paris descartes, cesi engineering school and research engineer at sbt group. jérôme guegan is an associate professor of social psychology at university paris descartes. edouard blanchard is an executive partner at sbt group. franck tarpin-bernard is a managing director at sbt group. stéphanie buisine is a full professor of innovation at cesi engineering school and associate member at university paris descartes. šimleša, guegan, blanchard et al. 253 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 232–253 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1370 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2007.11.002 http://doi.org/10.1177/15394492060260010499 http://doi.org/10.1177/0305735611425903 http://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-015-0330-x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the flow engine framework (introduction) characteristics of flow our theoretical model the flow engine framework i-p-o flow framework inputs core processes outputs conclusion future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors developing value-orientations in family therapy trainees: a three-year investigation research reports developing value-orientations in family therapy trainees: a three-year investigation claude-hélène mayer* ab, rudolf m. oosthuizen c [a] department of management, rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. [b] institut für therapeutische kommunikation, europauniversität viadrina, frankfurt (oder), germany. [c] department of industrial and organisational psychology, unisa, pretoria, south africa. abstract family therapy has advanced as an important therapeutic approach in europe and, in germany, future family therapists enter a three-yeartraining programme every year. family therapist trainees (ftts) have hardly been studied in terms of their value-orientations (vos) and how they see the world. this study aims at researching the value-orientation developments in ftts during the three-year training period and based on the schwartz value model. a longitudinal study was carried out over a three-year period. the sample consisted of 65 ftts. vos were investigated using open questions in self-developed questionnaires. the findings show that ftts focus mainly on vos in the schwartz value domain of "benevolence", followed by "self-direction" and "universalism". this shows that the well-being of others is in the centre of interest in ftts. however, vos which indicate a freedom to make decisions and be self-directed are also extremely important. the least-mentioned value domains include "power" and "stimulation", showing that ftts are neither focused on status, wealth or richness, nor on excitement or a varied life. with regard to the schwartz value dimensions, the dimension of "self-transcendence" was the most frequently mentioned, followed by "conservation", "openness to change" and "self-enhancement". self-transcendence includes the value domains of benevolence and universalism and shows that the preservation and enhancement of welfare of other individuals are highly important, as well as vos such as understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of human beings and the environment. so-called collectivist vos seem to be more important to german ftts than individualistic vos: they focus on the needs of the social group and their vos show that the systemic view is inherent in their social vos. findings further show that ftts develop their professional identity while consciously strengthening their vos. this study contradicts previous research which claims that fts are, to a large extent, unconscious in respect of their vos. the study shows that ftts are aware of their vos and this supports them in facilitating client-centred approaches and develop themselves as ft professionals. recommendations for future research and practice are provided. keywords: value-orientation, schwartz value theory, family therapist trainees, germany, qualitative investigation europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 received: 2017-08-24. accepted: 2018-04-29. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; michelle roley-roberts, the ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, oh, usa *corresponding author at: department of management, rhodes university, grahamstown, po box 94, grahamstown 6140, eastern cape, south africa. tel: +49 160 96837366. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. research on value orientations (vos) follows a long tradition within the psychological disciplines (bond, 1998; jambrak, deane, & williams, 2014; rokeach, 1973; schwartz, 1994; schwartz & bardi, 2001). discourses on vos are particularly important in educational and training contexts (boness, 2002; patel, 2016) as they determine the individual's interest in self and others (howell & larsen, 2015). vos, as key players in educational and training contexts, have a major underlying impact on the individual's development (mayer, 2008), particularly in their future roles as therapists and in their professional fields in psychosocial settings (rusk & waters, 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ vos are essentially dialectic and contradictory (hiratsuka, suzuki, & pusina, 2016) and the experiences of differences in value-sets often lead to conflictual situations (barsky, 2014; berkel, 2005; janssen & van berkel, 2015). the conscious awareness of vos, however, increases openness and willingness to talk and to cooperate (druckmann, broom, & korper, 1988) and provides the therapist with a more conscious approach and more clarity in therapy (edwards, 2014), whilst at the same time impacting positively on the development of a professional identity (levy, shlomo, & itzhaky, 2014). vos in therapy also impact on the therapist-client relationship and the treatment outcomes (huang & zane, 2016), whilst building the primary foundation of motivation in individuals and contributing to general mental health and well-being (jambrak, deane, & williams, 2014). value-orientations and value domains and dimensions since the 1970s, research on vos has gained momentum and, based on rokeach's (1973) value research, schwartz and bilsky (1987) and schwartz (1994) developed a value-model, which posed the question of a "universal theory of human values". vos have been defined differently and broadly in recent decades (alazaizeh, hallo, backman, norman, & vogel, 2016; mayton, ball-rokeach, & loges, 1994; schwartz & bilsky, 1987, p. 551). however, schwartz, with his colleagues, has developed an internationally very well recognised and established value model and defined values clearly as follows: "values are concepts or beliefs about desirable end states or behaviours (terminal and instrumental values), which transcend specific situations; guide the selection or evaluation of behaviour; or order events according to relative importance". important in this definition is that values are established over time and that they express desirable states or behaviours. they might occur in specific situations; however, they transcend and go beyond these situations. based on values, priorities are set and behaviour is influenced. for our research, this definition is highly usable, because it defines values specifically, but is at the same time open and broad enough to provide enough freedom for the participants to define values within the schwartz value model. kluckhohn and strodtbeck (1961) explain that values are cognitive representations and that they are comprised of three forms of universal human sources, namely needs of individuals as biological organisms; requisites of coordinated, social and interpersonal interaction; and security of functions concerning the well-being and survival of groups. vos are formed through socialisation and thereby become socio-cultural concepts of individuals, groups and societies (schwartz, 1994); they are universal in their structure, but differ in individuals across countries (schwartz, 2012). values are desirable trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other social entities (schwartz, 1994). implicit in this definition of values as goals is that (1) they serve the interests of some social entity (e.g. groups, family, communities); (2) they can motivate action (behaviour) – giving it direction and emotional intensity; (3) they function as standards for judging and justifying action; and (4) they are acquired both through socialisation to dominant group values and through the unique learning experience of individuals. schwartz and bilsky (1987, pp. 551) and schwartz (1994, pp. 19) define ten universal value domains, including the motivational domains of power, benevolence, universalism, achievement, hedonism, self-direction, tradition and universalism (sinding, waldstrom, kreitner, & kinicki (2014) (see table 1). within the value domains, several values are included. table 1 provides examples of values in value domains according to schwartz (1994). mayer & oosthuizen 645 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 motivational domains – schwartz value model (schwartz, 1994, p. 22) definition and aim of value domains exemplary values power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources social power, authority and wealth achievement: personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards successful, capable, ambitious hedonism: pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself pleasure, enjoying life stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life daring, varied life, exciting life self-direction: independent thought and action-choosing, creating, exploring creativity, sistent, compare creativity and successful, curious, freedom universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature broad minded, social justice, equality benevolence: preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact helpful, honest, forgiving tradition: respect, commitment and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provide humble, devout, accepting my “portion in life” conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms politeness, obedience honouring parents and elders security: safety, harmony and stability of society, of relationships and of self national security social order, cleanliness these value domains have been supported by various research projects (fromm, 2016; mayer, 2001; schwartz & bardi, 2001) and it has been pointed out that values are conceptions of higher order goals, serving individualistic (achievement, enjoyment, self-direction) or collectivistic (traditional, conformity) goals, which might be interwoven (oishi et al., 1998) and which are dynamic and changeable (gouveia, vione, milfont, & fischer, 2015). values are connected through dynamic interactions and are dependent on each other. value domains can be classified according to four value dimensions. schwartz defined four dimensions, including ten value domains. the domains are integrated parts of the dimensions and, as shown in table 2, schwartz (1994) has referred specific value examples to specific value domains. bordering value domains are more transparent than value domains that are in opposition, as described by schwartz (1994, p. 24-25, see figure 1): (1) openness to change: independent thoughts and actions, as well as change, self-direction, stimulation, hedonism; (2) conservation: self-restriction, maintenance of traditional practices, protection of stability, security, conformity, tradition; (3) self-enhancement: sense and purpose of success and dominance over others: power and achievement, hedonism; and (4) self-transcendence: acceptance of others as equals and caring for the well-being of others: universalism and benevolence. value-orientations in family therapy trainees 646 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. dimensions and domains – mayer (2001) adapted from schwartz value model (schwartz, 1994, p. 24-35) fegg et al. (2014)i found that, along the dimension "conservation" versus "openness to change", health care professionals working in maternity wards (mw-hcps) ascribe higher importance to the values of "conformity" and "security", whereas health care professionals working in palliative care (pc-hcps), ascribed higher importance to the values of "self-direction" and "stimulation". this difference was also observed on a dimensional level, with pc-hcps preferring values in the value-dimension "openness to change" and mw-hcps preferring values in the value dimension of "conservation". no differences amongst the samples were found in the “self” dimension. furthermore, fegg et al. (2014) indicate that, in comparing personal values, several differences emerged: pc-hcps scored significantly higher in “openness to change” (comprising self-direction: e.g., freedom, creativity, being independent, being curious; stimulation: e.g., living an exciting and/or diversified life, being adventurous), whereas mw-hcps scored significantly higher in “conservation” values (comprising conformity: e.g., courtesy, self-discipline, being respectful, being dutiful; security: e.g., social order, national security, feeling secure in family, being proper). in fegg et al. (2014), firstly, health care professionals report creativity and self-direction in their private and professional activities; secondly, they are excited, curious, and adventurous toward life – indicating a high level of experience values; thirdly, their focus on spirituality points out attitudinal values toward their life and professional work. since the pioneering work done in the 1980s, the schwartz value model has been studied, developed and researched worldwide and has become one of the most important vo models, particularly in educational and management contexts (fromm, 2016; louw, mayer, & baxter, 2012; mayer, 2001; schwartz & bardi, 2001). however, it has hardly been used in therapeutic studies or to study ftts development. mayer & oosthuizen 647 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ developing value-orientations in family therapist trainees family therapy (ft) is based on the belief that the family is a unique social system with its own structure and patterns of communication and vos have been well-researched in family members (albert, ferring, & michels, 2013; iruonagbe, chiazor, & foluke, 2013; mert & iskender, 2015). each family develops its own unique personality, which is powerful and affects all of its members. according to kluckhohn and strodtbeck (1961), individuals’ value orientations influence their behaviour, conception and use of time; their relationships with their environment and with nature; and their interpersonal relationships. by focusing on the family’s value orientation, ftts gain insight into the family’s view of the nature of the world and its problems, family member’s feelings about their problems, and the direction the family adopts to resolve problems (ho, rasheed, & rasheed, 2004). however, the experience of differences in vos in helping professions, as in ft, can lead to conflicts (barsky, 2014), since values (hecker, trepper, wetchler, & fontaine, 1995) and value dilemmas can influence the therapy (sanders, 2013). past research has shown that values in families and ft play a central role in terms of how the therapy develops and how the family might change through family therapy (trotzer, 1981). further, research has emphasised that client and therapist values influence the outcome of the therapy and that the client's responsiveness to the therapists' values influences symptoms, such as depression (hamblin, beutler, scogin, & corbishley, 1993). however, an increase in interest related to vo in therapies has occurred in recent years, particularly with regard to the central role of vos in professional identity development (brody & doukas, 2014; drolet & désormeauxmoreau, 2016; iacobucci, dal, lindell, & griffin, 2013) and the role that values play for the family therapist (melito, 2003). additionally, vos influence the reasoning in therapy and in professional practice, in general (fulford, dickenson, & murray, 2002; seedhouse, 2005). vos have been researched in psychotherapy and other forms of therapeutic and counselling interventions and contexts (thomas, 1994; vachon & agresti, 1992). if health care professionals cannot work according to their values, they might develop burnout and problems in therapy (beagan & ells, 2009). furthermore, strong value clashes and conflicts between therapist and client might even lead to strong ethical dilemmas and moral distress (kälvemark, haeıglund, hansson, westerholm, & arnetz, 2004). fife and whiting (2007) have highlighted that values play an important part in ft research and practice. however, many therapists seem to be relatively unaware about their own personal values and how their values affect their work. in their article, the authors highlight that marital and family therapy training should pay increased attention to values and their impact. this study takes the call for attention to values and their impact made by fife and whiting (2007) into account. to date, hardly any studies could be found that examine the values of ftts within a longitudinal and developmental research setting in germany. however, in this study it is assumed that values play an essential role for ftts, to develop into their professional role and to build value-based client-therapist relationships. as highlighted by drolet and désormeaux-moreau (2016, p. 273), for occupational therapists, the research on vos can also help ftts to "(i) facilitate client-centred approaches; (ii) foster interprofessional collaboration; (iii) reduce the ethical distress experienced by many healthcare professionals, (iv) improve both ethical professional practice and cultural awareness". the purpose of this study is to respond to the need to gain an in-depth understanding of the vos and their development in ftts. the study was undertaken during a three-year training course in systemic family therapy (sft) and using the well-researched value model of schwartz as a theoretical and conceptual framework value-orientations in family therapy trainees 648 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (jambrak, deane, & williams, 2014; schwartz & bardi, 2001). the main aim of this study is to describe the development of vos in a sample of ftts during sft. it thereby contributes to longitudinal psychological vo research in ftts by responding to the research question: "what are the values of ftts and how do they develop over the three-year professional training period?" method participants and procedure this study adopts a qualitative research design by using a longitudinal case study approach within the contemporary hermeneutical tradition (bleicher, 2017; dilthey, 2002). since the research uses a context-specific standpoint (patton, 2002), it requires an in-depth understanding of the current approach. the context of this research is a selected ftt centre in germany and which is also a nationally accredited centre for ft training. the study uses a longitudinal design to capture the development of vos in ftts throughout the three-year sft course. the sample was composed of ftts registered for a three-year sft course, at a private family therapy institution in germany. the ftts hold university degrees in psychology, social work, education or social sciences and are employed in related professions as, for example, psychologists, social workers, educators and consultants. participants attend five to six course modules per year (the duration of each module is three to five days). participants also meet in small peer-groups, between the facilitated modules, for supervision purposes and these meetings include exercises, reflection, discussions and interpersonal group coaching. qualification criteria for participation are an a-level/matric, a university degree and five years of professional/work experience in a relevant field of psychology, social work or education. participation was not obligatory. all participants were enrolled for the three-year training course and, therefore, the entire population was targeted. all the ftts completed the questionnaires at the beginning of each training year (three points of measurements). a few of the trainees discontinued the course of the training after year 1 or year 2. the biographical data of ftts show that, in the first year (2013), 66 individuals participated, while in 2014 and 2015, 55 and 43 individuals participated respectively. participants stopped the training due to personal or professional reasons, such as change of place of residence, financial problems or illness. during the first year, out of the 65 individuals, 58 were german, one polish, three russian/german, one german/persian, one german swiss and one croatian. altogether, 12 participants were male, whilst 53 were female. the age range of the participants lay between 27 and 59 years. in year one, 33 were married, 23 single, 2 were living in partnerships, 5 were divorced, 2 were separated and 1 was widowed. one person spoke croatian as a mother tongue, 5 were bilingual (3 german and russian, 1 german and persian, 1 german swiss german) and 59 participants spoke german as a mother tongue. altogether, 35 participants were protestant, 20 participants were catholic, 1 was lutheran, 1 was greek-orthodox, and 8 did not comment on religious affiliation. all the participants work in occupations within the social contexts (child care, social work, social education, counselling, family support/ therapy/counselling/welfare or teaching). mayer & oosthuizen 649 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ instruments at the commencement of each training year, participants were invited to complete two questionnaires. 1. the first questionnaire included closed-ended and open-ended questions of (1) a biographical and (2) a demographical nature in order to establish biographical and demographical insight. (the questions sought details of, for example, age, sex, professional background, mother tongue and occupation.) 2. the second questionnaire explored vos. this questionnaire was developed on the basis of sound literature research and sft, ftts and vo. the questionnaire included questions, such as: "please describe what vos are important to you."; "what vo contribute to your health as a professional ftt?"; and "what are your personal interests and aims within the professional context?" the participants completed the questionnaires on three separate occasions. the researchers used the same questionnaires throughout study in order to gain insight into the development of vo and, for example, changes in profession, family status and so on. data gathering and data analysis questionnaires were administered verbally, either by one of the researchers (during the first two years) or by the course facilitators (third year). a paper and pencil approach was applied. data was analysed using the fivestep process of content analysis (terre blanche, durrheim, & kelly, 2006, pp. 322–326): familiarisation and immersion – the researchers familiarised themselves with the gathered data, whilst integrating course observations; inducing themes – general themes in the data were defined; coding – categories and codes were inductively developed by identifying similarities and differences in the data; elaboration – categories and codes were further elaborated to enable understanding and reconstruction of the data; and interpretation and checking to ensure data quality – data were reconstructed and interpreted and set in a more complex context. frequencies with regard to codes and categories were analysed and statement frequency was interpreted according to the level of importance; for instance, the more often mentioned, the more important; the less often mentioned, the less important (as in mayer, 2011). frequencies were captured in tables and are presented in the findings section. codes and categories emerged from the collected data and were compared (chan, walker-gleaves, & walker-gleaves, 2015) with the svm. findings were interpreted in-depth, utilising the svm. the data analysis used inductive and deductive processes and is therefore described as abductive (mayer, 2011). findings were validated through constant reflection and discussion amongst the researchers throughout the study period (yin, 2009, p. 45). quality criteria, based on lincoln and guba's (1985) concept of trustworthiness, were taken into account. further, the researchers aimed at establishing the quality of this research through performing systematic searches for and appraisals of research evidence (richter sundberg, garvare, & nyström, 2017). similar criteria, such as confirmability, credibility, transferability and dependability were used to establish rigour and support trustworthiness (shenton, 2004). ethical considerations ethical considerations include respect afforded to, and rights of, the interviewee, creation of informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity and transparency (powell, fitzgerald, taylor, & graham, 2012). informed consent value-orientations in family therapy trainees 650 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was provided by the participants and the sft institution. ethical clearance was provided by the european university viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany, and by the sft institution. results the following presentation of findings shows the vos that were indicated in the questionnaires by the ftts over a period of three years and in total. these vos were then analysed and interpreted within the frame of the svm. the tables in each section provide an overview of vos, coded and clustered according to the svm. value-orientations in family therapist trainees over three years the most frequently mentioned value domain is "benevolence", with 192 statements in the data set. "benevolence" refers to the preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact. ftts work mainly with people and one major aim of ft is usually to preserve and/or enhance other people's welfare. therefore, the high frequency of statements regarding "benevolence" is not surprising. the values mentioned most frequently in this value domain are "honesty" (63 statements), "reliability" (35 statements), "friendship" (28 statements), "trust" (24 statements) and "sincerity" (11 statements). ftts highlight honesty through, for example, this statement: "it is important for me to be honest when i work with my clients" (honesty). in terms of reliability, ftts emphasise, for example: "i am a very reliable person and i like to work with people and help them." another participant said: "in order to support people's well-being, you have to build trust in the relationship" (trust) and, "sincerity is one of my most important values and it is also connected to honesty" (sincerity/honesty). the ftts refer to the domain of "benevolence", particularly with regard to the clients and in the development of the relationship between themselves as therapists and their clients. table 2 schwartz value domain benevolence examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total honesty 30 24 9 63 reliability 12 14 9 35 friendship 10 10 8 28 trust 11 6 7 24 sincerity 3 6 2 11 helpfulness 4 3 7 warm-heartedness 3 2 1 6 empathy 4 1 5 solidarity 3 2 5 responsibility 3 1 4 partnership 1 2 3 inclusion 1 1 note. total for domain = 192. secondly, the value domain, "self-direction", is referred to frequently in the data (see table 3). the ftts referred to a number of different values within that domain. most mentioned was the value "freedom", with 16 statements, followed by "openness" (15 statements), "mindfulness" (11 statements) and "authenticity" (10 statemayer & oosthuizen 651 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ments). all values mentioned decrease in number from year 1 to year 3 in their training, except the value of "freedom". it seems that ftts value freedom particularly highly in year 3. one participant emphasises: "freedom is so important to me. i want to live a free, self-directed life and be free in my decisions. that is very important to me." the increase in statements regarding the value of freedom might be due to the fact that ftts have, by this point, come to understand the interrelationships within their families, their dependencies and their individual ways of individualisation and freedom from restrictions and dependencies. this development relates to the values, such as "self-respect", "prosperity", "compassion" and "optimism", which are frequently mentioned in year 3 (not before). one ftt explains, for example: "it is important to respect myself and to understand where i come from and why i am how i am. and i see now that sometimes, i thought i was free, but now i can see that i behaved like this, because of where i come from. i know i have to develop and to free myself and stay positive. the work with myself helps me in my profession." the high frequency of values in the domain "self-direction" shows the importance to ftts of independent thought and action-choosing, creating and exploring, matters that are also important for the therapy practice. in some instances, the importance of being aware of the direction of the self is connected to a professional therapeutic practice and for ftts to be clear about who they are and what they believe in order to become professional therapists. one participant mentions: "for growth i need to know what is important to me and i need to free myself from preoccupied thoughts and stereotypes." table 3 schwartz value domain self-direction examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total freedom 1 7 8 16 openness 3 8 4 15 mindfulness 5 4 2 11 authenticity 5 4 1 10 optimism 2 1 3 6 patience 1 2 2 5 courage 2 2 4 self-determination 2 1 3 independence 2 1 3 affectionate 2 2 balance 2 2 neutrality 1 1 integrity 1 1 self-consciousness 1 1 curiosity 1 1 education 1 1 prosperity 1 1 self-respect 1 1 compassion 1 1 note. total for domain = 85. value-orientations in family therapy trainees 652 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the third most-mentioned domain is "universalism", with 74 statements (see table 4). "universalism" relates to the understanding and appreciation of, as well as tolerance and protection for, the welfare of all people and for nature. as ftts, participants need to relate to these universal values, particularly since they aim at understanding, appreciating and tolerating others. the values most frequently mentioned were "love" (33 statements), "tolerance" and "justice" (14 statements each), "acceptance" (4 statements), "equality" and "transparency" (3 statements each), "cohesion" (2 statements) and "humanity" (1 statement). several participants emphasised statements such as, "love is very important to me." among the statements made by participants were: "love is the basis to work with people. and only if i love, i can be tolerant." "when i have this deep love, then i can relate more easily to people." "tolerance! however, this is not always easy!" "love", as an overall approach to life and work, and within the work of ftts, is the most important value, followed by "tolerance" and "justice", which are often integrated requirements in the profession of ft, where therapists work with individuals and families. fts need to balance their own ideas and values when working with family systems with whom they might not share similar values and/or lifestyles. table 4 schwartz value domain universalism examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total love 15 11 7 33 tolerance 6 7 1 14 justice 5 3 6 14 acceptance 2 2 4 equality 2 1 3 transparency 2 1 3 cohesion 1 1 2 humanity 1 1 note. total for domain = 74. the value domain, "tradition", was important for ftts, particularly with regard to the values of "respect" (23 statements), "acknowledgement" (15 statements) and "faith" (14 statements) (see table 5). "respect" and "acknowledgement" are basic values with regard to ethical considerations when working in the ft contexts and were shown to be core values for ftts. one participant explained: "i want to respect myself and others. that is not always easy, but i am learning." it is interesting that faith is the only value which increases in frequency within the three-year training period. this might show that ftts experience an increase in faith in terms of spirituality and, particularly, meaningfulness. all the other values mentioned decrease in frequency of being stated. values such as "gratefulness", "hope", "commitment", "humbleness" and "ethics" are mentioned, but not very often. one participant stated: "i need to believe in myself to be a good therapist. it is about believing and having faith ... in myself and in what i do ... and in the process." mayer & oosthuizen 653 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it can, however, be recognised that "humbleness" and "ethics", in particular, are mentioned only from year 2 onwards, for instance, "i want to behave in an ethical manner" or "to become humble is important to me ... humbleness ... and to be grateful". this might relate to the increase of faith (including meaningfulness): ftts experienced an increase in ethical values and humbleness towards their own processes and their life. table 5 schwartz value domain tradition examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total respect 14 6 3 23 acknowledgement 8 4 3 15 faith 3 5 6 14 hope 1 4 1 6 humbleness 2 1 3 gratefulness 1 1 2 ethics 2 2 commitment 1 1 note. total for domain = 66. the value domain of "conformity" (41 statements) closely follows the number of statements in respect of the value domain of "tradition" (see table 6). here, the most important value refers to the "family" (25 statements). the family is referred to as an important value (e.g. "family is very important to me."), in terms of honouring family members and in terms of not violating any social expectations or norms relating to the family. other values which fall into this value domain are "punctuality", "loyalty" and "harmony" (4 statements each). finally, in 2 statements, "belonging" is mentioned, as are "discipline" and "politeness", with 1 statement each. the data show that the family is particularly important with regard to the value domain of "conformity". this is not surprising, particularly because ftts are very aware of family issues and are sensitive regarding family relationships. this connection is, for example, expressed in statements, such as: "family. i think you must value people in the family and i just like to be with my family and do something with my family." table 6 schwartz value domain conformity examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total family 14 8 3 25 punctuality 2 1 1 4 loyalty 1 2 1 4 harmony 1 2 1 4 belonging 1 1 2 discipline 1 1 politeness 1 1 note. total for domain = 41. value-orientations in family therapy trainees 654 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the value domain of "hedonism" is one that is not mentioned frequently in the data set (see table 7). examples of values referred to in the context of "hedonism" are "happiness" (10 statements), "contentedness" (9 statements) statements, and "joy of life" (4 statements), "humour" (3 statements) and "fulfilled life" (1 statement). this shows that, within the domain "hedonism", mainly "happiness" and "contentedness" are important for ftts over the three-year period of training and are expressed as follows: "i want to be happy and content in my life and in my work. that is important. if i am not happy, i should change." table 7 schwartz value domain hedonism examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total happiness 5 2 3 10 contentedness 4 5 9 joy of life 2 2 4 humour 1 1 1 3 fulfilled life 1 1 note. total for domain = 27. the domain "security" is one of the domains not frequently mentioned by ftts (see table 8). "security", if mentioned at all, is related mainly to health and the feeling of security due to being healthy and feeling healthy (9 statements): "i think the environment needs to be safe and secure. then you can feel healthy and connected and peaceful and this is a good basis." seven statements refer to security in terms of "peace", "peacefulness" and "calmness". six statements refer to "safety" and only three statements highlight the importance of "continuity", mainly referring to the experiences of continuous learning and continuing positive experiences for example in a family or during the socialisation and enculturation processes. "i feel secure when i have got long-term relationships, stable and enduring relationships which are good for me." with 25 statements altogether, "security" is one of the least mentioned value domains in this sample, probably due to the fact that it can be assumed that the participants belonged to the middle or higher class in society. all participants held a university degree and most of the participants were german-speaking german citizens and, like a majority of germans, had been born and raised in middle or upper-class contexts within germany. it might be assumed that security is important to them, but it is not mentioned more frequently, due to the fact that it is seen as "a given" and, therefore, hardly mentioned in this research as an important value domain. it is also interesting that only female ftts refer to the value domain of "security". mayer & oosthuizen 655 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 schwartz value domain security examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total health 2 4 3 9 peace 4 3 7 safety 2 4 6 continuity 1 2 3 note. total for domain = 25. the value domain, "achievement", was mentioned only in the context of seven statements and it is highlighted that this was particularly in years 1 and 2 (see table 9). this means that, only in year 1 and 2, is "work" emphasised as an important value in 4 statements, whilst "professionalism" is highlighted in one statement each in the first two years and "effectiveness" as an important work value is mentioned once in year 2. this shows that the value domain, "achievement", is less important as a value domain for ftts and that the meaning of the profession seems not to be related to the value of "achievement" but seems rather to be related to other value sets, as mentioned above. exemplary values, such as "success", "capability" and "ambition", as mentioned by schwartz (1994), are not reported at all in the data, which shows that this sample does not relate to these values supporting the domain of "achievement". table 9 schwartz value domain achievement examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total work 3 1 4 professionalism 1 1 2 effectiveness 1 1 note. total for domain = 7. the two value domains mentioned least frequently by ftts are "stimulation" and "power" (see table 10). one person, in year 2, emphasised "excitement" as an important value, stating: "i like it when i become excited and when i can start something new with excitement and learn." only one person in year 2 mentioned "wealth" as an important value in the value domain of "power". interestingly, the value domains, "stimulation" and "power" were highlighted by male participants. no female participant referred to the categories "stimulation" and "power". table 10 schwartz value domains stimulation and power examples year 1 year 2 year 3 total excitement 1 1 wealth 1 1 note. total for domain = 2. value-orientations in family therapy trainees 656 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the findings show that, with regard to the four value dimensions mentioned in schwartz (1994, p. 24–25), ftts mainly referred to value domains within the value-dimension of "self-transcendence" (266 statements), followed by the value domains within the value-dimension of "conservation" (109 statements), "openness to change" (86 statements) and, finally, the value domains within the value dimension of "self-enhancement" (35 statements) (see table 11). table 11 value dimensions value dimension / value domains frequencies openness to change 86 self-direction (independent thoughts and actions) 85 stimulation (change) 1 conservation 109 security (protection of stability) 25 conformity (self-restrictions) 41 tradition (maintenance of traditional practices) 43 self-enhancement 35 power (dominance) 1 achievement (success) 7 hedonism (happiness) 27 self-transcendence 266 universalism (acceptance of others as equals) 74 benevolence (caring for the well-being of others) 192 this shows that caring for the well-being of others and acceptance of others as equals are highly important for ftts, which is probably an advantage when working in therapeutic or social professions, as ftts do. further on, the second highest value domain of "self-direction" might also help ftts to find their own, independent way of working with their clients in the value dimension of "openness to change". the second most frequently mentioned value dimension of "conservation" shows that values such as family, along with the applying of self-restrictions in order to fit in with the social norms and security/stability are highly important for ftts, something that is probably reflected in the fact that they work primarily with families, the traditional core unit of the nation state. for ftts, self-enhancement and their careers, their power and achievement are at least frequently mentioned and therefore interpreted as being of less importance. this fact, however, also includes the potential danger that ftts might forget about themselves and their own, personal well-being whilst working with clients, by focusing on the well-being of the clients only. discussion this study stands in the tradition of value research within the psychological discipline (jambrak, deane, & williams, 2014; rokeach, 1973; schwartz, 1994), focusing on educational and training contexts (boness, 2002; patel, 2016) and responding to the aim of describing the development of vos in ftts. the study also supports the idea that vos are dynamic, change over time and vary in importance (gouveia, vione, milfont, & fischer, 2015; schwartz, 1994). according to kluckhohn and strodtbeck (1961), values comprise needs of individuals mayer & oosthuizen 657 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as biological organisms; requisites of coordinated, social and interpersonal interaction; and security of functions concerning the well-being and the survival of groups. this study shows that the focus of ftts, in terms of values, is based in the form of requisites of coordinated, social and interpersonal interactions. findings in this study show the frequency of vos (schwartz, 1994; schwartz & bilsky, 1987) – from most mentioned to least mentioned – to be: "benevolence", followed by "self-direction", "universalism", "tradition", "conformity", "hedonism", "security", "achievement", …"stimulation" and "power" (that is, power to regulate social interactions and behaviours) and all viewed from the perspective of ftts. the value-dimensions (schwartz, 1994; schwartz & bilsky, 1987) most frequently mentioned in this study, such as: "self-transcendence", "conservation, "openness to change" and "self-enhancement" show that, in terms of differentiation (oishi et al., 1998), collectivist values ("self-transcendence", "conservation") seem to be more frequently mentioned and therefore more important for ftts than individualistic values ("openness to change" and "self-enhancement"). this assumes that the value dimensions concerned are viewed as overall categories of value domains and values.) the focus on the social realm, the system, as the family, seems to be more important than the focus on the individual. the systemic perspective is therefore inherent in the value domains and dimensions mentioned. the study does not provide information on the dialectics and contradictions of vo, as highlighted in previous research such as that of hiratsuka, suzuki, and pusina (2016), or conflictual outcomes of differences in valuesets as described previously (barsky, 2014; berkel, 2005; janssen & van berkel, 2015). rather, it provides a descriptive, harmonic and integrated view on values over the three-year period. ftts seem to be quite conscious and aware of their values and do not highlight their contradictions and dialectics, but rather present a harmonic and integrated value concept. the vo described by ftts in the study seem to fit positively with the development of the professional identity (brody & doukas, 2014; drolet & désormeaux-moreau, 2016; iacobucci, dal, lindell, & griffin, 2013; levy, shlomo, & itzhaky, 2014) of the ftt, taking the therapist-client relationship and treatment outcomes into account (huang & zane, 2016) and reflecting the strong motivation of ftts to develop within their new field of training and expertise, contributing to general mental health and well-being (jambrak, deane, & williams, 2014). this study does not support the findings by fegg et al. (2014) in terms of preferences in vo of hcps, since ftts score highest in "self-transcendence", whilst hcps prefer "conservation" and "openness to change". moreover, this study does not provide any information on how the ftt values and value contradictions or conflicts influence the client and the client's system or symptoms, as described previously (barsky, 2014; hecker, trepper, wetchler, & fontaine, 1995; sanders, 2013). since, to date, hardly any studies could be found which examine the values of ftts within a longitudinal and developmental research setting, either internationally or in germany, only a few similar previous studies were available with which to compare the data. in comparison to occupational therapists (drolet & désormeauxmoreau, 2016, p. 273), the findings this study presents for ftts show that vos have to be understood, particularly in terms of the ftts’ interest and in order to facilitate client-centred approaches ("benevolence", "universalism", "tradition", "conformity") as well as to foster inter-professional collaboration ("achievement"). reducing the ethical distress experienced by many hcps and improving both an ethical professional practice and a cultural awareness (as mentioned by drolet and désormeaux-moreau, 2016 for hcp) are not mentioned by value-orientations in family therapy trainees 658 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ftts in terms of their vos. finally, it can be concluded that the ftts studied in this research are well aware of their values as opposed to being unaware to the large extent emphasised by fife and whiting (2007) in their research on ftts. limitations of this study the brevity of the discussion of findings within the context of existing literature shows that the findings should be viewed and interpreted against certain limitations of the study. the first limitation relates to the limited and explorative nature of the research as the researchers had access to only three sets of data over a period of three years. secondly, the study is limited to a relatively small sample size. thirdly, the study is limited with regard to the demographic and biographic composition of the sample, a clear cultural and religious bias (most of the participants are female, german and christian). the study should therefore be replicated in different contexts and cultures and compared with the vo of ftts in different countries. fourthly, only a limited number of questions were asked in the questionnaire and no interviews could be conducted to explore the responses in more depth. therefore, the depth of the statements is limited and could not be explored more deeply. finally, the study's findings could be discussed only in the context of a limited literature review in terms of the specific context and setting of the study. this study is, therefore, clearly of an explorative nature. conclusions and recommendations this study aimed at exploring and understanding the development of vos in ftts over a three-year training course period. they show that ftts focus mainly on vos in the value domain of "benevolence", followed by "self-direction" and "universalism" and are therefore anchored in collectivist values rather than in individual ones. the least mentioned value domains include "power" and "stimulation". with regard to the schwartz value dimensions, the dimension of "self-transcendence" is most frequently mentioned, followed by "conservation", "openness to change" and "self-enhancement". this shows that ftts’ vos relate strongly to caring for the wellbeing of others, independent thought, action and acceptance of others as equals, and are therefore particularly socially directed. over the three-year period, minor value shifts were observed, specifically an increase in value statements such as "freedom" (self-direction) – which might relate to an increased understanding of personal family dependencies across the training period, and an increase in the value frequencies of "justice" (universalism), as well as "faith" (in terms of spirituality/meaningfulness), in the value domain of "tradition". all other vos showed a decrease in the frequency of statements over the three-year period. with regard to future research, further investigations are needed and these should explore vos and their change in ftts in different institutions across a three-year training period. studies should use mixed methods to explore the vos, based on quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, with this being achieved by using questionnaires as well as in-depth interviews. follow-up studies with the ftts should be conducted after they have worked as fts, while vos should be compared between ftts and fts, who have been in practice for a certain amount of time. on a practical note, the development of vos in ftts should become a conscious process during the three-year training period. trainers and ftts need to increase their awareness regarding their vos and the changes they experience with regard to their personal and professional development in terms of vos. vos could be consciously developed through self-reflections in the context of personality development and professionalism and the connection between the vo, the shift in the vo and the behavioural patterns of ftts should be explored to mayer & oosthuizen 659 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ understand how vos (shifts) influence and are influenced by behavioural patterns. vos could be explored during the training through self-reflection, discussions in small groups, exercises, and the learning unit regarding the development of ethical behaviour in ft. trainers in ft institutes also need to develop their awareness regarding the development of vos and make it a conscious part within ft training, which influences and informs behaviour patterns which are established in ftts during the three-year training course. notes i) fegg et al. (2014) used the schwartz value survey questionnaire to explore the values of their samples. in this research, however, the study aims to explore the vo of ftts through a qualitative, open-question questionnaire. the researchers here did not use the quantitative schwarz value survey questionnaire due to the fact that qualitative data collection was intended. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we sincerely thank the institute of family therapy training in germany, at which this study was undertaken, for their support and for providing us with access to the ftts. we also thank the ftts for their longitudinal participation in this research. references alazaizeh, m. m., hallo, j. c., backman, s. j., norman, w. c., & vogel, m. a. 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(2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). london, united kingdom: sage. about the authors claude-hélène mayer is an adjunct professor (pd) at the institut für therapeutische kommunikation und sprachgebrauch, european university viadrina and senior research associate at the department of management at rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. she holds masters in cultural anthropology and crime sciences, phds in psychology and management, a doctorate in cultural anthropology and intercultural didactics and a habilitation (european university viadrina, germany) in psychology with focus on work, organizational, and cultural psychology. she has published several monographs, text collections, accredited journal articles, and special issues on transcultural mental health, sense of coherence and well-being, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership in culturally diverse work contexts, constellation work, coaching, psychobiography, and shame in cultural contexts. rudolf m. oosthuizen received a ba degree (cum laude) from the university of pretoria in 1992 and obtained a ba (honours) in psychology at the same university in 1993. in 1999, he received an ma degree in industrial and personnel psychology from the potchefstroom university for christian higher education. in 1999, he registered as industrial psychologist with the health professions council of south africa. in 2005, he completed a dlitt et phil in industrial and organisational psychology at the university of south africa (unisa). currently rudolf is an associate professor in the department of industrial and organisational psychology at the university of south africa. rudolf is the manager for the mcomiop programme, and he is responsible for the lecturing of honours subjects and the supervision of master’s and doctoral students. he has presented conference papers at national and international conferences, and published articles in accredited scientific journals. rudolf’s fields of interests are (1) career psychology, career development and management from an individual and organisational perspective in the 21st century world of work; (2) positive psychology, with the focus on salutogenesis, sense of coherence, locus of control, self-efficacy, the hardy personality and learned resourcefulness; and (3) employment relations and the improvement of the quality of employment relations in organisations and in society in general. value-orientations in family therapy trainees 664 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 644–664 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1519 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2161-007x.1994.tb00837.x https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00936269 https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.23.6.509 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ value-orientations in family therapy trainees (introduction) value-orientations and value domains and dimensions developing value-orientations in family therapist trainees method participants and procedure instruments data gathering and data analysis ethical considerations results value-orientations in family therapist trainees over three years discussion limitations of this study conclusions and recommendations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors early evidence of parental attachment among polish adolescents research reports early evidence of parental attachment among polish adolescents elisa delvecchio* a, jian-bin li b, hanna liberska c, adriana lis d, claudia mazzeschi a [a] department of philosophy, social sciences and education, university of perugia, perugia, italy. [b] department of early childhood education, the education university of hong kong, hong kong. [c] department of social psychology and research on youth, kazimierz wielki university, bydgoszcz, poland. [d] department of developmental psychology and socialization, university of padova, padova, italy. abstract parental attachment is important for adolescents’ development as well as cultural context. poland used to be collectivist but now is closer to individualistic due to social and economic transformation. few studies have examined parental attachment and self-esteem among polish adolescents. this descriptive study (n = 303 polish adolescents) investigated the levels of parental attachment, gender differences, preferred attachment figure, association with self-esteem and cultural differences with collectivistic (china) and individualistic (italy) cultures. the results indicated that: (1) there was no gender difference in parental attachment; (2) mother was the preferred attachment figure; (3) parental attachment was related to self-esteem; and (4) cultural differences were found. findings were discussed in terms of polish sociopolitical situation. keywords: attachment, adolescence, self-esteem, poland, cross-cultural study europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 received: 2018-11-06. accepted: 2019-06-29. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: piazza ermini 1, 06123 perugia, italy. e-mail: elisa.delvecchio@unipg.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. parental attachment refers to an affectional bond with parents. although usually attachment to parents develops in infancy (bowlby, 1969), it continues to affect the individual’s psychological adjustment during adolescence (cai, hardy, olsen, nelson, & yamawaki, 2013; tambelli, laghi, odorisio, & notari, 2012). this makes parents remain a fundamental source of emotional support for their adolescent children even though they become increasingly independent and autonomous (buist, dekovic, meeus, & van aken, 2002; cai et al., 2013). prior research has found that parental attachment varies across cultural values and family orientation (chen, french, & schneider, 2006; li, delvecchio, miconi, salcuni, & di riso, 2014; song, thompson, & ferrer, 2009; trommsdorff, 2006), suggesting that cultural context should be taken into account in order to better understand attachment to parents. poland is a country with specific cultural context. although prior research has addressed polish young adults’ attachment in a retrospective study (hardt, dragan, schultz, & engfer, 2011), little has been done to study parental attachment among polish adolescents. the current research aimed to address this void using a widely used self-report measure specifically devised for the assessment of parental attachment among adolescents: the revised version of the inventory of parent and peer attachment (ippa-r; armsden & greenberg, 2001). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ brief introduction of the cultural changes in poland as highlighted by stefaniak and bilewicz (2016), the polish host several ethical, religious and social differences in one culture, due to their historical issue (i.e., the world war ii) and the fast economic development. poland is a country where the collapse of communism and its collectivistic culture twenty years ago triggered many changes at the economic, social and individual level. nowadays, poland is categorized as an individualistic country, as indicated by a score of 60/100 on individualism (https://geert-hofstede.com/poland.html). in sum, poland used to be a collectivistic country but now is closer to be individualistic due to the sociopolitical transformation it has undergone. social norms of behavior, working rules, values, parental and gender roles that successfully organized the life of individuals and their families for the last fifty years during the collectivistic communist culture became non-adaptive and useless. this phenomenon, defined in terms of social anomy, must have had an impact on the family processes, especially with regard to the family orientation which is considered to be the core for polish culture (boski, 2009; inglehart & welzel, 2005; nowak, 1979; siemieńska, 2008). social anomy may lead to differences in attachment. there is scarce literature about parental attachment among adolescents in poland. the current study aimed to examine four issues described below. gender differences in attachment gender differences in levels of attachment were examined. this is a controversial topic in the literature because of inconsistent findings (buist et al., 2002; delvecchio, 2013; kenny & rice, 1995, li et al., 2014; li, delvecchio, lis, nie, & di riso, 2015; san martini, zavattini, & ronconi, 2009; song et al., 2009). as example, rice, cunningham, and young (1997), referring to the “allegiance” effect proposed that maternal relationships were more influential for girls and paternal relationships were more influential for boys. however, more recently li, lis, and delvecchio (2016) found girls reporting stronger maternal attachment than boys but no differences according to fathers’ attachment. in light of the cultural changes concerning gender roles occurred in poland, it was important to understand whether girls’ parental attachment was stronger than in boys. however, because there were no empirical studies with the ippa-r on possible gender differences in attachment scores in the polish, no specific hypotheses were made. preferred attachment figure although fathers in poland formally maintained the position of the head of the family. poland is characterized by a domestic matriarchy: the family is ruled by the mother rather than the father, and mothers in poland are also primary caregiver and more involved than fathers in child-rearing process (walczewska, 1999). in light of this, we hypothesized that adolescents would report higher maternal attachment than paternal attachment. association with self-evaluation attachment theory assumes that children in secure and supportive parent-child relationships are more likely to perceive themselves positively and more competent compared with children in insecure or unsupportive relationships (see cassidy, 2008; weinfield, sroufe, egeland, & carlson, 2008). attachment theorists have also recognized that continued parental support is required to maintain positive self-regard as children mature (thompson, 2008). many studies supported empirically this view finding a significant association of adolescent attachment to mothers and fathers with self-esteem and self-appraisal (armsden & greenberg, 1987; cotterell, 1992; laible, carlo, & roesch, 2004; noom, deković, & meeus, 1999; o’koon, 1997; song et al., 2009; delvecchio, li, liberska et al. 83 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://geert-hofstede.com/poland.html https://www.psychopen.eu/ wilkinson, 2004). in summary, the existing literature has shown that relationships with both parents are associated with self-evaluation among adolescents, but little is known about whether this result could be replicated among polish adolescents. cultural differences the current study also compared polish adolescents’ attachment scores with two other countries where the meaning of family and family bonding are partly similar and partly different: china (collectivistic), italy (individualistic). parent-adolescent relationships have been shown to vary across cultural values and family orientation, which may lead to differences in parental attachment (chen, french, & schneider, 2006; li et al., 2014; song et al., 2009; trommsdorff, 2006). few research has been carried out comparing attachment levels in adolescents from different countries. as example, li et al. (2014) compared parental attachment among chinese and italian adolescents showing that parental attachment in chinese adolescents was lower than their italian counterparts. the authors suggested that the influence of filial piety and confucian beliefs which emphasize the importance of parental control and lower expression of love and emotions, may affect chinese relationships showing higher emotional distance between parents and child. moreover, chinese parents more often refer to authoritative parenting style, discouraging adolescents to get closer for emotional support. on the other hand, although also in italy a family orientation is present, parent-child relationships are characterized by a bidirectional path through which autonomy, support, emotional bonding and reciprocal respect are fundamental. hardt et al. (2011) comparing parent-child relationships in poland and germany found that polish mothers and fathers were evaluated as stronger and weaker, respectively, than german ones. the authors suggested that a possible explanation may refer to polish domestic matriarchy, which see the family ruled by the mother than the father although the father maintained his position as the head of the family (walczewska, 1999). however, it is important to underline that those data were collected retrospectively (i.e., they captured mainly the post world-war ii era) thus they may not be truly representative of the current situation. to the best of our knowledge, no more recent comparison studies in adolescent samples involving the polish were available. thus, differences in attachment scores in polish adolescents were left as an open question due to insufficient data. the current study the present study was designed as an initial investigation of attachment among polish adolescents, an understudied population in the literature of the field, by examining levels of attachment to mothers and fathers, analyzing gender differences and the preferred figure of attachment, associating it with social development correlates (i.e., self-esteem), and comparing it with previous cross-cultural findings. we hoped that the findings of this study would contribute to our knowledge of adolescent attachment in the current cultural context of poland, a country that has undergone changes in values from collectivism to individualism. attachment among polish youth 84 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants a total of 303 polish (176 boys, 127 girls; mage = 16.86 years, sd = 0.87 years adolescents) were recruited from middle and high schools (grade 7 to 11) in bydgoszcz (poland). families came from a working and middle-class background. involved families were required to indicate whether they were immigrants and only genuine polish families were selected in order to avoid language and culture-based problems. approximately 94% of the families who received the leaflet agreed to participate. those who declined due to lack of interest and concerns about sharing personal information. exclusion criteria included psychiatric hospitalization, psychological treatment or testing within the past 2 years. measures parental attachment the revised version of the inventory of parent and peer attachment (ippa-r; armsden & greenberg, 1987) was employed to assess adolescents’ cognitive perception and feelings towards mother and father on a 5-point likert scale (from “1 = never” to “5 = always”). this scale consists of 25 items measuring the extent of three dimensions (i.e., trust, communication, and alienation) separately to each of the attachment figures with parallel wordings of items. ippa-r yields a total attachment score based on the sum of item ratings with alienation reverse scored. higher scores indicate stronger attachment. sample items are “i am angry at my mother” (reverse score) and “my mother respects my feelings”. this instrument has been extensively used in the literature, showing overall adequate psychometric characteristics. comparatively much less studies have used this scale in polish samples (farnicka & grzegorzewska, 2015; gajewski & małkowska-szkutnik, 2012; grzegorzewska, 2013; mazur & małkowska-szkutnik, 2011). polish adolescents answered the existing polish version of this measure (farnicka & grzegorzewska, 2015). in the current study, cronbach’s α was .95 for total paternal attachment, .90 for paternal trust, .90 for paternal communication, .80 for paternal alienation, .95 for total maternal attachment, .92 for maternal trust, .88 for maternal communication, and .85 for maternal alienation. self-esteem the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965) was used to assess respondents’ level of selfesteem. adolescents filled in a polish version of the scale. this scale consists of ten items rated on a 4-point scale (from “1 = strongly disagree” to “4 = strongly agree”). higher scores indicate better self-esteem. rses has been extensively used among polish adolescents, showing adequate psychometric properties (e.g., delvecchio, lis, liberska, & li, 2017; dzwonkowska, lachowicz-tabaczek, & łaguna, 2008). sample items include “i feel that i have a number of good qualities”. the cronbach’s α was .82 in the current study. procedure this study was conducted in compliance with the ethical standards for research outlined in the ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (american psychological association, 2010). approval by the ethical committee for psychological research was obtained from university of bydgoszcz. school approval and parents’ signed consent were sequentially obtained before data collection and adolescents provided their assent before participation. no incentives were awarded; voluntary participation and anonymity were emphasized. delvecchio, li, liberska et al. 85 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants completed the questionnaires during regularly scheduled classes and were instructed to be open and honest in their responses and to refrain from sharing answers with each other. administration was conducted in compliance with the standard procedures. data analyses multiple analyses were carried out using spss 18.0. first, descriptive statistics (means and standard deviation) were calculated. second, independent t-test was carried out to examine whether there would be gender differences in the total and dimension scores. substantial difference was determined when t value was significant (i.e., p < .05) and effect size (i.e., cohen’s d; cohen, 1992) was at least medium. third, paired t-test was performed to investigate the preferred attachment figure. fourth, correlations between the total and dimension scores of attachment and self-esteem were tested for the overall sample and separately for boys and girls. effect sizes of correlation coefficient were checked, with .10, .30, and .50 as small, medium, and large effect size, respectively (cohen, 1992). in order to investigate whether the correlations differed between boys and girls, steiger’s z test (steiger, 1980) was conducted. finally, polish adolescents’ attachment total and dimension scores were compared with previous results obtained from chinese and italian samples (li et al., 2014) using one-sample t-test. results description of and gender differences in parental attachment total and dimension scores of maternal and paternal attachment in the overall sample and for boys and girls as well as the results of independent t-test by gender are presented in table 1. no significant gender difference in total and dimension scores of maternal and paternal attachment was found, suggesting that levels of parental attachment were similar for boys and girls. table 1 descriptive statistics of and gender differences in parental attachment ippa-r scale m ± sd t(301) p cohen’s doverall boys girls maternal attachment 91.64 ± 18.69 92.39 ± 19.54 90.60 ± 17.47 0.821 .412 0.095 maternal trust 38.35 ± 8.01 38.68 ± 8.06 37.90 ± 7.95 0.841 .401 0.097 maternal communication 31.81 ± 7.19 32.14 ± 7.63 31.36 ± 6.53 0.925 .356 0.107 maternal alienation 14.53 ± 5.23 14.43 ± 5.49 14.66 ± 4.86 -0.377 .707 0.043 paternal attachment 85.33 ± 18.90 83.88 ± 19.41 87.35 ± 18.05 -1.579 .115 0.182 paternal trust 36.08 ± 8.35 35.47 ± 8.51 36.94 ± 8.07 -1.517 .130 0.175 paternal communication 28.90 ± 7.62 28.21 ± 7.94 29.86 ± 7.08 -1.864 .063 0.215 paternal alienation 15.65 ± 5.07 15.80 ± 4.88 15.45 ± 5.34 0.587 .558 0.068 preferred attachment figure paired t-test was conducted to examine preferred attachment figure. the results showed that participants reported higher levels of total attachment to mother than to father, t(302) = 4.834, p < .001, higher trust to mother attachment among polish youth 86 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ than to father, t(302) = 4.235, p < .001, higher level of communication with mother than with father, t(302) = 5.454, p < .001 and less alienation from mother than from father, t(302) = -3.334, p = .001. association with self-esteem as shown in table 2, maternal and paternal total attachment and dimension scores were significantly associated with self-esteem for the overall sample, but some differences in effect size were found. to be more specific, maternal total attachment and dimension scores were correlated with the rses at medium effect sizes whereas paternal total attachment and dimension scores were correlated with rses at low effect sizes. moreover, significant differences in the correlation coefficients between boys and girls occurred. first, there was no significant difference between boys and girls in the relationship between maternal attachment and self-esteem except for maternal communication, as evidenced by the results of steiger’s z test shown in table 2. the relationship between communication with mother and self-esteem was significantly higher for boys than for girls. table 2 correlations between parental attachment and self-esteem for the total sample and divided by gender ippa-r scale total sample boys girls z p two-tailed maternal attachment .45** .50** .40** 1.07 .285 maternal trust .41** .42** .41** 0.10 .920 maternal communication .38** .46** .26** 1.96 .050 maternal alienation -.46** -.51** -.40** -1.18 .238 paternal attachment .26** .11 .47** -3.40 < .001 paternal trust .26** .12 .45** -3.09 .002 paternal communication .18** .10 .28** -1.59 .112 paternal alienation -.28** -.09 -.52** 4.13 < .001 note. steiger’s z test for gender differences evaluation. **p < .01. a totally different picture appeared for paternal attachment. there were no significant relationships between paternal attachment and self-esteem among boys. however, there were differences in girls. correlations for girls were at medium level with the exception of communication as shown in table 2. results of of steiger’s z test confirm this significant difference. comparison with previous studies one-sample t-tests were carried out to compare the current results with previous research done among chinese and italian samples (li et al., 2014) since the age groups of that research was comparable to the current one. because factor scores were reported in li et al.’s (2014) paper, the first author of that study was contacted for the raw data for comparison. as shown in table 3, some significant differences between polish and chinese adolescents were found. polish adolescents reported higher level of maternal total attachment, trust and communication than their chinese counterparts. as for fathers, although no significant differences were found for total attachment, polish adolescents reported lower level of trust, higher level of alienation, but higher level of communication than their chinese counterparts. regarding the comparison between polish and italian adolescents, except the case of padelvecchio, li, liberska et al. 87 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ternal communication, polish youth in general reported lower level of attachment to both father and mother (as indicated by lower total attachment score, less trust, communication, and more alienation), than did italian adolescents. table 3 comparison with previous chinese and italian data ippa-r scale m ± sd tpoland-china p tpoland-italy ppoland (n = 303) china (n = 350) italy (n = 352) maternal attachment 91.64 ± 18.69 87.54 ± 15.37 95.13 ± 16.70 3.816 < .001 -3.253 .001 maternal trust 38.35 ± 8.00 37.18 ± 6.80 41.55 ± 7.44 2.551 .011 -6.950 < .001 maternal communication 31.81 ± 7.19 29.18 ± 6.76 33.14 ± 7.40 6.372 < .001 -3.215 .001 maternal alienation 14.53 ± 5.23 14.82 ± 4.30 12.85 ± 4.80 -.972 .332 5.587 < .001 paternal attachment 85.33 ± 18.90 86.07 ± 16.05 87.61 ± 17.58 -.679 .498 -2.097 .037 paternal trust 36.08 ± 8.35 37.41 ± 7.18 39.50 ± 7.89 -2.769 .006 -7.128 < .001 paternal communication 28.90 ± 7.62 27.54 ± 7.09 28.46 ± 7.89 3.108 .002 1.007 .315 paternal alienation 15.65 ± 5.07 14.88 ± 4.88 13.82 ± 4.75 2.644 .009 6.284 < .001 discussion the first aim of this study was to assess levels of attachment as well as gender differences and preferred attachment figure among polish adolescents using the ippa-r. in line with previous studies, the ippa-r appeared to be a reliable tool, with high levels of internal consistency for the total and dimension scores (farnicka & grzegorzewska, 2015; li et al., 2014; pace, san martini, & zavattini, 2011). no significant difference was found for gender for maternal or paternal total attachment and dimension scores. these findings confirmed previous studies in ippa-r with adolescents (li et al., 2014). however, they can be also explained referring to the social polish context: commitment to the family and relatives, longing for the warm from the family circle, and the sense of belonging to a family are still strong in the younger generation, in spite of their gender (dyczewski & jedynak, 2002) and this may be a possible reason why there was no significant difference in total attachment, trust, communication and alienation between boys and girls. polish adolescents reported significantly stronger attachment to mothers than to fathers, showed to trust and communicate significantly more with mothers than fathers and to feel less alienated toward mothers than toward fathers. these findings can be interpreted in view of polish sociopolitical and culture context. under the communist revolution women behaved practically like the sole care-givers of children, taking care of all of childcare duties and being responsible for child wellbeing. fathers, although considered the authorities within families, were uninvolved in child rearing. poland was seen as a patriarchal country in which children were expected to develop strong emotional ties with mothers and less affectionate relationships with fathers. skorupskasobańska (1971), empirically confirms this tendency showing that most of children believed that mothers would support them during times of difficulty. only a paucity of them (3%) had the same thought referring to fathers’ availability. polish teenagers perceived mothers as caring, devoted to children, interested in their difficulties as well as in daily life issues, while fathers were perceived as controlling, authoritative, reluctant to spend time together and not interested in their lives. with the collapse of communism, trends toward democratization have started to influence parenting roles by overcoming cultural traditionalism. fathers became more able to cross attachment among polish youth 88 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parental role boundaries helping with childcare and domestic duties more extensively (wejnert & djumabaeva, 2005). nonetheless, in this study polish adolescents reported significantly stronger attachment to mothers than to fathers. findings about relationship between parental attachment security and self-esteem seemed to confirm the importance of maternal versus paternal attachment in polish adolescents’ development of positive self-evaluation. specifically, maternal attachment helps polish adolescents, both boys and girls, to feel the self as competent. however, stronger paternal attachment provides some contribution to girls’, rather than boys’, perception of themselves as positive and competent. maybe boys, more than girls, need a progressive improved father-child relationship in order to improve their self-esteem. wejnert and djumabaeva's (2005) suggested that the encouragement of western examples of parenting should progressively help improve father-child relationships in poland and that the models of involved and active parenting are especially important within liberal democratic systems where the parent-child relationships are challenged by increases in youthful drug use, teen prostitution, as well as teen and out-of-wedlock pregnancy (wejnert & djumabaeva, 2005). another important aim of this paper was to compare polish adolescents’ quality of attachment with the findings obtained from collectivistic non-western society (china) and with the ones from individualistic western society (italy). the results showed that levels of parental attachment among polish adolescents were generally higher than chinese but lower than italian counterparts. regarding polish adolescents, although the sense of belonging to a family is considered still strong in the younger generation and young people in poland remain closely to their families longer and more comprehensively than in other western countries (dyczewski & jedynak, 2002), their attachment tie was not so strong as compared with italian adolescents. it is important to take into account that the previous polish generation was embedded in a collectivistic orientation where the primary values were at a social level and so may be not characterized by a high degree of emotional bonding as in italy. even though the younger generation remains closely connected, they do not look like to have a strong emotional bond with their parents as compared with italian adolescents; notwithstanding under the recent individualistic orientation a greater sense of independence is now present against these ties. also as observed by hardt et al. (2011) it may reflect the wish for mothers that their child develop well socially and attain a better (economic) status than the family have, more than to commit themselves to an affectionate bond so the mother continues to maintain the task of managing the family in poland but with different aims than attachment. moreover, may be, mothers’ experience of their personal life after the collapse of communism could have led them to be more preoccupied by off-family tasks related with macro-processes linked with transformation, and for these reasons less concerned about parenting or child-care. in conclusion, adolescents’ attachment in poland as compared with other collectivistic as well individualistic country seems to be connected with its history and sociopolitical changes. the present study is not without limitations. the polish sample was only drawn from one economically and educationally developed metropolitan, and thus the generalizability of the results to overall sample is limited. moreover, only self-report questionnaires were used. third, the current research adopted a cross-sectional approach. future longitudinal studies need to track the psychological and social changes occurring in the polish. nevertheless, the current study contributes to literature by revealing level of parental attachment in poland in the context of cultural changes. moreover, this research also adds to the limited cross-cultural literature of parental attachment. in conclusion, we hope these findings can provide an initial view of polish adolescents’ attachment to parents in the ongoing cultural context and lay the ground for future research. delvecchio, li, liberska et al. 89 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references american psychological association. 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(2005). from patriarchy to egalitarianism: parenting roles in democratizing poland and kyrgyzstan. marriage & family review, 36, 147-171. https://doi.org/10.1300/j002v36n03_08 wilkinson, r. b. (2004). the role of parental and peer attachment in the psychological health and self-esteem of adolescents. journal of youth and adolescence, 33(6), 479-493. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:joyo.0000048063.59425.20 about the authors elisa delvecchio, ph.d., is assistant professor in dynamic psychology. she is the coordinator of the “psychology and cultures lab” at the international human-being research centre (ihrc), university of perugia. her main research interests focus on the role of personal and interpersonal variables for the prevention of anxiety and depressive disorders in adolescence adopting a cross-cultural perspective. she is currently running a project aimed to assess the link between psychological well-being and cultural beliefs in adolescents and emerging adults across the world. she has authored or coauthored more than 30 articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals. jian-bin li, ph.d., is assistant professor at the education university of hong kong. his main research interest is about examine the influences of ecological systems on adolescent self-control, psychological health, and other developmental outcomes. hanna liberska is a psychologist and biologist, professor at the institute of psychology at the kazimierz wielki university in bydgoszcz (poland). she is the head of the department of social psychology and youth studies. her main fields of study are developmental, social, educational and family psychology. she conducts research on the determinants of aggression in adolescence for many years. she is the author and co-author of over 180 articles in polish, english and russian. a member of the international society for research on aggression, co-founder of the research group on family and adolescents in middle europe and a founding member of the polish association of developmental psychologists, editor-in-chief of the journal polskie forum psychologiczne (polish psychological forum). adriana lis, senior professor at the university of padova from 1/10/2014. she was full professor at the same university and she taught psychology of family relation in 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017. moreover, she was professor of psychology of family relation, psychodynamic diagnosis, intervention models for family relationships, evaluation of psychotherapeutic interventions. she published over 50 national and international papers as well as several national and international books. delvecchio, li, liberska et al. 93 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 https://doi.org/10.1300%2fj002v36n03_08 https://doi.org/10.1023%2fb%3ajoyo.0000048063.59425.20 https://www.psychopen.eu/ claudia mazzeschi, ph.d., is full professor in dynamic psychology and head of the department of philosophy, social sciences and education (university of perugia). she is the coordinator of the clinical service at the university of perugia and the scientific coordinator for the psychological area of curiamo, a clinical and research centre for obesity and diabetes affiliated to the university of perugia. her main research interests focus on psychological assessment and intervention throughout the life span. she has authored or coauthored more than 50 articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals. attachment among polish youth 94 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 82–94 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment among polish youth (introduction) brief introduction of the cultural changes in poland gender differences in attachment preferred attachment figure association with self-evaluation cultural differences the current study method participants measures procedure data analyses results description of and gender differences in parental attachment preferred attachment figure association with self-esteem comparison with previous studies discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors homogeneity of memory errors in abstract visual pattern recall research reports homogeneity of memory errors in abstract visual pattern recall stephen p. badham* a, christopher atkin a, antonio castro a [a] department of psychology, nottingham trent university, nottingham, uk. abstract in memory tests, recalled information can be distorted by errors in memory and these distortions can be more memorable than the original stimuli to a later learner. this is typically observed over several generations of learners but there is less exploration of the initial distortions from the first generation of learners. in this article, participants studied visual matrix patterns which were either erroneous recall attempts from previous participants or were random patterns. experiment 1 showed some evidence that material based on previous participants’ recall data was more memorable than random material, but this did not replicate in experiment 2. of greater interest in the current data were homogeneity in the memory errors made by participants which demonstrated systematic recall biases in a single generation of learners. unlike studies utilising multiple generations of learners, the currently observed distortions cannot be attributed to survival-of-thefittest mechanisms where biases are driven by encoding effects. keywords: visual matrix patterns, iterated learning, serial reproduction, inductive bias, memory reconstruction europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 received: 2018-06-27. accepted: 2018-11-20. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari "a. moro", bari, italy *corresponding author at: department of psychology, school of social sciences, college of business law & social sciences, nottingham trent university, 50 shakespeare street, nottingham, ng1 4fq, united kingdom. e-mail: stephen.badham@ntu.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it is well established that human memory is not just an objective, unbiased storage system that records all incoming sensory information. amongst other factors, it can be influenced by the direction of attention (e.g., mulligan, 1998), by the amount of processing applied to stimuli (craik & lockhart, 1972), and by an individual’s familiarity with study material (chase & simon, 1973; miller, 2003). the last of these factors is linked to the notion of a schema, where information that is aligned with knowledge and expectations can be easier to memorise (alba & hasher, 1983; ghosh & gilboa, 2014). schemas have been hypothesised to encourage other mnemonic processes, for example by directing attention towards important aspects of stimuli (alba & hasher, 1983) or by enriching the representation and processing of stimuli (miller, 2003). in many circumstances, individuals use schematic knowledge to support memory, for example, by using a loved one’s name as a password or by using a meaningful date as a pin number. empirical studies have shown that familiar material is easier to learn; for example, native words are easier to memorise than foreign words and nonwords (hulme, maughan, & brown, 1991), native proverbs are easier to memorise than foreign proverbs (poppenk, kohler, & moscovitch, 2010), and common visual scenes are easier to memorise than uncommon visual scenes (badham, hay, foxon, kaur, & maylor, 2016). this also extends to individual differences in familieurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ arity; for example, expert chess players are better able to visually memorise chess positions than novice players (chase & simon, 1973), and individuals more experienced with a given topic have been shown to be more able to memorise text based on that topic than less experienced individuals (arbuckle, vanderleck, harsany, & lapidus, 1990; miller, 2003). early research by bartlett (1932) postulated memory as a reconstructive process where schematic information was used to fill in gaps during recall. his work showed that after studying an unfamiliar folk tale, participants’ recall attempts often included simplification and distortions which aligned the details of the story with their own knowledge and culture. modern research has built upon the work of bartlett using his serial reproduction technique where the recalled information from one participant is presented as the study material for the next participant and so on. over generations of serial reproduction, cultural studies have shown systematic shifts in the content of information, indicating that participants are imparting their own meaning onto study materials (bangerter, 2000; mesoudi & whiten, 2004). studies of language acquisition have explored serial reproduction with novel material in order to understand inductive biases in language learning. a key feature of such work is the fact that later generations of serial learners show more regularity in the material they report, demonstrating that individuals are imparting structure upon the information that they are learning (reali & griffiths, 2009; smith & wonnacott, 2010). this indicates that schema-like organisational processes are present in novel language learning, and that such processes are not unique to paradigms where schemas/meanings are concrete and explicitly identifiable. serial reproduction has also been investigated with more abstract stimuli. ravignani, delgado, and kirby (2016) asked participants to learn random rhythmic patterns and their recall data were presented to later participants as study material and so on. across generations of learners, patterns became more structured and easier to learn. kalish, griffiths, and lewandowsky (2007) trained participants to learn functions mapping a stimulus magnitude x to a response magnitude y. participants were trained on linear and nonlinear functions mapping x to y as well as random mappings. across generations of learners, linear functions emerged in participants’ responses regardless of the function learned by the first generation (see also, ferdinand & zuidema, 2008). this indicated that a bias systematically distorted participants’ memory towards a simple relationship between x and y. another study showed that, across generations of serial reproduction, participants tended to learn novel categorical information with a bias towards simpler organisational structures (griffiths, christian, & kalish, 2008). the influence of an inductive bias has also been experimentally manipulated. xu and griffiths (2010) trained participants to learn sizes of imaginary fish for a classification task. following this, participants completed a perceptual task where images of the fish were very briefly presented on the screen and participants were required to reconstruct their size. the reconstructions were used for later generations of participants and, across generations, the reconstructed sizes converged towards whatever size that group of participants had learned in the initial classification task. whilst serial reproduction tasks have been utilised to identify and classify inductive biases, there has been less emphasis on investigating the mnemonic properties of reproduced stimuli. given that serial reproduction biases often converge towards prior knowledge and experience, and that prior knowledge and experience is known to support memory reconstruction, the current study aimed to establish if recall attempts for a given random stimulus (reconstructions) can be more memorable than the original stimulus. ravignani et al. (2016), discussed above, established that recall attempts of random rhythmic patterns were easier to learn than the original patterns and other studies have shown improved learning in later generations of language learners (e.g., kirby, homogeneity of memory errors 432 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cornish & smith, 2008; see brighton kirby & smith, 2005, for a review). these previous studies have used multiple generations of learners, so it may be the case that a survival-of-the-fittest mechanism biases learning where easy to learn material is successfully transferred between learners but material more difficult to learn is lost. crucially, this effect could be driven by biases in encoding, not retrieval. the current study focusses on retrieval by observing mnemonic effects across just one generation of learners, and by utilising a memory test where retrieval distortions can be measured. furthermore, to maximise the amount of structure participants could impart to stimuli during reproduction, the initial study material in the current study was entirely random, this is aligned with existing serial reproduction studies using novel stimuli. however, by utilising a paradigm based on the visual patterns test (della sala, gray, baddeley, allamano, & wilson, 1999), our stimuli were richer than the novel stimuli in previous studies of serial reproduction and could be incorrectly recalled in many ways, affording greater opportunity for observation of retrieval biases. we also included a difficulty manipulation (study-test delay) in order to establish if mnemonic effects of reproduction are greater when recall is harder. section 1: mnemonic tests experiment 1 method design — participants studied visual matrix patterns and their memory was tested via recall either immediately or after a 15 seconds delay. some of the patterns were random and some were previous participants’ recalled (ppr) patterns (recall based on immediate tests). the design was therefore 2 (study pattern: random, ppr) × 2 (test time: instant, delayed). participants — thirty-two participants (21 female) took part in the experiment aged between 19 and 31 years (m = 26.3, sd = 3.5). they were recruited from the local community and received £5 online shopping vouchers for participation. the study was approved by nottingham trent university’s college research ethics committee. materials the experiment was run on a laptop using eprime 2.0. thirty-two grids of patterns were created using a 4 × 4 array of squares which were randomly populated with eight white and eight black squares. the complete 4 × 4 grid was square with a side length of 10 cm corresponding to approximately 10° of visual angle at a viewing distance of 55 cm. thin 6-pixel lines between each of the 16 squares were visible to mark their positions. participants also studied grids of patterns which were the recalled stimuli from previous participants (ppr). during recall, participants were forced to select exactly eight white and eight black squares, so the recalled stimuli had the same density as the random stimuli. ppr data were taken only from trials when memory was tested immediately after encoding. previously recalled patterns were taken from the participant immediately preceding the current participant (an additional 31-year-old female recalled random patterns which were shown to participant 1 and her data were not included in the analyses). badham, atkin, & castro 433 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure — each visual pattern was displayed for 1,500 ms. it was then followed by two masks showing a chequered pattern in both orientations (black on white and white on black) each for 500 ms. in the instant recall trials, participants then immediately recalled the patterns. in the delayed recall trials, participants were instructed to complete simple true/false maths questions (e.g., 9–2 = 6, respond true/false) for 15 seconds before recall. during recall, an empty grid was displayed (16 white squares) in the same size and position as the study grid. participants were required to click the empty squares with a mouse pointer to turn them black (once black, squares could be clicked again to turn them white). participants were given as long as they wanted to recall the pattern before clicking a “done” button to record their input. if they did not have eight black and eight white squares, an on-screen prompt encouraged them to select more or less black squares, whichever was appropriate (e.g., “8 black squares should be selected (currently you have 7)”). participants completed 12 trials of instant recall and 12 trials of delayed recall, blocked with order counterbalanced (half of the participants completed instant then delayed, and half delayed then instant). within each of these 12 trials, four trials were recalled patterns from previous participants and eight trials were random patterns. the previously recalled patterns were never based on the same random patterns that were studied by the current participant. data from the eight instantly-recalled, random patterns were allocated to the next participant as previously recalled patterns, half of which were randomly assigned to either the instant or the delayed recall conditions. results data preparation — recall accuracy was scored as the proportion of the 16 squares that were the same as the encoded image. for ppr patterns, data were only included if the previous participant did not score 100% accuracy for that pattern. this is because 100% accuracy would be the same as testing with the original random pattern that the previous participant studied. accuracy was relatively high so resulted in the exclusion of 69% of trials. participants analysis — a 2 (study pattern: random, ppr) × 2 (test time: instant, delayed) repeated measures anova was completed with the accuracy data for each participant (see table 1, for descriptive statistics). fifteen participants had data in every cell of the design. there was no main effect of study pattern, f < 1. instantly recalled patterns were recalled significantly better than delayed recall patterns, f(1, 14) = 45.06, mse = 0.01, p < .001, ηp 2 = .76. there was no interaction, f < 1. table 1 mean (and sd) recall accuracy—proportion correct—for participants studying random or previous participants’ recall data (ppr) tested either instantly or delayed test time study pattern random ppr m sd m sd instant .95 .06 .92 .08 delayed .73 .13 .76 .17 note. ppr = previous participants’ recall. homogeneity of memory errors 434 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ items analysis — as there were 32 fixed random patterns, the same anova as above could be calculated for the accuracy associated to each item (see table 2, for descriptive statistics). twenty one items had data in every cell. ppr data were recalled more accurately than random pattern data, f(1, 20) = 6.90, mse = 0.02, p = .016, ηp 2 = .26, indicating that other individuals’ memory was more memorable than the original random source of that same information. as above, instantly recalled patterns were recalled significantly better than delayed recall patterns, f(1, 20) = 43.64, mse = 0.01, p < .001, ηp 2 = .69. there was no interaction, f < 1. additionally, the data allowed visualisation of how participants’ memory decayed between instant and delayed tests for each random image studied. figure 1 shows examples of original study patterns and mean recall data for each element of the 4 × 4 study arrays. figure 1. mean accuracy (experiment 1) for each element of three study patterns (left) depicted visually (percentage of participants recalling an element as black indicated from white 0% to black 100%) for instant (middle) and delayed (right) recall. note. the supplemental materials show these data for all 32 study patterns used. table 2 mean (and sd) recall accuracy—proportion correct—for each item displayed as random or previous participants’ recall data (ppr) tested either instantly or delayed test time study pattern random ppr m sd m sd instant .90 .07 .94 .10 delayed .67 .12 .76 .19 note. ppr = previous participants’ recall. badham, atkin, & castro 435 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion there was evidence in the data that memory reconstructions were more memorable than random stimuli in the items analysis but not in the participants analysis. therefore, the overall result from experiment 1 is inconclusive. a key issue was the selection of reconstructed patterns from previous participants for presentation to later participants. in many cases, the previous participant recalled patterns perfectly and these stimuli had to be removed from analyses as they were identical to random stimuli. this resulted in analyses based on a smaller pool of data when assessing the mnemonic properties of reconstructed patterns. in experiment 2, recall data from across all of experiment 1 were used and this allowed us to deliberately select study patterns that were not recalled perfectly by earlier participants, resulting in no loss of data during analyses. additionally, earlier participants’ recall data from both immediate and delayed recall tests in experiment 1 were used as study material in experiment 2. this was to further test the possibility that reconstruction biases may play a larger role when recall is more difficult (delayed recall), and more reconstruction is necessary (alba & hasher, 1983). additionally, previous research using the deese, roediger, and mcdermott procedure (deese, 1959; roediger & mcdermott, 1995) has shown that false memory lures (memory distortions driven by schemas) are less susceptible to decay over time than original studied items (seamon et al., 2002; thapar & mcdermott, 2001). it is hypothesised that schema-related information will persist throughout the delay better than non-schema-related information. therefore, recall patterns produced after a delay may contain a greater proportion of schema-related material than instantly produced recall patterns, which may mean that delayed recall patterns are more memorable to later participants than instant recall patterns. experiment 2 method design — the design was the same as experiment 1 except that half of the ppr patterns were now from trials where the previous participant recalled the pattern after a delay. the design was therefore 3 (study pattern; random, ppr-instant, ppr-delayed) × 2 (test time; instant, delayed). participants — thirty six participants (20 female) took part in the experiment aged between 18 and 31 years (m = 24.9, sd = 3.7). none of the participants took part in experiment 1. they were recruited from the local community and received online shopping vouchers for participation. the study was approved by nottingham trent university’s college research ethics committee. materials — the study patterns were a subset of those used in experiment 1. ppr data were taken from experiment 1 as opposed to the participant immediately preceding the current participant. this allowed the selection of data for which recall accuracy was not 100% for a given pattern for both immediate and delayed recall— 24 of the original 32 patterns were selected on this basis. every non-100% recall attempt for a given pattern was used in the experiment pool; individual attempts were extracted from the pool at random for ppr trials. all 24 selected patterns were used with every participant, from these 24 patterns, eight were studied as original random patterns, eight were studied as ppr-instant, and eight were studied as ppr-delayed. from each set of eight, four were tested instantly and four were tested after a 15 seconds delay. across participants, each pattern appeared equally in its original, ppr-instant or ppr-delayed forms and these forms appeared equally in instant and delayed recall trials. instant and delayed recall trials were blocked and counterbalanced as in experiment 1. within the instant and delayed recall blocks, assigned patterns were presented in a random order. homogeneity of memory errors 436 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure — the second experiment tested visual pattern memory in immediate or delayed conditions identical to experiment 1. results data preparation — accuracy was defined in the same way as experiment 1. due to experimental error an anomalous pattern appeared for one trial for two participants before it could be corrected, and these two trials were excluded from the participants analysis. the corresponding item was excluded from the items analysis. participants analysis — a 3 (study pattern; random, ppr-instant, ppr-delayed) × 2 (memory test; instant, delayed) repeated measures anova was completed with the accuracy data for each participant (see table 3, for descriptive statistics). there was no main effect of study pattern, f(2, 70) = 1.56, mse = 0.01, p = .219, ηp 2 = .04. instantly recalled patterns were recalled significantly better than delayed recall patterns, f(1, 35) = 224.75, mse = 0.01, p < .001, ηp 2 = .87. there was no interaction, f < 1. table 3 mean (and sd) recall accuracy—proportion correct—for participants studying random or previous participants’ recall data (ppr) tested either instantly or delayed test time study pattern random ppr-instant* ppr-delayed* m sd m sd m sd instant .92 .09 .92 .09 .93 .09 delayed .70 .12 .75 .15 .74 .11 note. ppr = previous participants’ recall. *previous participants’ recall from instant or delayed tests. items analysis — as for experiment 1, items analysis was conducted using the same anova structure as the participants analysis but with mean accuracy for each item as the dependant variable (see table 4, for descriptive statistics). there was no main effect of study pattern, f(2, 44) = 1.12, mse = 0.01, p = .335, ηp 2 = .05. instantly recalled patterns were recalled significantly better than delayed recall patterns, f(1, 22) = 284.07, mse = 0.01, p < .001, ηp 2 = .93. there was no interaction, f(2, 44) = 1.42, mse = 0.01, p = .252, ηp 2 = .06. table 4 mean (and sd) recall accuracy—proportion correct—for each item displayed as random or previous participants’ recall data (ppr) tested either instantly or delayed test time study pattern random ppr-instant* ppr-delayed* m sd m sd m sd instant .92 .06 .93 .05 .93 .07 delayed .69 .11 .74 .10 .74 .09 note. ppr = previous participants’ recall. *previous participants’ recall from instant or delayed tests. badham, atkin, & castro 437 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the data showed no mnemonic benefits for study patterns constructed from previous participants’ recall attempts relative to random study patterns. this was the case for items and participants analyses. given that a larger set of data was available for analyses in this experiment than in experiment 1, the significant effect of study-pattern type for items analysis in experiment 1 may be a type i error (p = .016), with enhanced recall of previously studied patterns compared to random patterns driven by noise rather than systematic processes. alternatively, in experiment 1 there may have been a small subset of participants who showed mnemonic benefits for previous participants’ recall patterns across all items, but it is difficult to speculate what may have driven such an effect for some participants but not others. one reason that mnemonic benefits were not found could be that there were not enough iterations of serial learning for participants to impart meaning onto the stimuli, although we deliberately avoided this for reasons mentioned in the introduction. other studies that showed improved learning of earlier participants’ responses used several generations of learners (kirby et al., 2008; ravignani et al., 2016). those studies focused on inductive biases and their stimuli were deliberately chosen to have the potential for evolution of structure. with the visual patterns test, there are some patterns that are more learnable than others (brown, forbes, & mcconnell, 2006) and it is likely that using multiple generations of learners would lead to memorable parts of the patterns remaining across generations and forgettable parts of the patterns changing across generations. a visual matrix test paradigm with multiple generations of learners might converge upon memorable patterns (such as the shapes of letters, cf. brown et al., 2006) but we would be unable to easily attribute this to biases in encoding (the survival-of-the-fittest mechanism) or biases in retrieval/reconstruction. of greater interest to the current study is how memory errors differ from random noise. the following section analyses systematic similarity in the errors produced within and between participants. section 2: homogeneity tests in order to quantitatively assess recall biases, analyses were conducted to assess the similarity of participants’ responses to 1) the responses of other participants and 2) responses to other trials within each participant’s own data. for every trial, the recall data for a “comparison” trial was compared to all “alternative” trials where comparison and alternative trials were never based on the same study patterns. similarity was therefore calculated comparing the comparison trial to 1) all alternative recall data from other participants only or 2) all alternative recall data from that same participant only. as a baseline, the same comparisons were made but instead of comparing the comparison trial to alternative recall data it was compared to the alternative original studied patterns. therefore, the only differences between the initial similarity measures (1 and 2) and their corresponding baseline measures were the errors made during recall. this was done to establish if the similarity measures were above baseline, which would indicate homogeneity of recall errors in the data. similarity was calculated following nosofsky (1984). each element of the recall data from the comparison trial was coded as a vector (t) of 16 ones and zeros representing the recall of black or white sections of a given 4 × 4 pattern. a corresponding vector (x) was created for each alternative trial to which the comparison trial was compared. the similarity between these two vectors was computed using the following equation: homogeneity of memory errors 438 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ similarity t, x = e−c(∑j = 1 n tj − xj r) 1/r where j cycles through each element of the vectors. for the current purposes, r was set to two to give an euclidian distance metric (nosofsky, 1984) and c was set to one. the average of these similarity measures was computed for the measures outlined above for 1) all comparisons to other participants 2) all comparisons to other trials from the same participant. the two baseline average similarities corresponding to (1) and (2) were computed based on the exact same trials but using the original study patterns instead of recall data in alternative trials. all of these four measures were computed separately using just instant recall trials or just delayed recall trials resulting in a 2 × 2 × 2 design (see below). as the above measures were computed for random study patterns only, experiments 1 and 2 were comparable and were entered into the same statistical analysis. a 2 (comparison group; other participants, same participant) × 2 (comparison type; recall data, baseline/studied data) × 2 (memory test; instant, delayed) repeated measures anova was computed on the mean summed similarity measures for each participant (see figure 2, for descriptive statistics).1 a main effect of comparison group indicated that similarity was higher between data from the same participant than between a given participant’s data and other participants’ data, f(1, 67) = 14.17, mse = 1.82 × 10-4, p < .001, ηp 2 = .18. a main effect of comparison type indicated homogeneity across recall responses—similarity was higher for comparisons between recall data than for comparisons of recall data to baseline/studied data, f(1, 67) = 11.48, mse = 9.45 × 10-5, p = .001, ηp 2 = .15. there was no main effect of memory test, f(1, 67) = 2.76, mse = 2.83 × 10-4, p = .102, ηp 2 = .04. interestingly, an interaction between comparison group and comparison type revealed larger differences between recall data and baseline/studied data similarity measures for data from the same participant than for data from other participants, f(1, 67) = 12.85, mse = 8.63 × 10-5, p = .001, ηp 2 = .16. this indicated homogeneity within the participants’ responses (similarity in excess of baseline similarity) was greater than homogeneity across different participants’ responses. generally, homogeneity of responses only occurred for data based on delayed tests for comparisons within a single participant’s data (see figure 2): there was an interaction between comparison group and memory test, f(1, 67) = 3.99, mse = 2.38 × 10-4, p = .0497, ηp 2 = .06, between comparison type and memory test, f(1, 67) = 10.33, mse = 9.24 × 10-5, p = .002, ηp 2 = .13, and a three-way interaction between all factors, f(1, 67) = 10.45, mse = 8.23 × 10-5, p = .002, ηp 2 = .14. this pattern was confirmed by follow up paired t-tests across the comparison-type factor (comparing the mean similarity measures based on recall data as alternative trials to similarity measures based on baseline/studied data as alternative trials). for the following four t-tests, a bonferroni correction was utilised with alpha set to .0125 for determining significance. for similarity to other participants, neither instant, t < 1, or delayed, t(67) = 1.07, p = .289, trials showed similarity in excess of baseline similarity. for similarity to other trials from the same participant, instant tests showed no similarity in excess of the baseline similarity, t(67) = 1.04, p = .314, but for delayed tests, there was significantly more similarity between participant’s own recall data than between recall data and baseline similarity, t(67) = 3.42, p = .001. (1) badham, atkin, & castro 439 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. mean similarity between trials from the same participant or between one participant to other participants for similarity to recall data or similarity to baseline/studied data. note. error bars are ± 1 se. the homogeneity of errors observed could be simply due to misremembering as opposed to there being an innate structure to memory errors as one possible reason for the homogeneity of errors observed could be intrusions. although we never calculated similarity measures between two sets of data based on the same study pattern, if a participant’s recall was an intrusion then this could enhance similarity if that intrusion was compared to the pattern on which the intrusion was based. for example, if a comparison trial was “pattern 1” then this would be compared to all other alternative patterns (patterns 2–24) to establish mean similarity. therefore, if the participant failed to recall pattern 3 but instead recalled an intrusion of pattern 1, then this intrusion would have high similarity to pattern 1 and would increase the overall mean similarity based on patterns 2–22. to account for this, a different baseline measure was computed. in the earlier analyses, comparison trials were based on recall data. the homogeneity of errors observed could have been due to an innate bias in the errors produced or due to intrusions. if it was due to intrusions, we would see the same enhanced similarity if comparison trials were recall data or if comparison trials were original studied data. this is because an intrusion would show high similarity to a previous trial regardless of whether the similarity measurement was based on recall data or the pattern that was originally studied as both would resemble the intrusion. therefore, by utilising comparison trials using original studied data, a new baseline measure is formed and homogeneity above this indicates homogeneity unlikely to be due to intrusions. the measures of similarity were recomputed using original studied data as comparison trials for delayed recall only and for comparisons within the same participant only (i.e., for the only data that showed homogeneity—see figure 2). with the new comparison trials, there was no significant difference between similarity based on alternative recall data versus similarity based on alternative original study patterns, t < 1 (m = 0.067, sd = 0.011; m = 0.066, sd = 0.010, respectively). therefore, there was no indication that similarity was enhanced by intrusions. furthermore, enhanced similarity across recall data was still present for delayed trials within a participant’s own responses, when compared to the new baseline measure that accounted for intrusions, t(67) = 3.13, homogeneity of memory errors 440 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ p = .003. this indicates that the homogeneity observed in the earlier analyses was not due to intrusions but was due to an innate bias in the errors made by each participant. general discussion across two experiments testing memory for visual matrix patterns, participants recalled patterns that were either random or were previous participants’ attempts to recall random patterns. it was initially hypothesised that previous participants’ recall attempts would be more memorable than random patterns because their recall errors may be influenced by reconstruction biases in individuals, reflecting what people are better able to learn. experiment 1 showed some evidence of this with significantly better recall for study patterns based on previous participants’ recall than for random patterns, but this only occurred with items analysis and not for participants analysis and the effect did not replicate in experiment 2, which had a larger data set. despite this, there was evidence of homogeneity in the errors made by participants; when they made recall errors, the errors were similar across different trials when measured within participants. furthermore, homogeneity of errors occurred within but not between participants and it could not be explained by intrusions. overall, it appears that participants do show a bias in the way they recall visual matrix patterns. however, the bias may be unique to each individual and may lead to the production of patterns that are not particularly memorable to other individuals. one aspect of the current study that differs from previous research based on learning material generated by other participants is the use of visual patterns as stimuli. the majority of research focussing on iterated learning over generations of participants is focussed on investigating language development (e.g., kirby, griffiths, & smith, 2014). this is of interest to researchers because the acquisition of a language is an iterative process outside the laboratory (kirby et al., 2008) with languages being transmitted throughout generations of individuals. therefore, the abstract visual stimuli utilised in the current study may not have evoked the utilisation of mnemonic mechanisms hypothesised to have evolved specifically for the acquisition of language (cf. pinker, 1994). in contrast to the above, some previous studies do show improved learning in later generations using non-verbal material (e.g., rhythms, ravignani et al., 2016; drawings, tamariz, & kirby, 2015) but mnemonic benefits seem to take multiple generations to manifest. tamariz and kirby argued that memory processes result in material becoming more compressible over iterations of learners. for example, in their study abstract drawings began to resemble letters across generations, allowing individuals to reproduce the shapes using their knowledge of the symbols. we have every reason to expect that a multiple-generation version of the current study would yield similar results, especially given that visual matrix patterns have been shown to be more memorable when they could be represented verbally (brown et al., 2006). therefore, we believe that mnemonic effects may take multiple generations to manifest with visual stimuli, where random memory errors eventually converge on schema-consistent patterns that resist degradation across generations. although the use of a single generation was a potential limitation of the current study, it did allow us to utilize a much larger set of stimuli than those usually employed in multiple generation studies and to explore a generation of iterative learning in more detail, such as the comparison between a single individual’s responses. given that there was similarity in the errors made within an individual’s set of responses in the current data, it is highly likely that they would show higher accuracy in a memory test based on their own responses from earlier badham, atkin, & castro 441 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trials than they would show in a memory test based on random data. this is because in the absence of accurate recall, retrieval attempts based on guessing would match what was actually studied for a memory test that included guessing from earlier trials. that is, there appears to be consistency in guessing in memory tests for simple abstract visual stimuli. this would not be easy to test for as it would be difficult to dissociate from the memory benefits provided by repeated exposure to similar stimuli (cf. hintzman & block, 1971). despite this, the current data are partly aligned with the generation effect, where material that is produced by an individual is easier to retrieve later by that same individual than material that is passively studied (e.g., bertsch, pesta, wiscott, & mcdaniel, 2007; slamecka & graf, 1978). a typical example of the generation effect involves generating a word from a clue; for example, finding a synonym of the word rapid beginning with f to get the target word fast. in later memory tests such target words are recalled better in generation conditions than in control conditions where a different participant simply reads the word pair rapid-fast (slamecka & graf, 1978). one mechanism by which the generation effect is proposed to operate is through transfer-appropriate processing; where the act of generation resembles processes that take place during retrieval, aiding memory (bertsch et al., 2007). it may be the case that in the absence of memory for simple abstract visual stimuli, participants guess the pattern at retrieval. then, when they forget parts of a pattern from a later trial, they are inclined to guess in the same way. this could explain why we saw more homogeneity within participants than between participants as the guessing would be highly dependent on the initial trials which were randomised for different participants. even though our data showed significantly more homogeneity of errors within participants than between participants, at least one iterated learning study has found largely equivalent inductive biases when comparing withinand betweenparticipants designs (griffiths et al., 2008). given this discrepancy and the ideas expressed above, we tentatively propose two mechanisms that could bias the way information is stored and retrieved across generations of learners: 1) a survival-of-the-fittest mechanism where across multiple generations of learners, information that is easier to encode is more likely to be successfully transmitted to the next generation and 2), reconstruction biases with systematic influences on guessing in the absence of memory. this second mechanism could operate similarly to the generation effect as described above or could simply be that some stimuli are easier to guess than others. for example, as summarised in the introduction, kalish et al. (2007) found that across generations of learners different x-y functions ended up as positive linear functions—it is established that simple linear functions are easier to learn than other types of function (brehmer, 1971), possibly because this is the relation participants are most likely to guess (naylor & clark, 1968). it is therefore important for future researchers aiming to understand inductive biases to dissociate 1) effects based on what is easier to encode from 2) influences on guessing in the absence of memory. notes 1) originally, experiment type was entered as a two-level factor (experiment 1, experiment 2) but there was no main effect and no interactions, so the reported analyses exclude this factor. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. homogeneity of memory errors 442 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. data availability original study patterns, demographics data, and raw data are freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials the following supplementary materials are available via the psycharchives repository (badham, atkin, & castro, 2019; https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2591): • column description and file information • original study patterns • experiment 1 random study pattern visualisation • experiment 1 demographics data • experiment 2 demographics data • experiment 1 raw data • experiment 2 raw data index of supplementary materials badham, s. p. 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(2010). a rational analysis of the effects of memory biases on serial reproduction. cognitive psychology, 60, 107-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2009.09.002 badham, atkin, & castro 445 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 https://doi.org/10.1163%2f156853704323074732 https://doi.org/10.1093%2fgeronb%2f58.4.p217 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f%2f0278-7393.24.1.27 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0030-5073%2868%2990016-0 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f%2f0278-7393.10.1.104 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0019900 https://doi.org/10.1038%2fs41562-016-0007 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cognition.2009.02.012 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f%2f0278-7393.21.4.803 https://doi.org/10.3758%2fbf03194323 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f%2f0278-7393.4.6.592 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cognition.2010.06.004 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fcogs.12144 https://doi.org/10.3758%2fbf03196393 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.cogpsych.2009.09.002 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors stephen p. badham completed a phd at the university of warwick on age differences in associative memory and published several studies on ageing and memory before becoming a lecturer at nottingham trent university. more recently he has begun to investigate visual memory processes and mild cognitive impairment alongside his ageing research. christopher atkin has completed an undergraduate degree in psychology. he is currently in his second year as a phd student investigating the capacity limitations and cognitive processes involved in imagination and visual memory. antonio castro has taught at the university of santiago de compostela, the university of central lancashire and is now a member of the psychology department at nottingham trent university. his teaching responsibilities have included research methods, statistics, biological psychology and ug, msc and phd project supervision. research-wise, he has published on cognitive, emotional and psychophysiological mechanisms underpinning information processing. homogeneity of memory errors 446 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 431–446 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1685 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ homogeneity of memory errors (introduction) section 1: mnemonic tests experiment 1 experiment 2 discussion section 2: homogeneity tests general discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors perceptions of close relationship through the machiavellians´ dark glasses: negativity, distrust, self-protection against risk and dissatisfaction research reports perceptions of close relationship through the machiavellians´ dark glasses: negativity, distrust, self-protection against risk and dissatisfaction tamás ináncsi* a, attila pilinszki b, tünde paál c, andrás láng d [a] department of general and evolutionary psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. [b] faculty of health and public services, university of semmelweis, budapest, hungary. [c] independent researcher. [d] department of personality, development and clinical psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. abstract it is commonly known from the literature that machiavellian individuals have negative attitudes towards people and in general towards the world´s affairs. they are distrustful of the intentions of others, and they get cautiously involved into interpersonal interactions and take risks only if that may not have any severe negative consequence. it is also a fact that there are few ventures in life that potentially involve as much insecurity and personal vulnerability as the establishment and maintenance of close relationships. in our study, we were seeking the answer to the question: do people with high levels of machiavellianism show a generally negative, distrustful and cautious attitude in their intimate relationships, as well? what effect their pessimistic approaches have on the other consequences of the relationship (satisfaction, commitment, investment, quality of alternatives)? this question was investigated on a dyadic sample of heterosexual couples (n = 101 pairs) with actor-partner interdependence model (apim). the results of the correlations and actor effects show that men with high levels of machiavellianism perceive in a negative way not just people in general, but their romantic partners and relationships as well and they experience an increased level of distrust, risk, and dissatisfaction into their close relationships. women with high levels of machiavellianism are less negativistic and feel less discontent towards their intimate partner and relationship, but even they are unable to put their distrust and precaution aside. the results of partner effects have revealed that women's machiavellianism undermines men's trust, while men's machiavellianism has the effect of minimizing women's investment into their relationship. keywords: machiavellianism, negative attitudes, distrust, self-protection, relationship dissatisfaction, actor-partner effects europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 received: 2017-10-24. accepted: 2018-04-30. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, institute of psychology, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: robert-blum-str. 4, 60385 frankfurt, germany. e-mail: tengertudat@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. machiavellianism and negativity originating from early life experiences according to christie and geis (1970) there are people among us the machiavellians who are mostly predisposed to gaining unjust benefits by trying to mislead, manipulate and exploit others. the psychological organization that grounds this operation is also manifested in close relationships and has a serious influence on the development of mutually dependent relationships, therefore it is especially important to investigate the machiavellian psychodynamics also within the context of the relationships. since it is impossible to understand the deeper connection of how adult relationships operate without ignoring childhood antecedents (hazan & shaver, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1987), this article looks on the romantic relationship functions of machiavellian in a broader framework, without making childhood experiences part of the research design. based on the studies made so far, it seems that shared environmental factors have a greater impact on the development of machiavellian personality trait than genetic factors (vernon, villani, vickers, & harris, 2008). parents who are neglecting, psychologically unavailable, who lack warmth and provision of emotional security, or who are severely punishing or rejecting (jonason, icho, & ireland, 2016; kraut & lewis, 1975; láng & lénárd, 2015; ojha, 2007; touhey, 1973), often have children with distorted internal object relations (janoffbulman, 2010; kernberg, 1975; kohut, 1971) and early maladaptive schemes (láng, 2015). this lack of optimal parenting could lead to developing a negative, pessimistic, distrustful, hostile, and cautious attitude in machiavellian individuals (rauthmann, 2012). since childhood attachment relationships form the foundation upon which all adult relationships are built (shaver, hazan, & bradshaw, 1988), therefore representations of insecure, traumatic object relations experienced in early years of life usually continue to live in adult relationships as well. the representations of experiences of childhood grievances and failures may function as latent vulnerabilities and the frustrating contexts and objects may transfer from their past relationships to the present ones. in order to get rid of their tormented feelings, machiavellian persons transfer their frustrating, bad objects (which may be self or object representation) along with their negative emotional state into other people and identify others afterwards with these inner contents (richardson & boag, 2016). looking through the distorting glasses, they perceive others as malicious, hostile and threatening, and they condemn people to gain control over the situation and their own internal insecurities. in this self-object relationship the dominant emotions are anger, hatred, contempt, and desire for revenge (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015). these are the processes of transference and projection (projective identification), immature defense mechanisms often used by machiavellians to cope with their anxieties (richardson & boag, 2016). machiavellian people are prone to remember negative past experiences and paint a gloomy, uncertain future that is predestined by fate (birkás & csathó, 2015). these results also suggest that machiavellian attitude is not so much a voluntary choice as it is a pathway primed to the negative direction by the toxic childhood experiences. machiavellianism and intraand interpersonal negativity consistently with the afore-mentioned, most studies found that machiavellianism is positively associated with neuroticism (douglas, bore, & munro, 2012; jakobwitz & egan, 2006; muris, meesters, & timmermans, 2013; paulhus & williams, 2002; vernon et al., 2008; veselka, schermer, & vernon, 2012). as known from the literature (e.g. costa & mccrae, 1980; eysenck, 1987), neuroticism is a personality trait that predisposes to have negative emotional approach towards others and to assign them negative attitudes and unfavourable attributions (robinson, ode, moller, & gotez (2007), since the more important an emotional dimension is for the individual, the more likely the individual would evaluate the world based on this dimension (shah & higgins, 1997). at the same time, negative expectations also lead to more negative perceptions. indeed, machiavellian individuals are commonly viewed that they focus on the negative side of others and of the world in general, and perceive others in a negatively biased way (rauthmann, 2012). in their cynical and misanthropic worldview, people are not good, not kind and basically untrustworthy (christie & geis, 1970). in rauthmann's (2012) study, maináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 807 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ chiavellian people saw others as less caring, less intelligent, and less socially skilled. in the same study, it is also pointed out that machiavellianism is the most negativistic personality type within the dark triad [machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (paulhus & williams, 2002)]. this is probably because the representational world of the machiavellian individuals is organized along the splitting (jonason et al., 2018). since in their representational world, "bad objects" dominate, they are incapable of evaluating others in a “good and bad matrix” (siegel, 1992, p. 55). they do not recognize that everyone has a good and bad side, which disorients them to see others realistically. indeed, richardson and boag (2016) have demonstrated that machiavellianism positively correlates with the defensive mechanism of splitting. the machiavellian people do not want to show themselves or their intentions better than they actually are. for outside observers, it seems that they do not feel their motivations and actions ego-dystonic. jonason and jackson (2016), however, found that machiavellianism was positively correlated with negative feelings about the self. machiavellian individuals are aware of their anomalous nature of their character, so they are less believing that others can truly love them. machiavellian individuals see themselves as less caring, less open and less sociable (rauthmann, 2012), thus devaluing the importance of the intrinsic relationships goals (mchoskey, 1999). since the models of the self and of others are similar, and the perception of others is in relation to the self-image of the perceiver (hoorens, 1996; lewicki, 1983), machiavellian individuals do not realize the feelings of communality in others. this result is consistent with machiavellian individuals' expectations of an ideal partner, as machiavellian people feel less important the ideal partner to be warm-hearted and loyal, since they themselves have no such features (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2016). there is also evidence that machiavellian individuals project their own insecure personality to people, preventing them from seeing the best in others. they rather seek and find other people's faults and attackable weaknesses than idealizing them in the positive direction (richardson & boag, 2016). although no interpersonal relationship exists without mutual idealization and positive illusions (murray, holmes, & griffin, 1996a, 1996b), it seems from the previous results that machiavellians are less likely to associate their fellows with positive qualities because they do not even believe in the positive values. studies have also shown that machiavellians are not accurate in assessing the characteristics of other persons, they show superficial, stereotypical, less differentiated judgments of others (rauthmann, 2013), a "negative heuristics of others" (black, woodworth, & porter, 2014, p. 52). machiavellianism and attitudes of distrust most results indicate that machiavellian individuals’ personality has been irreversibly injured due to the trauma they lived through in the early stages of life. this is what gabbard (1990) called the loss of "basic trust", and balint (1979) called "basic fault," while erikson (1963) identified as the failure of the first stage of psychosocial development (basic trust versus distrust). since, in their early years machiavellian indiviuals were forced to experience and to build the feelings of insecurity, unpredictability, and abandonment in themselves (láng & birkás, 2014), therefore, they developed a kind of generalized distrust and a pessimistic attitude (jones, 1996) towards their social environment. their feeling of despondency over people increased, what made them susceptible to depicting others as negative, malicious and unreliable, so that they could be expecting only the worst of them. since machiavellian people are highly extrinsicly motivated, they also assume the same for others, which results in seeing the motivation of others much more negatively than those actually are. machiavellianism is indeed the personality trait that is the direct opposite of trust: gurtman (1992), ináncsi et al. (2015) machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 808 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and wrightsman (1964, 1974) found strong negative correlations between trust and machiavellianism, while láng (2015) in case of adolescents describes a positive relationship between machiavellianism and distrust as early maladaptive scheme. machiavellians' attitude of distrust accompany the expectation of negative consequences for the future (birkás & csathó, 2015), which also implies that they have no power to direct and control the events around them, because of their belief of external control, their lives are controlled by external forces (jonason & krause, 2013; mchoskey, 1999; mudrack, 1990; solar & bruehl, 1971). in order to compensate for this feeling of insecurity and vulnerability caused by the loss of control, they try to control their environment and their partners in their close relationships with any possible tools (brewer & abell, 2017), but as control completely replaces trust (holmes & rempel, 1989), they will not be able to create meaningful and intimate relationships due to their inability to trust. since the decrease of trust and the increase of the blaming attributes do not promote the development of relationships, instead, they are associated with the avoidance of social pain and protecting the self. machiavellianism and self-protection against relationship risks due to the grievances suffered in past relationships, machiavellian individuals are in a state of continuous standby to protect themselves from the anticipated threats and disappointments caused by relationships. machiavellian people find psychological intimacy especially risky, which often cause them to experience anxiety (petrides, vernon, schermer, & veselka, 2011; richardson & boag, 2016). because their anxiety is mainly of social origin, machiavellian individuals respond only to social / psychological stresses with increased reactivity, but not to physical stress (birkás, láng, martin, & kállai, 2016). the results of previous research have shown that machiavellianism is positively related to susceptibility to paranoia (christoffersen & stamp, 1995; douglas, bore, & munro, 2012; mchoskey, 2001a) and attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance (gillath, sesko, shaver, & chun, 2010; ináncsi et al., 2015). their anxiety due to social consequences is also shown by the fact that machiavellian individuals show increased projective self-monitoring, thereby adapting their behaviour to environmental expectationsin order to avoid negative feedback of others (rauthmann, 2011). the reason of this relation-specific social anxiety of machiavellian individuals might be the distrust due to the acceptance and appreciation by others and the fear of rejection. this argument is supported by several studies that show that machiavellism is positively associated with the behavioural inhibition (jonason & jackson, 2016; neria, vizcaino, & jones, 2016). this means that machiavellian people react to signs of punishment (and, consequently, to signs of rejection) with intensive negative emotions. the literature on rejection sensitivity (downey & feldman, 1996; overall & sibley, 2009; pietrzak, downey, & ayduk, 2005) and risk regulation (cavallo, murray, & holmes, 2013; murray, derrick, leder, & holmes, 2008; murray, holmes, & collins, 2006) explains in detail that the anticipation and perception of rejection operates a prevention-focus motivated (higgins, 1996, 1997) risk regulation system that is designed to detect threats as soon as possible to enable avoiding the negative-regressive states by devaluation, disapproval, insult, denial or abandonment and maintaining the feeling of security, and basically protecting the self. insecurely attached individuals, and presumably machiavellian people as well, react more self-protecting way to the psychological approximation, because the feelings of disappointment, insecurity and rejection represents the majority of their early interpersonal relationship experiences. they probably follow the “if-then contingency rule” (murray et al., 2006) that “since my partner does not appreciate me and will reject me sooner or later, it is better to defend myself.” these efforts made for prevention (minimalization of risk) and keeping the distance (minimalization of dependency), however, prevents machiavellain individuals ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 809 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from satisfying their basic need for belonging (baumeister & leary, 1995), or connecting and attaching to others (murray et al., 2006), thereby gaining all the benefits that close intimate relationships can provide. machiavellianism and dissatisfaction with relationships if machiavellian individuals do not see their partners as having desirable qualities, they are distrustful of their partners' motivation and are unable to put their self-protection aside and promote their goals of connecting, they might not experience their relationships as fulfilling, either. according to the investment model (impett, beals, & peplau, 2001; johnson & rusbult, 1989; lehmiller & agnew, 2006; rusbult, 1980, 1983; rusbult & buunk, 1993; rusbult, johnson, & morrow, 1986; rusbult, martz, & agnew, 1998), decrease in relationship satisfaction is accompanied by the decrease in commitment to the relationship and diminish of relationship investments, and with the upvaluation of alternative partners. earlier studies have indeed shown that machiavellianism, coupled with short-term mating strategy, is accompanied with low levels of intimacy and commitment (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010; smith et al., 2014) and earlier examined only in case of women the upvaluation of the perceived quality of the alternatives (abell & brewer, 2016). machiavellianism and gender differences research on gender differences have consistently found that men have more pronounced machiavellian traits than women (jonason & kavanagh, 2010; jonason, li, & buss, 2010; jonason, luevano, & adams, 2012; jones & paulhus, 2009; mchoskey, 2001b; wilson, near, & miller, 1998). this may be because machiavellian attitudes and behaviours correspond rather to men’s than to women's gender role behaviors. while men were socialized not to show their feelings and maintain their independence, women were socialized to be emotionally expressive and caring and to develop a psychological intimacy with others (pleck & sawyer, 1974; taylor et al., 2000). while men are driven by the individual rewards of the relationships because of their instrumental orientation, women focus on intimacy and the progression of relationship-quality, because of their connection-oriented goals (bekker, bachrach, & croon, 2007; wright, 1982). women are motivated to process information of intimate relationships in more detail (acitelli & antonucci, 1994; tanaka, panter, & winborne, 1988), they also have a far more integrated approach to trust (rempel, holmes, & zanna, 1985) and are more willing to see their partners and relationships in a more positive light (murray et al., 1996b). men, on the other hand, find psychological proximity less pleasant (bekker, bachrach, & croon, 2007; hatfield, 1984) and perceive greater risk in intimacy (pilkington & richardson, 1988). we expect the differences in the perceptions and attitudes of men and women with high levels of machiavellianism of their partners and relationships to be similar to the general gender differences discussed above. the previous theoretical overview has mainly revealed that machiavellian behaviour is mostly driven by the negative attitudes and distrust against others, furthermore, due to the nature of their cautious disposition, also shaped by the avoidance of risks related to rejection and abandonment. to our knowledge, no study has explored these motifs of machiavellian behaviour in case of dating couples until now. this article is unique in that respect, as it is attempting to do so. the question is, how do individuals with high levels of machiavellianism function in the close relationships? does the generally negative, distrustful and cautious attitude of people with high levels of machiavellianism prevail in the context of romantic relationships? scholarly literature has not yet given a clear answer to these questions. therefore, these are the questions that our article targets to unfold. machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 810 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ objectives and hypotheses hypothesis 1: due to the negative and cynical view on human nature (self and others) of individuals with high levels of machiavellianism, the projection of their uncertain sense of self, their tendency to apply splitting, and higher level of neuroticism, it is expected that, not only in a general but also specifically in the context of close relationships, they look at their environment through a negative filter. their partner and relationship perceptions and attitudes are negatively distorted. hypothesis 2: the negativity of individuals with high levels of machiavellianism accompany a high level of distrust towards the romantic partner. hypothesis 3: since individuals with high levels of machiavellianism see their partners and relationships negative and untrustworthy, they are also inclined to perceive intimate relationships as dangerous and risky. this orientation prevents them to connect to the partner and increases self-protection. hypothesis 4: the defensive position of individuals with high levels of machiavellianism leads to the deterioration of relationship satisfaction and commitment and to the decrease of investment into the relationship and increase the chances that machiavellians seek consolation at alternative partners. besides investigating the relationship between machiavellianism and partner and relationship perceptions, without formulating any hypothesis, we also aimed at exploring how machiavellian characteristics affect the relationship perceptions and attitudes of the partner. to investigate these relationsips, we used the actor-partner interdependence model (apim; kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006; figure 1), where we could account for the effects of machiavellianism of both parties on their own (a) and their partners’ (b) outcome variables. figure 1. the actor–partner interdependence model (apim), where x1 is the machiavellianism score of men; x2 is the machiavellianism score of women; y1 is the score of the outcome variable for men; y2 is the score of the outcome variable for women. since trust is a determinative aspect of machiavellianism, we will also examine on what variables the trust mediates the effect of machiavellianism. ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 811 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ methods participants the sample consists of 101 hungarian dating heterosexual couples (n = 202)i. the average age was 21.7 years (sd = 3.5; range: 18 40 years) and 23.3 years (sd = 4.3, range 18 40 years) for women and men, respectively. the length of the relationship ranged between 6 and 240 months (m = 30.55 months; sd = 31.5 months). according to the highest level of education, distribution of the sample is as follows: 4.5% of the participants finished primary school, 4.5% vocational school, 76.2% secondary school with maturity degree, and 14.9% obtained university or college degree. procedure participants were recruited via facebook adverts using a snowball method. couples were volunteers. we met each couple personally on a separate occasionin the same place. in the instruction phase, they were told they would receive questionnaires with items concerning several aspects of their opinions about their partner and the relationship (e.g. their partner’s and relationship’s positive and negative characteristics etc). prior to questionnaire completion, it was agreed that they could not know of one another´s responses since that was the only way to ensure they would respond honestly. it was assumed that if they would fill the questionnaires being aware that their answers would remain unknown to their partners, they would be more willing to disclose the negative characteristics of their partners and relationships. both partners completed the questionnaires simultaneously but independently, seated at two separate desks. in this way, they were prevented from discussing their responses and thus the optimal conditions were ensured for data collection. completing the questionnaires took 40 to 50 minutes. each participant was offered 1500 hungarian forints for their contribution (3000 hufs – approx. 10 usds per couple). participants were also informed that we would not be able to provide individual assessments since in the study we would analyse the aggregate data of 101 couples. however, participation could be beneficial to them because filling the questionnaires might help them realize several strong and weak points of their relationship for further discussion. we assured those participants who had indicated their interest that they were going to receive feedback about the major findings of the study. spss 21 and amos 21 statistical softwares were used for data analysis. measures machiavellianism subscale of the short dark triad questionnaire – sd3 the scale measuring machiavellian personality trait is a subscale of the sd3 (jones & paulhus, 2014). it is a 9item, 5-point likert scale ranging from do not agree at all (1) to agree absolutely (5). higher scores on the scale indicate higher levels of machiavellianism. since internal reliability of the mach iv (christie & geis, 1970) scale conventionally used to assess machiavellianism was low for women, we omitted it from the study and only used the machiavellianism subscale of sd3. interpersonal quality scale – iqs the iqs (murray, holmes, & griffin, 1996a, 1996b) measures global attitudes towards the partner. it is an internally consistent, two-factor scale consisting of 21 highly precise items, 12 measuring the positive and 9 the negative partner attitudes on 8-point likert scales ranging from not at all (1) to absolutely (8). altough the origimachiavellian perceptions of close relationship 812 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nal iqs did not included it, in order to clarify the purpose of measurement, both groups of items are introduced with the following sentence: “considering only the positive/negative characteristics of your partner and ignoring the negative/positive ones, evaluate how positive/negative these characteristics are. my partner is...” this enables participants to evaluate their partners’ positive and negative qualities separately. each quality is rated on an unipolar scale, on which higher scores represent either more positive or more negative evaluation of the partner. the positive and negative indicators can also be conceptualized as estimations of satisfaction with the partner. more positive attitudes reflect higher satisfaction while more negative attitudes reflect higher levels of dissatisfaction with the partner. positive and negative semantic differential – pnsd the pnsd (mattson, rogge, johnson, davidson, & fincham, 2013) measures global attitudes toward the relationship. it is an internally consistent, two-factor scale consisting of 14 highly precise and informative semantically differentiating items, 7 measuring the positive and 7 the negative relationship attitudes on 8-point likert scales ranging from not at all (1) to absolutely (8). both groups of items are introduced with the following sentence: “considering only the positive/negative characteristics of your relationship and ignoring the negative/ positive ones, evaluate how positive/negative these characteristics are. my relationship is...” this enables the participants to evaluate their relationships’ positive and negative qualities separately. each quality is rated on an unipolar scale, on which higher values represent either more positive or more negative evaluation of the relationship. the positive and negative indicators can also be conceptualized as estimations of satisfaction with the relationship. more positive attitudes reflect higher satisfaction, while more negative attitudes reflect higher levels of dissatisfaction with the relationship. scales of risk regulation system the risk regulation sytem (murray, derrick, leder, & holmes, 2008) is a dual operation process that regulates switching between connectedness goals and self-protection goals according to the perceived safety or risk of the particular relationship context. connectedness goals — this scale measures the focus on the positive, desirable and rewarding aspects of the relationship, which is a definitive approach orientation. it is a 7-item, 9-point likert scale ranging from not at all true (1) to absolutely true (9). higher scores indicate more optimistic views of the relationship. self-protection goals — this scale measures the focus on the negative, threatening and risky aspects of the relationship, which involves avoidance of such costly situations as well as self-defence. it is a 10-item, 9-point likert scale ranging from not at all true (1) to absolutely true (9). higher scores indicate that connectedness is perceived as more threatening and risky. investment model scale – ims we employed the original ims (rusbult, martz, & agnew, 1998). the scale comprises 37 items, 15 of which are facet items assessed on a 4-point likert scale, while 22 are global items assessed on a 9-point likert scale (point 1 representing absolute disagreement and point 4 or 9 indicating absolute agreement, respectively). since in this assessment the facet items only contribute to a better interpretation of the global items, only the global items were aggregated. the scale has four subscales: ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 813 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ satisfaction — a subscale consists of 5 facet items and 5 global items and measures the satisfaction with the partner and the relationship. quality of alternatives — a subscale consists of 5 facet items and 5 global items and measures the extent to which a respondent’s needs may be fulfilled in alternative relationships (e.g. a different partner, friends, family) to their current partner and how attractive they find alternative partners. investment — a subscale consists of 5 facet items and 5 global items and measures the amount of investment of intrinsic resources (e.g. emotions, self-disclosure, time) and extrinsic resources (e.g. financial resources, mutual activities, mutual friends) in the relationship. commitment — a subscale consists of 7 global items and measures commitment to the partner and the relationship. trust in close relationship scale – tcl the trust in close relationship scale (rempel, holmes, & zanna, 1985) has been specifically designed to tap how much the participants trust their partners in the close relationships. it is a 17-item, 7-point likert scale ranging from do not agree at all (1) to agree absolutely (7). higher scores indicate higher trust in the partner. the scale has three subscales: predictability — a 5-item subscale measuring expectations on the partner’s future behaviour. dependability — a 5-item subscale measuring trust in the partner's specific internal qualities as the relationship develops. faith — a 7-item subscale measuring unconditional trust in the partner. results descriptive statistics table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and internal realiability of each scale for men and women separately. we analysed gender differences by paired samples t-tests. the results indicate that men are more machiavellian than women: they view their partners and relationships in a more negative and less positive light, they are less committed to their relationships, trust their partner less, perceive their partners less predictable, and are more open to alternative partners. machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 814 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 reliabilities, means, standard deviations, and paired t tests by sex for machiavellianism and key variables measure dating sample t p males (n = 101) ir females (n = 101) irm sd m sd sd3 mach 3.25 0.68 .74 2.89 0.65 .69 4.209 ˂ .001 iqs-pos 6.31 0.73 .78 6.48 0.73 .76 -1.831 ˂ .050 iqs-neg 3.14 1.06 .77 2.72 0.89 .70 3.048 ˂ .005 pnsd-pos 6.71 0.92 .85 6.94 0.81 .83 -2.550 ˂ .050 pnsd-neg 1.64 0.71 .82 1.35 0.57 .82 3.430 ˂ .005 connectedness goals 6.82 1.03 .63 7.04 1.04 .62 -1.679 .096 self-protection goals 3.98 1.52 .83 4.06 1.78 .88 -0.390 .697 quality of alternatives 3.89 1.65 .77 3.35 1.60 .79 2.513 ˂ .050 investment 6.36 1.52 .73 6.35 1.61 .74 0.069 .945 satisfaction 7.80 1.22 .90 7.79 1.21 .88 0.046 .963 commitment 8.34 1.08 .89 8.62 0.84 .89 -2.388 ˂ .050 trust 5.50 0.88 .88 5.71 0.76 .83 -2.245 ˂ .050 predictability 4.82 1.04 .68 5.21 0.98 .67 -3.169 ˂ .005 dependability 5.72 1.16 .74 5.81 1.10 .72 -0.582 .562 faith 5.97 0.86 .82 6.09 0.81 .80 -1.353 .179 in order to measure nonindependence with distinguishable dyad members and interval level scores the members scores were correlated. the correlations between the scales were measured by pearson coefficients, as shown in table 2. here we see that scores of men and women are moderately correlated on the scales for positive relationship attitudes (pnsdpos), satisfaction, relationship trust and faith, and weakly correlated on the other scales (e.g. for commitment, predictability). the correlations of the partners' scores indicate that these are not independent observations, therefore in our analysis we must use the dyad as an analytical unit. between the sd3mach used as predictor variables and output variables (iqsneg, pnsdneg, self-protection, quality of alternatives, trust and its free aspects) in the analyses, we can find consistent correlation with the theoretical summary rather in case of men, while we have fewer and weaker correlations case of women (e.g. investment, trust and predictability). the questionnaires have adequate convergent and discriminative validities. most the correlations are in the expected direction, and are statistically significant for both sexes. for example, trust and satisfaction correlates positively with positive partner and relationship attitudes (iqspos, pnsdpos) and negatively with negative partner and relationship attitudes (iqsneg, pnsdneg) in both sexes. this confirms the idea suggested in the hypothesis that more negative attitudes are associated with greater distrust and dissatisfaction. self-protection correlates positively with negative partner and relationship attitudes (iqsneg, pnsdneg) and negatively with satisfaction and trust in both sexes. these results show that the negative partner and relationship attitudes are associated with stronger self-protection and less satisfaction and trust. while it only applies to men with high levels of machiavellianism, it is still a suggestive finding that negative partner attitudes (iqsneg) are positively correlated to the quality of alternative partners, which means that in parallel with increasing devaluation of the qualities of their partners, machiavellian men attribute greater significance to alternative partners. ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 815 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 in te rc or re la tio ns (p ea rs on ´s ) a m on g k ey v ar ia bl es b y g en de r ( m en b el ow d ia go na l, w om en a bo ve d ia go na l, c or re la tio ns b et w ee n m en a nd w om en a re o n th e d ia go na l i n p ar en th es es ) m ea su re sd 3 m ac h in te rp er so na l q ua lit y sc al e po si tiv e an d n eg at iv e se m an tic d iff er en tia l r is k r eg ul at io n sy st em in ve st m en t m od el s ca le tr us t i n c lo se r el at io ns hi p sc al e 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1. s d 3m ac h (.1 6) -.0 8 .0 6 -.0 9 .0 5 .0 9 .1 9 -.0 6 .0 6 .2 2* .0 9 -.2 1* -.2 0* -.1 3 -.1 6 2. iq s p o s -.0 9 (.1 5) -.5 0* * .6 2* * -.3 9* * .3 0* * -.1 2 .5 0* * -.2 5* .1 6 .3 4* * .5 8* * .3 4* * .4 7* * .6 1* * 3. iq s n e g .3 5* * -.5 1* * (.0 4) -.2 8* * .2 9* * -.0 7 .2 6* * -.3 3* * .1 8 .0 8 -.1 0 -.4 3* * -.4 5* * -.3 0* * -.3 0* * 4. p n s d p o s -.0 8 .6 1* * -.4 5* * (.4 6* *) -.5 8* * .3 4* * -.2 5* .7 2* * -.2 9* * .1 3 .4 1* * .4 8* * .2 3* .3 4* * .5 8* * 5. p n s d n e g .2 1* -.5 0* * .6 0* * -.6 5* * (.1 7) -.3 2* * .3 6* * -.7 7* * .2 9* * -.0 3 -.5 7* * -.3 3* * -.1 6 -.1 6 -.4 6* * 6. c on ne ct g oa l -.0 5 .2 5* -.2 1* .4 7* * -.3 4* * (.1 8) .1 0 .3 4* * -.1 7 .2 9* * .2 4* .0 1 -.1 6 .0 7 .1 3 7. s el fp ro t g oa l .2 7* * -.2 7* .3 2* * -.3 2* * .4 3* * .0 5 (.1 9) -.3 6* * .1 5 .1 0 -.2 8* * -.4 0* * -.4 7* * -.2 2* -.2 7* * 8. s at -.0 9 .5 5* * -.3 9* * .7 0* * -.6 6* * .4 9* * -.3 1* * (.4 3* *) -.3 6* * .0 5 .5 8* * .5 8* * .3 4* * .4 0* * .6 6* * 9. q o a .3 0* * -.2 9* * .3 4* * -.2 5* .3 5* * -.2 9* * .1 7 -.3 8* * (.1 3) -.1 7 -.4 5* * -.2 5* -.1 1 -.2 7* * -.2 4* 10 . i n v -.0 5 .0 0 -.0 4 .1 9 -.2 5* .4 2* * .1 1 .2 7* * -.2 2* (.1 6) .2 4* .0 0 -.1 2 .0 8 .0 7 11 . c o m -.0 9 .2 4* -.1 5 .3 2* * -.3 2* * .6 2* * -.1 7 .5 4* * -.4 5* * .3 8* * (.2 4* ) .3 4* * .1 3 .1 8 .4 8* * 12 . t ru st -.2 6* * .5 1* * -.5 5* * .5 8* * -.5 8* * .3 7* * -.5 0* * .5 7* * -.2 5* .1 6 .3 0* * (.3 6* *) .8 1* * .8 2* * .8 1* * 13 . p re di ct -.2 4* .3 8* * -.5 1* * .4 4* * -.4 6* * .2 4* -.4 8* * .4 3* * -.1 7 .0 7 .1 7 .9 0* * (.2 6* ) .5 3* * .4 0* * 14 . d ep en d -.2 4* .4 3* * -.4 7* * .5 3* * -.5 6* * .3 5* * -.4 4* * .5 3* * -.1 9 .1 4 .2 8* * .8 4* * .6 4* * (.1 2) .5 4* * 15 . f ai th -.2 3* .5 3* * -.4 8* * .5 6* * -.5 3* * .3 9* * -.3 9* * .5 7* * -.2 9* * .2 1* .3 5* * .9 0* * .7 0* * .6 5* * (.3 8* *) *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 816 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ although the positive and negative attitude scales of the iqs and pnsd are theoretically independent dimensions (berntson, boysen, & cacioppo, 1993; costa & mccrae, 1980; tellegen, 1985; watson & clark, 1997), our findings show they are interrelated: we found moderate negative correlations between these scales. actor-partner interdependence model (apim) we examined the relationship between machiavellianism and the different relationship components with actorpartner interdependence model (apim – kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006). this provided a picture of both the actor effects (the effects of the respondent’s machiavellianism score on the output variables) and the partner effects (the effects of partner’s machiavellianism score on the respondent’s output variables). the models were analyzed with structural equation modeling where maximum likelihood estimation were carried out. 14 individual models were estimated, one for each outcome variables, the models were just-identified (table 3). table 3 apim for machiavellianism (sd3 machiavellianism) and relationship key variables key variables coefficient (beta) unstandardized estimate actor mach (man) partner mach (woman to man) actor mach (woman) partner mach (man to woman) covariance between outcome errors iqspos -.072 (-.067) -.180 (-.161) -.081 (-.073) -.051 (-.048) .067 iqsneg .503 (.322)*** .269 (.165) .091 (.067) -.047 (-.036) .032 pnsdpos -.081 (-.060) -.181 (-.128) -.110 (-.088) .009 (.007) .334*** pnsdneg .205 (.187)* .061 (.057) .032 (.037) .048 (.057) .061 connectedness goals -.058 (-.038) -.148 (-.093) .135 (.085) .020 (.013) .201 self-protection goals .592 (.263)** .150 (.064) .554 (.203)* -.176 (-.067) .496 quality of alternatives .738 (.304)** -.126 (-.050) .132 (.054) .120 (.051) .303 investment -.134 (-.060) .073 (.032) .636 (.257)** -.517 (-.218)* .339 satisfaction -.148 (-.083) -.050 (-.027) -.099 (-.054) -.054 (-.030) .625*** commitment -.156 (-.098) .103 (.062) .150 (.116) -.192 (-.155) .200* trust -.288 (-.224)* -.347 (-.258)** -.234 (-.200)* -.050 (-.045) .190** predictability -.295 (-.194)* -.427 (-.269)** -.320 (-.213)* .092 (.064) .215* dependability -.356 (-.209)* -.333 (-.188) -.200 (-.119) -.071 (-.044) .112 faith -.243 (-.193)* -.268 (-.218)* -.179 (-.143) -.160 (-.134) .214** note. estimate between men’s and women’s machiavellianism = .077. n = 101 couples. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. • for men, machiavellianism (sd3) was found to have significant positive actor effects on the negative subscales of the partner and relationship attitude questionnaires (iqsneg, pnsdneg), as well as on selfprotection and the quality of alternatives. these findings indicate that highly machiavellian men perceive their current partners and relationships more negatively, pursue more self-protection goals in their close relationships and have a more pronounced tendency to seek alternative partners. furthermore, men’s machiavellianism (sd3) also showed significant, but negative effects on relationship trust as well as on each of its three aspects (predictability, dependability, and faith). these results show that highly machiavellian men trust their partners less (perceive their partners less predictable, less dependable, and have less faith in their partners). ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 817 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • with regard to woman to man partner effects, our finding is that the women’s machiavellianism has significant or marginally significant negative effects on their male partners’ trust and on its two aspects (predictability and faith). thus, women with higher levels of machiavellianism have male partners who perceive them as less trustworthy in general, less predictable and with less faith in the relationship in detail. • for women, machiavellianism (sd3) was found to have significant positive actor effects on self-protection and relationship investment. these findings indicate that highly machiavellian women pursue more self-protection goals in their intimate relationships, and they also invest more into their relationships. furthermore, women’s machiavellianism (sd3) also showed significant, but negative actor effects on relationship trust and predictability. these results show that highly machiavellian women trust their partners less and perceive them as less predictable. • regarding man to woman partner effects, we have found that men’s machiavellianism only affects the level of women’s investment, indicating that the female partners of highly machiavellian men invest less in their relationships. we have also found some contrast effects. for trust, predictability and faith of men with high levels of machiavellianism, the actor and partner effects are in the same direction, while for investment of women with high levels of machiavellianism, the actor and partner effects are in the opposite direction. this latter contrast effect indicates that the women’s own machiavellianism increases their investment in the relationship while their male partners’ machiavellianism reduces it. subsequently, we tested various mediaton models to analyse the relationship between machiavellianism and the different relationship components. the obtained results revealed that trust has a prominent role since it mediates the effect of machiavellianism on several variables. for instance, men’s trust mediates the effects of both men’s and women’s machiavellianism on men’s negative partner and relationship perceptions [iqsneg: men (b = .107; p = .025), women (b = .142; p = .005); pnsdneg: men (b = .131; p = .025), women (b = .166; p = .006)], self-protection goals [men (b = .104; p = .016), women (b = .128; p = .007)] and relationship investments [women (b = -.067; p = .052)]. machiavellianism in women influences women’s level of trust, which in turn affects men’s openness towards alternative relationships (b = .088; p = .019). we have also found trust to play a mediating role on satisfaction (figure 2). there are three significant indirect paths (equivalent to the drop in the direct path between machiavellianism and satisfaction when the mediating variable was controlled): sd3mach1 – trust1 – sat1 (b = -.140; p = .033); sd3mach2 – trust2 – sat2 (b = -.147; p = .021); sd3mach2 – trust1 – sat1 (b = -.191; p = .004). these results show, that higher machiavellianism predicted lower trust, wich in turn fed into more negative perceptions of relationship satisfaction (model fit: p (chi2) = .001; cfi = .918; rmsea = .279). machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 818 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. apimem showing trust mediating the path between machiavellianism and satisfaction. values are standardized regression coefficients and correlations. „e” represent the error term for each variable. sd3mach (machiavellianism); trust (tcl); satisfaction (ims) (men = 1; women = 2). *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion negativity the purpose of this study was to analyse whether the negative, distrustful and cautious attitude of people with high levels of machiavellianism prevail in the context of close relationships, and what effect their pessimistic tendencies have on the other consequences of their relationship (satisfaction, commitment, investment, quality of alternatives). from the results of previous studies (e.g. kraut & lewis, 1975; láng, 2015; láng & lénárd, 2015; ojha, 2007; touhey, 1973), it can be concluded that the emphasis is on the toxic effect [(e.g. "basic fault", balint, 1979)] of the early socialization environment rather than on its modelling effect in developing the machiavellian personality, which then exerts far-reaching effects on the individual’s life and adult relationships. the representations of their past conflictual object relations are kept alive in their subjective world even in adult age, which penetrates into their present relationships distorting the authentic observation of their partners and relationships. it is logical to think that the negative partner and relationship attitudes of highly machiavellian individuals are the result of perceiving through this dark prism. indeed, the results of the correlations and actor effects of the present study show that men with high levels of machiavellianism perceive both their partners and their relationships in a negative light. these findings support most part of hypothesis 1. although women with high levels of machiavellianism appear to be less negativistic, this is likely to be caused by some moderating variables [e.g. the need to belonging and psychological intimacy (pleck & sawyer, 1974; taylor et al., 2000)] that reduce the expression of negativity and its distorting effect on perception in case of machiavellian women. it is a fact that highly machiavellian women do not see their partners or their relationships positively, either. ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 819 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ distrust if persons with high levels of machiavellianism perceive their partners negatively, supposedly they also see them untrustworthy. the correlation and actor effect results consistently with one another indicatet that men and women with high levels of machiavellianism show considerable distrust towards their partners. only in three aspects of trust are there some differences between the sexes. men and women with high levels of machiavellianism both regard their partners less predictable (predictability), but men are also less likely to associate them with positive qualities (reliability) and they are also reluctant to rely unconditionally on their partners (faith). these results are in line with the traditional gender roles that men generally experience intimacy more risky than women do (pilkington & richardson, 1988) and women have a more integrated view of trust (holmes & rempel, 1989), they are more willing to see positive features in their partners, to positively idealize the partners (murray et al., 1996b), and to believe that, whatever the future holds, their partner will be loving and caring (rempel, holmes, & zanna, 1985). these results supported hypothesis 2. in the case of distrust, the partner effects show that while women’s machiavellianism significantly and negatively predicted men's trust and two aspects of trust (predictability and faith), mens' machiavellianism do not predict women's trust. the less negative and less distrustful attitude of highly machiavellian women to machiavellian men is partly explained by the fact that machiavellian male partners may be attractive for women in some ways. we can reason that for a woman and her children a machiavellian male partner may mean evolutionary (survival) advantage, if he uses his manipulative skills against the external social environment in the favour of his family's assets (for example a machiavellian partner can be more successful in obtaining the material resources due to his external orientation.) indeed, there are studys showing that women are attracted to machiavellian men, to the “bad guys” (aitken, lyons, & jonason, 2013; carter, campbell, & muncer, 2014). self-protection since individuals with high levels of machiavellianism see their partners and relationships as negative and untrustworthy, therefore, they perceive close relationships dangerous and risky, which reduces machiavellians’ goals to reach relationship reward (promotion focus) and enhances their levels of cautiousness and defenses (prevention focus) against anticipated threats (jonason & jackson, 2016; neria et al., 2016). the actor effects and partially also the correlations, indeed, indicate that both men and women with high levels of machiavellianism show a self-protective orientation in their close relationships, the main purpose of which is to avoid negative-regressive states entailing devaluation, rejection, or abandonment. this means that, by anticipating negative consequences, they are trying to minimize the pain of vulnerability and rejection by all possible ways. in order to achieve this, they (especially highly machiavellian men) apply cognitive and behavioral strategies that are intended to decrease dependency on the partner and increase emotional distance (levinger, 1979; murray et al., 2006; murray, holmes, & griffin, 2000). such cognitive strategies are the devaluation of the partner's qualities (e.g. negative partner attitudes) (kernberg, 1975; richardson & boag, 2016), blame of the partner (rasmussen & boon, 2014), and the devaluation of the importance of connecting and intimacy (e.g. negative relationship attitudes) (ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010). to reduce dependency, they use a behavioral strategy that they stay away from their actual partner not only emotionally but also physically – thus limiting the situations where the partner can be disapproving – and they seek support from alternative partners. the research from abell and brewer (2016) supported the preference of external partners in case of women, while the current study found the same in the case of men and women. this result also raises the possibility that the mamachiavellian perceptions of close relationship 820 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ chiavellian individuals might flee from the anticipated rejection to ever-newer alternative partners. this support hypothesis 3. dissatisfaction (commitment, investment, quality of alternative partners) one particularly important question is what is the impact of the highly pessimistic attitude of the individuals with high levels of machiavellianism on the long-term implications of the relationship, such as satisfaction, commitment and investment (rusbult et al., 1998)? the results of the mediation models (figure 2) demonstrate that distrust is a central and predictive factor in machiavellian personality, wich fed into more negative perceptions of relationship satisfaction. several authors emphasized the importance of optimism and positive emotions and attributions for the relationship well-being (murray et al., 1996a). it has been shown that for satisfaction and commitment, the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions has to be at least 5:1 (byrne & murnen, 1988; gottman, 1994; gottman & levenson, 1992). for highly machiavellians, the accumulation of negative attributes is likely to deteriorate the relationship satisfaction. some authors (e.g. fincham & linfield, 1997; mattson et al., 2013) have already conceptualized positive and negative partner and relationship attitudes as indicators of relationship satisfaction or dissatisfaction. based on this, the results of partner and relationship attitudes (iqs, pnsd) show that men with high levels of machiavellianism are dissatisfied with their partners and their relationships, as well (table 2, table 3). although women with high levels of machiavellianism show no romantic satisfaction either, however, the results show that they are less dissatisfied with their machiavellian male partners, which is consistent with the existing studies (smith et al., 2014). while commitment in this study has not indicated any link between machiavellism in case of men and women (in contrast with other researches, e.g. ali & chamorro-premuzic, 2010), however, investments in the relationship in case of female machiavellianism and the quality of the alternatives in case of male machiavellianism presented significant correlation. these results are in line with the investment model (rusbult, martz, & agnew, 1998), what explains that the decrease in relationship satisfaction is accompanied by an increase in the perceived quality of alternative partners (felmlee, sprecher, & bassin, 1990; johnson & rusbult, 1989). indeed, men with high levels of machiavellianism find alternative partners more desirable than their current partners. we might speculate that as quality of their partners decreases, so does the appreciation of the quality of their alternative partners increase. although we did not formulate any expectations regarding that, a much more interesting result emerged. for women, relationship investment are related to both their own and their partner’s machiavellianism. a contrast effect can be observed here where women's own machiavellism increases their investment into the relationship, while the machiavellism of their male partners reduces that. according to the investment model, the more an individual prefers to stay in a relationship, the more willing the individual is to invest into the relationship (lehmiller & agnew, 2006). this means that for women with high levels of machiavellianism, self-protection does not completely exclude the search for connectedness goals (jonason, li, webster, & schmitt, 2009). from previous results (ináncsi et al., 2016), we also know that machiavellians live in externalized relationships where couples are typically bound together not by intrinsic investments (e.g. warmth, empathy and self-disclosure) but rather the extrinsic rewards (e.g. acquisition of resources, status and sex). at first glance, highly machiavellian women may seem to want to reach their partner's increasing commitment and the reduction of their partner's interest in alternatives through the use of their investments in the relationship. however, we can also speculate that the investment of women with high levels of machiavellianism in the relationship is a means of ináncsi, pilinszki, paál, & láng 821 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ power, control and manipulation over the partner. as it is well known, there are serious calculations behind the facade of machiavellian “love”. highly machiavellian women may be aware that the desire for extrinsic rewards is one of the weakest points of machiavellian men. machiavellian women generally have fewer opportunities to use harder, more direct influencing tactics, like pressure by physical violence, in manipulating their male partners. thus they rather prefer more delicate, soft tactics instead, for example, by investing in the relationships through ingratiating, friendliness, charm, or flattery, which are rather indirect and are based on emotional influences. in case of women, investments can certainly also be of instrumental nature in tactics to gain personal benefits and rewards such as exchanging or winning a partner's alliance, which involves reciprocity. if softer tactics are not successful, women's investments may become a device of coercion. if investments make a better bargaining position against male partners, manipulative women can easily position themselves in order to blackmail their obliged (and not committed) male partners. the investments can become a device of power and of blackmailing as the relationship progresses. machiavellian women, as being good machiavellians, first use soft tactics, and if they do not succeed (for example, if the male partner is manipulative and exploitative himself), only then do they apply harder tactics to control and keep a firm hand on their male partners (reimers & barbuto, 2002). in this case, investments of women with high levels of machiavellianism are a form of passive aggression (grams & rogers, 1990). our hypothesis 4 is mostly confirmed in case of man. general conclusion the general conclusion is that people with high levels of machiavellianism are not able to overcome their negative, distrustful, and cautious attitudes even in their close relationships. in a risky venture like intimate relationships, machiavellian individuals feel particularly vulnerable and exposed. since they especially highly machiavellian men are stuck in every bad self-object-state of splitting (bad self bad object), they seem to be unable to develop healthy object-relationships. in their fear of being abandoned and rejected again as it happened in their childhood -, machiavellian individuals focus strongly on the negatives and on the losses. they can not trust the honest appreciation and commitment of their partners, so they place self-protection ahead of relationship promotion. this pessimistic attitude, however, undermines the well-being of the relationships and prevents them from establishing and maintaining intimate and truly satisfactory interpersonal relationships. limitations and future directions the main limitation of the study is its cross-sectional design, namely that relationship attitudes and perceptions were examined only at one given point in time. as evaluations of the relationships can change continuously over the time, a longitudinal study should explore the development and variation of relationship attitudes and perceptions. when analysing the system of connections, it would be fortunate to examine the relationship of machiavellism with the examined relationship characteristics and control variables within one model, however, this is not possible because of the number of elements in the sample. although compared to the typical sample size of a dyadic research our sample can be considered average sized, it is not suitable for analysing complex models. is it still an important research question that how does machiavellism affect the relationship quality and the long-term development of the relationship? our article was an initial attempt to highlight the conflicting relationmachiavellian perceptions of close relationship 822 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ship between machiavellianism and relationship satisfaction, but the task remains for a future research to explore the different paths machiavellianism takes in men and women in exerting its destructive effects on close relationships. notes i) kenny et al. (2006) reviewed the dyadic studies of five major journal and found that studies using the reciprocal standard dyadic design had an average sample size of 101 couples. the proportion of the sample size of our study and the parameters evaluated during structural equation modelling was in line with suggested standards (kline, 2011). further, we used bootstrapping method for the mediational apim. schönbrodt and perugini (2013) suggest somewhat larger samples for ensuring the stability of correlations, however, we consider our sample of 101 couples to be adequate for the valid testing our hypotheses. funding this research was supported by the efop-3.6.1-16-2016-00004 “institutional developments for enhancing intelligent specialization” program. competing interests andrás láng is an associate editor for ejop but played no editorial role for this particular article. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abell, l., & brewer, g. 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(1974). assumption about human nature: a social-psychological analysis. monterey, ca, usa: brooks/ cole. about the authors tamás ináncsi, is assistant lecturer of psychology. his reseraches focusing on the phenomenology and cognitions of machiavellianism in the context of close relationships (e.g., romantic ideals, adult attachment, relationship perceptions). attila pilinszki, phd, is senior lecturer of social work and sociology. his research interest is focused on family conflicts, partnership quality and stability, mediation services. in case of investigating family issues he prefers dyadic approach, which can capture more participants aspect's. e-mail: pilinszki.attila@public.semmelweis-univ.hu andrás láng, phd, is assistant professor of developmental and clinical psychology. his areas of research cover different fields of attachment theory (e.g., adult attachment, therapeutic relationship, religiosity). he has been recently involved in several research on the developmental aspects of machiavellianism. he is the author of the book 'attachment and psychotherapy relationship'. tünde paál, phd, is independent researcher of evolutionary psychology. her areas of interest cover the relationships between machiavellianism and adult theory of mind, behavioural manifestations of the dark triad of personality (narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism), life history theory and the etiology of psychopathy subtypes, and the evolution of individual differences. her studies have been published in international journals. machiavellian perceptions of close relationship 830 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 806–830 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1550 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.2307/2786566 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.09.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.002 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6802_4 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1090-5138(98)00011-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00287670 https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1964.14.3.743 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ machiavellian perceptions of close relationship (introduction) machiavellianism and negativity originating from early life experiences machiavellianism and intraand interpersonal negativity machiavellianism and attitudes of distrust machiavellianism and self-protection against relationship risks machiavellianism and dissatisfaction with relationships machiavellianism and gender differences objectives and hypotheses methods participants procedure measures results descriptive statistics actor-partner interdependence model (apim) discussion negativity distrust self-protection dissatisfaction (commitment, investment, quality of alternative partners) general conclusion limitations and future directions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies: relations with the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation research reports conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies: relations with the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation boban petrović* a, janko međedović a, olivera radović b, sanja radetić lovrić c [a] institute of criminological and sociological research, belgrade, serbia. [b] department of psychology, university of pristina with seat in kosovska mitrovica, kosovska mitrovica, serbia. [c] department of psychology, university of banja luka, banja luka, bosnia and hercegovina. abstract after almost 20 years since the end of the armed conflicts in former yugoslavia, we are witnesses to the fact that the main causes of the conflicts have not been overcome. reconciliation between ethnic groups that had been in conflict by means of economic and political cooperation, must have a psychological foundation. this study investigates the relations between conspiracy mentality, basic lexical social attitudes, and the factors important for croatian-serbian and kosovo albanian-serbian reconciliation, i.e., the ethos of conflict and the readiness for reconciliation. we hypothesize that conspiracy mentality will predict the propensity for reconciliation over and above basic social attitudes, and that will mediate the relations between basic social attitudes and factors contributing (or preventing) reconciliation. with the samples of serbs from central serbia (n = 307) and northern kosovo (n = 271), conspiracy mentality, ethos of conflict, readiness for reconciliation and five basic lexical social attitudes (traditional religiosity, unmitigated self-interest, communal rationalism, subjective spirituality, and inequality-aversion) were measured. results showed that conspiracy mentality is negatively related to the readiness for reconciliation and positively to the ethos of conflict. additionally, conspiracy mentality predicts ethos of conflict over and above the basic social attitudes. finally, conspiracy mentality mediates the relationships between traditional religiosity, inequality-aversion and subjective spirituality on the one hand, and ethos of conflict on the other. the results suggest that conspiracy mentality should be taken into consideration when creating policies and programmes focused on reconciliation. keywords: conspiracy mentality, intergroup conflicts, post-conflict societies, ethos of conflict, readiness for reconciliation, lexical social attitudes europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 received: 2018-07-03. accepted: 2018-12-20. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: institute of criminological and sociological research, gračanička 18, 11000 belgrade, serbia. phone: +381 60 35 37 962. email: boban.petrovic@iksi.ac.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. as is well-known, yugoslavia broke down on account of a series of very painful intergroup conflicts between its constitutive ethnicities. it began with the armed conflict between serbs and croats (1991-1995), and ended with the violent conflict between serbs and kosovo albanians (1996-1999). these conflicts resulted in the establishment of independent national states, including kosovo, the last post-yugoslav internationally recognized the post-conflict state. all newly-formed national post-yugoslav states are mutually recognized, except for kosovo. namely, kosovo unilaterally declared its independence in 2008, and its status is still disputed by serbia. today, it could be said that the conflict between serbs and croats is formally finished, but the conflict between serbs and kosovo albanians is, although formally finished, practically still on-going in practice (bergmann, 2018). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ currently, representatives of serbia and kosovo are engaged in a dialogue aimed to normalize their relations, under the patronage of the european union. however, almost 20 years since the end of the armed conflicts in former yugoslavia, we are witnessing the fact that the main causes of the conflicts, especially the socio-psychological ones, have not been overcome. dominant narratives and social representations of the conflicts, created at the time of their escalation, are still present in the public discourse in all former yugoslav societies (koska & matan, 2017; obradović, 2016; pavasović trošt, 2018). in the case of the serbian-croatian war, the dominant croatian narrative about this conflict is that this conflict represented a legitimate international war waged to defend croatian independence from serbian aggression (banjeglav, 2012), and to bring democracy and freedom to the croatian people (jansen, 2002); consequently, croatian citizens with serbian nationality are seen as collaborators with the aggressor (koska & matan, 2017). at the same time, the dominant serbian narrative is that this war was an internal war in which serbian people suffered (subotić, 2013). in the case of the kosovo albanian-serbian conflict, the dominant narratives are very different: while the albanians justify the independence of kosovo by their majority status, the serbs claim their right to kosovo as their historical heritage (bieber, 2002; obradović & howarth, 2018), and the albanians are seen as trying to ''biologically exterminate'' them from this area (pavasović trošt, 2018). but the dominant narrative among the serbian people, common for all the yugoslav wars, is the narrative about the serbs (and serbia) as historical victims, with the ever-present tendency to defend themselves from external threats (obradović, 2016), including those coming from the international community, which is seen as negative, unjust and unfair towards serbia and the serbian people (obradović & howarth, 2018). these social representations of the conflicts have an important role in the creation of distrust between the ethnic groups and the prevention of reconciliation (psaltis, franc, smeekes, ioannou, & žeželj, 2017). at the same time, these narratives about the conflicts could be considered as part of the broader concepts that represent the socio-psychological foundations of intractable conflicts, such as ethos of conflict (bartal, 2000, 2007), and readiness for reconciliation (petrović, 2017). psychological roots of (un)willingness to reconcile the ethos of conflict (bar-tal, 2000, 2007) is a system of societal beliefs that enables a society to adapt to a conflict situation, but it also prevents reconciliation between groups in conflict. the ethos of conflict is a system of eight societal beliefs: justification of goals, beliefs about security, delegitimization of opponents, positive collective self-view, victimization, patriotism, beliefs about unity, and beliefs about peace. previous studies have shown that this concept and its operationalisation, developed from the socio-psychological analysis of the israeli-palestinian conflict, are applicable to the conflicts in former yugoslavia, both conceptually and empirically. conceptually, bar-tal and čehajić-clancy (2014) argued that from the late 1980s and the early 1990s, with the beginning of the milošević and tuđman eras in serbia and croatia, the collective identities of serbs and croats, but also of other ethnicities, changed, resulting in the rise of nationalism. these authors argued that serbian national identity was organized on the basis of the collective victimhood issue, which implied the new societal goals in terms of territorial aspirations and relations with other yugoslav ethnic groups. consequently, collective victimhood and justification of new societal goals were related to the delegitimization of the other ethnic groups (croats, bosniaks, and albanians), which resulted in the mobilization of both the serbian and other the national forces, and the eruption of violent conflicts which lasted for almost a decade. empirically, several studies have shown that the ethos of conflict measure can be adapted for use in researching conflicts in exyugoslavia, regardless of the nationalities involved, and can be useful for understanding different social pheconspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 60 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nomena in post-yugoslav societies like the evaluation of political parties (međedović & petrović, 2013), militant extremist beliefs (međedović & petrović, 2016), moral foundations (međedović, petrović, radović, & radetićlovrić, 2017), intergroup contacts (petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić-lovrić, 2017), and the physical closeness of a conflicted context (međedović & petrović, 2012). researchers have invested efforts in understanding the psychological foundations of intergroup conflict escalation, and made significant efforts to develop psychological models of peaceful conflict resolution and intergroup reconciliation, i.e., to develop some kind of an ethos of peace (bar-tal, 2008). taking into consideration different models of the psychological foundations of conflict escalation and conflict resolution, and combining the indicators of human potential for reconciliation defined in these theoretical models with empirically-derived indicators that had been taken from interviews with different people from three post-war balkans countries serbia, croatia and bosnia and herzegovina -, petrović (2005, 2017) developed a model of human potential for reconciliation: readiness for reconciliation. the model proposed four factors of readiness for reconciliation: trust, cooperation, forgiveness, and rehumanization. however, these four factors are highly interrelated, and readiness for reconciliation could be interpreted as a general disposition to accept ideas and actions that lead to reconciliation and the ability to resist those leading to the conflict prolongation (petrović, 2017). some recent studies, independently of this model, have shown that processes described in readiness for reconciliation, such as trustworthiness, cooperativeness, etc., are of great importance for building social trust in the post-war period (kijewski & freitag, 2018). these two concepts and, consequently, their operationalizations, clearly referred to the human potentials for reconciliation after conflict on the one hand, and for conflict prolongation and re-escalation on the other. however, previous information about their relations (petrović, 2005) refers to the negative correlation of readiness for reconciliation with some of the proxy measures of ethos of conflict beliefs, like blind patriotism, a positive image of the in-group and negative stereotypes about outgroups (delegitimization represents an extreme case of stereotyping, see bar-tal, 1989). therefore, it is reasonable to expect high negative correlations between ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation. however, it could mean that these two constructs are redundant, and it might be questioned why both of these measures are included in the study. the reasons for this are multiple, but the principle one is that they include and, consequently, measure different processes of relevance to understanding the psychological capacities for reconciliation: while ethos of conflict is focused on the perception of one's in-group and out-groups (i.e., positive collective self-view, delegitimization of opponents, beliefs about unity, etc.), readiness for reconciliation is more focused on relationships between groups (i.e., cooperation, forgiveness, etc.). consequently, measuring both constructs will encompass a wider range of variables important for understanding the psychological foundations for reconciliation in the post-conflict period. the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation also share their strong relations with social attitudes. more concretely, ethos of conflict was positively associated with authoritarianism, conservatism, religiosity, traditionalism, and nationalism, and negatively with liberal and humanitarian social attitudes (e.g., bar-tal et al., 2012; međedović & petrović, 2016; porat, halperin, & bar-tal, 2015). readiness for reconciliation was also strongly related to these social attitudes, but in quite the opposite way (petrović, 2005). most of the research of ethos of conflict and its associations with social attitudes in the post-yugoslav (i.e., serbian) context has investigated the relations of ethos of conflict with the basic lexical social attitudes – i.e., with the “isms” (saucier, 2000, 2013). this comprehensive model of basic social attitudes was developed through application of the lexical hypothesis paradigm in the field of social attitudes and beliefs. more specifically, saucier’s lexical analysis petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 61 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the dictionary-terms which ended with ‘‘ism‘‘ (communism, capitalism, conservatism, liberalism, etc.) resulted in five broad factors of social attitudes and beliefs: traditional religiosity, unmitigated self-interest (i.e., selfish materialism), communal rationalism (i.e., humanism and respect for democratic values), subjective spirituality and inequality-aversion (i.e., egalitarianism). similarly, as in the case of classic, non-lexical attitudes, the ethos of conflict was positively related to traditional religiosity, unmitigated self-interest, subjective spirituality, and, unexpectedly, inequality-aversion, while it was negatively associated with humanitarian social attitudes (međedović & petrović, 2013; petrović, 2016; petrović & međedović, 2011). as was expected, readiness for reconciliation made a pattern with basic lexical social attitudes opposite to what was obtained with ethos of conflict (petrović et al., 2017). conspiracy mentality and (un)willingness to reconcile the general propensity to endorse conspiracy theories in other words, conspiracy mentality represents a phenomenon where some people “attribute significant events to the intentional actions of ill-intentioned meanintending groups of individuals who are sufficiently powerful to carry out the suspected conspirational act”, to whatever happens in a particular society, even war, poverty, unemployment, etc. (imhoff & bruder, 2014). the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories has been often stimulated during societal crises, when people experience feelings of uncertainty, fear, lack of control (van prooijen & douglas, 2017). in this context, conspiracy mentality reflects some of the fundamental human motivations: to understand and to control one’s environment, to be safe and to maintain a positive image of the self and the social group (douglas, sutton, & cichocka, 2017). consequently, conspiracy mentality could have an impact on relations between social groups primarily through favouring distinctions between in-groups and out-groups (cichocka, marchlewska, golec de zavala, & olechowski, 2016; sapountzis & condor, 2013) and strengthening and justifying hostility toward out-groups (pruitt, 1987; sedek & bilewicz, 2015). for example, mashuri and zaduqisti (2014) found that there were clear patterns of relations between social identification, beliefs in conspiracy theories and out-group derogation. outgroup derogation mediated the effect of social identification on belief in conspiracy theories only when in-group members perceived the out-group members as highly threatening to their identity. it is important to note that during the conflicts in former yugoslavia in 1990s, serbia was a fertile ground for the development of numerous conspiracy theories directed toward other parties in the conflicts, including the ''world conspiracy elite'' aiming to create a ‘’new world order’’ and to destroy yugoslavia and the serbian people, since the serbs were in conflict with practically all the other yugoslavian ethnicities, and with nato (byford, 2002, 2006; byford & billig, 2001). some authors have argued that conspiracy mentality could be considered as a generalized political attitudinal orientation reflecting prejudices against high-powered, less likable and more threatening social groups (imhoff & bruder, 2014). conspiracy mentality is positively related to some of the basic social attitudes, primarily with authoritarianism (bruder, haffke, neave, nouripanah, & imhoff, 2013; grzesiak-feldman & irzycka, 2009; richey, 2017). in addition, conspiracy mentality, like other basic social attitudes (authoritarianism, conservatism, etc.) is positively related to undemocratic political orientation, xenophobia and prejudice (gyárfášová, krekó, mesežnikov, molnár, & morris, 2013), social identity, perception of intergroup threat and out-group derogation (mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014; milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017a). furthermore, it seems that the general propensity to endorse conspiracy theories and ethos of conflict have significant similarities: both can be developed when conflicts are escalating, reflecting the needs to control the environment, favoring a positive in-group self-view, derogating out-group members and justifying the hostility toward them. finally, both could possibly be factors hindering reconciliation. conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 62 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study previous findings indicate that basic social attitudes play an important role in understanding the processes of reconciliation (or unwillingness to reconcile; see, for example, bar-tal et al., 2012; međedović & petrović, 2013; petrović, 2005). in addition, conspiracy mentality has a nomological network similar to social attitudes (e.g., bruder et al., 2013), and has some conceptual similarities with ethos of conflict. the objective of this research is to examine the role of conspiracy mentality in understanding the (un)willingness to reconcile over and above the basic social attitudes. more specifically, this study investigates the relations between conspiracy mentality, basic social attitudes, and factors important for croatian-serbian and kosovo albanian-serbian reconciliation, i.e., ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation. on the basis of the results of previous studies showing positive relations between conspiracy mentality on one side, and authoritarianism, the need for national security, social identity salience, demonization of the other, intergroup threat, etc., on the other, we have made several hypotheses. following previously argued conceptual similarities between conspiracy mentality and ethos of conflict (see, for example, bruder et al., 2013; mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014; pruitt, 1987), we hypothesize that conspiracy mentality will be positively related to the ethos of conflict and negatively to the readiness for reconciliation (hypothesis 1). although some authors claim that conspiracy mentality could be understood as a generalized attitudinal orientation (imhoff & bruder, 2014), previous research has shown that conspiracy mentality is associated with, but not reducible, to basic social attitudes like authoritarianism (the coefficient of correlation between them is about .30; see, e.g., bruder et al., 2013; grzesiak-feldman & irzycka, 2009). in addition, as has previously been shown, both proneness to believe in conspiracy theories and social attitudes are linked to psychological factors important for conflict escalation, including ethos of conflict. it should also be borne in mind here that traditional religiosity, unmitigated self-interest, subjective spirituality, and inequality-aversion are positively associated with the ethos of conflict, while communal rationalism has negative relations with it (međedović & petrović, 2013; petrović, 2016; petrović & međedović, 2011). therefore, although it could be assumed that conspiracy mentality and conservative social attitudes like traditional religiosity share some percent of the variance, they are independent. consequently, we could expect that conspiracy mentality will predict the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation over and above basic social attitudes – specifically, we expect that all of them could make a significant contribution, but that more important predictors could be traditional religiosity, communal rationalism, and inequality-aversion (see, for example, petrović, 2016) (hypothesis 2). basic social attitudes like authoritarianism and conservatism are the main predictors of conspiracy mentality (richey, 2017), but also of the abovementioned psychological foundations for reconciliation (petrović, 2005; međedović & petrović, 2016). besides the conceptual similarities with ethos of conflict, there is empirical evidence that conspiracy mentality has a mobilising role in times of political change, through mapping social identity, justifying hostility in conflicts (milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017b; sedek & bilewicz, 2015), and facilitating escalations of conflict (pruitt, 1987). in the former yugoslav post-conflict societies, true reconciliation has not occurred even after almost 20 years since the end of the armed conflict. it has been suggested that ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation are the crucial variables in this research, since they are psychological dispositions that are fundamentally important for reconciliation and an end of conflicts (see, for example, bartal et al., 2012). these are the reasons for setting up a mediation model, and to expect that conspiracy mentalpetrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 63 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ity will mediate the relations between basic lexical social attitudes and the two forementioned factors contributing to (or preventing) reconciliation (hypothesis 3). more concretely, following previous research (e.g., petrović, 2016) we expect that traditional religiosity and communal rationalism will have direct pathways to the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation, but in opposite directions (hypothesis 3.1). but, bearing in mind that they represent the authoritarian or humanistic attitudinal orientations respectively, we could also expect that conspiracy mentality will mediate their relations (hypothesis 3.2). when we consider the role of inequality-aversion, there are more difficulties in making a clear hypothesis – starting from the basic assumption that it represents an egalitarian orientation, we could expect a positive direct effect on the ethos of conflict and a negative effect on the readiness for reconciliation (hypothesis 3.3). however, having in mind also the existing empirical material (e.g., petrović, 2016), the expected effects could be quite the opposite (hypothesis 3.4). in the last case, the mediating effect of the conspiracy mentality is more likely. in the case of unmitigated self-interest and subjective spirituality, it is difficult to make any predictions, because previous findings regarding their relations with the criterion variables are not consistent. however, conceptually we could expect the positive paths of unmitigated self-interest and subjective spirituality toward the ethos of conflict and their negative paths toward the readiness for reconciliation (hypothesis 3.5). finally, this research is focused on the conflicts between serbs and croats and serbs and kosovo albanians, and collection of data provided by samples of serbs from central serbia and northern kosovo. these two conflicts have certain similarities and differences, and, as we mentioned earlier, there are different social representations of these conflicts among serbian people. actually, the biggest difference is that the conflict between serbs and croats ended in late 1995, and, despite occasional incidents, relations between serbia and croatia (and serbs and croats) have been relatively stable since the end of the war, while the armed conflict between serbs and kosovo albanians was formally finished in 1999, but has not yet been completely resolved, as sometimes becomes apparent in violent incidents between the group members. it is important to note here that some recent studies have shown that conservative social attitudes and ethos of conflict are more pronounced in kosovo than in serbia (međedović & petrović, 2012). in this context, we expect serbs from northern kosovo to have a more pronounced ethos of conflict, but less readiness for reconciliation with albanians than respondents from central serbia in terms of their relations with croats (hypothesis 4.1). also, northern kosovo serbs will have higher scores on traditional religiosity and lower on communal rationalism than those from central serbia (hypothesis 4.2). following previous findings that suggested that conspiracy mentality might have a facilitating role in conflict escalation (pruitt, 1987), we could expect that respondents from northern kosovo will have a higher score on conspiracy mentality than those from central serbia. however, although both conflicts taken into consideration in this research were formally finished, they are still on-going and have resulted in occasional incidents. it suggested that we could expect higher scores on conspiracy mentality on both subsamples, as well as that there are no differences between them (hypothesis 4.3). in terms of a proposed mediation model, we expect that traditional religiosity and communal rationalism will have both direct and indirect effects (mediated by conspiracy mentality) on ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation (hypothesis 5.1). despite the proposed differences between serbs from northern kosovo and central serbia, the fact is that basic social attitudes (and probably conspiracy mentality) have power to predict ethos of conflict in different contexts and on different samples (bar-tal et al., 2012; petrović, 2016; petrović & conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 64 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ međedović, 2011). this fact leads to an hypothesis about the cross-samples stability of the proposed model, i.e., that the proposed model will be invariant through the samples (hypothesis 5.2). method participants the study was conducted on a total sample of 578 respondents, consisting of two subsamples. one was from central serbia, n = 307, 63.6% females; average age 39.49 (sd = 15.56), and on average 13.83 years of education (sd = 2.64). the other subsample was from kosovo, i.e., from kosovska mitrovica, n = 271, 61.8% females; average age 39.36 (sd = 14.33), and on average 12.95 years of education (sd = 2.49). participants were students of the university of belgrade and the university of priština with its seat in kosovska mitrovica, and their parents (58.3% and 66.2% of parents in serbian and kosovo samples, respectively). all participants were serbs. the respondents participated voluntarily and signed informed consent forms. the students participated in the study in exchange for course credits. data were collected during the period 2016-2018. in the subsample from central serbia, the target conflict was that between serbs and croats. in the subsample of respondents from kosovo, the conflict between serbs and kosovo albanians was targeted. measures the ethos of conflict scale the ethos of conflict scale (eoc; bar-tal et al., 2012) contains 48 items, 6 per each of the 8 conflict beliefs: justification of goals, e.g., “the exclusive right of kosovo serbs to the land stems from it being their historical homeland”, beliefs about security, e.g., “executing military actions is the most efficient means to eliminate threats to the country’s security”, delegitimization of opponents, e.g., “albanians in kosovo have always been characterised by untrustworthiness”, positive collective self-view, e.g., “serbs have always been known for their wisdom”, victimization, e.g., “during the conflict between serbs and albanians in kosovo, serbs were usually the victims of the albanian aggression”, patriotism, e.g., “fostering a feeling of loyalty to one’s homeland should be one of the most important goals of the educational system”, beliefs about unity, e.g., “if serbian people are not united, they are in danger of annihilation”, and beliefs about peace, e.g., “most serbs have always aspired to resolve the conflict with the albanians in kosovo peacefully”. the readiness for reconciliation scale the readiness for reconciliation scale (rr; petrović, 2005, 2017) consists of 20 items, 5 per each facet of readiness for reconciliation. the items that represented the four dimensions of readiness for reconciliation are: trust, e.g., “we always turn out to have been naive and used because of being open to them (reversed)”, cooperation, e.g., “i think that cooperation with them is necessary and of mutual benefit”, forgiveness, e.g., “i am personally ready to forgive everyone”, and rehumanization, e.g., “the acts of those who committed crimes do not make all of them mean people”. both the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation scales were adapted with respect to the conflict targeted within the subsamples. all analyses were conducted separately on these two samples. petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 65 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ following previous studies (e.g., bar-tal et al., 2012; petrović, 2017; petrović & međedović, 2011), and with the aim of testing an assumption about the unidimensionality of both ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation measures, series of principal component analyses were conducted, separately in each of the subsamples. the maximum likelihood method of factor extraction was used, and the principal components were rotated in the promax position. in the cases of trust, cooperation, forgiveness, and rehumanization, the parallel analysis showed that one principal component can be extracted in both subsamples (see table a1 in the appendix), explaining 64.1 and 52.7 percents of the variance in serbian and kosovo samples, respectively (λserbia = 2.56, λkosovo = 2.11). in both cases, the extracted principal component was interpreted as readiness for reconciliation. similarly, the principal component analysis of eight ethos of conflict beliefs (table a2 in the appendix) resulted in one principal component in both subsamples (λserbia = 3.51, 43.9% of the variance; λkosovo = 2.65, 33.1% of variance), which can be interpreted as the general ethos of conflict. following these findings, we calculated mean scores from both of these variables and included them as criterion measures in further analysis. the survey of dictionary-based isms the survey of dictionary-based isms (sdi-25; saucier, 2013) was used for the assessment of basic lexical social attitudes. five basic social attitudes were measured: traditional religiosity, e.g., “i adhere to an organized religion”, unmitigated self-interest, e.g., “what is good can only be judged by the gratification of the senses”, communal rationalism, e.g., “i am in favour of a constitutional form of government”, subjective spirituality, e.g., “there is an ideal spiritual reality that goes beyond sense experience and science and is knowable through intuition”, and inequality-aversion, e.g., “i support the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite”. the conspiracy mentality questionnaire the conspiracy mentality questionnaire (cmq; bruder et al., 2013), a 5-item scale measuring the general conspiracy mentality, e.g., “i think that there are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions”. a previous study (milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017b) showed that the cmq had adequate convergent validity. all questionnaires had a joint 5-point likert-type scale, from 1 – strongly disagree to 5 – strongly agree. all of the scales used in the research were back-translated into the serbian language in cooperation with the original authors. the measures were also previously administered in serbia, and their validity demonstrated (međedović & petrović, 2013; milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017b; petrović, 2005; petrović & međedović, 2017)i. data analysis we have calculated the descriptive statistics and differences between groups of respondents from central serbia and northern kosovo. to determine the relations between variables, bivariate correlations were calculated and linear regression analyses were conducted. the readiness for reconciliation and the general ethos of conflict were entered as criteria, and the five basic social attitudes and conspiracy mentality were entered as predictor variables in regression models. the effects of gender, age, education and family status (since samples consisted of students and their parents, this variable was transformed into dummy variables prior to running regression analyses) of the respondents were controlled. to test the mediation role of conspiracy mentality on relations between basic social attitudes and readiness for reconciliation and the ethos of conflict across samples, multi-group path analysis was used. several fit indices were used to determine the model fit: χ2, comconspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 66 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parative fit index – cfi and root mean square error of approximation – rmsea. values of fit indices indicating good fit are: rmsea < .06, and cfi > .95), and acceptable fit: rmsea < .08, and cfi > .90 (see hu & bentler, 1999; lazarević, 2008). results descriptive statistics and correlations between examined variables the descriptive statistics and differences between groups of respondents from central serbia and northern kosovo for all examined variables are shown in table 1. as can be seen, the differences between groups are registered for almost all variables, except inequality-aversion. respondents from central serbia scored highly on the readiness for reconciliation with croats, communal rationalism, and subjective spirituality. respondents from kosovo had higher scores than those from central serbia on ethos of conflict toward albanians, traditional religiosity, and unmitigated self-interest, and lower on conspiracy mentality. table 1 descriptive statistics and group differences for the examined variables variable serbia (n = 307) kosovo (n = 271) t(578) dm sd m sd rr 3.84 0.65 3.23 0.63 -11.89** 0.95 eoc 2.93 0.37 3.39 0.34 15.93** -1.29 tra 3.04 0.66 3.60 0.48 11.48** -0.97 usi 2.37 0.85 2.90 0.82 7.68** -0.63 cr 4.07 0.60 3.92 0.59 -3.34** 0.25 ss 3.23 0.75 3.02 0.61 -3.72** 0.31 ia 3.52 0.52 3.54 0.51 0.35 -0.04 cm 4.07 0.63 3.93 0.69 -2.13* 0.21 notes. rr = readiness for reconciliation; eoc = ethos of conflict; tra = traditional religiosity; usi = unmitigated self-interest; cr = communal rationalism; ss = subjective spirituality; ia = inequality-aversion; cm = conspiracy mentality. *p < .05. **p < .01. the bivariate correlations between examined variables separately for two subsamples are displayed in table 2. in both subsamples, readiness for reconciliation and general ethos of conflict were highly negatively correlated. traditional religiosity was also consistently correlated negatively to readiness for reconciliation and positively to ethos of conflict. communal rationalism was positively related to readiness for reconciliation, but there was no significant relation with ethos of conflict. it was interesting that inequality-aversion was positively related to ethos of conflict and unrelated to readiness for reconciliation. as expected, conspiracy mentality was positively correlated to ethos of conflict, but also with traditional religiosity. these findings are consistent through two subsamples. petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 67 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 bivariate correlations and reliabilities of the examined variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. rr .91/.78 -.50** -.29** -.04 .17** .01 -.17** -.09 2. eoc -.72** .85/.72 .39** .04 .09 .04 .27** .31** 3. tra -.31** .55** .72/.65 .22** .14* .16 .14* .23** 4. usi .00 .01 .10 .80/.78 .10 .17** .07 .04 5. cr .13† -.01 -.01 -.00 .70/.65 .12* .26** .11 6. ss .10 -.03 -.04 .08 .05 .67/.61 -.04 .09 7. ia -.12 .14† .15* -.02 .15* .02 .64/.61 .24** 8. cm -.18** .26** .21** .01 -.02 .15* .11 .77/.71 note. rr = readiness for reconciliation; eoc = ethos of conflict; tra = traditional religiosity; usi = unmitigated self-interest; cr = communal rationalism; ss = subjective spirituality; ia = inequality-aversion; cm = conspiracy mentality. correlation coefficients between examined variables from the serbian samples (n = 307) are presented below, from the kosovo samples (n = 271) above the diagonal. alpha coefficients of internal consistency are shown in diagonal and separated by a slash for serbia/kosovo. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. there are some important differences between subsamples: conspiracy mentality was negatively related to readiness for reconciliation and positively to subjective spirituality in the serbian sample, but in the kosovo sample, the correlation between these two measures was not significant. but, conspiracy mentality correlated positively with inequality-aversion only in the sample from northern kosovo. coefficients of reliability (table 2) are satisfactory or good for the majority of measures; however, in the case of subjective spirituality and inequality-aversion, in both subsamples the reliability is questionable but still acceptable. reliability coefficients are generally slightly weaker in the kosovo subsample than in the subsample from central serbia. conspiracy mentality as a predictor of ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation results of regression analyses conducted separately on the subsamples (table 3) showed that basic social attitudes and conspiracy mentality explained 14% i.e., 18% of the variance of readiness for reconciliation in the serbian and kosovo subsamples respectively, and 33% of the variance of ethos of conflict in the serbian and 26% in the kosovo subsample. in both subsamples, the strongest predictors of the readiness for reconciliation were low traditional religiosity and higher communal rationalism in both subsamples. conspiracy mentality had a significant effect on the prediction of readiness for reconciliation only in the serbian subsample, but, in contrast, in the kosovo subsample, inequality-aversion showed significant predictive power. however, only traditional religiosity and conspiracy mentality showed significant effects in the prediction of ethos of conflict, consistently through the subsamples. conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 68 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 social attitudes and conspiracy mentality as predictors of ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation – results of regression analyses conducted separately on the samples from serbia and kosovo predictor serbia (n = 307) kosovo (n = 271) reconciliation ethos of conflict reconciliation ethos of conflict β t β t β t β t sex -.02 -0.48 -.01 0.02 .00 0.06 -.01 -0.23 age .02 2.16 .14 -1.12 .05 0.35 .16 1.13 education .03 -0.15 -.06 -0.54 .00 0.00 .07 1.17 family-parents .02 -2.04 -.08 1.69 .03 0.22 -.07 -0.53 tra -.28 -3.75** .51 8.41** -.32 -5.21** .35 6.01** usi .02 0.81 -.05 -1.47 .00 -0.01 -.07 -1.25 cr .12 2.62* -.02 -0.53 .26 4.23** -.06 -0.96 ss .11 2.04 -.02 -0.31 .04 0.68 .02 0.31 ai -.09 -1.50 .04 0.12 -.20 -3.26** .19 3.18** cm -.12 -2.05* .15 3.55** .00 0.06 .20 3.44** r2 .14** .33** .18** .26** note. tra = traditional religiosity; usi = unmitigated self-interest; cr = communal rationalism; ss = subjective spirituality; ia = inequality-aversion; cm = conspiracy mentality. *p < .05. **p < .01. conspiracy mentality as a mediator between social attitudes and ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation – multi-group path analyses we have tested the hypothesis that conspiracy mentality mediates the relationships between basic social attitudes (set as exogenous variables in the model) and both ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation (set as endogenous variables) (figure 1). to test cross-sample stability, we have employed multi-group analyses. three models with increasing strictness were tested: the configural invariance model, the path invariance model, and the error variances invariance model. the configural invariance model assumes the invariance of the structure of relations between the variables (horn & mcardle, 1992). the path invariance model assumes that the paths from the predictors to the criterion variables are the same across the two samples. finally, the error variances invariance model assumes the error variances of the variables to be equal across the two samples. the method of parameter estimation was a maximum likelihood. the results, displayed in table 4, showed that none of these three models are invariant. the model presented in figure 1 showed that the expected direct pathways of traditional religiosity and communal rationalism toward ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation respectively can be detected. traditional religiosity had a direct positive loading on general ethos of conflict, and a direct negative one on readiness for reconciliation. communal rationalism positively influences the readiness for reconciliation. except for these two, only the direct paths of inequality-aversion towards both of the reconciliation measures are registered. conspiracy mentality positively influences ethos of conflict, but not readiness for reconciliation. the model shows that traditional religiosity has an indirect effect, mediated by conspiracy mentality, on the ethos of conflict. conspiracy mentality mediated the relationships between subjective spirituality and genpetrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 69 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ eral ethos of conflict on the sample from central serbia, and inequality-aversion on the sample from northern kosovo. figure 1. conspiracy mentality as a partial mediator of the relations between social attitudes and ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation. note. rr = readiness for reconciliation; eoc = ethos of conflict; tra = traditional religiosity; usi = unmitigated selfinterest; cr = communal rationalism; ss = subjective spirituality; ia = inequality-aversion; cm = conspiracy mentality. significant paths are presented with: solid lines if they are significant on both subsamples, dash lines if they are significant only on the serbian sample, and long dash lines if they are significant only on the kosovo sample. nonsignificant paths are depicted with square dot lines. standardized regression coefficients are presented and separated by a slash between serbia/kosovo. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 4 model testing cross-sample stability model χ2 df rmsea 90%ci cfi δχ2 df configural (baseline) invariance 29.50 26 .02 .00–.04 .99 path invariance 50.17 36 .03 .00–.04 .98 20.67* 10 error variances invariance 441.64 57 .08 .07–.09 .92 412.14** 31 *p < .05. **p < .01. discussion this study has aimed to investigate the relations between conspiracy mentality, basic social attitudes, and psychological factors that could either hinder or facilitate reconciliation between groups in conflict. the results showed that there were significant differences between subsamples of serbs from central serbia and northern kosovo on almost all examined variables, including conspiracy mentality. respondents from kosovo showed more conservative, pro-conflict, selfish and materialistic attitudinal orientations. respondents from central serbia were more pronounced toward conspiracionism, but also more oriented toward humanistic values and intergroup reconciliation. besides that, conspiracy mentality and traditional religiosity were negatively related to the readiness for reconciliation and positively to the ethos of conflict. in addition, conspiracy mentality made an independent contribution to understanding the ethos of conflict over and above basic social attitudes. finalconspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 70 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ly, conspiracy mentality mediated the relations of traditional religiosity, subjective spirituality and inequalityaversion with the ethos of conflict (but not readiness for reconciliation). the results are relatively consistent throughout the samples and mainly supportive for the hypotheses considered. conspiracy mentality and its relation to basic social attitudes and the psychological foundations for reconciliation this study provides new evidence that conflict beliefs should emerge from the conservative attitudinal orientation. as expected, the results showed that the serbs from northern kosovo are more conservative than those from central serbia (higher traditional religiosity and unmitigated self-interest, lower communal rationalism). they also exhibit more pronounced indicators of ethos of conflict or readiness for reconciliation with the albanians than do serbs from central serbia with the croats. these results are in line with previous findings of differences in attitudinal orientation and ethos of conflict between serbs from central serbia and northern kosovo (međedović & petrović, 2012). however, it is interesting that serbs from northern kosovo have a less pronounced conspiracy mentality than serbs from central serbia, although respondents from both subsamples scored relatively highly on conspiracy mentality. this finding is also in line with the studies which have argued that conspiracy mentality could have an important role in a conflict situation, strengthening and justifying hostility toward out-groups (pruitt, 1987; sedek & bilewicz, 2015). conspiracy mentality facilitates the perception of an out-group threat, even if there are no objective reasons for it this is the reason why conspiracy mentality is more pronounced within the subsample that is focused on the (still latent) conflict with the croats than within the subsample more focused on the (still ongoing) conflict with the kosovo albanians (bergmann, 2018). more interestingly, the results support the hypothesis that war exposure may have even a long-term impact on radicalisation (see, for example, vlachos, 2016). a somewhat more complete picture can be obtained by looking at the relationships between the examined variables. as expected, traditional religiosity is positively related to the ethos of conflict and negatively to the readiness for reconciliation, but communal rationalism is positively associated with the readiness for reconciliation. these findings are in line with previous studies, showing that political conservatism is positively related to out-group hostility and preferences inclining towards aggressive actions against the out-group (de zavala, cislak, & wesolowska, 2010), and to ethos of conflict (petrović & međedović, 2011; međedović & petrović, 2013, 2016), and negatively to readiness for reconciliation (petrović, 2005). it is important to emphasize that these findings are stable throughout the subsamples, and supported by regression analysis. besides this, we found the findings related to inequality-aversion and its associations with the other variables very interesting. inequality-aversion (i.e., egalitarianism) is positively associated with communal rationalism, in line with theoretical expectations, but is also positively related to traditional religiosity and ethos of conflict, and negatively to readiness for reconciliation. these findings are theoretically unexpected, but congruent with some previous findings (e.g., petrović, 2016). although surprising, these findings suggest the same kind of mixture of egalitarianistic and conservative ideology which has been recognized in serbia from the beginning of the 1990s and labeled as socialistic conservatism (see, for example, todosijević, 2006). it is difficult here to resist failing to mention the concept of left-wing authoritarianism, which, evidently, is not the myth of the post-communist countries (de regt, mortelmans, & smits, 2011). it is interesting to note, though, that inequality-aversion is positively related to conspiracy mentality, and significantly contributes to the prediction of readiness for reconciliation (negatively) and ethos of conflict (positively), but only in the kosovo sample. these findings can be petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 71 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ understood if we have in mind that some studies have shown that both rightand leftpolitical extremists are inclined to believe in conspiracy theories (krouwel et al., 2017). similarly to social attitudes, conspiracy mentality has a moderate positive relation to the ethos of conflict and a weak negative relation with the readiness for reconciliation. more importantly, conspiracy mentality independently positively contributed to the prediction of ethos of conflict over and above traditional religiosity, as well as negatively to the prediction of the readiness for reconciliation over and above traditional religiosity and communal rationalism, but only in the serbian sample. these findings are in line with our second hypothesis and with previous studies which have also shown positive relations between conservative social attitudes, primarily authoritarianism, and the propensity to belief in conspiracy theories (bruder et al., 2013; richey, 2017). however, we should bear in mind that conspiracy mentality and ethos of conflict are conceptually similar and share some important characteristics: they originate during societal crises (van prooijen & douglas, 2017), reflect the need to control the environment (douglas et al., 2017), foster a positive self-view about the in-group (cichocka et al., 2016), derogate out-group members (mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014), etc. we should acknowledge some attempts to consider conspiracy mentality as an important psychological factor contributing to the escalation and maintenance of intergroup conflicts (see, for example, pruitt, 1987). the results of our study are in line with these theoretical expectations, but additional empirical testing is needed. conspiracy mentality mediates the link between basic social attitudes and ethos of conflict there is a tendency in the literature referring to conspiracy theories that significant efforts are being made to understand the nature of the proneness to believe in conspiracy theories and its antecedents (see, for example, bruder et al., 2013; mashuri & zaduqisti, 2014; richey, 2017). but it seems that less attention has been paid to the investigation of the role of conspiracy mentality in understanding other socio-psychological constructs. bearing in mind that post-yugoslav societies are still in the post-conflict period, the issue of reconciliation is of crucial importance. these are the reasons why this research has aimed to investigate the potential role of the conspiracy mentality in explaining the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation as a key psychological factor in the processes of promoting (or hindering) reconciliation. the hypothesis that conspiracy mentality will mediate the relations between social attitudes and both ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation, was partly confirmed. results of multi-group path analyses showed that, stable throughout the samples, traditional religiosity and communal rationalism have direct effects on conflict beliefs, and, consequently, on the readiness for reconciliation: traditional religiosity is a predisposition for the emergence of conflict beliefs and for prevention of reconciliation, whilst communal rationalism, which reflects trust in democratic institutions, could facilitate positive views on reconciliation. what is to be noted here is that conspiracy mentality mediates the effects of traditional religiosity on ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation, and these effects are also registered in both samples. these findings provide support for the view that conservative people are generally prone to conflict beliefs (međedović & petrović, 2016). but the multigroup analysis showed that two samples differed regarding the effects of subjective spirituality and inequality-aversion on the conspiracy mentality and both reconciliation-relevant variables. namely, only in the sample from central serbia is the effect of subjective spirituality on ethos of conflict moderated by the conspiracy mentality. this finding supports the view that conservative attitudes and proneness to unusual thinking and spirituality facilitate beliefs in conspiracy theories (see, for example, darwin, neave, & holmes, conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 72 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2011), which further contribute to the development and maintenance of conflict-oriented beliefs (see, for example, pruitt, 1987). when the effects of inequality-aversion are considered, the results show that inequality-aversion has both direct and indirect effects, i.e., inequality-aversion hinders readiness for reconciliation, but facilitates conflict-oriented beliefs, supported by conspiracy mentality. this pattern of relations is practically identical with the pattern which traditional religiosity provides. we discussed these findings earlier, which were theoretically unexpected but consistent with some previous research, with reference to concepts of socialistic conservatism (todosijević, 2006) or left-wing authoritarianism (de regt et al., 2011). still, it is interesting that these effects are registered only in the sample of serbs from northern kosovo but not of those from central serbia. following the previous literature on the subject (međedović & petrović, 2012), it could be assumed that closeness to the conflict zone leads to the radicalisation of both right-wing and left-wing authoritarians (krouwel et al., 2017), i.e., right-conservative and socialistic-conservative people (todosijević, 2006). this becomes even clearer if we bear in mind that both left-wing and nationalistic right-wing political parties in serbia (e.g., the socialist party of serbia and the serbian radical party, respectively) have been saturated with the same principal stable component throughout the period (petrović & međedović, 2017). more precisely, from the beginning of the 1990’s, slobodan milosević's socialist party of serbia and vojislav šešelj’s serbian radical party were the dominant political forces in serbia. consequently, these two parties were the bearers of the responsibility for the overall social changes during the 1990’s, including the escalation of the conflict between serbs and other yugoslav nationalities. it is important to note here that these parties, although formally ideological opposites, essentially are not: both of them have been supported mainly by working-class voters, and both of them are characterised by a mixture of left-wing (i.e., social justice) and extreme nationalistic rhetoric (bakić, 2015). after the fall of milošević in 2000 and the democratic reforms in serbia, it is interesting that both of these parties are dominant political forces in northern kosovo, in contrast with central serbiaii. in this context, it becomes understandable why politicians and policy-makers in conflict and post-conflict periods have established strong conflict narratives (petrović, 2017), and also promoted and propagated different conspiracy theories. for example, during the 1990s, the serbian regime supported the development and maintenance of different conspiracy theories seeking to justify the dissolution of yugoslavia and the role of serbia in the ensuing conflicts (byford, 2002; byford & billig, 2001). it is additionally important to notice that these conspiracy theories supported the dominant narrative among the serbian people the narrative about the serbs (and serbia) as historical victims, with the continuous need to defend themselves from external threats, including from the international community, which is seen as negative, unjust and unfair towards the serbian people (byford, 2006; obradović & howarth, 2018). this narrative is typically recognized as the „national siege mentality“, the core societal belief of members of one society that the rest of the world have negative intentions towards them (bar-tal & antebi, 1992). previous research has shown that about one-third of citizens in serbia, primarily voters for the serbian radical party, express a high degree of national siege mentality (šram, 2009), which is one of the preconditions for the development of conflict-oriented beliefs (bar-tal, 2007). therefore, the findings of this research indicate that it is important to reduce the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories if conflict-oriented beliefs are to be decreased. limitations and future directions in conclusion, we should point to some of the limitations and unresolved issues of this study. firstly, the current research is based on cross-sectional data; this has prevented us from inferring causal relations from the data and led us potentially to underor over-estimate the longitudinal effects. longitudinal research can only provide petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 73 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the estimations of the causal links between examined variables. second, the results showed that there are several cronbach’s alpha coefficients for some of the measurements (e.g., subjective spirituality and inequalityaversion), suggesting that the measurements were somewhat unreliable. also, it must be noted that reliabilities are generally slightly weaker in the kosovo subsample than in the subsample from central serbia. although some coefficients of reliability are lower, they are still acceptable, but it can be assumed that this could have affected the results of the study and that therefore the results must be interpreted with a certain caution (sawilowsky, 2009). third, this research was focused only on serbian respondents, and it would be important to test the replicability of the findings on the other ethnicities with whom the serbs were in conflict. fourth, we should note that respondents from central serbia were not living in the war zone in the 1990s, as was the case with respondents from kosovo at that time. therefore, future studies should include participants of serbian nationality from the conflict zone in croatia. fifth, the samples consisted of both students and their parents, which could have affected the results of the study, having in mind its nestedness. however, we believe that this constraint does not affect the results of this study, because some previous research has shown that there were no differences between students and parents with regard to social attitudes and ethos of conflict (međedović & petrović, 2018). the finding that family structure had no effect in regression models in this study also confirmed our assumption regarding the structure of the samples. sixth, this study resulted in one unexpected result: in the kosovo sample, inequality-aversion (i.e., egalitarianism) and traditional religiosity have identical patterns of relations with the ethos of conflict, readiness for reconciliation and conspiracy mentality (which mediates their relations). we have postulated several explanations for these findings: hypotheses about left-wing authoritarianism, about the dominance of political parties with both nationalistic and socialistic ideologies, and about the role of environmental harshness (closeness to the conflict zone) facilitating both rightand leftwing extremism and their relations with conspiracy mentality. these findings and their possible interpretations are certainly intriguing, and further research might confirm them and provide a clearer framework for their interpretation. seventh, the results of our study, consistently with those previous to ours (e.g., bar-tal et al., 2012; petrović & međedović, 2011), showed that eight conflict beliefs constitute the unidimensional general ethos of conflict in each of the subsamples. however, it is important to note that these eight beliefs have different loadings to the general ethos of conflict in the different subsamples, which suggested a potentially different structure of the ethos of conflict and its dependence on contextual factors, i.e., on the specifics of inter-group conflict. it is important to note that previous studies have also shown that the structure of the ethos of conflict, but also the content of conflict-oriented beliefs could be changed over time and as a consequence of the major events that characterise conflicts (oren, 2009). we do not expect that the general ethos of conflict, regardless of the potential differences in its structure in various (post)conflict societies, will have different relations with external measures in dependence of its structure. but the insight into the structure of the ethos of conflict in different societies could be important for the deeper understanding of the ethos of conflict itself, and also of the nature of a specific inter-group conflict. finally, we should mention that the instrument used for assessment of conspiracy mentality, i.e., cmq, is a general measure of the propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, which to a certain extent reflects some kind of political cynicism (milošević-đorđević & žeželj, 2017b). it might be that the effects would be even more powerful if some more adequate, more specific measure of conspiracy theories was used. conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 74 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions in line with our hypotheses, the results of this study suggest that, in post-yugoslav countries, the general propensity to endorse conspiracy theories facilitates the possibility of developing conflict-oriented beliefs, especially with conservative people. it seems that conspiracy mentality, i.e., the disposition toward belief in conspiracy theories, could be an important socio-psychological factor hindering reconciliation and facilitating prolongation of intergroup conflicts. this might be the reason why conspiracy mentality, together with other important constructs like basic social attitudes, should be taken into consideration when creating policies and programmes focused on reconciliation between groups after violent conflicts. efforts to determine the socio-psychological factors that could promote reconciliation in (post)conflict societies might result in the development of specific interventions to reduce conflict beliefs and to promote peace (see, for example, halperin & sharvit, 2015; hameiri, nabet, bar-tal, & halperin, 2018). the studies mentioned showed that these interventions could have significantly reduced conflict beliefs even in hawkish (conservative, right-wing) people who are closed-minded and rigid in their hostile attitudes toward out-groups (hameiri, porat, bar-tal, & halperin, 2016). similarly, swami and colleagues (swami, voracek, stieger, tran, & furnham, 2014) showed that stronger beliefs in conspiracy theories were associated with lower analytic thinking, lower openmindedness and greater intuitive thinking, and proposed an analytic-thinking based intervention programme for reduction of conspiracy beliefs. the results of our study also have practical implications, since it was demonstrated that conspiracy mentality has an important role in hindering reconciliation. our results indicate that in the case of people with more conservative attitudes, an intervention programme based on the elicitation of analytic thinking could 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(2016). the legacy of war exposure on political radicalization. retrieved from http://www.unil.ch/de/files/live/sites/de/files/working-papers/16.10.pdf appendix table a1 results of principal component analysis of the readiness for reconciliation subscales on the whole sample and serbian and kosovo subsamples characteristics of the pca serbia kosovo whole sample λ1 λ2 λ1 λ2 λ1 λ2 random data 1.12 1.03 1.14 1.04 1.09 1.02 real data 2.56 .63 2.11 .78 2.50 .61 % of the explained variance 64.1 52.7 62.6 trust .65 .49 .64 cooperation .86 .72 .82 forgiveness .74 .78 .78 rehumanization .64 .45 .58 conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies 80 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031968 https://doi.org/10.22237/jmasm/1257035100 https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v7i2.1047 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.006 https://doi.org/10.2298/psi0602121t https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698017701615 http://www.unil.ch/de/files/live/sites/de/files/working-papers/16.10.pdf https://www.psychopen.eu/ table a2 results of principal component analysis of the ethos of conflict subscales on the whole sample and serbian and kosovo subsamples characteristics of the pca serbia kosovo whole sample λ1 λ2 λ1 λ2 λ1 λ2 random data 1.24 1.15 1.26 1.16 1.17 1.10 real data 3.51 1.14 2.65 1.13 3.65 .91 % of the explained variance 43.9 33.1 45.6 justification of goals .18 .69 .59 beliefs about security .61 .48 .65 delegitimization of the opponents .79 .75 .80 patriotism .50 .30 .50 beliefs about unity .44 .30 .47 positive collective self-view .72 .34 .64 victimization .76 .67 .71 beliefs about peace .52 .20 .51 about the authors boban petrović is research associate in the institute of criminological and sociological research in belgrade, serbia. his research interests are dominantly focused on individual differences in human behavior, especially personality and social attitudes, but also on the problems of social inclusion. he investigates the psychological determinants of amoral and antisocial behavior, psychological basis of ideologically motivated violence, inter-group conflict, and reconciliation. janko međedović holds a phd in psychology and works as a research associate in the institute of criminological and sociological research in belgrade, serbia. his research interests cover personality in general, dark personality traits, the psychological roots of intergroup conflicts and ideologically based violence. he is particularly interested in the life-history of contemporary humans and explaining the variance in human behavioral traits using evolutionary ecological models. olivera radović is a social psychologist, associate professor and chef of department on the study program of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of kosovska mitrovica and responsible teacher for subjects of introduction to social psychology, social perception and interaction, psychology of human groups, social conflicts, research in social psychology and methodology of psychological research. her research interest cover process of socialization, a link between values and beliefs and quality of life, social identity and psychological roots of intergroup conflicts. sanja radetić lovrić is a social psychologist, the associate professor on the study program of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of banja luka and a responsible teacher for subjects of social pathology, psychology of crime, forensic psychology and social psychological studies of addiction. her scientific and professional work is primarily devoted to the study of the link between the process of socialization and the behavior of children at risk, contact, and conflict with the law, the application of social psychology in law and the investigation of the psychological consequences of the war. petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić 81 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 59–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies (introduction) psychological roots of (un)willingness to reconcile conspiracy mentality and (un)willingness to reconcile the present study method participants measures data analysis results descriptive statistics and correlations between examined variables conspiracy mentality as a predictor of ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation conspiracy mentality as a mediator between social attitudes and ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation – multi-group path analyses discussion conspiracy mentality and its relation to basic social attitudes and the psychological foundations for reconciliation conspiracy mentality mediates the link between basic social attitudes and ethos of conflict limitations and future directions conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors criteria for the transition to adulthood, developmental features of emerging adulthood, and views of the future among greek studying youth research reports criteria for the transition to adulthood, developmental features of emerging adulthood, and views of the future among greek studying youth evangelia galanaki* a, sophie leontopoulou b [a] department of primary education, school of education, national and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece. [b] department of primary education, school of education, university of ioannina, ioannina, greece. abstract this study investigated emerging adulthood and transition to adulthood in greece, a highly underresearched issue in this country. participants were 784 university students aged 17.5-27.5 years. criteria for the transition to adulthood, developmental features of emerging adulthood, perceived adult status, views of the future (optimism), and sociodemographic variables were assessed. the results support the existence of emerging adulthood as a distinct life period in greece. more than two thirds of the sample were self-perceived emerging adults. most prevalent criteria were norm compliance and family capacities. developmental features of emerging adulthood ranked high, especially identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities, and feeling “in-between”. statistically significant variations emerged as a function of gender, age, living arrangement, job experience, and perceived adult status. views of the future were cautiously optimistic. similarities with existing data and differences related to the specific characteristics of the southern european context are discussed. keywords: emerging adulthood, transition to adulthood, optimism, studying youth, greece europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 received: 2016-10-31. accepted: 2017-04-20. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of primary education, school of education, national and kapodistrian university of athens, navarinou 13a, 10680 athens, greece. e-mail: egalanaki@primedu.uoa.gr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. although erikson (1950, 1968) has argued that young people in industrialized societies continue to explore their identity well beyond adolescence, it is only recently that emerging adulthood was proposed as a distinct developmental period from the late teens to the late twenties (ages 18-29) (arnett, 2000a). according to this conceptualization, emerging adulthood is characterized by (a) identity exploration in love, work and worldviews; (b) active experimentation, many possibilities, open choices and optimism; (c) a sense of negativity and instability due mainly to the unstructured nature of this period and the many changes taking place in several life domains; (d) increased self-focus with the aim to attain self-knowledge and self-sufficiency, facilitated by the absence of obligations, and (e) a feeling “in-between” adolescence and adulthood, that is an ambivalence toward adult status. over the past two decades, emerging adulthood has been investigated in several parts of the world, such as the usa, europe, japan, china, india, etc. in post-industrial societies, based on knowledge, technology, and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ services, and under the influence of globalization, education is prolonged in order to lead to a better occupational status, and transitions to job, marriage and parenthood are postponed, therefore there is a rather long route to adulthood. although considerable criticism has been raised against the universality of emerging adulthood and, therefore, its existence as a developmental stage, a useful research aim is to evaluate for whom, under what conditions and to what degree variations in the experience of emerging adulthood appear within each culture (arnett, 2011; syed, 2016). in europe, a body of recent research has showed culturally-determined similarities and differences in the pathways to adult life (žukauskienė, 2015). as far as the mediterranean countries are concerned, strong family ties and solidarity, as well as high unemployment and underemployment rates, restricted social welfare, and other financial difficulties have led to prolonged co-residence with parents and late marriage and parenthood (iacovou, 2002, 2010). this has been described as the mediterranean or the southern european model (ferrera, 1996; scabini, 2000). sociodemographic shifts in greece have possibly contributed to the rise of emerging adulthood in this country (eurostat, 2016). the percentage of young people aged 20-29 who live with their parents is 71.5% (one of the highest in europe), and the age of leaving the parental home is 29.3 years (30.6 for males, 28.0 for females). age at first marriage is 32.9 for males and 29.7 for females. mean age of women at first childbirth is 31.1 (one of the highest in europe). unemployment among 15-24 year-olds reaches 51.9% (also the highest in europe). the percentage of 18 year-olds attending tertiary education is also the highest: 47.2%. rather high is the median age of students in tertiary education: 23.9 years. the employment rate of recent graduates is the second lowest in europe: 44.3%. surprisingly, thus far only two studies in greece have investigated the criteria for the transition to adulthood (petrogiannis, 2011) and the developmental features of emerging adulthood (leontopoulou, mavridis, & giotsa, 2016). sociodemographic changes, in combination with the 2008 financial crisis which has severely affected greece, dictate the need to extend relevant research in this country. feeling “in-between” a defining feature of emerging adulthood is the feeling of young people that they are on the way to adulthood but not there yet. many young people are often ambivalent about their status as adults. they respond “in some respects yes, in some respects no” when asked whether they have reached adulthood, a finding that supports the existence of emerging adulthood. feeling “in-between” is most prevalent (exhibited by about two thirds of youth) in western cultures, such as the usa (arnett, 2001, 2003; badger, nelson, & mcnamara barry, 2006; nelson & barry, 2005), austria (sirsch, dreher, mayr, & willinger, 2009), sweden (wängqvist & frisén, 2015), and denmark (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015). high percentages of this feeling were also found in greece (petrogiannis, 2011), turkey (doğan, yüzbaşi, & demir, 2015), czech republic (macek, bejček, & vaníčková, 2007), romania (nelson, 2009), argentina (facio & micocci, 2003), and aborigins of australia (cheah & nelson, 2004). the lowest percentages were found in china (nelson, badger, & wu, 2004), india (seiter & nelson, 2011), and in ethnic minorities (arnett, 2003; badger et al., 2006; for a more extensive review, see nelson & luster, 2015). it appears, then, that emerging adulthood is more prominent in western and westernized cultures, but is not absent in quite different cultures. transition to adulthood in greece 418 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criteria for the transition to adulthood in this study, a variety of perceived criteria for the transition to adulthood are examined, on the basis of the model proposed by arnett (2001). it includes criteria drawn from biology, anthropology, sociology, law, and psychology. research has shown (nelson & luster, 2015, for a more extensive review) that emerging adults – especially university students – in western cultures prioritize independence criteria, such as responsibility for one’s actions, independent decision making, equality with parents, and financial independence. this finding is common in the usa (arnett, 2001, 2003), austria (sirsch et al., 2009), sweden (wängqvist & frisén, 2015), denmark (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015), and israel (mayseless & scharf, 2003). a different picture has emerged in rather collectivistic cultures, namely china (badger et al., 2006; nelson et al., 2004; nelson, duan, padilla-walker, & luster, 2012; zhong & arnett, 2014), and india (seiter & nelson, 2011), where communal criteria, such as relational maturity (e.g., accepting responsibility for one’s actions and having emotional control), were more important. a mixture of individualistic and collectivistic criteria for the transition to adulthood is present in eastern european countries such as lithuania (vosylis, kaniušonytė, & raižienė, 2015) and romania (nelson, 2009), as well as turkey (doğan et al., 2015), and argentina (facio & micocci, 2003). similar findings are typical of southern european countries, namely italy (crocetti & tagliabue, 2015; piumatti, garro, pipitone, di vita, & rabaglietti, 2016) and greece (petrogiannis, 2011); in the latter study, independence, family capacities, and norm compliance emerged as the key markers of adulthood. developmental features of emerging adulthood research into perceived developmental features of emerging adults has been conducted with the inventory of the dimensions of emerging adulthood (idea; reifman, arnett, & colwell, 2007), more frequently in university students. emerging adulthood appeared to be mainly a time of identity exploration and experimentation/ possibilities in austria (sirsch et al., 2009), greece (leontopoulou et al., 2016), and romania (negru, 2012). in italy, identity exploration and self-focus were the highest, whereas in japan, experimentation/possibilities scored the highest (crocetti et al., 2015). experimentation/possibilities and self-focus were the main features of youth in turkey (atak & çok, 2008), followed by negativity/instability, identity exploration, and feeling “inbetween”. a somewhat different picture emerged in germany (seiffge-krenke, 2015), where negativity/ instability and self-focus were highly prevalent. similar findings emerged with adaptations of the idea in czech republic (macek et al., 2007) and among mexican and spanish youth (fierro arias & moreno hernández, 2007). it is evident that there is not enough research on the above developmental features of emerging adulthood all over the world. age of optimism a central feature of emerging adulthood is optimism (arnett, 2000a). young people feel that they have many open choices and possibilities, perhaps more than in any other life period. emerging adults in various cultures feel optimistic about their quality of life, financial well-being, career achievements, and personal relationships in the future (arnett, 2000b; nelson, 2009; nelson et al., 2004; seiter & nelson, 2011). more research is needed on this issue too across cultures. galanaki & leontopoulou 419 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ current study this study focuses on emerging adulthood and transition to adulthood in greece. the following issues are examined: (a) perceived adult status in relation to specific sociodemographic variables (i.e., gender, age, father’s education, living arrangement, and job experience); (b) the criteria which signify the transition to adulthood, according to young people’s views; (c) the extent to which young people experience the defining features of emerging adulthood; (d) sociodemographic variables and perceived adult status in relation to transition criteria and perceived developmental features; and (e) young people’s optimism about the future. up to date, there is very limited research evidence, within the theoretical framework of emerging adulthood, regarding these issues in greece. moreover, there are no data available in the greek context for the factorial structure of the instruments measuring the criteria for adult status and the developmental features of emerging adulthood (with only one exception: leontopoulou et al., 2016). these issues are examined in a large and representative sample of greek university students. we should note here that, in greece, about half of young people are enrolled in tertiary education, which is free but requires rigorous entrance examinations. preparation for these examinations starts early (from the last two years of secondary education) and there is minimum flexibility and mobility during years of study, once the entrance in a university department is achieved. method participants participants were 784 undergraduate students who were recruited during scheduled class hours from various departments (i.e., education, psychology, physics, economy) of the national and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece, and voluntarily agreed to take part in the study. participation rate was over 90%. mean age was 20.0 years (sd = 1.85, range 17.5-27.5 years), and 62% were women. table 1 presents sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. as can be seen, the vast majority were single, with no children, and had fathers with at least medium educational level (secondary and tertiary education). a small percentage of students (11.5%) had full-time job experience, and somewhat less than 50% had part-time job experience. there were no significant differences between the two types of living arrangement (i.e., living with parents and living without parents) as a function of job experience, χ2(2, n = 779) = 3.22, ns. a very small percentage came from other countries (cyprus: 1.5%; eastern european countries: 2.8%). table 1 sociodemographic characteristics of the sample (n = 784) variable f % gender men 298 38.0 women 486 62.0 country of origina greece 749 95.5 other 34 4.3 transition to adulthood in greece 420 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ variable f % father’s educationa lowb 126 16 mediumb 332 42.4 highb 325 41.5 living arrangementc with parents 437 55.7 without parents 342 43.6 marital statusa,d single 770 98.2 engaged 10 1.3 married 3 0.4 children no 780 99.5 yes 4 0.5 job experience none 367 46.8 part-time 327 41.7 full-time 90 11.5 note. amissing case: 1. blow: up to lower secondary school, medium: up to post-secondary education, high: up to tertiary education. cmissing cases: 5. dzero frequencies for divorced and separated status. measures perceived adult status (arnett, 2001) participants were asked “do you think you have reached adulthood?” (no = 0, in some respects yes, in some respects no = 1, yes = 2). scale of conceptions of the transition to adulthood (arnett, 2001, 2003) this scale consists of 39 items representing criteria for the transition to adulthood in seven subscales, the following: independence (e.g., being financially independent from parents); interdependence (e.g., committed to long-term love relationship); role transitions (e.g., married); norm compliance (e.g., avoid drunk driving); biological transitions (e.g., if a woman, become biologically capable of bearing children); legal/chronological transitions (e.g., reached age twenty-one); and family capacities (e.g., if a man, become capable of supporting a family financially). participants were asked to “indicate whether you think the following must be achieved before a person can be considered to be an adult” (necessary for adulthood = 1, not necessary for adulthood = 0). the seven subscales have been used in many studies across cultures, without empirical examination of the factorial structure (arnett, 2001, 2003; cheah & nelson, 2004; cheah, trinder, & gokavi, 2010; crocetti & tagliabue, 2015; facio & micocci, 2003; kins & beyers, 2010; mcnamara barry & nelson, 2005; nelson & barry, 2005; nelson et al., 2004; petrogiannis, 2011; piumatti et al., 2016; sirsch et al., 2009; wängqvist & frisén, 2015), whereas this structure was examined in fewer investigations (arnett & padilla-walker, 2015; badger et al., 2006; doğan et al., 2015; mayseless & scharf, 2003; tagliabue, crocetti, & lanz, 2016). in most of the former studies, some subscales (e.g., independence) had low cronbach alphas, whereas in the latter galanaki & leontopoulou 421 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ studies, variations from the original theoretical structure of the measure emerged but still some subscales exhibited low reliabilities. in light of the absence of validity data on this scale in greece, we performed exploratory factor analysis (efa) – principal component analysis with varimax rotation – which led to the exclusion of eight items with low loadings (cut-off point: .30). as can be seen in table 2, the excluded items belong to independence and interdependence. the most acceptable and meaningful solution for the remaining items emerged from a principal component analysis with varimax rotation and six fixed factors. this solution explained 42.78% of the total variance, with kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy .73 and bartlett’s test of sphericity χ2(465) = 4,652.004, p < .001. the factors were named family capacities, norm compliance, financial independence, family formation, biological parenthood, and age-related/biological transitions. cronbach alpha of the total scale was .73 and of the factors .59-.90. table 2 exploratory factor analysis and endorsement of the criteria for the transition to adulthood factor loading eigenvalue % of variance cronbach alpha %a family capacities (factor 1) 3.98 12.83 .75 if a woman, become capable of supporting a family financially .71 52.2 if a woman, become capable of caring for children .71 69.0 if a man, become capable of keeping a family physically safe .66 64.0 if a man, become capable of supporting a family financially .65 68.3 if a woman, become capable of keeping a family physically safe .63 48.1 if a man, become capable of caring for children .54 39.4 if a woman, become capable of running a household .36 28.7 norm compliance (factor 2) 2.61 8.40 .72 drive safely and close to speed limit .68 74.8 avoid illegal drugs .68 80.2 avoid becoming drunk .66 68.9 avoid committing petty crimes like vandalism and shoplifting .65 76.9 avoid drunk driving .59 87.6 use contraception if sexually active and not trying to conceive a child .48 83.3 avoid use of profanity/vulgar language .46 36.9 have no more than one sexual partner .36 32.5 financial independence (factor 3) 2.06 6.65 .68 become employed full time .66 32.0 settle into a long-term career .61 66.9 financially independent from parents .58 63.3 no longer living in parents’ household .52 31.5 finish education .51 29.9 family formation (factor 4) 1.88 6.06 .63 married .73 4.5 have at least one child .72 3.2 purchase house .56 10.2 committed to long-term love relationship .54 15.7 transition to adulthood in greece 422 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ factor loading eigenvalue % of variance cronbach alpha %a biological parenthood (factor 5) 1.45 4.67 .90 if a man, become biologically capable of bearing children .92 17.5 if a woman, become biologically capable of bearing children .92 18.5 age-related/biological transitions (factor 6) 1.29 4.16 .59 grow to full height .64 62.1 reached age eighteen .52 40.9 reached age twenty-one .40 19.3 have had sexual intercourse .36 57.6 have obtained driver’s license and can drive an automobile .36 10.0 items with loadings < .30 (excluded) accept responsibility for the consequences of your action decide on personal beliefs and values independently of parents or other influences if a man, become capable of running a household establish a relationship with parents as an equal adult learn always to have good control over your emotions become less self-oriented, develop greater consideration for others make life-long commitments to others not deeply tied to parents emotionally note. percentage (%) of participants answering yes to necessary for adulthood. inventory of the dimensions of emerging adulthood (reifman et al., 2007) it consists of 31 items assessing developmental characteristics of emerging adulthood in six subscales, which include the five defining features of emerging adulthood and the other-focus subscale to enable the comparison with the self-focus subscale: identity exploration (e.g., time of finding out who you are); experimentation/possibilities (e.g., time of trying out new things; time of open choices); negativity/instability (e.g., time of feeling stressed out; time of confusion); other-focus (e.g., time of commitments to others), selffocus (e.g., time of focusing on yourself), and feeling “in-between” (e.g., time of feeling adult in some ways but not others). participants were asked “is this period of your life a time of …” (strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 4). an exploratory factor analysis – principal component analysis with varimax rotation – led to the exclusion of three items with low loadings (cut-off point: .30). as can be seen in table 3, the excluded items belong to negativity/instability and self-focus. the most acceptable and meaningful solution for the remaining items emerged from a principal component analysis with varimax rotation and six fixed factors. this solution explained 50.60% of the total variance, with kaiser-meyer-olkin measure of sampling adequacy .78 and bartlett’s test of sphericity χ2(378) = 4,970.859, p < .001. the factors were highly similar to those of the original measure, therefore their names were retained. however, there was a small number of deviations from the original structure apart from the three excluded items. namely, “time of separating from parents” loaded on self-focus and not on identity exploration, “time of optimism” loaded on negativity/instability and not on selffocus, and “time of feeling restricted” loaded on self-focus and not on negativity/instability. cronbach alpha of the total scale was .74 and of the factors .64-.75. galanaki & leontopoulou 423 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 exploratory factor analysis and endorsement of the developmental features of emerging adulthood factor loading eigenvalue % of variance cronbach alpha %a identity exploration (factor 1) 4.31 15.41 .75 time of defining yourself .72 90.2 time of seeking a sense of meaning .72 83.6 time of finding out who you are .66 78.4 time of deciding on your own beliefs and values .63 84.7 time of planning for the future .46 93.6 time of learning to think for yourself .45 83.4 negativity/instability (factor 2) 3.03 10.81 .74 time of confusion .73 41.0 time of feeling stressed out .73 43.0 time of high pressure .73 56.0 time of instability .68 59.8 time of optimism .51 78.8 self-focus (factor 3) 2.24 7.99 .68 time of personal freedom .77 85.7 time of independence .72 86.5 time of feeling restricted .63 84.3 time of responsibility for yourself .52 95.9 time of open choices .50 82.6 time of separating from parents .45 69.0 time of self-sufficiency .43 44.4 experimentation/possibilities (factor 4) 1.79 6.40 .65 time of exploration .74 90.1 time of experimentation .68 78.0 time of many possibilities .65 90.0 time of trying out new things .53 87.7 feeling “in-between” (factor 5) 1.57 5.61 .75 time of feeling adult in some ways but not others .83 83.3 time of gradually becoming an adult .77 82.4 time of being not sure whether you have reached full adulthood .75 74.5 other-focus (factor 6) 1.23 4.39 .64 time of responsibility for others .67 50.0 time of settling down .53 63.5 time of commitments to others .51 51.5 items with loadings < .30 (excluded) time of unpredictability time of many worries time of focusing on yourself note. aagree and strongly agree combined. views of the future participants were asked the following questions in order to examine their optimism about the future (arnett, 2000b): “overall, do you think the quality of your life is likely to be better or worse than your parents’ has transition to adulthood in greece 424 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ been?”; “overall, do you think your financial well-being in adulthood is likely to be better or worse than your parents’ has been?”; “overall, do you think your career achievements are likely to be better or worse than your parents’ have been?”; “overall, do you think your personal relationships are likely to be better or worse than your parents’ have been?” (response options: “better”, “about the same”, and “worse”). the greek versions of the measures were translated into greek and back translated into english by two bilingual translators. procedure data were collected in group sessions during class hours, after permission from university professors had been granted. the questionnaires were anonymous. data collection lasted about 30 minutes. students received no credit for their participation. the research complies with all ethical guidelines set by the department of primary education (following the standards outlined by the ethics committee of the national and kapodistrian university of athens). results perceived adult status table 4 differences among subgroups as a function of perceived adult status variable perceived adult status p (χ2 test) non-adult emerging adult adult non-adult emerging adult adultf % f % f % gender .000 .000 .253 men 57 19.1 189 63.4 52 17.4 women 45 9.3 371 76.3 70 14.4 age group .237 .000 .000 17.5-19.9 59 12.4 372 78.0 46 9.6 20-21.9 22 11.6 131 69.3 36 19.0 22-27.5 21 17.8 57 48.3 40 33.9 father’s education .641 .547 .813 low 18 14.3 86 68.3 22 17.5 medium 46 13.9 235 70.8 51 15.4 high 38 11.7 238 73.2 49 15.1 living arrangements .552 .997 .580 with parents 60 13.7 313 71.6 64 14.6 without parents 42 12.3 245 71.6 55 16.1 job experience .912 .006 .002 none 47 12.8 277 75.5 43 11.7 part-time 42 12.8 230 70.3 55 16.8 full-time 13 14.4 53 58.9 24 26.7 galanaki & leontopoulou 425 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when asked whether they believed they had reached adulthood, more than two thirds of the participants (560; 71.4%) responded “in some respects yes, in some respects no” (emerging adults), 122 (15.6%) responded “yes” (adults), and 102 (13%) responded “no” (non-adults). as shown in table 4, emerging adults were more likely to be women, from younger age groups, and with no job experience. in contrast, older age groups and students with full-time job experience were more likely to perceive themselves as adults; and men were more likely to perceive themselves as non-adults. there were no significant differences among categories of perceived adult status as a function of father’s education and living arrangement. criteria for the transition to adulthood table 2 shows that the top ten criteria for adult status were: avoid drunk driving, use contraception if sexually active and not trying to conceive a child, avoid illegal drugs, avoid committing petty crimes like vandalism and shop lifting, drive safely and close to speed limit, if a woman become capable of caring for children, avoid becoming drunk, if a man become capable of supporting a family financially, settle into a long-term career, and if a man become capable of keeping a family physically safe. six criteria belong to norm compliance, three criteria to family capacities, and one criterion to financial independence. the five least endorsed criteria were: have at least one child, married, have obtained driver’s license and can drive an automobile, purchase house, and committed to long-term love relationship. they belong to family formation and age-related/biological transitions. the most prevalent categories of criteria were norm compliance and family capacities, followed by financial independence, age-related/biological transitions, biological parenthood, and family formation (see table 5). only norm compliance and family capacities had means larger than .50 (in a 0-1 scale); standard deviations were rather low (sd = .14-.38). transition to adulthood in greece 426 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 5 m ea ns a nd s ta nd ar d d ev ia tio ns o f a ll va ria bl es * fo r g en de r, a ge , l iv in g a rr an ge m en t, jo b e xp er ie nc e, p er ce iv ed a du lt s ta tu s, a nd th e to ta l s am pl e (n = 7 84 ) va ria bl es m en (n = 2 98 ) w om en (n = 4 86 ) 17 .5 -1 9. 9 ye ar s (n = 4 77 ) 20 -2 1. 9 ye ar s (n = 1 89 ) 22 -2 7. 5 ye ar s (n = 1 18 ) li vi ng w p (n = 4 37 ) li vi ng w o p (n = 3 42 ) n o jo b (n = 3 67 ) pa rt -ti m e jo b (n = 3 27 ) fu lltim e jo b (n = 9 0) n on -a du lts (n = 1 02 ) em er gi ng ad ul ts (n = 5 60 ) a du lts (n = 1 22 ) to ta l (n = 7 84 ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) m (s d ) fa m ily c ap ac iti es a .4 7 (.3 1) .5 6 (2 9) .5 3 (3 0) .5 5 (.3 1) .4 4 (.2 8) .5 2 (.3 0) .5 2 (.3 0) .5 3 (.3 1) .5 2 (.2 9) .4 7 (.3 0) .4 8 (.2 9) .5 3 (.3 0) .5 0 (.3 1) .5 2 (.3 0) n or m c om pl ia nc ea .6 0 (.2 6) .7 2 (.2 3) .7 1 (.2 3) .6 9 (.2 4) .5 2 (.2 6) .6 9 (.2 5) .6 8 (.2 4) .7 0 (.2 3) .6 6 (.2 5) .6 3 (.2 7) .6 5 (.2 6) .6 9 (.2 4) .6 5 (.2 6) .6 8 (.2 5) fi na nc ia l i nd ep en de nc ea .4 9 (.3 0) .4 2 (.2 8) .4 2 (.2 8) .4 6 (.2 9) .5 1 (.3 0) .4 4 (.2 8) .4 6 (.2 9) .4 3 (.2 9) .4 6 (.2 9) .4 6 (.2 6) .5 0 (.2 9) .4 5 (.2 8) .3 8 (.2 8) .4 5 (.2 9) fa m ily fo rm at io na .1 2 (.2 2) .0 6 (.1 4) .0 7 (.1 5) .0 8 (.1 9) .1 4 (2 3) .0 8 (.1 8) .0 8 (.1 8) .0 8 (.1 8) .0 9 (.1 8) .0 8 (.1 8) .0 9 (.1 7) .0 7 (.1 6) .1 2 (.2 3) .0 8 (.1 8) b io lo gi ca l p ar en th oo da .1 6 (.3 4) .1 9 (.3 8) .1 8 (.3 8) .1 4 (.3 4) .2 1 (.3 6) .1 8 (.3 7) .1 8 (.3 7) .1 8 (.3 7) .1 7 (.3 6) .2 1 (.3 9) .1 5 (.3 2) .1 8 (.3 7) .2 0 (.3 7) .1 8 (.3 7) a ge -r el at ed / b io lo gi ca l t ra ns iti on sa .3 6 (.2 3) .3 9 (.2 2) .3 8 (.2 2) .3 8 (.2 4) .3 8 (.2 1) .3 7 (.2 3) .3 9 (.2 2) .4 0 (.2 2) .3 5 (.2 3) .3 9 (.2 2) .3 6 (.2 4) .3 8 (.2 3) .3 8 (2 1) .3 8 (.2 3) id en tit y ex pl or at io nb 3. 18 (0 .5 8) 3. 33 (0 .4 8) 3. 33 (0 .4 9) 3. 31 (0 .4 7) 2. 99 (0 .6 4) 3. 25 (0 .5 4) 3. 30 (0 .5 1) 3. 32 (0 .4 7) 3. 30 (0 .5 2) 2. 99 (0 .6 6) 3. 26 (0 .5 2) 3. 31 (0 .5 1) 3. 11 (0 .5 7) 3. 27 (0 .5 3) n eg at iv ity / i ns ta bi lit yb 2. 48 (0 .6 2) 2. 68 (0 .6 6) 2. 67 (0 .6 7) 2. 54 (0 .6 1) 2. 41 (0 .6 0) 2. 62 (0 .6 8) 2. 58 (0 .6 2) 2. 65 (0 .6 6) 2. 55 (0 .6 3) 2. 60 (0 .7 1) 2. 52 (0 .6 9) 2. 60 (0 .6 4) 2. 66 (0 .6 9) 2. 60 (0 .6 5) s el f-f oc us b 3. 08 (0 .5 1) 3. 11 (0 .4 4) 3. 14 (0 .4 5) 3. 14 (0 .4 7) 2. 90 (0 .5 1) 2. 97 (0 .4 6) 3. 26 (0 .4 3) 3. 16 (0 .4 6) 3. 06 (0 .4 6) 3. 03 (0 .5 2) 3. 01 (0 .4 4) 3. 11 (0 .4 7) 3. 15 (0 .5 1) 3. 10 (0 .4 7) e xp er im en ta tio n/ po ss ib ili tie sb 3. 19 (0 .5 8) 3. 33 (0 .4 7) 3. 32 (0 .4 7) 3. 25 (0 .5 1) 3. 14 (0 .6 8) 3. 20 (0 .5 5) 3. 37 (0 .4 7) 3. 28 (0 .5 0) 3. 31 (0 .5 4) 3. 11 (0 .5 4) 3. 33 (0 .4 9) 3. 29 (0 .5 1) 3. 17 (0 .5 9) 3. 27 (0 .5 2) fe el in g “in -b et w ee n” b 2. 91 (0 .7 2) 3. 29 (0 .6 9) 3. 27 (0 .6 5) 3. 13 (0 .7 4) 2. 64 (0 .7 7) 3. 12 (0 .7 5) 3. 17 (0 .6 9) 3. 26 (0 .6 5) 3. 12 (0 .7 0) 2. 75 (0 .9 4) 3. 23 (0 .7 2) 3. 25 (0 .6 3) 2. 56 (0 .8 6) 3. 14 (0 .7 3) o th er -fo cu sb 2. 56 (0 .6 0) 2. 56 (0 .6 0) 2. 55 (0 .6 0) 2. 66 (0 .5 9) 2. 56 (0 .6 0) 2. 59 (0 .5 8) 2. 53 (0 .6 1) 2. 57 (0 .5 7) 2. 58 (0 .6 2) 2. 46 (0 .6 2) 2. 39 (0 .5 6) 2. 60 (0 .6 0) 2. 54 (0 .6 0) 2. 56 (0 .6 0) n ot e. * e xc ep t f at he r’s e du ca tio n, fo r w hi ch n o st at is tic al ly s ig ni fic an t d iff er en ce s w er e fo un d. a 0 -1 ; b 1 -4 ; w p = w ith p ar en ts ; w o p = w ith ou t p ar en ts . galanaki & leontopoulou 427 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criteria for the transition to adulthood: differences among subgroups a series of multivariate analyses of variance and covariance were conducted to test for differences in the criteria for the transition to adulthood as a function of gender, age, father’s education, living arrangement, job experience, and perceived adult status. a multivariate analysis of variance with bonferroni corrections was conducted to test for gender and age differences in the criteria for the transition to adulthood. a significant multivariate effect was found only for gender, wilks’ lambda = .95, f(6, 747) = 6.70, p < .001, partial η2 = .05. follow-up univariate tests showed significant gender differences in family capacities, f(1, 752) = 6.94, p = .009, partial η2 = .01, norm compliance, f(1, 752) = 20.10, p < .001, partial η2 = .03, financial independence, f(1, 752) = 4.06, p = .044, partial η2 = .01, and family formation, f(1, 752) = 9.92, p = .002, partial η2 = .01. women had significantly higher scores on family capacities and norm compliance, whereas men had significantly higher scores on financial independence and family formation. although the multivariate effect for age was not significant, follow-up univariate tests showed significant age differences in norm compliance, f(2, 752) = 4.38, p = .013, partial η2 = .01. post hoc comparisons (lsd) indicated that the older age group (22-27.5 years) had significantly lower scores on norm compliance than the younger age group (17.5-19.9 years) (see table 5). no significant gender x age interaction emerged. a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted with bonferroni corrections to test for perceived adult status differences in the criteria for the transition to adulthood, and with gender and age as covariates. α significant multivariate effect was found, wilks’ lambda = .97, f(12, 1496) = 2.11, p = .014, partial η2 = .02. follow-up univariate tests showed significant differences only in financial independence, f(2, 753) = 6.88, p = .001, partial η2 = .02. post hoc comparisons (lsd) indicated that self-perceived adults had significantly lower scores on financial independence than self-perceived non-adults and emerging adults (see table 5). multivariate analyses of covariance for father’s education, living arrangement, and job experience yielded no statistically significant results. developmental features of emerging adulthood table 3 shows that the five most prominent developmental features of emerging adulthood were: taking responsibility for yourself (self-focus), planning for the future and defining yourself (identity exploration), and exploration and many possibilities (exploration/possibilities). these characteristics were accepted as central features (agree and strongly agree combined) by at least 90% of youths. on the contrary, the five attributes which youths considered less characteristic of their lives were: confusion and feeling stressed out (negativity/ instability), self-sufficiency (self-focus), responsibility for others and commitments to others (other-focus). they were endorsed by about 50% of participants or less. the most prevalent categories of developmental features were identity exploration and experimentation/possibilities, followed by feeling “in-between”, self-focus, negativity/instability, and other-focus (see table 5). there was a high agreement among participants with most developmental features (m = 2.56-3.27 in a 1-4 scale) and rather low standard deviations (sd = 0.21-0.75). transition to adulthood in greece 428 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ developmental features of emerging adulthood: differences among subgroups a series of multivariate analyses of variance and covariance were conducted to test for differences in the developmental features of emerging adulthood as a function of gender, age, father’s education, living arrangement, job experience, and perceived adult status. a multivariate analysis of variance with bonferroni corrections was conducted to test for gender and age differences in the developmental features of emerging adulthood. a significant multivariate effect was found only for age, wilks’ lambda = .93, f(12, 1460) = 4.19, p < .001, partial η2 = .03. follow-up univariate tests showed significant age differences in identity exploration, f(2, 735) = 9.11, p < .001, partial η2 = .02, experimentation/possibilities, f(2, 735) = 3.12, p = .045, partial η2 = .01, and feeling “in-between”, f(2, 735) = 14.14, p < .001, partial η2 = .04. post hoc comparisons (lsd) indicated that the older age group (22-27.5 years) had significantly lower scores on identity exploration and feeling “in-between” than the two younger age groups (17.5-19.9 and 20-21.9 years); for experimentation/possibilities no statistically significant comparisons were found, although there was a decreasing trend with age (see table 5). furthermore, although the multivariate effect for gender was not significant, there was a significant univariate effect on feeling “in-between”, f(1, 735) = 5.37, p = .021, partial η2 = .01. women had significantly higher scores on feeling “in-between” than men (see table 5). no significant gender x age interaction emerged. next, a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted with bonferroni corrections to test for living arrangement differences in the developmental features of emerging adulthood, and with gender and age as covariates. a significant multivariate effect was found, wilks’ lambda = .88, f(6, 727) = 16.19, p < .001, partial η2 = .12. follow-up univariate tests showed significant differences as a function of living arrangement in selffocus, f(1, 732) = 75.62, p < .001, partial η2 = .09, and experimentation/possibilities, f(1, 732) = 18.36, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. young people who lived without their parents had significantly higher scores on selffocus and experimentation/possibilities than those living with their parents (see table 5). to test for job experience differences in the developmental features of emerging adulthood, a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted with bonferroni corrections and with gender and age as covariates. α significant multivariate effect was found, wilks’ lambda = .95, f(12, 1462) = 2.94, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. follow-up univariate tests showed significant differences as a function of job experience in identity exploration, f(2, 736) = 9.22, p < .001, partial η2 = .02, experimentation/possibilities, f(2, 736) = 3.64, p = .027, η2 = .01, and feeling “in-between”, f(2, 736) = 7.52, p = .001, partial η2 = .02. post hoc comparisons (lsd) indicated that students with full-time job experience had significantly lower scores on identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities, and feeling “in-between” than students with no job or part-time job experience (see table 5). a multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted with bonferroni corrections to test for perceived adult status differences in the developmental features of emerging adulthood, and with gender and age as covariates. α significant multivariate effect was found, wilks’ lambda = .87, f(12, 1462) = 8.60, p < .001, partial η2 = .07. follow-up univariate tests showed significant differences as a function of perceived adult status for self-focus, f(2, 736) = 4.08, p = .017, partial η2 = .01, feeling “in-between”, f(2, 736) = 38.54, p < .001, partial η2 = .10, and other-focus, f(2, 736) = 4.96, p = .007, partial η2 = .01. post hoc comparisons (lsd) indicated that self-perceived adults had significantly higher scores on self-focus than self-perceived non-adults; selfperceived adults had lower scores on feeling “in-between” than self-perceived non-adults and emerging adults; galanaki & leontopoulou 429 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and self-perceived adults and emerging adults had higher scores on other-focus than self-perceived non-adults (see table 5). multivariate analyses of covariance for father’s education yielded no statistically significant results. views of the future for the question assessing views of overall quality of life in the future, 66.9% of participants responded “better”, 25.8% “about the same”, and 7.3% “worse” than that of their parents. for the question on financial well-being, 39.5% responded “better”, 47.7% “about the same”, and 12.8% “worse”. for the question on career achievements, 61.2% responded “better”, 27.8% “about the same”, and 11.0% “worse”. finally, for the question on personal relationships, 40.2% responded “better”, 48.7% “about the same”, and 11.1% “worse”. discussion the purpose of this study was to examine how greek university students conceptualized criteria for the transition to adulthood and developmental features of emerging adulthood, as well as possible effects of sociodemographic variables and perceived adult status. optimism for the future was also examined, in an attempt to better understand the transition to adulthood as is currently experienced by studying youth in greece. perceived adult status more than two thirds (71.4%) of young people in greece exhibited ambivalence as to their perceived adult status. they felt that they were on the way to adulthood but not there yet (similar results in petrogiannis, 2011), a finding possibly due to the sociodemographic shifts which have taken place in greece in recent decades (briefly presented in the introduction). the proportion found for emerging adulthood in this study is as high as the proportion in the usa (arnett, 2001; badger et al., 2006; nelson & barry, 2005) and higher than that found in other countries (e.g., denmark, israel, argentina, czech republic, china) or subcultures (e.g., ethnic minorities) (arnett, 2003; arnett & padilla-walker, 2015; badger et al., 2006; cheah & nelson, 2004; facio & micocci, 2003; macek et al., 2007; mayseless & scharf, 2003; nelson et al., 2004, 2012). it appears, then, that the essential developmental feature of emerging adulthood – feeling between adolescence and adulthood – is present in the specific sample of greek young people. larger proportions of women define themselves as emerging adults than men, a finding attributed to strong gender stereotypes still existing in greece (e.g., compared to women, men are allowed more freedom from parents, are expected to mature earlier and exhibit more independence). this gender difference is consistent with previous research in greece (petrogiannis, 2011) and other cultures (doğan et al., 2015; seiter & nelson, 2011). moreover, the emerging adult status was more prevalent among those students with no job or part-time job experience, whereas the adult status was more frequent among those with full-time job experience, a finding similar to that in other countries (doğan et al., 2015; macek et al., 2007). transition to adulthood in greece 430 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ criteria for the transition to adulthood the results of this study show that transition to adulthood is perceived by young people in a complex way. some items from independence and interdependence categories were removed from arnett’s measure because of low loadings, and a different factor structure emerged from the greek data. the three most prevalent categories of criteria were norm compliance, family capacities, and financial independence. contrary to the findings in western cultures (arnett, 2001, 2003; arnett & padilla-walker, 2015; mayseless & scharf, 2003; sirsch et al., 2009; wängqvist & frisén, 2015), where individualistic criteria were frequently endorsed, in greece there is an emphasis on more collectivistic markers of adulthood. more specifically, there is a mixture of individualistic and communal criteria, somewhat similar but not identical to that found in southern europe (crocetti & tagliabue, 2015; piumatti et al., 2016), eastern europe (nelson, 2009; vosylis et al., 2015), turkey (doğan et al., 2015), and argentina (facio & micocci, 2003), and dissimilar to the findings of the other greek study (petrogiannis, 2011), in which criteria denoting independence were frequently endorsed by university students (although in the latter study no factor analyses were conducted). in the present study, one of the new factors – financial independence – may be considered as the individualistic facet of the transition to adulthood in greece. it is a very interesting, possibly culturallydetermined, finding, which reflects greek young people’s conception of adulthood as a condition stemming from the following accomplishments: finishing education, finding full-time employment, and settling into a longterm career, therefore acquiring financial independence from parents and becoming able to live on one’s own. it was also expressed less frequently from self-perceived adults than all other participants, perhaps because the former felt close to their achievement. this cluster of criteria is a long-standing view of adulthood in greece and is still evident in the context of severe economic adversity and high youth unemployment rates. nevertheless, no longer living with parents, which belongs to this factor, was deemed important by less than one third of young people. this finding, in combination with the low loadings of the excluded criteria denoting independent decision making, establishing equality with parents, and lessening emotional ties with them, indicate that connectedness to parents is typical of youth in greece (cf. georgas, berry, van de vijver, κ ağitçibaşi, & poortinga, 2006). it is also consistent with the quite high endorsement of family capacities criteria. more specifically, about two thirds of young people regarded the capabilities to care for children, support the family financially and keep it safe as important indicators of adulthood (similar findings in petrogiannis, 2011). thus, in greece, performing one’s duties towards others while managing to stand on one’s own feet are the main elements of adult status. besides, compliance to social norms presupposes a degree of self-control, which is typical of young people that have achieved adequate personal autonomy and is also indicative of “psychological adulthood” (côté, 2000). the most frequent norm compliance indicators were “not driving while drunk”, “not having sexual intercourse without protection”, and “not using illegal drugs”. they were deemed necessary for adulthood by more than 80% of the participants and their importance declined with age. about two thirds of participants considered avoiding petty crimes, driving safely, and avoiding drunkenness as important markers. however, avoiding profanity and not having more than one sexual partner were endorsed by only one third of participants. young people seem to regard as the most typical adult-like behavior all kinds of reckless behavior that do not have negative consequences on others (e.g., avoidance of drunk driving), or on self (e.g., avoidance of illegal drugs), and not behaviors that are indicative of a specific life-style (e.g., number of sexual partners) (see arnett, 1994, galanaki & leontopoulou 431 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for similar findings and explanations). avoiding reckless behavior has long been regarded as a crucial sign of adult status (arnett & taber, 1994). non compliance to social norms is a rather frequent phenomenon in greece and a matter of general concern due to the adverse consequences to fellow citizens (e.g., high frequency of automobile accidents). similarly, norm compliance was ranked high in argentina (facio & micocci, 2003), a fact attributed by the investigators to the very frequent violation of these norms in their country. age-related/biological transitions, as well as specific criteria denoting transitions and belonging to family formation (e.g., married, have at least one child), were considered necessary for adulthood by rather small percentages of participants. we should note here that less than 1% of them were married or had a child, and that marriage and parenthood are postponed until early thirties in greece. the majority of external markers of adulthood according to biology, anthropology, sociology, and law were not as important as the internal markers that have a moral quality and cannot be easily assessed. this finding is consistent with other research findings in greece (petrogiannis, 2011) and across countries (arnett, 2001, 2003; badger et al., 2006; cheah & nelson, 2004; facio & micocci, 2003; macek et al., 2007; mayseless & scharf, 2003; nelson & barry, 2005; nelson et al., 2004; piumatti et al., 2016). systematic gender differences in the criteria for the transition to adulthood emerged. consistent with previous research in other countries (arnett, 2001; arnett & padilla-walker, 2015; badger et al., 2006; cheah & nelson, 2004; cheah et al., 2010; doğan et al., 2015; donoghue & stein, 2007; facio & micocci, 2003; mayseless & scharf, 2003; nelson, 2009; piumatti et al., 2016; seiter & nelson, 2011; sirsch et al., 2009), women endorsed family capacities and norm compliance criteria more frequently than men. in contrast, men rated financial independence and family formation criteria as more important for adult status than women. these findings reflect gender socialization processes. traditionally in greece, women are socialized to place much importance on family and on the opinion of others, whereas men are reared to be independent and autonomous. men are expected to have full-time employment because they are still considered as the primary breadwinners of the family. consequently, according to their views, what enables young men to mature is sexual intercourse, marriage, and parenthood (thus, the high importance assigned to a long-term love relationship). developmental features of emerging adulthood the developmental features of emerging adulthood were highly prevalent in university students’ lives, according to their own views, thus providing support for arnett’s formulation. emerging adulthood appeared to be a time of identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities, feeling “in-between”, self-focus, negativity/ instability, and other-focus. the high scores of identity exploration and experimentation/possibilities, compared to the other developmental features, are characteristic of most student populations studied in greece (leontopoulou et al., 2016) and several contexts (atak & çok, 2008; lisha et al., 2014; negru, 2012; sirsch et al., 2009), and are usually higher than in other groups, for example working youth (crocetti et al., 2015; doğan et al., 2015; seiffge-krenke, 2015). the slight deviations of the greek version of idea from the original factorial structure may be culturally determined. these deviations appeared mainly in the structure of self-focus: “time of focusing on oneself” was excluded due to its low factor loading, “time of separating from parents” loaded on self-focus and not on identity exploration, and part of the self-focus structure was a feeling of personal restriction (i.e., “time of feeling restricted”). it seems that, in greece, self-focus takes a meaning of personal freedom and independence in the transition to adulthood in greece 432 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ context of the relationships with parents, and less of self-focus per se, and may also entail negative feelings as young people struggle to find their own place in the world. these findings may reflect the dual emphasis on collectivistic and individualistic values, characteristic of the greek culture (georgas et al., 2006). this mixed picture also emerged for optimism, which co-existed with the sense of instability, a finding supporting the complex nature of young people’s experience on the way to adulthood and possibly the fact that instability, as a typical feature of emerging adulthood, is not always a pathological state (for a similar explanation see arnett, 2007). whereas in other studies in greece (leontopoulou et al., 2016) and other contexts (atak & çok, 2008; lisha et al., 2014) feeling “in-between” did not emerge as a separate dimension or was not highly prevalent (hill, lalji, van rossum, van der geest, & blokland, 2015), in this study it was a distinct and prevalent feature, a finding that supports the main element in the definition of emerging adulthood. negativity/instability, although present, did not appear to be a prominent feature in university students’ lives (see hill et al., 2015 for a similar finding). among the least typical characteristics were confusion and feeling stressed-out, whereas the item on optimism was endorsed by 78% of participants. identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities and feeling “in-between” were found to decline with age, as expected (for similar findings see crocetti et al., 2015). consistently, feeling “in-between” was least characteristic of self-perceived adults, compared to self-perceived non-adults and emerging adults, whereas self-focus was most characteristic of self-perceived adults, and other-focus of self-perceived adults and emerging adults. in accordance with the findings discussed earlier, the dual emphasis on self and on others emerged as a typical feature of self-perceived adulthood. as for gender differences, feeling “in-between” was more prevalent in women, a finding consistent with previous research in greece (leontopoulou et al., 2016) and other countries (crocetti et al., 2015; doğan et al., 2015). no other gender difference was found for the developmental features of emerging adulthood. this is in contrast to other studies, where women scored higher than men on more developmental features (crocetti et al., 2015; negru, 2012; reifman et al., 2007; sirsch et al., 2009). the gender difference on feeling “inbetween” is congruent with the significantly larger number of self-perceived emerging adults among women than among men. in greece, women typically experience greater dependency from parents and less freedom compared to men, and this may reinforce women’s ambivalence toward adulthood. self-focus and experimentation/possibilities were more prominent features for university students living without their parents compared to those living with parents, which is a rather expected and easily explained finding (kins & beyers, 2010). interestingly, identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities and feeling “in-between” were less prominent in full-time working youth compared to youth with no or part-time work experience, a finding somewhat similar to that found in italy and japan (crocetti et al., 2015) (there was no significant difference between the two types of living arrangement as a function of job experience). furthermore, feeling “in-between”, both as a dimension of the idea and as a category of perceived adult status (i.e., emerging adult), was a typical feature of students with no job or part-time job experience, and self-perception as adult was more likely for students with full-time job experience – an expected finding too, similar to that of other studies which compared working to non-working youth (e.g., doğan et al., 2015; macek et al., 2007; seiffgekrenke, 2015). it is important to note, though, that in the present study the percentage of young people with part-time and full-time job experience combined is higher than 50%, making the sharp distinction between nongalanaki & leontopoulou 433 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ working and working youth, or between students and workers, rather artificial – at least as the sample of this study is concerned. however, we must note that there were no significant differences as a function of father’s education and that many statistically significant differences had a rather small effect size. all these findings suggest that developmental features of emerging adulthood are common among greek university students, independent of the subgroup they belong to. age of optimism there was a cautious optimism about the future among greek university students. the most optimistic predictions were made for overall quality of life and career achievements, whereas less optimism was expressed about financial well-being and personal relationships. the percentages of optimism found in this study were lower than the ones found in other cultures with the same measure (arnett, 2000b; nelson, 2009; nelson et al., 2004; seiter & nelson, 2011). this may be explained by the fact that, at the time of data collection, these young people had already experienced the beginning of the severe financial crisis. these findings, in combination with the large percentage of young people feeling on the way to adulthood but not there yet, and the large percentages considering this period of life as a time of optimism, personal freedom, and open choices as well as a time of restriction, implies that emerging adulthood in greece is experienced in an intense, heterogeneous, and even ambivalent way. moreover, the findings provide support for the existence among young people in greece of a kind of resilient optimism (arnett, 2012) in the face of socioeconomic adversity. limitations and suggestions for future research the most notable limitation of this study is the generalizability to other youth populations. the sample, although large and representative of many university departments, was only from athens, the capital of greece. there was also an absence of more detailed data on ses and financial constraints of young people and their families, in light of the severe recession in greece. moreover, achieved criteria for adulthood were not assessed. therefore, a next step in this research field in greece is to study various subgroups of young people, from different areas of the country and with different educational and job statuses. the role of contextual variables related to the financial crisis, such as unemployement, underemployment, and underpaid jobs, should be examined both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. also, person-centered approaches (e.g., tagliabue et al., 2016) may identify clusters or profiles of youth with different conceptions and experiences of the transition to adulthood, by assessing important variables, such as types of identity status or dimensions of identity development, with more detail than in the present research. τhe interplay of several economic and educational factors may lead to diverse paths to adulthood, at least as far as the felt experience of emerging adulthood, conceptions of what it means to be an adult, and identity outcomes are concerned. special attention should be paid to greek young people who are not in education, employment or training (neet), a subgroup of youth on which little research has been conducted in this country. and, finally, in light of the finding supporting a kind of resilient optimism among young people in greece, it is useful to examine factors positively influencing young people’s optimistic views about their future despite poor economic conditions, an objective that belongs to a promising field of research, that of the positive emerging adult development (arnett, 2015). transition to adulthood in greece 434 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions despite these limitations, this study provides clear evidence for the existence of emerging adulthood with its specific developmental features and for the prolonged transition to adulthood in greece, as far as university students are concerned. family capacities, norm compliance, and financial independence were the major markers of adulthood, indicating a mixture of collectivistic and individualistic views of the transition. identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities, and feeling “in-between” were the most important perceived developmental features of emerging adulthood, and a very high percentage of young people (higher than in many other cultures) felt between adolescence and adulthood. these findings portray a picture of prolonged moratorium (erikson, 1968) of greek studying youth, perhaps a forced delay of coming of age (côté, 2014), possibly explained, at least in part, by existing socio-economic conditions. systematic gender differences in the conceptions and experiences of emerging adulthood were found, as well as age differences. interesting significant variations among subgroups also emerged, highlighting important facets of the links between specific contextual factors (i.e., living arrangement, job experience) and transition to adulthood. finally, on their way to adulthood, university students in greece were cautiously optimistic about their future. implications for policy and practice the findings of the present study provide useful information for educators, therapists, and policy makers addressing this population both in greece and in the european context. more specifically, tertiary education in greece is characterized by restricted mobility opportunities for students (e.g., change of subject of study), which is dissimilar with the educational system of other countries (e.g., usa; arnett, 2016). this is in sharp contrast to the findings of the present investigation showing that a high percentage of studying youth felt between adolescence and adulthood, and that identity exploration, experimentation/possibilities, and self-focus were highly prevalent in their lives. thus, the structure of tertiary education in greece needs to become more flexible and developmentally appropriate, while at the same time providing a solid structure which is highly needed during a less structured and less stable life period compared to adolescence. moreover, the findings of the present study support a high degree of ambivalence on the way to adulthood: a large number of self-perceived emerging adults emerged; young people expressed both optimism and instability; whereas many of them endorsed financial independence as a criterion of maturity, they assigned rather little importance to living without parents; and, finally, young people valued both individualistic and collectivistic markers of adulthood. this intersection of positive development and mental health problems (o’connor et al., 2016) should be taken into account by counselors and therapists when they attempt to promote positive development among youth and to provide mental health services to this population, in a cultural context where family ties seem to remain strong and supportive but may also become a source of stress and strain due to economic adversity. funding this work was supported by a research grant (no. 13291) to the first author from the department of primary education, school of education, national and kapodistrian university of athens, athens, greece. galanaki & leontopoulou 435 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank eirini amanaki, phd for her assistance in data collection and data entry. references arnett, j. j. 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(2015) (ed.). emerging adulthood in a european context. london, united kingdom: routledge. galanaki & leontopoulou 439 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 http://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1078 http://doi.org/10.5195/jyd.2007.359 http://doi.org/10.1177/0743558410391262 http://doi.org/10.1177/0743558408331184 http://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2015.1074985 http://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515133 http://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors evangelia galanaki: professor of developmental psychology. fields of interest: development during emerging adulthood, transition to adulthood, solitude and loneliness in children, school adjustment, student-teacher relationships, imaginary audience and personal fable in adolescents. sophie leontopoulou: assistant professor of psychology. fields of interest: positive psychosocial development in childhood, adolescence and emerging adulthood, resilience, well-being, positive emotions, positive psychology interventions. transition to adulthood in greece 440 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 417–440 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1327 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ transition to adulthood in greece (introduction) feeling “in-between” criteria for the transition to adulthood developmental features of emerging adulthood age of optimism current study method participants measures procedure results perceived adult status criteria for the transition to adulthood criteria for the transition to adulthood: differences among subgroups developmental features of emerging adulthood developmental features of emerging adulthood: differences among subgroups views of the future discussion perceived adult status criteria for the transition to adulthood developmental features of emerging adulthood age of optimism limitations and suggestions for future research conclusions implications for policy and practice (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors employability and job insecurity: the role of personal resources on work-related stress research reports employability and job insecurity: the role of personal resources on workrelated stress tiziana ramaci 1, palmira faraci 1, giuseppe santisi 2, giusy danila valenti 1 [1] faculty of human and social sciences, university of enna “kore”, enna, italy. [2] department of educational sciences, university of catania, catania, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 received: 2019-02-01 • accepted: 2020-07-08 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia corresponding author: palmira faraci, cittadella universitaria, viale delle olimpiadi, 94100 enna, italy. e-mail: palmira.faraci@unikore.it abstract this study is aimed to assess the effect of both employability and personal resources, in terms of pro-activity and self-efficacy, on the relationship between job insecurity and psycho-social distress. using survey data from 211 participants, among employed, unemployed and workers in transition, we analyzed the incidence of employability, pro-activity and self-efficacy on psycho-social distress. our results showed that the above-mentioned variables significantly differed by participants’ gender and age. the structural theoretical model proposed to assess the significance of the hypothesized paths exhibited good fit with the data. thus, all our hypotheses were supported. findings are in line with previous research, and practical implications may give significant effects when applied in new labor policies undertaken by local governments. keywords employability, psycho-social distress, personal resources, organizations nowadays’ sociopolitical and economic conditions seem more and more often characterized by multifarious and non­ uniform connotations, more discontinuous than in the past. work is not only a place where one’s identity can be set up or just one of the major social integration factors. it is also a source of personal wellness. consequently, it is needed that working conditions fulfill at least some basic requirements: a job has to be reasonably stable, well paid, interesting enough, safety and dignity are totally respected. in other words, a job should comply with requirements for dignity and meaning, for both employers and job seekers (blustein, 2011; massimiani, 2007, 2010) respecting the characteristics of quality. taking into account the european committee’s official guidelines (european commission [2001]), the idea of job quality is referred to a complex and multi-dimensional concept, since it considers not only the opportunities of paid jobs, but also their characteristics. according to massimiani (2010), these properties correspond to: 1) the objective characteristics of the workplace; 2) the worker’s specific characteristics; 3) the harmony between a worker’s specific characteristics and the requirements for the activity to be performed; 4) the level of personal satisfaction. in order to have a unitary analysis framework, the same european commission (2001) identified a number of job quality components, included in two macro-categories: 1) the characteristics of the workplace, regarding the intrinsic quality of the job (type of contract, work shifts, competence required), and life-long learning and career development processes; 2) the characteristics of workplace and labor market (gender equality, work health and safety, flexibility and inclusion, work-life balance, diversity and productivity). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1904&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship between job insecurity and psycho-social disturbances during job transitions or when people start working after a jobless period. specifically, the main goal was to verify how two personal resources—self-efficacy and pro-activity—together with one’s own perception of employability may mediate the relationship between one’s status of insecurity and situations of unease or illness. job flexibility, job insecurity and personal resources the concept of "precariousness" that we use is that which emerges clearly from the meaning attributed to it in some "economically advanced" countries (standing, 2011). regardless of the possible and different interpretations, the perception of job insecurity undoubtedly represents a clear risk factor for the health of individuals and their families, ending up as one of the main sources of different forms of psychological distress and discomfort (girardi et al., 2015). the extreme discretion of most jobs in the modern european market and the consequent flexibility of work are certainly the main reasons for job insecurity. autonomy, independence and new technologies have brought us towards a work individualization process and an increased sense of insecurity due to the consequent occurrence of profiles bound to have “boundaryless” careers; this gain even more importance in the case of atypical workers. the status of “job insecurity” lies in an extremely flexible context, between having a job activity and being jobless. its perception varies between the “subjective” and the “objective,” depending on the real risk of losing one’s job. the impact of this condition on health is remarkable and several authors argue that it can be more powerful than joblessness. the recessionary cycles that can periodically affect more or less developed geographic areas, or even global health crises such as the recent coronavirus disease (covid) pandemic, cause unexpected shocks on the employment systems to the point of requiring absolutely new and exceptional occupational recovery strategies, totally distant from the application of traditional tools for effective employability of workers (buffel, velde, & bracke, 2015; giorgi, arcangeli, mucci, & cupelli, 2015; mucci, giorgi, roncaioli, fiz perez, & arcangeli, 2016). precisely in relation to the covid crisis, based on preliminary estimates by the international labor organization (ilo), the economic and labor crisis caused by covid-19 could increase unemployment in the world by almost 25 million. the estimates indicate an increase in global unemployment from 5.3 to 24.7 million. this would add up to 188 million unemployed people in the world in 2019. as the ilo estimates that between 8.8 and 35 million more people will find themselves in conditions of working poverty worldwide, the same organization has outlined guidelines guides that aim to provide immediate responses to the "unemployment" emergency. of all, we limit ourselves to: a) strengthening of measures on health and safety at work; b) restructuring of the organization of work with smart working tools; c) wider access to health for all workers; d) strengthening the capacity and resilience of employers' and trade union organizations; e) strengthening of social dialogue, collective bargaining and industrial relations; f) strengthening of the governance (ilo, 2020; green, 2020; kazmi, hasan, talib, & sagar, 2020). regarding the above-mentioned aspects, most recent studies on employability (cai et al., 2015; kim, kim, & lee, 2015; lodi, zammitti, magnano, patrizi, & santisi, 2020; lo presti, pluviano, & briscoe, 2018) have shown that the most important set of personal resources needed to manage one’s unease deriving from job insecurity are mostly to be found in everyone’s psychological capital (psycap). this is both in its original structure and formulation (luthans, youssef, & avolio, 2007), and in the more recent attempts to reinforce the idea through new constructs, like emotional intelligence (di fabio & palazzeschi, 2016; magnano, santisi, & platania, 2017), risk intelligence and courage (magnano, paolillo, platania, & santisi, 2017). psycap can be described as the psychological state of an individual who is able to: 1) focus on his or her self-efficacy in order to be able to perform demanding tasks; 2) carry out positive assignments—optimism—on what is happening now and what could happen in the future; 3) persevere towards one's goals and, if necessary, redirect the paths towards the desired goals—hope—to achieve success; 4) get together and go further to achieve success—resilience—if affected by problems and adversity (luthans et al., 2007). although each of the four components of psycap is conceptually and empirically independent, research has shown that it has a common psychological substrate that actually binds them together (luthans & youssef, 2007) and which represents its added value, the latent dimension that holds all secondary dimensions together. individuals with higher levels of psycap have greater psychological resources and, in organizational contexts, enjoy greater advantages than ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 29 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ those with high levels of one or two dimensions. taken in its entirety, psycap offers a further contribution to predicting future performances with respect to its secondary dimensions considered separately (consiglio & la mura, 2015; luthans & youssef, 2007). moreover, psycap goes beyond the consolidated theories about the human capital (“what you know”), emphasizing the aspects of “who you are” and “what you are turning into” (avolio & luthans, 2006; luthans & avolio, 2004). also, for this reason, the psycap multidimensional and dynamic construct is complemented by specific motivational configurations and behavior styles, expression of an individual’s subjective potentiality, that is a personal and valuable endowment linked to adaptive decisional strategies to overcome obstacles and achieve the goals set. for the purpose of this survey and its operative design the authors have used only one of the constructs constituting the psychological capital, that is the perception of self-efficacy. in accordance with the theoretical pattern proposed by luthans and youssef (2004), the first psycap sub-dimension is self-efficacy, directly derived from albert bandura’s socio-cognitive theory (bandura, 1986). it is described as the “belief of having the ability to organize and carry out action sequences required to produce certain results which have an impact on the subject’s commitment, the choice of the objectives and the performance” (luthans & youseff, 2004, p. 153). generally, self-effective people choose more difficult tasks and more stimulating objectives because they know they are able to succeed; their motivation increases in complex situations and their perseverance enhances in front of obstacles. researchers have also showed that self-efficacy is accompanied by a greater spirit of initiative, higher levels of determination and motivation (bandura, 1997; bandura & locke, 2003), higher job satisfaction and perceived wellness, lesser turnover and, obviously, better job performances (avey, luthans, & jensen, 2009; hodges, 2010; luthans et al., 2007; platania, santisi, magnano, & ramaci, 2015). employability it is now clear that job insecurity conditions can be effectively (as a process) and positively (in terms of results) moderated and managed only by the workers’ objective skills, expressed according to their possibility to “re-employ themselves” in the current chaotic labor market. in other words, we need to try to understand which employability thresholds an individual can express to pursue the objective of a “dignified job” and properly face the psycho-physical impact of his/her job insecurity condition. some of the examined aspects are represented by alternatives to linear and hierarchical career patterns (arthur & rousseau, 1996; pieperl & baruch, 1997), as well as changing psychological contracts (herriot & pemberton, 1996; rousseau, 1995, 2001; sparrow, 1996). most researchers focused on management matters such as the negative impact these trends may have on people’s attitude at work and on their affection towards their work company. some authors (baruch, 1998) argue that the traditional organization affection is to be wished for employees and a more individual work and career pattern is to be promoted, underlining the aspects which go beyond the organization, like the no-limit career (arthur, 1994; bird, 1994). changing from stable and long term into shorter, flexible and unsteady work relationships (hiltrop, 1995), employ­ able individuals generally seek places which can offer them career opportunities and possibilities of improving their know-how and skills (baruch, 2001; kluytmans & ott, 1999). some authors (berntson, näswall, & sverke, 2010) believe that those who think of themselves as “employable” perceive themselves as if they had more opportunities in the labor market, and they will likely depart from the organization more rapidly than those who “do not feel employable.” due to its contradictory and confused nature, the idea of employability has often been doubted upon. among the various critical approaches, though all dating back to the last two decades (pascale, 1995; rajan, van eupen, chappe, & lane, 2000) sanders and de grip’s (sanders & de grip, 2004) can probably be considered as the most realistic, especially because they maintain that the meaning of employability has changed over the last 30 years, depending on the labor market conditions and policies of the time at play. rothwell and arnold (2007) consider employability as a psycho-social construct (fugate, kinicki, & ashforth, 2004) and define it as the ability to maintain the current job or to get the wished one; as such, it comprises: 1) individual characteristics, like knowledge and skills (hillage & pollard, 1998), learning abilities (bagshaw, 1996; lane, puri, cleverly, employability and job insecurity 30 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wylie, & rajan, 2000), mastering in managing one’s own career and in job searching (hillage & pollard, 1998), resilience (iles, 1997; rajan, 1997; rajan et al., 2000), and self-efficacy; 2) intra-organizational factors, regarding the present and fu­ ture conditions of domestic labor markets; 3) external factors, such as the foreign labor market conditions (kirschenbaum & mano-negrin, 1999; lane et al., 2000), which include those factors linked to job demands (mallough & kleiner, 2001). in their pattern, rothwell and arnold (2007) systematically show the major dimensions’ employability derives from, identifying two hypothetical lines whose ends are the foreign and domestic labor markets and the individual and work resources. the combination of these two dimensions originates four frameworks expressing the subject’s employability conditions (cfr. figure 1): frame “a” represents the individuals’ evaluation of their own usefulness inside their work organization; frame “b” reflects the way the organization appreciates its manpower or professional team in the domestic labor market; frame “c” relates to the individual self-perception of one’s own job (mainly based on their personal competencies compared to their job characteristics) in the foreign labor market; frame “d”, finally, refers to how the foreign labor market is assessed and perceived by those with the individual’s personal experiences. these changes from job to job can also change along the way (magnano, santisi, zammitti, zarbo, & di nuovo, 2019). figure 1 graphic chart of employability conditions (rothwell & arnold, 2007) aims and hypotheses on the basis of the foregoing premises, job security and employability thus appear as the two constructs better able to interpret the tax flexibility requirements from the labor market. it is necessary to associate a series of potentially suitable individual resources with these two concepts for predicting the possible health consequences of a job flexibility condition. the study research design presented below investigates the relationship between job insecurity and psychological distress. specifically, we aim to analyze the relationship between job insecurity, employability, two individual resources (i.e., pro-activity and self-efficacy) and psychological distress. according to the theoretical model presented in figure 2, the following hypotheses are proposed: ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 31 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 proposed theoretical model • we expected job insecurity to positively affect employability (h1), and to negatively affect proactiveness (h2) and selfefficacy (h3); • we expected employability to positively affect proactiveness (h4), and self-efficacy to negatively affect proactiveness (h5) (considering that high scores in self-efficacy indicate low self-efficacy); • we expected employability to negatively affect self-efficacy (h6) and to positively affect psychosocial distress (h7) (considering that high scores in self-efficacy indicate low self-efficacy and high scores in psychological distress indicate high psychological discomfort); • we expected proactiveness to positively affect psychosocial distress (h8) and self-efficacy to positively affect psychosocial distress (h9) (considering that high scores in psychological distress indicate high psychological discomfort and high scores in self-efficacy indicate low self-efficacy). method participants and procedure two-hundred and twenty-two jobless, employed and currently unemployed participants, living in sicily (south italy), were examined by qualified researchers. participants were invited to adhere on a voluntary basis, and they were informed about the aims of the study. all participants were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire, which was administered to 211 workers (95% response rate). they were also asked to indicate their gender and age, their education level, and their current and past job position. sample characteristics are displayed in table 1. employability and job insecurity 32 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sample characteristics (n = 211) variable results n % gender male 121 57.3 female 90 42.7 age < 30 39 18.9 30–39 75 36.4 40–50 42 20.4 > 50 50 24.3 schooling primary school 11 5.2 secondary school 38 18.0 high school 130 61.6 graduate 32 15.2 work condition jobless 101 47.9 employed 88 41.7 currently unemployed 22 10.4 job position in progress or in the past manager 14 6.7 employee 71 33.6 workman 67 31.7 consultant 34 16.2 unresponsive 25 11.8 measures this study was conducted using a set of questionnaires. the instruments used were the following: the job insecurity scale (jis) the jis (sverke et al., 2004, italian version) was used to evaluate the perception of insecurity. it is composed of a five-item scale. the response scale was on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). high scores indicate high job security. cronbach’s alpha was .85. the employability perceived scale (eps) the eps (lo presti & nonnis, 2008) was used to assess the individual perception about the probability of getting a new job. the tool is based on a five-item scale to which one responds on a 5-point likert scale (1 = no probability; 5 = 100% probability). cronbach’s alpha was .90. the career transitions inventory (cti) for proactivity (proact) and self-efficacy (se) the proact and the se were measured using two cti subscales (heppner, multon, & johnston, 1994; lo presti, 2008). these multidimensional scales were administered to evaluate the perception of psychological resources in career transition workers. the proact was assessed by 13 items to which one responds on a 6-point likert scale. cronbach’s alpha was .85. the se is a tool based on 10 items evaluating on a 6-point likert scale the degree of perceived ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 33 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-efficacy in successfully completing a change in one’s work. high scores indicate low self-efficacy. cronbach’s alpha was .68. the general health questionnaire (ghq-12) the ghq-12 (goldberg, 1979; piccinelli, bisoffi, bon, cunico, & tansella, 1993) is designed to measure the level of individual distress, based on 12 items on a 6-point likert scale (1 = less than usual; 6 = more than usual). high scores indicate high psychosocial discomfort. cronbach’s alpha was .89. socio-demographic variables in the last part of the questionnaire, participants provided information about the socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, age, school grade, occupational history (as years of service), working conditions, and job position, that might be associated with proactiveness, psychological distress and job insecurity. data analyses data were analyzed with the software spss (version 22.0) for mac. descriptive analyses were performed using frequen­ cies (percentages). test scores were reported as mean and standard deviation. both t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (anova) were performed to determine any statistically significant differences between the groups’ means. robust maximum likelihood structural equation modelling (sem) was used to test the hypothesized model. the sem analyses were performed with eqs structural equation program (version 6.1; bentler, 2006). the goodness of fit of the proposed model to the empirical data was evaluated using the satorra-bentler scaled chi-square (sbs χ2) goodness-of-fit test. as chi-square is sensitive to sample size, we followed bollen’s (1989) recommendation to use multiple fit indices for interpreting the fit of the model with data. in addition to the chi-square statistic, we examined the chi-square to degrees of freedom (χ2/df), root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea), non-normed fit index (nnfi), and comparative fit index (cfi). acceptable model fit typically is inferred when rmsea is .08 or lower, both cfi and nnfi is above .90, and the ratio of chi square to degree of freedom is above 1 and less than 3 (brown, 2006; hu & bentler, 1999). results descriptive analysis the results showed statistically significant differences in employability (eps), proactiveness (proact) and job insecuri­ ty (jis) by both participants’ gender and age. that is, different mean scores on the aforementioned measures were found in the comparison between male and female participants, and among the subgroups originated by sample’s age (≤ 30 years; 30–39 years; 40–49 years; ≥ 50). table 2 displays statistically significant scores obtained from questionnaires. job insecurity (jis) shows statistical differences related to gender (m = 3.58 ± 0.302): women show higher scores than their male colleagues (t = 3.05; p = .003). employability and job insecurity 34 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 scores obtained from scales variable eps proact se ghq-12 jis gender male 1.85 ± 0.94 3.55 ± 0.91 3.01 ± 0.75 2.19 ± 0.67 4.13 ± 3.14 female 1.65 ± 0.72 3.44 ± 0.87 3.11 ± 0.72 2.38 ± 0.67a 2.84 ± 2.71a age ≤ 30 2.03 ± 0.71a 3.72 ± 0.55a 3.08 ± 0.57 2.28 ± 0.56 3.16 ± 2.90 30–39 1.96 ± 0.81a 3.78 ± 0.76a 3.13 ± 0.70 2.23 ± 0.69 3.39 ± 2.83 40–49 1.69 ± 0.96 3.39 ± 1.01a 2.83 ± 0.64 2.21 ± 0.56 3.50 ± 3.20 ≥ 50 1.27 ± 0.52a 2.86 ± 0.91a 23.11 ± 0.91 2.38 ± 0.82 4.53 ± 3.26 note. eps = employability perceived scale; proact = proactivity; se = self-efficacy; ghq = general health questionnaire; jis = job insecurity scale. astatistically significant difference. the scores regarding employability—eps were significantly lower. as age increased, a progressive reduction of the scores is observed in all five items. anova test shows statistically significant reductions: in age bands > 30 years as to < 50. regarding the perception of psychological resources available to the individual who is experiencing a career transi­ tion (cti): proact useful for measuring the motivation of individuals in addressing a work transition receives high scores (m = 5.92 ± 3.50): as age increased, a progressive reduction of the scores was observed also in this case. even the scores attributed to the feeling of se in successfully completing a work change were undoubtedly positive (in this case, low scores corresponded to more positive judgments; m = 3.05 ± 7.34). the measurement of mental and physical discomfort levels (ghq-12) experienced in recent weeks receives high average scores (3.58 ± 3.02), reflecting high levels of individual malaise. results reveal statistically significant differences in favor of females (t = −2.27, p = .024). structural model testing we evaluated the structural model shown in figure 2 and the significance of the hypothesized paths. the proposed theoretical model exhibited good fit with the data. although the chi-square statistics were significant, sbs χ2 (765) = 953.56, p < .05, the ratio of chi-square to the degrees of freedom was less than 3, χ2/df = 1.25, indicating a good level of fit of the structural model with the data. the other fit indices also indicated good fit between the proposed model and the observed data (rmsea = .04, confidence interval = .31–.47; nnfi = .93; cfi = .94). all standardized paths’ coefficients in the model were statistically significant (p < .05) and in the expected direction. specifically, the path running from job insecurity to employability was statistically significant (β = 0.21, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h1; the path running from job insecurity to proactiveness was statistically significant (β = −0.66, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h2; the path running from job insecurity to self-efficacy was statistically significant (β = −0.69, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h3; the path running from employability to proactiveness was statistically significant (β = 0.36, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h4; the path running from self-efficacy to proactiveness was statistically significant (β = −0.41, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h5; the path running from employability to self-efficacy was statistically significant (β = −0.22, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h6; the path running from employability to psychosocial distress was statistically significant (β = 0.19, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h7; the path running from proactiveness to psychosocial distress was statistically significant (β = 0.06, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h8; the path running from self-efficacy to psychosocial distress was statistically significant (β = 0.40, p < .05), offering support for hypothesis h9. thus, all our hypotheses were supported. the sem results with standardized path coefficients estimates are shown in figure 3. ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 35 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 structural equation modelling results with standardized path estimates *p < .05. discussion the post-modern era is characterized by profound changes in meaning individuals and groups give to work experience. furthermore, career transitions are becoming more frequent and more challenging in the face of uncertain employment prospects. employability is thus configured as any worker’s personal characteristics, since it focuses, on the one hand, on the possession of updated professional skills, on the other hand on adaptive skills which make workers capable of increasing their chances of finding employment (fugate et al., 2004). within this framework, this study is aimed to assess the effect of employability and two personal resources (pro-activity and self-efficacy) on the relationship between job insecurity and psycho-social distress (ramaci, bellini, presti, & santisi, 2019; ramaci, pellerone, ledda, & rapisarda, 2017). our results showed that employability, pro-activeness, psychological distress and job insecurity significantly differed by participants’ gender and age. all the paths running hypothesized in our proposed theoretical model were verified, showing the role of the use of strategies focused on finding employment. particularly: (1) high levels of employability are positively related to a neat reduction of the time taken to find a job and a better chance of keeping it (nauta, vianen, van der heijden, van dam, & willemsen, 2009); (2) the relationship between employability and job placement is mediated by the use of strategies focused on seeking employment (de battisti, gilardi, guglielmetti, & siletti, 2016); (3) psychological distress appears to be linked to employability, showing a significant relationship with the adoption of non-rational job search strategies (ingusci, manuti, & callea, 2016). therefore, the results support all our hypotheses; the negative effects of job insecurity were confirmed, and clear empirical evidence emerged about the positive effects of a versatile career orientation. although with differentiated effects, these variables positively influenced the perception of self-efficacy necessary to manage their employment situation, with final consequences on the psycho-physical well-being. a large part of employability research shows the presence of approaches focused on cognitive aspects and percep­ tions of employability, rather than dispositional factors. today employability is considered a strategic factor to positively address the changes taking place in the labor market, and introduces a new cultural paradigm around which to rethink employability and job insecurity 36 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ actions and interventions to support employment. at the same time, research shows (berntson et al., 2010; girardi et al., 2015) that the perception of having a good chance to find a job is associated with a greater sense of job security and greater proactivity. the discomfort resulting from this condition has clarified how much the labor market and the perception of the worker have changed, requiring new skills and abilities: one should be increasingly flexible and be able to adapt to the various conditions that appear and disappear quickly (nauta et al., 2009). employability will help people cope with the transitions and challenges of work in an evolving world of work. this study contributed to the literature highlighting knowledge on the importance of the emotional dimension in understanding the impact of job insecurity. more specifically, the empirical evidence on the role that personal resources play (proactive and self efficacy) in mitigating the impact of job insecurity on psychological distress makes more sense if it is also reflected in the sampling procedures adopted in research. usually other research has often used convenience samples; in our case, the sample was selected within the employment offices and with the collaboration of trade union organizations. this does not eliminate the limitations that research presents, but rather offers opportunities for improvement in the future. the results highlight several implications for the development of effective management strategies and practices for the management of problems relating to job insecurity. limitations of research overall, this study found support for the research hypotheses; however, some limitations need to be mentioned. due to the participants’ characteristics and the small sample size, generalization of our results should be done with caution. further, all participants were from south of italy, representing another limit to our findings generalizations. indeed, italian southern regions are characterized by a higher level of unemployment and/or unstable jobs compared to northern ones. from this perspective, responses on questionnaires may be influenced by the specific socio-economic context. a heterogeneous sample according to the region of origin may reduce this possible bias. hence, although consistent with previous findings, the same conclusions may not be warranted in different samples. another limitation concerns the choice to take into account only one of the subdomains of psycap (i.e., self-efficacy), ignoring whether also the other components could mediate the relationship between job insecurity and psychosocial distress. based on literature (cai et al., 2015; de cuyper et al., 2012; kim et al., 2015; lo presti et al., 2018) all the four components of psycap are relevant to face issues related to job insecurity. after that, a methodological limitation is related to the lack of investigation of the direct relationship in the hypothesized model. that is, we did not examine how job insecurity affected psychological distress, not allowing to discriminate the direct effect from the indirect ones. conclusions and implications studies on the effects of job insecurity on mental and physical well-being as well as on professional life quality are nowadays well known in literature. this probably also derives from the fact that career and work are no longer intended as a way of ensuring sustenance but, rather, as contexts endowed with meaningfulness (steger, dik, & duffy, 2012; šverko & vizek-vidović, 1995). the interest in the idea of meaningful work has been increased remarkably over the last two decades. most mana­ gerial-based research focused on studying ways of supplying and managing the meaningfulness, for instance through leadership or organizational culture. most of these researches, however, turn out to be scarce and fragmentary, a large variety of sources of meaningful job being available which, however, do not handle their reciprocal relationships (faraci, lock, & wheeler, 2013; lips-wiersma & morris, 2009). as steger et al. (2012) point out, one of the reasons why a meaningful job becomes significant is its coherent association with the benefits for workers and organizations. it is well known today that the fundamental dilemmas of managers’ and workers’ lives revolve around the meaningfulness of work (jackall, 1988; magnano et al., 2019), whose consequences on psycho-physical well-being are intense and deep (lips-wiersma & morris, 2009). a meaningless job is, indeed, often linked to higher levels of apathy and detachment from it (may, gilson, & harter, 2004). meaningfulness, then, refers to the degree whereby life has emotional value and compared requests are perceived as worth of one’s investment and energy commitment (korotkov, 1998). ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 37 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from a practical perspective, it seems clear that all of these assumptions take on a remarkable role. in career counsel­ ing, the ability to instill hope in finding a job increases the chances of helping clients to cope with the uncertainties of the future (lópez, peón, & vázquez ordás, 2004). results may have impact and great consequences also in terms of flexicurity, carried out by national governments as well as clear outlook/insight as far as the intermediation role and connected practices performed by labour agencies. in conclusion, the present research potentially offers ideas for managerial policies. in such way, focusing on three key-dimensions (i.e., employability, job insecurity and personal resources) becomes an alternative and, likely, more fruitful reading key which can help to enter and return into the labor market, to ensure continuity and careers, as well as to give significance to one’s work identity. our findings can be considered as a relevant contribute addressing nowadays work-related conditions. from this point of view, employability, self-efficacy, and proactiveness can be seen as suitable protective factors and, for this reason, they should be promoted and encouraged. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethical approval: the paper reports a study that has been conducted in accordance with apa ethical standards. the protocol was in line with ethical standards of the 1964 declaration of helsinki; before taking part in the study, participants were informed about any relevant aspect of the study (e.g., methods, institutional affiliations of the researcher); they were informed of the right to refuse to participate in the study or to withdraw consent to participate at any time during the study without reprisal. they then confirmed that they understood the instructions well, verbally accepted to participate, and started filling out the anonymous questionnaire. the internal ethic review board (ierb) of the department of educational sciences—university of catania, italy, approved the present research. the data were collected from may to september 2018. references arthur, m. b. 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(1995). studies of the meaning of work: approaches, models, and some of the findings. in d. e. super & b. sverko (eds.), life roles, values, and careers (pp. 3–21). san francisco, ca, usa: jossey-bass. about the authors tiziana ramaci is associate professor at the university of enna kore (uke), italy, where she teaches work and organizational psychology. her researches has focused on occupational health and safety, particularly with regard to organizational wellbeing, risk perception and job insecurity; vocational guidance and international careers. she is member of international commission on organizational health (icoh). palmira faraci, phd, full professor of psychometrics at the university of enna “kore,” italy, vice-president of the first level degree in psychological sciences and techniques, member of the internal review board (irb), ethics committee for psychological research, ramaci, faraci, santisi, & valenti 41 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 28–42 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1904 https://doi.org/10.2147/ndt.s98525 https://doi.org/10.1348/096317908x320147 https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-440x(93)90048-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-2616(97)90033-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.406 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-8583.1997.tb00275.x https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01302 https://doi.org/10.2147/rmhp.s139756 https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710716704 https://doi.org/10.1348/096317901167505 https://doi.org/10.1108/01437720410525009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-8583.1996.tb00419.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072711436160 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and director of the kore psychometrics lab. her research activity is focused on the issues related to methodological procedures and psychological testing, with particular reference to measurement techniques and data analysis, scale development and validation, assessment applied to personality and organizational psychology. giuseppe santisi, phd, is full professor of work and organizational psychology and economic and consumer psychology at the department of educational sciences—university of catania. his research interest includes organizational behavior, human resources development, organizational well-being, economic and consumer psychology. he is the author of several publications related to these topics. currently he is coordinator of degree course in psychology. giusy danila valenti is a phd and research fellow at the faculty of human and social sciences, kore university of enna. her main research interest includes personality assessment, with a focus on construction and validation of psychometric tests. employability and job insecurity 42 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ employability and job insecurity (introduction) job flexibility, job insecurity and personal resources employability aims and hypotheses method participants and procedure measures data analyses results descriptive analysis structural model testing discussion limitations of research conclusions and implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethical approval references about the authors positive variables in adult patients who are at different stages of a naturalistic psychotherapeutic treatment research reports positive variables in adult patients who are at different stages of a naturalistic psychotherapeutic treatment vanesa c. gongora* a [a] national scientific and technical research council (conicet), universidad de palermo, buenos aires, argentina. abstract this study aimed twofold: 1) to study some positive variables (three paths to well-being, life satisfaction, overall well-being and meaning of life) in adult patients who are at different stages of a naturalistic cognitive behavioral psychotherapeutic treatment and 2) to analyze their relationship with the progress during treatment, therapeutic alliance and adherence to treatment from the therapist´s perspective. the sample was composed of 85 outpatients who were in psychotherapeutic treatment. patients completed the three pathways to well-being scale, meaning in life questionnaire, satisfaction with life scale, well-being index and symptom checklist-90-revised. therapists completed treatment related data and an opinion survey of patient´s progress, adherence to treatment and therapeutic relationship. findings showed positive variables to be higher at the final stage of psychotherapy, particularly higher satisfaction with life, engagement, well-being, and presence of meaning in life. higher positive variables were moderately associated with more progress during treatment according to therapist’s perspective; however a low association was found with adherence to treatment and therapeutic relationship. no differences were found in positive variables according the type of prevalent symptoms. keywords: positive variables, treatment, patients, adults, therapist europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 received: 2017-10-24. accepted: 2018-04-30. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, institute of psychology, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: faculty of social sciences, university of palermo, mario bravo 1259, (c1175abw), buenos aires, argentina. tel: +54-11-49644684. e-mail: vgongo1@palermo.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. positive psychology is the scientific study of positive experiences, positive individual traits and the institutions that facilitate their development (duckworth, steen, & seligman, 2005). in the area of clinical psychology, positive psychology aims to broaden the focus on suffering and its direct alleviation to include the development of well-being and optimal functioning (duckworth et al., 2005). in this area most of research has been focused on positive interventions in student and general population with clinical symptoms, and in some specific clinical groups, particularly in depressive, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder. these interventions showed to have small to moderate effect sizes to increase well-being and life satisfaction as well as to reduce depressive symptoms (bolier et al., 2013; schrank, brownell, tylee, & slade, 2014; seligman, rashid, & parks, 2006; sin & lyubomirsky, 2009). however, less attention had been paid to the study of positive variables in patients who are in psychotherapy as usual treatment. most of these studies have focused on clinical patients at different stages of treatment taken europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ as a whole group, comparing them with non-clinical groups or with other specific clinical disorder group. among positive variables most frequently included in studies with patients in treatment are: positive emotions, well-being, satisfaction with life and, more recently, meaning in life. numerous studies have highlighted the low level of positive emotions mainly in people with depression (santos et al., 2013) but also there is some evidence in individuals with anxiety disorders (watkins & pereira, 2016) and social phobia (watson & naragon-gainey, 2010). individuals who received the diagnosis of a mental disorder perceived themselves with lower positive emotions and life satisfaction than those who did not have any disorder and within people who had a mental disorder; those who received a diagnosis of depression had lower levels of well-being (bergsma, ten have, veenhoven, & de graaf, 2011). among psychiatric patients, lower levels of life satisfaction were related to depressive symptoms but not to other type of symptoms, being life satisfaction particularly low in this clinical group (koivumaa-honkanen et al., 1996). in addition, higher levels of meaning in life were associated to lower symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and presence of trauma (feder et al., 2013; triplett, tedeschi, cann, calhoun, & reeve, 2012). students with clinical depression had lower levels in the pleasant life (predominance of positive emotions), in the engaged life (highly engagement in what one does and experience of flow) and in the meaningful life (using signature strengths and talents to serve something greater than the self) than students without depression and nondepressed patients (seligman et al., 2006). to sum up, these studies showed positive variables to be low in patients in comparison to nonclinical population and among psychiatric patients those with depressive symptoms seems to have lower positive variables. in relation to positive variables in patients at different stages of psychotherapeutic treatment, there are only two studies, to our knowledge, that focused in patients at the final stage of treatment. these studies have examined positive variables in patients who were in the final stage of cognitive behavioral treatment for mood and anxiety disorders including panic disorder and agoraphobia. remitted patients revealed significantly low levels on multiple aspects of psychological well-being; although they had low levels of psychiatric symptoms and could be discharged from treatment, psychological well-being was still low (fava et al., 2001; rafanelli et al., 2000). these findings are in line with two assumptions of positive psychology. first, positive traits and well-being do not necessary improve with treatment as usual and they would require other type of intervention: a positive intervention (fava, 1999; seligman, 2002). second, positive mental health (emotional, psychological and social well-being) and mental illness are two different but related variables. since they are not inversely related, the absence of a mental disorder does not imply the presence of high levels of well-being (keyes, 2005). numerous empirical studies have supported this second assumption (gilmour, 2014; lim, ko, shin, & cho, 2013; petrillo, capone, caso, & keyes, 2015; yin, he, & fu, 2013). nevertheless, an alternative perspective sustained that positive and negative well-being often exists on the same continuum (wood & tarrier, 2010). all positive and negative variables have an inverse (e.g. depression vs happiness) and the focus of one extreme of the continuum, either positive or negative, depends on the interest of the clinician or researcher (johnson & wood, 2017). a second interest to study positive variables in patients in treatment is their relationship with progress during therapy and with treatment related process variables. keyes (2007) sustains that those who have lower levels of well-being tend to have more chronic disorders and less progress in treatment than those with moderate or high levels of well-being. in addition, those individuals with high levels of well-being may have a disorder but gongora 749 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this would be rather episodic and with rapid remission (keyes, 2005, 2007). research about progress during treatment is very scarce and tends to stand the aforementioned assumption. low level of emotional well-being predicted lower recovery three years after assessment, particularly for depression (bergsma, ten have, veenhoven, & de graaf, 2011). similarly, low levels of positive affectivity predict both slower recovery from depressive episodes and an increased risk of subsequent relapses (clark, watson, & mineka, 1994). in addition, positive variables such as meaning in life were good predictors of abstinence and quality of life in patients who finished treatment for substance abuse (laudet, morgen, & white, 2006; mcgaffin, deane, kelly, & ciarrochi, 2015). the relationship between positive variables and treatment process related variables has not been examined yet. the first aim of this research is to study some positive variables (three paths to well-being, life satisfaction, overall well-being and meaning of life) in adult patients who are at different stages of a naturalistic cognitive behavioral psychotherapeutic treatment. based on previous findings, it could be expected that lower level on the positive variables would be associated to higher psychiatric symptom and would predominate in the initial phase of treatment in comparison with the final phase. patients with predominantly depressive symptoms would have lower levels positive variables than patients with other predominant symptoms such as anxiety disorders. a second aim is to study positive variables in relation to some treatment variables such as progress during treatment, therapeutic alliance and adherence to treatment from the therapist´s perspective. therapist´s report has shown to be a very valuable source of information of treatment process providing a different and complementary contribution to study therapeutic process and outcome. therapists reports are also relevant to understand common or non-specific therapy factors such as therapeutic alliance and patient commitment and these reports were found to be better predictors of outcome than patients reports (bachelor, 2013; clemence, hilsenroth, ackerman, strassle, & handler, 2005; laska, gurman, & wampold, 2014). it is expected that patients with higher positive variables would be perceived with greater therapeutic progress by therapist. in addition, since positive variables such as well-being, meaning in life, positive emotions and engagement have been associated to better and more intimate relationships (coffey, wray-lake, mashek, & branand, 2016; keyes, 2005), it could be expected that patients with higher levels of these variables would be perceived by therapist with better therapeutic alliance and higher adherence to treatment method participants the sample was composed of 85 outpatients (25 men and 60 women) who were in psychotherapeutic treatment in five mental health services (private and public) in the city of buenos aires. patients mean age was 40.83 years (sd = 16.0; range = 18-75 years). a 53.1% were middle-aged adults (31-60 years), a 34.9% were young adults (18-30 years) and only a 12% were seniors (+61 years). exclusion criteria were: being inpatient, receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia and other psychotic states, dementia and cognitive disorders, or bipolar disorders as well as those whose state of crisis prevented them from completing the questionnaires. with repositive variables in adult patients 750 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gard to the type of pathology, 58.8% had an anxiety disorder, 21.2% a depressive disorder, 17.6% a comorbid disorder with anxiety and depressive symptoms and 2.4% some other disorder. therapist who treated study patients: 11 men and 7 women. they were licensed psychologist, who had at least 5 years of clinical experience on cognitive-behavioral treatment. they had no training in positive interventions. treatment was cognitive-behavioral oriented. therapists did not have any particular training or instruction about the treatment they provided during this research, psychotherapy was “as usual”. they provided cognitive-behavioral interventions they deemed appropriate for their patients without following a particular treatment protocol. in addition to the psychotherapy, 62.4% of patients also assisted to psychiatric control and received medication (mainly antidepressant and anxiolytic medication). the average duration of treatment was 5.15 months (sd = 4.94). duration of treatment depended on patient progress. criteria to consider the stages of treatment were provided to therapist. the initial stage corresponded to the first treatment sessions in which the patient's symptoms were assessed, the diagnosis was formulated, the therapeutic relationship with the patient begun and the aims and strategies for treatment were established. the intermediate stage was the part where treatment was properly developed. the therapist employed therapeutic techniques and strategies on the basis of treatment aims. it is usually the longer and main part of treatment. the final stage was considered when the therapeutic aims were practically fulfilled, symptoms have remitted and work was being done on the discharge of treatment. it was assumed that the duration of the stages depended on the characteristics of the patients; for example, some patients would need more assessment time while others less. the mean duration of treatment was 1.09 months (sd = .9) for patients at initial stage, 5.75 months (sd = 4.44) for patients at intermediate stage and 9.87 months (sd = 5.5) for those at final stage. concerning the stage of treatment, 22 patients were at initial stage, 46 at an intermediate stage and 17 at a final stage. instruments three pathways to well-being scale (tpwb) the tpwb assesses well-being according to the three pathway model proposed by seligman (2002). it contains 23 statements rated on a 5-point likert scale that ranges from 1 (very different from me) to 5 (very similar to me). the tpwb is divided into three subscales, each of which corresponds to one of the three pathways to well-being: the pleasant life (referring to the maximization of positive emotions to achieve pleasure); the engaged life (concerning having goals and using one’s strengths to achieve them), and the meaningful life (regarding the use of personal strengths to serve the social environment beyond oneself). the scale was developed for and validated in argentinean adults (castro solano, 2011). the tpwb showed adequate evidence of validity and reliability in adult and adolescent population in argentina (castro solano, 2011; góngora & castro solano, 2015). exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses verified the three-factor structure of the test. the internal consistencies for the three subscales were α ≥ .70 in adult and adolescent validation samples. (castro solano, 2011; góngora & castro solano, 2015). in the current sample internal consistency was α = .81 for the pleasant life, α = .83 for the engaged life, and α = .78 for the meaningful life. meaning in life questionnaire (mlq) the mlq is a 10-item scale that assesses the extent to which respondents feel that their lives are meaningful (steger, frazier, oishi, & kaler, 2006). the mlq is composed of two independent subscales: search for meaning and presence of meaning. each dimension of meaning is measured via 5 items that are rated from 1 (absogongora 751 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lutely untrue) to 7 (absolutely true). the two-factor structure of the mlq has been replicated using confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) in multiple samples across different cultures, including in argentine adults (góngora & castro solano, 2011; steger et al., 2006). convergent validity was established in adult and adolescent argentine samples. associations were moderate to high with the presence of meaning and low to moderate with the search for meaning. internal consistencies for the subscales were α ≥ .80 (góngora & castro solano, 2011). internal consistencies in the current sample for the subscales were α = .87 for presence of meaning and α = .89 for search for meaning. satisfaction with life scale (swls) the swls is a 5-item scale that assesses overall life satisfaction (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). respondents rate each item from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). the swls is among the most widely used measures of well-being, and various international empirical studies, including in argentina, have demonstrated its validity and reliability (castro solano, 1999; diener et al., 1985; pavot, diener, colvin, & sandvik, 1991). in argentinean adult and adolescent samples, the scale has confirmed the unidimensional factorial structure, and the convergent validity with psychological well-being, and job satisfaction. the reliability reported in the validation studies was α ≥ .72 (castro solano & casullo, 2001; dimitrova & dominguez espinosa, 2015; moyano, martínez tais, & muñoz, 2013). in this sample, the internal consistency as measured by cronbach's alpha was α = .87. well-being index this is a short scale of 5 items in a 10 point likert scale that assesses jointly the level of hedonic and eudaemonic well-being. each of the items refers to an overall perception of happiness, satisfaction with life and the three pathways of well-being: positive emotions, engagement and meaning in life. studies have demonstrated, through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the adequacy of a single factor structure in argentine samples of adolescents and adults. the reported reliability was .80 for the sample of adults and .84 for adolescents. (góngora & castro solano, 2015). in the current sample the internal consistency was α = .89. symptom checklist-90-revised (scl-90-r) this is a 90-item checklist (derogatis, 1977) used to measure nine sets of psychological symptoms: somatization, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. the scl-90-r also contains a global severity index (gsi), which is used to estimate the “general psychiatric status” of a patient. the scl-90-r uses a 5-point scale (1 = “no problem” to 5 = “very serious”) to measure the extent to which they have experienced the listed symptoms in the last 7 days. studies with the argentinean adaptation of the checklist have shown adequate internal consistency for all scales (all αs > .72) and have replicated the original factorial structure in general and psychiatric populations (casullo, 2004; sanchez & ledesma, 2009). internal consistency for the total scale in this sample was α = .97. treatment related data sheet therapist were asked to complete a data sheet about the initial symptoms of patients, duration of treatment, treatment stage (initial / intermediate / final), primary diagnosis, and previous psychiatric/psychological treatment. positive variables in adult patients 752 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ opinion survey of patient´s progress, adherence to treatment and therapeutic relationship therapists were asked to complete a total of 5 items opinion survey about their patients. two items were about: the progress they considered patients have from the start of treatment (progress in relation to the initial complaints and progress in relation to the main symptoms). they were assessed in a 5-option likert scale (worst, equal, a bit better, much better, excellent progress). two other items referred to the adherence to treatment assessed through compliance schedules and attendance to meetings, and about the compliance of suggestions or indications of the therapist (bad, fair, good, very good, excellent). a last item asked the therapist´s opinion about the therapeutic relationship (bad, fair, good, very good, excellent). procedure therapists were requested to select patients who were able to participate in the study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria mentioned in the sample section. patients were informed of the research aims and completed an informed consent. the administration of the tests was performed individually during a single session of 45 minutes in the presence of a member of the research team. therapist completed the patient´s data sheet and the opinion survey about patient´s progress in a single session of 5-10 minutes. type of design a cross-sectional design was used in this study. positive variables were assessed in patients who were at different stages of a naturalistic cognitive-behavioral oriented treatment. treatment was “as usual” and no manipulation of any variable was made. statistical analyses patients were divided into groups of treatment stage according to the information provided by therapist. in the treatment related data sheet therapists informed the stage of treatment patients were at the time of study assessment (initial/intermediate/final). criteria to consider the stages of treatment have been detailed in the sample section. the spss 18.0 program was used in the data analyses. a multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was chosen to compare positive variables among patients at different stages of treatment due to this type of analysis provide a general main effect for all dependent variables. tukey post -hoc univariate analyses were also performed. the same statistical procedure was carried out in separate analyses using previous psychiatric treatment (yes/no), previous psychological treatment (yes/no) and the type of symptoms (anxiety, depressive, both anxiety and depressive and other) as factors. pearson correlations were calculated to examine the relationship between positive variables and duration of treatment and between positive variables and duration of illness. given that there were several positive measures, principal axis factor analysis with oblimin rotation was performed to reduce the number of variables. kaiser’s criterion of retaining factors with eigenvalues greater than 1 was used. factor loadings of .40 or greater were considered for item retention. a positive factor was obtained through this procedure. the same statistical procedure was used with the therapist´s opinion of progress variables: progress in relation to the initial complaints and progress in relation to the main symptoms. a progress factor was also obtained in this second analysis. finally, pearson correlations were calculated between the gongora 753 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ positive factor, the progress factor, the scl-90 –gsi score, and the treatment process related variables according to therapist´s opinion (compliance of therapeutic indications, attendance to treatment and therapeutic relationship). results positive variables at different stages of treatment positive variables in this study were: satisfaction with life, presence and search of meaning in life, overall wellbeing (hedonic and eudaemonic), and three pathways to well-being: pleasure, engagement and meaning. a multiple analysis of variance was performed in order to compare positive variables among stages of treatment: initial, intermediate, final. an almost significant main effect of positive variables on the stages of treatment was found (wilks λ = .74, f = 1.71, p = .04, η2 = .14). results are presented in table 1. table 1 comparison of means of positive variables between patients at different stages of treatment variables stage of treatment total initial intermediate final f η2m sd m sd m sd m sd satisfaction with life 20.64 7.63 19.90a,b 6.54 19.29a 8.04 25.05b 6.41 3.88* .09 pleasant life 29.63 6.17 30.57 5.97 28.61 6.34 31.11 5.79 1.34 .03 engaged life 25.60 5.68 25.62a,b 5.45 24.13a 5.61 29.41b 4.55 5.91** .13 meaningful life 26.43 6.49 26.28 6.50 25.65 6.29 28.64 6.88 1.31 .03 overall well-being 32.23 10.25 29.28a 11.90 31.61a,b 9.83 37.47b 7.32 3.35* .08 presence of meaning 22.82 7.87 19.90a 8.04 22.77a,b 7.85 26.58b 6.41 3.60* .08 search for meaning 21.11 8.78 21.42 8.24 22.09 8.73 18.17 9.40 1.24 .03 note. means sharing a common subscript are not statistically different at α = .05 according to the tukey hsd procedure. *p < .05. **p < .01. univariate post-hoc analysis indicated significant differences with moderate to large effect sizes in: satisfaction with life (f = 3.88; p = .02; η2 = .09), engaged life (f = 5.91; p = .004; η2 = .13), overall well-being (f = 3.35; p = .04; η2 = .08), and presence of meaning in life (f = 3.60; p = .03; η2 = .08). in the aforementioned variables means were higher in the final stage in comparison with the intermediate and initial stages of treatment. positive variables, chronicity of illness and type of symptoms a similar procedure was carried out in order to compare positive variables between patients who had a previous psychiatric treatment (n = 30) and those who had not (n = 55). no significant differences were found between the two groups (wilks λ = .94, f = .59, p = .76). similarly, positive variables did not differ between patients who had a previous psychological treatment (n = 63) and those who had not (n = 22) (wilks λ = .93, f = .75, p = .62). no positive variables were correlated to duration of illness but the presence of meaning in life was moderately associated to duration of treatment r = .29, p = .007. positive variables in adult patients 754 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ no significant differences were found among positive variables and the type of symptoms (anxiety, depressive, both anxiety and depressive and other) patients had at intake (wilks λ = .74, f = 1.08, p = .34). positive variables, progress during treatment and treatment process related variables according to therapist opinion in order to analyze the relationship between positive variables and the therapist´s opinion about progress during treatment and to reduce the large number of positive variables, a principal axis exploratory factor analysis (efa) with oblimin rotation was performed introducing all positive measures. first, two factors were obtained. the first one included most of positive variables, but the variable pleasant life loaded simultaneously in both factors and search for meaning in the second factor. a second efa was conducted excluding the pleasant life. in this analysis, the first factor comprised all positive variables with the exception of search for meaning which loaded in the second factor. since the second factor included only one variable and the all the other positive variables loaded in the first factor, a new efa was performed excluding the search for meaning. the efa showed an adequate relationship between the variables and number of participants (kmo = .81, χ2 = 191.75, df = 10, p < .001). the efa resulted in one factor which explained 64.59% of the variance. items loading were all above .69. this positive factor contained the variables: satisfaction with life, presence of meaning in life, overall well-being (hedonic and eudaemonic), engaged life and meaningful life. in order to reduce the therapist´s opinion of progress, a new exploratory factor analysis was performed with the two variables: progress in relation to the initial complaints and progress in relation to the main symptoms. this efa obtained one factors that explained 91.5% of total variance (kmo = .58, χ2 = 124.91, df = 6, p < .001). items loaded above .95 in the factor. means of the positive factor, progress factor and psychiatric symptoms (measured through the scl-90 –gsi score) by stage of treatment are presented in figure 1. gsi scores were transformed into z-scores in order to present them in the same type of scores as the factor variables (mean = 0). the progress factor clearly increases from initial stage to final stage of therapy ranging from very low score to very high scores. in other words, those patients who were at initial stage were perceived by therapist with low progress, those who were in an intermediate stage were perceived with a medium progress and those in the final stage with a high progress during treatment. positive variables and psychiatric symptoms appear to be stable, quite parallel and near mean score in patients who were at initial and intermediate stage of treatment, although gsi score have higher means at these stages than positive variables. nevertheless, in the final stage of treatment they clearly distinct from each other, being positive variables high and psychiatric symptoms low. bivariate correlations were calculated between the positive variables factor, the progress factor, the scl-90 – gsi score, and the treatment process related variables according to therapist´s opinion. results are presented in table 2. gongora 755 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. means scores of positive factor, progress factor and scl-90 –gsi by stage of treatment. table 2 correlations between the positive factor, progress factor, scl-90 gsi, and treatment process related variables variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. positive variables – 2. progress during treatment .28* – 3. gsi -.56** -.18 – 4. compliance to schedules and attendance to meetings .07 .31* -.30* – 5. adherence to suggestions and therapeutic indications .19 .61** -.23 .66** – 6. therapeutic relationship .13 .40** -.18 .61** .55** – *p < .05. **p < .01. positive variables had a moderate correlation (r = .28) with the perception the therapist reported about the progress patient had during treatment. in addition, positive variables were strongly and negatively correlated with the level of general psychiatric symptomatology (r = -.56). small correlation were found between positive variables and the therapist´s opinion about compliance of therapeutic suggestions or indications (r = .19), about compliance schedules and attendance to meetings (r = .07) and about therapeutic relationship (r = .13). concerning the relationship between the general psychiatric symptomatology and the therapist´s perception of progress during treatment, correlations were negative and low (r = -.18), as well as with therapist´s opinion about compliance schedules and attendance to meetings (r = -.23) and about therapeutic relationship (r = -.18). nevertheless, there was a moderate correlation with therapist´s opinion about compliance of therapeutic suggestions or indications (r = -.30). positive variables in adult patients 756 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therapist´s perception of progress during treatment were more significantly associated with the same therapist ´s report of compliance schedules and attendance to meetings (r = .31), quality of therapeutic relationship (r = .40) (moderate effect size) and strongly to compliance of therapeutic suggestions or indications (r = .61). among the three therapy process related variables, correlations were very strong (r = .55 to r = .66). discussion this study showed that positive variables were higher in patients who were at the final stage of a naturalistic cognitive behavioral treatment; in particular, they had higher satisfaction with life, engagement, well-being, and presence of meaning in life. these positive variables tended to be relatively stable and low during the initial and intermediate stage of treatment, but they are significantly higher in the group attending the final stage. although previous studies have found that psychological well-being to be low in remitted patients with mood and anxiety disorders (fava et al., 2001; rafanelli et al., 2000), this study shows that those patients who are at the final stage have low psychiatric symptoms and high positive variables. this is a very interesting finding considering that it is a naturalistic treatment with no positive interventions included among techniques. it also contradicts one of the assumptions of positive psychology that posits that positive variables do not necessary increase with a treatment as usual as cognitive behavioral treatment (seligman et al., 2006). nevertheless, the cross-sectional nature of the study does not allowed to know whether those who had higher levels of positive variables at initial stage were those who reached the final stage of treatment or whether positive variables increased during treatment. if positive characteristics increased during therapy some possible explanations can be argued. on the one hand, wood and tarrier (2010) have sustained that positive and negative characteristics often exists on the same continuum (wood & tarrier, 2010), for instance in one negative extreme could be depression and in the positive one happiness. johnson and wood (2017) add that all negative variables have a positive inverse variable. in this study a very strong correlation between positive variables and psychiatric symptoms was found, thus, it may be possible that the decrease of psychopathology at the final stage of therapy derived to an increase of positive traits. on the other hand, duckworth, steen, and seligman (2005) suggested that many therapists include some strategies with their patients that, in fact, are very compatible with positive psychology. these strategies may refer to inspiring hope, building strengths such as courage, interpersonal skill, optimism, perseverance, pleasure capacity, personal responsibility, or purpose (duckworth et al., 2005). thus, some non-specific interventions may contribute to increase the positive traits in patients, although it is not a positive psychotherapy. since there are almost no study that examine positive variables in treatment as usual, there would be necessary longitudinal studies to explore the consistency of these findings and clarify if there is only a subgroup of patients with certain intake characteristics that complete their treatment with high positive characteristics or independently of intake reports all patients who are in the final stage have these positive traits due to the therapeutic process and the reduction of symptoms. higher meaning in life has been associated with better outcome and it was a good predictor of success in addiction treatment (laudet et al., 2006; mcgaffin et al., 2015). in this study we found higher meaning in life in a naturalistic cognitive-behavioral treatment mainly for depression or anxiety disorders. in addition, a higher meaning in life was associated to a longer duration of treatment. longer treatments have been found to be related to better therapeutic outcomes including better functioning in a number of specific and general life areas gongora 757 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (clemence et al., 2005). this study adds that longer treatments provide higher presence of meaning in patient ´s life. contrary to expectations, no differences were found in any positive variable according to the type of predominant symptomatology. many studies have found lower positive variables in patients with depression (bergsma et al., 2011; koivumaa-honkanen et al., 1996; seligman et al., 2006). there were almost no study with patients with anxiety disorders, but this study showed that anxiety, and depressive patients have similar levels of positive variables. there is strong evidence indicating that similar etiological and maintenance processes underlie depressive and anxious psychopathology (newby, mckinnon, kuyken, gilbody, & dalgleish, 2015). for instance, anxiety and depressive disorders share many similar genetic, familial, and environmental risk factors (kendler, 1996). these disorders also share similar cognitive-affective, interpersonal, and behavioral maintaining factors (harvey, 2004). these similarities seem also to extent to positive characteristics. these etiological and maintenance processes may also lie beneath the development of positive characteristics. contrary to expectations, lower positive variables were not associated to chronicity of illness measured by previous psychological or psychiatric treatment and duration of illness. to interpret this finding it should be taken into account the high percentage in the sample of patients with previous psychological (74.11%) and psychiatric treatment (35%). this high percentage could be related to the relatively easy access to psychological and psychiatric treatment in public hospitals (even free of cost) or in the private sector in buenos aires and also to a culture very disposed to consult psychologists for personal crisis as well as for important symptoms. in a large and stratified study, escalante and leiderman (2008) found 78.1% of adult population of buenos aires assisted at least once in life to psychotherapy and 15.6% were assisting at the moment of study (escalante & leiderman, 2008). positive variables were moderately related to the therapist´s perception of progress during treatment. although moderate, this association was stronger than the perception of progress and psychiatric symptoms, which was low. thus, in relation to the therapist´s evaluation of progress during treatment: positive variables were more relevant and stronger associated to higher progress than low psychiatric symptoms. nevertheless, therapist´s perceived progress was stronger associated to other therapist related variables particularly compliance of suggestions or therapeutic indications, which could be expected. a patient that follows suggestions and therapeutic indications it is logical that is perceived as progressing in treatment, at least from therapist perspective. these findings are very much alike the strong previous evidence on variables related to positive outcome and treatment process (bachelor, 2013; clemence et al., 2005). this consistency also shows that, although standardized instruments for therapist´s report of progress, therapy process or therapeutic alliance were not used in this study, results are similar to previous ones. it should be noted that it is expected a lower association in informant reports in comparison with self-reports (meyer et al., 2001). meyer et al. (2001) found that correlations between patient and clinician were low to moderate ranging between r = .14 to r = .34. that would be one of the reasons why all therapist´s reported variables have a strong correlation among them. this is similar with previous studies with reports of outcome and therapeutic alliance comparing patient vs therapist. all therapists’ variables have higher correlation among them (bachelor, 2013; clemence et al., 2005). considering the aforementioned reports of association between patient and clinician, the correlation between perceived progress and positive variables become more important. positive variables in adult patients 758 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ contrary to expectations, positive variables were not related to any treatment process related variable according to therapist´s report. in the same way, the severity of psychiatric symptoms was neither related to therapeutic relationship or to attendance to treatment, but was moderately related to compliance of therapeutic indications. previous studies also found that therapist´s rating on therapeutic alliance and treatment collaboration were better predicted by therapist´s ratings such as active engagement or positive valuation rather than to client´s symptomatology or interpersonal relationships (bachelor, laverdière, gamache, & bordeleau, 2007). some limitations should be mentioned. first, the correlational design of the study does not allowed to make causal inferences and to know how patients enter and changed during treatment. it would be important to advance in a longitudinal study in order to stablish the process of change of positive and negative variables. second, the limited number of patients, although it is not a very small sample number a bigger group, particularly of patients at initial and final stages of treatment would have been desirable. third, a naturalized study was used. this type of study has the advantage of showing data of patients in more realistic treatment setting (leichsenring, 2004). the purpose of this study was to examine some positive variables in a treatment as usual for that reason a naturalistic study was chosen. nevertheless, it is important to consider that as the type of treatment was not controlled for, divergences about implementation of treatment among therapist may affect results. finally, concerning treatment process related variables, not standardized instruments for progress, therapeutic relation and adherence to treatment were used in this study. possibly a standardized instrument would have been more valid and reliable; however, results are very consistent with previous researches in treatment process which give us some confidence about the adequacy of instruments. future studies should deepen the study of therapeutic process and positive variables including also patient’s perspective. conclusions in sum, this study was the first to compare positive variables among different stages of a naturalistic psychotherapeutic treatment, and we also compared them among different types of prevalent symptoms, including patients with anxiety disorders, group that was very scarce in researches with positive variables. this study also provided a first approach to the relationship between positive variables and the therapist perception of progress in therapy and some treatment process related variables. the study of positive functioning in patients will enrich clinical psychology to become a more integrative discipline. in this way, the aim of therapy will not only be relieving the negative but also helping individuals to build a flourishing life. funding this research was supported by the national council for scientific and technical research (conicet). competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. gongora 759 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references bachelor, a. 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(2013). positive mental health: measurement, prevalence, and correlates in a chinese cultural context. in c. l. m. keyes (ed.), mental well-being (pp. 111-132). dordrecht, the netherlands: springer netherlands. about the author vanesa c. góngora is researcher in psychology at the national scientific and technical research council (conicet) of argentina. she is also an associate professor at the department of psychology, faculty of social sciences, universidad de palermo, buenos aires, argentina. gongora 763 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 748–763 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1546 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.61.8.774 https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20593 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024204 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.06.003 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ positive variables in adult patients (introduction) method participants instruments procedure type of design statistical analyses results positive variables at different stages of treatment positive variables, chronicity of illness and type of symptoms positive variables, progress during treatment and treatment process related variables according to therapist opinion discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the roles of patients’ authenticity and accepting external influence, and clinicians’ treatment styles in predicting patients’ dental anxiety and avoidance of dental appointments research reports the roles of patients’ authenticity and accepting external influence, and clinicians’ treatment styles in predicting patients’ dental anxiety and avoidance of dental appointments anne elisabeth münster halvari* ab, hallgeir halvari c, edward l. deci cde [a] faculty of dentistry, department of dental hygienist education, university of oslo, oslo, norway. [b] department of health, social and welfare studies, university of south-eastern norway, bakkenteigen, norway. [c] department of business, marketing and law, university of south-eastern norway, hønefoss, norway. [d] department of clinical and social sciences in psychology, university of rochester, rochester, ny, usa. [e] institute for positive psychology and education, australian catholic university, strathfield, nsw, australia. abstract a substantial proportion of adults suffer from high dental anxiety, which is related to poor oral health and functioning. using authenticity theory and self-determination theory, we applied a model testing two moderated mediation hypotheses: (i) the negative indirect association between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety would be more evident when clinicians provides higher levels of autonomy support; and (ii) the indirect positive association between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety would be more evident when clinicians provides higher levels of controllingness. participants (n = 208) responded to a survey with validated questionnaires. the model with hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (sem) in lisrel and conditional process modeling (moderated mediation). the results supported our hypotheses. the sem model tested was found to fit the data well. patient’s personality and dental clinic treatment environments predicted 38% of the variance in dental anxiety, which explained 38% of avoidance of treatment. keywords: authentic living, accepting external influence, autonomy support, controlling treatment style, dental anxiety, avoiding dental appointments europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 received: 2018-05-20. accepted: 2019-06-18. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, united kingdom *corresponding author at: faculty of dentistry, department of dental hygienist education, university of oslo, geitmyrsveien 69/71, 0455 oslo, norway. telephone: +47 22852173 (office) / +47 41508413 (mobile). e-mail: ahalvari@odont.uio.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. dental anxiety is defined as fear of dental treatment or certain aspects of it (ter horst & de wit, 1993). a substantial proportion of adults suffer from high dental anxiety (johnsen et al., 2003), which is related to avoiding dental appointments, and poor oral health and functioning (halvari, halvari, & deci, 2018). research on dental anxiety have addressed both patients’ previous distressing dental experiences and personality. distressing dental experiences positively linked to patients’ dental anxiety have been oral-health-care clinicians’ treatment styles perceived as non-understanding or controlling. in addition, patients’ feeling extreme helplessness and embarrassment during dental treatments, the pain of having a tooth drilled, and the receipt of injections have been positively correlated with dental anxiety (humphris & king, 2011; halvari, halvari, bjørnebekk, & deci, 2010; oosterink, de jongh, & aartman, 2009). regarding personalities, dental anxiety has been positively aseurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sociated with neuroticism (vassend, røysamb, & nielsen, 2011), general and phobic anxiety, and depression (eli, uziel, baht, & kleinhauz, 1997; pohjola, mattila, joukamaa, & lahti, 2011). besides this, dental anxiety has been positively correlated with negative emotionality and fearfulness (arnrup, broberg, berggren, & bodin, 2007), as well as negatively with cooperativeness (bergdahl & bergdahl, 2003). further, dental anxiety has been positively associated with external locus of control or the feelings of being pressured by others or environmental forces to behave (poulton, waldie, thomson, & locker, 2001). hence, previous research has been largely associated with personality constructs that increase dental anxiety. therefore, the present study focused on the authentic personality, which is expected to increase wellness such as reductions in general anxiety and negative affect, and increases in well-being (gillath, sesko, shaver, & chun, 2010; sheldon, ryan, rawsthorne, & ilardi, 1997). in addition, the current study also focused on the personality trait of accepting external influence, which has been associated with higher general anxiety and lower well-being (wood, linley, maltby, baliousis, & joseph, 2008). consequently, our research questions proposed are: what relations are there between patients authentic and accepting-external-influence personalities and dental anxiety? are these personalities indirectly associated with avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety? does oral-healthcare clinicians’ treatment styles moderate these indirect associations? the authentic and accepting-external-influence personalities authenticity and accepting external influence are defined according to rogers (1959, 1961) person-centered theory of personality. first, authenticity or authentic living involves being true to oneself in most situations (wood et al., 2008), which means living in accordance with one’s emotions, values, goals, and beliefs. second, the term accepting external influence from other people is described as the belief that one has to conform to social influences such as peer pressure, expectations of others, and social norms (gillath et al., 2010; wood et al., 2008). psychologists view authenticity as a precursor to well-being and healthy functioning (horney, 1951; may, 1981; rogers, 1961). hence, as anxiety is conceived as a negative aspect of psychological well-being, the authentic personality might be expected to mitigate anxiety (i.e., to increase well-being). research among people adopting other social roles than the role of a patient (i.e., mother, father, student, roommate, employee, teacher, child, friend, romantic partner) have shown that greater authenticity is associated with higher well-being, less neuroticism and more extraversion, openness, and agreeableness in samples representing people in different countries (lynch, laguardia, & ryan, 2009; sheldon, ryan, rawsthorne, & ilardi, 1997). another study showed that the trait of accepting external influence was significantly positively linked to anxiety (wood et al., 2008), and in a study by gillath and colleagues (2010) trait authenticity was negatively related to attachment anxiety and avoidance. consequently, based on the above evaluation of studies, both the authentic and external oriented personalities, respectively, seem to be substantially related to anxiety. in the model illustrated in figure 1, the authenticity and accepting external influence constructs, conceived as personality variables, are located to the left, together with the constructs of perceived autonomy supportive and controlling treatment styles, which affects dental anxiety, and subsequently avoidance of dental appointments. thus, according to the model and the research described above, the authentic personality is expected to be negatively associated with dental anxiety, whereas accepting external influence is expected to be positively related to dental anxiety. personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 46 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. standardized parameter estimates in the latent structural equation model of dental anxiety and avoidance of dental appointments. due to presentation clarity, all factor loadings are presented in the method section. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ns = not significant. self-determination theory: autonomy-supportive and controlling treatment styles oral-health-care clinicians’ treatment styles may contribute to the interpretation of dental anxiety. an autonomysupportive treatment style is defined by an oral health care professional who offer choice, provide a meaningful rationale, minimize pressure, and acknowledge the patients’ feelings and perspectives (williams, grow, freedman, ryan, & deci, 1996). conversely, a controlling oral-health-care clinician style is associated with pressuring and coercing oral communication, and evaluation making the patient belittled, humiliated, and embarrassed (halvari et al., 2010). research based on self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 2000) indicated that authenticity is greater when autonomy support is experienced and is undermined by the experience of controlling environments (lynch & sheldon, 2017; ryan & ryan, 2018). research on the relations between oral-health-care clinicians’ autonomy supporting and controlling treatment styles, and dental anxiety, indicate that autonomy support is negatively correlated with dental anxiety, and a controlling style is positively correlated with dental anxiety (halvari et al., 2010; halvari et al., 2018). multivariate analyses of the data from these two studies indicate that oral-health-care clinicians’ controlling styles are a stronger predictor of dental anxiety than autonomy support, but their moderating mechanisms of possible links between personality, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments has never been investigated. rehalvari, halvari, & deci 47 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ search does also indicate that dental anxiety and avoiding dental appointments are strongly positively correlated (halvari et al., 2010; halvari et al., 2018). the moderated and moderated mediation roles of treatment styles treatment styles were expected to moderate the links between personality and dental anxiety. a study indicated that an autonomy-supportive intervention was more effective in increasing dental attendance among highly autonomously oriented personalities than among those low on this construct (halvari, halvari, williams, & deci, 2017). these results are in line with a meta-analysis, although not including studies on dental care, of the effectiveness of intervention programs designed to support autonomy, which resulted in greater effect sizes among autonomous (rather than control) oriented participants (su & reeve, 2011). authentic behavior is per definition autonomous, as autonomy mean that one is acting in ways congruent with one’s values, preferences, and needs (kernis & goldman, 2006). hence, because the authentic and the autonomous personalities share important characteristics, and seem to function accordingly, autonomy support seems likely to moderate the link between authenticity and dental anxiety, such that autonomy support would show greater mitigation of dental anxiety and increase health-related behavior (i.e., dental attendance) among patients who are high in authenticity (in relation to those low in authenticity). conversely, a study by grolnick and ryan (1987) indicate that experimentally induced learning conditions that are controlling (in relation to less controlling conditions) resulted in more pressure and anxiety and less learning, presumably because they were more conducive to controlled motivation or an external locus of causality, that is, a construct similar to accepting external influence as used in the present study. moreover, anxiety seem to be reduced more among persons high in accepting external influence (relative to those low in accepting external influence) if they experience decreased need frustration (i.e., indication of lower levels of controllingness) (bryan, baker, & tou, 2017). possible control / background variables gender was included in the study as a possible control variable because women have universally reported more dental anxiety than men (hill et al., 2013; liddell & locker, 1997; ter horst & de wit, 1993). in addition, we included age and some socioeconomic factors as background variables because they are shown to be important for population access to the health services and health (e.g., sreebny, 1983). however, among students who pursue important educational life aspirations at the university, socioeconomic factors tend to be less important than in other sub-populations (halvari, halvari, bjørnebekk, & deci, 2012a). on the other hand, if they are important we have the possibility to control for them in the model testing. hypotheses the following hypotheses (h) were specified based on the literature reviewed: (h1) authenticity will be negatively associated with dental anxiety; (h2) autonomy support will be negatively associated with dental anxiety; (h3) accepting external influence will be positively associated with dental anxiety; (h4) a controlling treatment style will be positively associated with dental anxiety; and (h5) dental anxiety will be positively associated with avoiding dental appointments. further, the following indirect associations were tested: (h6) there will be a negative indirect relation between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety; and (h7) there will be a negative indirect relation between autonomy support and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. next, (h8) there will be a positive indirect relation between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety; and (h9) there will be a positive indirect relation between personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 48 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a controlling treatment style and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. furthermore, (h10) autonomy-supportive treatment styles will moderate the association between authenticity and dental anxiety; (h11) controlling treatment styles will moderate the association between accepting external influence and dental anxiety; (h12) the indirect negative association between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety will be more evident among those who experience higher levels of autonomy-supportive treatment styles; (h13), and the indirect positive association between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety will be more evident among those who experience higher levels of controlling treatment styles. lastly, (h14) women would report more dental anxiety than men. method participants norwegian student patients from 42 study disciplines at the university of oslo were invited to participate in the study. they were informed about the aim of the study and gave their informed consent to participate. no incentives were offered for participation. a total of 520 questionnaires (physical copies) were handed out and 208 were returned (40%). participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 45 years (m = 25.2, sd = 4.97). more females than males responded to the questionnaire (nfemales = 146; 70.2%). translation of measures and their reliabilities following the procedures suggested by beaton, bombardier, guillemin, and ferraz (2000), all questionnaire measures described below, except perceived controllingness which is developed in norway, were translated to norwegian indepently by two researchers. discrepancies in translations were resolved and agreed upon. backtranslation to english was performed by an expert in norwegian and english language, and discrepancies between the original version and the back-translation were resolved, consensus reached among the expert and the two researchers, and the norwegian versions adjusted when appropriate. finally, the questionnaire items were pretested among 10 students in order to secure a valid understanding of item content meaning. reliabilities of the scales are presented in table 1. design of questionnaire before the patients responded to the items in the questionnaire of the present study they were introduced to their own clinic context by the following instructions and questions: “think back to your last visit to a dental hygienist or dentist. it is important that you try to think about the treatment and your experiences with this oralhealth-care clinician”. this introduction was followed by questions on who this oral health care professional was (a dental hygienist or a dentist, a female or a male), the number of visits to this oral health care professional, type of clinic (private or public), and time since last visit. “if you answered “dental hygienist” in question 1, please have this person in mind and answer the following questions with reference to your dental hygienist. however, if you answered “dentist” in question 1, please answer the following questions with reference to your dentist”. of the respondents, 84% recalled their dentist. halvari, halvari, & deci 49 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaires authenticity authenticity was measured with the authenticity scale developed by wood and colleagues (2008). a sample item for authenticity (4 items) is “i live in accordance with my values and beliefs”; and for accepting external influence (4 items) it is “i am strongly influenced by the opinions of others”. responses could vary from 1 (does not describe me at all) to 7 (describes me very well). perceived autonomy support perceived autonomy support was measured with the 6-item version of the modified health-care climate questionnaire (williams et al., 1996), which was adapted to oral health care. a sample item is: “i feel that my oralhealth-care clinician has provided me choices and options.” responses could vary from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). perceived controllingness perceived controllingness at the dental clinic was measured with the 6-item perceived controlling style at the dental clinic questionnaire (pcsdcq; halvari et al., 2012a). a sample item is: “i find that my oral-health-care clinician decides too much”. responses varied from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). anxiety for dental treatment anxiety for dental treatment was measured by the 5-item modified dental anxiety scale (humphris et al., 2013). an example item is: “if you were sitting in the waiting room (waiting for treatment), how would you feel?” participants responded on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not anxious) to 5 (extremely anxious). avoiding dental appointments avoiding dental appointments was measured by two questions: “has fear or worry ever caused you to put off making an appointment 1) with a dental hygienist? 2) with a dentist?” responses were: 1 (never), 2 (once or twice), 3 (a few times), 4 (often), and 5 (nearly every time). (milgrom, weinstein, & getz, 1995). reliability in previous research, reliability coefficients exceeded .70 for all scales, that is, for authenticity (wood et al., 2008), autonomy support (williams et al., 1996), controllingness (halvari et al., 2010), anxiety (humphris et al., 2013), and for avoiding dental appointments (halvari et al., 2010). for reliability coefficients in the present study, see table 1. they are all acceptable as they exceed the cut-point of .70 defined by nunnally (1979). background assessments gender (1 = female and 2 = male). age was indicated in years. educational level and socio-economic status information was taken care of by the following three questions: (1) “what is your highest completed education?” with response alternatives from 1 (junior or senior high school) to 5 (university or university college education of more than 5 years). (2) “how many hours per week do you work for income?” (3) “how would you describe your financial situation at the moment?” response alternatives were from 1 (very good) to 5 (very difficult). personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 50 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data analysis correlational analyses were done using pearson r, except for correlations involving gender in which spearmans point bi-serial correlations were used. the model illustrated in figure 1, including the tests of indirect links, was tested simultaneously with the structural equation model (sem) using lisrel version 8.80. the two interaction terms (autonomy support x authenticity and controllingness x accepting external influence) were treated as observed variables in order to simplify the model. in addition, for the same reason and due to the large number of variables and indicators (i.e., scale items) relative to the sample size, two of them were parceled. that is, we randomly assigned items for autonomy supportive and controlling styles into 3 parcels, each with 2 items, as recommended by little, cunningham, shahar, and widaman (2002). all other variables in the model are latent in testing the model in figure 1, factor loadings for items / parcels were all significant, and they were (loadings in parentheses) for authenticity (.84, .71, .54, .53), for accepting external influence (.82, .81, .72, .67), for perceived autonomy support (.90, .85, .82), for perceived controllingness (.84, .80, .73), for dental anxiety (.91, .82, .82, .77, .73), and for avoiding dental appointments (.91, .91). to evaluate the fit of the model tested, we used the chi-square likelihood ratio (χ2), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the comparative fit index (cfi), and the incremental fit index (ifi) as recommended (bollen, 1989; hu & bentler, 1999). a good fit should have a value close to or lower than .06 for the rmsea, a value close to or lower than .08 for the srmr, and a value close to or higher than .95 for the cfi and ifi. regarding mediation, an indirect link is significantly supported if the bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals (for the bands of products of coefficients after 5000 resamplings) do not include zero or oppositely valued coefficients (see table 2) (preacher & hayes, 2008). the bootstrapping procedure described in preacher, rucker, and hayes (2007) were used to examine moderation. these moderator relations were illustrated following the formula proposed by west, aikin, and krull (1996, pp. 35 – 36). finally, moderated mediation was tested using model 7 in model templates for process for spss and sas (2013-2015) by andrew f. hayes (preacher, rucker, & hayes, 2007). results descriptive statistics and reliability the means, standard deviations, skewness values, and reliabilities for all variables emerge in table 1. reliability values are acceptable. skewness values (skew < 3.0) are acceptable for use in sem analysis (kline, 2005). regarding means and distribution of scores, for example, dental anxiety had a mean score of 11.05 in the current sample (2.21 pr. item x 5 items, see table 1). this mean value for dental anxiety is almost the same as the mean value presented by humphris et al. (2013) in their validation study of the modified dental anxiety scale. of the participants, 54.8% had low scores (5-10; “not anxious”), 27.4% had moderate scores (11-15; “quite anxious”), and 17.8% had high scores (16-25; “very and extremely anxious”). those with extreme dental anxiety (≥ 19%) were somewhat lower in the present sample (10.1%) compared to the humphris et al. (2013) study halvari, halvari, & deci 51 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (12.1), and the reliability coefficients (α) were .90 and .92, respectively. regarding the perceived controlling treatment style, 54% responded with low scores (7-12; “disagree”), 35% with moderate scores (13-24; “somewhat agree”), and 11% responded with high scores (25-36; “agree”). the use of the above categories of low, moderate, high, and extreme dental anxiety scores were used to compare them with scores from the humphris et al. (2013) validation article. in addition, the categories for low, moderate, and high scores for controllingness were given. for all other analysis described below all variable raw scores were used for all variables, including interactions illustrated using high and low scores (see west et al., 1996) hypotheses testing we used sem in testing the model with the direct, indirect, and moderated associations. in addition, we used the non-parametric bootstrapping procedure in testing moderated and moderated mediational associations (conditional indirect effects) (preacher et al., 2007). theoretical model the zero order correlations in table 1 are all in line with the expectations. education and socioeconomic variables were not significantly correlated with authenticity, accepting external influence, treatment styles, dental anxiety, or avoiding dental appointments. table 1 zero-order correlationsa and descriptive statistics among variables variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 1. authenticity -2. accepting external influence -.39*** -3. autonomy supportive style at the clinic .33*** -.28*** -4. controlling style at the clinic -.25*** .26*** -.67*** -5. dental anxiety -.20** .28*** -.32*** .41*** -6. avoiding dental appointments -.05 .14* -.22*** .34*** .57*** -7. gender -.06 -.04 -.01 -.05 -.16* -.10 -8. age .02 .07 .02 .05 -.02 -.02 .05 -9. work for income (hrs/week) .01 .05 .08 -.08 -.11 -.07 -.14 .22** -10. problems with private economy -.07 .02 -.09 .11 -.02 .08 -.06 .22** -.14* -11. education (highest completed) .01 .00 -.03 .08 -.02 .12 -.01 .56*** .21** .10 -m 5.53 3.18 5.04 2.23 2.21 1.46 1.29 25.2 8.51 2.69 3.79 sd 0.86 1.16 1.23 1.12 0.97 0.96 0.46 4.97 10.24 0.78 1.46 skewness -0.35 0.27 -0.59 0.99 0.95 2.37 0.89 -1.70 1.40 -0.02 -0.01 reliability (α) .71 .84 .90 .86 .90 .86 -----note. n = 208. gender: 1 = females; 2 = males. apearson correlations, except spearmans point bi-serial correlations involving gender. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. empirical models the measurement model for figure 1 was tested with all variables and indicators and found to fit the data well, χ2(178, n = 208) = 308.63, p < .001; rmsea = .060, 95% ci [.048, .071]; cfi = .96; ifi = .96; srmr = .059. the structural model (figure 1) was tested with this measurement model included. in this measurement model personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 52 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all factor loadings were significant (see the data analysis section above). a negative covariance between authenticity and accepting external influence was added as suggested by previous research (wood et al., 2008). the structural model yielded the same good fit as the measurement model, χ2(178, n = 208) = 329.56, p < .001; rmsea = .061, 95% ci [.051, .072]; cfi = .96; ifi = .96; srmr = .060. the standardized parameter estimates are shown in figure 1, supporting hypotheses 1, 3, 4, 5, and 14. mediation using lisrel, we tested the indirect links in figure 1 simultaneously with testing the structural model. it was hypothesized negative indirect links between both authenticity (hypothesis 6) and autonomy support (hypothesis 7), respectively, and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. in addition, it was predicted positive indirect links between both accepting external influence (hypothesis 8) and a controlling clinic style (hypothesis 9), respectively, and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. these predictions were supported, except the indirect association between autonomy support and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety (hypothesis 7) (see table 2). table 2 tests of mediation (lisrel) and moderated mediation (bootstrapping) of links emerging in figure 1 independent variable (iv) mediator (m) dependent variable (dv) effect se z(a*b path) bc 95% ci ll ul mediations 1. authenticity (a) → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments -0.08 0.05 -1.75* -0.18 0.02 2. autonomy support (as) → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments 0.09 0.07 1.24 -0.05 0.23 3. a x as → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments -0.13 0.04 -3.18*** -0.21 -0.05 4. accepting external influence (ex) → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments 0.10 0.04 2.24** 0.02 0.18 5. controlling clinic style (cs) → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments 0.23 0.07 3.09*** 0.09 0.37 6. ex x cs → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments 0.15 0.05 2.98*** 0.05 0.25 moderated mediations (conditional indirect effects) 7. authenticity → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments for autonomy support 1 sd below the mean 0.001 0.08 -0.16 0.14 for autonomy support at the mean -0.087 0.05 -0.20 0.003 for autonomy support 1 sd above the mean -0.29*** 0.06 -0.29 -0.05 8. accepting external influence → dental anxiety → avoiding dental appointments for a controlling clinic style 1 sd below the mean -0.01 0.04 -0.10 0.07 for a controlling clinic style at the mean 0.05 0.03 -0.01 0.11 for a controlling clinic style 1 sd above the mean 0.18*** 0.06 0.06 0.31 note. bc = bias corrected; ci = confidence interval; 5000 bootstrap samples; a-path = iv → m; b-path = m → dv; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. one-tailed tests. analyses of moderation and moderated mediation for the moderation, the product of autonomy support and authenticity was hypothesized to be negatively associated with dental anxiety. this hypothesis 10 was supported (coeff = -.11, se = .05, t = -2.07, 95% bc ci [-.2220, -.0055] with 5000 resamples) r2 change = .02, f(1, 201) = 4.30, p = .04, which means that the combination of high autonomy support and high authenticity would be associated with the lowest dental anxiety. in addition, the product of a controlling clinic style and accepting external influence was hypothesized to be positively halvari, halvari, & deci 53 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ associated with dental anxiety. this hypothesis 11 was also supported (coeff = .14, se = .04, t = 3.13, 95% bc ci [.0509, .2238] with 5000 resamples) r2 change = .04, f(1, 201) = 9.81, p = .002, which means that the combination of a high controlling treatment style and high accept of external influence would be associated with the highest dental anxiety. these moderator relations were illustrated following the formula proposed by west, aikin, and krull (1996, pp. 35 – 36) (see figures 2 and 3). regarding moderated mediations, we hypothesized that the negative indirect link between authenticity and avoiding appointments through dental anxiety would be more evident among those who experience higher autonomy-supportive treatment styles (hypothesis 12). in addition, the positive indirect link between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety would be more evident among those who experience higher controlling treatment styles (hypothesis 11). these moderated mediation hypotheses were supported (see table 2). the last hypothesis 14 stating that women would be more dental anxious than men was also supported (see table 1 and figure 1). discussion the structural model of dental anxiety and avoiding dental appointments was tested and received good fit. authenticity was negatively related to dental anxiety. autonomy support did not directly predict anxiety, but moderated the authenticity – dental anxiety association, such that high authenticity is associated with the lowest dental anxiety in particular among patients’ perceiving high clinician autonomy support. both accepting external influence and a controlling treatment style were positively related to dental anxiety. in addition, a controlling treatment style did moderate the accepting external influence – dental anxiety link, such that high external influence is associated with the highest dental anxiety in particular among patients’ perceiving a high controlling oralhealth-care clinician style. further, the results revealed a negative indirect association between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety, and a positive indirect association between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. these indirect links were moderated by autonomy supportive and controlling oral-health-care clinician styles, respectively, such that the indirect negative relation between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety was more evident among those who reported higher levels of autonomy support, and that the indirect positive relation between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety was more evident among those who reported higher levels of a controlling oral-health-care clinician style. the last hypothesis stating that women would be more dental anxious than men was also supported. education and socioeconomic factors did not correlate significantly with the personality constructs, oral-health-care clinician styles, dental anxiety, or avoidance of dental appointments. these findings are supported by other research (halvari et al., 2012a), indicating that they are of minor importance among university students in norway. this is the first study showing that: (i) the authentic and accepting external influence personality constructs are related to dental anxiety; (ii) autonomy support moderates the indirect association between authenticity and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety, and (iii) a controlling treatment style moderates the indirect association between accepting external influence and avoiding dental appointments through dental anxiety. authentic persons being true to oneself in most situations indicate that, when they are supported to make healthy choices in their lives, their value and goal systems would help them to do so and to behave accordingly. personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 54 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ their values and goals are congruent, integrated in their self with their behavior, and they feel harmonious and report low degrees of conflict (deci & ryan, 2000; ryan & ryan, 2018). thus, because authenticity is supposed to develop among persons receiving autonomy support (deci & ryan, 2000; ryan & ryan, 2018), the authentic person is supposed to be oriented toward and select autonomy-supportive elements in the social context they are familiar with from their history of learning. the interaction between authenticity and clinician autonomy support indicate that patients high in authenticity report the lowest dental anxiety if they perceive receiving high autonomy support (in relation to low autonomy support) from their oral-health-care clinicians (see figure 2). figure 2. simple regression lines depicting the relationship between authenticity and dental anxiety at specified values of autonomy support (low = 1 sd below the mean whereas high = 1 sd above the mean). this is as expected and in line with a meta-analysis (su & reeve, 2011) and an autonomy-supportive oral health care intervention (halvari et al., 2017) indicating that autonomy-oriented personalities showed a greater training or intervention effect than did participants who were less autonomy-oriented. this interaction effect is supposed to be related to the authentic personality experiencing more congruence with autonomy support, and feel this type of support more appealing than less authentic persons, because it is integrated in their values and goals (deci & ryan, 2000). conversely, patients low in authenticity reported higher dental anxiety if they perceived high autonomy support (relative to low autonomy support; see figure 2) from their oral-health-care clinicians. if they do not have the authentic valueor goal-system, autonomy support from oral-health-care clinicians may feel unfamiliar to them and perceived as not providing structure, leaving them feeling abandoned and thus causing conflict and anxiety. in particular, offering options of choice might be experienced as anxiety provoking because they do not have the values and goals integrated that would help them to choose. when receiving autonomy support, patients low in authenticity might experience higher cognitive conflict and might not assimilate the autonomy-supportive information into their existing ways of thinking about what is motivating them for oral health care (su & reeve, 2011). such autonomy-supportive information might relate to oralhealth-care professionals’ verbal explanation intended to help the patient understand why a behavior have personal utility, acknowledgement of negative feelings as legitimate when making requests of the patient being in conflict with his or her personal inclinations, and providing information about options, encouragement of making halvari, halvari, & deci 55 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ choices and initiation of patient action. less autonomy oriented individuals might also act in a more defensive way to information about autonomy support (hodgins & knee, 2002), which would further increase the level of conflict with the autonomy support. however, patients low in authenticity can learn to respond well to autonomy support (williams et al., 1996). a controlling treatment style predicted dental anxiety, which is in line with previous research (halvari et al., 2010, 2018). in addition, a controlling treatment style moderated the association between accepting external influence and dental anxiety (see figure 3). these results are in accordance with a central hypothesis in selfdetermination theory (deci & ryan, 2000), that an increase in autonomy support (need support) or a reduction in controllingness would influence self-determined integration of motivation, better performance, and well-being. the result indicating that a reduction in controllingness (figure 3) mitigate dental anxiety in particular among patients high in accepting external influence is promising. figure 3. simple regression lines depicting the relationship between an accepting external influence and dental anxiety at specified values of a controlling treatment style (low = 1 sd below the mean whereas high = 1 sd above the mean). even though the level of controlling treatment styles might be relatively low, a one-time incident of bad experience may have very negative consequences for patients. consequently, we should bear in mind its’ larger impact on individuals than positive events (baumeister, bratslavsky, finkenauer, & vohs, 2001), and its robustness in predicting maladaptive developmental outcomes (kins, soenens, & beyers, 2012; soenens, vansteenkiste, & luyten, 2010). the negative link between gender and dental anxiety indicated that women had higher levels of dental anxiety than men, which is consistent with the literature (hill et al., 2013). regarding education and socioeconomic status variables, two factors that are known to influence oral health in some samples (carmichael, rugg, french, & cranage, 1980), no significant correlations appeared with the other study variables. this is in line with other research among student patients (halvari et al., 2012a). personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments 56 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ practical implications it is worth noting that autonomy support, or the reduction in controllingness which is an element of autonomy support, are involved in both personality interactions, with authenticity and with accepting external influence. oral-health-care clinicians use of autonomy support and their reduction of controllingness might be very important in reducing dental anxiety and avoiding dental appointments among patients. autonomy support can be learned (williams & deci, 1996). examples from oral-health-care interventions that could be utilised in training of clinicians are exercises eliciting and reflecting patient perspectives, providing options and a rationale for change when a recommendation is made, supporting patient initiatives, minimizing pressure and a controlling language, and remaining non-judgmental. according to self-determination theory, such support is of vital importance in patient oral health promotion (halvari & halvari, 2006; halvari, et al., 2012a; halvari, halvari, bjørnebekk, & deci, 2012b). strengths and limitations many strengths and limitations apply to the present study. first, self-reports were appropriate for authenticity, accepting external influence, perceived autonomy support, controlling style, and dental anxiety. however, observed measures of avoiding dental appointments would have strengthened the design. construct validity of the self-report measures were demonstrated in sem. second, the current sample is a convenience sample from a specific population of student patients. the sample was not selected to be representative of all student patients, so caution must be taken when it comes to generalizing the results. however, the purpose of the present study was to test the links between variables derived from self-determination theory, which is an universal theory, assuming that constructs such as authenticity and dental anxiety are more or less present in all individuals (deci & ryan, 2000). this means we tried to maximize the internal validity of the study, assuming that the relations between variables would be the same independent of sample variations. third, the study has the limitations associated with being cross-sectional and the absence of a design allowing randomized control and longitudinal data implies that conclusions regarding causality cannot be inferred (bollen, 1989). the analysis of the hypothesized model was performed in sem with latent variables, which is a strength because error variances are accounted for. still, the arrows between variables do not imply causality. competing interests the authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. funding the authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. acknowledgments the authors have no acknowledgements to report. halvari, halvari, & deci 57 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references arnrup, k., broberg, a. g., berggren, u., & bodin, l. 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(2008). the authentic personality: a theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the authenticity scale. journal of counseling psychology, 55, 385-399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385 about the authors anne elisabeth münster halvari is associate professor at the faculty of dentistry, department of dental hygienist education, university of oslo, norway. she is also an adjunct associate professor at department of health, social and welfare studies, university of south-eastern norway, bakkenteigen, norway. she holds a phd in motivational psychology and oral health from the university of oslo. halvari has published numerous research articles on self-determined motivation, oral health behaviors, well-being, and oral health. hallgeir halvari is professor in management and motivation at the department of business and social sciences, university of south-eastern norway, and professor in sport psychology at the university of sport sciences, oslo, norway. he holds a phd in educational psychology from the university of oslo. halvari has published numerous research articles on motivation, self-determined behavior, well-being, physical health, and performance-related factors in the fields of health, work, education, and sport. edward l. deci is professor in management at the university of south-eastern norway, professorial fellow in motivation at australian catholic university in north sydney, and helen f. and fred h. gowen professor emeritus in the social sciences at the university of rochester in new york. he holds a ph.d. in psychology from carnegie-mellon university, studied at the university of pennsylvania, the london school of economics, and hamilton college, and was an interdisciplinary post-doctoral fellow at stanford university. deci’s focus is human motivation, and he is co-founder with richard m. ryan of selfdetermination theory. he has published eleven books and is a grantee of the national institutes of health, the national science foundation, and the institute of education sciences. halvari, halvari, & deci 61 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 45–61 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1664 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1600-0528.1983.tb01376.x https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10648-010-9142-7 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.janxdis.2010.09.015 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-6494.1996.tb00813.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.70.4.767 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.70.1.115 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0167.55.3.385 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality, treatment, dental anxiety, and avoidance of dental appointments (introduction) the authentic and accepting-external-influence personalities self-determination theory: autonomy-supportive and controlling treatment styles the moderated and moderated mediation roles of treatment styles possible control / background variables hypotheses method participants translation of measures and their reliabilities design of questionnaire questionnaires data analysis results descriptive statistics and reliability hypotheses testing theoretical model empirical models mediation analyses of moderation and moderated mediation discussion practical implications strengths and limitations (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments references about the authors educating to tolerance: effects of communicating social psychology research findings research reports educating to tolerance: effects of communicating social psychology research findings francesco la barbera*a [a] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. abstract the effect of communicating social psychology research findings on ingroup bias in a classroom setting has been investigated. two hundred and twenty one high school students either read or did not read a brief report about three classical social psychological studies, then completed evaluation scales for the ingroup and the outgroup. participants’ motivation was manipulated, and the messages were different as regards the congruency between the content and participants’ actual intergroup experience. results showed that communication exerted a significant effect in reducing ingroup bias for participants in the high motivation/high congruency condition, that is, the communication effect was moderated by the individual’s level of motivation and the content of the arguments proposed in the report. practical implications of results for education work and stereotype change, limitations of the study, as well as possible directions for future research are discussed. keywords: education to tolerance, ingroup bias, motivation, intergroup relations, communication europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 received: 2014-11-17. accepted: 2015-07-16. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: dipartimento di scienze politiche, università degli studi di napoli federico ii, via rodinò 22, 80138 napoli (na), italy. phone: 00390812538108. e-mail: francesco.labarbera@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ingroup bias is one of the most studied topics in social psychology: it is the individuals’ systematic tendency to identify with the group to which they belong and evaluate it (the ingroup) more positively than the group to which they do not feel they belong or identify with (the outgroup), specially on attributes which are relevant to the ingroup; this process represents the basis for stereotypes and prejudice (brown, 1995; tajfel & turner, 1979). several interpretations of the ingroup bias have been proposed: tajfel (1981, 1982) highlighted that enhancing the ingroup compared to the outgroup protects the self-concept of the ingroup members, as well as their “subjective location in the social networks of which they are a part” (1982, p. 31), whereas sherif (1967) underlined the importance of intergroup competition and lack of resources, which create a negative interdependence between groups (see also brewer, 2000). hamilton and gifford (1976) focused upon cognitive processes which determine illusory correlation between undesirable behaviors and minorities. a number of studies have explored different strategies for the reduction of ingroup bias, with different approaches and results (see fiske, 2000, for a review). the aim of the current research is to investigate whether the communication of social psychology research findings about ingroup bias, intergroup conflict and stereotypes could be an effective educational strategy for reducing the ingroup bias: the basic idea is that a better understanding of the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ processes underpinning ingroup bias could promote its reduction. this simple concept seems to be implicit in teaching social psychology, yet it has not been sufficiently investigated by empirical research (for an exception, see capozza, volpato, & falvo, 2003). nonetheless, the hypothesis that educational processes based on social psychology research could improve understanding and tolerance, if supported by data, may have a huge practical impact, for example in relation to school multicultural programs and adults’ education programs against prejudice. several scholars have focused on the possibility of changing negative stereotypes of the outgroup through communication, thus reducing also ingroup/outgroup discrimination. this research line has a long tradition in social psychology, starting with lewin (1951)’s seminal studies on changing attitudes, and has highlighted some basic points. according to lewin, any stereotype change involves a dynamic process of de-learning and re-learning in a multidimensional restructuring process that may imply a significant level of difficulty for individuals. therefore, people generally try to reject the counter-stereotypic information (johnston, 1996), except for in some conditions like high motivation (moreno & bodenhausen, 1999). the crucial role of motivation has been also highlighted by the so-called two-path models of persuasion (eagly & chaiken, 1993; petty & cacioppo, 1986), whose validity has been confirmed also in the field of the stereotype change (johnston & coolen, 1995): when individuals are highly motivated, it is more likely that they carefully elaborate the message proposed, and the quality of arguments, which can be more or less convincing to them. therefore, current experiment investigated if high motivation in elaborating the message could increase the effect of communicating the findings of social psychological research on ingroup bias. in addition, we explored the effect of the quality of the arguments proposed by research findings; more specifically, we explored the effect of the congruency between the content of communication and the actual intergroup experience of participants. what we should expect when the content of the research we present to participants seems to reflect quite directly their real intergroup experience? we suggest that the content of the message should be more convincing when it recalls the peculiarities of individuals’ actual intergroup relations and social context. on the contrary, if people feel the research rationale and findings as very far and different from the actual condition they live in, this could lead to their closure and refusal of the communication message. this is in line with the traditional research on the self-reference effect (kuiper & rogers 1979; markus 1977, 1980), which is the individuals’ association of self-relevant incoming information with information previously stored in memory (self-concept). individuals who self-relate information are more likely to remember it, and to respond to it in a positive way. consequently, self-reference can play an important role in a persuasion context (cacioppo & petty, 1979). in our experiment, we investigated whether communication about a realistic intergroup conflict for incompatible goals would be more persuasive than other forms of communication, to an audience who had previous experience of such a conflict. finally, according to dual-path models of persuasion (eagly & chaiken, 1993; petty & cacioppo, 1986), only highly motivated individuals should focus their attention on the message; therefore, we also expected a significant interaction between participants’ motivation (which was manipulated in the experiment) and the content of arguments proposed. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 la barbera 477 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in sum, the aim of our research was to investigate the effect that the communication of social psychology research findings had on ingroup bias, as a function of participants’ motivation, of the content of arguments, and of the interaction between the last two factors. method sample we selected the intergroup relation between italians and chinese, which has been already studied by la barbera and cariota ferrara (2010) in the same italian district in which the present experiment has been carried out. in the last decades this area has been the target of a huge immigration which entailed deep social and economic changes. the chinese immigrants, a very large group, have been in competition with locals in the textile area trade and for the acquisition of real properties. chinese have been found, indeed, to be highly discriminated against and perceived as competitors by the locals (la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2010). two hundreds and twenty-one high school students (151 females), took part to the experiment (age range: 1519 years; m = 17.03; sd = 0.85). their participation was voluntary and they completed the questionnaires (see below) in the classroom. the high schools were selected in the district just described. materials we selected descriptions of three well-known social psychological studies, which gave different explanations of the ingroup bias. according to tajfel, billig, bundy, and flament (1971), the social categorization is the necessary and sufficient condition for the ingroup bias to emerge. tajfel’s (1982) cic approach (social categorization, social identity, social comparison) states that individuals place themselves and others in social categories, which become part of their social identity; hence, they engage in a series of social comparisons from which they try to make sure that the ingroup proves better than the outgroup. in this way, they protect their own social identity and enhance their selfesteem, which depends on the groups they belong. tajfel et al. (1971) randomly assigned their experimental subjects into two different groups, apparently on the basis of the result of a categorization task. after that, they asked participants to allocate resources to a member of the ingroup and a member of the outgroup. the main allocation strategy used by participants was themaximum difference, that is, trying to achieve themaximum difference between the two members (in favor of the ingroup one), irrespective of the total amount given to the ingroup and outgroup members. the second description was based on the work of sherif (1967), who claimed that individuals’ favouritism for their ingroup should be determined by the presence of incompatible goals, which create competition between groups for gaining resources. in the robbers cave experiment, sherif and colleagues, in a summer camp setting, created two groups of boys from middle-class families, then made them compete in games and challenges. participants were told that, at the end of the camp, each member of the winning group was about to win a pocket knife. this competition had a negative effect on intergroup relations. then sherif and colleagues tried to reduce the animosity between groups, showing that superordinate goals (which require the cooperation of more than one group to be achieved) reduced conflict significantly. sherif’s conclusion was that intergroup conflict is based upon real competition for incompatible goals, which create a negative interdependence between groups, whereas superordinate goals, promoting a positive interdependence, foster positive relations. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 educating to tolerance 478 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the final description was of the work of hamilton and gifford (1976), who proposed that biased evaluations towards the ingroup vis-a-vis an outgroup could be determined by cognitive errors in processing information. indeed, in an experiment on illusory correlation, participants read a series of sentences describing either desirable or undesirable behaviors, which were attributed to the members of two different groups. most of the sentences were associated with group a, and the remaining few were associated with group b. each group had the same proportions of positive and negative behaviors, so there was no real association between behaviors and group membership. nonetheless, participants significantly overestimated the association between the less frequent and undesirable behaviors and the minority group members. therefore, in a context in which there is a majority group (e.g. the locals) and a minority group (e.g. the immigrants), one could expect the majority group members to make an illusory correlation between undesirable behaviors andminority groups, thus supporting negative stereotype of the outgroup. procedure 1 – in a questionnaire, participants were told that they would be asked to read a well-known scientific study about intergroup relations. in the “high motivation” condition, participants were told that subsequently they would have to give their evaluation about “two groups that live in italy”, with the indication of the groups they would have to assess (italians and chinese). in the “low motivation” condition we gave no anticipation of this. 2 – each participant either read one of the three research descriptions, or read nothing; therefore, there were three experimental conditions in the study (hamilton vs. tajfel vs. sherif), and a control condition in which participants read no research description. then, an item asked participants if they already had knowledge of the research; the answers always were negative. 3 – participants’ ingroup bias was measured by an instrument we built through a pilot-study: 43 students of another high school of the same district completed a free association task; with the six adjectives that most frequently have been associated to both “italians” and “chinese” stimuli, we built 7-point semantic differential scales (osgood, suci, & tannenbaum, 1957): “desirable/undesirable”, “unpleasant/pleasant”, “beautiful/ugly”, “sunny/dark”, “clean/dirty”, “kind/unkind”. the reliability of the scale was satisfactory for both italians, α = .70, and chinese, α = .83. an average score of the six items was created, with higher values corresponding to more negative evaluation of the target group. each participant evaluated the two target groups (italians and chinese) on these six dimensions. the order of presentation of the target group was counterbalanced. finally, participants were fully debriefed and thanked for participation in the study. hence, the experimental design is defined by two between participants factors (message: hamilton vs. tajfel vs. sherif vs. no message; motivation: high vs. low) and one within participants factor (target-group: italians vs. chinese). participants were randomly attributed to one of the the eight experimental conditions. results a new variable was created for measuring ingroup biasi by subtracting participants’ evaluation of italians from their evaluations of chinese (higher values correspond to higher ingroup bias). to examine the effects of message, motivation, and their interaction on ingroup bias, we carried out an anova with two between participants factors, motivation (high vs. low) and message (sherif vs. tajfel vs. hamilton vs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 la barbera 479 http://www.psychopen.eu/ control), with ingroup bias as the dependent variable. we found a marginal effect of motivation, f(7, 213) = 3.23, p = 0.07, η2 = 0.015): ingroup bias scores were slightly higher in the high motivation condition (m = 2.37, sd = 1.36) than in the low motivation condition (m = 1.79, sd = 1.33). on the other hand, there was no significant main effect of the message, f(7, 213) = 1.73, p = 0.16. the effect of the crucial interaction of motivation by message was statistically significant, f(7, 213) = 3.85, p = 0.01, η2 = 0.051. means and standard deviations of participants’ ingroup bias over conditions are provided in table 1. table 1 ingroup bias against chinese low motivationhigh motivation message nsdmnsdm 301.24281.22sherif .19c2.05a2 281.28261.40tajfel .81cd1.96a1 261.23291.47hamilton .27d1.48ab2 261.49281.20no message .82cd1.94b2 1101.331111.36total .791.372 note. table shows mean scores and standard deviations of participants’ ingroup bias against chinese outgroup over conditions. the means marked with different letters are different at p < 0.05 level. simple effects analysis showed that, in the high motivation condition, the effect of message type was significant, f(3, 107) = 2.68, p = 0.05, η2 = 0.070: participants’ ingroup bias scores in the tajfel and sherif conditions are lower than those of participants in the control condition, t(52) = 2.40, p = 0.02, and t(54) = 2.62, p = 0.01, respectively, whereas there is no significant difference between participants’ scores in the hamilton and control conditions, t(55) = 1.25, p = 0.22. at low motivation level, the effect of message type was also significant, f(3, 106) = 2.88, p = 0.040, η2 = 0.075, but pairwise comparisons showed no significant difference between the three experimental conditions and the control condition (all ps > .10), that is, the ingroup bias of participants who read the research report was not significantly different from the ingroup bias of participants who read nothing. the only significant difference was found between sherif and hamilton conditions, t(54) = 3.02, p = 0.004, with those in the sherif condition reporting high ingroup bias than those in the hamilton condition. discussion the aim of the present research was to investigate the effect of using social psychology research findings for reducing ingroup bias in a classroom setting. our hypothesis of a significant effect of the scientific communication moderated by participants’ motivation and quality of message was supported by the significant two-way interaction: the two between-participants factors interactively affected participants’ ingroup bias. when participants read about social psychology research while knowing that they will be asked about group evaluations, it seems that the evocation of the target group increases the saliency of the intergroup comparison (tajfel & turner, 1979), which makes participants in the sherif condition more motivated to elaborate the message; we argue that they then detected a high congruency between the real competition they live with chinese and europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 educating to tolerance 480 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sherif’s findings. hence, motivation and congruency moderate the effect of the scientific communication in reducing the ingroup bias. in the low motivation condition, instead, we found no significant effect of scientific communication compared to the control conditionii: therefore, a high level of motivation seems to be a necessary (but not satisfactory) condition to the ingroup bias reduction through communicating social psychological research. we found the same pattern of results in the case of participants who read tajfel’s research, but not in the case of hamilton and gifford’s study. the positive effect of the message based on tajfel’s research was unexpected. nonetheless, both sherif’s and tajfel’s studies regard ingroup-outgroup confrontation for gaining resources. although there are marked differences between the two studies as regards the theoretical background, results and general interpretation of the intergroup conflicts (see tajfel & turner, 1979), in both cases participants maybe have focused their attention on the aspect of intergroup competition for something real (a pocketknife in the case of sherif’s experiment, a certain amount of money-points for tajfel’s), in particular because they were biased in that way by the previous evocation of italian vs. chinese intergroup comparison. in other words, tajfel’s experiment, showing people’s propensity to promote the ingroup in gaining resources (though in a minimal intergroup situation), may have been felt by participants as very close to the real situation in which they live with chinese members of their town, differently from hamilton and gifford’s study, in which the issue of gaining resources is not present at all. this interpretation of results further underlines the importance of the content of scientific communication. nonetheless, this is an ex post speculation which should be deepened in future studies, in particular because the current study does not provide any measure of the underlying mechanisms proposed. in addition, a possible problem in the manipulation of motivation could be that participants who have been told they had to evaluate two groups after their reading of a study about intergroup bias (high motivation condition), thought they were expected to be more positive towards the outgroup. however, we only found a marginal and small-sized main effect of motivation on the ingroup bias scores, which were slightly higher in the high motivation condition than in the low motivation condition. therefore, this concern seems to be somewhat contradicted by the empirical evidence. in sum, social psychology-based scientific communication seems to have some potential in reducing ingroup bias, and its positive effects seem to be moderated by the individuals’ motivation and the content (congruency) of message, specifically, its congruency with life experiences. hence, our results support the idea that educational paths based on social psychology knowledge might promote better intergroup relations; nonetheless, they also suggest that not all messages could be effective for all intergroup relations, and the attention paid to the specific situation and to the real context in which intergroup conflicts take place could be relevant (see lewin, 1946). therefore, it would be important to study in depth the relations between the content of communication and the peculiarities of the intergroup comparison which is the target of the educational work. one limitation of the current study is that it considered a very specific social context. the positive effects of communicating social psychological research results should be replicated in studies with larger andmore heterogeneous samples, also taking into account the multilevel nature of the research population (individuals, classrooms, schools, cities). moreover, the current study gave no information on the stability of the ingroup bias reduction over time. this is a very important question, which could be deepened by longitudinal research. future research could also fruitfully explore the effects of different educational strategies based on social psychology’s findings (e.g. written communications, lectures, discussions), also in action-research programs. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 la barbera 481 http://www.psychopen.eu/ if confirmed, our results could open new promising ways for education towards tolerance. lessons from social psychology research could be adequately introduced, for example, in the elementary, middle, and high school education programs, as a straightforward way to reduce and/or prevent prejudice among wide populations. in addition, social psychology-based strategies, such as the discussion of research findings related to ingroup bias and prejudice, could be used for specific adults’ education programs in the case of social context with actual problems of intergroup conflicts. notes i) in line with tajfel’s cic (social categorization, social identity, social comparison) approach (tajfel, 1982; tajfel & turner, 1979), ingroup bias is defined here as the difference in participants’ evaluation of the ingroup compared to the outgroup. ii) at low motivation level, a significant difference was found between the scores of participants in the sherif and hamilton conditions. however, the differences between each of those experimental conditions and the control condition did not reach statistical significance. therefore, this result is not relevant from a theoretical point of view and cannot be interpreted. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author would like to thank pia cariota ferrara and dora capozza for their precious support. references brewer, m. b. 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(1979). an integrative theory of intergroup conflict. in w. g. austin & s. worchel (eds.), the social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 334-347). monterey, ca: brooks/cole. about the author francesco la barbera holds a ph.d. in psychology of cognitive processes and the dynamic processes of development and socialization. he is an assistant professor of social psychology at the university of naples federico ii, italy. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 476–483 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.888 la barbera 483 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167295217001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.37.4.499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1946.tb02295.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.35.2.63 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1368430299021001 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420010202 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en educating to tolerance (introduction) method sample materials procedure results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the role of autobiographical story-telling during rehabilitation among hip-fracture geriatric patients research reports the role of autobiographical story-telling during rehabilitation among hip-fracture geriatric patients paola iannello* a, federica biassoni a, laura bertola a, alessandro antonietti a, valerio antonello caserta b, lorenzo panella b [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. [b] department of physical and rehabilitation medicine, orthopedic institute “gaetano pini”, milan, italy. abstract hip fracture is one of the most common health care problems among elderly people. literature shows that high self-efficacy expectations and positive affect are some of the key issues in functional recovery after hip fracture. the present investigation tested whether selfnarration of such life-breaking event influences self-efficacy and depression during the process of rehabilitation. we designed a selfnarration journey (snj) to be administered during the in-hospital rehabilitation. in study 1, we investigated the influence of snj on depression and perceived self-efficacy. study 2 aimed to explore the effect of snj, depression, and self-efficacy on functional recovery of independence to perform daily activities during the rehabilitation process. the data showed that the self-narration journey proved effective in increasing the perceived self-efficacy and in lowering the level of depression. the present work highlights a significant effect of the snj on the functional recovery process. keywords: hip fracture, rehabilitation, self-narration, elderly europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 received: 2017-11-13. accepted: 2018-02-16. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, largo gemelli, 1 – 20123 milan, italy. phone 0039 0272342557. e-mail: paola.iannello@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. hip fracture among elderly people world population is ageing rapidly. italy is the second country after japan with the largest ageing population in the world, since 22% of the population is 65 years of age or even older (iolascon, cervone, & gimigliano, 2011). as people live longer, the number of age-related health problems is rising exponentially. among others, hip fracture rates constantly increase in the ageing population (chang, center, nguyen, & eismen, 2004; ishizaki et al., 2004; johnell & kanis, 2004). hip fracture is one of the most common and serious health care problems among elderly people. indeed, hip fractures are a major cause of mortality and disability, given that the risk of dying within the first year after this injury has been reported to be as high as 13-36% (johansen, mansor, beck, mahoney, & thomas, 2010; pretto et al., 2010). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ hip fractures involve remarkable medical and rehabilitation costs (marks, allegrante, mackenzie, & lane, 2003), requiring an average hospital stay of 19-24 days. it is fair to say that hip fractures not only involve a broken bone, but also have a significantly psychological effect. a number of studies, in this respect, have found that hip fracture is frequently associated with negative emotional status, low self-confidence, and depression (barangan, 1990; holmes & house, 2000; zimmerman et al., 1999). some of these studies highlighted that hip fracture patients tend to express feeling of insufficiency and insecurity, and a general loss of self-confidence, specifically related to the difficulties they encounter in executing even trivial daily activities (zidén, wenestam, & hannsson-scherman, 2008). other studies, additionally, tried to establish a connection between depression symptoms and rehabilitation outcome, suggesting that depression might interfere with the patients’ engagement in rehabilitation process (feinstein, 1999; lenze et al., 2004). given both the prevalence (reginster, gillet, & gosset, 2001) and the serious consequences – both physical and psychologicalof hip fractures in elderly people, there is a strong need to examine all factors that might improve current hip fracture rehabilitation strategies and recovery. many factors are reported to affect the outcome of the patients’ post-operative rehabilitation in terms of both functional recovery and the quality of life. some factors specifically concern the medical domain, such as early surgical time (schürch et al., 1996), pre-fracture functional abilities, and comorbid conditions (fried, ferrucci, & darer, 2004). however, social and psychological rather than physical factors are likely to affect rehabilitation (repper & perkins, 2003; roberts & wolfson, 2006). indeed, literature indicates that patients’ psychological characteristics could play an important role during the rehabilitation process (givens, sanft, & marcantonio, 2008). specifically, being resilient (rebagliati et al., 2016; sciumè et al., in press) as well as developing high self-efficacy expectations (allegrante, mackenzie, robbins, & cornell, 1991) and positive affect (fredman, hawkes, black, bertrand, & magaziner, 2006) turned out to be some of the key issues in functional recovery after hip fracture. few studies have examined the ways in which elderly cope with hip fracture and the meaning that they give to such an event (archibald, 2003; hunt & stein, 2004; zidén et al., 2008). recovery expectations are strictly related to the meaning the patients assigned to the experience of hip fracture. these findings suggest that to maximize the rehabilitation potential, a multidisciplinary effort that would consider not only physical, but also psychological factors is required. self-narration for well-being in recent years, health care services have embraced the psychological dimension thanks to different models, including the narrative medicine approach. narrative medicine offers a model for improving communication between patients and physicians, which in turn affects the patient’s well-being as well as the quality of care and health outcomes (charon, 2008; riva et al., 2014; riva, iannello, antonietti, & pravettoni, 2015). it allows a clinician to listen to the patient’ story; his or her fears, suffering, and hopes; and his/her description of how illness and medical care have affected his/her life. regarding the patient-physician relationship, narrative medicine facilitates the creation of therapeutic alliances and the selection of treatments that make sense within the story told by patients and their families (cepeda et al., 2008; smorti, pananti, & rizzo, 2010). the link between self-narration and well-being has been maintained in different fields. psychoanalytic tradition has claimed that the “self-narration” processes that occur in psychoanalytic sessions have a therapeutic value because they stimulate insight, reformulation of one’s life history, and attribution of a new structure to life events iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 425 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (schafer, 1992; spence, 1982; white, 1990). the cognitive and the narrative approaches have emphasized that narration operates as an active “rebuilder of experiences”, allowing the individual to set events in a semantic plot line and endow them with narrative organization (antonietti, confalonieri, & marchetti, 2014; biassoni, ciceri, & antoniotti, 2005; colombo, iannello, & antonietti, 2010; conway, 2005). as syrjälä, takala, and sintonen (2009) pointed out, narratives, according to ricoeur (1991), mediate three specific relationships, those between a human being and his/her perception of the world (worldview), between a human being and another human being (communication), and between a human being and him/herself (self-understanding). following bruner (1987), storytelling is one of the primary mechanisms through which humans make sense of their experiences. in particular, telling the story of stressful or traumatic experiences can help develop a sense of understanding and control (koenig kellas, trees, schrodt, leclair-underberg, & willer, 2010). indeed, constructing stories facilitates a sense of resolution, which results in less rumination, whereas painful events that are not structured into a narrative format may contribute to the continued experience of negative thoughts and feelings. in his works, pennebaker (1993, 1997, 2004) showed that patients deal with traumatic events more effectively if they can understand and assimilate them. when this happens, individuals no longer need to actively inhibit or hold back their thoughts and feelings. indeed, several studies have indicated that actively inhibiting ongoing behavior is associated with both short-term autonomic activity (fowles, 1980) and long-term stress-related disease. confronting a trauma may thus reduce the long-term work of inhibition, since individuals may assimilate, reframe, or find meaning in the event (horowitz, 1976; silver, boon, & stones, 1983). because of its sense-making function, storytelling is potentially beneficial for individuals’ health and well-being (neimeyer & levitt, 2000). in fact, research in narrative psychology (e.g., mcadams, 1993; pennebaker, 1997) and narrative therapy (e.g., monk, 1997; white, 2007) suggests that the opportunity to tell and/or reframe stories of trauma, difficulty, or stress can have positive effect on mental and physical health (koenig kellas et al., 2010). consistently, narrative medicine aims to empower patients by giving them a sense of control (cepeda et al., 2008). the ways in which individuals tell their stories affect the reframing process. two factors that empower the effectiveness of the narration process have been identified. the first factor involves sense making as an interactional collaborative process while the other factor concerns the emotional content of narratives. regarding the first factor, though research is needed to increase the knowledge of the ways in which dialogic narration affects the personal well-being, some promising data show that narrating personal experience to others prompts joint processes of sense-making co-construction of stressful events (sales & fivush, 2005; trees & koenig kellas, 2009). therefore, sense making emerges as the result of a dialogic construction. concerning the second factor, as mentioned previously, telling the story of a traumatic or stressful experience allows an individual to express emotions and/or cognitively make sense of the trauma, which in turn permits the individual to “let go” of the memory and move on from potentially unhealthy ruminations. research by ramírezesparza and pennebaker (2006) showed that individual narratives that are richer in emotional and insight language were related to better health outcomes. consistently, a study by thomas et al. (2009) on the narrative research methods in palliative care pinpointed that the more effective interviews focused on the following themes: cancer diagnosis and the course of the illness; experiences of medical treatments, care systems, and health care practitioners; the effect of the illness on the lives of self and others; the meanings, emotions, and practical challenges tied up with having cancer; and sources of support. self-narration journey 426 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present investigation the existing literature shows that exploring the patients’ perspective of the experience of hip fracture might positively affect the rehabilitation process (archibald, 2003; fredman et al., 2006; zidén et al., 2008). the present investigation aimed to verify the existence of a connection between self-narration of such life-breaking event and some psychological dimensions that are relevant to the rehabilitation process. to do so, we designed the self-narration journey (snj) to be administered by a psychologist during the inhospital rehabilitation and assessed its effects on some psychological variables. in particular, in study 1, we investigated the influence of snj on depression and perceived self-efficacy in elderly patients who were undergoing the rehabilitation process. study 2 aimed to explore the effect of snj, depression, and self-efficacy on functional recovery of independence in performing daily activities during the rehabilitation process. study 1 method participants participants were orthopedic rehabilitation patients aged 60 and older who were hospitalized between september 2015 and december 2015 in the rehabilitation department of the orthopedic institute “gaetano pini” in milan. all patients who underwent hip fracture surgery and followed their in-hospital rehabilitation program were considered candidates for the inclusion in the study. an initial screening assessed the level of cognitive functioning. eight patients who scored <30 on the mini-mental state examination (mmse) (bellelli, frisoni, turco, & trabucchi, 2008) were excluded from the study. of the initial 60 patients, 52 received written and verbal information about the study and were asked if they were willing to participate. ten patients declined. thus, finally size sample was of 42 (30 women and 12 men, age range: 60-95 yrs.; mean age = 79.67 yrs.; sd = 9.03). patients were randomized to the intervention (n = 21; mean age = 79.95 yrs.; sd = 8.93) or usual care (control) group (n = 21; mean age = 79.31 yrs.; sd = 9.12). no socio-demographic differences were revealed between the patients who were randomized to the intervention and control group. the ethics committee of the orthopedic institute “gaetano pini” approved the study. informed consent was obtained from all patients during their rehabilitation stay. procedure and materials all patients underwent physical therapy rehabilitation sessions twice a day, six days a week throughout their inhospital rehabilitation stay. the rehabilitation training included strengthening exercises and transfer, postural, and gait training. upon admission (within 5 days after admission) and at discharge (within 5 days prior to discharge), a trained psychologist administered the following questionnaires to both intervention and control groups. geriatric depression scale (gds; sheikh & yesavage, 1986; italian version: pedrabissi & santinello, 1991). the gds is a 15-item self-reported depression assessment scale (e.g. “do you feel that your life is empty?”), which can be used with both healthy and medically ill older adults. scores range from 0 to 15, with scores > 5 that are considered as suggestive of depression and scores ≥ 10 as almost always indicative of depression. it iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 427 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ has to be noted that the validity and reliability of the short form of gds have been supported through a validation study comparing the long and short forms of the gds for self-rating of symptoms of depression, both were successful in differentiating depressed from non-depressed people (r = .84, p < .001) (sheikh & yesavage, 1986). general self-efficacy scale (gses; sibilia, schwarzer, & jerusalem, 1995). the gses includes 10 items measuring global feelings of self-efficacy (e.g. “i am confident that i could deal efficiently with unexpected events”). the responses are rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (completely true). the total score is calculated by finding the sum of all the items. for the gse, the total score ranges between 10 and 40, with a higher score indicating higher self-efficacy. only the intervention group completed the self-narrative journey (snj; the entire snj interview is reported in the appendix). the snj consists of a semi-structured interview designed specifically for the present study, with the aim to help the patient integrate the critical event of hip fracture in her/his autobiographical story and to support her/him in the process of sense-making about such a life-breaking event. the proposed format includes open-ended questions, asked in a fixed set. it has been chosen to attain two main aims: on the one hand, to foster free expression of feelings and emotions within a frame able to contain them; on the other hand, to drive the subject along a journey for meaning construction, since what has been expressed can find a placement in the narrative structure, featured by temporal and causal links (biassoni et al., 2005; bruner, 1987). the snj is divided into three main content sections, which correspond to the past, present, and future parts of a patient’s life. the past section focuses on the patient’s life before the hip fracture, such as her/his family, friends, and daily routine. the present section addresses the hip fracture event and the rehabilitation process, in particular the hospital daily routine and the relationship between the patient and both physicians and other patients. in the future section, the focus is on the patient’s perceptions and expectations of returning home. the patient is encouraged to reflect on possible solutions once he/she would realize that he/she would not be as autonomous and independent as before the hip surgery. the snj ends with two feedback questions. first, the patient is asked to rate how much he/she liked the interviews on a likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). the entire snj interview is reported in the appendix. the snj was adapted specifically for the elderly population. it was divided into five sessions, each comprising five to ten questions assessing the past, the present and ending with the future. each part, administered during a meeting, took 15 to 20 minutes to complete in order to avoid the risk of an excessive load (both cognitively and emotionally) for the patient. consequently, the number of meetings varied from three to five, depending on the patient’s willingness to narrate his/her story. overall, the snj lasted for two weeks. the design of the study is illustrated in figure 1. self-narration journey 428 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. design of study 1. results statistical analyses of all data were performed with spss version 23.0. preliminary analyses before comparing depression and self-efficacy scores with respect to group (intervention vs. control) and time (at admission vs. discharge), the normality of distributions of the variables was assessed by calculating skewness and kurtosis values. both values were within the +1 to -1 range, indicating that scores on both scales were normally distributed (marcoulides & hershberger, 1997). the internal consistency of the scales was examined by calculating cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients, which showed good internal consistency (gds: α = .89; gses: α = .83). descriptive analyses descriptive statistics for depression and self-efficacy scores under all conditions (intervention vs. control group and admission vs. discharge) are reported in table 1. table 1 means and standard deviations of gds and gses under all conditions scale intervention group control group admission discharge admission discharge m sd m sd m sd m sd gds 5.18 2.44 3.59 2.42 5.05 2.09 6.38 3.47 gses 3.41 0.75 3.86 0.56 3.27 0.74 3.16 0.61 iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 429 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ values are comparable to the scores recorded in previous studies involving samples of patients similar to those engaged in the present study (rebagliati et al., 2016; sciumè et al., in press). influence of snj on perceived self-efficacy and depression a mixed multivariate analysis of variance (manova) with time (at admission vs. discharge) as the repeated factor and group (intervention vs. control) as the between-subject factor was conducted on gds and gses scores. a significant main effect of group (f(1,41) = 4.66, p < .05; wilk's λ = .89, partial η2 = .28, observed power = .82) and a significant interaction effect of group x time (f(1,41) = 12.901, p < .01; wilk's λ = .93, partial η2 = .25, observed power = .92) emerged. specifically, the interaction effect of group x time was significant for both gds scores (f(1,41 = 5.72, p < .05; partial η2 = .01, observed power = .84) and gses scores (f(1,41= 3.74, p < 05; partial η2 = .14, observed power = .82) (figures 2 and 3). figure 2. interaction effect of group x time on gds scores. figure 3. interaction effect of group x time on gses scores. self-narration journey 430 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 method participants participants were 40 orthopedic rehabilitation patients (30 women and 10 men: age range = 68-92 yrs.; mean age = 80.12 yrs; sd = 7.09) who were hospitalized between february 2016 and june 2016 in the rehabilitation department of the orthopedic institute “gaetano pini” in milan after undergoing hip fracture surgery. as in study 1, cognitive status was initially assessed to ensure that only patients with a score >30 at the mmse are included in the research (12 patients who scored <30 were excluded). after the initial screening, patients were randomized to the intervention (15 women and 5 men; mean age = 80.00 yrs.; sd = 7.19) or control group (15 women and 5 men; mean age = 80.25 yrs., sd = 7.20) conditions. the ethics committee of the orthopedic institute “gaetano pini” approved the study. informed consent was obtained from all patients during their rehabilitation stay. procedure and materials the procedure was the same as described in study 1. in study 2, upon admission and at discharge, both intervention and control groups were administered the geriatric depression scale (gds) and the general self-efficacy scale (gses), as in study 1. in addition, the two groups were administered the questionnaires described as follows. barthel activities of daily living index (bi; mahoney & barthel, 1965) is one of the most widely used rating measures of activity limitations in patients with neuromuscular and musculoskeletal conditions in rehabilitation settings. bi is a 10-item scale that measures functional independence in the domains of personal care and mobility. specifically, the scale assesses the following personal activities, feeding, personal toileting, bathing, dressing, toilet transfer, controlling bladder, controlling bowel, wheelchair transfer to and from bed, walking, and ascending and descending stairs. each item is rated in terms of whether the patient can perform the task independently, with some assistance, or is dependent on help based on observation (0 = unable to perform the task, 5 = help needed 10 = independent). an overall score is computed by summing the rating values. scores range from 0 to 100, in steps of 5, with higher scores indicating greater independence. psychological well-being scale (pwb; ryff & keyes, 1995; italian validated version: ruini, ottolini, rafanelli, ryff, & fava, 2003). the pwb, which was administered to both groups of participants only on admission, consists of 84 questions reflecting 6 distinct components of psychological well-being, the individual sense of self-determination (autonomy), the capacity to manage effectively one’s life and surrounding world (environmental mastery), a sense of growth and development as a person (personal growth), the possession of quality relations with others (positive relations with others), the conviction that one’s life is purposeful (purpose in life), and a positive evaluation of oneself (self-acceptance). the respondents rated statements on a scale ranging 1 to 7, with 1 indicating strong disagreement and 7 indicating strong agreement. figure 4 illustrates the design of this study. iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 431 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analyses normal distribution of the scores on all scales was assessed by calculating skewness and kurtosis values. both skewness and kurtosis were within the +1 to -1 range, indicating that scores were normally distributed (marcoulides & hershberger, 1997). cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were computed for all scales. the coefficients for the first two scales (gds: α = .90; gse: α = .83) were similar to those computed in study 1, supporting the internal consistency of the instruments. bi (α = .88) and all of the pwb subscales showed good levels of internal consistency (autonomy: ɑ = .77; environmental mastery: ɑ = .73; personal growth: ɑ = .73; positive relations with others: ɑ = .79; purpose in life: ɑ = .77; self-acceptance: ɑ = .83). prior to the regression analysis, the patients’ level of psychological well-being in both intervention and control groups was assessed to verify that no significant differences existed between the two groups upon admission. t-tests for independent samples were performed on all pwb dimensions to compare intervention and control groups. the results indicate that the two groups did not differ in pwb subscales (autonomy: t = 1.65, p = .11; environmental mastery: t = 0.83, p = .41; personal growth: t = 0.76, p = .45; positive relations with others: t = 0.99, p = .33; purpose in life: t = 1.42, p = .17; self-acceptance: t = 0.51, p = .62). influence of snj, depression and self-efficacy on functional status at discharge a regression model was performed to assess the influence of demographic, physical, and psychological factors on the functional status at discharge, which was operationalized as the difference between bi at discharge and bi on admission (∆ bi). figure 4. design of study 2. self-narration journey 432 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ demographic and functionality predictors (age and bi on admission) were entered in a hierarchical linear regression first, followed by all other psychological predictors (snj in the first step and depression and perceived self-efficacy in the last step). table 2 displays the standardized regression coefficients (ß) and rsquare after entering all independent variables. table 2 hierarchical linear regression with ∆ bi at discharge as the dependent variable and age, bi on admission (first block), group (intervention vs. control) (second block), depression and self-efficacy (third block) as independent variables: the standardized regression coefficients (ß) and r-square predictor ß 1. age -.33 (p = .056) 2. bi on admission -.51 (p < .005) 3. group -.25 (p = .060) 4. depression -.38 (p < .050) 5. self-efficacy .30 (p < .050) note. first block (demographic/physical variables): r2 = 0.122; f(2,39) = 5.27, p < .05. after entering the second block (group): r2 = 0.250; f(3,39) = 3.59, p < .05. after entering the third block (depression/self-efficacy): r2 = 0.47; f(7,39) = 4.04, p < .005. the regression model, including all independent variables, was statistically significant (r2 = 0.47; f(5,39) = 4.04, p < .005), indicating that a linear combination of the predictors included in the regression model accounted for 47% of the variation in functional status. after entering the psychological predictors in the regression analysis, the variance accounted for in the level of functional status significantly improved, beyond that afforded by the demographic and physical variables. in particular, the bi on admission, and both the level of depression and the perceived self-efficacy turned out to be significant predictors of functional status. moreover, the results indicated that the training (snj) had an influence on the functional status at discharge although it did not reach the significance level. general discussion and conclusions the snj is based on autobiographical narration and administered it to a sample of older patients during inhospital rehabilitation after hip fracture surgery to test its influence on the patients’ well-being and functional recovery. since hip fracture not only involves a broken bone, but also has an enormous psychological effect that has to be considered in health care, the training has been developed to improve the overall recovery outcomes. we aimed to verify whether exploring the perspective of patients on such a life-breaking event and providing them – through self-narration – with a space for sense-making activity might improve their perceived self-efficacy, decrease their depression level, and thus empower their personal well-being. moreover, we aimed to verify whether increasing the patients’ well-being affects their functional recovery. literature on hip fracture indeed provides evidence that such experience significantly affects the relation patients have with their own body, themselves, other people, and their life situation. the feelings of losing confidence in their body; being limited in movements and therefore depending on others; staying secluded at home; feeling disabled, older, and closer to death; as well experiencing pain and loss of control, autonomy, and self-efficacy are possible triggers of depression (archibald, 2003; zidén et al., 2008). the research shows that iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 433 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ patients with high positive affect respond more effectively and faster to functional recovery compared to patients with low positive affect and depressive symptoms (fredman et al., 2006). in addition, a work by allegrante and colleagues (1991) underlined the role of self-efficacy in modifying the outcomes of recovery in the specific case of rehabilitation interventions after hip fracture and surgery. for these reasons, in study 1, we focused on the possible effects of the narrative training on self-efficacy and depression, usually investigated in relation to hip fracture and the subsequent rehabilitation process. supported by study 1’s results, in study 2, we broadened the range of the considered variables, including the barthel adl (activities of daily living) index, as a measure of functional recovery, recorded before and after the rehabilitation process. the results of the two studies were concordant. data collected in study 1 showed that the self-narration journey proved effective in increasing the perceived self-efficacy and in lowering the level of depression. the data collected in study 2 replicated these finding, showing that the autobiographical story telling enhanced the perception of self-efficacy and had a positive effect on the level of depression. moreover, study 2 revealed a significant effect of the proposed training on the functional recovery process. patients in the experimental group who took part in the autobiographical training reported higher barthel adl index scores at the end of the rehabilitation process. therefore, the data collected in the present work are consistent with literature, which has shown that the sense-making function makes storytelling potentially beneficial for individual health and wellbeing (neimeyer & levitt, 2000). as said, narration operates as an active “rebuilder of experiences,” allowing the person to set events in a semantic plot line and defining meaningful causal connections between various events and between events and emotional experience (conway, 2005; schafer, 1992). re-narrating a traumatic event helps the individual integrate it in his or her individual history to develop a sense of understanding and control (koenig kellas et al., 2010). finally, narrative activity enhances self-reflection. tracing meaningful connections between events and emotional reactions helps the individual increase his/her self-efficacy (chamberlain & haaga, 2001). possibly, the described sense-making activity also provides individuals with the sense of increasing control of an event, like hip fracture, experienced as an abrupt and uncontrollable event with considerable consequences. unlike many illnesses and diseases, which bring about the need to confront death, hip fracture represents physical disease, disability, accident, and trauma, and requires copying with a new image of the self that is more fragile, less efficient, and more dependent on others. facing such new image can give origin to feelings of loss, depression, and anxiety. the possibility to share those feelings with someone who is willing and competent to accept them is likely to increase positive affect while reducing the negative one. telling the story of a traumatic experience allows an individual to express his or her own emotions and cognitively make sense of the trauma, which in turn allows the individual to “let go” of the memory and move on from potentially unhealthy ruminations. besides, receiving acceptance, legitimateness, and confirmation also increases the sense of acceptance of both the event and the subject’s own reactions. indeed, constructing stories facilitates a sense of resolution, which decreases rumination as well as negative thoughts and feelings that being replaced by the feeling of continuity of own life. hence, the life-breaking event of hip fracture can find a meaning along a comprehensible track. therefore, the event itself can be interpreted in the light of its connections with the previous and self-narration journey 434 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consequent condition, turning from an event that represents “the end” into a change that challenges the individual to find new life strategies in the frame of a possible personal growth. the work presented here has some limitations. the small sample size could limit the generalizability of the findings. moreover, collecting the data 6 months after the discharge would add further evidence of the effectiveness of snj in improving the perceived self-efficacy and in regulating the depression level across a longer period. the studies also have some strengths. first, we adopted an integrated perspective, underlining the link between psychological wellbeing and physical and functional recovery processes. from such a perspective, the described intervention has been designed to improve the overall recovery process with an aim to lower both the individual discomfort and the public cost of health care. the integrated perspective on well-being also chased from the methodological viewpoint, as we collected the data on both physical and psychological well-being and functionality. second, although plenty of literature has investigated the power of autobiographical narration in improving the individual well-being, to our knowledge, quantitative data about such effect collected through experimental methodologies are lacking. the present work represents an attempt to bridge a gap in this direction. finally, the snj is an economic and undemanding tool, since it requires involvement of a single professional who can be easily and briefly trained. moreover, the snj is a non-intrusive practice that could be easily incorporated into the ordinary ward routine. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the contribution of anna mottini and giulia galassi in collecting data is gratefully acknowledged. references allegrante, j. p., mackenzie, c. r., robbins, l., & cornell, c. 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(1999). shortterm persistent depression following hip fracture: a risk factor and target to increase resilience in elderly people. social work research, 23, 187-196. doi:10.1093/swr/23.3.187 iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 439 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 http://doi.org/10.1002/jbmr.5650111215 http://doi.org/10.1300/j018v05n01_09 http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/health/italian.htm http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1983.tb00142.x http://doi.org/10.1097/nmd.0b013e3181ea4e59 http://doi.org/10.1177/1468794109105031 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2008.05.006 http://doi.org/10.1080/10570310802635021 http://doi.org/10.1177/0269215508090204 http://doi.org/10.1093/swr/23.3.187 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix: self narrative training session 1 introduction “good morning. today i would like to retrace some moments of your past with you. we are going to talk about your current situation and your perceptions of your future.” thematic area: the past • past 1 – socio-demographic profile let's start from the beginning of your personal story ... a. when and where were you born? b. where do you live now? c. what was your job? • past 2 – feelings now i would like to retrace your emotional past … a. who are the most important people in your life? b. how would you describe your relationship with them? c. what did/do you enjoy about the relationship with them? d. what did/do you not enjoy about the relationship with them? • past 3 – happy life event a. would you describe a happy episode of your life? session 2 • past 4 – before the hip fracture think about your life before the hip fracture ... a. would you describe your typical daily routine before the hip fracture? b. what did you like to do in your spare time? what were your hobbies and interests? thematic area: the present • present 1 – hip fracture today, we are going to speak about the hip fracture event … a. where and how did it happen? b. how did you feel immediately? c. what was your reaction? were you alone? who did you call for help? self-narration journey 440 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ session 3 • present 2 – arrival at the hospital – after the intervention a. how did you arrive at this hospital? who was together with you? how have you been welcome in this hospital? b. how did you feel at your arrival? did you feel accepted or neglected? c. how did you feel during your first day in this hospital? • present 3 – typical daily routine in the hospital now i would like you to tell me about your daily routine in the hospital ... a. please define your mood while staying here in the hospital. b. are you experiencing any difficulties here in the hospital? c. do you miss someone or something? d. is there any positive or pleasant aspect? e. do you have any recurring thoughts? session 4 • present 4 – relationships with people in hospital we will now focus on the relationships you are experiencing here in hospital … a. tell me about your relationship with your roommate. b. have you known/become friends with patients staying in other rooms? c. tell me about your relationship with doctors and nurses. focus on the doctor-patient relationship – do you like your doctor? what do you like and what don’t you like? – what do you think of the prescriptions and advice you received from your doctor? – on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you trust your doctor? – which aspects are important, in your opinion, to trust a doctor? why? • present 5 – advices a. give an advice to a person who is in the same situation as you. what would you say? b. what advice would you give to yourself? c. what are your resources, your strengths, and your weaknesses? iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 441 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ session 5 thematic area: the future • future 1 – back home let us think about your future … a. how do you imagine your return to home? b. do you think your life will change after the period you stayed in hospital? • future 2 – closing at your discharge ... a. do you think you will need assistance or are you going to be autonomous? if you feel you will need assistance ... a. who would you ask for help/support? b. if you had a magic wand, what service would you need at home to feel more secure? feedback questions please rate the pleasantness of this experience of training. 1 2 3 4 5 not at all very much please rate the usefulness of this experience of training. 1 2 3 4 5 not at all very much thank you. about the authors paola iannello is currently researcher in general psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart milan (italy). she’s member of the research unit on decision making in emergency medicine of the department of psychology of the said university. her research interests mainly concern decision-making processes. federica biassoni is lecturer and researcher at the department of psychology and member of the communication psychology lab, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan. her research interests include wellbeing, narration, verbal and vocal non verbal expression of emotions. laura bertola is graduated in psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart milan (italy). she was trainee post lauream in psychology at the said university. she has developed researches in the field of general psychology, in particular concerning the relation between medicine and psychology. self-narration journey 442 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ alessandro antonietti is full professor of cognitive psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart in milan. he is also the head of the service of learning and educational psychology, the coordinator of the cognitive psychology lab and of the master in developmental cognitive disabilities. he carried out experimental studies about creativity, problemsolving, decision-making, mental imagery, and analogy. he is interested in the applications of cognitive issues in the field of instruction and rehabilitation. antonello valerio caserta graduated in medicine and surgery at milan university and specialised in orthopedic surgery in 1994 at this same university. from 1989 at 1994 physician, reconstructive plastic surgery and hand surgery department legnano hospital. from 1994 at 1998 orthopedic, orthopedics department magenta hospital. actually, physiatrist, istituto ortopedico “g.pini cto” milan, responsible for the shock wave therapy bone and soft tissue application and responsible for coordinating hospital admissions and the geriatric area lorenzo panella graduated in medicine and surgery at pavia university and specialised in physiotherapy in 1987 and in geriatrics and gerontology in 1993 at this same university. from november 1989 to october 2002 he was employed at the functional recovery and rehabilitation centre of san matteo hospital, pavia. from october 2002 to june 2003 he headed the department of neuro-rehabilitation of the istituto clinic humanitas and since july 2003 he is director of the rehabilitation division of humanitas. lorenzo panella was lecturer at pavia university in physical medicine and rehabilitation from 1992-2002 and from 2003 to the present day at milan university. actually he is director of the rehabilitation department of gaetano pini – cto institute in milan. iannello, biassoni, bertola et al. 443 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 424–443 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1559 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-narration journey (introduction) hip fracture among elderly people self-narration for well-being the present investigation study 1 method results study 2 method results general discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix: self narrative training session 1 session 2 session 3 session 4 session 5 about the authors cognition about the creative process – interview with dr andrew p. allen interview cognition about the creative process – interview with dr andrew p. allen andrew p. allen*a, lynda loughnaneb [a] university college cork, cork, ireland. [b] crawford college of art and design, cit, cork, ireland. abstract what is the relationship between the creative process and cognition and perception? lynda loughnane, a master’s student in art and process in crawford college of art and design, cork, ireland interviewed dr andrew p. allen about the subject. areas covered include mindfulness, type 1 and type 2 thinking, stage theories of creativity, engagement with the art process and the artwork, phenomenology and consciousness with and without self report. the interview was constructed to cover a wide range of subject matter, so as to gather as much information as possible in layman's language about the cognitive process in relation to creativity and interaction with art. keywords: creativity, consciousness, learning, phenomenology, mindfulness europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 published (vor): 2016-11-18. *corresponding author at: department psychiatry & neurobehavioural science/apcmicrobiome institute, neurogastroenterology lab, biosciences building, university college cork, cork, ireland. e-mail: andrewallen@ucc.ie this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. lynda loughnane: first of all thank you very much for agreeing to meet me. i have been talking to a number of professionals in different fields to get as wide a view point as possible in the areas of light, perception and cognition. i will then use this information to inform my creative process. to begin, you mentioned type 1 and type 2 thinking in relation to creative thinking in your blog. can you talk a bit more about this please? andrew p. allen: type 1 and type 2 thinking are broad terms to describe levels of thinking. type 1 thinking is thought to be quite fast or automatic, or if not automatic, at least heuristic. type 2 thinking is considered more step by step and logical; often tied to more formal styles of thinking such as logic or mathematics. it is probably better to think of this as a continuum rather than two completely distinct boxes. about five years ago i wrote a paper which was partly inspired by one cognitive psychologist who described various aspects of cognition and different ways of thinking about type 1 and type 2 (allen & thomas, 2011). steven sloman (1996) described how creative thinking and imagination would be archetypical of type 1 thinking, so automatic. in my review paper, i argued that both types of thinking are quite important to creative thinking and i linked it in with stage theories of the creative process. stage theory goes back to wallas in the 1920s (wallas, 1926). it states that one would have, within the creative process, the initial stage of conceptualisation of what you want to do creatively. then the person often reaches an impasse where they may have to stop for a while, which is a stage of problem solving or a subtype of creative thinking. there is an incubation stage where you leave the problem aside for a while. perhaps they then get inspired later on by some other thing that they encounter in their life. they have insight where they start europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ having new ideas. beyond that, once they have these insights, there is a lot of leg work within the creative process generally. in fairness to sloman, he did include verification as under the type 2 thinking which has been included in stage theories of creativity as part of the creative process. the overarching idea behind this paper i was writing was to highlight how both types of thinking can be quite important to the creative process and how the differing roles during different phases of the creative process are important as well. dr andrew p. allen is a senior postdoctoral researcher with the department of psychiatry andneurobehavioural science and the apc microbiome institute. his postdoctoral work has examined the effects of acute tryptophan depletion on cognition in irritable bowel syndrome, biomarkers of interventions for treatmentresistant depression and the impact of probiotics on stress and cognition. in addition to these areas, dr allen's current research is examining the impact of interventions for caregiver stress, and associated impact on relevant biomarkers and the gut microbiota. dr allen's blog reports on various aspects of cognition and psychology in an accessible manner and can be found at: http://andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.ie correspondence: department psychiatry & neurobehavioural science/apcmicrobiome institute, neurogastroenterology lab, biosciences building, university college cork, cork, ireland. e-mail: andrewallen@ucc.ie lynda loughnane: i absolutely agree with you, speaking from an artist's point of view. of course type 1 is that moment of 'oh, i am inspired, i have an idea' but you also go through a lot of stage 2! you slog through it ... to put it in layman terms! do you think that the heuristic type 1 thinking is similar to affect? what i mean by affect is that gut reaction you have to something. andrew p. allen: let's look at the work of paul slovic (e.g. slovic, finucane, peters, & macgregor, 2002). he describes affect as being a form of heuristic thinking that you can use your gut reaction, if you like, as a source of information about how you wish to deal with a particular aspect of your life or a decision that you want to make. for example, if you have a negative affect toward something; even if you are not able to articulate exactly why you feel negatively about it, you might, nonetheless take that affect and have a kind of heuristic reaction. this is a type of decision making rule, whereby if you have a negative response towards something or a negative affect, then you are going to ignore this option within your decision making plan. whereas, if you have an initial positive affect, you might not choose that option immediately but you might seek more information about it rather than writing it off, which is quite often the case if you have the negative affective response. i certainly think affect and heuristics can tie together. lynda loughnane:with my work, i would like to hope that the two types of thinking would be sparked in the viewer. first, the gut reaction, then the 'not quite sure what i am looking at but i want to figure out what it is' reaction. do you think it is possible for an artwork to do this? andrew p. allen: in terms of the phrasing of the question, you've asked if the artwork itself can do it: let's start with the viewers themselves responding to it. a lot of people who move through busy galleries will only have so much time to engage in any particular piece. if something hits them at a gut level, they can then begin to think of it on a more ‘step by step’ level. if someone wishes to engage in this verification, if you like, as a consumer rather than a producer of a creative work they can stretch the thinking out in a more step by step level of appraisal. that doesn't mean that that won't continue to be influenced by, for example, their initial negative response. step by step thinking isn't always completely objective. it can still be coloured by their initial intuition about the piece of art. i should say when i talk about type 1 and type 2 thinking, even in themselves, there are differing theories about how these europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 interview 680 http://andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.ie http://andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.ie http://www.psychopen.eu/ two forms of thinking interact in general. for example whether type 2 can override type 1 or, to some extent, that type 1 comes back or can change in response to type 2 and so forth. there is still a lot of debate in general about how these two forms of thinking can interact (e.g. evans, 2007), particularly given that there is a probably a continuum between conscious processing involving some decision making and then something which is very logical and formal. lynda loughnane is a master’s student in art and process with crawford college of art and design, cit, cork, ireland. she is interested in aspects of perception and cognition and how these apply to the artistic process. in her work, she is enticed by the intangibility of light and the malleability of perception. she explores ephemeral elements such as light, time and shifting understandings of reality. for lynda, the creative process is a means to work through difficult postulates such as quantum theories and the interconnection of all the forces of existence, as well as questioning the very nature of perception. for further information on lynda loughnane's ma:ap work: http://ccadresearch.org/lyndaloughnane/ correspondence: 153 pearse road, ballyphehane, cork city, ireland. e-mail: lynda.loughnane@mycit.ie lynda loughnane: you mentioned consciousness with and without self report in your blog. can you explain this a little bit further? andrew p. allen: well, typically if something is unconscious we can say that it’s type 1, but consciousness can be defined in different ways. you can think of it as being at a simple level of being awake or having some basic awareness of one's environment. then there is a more complex level, when you think of self-awareness, which is often what people talk about with consciousness. and then there is what david chalmers (1995) has called the 'hard problem of consciousness'. this is the qualia, the subjective sense of what it is like to have a particular experience. you find with the 'hard problem of consciousness', which is quite private, is that it’s something we all presumably experience ourselves, but we struggle in terms of seeing what it is like for someone else. for example, we could speculate about differences between us in terms of our experience or who we are, but we cannot know exactly what it is like to be two different people, although we can self-report. the hardest problems within that is trying to think about other systems that can process information and what their qualia might be like. indeed whether they even have a subjective sense of what it is like to be themselves, so for example, with small infants, non-human animals, and artificial intelligence and so on, self-report simply isn't available. in other words methodologies have to be worked out which don't require self-report. with self report you could use techniques that try, in terms of neuroscience, to look at which areas of the brain are activated by a stimulus when you are conscious of it, versus when you are not conscious of it. experimenters want to control it quite carefully so the ideal situation would be to have a person exposed, at a sensory level, to the same stimulus but to have them conscious of it or not conscious of it. this can be achieved using a method known as interocular suppression, in which you present different images to the two eyes. if you have a given stimulus presented to one eye, consciousness can come and go when you have, for example, flash suppression coming into the other eye so you have constant sensory input with altering subjective consciousness. you then get the person to self-report whether they are conscious or not conscious of a particular thing and investigate which sensory areas of the brain are being activated when a person has a subjective sense of consciousness versus when they do not. that is one potential way of looking at self reporting consciousness. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 allen & loughnane 681 http://ccad-research.org/lyndaloughnane/ http://ccad-research.org/lyndaloughnane/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ lynda loughnane: do you think the fact that they are reporting on it changes their consciousness? andrew p. allen: potentially, yes. there was an interesting review last year (tsuchiya, wilke, frässle, & lamme, 2015) which compared the two methods and one issue they brought up was that reporting consciousness could potentially alter it. i suppose it depends on what kind of complexity you are talking about in terms of report. in terms of interocular suppression paradigm, you could ask the person if they aware of something or not; a simple yes or no kind of question. but it is a different matter if you want people to talk about self report on what the actual qualia was like. i'm sure you can imagine that even if you were james joyce, you are going to be limited in terms of your stream of consciousness and the amount of sensory information you take in, which is complex. even in terms of the stuff you are consciously aware of, it is incredibly difficult to give a full report on what it is that actually got through. so the process of self reporting can be quite fraught. lynda loughnane: the next question is about phenomenology. maurice merleau-ponty was a proponent of phenomenology and he questioned cartesian perspectivism (e.g. merleau-ponty, 1962) which felt reality existed only in the brain. i was wondering what was your thoughts on these two ways of viewing the world. andrew p. allen: well, the way you said that verbally is 'inside the brain' and the question you have written (in a questionnaire given in advance of the interview) was 'inside the mind'. what you did there would be describe the identity theory, which considers that the mind is what the brain does that the brain and the mind are one. people think increasingly of the mind as being embodied which i suppose is what merleau-ponty was quite keen on. we do cognition in the head but it is also involved in the way in which we use the rest of our bodies, including guts (dinan, stilling, stanton, & cryan, 2015)! if you think about mind in terms of information processing that humans engage in, there's a continuum between what happens within the skull, and in broader terms what is happening with different nervous systems which are distributed throughout the body. for example how we respond to the autonomic system, the fight or flight response; obviously our brain can set off signals but we can respond bodily as well, with things such as with increased heart rate or sweating. i think the cognition process can certainly extend beyond the brain, to bodily events and it can also extend into the information processing tools that we use in our everyday lives to augment our memories and attentions and so forth. sticking with what is happening internally, within our brains, we have a certain interpretation of things that are happening in our environment. for example, the objective information that might be in a book: we can, even in a very dry information processing sense, come to different interpretations of what we are reading. our interpretation, which comes from how you process information, can then be used as an extra source of information in which to parse quite complex information into simpler things, which can then be used for heuristic decision making. lynda loughnane: you had some very interesting blog reports about mindfulness, which states it has the ability to bring the attention to the present moment. do you think it is possible to interact with a piece of art on its own terms, or do we always bring our own past projected self to this interaction? andrew p. allen:within attention people talk about 'top down' attention which is driven by things such as previous experience or what our motivations are, like the baggage we bring to our thinking about things, versus 'bottom up' thinking, which can be more driven by sensory input. i understand why people might think that we always bring our past or projected self into an interaction with art. although we might have certain sensory inputs which we don't control, for example, we turn one way in the gallery versus that way; our own sensory inputs are often motivated by our own decisions, in terms of whether we decide to look at particular forms of art or if we decide to europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 interview 682 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pursue this particular genre, to consume this or that form of artistic input. the real question here is can we escape from that and to what extent. if we see something that for us is really quite novel, something that is quite new, then i think our cognitive baggage, within a few seconds, will have to have some impact upon that. i do think that within a certain amount of time, you are going to have to think about your past interpretations of other pieces of art and how it relates. at least in some limited sense, you can try to approach a piece of art on its own terms and try to have some kind of 'bottom up' attention, particularly with a complex piece of work; seeing the actual content in terms of what it is trying to portray. i think it is significantly difficult to try to break away from our past psychological baggage when consuming art but i think in some limited sense you can try to approach it on its own terms. you mentioned mindfulness as well in terms of bringing the attention to the present moment so yes, perhaps mindfulness is one potential way of dealing with current experience. with mindfulness, especially in relation to stress reduction, you focus on things like your own body, your own breath, and your own sensations of your immediate body. i see no reason why it couldn't be used to focus your awareness on things that are external to you such as a piece of art to control your attention in such a way as to focus on the particular piece that you are trying to understand. if your mind wanders to previous pieces of art that you have seen or perhaps an emotional response, then using mindfulness techniques, you might be able to gently redirect your attention back to the piece of art itself, on its own terms without a runaway stream of consciousness about something else you have been ruminating on in the past. lynda loughnane: the fact that the piece of art is produced by somebody else who has their own consciousness and their own set of agendas behind that piece of art, makes it quite hard to be with the art piece just as an object and not feel the draw of the person behind the art. what are your thoughts on how the creative process affects the behaviour of a person and does the act of engaging in a creative process, or being exposed to a piece of art change the way the person 'sees' their reality? there are two very distinct questions within that one question; one is interacting with art and one is viewing art. andrew p. allen: in terms of cognition generally, i mentioned earlier we can think of cognition as extended in terms of how we think, which does not simply draw on what is going on in our brains we can interact with tools around us to augment cognition. vlad glăveanu (2014) has talked about this in more depth. say you are a sculptor, in order to create an assemblage sculpture, you might be interacting with the different components of the piece. you may be turning them over in an attempt to perceive them from different perspectives and to ascertain how they can interact with the other components that make up the whole. in that sense, the process of going through, perhaps a type 2 process, and how you respond to that on an affective level, can bring about different aspects of cognition. i think you might see the different components that you have chosen to study in a greater depth both in terms of their basic physical characteristics such as their mass, shape and form and your response to them, as well gauging the response of a potential audience. that would impact on how you see what you are interacting with. if that then increases your mindfulness once you leave the studio, it could impact on the way you see things around you, or not, depending to what extent it has a hangover effect when you are no longer doing it. in terms of being exposed to art, from a consumer point of view, that is perhaps a trickier question because it may not be extended to the same level, unless the artist is actually encouraging you to poke about the sculpture. perhaps it is not as strong or striking as the active process of creating art itself, but that depends to what extent the person europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 allen & loughnane 683 http://www.psychopen.eu/ is actually engaging with the art work. if they are actively engaged, then i imagine a lot of the same mechanisms would apply. lynda loughnane:do you think practices such as meditation or other activities which activate what is sometimes called the 'inner eye' such as chanting or praying have an effect on the cognitive or perceptive abilities of practitioners? what happens at a neurological level with such activities, in relation in particularly to sight, as this is my area of interest ... do practitioners see or perceive differently? andrew p. allen: in terms of the neuroscience, michael posner is a major person in the field of attention. he and his colleagues recently wrote an interesting review about neuroscience and mindfulness (tang, hölzel, & posner, 2015). i’m not sure if mindfulness having a major impact on the brain in areas such as the occipital lobe that you might associate with sensory processing or visual information so i don’t know to what extent it would impact on sight, for example. it can impact upon attention, certainly. there is evidence that mindfulness can alter activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with more complex cognition such as conflict monitoring. for example, if you are responding to a task where you have to attend to multiple aspects of different stimuli. then with a particular trial, you have to respond to one particular aspect of that stimuli, but there is another aspect that makes you want to respond in a different way, you then have to monitor that kind of conflict. it seems mindfulness can help with that as well as with sustained attention, which i am particularly interested in. this is the ability to remain processing a particular steam of information without being distracted, essentially. there is evidence that the frontal cortex activity can be enhanced bymindfulness practice. it is intuitive that this would be the case, because when you are engaged in mindfulness practice, you are trying to sustain your attention on sensations within you. for example, if you are doing a body scan, you specifically want your attention on your breath. if you then start to think about what you are going to have for your lunch, that is a distraction, so you try to gently bring your attention back to your breath. in this way mindfulness is a practice of sustained attention. in that sense it is encouraging to see that regions of the brain associated with these kind of processes, can be enhanced by engaging in mindfulness practice. lynda loughnane: something i am curious about is if meditation or mindfulness can affect areas of the brain such as the occipital lobe and if these areas can in some way be activated through intense introspection... perhaps not but it is something i wonder about. andrew p. allen: it is possible. research on mindfulness is sometimes done over an eight week course to see affects within people. you could base research on improvements in their attention, but that might not be an intense expert level of intense introspection. what is interesting about mindfulness is that it can be used in stress reduction. mindfulness based stress reduction is quite a widely practiced form of mindfulness. one of the areas i am interested in is the interaction between stress and cognition. for example, with conditions of chronic stress (e.g. caring for a relative with dementia) you might anticipate that over time this can have a negative impact on the brain through, for example, excessive cortisol activation. if there are ways of attenuating stress, it might have a positive knock-on effect on cognition. indeed, there is evidence that interventions to reduce stress can improve cognitive performance in dementia caregivers (c.f. review by allen et al., in press). lynda loughnane: speaking from an artist's point of view, you can get so involved in being present with the creative process that involvement with an art activity can be hugely stress relieving; you are so focused on the present moment that nothing else permeates the process. it's an effective tool for mindfulness, i personally find. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 interview 684 http://www.psychopen.eu/ andrew p. allen: csikszentmihalyi (1996) talks about 'flow'. it seems to be quite a mindful kind of state where you become very absorbed in a particular activity. this idea of 'flow' came from the study of the psychology of creativity. it seems to be an archetypical part of creative work, an archetypical example of flow state. lynda loughnane: when you get into a state of flow it's an amazing place to be! thank you again very much, that was very informative and interesting. and i just want to mention again that i really enjoy your blog. andrew p. allen: thank you! funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allen, a. p., curran, e., duggan, á., cryan, j. f., ní chorcoráin, a., dinan, t. g., . . . clarke, g. 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(2015). the neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. nature reviews neuroscience, 16(4), 213-225. doi:10.1038/nrn3916 tsuchiya, n., wilke, m., frässle, s., & lamme, v. a. (2015). no-report paradigms: extracting the true neural correlates of consciousness. trends in cognitive sciences, 19(12), 757-770. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.10.002 wallas, g. (1926). the art of thought. new york, ny, usa: harcourt brace. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 679–686 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1323 interview 686 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fs1053-5357%2802%2900174-9 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038%2fnrn3916 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.tics.2015.10.002 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing: a test of the model of goal-directed behavior and the extended model of goal-directed behavior research reports the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing: a test of the model of goal-directed behavior and the extended model of goaldirected behavior bibiána kováčová holevová* a [a] department of psychology, pavol jozef šafárik university, košice, slovakia. abstract the aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between prevolitional processes and video game playing. models of attitude, the model of goal-directed behavior (mgb) and the extended model of goal-directed behavior (emgb) are tested with structural equation models to analyze the process that leads to video game playing. more specifically, the roles of affective, motivational, habitual processes in video game playing and the goal underlying video game playing are examined. the participants were 210 video game players who completed measures of attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, behavioral desire, anticipated emotions, intention to play, intensity of actual and past video game playing (playing behavior and past playing behavior) and goal desire. the results showed that the initial mgb did not achieve a satisfactory fit and thus, a revised model with more acceptable fit was proposed. it was found that anticipated emotions and attitude are significant predictors of desire to play; desire to play, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms and attitude are significant predictors of intention to play and intention is a significant predictor of playing behavior (actual playing time). moreover, past playing is a stronger significant predictor of behavior itself than of prevolitional processes in video game playing. goal desire within the emgb is a significant predictor of desire to play and the relationship of goal to playing behavior is indirect. nevertheless, goal desire has an important role in the prevolitional processes of video game playing. in the discussion, potential explanations are further explored. keywords: video games, prevolitional processes, the model of goal-directed behavior, the extended model of goal-directed behavior europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 received: 2017-11-18. accepted: 2018-03-13. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: pavol jozef šafárik university in košice, faculty of arts, department of psychology, šrobárova 2, košice, 040 59, slovakia. e-mail: bibiana.kovacova.holevova@upjs.sk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. video games have become increasingly popular over the last years and for many (especially young) people they are part of everyday life. the internet and technological innovations have contributed to the rapid development of video games. video games have become more complex and sophisticated since their first introduction with more realistic graphics and storylines. broadband internet has enabled gamers to play and interact online with each other. due to the constant increase in video game playing and its popularity (e. g. brand, todhunter, & jervis, 2017; cummings & vandewater, 2007; hofferth, 2009; rideout, foehr, & roberts, 2010; ward, 2012), it is important to examine which variables play a role in the process of developing and maintaining game behavior. the aim of this study is therefore to research the prevolitional processes that lead to playing games. the study tests two theoretical models in the context of game behavior in order to identify which factors contribute europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ to playing behavior. perugini and bagozzi (2001, 2004a) have proposed the model of goal–directed behavior (mgb) and the extended model of goal-directed behavior (emgb) and confirmed that they have better predictive power than the previous theory of planned behavior (tpb, ajzen, 1991). there have been four main areas of improvement: motivational processes, affective processes, automatic processes and means-end analyses. the study proposes to investigate their influence by applying the mgb and the emgb to predict video game playing. theory of planned behavior (tpb) and video game playing according to the tpb, the proximal cause of behavior is the intention to perform that given behavior. besides intention, there are three fundamental constructs: (1) the attitude towards the behavior that corresponds to the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question; (2) subjective norms (sn) which involve the perceived social pressure to perform or to not perform the behavior; and (3) perceived behavioral control (pbc), defined as the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior. pbc is also posited as having a direct influence on behavior to the extent that it corresponds to actual behavioral control (ajzen & madden, 1986). according to the tpb, people act in accordance with their intentions and perceptions of control over their behavior, whereas intentions in turn are influenced by attitudes toward the behavior, sn and pbc. from an empirical point of view, the performance of the tpb has been assessed in a number of meta-analytic studies. armitage and conner (2001) examined 185 empirical tests of the tpb and found that the tpb accounted on average for 39% of the variance in intention and 27% of the variance in behavior. however, little research has been devoted to the application of this model in the attitude towards video game playing. haagsma, king, pieterse, and peters (2012) tested the utility of the theory of planned behavior model in video gaming activity and in explaining problematic video-game use among young dutch people. the results showed that the tpb variables only explained 9% of the variance in intention. attitude and pbc emerged as significant predictors whereas sn was not significant. pbc and intention had a significant influence on playing time and pbc and playing time had a significant influence on problematic video-game use. these authors also tested the tpb model using longitudinal data. they found that attitude, pbc and intention only explained 6% of the variance in playing time and 19% of the variance in problematic video-game use six months later (after controlling for playing time at the follow-up). overall, pbc emerged as the most significant predictor of problematic video-game use over time. despite the fact that the tpb model obtained statistical significance, the authors admitted that the total variance explained by this model was relatively low. another study (kováčová holevová, 2017) showed that the tpb variables explained 31% of the variance in intention to play and 11% of the variance in playing time. attitude and sn emerged as significant predictors of intention and intention was a significant predictor of playing time. contrary to previous study, pbc was measured broader (not only perceived as easy or difficulty, but also as perceived control over behavior) and was not the significant predictor in either the intention to play or playing behavior. indeed, the tpb does not take into account some prevolitional processes and is one of the reasons why perugini and bagozzi (2001, 2004a) proposed other models of attitude. kováčová holevová 933 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the model of goal–directed behavior (mgb) and the extended model of goal– directed behavior (emgb) perugini and bagozzi (2001, 2004a) expanded the tpb and suggested four main areas of improvement a) motivational processes, b) affective processes, c) automatic processes, and d) means-end analyses. they developed two models called the model of goal-directed behavior (mgb) and its extension, the extended model of goal-directed behavior (emgb). they offer alternative views of the prevolitional decision-making processes. motivational processes perugini and bagozzi (2001, 2004a) claimed that the first weak area of the tpb was the motivational processes in decision making. while attitudes, sn and pbc provide reasons for acting, they do not incorporate explicit motivational content needed to induce the intention to act. the authors proposed that desire is a stronger predictor of intentions than attitudes, sn and pbc. desire is defined as the personal motivation or wish to perform an action. based on their proposition, desire is a key construct introduced in the mgb. desires perform energizing and transformative functions for the antecedents of decision making and represent the most proximal determinants of intentions. from this perspective, the usual tpb predictors do not directly determine behavioral intentions, but rather do so indirectly through desires. the fact that one desires to perform a certain action does not necessarily imply that he/she will intend to do it. people often have desires, fleeting or otherwise, that they never intend to act upon. intention and desire are distinct and perugini and bagozzi (2004b) proposed that desires are typically less doable, more abstract, less connected to actions and more future-oriented than intentions (see leone, perugini, & ercolani, 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a). empirically, there is also correlational and experimental evidence supporting the distinction between desire and intention. in their meta-analysis of the tpb studies, armitage and conner (2001) showed that attitudes, sn and pbc significantly predicted more variance in desire than in intentions, and that intention was a better predictor of behavior than desire. affective processes the original conception of the tpb mostly focused on the evaluative aspect without explicitly dealing with the specific contribution of the affective and cognitive components. among the determinants of desire, the mgb also introduced the concept of anticipated emotions as predictors of intentions to act (perugini & bagozzi, 2001). anticipated emotions represent a form of counterfactual (prefactual) thought processes where the emotional consequences of achievement; positive anticipated emotions (pae) and failure; negative anticipated emotions (nae) are appraised. the authors also distinguish between attitude and anticipated emotions (perugini & bagozzi, 2004a). an attitude, either affective or cognitive, is typically constant over reasonable periods of time. by contrast, the processes behind the functioning of pae and nae are more dynamic and contingent on one’s appraisal of achievement or failure. this changes from time to time, depending on the context. automatic processes the empirical evidence supports the importance of constructs such as intention and volition in predicting human behavior. on the other hand, there is evidence that automatic processes play an important role in human the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 934 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognition and that they can direct behavior (bargh, chen, & burrows, 1996; bargh, gollwitzer, lee-chai, barndollar, & troetschel, 2001; chartrand & bargh, 1999; dijksterhuis & van knippenberg, 1998). aarts and dijksterhuis (2000) define habit as a form of goal-directed automatic behavior, which is activated automatically by the presence of relevant environmental cues, provided that the relevant goal is activated. past behavior was introduced as a proxy for habit and automatic processes within the mgb and its effect on desire, intention and behavior is assumed (perugini & bagozzi, 2001). based on the robust evidence of past behavior effects on intentions and behavior keeping the tpb variables constant suggests that good empirical reasons do exist for considering past behavior an independent predictor of intentions and behaviors (conner & armitage, 1998). means-end analyses the last improvement of the tpb concerns goals. goals play a central role in the explanation of many behaviors because these behaviors are chosen as a means of goal achievement (gollwitzer & moskowitz, 1996). in attitude theory, these behaviors have rarely been studied in relation to the goals for which they are performed. this has had practical meaning because the implicit assumption is that goals represent distal determinants of behavior whose influence is fully mediated by more proximal determinants of behaviors (eagly & chaiken, 1993). building on the mgb, perugini and bagozzi (2004a) proposed the extended model of goal-directed behavior (emgb). they proposed that both goal desires (gd) and behavioral desires (bd) play a role in decision making concerning goal-directed actions. this follows from the assumption that most relevant behaviors can be better understood in light of the interplay between the goal and behavioral levels. it is maintained that the influence of a desire to achieve a certain goal will influence the desire to perform a certain behavior that is subjectively felt to be instrumental for goal attainment. as a result, bd will be the most proximal determinant of the intention to perform the behavior in question, and gd will have an indirect effect on intentions through behavioral desire. in sum, the only difference between the mgb and the emgb is the inclusion of the concept of goal desire (gd) in the emgb. why two models? according to perugini and bagozzi (2004a), the mgb and the emgb are two models that can increase theoretical understanding. the mgb is the basic model and is used to predict and understand the behavior itself. it focuses on decision making processes and provides much more detail about motivational, affective and habitual processes in specific behavior. to the extent that one wants to emphasize both the behavioral and goal aspects of decision making, the emgb is the most comprehensive model because it provides an additional ladder. in the current study both these models (the mgb, the emgb) are tested. perugini and bagozzi (2004a) have confirmed that the mgb has better predictive power than the tpb. although the mgb has been tested for different behaviors such as weight control, studying or aggression (e.g. leone et al., 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001; perugini & conner, 2000; richetin, richardson, & boykin, 2011), there has been no research concerning the use of the mgb in explaining playing behavior. this is the reason to test the basic model for this new behavior first. kováčová holevová 935 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the other hand, playing behavior can be better understood in light of the interplay between the goal and behavioral levels. the mgb can be enriched by focusing on the more distal determinants of an action such as the desire to achieve a given goal by means of some specific behavior and increase its predictive power. the emgb incorporates the mechanisms and the processes through which the goal and the desire to achieve this goal influence behavior. perugini and bagozzi, (2004a) have confirmed that the introduction of goal desires is important as the construct always significantly predicts behavioral desires. however, the focus and the interest of this study is on both playing behavior and players ‘goal underlying this behavior. for this reason, the emgb is also tested. the present study in order to predict and understand playing behavior, this study is based on the (extended) model of goal – directed behavior that results from the well-known and widely adopted model of attitudes; the theory of planned behavior. in the mgb and the emgb independent variables have been added as parallel predictors of behavioral intentions and behaviors (along with the established predictors in the tpb) and to which the tpb has not paid sufficient attention. in testing this extended theoretical model (the mgb, the emgb) in the context of gaming behavior, the factors which contribute to video game playing can be identified. a detailed analysis of this behavior can be made in the meaning of how strong various determinants are in the prediction of the prevolitional processes that lead to playing as well as in the prediction of playing behavior itself. in other words, what is the role of the established predictors of the tpb in players’ attitude to play, perceived social pressure to play or perceived behavioral control over playing. moreover, do affective processes play a role and if so, whether a player´s positive or negative (anticipated) emotions play a more important role and whether playing habits or player´s goals underlying the behavior are significant determinants. knowledge about the key factors that contribute to video game playing can help us understand what is behind this specific behavior and why playing video games is such a popular activity. exploring the processes that develop and maintain playing behavior can also help to prevent the negative phenomenon related to increasingly intensive playing. the present study has three main aims. the first aim is to test the mgb in video game playing. the predictive power of the mgb has been demonstrated in different behaviors from various domains (e. g. perugini & bagozzi, 2001; perugini & conner, 2000; leone et al., 2004; richetin et al., 2011). however, no findings concerning video game playing have been found. the mgb proposes that the proximal determinant of behavior is intention and the intention to perform instrumental behavior is primarily motivated by the desire to perform the act (bd). in turn, desires (bd) mediate the effects of attitudes, subjective norms (sn), perceived behavioral control (pbc) and anticipated emotions (pae and nae) on intentions. the second aim is to investigate the role of past behavior in the mgb. past behavior was introduced as a proxy for habit and automatic processes in the mgb (perugini & bagozzi, 2001). yet, despite the evidence of past behavior effects on desires (leone et al., 2004, perugini & bagozzi, 2001), intentions (ouellette & wood, 1998, perugini & bagozzi, 2001; perugini & conner, 2000) and behaviors (leone et al., 2004; ouellette & wood, 1998; perugini & bagozzi, 2001), this construct has been the subject of much controversy (see ajzen, 2002, 2004 for a different interpretation of past behavior effect). as such, some authors do not include past behavior when investigating prevolitional processes within the mgb that lead to certain behaviors and only focus on the the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 936 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ deliberative processes (e. g. richetin et al. (2011) did not include past behavior when investigating prevolitional processes that lead to aggressive behavior). however, the authors of the mgb and the emgb have concluded that “…the evidence of the role played by past behavior in predicting future behavior is very strong. however, there is a range of opinions concerning its role in explaining future behavior. either way, we believe that any comprehensive decision making model in this field should include past behavior, if for no other reason than to improve the prediction of intentions and behavior and/or control for unmeasured determinants” (perugini & bagozzi, 2004a, p. 174). this is the reason why a further aim of the current study is to investigate more thoroughly the role of past playing behavior in prevolitional processes that lead to actual video game playing as well as in the actual playing behavior itself. considering that goals may be an important part of playing behavior, the third aim was to investigate their influence by applying the emgb (perugini & bagozzi, 2004a) in order to predict this behavior. the emgb incorporates the mechanisms and processes through which the goal and the desire to achieve this goal influence behavior. more specifically, the emgb suggests that the desire towards a distal goal (i.e., gd) such as the desire to have fun or to win over others elicits the desire towards a proximal goal (i.e., bd) such as the desire to play a video game. this, in turn, induces an intention to play video games that finally leads to playing behavior. the study intends to show that the goal one wants to achieve by video game playing does not directly relate to behavior but relates to behavior through the desire (bd) and intention to play video games. although the study is interested in applying the mgb and the emgb to video games playing, it is not being suggested that the mgb or the emgb provide a general model or theory of playing behavior. the mgb and the emgb are general models that focus on decision making processes and can be applied to a variety of behaviors. the mgb and the emgb provide much more detail about cognitive, emotional or habitual processes in the specific action. the following hypotheses were proposed: hypothesis 1: behavioral desire (bd) will be related to attitude, sn, pbc and pae and nae. hypothesis 2: intention and pbc will be significantly related to playing behavior. hypothesis 3: past playing behavior will be significantly related to bd, intention and playing behavior. hypothesis 4: in the emgb, goal desire (gd) will not be a direct predictor of playing behavior. hypothesis 5: in the emgb, goal desire (gd) will be a significant predictor of behavioral desire (bd). method sample and data collection 210 participants who were slovak video game players (181 men, 29 women) from 14 to 35 years old (m = 20.1; sd = 5.7) completed measures of goal desire, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, behavioral desire, anticipated emotions (pae and nae), intention to play and actual intensity of video games playing (playing behavior) and intensity of video games playing 6 months ago (past playing behavior). kováčová holevová 937 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 51% of participants were secondary school students, 18.6% were university students and 30.5% were employees. almost 32% of them were counter strike players, 19.5% were world of warcraft players, 10.5% were league of legends players, 6.2% were eve online players and 4.3% were overwatch players. the participants were obtained through occasional and snowball selection. measures with the exception of behavior and past behavior, all the responses were on 5-point scales with 5 indicating a higher score on the construct. the measures were adopted from other research investigating behavior within the mgb and the emgb (leone et al., 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001; richetin et al., 2011). goal desire (gd). in order to measure gd, participants were first asked, “what do you think would be the most likely reason why you would play video games?” after the participants had indicated their own reasons, they then responded to the following items by putting his/her own reason instead of letter y. the desire towards his/her goal was measured with three items (“how strongly would you characterize your desire to reason y?” “how likely is your desire to reason y?” and “the intensity of your desire to reason y can be described as?”). the reliability of this measure was very good (the cronbach’s alpha was .854). attitude. participants were presented with the stem “i think that for me video games playing is?” followed by nine bipolar scales (bad-good, negative-positive, unpleasant-pleasant, punishing-rewarding, unenjoyable-enjoyable, unsatisfying-satisfying, uncool-cool, useless-useful, harmful-harmless). this achieved very good reliability (the cronbach’s alpha was .812). subjective norms (sn). sn were assessed by three items (“people who are important to me think i should play video games,” “people who are important to me would approve of my video games playing,” and “people who are important to me would be very happy if i play video games”) (the cronbach’s alpha was .829). perceived behavioral control (pbc). pbc was assessed with five items (“how much control do you have over video games playing?” “whether i play video games or not is completely up to me,” “succeeding in video games is easy for me,” “succeeding in video games is difficult for me,” (scored as reversed) and “if i wanted to, it would be easy for me to play video games”). the reliability of this measure was not satisfactory (the cronbach’s alpha was .467). the last item in the above list was not related to the others and was eliminated (the cronbach’s alpha of the remaining items was .600). the reliability of the adjusted measure was at the edge of acceptability and therefore was not excluded from the measures tested in the models. anticipated emotions. positive anticipated emotions (pae) were measured with five items. participants indicated how delighted, proud, happy, pleased and satisfied they would feel if they succeeded in playing video games. negative anticipated emotions (nae) were also measured with five items. participants indicated how disappointed, agitated, guilty, regretful and frustrated they would feel if they failed in playing video games. the reliabilities were high for both negative (cronbach’s alpha was .933) and positive anticipated emotions (the cronbach’s alpha was .896). behavioral desire (bd). bd was measured by three items (“how strongly would you characterize your desire to play video games” “i desire to play video games,” and “video games playing is something that i desire to do”). very good reliability was obtained (the cronbach’s alpha was .855). the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 938 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intention. intention was assessed by three items (“i will play video games,” “how likely is it that you will play video games?,” and “i intend to play video games”). the reliability of this measure was satisfactory (the cronbach’s alpha was .789). playing behavior and past playing behavior. these were measured by the questions “approximately how many hours over the week do you play video games these days?” (playing behavior) and “approximately how many hours over the week did you play video games 6 months ago?” (past playing behavior). participants also completed questions about the kind of video game that they played most frequently, their gender, age as well as choosing whether they were secondary school students, university students or employed. results preliminary analyses age did not correlate with attitude, goal desire, subjective norms, negative anticipated emotions, behavior desire, intention to play, perceived behavioral control or playing behavior. age significantly correlated only with positive anticipated emotions (r = -.146, p = .035) and past playing behavior (r = -.186, p = .007). it means the older video games players are, the fewer the hours they played video games in the past and the fewer the positive anticipated emotions they experience when they successfully play video games. female and male players did not differ in attitude, goal desire, subjective norms, negative anticipated emotions, positive anticipated emotions, behavioral desire, intention to play, perceived behavioral control or playing behavior. female and male players only differed in past playing behavior (t = 2.980, p = .003). it means that the male players (m = 22.3 hours per week, sd = 13.8) reported a higher intensity of playing in the past than the female players (m = 14.8 hours per week, sd = 12.9). the descriptive characteristics measuring the variables are listed in table 1. table 1 means and standard deviations of the components of the mgb and the emgb (n = 210). component of the models all players m sd intention to play 3.48 0.96 behavioral desire to play 2.96 0.99 attitude 3.91 0.59 subjective norms 2.76 0.88 perceived behavioral control 4.10 0.65 positive anticipated emotions 3.52 0.96 negative anticipated emotions 2.14 0.95 goal desire 3.49 0.95 playing behavior (hours per week) 18.00 12.68 past playing behavior (hours per week) 21.20 13.93 reasons for playing video games include the reasons (goals) participants listed for video games playing. the goals reported by the participants were: to have fun (31.4%), to avoid being bored (18.1%), to be with friends kováčová holevová 939 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (15.2%), relax (10%), to escape from worry (10%), to win over other players (7.1%) and to advance in the game (6.2%). tests of the mgb applied to video games playing the models (the mgb and the emgb further) were formally tested with structural equation models using amos 20. at first a full structural equation model was used in order to investigate the goodness of fit for the mgb. the predictive power of the model was tested by examining the amount of variance explained (r2) in the criteria (i.e., bd, intention, and behavior). goodness of fit. structural equation modeling was used to test the mgb. attitude, subjective norms (sn), positive and negative anticipated emotions (pae and nae) and perceived behavioral control (pbc) were included as predictors of behavioral desire (bd). bd and pbc were included as predictors of intention. intention and pbc were included as predictors of behavior (actual intensity of playing time). the initial model showed a poor fit (χ2(9, n = 210) = 33.045, p < .001, χ2/df = 3.672, cfi = .953, tli = .852, nfi = .938, rmsea = .113, pclose = .006). post hoc modification indices suggested an improved fit by direct effect from attitude and subjective norms to intention. the respecified model generated an adequate fit (χ2(7, n = 210) = 14.292, p = .046, χ2/df = 2.042, cfi = .986, tli = .942, nfi = .973, rmsea = .071, pclose = .221). the standardized parameter estimates for the mgb are reported in figure 1 (the correlations among predictors are omitted for the sake of simplicity). the results showed that the variables explained 57% of the variance in bd. attitude, pae and nae emerged as significant predictors whereas sn and pbc were not significant. therefore, hypothesis 1 was partially supported. bd and pbc together with attitude and sn explained 54% of the variance in intention and intention explained 11% of the variance in playing behavior. pbc was not a significant predictor of playing behavior. hypothesis 2 was also partially supported. figure 1. parameters estimates for the mgb (without past behavior) applied to video game playing (n = 210). the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 940 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the second step, past playing behavior as a predictor of behavioral desire, intention to play and playing behavior were added in order to examine the additional influence of this construct. figure 2 presents a graphical representation of the results of the final model (the correlations among predictors are omitted for the sake of simplicity). past playing was a significant predictor of intention and playing behavior and had a non-significant relationship with the desire to play (bd). the addition of past playing behavior slightly increased the amount of variance explained in intention (from 54% to 55%) but considerably (from 11% to 52%) in playing behavior (the obtained model fit was relative satisfactory χ2(7, n = 210) = 16.018, p = .025, χ2/df = 2.288, cfi = .986, tli = .927, nfi = .976, rmsea = .079, pclose = .152). after entering past behavior, the beta weights form intention to behavior changed from .34 to .22. the statistical significance for any variables did not change. hypothesis 3 was partially supported. tests of the emgb applied to video game playing the addition of goal desire (gd) as a predictor of behavioral desire (bd) slightly but significantly increased the amount of variance explained in bd (from 57% to 58%) (the model showed an adequate fit χ2(9, n = 210) = 17.552, p = .041, χ2/df = 1.95, cfi = .988, tli = .940, nfi = .977, rmsea = .067, pclose = .236). after entering gd, the beta weights for attitude, pae and nae changed a little and became lower. however, the statistical significance for none of the variables changed. goal desire related to playing behavior indirectly through behavioral desire. the standardized parameter estimates for the emgb are reported in figure 3 (the correlations among predictors are omitted for the sake of simplicity). hypotheses 4 and 5 were supported. figure 2. parameters estimates for the mgb applied to video game playing (n = 210). kováčová holevová 941 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study was designed to examine the prevolitional processes of video games playing (especially actual intensity of this behavior measured by actual playing time) and to investigate the goals underlying the behavior as well as the role of those goals in the determination of the desire to play (bd) and playing behavior (actual intensity of video game playing time). with structural equation modeling, the goodness of fit of the mgb and the emgb model were tested. the first aim of this study was to investigate the motivational and affective processes within the mgb that lead to video game playing. it was found that anticipated emotions (pae, nae) and attitude were significant predictors of behavioral desire (bd); bd and perceived behavioral control (pbc) were significant predictors of intention and intention was a significant predictor of behavior. the desire to play (bd) did not fully mediate the direct effect of subjective norms (sn), pbc and attitude on the intention to play. however, the fit of the initial model was not satisfactory (χ2(9, n = 210) = 33.045, p < .001, χ2/df = 3.672, cfi = .953, tli = .852, nfi = .938, rmsea = .113, pclose = .006). adding direct paths from attitude and sn to intention improved the fit of the model (χ2(7, n = 210) = 14.292, p = .046, χ2/df = 2.042, cfi = .986, tli = .942, nfi = .973, rmsea = .071, pclose = .221). the mgb (perugini & bagozzi, 2001) proposes that desire mediates the effects of other predictors on intention. the full mediation hypothesis was confirmed by perugini and bagozzi as well as gathering support in the current data too. it was found that bd mediated the effect of pae and nae on intention and did not fully mediate the effect of attitude on intention. sn and pbc were not significant predictors of desire for playing video games figure 3. parameters estimates for the emgb applied to video game playing (n = 210). the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 942 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (bd). nevertheless, even when the aforementioned direct effects from attitude and sn to intention were included, bd was still by far the strongest predictor. consistent with previous findings (leone et al., 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a; richetin et al., 2011), the significant predictors of bd were pae and nae. the anticipation of the positive feelings one would have, if one succeeded in video game playing and the anticipation of the negative feelings one would have, if one failed in video game playing are associated with the desire to play video games (bd). the greater variance explained by pae compared to nae in bd echoes the main reported goals underlying video game playing. indeed, the anticipation of how delighted, proud, happy, pleased or satisfied a player would feel if he or she succeeded in video game playing corresponds to the improved affect one aims to achieve (e.g. to have fun, to win over the other players or to be with friends...) by engaging in video game playing. the anticipation of how disappointed agitated, guilty, regretful or frustrated a player would feel if he or she failed in video game playing also contributed to the bd. although perugini and bagozzi (2001) assume in the mgb that the effect of attitude on intention is mediated by bd, in some cases and for some behaviors, the mediation by bd may not be complete (e.g. leone et al., 2004). given that previous research has demonstrated that attitude influences intention, it is theoretically meaningful to allow a direct path from attitude to intention. it was found that the attitude to play video games was a significant predictor of bd, although attitude also had a direct effect on the intention to play video games. in contrast to the full mediation role of bd, sn was considered by bagozzi (1992) as capable of directly energizing intention. leone et al. (2004) investigated studying behavior (studying handbooks as instrumental behavior leading to goal attainment – passing an spss windows mastery test) and found support for bagozzi’s hypothesis. the current results also support the direct effect of sn on intention. this might represent the motivation to behave in accordance with a participant’s role and to confirm the participant’s self-concepts (carver, 1996). it is likely that video game playing is a defining characteristic of the role identities of the participants. this study also sheds light on the role of pbc. pbc was significantly related to intentions although pbc has no significant connection to bd or to behavior. the participants were players and obviously considered video games playing as a rather easy behavior (m = 4.1, sd = 0.65). under these circumstances, self-efficacy beliefs can play a major role in influencing intention. as perugini and conner (2000) have pointed out, self-efficacy processes can have an impact by themselves on forming intentions, but this self-efficacy belief may be partly independent from the desire to engage in that behavior. high self-efficacy perceivers may consider rewarding the anticipated feeling of mastery that they expect to experience by performing the behavior successfully, and may therefore build their intentions on their own self-efficacy perceptions. it is likely for a player to intend to enact the video game playing when he or she believes himself or herself capable of mastering. leone et al. (2004) also investigated practicing behavior (practicing with a package as instrumental behavior leading to goal attainment – passing an spss windows mastery test) and also found a direct connection between pbc and intention. based on these results (the importance of perceptions of control and self-efficacy in forming intention) the authors recommended that when the behavior to be performed implies direct contact or practice with instruments or devices, the perceived ease (or difficulty) of the behavior may be manipulated to facilitate effective learning and performance. playing video game is a type of behavior at which practice with instruments or devices is needed. it may be a reason why players´ perceived control over his or her playing plays a significant role in forming the intention to play. on the other hand, differences in the pattern of predickováčová holevová 943 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tors may be found in different studies and across different behaviors (leone et al., 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001; richetin, perugini, adjali, & hurling, 2008; richetin et al., 2011). however, this leaves the question of which should be significant in different domains as an empirical matter. the differences in the importance of predictors might be due to a different context of behavior (for example playing video game belongs to leisure activities versus other more onerous tasks) but more research is needed to verify this speculation. in sum, under some circumstances, the mediational power of bd might not mediate all the effects of the mgb constructs on intention. while what is desired is often intended, intention still might be based directly on reasons and beliefs concerning the behavior. video game playing might be intended because players are believed to be normatively appropriate and therefore it is crucial for one’s role identity. the development of an intention to play can be facilitated if the player feels capable of enacting the behavior. in such cases, the motivational input to intention comes from sn and pbc and these motivational inputs can influence intention directly without being completely mediated by bd. the second aim of the study was to investigate the role of past behavior in the mgb that leads to video game playing. past behavior was introduced as a proxy for habit and automatic processes in the mgb (perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a) and may play a significant role in prevolitional processes that lead to video game playing as well as in the playing behavior itself. it was found that past playing behavior had a significant relationship with intention and playing behavior but did not have significant relationship with bd. the obtained model fit was relative satisfactory (χ2(7, n = 210) = 16.018, p = .025, χ2/df = 2.288, cfi = .986, tli = .927, nfi = .976, rmsea = .079, pclose = .152). past playing has a much stronger effect on playing behavior itself than on prevolitional processes that lead to playing behavior and increased the amount of variance explained especially in behavior. it seems meaningful because automatic processes that are behind (habitual) past playing can directly influence actual video games playing without being mediated by the desire to play (bd) and being mediated by intention only marginally. habit strength and its direct effect on media use is also emphasized in another model; the model of media attendance (larose & eastin, 2004). although ajzen (1991) argued that the inclusion of pbc should preclude the need for past behavior, in that pbc should mediate any residual effects of past behavior, the current research has found that past playing still predicts the intention to play and especially actual playing behavior in tests of the mgb. it is likely that habitual processes have a significant role in playing behavior and should not be omitted. considering that goals may be an important part of video game playing, it was proposed that their influence should be investigated more thoroughly by applying the emgb proposed by perugini and bagozzi (2004a) to predict the actual intensity of video games playing. the third aim of this research was to use the emgb to determine whether the goal one wants to achieve when playing video games had an indirect rather than a direct relationship with behavior through bd and intention. the obtained model fit was satisfactory (χ2(9, n = 210) = 17.552, p = .041, χ2/df = 1.95, cfi = .988, tli = .940, nfi = .977, rmsea = .067, pclose = .236). the current results confirmed that video game playing can be motivated by many different goals. the contribution of gd on bd was significant and the desire towards the goal one wants to achieve by video games playing (gd) did not relate directly to the emergence of the behavior. however, it had an indirect association through the desire towards video game playing (bd). in other words, wanting to have fun or win over other players will not directly increase the likelihood of actual video game playing, but rather relates to the desire to play video the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 944 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ games (bd). the results also reveal that the desire to have fun or win over other players (gd) not only predicts the desire to play video games (bd), but has a more important role than more intuitively compelling and wellestablished constructs. indeed, sn and pbc did not play a critical role, whereas pae, nae and attitude were significant predictors of one’s desire to play video games (bd). in fact, the emotional and motivational processes that were taken into account by including anticipated emotions and gd, respectively, together with attitude, were three of the main significant predictors of bd. one should also note that there is a consistency between the goals expressed by participants in this study and the significant contribution especially of pae in determining the desire to play video games. limitations and future research the limitations of this study need to be acknowledged. this study is correlational and therefore may shed light only indirectly on the causal mechanisms underlying decision-making processes. nevertheless, the results were consistent with the hypothesized theoretical framework. future experimental studies could manipulate the key variables explicitly. it also needs to be acknowledged that procedures used to measure some constructs may be improved. past behavior was introduced as a proxy for habit and automatic processes in the mgb (perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a) although this construct has been the subject of much controversy (ajzen, 2002, 2004). maybe other means of detection of habitual or automatic processes within the mgb or the emgb should be investigated. pbc was another construct where the procedure used to measure it may be improved. although similar problems with reliability have been found in other studies (richetin et al., 2011), items measuring this construct are used in a lot of research investigating behavior within the mgb and the emgb (leone et al., 2004; perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a; richetin et al., 2011). however, past behavior had a stronger effect on playing behavior and pbc had a stronger effect on intention to play. the limitation of this study is also the relatively small number of female respondents compared to male respondents. although the disproportion in the sample is likely to reflect the real disparity between male and female players and non-significant differences between them were confirmed in most of the variables, further research with a higher prevalence of female players is needed to confirm the current findings. conclusion due to the increase in gaming behavior, it is important to research the prevolitional processes that lead to playing games. the study tested two theoretical models: the model of goal–directed behavior (mgb) and the extended model of goal-directed behavior (emgb) (perugini & bagozzi, 2001, 2004a) in the context of playing behavior in order to identify which factors contribute to video game playing. desires, goal-anticipated emotions, and past behavior broaden the representation of goal-directed behaviors provided by the theory of planned behavior (tpb, ajzen, 1991) and increase the prediction of intention and behavior. the mgb and the emgb have been tested in different behaviors but no findings concerning playing behavior have been found. therefore, the second benefit of this study represents the assessment of these models in the context of a new behavior video game playing. the comparison between the predictive power of the tested models for (behavioral) desire to play, intention to play and playing behavior have shown that the extended models (the mgb with past playing behavior and the emgb) accounted for more variance than the basic mgb. when applied to video game playing, the basic mgb without past playing behavior (the model of attitude that considers behavior as planned and largely determined kováčová holevová 945 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by the intention to perform it) explained 57% of the variance for the desire to play, 54% of the variance for intention to play, but only 11% of the variance for playing behavior. the mgb with past playing behavior accounted for more explained variance especially in playing behavior and the emgb accounted for slightly more variance in desire to play. practitioners may benefit from knowing the processes that lead to playing games. the determinants of the mgb or the emgb have a different role in this process. the results have suggested that anticipated emotions and attitude seem to be connected with more distal determinants of playing behavior; the desire to play. this construct does not necessarily imply that the player will intend to play. however, the desire to play was the strongest predictor of a more proximal determinant of playing behavior and together with perceived control/ perception of control over playing (pbc), perceived social pressure to play (sn) and attitude, had a direct effect on the intention to play. only two determinants had a direct effect on actual playing behavior; the intention to play and past playing behavior. therefore, it is necessary to know a player´s playing habits when analyzing the process of developing and maintaining playing behavior. moreover, past playing was a stronger predictor of playing behavior itself than of prevolitional processes that lead to playing games. the results have also suggested that the player´s goals played an important role in the prevolitional processes of video game playing. while their relationship to playing behavior was indirect, goal desire had an important role in the desire to play. based on the findings, there is an assumption that habitual or automatic processes in the prevolitional processes that lead to playing should not be omitted because they can play a role in playing behavior. the current results also support the view that the interplay between goal and behavioral levels of analysis represents an important element in understanding the decision making process that leads to video game playing. funding this study was supported by the scientific grant agency of the ministry of education, science, research and sport of the slovak republic and the slovak academy of sciences (vega) (grant number 1/0924/15). competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references aarts, h., & dijksterhuis, a. 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(1998). habit and intention in everyday life: the multiple processes by which past behavior predicts future behavior. psychological bulletin, 124(1), 54-74. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.54 perugini, m., & bagozzi, r. p. (2001). the role of desires and anticipated emotions in goal-directed behaviours: broadening and deepening the theory of planned behaviour. british journal of social psychology, 40(1), 79-98. doi:10.1348/014466601164704 perugini, m., & bagozzi, r. p. (2004a). an alternative view of pre-volitional processes in decision making: conceptual issues and empirical evidence. in g. haddock & g. r. maio (eds.), contemporary perspectives on the psychology of attitudes (pp. 169-201). hove, united kingdom: psychology press. perugini, m., & bagozzi, r. p. (2004b). the distinction between desires and intentions. european journal of social psychology, 34(1), 69-84. doi:10.1002/ejsp.186 perugini, m., & conner, m. (2000). predicting and understanding behavioral volitions: the interplay between goals and behaviors. european journal of social psychology, 30(5), 705-731. doi:10.1002/1099-0992(200009/10)30:5<705::aid-ejsp18>3.0.co;2-# richetin, j., perugini, m., adjali, i., & hurling, r. (2008). comparing leading theoretical models of behavioral predictions and post-behavior evaluations. psychology and marketing, 25(12), 1131-1150. doi:10.1002/mar.20257 richetin, j., richardson, d. s., & boykin, d. m. (2011). role of prevolitional processes in aggressive behavior: the indirect influence of goal. aggressive behavior, 37(1), 36-47. doi:10.1002/ab.20364 rideout, v., foehr, u., & roberts, d. (2010). generation m2: media in the lives of 8 to 18 year olds. retrieved from the henry j. kaiser family foundation website: https://www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/report-generation-m2-media-in-the-lives/ ward, m. r. (2012). does time spent playing video games crowd out time spent studying? 23rd european regional conference of the international telecommunication society, vienna, austria, 1-4 july 2012. retrieved from https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/60374 about the author bibiána kováčová holevová, ph.d. is a lecturer at the university of pavol jozef šafárik in košice (slovakia). her research interests are media effects and video games, currently also the goals of the players. the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing 948 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 932–948 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1565 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4803_2 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02594.x https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.1.54 https://doi.org/10.1348/014466601164704 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.186 https://doi.org/10.1002/1099-0992(200009/10)30:5<705::aid-ejsp18>3.0.co;2-# https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20257 https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20364 https://www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/report-generation-m2-media-in-the-lives/ https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/60374 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the role of prevolitional processes in video game playing (introduction) theory of planned behavior (tpb) and video game playing the model of goal–directed behavior (mgb) and the extended model of goal–directed behavior (emgb) the present study method sample and data collection measures results preliminary analyses tests of the mgb applied to video games playing tests of the emgb applied to video game playing discussion limitations and future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour: is it all about perception? research reports socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour: is it all about perception? natascha de hoog* a, susanne van dinther a, esther bakkera [a] faculty of psychology, open university of the netherlands, heerlen, the netherlands. abstract socioeconomic status (ses) is associated with many health issues and health-compromising behaviour (hcb). most research is based on objective indicators of ses, even though subjective ses, someone’s perception of their social standing, is also related to health. moreover, perceptions of health and hcb might also be of importance. therefore, this study examined the relationship between both objective and subjective ses and perceived health and hcb respectively, and the role of perceptions of hcb. 326 respondents completed measures of objective and subjective ses, perceived health, hcb and perceptions of hcb. results showed objective and subjective ses were related to perceived health. only subjective ses was related to hcb, while for objective ses a moderating effect of perceiving hcb as typically high or low ses was found. not only objective ses, but especially perceptions of ses and hcb are associated with someone feeling healthy and engaging in hcb. health interventions should try to tackle perceptions of ses and hcb, either by invalidating current ses related perceptions or by emphasizing new healthy perceptions. keywords: socioeconomic status, perception, subjective, health-compromising behaviour, social identity europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 received: 2018-12-07. accepted: 2020-01-01. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: austin lee nichols, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa *corresponding author at: open university of the netherlands, faculty of psychology, p.o. box 2960, 6401 dl heerlen, the netherlands. e-mail: natascha.dehoog@ou.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. social inequality in health is described as a global problem for people’s health (siegrist & marmot, 2004). it is perceived as a complex issue that can be summarized by the fact that the health of people, and even their life expectancy, depends in part on where in the world they are born. social determinants of health mainly have to do with poverty (marmot, 2005). poverty not only refers to how much money one has, but also lack of accessibility to resources like proper nutrition, clean drinking water or good medical care (adler et al., 2016). available resources are unequally distributed affecting many different less-advantaged groups based on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or simply place of residence (adler & rehkopf, 2008). over the past decades systematic disparities in health and mortality have increased between people with a high position and people with a low position in the community (mackenbach et al., 2008). this position is partly determined by one’s social and economic place in the social hierarchy (marmot, 2006), often referred to as socioeconomic status (ses). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ses is negatively associated with a range of health outcomes, including chronic illness, sight and hearing problems, mental disorders and addictions (costa-font & hernandez-quevedo, 2012; dalstra et al., 2005; marmot, 2005). people with a low ses are less likely to rate their health as good (mackenbach et al., 2008) and, above all, have a lower life expectancy (singh & siahpush, 2006; van lenthe et al., 2004). studies showed low ses is also related to health-related behaviour like smoking, unhealthy food habits and an inactive lifestyle (hanson & chen, 2007; lynch, kaplan, & salonen, 1997; senn, walsh, & carey, 2014;). health-related behaviour refers to any behaviour that has or is believed to have an important effect on health. one can differentiate between health promoting behaviour when talking about health-related behaviour that improve health, and health-compromising behaviour for behaviour that has a negative effect on health. the relationship between ses and health and health-related behaviour is well established. however, less is known about the factors contributing to this relationship (costa-font & hernandez-quevedo, 2012), especially those that could be influenced easier than it is to change someone’s ses. in this paper we address ways in which subjective perceptions of ses, health and health-compromising behaviour could be part of the explanation. subjective ses, health and health-related behaviour most research conducted so far is based on objective indicators of ses such as income, education and occupation (operario, adler, & williams, 2004), although other indicators have been used as well (galobardes, shaw, lawlor, lynch, & smith, 2006). however, subjective measurements that include one’s individual perception also play an important role in health-related research (adler, epel, castellazzo, & ickovics, 2000). subjective ses, an individual’s perception of their relative position in the social hierarchy, has been associated with health status and health-related behaviour independent of objective socioeconomic indicators (ghaed & gallo 2007; reitzel et al., 2011): low subjective ses is associated with lower perceived health and more health-related behaviour. for instance, subjective ses is related to behaviour like smoking, physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption (ghaed & gallo, 2007; reitzel et al., 2011), and, consequently, is related to a person’s health. subjective ses has been shown to correlate with objective measures of ses, such as income, education and occupation, but it can also be used as an independent measure of an individual’s ses (ostrove, adler, kuppermann, & washington, 2000). singh-manoux, marmot, and adler (2005) tested the predictive ability of both types of ses on changes in health status. analyses revealed that change in health over a 3-year period is socially patterned, which means that lower ses was associated with poorer health, whereas people with a higher ses showed either an improvement or no deterioration. however, this relationship was only significant for the subjective measure of ses, and this emphasizes the additional value of individual perception and subjective measurements in this type of research. singh-manoux et al. (2005) even suggest subjective ses might be a stronger predictor than objective ses, because subjective ratings more accurately capture subtle aspects of social status (adler et al., 2000). another reason that can show how subjective ses might be important in explaining differences in health and health-related behaviour lies in the fact that subjective ses taps into the extent to which one sees oneself as someone with a low or high ses. identifying with certain groups or categories can influence how one feels and behaves, as proposed by social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986). the theory states that an de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 499 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ important component of the self-concept is derived from belonging to one or more social groups and categories (abrams & hogg, 1990). people who identify strongly with a group will tend to adopt the norms, attitudes and behaviour sanctioned by group members (terry & hogg, 1996). thus, it is more about an individual’s own subjective perspective belonging to a group rather than an objective measure. further, the theory states that when an identity becomes more important for one’s self-concept, one is more likely and more motivated to behave in a way that is congruent to this identity (stets & burke, 2003; stryker & burke, 2000). by acting in identity-congruent ways and, moreover, by social interaction, attitudes and beliefs will be confirmed through which they become an even more important part of one’s identity (stets & burke, 2003). from this perspective, ses can be seen as something that can become an important part of one’s identity. someone can identify with the group of persons with a low or high ses, as indicated by their subjective ses. consequently, ses will become relevant to how they see themselves, and different aspects of their life like their health, as well as how they behave. thus, subjective ses is proposed to be related to both perceived health and health-related behaviour. in order to examine this proposed relationship between subjective ses and health it is important to not look at objective, but at subjective health, also known as perceived health. perceptions of health and health-related behaviour objective health is often determined by objective factors such as blood pressure, weight and mortality rates. however, subjective health, which is usually termed perceived health, is a subjective relative measure of overall health status and may include aspects that are difficult to capture clinically, such as incipient disease, disease severity, physiological and psychological reserves. when people rate their health, they think not only of their current situation, but also of trajectories, declines and improvements (statistics canada, 2010). therefore, perceived health is thought of as a more comprehensive measurement approach (sadiraj & groot, 2006). despite the subjective nature of this measure, indicators of perceived health have been found to be a good predictor of people’s future health care use and mortality (idler & benyamini, 1997; miilunpalo, vuori, oja, pasanen, & urponen, 1997). perceived health has been shown to predict mortality, even after adjustment for key covariates as functional status and co-morbidity (desalvo, bloser, reynolds, he, & muntner, 2006). in the case of health-related behaviour, perception might play an even more important role. not only do perceptions differ as to what qualifies as health-related behaviour (conner, 2001), but also whether those behaviours are typical of certain groups, like low and high ses (oyserman, fryberg, & yoder, 2007). a study by bowen, hickman, and powers (1997) illustrates the impact of perception of oneself and of typical group behaviour on actual behaviour. they found that african american women who identified as ‘african american’ were more likely to seek mammography screening than those who identified as ‘black’. bowen and colleagues suggest that women who identified as african american felt less at odds with the dominant culture than those who identified as black. in addition, several studies by oyserman et al. (2007) showed that racial-ethnic minority and, more relevant for our current study, low ses americans, viewed health promoting behaviour as more characteristic of white and middle-class society than as characteristic of their in-group. they showed a moderating effect of classification of behaviour, with participants who considered themselves low ses less likely to engage in health promoting behaviour, and they were more likely to view health promoting behaviour as typical for people with a high ses. socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour 500 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, there is some evidence that certain health-related behaviour can be seen as typical behaviour for a specific group (oyserman et al., 2007), such as the group of low or high ses. reasoned from social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1986), this classification can have consequences for actual behaviour. an individual is more likely to demonstrate a health-related behaviour that is appropriate to the behavioural norms of the group, which they identify with. simultaneously, one is more likely to avoid performing a health-related behaviour that is appropriate to the behavioural norms of a group they do not identify with (white, simpson, & argo, 2014). in other words, individuals who consider themselves to be low ses could perceive health promoting behaviour as not fitting with their own identity and this incongruence could impede them from performing this behaviour. therefore, they are more likely to smoke, drink too much alcohol, be physical inactive or eat unhealthy food. in addition, they are less likely to feel health promotion efforts are relevant to them (oyserman et al., 2007). thus, health promotion is a social, rather than an individual dictated choice. one is more likely to behave in congruence with the preferences and (implicit) prescribed lifestyle of the group they identify with. therefore, it was expected that the relationship between ses and health-related behaviour would be stronger when perceptions of the health behaviour are congruent with one’s ses. current study although research that examines both objective and subjective measures of ses as predictors of health is growing recently (hoebel, müters, kuntz, lange, & lampert, 2015), the exact relationship between these variables and health and health-compromising behaviour remains unclear. in addition, little is known about people’s perceptions of health-related behaviour and how these perceptions relate to ses, health and actual behaviour. most studies on the topic have investigated only specific populations (e.g., miyakawa, hanson, theorell, & westerlund, 2012). more importantly, up until now no research has examined these relationships from a subjective perspective, combining measures of objective and subjective ses, as well as subjective measures of health and perceptions of health-compromising behaviour in a single study. the goal of this research is to better understand the relationship that exists between ses, health, health-related behaviour and perceptions thereof. understanding these relationships could be valuable in determining which type of ses measures are most related to an individual’s perceived health and health-related behaviour. this could potentially offer insight into how to intervene in or prevent negative health outcomes as a product of these variables. therefore, this study examined the relationship between both objective and subjective ses and perceived health and health-compromising behaviour respectively, and the role of perceiving health-compromising behaviour as typically high or low ses. the following hypotheses were postulated: 1. both objective and subjective ses is positively correlated with perceived health. the higher a person’s ses the better they will perceive their health. 2. both objective and subjective ses is negatively correlated with health-compromising behaviour. the lower a person’s ses the more health-compromising behaviour they will perform. 3. perceptions of health-compromising behaviour moderates the relationship between both objective and subjective ses and health-compromising behaviour. the relationship should be stronger when perceptions of the health-compromising behaviour corresponds with someone’s ses. de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 501 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure respondents were dutch men and women over 18 years old from the general population. the minimum number of respondents needed to test our hypotheses was 110 (104 + 6 variables; tabachnick & fidell, 2001). approximately 500 people from the researchers’ social and professional networks were approached by mail and on several facebook groups with the invitation to participate in the study. due to time and financial restraints it was not possible to randomly select a representative sample of the general population, but every effort was made to make sure respondents with both low and high socioeconomic status participated in the study by approaching as many different groups as possible. for example, employees from a company with mainly low-level employees were approached, as well as undergraduate students from an online university. the invitation contained a brief introduction about the purpose and content of the study, that is, an online survey about social status and the relationship with health and health-related behaviour, and provided a link to the survey. no compensation for participation was offered. at the start of the survey, participants were informed that participation was voluntarily and anonymous. after providing consent, the survey was automatically started. a total of 369 respondents participated in the survey, of which 43 respondents were excluded because they preferred to conceal their income, whereby determination of their objective ses was not possible. the remaining 326 respondents consisted of 98 men and 228 women in the age from 19 to 80 (m = 44.44, sd = 15.18). measures a cross-sectional questionnaire was chosen for time and financial reasons, and because we first wanted to test our predictions before attempting more elaborate designs like a longitudinal study. the questionnaire included (in order) measures of age, gender, objective ses, subjective ses, perceived health, health-compromising behaviour and perceptions of health-compromising behaviour. in order to get the most valid and best comparable results, measures were chosen that were used in previous research on the same topic whenever possible. when no useful existing measures were found, new measures were created building on the literature as much as possible. objective ses objective ses was operationalized as a combination of education, occupation and income level, where a higher combined level reflects a higher ses. it was measured with three items adapted and translated from adler et al. (2000). measures of education, income and occupation served as indicators of objective ses. participants were asked to report their highest completed education level, with answer categories ranging from (1) no completed education to (7) university degree. occupation was assessed with categories ranging from (1) no paid occupation to (6) academic or professional occupation. participants were asked about their annual income with answer categories ranging from (1) €0 €10.000 to (6) > €100.000. a composite measure of education, occupation and income was created by standardizing each variable and taking their mean (adler et al., 2000). cronbach’s alpha was .59. subjective ses subjective ses was operationalized as one’s own perceived social status compared to others, which was assessed with a translation of the macarthur scale of subjective social status (ostrove et al., 2000). participants socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour 502 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were asked to imagine a ladder with 10 rungs and to indicate, with a number between 1 and 10, where they thought they fell on the ladder ranging from (1) people who are the worst off in their community to (10) people who are the best off in their community. perceived health perceived health was operationalized as how good one perceives their own personal health. participants were asked to rate their health with a number between 1 (poor) and 100 (excellent). a substantial body of international research has reported the item to be significantly and independently associated with specific health problems, use of health services, mortality and sociodemographic characteristics, and is judged to be appropriate for use in population surveys (bowling, 2005). health-compromising behaviour (hcb) hcb was operationalized as a combination of a number of health-related behaviours that have been shown to be beneficial or detrimental to health, with a higher combined score indicating more engagement in hcb. an index of health-compromising behaviour (hcb) was created based on prior research on multiple hcb, which included substance use, physical activity, diet, sleep and relaxation. all of which have been shown to be related to ses (hanson & chen, 2007; lynch et al., 1997). an example-item is; ‘i exercise, walk or cycle at least 30 minutes a day’. participants answered on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (always) to 5 (never). answers to the negative hcb (e.g., smoking) were recoded and a mean score of the 10 items was calculated. a higher score meant more hcb. cronbach's alpha was .60. perceptions hcb perceptions of hcb were operationalized as the extent to which one perceives hcb as something typically for low or high ses. participants were asked to rate the 10 hcb on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (typical behaviour for low ses) to 5 (typical behaviour for high ses). these hcb correspond to the questions from the hcb scale. the negative hcb items were recoded and the mean score was calculated. a higher score meant that respondents perceived the hcb as typical behaviour for persons with a low ses. cronbach’s alpha was .77. analyses analyses were conducted using spss (version 22). after recoding negative formulated items, reliability analyses were performed and mean scores, standard deviations and skewness of all scales were calculated. in accordance with west, finch, and curran (1995), variables all had a skewness < 2, which can be considered as normally distributed. then correlations between all variables were calculated. all variables were standardized before testing the hypotheses in order to better compare the different scales. hypothesis 1 and 2 were tested using multiple regression analysis. to test hypothesis 3, hierarchical multiple regression analysis (hmra) was conducted, including a dummy variable for gender (0 = male, 1 = female) and two interaction-terms (multiplications of the independent variables with the moderator). all analyses controlled for gender and age to prevent confounding. the correlation between objective ses and subjective ses was .50, but there was no indication of multicollinearity, therefore, both measures of ses were simultaneously included in all analyses. scatterplots and q-q plots were used to test the other assumptions of regression analysis, which were all satisfactory. de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 503 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics and correlations before testing the hypotheses, descriptive statistics of the study population and correlations between all main variables were calculated (see table 1). almost two-thirds of the study population consisted of persons who had a college (37.7%) or university degree (23.9%). the distribution of occupational levels and income levels on the other hand, were more evenly spread across all categories, which made for a more even distribution of objective ses scores. on subjective ses, respondents rated themselves on average as slightly above the midpoint of the ses scale (m = 6.22, sd = 1.60; range 1-10). however, 28.2% of the participants rated themselves with a score of 1 through 5 and could be considered ‘low’ subjective ses, while the other 71.8% rated themselves with a score of 6 through 10 and could be seen as ‘high’ subjective ses. respondents perceived hcb relatively often as typically low ses. when looking at individual hcb, at least 30 minutes of daily exercise, 30 minutes of relaxation and daily eating of fruit, vegetables and fresh prepared meals, were perceived as typically high ses. in contrast, smoking, substance and alcohol use were perceived as typically low ses. daily sitting longer than eight hours and getting enough sleep were not perceived as typically high or low ses. respondents reported moderate scores on engaging in hcb (m = 2.15). mean scores on perceived health, measured on a scale from 1 to 100, fell above the midpoint of the scale (m = 77.13), but the high standard deviation (sd = 14.50) indicates that there was a lot of variation in scores. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations of all variables (n = 326) variable range m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. gender 2. age 19-80 44.44 15.18 -.25*** 3. objective ses 2-2 0.00 0.74 -.12* -.15** 4. subjective ses 1-10 6.22 1.60 -.12* .04 .50*** 5. perceived health 1-100 77.13 14.50 .12* -.08 .22*** .24*** 6. hcb 1-5 2.15 0.48 -.21*** -.23*** -.11 -.19*** -.31*** 7. perceptions of hcb 1-5 3.44 0.46 -.08 .01 .00 .01 .02 .09 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. when checking for potential confounding, both age and gender were found to be related to ses and hcb. age correlated significantly to both objective ses, r = -.11, p = .02, and hcb, r = -.23, p < .001. therefore, age was included in all analyses as a confounder. men rated their subjective ses as higher (m = 6.52, sd = 1.80) than women (m = 6.10, sd = 1.48), t(156.84) = 2.06, p = .04. men also had a higher (m = 0.13, sd = 0.79) objective ses than women (m = -0.06, sd = 0.72), t(324) = 2.08, p = .04. however, women rated their perceived health as higher (m = 78.23, sd = 13.64) than men (m = 74.58, sd = 16.11), t(324) = -2.09, p = .04. finally, men reported higher scores on performing hcb than women (respectively; m = 2.30, sd = 0.59; m = 2.08, sd = 0.40), t(136.40) = 3.34, p < .01. therefore, gender was also controlled for in all analyses. as can be seen in table 1, subjective ses was significantly related to the composite measure of objective ses, r = .50, p < .001, suggesting that participants take into account their relative standing on the various components of ses when rating their standing on the ladder. significant correlations were also found between socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour 504 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ both forms of ses and perceived health, r = .24, p < .001 and r = .22, p < .001, respectively. only subjective ses showed a significant negative correlation with hcb, r = -.19, p < .001. for objective ses this correlation was negative, but non-significant, r = -.11, p = .053. finally, both forms of ses were not significantly correlated to perceptions of hcb as typically low ses, r = .00, p = .998 and r = .01, p = .92, respectively. hypotheses testing hypothesis 1 assumed a positive relationship between both forms of ses and perceived health. the multiple regression-analysis showed objective ses and, to a slightly higher extent, subjective ses, were significantly related to perceived health, b = 0.13, t(321) = 2.11, p = .04 and b = 0.20, t(321) = 3.15, p = .002, respectively. together with gender and age, objective and subjective ses explained a significant part of the variance in perceived health, r2 = .10, f(4, 325) = 8.52, p < .001. the second hypothesis, that assumed a negative relationship between ses and hcb, was tested using the same multiple regression-analysis only with hcb as dependent variable (see table 2). results indicated that subjective ses, contrary to objective ses, was related to the extent of performing hcb, b = -0.16, t(321) = -2.64, p < .01 and b = -0.12, t(321) = -1.91, p = .06, respectively. 18.5% of the variance in hcb is accounted for by gender, age, objective and subjective ses, f(4, 325) = 18.20, p < .001. table 2 results of the hierarchical multiple regression-analysis on health-compromising behaviour (n = 326) independent variable health-compromising behaviour b se β step 1 (r2 = .13***) constant 0.44*** 0.10*** gender -0.63*** 0.12*** 0.29*** age -0.30*** 0.05*** 0.30*** step 2 (r2 = .19***, δr2 = .06***) constant 0.49*** 0.10*** gender -0.70*** 0.12*** 0.32*** age -0.32*** 0.05*** 0.32*** objective ses -0.11 0.06 0.11 subjective ses -0.16** 0.06** 0.16** perceptions 0.07 0.05 0.07 step 3 (r2 = .29***, δr2 = .10***) constant -0.48*** 0.09*** gender 0.68*** 0.11*** 0.31*** age 0.32*** 0.05*** 0.32*** objective ses 0.07 0.06 0.07 subjective ses 0.15** 0.06** 0.15** perceptions -0.06 0.05 -0.06 objective ses x perceptions -0.30*** 0.06*** -0.33*** subjective ses x perceptions -0.02 0.06 -0.03 note. all variables are standardized variables. gender: male = 0, female = 1. **p < .01. ***p < .001. de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 505 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, hypothesis 3 predicted that perceptions of hcb moderates the relationship between both objective and subjective ses and hcb. results of the hmra are represented in table 2. gender and age were entered in the first step of the regression-analysis and explained 13.1% of the variance in performing hcb. in step 2, objective and subjective ses and classification of hcb were entered, and they explained a significant additional variance in performing hcb, δr2 = .04, δf(2, 321) = 24.36, p < .001. subjective ses, contrary to objective ses, was related to hcb, b = -0.16, t(320) = -2.64, p < .01 and b = -0.11, t(320) = -1.90, p = .06, respectively. perceptions of hcb had no direct relationship with hcb, b = .07, t(320) = 1.35, p = .18. in the final step, the interaction terms objective ses x perceptions and subjective ses x perceptions were entered, and this explained a significant increase in variance in hcb, δr2 = .10, f(2, 318) = 23.01, p < .001. only the interaction of objective ses x perceptions was significant b = -0.30, t(318) = -5.31, p < .001. thus, perceptions of hcb was a significant moderator of the relationship between objective ses and hcb. the standardized simple slope for persons 1 sd below the mean of perceptions of hcb as typically behaviour for low ses was β = -0.21, p < .01 and the standardized simple slope for persons 1 sd above the mean was β = 0.37, p < .001. this means that there is a negative relationship between objective ses and hcb when hcb is perceived as typical behaviour for persons with a low ses, and there is a positive relationship between objective ses and hcb when hcb is seen as typical for high ses. discussion this research examined the relationship between both objective and subjective ses and perceived health and hcb respectively, and the role of perceiving hcb as typically high or low ses. previous research revealed ses to be related to health as well as hcb (dalstra et al., 2005; hanson & chen, 2007), and showed that perceptions of behaviour correspond with individuals’ actual behaviour and consequently their health (oyserman et al., 2007). however, so far no research was conducted examining these different constructs all in one study. this study showed that objective ses and subjective ses both were related to perceived health. only subjective ses was related to hcb. further, partial support was found for the predicted importance of individual perception in the form of perceptions of hcb. the moderating effect of perceiving hcb as typically high or low ses was only present in the relationship between objective ses and hcb. the current study showed a correlation of .50 between objective and subjective ses, which is consistent with prior research that found correlations ranging from .20 to .50 (ostrove et al., 2000). this suggests that, besides objective indicators, there are more factors related to someone’s subjective ses. at the same time, it confirms that although both forms of ses are related, it concerns two different constructs and it emphasizes the importance of including subjective measures in research. subjective measures compass more aspects that are not measurable explicitly. adler and stewart (2007) found that people take into account factors like personal values, ethics, and altruistic actions, when they determine their subjective ses. the first hypothesis, that presumed a relationship between ses and perceived health, was supported. the results show that the lower someone’s ses, the lower their perceived health, and vice versa. this finding is in line with earlier studies (mackenbach et al., 2008; ostrove et al., 2000). both forms of ses were equally strong related to perceived health, which indicates that subjective ses could be a relevant factor in research on ses and perceived health. we only measured perceived health, but we would expect a similar relationship between ses and objective health measures, as found in previous studies (dalstra et al., 2005; singh-manoux socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour 506 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ et al, 2005). interestingly enough, singh-manoux et al. (2005) only found subjective ses to be predictive of objective health over a three-year period, suggesting perceptions to have an important influence on objective health outcomes. further, hypothesis 2 that assumed a negative relationship between ses and hcb was partly supported. only subjective ses had a significant relationship with hcb, which means that the lower a person’s subjective ses, the more they will engage in health-compromising behaviour, and vice versa. this indicates that there are other subjective factors beyond objective measures like income, education and occupation that are associated with hcb (ghaed & gallo, 2007). it seems like it is not so much being low or high ses that is related to one’s health-related behaviour, but whether or not one sees oneself as belonging to a certain ses group (abrams & hogg, 1990). therefore, subjective ses should always be included in developing effective health interventions. finally, it was assumed that the relationship between ses and hcb would be stronger if hcb was perceived as typically of someone’s ses. this study found partial evidence for this prediction. whereas only subjective ses had a direct relationship with hcb, moderation by perception of hcb was only found for objective ses. objective ses was negatively related to hcb when hcb was perceived as typical behaviour for persons with a low ses, and positively related when it was perceived as typical behaviour for persons with a high ses. thus, if one sees hcb as typical for low ses (terry & hogg, 1996), one is more inclined to perform hcb when one is low ses and less inclined when one is high ses, and the reverse is true when one sees hcb as typical for high ses. the prediction that perceptions of hcb are related to one’s behaviour, is herewith supported. nevertheless, it is interesting that this moderating effect was only found for objective and not for subjective ses, because subjective ses is determined by one’s own individual perspective of their position in the social hierarchy. thus, one explicitly perceives oneself as belonging to the group low or high ses. for this reason, it was expected that perceptions of hcb would be related to hcb. one’s ses is related to behaviour, because it contains aspects of the role, status and expectations that are connected to membership of a specific social group (weyers, dragano, richter, & bosma, 2010). an individual is more likely to perform a health-related behaviour that is appropriate to the behavioural norms of the group, which they identify with (white et al., 2014). possibly the identification with the group of persons with a low or high ses was not salient enough in this study through which no moderating effect was found for subjective ses. people may belong to many different types of social groups and consequently can have multiple different social identities. except ‘low or high ses’ one can also identify with, for example, ‘women’, ‘christians’ or ‘americans’. the social identity that is salient at a certain moment determines the norm and thereby the actual performing of behaviour (haslam, jetten, postmes, & haslam, 2009). it is imaginable that identification with another social group than either low or high ses is more important in the association with performing hcb for persons who perceive this as behaviour for the group with high ses. alternatively, it could be that perceptions of one’s ses already incorporate notions about typical norms and behaviours associated with ses, including engaging in hcb. therefore, perceptions of hcb could not have any additional influence in this case. interestingly enough, it seems it is mainly perceptions that are related to hcb. only subjective ses, thus the perception of belonging to a particular ses group, was directly related to hcb. objective ses by itself was unrelated to hcb, unless those persons perceived hcb as typical for someone’s ses. this once again emphasizes the importance of focusing on people’s perceptions and subjective factors in trying to understand de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 507 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ why such differences in health and health-related behaviour exist between people of different social standing. it is important to note, however, that even though with subjective measures one is much better able to tap into people’s opinions of how they see aspects of (their) life, at the same time one is never quite sure how they come to their perceptions. it is entirely possible that some people rated their subjective ses much higher than their objective ses, not because they thought their status was that high, but because they did not want to see themselves as low ses. for our reasoning that perceptions of ses are related to health-related behaviour it does not matter how factual these perceptions are, although a .50 correlation between objective and subjective ses seems to suggest people’s subjective ses is based at least in part on objective criteria. nevertheless, this study clearly indicates that health and health-related behaviour is about much more than socioeconomic background. these study findings contribute to current psychological knowledge by showing the importance of both identity factors and subjective perceptions in health-compromising behaviour. over the last decade more research has focused on the role of identity in health-related behaviour (e.g., haslam et al., 2009). however, these studies have mainly looked at the role of belonging to certain groups and not so much at the impact of identity perceptions on actual health-related behaviour or vice versa (e.g., oyserman et al., 2007). our results clearly show that performing health-related behaviour is related to whether one sees this behaviour as typical of one’s group or not. this could be an additional factor in explaining why health behaviour interventions do not appeal to everyone (kelly & barker, 2016). limitations and recommendations although this study had several strengths, some limitations need to be acknowledged. the most important limitation is that this was a cross-sectional study, therefore, no strong claims about causality can be made. although it is possible that poor health may lead to lower ses, there are numerous longitudinal studies suggesting the ses-health association is driven primarily by low ses leading to poorer health (mulatu & schooler, 2002; preston & elo, 1995), although some studies have also found opposite effects as well (alvarez-galvez, 2016). in addition, even though the focus of our study was on assessing people’s subjective perceptions of their ses, health and hcb, when relying on subjective measures one runs the risk of other psychological factors influencing responses (senn et al., 2014). moreover, health-related behaviours were self-reported and objective measures confirming the accuracy of these self-reported behaviours, such as accelerometer data for physical activity and sitting, were not collected. in addition, the order in which the questions were asked may have affected the results. for example, perceptions of hcb could have been affected by just having been asked about one’s ses and hcb. further, the variables are measured with a questionnaire that partly consisted of existing validated scales, and partly consisted of self-constructed scales. although the questionnaire was constructed and composed based on the most recent literature, construct validity cannot be guaranteed. finally, because of technical and financial limitations, a self-selected sample was used, which possibly could have resulted in sample bias that may have influenced the results. although people from our sample were from different walks of life, the majority identified as high ses. in addition, even though the study did have a broad age range comparable to that of the general dutch population, more women than men took part. this might limit the generalizability of our results. taking these limitations into account, we do think this pattern of results with a dutch sample can be generalized to other western nations, although we acknowledge there can be large differences between countries what it means to be low socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour 508 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ or high ses (alvarez-galvez, 2016). we would expect that in societies with larger differences between what it means to be low or high ses the relationship with health and health-related behaviour to be stronger. this could especially be the case in poorer countries, where one needs a certain social standing just to be able to get basic health care. however, in that case it is also imaginable that subjective measures have less of an influence, because it is less important how you perceive your ses as it is to have the money or the status to get proper health care. results found in this study offer implications for further research. future research should investigate the underlying reasons for subjective ses perceptions. identifying contributing factors to people’s perceptions could be the first step in addressing and changing these perceptions, and indirectly, influence health-related behaviour. in addition, other related variables should be examined, such as interpersonal factors that could possibly influence the relationship between ses and health-related behaviour. for example, studies have found differences for marital status and ethnicity (gardner & oswald, 2004; verhoeff, poort, & spijker, 2002), which might be key covariates future research should adjust for. the relationship between ses and health-related behaviour is a complex one that should be analysed in ways that honours those complexities (alvarez-galvez, 2016). moreover, longitudinal research is recommended in order to investigate how relationships between the different variables develop during the course of life, so that interventions can be tailored to the individual and ultimately the social-economic disparities in health may decline. conclusions in conclusion, this study provides further evidence for the importance of both objective and subjective ses in understanding perceived health and hcb. only subjective ses was related to hcb directly, while objective ses was related to hcb when hcb was perceived as typically high or low ses. not only ses, but especially perceptions of ses and hcb are associated with the extent to which someone feels healthy and engages in hcb. having a low ses, whether objective or subjective, appears to be disadvantageous for one’s health. reducing differences in income and education between persons with a low and high ses would be a great intention, but changing someone’s objective ses in the short term is quite unrealistic. instead, to advance health, health interventions should try to tackle perceptions of ses and hcb, either by invalidating current ses related perceptions or by emphasizing new healthy perceptions. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 509 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references abrams, d. e., & hogg, m. a. 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(2014). the motivating role of dissociative out-groups in encouraging positive consumer behaviors. jmr, journal of marketing research, 51(4), 433-447. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.12.0335 about the authors natascha de hoog is an assistant professor in research methods and health psychology at the faculty of psychology, open university of the netherlands, the netherlands. susanne van dinther is a former undergraduate student in psychology at the faculty of psychology, open university of the netherlands, the netherlands. esther bakker is an assistant professor in health psychology at the faculty of psychology, open university of the netherlands, the netherlands. de hoog, van dinther, & bakker 513 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 498–513 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1840 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs1047-2797%2802%2900362-9 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1757975910365232 https://doi.org/10.1509%2fjmr.12.0335 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ socioeconomic status and health-compromising behaviour (introduction) subjective ses, health and health-related behaviour perceptions of health and health-related behaviour current study method participants and procedure measures analyses results descriptive statistics and correlations hypotheses testing discussion limitations and recommendations conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors family acculturation in host and immigrant couples: dyadic research in an italian context research reports family acculturation in host and immigrant couples: dyadic research in an italian context nadia rania* a, laura migliorini a, stefania rebora a [a] department of education sciences, university of genoa, genoa, italy. abstract the purpose of this research is to study acculturation strategies and attitudes in central and peripheral domains of host and immigrant couples in an italian context. the participants were 60 dyads (30 host couples and 30 immigrant couples) who completed a questionnaire based on the relative acculturation extended model (raem). based on the analysis, we found that the general acculturation attitude preferred by immigrant couples is integration, and italian couples prefer that immigrants adopt it. furthermore, italian partners show moderate internal agreement, whereas immigrant couples show a high degree of agreement. in both groups, the level of agreement between dyadic members is only partially determined by their membership within a social group. the socio-cultural context has a significant role in the internal similarity of italian couples. in contrast, there is dyadic agreement within immigrant couples. keywords: family acculturation strategies, acculturation attitudes, couples, acculturation domains, dyadic analyses europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 received: 2017-11-02. accepted: 2018-07-17. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: corso podestà, 2 genoa, italy. e-mail: nadia.rania@unige.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over the last thirty years europe has been presented with continuous immigration, becoming an increasingly multicultural context in which people are in contact with other cultures daily (cushner, 2008; rania, migliorini, cardinali, & rebora, 2015; rania, migliorini, rebora, & cardinali, 2014) and where many migrants experience increasing pressures to assimilate to their host culture. the acculturation process begins as soon as new immigrants enter the country and involves numerous changes in the use of language, behaviours, attitudes, and values. research on acculturation has identified several acculturation models, most commonly used is berry’s bidimensional model (berry, 1980, 1997), which defines four acculturation outcomes: assimilation (high acquisition, low maintenance), separation (low acquisition, high maintenance), marginalization (low acquisition, low maintenance), and integration (high acquisition, high maintenance). however, recent models, that we will explain later, have underlined that the acculturation process is complex, relative and specific. arends-tóth and van de vijver (2003) affirmed that an individual’s preference for adjustment or maintenance could vary according to the life subdomain or situation. based on this perspective, navas luque et al. (2005) proposed a model in which there are acculturation options in different areas of life (work, economic, social, family, religious beliefs and customs, and ways of thinking, principles and values) that can be preferred and adopted concurrently. aceurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ culturation has been theorized more frequently as an individual process. however, there could be different acculturation positions within families that could be negotiated among members because acculturation is a fluid and mutual process (buckingham & brodsky, 2015). dumka and roosa (1997) have already suggested that acculturation processes change for each person or family, and they should not relate to the length of time in a host country or generational status. the family approach is relevant because acculturation can be considered a process that involves both individuals and groups. in fact, the family represents the interface between individuals and society. immigrant families need both to maintain their own identities and culture and be open to the demands of the new context. the challenges faced by immigrant families are to find a balance between protective and emancipative functions. as a resource for wellbeing, the first function aims to maintain patterns of reference to ensure continuity with the history and memory of family values, while the second function is related to the exploration of the new environment, its social and cultural characteristics, and the onset of new relationships (falicov, 2003). in the literature, family acculturation has been conceptualized as a long-term process, during which family members are integrated into the host society (berry, 2005; carranza & turner, 2003). researchers of family acculturation in particular have studied child-parent relationships (dinh & nguyen, 2006; kim, chen, li, huang, & moon, 2009; tardif-williams & fisher, 2009), adolescent-parent relationships (martinez, 2006; smokowski, rose, & bacallao, 2008), acculturation stress (hurwich-reiss & gudiño, 2015), second generations (sabatier & berry, 2008), family outcomes of acculturation in relation to children (phinney, kim-jo, osorio, & vilhjalmsdottir, 2005; phinney, ong, & madden, 2000) and the acculturation gap. as underlined by stuart, ward, jose, and narayanan (2010), parents and adolescents differ in their expectations in relevant domains such as privacy, trust, and relationships. these differences that are present in the normal development processes of all families could lead to intergenerational conflict in family migration, intensified by acculturation processes. specifically, most studies that focus on the intergenerational acculturation gap have underlined that parents and children adapt asynchronously to the new culture, thereby resulting in acculturation gaps between the two generations (kuczynski, navara, & boiger, 2011). moreover, children in particular may adjust to the new context more swiftly than parents (buckingham & brodsky, 2015), thus creating intergenerational conflicts, stress, and problems of adaptation to the behaviour of the various components of the family. recently, some researchers have considered the acculturation process within a familial context; however, studies that have considered multiple members simultaneously are sporadic (stuart, ward, jose, & narayanan, 2010). therefore, dinh and nguyen (2006) have suggested that research should focus on the acculturation experience of the family as a whole. in the field of acculturation psychology, there are numerous studies documenting the impact of changes in the cultural context on parental socialization practices and parent-child relationships (bornstein & cote, 2006a, 2006b; carra, lavelli, keller, & kärtner, 2013; durgel, leyendecker, yagmurlu, & harwood, 2009; moscardino, nwobu, & axia, 2006; raghavan, harkness, & super, 2010; rania, migliorini, & rebora, 2016; tajima & harachi, 2010; yagmurlu & sanson, 2009). a number of scholars has pointed out that the attitudes, values and behaviours of immigrant families are affected by acculturation processes and integration with the receiving culture (berry, 1997; bornstein & cote, 2006a; durgel et al., 2009; tajima & harachi, 2010; yagmurlu & sanson, 2009). even native families are involved in a process of mutual exchange that occurs when different cultural groups come into contact with one another (van oudenhoven & ward, 2013). in fact, acculturation processes produce changes in both the immigrant and native populations (larsen, vazov, krumov, & schneider, 2013; migliorini, rania, & cardinali, 2016). an analysis of previous literature shows that there are no studies on applications of acculturation models in the family context. in fact, the literature has mainly studied individual acculturation models applied to the parent-child relationship, while an analysis of the dyadic dimension applied to the parental couple represents an important novelty in the study of acculturation, rania, migliorini, & rebora 915 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ which the present study intends to investigate. therefore, in this article, we build on previous research in this area in four significant ways. first, we study the acculturation process at the family level, by focusing on couple dyads. second, we adhere to the current views of the two-dimensional acculturation model, and then we apply this perspective on a dyadic level by considering the parental couple. third, we use the dyadic level analysis of a parenting couple in the migration process and compare natives and immigrants. finally, we emphasize that there are different ways of acculturation with respect to central life domains and peripheral life domains and therefore there could be different agreements within couples and consequently at the family level. aims the aims of the present research are to study the acculturation process of italian and immigrant families. specifically, this study analyzes general acculturation attitudes and strategies and attitudes in life domains using a family approach in host and immigrant couple dyads (married or cohabiting) with children in early childhood. the aims of the present study are as follows: 1. to describe the general acculturation attitudes and life domain strategies and attitudes adopted by immigrant dyads and the perceptions of host dyads regarding the strategies and attitudes adopted by immigrant dyads; 2. to analyse the internal dyadic accord in italian and immigrant couples with respect to acculturation strategies and attitudes; 3. to verify if the dyadic agreement between the two members of a couple is effective and not determined by membership of the social groups of women and men; 4. to study if the dyadic agreement diminishes once the stereotypical effect has been controlled for, because the socio-cultural context has a significant role in the internal similarity of the dyads. the italian context based on the migration flows towards italy in recent years, the number of immigrants has greatly increased. the regular resident population in italy in 2014, according to istat, included almost 5 million foreigners. over the past 10 years according to the results of the 15th general census of 2011 (istat, 2013), the italian population increased by 2.7 million people. this phenomenon appears to be attributable to the increase in foreign nationals to 5,029,000 as of january 1, 2017, equal to 9.05% of the total italian population, which is estimated to be 60,579,000. the istat (2017) report also shows that a change occurred in the last twenty years in migration flows in terms of the heterogeneity of backgrounds and the stabilization of immigrant presence in the territory. indicators of this phenomenon are the increase in indefinite resident permits and acquisition of citizenship by naturalization, specifically, transmitted from parents to children and reaching adult age for those born in italy. the statistics also report the strong tendency of immigrants to recompose their family of origin in italy since they often have children who were previously born in the country of origin and decide to extend the family by having children in italy. furthermore, recent statistics on italian family reunions state that most of the migratory movements are tied to reasons concerning the family. family acculturation in host and immigrant couples 916 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants participants included 60 dyads, 30 host couples and 30 immigrant couples living in two regions of central and northwestern italy. italian men had an average age of 39.2 years (range 27-60, sd = 11.98), while women had an average age of 39.9 years (range 29-65, sd = 6.58). their children (46.7% male, 53.3% female) had an average age of 6.03 years. the most common levels of educational attainment among italian women were post-university courses (23.3%) and high school diplomas (23.3%), while for men high school diplomas (33.3%) and university degrees (26.7%) were most common. in host couples women were mainly employed as clerical workers (33.3%), followed by teachers (16.7%) and housewives (16.7%). among men, self-employment was most common (26.7%), followed by clerical workers (23.3%) and labourers (20%). as for immigrant couples, men had an average age of 33.43 years (range 27-60, sd = 13.53), while women had an average age of 31.53 years (range 24-44, sd = 10.17) and their children (60% males and 40% females) had an average age of 5.83 years. immigrant couples had been in italy for approximately 10 years. the most present cultural groups were romanian (31.9%), ecuadorian (28.6%), and albanian (9.9%), and other groups were represented at a very low percentage, less than 4%. the most common level of educational attainment among immigrant couples was a high school diploma (women 35.7%, men 40%), followed by two or three years of high school (women 21.4%, men 30%), middle school completion (women 14.3%, men 10%) and university degrees for women (14.3%), whereas only 3.3% of men had obtained this degree. as for work, women were most commonly domestic helpers (27.6%) and 20% were housewives, followed by clerical workers (20%). most men worked as labourers (63.3%). measures among the different acculturation models present in the literature, it was decided to use the relative acculturation extended model (raem; navas luque, garcia, & rojas, 2006; navas luque, rojas, garcia, & pumares, 2007; navas luque & rojas, 2010), which addresses both acculturation strategies and acculturation attitudes. the acculturation strategies consider the real plan/situation for each domain, specifically the acculturation options that immigrants say they put into practice within the new society versus those that the natives perceive as being put into practice by immigrants. the acculturation attitudes refer to the ideal plan, that is, the acculturation options that immigrants would choose to put into practice if they could and that natives would prefer immigrants to use to integrate into the host community. the questionnaire was translated into italian and then adjusted for an italian context. in table 1, the questions that were in the two versions of the questionnaire for italians and immigrants are presented. general acculturation attitudes were measured based on the of two questions described in the table below; the first related to the maintenance of the culture of the country of origin, and the second on the adoption of the host culture. participants had to indicate the degree of their agreement (5) or disagreement (1) on a 5-point likert scale. acculturation strategies and attitudes in specific domains. the questions related to this area were applied in each of the following life domains: work, economic, social, family, religious beliefs and customs, and ways of thinking, principles and values. the answer was given on a likert scale from 1 = “not at all” to 5 = “a lot”. rania, migliorini, & rebora 917 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the combination of the questions presented in table 1 with these two-by-two questions led us to four different types of strategies (navas luque et al., 2005; navas luque, garcia, & rojas, 2006; navas luque, rojas, garcia, & pumares, 2007; navas luque, rojas, pumares, lozano, & cuadrado, 2010). table 1 questions in the italian and immigrant versions of the questionnaire italian version immigrant version general acculturation attitudes "italians should let immigrants live in this country according to their customs". “people of your country of origin should seek to live in italy according to italian custom". “italian customs should let immigrants participate fully in the life of this society". "people of your country of origin should seek to participate fully in the life of italian society". acculturation strategies (real plan) by specific domains "to what extent do you believe that immigrants maintain the traditions from their original culture”. “to what extent do you maintain your original culture”. "to what extent do you believe that immigrants have adopted italian culture”. “to what extent have you adopted the host culture”. acculturation attitude (ideal plan) by specific domains “to what extent would you like immigrants to keep their original culture”. “to what extent would you like to maintain your original culture”. “to what extent would you like immigrants to adopt italian culture”. “to what extent would you like to adopt italian culture”. procedure the participants were contacted through their children’s teachers, and a letter described the aims of the study. then, they met the researchers and completed the self-report questionnaire. an assistant researcher was present while the questionnaire was being completed to supervise data collection. instructions were given at the start of the study informing people that participation was voluntary, and that responses were confidential and anonymous in compliance with the italian law on privacy (no.196/2003). the procedures fully complied with the research ethical code of the italian association of psychology, and the informed consent protocol was provided to participants. data analysis data were analysed using spss software for statistical analysis, version 18. to describe the types of general acculturation attitudes, mean scores and standard deviations were calculated. to integrate individuals into one of four general strategies, in line with the work of mancini and bottura (2014) and navas luque et al. (2010), single sample t-tests were run for each answer using the average value of 3. scores below 3 for both responses indicated the adoption of a strategy/attitude of marginalization; if the score for the first question was higher than 3 and the score for the second question was lower than 3, the strategy/attitude was separation; if the score for the first question was less than 3 and the score for the second question was higher than 3, the strategy/attitude was assimilation; if the score for both questions was higher than 3, a strategy of integration was family acculturation in host and immigrant couples 918 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ indicated; if the score for one or both questions was equal to 3, the responses were categorized as indeterminate, as proposed by navas luque et al. (2010). to describe acculturation strategies and attitudes for domains in italian and immigrant dyads, average scores and standard deviations were calculated. the data analysis of dyads includes several techniques that enable considering the complexity of family relationships and their interdependence. lanz and rosnati (2002) argue that in the literature, there is no score that represents the complexity of family relationships. for this reason, researchers usually use multiple dyadic indices to compare them (fisher, kokes, ransom, philips, & rudd, 1985). the differences between host and immigrant dyads were calculated by independent sample t-tests. furthermore, paired samples t-tests to analyse the internal differences of the members of the dyads of both groups were performed. the effect size was described with cohen's d coefficient. the dyadic correlations (rdyadic) and the index discrepancy (d) were also used. dyadic correlations were used to detect the degree of similarity within the dyad (lanz & rosnati, 2002), considering the preservation of the culture of origin and the adoption or maintenance of the host culture in peripheral and central domains. the discrepancy index was calculated to detect the level of disagreement between the two members of the dyad on the same constructs. for dyadic correlations, a correlation index was applied, according to alfieri and marta (2012). the correlation index used in the present work was pearson’s, which enables verifying if the constructs are specific to the social groups to which they belong (women and men) or to dyads. in fact, a significant correlation indicates that a particular construct is specific to the social groups and not to the dyad (women and men of the same pair); conversely, a low correlation indicates the specificity of that size to the dyad. to measure the stereotypical effect, the following procedure proposed by kenny and acitelli (1994) was applied: the average of the responses of all husbands (mh1) on the same item or that of wives (mw1) on the same item was subtracted from the husband's response (h1) and the wife’s response (w1) to each individual item of a scale, respectively. therefore, mh1 and mw1 represented the stereotypes of the response of the husbands and the wives, respectively. before calculating the dyadic correlation, we subtracted mh1 or mw1 from the item. the differences between the scores of the italian and immigrant dyads on the scale were calculated by independent samples t-test. the effect size was described with cohen's d coefficient. comparisons between the average dyadic scores (rdyadic) and dyadic cleaned scores (r "pure") were calculated using paired samples ttests. results figure 1 shows the scores on general acculturation attitudes that, according to the italian dyads, are adopted by immigrants and those that immigrant dyads claim to adopt. the figure was generated by combining the scores on the two main questions described above in the instrument section according to berry’s model (1980). specifically, it is a two-dimensional model that describes the four acculturation outcomes: assimilation, integration, marginalization and separation. rania, migliorini, & rebora 919 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. general acculturation attitudes in italian and immigrant dyads. note. it = italian dyads; im = immigrants dyads. for both groups of participants, we reported the deviation from the mean value (3) of the average scores for the two questions about general acculturation attitude. the change in mean scores of italians was significant only in relation to the adoption of italian culture by immigrants (question 2 = 4.00, t(29) = 8.02, p < .001), indicating a preference towards integration. in regards to the immigrant dyads, the variation of the average scores of the two questions with respect to the mean value of the scale (3) was statistically significant (question 1 = 3.67, t(29) = 3.88; question 2 = 3.92, t(29) = 9.25), and the data indicated a preference for integration. in line with the literature on acculturation models for domains (arends-tóth & van de vijver, 2003) applied to the raem model by mancini and bottura (2014) and mancini, navas luque, lópez-rodríguez, and bottura (2018), the domain-specific strategies and the acculturation attitudes of dyads were presented by aggregating them into peripheral (work, economic, social) and central domains (family, religious beliefs and customs, and ways of thinking, principles and values). in table 2, we report the mean scores of italian and immigrant dyads and the significant differences between them. in regard to the real plan it seemed that the italian dyads perceived the tendency of immigrants to maintain their culture of origin in the central domains of life (m = 8.4) and their tendency to adopt italian culture in the peripheral domains (m = 3.10). these data were supported by immigrant dyads whose members confirmed that they maintain their own culture in the central domains (m = 4.22) of life and adopted italian culture in the peripheral domains (m = 3.92). in regards to the ideal plan, italian dyads preferred that immigrants adopted the italian culture in the peripheral domains of life (m = 3.77) and maintained their own culture in the central domains (m = 3.45), as confirmed by the immigrant dyads that reported a higher preference for maintaining their culture of origin in the central domains of life (m = 3.97) and for adopting italian culture in the peripheral domains (m = 3.77). significant differences emerged regarding the real plan in the adoption of the culture of the host country in the peripheral domains of life (t(58) = -5.65, p < .001. cohen's d = 1.48), in the central domains (strategies) (t(58) = -5.26, p < .001, cohen's d = 1.36), and in the central domains of the ideal plan concerning the maintenance of their culture of origin (attitudes) (t(58) = -2.45, p < .05, cohen's d = 0.63). family acculturation in host and immigrant couples 920 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive analysis of italian and immigrant dyads regarding acculturation strategies and attitudes for peripheral and central domains domains dyads n m sd t df real plan acculturation strategies maintenance peripheral -0.84 58 it 30 3.39 0.62 im 30 3.53 0.69 maintenance central -0.84 58 it 30 4.08 0.57 im 30 4.22 0.65 adoption peripheral -5.65*** 58 it 30 3.10 0.54 im 30 3.92 0.57 adoption central -5.26*** 58 it 30 2.27 0.60 im 30 3.43 1.05 ideal plan acculturation attitudes maintenance peripheral -1.47 58 it 30 3.32 0.62 im 30 3.58 0.72 maintenance central -2.45* 58 it 30 3.45 0.68 im 30 3.97 0.95 adoption peripheral 0.00 58 it 30 3.77 0.64 im 30 3.77 0.81 adoption central -0.46 57 it 29 3.05 0.84 im 29 3.17 0.82 note. significant differences resulted from the t-test for independent samples between italian and immigrant dyads. *p < .05. ***p < .001. to verify the level of agreement between the partners of the dyads in relation to the investigated variables, we calculated dyadic correlations (lanz & rosnati, 2002). table 3 shows the scores of internal agreement with the dyads (rdyadic), the discrepancy index (d) and the pearson correlation. regarding the real plan for the italian dyads, the level of agreement between the members was moderate, with the exception of the perception of maintenance of culture of origin by immigrants in peripheral domains, which had a high amount of dyadic agreement, and with the exception of the perception of maintaining the culture of origin by immigrants in central domains, for which the level of dyadic agreement was very low. therefore, the discrepancy index was reported to be moderate although it trended towards 1, which indicated a lack of internal agreement in dyads. the difference between the dyadic relationship and the index of discrepancy scores was attributable to differences between the mean scores and the standard deviations between the members of dyads. the pearson correlations of the perception of italians maintenance of the culture of origin by immigrants were moderate and sigrania, migliorini, & rebora 921 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nificant compared to the perception of what immigrants should adopt of the culture of the receiving country. in the peripheral domains of life, the correlation was high and significant, indicating a specificity for social groups (women and men) and not for dyads, whereas in the central domains it was moderate and not significant, indicating a specificity for the dyads. table 3 dyadic correlations, pearson correlations and discrepancy index for italian and immigrant dyads domains dyads it dyads im rdyadic d r rdyadic d r real plan acculturation strategies maintenance peripheral .81 .62 .48 .74 .56 .51 maintenance central .16 .59 .18 .67 .43 .84 adoption peripheral .45 .68 .56 .79 .46 .38 adoption central .47 .73 .36 .45 .54 .53 ideal plan acculturation attitudes maintenance peripheral .62 .84 .43 .77 .52 .58 maintenance central .36 1.00 .14 .57 .63 .45 adoption peripheral .60 .77 .33 .72 .55 .54 adoption central .46 .93 .36 .69 .56 .61 regarding the ideal plan, the dyadic correlation showed that there was a low level of agreement between partners in relation to the perception that immigrants desire to retain their culture of origin and to adopt the culture of the dominant society in the central domain, whereas there was good agreement regarding the perception that immigrants desire to maintain their culture and to adopt italian culture in the peripheral domains. the values of the discrepancy index were high. in sum, the members of italian dyads showed a level of agreement that ranged from moderate to low. regarding the ideal plan of the desire of immigrants to maintain their culture in peripheral domains of life, the correlation between italian women and men was strong and significant, indicating the specificity of the social groups (women and men) and not the dyads; however, the desire of immigrants to adopt italian culture in the central domains of life and adopt italian culture in the peripheral domains had a moderate and not significant relation. a weak and not significant relationship emerged concerning the desire to maintain the culture of origin in the central domains, which indicated a dyadic specificity with respect to this dimension. in general, the agreement between members was greater and more specific to dyads in the central domains of life than in the peripheral domains. immigrant dyads showed a good degree of agreement in the real and ideal plans; in fact, the correlations of the values of the dyads were high on all dimensions. moreover, to confirm this, immigrant dyads had a discrepancy index at a medium level for the real plan, whereas for the ideal plan, the discrepancy index was closer to 1, indicating a trend towards agreement within dyads. therefore, in general, partners within immigrant dyads seem to have a high level of agreement. as for the pearson correlations of immigrant dyads, the real plan dimensions were all characterized by strong and significant relations, and with respect to the adoption of italian culture in the peripheral domains of life, a moderate and significant relationship was found. regarding the ideal plan, the trend of the correlation was the same; in fact, all dimensions had strong and significant correlations, with the exception of the preference to maintain italian culture in the central domains of life, for which the relationship was moderate and significant. consequently, from these results it seems that agreement between imfamily acculturation in host and immigrant couples 922 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ migrant women and men was primarily related to a social factor (belonging to groups of women and men). only the maintenance of italian culture in the central domains in the real plan was specific to the dyad. for the real plan, internal agreement between the members was high, and it was in the moderate range only in the case of the adoption of italian culture in the central domains of life. however, for the ideal plan, the agreement was high in all dimensions, showing a high level of similarity between immigrant partners. to confirm that the level of agreement among members of a dyad was not largely due to the cultural context in which they live, we performed a comparison between the dyadic score and the dyadic score r“pure”, the score from which the stereotypical effect was subtracted (table 4). table 4 comparisons between average scores of total dyadic correlations and pure scores for italian and immigrant dyads domains dyads it dyads im rdyadic r“pure” t df rdyadic r“pure” t df real plan acculturation strategies maintenance peripheral .81 .42 3.47** 49 .74 .53 1.81 23 maintenance central .16 .32 -0.78 3 .67 .74 -0.80 15 adoption peripheral .45 .39 0.55 18 .79 .71 1.43 17 adoption central .47 .20 1.45 8 .45 .63 -1.35 18 ideal plan acculturation attitudes maintenance peripheral .62 .39 1.91 19 .77 .58 1.56 18 maintenance central .36 .51 -0.86 7 .57 .50 0.47 20 adoption peripheral .60 .34 1.53 19 .72 .55 1.32 20 adoption central .46 .54 -0.44 11 .69 .55 0.84 13 **p < .01. the levels of internal similarity in the host dyads for the real plan were high compared to the perception of immigrants’ maintenance of their culture in peripheral domains. with regard to the adoption of italian culture by immigrants both in the peripheral and central domains, the levels of internal similarity were moderate; the relationship decreased considerably with respect to the perception of immigrants’ maintenance of their culture in the central domains of life. for the ideal plan, the level of internal agreement of italian dyads was high concerning the peripheral domains of life and whether they preferred immigrants to retain their culture or adopt the italian culture; however, there was a moderate level of internal agreement regarding to the central domains of life both in the preference that immigrants adopt italian culture and in the preference to maintain their own culture. after calculating the stereotypical effect, the scores decreased for the real plan relative to the maintenance of their culture in peripheral domains of life, and in the adoption of italian culture both in the peripheral and central domains. these results are characteristic of the social groups (host and immigrants) to which the dyads belong. on the contrary, the score for maintaining the culture of origin in the central domains of life increased and was specific to the agreement between dyad partners; the scores decreased for the ideal plan with regard to the desire that immigrants adopt italian culture and maintain their culture of origin in peripheral domains of life, thus being specific to the social group to which they belonged (host and immigrants). conversely, the scores increased when compared to the desire that immigrants maintain their culture or adopt the italian culture in the central domains. these results would be specific to the level of agreement between dyad partners. rania, migliorini, & rebora 923 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by carrying out the paired samples t-test between the dyadic correlations and the correlations and correcting for the stereotypical effects, significant differences emerged for the real plan regarding the dimension of the perception of immigrants’ maintenance of their own culture in peripheral domains of life (t(25) = 3.47, p < .01). shifting the focus to the immigrant dyads, in regards to the real plan, the levels of similarity between the members of a dyad were high, except for the adoption of italian culture in the central domains of life which was moderate. regarding the ideal plan, agreement was high in all dimensions. after calculating the stereotypical effect for the real plan, the scores related to the maintenance of their culture and the adoption of italian culture in the peripheral domains were lower. on the contrary, the scores increased relative to the maintenance of their culture and the adoption of italian culture in the central domains, highlighting the specificity of these dimensions to the level of agreement between dyad partners. instead, regarding the ideal plan, the scores were low for all dimensions. although the scores for immigrant dyads decreased, they were still higher than .50 after the removal of the stereotypical effect, indicating high internal agreement for dyads for all the raem’s dimensions. since there was significant agreement between the members, there were no significant differences when comparing the averages for paired samples between the dyadic correlation and the correlation corrected for the stereotypical effect. discussion and conclusions this study aimed to describe the general acculturation attitudes and acculturation strategies and attitudes in the peripheral and central domains of life from a family perspective in host and immigrant dyads. in line with previous studies conducted at the individual level (berry, 1997; navas luque et al., 2006; van oudenhoven et al., 1998; zagefka & brown, 2002), the general acculturation attitude preferred by immigrant dyads was integration. the italian dyads, in line with the immigrant dyads, perceived that immigrants preferred the option of integration, although there was an evident tendency towards assimilation. regarding the perceptions of the host culture, zagefka, tip, gonzales, brown, and cinnirella (2012) explain how it is possible that local residents, perceiving the intention of immigrants to adopt their culture, are more willing to open up to them. the present research offers a relevant contribution to the acculturation literature by exploring the acculturation practices of families in an intercultural context. the analysis of the dyadic dimension represents an important novelty in the studies on acculturation considering the close relationship between acculturation and family relationships, as the family influences the effects of migration on future generations. namely, within the acculturation process, it is necessary to consider the contact within different family models that can influence one another in some dimensions of family life (rania, migliorini, rebora, & cardinali, 2015). the present study also aimed to verify the existence of a dyadic agreement between the members of host couples and those of immigrant couples with respect to acculturation strategies and attitudes. generally, the italian dyads showed moderate internal agreement, whereas for immigrant dyads, a high degree of agreement between members was found. in fact, dyadic agreement could be considered support for the negotiation of acculturation strategies not only at the couple level but also at the family level (kisselev, brown, & brown, 2010). the high degree of agreement in immigrant dyads could also be considered in line with the idea that the recognition and protection of family ties represent a focal point for immigrants (regalia & giuliani, 2014). as suggested by mcgoldrick and ashton (2012), migration is a factor that influences how family members relate to their cultural heritage, to others of their cultural group, and to the preservation of cultural traditions. however, a recent study family acculturation in host and immigrant couples 924 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by migliorini, rania, tassara, and cardinali (2016) points out that migrant families obtain lower scores than host dyads regarding ritual symbolic significance; this finding indicates that further studies are needed on this topic. another aim was to investigate whether the degree of dyadic agreement between the members of a couple was effective and not determined by membership of the social groups of men and women with respect to acculturation domains. in the present study, the italian dyads showed a dyadic specificity regarding the central domains in life based on the real plan, and specificity for groups (women and men) regarding the peripheral domains. in relation to the ideal plan, dyadic specificity applied to the preference for adopting italian culture both in the peripheral and central domains, but, for the central domains, dyadic specificity applied only to the preference that immigrants maintain their culture of origin. on the contrary, agreement regarding the preference of maintenance by immigrants of their culture of origin in the peripheral domains was specific to the groups. moreover, the immigrant dyads showed specific agreement between dyadic members only in the adoption of italian culture in the peripheral domains of life, and agreement on all remaining dimensions seemed to be specific to the gender groups to which they belonged (men and women). according to regalia and giuliani (2014) these gendered differences are not uncommon and could be related to on various areas of life (values, practices, behaviours). the final aim was to investigate whether the dyadic agreement would be decreased by controlling the stereotypical effect, specifically, whether the socio-cultural context played a significant role in the internal similarity of dyads, according to the methodology of dyadic analyses followed. regarding the italian dyads, after controlling for stereotypical effects on the dyadic agreement, what emerged was that the environment prevailed in defining the internal similarity between members. immigrant dyads, however, did not seem to be influenced by the context, but the dyadic agreement was similar to the responses provided by dyad members. this finding could be explained from an intergroup perspective, underlining that coherence between individuals of a minority group would be essential to not lose their cultural specificity (verkuyten & martinovic, 2014). an aspect that is not very thoroughly studied in the literature like the theme of family acculturation is a strong point of this study, it may prove to be a limitation because the lack of literature on the subject hinders an effective comparison with data from other similar research in terms of content and methodology. furthermore, another possible limitation comes from the lack of consideration of the individual variables in determining host and immigrant acculturation preferences; these individual variables are presented in the literature, and include psychological issues, group and national identification (mashuri, burhan, & van leeuwen, 2013; nesdale & mark, 2000; verkuyten, & martinovic, 2012) and, ethnic identity (phinney, horenczyk, liebkind, & vedder, 2001). another limitation to this research is that, although the use of convenience sampling was adequate considering the explorative nature of this study (de carlo & robusto, 1996), it did not allow us to obtain a high degree of representativeness in the sample. for this reason, the results should be interpreted with caution as they cannot be generalized to the full range of host and migrant couples. according to kisselev, brown, and brown (2010), qualitative research is often culturally congruent and consequently could be an effectively used multimethod approach that allows us to understand and draw conclusions about immigrant families. future research could more deeply investigate this issue by expanding the sample size and by considering other measures of individual, couple and family well being that could in some way affect the participants' dyadic agreement. therefore, future studies should focus on the direct measurement of acculturation strategies and attitudes implemented and desired by the native population in the peripheral and rania, migliorini, & rebora 925 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 https://www.psychopen.eu/ central domains of life since in the present study, only their perception of acculturation processes affecting immigrants was assessed. furthermore, researchers who are interested in the acculturation processes of parenting dyads should also consider sample those who have divorced or no longer share a partnership. these further investigations could lead to understanding if acculturation and couple agreement could be maintained when the relationship is broken. moreover, it would be interesting for future research to consider immigrants who have lived in the host country different lengths of time, to understand the differences related to the length of residency. the immigrant participants in this study had lived in italy for approximately ten years, which could be considered a long time during which they could have modified their level of dyadic acculturation agreement. this research would enable adding another piece to the complex picture of italian intercultural relationships. with the increase in migratory flows and family reunification in various european countries, the scientific community should continue to study the processes of acculturation at the parental couple level to understand developments at the family level and understand how these dyadic agreements have repercussions at the generational level (fine & fincham, 2013). until now, studies have focused on the dyadic level between parents and children. it is important to underline that successful integration could be considered a function of both acculturation strategies at the individual, dyadic and group levels in different domains, and the policies and practices of the receiving culture (sabatier & berry, 2008) in terms of multiculturalism and/or intergroup relationships. practical implications should take into account the different couples and family models that come into contact with the migration processes (singh & dutta, 2010). in fact, we believe our research has important strengths and interesting findings that could have practical implications for family-based interventions in community enrichment and school programs to support continuity in migrant family identity (cigoli & scabini, 2006) and to promote the well-being of both native and immigrant family members. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors are especially grateful to the participants for their willingness to freely and kindly give their time. references alfieri, s., & marta, e. 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(2012). predictors of majority members’ acculturation preferences: experimental evidence. journal of experimental social psychology, 48, 654-659. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.006 about the authors nadia rania is an associate professor in social psychology at the department of education sciences, university of genoa (italy) where she teaches social psychology, psychology of groups and methods and techniques of group intervention. furthermore, she teaches in the college phd program in migration and intercultural processes, university of genoa (italy), and she is coordinator of the phd in migrations and intercultural processes. she obtained her phd in research methods in human sciences at the university of genoa (italy). her main topics of interest and research include family relationships, migration patterns and acculturation processes, well-being and quality of life in adolescence, routine and ritual in the life cycles of native and migrant peoples, and qualitative methods. her scientific production includes over seventy works, including books and articles in national and international journals, and she is a reviewer for national and international journals. laura migliorini is associated professor in social psychology at the university of genoa since 2006, where she teaches community psychology method and technique and family relation psychology. she is member of the professor team relevant to phd cultural migration. prof. laura migliorini was responsible of several national and international founded research projects in the area of well-being and migration issue. she has published more than one seventy scientific papers, appeared in peer-reviewed journals, either international or national ones and four books. her research interests are in the fields of social environmental psychology, community and intercultural psychology, acculturation and migration processes, family psychology, qualitative methods. she is a reviewer for national and international journals. stefania rebora obtained her master degree in psychology, at the university of genoa (italy) and then her phd in migration and intercultural processes at the university of genoa (italy). she teaches at the workshops of the university of genoa focused on “groups dynamics in educational and work contexts: from theory to practice” since 2014 and “study immigrant families: methods and levels of analysis” since 2015. rebora is the co-author of several articles of migration issues, her main topics of interest and research include: family relationships; migration patterns and processes of acculturation; routine and ritual in life cycle in native and migration people; intercultural processes and migrations. the scientific production includes several articles on international journal. rania, migliorini, & rebora 931 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 914–931 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1553 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530802001338 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.73 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.006 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ family acculturation in host and immigrant couples (introduction) aims the italian context method participants measures procedure data analysis results discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors traumatic rift: how conspiracy beliefs undermine cohesion after societal trauma? research reports traumatic rift: how conspiracy beliefs undermine cohesion after societal trauma? michal bilewicz a, marta witkowska* a, myrto pantazi b, theofilos gkinopoulos c, olivier klein d [a] faculty of psychology, university of warsaw, warsaw, poland. [b] oxford internet institute, university of oxford, oxford, united kingdom. [c] school of psychology, university of surrey, guildford, united kingdom. [d] faculty of psychology and education, university libre de bruxelles, bruxelles, belgium. abstract collective traumas may often lead to deep societal divides and internal conflicts. in this article, we propose that conspiracy theories emerging in response to victimizing events may play a key role in the breakdown of social cohesion. we performed a nationally representative survey in poland (n = 965) two years after the smoleńsk airplane crash in which the polish president was killed, together with 95 political officials and high-ranking military officers. the survey found that people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the smoleńsk catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. we also examined the role of people’s belief in the uniqueness of in-group historical suffering as an important antecedent of both conspiracy thinking and hostility towards outgroups (conspiracy believers and non-believers). keywords: victimhood, collective trauma, conspiracy beliefs, social distance, smoleńsk europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 received: 2018-07-04. accepted: 2018-11-06. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: faculty of psychology, university of warsaw, stawki 5/7, 00-183 warsaw, poland. e-mail: marta.witkowska@psych.uw.edu.pl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. "don't wipe your treacherous mugs with the name of my late brother. you destroyed him, you murdered him!" – said the leader of the ruling polish party, jarosław kaczyński, in a heated parliamentary debate in july 2017, while addressing the opposition party leaders. with these words he referred to the alleged responsibility of the former liberal government for the 2010 airplane crash in which the then president of poland, lech kaczyński, was killed. today, the two sides of the political debate in poland still cannot agree upon the nature of the traumatic event that happened more than eight years ago. psychological research on large-scale societal traumas suggests that societies exposed to traumatic events may become more cohesive. societal traumas can increase altruism and prosocial behavior (staub & vollhardt, 2008; vollhardt, 2009), enhance ethnocentric responses (fritsche, jonas, & kessler, 2011), and boost nationalism and patriotism (skitka, 2005). linguistic studies of on-line journals after the september 11th attacks point to increased social references immediately after the collective trauma occurred (cohn, mehl, & pennebaker, 2004). on the other hand, it is obvious that such traumatic events often lead to deep societal divides and intragroup conflicts – particularly when they occur in the political domain. the crash of the airplane carrying the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ rwandan president juvenal habyarimana and the burundian president cyprien ntaryamira led to the rwandan genocide and a violent war in the democratic republic congo. the september 11th attacks in the usa enhanced decades-long partisan conflict between democrats and republicans. the massacre in the beslan school in 2004 escalated ingush-ossetian hostilities and led to human rights abuses in russia. this societal process, known as the “cycle of violence” (littman & paluck, 2015), begs for a deeper explanation, particularly as far as its psychological foundations are concerned. in this article, we analyze the key role of conspiracy theories in the breakdown of social cohesiveness after collective traumatic events. we suggest that large-scale societal traumas (such as terrorist attacks, wars, or the assassination of political leaders) can lead to disintegration and societal divisions due to the heightened need for a satisfactory explanation. when people confront large and significant events, they seek explanations that would be proportional to them in terms of significance and scale (fiedler, freytag, & unkelbach, 2011). therefore, large and significant events like accidents or disasters of national significance are more likely to elicit causal explanations that are less based on chance and rather entail the intentional activities of some individual or group. in other words, collective traumas are especially likely to elicit conspiratorial explanations, because the assumption that they are the mere result of random events is not psychologically satisfying (klein, van der linden, pantazi, & kissine, 2015). conspiracy theories seem to address this need, especially for those people who construe their social identity through membership in groups that are eternally victimized and the target of conspiracies and aggressive acts (noor, shnabel, halabi, & nadler, 2012; schori-eyal, klar, roccas, & mcneill, 2017). what is more, in becoming advocates of such theories, people may start considering non-believers to be potential enemies posing a threat to their epistemic certainty. conspiracy non-believers, on the other hand, may tend to distance themselves from conspiracy believers, whom they take to be “carriers” of contagious, irrational interpretations of the traumatic event. ultimately, a society suffering from a collective trauma may become highly polarized over these different interpretations of the traumatic event, thereby undermining social cohesiveness and leading to internal conflicts and clashes. conspiracy theories and their consequences the vast majority of psychological research on conspiracy theories has focused on the antecedents of people’s tendency to believe in conspiracies (douglas & sutton, 2011; swami, 2012; van prooijen & jostmann, 2013) and the individual-level correlates of this tendency (abalakina-paap, stephan, craig, & gregory, 1999; bruder, haffke, neave, nouripanah, & imhoff, 2013; goertzel, 1994). people who believe in conspiracies are less trustful, more insecure, and more anomic (goertzel, 1994), alienated, hostile (abalakina-paap et al., 1999), uncertain (van prooijen & jostmann, 2013) and relatively deprived (bilewicz & krzeminski, 2010), while they lack a sense of (socio-political) control (bruder et al., 2013; whitson & galinsky, 2008). however, little is known about the consequences of conspiracy beliefs – both at the individual and the societal level. the few studies testing the consequences of conspiracy theories have shown that conspiracy theories breed feelings of powerlessness, uncertainty, and disillusionment, that in turn may lead to decreased political engagement, lower pro-environmental behavior (jolley & douglas, 2014a), and lower vaccination intentions (jolley & douglas, 2014b). several studies suggest that the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs by community members might be associated with lower levels of social cohesiveness within the community. when societies are confronted with a largescale traumatic event, conspiracy-driven explanations of the event will be shared by part of the population, while at the same time other people will not endorse such beliefs. one could expect that due to mistrust, alienabilewicz, witkowska, pantazi et al. 83 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tion, and deprivation, conspiracy believers would distance themselves from non-believers, thereby creating a rift in the societies affected by the traumatic event. exclusive victimhood as an interpretative framework clearly, people differ in how prone they are to be drawn to conspiracy theories when faced with collective traumatic events. in addition to the many individual psychological factors responsible for the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs mentioned above, collective traumatic experiences encourage the use of larger collective narratives about the in-group’s historical position in order to explain current events. such narratives, known as “group charters” (liu & hilton, 2005), define the historical role of a given national group as that of historical victims, conquerors, heroes or villains. the role of historical victim could especially motivate the tendency to explain contemporary traumatic events by means of conspiracy theories. psychological research has identified many facets of perceived in-group victimhood, such as competitive victimhood (noor, brown, & prentice, 2008), perpetual in-group victimhood (schori-eyal, klar, & ben-ami, 2017), and exclusive victimhood consciousness (vollhardt, 2015; vollhardt & bilali, 2015) that may play a destructive role in intergroup relations. all these facets of victimhood share a crucial feature, namely, the perception of the in-group as being unique in its victimhood. past literature has shown that the perception of the in-group through such lenses of uniqueness affects intergroup processes, such as reconciliation or forgiveness (noor et al., 2008). however, it is also likely that in-group victimhood affects the interpretation of political events and general levels of mistrust. one such effect can be, for example, that people who endorse narratives based on the uniqueness of past in-group suffering will be more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories regarding contemporary events. current study: the smoleńsk plane crash as a societal trauma societal trauma is defined in social and political psychology “as an experience that invalidates one’s normal assumptions of order, predictability, safety, and identity, a very severe environmental challenge calling for the utmost energization of coping resources” (suedfeld, 1997, p. 850). here, we would like to focus on a recent case of such a socially shared traumatic experience for polish society – the smoleńsk airplane crash in 2010. on april 10, 2010, a polish air force flight crashed near the city of smoleńsk, russia. ninety-six officials who were traveling to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the katyń massacre died in the accident, including the polish president, lech kaczyński and his wife, the former president of poland ryszard kaczorowski, several polish government officials, top military officers, and key politicians from both the political right and left (harding, 2010). this sudden loss of the political and military elite created a sense of threat and instability among poles. in the days following the crash, many spontaneous and organized acts of mourning took place throughout the whole country, including thousands of candles being lit in front of the presidential palace in warsaw, soon to become the center of these commemorative practices. since the crash in 2010, every month a group of mourners assembles in front of the presidential palace to commemorate the late president, and to call for an investigation into the causes of the crash. the desire to explain the catastrophe has created a rift in polish society. in a short time, the catastrophe became a breeding ground for conspiracy explanations (borger & pidd, 2011). the belief in russian sabotage as the cause of the crash and the potential involvement of the polish liberal government therein (the so-called conspiracy beliefs and societal trauma 84 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “smolensk conspiracy”), has been endorsed by 25% of poles and has been particularly popular among rightwing voters (see grzesiak-feldman & haska, 2012). two years after the catastrophe, in 2013, we decided to perform a large-scale survey in order to assess how explanations of the airplane crash in smoleńsk might have affected the cohesiveness of polish society. specifically, we wanted to assess whether the conspiratorial vs. non-conspiratorial interpretations of this event may enhance social distancing between conspiracy believers on the one hand and conspiracy non-believers on the other. we also sought to investigate the psychological antecedent of the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and intergroup hostility. insofar as endorsement of conspiracy beliefs is associated with beliefs about the uniqueness of in-group suffering (witkowska, bilewicz, pantazi, gkinopoulos, & klein, 2018), we predicted that these beliefs would foster acceptance of conspiracy explanations of current events, which, in turn, would lead to the derogation of in-group members who do not share conspiracy convictions. we tested these assumptions on a nation-wide representative sample of polish citizens measuring the belief in the smolensk conspiracy. method participants and procedure data were collected as part of a 2013 nation-wide representative polish survey (n = 965). 48.4% of the respondents were men and 51.6% were women (with an age range from 18 to 88, mage = 46.05, sd = 17.52). in order to obtain an appropriate sample, participants were drawn from the population of polish adults registered in pesel – the common electronic population evidence system. they participated in face-to-face computerassisted interviews, conducted by a leading polish public opinion research institution (the public opinion research center, cbos). not all participants responded to all questions and the pattern of missing values did not seem to be related with any of the measured variables. in correlation and t-test analyses, the pairwise missing data deletion has been used. the sem model we ran normally assumes the full information maximum likelihood technique of treating missing variables. however, due to missing data in the predictor variables it could not be implemented, therefore 65 cases have been deleted. design and measures unless otherwise indicated, participants reported their responses on 5-point scales (from 1 = “i strongly disagree” to 5 = “i strongly agree”). belief in unique in-group victimhood was assessed with the question: “do you agree that no other nation suffered as much as poles did.” in order to measure group-related conspiracy beliefs, we constructed a scale of belief in the smolensk conspiracy (α = .74). the scale consisted of four items that were based on the current public discourse about the smolensk catastrophe, e.g. “polish and russian authorities jointly conceal the truth about the catastrophe,” and “the smolensk catastrophe was just an accident, the result of a combination of many independent factors” (reversed). social distance towards conspiracy non-believers (α = .86) concerned attitudes towards people who did not endorse the conspiratorial explanation of the smolensk catastrophe. this construct was captured by three bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi et al. 85 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ items on a social distance scale (bogardus, 1925). participants had to indicate on a scale (from 1 = “i would highly accept” to 4 = “i would highly oppose”) how they would react if a person who thinks that lech kaczyński [the polish president] died due to an accident moved in next door, if a close relative of theirs married such a person, or if such a person was hired by the same company as the one in which the participant works. the scores were reversed, so that higher scores on the scale meant greater social distance towards the target group. social distance towards conspiracy believers (α = .89) concerned attitudes towards people who believe that a conspiracy was the cause of the smolensk crash. it was captured by adapting the items of the measurement of distance towards conspiracy non-believers. results table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of all the variables and their correlations. the average belief in the smolensk conspiracy was lower than the scale’s midpoint, t(894)= -11.93, p < .001. the same applied to the belief about uniqueness of in-group suffering, t(913) = -5.35, p < .001. with respect to social distance, participants’ average answers expressed general closeness to, rather than distance from, both target groups. social distance towards conspiracy non-believers was positively related to the belief in the uniqueness of ingroup victimhood and to the endorsement of the smolensk conspiracy, while only the belief in the smolensk conspiracy correlated with social distance towards conspiracy believers, as table 1 shows. table 1 correlations and descriptive statistics variable 1 2 3 4 1. unique vc (1-5) 2.76 (1.36) 2. smolensk consp (1-5) .09* 2.56 (1.11) 3. dist non-believers (1-4) .15*** .12** 1.48 (0.59) 4. dist believers (1-4) .06+ -.15*** .64*** 1.57 (0.69) note. n = 965. means and standard deviations (parenthesized) reported in the diagonal. the other values represent pearson correlation coefficients. the parentheses next to the scales’ name represent the scale’s range. unique vc = belief in unique in-group victimhood; smolensk consp = belief in smolensk conspiracy; dist non-believers = social distance towards conspiracy non-believers; dist believers = social distance towards conspiracy believers. †p < .06. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in order to deepen our understanding of differences between individuals endorsing and not endorsing the smoleńsk conspiracy theory, we dichotomized the smolensk conspiracy variable into people below and above the median. this technique allowed us to directly compare groups of conspiracy believers and non-believers in terms of their desired social distance and convictions about in-group victimhood. a series of t-test revealed significant differences between conspiracy believers and conspiracy non-believers (see table 2). individuals endorsing smoleńsk conspiracy, proved more prone to claim uniqueness of in-group victimhood and to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, compared to those not endorsing this belief, but express less distance towards conspiracy believers. the longest social distance was observed among conspiracy non-believers toward conspiracy believers, followed by the distance of conspiracy believers toward conspiracy non-believers. conspiracy beliefs and societal trauma 86 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mean differences between individuals endorsing and not-endorsing belief in smoleńsk conspiracy variable conspiracy non-believers conspiracy believers t df pm sd m sd unique vc 2.63 1.38 2.89 1.33 -2.86 858 .004 dist non-believers 1.39 0.48 1.58 0.66 -4.94 822.06 < .001 dist believers 1.64 0.72 1.52 0.64 2.64 851.62 .008 note. unique vc = belief in unique in-group victimhood; dist non-believers = social distance towards conspiracy non-believers; dist believers = social distance towards conspiracy believers. to integrate the analyses for the two indices of social distance we specified a structural equation model using mplus 6 software (see: figure 1). in this model we used the four items tapping into smoleńsk conspiracy scale as indicators of a latent conspiracy beliefs variable. social distance towards conspiracy believers and social distance towards conspiracy non-believers were introduced as latent variables with three indicators each. belief in unique in-group victimhood was treated as a manifest variable. figure 1. structural equation model: indirect effects of unique in-group suffering beliefs on distance towards smoleńsk conspiracy believers and non-believers through the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs of the air crash. standardized regression coefficients. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. we estimated a model in which beliefs in unique in-group victimhood was regressed on latent conspiracy beliefs and both latent social distance variables. the latent social distance constructs were also directly predicted bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi et al. 87 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by latent conspiracy beliefs. the model included covariance between the two latent social distance variables. the model also reflected patterns of question format as we allowed for covariance between series of indicators variables (i.e. in the smoleńsk conspiracy we allowed for a correlation between two positively formulated items and between two negatively formulated items; in the social distance scales, items capturing the same level of social distance like neighborhood or common working place were correlated). the model exhibited acceptable fit, χ2(34) = 121.52, p < .001, cfi = .98, rmsea = .05, srms = .042. endorsement of unique in-group victimhood was associated with the latent conspiracy belief construct which in turn predicted the two social distance latent variables. the direct link between unique victimhood belief and both latent constructs of social distance was also significant. we then tested for indirect effects of belief in unique victimhood on latent social distance variables. we found a relatively weak but significant indirect effect of ie = 0.003 for distance towards conspiracy nonbelievers, z = 2.47, p = .01, 95% cis [0.00, 0.005]. the indirect effect on distance towards conspiracy believers was not significant, estimate = -0.003, z = -1.81, p = .07, 95% bcis [-0.01, 0.001] (see figure 1). the test of the causal structure between in-group victimhood (unique in-group suffering beliefs), conspiracy beliefs about smoleńsk air crash and social distance towards people endorsing and not endorsing conspiracy beliefs, suggests that the general sense of victimhood affects distancing from the conspiracy non-believers through higher endorsement of conspiracy theories among those who consider their in-group suffering to be unique. at the same time the conspiracy theories of societal trauma lead to greater societal distancing between believers and non-believers. discussion the present survey study performed in the aftermath of the smoleńsk catastrophe suggests that conspiratorial explanations of this collectively traumatic incident undermined social cohesion: people endorsing conspiratorial accounts of the smoleńsk catastrophe expressed the desire to distance themselves from conspiracy non-believers, whereas people opposing conspiracy explanations preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. the analyses of social distance between conspiracy believers and conspiracy non-believers suggest that those who do not endorse conspiratorial explanations are more willing to distance themselves from their opponents, compared to the distance that conspiracy believers desire. in other words, the results of belief vs non-belief in conspiracy theories may have disproportional effects on social distancing from out-group (skeptics vs. conspiracists) members, potentially because skeptics consider conspiracy thinking contagious and more dangerous, than conspiracists consider skepticism. this interpretation is supported by a recent study showing that conspiracy beliefs may be socially stigmatized (lantian et al., 2018). thus, there seem to be alternative reasons for non-believers to distance from the proponents of conspiracy theories, one of them could be the fear of contamination (haidt, rozin, mccauley, & imada, 1997) supported by the stigmatizing nature of conspiracy belief. as expected, higher belief in unique in-group suffering was found to account for conspiracy thinking and subsequent hostility towards the outgroup, as defined by belief in conspiracies or not. this result is consistent with previous research showing that beliefs concerning the uniqueness of in-group trauma are related to greater suspiciousness in intergroup relations (bar-tal, chernyak-hai, schori, & gundar, 2009). therefore, historical charters that position the group in the position of the victim create an interpretative framework for subsequent socially shared traumatic events. people who believe in the unique victimization of their nation are more likely to endorse conspiracy beliefs and this is likely to enhance their social distance to non-believers. to sum up, conspiracy beliefs and societal trauma 88 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ three broader statements underpin our findings: firstly, views about national history affect contemporary responses to traumatic events. second, people focused on historical victimhood interpret current traumas in a conspirational way and distance themselves from skeptics. third, people skeptical about conspiracy explanations of trauma distance themselves from conspiracy believers even more strongly than those who do endorse such explanations distance themselves from skeptics. the phenomenon of social distance (bogardus, 1925) is often treated as an indication of prejudice and discriminatory intention. however, it might also indicate a more general tendency to isolate oneself from other people, regardless of their views and group memberships. the positive relationship between social distance toward conspiracy believers and non-believers at least partly suggests such a possibility. in order to overcome this issue, we decided to treat the errors of social distance scales as correlated, which allowed us to directly assess the effects of conspiracy endorsement on distance toward believers vs. non-believers (as opposed to a general tendency to isolate oneself). there are some inherent limitations to the present investigation. fist, the effect sizes we obtained for all the observed effects suggest that there is still a vast amount of investigation needed in order to fully understand the interplay of conspiracy theories and social cohesion. the correlational effects are relatively low, as is the variation of the key dependent variable. this might be due to the fact that traditional social distance measures are imperfect measures of distancing intentions in politicized conflicts (as opposed to ethnic or religious ones). in such conflicts, it might be unwillingness to accept someone as a boss, priest or a representative that is more representative of distance, rather than unwillingness to accept such person as a neighbor. second, due to the correlational nature of the data collected, these results are obviously restricted and should be treated with caution as for the causal structure of the phenomenon. given the inability of mediation analysis to identify unique mediators (fiedler, schott, & meiser, 2011), our analysis cannot be seen as statistically proving the accuracy of our mediation hypothesis. it is worth highlighting, however that the proposed casual path, whereby beliefs about the uniqueness of in-group suffering facilitate the endorsement of conspiracy explanations of current events, is based on extended theoretical elaboration and also supported by other experimental research (witkowska et al., 2018). further research is needed to address this controversy by means of experimental tests of mediation analysis, or a longitudinal design (bullock, green, & ha, 2010). in any event, the present study has the advantage of offering an insight into a unique period of polish history when the country seemed to be split over the explanation of a socially shared traumatic event. overall, the findings reported in this article provide a novel explanation for the negative behavioral consequences of victimhood beliefs for intragroup attitudes that occur in the situation of a large scale societal trauma. specifically, they showed that historical group charters may induce conspiracy believers to distance themselves from the non-believers when they interpret traumatic events. this might be due to the specificity of societal traumas in political domain that seems substantially different from individual traumas or natural disasters that often bring social cohesion rather than divide. future empirical studies, potentially based on computer simulations using agent-based models (eberlen, scholz, & gagliolo, 2017), could further examine the dynamics of societal divisions after political traumatic events. bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi et al. 89 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this work was supported by the polish national science center (ncn) beethoven grant dec-2014/15/g/hs6/04589 awarded to the first author and collaboration has been facilitated by the cost action is1205 “social psychological dynamics of historical representations in the enlarged european union”. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abalakina-paap, m., stephan, w. g., craig, t., & gregory, w. l. 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(2018). “historia est magistra vitae”? the impact of historical victimhood on current conspiracy beliefs. unpublished manuscript. about the authors michał bilewicz is an associate professor of psychology at the university of warsaw. his research is focused on the social psychology of intergroup relations, including collective moral emotions, derogatory language and reconciliation processes. marta witkowska is a phd candidate at the center for research on prejudice at the university of warsaw. her main scientific interests are focused on motivated biases in history perception and reconciliation between groups with a violent past. myrto pantazi is a postdoctoral researcher at the oxford internet institute. her research focuses on the socio-cognitive determinants of beliefs, attitude formation and decision-making. conspiracy beliefs and societal trauma 92 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2250 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216689063 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2005.tb02206.x https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014223 https://doi.org/10.1111/0162-895x.00082 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00280 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1922 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-009-0088-1 https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12011 https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12174 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1159845 https://www.psychopen.eu/ theofilos gkinopoulos is a teaching assistant in school of psychology at the university of surrey and research associate in the department of higher education at the university of surrey. his research is focused on social identity and intergroup relations, leadership, and perception of time in victimhood experiences. olivier klein is a professor of social psychology at the université libre de bruxelles, belgium. his research is focused on intergroup relations, collective memory and gender. he is co-editor-in-chief of the international review of social psychology. bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi et al. 93 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 82–93 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1699 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ conspiracy beliefs and societal trauma (introduction) conspiracy theories and their consequences exclusive victimhood as an interpretative framework current study: the smoleńsk plane crash as a societal trauma method participants and procedure design and measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors why machiavellianism matters in childhood: the relationship between children's machiavellian traits and their peer interactions in a natural setting research reports why machiavellianism matters in childhood: the relationship between children's machiavellian traits and their peer interactions in a natural setting loren abell*a, pamela qualtera, gayle brewera, alexandra barlowb, maria stylianou c, peter henzid, louise barrettd [a] school of psychology, university of central lancashire, preston, united kingdom. [b] school of education, university of manchester, manchester, united kingdom. [c] school of psychology, neapolis university, pafos, cyprus. [d] psychology department, university of lethbridge, lethbridge, canada. abstract the current study investigated the association between machiavellianism and children’s peer interactions in the playground using observational methods. primary school children (n = 34; 17 female), aged 9 to 11 years, completed the kiddie mach scale and were observed in natural play during 39 recesses (average observed time = 11.70 hours) over a full school year. correlations for boys revealed that machiavellianism was related to more time engaging in direct and indirect aggression, being accepted into other peer groups, and accepting peers into their own social group. correlations revealed that for girls, machiavellianism was associated with lower levels of indirect aggression, less time being accepted into other groups and less time accepting and rejecting other children into their own group. this preliminary pilot study indicates that machiavellianism is associated with children’s observed social behaviour and aims to promote future observational research in this area. keywords: machiavellianism, peer relations, observation, aggression, peer rejection europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 received: 2015-03-03. accepted: 2015-05-18. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; steven hertler, college of new rochelle, new york, usa *corresponding author at: school of psychology, university of central lancashire, preston lancashire, pr1 2he, united kingdom. phone: +44 1772 894460. e-mail: labell@uclan.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction few studies have considered the development of machiavellianism or the role of machiavellianism in children’s social interactions. existing questionnaire based studies indicate that children high on machiavellianism are more likely to engage in indirect aggression, but these studies do not examine children’s normative behaviour with peers. our preliminary study addresses this limitation by investigating the association between machiavellianism and children’s actual behaviour in a naturalistic playground environment across a full school year. machiavellianism machiavellianism is characterised by cynical beliefs, a manipulative interpersonal style, and emotional detachment (christie & geis, 1970). those with high levels of machiavellianism are low in conscientiousness, agreeableness, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ trait emotional intelligencei and empathy (austin, farrelly, black, & moore, 2007; wai & tiliopoulos, 2012) and demonstrate a willingness to exploit other people in order to attain individual goals (wilson, near, & miller, 1996). machiavellian adults employ a range of tactics in order to manipulate others (jonason &webster, 2012), including making their target feel ashamed, embarrassed, or guilty (austin et al., 2007). being high on machiavellianism makes it more difficult to interact with others in a positive way and form and maintain high quality friendships (lyons & aitken, 2010). machiavellianism among children — relatively few studies have investigated the behaviour of children high on machiavellianism or the social implications of machiavellianism in childhood. experimental studies have demonstrated that machiavellianism is associated with children’s manipulative interpersonal behaviour and deception (braginsky, 1970; nachamie, 1969, as cited in christie & geis, 1970). self-report studies incorporating peer or teacher reports also indicate that machiavellianism is associated with specific social behaviour, such that children scoring higher on machiavellianism are reported to be less prosocial and more aggressive towards peers, and are more likely to be categorised as bullies (slaughter & pritchard, 2000, as cited in repacholi, slaughter, pritchard, & gibbs, 2003; sutton & keogh, 2000). however, peer ratings of machiavellian children are inconsistent, with researchers reporting that machiavellian children are both popular (hawley, 2003) and less well liked (palmen, 2009) by peers. such inconsistencies may be partly explained by the use of both prosocial and coercive strategies by machiavellian children (hawley, 2003) that extend to the use of cooperative and competitive strategies in adulthood (wilson et al., 1996). teacher ratings relate machiavellianism to children’s indirect aggression (kerig & stellwagen, 2010), reflecting the preference for indirect manipulation observed in adult samples (austin et al., 2007). those studies are suggestive of an association between machiavellianism and children’s peer relationships, but are limited by the reliance on self-report and other-report measures. such methods require retrospective reporting and may reflect social bias (child & nind, 2013; ostrov & keating, 2004). to overcome these limitations, in the current study, we directly observed children in a naturalistic playground environment, which provides important opportunities to observe the role of machiavellianism in peer interaction. the current study — the present study expands previous questionnaire-based research by focusing on machiavellianism and children’s directly observed normative behaviour over the course of a year. by using an observational design we start to develop a picture of how machiavellianism is associated with actual behaviour and can move away from relying on (self and other) reports of behaviour. we further considered whether machiavellianism was associated with gender differences in children’s behaviour based on previous observational studies that identified gender differences in interaction stability and frequency (martin & fabes, 2001) and characteristics of play (pellegrini, blatchford, kato, & baines, 2004). based on previous studies that examined self-reports and teacher-reports of machiavellianism and behaviour (kerig & stellwagen, 2010; sutton & keogh, 2000), we hypothesized the following: (1) machiavellianism will be associated with the amount of indirect aggression (kerig & stellwagen, 2010) which is more prevalent among girls (archer, 2004); we expect higher machiavellianism scores to be associated with spending more time engaging in indirect aggression, with a stronger relationship for girls; and (2) machiavellianism will be associated with actual amount of social rejection from others in the playground, with a stronger relationship for girls based on the predicted use of indirect aggression. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 abell, qualter, brewer et al. 485 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in addition, we investigated the relationship betweenmachiavellianism and social monitoring. the literature suggests machiavellian adults engage in protective self-monitoring (rauthmann, 2011), but little is known about the role of monitoring others. this may be particularly important to children in playground settings that involve varied social engagement, from competition and conflict to prosocial behaviour and cooperation. such monitoring may influence a child’s decision to interact. in this study, we investigated social monitoring of peers outside the target child’s group. machiavellianism is characterised by suspicion of others (christie & geis, 1970), and, in children, is associated with anxiety which originates from increased vigilance for opportunities to engage in manipulation (poderico, 1987). so, we expected machiavellianism to be associated with monitoring of those outside the immediate group because non-group members may be viewed as a threat to the child’s social position; monitoring may reduce the likelihood of being a target of manipulation or exploitation by another child. we expect girls to engage in this behaviour more as monitoring of others may facilitate the use of indirect aggression. method participants thirty four children (17 boys, 17 girls) aged 9 to 11 years from the lancashire longitudinal study of social and emotional development participated. mean ages at the start and end of the study were 9 years-10 months (sd = 5 months) and 10 years-6 months (sd = 5 months) respectively. children came from six schools, representative of those across the uk according to the government index of multiple deprivation. participation was secured by active parental consent. children who did not take part in the study were often observed in interaction with children in the study. the parents of such children were informed that their child’s behaviour would be recorded, but not coded. all parents were told that the recordings would be destroyed at the end of the study. the study was approved by the university ethics committee. materials and method children completed the 20 item kiddie mach (christie & geis, 1970) at the beginning of the school year, using a five point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). an example item is “it is never right to tell a lie”. some items were reverse scored such that higher scores represent higher machiavellianism. the scale demonstrated reliability of .58. cameras were placed unobtrusively at vantage points from which the playgrounds were visible and children were videotaped during recess. these vantage points meant that we could not record sound, but allowed a full view of the playground without the children knowing they were being filmed. camera operators utilized a table of numbers that represented participant ids, selected at random from all participants in the school. children identified by the numbers were videoed on that day and video operators followed the child for as long as possible at that time. videoing would stop for that child when he/she was no longer visible and videoing of the next child on the table of random numbers would begin. each target participant was observed in 39 recesses, which equated to one observation for each week of the school year; each period of observation lasted on average 18 minutes. if the child was away from school in any given week, an additional observation was collected the following week. whilst we ensured that all data for a given child were collected within the same school year, data collection for the full sample took place over four years. no children joined or left the study. all observations of a target participant were coded in observer xt 9 (noldus, netherlands) by coders who were blind to the machiavellianism scores. using observation coding was europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 machiavellianism and peer interaction 486 http://www.psychopen.eu/ undertaken by a total of sixteen trained undergraduate and postgraduate students and four members of staff who were required to reach an acceptable level of inter-rater reliability with practice videotapes (intra-class correlations >.80) before they were able to code data. assessments of reliability were conducted throughout the study to avoid observer drift (pellegrini, 1996). within observer xt, the data were coded across time using continuous event sampling. in the current study, data represent the percentage of observation time engaged in specific behaviour; for social monitoring, data represent the percentage of observed time in social groups when the child was seen to be observing peers outside of their immediate social group. reliability between observers was assessed using intra-class correlations (icc) across 5% of the observations. reliability was moderate to high for the observed variables in the current study and exact details are noted below for each behavioural code. a high number of interactions (95%) were same-gender as found in previous research (e.g., blatchford, baines, & pellegrini, 2003). the following are the categories of behaviour observed. aggression — was categorised as direct or indirect aggression. direct aggression was categorised as the target engaging in physical aggressive acts against another child (icc = .81). indirect aggression was categorised as the target deliberately engaged in ignoring another person(s) during active conversation or ostracizing them from interaction when engaged within the group (icc = .76). peer acceptance—was assessed with target-initiated acceptance and other-initiated acceptance. target-initiated acceptance was coded when the target child made a social overture that another child accepted (icc = .84). other-initiated acceptance was coded when another child who had been alone or in another group made a social overture that the target child responded positively to (icc = .78). that social overture might have been a tap on the shoulder, speaking to the other person, or trying to get their attention another way (e.g. starts play). peer rejection—wasmeasured by target-initiated rejection and other-initiated rejection. target-initiated rejection was coded when the target child made a social overture that another child ignored (e.g. turning their back on the target child) (icc = .92). other-initiated rejection was coded when another child initiated interaction that was rejected by the target child, as demonstrated by the target child turning their back on them or walking away from them (icc = .95). social monitoring— was categorized when the target participant was watching another person or group outside of their immediate social group (icc = .81). data represent percentage of timemonitoring others when only engaged in social groups and not the total observed time. results the small number of participants does not permit examination of whether behaviour elicited in peer relationships changed over the school year or whether machiavellianism scores predicted that change using latent growth curve modelling (lgcm) techniques. however, an analysis of behavioural change was conducted on the larger sample of participants (n = 149) observed as part of the lancashire longitudinal study of social and emotional development. findings, using lgcm in mplus (muthén & muthén, 1998-2007) showed behaviour were stable over time for boys and girls, with individual differences only in starting point (girls: cfi ≥ .943, tli ≥ .946, srmr ≥ .050; boys: cfi ≥ .948, tli ≥ .951, srmr ≥ .078). variances showed that the intercepts for each behaviour were signieurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 abell, qualter, brewer et al. 487 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ficant, (girls: β0 ≥ .314, p < .001; boys: β0 ≥ .343, p < .001), but the slopes were not (girls: β1 ≤ .027, p ≥ .183; boys: β1 ≤ .018 p ≥ .436). thus, employing proportion of time for each behaviour across the full school year is appropriate because there were no significant changes in behaviour over the school year. such findings have been demonstrated before (blatchford et al., 2003). data for the children in the current study were skewed and non-normal. transformations were conducted on the data, but these failed to produce an acceptable normal distribution. therefore, we have conducted spearman’s rank correlations to account for this. due to the skewed data and small sample size further analyses were not conducted. behavioural measure correlations for boys, positive relationships were identified betweenmachiavellianism and direct aggression, indirect aggression, target-initiated acceptance, and other-initiated acceptance. this suggests that for boys, higher levels of machiavellianism are associated with an increased amount of time engaging in direct and indirect aggression, having their bid to join other groups accepted and accepting other children in to their group. furthermore, the results show that machiavellianism is negatively correlated with target-initiated rejection, suggesting that higher machiavellianism scores are associated with boys spending less time rejecting their peer’s bids to join the group. for girls, machiavellianism is negatively correlated with indirect aggression, target-initiated acceptance, other-initiated rejection, and other-initiated acceptance. findings suggest that girls with higher machiavellianism scores spend less time engaging in indirect aggression and less time having their bids to join other groups accepted. girls with higher machiavellianism scores spend less time accepting and rejecting their peer's attempts to join them in social interaction. machiavellianism in boys and girls was not related to increased social monitoring of others outside of their social group. these correlations are shown in table 1. table 1 mean proportion of time engaged in each behaviour and correlations between machiavellianism and the behavioural measures for boys and girls logoiaoirtiatiridadamasdm –ma .07-.26.02.50*.21-.27.21.268.0050 –da .52*.66**.29.36.26.42.12-.221.82 –ida .05.14.00.11.19.28.47-.90.56 –tir .42-.21.52*.10-.02.03-.03-.32.28 –tia .39.41.02.28-.44.45.46-.701.632 –oir .29-.33.22.06-.19.08.40-.281.92 –oia .39.33.41.04-.36.63**.41-.903.752 –log .18.06.22.16.31.51*.16-.5912.2756 note. correlations for boys above the diagonal and correlations for girls below the diagonal. looking outside of group is the proportion of time the child looked outside of the social group to observe another social group or individual. ma: machiavellianism; da: direct aggression; ida: indirect aggression; tir: target initiated rejection; tia: target initiated acceptance; oir: other initiated rejection; oia: other initiated acceptance; log: looking outside group (social monitoring). *p < .05. **p < .01. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 machiavellianism and peer interaction 488 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the current study expands on previous machiavellianism studies that have used self and other reports of behaviour by demonstrating that machiavellianism is associated with children’s directly observed social interactions with peers. boys with higher machiavellianism scores engaged in more direct and indirect aggression, but also engaged in positive behaviour by accepting peers into their own social group. girls with higher machiavellianism scores spent less time engaging in social exclusion behaviour, being accepted by other children into other social groups and rejected and accepted peers less in to their own social group. for boys, higher levels of machiavellianism were associated with accepting their peer's bids to join their own social group, having their own overtures to join other groups accepted, increased aggression, and indirect aggression (social exclusion behaviour). such behaviour may be evidence of using both prosocial and coercive strategies (hawley, 2003). accepting others into their group is a prosocial act, but aggressive behaviour towards their peers is evidence of coercive behaviour; engaging in both behaviour may increase their success at attaining resources and increase social dominance (hawley, little, & card, 2008). girls with higher machiavellianism displayed fewer social exclusion behavior (e.g. turning their back on their peer) and also spent less time getting accepted by their peers. research typically reports girls’ greater engagement in indirect aggression (archer, 2004) and more intimate peer networks (rotenberg, macdonald, & king, 2004), which may facilitate their greater willingness to engage in indirect aggression (burr, ostrov, jansen, cullerton-sen, & crick, 2005). we, therefore, expected machiavellianism to increase girls’ use of indirect aggression, but this was not the case. indirect aggression becomes more prevalent in girls around the age of 11 (björkqvist, österman, & lagerspetz, 1994), and the young girls in the present study may not have the skills to employ social exclusion tactics. furthermore, machiavellianism in girls at this developmental stage may not be related to socially exclusive behaviour, but other forms of indirect aggression. sutton and keogh (2000) suggest machiavellianism may be linked to indirect (bullying) behaviour such as gossip, and failure to find the predicted relationship between machiavellianism and indirect aggression may reflect girls’ use of gossip, which could not be analysed in this study because we did not have sound to accompany our video footage. investigating the use of gossip is also important to explore as it may explain the relationship between machiavellianism and less time being accepted by others for girls high on machiavellianism. machiavellianism has been shown to be associated with prosocial and coercive strategies (hawley, 2003), and these girls may employ coercive strategies to attempt to gain group acceptance. but, it is possible that other girls, even at this young age, see this behaviour as threatening, and, then, deny group acceptance. however, this is only speculation and future research should focus on the actual strategies employed by children high on machiavellianism when attempting to join other children’s social groups. in the current study we found that girls with higher levels of machiavellianism spent less time accepting peers, but also less time rejecting peers into their own social group. this behaviour appears inconsistent and strongly suggests, first, that accepting and rejecting are not always reciprocal, supporting previous work (sentse, lindenberg, omvlee, ormel, & veenstra, 2010). machiavellianism in childhood is associated with inconsistent behaviour such as the use of prosocial and coercive strategies and being both liked and disliked by their peers. using both prosocial and coercive strategies allow for adaptability when employing tactics to attain their goals which may also explain their controversial status among peers (hawley, 2003; palmen, 2009). however, the reasons that machiavellian girls both reject and accept their peers less in to their own group remain unclear. future research should investigate why children high on machiavellianism choose to reject or accept other children’s overtures europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 abell, qualter, brewer et al. 489 http://www.psychopen.eu/ for social contact and in particular whether it is based on particular characteristics of the child making the bid to join or on specific dynamics of the current social situation. it appears to be the case that acceptance and rejection are more complex than initially thought and a more in depth observational study is warranted. machiavellianism is characterised by distrust of others (christie & geis, 1970) and associated with anxiety in children (poderico, 1987). thus, we expected to find a positive relationship between machiavellianism and social monitoring because monitoring may inform decisions relating to whether an individual is a threat or can join their group. however, we did not find any relationships between machiavellianism and social monitoring behaviour for boys or girls. it is possible that machiavellian traits in childhood are unrelated to social monitoring, or children could learn strategies of social monitoring as they mature. future research should examine the role of social monitoring at a later stage of development. limitations this is a preliminary study and limited by the small number of children participating. future research should include larger samples across different age ranges, together with additional measures of personality and speech. machiavellianism has been found to correlate with narcissism and callous-unemotional traits (kerig & stellwagen, 2010) and future work should include these traits as potential controls. the analysis of social discourse will also provide a wealth of information relating to the verbal manipulation of peers and association with machiavellianism, extending research suggesting machiavellianism may be linked to behaviour such as gossip (sutton & keogh, 2000). we also note the low cronbachs alpha for the kiddie mach measure. although this is consistent with information about the scale reported by christie and geis (1970), this is lower than the relatively few other studies using the kiddie mach. therefore, we suggest caution when interpreting the findings and recommend future observational research. to conclude, the current research is a preliminary study that highlights the utility of the observational method for machiavellianism research. we show that machiavellianism is associated with children’s actual social behaviour with peers and that there are gender differences in how machiavellianism affects social behaviour with peers at this stage in development. this is clearly highlighted by the unexpected gender differences for engaging in indirect aggression, with machiavellian boys spending more time engaged in that behaviour. future research should consider gender when investigating machiavellianism and behaviour in childhood. based on the findings from the current study, future research should attempt to establish a profile of machiavellianism through the continued use of the observational method, but with a larger sample of males and females, observations at different stages of development, and the collection of social discourse data. notes i) although it would be expected that a high level of trait ei would be required for manipulation, we do not know how successful manipulation attempts are by individuals high on machiavellianism. in addition, people scoring high on machiavellianism have been shown to have difficulty recognising and understanding others emotions which may explain (in part) their willingness to manipulate others as they do not reflect on the emotional consequences for that individual. funding the prospective sample used in the current study was established using funding from two grants: (1) the economic and social research council (grant res-000-22-1802) (awarded to the 2nd, 5th and 6th authors), and (2) east lancashire nhs primary care trust (awarded to the 2nd and 4th author). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 machiavellianism and peer interaction 490 http://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments thank you to those children who took part in the study, and all voluntary and paid research assistants who helped with data collection and the coding of the observational data. references archer, j. 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(1996). machiavellianism: a synthesis of the evolutionary and psychological literatures. psychological bulletin, 119, 285-299. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.285 about the authors loren abell is a phd student and her research focuses on machiavellianism and friendships. pamela qualter is a reader in developmental psychology and her research focuses on the developmental perspective of loneliness and emotional intelligence. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 machiavellianism and peer interaction 492 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.37.3.431 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2004.000266.x http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/34096 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2004.00259.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1987.60.3c.1041 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.05.008 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/gntp.165.3.233-249 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-009-9351-z http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000709900158227 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.008 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.119.2.285 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gayle brewer is a senior lecturer in psychology with expertise in dark triad traits and interpersonal relationships. alexandra barlow is a lecturer with her research focusing on the development of socio-cognitive skills, such as theory of mind, emotional intelligence and executive functioning. maria stylianou is an educational and counselling psychologist providing psychological assessments and therapy to both children and adults. peter henzi is a professor with expertise in animal behaviour and the development and structure of human social cognition. louise barrett is a professor with research expertise on the cognitive adaptations and learning strategies underpinning group-living, cooperative behaviours and parental investment strategies in human and non-human primates. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 484–493 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.957 abell, qualter, brewer et al. 493 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en machiavellianism and peer interaction introduction machiavellianism method participants materials and method results behavioural measure correlations discussion limitations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the event-specific benefits of writing about a difficult life experience research reports the event-specific benefits of writing about a difficult life experience charles matthew stapleton a , hui zhang b , jeffrey scott berman c [a] department of psychological science, university of north georgia, oakwood, ga, usa. [b] department of psychology, westfield state university, westfield, ma, usa. [c] department of psychology, university of memphis, memphis, tn, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 53–69, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 received: 2019-08-02 • accepted: 2020-05-11 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland corresponding author: charles matthew stapleton, department of psychological science, university of north georgia, 3820 mundy mill rd., oakwood, ga, 30566, usa. e-mail: cmatthewstapleton@gmail.com supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract previous research demonstrates that writing about life’s difficult moments benefits the writer cognitively and emotionally. however, it is unclear whether the benefits of writing are specific to the event written about or whether the benefits are global. this study was designed to address this issue. participants were 120 undergraduate students who had experienced at least two difficult life events. participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. experimental participants wrote about one of these difficult events and control participants wrote about an interesting life event of their choosing. experimental participants reported their positive and negative emotions as well as their cognitive avoidance and intrusion concerning the event written about and another event not written about. control participants reported their emotions and cognitions concerning two difficult life events. all participants also reported their general distress. these assessments were done immediately after writing and one week later. the results indicated that experimental participants were emotionally stronger, less upset, and less cognitively avoidant about the particular difficult life event they wrote about compared to an event they did not write about. similar comparisons between ratings of a written-about and a not-written-about event were not significant for passion, fear, and cognitive intrusion. there was evidence for a possible indirect effect of writing on general distress through changes in event-specific cognitions and emotions. discussion of these results focuses on how writing may specifically help change a writer’s feelings and thoughts about a particular situation. keywords expressive writing, specificity effects, cognitive avoidance, intrusive thoughts, positive emotions, negative emotions when facing difficult life experiences, such as natural disasters, health problems, violence, or emotional struggles, people find writing to be a beneficial tool to cope with difficulties. individuals who write about difficult life experiences often report emotional and cognitive benefits from the writing (frattaroli, 2006; pavlacic, buchanan, maxwell, hopke, & schulenberg, 2019; reinhold, bürkner, & holling, 2018). for instance, writing about difficulties improves long-term positive mood (páez, velasco, & gonzalez, 1999) and supports overall psychological well-being (park & blumberg, 2002). writing also reduces intrusion and avoidance symptoms (klein & boals, 2001; radcliffe, lumley, kendall, stevenson, & beltran, 2007), posttraumatic stress symptoms (hoyt & yeater, 2011), self-criticism (troop, chilcot, hutchings, & varnaite, 2013), stress related to ambivalence (kelly, wood, shearman, phillips, & mansell, 2012), rumination symptoms (gortner, rude, & pennebaker, 2006), and depression and anxiety symptoms (graf, gaudiano, & geller, 2008). just as therapists are trained to target a specific problem and evaluate progress, there is a practical need to evaluate how writing changes emotions and cognitions related to a particular experience. it is common that individuals are this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2089&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0485-7573 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6614-7679 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ influenced by multiple difficult life experiences (kessler, sonnega, bromet, hughes, & nelson, 1995). however, previous research has yet to address whether the emotional and cognitive benefits of writing are more salient for the specific experience written about than other experiences not written about, or whether the benefits apply broadly to all difficult events the writer may have experienced. the purpose of the current study is to evaluate the specific cognitive and emotional benefits of writing about a difficult life experience. in the following section, we review (1) a brief history of the expressive writing paradigm, (2) the psychological benefits of expressive writing, (3) some possible mechanisms by which writing benefits the writer, and (4) three issues related to specificity in expressive writing that we address in the present study. expressive writing expressive writing refers to the procedure of writing freely to express emotions about an experience without focusing on grammar or spelling (reinhold et al., 2018). in one of the first systematic expressive writing studies, pennebaker and beall (1986) randomly assigned undergraduate students to write about either a difficult life event or another neutral topic. those asked to write about a difficult event had significantly fewer medical visits at a 6-month follow-up compared to those asked to write about a neutral event. pennebaker and beall (1986) presented evidence showing that writing about a difficult event affects the writer differently than writing about a neutral topic. many studies evaluating the effect of writing about life’s difficulties have used an experimental design like the one used by pennebaker and beall (1986). typically, this design involves having participants in the experimental group write about a difficult, potentially traumatic life experience and those in the control group write about a neutral topic on 3–4 consecutive days for 15–20 min per session. expressive writing has been used widely as a therapeutic intervention by educational, counseling, and clinical psychologists. psychological benefits of expressive writing previous research has supported that expressive writing is a beneficial tool for writers’ mental and physical health. while consistent benefits of expressive writing on individuals’ physical health outcomes (e.g., illness-related visits to doctor) have been found in previous research, the psychological benefits of writing are not as consistent (baikie & wilhelm, 2005). overall, meta-analysis reviews have indicated a small to medium effect of expressive writing on psychological outcomes (frattaroli, 2006; pavlacic et al., 2019). some researchers have found immediate cognitive and emotional changes after writing. for example, some have documented an increase in negative mood and a decrease in positive mood immediately after writing about a life experience (baikie & wilhelm, 2005). some researchers also found long-term cognitive and emotional changes after writing about difficult life experiences. for example, individuals may experience more positive mood (páez et al., 1999; pennebaker, kiecolt-glaser, & glaser, 1988), improved psychological well-being (park & blumberg, 2002), less intrusive and avoidant thoughts (klein & boals, 2001), and less depressive symptoms (lepore, 1997). however, not all researchers have found these changes (deters & range, 2003; meads & nouwen, 2005; mogk, otte, reinhold-hurley, & kröner-herwig, 2006; stroebe, stroebe, schut, zech, & van den bout, 2002). mechanisms of expressive writing’s benefits several mechanisms may be responsible for the benefits of writing about life’s ups and downs. writing about life’s problems allows for the disclosure of the secret and often hurtful places in our lives. early on, pennebaker and beall (1986) speculated that emotional catharsis could explain many of the observed effects. later, pennebaker (1993) argued that writing about a difficult life experience helps the writer let go of thoughts and feelings. actively inhibiting thoughts and feelings concerning a distressful event puts strain on the body. writing about a difficult event can help reduce the mental and physical workload of inhibition. this process is called disinhibition. more recently, it has been suggested that writing about a trauma is like exposure therapy (sloan & marx, 2006; sloan, marx, & epstein, 2005). after exposure to negative feelings and thoughts repeatedly, expressive writing may lead to habituation and produce extinction of these negative feelings and thoughts (lepore, greenberg, bruno, & smyth, 2002; rankin et al., 2009). specific effects of writing 54 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ writing about a difficult event may encourage individuals to use more cognitive processing words (e.g., understand, realize, know, reason). the use of these words may encourage deeper cognitive processing of life’s struggles (ullrich & lutgendorf, 2002). writing may help individuals make sense of the upsetting event, organize their experiences, and develop a coherent narrative concerning the event (graybeal, sexton, & pennebaker, 2002; pennebaker & seagal, 1999; smyth, true, & souto, 2001). through the writing process, individuals integrate these experiences into their self-schema and develop a more positive sense of self (harber, pennebaker, & christianson, 1992). writing strengthens self-regulation processes and promotes control and mastery of distressful thoughts and feelings (king, 2002; lepore et al., 2002; nückles, hübner, & renkl, 2009). self-regulated learning theories have their roots in both social-cognitive theory and socio-cultural theory (schunk & zimmerman, 2012; zimmerman, 1989). self-regulated learning involves learning by watching and interacting with others. initially, because every learning situation is new, a novice learner is monitored, observed, and given direction by a more experienced learner. the novice learner becomes a skilled learner by repeating what they observe and completing the instructions given. when the learner sees themself completing tasks successfully several times their self-efficacy grows for the task. the learner understands how knowledge used in one task may be applied to other similar tasks. feelings of pride and strength are associated with the learner’s growing self-efficacy (pekrun, goetz, titz, & perry, 2002). the learner must learn how to regulate feelings of distress and being upset that accompany the process of learning and must learn how to directly solve problems rather than avoid them. writing can be the mechanism through which the self-regulated learning process transpires (graham, harris, macarthur, & santangelo, 2018; schmitz, klug, & schmidt, 2011). writing allows individuals to observe, monitor, and evaluate how they express and control their emotions. the sense of control over emotions that is a direct result of writing helps the writer improve their well-being and reduces negative emotions. from the self-regulated learning perspective, a writer would first gain mastery over emotions and thoughts associated with the life event that is written about. at a later point, when the writer has learned how to apply the skills to other events, there would be improvement in overall functioning. all the theories about expressive writing partially account for the psychological changes observed after writing. there is evidence in support of and against each mechanism (frattaroli, 2006). many of the theories are compatible with one another. the most empirical support has been found for the exposure, disinhibition, and self-regulation per­ spectives. however, emotional catharsis and cognitive-processing have the least support of the mechanisms mentioned (frattaroli, 2006). specificity in expressive writing there is a need to address three issues related to the specificity regarding the benefits of expressive writing. first, the benefits of writing may be associated with specific life experiences. in the expressive writing research, participants are asked to write about specific events. however, it is common for individuals to experience multiple difficult life experiences (kessler et al., 1995). yet, research has not explored how writing about a specific event benefits the lives of individuals who have experienced multiple difficult experiences. it might be the case that writing about a life challenge modifies thoughts and feelings concerning only the event written about. for example, fivush, edwards, and mennuti‐washburn (2003) asked participants to write about their emotional reactions to 9/11 within two months of the event, and then write about 9/11 again one month later, and again six months later. participants who used more cognitive-processing and emotional words in their writing reported coping better with 9/11 than others who used fewer cognitive and emotional words in their writing. writing about 9/11 specifically helped the writers cope with their feelings concerning that event (fivush et al., 2003). it might also be the case that writing about a difficult event produces a global improvement for both the event written about and other events not written about. for example, pavlacic et al. (2019)’s meta-analysis suggested that writing improves participants’ overall quality of life. it is likely that there are initial changes in the cognitions and emotions about a particular life event, and then these changes are applied to other similar experiences. the change that occurs when writing about a particular event might be transferred to the skills a person uses to deal with other events. the self-regulation perspective can clarify this transference. individuals learn how to effectively cope with one event, stapleton, zhang, & berman 55 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and then apply their new abilities to similar situations. however, little research has examined both the specific and global psychological effects of writing. second, we should consider the specificity of the emotions and thoughts changed by writing. our emotions and cognitions are contextual and directed toward particular people, events, and objects. this has been called the intentional structure (i.e., aboutness) of emotions and cognitions (denzin, 1984; ratcliffe, 2008). for instance, a person who is upset might be upset about the car accident they were in last week or about their father’s passing after having cancer. related to their intentional structure, emotions can be classified both broadly and narrowly according to the types of social problems they help solve (keltner & gross, 1999). for instance, positive and negative emotions are differently associated with our attention, memory, and behavioral tendencies (fredrickson, 1998; fredrickson & branigan, 2005). this distinction between positive and negative emotions is broad and based on the valence of emotions (i.e., pleasant or unpleasant). however, emotions can be classified in other ways according to more narrow functions (egloff, schmukle, burns, kohlmann, & hock, 2003; mihić, novović, čolović, & smederevac, 2014). some emotions are closely tied to a person’s self-concept (götz, cronjäger, frenzel, lüdtke, & hall, 2010). for example, if a person feels strong, proud, or determined about themself, they will feel positive and ready to endure whatever life brings (williams & desteno, 2008). other positive emotions are closely tied to the interest, excitement, and passion invested in activities (götz et al., 2010). for example, a person who feels passionate will seek out opportunities to reengage with the experiences, people, and objects that they are passionate about. although emotions related to the strength of one’s self-concept and emotions conveying passion are both positive emotions, they serve different social functions. someone might feel strong after undergoing a difficult experience and productively processing that experience. but it is unlikely that someone would feel passionate or excited about a difficult life experience no matter how well they have dealt with it. we expected that writing would influence event-specific positive emotions related to strength, but not passion and being energetic. similarly, there are different facets of negative emotions with distinct social functions (mehrabian, 1997). some negative emotions, including being upset or angry, draw our attention to losses such as the loss of a loved one or a desired opportunity. other negative emotions, such as fear, draw our attention to threats. previous empirical studies suggest two facets of negative emotions—upset and fear (allan, lonigan, & phillips, 2015; eadeh, breaux, langberg, nikolas, & becker, 2020; killgore, 2000). because many people choose to write about losses instead of threats, we expected that our writing intervention would reduce negative emotions related to being upset about a past situation, but not reduce fear. cognitions also have an intentional pattern (i.e., aboutness). for example, a man avoids thinking about the fight he had with his spouse last week, or a woman has intrusive thoughts about an abusive relationship. since the previous literature suggests that writing generally reduces cognitive avoidance and intrusive thoughts (klein & boals, 2001; radcliffe et al., 2007), we expected that writing would reduce perceptions of cognitive avoidance and intrusion concern­ ing the events written about in comparison to other events not written about. many studies (e.g., baikie & wilhelm, 2005; reinhold et al., 2018) have looked at how writing changes less contextualized moods and thoughts instead of the specific emotions and cognitions about a difficult life event. this study is one of the first to examine how writing changes the emotions and cognitions connected to a specific event. third, we should consider the specificity of the writing context. in expressive writing research, participants are often asked to write about a difficult life event for 3–5 sessions, for 15–20 minutes in a laboratory (pennebaker & beall, 1986). this is a controlled setting that improves the internal validity of the writing intervention. in contrast to this controlled setting, students and clients may be asked to write about difficult life experiences in their home to reduce depression and anxiety (collins & dozois, 2008). writing is also commonly prescribed by self-help books. as such, writing may be used daily or intermittently. as authors, it is our experience that we use journaling about both positive and negative life experiences intermittently to focus on events that punctuate our lives rather than as an on-going activity. additionally, we have observed that clients and students write about their problems irregularly even when assigned to do so daily. although the therapeutic effect of writing may be maximized by having participants write on multiple occasions and for lengthy periods, it is also important to know the effect of short, intermittent writing episodes. previous research has investigated short writing interventions, but more work needs to be done (burton & king, 2008). short and intermittent writing episodes are closer to how writing will be used in writers’ real-life experiences and this is related to the external specific effects of writing 56 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ validity of the intervention. further evaluation of short writing interventions may provide implications for practitioners to monitor students’ and clients’ progress. the present study based on the literature and the previous three considerations concerning specificity, we hypothesized that: 1. immediately after writing, those who wrote about a difficult life experience would feel (a) more strength-related positive emotions and (b) less upsetting negative emotions about the experience they wrote about in comparison to another difficult experience they did not write about. 2. immediately after writing, those who wrote about a difficult life experience would report (a) less cognitive avoidance and (b) less cognitive intrusion concerning the experience they wrote about in comparison to another difficult experience they did not write about. 3. given the brevity of our writing intervention, we did not expect that the writing topic (a difficult life event vs. an interesting life event) would have a direct impact on general distress either immediately after writing or one week later. 4. however, we do believe that writing about a difficult experience influences the writer’s general distress indirectly. based on the self-regulated learning perspective, we propose that writing about a difficulty leads first to changes in the cognitions and emotions related to that particular difficulty, and then those specific changes are transferred to other similar situations producing a global change in distress. thus, we were interested in exploring whether the event-specific emotions and cognitions immediately after writing were associated longitudinally with general distress reported one week later. to address these hypotheses, we asked participants to write about either a difficult life experience or an interesting life experience. experimental participants wrote about a difficult life experience and reported their general distress in addition to cognitions and emotions for both the event written about and another difficult event not written about. control participants wrote about an interesting event and reported their general distress in addition to cognitions and emotions for two difficult life events. for all groups of participants, cognitive and emotional changes as well as general distress were assessed again one week later. method participants the participants were 120 college students (65% female) recruited from undergraduate psychology courses at a large urban university in the united states. the mean age of participants was 20.84 years (sd = 4.78, range = 17–50). reported ethnicity was 48% european american, 43% african american, 4% latinx american, 1% asian american, and 4% other ethnicities. the study was approved by the institutional review board of the university. procedure although the procedures of the study are fully described here, readers should consult the online supplement for ancillary material and information. at the beginning of two academic terms, students were administered a prescreening questionnaire. to maintain confidentiality, we divided this questionnaire into two parts. the first part asked students to provide their names and contact information. the second asked students to list three difficult or emotionally painful life events they had gone through or were currently going through. individuals were also asked to indicate how much distress each event was currently causing them using a 10-point scale with verbal labels of least distressing (1) and most distressing (10). only individuals who could list at least two unrelated events of 4 or greater on the distress scale were eligible to participate in the study. students who met the selection criteria were contacted and given the opportunity to take part in the study. when participants reported to the lab, they were told as part of the informed consent procedure that participation in the stapleton, zhang, & berman 57 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study would require them to write about their life experience. identifying information was collected separately from the writing samples, making the identity of any writing sample confidential. before coming to the lab, each participant was randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups or a control group. participants in the first experimental group (n = 41) wrote about the most distressing experience identified by the participant on the prescreening questionnaire. participants in the second experimental group (n = 39) wrote about the second most distressing experience from the prescreening questionnaire. participants in the control group (n = 40) wrote about an interesting experience of their choosing. individuals participated in the study one at a time. after giving consent, the participant was presented with the writing instructions (see supplementary materials). each participant was given 10-min to write, after which there was a 10-min break. after the break, the participant continued writing for another 10-min. after writing, all participants were asked to indicate their cognitions for the most and second-most difficult life experiences identified on the prescreening questionnaire using two forms of the impact of events scale (ies; horowitz, wilner, & alvarez, 1979), a questionnaire designed to measure participants’ perceptions of the avoidance and intrusion associated with a particular event. then, all participants indicated their emotions for the most and second-most difficult life experiences identified on the screening questionnaire using two forms of the positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988), a brief measure designed to assess the emotions of an individual. the sequence of the two forms of the ies and panas was counterbalanced such that half of the participants first reported on the most distressing event and half of the participants the second-most distressing event. all participants also completed the hopkins symptom checklist-25 (hscl-25; hesbacher, rickels, morris, newman, & rosenfeld, 1980), a self-report measure designed to assess general distress. when the participants returned to the lab one week later, they completed all the questionnaires from the previous appointment. all 120 participants returned to complete the follow-up questionnaires. measures impact of events scale the ies (horowitz et al., 1979) is a self-report questionnaire with 15 items designed to measure cognitions related to a particular event. the ies can be used to ask the respondent to answer the items regarding a particular life event. respondents indicated how often they reacted to the distressing situation in 15 ways in the last seven days. participants in this study used the original 4-point rating scale, recommended by horowitz et al. (1979), that includes the values 0 (not at all), 1 (rarely), 3 (sometimes), and 5 (often). we retained the original discontinuous rating scale so comparisons with previous research are possible. the avoidance subscale includes 8 items and measures attempts to not think about the event. the intrusion subscale includes 7 items and measures unwelcome involuntary thoughts or images about the event. cronbach’s alphas for the avoidance subscale ranged from .77 to .83, and for the intrusion subscale they ranged from .85 to .87, across the two assessment points and two experiences in this study. positive affect and negative affect schedule the panas (watson et al., 1988) is a 20-item measure consisting of 10 items measuring positive emotions and 10 items measuring negative emotions. each item of the measure consists of a single descriptor of an emotion. respondents indicated the degree to which they felt each of the emotions at the moment in reference to the specified event, using a 5-point scale, including the values 1 (very slightly or not at all), 2 (a little), 3 (moderately), 4 (quite a bit), and 5 (extremely). as researchers we are more interested in discrete subgroups of positive and negative emotions (e.g., emotions related to threat, strength of self-concept, loss, and activity) than broad classifications of emotions (e.g., positive and negative emotions). therefore, during the analysis phase of this study, it was decided that our presentation of the results would reflect this interest. it has been suggested that the positive affect subscale may be divided into separate facets (egloff et al., 2003; mihić et al., 2014). in this study, the positive affect items were divided into a strength subscale (strong, determined, proud, inspired, and active) and a passion subscale (excited, interested, attentive, enthusiastic, and alert). cronbach’s alphas for the strength subscale ranged from .82 to .86, and for the passion subscale they ranged from .78 to .82 in this study. the negative affect items may be further divided into an upset subscale (distressed, irritable, hostile, specific effects of writing 58 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and upset) and a fear subscale (scared, nervous, afraid, guilty, ashamed, and jittery) (allan et al., 2015; eadeh et al., 2020; killgore, 2000; mehrabian, 1997). cronbach’s alphas for the upset subscale ranged from .78 to .82, and for the fear subscale they ranged from .74 to .83 in this study. hopkins symptom checklist-25 the hscl-25 (hesbacher et al., 1980) is a 25-item self-report measure of general distress which includes psychological and somatic indicators of distress. on this measure, respondents report symptom severity during the past week on a 4-point scale, including 1 (not at all), 2 (a little), 3 (quite a bit), and 4 (extremely). for this study, cronbach’s alpha immediately following writing was .91 and one week later was .92. data analysis the analysis proceeded in two steps. the purpose of the first step was to understand the event-specific effects of writing about a difficult life experience. in the first step, the focus was on only those who wrote about a difficult life event (n = 80). this analysis compared scores for the event experimental participants wrote about with the scores for the event they did not write about. this was a within-subjects comparison. the purpose of the second step was to assess the direct effect of writing on general distress and to probe for the indirect effect of writing on general distress through the event-specific emotions and cognitions. in this step, those who wrote about a distressing experience (n = 80) were compared to those who wrote about an interesting event (n = 40) on a measure of general distress. this provided an assessment of the direct effect of writing topic on general distress. then, we explored the possibility that thoughts and feelings concerning the written-about experience may be associated with general distress. this was meant to provide supporting evidence for a possible indirect effect of writing on general distress through changes in event-specific cognitions and emotions. results the issue addressed by the first step of the analysis was whether the effect of writing about a difficult life event was specific to the event written about. to test our hypotheses (1a-b) and (2a-b), we conducted separate 2 (time: immediate vs. 1-week) × 2 (event: written-about vs. not-written-about) repeated measures analyses of variance for the strength, passion, upset, and fear emotion subscales and for the avoidance and intrusion cognitive subscales. the results of the analyses for the positive emotions are contained in table 1, the results for the negative emotions in table 2, and the results for the cognitions in table 3. stapleton, zhang, & berman 59 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard errors (in parentheses) and anova results for positive emotions (strength and passion subscales) time (t) event (e) anovas written not-written total effect f(1, 79) ηp2 strength immediate 2.84ad (0.13) 2.53bf (0.12) 2.69 (0.11) 1-week 2.47ce (0.13) 2.43cf (0.13) 2.45 (0.11) total 2.66 (0.12) 2.48 (0.12) t 9.54** .11 e 2.56 .03 t × e 6.19* .07 passion immediate 2.60ad (0.12) 2.52af (0.11) 2.56 (0.10) 1-week 2.36ce (0.12) 2.34cg (0.11) 2.35 (0.10) total 2.48 (0.11) 2.43 (0.10) t 12.49*** .14 e 0.20 .01 t × e 0.57 .01 note. n = 80. subscripts and superscripts reflect the results of follow-up comparisons. subscripts reflect the row-wise written vs. not-written comparisons. means compared within rows that do not share an identical subscript differ significantly. superscripts reflect column-wise immediate vs. 1-week comparisons. means compared within columns that do not share an identical superscript differ significantly. anova = analysis of variance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 2 means, standard errors (in parentheses) and anova results for negative emotions (upset and fear subscales) time (t) event (e) anovas written not-written total effect f(1, 79) ηp2 upset immediate 2.57ad (0.11) 2.80bf (0.12) 2.69 (0.10) 1-week 2.32cd (0.13) 2.32cg (0.13) 2.32 (0.10) total 2.45 (0.09) 2.56 (0.10) t 11.71*** .13 e 1.44 .02 t × e 4.30* .05 fear immediate 2.16ad (0.10) 2.17af (0.09) 2.17 (0.08) 1-week 1.95ce (0.09) 2.00cg (0.10) 1.98 (0.08) total 2.06 (0.09) 2.09 (0.09) t 7.32** .09 e 0.10 .01 t × e 0.10 .01 note. n = 80. subscripts and superscripts reflect the results of follow-up comparisons. subscripts reflect the row-wise written vs. not-written comparisons. means compared within rows that do not share an identical subscript differ significantly. superscripts reflect column-wise immediate vs. 1-week comparisons. means compared within columns that do not share an identical superscript differ significantly. anova = analysis of variance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. specific effects of writing 60 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 means, standard errors (in parentheses) and anova results for cognitions (avoidance and intrusion subscales) time (t) event (e) anovas written not-written total effect f(1, 79) ηp2 avoidance immediate 2.19ad (0.08) 2.44bf (0.08) 2.32 (0.06) 1-week 2.08ce (0.07) 2.18cg (0.08) 2.13 (0.07) total 2.13 (0.07) 2.31 (0.08) t 17.57*** .18 e 5.25* .06 t × e 5.12* .06 intrusion immediate 2.63ad (0.09) 2.69af (0.09) 2.66 (0.07) 1-week 2.34ce (0.09) 2.33cg (0.08) 2.34 (0.07) total 2.49 (0.08) 2.51 (0.08) t 28.67*** .27 e 0.11 .01 t × e 0.60 .01 note. n = 80. subscripts and superscripts reflect the results of follow-up comparisons. subscripts reflect the row-wise written vs. not-written comparisons. means compared within rows that do not share an identical subscript differ significantly. superscripts reflect column-wise immediate vs. 1-week comparisons. means compared within columns that do not share an identical superscript differ significantly. anova = analysis of variance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. positive emotions strength for the strength subscale, there was a significant time × event interaction (see table 1, upper panel). immediately after writing, the writers reported feeling more strength about the event they wrote about compared to the event they did not write about. however, this specificity effect was not evident one week later. the main effect for time was also significant, but the main effect for event was not. passion for the passion subscale, the main effect for time was significant (see table 1, lower panel). this indicated that ratings of passion went down from immediately after writing to one week later. however, neither the main effect for event, nor the time × event interaction were significant. our hypothesis (1a) was supported for the positive emotions. experimental participants reported more intense positive emotions for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. this was only true for positive emotions related to strength but not for positive emotions related to passion. the specificity effect for positive emotions related to strength was only found immediately after writing but not one week later. negative emotions upset for the upset subscale, there was a significant time × event interaction (table 2, upper panel). immediately after writing, the writers reported feeling less upset about the event they wrote about compared to the event they did not write about. however, this specificity effect was not evident one week later. the main effect for time was also significant, but the main effect for event was not. stapleton, zhang, & berman 61 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fear for the fear subscale, the main effect for time was significant (table 2, lower panel). this indicated that ratings of fear went down from immediately after writing to one week later. however, neither the main effect for event, nor the time × event interaction effect was significant. our hypothesis (1b) concerning negative emotions was supported. experimental participants reported less intense negative emotions for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. this was only true for negative emotions related to being upset and not for negative emotions related to fear. the specificity effect for negative emotions related to being upset was only found immediately after writing and not one week later. cognitions avoidance for the cognitive avoidance subscale, there was a significant time × event interaction (table 3, upper panel). immedi­ ately after writing, the writers reported less avoidance for the event that they wrote about than the event that they did not write about. however, this specificity effect was not evident one week later. the main effect for time, and the main effect for event were also significant. intrusion for the cognitive intrusion subscale, the main effect for time was significant (table 3, lower panel). this indicated that ratings of intrusive thoughts went down from immediately after writing to one week later. however, neither the main effect for event, nor the time × event interaction effect was significant. our hypothesis (2) concerning event-specific cognitions was partially supported. consistent with our hypothesis (2a), experimental participants reported avoiding their thoughts less for an event that they wrote about than an event that they did not write about. however, inconsistent with our hypothesis (2b), there were no significant differences between ratings of intrusive thoughts for an event written about versus ratings of an event not written about. general distress to test our hypothesis (3), the second step of the analysis compared the effect of writing topic on participants’ general distress. to do this, we conducted a 2 (writing topic: difficult experience vs. interesting experience) × 2 (time: immediate vs. 1-week) mixed analysis of variance on the ratings of the hscl-25. there was a significant main effect for time, f(1, 118) = 25.57, p < .001, ηp2 = .10. this indicated that ratings of distress decreased from immediately after writing (m = 2.31, se = 0.07) to one week later (m = 2.10, se = 0.07). however, neither the writing topic main effect, f(1, 118) = 0.24, p = .62, ηp2 < .01, nor the writing topic × time interaction effect, f(1, 118) = 0.50, p = .48, ηp2 = .01, was significant. we also investigated whether ratings of emotions and cognitions made immediately after writing were associated with general distress one week later (hypothesis 4). in this analysis, we focused on the experimental participants. to do this, we calculated correlations between emotions and cognitions immediately after writing and the 1-week general distress score (hscl-25). we used steiger’s (1980) method to compare two dependent associations: (1) the association of participants’ general distress with their immediate thoughts and feelings concerning the event written about; and (2) the association of participants’ general distress with their immediate thoughts and feelings concerning an event they did not write about. this method assesses whether the correlations of two predictors with a criterion variable differ significantly (rjk versus rjh), while considering the weight of the correlation between the two predictors (rkh). in this study, the two predictors were the ratings made for an event written about and ratings made for an event not written about. the criterion variable was general distress one week later. the results of these analyses are presented in table 4. as can be seen, negative emotions and cognitions related to the event discussed in the writing were significantly and positively correlated with general distress. significant correlations between thoughts and feelings concerning an event not written about and general distress were less common. specific effects of writing 62 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 comparisons of correlations between emotions and cognitions made immediately after writing and ratings of general distress (hscl-25) made one week later subscale written t1 with not written t1 (rkh) written t1 with hscl t2 (rjk) not written t1 with hscl t2 (rjh) z-score (rjk vs. rjh) positive emotions strength .534** .002 -.016 0.16 passion .436*** .071 .080 -0.08 negative emotions upset .494*** .327** .110 1.97* fear .409*** .239* .238* 0.01 cognitions avoidance .295** .222* .091 0.99 intrusion .259* .355*** .221* 1.03 note. n = 80. hscl = 25-item version of hopkins symptom checklist; t1 = immediate ratings; t2 = 1-week ratings. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. examining the comparisons between the written-about and not-written-about conditions, the z-score for being upset was significant. ratings of being upset for the event written about was positively and significantly associated with general distress one week later; however, this correlation was not significant for the event that was not written about. these two correlations were significantly different. discussion writing is a powerful tool for helping people heal from difficult life experiences (baikie & wilhelm, 2005). usually the global effect of expressive writing on psychological outcomes has been evaluated (park & blumberg, 2002; pavlacic et al., 2019). because individuals commonly experience multiple difficult life events (kessler et al., 1995), it is worthwhile to evaluate whether writing helps them cope with a specific event compared to other life difficulties. the findings of this study highlight the specific benefits writing has on the event written about and provides implications for theory, research, and practice. event-specific benefits of writing most importantly, the results of this study showed that participants in the experimental groups felt stronger, less upset, and less avoidant of the difficult life event that they just wrote about compared to another difficult life event they did not write about. first, the most significant result relates to strength immediately after writing. based on research concerning the social functions of emotions (keltner & gross, 1999), we distinguished two subtypes of positive emotions: strength and passion. although both are pleasant emotions, they can be distinguished by the adaptive functions they serve (götz et al., 2010; williams & desteno, 2008). whereas strength is associated with being proud of oneself, being determined to complete tasks, and being inspired; passion is associated with being interested, excited, and enthusiastic about an activity. the results support our hypothesis (1a): participants in the experimental group reported more emotional strength associated with the event written about. however, they did not report feeling more passionate about the event they wrote about than another difficulty they did not write about. this suggests that writing’s specific initial benefits are associated with emotions related to self-concept more than activity-related emotions. writers feel stronger, more determined, and prouder of themselves, not necessarily more ready or excited to act. this helps writers perform tasks in an ordered manner and persist through difficulties (szagun & schauble, 1997; van osch, zeelenberg, & breugelmans, 2018). the finding is consistent with the self-regulation hypothesis concerning the mechanism through stapleton, zhang, & berman 63 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ which writing produces its benefits (king, 2002; lepore et al., 2002). writing about a difficult event allows writers to observe, express, and control their emotions associated with the difficult event and develop a sense of self-efficacy. similarly, following previous research, we distinguished two facets of negative emotions: upset and fear (allan et al., 2015; eadeh et al., 2020; killgore, 2000). the results support our hypothesis (1b): participants in the experimental group reported being less upset regarding the event they wrote about compared to a difficult event they did not write about. however, they did not report feeling less fearful. one possible explanation is that the writing task did not address the social functions associated with fear. fear helps provide an alarm to threats (frijda, 2013). but many of our writers wrote about losses rather than threats to their survival and security. if we had asked our writers to write about their most frightening or threatening experiences, then we might have found event-specific effects for fear. in contrast, being upset is associated with feeling irritated, distressed, or hostile when the event is mentioned. this is consistent with the disinhibition hypothesis about writing’s benefits (lepore & smyth, 2002). although culture, workplace values, and family mores may teach us to inhibit our feelings, inhibition of thoughts and feelings regarding an upsetting event takes effort and can be harmful. writing helps participants express these inhibited feelings in a safe environment and in this way reduces stress. the increase in event-specific feelings of strength and the decrease in event-specific feelings of being upset may indicate an overall sense of emotional stability. this means that brief writing interventions may effectively change event-specific emotions promoting emotional stability regarding a specific event. consistent with our hypothesis (2a), immediately after writing, participants in the experimental group reported fewer avoidant thoughts regarding the experience they wrote about. however, our hypothesis (2b) was not supported: participants in the experimental group did not report any difference in intrusive thoughts between the event written about and the event not written about. previous studies have found that writing reduces both intrusion and avoidance symptoms (klein & boals, 2001; radcliffe et al., 2007). these findings are also consistent with the disinhibition hypoth­ esis. intrusive and avoidant thoughts are signs of unresolved stress and that one is engaging in ongoing emotional inhibition. writing provides an opportunity for writers to disinhibit themselves and disclose their private thoughts associated with a specific event anonymously to the researcher. one possible explanation for the significant difference in avoidant thoughts but not intrusive thoughts is that the writing intervention forced the writers to think about one of the distressing experiences of their lives. the writing intervention helped the writers face, confront, and not avoid the hurtful places in their lives. but it may be that being reminded of these hurtful experiences was perceived as intrusive. therefore, we did not find differences in intrusive thoughts concerning an experience written about and another experience not written about. writing and general distress consistent with our expectation (hypothesis 3), the writing intervention did not directly translate into a reduction in general distress. while writers’ emotions and cognitions are about specific events, people, or objects, their general distress is less contextualized and less specific. the self-regulation perspective may help us understand this. people learn how to regulate their emotions by reflecting on successful experiences in emotion regulation. when children are young, a teacher or parent may guide them through the steps necessary to regulate their emotions successfully. eventually, the child has enough experience, and they try what worked previously in new situations. this process involves a transfer of specific knowledge about what worked in one situation and applying that knowledge to another new situation. we can expect that writers go through a similar self-regulation process when participating in a writing experiment. although it is not the main function of these experiments, writing experiments teach participants how to regulate their emotions by writing. the participant is guided by following the writing instructions given in the experiment to regulate their emotions. initially, there is no transfer of knowledge. the writer just follows the instructions. but if they repeat the instructions often enough and reflect on the experience, they may learn how to use these newfound skills with other difficult situations. this may be one reason why we did not observe differences in general distress as a direct outcome of the writing topic. perhaps the skills learned in the writing experiment had not been repeated often enough to be applied to new situations and every situation generally. but it might be the case that we can see the early stages in this transference of knowledge. consistent with our expectation (hypothesis 4), the context specific negative emotions (upset and fear) and cognitions (avoidance and intrusion) were associated with general distress one week specific effects of writing 64 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ later. additionally, feelings of being upset immediately after writing concerning the written-about event and the event not written about were differentially related to general distress one-week later. there is some evidence for an indirect connection: the writing intervention led to a reduction in being upset about a particular event. this decrease in being upset was associated with less general distress one week later. implications, limitations, and future directions one implication of this study is that some of the cognitive and emotional benefits of writing about difficult life experiences are specific to the event written about. this means that targeting specific memories when writing or journaling may translate, at least in the short term, into benefits related to those memories. moreover, the specific effects that one is most likely to experience include greater emotional strength, being less upset, and being less avoidant. these effects are likely to support writers’ self-concept, emotional stability, and coping with stressful events. writing about difficult life experiences can be a therapeutic intervention carried out by practitioners or an easy self-help tool for individuals to improve social and emotional functioning. this study also outlines a methodology for studying the event-specific benefits of writing that should be replicated and extended. a potential limitation of this study is the length, number, and spacing of sessions given to write. it could be argued that we did not ask the writers to write several times and for lengthy periods of time, and that consequently we did not find differences between the experimental and control groups comparable to those found in other studies. we take the argument. the length of writing time in previous writing studies has varied, with some asking participants to write as long as 30 min in one sitting (greenberg, wortman, & stone, 1996) and others as short as 2 min (burton & king, 2008). it has been suggested that writing about difficult life events is more effective if done on several occasions spaced over several days (e.g., frattaroli, 2006; páez et al., 1999). we agree. however, we focused on the benefits writers can reasonably expect to experience when writing briefly and intermittently. we felt that this brief writing closely mimicked the amount of time that we witness students and clients spend on writing. therefore, when deciding how much the participants would write we favored external validity over internal validity, effectiveness over efficacy. we were also cautious about the degree to which we sensitized participants to the assessment procedure. future research could ask writers to write over several occasions about the same event and then at the conclusion of the research have writers report their emotions and cognitions about two events. but it may be ill-advised to have multiple assessment points since this may sensitize the writers to the purpose of the study. this is also one reason why we chose random assignment to control for between-group differences rather than assessing all study variables before the experimental manipulation (shadish, cook, & campbell, 2002). future research could examine whether these event-specific emotions and cognitions are associated with actions taken in the days immediately following the writing. it might be that writers find that they can channel their newfound strength and pride into their daily activities. writers may also find that they are less avoidant of the people and places associated with their memories. funding: this research was supported by a centers of excellence grant awarded to the department of psychology at the university of memphis by the state of tennessee. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available (stapleton, zhang & berman, 2021): • writing instructions for participants. stapleton, zhang, & berman 65 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials stapleton, c. m., zhang, h., & berman, j. s. 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https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324796abm2403_10 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1290586 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.6.1007 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors charles matthew stapleton is an assistant professor in the department of psychological science at the university of north georgia. he holds a ph.d. in clinical psychology, an m.s. in general psychology, and an m.a. in philosophy all from the university of memphis. dr. stapleton’s research focuses on emotional and social development from a phenomenological, social-functional, health psychology, and cultural perspective. hui zhang is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at westfield state university. she earned a ph.d. in educational psychology from the university of memphis and a m.s. degree in developmental psychology from central china normal university. dr. zhang’s research focuses on topics concerning youths’ emotional and social development (e.g., emotional self-regulation, emotion socialization, and friendships) from a relational and cultural lens. jeffry s. berman is professor of psychology at the university of memphis and director of the psychotherapy research area in the university of memphis doctoral program in clinical psychology. dr. berman's primary research focuses on the evaluation of factors affecting the outcome of psychotherapy. his research uses both quantitative review techniques as well as randomized clinical trials to understand how psychotherapy works. stapleton, zhang, & berman 69 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ specific effects of writing (introduction) expressive writing psychological benefits of expressive writing mechanisms of expressive writing’s benefits specificity in expressive writing the present study method participants procedure measures data analysis results positive emotions negative emotions cognitions general distress discussion event-specific benefits of writing writing and general distress implications, limitations, and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments supplementary materials references about the authors sense of humor, stable affect, and psychological well-being research reports sense of humor, stable affect, and psychological well-being arnie cann*a, chantal collettea [a] university of north carolina charlotte, charlotte, nc, usa. abstract a good sense of humor has been implicated as a quality that could contribute to psychological well-being. the mechanisms through which sense of humor might operate include helping to reappraise threats, serving as a character strength, or facilitating happiness. the current research attempts to integrate these possibilities by examining whether a good sense of humor might operate globally by helping to maintain a more stable positive affect. stable positive affect has been shown to facilitate more effective problem solving and to build resilience. however, not all humor is adaptive humor, so we also examine the roles that different styles of humor use might play. individual differences in humor styles were used to predict stable levels of affect. then, in a longitudinal design, humor styles and stable affect were used to predict subsequent resilience and psychological health. the results indicated that stable affect was related to resilience and psychological well-being, and that a sense of humor that involves self-enhancing humor, humor based on maintaining a humorous perspective about one’s experiences, was positively related to stable positive affect, negatively related to stable negative affect, and was mediated through stable affect in influencing resilience, well-being and distress. thus, while a good sense of humor can lead to greater resilience and better psychological health, the current results, focusing on stable affect, find only self-enhancing humor provides reliable benefits. keywords: sense of humor, positive affect, resilience, psychological health, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479, doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 received: 2014-01-15. accepted: 2014-02-03. published (vor): 2014-08-13. handling editor: nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, unc charlotte, 9201 university city blvd., charlotte, nc, 28223, usa. e-mail: acann@uncc.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. life is full of challenges, so possessing the skills necessary to meet these challenges can lead to a happier life and a greater sense of well-being. while there are many different skills that might be useful in supporting success and well-being, a good sense of humor has often been proposed as a personal quality capable of facilitating the achievement of psychological well-being (lefcourt, 2001; lefcourt & martin, 1986; martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, & weir, 2003). over the years, researchers have identified a number of processes through which a good sense of humor might support well-being. we will briefly review the research supporting these processes and then suggest a broader model within which all of these processes might be understood. we will be asking how it is that a good sense of humor might play a role in supporting resilience and well-being, while also helping avoid psychological distress. sense of humor and appraisal of stressors early sense of humor research focused on how a good sense of humor could buffer the negative impact of potential stressors (lefcourt & martin, 1986). when we encounter potentially stressful or threatening events and we cannot enlist the resources needed to meet these challenges, there can be psychological costs (lazarus & folkman, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ 1984). one effective strategy for limiting the negative impact of potential stressors is to effectively reappraise the event as less threatening. a good sense of humor has been proposed as one such coping strategy that could enable effective reappraisal (dixon, 1980; lefcourt, 2001). in a number of studies, people with better senses of humor have been shown to be able to more effectively reframe or appraise events so that they are perceived as less threatening and therefore arouse lower levels of negative affect (abel, 2002; abel & maxwell, 2002; kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993; kuiper, mckenzie, & belanger, 1995). in addition, anecdotal evidence looking at how individuals in high stress occupations cope (e.g., rowe & regehr, 2010), and research on common coping strategies (carver et al., 1993) support the perceived effectiveness of humor as a coping strategy. a good sense of humor could, it seems, allow individuals to find humor and a cause for laughter, rather than feel threatened, when faced with a potential stressor. sense of humor as a personal strength in addition to facilitating more positive appraisals of potential threats, a good sense of humor also could have a more global effect by allowing for a generally more positive perspective about oneself and the world (kuiper & martin, 1993; lefcourt & martin, 1986; martin et al., 2003). a good sense of humor may be like a lens through which the world is viewed. for example, kuiper, martin, and dance (1992) found that higher scores on a variety of measures of sense of humor were associated with greater satisfaction with the roles people identified as relevant to their lives. in addition, a better sense of humor was associated with higher positive affect even as either positive or negative life events were experienced at higher levels. this global perspective on life is supported by research reported by ruch and colleagues, who have shown that a good sense of humor is associated with cheerfulness as a trait, as well as a state (ruch & carrell, 1998; ruch & kohler, 1998; ruch, kohler, & van thriel, 1996). all of these associations suggest that a good sense of humor may enhance other strengths that may serve as resources when facing challenges. more recently, in developing a model focusing on positive personal strengths, rather than on pathologies, peterson and seligman (2004) proposed a set of virtues based on the presence of different character strengths. they identified 24 character strengths that supported six broad virtues. these character strengths and virtues were assumed to influence how satisfied and fulfilled individuals would feel with their lives. humor was included as a character strength that helped to support the virtue of transcendence. in their model, transcendence represents those strengths that allow for finding meaning and feeling connected to the wider universe. humor, as a character strength, was defined as liking to joke and laugh and sharing humor with others. higher levels of character strengths were assumed to be associated with greater life satisfaction (peterson & seligman, 2004), and in two studies involving large samples across three countries, humor, assessed as a character strength, was positively related to life satisfaction and other well-being indicators (peterson, ruch, beermann, park, & seligman, 2007; ruch et al., 2010). thus, it appears that a good sense of humor can provide the foundation for a more positive worldview and greater personal strength, enabling a link to well-being. sense of humor and maintaining happiness yet another way in which a good sense of humor might contribute to overall well-being is as a behavioral tendency to engage in acts that promote happiness. being happy is associated with many desirable outcomes, including better relationships, stronger immune responses, and greater creativity (lyubomirsky, king, & diener, 2005); and individuals’ happiness is at least partially under their control (lyubomirsky, sheldon, & schkade, 2005). lyubomirsky (2001) found that dispositionally happy individuals tended to engage in behaviors that supported their stable happiness levels. some of the behaviors identified as enhancing happiness included expressing gratitude, engaging europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 465 http://www.psychopen.eu/ in altruism, counting one’s blessings, and maintaining an optimistic outlook. in an extensive series of studies, researchers have examined how increasing the frequency of performing relevant behaviors can increase happiness (see lyubomirsky & layous, 2013 for a review). in addition, a meta-analysis of 51 studies looking at possible interventions to encourage happiness-supporting activities that trained positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors found support for the effect of small positive acts as ways of elevating well-being and reducing depression (sin & lyubomirsky, 2009). although increasing humor behaviors was not used in any of these intervention studies, previous research has found humor as a character strength was correlated with happiness (ruch et al., 2010), and a good sense of humor was related to cheerfulness (ruch & carrell, 1998), so humor-related behaviors could be another avenue to support happiness. recent evidence also has demonstrated that efforts to enhance humor uses by training humor skills have found that humor skills can be learned and that increases in humor uses are associated with increases in perceived self-efficacy, optimism (crawford & caltabiano, 2011), and state and trait cheerfulness (falkenberg, buchkremer, bartels, & wild, 2011). sense of humor and resilience how might these roles for humor in supporting well-being be integrated? recently, kuiper (2012) has provided a carefully constructed argument for a good sense of humor as a personal quality that could contribute to psychological resilience in a number of ways. resilience involves possessing a set of personal qualities that allows a person to thrive even when faced with adversity (connor & davidson, 2003). resilient individuals more effectively manage stress and recover more quickly following adversities (windle, 2011). kuiper (2012) highlights many of the same processes discussed above to propose that a good sense of humor should be considered as a valuable component of personal resilience. being able to positively reappraise stressors and use humor to cope, relying on humor as a character strength, and using humor behaviors to support or enhance one’s own stable happiness are all ways that employing humor effectively can support a resilient personal style. having developed greater resilience, wellbeing can then be protected from commonly experienced threats and challenges. humor styles: all humor uses are not created equal using humor ‘effectively’ is a key factor in understanding a sense of humor as a positive and constructive personal style. kuiper (2012) points out how important it is to look at exactly how humor is used as part of any analysis of sense of humor as a link to well-being. although many studies have found that sense of humor is associated with the benefits outlined above, other studies have failed to find a relationship (e.g., kuiper & borowicz-sibenik, 2005; kuiper, grimshaw, leite, & kirsh, 2004; porterfield, 1987), and some have reported a negative relationship (kerkkänen, kuiper, & martin, 2004). the humor styles model outlined by martin et al. (2003) was proposed as a framework for better identifying and appreciating the potentially maladaptive uses of humor and for distinguishing these styles from the constructive and adaptive styles of humor that are more likely to have psychological benefits. the humor styles model assumes there are four main humor styles and that how humor is used can lead to positive or negative interpersonal and intrapersonal effects. affiliative and aggressive humor styles are primarily directed at others. affiliative humor is a positive humor style that involves sharing humor through jokes or witty remarks, without insulting or harming anyone. aggressive humor, on the other hand, uses humor to attack or demean others in order to elevate oneself. the other two styles represent humor that is more self-directed. self-enhancing humor is used to support oneself by using humor to maintain a positive perspective of one’s life. self-defeating humor involves making fun of oneself, engaging in excessive self-ridicule, in order to gain acceptance from others. a considerable body of research has demonstrated that the adaptive andmaladaptive humor styles are often related in different ways to other personal qualities and outcome measures. beermann and ruch (2009) found that only europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 humor, affect, and well-being 466 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the adaptive humor styles were associated with humor as a character strength. cann and colleagues found that while the self-enhancing humor style was related to lower perceived past and anticipated future stress, and to higher levels of happiness, hope, and optimism, a self-defeating humor style showed the opposite pattern (cann & etzel, 2008; cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010). multiple studies have found that higher levels of adaptive humor styles are associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem, while higher levels of the maladaptive humor styles tended to be predictive of greater depression and lower self-esteem (kuiper et al., 2004; martin et al., 2003). thus, any model hoping to provide evidence for the role of humor must clearly differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. sense of humor and positive emotions although kuiper (2012) suggests a structure based on resilience for understanding the many ways that a good sense of humor can play a role in enhancing or protecting well-being, an alternative perspective also can provide a framework for appreciating the positive relationships of a good sense of humor with coping, life satisfaction, happiness, and resilience. all of these relationships might be understood within the context of the broaden and build theory of positive emotions (see fredrickson, 2001, 2013). the broaden and build theory proposes that positive emotions, as opposed to neutral or negative emotions, facilitate a wider array of perspectives, allowing for more flexible, creative, integrative, and efficient thinking (see also isen, 1987). among the ten positive emotions that fredrickson identifies as occurring with relatively high frequency is amusement, an experience also labeled mirth by other researchers (martin, 2007), and it reflects the positive affective experience associated with exposure to humor. fredrickson (2013) believes that positive emotional responses have evolved because they enable the expanded awareness that often allows for identifying more effective strategies for problem solving. research has supported a number of benefits of experiencing positive emotions, including easier task switching (wang & guo, 2008), better appreciating benefits gained from adversity (hart, vella, & mohr, 2008), and greater trust in close others (dunn & schweitzer, 2005). the broaden and build theory also assumes that the benefits of experiencing positive emotions extend beyond the transient experience of the emotion by building affective resources that can contribute to personal effectiveness and enhanced resilience (e.g., cohn, fredrickson, brown, mikels, & conway, 2009; fredrickson, tugade, waugh, & larkin, 2003; tugade & fredrickson, 2004). tugade and fredrickson (2007) outline the ways in which regulation of positive emotions, using strategies to create or maintain a positive affective state, can, in the process, strengthen resilience. one of the strategies they note is the use of humor to cope with stressors, but it also may be the case that using humor across a variety of situations, not just for coping, can contribute to maintaining more stable positive emotions. therefore, if a good sense of humor can help to maintain stable positive affect, then the desirable outcomes of effective coping, resilience, and life satisfaction should follow. a number of the studies have shown that appropriate humor uses can lead to higher levels of reported positive affect (geisler & weber, 2010; kuiper, martin, & dance, 1992; ong, bergeman, bisconti, & wallace, 2006). crawford and caltabiano (2011) also found that training humor uses resulted in higher levels of positive affect, even over a three-month follow-up. thus, the current research investigates the possible associations between individual differences in humor styles and stable affect, and the links, either directly or indirectly through stable affect, between humor styles and outcomes like resilience, life satisfaction, and psychological distress. using a longitudinal design, humor styles were measured europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 467 http://www.psychopen.eu/ as a personal quality, and then stable affect was identified by assessing affect ratings over multiple days. finally, after a delay of approximately one month, the outcome variables were assessed. the clearest prediction is that a self-enhancing humor style should be related to stable affect, such that a high self-enhancing style should support positive affect. previous research also suggests that a self-defeating style might be associated with higher negative affect (cann & etzel, 2008; cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010). the possible relationships of the other humor styles with stable affect are less clear. it is possible that affiliative or aggressive humor uses might contribute to positive affect, just based on their being associated with more humor and amusement in one’s life. on the other hand, previous research has not found any associations between these humor styles and outcomes like hope, happiness, and optimism (cann & etzel, 2008; cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010). to identify the relationships that might exist between humor styles, affect, and the outcomes of resilience, well-being, and psychological distress, we use a path analysis approach so both direct paths and indirect paths of influence can be evaluated. the path model and the tested paths are depicted in figure 1. figure 1. direct and indirect paths tested for three outcome variables: resilience (cd-risc), well-being (swl), and psychological distress (dass). method materials humor styles questionnaire (hsq) — the hsq was developed by martin et al. (2003) to measure the four styles of humor that had been identified in an extensive literature review of sense of humor as a personal quality. affiliative humor involves the positive use of humor directed at others to support or build relationships (e.g., i laugh and joke a lot with my closest friends). aggressive humor involves attempts to demean or belittle others (e.g., if someone makes a mistake, i will often tease them about it). a self-enhancing humor style involves using humor europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 humor, affect, and well-being 468 http://www.psychopen.eu/ to counter stressors or change perspective (e.g., if i am feeling depressed, i can usually cheer myself up with humor). a self-defeating humor style reflects negative, self-directed humor designed to create humor at one’s own expense in order to gain favor with others (e.g., letting others laugh at me is my way of keeping friends and family in good spirits). eight items assess each of the 4 humor styles, and respondents indicate the degree to which they agree with each item on a 7-point scale (1 = totally disagree to 7 = totally agree). the internal consistencies for the 4 humor styles in the current samples were adequate (alphas: affiliative = .70, self-enhancing = .82, aggressive = .70, self-defeating = .81). daily affect ratings — the modified differential emotions scale (mdes: fredrickson, tugade, waugh, & larkin, 2003) measures how strongly an emotion was felt at its peak during the day. peak ratings are recommended, rather than average ratings, because they can be recalled more accurately (cohn et al., 2009). the mdes includes 16 sets of emotions that are rated on 5 point scale (0 = not at all, i did not experience this emotion today, 4 = extremely, i experienced this emotion at an extremely high level at some point today). the peak negative affect (pna) means are based on seven sets of negative emotions (e.g., “angry/irritated/annoyed”, “sad/downhearted/unhappy”) and the peak positive affect (ppa) means are based on nine sets of positive emotions (e.g., “love/closeness/trust”; “glad/happy/joyful”). to assess stable affect, the peak ratings of positive and negative affect for each day were averaged across seven daily ratings. the internal reliabilities for these ratings were .75 or higher across the 7 daily ratings in the current sample. well-being — the satisfaction with life scale (swls; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) gauges global well-being using five items that are answered on a 7 point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). higher scores indicate higher global life satisfaction and well-being. an example item is: “in most ways my life is close to my ideal”. within the current sample the internal reliability was good (alpha = 0.86). psychological distress— the depression, anxiety, and stress scale (dass) measures three separate indicators of distress: depression, anxiety, and stress. the short version of the dass was used (henry & crawford, 2005). seven items assess each indicator, and items are answered using a 4 point scale (0 = did not apply to me at all, 3 = applied to me very much, or most of the time) with reference to feelings in the past week. sample items include: “i felt that life was meaningless”, “i found it difficult to relax”, “i felt i was close to panic”. higher scores indicate higher levels of general psychological distress. within the current sample the internal reliability for the full scale was very good, alpha = 0.90. resilience — the connor-davidson resilience scale (cd-risc; connor & davidson, 2003) includes 25 items that measure resilience, with responses made on a 5 point scale (0 = not at all true, 4 = true nearly all of the time). a sample item is “i can deal with whatever comes my way”. higher scores indicate higher resilience. within the current sample the internal reliability was strong (alpha = 0.92). procedure all of the data collection was done online. students enrolled in introductory level psychology courses can fulfill a course requirement through research participation. they select from available studies posted on a web site. the current research involved three separate phases. at phase 1, participants provided demographic information and completed the measures described above, except for the mdes. for phase 2, participants were asked to log into the web site on seven separate days to rate their peak emotions on the mdes. although participants were encouraged to provide ratings on 7 consecutive days, they were given 10 days to complete 7 daily ratings. to encourage europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 469 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participation, participants were told that there would be a drawing from among those who completed the 7 daily ratings and five participants would receive a $10 gift card. reminder emails were sent during the10-day time period. phase 3 began at least 30 days after phase 2 was completed. to encourage participation in phase 3, participants were told that they would be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift card. participants received an email reminding them to log in to complete the last part of the study. those who returned completed the outcome measures again (swl, dass, and cd-risc). participants the final sample of participants who completed all three phases totaled 120 (89 caucasian, 93 women, mage = 21.83, sdage = 6.52). the participants who completed all three phases were compared to those who did not (n = 208) on all of the measures collected at phase 1. the only difference was on aggressive humor, t(326) = 2.17, p = .03, and that difference was quite small (.23 on a 7-point scale), and was probably significant due to the high power of the test. those who completed phase 3 had a lower reported use of aggressive humor (m = 3.39, sd = 0.97) than did those who dropped out (m = 3.62, sd = 0.93). results the descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for all the measures are presented in table 1. table 1 summary statistics and bivariate correlations hs-aghs-afhs-sdhs-sepnappadasscd-riscsdmvariable swl .10-.15.01.33**.30**-.43**.57**-.64**.341.984 cd-risc .08-.23*.10-.47**.35**-.56**.68**-.540.842 dass .06.14-.04-.39**-.44**.42**-.450.640 ppa .10-.17.03-.32**.17-.600.052 pna .15.13-.06.27**-.320.620 hs-se .16.45**.03.121.564 hs-sd .30**.01.031.982 hs-af .17.850.815 hs-ag .960.393 note. swl = well-being (satisfaction with life); cd-risc = resilience; dass = psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and stress); ppa = mdes peak positive affect; pna = mdes peak negative affect; hs-se = self-enhancing humor style; hs-sd = self-defeating humor style; hs-af = affiliative humor style; hs-ag = aggressive humor style. swl and hs scores are on 1 to 7 scales. cd-risc and mdes scores are on 0-4 scales. dass scores can range from 0 to 3. the humor style scores were obtained at phase 1, the mdes scores at phase 2, and the swl, cd-risc, and dass scores at phase 3. *p < .05. **p < .01. the bivariate correlations indicate that both stable affect measures are related to the three outcomes. higher stable positive affect was positively related to resilience and well-being, but negatively related to psychological distress. for stable negative affect, the opposite pattern emerged. as expected based on previous findings examining positive and negative affect (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988), there was no reliable correlation between the two affect scores. only the self-enhancing humor style was related to the affect measures, with the expected findings that a self-enhancing style predicts higher stable positive affect and lower stable negative affect. other than a positive correlation between an affiliative humor style and resilience, only the self-enhancing humor style europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 humor, affect, and well-being 470 http://www.psychopen.eu/ was reliably related to any of the three outcome measures. consistent with past findings, a self-enhancing humor style is positively related to resilience and well-being, but negatively related to psychological distress. predicting stable affect three separate path analyses were conducted to predict the outcome variables resilience (cd-risc), well-being (swl), and psychological distress (dass) (see table 2). table 2 standardized effects for all paths and variance explained outcomes swldasscd-riscpnappa humor style total effectsself-enhancing .34***.43***-.48**.28**-.32** direct effects .18.24**-.29**.28**-.32** indirect effects .16***.19***-.19** total effectsself-defeating .05.07-.08-.11.01 direct effects .07.11-.06-.11.01 indirect effects .02-.04.02total effectsaffiliative .02.03.04.04-.05 direct effects .01-.06.01.04-.05 indirect effects .03.03-.03 total effectsaggressive .18-.15.14-.17.16direct effects .09-.04.04-.17.16indirect effects .09-.11.10peak affect total effectsppa .34**.30***-.43** direct effects .34**.30***-.43** total effectspna .19-.35***.19**direct effects .19-.35***.19**r2 .26***.36***.45***.12**.12** note. swl = well-being (satisfaction with life); cd-risc = resilience; dass = psychological distress (depression, anxiety, and stress); ppa = mdes peak positive affect; pna = mdes peak negative affect; hs-se = self-enhancing humor style; hs-sd = self-defeating humor style; hs-aff = affiliative humor style; hs-agg = aggressive humor style. bias corrected significance levels: *p < .05. **p < .02. ***p < .001. to identify bias corrected confidence intervals, 2000 bootstrap samples were drawn. in each analysis, the direct paths from the four humor styles to the two peak affect measures were the same, so they are shown first. humor styles did explain a moderate amount of variance in both peak positive and peak negative affect, however; only the self-enhancing humor style was reliably related to the stable affect ratings. consistent with the bivariate correlations, participants with stronger self-enhancing humor styles reported higher levels of stable positive affect and lower levels of stable negative affect. thus, while it seemed possible that humor other than self-enhancing uses could have contributed to differences in stable affect by helping to facilitate the presence of positive experiences, only the tendency to use humor to deflect or minimize potential stressors explained significant variance in stable affect levels averaged over seven days. europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 471 http://www.psychopen.eu/ resilience in the path analysis for resilience, the model explained a substantial amount of the variance (45%). ppa and pna both demonstrated reliable direct effects on resilience, with ppa having a positive relationship and pna a negative relationship. of the humor styles, only a self-enhancing humor style evidenced statistically reliable effects, and evidence was found for both direct and indirect positive relationships. to further assess the indirect paths, the multiple mediation macro developed by preacher and hayes (2008) was used and 2000 bootstrap samples were drawn to identify bias-corrected confidence intervals. both ppa (p = .002) and pna (p = .038) were found to be significant mediators, and they were not reliably different from each other as mediators (p = .10). psychological distress in the path analyses for the dass score, once again a substantial amount of variance was explained (36%), and both stable affect scores had significant direct effects. as would be expected, ppa was negatively related to dass and pna was positively related. a self-enhancing humor style again showed reliable direct and indirect effects on dass, with the relationships now negative. the multiple mediator paths were tested using the preacher and hayes (2008) macro and again there was evidence for mediation through both ppa (p = .008) and pna (p = .014), with no reliable difference between the two mediators (p = .340). well-being the path analysis predicting swl scores explained substantial variance (26%), but only ppa had a reliable direct effect (pna, p = .06). higher levels of stable positive affect were associated with greater life satisfaction. once again, only the self-enhancing humor style was related to the outcome, and in this case although the total effect was significant, only the indirect relationship was statistically reliable. in this case, the multiple mediation results indicated that only ppa was a significant mediator (p = .006) discussion our primary purpose was to determine if a good sense of humor could contribute to maintaining stable positive affect and minimizing stable negative affect. based on the broaden and build theory (fredrickson, 2013), a more positive stable affect was assumed to then facilitate psychological health in the form of higher resilience and wellbeing, and lower distress. using the humor styles questionnaire to distinguish among the different ways in which humor can be expressed as our sense of humor measure (martin et al., 2003), we were able to assess whether any and all humor styles might help support positive affect, or if only some styles were relevant. although most research that has examined the separate humor styles has found that only the adaptive styles, affiliative and selfenhancing, were related to psychological health outcomes, it remained possible that any humor uses might contribute to more stable positive affect by allowing for greater amusement (fredrickson, 2013) or mirth (martin, 2007) to be present in one’s life. by employing a longitudinal design, and path analyses, we were able to examine all direct and indirect relationships among the humor styles, stable affect, and psychological health outcomes. considering first the direct relationships between the humor styles and stable affect, the evidence supports only a self-enhancing humor style as relevant to stable affect. in both the simple bivariate relationships, and within the path model when all humor styles were included, there were no statistically reliable results for any of the other three humor styles. greater use of self-enhancing humor was both positively related to stable positive affect and negatively related to stable negative affect. in one sense, this is expected, since a major component of a self-enhancing humor style involves using humor to deflect or minimize threats to the self that might otherwise lead to europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 humor, affect, and well-being 472 http://www.psychopen.eu/ distress, an increase in negative emotions, and a potential reduction of positive affect. successful self-enhancing humor should limit negative affect while also supporting or increasing positive affect. on the other hand, within the broaden and build model the positive emotion of amusement is seen as one source of positive experiences that can build positive affect, and amusement would seem to include at least affiliative humor as a relevant humor style. amusement is described as sharing laughs and using humor to help strengthen social bonds (fredrickson, 2013). furthermore, within the character strengths model of virtues, the types of humor described as contributing to the transcendence virtue; liking to laugh and joke, bringing smiles to others, appear to include at least affiliative uses, and possibly other humor styles (peterson & seligman, 2004). although prior research had found that a self-defeating humor style was negatively related to positive personal qualities like optimism, hope, and happiness in both cross-sectional (cann & etzel, 2008) and longitudinal studies (cann, stilwell, & taku, 2010), we found no relationship of a self-defeating humor style with stable affect as a personal quality. one possibility is that the relationships found in the past reflect underlying differences in personality, but that a self-defeating humor style does not impact an individual’s variable affective experiences. a self-defeating style is not used to respond to specific events in a person’s life, rather it represents a more global negative perspective. this would be consistent with the other relationships found with a self-defeating humor style; higher depression, lower self-esteem, greater hostility (martin et al., 2003). a second issue addressed in the current research involved identifying how a good sense of humor might have positive effects on psychological health directly, or indirectly, mediated though differences in stable affect. as a first step in assuming possible mediation effects, it was necessary to demonstrate that differences in stable affect were related to the psychological health outcomes; otherwise indirect effects would be unexpected. across the three separate outcomemeasures, the path analyses revealed highly consistent results. first, as predicted, stable positive affect was related to all three outcomes. a higher stable positive affect predicted greater resilience and well-being and a lower level of psychological distress. stable negative affect, while uncorrelated with positive affect, also explained variance in two of the three outcomes. higher stable negative affect predicted greater psychological distress and lower levels of resilience. the relationship of stable negative affect with well-being failed to reach significance, although the coefficients were comparable to those for resilience. in general, being able to maintain higher positive affect and lower negative affect would seem to have significant psychological health benefits. according to the broaden and build model, these benefits accrue because positive affect supports more creative and flexible thinking, which makes the individual more resilient and able to maintain a positive frame of mind even when challenges arise (fredrickson, 2013). to validate this process, future research should specifically examine the roles of creativity and flexibility. positive affect might be important simply because it creates a more positive frame of mind, regardless of any differences in thinking styles. on the other hand, if stable positive affect does enhance creativity and flexibility in thinking, it also might facilitate expressions of humor, since creating humor often depends on these same qualities (brodzinsky & rubien, 1976). perhaps a cyclical pattern exists in which effective humor allows for establishing stable positive affect, which facilitates more effective humor, all as a result of creative and flexible thinking. the findings for the humor styles also were quite consistent across the three health outcomes. only a self-enhancing humor style was related to any of the outcomes. indirect effects, mediated through both positive and negative affect, were evident for both resilience and psychological distress, but the direct effects also were reliable for those outcomes. having a self-enhancing humor style has potential health benefits both by increasing resilience and decreasing psychological distress, but it also supports a more positive stable affect, which in turn has potential health benefits. for well-being the effects were generally weaker, only the indirect effect for self-enhancing humor was europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 473 http://www.psychopen.eu/ reliable, and it was mediated through positive affect. apparently, the presence of self-enhancing humor tendencies, regardless of the levels of the other humor styles, is a useful quality for enhancing psychological health and building resources to deal with threats. some other recent findings lend support to this possibility. leist and müller (2013) used cluster analyses to identify ‘humor types’ based on combinations of humor styles. they found three ‘types’: ‘humor deniers’ were low on all humor styles, ‘humor endorsers’ were high on all humor styles, and ‘selfenhancers’ were high on adaptive humor styles, but low on maladaptive styles. when they compared these types, they found that on a measure of self-esteem the self-enhancers scored higher than the other two types. so, the presence of higher maladaptive humors, even when adaptive humor styles were present was associated with lower self-esteem. however, on a measure of life satisfaction, there were no differences between the humor endorses and self-enhancers. so the presence of maladaptive humor styles, along with the adaptive styles, was not associated with lower life satisfaction. our results are clearly supportive of kuiper’s (2012) recent proposal that a good sense of humor helps to build and support resilience as a factor that can provide health benefits. kuiper also suggested that any efforts to understand the role of sense of humor in building resilience must consider important differences based on humor styles, and our results show that to be the case. a self-enhancing humor style was the only style found to contribute to resilience. kuiper also argued for sense of humor as part of an emotion regulation strategy that would allow for more positive reappraisals of threats. although our data do not consider individual instances of appraising potential threats, they do indicate that a self-enhancing humor style supports a more stable positive affective state that, based on the broaden and build model, should assist in creatively reappraising potential threats. overall, the direct effects between the self-enhancing humor style and resilience, and the indirect effects through stable affect, support humor use as a factor in building resilience. the current findings would seem to imply a very limited role for sense of humor in impacting psychological health; only a self-enhancing humor style was found to be beneficial. however, the focus on direct effects of sense of humor, or indirect effects mediated by stable affect, may not allow for the full impact of a good sense of humor to be appreciated. an affiliative humor style, the other adaptive humor style, has been found to be related to indicators of psychological health in some studies (martin et al., 2003), and a role for an affiliative style is implicated by both the broaden and build model and the character strengthsmodel. in both of thesemodels, shared humor is assumed to help build or strengthen social bonds. these enhanced or extended social bonds would likely provide the individual with greater social support, and social support has been implicated in enhanced psychological and physical health (e.g., cohen, 2004; holt-lunstad, smith, & layton, 2010). perhaps a good sense of humor, based on higher use of affiliative humor, indirectly impacts health by helping to establish the social connections that insure social support when needed. measures of resilience tend to focus on individual strengths and beliefs, with little attention to resilience that might grow out of interpersonal resources. for example, the cd-risc has only one item, out of 25, that mentions relationships. logically, there should be a role for resilience based on strong interpersonal relationships, and affiliative humor could help build that resource. some recent research provides support for this possibility. cann, zapata, and davis (2011) found that in romantic relationships, perceptions that your partner has an affiliative humor style were predictive of higher relationship satisfaction. even more impressive was the finding by ibarra-rovillard and kuiper (2011) that use of affiliative humor by a person portrayed as depressed, but no other humor style, led observers to feel more positive about themselves, potentially improving social bonds even for the depressed. finally, dyck and holtzman (2013) reported that the relationship between an affiliative humor style and depressive symptoms was fully mediated through europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 humor, affect, and well-being 474 http://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived social support, but the relationship for a self-enhancing style with depressive symptoms remained even when social support was controlled. thus, it seems a worthwhile direction for future research to consider how a good sense of humor, based on high affiliative humor uses, might influence psychological health by providing the resources often available through greater social support. our results offer initial support for the importance of a good sense of humor, reflected in higher uses of self-enhancing humor, in supporting stable positive affect, building resilience, and limiting psychological distress. the longitudinal research strategy increases the possibility that a causal link might be assumed between adaptive humor styles and positive health outcomes. obviously, it will now be important to examine these relationships in a more diverse sample and over a longer period of time. in addition, it will be important to consider other indicators of stable positive affect. we employed a measure based on peak affective experiences daily, but daily affect can show considerable variability across a day (kuppens, van mechelen, nezlek, dossche, & timmermans, 2007). thus, it might be useful to consider variability of affect as well as peak or average experiences as indicators of stable affect. a high peak with high variance might yield very different effects compared to the same peak affect with low variance. our results also support the calls in the literature for viewing humor and sense of humor as complex constructs. attempts to assess sense of humor as a global construct are likely to confound adaptive and maladaptive humor styles and lead to inconsistent findings. humor uses, when adaptive, can be beneficial, but not all uses of humor will be adaptive. furthermore, the different forms of adaptive humor may operate differently in affecting psychological health. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to thank jennifer feagans for her valuable assistance with data collection. references abel, m. h. 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(2011). what is resilience? a review and concept analysis. reviews in clinical gerontology, 21(2), 152-169. doi:10.1017/s0959259810000420 about the authors arnie cann is a professor in the psychology department and the health psychology doctoral program at the university of north carolina charlotte. his two main research programs focus on humor and its implications for successful relationships and psychological health, and on posttraumatic growth processes. chantal collette conducted positive affect research with dr. cann while completing her honors degree in psychology at the university of north carolina charlotte. she completed her master’s degree in social work at the university of north carolina charlotte and is currently working as a social worker for davita dialysis. her areas of interest include positive affect, mindful eating, and the factors that lead to obesity. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2014, vol. 10(3), 464–479 doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i3.746 cann & collette 479 http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/humr.1996.9.3-4.303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20593 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.2.320 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-006-9015-4 http://dx.doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1041.2008.00301 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0959259810000420 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en humor, affect, and well-being (introduction) sense of humor and appraisal of stressors sense of humor as a personal strength sense of humor and maintaining happiness sense of humor and resilience humor styles: all humor uses are not created equal sense of humor and positive emotions method materials procedure participants results predicting stable affect resilience psychological distress well-being discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors immediate and persisting effects of controversial media information on young people’s judgement of health issues research reports immediate and persisting effects of controversial media information on young people’s judgement of health issues attila szabo* ab [a] institute of health promotion and sport sciences, elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. [b] institute of psychology, elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract whether true or false, media information shapes people’s thinking. false information trigger beliefs which could compromise health behaviour. in this intervention study, the effect of controversial messages on 91 young participants’ judgement of health issues was tested. held opinions about health-related issues were assessed before, after and one week after viewing a controversial tv-interview. using preinterview opinions for baseline, changes in judgements were assessed immediately after and one week after the interview. at both times, the opinions differed statistically significantly from baseline (p < .001). the relationship between opinions immediatelyand one week-after viewing the interview was statistically significantly stronger (p < .001) than their association with the baseline. the results provide evidence for immediate change in judgment resulting from controversial information and demonstrate that the change persists for at least one week. the findings can be explained based on the schema theory and suggest that controversial information could have powerful impact on subjective judgement. consequently, young people need to be educated in health issues and in the evaluation of media information to enable them to make the right choice when the need arises. keywords: beliefs, influence, opinions, schema theory, views europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 received: 2019-02-20. accepted: 2019-08-29. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: 1117 budapest, bogdánfy ö. u. 10/b, hungary. e-mail: szabo.attila@ppk.elte.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. media can prime people’s opinion (roskos-ewoldsen, klinger, & roskos-ewoldsen, 2007). there are several theories for the media effects on people. three popular models are the agenda-setting, priming, and framing (scheufele & tewksbury, 2007). agenda-setting is a model which purports that there is a strong relationship between the emphasis (placement and amount, order and priority, and frequency and duration) of certain issues in the mass media and the subjective importance attributed to these topics by their audience (mccombs & shaw, 2017). priming is the influence on people’s judgement that changes the standards individuals use to evaluate certain issues (iyengar & kinder, 1987). framing reflects the directed perspective in which a subject matter is presented in the media that can influence its interpretation by the audience (scheufele & tewksbury, 2007). agenda-setting and priming are accessibility effects requiring attention to an issue to be stored in the memory (price & tewksbury, 1997). in contrast, framing pertains to the description or meaning of an issue. the main difference between agenda-setting and priming in contrast to framing is in attention (accessibility) and outcome effect (applicability), which is driven by interpretation, or information processing (price & tewksbury, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1997). however, applicability also requires accessibility, otherwise it could not affect the judgment of the person. from a psychological perspective, the attended information first is stored in the short-term memory and via repeated, or a high impact, exposure (accessibility) and deeper processing (applicability) is stored into the long term the memory (scheufele & tewksbury, 2007). in accord with the schema theory (axelrod, 1973), the stored information form schemas or blueprints in the memory to be retrieved later. the accessing of a schema for new information is sequential. highly accessible schemas are processed first whereas less accessible schemas are processed last in the attempt to find a schema that fits the new information. if a schema is found, then the new information is evaluated against this schema. in the case of a close match between the existing schema and the new information, the old schema is updated accordingly. however, if the new information does not fit well the old schema, the information is subjected to cognitive judgement (credibility, doubt) whereby it is either refuted or is combined with the old schema to yield a modified schema. according to the theory, the newly generated schema emerges with new specifications with upgraded accessibility, credibility, and confidence in its interpretation (axelrod, 1973, figure 1, p. 1251). the credibility of the source is an important determinant in the schema classification of the new information (greer, 2003). based on the schema theory, highly credible and high impact information will form enduring schemas, but the less credible ones may either dissipate or form short-enduring quickly reformed schemas. the effects of media information on individuals’ judgements are generally studied in media-priming research (roskos-ewoldsen, roskos-ewoldsen, & dillman carpentier, 2002). initially, priming was used in cognitive psychology to study how information is represented within the network models of memory (anderson, 1996). different schools of thought assign seemingly distinct meaning to priming, but they agree that priming involves acute exposure to media information that influences people’s feelings, judgements and behaviours (iyengar & kinder, 1987). in the network models of memory (anderson, 1996) the information is stored in form of nodes. each node symbolizes a concept (e.g., health). the nodes are closely linked to related nodes (i.e., health is linked more closely to ‘fitness’ than to ‘inflation’). each node has an activation threshold. if activation reaches the threshold, the node fires while it exerts a strong influence on the activation of the associated nodes (i.e., if the ‘fitness’ node fires then the activation may spread to the ‘health’ node). this model is in accord with the schema theory (axelrod, 1973), but the latter emphasizes more applicability in schema transformation than the primarily accessibility-oriented network model. information priming activates nodes aiding in schema retrieval for evaluation and, if necessary, restructuring. conceptually, priming may be closely related to the nodes in the memory network aiding in their activation. its effects are often subject to relatively short time decay as it was revealed in past research (arendt, 2013; dillman carpentier, roskos-ewoldsen, & roskos-ewoldsen, 2008; riddle, 2010; sloman, hayman, ohta, law, & tulving, 1988). in contrast, framing may be more closely related to cognitive schemas (entman, matthes, & pellicano, 2009). its effect may last longer (druckman & nelson, 2003; lecheler & de vreese, 2011; tewksbury, jones, peske, raymond, & vig, 2000). despite past studies demonstrating the impact of framing on people’s judgement (gunter, mcaleer, & clifford, 1991; taylor, 2005), its decay over time is not clarified in the literature. in a political context, lecheler and de vreese (2011) found that the effects of framing are relatively persistent, however they are mediated by the prior knowledge of the individual; moderate knowledge is associated with the most persistent framing effects, while high or low political knowledge is linked to faster dissipating effects. based on the link between prior knowledge and framing effect, these findings agree, but also disagree, with the biased opinions via media information 250 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ earlier results obtained by schuck and de vreese (2006), who showed that the framing effect was moderated by political knowledge of the person, but those with little political knowledge were more affected by framing. thus, the impact and duration of framed information appears to be moderated by the relevant knowledge of the individual. framing research is primarily focused on politicaland violence issues. empirical work on the framing of health information is relatively meagre. abundant controversial information exists, in various media, about nutritional supplements, slimming products, pain-reliefers, and other similar products to motivate their consumption (philen, ortiz, auerbach, & falk, 1992). studies looking at the framing of health information often measure behaviour (consumption) as the outcome variable. unexpectedly, in contrast to political and violence framing, health-oriented framing appears to have little or no clear effect on health consumer behaviour according to a cochrane systematic review (akl et al., 2011). further, negatively framed messages appear to be more effective than positively framed messages, but both are prone to time decay (rivers, salovey, pizarro, pizarro, & schneider, 2005). taken together, the extant literature suggests that framed messages affect people’s judgement, but their effect is mediated by many factors and their impact on health behaviours is unclear. framed information appears to be prone to time decay. the current study investigated how effects of controversial information, framed through credible media (public television) and presented as originating from a credible source, could instantly alter young people’s judgement and whether the altered judgement persists one week later. in contrast to many past inquiries, this study did not rely on volunteers, its content was health-related, but not associated with health-consumerism, and accounted for participants’ existing knowledge and convictions by using a baseline to which the magnitude of change, solely due to the intervention, could be ascribed. two hypotheses were tested: 1) despite very controversial information, young people will change their mind about three very actual health/medical issues: medication, vaccination and medical doctors’ reliability, immediately after exposure to the information, and 2) the change in judgement (if evident) will prevail for at least one week. in fact, it was conjectured that the framed information will modify the existing schema (at baseline) of the participants and this new altered schema will be rather permanent and, therefore, detectable one week later as well. method participants the study was presented within the curriculum of a second-year research methods course at elte eötvös loránd university. this method was used to eliminate bias due to voluntary participation (rosenthal, 1965). ethical approval for the current research, which was embedded into the study-curriculum, was granted by the research ethics committee of the faculty of education and psychology at elte eötvös loránd university in budapest, hungary. the sample consisted of 91 participants, 42 men and 49 women. sample size adequacy was verified by using the g*power (v. 3.1) software (faul, erdfelder, buchner, & lang, 2009) with the following input parameters: alpha (α) = .05, effect size (cohen’s d) = 0.5, power (i – β) = .95. the results of the test yielded a minimum required sample size of 44 for paired t-tests and 88 for independent tests. participants’ mean (m) age was 21.18 ± sd = 1.47 years. they were sport science students who received no prior education in psychology. although examining university students, particularly psychology students, in szabo 251 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research has been criticized (henrich, heine, & norenzayan, 2010), this age group is especially vulnerable to media information (hargittai, fullerton, menchen-trevino, & thomas, 2010). further, young people’s judgement of health issues may be frail, because in general – they have fewer health concerns than older adults (dieleman et al., 2016). the study was totally anonymous. apart from age and gender, participants did not provide any other personal information through which they could be identified. materials a 24-minute media-recorded television interview, which is available on the internet, with a famous retired cardiac surgeon having strong and controversial opinions, such as “vaccination should be obligatory and regulated by law” or “cholesterol-lowering medication can kill” was presented to sport science students attending a regular class. none of them was familiar with this interview. on three different occasions, they rated either with ‘yes’ (agree) or ‘no’ (disagree) six statements, five of which reflected the views of the cardiac surgeon giving the interview: 1) “this nation is addicted to medication.”, 2) “the doctors make deadly mistakes and often mislead us.”, 3) “cholesterol lowering drugs have the opposite effect and can kill.”, 4) “the parent who does not vaccinate her child could be considered a murderer.”, 5) “the vaccine against the influenza virus contains poisonous mercury.”, and 6) “professor (name) is a very famous cardiac surgeon with international reputation.” the statements were taken directly from the recorded interview. the first five statements were made by the interviewee and the last by the interviewer. the whole interview revolved around the first five questions. procedure research venue and passive consent for participation the class entitled “being participant in psychology research” was planned for the second class of the semester in a large lecture hall. it was scheduled for the late morning hours. although, the current study was part of the course curriculum, passive consent was obtained by projecting a consent form on a large screen which clearly highlighted that by providing answers, which are totally anonymous, the students consent to participation. this method is identical to consent obtained in online studies (british psychological society, 2017). consequently, there was no pressure to participate. however, none of the class attendees declined participation. information provided to the participants the students were informed that the level of their convictions concerning certain health and medical issues is measured at three different times to determine the stability of the personal beliefs over time. then they were told that after assessing their convictions at baseline (the very first measurement before the presentation of the video-interview) they will watch a video that could distract their convictions. the deception concerning the stability of personal beliefs as the primary goal of the study was necessary to minimize response bias and it was disclosed and clarified upon the termination of the study. (in fact, all the results and all possible interpretations were discussed as part of the lecture material even with those who were absent at the time(s) of data collection.) data collection all participants received three pieces of identically coded answer sheets. the codes were identical to ensure the later matching of the responses. the distribution and collection of the answer sheets, as well as all the projections on the classroom screen, were performed by an older student research assistant in the absence of biased opinions via media information 252 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the class instructor. on the first answer sheet (baseline measure), participants indicated their age and gender (no other personal information was collected) and then either agreed with a ‘yes’ or disagreed with ‘a no’ to the six statements described in the materials section. (these answer sheets did not contain the statements, which were projected on a large classroom screen, but simply the yes or no answers preceded by the number of the statement.) immediately before the video, the student research assistant, who also started and stopped the video, collected the first set of completed answer sheets, while the other two were kept by the participants for later. the projected video-interview before starting the video, the students were asked to pay full attention to the interview. the video was played on large screen between 70-75 decibel (db) in a large classroom and it started with the interviewer’s introduction of the interviewee of the documentary as a world-renowned cardiac surgeon. this introduction stressed the credibility of the interviewee. once the interview ended, participants were asked to complete the second answer sheet containing the same six statements as the one completed before the intervention. subsequently, the student research assistant collected the answer sheets and participants were told to keep the third answer sheet for the following week. assessing residual effects and debriefing one week later, immediately before the start of the lecture, participants completed the third answer sheet while the six statements (no video at this time) were projected on the class screen. after the collection of the answer sheets by the student research assistant, the lecturer entered the class and explained the purpose of the study to the students while their questions were answered. after completing the data analyses, the results of the study and their possible implications were collectively discussed as part of the lecture material. data analyses paper and pencil data were manually entered in an excel file, verified for accuracy, and imported into spss data-file. since 15 participants were absent one week after the presented video interview, the third data collection resulted in a lower sample size (n = 76) in contrast to the first and second data collection which took place on the same day. the sum of the ‘yes’ answers were computed for each case for each sampling occasion. next, the sum obtained before the interview (the baseline) was subtracted from the sum obtained immediately afterand one week after the video watching. this calculation resulted in two ‘change-scores’ also known as the ‘delta (δ) scores’; one accounting for the difference between the baseline and immediately after the video (n = 91) and one between the baseline and one week after the video (n = 76). the change-scores were subjected to one sample t-test, using a reference value m = 0, testing the null hypothesis that the observed change equals to zero. the two sets of change-scores were also compared to each other with a paired t-test to examine whether their magnitude differed at the two sampling occasions. when a statistically significant difference was found, the effect size (cohen’s d) was computed too. bootstrapping (1000 samples) was used in all tests to gather more accurate confidence intervals (banjanovic & osborne, 2016). correlations between the sum of the ‘yes’ answers, indicating agreement with the presented statements, were calculated to examine the congruity between the personal opinions at the three sampling times. szabo 253 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results the sum of agreements (yes) and disagreements (no) before and two times after watching the interview are illustrated in figure 1. the number of changes out of six possible, immediately after the interview and one week after the interview are illustrated in figure 2a and figure 2b, respectively. an initial independent t-test, testing whether there were gender differences in the two sets of change scores, yielded statistically no significant results, p > .05. subsequently, the data obtained from the two genders were examined together. figure 1. mean number of ‘yes’ (reflecting agreement) and ‘no’ (reflecting disagreement) answers at baseline, immediately afterand one week after the intervention. the bootstrapped one sample t-test examining whether change scores (or difference scores between the ‘yes’ answers; see figure 1) obtained immediately after the video differed from zero was statistically significant and yielded a large effect size (table 1). in fact, only four respondents did now show a change in any of their six existing (baseline) opinions after the interview. another t-test, examining the change scores one week after the interview, was statistically significant again and yielded a large effect size (table 2). the mean values of the change scores immediately followingand one week after the video watching also differed statistically significantly from each other, but only yielded a moderate effect size (table 3). an important finding is that 36 (47.4%) participants did not change again their opinion on any of the six statements within one week. out of these 36 individuals, only two did not change their judgement from baseline to immediately after the video assessment. this means that 34 of the participants from among who changed their opinions from baseline to immediately after intervention (all but four) fully maintained their new opinions one week later as well. biased opinions via media information 254 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. number of changes in opinions on six statements immediately after (a) and one week after (b) the video interview intervention. the range of possible change scores is -6 to +6. changes in the negative direction indicate changes towards disagreement and changes in positive direction reflect changes towards agreement. cases at 0 (.00), four immediately after and one week after, reflect no-changes in opinions on the six statements in comparison to the baseline. a +6 (one case in both figures) reflects change in opinion (from disagree to agree) on all six statements. table 1 results of the one-sample t-test testing the change in opinions from baseline to immediately after watching the video bootstrap one sample t-test (based on 1000 samples) m, sd 2.6484 (1.5519) bias (m, sd) -.0134 (-.0117) standard error (m, sd) .1591 (.1037) 95% confidence interval 2.3077 (1.3293) to 2.9451 (1.7616) range -1 to 6 t (df) 16.279 (90) p (2-tailed) and effect size (d) .001, 1.71 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation; df = degrees of freedom; d = effect size (cohen’s d). table 2 results of the one-sample t-test testing the change in opinions from baseline to one-week after watching the video bootstrap one sample t-test (based on 1000 samples) m, sd 1.9868 (1.6289) bias (m, sd) -.0064 (-.0175) standard error (m, sd) .1836 (.1199) 95% confidence interval 1.6316 (1.3731) to 2.3553 (1.8354) range -1 to 6 t (df) 10.634 (75) p (2-tailed) and effect size (d) .001, 1.22 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation; df = degrees of freedom; d = effect size (cohen’s d). szabo 255 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 results of the paired t-test testing the change in opinions from immediately after watching the video to one-week after watching the video (decay effects within one week) bootstrap paired t-test (based on 1000 samples) statistical indices immediately after watching the video one week after watching the video m, sd 2.6316 (1.5819) 1.9868 (1.6289) bias (m, sd) -.0176 (-.0143) .0135 (-.0095) standard error (m, sd) .1804 (.1235) .1935 (.1107) 95% confidence interval 2.3026 (1.3300) to 2.9868 (1.7992) 1.6447 (1.3931) to 2.3816 (1.8431) mean difference (sd) .6447 (1.1512) t (df) 4.882 (75) bias (standard error) .0040 (.1305) p .001 effect size (d) .56 95% confidence interval .3819 to .9207 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation; df = degrees of freedom; d = effect size (cohen’s d). correlation analyses indicated that the number of ‘yes’ answers given immediately afterand one week after the biased video interview correlated statistically significantly, but relatively weakly, with pre-video watching personal opinions, or ‘yes’ answers, r = 354, r2 = .125, p = .001, and r = 348, r2 = .121, p = .002, respectively. however, a stronger correlation emerged for the number of yeses immediately after and one week after the intervention, r = 755, r2 = .570, p < .001. based on steiger’s (1980) calculation of the difference between two dependent correlations, the strength of the correlation between the two post-intervention ‘yes’ answers differed statistically significantly from the strength of the correlation found between pre-intervention and immediately post intervention, as well as from the correlation coefficient reflecting the association between pre-intervention and one week after the video watching, z = 3.513, p < .001, effect size (cohen’s d) = 0.88 and z = 3.567, p < .001, d = 0.90, respectively. discussion although presenting highly controversial information, the watching of a recorded television interview produced large changes in the evaluation of three health related issues (medication, vaccination, and doctors’ reliability) immediately after the intervention. the nearly three-fold change in agreement with questionable and controversial statements, was reflected in a very large effect size, which points toward an acute change in at least three related, but not identical schemas. these results fully agree with axelrod’s (1973) schema theory. participants’ schemas on health issues, influenced by controversial messages, were changed. the change, according to axelrod, occurs as the result of a cognitive evaluation of the sourceand information credibility versus an existing schema. this evaluation, as it may be expected, varies between the participants, because of individual differences in the strength of the respective schemas (schmidt, 1975). such variability is evident in figure 2a and figure 2b. an important finding may be that nearly half (47%) of the participants maintained their new opinions on all six statements one week after seeing the interview. a permanency in the new distorted schema, therefore, can by observed in nearly half of the participants. however, this observation should be treated carefully since a one-week persistence – although showing stability in several schemas does not biased opinions via media information 256 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mean permanency. indeed, two or three weeks later the re-assessment of the opinions might have resulted in different outcome. therefore, to address the durability of the altered schemas longitudinal studies are necessary. at the baseline, which represented the existing schema, there was about one quarter of agreement with controversial health statements, but after the presentation of the interview this figure almost tripled and it was still twice as much one week later (refer to figure 1). despite persistence of the effects in about half of the participants, the mean change from baseline was weaker one week later than immediately after the controversial video, however the effect size was only medium. these findings agree with earlier results showing that framing effects persist for a while, but generally they weaken over time (druckman & nelson, 2003; lecheler & de vreese, 2011; tewksbury et al., 2000). it was suggested, that framing effects weaken in a relatively short period because there is no exposure to the framed information in that period (de vreese, 2004). therefore, a fading in the new, in this case a distorted, schema is likely the result of lack of use or reinforcement of the relevant schema, which was shown objectively in a motor schema research (carson & wiegand, 1979). on one hand, based on the schema theory it could be expected that participants without an existing schema for a health (or any other) issue develop a new information-based schema, which without reinforcement is weak and only persists until challenged or until is lost in the memory. on the other hand, people with an existing schema may alter/change that schema, but in lack of reinforcement they revert to the original schema over time. this renders research in the area rather complicated because qualitative studies may be needed to determine the existence and form of a schema concerning a subject matter. subsequently, a quantitative approach should be adopted to investigate the magnitude and duration of the change in existing and non-existing (i.e., not-yet-existing or newly formed) schemas over time in longitudinal investigation. another noteworthy result of the current research is the stronger correlation between the two post-intervention agreements (i.e. the ‘yes’ answers sharing 57% of the variance) vis-à-vis their individual correlations with the pre-intervention baseline (sharing close to 35% of the variance in both cases). the statistically significant differences between the two correlations suggests that the schemas after the intervention were more closely associated with each other than with the pre-existing schema. this difference in the strength of association supports both a shift in the original schemas and a greater congruity between the shifted/altered schemas in contrast their congruity with the original schemas. no research could be located testing the association between framed effects compared to a baseline, despite such research may provide a better overall picture about the impact of a framing intervention. practical implication the current findings demonstrate how exposure to controversial and possibly distorted information about health issues in the media could largely affect young people’s subsequent opinion or judgement within a few minutes. the age-group studied in this work is the largest internet consumer (eurostat, 2016), which along with the television represent the two most popular media (standard eurobarometer 82, 2014). the large effect sizes associated with the current results reveal that there is a large change in the judgement attributable to the information from the media, whether that information is real or questionable. such findings should attract attention to the dangers of biased, false and/or misleading information, which could be – without exaggeration (see khomami, 2015) – even deadly. beyond research, the internet-transformed societies’ primer goal should be the education of young people to defend themselves from the false, distorted and dangerous information szabo 257 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from the media, especially the internet, by showing them how to separate fact from opinion (austin & pinkleton, 2016). future studies need to investigate further and expand the current results in the context of age-groups, culture, education level and/or socio-economic status, and personality traits. strengths and limitations the strength of this research is the use of a non-volunteer sample, as volunteerism results in biased results (rosenthal, 1965). another strength of the study is that it focused on several (six) pieces of information and, therefore, multiple schemas, which possibly contributed to more reliable findings than focusing on a single schema when considering changes in judgements. another possible strength is the adoption of a baseline to which change scores were compared. the latter may account for the between-subject variability in the strength of the schemas and yield quantitative data that are attributable to the intervention. however, the study has several limitations too. first, it did not measure level of confidence in the viewed interview, which is known to be a mediating factor in framing effects. second, it did not control for the possible health information accessed by the participants during the week between the second and the third testing. despite statistical bootstrapping, the results cannot be generalized at population level. finally, the study cannot answer the question whether the altered schemas persisted or faded after one week; studies of longer duration are necessary to answer this question. conclusion this study shows that highly controversial media information has large and instant effect on young people’s judgement of health issues. these effects persist, with large effect sizes, even one week after the intervention. the results fit the schema theory, and changes in judgement could mirror both, new schema formation and schema alteration. minor fading over one week is evident. however, in contrast to pre-intervention, the modified judgements are more closely related to each other than to the pre-intervention baseline, also supporting both the shift in the direction and the persistence of this direction in judgment attributed to the novel information. the controversial nature of the information, and its adoption as personal view, highlights the dangers of the distorted, false, or unfounded information on young people’s view of various health issues. the consequences of distorted schemas are known to be very dangerous and social or governmental action in educating the vulnerable groups is urgently needed. future research should examine the durability of the altered schemas while trying to control for life events between the testing intervals. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments karina lantos is thanked for her help in data acquisition, data-entry and verification. biased opinions via media information 258 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references akl, e. a., oxman, a. d., herrin, j., vist, g. e., terrenato, i., sperati, f., … schünemann, h. 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(2000). the interaction of news and advocate frames: manipulating audience perceptions of a local public policy issue. journalism & mass communication quarterly, 77(4), 804-829. https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900007700406 about the author attila szabo is professor of psychology in the institute of health promotion and sport sciences at elte eötvös loránd university in budapest hungary. he is doctor of the hungarian academy of sciences (dsc) in the field of psychology with further affiliation in the institute of psychology at elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. szabo 261 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1929 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.0021-9916.2007.00326.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2fh0076770 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0267323106060987 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0278-7393.14.2.223 http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/eb/eb82/eb82_media_en.pdf https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.87.2.245 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00224490509552266 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f107769900007700406 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ biased opinions via media information (introduction) method participants materials procedure data analyses results discussion practical implication strengths and limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author on finding the source of human energy: the influence of famous quotations on willpower research reports on finding the source of human energy: the influence of famous quotations on willpower jesús alcoba* a, laura lópez a [a] international graduate school, centro superior de estudios universitarios la salle, universidad autónoma de madrid, madrid, spain. abstract positive psychology focuses on aspects that human beings can improve, thereby enhancing their growth and happiness. one of these aspects is willpower, a quality that has been demonstrated to have various benefits on people, as widely shown in the literature. as a result, a growing body of research is attempting to establish the conditions under which an individual’s willpower can be increased. this work attempts to confirm whether the famous quotations that people often use to inspire or motivate themselves can have a real effect on willpower. two experiments were conducted assigning randomly subjects to a group and priming them with famous quotations, and afterwards comparing their performance in a willpower task with a control group. the second experiment added a willpower depletion task before priming. as a result, primed subjects endured the willpower task significantly more time than control group, demonstrating that famous quotations related to willpower help to increase this capacity and to counteract the effect of willpower depletion. keywords: positive psychology, self-control, willpower, famous quotations europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 received: 2017-01-06. accepted: 2017-06-13. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: international graduate school, centro superior de estudios universitarios la salle, la salle 10, 28023 madrid, spain. email: jesus@lasallecampus.es this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. positive psychology and improvement of a person’s qualities although psychology has traditionally focused primarily on the diagnosis and intervention in people’s psychological problems, a new current has emerged over recent decades, the goal of which is to study people who are not suffering from any psychopathologies in order to develop a theoretical and technical field that will help increase people’s degree of adjustment and happiness. the generic name for this approach is positive psychology because, in principle, it does not focus on problems and negative issues, but rather on those aspects that people can improve, thereby increasing their personal growth and happiness (seligman, 2011). positive psychology interventions have demonstrated their capacity to improve people’s wellbeing (sin & lyubomirsky, 2009) and level of happiness (proyer, wellenzohn, gander, & ruch, 2015). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ willpower one of the areas that can be regarded as part of this general approach – given that it does not mainly focus on actions to treat any problematic psychology, but rather seeks to improve human skills – is research into willpower. the benefits of this capacity were observed decades ago by mischel, who conducted a series of experiments showing that four-year-old children who were able to defer gratification for a longer time would later go on to develop into more cognitively and socially-competent adolescents, achieving greater academic performance and being better equipped to cope with frustration and stress (mischel, shoda, & rodriguez, 1989). these initial studies were confirmed years later in a longitudinal study that followed 1,000 children and 500 twins from birth to the age of 30, the results of which confirmed mischel’s. it found that, irrespective of social class or intelligence, self-control alone could help to predict factors such as academic results, health, wealth, drug problems and even contact with the justice system (moffitt et al., 2011). it has also been described how greater self-control correlates with better academic results, a higher degree of psychological adjustment (lower level of psychopathology and greater self-esteem), fewer problems in controlling impulsive behaviour around food and alcohol, better relationships and interpersonal skills, secure attachment and better emotional responses (tangney, baumeister, & boone, 2004). however, despite its benefits, far from being a quality that is fully under human control, people make decisions that lead to immediate gratification even if these will be damaging in in future, instead of taking other decisions that, although they will not bring any short-term pleasure, will in fact benefit them more. this behaviour occurs even in cases where people are quite sure they will be sorry for making this decision afterwards (magen & gross, 2007). precisely through observing these faults in the self-regulation process and by conducting a series of initial experiments (baumeister, muraven, & tice, 2000), a line of research has appeared that attempts to look into these phenomena in more depth. the results have been broadly popularised in the publication willpower (baumeister & tierney, 2012). according to this model, self-control is a function that is necessary for success and which acts as a limited resource. in other words, as a person carries out certain actions, their reserve of willpower is drained (ego depletion). these actions fall into the following types – controlling thoughts, managing emotions, resisting impulses, focusing attention, channeling behavior and making decisions (baumeister, vohs, & tice, 2007). exercising any one of these reduces self-control in all of them. in other words, there is no independent reserve of willpower for each task and, conversely, exercising self-control in one area increases this capacity in all the others (baumeister et al., 2007). these considerations have led the authors in this field of research to state that self-control functions in a similar way to a muscle (muraven & baumeister, 2000) and that, in the same way, it can recover through rest (tyler & burns, 2008). this model has been tested in the areas of food, drink, spending, sexual behavior, intelligent thought, decision-making and interpersonal conduct (baumeister et al., 2007). although this field of research is broad and there are still many aspects that require clarification, it has been globally validated by a recent meta-analysis (hagger, wood, stiff, & chatzisarantis, 2010). alcoba & lópez 709 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these ideas have led to the emergence of a growing body of research that aims to determine the conditions under which the depletion of willpower can be counteracted. there is known to be a relationship between glucose and willpower, because it has been demonstrated that acts of self-control reduce the levels of this substance in the blood, and that consuming glucose counteracts the depletion of willpower caused by carrying out a task when then undertaking another that requires this capacity (gailliot et al., 2007). however, regardless of these findings, a series of studies has shown that there are other factors, without such a direct biological link (unlike the consumption of glucose, or rest), which also have an effect on the recovery of willpower. for example, a study by schmeichel and vohs (2009) showed that reaffirming a person’s fundamental values counteracts the effect of willpower depletion, suggesting that the key factor here is the greater level of mental engagement involved in reflecting on these values. another study has shown that activating positive emotions (through subliminal priming) also manages to counteract the effect of self-control depletion (ren, hu, zhang, & huang, 2010). research has also been conducted into the relationship between self-awareness and self-control, showing that an increase in self-awareness also helps to restore self-control in people who have previously suffered from depletion of this capacity (alberts, martijn, & de vries, 2011). another area of study has researched the way in which optimism impacts on the depletion of self-control, finding that activating an optimistic outlook (through priming) helps to counteract the effect of self-control depletion in subjects with dispositional optimism, but not in others (in den bosch-meevissen, peters, & alberts, 2014). following the accumulation of all this evidence, the question that now emerges is how to practically facilitate the replenishment of self-control beyond the limitations of experimental research, in which subjects are typically placed in a controlled situation and given explicit instructions. humans interact with the world through representational models that mediate between their actions and reality. language plays a fundamental role in these models, because it contributes to cognitive development, facilitating the establishment of analogies and relationships and providing a representational system that aids abstract thought (gentner, 2003). following these principles, this study seeks to establish whether the use of famous quotations has a role to play on willpower. these well-known phrases tend to be of value in that they are written in a beautiful way, or because they have been uttered by historical figures with whom a person wants to identify. it is therefore common to find them used in advertising slogans or shared on social media, and people amass them as pearls of wisdom. however, to date, no study has investigated their real potential to bring about change, or to help people achieve their goals. this study was designed with the intention of finding out the effect of these famous quotations on willpower, and comprises two experiments. the hypothesis of the first experiment was that priming people with the famous quotations related to willpower would increase this capacity among a group of subjects compared with a control group. in the second experiment both groups underwent ego depletion by taking part in a tedious task, in order to see whether the famous quotations were able to significantly replenish willpower levels among the group primed with these phrases. procedure and results experiment 1 19 college students in the field of health (17 females and 2 males) took part in this study, having been selected by a person unaware of the study’s objectives. the students were also unaware of the study´s objectives. the the influence of famous quotations on willpower 710 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions, the first with 10 subjects and the second with 9, as set out below: a. primed. these subjects were asked to imagine that they had to deal with a difficult situation, such as a competitive exam for a civil service job, or a very hard physical trial, and they were given a sheet of paper with a set of 9 famous quotations relating to willpower (example: "i've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why i succeed." michael jordan), from which they had to choose the three they felt would help them most in this situation. they then had to copy these phrases on the back of the sheet. all this information was written in a document. b. not primed. while the primed group were doing this, the non-primed group members were given a sheet of paper with 9 neutral phrases to copy on the back of the sheet (example: “they say that tomorrow morning it will rain in mountain areas, and it will be very cold. it may also snow in the higher areas.”). these instructions were also written in a document. next, all the participants had to solve a set of difficult anagrams, some of which were in fact impossible. the time that each subject took to give up on the task was recorded as a measurement of their willpower. subjects from the primed group (the ones who had copied the famous quotations) were expected to keep trying for longer to solve the anagrams. as it can be seen in table 1, the primed subjects spent longer trying to solve the anagrams. the kruskal-wallis test was carried out to test whether this difference was relevant. as it can be seen, the test detected a significant difference. in other words, the mere fact of having copied three famous quotations on the back of a sheet of paper substantially increased the participants’ willpower, expressed as the time taken to give up on an impossible task. table 1 results experiment 1 experimental condition kruskal-wallisnot primed primed mdn (sec) sd mdn (sec) sd z p 758 170 1109 124 -3.021 .001 experiment 2 experiment 1 showed that willpower related famous quotations could improve willpower. however, a different angle about this phenomenon is related to whether those quotations can counteract willpower depletion. in order to test this, another experiment was conducted. in this second experiment, a further condition was added to experiment 1, precisely to test whether, as well as increasing willpower among a group of subjects, the famous quotations would be able to recover their willpower after being depleted. some 38 college students in the field of health (12 males and 26 females) took part in this study, having been selected by a person unaware of the study’s objectives. the subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental conditions, each with 19 subjects. alcoba & lópez 711 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ firstly, all the subjects carried out a test in which they had to cross out all the letters “a” in a neutral text (the lorem ipsum type, commonly used in provisional document layouts) for 10 minutes. in the following test, the two experimental conditions were added: a. depleted-primed. as in experiment 1 these subjects were asked to imagine that they had to deal with a difficult situation and they were given a sheet of paper with the same set of 9 famous quotations to do with willpower, from which they had to choose the three that they felt would help them most in this situation. they had to copy these phrases on the back of the sheet. this test took 10 minutes. b. depleted-not primed. as in experiment 1, while the primed group were doing this, the non-primed group were given a sheet of paper with the same 9 neutral phrases to copy on the back of the sheet, listing them according to a numerical order that appeared at the start of each phrase. next, just as in experiment 1, all the participants had to solve a series of very difficult anagrams, some of which were impossible. once again, the time taken for each subject to give up on the task was recorded as a measurement of their willpower. it was expected that the depleted subjects in the primed group (who had prioritized the famous quotations) would keep going longer trying to work out the anagrams. before confirming whether there were significant differences between the groups taking part in the experiment, a test was done to check whether the depletion resulting from the crossing-out task had had the desired effect. in order to check whether the differences between the times invested in the two experiments, a comparison was made between the medians, which can be seen in table 2. as it can be seen, there are significant differences between the two primed groups and the groups that were not primed, respectively. table 2 comparison of medians between the groups in the two experiments priming condition exp. 1 (not depleted) exp. 2 (depleted) kruskal-wallis mdn (sec) sd mdn (sec) sd z p primed 1109 124 713 335 -2.501 .011 not primed 758 170 530 124 -3.665 < .001 this experiment focuses on whether the famous quotations can counteract the effect of willpower depletion. for this reason it was relevant to find out if the designed task (crossing out all the letters “a” in a text) actually depleted subjects’ willpower. the way to verify this was to analyze if the subjects of the second experiment (both those who had been primed and those who had not) invested more time in trying to solve the anagrams, as it was the case. with regard to the difference between the groups participating in the second experiment, table 2 shows that the subjects in the “depleted-primed” experimental group spent a longer amount of time working on the anagram test, suggesting that the famous quotations increased their willpower. to check whether the difference observed was statistically significant, after conducting a test that confirmed the normality assumption (shapiro-wilk), a t-test was calculated. since there is no homoscedasticity of variances between both groups (levene´s test), the corrected value of “t” for these circumstances was obtained and so it was verified that the difference is statistically significant (table 3). the influence of famous quotations on willpower 712 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 t-test experiment 2 experimental condition levene’s test t-test f p t p depleted – primed vs. depleted not primed 18.144 < .001 2.363 .027 to sum up, simply prioritizing a series of famous quotations for 10 minutes was enough to increase the willpower in primed subjects, offsetting the depletion caused by the first test. discussion and conclusions humans interact with the world through representational models that mediate between their actions and reality, and language plays a fundamental role in these models (gentner, 2003). the two experiments described in this study show that priming subjects with famous quotations related to willpower helps to increase this capacity and to counteract the effect of willpower depletion. this demonstrates the important effect of language and cognition, not just on people’s mental lives, but also on their capacities. in fact, it has been shown that people’s ability to carry out a task increases when they conduct a cognitive reconstruction of it as a test of their willpower (magen & gross, 2007). one possible explanation for the results obtained in these experiments is that the phrases used magnify fundamental human values. it is known that thinking about core values has the power to increase reserves of willpower and prevent their depletion (schmeichel & vohs, 2009), and that personal values can increase performance, as demonstrated in the academic environment, although subsequent studies will be needed to study this relationship in greater depth and clarify it (parks & guay, 2012). other explanations for these results should be sought in alternative explanations for the model of self-control set out in this study. in particular, it has been proposed that motivation and positive emotions could be factors involved in reducing or replenishing a human being’s willpower (hagger et al., 2010). in the particular case of the experiments carried out here, it is possible that the famous quotations may have acted either to generate motivation or to induce a positive state of mind able to restore the subjects’ reserves of self-control. in this respect, the results of both experiments are consistent with preceding research relating the increase in willpower with fundamental values (schmeichel & vohs, 2009), the activation of positive emotions (ren et al., 2010), self-awareness (alberts et al., 2011) and optimism (in den bosch-meevissen et al., 2014). in this sense, there is a broad field of research with respect to the relationship between the use of language as a way of representing the world, the emotions that it can elicit and willpower. from this perspective, more research is needed to clarify how these variables are dynamically related in order to draw conclusions that facilitate the understanding of human behavior and also to derive practical recommendations. although the results obtained are statistically significant, this study also has various limitations. firstly, all the subjects were university students, and most of them were women. this makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about the effect of similar studies on other types of samples. secondly, in the first experiment the number of subjects in the sample used was significantly smaller, meaning that non-parametric tests had to be alcoba & lópez 713 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ used. thirdly, the subjects of the study – as with any group in the general population – had different levels of willpower (hagger et al., 2010) and as this variable was not monitored (because there is no way to measure willpower without depleting it at the same time) it is not possible to precisely determine how the depletion of self-control reserves and subsequent replenishment of these reserves impacts on subjects with higher or lower levels of willpower at the outset. a fourth limitation is that the mere imagination of the difficult situation could have influenced willpower, even before working with the famous quotations. lastly, but by no means least importantly, the study does not take into account the effects of the results obtained over the medium or long term. this study joins a growing body of research that, within the general area of positive psychology, enables people who are not suffering from any psychopathology to further develop their own capacities, in this case selfcontrol, which is related, as described, with a series of benefits ranging from better academic results and better psychological adjustment to fewer problems with controlling impulsive behavior around food and alcohol, improved relationships and interpersonal skills, secure attachment and better emotional responses (tangney et al., 2004). in this respect, as a recommendation, it is considered relevant to incorporate the ideas emanating from this study into those actions in which willpower is an important variable, such as psychological or academic intervention programs. for example, the use in those interventions of famous motivational quotations that are aligned with the values of subjects participating in such programs. from these reflections it is to be hoped that more studies like this one will be carried out in future, and that they will continue to offer new avenues for human personal development. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alberts, h. j. e. m., martijn, c., & de vries, n. k. 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(2004). high self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success. journal of personality, 72(2), 271-324. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.x alcoba & lópez 715 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00534.x http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.2.325 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0019486 http://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2055 http://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.415 http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1010076108 http://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.126.2.247 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2011.00461.x http://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12039 http://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2010.38.7.919 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0014635 http://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20593 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ tyler, j. m., & burns, k. c. (2008). after depletion: the replenishment of the self’s regulatory resources. self and identity, 7(3), 305-321. doi:10.1080/15298860701799997 about the authors jesús alcoba, msc, mba, phd is the dean of la salle international graduate school of business. he has authored five books and co-authored another eleven, apart from many scientific papers and articles. as an international speaker he has lectured in several countries from the usa to the philippines. his research mainly deals with human development in organizations. laura lópez is a phd candidate, a teacher in la salle university college and also a member of la salle international graduate school team. she is specializing in the impact of inner-life access techniques in children academic success. the influence of famous quotations on willpower 716 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 708–716 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1372 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/15298860701799997 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ the influence of famous quotations on willpower (introduction) positive psychology and improvement of a person’s qualities willpower procedure and results experiment 1 experiment 2 discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mediating role of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing research reports mediating role of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing murat yildirim* a [a] department of neuroscience, psychology and behaviour, university of leicester, leicester, united kingdom. abstract the present study was a first attempt to examine the mediating role of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing. participants consisted of 256 turkish adults (174 males and 82 females) and aged between 18 and 62 years (m = 36.97, sd = 9.02). participants completed measures assessing fear of happiness, affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing. the results showed that fear of happiness was negatively correlated with resilience, affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing, while resilience was positively correlated with affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing. the results of mediation analysis showed that (a) resilience fully mediated the effect of fear of happiness upon flourishing, and satisfaction with life, (b) partially mediated the effect of fear of happiness upon affect balance. these findings suggest that resilience helps to explain the associations between fear of happiness and affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing. this study elucidates the potential mechanism behind the association between fear of happiness and indicators of well-being. keywords: resilience, fear of happiness, affect balance, positive affect, negative affect satisfaction with life, flourishing europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 received: 2018-04-16. accepted: 2018-07-23. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of neuroscience, psychology and behaviour, university of leicester, george davies centre, university road, leicester, le1 9hn, united kingdom. e-mail: my109@le.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. with the advent of positive psychology, researchers have focused not only on treating negative states (e.g. depression, anxiety) but also promoting positive states (e.g. happiness, life satisfaction), individual strengths and their relations to mental health, well-being and social prosperity (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). positive psychology emphasises the importance of identifying and understanding factors associated with subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and flourishing. recent research identified new sets of variables that affect both subjective and psychological well-being. for example, fear of happiness is one of the variables that was found to be negatively associated with positive psychological variables. fear of happiness refers to the notion that being happy results in bad things to happen and should be bewared of (joshanloo, 2013). according to joshanloo (2013), individuals who have high levels of fear of happiness may suppress their authentic positive emotions toward pursuing happiness to shun negative effects of positive states of mind (e.g. happiness, joy). fear of happiness can be considered as a dysfunctional belief that may generate a tendency toward dampening of positive emotions. there is a variety of factors europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ affecting people’s attitude toward experience of positive emotions. joshanloo (2013) grounded the theoretical position of fear of happiness on a wide range of contexts including culture, religion, and superstitious beliefs. giving specific focus to the cultural differences, joshanloo et al. (2014) argued that fear of happiness is a reflection of culture and should be considered as a beliefs system in a culture. therefore, culture is an important factor that affect people’s attitude toward perception and experience of positive emotions. reasons for endorsing fear of happiness vary from person to person and culture to culture. however, four reasons appear to be universal for holding fear of happiness beliefs: (a) being happy stimulates unpleasant things to happen, (b) being happy morally makes you a worse person, (c) expressing positive emotions (e.g. happiness, cheerfulness) is bad for you and others, (d) seeking for happiness is bad for you and others (joshanloo & weijers, 2014). previous research provided evidence on the impact of fear of happiness on one’s well-being by showing that fear of happiness is negatively associated with subjective happiness, satisfaction with life, positive affect, autonomy, positive relations with others, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, personal growth, and purpose in life and that positively associated with negative affect (joshanloo, 2013; yildirim & aziz, 2017; yildirim & belen, 2018). that is, individuals with higher levels of fear of happiness report lower levels of subjective and psychological well-being. studies also demonstrated that higher scores on fear of happiness were related with higher scores on externality of happiness and lower scores on self-esteem (yildirim, barmanpek, & farag, 2018). furthermore, fear of happiness was found to be uniquely important to both subjective and psychological well-being after controlling for personality. fear of happiness is directly responsible for regulating individual difference in the experience of lower positive affect and higher negative affect — components of subjective well-being — and lower positive relations with others, self-acceptance and autonomy — components of psychological wellbeing (yildirim & belen, 2018). well-being is a multifaceted concept of optimal experience, and functioning and generally derived from two broad approaches (ryan & deci, 2001). the first approach is subjective well-being or happiness, grounded on hedonism and that refers to the experience of pleasure and avoidance of pain (kahneman, diener, & schwarz, 1999). the second approach is psychological well-being or flourishing, grounded on eudaimonia, and that refers to how to achieve the realization of one’s authentic potential, goals, meaning, and fulfilment in life (ryff, 1989; ryff & keyes, 1995). subjective well-being refers to cognitive and affective assessment of life (diener, 1984, 2000). put it differently, subjective well-being is defined as what individuals think and how they feel about their lives when they make cognitive and affective judgements about their existence (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). subjective well-being is conceptualized as being a tripartite model that constitutes three different, yet associated elements: the presence of frequent positive emotions, the infrequent of negative emotions, and the satisfaction with life (diener, lucas, & oishi, 2002; diener, scollon, & lucas, 2003; ryan & deci, 2001). cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental studies revealed that individual with high levels of subjective well-being are more successful across different life domains including but not limited to social relationship, marriage, income, work performance, and physical and mental health. evidence also showed that happiness-related characteristics, resources, and successes are arisen as results of experiencing frequent positive affect (lyubomirsky, king, & diener, 2005). furthermore, studies indicated that higher satisfaction with life is positively associated with adaptive psychological constructs (e.g. gratitude) and negatively associated with maladaptive psychological constructs (e.g. perceived stress) (yildirim & alanazi, 2018). psychological well-being has been characterised as an array of psychological characteristics concerned with positive human functioning such as striving for excellence and engagement with life difficulties (keyes, shmotkin, & ryff, 2002). ryff (1989) proposed that psychological well-being can be defined as having six elements including, autonomy, fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 184 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ positive relations with others, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth. these elements are theoretically and empirically independent yet related with one another and that an optimal achievement of psychological well-being requires striving each of the elements independently. cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence suggested that psychological well-being is related with flexible and creative thinking, pro-social behaviour, physical health (huppert, 2009), and meatal health (ryff, radler, & friedman, 2015). the concept of flourishing is presented as an inclusive and integrative theoretical framework to understand well-being by encompassing psychological and social well-being and refers to optimal level of well-being (diener et al., 2010; keyes, 2002). flourishing as a psychosocial model of well-being is described as a composition of feeling good and functioning effectively and that includes multiple concepts of high levels of psychological well-being, emotional well-being, and social well-being (huppert & so, 2013; keyes, 2002). it also refers to a fundamental ingredient of well-being that leads to a positive human development (huppert & so, 2013), and fulfilment and purpose in life (seligman, 2011). flourishing is not only the absence of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, but also the opposite of mental health problem (huppert & so, 2013). it can be conceived as a source of resilience, functioning as a protective factor against stressful life events (keyes, 2002). according to huppert and so (2013), flourishing should be investigated in its own right to determine the correlates and causes of flourishing in order to understand positive aspects of human functioning. seligman (2011) provided a theoretical foundation of flourishing by combining hedonic and eudaimonic approaches of well-being and grounded flourishing on five independent but related elements, known with the acronym of perma: positive emotions (p), engagement (e), relationships (r), meaning (m), and achievement (a). it is important to enhance flourishing in order to promote well-being. evidence suggested that flourishing is related with psychosocial functioning including better emotional health, higher engagement with daily life activities, fewer work loss days, and days of work cutbacks (keyes, 2002, 2007). studies also showed that flourishing is positively associated with purpose in life, resilience, and high intimacy and negatively with helplessness, risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic physical diseases with age (keyes, 2007). flourishing individuals are more likely to function positively in different contexts. resilience as a mediator resilience is an important concept that attracts a great deal of attention of researchers across different fields including psychology, sociology, education and economy. resilience refers to one’s capability to “bounce back” or “recovery” from negative life events, resist to illness and flexibility to adapt the environment in order to maintain his or her physical and psychological well-being (ryff & singer, 2003; smith et al., 2008). resilience is also characterised as a functional personality characteristic that promotes individual thriving after extremely traumatic events (bonanno, 2004). resilience is a critical individual characteristic in promotion of well-being and associated with a wide range of health-related outcomes. research into resilience has showed that resilience is negatively associated with anxiety, perceived stress, depression, negative affect, and physical symptoms and that positively associated with positive affect both in clinical and non-clinical samples (smith et al., 2008). smith et al. (2008) also found that resilience is positively associated with optimism, purpose in life, social support, active coping, and positive reframing and negatively associated with pessimism, alexithymia, negative interaction, behavioral disengageyildirim 185 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ment, denial, and self-blame. individuals with higher levels of resilience are more likely to experience less mental, social, and physical health problems. some studies have explicitly explored the relationship between resilience and subjective and psychological well-being. for example, sagone and de caroli (2014) showed that resilience is positively related with autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, personal growth, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. higher scores on resilience reflect greater psychological well-being. shi et al. (2015) conducted a cross-sectional study of the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between stress and life satisfaction in chinese medical students and found that resilience partially mediates the relationship between stress and life satisfaction. higher scores on perceived stress are negatively associated with lower scores on resilience, resulting in lower level of life satisfaction. individuals with high levels of fear of happiness are confronted with various problems when they experience life challenges. on these occasions, the individuals’ levels of affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing may be negatively affected. previous studies have indicated the direct relationships between fear of happiness and well-being indices (e.g. yildirim & belen, 2018). however, due to the nature of the variables, the relationship between fear of happiness and well-being might be much more complex than a simple direct relationship. there might be other factors influencing the relationships between fear of happiness and well-being. resilience might be a variable with the potential to explain the relationship between fear of happiness and well-being indices. considering the negative effect of fear of happiness on individuals’ levels of well-being (joshanloo, 2017; yildirim et al., 2018), resilience might play an important role in protecting well-being against the negative effect of fear of happiness. to put it differently, resilience may function to preserve and promote positive psychological outcomes against negative impact of fear of happiness. hence, examining the mediating role of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and indices of well-being would be fruitful to understand the mechanism underlying between the concepts. this would also assist to expand theoretical and empirical findings on fear of happiness, well-being, and resilience. present study considering the role of resilience as preventive and protective factor in promotion of well-being, examining the mediating role of resilience on the relationship between fear of happiness and well-being can elucidate the mechanisms behind this association. the present study is important in terms of being the first study to investigate the impact of resilience in the relationship between fear of happiness and well-being indices. more specifically, the present study was set out to examine the impact of resilience on the relationships between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. accordingly, we expected that fear of happiness would share a significant negative correlation with resilience, satisfaction with life, positive affect, affect balance, and flourishing and a significant positive correlation with negative affect. we also expected that resilience would share a significant positive correlation with satisfaction with life, positive affect, affect balance, and flourishing and a significant negative correlation with negative affect. additionally, we hypothesised that fear of happiness would directly contribute to explain variation in flourishing, satisfaction with life, affect balance, and resilience. furthermore, we expected that resilience would be directly important to account for variance in flourishing, satisfaction with life and affect balance. as for the mediation role of resilience in the relationship between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing, we expected that resilience would fully mediate the relationships between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, and flourishing, and partially mediate the relationship between fear of happiness and affect balance (see figure 1). fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 186 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. hypothesised model used to analyse the impact of the resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing. method participants participants comprised of 256 turkish adults drawn from the general public. the participants ranged in age from 18 to 62 years old (m = 36.97, sd = 9.02). table 1 shows the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample. table 1 socio-demographic characteristics of the sample variable frequency percent gender males 174 68.0 females 82 32.0 marital status married 201 78.5 single 52 20.3 widowed 3 1.2 education level secondary school 7 2.7 high school 28 10.9 college 9 3.5 university 128 50.0 post-graduate 84 32.9 economic level very low 24 9.4 low 46 18.0 average 167 65.2 high 17 6.6 very high 2 0.8 in summary, 68% of the samples were males, and 32% were females. 78.5% of the participants self-identified themselves as married, 20.3% as single, and 1.2% as widowed. the participants were typically highly educayildirim 187 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ted. the most common education levels that participants completed at the time of taking part the survey were respectively university graduate (50%), post-graduate (32.9%), high-school graduate (10.9%), college graduate (3.5%), and secondary-school graduate (2.7%). as for their economic levels, the participants (65.2%) generally perceived their self-status as medium, 18% as low, 9.4% as very low, 6.6% as high, and 0.8% as very high. the participants did not receive any type of compensation for their involvement in the study. measures fear of happiness scale the fear of happiness scale (foh), developed by joshanloo (2013), is a 5-item self-report scale that is designed to be unidimensional. the scale measures the general idea that having extreme positive emotions may lead to negative outcomes. the items are rated on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). some of the items are “having lots of joy and fun causes bad things to happen” and “excessive joy has some bad consequences.” the scale score is the sum of items, with higher scores indicating higher level of fear of happiness. reliability and validity studies of turkish adaptation of the scale indicated good evidence of reliability and validity (yildirim & aziz, 2017). in this study, cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the foh was .86. satisfaction with life scale the satisfaction with life scale (swls), developed by diener et al. (1985), is a 5-item self-report scale that is constructed to be unidimensional. the scale assesses individual’s global judgements of life satisfaction. the items are rated on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). some of the items are “in most ways my life is close to my ideal” and “i am satisfied with my life.” the scale score is the sum of items, with higher scores indicating higher level of life satisfaction. turkish adaptation of the scale showed satisfactory evidence of reliability and validity (durak, senol-durak, & gencoz, 2010). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the swbs was .81. scales of positive and negative experience the scales of positive and negative experience (spane), developed by diener et al. (2010), is two-six items subscales measuring individual positive and negative emotional experiences and feelings over the previous four weeks. the items are rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (very rarely or never) to 5 (very often or always). some items are “positive”, “happy”, “negative” and “sad”. the scale scores for positive affect and negative affect subscales are separately summed, with higher scores showing frequent experiences of positive feelings and frequent experiences of negative feelings, respectively. affect balance score can be obtained by subtracting the negative score from the positive score, with higher scores showing frequent experiences of positive feelings and infrequent experiences of negative feelings. turkish adaptation of the scale indicated good evidence of reliability and validity (telef, 2015). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the positive affect and negative affect were respectively .82 and .84. flourishing scale the flourishing scale (fs), developed by diener et al. (2010), is an 8-item scale that is established to be unidimensional. the scale measures a wide range of social-psychological well-being from important domains of human functioning including relationships, life purpose, self-esteem and optimism. the items are rated on a 7point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). some items are “my social relationships fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 188 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ are supportive and rewarding” and “i lead a purposeful and meaningful life.” the scale score is the sum of items, with higher scores referring to higher level of satisfaction in significant areas of functioning. turkish adaptation of the scale revealed satisfactory evidence of reliability and validity (telef, 2010). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the fh was .85. brief resilience scale the brief resilience scale (brs), developed by smith et al. (2008), is a 6-item self-report scale that is designed to be unidimensional. the scale measures the ability to bounce back or recover from adversities, setbacks, and failures. the items are rated on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). some of the items are “i tend to bounce back quickly after hard times” and “i tend to take a long time to get over set-backs in my life.” scale scores are the mean of items, with reverse coding of negatively worded items. higher scores indicate higher ability of resilience to bounce back from stress. turkish adaptation of the scale demonstrated satisfactory evidence of reliability and validity (doğan, 2015). in this study, cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the brs was .86. procedure all participants completed online versions of the scales as part of questionnaire batteries being conducted for other studies. a secured online software was utilized for the data collection. the questionnaires were electronically advertised, after creating a link whereby participants had to click the link to access the study. participants were assured regarding protection and disposal of personal data and confidentiality at any stage. they were also guaranteed about anonymity whereby they were assigned a number which was not directly associated with their personal information in our records. furthermore, the participants were given freedom to withdraw from the study at any point in time without giving any reason. those who agreed to collaborate were only allowed to continue and those who did not agree to collaborate were automatically discontinued completing the survey due to the way that the survey was designed. participation was voluntary and consent to participate was obtained from each participants through the first page of the online survey. presentation of the questionnaires was same for all participants. results preliminary analysis prior to the main analysis, a preliminary analysis was conducted to determine whether the data was suitable for the analysis. univariate outlier was computed using z-score test statistic (tabachnick & fidell, 2001). no case was identified as a univariate outlier as all z-scores were within the range of +3.29 and -3.29. multivariate outliers were estimated using mahalanobis d2 test and no case was determined as multivariate outlier. tolerance and variance inflation factor through standard linear regression analysis were used to test for multicollinearity among the independent variables. no multicollinearity issue in the data set was detected as variance inflation factor was not greater than 10 and tolerance factor did not approach zero. skewness and kurtosis statistics were used to examine normality assumption. according to curran, west, and finch (1996), if skewness and kurtosis values fall within the range of +1 and -1, the data is normally distributed. table 2 shows means, standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis values with corresponding standard errors for each of the variables used yildirim 189 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the study. as seen in table 2, all variables fall within the range of +1 and -1, proving very good normal univariate distribution. table 2 descriptive statistics of the study variables (n = 256) variable m sd skewness kurtosis statistic se statistic se fear of happiness 13.88 8.09 0.67 0.15 -0.59 0.30 resilience 19.59 4.54 -0.26 0.15 0.15 0.30 satisfaction with life 21.56 6.50 -0.45 0.15 -0.62 0.30 spane-positive 19.33 4.26 -0.19 0.15 -0.70 0.30 spane-negative 17.19 3.99 0.46 0.15 -0.21 0.30 affect balance 2.14 7.73 -0.36 0.15 -0.53 0.30 flourishing 40.04 8.06 -0.86 0.15 0.47 0.30 correlation analysis pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were estimated among all the study variables used in the present study. table 3 presents the correlation coefficients between the study variables. as shown in table 3, fear of happiness shared a significant negative correlation with resilience, positive affect, affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing and a significant positive correlation with negative affect. resilience shared significant positive correlations with satisfaction with life, positive affect, affect balance, and flourishing and a significant negative correlation with negative affect. table 3 correlations among the study variables (n = 256) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. fear of happiness – 2. resilience -.241** – 3. swl -.126* .296** – 4. spane-positive -.281** .527** .428** – 5. spane-negative .251** -.516** -.442** -.755** – 6. affect balance -.285** .557** .465** .941** -.932** – 7. flourishing -.141* .432** .396** .525** -.472** .533** – note. swl = satisfaction with life; spane = scale of positive and negative experience. *p < .05. **p < .01. mediation analysis separate regression analyses were performed to investigate the effect of fear of happiness on affect balance, satisfaction with life, and flourishing through resilience. for the mediation analysis, we adapted procedures recommended by baron and kenny (1986). in that procedure, establishment of four steps are required for the mediational hypothesis. in the first step, the independent variable should be significantly associated with the dependent variable. in the second step, the independent variable should be significantly associated with the proposed mediating variable. in the third step, the mediator variable should be significantly associated with the dependent variable. finally, when the mediator is controlled for, a statistical significant reduction is required in the fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 190 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effect of independent variable on the dependent variable. if the effect is decreased to insignificant level, full mediation is present. if the effect is significantly decreased yet still remains significant, partial mediation is present. to test the mediation analysis, three models were hypothesised. model 1 suggested that resilience mediates the relationship between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life. model 2 suggested that resilience mediates the relationship between fear of happiness and affect balance. model 3 suggested that resilience mediates the relationship between fear of happiness and flourishing. we ran regression analyses to examine if resilience mediated the effect of fear of happiness on satisfaction with life, affect balance and flourishing. for each of the regression models, we considered satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing as separate dependent variables and fear of happiness and resilience as independent variable and mediator, respectively. the first regression analysis was conducted to examine whether fear of happiness significantly predicted dependent variables (e.g. satisfaction with life, affect balance, flourishing). the results indicated that fear of happiness had an unique effect on satisfaction with life, r2 = .02, b = -.10, 95% ci [-.20, -.00], β = -.13, t = -2.03, p = .043, affect balance, r2 = .08, b = -.27, 95% ci [-.39, -.16], β = -.29, t = -4.73, p < .001, and flourishing, r2 = .02, b = -.14, 95% ci [-.26, -.02], β = -.14, t = -2.27, p = .024. the second regression analysis was conducted to examine whether fear of happiness significantly predicted the mediator (e.g. resilience). the results indicated that fear of happiness was a significant predictor of resilience, r2 = .06, b = -.14, 95% ci [-.20, -.07], β = -.24, t = -3.96, p < .001. the third regression analysis was conducted to examine whether resilience significantly predicted dependent variables (e.g. satisfaction with life, affect balance, flourishing). the results indicated that resilience had an unique effect on satisfaction with life, r2 = .09, b = .42, 95% ci [.26, .59], β = .30, t = 4.92, p < .001, affect balance, r2 = .31, b = .95, 95% ci [.77, 1.12], β = .56, t = 10.70, p < .001, and flourishing, r2 = .19, b = .77, 95% ci [.57, .96], β = .43, t = 7.63, p < .001. a series of separate hierarchical regression analysis were performed to examine the final step in mediational hypothesis. for each of the hierarchical regression analysis, fear of happiness and resilience were respectively treated as predictors in the step 1 and step 2, whereas satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing were treated as dependent variables. table 4 presents the impact of resilience in the relations between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. the first hierarchical regression analysis revealed that in the step 1, fear of happiness significantly predicted satisfaction with life, (r2 = .02, b = -.10, 95% ci [-.20, -.00], β = -.13, t = -2.03, p = .043). when resilience was included into the equation in the step 2, the predictive effect of fear of happiness on satisfaction with life was reduced to insignificant, (b = -.05, 95% ci [-.15, .05], β = -.06, t = -.95, p = .345). resilience, as a mediator, significantly predicted satisfaction with life even when fear of happiness was controlled for, (b = .40, 95% ci [.23, .58], β = .28, t = 4.57, p < .001). a sobel test (sobel, 1982) was performed to estimate whether the mediation effect was significant. the sobel test showed a significant mediation effect of resilience, (z = -3.09, p < 0.01). this indicated that resilience has a full mediating effect on the relation between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life. yildirim 191 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 mediating role of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing predictor/outcome b se β t 95% ci r2 δr2 satisfaction with life step 1 .02 .02* fear of happiness -0.10 0.05 -0.13 -2.03* (-.20, -.00) step 2 .09 .08*** fear of happiness -0.05 0.05 -0.06 -0.95 (-.15, .05) resilience 0.40 0.09 0.28 4.57*** (.23, .58) affect balance step 1 .08 .08*** fear of happiness -0.27 0.06 -0.29 -4.73*** (-.39, -.16) step 2 .33 .25*** fear of happiness -0.15 0.05 -0.16 -3.02** (-.25, -.05) resilience 0.88 0.09 0.52 9.82*** (.71, 1.06) flourishing step 1 .02 .02* fear of happiness -0.14 0.06 -0.14 -2.27* (-.26, -.02) step 2 .19 .17*** fear of happiness -0.04 0.06 -0.04 -0.67 (-.15, .08) resilience 0.75 0.10 0.42 7.24*** (.55, .95) *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the second hierarchical regression analysis showed that in step 1, fear of happiness significantly predicted affect balance, (r2 = .08, b = -.27, 95% ci [-.39, -.16], β = -.29, t = -4.73, p < .001). when resilience was added into the equation in the step 2, the predictive effect of fear of happiness on affect balance was reduced yet significant, (b = -.15, 95% ci [-.25, -.05], β = -.16, t = -3.02, p = .003). resilience, as a mediator, significantly predicted satisfaction with life even when fear of happiness was controlled for, (b = .88, 95% ci [.71, 1.06], β = .52, t = 9.82, p < .001). the sobel test indicated that mediator effect of resilience in relation between fear of happiness and affect balance was statistically significant, (z = -3.72, p < 0.01). the results suggested that resilience partially mediated the relation between fear of happiness and affect balance. the results also suggested that fear of happiness contributed directly to account for variation in affect balance and indirectly through resilience. the third hierarchical regression analysis showed that in step 1, fear of happiness significantly predicted flourishing, (r2 = .02, b = -.14, 95% ci [-.26, -.02], β = -.14, t = -2.27, p = .024). when resilience was included into the equation in the step 2, the predictive effect of fear of happiness on flourishing was reduced to insignificant, (b = -.04, 95% ci [-.15, .08], β = -.04, t = -.67, p = .503). resilience, as a mediator, significantly predicted flourishing even when fear of happiness was controlled for, (b = .75, 95% ci [.55, .95], β = .42, t = 7.24, p < .001). the sobel test showed a significant mediation effect of resilience, (z = -3.53, p < .01). this indicated that resilience has a full mediating effect on the relation between fear of happiness and flourishing. fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 192 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the current study was the first study that examined the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. the results of the correlation analyses indicated that higher fear of happiness was significantly correlated with lower resilience, satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. these findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of fear of happiness are more likely to report poor ability to bounce back from stressful life events, subjective well-being, and psychological functioning. these findings are consistent with previous findings (e.g. joshanloo, 2013; yildirim & aziz, 2017; yildirim & belen, 2018). for example, yildirim and belen (2018) found that higher fear of happiness significantly associated with lower subjective and psychological well-being. indeed, the relationships between fear of happiness and resilience, and flourishing have not yet been examined. considering flourishing as a psychosocial form of well-being (diener et al., 2010; keyes, 2002; seligman, 2011) and its negative relation with maladaptive variables (e.g. depression), the emerging findings between fear of happiness, as a maladaptive variable, and flourishing is in the expected direction. similarly, researchers (e.g. joshanloo, 2017) proposed some dysfunctional happiness-related beliefs (e.g. externality of happiness, the idea that happiness is controlled by external resources) and found that resilience is negatively related to such beliefs and that mediates the relationships between such beliefs and well-being. considering that fear of happiness is potentially a dysfunctional belief, the resulting findings are expected. the findings also suggested that higher resilience was associated with higher satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. these findings are in the line with relevant literature on resilience and subjective well-being, and flourishing (e.g. keyes, 2002; smith et al., 2008). however, it is important to note that the effect sizes of the correlations in the present study are small based on cohen’s (1992, 1988) criterion in which a value falls within .1 ≤ r < .3 reflects a small effect, a value within .3 ≤ r < .5 a medium effect, and a value of r > = .5 a large effect. therefore, these results should be interpreted with caution. prior to testing the mediation models, we found that fear of happiness and resilience had significant direct effects on satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. the effects of fear of happiness and resilience on affect balance were lager in magnitude than the effect on satisfaction with life and flourishing. this variation may be related to the theory that affect balance rests on short-term life engagement in terms of experience of positive emotions and avoidance of pain and that satisfaction with life and psychological well-being or flourishing relies on long-term life engagement (deci & ryan, 2008; keyes, shmotkin, & ryff, 2002; ryan & deci, 2001; ryff & keyes, 1995). as to testing the mediation models, the results indicated that resilience fully mediated the relationships between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, and flourishing. these findings suggest that as fear of happiness increases, satisfaction with life and flourishing decrease, and resilience directly affects this relationship. additionally, the results showed that fear of happiness had not only direct effect on affect balance, but also indirect effect on it via resilience. resilience was found to partially mediate the relationship between fear of happiness and affect balance. that is, individuals who scored high on fear of happiness had lower resilience, resulting in lower levels of affect balance, while individuals who scored low on fear of happiness had higher resilience, contributing to higher levels of affect balance. higher fear of happiness also contributed to lower affect balance. these findings support the findings that fear of happiness may produce the tendency to hinder positive emotions, satisfaction with life and withdraw from social relationships that are important components to both subjecyildirim 193 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tive well-being and psychological well-being (joshanloo, 2013; joshanloo & weijers, 2014), while produce the tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, depression, and stress (gilbert et al., 2012). studies showed that having positive emotions is a typical characteristic of resilient individuals to “bounce back” from and find positive meaning in stressful situations quickly and effectively (tugade & fredrickson, 2004). experiencing positive emotions may be a factor that individual use to foster their psychological health by buffering the negative impacts of fear of happiness. research suggested that subjective and psychological well-being or flourishing are conceptually different but related with one another and therefore it is necessary to explore both subjective and psychological well-being to fully understand well-being (waterman, schwartz, & conti, 2008). in this study, therefore, we employed the influence of fear of happiness on both subjective well-being and flourishing via resilience. the emerging findings are important in terms of theoretical contribution to the extant literature and practical implications to health services. with regards to theoretical contribution, to the best of our knowledge, the present study provided the first evidence examining the impact of resilience in the relationships between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. this is meaningful to understand the mechanism underlying between fear of happiness and subjective well-being and optimal human functioning. the findings would also facilitate the theoretical improvement of the mechanism among fear of happiness, resilience and well-being. concerning practical implication, because resilience was found to be a significant mediator in the relationship between fear of happiness and subjective well-being and flourishing, interventions aiming to enhance resilience may be useful in increasing positive affect, life satisfaction and flourishing and decreasing negative affect and fear of happiness. there are several limitations of the current study that need to be acknowledged when the results are interpreted. the foremost limitation is that, the study was cross-sectional in nature limiting findings to draw a causal and definitive conclusion on the resulting relations among the variables. to achieve causal valid explanation of the results, assessment of the independent variable must be performed in advance of the mediator variable, and that assessment of the mediator variable must be performed in advance of the dependent variable (jose, 2013). hence, interpretation of the findings should be made cautiously. studies employing prospective and longitudinal designs are needed to identify the causal links and provide evidence for the dynamic influence of fear of happiness on subjective well-being, and flourishing through resilience. second, the study participants were predominantly male, married, university graduate, and having medium economic status. the findings may vary in populations with other demographic characteristics. further research should investigate whether the obtained results can be replicated in other populations to enhance the generalizability of the findings. third, a convenient sampling method was used to collect the data. using a random sampling method where all participants have equal chance to participate the study would help to determine the effect of factors that may have been associated with the current sample (e.g. high rate of education level), that led to occurrence of the present findings. in summary, the present findings indicated the importance of resilience in the relation between fear of happiness and satisfaction with life, affect balance, and flourishing. the results suggested that fear of happiness is associated with lower satisfaction with life, affect balance and flourishing as a result of lower resilience. funding the author has no funding to report. fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 194 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author thanked to all participants for their voluntary involvement in the study. the author also thanks the editor and two anonymous reviewers of the europe' journal of psychology for their clear and constructive feedback that contributed significantly in drafting a final version of this article. references baron, r. m., & kenny, d. a. 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(2018). fear of happiness predicts subjective and psychological well-being above the behavioral inhibition system (bis) and behavioral activation system (bas) model of personality. journal of positive psychology and wellbeing, 2(1), 92-111. about the author murat yildirim is currently a ph.d. student at the department of neuroscience, psychology and behaviour, university of leicester. his research interests have mostly been focusing on happiness, well-being, personality, coping strategies, and emotional regulation. fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience 198 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 183–198 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1640 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.19044%2fesj.2018.v14n14p1 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ fear of happiness, wellbeing, and resilience (introduction) resilience as a mediator present study method participants measures procedure results preliminary analysis correlation analysis mediation analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author facial expressions and ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children research reports facial expressions and ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children maria guarnera*a, zira hichyb, maura i. cascioa, stefano carrubba c [a] faculty of human and social sciences, university of enna “kore”, enna, italy. [b] department of educational sciences, university of catania, catania, italy. [c] school of psychology, social work and human sciences, university of west london, london, united kingdom. abstract this research aims to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and neutral emotions from facial information. by investigating children’s performance in detecting these emotions from a specific face region, we were interested to know whether children would show differences in recognizing these expressions from the upper or lower face, and if any difference between specific facial regions depended on the emotion in question. for this purpose, a group of 6-7 year-old children was selected. participants were asked to recognize emotions by using a labeling task with three stimulus types (region of the eyes, of the mouth, and full face). the findings seem to indicate that children correctly recognize basic facial expressions when pictures represent the whole face, except for a neutral expression, which was recognized from the mouth, and sadness, which was recognized from the eyes. children are also able to identify anger from the eyes as well as from the whole face. with respect to gender differences, there is no female advantage in emotional recognition. the results indicate a significant interaction ‘gender x face region’ only for anger and neutral emotions. keywords: facial expressions, emotions, children, recognizing from eyes, recognizing from mouth, labeling task europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 received: 2014-11-23. accepted: 2015-02-14. published (vor): 2015-05-29. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: university of enna “kore“, faculty of human and social sciences, cittadella universitaria, 94100, enna – italy. e-mail: marinaguarnera@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction people gather important information by recognizing others’ facial expressions. correct identification of this visual information, for example, allows individuals to forecast events and respond to them (isaacowitz et al., 2007). this important capability allows people to infer others’ emotions, which affects their social behavior (e.g., seeing someone who is angry may lead to a ‘fight or flight’ reaction). evolutionary psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists have discussed the role of the recognition of emotional expressions in the social environment at length (biele & grabowska, 2006; ebner & johnson, 2009; thomas, de bellis, graham, & labar, 2007). some have claimed that faces are perceived as a particular category of stimuli by human beings, unlike any other class of objects, and their main importance is that appropriate interpretation is likely to lead to successful social interactions (keightley, chiew, winocur, & grady, 2007; nelson, 2001; tanaka et al., 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ from a darwinian perspective, the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions is innate. some studies have provided convincing evidence that facial expressions for the basic emotions are universal (ekman & friesen, 1971; ekman et al., 1987; ekman, sorenson, & friesen, 1969; elfenbein & ambady, 2002; izard, 1971). reading emotions accurately on the faces of others is the result of complex processes. important differences in the developmental pattern of the recognition of the different emotions between early childhood and the end of the pre-school period have been well documented. it has been found that facial expressions of happiness, anger, and sadness are generally recognized at an earlier age than those of fear, surprise and disgust (gagnon, gosselin, & maassarani, 2014). whereas children are able to produce facial expressions very early in post-natal life (caron, caron, & meyers, 1982; haviland & lelwica, 1987; oster & ekman, 1978), the ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions increases with age (fox, 2001; gross & ballif, 1991; herba & phillips, 2004; widen & russell, 2007). moreover, it appears that children can identify positive facial emotions earlier and more accurately than negative ones (boyatzis, chazan, & ting, 1993; camras & allison, 1985; widen & russell, 2003), and their accuracy increases between 3 and 7 years of age (durand, gallay, seigneuric, robichon, & baudouin, 2007; markham & wang, 1996; vicari, reilly, pasqualetti, vizzotto, & caltagirone, 2000). other studies have reported that there are few interesting changes in facial emotion recognition occurring after the age of 7 (kirouac, doré, & gosselin, 1985) or 10 (tremblay, kirouac, & doré, 1987). others have found that recognition of facial emotions significantly improves between 6 and 15 years of age and adulthood (herba, landau, russell, ecker, & phillips, 2006; herba & phillips, 2004; montirosso, peverelli, frigerio, crespi, & borgatti, 2010; vicari, reilly, pasqualetti, vizzotto, & caltagirone, 2000). thus, while there is a great deal of research on facial expression recognition in infancy and early childhood, it is uncertain whether this ability continues to develop over this period. in two different research papers, respectively in 2009 and 2010, gao and maurer provided more evidence that children show slow development of correct recognition of emotion, and this ability grows with age. the researchers used stimuli sets differentiated by intensity (20 levels for each emotion) and involved children of 5, 7 and 10 years old in the study. while 5-year old children were as capable as adults in recognizing happy emotional expressions, distinguishing between degrees of intensity in the expressions, they confuse anger, fear and sadness. this ability grows with age, and 10-year old children are as capable as adults in assessing these emotions. this pattern has been partially confirmed by mancini, agnoli, baldaro, ricci bitti, and surcinelli (2013): in their study, children ranging in age from 8 to 11 years old were asked to complete a facial expression recognition task and to rate their emotional reactions in terms of valence and arousal. to complete the emotion recognition task, participants had to select one of six emotion labels (anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, or neutral) that best described the emotional expression they had just seen. in particular, the study demonstrated that happy and angry expressions were the most recognized emotions, followed by expressions of disgust and neutral expressions, while facial expressions of fear and sadness were significantly less recognized compared to all the other emotions (mancini et al., 2013). other factors, such as gender, may affect accuracy in recognition. in particular, previous literature reviews of studies concerning the recognition of facial expressions in children indicated a slightly higher accuracy in females (brody & hall, 2010; mcclure, 2000; montirosso et al., 2010), yet this was not confirmed when gender differences were examined separately for each emotion (gagnon et al., 2014; rotter & rotter, 1988). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children 184 http://www.psychopen.eu/ numerous studies, albeit with different methods such as discrimination paradigm, matching procedure and free labeling, have investigated the ability to recognize emotions through the stimulus of the whole face. by contrast, only few studies have tested whether recognition accuracy varies as a function of the area of the face shown to participants. these studies, conducted through different tasks, and involving both children with typical and atypical development, have not produced unequivocal results. kestenbaum (1992) explored the use of analytic and holistic modes of processing in the recognition of emotional expressions through the five stimulus types as follows: eyes only, mouth only, combination of mouth and eyes, nose missing, full face. all participants (differentiated into three age groups: 5and 7-year-olds children and adults) were better at recognizing fear, surprise and anger from the eye area than from the mouth area, whereas for happiness the mouth was better for recognizing the emotion. in a recent study, gagnon, gosselin, hudon-ven der buhs, larocque, and milliard (2010) found that children’s accuracy in recognizing fear and disgust is affected by the array of expressions they are shown. the results suggested that the most common errors made by school-age children consisted in confusing the expressions of anger and disgust, and those for surprise and fear: the likelihood of these two types of error decreases between 5 and 10 years old. in order to investigate the nature of the facial information allowing children to recognize facial expressions of anger, fear, disgust and surprise, gagnon et al. (2014) studied whether children correctly recognize the facial expressions of these emotions from action unit combinations (aucs) located in the upper, middle, or lower face. more specifically, the researchers showed children partial or complete facial expressions and asked them to say whether they corresponded to a given emotion such as anger, fear, surprise, or disgust. as predicted, in agreement with kestenbaum (1992) they found that children were more accurate at recognizing fear from the auc located in the upper face than from that located in the lower face and the pattern of results was similar for anger, but this was only the case among girls. regarding the differences between autistic and typically developing children in recognizing emotions, many studies showed that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (asd) performed as well as typically developing adults when they have to attribute mental states to photographs of the eyes (back, ropar, & mitchell, 2007; speer, cook, mcmahon, & clark, 2007; van der geest, kemner, camfferman, verbaten, & van engeland, 2002). on the contrary, a considerable amount of research suggests that individuals with asd perform less well than those without asd on such tasks, because, on the basis of what has been defined as the poor eye gaze hypothesis, they do not attend to a particular facial region such as the eyes. the poor eye gaze hypothesis in asd has been confirmed by research using different tasks such as the discrimination task (langdell, 1978), the eyes task (baron-cohen, jolliffe, mortimore, & robertson, 1997; baron-cohen, wheelwright, hill, raste, & plumb, 2001; baron-cohen, wheelwright, & jolliffe, 1997) and eyetracking task (bal et al., 2010; norbury et al., 2009). however, the above studies used traditional facial recognition paradigms. more recently, song, kawabe, hakoda, and du (2012) found that asd children extract salient cues from peoples’ eyes when asked to identify both a person and a happy facial expression in an image, and are as accurate as typically developing children. this ability is evaluated by bubbles, a probing technique which discloses the source of visual information in the observed object (e.g., eyes or mouth), allowing the researcher to explore the strategies used by an individual exposed to a certain stimulus (e.g., an image of a facial expression). by contrast, tanaka et al. (2012) used parts-wholes expression that evaluates children’s performances by showing a specific facial europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 guarnera, hichy, cascio et al. 185 http://www.psychopen.eu/ region (i.e., the eyes or mouth). they found that children with asd tend to focus more on the mouth and less on the eyes than typically developing children in recognizing the tested expressions of happiness and anger (tanaka et al., 2012). the studies outlined above concerned only some of the six basic emotions. furthermore, it is important to note that children’s performance in recognizing facial expressions varies according to the different methods used, such as discrimination paradigm, matching and labelling procedures. when children interact with other people, they see their faces and have to retrieve the appropriate emotional concept from their long-termmemory. the processing of information involved in a labelling task represents a type of processing similar to the process that takes place in everyday life (russell, 1994). this research aims to contribute to the relatively scarce literature on the topic by investigating the nature of the facial information that allows children to recognize expressions of anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and neutral emotion by using the labeling task. specifically, it explores, for each emotion which facial region (full face, eyes area, mouth area) makes accurate recognition easier. the human face plays a critical role as a perceptual category (biele & grabowska, 2006; ebner & johnson, 2009; thomas et al., 2007), and the infant is already capable of distinguishing the drawing of a face with the details of eyes, nose and mouth properly placed from one with various elements placed asymmetrically (fantz, 1963). it is, therefore, easy to expect that recognition of any emotion should be simpler if one can see the whole face rather than a specific region (eyes or mouth) only. that said, we were primarily interested to know whether children show differences in ability to recognize facial expression of these emotions from a specific region of the face located in the top or bottom face, and if any difference between specific regions of the face (eyes and mouth) depended on the emotion in question. for this purpose, a group of 6-7 year-old children, an age in which basic emotional recognition has been acquired if not yet stabilized, was selected. participants were required to recognize emotions (fear, sorrow, anger, surprise, happiness, disgust and a neutral expression) in a labeling task with three stimulus types as follows: region of the eyes, of the mouth, and full face. methods participants the participants included 50 children (50 percent boys and 50 percent girls) ranging in age from 6 to 7 years old. they were recruited from a primary school in sicily (italy). children were in their normal school year and had no history of pervasive developmental disorder or other evidence of developmental disability. the examiner worked together with three teachers from the primary school, and we obtained the parents’ and the headmaster’s approval to administer the instruments. the experimental procedure was explained to the children, and they were free to participate in this research. stimuli in order to evaluate the children’s performances, children were asked to identify the emotion conveyed in each of the 42 photographs of actors (7 emotions x 3 stimulus types x 2 genders) representing facial expressions. each image showed one of the six basic emotions (i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, fear) or a neutral expression from the nimstim face stimulus set developed and validated by tottenham et al. (2009) and morphed by gao and maurer (2009, 2010) to obtain different intensity photographs of facial expressions. the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children 186 http://www.psychopen.eu/ photographs were coloured, with a 560 x 650 pixels resolution. the actors were trained to display specific facial emotions rather than illustrating particular muscle movements, as prescribed in the f.a.c.s. (ekman & friesen, 1978). we selected 42 55%-intensity stimuli from the set provided by gao and maurer (2009, 2010), and also manipulated 28 pictures so as to directly isolate only those areas considered informative by the literature (i.e., the regions of mouth and eyes). 2-d windows similar to gosselin and schyns’ (2001) bubbles were produced, but with a wider radius according to the photograph. the intention was not to hide the nostrils, which are considered informative (blais, roy, fiset, arguin, & gosselin, 2012). the photographs were proportionally divided according to the type of emotion depicted, the actor’s gender, and the facial area isolated, so that whole-face pictures showed a different subject compared to isolated ones. this division allowed the examiner to administer only new stimuli to the same subject, thereby preventing invalidating learning effects. procedure participants were tested individually, in a quiet room, arranged for the experimental procedure. the children sat opposite the examiner, in an adequately lighted room. furthermore, participants were shown one of 42 photographs at a time, and were asked to indicate the right emotion label from a list of drawings showing verbal labels with their respective representations of 2-d emoticons. the researcher noted the subjects’ answers on a sheet. the photographs appeared in random order. the experimenter explained the tasks as follows: “you will gradually see 42 photographs, showing four actors enacting the facial expressions. you will see either the actors’ full faces, just their eyes or their mouth. you should name the correct emotion”. results for each participant the sum of correct answers, for each emotion and for each three stimulus types (eyes region, mouth region, full face), was calculated (the scores range from 0 to 2). in order to investigate, for each face region, which emotion is more easily recognized, a repeated anova measure with seven levels (the seven emotions) was carried out for each face region. concerning whole face, the results showed that there are differences in the recognition of emotions [f(6, 294) = 13.06, p < .001, η2 = .21]. post hoc analysis indicated that the emotions better recognized from the whole face were happiness, anger, and disgust (among which there are no significant differences), followed by fear (which is not different from disgust); while surprise, neutral emotion, and sadness (among which there are no significant differences) are more difficult to recognize (ps < .05). regarding the eyes region, results also showed that, in this case, there are differences in the recognition of emotions [f(6, 294) = 24.96, p < .001, η2 = .34]. post hoc analysis showed that the emotions better recognized from the eyes region were anger, followed by sadness (which is not different from neutral emotion); the following emotions were the neutral one, happiness and fear (among which was no significant difference), surprise (not different from fear), and finally disgust (ps < .05). finally, also in the case of the mouth region, results showed that there are differences in the recognition of emotions [f(6, 294) = 32.51, p < .001, η2 = .40]. post hoc analysis showed that the emotions better recognized from the mouth region were the neutral one, followed by anger, disgust, and happiness (among which is no significant difference); the emotions worse recognized from the mouth region were fear, sadness, and surprise (among which was no significant difference, (ps < .05). in order to investigate the children’s performances in detecting emotions from a specific face region, for each emotion a repeated anova measure, with three levels (whole face, eyes region, and mouth region), was carried out. results showed that the recognition of each emotion was affected by the face region shown [fs(2, 98) > 6.76, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 guarnera, hichy, cascio et al. 187 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ps < .01, η2s > .12]. with regard to each emotion, post hoc analysis showed that: anger was better recognized when the whole face or eyes area were presented than when the mouth area was presented. disgust was better recognized when the whole face was presented than when the mouth area was presented, while it appeared more difficult to recognize disgust presenting the eyes region. fear, happiness, and surprise were better recognized when the whole face was presented compared to the eyes or mouth regions. sadness was better recognized when the eyes region was presented, followed by presentation of the whole face, while the recognition of sadness appeared more difficult when the mouth area was presented. finally, neutral emotion was better recognized when the mouth area was presented, compared to the whole face or eyes area (table 1). table 1 children’s performances in detecting emotions from a specific face region. mouth areaeyes areawhole face emotion sdmsdmsdm 1.20b1.60a1.60aanger .640.610.610 1.18c0.24b1.52adisgust .480.480.580 0.70b0.80b1.34afear .740.670.690 1.04b0.90b1.62ahappiness .530.580.570 0.50c1.12b0.90asadness .540.630.580 0.44b0.60b1.04asurprise .610.760.750 1.74b0.92a0.92aneutral .490.800.750 note. for each row, means with differing subscripts are significantly different, p < .05. in order to test the combined effect of gender and face region, a 2 × 3 anova, with gender as between-subjects factors, and face region as a within-subjects factor, was carried out. results indicated a significant interaction “gender x face region” only for anger [f(2, 96) = 4.65, p < .02, η2 = .08] and neutral emotion [f(2, 96) = 4.28, p < .02, η2 = .08]. with regard to anger, post hoc analysis showed that male participants recognized angry from the eyes area and the mouth area (eyes: m = 1.80, sd = 0.41; mouth: m = 1.40, sd = 0.58) better than female participants (eyes: m = 1.40, sd = 0.71; mouth: m = 1.00, sd = 0.64; ps < .05). regarding neutral emotion, results of post hoc analysis showed that male participants recognized this emotion from the whole face (m = 1.28, sd = 0.79) better than female participants (m = 0.56, sd = 0.51, p < .001). moreover, male participants recognise anger better when the eyes area, rather than the face or mouth area is presented, while females recognise this emotion better from the mouth region than from the whole face (ps < .05). in the case of neutral emotion, both genders recognise it better from the mouth area than from the whole face or eyes area (ps < .05). discussion and conclusions the aim of this survey is to investigate the nature of the facial information which allows 6-7 year-old children to recognize expressions of anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust and neutral emotion by using a labelling task. photographs representing these emotions through three stimulus types, the whole face, the eyes only area or the mouth only area were presented. a preliminary analysis was addressed to investigate the differences between the emotions for each stimulus type (whole face, eyes region, mouth region). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children 188 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the emotions better recognized from the whole face were happiness, anger, and disgust, followed by fear; while surprise, neutral emotion, and sadness were more difficult to recognize. gao and maurer (2009, 2010) and mancini et al. (2013) demonstrated that children are capable of recognizing emotional expressions, but they confuse fear and sadness. this ability increases with age, so it is expected that this group of 6-7 year olds will become more expert with age. these results can be linked to evolutionary significance: decoding is especially important in children as they need safety and protection, so they easily detect emotions indispensable in terms of survival (such as happiness, anger, disgust, and fear) while they find more difficult to recognize surprise. this result can be linked to cognitive development too: facial emotion recognition gradually improves throughout normal development, so a poor accuracy in recognizing facial expressions such as surprise, sadness, and neutral could be related to the age of the group. in this context, mancini et al. (2013) demonstrated that the recognition of neutral expressions, defined as ‘emotionally ambiguous expressions’, is characterized by an evident increase in accuracy from 8 to 11 years of age. it is interesting to note that there are differences between the emotions with respect both to the region of the eyes and that of the mouth. according to our results, it seems that, for both regions of the face, anger is one of the easiest emotions to identify, while surprise is among the most difficult to recognize. evolutionally speaking, anger may be defined as the most crucial emotion when it comes to recognize others’ intentions, in order to avoid threats, and this circumstance could account for its being the easiest to detect than any other. alternatively, as far as surprise is concerned, as maassarani, gosselin, montembeault, and gagnon (2014) suggest, the difficulty of its recognition could depend on the fact that some emotions may follow one another in a short period. many situations that bring happiness may result from an unexpected source, and so happiness may be experienced immediately after a surprise. the same applies to the relation between fear and surprise. the temporal proximity between surprise and these two emotions, therefore, could make recognition of surprise harder for children. overall, these differences between the emotions on the one hand support ekman’s idea that each emotion is configured for a specific muscle pattern, and on the other suggest that both the eyes and the mouth are relevant in facial emotions, each in a different way. moreover, the fact that the role of a specific region is different depending on the emotions is in line with a study by song et al. (2012), in which he argues that it is easier for children with asd to gaze at another’s eyes when processing positive emotions than in the case when the emotions are negative. subsequent analysis has allowed us to compare differences between the different stimuli (full face, eyes region, mouth region) for each emotion. first of all, considering the critical role that the human face assumes as a perceptual category (biele & grabowska, 2006; ebner & johnson, 2009; thomas et al., 2007), it was fairly predictable that children’s ability to recognize emotions should be better when they see the whole face rather than a specific region (eyes or mouth). however, our concern was to investigate whether for the children there would be differences in recognizing the emotions from a specific facial region located in the upper or lower face, and if any difference between specific facial regions (eyes or mouth) may depend on the emotion in question. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 guarnera, hichy, cascio et al. 189 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the findings of this survey seem to indicate that children generally recognize the basic facial expressions better when pictures represent the whole face, except for a neutral expression, which is recognized from the mouth, and sadness from the eyes. moreover, children are able to identify anger from the eyes as well as from the whole face. it is quite counter-intuitive that the whole face was not always best for children in identifying emotions, as one might think that ‘the more information the better’ would apply regardless of emotion. this would suggest that directing the focus to such isolated cuesmay have facilitated detection due to the absence of potentially confounding cues. our results, in agreement with those reported by gagnon et al. (2014) indicate that children appreciate emotions through a specific facial area and, more specifically, from the upper face. with respect to the areas of the face (upper or lower) that best convey the basic emotions, this study indicates that 6-7 year-old children’s performances change depending on the emotion. in agreement with the results reported by kestenbaum (1992) and gagnon et al. (2014), but in contrast with those of boucher and ekman (1975) related to college students, which showed no differences, these results seem to indicate that children are more accurate at recognizing anger from the regions located in the upper face than from the lower face. according to boucher and ekman (1975), sadness and disgust are better recognized, respectively, from the upper area than from the lower and from the lower area than from the upper. in three instances, happiness, surprise and fear, recognition from the upper face was as good as recognition from the lower. as for happiness, this result is in agreement with boucher and ekman (1975) and with song et al. (2012). as for surprise, similar results were shown by boucher and ekman (1975) and partly also by kestenbaum (1992) with regard to children of 5 years old. they are, however, in contrast with the results reported by gagnon et al. (2014) and with those of kestenbaum (1992) with regard to older children, which showed better performances in recognizing from the eyes area than from that of the mouth. as for fear, gagnon et al. (2014) found similar results in children of 5 years old. boucher and ekman (1975), kestenbaum (1992), gagnon et al. (2014), meanwhile, with regard to older children, found better performances in recognizing it from the area of the eyes than the mouth. apart from comparison with other studies, which could be affected by methodological differences, the results indicate some differences between the regions of the eyes and mouth in facilitating the recognition of emotions. it could be that the facial regions have different roles according to the sensory-motor correlates (voluntary and involuntary) that characterize the various emotions. for example, the region of the eyes is more relevant in the case of anger because it is associated with movements related to frowning, with arching the eyebrows, or visual sensations like ’bloodshot eyes’, ‘a red mist descends’, or ‘to be blinded by rage’. it is worth noting, in any case that, compared to the other emotions, anger is among the easiest to recognize from the mouth. anger, in fact, is also associated with mouth movements such as tooth grinding, pouting, tightening the jaws or opening the mouth to bite or scream. the eyes region is very relevant in the case of sadness because this emotion is often associated with the tactile sensation of tears and the ocular reflexes that produce them. by contrast, the region of the mouth is central in the case of disgust because it is associated with the sensation of taste in the mouth and the movements, which can be unintentional, performed to eliminate unpalatable food. interestingly, except for happiness, children recognize emotions for which no differences appear between the areas of the eyes and that of the mouth (surprise and fear), at a later developmental stage (gagnon et al., 2014). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children 190 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it would be interesting to verify, using the samemethod, if adults too show the same pattern or if a region becomes more important than another. finally, children show better performance in recognizing a neutral expression from the mouth area than from that of the eyes (and full face). this last finding cannot be compared with previous results, because the researchers did not investigate children’s ability to recognize neutral emotions. further investigation could clarify the overall results of our study with regard to recognition of this facial expression. on the one hand, in fact, as affirmed above, this is among the most difficult to recognize of the entire face. in this regard, other studies have described neutral faces as emotionally ambiguous expressions and children aged 4-8 have been defined as characterized by a low accuracy of recognition for this expression (waters, neumann, henry, craske, & ornitz, 2008). mancini et al. (2013) argued that the recognition of neutral expressions is characterized by an evident increase in accuracy from 8 to 11 years of age. on the other hand, neutral expression is one of the most easily recognized from the region of the eyes, and the easiest of all emotions to be recognized from the mouth. subsequent analysis, based on the quality of the wrong answers, would allow us to test the hypothesis that, while when the children see the whole face, they find indicators of some emotion in the complex of information; when they see only a part of the face this typically being the most difficult task they more often tend to say neutral. if this is the case, it would mean that the correct answer does not correspond to real recognition of the neutral expression, but to the major frequency of a neutral answer in the case of partial stimuli. with respect to gender differences, according to mancini et al. (2013) and gagnon et al. (2014), there is no female advantage in emotional recognition: this survey’s results indicate a significant interaction ‘gender x face region’ (full face, eyes only, mouth only) only for anger and neutral emotion. more specifically, male participants recognize anger from the eyes better than females, who recognize this emotion from the mouth. in addition, both genders recognise a neutral emotion better from the mouth than from the whole face or eyes. further research could try to replicate such results in order to interpret potential differences of gender like those highlighted by us. for instance, taking into account the actual emotions attributed by these participants during the test could help in interpreting such findings in terms of gender differences. on the basis of the outcome of our study and those of previous research, some considerations can be advanced. differences emerged between the emotions relating to each stimulus, on the one hand support the idea of ekman that each emotion is configured for a specific muscle pattern, and on the other suggest that both the eyes and the mouth areas are relevant in a different manner for each emotion. it is important to underline that we compared six emotions and a neutral expression with the aim of investigating if children show differences in recognizing emotions from a specific area of the face (eyes and mouth). overall, all studies, including this one, demonstrate the ability of children to recognize emotions from partial regions of the face, particularly from that of the eyes. however, among the different studies, for each emotion, the results are not always consistent with reference to the relevance of one region compared to another (for example, regarding surprise, some studies indicate the prevalence of the mouth area, others of the eyes, or even no difference). however, despite of results partially different, perhaps attributable to the different research methods used, the capacity displayed by the children to recognize emotions even from partial areas of the face and, consequently, the importance of the specific regions in conveying information for the recognition of emotions give rise to the europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 guarnera, hichy, cascio et al. 191 http://www.psychopen.eu/ question about the underlying processes. as suggested by gagnon et al. (2014), the partial regions of the face may only be signals, in themselves meaningless, useful for the recovery from long-term memory of the entire face; or, according to the componential model proposed by scherer (2001), have their own meaning, useful in the appraisal process involved in recognizing emotion. in this case the different results of the studies may reflect real individual differences based on different experiences linked to the formation of the concept of each emotion. according to widen and russell (2013), the concept of an emotion corresponds to the relation between several components such as children’s knowledge of the causes, of its behavioral consequences, of its facial, vocal, and behavioral correlates, of its bodily changes, and of the words used to name it. it could therefore be argued that, according to the different experiences, it is possible to add different facial correlates to the concept of a single emotion. for instance, as far as surprise is concerned, both the raising of the upper eyelids and the opening of the mouth are motor components associated with appraisals of novelty. which of these components is associated with the concept of surprise is thought to depend upon the regularity with which they occur to the children during the process of concept formation. further studies aimed at resolving these issues would be interesting. moreover, subsequent studies characterized by comparison between adults and children in the area of the decoding of the emotional expressions of faces from partial information (eyes and mouth) could verify if the pattern in the difference between the specific regions remains unchanged in adults too. in addition, future studies, using the same method, with autistic or alexithymic subjects, could also be useful in the clinical setting, since the results could be used to prepare individualized training for the recognition of emotions. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references back, e., ropar, d., & mitchell, p. 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(2013). children’s recognition of disgust in others. psychological bulletin, 139(2), 271-299. doi:10.1037/a0031640 about the authors maria guarnera: ph.d. in theories and methods of formative processes, researcher in psychology at university “kore” of enna. her research interests are mainly focused on cognitive psychology, particularly on attention, memory and mental imagery related to both learning processes and life span. zira hichy: ph.d. in social and personality psychology, researcher in social psychology at university of catania, where she teaches social psychology, methods and techniques of psychological research and statistics. maura i. cascio: ph.d. in psycho-pedagogy, training expert at cefpas (center for health professional training). she has been involved in research on education, e-learning and work stress. stefano carrubba: he is currently completing his master of science (msc), health psychology, at university of west london. his research topics are cognitive psychology, health psychology, behavioural science, cognitive science, facial expression recognition, neuro linguistic programming. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(2), 183–196 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i2.890 ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children 196 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00614.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2008.05.006 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1987.9712674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1014832420206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2000.tb00392.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.12.005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.39.1.114 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0031640 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en ability to recognize emotions from eyes or mouth in children introduction methods participants stimuli procedure results discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors workplace bullying and occupational stress among university teachers: mediating and moderating factors research reports workplace bullying and occupational stress among university teachers: mediating and moderating factors naima akhtar malik a, kaj björkqvist* a [a] department of social sciences, åbo akademi university, vasa, finland. abstract in the study, it is explored whether exposure to workplace bullying predicts symptoms of occupational stress, and whether this association is mediated by interpersonal relationships, and moderated by sex and nationality. a sample of 610 university teachers from pakistan (196 males, 133 females) and finland (152 males, 129 females) completed an online questionnaire. a conditional process model was applied using the process programme. workplace bullying served as predictor, stress symptoms as predicted variable, relationships with (a) colleagues and (b) family as mediators, and sex and country as moderators. as expected, workplace bullying had a significant effect on stress symptoms, which was mediated by family relationships but not by relationships with colleagues. neither sex nor country had a moderating effect. positive family relationships thus mediate the stressful impact of workplace bullying, and this was the case for both sexes and both nationalities. keywords: workplace bullying, occupational stress, university teachers, mediator, moderator europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 received: 2018-03-01. accepted: 2018-08-29. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; panagiotis gkorezis, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece *corresponding author at: p.o.b. 311, 65101 vasa, finland. e-mail: kaj.bjorkqvist@abo.fi this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. workplace bullying and occupational stress are both well-researched phenomena within organizational psychology (einarsen, hoel, zapf, & cooper, 2003). workplace bullying has been suggested to be one of the most stressful phenomena that may occur (duffy & brown, 2018; hauge, skogstad, & einarsen, 2010; pheko, 2018), and it has injurious effects on the victim’s physical and psychological health (duffy & sperry, 2012; giorgi, arcangeli, mucci, & cupelli, 2015; giorgi et al., 2016; sojo, wood, & genat, 2016). workplace bullying is a serious issue also in educational institutions (shelley et al., 2017), and there is an urgent need to manage the problem (hauge, skogstad, & einarsen, 2010). it is an ethical and moral obligation of managers and supervisors to protect the employees from an unfriendly environment (pheko, 2018). when an individual becomes a victim of workplace bullying, his or her life quality changes; the victim’s emotional state and relationships also change. it affects negatively the work capacity of individuals, groups, and organizations (membere et al., 2015). bullying does not only harm friendships within the occupational social network, it also causes a state of general frustration which indirectly may affect family relationships negatively (duffy, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2018). lewis and orford (2005) found that workplace bullying has a negative impact over time on close relationships; the stress caused by workplace bullying interacts with other stressful circumstances in the individuals’ life, putting strain also on family relationships. the relationships between bullying, well-being, and health have been investigated (einarsen & nielsen, 2015; park & ono, 2017; yragui, demsky, hammer, van dyck, & neradilek, 2017) but mediating variables between workplace bullying and occupational stress are relatively little studied. it has been shown that one of the major sources of occupational stress is interpersonal conflict at work (hahn, 2000; hammen, 2006; narayanan, menon, & spector, 1999a; spector & jex, 1998; stoetzer et al., 2009); accordingly, relationships with colleagues could be a mediating variable. a victim from workplace bullying could still have good relationships with some colleagues, and this fact could alleviate the negative symptoms of being bullied by others. likewise, good relationships with one’s own family may be a factor mitigating negative effects of workplace bullying. for instance, repetti and wang (2017) found that symptoms of occupational stress were affected by the level of support from one’s family. the more support, the less symptoms, and vice versa. therefore, family relationships could well be another moderating factor. the present study investigates whether (a) relationships with colleagues, and (b) family relationships serve as mediating variables between workplace bullying and occupational stress, by the use of conditional process modeling (hayes, 2012; preacher & hayes, 2004). sex differences in this respect are also studied, by keeping sex as a moderator in the model. furthermore, two aggregated samples of university teachers were used, one from finland, the other pakistan; therefore, country belonging served as another moderator, besides sex. there are good reasons to choose sex and country as moderators, since both have visible (physical) and invisible (value) components, and both influence group interrelation (ayman & korabik, 2010). eby et al. (2005) concluded that sex differences are deep-rooted in work–family relations, and it is imperative to consider sex differences and sex role issues to completely understand the work–family interface. the inherent idea in numerous discussions on work–family disputes is that the handling of the work–family interface is much more challenging for women than men (shockley, shen, denunzio, arvan, & knudsen, 2017). sex differences in workplace bullying have not been considered much, or at least, not enough (escartín, salin, & rodríguez-carballeira, 2011; hoel, cooper, & faragher, 2001; lee, 2002), however, there is evidence supporting differences in effects, forms, and frequency of workplace bullying among men and women (rayner & cooper, 1997). women have been found to report workplace bullying more often than men (björkqvist, österman, & hjelt-bäck, 1994), and they report psychological effects more often than men (niedl, 1996). work and family interactions are rooted in the cultural, organizational, and economic situation in which people live (ollier-malaterre & foucreault, 2017). in countries where disparities among males and females are minimized, experiences within both family and work environments may be similar for both sexes, leading to lesser sex differences in work-family interactions (casper, harris, taylor-bianco, & wayne, 2011; fahlén, 2014). finland is a leader among world countries in gender equality (ministry of social affairs and health, 2018). on the other hand, pakistan faces serious challenges regarding gender equality. malik, björkqvist, and österman (2017a, 2017b) found substantial differences between finland and pakistan regarding university employees experiences of occupational stress and burnout. therefore, it was decided to keep country as a moderator in the present study. malik & björkqvist 241 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the study is part of a larger project, investigating factors related to occupational stress in pakistan and finland (malik et al., 2017a, 2017b). the purpose of comparing these two countries is the earnest need of developing countries to enhance their institutional practices; this can only be made possible by learning from other contexts. as developing countries are going through a rapid transition in higher education (chaudhry, 2012), it is due time to become aware of the useful practices of developed countries. comparisons facilitate the identification of strengths and weaknesses of educational systems, thereby suggesting ways to improve weak areas (zhao et al., 2008). therefore, pakistan, a developing country, was selected, as working conditions in the country are becoming more challenging, and work hours have increased; statistics indicate that in the year 1971-1972, 20.4% of staff used to work more than fifty-six hours a week, whereas, in 2004 the figure was 30.8% (nadeem & abbas, 2009). due to this over-commitment, both male and female employees are facing problems with fulfilling family responsibilities, which leads into a conflict between work and family life (nadeem & abbas, 2009). finland, a developed country, was chosen as finland is believed to have excellent work environments compared to most other countries. as stated by different life indexes, finland does better in various measures of well-being in comparison to most of the world. it is placed amongst the best in personal safety, education, and work-life balance (oecd, 2015). finland does well above average in environmental quality, personal safety, civic engagement, social connections, personal well-being, housing, and work-life balance (oecd, 2015). occupational stress a sense of psychological pressure due to experiencing different stressors at work is known as occupational stress (karasek & theorell, 1990). occupational stress has been claimed by some to be an unavoidable phenomenon of contemporary age (stojanović, milenović, & marković, 2012). research has shown that teaching is a stressful profession, and that occupational stress can influence job satisfaction and motivation of teachers (maphalala, 2014). it may also enhance negative job attitudes (aquino & thau, 2009; barling, kelloway, & frone, 2005). chronic stress may further lead to behavioral and cognition problems (cohen, janicki-deverts, & miller, 2007). emotionally and physically demanding work with little control over one’s work situation is especially stressful (grosch & sauter, 2005). some amount of work stress is unavoidable in every occupation, but experiencing stress for an extended period can be very damaging for one’s health, as it can be a cause for aggression, job dissatisfaction, burnout, truancy, anxiety, fatigue, substance abuse, and poor performance (bodenmann, meuwly, bradbury, gmelch, & ledermann, 2010; cropanzano, rupp, & byrne, 2003; johnson, perry, & rosensky, 2002; martinussen, richardsen, & burke, 2007; morash et al., 2008; podsakoff, lepine, & lepine, 2007; schwabe & wolf, 2010; thoits, 2010; violanti et al., 2016; wang, 2005). there are several contextual factors which have been recognized as facilitators of occupational stress, such as poor organizational support, job insecurity (abbasi, araban, & aalipour, 2018; malik et al., 2017a, 2017b; milner, witt, lamontagne, & niedhammer, 2018), time pressure (prem, ohly, kubiceki, & korunka, 2017; prem, paškvan, kubicek, & korunka, 2018), job ambiguity, job conflict, workplace bullying (attell, brown, & treiber, 2017), excessive work load (buchanan, 2010; smithers & robinson, 2003), and job demand and lack of control (fila, purl, & griffeth, 2017). another emerging job stressor which has caught the attention of researchers is the economic crisis which emerged in 2008 and had a negative effect on working conditions and the mental and workplace bullying and occupational stress 242 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ general health of employees (mucci, giorgi, roncaioli, perez, & arcangeli, 2016). it may have had an increasing effect on the prevalence of workplace bullying (d’cruz, noronha, & beale, 2014). studies have corroborated the fact that economic crises lead to an increase in unemployment, heavy workload, staff reduction, and decrease in wages, and that they are related to increased levels of mood disorders, anxiety, depression, dysthymia, and suicide (mucci et al., 2016). workplace bullying workplace bullying has been defined as repeated activities with the aim of bringing mental (but sometimes also physical) pain to the victim(s), and directed towards one or more individuals who, for one reason or another, are not able to defend themselves (björkqvist et al., 1994). workplace bullying has also been referred to as work harassment (brodsky, 1976) and mobbing at the workplace (leymann, 1992). a typical feature which distinguishes bullying from general aggression is the imbalance of power between perpetrator and victim (einarsen et al., 2003). another typical feature is the repetitiveness of the aggressive behaviour, which little by little breaks down the victim. the percentage of employees who may be considered as victims of workplace bullying vary from workplace to workplace and study to study, depending partly on what criteria have been used. workplace aggression, in its various forms, is extremely common, and has been experienced by 96% of employees; that is, by almost everybody (porath & pearson, 2010). the point prevalence of victimisation of workplace bullying is usually around 10%. nielsen et al. (2009) found that 6.8% in a sample of 2539 norwegian employees could be defined as victims. in another norwegian study (einarsen & skogstad, 1996), the prevalence was 8.6%. the norwegian figures are relatively low in comparison with findings from other european countries: e.g., uk,10.6% (hoel et al., 2001); belgium 3-20% (notelaers, de witte, vermunt, & einarsen, 2006); and lithuania 23% (malinauskiene, obelenis, & dopagiene, 2005). björkqvist et al. (1994) found that 11% of teachers at a university in finland had been exposed to workplace bullying during the last six months. they also found that victims scored significantly higher than others on depression, anxiety, and aggression. stress symptoms, depression, and psychosomatic symptoms are common among victims of workplace bullying (bernotaite & malinauskiene, 2017; matthiesen & einarsen, 2004; nielsen, matthiesen, & einarsen, 2008). some victims show signs of ptsd (björkqvist et al., 1994; matthiesen & einarsen, 2004; mikkelsen & einarsen, 2002; leymann, 1992). in especially severe cases, suicides are known to have taken place (leymann, 1992). a meta-analysis (nixon et al., 2011) found that workplace bullying resulted in numerous harmful health problems like insomnia, backand headaches, exhaustion, alcohol use, and stomach problems. bullying is also a cause of frustration and depression (yıldırım, 2009), which evoke interpersonal conflict (reknes, einarsen, knardahl, & lau, 2014), and interpersonal conflict unleash deviant behaviour (spector et al., 2006). employees, who experience themselves to be victims of workplace bullying, report increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, which is injurious for their personality (fox & stallworth, 2005) relationships with colleagues interpersonal relations at work play a crucial role in ensuring an environment of trust and positive emotions. good interpersonal relationships are not enough to improve employees’ performance, but they may contribute malik & björkqvist 243 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significantly to it. as studies have shown, employees’ work ability, job satisfaction, and career success are directly related to the quality of workplace relationships (markiewicz, devine, & kausilas, 2000; morrison, 2004; sias & cahill, 1998). healthy workplace relationships are considered a key factor in reducing occupational stress. interpersonal relationships strongly influence the well-being and health of an individual. appelberg, romanov, heikkilä, honkasalo, and koskenvuo (1996) conducted a six year follow up study among 15,000 employees and found that poor interpersonal relationships affected work ability negatively. bruk-lee and spector (2006) found that interpersonal conflicts at work is one of the major causes of stress. it is the most referred to source of stress for college professors (narayanan, menon, & spector, 1999b). liu (2004) found that interpersonal conflict is a key source of stress among faculty and support staff in both a chinese and an american university sample. keenan and newton (1985) reported that 74% of stressful incidents occurred due to social interaction with bosses, assistants, or colleagues. employees from different occupations mention interpersonal matters as the utmost upsetting stressor at work (smith, 1995). the level of burnout can also be predicted by the nature of interpersonal relationships among teachers (canogarcía, padilla-munoz, & carrasco-ortiz, 2005; dorman, 2003; friedman, 2003; gavish & friedman, 2010; grayson & alvarez, 2008; leung & lee, 2006; skaalvik & skaalvik, 2009, 2011; van droogenbroeck, spruyt, & vanroelen, 2014). a meta-analysis by spector and jex (1998) showed that there is a positive association between interpersonal conflict and negative emotional states, such as depression, anxiety, and frustration. family relationships the association between family relationships and occupational stress is much less researched than the association between relationships with colleagues and occupational stress. however, job and family are closely interrelated and interdependent, and incidents in one area affects the quality of life in the other area (allen, herst, bruck, & sutton, 2000; sarantakos, 1996). demsky, ellis, and fritz (2014) found that there is a relationship between workplace aggression and family conflict; when there is an increase in workplace aggression, family conflicts also tend to increase. job stressors affect family life and vice versa (antoniou, davidson, & cooper, 2003). repetti and wang (2017) found that everyday job stressors affect family relationships in positive and negative ways depending upon the provision of support from family members. when a person experience stressors and stress at work, it usually provokes anger, irritation, and frustration at home, too (narayanan et al., 1999a; nixon et al., 2011). however, all studies have not found an association between family relationships and occupational stress. for instance, wilczyński et al. (2015) found that family had no impact on job involvement and burnout. aim and hypotheses of the study the present study aims at investigating whether workplace bullying has an effect on (is a predictor of) occupational stress symptoms, and whether this effect is mediated by relationships with colleagues, and/or family relationships, and moderated by sex (male vs. female respondents) and country belonging (pakistan vs. finland). workplace bullying and occupational stress 244 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the following hypotheses were set up for a conditional process model analysis: h1: relationships with colleagues are expected to be a significant mediator between workplace bullying and occupational stress. h2: family relationships are expected to be a significant mediator between workplace bullying and occupational stress. h3: sex is expected to have a moderating effect in the process, the effect being stronger for males than for females. h4: country is expected to have a moderating effect in the process, the effect being stronger in pakistan than in finland. method sample the sample consisted of university teachers from 28 conveniently sampled public universities in pakistan and finland. for the collection of data, the official e-mail addresses of university teachers employed at these universities were obtained from the university websites. an e-mail was sent out to each address, with a link to an online survey which could be filled in only once. a total of 610 responses were received. it is not possible to estimate an exact response rate as it is impossible to verify the number of valid and active e-mail addresses. some of the e-mails bounced back to the sender. the distribution of female and male teachers in pakistan and finland is presented in table 1. the mean age was 42.1 years (sd = 10.1) for females, and 42.3 years (sd = 10.0) for males; the age difference between the sexes was not significant. the mean age was 37.2 years (sd = 7.6) for the pakistani teachers and 48 years (sd = 9.4) for the finnish teachers. table 1 number of female and male university teachers in pakistan and finland taking part in the study country females males total n % n % n % pakistan 133 22 196 32 329 54 finland 129 21 152 25 281 46 total 262 43 348 57 610 100 instrument and analysis the study included four scales: (1) workplace bullying was measured with subscales from dias-adult (österman & björkqvist, 2009); (2) occupational stress symptoms were assessed with the work stress symptoms scale (björkqvist & österman, 1992); (3) relationships with colleagues were measured with an instrument designed specifically for this study. some of the items were adapted from the relationship structures (ecrrs) questionnaire by fraley, heffernan, vicary, and brumbaugh (2011). (4) family relationships were measmalik & björkqvist 245 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ured with an instrument developed particularly for this study by the first author; items from (jackson & maslach, 1982) were also adapted for this scale. sample items of the four scales, as well as their reliability scores (cronbach’s α), are presented in table 2. the responses alternatives for all scales were on a five-point scale ranging from 0 = never to 4 = very often, or from 0 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. table 2 sample items and cronbach’s alphas of the scales in the study (n = 610) workplace bullying (28 items, α = .97) sample items: has someone at your workplace …? yelled at you; quarrelled with you; interrupted you bluntly when you were talking; been ironic towards you; ridiculed you in your absence; spoken badly about you to someone else; made false accusations about you; refused to talk to you; refused to look at you. occupational stress symptoms (12 items, α = .94) sample items: do you feel, as a consequence of your work …? exhaustion; difficulties to concentrate; weariness and feebleness; insomnia (disturbed sleep); nervousness, irritation; tension; depression; indifference towards everything. relationships with colleagues (22 items, α = .95) sample items: i have good working relations with most of my colleagues; my colleagues show fairness in their interactions; i trust my colleagues; me and my colleagues work well together; i think that i can turn to my colleagues in time of need; i feel comfortable opening up to my colleagues. family relationships (18 items, α = .90) sample items: i spend enough time with my family members; i often find time to go for an outing with my family; i usually get upset at family gatherings due to tirednessa; i spend off-hours away from familya; i am involved with family matters; i find enough energy after work to attend family gatherings. areversed scoring. to avoid a possible common method bias (cmb), great care was taken to examine the items to avoid vague, unclear and unfamiliar terms, as suggested by researchers (lindell & whitney, 2001; podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). anonymity and confidentiality was emphasized so that the participants could respond as honestly as possible (chang, van witteloostuijn, & eden, 2010). after collecting the data, the harman’s single-factor test was conducted which showed that a one-factor solution accounted for only 29.3% of the variance, well below the critical threshold of 50%, indicating that cmb was not a matter of concern. the mediation analysis was conducted with the programme process (hayes, 2013), based on bootstrapping. bootstrapping builds an empirical approximation of the sampling distribution and uses this to construct confidence intervals for the indirect effects. in this particular case, a 5,000 bootstrap sample was applied with the confidence interval set at 95%. bootstrapping allows multiple mediators and moderators in the same model. the researcher may not only study the collective indirect effect of various mediators, but also compare the intensity of indirect effects and the range to which a mediation process is conditional on a moderator, i.e. a moderated mediation (hayes, 2012; preacher & hayes, 2004). for the measurement of the effect size of the mediation paths, the c’/c ratio was used. preacher and kelley (2011) suggested the use of k2 (kappa-squared) as a measure of effect size; however, wen and fan (2015) showed that preacher’s and kelley’s calculations were mathematically incorrect, and k2 should not be used. instead, they suggested the use of the ratio between the indirect and the direct effect as a measure for the effect workplace bullying and occupational stress 246 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ size of mediation paths. accordingly, it is used here. the ratio between the indirect and the total effect is also reported. ethical considerations participation was completely voluntary, participants were all adults, and full confidentiality was guaranteed. the study adheres to the principles concerning human research ethics of the declaration of helsinki (world medical association, 2013), as well as guidelines for the responsible conduct of research of the finnish advisory board on research integrity (2012). results correlations between the variables of the study pearson’s correlation coefficients between the variables of the study are presented separately for male and female teachers (table 3), and for pakistan and finland (table 4). all correlations were highly significant, for males, for females, and for both countries. table 3 pearson’s correlations between the variables of the study for male and female teachers (n = 610) variable (scale) 1 2 3 4 1. stress symptoms − -.47*** -.67*** .59*** 2. colleague relationships -.45*** − .50*** -.51*** 3. family relationships -.67*** .45*** − -.45*** 4. workplace bullying .44*** -.54*** -.40*** − note. correlations for male teachers are presented above the diagonal, and correlations for female teachers are presented below the diagonal. ***p ≤ .001. table 4 pearson’s correlations between the variables of the study for teachers from pakistan and from finland (n = 610) variable (scale) 1 2 3 4 1. stress symptoms − -.43*** -.65*** .56*** 2. colleague relationships -.52*** − .45*** -.51*** 3. family relationships -.73*** .48*** − -.42*** 4. workplace bullying .45*** -.51*** -.44*** − note. correlations for teachers from pakistan are presented above the diagonal, and correlations for teachers from finland are presented below the diagonal. ***p ≤ .001. conditional process analysis a conditional process model was applied with workplace bullying as the predictor, stress symptoms as the outcome variable, relationships with colleagues and family relationships as mediators, and sex and country as moderators. process (hayes, 2013) was used, to test the mediation and moderation hypotheses. in the malik & björkqvist 247 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ present scenario of investigating the effect of workplace bullying on stress symptoms, the mediating roles of relationships with colleagues and family respectively, with sex and country as moderators, were analysed. the results are presented in tables 5 – 6 and figure 1. figure 1. results of a conditional process analysis of the effect of workplace bullying (x) on symptoms of occupational stress (y), with relationships with colleagues (m1) and family relationships (m2) as mediators. note. see also table 5. *p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .001. table 5 mediating effects of relationships with colleagues (m1) and family relationships (m2) between workplace bullying (x) and occupational stress (y) mediating effect b p 95% ci ll ul mediating effect of colleague relationships (a1) x‒m1 -.53 ≤ .001 -.60 -.46 (a2) m1‒y -.09 .031 -.17 -.01 (a1 + a2) x‒m1‒y .04 -.01 .09 ratio of indirect to direct effect: .15 ratio of indirect to total effect: .07 mediating effect of family relationships (b1) x‒m2 -.41 ≤ .001 -.47 -.34 (b2) m2‒y -.70 ≤ .001 -.79 -.62 (b1 + b2) x‒m2‒y .29 .22 .36 ratio of indirect to direct effect: .91 ratio of indirect to total effect: .44 model summary total effect (c) .65 ≤ .001 .56 .73 direct effect (c’) .31 ≤ .001 .23 .39 indirect effect (ab) .33 -.33 -.15 ratio of indirect to direct effect: 1.06 ratio of indirect to total effect: .65 note. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. n = 610. see also figure 1. workplace bullying and occupational stress 248 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 presents the results of the mediation analyses. as can be seen, relationships with colleagues (m1) did not mediate the path between workplace bullying (x) and occupational stress, since zero was included in the confidence interval. h1 did not receive support. however, family relationships (m2) did serve as a mediator, and the effect size as measured with the ratio between the indirect and the direct effect was high, .91. h2 did receive support. a graphic presentation of the results is presented in figure 1. since relationships with colleagues (m1) did not serve as a mediator as had been hypothesised, it was pointless to further investigate whether country and sex served as moderators of the pathway over m1. instead, it was analysed whether they moderated the pathway over m2, family relationships. the results are presented in table 6. table 6 moderating effects of country and sex on the mediating effect of family relationships (m2) on the relationship between workplace bullying (x) and occupational stress (y) (n = 610) interaction effect b p 95% ci ll ul interaction effect of country x family relationships (b1) x‒m2 -.22 .002 -.41 -.09 (b2) m2‒y -.14 .094 -.29 .02 interaction effect of sex x family relationships (b1) x‒m2 .01 .880 -.13 .15 (b2) m2‒y -.10 .150 -.23 .04 note. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. as table 6 shows, the confidence intervals for both potential moderators (country and sex) included zero. that is, none of them served as a moderator for the pathway over m2. both h3 and h4 had to be rejected. conclusions hypothesis testing only one of the four hypotheses was supported by the results. the findings indicated that in this sample, family relationships (h2), but not relationships with colleagues (h1), mediated the effect of workplace bullying on occupational stress. thus. h2, but not h1, was corroborated. h3 and h4 did not receive support. neither country nor sex moderated the mediating effect of family relationships. it should be noted that the results suggest a partial, but not a full, mediation for family relationships. in reality, it is impossible ever to unequivocally prove full mediation, since that would require that one has measured, without error, all possible mediators and suppressors (rucker, preacher, tormala, & petty, 2011). strengths and limitations a strength of this study is the use of mediation and moderation analysis to better explain the effect of workplace bullying on symptoms of occupational stress among university teachers. to our knowledge, no previous study malik & björkqvist 249 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ has attempted to use conditional process modelling in order to shed light on the mediating effect of interpersonal relationships on the link between workplace bullying and occupational stress symptoms. however, the present study has several limitations that should be noted. the first one concerns the representativeness of the sample. although an attempt was made to collect data from different regions of both countries, it would be incorrect to consider the sample as fully representative. furthermore, it is not possible to estimate an exact response rate, since it is difficult to assess the exact number of valid e-mail addresses to which the electronic questionnaire was sent. the second limitation is that it was a cross-sectional study, which limits conclusions about causality within the conditional process model. in order to test causation, a longitudinal study is required. reverse causation remains a possibility, and the role of third variables is not automatically ruled out by cross-sectional designs. third, it may be claimed that a paper-and-pencil questionnaire could have produced different results than an electronic one. however, boyer, olson, calantone, and jackson (2002) found that e-surveys are as good as manual surveys: both methods have similar response rates and receive more or less similar results. fourth, this sample consisted of university teachers, and results may not necessarily be generalised to other work forces. generalisations to other countries must also be made with caution, until replications in other countries have been made. final remarks the central finding of this study was that family relationships (but not relationships with colleagues) had a mediating impact on the effect of workplace bullying on stress symptoms. the findings underscore the importance of having good relations with one’s family. it is noteworthy that neither sex nor country moderated this effect. this fact suggests that the mediating effect of family relationships is relatively robust, since it was found in two quite different cultures, and within both sexes, in both countries. a suggestion for future research is to investigate whether this result can be replicated in other countries around the globe. another suggestion is to probe deeper into how this alleviating effect occurs. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. workplace bullying and occupational stress 250 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references abbasi, m., araban, m., & aalipour, k. 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(2008). a comparative study of educational research in china and the united states. asia pacific journal of education, 28, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188790701849826 about the authors naima akhtar malik did her master’s in education. she is a doctoral student in developmental psychology at åbo akademi university in finland. she has more than thirteen years of teaching experience at universities in pakistan, and she is also teaching peace education at åbo akademi university. kaj björkqvist is professor of developmental psychology at åbo akademi university, vasa, finland, since 1992. he is a former president of the international society for research on aggression. he has published 13 books and 125 articles. his research covers human aggression, including sex differences, school and workplace bullying, domestic aggression, and cross-cultural comparisons. malik & björkqvist 259 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 240–259 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1611 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fmet0000029 https://doi.org/10.1001%2fjama.2013.281053 https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1466-7657.2009.00745.x https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10869-016-9443-z https://doi.org/10.1080%2f02188790701849826 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ workplace bullying and occupational stress (introduction) occupational stress workplace bullying relationships with colleagues family relationships aim and hypotheses of the study method sample instrument and analysis ethical considerations results correlations between the variables of the study conditional process analysis conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the mediating role of self-concept and coping strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and perceived stress research reports the mediating role of self-concept and coping strategies on the relationship between attachment styles and perceived stress rıza bayrak a, murat güler* b, nesrin hisli şahin c [a] department of business administration, national defense university, ankara, turkey. [b] department of business administration, niğde ömer halisdemir university, niğde, turkey. [c] department of psychology, başkent university, ankara, turkey. abstract the aim of this study was to examine the role of attachment style, self-concept, and coping strategies, in order to explain the differences in perceived stress factors and stress symptoms, in a mediation model. participants were 515 university students (302 female and 213 male) aged 17-28 years. the assessment instruments were: social comparison scale, ways of coping scale, experiences in close relationships scale-ii, brief symptom inventory and university students stress factors scale. the results indicated that the effect of anxious attachment on perceived stress factors and stress symptoms was partially mediated by self-concept and coping styles. our findings revealed that the level of anxious attachment is an important factor to explain perceived stress and stress-related variables. keywords: attachment, self-concept, coping, stress factors, stress symptoms europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 received: 2017-08-07. accepted: 2018-07-03. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; alessio gori, università di roma lumsa, rome, italy *corresponding author at: department of business administration, faculty of economics and administrative sciences, niğde omer halisdemir university, central campus, 51240, niğde, turkey. e-mail: murat_guler@ohu.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. stress, as a relationship between the individual and an environmental change, appraised as endangering wellbeing, and taxing or exceeding the individual’s coping resources (lazarus & folkman, 1986), affects individuals differently, due to their differences in their assessment of the situation and coping strategies employed (folkman, lazarus, gruen, & delongis, 1986; lazarus, 1993). the assumptions of the individual regarding his or her own coping skills play an important role in the evaluation and interpretation of this relationship between the individual and the environment (park & folkman, 1997). accordingly, in order to understand the link between the stress sources and the stress response of the individual, it is important to take into consideration, their personality traits (lazarus, 1993), such as attachment styles and self-concept. the theoretical background there is some evidence regarding the significance of the attachment styles as a personality trait, to explain the concept of stress. bowlby (1973) notes that, secure attachment relationship between the caregiver and the child allows the child, to develop a healthy psychological development, and that these early relational experieneurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ces shape the interpersonal processes of the individual's later life. if the basic requirements for safe attachment during infancy and childhood are not met adequately, psychopathological problems may develop. in previous studies, attachment styles have been associated with various psychopathologies such as personality disorders (aaronson, bender, skodol, & gunderson, 2006; jellema, 2000; mauricio, tein, & lopez, 2007), depression (carnelley, pietromonacó, & jaffe, 1994; wei, mallinckrodt, larson, & zakalik, 2005) and anxiety disorders (doron & kyrios, 2005). attachment behavior, as defined by bowlby (1973), is the tendency of the human being as a mammal to get close to an adult that he or she accepts as a shelter/protection. the quality of this attachment relationship has an important role in personality development and affects the individual’s whole life. attachment styles, starting to develop between the baby and the caretaker just after the birth, can be conceptualized like a prototype or a schema for interpersonal relations in the future (ainsworth et al., 1978; morris, 1982). sperling and berman (1994) define adult attachment, as a tendency and an effort to establish closeness with other people, they feel safe and secure with. due to this tendency, which is also termed as secure-insecure attachment styles observed in all people, mental schemas or mental representations (inner working models) about the world and other people develop (sperling & berman, 1994). these mental schemas determine how people perceive the interpersonal events they experience. in early studies, besides secure attachment style, anxious-resistant and avoidant attachment styles which depend on ainsworth et al.’s work (1978) were in focus of research. bartholomew and horowitz (1991) suggested a four-category model based on the perception of self and others dimensions. according to that model, by dichotomizing these dimensions as positive or negative four attachment styles were defined as secure, preoccupied, dismissive avoidant and fearful avoidant. practically this model divided avoidant attachment into two parts. brennan, clark, and shaver (1998) made a large-scale factor analytic study on existing self-measures of adult attachment and suggested two types of attachment, avoidance (discomfort with closeness and depending to others) and anxiety (fear of rejection and abandonment). previous studies on attachment styles have shown that each attachment style is associated with different personality traits, and different interpersonal problems (sümer & güngör, 1999). when the relationship between attachment styles and stress is examined, it is seen that securely attached individuals show less anxiety and depression symptoms, compared to insecurely attached ones, and they perceive more social support in their environment and get more satisfaction (priel & shamai, 1995). secure attachment is said to be negatively related to perceived stress and psychological symptoms; whereas insecure attachment is positively related to both (mccarthy, lambert, & moller, 2006; pielage, gerlsma, & schaap, 2000). it is asserted that securely attached individuals are high in self-confidence and low in alienation compared to others, while insecurely attached individuals show higher anxiety and depression symptoms (fortuna & roisman, 2008; muris, meesters, melick, & zwambag, 2001). however, when the insecure attachment is investigated according to its sub-divisions, some studies indicate that only anxious attachment is found to be positively related to perceived stress, while no relationship was found between avoidant attachment and perceived stress (maunder, lancee, nolan, hunter, & tannenbaum, 2006). this finding was interpreted as a result of the suppressing tendency of the avoidantly attached individuals (hunter et al., 2016; teeruthroy & bhowon, 2012). anxious attachment was also found to be positively related anxiety symptoms and predict depressive symptoms (hankin, kassel, & abela, 2005). it was stated that those with avoidant attachment styles with high anxiety, revealed more psychological symptoms compared to the ones with lower anxiety; while those with both anxious and avoidant attachment styles experienced more intense anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms (elwood & williams, 2007; neria et al., 2001; renaud, 2008). attachment styles and stress relationship 898 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in some studies, examining the relationship between attachment and stress, it is seen that coping strategies are used as a mediating variable (lopez, mauricio, gormley, simko, & berger, 2001; merlo & lakey, 2007; wei, heppner, & mallinckrodt, 2003). it is stated that there is a significant positive relationship between anxious and avoidant attachment styles and ineffective coping; additionally, ineffective coping predicts stress symptoms (lopez et al., 2001). wei et al. (2003) suggest that while coping strategies completely mediate the relationship between anxious attachment and stress; coping has a partial mediating role in the relationship between avoidant attachment style and stress. in some studies, it was reported that securely attached individuals prefer active coping strategies against stress (effective coping); whereas insecurely attached ones prefer to use avoidant coping strategies (li, 2008; seiffge-krenke & beyers, 2005). in another study, it was stated that those who have dismissive avoidant attachment style, employ less social and emotional support as a coping strategy (hawkins, howard, & oyebode, 2007). moreover, it was suggested that there is a positive relationship between secure attachment and seeking social support and problem-focused coping. additionally, this positive relationship also appears between anxious attachment and avoidant coping style. anxiously attached individuals perceive social encounters as more stressful than the others and tend to avoid from them (schottenbauer et al., 2006). according to some studies on the relationship between self-concept, attachment, and stress, securely attached university students were found to have a more positive self-image compared to insecurely attached ones (damarlı, 2006); and with increasing stress, while positive self-image decreases, the use of ineffective coping mechanisms increases (tuğrul, 1994). it is also suggested that self-esteem is a significant predictor of coping strategies (avşaroğlu & üre, 2007); moreover, as stress factors increase, positive self-concept decreases, while vulnerability to stress and stress symptoms increase (kulaç, 2004). in some studies examining the relationship between perceived stress factors, stress symptoms and coping, it was seen that the individuals using more effective coping mechanisms, experienced lower stress symptoms (austin, shah, & muncer, 2005; lee & larson, 1996; şahin, güler, & basım, 2009; tully, 2004); and that there was a negative correlation between effective coping methods and stress factors (basut & erden, 2005; sığrı, 2007), and a significant positive correlation between stress factors and stress symptoms (greene, walker, hickson, & thompson, 1985; şahin et al., 2005). the current study in this context, assuming that stress symptoms are a function of the interaction between personality traits and perceived stress factors (şahin, basım, & akkoyun, 2011); and that different attachment types may be related to different personality traits (sümer & güngör, 1999) and experienced stress symptoms (pielage et al., 2000; priel & shamai, 1995); the present study was designed to investigate the mediatory role of attachment types, self-concept and coping strategies on the perceived stress factors and stress symptoms, as depicted in figure-1. as mentioned above, even though these relationships were analyzed separately in the previous studies, as far as we know, they are analyzed as a group of variables in a model, for the first time in the current study. method participants university students (575) studying in four different public and private universities in ankara, participated in the study, giving an informed consent. this was a sample of convenience. totally, 60 forms were excluded from the bayrak, güler, & şahin 899 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis due to missing items in the scales or unfilled scales in the testing battery. as a result, 515 participants were analyzed. the age range was between 17 and 28 (m = 21, sd = 2). in terms of gender, 213 participants were male (41.4%) and 302 were female (58.6%). procedure an assessment battery was formed by gathering the five scales to measure the research variables, self-concept, stress (factors, symptoms), coping, and attachment. in order to reduce the effects of possible factors out of the scope of the current study, the university students were considered as a convenient sample, since they are in a similar environment, and relatively more homogeneous community, compared to the society in general. participants were a convenience sample from university students. the survey was administered to 10-30-person groups in classroom conditions and lasted 30 minutes on average. statistical analyses of the means, standard deviations, correlations among the research variables and their mediating roles, were conducted by ibm spss 23, and the path analysis was conducted by using ibm amos 23. measures experiences in close relations inventory-ii (ecri-ii) this is a revision based on the item-response theory (fraley & shaver, 2000), of the original 18-item experiences in close relations inventory, originally developed by brennan, clark, and shaver (1998), to measure individual’s attachment on two subscales, namely, “anxious” and “avoidant” attachment styles (hambleton, swaminathan, & rogers, 1991). the anxious attachment dimension (each item is evaluated on a 7-point likert type scale) indicates to an attachment anxiety, as originating from oversensitivity to rejection and feelings of abandonment, experienced in close relationships; on the other hand, avoidant anxiety dimension, indicates to a discomfort felt in being close to, or dependent on others (sümer, 2006). turkish adaptation of the experiences in close relation inventory-ii was conducted by selçuk, günaydin, sümer, and uysal (2005). the cronbach’s alpha coefficients of anxious and avoidant attachment styles were reported as α = .86 and .90 respectively (selçuk et al., 2005). in the current study, a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) was conducted and the results confirmed the two-dimensional structure of the scale. the goodness of fit values was found to be acceptable (χ2/sd = 2.274, rmsea= .05, cfi = .92, gfi = .91), after the exclusion of the 9th, 19th, 29th, 14th and 28th items from the scale. these five items were found to be related other constructs in cfa and needed to be excluded from measurement. three of the items also had the lowest factor scores in the original adaptation study (selçuk et al., 2005). the internal consistency coefficients of the anxious and avoidant attachment dimensions were found as α = .85 and α = .88 respectively. social comparison scale it is a self-assessment scale, designed to determine the perceptions of an individual when comparing of himself or herself to others, on various dimensions. the scale was originally developed by gilbert, allan, and trent (1991) as 5-item form, and later, was adapted into turkish with the addition of some items by şahin and şahin (1992), turning it into an 18-item scale. it consists of 18 bipolar items, evaluated on a 6-point likert-type scale. an example item is “incompetent” or “competent”. high scores indicate positive self-perception, whereas low scores indicate negative self-perception (savaşır & şahin, 1997). the internal consistency of the turkish adapted form was found as α = .89 (şahin, durak, & şahin, 1993). in the current study, the internal consistency coattachment styles and stress relationship 900 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ efficient was found to be α = .86. the cfa analysis result confirmed the single dimensional structure of the scale, and the goodness of fit indexes was acceptable (χ2/sd = 1.876, rmsea = .04, cfi = .98, gfi = .96). university students’ stress factors scale this is a 160-item scale, developed specifically for the turkish culture by şahin et al. (2005), to determine the factors related to stress among university students. the eight subscales of the scale are self-related problems, responsibilities, social problems, academic problems, problems related to behaviors contrary to traditional values, economic problems, problems about close relationships and problems about being away from relatives (family, friends) (şahin et al., 2005). the participants were asked to rate how the given statements effected them in the last three months. an example item is “living away from family”. the internal consistency coefficients for the sub-dimensions were found to be between α = .81 and α = .93, and for the total scale, it was α = .97, in the current study. since the ratio of the sample size to the number of items was not enough to perform a cfa, criterion-dependent validity was considered as the scale validity criterion. these were found to be as r = .59 (p < .001) (with stress symptoms); r = .40 (p < .001) (with anxious attachment); and r = .34 (p < .001) (with ineffective coping) (büyüköztürk, 2010). coping with stress scale the 66-item original scale, developed by lazarus and folkman (1984), was adapted for the turkish university students, by şahin and durak (1995), and transformed into a 30-item short form. the scale is based on the assumption that individuals have unchanging coping strategies in different situations. the coping methods were separated into two-factor sub-scales as, “problem-oriented / active / effective coping” and “emotion-oriented / passive / ineffective coping”. an example item is “when i have a problem i try to be optimist”. the reliability coefficients reported for the problem-oriented/active methods was α = .82 and for emotion-oriented/passive methods α = .78 (şahin et al., 2009). in the current study, the results of the cfa confirmed the two-dimensional structure of the scale as effective and ineffective coping. the goodness of fit index values (χ2/sd = 2.152, rmsea = .05, cfi = .90, gfi = .91) were found to be acceptable. the internal consistency coefficients for effective coping and ineffective coping were α = .78 and α =.75, respectively. brief symptom inventory this is 53-item, a short form of the scl-90-r inventory developed by derogatis (1992), for the purpose of screening various psychological symptoms. a new factor analysis was conducted on a turkish sample by şahin and durak (1994) and five factors were found. these factors are: anxiety, depression, negative self, somatization, and hostility. the total score received from the four-point likert type scale indicates to the intensity of the individual's stress symptoms. an example item is “feeling strained and uneasy”. in the current study, the internal consistency coefficients of the sub-dimensions were found to be between α = .73 and α =.85, and as α = .95 for total scale; the goodness of fit values for the one-dimensional structure of the scale (χ2/sd = 1.596, rmsea = .03, cfi = .95, gfi = .90) were found to be as acceptable. results a pearson correlation analysis was performed to see the relationships among the research variables. table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and the correlations. except for gender, all the variables correlated with each other significantly (p < .001). the highest correlation was found between anxious attachment and avoidant atbayrak, güler, & şahin 901 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tachment (r = .71) anxious attachment was also moderately positively correlated with ineffective coping (r = .49) and stress symptoms (r = .44). also, stress symptoms was positively correlated with perceived stress factors (r = .59), ineffective coping (r = .40) and negatively correlated with effective coping (r = -.39). gender (being female) slightly negatively related with avoidant attachment (r = -.12, p < .01) and effective coping (r = -.11, p < .01). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations variables m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. gender (m=1, f=2) 2. anxious attachment 3.35 1.20 -.06 3. avoidant attachment 2.54 0.88 -.12* .71** 4. self-concept 0.95 0.13 .01 -.39** -.38** 5. effective coping 1.74 0.47 -.11* -.37** -.27** .43** 6. ineffective coping 0.53 0.46 .08 .49** .28** -.36** -.70** 7. stress factors 1.40 0.52 .04 .40** .25** -.15** -.28** .34** 8. stress symptoms 0.85 0.52 .03 .44** .31** -.25** -.39** .40** .59** note. n = 515. **p < .01. in order to examine the direct and indirect effects of the research variables within the research model, a path analysis, which enables to define a variable as both dependent and independent variable in the same analysis, was conducted. the path analysis working on the principles of multiple regression logic is defined as a model in which direct and indirect statistical effects can be tested. in the structural equation modeling studies with latent variables, the sample size needs to be at least 5 to 10 times the number of observed variables according to the distribution features of the data (gürbüz & şahin, 2016). since the total number of items (total 297 items) of the scales used in the present study is considerably large, in terms of the required sample size for path analysis, the factor scores were used as the observed variables and the path analysis was performed with these variables. in a path analysis which is performed this way, despite the limitations of the measurement errors, with respect to the aim of the research, direct and indirect effects can be analyzed all together on a single path analysis, instead of separately conducted much more multiple regression analyses to examine them. furthermore, to figure out the latent variables scores, instead of a simple average of the total item scores, regression imputation method in amos (arbuckle, 2014), which takes into account the effect values of each item on the scale as identified in the confirmatory factor analysis, was used. anxious attachment and avoidant attachment were included as exogenous variables; self-concept, coping strategies, stress factors, and stress symptoms were included as endogenous variables in the model. in the final model, in which nonsignificant (p > .05) paths were not included, the goodness of fit values (χ2/sd = 2.275, rmsea = .05, cfi = .99, gfi = .99) were found to be at a “good fit” level, which means the model fits the data well (gürbüz & şahin, 2016; meydan & şeşen, 2011). the path analysis model and analysis results for significant (p < .05) parameter estimates of the direct and indirect effects are shown in figure 1. except for the absence of a significant relationship between effective coping and perceived stress factors, expected significant effects were observed at each step in the model. the results indicated that, anxious attachment (β = -0.23, p < .001) and avoidant attachment (β = -0.22, p < .001) were attachment styles and stress relationship 902 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negatively related to self-concept at a significant level. self-concept seemed to be significantly and positively related to effective coping (β = 0.34, p < .001), but negatively related to ineffective coping (β = -0.20, p < .001). the results also suggested that ineffective coping was positively related to perceived stress factors, while effective coping was negatively related to stress symptoms (β = -0.19, p < .05). perceived stress factors were positively related to stress symptoms (β = 0.46, p < .001). it was also observed that anxious attachment was significantly and positively related to ineffective (β = 0.41, p < .001), negatively related to effective coping (β = -0.24, p < .01); while it was positively related to perceived stress factors (β = 0.30, p < .001) and stress symptoms (β = 0.19, p < .001). gender entered as a control variable into the analysis and no significant (p < .05) effect on stress symptoms was found. figure 1. path analysis model and analysis results. further analyses were performed in the following order, to clarify whether the explored significant interactions included a mediating role or not. in a simple mediation analysis, frequently the causal step approach (baron & kenny, 1986) is used and the product of coefficients approach (sobel, 1982) is employed, to test the validity of the conclusions reached (burmaoğlu, polat, & meydan, 2013; hayes, 2009). however, it is stated that both of these approaches should not be conducted due to the problems in their basic assumptions. instead of these methods, use of bootstrap confidence interval method is suggested, which allows examining the effects of more than one mediating variable at the same time, despite lower sample sizes (preacher & hayes, 2008; shrout & bolger, 2002). nevertheless, since a specific mediating role actually cannot be individually assessed (preacher & hayes, 2008, p. 887), and since we needed to examine not only the mediating role of each variable (self-concept, coping strategies and perceived stress factors) separately, and also controlling for the mediating role of other mediators, the bootstrap bias-corrected confidence interval (bc 95% ci) method (preacher & hayes, 2008; shrout & bolger, 2002) (which enables to examine more than one mediator variable simultaneously) was used. the size of the bootstrap resample was determined as 5000 (preacher & hayes, 2008). the results are presented in table 2. bayrak, güler, & şahin 903 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mediation analyses results effect point estimate sd bc %95 ci lower upper effective coping ← anxious attachment total effect (c) -.123 .018 -.157 -.088 direct effect(c’) -.093 .017 -.126 -.060 indirect effect (axb) -.031 .009 -.051 -.015 ineffective coping ← anxious attachment total effect(c) .174 .016 .141 .204 direct effect(c’) .155 .017 .123 .188 indirect effect(axb) .018 .006 .008 .033 effective coping ← avoidant attachment total effect(c) -.038 .012 -.065 -.019 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 indirect effect(axb) -.038 .012 -.065 -.019 ineffective coping ← avoidant attachment total effect(c) .023 .008 .010 .041 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 indirect effect(axb) .023 .008 .010 .041 perceived stress factors ←anxious attachment total effect(c) .169 .017 .135 .202 direct effect(c’) .132 .019 .095 .168 total indirect effect(σ aixbixdi) .038 .010 .019 .059 perceived stress factors ←avoidant attachment total effect(c) .005 .002 .002 .010 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 total indirect effect(σ aixbixdi) .005 .002 .002 .010 perceived stress factors ← self-concept total effect(c) -.151 .049 -.265 -.068 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 indirect effect(axb) -.151 .049 -.265 -.068 stress symptoms ← anxious attachment total effect(c) .186 .017 .152 .218 direct effect(c’) .081 .016 .049 .110 total indirect effect(σ aixbixdi) .105 .012 .084 .129 stress symptoms ← avoidant attachment total effect(c) .010 .004 .005 .020 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 total indirect effect(σ aixbixdi) .010 .004 .005 .020 attachment styles and stress relationship 904 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effect point estimate sd bc %95 ci lower upper stress symptoms ← self-concept total effect(c) -.319 .068 -.468 -.202 direct effect(c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 total indirect effect(σ aixbixdi) -.319 .068 -.468 -.202 stress symptoms ← ineffective coping total effect(c) .101 .026 .052 .154 direct effect (c’) .000 .000 .000 .000 indirect effect(axb) .101 .026 .052 .154 note. n = 515 (5.000 bootstrap sample), bc = bias corrected, a = effect of x on m, b and d = effect of m on y, c = total effect of x on y, c’= direct effect of x on y. below the bootstrap corrected confidence interval (%95) column (table 2), there are two columns that show the lower and upper values with the effect sizes, within 95% confidence interval. if the values between the two limits do not contain "0", then the examined indirect effect is considered to be significantly different from zero (preacher & hayes, 2008; shrout & bolger, 2002). our analyses showed that all the indirect effects examined in the model were significant in terms of the 95% confidence interval. significant effects were marked as bold on the table. it was also seen that most of (b = 0.105) the total effect (b = 0.186) of anxious attachment on stress symptoms, occurred indirectly, through self-concept, coping, and perceived stress factors, whereas some of it took place directly (b = 0.081). according to this result, it can be said that self-concept, coping and perceived stress factors may have a partial mediator role in the relationship between anxious attachment and stress symptoms. it was also found that self-concept, coping and perceived stress factors fully mediated the relationship between avoidant attachment and stress symptoms (b = 0.010). while coping and perceived stress factors fully mediated the “self-concept and stress symptoms relationship” (b = -0.319), the “ineffective coping and stress symptoms relationship” (b = 0.101), was found to be fully mediated by perceived stress factors. discussion in this study, a mediation model was used to examine the effects of the study variables, i.e., attachment styles, self-concept, coping strategies and perceived stress factors, to predict stress symptoms. the main result of the study is that, perceived stress factors and stress symptoms significantly differ according to personality characteristics and that, the anxious attachment has a greater predictive power on stress symptoms when its direct and indirect statistical effects are taken into consideration. in other words, it can be assumed that those who have high levels of anxious attachment may experience greater levels of stress compared to others. it can also be suggested that, besides the direct effect of anxious attachment on stress symptoms, it has an indirect effect through self-concept, coping methods and perceived stress factors. in considering the relationship of anxious attachment with other variables, it can be assumed that anxiously attached individuals have a more negative self-concept; they use more ineffective coping strategies compared to the effective ones; they perceive more stress factors, and also as a result, they experience a greater intensity of stress symptoms. however, it is noteworthy that, although avoidance type attachment does not have a direct significant effect on stress symptoms, it has an indirect significant effect on stress symptoms through self-concept. bayrak, güler, & şahin 905 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ similar with the current study’s findings, in the related literature, it is stated that there is a significant and positive correlation between anxious attachment and perceived stress; however, avoidant attachment does not seem to be significantly related to stress symptoms (elwood & williams, 2007; fortuna & roisman, 2008; hankin et al., 2005; maunder et al., 2006; renaud, 2008). this situation was also attributed to avoidant attached individuals’ tendency to suppress their stress symptoms, even though they actually, physically experience stress (hunter et al., 2016; teeruthroy & bhowon, 2012). according to the current study’s results, the previously reported absence of a significant relationship between avoidant attachment and stress symptoms might be due to, not taking into consideration the possible moderating or mediating roles of some of the other critical variables, such as the ones used in this study. the finding that anxious attachment is directly and indirectly, related to stress-related variables, including selfconcept or self-perception, suggests that attachment is a key feature in describing stress. at the same time, it is assumed that the proposed model provides a useful and holistic view to understand how attachment relates to stress. increased levels of anxious and avoidant attachment were found to be associated with increased levels of negative self-concept. it may be that individuals with a negative self-concept, tend to have a more helpless and submissive attitude, less self-confidence, and less optimistic attitudes towards the stressful events they experience. lazarus and folkman (1984) stated that, when individuals encounter a stressful situation, they make secondary appraisals about whether their resources are sufficient or not to cope with this stressful event, and that the resulting calculation/conclusion determines their next behavior. going along with this argument, it can be stated that, the appraisals of the individual regarding the sufficiency of his/her resources, might be mediated by their self-perception and attachment style. our results showed that the anxiously attached individuals, regardless of their perceptions of themselves, use less effective and more ineffective coping strategies. moreover, anxious attachment styles have a greater statistical power on the use of ineffective coping strategies. in other words, the level of anxious attachment effects coping with stressful situations in a negative way. these findings regarding attachment and coping strategies are consistent with the findings reported in previous studies (hawkins et al., 2007; li, 2008; seiffge-krenke & beyers, 2005; schottenbauer et al., 2006). another important finding of the current study is that, while effective coping was found to be significantly related to stress symptoms (not to stress factors), ineffective coping was found to be significantly and indirectly related to stress factors (not stress symptoms). it can be argued that if an individual thinks that, his/her resources are sufficient for effective coping, the perceived stress symptoms will be lower. on the other hand, it can also be asserted that considering oneself as incompetent and helpless to cope with stress, would lead one to evaluate the encountered events as more stressful, which in turn causes the individual to experience more stress symptoms. despite the fact that in the related literature, the use of effective coping strategies was associated with lower stress and the use of ineffective coping methods was significantly associated with higher stress (austin et al., 2005; lopez et al., 2001; şahin et al., 2009), the current finding of the absence of a significant relationship between effective coping and perceived stress factors is a subject that needs to be investigated in more detail in future studies. our results show little gender differences in research variables. there was no gender effect on stress symptoms. avoidant attachment and effective coping were only found poorly related to gender. males seem to have a tendency to use a little bit more avoidant attachment style and effective coping ways. the finding of avoidant attachment styles and stress relationship 906 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment and gender relationship is consistent with previous research (del giudice, 2011). this tendency might depend on females being more social than males. effective coping and gender relationship also consistent with the literature. our results show that males tend to use more problem focus coping style than females as folkman and lazarus (1980) indicated. considering that the modern individual's current stress is originated from social threats, rather than physical ones, it is highly probable to argue that there is a decisive effect of the attachment styles on the perceived stress. sapolsky (2004) suggests that the lack of social relations, associated with a lower lifetime expectancy and more diseases; and that stress caused by social isolation, negatively effects health by suppressing the immune system. in previous studies, it has been reported that both anxious and avoidant attachment styles are positively related depression, anxiety, and anger (wei et al., 2003). insecurely attached individuals experience higher levels of various psychological and physiological symptoms compared to securely attached ones (kemp & neimeyer, 1999; muris et al., 2001; pielage et al., 2000; priel & shamai, 1995; schottenbauer et al., 2006; watt et al., 2005). based on the current research findings; it can be argued that individuals with anxious attachment, perceive situations as more stressful, and instead of more effective coping strategies, they tend to use helpless and submissive strategies and consequently report more stress symptoms. in summary, it can be asserted that insecure attachment styles (especially anxious attachment), self-perception and strategies used in coping with stress, have meaningful predictor power in explaining perceived stress factors and stress symptoms. individual’s attachment style is an important factor in understanding the concept of stress since it can predict self-concept, coping methods, perceived stress factors and ultimately experienced stress symptoms. the main contribution of this study to the literature is that the indirect effect of anxious attachment on stress through self-concept and coping is more than its direct effect on stress. anxious attachment style negatively effects self-concept and impair coping abilities which weaken the individual in the face of stressful events and leads to perceive more stress factors and experience more stress. while interpreting the findings of the current study, the limitations should also be considered. it should be noted that a common method variance and social desirability bias might exist since the research data was collected by means of a cross-sectional method and through self-report measures. also, there may be a limitation to generalize the findings since the participants were all university students. however, it is assumed that since the participants were a homogeneous group regarding age and education, the effects of some possible environmental variables, not covered in the study could have been controlled. future research is needed for different age groups or occupations reveal more generalizable results. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. bayrak, güler, & şahin 907 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references aaronson, c. j., bender, d. s., skodol, a. e., & gunderson, j. g. 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(2005). adult attachment, depressive symptoms, and validation from self versus others. journal of counseling psychology, 52, 368-377. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.52.3.368 about the authors rıza bayrak, phd, is a researcher and lecturer in management at national defense university, department of business administration, turkey. his research interests are behavioral economics, attachment, and stress. murat güler, phd, is a researcher and assistant professor in management at niğde ömer halisdemir university faculty of economics and administrative sciences, turkey. his research interests are organizational behavior, emotional labor, engagement, well-being, and stress. nesrin hisli şahin, phd, is a full professor in clinical psychology at başkent university faculty of arts and sciences, turkey, and head of department of psychology. her main research interests are stress and its management, coping, self-perception, anxiety disorders, attachment and cognitive psychology. bayrak, güler, & şahin 913 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 897–913 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1508 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-005-0635-5 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.50.4.438 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.52.3.368 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment styles and stress relationship (introduction) the theoretical background method participants procedure measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players: implications for understanding key issues and controversies in human figure drawings research reports a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players: implications for understanding key issues and controversies in human figure drawings bahman baluch* a, linda j. duffy a, rokhsareh badami b, elisangela c. ap pereira c [a] school of science and technology, middlesex university, london, united kingdom. [b] department of physical education and sport science, isfahan (khorasgan) branch, islamic azad university, isfahan, iran. [c] barao de maua university, ribeirao preto, brazil. abstract professionals examine various aspects of girls’ and boys’ drawings as a way of understanding their intelligence, personality and emotional state. however, the extent to which such measures could be universally generalised or attributed to a specific cultural norm is still a debatable issue. in the present study five key features of children’s drawings namely: the size (height) of the drawings, profile or full face, figure in action or static, shaded or non-shaded and the nature of additional details were examined from a cross-cultural perspective, and by providing a topic (football) for which children’s drawing of a human figure could provide opportunities for the latter indices to manifest and flourish. children from three countries; england, iran and brazil, representing three continents took part in this study. the participants were asked to draw a football player from their own country and from the other participating countries. the results showed that brazilian children differ from iranian and english children by drawing significantly smaller figures and putting more football action in the drawings. shading of the figure drawn was more prevalent amongst english children. such findings have implications for the interpretation of key aspects of children's drawings in educational, clinical and therapeutic settings and from a universal vs. culturally-specific viewpoint. keywords: children's drawings, football, cross-continental, human figures europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 received: 2016-07-04. accepted: 2017-05-05. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: school of science and technology, middlesex university, london, united kingdom. e-mail: b.baluch@mdx.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. children’s drawings can be understood as “a mirror to their minds” and providing access to the child's representational work (cherney, seiwert, dickey, & flichtbeil, 2006). considerable systematic research dating back to the beginning of the 20th century (e.g. rouma, 1913; schuyten, 1904) has been aimed at evaluating and interpreting children's attempts in producing some form of "drawings", ranging from scribbling on a page to a more conventional form (see cox, 1992; golomb, 1992 for reviews). in particular, interest concerns children’s depictions of human figures and especially drawings of themselves and others. it has been argued that this is due to the extent of importance of human beings to the child from a very young age and the most frequently drawn topic by children, thus a better index for understanding the child's cognitive (intellectual) and emotional development (cox & hodsoll, 2000). one significant and consistently observed aspect of children's drawings is that with increasing age there is an increase in the addition of realistic portions of the human figure. this led to europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the popularly used draw-a-man test originated in 1926 by goodenough, later modified by harris (1963) and koppitz (1968) and the stage theories of developmental aspects of children's drawings (see golomb, 2002). the task is to simply ask a child to draw a man (later modifications to draw a man and a woman) and to examine an accumulative count of realistic body parts from a prescribed list (e.g. head, eyes, arms). the list varied from 51 items in goodenough's (1926) original list to harris’s (1963) 71 items and a more compact 30 item list by koppitz (1968). as the score obtained was shown to correlate significantly with standard iq tests (koppitz, 1968) it gave rise to using the draw a man test as a valid and un-intrusive measure of a child's intellectual ability (hartley, somerville, jensen, & eliefja, 1982). furthermore, it was argued that the draw a man test could be as close as we have come to an ideal, culture-free test of intelligence (di leo, 1970). for more recent reviews see imuta, scarf, pharo, and hayne (2013). a further development into the assessment of children's drawings was made when it was noted that inferences could be made by the nature of the drawings as well as the method of counting items drawn (koppitz, 1968). for example, an exaggerated size of the head or body, shading, inclusion of extra items such as clouds, rain, snow, flying birds or by cutting portions of the arm. koppitz (1968, 1984) argued that such depiction by children reflects their feelings, fears, dislikes and anxieties. this gave rise to the development of a 30 item emotional indicators by koppitz (1968) as an attempt to assess a child's emotional adjustment and disturbance. several reported studies have considered koppitz’s (1968) emotional indicators as a tool to assess their clinical and non-clinical populations (e.g. lee & hobson, 2006; nyman, baluch, & duffy, 2011; nyman, baluch, duffy, & shinebourne, 2011, see also skybo, ryan-wenger, & su, 2007 for a review). in a similar fashion children’s human figure drawings have been of interest to therapists not only for assessment and diagnosis but also as a focus of the therapy process to interpret and assess for signs of children’s feelings about people and events in their lives (deaver, 2009, pala, nuvvula, & kamatham, 2016). factors to be taken into account when assessing children’s human figure drawings in spite of the great appeal for evaluating children’s human figure drawings, it has now been noted that a number of factors, both in educational and clinical practice, have to be taken into account before a correct assessment is made. in educational terms a strictly piagetian description of the stages of development of children's drawings (piaget & inhelder, 1956) has been challenged by considering alternative accounts, namely task demands and cue‐dependency (burkitt, 2017). in particular, the impact that a communicative context may have on children’s expression of mood in drawings of inanimate and animated topics. similarly, there has now been realisation that factors such as the significance that the drawing has for the child could have their own independent effect on how and why children draw a human figure. for example, studies have shown that when children were asked to draw themselves and family members there is a significant change in how children may portray a person, such as putting more action and movement in the drawing rather than portraying a static person (burns & kaufman, 1970). similarly research by cherney et al. (2006) has reported that when children were asked to draw their family and their school there was a significant gender and age difference in the number of details depicted in the family drawings. however, one noticeable factor that could play a significant role in children’s human figure drawings is the cultural factor. it is now clear that in spite of the early excitement that interpretation of children's drawing could be a culture-free test of abilities and emotions, there has nevertheless been acknowledgment that cultural difference could influence children's drawings (e.g. kellogg, 1970; kellogg, 1979; wilson & wilson, 1984). this is because it has been argued that the drawing of a human a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 456 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure may not mean the same thing to children from different ethnic and cultural groups (court, 1989, 1994; hui & triandis, 1985). in particular, with respect to aspects of koppitz (1968, 1984) emotional indicators such as the size of the drawing, shading of the drawing, drawing a profile rather than a full face and including the amount of details, there are concerns about the extent to which such drawings could be affected by cultural factors and therefore could be the subject of misinterpretation (cox, 1992). for instance, most research on western children reports that they draw a full face when asked to draw a human figure rather than a profile (see dziurawiec & deregowski, 1992; pinto & bombi, 1996). most western children prefer to draw a human figure looking static rather than engaged in an action (cox, 1993). moreover, it may depend on what is required from the child to draw (e.g. a person doing something) or age and the gender of the child (cox & lambon ralph, 1996; lark-horovitz, lewis, & luca, 1973). cross-cultural studies have shown that indeed there are differences in how children from different cultural groups decide to draw a profile or full face. for example, cox, koyasu, hiranuma, and perara (2001) reported significant differences in how children from the uk and japan draw human figures. similarly, another aspect of children's drawings, namely the size of the drawing, has been the subject of investigation within and across different cultural groups. richter (2001) reported significantly smaller figure sizes of preschool-aged madagascan mahafaly children when compared to german children. one other interesting aspect of children's human figure drawings which is also included in koppitz (1968) emotional indicators is whether children shade their drawings e.g. depicting a person from a non-white race. this is because children most frequently draw a white person even if they are from a non-white ethnic group. for example, dennis (1966) found that children from cambodia, greece, iran, israel, japan, lebanon, mexico, sweden, taiwan, turkey, uk, usa and germany drew human figures that appeared as a white man in western dress. similarly, papadakis-michaelides (1989) found that among the 3200 figures drawn by 1600 children from five cultural backgrounds in the uk (english, hindu, muslim, sikh and west indian) aged 3 years 6 months to 11 years 6 months only one figure was dark skinned. also girls in the latter study generally drew taller human figures than did the boys. this discrepancy could be largely due to the extent to which the drawing plays a significant role in the child's life. children from the dennis (1966) or papadakis-michaelides (1989) studies may be thinking of depicting a white person because they may think this is what is required of them. this could also be an example of how communication context may affect children’s drawings (burkitt, 2017). the children would have drawn a person with a dark skin if they were asked to draw a specific person of interest that may not be caucasian. furthermore, the size of drawings may be more related to the level of interest and significance that a child may attach to the specific drawn person rather than simply a gender factor. fox and thomas (1990) found that most children draw their parents taller than ordinary people. in a similar fashion the level of interest and significance that a child may attach to any topic may vary in different cultures. cox (1992, 1993) has argued that it is a challenge to find a topic that is of the same level of interest across different cultures and for this reason children from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds may draw a human figure in very different ways for different underlying reasons. aims of the study in view of such discrepancy it was considered to identify a topic that would be of particular interest to children, particularly boys, worldwide that included plenty of known personalities of various ethnic backgrounds. the reason that the topic was selected to be of particular interest to boys was that it has often been claimed that girls show more interest in arts and boys in science (murphy, 1997). thus girls are said to be more interested in drawings than boys, use more colours than boys and “boys just aren’t interested” murphy (1997, p. 122). the baluch, duffy, badami et al. 457 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ topic of drawing a football player should provide an ideal opportunity for boys to manifest their abilities, creativity, hidden talents and skills in human figure drawings. it is in this context that some of the classic findings and interpretations of children’s drawings such as gender differences, size of drawings, shading or not shading, drawing in profile or additions of context could be given a different interpretation and may be looked at in terms of what is normal and what is deviation from the norm; providing perhaps valuable clues when evaluating children’s human drawings by clinicians, educationalists and therapists (deaver, 2009). however, as the topic selected for the present research is human figure drawings of a football player it would be necessary to address briefly the development of sport participation, particularly for the children of the age group targeted in the present study. it has been argued that children are both qualitatively and quantitatively different from adults in maturation and their experience and sport participation which may result in various developmental outcomes (wiese-bjomstal, lavoi, & omli, 2009). taking into account piagetian description of the stages of development it is clear that the manner that very young children (below the age of 7) may regard sport participation and behaviour is very different from older children. for example, very young children may not see the same football scene being played from various angles and perspectives. with increasing maturity and, in particular, between the ages of 7-11, a stage known as the “concrete operational period” they have developed a greater intellectual ability to represent transformations in terms of their sporting interest. thus by targeting a population of children at this critical stage of their maturational development one could further examine how their drawings of human figures in the format of a football player may represent transformations in terms of their sporting interest. in view of the above arguments, the present study aimed to examine whether there are cultural differences on the following key factors in children's human figure drawings, namely size of the drawings, shading or not shading, amount of detail and whether or not they are static or showing movement. we also examined gender differences when boys and girls (aged between 9 and 10) from three successful footballing nations were asked to draw a football player from their own country and from two other countries across different continents. football is a topic that is of interest worldwide to all age groups, thus it provides a great opportunity to examine the extent to which the above features are universal or culture-specific. the three countries selected were iran, brazil and england. the latter two countries are universally known for their development of the game and the level of enthusiasm that they have shown in the game. football is also one of the most popular sports in iran where the national team has been ranked as the top asian nation for the past decade. key questions will there be significant differences in the size of drawings of football players, the use of profile in drawings and the action put into the drawings between the children of the three participating countries and between boys and girls? furthermore, the present study will examine if there will be significant difference between the children from the three participating countries and between boys and girls on the number of figures drawn shaded or not shaded? other factors investigated are whether the children from the three participating countries differ significantly in how much detail (e.g. adding a name, other players, or spectators) they add to their drawings and between boys and girls? a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 458 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants overall 196 children from three countries representing three continents, namely south america, asia and europe, took part in this study. brazil (n = 71, 30 girls m = 9.44, sd = 0.68, and 41 boys m = 9.73, sd = 0.83). iran (n = 81, 24 girls m = 10.54, sd = 1.14 and 57 boys, m = 10.54, sd = 1.31) and england (n = 44, 17 girls m = 10.94, sd = 0.24 and 27 boys, m = 10.85, sd = 0.36). all children were selected from the populations’ middle class with no known emotional or psychological disorders. materials and procedure permission and ethical approval for the study was sought from universities where the authors are employed and from the schools that agreed to permit access to the pupils. data was collected by three contributors to this study, natives from the following countries brazil, iran and england and data collection was carried out in their respective countries. the procedure for data collection was identical for all three locations. each child who took part in this study was given parental consent and agreement that the drawings may be used anonymously in a subsequent publication(s). the study was also conducted during convenient times for the schools and as part of their routine art classes. art education is a focal aspect of the curriculum in brazil, iran and england. for example, in brazil since 1971, art education is a compulsory subject at schools (barbosa, 2015). similarly, in iran there is a great emphasis on art education, particularly drawings, as part of the school curriculum (rooholamini, 2001). see also department for education (2013) publication for detailed accounts on art education in english schools. each participant was approached by the researcher and was given an a4 size paper and a set of coloured and black pencils and asked to draw a football player. the choice of country to draw the player was selected randomly on each occasion e.g. a brazilian child was asked to draw a football player from england followed by a player from brazil and finally from iran. the second participant was asked to draw first a brazilian player followed by an iranian player and finally a player from england and so on. this was to avoid any order effects in their drawing strategy (see van sommers, 1989). the children were then thanked for their participation in the study. the procedure for scoring each drawing was conducted by the main researcher in each of the three countries. guidelines were provided for each researcher regarding how to score the key aspects of the drawing namely size, profile, and the amount of details, shading and action. furthermore, the key researchers in each country exchanged examples of drawings and their scoring to ensure reliability of scoring and to avoid any bias. results data was analysed separately as per country and gender of the child with respect to the following key aspects of the drawings: namely size (height) of human figures in centimetres, whether or not the drawn figure was full face or a profile, whether or not the drawn figure was static or showing action, whether there were additions other than just a human figure and finally whether or not the figure drawn was shaded (i.e. depicting a nonwhite person). baluch, duffy, badami et al. 459 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ descriptive statistics as can be seen in table 1, brazilian children have drawn the smallest size of football players followed by the iranian children, the largest football players were drawn by children from england. also, brazilian children seem to use more profile and action in their drawings of football players followed by children from england and the iranians seem to use the least profile in their drawings. furthermore, brazilian children as a whole have more additions in their drawings than children from england and iran. children from england had used shading more extensively than brazilian and iranian children who hardly used any shading in their drawings. overall, males had used more shading than females. table 1 mean and standard deviations as per condition in the present study participants/gender male player drawn female player drawn brazil iran england brazil iran england m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd brazil (size) 8.79 4.30 7.76 3.50 7.80 3.80 9.43 4.20 8.55 3.90 9.04 4.62 iran (size) 10.53 5.51 11.13 6.37 10.75 6.20 11.26 4.60 11.09 4.60 9.89 4.40 england (size) 13.25 5.34 13.85 6.29 13.81 6.56 12.25 7.06 11.68 5.55 12.50 5.57 brazil (profile) 0.21 0.41 0.09 0.33 0.04 0.21 0.13 0.34 0.03 0.18 0.06 0.25 iran (profile) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.13 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.20 0.04 0.20 england (profile) 0.30 0.19 0.03 0.19 0.03 0.19 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.34 brazil (action) 0.48 0.50 0.39 0.49 0.39 0.49 0.26 0.44 0.43 0.50 0.36 0.49 iran (action) 0.18 0.39 0.22 0.41 0.14 0.16 0.12 0.33 0.25 0.44 0.37 0.50 england (action) 0.44 0.50 0.03 0.19 0.40 0.50 0.25 0.44 0.06 0.25 0.37 0.50 brazil (additions) 0.58 0.50 0.53 0.50 0.48 0.50 0.48 0.50 0.48 0.50 0.44 0.50 iran (additions) 0.12 0.33 0.14 0.35 0.09 0.29 0.12 0.33 0.25 0.44 0.20 0.41 england (additions) 0.03 0.19 0.07 0.25 0.11 0.32 0.18 0.43 0.25 0.44 0.25 0.44 brazil (shading) 0.48 0.21 0.04 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.03 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 iran (shading) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 england (shading) 0.59 0.50 0.51 0.50 0.55 0.50 0.18 0.40 0.25 0.44 0.18 0.40 note. mean size of each drawing in centimetres, mean number of drawings that were drawn as a profile, mean number of drawings that showed action, mean number of drawings that had additions included, and the mean number of drawings that used shading together with their corresponding standard deviations (in brackets) as per country of the participant and gender. size (height) a 3 x 2 x 3, country (brazil, iran, england) x gender x player (brazil, iran, england) mixed factorial anova was conducted on size of drawings in centimetres. there was a significant main effect for country with f(2, 185) = 10.54, p < 0.001, mse = 70.11. there was no significant main effect for gender f(1, 185) = .087, p = 0.77, mse = 70.11 and no significant interaction effect with f(2, 185) = 0.77, p = 0.46, mse = 70.11. post-hoc comparisons of the means for country using tukey's lsd showed a significant difference for size of drawings between children from brazil and iran with m = 2.29, se = 0.79, p = 0.004, children from brazil and england with m = 4.58, se = 0.93, p < 0.001, and children from iran and england with m = 2.29, se = 0.92, p = 0.014. a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 460 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ profile a 3 x 2 x 3, country (brazil, iran, england) x gender x player (brazil, iran, england) mixed factorial anova was conducted on the number of times that a profile was drawn by children. there was a significant main effect for country with f(2, 186) = 5.39, p = 0.005, mse = 0.068. there was no significant main effect for gender f(1, 186) = .065, p = 0.80, mse = 0.068 and no significant interaction effect with f(2, 186) = 0.85, p = 0.43, mse = 0.068. post-hoc comparisons of the means for country using tukey's lsd showed a significant difference using profiles between children from brazil and iran with m = 0.09, se = 0.02, p < 0.001 and children from brazil and england with m = 0.06, se = 0.02, p = 0.028, the difference between children from iran and england was not significant p = 0.39. indicating that brazilian children draw more football players with their profile compared to children from england and iran, with iranians drawing the least profile. action a 3 x 2 x 3, country (brazil, iran, england) x gender x player (brazil, iran, england) mixed factorial anova was conducted on whether or not children had drawn the football player in action. there was a significant main effect for country with f(2, 186) = 6.2, p = 0.002, mse = 0.35. there was no significant main effect for gender f(1, 186) = 0.76, p = 0.38, or interaction effect with f(2, 186) = 0.17, p = 0.84. post-hoc comparisons of the means for country using tukey's lsd showed a significant difference in shading between children from brazil and iran with m = 0.21, se = 0.05, p < 0.001 and a near significant difference between children from england and brazil with m = 0.12, se = 0.06, p = 0.06, the difference between children from iran and england was not significant p = 0.17. additions a 3 x 2 x 3, country (brazil, iran, england) x gender x player (brazil, iran, england) mixed factorial anova was conducted on whether or not additions other than a football player were included in the drawings. there was a significant main effect for country with f(2, 185) = 17.82, p < 0.001, mse = 0.40. there was no significant main effect for gender f(1, 185) = 1.06, p = 0.30, mse = 0.40 and no significant interaction effect with f(2, 185) = 1.05, p = 0.35, mse = 0.40. post-hoc comparisons of the means for country using tukey's lsd showed a significant difference in adding context using profiles between children from brazil and iran with m = 0.35, se = 0.06, p < 0.001 and children from brazil and england with m = 0.36, se = 0.07, p < 0.001, the difference between children from iran and england was not significant p = 0.84 indicating that brazilian children included more context compared to iranian and english children. shading a 3 x 2 x 3, country (brazil, iran, england) x gender x player (brazil, iran, england) mixed factorial anova was conducted on whether or not children had shaded the drawings of the football players. there was a significant main effect for country with f(2, 186) = 55.68, p < 0.001, mse = 0.11. there was a significant main effect for gender f(1, 186) = 16.26, p < 0.001, mse = 0.11 and a significant interaction effect with f(2, 186) = 11.45, p < 0.0001, mse = 0.11. post-hoc comparisons of the means for country using tukey's lsd showed a significant difference in shading between children from england and iran with m = 0.42, se = 0.03, p < 0.001 and children from brazil and england with m = 0.40, se = 0.03, p < 0.0001, the difference between children from iran and brazil was not significant p = 0.46. analysis of simple effects comparing drawings by male and baluch, duffy, badami et al. 461 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ female children from england showed a significant effect with f(1,41) = 7.73, p = 0.008 indicating significantly more shading by male children from england than female children. discussion key features in children's human figure drawings were examined that have been subject of extensive research and interpretation, namely size, profile, action, context and shading. of particular interest was whether there are gender and cultural differences on these key features when the figure to be drawn is a football player. football is a topic that is of interest worldwide to all age groups and may be argued to provide a basis for more convergence of thoughts when drawing a human figure. as a whole the country of the participants was found to be the most significant variable in all comparisons, with brazilian children drawing the smallest of the players, adopting significantly more profiles in their drawings, and adding more additions to the context upon which the player was drawn and, most interestingly, using more action for the player drawn. children from england, however, drew more players that were seen to be shaded (implying non-white) than other participants. gender differences showed significance only when analysed for shading, where boys from england drew more shaded figures than girls from england. each aspect of the findings are now discussed in light of the relevant literature. size the absolute figure size of a person drawn is one of the most investigated features of human figure drawings with various interpretations. koppitz (1968) in developing her criteria of emotional indicators in children's drawings paid particular attention to size as an indicator of emotions towards self and others, e.g. lower selfesteem, feelings of intimidation associated with smaller drawings of self. gellert (1968) found that taller drawings by children are for people who seem to be more important or of interest to the child. in support of the latter notion, fox and thomas (1990) found that most children draw their parents taller than ordinary people. research has also shown that other factors could also have an influence, for example, the size of a figure is reduced when additional figures or objects are drawn on the same page (lange-küttner, 2009; thomas & silk, 1990) and when a figure gets a negative connotation (burkitt, barrett, & davis, 2005, 2009). however, these assumptions are based predominantly on the results of experimental studies and with participants mainly living in western cultural environments. few studies are reported on the size of drawings and cultural differences. the early research by koppitz and de moreau's (1968) study showed that mexican children draw significantly smaller figures than children from the usa. however, the authors were not conclusive as to whether such differences were culturally based or due to social class, dietary or other forms of neurological deficits. meilidworetzki's (1981) study found that turkish children from istanbul draw human figures a fourth smaller than do swiss children of the same age. here again the author attributed the differences to the socio-cultural context expressed in children's drawings. payne (1996) reported that caribbean, unlike children from the usa, drew their mothers taller than their fathers. richter (2001) reported significantly smaller figure sizes of preschoolaged madagascan mahafaly children as compared to german children, and likewise, rübeling et al. (2011) found 4-6 year-old cameroonian children drawing themselves up to 55% smaller than german children from middle-class families. recent studies on young children (up to age 6) compared children's drawings of themselves on the size and facial expression between western urban (german and swedish) and non-western a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 462 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ urban (turkish, costa rican and estonian) and non-western rural (cameroon and india). the results showed that children from western and non-western urban educated contexts drew themselves rather tall, with many facial features, and preferred smiling facial expressions, while children from rural traditional contexts depicted themselves significantly smaller, with less facial details, and neutral facial expressions (gernhardt, rübeling, & keller, 2013, 2014). however, these studies are not very conclusive as to how children from different cultures would have drawn others in terms of size or additions to the drawings. in the present study the topic to be drawn was of interest to all participants, particularly boys, and the children tested were from three different continents all from the average sectors of the society and there were no indications of intimidation or dietary concerns. the findings that brazilian children draw significantly smaller figures of football players than children from england and iran are of particular importance as it signifies culture as a factor to consider when evaluating size of human figure drawings insofar as drawings of others are concerned (see figure 1). brazilian children and the nation as a whole admire the game of football and their players, thus there is no reason that lack of interest or emotions attached are factors to draw smaller figures. furthermore, the children in the study were all of the same socio-economic status as other participants in the study, thus the latter factors could be ruled out as a reason for their smaller drawings. figure 1. a brazilian child's drawing of players from iran, england and brazil in their actual size. profile a number of authors have noted that most children’s human figures are drawn canonically i.e. facing the viewer rather than in profile (dziurawiec & deregowski, 1992). according to cox and lambon ralph (1996), cox and hodsoll (2000) with the increase in age between 5-10 years there is also an increase (nearly double) in the number of children who draw the profile of a human figure rather than full face. in particular this increase is greater if the children are asked to put action (e.g. a person running) into their drawings. the increase in age and shift in children's drawing of human figures is in line with piaget and inhelder's (1956) belief that very young children (below the age of 5 years) lack projective spatial concepts, thus will not represent the different views of objects, but with increasing age there is a shift from an internal model or idea of how a person is drawn to an externally presented model. the latter hypothesis was tested when children between 5 and 9 years of age were asked to look at a human figure (male model figure) in different positions, including running, and asked to draw a picture of this man (cox & lambon ralph, 1996). the findings showed that only at the age of 6-7 years are most children able to adapt their human figure drawings successfully to take account of the model. however, there are reasons to believe that cultural differences may be a factor to consider, i.e. a late development in the ability to draw a human profile according to western research may be challenged by finding baluch, duffy, badami et al. 463 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ that children in a different culture develop this ability much earlier. golomb (2002), for example, reported higher incidence of profile forms in young maori children’s drawings in new zealand as compared with a relatively late occurrence in the drawings of the same age children from europe and north america. in the present study when 9-10 year old children from three continents where asked to draw football players the frequency of profile drawing amongst brazilian children was significantly more than the children from england or iran. arguably this suggests that factors other than the age and maturation may account for the ability to draw a human profile. one possible explanation for this could be the finding that brazilian children also drew more players in action than static. as mentioned previously, when children were asked to draw a human figure in action the frequency of drawing a profile was significantly increased (cox, 1993; dziurawiec & deregowski, 1992). brazilian children seem to both draw football players that show more action and depict a profile rather than full face (see figure 2). action according to lark-horovitz, lewis, and luca (1973), cox (1993), cox and lambon ralph (1996) boys in western countries show interest in portraying movement and figures in action and girls pay more attention to static scenes with much detail and decoration. furthermore, there is a developmental shift from static drawings to drawing figures in action with boys altering their rigid schemata of the human figure at an earlier age than girls. two factors, however, should also be taken into account here; first when children are asked to draw in a context of someone doing something or to draw themselves and their family e.g. kinetic family drawings (burns & kaufman, 1970) there is a significant shift in children portraying more valid and dynamic material than static pictures, moreover evidence of cultural differences emerge (cox & hodsoll, 2000). in a recent study gernhardt, rübeling, and keller (2013) examined the family drawings of preschool-aged children from western middle-class families from osnabruck, germany; from rural cameroon and children from urban middle-class families from ankara, turkey. the family drawings varied with cultural context and the respective orientation toward autonomy and relatedness, specifically in regard to the number and position of family members, the depicted absolute and relative size of family members, the details of facial features, and the emotional expression. in the present study we simply asked the participants to draw a football player with no further instructions relating to movement. of significant interest was that brazilian children had significantly more drawings portraying a player in action than iranian children or english children. furthermore, there were no significant gender differences or gender by country interaction. this finding challenges the notion that there are differences in action or static drawing between boys and girls of the same age, even if the topic to be drawn is a football player. what is, however, interesting is the reason for brazilian children portraying more action. as reported earlier, brazilian children draw more human profile than iranian children and english children, thus this contributed to depicting more action. another reason might be that, perhaps in view of their great interest in the game of football, brazilian children see the game more in action than static, a factor that may play a crucial role in why the nation has more football talent than most other countries. a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 464 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. a brazilian boy's drawing of a player from iran depicting both profile and action. additions in most cases when children are asked to draw a human figure they do not include additions or background to the drawing, although according to cox (1993) some elements are reported to be added after the drawing was completed. however, as mentioned earlier, when children are asked to complete a drawing that is not specific to just one person (such as the family kinetic drawings) one may see significant differences especially with regards to gender in terms of the number of additions to the background (burns & kaufman, 1970). gender differences in what children may include in their drawings are also noticed from earlier studies. for example, papadakis-michaelides (1989) asked 240 children, aged between 4 years 6 months and 10 years 6 months, to draw a man and a woman doing something. the results showed that male participants are more likely to draw the person engaging in sport and females more likely to draw the person doing housework. in relation to cultural differences there has been no specific research to examine what children from different ethnic groups may add to their drawings if they are only asked to draw a person. in the present study, in spite of asking all children to draw a football player, there was a significant difference in how much additional context was included in the drawings. in particular, it was the brazilian children who made significantly more additions, such as the presence of a goal post or the sun and clouds in the background (see figure 3). most interesting was that there were no gender differences in the amount of additions in all comparisons, although a few of the female participants tended to draw a female football player and boys predominantly drew a male player. one interpretation may be that brazilian children see more in the game of football than children from iran and england, as well as putting more action into their drawings. figure 3. a brazilian girl's drawings of a player from brazil. baluch, duffy, badami et al. 465 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ shading as mentioned previously, according to koppitz (1968) shading is a sign of concern and based on her scoring scheme no score is given if there is a "deliberate shading of whole face or part of it, including "freckles," "measles," etc. an even, light shading of face and hands to represent skin colour is also not scored. however, most studies suggest that children normally do not shade their human figure drawings even among nonwestern children. for example, di leo (1983) argued that both black and white children simply draw a contour for the face and do not colour it to show the skin colour. in a mega cross-cultural study dennis (1966) asked children from cambodia, greece, iran, israel, japan, lebanon, mexico, sweden, taiwan, turkey, usa and west germany to draw a man and found that the majority drew a white male figure in western clothing. pfeffer and olowu (1986) found that nigerian children, mean age 8, do not use dark colours even when they rarely use colours. papadakis-michaelides (1989) found that among the 3200 figures drawn by 1600 children from five cultural backgrounds in the uk (english, hindu, muslim, sikh and west indian) aged 3 years 6 months to 11 years 6 months only one figure was dark skinned. thus it appears that even when children are aware of different skin colours they tend to draw a figure that looks like a white person. in the present study the results of analyses of the shading of the human figures showed that children from england more frequently drew human figures that were shaded than iranian and brazilian children, in spite of the fact that the majority of people in iran and brazil do not have a white western appearance. indeed it was also noted that male participants from england produced more shaded drawing than did their female counterparts, possibly because they were using more a model player to draw who happened to be of a non-western origin (see figure 4). it thus seems to be the case that when children have an external model in mind and the person to be drawn is non-white they do make use of shading in their drawings. this gives rise for future research to examine why children from england seem to be more sensitive to issues of skin colour (and race) than brazilian or iranian children. the study by deaver (2009) is a good example of looking at difference in terms of race, gender and ethnicity from an intersectional analysis perspective, the social and cultural differences of the individual rather than a holistic interpretation of children’s drawings. indeed children from england seem to be more conscious of different ethnic backgrounds and skin colours than do children from iran and brazil. figure 4. an english boy's drawing of a football player from england (shaded). additional observations whilst the main focus was to analyse the key factors mentioned previously, there was a noticeable feature about the gender of the player drawn. whilst female football is running alongside male football in all three a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players 466 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ countries, with the only reservation being that women are obliged to play with strict dress code in iran (pfister 2005), 100% of the boys drew male players and only a very small percentage of girls (less than 5%) drew a player looking feminine. this seems to support the stereotypes that often exist about gender roles and football being seen as a masculine activity. in a study, reminiscent of the present study, chambers (1983) examined the drawings of several thousand primary school children in three countries (canada, australia and usa) when the target to be drawn was a scientist. it was found that all of the boys drew a male looking scientist and only a very small number of girls drew a female looking scientist. such gender stereotypes seem to have found support in relation to football in the present study and have implications when analysing the impact of possible stereotyping when evaluating the gender of drawings and the gender of the child. summary and implications in the context of drawing a football player by children from three continents, five key factors that appear to play a significant role when assessing children's human figure drawings in educational, therapeutic and clinical settings were examined: namely size of the human figure, whether or not it is a profile, showing action or static, drawn in a context, and the inclusion of shading. the results showed a highly significant main effect for cultural differences with brazilian children showing marked differences compared to children from england and iran in the size of the figure, depicting more action, including more context in what is drawn and drawing more profiles than full face. on the subject of shading, children from england, particularly males, drew more figures of players who had dark skin rather than white. what was interesting to note in the above findings was that when the child was given the opportunity to draw a topic of great interest, the smaller size was not necessarily a sign of dislike but perhaps a cultural factor. similarly producing a profile was not a sign of being withdrawn but a sign of interest in the sport. most significantly the usually reported gender differences in human figure drawings often interpreted in developmental terms were not found in the present study. gender difference only manifests itself in shading by children from england, perhaps a sign of individual cultural and ethnic differences within a multi-cultural society. thus rather than making fast decisions about a drawing, it is important to consider cultural differences, and whether or not the child had the opportunity for expression of their full potential by providing a context upon which they could flourish and for the drawing to be seen as a sign of interest in the topic and even as an indication of manifesting potential talents. suggestions for further research one factor that one could have incorporated in the present study is a more objective measure of level of interest in sport and football taken from all the participating children and to examine how it may relate to the level of detail included in their drawings. this could be implemented in a follow-up research, indeed emphasizing on the issue of talent, children’s drawing may also be looked at as a predictive tool for their future sporting activity. it may be the case that children who portrayed more action rather than a static picture of a football player may also demonstrate greater skills in playing football. perhaps this would open a host of interesting dimensions for assessment of children's human figure drawings of different sporting activities as a key to predicting future sporting talents. baluch, duffy, badami et al. 467 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests 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(1984). children’s drawings in egypt: cultural style acquisitions graphic development. visual arts research, 10, 13-26. about the authors bahman baluch, ph.d., is an associate professor, chartered psychologist at middlesex university. his main research interests are cognitive and developmental psychology. he is the author of well over 80 refereed publications and conference presentations. in particular, he has pioneered research on cognitive processes of reading persian which has gained international recognition. linda j duffy, ph.d., is an associate professor, chartered sport & exercise psychologist at middlesex university. she is a former darts world champion, reigning for 5 consecutive years as number one in the world. linda has published several papers in the field of sport and exercise psychology and related areas. rokhsareh badami, ph.d., is an associate professor, department of physical education and sport science, isfahan (khorasgan) branch. islamic azad university, isfahan, iran. she is the author of several papers in sport and exercise psychology elisangela c ap pereira, msc., is a researcher and an honorary professor of psychology. she studied at the barao de maua university, ribeirao preto, brazil. she also holds an msc in applied psychology from middlesex university, england. her main research interest is children’s drawings from a developmental and social perspective. baluch, duffy, badami et al. 471 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 455–471 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1237 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.1996.9914868 http://doi.org/10.1177/0022022110363475 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2006.05.006 http://doi.org/10.1080/02643298908253416 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ a cross-continental study on children's drawings of football players (introduction) factors to be taken into account when assessing children’s human figure drawings aims of the study key questions method participants materials and procedure results descriptive statistics size (height) profile action additions shading discussion size profile action additions shading additional observations summary and implications suggestions for further research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mindful sustainable aging: advancing a comprehensive approach to the challenges and opportunities of old age theoretical contributions mindful sustainable aging: advancing a comprehensive approach to the challenges and opportunities of old age håkan nilsson*ab, pia h. bülowac, ali kazemib [a] school of health and welfare, jönköping university, jönköping, sweden. [b] school of health and education, university of skövde, skövde, sweden. [c] department of social work, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. abstract the primary aim of this article is to present a new concept called mindful sustainable aging (msa), which is informed by mindfulness practices that support the physical, the mental, and especially, the social and the existential dimensions of old life. the concept of msa is discussed and compared with four influential psychosocial theories in the field of gerontology, i.e., activity theory, disengagement theory, successful aging theory and gerotranscendence theory. the article ends with reviewing research on how mindfulness practice can help to manage, diminish and/or improve a number of serious physical conditions that are common among older people. the potential of mindfulness when it comes to facilitating for older adults in their quest for spiritual and existential meaning is discussed extensively throughout the article. keywords: mindfulness, social, existential, sustainable, ageing, activity theory, disengagement, successful aging, gerotranscendence europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 received: 2015-02-24. accepted: 2015-05-15. published (vor): 2015-08-20. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: school of health and education, university of skövde, p.o. box 408, se-541 28, skövde, sweden. e-mail: hakan.c.nilsson@his.se this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. each important phase of life carries its own set of psychological, existential and practical challenges, and joining the ranks of older persons is certainly no exception. many among old people must cope with changing family roles and relationships as well as the reduction of financial resources, which limits the opportunity for recreation, travel, hobbies, personal purchases and so forth (eliopoulos, 2014; glicken, 2006). and yet, despite its many challenges and inconveniences, old age can be a highly productive, highly rewarding and ultimately meaningful period of life, depending on how one approaches, confronts and engages in this final transitional phase. within the human sciences the field of gerontology since the 1940s, has studied the psychological, social and biological dimensions of aging. social gerontology is a sub-discipline of this field that over the years has developed a number of psychosocial theories of aging, each of which attempts to explain what it takes for people to maintain a high quality of life when becoming old without giving in to despair, depression and/or extreme inactivity. four of themore common among these various theories are activity theory (havighurst & albrecht, 1953), disengagement theory (cumming & henry, 1961), successful aging theory (rowe & kahn, 1987), and gerotranscendence theory (tornstam, 1996). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ the primary aim of this article is to enter into the ongoing theoretical discussion on healthful aging by introducing a new concept – mindful sustainable aging (msa) – a concept that encompasses all important gerontological dimensions, thus providing a more comprehensive approach to the facilitation of old age. msa places mindfulness practice and thought in a pivotal role, introducing it as a beneficial, life-enhancing tool that promotes physical and mental fitness, encourages active social interaction, and focuses the older person’s mind on the search for existential meaning, self-discovery and peace in this final transitional phase (cf. nilsson & kazemi, 2015). toward this end, we begin by providing a brief overview of mindfulness practice as it relates to the physical and the mental, but most especially, the social and the existential dimensions of life. subsequently, brief descriptions of the four aging theories mentioned above are provided. then the concept of msa is described and compared with the aging theories. finally, we provide some examples of how mindfulness practice can help to manage, diminish and/or improve a number of serious physical conditions that are common among older adults, concluding with a description of the primary distinguishing features of msa. a multi-dimensional view of mindfulness mindfulness, as it applies to both the social and the existential dimensions of old age, represents a primary pillar of the comprehensive concept of msa that will be presented herein, although the contribution of mindfulness to the physical and mental health of older adults is of significance as well. a brief description of all four dimensions is provided in the following (see nilsson, 2014): 1. the physical dimension of mindfulness is focused on the body’s moment-by-moment state of being as well as on routine bodily activities. the latter defined as “any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure” (caspersen, powell, & christenson, 1985, p. 126). through the practice of body scanning, meditation and yoga older adults are able to heighten their awareness of the body’s various states, improve their overall physical conditioning, and take better notice of any health problems that might arise. apart from this, mindfulness training provides the older person with an excellent opportunity (or excuse) to exercise the body in a regulated way. 2. themental dimension of mindfulness, which also is addressed through yoga, body scanning andmeditation, and can help in the regulation of various mental states, is of importance when it comes to the management of stress, anxiety and depression in old age. mindfulness practice also serves to stimulate and rejuvenate one’s mental faculties. 3. the social dimension of mindfulness encourages social interaction and involvement by engaging the older person in group activities that are enjoyable and challenging. moreover, one of the primary social goals of mindfulness training is to increase the groups’ feelings of empathy and compassion, not only in terms of the other members of the group, but also in terms of their own lives and the world at large. such positive social feelings tend to enhance one’s sense of inner integrity and deepen one’s wisdomi (erikson, 1959/1980). 4. the existential dimension is approached herein from epigenetic (erikson, 1997) and logotherapeutic (frankl, 1978) perspectives. although the term epigenetic originally springs from the field of biology, erikson employed it in a very specific sense that relates to the stages of psychosocial development, noting that the unfolding of human personality progresses in predetermined stages that are influenced by the surrounding sociocultural milieu, with each stage of development being to some degree influenced by how the previous stages have been resolved. logotherapy is based on frankl’s realization that the primary driver in human life is not the pursuit of power and/or enjoyment, but rather the search for meaning. while the search for europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 nilsson, bülow, & kazemi 495 http://www.psychopen.eu/ meaning is important regardless of one’s age, it is of crucial importance for those who are coming close to the terminus of life. highlighting the social and existential dimensions of mindfulness sooner or later each of us must come to terms with the buddhist triad of old age, disease and death. becoming old marks the beginning of life’s longest developmental phase, and one that will entail the challenges of retirement and finding renewed (and eventually ultimate) meaning in life. the extent to which one experiences meaning in old age is related to the manner in which one has lived one’s life – the skills and competencies that one has accumulated, the caliber and quality of one’s interpersonal relationships, the degree to which one has developed kindness, empathy, and compassion. using erikson’s developmental stage theory (erikson, 1997) will inform our exploration of the ways in which mindfulness can enable the older person to successfully resolve what erikson viewed as the final crisis of life: integrity vs. despair, with integrity being the quality of ego that should be developed in old age. here integrity is said to consist of the ability to look back on one’s life with a feeling of satisfaction, peace and gratitude for all that has been given and received. erikson (1959/1980) notes in this regard: the possessor of integrity is ready to defend the dignity of his own lifestyle against all physical and economic treats. for he knows that an individual life is the accidental coincidence of but one life cycle within but one segment of history; and that for him all human integrity stands and falls with the one style of integrity of which he partakes (erikson, 1959/1980, p. 104). thus, persons derive a sense of meaning (i.e., integrity) through careful review of how their lives have been lived (krause, 2012). ideally, however, integrity does not stop here, but rather continues to evolve into the virtue of wisdom. a “wellderly” person who has achieved wisdom can meet the terminus of life with open-mindedness, curiosity and acceptance (i.e., the positive outcomes of the psychosocial crisis). we can assume that for erikson the wise and “wellderly” have been able to integrate all other positive outcomes during their journey – from hope (stage 1) to care (stage 7). this is in contrast to the “illderly” who develops a despairing attitude toward being in life and a disgust toward what has been and is about to come. the “illderly” in other words meets the end of life with horror, regret and resentment (i.e., the negative outcomes of the psychosocial stage crises) (wykle, whitehouse, & morris, 2005). we turn now to the existential dimension and the search for meaning. frankl has defined logotherapy as “meaning centered (psycho) therapy” (frankl, 1978, p. 19) – an approach to the search for ontological meaning in life. according to frankl, the search for meaning is a vital driving force of human life since human beings are oriented towards meaning in all circumstances (frankl, 1979). referring to frankl, kimble and ellor (2001) note that the “crisis of aging appears to be a crisis of meaning. the challenge of older adulthood is to make sense of life at a stage when changes and losses occur with bewildering and sometimes overwhelming frequency and intensity” (kimble & ellor, 2001, p. 14). to those facing catastrophic illness in old age, frankl’s (1988) perspective offers hope for meaning through dereflection ii: “although the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, a man who meets a fate that he cannot change can raise himself above himself, can grow beyond himself and thereby transform himself. he can transform a personal tragedy into a triumph” (frankl, 1988, pp. 153-154). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 mindful sustainable aging 496 http://www.psychopen.eu/ frankl considered suffering to be an inevitable part of life: “/…/ life´s meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of suffering” (frankl, 1979, p. 181). not only surviving but also triumphing over the most horrendous of human circumstances, frankl himself stands as a prime example, both embodying and epitomizing nietzsche’s noteworthy maxim that “he who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how” (peterson, 2000, p. 6). mindfulness practice, as rooted in buddhist thought, can help the older person to rediscover their own “why” to live for. in this regard, mindfulness and logotherapy share a common feature, i.e., self-transcendence, defined by frankl (1975) as that aspect of human existence which “is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter lovingly” (frankl, 1975, p. 78). psychosocial theories of aging in the field of gerontology, a myriad of theories of aging have been advanced. relevant to the main purpose of the present article, we will briefly describe four well-known theories, i.e., activity theory, disengagement theory, successful aging theory and gerotranscendence theory. although each of these theories posits its own idea about how the psychosocial problems and challenges of aging can be best handled, they all share the common aim of studying and working with older adults so as to bring greater ease and enrichment to their lives. activity theory developed by havighurst and albrecht in 1953, activity theory addresses the issue of how persons can best adjust to the changing circumstances of old age – e.g., retirement, illness, loss of friends and loved ones through death, etc. in addressing this issue they recommend that older adults involve themselves in voluntary and leisure organizations, child care and other forms of social interaction. activity theory thus strongly eschews the notion of a sedentary lifestyle and considers it essential to health and happiness that the older person remains active physically and socially. in other words, the more active older adults are the more stable and positive is their self-conception, which in turn leads to greater life satisfaction and higher morale (havighurst & albrecht, 1953). disengagement theory disengagement theory, developed by cumming and henry in the 1950s, emphasizes in contrast to activity theory that older adults should not be discouraged from following their inclination towards solitude and greater inactivity. while not completely discounting the importance of exercise and social activity for the upkeep of physical health and personal wellbeing, disengagement theory is opposed to artificially keeping the older person so busy with external activities that they have no time for contemplation and reflection (cumming & henry, 1961). in other words, disengagement theory posits that older adults in all societies undergo a process of adjustment that involves leaving former public and professional roles and narrowing their social horizon to the smaller circle of family and friends. this process enables the older person to die more peacefully, without the stress and distractions that come with a more socially involved life. successful aging theory developed by rowe and kahn in 1987, the notion of successful aging was formed as a reaction to another view conceiving older adults as societal burdens and the old age primarily characterized by illness and decline. rowe and kahn (1997) describe successful aging as involving “low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity and active engagement with life” (rowe & kahn, 1997, p. 433). their view of successful aging is hierarchical, indicating that the three components are sequentially linked, with each having some degree of dependence on the one that comes before. it is also transitional in the sense that europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 nilsson, bülow, & kazemi 497 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the older person can (and often do) move in and out of “success” at various points in their life. finally, it is relative in the sense that its components are not intended to be descriptive of absolute states, and thus should not been used to classify the older person in terms of “success” and “failure”. gerotranscendence theory developed in 1996 by tornstam, with input from theorists such as jung and erikson, gerotranscendence theory suggests that the very process of aging carries with it the potential to mature from a primarily materialistic, rational perception of the world to one that is more cosmic and transcendent – a transition that is normally accompanied by an increased level of satisfaction (tornstam, 2011). tornstam (2011) thus regards gerotranscendence as the final stage of a possible natural progression towards maturation and wisdom, which can involve a redefining of the one’s self and one’s relationship to others as well as a new existential outlook. gerotranscendence, however, does not call for withdrawal or disengagement from the world, as is sometimes erroneously believed – i.e., it is not a disguised version of the old disengagement theory. rather it is a theory that focuses on inner reality and inner development, describing a developmental pattern that moves beyond the old dualism of activity vs. disengagement. once again, its central argument is that satisfaction in old age can be maximized by shifting from an outward to an inward orientation, from amaterialist-rational to a cosmic-transcendent perspective – a positive inner process that can enhance humanwisdom and wellbeing and bears some resemblance to erikson’s view of old age as discussed above. mindful sustainable aging while activity theory and successful aging theory both consider an active physical and social life to be most essential to healthful aging, disengagement theory and gerotranscendence theory both consider the withdrawn, contemplative and inward-directed life to be even more so. in these diametrical notions, we are confronted with an artificial and unnecessary dichotomy between activity and withdrawal, when it is obvious that for both diverse and overlapping reasons each is important in terms of meeting the challenges as well as the opportunities of later life. this is against this background that the concept of msa is advanced. the concept of msa does not represent a departure from these theories; rather, by adding the element of mindfulness to the notion of sustainabilityiii, it incorporates the crucial features of all four and attempts to go beyond them, at least in a few essential ways (see figure 1). physical and social activities as well as continued involvement in the world are certainly important for older adults. equally important, on the other hand, are withdrawal and disengagement, which allow time for valuable contemplation. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 mindful sustainable aging 498 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mindful sustainable aging (msa). beyond these aspects, the concept of msa, by drawing on buddhist teachings (atchley, 2003), specifically focuses on the spiritual/existential dimension of old age, that is, on better preparing the older person for the inevitable encounter with decline and death. by embracing the view that aging is rooted in inevitable loss, pain and death, the msa concept constitutes a highly comprehensive and positive approach, seeing old age as an essential part of the human journey providing great opportunity for spiritual/existential growth and self-discovery. echoing this view, mowat (2005) notes that “the ageing individual is to discover and negotiate individual meaning even when confronted with what frankl calls the tragic triad of pain, guilt and death. the task of old age and its fundamental purpose is therefore to search for meaning through a search for spiritual self. this is what… erikson called ego integrity” (mowat, 2005, p. 10). msa integrates the theories of activity, disengagement, successful aging, and gerotranscendence, and elaborates these by emphasizing mindfulness practice as a vital part of a sustainable healthful aging. msa encompasses the need for activity physical activity and exercise not only improve physical health and wellbeing of older adults (mazzeo et al., 1998), but also provides the older person with regular purpose by bringing a certain amount of routine and social interaction to daily life. regulated mindfulness practice, which includes stretching and yoga exercises, can be counted among the tools that offer such activity, which, in turn, tends to improve mental acuity, brighten one’s mood, add purpose to life, and enhance one’s ability to perform the common, ordinary actions – e.g., housework, gardening, athletics, travel and so forth (cf. hicks & connor, 2014). because some older adults lack the energy needed for everyday life they tend to become overly and unhealthily sedentary. apart from the advantages mindfulness training offers during routine sessions, such practices also ineurope's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 nilsson, bülow, & kazemi 499 http://www.psychopen.eu/ crease one’s energy level and thus help to foster a more active lifestyle (alexander, langer, newman, chandler, & davies, 1989). it has been shown, for example, that older adults that regularly practice qi gong, tai-chi and other forms of mindfulness in parks and other outdoor venues, tend to be more healthy, resilient and active overall (e.g., dean, 2001; finger & arnold, 2002). activity and stimulation in old age, however, are not only required for strengthening the body and increasing one’s energy level; it is also essential that the brain (or mind) remain active and stimulated as well. regular mindfulness meditation and body-scanning provide stimulation for the brain, thus helping to make the older person more mentally fit (brown, ryan, & creswell, 2007; chiesa, calati, & serretti, 2011; mcwilliams, 2014; prakash, de leon, patterson, schirda, & janssen, 2014). finally, any discussion on the importance of activity in old age, must make some mention of sexuality, which need not remain the sole province of the young andmiddle aged. recent research onmindfulness and sexuality indicates that regularly practicing yoga, body-scanning and meditation contributes positively to sexuality and can even help in the treatment of sexual dysfunctions (kozlowski, 2013; lazaridou & kalogianni, 2013; mccarthy & wald, 2013; sommers, 2013). however, to our knowledge, there is a paucity of research specifically addressing mindfulness and sexuality among older adults. msa encompasses the need for disengagement one way of characterizing activity theory and successful aging theory is as being more representative of the “doing” than the “being” mode, and the latter represented by the theories of disengagement and gerotranscendence. disengagement, what we would call entry into the being-mode, is highly facilitated by the sort of mindfulness training. hick (2009) has noted in this connection that “as human beings we are more like ‘human doings’, keeping ourselves busy with endless activities and tasks. this often operates to distract us from our lives… this is where mindfulness comes in. it is nonjudgmental moment-to-moment awareness. in short, it is dwelling in the being mode with acceptance” (hick, 2009, p. 7). mindfulness training and thought also enables the older person to further cultivate qualities like compassion, empathy and forgiveness not only toward others but also toward oneself (e.g., nedeljkovic, wirtz, & ausfeld-hafter, 2012). the quality of self-compassion is said to involve “being open to and moved by one’s own suffering, experiencing feelings of caring and kindness toward oneself, taking an understanding, nonjudgmental attitude toward one’s inadequacies and failures, and recognizing that one’s experience is part of the common human experience” (neff, 2003, p. 224). msa fulfills the requirements for successful aging mindfulness has been found to prevent cognitive decline (gard, hölzel, & lazar, 2014) and to counteract stress (moynihan et al., 2013) among older adults. harmonious aging is further facilitated by practicing mindfulness (cf. liang & luo, 2012). freedom from disease and disability is one of the major ingredients of so-called successful aging, and it is in this connection that present-moment mindfulness training can help the older person to become more perceptive of the signs of physical and mental impairment. there are a number of disabling conditions that older adults are at risk of contracting – e.g., chronic pain, depression, heart disease, neurodegenerative disorders, urogenital problems, europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 mindful sustainable aging 500 http://www.psychopen.eu/ etc. how mindfulness can assist the older person in managing and improving these conditions, and thus help them to age successfully, will be more elaborately discussed later in this article. mindful practice positively affects optimism, resilience, effective coping styles and social and community involvement, and these qualities have been shown to be correlates of successful aging along with traditional measures of health and wellness (e.g., montross et al., 2006). mowat (2005) discusses three perspectives on successful aging, i.e., the problem-based perspective, describing successful aging as the clever avoidance or overcoming of the vicissitudes of old age; the welcomed perspective, describing successful aging as living to the fullest and transcending the vicissitudes of old age, that is, rejecting the stereotypes of the problem-based model; and the spiritual perspective, describing successful aging as being able to negotiate and retain meaning through discovery of self. echoing the third perspective, the concept of msa views successful aging as a spiritual quest for meaning, maturation, fulfillment and wisdom (for a discussion of spirituality see atchley, 2003; zinnbauer et al., 1997). msa encompasses the gerotranscendent inward turn old age is a time in which we have basically become free from much that has bound us to ordinary worldly life, where we can permit ourselves to live more according to our true character rather than the persona we have assumed so as to “get ahead” in life (fromm, 1966). this phenomenon is akin to what rosenmayr described as the “late freedom” of expanded consciousness in old age (moody, 2003). older adults are said to have a natural need for “alone time” – for thought and meditation, referred to as positive solitude. solitude in this sense is meant to be understood, not in terms of disengagement, but rather as a transcendent state (tornstam, 2011). this resonates with the buddhist teachings that inform mindfulness practice (bodhi, 2011). like gerotranscendence theory, msa calls for a shift from the outward to the inward life, a shift that is facilitated by mindfulness practice, and which makes room for solitude, brings peace of mind and encourages the search for meaning and wisdom. in this regard atchley (2003) noticed that “’being while doing’ is a learned capacity that opens opportunities for the quality we call wisdom to enter into our world…once this connection has been experienced, the experiencer is motivated to experience it again” (atchley, 2003, p. 43). mindfulness and severe physical conditions mindfulness and chronic pain many old persons experience pain in their everyday lives. research on chronic pain patients has demonstrated that mindfulness training is an effective means of reducing the perception of pain intensity, emotional reactivity to pain, and the use of pain-relieving drugs, with benefits that have endured for up to four years later (kabat-zinn, 1982; kabat-zinn, lipworth, & burney, 1985; kabat-zinn, lipworth, burney, & sellers, 1987). mindfulness and heart disease coronary heart disease is responsible for the majority of heart attacks deaths in the united states (american heart association, 2001), as well as in sweden (national board of health and welfare, 2014). most of the hearts attacks occur after the age of 65. with regard to regular mindfulness training, research findings indicate that it is an especially effective means of preventing or improving cardiovascular problems (le forge, 2005). in a study of women with heart disease, for example, tacón, mccomb, caldera, and randolph (2003) compared a treatment europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 nilsson, bülow, & kazemi 501 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and a control group in terms of anxiety, emotional control, coping styles and health locus of control, with findings indicating superior results for those in the mindfulness-based stress reduction program. in another study, alexander et al. (1989) compared transcendental meditation, mindfulness and relaxation training among older people, and found that participants in the meditation and mindfulness groups had lower blood pressure than those in the relaxation group three months after training; they also found that those in the meditation and mindfulness groups had better survival rates three years after the training. mindfulness and urogenital problems urogenital disease is another common health problem, especially among older male adults for whom the prostate sooner or later becomes a problem. living with prostate disease (e.g., prostatitis, prostatic hypertrophy and prostate cancer) and/or bladder disease (e.g., interstitial cystitis) is both a stressful and a painful experience. it has been found, however, that problems such as these can be alleviated with relaxation training – e.g., paradoxical relaxation (wise & anderson, 2010). urologists argue that pelvic pain is connected to muscular tension in the levator ani (i.e., the floor of the pelvic cavity), and further note that stretching exercises as well as paradoxical relaxation (which is similar to mindfulness’s body scanning) can help to improve urogenital discomfort among both men and women. although a few studies on the effects of mindfulness on urogenital problems among older adults have shown promising results (carlson, speca, faris, & patel, 2007; chambers, foley, galt, ferguson, & clutton, 2012), more research needs to be conducted in this area. mindfulness and cancer cancer management is a major area in which mindfulness and other types of mind-body therapies have been found to be effective. ott, norris, and bauer-wu (2006), for instance, have noted that although the field is just beginning to grow, mindfulness-based interventions have shown remarkable benefits in terms of enhancing the wellbeing of persons living with cancer. such forms of intervention are said to provide a healthy counterbalance to various negative experiences of most cancer patients. mindfulness-based stress reduction for older adults among the various forms of mindfulness programs that are currently available,mindfulness-based stress reduction (or mbsr) is among the frequently used ones. mbsr was originally developed in 1990 by kabat-zinn (2004) for use among certain patients as a painand stress-reduction technique. as originally designed, mbsr consists of an eight-week training program for a group of no more than 30 persons, with each session lasting for approximately 2.5 hours. a training session involves the three standardizedmindfulness practices of body scanning, sitting/walking (or wheelchair meditation for those with disabilities) meditation and hatha yoga (or gentle yoga for older adults with disabilities). within that 8-week frame, one day is set aside as a retreat (kabat-zinn, 2004). participants in mbsr are advised to continue their practices outside the group by engaging in personal training for at least 45 minutes a day, six days a week. however, it is important to adapt the time and the training to the older adult’s capacity. although audiotapes are available to assist in treatment, participants are encouraged to practice without such aids once their skills have been sufficiently developed.whenever various emotions, sensations and/or cognitions arise during practice, participants are instructed to observe such occurrences with a nonjudgmental attitude (baer, 2003). europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 mindful sustainable aging 502 http://www.psychopen.eu/ while the reduction of pain and stress have been the original aim of the program, over the years mbsr has proved to be an efficient form of treatment for a wide range of maladies, from cancer to heart disease to depression to anxiety and also for older adults without significant frailty (moss et al., 2015). concluding remarks by drawing upon recent developments in the field of mindfulness emphasizing its multidimensional character, the concept of mindful sustainable aging was introduced and discussed. this notion represents an integrated approach for managing hazards of old age, i.e., physical illness, cognitive decline and death. by engaging in things that demand both activity and spirituality, older people cultivate a mindful sense that is still vibrant with hope and meaning. however, older people also need time to cultivate their inner being by withdrawal from the outer realm of the doing-mode. older adults who have made the shift from a doing-mode to a being-mode are considered to be spiritual elders. generativity and wisdom are hallmarks for this group of older adults (atchley, 2003). mindfulness involves the practice and development of skills that facilitate and cultivate generativity and wisdom. this notwithstanding, the mindfulness movement has managed to attract a great deal of interest among professional psychological and medical therapists as well as certified life coach instructors for managing maladies as stress, depression, anxiety, negative thoughts and feelings, severe physical discomfort and disorders. it is within the realm of this therapeutic framework that mindfulness training has proved beneficial in terms of bettering the lot of many individuals. ultimately, msa is about bettering the lives of older adults and enabling them to make the most of what their lives have to offer. to sum up, learning to use mindfulness later in life can be important in terms of coping with the (psychosocial) crises of old age and the struggle to find meaning in late life. the fact that mindfulness spans both the normal and the pathological makes it capable of addressing a wide range of problems, something that this article has attempted to point out. notes i) erikson (1982) defines wisdom as a kind of “informed and detached concern with life itself in the face of death itself” (erikson, 1982, p. 61). in buddhism, wisdom or paññā is insight in the true nature of reality, i.e., suffering, non-self, impermanence, and emptiness. wisdom in buddhism is also to be understood, beside ethical conduct and concentration, as a path to liberation and enlightenment, according to the noble eightfold path. in the present article, wisdom refers to what has been defined as “knowledge used for the good or well-being of oneself and that of others” (baltes, glück, & kunzmann, 2002, p. 330). ii) dereflection is a logotherapeutic technique in which the client has to shift his or her focus from a seemingly intractable problem to something larger and positive. in short, the client is asked to rise above or transcend the problem (wong, 2012). iii) sustainability in this context refers to a “process in which goals are frequently being adjusted” (bijl, 2011, p. 162). adjustments are made to cope with changes during the course of life. it is argued in this article that sustainability is achieved by practicing mindfulness. funding the authors have no funding to report. 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(1997). religion and spirituality: unfuzzying the fuzzy. journal for the scientific study of religion, 36, 549-564. doi:10.2307/1387689 about the authors håkan nilsson is a lecturer in social psychology at university of skövde, sweden, and a ph.d. candidate in welfare and social sciences at jönköping university in jönköping, sweden. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 nilsson, bülow, & kazemi 507 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298860309032 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036067 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1534735406288083 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2014.00120 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.3299702 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geront/37.4.433 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2012.756976 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00003727-200301000-00004 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6712.1996.tb00327.x http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1387689 http://www.psychopen.eu/ pia h. bülow is an associate professor of welfare and social sciences at jönköping university in jönköping, sweden. she is currently senior lecturer in social work at jönköping university. she earned her ph.d. in communication studies from linköping university. her research focuses on people’s face-to-face communicative interplay, including research on narratives and storytelling and especially in various institutional contexts. ali kazemi is an associate professor of social psychology at the school of health and education, university of skövde, sweden. dr. kazemi serves as ad hoc reviewer for several academic journals and is a member of the editorial board of the international journal of conflict & reconciliation and editor-in-chief for social justice research (springer: new york). his research interests include aging, justice, social well-being, attitude and behavior change. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 494–508 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.949 mindful sustainable aging 508 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en mindful sustainable aging (introduction) a multi-dimensional view of mindfulness highlighting the social and existential dimensions of mindfulness psychosocial theories of aging activity theory disengagement theory successful aging theory gerotranscendence theory mindful sustainable aging msa encompasses the need for activity msa encompasses the need for disengagement msa fulfills the requirements for successful aging msa encompasses the gerotranscendent inward turn mindfulness and severe physical conditions mindfulness and chronic pain mindfulness and heart disease mindfulness and urogenital problems mindfulness and cancer mindfulness-based stress reduction for older adults concluding remarks notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychology’s fragmentation and neglect of foundational assumptions: an interview with fiona j. hibberd interview psychology’s fragmentation and neglect of foundational assumptions: an interview with fiona j. hibberd fiona j. hibberd* a, davood g. gozli* b [a] department of psychology, university of sydney, sydney, nsw, australia. [b] department of psychology, university of macau, macau s.a.r., china. europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 published (vor): 2017-05-31. *corresponding author at: department of psychology, humanities and social sciences building (e21), university of macau, avenida da universidade, taipa, macau s.a.r., china. e-mail: gozli@umac.mo this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the conceptual fragmentation of psychology has evoked a variety of responses. some have argued that the fragmentation should be embraced as a by-product of the diversity in psychological topics, questions, and methods (e.g., green, 2015). others have argued that the fragmentation can be overcome by adopting a different mode of investigation (e.g., hommel & colzato, 2015; kingstone, smilek, & eastwood, 2008). but are these worthy responses nevertheless missing a fundamental point? a recent proposal by hibberd (2014a, 2014b) is that the fragmentation results, primarily, from neglecting the underlying conceptual foundation of psychology. any attempt to unify psychology, she argues, requires firstly recognizing how coherent theorizing, modelling, and methodology can only emerge from an understanding of first principles, i.e., metaphysics. fiona hibberd is senior lecturer in the school of psychology, university of sydney. her research addresses historical and philosophical issues in science, with particular focus on psychology (e.g., hibberd, 2009, 2010, 2016) and includes one of the most comprehensive critiques of social constructionism as a metatheory (hibberd, 2001a, 2001b, 2002, 2005). her recent work sets out what it means to say that metaphysics belongs to psychological phenomena (hibberd, 2014a, 2014b). she begins with a set of necessary propositions about what it means (for anything) to exist and then explores the implications of this metaphysical foundation. the consequences of metaphysics to a wide range of issues, including causality, constitution, mental representation, and psychology’s misguided "measurement imperative" are unfolded. the reader can, therefore, appreciate her earlier critiques of social constructionism as embedded in this broader philosophical context. encountering ideas relevant to such a wide range of topics is increasingly rare in contemporary psychological literature. hibberd's work is a compelling demonstration of the fact that philosophical assumptions run through all aspects of psychology and that the discipline’s ongoing disregard of this fact will only serve to perpetuate its fragmentation. in the present interview, i asked dr. hibberd about the role of europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ philosophy in psychology, why that role is often neglected, and the consequences of such neglect. the result is what i hope to be an invitation to hibberd’s work and, more generally, to a more philosophically aware psychology. davood gozli: thank you for agreeing to this exchange, dr. hibberd. to begin with a general question, what is philosophical psychology? and is philosophical psychology simply a sub-discipline of psychology? fiona hibberd: my view is that philosophical psychology is a subdiscipline in the trivial sense that we make disciplinary distinctions, in part, for social and institutional reasons. but it is not a sub-discipline in the substantial sense that it involves examining the more general approaches that embrace either all of psychology or large areas of it. its aim is to resolve issues that cannot be resolved empirically and to provide psychologists with the best material for, or approaches to, their empirical work. ideally, it will go some way to ensuring (i) that a theory is a conceptually robust candidate for explanation, (ii) that research hypotheses derived from a theory will not be asking the wrong kind of question, (iii) that the empirical testing of a theory or model is not futile, in that the data collected will not be irrelevant, (iv) that results are interpreted coherently, and (v) that the theoretical implications of empirical findings are not misconstrued. this means evaluating the conceptual or philosophical presuppositions involved in psychology’s research methods, in its theories and models, and in the practice of psychology, through conceptual testing. dan robinson (1985) describes this type of research as providing “a conceptual corrective”. davood gozli: your description clarifies the pervasive role of philosophy in empirical research, and yet many researchers (myself included) tend to neglect philosophical issues. in your view, what enables the detachment of empirical psychology from philosophy? what hides the importance of philosophy in psychology? fiona hibberd: i think it is, for many, a case of not knowing what you don’t know. psychology’s formative years as an academic discipline (let’s say roughly 1850-1950) were marked by the assumption that in pursuing psychology as a science, philosophy generally and metaphysics in particular could be left behind. to a very great extent that view persists. and so generations of graduating students are none the wiser about the sense in which philosophy, and logic in particular, is in psychology and are, therefore, none the wiser about the importance of conceptual testing to psychology. those that go on to gain a higher degree and become academics themselves naturally perpetuate its omission from the curriculum. it’s also easy for psychologists to neglect philosophy because they are prone to psychologism, in this case fusing what is rational to believe with the science of implication, aka logic; they are prone to psychologize that which isn’t psychological. davood gozli: so given that psychological research is necessarily situated in some philosophical framework, what particular philosophy of science, if any, dominates contemporary psychology? dr. fiona j. hibberd is senior lecturer in the school of psychology at the university of sydney. she supervises post-graduate students in theoretical psychology and teaches the history & philosophy of psychology, conceptual issues in research methods, and psychoanalysis. her research examines the assumptions that underpin psychology’s conceptual and methodological practices. correspondence: school of psychology, university of sydney, nsw 2006, australia. e-mail: fiona.hibberd@sydney.edu.au hibberd & gozli 367 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fiona hibberd: all working scientists are philosophical realists at heart. they investigate various kinds of systems, they take these systems to exist or occur independently of anyone’s thinking or knowing about them, and they assume that it’s possible to come to know something about those systems, i.e., objective knowledge is possible. all of this presupposes realism. in fact, it presupposes a particular set of realist metaphysical assumptions. however, when you look at what research psychologists actually do and say, their philosophical commitments are often at odds with their realism as working scientists. on certain issues, some are influenced by constructionist themes, whereas others within mainstream psychology allow positivist–empiricist ideas to hold sway. (this is one illustration of the discipline’s fragmentation.) yet, neither constructionism nor positivismempiricism is a realist philosophy. each has features that cohere with realism but the central tenets of both are anti-realist (hibberd, 2005). this anti-realism manifests in the research practices and scientific output of both of both sides where certain presuppositions, although often intuitive and widely sanctioned, involve errors of logic. when, for example, measurement is treated as the task of assigning numerals to the variables of interest, or when the neo-cartesian assumption that cognition is internal to the brain pervades their research, psychologists contradict the metaphysical assumptions that they are otherwise committed to. as a result they undermine that which they are concerned to achieve (hibberd & petocz, 2017). davood gozli: can you explain the link between one of these examples and a realist metaphysics? fiona hibberd: scientific psychologists have no doubt that they can discover various aspects of the psychological systems that are of interest to them. this exemplifies their commitment to realism because a central tenet of realism is that reality is not constituted, even partially, by researchers or their activities—reality exists independently of them. so, these psychologists recognize that coming to know something about a psychological system or sub-system is a cognitive achievement —that to know something about what’s real is to be connected cognitively to some aspect of it. this means that they recognise that (i) connections, aka relations, are universal, and (ii) the items connected or related (the researcher and whatever it is that the researcher has discovered) are logically independent of one another. however, if you are also committed to the assumption that cognition is internal to the brain and involves some kind of internal psycho-semantic representation system, you are at the same time rejecting (ii). you are mistakenly treating a cognitive relation between an organism (specifically, the brain connected to its sensory apparatus) and its environment (everything external to the brain and its sensory apparatus) as a constituent of one of the items standing in that relation (viz., the brain). so, you uphold (ii) and you reject (ii) at the same time. davood gozli: and yet the broad consensus is that experimental psychology is currently thriving without considering philosophical issues. fiona hibberd: yes, it’s certainly possible for a science to thrive without consciously considering philosophical issues. this would simply require scientific research to be consistent with the realism of working scientists. but we know that alongside human cognitive achievement there is also human fallibility. there are two kinds of error that any scientist can make: empirical and logical-conceptual. resolving logical-conceptual errors just dr. davood gozli is an assistant professor of psychology at university of macau. his research interests span from basic sensorimotor processes to epistemology and philosophy of science. correspondence: department of psychology, humanities and social sciences building (e21), university of macau, avenida da universidade, taipa, macau s.a.r., china. e-mail: gozli@umac.mo interview with fiona hibberd 368 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ does require some consideration of foundational assumptions. this can assist the science where data cannot. it can identify hypotheses that are necessarily true or necessarily false, thereby making data collection irrelevant. it can demonstrate obscurities, confusions, inconsistencies, and impossibilities, all of which may indicate error or establish falsehood. it can clarify concepts, i.e., specify the conditions necessary and sufficient for their legitimate use. in short, it can enhance the discipline’s prospects of generating theories and hypotheses that are coherent and genuinely empirical, and therefore, ready to be tested empirically. second, i don’t think we should assume that all experimental psychology is thriving. there is evidence to the contrary (e.g., bickhard, 1992; gigerenzer, 2009; kagan, 2012; kukla, 1989; machado & silva, 2007; michell, 1999; reicher, 2011; robinson, 2000; tolman, 1992; toomela & valsiner, 2010). this evidence suggests a discipline out of kilter where, across many of its areas, empirical expansion has occurred at the cost of theoretical maturity and conceptual rigor. but mainstream psychology, its gatekeepers in particular, care not to consider this evidence and so perpetuate the status quo. davood gozli: the fragmentation you mentioned between social constructionism and the mainstream’s positivism–empiricism involves separating psychology as a human science from psychology as a natural science. this dualism, defended among others by dilthey and wundt, represents the largest source of disunity in our discipline. i remember being told as an undergraduate student that, as psychologists, we have to make a decision between pursuing an interesting topic, on the one hand, and having a scientifically rigorous method, on the other. so, although dualism is refuted on logical grounds, in practice, it is taken for granted and perpetuated through research methods and the structure of our discipline. in your view, what can help us come closer to overcoming dualism in the practice of psychological research? fiona hibberd: i have a different take on what you’re calling ‘dualism’. i think dualism is a metaphysical thesis and that what you’re alluding to is the diversity of research methods to answer different research questions. your instructor tacitly categorized the methods as “scientific” and “not scientific” and was giving expression to the scientism and pragmatism that pervades mainstream psychology. to overcome the latter, i think we have to keep making the point that not all research questions, problems, or issues in psychology are empirical, which means that they cannot all be answered or resolved through observation and data analysis. but these questions are still scientific in that they need to be resolved because they inform the empirical research process from beginning to end. so, a genuinely rigorous scientific, but not scientistic, discipline will recognize the proper range and diversity of research activities just because not all types of questions or problems are of the same kind. unfortunately, in certain areas of psychology, scientism is very much alive. what counts as ‘science’ is tied to empirical research only, and then a line of demarcation is drawn between empirical research and the logical–conceptual, as if the two types of inquiry were not intimately related. the schism wasn’t always so pronounced in europe. a 1934 article published in the psychological bulletin exemplifies this and makes for fascinating reading. it revealed substantial theoretical emphases among german psychologists and the absence of scientism (watson, 1934). davood gozli: so, in effect, the fragmentation gives psychologists a license to pursue empirical projects under mutually incompatible metaphysical systems. today it is possible to be, as you mentioned, a neo-cartesian as much as it is possible to be a neo-behaviourist. one can even oscillate between the two within a single research career, which is what albert balz (1936) described as "the metaphysical infidelities of modern psychology". hibberd & gozli 369 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fiona hibberd: it does. these incompatibilities or “infidelities” that constitute psychology’s disunity and fragmentation have been commented on by some within the discipline and by many external to it. the fragmentation presents as a high degree of specialization but is said to be somewhat artificial because it is seldom a division of labour along the lines of the different phenomena to be investigated; it is sub-areas marked by different approaches to the same phenomena—by different philosophical, theoretical and methodological preferences and by everything else that follows from those, in particular different interpretations of research outcomes. for example: there are, or have been, evolutionary psychologists, social constructionists, postmodernists, direct realists, representationalists, connectionists, embodied cognitivists, various kinds of behaviourists, piagetians, vygotskians, quantitative psychologists, qualitative psychologists, various schools of psychotherapy, and so on. with divisions of this kind, and the various divisions within these divisions, the result is areas that are inward looking and immune to scientific criticism from outside. more often than not, psychologists from one school just don’t engage with those from another. walter mischel (2008, writing in the association for psychological science’s observer) said that “psychologists treat other people’s theories like toothbrushes—no self-respecting person wants to use anyone else’s.” most seem genuinely unconcerned about this, and this nonchalance is at odds with other scientific disciplines where conceptual unification is an aspiration. davood gozli: since you mentioned qualitative psychology, i would like to ask you a question about that. i have been increasingly curious about the distinct role of qualitative research, both as it might relate to my own work and as it might relate to the discipline as a whole. broadly speaking, where is the place of qualitative research? and how is its place in psychology justified? fiona hibberd: it is surely a mistake to try and estimate the quantity of an attribute if the attribute is not quantitative, i.e., if it is without quantitative structure. in psychology, whether a particular psychological attribute has quantitative structure is never tested. it is simply assumed from the outset that it is quantitative. yet, the evidence suggests that no psychological attribute is quantitative (e.g., michell, 2011, 2012). now this is evidence that the very great majority would not want to consider, even though it raises ethical questions. anyway, the importance of qualitative research in psychology cannot be overstated, and its role is clearly evident in a realist metaphysical system which, i argue, inheres in reality (hibberd, 2014a). this makes the best justification for qualitative research ontological, not ideological and not one that comes out of favouring social constructionism and an overly simplified rejection of positivism. it requires psychologists to investigate the substantive character of the attributes that they aspire to measure and not assume a priori that these attributes are quantitative. davood gozli: in your writing (e.g., hibberd, 2009, 2010, 2014a), you have argued for the important role of john anderson (1893-1962) in philosophical psychology. what makes anderson an important figure in the history and philosophy of science? fiona hibberd: i think anderson’s work is of value to all fields of inquiry, principally because he showed the unavoidability of their interconnectedness. he argued for the treatment of philosophy as descriptive rather than prescriptive—as a kind of general science where certain logical principles are factual in the sense that they are real, and empirical in the sense that we experience them. this has far-reaching implications because many think either that logic is nothing more than language or semantics, or that logic is something applied to empirical content, instead of being part of it. not unrelatedly, anderson defended generality. this is an interview with fiona hibberd 370 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ important counterpoint to the contemporary tendency to particularize—to assume, for example, that particular individuals located in particular contexts have nothing general about them, or that particular words used in particular contexts have no general and relatively fixed meaning. both assumptions are evident in the empirical research process and both raise a number of problems. davood gozli: would you characterize your attempts to overcome the conceptual fragmentation of psychology as a form of foundationalism? fiona hibberd: i would characterize it as foundationalist, but without the certainty that can sometimes feature in other foundationalist positions, e.g., descartes’ cogito. the metaphysical claims i make are tentative in that each claim either describes or fails to describe a universal feature of reality. in that respect they have the same status as any explanatory hypothesis in science. davood gozli: your recent article (hibberd, 2014a) has become a landmark in my thinking about psychology. please tell us about what motivated this paper. fiona hibberd: i had been reading about psychology’s conceptual disarray and fragmentation and thought that, properly understood, metaphysics and its implications, go a long way in addressing this. i thought it was a risky project if only because the word ‘metaphysics’ has been a pejorative in psychology for so long (there’s no disunity on that point!) but i was asked by the then editor of jtpp to present my philosophical position for a special issue. so that was an opportunity to argue that psychology’s ongoing neglect of metaphysics is a mistake, to explain why metaphysics is unavoidable in both the research and practice of psychology, and to try and articulate that metaphysics as the foundations of a process psychology. davood gozli: by the term process psychology, are you referring to a particular form of psychology (one of many possible forms) or are you highlighting a philosophical standpoint that regards all psychology as process psychology (similar to, e.g., how the term embodied cognition is not meant to distinguish itself from disembodied cognition, but to highlight a standpoint regarding the nature of cognition). fiona hibberd: the latter. it’s a metaphysical thesis (following heraclitus, plato, leibniz, hegel, peirce, james and others) recognizing that all situations or states of affairs are in process, and so no area of reality can be excluded, not psychology, not geology, nor any other. by ‘process’, i mean a linked or integrated sequence of changes from one situation to another. things change in certain respects and at very different rates. as gibson (1979) noted, persistence or constancy is just change at a very slow rate, but change over time is a ubiquitous feature of reality. davood gozli: as my final question, i want to ask you for some recommended readings. for students who are interested in philosophical psychology, a list of readings that would give us a starting point into the subject would be very useful. what would you include in such a list? fiona hibberd: i’ve already mentioned robinson (1985), but would also recommend: bell and staines (2001), bem and looren de jong (2013), bennett and hacker (2003), sparkes (1991), valentine (1992) and the text, edited by my colleagues here in australia, mackay and petocz (2011). davood gozli: thank you for your time. i am very grateful to have found your work. hibberd & gozli 371 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://www.psychopen.eu/ fiona hibberd: a pleasure and thanks for your interest, davood. funding davood gozli is currently supported by a start-up research grants (srg2016-77-fss) from university of macau. competing interests davood gozli declares that he has no conflict of interest. fiona hibberd declares that she has no conflict of interest. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. ethics approval this article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. references balz, a. g. (1936). the metaphysical infidelities of modern psychology. the journal of philosophy, 33(13), 337-351. doi:10.2307/2015278 bell, p. b., & staines, p. j. (2001). logical psychology. sydney, nsw, australia: unsw press. bem, s., & looren de jong, h. (2013). theoretical issues in psychology: an introduction. london, united kingdom: sage. bennett, m. r., & hacker, p. m. s. (2003). philosophical foundations of neuroscience. malden, ma, usa: blackwell. bickhard, m. h. (1992). myths of science: misconceptions of science in contemporary psychology. theory & psychology, 2(3), 321-337. doi:10.1177/0959354392023004 gibson, j. j. (1979). the ecological approach to visual perception. boston, ma, usa: houghton mifflin. gigerenzer, g. (2009, february). surrogates for theory. observer, 22(2). retrieved from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2009/february-09/surrogates-for-theory.html green, c. d. 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(2012). psychology's ghosts: the crisis in the profession and the way back. new haven, ct, usa: yale university press. kingstone, a., smilek, d., & eastwood, j. d. (2008). cognitive ethology: a new approach for studying human cognition. british journal of psychology, 99, 317-340. doi:10.1348/000712607x251243 kukla, a. (1989). nonempirical issues in psychology. the american psychologist, 44(5), 785-794. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.44.5.785 machado, a., & silva, f. j. (2007). toward a richer view of the scientific method: the role of conceptual analysis. the american psychologist, 62(7), 671-681. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.62.7.671 mackay, n., & petocz, a. (eds.). (2011). realism and psychology. leiden, the netherlands: brill. michell, j. (1999). measurement in psychology: a critical history of a methodological concept. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. michell, j. 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(2000). paradigms and ‘the myth of framework’: how science progresses. theory & psychology, 10(1), 39-47. hibberd & gozli 373 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 http://doi.org/10.1177/0952695110373423 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0036242 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0036371 http://doi.org/10.1177/0959354316650047 http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01435 http://doi.org/10.1348/000712607x251243 http://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.44.5.785 http://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.62.7.671 http://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310391351 http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00261 http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2008/december-08/the-toothbrush-problem.html http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02030.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ sparkes, a. w. (1991). talking philosophy: a wordbook. london, united kingdom: routledge. tolman, c. w. (ed.). (1992). positivism in psychology: historical and contemporary problems. new york, ny, usa: springer. toomela, a., & valsiner, j. (eds.). (2010). methodological thinking in psychology: 60 years gone astray? charlotte, nc, usa: information age publishing. valentine, e. r. (1992). conceptual issues in psychology. london, united kingdom: routledge. watson, g. (1934). psychology in germany and austria. psychological bulletin, 31(10), 755-776. doi:10.1037/h0069919 interview with fiona hibberd 374 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 366–374 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1403 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1037/h0069919 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ interview with fiona hibberd (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethics approval references the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation editorial the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation michael hanchett hanson*a [a] teachers college, columbia university, new york, ny, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 published (vor): 2015-08-20. *corresponding author at: box 118, department of human development, teachers college, columbia university, 525 w. 120th street, new york, ny 10027. e-mail: mah59@tc.columbia.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. anna craft, a leading researcher on creativity and education, described a condition that many of us have watched accelerate: “creativity is an important element of the zeitgeist in the early twenty-first century, worldwide” (2005, p. ix), encompassing discourses on genius and individualism, democracy and politics, the social good, technological advances and educational practice, among others (banaji, burn, & buckingham, 2006 as cited in craft, 2010). it is important to note just how distinctive our times are in this regard. the ancient world did not subscribe to a psychological view of creativity, and during the middle ages in europe in most places to assert that someone was creative would have been blasphemous (weiner, 2000). god created. people only made things. in other words, we do not need a psychological concept of creativity to write great literature, develop philosophies, lay the foundations of democracy or build beautiful temples and cathedrals. in addition, the idea of “creating” or being “creative” retained implications of the dangers as well as the promises that comewith change until the late nineteenth century. then a wholly positive view of creativity largely eclipsed its negative connotations as dangerous, hubristic and potentially destructive (mason, 2003). since creativity came to be viewed as almost wholly positive, its importance has steadily grown. in particular, an ever-broader range of creativity theories in psychology and sociology have contributed to the creativity zeitgeist. there is a consensus definition of creativity in social science: producing something novel and of value in a context. as it turns out, though, that definition is just a starting point for a wide range of controversies. early psychological views of creativity included sublimated infantile desires (freud’s views of the sources of creative ideas and motivations), sudden restructuring of perception (gestalt views of insight) and the traits of divergent thinking (ideational flexibility, fluency and originality). then the humanistic psychologists argued that creativity was the expression of a universal self-actualizing drive and its development was necessary to be a “fully functioning person” (rogers, 1969, p. 278). since the cognitive revolution in the mid-twentieth century, psychologists have developed a range of cognitive views from creativity as systemic evolution of thought (gruber & wallace, 1999; wallace & gruber, 1989) to creativity as decision making (sternberg, 2003; sternberg & lubart, 1991) to creativity as a cognitive europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ variation-selection process (simonton, 1999). meanwhile, sociocultural theorists have gone beyond the individual to locate creativity within the dynamics of the social and material worlds (csikszentmihalyi, 1997, 1999; glăveanu, 2014b; sawyer, 2010). this cambrian explosion of creativity theories has contributed to a conceptually rich and socially powerful concept within culture. at the same time, the proliferation of theories put the very social scientists who developed them in an increasingly fragmented field without a clearly defined subject of interest. these theorists regularly decry the fact that we do not have a clear view of what we are studying. as another leading creativity researcher, teresa amabile, and her associates described well: “creativity researchers are often accused of not knowing what they are talking about” (amabile et al., 1996, p. 19). problem or strength? after 12 years of teaching theories of creativity to educational practitioners i have come to see the definitional ambiguity of creativity differently than many of my fellow psychologists (hanchett hanson, 2013a, in press). i propose that the intransigent problem of definition is actually a strength of the concept of creativity as a cultural phenomenon. furthermore, all of the social science haggling over definitions and locations of creativity is key to that strength. our distinctive concept of creativity as it has developed since the nineteenth century has provided a site for debates that are at the center of modern and postmodern society, such as what is an individual and what is the individual’s relation to culture? to what extent do people have agency? what are the sources and nature of change? of course, the concept of creativity has not just been a slippery issue for researchers, nor just a site of debate. it reflects a view of the world. although the various theories are contradictory in many ways, they share fundamental assumptions. for creativity to be a driving force of civilization, crucial to economic growth and personal development, the change that creativity brings must be real and important. at the end of the day, the world cannot be as it always was with core underlying truths to which the ephemera of change are simply distracting. this is not a platonic world. neither can the course of individual and social change be entirely predetermined. human agency must be important. finally, for creativity to carry the far-reaching value that its rhetoric claims, the value of creative output – new ideas, products, practices and our very selves – must be relatively simple and stable. at least in theory, there must be one value for a change, or a predominant value. the complexities of perspectival valuation, of silver linings and unexpected consequences and of shifting cultural views are problematic to the very idea of declaring something definitively “creative” – novel and of value. the various theories of creativity may accommodate complexities of valuation to a point. overall, though, the complexity ceiling has tended to be fairly low and reliance on institutionalized power structures – eminence – for the final say, high. in other words, the concept of creativity provides a site to explore important issues within a framework of often unquestioned assumptions. beyond claims of the specific theories, the amalgam of theories have contributed to an underlying ideology. this ideology is important because it concerns one of the most salient characteristics of our times: change. it is also a fascinating ideology because, in keeping with the values it represents, the ideology changes over time. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation 370 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the challenges of participation my view of creativity as ideology is not original. robert paul weiner (2000) wrote about it 15 years ago. other social and critical theorists have written about creativity as ideology (for example, raunig, ray, & wuggenig, 2011; rehn & de cock, 2009). even one of the most authoritative voices in creativity research, mark runco, longtime editor of creativity research journal, and robert albert, another well-established researcher on the topic, have included ideology as one way to think about creativity (runco & albert, 2010). claiming and taking responsibility for the ideology my own intention in viewing creativity as ideology is not to discredit the concept but to claim it more fully. the challenge is to participate in defining the core concept of this powerful ideology. every time educators, politicians, businesspeople, philanthropists or social scientists invoke the concept of creativity for their purposes, they participate in the ongoing evolution of the concept. the challenge is to do so knowledgably, intentionally and responsibly. even if – no, especially if – your participation imposes constraints on change, resisting the neophilic, westerncentric, market-driven exuberance of much of the rhetoric of the ideology of creativity, participate!creativity without limits, conceived as the ability to do or be anything, as meaning outside of contexts (“outside the box”), is ideology run amuck. saying “recreate yourself!” to someone whose life has fallen into chaos after years of work because of economic or technological shifts is insensitive and insulting. the practical necessity may be real and the sense of hope useful. at the same time, the enthusiastic rhetoric celebrates an oppressive slight of hand, individualizing responsibility for systemic problems. treating traditions that give people’s lives meaning as devalued in the face of “creative” (neophilic) market dynamics can amount to a smokescreen for oppression. and discounting the value of those who devote their lives to maintaining culture – average people as well as scholars and virtuosos – compared to those who change culture is laughable. without legions of the former the few who get credit for being creative geniuses would have nothing to change. (for different articulations of similar critiques of the ideology of creativity, see weiner, 2000.) to be clear, even the most optimistic theories of self-actualization of the humanistic psychologists (for example, maslow, 1954/1970; rogers, 1961/1989) did not contend that people could recreate themselves at will – “be anything you want to be.” they all recognized constraints of individual development, and largely aimed at nietzsche’s imperative: “become what thou art” (1882/1910, p. 209). yet the rhetorical flourishes that introduce and justify much creativity research imply a panacea for personal, economic and cultural problems. an alternative to the exaggerated rhetoric of creativity is acceptance of the underlying assumption that change is constant, real and uncertain but necessarily and fortunately occurs within many constraints and social dynamics. from that perspective, individuals, groups and communities have to choose what changes they want to see and what values they want to preserve. they can then advocate well-informed change within traditions and can be mindful of the development of themselves and their thought. this is the challenge i present to the educators in my graduate school classes every year. even though this more restrained view stands in opposition to much of the vaunted rhetoric of creativity, again, it is in line with the actual theories and research. when researchers investigate the lives and thinking of da vinci, van gogh or einstein, they are studying “new ideas” only after the ideas have become canonical. the researchers are studying the evolution of cultural tradition. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 hanchett hanson 371 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extending the ideology to participation as noted earlier, i have taught creativity theories for many years, but only recently finished a book putting the views outlined above in the context of the history of psychology. one of the striking themes that i found in writing that book was how consistently creativity theories and research have been used to try to extend the social franchise. from the mid-twentieth century on, the concept of creativity was defined as an alternative to exclusive focus on traditional views of intelligence. theories of intelligence and intelligence testing have a long history in discourses of racial and cultural dominance (jensen, 1998; simonton, 2003). creativity has been presented as different but equally valuable. j. p. guilford was already a famous psychometrician when he made his famous 1950 presidential address to the american psychological association. addressing a room dominated by behaviorists and psychometricians, he called for the study of creativity. that speech was just part of a much larger, lifelong goal of disproving the concept of a general intelligence factor (g-factor) and replacing it with a wider, more nuanced view of intelligence. ironically, the view of creativity as a generalized trait with divergent thinking as its measure has had enduring impact, while guilford’s overall view of the structure of intellect has not had the impact he hoped. emphasis on social inclusion and diversity was not just the interest of psychometricians, though. the humanistic psychologist, abraham maslow (1971/1993) was among the most explicit about the ideological goals of creativity. he saw psychology as capable of constructing new kinds of people and specifically wanted to promote “heraclitian” people (p. 57) who would be extreme individualists and comfortable with constant change. he saw america as the place where such people could best develop, and by promoting the social diversity that came with creativity america would attract people from around to world to its side in the cold war. in maslow’s rhetoric, we see the combination of a push for broadening the social franchise, a continued idolizing of the great – “heraclitian” now replacing nineteenth century “genius” – and an explicit ideology of american cultural domination through psychology. to be sure, the story of the development of the ideology of creativity alongside and through psychology is far from simple or pure. still, expanding social participation is a deep theme that runs across widely varying theories. more recently, explicitly participatory models of creativity have come to the fore (clapp, in press; glăveanu, 2011, 2014b; hanchett hanson, 2013a, in press; sawyer, 2010; sawyer & dezutter, 2009). all of these models retain a concept of individual agency but not individual ownership of ideas. instead of focusing almost entirely on how to get people to think of new ideas, the participatory models situate ideation within individual development, group dynamics and historical settings. the support roles and the field (gatekeeper) roles that people take up as they integrate novelty become more central. choosing, supporting, interpreting and refining ideas are as important as “having” an idea. indeed, on close examination, distinctions between field roles and the “creator” role begin to disappear. people we have traditionally called “creators” may be more usefully conceived as “producers,” as vlad glăveanu (2014a) has suggested. these are people who champion ideas and organize resources to serve the idea over time. i have noted that the idea of the creative person as “curator” of ideas also applies (hanchett hanson, in press). creator as curator emphasizes the tasks of selecting, emphasizing, and powerfully presenting ideas that – as always – derive from historical domains, broader culture (“commonsense”), the artifacts of culture and other people’s ideas. freud is an example. his role as a crucial driving force in conceiving, developing and promoting psychoanalysis is obvious. yet his work took form in the context of a culture where many of “his” ideas were already present, particularly those that had been articulated by nietzsche. freud’s particular applications of the ideas came response to patients and discussions with his followers, who were also clinicians. the patients are generally treated as mere objects of his observations, but they were crucial actors in his thought processes. some ideas from discussions with his followers were integrated into freud’s writings and presentations, and some he famously rejected (gay, 1988). (if proponents of rejected ideas did not recant, the person was often ejected europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation 372 http://www.psychopen.eu/ from the group along with the idea.) for me, thinking of freud as a determined and temperamental producer or as a curator trying to find the right, provocative and generative combination of ideas is more helpful than simply thinking of him as a “creator.” the latter term comes with too many magical implications of decontextualized (“outside-the-box”) ideation and god-like ex-nihilo conjuring and too few cues of where to look for the psychological or social goals, processes, advantages and costs. an aha! moment: education this all sounds reasonable, i hope. but it may seem a little abstract. my own aha! moment came when i considered how useful participatory views could be to education. the role of creativity in education has been a persistent concern since at least the mid-twentieth century (for example, beghetto & kaufman, 2010; craft, 2005; guilford, 1950; maslow, 1971/1993; rogers, 1969; starko, 2014). like the rest of the creativity discourse, much of the discussion of education has concerned how to be more inclusive of students’ abilities. trying to promote creativity through education comes with pitfalls, though. for one thing, education traditionally assesses outcomes, and creativity research has provided tests for such assessment, particularly divergent thinking tests, many of which come with age-specific norms. the relation of divergent thinking tests to creative performance is controversial, but the current most optimistic claims are that divergent thinking provides an estimate of a potential for creative work (runco, 2010). critics have seen little reason for assuming a causal link between divergent thinking and actual creative performance (for discussions see, hanchett hanson, 2013b, in press; runco, 2010; weisberg, 2006). there is, then, a validity issue for education – what are we trying to teach, and is this the way to measure it? there is also a strategic question: do we want to designate another education goal by which some students will succeed, many will get by and others will fail? another way to fail? that may sound excessively curmudgeonly and alarmist, but it brings me to the aha! moment. a former student of mine emailed me about her daughter who was a straight-a student and generally liked school. her mother, however, had been called to a special teacher conference to discuss the daughter’s deficient work in creativity. it seems the girl had difficulty participating in brainstorming sessions, and was not presenting sufficiently innovative ideas in her projects. as an educator i was dismayed. why would we be giving a high-performing student a reason to dislike school in the name of creativity? the aha! insight: far too much attention was being paid to the single role of being the person who “has” the creative idea, rather than the diversity of roles that contribute to the ideas and then integrate them into the group, classroom or society. trying to teach students to think “outside the box” is an odd demand on education, where the primary mission is to teach the students the details and skills of cultural conventions (literary genres, scientific method, historical controversies and so on – i.e., “boxes”). in contrast, the participatory models fit the mission of education quite well while also promoting the ability to take up creative roles. indeed, the participatory models offer several advantages over ideation-focused theories. first, studying how change happens is core to education. much of that study is in history class, but it can also be important in science, math, art and literature classes. yes, curricula would have to be revised to emphasize how people pursue creative goals by participating in change through a variety of roles. the fundamental goals of educational courses would not change, however. second, change is not just a highly salient characteristic of the times in which we live, it is a particularly important interest of young people. and they are already participating in change, taking up formal and informal field functions as they consume products, recommendmusic or movies or books, transform language andmake trends. few topics could bemore directly relevant to their lives. third, everyone can be involved. students europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 hanchett hanson 373 http://www.psychopen.eu/ with lots of unusual ideas are still valued, all the more because of their relations to other students who support, challenge and help them explore and apply new ideas. students who do not like brainstorming can take up roles that are just as important to the long-term development of ideas as students who do enjoy brainstorming. finally, this kind of education prepares students for the world outside of school where a few people become famous for ideas or works, but all have opportunities to participate meaningfully in change. for example, a few artists devote their lives to painting, but many are involved in the art world as critics, gallery owners, collectors, museum curators, and so on. furthermore, the roles are fluid. most writers are also readers, and many review books or teach writing. the more students become aware of such roles and how they can fit together for form successful and meaningful lives, the better prepared they may be for the pivots that life often demands over the course of any career. next steps if we are going to participate in the ideology of creativity, where do we start? for people in all walks of life, observing and debating the ways we use the concept of creativity will make us more aware of its positive and negative values. then by applying it the idea of creativity new ways, such as the uses of participatory models in education, we will inevitably gain insight into the values of our complex idea of creativity. as psychologists, participating in the ongoing evolution of the concept of creativity means developing and applying our own tools: theory, research questions, research methods and applied theory (recommended social practices). each of these poses particular challenges if advancing the participatory models is our goal. continued development of theory participatory models have substantial momentum but are still emerging. among the threads of theory and research that may be usefully woven together are lifelong developmental theories, such as gruber’s evolving systems (gruber &wallace, 1999); distributed cognition theory, which has been applied to creativity by both sawyer (2010; sawyer & dezutter, 2009) and glăveanu (2014a); and the currently emerging literature on the dangers of creativity (“dark sides,” for example, cropley, cropley, kaufman, & runco, 2010) and on the ethics of creativity (for example, moran, cropley, & kaufman, 2014). research questions research will develop hand-in-hand with theory. from the participatory perspective, the interesting psychological questions of creativity are not just who has a new idea or how we think of such things. how the initially unthinkable, alien or outlandish become integrated into our concepts of self, group and culture are equally, if not more, salient issues. who contributes, how they contribute and the variety of roles they take up in the process are just a few of the issues that participatory models add to the mix. research on roles is more important to the participatory models than to ideation-focused theories. here creativity research would borrow from and build on existing social psychology and group dynamics research. the questions of how people have impact through different roles, how they organize multiple roles and how they take up their roles in unexpected ways takes on different significance, though, when viewed as ways of studying creativity. positive and negative effects of participating in change also become important. for example, eminence is often used as validation of creativity, but it is a rough and imprecise criterion. the necessarily reductive narratives of europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation 374 http://www.psychopen.eu/ history tend to conflate all kinds of major and minor contributors to the genius of a single person. social, historical and cognitive nuances are lost. but eminence happens. interesting psychological questions concern its effects. what are the potential effects of organizing one’s identity around goals of becoming famous?why do some people adapt to fame relatively well, while others do not? do some people aim at posthumous eminence in their domains but not at current fame – possibly imagining impact through students and protégés, for example? there is some relevant research on these kinds of issues in, for example, historiometric research, social psychology and cultural studies, but, so far, such topics have been far from the mainstream of creativity research. methodologies in psychology, method and theory always work together. we already have a number of relevant methods, including historical case studies, ethnographic methods and historiometric methods. part of the methodological challenge may be triangulating amongmethods more consistently and effectively. part may also be developing newmethods. dare i say, we have to be creative as curators and producers in our discipline? we have a tradition of such creativity, as in teresa amabile and associates (1996) demonstrating the statistical reliability and theoretical validity of the commonsense practice of having judges evaluate creative work (consensual assessment technique). dean keith simonton (1984, 2003) has dramatically extended and refined the use of large historical databases to study creativity through historiometrics. more innovative work in methodology will be needed for participatory models and have lasting impact on psychological views of creativity and, as a result, the broader ideology of creativity. applied technologies finally, creativity research has been particularly fertile in producing tools in line with its theories, such as divergent thinking tests, biographical inventories, social trait assessments, idea-generating techniques, problem-solving processes, clinical approaches, inspirational books and curriculum designs. these social practices – psychosocial technologies – bridge the worlds of psychological research and everyday life. those of us who want to extend participatory models also have to think in these terms. what are the practices that will make these models useful and relevant to people in the many walks of life where the ideology of creativity has impact? as i wrote earlier, from my own perspective the greatest value of the concept is the question it keeps open: the relationship of individual agency to personal and social change. the participatory models are crucial next steps in that discourse, but there will never be a single answer to the individual-culture question. hopefully, the participatory models will lead us to deeper understandings of the issues, though, as well as provide practical ways to facilitate and value everyone’s participation in our changing world. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 hanchett hanson 375 http://www.psychopen.eu/ references amabile, t. m., colins, m. a., conti, r., phillips, e., picariello, m., ruscio, j., & whitney, d. 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(2009). distributed creativity: how collective creations emerge from collaboration. psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts, 3(2), 81-92. doi:10.1037/a0013282 simonton, d. k. (1984).genius, creativity, and leadership: historiometric inquiries. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. simonton, d. k. (1999). origins of genius: darwinian perspectives on creativity. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. simonton, d. k. (2003). creative cultures, nations and civilizations: strategies and results. in p. b. paulus & b. a. nijstad (eds.), group creativity: innovation through collaboration (pp. 304-25). oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. starko, a. j. (2014). creativity in the classroom: schools of curious delight (5th ed.). new york, ny: routledge. sternberg, r. j. (2003). the development of creativity as a decision-making process. in m. marschark (ed.), creativity and development (pp. 91-138). oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 hanchett hanson 377 http://libros.metabiblioteca.org/handle/001/226 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013282 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sternberg, r. j., & lubart, t. i. (1991). an investment theory of creativity and its development. human development, 34, 1-31. doi:10.1159/000277029 wallace, d. b., & gruber, h. e. (eds.). (1989). creative people at work. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. weiner, r. p. (2000). creativity and beyond: cultures, values and change. albany, ny: state university of new york press. weisberg, r. w. (2006). creativity: understanding innovation in problem solving, science, invention and the arts. hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons. about the author michael hanchett hanson founded and directs the masters concentration in creativity and cognition at teachers college, columbia university. he has written about practical guidelines for creativity in education; creativity as an emerging social construction, and use of ironic thinking in creative work. he analyzes the contributions of psychology to the ideology of creativity inworldmaking: psychology and the ideology of creativity, to be published by palgravemacmillan in this fall. michael encourages his students to consider the ideological functions of the concept of creativity and to participate in the ongoing construction of the concept by studying, evaluating and applying a variety of theories and practices. his pragmatic approach is informed by decades of first-hand experience in curriculum development and program evaluation for educational institutions, youth development programs, museums and corporations. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(3), 369–378 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.1032 the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation 378 http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000277029 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en the ideology of creativity and challenges of participation (introduction) problem or strength? the challenges of participation claiming and taking responsibility for the ideology extending the ideology to participation an aha! moment: education next steps continued development of theory research questions methodologies applied technologies (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author self-esteem, social comparison, and facebook use research reports self-esteem, social comparison, and facebook use elisa bergagna* a, stefano tartaglia a [a] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. abstract facebook use is very popular among young people, but many open issues remain regarding the individual traits that are antecedents of different behaviours enacted online. this study aimed to investigate whether the relationship between self-esteem and the amount of time on facebook could be mediated by a tendency towards social comparison. moreover, three different modalities of facebook use were distinguished, i.e., social interaction, simulation, and search for relations. because of gender differences in technology use and social comparison, the mediation models were tested separately for males and females. data were collected by means of a self-report questionnaire with a sample of 250 undergraduate and graduate italian students (mean age: 22.18 years). the relations were examined empirically by means of four structural equation models. the results revealed the role of orientation to social comparison in mediating the relations between low self-esteem and some indicators of facebook use, i.e., daily hours on facebook and the use of facebook for simulation. for females, the use of facebook for social interaction was directly influenced by high self-esteem and indirectly influenced by low self-esteem. globally, the dimension of social comparison on facebook emerged as more important for females than for males. keywords: facebook use, self-esteem, social comparison, gender differences, social media europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 received: 2018-01-24. accepted: 2018-06-06. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; nicholas kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi, 10, 10124, turin, italy. e-mail: elisa.bergagna@libero.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the development of the world wide web has completely changed the way people communicate and spread information (krämer & winter, 2008). through social media, people can share personal information with a broader community of people by posting photos, videos and blogs (kaplan & haenlein, 2010). social networking sites such as myspace and facebook are widely used by adolescents, young adults, and people over 30 years old (wilson, gosling, & graham, 2012). considering all the friend-networking sites available online, facebook seems to be the most utilized in the world, with over 1 billion visitors per month (facebook press room, 2017). several studies linked facebook use to positive effects, such as the satisfaction of users’ needs for feelings of self-worth and self-integrity (toma & hancock, 2013), an improvement in the quality of existing friendships (valkenburg & peter, 2009), and the perception of greater subjective well-being (kim & lee, 2011). however, other scholars have found the opposite results, providing evidence of negative consequences related to facebook use. for instance, excessive use of social media, sometimes recognized as internet addiction, has been related to high levels of depressive symptoms (marino, hirst, murray, vieno, & spada, 2017; morrison & gore, 2010). moreover, some scholars found that people who used facebook more frequently have reported that others are happier and live better than they do themselves (chou & edge, 2012). however, these negative europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological outcomes are mainly related to the way people use facebook rather than to the social network itself. for most people, this social medium does not have positive or negative consequences, but for other individuals, facebook use may be a maladaptive way of escaping from problems or relieving a dysphoric mood (cash, rae, steel, & winkler, 2012). for this reason, it becomes important to investigate individual traits that can predict harmful online behaviours so they can be prevented. facebook and self-esteem in psychology, self-esteem is defined as the positive or negative evaluation of the self, and many theories have suggested that maintaining or raising it is a basic human need (weiten, 2004). regarding the relationship between self-esteem and facebook use, scholars have found contradictory results. most studies (kalpidou, costin, & morris, 2011; mehdizadeh, 2010; tazghini & siedlecki, 2013) found that people with lower self-esteem spend more time on facebook. some authors have interpreted this finding using social compensation theory. social compensation theory, or the poor-get-richer hypothesis, states that people who experience difficulties in social relations, such as individuals with low self-esteem, socially anxious individuals, and introverts, are more motivated to use social networks in order to compensate for their unsatisfactory face-to-face interactions (mckenna, green, & gleason, 2002). an opposite perspective is social enhancement, or the rich-get-richer hypothesis. according to this theory, for more sociable young people, there are added benefits from expanding communication through social media: socially active people, with high levels of self-esteem, are more inclined to utilize friend-networking sites as a means to extend their social network further (kraut et al., 2002). however, few studies have found evidence that people with a positive self-evaluation spend more time on facebook (ghosh & dasgupta, 2015). instead, other studies found no relation between self-esteem and facebook use (skues, williams, & wise, 2012). as some scholars have suggested, the literature may be inconsistent because studies have considered facebook as a whole without distinguishing between different modalities of use or motivations to utilize the social network (rae & lonborg, 2015; tartaglia, 2016). generally, people who communicate easily with others face to face have less need to spend a great deal of time online, but when considering the specific ways facebook can be used, a different result can be found (wilson, fornasier, & white, 2010). a recent study (tartaglia, 2016) has shown three different modalities of using facebook, i.e., social interaction, simulation, and search for relations. the first is the use of the social network for interaction with friends and for self-expression. high self-esteem was found to be a predictor of this modality of using facebook. in contrast, people who use facebook to simulate a self-image online that differs from reality had low self-esteem. finally, the use of facebook to seek new relations, i.e., meeting people, was not related to selfesteem. social comparison social comparison takes place when individuals compare themselves with others on abilities and personal characteristics. festinger (1954) was the first to theorize that comparing oneself to others is a human need essential for acquiring information about the self. as some authors noted (gilbert, price, & allan, 1995), the need to compare oneself to others is phylogenetically very old and biologically very powerful; however, individuals differ greatly in the extent to which they tend to confront each other (gibbons & buunk, 1999). many scholars (buunk & gibbons, 2007; steil & hay, 1997; wheeler, 2000) have suggested that certain types of individuals may be more inclined to compare than others, hypothesizing that the tendency to engage in social comparisons may be a personality characteristic. the “typical” individual with a high tendency to engage in social comparison is characterized by certain features, such as an increased sensitivity to the behaviour of others and a deself-esteem and facebook 832 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gree of uncertainty about the self, along with a great need to reduce this uncertainty and improve her/his selfworth (gibbons & buunk, 1999). individuals with low self-esteem, whose self-concepts are inconstant and uncertain, are particularly interested in making social comparisons (buunk & gibbons, 2007). this tendency towards social comparison may be facilitated by modern technologies, which have transferred many social relations from the private to the public sphere, exposing people to a continual flow of information (subrahmanyam & greenfield, 2008). specifically, people on facebook may compare themselves with others on the number of likes and the types of comments that other people have posted to their statuses and photos; moreover, a friend’s status or photos may trigger specific social comparisons, which can make people feel better or worse (steers, wickham, & acitelli, 2014). researchers have mainly focused on the consequences of facebook social comparisons (feinstein et al., 2013; krasnova, wenninger, widjaja, & buxmann, 2013; nesi & prinstein, 2015): their results have shown that social comparison on facebook may predict depression, rumination and lower life satisfaction. however, some authors (nesi & prinstein, 2015) emphasized the hypothesis that depressive symptoms precede and predict social comparisons on facebook, stating that individuals with low self-esteem who are prone to depression are more likely to spend time on facebook engaging in higher levels of social comparison. this point of view seems to suggest that a greater tendency towards social comparison might increase the use of this social network, motivated by the search for information about others. in summary, social comparison theory suggests that self-esteem influences the tendency to compare oneself with others, which in turn would influence the use of facebook because it may be a tool for social comparison. although some scholars have suggested this relation (nesi & prinstein, 2015), no study to our knowledge has examined the role of social comparison orientation in influencing the use of facebook, neither the overall use nor the specific modalities of use. we aimed to empirically test this theoretical model. considering the different modalities of using facebook, we can make some specific assumptions. for people whose evaluation of the self is mainly based on the perceived opinions of others (i.e., social comparison), self-expression can become a way to reduce uncertainty about the self by eliciting positive feedback from others (nesi & prinstein, 2015). moreover, individuals with a strong social comparison orientation may use facebook for simulation so that they can gain benefits from comparisons and increase their self-esteem. these people are worried about image and very interested in what others think (buunk & gibbons, 2007). finally, the use of facebook to search for relations should not be related to a social comparison tendency because this modality seems mainly to refer to the search for a romantic partner (tartaglia, 2016). current research despite the contradictory results concerning the relationship between self-esteem and facebook use, most research (kalpidou et al., 2011; tazghini & siedlecki, 2013) has demonstrated that people who spend more time on facebook are individuals with lower self-esteem because they need to compensate for their relational faceto-face difficulties. additionally, individuals with low self-esteem, whose self-concepts are particularly uncertain, are especially interested in social comparison (buunk & gibbons, 2007), and this tendency might determine greater use of facebook, since this social network makes it especially easy for people to compare themselves to others (nesi & prinstein, 2015). therefore, we aimed to investigate whether the relationship between selfesteem and the amount of time on facebook would be mediated by a tendency towards social comparison. moreover, we wanted to test this mediational model not only on the general use of facebook but also on three specific modalities of using facebook, that is, social interaction, simulation and search for relations (tartaglia, 2016). finally, we wanted to test the mediation model for males and females separately, since previous rebergagna & tartaglia 833 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ search has found gender differences in technology use and social comparison (nesi & prinstein, 2015; stefanone, lackaff, & rosen, 2011). specifically, females seem to share more photos on social networking sites and spend more time maintaining their social networks than males (rosen, stefanone, & lackaff, 2010). women are more likely to compare themselves on the dimension of physical attractiveness based on online photos (haferkamp & krämer, 2011) and are more susceptible to comparing themselves to others on the dimension of self-expression, which they feel is personally relevant. on these grounds, we expected the following: a. self-esteem is negatively associated with the amount of time spent on facebook (kalpidou et al., 2011; tazghini & siedlecki, 2013) and with the use of the social networking site for simulation (tartaglia, 2016). self-esteem is positively related to the use of facebook for social interaction, whereas it is not related to the use of facebook to search for relations (tartaglia, 2016). b. self-esteem is negatively related to the social comparison orientation (buunk & gibbons, 2007). c. because facebook is a means for comparing oneself with others (steers, wickham, & acitelli, 2014), social comparison orientation is related to time spent on facebook, the use of facebook for self-expression (i.e., the modality of social interaction) and simulation of a different self-image (i.e., the modality of simulation). d. gender differences in technology use and social comparison (nesi & prinstein, 2015; stefanone et al., 2011) lead to different results in the mediational models tested separately for males and females. method participants the research sample included 250 university students (43.6% male and 56.4% female). the average age of the participants was 22.18 years (sd = 2.52). a psychology graduate student in collected the data for her master’s degree thesis. participants attended different courses in the arts and sciences school of a public university. participation was voluntary. measures we collected the data using a self-report questionnaire, which took approximately 20 minutes to complete. the following indicators were used in our analysis: 1. the italian version of the rosenberg self-esteem scale (prezza, trombaccia, & armento, 1997), which is composed of 9 items assessing global self-esteem (e.g., “on the whole, i am satisfied with myself”). items were rated on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). the scale showed good internal coherence (cronbach’s α = .85). 2. the iowa-netherlands comparison orientation measure (incom; gibbons & buunk, 1999), which included 11 items measuring participants’ tendency to socially compare themselves to others (e.g., “i always pay a lot of attention to how i do things compared with how others do things”). items were rated on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the scale showed good internal coherence (cronbach’s α = .90). self-esteem and facebook 834 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 3. the amount of time people spent on facebook, which was assessed through one item asking participants “approximately how many hours per day do you spend on facebook?” 4. the modality of using facebook scale (tartaglia, 2016), including 19 items that presented different activities people can do on facebook. the instructions for participants read “how often do you do the following things on facebook?” and items were rated on a 4-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (very often). the items belong to three subscales measuring different modalities of using facebook: social interaction (e.g., “comment on other people’s statuses, walls, or links”) consisting of 11 items (α = .79); simulation (e.g., “hide some things about yourself that you don’t like) consisting of 5 items (α = .81); and search for relations (e.g., “chat with people you don’t know”) consisting of 3 items (α = .72). 5. a brief list of socio-demographic items (i.e., gender, age). data analyses after performing preliminary analyses, we investigated the hypothesized relationships by testing structural equation models. we tested the models simultaneously on males and females to investigate gender differences. results preliminary analyses table 1 shows the mean scores of the measures used in the analyses. we calculated the means separately by gender group and tested the differences using t-tests. females spent more time daily on facebook than males. there are no other significant gender differences. concerning the modality of facebook usage, social interaction was the most frequent cited by participants. table 2 shows the correlations among measures. self-esteem correlated negatively with social comparison orientation, daily hours on facebook, and simulation. social comparison orientation correlated positively with all the facebook use indicators. each facebook use indicator correlated positively with all the others except for daily hours on facebook and search for relations, which did not correlate. table 1 scale scores for males (n = 109) and females (n = 141): mean scores and t values variable mean scores tmales females self-esteem 3.13 3.08 0.72 social comparison orientation 2.36 2.40 -0.44 daily hours on facebook 0.92 1.26 -2.28* modality of using facebook social interaction 1.96 2.00 -0.68 simulation 1.71 1.83 -1.46 search for relations 1.68 1.70 -0.30 *p < .05. bergagna & tartaglia 835 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations among measures variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. self-esteem 2. social comparison orientation -.33** 3. daily hours on facebook -.29** .23** modality of using facebook 4. social interaction -.11 .48** .36** 5. simulation -.41** .60** .33** .41** 6. search for relations -.12 .21** .09 .39** .18** *p < .05. **p < .01. testing the models on the grounds of the abovementioned literature and the preliminary analyses, we tested four structural equations models predicting daily hours on facebook and the three modalities of using facebook, i.e., social interaction, simulation, and search for relations. all the models assumed the following: (a) self-esteem influences both social comparison orientation and the facebook use indicator; (b) social comparison orientation influences the facebook use indicator. we tested each model simultaneously on males and females, performing bootstrap analyses to investigate the indirect effect of self-esteem on the facebook use indicator. we used a partial disaggregating approach (bagozzi, 1993; bagozzi & edwards, 1998) to reduce the number of indicators for each latent variable and still allow for estimation of the measurement error. we randomly aggregated the items into three indicators for each scale, except for simulation, which was reduced to two indicators. as recommended (hu & bentler, 1998), we tested the model fit using different indexes to diminish the impact of their limits. we used χ2, cfi (comparative fit index; bentler, 1990), tli (tucker-lewis index; tucker & lewis, 1973) and rmsea (root mean square error of approximation; steiger, 1990). the first model (see figure 1) predicted daily hours on facebook. the model fit was satisfactory: χ2(24) = 53.16, p < .01; χ2/gdl = 2.22; cfi = .97; tli = .95; rmsea = .070. for the male group, all the estimated parameters were significant. self-esteem negatively influenced both social comparison orientation (β = -.42) and daily hours on facebook (β = -.29). social comparison orientation positively influenced daily hours on facebook (β = .24). bootstrapping showed an indirect effect of self-esteem on daily hours on facebook (β = -.10; 95% ci = -.20 to -.05; p < .01; se = .05). considering the female group, self-esteem did not directly influence daily hours on facebook. self-esteem had a negative effect on social comparison orientation (β = -.59). social comparison orientation positively influenced daily hours on facebook (β = .46). self-esteem had an indirect effect on daily hours on facebook (β = -.27; 95% ci = -.37 to -.18; p < .01; se = .06). self-esteem and facebook 836 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. model of the prediction of daily hours on facebook. estimated parameters for gender groups: standardized regression weights and variances. note. errors of the indicators and latent variables were omitted from the figure to make it easier to view. the second model (see figure 2) predicted the social interaction use of facebook. the model fit was satisfactory: χ2(48) = 107.11, p < .01; χ2/gdl = 2.23; cfi = .95; tli = .93; rmsea = .070. concerning the male group, there were no significant effects on social interaction. the only significant parameter is the negative link between self-esteem and social comparison orientation (β = -.42). in contrast, all the parameters estimated for the female group were significant. self-esteem negatively influenced social comparison orientation (β = -.59) and positively influenced social interaction (β = .30). social comparison orientation positively influenced social interaction (β = .29). bergagna & tartaglia 837 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. model of prediction of social interaction use of facebook. estimated parameters for gender groups: standardized regression weights and variances. note. errors of the indicators and latent variables were omitted from the figure to make it easier to view. the third model (see figure 3) predicted the simulation modality of use of facebook. the model fit was satisfactory: χ2(34) = 83.72, p < .01; χ2/gdl = 2.46; cfi = .96; tli = .94; rmsea = .077. all the parameters estimated for the male group were significant. self-esteem negatively influenced both social comparison orientation (β = -.42) and simulation (β = -.39). social comparison orientation positively influenced simulation (β = .33). self-esteem had an indirect negative effect on simulation (β = -.14; 95% ci = -.26 to -.05; p <. 01; se = .06). for the female group, the direct effect of self-esteem on simulation was not significant; the other relations were similar to those for the male group. self-esteem negatively influenced social comparison orientation (β = -.59). social comparison orientation positively influenced simulation (β = .48). self-esteem had a negative indirect effect on simulation (β = -.29; 95% ci = -.43 to -.14; p < .01; se = .09). self-esteem and facebook 838 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the model predicting the search for relations, there were no significant influences on that modality of using facebook. figure 3. model of prediction of simulation use of facebook. estimated parameters on gender groups: standardized regression weights and variances. note. errors of the indicators and latent variables were omitted from the figure to make it easier to view. discussion the present study aimed at investigating whether the relationship between self-esteem and the amount of time on facebook would be mediated by a tendency towards social comparison. moreover, we wanted to distinguish between different kinds of use of the social network and referred to three specific modalities of using facebook, i.e., social interaction, simulation, and search for relations. finally, we wanted to test the possibility of different results when considering males and females separately. bergagna & tartaglia 839 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consistent with previous research (nesi & prinstein, 2015; stefanone et al., 2011), we found that females spend more time daily on facebook than males. however, we did not find gender differences concerning the different modalities of using facebook. in line with previous research (kalpidou et al., 2011; tazghini & siedlecki, 2013), we found that self-esteem was negatively associated with the amount of time on facebook, but only for males. we may interpret this result using the social compensation hypothesis, which maintains that people who are socially inept, such as individuals with low self-esteem, are less comfortable interacting with peers in face-to-face contexts and are strongly motivated to compensate for the deficiency by using online interactions (mckenna, green, & gleason, 2002). consistent with previous research (buunk & gibbons, 2007), self-esteem was negatively related to the social comparison orientation, which in turn predicted a greater amount of time spent on facebook: this path was found for both males and females. for females, social comparison orientation fully mediated the relation between self-esteem and the amount of time on facebook because the direct path between the two variables was not significant. females with low self-esteem seem to spend more time on facebook in order to compare themselves to others and possibly increase their self-esteem, since social comparison serves the function of selfenhancement and self-improvement (buunk & gibbons, 2007). compared to males, females tend to view themselves as below others on many dimensions (goethals et al., 1991); thus, they might be more motivated to engage in higher levels of social comparison, seeking out negative information about others on facebook. a previous study (stefanone et al., 2011) has found that females are more susceptible to making online comparisons, especially on the dimension of physical attractiveness. the male tendency towards social comparison was found to only partially mediate the relation between self-esteem and time spent on facebook. it is possible that males feel a less urgent need to compare themselves to others and that young adults with low self-esteem might spend more time on facebook for other reasons too, e.g., social compensation (mckenna et al., 2002). concerning the different modalities of use, we obtained an interesting result related to the use of facebook for social interaction. in line with previous research (tartaglia, 2016), we found a positive relationship between selfesteem and using facebook for social interaction, but only for females. young women with a positive self-evaluation seem to use this social network for managing relations by chatting with friends and commenting on other people’s statuses, links or photos and for expressing themselves by publishing photos, videos and statuses. some authors have already found that females are especially interested in relationship maintenance through social media (rosen et al., 2010), and socially active females with positive self-esteem likely use facebook as an additional means to maintain their social network. this result seems to be consistent with the rich-get-richer or social enhancement hypothesis (kraut et al., 2002). interestingly, when we introduced the dimension of social comparison, the situation completely changed. in fact, the use of facebook by females to socially interact was also influenced by a high tendency towards social comparison, which in turn was determined by low selfesteem. the relevance of self-expression for females may explain this indirect relation. women are more prone to prioritize and compare themselves on the dimension of physical attractiveness based on online photos (nesi & prinstein, 2015; stefanone et al., 2011). females with low self-esteem likely have a stronger need to compare themselves to other women in order to reduce uncertainty about the self and increase their self-esteem and positive affectivity (buunk & gibbons, 2007). for such girls, expressing themselves on facebook might be a way to improve their self-evaluation. in sum, high and low self-esteem may increase women’s social interactions on facebook for different reasons. self-esteem and facebook 840 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in line with previous research (tartaglia, 2016), low self-esteem was related to the use of facebook for simulation, but only for males. these data support the hypothesized compensatory use of facebook for people with poor social skills and well-being (mckenna et al., 2002). people with a low self-evaluation are more likely to control the information about themselves by selecting photos to post and writing false self-descriptions that present socially desirable images of themselves (tartaglia, 2016). these people construct their identities online, displaying their idealized selves on facebook, and these self-presentations have the goal of increasing their subjective well-being (kim & lee, 2011). it is possible that people with low self-esteem try to improve their wellbeing by presenting themselves as different from how they are in real life. introducing the dimension of social comparison orientation, we found that the use of facebook for simulating a different self-image was also influenced by a high tendency towards social comparison, which in turn was determined by low self-esteem. this path was found for both males and females. as we expected, social comparison orientation was related to the use of facebook for simulation: people high in social comparison had a strong interest in what others feel and think (buunk & gibbons, 2007), and this worry about image can lead them to simulate their online image. our finding sheds new light on the relation between self-esteem and a potentially harmful modality of using facebook. self-esteem seems to have an indirect effect on the use of facebook for simulating, and this effect is mediated by a tendency towards social comparison. this result highlights the importance of this personality characteristic in understanding why people behave in a determinate manner in social networks: people who are more prone to social comparison are at higher risk of developing maladaptive coping strategies, such as the construction of a false self to improve their well-being (tartaglia, 2016). the results were slightly different between males and females. for females, social comparison orientation fully mediated the relation between selfesteem and the use of facebook for simulating, because there was no direct path between the two variables. females with low self-esteem and a high tendency towards social comparison seem to simulate more on facebook, probably in order to gain benefits from the online comparisons, thus increasing their self-esteem. concerning males, a tendency towards social comparison was found to only partially mediate the relation between self-esteem and the use of facebook for simulation. also in this case, we may interpret this result to mean that males probably feel a less urgent need to compare themselves to others, and young adults with low self-esteem might simulate more online for other reasons too, such as those predicted by the social compensation hypothesis (mckenna et al., 2002). indeed, it is possible that males with low self-esteem present themselves differently from how they are in real life in order to facilitate the development of their social networks, thus meeting their social needs online. this result seems to provide further evidence of the particular importance of comparison for females, which can lead them to engage in self-presentation in a selective manner. in line with previous research (tartaglia, 2016), self-esteem and social comparison orientation were not related to the modality of using facebook to search for relations. individuals who use facebook for meeting new people do not seem to utilize this social network to compensate for a deficiency in self-esteem. the present study has some limitations. the use of cross-sectional data could limit the evidence in support of the direction of the relationships between self-esteem, social comparison, and use of facebook. future studies should use longitudinal data or an experimental design for a more rigorous examination of causal relationships. moreover, the investigation should be extended to other age groups: the age of facebook users has shifted over the course of the network’s growth, and the number of older users has increased dramatically (wilson et al., 2012). given this trend, it is important to investigate how young people’s facebook use is similar to or different from that of older users. finally, future studies should investigate the psychological and social consequences of spending time on this social network, assessing the impact of the different modalities of using facebook bergagna & tartaglia 841 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on subjective well-being. for example, if individuals with low self-esteem and a high tendency towards social comparison are more apt to use these sites to simulate a different reality online, will their use cause positive or negative effects on self-esteem and well-being? these suggestions should be the starting points for further research studies. in sum, the present study confirmed the importance of individual traits in determining different social behaviours enacted online. in particular, our findings shed new light on the well-known relation between self-esteem and the use of facebook, introducing the social comparison orientation as a mediating variable. the results suggest that individuals with low self-esteem are especially interested in social comparison, and this personality characteristic is related to a greater amount of time spent on facebook, motivated by the search for information about others. especially for females, but also for males, the tendency to make social comparisons is associated with the use of facebook for simulating a different self-image from reality: people high in social comparison have a strong interest in what others feel and think, and this concern may lead them to simulate their online image. for females, the use of facebook for social interaction seems to be related to different needs. young women with a positive self-evaluation use facebook as an additional means to maintain their social network, whereas girls with a high tendency to social comparison, determined by low self-esteem, express themselves on facebook, to improve their self-evaluation. in general, the tendency towards social comparison on facebook seems to be especially important for females, mediating the effects of self-esteem. this finding suggests that gender differences should be taken into consideration when investigating these online behaviours. since social media use can imply some risks, when it is carried out in a maladaptive way, it is important to prevent these risks by understanding the underlying processes. particular attention should be given to people with uncertain identities: the use of facebook for these problematic individuals might lead them to 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(2012). a review of facebook research in the social sciences. perspectives on psychological science, 7(3), 203-220. doi:10.1177/1745691612442904 about the authors elisa bergagna has got a degree in clinical and community psychology. she held a number of research posts, including research fellowships at the turin university, department of psychology. her main topics of interest are psychological wellbeing, risky behaviours among adolescents and young adults, mass media influence and prejudice. stefano tartaglia, phd, is assistant professor in social psychology at the turin university, department of psychology. he teaches “learning in psychosocial research”. he is member of the italian society of community psychology. his main topics of interest are wellbeing, quality of life, gender stereotype, sense of community, place attachment, social identity, and mass media influence. bergagna & tartaglia 845 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 831–845 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1592 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr2502_4 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167297234008 https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0006 https://doi.org/10.21909/sp.2016.01.703 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.11.010 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212474694 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02291170 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.01405.x https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2009.0094 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612442904 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-esteem and facebook (introduction) facebook and self-esteem method participants measures data analyses results preliminary analyses testing the models discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring: effects of the type of information and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics research reports the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring: effects of the type of information and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics maria mykolaivna avhustiuk* a, ihor demydovych pasichnyk b, ruslana volodymyrivna kalamazh b [a] department of international relations, national university of ostroh academy, ostroh, ukraine. [b] department of psychology and pedagogy, national university of ostroh academy, ostroh, ukraine. abstract the aim of the paper is to analyse the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring of the learning activity of university students (n = 262). the analysis focuses on the effects of the different types of information proposed and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics of the participants. the research has shown that the illusion of knowing can occur in all types of metacognitive judgments, but is more evident in prospective judgments and depends on the type of information, its length and style, task type, etc. there are empirically established correlations between the selected personal, cognitive, and metacognitive characteristics. gender and age differences in the manifestation of the illusion of knowing are not observed, although it is found that women tend towards overconfidence. the results also showed that the illusion of knowing is more typical for younger students, especially for those with lower levels of academic achievements. keywords: the illusion of knowing, metacognitive monitoring, learning activity, metacognitive judgements, overconfidence, underconfidence, the illusion of not knowing europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 received: 2017-03-15. accepted: 2017-12-04. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of international relations, national university of ostroh academy, seminarska str. 2, 35800 ostroh (ukraine). email: maria.avgustiuk@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. metacognitive monitoring concept metacognitive monitoring is viewed as the way of checking students’ cognitive activity and how these results direct to the solution of certain cognitive tasks, such as recalling answers, doing tests, and reading texts (savin & fomin, 2013). it is also viewed as human evaluation of his/her own knowledge, knowledge of cognitive strategies, and knowledge of conditions that affect the learning process (koriat, 1993; valdez, 2013); or as explicit judgements that facilitate development of cognitive processes (serra & metcalfe, 2009). separate aspects of metacognitive monitoring reliability are studied by maki and berry (1984) (metacomprehension of text material), epstein, glenberg, and bradley (1984) (contribution of text variables to the illusion of knowing), europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ nelson and narens (1990) (metamemory), koriat (1993, 1997) (the accessibility model of the feeling of knowing; a cue-utilization approach to judgements of learning), pulford (1996) (overconfidence in human judgements), ilyina (2003) (learning motivation), nietfeld et al. (2005) (metacognitive monitoring accuracy and student performance), karpov and skitiaeva (2005) (metacognitive processes of personal identity), dubovitskaia (2005) (learning motivation), moore and cain (2007) (overconfidence and underconfidence), zabrucky, lin, and agler (2008) (metacognition and learning), parkinson (2009) (metacognition and word learning), schraw (2009) (conceptual analysis of metacognitive monitoring), savin and fomin (2013) (cognitive aspects of education), dotsevych (2013) (diagnosis of metacognitive competence). review of the results of theoretical analysis of the issue helped us group the types of metacognitive monitoring according to criteria of reliability (accurate and inaccurate monitoring), level of performance (local and global monitoring), temporal implication (on-line and off-line monitoring), learning achievements (subject-specific and general monitoring), cognition plot (monitoring of comprehension, monitoring of metamemory, and monitoring of performance), level of understanding (analytical (explicit) and non-analytical (implicit) monitoring), basis of judgements (information-based and experience-based monitoring) (avhustiuk, 2016). correlations of subjective and objective success of task performance make it possible to establish metacognitive monitoring reliability and to highlight its errors. these errors are often manifested as two phenomena: overconfidence (the illusion of knowing) and underconfidence (the illusion of not knowing). the illusion of knowing phenomenon the first studies of the illusion of knowing were conducted by glenberg, wilkinson, and epstein (1982), who showed it as the belief that comprehension has been attained, when, in fact, comprehension was not achieved. the phenomenon can occur during text learning when people express too unreasonably erroneous beliefs that information has been acquired (dunlosky, rawson, & middleton, 2005; glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982), or while studying pairs of words, as people often tend to overestimate the likelihood that they will later recall them (eakin, 2005). typically, this illusion appears in judgements made immediately after the learning process because assimilated information is still in the working memory (nelson & dunlosky, 1991). in the psychological literature it is difficult to find some proper explanations for the causes and mechanisms of the illusion of knowing. the illusion of knowing is usually viewed as subjective overconfidence in the correctness of learning and understanding the information that objectively is incorrect (commander & stanwyck, 1997; dunlosky, rawson, & middleton, 2005; epstein, glenberg, & bradley, 1984; glenberg & epstein, 1985; glenberg & epstein, 1987; glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982; kroll & ford, 1992); overconfidence in the correctness of task performance (begg et al., 1996; fazio & marsh, 2008; kelley & lindsay, 1993; kolers & palef, 1976; nelson & dunlosky, 1991; nelson & narens, 1990; nelson, narens, & dunlosky, 2004; parkinson, 2009); or overconfidence in the ability to remember information that cannot be remembered (castel, mccabe, & roediger, 2007; eakin, 2005; koriat & bjork, 2005). the illusion of knowing is preceded by the illusions of competence (bjork, 1999; castel, mccabe, & roediger, 2007; dunning et al., 2003; koriat & bjork, 2005; metcalfe, 1998; zechmeister & shaughnessy, 1980), the illusions of remembering (jacoby, bjork, & kelley, 1994), the illusions of familiarity (whittlesea, 1993), and the illusions of understanding (bjork, 1999; epstein, glenberg, & bradley, 1984; glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982; jee, wiley, & griffin, 2006). the most common reason for these illusions is inaccurate calibration. a the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 318 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ number of studies (jacoby, bjork, & kelley, 1994; whittlesea, 1993) have found that it is almost impossible to avoid such illusions because people do not feel or notice them and continue erroneously proving the correctness of their decisions. alongside the term of the illusion of knowing such terms as cognitive optimism (metcalfe, 1998), overconfidence (eakin, 2005; gigerenzer, hoffrage, & kleinbölting, 1991; moore & healy, 2008; pulford, 1996), and subjective overconfidence in self-knowledge (savin & fomin, 2013) are also used. such inconsistency of terminological apparatus complicates the comparison of the research results. metcalfe (1998) believes that the basis of the illusion of knowing, or so-called ‘cognitive optimism’, is self-deception that can seem to optimize different learning activities. people become aware that their answers are wrong, but they convince themselves in contrary arguments. the reason for their conviction is that they have high levels of cognitive ability to recall information. a number of scientists show that the illusion of knowing is influenced by two phenomena: failure to identify contradictions (epstein, glenberg, & bradley, 1984; glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982) and overestimation of understanding level (glenberg & epstein, 1987; glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982; jacoby, bjork, & kelley, 1994; kelley & lindsay, 1993). these concepts are very controversial, and it is difficult to find out whether any of them can be a single cause of false subjective confidence. it has been suggested that successful determination of contradictions is not a guarantee that the illusion of knowing will not occur (pulford, 1996). we consider the illusion of knowing as a metacognitive monitoring error resulting from subjective overconfidence in knowing that does not meet objective success of task performance. the illusory knowledge effect that occurs afterwards is understood as knowledge that is incomplete, distorted, disfigured, undistinguished between ‘already known’ and ‘just learned’, unstructured, uncomprehended because of the illusion of knowing (avhustiuk, 2016). overconfidence, underconfidence, and hard-easy effect overconfidence can occur when confidence ratings of metacognitive judgements are higher than the levels of actual performance. it means that overconfidence is caused by excessive self-confidence in believing that one knows what one does not really know (bradshaw, 2000; gigerenzer, hoffrage, & kleinbölting, 1991; jacoby, bjork, & kelley, 1994; kvidera & koutstaal, 2008; mckenzie, 1997; pulford, 1996). overconfidence can be of various types: overestimation of one’s actual performance (dunning et al., 2003; moore & healy, 2008), overplacement of one’s performance relative to others (moore & healy, 2008), and excessive correctness of one’s beliefs (moore & healy, 2008). in general, scientists highlight two possible reasons for overconfidence: errors of the external nature that appear as a result of limitation in knowledge, and errors of information in the processing system or so called errors of the inner nature (juslin, winman, & olsson, 2000). underconfidence also negatively affects monitoring efficiency of learning and understanding. among the reasons for underconfidence there may be inaccurate methods used to evaluate future results or excessively large amount of important information that is confused with the less important. this results in an inappropriate performance and lack of self-confidence (fajfar & gurman, 2009; griffin & tversky, 1992; hacker, bol, & keener, 2008; kvidera & koutstaal, 2008). uncertainty in successful performance of simple tasks often leads to a situation when a person can spend much more time processing already learned material, and much less time and efforts studying issues that really require more attention (fajfar & gurman, 2009). nevertheless, the avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 319 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ underconfidence effect is not a potential threat in the process of learning. it rather provokes people into control and repetition of the learned information (fajfar & gurman, 2009). a hard-easy effect is another manifestation of the illusion of knowing. it concerns such characteristics of the learned material as task complexity and structure. people tend to underestimate their actual performances on easy tasks, and to overestimate them on difficult tasks. as task complexity increases, the number of correct answers decreases, but people’s confidence in the correctness of their answers increases (flannelly & flannelly, 2000; griffin & tversky, 1992; moore & healy, 2008). according to moore and healy (2008), “on difficult tasks people overestimate their actual performances but also mistakenly believe that they are worse than others”. when the level of performance is high, it is underestimated, whereas when it is low, it is overestimated (flannelly & flannelly, 2000; griffin & tversky, 1992; juslin, winman, & olsson, 2000; klayman et al., 1999; merkle, 2009; moore & healy, 2008). effects of the type of information and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics the results of the theoretical analysis show that the processes of metacognitive monitoring of students’ knowledge, learning skills, memory capacity, and tasks performance are correlated with different types of information and with personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics (e.g., age and gender). a significant role is played by the characteristics of information. to this group we include type and style of information, its content and length, level of task complexity, task type, etc. many scientific works demonstrate that in metacognitive monitoring reliability a significant role is played by different cues and heuristics (koriat, 1997; serra & metcalfe, 2009). detailed descriptions of the cues and heuristics that facilitate and impede implementation of metacognitive monitoring judgements in the learning activity are presented by koriat (1997), koriat and levy-sadot (2001), koriat, nussinson, bless, and shaked (2008), and serra and metcalfe (2009). in particular, koriat (1997) identifies three classes of these cues: intrinsic, extrinsic, and mnemonic, which depend on number, complexity, semantic content, and conditions of processing the learned information. these cues do not always have a positive impact on metacognitive judgements as they sometimes can be ignored (dunlosky & nelson, 1992; koriat, 1997) or misunderstood (benjamin, bjork, & schwartz, 1998). some scientists study metacognitive monitoring reliability in the process of reading texts (glenberg, wilkinson, & epstein, 1982), while others study its role in the process of words (eakin, 2005; parkinson, 2009) and statements learning (kolers & palef, 1976; nelson & narens, 1980; smith & clark, 1993). the level of task complexity significantly influences metacognitive monitoring judgements of the learning accuracy. these results are due to brown (1987), pulford (1996), kruger and dunning (1999), and others. information context, its informativity, interesting representation, and value also play important roles in metacognitive monitoring reliability (koriat et al., 2014). pallier et al. (2002) found slight relations between task content and overconfidence. hacker, bol, and bahbahani (2008) demonstrated that higher levels of calibration are possible only in accordance with higher levels of knowing of the context of information. the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 320 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it is necessary to conduct an investigation of the illusion of knowing in the sphere of information style as scientific provements of these correlations are not sufficient. information length, ease of access, and additional general information also influence metacognitive judgements of learning (commander & stanwyck, 1997; koriat, 1993; koriat, lichtenstein, & fischhoff, 1980; pulford, 1996). thus, commander and stanwyck (1997) have shown that the illusion of knowing is more dependent on smaller texts, while larger texts, on contrary, can provide metacognitive monitoring reliability. it is rather difficult to study factors of metacognitive reliability without taking into account task type. according to koriat, lichtenstein, and fischhoff (1980), the reason of systematic errors in metacognitive judgements is a tendency to choose positive answers, and to ignore the answers that do not coincide with personal beliefs. pallier et al. (2002) and de carvalho filho (2009) showed that open-answer questions provide higher levels of metacognitive monitoring reliability in the process of knowledge self-esteem as compared with multiple-choice questions. dutke, barenberg, and leopold (2010) are convinced that knowing the task type before doing tests can improve metacognitive monitoring reliability. according to savin and fomin (2013), systematic performing of tasks of the same type can lead to inadequate metacognitive monitoring. some scientists study metacognitive monitoring reliability in the context of such factors as rereading (dunlosky & rawson, 2012; king, zechmeister, & shaughnessy, 1980; koriat & bjork, 2006) and generalization (begg et al., 1996; koriat, 1997). some attempts have been made (ward & clark, 1989) to study such factors of metacognitive monitoring reliability as internal and external feedback. according to the scientists, when people systematically analyse assessments of their confidence in the correctness of doing tasks, they can achieve greater objective success of task performance. the psychological literature data demonstrate that metacognitive monitoring processes have tight connections with personal characteristics such as intellectual level, self-monitoring capacity, necessity to understand task performance, persistence, activity, and positive emotions. (pallier et al., 2002). there are also personal factors that influence overconfidence such as motivation and self-esteem, and individual psychological differences (e.g., age, gender, character) (pulford, 1996). ilyina (2003) has studied the structure of motivation in the learning activity of university students and highlighted its three main goals: to receive knowledge, to have an occupation, and to get a diploma. romek (1998) provides diagnosis of confidence evaluation. this approach is seen as a generalized method of positive selfassessment of human skills and abilities. karpov and skitiaeva (2005) study reflexivity and highlight its three main types: situational (active), retrospective, and prospective reflexivity. an important role in metacognitive monitoring reliability is also played by cognitive characteristics. academic achievements should be taken into account. according to pallier et al. (2002), jee, wiley, and griffin (2006), and savin and fomin (2013), people with higher levels of knowledge tend towards lesser overconfidence. unsuccessful students, in their turn, learn material quickly and not thoughtfully, do not stop on problematic aspects, and do not take into account misunderstood parts (winne, 2010). some scientists study influence of the level of intellect (koriat, 2012; kornilova et al., 2008; miele & molden, 2010; miller & geraci, 2011) and self-efficacy (schwarzer, jerusalem, & romek, 1996) on metacognitive monitoring reliability. thus, according to these and some other researchers, cognitive characteristics include avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 321 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ specific degree of knowledge, prior learning experience, self-efficacy, implicit theories (fixed/changeable intellect) (kornilova et al., 2008), and also students’ academic achievements. diagnostic methods of recent years also allow for consideration of the role of metacognitive characteristics such as metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity (kashapov, 2012), as well as metacognitive awareness (schraw & dennison, 1994). a method of diagnosis of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity is used to study metacognitive characteristics. according to this method, metacognitive knowledge is understood as human knowledge about means of receiving and processing information, knowledge about types and content of tasks, and knowledge about metacognitive strategies in problem solving. metacognitive activity is a process of obtaining and selecting information, its control, change, and metacognition planning (kashapov, 2012). metacognitive awareness, or so called metacognitive involvement in the learning activity, acts as a specific degree of metacognitive monitoring skills formation in cognitive activity of the learning process (schraw & dennison, 1994). it is difficult to establish metacognitive monitoring reliability factors without studying individual psychological characteristics. gender differences and age peculiarities were among the primarily concerns taken into account in our group study. analysis of psychological and educational literature has also shown that metacognitive monitoring reliability cannot be studied apart from appropriate psychological and pedagogical conditions. objectives the research is centred in a precise theoretical framework of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring. in particular, we aim to study this phenomenon in terms of investigating its influence on metacognitive monitoring reliability of the learning activity of university students. in our previous work (pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017) we introductorily aimed to clarify the illusion of knowing in the educational activity in terms of reliability of metacognitive monitoring accuracy factors and to find out some correlations between specified psychological characteristics providing brief analysis of their impact on the occurrence of the illusion of knowing. in the current paper we thoroughly study the effects of such factors as different types of the learned information and also personal, cognitive, metacognitive and individual psychological characteristics of the participants. moreover, we set a goal to provide the detailed analysis of the impact of the highlighted characteristics on the illusion of knowing. so, specifically, the main aims of the present study are: to investigate the grouped characteristics of metacognitive monitoring reliability and to thoroughly analyze their impact on the learning activity of university students; to provide the study of the empirical results of the peculiarities of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring; to analyze the peculiarities of the illusion of knowing according to the theoretical analysis and empirical investigation of the phenomenon. method participants a total of 262 university students of different faculties of the national university of ostroh academy (ukraine) (192 female and 70 male students, m = 19.5; sd = 1.87) voluntarily participated in this study for free. all participants were students in their 1st to 5th year of university. the sample consisted of ukrainian students only. the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 322 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials in general, the study was conducted in two stages: a diagnostic stage and a laboratory experiment stage. at the diagnostic stage the participants were asked to answer questions from a questionnaire aiming to ascertain psychological characteristics of students that according to the results of theoretical analysis were related to metacognitive monitoring reliability (see pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). empirical reference of the level of students’ knowledge was studied with the help of the generalization of their academic achievements during semester. to diagnose personal characteristics we used such questionnaires as a method of motivation diagnosis (ilyina, 2003); a method of self-confidence diagnosis (romek, 1998); a method of reflexivity diagnosis (karpov & skitiaeva, 2005). to diagnose cognitive characteristics we used a self-efficacy assessment test (schwarzer, jerusalem, & romek, 1996); a method of implicit theories diagnosis (according to dvek’s questionnaire) (kornilova et al., 2008). to study metacognitive characteristics we used a diagnosis method of metacognitive involvement in the learning activity (schraw & dennison, 1994); a method of diagnosis of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity (kashapov, 2012). also at this stage a sample test was carried out to study normal distribution of equivalence and the highlighted characteristics. at the stage of the laboratory experiment 6 texts, 18 statements, and 18 pairs of words in ukrainian were chosen as a stimuli material needed to be learned. the texts were of different styles (the scientific prose, the newspaper and the belletristic styles) and of different length (larger text volume accounted 25-30 sentences and smaller text volume accounted 10-15 sentences). the participants read two texts of the same style according to different length. all quantitative data were divided into nine groups depending on such factor as task type: open-answer questions for texts, statements, and word pairs; ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions for texts, statements, and word pairs; multiple-choice questions for texts, statements, and word pairs. the aim of the pilot study was to standardize the stimulus material according to such criteria as the hard-easy effect, familiarity/unfamiliarity of information, and emotional impact. procedure and design the participants had to learn 6 texts, 18 statements and 18 pairs of words in ukrainian. they performed prospective metacognitive judgements of learning about confidence (jols) and prospective judgements about the number of correct answers (ajols), as well as similar retrospective metacognitive judgements of both types (rcjs and arcjs). with the help of proper calibration procedure we defined average indicators of the illusion of knowing (overconfidence) and average indicators of the illusion of not knowing (underconfidence). in general, the experiment consisted of the following phases: an information learning phase, a phase of evaluation of the learning information effectiveness, a distractor phase (served as a possibility for the participants to rest doing non-evaluated activity), a task performance phase, and a phase of evaluation of the task performance effectiveness. experimental scheme is presented in figure 1. avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 323 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. scheme of the experiment. during the information learning phase students learned 6 texts, 18 statements, and 18 pairs of words. the phase of evaluation of the learning information effectiveness served as the possibility to study subjective confidence in the correctness of learning. with the help of a scale from 1 (absolutely unconfident) to 6 (absolutely confident) students performed prospective metacognitive judgements of learning about confidence (jols). moreover, prospective judgements about the number of correct answers (ajols) were also performed. during the task performance phase students answered the needed questions that were used to find the learning levels of the given information. they answered open-answer questions, ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions, and multiple-choice questions for texts, statements, and word pairs. the phase of evaluation of task the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 324 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performance effectiveness served as the possibility to evaluate the level of correctness of information learning and task performing. again, with the help of the scale from 1 to 6 students performed retrospective metacognitive judgements of learning about confidence (rcjs) and retrospective judgements about the number of correct answers (arcjs). analysis all the received data were processed by a computer program ibm spss statistics 20 and calculations were done by excel program. data were processed by means of mathematical and statistical methods such as anova analysis, t-test, correlation coefficient of goodman-kruskal, spearman rank of correlation, pearson linear correlation, o/u index, and calibration index (see pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). metacognitive monitoring errors we aimed to find (overconfidence as the illusion of knowing and underconfidence as the illusion of not knowing) were determined as the difference between subjective evaluation of the accuracy of retrieval (metacognitive judgements rating) and the observed reproduction (relative share of results according to total number of tasks). the larger the difference is, the greater is the manifestation of the illusion of knowing, and vice versa (gigerenzer et al., 1991; ward & clark, 1989). to do this we used a three-level scale from -1 to +1 (for more detailed description see pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). results the results of the received data are described according to the divided groups of metacognitive monitoring reliability factors. these are different types of information and also personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics of the participants. the illusion of knowing levels the results from the diagnostic stage showed predominance of learning motivation to gain knowledge (48.7%) and skills development (39.2%), middle (49%) and high (29.5%) levels of general self-confidence, self-efficacy (middle level – 44.3%, high level – 32.6%), and metacognitive awareness (middle level – 43.5%, high level – 35.5%), as well as middle levels of metacognitive knowledge (62.8%) and metacognitive activity (58.7%). the research data also showed a great amount of students with middle levels of reflexivity (56.7%), and significant number of them showed low-reflection (30.9%). in general, the results of the study showed that 59.4% of the participants committed errors in jols, and the majority of them (31.3%) showed overconfidence in task performance correctness. moreover, 50% of the students committed metacognitive monitoring errors in the course of ajols, while 35.9% of the students were overconfident in task performance correctness. at the same time, the average results of the illusion of knowing were slightly different in jols (mjol = .27, sd = .61) and in ajols (majol = .25, sd = .69) (p ≤ .05). the number of students who showed the illusion of knowing was not significantly different. it can mean that before task performance overconfidence is not significantly dependent on task type. however, in rcjs there was a decrease (6.3%) of students’ overconfidence in task accuracy, and in arcjs the decrease reached 11.7%. average value of overestimation remained unchanged. avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 325 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ arcjs were the most accurate as 61% of the students who took part in the study showed adequate accuracy levels of metacognitive monitoring (marcj = .01, sd = .18, p = .05). in ajols and arcjs the proportion of those who overestimated the number of correctly performed tasks was significantly higher in comparison with those students who showed underestimation. however, among those students who underestimated the number of correctly performed tasks, the indicators of the illusion of not knowing were the highest (majol = -.37, sd = .41, and marcj = -.33, sd = .48) (p ≤ .05). the illusion of knowing mostly occured in ajols (35.9%). before tasks performance among those students who underestimated possible number of correctly performed tasks the degree of the illusion of not knowing was the highest (majol = -.37, sd = .41, p = .05) as after task performance the accuracy of judgements significantly increased. t-test for pair samples showed significant differences in the rates of errors in metacognitive judgements between jols and ajols (t(56) = 2.09, p ≤ .05), between arcjs and rcjs (t(56) = 2.23, p ≤ .05), and between jols and rcjs (t(56) = 2.09, p ≤ .05). in retrospective judgements of both types metacognitive monitoring accuracy was higher. according to the results, those students who made mistakes in monitoring reduced the proportion of those who showed the illusion of knowing. the results relate to the research data of busey et al. (2000), mccormick (2003), nelson (1999), thiede and dunlosky (1994), and others, that found that overconfidence leads to the illusory feeling of knowing in retrospective monitoring judgements. correlations between personal, cognitive, and metacognitive characteristics according to the empirical results, there were found correlations between the studied personal, cognitive, and metacognitive characteristics of students. learning motivation positively correlated with self-confidence (r = .17, p = .05), reflexivity (r = .43, p = .01), metacognitive awareness (r = .31, p = .01), metacognitive knowledge (r = .22, p = .05), and metacognitive activity (r = .26, p = .01). self-confidence also positively correlated with selfefficacy (r = .44, p = .01), metacognitive awareness (r = .27, p = .01), metacognitive knowledge (r = .31, p = .01), and metacognitive activity (r = .19, p = .05). reflexivity also correlated with metacognitive awareness (r = .35, p = .01). the correlations between self-efficacy and the implicit theory of intellect (r = .24, p = .01), metacognitive awareness (r = .34, p = .01), and metacognitive knowledge (r = .26, p = .01) were viewed as well. metacognitive awareness in addition to the correlations with learning motivation, self-confidence, reflexivity, and self-efficacy, also positively correlated with metacognitive knowledge (r = .36, p = .01). direct correlations (pearson correlation) between the indicators of the illusion of knowing in prospective (rjols = -.21, p = .05) and retrospective (rrcjs = -.23, p = .01) judgements of learning were also found. before task performance there were found close correlations between the indicators of the illusion of knowing and metacognitive activity (rajol = -.18, p = .05), as well as metacognitive awareness (rjol = -.21, p = .05). in particular, significant correlations were found between the illusion of knowing and metacognitive activity, metacognitive awareness, and general self-confidence (also see avhustiuk, 2016; pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). effects of the type of information according to anova analysis, statistically significant differences were found in the average values of the studied judgements of learning about confidence (rcjs) and the type of information [f(2, 56) = 17.78, p < .001]. the highest level of overconfidence was shown when performing the statements (m = 4.67, sd = 1.59, p < .001), whereas significantly lesser confidence was observed while reading texts (m = 4.27, sd = 1.53, p the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 326 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ < .001), and the lowest level of confidence appeared in learning of word pairs (m = 4.21, sd = 1.9, p < .001). the results are presented in figure 2. figure 2. performance rankings of metacognitive judgements in terms of the type of information. effects of the text style and length students showed higher ratings of metacognitive judgements while memorising texts of the belletristic style (m = 4.69, sd = .75, p = .04) compared to the texts of the newspaper style (m = 4.44, sd = 2, p = .05) and the style of the scientific prose (m = 4.43, sd = 2, p = .05). significantly higher confidence in the correctness of the learned material was shown while learning larger texts (m = 5.12, sd = .64, p = .04) in comparison with smaller texts (m = 3.5, sd = 1.88, p = .05). the same results were observed in terms of information style: students were more overconfident in their judgements of learning while working with larger text of the belletristic style (m = 4.69, sd = .75, p = .05), unlike while reading smaller text of the same style (m = 3.73, sd = 1.7, p = .05), also when working with larger texts of the scientific prose and of the newspaper styles (m = 4.43, sd = 2, p = .05, and m = 4.44, sd = 1.8, p = .05 respectively) if to compare with smaller texts of the same styles (m = 4.02, sd = 1.9, p = .05 – for the scientific style and m = 4.32, sd = 2.8, p = .05 – for the newspaper style). the results are presented in figure 3. avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 327 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. performance rankings of metacognitive judgements in terms of text style and length. effects of the task type the participants were more confident in the judgements of learning while answering multiple-choice questions (m = 4.46, sd = 1.66, p = .03), were less confident while answering open-answer questions (m = 4.42, sd = 1.71, p = .05), and showed the least levels of confidence while answering ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions (m = 4.28, sd = 1.69, p = .03). students highly overestimated the accuracy of tasks performance that resulted in the illusion of knowing in multiple-choice questions for statements (mo/u = .27, sd = .74, p = .01), and showed the greater accuracy in metacognitive judgements in open-answer questions for texts (mo/u = .07, sd = .17, p < .001) and in ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions for texts (mo/u = .09, sd = .13, p < .001). the results are presented in figure 4. figure 4. performance rankings of metacognitive judgements in terms of task type. the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 328 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ metacognitive monitoring errors indicators of influence of the illusion of knowing were calculated with the help of a single factor analysis of variance and lsd-analysis. we found statistically significant differences between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘open-answer questions for texts’ (m = .07; sd = .17, p < .001) and ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (m = .27, sd = .74, p < .001); between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘open-answer questions for word pairs’ (m = .14, sd = .13, p = .01) and ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (m = .27, sd = .74, p = .01). statistically significant differences between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (m = .27, sd = .74, p < .001) and ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions for texts’ (m = .1, sd = .14, p < .001) also occurred. other differences were as follows: between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (mo/u = .27, sd = .74, p = .01) and ‘yes’/ ‘no’/‘do not know’ questions for word pairs’ (mo/u = .12, sd = .16, p = .01); between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘yes’/‘no’/‘do not know’ questions for statements’ (mo/u = .27, sd = .74, p = .05) and ‘multiple-choice questions for texts’ (mo/u = .13, sd = .11, p = .05); between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (mo/u = .27; sd = .74, p = .02) and ‘multiple-choice questions for texts’ (mo/u = .14, sd = .13, p = .02); between the average values of the indicators of confidence index factors ‘multiple-choice questions for statements’ (mo/u = .27, sd = .74, p < .001) and ‘multiple-choice questions for word pairs’ (mo/u = .14, sd = .17, p < .001). average results of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring are presented in table 1. table 1 average results of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring levels m (sd) learning motivation selfconfidence reflexivity intellect self-efficacy metacognitive knowledge metacognitive activity metacognitive awareness ajols high 0.25 (0.19) 0.24 (0.19) 0.25 (0.18) 0.25 (0.1) 0.25 (0.14) 0.30 (0.24) 0.15 (0.1) 0.24 (0.21) middle 0.25 (0.2) 0.26 (0.17) 0.25 (0.19) 0.26 (0.13) 0.25 (0.47) 0.24 (0.12) 0.26 (0.17) 0.28 (0.16) low 0.21 (0.18) 0.19 (0.17) 0.25 (0.19) 0.18 (0.18) 0.15 (0.07) 0.21 (0.28) 0.25 (0.22) – arcjs high 0.26 (0.15) 0.24 (0.2) 0.25 (0.2) 0.24 (0.17) 0.27 (0.09) 0.29 (0.14) 0.25 (.22) 0.25 (0.19) middle 0.23 (0.17) 0.26 (0.18) 0.27 (0.13) 0.30 (0.12) 0.23 (0.27) 0.23 (0.09) 0.25 (0.23) 0.20 (0.13) low 0.21 (0.28) – 0.21 (0.14) 0.20 (0.23) – 0.24 (0.19) 0.24 (0.2) – jols high 0.27 (0.3) 0.27 (0.18) 0.21 (0.17) 0.27 (0.12) 0.27 (0.18) 0.33 (0.27) 0.18 (0.09) 0.30 (0.19) middle 0.26 (0.2) 0.30 (0.21) 0.26 (0.17) 0.30 (0.31) 0.27 (0.18) 0.25 (0.08) 0.27 (0.21) 0.22 (0.42) low 0.19 (0.12) 0.25 (0.16) 0.30 (0.21) 0.19 (0.21) 0.24 (0.09) 0.23 (0.31) 0.28 (0.18) – rcjs high 0.26 (0.2) 0.24 (0.16) 0.30 (0.2) 0.25 (0.16) 0.28 (0.11) 0.28 (0.37) 0.26 (0.13) 0.25 (0.18) middle 0.25 (0.18) 0.28 (0.17) 0.26 (0.12) 0.26 (0.09) 0.23 (0.23) 0.24 (0.18) 0.24 (0.09) 0.24 (0.18) low 0.18 (0.14) 0.25 (0.2) 0.24 (0.16) 0.21 (0.2) 0.19 (0.08) 0.25 (0.17) 0.28 (0.1) – avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 329 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effects of personal characteristics the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of learning motivation those students who were focused on knowledge performed accurate metacognitive judgements. however, among the students targeted for profession who made accurate metacognitive judgements the accuracy of metacognitive monitoring was the highest (majol = -.006, sd = .01, marcj = -.006; sd = .02, mjol = .03, sd = .02, mrcj = .00, sd = .01) (p = .05). the research showed the correlations (pearson criterion) between the indicators of self-confidence and the illusion of knowing in arcjs (r = .32, p = .01) and rcjs (r = .24, p = .05). the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of self-confidence the data for the scale of romek’s methodology ‘self-confidence’ – ‘self-unconfidence’ showed that university students in the context of its various levels tend towards overconfidence as well as towards underestimation of the accuracy of tasks performance. correlation analysis (spearman criterion) showed the correlations between confidence indicators and the illusion of knowing in arcjs (r = .32) and rcjs (r = .24) (p = .05). the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of reflexivity highly reflexive students showed very high rates of underconfidence (m = -.74, sd = .27, p = .01) if compared with the participants with middle (m = -.42, sd = .22, p = .01) and low levels of reflexivity (m = -.47, sd = .17, p = .01). however, the performance of arcjs among students with high and middle levels of reflexivity significantly increased the proportion of those who almost made no mistakes in metacognitive monitoring (from 58% to 73.7% and from 46.4% and 60.8% respectively). effects of cognitive characteristics the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of the implicit theories of fixed/changeable intellect analysis of variance anova showed differences of the average values of the illusion of knowing according to the notions of fixed/changeable intellect, although they were not statistically significant. results of the innergroup differences in the average values showed that in ajols and arcjs, regardless of changeable intellect, the proportion of overconfident students dominated the proportion of underconfident students. the highest levels of underconfidence were shown by the students with the average levels of changeable intellect (m = -.53, sd = .21 and m = -.55, sd = .18 respectively) (p = .01). the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of self-efficacy we found that the participants with middle and high levels of self-efficacy were more accurate in prospective and retrospective metacognitive judgements of learning rather than the participants with lower self-efficacy. the last demonstrated such error of metacognitive monitoring as the illusion of not knowing. the proportion of overconfident students in ajols and arcjs (37% and 37,6% respectively) was much higher than the same proportion of underconfident students (10% and 14.3% respectively). among the participants with lower levels of self-efficacy the proportion of underconfidence in jols was very high (55%), and the levels of the illusion of not knowing were also very high (m = .53, sd = .12, p = .01). the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of academic achievements to determine the relations between the level of the illusion of knowing and academic achievements, semester overall results were analyzed. for more adequate results, average marks of each student were converted from the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 330 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a 100-scale to standard values of a 5-point scale (5 is the highest result). results showed that the illusion of knowing was common for the participants with lower results of academic achievements. effects of metacognitive characteristics the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive activity the results showed differences in terms of metacognitive knowledge between the indicators of the illusion of knowing in ajols and arcjs [f(2, 56) = 3.38, p = .04] and differences in terms of metacognitive activity between the indicators of the illusion of knowing in ajols and arcjs [f(2, 56) = 2.79, p = .07], as well in jols and rcjs [f(2, 56) = 3.21, p = .05]. there were also found statistically significant differences between the average values of the indicators of the illusion of knowing in all kinds of metacognitive judgements of learning in metacognitive activity. the participants with lower levels of metacognitive activity showed the illusion of knowing (overconfidence) in all prospective and retrospective judgements of learning. the illusion of knowing from the spectrum of metacognitive awareness there were found direct correlations (pearson correlation) between the indicators of the illusion of knowing in prospective (rjol = -.21, p = .05) and retrospective (rrcj = -.23, p = .01) judgements of learning about confidence and performance indicators of metacognitive awareness. before task performance there were found close correlations with the indicators of the illusion of knowing and metacognitive activity (rajol = -.18, p = .05) and metacognitive awareness (rjol = -.21, p = .05). it was also found that among the participants with high and middle levels of metacognitive awareness a significant proportion of those students who almost did not commit errors in metacognitive monitoring notably increased (from 46.6% to 58% and from 56% to 74.8% respectively). the same trend was observed in the judgements of high and mid-reflexive students. the analysis data showed correlations between the levels of the illusion of knowing in all prospective (r = .21, p = .05) and retrospective metacognitive judgements (r = -.23, p = .01). effects of individual psychological characteristics gender differences in terms of individual psychological characteristics of the participants statistically significant differences between the illusion of knowing and gender peculiarities [f(2, 56) = .013, p = .99] were not found. it was fixed that women tended towards overconfidence in prospective and retrospective judgements of learning, although these levels were not high. age peculiarities analysis of variance anova showed statistically significant differences in terms of age peculiarities between the indicators of the illusion of knowing (fajol(2, 56) = 9.43, farcj(2, 56) = 13.03, fjol(2, 56) = 4.44, frcj(2, 56) = 6.95, p < .001). it can mean that the illusion of knowing in all kinds of prospective and retrospective judgements depends on age peculiarities. moreover, we found that the participants of the age group of 17-19 were more overconfident (m = .06, sd = .19, p < .001), while the students of the age group of 20-22 tended towards underconfidence (m = -.41, sd = .47, p < .001). avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 331 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the paper is devoted to the study of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring of the learning activity of university students. it allocates such factors of metacognitive monitoring reliability as different types of information, and also personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics. the findings presented here and in some other previous works (pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017) demonstrate that the illusion of knowing, regarded as overconfidence and an error of metacognitive monitoring, can occur in all types of metacognitive judgements. nevertheless, it is more evident in prospective judgements. according to our results, subjective self-confidence in knowing is influenced by the way information is presented – in the form of texts, statements, or word pairs. the highest levels of overconfidence were shown in the proposed statements; significantly lesser degrees of confidence were observed in texts learning; the lowest levels of confidence appeared in word pairs. these results may be due to the influence of logical context of the learned information (hacker, bol, & bahbahani, 2008), and also due to the hard-easy effect. the illusion of knowing depends on information length and style and is higher in larger texts. the results state that significantly higher confidence was shown while learning larger passages of information. these may be due to the influence of task performance experience on metacognitive judgements as the participants showed more efforts needed to learn larger texts. students were also overconfident while working with the texts of the belletristic style. the reason of the higher ratings of metacognitive monitoring judgements in such texts may be because of influence of curiosity, emotional effect of information, and also the hard-easy effect. a noteworthy finding in this study is that the illusion of knowing also depends on task type. in our study overconfidence occurred in multiple-choice questions. thus, we can assume that subjective confidence is affected by task type. in prospective judgements of learning the illusion of knowing had the strongest correlations with metacognitive characteristics such as metacognitive activity and metacognitive awareness. in retrospective judgements we found correlations between the indicators of the illusion of knowing and metacognitive activity, metacognitive awareness and self-confidence. reflexivity, learning motivation, self-efficacy, and students’ introspection of fixed or changeable intellect were connected with the illusion of knowing from across the spectrum of the system of relations with metacognitive characteristics and general self-confidence. as study of motivation is determined by a number of specific factors such as educational system, organization of the learning process, subjective characteristics of a student (e.g., age, gender, intellectual development and abilities, level of aspiration, self-esteem, and cooperation with other members of the learning process), learning motivation is significant in the increasing reliability of metacognitive monitoring (nietfeld et al., 2005). the causes of the learning successes and failures are accounted by external and internal reasons. it is proved that those students who are governed mainly by external motivation (orientation on diploma) are characterized by overconfidence, whereas those who are guided by internal motives such as self-orientation and skills development, show underconfidence (hacker, bol, & bahbahani, 2008; kroll & ford, 1992). in the context of various levels of self-confidence students tend not only to overconfidence, but also to underestimation of the accuracy of tasks performance. these levels can be regarded as the indicators of ineffective metacognitive monitoring. the results that middle and low reflexive students show overconfidence the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 332 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ may be because they do not take into account their experience of involvement in task performance situations contrary to highly and mid-reflexive students. the results are supported by the established correlations between reflexivity and metacognitive awareness. statistically insignificant differences of the average values of the illusion of knowing according to the notions of intellect can mean that the level of the illusion of knowing is independent of the notions of changeable intellect. in other words, the implicit theories of intellect do not significantly affect subjective confidence in the accuracy of metacognitive judgments. however, analysis of the inner-group differences in the average values makes it possible to argue that in terms of changeable intellect there occurs noticeable trend towards higher performance levels of the illusion of knowing in ajols and arcjs. according to the results, students with lower levels of self-efficacy tend to demonstrate such error of metacognitive monitoring as the illusion of not knowing. the results show that students with lower academic achievements tend towards the illusion of knowing. these results correlate with the scientific data that show the more successful people are, the less confident they are in their knowledge, and vice versa. in particular, many scientists (dunning et al., 2003; hacker, bol, & bahbahani, 2008; jee et al., 2006; kruger & dunning, 1999; miller & geraci, 2011; pallier et al., 2002, wiley et al., 2005) prove that people with higher levels of knowledge tend towards lesser overconfidence (see pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). according to winne and hadwin (1998), students with lower levels of academic achievements learn the information of any kind quickly, do not stop on problematic aspects, do not notice when something is unclear, and do not reread difficult for understanding passages. savin and fomin (2013) pay attention to direct connections between metacognitive judgements reliability and higher academic achievements in performance of different tasks. thus, those students who demonstrate higher skills of metacognitive monitoring, receive higher marks, and, consequently, higher levels of academic achievements; students with low academic achievements tend towards overestimation of their knowledge. however, we did not record the effects of gender and age differences on the illusion of knowing. nevertheless, it was found that women tend towards overconfidence in their judgements. in the scientific literature there are no empirical data which state dependence of metacognitive monitoring accuracy from gender differences. in several researches attention is mainly paid to the correlations between intellect, academic achievements, motivation, and gender differences. according to mccarty and siber (pulford, 1996), women less tend towards overconfidence than men. our results partly suggest the opposite (also see pasichnyk, kalamazh, & avgustiuk, 2017). the illusion of knowing is more typical for younger students, especially for those who have lower levels of academic achievements. students with lower levels of knowledge have more difficulties with the accuracy of metacognitive judgements (overoptimistic confidence takes place here), and cannot distinguish between questions answered correctly and incorrectly. perhaps this may be due to the fact that 17-19-year-old students, although characterized by certain maturity in mental, moral, and social terms and by conscious motives in behaviour (shevchenko & shevchenko, 2009), are under influence of inherent prevalence of maximalist inclinations and categorical assessments in all kinds of the learning activities. complex and new challenges that students face from the first year of study require accurate organization of the learning process, skills of independent work with educational and scientific literature, and independent allocation of time. all these factors, apart from the development of thinking, memory capacity, and attention, also provoke generation of such avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 333 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ processes as delaying, breaking, greater uncertainty, which, in our opinion, can cause declination of confidence in tasks performance by 20-22-year-old students. this study had limitations that need to be mentioned. firstly, the cross-sectional data adopted here were made in the form of the laboratory experiment, so the analyses performed represent only the results gained in this context. thus, further research might consider the role of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive reliability in the context of real learning process. secondly, individual psychological differences in the study of the illusion of knowing were examined only pertaining to students. that is why, further research is needed to study other social groups. moreover, one more scope for future studies has to be taken with an aim to broaden age limitations. qualitative methods could also enrich this type of research, permitting us to better understanding of the impact of the factors of the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring reliability found in this study. overall, the results can imply the importance of metacognitive monitoring judgements as significant sources of how students regulate their own knowledge in the process of the learning activity. despite some methodological limitations, the current study allows to better clarify the phenomenon of the illusion of knowing, its influence on metacognitive monitoring reliability. a promising area of research is to provide more detailed study of the influence of the illusion of knowing not only on metacognitive monitoring, but also on metacognitive control, more thorough study of metacognitive monitoring reliability factors, and study of the illusory knowledge. conclusions and final remarks this research studies the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring of the learning activity of university students. the analysis focuses on the effects of the different types of information proposed to learn and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics of university students. these current results expand an investigation of metacognitive monitoring reliability factors. these results also have important implications for metacognitive monitoring optimization of the learning activity of university students. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 334 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references avhustiuk, m. m. 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(1980). when you know that you know and when you think that you know but you don’t. bulletin of the psychonomic society, 15(1), 41-44. doi:10.3758/bf03329756 about the authors dr. maria m. avgustiuk (avhustiuk) is a phd in psychological sciences (candidate), senior lecturer of the national university of ostroh academy. she is a researcher in cognitive, educational, and developmental psychology. dr. ihor d. pasichnyk is a doctor of psychological sciences, professor, rector of the national university of ostroh academy. his research interests include educational, developmental, and cognitive psychology. the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring 340 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 http://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1993.1002 http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.86.2.290 http://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v2n2p141 http://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.19.6.1235 http://doi.org/10.3200/genp.132.4.408-428 http://doi.org/10.3758/bf03329756 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dr. ruslana v. kalamazh is a doctor of psychological sciences, professor, vice-rector of the national university of ostroh academy. she specializes in cognitive, educational, and developmental psychology. avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh 341 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 317–341 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1418 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the illusion of knowing in metacognitive monitoring (introduction) metacognitive monitoring concept the illusion of knowing phenomenon overconfidence, underconfidence, and hard-easy effect effects of the type of information and of personal, cognitive, metacognitive, and individual psychological characteristics objectives method participants materials procedure and design analysis results the illusion of knowing levels correlations between personal, cognitive, and metacognitive characteristics effects of the type of information effects of the text style and length effects of the task type metacognitive monitoring errors effects of personal characteristics effects of cognitive characteristics effects of metacognitive characteristics effects of individual psychological characteristics discussion conclusions and final remarks (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conservation motivation, social equality and left-right ideological preferences in western and eastern europe research reports conservation motivation, social equality and left-right ideological preferences in western and eastern europe márton hadarics* a [a] political psychology research lab, eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. abstract we investigated how attitudes towards social equality can influence the relationship between conservation motivation (or openness) and personal ideological preferences on the left-right dimension, and how this relationship pattern differs between western and central & eastern european (cee) respondents. using data from the european social survey (2012) we found that individual-level of conservation motivation reduces cultural egalitarianism in both the western european and the cee regions, but its connection with economic egalitarianism is only relevant in the cee region where it fosters economic egalitarianism. since both forms of egalitarianism were related to leftist ideological preferences in western europe, but in the cee region only economic egalitarianism was ideologically relevant, we concluded that the classic “rigidity of the right” phenomenon is strongly related to cultural (anti)egalitarianism in western europe. at the same time, conservation motivation serves as a basis for the “rigidity of the left” in the post-socialist cee region, in a great part due to the conventional egalitarian economic views. keywords: conservation, openness, social equality, left-right, ideology, european social survey europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 received: 2016-11-03. accepted: 2017-03-04. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of social psychology, institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university, 1064 budapest, izabella utca 46., hungary. e-mail: marton.hadarics@ppk.elte.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the integration of the formerly socialist eastern european countries within the eu has been an ongoing process since the collapse of communism. on the other hand, this process seems not to be entirely flawless, with more and more signs indicating that the political culture of post-socialist countries is not completely compatible with the western european one. although the main party families in the european parliament are organized primarily on an ideological base, it seems that these ideological cleavages can be overwritten by an east-west cleavage. we could recently observe this in reference to the currently ongoing migrant crisis for instance, where countries of the visegrad group showed a unified and firm anti-quota standpoint regardless of the ideological position of their governments. if we assume that a community established upon an ideological base can function effectively only to the extent as this ideological base means the same to the members of the community, then it can be a source of serious anomalies if the content of a certain ideological label is interpreted differently by the individual members of this community. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ as the theory of ‘ideology as motivated social cognition’ argues, one can gravitate to a certain political ideology due to well-defined personal motivational needs (jost, federico, & napier, 2009; jost, glaser, kruglanski, & sulloway, 2003). but if the specific content of a particular political-ideological label differs within two separate societal environments, the motivational background behind the acceptance of that ideology may differ as well, what might be a highly relevant factor regarding the deviations between the political cultures of older and newer eu members. conservation motivation, ideology, and social equality it has been in the centre of inquiry for a long time how individual-level psychological characteristics determine people’s political and ideological preferences. conservation motivation seems to be of high priority in this regard. conservation motivation can be defined as motivation to follow traditional and normative practices that preserve the status quo and deliver a personal sense of stability and predictability (see schwartz, 1994, 2003). previous research suggests that individual difference variables fostering personal resistance to change, or motivation to conserve, make people identify themselves with rightist and conservative ideological standpoints. cognitive style indicators and personality traits, such as (low) integrative complexity (tetlock, 1983), need for closure (chirumbolo, 2002), dogmatism (rokeach, 1960), authoritarianism (adorno, frenkel-brunswik, levinson, & sanford, 1950; altemeyer, 1998), conscientiousness and (low) openness from the big five personality traits (caprara et al., 2006; vecchione et al., 2011), or personal values related to conservation (piurko, schwartz, & davidov, 2011) have all been shown to relate to rightist conservative ideological preferences in western democracies. jost and his colleagues (jost, federico, et al., 2009; jost, glaser, et al., 2003) offer a motivational explanation for this relationship arguing that by emphasizing social norms, traditions and conventions, and by approving the existing status quo, rightist ideologies are effective mental tools to reduce uncertainty and to create the sense of stability and predictability in the social sphere. since personal motivation to conservation enhances conventional norm-adherence, people with a higher level of this motivation tend to be more hostile and prejudiced towards nonconventional outgroups like ethnic minorities or immigrants, because they perceive these groups as a threat to the existing social hierarchy and status quo (e.g. duckitt, 2001; feather & mckee, 2008). besides cultural conservatism, tolerance of social inequalities is also considered to be an important element of the ideological right in the western world, because people with a rightist or conservative ideological preference tend to be sceptical about any policy solutions that aim to decrease social inequalities. these policies are often perceived by conservatives as artificial social experiments that modify the traditional social hierarchy and order (bobbio, 1996; giddens, 1998). if we think about social equality, there are at least two important aspects of the concept that should be considered. these two aspects are in accordance with the two-dimensional taxonomic systems of political ideologies. this two-dimensional classification approach argues that most political ideologies can be classified along two dimensions: one based on social-cultural issues, and another based on economic preferences (e.g. nolan, 1971; slomp, 2000). in this regard we can make a differentiation between beliefs about cultural inequality indicating our attitudes towards nonconventional outgroups, and beliefs about economic equality showing our personal preferences regarding the distribution and redistribution of material goods and resources. as it seems, the ideological left-right spectrum splits across this two equality dimensions in western democracies, the right side being less tolerant towards non-conventional outgroups and more sceptic about direct redistributional policies aiming to moderate economic inequalities. (e.g. arts & gelissen, 2001; baslevent hadarics 337 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ & kirmanoglu, 2011; bean & papadakis, 1998; scheepers, gijsberts, & coenders, 2002; semyonov, raijman, & gorodzeisky, 2006). consequently, in western democracies people with a higher motivation to conserve tend to gravitate to the ideological right, at least partly because of their attitudes towards social equality. regarding economic equality that can happen because of two reasons. first, since several nonconventional outgroups (e.g. immigrants or other ethnic minorities) are in a disadvantaged economic position, opposition to large-scale income redistribution can serve as a tool to keep these groups in their underdog position (gilens, 1999). secondly, social norms and conventions can be applied to economic distributional principles and processes as well. if certain beliefs about the redistribution of resources can be considered as normative in a given society, its citizens with a high level of conservation motivation tend to accept those beliefs. in western countries (especially in the usa) beliefs related to free market capitalism have this kind of strong normative nature due to their deep embeddedness within the public thinking (jost & hunyady, 2005). furthermore, these beliefs are important parts of the right side of the ideological spectrum, contrary to the egalitarian economic preferences of voters with a left-wing identification. because of the reasons mentioned above, citizens of western democracies with a higher level of conservation motivation (and with personality characteristics that foster this motivation) tend to tolerate inequalities both culturally and economically, and to show rightist ideological preferences, partly due to their attitudes towards these two forms of social equality (for a review see jost et al., 2003). conservation motivation, ideology and social equality in eastern europe but how do these relations between conservation motivation, beliefs about social equality, and left-right ideological preferences appear in the context of the post-socialist cee region? recent attempts have failed to find consistent associations between left-right ideological preferences and psychological traits related to conservation motivation in this region. although some results from poland suggest that traits like (low) openness (van hiel, kossowska, & mervielde, 2000), right-wing authoritarianism (korzeniowski, 2006), and need for closure (kossowska & van hiel, 2003) are related to rightist preferences, regional level comparisons between eastern and western europe showed no consistent relationship between the openness-conservation motivational dimension and personal left-right ideological preferences in the post-socialist region (barni, vieno, & roccato, 2016; piurko, schwartz, & davidov, 2011; roets, cornelis, & van hiel, 2014; thorisdottir, jost, liviatan, & shrout, 2007). as we have seen, attitudes towards cultural and economic equality play an important role in the way conservation motivation determines ideological preferences in western europe. we expect a more transparent pattern in this regard also in the case of eastern europe, if these two equality-related attitude dimensions were taken into account as integral parts of the interplay between the psychological and the ideological level. since economic egalitarianism has a strong historical embeddedness in the post-socialist public thinking, social psychological research carried out in eastern europe revealed that psychological characteristics fostering conservation motivation tend to correlate with the support for income equality, large-scale redistribution, and governmental economic intervention (e.g. barni, vieno, & roccato, 2016; duriez, van hiel, & kossowska, 2005; golec, 2002; hadarics, 2016; korzeniowski, 2006; mcfarland, ageyev, & abalakina-paap, 1992). but if this kind of economic egalitarianism is related to leftist ideological preferences also in eastern europe, we can assume that conservation motivation might influence ideological preferences in a more complex way in the conservation motivation and ideological preferences 338 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ cee region compared to the western european one, having a mixed effect on rightist (vs. leftist) preferences: a fostering one through cultural antiegalitarianism, and an attenuating one through economic egalitarianism. our study our main goal was to understand how conservation motivation predicts left-right ideological preferences in western and eastern europe, and to reveal the role of attitudes towards the two main forms of equality as potential mediators in this relationship. in accordance with the results of former studies presented above, we assumed that in western europe conservation motivation is related to rightist ideological preferences, partly mediated by anti-equality beliefs regarding both cultural and economic issues. but conservation motivation is expected to have a mixed relationship with personal left-right identification in eastern europe, strengthening rightist preferences through anti-equality attitudes towards nonconventional outgroups, and, at the same time, moderating it by the acceptance of pro-equality economic views (see figure 1). figure 1. hypothesized relationships. note. we = western europe; cee = central eastern europe. method sample to explore the associations between the motivational, attitudinal, and ideological variables on a regional level, we relied on the 6th round (2012) survey database of the european social survey programme (ess). on the basis of the database we created a central eastern european (cee) (n = 7768) and a western european sample (n = 7968), each including data of the representative samples of 4 countries. when the specific countries were selected to represent the two groups, it was an important consideration to select eu-member countries that share main characteristics regarding historical experiences and societal conditions. accordingly, the post-socialist cee sample included data from the countries of the visegrad group, which is one of the main political cooperation platforms for the cee countries: the czech republic, poland, hungary, and slovakia, while the western european sample consisted of the national samples of four traditional western european democracies with a long past of political pluralism and free market capitalism: belgium, france, the netherlands, and the united kingdom. hadarics 339 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures all variables were taken directly from the questionnaire of the 6th (2012) round of the ess research programme. a number of ess items have an inverse scoring, in case of such items the scoring was reversed so that the higher scores mark the greater extent of agreement with the content of the given item (see table 1). conservation motivation conservation motivation was measured by 4 items from the human values scale of the ess survey, which assesses the so called motivational value types defined by schwartz (2003). from the 4 items 2 measured the higher-order value of conservation (“tradition is important to her/him. she/he tries to follow the customs handed down by her/his religion or her/his family.”; “she/he believes that people should do what they're told. she/he thinks people should follow rules at all times, even when no-one is watching.”), and 2 other items measured the higher-order value of openness (“thinking up new ideas and being creative is important to her/him. she/he likes to do things in her/his own original way.”; „she/he likes surprises and is always looking for new things to do. she/he thinks it is important to do lots of different things in life.”). as schwartz (2003) argues, the conservation-openness dimension in his value system captures the individual motivational preference of preservation and stability opposed to change. when the specific items were selected, our aim was to stick to this definitional distinction as close as possible. respondents were asked to indicate how much the presented items described them personally on a 6-point scale (1 = very much like me 6 = not like me at all). as suggested by schwartz (2003), in order to control for individual response tendencies all responses were centered around the respondents’ mean response to all 21 items of the human values scale. cultural egalitarianism attitudes towards cultural and group-based equality were captured by three indicator items of the ess questionnaire. one of these items asked about respondents’ opinions regarding homosexuals where answers had to be marked on a 5-point scale (“gay men and lesbians should be free to live their own life as they wish.”; 1=agree strongly – 5=disagree strongly). the second indicator showed personal opinion about immigrants („is [country] made a worse or a better place to live by people coming to live here from other countries?”; 0=worse – 10=better), while the third item asked respondents about the importance of minority rights (“how important do you think it is for democracy in general that the rights of minority groups are protected?”; 0=not at all – 10=extremely). in order to neutralise agreement response bias, responses for this third item were also centered around the respondents’ mean response to other 15 items regarding the subjective importance of different political characteristics for democracy. economic egalitarianism economic egalitarian preferences were operationalized in the form of the approval of small income differences, which was measured by two indicator items: “how important do you think it is for democracy in general that the government takes measures to reduce differences in income levels?” (0=not at all – 10=extremely); „the government should take measures to reduce differences in income levels.” (1=agree strongly – 5=disagree strongly). since the first item was the part of the same questionnaire block as the third item for cultural egalitarianism, responses for this question were also centered in the same way as we have described the process above. conservation motivation and ideological preferences 340 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ left-right ideological preferences personal ideological preferences were measured in the ess questionnaire by the following question: „in politics people sometimes talk of "left" and "right". using this card, where would you place yourself on this scale, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right?” table 1 descriptive statistics variable western europe central eastern europe n mean sd n mean sd placement on left-right scale 7350 5.104 2.147 6712 5.294 2.416 government should reduce differences in income levels 7860 3.693 1.086 7585 4.021 1.030 important to reduce income differences 7136 -0.365 1.924 6414 -0.038 1.776 gays and lesbians free to live life as they wish 7907 4.240 0.960 7193 3.232 1.271 immigrants make country worse or better place to live 7850 4.805 2.224 7143 4.687 2.311 importance of minority rights 7136 0.183 1.318 6414 -0.333 1.662 important to think new ideas and being creative 7907 4.439 1.223 7649 4.376 1.239 important to try new and different things in life 7917 4.099 1.316 7642 4.087 1.324 important to follow traditions and customs 7903 4.120 1.407 7665 4.665 1.162 important to do what is told and follow rules 7896 3.697 1.415 7627 4.276 1.241 data analysis in order to reveal the association pattern between conservation motivation, attitudes towards cultural and economic equality, and ideological preferences, we applied the method of structural equation modeling (sem) using amos 22. based on the covariance between variables (see table 2) a pathway model was set up for both the cee and the western european samples. as a first step, we checked the adequacy of our measurement models. the variables of cultural egalitarianism, economic egalitarianism, and conservation motivation were operationalized as latent variables in the models, and were based on the indicator items presented in the section describing the measures. our measurement models showed an adequate fit in the case of both samples (western europe: χ2 = 296.48; df = 24; cfi = .947; rmsea = .038; eastern europe: χ2 = 444.27; df = 24; cfi = .909; rmsea = .047). as a counterpoint, we also checked the adequacy of a model where only one general egalitarianism latent variable was applied operationalized by all the five indicator items regarding egalitarianism. these measurement models shoved a substantially worse fit, indicating that the conceptual differentiation between cultural and economic egalitarianism is relevant (western europe: χ2 = 913.50; df = 26; cfi = .829; rmsea = .065; eastern europe: χ2 = 598.19; df = 26; cfi = .887; rmsea = .053). as a second step, a structural model was created for both samples where conservation motivation served as an independent variable, and we examined its impact on the two clusters of views about social inequality, and on the left-right ideological preference. associations between egalitarian attitudes and ideological preferences were also taken into account (see figures 2 and 3). hadarics 341 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 variances and covariances of variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. placement on left right scale e: 5.770 w: 4.627 -.407*** -.514*** .044 .444*** .109 .186*** .335*** .005 .017 2. government should reduce differences in income levels -.611*** e: 1.100 w: 1.194 .870*** -.043*** -.411*** -.184*** -.047*** -.036*** .052** .129*** 3. important to reduce income differences -.713*** 1.203*** e: 3.180 w: 3.730 -.246*** -.515*** -.621*** -.113*** -.088*** .050 .158*** 4. gays and lesbians free to live life as they wish -.267*** .052** -.090*** e: 1.584 w: .871 .410*** .147*** .185*** .181*** -.024* -.132*** 5. immigrants make country worse or better place to live -.737*** -.008 -.238*** .325*** e: 5.180 w: 4.647 .650*** .018 .156*** -.013 -.001 6. importance of minority rights -.231*** -.047* -.326*** .138*** .532*** e: 2.703 w: 1.697 -.033 .023 .091** .058* 7. important to think new ideas and being creative -.039 -.020 -.115*** .082*** .081*** .014 e: 1.394 w: 1.441 .679*** .086*** .062** 8. important to try new and different things in life -.032 -.044 -.093** .076*** .096*** -.008 .581*** e: 1.646 w: 1.693 .130*** .068** 9. important to follow traditions and customs .416*** -.095*** -.094** -.131*** -.125** -.071** .042* .115*** e: 1.490 w: 1.992 .452*** 10. important to do what is told and follow rules .460*** -.014 .111** -.207*** -.272*** -.107*** .065*** .108*** .589*** e: 1.280 w: 1.932 note. covariances for the western european sample are reported in the bottom triangle, variances are reported in italics on the diagonal, and covariances for the cee sample are reported in the top triangle. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. conservation motivation and ideological preferences 342 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. pathway model explaining left-right ideological preferences – western europe. note. unstandardized regression weights are followed by standard errors in parentheses. unstandardized residual variances are displayed for every variable. (χ2 = 523.54; df = 30; cfi = .920; rmsea = .045). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 3. pathway model explaining left-right ideological preferences – cee countries. note. unstandardized regression weights are followed by standard errors in parentheses. unstandardized residual variances are displayed for every variable. (χ2 = 509.99; df = 30; cfi = .902; rmsea = .045). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. hadarics 343 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results according to the results of our sem analysis both models showed a good fit (western europe: χ2 = 523.54; df = 30; cfi = .920; rmsea = .045; eastern europe: χ2 = 509.99; df = 30; cfi = .902; rmsea = .045). as the models indicate, conservation motivation is related to attitudes towards cultural equality in the same direction within the two samples by showing a negative relationship with it in both cases (bw-eu = -.303; s.e. = .030; p < .001; be-eu = -.184; s.e. = .031; p < .001). at the same time, its effect on economic egalitarianism differs between the two models. conservation motivation enhances the approval of economic equality in the cee sample, while there is no significant relationship between the two variables in the western european sample (bw-eu = .050; s.e. = .044; p = .253; be-eu = .442; s.e. = .045; p < .001). there is also a difference between the two models in the way conservation motivation is related to ideological preferences, since it shows a reverse connection with the left-right ideological self-placement within the two samples, a positive one within the western european model and a negative one within the cee model (bw-eu = .365; s.e. = .079; p < .001; be-eu = -.249; s.e. = .070; p < .001). if we examine the association between left-right self-placement and attitudes towards social inequalities, we can see that more egalitarian views made left-wing self-placement more likely in the western european sample, and this was true in the case of economic equality (bw-eu = -.517; s.e. = .024; p < .001) and cultural equality too (bw-eu = -1.402; s.e. = .132; p < .001). on the other hand, while the direction of the relationship between economic egalitarianism and left-right ideological preferences was the same in the cee sample as in the western european sample (be-eu = -.340; s.e. = .047; p < .001), there was no significant relationship between cultural-intergroup egalitarianism and personal ideological preferences within the cee sample (be-eu = .178; s.e. = .116; p = .124). in order to validate our findings on the regional level, the same models were created also for the national samples constituting our two regional samples. most relevant regression coefficients from these models seem to support our results presented above (see table 3), however we also found some country level differences. while the relationship between conservation motivation and the approval of cultural equality is significantly negative within all the national samples with the exception of hungary, the relationship between conservation motivation and economic egalitarianism is equivocal. this connection, in accordance with our expectations, turned out to be significantly positive within three out of the four national cee samples. at the same time, two western countries (belgium and the netherlands) were also identified showing a similar but more moderate positive relationship between these variables. associations between attitudes regarding social equality and ideological preferences show a complex pattern as well. the relationship between economic egalitarianism and the left-right dimension looks relatively homogeneous, since there is a negative relationship between these variables in all national samples except for slovakia. at the same time, associations related to cultural egalitarianism seem to be much more diverse, especially among the cee countries, where we can find two significant associations between these variables, in the cases of poland and the czech republic. but while cultural-intergroup egalitarianism fosters leftist ideological preferences in poland, it is related to rightist identification in the czech republic. the pattern is much more univocal among the western european countries, where the approval of cultural equality is related to leftist preferences in each investigated country. conservation motivation and ideological preferences 344 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 relevant coefficients from the national models conservation economic equality conservation cultural equality economic equality left-right identification cultural equality left-right identification conservation left-right identification country b s.e. p b s.e. p b s.e. p b s.e. p b s.e. p belgium .410 .125 .001 -.193 .066 .003 -.290 .053 *** -1.073 281 *** .024 .151 .872 france -.030 .086 .731 -.263 .048 *** -.560 .056 *** -3.464 .505 *** .132 .196 .501 netherlands .288 .084 *** -.254 .051 *** -.673 .059 *** -4.018 1.244 .001 .048 .346 .889 united kingdom -.064 .066 .331 -.506 .085 *** -.412 .045 *** -.587 .171 *** .611 .167 *** czech republic .721 .097 *** -.197 .056 *** -.530 .068 *** .814 .255 .001 -.830 .148 *** hungary -.001 .031 .967 -.023 .017 .190 -.910 .184 *** .480 .297 .107 -.118 .138 .392 poland .748 .119 *** -.443 .069 *** -.288 .076 *** -1.310 .385 *** .547 .221 .013 slovakia .455 .075 *** -.233 .070 *** -2.360 3.420 .490 -3.256 5.410 .547 -.488 .406 .230 ***p < .001. mediational analysis as the results presented above indicate, beyond it’s direct effect, conservation motivation presumably has also a mediated indirect effect on ideological preferences through cultural and/or economic egalitarianism. to reveal these indirect relationships, a mediation analysis was conducted with the bootstrapping technique suggested by macho and ledermann (2011), where we requested 95% confidence intervals using 2000 resamples. according to this mediation analysis, a significant indirect effect of conservation motivation was channelled by cultural egalitarianism (.40; p = .002)i but not by economic egalitarianism (-.03; p = .154) in the western european sample, while in the cee sample conservation motivation showed a significant indirect effect via economic egalitarianism (-.15; p = .002), but not cultural egalitarianism (-.04; p = .124). discussion the results show that conservation motivation makes people susceptible to the belittlement of nonconventional groups both in the eastern and western european contexts. irrespective of the cultural and historical background, the very same process seems to work on both sides of europe. the greater importance is set by someone to insisting on the dominant norms of the given society, the more negative becomes her opinion about the groups that do not comply with these norms. at the same time, such norms can be applied to economic and income distribution axioms as well, and from this point of view there is a considerable difference between the two parts of europe. our result indicate, that since economic egalitarianism is a deeply embedded element of the public thinking in the post-socialist states, in this region conservation motivation is accompanied by the desire for the reduction of income differences merely on account of its normative nature. this relationship was much less characteristic in the western european data, but was nonetheless identifiable to a moderate level in belgium and in the netherlands. it is worth noting that these two countries are regarded as so called hybrid conservative-social democratic welfare regimes, with stronger egalitarian preferences and traditions than other western european countries, like the united kingdom or france (e.g. kammer, niehues, & peichl, 2012). but as another possible explanation for this hadarics 345 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ later result, it is worth referring to the notion of malka and her colleagues (malka & soto, 2015; malka, soto, inzlicht, & lelkes, 2014), who argue that conservation motivation can be related to rightist economic preferences only within ideologically constrained countries with a highly polarized political landscape, but much more likely to be related to leftist economic views within ideologically less constrained societies, like belgium and the netherland were in our western european dataset. the weak relationship between economic egalitarianism and conservation motivation in the western european sample is not surprising considering that the appropriate level of governmental redistribution has been a matter of continuous debate for a long time in western european countries. on the other hand, this sort of debate was not possible during the socialist era in the cee region. for this reason, egalitarian economic views became undisputable normative ideological elements in these countries, and support for small income differences remained normative in post-socialist cee countries. therefore, such economic attitudes seemingly still serve as important orientation points in the ideological and political opinion formation for people with a higher level of conservation motivation. due to the associations between attitudes towards social equality and conservation motivation described above, it seems justified to put also these egalitarian (or anti-egalitarian) attitudes in the equation as potential mediators when considering how conservation motivation affects left-right ideological preferences. furthermore, on the national level, a direct relationship between conservation motivation and ideological preferences was identified only in one western european and two cee countries, and the direction of the relationship was different in these two post-socialist countries. of course, attitudes towards social equality can affect the relationship between conservation motivation and ideological preferences only to the extent that they are connected to these constructs, namely that they function as an object for motivated social cognition, and also function as an integral part of the left-right ideological distinction. examining the ideological embeddedness of the attitudes towards social equality, we can see that both economic and cultural egalitarianism makes leftist ideological preferences in western europe more probable. we can therefore conclude that tolerating inequalities in general can be regarded as a rightist ideological characteristic in western europe. it seems to be also true that conservation motivation (or low openness) fosters rightist preferences in the western european region mainly via the rejection of nonconventional outgroups, and not because of the higher tolerance of inequalities in general. the pattern is essentially different in the cee region, where only economic egalitarianism is related to the leftright dimension out of the two forms of egalitarianism. this difference supports the view of knutsen (1995), who argues that the left-right dimension possesses the potential to absorb any kind of content which is related to the main political cleavages in a given society. that is why the precise meaning of the ideological left and right can vary from one society to another, and from one period of time to another within a particular society. presumably, that is why we were not able to identify a clear regional pattern about the relationship between cultural egalitarianism and the left-right dimension among the cee countries. at the same time, economic egalitarianism showed the same association with leftist preferences among the cee countries as in the case of western europe. the latter result is particularly important if we consider how conservation motivation is related to ideological preferences in the cee region, because, although this motivation enhances economic egalitarianism and reduces cultural egalitarianism at the same time, only the former seems to be ideologically relevant. this means that in contrast with the western european pattern, conservation motivation makes conservation motivation and ideological preferences 346 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ people identify with the ideological left in the cee region, and makes them do that at least partly via the acceptance of egalitarian economic preferences. the motivational force of conservation leads people to accept conventional post-socialist economic beliefs, which beliefs in turn can serve as the basis for formulating political-ideological (left-right) preferences. we have to stress also that although our focus was on the issue of social equality as a potential mediator between the motivation of conservation and ideological preferences, we can assume that several other issues might influence the conservation-ideology relationship, which ones were ignored in our present study. as it was mentioned above, a certain belief or issue can influence this relationship only if it is related to conservations motivation and the left-right ideological cleavage at the same time, and it is far from being a necessity that the very same issue is present in a wide range of countries. political-ideological cleavages can be based on a great variety of social issues, and this variety cannot be ignored when we investigate ideology as motivated social cognition within a particular social environment. of course, we have to mention some additional considerable limitations of our study, mostly ensuing from the nature of the analysed dataset and the selected research methods. while we have to stress that analysing ess data is a perfect tool to maximise the external validity of our results, we also have to admit that construct validity is not the most significant strength of such a large-scale international survey programme. most of the selected variables were measured only by a very limited number of items selected from the ess questionnaire, and not by thoroughly constructed and carefully validated attitude and personality scales. we have to emphasize also that our study was a correlational one, consequently, we can not be completely certain about the causal relationships between the investigated variables. conclusion as we have seen, by adding attitudes towards social equality to the equation, a substantially clearer pattern was revealed regarding how conservation motivation (or openness) is related to our political-ideological preferences. it has been a broadly shared idea that conservation motivation makes people lean to rightist and conservative ideologies because of becoming overly suspicious of large-scale societal changes (for a review see jost et al., 2003, 2009). furthermore, since the level of social equality has continuously increased in the course of the long process of democratization in western europe, it seems to be somewhat a necessity that those with a higher level of conservation motivation (or a lower level of openness) might be more sceptical about the idea of social equality. but social equality can be considered to consist of two dimensions, namely cultural and economic equality. and while these two dimensions have been interrelated in most western democracies, the two dimensions became more independent from each other in eastern europe during the socialist era. consequently, if conservation motivation fosters the acceptance of socially normative beliefs and opinions, we have to consider what kind of opinions can be regarded as conventional when we talk about the different forms of social equality. the post-socialist cee countries are in a specific situation in this regard, because the normative power of the two dimensions points to opposite directions. it is for this reason that conservation motivation has directly the opposite effect on cultural and economic egalitarianism, a negative one to the former and a positive one to the later. hadarics 347 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when we look at the interplay between conservation motivation and ideological preferences, we also have to bare the ideological relevance of these conventional beliefs in mind. conservation motivation (and openness) can influence our left-right ideological preferences only to the extent that it is associated with beliefs and opinions that are attached to the main political and ideological cleavages in a certain society. social equality seems to be such an issue. while it contributes to the classical phenomenon of the “rigidity of the right” in western europe through cultural (anti)egalitarianism, it seems to serve as the basis of the post-socialist “rigidity of the left” in eastern europe through economic egalitarianism. notes i) unstandardized indirect effects are presented with significance levels. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references adorno, t. w., frenkel-brunswik, e., levinson, d. j., & sanford, r. n. 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(2000). the relationship between openness to experience and political ideology. personality and individual differences, 28(4), 741-751. doi:10.1016/s0191-8869(99)00135-x vecchione, m., schoden, h., castro, j. l. g., cieciuch, j., pavlopoulus, v., & caprara, g. v. (2011). personality correlates of party preference: the big five in five big european countries. personality and individual differences, 51, 737-742. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.015 about the author márton hadarics is an assistant professor at the institute of psychology, eötvös loránd university (elte), budapest, hungary. he has obtained his phd in 2015 at the elte doctoral school of psychology. his interests center around social and political psychology. his basic research involves the study of motivated social and political cognition, attitudes towards social inequalities, and postsocialist system justification in central and eastern europe. hadarics 351 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 336–351 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1334 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.015 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ conservation motivation and ideological preferences (introduction) conservation motivation, ideology, and social equality conservation motivation, ideology and social equality in eastern europe method sample measures data analysis results discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author on the emergence of mental space in psychology: interview with lucas albert charles derks interview on the emergence of mental space in psychology: interview with lucas albert charles derks lucas albert charles derks*a, alexandru ioan maneab [a] society for mental space psychology, nijmegen, the netherlands. [b] sper institute, bucharest, romania. abstract in this interview we have the chance to talk with lucas albert charles derks, founder of the international laboratory for mental space research and of the society for mental space psychology and the creator of the social panorama approach, about the paradigm that evolved in the last 25 years, entitled mental space psychology, with roots from cognitive linguistics, spatial cognition and neuroscience. today we shall explore the psychotherapeutic approaches which use the mental space psychology, their applicability and their limitations, with a special focus on his own approach, entitled social panorama. keywords: mental space psychology, social panorama, cognitive linguistics, psychotherapy, spatial cognition, cognitive behavioral therapy, spatial representation europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 304–308, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1186 published (vor): 2016-05-31. *corresponding author at: van den boenhoffstraat 27, 6525 bz nijmegen, the netherlands. e-mail: sociaalpanorama@hetnet.nl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. alexandru ioan manea: in the nlp world, alfred korzybski, the founder of “general semantics”, is famous for his studies in human subjective experience. he used to argue that we perceive reality just through the five senses (sight, hearing, kinesthetic, smell and taste) and upon these we form a map of this reality, thus, never actually operating with the objective reality but just with our perception of it. ultimately we become the “victim” of our own perceptions and representations, basing upon these the personifications of different events or people with whom we interact. how does the “mental space psychology” relate to the “general semantics”? lucas albert charles derks: all these sensory aspects of the model of the world show that they are spatial, that meaning that what we see, hear, feel, taste or smell is connected over space, more exactly that it can be found in a certain area in the mental space. the recognition of this aspect can be found in george lakoff’s theory from 1987 regarding the spatiality of form. he argued that all the thought process in the human mind is three-dimensional or spatial, and that language is just one-dimensional. so when people communicate, the grammar of language helps them to trans-code from three-dimensional to one-dimensional and back, this meaning that in order to understand what the other person has communicated, the receiver must recreate his own three-dimensional experience. this experience is created from three-dimensional sensory experience into one-dimensional language and back. from my point of view, the essence regarding the work with spatial psychotherapies is that there is no need for a trans-coding of the experience between the psychotherapist and the client, because the psychotherapist europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ does not need to understand his client’s problem, because he can immediately help the client to change his threedimensional sensory experience. this approach speeds up the process in a considerably way. for example, if a psychotherapist is not using a spatial psychotherapy and is working with a client who is suffering from shyness in contact with a perceived authority, the psychotherapist invites the client to describe the situation in which he is shy and how that significant person is dominating him and the psychotherapist must decode the client’s experience in his own experience. alternatively, if the psychotherapist is using a spatial-based psychotherapy, he can observe the client describing his own experience and guide him in moving his representations of the person perceived as dominating (downwards and further away), because all these type of images are working efficiently in 99% of authority issues. alexandru ioan manea: after the 1970’s, in psychotherapy began a sort of feud between the experiential-based psychotherapies and the cognitive-based psychotherapies. the “social panorama” model that you created seems to have the best aspects of all these sides, the foundation of cognitive linguistics from george lakoff, mark johnson and gilles fauconnier, the experiential style of nlp especially, richard bandler and the humanistic side of carl rogers’s client-centered approach. lucas albert charles derks: in my opinion, the more a psychotherapist understands the principles of the psychotherapeutic process, the less ritualistic he has to be. in a certain domain like psychotherapy, many practitioners create schemes and algorithms in order to create certainty, but that is just compensating for the lack of insight in the exact principles that he is working with. for example, i will give you a metaphor regarding the repairing of a car, the more you know about the mechanics, the freer you are into repairing it. when psychotherapists are trained, for example, one of the first things they are taught is to make rapport with their client, which is ritualistic. following the metaphor, in the case of a psychotherapist who has a better understanding about the human mind he can start to intervene right away, because he will be free to do what is best for his client’s problem. alexandru ioan manea:we were talking about psychotherapy, please tell me, in what kind of psychotherapeutic context do you use the “social panorama” model? lucas albert charles derks: i primarily use the “social panorama” when clients have difficulties with ongoing relationships, with their families, spouses or children or even at their workplace. i also use it in areas which deal with social personality traits, with habitual patterns regarding how people tend to respond in some situations which end up in conflict, feelings of superiority or of inferiority. the clients don't seem to notice that there is something that can be changed, and they accept that situation as unchangeable, but from my experience these patterns are embedded in early childhood, as most psychologists already discovered. a big part of the social personality is created before age 6 and then this becomes the imprint of the general style of relating to other individuals. for example, with the family members, the person creates a spatial landscape of his relatives in which they have a certain position or role and the person begins to assume that this is her basic role or position in life. working with clients, i found out that is possible to undo these old roles by going back to the client’s age 5 and exploring how this structure of family was formed and have the clients change it and create a new three-dimensional family image around themselves as if there are at age 5 or so. as they grow up again from that age, the clients can live on in the present and in the future as if they have an honorable position in their family, not needing to stay in the role that they assumed early in life, and they can find a wide range of possible positions or roles on the basis of this new functional family. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 304–308 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1186 derks & manea 305 http://www.psychopen.eu/ lucasalbert charlesderks is a psychologist, psychotherapist, and neuro-linguistic programming trainer at the institute for eclectic psychology from nijmegen, the netherlands, and a researcher in the field of mental space psychology. currently, he is a phd candidate at the university of central nicaragua with a dissertation entitled “clinical experiments –what cognitive psychotherapies – like cbt, nlp and ericksonian hypnotherapy – reveal about theworkings of the mind: a theoretical analysis over 35 years of clinical experimentation”. since 1993, he has been practicing psychotherapy and social psychological museum visitor research. he has developed his own psychotherapeutic approach, entitled the “social panoramas”. in 2000 and 2012 respectively, he founded the research groups “the international laboratory for mental space research” and “society for mental space psychology”, aiming at correlating research from cognitive linguistics, psycho-linguistics and spatial cognition. his most important publications include: “the social panorama model: social psychology meets nlp” (doetinchem: son ijsselgroep, 1998), “social panoramas – changing the unconscious landscapewith nlp andpsychotherapy” (carmarthen: crown house publishing, 2005) and, with shelle rose charvet and l. michael hall, “innovations in nlp: for challenging times” (carmarthen: crown house publishing, 2011). correspondence: van den boenhoffstraat 27, 6525 bz nijmegen, the netherlands. e-mail: sociaalpanorama@hetnet.nl alexandru ioan manea:what exactly do you mean by “spatial psychotherapies”, how many types of them are there, and which one is suitable for what kind of problem? lucas albert charles derks: “spatial psychotherapies” are approaches in psychotherapy that make use of mental space. for instance, we have “time line therapy”, “family constellations”, “clean space”, “social panorama”, which make use of space in a certain way and in a certain degree. oddly enough, most psychotherapists in these approaches don't see themselves as much as working with space, because they do not consider it their most important ingredient of their work and they often find other explanations for their results. their procedures include the spatial manipulations of the mental cognitions of the clients, or orient the clients spatially in a room and move them along locations where there are symbols that mean important concepts to them. because there are more than just one, but each with its own unique variation, it is more suitable to consider them as one single category, respectively “spatial psychotherapies” and to research even further in order to find out what is behind their high impact on the clients. in conclusion, mental space psychology came from the recognition that there is a similar principle behind these therapeutic methods, even if the psychotherapists that use them with their clients do not give mental space that much importance. “time-line therapy” deals primarily with how people perceive and deal with time. for example, if a client has difficulties to arrive at meetings on time, it may be because he perceives his future as being too far away, or the opposite, if he suffers from severe stress because he perceives his deadlines as being too close. another issue that can be solved through this approach is regarding the past, where we people store their experiences, memories, traumas, etc... the client can be taken to his past and change past events, or move them so that he can grow from a changed personal history. also, there are also social differences that can be solved through this approach, because there are cultures where people are more in the here and now, in time, or cultures where people are more in the future and planning ahead. this makes the difference between whether they can or cannot make investments, personal insurance or organizing on the long term. the “clean space” approach works by bringing the clients in new areas of their memory. the client can be helped to break loose from a situation in which they feel stuck by providing them spatial dissociation from that exact location on the floor where they re-experienced that particular and unpleasant feeling. the therapist just keeps themmoving to other places, until they find a solution to their problem. this approach can be used for europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 304–308 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1186 interview 306 http://www.psychopen.eu/ any type of problem because the psychotherapist does not need any kind of content, because he is just simulating the movement. in practice, i saw clients move 4, 5, or 6 times from one location to another in order to solve their issue. also, it is not suitable for psychotic or depressed clients, because the client needs to be fully concentrated when he makes these kinds of moves. alexandru ioanmanea is a psychologist, counselor and psychotherapist. he obtained his master’s degree in psychotherapy and psycho-diagnosis in 2010 at the university of bucharest. he is a psychotherapist trained in the experiential unifying psychotherapy at the sper institute. he is also an nlp master practitioner and an nlp coach and a lab profile practitioner. he has his own private office where he practices psychotherapy and coaching with his clients and a company where he provides organizational psychology services to corporate clients. correspondence: e-mail: alexandruioan_manea@ymail.com the “family constellation” approach has two main categories of issues that can be solved. first of all, it is useful in dealing with family issues, because it can help clients to create an alternative view on their family problems. by having an alternative, they can free themselves from issues regarding ideas or feelings towards family members or towards their past. this approach opens up new perspectives because it is often presented as revealing deeper, hidden truths to the client, which has an extra placebo power, because it is a procedure perceived as being somewhat strange, but in the end it has such a high impact on the client, that the final result is taken very seriously by him. second of all, there are constellation therapies that personify all kinds of abstract concepts coming from the client. for instance, if we take a basic structure, a goal blocked by an emotional problem, the psychotherapist can place people to represent the goal and the emotionality that is in the way of reaching that goal. now the client can start to (spatially, nonverbally) interact with them, and that may generate more answers than simply communicating about abstract concepts – it may create totally new points of view regarding the issue. the “social panorama” model can be used primarily in dealing with relationships, because the latter are based upon how people represent others and themselves in their mental space. for example, when we talk about selfconfidence it’s important to pay attention to how the client perceives his self in space in regards to the others. but when we talk about authority or hatred, it’s more important to pay attention to how others are perceived by the client in his mental space. this approach is also useful in teams or with issues with negative attitudes towards certain groups. for instance, if a refugee comes to a foreign country and he wants to be a part of that society, or culture, he has to perceive his kinesthetic self within his kinesthetic representation of that new group that he wants to belong; he must feel himself in the middle of that group to automatically feel integrated. alexandru ioan manea: you have been using the mental space approach in psychotherapy for nearly 25 years now. what, in your opinion are the limitations of the mental space psychology until now? lucas albert charles derks: the spatial representations that we work with are probably mostly located in the right brain hemisphere and connected to the basic structures in the hippocampus. these processes are quite in the background; this means they are unconscious processes. in working with clients, they need to become aware of the things that they cannot really be aware of, they need to be open for their intuitive knowledge of were a representation in their mind is located. this is the main limitation, because some clients have difficulties here, they want to have more certainty than they can get from this type of unconscious background knowledge. there are people who are more left brain hemisphere oriented, who don't have too much of this right hemisphere background information present and so they may get stuck when i ask these type of questions, because they want europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 304–308 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1186 derks & manea 307 http://www.psychopen.eu/ clear facts, things that they can see and not things that they just be vaguely aware of. these are the limitations in my opinion. alexandru ioan manea: thank you very much mr. derks for discussing with you such an important aspect as the new paradigm of “mental space psychology”. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 304–308 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1186 interview 308 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en interview (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments the influence of planning and response inhibition on cognitive functioning of non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters research reports the influence of planning and response inhibition on cognitive functioning of non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters marco moniz* abcd, saul neves de jesus cd, andreia pacheco ac, eduardo gonçalves ac, joão viseu cd, marta brás cd, dina silva cd, sílvia batista ac [a] department of psychiatry and mental health, hospital center of algarve, faro, portugal. [b] faculty of human and social sciences, university of algarve, faro, portugal. [c] research centre for spatial and organizational dynamics (cieo), faro, portugal. [d] algarve biomedical center (abc), faro, portugal. abstract depression is one of the main risk factors for suicide. however, little is known about the intricate relationships among depressive symptomatology in unipolar depression, suicide risk, and the characteristics of executive dysfunction in depressed patients. we compared 20 non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters to 20 matching depressed non-attempters and to 20 healthy controls to further investigate the possible differences in neuropsychological performance. depressed subjects were controlled for current suicidal ideation, and their neuropsychological profile was assessed using a range of measures of executive functioning, attention, verbal memory, processing speed, and psychomotor speed. depressed groups were outperformed by healthy controls. depressed attempters presented more cognitive impairment than depressed non-attempters on a simple go/no-go response inhibition task and performed better than nonattempters on the tower of london planning task. depressed attempters were clearly distinguished by a deficit in response inhibition (go/no-go commission errors). the normative planning performance (tower of london extra moves) of the suicide attempters was unexpected, and this unanticipated finding calls for further research. normative planning may indicate an increased risk of suicidal behavior. keywords: unipolar depression, cognitive functioning, executive dysfunction, planning, response inhibition, suicide attempts europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 received: 2017-01-31. accepted: 2017-06-23. published (vor): 2017-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: departamento de psiquiatria e saúde mental, centro hospitalar do algarve, rua leão penedo, 8000-386 faro, portugal. email: emmoniz@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. suicide is a global phenomenon. according to the world health organization (who, 2015), more than 800,000 individuals commit suicide every year. in 2012, suicide represented the second leading cause of death among people aged 15-29 years old worldwide. mental disorders, particularly depression and alcohol abuse, are among the main risk factors for suicide (schneider et al., 2006; who, 2015). a meta-analysis performed by arsenault-lapierre, kim, and turecki (2004) provides evidence of mental disorders in 87.3% of suicide completers, 95% of whom meet the criteria for affective disorders. individuals suffering from such disorders continue to be stigmatized in many societies (who, 2015). consequently, such individuals tend to underrate or conceal their symptoms when they are aware of them and prefer to isolate themselves rather than seeking europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ help. this behavior hinders early diagnosis and further complicates the already difficult pursuit of adequate response and control. thus, healthcare professionals must increasingly identify suicide causes among these patients to predict and prevent it. nevertheless, little is known about the real association between depression and suicide risk. for instance, jollant, lawrence, olié, guillaume, and courtet (2011) posit that the pathological processes underlying a crisis usually occur during an acute stage of the illness. by contrast, keilp et al. (2012) suggest that the link between suicide risk and the severity of depression is a modest one. furthermore, in depression, the relationship between suicidal ideation and suicide attempts also remains controversial. whereas some depressed patients have never entertained suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide (marzuk, hartwell, leon, & portera, 2005), more than half of such patients contemplate it, and one-third of ideators commit it (kessler, borges, & walters, 1999). consequently, although depression is considered a high risk factor for suicide (schneider et al., 2006), this high risk may not be directly associated with the psychopathological condition itself because ideation and acts represent distinct stages of the suicidal process (jollant et al., 2011). alone, ideation is a weak predictor of attempts (jollant et al., 2011; marzuk et al., 2005). recent epidemiological findings have suggested that depression is a better predictor of suicidal ideation than of suicidal acts (nock, hwang, sampson, & kessler, 2010). therefore, uncovering markers that could allow these two stages of suicidal behavior to be more clearly distinguished is highly significant for early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. in recent years, research ranging from original studies to evidence-based review articles has aimed to identify neuroimaging and cognitive markers in clinical samples of patients with a history of suicide attempts and/or current suicidal ideation. regarding the neuroanatomical underpinnings of suicidal behavior, a recent metaanalysis identifies the involvement of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlpfc), including regions of the orbitofrontal cortex (ofc), the anterior cingulate gyrus, the dorsomedial pfc (dmpfc), the dorsolateral pfc (dlpfc), and, to a lesser extent the amygdala and the medial temporal cortex (mtc) (jollant et al., 2011). some of these regions, e.g., the dlpfc, the anterior cingulate cortex (acc), and the ofc, are believed to participate in basically all executive functions (efs) (rogers et al., 2004). efs refer to cognitive competences that allow individuals to determine objectives in changing environments and to find ways of meeting them by constantly adapting themselves to their circumstances (burgess & alderman, 2003). according to previous reports, executive dysfunctions, which are different from other cognitive deficits common in depression, are linked to suicidal behavior (jollant et al., 2011; keilp, gorlyn, oquendo, burke, & mann, 2008; keilp et al., 2001, 2013; king et al., 2000; marzuk et al., 2005; richard-devantoy, berlim, & jollant, 2014; richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; westheide et al., 2008). corroborating most neuroimaging findings, research on cognitive markers has found alterations in the efs of depressed suicide attempters (jollant et al., 2011; keilp et al., 2001, 2008, 2013; marzuk et al., 2005; richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy et al., 2014; westheide et al., 2008), particularly regarding attention, problem solving, verbal fluency and mental flexibility, though this evidence is not always consistent across samples. in a review, richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al. (2012) find a strong connection between depression and executive dysfunction, suggesting that the two disorders may have the same neuropsychological basis in frontal dysfunction, which may enhance suicide risks. many of these alterations in efs correspond to some of the most common markers presented by depressed non-attempters, regardless of their current suicidal ideation (beats, sahakian, & levy, 1996; biringer et al., 2005; lee, hermens, porter, & redoblado-hodge, 2012; response inhibition on suicide attempters 718 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ mcdermott & ebmeier, 2009; richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy et al., 2014; rogers et al., 2004; roiser, rubinsztein, & sahakian, 2009; stordal et al., 2004; wagner, doering, helmreich, lieb, & tadić, 2012). moreover, marzuk et al. (2005) and westheide et al. (2008) suggest that suicidal ideation may contribute to the aggravation of ef impairment. lee et al. (2012) attribute suicidal ideation to clinical state impairments in psychomotor speed and memory functioning, whereas deficits in attention and efs are persistent (even after remission) and consequently are more prone to be trait-markers. according to biringer et al. (2005), trait-related impairments may be associated with inherent pathobiological mechanisms. many recent studies have specifically assessed samples of depressed suicide attempters. some studies examine unipolar and bipolar subjects (e.g., keilp et al., 2001, 2008; marzuk et al., 2005), whereas others examine patients with comorbid personality disorders (e.g., keilp et al., 2013). however, only a few focus specifically on non-psychotic unipolar depressed patients (e.g., king et al., 2000; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; westheide et al., 2008). king et al. (2000), richard-devantoy, jollant, et al. (2012), and westheide et al. (2008) measure the performance of non-psychotic unipolar depressed attempters via several neuropsychological measures. the first two focus on older patients (older than 50 and older than 65, respectively), and only the third controls for current suicidal ideation. regarding performance results on a range of neuropsychological tasks, king et al. (2000) compare depressed suicide attempters to depressed non-attempters. they observe the effects of aging on mental sequencing and flexibility, but they find no significant differences between the two groups. conversely, a study by richard-devantoy, jollant, et al. (2012) shows that elderly depressed attempters performed more poorly than matching depressed non-attempters and healthy controls in terms of cognitive inhibition. westheide et al. (2008) find differences between healthy controls and depressed suicide attempters with and without current suicidal ideation. moreover, their results reveal suicidal ideation to be related to more severe executive deficits, particularly in decision making (westheide et al., 2008). however, the hypothesis that suicide attempters and/or suicidal ideators can be distinguished by the presence of such unique executive impairments is far from being well established. for instance, king et al. (2000) challenge this hypothesis, as their results reveal no significant differences between depressed suicide attempters and non-attempters on any neuropsychological measures. so far, research has not been able to characterize depressed suicide attempters with a specific cognitive profile (westheide et al., 2008) or to clearly distinguish them from depressed non-attempters, and the same applies to suicidal ideators in relation to nonideators. consistent findings remain scarce in view of the various questions that have yet to be definitively answered unclear. therefore, more studies are needed to realize more effective suicide prevention and to contribute to a deeper understanding of suicidal behavior and the underlying processes that lead to suicidal acts. the current study aims to further investigate differences in the neuropsychological performance of three adult age groups: non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters, non-psychotic unipolar depressed nonattempters, and healthy controls. following king et al. (2000), richard-devantoy, jollant, et al. (2012), and westheide et al. (2008), we circumscribe our clinical sample to non-psychotic unipolar depression because the cognitive functions of bipolar subjects are believed to be influenced in a distinctive way (stordal et al., 2004). likewise, psychotic patients tend to exhibit more deficits (stordal et al., 2004). patients are controlled for moniz, de jesus, pacheco et al. 719 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ current suicidal ideation, and other clinical parameters are applied to confirm diagnoses. we conduct a detailed neuropsychological assessment that includes tests of executive functioning, attention, verbal memory, processing speed, and psychomotor speed. in light of previous reports, we hypothesize the following: (1) depressed subjects (attempters and nonattempters) will perform more poorly than healthy controls, and (2) depressed suicide attempters will generally exhibit more executive deficits, than depressed non-attempters and healthy controls. methods participants we initially selected 51 patients from the outpatient clinic of the department of psychiatry and mental health of the hospital center of algarve, and 11 subjects were excluded during the evaluation period. the control group was recruited through advertising. all subjects completed a battery of tests within one week, for a total of two sessions. a randomized system was used to order the test application. the sample was collected between february and august of 2013. all three groups—two experimental groups (depressed suicide attempters, with at least one past suicide attempt, and non-attempting patients) and the control group—had 20 subjects each. the non-psychotic unipolar depressed suicide attempters group included 18 women and 2 men, with a mean age of 42.2 years (sd = 15.12) and a mean of 9.5 (sd = 3.68) years of education. the matching depressed non-attempter group included 13 women and 7 men, with a mean age of 44.3 years (sd = 14.78) and a mean of 8.9 (sd = 3.54) years of education. each past attempter had a mean of 3 suicidal acts. fifteen subjects used medication to attempt suicide (75 percent), and 5 committed a more violent suicidal act (e.g., hanging, gas inhalation). the group of healthy controls with analogous characteristics included 13 women and 7 men, with a mean age of 43.3 years (sd = 14.88) and a mean of 9.4 (sd = 3.61) years of education. all participants were caucasian, right handed, and portuguese speakers. measures in this study, we used computerized and standard paper-and-pencil instruments. we employed the following computer-administered instruments from the psychology experiment building language (pebl) test battery (mueller & piper, 2014): go/no-go task (gng) gng is one of the most useful measures for assessing response inhibition, where a motor response must be either executed or inhibited (bezdjian, baker, lozano, & raine, 2009). we applied the “simple” paradigm in which the no-go stimulus was always the same. the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, gonçalves, viseu, pacheco, & moreira, 2016) of the computerized gng from the pebl was used (mueller & piper, 2014), developed and validated previously by bezdjian, baker, lozano, and raine (2009). the gng demonstrates reasonable test–retest reliability (kindlon, mezzacappa, & earls, 1995). response inhibition on suicide attempters 720 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tower of london task (tol) inspired by tower of hanoi, a classic problem-solving puzzle (kaller, unterrainer, rahm, & halsband, 2004; mckinlay & mclellan, 2011; newman, greco, & lee, 2009), tol is a visuospatial planning task (kaller et al., 2004; mckinlay & mclellan, 2011; newman et al., 2009). we used the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, viseu, gonçalves, pacheco, & baptista, 2016) of the computerized tol from pebl (mueller & piper, 2014), which does not differ from the manual versions in terms of the level of difficulty (mckinlay & mclellan, 2011). the reliability and validity study was demonstrated by piper et al. (2015), with a correlation coefficient of .36. iowa gambling task (igt) igt aims to simulat real-life judgment alterations, allowing assessment of the subject’s emotions associated with decision making (bechara, damasio, damasio, & anderson, 1994). the participants were instructed to perform a series of 100 selections from a group of four decks of cards (a, b, c and d). the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, gonçalves, pacheco, & viseu, 2016) of the computerized igt from pebl (mueller & piper, 2014) was used. the reliability and validity study was demonstrated by piper et al. (2015), with a correlation coefficient of .41. victoria stroop test (vst) inhibitory control is an important cognitive function associated with executive functioning, which is assessed with tasks such as stroop (miyake et al., 2000). our study employed the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, gonçalves, viseu, baptista, & pacheco, 2016) of the computerized vst from pebl (mueller & piper, 2014), which is a briefer and slightly different version from the traditional one. the original version of vst (troyer, leach, & strauss, 2006) revealed adequate psychometric data, including reliability and validity (strauss, sherman, & spreen, 2006). wisconsin card sorting test (wcst) wcst is one of the most recurrently used neuropsychological measures to assess executive functioning, and it is commonly utilized to assess set maintenance and set shifting (carrillo-de-la-peña & garcía-larrea, 2007). the participants were expected to place cards in one of four piles according to the characteristics of the stimuli. the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, viseu, gonçalves, moreira, & pacheco, 2016) of the computerized wcst from pebl (mueller & piper, 2014) was applied. the reliability and validity study was demonstrated by piper et al. (2015), with a correlation coefficient of .45. finger tapping task (ftt) ftt assesses fine motor speed and motor control (christianson & leathem, 2004). the portuguese version (moniz, de jesus, pacheco, gonçalves, & viseu, 2016) of the computerized ftt from pebl (mueller & piper, 2014) was used (study that validated this version of the fft), with the left and right index fingers: five consecutive trials for each hand, with a 10-second break following each trial and a 30-second break every five trials. the average number of taps over five trials was calculated for each hand. the reliability and validity studies of the computerized ftt were demonstrated by hubel, reed, yund, herron, and woods (hubel, reed, yund, herron, & woods 2013; hubel, yund, herron, & woods, 2013). for computerized tests, a computer that ran microsoft windows 8.1 and contained a touch screen (igt, tol, wcst), a keyboard (vst), or an external keypad (ftt and gng) was used. the paper-and-pencil instruments used were as follows: moniz, de jesus, pacheco et al. 721 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ trail making test (tmt) tmt comprises two parts—trials a and b. trial a of tmt assesses attention, visual scanning, and information processing (cavaco et al., 2008a, 2013a). the participants were given two sets of dots targeting numbers and were expected to connect them in sequential order (e.g., 1–2–3). trial b assesses working memory and efs, such as the capability to switch between sets of stimuli (cavaco et al., 2008a, 2013a). for trial b, the participants were given two sets of 25 dots, one corresponding to numbers (1–13) and the other corresponding to letters (a–l) in sequential order. the sequence began with the first number, followed by the first letter alphabetically, then the second number, and so on (e.g., 1–a–2–b–3). we used the portuguese version (cavaco et al., 2013a). verbal fluency test (vft) in addition to efs, vft measures non-motor processing speed and language production, which recruit pfc and temporal lobes (cavaco et al., 2013b). vft consists of two tasks, namely, semantic and phonemic fluency. the subjects were asked to name as many animals as possible in 60 seconds and to say as many words beginning with m, r, and p in 60 seconds (for each letter), as described in the norms of the portuguese version (cavaco et al., 2013b). auditory verbal learning test (avlt) considered a measure that is sensitive to verbal memory deficits and neurological impairment, avlt evaluates memory and verbal learning (cavaco et al., 2008b) through five consecutive trials. after a 30-minute break, the participants were expected to recall the words that included the original one from a longer list. the portuguese version (cavaco et al., 2008b) was used. procedures all participants were assessed by a psychologist specifically certified for this purpose. each participant completed a health and demographic questionnaire. during the selection of the sample, depression diagnoses were confirmed using the mini international neuropsychiatric interview (mini) (sheehan et al., 1997) and the portuguese version of the brief symptom inventory (bsi) (canavarro, 2007). depressive symptomatology at the time of the assessment was evaluated using the 17-item hamilton depression rating scale (ham-d-17) (sousa, lopes, & vieira, 1979). to screen for the presence of personality disorders, the pdq-4 + personality diagnostic questionnaire (hyler, 1994) was applied. current suicidal ideation was assessed using the portuguese version of the suicidal ideation questionnaire (siq) (ferreira & castela, 1999). the rey 15-item memory test (15-imt) was employed to detect malingering (simões et al., 2010). exclusion criteria were current or prior bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major psychosis, dementia, substance abuse, personality disorder, neurologic disease (including head injury involving a loss of consciousness), and suspected malingering. this study was approved by the hospital center of algarve ethics committee and was in according with the principles of the declaration of helsinki. after being provided with all the information about the study, all the participants signed an informed consent form. for ethical reasons, we could not assess the clinical sample off medication. response inhibition on suicide attempters 722 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ all analyses were conducted using the statistical package for social sciences (spss), version 20.0. the level of significance was set at p < than .05. the normality of distribution for continuous variables was tested with the shapiro-wilk test. a χ2 test was used to compare categorical variables, and a t-test (for two groups) or analysis of variance (anova) (for more than two groups) was used to compare continuous variables. tukey’s procedure and bonferroni correction were used for pairwise comparisons. results group characteristics a one-way anova revealed that depressed groups (attempters and non-attempters) and healthy controls did not differ significantly with regard to age (f(2,57) = .738, p = .483, ηp2 = .025), gender (χ2(2, n = 50) = 4.261, p = .119), or education (f(2,57) = 1.658, p = .200, ηp2 = .055) (table 1). the t-tests revealed no significant differences between depressed groups with respect to depressive symptoms (bsi-d [t(38) = -.512, p = .611, d = -.172], ham-d-17 [t(38) = -1.348, p = .186, d = -.431]), current suicidal ideation (siq total [t(38) = 1.611, p = .115, d = .509]), or suicidal intent (siq, item 18 [t(38) = .312, p = .757, d = .099]). neuropsychological performance in the gng task, we found differences among the three groups in terms of commission errors (f(2,57) = 11.315, p ˂ .001, ηp2 = .284) and no-go reaction time (f(2,57) = 4.016, p = .023, ηp2 = .124). still, in terms of commission errors, attempters performed worse than depressed non-attempters and the control group, and no significant differences were found between depressed non-attempters and healthy controls (t(38) = 0, p = 1, d = 0). in the tol, only depressed non-attempters performed worse. differences were found among the three groups in terms of extra moves (f(2,55) = 3.839, p = .028, ηp2 = .122) and performance time (f(2,55) = 8.988, p < .001, ηp2 = .246), and no differences were found between depressed attempters and healthy controls (t(37) = .796, p = .431, d = .253). depressed patients (attempters and non-attempters) were outperformed by healthy controls in almost all measures, with differences between the three groups in igt (f(2,49) = 5.906, p = .005, ηp2 = .194), vst errors (f(2,52) = 3.074, p = .055, ηp2 = .106), vst c-time (f(2,52) = 3.819, p = .028, ηp2 = .128), wcst perseverative errors (f(2,53) = 7.798, p = .001, ηp2 = .227), the percentage of conceptual-level wcst responses (f(2,53) = 9.758, p < .001, ηp2 = .269), ftt dominant hand (f(2,55) = 8.165, p = .001, ηp2 = .229), ftt non-dominant hand (f(2,55) = 4.301, p = .018, ηp2 = .135), tmt-a (f(2,51) = 9.171, p < .001, ηp2 = .265), and tmt-b (f(2,51) = 8.558, p = .001, ηp2 = .255). compare only the depressed groups, we did not find significant differences in igt (t(32) = -1.274, p = .212, d = -.434), vst errors (t(34) = -.053, p = .958, d = -.017), wcst perseverative errors (t(36) = .254, p = .801, d = .081), the percentage of conceptual-level wcst responses (t(36) = .703, p = .487, d = .228), ftt dominant hand (t(36) = -.190, p = .850, d = -.060), ftt non-dominant hand (t(36) = -.224, p = .824, d = -.632), tmt-a (t(38) = .449, p = .656, d = .142), tmt-b (t(37) = 1.113, p = .273, d = .355). when we isolated only the attempters and compared them based in terms of the type of suicidal act (violent or non-violent), we did not find moniz, de jesus, pacheco et al. 723 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ significant differences, particularly with regard to the gng task, commission errors (t(18) = .143, p = .888, d = .063), tol task (t(17) = -1.072, p = .299, d = -.551), and igt (t(16) = -.546, p = .593, d = -.390). for vft and avlt, we did not assess healthy controls; instead, we used cavaco et al. (2008b, 2013b) as a reference. for vft, the depressed groups did not differ in semantic fluency (animals) (t(36) = -.816, p = .420, d = -.263) or phonemic fluency (m–r–p) (t(35) = -.109, p = .914, d = -.035). for avlt, no differences were found between the patient groups in terms of immediate recall (t(37) = -1.007, p = .321, d = -.327) delayed recall (t(37) = -1.603, p = .117, d = -.514), or memory retention (t(37) = -.504, p = .617, d = -.160) (figure 1). table 1 descriptive statistics (n = 60) measures depressed nonattemptersa depressed suicide attemptersb healthy controlsc p-value post hoc tukeym (sd) m (sd) m (sd) social and clinical measures age, years 44.28 (14.78) 42.22 (15.12) 43,25 (14,88) .483 --education 8.94 (3.54) 9.53 (3.68) 9,36 (3,61) .200 --bsi-d, score 2.26 (.98) 2.44 (1.18) --.611 --ham-d-17, score 17.20 (7.33) 20.42 (7.59) --.186 --cognitive measures vft-semantic fluency-animals 14.0 (3.44) 14.94 (3.68) --.420 --vft-phonemic fluency(m, r, p) 21.50 (8.0) 21.76 (6.55) --.914 --avlt-immediate recall 46.1 (9.0) 50.63 (8.53) --.321 --avlt-delayed recall (30’) 9.8 (2.28) 10.57 (2.54) --.117 --avlt-memory retention 85.42 (10.0) 87.44 (14.64) --.617 --tmt-part a 57.03 (15.9) 54.61 (18.03) 34.07 (14.74) .000 hc ˂ na, sa tmt-part b 154.45 (54.16) 131.71 (72.48) 72.92 (32.49) .001 hc ˂ na, sa ftt-dominant hand 53.15 (7.88) 53.66 (8.71) 62.45 (7.63) .001 hc ˃ na, sa ftt-non-dominant hand 46,15 (7.29) 46.72 (8.44) 52.40 (6.45) .018 hc ˃ na tol-extra moves 22.52 (8.59) 17.78 (6.77) 16.0 (7.24) .028 na ˃ sa, hc tol-time 456.7 (204.4) 366.5 (117.4) 267.7 (63.96) .000 hc ˂ na igt-net score 8.31 (23.23) 17.22 (17.41) 33.22 (23.57) .005 hc ˃ na wcst-cat (moves to complete 1st category) 24.26 (23.76) 27.10 (22.31) 14.55 (5.26) .127 --wcst-pe (preservative errors) 19.89 (10.85) 19.0 (10.89) 8.61 (6.15) .001 hc ˂ na, sa wcst-clr (conceptual-level responses) 59.03 (16.37) 54.65 (21.68) 78.05 (11.17) .000 hc ˃ na, sa vst-errors 3.41 (3.46) 3.47 (3.53) 1.31 (1.82) .055 --vst-c time 119.9 (76.25) 100.44 (76.74) 62.77 (23.61) .028 hc ˂ na gng-ce (commission errors) 6.0 (4.0) 11.95 (6.15) 6.0 (2.93) .000 sa ˃ na, hc gng-oe (omission errors) .90 (1.48) .55 (.88) .15 (.36) .075 --reaction time, ms (go) 454.9 (86.1) 457.1 (90.0) 437.4 (65.1) .704 --reaction time, ms (no-go) 593.5 (84.7) 553.1 (44.8) 538.4 (54.3) .023 na ˃ hc note. na = depressed non-attempters; sa = depressed suicide attempters; hc = healthy controls; bsi-d = depression scale from brief symptom inventory; ham-d-17 = hamilton depression rating scale 17 items; vft = verbal fluency test; avlt = auditory verbal learning test; tmt = trail making test; ftt = finger tapping task; tol = pebl tower of london; iowa = pebl bechara (iowa) gambling task; wcst = pebl wisconsin (berg) card sorting test. an = 20. bn = 20. cn = 20. response inhibition on suicide attempters 724 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion some of the results of our study are atypical. our results are in line with those of king et al. (2000), who challenged the widely discussed theory that depressed suicidal individuals are usually characterized by ef deficits, but they conflict with most reports (jollant et al., 2011; keilp et al., 2001, 2008, 2013; marzuk et al., 2005; richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy et al., 2014; westheide et al., 2008). in our study, both groups of depressed patients were outperformed by healthy controls on most tests assessing efs, as reported in previous studies (beats et al., 1996; biringer et al., 2005; jollant et al., 2011; keilp et al., 2001, 2008, 2013; king et al., 2000; lee et al., 2012; marzuk et al., 2005; mcdermott & ebmeier, 2009; richard-devantoy, gorwood, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy, jollant, et al., 2012; richard-devantoy et al., 2014; rogers et al., 2004; roiser et al., 2009; stordal et al., 2004; wagner et al., 2012; westheide et al., 2008), and the results were statistically significant for tmt part b, igt, and wcst (perseverative errors and conceptual-level responses). this finding confirms our first hypothesis (i.e., that all depressed subjects will perform worse than non-depressed subjects). figure 1. z scores of the neuropsychological tests presented by each cognitive domain. moniz, de jesus, pacheco et al. 725 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ similarly, our results do not provide sufficient evidence to clearly differentiate between depressed attempters and depressed non-attempters. our suicidal group did not perform worse than depressed patients who had never attempted suicide in, measures such as wcst or igt, which are widely recognized to provide important evaluations regarding set shifting and decision making. therefore, our second hypothesis (i.e., that depressed suicide attempters will generally exhibit more executive deficits than depressed non-attempters and healthy controls) is not confirmed. when we isolated only the suicidal subjects and compared performance based on the suicidal act (violent and non-violent), we did not find differences, particularly in igt, as reported in the recent study of wyart et al. (2016). this finding may relate to the size of the suicidal group in our study; in the future, the sample size should be increased to improve statistical power and to control the type of suicide attempt. a surprising result in our study is the difference in the results for tol (extra moves). in contrast to depressed non-attempters, depressed attempters’ performances on tol did not differ from those of healthy controls, which may indicate that their planning ability was relatively intact at the time of assessment. as in previous studies (beats et al., 1996; elliott et al., 1996), we expected poor performances in both depressive groups, and this normative performance in planning might contribute to the risk of suicide because it enables organization of each step in pursuit of a certain objective or intention (lezak, howieson, & loring, 2004), such as a suicidal act. we could not, however, exclude a false positive in this last result. if we made a bonferroni adjustment, dividing the alpha value (.05) by the number of tests (9), we would obtain a new p-value of .00055. therefore, the tol result is not significant. as with the subjects in westheide et al. (2008) and richard-devantoy, ding, lepage, turecki, and jollant (2016), the depressed attempters were clearly distinguishable from the non-attempters and healthy controls through the former’s deficit in response inhibition and relatively poor performance in relation to gngcommission errors. the influence of cognitive inhibition on the cognitive functioning of depressed suicide attempters must be further investigated to improve our understanding of the potential impairments related to suicidal behavior and the benefits of cognitive rehabilitation, for example training-induced behavioral and brain plasticity in inhibitory control (spierer, chavan, & manuel, 2013). conclusions the results of the current study distinguish between depressed attempters and depressed non-attempters based on their performance in response inhibition, which is essential for selecting the behavior needed to respond appropriately or to inhibit an inappropriate response (simmonds, pekar, & mostofsky, 2008). furthermore, we must acknowledge the presence of normative planning, which may allow subjects to order and prioritize ideas essential to the development of a conceptual scheme to carry out a determined plan (lezak et al., 2004), such as a suicidal plan. finally, executive functioning deficits appear to be related to the depressive state. in our sample, no difference was found in the performance of the two groups of depressed subjects (suicidal and non-suicidal), particular in the classic neuropsychological assessment (e.g., igt, wcst, vst, tmt). to better understand these findings, our study should be replicated using larger samples. response inhibition on suicide attempters 726 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank all participants of this study. author contributions m.m., and s.n.j. designed the study and analyzed the data; m.m. performed the experiments; a.p., j.v., m.b., and d.s. revised drafts of the paper. all authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript. references arsenault-lapierre, g., kim, c., & turecki, g. 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(2008). executive performance of depressed suicide attempters: the role of suicidal ideation. european archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience, 258, 414-421. doi:10.1007/s00406-008-0811-1 world health organization (who). (2015). suicide [fact sheet n°398]. retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs398/en/ wyart, m., jaussent, i., ritchie, k., abbar, m., jollant, f., & courtet, p. (2016). iowa gambling task performance in elderly persons with a lifetime history of suicidal acts. the american journal of geriatric psychiatry, 24, 399-406. doi:10.1016/j.jagp.2015.12.007 about the authors marco moniz phd in psychology at the university of algarve, is a clinical psychologist and clinical neuropsychologist in department of psychiatry and mental health in hospital center of algarve, faro, portugal. his research includes the study of cognitive functioning in depression, and the influence of suicidal behavior in cognition. saul neves de jesus is a full professor at the university of algarve, faro, portugal and is the president of the scientific board in the faculty of human and social sciences at the university of algarve, faro, portugal. andreia pacheco is clinical psychologist in department of psychiatry and mental health in hospital center of algarve, faro, portugal. moniz, de jesus, pacheco et al. 731 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 http://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00427 http://doi.org/10.1080/08039480310000789 http://doi.org/10.1080/138255890968187 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01762.x http://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-008-0811-1 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs398/en/ http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jagp.2015.12.007 http://www.psychopen.eu/ eduardo gonçalves is psychiatrist in department of psychiatry and mental health in hospital center of algarve, faro, portugal, and his research includes the study of stress and resilience. joão viseu phd in psychology at the university of algarve. his research interests are related to health and organizational psychology. marta brás is professor at the university of algarve, faro. dina silva is professor at the university of algarve, faro. sílvia batista is psychiatrist in department of psychiatry and mental health in hospital center of algarve, faro, portugal. response inhibition on suicide attempters 732 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(4), 717–732 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i4.1385 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ response inhibition on suicide attempters (introduction) methods participants measures procedures results group characteristics neuropsychological performance discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author contributions references about the authors theory of mind: overcoming the dichotomy between culture and nature book reviews music, graham (2011).nurturing natures: attachment and children’s emotional, sociocultural, and brain development. hove, united kingdom: psychology press. 314 pp. isbn 978-1848720572. theory of mind: overcoming the dichotomy between culture and nature ruggero andrisano ruggieri*a [a] department of human, philosophical and educational science, university of salerno, fisciano, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2015, vol. 11(4), 742–745, doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1054 published (vor): 2015-11-27. *corresponding author at: department of human, philosophic and educational science, stecca i, room 2052, via giovanni paolo ii nr 132 84084 fisciano (sa). italy. e-mail: rruggieri@unisa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. music, graham (2011). nurturing natures: attachment and children’s emotional, sociocultural, and brain development. hove, united kingdom: psychology press. 314 pp. isbn 978-1848720572. confining this book to clinical psychology alone would be a grave mistake for both researchers and practitioners in psychology. in this book, music (2011), addressing the issue of child development, paves the way towards a theory of the mind that integrates the different psychological approaches and schools. this integration takes shape through the study of: a) general psychology related to cognitive functions (e.g. memory, language); b) clinical psychology related to the psychological laws as well as normal and pathological conditions; c) developmental psychology related to theories of attachment (bowlby, 1988, 1969/1999) in relation to both mother and peers (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013); d) neuroscience research focused on mirror neurons (iacoboni, 2009); e) social psychology and, last but not least, f) cultural psychology related to a systemic perspective where the context of relations plays a key role in the understanding of the laws of the functioning of the mind throughmeaning systems (ruggieri & rochira, 2013; valsiner, 2012, 2013) based on experience (rosa & pievi, 2013). experience becomes the primary means through which nature and culture meet, where biological potential interacts with cultural dimensions, creating different relationship patterns capable of determining the functioning of the mind: in other words, mind and relational patterns are culturally defined (ruggieri, pozzi, & ripamonti, 2014). it is here that the complexity of the author’s thought is realised, overcoming the barriers of individual psychology and the traditional division between mind/brain, individual/context and culture/nature. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ pursuing an understanding of how the mind works, it is necessary to start by understanding its development during childhood. this is the leitmotif of the text that introduces a theory of mind based on systems of meaning that are already present in neo-foetal experience during pregnancy. there are numerous studies that support this theory, where the inter-subjective dimension of the mind is explored outside the mind/brain dichotomy and, for every biochemical process present in the changing body of the mother, there is a change in foetal behaviour as well as the relationship patterns established between mother and child. ‘born to be related to’ or, better yet, ‘designed to be related to’, this could be the synthesis of the ontological position proposed by music. studies conducted on twins show how the interactions between the foetuses – now relatable to patterns of interactions, joining hands, stroking, arguments for more space in the placenta – were entirely reproduced, equally and in the same way after birth as well as during their lifetimes (piontelli, 1992). for example, piontelli’s research pointed out how a pair of twins after birth has continued to have exchanges of affection, stroking themselves in the same way and part of the body, using a piece of cloth as the membrane that separated the two bodies during the foetal stage. more than one study supports this thesis, allowing to assume that there is even an active process of meaning during the period of intrauterine life and that it somehow affects the cognitive functions, as suggested by the idea of forms of memory and language or, broadly, modality of communication, prior to birth. it, therefore, highlights a continuity between life before and after birth, now considered somewhat well-founded from the research in clinical psychology as well as the development of applications for smartphones (e.g. i-mom, mom-i) that accompany the expectant mother in the interaction with her foetus, with the environment, with the father. the hypothesis of a relational and interactive competence of the foetus is confirmed in other studies in which the experience of life in the womb determines and directs the behaviour of the infant. in other words, the individual exists, or rather, the mind exists and takes form only and exclusively in a relational schema given the context in which the experience takes shape. in music’s model, the development of the mind goes through a series of continuous and active affective exchanges in the relational processes that are biologically rooted in the activity of mirror neurons (iacoboni, 2009). they are established as a class of neurons that are activated when an individual performs an action or when an individual observes the same action performed by another person. music considers their collocation in the area of the brain known as broca’s area not to be purely casual, since this is also the area associated with such functions as language and imitation. according to this perspective, mirror neurons represent a necessary piece in our understanding of interpersonal functioning and the foundations of human inter-subjectivity, encouraging the development of empathy (iacoboni, 2009), while also providing answers to the fundamental problem of understanding the mind of others (or mindfulness and mentalization; see allen, fonagy, & bateman, 2008) and the way with which the integration of information occurs in emotional and cognitive representations of the self, that allow for the modulation and regulation of emotional states, effectively promoting and modulating social behaviour. the experimental data reported in this book argue the neuroanatomical basis of inter-subjectivity and how the dynamics of sense-making about past experience directs future meaning-making through a series neuronal connections that gradually become stable over time, while maintaining their dynamic and flexible nature, and openness to other possible activities of sense-making. the impact of culture, for example, becomes crucial in understanding this stability/change dynamic. both the longitudinal and cross-cultural studies presented show how the context of europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 742–745 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1054 ruggieri 743 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the experience expressed in relationship with parents (ainsworth, 1978), peers (gorrese & ruggieri, 2012, 2013), as well as the culture determine of the developmental pathways of the mind, thus the dynamic of sense-making and neuronal connections. culture is not opposed to nature; on the contrary, it actively participates in the development of relational schema on the basis of a clear neuroanatomical foundation that is modulated in the context of the relationship with parents, peers as well as at school and in other social context. the book is divided into five different parts, with a total of twenty chapters. the first part discusses the issues of the origin of emotional and social development of the mind through the observation of the unborn child, then moving onto its first months of life. the second part is a re-reading of attachment theory in light of the discoveries of neuroscience and the progress of cultural psychology. in the third part, the evolving skills are discussed and placed within an inter-subjective dimension where the use of symbols, language and memory are reflected in play as an expression of a process of sense-making where gender and cultural differences produce different attributions of sense. the fourth part explores the role of the caregiver, not relegated only to the maternal function but expanded to that of the father, siblings and peers. each person encountered in life becomes a possibility to activate some of the dynamics of sense making, rather than others. the role of experience, due to emotional and social skills, is explored in the fifth and final part of the text, where the effects of early experiences are explored in the longterm consequences on the basis of cultural parameters. how such a set of variables contributes to explaining the outcome of the dynamics of sense making in terms of pathology and normality is discussed. in summary, a new research perspective opens, through the following claim: there is something in nature that it is in nature, or rather it is nature transformed, from its very emergence, and incessantly through cultural processes. the fecundity of thought leads psychological science to the idea of the complementarity of psychology with other sciences as well as all of psychology (general, social, clinical psychology etc.). this interdisciplinary approach, though indicated, however, still remains largely unexplored and insufficiently developed, leaving ample room for scientific debate. however, for example, there is no model of sense-making capable of crossing cultural variability according to criteria of validity and reliability, i.e., a model that, using the claim of music, can explain that is when and how nature becomes culture. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references ainsworth, m. d. s. (1978). pattern of attachment: a psychological study of the strange situation. hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum. europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 742–745 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1054 nurturing natures 744 http://www.psychopen.eu/ allen, j. g., fonagy, p., & bateman, a. w. (2008). mentalizing in clinical practice. washington, dc: american psychiatric association publishing. bowlby, j. (1988). a secure base: clinical applications of attachment theory. london, united kingdom: routledge. bowlby, j. (1999). attachment: attachment and loss (2nd ed., vol. 1). new york, ny: basic books. (original work published 1969) gorrese, a., & ruggieri, r. (2012). peer attachment: a meta-analytic review of gender and age differences and associations with parent attachment. journal of youth and adolescence, 41, 650-672. doi:10.1007/s10964-012-9759-6 gorrese, a., & ruggieri, r. (2013). peer attachment and self-esteem: a meta-analytic review. personality and individual differences, 55, 559-568. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2013.04.025 iacoboni, m. (2009). imitation, empathy and mirror neurons. annual review of psychology, 60, 653-670. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163604 music, g. (2011). nurturing natures: attachment and children's emotional, social and brain development. london, united kingdom: psychology press. piontelli, a. (1992). from fetus to child: an observational and psychoanalytic study. london, united kingdom: tavistock. rosa, a., & pievi, n. (2013). semiotic methodology for the analysis of the cultural and individual dynamics of social representations: a view from cultural psychology. papers on social representations, 22(2), 19.1-19.29. ruggieri, r., pozzi, m., & ripamonti, s. (2014). italian family business cultures involved in the generational change. europe’s journal of psychology, 10(1), 79-103. doi:10.5964/ejop.v10i1.625 ruggieri, r., & rochira, a. (2013). semiotics and social representation: a figure-and-ground relationship of mutual cultivation. papers on social representations, 22(2), 15.1-15.9. valsiner, j. (2012). introduction of culture psychology: a renewed encounter of inquisitive of mind. in j. valsiner (eds.), the oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 3-24). new york, ny: oxford university press. valsiner, j. (2013). creating sign hierarchies: social representation in its dynamic context. paper on social representations, 22(2), 16.1-16.32. about the author ruggero andrisano-ruggieri is an assistant professor in dynamics psychology. he holds different positions at university of salento (italy) including the post as lecturer in organization psychology and clinical psychology. he is a member of psychology list and he is also a specialist in human resources and organization development. he earned a phd in community psychology and training education models at university of lecce. he then completed a fellowship in social psychology at the university of salento. his research interest regard the theory of mind according to psychodynamic and culture psychological prospective. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2015, vol. 11(4), 742–745 doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i4.1054 ruggieri 745 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fs10964-012-9759-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2013.04.025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.psych.60.110707.163604 http://dx.doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v10i1.625 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en nurturing natures (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author a systematic review of adolescent flourishing review a systematic review of adolescent flourishing nicole c. waigel 1, viviana n. lemos 1,2 [1] centro interdisciplinario de investigaciones en ciencias de la salud y del comportamiento (ciicsac), universidad adventista del plata. libertador san martín, entre ríos, argentina. [2] consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas (conicet), buenos aires, argentina. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 received: 2021-05-28 • accepted: 2021-12-11 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland corresponding author: nicole c. waigel, centro interdisciplinario de investigaciones en ciencias de la salud y del comportamiento (ciicsac), universidad adventista del plata, 25 de mayo 46, libertador san martín, e3103xaf, entre ríos, argentina. e-mail: nicolecwaigel@gmail.com abstract traditionally, the study of well-being has been approached from the hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives. however, the last findings suggest that both aspects are complementary, giving place to an integrated conceptualization of well-being called flourishing. in spite of the constant increase of research around this construct, there is still little information regarding flourishing in adolescents. the objective of this study is to review the available literature on flourishing in adolescence in relation to its tie with other constructs, its study in different contexts and the way it has been operationalized. the selection of the studies was conducted in two phases. first, it was verified that the exclusion and selection criteria were met. then, an evaluation of the quality of the pre-selected studies was carried out. the data were synthesized through the thematic synthesis method. for the results, 28 empirical studies were selected. four thematic axes were identified: (a) flourishing in different contexts, (b) flourishing in regards to other results and positive psychological characteristics and/or their negative counterpart, (c) flourishing and psychosocial vulnerability, and (d) indicators for the evaluation of flourishing. suggestions are provided with the goal of consolidating the science of human flourishing. keywords systematic review, well-being, adolescence, flourishing for decades, psychology has focused on the detection and the approach to different psychological pathologies. however, in the last decades, new models have emerged, with the interest of understanding the optimal psychological functioning. this focus shift has meant an enrichment of the traditional model centered on the deficit (oliva delgado, 2015). in turn, the world health organization (2016) indicated that mental health does not simply refer to mild or non-existent symptomatology, but that it involves a state of well-being in which a person reaches his or her potential, is capable of facing the different situations in life and successfully contributes to the development of his or her community. in this context, the interest in studying well-being was renewed, which in the field of psychology had its origin in two philosophical traditions. on one hand, the hedonic tradition, according to which pleasure, happiness and enjoyment are indicators of well-being. on the other hand, the eudaimonic tradition, focused on the development of one’s own potential and self-fulfillment. currently, it is considered that although both approaches would represent aspects of well-being that are empirically different, the two would be related conceptually and would be complementary (disabato et al., 2016). emergent research has given place to new theories which offer a complex perspective of well-being known as flourishing. although there is no consensus regarding its definition, it is stated that it would be characterized for being a dynamic phenomenon with intrinsic value which would involve the continuous updating of the human potential, giving this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6831&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ place to an optimal state of mental health (wolbert et al., 2015). currently, there are four major theoretical approaches that may be identified, which explain human flourishing (agenor et al., 2017). one of the models was presented by diener et al. (2010), who suggest that flourishing encompasses the sociopsychological prosperity of individuals and consists of life purpose, positive relationships, engagement, competence, self-esteem, optimism and the contribution to the well-being of others. this proposal has been operationalized through the flourishing scale (diener et al., 2010). according to huppert and so (2013), flourishing may be understood as the opposite extreme of the anxiety and depression disorders. it would consist of ten characteristics, these being positive emotions, engagement and purpose as core aspects; and self-esteem, optimism, resilience, vitality, self-determination, emotional stability and positive relationships as complementary aspects. on his part, keyes (2002, 2007) developed a model according to which there would exist a continuum representing the presence or absence of mental health. the latter would extend from states of listlessness, characterized by the absence of emotional, psychological and social well-being, to the flourishing of positive mental health, a state in which the three dimensions mentioned before are fully expressed. this proposal has been operationalized through the mental health continuum (keyes, 2002) and its brief version (keyes et al., 2008). lastly, seligman (2011) proposed the perma model, suggesting that flourishing takes place when a person experien­ ces positive emotion, has a clear meaning and purpose in life, enjoys healthy relationships, gets involved and enjoys activities he or she is interested in, and achieves his or her personal goals. his model has been operationalized through the perma profile scale (butler & kern, 2016). from an analysis of the evolution of the construct, agenor et al. (2017) affirm that there are six basic attributes which overlap in the four theoretical approaches mentioned: meaning, positive relationships, engagement, competence, positive emotion and self-esteem. the authors mention that positive emotions and self-esteem were included due to the support of the majority. lastly, they highlight that while five of the attributes are characteristic of eudaimonics, the positive emotion is the only one of hedonic nature. according to findings, flourishing is a promising construct when assessing human well-being, mainly due to its relation with various indicators of positive adjustment and development. more specifically, stemming from the operationalization of diener et al.’s (2010) model, it was found that flourishing is linked to academic performance (datu, 2018), to creativity (conner et al., 2018), to self-compassion (satici et al., 2013) and it reduces the risk of suicidal thoughts (rey et al., 2019). on the basis of the model proposed by keyes (2002), it was suggested that positive mental health, understood as flourishing, is associated with social support (schotanus-dijkstra et al., 2016), with prosocial behavior (nelson et al., 2016), with the decrease of several risk behaviors and with the implementation of a healthy lifestyle (sofija et al., 2020). in addition, it was found that flourishing reduces the risk of mood disorders such as anxiety and depression (doré et al., 2020; schotanus-dijkstra et al., 2017). lastly, on the basis of the conceptualization and operationalization of the perma model (butler & kern, 2016), it has been indicated that flourishing is associated with gratitude, optimism, self-esteem and happiness (de carvalho et al., 2021), with character strengths (wagner et al., 2020) and with physical health and satisfaction with life, among other indicators of mental health (butler & kern, 2016). despite the increase observed in the number of studies about adult flourishing, empirical findings regarding flourish­ ing in adolescents are still scarce (witten et al., 2019). adolescence is a period of transition that usually has its onset in puberty, around the age of 10, and concludes around the age of 20, with the culmination of physical growth and the resolution of certain tasks, such as the consolida­ tion of the body image, the development of a value system and the implementation of a life project (gallegos, 2013; güemes-hidalgo et al., 2017; world health organization, 2014). because of the particular characteristics of this stage, it is necessary to promote research that enables the understanding of well-being from a developmental perspective. in this sense, several studies point to a pattern of decrease in flourishing during mid-adolescence and late adolescence, which could be attributed to expected developmental processes (romano et al., 2020). it is worth mentioning that, for a long time, adolescence has been conceptualized as a moment of vulnerability that results from physical, psychological and social changes that are taking place and that are often perceived as stressful (cossio-bolaños et al., 2015), leading to the development of conflictive and maladaptive behaviors (marshall, 2014; nixon, 2014; nixon & mcclain, 2010; tang et al., 2014; ybarra & thompson, 2018). however, it must be acknowledged adolescent flourishing 80 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that this stage represents a decisive period for the exploration of potential and the strengthening of those factors that foster prosperity (kern et al., 2016; o’connor et al., 2017). on the other hand, the action of considering the focus of well-being in adolescence has the potential to complement and strengthen the traditional interventions focused on the reduction of psychopathological symptomatology. in the same way, studies indicate that positive mental health during adolescence provides a solid foundation that enables adolescents to face the challenges that come as they enter adulthood in an adaptive way (hoyt et al., 2012; o’connor et al., 2017). finally, it is fundamentally important to deepen in the knowledge of this construct due to its impact in the design of policies which guarantee the fulfilment of human rights and promote the integral mental health of youth (reinhardt et al., 2020). in view of the above, the objective of this work is to identify and review the available literature on flourishing in adolescence, focusing on its tie with other constructs, its study in different contexts, and the available operationalization proposals. methodology design this study constitutes a classic theoretical study (montero & león, 2007). for its elaboration, the guidelines of the prisma (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) declaration (urrútia & bonfill, 2010) were taken into consideration. the steps followed in this revision were: (a) delimitation of the topic, (b) definition of the search strategy and the exclusion and selection criteria, (c) data search and storage, (d) selection of articles gathered after following the criteria, (e) evaluation of the quality of the pre-selected articles, (f) data mining, and (g) data synthesis and interpretation (perestelo-pérez, 2013). search strategy the search of indexed articles in scientific journals was conducted using the key words “flourish” or “flourishing”; “adolescence” or “adolescents” and “mental well-being” or “mental health” and their respective combinations, both in spanish and in english, in the following data sources: scielo, redalyc, ebsco, pubmed, sciencedirect, google scholar/google académico and research gate. the exclusion and selection criteria were taken into consideration when identifying the texts. in addition, a backward search was carried out reviewing the reference lists of the documents selected in the previous step with the purpose of identifying references of interest. exclusion and selection criteria those works which met the following criteria were included: (a) works published between 2010 and 2020, (b) in spanish or english, (c) which make explicit reference to one of the flourishing models or which contain the words “flourish” or “flourishing” or their equivalents in spanish in the title, in the abstract or in the key words, (d) research articles of empirical nature, and (e) works that are studies about adolescent flourishing (participants aged between 10 and 20). the following studies were excluded: (a) those published before 2010 or after 2020, (b) in languages other than spanish or english, (c) which approach the topic in an unclear or tangential way, (d) conducted in other age groups, (e) non empirical articles, that is to say, theoretical articles, dissertations, books, book chapters, etc. selection of studies and quality evaluation with the aim of limiting the bias of inclusion, the selection was carried out with the agreement of two independent reviewers and it took place in two moments. in the first instance, the selection of all those publications which met the selection criteria was considered. then, in a second instance, it was examined whether the works met the necessary quality standards. the quality of the studies which met the selection criteria was evaluated through a scoring system based on an overall assessment of nine domains (long & godfrey, 2004). the two evaluators pointed the quality of each study independently and then compared the evaluations. in case of discrepancies, the final selection of the article under waigel & lemos 81 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consideration was discussed and decided. each study received a score of 1 to 9 and was later classified into one of the following categories: low quality (score of 1 to 3), average (score of 4 to 6), and high (score of 7 to 9). data mining for data mining, each of the publications was objectively described, based on eleven categories (pires et al., 2015): language of the publication, country of the university of the first author, year of publishing, design, method of analysis, type of study, data collection material, instruments, number of participants, age and profile of the participants. data analysis and synthesis the data analysis and synthesis were conducted using the thematic approach proposed by lucas et al. (2007), consisting of the grouping of selected studies into different topics. the thematic synthesis offers the possibility of drawing conclusions from the analysis of heterogeneous studies, taking the common elements as axis. in this step, the collected data were assessed using the information gathered through the eleven categories used for data mining, and taking into consideration the general objective of the study. each researcher conducted the initial analysis independently, reviewing and doing the thematic classification according to the identification of the main emerging topics. subsequently, the topics identified by each researcher were compared and a consolidated list was created. then, a grouping of topics around common dimensions was made. this last process was repeated until both researchers agreed that all the studies could be interpreted within the thematic dimensions proposed. results search results the initial search gave a total of 339 publications. after deleting the duplicate titles, applying the exclusion and selection criteria and analyzing the quality of the studies, 28 publications were selected to conform the present revision (see figure 1). figure 1 search stages quality assessment all the articles included in the previous point were submitted to quality assessment. as was mentioned before, in the methodology section, nine domains derived from the long and godfrey (2004) scale were assessed. for each of the criteria that was satisfactorily met, a point was added. in this way, the articles were classified into the categories of low adolescent flourishing 82 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (scores between 1 and 3), medium (scores between 4 and 6) and high quality (scores between 7 and 9), based on the total points. while 25 of the assessed articles showed a score between 7 and 9, corresponding to an overall assessment of high quality, the other three showed average quality, with a score between 4 and 6 (see table 1). profile of the selected studies from the extracted data it was detected that, throughout the years, there was an increase in the productions, with spikes of six publications a year during 2015 and 2019, five in 2016, four in 2020 and three in 2017. in the years 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2018 there was one release per year. regarding the language of publication, a predominance of publications in english was observed (n = 27), finding only one study in spanish. regarding the geographic region where the university of the first author was located, australia and the united states stood out with five publications, followed by india (n = 3), canada (n = 2), china (n = 2) and indonesia (n = 2). finally, publications from chile (n = 1), south korea (n = 1), spain (n = 1), the philippines (n = 1), hungary (n = 1), ireland (n = 1), israel (n = 1), portugal (n = 1) and south africa (n = 1) were identified. furthermore, a clear predominance of studies with cross-sectional design (n = 26) was found. also, a study with mixed methods and another with longitudinal design were detected. the data analysis was predominantly quantitative (n = 27). regarding the type of study, there was a higher number of psychometric works (n = 11), followed by explanatory studies (n = 10), descriptive-correlational (n = 5) and comparative (n = 2). studies which used self-reports as the method of data collection were frequent (n = 22), although other works drew on phone surveys (n = 3) and web surveys (n = 2). a study combining the administration of self-reports and the conducting of structured interviews was detected (n = 1). regarding the instruments, there was a variety of them. in the case of the studies which include interviews to parents, one can identify the use of items which do not conform a scale but that work as particular indicators of one of the dimensions of flourishing. finally, the number of participants included in the studies conducted in adolescent population varied between 216 and 74501. in all cases, the adolescents who participated in the studies were schooled. in the case of the studies in which the parents of the adolescents were interviewed (n = 4), the number of participants was in the range of 4345 to 51156. lastly, an article in which the size of the sample was not informed was detected. waigel & lemos 83 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 m at ri x of a rt ic le s in cl ud ed in th e r ev ie w a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t be th el l, g om bo ja v, & w hi ta ke r 20 19 u ni te d st at es to d et er m in e th e pr ev al en ce an d th e pr ed ic to rs o f fl ou ri sh in g in c hi ld re n an d ad ol es ce nt s. c c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y w eb s ur ve y 51 15 6 pa re nt s t he p re va le nc e of flo ur is hi ng w as 4 0. 3% . fl ou ri sh in g w as as so ci at ed w ith h ig he r le ve ls o f r es ili en ce a nd fa m ily c on ne ct io n. h ig h bu rk e & m in to n 20 19 ir el an d to k no w th e ef fe ct o f fl ou ri sh in g, th e di ff er en ce s ac co rd in g to a ge a nd g en de r, an d th e co nt ri bu tio n of ch ar ac te r st re ng th s to ad ol es ce nt fl ou ri sh in g. b c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 28 22 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 12 to 1 9 fl ou ri sh in g de cr ea se d w ith a ge a nd w om en re po rt ed lo w er le ve ls th an m en . t he u nd er ut ili za tio n of c ha ra ct er st re ng th s pr ed ic te d lo w er le ve ls o f pr os pe ri ty . a ve ra ge bu tle r, pa tt e, f er ro , & le at he rd al e 20 18 c an ad a to e xa m in e w he th er de pr es si on a nd a nx ie ty a re as so ci at ed w ith th e us e of ca nn ab is a nd to k no w if fl ou ri sh in g m od er at es th es e as so ci at io ns . b c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 81 79 a do le sc en ts , se co nd ar y sc ho ol st ud en ts a ss oc ia tio ns b et w ee n de pr es si on , a nx ie ty a nd us e of c an na bi s w er e no t s ig ni fi ca nt w he n co ns id er in g th e m od er at in g ro le o f flo ur is hi ng . h ow ev er , ne ga tiv e re la tio ns w er e de te ct ed b et w ee n flo ur is hi ng a nd ca nn ab is u se . h ig h d at u 20 18 ph ili pp in es to e xa m in e th e re la tio n be tw ee n flo ur is hi ng a nd pe rc ei ve d ac ad em ic ac hi ev em en t, ac ad em ic pe rf or m an ce , b eh av io ra l en ga ge m en t a nd e m ot io na l en ga ge m en t. b c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 42 4 ad ol es ce nt s (m = 18 .4 9, s d = 1 .4 5) ; 52 5 ad ol es ce nt s (m = 13 .8 5, s d = 1 .2 3) fl ou ri sh in g pr ed ic te d ac ad em ic p er fo rm an ce po si tiv el y, a ft er co nt ro lli ng a ge , g en de r an d su bj ec tiv e w el lbe in g. f lo ur is hi ng po si tiv el y pr ed ic te d ac ad em ic a ch ie ve m en t, be ha vi or al e ng ag em en t an d em ot io na l en ga ge m en t o f ad ol es ce nt s. h ig h d ua n & x ie 20 19 c hi na to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e fl ou ri sh in g sc al e (d ie ne r et a l., 2 01 0) in a c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 76 6 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 12 to 1 7 (m = 15 .1 8, s d = 1 .6 6) t he s ca le p re se nt ed a on edi m en si on al st ru ct ur e an d ad eq ua te a ve ra ge adolescent flourishing 84 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t sa m pl e of a do le sc en ts fr om c hi na . d ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. g uo , t om so n, g uo , li , k el le r, & sö de rq vi st 20 15 c hi na to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e m h c -s f (k ey es e t a l., 2 00 8) in ad ol es ce nt s fr om c hi na , pr ov id in g ev id en ce o f v al id ity an d in va ri an ce b y ge nd er a nd ag e. d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 53 99 a do le sc en ts , (m = 1 5. 13 , s d = 1. 56 ) t he m h c -s f pr es en te d a th re efa ct or s tr uc tu re , ad eq ua te p sy ch om et ri c pr op er tie s, a nd m et ri c an d se tt in g in va ri an ce th ro ug h ge nd er a nd ag e. h ig h k er n, b en so n, st ei nb er g, & st ei nb er g 20 16 a us tr al ia to d ev el op th e ep o c h m ea su re (k er n et a l., 2 01 5) an d to a ss es s its p sy ch om et ri c pr op er tie s. d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 44 80 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 10 to 1 8 t he e po c h m ea su re pr es en te d a fi ve -f ac to r st ru ct ur e an d ad eq ua te ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. h ig h k er n, w at er s, a dl er , & w hi te 20 15 a us tr al ia to te st th e pe rm a m ul tid im en si on al th eo ry em pi ri ca lly , p ro po si ng a w el lbe in g qu es tio nn ai re th at op er at io na liz es th is m od el . d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 51 6 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 13 to 1 8 fa ct or ia l a na ly se s id en tif ie d fo ur o f t he fi ve fa ct or s fr om th e pe rm a m od el a nd tw o fa ct or s of d is co m fo rt . h ig h k im , j an g, & k im 20 20 u ni te d st at es to e xa m in e th e re la tio n be tw ee n flo ur is hi ng a nd di ff er en t s oc io -e co lo gi ca l va ri ab le s in c hi ld re n an d ad ol es ce nt s. a c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y ph on e su rv ey 45 30 9 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 10 to 1 7 (m = 13 .6 3, s d = 2 .3 5) se ve ra l m ul til ev el so ci oec ol og ic al fa ct or s (in di vi du al ch ar ac te ri st ic s, p ar en ts ’ ca pa bi lit y an d fa m ily fu nc tio ns ) w er e si gn if ic an tly li nk ed to ad ol es ce nt fl ou ri sh in g. h ig h kw on g & h ay es 20 17 u ni te d st at es to a ss es s th e im pa ct th at ad ve rs e ex pe ri en ce s in ch ild ho od h av e on th e he al th an d flo ur is hi ng o f c hi ld re n an d ad ol es ce nt s. c c ro ss -s ec tio na l d es cr ip tiv e ph on e su rv ey t he s iz e of th e sa m pl e is n ot re po rt ed , a ge s 6 to 17 si gn if ic an t d iff er en ce s in fl ou ri sh in g w er e ob se rv ed a cc or di ng to th e nu m be r of a dv er se fa m ily e xp er ie nc es . so ci al c on ne ct io n w ou ld fo st er fl ou ri sh in g am on g ch ild re n w ith m or e th an th re e ad ve rs e ex pe ri en ce s. h ig h li m 20 14 so ut h k or ea to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e m h c -s f (k ey es e t a l., 2 00 8) in ad ol es ce nt s fr om s ou th k or ea . d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 54 7 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 14 to 1 7 (m = 16 .0 8, s d = 0 .3 4) t he m h c -s f pr es en te d a tw ofa ct or s tr uc tu re an d ad eq ua te ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. h ig h waigel & lemos 85 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t n ab or s, m er ia no s, v id ou re k, k in g, ro se n, z ha ng , & sw ob od a 20 16 u ni te d st at es to e xa m in e flo ur is hi ng am on g ad ol es ce nt s w ith a nd w ith ou t a st hm a, a nd th e im pa ct o f b ul ly in g an d m oo d di ff ic ul tie s. a c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y w eb s ur ve y pa re nt s of 2 87 21 ad ol es ce nt s ag ed 1 3 to 1 7 a do le sc en ts w ith as th m a pr es en te d lo w er fl ou ri sh in g th an th os e w ith ou t a st hm a. a do le sc en ts w ith as th m a w ho ex pe ri en ce d bu lly in g an d fe el in gs o f s ad ne ss ha d lo w er fl ou ri sh in g. h ig h o ’c on no r, sa ns on , to um bo ur ou , n or ri sh , & o ls so n 20 17 a us tr al ia to e xa m in e th e lo ng -t er m im pl ic at io ns o f a do le sc en t fl ou ri sh in g in th e tr an si tio n to ad ul th oo d. b lo ng itu di na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 99 9 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 15 to 1 6 (f ir st ev al ua tio n) a nd 2 7 to 2 8 (s ec on d ev al ua tio n) a do le sc en t f lo ur is hi ng w as a ss oc ia te d w ith in di ca to rs o f pr of es si on al p ro gr es s an d th e ta ki ng o f c iv ic re sp on si bi lit ie s a de ca de la te r. h ig h o rk ib i, h am am a, g av ri el -f ri ed , & ro ne n 20 18 is ra el to a ss es s a m od el th at de sc ri be s th e un de rl yi ng m ec ha ni sm o f a do le sc en t de ve lo pm en t f ro m a p os iti ve ps yc ho lo gi ca l p er sp ec tiv e. b c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 80 7 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 12 to 1 5 a d ir ec t p os iti ve li nk w as o bs er ve d be tw ee n th e ab ili tie s of s el fco nt ro l a nd th e po si tiv ity r at e, a s w el l as a n in di re ct li nk th ro ug h th e so ci al su pp or t a do le sc en ts pe rc ei ve d fr om th ei r pa re nt s an d pe er s. h ig h o rt iz , g ut ié rr ez & pr oe st ak is 20 20 c hi le to a da pt a nd a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e ep o c h m ea su re o f a do le sc en t w el lbe in g (k er n et a l., 2 01 5) in a do le sc en ts fr om c hi le . d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 15 58 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 11 to 1 8 t he e po c h p re se nt ed a fi ve -f ac to r st ru ct ur e an d ac ce pt ab le ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. a ve ra ge re in ha rd t, h or vá th , m or ga n, & k ök ön ye i 20 20 h un ga ry to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e m h c -s f (k ey es e t a l., 2 00 8) a nd to id en tif y w el lbe in g pr of ile s in ad ol es ce nt s fr om h un ga ry . d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 15 72 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 11 to 2 0 (m = 15 .3 9, s d = 2 .2 6) t he m h c -s f pr es en te d a bi fa ct or ia l s tr uc tu re . in va ri an ce w as ob se rv ed th ro ug h ge nd er . f ou r fl ou ri sh in g pr of ile s w er e id en tif ie d: fl ou ri sh in g, m od er at e m en ta l h ea lth , la ng ui sh in g, a nd em ot io na lly v ul ne ra bl e. h ig h adolescent flourishing 86 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t re y, m ér id aló pe z, sá nc he zá lv ar ez , & ex tr em er a 20 19 sp ai n to a ss es s th e m ed ia tin g ro le of fl ou ri sh in g in th e re la tio n be tw ee n em ot io na l in te lli ge nc e an d th e ri sk o f su ic id e am on g ad ol es ce nt s w ho a re v ic tim s of b ul ly in g. c c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y se lfre po rt s 49 4 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 12 to 1 7 (m = 14 .5 5, s d = 1 .6 7) t hr ou gh fl ou ri sh in g, em ot io na l i nt el lig en ce w as li nk ed to a de cr ea se in th e ri sk o f su ic id e. h ig h ro m an o, f er ro , p at te , d ie ne r, & le at he rd al e 20 20 c an ad a to e xa m in e th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e fl ou ri sh in g sc al e (d ie ne r et a l., 2 01 0) a nd th e in va ri an ce in tw o sa m pl es of a do le sc en ts fr om c an ad a. d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 74 50 1 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 12 to 1 9 t he s ca le p re se nt ed go od p sy ch om et ri c pr op er tie s, a s tr on g va lid ity c on ve rg en t w ith o th er m ea su re s of w el lbe in g, a nd in va ri an ce th ro ug h ge nd er a nd e th ni cra ci al id en tit y. h ig h de c ar va lh o, s al ga do pe re ir a, m ar qu es pi nt o, & m ar oc o 20 16 po rt ug al to a na ly ze th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e m h c -s f (k ey es e t a l., 2 00 8) in c hi ld re n an d ad ol es ce nt s fr om po rt ug al . d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 21 6 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 10 to 1 4 (m = 11 , s d = 1 .2 1) t he s ca le p re se nt ed a th re efa ct or s tr uc tu re an d sa tis fa ct or y ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. in a dd iti on , in va ri an ce w as ob se rv ed th ro ug h ge nd er a nd a ge . h ig h se ty an da ri 20 19 in do ne si a to a da pt th e ep o c h m ea su re (k er n et a l., 2 01 5) fo r ad ol es ce nt s fr om in do ne si a. d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 51 4 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 12 a nd 1 3 t he tr an sl at ed s ca le pr es en te d ac ce pt ab le ps yc ho m et ri c fu nc tio ni ng . h ig h si ng h & r ai na 20 20 in di a to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e h in di a nd en gl is h ve rs io ns o f t he pe rm a s ca le (k er n et a l., 20 15 ) a nd th e w em w bs s ca le (t en na nt e t a l., 2 00 7) in ad ol es ce nt s fr om in di a. d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 12 88 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 13 to 1 8 (m = 15 .2 7, s d = 1 .0 8) t he s ca le s pr es en te d ad eq ua te p sy ch om et ri c pr op er tie s. m en ex pe ri en ce d m or e po si tiv e em ot io ns a nd en ga ge m en t t ha n w om en a nd s tu de nt s fr om p ri va te s ch oo ls , an d ad ol es ce nt s w ho w er e fr om r ur al a re as an d yo un ge r pr es en te d hi gh er s co re s in po si tiv e fa ct or s of m en ta l h ea lth . h ig h si ng h, b as si , ju nn ar ka r, & n eg ri 20 15 in di a to e st im at e th e pr ev al en ce o f fl ou ri sh in g an d to e xa m in e its as so ci at io ns w ith m en ta l an gu is h an d ps yc ho so ci al c ro ss -s ec tio na l c om pa ra tiv e se lfre po rt s 53 9 ad ol es ce nt s, a ge s 13 to 1 8 (m = 15 , s d = 1 .4 ) t he p er ce nt ag e of flo ur is hi ng p ar tic ip an ts w as 4 6. 4% . w om en a nd yo un ge r ad ol es ce nt s h ig h waigel & lemos 87 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t fu nc tio ni ng , t ak in g th e ag e an d th e ge nd er in to a cc ou nt . b pr es en te d m or e flo ur is hi ng th an m en an d ol de r ad ol es ce nt s. fl ou ri sh in g yo ut h re po rt ed lo w er pr ev al en ce o f de pr es si on a nd o f ad ju st m en t d iff ic ul tie s, an d hi gh er p ro so ci al be ha vi or . si ng h, ju nn ar ka r, & ja sw al 20 16 in di a to a ss es s th e ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s of th e fl ou ri sh in g sc al e (d ie ne r et a l., 2 01 0) a nd th e sp a n e (d ie ne r et a l., 20 10 ). d c ro ss -s ec tio na l in st ru m en t b ui ld in g se lfre po rt s 78 9 pa rt ic ip an ts , a ge s 18 to 6 5 (m = 25 .6 4, s d = 6 .7 6) ; 26 08 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 11 to 1 7 (m = 14 .9 5, s d = 1 .4 5) ; 78 6 pa rt ic ip an ts , a ge s 18 to 5 6 (m = 24 .5 6, s d = 3 .8 7) sc al es p re se nt ed sa tis fa ct or y ps yc ho m et ri c pr op er tie s. t he fl ou ri sh in g sc al e pr es en te d a on efa ct or st ru ct ur e an d th e sp a n e pr es en te d a tw ofa ct or s tr uc tu re . h ig h sk rz yp ie c, a sk el lw ill ia m s, s le e, & ru dz in sk i 20 16 a us tr al ia to a na ly ze th e flo ur is hi ng o f st ud en ts w ith s pe ci al ed uc at io na l n ee ds . a c ro ss -s ec tio na l c om pa ra tiv e se lfre po rt s 19 30 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 13 to 1 5 (m = 13 .7 , s d = 1 .4 ) st ud en ts w ith s pe ci al ed uc at io na l n ee ds re po rt ed lo w er le ve ls o f flo ur is hi ng th an th ei r pe er s w ho d id n ot h av e sp ec ia l n ee ds . h ig h o da r st ou gh , n ab or s, m er ia no s, & z ha ng 20 15 u ni te d st at es to e xa m in e th e flo ur is hi ng o f ad ol es ce nt s w ith c on vu ls iv e di so rd er s. a c ro ss -s ec tio na l ex pl an at or y ph on e su rv ey 23 79 9 pa re nt s of ad ol es ce nt s ag ed 1 4 to 1 7 a do le sc en ts w ith co nv ul si ve d is or de rs pr es en te d lo w er flo ur is hi ng th an th ei r pe er s, a nd th ei r le ve l o f flo ur is hi ng w as pr ed ic te d by th e se ri ou sn es s of th ei r sy m pt om s, th ei r ag e, th ei r et hn ic ity , t he ir ge nd er , a nd th ei r pa re nt s’ r ag e. h ig h su lis tio w at i, k el ia t, w ar da ni , a ld am , tr ia na , & f lo re ns a 20 19 in do ne si a to d es cr ib e th e ps yc ho lo gi ca l, em ot io na l a nd s oc ia l w el lbe in g of a do le sc en ts fr om in do ne si a. a c ro ss -s ec tio na l d es cr ip tiv e se lfre po rt s 97 2 se co nd ar y sc ho ol a do le sc en t st ud en ts a do le sc en ts p re se nt ed hi gh le ve ls o f ps yc ho lo gi ca l, em ot io na l a nd s oc ia l w el lbe in g, a nd it w as ob se rv ed th at 4 6. 3% ha d flo ur is hi ng m en ta l he al th . h ig h adolescent flourishing 88 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs ye ar o f pu bl ic at io n g eo gr ap hi ca l re gi on o bj ec ti ve d es ig n ty pe o f s tu dy in st ru m en ts o f da ta c ol le ct io n n, a ge m ai n re su lt s q ua lit y as se ss m en t va n sc ha lk w yk & w is si ng 20 10 so ut h a fr ic a to e xa m in e th e flo ur is hi ng o f ad ol es ce nt s fr om s ou th a fr ic a. a m ix ed m et ho ds d es cr ip tiv e se lfre po rt s an d st ru ct ur ed in te rv ie w s 11 16 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 15 to 1 7 a do le sc en ts s ug ge st ed th at fl ou ri sh in g is ch ar ac te ri ze d by le ad in g a m ea ni ng fu l lif e, h av in g po si tiv e so ci al r el at io ns hi ps , be in g a ro le m od el , pr es en tin g hi gh le ve ls of s el fes te em , a da pt iv e co pi ng , p os iti ve em ot io ns a nd g ra tit ud e. h ig h ve nn in g, w ils on , k et tle r, & e lio tt 20 13 a us tr al ia to d es cr ib e th e pr ev al en ce o f fl ou ri sh in g in a do le sc en ts fr om a us tr al ia . b c ro ss -s ec tio na l d es cr ip tiv e se lfre po rt s 31 13 a do le sc en ts , a ge s 13 to 1 7 t he p er ce nt ag e of ad ol es ce nt s w ho pr es en te d flo ur is hi ng m en ta l h ea lth w as 4 2% . t ho se w ho w er e la ng ui sh in g sh ow ed m or e be ha vi or s w hi ch re pr es en te d a ri sk to th ei r he al th . h ig h a f lo ur is hi ng in d iff er en t c on te xt s. b f lo ur is hi ng in r el at io n to o th er r es ul ts a nd p os iti ve p sy ch ol og ic al c ha ra ct er is tic s an d/ or th ei r ne ga tiv e co un te rp ar t. c f lo ur is hi ng a nd p sy ch os oc ia l v ul ne ra bi lit y. d in di ca to rs fo r th e as se ss m en t o f f lo ur is hi ng . waigel & lemos 89 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thematic analysis of the selected studies the publications included in this revision were classified in four thematic axes. flourishing in different contexts in this axis, which understands flourishing as a construct influenced by the different cultural, social and context-related aspects of the place where the adolescent develops, six articles were included. according to kim et al. (2020), the flourishing of american children and adolescents is associated to various socio-ecological factors. more specifically, the authors suggest that overweight, sedentary lifestyle and frequent school absences are related to lower levels of prosperity in children and youth. regarding the impact of the family context, results indicate that those parents with good psychological and physical health, who show ability to face stress, promote the flourishing of children. furthermore, alcohol consumption and drug use in the family context is inversely related to child-adolescent well-being. finally, those children and adolescents who participate in different family activities and who have a good bond with their parents show higher levels of flourishing. in another study, sulistiowati et al. (2019) assessed the mental health of indonesian adolescents. the authors reported that, at the moment of the evaluation, 46.3% of the participants presented flourishing mental health and male adolescents showed significantly higher scores than the females. on the other hand, van schalkwyk and wissing (2010) evaluated the prosperity of south african adolescents. through structured interviews, they evaluated the notion participants had of flourishing. according to their findings, it was understood as the living of a constructive life, with purpose, enjoying positive social relationships, showing self-confidence and healthy coping. on their part, skrzypiec et al. (2016) analyzed the prosperity of australian adolescents with special needs. according to their findings, the students with special educational needs perceived themselves as less flourishing than those students of normative population. lastly, in this thematic axis, those studies which take into consideration the impact of different physical conditions on adolescent flourishing were also included. nabors et al. (2016) explored the prosperity of young people with asthma. according to their findings, those adolescents who suffer from asthma present lower flourishing than those who do not suffer from this condition. they also detected that, while positive coping in parents fosters the flourishing of their asthmatic child, anger and rage have a negative impact. in this line, odar stough et al. (2015) found that those adolescents who suffer from epilepsy show lower flourishing than their peers with no convulsive disorders. flourishing in relation to other positive results and psychological characteristics and/or their negative counterpart although most literature about flourishing has focused on its association with different positive results and psychologi­ cal characteristics, studies evaluating its negative association with constructs such as depression and anxiety have also been detected. in this thematic section, six articles were included. regarding the relationship between flourishing and constructs of pathological nature, butler et al. (2019) examined if there was an association between depression and/or anxiety and the use of cannabis in adolescents and, also, if flour­ ishing moderated these associations. their results indicate that flourishing alleviates the negative association between depression and/or anxiety and the use of cannabis among young people. in addition, higher levels of flourishing would result in less use of cannabis. in this same line, according to singh et al. (2015), flourishing adolescents would present less prevalence of depressive symptomatology and lower psychological maladjustment, manifesting a more prosocial behavior than that of their languishing peers. on the other hand, venning et al. (2013) found that the majority of adolescents included in their study were not striving and that these adolescents, who languished or weakened, showed higher levels of behaviors that were risky for their health. regarding the relationship between flourishing and other positive traits, orkibi et al. (2018) examined a model which postulates the link between self-control, positivity and the perceived social support. according to their findings, there is a positive and direct association between the skills of self-control and the level of positivity, as well as an indirect link, through the perceived social support. the authors state that both the abilities of self-control as well as the high index adolescent flourishing 90 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of positivity, understood as the ability to experience a higher number of positive emotions than negative ones, would be indicators of flourishing in adolescents. on the other hand, burke and minton (2019) evaluated the flourishing and the predicting role of character strengths in adolescents from ireland. results indicate that all the aspects of flourishing diminish with age. moreover, women reported lower levels of flourishing than men. finally, they observed that the underutilization of character strengths would predict a lower level of flourishing. o’connor et al. (2017) drew from the assumption that mental health during adolescence would have implications in the functioning in later periods of life. based on their findings, high levels of adolescent flourishing would predict the establishment of a professional career, civic engagement and participation in activities of volunteering a decade later. finally, taking into account the importance that school life has during adolescence, datu (2018) assessed the associ­ ation of flourishing with successful academic performance. results indicate that flourishing would predict academic accomplishments, behavioral engagement and emotional engagement of students in high school. flourishing and psychosocial vulnerability. according to bethell et al. (2019), despite the fact that knowledge about flourishing has increased in the last years, little is known about the flourishing of those children and youth who face unfavorable circumstances. three published works were identified in relation to the thematic of this section. in a study conducted in american children and adolescents, the prevalence of childhood and juvenile flourishing in terms of different levels of exposure to adverse experiences, the presence of needs of special medical care and other sociodemographic characteristics was evaluated. results showed that the prevalence of flourishing was positively associated with higher levels of resilience and family connection (bethell et al., 2019). in the same line, kwong and hayes (2017) studied the relationship between adverse family experiences and flourish­ ing in children and adolescents. their findings show significant differences in flourishing according to the number of adverse family experiences endured. lastly, rey et al. (2019) assessed emotional intelligence and flourishing as protective factors against the risk of suicide in victims of bullying. according to their findings, the level of flourishing can significantly predict the risk of suicide among the victims of school harassment, especially in those cases in which the victim shows low levels of emotional intelligence. measures for the evaluation of flourishing. in this thematic axis, 12 published works were detected. these can be divided according to the three major scales which operationalize flourishing: the flourishing scale (fs) designed by diener et al. (2010), the mental health continuum (mhc) by keyes (2002) and its short version (mhc-sf, keyes et al., 2008), and the epoch scale (kern et al., 2015). the scale of flourishing by diener et al. (2010) has been adapted in a sample of adolescents from china (duan & xie, 2019) and india (singh et al., 2016), with a one-dimensional structure replicated in both cases. on the other hand, invariance through gender, school grade and ethnic-racial identity of the adapted version of the mentioned scale in adolescent population in canada is reported (romano et al, 2020). the mhc (keyes, 2002) has been validated in the hungarian context for adolescent population (reinhardt et al., 2020). according to the reported results, the adaptation of the scale would present a bifactorial structure consisting of a dominant global factor (overall well-being) and another factor of specific components (emotional, psychological and social well-being). in its short version (keyes et al., 2008), the mhc has been adapted for adolescents from portugal (de carvalho et al., 2016), china (guo et al., 2015, 2016) and south korea (lim, 2014). finally, the epoch scale has been designed originally by kern et al. (2016) in order to assess the perma multidi­ mensional model of well-being. said scale has been adapted for adolescent population from chile (ortiz et al., 2020) and indonesia (setyandari, 2019). moreover, singh and raina (2020) validated an additional scale for the evaluation of the perma model in adolescents from india, reporting good psychometric properties. waigel & lemos 91 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion and final considerations the objective of this study was to identify and review the available literature on flourishing in adolescence, focusing on its tie with other constructs, its study in different contexts, and the available operationalization proposals. although one can observe an increase of publications throughout the years, research about adolescent flourishing is still scarce (bethell et al., 2019). moreover, a clear disproportion is identified as regards the language of publishing, with a knowledge gap about the flourishing of the spanish-speaking adolescent population. in this sense, it is highly necessary to notice and consider the cultural differences so as to avoid the extrapolation of concepts from a hegemonic context towards populations which are poorly represented in literature (cobo-rendón et al., 2020; fernandes ferreira lima & araujo de morais, 2018). on the other hand, there is numeric predominance of cross-sectional studies of quantitative nature, which reveals the need to carry out longitudinal studies that allow to know the stability of flourishing, its predictors, and to verify its implications for the development (fernandes ferreira lima & araujo de morais, 2018). regarding the conceptualization and operationalization of flourishing, two situations have been detected. although a number of publications were recovered, which worked from some of the available theoretical models (e.g. butler et al., 2019; reinhardt et al., 2020), other works have evaluated flourishing through particular indicators (e.g. bethell et al., 2019). this situation makes it difficult to compare the results and it generates little clarity as regards the definition of flourishing. according to witten et al. (2019), when the construct is understood in a vague manner, instruments which do not align with the theory are designed and used and, often, they evaluate the construct in an incomplete way. the positioning of the authors regarding the underlying models of their research is necessary, since it is based on the theoretical frame supporting the work that different explanations for the researched phenomena will emerge (fernandes ferreira lima & araujo de morais, 2018). on the other hand, it has been detected that in various studies researchers resort to parental evaluation of adolescent flourishing (e.g. bethell et al., 2019; kim et al., 2020). in relationship to this, although parents continue being involved in the lives of their adolescents, it is estimated that the global evaluation of well-being is more precise when it is performed through self-reported instruments. moreover, it must be highlighted that, from the cognitive theory, what has more impact on the behavior of people is the self-perception of psychological resources (ben-arieh et al., 2014; disabato et al., 2016; lemos, 2013). just as it has been observed in this review, factors which associate with and have an impact on flourishing operate in multiple levels (kandasamy et al., 2018; kim et al., 2020). studies report that the anger of parents (nabors et al., 2016; odar stough et al., 2015) and the use of substances (kim et al., 2020) is related to lower levels of prosperity in children. in contrast, good physical and mental health of the parents, their coping skills (kim et al., 2020; nabors et al., 2016), doing family activities and having good father-son bonds (kim et al., 2020) has a positive impact. as far as personal factors is concerned, the increase in age (burke & minton, 2019; de carvalho et al., 2016; romano et al., 2020; singh et al., 2015), overweight, sedentary lifestyle and frequent school absences (kim et al., 2020), special educational needs (skrzypiec et al., 2016) and suffering from asthma or epilepsy (nabors et al., 2016; odar stough et al., 2015) would decrease the flourishing in adolescents. however, the development of character strengths would predict the prosperity of the youth (burke & minton, 2019). moreover, according to different studies, flourishing would be linked to a positive development both during adolescence (butler et al., 2019; datu, 2018) as well as during adulthood (keyes, 2006; o’connor et al., 2017). it is worth mentioning that contradictory results were observed regarding the influence of gender on flourishing. while a few studies report that boys enjoy more flourishing (burke & minton, 2019; romano et al., 2020; sulistiowati et al., 2019), others suggest that girls reach higher scores (singh et al., 2015) or that there are no significant differences (de carvalho et al., 2016; reinhardt et al., 2020). these results could be explained based on the socio-cultural context or, even, on the social desirability linked to the evaluation of constructs of positive nature (burke & minton, 2019). on the other hand, as it has been mentioned, there is a breach in research regarding flourishing of those adolescents who face circumstances of vulnerability. it is necessary to understand the factors that foster flourishing in those scenarios (bethell et al., 2019). in connection with the above, due to the fact that the consequences that several situations adolescent flourishing 92 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of vulnerability have in adolescents are different from those in adults, it is necessary to know their impact on the future development and well-being (cabieses et al., 2020). finally, it is worth mentioning that the evaluation of flourishing requires the construction and validation of instru­ ments which are appropriate for the age and the socio-cultural context. according to rose et al. (2017), although now there are more available scales for its evaluation, the construct has not yet been defined in a consistent manner. having valid and reliable scales which operationalize the construct in a robust way would allow for the evaluation of flourishing in the different stages of life and would help to know the efficacy of the interventions designed to promote mental health. it is necessary to highlight that a science which has the promotion of the integral health of people as its main goal should pay attention to the design of strategies which stimulate flourishing from an early age (de carvalho et al., 2016). besides, although for decades adolescence has been explained from theories centered in the psychopathology, this stage offers unique opportunities to foster the optimum development of all people (giménez et al., 2010). limitations and future instructions although this review identified 28 articles, other publications were excluded, which, even though they worked on adolescent flourishing or relevant aspects linked to it, they did not meet the selection criteria. the cut made in the choosing of the databases may have left out certain publications such as congress presentations or dissertations on the topic. moreover, some of the studies include not only adolescents in their samples, but also children or young adults, which hinders the interpretation of the results. finally, the parental evaluation of the construct that was proposed in some of the works may have distorted the information regarding the particular subjective experience of adolescents. for future studies, we suggest that longitudinal designs be used as well as intervention designs which analyze flourishing through different stages of life and their positive correlates associated. moreover, the need for research in spanish-speaking contexts and in developing countries is highlighted, with the objective of establishing transcultural comparisons. although a few works based on the self-assessment of flourishing were found, as well as others stemming from peer assessment, it is worth mentioning that the conducting of studies that combine both measures is recommen­ ded. finally, the need of theoretical and methodological refinement which facilitates the understanding of attributes, antecedents and results of adolescent flourishing and that contributes to the building up of a science which conducts research regarding the possible ways towards human flourishing is noted. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references agenor, c., conner, n., & aroian, k. 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(2018). predicting the emergence of sexual violence in adolescence. prevention science, 19(4), 403– 415. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0810-4 about the authors nicole waigel is a phd student at the universidad de palermo. her research focuses on the study of adolescents' well-being and its precedents. viviana lemos, phd. is a principal independent researcher at conicet and professor at the universidad adventista del plata. her research interests focus on the study and evaluation of different socio-emotional and cognitive resources associated with personality. waigel & lemos 97 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 79–99 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6831 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17249472 https://doi.org/10.1080/24694193.2019.1594460 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2013.12.010 https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-5-63 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.medcli.2010.01.015 https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2010.10820342 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-9544.2012.00068.x https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9695-z https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2019.1640341 https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2014.998032 http://apps.who.int/adolescent/seconddecade/files/who_fwc_mca_14.05_spa.pdf http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs220/en/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-017-0810-4 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adolescent flourishing (introduction) methodology design search strategy exclusion and selection criteria selection of studies and quality evaluation data mining data analysis and synthesis results search results quality assessment profile of the selected studies thematic analysis of the selected studies discussion and final considerations limitations and future instructions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors delusional ideation, cognitive processes and crime based reasoning research reports delusional ideation, cognitive processes and crime based reasoning dean j. wilkinson* a, laura s. caulfield b [a] department of psychology, university of worcester, worcester, united kingdom. [b] bath spa university, bath, united kingdom. abstract probabilistic reasoning biases have been widely associated with levels of delusional belief ideation (galbraith, manktelow, & morris, 2010; lincoln, ziegler, mehl, & rief, 2010; speechley, whitman, & woodward, 2010; white & mansell, 2009), however, little research has focused on biases occurring during every day reasoning (galbraith, manktelow, & morris, 2011), and moral and crime based reasoning (wilkinson, caulfield, & jones, 2014; wilkinson, jones, & caulfield, 2011). 235 participants were recruited across four experiments exploring crime based reasoning through different modalities and dual processing tasks. study one explored delusional ideation when completing a visually presented crime based reasoning task. study two explored the same task in an auditory presentation. study three utilised a dual task paradigm to explore modality and executive functioning. study four extended this paradigm to the auditory modality. the results indicated that modality and delusional ideation have a significant effect on individuals reasoning about violent and non-violent crime (p < .05), which could have implication for the presentation of evidence in applied setting such as the courtroom. keywords: delusional ideation, crime based reasoning, cognition europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 received: 2016-04-26. accepted: 2017-02-06. published (vor): 2017-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of worcester, henrick grove, worcester wr2 6aj, united kingdom. e-mail: d.wilkinson@worc.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. individuals engage in reasoning processes as they interact and exist within the world (green & gilhooly, 2005). whilst people have the ability to successfully navigate their way through everyday complex situations, ‘biases’ or errors in reasoning have been detected whilst individuals solve simple reasoning problems in a psychological laboratory setting (verschueren, schaeken, & d’ydewalle, 2005). this setting potentially differs to everyday life in that the environment is controlled and usually the individual is focussing on a single task, as opposed to everyday life where individuals are processing multiple streams of rich sensory information (wilkinson, caulfield, & jones, 2014; wilkinson, jones, & caulfield, 2011). delusional ideation in clinical populations it is argued that reasoning impairments contribute to the formation and maintenance of delusional beliefs (coltheart, langdon, & mckay, 2011; connors & halligan, 2015). an influential study being huq, garety, and hemsley (1988) of the beads task paradigm. ‘probabilistic style’ reasoning (oaksford & chater, 2001), plays a central role in the conditional inference process (oaksford, chater, & larkin, 2000), and can lead to errors in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ individuals reasoning (evans, ellis, & newstead, 1996; george, 1997; stevenson & over, 1995). probabilistic reasoning bias’ have been widely reported in clinical populations with a diagnosis of a psychosis (garety, hemsley, & wessely, 1991; hemsley & garety, 1986; huq, garety, & hemsley, 1988) which suggests that under conditions of uncertainty, patients with delusions demonstrate a `jumping to conclusions' (jtc) style of reasoning, requiring less information to come to a decision, and being more confident about the decision that they have reached (e.g. dudley, john, young, & over, 1997; fear & healy, 1997; garety et al., 1991; huq et al., 1988). however, recent studies, such as ross et al. (2016), proposes that it is analytic cognitive style – defined as the willingness or disposition to critically evaluate outputs from intuitive processing and engage in effortful analytic processing – that predicts data gathering on a bead task rather than delusional ideation. delusional ideation in healthy populations the continuity approach has gathered a wealth of support with regards to considering delusions and other features of psychosis being measurable on a continuum that extends from and includes clinical and nonclinical population (freeman, pugh, vorontsova, antley, & slater, 2010; galbraith, morgan, jones, ormerod, galbraith, & manktelow, 2014; van os, linscott, myin-germeys, delespaul, & krabbendam, 2009). schizotypy is a subclinical category of experience which captures individuals who present schizo-psychopathological characteristics but are not extreme enough to be classified as requiring clinical attention of diagnostic (claridge & beech, 1995). gruzelier (1996) suggests that schizotypy consists mainly of impulsive non-conformity, social anxiety, positive features such as unusual perceptions, and negative features such as introversion. researchers, such as galbraith, manktelow, and morris (2008, 2010), have conducted a number of studies exploring psychopathological tendency primarily composed of samples of non-pathological individuals. galbraith et al.’s approach, using a psychometric test to screen for schizotypal tendencies, circumvent issues of medication effects, motivation and the nature and severity of the symptoms and experiences over time faced when testing a clinical sample (galbraith, manktelow, & morris, 2010; thurston et al., 2008). furthermore, moral and ethical responsibilities of testing clinical patients are overcome (galbraith, manktelow, & morris, 2010). crime based reasoning decision making in the real world includes reasoning about crime based scenarios (wilkinson, caulfield, & jones, 2014; wilkinson, jones, & caulfield, 2011). a wealth of research has argued that decision making processes in forensic and legal setting are subject to errors and biases (alesina & la ferrara, 2014; gunn et al., 2016; sonnemans & van dijk, 2012). sonnemans and van dijk (2012) reviewed the types of errors investigated and documented including judicial decision errors and biases. scientific investigations and methods of research do not easily lend themselves to exploring the judicial system and therefore other modes and methods of representative environments, such as mock scenarios and mock court rooms, have been utilised (carter & mazzula, 2013; kapardis & farrington, 2015; krauss & lieberman, 2016). probabilistic style decision making is applied by a jury to criminal cases during court proceedings, with the outcome being to assess the likelihood of a guilty or not guilty verdict based on the evidence provided (sonnemans & van dijk, 2012). however, probabilities are not always assessed, in this context, quantitatively and different legal systems present information in differing styles, amounts and timings (sonnemans & van dijk, 2012). the rate of decision making, including the amount of information gathered before making a decision delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 504 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ could have profound affects in practice, for example, jury decision making (nicholson, yarbrough, & penrod, 2014). previous research has considered the relationship between schizotypy and crime based reasoning using qualitative methods (wilkinson, caulfield, & jones, 2014; wilkinson, jones, & caulfield, 2011) and found clear qualitative self-reported differences in probabilistic reasoning styles from their participants. this study aimed to assess the relationship between delusional beliefs and probabilistic style reasoning of crime based scenarios using a series of experiments that manipulated the presentation of evidence through auditory and visual modalities whilst also introducing a distraction utilising a dual taking paradigm, mimicking the type of processing that may happen in an applied setting such as a courtroom. it was hypothesised that individuals with high scores for delusional beliefs, compared to low scorers, would require fewer pieces of information before making a decision. it was also hypothesised that the distraction task would increase the difference observed between high and low scorers in terms of information gathering. experiment one method participants through convenience sampling, forty-five (11 male and 34 female) student volunteers from various undergraduate courses at a west-midlands uk based university took part in this study. the age of the participants ranged between 19 and 44 (m = 24.33, sd = 6.82). no other demographic information was collected. design this study adopted a mixed (one within and one between factor) 2x2 experimental design. the study consisted of a within participant factor, violent (emotionally arousing) and non-violent scenarios, and a between participant factor, high and low scorers on the peters delusions inventory (pdi). the dependent variable was data gathering (which was a measure based on a scale to rate how much information an individual required before making a decision). materials and procedure the following measures were presented to participants. the peters delusions inventory (peters et al., 1999) – paper formis a 21-item measure of delusional ideation. the scale has good levels of reliability and validity (peters et al., 2004). the response format is a 5 point scale for distress, preoccupation, and conviction in relation to the 21-items presented. the computerised visual reasoning task (cvrt) was specially designed to measure individuals crime based decision-making about whether the character in two scenarios ‘had done the right thing’. participants were able to gather as much or as little information as they desired about a given scenario before making a decision. this concept derived from traditional reasoning tasks, such as the beads tasks, except applied to a manufactured but realistic life scenarios. the violent scenario (emotionally arousing) used a story about a character that attacked a ‘youth’ in the street (see appendix 1). the attack was based on a number of assumptions. following the short story about the sequence of events leading to the attack were subsequent statements that provided additional information and described a more complete picture of the events. each additional statement was displayed on screen for as wilkinson & caulfield 505 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ long as the participant wished to view. the non-violent scenario was based on a story about a character that lied in order to borrow money from a man with no intention to pay him back. the statements following the short story described vital information with regards to exposing the truth behind the character’s need for the money. participants were required to indicate at which point they were happy to make a decision by pressing the d key and the number of required statements recorded. results descriptive statistics the reasoning task results were analysed using spss statistics 17.0 and are presented below. descriptive statistics for the ‘data gathering’ scores can be viewed in table 1. the descriptive statistics suggested that high pdi scorers require less information compared to low pdi scorers for both violent and non violent crime scenarios, although this effect is represented to a greater extent in the non violent crime scenario. table 1 data gathering descriptive statistics crime type low pdi (n = 15) high pdi (n = 15) df f pm sd m sd violent 1,43 0.16 .69 2.57 2.53 2.14 2.25 non violent 1,43 6.96 .04 3.71 2.34 1.79 1.42 inferential statistics. a two-way mixed anova suggested that there was not a significant interaction between pdi and crime type, f(1, 41) = 3.15, p = .08. further analysis showed a low effect size (d = 0.18) according to cohen’s d (cohen, 1992). non-violent scenario and ‘data gathering’ whilst a non-significant interaction was found overall, a significant effect was highlighted when analysing pdi on ‘data gathering’ with regards to reasoning about non-violent scenarios, f(1, 41) = 6.96, p = .01. further analysis revealed a large effect size (d = 1.02) according to cohen’s d (cohen, 1992). discussion the data collected from the reasoning task suggest that there were no significant differences between high and low pdi scorers, when measuring the amount of information required before making a decision about a violent crime scenario. however, there was a significant difference when reasoning about a non-violent scenario. despite the non significant results from the violent scenario, it is still possible to see a trend in the mean ‘data gathering’ scores that suggests that high scorers requested less information when reasoning about a violent crime. it seems that low scoring individuals required more information, when compared to high scoring individuals, before making a decision or coming to a conclusion. the implications of this could be detrimental in setting such as the court room where in an adversarial process a jury is making a decision based on information that is staggered in presentation. delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 506 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment two little research has explored the impact that modality (auditory vs. visual) may have on reasoning biases, particularly when considering delusion ideation and especially given the characteristics, such as deficits in auditory sensory “echoic” memory (umbricht et al., 2000) associated with ‘schizotype’ experiences. these deficits lead to difficulties in extracting relevant information from sensory stimuli across all modalities (javitt et al., 2000). as such, individuals who experience deficits in extracting relevant information may produce biases on tasks that require the utilisation of represented extracted information. in other words, some individuals are overwhelmed with the mass of information available through their senses, and are unable to filter out the relevant or important information (delhommeau, dubal, collet, & jouvent, 2003). this study, therefore, adapted the materials from experiment one to present in an auditory format to consider the affect that modality has on crime based reasoning when considering delusional ideation. it was hypothesised that the auditory version of the experiment would capture greater differentiation between high and low scorers on delusional ideation in terms of the amount of information required before they made a decision. method participants fifty-five university students participated in this study. all participants were undergraduate students from a range of faculties and degree courses across the university. participants were aged between 19 and 52 (m = 23.8, sd = 8.01), ten were males and forty-five females. design a 2x2 experimental design was adopted for this study. similar to study one, independent variable one was based on pdi scores and independent variables two was based on scenario type (violence and non-violent). materials and procedure consistent with study one, the 21-item peters delusions inventory (peters et al., 1999) was used to measure delusional ideation (see study one for more information). the computerised auditory reasoning task (cart) was specially designed for this study, which was an adaptation from study one. the auditory reasoning task presented the same information as study one but through an auditory modality, given the evidence of cross modality bias occurring in individuals with schizotypy as well as a small amount of evidence for differentiation in psychosis prone individuals (ferstl, hanewinkel, & krag, 1994; reed et al., 2008). once again, eprime programming software was used to program, present and capture participant’s responses. participants wore a head set in order to listen to the crime based scenarios and additional information. given that the information was delivered to participants through auditory presentation, statements could be heard once unlike study one where participants could read and re-read on screen. wilkinson & caulfield 507 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics. the reasoning task results were analysed using spss statistical analysis software 17.0, and are presented below. descriptive statistics for the ‘data gathering’ scores can be viewed in table 2. table 2 data gathering descriptive statistics crime type low pdi (n = 19) high pdi (n = 19) df f pm sd m sd violent 1,53 23.18 .02 6.78 3.95 2.22 3.04 non violent 1,53 8.82 .01 6.06 2.65 3.11 3.27 inferential statistics the results from the levene’s pre-test were non significant and therefore did not violate any assumptions for parametric testing (levene’s p > 0.05). a two-way mixed analysis of variance (anova) was performed on the results of the reasoning task, therefore considering the independent variables of pdi (high and low) and crime type (violent and non-violent), and the dependent variable data gathering. the two-way mixed anova revealed a non-significant interaction between pdi and scenario type, f(2, 32) = 15.04, p < .001. further analysis showed a large effect size according to cohen’s d (d = 1.3), and retrospective power = 0.99 (cohen, 1992). discussion the results from this study demonstrated, through a two-way analysis of variance (anova), that overall there was no interaction between pdi and crime type, however, the p and f values suggested significant differences between high and low scorers within each crime type (violent and non violent). either individuals who scored high for schizotypal tendencies required fewer ‘chunks’ of information before making a decision (data gathering), compared to individuals who scored low for schizotypal tendencies, or it is possible that low scorers gathered more information in comparison to high scorers. the descriptive statistics suggest that the violent crime scenario, which was potentially more emotionally arousing, created a bigger gap between the mean ‘data gathering’ scores generated by the high and low scoring groups. therefore, it could be argued that the violent crime scenario enhanced the ‘jump to conclusions’ bias that frequently occurs in individuals at risk of delusions (huq, garety, & hemsley, 1988) or with high levels of delusional ideation (galbraith, manktelow, & morris, 2010), or caused low scorers to gather further information before making a decision. furthermore, the results suggest that the biases in reasoning that accompany delusional beliefs, which have presented themselves on traditional non-specific reasoning tasks, also present themselves when making decisions about crime based situations which could have implications in legal settings when undergoing probabilistic decisions based on case evidence (sonnemans & van dijk, 2012). delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 508 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment three dual processing theory dual process theories have provided an alternative explanation to previous single system theories which propose that cognitive processes such as reasoning are governed by a single system (braine, 1990; johnsonlaird, 1983; rips, 1994). dual process theories, therefore, arguably stand in contrast to modular models of human cognition (barrett & kurzban, 2006; carruthers, 2006; cosmides & tooby, 1992; sperber, 1994). dual processing accounts of reasoning and human behaviour have been developed by both cognitive and social psychologists (manktelow, 2012), the relevance of which is the theoretical application to ‘higher’ cognitive processes which include thinking, reasoning, decision making, and social judgment (evans, 2008). all dual process theories share the common idea that there are two differing modes of processing: system one and system two (kahneman & frederick, 2002; stanovich, 1999). the first system, occasionally referred to as the heuristic system (de neys, 2006), solves problems based on an individual’s prior knowledge and beliefs. the second system, sometimes referred to as the analytic system, allows reasoning according to logical standards, which requires access to a central working memory system of limited capacity. as a result, system one is assumed to operate rapidly and automatically, whereas the operations of the analytic system are believed to be slow and heavily demanding of resources (de neys, 2006). these two systems can act in concert and consequently the heuristic system will usually provide a fast, frugal and correct conclusion. however, heuristic processing can lead to biased reasoning in situations that require more elaborate and analytic processing. this occurrence leads to conflict between the two systems (stanovich & west, 2000). study three explored whether the results of study two were indicative of modality, visual vs. auditory, or whether auditory processing requires a dual process system. it was hypothesised that an additional active task would increase the differentiation of reasoning scores for high and low scorers. method participants 74 participants from a west midlands university took part in this study. the participants were undergraduate students from a range of faculties and degree courses across the university. participants were aged between 18 and 54 (m = 22.5, sd = 6.69), 23 were males and 51 females. it was ensured during the recruitment stage that all participants were first language native english speakers. design the 2x2x2 experiment designed enabled the exploration of three independent variables: pdi (between factor determined by the scores on the peters delusions inventory: peters & garety, 1996); scenario type (within factor representing non-violent and violent); and memory task (within factor compiled of high and low memory load) explored using a dot matrix memory task. there was one dependent variable which was the amount of information required before making a decision based on a 0-8 scale (data gathering). materials and procedure consistent with previous studies presented in this paper the 21-item peters delusions inventory (peters et al., 1999) was used to measure delusional belief ideation (see previous studies for more information). the dual wilkinson & caulfield 509 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ processing visual computerised decision task (dpvcdt) was specially developed for this study. this task was an adaptation of the reasoning task used in experiment one to present information to participants in a visual modality. statements were present on screen for participants to observe for as long as they wished. in addition to previous studies in this paper, the dot matrix memory task (dual task) was completed. both of these tasks were presented and completed using e-prime stimulus software. this design explores whether ‘dual tasking’ as opposed to a change in modality, and therefore greater demands on processing, enhances the effects of biases in individuals who score high for delusional beliefs. this is supported by the evidence of bias’ occurring in individuals with schizophrenia, schizo-type disorders, as well as a small amount of evidence for differentiation in psychosis prone individuals (ferstl, hanewinkel, & krag, 1994; reed et al., 2008). results descriptive statistics the reasoning task results were analysed using spss statistics analysis software 17.0, and are presented below. descriptive statistics for the ‘data gathering’ scores can be viewed in table 3. table 3 data gathering’ descriptive statistics crime type low pdi (n = 25) high pdi (n = 25) df f pm sd m sd violent (hard) 1,48 11.84 <.001 4.72 4.03 3.04 3.05 violent (easy) 1,48 18.31 <.001 5.2 3.99 2.68 2.69 non violent (hard) 1,48 2.52 .12 4.32 3.53 2.88 2.83 non violent (easy) 1,48 2.99 .09 5.68 3.65 3.48 3.16 inferential statistics: ‘data gathering’ the data gathering results were analysed using a 3 way mixed analysis of variance (anova) to assess the impact of one between subject independent variables (pdi: high and low) and two within subject independent variables (scenario type: violent and non-violent; memory load: high and low) on participants ‘data gathering’ scores. box’s test of equality of covariance matrices was significant (p = .04) and therefore the results below are reported using the greenhouse-geisser correction. there was no significant interaction between memory and pdi, f(1, 48) = 2.69, p = .11, η2 = 0.05, pdi and scenario type, f(1, 48) = 0.12, p = .73, η2 = 0.00, memory and scenario, f(1,48) = 1.18, p = .28, η2 = 0.02, and memory, scenario and pdi, f(1, 48) = 0.00, p = .96, η2 = 0.00). there was a significant difference in mean data gathering between high and low scorers, f(1, 48) = 6.79, p = .01. there was also a significant main effect of memory (easy / hard: p = .03) but there was no significant main effect of scenario type (p = .65). delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 510 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the data presented no significant interactions, in any combination, between pdi, memory load and crime type. this could be interpreted, explained and accounted for in a number of ways. it is possible that the experiment design is not sensitive enough to capture any relationships between pdi, dual systems of processing and crime scenario type, despite adopting tools and methods that had been used previously in a number of studies which had generated significant results (de neys, 2006; evans, 2008; galbraith et al., 2010). the results suggest that the biases that occurred in experiment one and two were not a result of overloaded resources and increased demands placed on memory but rather the impact of modality (visually or auditory processed information). nonetheless, it is impossible to be conclusive without testing the dual process paradigm within the auditory modality. it is also possible that dual process theory does not adequately account for aspects of crime based real world reasoning and hence there is no relationship or interaction between the two separate systems when reasoning about crime based scenarios. it is also possible that the two systems of processing do not impact upon one another when individuals are engaged with crime based reasoning. this would suggest that decisions can be made in the presence of other cognitive tasks, therefore, what is important is the modality of presented information in relation to delusional ideation. the implications of this study would suggest that in an applied setting, such as a courtroom, it is the mode and delivery of information that is important for decision making rather than the number of processes occurring in the setting. experiment four experiment four was designed as an adaptation of study three but delivered and presented in an auditory format. it was hypothesised that the auditory format would enhance and elevate the effects of a reasoning bias. method participants sixty-one participants took part in the auditory dual processing study. the participants were recruited from a west midlands university. the sample consisted of undergraduate students from a range of faculties and degree courses across the university. participants were aged between 18 and 38 (m = 22.8, sd = 5.41), 21 were males and 40 females. design a 2x2x2 experimental design was adopted for this study. independent variables pdi (high and low), crime type (violent and non-violent) and memory task (high and low). the dependent variable was data gathering (the amount of information participants required to make a decision). materials and procedure the study comprised three main component measures. as with the previous studies in this paper, the 21-item peters delusions inventory (peters et al., 1999) was used to measure delusional belief ideation (see study one for more information). the dual processing auditory computerised decision task (dpacdt) was developed wilkinson & caulfield 511 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ especially for this study. the task was based on the visual crime based reasoning task in experiment three, however, the renovated design presented the scenarios and statements to participants in an auditory modality accompanied by a visual dot matrix memory task. the tasks were presented and results were recorded using e-prime stimulus software. this design explored whether reasoning biases are further enhanced by ‘dual tasking’ or whether the modality of presented information impacts upon individuals decisions (ferstl, hanewinkel, & krag, 1994; reed et al., 2008). participants were presented with either a simple or difficult dot matrix memory test which they were required to remember whilst reading a crime based scenario accompanied by additional statements. participants were required to indicate at which point they were happy to make a decision about whether the character in the story had done the right thing. participant’s responses were recorded on a ten-part scale. once participants had completed the crime scenario, they were then requested to recall the dot matrix memory task. this process was repeated to account for violent and non violent as well as simple and difficult conditions. results descriptive statistics the reasoning task results were analysed using spss statistics analysis software 17.0, and are presented below. descriptive statistics for the ‘data gathering’ scores can be viewed in table 4. table 4 data gathering descriptive statistics crime type low pdi (n = 20) high pdi (n = 20) df f pm sd m sd violent (hard) 1,46 10.37 <.001 6.50 3.08 2.08 1.99 violent (easy) 1,46 11.39 <.001 6.88 3.17 2.33 1.69 non violent (hard) 1,46 0.52 .48 6.21 2.96 2.55 2.46 non violent (easy) 1,46 14.87 <.001 6.54 3.27 2.41 1.77 inferential statistics: ‘data gathering’ the data gathering results were analysed using a 2x2x2 mixed analysis of variance (anova) to assess the impact of one between subject independent variables (pdi: high and low) and two within subject independent variables (scenario type: violent and non-violent; memory load: high and low) on participants ‘data gathering’ scores. box’s test of equality of covariance matrices was significant (p = .00) and therefore the results below are reported using the greenhouse-geisser correction. there was no significant interaction between memory and pdi, f(1, 46) = 0.48, p = .49, η2 = 0.01, pdi and scenario type, f(1, 46) = 0.95, p = .33, η2 = 0.02, memory and scenario, f(1, 46) = 0.57 p = .81 η2 = 0.00, and memory, scenario and pdi, f(1, 46) = 0.04, p = .85, η2 = 0.00. delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 512 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ there was a significant difference in mean data gathering when comparing high and low pdi scorers, f(1, 46) = 70.7, p < .001. discussion as with experiment three, the analysis of the data gathering results found no significant relationships between pdi, dual processing and crime type, suggesting that these factors do not impact upon one another. however, there were significant differences highlighted between high and low pdi scorers with regards to their data gathering scores consistent with previous findings. high pdi scorers required fewer pieces of information before coming to a conclusion in comparison to low scorers who require more pieces of information before making a decision. however, the memory tasks did not interfere with this finding and caused no further elevated signs of reasoning biases. this suggests that the dual processing (evans, 2008) account does not provide an explanation for why biases are elevated when presented in a visual modality. discussion and conclusion the results gathered from the series of experiments, overall, are consistent with previous studies of delusional ideation and a ‘jump to conclusions’ bias (freeman, pugh, vorontsova, antley, & slater, 2010; galbraith, morgan, jones, ormerod, galbraith, & manktelow, 2014; van os, linscott, myin-germeys, delespaul, & krabbendam, 2009) and therefore a ‘jump to conclusions’ bias can be applicable to crime based reasoning as well as everyday scenarios. although it appears that memory load does not affect the relationship between delusional ideation and a ‘jump to conclusions’ bias, other variables do appear to enhance the affect. experiment one and two produced particularly interesting findings with regard to both reasoning biases and influential factors surrounding the intensity of those biases. it was concluded from experiment two that delusional ideation and crime based reasoning related to either modality, visual or auditory presented information (delhommeau, dubal, collet, & jouvent, 2003), or the increase load on memory resources which naturally occur when remembering information that has been received through the auditory senses. however, when examining the shortfalls of experiment one, it was clear that the methodological design adopted for this study made it impossible to identify whether the causal factor was modality or indeed competition for working memory resources. therefore, experiment three and four provided a solution to address this problem by adopting a dual task design (evans, 2008). this allowed for an investigation of whether an increase in memory load enhances the crime based reasoning biases identified by experiment one and two. the outcome of these additional studies suggest that it is not increased load on memory and resources that enhances the biases and therefore it can be deduced that there are key differences when reasoning about crime using verbally presented information compared to visually presented information. the results reported in experiment two demonstrated that individuals with schizotypal tendencies required fewer ‘pieces’ of information before making a decision, compared to individuals who scored low for schizotypal tendencies. there was a significant difference in both non-violent and violent crime scenarios with regard to individuals; ‘data gathering’ scores. however, the violent crime scenario created a bigger gap between the mean ‘data gathering’ scores generated by the high and low scoring groups. therefore, it could be suggested that the violent crime scenario enhances the ‘jump to conclusions’ bias that frequently occurs in individuals at risk of delusions (huq, garety, & hemsley, 1988). furthermore, the results suggested that the biases in reasoning that accompany delusional ideation, wilkinson & caulfield 513 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 http://www.psychopen.eu/ have presented themselves on traditional non-specific reasoning tasks, also present themselves on crime based reasoning tasks given the right conditions. the findings from the series of experiments could have implications, or at least pose questions, in applied areas such as the court room. it seems that levels of delusional ideation relate to the amount of information individuals require to make a decision about crime based scenario which is a process of decision making that occurs in court cases, particularly in cases and systems that include a jury. consequently, future studies might explore this relationship in a mock court room setting, or individuals making decisions in the presence of other individuals and other individuals responses. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alesina, a., & la ferrara, e. 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the young man that jared attacked ended up in hospital the lad that jared had assaulted had nothing to do with the attack on the lady the lady had been causing trouble in the neighbourhood one of the gang members was an ex-boyfriend of the lady the police were monitoring the gang and all confrontations should have been reported to the police jared had previously confronted neighbours about noise levels and they had threatened to hurt his fiancé the attack towards the lady had left her with a broken arm, sprained wrist and black eye the lady jared had found in the street was his fiancé that was the final statement, did jared do the right thing? about the authors dr. dean j. wilkinson is a senior lecturer in forensic psychology at the university of worcester. his research interests include alternatives interventions and arts based projects in prison settings. dr. laura s. caulfield is assistant dean (research & postgraduate affairs) in the college of liberal arts at bath spa university. laura is a researcher is psychology and criminology, with particular expertise in the role of the arts in criminal justice. delusional ideation and crime based reasoning 518 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 503–518 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1181 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ delusional ideation and crime based reasoning (introduction) delusional ideation in clinical populations delusional ideation in healthy populations crime based reasoning experiment one method results discussion experiment two method results discussion experiment three dual processing theory method results discussion experiment four method results discussion discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix 1 violent scenario about the authors self-exposure on instagram and bmi: relations with body image among both genders research reports self-exposure on instagram and bmi: relations with body image among both genders desiré abrante 1, mónica carballeira 1 [1] department of clinical psychology, psychobiology and methodology, faculty of psychology and speech therapy, university of la laguna, san cristóbal de la laguna, santa cruz de tenerife, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 received: 2021-07-26 • accepted: 2022-06-20 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland corresponding author: desiré abrante, department of clinical psychology, psychobiology and methodology, faculty of psychology and speech therapy, university of la laguna, apdo. 456 campus de guajara s/n, 38071, san cristóbal de la laguna. santa cruz de tenerife, spain. e-mail: alu0100494327@ull.edu.es abstract social media users can actively choose how they portray themselves and review the information they share to form and manage positive impressions on their audience. a high body mass index (bmi) can lead to a bias of attention towards self-reported unattractive personal body areas. this dysfunctional body-related attention can lead to increased body dissatisfaction. concerning social networks, people who usually post more photos on instagram more frequently show higher body satisfaction. the main objective of this work was to analyze the relationship between bmi in young people, their own exposition on instagram, positive body image and certain psychological variables: self-esteem, coping and well-being. the population-based sample consisted of 687 young instagram users aged between 18 to 35 years old. the results found in this work revealed that bmi had a significant influence on the body exposure on instagram in both genders, as well as in body image and certain psychological variables, such as coping and well-being. moreover, we found that there is not a direct relation between bmi and the exposure of the entire body on instagram. this relationship exists through positive body image, appearance care and management appearance behaviors. these results imply that positive body image affects body’s exposure, so people with obesity or overweight tend to upload less photos with half or full body visible than people with normal weight or underweight. this is not because of their weight, but their valuation and appreciation of their bodies. keywords self-exposure, bmi, body image, instagram self-presentation is defined as the attempt by individuals to control impressions of themselves and therefore involves a conscious effort to enact behaviors by creating a desired persona for an audience. (schlenker & pontari, 2000). social media users can actively choose how to portray themselves and review the information they share to form and manage positive impressions on their audience (lee-won et al., 2014). this observation of the image of oneself in photographs produces a visual attention directed to the body appearance that could trigger behaviors such as body monitoring, which may be related to body shame. thus, within the context of social comparisons, a visual reminder of appearance and repeated opportunities for self-assessment is offered by the images of their bodies on social media (butkowski et al., 2019). furthermore, people who perceive a discrepancy between their appearance and an idealized body image may be ashamed of their body (dakanalis et al., 2015). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7221&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ body mass index (bmi) is a measure of people’s weight in relation to their height. bmi has been shown to predict body image over time for both men and women, such that variations in bmi measurements over time continue to influence body perception and appearance (holsen et al., 2012). in this line, bmi is related to most aspects of body image, increasing body dissatisfaction as bmi increases in both genders, although the relationship is stronger for women than for men (ålgars et al., 2009). thus, research shows that the affective and cognitive aspects of the construction of body image are considerably impaired in the obese population and this dissatisfaction with body image is related to low self-esteem (piko et al., 2020), an increase in depression symptoms (sarwer et al., 2005) and a lower quality of life (wilson et al., 2013). in people with a high bmi, forms of maladaptive coping are also shown, such as self-distraction, self-blame, or avoidance, which are also linked to a negative body image, low self-esteem (pinkasavage et al., 2015) and less social support (yayan & çelebioğlu, 2018). concerning body size, the research has suggested an attention bias paid towards self-reported unattractive personal body areas, due to a higher bmi. this dysfunctional body-related attention can cause an increment on body dissatisfac­ tion (couture bue, 2020). however, actual body size may matter much less than a person's sense of satisfaction with their body size. people who are happy with a larger body size may be more likely to proudly share their own body than people who are slimmer but suffer from poor body image (wagner et al., 2016). according to their research, people with a larger body size tend to report more body dissatisfaction, and both together were able to predict the number of selfies (wagner et al., 2016). when it comes to gender, it has been found that female instagram users tend to post a significant number of more selfies than men (simerson, 2016). additionally, women tend to upload more portrait photos than full-length photos to their social network’s profiles (haferkamp et al., 2012). the effects of bmi on the exposure of one's own body in social networks seem to be influenced by certain factors of individual differences; that is, not everyone is equally affected by their weight when it comes to uploading photos of themselves to the networks. therefore, we consider a series of variables that have been shown to be related to exposure on social networks, such as body image, coping or well-being. body image is a multidimensional and dynamic construct that encompasses how we perceive, think, feel, and act towards our bodies, and forms a continuum that goes from healthy body perceptions (accurate and mostly positive) to unhealthy body perceptions (inaccurate and generally negative; voelker et al., 2015). cash et al. (2004) argued that the information received about physical appearance generated pressure and idealization of certain physical attributes. concerning social networks, there is an increasing number of findings that indicate a positive link between the use of social networks and body image in young adults (manago et al., 2015). for example, instagram users who are most satisfied with their body image tend to make a greater number of publications of themselves, such as selfies (butkowski et al., 2019). self-esteem is a concept that encompasses positive or negative evaluations of oneself, defined as the beliefs of the individual towards their abilities, competencies, and position (rosenberg et al., 1995). regarding its relationship with the use of social networks, it has been shown that ascending social comparison negatively influences self-esteem (schmuck et al., 2019). coping styles represent cognitive and behavioural efforts to reduce stress, involving an individual's psychological adaptation to those stressful stimuli (lazarus & folkman, 1984). people with attitudes and negative body image schemas may be more likely to engage in maladaptive coping strategies to help manage their body-related distress after engaging in biased social comparisons (lewis-smith et al., 2019). in addition, the additional stress caused using social networks, such as the leakage of personal information or comparisons with others (vonk et al., 2019), causes a greater use of coping strategies focused on emotions (wadsworth & compas, 2002). the use of adaptive coping has been associated with increases in body satisfaction after exposure to thin ideal images (wade et al., 2009). the construct of well-being reflects the optimal experience and performance of human beings. in this research, two approaches coexist: (i) the hedonic perspective, called subjective well-being, which is defined in terms of achievement and pain avoidance, and focused on positive affect, such as happiness or on life satisfaction; (ii) the eudaimonic perspective, or the meaning and self-realization, defines well-being as the degree of fully functioning, and known as psychological well-being (deci & ryan, 2008). in general, exposure to content related to aesthetic ideals uploaded by others can have detrimental consequences for well-being (kleemans et al., 2018). the presentation of self-ideals abrante & carballeira 181 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in social networks also seems to reduce the indicators of well-being (jackson & luchner, 2018); however, the honest self-presentation can increase it (grieve & watkinson, 2016). this study aimed to jointly address insufficiently developed objectives so far in the research on the use that young people make of instagram. in this way, the present research aims a) to explore whether people with divergent body sizes are likely to adopt different types of selfies, such as body-centered versus face-centered images; and b) whether body image and the appearance schemas mediates the relationship between the level of body exposure on instagram and bmi. as such, we formulated the following hypotheses: h1: users with a lower bmi will be more willing to show their image on instagram, while users with a higher bmi will be less willing to show their physical appearance. h2: participants with a lower bmi will present a higher positive body image and better psychological status -self-esteem, coping, and well-beingthan those with a higher bmi. h3: the level of whole-body self-exposure on instagram is predicted by bmi and, in turn, it is predicted by a lower body image and by appearance schemas focused on defining oneself through appearance and engaging in grooming and appearance management behaviors. method participants the present study had the participation of 687 instagram users, 465 women (67.7%) and 222 men (32.3%) who were con­ tacted through the university, between 2019 and 2021. a descriptive design, through surveys, chain-referral sampling, was used, with ex post facto cross-sectional samples. participants ranged in age between 18 and 35 years old (m = 23; sd = 4.71), corresponding the distribution of instagram users worldwide in july 2019 (clement, 2019). according to the ranges of the bmi, 35 women and 7 men were underweighted, 303 women and 155 men were in a normal weight state, 94 women and 47 men were overweight, and 33 women and 13 men were obese. the average number of publications uploaded to instagram was 130 images for women and 70 for men. regarding the content of these publications, women tend to upload photos of content not related to people in 78.1%, only of their face in 63.4%, with their torso visible in 63.4% of the cases, and of their entire body in 61.9%. whereas men tend to upload photos of content not related to people in 83.3%, only of their face in 81.1%, with their torso visible in 71.6%, and of their entire body in 59.5%. materials survey about demographics and instagram use—developed by the authors. it includes questions about demographics (age, gender, academic level, occupation) height and weight, were included. additionally, several aspects about the instagram use, was thoroughly assessed, based on the questionnaire for the use of facebook (meier & gray, 2014). concerning the exposure, that is, taking photos of themselves to be uploaded to instagram, we have distinguished among four frequency levels (from almost never or never, to almost always or always) of body parts exposure on instagram (table 1). the internal consistency indexes of these items were accurate (α = .73). body appreciation scale (bas; avalos et al., 2005). it consists of 13 items, whose factorial structure includes a single dimension of positive body image, with adequate internal consistency and construct validity to study the positive aspects of body image. the questionnaire must be answered on a likert scale, with five alternatives (1 = “i never do this”, 5 = “i always do this”). scores on the bas have been found to be internally consistent, with cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .93. appearance scheme inventory-revised (asi-r; cash & grasso, 2005). it consists of 20 items that evaluate two facets of body image: (i) self-assessed significance, made up of 12 items that examine the extent to which individuals define themselves through their physical appearance; (ii) motivational significance, made up of 8 items and assesses the degree to which people engage in behaviors for the care and management of their physical appearance. the questionnaire used a likert scale with five alternatives (1 = “i completely disagree”, 5 = “i completely agree”). scores on the asi-r shown an self-exposure on instagram and bmi 182 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ accurate internal consistency in its two factors, self-assessed significance (α = .88) and motivational significance (α = .85). rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965). it consists of 10 items that express positive and negative thoughts about personal worth, to be answered on a 4-point likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (strongly disagree). scores on the rses have been found to be internally consistent, with cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .64. brief cope inventory (cope-28; carver, 1997). it consists in the following subscales: active coping, planning, posi­ tive reframing, acceptance, humor, religion, using emotional support, self-distraction, denial, venting, substance, behavioral disengagement and self-blame. the items are presented in terms of the action and the response that people make on an ordinal scale with four alternatives (0 = “i never do this”, 3 = “i always do this”). the internal consistency indexes were accurate for most scales (active coping α = .64, planning α = .65, positive reframing α = .63, humor α = .78, religion α = .78, using emotional support α = .72, denial α = .62, substance α = .93, behavioral disengagement α = .66, and self-blame α = .65), except for acceptance (.58), self-distraction (.53), and venting (.39). positive and negative affect scales (panas; watson et al., 1988). it consists of 20 qualifiers: 10 measure positive emotions and 10 negative emotions that may be present in the individual during the last month. every item is assessed using a likert-type scale of seven scores ranging from 1 (very little) to 5 (a lot), depending on the presence of each emotion at that moment. the reliability through the cronbach’s alpha coefficient-indicates a good internal consistency (positive affect, α = .88 and negative affect, α = .88). satisfaction with life scale (swls; diener et al., 1985). it consists of 5 items that evaluate the individuals’ cognitive judgment about their global life satisfaction, comparing their life circumstances with a particular standard. each item is answered on a scale that ranges from 1 (not at all satisfied) to 7 (very satisfied). the reliability through the cronbach’s alpha coefficient indicates a good internal consistency (α = .88). subjective happiness scale (shs; lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999). the shs consists of 4 items with a 7-point response format: from 1 (not happy) to 7 (very happy). the reliability through the cronbach’s alpha coefficient indicates a good internal consistency (α = .82). psychological well-being scale (pwbs; ryff, 1989). it measures the six dimensions proposed by the ryff model: self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth, through a 6-point likert-type scale. using a likert scale with six alternatives (1 = “i completely disagree”, 6 = “i completely agree”). the scales showed good internal reliabilities, (self-acceptance α = .86, autonomy α = .73, environmental mastery α = .66, purpose in life α = .82; and personal growth α = .64), except for positive relationships with others (α = .04). table 1 exposure on instagram items referring to user exposure on instagram almost never or never rarely often almost always or always i upload a photo of myself, only of my face 33.9% 35.2% 22.4% 8.4% i upload a photo of myself, my waist and chest visible 38.1% 27.9% 27.4% 6.6% i upload a photo of myself, all my body visible 33.8% 27.4% 28.2% 10.6% i upload a photo of myself with friends and/or family 20.2% 29.7% 36.4% 13.7% i upload a photo of a text or an image whose content is not related to people 58.7% 21.1% 13.5% 6.7% i upload a story of myself 30.1% 27.7% 25.5% 16.7% i upload a story of myself with friends and/or family 19.4% 26.2% 36.1% 18.3% i upload a story of a text or an image whose content is not related to people 30.9% 25.3% 27.2% 16.6% abrante & carballeira 183 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure the evaluation battery has been administered electronically and includes the previously described questionnaires to analyze the variables in young instagram users. the inclusion criteria in the study were: a) to be between 18 and 35 years old; and b) to have an active instagram account. participants were provided information on the conditions of the study and the ethical treatment of the data, proceeding to give their informed consent. at the beginning of the battery of questionnaires, the objectives of the study, its anonymous nature, and the use of the data only for research purposes were informed, thus requesting their personal consent to use this information for those purposes. data analysis after computerizing the information in the spss 24.0, an anova was performed to observe the possible differences between the four ranges of body mass index (underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obesity) for women and a kruskal-wallis test for men. once it was known in which variables there were significant differences, post hoc contrasts were performed between these four bmi ranges, to find out between which subgroups these differences occurred. subsequently, correlational analyzes (pearson's r) both for women and men, among the item i upload a photo of myself, all my body visible, as whole-body self-exposure, and the variables body image, coping, self-esteem, subjective well-being, and psychological well-being, were performed, as well as, with the bmi and the following psychological variables: body image, coping, self-esteem, subjective and psychological well-being. in the correlation matrix, bmi only had a significant correlation with whole body self-exposure, but not with i upload a photo of myself, only of my face, as well as with self-assessed significance. because of this, we took these two variables out of the multiple mediation model. thus, we set out test multiple mediation models using bmi as the predictor, whole-body self-exposure as the criteria and positive body image and appearance schemas (self-assessed significance and motivational significance) as the mediator based on previous findings. the analysis was carried in r using lavaan. considering that whole-body self-exposure was an ordinal variable, we used the polychoric correlation matrix and dwls as the estimator to perform the mediation model. results to observe possible differences in the type of photographs uploaded to instagram and in the psychological variables, depending on the different bmi ranges, we performed a one-way anova for women and a kruskal-wallis test for men, due to the size of both subsamples. having homogeneity of variances (levene's test), the results between the four bmi ranges are shown in table 2 for women and table 3 for men. to analyze among which groups of bmi ranges (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity) these differ­ ences were found, post hoc contrasts were made, using the games-howell test, because our design is not orthogonal. we have found significant differences in: • self-exposure: “i upload a photo of myself, my whole body visible” between underweight and obesity (p = .047, d = .640), normal weight and obesity (p = .024, d = .512); and “i upload a story of myself with friends or family” between underweight and overweight (p = .045, d = .572). • body image: positive body image between underweight and overweight (p = .018, d = .587), underweight and obesity (p < .001, d = 1.372), normal weight and overweight (p = .016, d = .361), normal weight and obesity (p < .001, d = 1.150), overweight and obesity (p = .002, d = .794). motivational significance between overweight and obesity (p = .050, d = .544). • coping: active coping between underweight and obesity (p = .023, d = .721), overweight and obesity (p = .045, d = .583). planning between underweight and normal weight (p = .043, d = .465), underweight and obesity (p = .024, d = .717). positive reframing between underweight and obesity (p = .010, d = .790), overweight and obesity (p = .014, d = .655). • well-being: life satisfaction between normal weight and obesity (p = .014, d = .671). self-exposure on instagram and bmi 184 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • to observe among which groups of bmi ranges (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity) these differences were found, post hoc contrasts were made, using the test of mann-whitney. we have found significant differences in: • self-exposure: “i upload a photo of myself, my waist and torso visible” between normal weight and overweight (z = -3.26, p = .001, d = .532), normal weight and obesity (z = -2.26, p = .024, d = .789); “i upload a story of myself” between normal weight and obesity (z = -2.45, p = .014, d = .707); and “i upload a story of a text or an image whose content is not related to people” between underweight and overweight (z = 2.62, p = .009, d = .966); normal weight and overweight (z = -0.98, p < .001, d = .655). • body image: positive body image between normal weight and overweight (z = -3.21, p = .001, d = .521), normal weight and obesity (z = -4.06, p = .000, d = 1.356), overweight and obesity (z = -2.31, p = .021, d = .718). motivational significance between normal weight and obesity (z = -2.92, p = .003, d = .897), and overweight and obesity (z = -2.19, p = .028, d = .728). • coping: active coping between normal weight and overweight (z = -2.55, p = .011, d = .360). subsequently, correlational analyzes (table 4) have been carried out, both for women and men, between the item i upload a photo of myself, all my body visible, as whole-body self-exposure, and the ranges of bmi, body image, coping, and personal well-being (except for positive relations due to its low internal consistency). table 2 women comparison (one-way anova) on exposure variables and psychological adjust among the different ranges of bmi m ± sd underweight normal weight overweight obese variable (n = 35) (n = 303) (n = 94) (n = 33) f(3, 461) α self-exposure i upload a photo of myself, my waist and torso visible 2.26 ± 1.01 2.14 ± 0.97 1.95 ± 1.04 1.73 ± 0.88 2.76 .042 i upload a photo of myself, my whole body visible 2.37 ± 1.03 2.24 ± 1.00 1.96 ± 0.96 1.76 ± 0.87 4.31 .005 i upload a photo of a text or an image whose content is not related to people 1.86 ± 0.97 1.64 ± 0.93 1.78 ± 1.01 2.18 ± 1.58 3.48 .016 i upload a story of myself with friends or family 3.08 ± 0.98 2.71 ± 0.94 2.56 ± 0.98 2.46 ± 1.18 3.20 .023 body image: positive body image 49.29 ± 9.85 47.01 ± 10.20 43.23 ± 10.76 34.12 ± 12.14 18.19 .000 self-assessed significance for appearance schemas 27.69 ± 9.12 26.81 ± 7.72 29.19 ± 8.23 30.21 ± 9.54 3.33 .019 motivational significance for appearance schemas 24.37 ± 6.41 23.35 ± 5.37 23.67 ± 5.51 20.58 ± 5.85 3.27 .021 coping active coping 6.80 ± 1.05 6.52 ± 1.16 6.65 ± 1.21 5.82 ± 1.61 4.75 .003 planning 6.66 ± 1.16 6.08 ± 1.33 6.39 ± 1.32 5.67 ± 1.57 4.41 .004 positive reframing 6.34 ± 1.37 5.90 ± 1.45 6.15 ± 1.38 5.21 ± 1.49 4.53 .004 self-blame 5.40 ± 1.63 5.39 ± 1.54 5.86 ± 1.62 6.09 ± 1.72 3.72 .012 well-being life satisfaction 23.86 ± 6.75 24.15 ± 5.97 23.48 ± 7.17 19.09 ± 8.83 6.00 .001 purpose in life 22.83 ± 4.74 22.08 ± 4.55 22.96 ± 4.99 20.30 ± 5.85 2.81 .039 abrante & carballeira 185 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 correlational analyses of self-exposure of whole body on instagram, bmi ranges, body image and psychological variables whole-body self-exposure (r) variable women men bmi ranges -.162*** -.144 body image positive body image .257*** .148* motivational significance for appearance schemas .211*** .253*** coping emotional support .114* .099 active coping .087 .138* denial -.040 .141* self-esteem .203*** .070 subjective well-being happiness .228*** .115 positive affect .061 .188** satisfaction with life .146** .153* psychological well-being self-acceptance .192*** .185** purpose in life .167*** .165* environmental mastery .157** .141* *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001. table 3 men comparison (kruskal wallis) on exposure variables and psychological adjust among the different ranges of bmi m ± sd underweight normal weight overweight obese variable (n = 7) (n = 155) (n = 47) (n = 13) χ2(3) α self-exposure i upload a photo of myself, my waist and torso visible 2.00 ± 0.82 2.03 ± 0.88 1.57 ± 0.85 1.46 ± 0.52 14.27 .003 i upload a story of myself 2.14 ± 0.69 2.21 ± 1.01 1.96 ± 1.04 1.54 ± 0.88 7.79 .050 i upload a story of a text or an image whose content is not related to people 2.43 ± 0.98 2.15 ± 1.01 1.53 ± 0.88 2.08 ± 1.18 16.98 .001 body image positive body image 42.14 ± 13.61 51.62 ± 8.96 46.70 ± 9.90 40.38 ± 7.56 26.11 .000 motivational significance for appearance schemas 21.29 ± 3.09 22.48 ± 6.00 21.43 ± 5.73 17.46 ± 5.16 9.67 .022 coping active coping 6.14 ± 0.69 6.37 ± 1.28 5.96 ± 0.98 5.69 ± 1.32 8.97 .030 self-exposure on instagram and bmi 186 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ due to the significant correlation between whole-body self-exposure and bmi only among women, we performed a test multiple mediation model using bmi as the predictor, whole-body self-exposure as the criteria, and positive body image and motivational significance as the mediators just for the women sample, presented in the figure 1. figure 1 mediation model for women *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001. bmi was a significant predictor of whole-body self-exposure (b = -.040, se = .01, p < .001). the standardized coefficient of -.17 reflects the direct effect of bmi on whole-body self-exposure, the c path in the model. both paths from the bmi and the mediators were significant (p < .001). the paths from the mediators to whole-body self-exposure were also significant (p < .001). after controlling the effects of the mediators, bmi was no longer a significant predictor of whole-body self-expo­ sure (b = -0.10, se = .01, p = .323). the standardized regression coefficient for this path is -0.012. the total indirect effect was significant (-0.040, se = 0.012, p < .001). discussion the present research has been focused on the link between body mass index and self-exposure on the internet, that particularly young people make on instagram, and their relation to certain psychological variables. in our sample, we can see that women post photos on instagram almost twice as often as men. women post more selfies of their faces and torso than men, while men post more selfies of their full body than women, and women post more content unrelated to themselves, which is in accordance with the results found by haferkamp et al. (2012) and simerson (2016). regarding the contrasts between the ranges of bmi (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity), the results have shown significant differences in the exposure of the body itself on instagram, in both genders. there were differences among women in those photos that involve showing more body, not relating to other people, or those in which they share stories with other people on them. in this sense, slim women post more body-centered photos, and post less non-person-related content. regarding men, there are also significant differences in sharing the torso and waist in their photos and sharing stories of themselves or content no related with people, being the lower range of bmi who carries out these behaviors. these findings confirm our first hypothesis and are in line with haferkamp et al. (2012) who found that women are more likely to post more parts of their body on social networks. people with higher bmis may feel more uncomfortable showing their whole body on the internet (couture bue, 2020). there are also significant differences on body satisfaction in both genders. women showed less positive body image and motivational significance as their bmi increase and the opposite way in self-assessed significance. this could suggest that thin women and regular-weight men tend to adopt behaviors for the care and management of their physical appearance. in terms of self-assessed significance, heavier women were shown to define themselves through their physical appearance. this may be explained by the fact that heavier women might engage in weight-reducing behaviors, abrante & carballeira 187 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ such as dieting or exercise. men tended to have a better positive body image on the middle ranges of bmi and a worse motivational significance on the highest range of bmi. so, men tend to be more concern about their appearance, whether they are very thin or obese. but, when they are obese, they don’t try to fix their appearance likewise women do. these results may be explained by the fact that men with a lower bmi wanted to be more muscular, with bmi being a predictor of the drive for muscularity (daniel & bridges, 2010). all these findings are also in line with the research from butkowski et al. (2019), which postulated that people with a higher bmi usually report greater body dissatisfaction and a drive for thinness; and the results from ridgway and clayton (2016) who found that people who posted more photos on instagram showed more frequently higher body satisfaction. concerning the rest of psychological variables, there are also significant differences between genders and their bodily exposure in coping. women tend to use more adaptive coping strategies—such as active coping or planning—the thinner they are. on the other hand, women with higher bmi use more maladaptive coping such as self-blame in the higher ranges of bmi. for men, there is also a use of adaptive coping in the lower ranges of bmi, but no differences in maladaptive coping. these findings confirm the first hypothesis, and they are in line with other research (pinkasavage et al., 2015; sarwer et al., 2005), which showed a greater use of maladaptive ways of coping and lower positive body image in people with higher bmi. lastly, the significant differences in well-being are only seen among women, so that, the lesser weigh, the more life satisfaction, and purpose in life. results that are according to preliminary research relating high levels of bmi with worse well-being and quality of life (sarwer et al., 2005; wilson et al., 2013). through the test of our model, we found the following results among women: (i) a negative relationship between bmi and positive body image and motivational significance; (ii) a negative relationship between bmi and whole-body self-exposure; and (iii) a positive relationship between the mediating variables and whole-body self-exposure. addi­ tionally, our model presents a full mediation in which there is not a direct relation between bmi and the exposure of the entire body on instagram. the relationship between bmi and whole-body self-exposure exists solely through appearance care and appearance management behaviors, and positive body image. some studies indicate that individu­ als with high bmi avoid exposing themselves to situations where their appearance may be criticized for fear of being negatively judged by others (levinson & rodebaugh, 2012), and that individuals with high bmi tend to report negative body image and body shape concerns (ahadzadeh et al., 2018; holsen et al., 2012). however, our study shows a superior value of positive body image and motivational importance in the decision to expose one’s body in networks. thus, weight would be a variable that is not directly associated with self-exposure; so, people with a better valuation of their own appearance would be those who would be willing to show more of their body on the internet. the mediating effect of positive body image and motivational significance supports the claim that these variables are an important resource in explaining the negative relationship between bmi and self-body exposure on instagram. these results are consistent with studies demonstrating the importance of positive body image for self-body acceptance. a tentative explanation of these findings could be that women with a positive body image are more likely to report fewer negative feelings towards their bodies and appearance; or even the reverse link, given the cross-sectional character of this study. these individuals may show less fear of others’ judgement of their body regardless of their weight, and thus show more parts of their body on social networks (cash, 2008; sánchez-carracedo et al., 2004). limitations and future directions these findings should be taken with caution, given some limitations of the research itself, namely: the survey about in­ stagram use, elaborated by the authors, which has been carried out on this research, so it has not undergone a validation procedure. in addition, the use of abbreviated questionnaires may affect internal consistency and the statistical results obtained. on the other hand, the sample is made up of 68.2% female and 31.8% male, so future research should promote a greater sample collection of males. finally, the subgroups of bmi are not balanced, showing substantial differences between the amount of people with normal weight (63.3%), overweight (31.8%), people with underweight (6.0%), and obesity (6.8%); since the participation of people in the most extreme ranges of the bmi should be promoted. in our opinion, the present study captures a reality insufficiently considered in previous research, focusing on the implications that bmi, positive body image and appearance schemas may have on the personal conceptions of young people who use the internet. the role that positive body image and motivational significance play in explaining the self-exposure on instagram and bmi 188 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negative relationship between bmi and exposure of one’s body on instagram demonstrates the importance of cultivating this appreciation of one’s body in order to improve the well-being of weightier individuals and enable them to be more inclusive in society. we understand, in this way, that a path has been opened for future research on this topic to understand and, as far as possible, alleviate and avoid the psychological consequences that this situation can cause. conclusions this study has analyzed the different degrees of exposure of the body in the photos that young people upload to instagram according to gender and based on different bmi ranges. the results obtained have shown that people with a higher body weight tend to upload fewer photos in which their body is visible -medium and full body shots. in addition, they show greater body dissatisfaction, maladaptive coping strategies and, especially women, poorer well-being. on the other hand, the importance of positive body image and appearance management behaviors in posting full-body photos on instagram seems to be crucial. therefore, it is not only necessary to pay more attention to the pressure that these people receive from social networks that prevent them from showing their bodies for fear of exposure and physical competition with their peers, but also to the appreciation of their own bodies that these people have. thus, this work highlights the importance of promoting a positive body image for body acceptance and body confidence, so that people with a high bmi feel confident enough to show their body to others. furthermore, the findings can contribute to a more diverse and inclusive society, which can help others to accept their own bodies as well. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: no potential competing interest was reported by the authors. the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. references ahadzadeh, a. s., rafik-galea, s., alavi, m., & amini, m. 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(2018). effect of an obesogenic environment and health behaviour-related social support on body mass index and body image of adolescents. global health promotion, 25(3), 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1757975916675125 about the authors desiré abrante, degree in psychology and master in clinical and health psychology. university of la laguna -ull(canary islands). master in neuropsychological evaluation and rehabilitation. camilo josé cela university (madrid). currently doctoral student at the doctoral program in psychology at ull. research: body image and its links to the use of social networks and psychological variables. mónica carballeira phd in psychology and professor at the university of la laguna, canary islands, spain. teaching: psychology of personality, psychopathology, emotional intelligence, and psychological intervention in personal well-being. research (confer­ ences and publications) in different topics: subjective and psychological well-being, positive psychology applied to nutrition, psycho-oncology, gender and health. abrante & carballeira 191 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 180–191 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7221 https://bit.ly/2ytpphp https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069 https://bit.ly/3vwim1u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2004.09.002 https://doi.org/10.1037/10357-008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.101240 https://hdl.handle.net/11244/329286 https://doi.org/10.2147/ahmt.s68344 https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2017.1406400 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016879 https://doi.org/10.1111/1532-7795.00033 https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i9.6390 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.04.007 https://doi.org/10.1177/1757975916675125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-exposure on instagram and bmi (introduction) method participants materials procedure data analysis results discussion limitations and future directions conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors studyholism inventory (si-10): a short instrument for evaluating study obsession within the heavy study investment framework research reports studyholism inventory (si-10): a short instrument for evaluating study obsession within the heavy study investment framework yura loscalzo* a, marco giannini a [a] department of health sciences, school of psychology, university of florence, florence, italy. abstract loscalzo and giannini (loscalzo, y., & giannini, m. [2017]. studyholism or study addiction? a comprehensive model for a possible new clinical condition. in a. m. columbus (ed.), advances in psychological research, (vol. 125, pp. 19-37). hauppauge, ny, usa: nova science) recently proposed a theoretical model for a new potential clinical condition: studyholism, or obsession toward studying. this study aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the instrument that has been created based on their theory, namely the studyholism inventory (si-10). the participants are 1296 italian college students aged between 19 and 55 years. we analyzed its factor structure, as well as its convergent and divergent validity, and we proposed the cut-off scores of the si-10. moreover, we investigated some demographic and study-related differences in studyholism and study engagement and the correlations with academic indicators. the results showed that the si-10 is a ten-item (2 fillers) and 2-factor instrument (gfi = .98, cfi = .97, rmsea = .07) with good psychometric properties. the si-10 could be used in future research to analyze the features and correlates of studyholism, and for both clinical and preventive purposes, pointing to favor students’ well-being and academic success. keywords: obsession, heavy work investment, study addiction, study engagement, work addiction, workaholism europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 received: 2019-02-05. accepted: 2019-10-24. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of health sciences, school of psychology, university of florence, via di san salvi 12 – padiglione 26, 50135 florence, italy. tel.: + 39 055 2755071, fax: + 39 055 2751093, e-mail: yura.loscalzo@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in literature, scholars recently argued about the existence of a new potential clinical condition. it is associated with problematic overstudying, and it has been defined as study addiction (atroszko, andreassen, griffiths, & pallesen, 2015) or studyholism (i.e., obsession toward studying; loscalzo & giannini, 2017a). hence, this new potential clinical disorder has been conceptualized referring to two different theoretical frameworks, with implications for preventive and clinical interventions. adopting different theorizations might lead to use strategies that have been validated for diverse clinical diagnoses. by adopting the study addiction definition, the psychologists will probably look for effective strategies used for behavioral addictions or other externalizing disorders. instead, using the studyholism definition, the psychologists will look for interventions that have been proved effective for the obsessive-compulsive disorder or other internalizing disorders. therefore, it is critical to shed light on the proper operationalization of problematic overstudying through studies using instruments that allow evaluating both study addiction and studyholism and that have good psychometric properties. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ there are currently the polish and norwegian versions of the bergen study addiction scale (bstas; atroszko et al., 2015), and its italian version that, however, showed some psychometric issues (loscalzo & giannini, 2018a). moreover, there are also available the polish and italian versions of the studyholism inventory (si-10; loscalzo, giannini, & golonka, 2018) and the croatian, spanish, and english translations. though, loscalzo et al. (2018) presented the si-10 preliminary analyses only. concerning the italian si-10, the paper reports just the results of the exploratory factor analysis (efa) performed by the authors for reducing their initial pool of 68 items. hence, the present study aims to deepen the psychometric analysis of the si-10 in italian college students. next, the si-10 (as well as the bstas) might be used to deepen the analysis of problematic overstudying to prevent this construct from the issues that characterize workaholism, or the clinical condition associated with problematic overworking. indeed, since the 1970s, when oates (1971) coined the term workaholism, many studies have been conducted on this psychological condition, often using different definitions of the construct. therefore, despite the massive literature about this topic, there is not a consensus about the definition of workaholism, neither about its internalizing or externalizing nature (giannini & loscalzo, 2016; loscalzo & giannini, 2015, 2017b). thus, it is not surprising that andreassen, hetland, and pallesen (2014) did not find adequate convergent validity among three of the most used instruments for evaluating workaholism. as written above, presently, there are two different conceptualizations of problematic overstudying. however, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) stressed that there are some issues concerning both the definition of study addiction (atroszko et al., 2015) and the instrument used for its evaluation, that is the bstas (atroszko et al., 2015). study addiction is defined as a behavioral addiction characterized by the seven core components of addictions (i.e., salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, conflict, and problems). to evaluate it, atroszko et al. (2015) proposed the bstas, which they defined as an adaptation of the bergen work addiction scale (bwas; andreassen, griffiths, hetland, & pallesen, 2012). more specifically, they changed the word “work” with “study” in the bwas items. however, as korb (2012) outlined, adapting an instrument requires adding, removing, and/or significantly varying the content of the items of the original one. hence, as they merely changed the behavior-related word in each of the bwas items, they did not create a new instrument in its strict meaning. in addition, the italian version of the bstas (loscalzo & giannini, 2018a) does not have fully satisfying psychometric properties. moreover, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) stressed that, as suggested by kardefelt-winther (2015), when studying a new potential behavioral addiction we should go beyond the a priori assumption that it is an addiction, for detecting the real manifestation of the problem behavior. it seems even more critical in the analysis of problematic overstudying since, by proposing some similarities with workaholism, we should keep in mind that workaholism itself still lacks a shared definition and operationalization by the scientific community. for this reason, loscalzo and giannini (2017a), in line with the suggestion of quinones and griffiths (2015), developed a definition and a comprehensive model for the study of problematic overstudying before creating a new instrument to evaluate it, instead of simply proposing an analogy between workaholism and studyholism. loscalzo and giannini (2017a, 2018b) proposed to define this new potential clinical condition “studyholism” since this term, not including the word “addiction,” avoids reducing it to externalizing (or addiction) symptoms and to negative aspects only. after some preliminary analyses, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) defined (clinical) studyholism as “a possible new clinical condition which is characterized by internalizing symptoms (i.e., obsessive-compulsive symptoms such as constant thinking to study or inner drive to study) and by low levels of study engagement” (p. 31). they stressed indeed that studyholism might be associated with either low (disengaged studyholism) or high (engaged studyholism) levels of study engagement, which is a study-related positive fealoscalzo & giannini 689 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ture that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (schaufeli, salanova, gonzález-romá, & bakker, 2002) and that, for loscalzo and giannini (2017a), includes inner motivation for studying. more specifically, study engagement is positively associated with well-being (e.g., cadime et al., 2016; li & lerner, 2011; wang, chow, hofkens, & salmela-aro, 2015) and academic success (e.g., chase, hilliard, geldhof, warren, & lerner, 2014; salmela-aro, kiuru, leskinen, & nurmi, 2009). loscalzo and giannini (2017a) underlined that it is valuable to analyze studyholism referring to the heavy study investment framework (see snir & harpaz [2012] for the heavy work investment model). by distinguishing among disengaged studyholics, engaged studyholics, and engaged students, it helps avoid overpathologizing a common behavior such as studying (billieux, schimmenti, khazaal, maurage, & heeren, 2015). in brief, crossing studyholism and study engagement, loscalzo and giannini (2017a, 2018b) proposed four kinds of student, three of which are heavy study investors. these students are: 1) disengaged studyholics, namely students with high studyholism and low study engagement; 2) engaged studyholics, who are characterized by high levels of both studyholism and study engagement; 3) engaged students, namely students with high study engagement and low studyholism. they are heavy study investors as the two previous kinds of student, but they have not an obsession toward studying; 4) detached students, who have low levels of both studyholism and study engagement. they are low study investors and, even if they are not studyholics, they deserve an intervention since they have not a positive attitude toward the study. moreover, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) developed a comprehensive model of studyholism that comprehends its antecedents and outcomes, and that they recently tested in many of its suggested variables (loscalzo & giannini, 2019a). finally, aiming to evaluate studyholism, loscalzo et al. (2018) settled a pool of 68 items based on loscalzo and giannini (2017a)’s first definition of studyholism as a three-factor construct characterized by addiction (or externalizing) symptoms, obsessive-compulsive (or internalizing) symptoms, and high or low study engagement. however, once they administered the pilot version to italian college students to reduce the number of items, aiming to have a short instrument for quick screening, they found a ten-item and two-factor solution using efa: 1) studyholism, which is composed of five items covering obsessive-compulsive symptoms. this factor does not include addiction symptoms and study-related perfectionism, even if the pool of items covered them; 2) study engagement, which comprehends five items as well, and that does not comprehend any item related to vigor, dedication, and absorption (the three main components of study/work engagement, as defined by schaufeli et al., [2002]), even if the pilot version included them. it covers mainly intrinsic motivation toward study, which is a positive study-related dimension as well. based on these results, the theoretical construct of studyholism has been re-analyzed and defined as a 2-factor construct characterized by obsessive-compulsive symptoms and high or low study engagement (loscalzo & giannini, 2017a). in sum, problematic overstudying seems to be not a pure behavioral addiction (atroszko et al., 2015) neither a clinical disorder characterized by both addiction and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, as preliminarily hypothesized by loscalzo and giannini (2017a). it seems to be better defined as an obsessive-compulsive related disorder (loscalzo & giannini, 2017a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019a; loscalzo et al., 2018). however, further studies are needed to analyze its internalizing and/or externalizing nature. hence, this paper aims to present the psychometric properties of the si-10 (loscalzo et al., 2018), which may be used in future research to disentangle the open question about its nature and for analyzing its correlates. it studyholism inventory (si-10) 690 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ may also be used to detect students who need interventions to foster their well-being and academic success. more specifically, we aim to further analyze the psychometric properties of the si-10 on italian college students by analyzing its factor structure, internal reliability, and convergent and divergent validity. moreover, we aim to propose the cut-off scores for defining high and low levels of studyholism/study engagement. these scores may be used to detect the four kinds of student proposed by loscalzo and giannini (2017a) in the general population. finally, we aim to analyze some demographic (e.g., gender) and study-related differences (e.g., major of study) in studyholism and study engagement, and the association between studyholism, study engagement and academic indicators, such as time investment in studying and grade point average (gpa). method participants we recruited a sample of 1296 italian college students aged between 19 and 55 years (m = 23.15, sd = 4.51). they were mostly females (75.5%), and half of them (50.5%) lived in florence, which is part of central italy. a subsample of 340 students was gathered for a previous study to reduce the total number of items of the test (loscalzo et al., 2018); in the present study, we used it for new analyses. table 1 shows the socio-demographic and study-related characteristics of the samples: 1) sample 1 (n = 956), or the “new” sample, on which we performed confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) and evaluated internal reliability. also, on a random subsample of 474 students (about 50% of the total sample), we analyzed the convergent and divergent validity of the instrument; 2) sample 2 (n = 340), or the “old” sample, on which loscalzo et al. (2018) previously performed efa; and 3) sample 3 (n = 1296), namely the whole sample, on which we calculated the cut-off scores of the si-10 and performed some group differences analyses. table 1 socio-demographic and study-related characteristics of participants (n = 1296) variable sample 1 (n = 956) sample 2 (n = 340) sample 3 (n = 1296) gender males 22.7% 29.4% 24.5% females 77.3% 70.6% 75.5% age range 19-55 19-54 19-55 m (sd) 23.70 (4.71) 21.59 (3.46) 23.15 (4.51) living in florence yes 32.9% 100% 50.5% no 67.1% 0.0% 49.5% major of study medical studies 14.5% 2.4% 11.3% help professions 2.8% 44.1% 13.7% psychology 15.8% 32.6% 20.2% humanities and education 29.4% 0.9% 21.9% math, physics, sciences, and engineering 21.5% 3.2% 16.7% social sciences (e.g., law, economy) 15.6% 16.5% 15.8% missing 0.4% 0.3% 0.4% loscalzo & giannini 691 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable sample 1 (n = 956) sample 2 (n = 340) sample 3 (n = 1296) year first 17.7% 50.6% 26.3% second 20.6% 36.8% 24.8% third 26.4% 7.6% 21.5% fourth 14.2% 2.4% 11.1% fifth 21.1% 2.6% 16.3% rejected before university and/or late with studies yes 27.9% 19.1% 25.6% no 72.1% 80.0% 74.2% missing 0.0% 0.9% 0.2% hours a day of study range 0-16 0-12 0-16 m (sd) 4.58 (2.22) 3.66 (1.84) 4.34 (2.17) days a week of study range 0-7 0-7 0-7 m (sd) 5.32 (1.27) 5.09 (1.16) 5.26 (1.25) hours a day of study before exams range 1-16 1-16 1-16 m (sd) 7.14 (2.35) 6.52 (2.21) 6.97 (2.33) days a week of study before exams range 1-7 1-7 1-7 m (sd) 6.45 (0.87) 6.30 (0.99) 6.41 (0.90) studying on the weekend yes 82.5% 85.9% 83.4% no 17.5% 13.5% 16.4% missing 0.0% 0.6% 0.2% grade point averagea range 19-31 18-30 18-31 m (sd) 26.56 (2.19) 25.31 (2.06) 26.24 (2.23) studyholism, si-10b range 4-20 4-20 4-20 m (sd) 14.04 (3.77) 12.74 (3.64) 13.70 (3.77) study engagement, si-10b range 4-20 4-20 4-20 m (sd) 14.62 (3.38) 14.66 (3.08) 14.42 (3.36) aitalian grades range between 18 and 30, we refer to 31 for the grade “30 with laudem”. bsi-10 = studyholism inventory; the si-10 studyholism and study engagement scales are calculated referring to the final version of the si-10 (i.e., 4 items and 1 filler for each scale). materials studyholism inventory (si-10) the si-10 (loscalzo et al., 2018) is a test comprehending a head-sheet with some questions related to study habits (e.g., hours of study a day generally, usually studying on the weekend) followed by 10 items that allow evaluating studyholism and study engagement through five items per scale. a sample item for the studyholism scale is “often, i feel anxious or nervous because of study-related issues,” while for the study engagement scale is “my desire to get good grades motivates me to study” (see appendix for the english back-translation of all the items). the participants have to rate each item through a 5-point likert scale, ranging between 1 studyholism inventory (si-10) 692 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). there are available the english, polish, croatian, and spanish translations of this instrument; in the present research, we administered the italian 10-item version. bergen study addiction scale (bstas) we administered the italian version (loscalzo & giannini, 2018a) of the bstas (atroszko et al., 2015). it is an instrument comprehending seven items to be rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = never, 5 = always). more specifically, there is one item for each of the seven core components of substance addictions (i.e., salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, conflict, and problems). the instructions require the participants to rate how often during the last year they experienced the situations asked in the items (e.g., having studied so much that this has had a negative influence on their health). the bstas showed for its one-factor structure a good fit on norwegian students and an acceptable fit on polish students; its internal reliability is average in both samples, respectively, .74 and .75 (atroszko et al., 2015). as far as the italian version is concerned, loscalzo and giannini (2018a) did not find an acceptable fit, indicating items 1 and 2 as the most critical. however, they found satisfactory internal reliability (α = .72). in the present study (n = 956), cronbach’s alpha is of .73. utrecht work engagement scale – student and short version (uwes-s-9) we administered the italian version (loscalzo & giannini, 2019b) of the uwes-s-9 (schaufeli & bakker, 2004). it is a 9-item instrument that evaluates study engagement in its three components: vigor, dedication, and absorption. an example of item for each of the three scales is, respectively, “when i’m doing my work as a student, i feel bursting with energy,” “i am enthusiastic about my studies,” and “i get carried away when i am studying.” both the original and the italian versions showed good psychometric properties: a good fit for the three-factor model and good internal reliability for both the total (respectively, .84 and .90) and the vigor, dedication, and absorption subscales (respectively, .73, .76, .70, and .82, .88, .76). in the present study (n = 956), the cronbach’s alpha values are: total score = .89, vigor = .80, dedication = .89, absorption = .75. procedure once we obtained the authorization from the department of health sciences of the university of florence, we created an online questionnaire containing some personal data, such as age, gender, and city of living, followed by the si-10 (which comprehends some questions related to study habits), the bstas, and the uwes-s-9. on the first page of the online questionnaire, we informed participants about our research aims and that, by completing the questionnaire they gave us their informed consent. data analysis we conducted the analyses using spss (version 24) and amos (version 22). first, on sample 1 (n = 956), we conducted some cfas on the si-10, aiming to evaluate its factor structure. we used the following indexes and cut-off values to evaluate the fit of the models: χ2/df ratio, which indicates a good fit if its value is less than 3 (byrne, 2001); goodness of fit index (gfi), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker-lewis index (tli), and normed fix index (nfi), whose cut-off values are: < .90 lack of fit, .90-.95 good fit, > .95 excellent fit (hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 2016); root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), for which values below .05 indicate an excellent fit, while values between .05 and .08 indicate an acceptable fit (kline, 2016; reeve et al., 2007). loscalzo & giannini 693 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ next, once we established the final version of the si-10, we calculated the descriptive statistics of the scales included in this study, and their zero-order correlation (n = 956); hence, we deepened the analysis of the psychometric properties of the si-10. first, we calculated the internal reliability (cronbach’s alpha) of the two subscales (n = 956). also, through pearson’s correlation, we evaluated its convergent and divergent validity with the uwes-s-9, the bstas, and the self-reported gpa on a random subsample of participants (n = 474). after that, we calculated on sample 3 (n = 1296) the cut-off scores for defining high and low studyholism and study engagement. more specifically, we calculated the t scores for the two scales, and we looked for the raw scores corresponding to -1 sd (or 40 t score) and +1 sd (or 60 t score). next, we calculated the percentage of participants belonging to the four kinds of student that could be detected by the si-10: disengaged studyholic, engaged studyholic, engaged student, detached student. next, we performed six manovas on sample 3 (n = 1296) for analyzing demographic and study-related differences (e.g., gender, year of study) on studyholism and study engagement. in order to control for multiple testing, we applied the bonferroni correction. hence, we adjusted the alpha level to .004 (chen, feng, & yi, 2017). if the variable comprehended more than two groups, a bonferroni post-hoc test was performed. as a preliminary step, we checked on the total sample (n = 1296) that studyholism and study engagement scales distributions were compatible with a normal distribution: skewness was respectively -0.28 and -0.47, while kurtosis was -0.69 and -0.10. finally, we used pearson’s correlation for analyzing the association between studyholism and study engagement and age, as well as with some academic indicators evaluated by the si-10: hours a day of study generally and before exams, and days a week of study generally and before exams (n = 474). results psychometric properties of the si-10 first, we conducted a cfa on sample 1 (n = 956) to test if the 2-factor and 10-item model found by loscalzo et al. (2018) on the italian sample using efa fits our data well (model 1). we did not find a satisfactory fit for this model. for this reason, based on the results of this cfa, we tested another model in which we deleted one item per factor; more specifically, we did not include the ones with the lowest loadings: item 6 for studyholism and item 2 for study engagement (model 2). this model showed a better fit to the data, which improved by correlating two errors as suggested by modification indices (model 3). more specifically, the errors correlated are those of the items 5 and 10, and their correlation is theoretically justified, as they are both study engagement items. moreover, the negative error correlation (-.31) is justified by the fact that item 10 is the one that represents the most the factor (as having the highest factor loading). item 5 is instead the one with the lowest factor loading, and it is the only study engagement item not comprehending a reference to “good grades.” table 2 shows the three models’ fit indexes, while figure 1 shows the graphical representation of model 3. studyholism inventory (si-10) 694 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 fit indexes for the three confirmatory factor analyses models of the studyholism inventory (n = 956) model χ2/df p gfi cfi tli nfi rmsea 1 – 5 items per factor 18.06 < .001 .89 .86 .81 .85 .13 2 – 4 items per factor 6.52 < .001 .97 .97 .95 .96 .08 3 – model 2 with one ec 5.74 < .001 .98 .97 .96 .97 .07 note. gfi = goodness of fit index; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; nfi = normed fix index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; ec = errors’ correlation (correlation between error 5 and error 10). figure 1. eight-item and two-factor model, studyholism inventory (si-10; n = 956). once we established the final version of the si-10, namely ten items and two scales (i.e., studyholism and study engagement), each composed of five items (one filler), we examined further its psychometric properties. as a preliminary step, we analyzed the descriptive statistics of the study variables, and their zero-order correlation (see table 3). loscalzo & giannini 695 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations (n = 956) scale range m (sd) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. si-10, studyholism 4-20 14.04 (3.77) 2. si-10, study engagement 4-20 14.62 (3.38) -.01 3. bstas, study addiction 7-35 19.51 (5.32) .58*** .15*** 4. uwes-s-9, total 0-54 33.75 (9.79) -.18*** .53*** .05 5. uwes-s-9, vigor 0-18 9.91 (3.74) -.21*** .39*** -.04 .86*** 6. uwes-s-9, dedication 0-18 13.11 (3.86) -.23*** .50*** -.03 .86*** .58*** 7. uwes-s-9, absorption 0-18 10.72 (3.76) -.03 .48*** .19*** .87*** .64*** .62*** 8. grade point averagea 19-31 26.56 (2.19) -.15*** .43*** -.08* .22*** .14*** .24*** .19*** 9. hours/day generally 0-16 4.58 (2.22) .17*** .29*** .26*** .20*** .11*** .13*** .29*** .09** 10. days/week generally 0-7 5.32 (1.27) .09** .22*** .17*** .22*** .14*** .15*** .29*** .05 .48*** 11. hours/day exams 1-16 7.14 (2.35) .16*** .22*** .24*** .17*** .09** .10** .27*** .11** .63*** .27*** 12. days/week exams 1-7 6.45 (0.87) .12*** .27*** .18*** .15*** .08* .13*** .17*** .09** .28*** .46*** .38*** note. si-10 = studyholism inventory, studyholism and study engagement scales are calculated referring to the final version of the si-10 (i.e., 4 items and 1 filler for each scale); bstas = bergen study addiction scale; uwes-s-9 = utrecht work engagement scale, student and short version; hours/day generally = hours a day of study generally; days/week generally = days a week of study generally; hours/day exams = hours a day of study before exams; days/week exams = days a week of study before exams. aitalian grades range between 18 and 30, we refer to 31 for the grade “30 with laudem”. *p < .02. **p < .01. ***p < .001. concerning internal reliability, we found an average cronbach’s alpha value for both the scales: studyholism, .84; study engagement, .81. moreover, we evaluated the si-10 convergent and divergent validity through the correlations between the subscales of the si-10 and the bstas and the uwes-s-9, as well as between the si-10 scales and the self-reported gpa. the correlations have been calculated on a random subsample of sample 1 (n = 474; see table 4). the results supported the convergent and divergent validity of the si-10, especially for the correlations with the uwes-s-9 and the gpa: we found positive correlations for the si-10 study engagement scale and negative correlations for the si-10 studyholism scale. the bstas, instead, has a positive correlation with the si-10 studyholism scale. though, it also has a positive, even if low, value of correlation with the si-10 study engagement scale, which however is in line with previous studies about the correlation between study addiction (as evaluated through the bstas) and study engagement (atroszko et al., 2015; loscalzo & giannini, 2018a). studyholism inventory (si-10) 696 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 convergent and divergent validity of the studyholism inventory (si-10) and correlation with academic indicators (n = 474) variable studyholism (si-10) study engagement (si-10) study addiction (bstas) .55*** .18*** study engagement – total (uwes-s-9) -.19*** .56*** vigor (uwes-s-9) -.20*** .43*** dedication (uwes-s-9) -.24*** .53*** absorption (uwes-s-9) -.05 .49*** grade point average (gpa) -.19* .40*** hours per day of study generally .17*** .27*** days per week of study generally .10* .20*** hours per day of study before exams .18*** .24*** days per week of study before exams .13** .29*** note. bstas = bergen study addiction scale; uwes-s-9 = utrecht work engagement scale, student and short version. *p = .03. **p = .007. ***p < .001. cut-off scores for the screening of the four types of student since we aimed to propose an instrument that allows evaluating studyholism and study engagement, but also to detect four kinds of student (i.e., disengaged studyholics, engaged studyholics, engaged students, detached students) based on high/low levels of studyholism and study engagement, we calculated the cut-off scores for the si-10 scales. more specifically, we calculated the t scores for the two scales on the total sample (n = 1296), and we looked for the raw scores corresponding to -1 sd (or 40 t score) and +1 sd (or 60 t score). based on these analyses, we selected 10 and 18 as the cut-off scores for low and high studyholism, and 11 and 18 for low and high study engagement. hence, students who score between 4 and 9 on studyholism have low levels of it, while those who score between 19 and 20 have high studyholism. concerning study engagement, scores between 4 and 10 indicate low study engagement, while a score between 19 and 20 means high study engagement. see table 5 for a visual representation of the types of student based on the suggested cut-off scores. table 5 profiling of the four types of student by means of the studyholism inventory (si-10) and its cut-off scores study engagement score studyholism score 4-9 (low) 19-20 (high) 4-10 (low) detached student disengaged studyholic 19-20 (high) engaged student engaged studyholic through the above-mentioned cut-off scores, we found 140 students (10.8%) with high studyholism, 202 (15.6%) with low studyholism, 157 (12.1%) with high study engagement, and 156 (12.1%) with low study engagement. then, by crossing high and low levels of both studyholism and study engagement, we screened the total sample, and we identified 22 (1.7%) disengaged studyholics, 28 (2.2%) engaged studyholics, 24 (1.8%) engaged students, and 39 (3.0%) detached students. loscalzo & giannini 697 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ demographic and study-related differences we conducted six manovas with studyholism and study engagement scales as dependent variables to analyze some demographic and study-related differences (n = 1296). concerning gender, the multivariate tests showed a statistically significant effect, f(2, 1293) = 33.55, p < .001, partial η2 = .05. more specifically, follow-up anovas showed statistically significant differences between males and females on both studyholism and study engagement; respectively: f(1, 1294) = 49.15, p < .001, partial η2 = .04 and f(1, 1294) = 19.27, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. females have higher levels of both studyholism (m = 14.11, sd = 3.70) and study engagement (m = 14.66, sd = 3.30) than males (respectively, m = 12.43, sd = 3.73 and m = 13.71, sd = 3.46). concerning doing an activity or a sport besides studying, we did not find a statistically significant multivariate effect: f(2, 1293) = 2.36, p = .10, partial η2 = .004. about usually studying on the weekend more than once a month, the multivariate test yield statistical significance, f(2, 1291) = 20.20, p < .001, partial η2 = .03. more specifically, who usually study on the weekend have statistically significant higher levels of both studyholism, f(1, 1292) = 10.85, p = .001, partial η2 = .01, and study engagement, f(1, 1292) = 30.65, p < .001, partial η2 = .02, compared to who do not usually study on the weekend. the average score (and sd) for those who study and who do not on the weekend are respectively 13.85 (3.71) and 12.92 (3.98) for studyholism, and 14.65 (3.26) and 13.27 (3.65) for study engagement. in addition, as far as concerns having repeated a school year before university or being now late with the studies, we found a statistically significant multivariate effect: f(2, 1290) = 16.46, p < .001, partial η2 = .03. follow-up anovas showed a difference for both studyholism, f(1, 1292) = 8.95, p = .003, partial η2 = .01, and study engagement, f(1, 1292) = 22.30, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. more specifically, the average (and sd) score for who answered yes and no to this question are respectively 14.22 (3.95) and 13.51 (3.70) for studyholism, and 13.68 (3.59) and 14.68 (3.24) for study engagement. about the year of study, the multivariate test showed a statistically significant effect: f(8, 2580) = 4.84, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. however, there is not a statistically significant difference on studyholism, as highlighted by the follow-up anova (using the adjusted alpha level): f(4, 1292) = 2.57, p = .04, partial η2 = .01. instead, concerning study engagement, the results showed a statistically significant difference, f(4, 1291) = 7.08, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. post-hoc bonferroni analysis reported that the fifth year has a statistically significant higher level of study engagement (m = 15.40, sd = 3.49) than the first (m = 14.28, sd = 3.23; p = .001), the second (m = 14.11, sd = 3.45; p < .001), and the third (m = 14.00, sd = 3.26; p < .001) year, but not than the fourth (m = 14.84, sd = 3.49) year. no other differences between groups emerged. finally, the multivariate test showed a statistically significant effect for the major of study: f(10, 2570) = 3.92, p < .001, partial η2 = .02. more specifically, we found a statistically significant difference for both studyholism, f(5, 1286) = 4.14, p = .001, partial η2 = .02, and study engagement, f(5, 1286) = 3.80, p = .002, partial η2 = .02. the bonferroni post-hoc test showed that the humanities and educational studies group scores statistically significantly higher (m = 14.18, sd = 3.77) than both the health professions (m = 13.07, sd = 3.58; p = .032) and the psychology (m = 13.07, sd = 3.73, p = .008) groups on the studyholism scale. we did not find any other statistically significant difference between medical studies (m = 14.19, sd = 3.83), math, physics, science studyholism inventory (si-10) 698 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and engineering (m = 13.76, sd = 3.74) and social sciences (m = 13.97, sd = 3.81) groups. moreover, the humanities and educational studies group scores also statistically significantly higher (m = 14.96, sd = 3.25, p = .008) than the social sciences group (m = 13.89, sd = 3.38) on the study engagement scale. no other differences between the health professions (m = 14.05, sd = 3.28), psychology (m = 14.56, sd = 3.37), medical studies (m = 14.84, sd = 3.50), math, physic, science and engineering (m = 14.14, sd = 3.31) groups were detected. lastly, we analyzed on a random subsample of sample 1 (n = 474) the correlations between studyholism and study engagement and age, as well as between the following study-related variables: hours of study per day generally and before exams, days of study per week generally and before exams. table 4 shows the results of these analyses. concerning age, we did not find a statistically significant relationship with studyholism and study engagement; moreover the r values are near zero (i.e., respectively, -.02 and .01). discussion the present study showed good psychometric properties for the si-10. regarding the factor structure, we did not find a good fit for the 10-item version proposed by loscalzo et al. (2018). however, by deleting one item per each factor (the ones with the lowest factor loadings) and (even more) correlating two errors, we found a good fit. even if these two items should not be used for scoring purposes, we suggest administering them anyway as they may help the clinician to have more insight into the study-related behaviors of the person. we also found average internal reliability, with values higher than .80 for both the scales of the test. finally, the results showed good convergent and divergent validity for the si-10. the si-10 studyholism scale has a positive and statistically significant correlation with the bstas, which evaluates the same problem behavior (i.e., problematic overstudying) using addiction symptoms instead of obsessive-compulsive ones. the medium value of correlation (.55) indicates that even if they evaluate the same problem behavior, they assess different aspects of it. moreover, the studyholism scale has good divergent validity since, besides the no-significant correlation with the absorption subscale of the uwes-s-9, it has low and negative statistically significant correlations with both the total score and the vigor and dedication subscales (values ranging between .19 and .24). hence, compared to the italian version of the bstas (loscalzo & giannini, 2018a), the si-10 studyholism scale has better divergent validity. concerning the si-10 study engagement scale, it has good convergent validity, as shown by the statistically significant values of correlation with both the total and the three subscales of the uwes-s-9 (values ranging between .43 and .56). as previously said for the correlation between the si-10 studyholism scale and the bstas, these values indicate that the two instruments evaluate the same construct, namely study engagement, but referring to different components of it. we have to keep in mind that the final version of the si-10 has no item related to vigor, dedication, and absorption (even if initially included in the pool of items for developing the si-10). it evaluates mainly intrinsic motivation toward studying. about divergent validity, the si-10 study engagement scale has a statistically significant and positive, even if low, correlation with the bstas (r = .18). however, this is in line with the study of atroszko et al. (2015) that, loscalzo & giannini 699 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ using a single item asking students to indicate how much they were engaged in study, found a positive and significant correlation with the bstas (r = .48, p < .01). moreover, this result supports loscalzo and giannini’s (2017a) model, which suggested that some studyholics could also be engaged in their study, hence being characterized by a positive aspect too. also, it seems to support loscalzo and giannini’s (2018a) speculation that the italian bstas does not adequately distinguish between study addiction and study engagement. in line with this, the results of the zero-order correlations (n = 956) showed that the bstas has a positive correlation with the uwes-s-9 absorption scale. moreover, the correlations between the bstas and the time spent studying (i.e., hours per day and days per week of study, both generally and before exams) are higher than those between the si-10 studyholism scale and time spent studying. about this, it is interesting to note that also the si-10 study engagement scale has higher correlations with time spent studying than the si-10 studyholism scale. also, the bstas correlates with three of the four variables related to the time spent studying with values very similar to the ones of the uwes-s-9 absorption scale. in sum, these results seem to provide further support to the assertion that the italian bstas does not adequately distinguish between study addiction and study engagement and, more specifically, that it evaluates, in particular, the study engagement component of absorption toward studying. finally, concerning the correlations between the si-10 scales and the gpa, we found a low and negative statistically significant correlation (-.19) between studyholism and gpa. this is in contrast with atroszko et al. (2015), who found a no-significant value of .02 for the correlation between the bstas and the gpa of the last semester, and a low positive value of .12 for the gpa of the whole studies. moreover, the present study showed a very low correlation (r = -.08) between the bstas and the gpa. we found instead a good positive correlation (.40) between gpa and study engagement, which is much higher than the values found by loscalzo and giannini (2019b) between gpa and vigor, dedication, and absorption (values ranging between .08 and .12) on italian students. given the good psychometric properties of the si-10 (with two filler items) and the sample size (n = 1296), which is quite big and representative of many italian cities and many majors, we used this sample to establish the cut-off values for low and high studyholism/study engagement. referring to the t scores distribution, we selected the 40th and the 60th t score that correspond to the following raw scores: 10 and 18 for studyholism and 11 and 18 for study engagement. using these values, we found that in our sample there are more engaged than disengaged studyholics, hence suggesting that it is possible to have the co-presence of a negative and a positive attitude toward study, as proposed by loscalzo and giannini (2017a, 2018b). moreover, there are also more engaged studyholics than engaged students, highlighting the need for developing preventive interventions for favoring study engagement and preventing studyholism. these preventive interventions are critical, especially taking into account that in our sample the highest percentage of students belongs to the detached student category, suggesting that a lack of study engagement is spread in italian university students. we want to highlight that since studyholism is a new potential clinical condition, we could not perform receiver operating characteristic (roc) analysis for selecting the clinical cut-off due to the lack of a clinical sample and of clinical instruments to be used as gold standard. however, the cut-off scores we proposed allow detecting students who have sensibly higher or lower studyholism/study engagement levels than the average student. this has critical implications for the clinical practice, as the psychologist may evaluate if the student deserves studyholism inventory (si-10) 700 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ an intervention addressing specifically high studyholism and/or low study engagement. in addition, by crossing the cut-off values of the two scales, he/she also evaluates if the student belongs to one of the three fewer spread types of student among the general population: disengaged studyholic, engaged studyholic, disengaged student, or engaged student. hence, using our cut-off values helps to tailor the intervention on the student. finally, we used the si-10 for analyzing some demographic and study-related differences in studyholism and study engagement, and the association between these two study-related behaviors and some academic indicators. first, concerning demographic variables, we found that females have higher levels of both studyholism and study engagement than males. these results are in line with atroszko et al. (2015); however, loscalzo and giannini (2019b) did not find gender-differences in study engagement. moreover, there are no differences between students who usually do an activity (such as singing, playing an instrument or having a hobby) or a sport besides studying and students not doing such activities. also, there is no relationship between age and studyholism or study engagement. about study-related variables, the results showed that who repeated a school year before university or is currently late with his/her study has higher levels of studyholism and lower levels of study engagement as compared to who has never been rejected. we could speculate that studyholism causes academic impairment; however, future studies should evaluate this assumption by employing causal models. concerning differences in the year of study, we did not find any difference in studyholism. in contrast, fifth-year students have higher study engagement levels compared to the students of the previous years (but not with students in their fourth year). keeping in mind that the si-10 evaluates study engagement in its intrinsic motivation component, we hypothesize that students at the end of the university could be more engaged in their studies as they are nearer to their final degree. hence, they could be more intrinsically motivated given the higher knowledge and competencies they have gained as compared to the previous years. moreover, in italy, the master’s degree is usually considered as more important than the bachelor degree to have a good job that matches the major of study; therefore, students could be more engaged in studying since their careers will depend on their involvement in the study. finally, concerning the major of study, we found that humanities and educational students (e.g., languages, literature, history, philosophy, education) have higher studyholism than both psychology and health professions (e.g., nursing) students. moreover, the results showed that the humanities and educational group has higher levels of study engagement than the social sciences (e.g., law, economy) group. no other difference with the other two groups (i.e., medical studies and math, physics, science, and engineering) emerged. it is interesting to note that the humanities and educational group is characterized by a high level of both studyholism and study engagement. this result gives again support to the model of loscalzo and giannini (2017a), and more specifically to the existence of engaged studyholics, which could have some differences compared to disengaged studyholics concerning some variables. finally, social sciences students have the lowest mean level of study engagement. this finding could suggest that who studies this major should receive an intervention aiming to detect the reason/s for the low engagement in vigor, dedication, absorption, and intrinsic motivation and target it/them to increase their study engagement. loscalzo & giannini 701 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the last analyses we performed are about the correlations between studyholism and study engagement and some academic indicators. we found that the two si-10 scales are both positively and statistically significantly correlated with time spent studying, as assessed by self-reported hours per day and days per week of studying (generally and before exams). however, the values of correlation are higher for the study engagement scale, even if low anyway. the results we found for the studyholism scale are a bit smaller as compared to the values found by atroszko et al. (2015) for the correlation between study addiction and hours of study per week in total, at the university and at home (values ranging between .15 and .30, while ours range between .10 and .18). instead, the values about study engagement are in line with loscalzo and giannini (2019b), whose study showed a positive correlation between the uwes-s-9 absorption subscale and the hours of study per day both in general and before exams. however, loscalzo and giannini (2019b) did not find a positive correlation between time spent studying and the uwes-s-9 vigor and dedication scales (the last one, being weakly and positively correlated with the hours of study per day generally, but not with the time spent studying before exams). taken these results altogether, we suggest that the highest correlations in italian students seem to be those between absorption (uwes-s-9 scale), inner motivation toward study (si-10 study engagement scale), and time spent studying both in general and before exams. it seems evident that the more time a student spent studying and the more he/she is absorbed in studying. in the same vein, the more one is intrinsically motivated in his/her studies, the more time he/she will spend studying to get good grades. moreover, we also speculate that the higher correlations between study addiction and time spent studying (as compared to the ones we found between studyholism and time spent studying) may be due to the less definite distinction between study addiction and study engagement – especially in its absorption component – that has been suggested for the bstas (loscalzo & giannini, 2018a). in sum, these results show that preventive interventions should favor study engagement, and especially intrinsic motivation toward study, to favor academic success. limitations and strengths of the study about the limitations of this study, we have assessed academic performance utilizing self-reported gpa, while it would have been better to have an objective indicator. also, the participants are predominantly females; however, this is in line with the sample used by atroszko et al. (2015). moreover, we analyzed some correlations and group-differences that allows making some hypotheses about the negative impact of studyholism, but that do not allow making casual assumptions. future studies should use causal models to test the causal relationships between the antecedents and outcomes of studyholism and study engagement proposed by loscalzo and giannini (2017a). one first attempt in this direction has recently been made by loscalzo and giannini (2019a) through their path analysis model. besides these limitations, the si-10 has the merit to have been created based on the suggestions of quinones and griffiths (2015), kardefelt-winther (2015), and billieux et al. (2015) for the studying of new potential behavioral addictions (and, hence, of other new potential clinical conditions). the pool of items has been developed based on the comprehensive theory of loscalzo and giannini (2017a, 2018b) and with the aim of not overpathologizing a common behavior such as studying. finally, we proposed the cut-off scores for defining high and low studyholism/study engagement and the four types of student (i.e., disengaged studyholics, engaged studyholics, engaged students, detached students). studyholism inventory (si-10) 702 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions the si-10 is a 10-item instrument with good psychometric properties. through five items per each factor (one of which is a filler item and is not included in the scoring), it allows evaluating studyholism (or obsession toward study) and study engagement (in its intrinsic motivation component). it also allows detecting students with high/low levels of studyholism and study engagement, as well as students belonging to the following four types: disengaged studyholics, engaged studyholics, engaged students, detached students. the si-10 could be used in future research to understand better the features of studyholism, as well as its antecedents and outcomes. moreover, it could be used for both preventive and clinical interventions intended to improve students’ well-being and their academic performance. more specifically, professional figures working with students (such as psychologists, counselors, and student affairs educators) may use the si-10 in their assessment procedures to evaluate if the students they encounter in their practice and who face academic issues (e.g., low grades, dropout intention, test anxiety) have high levels of studyholism and/or low levels of study engagement. since it is a rapid screening instrument and is straightforward to be scored, it may also be self-administered easily to all the students aiming to detect the ones in need of an intervention specifically related to studyholism and/or study engagement. finally, the si-10 may be administered during the implementation of interventions to increas students’ well-being and academic success to evaluate if their studyholism is decreased and/or their study engagement is increased. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andreassen, c. s., griffiths, m. d., hetland, j., & pallesen, s. 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scoring 1. i have study-related worries even when i am not studying (e.g., on holidays, when i am doing sports) studyholism 2. i am satisfied with who i am as a student study engagement filler 3. i cannot relax because of worries about studying studyholism 4. often, i feel anxious or nervous because of study-related issues studyholism 5. the quality of my studying is a source of pride for me study engagement 6. before exams, i can’t think about anything else other than preparing for the exams studyholism filler 7. i feel overloaded with all the things i have to do studyholism 8. i study very hard in order to get the best grades study engagement 9. my desire to get good grades motivates me to study study engagement 10. i do the very best i can to get the best grades study engagement note. by contacting the first author, it is possible to get the italian, english, polish, croatian, and spanish versions of the si-10 that also includes the questions of the head-sheet. about the authors yura loscalzo, phd and licensed psychologist. currently, she is a lecturer at the university of florence teaching developmental psychopathology. her main areas of research are workaholism, studyholism (a construct she created during her phd studies) and students’ wellbeing. marco giannini, associate professor at the university of florence. he currently teaches models of psychotherapy and research methods in clinical psychology. his main areas of research are workaholism, studyholism, and psychotherapy. studyholism inventory (si-10) 706 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 688–706 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1911 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ studyholism inventory (si-10) (introduction) method participants materials procedure data analysis results psychometric properties of the si-10 cut-off scores for the screening of the four types of student demographic and study-related differences discussion limitations and strengths of the study conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors fifty shades of unsaid: women’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexual morality research reports fifty shades of unsaid: women’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexual morality tiziana lanciano*a, emanuela soletia, francesca guglielmia, ivan mangiullia, antonietta curcia [a] department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, bari, italy. abstract the movie fifty shades of grey has created a great deal of controversy which has reignited the debate on unusual and alternative sexual practices such as bondage. erotophobic individuals have negative affect towards the type of sexual libertinism conveyed by the movie, while erotophilic persons have a positive attitude and emotional feelings towards this kind of sexual emancipation. using the implicit association test, this study aimed to explore the extent to which there is a difference in women's attitudes towards sexual morality on an explicit and implicit level. our findings found that erotophobic and erotophilic women differed only on an explicit level of sex guilt and moral evaluation, while no difference in the implicit measure was found. keywords: sexual morality, implicit attitudes, erotophobia-erotophilia, sex guilt europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 received: 2016-01-27. accepted: 2016-05-23. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: constance de saint-laurent, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, piazza umberto i, 1, 70121, bari, italy. e-mail: tiziana.lanciano@uniba.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. introduction there can be no doubt that the movie adaptation of the book fifty shades of grey (de luca, brunetti, james, & taylor-johnson, 2015) has been a phenomenon. there has been no more eagerly anticipated movie this year (robey, 2015). in 2011, british author e. l. james’s novel (the first of the trilogy) was published by vintage books, while hollywood released a movie adaptation of the book on valentine’s day 2015. both the trilogy and the movie depict a romantic and erotic bondage-domination-sadism-masochism (cooper, 2012; weiss, 2011) relationship concerning 28-year-old millionaire christian grey and 22-year-old college graduate anastasia steele (james, 2011). to illustrate, bondage-domination-sadism-masochism refers to a range of behaviors in a sexual context characterized by fetishes, role-playing, and nonmainstream activities, which includes aspects of power and pain and where there is the consent of all parties involved (barker, iantaffi, & gupta, 2007; weiss, 2011). although there is debate about what may be considered “acceptable” within the context of bondage-domination-sadismmasochism, many practices are painful and go on to propagate traditional gender role dynamics, such as aggressive performances (barker, iantaffi, & gupta, 2007). in fifty shades of grey, the couple’s bondage-domination-sadismmasochism practice involves christian as the dominant and anastasia as the submissive partner. one the most europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ perverse aspects of the story is anastasia’s agreement to sign a dominant/submissive contract with christian (james, 2011). astonishingly, the book has sold over 100 million copies and the movie has also been a worldwide success. the phenomenon of the book and movie is energized by their appeal to modern women, who manage both a family and their career (schneiderman, 2012). these twenty-first century modern women have bought the book in record numbers. according to radical-libertarian feminists, women should retract any moral judgements that stigmatize sexual practices and constrain their sexual freedom. women should claim the right to experience anything which gives them pleasure, gratification, and/or satisfaction, and the right to experiment with a variety of sex practices without limiting themselves to a restricted range of sexual experiences (ferguson, 1984; tong, 2013). in other words, fifty shades of grey has been considered as female romance porn for the hookup generation in both narrative and movie forms (eckman, 2015; schneiderman, 2012). sexual morality vs. sexual emancipation generally, the world of sex and sexuality involves a massive variety of emotions and personal values and connotations. for example, sex may include both the negative emotions of moral judgments and painful recollections of earlier sexual experiences, and positive feelings, fantasies, desires and pleasant reminiscences (macapagal & janssen, 2011; peterson & janssen, 2007). the dimension of personality broadly used to assess sex-related emotions and attitude is the erotophobia-erotophilia dimension (fisher, byrne, white, & kelley, 1988). the bipolar single trait of erotophobia-erotophilia assesses the individual’s variability to openness-closeness to sex and sexuality, which are linked to people’s approach-avoidance inclinations in sexual situations. to illustrate, erotophobic people have very negative attitudes to sex; they feel a wide range of emotions towards sexuality, including anger, vulnerability, disgust, fear, and shame. literature suggests that erotophobic individuals tend to have higher levels of totalitarianism and need for success, have more traditional sex roles (fisher, byrne, et al., 1988) and lower sexual familiarity and are less likely to ask for sex education than erotophilic people (fisher, grenier, et al., 1988; gerrard, kurylo, & reis, 1991). consequently, erotophobic people tend to avoid any sexual context, above all when the risk of a sexual intercourse is high and unexpected. on the contrary, erotophilic people have a positive attitude and emotional feelings towards sex; they consider sex as a positive part of life (indeed "sex positive" is used as a term along with erotophilia). an erotophilic person embraces all facets of sexuality, including unusual practices such as bondage, dominance and submission. erotophilic individuals think about sex more often, tend to masturbate and fantasize more frequently, have their first sexual intercourse at an earlier age and have more intercourse partners than erotophobic individuals. erotophilic people are also more likely to engage in regular gynecological visits and in preventative behaviors concerning sexually transmitted diseases (fisher, byrne, et al., 1988), and are more inclined to debate sexual care, than erotophobic individuals (herbenick, reece, & hollub, 2009). in this vein, fifty shades of grey has created controversy in readers and viewers both on the internet and newspapers, leading people to rekindle the debate on sexual matters and unusual practices. from the first days of the movie’s release, blogs and social networks were full of opinions about its core concepts from both opponents and fans alike. the fifty shades trilogy and movie are a product of a modern civilization and a twenty-first century culture that encourages people to be sexually free and independent and to take pleasure in anyone and anything they desire without guilt (douthat, 2015). according to catholic communities, the irrationality of fifty shades of grey is that mr. grey is a man who first dominates miss steele but finally loves her, providing that she sign a europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 551 http://www.psychopen.eu/ challenging contract containing all types of domination that she will take part in (eckman, 2015). we live in a society with a bland sense of sex-related shame, and sex corresponds to an attack on human self-respect and dignity (mohler, 2015). while progressive culture considers fifty shades as cultural progress, for some people it is sign of cultural worsening and failure (eckman, 2015). regardless of the sexual context conveyed by the movie, what has been said underlines the idea that sex may elicit mixed affective and cognitive responses and evaluations such as positive affect, pleasantness, satisfaction, a sense of freedom, but also fear of pleasure, shame, or guilt. sex guilt has been defined as “a generalized expectancy for self-mediated punishment for violating or for anticipating violating standards of proper sexual conduct. such a disposition might be manifested by resistance to sexual temptation, by inhibited sexual behavior, or by the disruption of cognitive processes in sex-related situations” (mosher, 1998, p. 27). erotophobic individuals feel guilt for partaking in particular sexual activities such as bondage-domination-sadismmasochism, oral sex, masturbation, fantasies about sex and same-sex partners, and judge these practices as immoral, sinful, unclean and dirty. sex guilt is generally associated with the feeling of being dirty. who experience sex guilt usually think that sex is degrading and connected to primitive and animal instincts, and they approach sex as an manifestation of lack of self-control (sinclair intimacy institute, 2015). explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexuality many studies on affect and sexuality have focused on the conscious processes of behaviors and reactions to sexual stimuli, and have generally investigated individuals’ immediate and consciously experienced reactions to sexual stimuli (wiegel, scepkowski, & barlow, 2007). nevertheless, a few studies have investigated the possibility that sex-related affective attitudesmay involve automatic processes which occur outside an individual's conscious awareness and are engaged immediately and without conscious effort when sexual stimuli are given (brauer, de jong, huijding, laan, & ter kuile, 2009; oliver, watson, gannon, & beech, 2009; macapagal & janssen, 2011).this is indeed the open issue which drives our pilot study: do women who explicitly evaluate themselves as sexually liberal, emancipated and revolutionary, implicitly conceptualize sexual perversions (such as bondage-dominationsadism-masochism practices) as not being morally guilty and dirty? we suppose that attitudes towards bondagedomination-sadism-masochism practices may be vulnerable to the bias of explicit self-report measures (i.e. questionnaires), and that implicit measures may be more suitable to detect these attitudes. in the present pilot study we examined individuals’ representations concerning an emancipated and liberal sexuality, as that conveyed by the movie fifty shades of grey, by comparing women’s implicit and explicit attitudes. among implicit measures, the implicit association test (greenwald, mcghee, & schwartz, 1998; greenwald, nosek, & banaji, 2003) was considered as providing a crucial step forward. generally, the label implicit refers to assessment techniques that control the role of awareness in producing response and self-reflective processes (nosek, greenwald, & banaji, 2007). greenwald and colleagues claim that individuals are not always conscious of their social attitudes (greenwald et al., 1998), and because of this, the iat is built to explore attitudes which participants are unaware of or reluctant to express for fear of being judged as having politically incorrect opinions. it is a method used to indirectly assess the power of relations among concepts, and requires the categorization of stimulus exemplars from four concepts choosing just two response options, each of which is assigned to two of the four concepts. the idea underlying the iat is that this sorting task should be easier and faster when the two concepts that share a response are strongly associated than when they are weakly associated (nosek et al., 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 552 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a large body of research has provided findings concerning implicit attitudes towards homosexuality (anselmi, vianello, voci, & robusto, 2013; banse, seise, & zerbes, 2001; breen & karpinski, 2013; jellison, mcconnell, & gabriel, 2004; jones & devos, 2014; steffens, 2005). other studies did not directly investigate sex-related implicit attitudes, but instead used the concepts of implicit and explicit processes in sexuality, such as explicit vs. implicit memory for sexual words (bush &geer, 2001), implicit vs. explicit priming of the sexual system (spiering, everaerd, & janssen, 2003), or implicit attitudes toward mainstream sexual terms (e.g., kissing) and bondage-dominationsadism-masochism terms (e.g., bondage) (stockwell, walker, & eshleman, 2010). in a recent study, macapagal and janssen (2011) tested the link between automatic associations with sexual stimuli and the dimension of erotophobia-erotophilia. the authors concluded that the valence of sexual stimuli can be treated automatically and this is related to trait affective responses to sex. jointly considered, findings showed that sexually implicit stimuli presented outside of awareness had a different impact when compared with explicit stimulus presentations. these findings authorize us to consider both an explicit and implicit level in our investigation of sex-related attitudes. overview and hypotheses the present pilot study aimed to explore women’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards an emancipated and liberal sexuality, such as the bondage-domination-sadism-masochism practice conveyed by the movie fifty shades of grey. any explanation of the aim of the current study must begin with a crucial consideration: we were not interested in recruiting a sample of movie supporters vs. opponents, also because real opponents of the movie surely did not see it. we aimed instead to investigate the different attitudes (explicit and/or implicit) of people who saw the movie. our idea is that erotophobic and/or moralist individuals would generally oppose and disapprove of the sexual libertinism shown, and if some of these decided to see the movie, they did so because they consider it to be largely a romantic and loving film. instead, erotophilic and/or emancipated individuals may support and encourage the sexual libertinism displayed in the movie. we aimed to explore the extent to which there is a difference in attitudes towards sexual morality on an explicit and implicit level. to test our aim, we randomly selected women older than 30 years of age who had seen the movie, and their dispositional traits of erotophobia-erotophilia were assessed. the choice of a totally female sample is due to the movie’s prospective of female submission in which the bondage-domination-sadismmasochism practices involve the male protagonist as the dominant partner and the female protagonist as the submissive partner. empirical evidence suggests that about 89% of women who are engaged in bondage-domination-sadism-masochism expressed a preference for a dominant man (ernulf & innala, 1995). women were also administered a sexual satisfaction measure in order to exclude attenuate confounding due to sexual satisfaction or sexual distress. additionally, we operationalized the concept of an emancipated and liberal sexuality through some bondage-domination-sadism-masochism photograms taken from the fifty shades of grey movie. we also operationalized the concepts of sexual morality/immorality in terms of cleanliness/dirtiness. indeed, the main strength of the current study is that it does not adopt the traditional iat “good/bad” attribute contrast (greenwald et al., 2003), but instead adopts the categories of "dirty" and "clean". empirical evidence has shown that abstract concepts of morality/immorality are grounded in situations of physical cleanliness/dirtiness, in that water and soap eliminate more than physical dirt and weaken guilt from an individual’s moral misbehaviours (lakoff & johnson, 1999; lee & schwarz, 2010; schnall, benton, & harvey, 2008; zhong & liljenquist, 2006). indeed, we do not wish to investigate the conceptualization of sex in terms of goodness/badness and consequently we are not interested in the sexual pleasure or satisfaction which we hypothesized as being unassociated with the moralist attitude. we europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 553 http://www.psychopen.eu/ are instead interested in the conceptualization of unusual sex practices in terms of morally dirty and guilty attributes. despite the exploratory nature of the current study: h1: at the explicit level, we expected erotophobic women to exhibit higher levels of sex guilt, moral and romantic evaluation of the movie, and to declare that their motivation for seeing the movie was connected to the media phenomenon surrounding the film or that they had seen the movie by mistake. (seemeasures section for a detailed explanation). h2: at the explicit level, we expected erotophilic women to exhibit higher levels of fantasies and reflections after seeing the movie, a higher sexual evaluation of the film, and to give sexual motivations as the underlying reason for having seen the movie. h3: at the implicit level, we expected all participants (both erotophobic and erotophilic women) to show a high iat effect. we also expected no difference between the two groups in iat effect to be found. in other words, along with erotophobic women, we also expected erotophilic women who explicitly assessed themselves as being sexually emancipated, libertine and modern, to associate the sexual perversions portrayed in the movie with the concept of dirt. h4: we expected that explicit and implicit measures would not converge to discriminate women’s attitudes towards sexual morality. we also expected that the iat would not be able to detect the differences between erotophobic and erotophilic attitudes found at the explicit level. material and methods design the study was approved by the ethical committee of the department of education, psychology, communication of university of bari. the study adopted a 2x2 mixed design with the iat block (congruent vs. incongruent) as within subjects, and the explicit sex attitude (erotophobic vs. erotophilic) as between subjects. the dependent variables were: (1) explicit measures of sexual satisfaction, sex-guilt, affective responses to the movie, evaluation of the movie, motivations for viewing the movie, and (2) the implicit measure of the iat effect (greenwald et al., 1998). participants a sample of 25 female italian volunteers (age range = 31-64; m = 46.88; sd = 7.20) was recruited through an advertisement and among the researchers’ acquaintances through a snowball sampling method (biernacki & waldorf, 1981). to distinguish the two explicit sex attitude groups (erotophobic vs. erotophilic), a median-split procedure was applied to the measure of sexual attitude (macapagal & janssen, 2011; see measures section). on the basis of the median score (score = 70), we distinguished erotophobic vs. erotophilic women. the two groups were homogenous as regards age (t(23) = 1.33, p = .20), educational level (χ2(2, n = 24) = 1.48, p = .48), length of relationship (t(21)= 1.19, p = .25), marital status (χ2(2, n = 24) = 2.73, p = .26), motherhood (χ2(1, n = 25) = 0.36, p = .55), number of children (χ2(3, n = 25) = 1.65, p = .65), date of viewing before the experiment (χ2(2, n = 25) = 0.96, p = .62), number of times the movie was seen (χ2(2, n = 25) = 2.36, p = .31), other people present when participants saw the movie (χ2(4, n = 25) = 2.36, p = .67), show time (χ2(2, n = 24) = 5.87, europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 554 http://www.psychopen.eu/ p = .53), and previous reading of the trilogy (χ2(2, n = 25) = 1.13, p = .57). detailed characteristics for the two subsamples are shown in table 1. table 1 characteristics for the two subsamples erotophilic (n = 12)aerotophobic (n = 13)acharacteristic m = 44.92, sd = 7.61m = 48.69, sd = 6.56age education middle school = 1n= 0n high school = 4n= 6n degree = 7n= 6n mmonths = 15.26, sd = 11.73mmonths = 20.19, sd = 7.45length of relationship marital status single = 3n= 2n cohabiting = 2n= 0n married = 7n= 10n motherhood yes = 9n= 11n no = 3n= 2n number of children no child = 3n= 2n 1 child = 3n= 2n 2 children = 6n= 8n 4 children = 0n= 1n date of viewing some days ago = 1n= 1n one week ago = 0n= 1n more than one week ago = 11n= 11n number of times movie was seen once = 10n= 13n twice = 1n= 0n more than 2 times = 1n= 0n others alone = 2n= 1n partner = 2n= 5n sister = 2n= 1n friend = 5n= 4n other = 1n= 2n show time early afternoon = 4n= 0n late afternoon = 1n= 3n evening = 6n= 10n trilogy reading no = 7n= 6n yes, before movie = 5n= 6n yes, partly = 0n= 1n athe cell count may not match the sample size since the missing values. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 555 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures and procedure explicit measures sexual attitude — the participants’ sexual attitudes were assessed through the sexual opinion survey (sos) (fisher, byrne, et al., 1988). the sos consists of twenty-one 7-point items (1 = “strongly agree”; 7 = “strongly disagree”) which measure normal variations in affectiveevaluative responses to sex along a single dimension of erotophobia–erotophilia. items address participants’ attitudes towards a number of sexual behaviors (e.g., masturbation, fantasizing about sex, same-sex partners, oral sex). specifically, the scale consists of 10 erotophobia items assessing negative affective responses to sex (e.g., “i do not enjoy daydreaming about sexual matters”; cronbach’s alpha = .78), and 11 erotophilia items assessing positive affective responses to sex (e.g., “seeing a pornographic movie would be sexually arousing to me”; cronbach’s alpha = .91). participants’ scores on the sos are obtained by subtracting the sum of the erotophobia items from the sum of the erotophilia items, and a constant of 67 is added to the difference. higher scores indicated higher erotophilia, while lower scores indicated higher erotophobia. sexual satisfaction— participants filled in the sexual satisfaction scale for women (sss-w) (meston & trapnell, 2005). the sss-w consists of thirty 5-point items assessing sexual satisfaction and sexual distress (1 = “strongly agree”; 5 = “strongly disagree”). item scores were summed up into a total score (cronbach’s alpha = .91), and five sub dimensions: a) contentment (e.g. “i feel content with the way my present sex life is”; cronbach’s alpha = .76), b) communication (e.g. “i usually feel completely comfortable discussing sex whenever my partner wants to”; cronbach’s alpha = .72), c) compatibility (e.g. “i often feel that my partner and i are not sexually compatible enough”; cronbach’s alpha = .93), d) relational concern (e.g. “i’m worried that my partner will become frustrated with my sexual difficulties”; cronbach’s alpha = .90), and e) personal concern (e.g. “my sexual difficulties are frustrating to me”; cronbach’s alpha = .96). sex guilt — women’s sex guilt was assessed through the brief version of the revised mosher sex-guilt scale (brmsgs) (janda & bazemore, 2011). this scale represents a brief 10-item version of the 50-item sex-guilt scale from the revised mosher guilt inventory (mosher, 1998). the scale consists of ten 7-point items (0 = “totally false”; 6 = “totally true”; e.g., “unusual sex practices are dangerous to one’s health and mental”). item scores were summed up into the total score of sex guilt (cronbach’s alpha = .69). higher scores indicated higher sex guilt. considering that erotophobic women saw the fifty shades of grey movie too, we considered it crucial to explore the affective responses, evaluations, and motivations underlying their viewing of the movie. to address this aim, we needed to create the following specific items. affective responses to the movie — participants were asked to assess through sixteen 11-point items (0 = “not at all”; 10 = very much”) the extent to which they felt a) pleasure, b) emotion, c) excitement, d) fear, e) disappointment, f) curiosity, g) sadness, h) indifference, i) erotic fantasies, l) dreams, m) desire for a similar situation, n) reflections on one’s own romantic relationships, o) reflections on one’s own sexual relations, p) shame, q) guilt, and r) dirtiness. scores of items a), b), c), and f) were averaged into the sub dimension of positive emotions (e.g. “the movie excited me”; cronbach’s alpha = .87). the scores of items d), e), g), and h) were averaged into the sub dimension of negative emotions (e.g. “the movie disappointed me”; cronbach’s alpha = .43). the scores of items i), l), m), n) and o) were averaged into the sub dimension of fantasies & reflections (e.g. “the movie prompted erotic fantasies in me” or “the movie made me reflect on my romantic relationship”; cronbach’s alpha = .82). the europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 556 http://www.psychopen.eu/ scores of items p), q), and r) were averaged into the sub dimension of moral evaluation (e.g. “i felt guilty for having seen the movie” or “i felt dirty for having seen the movie”; cronbach’s alpha = .95). evaluation of the movie — participants were asked to assess through six 11-point items (0 = “not at all”; 10 = very much”) the extent to which the movie was a) erotic, b) hard, c) porn, d) sadomasochistic, e) perverted, and f) loving. the scores of items a), b), c), d), and e) were averaged into the sub dimension of sexual evaluation (cronbach’s alpha = .79). the score of item f) was considered as an index of romantic evaluation of the movie. motivations underlying viewing of the movie — participants were asked to assess through seven 11-point items (0 = “not at all”; 10 = very much”) if they saw the movie: a) to see an erotic film, b) to see hard scenes, c) to get excited, d) to criticize it, e) to comment on it, f) because the movie has been highly publicized, g) by mistake (i.e. no other movie was available). the scores of items a), b), c) were averaged into the sub dimension of sexual motivation (cronbach’s alpha = .87). the scores of items d), e), f) were averaged into the sub dimension of media motivation (cronbach’s alpha = .85). the score of item g) was considered as an index of viewing the movie by mistake. implicit measures iat measures — to construct the iat task, for the movie vs. no movie categories we selected eight pictures taken from the fifty shades of grey movie representing bdsm practices, and eight mainstream pictures of weddings, not presented in the movie. for the dirty vs. clean categories, we selected eight words belonging to the dirty category and eight words belonging to the clean category (see table 2 for details). the iat consisted of five separate blocks of categorization trials (see table 2). in each trial, a stimulus item (picture or word) was presented in the center of a computer screen, and participants were told to categorise it as accurately and as quickly as possible. • in block 1 (movie categorisation) participants classified each picture as belonging to the movie (press “e”) or not belonging to the movie (press “i”). • in block 2 (moral categorisation) participants classified each word as dirty (press “e”) or clean (press “i”). • in block 3 (double categorisation congruent block) participants evaluated whether stimulus (picture or word) were either belonging to the movie or dirty (press “e”), and whether they were either not belonging to the movie or clean (press “i”). • in block 4 (reversed movie categorization) participants classified pictures as not belonging to the movie (press “e”) or belonging to the movie (press “i”). • in block 5 (reversed double categorization incongruent block) participants evaluated whether stimulus (picture or word) were either not belonging to the movie or dirty (press “e”), and whether they were either belonging to the movie or clean (press “i”). error feedback in the form of a red letter “x” appeared after incorrect responses and participants had to correct error responses hitting the other key (built-in error correction procedure). each stimulus (picture or words) was presented a number of different times within each block, and the order of presentation and number of repetitions of each trial was completely randomized for each participant within blocks. associations of dirty vs. clean words with movie vs. not movie pictures were randomly presented in blocks 3 and 5. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 557 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 summary iat blocks and trials number of trials target for pressing key discrimination taskblock “i” key“e” key 20no moviebmovieamovie categorization1 20cleanddirtycmoral categorization2 20 (practice) + 40 (test)no movie/cleanmovie/dirtydouble congruent categorization3 40movieno moviereversed movie categorization4 20 (practice) + 40 (test)movie/cleanno movie/dirtyreversed double incongruent categorization 5 aone out of eight bdsm pictures from fifty shades of grey. bone out of eight mainstream pictures of weddings. cone out of eight "dirty words": "vomiting", "diarrhea", "sweat", "spit", "manure", "mucus", "anointed", "sewer". done out of eight "clean words": "laundry", "soap", "water", "scented", "snow", "source", "lily", "shampoo". the algorithm recommended by greenwald et al. (2003) to calculate the d index has the following steps for iat designs adopting the built-in error procedure: (1) use data from critical blocks (blocks 3 and 5); (2) eliminate trials with latencies >10,000 ms; (3) eliminate subjects for whom more than 10% of trials have latencies <300 ms; (4) compute the standard deviation for all practice trials in the both congruent and incongruent blocks (blocks 3 and 5) and the standard deviation for all test trials in both the congruent and incongruent blocks (blocks 3 and 5); (5) compute separated means for practice congruent trials, practice incongruent trials, test congruent trials and test incongruent trials; (6) compute two difference scores (one difference between practice congruent trials and practice incongruent trials, and the other between test congruent trials and test incongruent trials); (7) divide each difference score by its associated standard deviation from step (4); and (8) average the two quotients from step (7), obtaining the d index. a first sample 27 women were invited to take part in the experimental session but two of the women abandoned the session before completing the iat task. participants provided written informed consent to participate in the experiment. the retention interval between the movie’s release and the experiment was 39.12 days on average (sd = 5.49). the order of administration of the self-report explicit measures was randomized across participants, and the order of the administration of explicit and implicit measures was counterbalanced between subjects. results descriptive analysis to investigate the extreme emotions raised by the movie and the main erotic thread, descriptive analyses were run for each affective response and evaluation of the movie in the total sample (see measures section). results showed that higher emotions felt were pleasure (m = 3.40, sd = 2.84), disappointment (m = 5.44, sd = 3.89), curiosity (m = 4.00, sd = 2.58) and reflections on one’s own romantic and sexual relations (respectivelym = 3.48, sd = 3.72;m = 3.68, sd = 3.33). additionally, participants showed medium-high levels of erotic, sadomasochistic, and perverse evaluation of the movie (respectively, m = 5.08, sd = 2.81; m = 4.84, sd = 2.85; m = 3.76, sd = 2.49). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 558 http://www.psychopen.eu/ differences in sex attitudes table 3 displays differences in sex attitude (erotophobic vs. erotophilic subsamples) for all measures considered in the study. an independent sample t-test was run on both explicit and implicit measures, with sex attitude (erotophobic vs. erotophilic) as a between-subjects factor. given the limited sample size, and to prevent the violation of normal distribution assumptions, the nonparametric bootstrapping method was used as a robust estimation of t-test. bootstrapping provided a confidence interval (ci) around the coefficients, which are significant if the interval between the upper limit (ul) and lower limit (ll) of a bootstrapped 95%ci do not contain zero, which means that the difference between the two groups is different from zero. table 3 differences in sex attitudes (1000 bootstrapped samples) cohen’s d 95% confidence interval t-test (df = 23) erotophilic (n = 12)erotophobic (n = 13) measure mean (sd)min-maxmean (sd)min-max 102-14976-148sexual satisfaction scale – total .25018.08][-10.44,.610(15.73)124.92(20.86)129.46 13-3016-30sexual satisfaction scale – contentment .6707.89][-0.70,.601(5.88)21.25(4.87)24.69 14-3013-30sexual satisfaction scale – communication .07-04.20][-4.92,.16-0(5.56)23.83(5.85)23.46 10-3013-30sexual satisfaction scale – compatibility .2807.16][-3.77,.680(7.41)22.83(6.86)24.77 16-3015-30sexual satisfaction scale – relational concern .0003.28][-3.00,.010(4.06)27.83(4.28)27.85 24-3014-30sexual satisfaction scale – personal concern .14-01.72][-3.50,.34-0(1.99)29.17(4.42)28.69 0-197-31sex guilt scale – total .67116.63][6.03,.99**3(6.71)9.08(7.57)20.54 0.50-6.500-7.75positive emotions .33-01.16][-2.43,.80-0(2.12)3.56(2.47)2.83 0-6.750-5.50negative emotions .3202.22][-1.00,.770(2.15)2.88(1.89)3.50 0.80-8.400-5.80fantasies & reflections .00-1-0.42][-3.87,.40*-2(2.59)4.42(1.95)2.23 0-30-7.33moral evaluationa .7802.78][0.10,.911(0.87)0.25(2.38)1.64 2-6.600-9sexual evaluation .1001.74][-1.39,.230(1.55)3.63(2.53)3.83 0-9.000-10romatic evaluation .18-02.12][-3.14,.43-0(3.48)4.50(3.17)3.92 0-70-9sexual motivation .0502.07][-1.73,.110(2.06)1.53(2.81)1.64 1-100-10media motivation .63-00.39][-4.05,.51-1(2.99)5.31(3.02)3.48 00-10mistake motivation .9303.65][0.50,.23*2.000(3.11)2.00 -0.57-1.10-0.62-1.43d-index .2400.57][-0.35,.570(0.57)0.18(0.56)0.31 note. min-max from the empirical distribution. abootstrapping was significant and effect size was high. *p < .05. **p < .01. no difference between the two groups in all scores of sexual satisfaction was found, confirming our idea that the difference investigated in our sample is only in terms of sexual attitudes, and not for sexual satisfaction or distress. additionally, partially confirming hypotheses 1 and 2, erotophobic women exhibited higher levels of sex guilt, fantasies and reflections after viewing the movie, and a more moral evaluation of fifty shades of grey than erotophilic women. furthermore, erotophobic women claimed to have seen the movie by mistake. no difference in terms of movie’s evaluation was found, meaning that for all participants the movie was seen as both romantic and erotic. confirming hypothesis 3, all participants showed a positive average d value, suggesting an association between the bondage-domination-sadism-masochism pictures taken from the movie and dirtiness. no difference between europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 559 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the two groups in the d index was found, meaning that women who explicitly evaluated themselves as erotophilic and sexually emancipated showed a moralistic attitude towards sexual bondage-domination-sadism-masochism practices at an implicit level, just as erotophobic women do. according to cohen (1977), the effect sizes can be considered high (see table 3). receiver-operating-characteristic (roc) analysis to test hypothesis 4, a receiver-operating-characteristic (roc) analysis (swets, 1988) was run to determine if and how well the iat, at the implicit level, discriminated between erotophobic and erotophilic women at the explicit level. the d index was employed as a test variable indicating the "strength of conviction" that a participant falls into one category (erotophobic) or the other (erotophilic). an sos score was employed as a state variable indicating the “true category” to which a subject belongs. the value of the state variable indicates which category should be considered positive (in our case erotophilic). roc analysis provided an area under the curve (a.u.c.), as a measure of discrimination which ranges from 1 (perfect discrimination) to 0 (null discrimination), with the value .50 representing random discrimination. the roc analysis yielded an auc of .45 when erotophilic was considered the positive value of the state variable. the roc result suggested that, at the implicit level, the iat did not discriminate women who explicitly evaluated themselves as erotophilic from ones who evaluated themselves as erotophobic. the iat was not able to detect differences between erotophobic and erotophilic attitudes found at the explicit level. in other words, and confirming our expectations, explicit and implicit measures did not converge to discriminate women’s attitudes towards sexual morality. discussion e. l. james’s fifty shades of grey has been the subject of a great deal of research (comella, 2013; downing, 2013; stevens, 2014; van reenen, 2014). both the literary trilogy and themovie have created controversy rekindling the debate on consent and unusual sexual practices, such as bdsm. generalizing over and above the specific context of the movie, sex may cause a variety of affective and cognitive responses and evaluations, such as positive affect, pleasure, satisfaction, a sense of freedom, but also fear of pleasure, shame, or guilt. a growing body of research has focused on explicit or self-reported attitudes towards sexuality (fisher, byrne, et al., 1988), while less is known about the role of implicit and automatic attitudes involved in sexual processing (brauer et al., 2009; oliver et al., 2009; macapagal & janssen, 2011). the current pilot study aimed to explore women’s explicit and implicit attitudes towards an emancipated and liberal sexuality, such as that conveyed by the movie fifty shades of grey. we aimed to explore the extent to which there is a difference in attitudes towards sexual morality on explicit and implicit levels. results seemed to encourage our idea that erotophobic women explicitly exhibited higher levels of sex guilt and moral evaluation of the movie than erotophilic women, while the latter showed a higher level of fantasies and reflections than erotophobic women after seeing the move. moreover, erotophobic women claimed to have seen the movie by mistake. on the contrary, no difference regarding implicit attitude was found in the two sexual opinion groups: all women showed a positive average value of the d index (greenwald et al., 2003). in other words, all participants both erotophobic and erotophilic were faster in the iat categorization when bdsm pictures taken from the movie were associated with dirty items (congruent block), than when the movie’s pictures were associated with clean items (incongruent block). this pilot study shows how explicit and implicit measures do not converge to discriminate women’s attitudes towards sexual morality: also erotophilic women who explicitly assessed themselves as not europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 560 http://www.psychopen.eu/ moralistic, not sexually guilty, and sexually emancipated, libertine, modern associated the movie’s sexual perversions to the concept of dirtiness. our findings display how explicit and implicit measures do not converge to discriminate women’s attitudes towards sexual morality. a possible explanation of these results may be found in sex role stereotypes and socialization. in western society, for example, stereotypes for femininity include expectations that a woman be domestic, whole-hearted, pretty, emotional, dependent and passive. by contrast, masculinity stereotypes view them as unemotional, independent, active, and aggressive. even if women are encouraged to appeal to stereotypical fantasies of heterosexual men when they show a true interest and pleasure in sex and unusual sex practices (especially outside the marriage), they are judged as being bad and immoral (hamilton & armstrong, 2009; montemurro, 2014). as simon and gagnon (1986) noted, cultural settings are norms for sexual expression, such as the belief that women are sexually passive and men are sexually aggressive. as a consequence, we are prone to label as deviant women who initiate sex or men who are less interested in sex than their partners (simon & gagnon, 1986). in other words, we expect men to bemore interested in sex and to engage in it more frequently than women because, many believe, that is how men are biologically wired (montemurro, 2014). another possible explanation of our findings may be sought considering that catholicism is deeply rooted in italian culture due to the presence of the vatican. as regards standards of sexual morality, according to the catholic church sexual pleasure is morally wrong when sought outside its procreative purposes (catholic church, 1997). as a consequence, for catholics the release of the movie fifty shades of grey denoted the evolution of pornography that is significantly distant from a sacred idea of sexuality and human dignity (mohler, 2015). the previous record sales of the trilogy, and the actual celebration of the movie alerted many catholics to the fact that a lost sense of shame is an increasing and unavoidable phenomenon (mohler, 2015). the facilitation and automatism of sorting the movie’s bdsm pictures portraying dirty concepts, as compared with the movie’s bdsm pictures showing clean concepts, reflect the presence of an implicit moralistic attitude towards some sexual practices such as bondage or sadomasochism, since that these sex activities are conceptualized as sinful, unclean, dirty, and morally guilty. also women who explicitly evaluate themselves as erotophilic actually believe that sex is personally degrading and associated with base and animal instincts. the strong association between the movie’s pictures and dirty concepts, and between wedding pictures and clean concepts, was also confirmed by the positive average value of the d index in both erotophobic and erotophilic groups. the present findingsmight be explained by considering that when participants consider bondage-domination-sadism-masochism practices as guilty and dirty, the congruent categorization task appeared more facilitated, easier, and faster. the difficulty of switching between the two discrimination tasks (movie/no-movie pictures and dirty/clean words) when two concepts assigned to the same key are weakly associated (i.e. movie’s picture/clean word or wedding picture/dirty word) determines a slower performance (nosek et al., 2007). the main strength of the present work was its attempt to provide an innovative contribution to the investigation of explicit and implicit attitudes in the sexual domain. the present study has however some theoretical and methodological limitations. first, our sample size was relatively small. second, our female participants were not selected on the basis of highest erotophobia– erotophilia scores, but instead they were assigned to two groups on the basis of a median sos score. lastly, future studies could recruit a larger sample including male participants, and also assess the participants’ level of religious attitudes, involvement, and affiliation. however, despite the sample size, effect sizes were large throughout analyses, indicating that these findings represent meaningful results. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 561 http://www.psychopen.eu/ although a pilot version, we tried to demonstrate that group differences in erotophobia – erotophilia were not related to implicit attitudes towards unusual sex practices and that women are not completely aware or are hesitant or reluctant to sustain their sexual emancipation for fear of being morally judged. despite the above cited limits, the present study is an attempt to address the issue of explicit and implicit attitudes 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(2006). washing away your sins: threatened morality and physical cleansing. science, 313, 1451-1452. doi:10.1126/science.1130726 about the authors tiziana lanciano, phd, is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion, memory, emotional intelligence, well-being, mental rumination, and latent-variable analysis. emanuela soleti, phd, is a research fellow at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are memory, forensic psychology and psychopathology. francesca guglielmi is a phd student at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are forensic psychology and psychopathy. ivan mangiulli is a phd student at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. his current research interests are memory accuracy, amnesia, and eyewitness. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 lanciano, soleti, guglielmi et al. 565 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2fbf01542219 http://health.howstuffworks.com/sexual-health/sexual-dysfunction/sexual-guilt-and-shame-dictionary.htm http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f00224490309552175 http://dx.doi.org/10.1300%2fj082v49n02_03 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f10714421.2014.930602 http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol60/iss2/7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2fscience.3287615 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2f02580136.2014.925730 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2fscience.1130726 http://www.psychopen.eu/ antonietta curci, phd is an associate professor at the department of education, psychology and communication, university of bari “a. moro”, italy. her current research interests are emotion and memory, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence, forensic psychology, and multivariate data analysis. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 550–566 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.1124 implicit attitudes and sexual morality 566 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en implicit attitudes and sexual morality introduction sexual morality vs. sexual emancipation explicit and implicit attitudes towards sexuality overview and hypotheses material and methods design participants measures and procedure results descriptive analysis differences in sex attitudes receiver-operating-characteristic (roc) analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 research reports mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 aurélie simoës-perlant* a, céline lemercier a, christelle pêcher a, sarah benintendi-medjaoued a [a] laboratoire clle, université de toulouse cnrs, ut2j, toulouse, france. abstract the evaluation of emotions is one of the main challenges facing theorists and applied psychology researchers. in children, in order to focus on subjective feelings, psychologists mainly use non-verbal scales that measure both the intensity and valence of the emotions felt. the use of these scales poses a main research questions: what is the children’s knowledge of the emotion presented? in order to properly assess the emotional state of a child, it is first necessary to measure the child’s understanding of the major characteristics of emotion. secondly, it is important to assess the child’s ability to designate the primary emotion associated with a particular situation, and assess how these emotional situations alters their own assessment of their emotional state. this research aims to know if children from the age of seven to eleven can be emotionally induced and if this induction varies in the lifespan. keywords: emotion, imagination mood induction, emotional vocabulary, children, development europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 received: 2017-03-09. accepted: 2018-04-04. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: laboratoire clle, université de toulouse cnrs, ut2j, france – équipe erss, 5, allée antonio machado, 31058 toulouse cedex 01, france. e-mail: simoes@univ-tlse2.fr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. vocabulary is the set of words belonging to a language. among these words, some are the names of day-today objects or people (e.g. toy, cup, richard), others are verbs (e.g. eat, name), and some are adjectives (e.g. black, big). the adjective sub-set includes the emotional adjectives, that is those which add information on the emotional state of the "word" that we want to define (angry, happy). since the study by carey (1978; see also barrett, 1995), it is established that vocabulary is enriched with age, going from 500-600 words at 2 years of age to 14,000 words at 7 (barrett, 1995; carey, 1978), allowing individuals to improve the precision of their discourse and add nuance in their reflections. this paper investigates the critical question of the assessment of their own emotions by children, based on an analysis of their knowledge of emotional vocabulary. more precisely, we will detail a step-by-step approach that we used to develop a new verbal scale for the assessment of emotions by children from 7 to 11. the assessment of emotions is a key issue for theorists and researchers in applied psychology. emotion is defined as an individual assessment of an emotion-relevant event (e.g. frijda, 1987; lazarus, 1991; scherer, 1984). thus, the emotion will vary in time and between subjects (frijda, 2009). emotions have two main dimeneurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sions: valence and arousal. valence corresponds to the way people experience a situation (pleasant vs. unpleasant) and arousal corresponds to the degree of activation (calm vs. excited). the emotional experience involves noticeable adaptive changes on the peripheral physiological system, action tendencies, the motor system, the subjective feelings and cognitive evaluation (scherer, 2005). this last component involves the changes in mental states related to emotion, and refers to the subject's assessment of his or her own emotional state. specific methods and tools have been developed to assess each component of the emotional experience. focusing on the subjective feelings, psychologists widely use verbal scales to measure both the intensity and the valence of felt emotions. to rate emotions on this type of scale, respondents are implicitly required to: 1) perceive their own feelings, 2) verbalize them with appropriate words, and 3) modulate their answers to express subtle differences. this process could be considered by no means easy for an adult, and therefore far more difficult for young children. some studies on babies’ ability to recognize facial expressions showed that they can perceive and recognize the emotional valence of faces, are able to match body images to vocal information at 6.5 months using emotional cues (zieber, kangas, hock, & bhatt, 2014), and can discriminate between discrete emotions at an early stage if they are habituated to the stimuli (nelson & dolgin, 1985). this ability evolves with increasing age (gosselin, 2005; thommen, châtelain, & rimbert, 2004) as does early competence in controlling the expression of emotions (josephs, 1994). moreover, in these studies, emotions are always compared in pairs (e.g. joy vs. fear), with the principal dimension being the distinction of valence. however, we cannot conclude that children are able to recognize the intensity of these different emotions, which would enable them to distinguish between two emotions of the same valence (e.g. sadness vs. anger). inversely, young children’s self-assessment capacity develops later, as they require more time to apprehend emotional words and subtle differences (e.g. lewis, 2011; lewis, sullivan, stanger, & weiss, 1989). the early development of emotion and mental state vocabulary is well documented (e.g., johnson-laird & oatley, 1989; ortony, clore, & foss, 1987) but few studies have focused on this point in elementary school-aged children and adolescents. according to saarni (2000), at school entry, children develop sufficient specific linguistic competencies to evoke with words their own emotions as well as those of others. it therefore seems relevant to investigate the verbalization of emotions in this young in-learning population. until now, assessing emotions with pre-school children has always involved the use of non-verbal pictorial scales. the most widely used scale is the self-assessment manikin (sam) developed by lang (1980), and bradley and lang (1994). in its original version, three 9-point visual analog scales represent a figure from smiling to frowning, from wide-eyed to relaxed-sleepy and from large to small. each scale reflects one dimension of emotions: valence (positive/negative), arousal (high/low) and dominance (total/null). respondents must indicate on the three scales which figure best reflects their feelings. the validity of the sam has been attested in many situations including the assessment of the emotional valence of experimental material, and the rating of emotions from childhood to older ages (e.g., backs, da silva, & han, 2005; bradley & lang, 1994; kuppens, tuerlinckx, russell, & feldman barrett, 2013; laukkal & haapala, 2013; vasa, carlino, london, & min, 2006) or from normal to pathological behaviors (e.g. gouvousis et al., 2010; hughes & kendall, 2008; kotta & szamosközi, 2012). there is plenty of evidence that using the sam with children is easy and practical. but due to the theoretical principles underlying the constructibility of the sam, this pictural scale cannot discriminate mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 600 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotions other than positive vs. negative, and intense vs. slight. and the completion of data by additional interviews is difficult, indeed impossible, with young children because of their lack of emotional vocabulary. it is worth noting here that some verbal scales were developed to assess the emotional state of children. for instance, cuisinier, sanguin-bruckert, bruckert, and clavel (2010) created a self-assessment questionnaire in french to characterize childrens’ emotional state using terms such as the following: "inquiet/worried", "énervé/ upset", "joyeux/joyful", "triste/sad", "fier/proud", "mal à l’aise/ill at ease", "je m’ennuie/bored", "content/happy". young participants had to rate each item on eight 5-point scales from 1 ("not at all") to 5 ("extremely"), providing a measure of the valence and arousal of their felt emotion. this scale deserves mention because it is both the very first and the only one that investigates the question of children’s self-assessment of emotional state. however, like every study on this topic, there is no prior appraisal of the knowledge of emotional vocabulary of the participants. it is therefore not possible to rule out the possibility that the participants estimated certain items without understanding their meaning. more clearly, each targeted adjective is associated with a scale. with this mono-item structure, the emotional valence and the intensity can be measured but the knowledge of the emotional vocabulary is not controlled. however, one of the main criticisms made against these verbal scales is about the quality of the emotional items to be rated. none of the listed studies took the precaution of making sure that the emotional items were perfectly understood by the participants. if we can imagine that such an omission has only marginal consequences in adults, the situation is quite different in children from 7 to 11 years old, whose vocabulary is still very limited. it is also essential to consider the positive and negative affect schedule (panas) developed by watson, clark, and tellegen (1988), which is the best-known verbal scale. originally, the panas was underpinned by a 2x2 dimensional structure: (i) pleasant-unpleasant, (ii) arousal-calm, (i’) positive-tired and (ii’) negative-relaxed, the second set of dimensions being 45° rotations of the first set in the same factor space. in its original version, the panas uses 20 adjectives. respondents must rate on a 5-point scale how they feel the described emotions at that precise moment. the panas is commonly used in specific cultural groups and clinical contexts. as a consequence, this tool was adapted following linguistic and cultural suggestions. for instance, there is a version for the uk (crawford & henry, 2004), a spanish version for the adult population of cordoba, argentina (moriondo, de palma, medrano, & murillo, 2012), one for the african-american community in the usa (merz et al., 2013) and one for the brazilian adult population (de carvalho et al., 2013). of particular interest here, the panas was also adapted for children. for example, damásio, cerentini pacico, poletto, and koller (2013) validated a brazilian version for children between the ages of 7 and 16, with only 8 items, the panas c-8. laurent et al. (1999) developed a version for us children from 4th to 8th grades (9-14 years old), the panas-c, with 27 items, which was also used with children with anxiety disorders (hughes & kendall, 2009). but the consistency of the internal structure of the questionnaires remains unclear. moreover, responding to 8 emotional items does not reflect the same cognitive demand as rating 27 items, especially for children. additionally, proposing a longer questionnaire for children involves the possibility of incorporating linguistic subtleties, which may be useful, but also of creating ambiguities in children’s minds and inducing a reduction in the meaningfulness of answers. finally, it is worth mentioning another verbal questionnaire, the brief mood introspection scale (bmis), developed by mayer and gaschke (1988). this questionnaire is based on the findings of watson, clark, and tellegen (1988). the reliability and validity of the psychometrics were confirmed. the bmis is made up of 16 simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 601 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adjectives enabling four dimensions of assessment: (i) the pleasant-unpleasant scale, (ii) the arousal-calm scale, (i’) the positive-tired scale and (ii’) the negative-relaxed scale. for each adjective, participants must circle the response on the associated scale that best indicates how they feel at that moment. the 4-point scale ranges from "definitely do not feel" to "definitely feel". the bmis exists in a french version adapted by niedenthal and dalle (2001). however, to our knowledge, the bmis has not been used with a child population. a complementary point is that the bmis is recognized and used for assessing emotional changes after mood induction in applied research (e.g. corson & verrier, 2007; jallais, gabaude, & paire-ficout, 2014). mayer, allen, and beauregard (1995) developed a series of emotional induction procedures to induce four specific emotions, anger, sadness, joy and fear. these procedures combined the presentation of guided imagery vignettes describing emotional situations to be imagined with the presentation of valence-congruent music. from our point of view, this type of method is appropriate for children as it is fun and non-intrusive. taken together, the data emphasize the researcher’s difficulties in assessing the emotional state of children with a tool appropriate for their age. current verbal scales were not initially designed to take their lexical skills into account, and this may explain why they do not always seem to clearly understand the difference between the different items. in addition, existing graphic scales are too general and do not allow a clear labeling of the emotional experience. this study aims to investigate the question of the assessment of their own emotions by children based on the analysis of their knowledge of emotional vocabulary. from a methodological perspective, this implies designing a new verbal scale dedicated to the assessment of emotions by children from 7 to 11. from a practical perspective, emotion has an impact on many cognitive skills, especially on school learning abilities. professionals are increasingly taking emotion into account in the school environment. as knowledge acquisition is a core concern, this study provides both theoretical and practical working methods that better correspond to the activities of instructors and learning specialists. experiment 1 in this first experiment, we investigated whether elementary age children are able to detect the valence of emotional words in terms of positive vs. negative, and whether they are capable of labeling the type of emotion underlying the word (i.e., happiness, anger, sadness or fear). two sorting tasks were proposed for this purpose. method participants the participants were 77 schoolchildren. four grade-levels were recruited from an elementary school in toulouse (france). the distribution was as follows: 2nd grade (19 children, m = 7.89 years, sd = 0.24 years, 10 boys and 9 girls), 3rd grade (20 children, m = 8.91 years, sd = 0.32 years, 8 boys and 12 girls), 4th grade (17 children, m = 10.02 years, sd = 0.28 years, 14 boys, 3 girls) and 5th grade (21 children, m = 10.90 years, sd = 0.31 years, 10 boys, 11 girls). pupils were pre-selected by their teacher on the basis of their language skills. although all the pupils of a given class participated in the experiment (depending on their parents’ agreement), only those without any major reading and writing difficulties were included in the analyses. mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 602 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ethical clearance we made sure to respect the french "code of conduct applied to researchers in behavioral sciences" (caverni, 1998). as all the subjects were minors, we obtained the agreement of each legal representative. each participant gave their free and informed consent and we made it clear to them that they could leave the scientific process at any time. our material was designed in such a way as to leave no misunderstanding on any matter at all. in accordance with the french society of psychology criteria concerning deontology and ethics of research in psychology (http://www.sfpsy.org/), the researchers provided the participants and their parents with any additional information they needed to understand the study after the research was completed. the experimenters were concerned that participants experience the test in a positive manner. so, to avoid any negative effects or misunderstandings, individual and collective debriefings were conducted with the participants. we communicated our results to all the participants. their anonymity was respected and protected throughout the process. materials and design estimated frequency per million words was verified using the manulex database (lété, sprenger-charolles, & colé, 2004). three words or expressions related to each of the four primary emotions (joy, anger, sadness and fear) were selected, content (pleased), heureux (happy), and joyeux (joyful) for the joy category, en colère (angry), énervé (annoyed), and furieux (furious) for the anger category, chagriné (grieved), malheureux (unhappy), and triste (sad) for sadness and effrayé (afraid), apeuré (scared), and inquiet (worried) for fear. each word was typed in calibri font, size 20 and printed onto a 3x7 cm card with a white background. three 15x10 cm colored boxes (one blue, one red and one white) were also used for the sorting tasks. procedure children were tested individually. the child sat behind a table on which three boxes were placed. the cards with words were spread on the table in front of the child. before the sorting task, the experimenter asked the child to read each word aloud. when the word was not correctly read, the experimenter read the word aloud to ensure its correct pronunciation. for the first sorting task, the experimenter asked the child to put the positive adjectives in the blue box and the negative adjectives in the red box. the white box was reserved for unknown, neutral or ambiguous adjectives. for the second sorting task, the experimenter again took the 12 cards, mixed them and spread them on the table in a different order. the child was again asked to read them and to group the "words that go together". the number of groups was not limited and was decided freely by the child. results categorization task 1: detection of the emotional valence a set of chi-squared analyses was performed on the correct emotional valence (positive vs. negative), sorting for each emotion-related adjective and for each age group (2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade). all the adjectives were correctly sorted at more than 75% (all p’s < .05), apart from the 2nd grade children, who classified apeuré at the level of chance (47.37%, χ2(1, 19) = .05, ns.). categorization task 2: association by primary emotion the second part of the experiment investigated the grouping of all the emotional words as a free sorting task. in this second part, participants had to group the items that went well together. they did not give any label for the category they produced. we were interested in the number of emotional items grouped "correctly" regarding the simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 603 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 http://www.sfpsy.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ four primary emotions. we considered that the sorting was done on the basis of the primary emotion when all the items grouped corresponded to this one. for example "effrayé" with "inquiet" for fear or "joyeux", "content" and "heureux" for joy. if an item was left on its own, we did not count a point for it. similarly, if two items were grouped on the basis of another potential criterion, e.g. "joyeux" with "triste", we did not count points either. first, the data on performances on this second categorization task were analyzed through a one-way anova for 4 (grade) x 2 (sex). the results showed a significant effect of the grade (f(3, 69) = 5.03, p < .01, η2 p = .18). the percentage of correct sorting of emotions increased linearly with higher grades, and therefore with age (2nd grade = 68.89% [4.39], 3rd grade = 80.9% [4.38], 4th grade = 88.3% [6.09], 5th grade = 91.4% [4.18]). however, there were neither a significant effect of sex nor an interaction grade x sex (f < 1, ns.). a second set of chi-squared analyses was performed on the task of sorting the adjectives into each of the four studied primary emotions ("joy", "anger", "sadness" and "fear") for each age group (2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade) (see table 1). in 2nd grade, children properly attributed the primary emotion "joy" for the items joyeux (100% "correct" classification), heureux (100% "correct" classification), and content (χ2(1, 19) = 15.21, p < .001). the adjectives en colère (χ2(1, 19) = 8.9, p < .01) and énervé (χ2(1, 19) = 8.9, p < .01) were also classified properly in the anger group, while furieux was scored less than random probability (χ2(1, 19) = 1.32, ns.). for the two remaining emotions, all the adjectives were scored below random probability (χ2’s, ns). we performed a post-hoc set of chisquared analyses on the adjectives, sorting each of the three couples of negative emotions ("sadness/fear"; "sadness/anger"; "fear/anger") for 2nd grade children. only chagriné was ranked at less than random probability in the "sadness/fear" category (χ2(1, 19) = 1.32, ns.). for other items, there was no confusion or ambiguity. results indicated that children in 3rd grade sorted all the adjectives associated with "joy" and "anger" correctly (all p’s < .01). malheureux and triste were appropriately classified (respectively, χ2(1, 20) = 7.2, p < .01 and χ2(1, 20) = 5, p < .003) in the sadness group, while chagriné was not (χ2(1, 20) = .80, ns.). effrayé was correctly classified in the fear group (respectively, χ2(1, 20) = 9.8, p < .01) while apeuré and inquiet scored below random probability (respectively, χ2(1, 20) = 1.8, ns.; χ2(1, 20) = .20, ns.). children of the 4th grade correctly classified all the adjectives referring to "joy", "anger" and "sadness" (all p’s < .001). for the emotion fear, only inquiet scored below random probability (χ2(1, 20) = .06, ns). finally, 5th grade children correctly classified all the adjectives in the four primary emotions "joy", "anger", "sadness", and "fear" (all p’s < .001). mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 604 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 s or tin g c ar d r es ul ts fo r t he f ou r p rim ar y e m ot io ns f ro m 2 nd g ra de to 5 th g ra de g ra de jo y a ng er sa dn es s fe ar c on te nt h eu re ux jo ye ux en c ol èr e en er vé fu rie ux c ha gr in é m al he ur eu x tr is te ef fr ay é in qu ie t a pe ur é 2nd g ra de 94 .7 4* 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 84 .2 1* 84 .2 1* 63 .1 6 36 .8 4 47 .3 7 63 .1 6 57 .8 9 47 .3 7 47 .3 7 3rd g ra de 10 0. 00 * 95 .0 0* 10 0. 00 * 85 .0 0* 90 .0 0* 85 .0 0* 60 .0 0 80 .0 0* 75 .0 0* 85 .0 0* 55 .0 0 65 .0 0 4th g ra de 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 70 .5 9* 76 .4 7* 10 0. 00 * 94 .1 2* 10 0. 00 * 52 .9 0 82 .3 5* 5th g ra de 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 10 0. 00 * 90 .4 8* 80 .9 5* 85 .7 1* 90 .4 8* 85 .7 1* 80 .9 5* 85 .7 1* n ot e. t he a st er is ks re fe r t o "c or re ct " c la ss ifi ca tio n pe rfo rm an ce a bo ve ra nd om p ro ba bi lit y. simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 605 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study aimed to provide information on the familiarity of children in elementary school (2nd to 5th grade) with emotion-related adjectives referring to four basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger and fear. the first clear element is that children are perfectly capable of distinguishing between the negative and the positive valences of emotion-related words (more than 75% of correct answers for all grades and all adjectives). although the manulex database considers that french children know the word "apeuré" (scared), it was not correctly categorized by the younger participants in our study, suggesting in fact that it was not properly understood. indeed, this adjective is the only one for which the valence was not correctly identified by the 7-yearolds, in the categorization task. in a study by vasa et al. (2006), emotional and non-emotional words were presented to children from the ages of 9 to 11 who had to rate their valence for positive vs. neutral vs. threat. the results show fairly good consistency in the valence ratings. in their discussion, the authors explained that they first considered younger children from 7 to 8 but that presenting emotion-related verbal stimuli could create confusions in the experimental paradigm due to variations in children’s reading levels. our study both confirms and refutes this idea. on the one hand, our results showed that even children under 7 can define the emotional valence of words. on the other hand, we observe that knowing the emotional valence of a word does not predict the ability to associate it more specifically with a group of words referring to the same primary emotion. in the second task of this experiment, children had to label different emotion-related words in terms of four categories: joy, fear, sadness and anger. the results showed a linear increase of labeling performance with age/ grade. in other words, children learn subtle distinctions between emotions and how to define them progressively. note here the ambiguities with words such as chagriné or inquiet, which were placed by younger children in both the sadness and fear categories. there was no gender effect. one explanation is that to identify emotions clearly, they first need to be signified. words allow subtle variations in the expression of emotional reactions. in parallel with the development of the behavioral component of emotions (gestures, facial expressions, etc.) in a child, the acquisition of an emotional lexicon begins from 18 months (beeghly, bretherton, & mervis, 1986). some other studies suggest even earlier acquisition of emotionrelated words. smiley and huttenlocher (1989), for instance, found that native english-speaking children could use words related to fear and joy from 13 months. these types of emotions are expressed twice as much as other emotions at the same age. nonetheless, until the age of 35 months, emotion-related words are only used to express the child’s own feelings, and not necessarily correctly. children thus use emotion-related verbal stimuli before being able to understand and identify their meaning correctly. according to smiley and huttenlocher (1989), the emotional lexicon increases with age and becomes more accurate. these results are discussed by maillochon (2008), who found that french children express more joy (28 to 32 months) and anger (33 to 37 months) than fear. all authors agree that the basis of an emotional lexicon is acquired at the age of around 2/3 years and increases with age and experience, both in terms of accuracy and quantity of terms. this is in line with a series of studies showing that experiencing emotions at school and training children to understand emotions through story-telling and conversation, help them in the identification and labeling of emotions (e.g. ornaghi, brockmeier, & grazziani, 2014; widen, pochedly, & russell, 2015). von salisch, haenel, and freund (2013) also demonstrated that the understanding of emotions is dependent on the improvement of non-verbal cognitive abilities (e.g. matrices, similarities, etc.). non-verbal as well as verbal abilities increase with time and expemood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 606 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rience, and with knowledge acquired from the family, at school and so on. it is therefore no surprise to observe this linear increase in the labeling of emotions in our experiment. these first results show the need to develop tools and methods suitable for the age of the child. more precisely, as regards rating the emotions, it seems extremely important to adapt self-rating scales to children’s knowledge of the emotional lexicon. our first study showed that the youngest children could rate the emotional valence of words but had difficulty in labeling the type of emotions. when using the image-based mood induction procedure proposed by mayer et al. (1995), it is also important to question whether these very young children can or cannot rate the emotional valence as well as determine the emotional label of everyday situations they are reading. it may have a negative bias on the induction and the emotional ratings. experiment 2 the aim of experiment 2 was to select a set of sentences intensively associated with one of the four primary emotions (anger, joy, sadness, fear) by the children from 7 to 11 that we could use in experiment 3, so as to induce a specific emotional state in children with material adapted to their daily concerns. one requirement was that all sentences had to be understood and validated by children, whatever their age or grade. the chosen sentences or situations had to be representative of the daily and social activities of children, in which they could easily imagine themselves. the pool of sentences was carefully composed to be comprehensible by anyone. it was a methodological prerequisite for experiment 3, to ensure the efficiency of the emotional inductions generated by the sentences. notice here that contrary to the mayer and gaschke (1988) procedure, no music was presented with the vignettes. method participants the participants were 155 schoolchildren recruited from four grade-levels of an elementary school in toulouse (france). the distribution was as follows: 2nd grade (31 children, m = 7.80 years, sd = 0.25 years, 19 boys and 12 girls), 3rd grade (43 children, m = 8.87 years, sd = 0.34 years, 17 boys and 26 girls), 4th grade (40 children, m = 9.92 years, sd = 0.40 years, 22 boys, 18 girls) and 5th grade (41 children, m = 10.97 years, sd = 0.51 years, 21 boys, 20 girls). ethical clearance the same as for experiment 1. materials and design with reference to the bmis (mayer & gaschke, 1988), forty-two sentences were constructed to induce emotions in children. each sentence, designed to induce one of the four studied emotions, reflected a situation that children might encounter in their daily lives among family, friends and school environments (cf. table 2). four lists of sentences were constructed so that each child was presented with 12 sentences. in each list, three sentences referring to each of the four basic emotions (j = joy, a = anger, f = fear, s = sadness) were selected and were randomly presented, for example "c’est ton anniversaire et tous tes amis sont venus les bras chargsimoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 607 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ és de superbes cadeaux" ("it’s your birthday and all your friends have come with a lot of amazing presents"). the sequences were as follows: lists 1 and 2 = jafsajsfasjf; lists 3 and 4 = fajsafsjfajs. procedure the children had to say whether each sentence inspired joy, anger, fear or sadness. then the experimenter invited the children to say whether this sentence was "a very little" [joyful], "a little" [joyful], "a lot" [joyful] or "extremely" [joyful]. the experimenter checked the response of the children in the appropriate box. to ensure that the children understood the sentences correctly, and to help them in the selection of the most relevant and nonambiguous items, children were allowed to ask questions during the test. results to select the sentences with the greatest potential to induce specific emotions, we conducted two analyses. the first analysis is based on the percentage of correct identification of the primary emotion. the data were analyzed through a one-way anova for the 4 grades. the results showed a significant effect for grade, f(3, 62) = 3.5, p < .03, η2 p = .14. the post-hoc analysis showed that the grade effect concerned only the anger emotion, f(3, 151) = 5, p < .01, η2 p = .09. performance regarding correct identification increased linearly with the rise in grades and therefore with age (2nd grade = 54.33% [5.3], 3rd grade = 54.34% [4.49], 4th grade = 60.85% [4.65], 5th grade = 76.46% [4.6]). on the basis of participants’ comments and questions, some sentences were perceived as ambiguous or as provoking opposing emotional reactions. for instance, the joy-inspiring sentence "today, you are going to have lunch with your friends at mcdonald’s" was suppressed because of reactions such as "i don’t like mcdo, may i change the label to xxx?". the sadness-inspiring item "your mom threw away your favorite game by mistake" was suppressed because of the ambiguity of the provoked emotion (between sadness and anger). as a consequence, we carried out a more qualitative analysis of all the sentences based on the corpus compiled from the children’s answers. this qualitative step led us to remove three sentences for joy, two sentences for anger, one sentence for fear and two sentences for sadness. the second analysis concerned the perceived intensity for each sentence. after identifying the emotion evoked by sentences, participants had to rate their intensity (from 1 "a very little" to 4 "extremely"). all sentences with an average of less than 1.5 were considered to have scored too low and were discarded. finally, with regard to the quantitative and qualitative analyses, six sentences per emotion were retained to form our material for inducing specific emotions. table 2 presents the results of the intensity ratings phase. mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 608 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mean intensity ratings of the 6 sentences per emotion joy induction m 1. it’s your birthday and all your friends have come with a lot of amazing presents. 3.74 2. mom decided to surprise you by picking you up at school before lunch time. today, you don’t eat at school, and you go to the cinema to watch your favorite cartoon. 3.66 3. you dreamt that you were playing at bouncing on a giant trampoline. when you woke up, your dad offered to go and buy a trampoline to play with in your garden. 3.48 4. you are on holiday. you go with your mom and dad to the sea. you took your swimsuit to go in the sea and you have your bucket and spade to build sand castles. 3.37 5. it is saturday, you are not at school. the sun is shining and it is warm outside. 3.23 6. you give the correct answer to a question from your teacher. she congratulates you in front of all your classmates. 2.60 anger induction 1. a pupil stole something from the teacher’s bag. he said it was you. 3.14 2. you helped a friend to do his homework. the teacher congratulated your friend in front of all your classmates but punished you for having let him copy from you. 2.58 3. your brother stole some candies from a jar. he did not admit it was him. your parents punished you both. 2.22 4. you hurt yourself badly by falling down. you shout loud to call for help. the activity leader arrives and tells you off because you’re making too much noise. 1.68 5. your best friend comes to your house to play with you. your brother shows your friend an amazing present he had for christmas. they play together and you stay alone. 1.56 6. your teacher told you off in front of all your classmates for talking with your neighbor. the truth is that it was your neighbor who talked to you and you did not say a word. 1.52 fear induction 1. you come home with your friend and it is dark. suddenly, you cannot see your friend anymore and you feel a hand that grabs you. 2.69 2. you are climbing a tree to catch an apple. at the top of the tree, you look down and notice how high it is and you cannot get down. 2.49 3. you have a nightmare. a hideous monster is running after you in the forest. you are running fast and you are shouting during your sleep, but you are alone. 2.30 4. it is night. you suddenly hear a weird noise in the house like "creak, creak, creak". 2.25 5. you are at the swimming pool. you get undressed in the changing room and when you want to open the door, you find it’s stuck. 2.24 6. you are riding your bicycle in the neighborhood. you are going down a steep hill when you suddenly notice the brakes don’t work. 2.22 simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 609 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sadness induction 1. your best friend moves to another city. you will not see him again. 2.98 2. your father is really disappointed by your behavior. he says he will not trust you again. 2.20 3. nobody wished you a happy birthday. 2.15 4. even though you’d been on your best behavior, you did not receive any presents for christmas. 1.99 5. the cake you’d been baking all day for your mom’s birthday just burnt. you have nothing to offer her. 1.99 6. hugo, who you really like, said horrible things about you and that he did not want to play with you anymore. 1.85 note. j = joy; a = anger; s = sadness; f = fear; kept for the following steps based on a four-point scale (1: a very little to 4: a lot). discussion the aim of experiment 2 was to select a pool of day-to-day emotional situations strongly associated with a primary emotion by the children at different ages. the goal of this selection was to provide suitable verbal induction material for school-age children, in compliance with the ethical requirements. based on children’s comments as well as quantitative analysis, some sentences were discarded because they were not recognized, were too ambiguous or too weak in intensity. there were no differences in the ratings by grade except for anger, with a linear increase in identification performance with increasing grades. thus, based on the results of experiment 2 and for each tested emotion, we selected the 6 sentences assessed by the children as the most closely associated with a primary emotion. these sentences were chosen to serve as induction material in experiment 3. experiment 3 the main objective of experiment 1 was to ensure the correct identification of emotion-related adjectives by children from the age of 7. analysis of the two successive sorting tasks indicated that all the adjectives were correctly grouped according to their valence and their degree of arousal. based on these results, we then adapted the bmis scale according to the age/grade of the children. for that, we considered the number of emotional items included in the scale. we used only the items that children categorized correctly in terms of valence and associated primary emotion (for example, "content" was correctly categorized by the children in the 2nd grade as a positive item and correctly associated with "joy". these scales are presented in annex a. for children in the 2nd grade, the scale consisted of 7 emotional items, 10 emotional items for the 3rd grade, 11 emotional items for the 4th grade and for the children in the 5th grade the scale is composed of 12 items. on the same principle as the existing bmis (mayer & gaschke, 1988), we developed a scale consisting of the presentation of adjectives in a row, and of a self-rated scale in four points ("beaucoup/a lot", "un peu/a little", "pas trop/not very" and "pas du tout/not at all") in columns. based on the results of experiment 2, we then selected sentences to induce the four studied emotions in children. the induction procedure was inspired by mayer et al. (1995) to induce fear, anger, happiness and sadness through imagined situations (but without music). mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 610 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in this third experiment, we induced emotions in children from 7 to 11 years old. before and after induction, children were asked to rate their emotions on our adapted scale. we expected our tool to find different scores in the assessments of emotional states, depending on the induction. method participants the participants were 102 pupils recruited from four grade-levels at an elementary school in toulouse (france). the distribution was as follows: 2nd grade (24 children, m = 7.62 years, sd = 0.47 years), 3rd grade (27 children, m = 8.61 years, sd = 0.41 years), 4th grade (26 children, m = 9.90 years, sd = 0.52 years) and 5th grade (25 children, m = 11.03 years, sd = 0.61 years). ethical clearance the same as in experiment 1. materials and design bmis-c (brief mood introspection scale for children). based on experiment 1, four self-rating questionnaires were drawn up and adapted, one for each age group from 7 to 11 (cf. appendix). each adjective was followed by a series of answer icons: "beaucoup/a lot" (represented by a green + sign 2 x 2 cm), "un peu/a little" (represented by a green + sign 1.5 x 1.5 cm), "pas trop/not very" (represented by a red – sign 1.5 x 1.5 cm) and "pas du tout/not at all" (represented by a red – sign 2 x 2 cm). the questionnaire was analyzed by assigning 1 point for the answer "not at all", 2 points for the answer "not very", 3 points for the answer "a little" and 4 points for the answer "a lot". induction material by imagination. on the basis of the results in experiment 2, four lists of sentences were constructed. each list contained six sentences that reflected one of the four following emotions: joy, anger, sadness and fear (see table 2). procedure the induction procedure was collective and carried out with sub-groups of 5 children. the children were in a calm room, each child separated from the others by a certain distance to avoid any communication between them. the experimenter and the teacher were in the room (to comply with the deontological criteria for research in the school environment). instructions were given orally and were not written on the questionnaires in order to limit the cognitive load for the children. however, during oral instructions, the experimenter wrote on the chalkboard an example using an adjective ("curieux/curious") absent from the questionnaire and not reflecting any of the targeted emotions of the study. the instructions were as follows: "i’m giving you a questionnaire with words written one under the other. for each word, i’d like you to circle the symbol that corresponds best to how you feel right now. for example, if we choose the word 'curious', do you feel curious at this moment? if you feel very curious, circle the biggest green + symbol. if you feel a little curious, circle the smallest green + symbol. if you do not feel particularly curious, circle the smallest red symbol. if you are not curious at all, circle the biggest red symbol. if there is a word you do not understand, never mind, go on to the next word." after making sure that the children understood the instructions, the experimenter gave them the questionnaires. the children were allowed to take as long as they needed to complete them. then the eight induction sentences were presented on a white screen, via a video projector. a powerpoint slideshow was used to present the sentences simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 611 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ written in arial, 18. sentences were presented one after the other at intervals of 60 seconds. children were asked to read the sentences and think about them. after this reading and thinking task, children immediately rated their state on the questionnaire (adapted to their age). the induction was followed by a debriefing period that lasted 15 minutes during which the experimenter explained the purpose of the experiment and invited children to explain how they felt and ask any questions they wished. results the data were analyzed with sign tests for each of the four types of induction (joy, anger, fear and sadness), and the four school grades (2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade). the sign test compared the emotional states of the children at the beginning and end of the experiment. when the delta score (score after score before) was positive, the emotion was considered to have increased. when it was negative, the studied emotion was considered to have decreased. induction of joy the results showed an effect of the type of induction characterized by an increase of joy in all the children after the induction (all p’s < .05). for the children from the first grade, the joy induction did not affect the other emotions. however, the joy induction slightly increased negative emotions of sadness and anger for the children of the second and third grade, as well as sadness for the fourth grade (cf. table 3). table 3 evolution of the emotional state before and after the joy induction, according to the student’s grade and the induced emotion grade joy anger sadness fear bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta 1st grade 7.5 3.5* 3 0 2nd grade 6 5* 4 0* 2 1* 1 0 3rd grade 6.5 4.5* 4 1* 4 1* 2.5 1* 4th grade 7 4* 4 1* 4 1* 4 1* note. bmis-c before = actual score of children in the bmis-c; bmis-c delta = evolution (bmis-c score after – bmis-c before). *p < .05. anger induction results showed a decrease in joy and an increase in anger for all participants in the experiment, whatever their grade (all p’s <.05). it is worth noticing that anger induction did not influence the fear and sadness emotions, except for the older children, who demonstrated an increase in sadness after anger induction (p < .04, cf. table 4). mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 612 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 evolution of the emotional state before and after anger induction, according to the student’s grade and the induced emotion grade joy anger sadness fear bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta 1st grade 10 -5* 3 4* 2nd grade 10 -5* 4 6* 3 0 1 0 3rd grade 10 -6* 5 5* 5 0 3 0 4th grade 9.5 -4.5* 4 6* 5 0* 4 1 note. bmis-c before = actual score of children in the bmis-c; bmis-c delta = evolution (bmis-c score after – bmis-c before). *p < .05. fear induction results showed a significant decrease in joy, and an increase in anger after the induction of fear, whatever the grade of participants (all p’s <.05). in addition, only the older participants in the experiment showed an increase in sadness after induction. finally, and more surprisingly, none of the children demonstrated any variation in fear after they were induced with fear sentences (cf. table 5). experiment 1 revealed that fear is confounded with the other negative valence emotions, which might explain why the induction of fear ultimately increases anger and sadness but has a marginal influence on self-assessment of fear. table 5 evolution of the emotional state before and after fear induction, according to the student’s grade and the induced emotion grade joy anger sadness fear bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta 1st grade 8 -3* 3 0.5* 2nd grade 9 -4* 4 2* 3 1* 1 2* 3rd grade 7 -2* 4 1* 6 0 3 4* 4th grade 9 -3* 4 2* 5 0 5 4* note. bmis-c before = actual score of children in the bmis-c; bmis-c delta is the evolution (bmis-c score after – bmisc before). *p < .05. sadness induction sadness induction led to a significant decrease in joy, and a significant increase in sadness, fear and anger for all the grades (all p’s < .05, cf. table 6). simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 613 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 evolution of the emotional state before and after sadness induction, according to the student’s grade and the induced emotion grade joy anger sadness fear bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta bmis-c before bmis-c delta 1st grade 10 -5* 3 1* 2nd grade 10 -6* 3 3* 3 3.5* 1 1* 3rd grade 10.5 -5.5* 4 1* 4 6* 2 1* 4th grade 10 -5* 4 2* 4 6* 4 1* note. bmis-c before = actual score of children in the bmis-c; bmis-c delta = evolution (bmis-c score after – bmis-c before). *p < .05. general discussion the purpose of the present paper was to determine children’s knowledge of their own emotional state. to this end, three experiments were conducted on children from 7 years old. experiment 1 showed that the knowledge of emotional vocabulary develops with age. at 7, the only dimension used to distinguish emotions is valence. at 9, the degree of arousal is then also used, allowing children to distinguish between emotions with the same valence, such as fear and sadness. an analysis of the results from experiment 1 enabled us to select the emotional vocabulary items to be used in the creation of an inspection scale suitable for young children. the second experiment showed that 7-year-old children are able to identify the emotion conveyed by scenarios written in the second person singular. this study was also used to select scenarios for the design of the "induction-byimagination material" of experiment 3. the selected scenarios were those inducing the emotion of greatest intensity in experiment 2. finally, the last experiment shows that from 7 years old, children can be influenced by emotional induction, showing variation in their emotional state after the reading of emotional scenarios. analysis also revealed that the variations of their emotional state are clearly compatible with the induced emotion when it is negative, while results are more mitigated when the induced emotion is positive. induced joy leads to an expected increase in joy, but also a less expected weak increase in anger and sadness. previous studies on emotional induction conducted with adults already underline this odd phenomenon. inducing joy is the most difficult to achieve, irrespective of the material used (e.g., mauss, tamir, anderson, & savino, 2011). effect of the induction-by-imagination procedure on children’s emotional state this paper can be considered as the first to investigate both the questions of (1) the self-assessment of emotional state by children and (2) the influence of emotional induction by imagination on children’s emotional behavior from the age of 7. previous studies have shown that the investigation of children’s emotional self-assessment is commonly conducted on an external object, with the children having to attribute or identify the emotion conveyed by a face or an animate or inanimate object (e.g., guarnera, hichy, cascioa, & carrubba, 2015; kothari, skuse, wakefield, & micali, 2013; reilly, mcintire, & bellugi, 1990). this study investigated the capacity of children to feel the emotion conveyed by a scenario, and then to show compatible variation in their own emotional state. it appears that children can feel the emotion conveyed by a scenario within the limits of their own knowledge of what the induced emotion is (saarni, 2011). adopting an adult-centered view of emotion involves the assumption that many emotions are distinguished on the basis of their various dimensions (vamood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 614 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lence, arousal, dominance, etc.). it appears that the understandable emotional world of children, even at age 9, is principally (not to say exclusively) defined by the valence of the emotion. analysis of experiment 1 clearly showed how difficult it was for our younger participants (up to age 9) to correctly categorize items such as "grieved", "scared", and "afraid" in separate groups. measuring emotional development numerous studies have been performed on the development of emotions from very early childhood, and several of them demonstrate that even very small babies are able to distinguish emotions (e.g. caron, caron, & maclean, 1988; izard & harris, 1995). the critical elements that could partly explain our result are the fact that (1) the material used in our study is verbal rather than pictural (e.g. guarnera, hichy, cascioa, & carrubba, 2015), and that (2) we wanted participants to distinguish and identify more than two emotions (e.g. labarbera, izard, vietze, & parisi, 1976). finally, we believe our study contributes significantly to the understanding of normal or ordinary emotional development from the age of 7. it also attempts to provide new insights into the particular difficulties of acquiring "emotional" knowledge. research in this field could help professionals (teachers, therapists, etc.) adapt the way they interact and work with children of different ages as appropriate for their knowledge of emotional situations and their emotional regulation capacities. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references backs, r. w., da silva, s. p., & han, k. 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(2014). the development of intermodal emotion perception from bodies and voices. journal of experimental child psychology, 126, 68-79. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2014.03.005 appendix emotional self-assessment questionnaire for children in 2nd grade 1. happy (heureux) + + 2. sad (triste) + + 3. annoyed (enervé) + + 4. content (content) + + 5. angry (en colère) + + 6. joyful (joyeux) + + 7. furious (furieux) + + emotional self-assessment questionnaire for children in 3rd grade 1. happy (heureux) + + 2. sad (triste) + + 3. annoyed (enervé) + + 4. afraid (effrayé) + + 5. content (content) + + 6. unhappy (malheureux) + + 7. angry (en colère) + + 8. scared (apeuré) + + 9. joyful (joyeux) + + 10. furious (furieux) + + emotional self-assessment questionnaire for children in 4th grade 1. happy (heureux) + + 2. sad (triste) + + 3. annoyed (enervé) + + 4. afraid (effrayé) + + 5. content (content) + + 6. unhappy (malheureux) + + simoës-perlant, lemercier, pêcher, & benintendi-medjaoued 619 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.025 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.10.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.03.005 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 7. angry (en colère) + + 8. scared (apeuré) + + 9. joyful (joyeux) + + 10. grieved (chagriné) + + 11. furious (furieux) + + emotional self-assessment questionnaire for children in 5th grade 1. happy (heureux) + + 2. sad (triste) + + 3. annoyed (enervé) + + 4. afraid (effrayé) + + 5. content (content) + + 6. unhappy (malheureux) + + 7. angry (en colère) + + 8. scared (apeuré) + + 9. joyful (joyeux) + + 10. grieved (chagriné) + + 11. furious (furieux) + + 12. worried (inquiet) + + about the authors aurélie simoës-perlant is an assistant professor in development psychology at the university of toulouse. her main areas of research interest are language acquisition, learning disabilities, explicit and implicit learning and emotions. her current research interests and publications deal with the relationship between emotions and cognition in school context. céline lemercier is a professor of cognitive ergonomics and psychology at the university of toulouse. her research interests deal with attentional processes in complex and dynamic system in various domains: transportation, development, 4.0 industry project, and cognitive psychopathology. christelle pêcher is phd in cognitive ergonomics and psychology. she works in particular on the link between emotions and attentional behaviours in complex situations such as driving, learning, decision-making, etc. sarah benintendi-medjaoued is phd in developmental psychology at the university of toulouse. she is specialized in the study of the mood impacts in attentional performance in children. mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 620 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 599–620 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1408 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mood self-assessment in children from the age of 7 (introduction) experiment 1 method results experiment 2 method results experiment 3 method results general discussion effect of the induction-by-imagination procedure on children’s emotional state measuring emotional development (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors influence of mind wandering and increased attentional demands on multitasking and implicit learning research reports influence of mind wandering and increased attentional demands on multitasking and implicit learning cameron g. wittschen 1, christopher a. was 1 [1] department of psychology, kent state university, kent, oh, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 received: 2024-05-08 • accepted: 2024-12-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: christopher a. was, 141 kent hall, kent state university, kent, oh, usa 44242 abstract the goal of the current study was to replicate resent findings that suggest mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit learning but not implicit learning, and to extend those finding by investigating whether explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. we used a sequential learning task, specifically a serial reaction task (srt), to determine if mind wandering would interfere with learning a task that does not require attentional resources (implicit learning). participants completed the serial reaction time task while watching a 13-minute video lecture. at the end of the video participants answered 10 multiple-choice questions regarding the content presented in the video. at specific intervals during the task, participants responded to mind wandering probes. the probes required participants to report where their attention was in the moments before the probe appeared. implicit learning was measured by decreased reaction time over the course of several blocks of trials of the srt. in two experiments, it was observed that participants implicitly learned a sequence of 12 items, regardless of their performance on the multiple-choice item regarding the concurrent video content. even those who appeared to actively engage with the video and performed well on the multiple-choice questions showed improved performance on the implicit learning task (srt). these results suggest implicit learning can occur when one is engaged in a concurrent explicit learning task. keywords implicit learning, multitasking, mind wandering picture yourself in a packed lecture hall where the professor is illustrating how to analyze an extensive set of data from a longitudinal study. the analysis involves multiple complex components, and you diligently follow along, taking notes on your computer for later review. the room hums with the dull clatter of keyboards as students diligently take notes, their screens going back and forth between slides containing equations and graphs previously projected onto the board. as you’re jotting down a specific equation and attempting to comprehend your professor’s explanation of its significance to the analysis, you notice the person to your right reading a text message that just appeared on their screen. believing in their multitasking abilities, they continue copying notes, listening to the lecture, and occasionally responding to the text conversation when a notification appears on their phone. to your left, you notice someone who looks inattentive and is doodling relentlessly in their notebook. clearly, the person to your left is not paying attention to the lecture and seems to be adrift in their own thoughts. considering the additional demands of responding to the texts while trying to encode the presented information, one would expect the student attempting to multitask will not perform well on an upcoming examination of the covered material. similarly, your classmate that is mind wandering, will also likely not perform as well as they could if their attention was focused on the lecture. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14605&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ substantial evidence exists that multitasking impairs task performance, especially when one of the tasks is difficult (e.g., adler & benbunan-fich, 2012; 2015), there is also a plethora of evidence that mind wandering (e.g., randall et al., 2014; thomson et al., 2014) impairs performance, yet recent evidence suggests that some learning may occur even when one is mind wandering (brosowsky et al., 2021). brosowsky et al. (2021) used a serial reaction time task (srt) with implicitand explicit-learning conditions to evaluate whether implicit learning occurs even when participants report mind wandering. their results suggest that the degree of mind wandering was negatively associated with learning in the explicit condition (i.e., greater mind wandering led to poorer performance) but not in the implicit condition. they interpreted their results as suggesting that mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit learning, but not impaired implicit learning and that that explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. this final claim—implicit learning is not impaired under attentional load—was not directly tested. brosowsky et al. (2021) did not have participants attempt to complete the srt while concurrently completing an explicit learning task, but rather participants in the explicit condition were told about the repeating pattern in the srt and to try to learn the pattern. the aim of the current study was to replicate the finding that implicit learning occurs during mind wandering, and to extend brosowskyet al.’s findings by evaluating whether implicit learning can occur while a concurrent attention demanding (explicit learning) task is also being performed. brosowsky et al. (2021) used the srt, an implicit task, to assess whether participants exhibited implicit learning when reporting instances of mind wandering. before delving into the specifics of this implicit learning task, it is crucial to fully understand the distinction between the underpinnings of implicit learning and its counterpart, explicit learning. implicit learning refers to a type of learning that occurs under the absolute threshold when information is obtained by the individual unconsciously and not intentionally (kaufman et al., 2010). several investigations of implicit learning suggest that implicit learning functions automatically when attention is directed towards a stimulus at a relatively low-level perceptually, without the dedication of executive attention resources (cowan, 1995; frensch & miner, 1994). explicit learning, on the other hand, can be defined as a type of learning in which the individual deliberately and intentionally obtains information (stadler, 1997). when explicit learning occurs, information is actively being sought out. graf and schacter (1985) state that “explicit memory is revealed by intentional recollection from a specific previous episode, whereas implicit memory is revealed when performance on a task is facilitated without deliberate recollection from a specific learning episode” (pp. 501). put differently, explicit learning is purposeful acquisition of knowledge, while implicit learning is unintentional or incidental acquisition of information. regarding the difference between explicit and implicit learning tasks, explicit learning tasks are organized to offer precise instructions and an emphasis on conscious comprehension whereas implicit learning tasks are defined by the indirect and experiential nature, which features minimal explicit guidance and feedback (heuer et al., 2001). in the experiment conducted by brosowsky et al. (2021), participants completed a srt task during which they were presented with a sequence of visual stimuli in a predetermined sequence on a computer screen and were instructed to respond to the stimuli by pressing corresponding buttons on a response box. participants were instructed to respond quickly without sacrificing accuracy. participants were assigned to one of two groups. the “explicit” group were informed that the stimuli were to be presented in a predetermined sequence and instructed to attempt to memorize the sequence. those in the “implicit” group did not receive any information about the sequence and were simply instructed to respond to the stimuli by pressing the corresponding keys. while completing the srt, participants were also required to respond to several mind wandering probes during which they indicated the degree to which they were mind wandering during the task. following the presentation of the sequence in several blocks of trials participants completed two tasks to determine if they had explicitly learned the sequence: one required to participants to attempt to recreate the stimuli sequence and the second required participants to recreate it backward. based on the results of the experiment, brosowsky et al. (2021) reported that implicit learning does in fact occur while mind wandering is occurring. put differently, in the implicit condition, participants’ responses in the during the srt became faster over the course of the experiment no matter the degree to which they reported mind wandering whereas performance of those in the explicit condition suffered as the degree of mind wandering increased. implicit multitasking 66 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mind wandering while the relationship between mind wandering and implicit learning may be complex, there are theoretical explan­ ations of the brosowsky et al. (2021) results. mind wandering is defined as a shift from an ongoing activity to task-unrelated thoughts (tuts). these tuts are extremely common. extant research suggests that we mind wander 30%–50% of the time (levinson et al., 2012; mcvay & kane, 2012). it is also clear from the extant literature that tuts typically lead to decrements in performance in the ongoing activity (mcvay & kane, 2012; unsworth & mcmillan, 2013). smallwood and schooler (2006) stated that mind wandering demands attentional (executive control) resources. this demand on executive control draws resources away from the task at hand without proper metacognitive monitoring. however, the extant literature has focused on how tuts impair performance on explicit learning and other tasks in which attentional resources are required. little to no research has focused on the impact of mind wandering on performance on implicit learning tasks prior to brosowsky et al. (2021). extant literature suggests that implicit learning, specifically implicit sequence learning, is not working memory or attention resource demanding (janacsek & nemeth, 2013) and thus allows for mind wandering to occur during the implicit task. put differently, there are more working memory resources allowed for mind wandering because implicit learning is not resource demanding. in summary, participants can implicitly encode information when their cognitive resources aren’t exclusively focused on memorizing the pattern. based on brosowsky et al. (2021)’s findings, it can be inferred that there are available cognitive resources during instances of implicit learning. this surplus capacity may allow for mind wandering during implicit learning, thus the potential for success in implicit sequence learning tasks even if mind wandering is occurring, as evidenced by the brosowsky et al.’s findings in the data. the question that remains unanswered is whether the cognitive resources that are not called upon for the successful completion of an implicit sequence learning task can be recruited for the successful completion of a concurrent explicit learning task. put differently, can an individual successfully multitask if one task is an implicit learning task and the other an explicit learning task? multitasking multitasking is defined as a shift in attention to perform several independent but concurrent tasks (adler & benbunanfich, 2012). multitasking is considered to have two key components: task independence and performance concurrency (benbunan-fich et al., 2011). independence requires that ongoing tasks are self-contained, and the notion of concurrency requires that multiple tasks are carried out with some temporal overlap. at the personal level, multitasking involves one dividing their mental resources among various tasks. the effectiveness of managing multiple tasks is influenced by the nature of the tasks and the available mental resources (spink et al., 2008; waller, 1997). to understand how multitasking affects an individual, it is also important to consider an individual’s environment when they are multitasking. multitask­ ing is a phenomenon that occurs in various settings: at the workplace, in classrooms, while performing household chores at home, and even during focused study sessions. in an investigation of multitasking in college students, calderwood et al. (2014) measured how often and for how long college students engage in media multitasking while doing schoolwork outside of class. calderwood established that on average, students faced 35 distractions in a 3-hour independent study session, spending roughly 26 minutes (around 14% of the study time) on these distractions. the results of calderwood et al. highlight the significance of multitasking in students’ lives and underscores the expectation for students to engage in multitasking for academic success. based on the findings from calderwood et al.’s research, when students multitask at elevated levels, it is foreseeable that errors may occur while attempting to complete various tasks simultaneously. regarding the connection between accuracy and multitasking, junco (2012) investigated the impact of non-academic social media use in a classroom setting on students’ overall semester gpa. junco found that “indeed, frequency of multitasking with certain information and communication technologies (facebook and text messaging) were negatively predictive of overall semester gpa” (junco, 2012). junco’s results suggest that students who multitask during classroom study are less likely to achieve academic success. this is likely attributed to the challenge students face in dividing their attention among various stimuli, often giving excessive focus to unrelated and unimportant activities like texting and facebook messaging. the results also suggest that students are better served by concentrating on a single attentional demand, as multitasking tends to result in poorer performance. wittschen & was 67 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ if we consider multitasking from a cognitive resource perspective (e.g., attention, working memory), attempting to complete more than one task at the same time should require more executive control resources, if the tasks are explicit in nature. however, if brosowsky et al.’s (2021) conclusions that implicit learning is not resource demanding are correct, then one might hypothesize that it is possible to implicit learn while one is engaged in completing a concurrent explicit task. current study in the current investigation, we aimed to replicate the observation that implicit learning may occur during mind wandering. furthermore, we hope to expand on brosowsky et al.’s (2021). research by exploring whether implicit sequence learning can occur concurrently with a demanding attention task (explicit learning). in two experiments, participants were presented with a srt task paired with an unrelated video lecture. the srt task is a common task used amongst various fields of psychology (robertson, 2007). a srt is frequently used to measure implicit sequence learning (schwarb & schumacher, 2012) and focuses on overcoming obstacles associated with explicit learning of sequence information (lashley, 1951). thus, the srt is appropriate for the implicit learning demand for this experiment. in our srt task, there were four response options corresponding to colored keys on a keyboard. on each trial an x in one of four colors (blue, green, red, or yellow) appeared on the screen and participants had to press the corresponding key as quickly as possible. the stimuli occurred in a predetermined sequence about which the participants were not informed. in this replication and extension, we hypothesized that implicit sequence learning (in the srt) would occur even when participants report mind wandering and a secondary task with explicit attentional demands (video lecture) is administered concurrently with the implicit task. the results of this replication and extension will provide valuable insights into human multitasking capabilities and understanding of implicit sequence learning. experiment 1 method participants ninety-four undergraduate students enrolled at a large midwestern research university participated in exchange for course credit. upon arriving at the laboratory, participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent form. all ethical guidelines of the american psychological association were followed in the interactions with participants. apparatus participants performed all measures on pcs with svga monitors and standard keyboards. programming of all tasks was completed with e-prime 3.0 software (schneider et al., 2002). e-prime controlled the stimulus presentation, timing, and data collection. materials and procedures serial reaction time (srt) task — the primary task was a serial reaction time (srt) task with four response options, each corresponding to a colored key on a standard qwerty keyboard. the keys used in the task were colored as follows: c, red; v, yellow; n, green; and the m, blue. the computer display presented a colored x in 64-point font in the center at the bottom quarter of the screen. the x was displayed in one of the four colors against a black background and participants were instructed to press the corresponding key as quickly and as accurately as possible. the x was presented for 500 ms with a 750 ms blank screen between each presentation. the experiment was like a typical srt paradigm. participants completed 50 practice trials of the serial reaction time task (srt) to familiarize them with the task and the location of colored keys on the keyboard. during the practice, the sequence of colored xs was randomized. following the practice trials, participants completed 13 blocks of a repeating 12-element sequence. the entire task consisted of 13 blocks of 48 trials (4 repetitions of the 12-element sequence per block) for a total of 624 trials. the sequence was designed to adhere to a 12-element refined conditional sequence implicit multitasking 68 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (pasquali et al., 2019) such that each target appeared three times per sequence and each transition occurred with the same frequency. each colored x appeared on the screen for 500 ms with or until the participant responded. in between each sequence the space at which the x appeared was blank for 750 ms. video lecture concurrent with the srt participants were presented with a 13-minute video lecture. the video was presented in the center on the top half of the screen. figure 1 presents an example of the stimuli presentation. the video used in the study was an authentic video featured in a fully online course. the content of the video was an introduction to public relations. the video was recorded in an hd studio and featured a presenter delivering a lecture directly to the camera. the timing of the srt (stimulus duration and interstimulus interval) were set to ensure that the srt and the video would end simultaneously. figure 1 experimental task display presentation mind wandering probes as the participant completed the serial reaction task and watched the video simultaneously, a series of 8 mind wandering probes appeared on the screen. when a probe arose, the video and task would pause, and the probe would ask the participant where their attention was focused in the moment just prior to the probe. the options were a – the video, b – the serial reaction time task, or c – something else. the 8 probes were administered after blocks 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 13 of the srt. explicit learning test after the 13-minute video lecture ended and the 13 blocks of the serial reaction time task were completed, participants answered 10 multiple choice questions regarding the content presented in the video. participants were asked to answer the 10 multiple choice questions to the best of their ability, and the scores were recorded. procedures upon arriving at the laboratory, participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent form. after consenting, the participants were seated at a desk with a computer, a set of headphones, and a keyboard that had colored stickers on wittschen & was 69 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the c, v, n and m keys. participants were informed that they would be completing a split screen task. the instructions informed participants that at the top of the screen a video would be displayed and that they should pay special attention to the information presented in the video. instruction also informed participants that at the bottom of the screen the letter x would appear in one of the four colors and to press the corresponding key on the keyboard as quickly and accurately as possible. they were also told that during the experiment a question regarding where their attention was focused would appear and to answer the questions honestly. finally, they were informed about the 10-item multiple choice quiz regarding the content of the video and to answer the questions to the best of their ability. results mind wandering response variability to the eight mind wandering probes was extremely limited. only eight participants responded to the probes with either the serial reaction task or something else. all other participants responded to each response probe with the video, therefore, mind wandering probes are not included in any analyses. multiple choice questions the mean proportion correct was .43 with a standard deviation of .23. scores ranged from .00 to 1.00. although low, a two-tailed, single-sample t-test indicated that performance on the quiz was above chance performance of .25, t(92) = 7.73, p < .001, d = .80. serial reaction task (srt) figure 2 displays the mean reaction time (rt) for correct responses to the 13 blocks of trials. the mean rt improvement between blocks 1 and 2 likely reflects practice effects. to measure rate of performance improvement, mean rts per block were calculated and then fit to three different functions (linear, exponential, and power) across blocks 2–13. although the exponential and power functions were both significant, the linear function provided the best fit to the data f(1,1074) = 28.91, r2 = .03, p < .001. although small, the r2 value of .03 indicates that 3% of the variance in reaction time is accounted for by time (blocks) and a paired-samples t-test indicates a significant increase in reaction time from the first block of trails to the last block of trials, t(92) = 1.31, p < .001, d = .51. although r-squared provides an estimate of the strength of the relationship between the model and response variable, it does not provide a test of the significance of the relationship, nor a formal test of the hypothesis of change over time. the f-test does provide a test of the statistical (inferential) relationship. low r2 values do not mean that the predictors are not statistically significant and in the case of curve estimations of change in response times, inherent high within subject high variability in response times make it difficult to accurately predict criterion values based on the independent variable. in the current data, parameter estimates indicate an intercept of 410.77 and b = -2.09 (t = -6.98, p < .001) indicating that participants’ reaction time decreased significantly over the 12 blocks of trials. this decrease in reaction time suggests that participants implicitly learned the sequence of the presentation of the colored x stimuli. implicit multitasking 70 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 mean reaction time by block of trials to verify that performance improvement was not only due to practice effects, correlations were also calculated between rt differences between blocks 2–3 with rt differences between blocks 12–13. the correlation was not significant (r = .06, p = .61), suggesting that although practice effects could not be completely ruled out, the linear fit parameters are valid for capturing overall performance improvement across blocks. due to the range of performance on the multiple-choice items, to determine if implicit learning of the sequence learning occurred in conjunction with learning of the video content a linear function slope (b) was calculated for each individual. we calculated a correlation with the linear function and the proportion correct on the multiple-choice items. the correlation was not significant (r = .11, p = .29) suggesting that whether or not participants were paying attention to the video lecture they were implicitly learning the sequence presented in the srt. discussion the results of experiment 1 suggest that participants implicitly learned the 12-items sequence. this was the case no matter the level of learning of the video content. put differently, even those participants who paid greater attention to the video and scored well on the multiple-choice questions demonstrated improved performance on the srt. although the evidence is compelling, there are two aspects of experiment 1 that need to be addressed. first, we did not change the 12-item sequence to a random sequence in a block near the end of the experiment. changing the sequence to a random presentation of the stimuli is common in srt tasks. changing a later block to a random sequence provides evidence that implicit learning of the repeated sequence has. if participants rts slow during the random sequence, that provides further evidence for learning of the patterned sequence learning. second, many researchers include an explicit sequence generation task at the end of the srt. in this generation task participants are required to attempt to recreate the sequence presented. if participants are unable to recreate the sequence and they show significant decrease in reaction time during the srt this suggests that improvement during the srt is implicit and not due to explicitly remembering the sequence. experiment 2 includes both blocks of random trials at the end of the srt and a sequence generation task following the srt. wittschen & was 71 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment 2 method participants one hundred and eleven undergraduate students enrolled at a large midwestern state university participated in exchange for course credit. upon arriving at the laboratory, participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent form. all ethical guidelines of the american psychological association were followed in the interactions with participants. materials and procedures the experimental procedure was the same as that of experiment 1 with two exceptions. first, the serial reaction time task consisted of 15 instead of 12. blocks 1–12 used the same repeated 12 item sequence as in experiment 1. block 12 was followed by a 13th non-sequence random block of trials, a 14th block of sequence trials and a 15th block again with a completely random sequence. this design resulted in 720 trials and as the timing of trials was the same as experiment 1, participants may have completed some of the srt trials after the video had ended. if this was the case for any participants, blocks 13–15 may have been completed without the explicit attention task of the video. second, after the 13-minute video lecture had ended and the 15 blocks of the serial reaction time task were completed, participants were asked to generate the sequence presented in blocks 1–12 and 14 of the serial reaction time task (sequence generating task). the accuracy of the participant’s ability to generate the correct sequence was recorded. after the participants attempted to enter the 12-item sequence, they responded to the multiple-choice questions regarding the content presented in the video. results mind wandering response variability to the eight mind wandering probes was again extremely limited. only 11 total responses to the probes were either the serial reaction task or something else. all other participants responded to each response probe with the video, therefore, we did not include the mind wandering probes in any analyses. multiple choice questions the mean proportion correct was .42 with a standard deviation of .25. scores ranged from .00 to 1.00. although low, a two-tailed, single-sample t-test indicated that performance on the quiz was above chance performance of .25, t(113) = 7.68, p < .001, d = .72. serial reaction task (srt) figure 3 displays the mean rt for correct responses to blocks 1–15. the mean rt improvement between blocks 1 and 2 likely reflects practice effects. because the linear function was the best fit to the data in experiment 1, to measure rate of performance improvement, we calculated mean rts per block and then fit a linear function across blocks 2–12. the linear function fits the data f(1,1257) = 14.16, r2 = .01, p < .001. although small, the r2 value of .01 indicates that 1% of the variance in reaction time is accounted for by time (blocks). parameter estimates indicate an intercept of 413.55 and b = -1.23 (t = -3.76, p < .001) indicating that participants’ reaction time decreased significantly over the 12 blocks of trials. to verify that performance improvement was not only due to practice effects, we correlated rt differences between blocks 2–3 with rt differences between blocks 11–12. the correlation was not significant (r = .18, p = .08), suggesting that although we could not completely rule out practice effects, the linear fit parameters are valid for capturing overall performance improvement across blocks. implicit multitasking 72 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 mean reaction time by block of trials in experiment 2 as in experiment 1, the linear function parameter (b) was calculated for each individual participant. this linear function was correlated with proportion correct on the multiple-choice items. the correlation was not significant (r = .11, p = .29) suggesting that whether participants were paying attention to the video lecture they were implicitly learning the sequence presented in the srt. to examine whether implicit learning of the stimulus sequence, rather than simple practice effects for key presses, was responsible for rt improvement, a repeated measures anova was conducted using blocks 12–15. if participants rt was significantly longer for the non-sequence, random trials a slow down on blocks 13 and 15 would be expected. the multivariate test was significant, wilks λ = .77, f(3,98) = 9.53, p < .001. within subjects contrasts between blocks indicate that participants were significantly slower on block 13 than block 12, f(1,100) = 24.69, p < .001, and significantly slower on block 15 than block 14, f(1,100) = 6.70, p = .011, suggesting that participants did not have explicit knowledge of the sequence. sequence generation task in the sequence generating task, we considered a participant to have explicit knowledge if they could correctly produce five or more successive positions of the sequence (willingham, 1998). none of our participants met this criterion in the current study. the mean number of correctly produced successive positions was m = 1.33 (sd = 2.31) and a mode of 0. discussion the results of experiment 2 suggest that participants implicitly learned the 12-items sequence. this was the case no matter the level of learning of the video content. put differently, even those participants who paid attention to the video and scored well on the multiple-choice questions demonstrated improved performance on the srt. examining the results of the srt, a significant decrease in reaction time over 12 blocks was revealed, indicating an improvement in performance. it can be concluded that this improvement in performance was not solely due to practice effects, as suggested by correlational analyses and slower reaction times on non-sequence trials. the non-significant correlation between srt performance and multiple-choice question scores suggests that sequence learning occurred in my experiment no matter the degree of attention the participant gave to the video lecture. additionally, participants showed a lack of explicit understanding of the sequence, as demonstrated by their inability to accurately reproduce consecutive positions. overall, the data collected in experiment 2 highlights the implicit learning processes during the srt, whether the participant was paying attention to the video lecture. wittschen & was 73 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ general discussion the objectives of the current study were to replicate brosowsky et al.’s (2021) findings that implicit learning takes place during episodes of mind wandering and to expand upon their findings by examining whether implicit learning can also take place while individuals engage in a concurrent attention-demanding task (explicit learning). in both experiments, it was observed that participants implicitly learned a sequence of 12 items, regardless of their understanding of the concurrent video content. even those who appeared to more actively engage with the video and performed well on the multiple-choice questions showed improved performance on the implicit learning task (srt). we anticipated significant instances of mind wandering among participants. given the seemingly mundane nature of the srt task and intentionally uneventful video pairing, we expected participants to report instances of mind wandering. however, upon analyzing the data, only 8 out of 94 participants reported mind wandering in the first experiment, and 11 out of 111 participants in the second experiment. while this might initially appear as accurate reporting, it’s crucial to compare the reported mind wandering instances with participants’ scores on the explicit learning task. in the first experiment, participants averaged 43% on the multiple-choice questions based on the video, and in the second experiment, the average score was 42%. given these failing scores alongside the meager number of reported instances of mind wandering, it can be inferred that most participants were not truthful in their responses to the probes. if participants were genuinely focused on the video, they should have theoretically performed better on the multiple-choice questions. we suspect that participants may have been apprehensive about potential repercussions, leading them to report paying attention to the video due to a social presentation bias. since participants were told to pay attention to the video during the instructions they may have been wary of reporting that they were mind wandering. it is also possible that because the instructions were to attend to the video, participants did do their best to attend to the video. an alternative explanation regarding the lack of mind wandering reported, is that participants did not mind wander as much as we anticipated. regarding the low scores on the quiz, although low, the scores were indeed above chance suggesting that participant did, at least in part, pay attention to the video. at the same time, participants’ response time to the srt did in fact decrease indicating implicit learning of the sequence. therefore, it may well be that participants were engaged in the two concurrent tasks and thus did not mind wander. in either case, we cannot draw any conclusion regarding the replication of brosowsky’s work, or the influence of mind wandering on implicit learning. this does not limit our ability to draw conclusions regarding the multitasking aspect of the current study. again, participants on average performed better that chance in both experiments on the quiz. the correlation between quiz performance and change is reaction time during the srt was not significant. this indicates that the amount of engagement with the video did not impact implicit learning of the srt sequence. we conclude that one can implicitly learn a sequence of stimuli while engaged in an attention demanding explicit task. it is important to note that our findings may not generalize to other implicit learning tasks. the srt is simple sequence task of which increased performance may be partially due to procedural learning. other implicit learning tasks, such as artificial grammar learning, may require other processes not captured by the srt and thus may lead to different results. it may also be difficult to generalize our results to other explicit learning tasks. the video lecture was essentially a passive listening task. tasks that require greater engagement and cognitive resources may not produce the same results. future research should vary the implicit learning task and the explicit task to further test these hypotheses. conclusion two separate experiments were carefully designed and conducted to gather more information on the relationship between implicit and explicit learning. the research conducted also covered the topics of mind wandering and multi­ tasking’s impact on implicit learning. we aimed to measure whether implicit learning occurred when participants reported mind wandering while a secondary task with explicit attentional demands was administered concurrently with the implicit task. we hypothesized that implicit learning would occur, even while the participant was engaged in an explicit learning task, and reporting that they were mind wandering. overall, our hypothesis was correct, and our data support our conclusion that individuals can implicitly learn while engaged in an explicit task. in our experiment, implicit multitasking 74 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 65–76 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14605 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were able to complete the serial reaction time task more quickly and accurately over a time, essentially learning the pattern implicitly even while they 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(1998). a neuropsychological theory of motor skill learning. psychological review, 105(3), 558–584. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.105.3.558 about the authors cameron g. wittschen is a graduate student in the clinical mental health counseling program at kent state university. christopher a. was, ph.d. is a full professor in the department of psychological sciences at kent state university. his research interests include implicit cognitive processing, working memory, and mind wandering. implicit multitasking 76 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2747-07.2007 https://doi.org/10.5709/acp-0113-1 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946 https://doi.org/10.1002/aris.2008.1440420110 https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03210774 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2014.04.001 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029669 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.105.3.558 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ implicit multitasking (introduction) mind wandering multitasking current study experiment 1 method results discussion experiment 2 method results discussion general discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors job characteristics, well-being and physical activity: a field study using a consumer fitness tracker research reports job characteristics, well-being and physical activity: a field study using a consumer fitness tracker nina raffaela grossi 1, fabiola gattringer 1, bernad batinic 1 [1] department of work, organizational and media psychology, johannes kepler university, linz, austria. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 received: 2019-12-12 • accepted: 2020-08-31 • published (vor): 2021-11-30 handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia corresponding author: nina raffaela grossi, altenbergerstraße 69, 4040 linz, austria. e-mail: nina.grossi@jku.at abstract the relation between job characteristics and health is one of the most important fields of research within work and organizational psychology. another prominent variable influencing health is physical activity. the physical activity mediated demand-control (pamdc) model (häusser & mojzisch, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2017.1303759) combines these health indicators in a new theoretical framework. based on the pamdc model the current study aims to clarify the role of leisure time physical activity (ltpa) in the interplay of job demands, job control and well-being. we expect physical activity to partially mediate the impact of job characteristics on health. to avoid self-report bias considering physical activity we used a consumer fitness tracker to collect additional data. in total, 104 white-collar workers participated in the study. the results show that job control and job demands could predict well-being in cross-sectional analyses. in longitudinal analyses, this was only the case for job demands. regarding the proposed mediating effect of ltpa between job characteristics and health, we could not detect a significant mediation in our sample. this was true for both self-reported and objective data on physical activity. this study provides a first step in validating the pamdc model and has implications for future research. keywords job characteristics, physical activity, well-being, tracking, wearables ex nihilo nihil fit (“nothing can be created out of nothing”) is certainly valid. applied in the context of work environ­ ment, it means that a company owes its productivity and success to the hard and dedicated work of motivated and healthy employees. therefore, employers have good reasons to look after their employees. in 2017, employees in austria were on sick leave for 12.5 days on average, with musculo-skeletal and respiratory diseases explaining 50% of all cases of sick leave (note that this average score does not include short-term sick leave of 1‒3 days; leoni & schwinger, 2017). the job-demand-control (jdc) model there are multiple theories on how the workplace affects employees’ health, but one of the most significant models in the history of work and organizational psychology linking job characteristics to outcome variables such as stress, health, and well-being is the job-demand-control model (jdc model) from karasek (1979). job demands are referred to as workload or task pressure accentuating the quantitative demands and physical or emotional conditions accentuating the qualitative demands (karasek, 1979; karasek et al., 1998). job control is defined as “the discretion permitted the worker in deciding how to meet these demands” (karasek, 1979, p. 285). karasek combines job demands and job control with two intensities each, high and low, to define four different types of jobs: 1) passive jobs—low demands and low control, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2447&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2) active jobs—high demands and high control, 3) low-strain jobs—low demands and high control, and 4) high-strain jobs—high demands and low control. the fourth type, high-strain jobs, have the most impact on physical and mental health. several studies show that high-strain jobs increase the probability of developing psychosomatic symptoms and are associated with cardiovascular disease, poor physical health, poor vitality, poor social functioning, smoking, high fat intake, and poor states of mental health and well-being (e.g., fila et al., 2017; häusser et al., 2010; hellerstedt & jeffery, 1997; karasek, 1979; karasek et al., 1981; lerner et al., 1994; luchman & gonzález-morales, 2013; morita & wada, 2007). the physical activity mediated demand-control model (pamdc model) karasek’s jdc model focuses on the combination of job demands and job control to determine the impact of job strain on health and well-being, but other aspects might have an influence. this is why häusser and mojzisch (2017) developed a new theoretical framework which is originally based on the jdc model but also includes other variables e.g., leisure time physical activity (ltpa), self-regulation and feelings of self-determination. the physical activity mediated demand-control (pamdc) model is dedicated to filling a gap in research as “predicting well-being from job characteristics versus predicting well-being from ltpa have not been connected systematically despite their mutual aim to identify and describe antecedents of reduced well-being and impaired health” (häusser & mojzisch, 2017, p. 2). the goal of the pamdc model (see figure 1) is to combine research on the effects of job characteristics on well-being and research on the effects of ltpa on well-being. to do so häusser and mojzisch (2017) recommend to examine the impact of job demands and job control on health and well-being separately. furthermore, they expect a mediating role of physical activity within this relation. based on findings in the literature häusser and mojzisch (2017) present eight propositions. these are aimed to be tested within the pamdc model and are presented here in short. for a detailed derivation see häusser and mojzisch (2017). based on findings from kirk and rhodes (2012) and popham and mitchell (2007) where long working hours had a negative effect on physical activity, the pamdc model assumes that high job demands are associated with less ltpa (proposition 1). they argue that “dealing with high job demands typically requires self-regulation (e.g., remaining friendly, inhibiting temptations, remaining focused)” (häusser & mojzisch, 2017, p. 7) and therefore assume that a lack of self-regulatory fatigue mediates the effect of job demands on ltpa (proposition 2). considering job control, the authors propose based on empirical evidence (e.g., bennett et al., 2006; choi et al., 2010; fransson et al., 2012) that job control is positively associated with ltpa (proposition 3). proposition 4 on the mediating effect of self-determination on the interplay of job control and ltpa is based on the self-determination theory (sdt), as autonomy is a key element in both self-determination and job control (deci & ryan, 1985). in their review of recent research on the jdc(-support)-model, häusser et al. (2010) discuss the difference between main and interaction effects of job demands and job control and propose a buffering effect of job control on the negative effect of job demands on ltpa (proposition 5). following the findings of moller et al. (2006) and muraven et al. (2008) on self-determination and self-regulation, häusser and mojzisch (2017) expect an interaction of job control and self-regulatory fatigue when job demands are high (proposition 6). with respect to empirical evidence on the interaction of ltpa and health, the authors expect a positive effect of ltpa on health and well-being (e.g., lee et al., 2012; lim et al., 2012; moore et al., 2012; pate et al., 1995), proposition 7. out of propositions 1, 3, and 7, häusser and mojzisch (2017) expect a mediating effect of ltpa between job demands, job control and health and well-being (proposition 8). in sum, the “pamdc model describes the relationships between workplace characteristics, ltpa, health, and well-being in terms of a causal chain: job demands and job control are predicted to affect ltpa (independently and interactively), and ltpa, in turn, is predicted to affect health and well-being” (häusser & mojzisch, 2017, p. 12). the authors nevertheless expect some reciprocal effects, as health-related problems could affect ltpa, or a high amount of ltpa could help people to efficiently cope with job demands, and consequently people might perceive job demands in a different way. taking all these assumptions into account, the authors give some clear implications for future research regarding the pamdc model. as one core future implication, the authors state that it is not enough to consider only subjective information about physical activity, as research shows social desirability biases in recalling information (e.g., canning et al., 2014; donaldson & grant-vallone, 2002). to counteract these effects, the authors propose to additionally include measurement tools such as fitness trackers or accelerometers to collect objective data on ltpa in addition to subjective data on ltpa (häusser & mojzisch, 2017). grossi, gattringer, & batinic 265 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 the physical activity mediated demand-control (pamdc) model (häusser & mojzisch, 2017) job characteristics, physical activity, and well-being whereas job demands are found to be negatively associated with various health indicators, the opposite is true for physical activity. research on cardiovascular disease has shown that a healthy lifestyle including physical activity on a regular basis reduces the risk of coronary artery disease (eyler et al., 2003). the world health organization (who; who, 2006) recommends at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on a minimum of 5 days per week to maintain the status of health and well-being. in line with this, pate et al. (1995) recommend 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day of the week. biddle (1995) concludes in a review on physical activity that it helps to reduce anxiety and depression and has a positive effect on self-esteem, self-concept, mood, and well-being. this conclusion is in line with the findings of fox (1999), who also found that physical activity was positively associated with well-being in a clinical study on anxiety and depression. wiese et al. (2018) accentuate in their meta-analysis the importance of active leisure time activities such as physical activity instead of passive activities (e.g., watching television). they found that ltpa was positively associated with subjective well-being. the authors argue that one possible reason might be the effort-recovery model (meijman & mulder, 1998), which proposes that recovery occurs when leisure activities need different resources from the work-related tasks, and due to digitalization, more people engage in sedentary jobs (e.g., church et al., 2011; wiese et al., 2018). in addition, bakker, demerouti et al. (2013) found an overall positive relationship between the total amount of ltpa and well-being in the evening. research on job characteristics and ltpa shows that a high-demand work environment (high job demands and low job control) is associated with less ltpa (kouvonen et al., 2005). stults-kolehmainen and sinha (2014) similarly concluded in their systematic review of the effects of stress on physical activity that high-strain jobs are associated with less ltpa and more sedentary activities in leisure time. in sum, research on ltpa shows that 1) it is crucial for various physiological health indicators, 2) it is positively associated with psychological indicators, and 3) it is negatively associated with job characteristics such as job-related strain. job characteristics, physical activity and tracking 266 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective and objective measurement of physical activity we will not give a complete review of challenges when it comes to subjective or questionnaire-based information, as there already exist extensive reviews on that topic (see ainsworth et al., 1994; gonyea, 2005; razavi, 2001; sallis & saelens, 2000), but we will give an overview of the most relevant challenges. following the four-stage model of tourangeau et al. (2000) on survey response behavior, there are several cognitive processes involved when using questionnaires as a tool of measurement: 1) comprehension of the question, 2) retrieval of relevant information from memory, 3) integration of judgement, and 4) response process by mapping the response (tourangeau et al., 2000). thus, answering a simple question from a survey requires different complex underlying processes. considering the integration of judgement, social desirability plays a significant role; the person answering the question must decide whether he or she wants to tell the truth in accordance to the judgement he or she makes considering their actual individual state compared to the socially desired state (tourangeau et al., 2000). social desirability is one process that affects response behavior in questionnaires, but there are other processes that have an impact such as cultural differences or bias in memory retrieval (choi & pak, 2005; johnson et al., 1997). taking these challenges into account, the necessity for an objective method of measurement becomes clear. addressing this issue in the field of physical activity, new technologies such as accelerometers, fitness trackers, and smart watches (generic term: wearables) might provide useful information or even serve as a future substitute for subjective data on physical activity. the potential benefits of wearables lie in the objective, continuous, non-invasive, and automatic way of collecting a variety of data in everyday life. the present study in accordance with the empirical evidence presented above, the aim of the current study was to examine the effects of job characteristics on well-being and the proposed mediating effect of ltpa. we therefore assume that job demands are negatively associated with well-being, whereas the opposite is true for job control. we follow the proposition of the pamdc model and test this assumption separately for job demands and job control. furthermore, we assume, that ltpa mediates the impact of job demands, job control on health and well-being. considering the challenges of social desirability and recall bias in subjective measures, we follow the recommendations of häusser and mojzisch (2017). therefore, we include objective measures of ltpa, by using a consumer fitness tracker, to test the proposed mediating effects. method participants and procedure data collection was carried out in cooperation with a public institution in austria. the field study was implemented as a project of occupational health promotion by combining subjective and objective health-related data. two online surveys (t1 and t2) on limesurvey, an online survey tool, collected subjective data about several aspects including job characteristics, well-being, and ltpa. a consumer fitness tracker (xiaomi mi band 2) collected objective data about ltpa in the form of steps. participants were informed about the content and purpose of the study with an official presentation prior to data collection. beforehand, employees received a letter of information about the study as they had to register to participate so we could provide enough fitness trackers. at the end of the opening presentation, participants signed an informed consent document, received the web link for the first online survey (t1) and their fitness tracker. for the following 14 days, participants wore their individual fitness trackers, and when they returned it, they received the web link for the second and final online survey (t2). in total, 104 employees (white-collar workers) participated in the field study. it should be noted that only participants of a certain department were able to participate in the study, and participation was voluntary. the education level of the sample was rather high with 81 participants (77.9%) having a college or university degree. table 1 displays more details of the sample. grossi, gattringer, & batinic 267 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 socio-demographic details of participants (n = 104) characteristic number of participants percentage gender male 50 48.1 female 47 45.2 no statement 7 6.7 age group < 25 0 0 25-29 years old 8 7.7 30-34 years old 6 5.8 35-39 years old 14 13.5 40-44 years old 6 5.8 45-49 years old 11 10.6 50-54 years old 19 18.3 55-59 years old 22 21.2 60-64 years old 11 10.6 no statement 7 6.7 working hours ≤ 25 hours/week 11 10.6 26-35 hours/week 9 8.7 ≥ 36 hours/week 71 68.3 no statement 13 12.5 member sports club/fitness center yes 42 40.4 no 54 51.9 no statement 8 7.7 marital status married/in a relationship 75 72.1 not married/not in a relationship 19 18.3 no statement 10 9.6 measures job characteristics job demands and job control were measured with a shortened german version of the copenhagen psychosocial questionnaire (copsoq; nübling et al., 2005) at t1. altogether, job demands were assessed with 14 items (e.g., “is your workload unevenly distributed so it piles up?”; “is your work emotionally demanding?”) and job control with 19 items (e.g., “do you have a large degree of influence concerning your work?”; “does your work require you to take the initiative?”). items were answered on a scale with 0 (never), 25 (rarely), 50 (sometimes), 75 (often), and 100 (always). a mean score was computed from the subscales for job demands and job control for further analyses. reliability (cronbach’s α) of the two mean scores was high (α = .87 for job demands, α = .88 for job control). well-being well-being was measured using the german version of the who-5 well-being index (brähler et al., 2007). the who-5 consists of five items to be rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (at no time) to 5 (at all times). the questionnaire contains items such as “i have felt calm and relaxed” and “my daily life has been filled with things that interest me.” the instruction for answering the items was “please respond to each item by marking one box per row regarding how you felt in the last two weeks”. cronbach’s α was high at both times of measurement (α = .85 at t1, α =.85 at t2). job characteristics, physical activity and tracking 268 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective ltpa an adapted version of the physical activity questionnaire (paq) was used to collect information about subjective ltpa (sltpa) of the participants (wagner & singer, 2003). the questionnaire consists of 10 items, each asking about different types of physical activity: 1) walking fast, 2) nordic walking or hiking, 3) jogging, 4) cycling, 5) gymnastics, 6) aerobics, 7) tennis, 8) skiing, 9) fitness-center, and 10) other physical activities. in the original version of the paq, the instruction is “how many hours per week did you spend on … during the last month?” as the time of measurement within this study was shorter, the instruction was adapted to “how much time (in minutes) did you spend on … during the last two weeks?” therefore, participants rated for each activity the amount of time spent with one specific activity during the last two week in minutes. for further analysis, a mean score of subjective ltpa in minutes per day for each participant was computed. subjective ltpa (sltpa) was also measured two times (t1 and t2). objective ltpa a consumer fitness tracker (xiaomi mi band 2) collected objective data on participants’ ltpa in the form of steps. the xiaomi mi band 2 is a smart device that can measure physical activity, heartrate, and sleep. it has a built-in motion sensor (pedometer) to measure steps and a built-in led sensor to measure heartrate. to ensure that the data collected with the fitness tracker would exclusively be available for the research team of this study and would not at any time be transferred elsewhere (e.g., to the xiaomi company or a third-person server), the fitness trackers were put in operation exclusively with our own application. the basis of our own app was the open source app, gadgetbridge for android, which was installed on an acer iconia one 10 and a samsung galaxy tab s3. the app allows using smart devices (e.g., the xiaomi mi band 2) without creating a user account or using the closed-source app of the vendors. aside from the crucial benefit of data protection when using gadgetbridge as a basis of our app, the source code could be adjusted to fit the purpose of the study. as we wanted the data to be as natural as possible, we adjusted the fitness tracker settings via the app so that the steps would not show on the display of the fitness tracker but only the current time, battery level, and heartrate. during data collection, all data were saved and kept on the built-in memory chip of the fitness tracker. when participants returned their fitness tracker at the end of the study, we transferred the data onto the tablet and saved it on a protected server at the university. for statistical analyses, a mean score of objective ltpa (oltpa) in steps per day for all participants was computed. results descriptive data data management and analysis were performed using spss (version 20.0). table 2 illustrates means, standard deviations, sample sizes, and correlations of the predictor variables job demands, job control, subjective physical activity (sltpa) in minutes (t1 and t2) and objective physical activity (oltpa) in steps as well as the criterion variable well-being (t1 and t2). well-being at both times showed the expected relation with job characteristics; job demands were negatively associated with well-being, whereas job control was positively associated with well-being. therefore, it appears that participants with lower job demands or with higher job control felt better than the ones with higher job demands or lower job control. furthermore, well-being at t1 was positively related to sltpa at t1, suggesting that participants who were more active also felt better. objective ltpa in the form of steps showed a significant but rather low correlation with sltpa at t2. grossi, gattringer, & batinic 269 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations of study variables variable m sd n 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 1. job demands 37.35 15.92 98 2. job control 65.56 13.16 98 -.30** 3. sltpa t1 42.07 35.46 95 -.09 -.01 4. sltpa t2 50.41 50.50 97 -.05 -.10 .56** 5. oltpa t2 5545 3686 96 -.09 -.11 .09 .24* 6. well-being t1 2.83 0.96 98 -.49** .49** .24* .15 .04 7. well-being t2 3.06 0.91 99 -.49** .39** .19 .17 -.01 .74** note. sltpa = subjective leisure time physical activity (minutes per day); oltpa = objective leisure time physical activity (steps per day); t1 = first online survey; t2 = second and final online survey. *p < .05. **p < .001. regression analyses multiple regression analysis was used to test if job demands and job control predicted participants’ well-being. the results of the multiple regression analyses on the prediction of well-being at t1 indicated that the two predictors explained 37.8% of the variance, f(2, 95) = 28.83, p < .001. it was found that job demands and job control significantly predicted well-being at t1 (see table 3). the results of multiple regression analyses on the prediction of well-being at t2 showed that the predictors could explain 56.7% of the variance in well-being at t2, f(3, 89) = 38.88, p < .001. in detail the results show that job demands and well-being at t1 significantly predicted well-being at t2 (see table 3). table 3 results of linear regression analyses for job demands and job control predicting well-being at t1 and t2 (n = 93) outcome variable/predictor b se b β t p well-being t1 job demands t1 -0.02 0.01 -.38 -4.54 < .001 job control t1 0.03 0.01 .38 4.45 < .001 well-being t2 job demands t1 -0.01 0.00 -.17 -2.15 .034 job control t1 0.00 0.01 .05 0.57 .567 well-being t1 0.60 0.08 .63 7.26 < .001 note. t1 = first online survey; t2 = second and final online survey. mediation analyses mediation analyses were performed using the process macro in spss to test if the relation between job demands, job control, and well-being was partially mediated by subjective and objective ltpa in longitudinal data (hayes, 2012). the process macro uses bootstrapping to determine mediation effects (indirect effects). confidence intervals and estimates were calculated over 5,000 bootstrapped resamples with a 95% confidence interval. the mediation analysis included job demands and job control as predictor variables, subjective and objective ltpa (sltpa, oltpa) as mediator variables, well-being at t1 as a control variable, and well-being at t2 as the criterion. unstandardized regression coefficients did not achieve statistical significance (see figure 2). job characteristics, physical activity and tracking 270 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 unstandardized regression coefficients of mediation analysis of job demands and job control on well-being via subjective and objective ltpa note. standard errors in parenthesis (n = 86). sltpa = subjective ltpa (minutes per day); oltpa = objective ltpa (steps per day); t2 = second and final online survey. the results show that 64% of the variance in well-being at t2 could be predicted through the variables, f(5, 85) = 28.63, p < .001 (see table 4). mediation effects (indirect effects) did not achieve statistical significance, as the criterion was a 95% bootstrapped confidence interval excluding zero (see table 4). table 4 multiple mediation analysis of job demands and job control on well-being via subjective and objective ltpa (n = 86) predictor longitudinal b se p 95% ci control variables well-being t1 0.627 0.079 < .001 job demands c´ -0.005 0.004 .262 (total effect c) -0.005 0.004 .309 job control c´ 0.006 0.005 .235 (total effect c) 0.005 0.005 .319 mediator variables sltpa t2 0.002 0.001 .179 oltpa t2 0.000 0.000 .536 indirect effects (job demands) sltpa t2 0.000 0.001 [-0.001, 0.001] oltpa t2 0.000 0.001 [-0.000, 0.001] indirect effects (job control) sltpa t2 -0.002 0.002 [-0.005, 0.001] oltpa t2 0.000 0.001 [-0.000, 0.002] r 2 .638 < .001 note. sltpa = subjective ltpa (minutes per day); oltpa = objective ltpa (steps per day); t1 = first online survey; t2 = second and final online survey. grossi, gattringer, & batinic 271 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in line with findings in the literature, our study showed that job demands and job control contributed to the prediction of well-being in a cross-sectional analysis, explaining about 37.8% of the variance. considering the longitudinal analysis of well-being, only job demands and well-being at t1 were significant predictor variables, explaining 57% of the variance. it must be mentioned that the sample of the current study was rather homogenous: all 104 participants were employed at the same department with working outside the office as the main component of work. therefore, it seems likely that participants are used to high levels of decision latitude considering time structure and work procedure. another factor that might have contributed to an increase in well-being is that participants knew they were actively taking part in a study on workplace health promotion. this knowledge might have influenced participants’ behavior towards a healthier lifestyle resulting in better well-being at the end of the study. the effect that people change behavior when they know they are being observed is also known as the hawthorne effect (landsberger, 1958). mediation analyses showed that subjective and objective ltpa did not significantly mediate the effect of job demands or job control on well-being. this result fails to support the pamdc model of häusser and mojzisch (2017) in which a partial mediation of physical activity between job characteristics and well-being was proposed. there could be multiple reasons why data on physical activity could not predict well-being in the current study. as subjective physical activity at t1 and t2 were reported retrospectively for the past two weeks, the information could have been affected by recall bias. a recall bias can occur in surveys when information about a certain criterion is overor under-reported, which can be intended or unintended (basso et al., 1997; swan et al., 1992). especially when it comes to social desirability considering a healthy and sportive lifestyle, subjective survey information can be biased. another possible reason for our null findings might be that not all types of physical activity have the same impact on well-being. for instance, who recommends at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity physical activity, whereas the paq also includes low-intensity physical activity such as walking fast (wagner & singer, 2003; who, 2006). another finding of the current study is the rather low but significant correlation of subjective physical activity and objective physical activity. one main reason for the rather low correlation of subjective and objective physical activity might be that not all types of sports are recognized by the measure of steps on a fitness tracker. the sensors in the fitness tracker measure motion in a specific way, deciding whether a certain motion is considered a step or not. it is worn on the wrist, so in sports with less movement of the upper body, the fitness tracker might not count this physical activity as steps. this is especially true for bicycling but also for sports such as yoga or pilates. the definition of physical activity in the pamdc model is a broader one including walking instead of using a car and the steps taken during working hours to physical activity (häusser & mojzisch, 2017). when asking participants about their subjective physical activity, it might be useful to do so on a daily basis in order to get more detailed information for comparison with objective physical activity from the fitness tracker. regarding the use of self-tracking devices to measure physical activity rather than using self-report measures, the current study shows empirically that steps are insufficient to substitute for questionnaires on physical activity. however, subjective and objective measures show at least a significant correlation, indicating that steps counted during leisure time are at least partly an indication for an active lifestyle. the shortcomings of steps not including specific sports and activities (e.g., swimming, cycling) while including non-sportive activities (e.g., brushing your teeth, applauding) suggest that self-report questionnaires yet cannot be completely replaced by a consumer fitness tracker for research purposes. there is a need for devices that manage to measure and differentiate between specific kinds of movement, whether the current movement is part of a sportive or a non-sportive activity. in a context in which ltpa is measured, non-sportive activity is not necessarily as relevant to the study as sportive activity and should be acknowledged as such. in circumstances where only a trend in increased or decreased physical activity is of interest, a pedometer could possibly be sufficient, but many activities remain unmeasured. furthermore, it should be clearly acknowledged that even with the inaccuracy reported, steps taken over a period of time are indicators of some form of physical movement. accumulated steps over a period of time might be of interest when thinking of general physical activity as opposed to specific sportive activities. recognizing the limitations of the current study, the results provide a first step toward validating the pamdc model (häusser & mojzisch, 2017) and integrating objective measures of physical activity in the process. job characteristics, physical activity and tracking 272 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: as part of the project “wearable insights: potential of tracking technology to enrich psychological research (wip)”, the current study was funded by the linz institute of technology (lit), which is located at the johannes kepler university linz. the lit did not, at any time, influence research design, execution, analysis or the interpretation and reporting of results. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ainsworth, b. e., montoye, h. j., & leon, a. s. 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(2006). an estimation of the economic impact of chronic noncommunicable diseases in selected countries. who. https://www.who.int/chp/working_paper_growth%20model29may.pdf about the authors nina raffaela grossi works as a research associate at the department of work, organizational and media psychology at the johannes-kepler-university linz. her focus in research is on work and organizational psychology, workplace health promotion, wearables, tracking technologies and artificial intelligence. fabiola gattringer is a research associate and phd student at the department of work, organizational and media psychology at the johannes-kepler-university linz. her focus in research is on the impact of media and new technologies, new media in the workplace, social media, cyberslacking and web 2.0. bernad batinic is head of the department of work, organizational and media psychology, founded in 2005, which is a subdivision of the institute of education and psychology. since 2007, prof. batinic is also head of the institute of education and psychology. after attaining his psychology degree, prof. batinic began his work on online research. he was particularly interested in the possibilities offered by the internet as a method of data collection. bernad batinic was probably the first researcher in the german-speaking world who implemented a survey using the world wide web. grossi, gattringer, & batinic 275 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 264–275 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2447 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001335 https://doi.org/10.1539/joh.49.125 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2007.10.008 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1995.03520290054029 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2007.06.012 https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/35712/1/01-175.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2000.11082780 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-013-0090-5 https://doi.org/10.1097/00001648-199207000-00011 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1374436 https://www.who.int/chp/working_paper_growth%20model29may.pdf https://www.psychopen.eu/ job characteristics, physical activity and tracking (introduction) the job-demand-control (jdc) model the physical activity mediated demand-control model (pamdc model) job characteristics, physical activity, and well-being subjective and objective measurement of physical activity the present study method participants and procedure measures results descriptive data regression analyses mediation analyses discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors testing intergroup threat theory: realistic and symbolic threats, religiosity and gender as predictors of prejudice research reports testing intergroup threat theory: realistic and symbolic threats, religiosity and gender as predictors of prejudice ana makashvili* a, irina vardanashvili a, nino javakhishvili a [a] the school of arts and sciences, ilia state university, tbilisi, georgia. abstract the complex phenomenon of prejudice has been the focus of interest among social psychologists since the mid-20th century. the intergroup threat theory (itt) is one of the most efficient theoretical frameworks to identify the triggers of prejudice. in this study, using experimental design, we examined the effects of symbolic and realistic threats on prejudice that was measured by means of a modified social distance scale. the study participants were 611 undergraduate students from the country of georgia. in addition to providing further support for itt, the study showed that the level of religiosity moderated the effects between both types of threats and prejudice, although it had different indications for realistic and symbolic threats, while gender interacted only with symbolic threat. implications of the findings are discussed. keywords: prejudice, intergroup threat theory, realistic and symbolic threats europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 received: 2017-06-27. accepted: 2017-11-17. published (vor): 2018-06-19. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; mioara cristea, heriot watt university, edinburgh, united kingdom *corresponding author at: the school of arts and sciences, ilia state university, 3 z. chavchavadze street, 0164 tbilisi, georgia. e-mail: ana.makashvili.1@iliauni.edu.ge this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the age of growing political correctness, the western social psychology has started to use terms such as subtle discrimination (quillian, 2008), benevolent sexism (glick & fiske, 2002), barely perceptible racism (aronson, 2012) and implicit prejudice (oskamp & schultz, 2005). moreover, one of the main sources of anxiety toward an out-group is now believed to be not an irrational fear of the unknown, but rather the fear of presenting oneself in a negative light, that is, the desire to be seen as a non-prejudiced person (dovidio & gaertner, 2004). this means that while the blatant forms of hostility toward out-groups have weakened, the problem persists and has evolved to a degree that requires increasingly sophisticated measurement tools (tetlock & mitchell, 2008). however, the western social science developed particular interest in the problem at its explicit, even institutionalized, stage (bogardus, 1925; bogardus, 1938; bogardus, 1958; katz & braly, 1935). in the united states, this happened in the 1920s, along with successive waves of non-protestant and asian immigrants (wark & galliher, 2007), while in europe (as well as in the united states) the interest in intergroup conflicts was especially intense in the mid-20th century, in the wake of the dictatorships, the world war ii and especially the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ holocaust which sparked enormous shock and academic curiosity to understand what stood behind massive manifestations of prejudice, discrimination and intergroup conflicts (hogg, 2006). more than half a century later, a recent influx of refugees from the middle east and north africa to the western world has brought the issues of intergroup conflicts and threats to the attention of the public and governments (foster, 2016) as the “refugee crisis” has been regarded as the largest-scale movement of people after the world war ii (smith, 2016). moreover, it has been argued that the rhetoric used toward refugees is comparable with that used during the world war ii (tharoor, 2015). thus, current events have become important incentives to resume studies in explicit prejudice and prejudice-related matters. whether prejudice is blatant or subtle depends heavily on the context. in the united states, for example, racial prejudice is highly condemned and equality is taught in schools (boukari & goura, 2012), while in georgia, both the results of various nation-wide survey polls and real-time cases of homophobic, xenophobic and religious discrimination are to be qualified as the manifestation of explicit prejudice (ramiah, hewstone, dovidio, & penner, 2010). for example, the vast majority of the population surveyed thinks that people of other religious denominations should not enjoy the same rights as the orthodox majority in georgia (sumbadze, 2012); media studies reveal the evidence of hate speech in national newspapers (united nations development programme georgia, 2013). the incident of may 17, 2013 in tbilisi, georgia can serve as an example of real-time discriminatory incidents, when a peaceful rally dedicated to the international day against homophobia was confronted by thousands of protestors opposing gay rights, who were allowed to break through the police cordon. such attitudes and even discriminatory behaviors are widely supported, which validates pettigrew's idea about one of the antecedents of prejudice – conformity (pettigrew, 1958). prejudice is a psychological construct that can account for such negative attitudes and therefore, can be defined as “a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group on the basis of generalizations derived from faulty or incomplete information” (aronson, 2012, p. 299). for several decades, scholars have studied sources of prejudice including broad factors such as political, socio-economic (greeley & sheatsley, 1971) and socio-cultural contexts, the historical background and certain personality traits (allport, 1954; stephan, 2008) like social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism and empathy (dovidio et al., 2010; javakhishvili, beruashvili, & kldiashvili, 2007; laythe, finkel, & kirkpatrick, 2001; mcfarland, 2010; sidanius & pratto, 1999; stephan, 2008). thus, it is difficult to attribute prejudice to a single factor or a single set of factors. however, as brewer (2007) argues, “the fact that individuals value, favor, and conform to their own membership groups (in-groups) over groups to which they do not belong (out-groups) is among the most well-established phenomena in social psychology” (p. 729). this phenomenon is the basis of social identity theory (sit; tajfel & turner, 1979). sit posits that in-group members tend to look for negative aspects in out-groups, thereby improving their self-esteem. this, for its part, can lead to intergroup hostility and prejudice toward out-groups. in line with this reasoning, the intergroup threat theory (itt, [stephan, ybarra, & morrison, 2009]) suggests that people are prone to anticipating threat from an out-group, which in turn fosters prejudice (e.g., morrison et al., 2009; myers, abrams, rosenthal, & christian, 2013; stephan et al., 2005). the importance of threat and fear with regard to intergroup relations and prejudice has been pointed out by many authors (adorno, frenkel-brunswik, levinson, & sanford, 1950; allport, 1954; levine & campbell, 1972; sherif, 1966; smith, 1993) even before the development of itt– a theory supported by a meta-analytical study makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 465 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of 95 samples (riek, mania, & gaertner, 2006) demonstrating that perceptions of threat indeed trigger prejudice. itt authors (stephan et al., 2009) stress that the theory is concerned with perceived rather than actual threats, as “perceived threats have real consequences, regardless of whether or not the perceptions of threat are accurate” (stephan et al., 2009, p. 45). the study of attitudes toward immigrants in germany, for example, found that the actual proportion of immigrants did not predict negative attitudes toward them, but the perceived proportion of immigrants did (semyonov, raijman, tov, & schmidt 2004). however, studies (e.g., quillian, 1995) and historical experience (aronson, 2012) also suggest that actual threats – poor economy, a large portion of minorities or immigrants – enhance negative attitudes toward out-groups which, according to riek et al. (2006) means that national problems, including economic hardships, are ascribed to threat-inducing out-groups. itt distinguishes two types of perceived threats: realistic and symbolic threats. perceived realistic threat, the concept that has its roots in the realistic group conflict theory (e.g. sherif, 1966), is a threat to the actual – political, economic or physical – well-being (land, security, health, wealth, employment) of a group, while perceived symbolic threat is concerned with a group’s values, traditions, ideology, morals, and is expected to be more prominent when an in-group believes that their cultural values and traits are different from those of an outgroup (zárate, garcia, garza, & hitlan 2004). whether perception of symbolic or realistic threat becomes salient depends upon the threat-invoking out-group (stephan et al., 2009). economically powerful out-groups or people with diseases might elicit realistic threats (stephan et al., 2005), while socially marginalized out-groups, such as homosexuals (haddock, zanna, & esses, 1993) and sects (stephan et al., 2009), engender symbolic threats. however, drawing a clear line between symbolic and realistic threats may be problematic in certain cases (riek et al., 2006) as they may overlap. for example, symbolic threat posed by a religious out-group might involve realistic threat as well or evolve into the latter (riek et al., 2006). the present study tries to address this issue by experimentally manipulating symbolic and realistic threats. another reason to explore threats through experimental manipulation is the questionable validity of the threat instrument that has been used in most of the studies (e.g., aberson & gaffney, 2008; dunwoody & mcfarland, 2018; myers et al., 2013; stephan, ybarra, martinéz, schwarzwald, & tur-kaspa, 1998; stephan et al., 2002). specifically, threats have often been measured by questionnaires including 12 (e.g., stephan et al., 2002) or fewer (e.g., dunwoody & mcfarland, 2018) items such as “blacks have more economic power than they deserve in this country” (in the case of realistic threat) and “blacks and whites have different family values” (in the case of symbolic threat) (stephan et al., 2002). these items raise questions regarding validity since they might be measuring prejudice already present in person rather than threat perceptions. the need to experimentally study symbolic and realistic threats has also been emphasized by riek, mania, and gaertner (2006) in their thorough review of studies on intergroup threats and negative attitudes, where the authors argue about certain methodological limitations: “one is the lack of experimental studies, especially in the domains of realistic and symbolic threats” (riek et al., 2006, p. 346). while it has been well established that perceived threats shape negative attitudes (e.g., stephan et al., 2005), studies do not provide uniform results regarding associations between prejudice and demographic variables such as gender and the level of religiosity. a number of researchers (e.g., altemeyer, 1998; mcfarland, 2010; testing intergroup threat theory 466 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parrillo & donoghue, 2005) argue that males, as compared to females, are more prone to being prejudiced. however, the evidence is not consistent (see herek, 2002; hughes & tuch, 2003). the findings also reveal associations between being religious and holding prejudices (e.g., hall, matz, & wood, 2010; rowatt, labouff, johnson, froese, & tsang, 2009; scheepers, gijsberts, & hello, 2002; ugurlu, 2013), which can be either positive (e.g., allport & kramer, 1946; hall et al., 2010) or negative (e.g., laythe et al., 2001). thus, further research is needed to better comprehend the role of gender and religiosity in prejudice. at the same time, studies show cross-cultural differences in factors contributing to prejudice. for example, while race was identified as an important source of social distances among american students, religion and the employment status was found to contribute to negative attitudes in greek and japanese students, respectively (triandis, loh, & levin, 1966). the study of the social distances of georgian, german and japanese students (javakhishvili, schneider, makashvili, & kochlashvili, 2012) found no significant effects of gender and religiosity on social distance scores in any of the three samples. aims and hypotheses considering the real-life relevance of threats (e.g., quillian, 1995), the aim of the current study is to show that threat-evoking contexts elicit prejudice. drawing upon itt, we test the effects of both, symbolic and realistic threats on prejudice and by manipulating the two threatening situations through exposing the participants to information about fictitious out-groups, we examine whether they have different effects as compared to the situation where threat is absent (control condition). furthermore, we explore the demographic variables that have been shown to be associated with prejudice. these variables include the participants’ gender and the level of religiosity. expecting that both factors are related to prejudice, their interactions with threats are also tested to examine whether any of the two moderates the relation between threats and prejudice and whether the interaction is different for realistic and symbolic threats. given that symbolic threats are related to traditions, customs and values (stephan et al., 2009), we assume that the interaction effect between religiousness and this type of threat will be stronger than for the realistic threat. method participants the study participants were 611 undergraduate students from different universities of tbilisi, georgia. the majority of them, 95.1%, were georgians, while others were ethnic minorities, including armenians, azerbaijanis, russians, ukrainians and ossetians. to ensure homogeneity, we excluded data from nongeorgian participants, which reduced the total number of responses to 589. 92.2% of the remaining participants identified themselves as orthodox christians, 4.4% said they did not belong to any religious denomination, while 13 (3.4%) did not provide any response. the mean score of the participants' level of religiosity was 6.36 (2.407) with the minimum of 1 and the maximum of 10. out of them, 166 (28%) were males and 423 (72%) makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 467 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were females, with the mean age of 20.37 (4.984), ranging from 18 to 25 years. the uneven gender distribution reflects the situation in the population of students from which the sample has been taken: this population consists of students from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, where females dramatically outnumber males. at the same time, the main aim of our design was to ensure equivalency between the three groups, which was met (see table 1). a test of homogeneity of variance was performed in order to check the equivalence of age distribution across experimental (symbolic and realistic threats) and control (“no threat”) conditions. group mean (p = .193) and median (p = .680) comparisons showed no significant differences between the groups (see table 1). table 1 means and standard deviations for age and level of religiosity across three groups group age level of religiosity n m sd n m sd realistic threat 197 20.08 1.95 196 6.26 2.24 symbolic threat 196 20.15 2.21 195 6.68 2.65 “no threat” 196 20.08 1.61 191 6.13 2.29 similarly, a test of homogeneity of variance was used to look at the equivalence of distribution of the level of religiosity across the three groups. again, no significant differences were found between experimental and control conditions based on the mean (p = .059) and median (see table 1). crosstabs showed that gender distribution, although with predominantly more women in all the three groups, was still similar across the groups with 141 women versus 56 men in realistic threat condition, 131 women versus 65 men in symbolic threat condition and 151 women versus 45 men in control condition (“no threat). data collection took place between december 2015 to february 2017. procedure before starting data collection, a detailed research project was submitted to the ethics committee of ilia state university. data collection started only after the ethical approval was obtained. having obtained approval from the universities, we entered the classes and asked the students if they wished to take part in the study of the role of mass media in a daily life. those who agreed to participate were led to believe that the study was concerned with the daily coverage of events and the role of media in shaping public attitudes. they were asked to read a copy of a newspaper article and answer several questions, after which they were to fill out an eight-item attitude questionnaire about an out-group mentioned in the article and to provide demographic data. after completing all of the tasks, the participants were thoroughly debriefed: the true objectives of the study were disclosed and the students were given sufficient time to ask questions. testing intergroup threat theory 468 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ design the study used a between-subjects factorial design with one factor, perceived threat, which was examined at three levels: realistic (n = 197) and symbolic threat (n = 196) in experimental conditions, and the absence of threat in the control condition (n = 196). measures threat manipulation in order to manipulate realistic and symbolic threats, several vignettes were composed – a page length newspaper-type articles about a fictitious out-group called “abirians” (invented solely for research purposes). the articles designed for experimental conditions (i.e., symbolic and realistic threats) contained information that the un planned to settle in georgia an ethnic group of abirians, who currently resided in the gaza strip, and described potential threats of the plan for georgia. a. realistic threat manipulation: in one version of the articles, the settlement of the abirians in georgia was associated with realistic threats: competition for jobs and higher education, increased taxes and the possible spread of diseases such as hepatitis c. an excerpt from the article read as follows: as reported [by the organization], abirians will immediately need workplaces on the local labor market upon their arrival in georgia. according to the international index of education and employability (iiee), abirians are quite similar to leading european nations. this means that they can easily compete with the local population in terms of both, education and labor market. b. symbolic threat manipulation: another version described symbolic threats and focused on the types of cultural differences which, according to a number of recent opinion polls, georgians are particularly sensitive to: the out-group was reported to have a non-uniform religion, favor same sex marriage and adhere to such traditions and values that are clearly uncommon in georgia. for example: as reported [by the organization], abirians are of the mixed race: a combination of the caucasian and asian races. as they reside at the crossroads of muslim and judaism cultures, they do not have a single religion: some of them are muslims, some are the followers of judaism, while others practice mixed muslim and jewish religious rites. however, according to the international research center of world religions (ircwr), the majority of them does not belong to any religion. c. control condition: the third version, designed for the control group (“no threat” condition), was similar in structure and style but described the out-group (abirians) in neutral terms, with no references to threats whatsoever (it did not mention the prospects of the abirians’ settlement in georgia). for example: as reported by pcw, the census of an ethnic group abiri residing in gaza strip is already available. historical sources suggest that the abirians have been residing in the territory since the 1830s when egypt conquered palestine, and later, as a result of the british intervention, the ottoman empire regained control over the region. to ensure that the participants read and comprehended the articles they were given several questions; for example, the likert-scale items: “please evaluate the style of the article. did you find it objective?” makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 469 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ level of religiosity was measured by a single 10-points scale item with 1 = not at all religious and 10 = highly religious. prejudice was measured by an updated version of the social distance scale (bogardus, 1925). leaning upon the results of nation-wide survey polls (e.g., caucasus research resource centers, 2015; sumbadze, 2012), human rights (human rights watch, 2017) and media (united nations development programme georgia, 2013) reports and real-time incidents of homophobia, xenophobia and religious discrimination, which point to explicit forms of prejudice, social distance scale was considered as an appropriate instrument. based on our experience (javakhishvili, 2005; javakhishvili, 2011; javakhishvili et al., 2012; javakhishvili et al., 2016; vardanashvili & javakhishvili, 2016), the scale is a good measure of explicit prejudice as it is assumed to tap into the behavioral component of prejudice, versus, for instance, the feeling thermometer that tests the affective aspect of prejudice (henry, 2008; stefaniak & bilewicz, 2016). a revised version of the scale included eight 5-points likert-scale items, e.g., “i would accept abirians as my child’s teacher” or “i would make friends with abirians,” with 1 = strongly agree and 5 = strongly disagree, higher scores indicating higher levels of social distance, and hence, prejudice, and lower scores indicating lower levels of prejudice. the validity of the measure was examined using the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) in mplus (muthén & muthén, 2010). the first model considered one latent variable (social distance as a single construct) predicted by the respective eight items. the model did not fit the data. we then divided the scale into two parts, each representing a latent factor. the first one included three items, while the second factor covered the remaining five items. the resulting model had a good fit, χ2(14, 589) = 20.38, cfi = .997, tli = .993, rmsea = .027, srmr = .018. therefore, the social distance scale incorporated two factors. for the first factor the cronbach’s alpha was .829, while for the second factor it was .879. consequently, two separate scores of the dependent variable for the first factor and the second factor were used in the further analysis. data of factor loadings are provided in table 2. table 2 factor loadings of the confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) two-factor solution for the social distance scale (revised) item factor 1 factor 2 i would marry abirians 0.63*** i would accept abirians as my child’s teacher 0.83*** i would accept abirians as my boss at work 0.82*** i would make friends with abirians 0.90*** i would accept abirians as my neighbors 0.91*** i would sit next to abirians in a public transport 0.73*** i would accept abirians as my acquaintances 0.76*** i would accept abirians in my country 0.66*** ***p ≤ .001. testing intergroup threat theory 470 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics showed that threat manipulation had an effect on both factors of prejudice toward abirians (see table 3). the differences between the mean scores of prejudice across realistic threat and control ("no threat") condition as well as symbolic threat and control ("no threat") condition were verified by the one-way analysis of variance (anova). no significant differences were found between the realistic and symbolic threat conditions. mean scores of prejudice where higher for the first factor of prejudice, f(2, 586) = 25.45, p < .001 than for the second factor, f(2, 586) = 24.24, p < .001 (see table 3). table 3 means and standard deviations for prejudice toward abirians group the first factor of prejudice the second factor of prejudice n m sd n m sd realistic threats 197 3.39 0.96 197 2.07 0.76 symbolic threat 196 3.47 1.14 196 2.22 0.97 “no threat” 196 2.82 0.85 196 1.68 0.62 the participants’ gender proved to be a significant variable only in the case of the second factor, t(584) = 3.36, p < .001. male participants scored higher m = 2.167 (0.985) as compared to female participants, m = 1.92 (0.74). the level of religiosity positively correlated with both forms of prejudice: a higher correlation was found for the first factor of prejudice, r(582) = .40, p < .001 as compared to the second factor, r(582) =.28, p < .001. since the level of religiosity was positively related to both factors of prejudice and gender had a significant effect on the second factor, simple regression was performed with threats and these variables as predictors. initially, we examined the predictors of the first factor of prejudice. the latter was entered as a dependent variable in the regression equation. threat was turned into a dummy variable so that we were able to enter realistic and symbolic threats as predictors in model 1. both types of threats significantly contibuted to the variance of prejudice, r2 = .08, f(2, 581) = 24.87, p < .001. the level of religiosity was added in model 2, resulting in δr2 of 15% with threats retaining significance and religiosity predicting prejudice, r2 = .22, f(3, 581) = 46.68, p < .001. results of regression are shown in table 4. likewise, we ran simple regression for the second factor of prejudice. realistic and symbolic threats (turned into dummy variables) were entered in model 1. both of them again predicted prejudice, r2 = .08, f(2, 580) = 24.01, p < .001. gender (turned into a dummy variable) and the level of religiosity were added in model 2. again, threats predicted prejudice and gender and religiosity contributed significant variance with δr2 of 9%, r2 = .16, f(4, 580) = 27.95, p < .001. regression results are shown in table 5. makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 471 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 regression on the first factor of prejudice predictor β model 1 model 2 realistic threat 0.26*** 0.25*** symbolic threat 0.30*** 0.26*** level of religiosity 0.38*** r2 .08 .22 δr2 .15*** ***p ≤ .001. table 5 regression on the second factor of prejudice predictor β model 1 model 2 realistic threat 0.22*** 0.21*** symbolic threat 0.31*** 0.26*** level of religiosity 0.28*** gender 0.14*** r2 .08 .16 δr2 .09*** ***p ≤ .001. 22% of the variance of the first factor of prejudice was explained by symbolic and realistic threats and religiosity, while 16% of the variance of the second factor was explained by symbolic and realistic threats and religiosity plus gender. according to β-coefficients, for both, the first and the second factors, symbolic threat was a better predictor than realistic threat. since religiosity and gender contributed substantially to this association, we performed a moderation analysis by means of a special software process, which is a supplement to spss (hayes, 2013). this statistical technique uses regression to provide model outputs. for the first factor of prejudice, the moderation of the effect of realistic and symbolic threats was tested by the level of religiosity, while for the second factor we examined the moderation of the effect of threats by the level of religiosity and gender. in total, four models were tested: 1. realistic threat → religiosity → the first factor of prejudice 2. symbolic threat → religiosity → the first factor of prejudice 3. realistic threat → religiosity → gender → the second factor of prejudice 4. symbolic threat → religiosity → gender → the second factor of prejudice testing intergroup threat theory 472 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ model 1: realistic threat → religiosity → the first factor of prejudice. overall, the model was significant: f(3, 578) = 47.12, p < .001, r2 = .20. b coefficients are presented in table 6. table 6 b coefficients for the model 1: realistic threat and religiosity on the first factor of prejudice effect b t main and interaction effects of predictor variables realistic threat 1.12*** 4.71 level of religiosity 0.21*** 11.21 realistic threat × level of religiosity -0.13*** -3.81 conditional effect of realistic threat on the first factor of prejudice at 3 different values of the moderator – level of religiosity level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.95 0.58*** 5.02 level of religiosity at the mean 6.36 0.26*** 3.20 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.77 0.06 -0.53 ***p ≤ .001. all of the effects – the main effects of realistic threat, the level of religiosity as well as their interaction – were significant, which indicates the moderating effect of religiosity. the most interesting information is provided in the second, lower part of the table: b coefficient decreased as the level of religiosity increased and, finally, it became nonsignificant (p = .595). model 2: symbolic threat → religiosity → the first factor of prejudice. overall, the model was significant: f(3, 578) = 48.78, p < .001, r2 = .20. b coefficients are presented in table 7. table 7 b coefficients for the model 2: symbolic threat and religiosity on the first factor of prejudice effect b t main and interaction effects of predictor variables symbolic threat -0.60** -2.64 level of religiosity 0.11*** 5.36 symbolic threat × level of religiosity 0.14*** 4.17 conditional effect of symbolic threat on the first factor of prejudice at 3 different values of the moderator – level of religiosity level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.95 -0.06 -0.52 level of religiosity at the mean 6.36 0.27*** 3.27 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.77 0.59*** 5.38 **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001. as in the case of realistic threat, religiosity moderated the association. main effects of symbolic threat, the level of religiosity and their interaction were significant, although the direction of association was reversed: b coefficient and the level of religiosity increased simultaneously. model 3: realistic threat → religiosity → gender → the second factor of prejudice. overall, the model was significant: f(5, 575) = 18.28, p < .001, r2 = .14. b coefficients are presented in table 8. makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 473 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 b coefficients for the model 3: realistic threat, religiosity and gender on the second factor of prejudice effect b t main and interaction effects of predictor variables realistic threat 0.89** 4.25 level of religiosity 0.14** 8.68 gender 0.32** 3.61 realistic threat × level of religiosity -0.12** -3.99 realistic threat × gender -0.05 -0.31 conditional effect of realistic threat on the second factor of prejudice at different values of the moderators – 3 levels of religiosity and two levels of gender level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.95 for women 0.42** 3.81 level of religiosity at the mean 6.35 for women 0.13 1.68 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.76 for women 0.15 -1.44 level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.95 for men 0.37** 2.69 level of religiosity at the mean 6.35 for men 0.09 0.68 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.76 for men 0.20 -1.27 **p ≤ .01. for this model, only the level of religiosity proved to be a moderator in the association between realistic threat and the second factor of prejudice. all main and interaction effects were significant except the interaction of realistic threat and gender. for men as well as for women, effect of threat decreased in line with the increase of religiosity; in fact, it became nonsignificant. model 4: symbolic threat → religiosity → gender → the second factor of prejudice. overall, the model was significant: f(5, 575) = 24.37, p < .001, r2 = .17. b coefficients are presented in table 9. table 9 b coefficients for the model 4: symbolic threat, religiosity and gender on the second factor of prejudice effect b t main and interaction effects of predictor variables symbolic threat -0.74*** -3.77 level of religiosity 0.04* 2.23 gender 0.16 1.73 interaction of symbolic threat and level of religiosity 0.14*** 5.30 interaction of symbolic threat and gender 0.30* 2.05 conditional effect of symbolic threat on the second factor of prejudice at different values of the moderators – 3 levels of religiosity and two levels of gender level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.95 for women -0.18 -1.64 level of religiosity at the mean 6.35 for women 0.16* 2.01 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.76 for women 0.50*** 5.13 level of religiosity 1 sd below mean 3.945 for men 0.12 0.89 level of religiosity at the mean 6.35 for men 0.46*** 3.83 level of religiosity 1 sd over mean 8.76 for men 0.80*** 5.73 *p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .001. testing intergroup threat theory 474 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the main effects of symbolic threat and the level of religiosity were significant, while that of gender was not. both interactions were significant, which indicates the moderating effect of religiosity as well as gender. the effect of symbolic threat grew along with the level of religiosity both for men and women. however, effects of symbolic threat were stronger for men than for women. discussion the findings provide evidence that the manipulations of realistic and symbolic threats were successful and confirm that threats alone have a potential to account for an increase in prejudice, as has been shown by previous studies (e.g., aberson & gaffney, 2008; riek et al., 2006; stephan & stephan, 1996; stephan et al., 2002). additionally, along with realistic and symbolic threats, the level of religiosity significantly predicted both factors of prejudice, while gender emerged as a fourth predictor for the second factor. the positive relationship between religiosity and prejudice has been shown in a number of studies (allport & kramer, 1946; hall et al., 2010; rowatt et al., 2009; scheepers et al., 2002; ugurlu, 2013), and as gorsuch and aleshire (1974) argue, religiousness is linked with higher levels of conventionality and lesser acceptance of people with different norms. however, although a number of authors (e.g., altemeyer, 1998; parrillo & donoghue, 2005; see mcfarland, 2010) suggest that men, compared to women, are more prone to being prejudiced, the gender is not always positively associated with prejudice (see herek, 2002; hughes & tuch, 2003; javakhishvili et al., 2012). for example, ekehammar, akrami, and araya (2003) experiments revealed that males scored higher on explicit prejudice measure, while women showed higher levels of implicit prejudice (ekehammar et al., 2003). to some extent, the inconsistency of the evidence was reflected in our findings as gender predicted only the second factor of prejudice. since the second factor implies less delicate relations with an out-group, the result might indicate that men and women tend to have similar attitudes when it comes to more delicate relations (the first factor of prejudice) with an out-group, while the distinction comes into play with less delicate (the second factor of prejudice) relations. the moderational analysis showed that the interaction effect between realistic threat and religiosity was similar for both factors of prejudice. religiosity moderated the association between realistic threat and prejudice: specifically, higher levels of religiosity were linked with a lower effect of realistic threat on both factors, which suggests that people with lower levels of religiosity tend to be less sensitive to perceiving realistic threat. according to cohrs and ibler (2009), a moderational approach assumes that either threat perception might happen due to preexisting levels of certain personal dispositions (religiousness in this case) or that the dispositions “are activated from memory and rendered psychologically salient and influential by contextual features” (cohrs & ibler, 2009, p. 82) that correspond to the content of those personal dispositions. in line with this reasoning, our findings suggest that realistic threat (“contextual feature”) activates religiousness or that the preexisting levels of religiousness trigger perceptions of realistic threat. makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 475 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the interaction effect between symbolic threat and level of religiosity was also similar for both factors of prejudice and, at the same time, opposite to that between religiosity and realistic threat: religiosity moderated the association between symbolic threat and prejudice however, higher level of religiosity was associated with a higher effect of symbolic threat on both factors. the finding has an implication for our hypothesis which proposed that the interaction effect between religiosity and symbolic threat would be stronger than that between religiosity and realistic threat. although interaction coefficients were almost similar for realistic (b = 0.13 for the first factor of prejudice and b = -0.12 for the second factor) and symbolic (b = 0.14 for both factors) threats, the finding suggests that the level of religiosity is more salient in case of symbolic threat perception, indicating the potential mediational chain between the variables (baron & kenny, 1986), which needs to be addressed in further analysis. the results of the moderational analysis, altogether, correspond to the conceptualizations of the types of threats. since symbolic threats include threats to traditions and values (stephan et al., 2009), they are experienced on a more personal level and can be engendered by the out-groups that are perceived as having different traditions and values by people who embrace these values and traditions (stephan, ybarra, & bachman, 1999). religiosity which, in a broader sense can be regarded as an extension of traditions and values, tends to make people more vulnerable in the face of the out-group that adheres to different religious practices and norms. indeed, according to schwartz et al. (2012), traditionalistic values positively correlate with the importance of religion in one’s life. on the other hand, realistic threats involve more rational responses in general, such as seeking information about an out-group and negotiating with it (stephan et al., 2009), which might account for why religiosity – a less rational phenomenon positively related to likewise less pragmatic phenomena such as rigid morality, conventionality, the need for closure (see jost, glaser, kruglanski, & sulloway, 2003) and supernatural beliefs (oliver & wood, 2014) – takes over realistic threat in explaining prejudice. the only association where gender had a moderational effect was that between symbolic threat and the second factor of prejudice: the effect of symbolic threat was stronger for men than for women, a finding which is somewhat controversial since realistic threats deal with competition over power and resources (stephan et al., 2009), and males, in general, are more likely to compete over power. as schwartz (2006) showed, being male is positively associated with power values. furthermore, males tend to score higher on social dominance orientation (sdo) (sidanius & pratto, 1999) which is a personal orientation supporting hierarchies and power dominance (sidanius & pratto, 1999). however, symbolic threat might have similar relevance to men in terms of power and resources. religiosity significantly contributing to prejudice has particular implications especially in the context of georgia, where the majority (65.9%) of respondents surveyed identify themselves as veritable christians rather than citizens of georgia (sumbadze, 2012), 90% of the population surveyed find religion important in their lives, more than half say they are religious (caucasus research resource centers, 2015) and 35% think that political opinions of priests and the congregation are important to them in making decisions when voting at parliamentary elections (national democratic institute, 2016), while the church, including the leader of the georgian orthodox church, has explicitly expressed negative attitudes toward minorities, comparing gay people to drug addicts (roth, 2013) and making a statement the day before a peaceful rally against homophobia (which was attacked by gay rights opposers led by priests) that the rally was “the violation of the testing intergroup threat theory 476 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ majority rights, offence of their traditions, religion and their manner of thinking in general” (“patriarqi xelisuflebisagan,” 2013). moreover, according to the nationwide poll (caucasus research resource centers, 2015), religion in everyday lives of young population aged 18-35 is as important (90%) as to older generations (91% for the age group of 36-55 and 89% for people above 56). indeed, “the vast majority of religiously active population are young people, living in the capital city, with high education, who spent their childhood in the 1990s, in the most harsh (insecure) political and economic situation” (kekelia, gavashelishvili, ladaria, & sulkhanishvili, 2013, p. 70). while an insecure or, in other words, threat-arousing environment might give rise to religious sentiments (e.g., greenberg, pyszczynski, & solomon, 1986; kekelia et al., 2013), the opposite can also be true: religious sentiments might give rise to threat perceptions (cohrs & ibler, 2009). however, in both cases, as our results have demonstrated, threats gain importance in shaping prejudice – a finding which, again, is particularly relevant for georgia, where the population tends to face instability, while unemployment, economic crisis and territorial integrity (one-third of the georgian territory is occupied by russia) are perceived to be top three concerns (international research institute, 2017). given the context, people are more prone to experience threats from out-groups, which leads to prejudice (aronson, 2012; quillian, 1995). real-life incidents of explicit prejudice indeed fit into this reasoning. the examples include religious discrimination having taken place in one of the georgian villages when the orthodox christians attacked local muslim population to hinder their religious service (“axali detalebi,” 2012) or, to cite a more recent example, the rally organized by the so-called georgian march occupied the capital streets, overtly expressing ethnic discrimination and stating that their goal was to “clear georgia from illegal immigrants” (gvarishvili, 2017). finally, the present study provides further support for itt, demonstrating that both, realistic and symbolic threats account for prejudice, while the level of religiosity and being male (only in case of the second factor of prejudice) are additional contributors. one of the most obvious limitations of the study is the specific age-group of the sample, which prevents generalization to other age groups. this also leads to the question of external validity: the fictitious nature of the threat-inducing out-group in the current study raises a concern whether the findings can be inferred to similar situations in real-life. further analysis is needed to identify the mechanism of how the variables in question are ordered in explaining prejudice. the mediational analysis can clarify whether the association between symbolic threat and prejudice is mediated by the level of religiosity or if symbolic threat itself is a mediator. additionally, as the relationship between religiosity and prejudice is not always positive and uniform (e.g., herek, 1987; laythe et al., 2001), suggesting that the concept includes more than one dimensions (e.g., laythe et al., 2001) either positively or negatively related to prejudice, it would be more informative to measure these dimensions and gain a better insight in the concept, as well as to determine which dimensions of religiosity predicts prejudice and how the latter is connected to other well-established predictors, such as right-wing authoritarianism and sdo (mcfarland, 2010). the role of gender also needs further research and might be better understood in case of a more balanced distribution. makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 477 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aberson, c. l., & gaffney, a. m. 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(2007). emory bogardus and the origins of the social distance scale. the american sociologist, 38, 383-395. doi:10.1007/s12108-007-9023-9 zárate, m. a., garcia, b., garza, a. a., & hitlan, r. t. (2004). cultural threat and perceived realistic group conflict as dual predictors of prejudice. journal of experimental social psychology, 40, 99-105. doi:10.1016/s0022-1031(03)00067-2 about the authors ana makashvili is a researcher at the d. uznadze psychology institute and an invited lecturer in psychology at the school of arts and sciences of ilia state university, tbilisi, georgia. ana's research interest is focused on study of prejudice and values. makashvili, vardanashvili, & javakhishvili 483 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 http://doi.org/10.1177/0022022198294004 http://doi.org/10.1177/019027250807100104 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/02/europes-current-anti-migrant-rhetoric-carries-echoes-of-1930s-anti-semitism https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/02/europes-current-anti-migrant-rhetoric-carries-echoes-of-1930s-anti-semitism http://doi.org/10.1037/h0023031 http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/library/democratic_governance/media-monitoring-results-of-the-2013-presidential-elections.html http://www.ge.undp.org/content/georgia/en/home/library/democratic_governance/media-monitoring-results-of-the-2013-presidential-elections.html http://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-007-9023-9 https://www.psychopen.eu/ irina vardanashvili is a researcher at the d. uznadze psychology institute and an invited lecturer in psychology at the school of arts and sciences of ilia state university, tbilisi, georgia. irina's research interest is focused on study of prejudice and religion. contact: irina.vardanashvili.1@iliauni.edu.ge nino javakhishvili is a director of the d. uznadze psychology institute and psychology professor at the school of arts and sciences of ilia state university, tbilisi, georgia. her research interest is in social and personality psychology, identity development, study of prejudice among them. contact: nino.javakhishvili.3@iliauni.edu.ge testing intergroup threat theory 484 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(2), 464–484 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i2.1483 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ testing intergroup threat theory (introduction) aims and hypotheses method participants procedure design measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the perceived benefits of an arts project for health and wellbeing of older offenders research reports the perceived benefits of an arts project for health and wellbeing of older offenders dean j. wilkinson* a, laura s. caulfield b [a] department of psychology, university of worcester, worcester, united kingdom. [b] bath spa university, bath, united kingdom. abstract the increasing ageing prison population is becoming a pressing issue throughout the criminal justice system. alongside the rising population, are a host of health and wellbeing issues that contribute to older offenders needs whilst in prison. it has been recommended that meaningful activities can have positive effects on this population and therefore this paper uniquely reviews older offenders accounts of taking part in an arts based project, good vibrations, whilst imprisoned. the good vibrations project engages individuals in gamelan music making with an end of project performance. this study used independent in-depth interviews to capture the voices of older offenders who took part in an art based prison project. the interview data was analysed using thematic analysis, which highlighted themes that were consistent with other populations who have taken part in a good vibrations project, along with specific age relating issues of mobility, motivation, identity and wellbeing. keywords: ageing prison population, older offender, arts in prison, prisoner health, arts europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 received: 2016-05-27. accepted: 2016-09-22. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: university of worcester, henrick grove, worcester, wr2 6aj, united kingdom. e-mail: d.wilkinson@worc.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. prisoners aged 50 years and above are a rapidly growing population in the england and wales prison system. her majesty’s inspectorate of prisons (hmip), suggests that the rise in population is not explained using statistics for demographic changes, nor by an increased prevalence of offending by older individuals, but by harsher sentencing policies, with a larger proportion of offenders aged over 60 years receiving longer sentences (de viggiani, mackintosh, & lang, 2010). older male offenders predominantly commit crimes that are sexual, and/or against people, leading to 80% of these offenders sentenced to four or more years. older offenders (50+) typically report high levels of chronic health conditions (birmingham, 2003, 2004; fazel et al., 2001; merten, bishop, & williams, 2012) including 9% with mobility issues (fazel, hope, o’donnell, piper, & jacoby, 2001). mental health issues are an increasing concern in older offending populations with figures suggesting that they affect over half of prisoners aged 50 plus, with most individuals experiencing depression arising as a result of imprisonment (merten, bishop, & williams, 2012). a department of health (1999-2000) survey highlighted that 85% of prisoners aged 60 and over had one or more major illnesses reported in their medical records, while 83% reported at least one chronic illness or disability (howse, 2003). despite mental health issues being prevalent in older offending populations, they are often overlooked by those in contact with europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ them (kingston, le mesurier, yorston, wardle, & heath, 2011). the most common illnesses reported were psychiatric, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and respiratory (de viggiani, 2007a, 2007b; de viggiani, mackintosh, & lang, 2010; howse, 2003). hmip (2004) reviewed the treatment and conditions of older offenders in england and wales, considering the requirements of the human rights act, the disability discrimination act, and the national service framework for older people. the report highlighted issues around the entry of older people into the prison setting and how this process is managed, along with sentence length leading to prisoners becoming elderly while in prison (de viggiani, mackintosh, & lang, 2010). more specifically, the lack of specialist accommodation and provision to meet individual needs, the inappropriateness of prison regimes to the needs of older prisoners, the lack of tailored activities for older prisoners, and failure within prisons to adequately assess and address mental and physical health needs of this group (de viggiani, mackintosh, & lang, 2010). also, older prisoners were commonly housed in prisons extended distances from their homes, which hindered resettlement work, prison visits, and had a detrimental effect on their families (de viggiani, mackintosh, & lang, 2010). similar findings were reported by hayes, burns, turnbull, and shaw (2013) when considering the specific needs of older offenders. older offenders have also reported issues with mixing with the younger offender population, some even stating that they would prefer to be segregated by age to reduce bulling and exploitation (hayes et al., 2013). in a follow up study, the hmip (2008) noted that marginal changes had been achieved with regards to developing a multidisciplinary approach to the treatment and management of older prisoners. social care had ‘disappointing’ levels of provision. however, they noted 'positive developments' with regards to levels of healthcare provision. it was noted that some individual prisons and prison staff were implimenting innovative work to support the specific needs of older prisoners (hmip, 2008). the national association for the care and rehabilitation of offenders (nacro / department of health, 2009) associated with the department of health (dh, 2008), report that older prisoners have needs for purposeful activity whether in the form of employment or leisure activity. some older groups enjoy and are therefore likely to engage in purposeful activity through reminiscence activities, which can be simple discussion based groups, films, art and genealogy, plus activities or workshops focused on arts and crafts, testing general knowledge, creative writing, reading, history and music, and outdoor activities including gardening. fellner and vinck (2012) support that the following are beneficial to older offenders in prison. first, time spend outside of the cell, up to 10 hours per day, allows prisoners to be a part of social groupings and to take part in meaningful activities which can be crucial for their rehabilitation, mental health and wellbeing. older offenders generally have fewer opportunities or incentives to take up activities outside of their cell. services that prepare older offenders for probation and release are considered important for offender’s overall rehabilitation and to reduce their risk of recidivism. arts projects in prison arts based projects have a long and complex history of work with offenders (cox & gelsthorpe, 2012). the arts, and more specifically music based projects, in prisons have recently been recognised for their benefits (caulfield, 2012; caulfield & wilson, 2012; cox & gelsthorpe, 2008; digard et al., 2007; henley, caulfield, wilson, & wilkinson, 2012; wilson, caulfield, & atherton, 2008). prison incarcerates offenders but also aims to rehabilitate and provide purposeful activity (hmip, 2008). engaging with the arts in prison environments has been described by allen, shaw, and hall (2004) as a “humanising experience”, which enables prisoners to acquire educational achievements and also improves self-confidence, social skills, and personal development. wilkinson & caulfield 17 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ increasing offenders’ self-esteem, communication skills, and self-worth, have value in their own right and arts programmes have been shown to tackle these areas (cox & gelsthorpe, 2008; miles & clarke, 2006). however, it is noted that very few studies have specifically considered the contribution that creative music programmes can bring to older prisoners. for example, improved physical and mental health, health and wellbeing (dh / arts council england, 2007; secker, hacking, spandler, kent, & shenton, 2007), in particular alleviating emotional stress, building self-esteem and self-confidence, personal achievement, improving communication skills, and enhancing peer and family relationships. the good vibrations gamelan project the good vibrations gamelan music project is run by a charity that works with offenders in prison and on probation. gamelan is a traditional ensemble of music from java and bali in indonesia comprising of bronze percussion instruments. workshops using gamelan have been noted as a good medium for group settings due to its informal and inclusive approach. the musical instruments can be played without any prior musical experience (eastburn, 2003). the ethos of gamelan means that participants are compelled to work together. the good vibrations projects run across the duration of one week. prisoners usually express their interest in taking part, however, in some prisons places on the project are given to targeted groups. during the project, traditional javanese pieces are learnt, participants learn how to improvise, compose their own pieces, learn about javanese culture and associated art-forms such as javanese dance and shadow puppetry. the workshops develop individual’s skills so that participants are ready to present a final performance where an invited audience of peers, family members, staff and sometimes outside guests attend (henley, caulfield, wilson, & wilkinson, 2012). there have been a number of reviews of the good vibrations project to date. eastburn (2003) found that despite initial difficulties with its implementation, both staff and prisoners reported positive feedback. later studies, such as digard, von sponeck, and liebling (2007), found a number of significant positive influences on participants such as increased insight and reflection in individual prisoners and a stronger cohesion in groups of prisoners. participants found the teaching in the project empowering. they were given more responsibility as the project progressed and began to share ideas on how to improve the music, resulting in an increase in confidence. the report also revealed that the process of learning a new skill in an informal group setting was empowering for prisoners. digard, von sponeck, and liebling (2007) also found that participants and staff reported improved social skills and the development of selfregulation, needed in order to achieve a range of goals each day, caused by the prisoners interacting with each other. good vibrations projects are intended to be accessible for all, and previous research has highlighted the positive experiences of adult women, men, and young people who have taken part in these projects in prison (caulfield, 2015; digard, von sponeck, & liebling, 2007; henley, caulfield, wilson, & wilkinson, 2012). however, no previous research has specifically sought to investigate the experience of older offenders taking part in such a project. given the increased numbers of older offenders in prison, and the specific needs they may have it is important to investigate whether arts-based projects might be able to respond to the needs of older offenders and successfully engage them. arts, health and wellbeing of older offenders 18 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method design the study adopted a qualitative approach in order to collect the accounts, perspectives and voices of prisoners who took part in the good vibrations project. for logistical reasons, such as prisoner regimes and availability, in depth interviews were conducted with offenders at hmp dartmoor and hmp whatton two months after taking part in a good vibrations project. the good vibration project was run by experienced staff from the charity. prisoners were informed about the project through a number of communication channels, such as posters on wings and recreation prison staff, and participants took part on a voluntary basis. participants were excused from their normal routine during the week of participation. participants 13 older prisoners (aged 50+) who had taken part in the good vibrations project were interviewed in depth. participants’ ages ranged between 50 and 65 years and they had served between five and eight years of their sentence. two prisoners had been transferred to their current prison just weeks before taking part in the good vibration project. no other demographic information was collected. interviews were conducted with four prisoners from hmp dartmoor and nine prisoners from hmp whatton in order to triangulate the results. interviews were held until saturation was reached. hmp dartmoor is a category c training prison for adult male prisoners. the prison has hosted several good vibrations projects. hmp whatton is a category c prison that houses adult male sex offenders. the prison first opened as a detention centre and since may 1990 it has held sex offenders who participate in the sex offenders treatment programme. hmp whatton has also invited the good vibrations for a number of projects. participant’s informed consent was gained prior to interviews taking place and participation was on a voluntary basis. the real names of the participants have not been given in this report in order to maintain anonymity. no compensation was given for the individuals’ participation. materials – semi structure interviews participants were interviewed at length by the lead researcher and were asked to describe their experiences of the project, what they gained from it, and specifically to focus on their experiences and behaviour after the project. interview lasted on average one hour. the interviews took place in a private location, with only the researcher and participant present. the interview schedule was adapted from previous research (wilson, caulfield, & atherton, 2009). the structure was developed in such a way that participants were required to discuss the project in a logical time sequence – before and after to enhance memory recall at each specific time point. for example, participants were asked to describe the first day of the project in detail to encourage accurate memories of their experience and feelings at that time. as this was a semi structure interview, certain questions were prepared beforehand as a framework; however, there was flexibility for participants to add additional information or for the interviewer to ask additional questions relating to the participant’s response. examples of questions include: 1. what were your expectations of the gamelan sessions? • had you heard from others who had taken part? • what motivated you to take part? 2. how did you feel at the end of the week? wilkinson & caulfield 19 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ 3. was there anything about this project that was particularly useful or meaningful to you? ethics this research project gained ethical approval from birmingham city university’s psychology research committee and therefore conformed to the ethical policies of the university. in addition, the research project followed the guidelines of the british psychological society’s ethical framework for research psychologists. data analysis the lead researcher conducted the data analysis. a thematic analysis approach was adopted (braun & clarke, 2006; clarke & braun, 2013), beginning with an in-depth coding process involving the entire body of interview data (caulfield & hill, 2014) and working towards overarching themes that represent the common points across all interview data. this approach reflects the analytical process adopted in other similar studies (wilson, caulfield, & atherton, 2009). results a number of key themes emerged from the interview data. some of these themes were consistent with previous research findings of the good vibrations project, and some specific to older offender’s experience of taking part in the good vibrations project. themes consistent with previous studies meditation and managing emotion meditation has been a consistent theme across the reviews of the good vibrations project. although participants of the project are not taught about meditation specifically, it seems that many participants make use of the recording of their final performance to meditate when they are back on their wing. additionally, eight participants alluded to being able to forget, temporarily, that they were in prison and remembering a moment where they felt as though they were human (during the project). in some cases, the performance recordings were used to help manage their emotion, such as anger. “it reminds me of doing the project and i feel good, like a human again” “if i’m feeling down or wound up, i get wound up a lot, then i listen to it in my cell – my mate asked if he could use it too” communication and social skills communication and social skills form the basis of many of the mainstream intervention programs within the criminal justice system. however, for many offenders such skills are limited. one participant from hmp whatton commented about his observations of the group members who took part in the project: “i was a well respected man, in my job i was important, but some men here they have got to learn to listen, they don’t like it, but this project, well they had to really – they didn’t have a choice you see” additionally, one participant from hmp dartmoor reflected on his experience: “i like to keep myself personal, i don’t mix much, but this project helped me to talk to the others, well i had to listen to them and i had to tell them” arts, health and wellbeing of older offenders 20 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sense of achievement and motivation some participants commented on the cd recording of their final performance as something that they could send or give to their friends and families so that they can see what they have achieved during their time in prison. they saw the project as a way to demonstrate that they were doing something and achieving something that their family could be proud of. “it was a unique experience that we won’t come across again in our life” “i sent my cd, you know the final performance, well we got a cd and i gave that one to my daughter, something she could see that i have done whilst in here” themes specific to older offenders the themes below have been considered as specific to older offenders as these themes have not emerged from other similar studies using the same methodologies, but with differing typologies of offenders (e.g. caulfield, 2012, 2015; caulfield, wilkinson, & wilson, 2016) age and mobilisation (disabled) the older offenders interviewed at hmp dartmoor and hmp whatton were very aware of the accessibility of the project to individuals who might be ‘disabled’ in some way. the disabling factor seemed to vary, but in some cases participants were physically less mobile and in some cases confined to a wheel chair. it was noted by the individuals themselves, as well as other members of the group, that the project was easily accessible to these individuals. one participant from hmp dartmoor suggested: “even people who weren't easily mobile were able to take part, i mean one guy – he’s in a chair and cant normally do stuff – they just move stuff for him… yea they moved one instrument on a table for him” age and the unknown (creatures of habit) it was noted by some of the participants of the project, that there were other older offenders on their wing that would have greatly benefitted from taking part in the project however, they tend not to sign up to courses and activities and tend to stick to a routine, suggesting that they are ‘creatures of habit’. one prisoner at hmp whatton commented: “i’ve done all sorts of courses whilst in prison but older ones here fear the unknown, they like to keep to their normal stuff. what they do day to day.” “older offenders fear the unknown… this project helps to encourage us to do other things” “many of the people on my wing, where i come from, are in the over 57 age bracket and trying to get them to do anything outside their cell is virtually impossible” something to do with your time / hobbies & interests a number of men commented upon the importance of having something to do with their time, particularly given the repetitiveness of routine inside the prison. they expressed that having something different to do was important and some of the men had considered how they could follow up their participation in this particular project with further projects. in particular, there was gratitude that the project didn’t require a pre-existing musical skill in order to participate. wilkinson & caulfield 21 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ “i mean i have a musical skill, but this was different, this let the men who aren’t musical do something” “i’ve thought about taking part in another, yes, if they came back again, i mean are they coming back again? i heard that it wasn’t the first time. i think everyone needs something to focus on” some of the men recognised the importance of self-discipline and being able to listen and take orders from other people. they had observed men that previously had had issues with listening to and taking orders from other people and watched how during the project they began to listen and work alongside other people. “the project did people a lot of good – it taught inmates to do as they were told, because they had to listen and do what they were told to do, you know, for it to work” “you can’t just do what you like, you have to listen, even those that don’t normally listen, they listen to them and have a go” some men commented on how taking part in the project had offered them a life line, something that they can focus on and think beyond prison life. they had expressed their interest in being a part of good vibrations or something similar once they have left prison and were part of society again. start and end of sentence some of the men had served a good number of years towards their sentence and others had relatively little time spent. the good vibrations project appeared to serve slightly different purposes for each other these groups, although some of these aspects or reasons are also shaped by the prisons own structure and routines. for example, one prisoner at hmp whatton had joined the prison just six days before the good vibrations course began. he had no expectations of the course given that he had not had the chance to speak to previous participants of a good vibrations course. he suggested that: “not all prisoners have the same opportunities and age stops some, also, unemployment / retirement can restrict course participation, but the course help me settle in, particularly when you are older”. this particular prisoner found the course helped him during the settling in process, which some older offenders find quite challenging (crawley & sparks, 2006). participation in such groups, according to this offender, brings groups together quite quickly. critical reflections there were some consistent critical reflections of the project, which included participants commenting that they would like to see the project more frequently in their prison and that they think each project should be more than one week, the recommendation was two weeks in order to maximise the benefits of taking part. “i think, the only thing really, more frequent visit [of the project] would be better, more of us could do it then … and two weeks rather than one, you just get into it, you know, how it works n’ stuff n’ one week isn’t enough” arts, health and wellbeing of older offenders 22 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the interviews with older offenders presented some interesting points for consideration and discussion which capture the wider discussions and debates surrounding the management, treatment, and needs of an ageing prison population. the findings presented here demonstrate that the positive findings seen in previous studies with younger participants may also apply to older offenders. for example: practice and development of skills whilst in prison, enabling individuals to communicate clearly with other prisoners and prison staff; managing their own responses in social interactions and situations; and generally practicing working as a group in a ‘non judgemental’ environment. the good vibrations project requires the development of good levels of communication across the team of participants throughout the week, including the final showcase performance. therefore, participation allows prisoners to develop their interpersonal skills in one-to-one interactions as well as communication across a larger group. this skill is particularly important when prisoners are required to accept instructions from other prisoners or members of staff, and therefore required to be compliant in order for the project to be successful. older offenders in particular have been found to report difficulties when socialising and mixing with younger offenders, some even stating that they would prefer to be segregated by age to reduce bulling and exploitation (hayes, burns, turnbull, & shaw, 2013). the practice of meditation is an interesting strand that appears consistently throughout the reviews of various good vibrations projects with different types of participants (caulfield & wilson, 2012; caulfield, wilson, & wilkinson, 2009; henley, caulfield, wilson, & wilkinson, 2012). meditation appears to be both a skill and practice that prisoners discover through reflection upon the project. in some cases, participants use the experience of reflection as a way of ‘forgetting’ prison life temporarily, or processing their own emotional reactions whilst being housed in prison. this has particularly been noted in prisoners who report issues with anger and self-management of their anger, which is consistent with developing literature (fennell, benau, & atchley, 2016; hirano & yukawa, 2013). however, for older offenders, the practice of meditation has been raised as important by the population themselves, which is in keeping with previous studies of older female prisoners’ rates of depression and the use of religious meditation (aday, krabill, & deaton-owens, 2014), and older prisoners’ use of meditation and relaxation to manage emotions (aday, 2006). there were a number of themes that emerged in the participant’s accounts that were specific to older offenders, their needs, and their experience of prison. physical health problems and age-associated mobility issues were discussed in depth by a number of participants from each of the prisons that were visited as part of this evaluation project. there was at least one prisoner at each of the prisons who was experiencing mobility issues that other participants commented upon. the good vibrations project was considered by all participants, those with mobility issues and those who observed individuals with mobility issues, to be accommodating and easily adapted in order for accessibility issues to be overcome and therefore allowing any prisoner to take part. as well as mobility issues, many older offenders experience chronic health conditions prior to or during prison life as results of factors such as poverty, diet, inadequate access to healthcare, alcoholism, smoking and other substance abuse (anno et al., 2004). prison life, including factors such as separation from family, fear of victimisation, and the possibility of a long duration behind bars place psychological strains on prisoners which can accelerate the ageing process (sterns et al., 2008) whereby prisoners psychological can be up to 10 years older than their chronological age (nacro / department of health, 2009). in addition, the older offenders wilkinson & caulfield 23 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 http://www.psychopen.eu/ population is increasing across our prisons, and to some extent it appears that the system is unable to cater for their particular needs with regards to rehabilitation and treatment. there are also limited courses on offer, aside from mainstream rehabilitation, for the older offending population. the good vibrations project appears to ‘fill the gap’ in terms of giving older offenders the opportunity to engage in a project and potentially develop a hobby or interest in something uniquely different from their usual prison routine. it seems that for some offenders, who were approaching parole, developing an interest and links with an organisation outside of the prison was an important opportunity. some participants began to discuss the links they had with family and friends outside prison. they explained how the recording from the project provided them with a sense of achievement that they could show family and friends to demonstrate what they have been doing whilst inside. they further suggested that friends and family often lived too far away to travel or experienced difficulty in mobility themselves and hence found it difficult to visit. hayes, burns, turnbull, and shaw (2013) reported similar findings in their review of social and custodial needs for older offenders. they found that up to 40% of older offenders received no visits from friends and family, and nearly 50% were situated out of their home area. crawley and sparks (2006) describe how older offenders are at risk of losing touch with people in the community and therefore having little to look forward to upon release from prison. the cd recording of the participant’s final performance provided discussion points for visits, letters and communication with the outside world in a positive way, and allowed the prisoners who were interviewed as part of this project to demonstrate a rare but positive achievement whilst inside prison. the aim of this project was to capture the older offender participants’ reflections of taking part in a good vibration project; therefore, there were no specific measures used to record an impact. future research might consider pre and post measures to address this. whilst the sample of this project included men who had committed a range of offences it would be beneficial to explore the experience of men in other prisons who have also taken part in the project. in conclusion, provision for older offenders in the prison system is limited and, as such, support in the form of activities and courses is limited. given the evidence that supports accelerated aging in older individuals in the prison system, activities such as the good vibrations project provide opportunities for offenders to engage with something beyond their cell and usual regime, which encourages cognitive functioning and creativity (greaves & farbus, 2006) as well as developing new ideas for interests and hobbies. the good vibrations project meets a number of ‘needs’ for the older offending population, fostering positive interactions, development of social interaction skills, motivation and interest collectively whilst working with other offenders. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. arts, health and wellbeing of older 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(2009). good vibrations: the long-term impact of a prison-based music project. prison service journal, 182, 27-32. about the authors dr. dean j. wilkinson is a senior lecturer in forensic psychology at the university of worcester. his research interests include alternatives interventions and arts based projects in prison settings. dr. laura s. caulfield is assistant dean (research & postgraduate affairs) in the college of liberal arts at bath spa university. laura is a researcher is psychology and criminology, with particular expertise in the role of the arts in criminal justice. wilkinson & caulfield 27 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 16–27 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1207 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1017/s1041610211000378 http://doi.org/10.5993/ajhb.36.2.12 http://www.cresc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/the%20arts%20in%20criminal%20justice.pdf http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ arts, health and wellbeing of older offenders (introduction) arts projects in prison the good vibrations gamelan project method design participants materials – semi structure interviews ethics data analysis results themes consistent with previous studies themes specific to older offenders discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors transmitting sport values: the importance of parental involvement in children’s sport activity research reports transmitting sport values: the importance of parental involvement in children’s sport activity francesca danioni* a, daniela barni b, rosa rosnati a [a] family studies and research university centre, catholic university of milan, milan, italy. [b] department of human sciences, lumsa university of rome, rome, italy. abstract the transmission of positive values between parents and children is generally considered to be the hallmark of successful socialization. as this issue has been widely discussed but surprisingly little researched especially with reference to core sport values in this study we aimed to: 1) analyze adolescent athletes’ acceptance of the sport values their parents want to transmit to them (i.e., parental socialization values) and 2) examine the relationship between parental involvement in children’s sportive activity and adolescents’ acceptance of their parents’ socialization values. one hundred and seventy-two italian adolescents (48.3% male, 51.7% female) who regularly practice team sports were asked to fill out a questionnaire which included the youth sport values questionnaire – 2 and the parental involvement in sport questionnaire. the dyadic correlations revealed that young athletes are in general willing to accept their parents’ socialization values in regards to sport. moreover, from the relative weight analysis (a relatively new data analysis strategy), it emerged that parental involvement characterized by praise and understanding is the most important predictor of adolescents’ willingness to accept their parents’ sport values. implications of these results and further expansion of the study are discussed. keywords: sport values, adolescents, parents, transmission, value acceptance europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 received: 2016-08-14. accepted: 2016-11-02. published (vor): 2017-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: family studies and research university centre, catholic university of milan – largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano (italy). e-mail: francescavittoria.danioni@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, psychosocial research has shown a growing interest in the role of sport in the development not only of young athletes’ physical abilities, but also of their life skills and human values. plato stated that “the moral value of exercises and sports far outweigh the physical value” (as cited in cubberley, 1920, p. 46); this sentiment is still highly relevant today. indeed, a number of recent studies have shown that youth sport helps athletes to internalize the values of responsibility, honesty, conformity and perseverance (camiré & trudel, 2010; danish, forneris, hodge, & heke, 2004). the purpose of our study was to analyze the values held by adolescent athletes in relation to their participation in sport. since the sport environment, as a context of socialization for youth, interacts with other important agents of socialization – and, in particular, with the family (prunelli, 2011) – this study also focused on the role of parents in the development of their children’s sport values. we adopted lee, whitehead, ntoumanis, & hatzigeorgiadis’ (2008) classification of sport values as moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience), competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill) and status values (e.g., public image and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ winning). in studying core values within the sport context, lee et al. (2008) in turn based their analysis on schwartz’s (1992) theory of basic human values, which defines values as trans-situational goals which guide people’s behaviors across contexts and time. the link between sport values and schwartz’s value theory was also suggested by bardi and schwartz (2013), who view values specific to sport as expressions of basic values in the sport domain. core values – namely, values that are more salient within a specific context such as sport, family or politics – differ from basic values (as defined above) in their level of “abstraction”, since, compared to the latter, the former are more anchored to a concrete context (schwartz, caprara, & vecchione, 2010). while basic values appear to be goals that guide behavior (bardi & schwartz, 2003; rosnati, barni, & uglia, 2014), core values seem instead to mediate the relations between basic values and behaviors, for example mediating the impact basic personal values may have on voting (schwartz et al., 2010). values in youth sport children are introduced to values in the sport context as well as in other life domains through interaction with adults who are significant to their lives and who may reinforce different types of values (kremer-sadlik & kim, 2007). adolescence is the most critical phase in value development, as it is the time of identity formation, characterized by tension between an increasing need for autonomy and an increasing conformity to societal expectations, with the latter being essential for acquiring models of appropriate behavior. thus, more than at any previous time in childhood, children become extremely vulnerable to value messages during this phase of the life cycle (barni, knafo, ben-arieh, & haj-yahia, 2014; padilla-walker, 2007). previous studies have highlighted the fact that parents provide their offspring with a context for socialization during adolescence (caputo, 2009). parents may transmit their values (murray & mulvaney, 2012) and passions to their adolescent children (donnat, 2004) passions such as an interest in music (mageau et al., 2009) or in volunteering (van goethem, van hoof, van aken, orobio de castro, & raaijmakers, 2014) which then become important in their children’s lives. in order to understand how young athletes make decisions regarding their behavior in sport contexts, the psychological literature has tried to identify which sport values adolescents practicing sports consider to be important to them. in their study involving adolescents faced with sport-specific moral dilemmas, lee and cockman (1995) identified 18 sport values which correspond in part to schwartz’s (1992) theory of values; some were specific to the sport domain (e.g., good game), while others worked well also in other life domains (e.g., enjoyment). the results of this qualitative study showed that the most consistent value of participating in sport is the personal pleasure that adolescents may gain from it: adolescents place a high value not only on enjoyment, but also on the pleasures they gain from participating (e.g., companionship). further studies (lee, whitehead, & balchin, 2000; lee et al., 2008) confirmed the existence of core values in sport – namely, moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience), which emphasize respect for rules and for the others; competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill), which highlight the pursuit of one’s own objectives in the sport practice; and status values (e.g., public image and winning), which emphasize one’s own image compared to others. these studies are consistent in showing that, when playing sport, adolescents give the greatest importance to competence and moral values and the weakest importance to status values (goggins, 2015; lee et al., 2008). value transmission in youth sport 76 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ how are sport values acquired? despite the growing interest toward research into adolescents’ sport values and the way in which sport teaches young athletes values and life skills (e.g., camiré, trudel, & forneris, 2012; mccallister, blinde, & weiss, 2000), thus far, little research has focused on the ways these core sport values are shaped by peers and by significant adults such as coaches and parents. previous studies are consistent in showing the influence of the team climate on the development of a young athlete’s moral functioning and on his or her antisocial attitudes (kavussanu, roberts, & ntoumanis, 2002; ntoumanis, taylor, & thøgersen-ntoumani, 2012). in particular, a highly ego-involving climate fostered by the coach (that is, a motivational climate focused on one’s abilities compared to others) is likely to facilitate moral dysfunction (kavussanu et al., 2002) and the legitimatization of injurious act scenarios (miller, roberts, & ommundsen, 2004). when this same kind of motivational climate is fostered by peers, there is a clear link to young athletes’ antisocial attitudes (ntoumanis et al., 2012). also parents have been found to provide a major source of influence for their children within the sport context (fredricks & eccles, 2004): children tend to develop sport-related values systems based largely on the attitudes and behaviors of their parents, who recognize that competition and sport are vehicles for teaching children life skills and values (gould, dieffenbach, & moffett, 2002; welk, babkes, & schaben, 2004). although several studies have demonstrated that parents generally want their children to endorse what they – the parents – personally value for themselves (knafo & schwartz, 2001), value transmission cannot be reduced to a mere reproduction of parents’ personal values by their children (kuczynski & parkin, 2007). transmission is, instead, a dynamic and bidirectional process, where both parents and children play an active role. given this interactive nature, transmission may produce intergenerational change as well as intergenerational similarity. on the one hand, parents may in fact want to differentiate between their personal values and those they want their children to endorse (i.e., socialization values) (knafo & schwartz, 2003). this could happen, for instance, in a situation in which parents recognize that their children are growing up in a social context which is different from the one in which they themselves were reared (alwin, 1988). on the other hand, children may not be accurate in their perception of their parents’ socialization values or they may reject their parents’ values. according to grusec and goodnow’s (1994) two-step model of value acquisition, parent-child transmission occurs in two different phases. first, children perceive (more or less accurately) which values their parents want them to endorse. second, children choose to accept or to reject the perceived values. if children perceive their parents’ socialization values accurately and then accept them, value similarity should be high. while children are generally moderately willing to accept perceived parental socialization values, several factors influence children’s willingness to accept their parents’ values, and therefore the degree of parent-child value similarity (e.g., schönpflug, 2001). in particular, the parent-child relationship quality was found to be a relevant predictor of value acceptance: when the family context is characterized by support and parent-child closeness, by promotion of child’s volitional functioning, by parental agreement as perceived by adolescents and by actual value agreement between parents, children are more ready to endorse their parents’ socialization values (barni, ranieri, scabini, & rosnati, 2011). in the study carried out by white (2000) on 271 adolescents aged between 14 and 19 and their parents, positive communication between parents and their adolescent children was found to be strongly related to the extent to which parents and children agree on the degree of influence of the different sources of moral authority (i.e., self-interest, family expectations, educator expectations, society’s welfare, and equality for individuals). danioni, barni, & rosnati 77 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ when considering adolescents’ acceptance of the sport values their parents want them to endorse, it is therefore important to analyze the quality of the parent-child relationship and the parental involvement in their child’s sport activity (lee & maclean, 1997; wuerth, lee, & alfermann, 2004). the extent to which young athletes feel their parents to be involved in their sportive activity has significant consequences on the child’s sport experience (torregrosa et al., 2007). hellstedt (1987) measured parental involvement in children’s sport activity as a continuum that ranges from underinvolvement to overinvolvement. according to hellstedt, both conditions may negatively influence the sport experience of adolescent athletes. the lack of emotional, financial or functional investment that characterizes parental underinvolvement may make it more difficult for young athletes to pursue a sport career, while parental overinvolvement may be harmful due to the possible consequences of perceived parental pressure. in particular, what lee and maclean (1997) call active involvement, that is, the extent to which children consider their parents to be actively involved in their athletic experience, is generally a parental behavior to which young athletes react positively and about which they feel happy and satisfied (hoyle & leff, 1997; wuerth et al., 2004). directive behavior (lee & maclean, 1997), namely, the extent to which children feel controlled by their parents in athletics, promotes instead the perception of parental pressure (wuerth et al., 2004). parental pressure towards children’s sport can cause lowered self-esteem (mcelroy, 1982), feelings of distress and guilt (donnelly, 1993), decrease of enjoyment (anderson, funk, elliot, & smith, 2003), and burnout (udry, gould, bridges, & tuffey, 1997) in young athletes. in contrast, parental participation characterized by praise and understanding (lee & maclean, 1997), which elicits parental encouragement characterized by children’s perception of parental empathy displayed towards their sportive activity, promotes an increase of players’ enjoyment of and motivation for sport (sánchez-miguel, leo, sánchez-oliva, amado, & garcía-calvo, 2013). but how do these different patterns of parental involvement in children’s sport activity relate to parent-child transmission of sport values? so far, little is known about the extent to which parents contribute to their children’s sport values. one of the few exceptions is kremer-sadlik and kim’s (2007) study, carried out on 32 american families with at least one child aged between 8 and 10 years old, which concluded that parents play a fundamental and active role in children’s acquisition of values throughout sport participation. using interviews and video-recording as research instruments, the study showed that parents perceived sport activities as an arena for socializing their children to important values and that the values their children were learning through sport (such as leadership, teamwork, loyalty, etc.) became useful principles in other life contexts (e.g., school, work, etc.). in particular, parent-child conversations yielded after either active (e.g., playing football) or passive (e.g., talking about sport that arises while watching games on the tv) participation was significant in the formation of the children’s value system. interestingly, parental engagement in this direction occurred more frequently when parents identified their children as exhibiting an undesirable behavior such as being noncompetitive or adopting un-sportsmanship behavior; in this case, the parent-child interactions often turned into “moralizing lessons, in that parents are not only interested in modifying the child’s behavior or attitude, but also in imparting moral stances and knowledge about how one should behave and feel” (p. 50). another interesting mix-method study, carried out by goggins (2015) on 92 young athletes, found a strong correlation between children’s competence, status, moral sport values and their perceptions of those same values in that parent (the father or the mother) they considered to be more involved in their sportive activity. in other words, the more importance children perceive parents, regardless of the gender, attributing to a specific value transmission in youth sport 78 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sport value, the more relevant the child considers it. the qualitative part of this same study, which used semistructured interviews with six parents, highlighted the influential role of parents in shaping children’s sport values and a substantial lack of parental awareness of the process of value transmission. this study in light of the above background, the principle aim of this study, which involved adolescents practicing a team sport, was twofold: analyzing adolescents’ sport value acceptance our first aim was to analyze adolescent athletes’ sport values, that is, their perceptions of the sport values their fathers and their mothers would like them to endorse (i.e., socialization values), and the degree of adolescents’ acceptance of their parental socialization values. we analyzed adolescents’ perceptions of fathers’ and mothers’ socialization values separately, employing the assumption that both parents play an important role in the child’s moral development. according to the definitions outlined by lee et al. (2008), we classified sport values into moral, competence and status values. in accordance with the results of previous studies (goggins, 2015; lee et al., 2008), we expected competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill) to be considered by adolescents as the most important, followed by moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience) and then by status values (e.g., public image and winning) (h1). although value acceptance has not been extensively investigated in the domain of sport contexts, previous research on basic values has shown that adolescents are moderately willing to accept perceived parental socialization values, reporting both intergenerational similarities and differences in value priorities (barni et al., 2011). accordingly, we expected adolescents to partially accept the sport values they believed their parents wanted them to endorse (h2). analyzing the effect of parental involvement on adolescents’ sport value acceptance our second aim was to investigate the relationship between adolescents’ perceptions of parental involvement in their children’s sport activity and adolescent athletes’ acceptance of their parents’ sport values. we referred here to grusec and goodnow’s (1994) model, which considers value transmission to be a two-step process (first, perception of parents’ socialization values and, second, acceptance or rejection of perceived values), and focused on the factors that may influence this process. in order to describe unique patterns of characteristics within dyads – rather than drawing conclusions across participants – and to investigate the relation between adolescents’ acceptance of parental values and parental involvement in children’s sport activity, we adopted an idiographic approach (lutz-zois, bradley, mihalik, & moorman-eavers, 2006). as shown by previous research on basic values (e.g., barni et al., 2011), a close and supportive family context increases children’s willingness to endorse parental values. thus, our hypothesis was that parental involvement characterized by support, understanding and empathy displayed towards children’s sport activity (i.e., active involvement and praise and understanding) fostered value acceptance (h3). moreover, we hypothesized that a lack of support, in terms of directive behavior and pressure, contributed to reducing adolescents’ willing to endorse their parents’ sport values (h4). danioni, barni, & rosnati 79 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure participants were 172 adolescents (48.3% male, 51.7% female), from northern and central italy, continuously practicing team sports. all were secondary school students, ranging from 13 to 19 years of age (m = 15.41, sd = 1.73). ninety-seven percent were born in italy, while 3% were born abroad (albania, ethiopia, france, philippines). eighty-nine percent of participating adolescents lived with both parents, while the remaining 11% lived with only one parent (in general, the mother). most participants (86.6%) had at least one sibling (m = 1.31, sd = .62). as far as adolescents’ sport activity was concerned, they have been practicing sport on average for 9.21 years (sd = 2.57) and their mean age at the beginning of their sport activity was 6.20 years (sd = 2.17). the majority played volleyball (60.4%), followed by soccer (19.8%), basketball (12.2%) and rugby (7.6%) and trained with their team on average 3.1 times per week (sd = .66), with a frequency varying from 1 to 4 times per week. recruited with the collaboration of their sport teams, participants were informed as to the main objectives of the study. adolescents whose parents consented to their participation in the study then filled out a self-report questionnaire either before or after a regular training session, in the presence of their coach and of a research team member (response rate: 86%). the study was approved by the scientific committee of the family studies and research university centre and followed the standard ethical guidelines for research. the principal investigator of this study had previously completed the national institute for health training course “protecting human research participants”. measures socio-demographic information participants were asked questions about their personal (age, gender, school attended) and family (family structure and number of siblings) characteristics, as well as their sportive activity (age of beginning of sportive activity, type of sport practiced, number of weekly trainings). adolescents’ sport values we used the youth sport values questionnaire-2 (ysvq-2; lee et al., 2008), composed of 13 items, to measure adolescent athletes’ sport values. using a 7-point likert scale (from -1 = the opposite of what i believe to 5 = extremely important to me), respondents indicated the extent to which they considered each value as a guiding principle in their sportive activity. we computed three scores assessing the importance given to moral values (five items, e.g., “when i do sport it is important to me to show good sportsmanship”, α = .75), competence values (four items, e.g., “when i do sport it is important to me to set my own targets”, α = .64), and status values (four items, e.g., “when i do sport it is important to me to be a leader in the group”, α = .82). the ysvq-2 is considered to be a psychometrically sound instrument with good cross-cultural validity (goggins, 2015); its three-factor structure was confirmed also in italy using a cfa approach (borraccino, 2011). this questionnaire has been used in eight nations outside the uk, including italy, where the ysvq-2 showed itself to be a statistically robust instrument for measuring sport values (lucidi, mallia, nicolais, & zelli, 2012). value transmission in youth sport 80 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ sport values to assess adolescents’ perceptions of those sport values their parents want them to endorse, the ysvq-2 was again used. in this case, adolescents were asked to rate the degree of relevance they believed their fathers and mothers gave to each value (e.g., “how important is it for your father/mother that you show good sportsmanship?”), again on a 7-point likert scale (from -1 = the opposite of what my father/my mother would like to 5 = extremely important to my father/my mother). as with the measurement of adolescent sport values, we computed three scores for perceived parents’ sport values: moral values (α = .85 for fathers and α = .88 for mothers), competence values (α = .74 for fathers and α = .80 for mothers) and status values (α = .83 for fathers and α = .81 for mothers). parental involvement in children’s sportive activity to measure how adolescents perceived their parents’ involvement in their sportive activity, we used the parental involvement in sport questionnaire (pisq). the cross-cultural validity of this questionnaire had already been established by several previous studies (e.g., giannitsopoulou, kosmidou, & zisi, 2010; torregrosa et al., 2007). using a 5-point likert scale (from 1 = never to 5 = always), adolescents were asked to rate separately for fathers and mothersthe frequency with which their parents behave as described. the scale allowed us to compute three scores to assess parents’ active involvement (five items, e.g., “does your father/mother discuss your progress with your coach?”, α = .67 for fathers and α = .62 for mothers), praise and understanding (four items, e.g., “does your father/mother show they understand how you are feeling about your sport?”, α = .68 for fathers and α = .75 for mothers), and directive behavior (ten items, e.g., “before a contest, does your father/mother tell you how to compete?”, α = .88 for fathers and α = .86 for mothers). in addition, the item “does your father/mother put pressure on you concerning your sport?” was intended to assess paternal and maternal pressure. data analysis preliminary analysis we first described the study variables (i.e., adolescents’ sport values, the sport values they perceived that their fathers and mothers would like them to endorse, and paternal and maternal involvement in their children’s sport activity) in terms of means and standard deviations. adolescents’ sport value acceptance to measure the degree of adolescents’ acceptance of parents’ sport values, we computed the within-dyad correlations across values, by correlating the parent’s 13 value ratings, as perceived by the adolescent, with the adolescent’s 13 own sport values. this was done within each family separately for father-child dyad and for mother-child dyad. within-dyad correlations (kenny & acitelli, 1994) allowed us to measure the congruence in the shape of each parent’s value profile and his/her own child’s value profile. each value was treated as part of a broader system, and the interest was in the relative strength of the values in relation to one another. as with any other correlation coefficient, within-dyad correlation coefficients range from –1 (total opposition) to +1 (total congruence): according to cohen (1988) coefficients whose absolute value is lower than .30 are deemed small, whereas those larger than .50 are deemed large. danioni, barni, & rosnati 81 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ parental involvement in children’s sportive activity preliminarily, we calculated bivariate pearson correlations between adolescent athletes' value acceptance and their perceptions of the different patterns of parental involvement (active involvement, praise understanding, directive behavior and pressure) in their children’s sport activity. to assess whether and the extent to which the quality of paternal and maternal involvement in their children’s sport activity was associated with the degree to which adolescents endorsed their parents’ sport values, we performed both multiple regressions (mr) and relative weight analyses (rwa), separately for fathers and mothers. in these analyses, the patterns of parental involvement were the predictors, while adolescents’ sport value acceptance (transformed to z scores) was the criterion variable. throughout mr, we estimated the overall r2 and determined the statistical significance of individual regression coefficients. regression coefficients inform us as to the extent to which the criterion variable would change based on a given increase in a predictor while the other predictors are held constant (i.e., unique contribution). however, when predictors are correlated – as is likely in the case of the four patterns of parental involvement – mr is not enough to adequately divide variance in the criterion among the predictors (kraha, turner, nimon, reichwein zientek, & henson, 2012). there is a growing consensus that, when faced with correlated predictors, researchers should combine mr with other techniques available for interpretation, such as rwa (johnson, 2000). the primary concern of rwa is the impact of a particular predictor relative to others in the model: that is, the proportionate contribution each predictor makes to r2, taking into account both the unique relationship with the criterion and its relation when combined with other predictors (i.e., relative contribution) (barni, 2015). in our case, an example of this type of question might be, “what is the relative importance adolescents place on parents’ active involvement, praise understanding, directive behavior and pressure in their willingness or not to accept parental sport values?” it is indeed likely that adolescents consider all the patterns of parental involvement simultaneously and implicitly weight each pattern relative to the others in their “decision” to acceptance or rejection of parents’ sport values. rwa addresses the problem of correlated predictors using a variable transformation approach, by creating a set of variables (zk) that are strongly related to the original set of variables (xj), but are uncorrelated with each other. the criterion variable (y) can then be regressed on the new uncorrelated variables to approximate the relative weights of the original variablesi. the importance weights can then be scaled in the metric of relative effect size by dividing the relative weights by the model r2 and then multiplying these values by 100. in this way, the rescaled weights are interpreted as the percentage of predicted criterion variance attributed to each predictor. results preliminary analysis means and standard deviations of the study variables are reported in table 1. generally, adolescents rated competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill) as being the most important values, followed by moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience). little importance was attributed to status values (e.g., public image and winning). value transmission in youth sport 82 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 adolescents’ sport values, perceptions of parents’ sport values and of parental involvement in sport statistics moral values competence values status values active involvement praise and understanding directive behavior pressure ad fa mo ad fa mo ad fa mo fa mo fa mo fa mo fa mo m 3.79 3.66 3.58 4.14 3.51 3.26 2.17 1.75 1.45 2.74 2.58 3.64 3.47 2.67 2.20 1.81 1.57 range 1.2-5.0 0.0-5.0 -1.0-5.0 1.3-5.0 0.0-5.0 -1.0-5.0 -0.8-5.0 -0.8-5.0 -1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 1.0-4.6 1.0-5.0 1.0-5.0 sd 0.79 1.07 1.23 0.77 1.06 1.21 1.36 1.51 1.39 0.95 0.84 0.89 1.02 0.96 .85 1.18 0.98 note. ad = adolescents; fa = fathers; mo = mothers. in regards to adolescents’ perceptions of the sport values their parents wanted them to endorse, moral values were scored higher than both competence and status values. that is, as perceived by adolescents, both fathers and mothers gave great importance to values such as obedience and contract maintenance, but little importance to values such as being a leader, having a positive public image or winning. in relation to their sportive activity, adolescents perceived both their parents as adopting behavior characterized by praise and understanding. parents’ involvement in their children’s sport activity was moderately active and directive, and characterized by little pressure. generally speaking, fathers were perceived by their children to be more involved in their children’s sport activity than mothers, and were rated higher on all patterns of involvement than were mothers. adolescents’ sport value acceptance adolescents’ acceptance of parents’ sport values was high for both fathers and mothers, suggesting a strong congruence between adolescents’ personal value profile and their perception of parents’ socialization value profiles. this congruence measured rmean = .63ii (sd = .36; ranging from -.63 to .95) for father-child dyads and rmean = .61 (sd = .39; ranging from -.82 to .96) for mother-child dyads. parental involvement in children’s sportive activity correlations between the study variables are reported in table 2. they range from -.19 (p = .015) between father's pressure and children’s sport value acceptance and a maximum of .54 (p < .01) between father’s active involvement and praise and understanding. table 2 correlations between the four patterns of parental involvement in sport contexts and adolescents’ sport value acceptance active involvement praise and understanding directive behavior pressure acceptance of paternal values acceptance of maternal values active involvement .54** .53** .24** -.01 .14 praise and understanding .49** .30** -.10 .19* .28** directive behavior .51** .37** .42** -.08 .12 pressure .28** -.05 .38** -.19* -.16* note. fathers’ measures are reported above the diagonal, while mothers’ measures are reported below the diagonal. **p < .01. *p < .05. danioni, barni, & rosnati 83 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 shows both the mr models and the rwa results. as previously mentioned, we conducted a preliminary mr separately for fathers and mothers, with the four patterns of parental involvement as predictors and adolescents’ acceptance of parents’ sport values as the criterion variable. overall, the four predictors yielded a r2 of .073 for fathers and .113 for mothers. from the exploration of β, in both models fathers and mothers the praise and understanding pattern was a significant predictor: the more parental behavior towards their children’s sportive activity was characterized by praise and understanding, the greater was adolescents’ willingness to accept their parents’ sport values. moreover, but only for the mothers’ model, maternal pressure was a negative predictor of the criterion variable: the more mothers were perceived by adolescents to exert pressure, the less adolescents were willing to accept the sport values coming from their mothers. comparing the mr results with those of rwa, it is possible to confirm the importance of parental praise and understanding as predictor, which indeed explained the largest portion of the variance of adolescents’ acceptance of parental sport values (table 3). more interestingly, rwa also pointed out the importance of parental pressure (in this case of both parents) in predicting value acceptance. table 3 the importance of parental involvement in predicting adolescents’ sport value acceptance multiple regression relative weight analysis β p raw importance estimates rescaled estimates fathers active involvement -.04 .556 .005 6.3% praise and understanding .14 .026 .037 50.4% directive behavior -.03 .624 .005 6.9% pressure -.06 .159 .026 36.4% total r2 = .073 .073 100.0% mothers active involvement .05 .480 .011 9.4% praise and understanding .13 .025 .052 46.0% directive behavior .07 .311 .016 14.7% pressure -.12 .027 .034 29.9% total r2 = .113 .113 100.0% note. rescaled estimates (%) were computed by dividing the relative weights by the total r2 and multiplying by 100. discussion and conclusions the aim of our study was to analyze the sport values held by adolescents and adolescents’ acceptance of those sport values their parents want them to endorse, as well as to investigate the impact parental involvement in their children’s sportive activity has on value acceptance on the part of the adolescents. despite the fact that the contribution of youth sport to the development of values in adolescents has been widely recognized (e.g., camiré & trudel, 2010), very little research thus far has focused on this topic and, in particular, on the way sport values are transmitted. the findings of the current study showed that adolescent athletes gave great importance to competence values (e.g., achievement and showing skill) and moral values (e.g., contract maintenance and obedience), but value transmission in youth sport 84 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ attributed little importance to status values (e.g., leadership and winning). this result, which is in line with our first hypothesis (h1) and with previous studies in the field (e.g., goggins, 2015; lee et al., 2008), suggests that, in a sport context, young athletes view being competent and fair as more important than being a leader of the group. this can be attributed to a number of factors: as they are engaged in the difficult task of differentiating and becoming autonomous from their families of origin, on the one hand adolescents may find the opportunity to demonstrate their own skills in the sport context as a means of differentiation. on the other hand, also teammates and coaches may influence the importance adolescents attribute to competence values: young athletes may in fact believe that proving their competence to both teammates and coaches could be a way to be accepted by the team. we can also speculate that the little importance given to status values is instead due to the fact that, within a team, there is one “leader” (the “captain”) who may be interested in showing his/her status, while for the other members of the group teamwork might instead be the main concern. moreover, the lack of importance given to status values is in line with previous research on basic human values which demonstrated that adolescents do not consider self-enhancement values (e.g., power and achievement) to be true guiding principles in their lives (barni, 2009). similarly, adolescents perceived their parents both fathers and mothers as giving the greatest importance to moral and competence values. consistently with the second hypothesis (h2) and with previous studies on basic values (barni et al., 2011), young athletes were willing to accept these parental values from a moderate to a high degree. interestingly, adolescents’ level of sport value acceptance seemed to be definitively higher than that showed by previous studies concerning basic values (alfieri, barni, rosnati, & marta, 2014; barni et al., 2011; barni, ranieri, & scabini, 2012). it is likely that sport is a powerful means through which parents can communicate their value messages to their offspring, as their sportive activity may be a topic children are particularly interested in discussing. thus this important question emerges: is transmitting core values (namely, values that are more salient in a specific context such as sport) easier than transmitting basic values, which are instead more abstract, trans-situational guiding principles of one’s life? if yes, this would mean that the process of value transmission is influenced by the “level of abstraction” of the values. the transmission of core values, which are anchored to a concrete context and which refer to more specific actions and objects than basic values do (schwartz et al., 2010), could make the parental value messages clearer, thereby reducing children’s misperceptions of their parents’ values, while simultaneously supporting parent-child value similarities. further research is needed in order to be able to adequately address this question, with reference to this and to other core values (e.g., political values, family values, etc.). moreover, it would be fruitful to study the relationship between the motivational structure of basic values and sport and other core values. generally speaking, when studying value transmission it is essential to consider not only the content of values but also their level of abstraction. parental involvement in children’s sportive activity turned out to be a significant predictor of adolescents’ sport value acceptance. parental involvement was mainly characterized by encouragement (namely, praise and understanding) and only moderately by a directive behavior or by active involvement. moreover, adolescents did not strongly perceive their parents as exerting pressure on them to succeed in their sport activity. as we hypothesized (h3), multiple regression (mr) results showed that the stronger the adolescents’ feeling of being understood by their parents regarding their sportive activity, the higher their willingness to accept their parents’ sport values. moreover, the higher the degree of the maternal pressure felt by adolescent athletes, the lower the degree of sport value acceptance (h4). in contrast to our third and fourth hypotheses, neither active involvement nor directive behavior contributed to explaining value acceptance. in other words, what allows a danioni, barni, & rosnati 85 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ successful value transmission in terms of value acceptance and similarity between the two generations is parental behavior characterized by empathy towards children’s sportive activity, rather than active parental involvement (such as volunteering activities for the sport club or discussing their children’s progress with the coach). all in all, multiple regression (mr) results revealed that positive behavior towards children’s sportive activity, specifically characterized by praise and understanding, and a low degree of pressure exerted by the parents is associated with adolescents’ acceptance of parental sport values, regardless of the type of value considered. both of these very different types of parental involvement in their children’s sportive activity appear to be related – albeit in different directions – to the degree of sport value acceptance on the part of the adolescent. they are therefore the ones that need to be taken into consideration to greater degree whenever the aim is to transmit a specific value to the younger generation. relative weight analysis (rwa) results were consistent with those of mr, confirming the importance of praise and understanding in predicting adolescents’ willingness to accept parents’ sport values. this technique for analysis, whose primary concern is the impact of a particular predictor relative to others in the model, uses a variable transformation approach to address the problem of correlated predictors, as in the case of the different patterns of parental involvement. more interestingly, while regression results made it appear that maternal praise/understanding and pressure contributed similarly to predicting adolescents’ value acceptance, rwa showed that the former explained a larger proportion of variance as compared to the latter. additionally, rwa results revaluated the role of fathers’ pressure in predicting the criterion variable, which did not emerge from mr: paternal pressure (together with praise and understanding) was the most correlated predictor to fathers’ value acceptance. all in all, our findings suggest that the key to the transmission of sport values is the quality of interaction and the relationship between parents and adolescents, rather than the degree of parental involvement in the child’s sport activity. for this reason, parental attitudes – characterized by praise and understanding, but also by pressure (examples of positive and negative involvement, respectively) – have more to do with adolescents’ acceptance or rejection of parental values than does active parental involvement in the sport activity. on the one hand, it is likely that parental involvement characterized by praise and understanding, which comprises the children’s perception of parental empathy displayed towards their sport activity, might be related to a more positive parent-child relationship with regard to the child’s sport activity. on the other hand, when perceiving pressure, children might feel uncomfortable with talking with their parents about their thoughts or fears related to their sport, and thus establish a more negative parent-child relationship with regard to the child’s sport activity. this result is in line with the available literature concerning transmission of basic values. indeed, a number of factors are considered to be related to children’s willingness to accept their parental values; most of these deal with the quality of the parent-child relationship (barni et al., 2011; schönpflug, 2001). this study includes some strong points. first, to our knowledge, it is one of the few studies thus far undertaken that have focused on the topic of sport value transmission between parents and adolescent children. together with the family and the school, sport is a major agent of socialization during adolescence (prunelli, 2011), although its contribution to adolescents’ value development has not so far been largely investigated. when studying adolescents’ socialization, it is essential to take into account the complex system of social relationships occurring in adolescents’ lives (vandell, 2000). in this study, we connected sport and family, value transmission in youth sport 86 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 http://www.psychopen.eu/ analyzing one step of the parent-child transmission of values (i.e., adolescents’ acceptance of perceived parental values) within the sport context. in particular, we examined the quality of parental involvement in their adolescent children’s sportive activity in order to explore the reasons for adolescents’ willingness to accept parental values. second, in order to estimate the contribution of each variable relative to others in the model, rather than simply look at the single contribution of each variable, we supplemented regression analysis with relative weight analysis, a relatively new data analysis strategy. as our predictors consisted of four patterns of parental involvement all of which were highly correlated, this strategy allowed us to revaluate the role of the predictors of sport value acceptance, thus adding knowledge to our results. in interpreting our results, some limitations must be kept in mind. first, the cross-sectional design of the study limited both causal inferences from the data and considerations regarding the bidirectionality of the links. thus, a longitudinal development of the present research perspective would be informative. second, the sample was one of convenience, as participants were selected according to the willingness of their sport team to take part in the study. third, adolescents were our only informants; parental responses were not included in the study. thus, while we considered adolescents’ perceptions of parental involvement in their sportive activity, we did not consider their parents’ actual involvement. fourth, we used a single-item measure to assess adolescents’ perception of pressure on the part of their parents. parents play a critical role in the development of adolescents’ sport-related values. this study indicates that the transmission process of sport values can be affected by the quality of parents’ involvement in their children’s sport activities. thus, parents should be made to understand that their children may benefit, in terms of value development, from an understanding behavior that is, from a form of parental encouragement characterized by empathy towards the child’s sport activity. notes i) for example, if a criterion variable is regressed on three variables, the computation of the relative weight for x1 involves the following steps (tonidandel & lebreton, 2011): a) derive a set of k orthogonal weights zxk that are maximally related to the set of j original predictors xj (see johnson, 2000 for the process of obtaining the best-fitting set of orthogonal variables); b) obtain a set of standardized regression coefficients βk by regressing the criterion variable y on the set of the new orthogonal predictors zxk; c) obtain a set of standardized regression coefficients λjk by regressing xj on the set of the new orthogonal predictors zxk; d) compute relative weights by summing the products of squared standardized regression coefficients β2k and λ2jk obtained at steps b and c. thus, the relative weight for the first predictor (x1) can be calculated as ε1 = λ211β21 + λ212β22 + λ213β23. relative weights for the other predictors in the model are calculated in the same manner. ii) rmean were obtained transforming the r to z, averaging, and then transforming back to r. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. previously presented part of this work was previously presented as a poster contribution: danioni, f., barni, d., & rosnati, r. 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(2004). parental involvement and athletes’ career in youth sport. psychology of sport and exercise, 5(1), 21-33. doi:10.1016/s1469-0292(02)00047-x about the authors francesca danioni is a ph.d. student in social psychology at the catholic university of the sacred heart of milan, italy. her research interests focus on family relations, human values and their assessment. daniela barni, ph.d., is an associate professor of social psychology at the department of human sciences, lumsa university of rome, italy. her main research interests focus on human values and family relations, especially with regard to parentchild transmission of values during adolescence. rosa rosnati, ph.d., is a full professor of social psychology at the department of political and social sciences, catholic university of the sacred heart of milan, italy. her main research interests focus on intergenerational relationships and adoptive families. value transmission in youth sport 92 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 75–92 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1265 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1080/00224540009600447 http://doi.org/10.1016/s1469-0292(02)00047-x http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ value transmission in youth sport (introduction) values in youth sport how are sport values acquired? this study method participants and procedure measures data analysis preliminary analysis adolescents’ sport value acceptance parental involvement in children’s sportive activity results preliminary analysis adolescents’ sport value acceptance parental involvement in children’s sportive activity discussion and conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests previously presented acknowledgments references about the authors children’s cognitive and emotional processes in adult versus child-related inter-parental conflicts research reports children’s cognitive and emotional processes in adult versus childrelated inter-parental conflicts elena camisasca* ab, sarah miragoli b, paola di blasio b [a] università telematica e-campus, novedrate, italy. [b] c.r.i.d.e.e., department of psychology, catholic university of milan, milan, italy. abstract in the literature, little attention has been paid to the specific impact of child-related versus adult-related inter-parental conflicts on children’s intrapersonal processes and adjustment. aimed to advance knowledge on this topic, the cross-sectional study explores: 1) the predictive effects of the two forms of inter-parental conflicts on: a) children’s internalizing/externalizing behaviors and b) children’s cognitive appraisals, emotional distress, and triangulation; 2) the mediating role of children’s cognitive appraisals, emotional distress, and triangulation, in the association between adult-related vs child-related conflict and children’s adjustment. seventy-five school-aged children and their parents completed measures of inter-parental conflict, cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes and child adjustment. the results indicated that: 1) higher levels of adult-related inter-parental conflict promoted children’s internalizing behaviors, through the mediation of perceived threat; 2) higher levels of child-related inter-parental discord promoted both children’s internalizing/externalzing behaviors, through the mediation of perceived threat and self-blame. keywords: inter-parental conflict, cognitive appraisals, distress, triangulation, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, children europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 received: 2018-03-08. accepted: 2018-10-30. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: università telematica e-campus, via isimbardi 10, novedrate, italy. e-mail: elena.camisasca@uniecampus.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. although conflict is inevitable in every marriage, the frequency, intensity and content of discord vary across couples. when parents manage their divergences in positive ways, by displaying verbal and physical affection, problem solving and support, the conflict is said to be constructive (goeke-morey, cummings, harold, & shelton, 2003; mccoy, cummings, & davies, 2009; mccoy, george, cummings, & davies, 2013). in contrast, destructive conflict is characterized by chronic, unresolved and intense levels of hostility. this type of discord undermines children’s sense of security (camisasca, miragoli, di blasio, & grych, 2017; cummings, goekemorey, & papp, 2003; goeke-morey et al., 2003), making them more vulnerable to development of adjustment problems (buehler, lange, & franck, 2007; camisasca & miragoli, 2014; fosco & grych, 2008; lindsey, colwell, frabutt, & mackinnon-lewis, 2006). another important property of the inter-parental discord is the content of the conflict. according to grych and fincham (grych, 1998; grych & fincham, 1990, 1993), marital discord explicitly about child-rearing can be especially threatening or distressing for the children, by eliciting feelings of shame, blame, guilt and a greater motivation to intervene in marital conflict. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in literature, various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the link between inter-parental discord and child adjustment. more specifically, the cognitive-contextual framework (fosco, deboard, & grych, 2007; fosco & grych, 2008; grych & fincham, 1990) emphasizes threat appraisals, self-blaming attributions and triangulation, as unique mechanisms that increase risk of maladjustment (fosco & grych, 2008). threat appraisals reflect children’s evaluations of the personal relevance of inter-parental conflicts and the potential for harm to themselves or the family (fosco et al., 2007; fosco & bray, 2016), that are strictly associated with children’s maladjustment (camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio, 2013, 2016b; fosco & feinberg, 2015; fosco & grych, 2008; grych, harold, & miles, 2003). self-blame appraisals may occur when children believe that the disagreement is caused by their behavior or if they feel responsible for ending or resolving the conflict (fosco & grych, 2008) with consequent associations to their maladjustment (davies, forman, rasi, & stevens, 2002; fosco & grych, 2008; grych et al., 2003). triangulation involves boundary violations, such that children become entangled in the inter-parental conflict and might feel caught in the middle (bowen, 1978; minuchin, 1974). from one side, parents could bring children into their disputes; from the other side, children may also feel caught in the middle or pressured to take sides, even if they do not become involved in the interactions (amato & afifi, 2006; fosco & grych, 2008; franck & buehler, 2007). empirical evidence found that triangulation is a mechanism linking inter-parental conflict with children’s maladjustment (buchanan & waizenhofer, 2001; fosco & grych, 2008; franck & buehler, 2007; gerard, buehler, franck, & anderson, 2005). another conceptual model, the emotional security hypothesis (cummings & davies, 2002; davies & cummings, 1994) underscores that the exposure to parental conflicts increases children’s insecurity about the marital relationship, manifested through children’s emotional distress, behavioral regulation of exposure to the conflict, and destructive internal representations of the family system (davies et al., 2016). literature showed that emotional distress was the most relevant dimension that uniquely mediated associations between inter-parental conflict and both internalizing and externalizing problems (buehler et al., 2007; davies, cicchetti, & martin, 2012; davies & cummings, 1998). the studies above mentioned have substantially neglected to explore the possible associations among the content of the inter-parental discord and the children’s cognitive, emotional, behavioral processes and their adjustment, except for the studies of shelton, harold, goeke-morey, and cummings (2006) and koss et al. (2011). shelton et al. (2006) examined how children’s coping efforts could vary as a function of the content of conflict (child or adult-related). results showed that child-related conflict tactics characterized by physical aggression and verbal anger elicited children’s more severe mediation strategies, than adult-related conflict tactics. similarly, koss et al. (2011) showed that children reported more feelings of anger and sadness in response to the child-rearing disagreements, than other forms of conflicts. moreover, their data illustrated that more intense scared feelings were associated with the escalating and unresolved conflicts, in comparison to the child-related conflict. the present cross-sectional study, based on the suggestions of both the cognitive contextual model (grych & fincham, 1990) and the emotional security hypothesis (davies & cummings, 1994), was performed in order to advance knowledge of the specific role of adult-related versus child-related inter-parental conflict. more precisely, the study aimed to explore: 1) the distinct effects of adult-related versus child-related conflicts on children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors; 2) the distinct effects of adult-related versus child-related conflicts on children’s cognitive appraisals (perceived threat and self blame), emotional distress, and triangulation; 3) the adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 844 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ potential mediating role of threat, self-blame and triangulation, in the relationships between adult-related versus child-related conflicts and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. according to literature, we hypothesized that: (h1) both adult and child-related conflicts could be predictive of children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors (fosco & grych, 2008; mccoy et al., 2009, 2013); (h2) child-related inter-parental conflict could be strongly associated with self-blame and triangulation (grych & fncham, 1993), rather than adult-related destructive conflict that could be more distressing for children (davies et al., 2016; koss et al., 2011). we also supposed (h3) that both forms of inter-parental conflict (adult and childrelated conflict) could have indirect effects on children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, through perceived threat, self-blame, triangulation and emotional distress (fosco & grych, 2008). method participants participants were 75 italian parents (mothers and fathers) and their 75 children (58% girls) ages 7–11 years (m = 9.35, sd = 1.33), recruited by four primary public schools located in milan and in the province of milan. the children were noted as being the only child (36%), the first-born (32%), the second-born (27%), and the third-born (5%). the couples had been married 14 years on average (sd = 3.4). the mothers averaged 41.6 years of age (sd = 4.3), and the fathers averaged 43.9 years of age (sd = 5.2). socio-economic status (ses) of participants’ families was assessed by asking for parents’ qualifications and jobs: 33% of participants were from middle-lower class, 48% from middle class, and 19% from middle-upper class. procedure we selected four primary public schools located in milan and in the province of milan, mainly attended by families with an average socio-economic level. the schools were recruited by a standard procedure that included introductory meetings with school principals and letters to the parents, describing the goals and procedures of the study. one hundred and twelve families (convenience sampling) were approached, of whom spontaneous and unpaid consent to participate was obtained from 88 parents (73.3%). parents signed consent forms, for themselves and their children, that described the project and its goals, the voluntary nature of participation, and the confidentiality of the data collected. each participant could also have the possibility to give up the research at any time without any explanation and could request a personal meeting with the referent researcher before and at the end of the completion of the questionnaires. the school-aged children were approached in school classrooms during regular class time at the convenience of participating teachers. two research assistants, trained by the authors, during their research internship of 6 months, conducted the administration procedure. the measures were administered with a random order and research assistants gave assistance to children if they had difficulty in understanding any of the questions (i.e., reading the items and word definitions). moreover, in case of children’s distress, research assistants could stop the procedure and relieve the children. completion of the measures examined in the present study took approximately 20 minutes. packets consisting of self-report measures (see the measures section) were delivered to parents. measures were accompanied by a letter describing the modalities for their self-administering, in which mothers and fathers were asked to fill in the forms independently, without sharing their answers, and to return camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 845 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all the questionnaires by the next 2 months to the schools. for thirteen families (nine fathers and four mothers) we found missing and incomplete data and we deleted these families from the data set. we therefore obtained complete data for 75 parents and their children. ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the catholic university of milan for the project inter-parental conflict and child adjustment, in april 2013. measures adult-related conflict children completed the conflict properties scale (19 items) from the children’s perceptions of inter-parental conflict scale (cpic; grych, seid, & fincham, 1992; the back translation was approved by the author), which reflects conflict that occurs regularly, involves higher levels of hostility, and is poorly resolved and is composed of three sub-scales: frequency, intensity, and resolution. children rated each item, using a 3-point scale (“true,” “sort of true,” “false”). sample items include: “i often see my parents arguing” (frequency), “my parents get really mad when they argue” (intensity), and “even after my parents stop arguing, they stay mad at each other” (resolution). this scale has demonstrated excellent reliability and validity in past research (fosco & grych, 2008) and in the current sample (α = .83). it has also been used with italian-speaking populations with a good internal reliability (α = .82; camisasca et al., 2016b). both parents completed the dyadic satisfaction scale (10 items) of the dyadic adjustment scale (das; spanier, 1976; italian validation by gentili, contreras, cassaniti, & d’arista, 2002). in order to gain their perspective about the frequency of quarrels, disagreements, conflicts, three items of the dyadic satisfaction scale were considered, and specifically: item 17 (how often do you or your mate leave the house after a fight?); item 21 (how often do you and your partner quarrel?); item 22 (how often do you and your mate “get on each other’s nerves”). both parents rated the three items with a 6-point response format ranging from 5 (all the time) to 0 (never). this measure has demonstrated excellent reliability and validity in past research (α = .90; camisasca, miragoli, caravita, & di blasio, 2015; camisasca, miragoli, milani, & di blasio, 2016) and in the current sample (α = .80). following the suggestions of fosco and grych (2008), children’s, mothers’, and fathers’ reports were converted into z-scores and then the mean score was computed to create a single score of adult-related inter-parental conflict. child-related conflict inter-parental conflict was assessed via self-reports by children and both of their parents. children completed the conflict child-related content, from the children’s perceptions of inter-parental conflict scale (cpic; grych et al., 1992), which assesses the content of the conflict that specifically pertains to children’s rearing or behaviors. children rated the 4 items as either “true”, “sort of true” or “false”. sample items include: “my parents’ arguments are usually about me”, “my parents usually argue or disagree because of things that i do”. this scale has demonstrated good reliability and validity in past research (grych et al., 1992) and yielded excellent reliability in the current sample (α = .86). both parents also completed the children’s exposure to conflict scale of the coparenting relationship scale (crs; feinberg, brown, & kan, 2012; the back translation was approved by the author), to gain their perspective about children’s exposure to inter-parental conflict, concerning the rearing of the child (5 items). sample items include: “how often in a typical week, when all 3 of you are together, do you argue with your partner about your child, in the child’s presence?” adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 846 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this scale has demonstrated excellent reliability and validity in past research (α = .82; camisasca et al., 2016b; camisasca, miragoli, di blasio & feinberg, 2018) and in the current sample (α = .80). following the suggestions of fosco and grych (2008), children’s, mothers’, and fathers’ reports were converted into z-scores and then computed the mean score to create a single score of child-related inter-parental conflict. appraisals of inter-parental conflict the perceived threat and self-blame sub-scales from the cpic (grych et al., 1992) were used to assess children’s appraisals of inter-parental conflict. the six-items of the perceived threat sub-scale assess the level of threat reported by respondents when inter-parental conflict occurs. the nine-items of the self-blame scale measure the respondents’ tendency to blame themselves for these disagreements. sample items include: “my parents blame me when they have arguments”; “even if they don't say it, i know i'm to blame when my parents argue.” these scales have demonstrated adequate reliability and validity in past research (fosco & grych, 2008; grych et al., 1992) and in the current sample (perceived threat: α = .78; self-blame: α = .77). they have also been used with italian-speaking populations with a satisfactory internal reliability (α = .72; camisasca et al., 2016b). triangulation children’s triangulation into parental conflicts was assessed using the triangulation sub-scale of the cpic (grych et al., 1992). this eight-item sub-scale assesses a wide range of triangulation behaviors, capturing the extent to which children feel involved in, caught in the middle of, or drawn into cross-generational coalitions during inter-parental disagreements. sample items include: “my mom wants me to be on her side when she and my dad argue”; “i feel like i have to take sides when my parents have a disagreement”. this scale has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity in past research (fosco & grych, 2008) and in the current sample (α = .76). children’s distress reactions to inter-parental conflict to assess children’s distress from the inter-parental conflict, children completed one sub-scale of the security in the inter-parental subsystem (sis; davies et al., 2002). the distress sub-scale includes 12 items with a 4point response format and includes examples of multiple, prolonged, and dysregulated expressions of emotion and distress. sample items include: “when my parents argue, i feel scared”, “i hit, kick, slap, or throw things at people in my family”. this scale yielded adequate reliability in the current sample (α = .79) and it has also been used with italian-speaking populations with a satisfactory internal reliability (α = .77; camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio, 2016a). internalizing and externalizing behaviors both parents completed the child behavior checklist (cbcl/4-18; achenbach, 1991; italian version by frigerio, 2001) that is one of the most extensively used measures of children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. parents rated the 113 items of the measure as 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat or sometimes true), or 2 (very true or often true). the internalizing scales reflect a pattern of maladjustment characterized by social withdrawal or shyness and symptoms of depression or anxiety. the externalizing scales capture children’s maladjustment characterized by aggression and defiance. in our study excellent reliability was found for internalizing (for mothers: α = .88 and for fathers: α = .84) and externalizing problems (for mothers: α = .86 and for fathers: α = .88). following the suggestions of fosco and grych (2008), mothers’ and fathers’ reports were converted camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 847 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ into z-scores and then the mean score was computed to create a single parent index of internalizing and externalizing problems. data analysis strategy descriptive statistics were computed for all the variables. t-test analyses were computed in order to verify the presence of any differences of children’s age groups (7–8 and 9–11 years) in the distribution of the variables investigated. pearson’s r correlations were used to investigate the associations between the variables. the proposed mediation model was examined using the process macro for spss (hayes, 2013), applying model 4 with 5000 bias-corrected bootstrap samples. the bias-corrected bootstrapping resampling method is particularly suitable for small samples (hayes, 2012). our preference is based on the fact that other methods for testing indirect effects assume a standard normal distribution when calculating the p-value for the indirect effect, whereas bootstrapping does not assume normality of the sampling distribution (hayes, 2012). in addition, the bootstrap method repeatedly samples from the dataset, estimating the indirect effect with each resampled dataset. this process is repeated thousands of times, producing bias-corrected accelerated confidence intervals for the indirect effect. results descriptive and correlational analyses means and standard deviations of all variables used in the present study are presented in table 1. regarding the variables investigated, the means scores, for mothers, fathers and children, were similar to those obtained in other italian and international studies with normative samples (camisasca et al., 2016; feinberg et al., 2012; frigerio, 2001) and were placed within normal limits. table 1 descriptive statistics, mean, standard deviation, and min-max scores variable m sd min-max adult-related conflict (mothers: das) 11.12 1.84 3–14 adult-related conflict (fathers: das) 11.16 1.83 6–15 adult-related conflict (children: cpic) 10.48 6.90 0–35 child-related conflict (mothers) 0.91 0.75 0–3 child-related conflict (fathers) 0.88 0.80 0–3 child-related conflict (children: cpic-content) 2.04 1.60 0–11 perceived threat (cpic) 3.78 3.11 0–11 self-blame (cpic) 2.40 2.11 0–10 triangulation (cpic) 4.23 3.16 0–11 emotional distress (sis) 17.54 5.56 9–34 internalizing behaviors (cbcl) 6.55 4.51 0–23 externalizing behaviors (cbcl) 6.88 4.61 0–24 the t-test analyses showed that there were not significant differences between the two age groups (7–9 and 10–11 years) in the distribution of the variables explored, t(68) from 0.18 to –1.48; p > .05). adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 848 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the correlation analyses showed that the variables were correlated (see table 2). in particular, both adultand child-related conflicts were correlated with internalizing and externalizing behaviors (r from .23 to .52) and to cognitive appraisals, distress reactions and triangulation (r from .23 to .59). cognitive appraisals, distress reactions and triangulation were also significantly associated with internalizing and externalizing behaviors (r from .28 to .71). table 2 correlational analyses variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. adult-related conflict – 2. child-related conflict .32** – 3. perceived threat .38** .43** – 4. self-blame .23* .59** .42** – 5. emotional distress .43** .35** .62** .29* – 6. triangulation .32** .41** .54** .39** .29* – 7. internalizing behaviors .40** .45** .70** .43** .48** .51** – 8. externalizing behaviors .23* .51** .36** .50** .33** .28* .56** – *p < .05. **p < .01. test of mediation we performed mediational analyses using the process macro for spss (hayes, 2013), applying model 4 with 5000 bias-corrected bootstrap samples. in the mediational model, adultversus child-related conflicts were added as predictors, internalizing and externalizing behaviors as outcomes, and the perceived threat, selfblame, distress reactions and triangulation as mediators (see table 3). regarding internalizing behaviors, only both the total effects of adult-related and child-related conflict were significant (adult-related: β = .13, p < .05; child-related: β = .41, p < .01; c path). the effects of the adult-related conflicts were significant on children’s perceived threat (β = .12, p < .05; a path) and distress reactions (β = .27, p < .01; a path), while the effects of the child-related conflicts were significant on all the mediators: children’s perceived threat (β = .39, p < .01; a path), self blame (β = .45, p < .01; a path), distress (β = .46, p < .01; a path), and triangulation (β = .39, p < .01; a path). when the effects of the mediators (perceived threat, self blame, distress, and triangulation) were controlled, the direct effects of adult-related and child-related conflict on children’s internalizing problems were not significant (adult-related: β = .05, p > .05; child-related: β = .08, p > .05; c’ path). moreover, children’s perceived threat mediated the relationships between both adult and childrelated conflict and children’s internalizing problems (adult-related: β = .06, 95% ci [.00, .14]; child-related: β = .20, 95% ci [.08, .41]). regarding externalizing behaviors, only the total effect of the child-related conflict was significant (β = .62, p < .01; c path). as above, the effects of the adult-related conflicts were significant on children’s perceived threat (β = .12, p < .05; a path) and distress reactions (β = .27, p < .01; a path), while the effects of the child-related conflicts were significant on all the mediators: children’s perceived threat (β = .39, p < .01; a path), self blame (β = .45, p < .01; a path), distress (β = .46, p < .01; a path), and triangulation (β = .39, p < .01; a path). when the effects of the mediators (perceived threat, self blame, distress, and triangulation) were controlled, the direct effects of adult and child-related conflicts on children’s externalizing problems were not significant (adult-relacamisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 849 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ted: β = .00, p > .05; c’ path; child-related: β = .29, p > .05; c’ path). moreover, children’s self blame mediated the relationship between child-related conflict and children’s externalizing problems (β = .21, 95% ci [.05, .41]). table 3 indirect effects of children’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes on internalizing and externalizing symptoms predictor β se bootstrap 95% ci model ll ul r2 p dv: internalizing behaviors total effects .28 < .001 adult-related conflict .13* .04 child-related conflict .41** .12 direct effects .01 > .05 indirect effect via mediator perceived threat adult-related conflict .06* .03 .00 .14 child-related conflict .20* .08 .08 .41 indirect effect via mediator self-blame adult-related conflict –.01 .00 –.02 .00 child-related conflict .07 .07 –.07 .22 indirect effect via mediator emotional distress adult-related conflict .00 .02 –.02 .05 child-related conflict .01 .03 –.04 .11 indirect effect via mediator triangulation adult-related conflict .01 .01 –.00 .05 child-related conflict .05 .04 –.01 .17 dv: externalizing behaviors total effects .27 < .001 adult-related conflict .02 .05 child-related conflict .62* .13 direct effects .05 > .05 indirect effect via mediator perceived threat adult-related conflict .00 .02 –.03 .07 child-related conflict .01 .07 –.11 .19 indirect effect via mediator self-blame adult-related conflict –.00 .01 –.05 .02 child-related conflict .21 .09 .05 .41 indirect effect via mediator emotional distress adult-related conflict .02 .02 –.01 .08 child-related conflict .03 .03 –.02 .13 indirect effect via mediator triangulation adult-related conflict .00 .01 –.03 .02 child-related conflict –.00 .02 –.05 .06 note. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. *p < .05. **p < .01. adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 850 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion although many studies have explored associations between marital conflict and child adjustment (fosco & grych, 2008; mccoy et al., 2013), the interest of how the distinct forms of inter-parental conflict (adult-related versus child-related) may differentially impact children’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes and their psychological adjustment is a new direction of research. our results, in line with expectations found correlations among the two predictors (adult-related versus child-related conflict), the mediators (children’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes), and the outcomes (children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors). more precisely, higher levels of both adult-related and child-related conflicts correlated with higher levels of children’s perceived threat and self blame, distress reactions and triangulation, and with more children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. furthermore, the mediational analyses indicated distinct predictive effects of adult-related versus child-related conflicts on children’s adjustment and their cognitive, emotive, and behavioral processes. more precisely, contrary to our hypothesis (h1), adult-related conflict was strictly related to only children’s internalizing behaviors, while child-related conflict to both children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. moreover, as hypothesized (h2), adult-related conflict predicted perceived threat and emotional distress while child-related conflict predicted children’s self-blame and triangulation. moreover, unlike expectations, child-related conflict also predicted children’s perceived threat and emotional distress. consistent with literature (camisasca et al., 2017; goeke-morey et al., 2003; koss et al., 2011), our results reported that adult-related conflict, connoted by chronic, unresolved and intense levels of hostility, undermined children’s sense of security, leaving them threatened and worried and emotionally distressed. moreover, adultrelated conflicts, connoted by chronic, intense and unresolved disagreements, predicted children’s internalizing problems, through the mediation of the perceived threat. these data are consistent with longitudinal studies that outlined how children’s perceived threat was a significant risk factor for the insurgence of internalizing problems (fosco & feinberg, 2015; grych et al., 2003). we could explain our data, by suggesting that children’s exposed to higher levels of adult-related inter-parental conflicts could be more vulnerable to internalizing behaviors through an amplification of their worries and scared feelings, that conflict will escalate, threatening the family’s existence (fosco & bray, 2016; fosco et al., 2007). regarding child-related conflicts, the results were in line with previous literature (koss et al., 2011; schelton et al., 2006), which showed how children exposed to marital disagreements, explicitly about child-rearing, could develop feelings of shame, blame and guilt. in turn, these feelings could promote children’s self-blame appraisals connoted by the idea of being responsible for ending or resolving the conflict and a greater vulnerability to triangulation. moreover, our results indicated that child-related conflict could also scare and threaten the children, by increasing their levels of perceived threat and distress reactions. in other words, children could believe that child-related conflict could also cause damage to self or others, or to the family’s survival, with consequent emotional insecurity and distress reactions. these data supported the suggestions of the literature (grych, 1998, grych & fincham, 1990, 1993; koss et al., 2011) that marital disagreements explicitly about children or child-rearing can be especially threatening or distressing for children, by eliciting feelings of sadness, anger, shame, blame, guilt and a greater motivation to intervene in marital conflict. data also illustrated that child-related conflict, through the mediation of perceived threat and self-blame appraisals, predicted both children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, while adult-related conflict, through the mediation of perceived threat, predicted only children’s internalizing behaviors. in other words, contrary to camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 851 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our expectations (h3), our data seemed to strengthen the negative effects of child-related conflict, compared to adult-related conflict, on children’s adjustment. the results that child-related conflict predicted children’s internalizing problems, through the mediation of perceived threat are consistent with the literature that outlined how this type of conflict could promote feelings of sadness, worries and guilt (grych & fincham, 1993; koss et al., 2011) and with the empirical evidence that indicated robust relations between perceived threat and internalizing problems (camisasca et al., 2017; fosco & feinberg, 2015; grych et al., 2003). moreover, our results seemed to strengthen those of previous studies that outlined how child-related conflict could promote anger reactions in children (koss et al., 2011) and how self-blame is uniquely associated with externalizing (but not internalizing) behaviors (davies et al., 2002; fosco & grych, 2008; shelton & harold, 2008). in order to explain these results, we can suppose that feeling responsible for inter-parental conflict provided children with a sense of coping efficacy and perceived control over conflict, which increases the likelihood of involvement (grych, 1998; schelton & harold, 2008). when children involve themselves in conflict, they may use coercive and aggressive tactics in an attempt to distract or bring an end to parents’ marital arguments, with consequent externalizing problems (schelton & harold, 2008). moreover, we can also suggest that some children, who feel blame and responsibility for parents’ arguments, could be unable (or perhaps prevented from) intervening and may express their distress and frustration in the form of anger and acting out. previous literature suggests that painful feelings of shame could elicit defensiveness, anger, and overt aggression (stuewig, tangney, heigel, harty, & mccloskey, 2010). on the basis of these suggestions, we can therefore suppose that children’s self-blame appraisals, due to child-related conflicts, could also transform their painful feelings into maladaptive responses, such as hostility, anger and sometimes aggression (externalizing behaviors). taken together, our results showed that: 1) high levels of adult-related inter-parental conflict promoted children’s internalizing behaviors, through the mediation of perceived threat appraisals; 2) high levels of child-related inter-parental discord promoted both children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, through the mediation of perceived threat and self-blame appraisals. in conclusion, child-related conflict, compared to adult-related conflict, assumed the role of a particularly significant risk factor for the children’s adjustment, making children vulnerable to the onset of both internalizing and externalizing problems. several limitations of this study should be noted. first, the real direction of relations among variables examined in this study cannot be empirically evaluated, because the research design of this study is cross-sectional. the nature of our cross-sectional data cannot explicitly identify directional effects or causal links, while longitudinal data could provide stronger evidence of directionality or causality. the small number of participants may limit the generalizability of our results, even though this limitation was partly overcome by the use of the bootstrapping procedure for the mediational analyses. another limitation of the study is the use of only self-report data. it is now known self-report measures assessing sensitive information can be subject to social desirability and can inflate some of the associations among variables due to shared method variance. we could also outline that the responses of the first and second graders children may bias the study results depending on how research assistants helped these participants. indeed, grych, seid, and fincham (1992) stated that: “the language on the cpic makes it appropriate for use with children from third grade through junior high school, but children's perceptions and interpretations of marital conflict are likely to change with age, and consequently the reliability, validity, and factor structure of the cpic may differ across developmental levels” (p. 570). moreover, another limitation of the study is that measures administered included many more items than actual participants in the study. future research should use a multi-method approach, including observational methods, teacher-reports, adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 852 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and interviews in which parents can describe their marital relationships. in addition, our sample was composed of italian parents who were predominantly well-educated and of middle-class. not significant associations were showed between parents’ age, gender and ses and the variables investigated (r from .00 to .18). replications of our findings with a more heterogeneous samples would foster generalization of findings to a broader population. despite these limitations, our findings helped to advance our understanding of the relationships between distinct forms of marital conflict and children’s adjustment, by examining the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral underlying processes. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of professor john grych for his valuable suggestions and comments in the writing of the manuscript. references achenbach, t. m. 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(1976). measuring dyadic adjustment: new scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. journal of marriage and the family, 38, 15-28. https://doi.org/10.2307/350547 stuewig, j., tangney, j. p., heigel, c., harty, l., & mccloskey, l. (2010). shaming, blaming, and maiming: functional links among the moral emotions, externalization of blame, and aggression. journal of research in personality, 44(1), 91-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2009.12.005 adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment 856 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 https://doi.org/10.1111%2f1467-8624.00600 https://doi.org/10.2307%2f1131346 http://www.afhayes.com/public/process2012.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2011.02.007 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0014972 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1469-7610.2008.01945.x https://doi.org/10.1111%2fsode.12015 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0272431608317610 https://doi.org/10.1046%2fj.1467-9507.2006.00338.x https://doi.org/10.2307%2f350547 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jrp.2009.12.005 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors elena camisasca, phd, associate professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, università telematica e-campus, novedrate, italy. she is a component of the research center for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma of the catholic university of milan. research interests: marital adjustment and marital conflict, co-parenting relationship, parenting stress, attachment and maternal mind-mindedness, child abuse and maltreatment and trauma related symptoms in childbirth. sarah miragoli, phd, is a researcher in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan. she is a component of the research center for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma of the catholic university of milan. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, trauma related symptoms, marital conflict and coparenting. paola di blasio, is a full professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of milan. she is also director of the research center for developmental and educational dynamics (c.r.i.d.e.e.) and of the research unit for the psychology of trauma of the catholic university of milan. research interests: child abuse and maltreatment, trauma related symptoms in childbirth, marital adjustment, parenting stress. camisasca, miragoli, & di blasio 857 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 843–857 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1613 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ adult vs child-related conflicts and child adjustment (introduction) method participants procedure measures data analysis strategy results descriptive and correlational analyses test of mediation discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors burnout in italian primary teachers: the predictive effects of trait emotional intelligence, trait anxiety, and job instability research reports burnout in italian primary teachers: the predictive effects of trait emotional intelligence, trait anxiety, and job instability giacomo mancini 1, consuelo mameli 1, roberta biolcati 1 [1] department of education sciences “g.m. bertin”, university of bologna, bologna, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 received: 2020-01-15 • accepted: 2021-02-22 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: giacomo mancini, department of education sciences “g.m. bertin”, university of bologna, via filippo re 6, bologna 40126, italy. tel: +390512091705. e-mail: giacomo.mancini7@unibo.it abstract burnout syndrome has recently been recognized as a public health problem, widely observed in educational settings. in this study, we aimed to examine the role played by contextual variables, including job (in)stability and teachers’ personal characteristics, in predicting factors associated with teacher burnout, using a convenience sample of 137 italian primary school teachers (94.2% female, age: m = 47.17, sd = 8.88). the findings from the hierarchical regression analyses showed that both trait emotional intelligence (ei) and trait anxiety predicted emotional exhaustion and lack of personal accomplishment in relation to work, with ei having a negative association and anxiety having a positive association with both. as for contextual variables, job instability positively predicted low personal accomplishment, whereas teachers’ working experience predicted emotional exhaustion. we discuss these results in light of the current working environment experienced by italian teachers, which includes a high percentage of fixed-term workers. moreover, we examine the implications for research and interventions related to trait ei as a protective factor that might prevent the onset of chronic professional burnout among teachers and increase teachers’ effectiveness and, therefore, pupils’ well-being, resulting in positive educational outcomes. keywords burnout syndrome, teachers’ wellbeing, trait emotional intelligence, anxiety trait, job instability in the current education environment, teachers are required not only to effectively disseminate content and knowledge but also to demonstrate mastery of extensive emotional skills (hughes, luo, kwok, & loyd, 2008); promote positive relations with pupils (mameli & molinari, 2017), including those with special educational needs; and manage relation­ ships with families, school colleagues, and the school principal. given these conditions, it is not surprising that several national and international studies have documented a worrying increase in the occurrence of burnout syndrome among teachers (aloe, shisler, norris, nickerson, & rinker, 2014; murdaca, oliva, & nuzzaci, 2014). theoretical background traditionally, burnout has been described as a complex phenomenon involving three key components (maslach, jackson, leiter, schaufeli, & schwab, 1986): emotional exhaustion refers to the feeling of being physically and emotionally overwhelmed; low personal accomplishment concerns the tendency to negatively evaluate the value of one's work, a feeling of inadequacy in one’s own professional abilities, and generalized poor professional self-esteem; and deper­ this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2685&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sonalization or cynicism indicates disengagement from and a distant attitude towards students. in general, burnout arises as a psychological response to the chronic work stress (halbesleben & demerouti, 2005; schaufeli, bakker, & van rhenen, 2009) associated with helping professions. nevertheless, in recent years, researchers have extended the association of this phenomenon to educational and teaching professions as well, based on the understanding that they are also “emotional” jobs (bhave & glomb, 2016) that constantly require the adjustment of one’s own emotions to meet pupils’/students’ learning needs. a number of studies have consistently shown that burnout is related to a broad range of negative outcomes, including depression, social withdrawal, and psychosomatic health problems (hakanen & schaufeli, 2012). it thus becomes critical to investigate which factors, both personal and contextual, could act to increase risk or protect against burnout. one line of such research is found in the theoretical framework of the job demands–resources (jd-r) model of burnout (see demerouti, bakker, de jonge, janssen, & schaufeli, 2001; hakanen, schaufeli, & ahola, 2008; schaufeli & salanova, 2014). in its original conceptualization, the jd-r model identified two broad categories of job-related characteristics as major antecedents of employees’ strain: job demands (i.e., workplace attributes related to physiological and psychological costs) and available resources (workplace features that function to assist employees in reaching work goals, diminishing job demands, and sustaining individual growth). more recently (e.g., schaufeli & taris, 2014), this model was expanded to include individual characteristics and dispositions among both personal demands (e.g., overcommitment) and resources (e.g., resiliency, self-efficacy, optimism). while a wide range of research addresses the effects of the balance between positive (resources) and negative (demands) job characteristics on employee health and well-being, only a few studies have investigated the role affective personal dispositions play in predicting different perceptions of job characteristics (lavigne, 2014; mazzetti, schaufeli, guglielmi, & depolo, 2016). starting from these considerations and based on the latest version of the jd-r model of burnout, we aim to deepen understanding of the role of both individual characteristics and job-related stressors in burnout among italian primary school teachers. we focus in particular on three dimensions: emotional intelligence (ei; which we consider an individual protective factor or resource), anxiety (which we consider an individual risk factor or demand), and job (in)stability (which can act as either a protective or a risk factor, a job demand or resource, depending on the type of teacher contract). in the following sections, we consider each of these variables in greater detail. emotional intelligence emotional jobs have been conceptualized as involving three key components (tuxford & bradley, 2015): exposure to emotionally demanding situations, emotional effort, and work focused on the emotional well-being of others. these kinds of demands require individuals to have several personal and emotional abilities, such as managing one’s own and other’s feelings and regulating emotions in interpersonal relationships, which are at the core of the ei construct. ei has recently become a crucial element in educational literature, as research has shown that it works as a protective factor supporting teachers’ mental well-being as well as teaching–learning processes (molero, ortega, jiménez, & valero, 2019). based on existing theoretical frameworks, ei might be defined as a wide array of affect-related individual differences that convey the adaptability characteristic of intelligence and the subjective experience of emotion. as highlighted by hughes and evans (2018), “ei-related characteristics can be considered constituents of existing models of cognitive abili­ ty (ability ei), personality (trait ei), and emotion regulation (ei competencies)” (p. 1). at school, teachers’ ei manifests itself when the teacher is effective in dealing with their own and pupil’s feelings and emotions, that is, they are able to understand and discriminate among different emotions and to generate and reflectively regulate affects in order to promote emotional awareness growth (mortiboys, 2013). from this perspective, teachers’ ei involves both abilities (such as perceiving, recognizing, and managing emotions) and dispositions (such as self-awareness and self-motivation) that have a central role in handling interpersonal relationships, leading the class group, and dealing with parents and colleagues. in the existing literature, ei has been operationalized according to two main theoretical frameworks, namely, the ability and trait models (see petrides, 2010). the ability model (mayer & salovey, 1997) conceives of ei as the mental ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions. the trait model (petrides et al., mancini, mameli, & biolcati 169 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2016), consistent with theoretical models that describe ei as a lower order personality construct, conceptualizes ei as a constellation of emotional perceptions and a collection of affect-related personality traits. trait ei (or emotional self-efficacy) essentially concerns individuals’ perceptions of their inner world. previous studies (for a review, see mérida-lópez & extremera, 2017) pointed out that trait ei is a relevant protective factor with respect to teachers’ burnout given its role in mitigating the impact of occupational stressors, preventing negative moods, facilitation the experience of positive emotional states, and enhancing stress resilience and well-being among teaching professionals. for instance, research focused on teacher efficacy in relation to the construct of ei (vesely, saklofske, & leschied, 2013) showed how higher levels of ei can 1) mediate stress escalation and improve teachers’ management; 2) help facilitate effective teaching and well-being; and 3) contribute to a large portion of the positive factors linked to building resilience. the protective effect of ei has been recently confirmed in highly stressful scenarios such as those connected with the current covid-19 pandemic, a disruptive event with devastating consequences for both workplaces and the global community (hu, he, & zhou, 2020). for instance, high levels of trait ei have been shown to predict a lower intensity of negative emotions (moroń & biolik-moroń, 2021). trait anxiety acting as a counterpart of ei, anxiety—a psychological and physiologic condition characterized by cognitive, somatic, emotional, and behavioral components (ahmed & westra, 2009)—has been described as a risk factor for burnout (ding, qu, yu, & wang, 2014; koutsimani, anthony, & georganta, 2019; sun, fu, chang, & wang, 2012). in fact, it may hinder the handling of an individual’s own affective reactions, as well as affective reactions in response to others, by worsening the quality of school life for teachers, pupils, and their parents. anxiety is commonly described with reference to two related constructs (turnipseed, 1998): state and trait. state anxiety corresponds to the individual’s reaction toward a situation previously evaluated as threatening, while trait anxiety refers to an individual’s proneness to anxiety, which represents a stable personality dimension. on the one hand, work-related stressors can favor anxiety symptoms or states (digiacomo & adamson, 2001). on the other, those individuals who are stably more introverted and more vulnerable to worries and overthinking are more likely to experience work-related frustration and exhaustion (maslach, schaufeli, & leiter, 2001), emotional exhaustion, and cynicism (ding et al., 2014), and high burnout levels as well (vasilopoulos, 2012). job instability apart from the individual characteristics involved in the management of emotions and therefore of burnout, teachers in schools of any level are exposed to a number of potential contextual stressors (grayson & alvarez, 2008; guglielmi & tatrow, 1998; klassen & chiu, 2010; skaalvik & skaalvik, 2017; yu, wang, zhai, dai, & yang, 2015), such as low administrative and colleague support, time pressure, lack of resources, and large class sizes. in addition to these known stressors, in recent years, another contextual factor has attracted scholars’ attention: occupational instability. in italy, like in other european countries, the austerity policies implemented following the economic crisis that started in 2008 have had an impact on the school system and its primary workers, teachers. all public administrations, schools included, have been subject to curbs on staff expenditure (pirani & salvini, 2015), with a significant decrease in recruitment and the stipulation of temporary contracts. according to a report published by istat (statistics national institute) in 2017, the rate of fixed-term jobs for teachers in public schools was estimated at 14% for the academic year 2014/2015. furthermore, in the last few years, news reports have recorded an alarming level of discontent among teach­ ers, signaled by the many protests in public squares all over italy, by teachers in precarious positions. consequently, in july 2019, the eu commission opened an infringement procedure against italy for its excessive use of fixed-term contracts in public administrations, including schools. the few existing studies on this matter (e.g., aybas, elmas, & dündar, 2015; de cuyper, & de witte, 2008; virtanen et al., 2005) suggest that fixed-term employment affects employees’ job attitudes and well-being, as job insecurity is positively associated to burnout syndrome and is a mental health issue. for example, a study by bosman, rothmann, and buitendach (2005) on a sample of employees in a government organization, showed job insecurity was positively related to burnout. despite this evidence, while contract-related stressors have been studied in particular in mental health burnout in italian primary teachers 170 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ professionals (dreison et al., 2018; lópez‐lópez et al., 2019) and more broadly, in employees (hünefeld & köper, 2016), the literature in the educational field is still limited and, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the connection between job instability and burnout in the in-service primary teacher population in contexts with high levels of temporary employment. the issue of insecure employment is not independent of the workers’ experience levels, given that less experienced and younger people are most likely to be in positions that are precarious. in italy, 78% of teachers working in public schools are between 45 and 64 years old, meaning the “teaching workforce in italy is the oldest among oecd countries” (oecd, 2019, p. 4). research has reported inconsistent results on the impact of teachers’ experience on burnout levels. some studies have indicated more experienced teachers are more at risk of burnout (kokkinos, 2007), while others found novice teachers to be more vulnerable to emotional exhaustion (boles, dean, ricks, short, & wang, 2000; gavish & friedman, 2010), and others still found no difference (mameli & molinari, 2017). method the aim of the current study was to analyze the role played by teachers’ trait ei and trait anxiety in predicting elements of teacher burnout, after controlling for job (in)stability and teaching experience. in line with the literature, we hypothesized that job instability would positively predict the burnout variables considered (aybas et al., 2015). since previous studies (boles et al., 2000; kokkinos, 2007) showed contradictory results on the association between teaching experience and burnout, no prediction was made about this point. finally, and in line with previous investigations (mérida-lópez & extremera, 2017), we predicted that teachers reporting high ei would experience low levels of burnout, while teachers reporting high anxiety would experience high levels of burnout. participants and procedures a survey was distributed to a convenient sample consisting of 137 italian teachers, mostly females (94.2%), from six primary schools located in four medium-sized towns in north eastern italy. their ages ranged between 28 and 66 (m = 47.17, sd = 8.88), while their teaching experience varied from 1 to 41 years (m = 20.15, sd = 10.51). as for their professional careers, teachers reported having worked on a fixed-term contract for 5.52 years on average (range: 0–27, sd = 4.67) and on an open-ended contract on average for 15.24 years (range: 0–37, sd = 11.05). at the time of survey administration, 36.5% (n = 50) of teachers declared they had a fixed-term contract. before teachers filled out the questionnaire, the study was presented to the school principals and teacher represen­ tatives for formal approval. the survey was available in an online and a print version (for teachers unfamiliar with computerized procedures). the items of the self-report measures were presented in the same order in both forms. in line with ethical norms set by the italian national psychological association, both these forms were preceded by an introduction illustrating the general goal of the study and emphasizing data confidentiality and anonymity. thirty-two teachers (23.4 %) filled the in paper-version of the questionnaire, while the others completed the online form. we kept the survey open for 3 weeks, allowing teachers enough time to access the survey based on their other commitments. measures demographics participants were asked to indicate the following on a sociodemographic data form: gender, age, type of employment contract, as well as their years of teaching experience. in order to investigate these last two variables, the following single-item were used: “is your employment contract open-ended or fixed-term?” and “how many years have you been working as a teacher?.” mancini, mameli, & biolcati 171 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ teacher burnout this issue was assessed using the maslach burnout inventory (mbi; maslach & jackson, 1981) in its validated italian form (sirigatti & stefanile, 1992), with specific reference to teaching professionals. the mbi consists of 22 items grouped into three scales: emotional exhaustion (nine items, e.g., “i feel emotionally drained by my work”), personal accomplishment (eight items, e.g., “i can easily create a relaxed atmosphere with my students”) and depersonalization (five items, e.g., “i feel students blame me for some of their problems”). teachers were asked to specify how often they experienced these feelings on a 7-point likert-scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (daily). for this study, cronbach’s alphas were 0.75 for both emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment, and only 0.22 for depersonalization. due to the very low internal consistency, and in line with other studies with similar findings (mameli & molinari, 2017; worley, vassar, wheeler, & barnes, 2008), we decided to remove the depersonalization scale from further analyses. trait emotional intelligence teique self-report instrument (petrides & furnham, 2004), in its shortened 30-item form (petrides, 2009), was used to measure global trait emotional intelligence (trait ei). the items in teique-sf are either positive (e.g., “expressing my emotions in words is not a problem for me”) or negative (e.g., “i often find it difficult to show my affection to those close to me”). responses to the teique-sf items are made on a 7-point likert scale (range from 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree). the total scale scoring is calculated by summing the score on each item in the scale (after reverse scoring for negative items) and is used to position respondents on the latent trait continuum: the higher the score, the higher the trait ei of the individual. the teique-short form has proved to be a useful and reliable tool also in the italian context (di fabio & palazzeschi, 2011a, 2011b), allowing us to identify the four main dimensions of the trait ei in a quick and well-defined manner. in our sample, cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.81. anxiety the 20-items trait scale of the state-trait anxiety inventory (stai—y; [51] spielberger, jacobs, russell, & crane, 1983), in its validated italian version (pedrabissi & santinello, 1996), was used to evaluate teachers’ anxiety issues. sample items for this scale are “i worry too much over something that doesn’t really matter” and “i am a level-headed person” (reversed). teachers were asked to indicate the frequency with which they experience these feelings on a 4-point likert-scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always). cronbach’s alpha for this scale was 0.92. results before testing our hypotheses, we computed descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among the variables (see table 1). table 1 descriptive statistics for and intercorrelations among the considered variables variable m sd range 1 2 3 4 1. emotional intelligence 5.19 0.56 1-7 1 2. anxiety trait 1.82 0.43 1-4 -.545** 1 3. emotional exhaustion 1.62 0.89 0-6 -.332** .432** 1 4. low personal accomplishment 1.85 0.80 0-6 -.384** .369** .153 1 **p < .01. significant, negative associations were found between ei and anxiety, emotional exhaustion and low personal accom­ plishment. significant positive correlations were also found between anxiety and emotional exhaustion and low person­ al accomplishment. burnout in italian primary teachers 172 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ two separate hierarchical linear regression analyses were then conducted to estimate the effects of teachers’ ei and anxiety on each of the two burnout dimensions, emotional exhaustion and low personal accomplishment. we checked for the effect of teaching experience and job stability by entering them as dichotomic variables1 in step 1 of the regressions. teachers’ ei and anxiety were included in the second step of each analysis. before going on with the analysis, the data were examined for outliers and for conformity with normal distribution. using boxplots, we identified two outliers on the low personal accomplishment scale. these cases have been withdrawn from the data, reducing the sample size from 137 to 135 participants. for all the variables included in our regression models, values for skewness (range: −0.119 to 0.773) and kurtosis (range: −0.513 to 0.044) were lower than |1|, which advised that the distribution of the variables was adequate for the statistical analyses. to identify potential collinearity issues between the predictors, we computed a set of variance inflation factors (vif; one for each of the two regressions). as the values of vif (range; 1.030–1.410) were lower than the conventional threshold (10), it was determined that no multicollinearity issues existed. the results of the two hierarchical regression analyses are presented in table 2. table 2 hierarchical regression analyses summary for job (in)stability, teaching experience, emotional intelligence and anxiety trait predicting emotional exhaustion and low personal accomplishment dependent variables set 1 emotional exhaustion set 2 low personal accomplishment step/predictors step 1 step 2 step 1 step 2 job (in)stability -.05 -.08 .42*** .39*** teacher experience .25** .28*** .03 .05 emotional intelligence -.18* -.23** anxiety trait .36*** .21* f .41** 13.06*** 13.77*** 15.24*** r2 .05 .27 .16 .31 ∆r2 .23*** .15*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in the first set of analyses, related to emotional exhaustion, teaching experience (β = 0.25, p < .01) inserted in step 1, explained 5% of the variance (adjusted r 2 = .05). with respect to the two variables added in step 2, ei (β = −0.18, p < .05) and trait anxiety (β = 0.36, p < .001) were both relevant predictors, in a positive and negative direction, respectively, for emotional exhaustion. overall, the variables accounted for 27% of the variance (adjusted r 2 = .27). for the second set of analyses related to low personal accomplishment, job stability (β = −0.42, p < .001), inserted in step 1, accounted for 16% of the variance (adjusted r 2 = .16). in step 2, job stability (β = −0.39, p < .001) and ei (β = −0.23, p < .01) were found to be significant negative predictors of the dependent variable, while trait anxiety (β = 0.21, p < .05) positively predicted it. a total of 31% of the variance (adjusted r 2 = .31) was accounted for by the predictor variables. discussion the goal of the present study was to examine the role played by teachers’ ei and trait anxiety in predicting elements of teacher burnout, after controlling for job (in)stability and teaching experience, in a convenience sample of primary school teachers from italy. 1) in order to dichotomize the teaching experience variables, we chose the median value of the years of teaching, which corresponded to 20. we then assigned a value of 0 to teachers with 1 to 20 years of experience (50.0%) and a value of 1 to the other teachers. for job stability, we assigned a value of 0 to teachers with a fixed-term contract and a value of 1 to those with open-ended contracts. mancini, mameli, & biolcati 173 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the findings from our descriptive and correlational analysis revealed that burnout levels reported in our sample were neither particularly high nor alarming, in line with other studies on the italian teacher population (e.g., mameli & molinari, 2017). the high score reported for trait ei is encouraging and might contribute to interpreting the low average values on elements of burnout. in fact, in view of the many demands placed on teachers (alarcon, 2011) and the well-known association between occupational stress and low job satisfaction (paulík, 2012), it is possible that trait ei contributes to supporting the development of competencies that lead to improved psychological health and job-related satisfaction. trait ei might be an essential personality construct in educational contexts because it encompasses facets (such as emotion expression, empathy, and assertiveness) that are relevant to interpersonal experience and teaching activities. therefore, high-trait ei individuals are well equipped to regulate their emotional reactions over time, manage stress, and be assertive (petrides & furnham, 2001). in addition, the negative association we found between trait ei and anxiety, which was in line with other studies (e.g., dewaele, petrides, & furnham, 2008; summerfeldt, kloosterman, antony, & parker, 2006; weaving, orgeta, orrell, & petrides, 2014), seems to corroborate what has been described in the literature, namely that trait ei, which represents a stable personality trait, has a positive effect on emotion regulation (e.g., kotsou, nelis, grégoire, & mikolajczak, 2011; laborde, brüll, weber, & anders, 2011) that is incompatible with an anxious personality. the findings from both sets of hierarchical regression analyses confirm our hypotheses, although not completely. first, as expected, job instability positively predicted low personal accomplishment (set 2 of the regression), while no association was found between this variable and emotional exhaustion. the extended periods of job insecurity that affect teachers on fixed-term contracts, combined with other emerging stress factors such as lack of career advancement opportunities and the diminished social prestige of the teaching profession, can lead to negative consequences for the individual’s perception of self-fulfillment at work. according to del valle, lópez, and bravo (2007), individuals with the lowest employment stability perceive less support from the organization and have a more negative view of the conditions in which they work. these results align with those of wade, cooley, and savicki (1986), who consider occupational instability a predictor variable of burnout. moreover, although teachers in our sample had rather high levels of seniority of service, more than a third of them declared having a fixed-term job (see participants section). even if this rate should be interpreted with caution, as our participants cannot be considered to be representative of the nationwide teaching population, it raises concerns about the italian employment situation. such a scenario could also lead to an increase in the perception of injustice and inequity among teachers in precarious positions who have not benefited, unlike others before them, from government decrees that have, in the past, allowed them to have long-term employment in schools. a second finding showed that teacher experience positively predicted emotional exhaustion. as noted in the introductory section, the relationship between teaching experience and burnout is controversial (bayram, gursakal, & bilgel, 2010; egyed, & short, 2006), so we made no assumptions about this result. our data seem to align with another european study (kokkinos, 2007), revealing a significant main effect of teaching experience on emotional exhaustion, with more experienced teachers showing greater emotional exhaustion than did novices. this is a noteworthy result as it highlights that the fatigue that can arise in working for a long time may have serious repercussions on a worker’s mental health. this finding raises concerns, especially given that italy boasts teachers with the oldest average age in europe (valle, normandeau, & gonzález, 2015). finally, and in line with the literature (frenzel et al., 2016; mérida-lópez & extremera, 2017) and in support of our third hypothesis, we found that trait ei and trait anxiety predicted emotional exhaustion and low personal accomplish­ ment, in negative and positive directions, respectively. nevertheless, our results provide important information as the strength of these associations was different for the different dimensions considered. in particular, trait anxiety was shown to be a key factor especially relative to emotional exhaustion, while trait ei was a stronger negative predictor for low personal accomplishment. these results have important implications in terms of prevention of teacher burnout. in fact, they seem to suggest that in order to prevent emotional exhaustion, risk factors such as anxiety should be addressed by providing teachers with psychological support, such as through group-based methodologies. conversely, in regard to personal accomplishment, our data pointed out a more significant role for trait ei as a protective factor. this suggests that trait ei plays a key role in personal fulfilment at work, even more than it affects exhaustion, chronic tiredness, and demotivation related to burnout. in line with research that underlines the protective effect of burnout in italian primary teachers 174 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trait ei regarding occupational stress (e.g., mikolajczak, menil, & luminet, 2007), we assume that trait ei, as a personal affective disposition concerning individual differences in emotion-related self-perceptions, such as emotion regulation, adaptability, stress management and optimism, may support teachers by mediating job instability, allowing teachers to feel sufficiently fulfilled even in the context of temporary employment. in concluding the discussion of our results, we cannot overlook the fact that our findings were taken from a sample almost entirely made up of female teachers. although this fact represents one of the limitations of this study, it also reflects the reality of the italian context. in fact, in italy, among the various public services and agencies, education has the highest percentage of female workers. as reported in the 2016–2017 national survey (miur, 2018), 96.4% of teachers in primary school are women. this gender distribution is typical of the teaching profession in italy as well as in other european countries such as lithuania (97.1%), hungary (97%), and slovenia (96.9%), while in other north europeans countries (e.g., denmark) teaching is more gender-balanced. notwithstanding these considerations, we are aware that gender distribution may have affected the results of this study, as previous studies have indicated—sometimes with mixed results—regarding gender differences relative to ei (schutte et al., 1998) and burnout in teachers (rumschlag, 2017). conclusions the findings presented in this study have some limitations, which should be taken into account when interpreting the results. the data rely on a small sample, which might not allow the results to be generalized. in particular, the sample was solely italian, limited to northern italy, and consisted only of primary school teachers. future research, conducted with larger populations of middle and high school teachers, is necessary to confirm the results of this study. second, the data are based on the participants’ perceptions, as they were collected via self-report. although the measures we used have been broadly validated and are widely used among scholars as they are considered very reliable tools, perceptions do not necessarily correspond to actual feelings and actual abilities. teachers may have underor overestimated their anxiety or trait ei. future research should use different methodologies, including observation, to assess the level of trait ei expressed in actual teaching practices. third, our study was focused on the variables that we chose to consider. we are aware that other variables might help explain and clarify the associations we found. future lines of research should focus on other job and environmental factors potentially involved in the onset of burnout. for instance, looking at the current covid-19 pandemic scenario, which puts all the school staff in a highly stressful situation, conducting research investigating strategies to avoid teacher burnout would be valuable, such as research investigating the protective role of ei against burnout. in addition, because individuals appear to respond differently to their environments, the role of personality differences should also be fully explored. for example, individual characteristics like creative thinking, openness, or the ability to produce humor might significantly and differentially affect the experience of teacher burnout. the ability to meet job demands using the internal resources of problem solving and/or creativity mitigates burnout as the consequence of job requests (derakhshanrad, piven, & zeynalzadeh, 2019). however, probst, stewart, gruys, and tierney (2007) suggested that job insecurity may have adverse effects on creativity, yet moderately beneficial effects on productivity. for these reasons, it is important to investigate more thoroughly the mutual association and influences between all these variables. finally, as burnout syndrome can decrease the quality of the education delivered by teachers, which negatively affects a school’s excellence and pupil wellbeing, future studies may use longitudinal rather than cross-sectional research designs to explore the impact of teacher stress on teacher–pupil interaction and classroom climate. moreover, intervention programs with a pre–post-test research design could be used to evaluate the benefits of trait ei training for enhancing teachers’ psychological well-being. despite these limitations, the current research emphasizes the roles of some individual (trait ei and trait anxiety) and contextual (job instability) variables as protective or vulnerability factors related to burnout in italian primary school teachers. we should bear in mind that teacher burnout is a serious condition that causes a high rate of attrition in the educa­ tional profession and negatively affects the quality of children's school experience. as for practical recommendations, mancini, mameli, & biolcati 175 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 168–180 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ combined training to control risk factors (such as excessive anxious stress) and enhance protective factors, such as trait ei, might be a promising way to support primary school teachers and reduce burnout, while improving their resilience and decreasing their stress and job dissatisfaction at the same time. along these lines, as the core factors that define teacher efficacy are part of the competencies comprising trait ei, and as emotions are enmeshed with all aspects of the teaching–learning process (pyhältö, pietarinen, & salmela-aro, 2011), training interventions specifically aimed at developing trait ei in teachers would not only have considerable benefits for all teaching staff, but they could also positively impact teacher practices in the classroom and teacher–pupil relations. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ahmed, m., & westra, h. a. 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(2015). the effect of work stress on job burnout among teachers: the mediating role of self-efficacy. social indicators research, 122(3), 701–708. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0716-5 about the authors giacomo mancini, ph.d, assistant professor at the department of education sciences, university of bologna. his research interests are addressed in particular to: emotional intelligence for individual well-being; evaluation and treatment of psychological suffering in children and adolescents. consuelo mameli, ph.d., researcher in developmental and educational psychology at the university of bologna. her research interests are focused in particular on educational quality, classroom interactions, student engagement and school well-being. roberta biolcati, associate professor at department of education sciences, university of bologna. her expertise concerns interven­ tion techniques in pathological addiction, and group psychotherapy (analytic psychodrama). burnout in italian primary teachers 180 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164408315268 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-014-0716-5 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ burnout in italian primary teachers (introduction) theoretical background emotional intelligence trait anxiety job instability method participants and procedures measures results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors work-family organizational support as a predictor of work-family conflict, enrichment, and balance: crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples research reports work-family organizational support as a predictor of work-family conflict, enrichment, and balance: crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples alessandro lo presti a, monica molino* b, federica emanuel c, alfonso landolfi a, chiara ghislieri b [a] dipartimento di psicologia, università degli studi della campania “luigi vanvitelli”, caserta, italy. [b] dipartimento di psicologia, università degli studi di torino, turin, italy. [c] dipartimento di filosofia e scienze dell’educazione, università degli studi di torino, turin, italy. abstract dual-income families are challenged by several issues in terms of conciliation between the working environment, the family context and the management of children. this paper, consistently with spillover and crossover hypotheses, aimed at examining the intermediate role of work-family balance, linking on work-family organizational support, work-to-family enrichment and conflict as predictors, and on family-life satisfaction of dual-income families’ both partners as final outcomes. it was expected that work-family organizational support would be related to lower work-to-family conflict and higher enrichment and, through them, with higher work-family balance; moreover, a positive association between work-family balance and family-life satisfaction of both partners was assumed. 390 double-income heterosexual couples participated in our study; 76.2% of the couples were parents. structural equation modelling results showed that work-family balance was negatively predicted by work-to-family conflict and positively predicted by work-to-family enrichment. furthermore, work-family organizational support positively predicted work-to-family enrichment, which also mediated its effect on work-family balance. crossover and spillover effects were also confirmed, given that positive associations between work-family balance and family-life satisfaction of both partners were found. implications for future research and organizational interventions aimed at both improving work-family balance and promoting greater satisfaction in family life are discussed. keywords: dual-income couple, work-family balance, family-life satisfaction, work-family organizational support, crossover effect, spillover effect europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 received: 2019-02-22. accepted: 2019-06-27. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: università degli studi di torino, dipartimento di psicologia, via verdi 10–10121–torino, italy. e-mail: monica.molino@unito.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. despite the persistence of the economic crisis that has severely affected many countries and caused widespread unemployment (giunchi, emanuel, chambel, & ghislieri, 2016), dual-income families are still common in contemporary europe (fahlén, 2015). this is perhaps due also to the increased participation of women in the labour market. in italy, dual income couples represent 32% of all families (instituto nazionale die statistica [istat], 2017); a rate that is growing, especially in northern and central regions. similar trends and statistics can be observed in several western countries, demonstrating how dual-income are becoming the dominant breadwinner kind of families, with predictable implications in terms of social welfare, the organization of work, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ social life and so on. according to the us bureau of labour statistics (2018), for example, from every 100 american families, 80.5% have at least one family member who is in employment and 48.3% of them are dual income households, where both partners work. with this backdrop, employees and employers are interested in measures that may promote work-family balance: employees look for organizations that can facilitate their being a member of a family where both partners work and thus have a complex series of work-family needs. employers are also aware of this social shift and the consequent needs, and respond by trying to offer better working conditions in terms of flexibility, parental and family leave, etc. typing “work-family best place to work” on the google search engine returns 128 million results, with a series of rankings within the top results: business insider, great place to work, money – time magazine, indeed.com, forbes and so on. it can be argued that organizations are nowadays increasingly conscious that fostering employees’ work-family balance may provide benefits. as a result, they publicize their change of attitude and practice, applying for rankings and legitimating themselves as work-family friendly organizations to employees, customers and suppliers. this involves offering formal work-family support and also promoting a shift in organizational culture and climate, which results also in informal work-family support. we may usually consider a wide array of options and benefits designed to alleviate the burden of managing work and family (e.g., supportive leave policies, company kindergartens, flexitime, etc.) as sitting within the label of formal work-family support. it is well known, however, that a series of “organizational phenomena that are not mandated or proscribed by formal organizational policies or programs” (behson, 2005, p. 488) can also have a fundamental role in justifying and supporting the implementation and legitimization of these benefits, namely informal work-family support. in fact, it can often be the case that official policies do not have the intended effect as they do not bring with them an equal change in organizational culture and climate (allen, 2001). to explain, employees may fear the negative repercussions associated with benefiting from these allowances (e.g., being highlighted as workers with low commitment or a lower desire for upward mobility) and, consequently, they decree their failure. one of the most popular concepts in this area is work-family culture, defined as “the shared assumptions, beliefs, and values regarding the extent to which an organization supports and values the integration of employee’s work and family lives” (thompson, beauvais, & lyness, 1999, p. 394). in this analysis, thompson et al. (1999) outlined three main factors of work-family culture: work-family organizational support (henceforth wfos), career consequences related to the use of work-family programs and working time expectations hindering the fulfilment of the family role. among them, the most prominent is wfos, which is the extent to which employees perceive their managers and the organization as being supportive in helping them find a balance between work and family domains. wfos has been extensively linked with reducing work-family conflict (mauno, 2010; mauno, kinnunen, & pyykkö, 2005) and increasing work-family enrichment (lo presti & mauno, 2016; peeters, wattez, demerouti, & de regt, 2009), while its association with work-family balance has received less empirical attention (carlson, grzywacz, & zivnuska, 2009). work-family balance can be considered a novel variable in the work-family research field that is clearly distinct from conflict and enrichment. it is increasingly used in research on work-family interface and requires further attention and empirical investigation (grzywacz & carlson, 2007; orkibi & brandt, 2015). lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 63 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ starting from these considerations and building on the spillover-crossover model (scm; bakker & demerouti, 2013), the present paper aims at examining the intermediate role of work-family balance. it links wfos, workto-family enrichment and conflict as predictors on one side, and the family-life satisfaction of dual-income families’ partners as final outcomes on the other side. it is predicted that wfos will be related to lower work-tofamily conflict and higher enrichment and, through them, to higher work-family balance; this latter will finally lead to higher family-life satisfaction for both partners. thus, this paper addresses four main shortcomings in current literature: a) it examines the role of wfos as a job resource that can impact on both work-family conflict and enrichment, b) it disentangles the differential effects of conflict, enrichment, and balance on family-life satisfaction, c) it examines the relationship between work-family balance and family-life satisfaction of both partners of dual-income families and d) it tests the scm in the italian context, also integrating the concept of work-family balance. from a practical standpoint, organizational interventions aimed at fostering wfos (e.g., training supervisors to be sensitive to their subordinates’ needs) and developing work-family balance (e.g., training employees to improve their ability to balance work and familial demands and responsibilities) could also improve satisfaction with family life. theoretical foundation according to grzywacz and carlson’s (2007) definition, work-family balance is the “accomplishment of role-related expectations that are negotiated and shared between an individual and his/her role-related partners in the work and family domains” (p. 458). later, several scholars called for a differentiation between this construct and both work-family enrichment and conflict; grawitch, maloney, barber, and mooshegian (2013) stated that workfamily balance is “distinct from conflict and facilitation [i.e., enrichment], as it is concerned with global perceptions of how one is allocating resources among domains rather than how domains are conflicting with or facilitating each other” (p. 277). additionally, casper, vaziri, wayne, dehauw, and greenhaus (2018) argued that “our findings and other recent evidence […] suggest that balance is distinct from conflict and enrichment, but how these variables relate to each other is not well-understood” (p. 201). they also called for further research in order to differentiate these constructs. work-family conflict is considered “a form of inter-role conflict in which the demands of work and family roles are incompatible in some respect so that participation in either the work or family role is more difficult because of participation in the other role” (greenhaus & beutell, 1985, p. 77), while work-family enrichment is considered “the extent to which experience in one role improves the quality of the life in the other role” (greenhaus & powell, 2006, p. 73). the present study builds on the scm of bakker and demerouti (2013) to explain the complex interplay between wfos (i.e., a job resource) and work-family conflict and enrichment in terms of the family-life satisfaction of both the focal person (i.e., the spillover effect) and his/her partner (i.e., the crossover effect). this is done through the mediation of work-family balance. the spillover theory can be traced back to about 40 years ago, when kanter (1977) argued that “occupations contain an emotional climate as well that can be transferred to family life. a person’s work and relative placement in an organization can arouse a set of feelings that are brought home and affect the tenor and dynamics of family life” (p. 47). as for crossover, westman (2001) defined it as “the reaction of individuals to the job stress experienced by those with whom they interact regularly” (p. 717). it has been mainly studied with refercrossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 64 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ence to work-family interference to understand how experiences lived in the work and family domains “cross over” from a person to his/her partner (parasuraman & greenhaus, 2002). more recently, the scm (bakker & demerouti, 2013) combined both the spillover and crossover theories, proposing that work-related experiences first spill over to the home domain, and then cross over to the partner through social interaction. the scm is based upon the job demands-resources model (bakker & demerouti, 2008) which proposed that every job may be described in terms of working conditions, namely job demands and job resources. according to the scm’s spillover mechanisms, while job demands are hypothesized to spill over into the home domain resulting in higher work-family conflict, job resources should enable higher workfamily enrichment. in terms of scm’s crossover mechanisms, it is expected that an individual’s positive or negative experience will cross over to her/his spouse both directly (i.e., emotional contagion) and indirectly (i.e., by interpersonal exchange). we propose that work-family balance, as defined by grzywacz and carlson (2007), can be considered to be a proxy of interpersonal exchange. this was also theorized by bakker and demerouti (2013), as it emphasizes the accomplishment of role-related expectations between the couple’s partners. this is consistent with authors (casper et al., 2018) who stressed the relational component of grzywacz and carlson’s (2007) work-family balance definition, in opposition to others (valcour, 2007). study hypotheses as for the interplay between work-family enrichment, conflict and balance, carlson et al. (2009) believed this latter variable to be more global in perspective than conflict and enrichment. greenhaus and allen (2011) suggested that while work-family conflict and enrichment are linking mechanisms that specify how one role affects another, work-family balance reflects an overall, holistic appraisal. later, casper et al. (2018) argued that workfamily “balance measures are empirically distinct from and predict job and family variables above conflict and enrichment” (p. 197), thus suggesting that differentiating balance from conflict and enrichment is worthwhile. as for empirical evidence, carlson et al. (2009) research on work-family balance showed a positive association with work-family enrichment and a negative one (albeit weaker) with work-family conflict. greenhaus, ziegert, and allen (2012) observed that work-family balance was negatively associated with work-family interference and later, grawitch et al. (2013) found that work-family balance was predicted by both work-life conflict and enrichment. it appears that facing difficulty in meeting the demands of one role (e.g., family) because of the conflict (i.e., work-family conflict) deriving from the demands of the other role (e.g., work) could impair the ability to accomplish role-related expectations and thus work-family balance; from a complementary point of view, the improvement (i.e., work-family enrichment) of the quality of life in one role (e.g., family) in consequence of experiences in the other role (e.g., work) might have a beneficial influence on work-family balance. based on the above-mentioned considerations and evidence, it is expected that: h1a: work-to-family conflict will be negatively associated with work-family balance. h1b: work-to-family enrichment will be positively associated with work-family balance. as anticipated earlier, it is possible that other factors apart from work-to-family conflict and enrichment may affect work-family balance (carlson et al., 2009). among job resources, a preeminent role can be attributed to wfos. consistently with hypotheses 1 and 2, we suppose that wfos will have a positive relationship with work-family balance, mediated by work-to-family enrichment and conflict. in detail, in previous studies (e.g., carlson & perrewé, 1999; cohen & wills, 1985; seiger & wiese, 2009), social support from different sources, lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 65 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ including from organizations and supervisors, showed a positive association with work-family conflict. however, a meta-analytic review (michel, kortba, mitchelson, clark, & baltes, 2011) demonstrated that social support received in both work and family domains had a negative association with work-to-family conflict. other researchers (frone, yardley, & markel, 1997; glass & estes, 1997; greenhaus & beutell, 1985; greenhaus & parasuraman, 1999) examined the association between social support and work-family conflict, considering it to be an important antecedent of both family-to-work and work-to-family conflict. it was also found that support from supervisors and co-workers could decrease work-family conflict (bellavia & frone, 2005). in recent years, kossek, pichler, bodner, and hammer (2011) and selvarajan, cloninger, and singh (2013) found that workplace social support was significantly negatively associated with work-to-family conflict. summing up, consistent with the scm positive spillover hypothesis, it can be expected that wfos will diminish work-family conflict. this will occur because the availability of informal work-family support from co-workers, supervisors and the organization could be helpful in either removing or coping with potential job aspects that are detrimental to the individual’s work-family interface. accordingly, we expect the following: h2a: wfos will be negatively associated with work-to-family conflict. evidence about the association between wfos and work-family enrichment is sparse compared to that pertaining to work-family conflict. peeters et al. (2009) found a positive relationship between work-to-family enrichment and work-family culture and a mediation of work-to-family enrichment in the relationship between work engagement and burnout. later, lo presti and mauno (2016) found that wfos positively predicted work-tofamily enrichment, over and above work-family barriers (i.e., the negative side of work-family culture). from a theoretical point of view, wfos can be considered as a specific form of organizational support (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002). it is well-known that when people feel supported by their organizations, they tend to maximize resources at work (rhoades & eisenberger, 2002) which, in turn, may have positive effects on their private and family lives. put differently, people who perceive a higher wfos will be more likely to bring positive resources obtained in the work domain to their family life. a higher wfos allows individuals to feel that their socio-emotional needs are satisfied in their job role resulting in a higher performance and better mutual behaviour (i.e., expansion hypothesis; marks, 1977). this positive psychological experience may then be applied to family life (i.e., work-to-family enrichment). thus, consistent with the scm positive spillover hypothesis, it is expected that the availability of family-friendly informal support within an organization could provide the individual with a greater number of resources that, in turn, can be transferred from the work to the family domain: h2b: wfos will be positively associated with work-to-family enrichment. ferguson, carlson, zivnuska, and whitten (2012) argued that “very little is known about the role of social support in relation to work-family balance and the accomplishment of role-related expectations that it embodies” (p. 300). later in their study, they observed a positive relationship between co-worker social support and work-family balance. additionally, greenhaus et al. (2012) hypothesized that work-family interference (i.e., a concept similar to work-family conflict) would mediate the relationship between family-supportive supervision and workfamily balance, finding a total mediation. later, talukder, vickers, and khan (2018) found that among different types of support offered in a job, having empathic supervisors (i.e., accommodating, able to listen to employees and be sensitive to their personal and family needs) may play an important role in helping employees achieve a better work-life balance. summing up, we can argue that work-family sensitive sources of social support are beneficial in integrating work and family roles. this is also consistent with the scm which stated that the effects from job resources and demands on interpersonal exchange (i.e., work-family balance) would be mediated by crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 66 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work-family conflict and enrichment. taking into consideration what was discussed in relation to hypotheses 1 and 2, we can also hypothesize that: h3a: wfos will be positively associated with work-family balance. h3b: the association between wfos and work-family balance will be mediated by work-to-family conflict. h3c: the association between wfos and work-family balance will be mediated by work-to-family enrichment. as stated above, the experience of wfos will result in increased work-family balance through the joint processes of increased work-to-family enrichment and reduced work-to-family conflict. therefore, individuals will encounter more positive experiences and feel more stimulated and inspired at work. probably, reflecting the scm, they will also continue to enjoy the resources and benefits acquired after returning home (i.e., the spillover hypothesis), displaying greater happiness, enthusiasm and confidence in interacting with their partner and children. this could in turn increase family satisfaction and consequently (according to the crossover hypothesis) partner’s satisfaction. regarding available evidence about spillover effects, several scholars reported significant associations between work-family balance and improved marital and family satisfaction levels (allen, herst, bruck, & sutton, 2000). this in turn resulted in improved family performance (frone et al., 1997). milkie and peltola (1999) found a positive association between work-family balance and conjugal happiness and even with a more balanced distribution of domestic work. similar results have been found by clarke, koch, and hill (2004) who reported that a greater balance between work and family resulted in improved marital satisfaction and time spent in domestic activities. therefore, considering these results and this theory, we hypothesize that higher levels of balance between work and family domains could have an association with positive outcomes in family life. therefore: h4a: work-family balance will be positively associated with the focal person’s family-life satisfaction. h4b: the association between wfos and the focal person’s family-life satisfaction will be mediated by work-family balance. as for crossover effects, though previous cross-sectional studies examined the crossover of life satisfaction (demerouti, bakker, & schaufeli, 2005), most of them have focused on negative experiences, neglecting the positive side of work-family balance crossover. some scholars have found that positive experiences such as life satisfaction or happiness can be exchanged between partners (demerouti et al., 2005; rodríguez-muñoz, sanz-vergel, demerouti, & bakker, 2014) and emotional contagion literature has been used to explain the crossover of positive feelings (sanz-vergel & rodríguez-muñoz, 2013). more recently, ferguson et al. (2012) discovered a positive association between work-family balance and the partners’ family satisfaction levels. according to the scm, the improvement of interpersonal exchange, proven by the ability to accomplish role-related expectations by the focal-person (i.e., work-family balance), could foster positive reactions and attitudes in his/her spouse, resulting in heightened family-life satisfaction. based on extant literature, we hypothesize that: h5a: work-family balance will be positively associated with partner’s family-life satisfaction. h5b: the association between wfos and partner’s family-life satisfaction will be mediated by workfamily balance. lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 67 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 depicts the theoretical model and study hypotheses. figure 1. research model (dotted lines = mediation). method participants a total of 390 heterosexual dual-income couples participated in our study. the focal persons’ mean age was 43 years (sd = 9.39), with the range being between 25 and 67 years (partners’ ages were not considered). among focal persons, 216 (55.4%) were female and 174 (44.6%) were male. regarding the educational levels of focal persons, 32 (8.2%) held an elementary/junior high school certificate, 169 (43.3%) a high school diploma and 189 (48.5%) a university degree or higher. as for their partners, 51 (13.1%) held an elementary/junior high school qualification, 207 (53.1%) a high school diploma and 132 (33.8%) a university degree or higher. regarding the employment statuses of focal persons, 337 (86.4%) held a permanent contract, 42 (10.8%) a temporary one, 10 (2.6%) held other statuses (e.g., freelance; 1 missing value equalling 0.3%). as for their partners, 242 (62.5%) held a permanent contract, 86 (22.1%) a temporary one, 50 (12.8%) had other statuses (e.g., self-employed; and 12 had a missing value equating to 2.6%). as for the 390 couples, 297 of them (76.2%) were also parents. the average number of children was 1.91 (sd = 0.78) with number of children ranging from 0 to 5. a total of 157 couples (40.5%) had both members with an elementary/junior high school qualification or high school diploma, 87 couples (22.3%) had the focal person with a university degree or higher and his/her partner with a lower level of education, 43 couples (11.0%) had the focal person with an elementary/junior high school qualification or high school diploma and his/her partner with a university degree or higher, 86 couples (22.1%) had both members with a university degree or higher, 16 couples (4.1%) indicated other educational levels or missing data. in 218 couples (67.3%) both members had a permanent contract, in 73 couples (22.5%) the focal person had a permanent contract and his/her partner another contract, 21 couples (6.5%) had the focal person with a not-permanent contract and his/her partner with a permanent one, and in 12 couples (3.7%) both members had another type of contract. crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 68 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure this study used a self-report questionnaire to involve human beings in a research project conducted in line with the rules of the national law on data handling followed by the university of campania and the university of turin (italy). participants were all healthy adult subjects who participated anonymously and the procedure did not involve medical treatment nor cause any kind of discomfort; therefore, further ethical consent was not required, according to the institutions. the helsinki declaration (world medical association, 2001) and the italian laws of data protection (legislative decree no. 196/2003) were adhered to in this research. involvement in the research was anonymous, voluntary and not rewarded. information about the study aims, anonymity, voluntary participation and the treatment of data was provided along with instructions for filling out the questionnaire. when agreeing to fill out the questionnaire, all study participants provided their informed consent. participants were contacted within participant organizations by trained researchers. once availability to participate was obtained, participants received an envelope containing the questionnaire. it consisted of several sections where the final one was reserved for the focal person’s spouse. s a letter of presentation and instructions for both partners were also included; they were asked to fill in those sections dedicated to them separately, without making any interpersonal comparisons. once the questionnaire was filled in, participants were asked to seal and return the envelope to the trained researchers either directly or indirectly through sealed urns left within organizations. measures for focal persons work-family organizational support work-family organizational support (wfos; thompson et al., 1999; italian version by lo presti, spagnoli, ghislieri, & pluviano, 2017) refers on the perceived easiness and supportiveness of balancing work and family within the organization, managerial empathy toward employees’ conciliation needs, etc. it included nine items (e.g., “higher management in this organization encourages supervisors to be sensitive to employees’ family and personal concerns”). participants used a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 = completely false to 5 = completely true. cronbach alpha in this study was .86. scores ranged between 1 and 5. work-to-family conflict work-to-family conflict (netemeyer, boles, & mcmurrian, 1996; italian version by colombo & ghislieri, 2008) measured how often the fulfillment of the work role interferes with the fulfillment of the family role using five items (e.g., “due to work-related duties, i have to make changes to my plans for family activities”) with a frequency scale from 1 = never to 6 = always. cronbach alpha was .90. scores ranged between 1 and 6. work-to-family enrichment work-to-family enrichment (carlson, kacmar, wayne, & grzywacz, 2006; italian short version by ghislieri, martini, gatti, & colombo, 2011) measured the improvement of family life quality because of experiences in the work life through three items (e.g., “at work i feel positive emotions and this helps me to be a better family member”) with a 5-point scale from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree. cronbach alpha was .92. scores ranged between 1 and 5. lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 69 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work-family balance work-family balance (carlson et al., 2009) comprised six items (e.g., “i am able to accomplish the expectations that my supervisors and my family have for me”) with a 5-point likert scale from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree in order to detect how much a person is able to meet role-related expectations in both the work and family spheres. cronbach alpha was .94. scores ranged between 1 and 5. measures for focal persons and their partners family-life satisfaction family-life satisfaction (adapted from the satisfaction with life scale, kobau, sniezek, zack, lucas, & burns, 2010) measured how much the respondent is satisfied with his/her own family life using five items (e.g., “in most ways my family life is close to my ideal”) with a 7-point likert scale from 1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree. cronbach alpha was .94 for focal persons and .93 for their partners. scores ranged between 1 and 7. control variables focal person’s sex, number of children and employment contract for both the focal person and his/her partner were inserted as control variables. data analysis missing values (0.35%) were replaced from expectation-maximization technique. descriptive statistics and correlations were calculated through ibm spss 24 in order to investigate associations between variables. measurement and structural equation models were analyzed through lisrel 9.3; the method of estimation was maximum likelihood. we applied the item parceling technique to create parcels of items belonging to a same variable (little, cunningham, shahar, & widaman, 2002). item parceling was applied to all constructs (statistics are available under request from the first author): work-family organizational support (3 parcels for 9 items), work-to-family conflict (3 parcels for 5 items), work-to-family enrichment (3 parcels for 3 items), work-family balance (3 parcels for 6 items), satisfaction with family life (3 parcels for 5 items), and partner’s satisfaction with family life (3 parcels for 5 items). as for goodness-of-fit indices, we referred to chi square difference test to assess differences between nested models; moreover, according to literature (cudeck & browne, 1993; hooper, coughlan, & mullen, 2008; hoyle, 1995; hu & bentler, 1999) we considered the comparative fit index (cfi), the goodness of fit index (gfi), the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). since we used a self-report questionnaire, we addressed response and common method biases following suggestions by podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, and podsakoff (2003). hence, into the questionnaire scales were graphically separated from each other and items were randomly inserted; furthermore, in order to reduce commonalities and anchoring effect biases, we measured predictor and criterion variables using different scale endpoints and formats. crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 70 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results table 1 shows results of descriptive and correlation analyses. table 1 descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. sexa 2. number of children 1.46 1.06 -.10 3. employment contractb -.15** .24*** 4. partner’s employment contractb .17** .03 -.08 5. work-family organizational support 2.94 0.75 .01 -.06 -.13* .00 6. work-to-family conflict 2.87 1.18 -.02 -.02 .01 .00 -.08 7. work-to-family enrichment 3.27 1.15 .01 -.03 -.10 -.07 .51*** .02 8. work-family balance 3.77 0.94 .02 -.09 -.05 .01 .48*** -.11* .54*** 9. family-life satisfaction 4.93 1.53 .01 .05 .00 .03 .38*** -.21*** .36*** .60*** 10. partner’s family-life satisfaction 5.10 1.43 -.00 .09 -.00 .05 .30*** -.13** .28*** .50*** .73*** a1 = woman, 0 = man. b1 = permanent, 0 = not permanent. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. work-family organizational support showed a positive correlation with work-to-family enrichment (r = .51, p < .001), work-family balance (r = .48, p < .001), family-life satisfaction (r = .38, p < .001), and partner’s familylife satisfaction (r = .30, p < .001). work-to-family conflict showed a negative correlation with work-family balance (r = -.11, p < .05), family-life satisfaction (r = -.21, p < .001), and partner’s family-life satisfaction (r = -.13, p < .01). work-to-family enrichment showed a positive correlation with work-family balance (r = .54, p < .001), family-life satisfaction (r = .36, p < .001), and partner’s family-life satisfaction (r = .28, p < .001). work-family balance showed a positive correlation with family-life satisfaction (r = .60, p < .001), and partner’s family-life satisfaction (r = .50, p < .001). finally, family-life satisfaction positively correlated with partner’s family-life satisfaction (r = .73, p < .001). as for control variables, being a woman meant a lower likelihood of having a permanent employment contract (r = -.15, p < .01) and a higher likelihood of having a partner with a permanent contract (r = .17, p < .01). the number of children positively correlated with permanent employment contract (r = .24, p < .001), thus implying that permanent employees have a higher likelihood of having more children. being a permanent employee showed a weak negative correlation with work-family organizational support (r = -.13, p < .05). control variables did not show any other correlation with study variables, thus we did not consider them in further analysis. after controlling for parcels’ normality, checking whether kurtosis and skewness values were lower than ± 1.96 (schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2006), we used confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) to test the construct validity of all measures. we compared different nested models, where the first one was the one-factor model and the final one was the model with one factor for each study measure (in our case six factors). chi square/degrees of freedom values and other goodness of fit indices were used to compare the different solutions. the three measurement models tested were: a one-factor model (m1), a three-factor model (m2: work-family organizational support, the three mediators as a whole factor, the two outcomes as a whole factor), and a sixlo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 71 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor model (m3: encompassing the six study variables as separate factors). table 2 shows fit indexes of each model. table 2 competing measurement models model χ2(df) cfi gfi srmr rmsea m1 3538.9 (135) .46 .43 .17 .25 m2 2390.25 (135) .64 .58 .28 .21 m3 364.96 (120) .96 .90 .04 .07 a remarkable improvement of all goodness of fit indexes can be observed between m1 and m2, and between m2 and m3. in particular, m3 showed satisfactory goodness of fit indexes (χ2 = 364.96, df = 120, cfi = .96, gfi = .90, srmr = .04, rmsea = .07) providing support for construct validity of all six study variables. then we tested the hypothesized relationships through a structural model: two direct links from work-family organizational support to work-to-family enrichment and work-to-family conflict, two links from these two latter variables on one side, and work-family balance on the other, one link from work-family organizational support to work-family balance, and finally two links from work-family balance to family-life satisfaction and to partners’ family-life satisfaction as outcome variables. this model, depicted in figure 2, showed adequate goodness of fit indexes: χ2 = 383.63, df = 127, cfi = .96, gfi = .90, srmr = .05, rmsea = .07. figure 2. structural model (standardized coefficients). *p < .05. ***p < .001. work-family organizational support positively predicted work-to-family enrichment (β = .60, p < .001) and workfamily balance (β = .30, p < .001). its negative relationship with work-to-family conflict was not significant (β = -.10). work-family balance was negatively predicted by work-to-family conflict (β = -.12, p < .05) and positively by work-to-family enrichment (β = .40, p < .001). a significant indirect effect of work-family organizational support (β = .25, p < .001) towards work-family balance through work-to-family enrichment was present. moreover, work-family balance positively predicted both focal person’s (β = .63, p < .001) and partner’s family-life satisfaction (β = .52, p < .001). again, significant indirect effects of work-family organizational support towards focal person’s (β = .34, p < .001) and partner’s family-life satisfaction (β = .28, p < .001) through work-family balance were present. a significant positive correlation (r = .63, p < .001) between the two outcomes emerged. finally, crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 72 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while the indirect effects from work-to-family conflict to the outcomes through work-family balance were not significant, significant indirect effects from work-to-family enrichment to both focal person’s (β = .25, p < .001) and partner’s family-life satisfaction (β = .21, p < .01) were present. explained variances for study variables were as follows: work-to-family conflict = 0.01, ns; work-to-family enrichment = 0.36, p < .001; work-family balance = 0.42, p < .001; focal person’s family-life satisfaction = 0.39, p < .001; partner’s family-life satisfaction = 0.27, p < .001. discussion the present paper, supported by spillover and crossover theories, investigated the intermediate role of workfamily balance between wfos, work-to-family enrichment and work-to-family conflict on the one side, and both partners’ family-life satisfaction, on the other. it contributed to the literature in different ways. in particular, it a) examined the role of wfos, an organizational resource, in increasing work-family balance through the mediation of work-family enrichment and conflict; b) provided further evidence of the association between work-family enrichment, conflict and balance, investigating their differing effects on family-life satisfaction; c) analysed the relationship between work-family balance and the family-life satisfaction of both partners of dual-income families; d) tested the scm, integrating the concept of work-family balance as an interpersonal exchange factor within the model. hypothesis 1 stated that a) work-to-family conflict would be negatively associated with work-family balance and b) work-to-family enrichment would be positively associated with work-family balance. both hypotheses were confirmed, although, in accordance with the literature (carlson et al., 2009), the association was stronger for work-to-family enrichment. therefore, the study sustained evidence formerly presented in the literature (carlson et al., 2009; casper et al., 2018; greenhaus & allen, 2011) about the difference between work-family balance and the other two variables. it also highlighted the role of work-to-family enrichment and conflict as being determinants of work-family balance (grawitch et al., 2013). consistent with carlson and colleagues (2009), work-family balance is achievable despite experiences of work-to-family conflict. our results suggested that conflict between demands from the two roles, i.e. work and family, may decrease an individual’s ability to accomplish socially negotiated role-related responsibilities and expectations from the two sides. yet this ability may be improved by the enrichment process, according to which positive experiences in one role, i.e., work, may increase the quality of life in the other, i.e., family. these findings highlighted how important promoting work-to-family enrichment is, as well as preventing and addressing work-to-family conflict, in supporting employees’ positive chances of meeting the requirements of both roles. hypothesis 2 introduced the organizational factor wfos as a job resource, in order to investigate its association with both a) work-to-family conflict and b) work-to-family enrichment. despite evidence suggesting a negative association between workplace social support and work-to-family conflict (e.g., bellavia & frone, 2005; ghislieri, gatti, molino, & cortese, 2017; michel et al., 2011), the present study did not confirm this association; thus, hypothesis 2a was rejected. thus, wfos, which represents the perception that managers and the organization are sensitive and supportive of employees’ need to balance work and family roles, does not seem effective enough to resolve the perception of incompatibility between family and work roles. it is necessary to investigate this relationship in order to understand whether more concrete work-family solutions are needed to delo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 73 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ crease work-family conflict. in that sense, the role of colleagues should also be considered, since concerns about their potential resentment, the so called ‘work-family backlash’ (ghislieri et al., 2017; young, 1999), could prevent a person from fully benefitting from organizational and supervisory support. on the other hand, according to the scm, hypothesis 2b was confirmed, since a strong positive association between wfos and work-tofamily enrichment emerged. support from the organization and supervisors can potentially improve the quality of work experience, in turn fostering work-to-family enrichment. hypothesis 3a suggested there would be a positive direct association between wfos and work-family balance and the results supported this, confirming a positive relationship between social support and work-family balance (ferguson et al., 2012). moreover, a mediational role, suggested by the scm, of both 3b) work-to-family conflict and 3c) work-to-family enrichment between wfos (a job resource) and work-family balance (interpersonal exchange factor) was hypothesized. consistent with indirect effects results and taking into consideration discussion of previous hypotheses, we can reject hypothesis 3b and confirm 3c. in other words, wfos has the potential to foster work-family balance directly as well as through work-to-family enrichment as a mediator. the positive association between work-family support received from the organization and the accomplishment of role-related responsibilities and expectations in the family and work domains can be considered an original contribution of this paper to work-family literature and, particularly, to the scm. this contribution is worth addressing through interventions that will be discussed later. hypothesis 4a stated that work-family balance would be positively associated with the focal person’s family-life satisfaction and results confirmed that finding a balance between family and work roles may foster satisfaction with family-life. this supports previous studies that highlighted a similar pattern with different outcomes, such as conjugal happiness (milkie & peltola, 1999), marital satisfaction and time being invested in domestic chores and activities (clarke et al., 2004). hypothesis 4b, which investigated whether work-family balance could mediate the association between wfos and family-life satisfaction, was also confirmed, supporting the spillover effect that was hypothesized in this study. finally, hypothesis 5 considered the crossover effect, considering the partner’s family-life satisfaction as an outcome. particularly, hypothesis 5a suggested there would be a positive association between work-family balance and the partner’s family-life satisfaction and hypothesis 5b introduced the intermediate role of work-family balance as a mediator between wfos and the partner’s family-life satisfaction. the results confirmed both hypotheses supporting spillover-crossover effects that were assumed in this study. these findings provided evidence that the improvement of interpersonal exchange, as confirmed by the ability to accomplish role-related expectations by the focal-person, may crossover to the partner. this may result in greater satisfaction with his/her family-life, mediating the association of organizational support, as suggested by the scm. limitations and future studies among the limitations of this study, the first to be mentioned pertains to the cross-sectional design, which did not permit to infer cause-effect relationships between variables (podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012). given the nature of the study’s hypotheses, future research should be carried out through longitudinal or diary approaches. thus, relationships between considered constructs and influences over time could be further investigated, potentially providing stronger support for spillover and crossover effects. regarding data, one strength of the study is that it involved both family partners; nevertheless, it used uniquely self-reporting data, crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples 74 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ raising the possibility that common method bias might have influenced results (conway, 2002). future studies might also include other-reported data, for instance supervisors or colleagues’ reports or cross-evaluations from partners. moreover, objective data should also be considered, such as information about work-family policies and strategies adopted within organizations. another main limitation pertains to the convenience sampling procedure, since it precludes the generalizability of the results. however, it must be noted that no differences have been found comparing studies in the workfamily field whose samples had been collected differently (frone, 2003), and that convenience sampling is adequate when the aim is to obtain higher heterogeneity (landers & behrend, 2015). moreover, the study involved only inter-gender couples, excluding same-gender ones. research within specific organizational contexts or sectors would also be helpful to better understand dynamics related to work-family organizational support. the procedure itself might also present some limitations; despite the fact we provided instructions that requested each partner to fill out the questionnaire separately, we were unable to control or monitor if, or to what extent these instructions were adhered to. additionally, although our sample may appear unbalanced with respect to the employment contract distribution given the higher percentage of permanent employees, it must be noted that it is consistent with the more general italian situation (82.98%; instituto nazionale die statistica [istat], 2019). regarding study hypotheses, in future research, the crossover effect of family to the work domain (lo presti et al., 2016) could also be considered. thus, it could be verified whether stressors experienced by one individual in the family domain may crossover to the work domain of his/her partner (mauno & kinnunen, 1999). moreover, qualitative research in the field of crossover literature could support the understanding of the dynamics of transfer from one partner to the other. conclusions and practical implications despite its limitations, this study contributed to work-family literature and may provide indications for organizational interventions. first, findings highlighted the role a supportive work-family culture plays in improving employees’ abilities to balance family and work domains and in enhancing the quality of their, and their partners’, family life. informal and formal work-family balance strategies, interventions and policies should be developed within organizations, with constant monitoring of their impact, efficacy and effectiveness (carlson et al., 2009). among formal policies, organizations could consider flexible work designs (hoeven & zoonen, 2015) and welfare initiatives to facilitate daily administration. supervisors and colleagues may thrive through informal support. with this in mind, organizations could provide training opportunities to employees, particularly supervisors. these could improve knowledge of the positive implications of a family-supportive culture and highlight best practices to foster it. as the study showed, a good work-family balance may also positively relate to the family life satisfaction of both partners. as a result, managers and executives should create an environment that helps employees to achieve this balance, reducing conflict and enhancing enrichment. as for the promotion of work-family enrichment, it appears fundamental to encourage employees’ professional development through training, tutoring and mentorship in order to foster the development of resources and competencies that can be used in the family domain as well. finally, knowledge on crossover between partners may be used to support both employees and organizations (bakker, demerouti, & schaufeli, 2005). in particular, employees could develop a better awareness about their lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 75 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ own and their partners’ feelings, attitudes and perceptions regarding the intertwining of work and family lives. this knowledge could then be used to address the potential needs of the couples. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references allen, t. d. 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(1999). work–family backlash: begging the question, what’s fair? the annals of the american academy of political and social science, 562(1), 32-46. https://doi.org/10.1177/000271629956200103 about the authors alessandro lo presti (ph.d.) is associate professor of work and organizational psychology at the department of psychology, university of campania “luigi vanvitelli” (italy). his research interests include: employability, protean and boundaryless career attitudes, work-family conciliation, job insecurity. monica molino (ph.d.) is research fellow and adjunct professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research area is work and organizational psychology and her interests particularly include: well-being at work, work-family interface, workaholism, technology use, entrepreneurship. federica emanuel (ph.d.) is research fellow at the department of philosophy and education sciences, university of turin (italy). her research interests particularly include: well-being at work, work-family interface, soft skills for employability, instructional and faculty development. alfonso landolfi (m.a.), chartered psychologist and psychotherapist, is ph.d. student at the university of campania “luigi vanvitelli” (italy) where he studies work-family conciliation. chiara ghislieri (ph.d.) is associate professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research interests particularly include: gender perspective in work and organizational psychology, work-family conflict and enrichment, job insecurity and wellbeing, vocational guidance and adult training. lo presti, molino, emanuel et al. 81 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 62–81 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1931 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0018726701546002 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f000271629956200103 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ crossover and spillover effects in dual-income couples (introduction) theoretical foundation study hypotheses method participants procedure measures for focal persons measures for focal persons and their partners control variables data analysis results discussion limitations and future studies conclusions and practical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors understanding support for european integration across generations: a study guided by the theory of planned behavior research reports understanding support for european integration across generations: a study guided by the theory of planned behavior francesco la barbera* a, icek ajzen b [a] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] department of psychological and brain sciences, university of massachusetts amherst, amherst, ma, usa. abstract recent events, such as failed constitutional referenda, low voting turnout in the european union parliamentary elections, and the 2016 brexit referendum in the united kingdom call for a better understanding of people’s voting behavior in relation to the eu. the current study is the first attempt to use the theory of planned behavior to explore the antecedents of voting for eu integration in an italian convenience sample (n = 441) of varying age. a structural equation model of voting intentions showed an excellent fit to the data, both for the whole sample and for subsamples of young vs. old participants. perceived behavioral control, mainly determined by participants’ beliefs about the difficulties of exerting direct democratic control through citizenship and voting, had a significant effect on intentions to vote in favor of eu integration across age groups. in addition, older people’s intentions were also affected by their attitude towards eu integration, based primarily on their beliefs about losing national identity. keywords: theory of planned behavior, european studies, voting behavior, cohort differences, moderation analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 received: 2018-12-10. accepted: 2019-10-03. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: michael bosnjak, zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, trier, germany *corresponding author at: department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, via rodinò 22, 80138 napoli, italy. e-mail: francesco.labarbera@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the course of the past two decades, the threat of terrorism, a deep economic recession, austerity measures, and mass migration have laid bare deep rifts among countries in the european union (eu), rifts that threaten the viability of the european project. management of these varied problems requires greater cooperation and deepening integration, yet eurosceptic tendencies in several countries demand return of political and economic power from brussels to national governments, or – in more extreme cases – exit from the eu (rose & borz, 2016). the 2016 brexit referendum in the united kingdom is the most powerful example of this trend (hobolt, 2016). efforts to deal with such issues require better understanding of the factors that promote development of transnational identities (see herrmann, risse, & brewer, 2004; la barbera, 2015; la barbera, cariota ferrara, & boza, 2014). unfortunately, little research has been done to determine the psychological factors that foster or deter voting in support of eu integration. to the best of our knowledge, the study reported in this article is the first to investigate this issue in the context of a systematic and empirically validated theoretical framework, the theory of planned behavior (ajzen, 1991, 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ it is possible to study european integration from both a static and a dynamic perspective (rose & borz, 2016). the current state of the eu is the result of a process that began in the 1950’s and is characterized by centralization of power in political and economic decision-making, a partial relinquishing of national sovereignty, increased interdependence among member states, and emergence of central european institutions (castano, 2004; la barbera, 2015). a static approach is exemplified by public opinion surveys that ask people to evaluate aspects related to the eu as they exist today. from a dynamic perspective, however, the european project is an ongoing process aimed at an ever-closer union, as explicitly stated, for example, in the 1957 treaty of rome. as mentioned, however, this process of progressive integration and centralization of power runs counter to much public opinion and is far from being accepted by all member states. general information of relevance is available in the large-scale european election study (ees), which measured general attitudes toward integration held by citizens of member states. among the 27,069 participants surveyed in the 2009 european parliament post-election survey, 34 percent were “satisfied with the eu as it is,” 33% were “in favor of further integration,” 24% thought that “integration has gone too far,” and 9% chose the “don’t know” option. clearly, across the eu, a mere minority of citizens were in favor of further integration. in fact, only in romania (54%) and spain (51%) did an absolute majority of citizens line up in favor of greater integration. the opposition to european integration is also reflected in the results of several public referenda. for example, the treaty on european union (teu) was signed on february 7, 1992 by the members of the european community in maastricht, netherlands, to further european integration and introduction of a single european currency. the process of ratifying the treaty was particularly difficult in denmark, france, and the united kingdom. in fact, the teu was rejected in a first danish referendum. eu integration was subsequently jeopardized by the rejection of several other important european treaty proposals, such as the nice treaty, the constitutional treaty, and the lisbon treaty (hobolt, 2009). public discontent is also evidenced indirectly by steadily decreasing voter turnout in european parliamentary elections, which has fallen from 62% in the first election in 1979 to 43% in the 2009 election, with the may 2014 eu election recording the lowest voter turnout of 42.5%. political upheavals in several eu countries appear to have redirected attention to the european project, with voter turnout in the 2019 european elections rising to 50.9%. at the same time, however, right-wing and eurosceptic parties have gained strength in national elections in several countries, including germany, france, united kingdom, poland, and hungary. in italy, the nationalist league (lega) party’s share of the vote rose from 6% in the 2014 elections to 34% in the 2019 electioni. clearly, there is no universal support for greater eu integration. instead, this is a dynamic, uncertain, and contested process in which citizens’ opinions and voting choices are gaining increasing importance. the present study addressed this dynamic aspect by examining italian participants’ beliefs and attitudes with respect to continuing european integration. starting with the establishment of the european economic community in the 1957 treaty of rome, institutions have promoted integration through intergovernmental treaties that have conferred additional powers to the eu (pollack, 2012). this centralization of power proceeded without much public input, relying on a so-called "permissive consensus" of public opinion (haas, 1958, p. 17). however, as the eu’s impact on national policies progressively increased, and as the 2008 global economic crisis highlighted the salience of monetary integration in euro-zone countries, citizens became increasingly aware of the interdependence of european support for eu integration 438 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ countries and the influence of the european union on their lives (hobolt & wratil, 2015). as a result, there has been a shift from passive acquiescence of the early period of integration, where leaders could make decisions without public consultation, towards a so-called constraining dissensus, characterized by the influence of public opinion on integration decisions (hooghe & marks, 2009) and by calls for greater democracy in the eu (hobolt & wratil, 2015): “the times when elites could pursue european integration with no regard to public opinion are long gone” (hobolt, 2012, p. 716). a pivotal aspect of these developments is the involvement of the general public in decision making by way of referenda that can determine the fate of further european integration (hobolt, 2009). in the present study we applied ajzen’s (1991, 2012) theory of planned behavior to enhance our understanding of the beliefs and attitudes that influence people’s voting decisions in such referenda. the theory of planned behavior the theory of planned behavior (tpb) has been used extensively to predict and explain behavior in a variety of domains: safer sex, environmental protection, exercising, dieting, and many other behaviors (see fishbein & ajzen, 2010, for a review). the tpb has also been employed to study and predict political behaviors, such as voting in american presidential elections (fishbein, ajzen, & hinkle, 1980) and voting on health-related issues (flynn et al.,1997; tung, vernick, reiney, & gielen, 2012). research has shown strong and significant correlations between voting intentions and voting choice, and good prediction of voting intentions from the tpb’s main constructs (eckstein, noack, & gniewosz, 2013; hansen & jensen, 2007). nonetheless, the tpb has not been used so far for understanding and predicting voting intentions in relation to the eu integration process. when applied to support for eu integration, the tpb posits that a vote for (or against) a proposition to promote integration is preceded by the intention to vote for (or against) it. to understand the voting decision, it is therefore necessary to explore the factors that determine this intention. according to the tpb, three factors influence the intention to vote in support of european integration: attitude toward this behavior (att); perceived social pressure to vote in favor or against integration, or subjective norm (sn); and perceived behavioral control (pbc). while attitudes and subjective norms with respect to voting in favor of european integration are easily conceptualized and measured, the question of perceived behavioral control requires elaboration. citizens clearly have control over their voting behavior; i.e., they can easily participate in elections and vote for or against a proposed policy. perceived control, in this context, has largely to do with the perceived ease or difficulty of making an informed decision in relation to such a vote (fishbein & ajzen, 2010). direct measures of att, sn, and pbc provide only a broad outline of the factors that determine the decision to vote in favor of eu integration. to obtain a more fine-grained understanding, we must explore the specific considerations that underlie att, sn, and pbc. according to the tpb, the attitude toward voting in favor of eu integration is determined by beliefs about the likely consequences of doing so (behavioral beliefs). the more favorable the perceived consequences of eu integration, the more positive the attitude will be. subjective norms, in turn, are determined by normative beliefs, i.e., beliefs that important others would approve or disapprove of a vote in favor of greater integration, or that these social referents themselves are likely to vote in favor of or against integration. finally, pbc is a function of control beliefs, i.e., beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate or impede an informed vote for or against eu integration. examination of these beliefs la barbera & ajzen 439 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ can not only help to explain people’s support for, or opposition to, eu integration, it can also guide intervention strategies designed to enhance support. in addition to exploring the theoretical antecedents of voting intentions in regard to european integration, our study also examined age-related differences in these intentions. previous research has shown a significant influence of age on identification with the eu, attitude towards eu integration, and willingness to vote in favor of the eu, but the results of this research have not been entirely consistent. for example, in a study involving a representative dutch sample, boomgaarden, schuck, elenbaas, and de vreese (2011) found a significant positive correlation between age and attitude towards the eu and identification with the eu: the older the participants, the more favorable were their attitudes and the higher was their level of identification with the eu. at the same time, age has also been shown to predispose voting against the eu. with respect to the brexit referendum, for example, a 50-year-old voter was 10% more likely to support the “leave” option compared to a 33-year-old (hobolt, 2016). complicating matters is the distinction between cohort effects and age effects (lutz, kritzinger & skirbekk, 2006). cross-sectional studies that compare sub-samples varying in age can only reveal cohort effects whereas longitudinal data also permit examination of changes over time. in a longitudinal study on multiple identities, lutz et al. (2006) found a positive cohort effect such that for every year born later, the proportion of participants who identified with the eu as well as with their own nation increased by roughly 0.5%, compared to those who identified only with their own nation. secondary in size was an age effect across time, which showed that dual identities reached a peak around age 50-60 and then started to decline. overall, the results suggest a relatively weak curvilinear relation between advancing age and identification with the eu, and a strong negative cohort effect, such that older generations are less identified with the eu than more recent generations. assuming that the estimated effects will continue, the authors estimated that in 2030 there will be about 100 million eu citizens who have strictly national identities, compared to more than 220 million with multiple identities that include identification with the european union. the present study explored the basis for the strong cohort effect. specifically, we used the tpb to examine differences due to respondents’ age in intentions to vote in favor of eu integration, as well as differences in beliefs and attitudes that determine those intentions. aims of the current research the major aim of this study was to establish the predictive power of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control in relation to the intention to vote in favor of eu integration. a second objective was to identify the key behavioral, normative, and control beliefs that provide the basis, respectively, for attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. a third aim was to test the role of age as a moderator of the effectsii of the three major tpb constructs (att, sn, pbc) on intention, and of the effect of beliefs on these three major constructs. in order to explore the role of age in this domain, we examined the moderating effects of age on a) the relations between the tpb antecedents and intention and b) the relations between behavioral, normative and control beliefs and att, sn, and pbc, respectively. support for eu integration 440 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method pilot study relying on the guidelines provided by fishbein and ajzen (2010, appendix), we conducted a pilot study in which we elicited readily accessible beliefs about voting in favor of eu integration using an open-ended questionnaire. the pilot sample consisted of 100 respondents (58 females; age range 18-69, m = 35.02, sd = 11.73) recruited in public buildings in italy (e.g., university buildings, post offices). as suggested by la barbera (2015), eu integration was defined for the participants in terms of five key aspects: (1) the eu becoming a single country; (2) centralized management of the european economy to replace the economic powers of individual states; (3) direct, unmediated implementation of eu directives in member states; (4) a single eu army to replace national armies; (5) more political power to the eu, greater than the power of each single country. they were then asked to take a few minutes to write down the thoughts that came to mind about voting in favor of eu integration, as defined. specifically, they were asked to list what they thought would be the advantages and disadvantages of voting in favor of eu integration, the people and/or groups who would approve or disapprove of their voting in favor of eu integration, and the factors that could facilitate or hinder their voting in favor of eu integration. a content analysis of the responses was conducted to determine the most frequent themes in terms of behavioral outcomes, normative referents, and control factors. three researchers jointly analyzed participants’ written responses to the open-ended questions and the interpretations required consensus of all three. this process resulted in a classification of the individual responses listed into common categories (galli, fasanelli, & schember, 2018). the most frequent responses, cited by at least 15% of the participants, were used to construct modal sets of behavioral, normative, and control beliefs included in the main study described below. the six most frequently mentioned likely outcomes of voting in favor of eu integration were a centralized economy, losing national identity, increased job opportunities, more cultural exchange, more transparent politics, and an emerging eu identity. the four modal normative referents that emerged from the content analysis were family (relatives), political groups, colleagues at work, and friends. finally, the four most frequently mentioned control issues for making an informed decision were insufficient information, not always being considered an eu citizen, a deficit of democracy, and misinformation. main study procedure participants for the main study were contacted in public buildings in italy. a total of 500 questionnaires were administered to a convenience sample; 59 participants were dropped because they failed to complete and/or return the questionnaire. the final sample consists of 441 participants (235 females, aged 18 to 71, mage = 36.9, mdnage = 32.00, sdage = 13.68), who completed the questionnaire described below. the survey was conducted in italian. the items described in this paper are translations from the italian (the original italian items can be obtained by writing to the first author). the items in the questionnaire referred to eu integration, which was explicitly defined as an ongoing process in terms of the same five key points used in the pilot study. multiple items for each main construct were aggregated into a single score for computing correlations among the constructs, whereas each item was used as an indicator of the corresponding latent construct in the sem. la barbera & ajzen 441 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire behavioral beliefs — in the tpb, an expectancy-value model describes the relation between accessible behavioral beliefs and attitude toward the behavior (see ajzen, 1991; fishbein and ajzen, 2010). specifically, attitude toward voting in favor of eu integration (the behavior) is assumed to be determined by the total set of accessible behavioral beliefs linking the behavior to various expected outcomes. the strength of each belief (b) is weighted by the evaluation (e) of the outcome, and the products are aggregated, as shown in the following equation: therefore, participants were asked to rate the likelihood that voting in favor of eu integration would produce each of the six outcomes identified in the pilot study (for example, losing national identity) on a 7-point scale ranging from “extremely unlikely” to “extremely likely.” in addition, they rated each outcome on a 7-point scale from “extremely negative” to “extremely positive.” for each behavioral belief, we obtained a score by multiplying the rated likelihood of the outcome by its subjective value, and then summing the product scores across all beliefs. the same procedure was used to obtain the composite scores of normative beliefs and control beliefs described below. normative beliefs — to measure normative beliefs, participants were asked to indicate to what extent they thought that the four important referents identified in the pilot study would approve of their voting for eu integration on 7-point scales ranging from “very unlikely” to “very likely.” participants were also asked about the importance of each of these referents on 7-point scales ranging from “not at all” to “very much.” to obtain a score for each normative belief we used the same procedure described in relation to behavioral beliefs. the higher the score, the stronger is the perceived influence of the normative referent. control beliefs — participants were asked how frequently they thought about the existence of the four control factors that emerged in the pilot study (e.g., having sufficient information for an informed decision). answers were collected on 7-point scales ranging from “very rarely” to “very frequently.” they also were asked to evaluate, for each control factor, its power to facilitate-impede performance of the behavior on 7-point scales. as before, a control belief measure was obtained by multiplying the two scores. the resulting products were then recoded so that the higher the score, the higher the perceived control in relation to the particular control factor. intention — to assess participants’ intentions to vote in favor of greater eu integration, we used five items corresponding to the five enumerated aspects of integration (e.g., “would you vote for making the eu a single country?”). answers were collected on 7-point scales ranging from “definitely not” to “yes, definitely,” and then averaged across items to produce a single composite score, with higher values indicating a more favorable intention to vote for eu integration (cronbach’s α = .84). attitude — attitudes towards voting in favor of eu integration were assessed by asking participants to rate “for me, voting in favor of european integration is:” on two 7-point bipolar adjective scales: “good – bad” (reverse coded) and “unpleasant – pleasant.” responses were aggregated into a composite measure by averaging the scores on the two scales (spearman-brown rho = .72). higher values indicate more positive attitudes. support for eu integration 442 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective norm — two items were used to measure subjective norm: “most people who are important to me believe that i should vote in favor of european integration” and “others expect me to vote in favor of european integration.” participants answered on 7-point scales ranging from “definitely not” to “yes, definitely.” the answers were again aggregated into a single score by computing the mean across the two scales (spearman-brown rho = .62). higher values indicate greater perceived social support for voting in favor of european integration. perceived behavioral control — two items were used to measure perceived behavioral control: “for me the act of voting in favor of european integration is: (1) impossible-possible and (2) difficult-easy” (spearman-brown rho = .64). responses on the 7-point scales were averaged. higher values indicate higher perceived control. statistical analyses structural equation modeling (sem) was used (by stata 15) to test the significance and power of the main tpb constructs (att, sn, and pbc) to predict intention to vote in favor of eu integration. model fit was assessed with the comparative fit index (cfi), the tucker-lewis index (tli), and the root mean squared error of approximation (rmsea). according to conventional rules of thumb (hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 2011), acceptable and excellent model fit are indicated by cfi and tli values greater than .90 and .95, respectively, and by rmsea values smaller than .08 and .06, respectively. after testing for measurement invariance across age-based groups, we investigated whether age moderated the relations between the three exogenous factors (att, sn, pbc) and intention. in addition, in order to ascertain if the beliefs we selected adequately represented the latent constructs, we estimated multiple indicators, multiple causes (mimic) models (kline, 2011) in which, in line with the tpb, each latent construct is formed by beliefs and is reflected in the answers to direct items. finally, we assessed whether age moderated the relations between behavioral, normative, and control beliefs and their respective latent constructs. because we were interested in cohort effects, rather than in changes over time (lutz et al., 2006), we used a median split between well distinguishable age groups to examine differences in the antecedents of intention (att, sn, pbc), and in the beliefs underpinning these antecedents. results descriptive statistics for the direct measures of att, sn, pbc, and int are provided in table 1. in the 441 (88%) retained questionnaires, the frequency of missing data was quite low (see table 1). the stata 15 mlmv (maximum likelihood with missing value) estimation routine was used to deal with missing data. la barbera & ajzen 443 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 tpb items’ means, standard deviations, and missing data item m sd missing data % intention eu single country 4.09 2.10 2 0.45 intention centralized economy over state sovereignty 3.98 1.99 1 0.23 intention immediate application norms 4.99 1.81 3 0.68 intention single army 4.20 2.05 1 0.23 intention more political power than states 3.97 1.97 0 0 attitude good/bad (reverse coded) 5.03 1.71 5 1.13 attitude – unpleasant/pleasant 4.61 1.64 21 4.76 norms – others 4.65 1.60 1 0.23 norms – most people i care 4.45 1.52 0 0 pbc – difficult/easy 4.60 1.69 0 0 pbc – impossible/possible 5.08 1.64 2 0.45 note. pbc = perceived behavioral control. table 2 displays means and standard deviations of the study variables as well as correlations among these variables. intention correlated significantly with direct measures of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, as well as with all belief composites. the correlations ranged from .129 for normative beliefs to .283 for pbc. in addition, and as expected, attitude, subjective norm, and pbc correlated significantly with their corresponding belief composites. the attitude-behavioral belief composite correlation was .412, the correlation between subjective norm and the normative belief composite was .169, and control beliefs correlated .108 with pbc. table 2 correlations, means and standard deviations of study variables’ aggregate scores variable 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 1. intention 4.25a (1.56) 2. att .277*** 4.81a (1.48) 3. sn .189*** .453*** 4.56a (1.30) 5. pbc .283*** .437*** .260*** 4.84a (1.43) 6. behavioral beliefs .264*** .412*** .364*** .250*** 24.21b (8.64) 7. normative beliefs .129** .060 .169*** -.026 .127* 13.49b (7.90) 8. control beliefs .237*** .267*** .198*** .108* .282*** -.101* 25.38b (10.18) note. the table shows pearson’s r correlation coefficients. diagonal cells report the variable mean (standard deviation in parentheses). att = attitude; sn = subjective norm; pbc = perceived behavioral control. arange 1-7. brange 1-49. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. support for eu integration 444 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to perform the multigroup analyses, the age distribution was split at the median, creating a dichotomous variable with 0 (below median) representing younger people, and 1 (above median) the older ones. table 3 provides a summary of the two age-based groups’ characteristics. looking at means and medians, the two subgroups represent well distinguishable age clusters, roughly identifiable with baby boomers and generation x (older group) and millennials (younger group). the two age-based groups are well balanced across gender and education (chi squared tests were not significant for either variable, ps > .05). table 3 age-based group characteristics variable younger (n = 223) older (n = 218) age m (sd) 24.91 (3.12) 49.18 (8.37) gender male 95 111 female 128 107 education undergraduates 143 154 college education 80 64 the between-group differences in relation to the study variable means were also tested. attitude and perceived behavioral control were higher for older participants (matt = 4.96, sd = 1.45; mpbc = 5.03, sd = 1.39), compared to younger participants (matt = 4.67, sd = 1.50; mpbc = 4.65, sd = 1.44), t(417) = 2.036, p < .05 and t(437) = 2.831, p < .01. differences in intention and subjective norm scores across groups were non-significant (ts < 1). structural equation modeling the tpb model, in which intentions are predicted from attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control (figure 1) showed an excellent fit to the data for the entire sample, cfi = .960, tli = .944, rmsea = .052. the model accounted for 39% of the variance in intentions. structural coefficients showed that intention to vote for eu integration was significantly affected only by perceived behavioral control (β = .24, p = .01). the influence of attitude was marginal (β = .20, p = .10) whereas subjective norms did not significantly affect intention (z < 1). la barbera & ajzen 445 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. tpb model of the intention to vote for eu integration. note. age significantly moderated the effect of attitude on intention, whereas it was not a significant moderator of the influence of sn and pbc. therefore, for attitude, different coefficients for the older and younger participants are reported (younger participants in parentheses). a single coefficient is reported for sn and pbc. *p < .05. **p < .01. multigroup structural equation modeling was used to assess measurement invariance across age groups, using chi-square difference tests for a set of nested models. complete results are provided in table 4. the fit of the configural model (model 1) was excellent, suggesting that the factor structure was adequate in both groups. to test metric invariance, in model 2 we constrained factor loadings to be equal across groups, that is, the parameters that represented factor loadings were not allowed to vary across age-based groups. the chi-square test showed a non-significant difference between this model and the baseline model, indicating that factor loading differences between groups were not significant. in model 3, to test strong (scalar) invariance, intercepts were constrained to be equal across groups. model 3 did not yield a significant chi-square difference compared to model 2, thus supporting scalar invariance across groups. finally, in model 4, a constraint on residuals was added for testing strict measurement invariance across groups. compared with the previous model, model 4 did not a show a significant difference. thus, the invariance tests showed that our measurement model had a satisfactory fit for both groups. also, the model comparison based on cfi and rmsea (see table 4) supports strict measurement invariance across age-based groups in our data (cheung & rensvold, 2002). the multigroup model accounted for 66% of the variance in intentions for the entire sample. support for eu integration 446 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 tpb-based structural equation models of intention to vote for eu integration model model fit model comparison χ2 df tli cfi rmsea comparison δχ2 δdf model 1 103.55 76 .972 .980 .041 model 2 111.04 83 .974 .980 .039 m2-m1 7.49 7 model 3 120.20 91 .975 .979 .038 m3-m2 9.17 8 model 4 133.11 102 .976 .978 .037 m4-m3 12.91 11 model 5 138.56 105 .975 .976 .038 m5-m4 5.45 3 model 6 133.71 104 .978 .979 .036 m5-m6 4.84* 1 model 7 136.49 104 .976 .977 .038 m5-m7 2.07 1 model 8 135.86 104 .976 .977 .037 m5-m8 2.69 1 note. tli = tucker-lewis index; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean squared error of approximation. *p < .05. in model 5, we tested the moderation hypotheses by constraining the structural coefficients to be equal across age groups. the model fit did not differ significantly from the previous model, thus suggesting that the overall magnitude of the direct path coefficients was comparable across the age-based groups. this may also indicate that not all structural path coefficients were different across age-based groups (neff, 1985). therefore, we tested three additional models regarding the moderating effect of age on the relations between attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on one hand and intention on the other (sauer & dick, 1993; see also kenny, 2011). in model 6, we unconstrained the path from attitude to intention, and the chi-square test showed a significant difference. indeed, the structural coefficients indicated that intention to vote for eu integration was significantly affected by attitude towards eu integration only in the case of older people (βold = .43, p < .05; βyoung = .04, z < 1). the paths from subjective norms and perceived behavioral control to intention were unconstrained in models 7 and 8, respectively. the chi-square tests showed a non-significant difference for both. table 4 provides complete results of these comparisons. in sum, the multigroup analysis showed that the effect of attitude on intention was qualified by age, whereas moderation by age was not significant for sn and pbc. the results of the analyses performed for the whole sample and across age-based groups are summarized in figure 1. behavioral, normative, and control beliefs next, we examined the individual behavioral and control beliefs that had a significant impact on the corresponding latent constructs. we identified the key beliefs for each factor across age-based groups. we did not perform this analysis for subjective norm because it did not exert a significant effect on intention in any of our previous analyses. descriptive statistics of beliefs across groups are provided in table 5. no significant differences emerged between older and younger participants except for the behavioral belief regarding political transparency, t(453) = 2.25, p = .025, with higher mean scores for older as compared to younger people. the difference related to losing national identity and emerging of an eu identity were significant at the 10% level. la barbera & ajzen 447 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 descriptive statistics of beliefs across age-based groups group m sd centralized economy young 19.65 10.82 old 21.41 12.25 losing national identity young 20.42 12.91 old 18.36 11.70 more job opportunities young 26.46 14.23 old 27.82 14.71 cultural exchange young 29.25 16.04 old 30.14 16.34 eu identity young 21.78 11.85 old 24.11 13.45 political transparency young 23.56 12.48 old 26.35 13.43 more information young 23.69 13.62 old 24.26 13.03 misinformation young 26.25 13.11 old 25.72 12.30 european citizenship young 26.31 13.50 old 27.25 13.68 democratic deficit young 24.96 13.66 old 24.10 12.64 we ran a multigroup (younger vs. older participants) mimic model in which attitude is formed by the six beliefs we identified in the pilot study and is reflected in the two items we used in previous models as a direct measure of attitude. the goodness of fit of the model was excellent: cfi = .98, tli = .96, rmsea = .040. next, we constrained all structural coefficients to be equal across groups. this model also had an excellent fit to the data, and the chi square difference test showed a marginally significant difference between this model and the previous model with unconstrained structural coefficients, χ2(6) = 11.22, p = .08. then, we compared six different models, each with a single path free to vary across age groups, against the model with all structural coefficients constrained. results are provided in table 6. the models in which we unconstrained the beliefs about losing national identity and cultural exchange were statistically different compared to the constrained model. the model in which the belief about eu fostering centralized economy was unconstrained across groups also reached a marginally significant difference compared to the reference model. these three beliefs affected attitude only for older participants. finally, there was some suggestion that younger participants’ support for eu integration 448 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attitudes were affected by beliefs about eu fostering more job opportunities and more transparent policy, even if this was not fully supported by the chi square difference tests. table 6 the effect of behavioral beliefs on attitude by age belief group β se δχ2 voting for european integration will foster a centralized economy younger -.02 .08 3.42† older .16† .09 voting for european integration will mean a loss of national identity (reverse coded) younger .04 .06 3.67* older .14* .06 voting for european integration will mean more job opportunities younger .37** .09 1.40 older .17† .10 voting for european integration will foster cultural exchange younger -.07 .09 4.11* older .18† .09 voting for european integration will foster the birth of an european cultural and political identity younger .13 .08 1.97 older .14† .08 voting for european integration will mean more transparent policy younger .16* .08 0.96 older .01 .08 note. in each model a single path is unconstrained (corresponding to a specific belief), and the model is compared against the one in which all structural coefficients are constrained across groups. results of the χ2 difference tests are reported in the last column. all df = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. †p < .10. we also ran a multigroup mimic model for perceived behavioral control, and the goodness of fit was excellent: cfi = 1, tli = 1, rmsea < .001. in the subsequent model, all structural coefficients were constrained to be equal across groups. this model had an excellent fit to the data, and the chi square test showed a marginal difference between this and the previous model, χ2(4) = 9.60, p = .05. four additional models were performed, each with a single path unconstrained, and we compared this against the model in which all structural coefficients were constrained across groups. results are provided in table 7. it can be seen that all unconstrained models were statistically different compared to the constrained model. table 7 the effect of control beliefs on pbc across age-based groups belief (all reverse coded) group β se δχ2 not having enough information to vote in favor of european integration younger -.08 .10 9.27** older .05 .10 disinformation towards european integration younger .11 .09 7.62** older .10 .09 not always being considered a european citizen younger .19* .09 8.19** older .23* .10 “democratic deficit” in the eu younger .15* .07 6.22* older .21** .07 note. in each model a single path is unconstrained (corresponding to a specific belief), and the model is compared against the one in which all structural coefficients are constrained across groups. results of the χ2 difference tests are reported in the last column. all df = 1. *p < .05. **p < .01. la barbera & ajzen 449 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ inspection of the path coefficients revealed that two beliefs—the idea about not being considered a european citizen and about the presence of a democratic deficit in the eu—exerted a significant influence on perceived control for both age-based groups, although it was slightly larger in the case of older people. discussion the aims of the current study were to test whether a tpb-based model could predict intentions to vote for eu integration and to explore the factors underlying voting choice. results provide, for the first time, support for a tpb-based model of voting in favor of eu integration, showing an excellent fit to the data. importantly, the invariance test showed that the basic structure and the main measurement characteristics of the tpb model were comparable for the two age-based groups of participants, although they belong to different generations. among the major constructs of the tpb, attitude and perceived behavioral control were of particular importance as predictors of intentions, while the relative contribution of subjective norms was not significant. this could be due to the fact that, in our study, only injunctive social norms were measured. previous research has shown that including descriptive norms can increase the predictive power of this variable; also, measures designed to tap into social identification can add important information regarding the importance of subjective norms (see white, smith, terry, greenslade, & mckimmie, 2009, for a review). therefore, future studies could further explore the normative dimension for a more complete understanding of its relation to intentions to vote in favor of eu integration. perhaps of greatest interest, we found that the prediction of intentions from attitudes was qualified by age, as revealed by a multi-group analysis. this analysis supported a clear distinction between older and younger participants. generally speaking, only the intentions of older people to vote in favor of eu integration were related to their attitudes, and these attitudes were mainly related of their beliefs about losing national identity. by comparison, the intentions of younger participants were related only to perceived control, in particular to their beliefs about the difficulties of exerting direct democratic control through citizenship and voting. this pattern of findings may reflect the fact that older participants, largely between 40 and 60 years of age, belong to generations whose political socialization (van deth et al., 2011) took place when the european project was “under construction,” involving various stages of transition (mec, cee, eu). they experienced the emergence of a super-national identity, the important event of the maastricht treaty, free movement of people across national borders and, especially, the introduction of a single currency. the introduction of the euro was an event of historical significance with practical as well as symbolical implications involving the loss of national currency and the “reification” of the new super-national entity: “the euro makes europe real” (risse, 2003, p. 487). these two innovative aspects of the integration process are reflected in our findings: results of the mimic model highlight the importance of the beliefs about cultural exchange and a centralized economy in relation to the attitudes of older participants. our younger participants, in contrast, belong to a generation whose political socialization took place when the eu and the euro were already in place. many in this generation see themselves as eu citizens who evaluate the eu from within, as members of a political community, and their attitudes rest on their beliefs about opportunities that the eu can provide, more than on the threat to national identity (bruter, 2008). support for eu integration 450 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these two points—the importance attributed to opportunities and the low impact of identity threat—are also reflected by the mimic model results. the use of mimic model was crucial for understanding the different weight of each belief in relation to the corresponding latent construct and across groups, especially because there were no significant differences between the mean scores of younger and older participants (except that for one behavioral belief). research is often very interested in mean differences between individuals’ beliefs, measured by self-report instruments. of course, the difference between individuals or groups as regards a certain psychological belief should not be confused with the difference in the effect that a psychological belief exerts on a dependent variable or a latent construct (e.g. attitude) in the case of different individuals or groups (scafuto & la barbera, 2016). the use of multi-group mimic models, as in our study, allowed us to 1) evaluate, with a single formal test, how well a latent construct is represented by a set of indicators and formed by a set of items theoretically or empirically determined; 2) assess the relation of each of those elements to the latent construct; and 3) test the difference between groups regarding the previous two points. all of the six identified behavioral beliefs showed a significant relation to attitude, at least for one of the age-based groups. two of the four control beliefs related significantly to pbc across both age groups. the mimic models that included attitude, perceived behavioral control and their respective beliefs showed an excellent fit to the data. taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that the beliefs we elicited and selected in the pilot study, and then measured in the main study, are major determinants of the latent constructs which, in turn, affect intention. finally, our findings demonstrate the role of moderators in tpb-based studies, and the importance of carrying out multigroup analyses. the tpb not only provides a clear depiction of the factors influencing intentions and behaviors in the framework of a general theory, it also offers the opportunity to understand the effects of individual and contextual background factors potentially relevant in relation to a specific behavior. as lewin pointed out in 1946: “it is important to understand clearly that social research concerns itself with two rather different types of questions, namely the study of general laws and the diagnosis of specific situations. [...] for any field of action both types of scientific research are needed.” (lewin, 1946, pp. 36-37). our moderation analyses revealed different beliefs underpinning tpb constructs for different age groups. without a multigroup analysis, we would have considered the effect of attitude on intention to be non-significant, producing a misunderstanding of results. unfortunately, relatively few studies have carried out moderation analyses regarding the relations between the tpb constructs and intentions (e.g., carfora, caso, sparks, & conner, 2017), and regarding the relations between the tpb constructs and the underpinning beliefs (e.g., de leeuw, valois, ajzen, & schmidt, 2015). our results support the idea that evaluating moderating variables can foster a more comprehensive understanding of people’s intentions and consequently can also provide a basis for more effective behavior change interventions. indeed, from a practical point of view, several recommendations may be derived from our findings. first, the idea of the eu threatening national identity seems to be still a concern for older people. this is in line with the rise of euro-sceptic and/or nationalistic movements in several european countries, as mentioned in the introduction. nationalism is a strong obstacle to identification with the eu, undermining further integration (cinpoes, 2008). this is also in line with a rich tradition of studies about the relations among national identity, european identity, and support for eu integration (kranendonk, vermeulen, & van heelsum, 2018). field studies as well as experiments (e.g., la barbera, 2015; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012; la barbera, cariota ferrara, & boza, 2014) have shown that identification with the eu exerts a significant positive effect on la barbera & ajzen 451 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ support for eu integration. the relation between national and european identity is less clear. early research found a negative relation between the two types of identity (cinnirella, 1997), whereas more recent research has shown that they can coexist or even be positively correlated (bruter, 2003, 2009). the finding that national and european identities coincide in some cases but are contradictory in others (risse, 2010) suggests the presence of moderators (hooghe & marks, 2005), a topic worthy of further study. eu institutions have tried to communicate their interest in preserving national identities, even in the most important formal acts (e.g., “the union shall respect the national identities of its member states”, treaty on european union, article 6.3). nonetheless, the perception of the eu as a threat to national identity still seems to be alive, particularly among older people whose attitudes and voting intentions reflect their concern about loss of national identity (see also rippl & seipel, 2012; hobolt, 2016). it follows that communication strategies designed to foster support for greater eu integration should rely on messages designed to reduce or mitigate this fear. for example, experimental cross-national studies have found that framing the eu as a common project tends to foster support for eu integration more than framing the eu as common heritage (la barbera, 2015). because we found that support for eu integration and beliefs about losing national identity are inversely correlated, it would be interesting to investigate whether a common project framing is effective in reducing the national identity threat perception. also, the use of eu-related news and symbols has been shown to have a dramatic impact on local and european attitudes, identity, and behaviors (bruter, 2003; guéguen, martin, & stefan, 2017), a topic worthy of further investigation. future support for eu integration depends in large measure on the views of young people who will ultimately determine the fate of the european project, and it is therefore this generation that is the most relevant target for institutional communications. our findings show that threat to national identity was not a major factor for our younger participants. this is in line with findings that compared to older cohorts, younger cohorts are and will continue to be more multi-identified with their own nations and with the eu (lutz et al., 2006). for the current study’s younger participants, intention to vote for eu integration was affected solely by perceived behavioral control. this might suggest that institutional communications aimed to changing attitudes may not be an effective way to foster pro-eu intentions and behaviors among the young. different strategies, such as promoting european trans-national mobility (mazzoni et al., 2018; stoeckel, 2016), could be more effective in raising perceived control, eu-citizenship and pro-eu voting intentions. in sum, the issue of greatest importance has to do with political representativeness. the eu faces a problem of perceived legitimacy, which can be addressed by strategies designed to enhance the perceived connection between voting in europe-wide elections and central political processes (arkan, 2013; hobolt, 2012; hobolt & wratil, 2015). in addition, eu institutions should emphasize the value of political participation as a means toward greater representation and as the best way to exert one’s own citizenship rights. such an approach could foster greater perceived control over effective participation, which we found to be an important determinant of voting in favor of eu integration. it stands to reason that a greater sense of being able to exert influence on european policies can be an effective way to alleviate the problems of legitimacy, thereby increasing support for european integration. the current study has several limitations, which need to be discussed. first, the convenience sample employed implies that our findings may not be representative of the italian population at large. in addition, our results may be limited to the italian context. future research should involve cross-national comparisons in order to examine support for eu integration 452 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the generalizability of our findings. second, direct measures of latent constructs may have been influenced by the items about beliefs that preceded or followed them in the questionnaire. even if past research has not found consistent results regarding the effect of different item orders (fishbein & ajzen, 2010), we did not examine this issue in our study. third, the study did not consider potentially relevant background factors. political orientation of participants, for example, could be an important variable to be considered by future research, to foster a more complete understanding of different attitudes regarding eu integration, and the beliefs that underpin them. finally, eu integration is a complex process that involves several dimensions, including but not limited to economy, military, and immigration policies. however, research has commonly studied psychological constructs (e.g. attitude, identification) only in relation to eu integration as a whole, without distinguishing between different dimensions. our study is in line with this literature, but it would be also important to conduct studies on more focused aspects, or comparing dimensions, for example, comparing the intention to vote in favor of economic integration vs. military unification. notes i) retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu. ii) although we use correlational data, the tpb and sem methodology assume causal effects. therefore, for clarity of exposition, we often refer to “effects” of one variable on another. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ajzen, i. 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(2009). social influence in the theory of planned behaviour: the role of descriptive, injunctive, and in‐group norms. british journal of social psychology, 48(1), 135-158. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466608x295207 support for eu integration 456 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 https://doi.org/10.1126%2fscience.1128313 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f17405629.2017.1378089 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.49.2.481 https://doi.org/10.1093%2foxfordhb%2f9780199546282.013.0001 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1559-1816.2012.00960.x https://doi.org/10.1080%2f1350176032000101235 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fjcms.12295 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fcasp.2275 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fpops.12295 https://doi.org/10.5993%2fajhb.36.6.9 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9221.2010.00798.x https://doi.org/10.1348%2f014466608x295207 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors francesco la barbera completed his ph.d. in psychology at the university of napoli federico ii (italy). he is assistant professor at the department of political sciences of the same university, where he currently teaches social psychology. his recent research has been conducted on the theory of planned behavior, attitudes (explicit and implicit) and social identity, in relation to a variety of topics, such as food consumption sustainability, consumer behavior, and european identity. icek ajzen is a professor emeritus at the university of massachusetts amherst (usa). he received his doctorate from the university of illinois at urbana–champaign and is best known for his work on the theory of planned behavior. ajzen has been ranked the most influential social psychologist in terms of cumulative research impact. he received the distinguished scientist award from the society of experimental social psychology in 2013 and the distinguished scientific contribution award from the society for personality and social psychology in 2016. his research has been influential across diverse fields such as health psychology, consumer behavior, and environmental psychology, and has been cited over 250,000 times. la barbera & ajzen 457 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 437–457 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ support for eu integration (introduction) the theory of planned behavior aims of the current research method pilot study main study results structural equation modeling behavioral, normative, and control beliefs discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors exploring performance calibration in relation to better or worse than average effect in physical education research reports exploring performance calibration in relation to better or worse than average effect in physical education athanasios kolovelonis* a, eleni dimitriou a [a] department of physical education and sport science, university of thessaly, trikala, greece. abstract the aim of this study was to explore students’ calibration of sport performance in relation to better or worse than average effect in physical education settings. participants were 147 fifth and sixth grade students (71 boys, 76 girls) who were tested in a soccer passing accuracy test after they had provided estimations for their own and their peers’ performance in this test. based on students’ actual and estimated performance, calibration indexes of accuracy and bias were calculated. moreover, students were classified in better, worse, or equal than average groups based on estimated scores of their own and their peers’ average performance. results showed that students overestimated their own performance while most of them believed that their own performance was worse than their peers’ average performance. no significant differences in calibration accuracy of soccer passing were found between better, worse, or equal than average groups of students. these results were discussed with reference to previous calibration research evidence and theoretical and practical implications for self-regulated learning and performance calibration in physical education. keywords: calibration bias and accuracy, better or worse than average effect, physical education, performance estimations europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 received: 2018-02-04. accepted: 2018-04-30. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; izabela lebuda, institute of psychology, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of physical education and sport science, university of thessaly, karies, trikala, 42100, greece. e-mail: sakisanta@hotmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over the past few decades, research in various domains has been interested in examining how people judge their knowledge, ability, or performance in various types of tasks. the roots of this research have been traced in decision making literature examining probability judgments and accuracy (e.g., keren, 1991) as well as in the domain of metacognitive research focusing in students’ awareness of their learning or performance (e.g., hacker, bol, & keener, 2008). research on these domains has focused on exploring the underlying mechanisms involved in metacognitive monitoring and the factors contributing in the discrepancy between estimated and actual performance. such research regarding aspects of metacognition including the accuracy of performance estimations has also recently emerged in sport (e.g., fogarty & else, 2005) and physical education (e.g., kolovelonis & goudas, 2018) settings. the present study followed and expanded this trend focusing on the interactions between students’ estimation of their own and their peers’ performance. one consistent finding in this line of research is people’s tendency to overestimate their knowledge, ability, or performance (e.g., chen, 2003). according to moore and healy (2008) this overconfidence can take three diseurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ tinct forms, namely overestimation, overplacement, or overprecision. in particular, overestimation is people’s tendency to estimate their own performance higher than it actual is. the typical research paradigm for examining this aspect of overconfidence is to ask students to provide an estimation for their performance in a test and then to compare this estimation with their actual performance. the discrepancy between estimated and actual performance, also called calibration, can take the direction of overestimation or underestimation of performance. overplacement refers to students’ belief that they are better than the majority of their peers. the term better or worse than average is also used to capture students’ beliefs regarding their own and their peers’ performance estimating that they are better or worse than average. overprecision refers to students’ certainty regarding the accuracy of their beliefs about their answers. the questions asked have usually numerical answers and students should estimate the correct answers using 90% confidence intervals. the present study focused on the calibration of self and peers’ performance in sport tasks in physical education. in particular, associations between the accuracy of estimations of self performance (i.e., calibration) and the estimation of the peers’ performance taking the form of better or worse than average effect were examined. calibration of performance: conceptualization and research evidence calibration is the degree to which a person’s perception of performance corresponds with his or her actual performance (keren, 1991). the comparison between estimated and actual performance can produce accuracy or inaccuracy in two different directions: overestimation or underestimation. the way students estimate their performance may affect their motivation to be involved in certain activities and their efforts to self-regulate their learning (efklides & misailidi, 2010). for example, a student who erroneously estimates that his performance is high may decrease his learning efforts, whereas a student who underestimates his capabilities may avoid challenging tasks. in both cases, students may limit their potential for enhancing their learning and performance. there is a long tradition of calibration research in academic settings. this research has shown that students are often inaccurate when judge their performance (e.g., chen, 2003; hacker & bol, 2004) and this miscalibration usually has the direction of overconfidence (e.g., eme, puustinen, & coutelet, 2006; hacker, bol, & bahbahani, 2008). moreover, calibration accuracy is related with higher levels of performance (e.g., bol, hacker, o’shea, & allen, 2005; ots, 2013) and can be improved with feedback (e.g., labuhn, zimmerman, & hasselhorn, 2010) and practice (e.g., bol, hacker, walck, & nunnery, 2012). in sport settings, only a few studies have examined performance calibration. golfers were well calibrated on easier tasks (putting) but overconfident on more difficult tasks (chipping and pitching) (fogarty & else, 2005), and recreational basketball players overestimated their shooting performance (mcgraw, mellers, & ritov, 2004). in physical education, students were generally overconfident regarding their basketball dribbling performance (kolovelonis, goudas, & dermitzaki, 2012), and performance calibration did not differ between students who practiced dribbling receiving social feedback and setting process or performance goals and control group students (kolovelonis, goudas, dermitzaki, & kitsantas, 2013). recent research in physical education has shown that person related factors, such as task orientation and self-efficacy (kolovelonis & goudas, 2018) were associated with students’ capability to estimate accurately their performance. estimating peers’ performance: am i better or worse than average? except of judgments regarding the self, social comparative judgments have also attracted researchers who are interested in examining the accuracy and bias of peoples’ judgments (chambers & windschitl, 2004). it has calibration and better or worse than average effect 666 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ been suggested that group settings and social comparisons can influence metacognitive judgments (bol & hacker, 2012). the term “better or worse than average” has been used to describe students’ tendency to believe that their performance is above or below average performance (kruger & dunning, 1999). research has shown that people have usually positive views when evaluate themselves compared to others. for example, a review of studies regarding students’ self-assessments of skill and character in three domains (i.e., health, education, and workplace) concluded that people tend to believe that they are above average (dunning, heath, & suls, 2004). it has been proposed that this tendency can be explained by people’s desire to protect, enhance, or restore feelings of self-worth (e.g., brown, 2012). however, variations in this tendency can also be found. evidence has suggested that people may rate themselves below average in some domains in which success is rare (e.g., kruger, 1999). for example, in difficult tasks, people may tend to overestimate their performance believing that they are worse than others, while in easy tasks people usually underestimate their performance believing they are better than others (moore & healy, 2008). thus, except of motivational factors (e.g., self-enhancement), cognitive mechanism may also be involved in producing the better or worse than average effect (e.g., chambers, 2008; moore & small, 2007). furthermore, students’ mindset, that is their beliefs regarding the fixedness or malleability of their personal competences (dweck & molden, 2005), play a key role in their motivation and achievement and it may be involved in calibration of their own or their peers’ performance. in particular, students who believe that their competences or intelligence can be developed (i.e., a growth mindset) tend to outperform those who believe that their competences or intelligence are fixed (i.e., a fixed mindset) (dweck, 2017). interventions focusing on promoting a growth mindset were beneficial for poorly performing students (paunesku et al., 2015). moreover, it was found that a growth mindset was associated with improved performance and decreased calibration error (ravenscroft, waymire, & west, 2012). thus, promoting a growth mindset may help students to improve performance and decrease calibration error (dweck, 2017) contributing to the reversal of the underachievement among students (wong, 2016). educational environments such as the physical education settings are contexts that students judge not only their own performance but also the performance of their classmates (labuhn et al., 2010). in fact, peers become increasingly important as students grow up (schunk & meece, 2006) and can function as models affecting their motivation and behavior. for example, a student who observes their classmates succeed in a new task may feel more self-efficacious and motivated to try this task (schunk & pajares, 2009). that is, students tend to compare their performance with the performance of their classmates and these judgments may be used by students for building their own perceptions of ability (dunning & hayes, 1996). indeed, self-perceptions of competence involve social comparison (i.e., in what position i rank myself compared to others or how other people perceive my ability) (dermitzaki & efklides, 2000). these social comparisons are inevitable and occur even if students are not explicitly asked for doing such comparisons. for example, in a physical education class students are likely to compare their performance with the performance of their classmates to draw conclusions about how well they performed the sport task at hand. these social comparisons are facilitated by the nature of the sport tasks where students’ knowledge, skill, and performance are apparent to all participants within a class. therefore, judgments regarding the performance or the competence of others can be considered to have a metacognitive nature (efklides, 2011), may be associated with judgments regarding self performance and may also be subject to bias. that is, a student may inaccurately believe that their classmates are better than he is in a sport task. thus, considering the important implications of social comparisons in forming metacognitive kolovelonis & dimitriou 667 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ judgments, the examination of the accuracy of students’ estimations regarding their peers’ performance is of great interest. the present study although research following the calibration paradigm in sport and physical education has recently increased (e.g., fogarty & else, 2005; kolovelonis & goudas, 2018), further research is needed to explore calibration in relation to other metacogntive judgments of performance. moreover, research regarding the associations of social comparisons and the accuracy of students’ metacognitive judgments is warranted (bol & hacker, 2012). thus, this study focused on the relations between students’ calibration of their own performance and their beliefs about the performance of their classmates (i.e., better or worse than average effect). such associations are still unexplored in sport and physical education settings and may inform the research regarding the construct of calibration of performance and the factors associated with it including social comparisons processes. some research in academic settings has shown associations between better or worse than average effect and performance calibration. larrick, burson, and soll (2007) found a positive relationship between better or worse than average effect and overconfidence among university students who responded questions of general knowledge. higher perceptions of ability relative to others predicted greater degrees of overconfidence. moreover, students who believed that their actual performance was higher than their peers’ performance (i.e., in terms of higher percentile) were more overconfident. burson, larrick, and klayman (2006) examining participants’ judgments of performance relative to their peers found that both skilled and unskilled performers (defined by performance on the tasks) were inaccurate in their estimations of performance in a trivia quiz. furthermore, evidence has suggested than the manipulation of social comparisons (even regarding the performance of a fictitious group of classmates) affected metacognitive judgments with greater magnitude in judgments associated with higher performance (de carvalho filho & yuzawa, 2001). students’ beliefs regarding peers’ performance may have implications for their involvement in physical education. for example, students may perform less than they actually can in order to avoid becoming socially isolated in the case they may be perceived by their peers as overly intelligent (schunk & pajares, 2009). beliefs you are better or worse than average may also be involved in the decision to participate in an activity. moreover, considering that students may use the competence of others for forming their own estimations of performance, miscalibration of their peers’ performance may be related with miscalibration of their own performance. experimental manipulations focusing on group interactions and social comparisons (i.e., practicing in group settings and guidelines) were effective in promoting calibration accuracy and achievement (bol et al., 2012). thus, calibration research should focus not only on how students estimate their own performance but also on how accurate their estimations for their peers’ performance are. moreover, the way students interpret information regarding peers’ performance and the potential effects of these perceptions on self-regulated learning is an important research question that warrants further exploration (labuhn et al., 2010). for example, it has been found that normative feedback informing that one’s own performance is below average may decrease self-efficacy and task interest (e.g., kavussanu & roberts, 1996) while positive comparisons with the ‘norm’ can enhance self-efficacy, produce positive self-reactions, and increase motivation to practice a skill (e.g., hutchinson, sherman, martinovic, & tenenbaum, 2008). manipulating participants’ beliefs, wulf, shea, and lewthwaite (2010) found that participants who were led to believe that calibration and better or worse than average effect 668 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ their performance was better than average, demonstrated more effective learning than participants who were led to believe that their performance was worse than average. that is, students’ learning and performance may be influenced by the perception of being better or worse than their classmates representing a self-fulfilling prophecy. therefore, examining associations between performance calibration and the better or worse than average effect can further shed light in the dynamics of metacognitive estimates in students’ learning and performance. the aim of this study was to examine the associations between students’ calibration bias and accuracy of sport performance in relation to their beliefs that they were better or worse than the average performance of their classmates. due to the exploratory nature of this study in the domain of physical education non specific hypotheses were stated. method participants participants were 147 greek students (mage = 11.28, sd = 0.65, 71 boys, 76 girls) who attended three fifth grade (64 students, 33 boys, 31 girls) and four sixth grade (83 students, 38 boys, 45 girls) physical education classes from three elementary schools located in two middle-sized cities in central greece. measures soccer passing test a modified soccer passing accuracy test was used (ali, 2011). students, from a 10 meter distance, executed without time limit 5 passes trying to pass the ball through two cones one meter apart. the number of the successful passes was each student’s score in this test. estimations of soccer passing performance before performing the test, standing in the passing position, students were asked to estimate their own and their peers performance in the passing test responding the following questions: “how many passes out of 5 you will pass though the cones from this position?” and “how many passes out of 5 your classmates on average will pass though the cones from this position?” students’ answers in these two questions were their scores in estimation of their own and their peers’ performance in the soccer test, respectively. calibration indexes indexes of calibration bias and accuracy for students’ performance were calculated. in particular, calibration bias for passing performance was computed as students’ estimated minus actual performance in the passing test. calibration bias is an index of the direction of the calibration with positive scores indicating overestimation of performance and negative underestimation. based on their scores in the bias index students were classified in three groups (i.e., accurates, overestimators, and underestimators). the absolute values of the bias scores resulted in the accuracy index which reflects the magnitude of calibration error. values closer to zero in the accuracy index indicate higher calibration accuracy (schraw, 2009). kolovelonis & dimitriou 669 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ better or worse than average index an index representing the better or worse than average effect was computed for each student as students’ estimation of their own performance minus their estimation regarding peers’ average performance. students with positive scores in this index were classified in the better than average group while students with negative scores were classified in the worse than average group. students with score zero were classified in the equal group. this index represents students’ beliefs regarding their own performance with respect to their perceptions regarding peers’ average performance. procedures ethical approval for this study was granted by the university ethics review committee. moreover, school principals and physical education teachers provided their permission and parental consents were obtained. students participated in the study voluntarily at individual level. the experiment took place during regular physical education lesson and students were informed that they would perform a soccer passing test consisted of 5 passes. next, students standing in the passing position were asked to estimate their own performance (i.e., number of successful passes) and the performance of their peers (i.e., number of successful passes of their classmates on average). then, students were provided with oral instructions and observed the experimenter’s passing demonstration, performed trial passes for a minute, and were tested in passing. statistical analyses the accuracy index was used as dependent variable in the analyses of variance for comparing groups while the bias scores were used for classifying students as accurates (score: zero), underestimators (negative scores), and overestimators (positive scores) (gonida & leondari, 2011). regression analyses were conducted to examine if students scores in better or worse than average index could predict their scores in calibration bias and calibration accuracy indexes. analyses of variance were conducted for comparing better, equal, or worse than average groups in calibration accuracy. crosstabulations analysis and chi square tests were used for comparing frequencies of acurates, underestimators, and overestimators and better, worse, or equal than average groups. effect sizes of η2 and cohen’s d were also calculated (cohen, 1988). results preliminary analyses means and standards deviations of all variables are presented in table 1. no differences between genders, t(145) = -0.60, p = .552, or grades, t(145) = -0.77, p = .441, in calibration accuracy in soccer passing were found. therefore, gender and grade was not considering as a factor in the rest analyses. regarding calibration bias, overestimators (n = 60) were more compared to accurates (n = 46) and underestimators (n = 41), but nonsignificant difference in these frequencies was found, χ2(2, n = 147) = 3.96, p = .136. correlations and regressions intercorrelations of the study variables are presented in table 1. students’ estimations for their own and their peers’ performance were not correlated. calibration and better or worse than average effect 670 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regression analyses showed that students’ scores in better or worse than average index could significantly predict their scores in calibration bias, r = .44, f(1, 145) = 34.38, p < .001, and calibration accuracy, r = .18, f(1, 145) = 4.60, p = .034. table 1 means, standards deviations, and correlations between study variables variable correlations m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. soccer passing performance 2.33 1.33 2. estimation of self performance 2.67 1.21 .32** 3. estimation of peer performance 3.44 0.94 .12 .16 4. self-calibration bias 0.35 1.48 -.64** .53** .03 5. self-calibration accuracy 1.14 1.01 -.18* .26** .07 .37** 6. better or worse than average index -0.77 1.40 .20* .75** -.53** .44** .18* *p < .05. **p < .01. comparisons between better, equal or worse than average groups frequencies of better, equal or worse than average groups were calculated and chi square showed significant differences between groups, χ2(2, n = 147) = 70.69, p < .001. the majority of students were classified in the worse than average group (n = 97) and the rest in the better than average (n = 23) or in the equal than others (n = 27). moreover, crosstabulations analysis of frequencies of better, worse, or equal than average groups and calibration bias groups (accurates, underestimators, and overestimators) showed significant differences, χ2(4, n = 147) = 14.88, p = .005. in particular, within the better and equal than average groups, students who overestimated their performance were more than accurates and underestimators (table 2). no differences in calibration accuracy of soccer passing, f(2, 144) = 2.56, p = .081, were found between groups of students classified as better (m = 1.57, sd = 1.20), worse (m = 1.07, sd = 0.94), or equal (m = 1.00, sd = 1.04) than average. table 2 crosstabulations of frequencies of better or worse than average groups and bias groups self-bias groups better or worse than average groups totalequal worse better accurates 9 31 6 46 underestimators 5 35 1 41 overestimators 13 31 16 60 total 27 97 23 147 discussion a growing interest for calibration research in the domain of physical education has recently emerged (e.g., kolovelonis & goudas, 2018). the present study, following and expanding this trend, focused not only in the kolovelonis & dimitriou 671 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ accuracy of students’ estimations of their own performance but also on students’ estimations regarding the performance of their classmates. both of these types of metacognitive estimations are matter because they are involved in the process of students learning and performance in physical education. next, the results of the present study are discussed with reference to previous evidence in calibration research and theoretical and practical implications for learning and performance in physical education. accuracy in estimating self and peer performance students overestimated their own performance (i.e., estimated performance was 15% higher than the actual) and overestimators were more compared to accurates and underestimators. these results are consistent with previous evidence showing an overconfidence effect when students estimate their performance in academic (chen, 2003; hacker & bol, 2004; hacker, bol, & bahbahani, 2008), sport (fogarty & else, 2005; mcgraw et al., 2004), and physical education (kolovelonis & goudas, 2018; kolovelonis, goudas, & dermitzaki, 2012) settings. moreover, students overestimated their peers’ average performance. in fact, in the total sample students estimated that their peers’ average performance would be 48% higher than the actual mean performance of the participants in this study was. these results showed that students tended to overestimate not only their own performance but also the performance of their peers supporting views that people usually have imperfect knowledge of both their own and their peer’ performance (moore & healy, 2008). moreover, this inaccuracy in estimating self and peers’ performance may imply that these two forms of metacognitive judgments (i.e., estimations of self and peer performance) interact and maybe based on common underlying metacongitive processes (efklides, 2011). the lack of metacognitive self-awareness may be related not only with difficulties in estimating self performance but also may be involved in social comparisons process. these interpretations are also discussed below in relation to better or worse than average effect and should be further explored in future research. calibration of performance and the better or worse than average effect this study focused on students’ performance calibration in relation to the better or worse than average effect. the majority of students (almost two thirds of students) reported that their peers’ performance would be higher compared to their own performance and thus they were classified in the worse than average group. this result was not consistent with previous research showing that people tend to believe that their abilities in various domains (i.e., health, education, and workplace) were above average (dunning et al., 2004). however, other views have also suggested that oftentimes people claim that they are worse than others (chambers, 2008) especially when they judge their ability for difficult tasks, like computer programming (kruger, 1999) or difficult sport tasks (vanyperen, 1992). similarly, it has been suggested that on difficult tasks, people usually believe that they are worse than others while on easy tasks better than others (moore & healy, 2008) indicating that the difficulty of the task may affect the direction of the better or worse that average effect. considering this evidence, a possible explanation of the results of this study may be associated with the nature of the sport task used. in particular, in the case of sport tasks immediate and apparent feedback regarding performance is available not only to performers but also to observers. this made the process of social comparison easier for most students and helped them to make conclusions regarding the difficulty of the task. students in the present study may consider the soccer passing task as a difficult one and thus they believed that their performance would be lower compared to their peers’ performance. other explanations have been also proposed for the better or worse than average effect including both motivational (e.g., self-enhancement, self-protect) and cognitive faccalibration and better or worse than average effect 672 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tors (e.g., egocentrism, selective accessibility in information about the self and others) (chambers, 2008). for example, some students may have inflated their estimations for peers’ performance to protect their self-worth from unfavorable social comparative judgments in the case of their performance was low. however, such interpretation should be experimentally examined in future research exploring further the nature of better or worse than average effect and the factors associated with it in physical education. an interesting result was that students who were classified in the better than average group were less accurate in estimating their own performance compared to students who classified in the worse, or in equal than average groups. however, this difference did not reach significance. moreover, two third of students who classified in the better than average group overestimated their own performance while students’ scores in the better or worse than average index could significantly predict their scores in calibration bias and accuracy. all these results in combination suggest that the way students perceived and estimated their performance in relation to their peers’ performance may be related with the calibration accuracy of their own performance. previous research has shown that students who overestimated their own performance compared to their peers’ performance were more overconfident (larrick et al., 2007). indeed, it has been proposed that performance calibration may affected by social factors (schunk & pajares, 2004). that is, students may use social comparison to form estimations for their own performance. thus, if one’s estimations of peers’ performance are inaccurate he or she may also estimate inaccurately their own performance. however, considering the cross-sectional nature of this study, no cause and effect relations could be established by the present results. further research is needed to explore the dynamic and interactive relationships between metacognitive judgments of self and peers’ performance. calibration, better or worse than average effect, and self-regulated learning the results of this study may inform processes involved in students’ self-regulated learning development. during the first phases of self-regulated learning development students are based on social support (i.e., modeling, social feedback) to develop their skills (goudas, kolovelonis, & dermitzaki, 2013; zimmerman, 2000). thus, the way students interpret information from social environment may be crucial for the development of self-regulated learning (labuhn et al., 2010). in fact, comparisons with the ‘norm’ can produce positive or negative self-reactions and affect self-efficacy and motivation to practice a skill (e.g., hutchinson et al., 2008). in the present study almost all students had a misleading picture for the “norm” as miscalibrated their peers’ performance (i.e., they estimated peers’ performance higher than it actually was) believing that their performance would be lower than their peers’ performance. thus, the accuracy of students’ estimations of their classmates’ performance is crucial in the sense that these estimations are the basis in the social comparison process and can affect students’ perceptions of their own abilities (dunning & hayes, 1996). for example, miscalibration of peers’ performance may affect students’ beliefs regarding their own abilities (kavussanu & roberts, 1996) and their motivation to be involved in self-regulated practice (zimmerman, 2000). moving towards mastering the skill students rely more on producing self-feedback through self-monitoring processes (goudas et al., 2013; zimmerman, 2000). in fact, research in physical education has shown that selfmonitoring process in the form of self-recording of performance had a positive effect on students’ performance (kolovelonis, goudas, & dermitzaki, 2011; kolovelonis, goudas, hassandra, & dermitzaki, 2012). however, the accuracy of these metacognitive judgments (i.e., self-monitoring) regarding performance is crucial for the development of self-regulated learning. indeed, previous findings in physical education has shown that the accuracy kolovelonis & dimitriou 673 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of feedback students receive through the practice with the reciprocal and the self-check teaching styles was positively associated with their performance (kolovelonis & goudas, 2012). however, the majority of students in this study miscalibarated their performance, either being overestimators or underestimators. this miscalibration may affect students’ motivation to be involved in practicing and their efforts to self-regulate their learning (efklides & misailidi, 2010). thus, improving students’ calibration, by implementing interventions such as those describing in the next section, should help them to accurately estimate their performance and to enhance their self-regulated learning and performance. practical implications the results of this study can inform practical implications for physical education. teachers should help students to be more accurate in estimating both their own and their peers’ performance designing interventions for calibrating these estimations. such interventions should focus on increasing students’ awareness regarding their own and their peers’ performance reducing thus the discrepancy between estimated and actual performance. in fact, practicing calibration (bol et al., 2012) and providing students with feedback (labuhn et al., 2010) have been found to improve students’ capability to estimate their performance accurately. moreover, focusing on personal improvement (i.e., promoting students’ task orientation) rather than on trying to outperform others may help students to be better calibrated. in fact, a recent study in physical education showed that task orientation was a significant predictor of students’ calibration accuracy (kolovelonis & goudas, 2018). furthermore, involving students in self-regulatory practice (kolovelonis, goudas, & dermitzaki, 2010) including metacognitive monitoring and self-recording (kolovelonis, goudas, & dermitzaki, 2011) may help them to increase their awareness regarding their performance and to become well-calibrated students. the use of teaching styles, such as the reciprocal and the self-check styles (mosston & ashworth, 2002), can also help students to improve performance and to increase their awareness regarding their performance and the standards to judge their own and their peers’ performance in sport tasks (kolovelonis, goudas, & gerodimos, 2011). moreover, considering that changing students’ mindsets can enhanced their achievement and decreased their calibration error (dweck, 2017; ravenscroft et al., 2012) students should be taught that personal competencies and intelligence are malleable rather than fixed. limitations and future research this study was cross-sectional in nature and thus no cause and effects relationships can be established from the present results. future research should involve longitudinal designs to explore the dynamic interactions between students’ estimations of their own and their peers’ performance. previous research has shown that the relationships between calibration of performance and the better or worse than average effect may be vary based on the task difficulty (moore & healy, 2008). thus, future research should consider the potential effects of the difficulty of the tasks in the association between calibration and better or worse than average effect. such research should also involve students’ perceptions of the task difficulty as the feelings of difficulty have been negatively associated with basketball shooting performance in physical education (goudas, dermitzaki, & kolovelonis, 2017). in this study, students’ classification in better, worse, or equal than average groups was based on the estimation of their peers’ performance which is considered an indirect method of calculating this index (chambers & windschitl, 2004). future research should also use direct methods of measuring the better or worse than average effect (e.g., asking students if they consider themselves better or worse than average in a specific task) (e.g., hamamura, heine, & takemoto, 2007). although both methods have been successfully calibration and better or worse than average effect 674 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 https://www.psychopen.eu/ used in documenting the better than average effect, the direct method seems to yield stronger evidence than the indirect (chambers & windschitl, 2004). associations between calibration, the better or worse than average effect, and students’ learning and performance in motor and sport tasks should also be examined. for example, interventions enhancing students’ beliefs that their performance was better than average had positive effects on students’ learning and performance (wulf et al., 2010). this result implies that students’ self-efficacy beliefs may be involved in the process of calibrating their performance. indeed, a recent study showed that self-efficacy predicted students’ calibration accuracy in physical education (kolovelonis & goudas, 2018). thus, potential associations between better or worse than average effect, students’ calibration, and their self-efficacy beliefs should be further explored in future research. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ali, a. 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(1992). self-enhancement among major-league soccer players: the role of importance and ambiguity on social comparison behavior. journal of applied social psychology, 22, 1186-1198. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1992.tb02359.x wong, b. (2016). underachievement in education. in j. stone, r. m. dennis, p. s. rizova, a. d. smith, & x. hou (eds.), wiley blackwell encyclopedia of race, ethnicity, and nationalism. doi:10.1002/9781118663202 wulf, g., shea, c., & lewthwaite, r. (2010). motor skill learning and performance: a review of influential factors. medical education, 44, 75-84. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03421.x zimmerman, b. (2000). attaining self-regulation: a social-cognitive perspective. in m. boekaerts, p. pintrich, & m. zeidner (eds.), handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13-39). doi:10.1016/b978-012109890-2/50031-7 about the authors athanasios kolovelonis is a member of the teaching staff of the school of physical education & sport sciences, university of thessaly. he has a master degree (2006) and a phd (2011) from university of thessaly. he has authored or co-authored three books and four book chapters; he has published more than 30 papers in national and international journals, 9 short papers and has 31 presentations in national and international conferences. he is reviewer in 2 national and 23 international journals. his research focuses on life skills programs, motivation, self-regulated learning and cognitive development in physical education. eleni dimitriou is a physical education teacher in an elementary school. she has a master degree (2006) and a phd (2011) from university of thessaly. she has published more than 15 papers in national and international journals, 5 short papers and has 20 presentations in national and international conferences. her research focuses on life skills and health education programs in physical education. kolovelonis & dimitriou 679 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 665–679 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1599 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1992.tb02359.x https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118663202 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03421.x https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-012109890-2/50031-7 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ calibration and better or worse than average effect (introduction) calibration of performance: conceptualization and research evidence estimating peers’ performance: am i better or worse than average? the present study method participants measures procedures statistical analyses results preliminary analyses correlations and regressions comparisons between better, equal or worse than average groups discussion accuracy in estimating self and peer performance calibration of performance and the better or worse than average effect calibration, better or worse than average effect, and self-regulated learning practical implications limitations and future research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors meaning and wellness: a comparative psychobiography on helen suzman and beyers naudé research reports meaning and wellness: a comparative psychobiography on helen suzman and beyers naudé carla nel 1, barbara burnell 2, paul j. p. fouché 1, roelf van niekerk 3 [1] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. [2] private practice. [3] department of industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 received: 2020-12-08 • accepted: 2021-03-02 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: carla nel, department of psychology, faculty of humanities, university of the free state, p.o. box 339 (g66), bloemfontein, 9301, south africa. e-mail: nelc@ufs.ac.za abstract this comparative psychobiographical study provides an in-depth exploration of meaning in the lives of two extraordinary individuals, helen suzman and beyers naudé. a comparison of the construction of meaning, as an important aspect of wellness within the holistic wellness model, is given for these south african anti-apartheid activists. suzman (1917–2009) dedicated her career to opposing apartheid policy as a parliamentary politician. naudé (1915–2004) was a renowned public figure dedicated to social justice in his role as a theologian. the holistic wellness model views the neo-adlerian life task of spirituality as crucial to ascribing meaning to life events, acknowledging multiple potential sources of meaning. the differences and similarities pertaining to the domains of meaning-making of these two subjects are explored. the subjects, who differed regarding biographical variables, were found to share a common sense of purpose within the same socio-political milieu. the study findings confirm that commitment to diverse sources of meaning and generativity are central to meaningfulness. this comparative psychobiographical study contributes to the eugraphic exploration of the meaning-making processes of these exemplary individuals. keywords meaning domains, holistic wellness, comparative psychobiography, eugraphic study, beyers naudé, helen suzman, anti-apartheid figures meaning making, despite being an important facet of human existence, has not been adequately explored in psychobi­ ography (mayer & may, 2019). the holistic wellness model views meaningfulness as important in enhancing wellness and provides a useful framework for exploring meaning-making throughout the lifespan. this model acknowledges multiple potential sources of meaning, including overcoming hardship, forming an individual life philosophy, engaging in interpersonal attachments, practising self-mortification, pursuing pleasure, striving for self-actualisation, advancing social interests or performing religious tasks (mosak & dreikurs, 2000; myers, sweeney, & witmer, 2000). this multi-di­ mensional approach (mayer, van niekerk, & fouché, 2020) corresponds to the expansive and integrated model of meaning developed by schnell (2009, 2011), in which four domains are conceptualised, consisting of 26 potential sources of meaning in life: 1. self-transcendence through commitment to goals beyond personal needs, which can occur vertically (e.g., religion and spirituality) and horizontally (e.g., social commitment, unison with nature, self-knowledge, health and generativity). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5391&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2. self-actualisation through the development of personal capacity by committing to sources of meaning such as challenge, individualism, power, development, achievement, freedom, knowledge and creativity. 3. order by holding on to values, morals, and ethics and committing to tradition, practicality, morality, and reason as possible sources of meaning. 4. wellbeing and relatedness referring to the cultivation of, and participation in, pleasurable experiences and including community, fun, love, comfort, care, attentiveness, and harmony as potential sources of meaning. within the holistic wellness model, all aspects of well-being are continuously influenced by life forces such as family, religion, education, community, media, government, and industry (witmer & sweeney, 1992). furthermore, global events and issues, such as war, disease, poverty, etc., also exert an influence on well-being by influencing “the dynamics of our existential world” (sweeney & witmer, 1991, p. 538). individuals’ processes of uncovering a sense of meaning differ, based on their subjective interpretations of past experiences as well as the specific, cultural realities they live and function in. psychobiographical research can harness the value found in the comparative study of multiple lives to explore similarities and differences between individuals and their interactions with their environments, leading to a richer understanding of the subjects’ uniqueness (isaacson, 2005). this research strives to examine how it may potentially also better illuminate a specific construct, such as meaning. helen suzman (1917–2009), known for her intolerance of injustice and concern for the plight of the disenfranchised, dedicated her parliamentary career to opposing apartheid rule. beyers naudé (1915–2004), a renowned public figure, was dedicated to the pursuit of social justice in his role as a theologian. previous psychobiographical studies of these subjects highlighted the centrality of a sense of meaning and purpose to their overall wellbeing (fouché, burnell, & van niekerk, 2015; fouché, nel, & van niekerk, 2017). this comparative psychobiographical study provides an in-depth exploration of differences and similarities pertaining to meaning for these two subjects. method naudé and suzman were selected through purposive sampling based on previous research for the eugraphic exploration of the similarities and differences in meaning-making that contribute to their exemplary life stories. these morphogenic studies (as opposed to being nomothetic or idiographic) focus on the differences and commonalities between subjects (runyan, 1983) through serial iteration, involving side-by-side comparisons of the data sets (isaacson, 2005). data collection data sources relevant to the research aims were consulted, which mainly included suzman’s and naudé’s autobiograph­ ical works. other sources included published materials such as speeches and media interviews, biographical works on the subjects, the memoirs of colleagues, various published newspaper articles, as well as media interviews with, or speeches by, family, friends and colleagues. published journal articles and unpublished postgraduate dissertations from south african university libraries were also retrieved. data extraction and analysis the extensive amount of data available on suzman and naudé needed to be reduced to a manageable amount in a systematic fashion. firstly, the collected data was sorted according to the categories related to the meaning making model, as proposed by schnell (2009, 2011). secondly, alexander’s (1988, 1990) saliency indicators were employed to reveal data most pertinent to the research topic. data related to the domains of meaning was categorised according to the life phases of the subjects. thereafter, the researchers were able to perform a side-by-side comparison to uncover striking and significant similarities and difference between the subjects. additional measures to ensure data trustworthiness was ensured through prolonged, in-depth engagement with the data, obtaining feedback from key informants and triangulating data sources and analysts (burnell, 2013; nel, 2013). the researchers purposefully selected subjects to whom they had unbiased attitudes. throughout the research process as more information was uncovered, the researchers took care to examine and reflect on their personal reactions towards the subjects. nel, burnell, fouché, & van niekerk 187 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ethical considerations permission for the original psychobiographical studies (burnell, 2013; nel, 2013) on the two subjects was granted by the researchers’ institutional research review board, the committee for title registrations of the faculty of the humanities at the university of the free state (south africa). consent was also obtained from suzman and the family members of naudé. in this study, the researchers adhered to the ethical considerations pertaining to psychobiographical research (ponterotto, 2014; ponterotto & reynolds, 2017). findings six historical periods that constitute similar life phases for the subjects were identified during data collection. the findings related to the sources of meaning that featured prominently during these life phases, will be presented in the following sections. phase 1: beginnings this phase (1915–1938) represents naudé’s childhood and university years. his social consciousness, especially for the disenfranchised, developed and became an indelible feature of his life (randall, 1982). it developed from his parents’ concern with broader community issues (related specifically to afrikaners1) and naudé’s awareness of the devastating effects of the global great depression on his community (clur, 1997). naudé’s christian rebirth at the age of 15 and sub­ sequent commitment to his faith shaped the rest of his life (clur, 1997). in this phase, naudé also engaged with outdoor activities in nature and exercise (e.g., hiking), which became lifelong sources of relaxation and health (naudé, 1995). while courting ilse weder (whom he later married), naudé was exposed to a socially integrated missionary community at genadendal, ilse’s family home (naudé, 1995). due to this exposure, naudé began to question the segregation policies of the country and his church at the time (villa-vicencio, 1985). while he considered himself a loyal afrikaner, naudé “… disliked the all-embracing control which the nationalist movement sought to exert and so shied away from the more exclusive claims of afrikanerdom” (clur, 1997, p. 16). due to the books he read, as well as experiences and encounters he had at university, he “… slowly began to question the alliance to theology and nationalism, which formed the basis of his parents’ home. these were questions which, however, remained at a preliminary and latent level in his early life” (villa-vicencio, 1995, p. 20). in stark contrast to that of her parents, who had fled from jewish persecution in russia, suzman (neé gavronsky) enjoyed a privileged and sheltered upbringing during this phase (1917–1936). however, young suzman’s knowledge of their experiences sensitised her to the “evils of race discrimination” (suzman, 1993, p. 10). her father’s remarriage when she was 9 years old (suzman’s mother had died shortly after childbirth) ushered in a period of community, comfort, care, and creativity for the family, with young suzman performing at charity events hosted by her parents (strangwayes-booth, 1976; suzman, 1993). governmental policy had engineered isolation from other racial groups and placed her, even as a child, in a position of authority over the family’s black employees, delaying the development of her later keen sense of social justice. little information is available on religious beliefs during her childhood, as she simply stated: “we lit candles on friday nights and had large gatherings for the jewish festivals. my father and stepmother attended synagogue on the high holy days. i did not” (suzman, 1993, p. 10). the morals, values, customs, and practices inherent to her jewish upbringing and catholic school education, however, influenced the formation of her identity and life philosophy, which emphasised independence, punctuality, and conscientiousness. she was a popular, sporty, competitive scholar, and performed well above average academically (strangwayes-booth, 1976). this phase also saw the start of a lifelong enjoyment of outdoor activities, as her relationship with nature would later support her wellness throughout her lifespan (fouché et al., 2017). initially enthusiastic about studying towards a postgraduate law degree, suzman’s student years were filled with social events and international tours. her enthusiasm and performance waned 1) afrikaners are descendants from european immigrants (mainly dutch, but also french and german) who settled in the cape colony. a separate culture and language (afrikaans) emerged (giliomee, 2003). meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé 188 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ after her father refused her request to continue her economics studies in london, and she dropped out of university (suzman, 1993). phase 2: career initialisation this phase (1939–1954) commenced with the completion of naudé’s seminary training. the following year he served as a trainee minister in the dutch reformed church (drc) wellington, cape province, and married ilse. his first position as a minister in the karoo town of loxton made him acutely aware of the destructive impact of the segregation policies of both the church and government in the congregations he was serving (ryan, 1990). he began to question apartheid theology and the apartheid policies of the time to a greater extent in terms of his compassion for others, a reverence for human dignity and human rights, as well as moral and ethical values (rampen, 1972). naudé embarked on intensive reading and self-study to allay any doubt and remedy any lacking theoretical and theological knowledge regarding the apartheid policies of the church and state (randall, 1982). naudé derived meaning and purpose from his community and congregational work, and the couple also enjoyed close relationships in the congregations they served. for naudé, world war ii brought to the fore issues related to the need for tolerance and reverence for human life, peace, and reconciliation (naudé, 1995). this phase (1937–1958) started with suzman’s marriage at the age of 19. her life as a housewife consisted of dinner parties, dancing, golf, and horse-riding. the rise of nazism and world war ii soon sparked a new sense of purpose for her. suzman showed persistence in serving in the war effort—returning to university after she was turned away from the sa women's auxiliary force because of her child's birth. subsequently, she joined the war supplies board and performed “boring but essential” (suzman, 1993, p. 13) duties, experiencing a shared sense of meaning with a community of jewish south africans. with growing awareness of the afrikaner nationalist inclinations of the local media and developing insight into local politics and the oppression of black south africans, suzman became “utterly preoccupied” (suzman, 1993, p. 15) with issues of racial discrimination. helen’s ego-interests expanded significantly through her occupational role (fouché, nel, & van niekerk, 2014) as her analysis of discriminatory policies for the south african institute for race relations (sairr) launched her political career and a commitment to oppose racial inequalities (suzman, 1993). she demonstrated careful attention to both detail and principle and was able to consider various perspectives of an argument before formulating her own view (o’regan, 2011). by the end of this phase, she expressed her social commitment through the demanding task of challenging apartheid as an opposition member of parliament (mp). phase 3: divergence during this phase (1955–1963) naudé worked as a drc minister in several congregations. he visited other congrega­ tions in african, coloured, and indian communities, where his meeting with families made him continuously more aware of the tremendous hardship and suffering caused by segregation policies. naudé was deeply affected by the loss of life during the sharpeville massacre2 (naudé, 1995). committed to the cause of justice and liberty (villa-vicencio, 1995), his sense of meaning and purpose were broadened to include not only his own community but the larger south african context. he realised the need for inter-racial association and joined a multi-racial bible study group of ministers opposed to apartheid (randall, 1982). he also launched the christian institute (ci), a racially integrated organisation to expose the injustice and disruption caused by racial segregation and to support christians who opposed this system (kistner, 1995). in the aftermath of sharpeville, naudé was a delegate at a johannesburg conference of the world council of churches, which was held to discuss the race situation. the conference confirmed his views that racial segregation and discrimination were immoral and biblically indefensible (randall, 1982). prime minister verwoerd (like most of white south africa) rejected and condemned these findings and instructed all delegates to denounce them. everyone did, barring naudé (villa-vicencio, 1995). he had developed an individual life philosophy and lived out the moral and ethical values that guided his everyday life. this path, however, was irreconcilable with the mainstream afrikaner 2) on 21 march 1960, thousands of africans protested nationally against pass laws. a crowd protested peacefully outside the police station in sharpeville. police opened fire, killing 69 people and wounding 186; many shot in the back (thompson, 2006; tutu, 2005). nel, burnell, fouché, & van niekerk 189 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ establishment and drc views (ryan, 1990). naudé subsequently resigned his position and was defrocked and stripped of the title of minister of religion. his final sermon contained the message of obedience to god and christian beliefs over obedience to the laws of man. while naudé remained a very traditional afrikaner throughout his life in most respects, especially regarding gender roles, he was unable to morally reconcile himself with the political and racist views of mainstream afrikaners, (naudé, 1995). during this brief period (1959–1961), suzman observed the decolonisation of african nations as representative of ethical values related to liberty, equality, and autonomy (suzman, 1993). the government’s continued implementation of apartheid policy had directly opposed her values and the expression of her generative concern (fouché et al., 2014). her growing experience of her party as an ineffective vessel for opposition culminated in a split from the united party (suzman, 1993). suzman and other members of the newly formed progressive party endured much criticism over the retention of their parliamentary seats under a new party banner. any moral reservations suzman harboured, however, were dispelled in the aftermath of the sharpeville killings, as she experienced a renewed sense of purpose: “during that tragic period, we progs were able to show our worth” (suzman, 1993, p. 52). her family continued to play an integral supportive role, affirming her values and providing a sense of love, care, and comfort. suzman also enjoyed friendship and camaraderie based on shared values in the new party. from this time onward, helen forged a relationship with the liberal press that would provide her with opportunities for validation throughout her career (suzman, 1993). phase 4: dissention in this phase (1964–1976), naudé’s full-time work at the ci focused on building inter-racial relationships. despite en­ countering continued resistance and criticism and being ostracised by the majority of his beloved afrikaner community, naudé (1995) later reflected on the sense of meaning and purpose he derived from his attempts to raise anti-apartheid awareness among afrikaners. naudé worked closely with black consciousness movement (bcm) leaders such as steve biko and bennie khoapa. realising the true social, economic, and emotional impact of apartheid on the black population, he and the ci became explicit supporters of the anti-apartheid movement (ryan, 1990). by the end of the 1960s, the anti-apartheid movement was moving towards an armed struggle since all peaceful means had failed. while naudé opposed an armed struggle, he did support the anti-apartheid cause and continued to assist where possible, helping young african national congress (anc) members to flee the country (naudé, 1995). on 16 june 1976, soweto school children were peacefully protesting against the use of afrikaans as an instruction medium when police shot teargas into the crowd. the children retaliated by throwing stones, and the police opened fire, killing at least seven of the protestors. the situation escalated further, with rioting and violence erupting all over soweto and the deployment of military and police reinforcements (clur, 1997). naudé urged the government to rather enter into talks with black community leaders to end the apartheid structures, but to no avail (naudé, 1995). instead, the government “… resorted to enormous force to quell the protests, and by 1977, the death toll in the black townships had risen to more than 700 …” (ryan, 1990, p. 178). this phase (1962–1973) saw suzman as the sole parliamentary representative for her party, where she endured significant burdens as she forged her lonely struggle against nationalist policy. suzman compared aspects of the apartheid legislation to nazi rule (suzman, 1993) and thus viewed her work as a potentially meaningful contributor to her overall wellness (fouché et al., 2017). she extended herself beyond parliamentary duties to attend to citizens outside the constituency she represented, including political prisoners (suzman, 1993). as a “cheeky female with a sharp tongue which she used without regard to rank or gender” within a maleand afrikaner-dominated parliament (suzman, 1993, p. 114), suzman saw herself as an honourary representative for the oppressed and a fighter for the rights of the disenfranchised. she demonstrated her generative concern through a high level of productivity and accountability under hostile and isolating conditions (fouché et al., 2014). suzman’s wellbeing would have been supported by her active and socially engaged lifestyle, as well as the care within her family, despite occasional political disagreements. as her work began to attract international attention, a kind of personality cult formed within the anti-apartheid press and among voters, resulting in a widespread view of her as the unofficial party leader (nel, 2013; strangwayes-booth, 1976). meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé 190 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ phase 5: overt opposition naudé continued to speak out against the apartheid system during the period 1977–1987, as the black population grew increasingly discontented and resistant, cautioning that “… the institutionalised brutality of the apartheid system had engendered so much bitterness and hatred that many black leaders were coming to the conclusion that counter-violence was a tragic inevitability” (ryan, 1990, p. 184). he continued to engage with some afrikaners who had also begun questioning the apartheid system (ryan, 1990). by october 1977, the ci had been closed down by the government, with naudé and the ci management receiving banning orders. despite constant surveillance and strict restrictions, naudé found ways to continue assisting with anti-apartheid activities (naudé, 1995). through his involvement with anc activities, he hoped to contribute to a broader understanding of what the anc was advocating for and hoped it would minimise the armed struggle (villa-vicencio, 1995). this reflected naudé’s reverence for human life, compassion, and service to others. he attempted to serve both the disenfranchised black population and educate and enlighten the white (specifically the afrikaner) population (naudé, 1995). though stressful and challenging, this phase proved to be a spiritually rich and meaningful period for naudé. his strong conviction regarding his actions, as well as his connection with a larger community, sustained and enriched him (naudé, & sölle, 1986). naudé saw reconciliation between races as part of his spiritual duty and remained in service to others. he emerged as an important church leader after the banning order and was elected as general secretary of the south african council of churches in 1985 (tutu, 2005). in this position, he addressed communities, visited the loved ones of victims of violence related to anti-apartheid demonstrations, and continued to participate with other clergies in protest marches against apartheid (ryan, 1990). in a sense, there was also some reward for the long years of suffering for his beliefs that apartheid was unbiblical, unethical, and morally indefensible (tutu, 2005). at the start of this phase (1974–1988), greater electoral success ensured that suzman was no longer serving as the party’s sole mp. she maintained exemplary productivity levels but enjoyed the newfound camaraderie of working towards shared goals in a more supportive environment. generativity was again expressed through her commitment, involvement, and concern for the community at large, she consulted with local leaders and opposed forced removals throughout the country (fouché et al., 2014). she continued to enjoy the support of her family, a sense of connectedness with a like-minded community of individuals, and the validation of her work. however, suzman also faced conflict and controversy related to her unpopular opposition of economic and cultural sanctions instituted against south africa at the time. not known to compromise on her sense of justice for the sake of interpersonal harmony, suzman remained undeterred, maintaining that she based her opinions on practicality and reason (suzman, 1993). phase 6: final phase this phase (1988–2004) coincides with the abolishment of the apartheid system and the birth of a new dispensation and democratic society. naudé was involved in the political talks as part of the anc delegation (ryan, 1990). he had always believed that negotiation between the government and the anc would be the only way to broker a peaceful resolution for the problems in south africa (potgieter, 1994) and was able to experience the beginning of the equality all the anti-apartheid activists had worked towards (naudé, 1995). in 1994, the drc made an apology to naudé and ilse. being able to return to the drc and, to an extent, to the afrikaner community was deeply meaningful to him (tutu, 2005). into his 80s, naudé continued to work in service of others and play a part in south africa’s public scene. the ideal of justice, equality, and the hope of a unified south africa for future generations remained an ideal for which naudé strove to the end of his life (clarke, 2004). this phase (1989–2009) started with suzman’s retirement, where after her social interest and generative commitment did not seem to diminish, sustained by continued efforts to advance human rights and civil liberties for future genera­ tions (fouché et al., 2014). intensely frustrated by her decrease in mobility as she aged, suzman reflected favourably in her memoirs on her contributions to the abolition of apartheid (suzman, 1993). the post-apartheid media was a continued presence as they sought out her opinion and comment, validating her continued presence in the country’s political landscape. she received various accolades and honours during her retirement, locally and abroad, which would have undoubtedly facilitated a sense of meaning and purpose regarding her life’s work (nel, 2013). in the last phase nel, burnell, fouché, & van niekerk 191 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of her life, her values were not only shared by her family, friends, and community but were mirrored in the ideals enshrined in the new constitution (eglin, 2007). to illuminate important similarities and differences in their cultivation of a meaningful, fulfilling life narrative, the comparison of the subjects in terms of the domains of meaning, life forces and global events are summarised in figure 1. figure 1 a comparative biographical chart for suzman and naudé while the subjects shared a common sense of purpose, they differed on significant variables, such as gender, language, culture, religion, and economic status. in the following discussion, the similarities and differences between the subjects related to domains of meaning are highlighted. discussion naudé and suzman both reflected on their lives and their opposition to the apartheid system and the sense of purpose and meaning derived from it. suzman (1993) conveyed the sense of purpose obtained through her career: “i think it was a tremendous privilege to have been in parliament, to have played a part in keeping values alive which most of us believe in, to have allowed nothing to go by default, to have had eyeball-to-eyeball confrontations with the government about all its offensive actions, and especially to have been able to intercede on behalf of victims of apartheid…” (p. 272). naudé reflected on his life’s work: "what is of importance to you is your experience of life, of an inner peace, of a strength of faith, of a continuation of your commitment… you simply do not regard the traditional value systems… meaningful any longer…these values lost their meaning for me, and therefore an inner peace of mind came, also a loss of fear, that even if somebody asked me i’d say, well, suppose you go back, suppose now that you are being threatened, suppose that you may lose your life tomorrow, then, well, my response is, well if that happens, so what? isn’t then the meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé 192 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ death which you experience as a result of what you try to be in the deepest sense of the word, isn’t that then something in a certain sense of a crowning of your whole life and what you try to convey?" (naudé & sölle, 1986, pp. 23–24). domain: self-transcendence this domain would be the most defining characteristic in the life stories of both suzman and naudé. regarding horizon­ tal self-transcendence, generativity and social commitment first became evident for suzman during her second life phase with her involvement in the war effort and local politics. throughout subsequent life phases, suzman demonstrated a significant commitment to these sources of meaning. these were also the most prominent horizontal sources of meaning that featured in the data on naudé, for whom social commitment was already a prominent aspect from the first life phase. both subjects recalled the impact of their families’ demonstrations of concern for their respective communities. furthermore, both subjects had expanded on their parents' commitments by developing their own ideas around social commitment and generativity to include the larger, multi-racial society of south africa. for both naudé and suzman, increased knowledge regarding the full negative impact of racial rule sparked a critical re-evaluation of the policies of government (as well as, for naudé, a questioning of the segregation policies of the church). throughout their lives, both demonstrated generative concern through their work in general and, specifically, through their commitment to those groups most adversely affected by the apartheid system. both subjects were driven to active opposition of the apartheid system by their concern for the wellbeing of future generations. both suzman and naudé demonstrated lifelong commitments to other horizontal sources of self-transcendence, such as unison with nature and the development of self-knowledge. for both subjects, the experience of good health as a potential source of meaning was only challenged during the last phase of life as advancing age gradually led to declining health and mobility. some individual differences in self-transcendence were also observed. naudé’s experience of this domain was significantly influenced by commitments to vertical sources of self-transcendence through religious and spiritual experi­ ences. starting from naudé’s strict, religious upbringing and his “christian rebirth” in the first life phase, this domain continued to feature prominently throughout subsequent life phases, as his commitment to his faith continued to guide and inform many of his decisions and actions. in contrast, the data on suzman’s life placed little emphasis on religion or spirituality as sources of meaning in her life, with her experience of self-transcendence, therefore, most prominent on the horizontal plane. domain: self-actualisation naudé and suzman both demonstrated a high degree of committed striving towards self-actualisation throughout their lives. there were, additionally, several similarities in the potential sources of meaning within this domain prominent in the historical data on both subjects. from the second phase onward, naudé demonstrated commitment to development (personal growth), knowledge and individualism (autonomy and independence) as he embarked on a process of self-study and development to answer certain questions regarding apartheid theology for himself. this put him on a course toward openly challenging and opposing the apartheid government and policies as he developed his individual ideas and beliefs. in terms of these domains, suzman demonstrated a prominent commitment to development and knowledge, achievement, challenge and individualism. since her first life phase, she took pride in developing her sense of determination and conscientiousness. she was highly competitive throughout her life, later enduring several personal and professional challenges in performing her duties as an mp autonomously. her meticulous acquisition of information and thorough consideration of multiple viewpoints formed the foundation of her political and economic arguments. domain: order data on both subjects' lives contained numerous instances of commitment to sources of meaning within this domain. suzman, for whom the domain of order was the most prominent of the four meaning domains throughout her adult life, demonstrated her characteristic commitment to practicality, morality, and reason through her mastery of detail and attention to principle throughout her career. naudé became increasingly concerned for the wellbeing of future generations of south africa should the government not change course. to this end, he warned of the unfeasibility and unsustainability of the apartheid system, demonstrating his commitment to practicality and reason. an overlap was, nel, burnell, fouché, & van niekerk 193 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, observed between sources such as morality in the domain of order and sources from other dimensions, such as self-transcendence (particularly generativity and religion). for example, naudé lived out his religious beliefs in ways that relate closely to morality. similarly, suzman’s sense of morality in her fight for justice for apartheid victims was expressed through well-reasoned arguments of economic and political practicality, coupled with her generative concern towards others and future generations. one difference between the subjects emerged in this domain. tradition featured less prominently in the evidence on suzman, as she demonstrated little commitment to the conservation of traditional and cultural roles and values. conversely, naudé described himself as a very typical, traditional afrikaner man despite his anti-apartheid views. domain: wellbeing and relatedness naudé and suzman both demonstrated a high degree of commitment to sources of meaning related to this domain. for both subjects, a sense of care and community featured prominently throughout their work. from the first life phase onward, suzman enjoyed and cultivated family relationships, close friendships, and social interactions characterised by fun, love, comfort, care and attentiveness. during the final phase of her life, themes of relatedness feature prominently in her reflections on her life and her work. similarly, naudé forged close friendships that were also a source of fun for him, and his family was a continued focus of his love, comfort, care and attentiveness. while he experienced rejection from the majority of his afrikaner community, naudé continued to engage with fellow afrikaners to influence their beliefs and convince them of his anti-apartheid views and forged relationships with different communities and groups, such as with young black activists. naudé found his work with families of victims of the violence and his own participation in the anti-apartheid protests and demonstrations as particularly meaningful. in the last phase of his life, the public apology by the drc and the welcoming back into the “fold” of the afrikaner community that it signified was also very meaningful to naudé. similarly, suzman’s activities within different communities also served as an outlet for her sense of generativity, again highlighting the potential overlap between different domains of meaning. a key difference between the subjects regarding this domain involves harmony as a source of meaning. it featured very prominently in naudé’s life, since he was deeply affected by violence, intolerance and the lack of reverence for human life displayed during wwii, the sharpeville massacre and soweto uprising. he advocated for tolerance and reconciliation between races in south africa. during the last phase of his life, naudé found particular meaning and purpose in contributing to the post-apartheid south african society and a new, harmonious, equitable dispensation for all races and it continued to be the driving force for naudé as he continued his public activities in post-apartheid south africa. suzman, on the other hand, seemed to have been driven more by her desire to promote the principle of justice than a striving for harmony, with the domain of order, thereby influencing her approach to matters of community and relatedness. in trying to protect the vulnerable against harm, she was quick to voice disagreement, often did so harshly, and she easily engaged in debate, even with those closest to her. she did, however, demonstrate a high degree of commitment to harmony with the self through congruence between actions and values. her utilisation of relatedness as a domain of meaning, therefore, was seemingly governed more by aspects such as love, care and attentiveness than striving towards interpersonal harmony. conclusions the findings of this study suggest the importance of commitment to diverse sources of meaning, as well as the centrality of self-transcendence and generativity, to the experience of meaningfulness. this echoes previous findings: firstly, that a strong sense of purpose and meaning in life is most likely to be achieved in the presence of commitments and intentional investments to numerous and diverse potential sources of meaning (ryff & singer, 1998; schnell, 2011) and secondly, that generativity as a source within the domain of self-transcendence, is the best predictor of meaningfulness (schnell, 2011). the data of both suzman and naudé emphasise the interconnectedness of the four domains of meaning, with potential overlap observed in how behaviours may relate to more than one domain. this indicates the lifelong diversity of sources of meaning in the lives of these subjects, as well as the interconnectedness of sources of meaning in the lives of individuals. meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé 194 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ life forces and global events, as well as the subjects’ reactions towards them, were found to significantly contribute to the sources of meaning available to the subjects and seemed to influence the domains of meaning prominent in their lives at any given stage. it seemed that for both subjects, supportive life forces facilitated their wellness and ability to experience meaningfulness, while their reaction to adversities and challenges provided them with opportunities for deepening their sense of purpose. this finding affirms the potential influence of these factors on individual wellness, as conceptualised by the holistic wellness model (myers et al., 2000). this study demonstrated how the domains and sources of meaning as conceptualised by schnell (2009, 2011) could span across all the life tasks contained in the holistic wellness model (myers et al., 2000), thus suggesting a potential application of these sources and domains of meaning as indicators of overall wellness. the authors suggest that future research projects focusing on this area may uncover further correlation or integration between meaning in life and holistic wellness. funding: 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(1992). a holistic model for wellness and prevention over the life span. journal of counselling and development, 71(2), 140-148. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb02189.x about the authors carla nel, (phd), is a lecturer in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. she obtained her phd (clinical psychology) at the university of the free state where completed her dissertation in the field of psychobiography. meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé 196 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb01906.x https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000005 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000047 http://www.cbc.ca/archives/discover/programs/m/man-alive/man-alive-dec-4-1972.html https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1983.tb00339.x https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0901_1 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760903271074 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.006 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb02189.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ barbara burnell, (phd), is a clinical psychologist in private practice and an associate clinical supervisor in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. she completed her doctoral dissertation in the field of psychobiography. paul j. p. fouché, (dphil), is a full-professor of counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, in south africa. he serves on the scientific committee for social sciences and the faculty research com­ mittee. paul has published psychobiographical and psychohistorical articles in various journals. his interest is in psychobiography and psychohistory and he acts as a research supervisor to post-graduate scholars undertaking life history research. his e-mail address is: fouchejp@ufs.ac.za roelf van niekerk, (dphil), is a professor and head of the department of industrial and organisational psychology at the nelson mandela metropolitan university. prof van niekerk is a registered clinical and industrial psychologist as well as a chartered human resource practitioner. he obtained the following degrees: ba theology, ba honours (psychology), and ma (industrial psychology) at the university of stellenbosch; ma (clinical psychology) and d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth; and m ed (general education theory and practice) at rhodes university. prof van niekerk’s research focus is on psychobiographical research projects, particularly in the fields of personality-, career-, and leadership development. nel, burnell, fouché, & van niekerk 197 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 186–197 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5391 https://www.psychopen.eu/ meaning in the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé (introduction) method data collection data extraction and analysis ethical considerations findings phase 1: beginnings phase 2: career initialisation phase 3: divergence phase 4: dissention phase 5: overt opposition phase 6: final phase discussion domain: self-transcendence domain: self-actualisation domain: order domain: wellbeing and relatedness conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the thorn in the dyad: a vision on parent-child relationship in autism spectrum disorder theoretical contributions the thorn in the dyad: a vision on parent-child relationship in autism spectrum disorder teresa del bianco* a, yagmur ozturk b, ilaria basadonne a, noemi mazzoni a, paola venuti a [a] department of psychology and cognitive science, university of trento, rovereto, italy. [b] department of brain and behavioral science, university of pavia, pavia, italy. abstract parents and children form a family: their characteristics balance personal and family well-being with healthy levels of stress. research on parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (asd) demonstrated that higher levels of parental stress are associated with communication impairment, a core symptom of asd. the aim of this article is to discuss the connection between non-verbal communication impairment and parental psychological distress, in families with children with asd. the interaction between atypical communication and distress of parents likely determines a cascade effect on the parent-child dyad; in fact, it decreases the quality and frequency of interactions, preventing the establishment of a healthy parent-child relationship and leading to a series of collateral problems. to this perspective, guiding the parents to reframe their children’s atypical communicative behaviour can relieve parental stress and reprogram the interactional routine. this observation stresses the importance of interventions centred on the dyad, especially during early development and soon after the diagnosis, when the communicative impairment may be extremely severe. keywords: autism spectrum disorder, parent-child relationship, non-verbal communication, parental stress, intervention europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 received: 2017-05-04. accepted: 2018-03-18. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; rhian worth, university of south wales, newport, united kingdom *corresponding author at: laboratorio di osservazione, diagnosi e formazione, via matteo del ben, 5b, 38068 rovereto, italy. e-mail: teresa.delbianco@unitn.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. autism spectrum disorder (asd) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social communication and restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests (american psychiatric association, 2013). an insufficient predisposition of the child to engage in communication with her parents significantly affect the parent-child relationship. from the earlier stages of development, non-verbal impairments of communication are present in children with asd (mundy, sigman, ungerer, & sherman, 1986) and contribute to lessening interactional encounters. research has been carried out on communication difficulties, but researchers have not treated the connection between difficulties in parenting children with asd and non-verbal impairments. our aim is to illustrate the connection between non-verbal communication channels (i.e. cry, social gaze, gestures and movement), and a problematic parent-child relationship. for selecting the papers relevant to our overview, we undertook a bibliographic research on online databases (i.e., web of science, scopus, discovery). we based our search on keywords pertaining to the topics: pre-vereurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ bal communication (e.g., “cry”, “gaze-following”, “gestures”, “biological motion” and “autism spectrum disorder”), parental stress (e.g., “parental psychological distress”, “parenting distress” and “autism spectrum disorder”), gastrointestinal disturbances (e.g., “gastrointestinal symptoms”, “food selectivity”, and “autism spectrum disorder ”) and interventions grounded in the parent-child interaction (e.g., “parent-child intervention”, “autism spectrum disorder”). the research comprised a number of suitable synonymies of the search terms. we included in our revision quantitative peer-reviewed research articles. as selection criteria, we considered their relevance to the aforementioned topics and the year of publication (we included articles published from the year 2000, with the exception of 8 historical references). the first section offers an overview of the impairment of the non-verbal communication channels in asd from the early stages of development. afterwards, the character of difficulty of the parent-child dyad will be introduced with an example of a problematic situation, the delayed diagnosis of gastrointestinal disorders and its inefficient management (buie et al., 2010). in the light of the evidence showing the importance of a good quality of communication between parents and child, a strong intervention on parents’ and children’s communication abilities is justified. finally, we will describe models of intervention for parents of children with asd, based on empowering the parents’ ability to read their child’s communicative attempts. preverbal channels impairment: cry, gaze, gestures and movement it is a truth universally acknowledged that a new-born will cry when distressed (zeskind & lester, 2001) and look at your face (johnson, dziurawiec, ellis, & morton, 1991) from the very first moments of his/her life. cry delivers messages about needs to the caregiver (zeskind & lester, 2001) while gazing into others’ face and eyes helps the infant engaging with others (macpherson & moore, 2007) and regulating emotions and arousal (hsu, fogel, & messinger, 2001). infants’ also preferentially attend to biological movement, typical of persons (simion, regolin, & bulf, 2008). before the first birthday, the infant even produces conventional gestures (messinger & fogel, 1998). children with asd express atypical patterns of distress vocalization, such as higher fundamental frequency (f0), shorter inter-bout pauses, and fewer utterances (esposito, nakazawa, venuti, & bornstein, 2013; esposito, venuti, & bornstein, 2011; sheinkopf, iverson, rinaldi, & lester, 2012). retrospective analysis often detects a lack of eye-contact before the age of diagnosis (baranek, 1999). with the modern eye-tracking technique, research unveiled that children with asd visually avoid faces that display direct gaze (i.e., gaze directed forward to the observer; senju & johnson, 2009). the importance of the integration between non-verbal signals is evident in at-risk children, the siblings of children diagnosed with asd, that have an increased risk of developing the condition themselves because of shared genetic background (the estimated risk raises to ~7% in large population studies, versus 1% in unrelated individuals; baird et al., 2006; grønborg, schendel, & parner, 2013). in at-risk infants, scarce eye-contact and reduced gestures have been enlisted as markers at 18 months with a high predictive power for future diagnosis (chawarska et al., 2014). in particular, the absence of eye contact, sharing behaviours and descriptive gestures during social exchanges corresponded to a triplicated risk of diagnosis. additionally, this study highlighted the relevance of the interactive context, such as play, whose impaired establishment is part of the defining profiles (chawarska et al., 2014). the thorn in the dyad: parent-child relationship in asd 696 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to the ultimate non-verbal communication channel – movement – studies have revealed that children with asd show a dual deficit, both on the productive and the receptive side of body-language. in fact, toddlers and children with asd rarely express their intentions and feelings through gestures and body movements (dziuk et al., 2007; trevarthen & delafield-butt, 2013;). furthermore, a number of studies report that the general motor skills are impaired, such as gait, sitting and fine grasping (esposito, venuti, apicella, & muratori, 2011; esposito, venuti, maestro, & muratori, 2009; lloyd, macdonald, & lord, 2013). on the receptive side, data indicate that children with asd fail to orient towards others’ movement (annaz, campbell, coleman, milne, & swettenham, 2012; falck-ytter, rehnberg, & bölte, 2013; klin, lin, gorrindo, ramsay, & jones, 2009). children with asd show less conventional-interactive gestures, compared to children with down syndrome and typical development (mastrogiuseppe, capirci, cuva, & venuti, 2015), and respond less to communicative gestures, such as lateral gaze and pointing (falck-ytter, fernell, hedvall, von hofsten, & gillberg, 2012). cognitive functioning, as well as the severity of the symptoms, are specifically associated with the expression through gestures, rendering this behaviour a relevant marker of the evolution and outcome of the condition (mastrogiuseppe, capirci, cuva, & venuti, 2015). besides, patients with asd scarcely integrate different kinds of expressive behaviours, such as gaze and gestures, and barely coordinate with their social partner (rozga et al., 2011). in this particular study, the authors reported significant differences in responding to pointing gestures, pointing and handling objects to initiate an interaction already at 12 months. further details on early, non-verbal communicative impairment in asd are provided in table 1. the atypical emergence and development of non-verbal communicative abilities may prevent parents from being aware of the child’s needs. in the next section, we will highlight the relationships between parental stress and characteristics of asd and the specificity of preverbal communication impairment as a child-related stressful factor. raising a child with asd: parents’ psychological distress and communication difficulties in asd parents of children with asd are the first people to recognize the difficulties and differences in their children and are responsible for their education and treatments. hence, besides the study of individuals with asd, the impact of the difficulties in communication on the well-being of parents is of greatest importance. the challenge of being parents of children with asd has been addressed by several studies that report that parents of children with asd experience elevated levels of stress related to parenting a child with asd (ingersoll & hambrick, 2011; ozturk, riccadonna, & venuti, 2014). compared to parents of typically developing children and with others developmental disabilities, parents of children with asd report more psychological distress and mental issues, such as depression (eisenhower, baker, & blacher, 2005; estes, munson, dawson, & koehler, 2009; ingersoll & hambrick, 2011; mcstay, trembath, & dissanayake, 2014). in one study, a striking percentage of parental distress (85%) resulted related to the parent’s role (ingersoll & hambrick, 2011). the characteristics of a child and a family are associated with parenting distress (bishop, richler, cain, & lord, 2007; hastings et al., 2005; lecavalier, leone, & wiltz, 2006). the child’s ability in communication has a determining impact on parents’ well-being (bebko, konstantareas, & springer, 1987; ekas & whitman, 2010) and parents of children with asd (lecavalier et al., 2006) and intellectual disability (hassall, rose, & mcdonald, 2005) with better communidel bianco, ozturk, basadonne et al. 697 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cation skills report lower levels of stress. in fact, parents’ behaviour can be significantly modified by the child’s condition: difficulties in communication makes the parents anxious and worried (marcus, kunce, & schopler, 2005) and unusual language and communication pose difficulties for parents when they spend time with their children (estes et al., 2009), resulting in psychological distress. on the other hand, better communication in the everyday context has a positive impact on the parenting sense of competence (ozturk et al., 2014). the extent of the stress connected to communication impairment has been tested by investigating the effect of treatmentrelated changes in a child’s communication ability on parents’ well-being (ozturk, vivanti, uljarevic, & dissanayake, 2016): mothers reported higher satisfaction, mediating the level of psychological distress, when their children’s communication ability improved. parent-child relationship conspicuous evidence connect perceived parental stress and maladaptive parenting strategies with specific characteristics of asd. factors of the parental stress index (psi; abidin, 1995) has been found to correlate table 1 overview of non-verbal cues, adaptive functions and impairment in asd nonverbal cue typical emergence function impairment in asd cry from birth cry carries information that affects the infantcaregiver relationship; adults react differently to the cries of high-risk or low-risk babies (lagasse, neal, & lester, 2005; zeskind & lester, 1978) atypical patterns of distress vocalization: higher fundamental frequency, shorter interbout pauses, fewer utterances (esposito, nakazawa, venuti, & bornstein, 2012; esposito et al., 2013; oller et al., 2010) eye-contact (ec) days from birth: preference for eyes with a direct gaze (farroni, csibra, simion, & johnson, 2002) at 6 months, ec facilitates gaze-following (senju & csibra, 2008). at 9 months, ec plays as a hint for triadic interactions (joint attention) (rochat, 2014) drop of visual attention allocated to the eyeregion between 2 and 6 months in at risk infants, that later receive the diagnosis (jones & klin, 2013) gaze-following (gf) 2-4 months: emerging gf; 6-8 months: stabilization (gredebäck, fikke, & melinder, 2010). gf scores at 10.5 months predict the use of mental-state words at 2.5. years at 12 months, gf establishes affective referencing to objects (itier & batty, 2009) gf skills at 12 months predict later productive vocabulary (tenenbaum et al., 2015) less allocation of attention to gazed-atobjects in experimental settings (bedford et al., 2012; falck-ytter et al., 2012; freeth, chapman, ropar, & mitchell, 2010) gestures 4 months: non-directed prereaching (blake, o’rourke, & borzellino, 1994) 12 months: effective pointing (blake et al., 1994) at 9 months, infants focus on objects out of field of view, after the parent looks and points at it (flom, deák, phill, & pick, 2004) gestures prefigure referential labeling, before language is developed (liszkowski, 2008) at 24 months, gestures production differs in terms of frequency and quality: less conventional-interactive, pointing and nominal gestures; more ritualized request gestures (mastrogiuseppe et al., 2015) biological movement (bm) after birth: detection of point light display representing bm (bardi, regolin, & simion, 2011) the perception of bm is correlated with action understanding and intention inference (blakemore & decety, 2001) atypical kinematic (cook, blakemore, & press, 2013) difficulties in chaining motor acts (cattaneo et al., 2007) and recognizing emotions (nackaerts et al., 2012) the thorn in the dyad: parent-child relationship in asd 698 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with child’s problematic characteristics that relate to the communicative domain: scores estimating general and parenting-related distress strongly correlate with the social responsiveness scale (zaidman-zait et al., 2011) and the communication scale of the ados-g (ozturk et al., 2014). the perception of issues related to the child, estimated by the subscale difficult child, correlates with scores on the vineland adaptive behaviour scale, including communication (hassall et al., 2005) and communication as a problematic behaviour predicts psi variance over one year of observation (lecavalier et al., 2006). communication impairment affects perceived parenting difficulty and the levels of stress of parents. furthermore, communicative competence has the long-term predictive power of parents’ well-being. keen and colleagues (2010) reported that scores of the communication and symbolic behaviour scales – developmental profile (csbs-dp), a caregiver questionnaire about parent’s perception of child’s communicative behaviour, showed a significant amelioration when the family was supported by a short-term, intensive intervention mediated by a trained professional. this intervention resulted efficacious in reducing child-related parental stress (keen et al., 2010), but the follow-up, standard assessment did not detect a significant degree of improvement. thus, it is possible that the intervention promoted the reframing of the child’s behaviour from the parents’ point of view. another study (baker-ericzn, brookmanfrazee, & stahmer, 2005) examined changes in psi of parents with a toddler with asd before and after an intervention inclusion program: they found that the child domain improved for mothers (but not in fathers). indeed, it has been found that mothers are positively affected by their child’s communication skills in everyday life contexts (ozturk et al., 2016). from this brief overlook, it is clear that communication influences the development of an effective relationship between parents and their daughter or son. in the case of asd, understanding the child’s requests is difficult for parents that become confused observers of his or her discomfort. a sense of helplessness may come along and largely frustrate parents’ attempt. non-verbal communication is the primary way of expression of distress and has a pivotal importance in young toddlers, non-verbal children and their parents. in the next paragraph, we are going to describe a situation where the non-verbal expression of distress confound parents and physicians. consequences of communication impairments: management of gastrointestinal problems and food selectivity gastrointestinal problems are common in children with asd but difficult to detect, given the deficit in communication that complicates the description of symptoms and/or the expression of pain even through intentional nonverbal communication (buie et al., 2010). in fact, behaviour that parents usually report as “unexplained” can actually express gastrointestinal discomfort: vocalizations (i.e. frequent clearing of the throat, screaming, groaning) and motor behaviour, such as facial grimacing, application of pressure to abdomen, unusual posturing, and an increase of repetitive behaviour (carr & owen-deschryver, 2007; mcatee, carr, schulte, & dunlap, 2004). moreover, it is possible that children with compromised communication skills perceive higher levels of stress and this could affect the gastrointestinal tract. in this context, finding the way to overcome the difficulties in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal disorders among asd children is clearly of major importance, especially for those who have strong communication impairments. this advancement would possibly have a beneficial effect on parental stress, reducing their sense of powerlessness. another problematic behaviour possibly related to communication impairments is food selectivity, that is the limited food repertoire and high-frequency single food intake (bandini et al., 2010). several studies indicate a considerable incidence of food selectivity among autistic children (ahearn, castine, nault, & green, 2001; del bianco, ozturk, basadonne et al. 699 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bandini et al., 2010; schreck, williams, & smith, 2004; williams, gibbons, & schreck, 2005). food selectivity is part of the everyday management of feeding problems in asd and challenges the caregivers (dominick, davis, lainhart, tager-flusberg, & folstein, 2007), since problematic mealtimes and a negative impact on dietary habits of other members of the family have been reported (curtin et al., 2015). parents of children with asd and food selectivity tend to show higher levels of parenting stress (postorino et al., 2015) and even spousal stress (curtin et al., 2015). problems in communication might contribute to this situation. for example, parents might unintentionally force the child to eat something that he/she has problems to digest properly and they cannot intervene promptly to prevent the extension of selectivity to other foods of the same category. in conclusion, a defective non-verbal communication, exemplified by discomfort and symptom expression, can heavily contribute to frustrate the parents’ attempts to manage the everyday life with their child with asd. what to do? models of intervention for parents and children with asd for a successful management of a child with asd, intervention should support parenthood and deal with the psychological distress of parents. as we previously explained, the child’s difficult predisposition to communicate significantly influence the relationship with the parents, that in turn feel high levels of stress connected to the child and their role. parents should be trained by professionals to use their knowledge about their special child in various situations, such as during lunchtime or in the playground. empowered parenting skills can significantly improve caregiver-child interactions, which is the basis of the several situations parents experience with their child diagnosed with asd. the interaction between a child and his/her parents is important and crucial in the daily life of the family. however, atypical child development significantly alters the modalities of interaction between parent and child (venuti, bentenuto, & villotti, 2011). in a broader sense, activities of children with asd can stress parents’ attempts to frame and build interactive behaviour (mundy, sullivan, & mastergeorge, 2009). the question arises about how atypical development has such specific consequences on parenting strategies. coming back to the first communication media, the properties of cry have been linked to the quality of the first interactions: for instance, atypical cry episodes prevent the caregiver from efficaciously responding to the infant’s distress (venuti, 2003; venuti & esposito, 2007). the pace is short towards feelings of inadequateness and disruption of parenting practices. qualitative differences have been observed in the interactive style of parents with their children with asd, compared with parents of typical children and other disabilities, such as down syndrome (venuti et al., 2011). namely, parents of children with asd display more behavioural attempts of control, physical contact, and similarity between mother’s and father’s parenting style (venuti et al., 2008; venuti et al., 2011). it is worth noticing that these parents often show sufficient levels of “intuitive parenting” (papoušek & papoušek, 2002), though their behaviour becomes maladaptive due to the modified interaction they are exposed to. the good quality of a caregiver-child relationship can be measured, for instance, considering the levels of synchronization. the level of synchrony during natural, unstructured social exchanges, like joint play, is a measure of one’s own behavioural and mental plasticity in front of a social partner. the ability to understand others’ attitude and react contingently makes the interaction synchronized, accessible and fluid. if the child with asd needs support in understanding his or her partner in this context, so does the parent. a high skilled parent could render the interaction less effortful and facilitate the child’s development in several domains. in fact, a more efficient parenthe thorn in the dyad: parent-child relationship in asd 700 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tal style, with normative levels of synchronization, has a positive impact on the developing child, influencing, for instance, language development (siller & sigman, 2002; siller & sigman, 2008). therefore, parents’ adequate sensitiveness has to be considered an incontrovertible aspect of a successful therapeutic approach. the same principle is valid for many situations of everyday life that take place out of the clinic: lunch and dinner, eating meals, with the problems that we described before. if the parents are able to read the signs of their child, they will be ready to interpret the source of distress and make correct choices. it is reasonable to think that parents should be educated to use their knowledge about their special child in various situations, and not only in predefined therapeutic settings. therefore, the support for parents of a trained professional should be, if not continuous, constant in time and set on the new challenges along the child’s development. the therapeutic approach should not impose specific response to parents but offer a safe standpoint for reframing the child’s behaviour (bornstein & venuti, 2013; fava et al., 2011; venuti, 2012). a reasonable option is that parents observe the child’s communicative modalities during an interaction with a therapist. from this neutral position, a parent can observe what behaviour conducts to failure, intuitively guess and develop a knowledgeable perspective. this process is natural and devoid of negative consequences on the emotive sphere of the parent, avoiding additional disruption of his or her self-efficacy. the mediation of parent-child interaction by the therapist is the next step. during this phase, difficulties and worries can be verbalized and new approaches to a resolution discovered. direct observation is only one aspect of a complex and complete series of interventions: through colloquia, deferred observation of recordings of therapeutic sessions, and the participation to groups for sharing experiences, a satisfying level of parenting competence can be achieved. clearly, one of the goals of this kind of intervention is to support parenthood. as it has been recently shown, better communications skills of the child significantly affect parents’ psychological distress (ozturk et al., 2016); moreover, parents’ expertise in the child’s special way of communicating possibly improves after a number of cycles of treatment. future directions we took on this theme and highlighted some connection with the clinical picture of asd; however, in order to really face this topic, it is necessary to take into account also differences among parents. for instance, gender specificity of parental reactions should be evaluated: the majority of studies included mothers, but not fathers. recent findings showed that levels of general stress related to parenting a child with asd are not different between fathers and mothers (ozturk et al., 2014). however, a specific scale of the autism diagnostic observation schedule-generic (ados-g), the communication scale, resulted positively correlated with fathers’ perceived stress related to the child and with mothers’ scores of general stress (ozturk et al., 2014). therefore, an open question is if distress related to non-verbal communication impairment in asd differs between mothers and fathers since a difference in terms of parental attitude is present. the scores associated with social exchanges have been reported higher in mothers of children with asd (ozturk et al., 2014); social exchanges involve face-to-face interaction and a closer physical contact, factors that could modulate differently the impact of an impaired non-verbal communication. this could be a starting point for conceiving future research projects and differentiated intervention programs. del bianco, ozturk, basadonne et al. 701 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion in this paper, we illustrated the importance of nonverbal communication impairment –including cry, social gaze, and movement execution and comprehension – in modulating the parent-child relation. through a relevant issue for families of children with asd – the detection and management of gastrointestinal problems and food selectivity – we described an example of the negative consequences of non-verbal communicative impairment in the everyday life. in addition, we discussed how parental distress relates to different degrees of functioning in communication between parent and child. finally, we presented an intervention strategy that may help parents to overcome the communication difficulties. to conclude, the intervention with the child on early communication channels is crucial soon after the diagnosis, and parents should be instructed about the atypical communication attempts. a better communicative attitude in the child and an empowered sensitivity of parents to atypical attempts of communication has the potential to improve the quality of the parent-child relationship, reducing parental stress and ameliorating the life of families. further research is needed in order to find out the best way to work on non-verbal communication aspects as well as how to adapt these kinds of interventions to the child and parents’ needs. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references abidin, r. r. 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(2001). analysis of infant crying. in l. t. singer & p. s. zeskind (eds.), biobehavioral assessment of the infant (pp. 149–66). new york, ny, usa: guilford. about the authors teresa del bianco is a phd candidate in psychological sciences and education at the university of trento. she received a master degree in medicine at university of pisa (2014). her research interests focus on early social development, developmental disorders and visual attention. the thorn in the dyad: parent-child relationship in asd 708 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013771 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0707021105 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000914000725 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2013.00049 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-005-4387-7 https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.213 https://doi.org/10.2307/1128224 https://www.psychopen.eu/ yagmur ozturk is a post-doc researcher at the section of psychology at the university of pavia. she received a bachelor degree in psychology at the university of istanbul (2008), a master degree in cognitive neuroscience at university of trento (2012) and a phd degree in psychological sciences and education at the university of trento (2015). her research interests focus on parenting, attachment and developmental disorders. ilaria basadonne is a phd candidate in psychological sciences and education at the university of trento. she received a master degree in biology at university of padua (2006) and a bachelor degree in sciences and techniques of cognitive psychology at the university of trento (2013). her research interests focus on nutrition, gut microbiota, gut-brain connection and developmental disorders. noemi mazzoni is a post-doc researcher at the section of developmental disorders at the university of trento. she received a bachelor degree in sciences of behaviour and social relationships (2008) and a master degree in neuroscience and neuropsychological rehabilitation (2011) at university of bologna, and a phd degree in psychological sciences and education (2017) at the university of trento. her research interests focus on emotion and movement perception, autism spectrum disorder and psychological intervention. paola venuti is a full professor of dynamical and clinical psychology and director of the department of psychology and cognitive science at the university of trento. she received a master degree in psychology at university of padua (1980) and a phd degree in social and developmental psychology in rome. her research interests focus on infant development, parenting, autism spectrum disorder and psychological intervention. del bianco, ozturk, basadonne et al. 709 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 695–709 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1453 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the thorn in the dyad: parent-child relationship in asd (introduction) preverbal channels impairment: cry, gaze, gestures and movement raising a child with asd: parents’ psychological distress and communication difficulties in asd parent-child relationship consequences of communication impairments: management of gastrointestinal problems and food selectivity what to do? models of intervention for parents and children with asd future directions conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors use it or lose it: facilitating the use of interactive data apps in psychological research data sharing tutorial use it or lose it: facilitating the use of interactive data apps in psychological research data sharing franziska usée 1, christiane a. melzig 1,2 §, dirk ostwald 3 § [1] department of psychology, clinical psychology, experimental psychopathology, and psychotherapy, philipps-universität marburg, marburg, germany. [2] center for mind, brain and behavior, cmbb, philipps-universität marburg and justus liebig university giessen, giessen, germany. [3] institute of psychology, research methods, otto von guericke university magdeburg, magdeburg, germany. §these authors contributed equally to this work. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 received: 2023-09-15 • accepted: 2024-01-22 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: andré bittermann, leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany corresponding author: franziska usée, philipps-universität marburg, department of psychology, gutenbergstraße 29a, 35032 marburg, germany. e-mail: franziska.usee@uni-marburg.de supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the value of open research data (ord), a key feature of open science, lies in their reuse. however, the mere online availability of ord does not guarantee their reuse by other researchers. specifically, previous meta-scientific research has indicated that the underutilization of ord is related to barriers at the level of the ord themselves, potential reusers of ord, and the broader academic ecosystem. at the same time, sharing large datasets in an understandable and transparent format that motivates researchers to explore these datasets remains a fundamental challenge. with the present work, we propose interactive data apps (idas) as innovative ord supplements that provide a means to lower barriers of ord reuse. we demonstrate the use of two open-source python libraries (dash, gradio) for ida development using two psychological research use cases. the first use case pertains to an experimental quantitative dataset acquired in a clinical psychology setting. the second use case concerns the familiarization with data analysis workflows that are characteristic of natural language processing (nlp). for both use cases, we provide easy-to-adapt python code that can form the basis for ida development in similar scenarios. keywords open research data, data reuse, interactive data apps, innovative supplements, dash, gradio we live in a digital era in which scientific progress is largely fueled by the availability and use of data that are rich in volume, velocity, and variety. data thus represents a highly valuable resource that – like oil – must be refined and published at a high quality to make full use of it (economist, 2017). large amounts of public funds are spent annually on research data acquisition and knowledge generation. however, science and society only benefit the most from these investments, if these data are available as open research data (ord; unesco, 2021). that is, ideally, any form of scientific information that is used as evidence for a phenomenon as well as scientific metadata, protocols, analysis source code, and workflows should be openly accessible in a humanand machine-readable format (borgman, 2017; molloy, 2011). it is by now generally accepted that the responsible use of scientific resources requires researchers to ensure that their data are sufficiently findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable, that is, that their data are fair (mons, 2018; wilkinson et al., 2016). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12811&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the primary objective of fair data is ord reuse (joo et al., 2017; molloy, 2011; wilkinson et al., 2016). following pasquetto et al. (2017), we understand ord reuse as any secondary ord use by researchers other than the data originators, often in pursuit of a different purpose than the one intended in the original study (faniel & jacobsen, 2010). in fact, working with data collected by fellow researchers affords numerous advantages for the academic enterprise. first, the time and financial costs associated with data acquisition are eliminated, resulting in faster and more efficient research cycles (curty & qin, 2014; kim & yoon, 2017; quarati & raffaghelli, 2022). when researchers are freed from data acquisition duties, they are theoretically able to spend more time and intellectual capacity on sophisticated data analysis and careful interpretation of statistical results, potentially enhancing the overall quality of their research. second, ord reuse facilitates the verification, validation, and replication of scientific results, thus reducing the aversive effects of questionable research practices (hagger, 2022). third, combining ord from multiple sources allows new and long-standing research questions to be addressed in a more powerful and, not least, more ethical manner (brakewood & poldrack, 2013). generally speaking, ord reuse thus promotes the economic use of scarce public resources and sustainable research. however, despite its multifaceted and well-known benefits, ord reuse is not standard academic practice and many openly available research datasets remain underutilized (quarati & raffaghelli, 2022). for example, in 2019, only half of more than 8,400 surveyed international academics stated that they had used ord (digital science et al., 2019). similarly, imker et al. (2021) found that only approximately one-third of those researchers who generated and shared ord reported that the data were actually reused. moreover, studies on the qualitative aspects of researchers’ data reuse behavior indicate that if ord is in fact reused, it is most often employed for comparative purposes, as a baseline measurement, or for calibration purposes, but not for addressing novel original research questions or applying new data analytical workflows (pasquetto et al., 2019; wallis et al., 2013). at least three reasons for the underutilization of ord have recently been investigated. these can be broadly categorized as pertaining to the ord state itself, potential reusers of ord, and the broader academic ecosystem in which ord generation and reuse take place. first, ord may not be sufficiently accessible for humans’ active engagement. in this context, it has been repeatedly shown that poorly curated data as well as restrictions on data access and data (re-)usage negatively influence data reuse behavior (molloy, 2011; ouzzani et al., 2013). because ord reuse requires trust in other people’s work, low ord curation standards may induce concerns regarding data quality and the necessary time investments for using data productively (imker et al., 2021; pasquetto et al., 2019; quarati & raffaghelli, 2022; tenopir et al., 2015; wang et al., 2021). moreover, ord reuse intentions have been found to be strongly correlated with the perceived usefulness of ord (e.g., increases in research productivity; joo et al., 2017; kim & yoon, 2017; yoon & kim, 2017). second, ord reuse demands certain levels of data literacy by potential data reusers (pasquetto et al., 2019; quarati & raffaghelli, 2022). as data literacy remains an educational challenge across academic disciplines (raffaghelli & sangrà, 2023), there is evidence of a lack of knowledge concerning the accessibility of ord as well as the technical skills to engage effectively with ord. for instance, researchers interviewed as part of a study by suhr et al. (2020) mostly reported a lack of familiarity with the concept of dataset search engines such as google’s dataset search. furthermore, researchers might be afraid of the time and intellectual resources required to make use of ord, especially when they lack sufficient digital and programming skills (suhr et al., 2020). third, in most research communities, ord generation and reuse are rarely encouraged and rewarded. unsurprisingly, most researchers report that ord reuse is only “somewhat encouraged” by their co-workers, their research community, or their organization and most researchers do not feel sufficiently informed, motivated, and supported to generate and reuse ord (digital science et al., 2022; gregory, 2020). overall, there is ample evidence that the mere online availability of ord does not guarantee their reuse, which calls upon researchers and institutions alike to undertake additional steps to maximally benefit from the added value of ord. a potential means to increase ord reuse are interactive data apps (idas) that accompany primary research artifacts such as journal articles as innovative supplements. an ida may be defined as any form of web-based application that facilitates ord accessibility by serving the human information-seeking mantra of “overview, zoom, filter, details on demand” (murray, 2017; shneiderman, 1996; ward et al., 2010). popular and familiar idas include the us national weather service dashboard (https://weather.gov; national research council, 1999), the johns hopkins university cen­ ter for systems science and engineering covid-19 dashboard (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/; dong et al., 2022), and the twitter/x hedonometer (https://hedonometer.org/; dodds et al., 2011). while idas are becoming increasingly popular in usée, melzig, & ostwald 203 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://weather.gov https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/ https://hedonometer.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ healthcare settings, where they are leveraged to support data-based decision-making by reducing cognitive demands for clinicians (almasi et al., 2023; bucalon et al., 2022; khairat et al., 2018), and as educational tools (fawcett, 2018; jiang et al., 2022), the use of idas in psychological ord generation and reuse remains underdeveloped. this is surprising because idas afford the potential to make psychological ord more accessible and attractive by directly targeting the identified reasons for ord underutilization. first, with regard to ord curation, developing idas as part of a primary research communication requires a high level of attention to data curation because only well-formatted and curated data can form an effective basis for the automated data processing that idas implement. second, and perhaps most importantly, regarding potential ord reusers, idas can lower the threshold of engaging with ord because idas offer an intuitive, interactive, and non-technical approach to easily understand a dataset’s key features and reuse capacity. finally, a more widespread adoption of idas within the academic community has the potential to render idas a standard companion of primary research artifacts with the potential to induce a systemic change towards higher levels of ord generation and reuse both within the academic community and beyond. with the present work, we aim to facilitate the use of idas in psychological research data sharing by providing a tutorial introduction to ida development as an innovative supplement for ord in psychology. after introducing basic steps to consider in the development of idas for ord, we discuss two practical use cases. the first use case pertains to an experimental quantitative dataset acquired in a clinical psychology setting. the second use case concerns the familiarization with data analysis workflows that are characteristic of natural language processing (nlp). for both use cases, we use an individual python-based application framework and provide easy-to-adapt python code that can form the basis for ida development in similar scenarios. ida development the development of idas is currently supported by several programming languages. we focus on python due to its general-purpose nature, high readability, and widespread use (stack overflow developer survey 2023; for ida develop­ ment using r/shiny, see ellis & merdian, 2015 and for ida development using r/dash, see https://dash.plotly.com/r). in general, ida development for data in the format of ord can be structured into three basic steps: 1. definition of the ida’s aims and scope, 2. ida programming and testing, and 3. deployment of the ida for web-based presentation. in the following, we will discuss these steps in greater detail by means of two practical use cases that were developed using two open-source python libraries, namely, dash (plotly technologies inc; https://plotly.com/dash/) and gradio (abid et al., 2019; https://www.gradio.app/). each python library was chosen based on its relative popularity and applic­ ability to the use case at hand. to follow along with the examples below and execute or adapt the accompanying python code on a local machine, python (https://www.python.org), a suitable integrated development environment (ide) such as anaconda spyder (https://anaconda.org/anaconda/spyder) or visual studio code (https://code.visualstudio.com/), and the required python libraries must be installed (e.g., using pip install -r requirements.txt). development of a data exploration board using dash introduction to dash dash is an open-source python library that allows for the rapid development and deployment of web applications. it is built on top of flask, a minimalistic web application framework (https://flask.palletsprojects.com/), and two javascript libraries, react.js (https://react.dev/) and plotly.js (https://plotly.com/javascript/) for interactive visualization. ida devel­ opment with dash itself requires no knowledge of javascript. from the user perspective, dash offers a high degree of ida design flexibility while simultaneously being of low-code design, meaning that minimal dash applications can be built with a few lines of python code. due to its high ida design flexibility, the application areas of dash-based idas are diverse and range from data exploration to interactive knowledge transfer. the dash python library itself consists interactive data apps in psychological research 204 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://dash.plotly.com/r https://plotly.com/dash/ https://www.gradio.app/ https://www.python.org https://anaconda.org/anaconda/spyder https://code.visualstudio.com/ https://flask.palletsprojects.com/ https://react.dev/ https://plotly.com/javascript/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of several modules, each addressing certain aspects of ida development, such as ida layout design or the facilitation of interactive ida features. due to its origin, visualizations are most commonly and easily implemented using the python plotly graphing library (https://plotly.com/python/) which provides access to a wide range of chart types. the general structure of python-based dash scripts is displayed in figure 1. first, the required dash modules and ad­ ditional python libraries are imported (see figure 1a). second, the ida is instantiated by the so-called dash constructor app = dash(__name__), and the layout of the ida is specified in terms of the components to be displayed in the web application (see figure 1b). accordingly, this part will vary the most between different idas. the building blocks for the layout customization are dash hypertext markup language (html) components and dash core components (dcc). whereas the former allow for the simple conversion of python syntax to html syntax (e.g., for the definition of a line break, html.br() is converted to <br>), the latter provide access to interactive elements, such as dropdown menus, sliders, and upload or download buttons. the layout is most commonly defined as a list of these components, usually embedded in a container element specified by means of html.div(). each container element consists of a children and a style argument that define content and presentation aspects of the component, respectively. style attributes are usually specified using camelcase, such as fontsize or marginleft. important aspects to consider when customizing the ida layout are the ordering of elements, as components will be displayed in the order they are defined, and the definition of component identifiers for interactivity purposes via the id argument. the third component of a dash script is the definition of callback functions that provide the basis for ida interactiv­ ity (see figure 1c). callbacks are functions that are automatically executed whenever changes to the values of their input components are made. in response to these changes, callback functions update properties of one or more output ida components. thus, each callback function consists of at least one output component, one input component, and a function definition that specifies the changes to be made to the output components in response to changes of the input components. both output and input components must be defined in terms of their component identifier (component_id) and their value of interest (component_property). notably, the number of callback function arguments must be equal to the number of listed components within the callback initialization (@app.callback()). while the names of the function arguments can be freely chosen, the order is predetermined by the callback initialization. finally, a python-based dash script executes the ida, with the debug argument specifying whether additional developer tools for debugging should be activated (see figure 1d). by default, the ida is run locally. for sharing purposes, additional web hosting services such as servers must be employed (e.g., by using public server services on the web). use case 1: a data exploration board in our first use case, we consider the development of an ida for the common scenario of ord stemming from a small-scale experimental psychology laboratory study in the domain of clinical psychology. the ida can be accessed directly using a standard web browser at http://dashida.pythonanywhere.com/. it is based on research data comprising behavioral measures, self-report measures, and sociodemographic measures from 50 adults who participated in an experiment on approach-avoidance behavior (n = 33 female, mage = 22.98 years, sdage = 3.62). in brief, the experiment consisted of three experimental phases (learning phase, test phase, extinction phase) com­ prising 92 experimental trials in total. on each trial, participants were asked to forage one of four possible visual search field configurations (patches) by clicking on targets presented within the field. each search field configuration represented an experimental condition in a 2 x 2 factorial design with the within-subject experimental factors gain (positive reward) and punishment (negative reward). specifically, each visual search field contained a condition-specific number of hidden coins to forage (low positive reward: two coins, high positive reward: six coins) and was associated with a condition-specific probability of receiving an electrical shock (low negative reward: probability of shock .1, high negative reward: probability of shock .8). in the learning phase of the experiment, participants were asked to learn these unknown associations between search fields and experimental conditions by actively engaging within the experimental environment. in the subsequent test phase, participants were allowed to make use of their acquired knowledge by actively deciding when to stop foraging a given search field. finally, in the extinction phase, no electrical shocks were usée, melzig, & ostwald 205 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://plotly.com/python/ http://dashida.pythonanywhere.com/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 general structure of python-based dash scripts interactive data apps in psychological research 206 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ presented while the participants were asked to search for hidden coins, facilitating the unlearning of the aversive stimulus condition. as the basis for the development of the ida, the raw data were preprocessed, including, but not limited to, the detection and handling of missing values and outliers, the computation of condition-specific behavioral measures, and the calculation of self-report questionnaire scores. finally, the preprocessed data were aggregated on the levels of participants (n = 50), experimental phases (n = 3), and experimental conditions (n = 4). in total, the dataset contains 596 data entries for 48 variables of interest (data from the extinction phase is missing for one participant). definition of the ida’s aims and scope for the ord of the current use case, the ida aims to facilitate data exploration and familiarization for potential dataset reusers, such as other researchers studying approach-avoidance behavior. as the ord stems from a rather complex experimental paradigm including many variables from different data sources, we reasoned that the mere sharing of the data in the form of a static data table may limit both the understanding of the key data features as well as the attractiveness of the dataset. with the current ida, we thus aimed to provide an interactive, informative, and joyful experience when exploring the data. to achieve our aims in the spirit of the human information-seeking mantra (murray, 2017; shneiderman, 1996; ward et al., 2010), we wanted ida users to be able to interactively overview, sort, and filter the data, inspect commonly recommended descriptive statistics of all key variables (gravetter et al., 2021), and visualize filtered data subsets of interest (see figure 2). ida programming and testing based on the defined ida’s aims and scope, the ida layout was specified in terms of three sections, including an interactive data table, the presentation of descriptive statistics, and user-generated two-dimensional data visualizations. to enhance the understandability of variable names, we harnessed an additional data file (prep_file.csv) with information on variables to be displayed within the ida, including their original names as specified in the ord, the names to be used within the ida environment, variable explanations, and information on specific variable types and transformations to be considered, such as whether a variable should be represented as categorical. by means of this data file, the ord could be left unchanged in its original format and all data modifications necessary for presentation within the ida could be restricted to the dash script. for the ida’s layout, we mainly used html and dash core components to implement, for instance, the various dropdown menus and graphs. the side-by-side arrangement of certain ida components was achieved by setting the display style argument to inline-block. to introduce the desired interactivity to the ida, multiple callback functions were defined. specifically, these callback functions implement the updating of information displayed below dropdown menus in response to changes made to the corresponding dropdown menu, the modification of descriptive statistics in response to changes made to the corresponding dropdown menu and changes of data filtering settings, as well as the generation of graphs in response to changes made to the dropdown menus within the data visualization section and changes of data filtering settings. when the ida is first loaded, no data visualizations are displayed and users are required to actively select variables and graph types, such as scatter or line plots, for visualization. note that all filtering settings applied to the data table are always respected by the subsequent ida sections. as an example of the ida’s interactivity, figure 3a displays a line plot generated by using all data entries, i.e., no data filtering, whereas figure 3b displays the same line plot generated by filtering the data table for learning phase entries only, which can be achieved by typing learn below the variable name experimental phase. for a detailed description of how to adapt the ida python code for different datasets, please refer to supplementary material s1. usée, melzig, & ostwald 207 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 a data exploration board interactive data apps in psychological research 208 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 demonstration of the influence of data filtering settings note. a: line plot generated by using all data entries. b: line plot generated by filtering the data table for learning phase entries. ida deployment the present ida is hosted using pythonanywhere (https://www.pythonanywhere.com), a python-based online ide and web hosting service that operates under a freemium business model. with a free beginner account, every user is allowed to add one web application. in table 1, we provide a short step-by-step tutorial on how to run an ida on pythonanywhere. note that by default the web application’s url includes the username and that permanent ida usée, melzig, & ostwald 209 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.pythonanywhere.com https://www.psychopen.eu/ deployment to pythonanywhere requires users to log in at least once every three months to update the expiration date of the application. for an alternative hosting solution using hugging face spaces, please refer to supplementary material s2. table 1 step-by-step tutorial for deploying a python-based dash ida to pythonanywhere (1) once registered with a beginner account and logged into pythonanywhere, select the web tab in the top bar and click on the add a new web app button. (2) when prompted, select python as the python web framework as well as the required python version. (3) upload all required files (e.g., data files, code files) by navigating to the files tab in the top bar and subsequently to mysite in the directories tree on the left. note that your python-based dash script should be named app.py. by default, a python script named flask_app.py is contained in the remote pythonanywhere folder, which should be removed. if existent, data directories defined within the python-based dash script must be adapted according to the folder structure present on pythonanywhere. (4) install all necessary dependencies by navigating to the consoles tab in the top bar and selecting bash console. (5) navigate to web and open the wsgi configuration file within the code section. to enable communication between the web server and your ida, change the last two lines of the file to (1) from app import app, (2) application = app.server (6) navigate to web and click on the reload button. your ida should now be accessible. in summary, the dash-based ida developed as use case 1 serves as an exemplary ida for quantitative datasets, which, as detailed in supplementary material s1, may be readily adapted to different datasets. that said, the underlying dataset of interest must be in a reusable and preprocessed format, and ida developers must provide information on which variables to include, which types of variables (e.g., categorical) shall be represented and analyzed, and how these variables should be named within the ida. in case of large datasets, preprocessing the dataset for ida deployment and providing the necessary information will likely be a somewhat time-consuming process. moreover, different ida components may be required to fulfil the ida-specific purpose, for instance, different figure types and figure arrangements from the ones demonstrated here may be more appropriate for larger datasets. finally, if of interest to the researchers, inferential statistics such as null hypothesis significance testing or the evaluation of bayesian credible intervals could be incorporated in the ida setup. thus, while the possibilities for the development of idas are virtually limitless from a technical point of view, we believe that a clear vision of the aims and scope is a necessary precondition for the successful development of useful idas. development of an interactive text and sentiment analysis platform using gradio introduction to gradio gradio is an open-source python library that allows for the online sharing and demonstration of machine learning models, data science workflows, and application programming interfaces (apis). specifically, gradio enables users to provide access to algorithms and data analysis pipelines, allowing fellow researchers to test software-oriented research data in a playful manner. for example, the performance of a trained image classification algorithm may be demonstrated interactive data apps in psychological research 210 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ using a gradio-based ida by displaying the classification results for images provided by the ida user. gradio offers high customizability and user-friendliness with support for a large number of ida components (e.g., images, texts, videos, chatbots) and extensive documentation. moreover, the ida layout customization is facilitated by the provision of prebuilt themes that can readily be accessed via gr.themes.*. the general structure of a python script that implements a gradio-based ida is comparably simple and easy to understand, allowing for fast ida setup. as with dash, a minimal gradio ida can be built with a few code lines. in principle, gradio-based idas can be built by using either the interface class or the blocks class. in the following, we will focus on the latter since it offers a higher degree of flexibility and control. after the import of required dependencies (see figure 4a), blocks are initiated by calling the blocks class inside a python with clause (see figure 4b). figure 4 general structure of gradio-based ida python scripts usée, melzig, & ostwald 211 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in this way, a blocks object is created and used as a context, which means that all components defined inside the with clause will be added to the ida. by default, ida components are arranged vertically in the order they are created. ida components can be displayed side-by-side by using the layout element gr.row() (see figure 4b,c). additional customiza­ tion options include, for example, the specification of an ida component’s size (e.g., gr.row().style(equal_height = true) sets all ida components that are displayed side by side to equal heights). interactivity of ida components can be added by the definition of ida component-specific event listeners (see figure 4d). event listeners are methods that execute a pre-defined function when triggered by a certain event, such as a button click. each event listener requires a function definition and at least one ida input and output component. when triggered by an event, the values of the ida input component will be used by the event listener to execute the function definition for the generation of the value of the ida output component. notably, the number and order of the ida input and output components specified within the event listener method must equal the number and order of function arguments and outputs. a gradio ida is executed via the launch method, where the share argument specifies whether a public link for sharing purposes should be generated (see figure 4e). this public link allows gradio developers to provide other people with remote access to the ida for a limited period of 72 hours, a feature that can be useful during development and testing of a gradio-based ida. permanent hosting of gradio idas can be easily implemented using hugging face spaces (https://huggingface.co/spaces), a community-based platform for machine learning application sharing that operates under a freemium business model. hugging face hosts idas on its own servers, while providing a sharable link and public access if desired. in addition, password-protected access options may be activated for sensitive ord (see https://www.gradio.app/guides/sharing-your-app for further information). for a gradio-based implementation of the data exploration board presented in the previous section, please refer to supplementary material s3. use case 2: an interactive text and sentiment analysis platform for the current use case, we consider the development of an ida that demonstrates the nature and capabilities of a natural language processing (nlp) workflow. nlp aims to make computers able to understand and generate human language. currently, nlp is routinely used across various application domains, such as chatbots, search engines, online translators, and product recommendations (eisenstein, 2018; raina & krishnamurthy, 2022). similarly, over the last decade, psychological research has increasingly employed nlp methods to make use of valuable data derived from routinely collected textual resources, such as transcripts of psychotherapy sessions (shapira et al., 2021). the ida we are concerned with relates to an nlp workflow that has recently been developed as part of a research project using textual data stemming from a psychotherapeutic internet-based intervention (ibi) for depression. the respective ida can be accessed directly using a standard web browser at https://huggingface.co/spaces/gradioida/gradio_demo. briefly, the previously mentioned research project examined the usefulness of linguistic features for the prediction of ibi treatment outcome, defined in terms of a statistically reliable and clinically relevant change in depression severity from preto post-treatment. to this end, letters from the ibi’s expressive writing tasks were analyzed by means of nlp workflows. at different stages of the ibi, participants were asked to write about three emotion-provoking topics concerning their depression. the raw, unstructured texts of 687 participants were then used for the computation of more than 800 non-affective and affective linguistic features. notably, the linguistic features were derived from different processing units (i.e., single words, sentences, texts) and based on 12 different sentiment analysis dictionaries, each of which provided users with different information regarding the emotional content of the textual data. definition of the ida’s aims and scope the ida developed for the current use case aimed to promote the understandability of and familiarization with the nlp workflows developed as part of the research project. we reasoned that in light of the large number of uniquely derived linguistic features and applied nlp methods, the understandability of the implemented nlp workflows may be limited, even if static codebooks and comprehensive data documentation files were provided. we thus intended to develop an ida that allows interested readers to directly test parts of the described nlp workflows in an interactive and playful manner. to achieve our aims, we wanted ida users to be able to provide their own text examples, choose between interactive data apps in psychological research 212 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://huggingface.co/spaces https://www.gradio.app/guides/sharing-your-app https://huggingface.co/spaces/gradioida/gradio_demo https://www.psychopen.eu/ different types of text and sentiment analysis, and view the results (see figure 5). the resulting ida provides access and exploration opportunities for all methods developed for the purpose of text preprocessing, text analysis at different processing levels, and sentiment analysis frameworks used within the research project, allowing other researchers to quickly grasp whether a given workflow may be adaptable to their own research project. note that due to the original textual data source, the ida is restricted to the analysis of german texts. also note that the selection of the sentiment analysis dictionaries included in the ida was based on their open-source availability, their applicability to the german language, and their word coverage rather than a comparative evaluation of their relative merits and limitations. figure 5 a text and sentiment analysis platform ida programming and testing based on the defined ida’s aims and scope, the ida layout was specified in terms of three sections, including user-provided textual input, text analysis at three different processing levels, and dictionary-based sentiment analysis. to enhance the readability of the gradio python script, function definitions required for text and sentiment analysis were delegated to a separate python script called nlp_utils.py. briefly, these function definitions implement basic text preprocessing and transformation steps (e.g., sentence boundary detection, tokenization, lemmatization, part-of-speech tagging), the detection of depression-relevant thematic words (e.g., sleepor suicide-related words), the computation of affective linguistic features using seven sentiment analysis dictionaries (e.g., angeror joy-relatedness), and the computation of linguistic features at the level of single words (e.g., word frequency, number of characters), single sentences (e.g., number of function words, number of pronouns), and the whole text (e.g., sentence-average and total number of verbs). for convenience, minor adaptations, including a different part-of-speech tagger and a different lemmatizer, were made to the original nlp workflows. five originally applied sentiment analysis dictionaries could not be employed for the ida due to their low word coverage or commercial restrictions on their use. usée, melzig, & ostwald 213 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for the ida layout, we used the default theme design and gradio’s markdown component gr.markdown() in combination with html to implement section headings and adapt their position and font characteristics (e.g., using <b></b> within the markdown component to print the text in bold). the text input field was added to the ida by using the gr.textbox() component, with the label and placeholder arguments defining the text displayed at the top of the box and within the box as long as no user-defined text is provided. notably, no restrictions on the length of the provided text were included. ida users are thus free to type in any german text, ranging from single words to whole paragraphs. all interactive buttons are implemented using the gr.button() component. with the help of button-specific click event listeners, the respective function definitions for text and sentiment analysis are called automatically from nlp_utils.py once a button is activated. when loading the ida, all output components such as the text analysis data table are empty by default (see figure 5). only when both an active text entry and a button click are registered is the respective ida output component filled with results (see figure 6). for the sentiment analysis section, both the sentiment analysis results and additional information on the selected sentiment analysis dictionary are displayed as ida output components. figure 6 exemplary text and sentiment analysis results ida deployment as mentioned above, the current ida is hosted using hugging face spaces. in general, there are three ways to deploy an ida to hugging face spaces: (1) using the terminal, (2) using a connection to a git repository, and (3) using a browser. in table 2, we provide a step-by-step tutorial for the latter. note that in principle, hugging face spaces allows users interactive data apps in psychological research 214 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to run an unlimited number of models, datasets, spaces, and repositories, but if run on the default free hardware (cpu basic), spaces will go to sleep if not visited for more than 48 hours. table 2 step-by-step tutorial for deploying a gradio ida to hugging face spaces using the web interface (1) once registered with a free account and logged into hugging face, navigate to the spaces main page (https://huggingface.co/spaces) and click on create new space on the right. (2) choose the name of your space, select an optional license, set the visibility of your space (private or public), and select gradio as the software development kit (sdk). (3) clicking create space will create a new repository. here, navigate to files in the top bar on the right and upload all required files in the desired directories by clicking on + add files on the right. the python gradio script should be named app.py. if existent, data directories defined within the script must be adapted according to the folder structure present on your space. (4) create or upload a requirements.txt file with all required dependencies, i.e., python libraries that must be installed to successfully deploy your ida, in the main directory of your space. (5) click on app in the top bar on the right and your ida will be automatically built. in case of errors, you can click on logs in the top bar on the left to obtain more information. conclusion the value of ord lies in their reuse (borgman, 2017; quarati & raffaghelli, 2022). however, the mere online availability does not seem to be sufficient for ord reuse, and previous meta-scientific research has indicated that the underutiliza­ tion of ord is related to barriers at the level of the ord themselves, potential reusers of ord, and the broader academic ecosystem. with the present work, we propose idas as innovative ord supplements that may at least partially address these barriers. we demonstrated the exemplary use of two open-source python libraries for ida development using two psy­ chological research use cases for which we anticipate reuse barriers due to their ords’ experimental or data-analytical complexity. in both cases, the ida aims to foster the understandability of and familiarization with the respective ord. we hope that the idas enable potential reusers to actively interact with the ord in a joyful, user-friendly, and easily understandable manner. currently, the most common modes for sharing research data and code in psychology make use of static archiving platforms such as the open science framework (foster & deardorff, 2017) or psycharchives (bosnjak, 2020) or collabo­ rative development and version control solutions such as github (escamilla et al., 2022) or datalad (wagner & hanke, 2023). although these modes of providing ord are clearly well-suited for distributing research artefacts accompanying research articles and have a strong potential to increase computational reproducibility in the field, they generally fall short of providing means to readily explore and interact with the ord in a self-guided and interactive fashion. the ida framework discussed here goes beyond these established solutions for ord sharing, as, on the one hand, it requires the same rigor with respect to dataset documentation, long-term maintenance, and computational reproducibility assurance as do the existing ord frameworks, while on the other hand, adding an interactive data exploration component as a low-threshold entry point for ord reuse. that said, it remains an open question whether idas actually promote research data reuse behaviors because the vast majority of meta-scientific ord research thus far has focused on research data sharing (joo et al., 2017) and ord reuse remains difficult to assess (pasquetto et al., 2019). assuming for the moment that idas indeed foster ord reuse and will be developed more routinely and on larger scales in the future, several limitations must be addressed. first, the usée, melzig, & ostwald 215 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://huggingface.co/spaces https://www.psychopen.eu/ permanent hosting of idas requires a sufficiently protected, professionally supported, large-scale, and easy-to-use infra­ structure. second, to the best of our knowledge, at present a one-size-fits-all ida template does not exist, and idas must be designed and developed to address research projectand dataset-specific aims. in this regard, the implementation of idas requires additional time and effort, even if templates for ida development are provided. however, this additional work is currently neither incentivized nor rewarded by the broader academic ecosystem. third, researchers who are unfamiliar with programming might not feel sufficiently confident to dive into the development of idas. these challenges could at least be partially addressed if large research institutions and academic publishing compa­ nies offered professional support systems for the development and permanent hosting of idas. for example, in an ideal world, research publishing companies could provide the infrastructure to transfer the ord provided by academic researchers to suitable, possibly journal-specific idas, thereby adding genuine value to the research cycle. in this context, the issue of permanent hosting may be addressed by making permanent data and ida hosting essential parts of research funding schemes or by capitalizing on novel dashboarding libraries that work independent of external hosting servers. in summary, and the challenges discussed notwithstanding, we believe that idas have the potential to lower ord reuse barriers and to contribute to a more transparent and sustainable research ecosystem in the information age. funding: funded by the deutsche forschungsgemeinschaft (dfg, german research foundation) – project number 290878970-grk 2271, project 3. acknowledgments: we thank sebastian schmidt, christoph benke, alexander maximilian norbert vielhauer, and clara kessler for help with experimental task design, implementation, participant recruitment, and data acquisition in the research project of our first use case. we thank leona hammelrath for advice on data analysis workflows that are characteristic of natural language processing as discussed in our second use case. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: franziska usée—idea, conceptualization | design planning | research implementation (software, hardware, etc.) | data analysis | data collection | data management (storage, curation, processing, etc.) | writing | visualization (data presentation, figures, etc.). christiane a. melzig—resource provision (materials, participants, etc.) | feedback, revisions | supervision, mentoring. dirk ostwald—idea, conceptualization | resource provision (materials, participants, etc.) | feedback, revisions | supervision, mentoring. data availability: the research data to replicate the findings of this study are publicly available (see usée et al., 2024s-a). supplementary materials the supplementary materials include the following items: • the idas’ code and data as well as a codebook, a data preparation file, and additional information on the sentiment analysis dictionaries (see usée et al., 2024s-a) • a supplementary material file in which we provide additional information on case-specific adjustments for the dash-based data exploration board (s1), on how to deploy dash-based idas to hugging face (s2), and how to implement a data exploration board using gradio (s3; see usée et al., 2024s-b) index of supplementary materials usée, f., melzig, c. a., & ostwald, d. 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(2016). the fair guiding principles for scientific data management and stewardship. scientific data, 3(1), article 160018. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18 yoon, a., & kim, y. (2017). social scientists’ data reuse behaviors: exploring the roles of attitudinal beliefs, attitudes, norms, and data repositories. library & information science research, 39(3), 224–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.07.008 about the authors franziska usée is a phd student of clinical psychology at the philipps-universität marburg (germany). her research interests are in probabilistic behavioral modeling, machine learning, and natural language processing. christiane a. melzig is a full professor of clinical psychology, experimental psychopathology, and psychotherapy at the philippsuniversität marburg (germany). her research focuses on the etiology, prevention, and intervention of mental disorders, specifically, anxiety disorders. dirk ostwald is a full professor for psychological research methods at the otto von guericke university magdeburg (germany). his research interests are in probabilistic modeling, neuroimaging, and human decision-making under uncertainty. usée, melzig, & ostwald 219 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 202–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12811 https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.07.008 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interactive data apps in psychological research (introduction) ida development development of a data exploration board using dash introduction to dash use case 1: a data exploration board development of an interactive text and sentiment analysis platform using gradio introduction to gradio use case 2: an interactive text and sentiment analysis platform conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning in bipolar disorder: a literature review literature reviews the relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning in bipolar disorder: a literature review walace duartea, rodrigo becerra*a, kate cruisea [a] school of psychology and social sciences, edith cowan university, joondalup, western australia, australia. abstract neurocognitive impairment in bipolar disorder (bd) has been widely reported, even during remission. neurocognitive impairment has been identified as a contributing factor towards unfavourable psychosocial functioning within this population. the objective of this review was to investigate the association between neurocognitive impairment and occupational functioning in bd. a literature review of english-language journal articles from january 1990 to november 2013 was undertaken utilising the psychinfo, scopus and web of knowledge databases. studies that made specific reference to occupational outcomes were included, and those that reported on global psychosocial measures were excluded. majority of the papers reviewed (20 out of 23) identified an association between neurocognitive impairment (particularly in executive functioning, verbal learning and memory, processing speed and attention) and occupational functioning. several methodological issues were identified. there was a discrepancy in the measures used to assess neurocognitive function across studies and also the definition and measurement of occupational functioning. the clinical features of the samples varied across studies, and confounding variables were intermittently controlled. the review focused on english-language papers only and hence there is a bias toward the western labour market. these limitations therefore influence the generalizability of the interpreted findings and the reliability of comparisons across studies. neurocognitive impairment in bd appears to play a role in occupational outcomes. the findings of this review highlight the challenges for future research in this area, particularly in the measurement of neurocognitive and occupational functioning. incorporating neurocognitive interventions in the treatment of bd, which has traditionally focussed solely on symptomatic recovery, may advance the vocational rehabilitation of these patients. keywords: bipolar disorder, neurocognition, functioning, occupation, employment europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 received: 2015-01-02. accepted: 2016-06-21. published (vor): 2016-11-18. handling editor: odin van der stelt, ejop senior editor, the netherlands *corresponding author at: edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup, western australia, 6027, australia. phone: +61 8 6304 2786. e-mail: r.becerra@ecu.edu.au this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. bipolar disorder (bd) is a chronic mood disorder characterised by episodes of elevated mood, typically alternating with episodes of depression. the dsm-v (american psychiatric association, 2013) identifies four subtypes: bipolar disorder i (bd i), bipolar disorder ii (bd ii), cyclothymia and bipolar disorder not otherwise specified. bd i is characterised by manic or mixed (including psychotic) episodes, normally with major depression. bd ii is characterised by moderate elevations in mood (hypomania) and episodes of major depression. bd affects between 2.5-3.3% of australian adults (zutshi, eckert, hawthorne, taylor, & goldney, 2011) and has been identified as one of the most expensive of all mental illnesses. in 2004, the excess cost of bd in australia was estimated between $3.97 and $4.95 billion (fisher, goldney, dal grande, taylor, & hawthorne, 2007). bd is associated with a substantial risk of suicide; with the lifetime for bd at least 15 times that of the general population (american psychiatric association, 2013). more than half those diagnosed with bd have comorbid alcohol use disorders, which further europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ increases the risk of suicide and bd is also associated with high rates of comorbid anxiety, adhd, and impulse control disorders (american psychiatric association, 2013). the multi-dimensional nature of bd (heterogeneous, episodic, recurrent) pose challenges for effective diagnosis, treatment and management (anderson, haddad, & scott, 2012). the treatment of bd has traditionally targeted alleviating the effects of depression and mania. even when symptomatic recovery is attained, significant functional impairments often persist (tohen et al., 2000). it has been suggested that measures of functional outcome provide a more reliable indicator of response to treatment in bd than clinical measures such as a reduction in symptoms (keck, 2004). michalak and murray (2010) define psychosocial functioning as a person’s ability to perform activities of daily living and to engage in meaningful interpersonal relationships. impairment in psychosocial functioning is a defining feature of bd (american psychiatric association, 2013) and has been widely reported in the literature, even during periods of remission (macqueen, young, & joffe, 2001; sanchez-moreno et al., 2009). difficulty maintaining established relationships within the family and forming new relationships outside of the family have been reported among individuals living with bd (elgie & morselli, 2007). in addition, individuals living with bd report reduced quality of life (michalak, yatham, & lam, 2005) and health related quality of life (dean, gerner, & gerner, 2004). occupational functioning is an important aspect of psychosocial functioning that is also reduced among individuals living with bd. occupational difficulties that have emerged from the literature include prevalent long term unemployment, difficulty sustaining employment, reduced work efficiency and absenteeism (dean et al., 2004). these difficulties appear to increase over time and in response to multiple periods of acute illness (zimmerman et al., 2010). research indicates that individuals living with bd experience significantly higher levels of unemployment compared with both the general population and those with unipolar depression (shippee et al., 2011; waghorn & lloyd, 2005). in their review of the literature, marwaha, durrani, and singh (2013) observed that over time, people with bd who remain employed move into less demanding work roles. issues around disclosure and stigma in the workplace (michalak, yatham, maxwell, hale, & lam, 2007) add another level of complexity to these concerns. factors that have been associated with impaired psychosocial functioning in bd include current symptomatology, particularly depressive symptoms (bauer et al., 2001; martino et al., 2009; simonsen et al., 2010), previous hospitalisations and mixed episodes (rosa et al., 2009), number of medications taken (martínez-arán et al., 2007) and genetics (levy & manove, 2012). neurocognitive impairment is another factor that has emerged from the research and is thought to undermine psychosocial functioning in bd (baune, li, & beblo, 2013; tabarés-seisdedos et al., 2008). although diagnostically known as a mood disorder, bd patients also experience neurocognitive impairment (robinson et al., 2006). reviews of the literature suggest that the cognitive deficit in bd is present among both younger and older patients (cahill, green, jairam, &malhi, 2007; delaloye et al., 2009) and occurs across subtypes [i.e., in both bd i and bd ii: (bora, yücel, pantelis, & berk, 2011)] with increased impairment evident in bd i (sole et al., 2012; torres, solé, vieta, & martínez-arán, 2012). neurocognitive impairment has been reported during both acute mood and euthymic states (andreou & bozikas, 2013; depp et al., 2012a; kurtz & gerraty, 2009; wingo, harvey, & baldessarini, 2009), with significant deficits identified for attention, processing speed, memory and executive functioning (torres, boudreau, & yatham, 2007). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 660 http://www.psychopen.eu/ it is reasonable to suggest that neurocognitive functioning subserves not only complex, abstract processing but also daily basis processing; therefore deficits in this area would have ramifications for occupational functioning. for example, memory is utilised in skill acquisition, and attention is required for job performance. this suggests that a substantial component of successful occupational outcomes rest upon satisfactory neurocognitive performance. reviews to date have looked at the relationship between neurocognitive impairment and psychosocial functioning in general, incorporating research articles that have primarily utilised global measures of functioning (depp et al., 2012a; wingo et al., 2009). two recent reviews focussed on the predictors of employment in bd. gilbert and marwaha (2013) identified cognitive deficits, depression and level of education as predictors of employment in bd. a meta-analysis conducted by (tse, chan, ng, & yatham, 2014) identified a relationship between cognitive performance and favourable employment outcomes in bd, and mediating effects of years of education, course of illness, and symptomatology. executive functioning and verbal memory were highlighted as particularly relevant cognitive domains underlying occupational functioning (gilbert & marwaha, 2013; tse et al., 2014). the following literature review will focus exclusively on the association between neurocognitive impairment in bd and occupational functioning, incorporating a larger body of literature on this topic. the term occupational functioning has been used so as to not only include studies that focus on employment, but also other related functions that contribute to employment, such as work skills and pre-employment activities. it is expected that by examining occupational outcomes this will provide a broader perspective in this area of functioning in bd. employment has been identified as a vital contributor for the wellbeing and quality of life for those with bd (eklund, hansson, & ahlqvist, 2004; nordt, müller, rössler, & lauber, 2007). this highlights the importance of occupational activity for individuals living with bd, and highlights the potential for occupational functioning as a target for intervention. it is anticipated that the findings from this review will contribute to the knowledge in this field, and inform practitioners working directly in the rehabilitation of bd patients. methods a search of the psychinfo, scopus and isi web of sciences databases was conducted for relevant englishlanguage, peer-reviewed original journal articles, dating from january 1990 to november 2013. research into neurocognitive functioning within the bd population appears to have received more rigorous attention over the last 10-15 years (kurtz & gerraty, 2009) and therefore the aforementioned time frame was selected. a combination of the following three sets of terms were used in the search, joined by "and" operators. the first set identified the bd population; "bipolar disorder", "bipolar i", "bipolar ii", "affective disorder", "mood disorder", "mania" or "manic depression". the second set identified the neurocognitive component; "neurocogniti*", "neuropsych*", "cogniti*", "executive" or "intellect*". the third group identified occupational functioning; "vocation", "employ*", "work", "job", "occupation*" or "function*". results of this search were first screened for relevance via the title, then by inspection of the abstract. references lists were also searched for relevant articles. any uncertainty regarding the relevance of an article was taken to the second author for a decision on inclusion or otherwise. a total of 46 articles were identified by this process. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 661 http://www.psychopen.eu/ these 46 articles were then examined for specific reference to the relationship between neurocognitive factors and occupational functioning. twenty-one articles were excluded, mainly as a result of the use of global measures of functioning (for example; global assessment of function and the social adjustment scale) and also a result of failure to specifically identify occupational functioning. the effect sizes for significant results are reported in table a1. for studies where effect size data were not available, effect sizes were calculated and converted to cohen’s d or f2 (for regression). the standardised mean difference (d) was calculated for studies involving between groups designs. for studies involving chi-square and correlational outcome data, χ2 and r values were converted to d. cohen’s d was calculated for studies utilising regression analysis that provided β values in conjunction with the standard deviation of the dependent variable and sample size. for regression where r2 values were reported, r2 was converted to f2. results twenty-three articles were selected for inclusion in the current review (see table a1). with no papers published before 2004, and 17 since 2010, it is clear that research into the association between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning in bd is a relatively new field that is gaining increasingly more interest. the majority of studies (16) utilised outpatient participants and were primarily conducted in the usa (12) and spain (9), with single representations from england, canada, ireland and norway. the following section will examine the assessment of neurocognitive functioning, the measurement of occupational functioning, and then the relationship between these two factors. neurocognitive assessment the majority of studies (20) administered a battery of objective neurocognitive measures, primarily covering the domains of executive functioning, verbal memory, attention, and processing speed. exceptions included gilbert et al. (2010) who used a self-report assessment and a clinical interview to collect information regarding memory and concentration and altshuler et al. (2007) who used a structured interview to assess executive functioning. schoeyen and colleagues (2013) utilised a neurocognitive test battery to measure participants full scale iq and premorbid intellectual functioning, arguing that the various neurocognitive domains reflect general intellectual ability. o'shea et al. (2010) administered ecologically valid cognitive tests (daily, real-life tasks) to measure their participant’s attention, memory and executive functioning. measures of occupational functioning the methods used to assess occupational functioning varied widely between studies. most commonly, participants were categorised based on employment status (full-time, part-time or otherwise). another method was to measure occupational functioning or adaptation, using a particular instrument or by categorising participants into a "good" or "poor" group based on occupational adaption. finally, a small group used miscellaneous methods, beyond these broad descriptions. nine studies (altshuler et al., 2007; depp et al., 2012b; dickerson et al., 2004; dickerson et al., 2010; gilbert et al., 2010; mora, portella, forcada, vieta, & mur, 2013; mur, portella, martínez-arán, pifarre, & vieta, 2008; mur, portella, martínez-arán, pifarre, & vieta, 2009; ryan et al., 2013) measured occupational functioning by categorising europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 662 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants into groups based on their employment status. of these studies, the most common method involved creating a ‘working vs not working’ dichotomy (altshuler et al., 2007; depp et al., 2012b; dickerson et al., 2010; gilbert et al., 2010; mur et al., 2009; ryan et al., 2013). other studies created a third grouping with the inclusion of a "part-time" or "retired/disabled" group (dickerson et al., 2004; levy, medina, &weiss, 2013; mora et al., 2013; mur et al., 2008). definitions also varied within this employment status category, with ryan et al. (2013) and dickerson et al. (2010) describing their "working" group as having attained full-time employment, whilst others (altshuler et al., 2007; depp et al., 2012b; gilbert et al., 2010; mora et al., 2013; mur et al., 2008; mur et al., 2009) including participants who were part-time employed. a variety of formal assessment measures were also employed among studies to assess occupational functioning, including: the longitudinal interval follow-up evaluation-range of impaired functioning tool (godard, grondin, baruch, & lafleur, 2011), the life functioning questionnaire (bearden et al., 2011), the vocational status index (wingo, baldessarini, holtzheimer, & harvey, 2010), functioning assessment short test (bonnín et al., 2010), and the social and occupational functioning assessment scale (o'shea et al., 2010). martínez-arán et al. (2004) examined occupational functioning, but by dividing participants into two groups good or poor based on whether they worked at a good/acceptable level of functioning or otherwise. however, in subsequent papers (martínez-arán et al., 2007; tabarés-seisdedos et al., 2008; torrent et al., 2006), these researchers measured occupational outcomes by way of occupational adaptation. they divided participants into "good" or "poor" occupational adaptation groups, determined by a good/acceptable level of functioning most of the time, versus those not working or exhibiting difficulties in their jobs. six papers employed other means of assessing occupational outcomes. burdick, goldberg, and harrow (2010) measured work disability with the strauss-carpenter work functioning rating scale; bowie et al. (2010) examined work skills using the specific level of functioning scale; schoeyen et al. (2013) used receipt of a disability pension to represent poor occupational outcomes; bonnín et al. (2014) divided work participants into "good" or "poor" work adjustment based on their participation in fullor part-time employment, or otherwise; and murtagh et al. (2010) considered participants work history for the last three years to create two groups those that had worked for at least six months during that time and those that had not. the relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning twenty studies identified a relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning in bd. themajor finding reported among these studies was that neurocognitive impairment was associated with diminished occupational functioning. just over half (12) of these studies utilised euthymic participants, and the same number of studies also excluded individuals with recent substance abuse or dependence. eight studies controlled for the effects of medication. nineteen of these studies incorporated solely bd populations (with or without healthy controls), whilst four included other diagnostic categories such as schizophrenia (bowie et al., 2010; godard et al., 2011; murtagh et al., 2010; tabarés-seisdedos et al., 2008). only torrent et al. (2006) differentiated between bdi and bdii; noting that the relationship between neurocognitive and occupational functioning was evident for both subtypes. of the 23 articles, 14 were cross-sectional, six were longitudinal and two were post-hoc design. longitudinal studies ranged from three months (levy, medina, & weiss, 2013) to 15 years (burdick et al., 2010). the most common neurocognitive domains implicated in this relationship were: executive functioning (12), verbal learneurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 663 http://www.psychopen.eu/ ing/memory (8), processing speed (5) and attention (5). depp et al. (2012b) and bowie et al. (2010) did not identify specific domains, instead reporting on overall neurocognitive functioning. bowie et al. (2010) noted that the relationship between neurocognitive functioning and work skills in bd was indirect and was mediated by adaptive and social competence. the authors defined adaptive competence as the instrumental skills important for functioning independently, and social competence as the linguistic and verbal behaviours essential for communication. of the three papers that did not find an association between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning, dickerson et al. (2010) noted that the processing speed domain approached significance for work adjustment in their study, whilst wingo et al. (2010) reported that their participants differed on various neurocognitive measures, though not to a significant level. schoeyen et al. (2013) failed to find a relationship between overall neurocognitive functioning, as measured by iq, and receipt of a disability benefit. discussion the aim of this paper was to investigate the association between neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd. of the papers reviewed, most (20) identified a relationship between impaired neurocognitive functioning and reduced occupational functioning in bd. this is consistent with the findings of a recent systematic review and a meta-analysis which considered predictors of employment in bd (gilbert & marwaha, 2013; tse et al., 2014). the current review identified a number of neurocognitive domains that appear to be particularly sensitive to changes in occupational functioning including: executive functioning, verbal memory, processing speed and attention. although over half (14) of these papers were cross-sectional, seven longitudinal studies identified that the relationship between neurocognitive impairment and reduced occupational functioning was stable over time, and that neurocognitive assessment may provide prognostic information regarding occupational functioning in bd. although the relationship between neurocognitive impairment and reduced occupational functioning appears to be stable over time, the current review indentified that certain cognitive domains are more sensitive to changes in occupational functioning in longitudinal studies compared to cross-sectional studies. for example, reduced performance on measures of verbal and working memory were found to be more strongly associated with reduced occupational functioning overtime, and the strength of these effects were considered to be medium to large for both verbal and working memory. reduced performance on measures of verbal memory were also implicated in reduced occupational functioning in cross-sectional studies suggesting that verbal memory is an important cognitive domain over both short and long periods. although working memory appeared to be an aspect of executive function implicated in longitudinal studies, measures of executive function associated with cross-sectional studies were somewhat variable. for example, verbal fluency and inhibition were more sensitive to changes in occupational functioning among follow-up studies and the strength of the effect varied substantially. one study reported a small to medium effect size for verbal fluency (ryan et al., 2013), whereas another study reported a large effect size (godard et al., 2011). differences in methodology may underlie such discrepancies, and further information regarding the strength of the relationship between measures of executive function and occupational functioning is required, given that effect sizes could not be calculated for a number of studies. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 664 http://www.psychopen.eu/ clinical variables a number of studied identified residual depression as an important predictive factor of employment among bd populations (gilbert & marwaha, 2013; tse et al., 2014). out of the studies reviewed, approximately half (12) utilised euthymic participants in an attempt to control for the effects of depression. it should be noted though that studies varied in how euthymic populations were defined. generally (in 8 instances), a hamilton depression rating scale score below 8 and a young mania rating scale (ymrs) score below 6 were used to characterise euthymic states, usually stipulated over the last 3-6 months (7). there were variations from this, for example, in two cases a ymrs score below 8 was used, and in another two cases euthymia was prospectively verified over a period of 6 months. although establishing a standard definition of euthymia remains a challenge (a meta-analysis of cognitive deficits in euthymic bd patients identified 23 different descriptions [robinson et al., 2006]), torres et al. (2007) suggest that minimal mood rating scores should be employed. in light of the potential effects of mood on occupational functioning in bd, future research in this area should ideally include euthymic populations, defined by stringent criteria. a brief discussion is warranted regarding factors that can influence neurocognitive functioning in bd. there is debate as to whether psychotropic medication, particularly anti-psychotics, polymedication regimes and high dosages have an impact on cognitive function with some authors stating that the side effects of medication influence cognitive functioning (balanzá-martínez et al., 2010; torres, solé, vieta, & martínez-arán, 2012); whilst other authors argue that the effects of medication on cognitive functioning in bd are minimal (kurtz & gerraty, 2009; robinson et al., 2006; torres et al., 2007). given the heterogonous nature of bd, medication regimes will vary widely, therefore attempts to control for the effects of medication will ensure that the potential for neurocognitive side-effects are minimised. another factor which has the potential to impact on cognitive function, and hence the relationship between neurocognitive and occupational functioning, is comorbid substance abuse. balanzá-martínez et al. (2010) noted in their review that neurocognitive functioning in bd is not only impaired by current and recent alcohol use, but even following a period of abstinence from alcohol. in the current review, those studies that excluded participants based on drug and alcohol dependence or abuse (13) varied in their defined periods of abstinence, with periods ranging from 12 months to no current substance abuse/dependence issues (3). the longer participants can abstain from alcohol and illicit drugs, the less likely these substances will have an effect on neurocognitive functioning. however, it is noted that there is a high level of comorbidity between bd and substance abuse and/or dependence, alcohol in particular (american psychiatric association, 2013) and excluding or controlling for current substance use may influence the generalizability of research findings in the area. future research in the area may benefit from reporting the results with and without statistically correcting for substance use in order to examine the impact of comorbid substance abuse more closely. wingo et al. (2009) identified other factors known to influence neurocognitive functioning in bd including age, education, premorbid iq, and course of illness or chronicity factors. history of psychosis was identified as factor contributing to poor neurocognitive function (wingo et al., 2009) and also poor occupational functioning (levy et al., 2013). there appears to be a complex relationship between these mediating factors and the outcome variables for neurocognitive and occupational functioning. for example, wingo et al. (2010) reported that the relationship between neurocognitive and functional outcomes was reduced after adjusting for education and residual mood symptoms. similarly, schoeyen et al. (2013) failed to find a correlation between either premorbid or current iq with receipt of either a full-time or part-time disability benefit (an indicator of poor occupational functioning), though europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 665 http://www.psychopen.eu/ a significant association emerged when clinical variables such as the number of hospitalisations for depressive episodes and illness duration were considered. methodological issues and limitations neurocognitive assessment the first methodological issue relates to the assessment of neurocognitive functioning. the domains of cognitive functioning assessed varied across studies, for example executive functioning (16 studies), verbal learning/memory (16), attention (15) and processing speed (11) were the most commonly measured domains. six studies included a measure of visual memory, and two included a measure of motor control and co-ordination. the majority (21) of studies reviewed utilised a battery of standardised objective neurocognitive tests; however the assessments comprising each ‘battery’ varied widely across studies. for example, the trail making test b (tmt-b) (11 papers), controlled oral word association task (fas) (11) and the wisconsin card sorting test (wcst) (11) were the most commonly used assessments of executive functioning, however, only four studies (bonnín et al., 2010; bonnín et al., 2014; ryan et al., 2013; tabarés-seisdedos et al., 2008) used all three measures in the same study. there was also inconsistency surrounding the cognitive domains that certain assessments were alleged to bemeasuring. for example, although the tmt-a is widely used as ameasure of processing speed and the tmt-b task is thought to provide a measure of cognitive flexibility, and hence a measure of executive function, the tmt-b task was used as both a measure of attention and executive function among the studies reviewed. future research would benefit from a standardised battery of neuropsychological assessment and efforts have been made to develop a standard neurocognitive assessment battery specifically for bd research (yatham et al., 2010). yatham and colleagues identified executive functioning, verbal learning/memory, attention/vigilance, visual learning, working memory, and speed of processing as important cognitive domains to be investigated in bd research and proposed the use of the tmt-b, wcst, and stroop colour word association tests as the most valid measures of executive functioning. yatham et al. (2010) note that a standard battery of neurocognitive assessments for bd, offer researchers not only the opportunity to meaningfully interpret and compare results across studies, but also the ability to pool and analyse results over a larger sample size (e.g. meta-analysis). the authors emphasise though that in the absence of psychometric validation and further research, these are only introductory steps towards compiling a standard neurocognitive assessment battery for bd. the association between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning also emerged in a small group of research which utilised non-standardised neurocognitive assessments (altshuler et al., 2007; gilbert et al., 2010; o'shea et al., 2010). o'shea et al. (2010) and gilbert et al. (2010) offer particularly unique perspectives on this matter. o'shea et al. (2010) administered ecologically valid neurocognitive tests, indicating that there is no definitive relationship between successful daily functioning and the results of standardised cognitive tests. gilbert et al. (2010) used a self-report assessment of neurocognition, specifically targeting concentration. both gilbert et al. (2010) and o'shea et al. (2010) suggested that utilising ecologically valid measures of neurocognitive functioning that reflects performance in a specific context or area of functioning (e.g., occupational functioning), may help to improve predictions of employment trajectory. burdick, endick, and goldberg (2005) report in their study that although self-reported cognitive impairments failed to correlate with objective neurocognitive assessments, the former measures do provide practitioners with valuable information, particularly regarding treatment adherence. further research into the ecological (face) validity of neurocognitive assessments, and the utilisation of either subjective or objective measures, in light of occupational activity, is warranted. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 666 http://www.psychopen.eu/ occupational functioning the second methodological issue concerns the definition and measurement of occupational functioning, which varied widely between papers reviewed. classifying occupational status as ‘working’ or ‘not working’ provided the strongest indicator of occupational functioning across studies and consequently was the most common measure employed by studies in this review. variations within this dichotomous approach were noted, with part-time work sometimes excluded from the ‘working’ group (dickerson et al., 2010; ryan et al., 2013). occupational functioning was alsomeasured using a range of instruments, with one group of researchers measuring occupational adaptation, whilst others considered work disability, work skills, and even participant progress towards engagement in vocational services as measures of occupational functioning. schoeyen et al. (2013) offered a novel perspective by using receipt of a partor full-time disability benefit as a measure of poor occupational functioning. this method poses some important limitations, for example, some participants may have been working and receiving a (particularly part-time) disability benefit. tse and colleagues (2014) suggest that other indicators of occupational functioning should be considered, such as absenteeism, job satisfaction and whether a job matches the person’s qualifications or skills. all these indicators reflect the breadth of occupational outcomes, and highlight the extent of occupational impairment in bd. this diversity in the way in which occupational functioning is defined and measured limits the opportunity for comparison between studies. information regarding occupational functioning was collected by variety of methods including self-report, clinicianreport and performance-based measures. all methods of measurement are limited in some form, for example, self-report bias, inter-rater variability in clinician-based measures, and the narrow representation of functioning in performance-based measures (baune et al., 2013). in their review of psychosocial outcomes in bd, macqueen et al. (2001) noted that functional impairments were less when participants were defined as employed or not, than when self-reported effects of illness on psychosocial functioning were identified. the authors go onto explain that performance-based measures can miss more subtle deficits in the participants functioning, and also ignores the participants view of their own level of functioning. depp et al. (2012b) on the other hand, reported in their metaanalysis that real world outcomes, such as employment and performance-based measures of functioning demonstrated stronger associations with cognitive abilities than self-report and clinician-rated measures. furthermore, wingo et al. (2009) report that indicators such as employment may provide a more objective measure of real-world functional performance. in summary, although there are limitations to the various methods of measuring occupational functioning, an objective performance-based indicator such as employment status may provide a real-world measure of occupational functioning, which also facilitates comparisons made between studies. a potential bias regarding occupational functioning is noted with regards to the inclusion criteria for this review. limiting the search to english-language studies restricts cross-cultural comparisons, and also tends to reflect western labour markets. this may pose different consequences for occupational functioning (e.g. employment opportunities) to other economies. methodological limitations sample size and therefore statistical power varied across studies, with only 12 papers involving samples greater than 100 participants. differences in sample size and characteristics make it difficult to generalize interpretations across studies. the clinical samples comprising each study also carried widely. some studies did not distinguish between bd i and bd i and others incorporated other diagnoses such as schizophrenia. it is therefore difficult to generalise across studies given the heterogeneous nature of bd. themajority of the studies reviewed were crosseurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 667 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sectional, and this also limits the long term generalisations and inferences regarding causal directions for the relationship between cognitive and occupational functioning in bd. future directions and implications despite these limitations the research at hand does seem to suggest that neurocognitive impairment is associated with (and may predict) diminished occupational functioning in bd, and this has important implications for rehabilitation practitioners. given that most jobs require a degree of memory and attention, it follows that interventions targeting neurocognitive functioningmay help to improve occupational functioning. harvey et al. (2010) suggested that cognitive remediation interventions (cognitive training and exercises aimed at improving neurocognitive functioning), which have been successfully implemented with schizophrenia patients for the last four decades, may also assist bd populations. indeed, in the first study of its kind utilising a homogenous bd sample, deckersbach et al. (2010) reported that cognitive remediation, in combination with cbt aimed at depressive symptoms, resulted in improved occupational functioning, which was also associated with improvements in executive functioning. more recently, torrent et al. (2013) evaluated the efficacy of a functional remediation program among a sample of euthymic patients with bd. this intervention involved exercises to improve memory, attention, and executive function in order to enhance daily routine. these authors reported that the intervention was associated with significant improvements in functional outcomes compared to treatment as usual, however functional remediation was no more effective than psycho education. a randomised controlled trial conducted by demant et al. (2013) also demonstrated significant improvements neurocognitive and functional outcomemeasures as a result of undertaking a group-based cognitive remediation program. in their review of studies where cognitive remediation was used with schizo-affective and affective disorders, anaya et al. (2012) note that effect sizes were comparable with those obtained from the research on schizophrenia. although limited, these findings suggest that targeting neurocognitive deficits through cognitive remediation can play an effective part in the treatment of bd. this appears particularly promising for the occupational outcomes of bd patients. in summary, the current review identified a relationship between impaired neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd. specifically that neurocognitive impairment in the domains of executive functioning, verbal memory, and processing speed and attention impedes occupational functioning in bd. a comparison of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies indicated that the relationship between neurocognitive impairment and reduced occupational functioning persists over time. reduced performance on verbal and working memory emerged as important factors for predicting occupational functioning over time, whilst performance on measures of executive functioning were more variable with regards to cross-sectional studies. clinical variables including residual depression, classification of euthymia and bd diagnoses, medication, premorbid iq, history of psychosis, illness factors including number of hospitalizations, and co morbid substance abuse and/or dependence were identified as important variables for consideration when evaluating the relationship between neurocognitive and occupational functioning. there were a number of methodological limitations associated with the variety of neuropsychological assessments employed across studies and the definition and measurement of occupational status that make it difficult to generalise across studies. in lights of these limitations, assessment of neuropsychological function among bd populations is argued to provide important information with regards to occupational functioning, and information for clinicians with regards to rehabilitation options for improving functional outcomes including occupational functioning. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 668 http://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references altshuler, l., tekell, j., biswas, k., kilbourne, a. m., evans, d., tang, d., & bauer, m. s. 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(2011). changes in the prevalence of bipolar disorders between 1998 and 2008 in an australian population. bipolar disorders, 13, 182-188. doi:10.1111/j.1399-5618.2011.00907.x appendix about the authors mr walace duarte is a clinical psychologist registrar who completed a masters in clinical psychology at edith cowan university. he has a background in employment services and mental health, community mental health, and drug and alcohol services. contact: faculty of computing, health and science edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. dr rodrigo becerra is a senior lecturer at edith cowan university and a senior clinical psychologist at alma street centre, fremantle hospital, perth, wa. he is the director of the psychopathology research group at edith cowan university and specializes emotions and psychopathology. contact details: school of psychology and social science (room 30.129). faculty of computing, health and science edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. drkate cruise is undertaking a masters in clinical psychology with edith cowan university. her research background involves the assessment of neuropsychological and psychosocial functioning of clinical populations including bipolar disorder and parkinson ’s disease. contact details: school of psychology and social science. faculty of computing, health and science edith cowan university, 270 joondalup drive, joondalup perth, wa 6027, australia. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 674 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fbdi.12148 http://dx.doi.org/10.5172%2fjamh.4.2.129 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1399-5618.2010.00808.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1399-5618.2009.00665.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1399-5618.2010.00830.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1399-5618.2010.00869.x http://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1399-5618.2011.00907.x http://www.psychopen.eu/ table a1 details of neurocognitive and occupational research for bd results [effect size (es) d or f2] effects of medication controlled occupational functioning measure neurocognitive domains measuredstudy typesamplestudy exit composite scores predicted work status (d = .77) yesemployment status; employed vs unemployed structured interview (exit); executive functioning (perseveration, response cross-sectional study total (bd i/ii) n = 213 mage = 43.33 male = 91% altshuler et al. (2007) set-switching, generation de novo of stories, generation of word lists, interference) occupationally recovered bd participants performed better on: episodic memory yesoccupational functioning (life neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, longitudinal study total (ebd i) n = 79 mage = 36.6 male = 53% bearden et al. (2011) (cvlt total, immediate, delayed, recognition d = .80); visual scanning (span of functioning questionnaire) occupationally recovered vs unrecovered working memory/attention, episodic memory, visual scanning, executive functioning apprehension: d = .05); attention/working memory (lns forward and reorder, dscpt vigilance: d = 1.05); executive function (wcst category completion and perseverative errors: d = .49); speed of processing (tmt-a: .19) executive function (wais-iii: digits backwards) correlated with occupational functioning at 4-year follow-up (d = .78). nooccupational functioning (functioning neurocognitive assessment battery; estimated iq, attention, verbal learning and memory, executive functioning longitudinal study total n = 32 mage = 43.5 male = 53.1% ebd i (n = 24) ebd ii (n = 8) bonnín et al. (2010) assessment short test) executive functioning (wais-iii digits backwards) predicted poor work adjustment (f2 = .38) nowork adjustment; good versus poor neurocognitive assessment battery; iq, processing speed index, working memory and attention, verbal learning and memory, executive functioning cross-sectional study total (ebd i) n = 85 mage = 40.11 male = 48% bonnín et al. (2014) adaptive and social competence mediated the relationship between neurocognitive composite score and work skills (f2 = .42) nowork skills (the specific level of functioning scale) neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, verbal declarative and workingmemory, verbal fluency, attention, executive functioning cross-sectional study total n = 291 mage = 49.15 male = 57% bd i (n = 130) sz (n = 161) bowie et al. (2010) verbal memory (cvlt total) predicted occupational outcome at 15 year follow-up (d = .74) yeswork disability (strauss-carpenter work functioning rating scale) neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, verbal learning and memory, verbal fluency, accessing of general knowledge, executive functioning longitudinal study total (bd i) n = 33 mage = 40.2 male = 54% burdick et al. (2010) neurocognitive composite score predicted with employment status (d = .74) nooccupational status; unemployed versus employed neurocognitive assessment battery; attention, psychomotor speed, verbal and working memory, executive functioning cross-sectional study total (bd i) n = 229 mage = 46.85 male = 50% depp et al. (2012b) europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 675 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results [effect size (es) d or f2] effects of medication controlled occupational functioning measure neurocognitive domains measuredstudy typesamplestudy verbal memory(rbans list learning and story memory) contributed to employment status (d = .82) yesemployment status; no work versus part-time work versus full-time work neurocognitive assessment battery (rbans); immediate memory, visuospatial and constructional, language, attention, delayed memory cross-sectional study total n = 117 mage = 41.4 male = 30% bd i (n = 87) bd ii (n = 29) bdnos (n = 1) dickerson et al. (2004) no relationship emerged between occupational status and neurocognitive functioning. nooccupational status; full-time employment versus unemployed neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, verbal memory, verbal fluency, visual prospective longitudinal study total n = 52 mage = 30.5 male = 15% bd i (n = 38) bd ii (n = 12) bdnos (n = 2) dickerson et al. (2010) memory, executive functioning, visual spatial ability, premorbid intelligence self-reported concentration and memory problems predicted employment status (es could not be calculated) yesemployment status; working versus not working clinical interview & self report (bipolar disorder visit form & mood spectrum self-report post-hoc analysistotal (bd i) n = 148 mage = 44.17 male = 37% gilbert et al. (2010) questionnaire); memory and concentration attention (cogitex ii simple rt; d = 1.14), executive function (d-kefs verbal fluency nowork functioning (longitudinal interval neurocognitive assessment battery; visual functions, verbal cross-sectional study total n = 30 mage = 47.45 male = 33% bd i (n = 8) bd ii (n = 6) mdd (n = 16) godard et al. (2011) test d = 1.11) and verbal memory (cvlt-ii retrieval d = 1.12) associated with work functioning follow-up evaluation-range of impaired functioning tool) learning and memory, attention, executive functioning verbal memory (cvlt immediate and delayed) and executive functioning nooccupational functioning; good versus poor neurocognitive assessment battery; estimated premorbid iq, verbal learning and memory, cross-sectional study total n = 138 mage = 41.1 male = 42% bdd (n = 30) bdmh (n = 34) ebd (n = 44) hc (n = 30) martínez-arán et al. (2004) (cowat) associated with occupational functioning (es could not be calculated) nonverbal learning and memory, attention/ concentration and mental tracking, executive functioning verbal memory (cvlt immediate and free recall); executive function (cowat; tmt-b) associated with occupational adaptation. (es could not be calculated) yesoccupational adaptation; good versus low neurocognitive assessment battery; estimated premorbid iq, verbal learning and memory, executive functioning cross-sectional study total n = 112 mage = 39 male = 38% ebd i (n = 59) ebd ii (n = 18) hc (n = 35) martínez-arán et al. (2007) attention (cpt-ii hit rt), verbal memory (cvlt immediate and delayed recall), nooccupational status; active versus inactive versus retired neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, attention, verbal memory, visual memory, executive functioning longitudinal study total n = 54 mage = 41.55 male = 48% ebd (n = 28) hc (n = 26) mora et al. (2013) executive function (tmt-b; stroop colour word test) associated with occupational functioning at 6 year follow-up (es could not be calculated) processing speed (tmt-a: d = 1.15) and executive function (stroop colour andword nooccupational status; active versus inactive versus retired neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, attention, verbal memory, visual memory, executive functioning longitudinal study total n = 66 mage = 41.2 male = 51.5% ebd (n = 33) hc (n = 33) mur et al. (2008) test: d = .87) associated with work status at 2 year follow-up europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 676 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results [effect size (es) d or f2] effects of medication controlled occupational functioning measure neurocognitive domains measuredstudy typesamplestudy significantly greater executive function (stroop colour and word test:d =.80), yesoccupational status; active versus inactive neurocognitive assessment battery; processing speed, verbal cross-sectional study total n = 44 mage = 42.9 male = 50% ebd i (n = 30) ebd ii (n= 14) mur et al. (2009) processing speed (tmt-a: d = .77) for active vs inactive participants memory, visual memory, attention, inhibition, executive functioning executive functioning (wms lns) associated with work status (es could not be calculated) nowork status; worked in the last 3 years neurocognitive assessment battery; current iq, episodic memory, face recognition, post hoc analysistotal n = 77 mage = 42 male = 63% bd (n = 13) sz (n = 45) sa (n = 17) pd (n = 1) dd (n = 1) murtagh et al. (2010) workingmemory, attention, social awareness, word fluency attention (tea) was associated with occupational functioning (es could not be calculated) nooccupational functioning (the social and ecologically valid cognitive test battery; attention, memory, executive functioning. cross-sectional study total n = 58 mage = 53 male = 48.2% ebd (n = 29) hc (n = 29) o'shea et al. (2010) occupational functional assessment scale) verbal fluency (cowat: d = .38) and processing speed intereference resolution yeswork status; working versus not working neurocognitive assessment battery; visual memory, auditory cross-sectional study total n = 299 mean age = 38.43 male = 57% ebd (n = 156) hc (n = 143) ryan et al. (2013) (stroop colour and word test: d = .11) associated with work status memory, emotion processing, fine motor dexterity, verbal fluency & processing speed, conceptual reasoning and set-shifting, processing speed with interference resolution, inhibitory control occupational outcome not associated with premorbid, current, or decline in, iq noreceipt of disability benefit neurocognitive assessment battery; iq, premorbid intellectual functioning cross-sectional study total n = 226 mage = 33.9 male = 38% bd i (n = 144) bd ii (n = 70) bdnos (n = 12) schoeyen et al. (2013) neurocognitive composite score strongest predictor of occupational adaptation at one year follow-up (d = .57) nooccupational adaptation; good versus low neurocognitive assessment battery; executive functioning and problem solving, verbal longitudinal study total n = 115 mage = 38.7 male = 62% bd i (n = 43) sz (n = 47) hc (n = 25) tabarés-seisdedos et al. (2008) workingmemory, verbal memory, visual memory, visual-motor processing/speed of processing, vigilance, motor speed, language/vocabulary europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 duarte, becerra, & cruise 677 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results [effect size (es) d or f2] effects of medication controlled occupational functioning measure neurocognitive domains measuredstudy typesamplestudy executive functioning (tmt-b) predicted occupational adaptation in bd ii (es could not be calculated) nooccupational adaptation; good versus low neurocognitive assessment battery; estimated premorbid iq, verbal learning and memory, cross-sectional study total n = 106 mage = 40.9 male = 41% ebd i (n = 38) ebd ii (n = 33) hc (n = 35) torrent et al. (2006) attention/ concentration and mental tracking, executive functioning no relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning yesoccupational functioning neurocognitive assessment battery; estimated premorbid iq, cross-sectional study total n = 65 mage = 40.1 male = 50.8% ebd i (n = 42) ebd ii (n = 23) wingo et al. (2010) (vocational status index) verbal learning and memory, attention and concentration, executive functioning note. bipolar disorder (bd), bipolar disorder depressed (bdd), bipolar disorder manic or hypomanic (bdmh), bipolar disorder not otherwise specified (bdnos), bipolar disorder with psychosis (bd i wp), bipolar disorder without psychosis (bd i wop), euthymic bipolar disorder (ebd), major depressive disorder (mdd), schizophrenia (sz), schizoaffective disorder (sa), psychotic depression (pd), delusional disorder (dd), healthy controls (hc), california verbal learning test (cvlt), cognitive and executive function (cogit ex ii), controlled oral word association test (cowat), continuous performance test (cpt-ii), degraded stimulus continuous performance test (dscpt), delis-kaplan executive function system (d-kefs), executive interview (exit), repeatable battery for the assessment of neuropsychological status (rbans), test of everyday attention (tea),trail making test part a/b (tmt-a, tmt-b), wechsler adult intelligence scale (wais-iii), wechsler memory scale (wms), wisconsin card sorting test (wcst). psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(4), 659–678 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i4.909 neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd 678 http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en neurocognitive and occupational functioning in bd (introduction) methods results neurocognitive assessment measures of occupational functioning the relationship between neurocognitive functioning and occupational functioning discussion clinical variables methodological issues and limitations methodological limitations future directions and implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors naïve theories of emotions: why people might (not) be uncertain or in conflict about felt emotions research reports naïve theories of emotions: why people might (not) be uncertain or in conflict about felt emotions vanda lucia zammuner 1 [1] department of developmental psychology and socialization processes, university of padova, padua, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 received: 2020-12-30 • accepted: 2022-03-07 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: vanda lucia zammuner, department of developmental psychology and socialization processes, university of padova, via venezia, 8, 35100 padua, italy. e-mail: vlzammuner@unipd.it abstract beliefs about conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions—for joy, pride, sadness, jealousy and envy events—were studied by means of yes/no and why questions. each participant (n = 1,156) judged a typical antecedent for a single emotion—e.g., jealousy: story protagonist sp sees his or her partner kiss someone. the yes/no results showed that sp was frequently expected to experience both phenomena, the more so the greater the event impact (yes range: 40–86%). beliefs associated with yes answers (by) were categorized into 4 categories: (by1) reason-emotion opposition—felt emotions are unreasonable, inadequate ways of reacting; (by2) ambivalent emotions—e.g., joy and sadness; (by3) unclear emotions; (by4) other causes—e.g., focused on event implications, sp’s personality. no conflict or uncertainty answers (bn; range 14–60%) mirrored by categories: (bn1) no reason-emotion opposition, (bn2) no ambivalent emotions, (bn3) clear emotions, (bn4) other causes. attributions and beliefs about causes did not generally differ by gender. as a collective entity, expressed beliefs were complex, focusing on one or more emotion component—e.g., appraisal, regulation, expression—as well as on emotion intensity, duration, and on self-concept issues. overall, expressed beliefs seemed to imply a malleability theory of emotions, and emotion awareness. results overall confirmed the hypotheses that conflict and uncertainty attributions are more likely for: unpleasant experiences; when emotions are norm-incongruent for the judged event; when mixed, ambivalent emotions are felt. the study confirms that people interpret emotion processes according to their lay theories. keywords beliefs, conflict and uncertainty, felt emotions, emotion constellations, joy, pride, sadness, jealousy, envy how people conceptualize themselves, their life and experiences, and the world in which they live in, i.e., what concepts or beliefs they develop and rely on to make sense of, and explain, their internal and external worlds are important issues, from a theoretical as well as a practical viewpoint. people’s lay theories—also referred to as folk, intuitive, implicit, commonsense, or naïve theories (e.g., ford & gross, 2019)—might be defined as comprising (sets of) beliefs (concepts, representations) about specific domains important to people’s life, about which people are concerned, i.e., ‘objects’ that define or affect the self and one’s social world. this paper1, reporting the integrated, mainly qualitative results of five parallel studies, explores whether people believe that conflict and uncertainty, relevant aspects of emotion experiences, might be associated with felt emotions, 1) see notes and appendix in zammuner (2023) for additional information. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5529&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and why (their causes, explanations). to set the theoretical background for the present study questions, the next section briefly discusses what is meant by lay theories and why they are studied, providing a few examples of studied ‘objects’. the study of beliefs about emotions as argued within social cognition approaches (e.g., molden & dweck, 2006), beliefs about object x are likely to motivate and guide behavior. lay theories have thus been studied extensively in psychology, studying the impact of such beliefs and related motives and behaviors in relation to a variety of objects (for recent partial reviews, see de castella et al., 2018; ong et al., 2015; tamir et al., 2007)—e.g., beliefs on the nature (functioning, causes, effects, etc.) of intelligence, morality and personality; beliefs about such issues as altruism (carlson & zaki, 2018), suicide causes (voracek et al., 2007), and compulsive behaviors in eating-disorder patients (lawson et al., 2007). obtained results overall support the hypothesis that people do entertain beliefs, often culture-specific ones, on subjectively relevant objects, and that such beliefs contribute to influence their thinking, attitudes and behaviors. a specific object (domain) of many belief studies in the last five decades is emotion, paralleling increased attention to its study (barrett et al., 2016). a compilation of research on emotion beliefs is still lacking. we might however argue that many studies on such constructs as concepts, prototypes, scripts and stereotypes did actually explore lay beliefs (zammuner, 2023, n1). over time, studies increasingly focused on beliefs about aspects (components) of emotions, such as expression, appraisal, and regulation. for instance, according to recent studies (e.g., ford & gross, 2019; tamir et al., 2007) people are more likely to regulate their emotions if they hold a malleability rather than a stability theory, i.e., if they believe that emotions can change rather than be immutable. when discussing emotion beliefs, it is important to highlight their cultural basis, considering attitudes (standards) toward emotions and their expression, i.e., what standards culture encourages (e.g., whether and how anger should be expressed), and how standards change in personal history, time and socio-cultural context—e.g., in child-rearing affection-norms (shields & koster, 1989; stearns, 2019), or in collectivist versus individualist cultures (eid & diener, 2001). the results of such studies confirm that emotional experiences show systematic cross-cultural differences (in addition to similarities) mutually constitutive with culturally-based practices and meanings (i.e., the beliefs; mesquita & leu, 2007). in discussing emotion beliefs, finally, we need to consider self-concepts, self-construals, as they influence emotion experiences and behaviors (leary, 2007; markus & kitayama, 1991)—e.g., an incoherent self-concept predicts lower psychological well-being (diehl & hay, 2011), whereas a fit between actualand ideal-self-view influences positive affect and self-esteem (pelham & swann, 1989). more generally, self-related motives, such as enhancement and verification, are likely to influence people’s goals when experiencing and expressing an emotion—e.g., when judging emotione appropriateness in contextc, or its expression. lay emotion theories as influences on emotion experience and its judgement to discuss emotion beliefs, we need to recall, first, that emotions are multi-componential processes (scherer, 1984)—e.g., comprising the experience of un/pleasantness, physiological and expressive responses, appraisals and action tendencies. a further component is significance (frijda, 1986): people reflect on and judge their emotions, as un/controllable, un/desirable or un/acceptable. significance triggers, and reflects, emotion regulation. second, emotions are best con­ ceptualized as episodes (frijda, 1986): response sequences during which several emotions, of varying intensity and duration, might be felt, in close succession (grossmann et al., 2016; sonnemans & frijda, 1994). third, most emotions are interpersonal phenomena, dealing with, and relevant for, subjectively important interpersonal transactions. many relationship features—e.g., how a relationship develops—are defined by felt emotions and actions, including facial and bodily expression (e.g., omarzu, 2000). fourth, social relationships transactions occur within contexts characterized by (sets of) features—e.g., cultural norms, a person’s role in the eliciting event—whose values may interact in their impact. people’s beliefs about context-relevant features are likely to shape their emotions, behaviors and evaluations. emotion beliefs focus on various aspects of emotions (e.g., whether they ought to be regulated, expressed, etc.) and, as such, constitute people’s lay theories of emotion (lte). according to zammuner (2000), lte include beliefs of different zammuner 129 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ kinds, namely, descriptive (e.g., ‘sadness is an unpleasant emotion’) and prescriptive ones (e.g., ‘don’t show your anger’). furthermore, beliefs are emotion-specific when they focus on category members (sadness, joy, envy, etc.), and emotion a-specific when focusing on the superordinate emotion category (e.g., ‘intense emotions leak through’). moreover, beliefs might be context-free, i.e., believed to be true independently of the context in which the emotion occurs (e.g., ‘always count to ten before showing your anger’), or be context-bound (e.g., ‘it’s ok to express some anger to your husband when you are arguing with him’). most beliefs are likely to be congruent with culturally based ones as regards the meaning, adequacy, and legitimacy of emotions (in general, and for specific emotions), on how to express them, and so forth (e.g., johnson-laird & oatley, 2000; mesquita & leu, 2007; russell, 1991). socio-demographic variables such as gender, religion, or age (e.g., adolescent versus adult) are likely to influence beliefs—e.g., adolescents’ gendered emotion beliefs might differ to some extent from adults’ ones; which beliefs are culturally salient might thus vary across contexts, as a function of salient variables—e.g., person p’s gender or age. finally, emotion beliefs are likely to constitute rich, salient knowledge structures because emotional experiences are pervasive and, given their adaptive functions, attended to with much attention (e.g., keltner & gross, 1999). indeed, emotional complexity (e.g., experiencing multiple emotions in relation to a single event; grossmann et al., 2016; lindquist & barrett, 2008) might index emotion-knowledge richness. in sum, people’s lay theories of emotions, comprising a variety of beliefs, are expected to influence people’s (unconscious or vice versa intentional) perception and evaluation of their own (and others’) emotion experience—in terms of its adequacy, norm-congruency, and in relation to inter/personal goals at stake and relevant contextual features, influencing how the person perceives her emotion experience, how it develops in time, and if and how emotion regulation will occur. conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions research aim, overall design and hypotheses although people’s knowledge of emotions has been much studied, we still do not have a full understanding of it. the aim of the present study—part of a larger research project on lay theories (zammuner, 2023, n2)—was to assess whether people believe that emotion experiences are associated with conflict and uncertainty, and why they think so. a related aim was to test whether beliefs differed according to the nature of eliciting events and felt emotions, as specified below. to address these theoretical questions, the study focused on typical events eliciting emotion constellations, i.e., emotion-type structures, defined as emotion episodes by frijda (1986), that might comprise several feelings, cognitive, physiological, expressive and behavioral responses. in other words, an event might elicit more than one emotion (each of which might be associated with cognitive, physiological, etc. responses). the studied constellations were joy, pride, sadness, jealousy, and envy—indicated by capital letters in this paper; specific emotions that might be felt or expressed within a constellation or across them are instead indicated by lower case characters (e.g., jealousy, sadness, joy). constellations differed by their: (i) overall valence, i.e., pleasant versus unpleasant, and (ii) normativity of emotions, i.e., extent to which felt emotions are norm-congruent. further, constellation-specific events differed by their typical salience. these theoretical questions were operationalized in a paper-and-pencil questionnaire (see the method section). participants focused on the emotional experience elicited by an event narrated by its story protagonist sp, and answered two (open and closed) question couplets (zammuner, 2023, n2) (vignette and immediate-recall methods can obtain very similar emotion reports; robinson & clore, 2001). table 1 reports the judged events gist, and a partial list of constellation-specific emotions participants could attribute to sp. hypotheses both conflict and uncertainty might theoretically occur, and be relatively frequent, in relation to emotion experiences if we assume that a person p evaluates to what extent her experience elicited by a salient event is congruent with her goals and concerns in the event context, and with individually-salient emotion norms. conflict and uncertainty might therefore characterize such evaluations—e.g., about the contextual appropriateness of a feeling, or an appraisal, or how beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 130 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to re-act toward the event causal agent. the literature on both interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts (zammuner, 2023, n3) converge in stressing the importance of emotion-related processes and skills (including self-understanding and awareness, regulation and coping strategies) in defining the extent to which people will experience conflict, and deal adequately with its origins and its shortor long-term effects. both conflict and uncertainty are unpleasant cognitive and emotional states. people might thus try and avoid them, and/or try and get out of them once felt, as illustrated by the ‘classic’ love-hate ambivalence. to get rid of conflict and/or uncertainty, people might ask themselves about ‘causes of’, and ‘solutions for’, the events that elicited such unpleasant states. if, as discussed above, people’s knowledge of emotions is rich, including beliefs about typical experiences (e.g., of sadness) and context-salient emotion-norms, then conflict and uncertainty attributions might be triggered by beliefs that focus on this or that aspect of the experience— including hedonic tone of emotions, event appraisal, cause or source of emotion(s), relevant norms and personal goals in relation to the event, self-concept, present or future event implications for the self and/or for event-salient relationships, and on regulation issues (e.g., whether to regulate an emotion and how, depending on known regulation strategies). the mentioned differences between constellations, and constellation-specific events, were expected to influence conflict and uncertainty attributions. feeling in conflict over felt emotions presupposes that person p has some awareness of her emotions. awareness might be based on perceptual salience (frijda & zammuner, 1992), i.e., what ‘material’ (e.g., the event implications for the future) p most easily focuses upon to meet her goals and contextual constraints. felt conflict might thus trigger (beliefs about) emotion regulation, affecting experience and/or expression. p’s beliefs are expected to focus on intra and/or inter-personal consequences of felt emotions. uncertainty over felt emotions might be construed as poor emotion awareness and understanding—in the literature, awareness refers to both the attention paid to emotions, and to the clarity about which emotions are felt, whereas understanding refers to the capacity to differentiate emotions one from the other, to know their causes, etc. (boden & berenbaum, 2011; diehl & hay, 2011; lindquist & barrett, 2008). however, as feeling mixed, complex emotions can be interpreted as an emotional-complexity index (lindquist & barrett, 2008), equating uncertainty with low awareness and understanding might be misleading. an alternative hypothesis, underlying this study, is that uncertainty—though it might at times imply low emotion awareness and understanding—is caused by complex-experience attributions, i.e., attributions of feelings that are concomitant, and/or unclearly perceived, and/or implying contrasting features, e.g., in terms of event appraisals, or implications for the protagonist’s (present or future) goals and related behavior. uncertainty might trigger conflict over felt emotions and their implications (but not necessarily so), whereas by itself it might not necessarily trigger conflict. table 1 events occurring to story protagonist sp, listed constellation-specific emotions and frequencies of yes-answers yes answers (%) constellation event event gist listed constellation-specific emotions c u joy s—lottery sp wins a big amount of money at a lottery. euphoria, hope, cheerfulness, relief, 48 60 joy l—trip sp spends a very pleasant day with friends on the beach. glad, serene, guilty, uneasiness 55 49 pride s—job sp is selected, after an interview, for a job at a high-ranking firm. triumph, self-satisfaction, excitement, pride, 51 55 pride l—partner sp’s friends approve of, and cheer her new sentimental partner. worry, satisfaction, embarrassment 40 45 sadness s—death of close person sp is told that someone (friend; grandfather) died nostalgia, pain, impotence, resignation, shock, melancholy, 63 73 sadness l—death of acquaintance/dog sp’s dog died; a sp’s acquaintance died. apathy, guilt, agitation, anguish, depression 59 57 jealousy s—kiss sp sees partner passionately kissing someone. jealousy, envy, anger, frustration, disgust, 86 68 jealousy l—flirt sp sees her partner devoting attention to someone else. irritation, depression, insecurity 84 64 envy—sp’s colleague c is promoted; c has: 1. s—less capacity; jealousy, envy, hurt pride, contempt, vengeance, 70 52 2. s—equal capacity; hostility, resentment, humiliation, indignation, 85 68 3. l—greater capacity. irritation, insecurity, depression 85 72 note. s = serious, l = light. c = conflict, u = uncertainty. values for yes answers are percentages within event. zammuner 131 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ four general hypotheses underlie the study. conflict (c) and/or uncertainty (u) attributions are expected to be more frequent: (h1-cu) when the experience is overall unpleasant rather than pleasant, due to the greater attention paid to it because of its salience, and the need to restore a positive state; (h2-cu) for ‘serious’ than ‘light’ events, due to the greater salience of the former; (h3-cu) if specific felt emotions, and/or their expression, are perceived as norm-incongruent, from a personal and/or social viewpoint, in relation to salient contextual features. that is, given the circumstances—the event (see tables 1 and 2)—specific emotions might generally be judged as adequate, appropriate, legitimate with respect to personal and/or social standards (e.g., sadness for sadness, joy for joy), or vice versa as either generally inappropriate, or as norm-congruent for event e1, but incongruent for event e2 (e.g., pride for pride-light event; contempt or indignation for envy-equal-capacity event; depression or anger for jealousy-flirt); or, finally, emotions might be judged as subjectively legitimate although norm-incongruent. if normative beliefs are activated, need-for-regulation beliefs might become relevant: person p might solve a felt conflict by regulating her experience and behavior according to norms—e.g., if p feels like crying because her dog died, but believes others would judge it inappropriate for such a loss, she might suppress her action tendency. note, however, that what counts as a relevant contextual norm might be subjectively unclear, because norms are subtle or complex—e.g., context-specific norms might vary according to gender—or, individually salient context-specific norms might clash with socially accep­ ted ones; (h4-cu) if the experience includes concomitant emotions (e.g., jealousy, anger, insecurity; joy and pride), and/or ambivalent (or contrasting) ones (e.g., relief and sadness, joy and envy). in such cases conflict attributions are triggered by multiple and/or contrasting event appraisals (of its meaning, relevance, etc.), action tendencies and/or actual behaviors. conflict in turn might induce uncertainty on the most appropriate or salient event-appraisal, and/or its ‘correctness’, perhaps inducing a re-appraisal of it, or about the most desirable course of action. both h3-cu and h4-cu presuppose emotion awareness, i.e., selfand emotion-understanding; conflict and/or uncertainty should not occur if such capabilities are absent. more specific hypotheses regard uncertainty, expected to be more frequent when: (h5-u1) the experience is not easily, clearly perceived because it is either diffused, of low intensity, or vice versa is too intense; (h6-u2) the experience is complex, i.e., includes concomitant emotions, making difficult to grasp their cause, implications, etc.; more specifically, differentiating emotions and/or understanding their cause is difficult because the emotions hedonic tone and nature (h6-u2.1) is similar (e.g. sadness and depression), or (h6-u2.2) is opposite (e.g., joy and sadness, love and hate), associated with contrasting implications (this is actually a sub-hypothesis of h4-cu); (h7-u3) the person does not know if and how subjectively undesired and/or norm-incongruent felt emotions should be regulated (repressed, attenuated, etc.). as the collected data in this study are mostly of a qualitative nature (participants’ answers to the why questions), hypothesis (dis)confirmation can be only at the qualitative level. method participants casual samples of italian men (n = 546) and women (n = 610), all university students (age range: 18–33 years, range mean-age: 23–24 years) participated in five parallel studies, i.e., conducted at about the same period, using a questionnaire whose structure was identical (see below the ‘experimental stimuli and procedure’ section); joy: n = 240, pride: n = 195, sadness: n = 240, jealousy: n = 301, envy: n = 180. participants were recruited at several classes in various faculties in northern italy. participation was voluntary. participants who had not answered conflict and uncertainty questions were excluded from this study. experimental stimuli and procedure each of the five constellations was assessed by two or more events (see table 1) differing in ‘seriousness’ (salience) and likely degree of cultural or personal norm-congruency, legitimacy. more specifically, in comparison to ‘light’ events, describing less self-relevant situations, ‘serious’ events were expected to elicit more intense experiences due to their salience for personal concerns, and to elicit emotions more likely to be judged in terms of their norm-congruency given beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 132 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the event implications for legitimate concerns. to exemplify, norms justify feeling very sad for an important loss, or happy in satisfying a personal goal, but might not justify anger or jealousy about one’s partner’s brief interest in someone else. in other words, beliefs activated by participants as relevant ones were expected to vary according to goals, concerns, and norms characterizing a specific-event experience. differences between event-elicited experiences were expected to help our understanding of beliefs as regards both felt emotions and their context-defined norm-congruency. each participant answered a questionnaire describing a single event, narrated by its story protagonist sp—e.g. for jealousy, sp sees his or her partner kiss someone (see table 1). participants made prototypical attributions, i.e., were asked to describe “how in general the protagonist of an event like this would feel and act”. to maximize identification with sp, each participant judged a version with a same-sex sp. after answering other questions about sp’s emotional experience (not discussed in this paper; see zammuner, 2023, n2 and its references), participants answered two question couplets: “do you think the protagonist might feel: (i) in conflict, (ii) uncertain about his or her felt emotions (closed question, with yes/no answers), and “why?” (open question). overall experimental design, and questionnaire versions several questionnaire versions were created that differed on the following variables. (a) constellation, each reporting one of two or more typical events. (b) event type, expected to differ in subjective salience and norm-congruency of elicited emotions (table 1). for instance, sadness participants judged one of 4 loss events, two ‘serious’ ones (death of one’s own grand-father or of a close friend) and two ‘lighter’ ones (death of an acquaintance, or of one’s own dog). envy participants judged instead a single event type—sp’s colleague c is promoted to a higher position—that across versions differed in its justifiableness perception. (c) listed emotions—selected from literature theoretical and empirical analyses—which participants rated as felt ones (see table 1). joy, surprise, fear, anger and sadness were always included; a few listed emotions served as control stimuli—e.g., pride and joy events were not expected to elicit sadness or fear. (d) sharing interlocutor si (...sp “wants, or happens to talk with (si) about his (her) event experience…”). si varied in terms of: (i) affective closeness, and (ii) causal involvement or agency (yes or no) in the event; agency was salient for envy (when si was sp’s colleague rather than the partner), and jealousy (when si was sp’s partner rather than a friend). finally, (e) sp sex, matching participants’ sex. in sum, constellation, event type and sharing interlocutor were between-subject variables; listed emotions were within subject-variables. data analysis participants’ yes or no answers to the two conflict and uncertainty closed questions were coded numerically, whereas answers to the two open questions were content-analyzed, using the procedure described next. qualitative analysis of beliefs: content analysis participants’ answers to the two open questions (see tables a1–a4 in the supplementary materials for literal quotes) were content-analyzed within each emotion-constellation using a theoretically inspired data-driven method that pro­ duced, at the various coding phases, analytical coding categories; the final schema was a list of higher-order categories coding participants’ constellation-specific beliefs (zammuner, 2023, n4). raw frequency scores (0 to maximum 3 for each category) were assigned to each participant (the data included specification of judged event, and participant’s socio-demographic characteristics); total frequencies were computed separately for each event. the inter-coder with­ in-constellation agreement index (krippendorff’s alpha) obtained by comparing independently assigned authorand judge-codes, computed, regardless of judged event, on a random 10% protocol sample, was acceptable, with individual category agreement above 75% (range 78%–90%). to compare belief-type frequency across constellations, original within-constellation categories were re-coded or re-grouped (rephrasing them if necessary) by the author on the basis of their conceptual similarity—to adequately represent the meaning of each original category, with its component sub-categories, into the present-study across-con­ stellation categories (see table 2), literal quotes of constellation-specific categories were carefully looked at whenever necessary. in sum, to compare beliefs across constellations interesting specificities had to be disregarded. the results section will however report some information on constellationand event-specificity of beliefs. zammuner 133 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 attributed conflict and uncertainty (yes answers) to felt emotions and types of cause within emotion-constellations constellation joy pride sadness jealousy envy variable c u c u c u c u c u percentage of participants who answered yesa 52 55 45 56 61 65 85 66 80 64 type of causeb reason vs. emotion 16 10 26 9 43 12 38 29 48 24 contrasting or unclear emotions 58 76 66 84 41 65 25 59 28 39 other causes 26 14 8 24 16 23 38 12 24 37 total (over supplied yes causes) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 note. c = conflict, u = uncertainty. the table shows percentage frequencies, averaged over constellation-events. afor envy and sadness, the frequency of yes versus no answers for conflict and/or uncertainty varied significantly according to event: conflict envy: χ2(2) = 5.62, p < .06; uncertainty envy: χ2(2) = 5.97, p < .05; uncertainty sadness: χ2(1) = 6.57, p < .01. btype-of-cause frequencies were computed on total number of causes supplied within each constellation. quantitative analyses frequencies of yes and no answers to conflict and uncertainty closed-questions, and raw frequencies of the three main belief categories that emerged in this study were analyzed with the χ2 statistics to check differences by event type within constellation (zammuner, 2023, n2) (tables 1 and 2). results table 1 reports yes-answer frequencies of conflict and uncertainty attributions over emotions to the story protagonist sp, subdivided by event type and constellation; no-answer frequencies can be inferred from them. table 2 reports frequencies of belief motives for which sp might feel in conflict or uncertain (yes answers, disregarding event differ­ ences). such attributions and their motives are perhaps best understood considering that participants often believed (zammuner, 2023, n2) that felt emotions would not be shared sincerely, i.e., would be regulated according to norms, by attenuating their intensity, or by not talking about them at all, or finally by reporting felt emotions with a greater intensity than actually felt (as reported, for instance, in zammuner, 2011). such discrepancies are likely to represent ‘ground data’ for participants’ attribution of conflict and uncertainty. beliefs about conflict and uncertainty: yes/no attributions yes-answer frequencies to the two questions “do you think the protagonist might feel in conflict”, “…uncertain about his or her felt emotions?” (tables 1 and 2) show that both phenomena were frequently attributed to story protagonist sp—range across constellations and events: 40—86%; mean frequency: conflict 66%, uncertainty 60%. conversely, no-answers ranged from 14% to 60%. these results suggest that for many participants felt emotions are not a fixed entity, something that one just takes for given, cannot do anything about, i.e., participants hold a malleability view about emotions (ford & gross, 2019). if participants held the opposite entity theory, they would have replied no to either question. indeed, as reported below (see the 'beliefs about conflict and/or uncertainty absence’ section), even when their reply was no conflict and/or uncertainty, participants’ accounts on the whole did not imply entity beliefs. as hypothesized (h1-cu), both conflict and uncertainty were attributed (table 2) more often to sadness, jeal­ ousy and envy, negative constellations (range: 60 to 85%) than to the positive ones (45 to 56%). within negative constellations, conflict was typically much more frequent than uncertainty (jealousy, and envy) or about as frequent (sadness). within the positive constellations joy and pride (except for joy-light event) uncertainty was instead slightly more frequent than conflict, a result better understood by considering its specific causes, as discussed below. beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 134 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ within constellations, event type further differentiated attributions, with both phenomena characterizing serious events (except envy) more than light ones, overall supporting h2-cu—e.g., pride participants attributed both to the serious-event protagonist in about 10% more of the cases with respect to the light one (see table 1). conflict and uncertainty attributions are better understood with reference to the normative status of event-elicited emotions (see table 1). to illustrate, the envy ‘promotion of a less capable colleague’ event elicited the least conflict, and especially the least uncertainty (table 1): participants in fact expected sp to feel intense anger, irritation, resent­ ment, hostility, humiliation, indignation, and contempt, i.e., emotions (much less relevant for the other envy events) implying that sp appraises the event as ‘unjust’, and expect others to appraise it similarly. because the (attributed) emotions are judged as legitimate, sp is believed to feel less or no conflict at all over them, and less uncertainty. the results, more generally, showed that participants were more likely to expect conflict when emotions are judged to be norm-incongruent, supporting h3-cu. for instance, conflict was, overall, much less frequent for sadness, i.e. when legitimate emotions such as sadness, pain, shock, are felt, than for jealousy and envy, constellations typically comprising negatively sanctioned emotions such as jealousy and envy (zammuner, 2023, n2). likewise, conflict was not totally absent even for the positive constellations of pride and joy, a result, according to participants' beliefs (see sections below and tables a1–a4 in the supplementary materials), related to the norm-incongruent nature of some felt emotions, such as pride for pride, and euphoria for joy. uncertainty was the most frequent for the sadness event causing sp to suffer a very salient loss, and for the two envy events in which the colleague promotion is not really unjustified, events that elicited frequent attributions of conflict too. beliefs about the causes of conflict and uncertainty this section reports how participants explained conflict and uncertainty presence (subsections, ‘reason versus emotion discrepancy’–‘‘other’ causes that explain felt conflict and/or uncertainty’) or absence (subsection ‘beliefs about conflict and/or uncertainty absence’), i.e., what their beliefs focused on—e.g., feelings, or specific emotion components such as appraisal—allowing us to better understand their attributions. three main high-order categories resulted from analyzing all beliefs associated with yes conflict and uncertainty answers (see the method section, and table 2). namely, (a) felt emotions are at variance with reason, i.e., with rational (shared or personal) norms about what one should feel; (b) feeling contrasting and/or unclear emotions—grouped together because both belief types (b1) explicitly focus on emotions, and were often (b2) mentioned together in participants’ accounts, and/or originally coded within the same category (contrasting and unclear causes, especially the former, often implied a ‘reason-emotion opposition’); (c) ‘other causes’. participants’ beliefs associated with no answers, denying conflict and uncertainty, were coded by similar high-order categories (see the subsection ‘beliefs about conflict and/or uncertainty absence’). such abstract, summary-like semantic categories do not give justice to participants’ variety, subtlety and complexity of conceptions—e.g., many categories varied significantly in their frequency according to event, e.g., to which emotions it elicited, and why. such belief variety and complexity is however well illustrated by participants’ literal quotes (q), many of which are reported in the supplementary materials, tables a1–a4. reason versus emotion discrepancy beliefs in the reason–emotion discrepancy category focus on asking oneself whether felt emotions are at variance with rationality, i.e., with personal or culturally shared norms about what one should feel, and why. in other words, beliefs focus on evaluations of what ideally one should feel, what would be best given the circumstances (i.e., the eliciting event), taking however also into account one’s own ideal self-concept, goals and expectations (see table a1 quotes in the supplementary materials). the ‘reason-emotion’ discrepancy was a rather frequent cause of conflict (table 2), especially for sadness, jealousy and envy (about 40 to 50% of participants); less frequently, it was however invoked for pride and joy conflict too. it was not infrequent (range 9–29%) as a cause of uncertainty too, relevant especially for jealousy and envy (see in the supplementary materials, table a1 quotes q4, q7, q15, q16, q26). the kind of norms called upon by participants (i.e., which felt emotions are believed to be potentially norm-incon­ gruent) are quite varied, focusing on emotion-related components and features. more specifically, norms were related to: (i) emotion intensity, e.g., judged too weak in comparison to expectations (q3–q4); (ii) idealized or desired aspects of zammuner 135 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ both private and public self-concept, focusing on whether emotions might clash with personally salient norms (q8–q11) that call into question one’s values and personality (q5)—e.g., is sorrow for the loss sufficiently intense to reflect one’s love capacity?—or social ones (q7)—e.g., are envy and hurt pride acceptable when a colleague is promoted?—or personal goals in the specific context (q12)—e.g., not wanting to appear as someone blinded by anger; (iii) event appraisal, e.g., questioning its ethical value in relation to self (q17–q20), or, more generally, (iv) present, past or future event implications in relation to its appraisal (q21–q26), with beliefs focusing on implications for personal values, or possibly conflicting evaluations by the self and one’s friends, or the contrast between present and future feelings, or even (q25) asking oneself whether one’s past behavior toward the event agent caused the event, an appraisal that could induce seeing it as justified (appraisal change), thus modifying the event implications for the future. in some cases, participants focused on (v) action tendencies (q11, q12, q14, q26), and (vi) coping strategies for the event. furthermore, many accounts implicitly referred to (vii) regulation (of feelings and their intensity, action tendency, etc.), focusing on achieving (viii) shortand long-term concerns and goals, e.g., were related to optimal strategies for managing sp’s relationship with individuals who played a salient role in the event (e.g., promoted colleague; unfaithful partner), or were the sharing friend. in sum, the reason–emotion beliefs—focused on emotion features (intensity, appraisal, agency, etc.) and ‘rational’ causes (e.g., norms)—often implied awareness of emotions, their causes and implications. overall, beliefs in this category support the hypotheses about norm-incongruity (h3-cu), emotion intensity (h5-u1) and ambivalence (h6-u2.2), and regulation issues (h7-u3). feeling concomitant and ambivalent, contrasting emotions participants’ attributions frequently focused on the belief that the experience is complex, due to concomitant and/or especially ambivalent, contrasting emotions—e.g., joy–worry, joy–guilt, pride–anxiety, happiness–sadness, anger–love (see table a2 in the supplementary materials). beliefs in this category—about 20% more frequent for uncertainty than conflict attributions (table 2), often focused on emotion causes and implications, rather than, or in addition to, the feelings themselves (as was the case for the reason–emotion category). for instance, participants believe that contrast might arise from a present-past clash, i.e., what one feels now towards the emotional object is opposite to what one used to feel (q31–33)—e.g., an event cannot alter radically in a brief time what you felt toward a person. contrasting emotions might induce a perspective shift in appraisal (q40–41, q44)—e.g., if she puts herself in her boy-friend’s shoes, she cannot condemn totally his behavior—and/or reflect opposite action tendencies (q38–39, q44–45, q49–50)—e.g., (sp) is in despair, but (...) one wants to stop suffering; (conflict between) getting another animal (and) being faithful to its memory. implicit in, or related to, action-tendency evaluations are beliefs focusing on best ways to cope with the event, and implications for behavioral choices (q46–47)—e.g., wanting to avoid thinking about the situation, versus facing it completely. opposite action orientations might also result from a potential clash between private and public self—she wants to be reassured and consoled, instead she behaves as if untouched by the event; wants to be strong and behaves aggressively, but in her heart she only wants to cry. contrasting appraisal and action tendencies are associated with different event implications, as a function of focused-upon aspects; e.g., to what extent the event satisfies a concern (q30, q42), a goal (q43), an expectation (q53), or as regards its present or future implications at (q51–52)—e.g., afraid of the changes it could bring in her life. in sum, in participants’ beliefs, feeling concomitant and especially ambivalent emotions (and appraisals, action tendencies, etc.) means the person is torn between different ways of reacting to the event, a fact in itself unpleasant, confusing. to solve conflict/uncertainty, sp is believed to question her experience’s congruity with rationality, norms, her goals and concern, a questioning that in turn implies sp’s attempts at regulating emotions (appraisals, action tendencies, etc.) to make them normative or subjectively more acceptable—e.g., repressing an emotion and/or intensifying it; implementing the most appropriate action tendency. beliefs in this category support hypotheses h4-cu on concomitant and ambivalent emotions, and h6-u2 on emotion complexity. feeling unclear emotions participants believed that the presence of unclear emotions explain both phenomena, but uncertainty more frequently than conflict. although some simply stated “sp feels unclear emotions”, many participants expressed their beliefs more precisely (see table a3 in the supplementary materials). for instance, sp is uncertain about what she does feel (q54); the event-caused excitement makes emotional awareness difficult (q55); sp feels concomitant emotions (q56, q58, q61, beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 136 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ q64, q69, q70, q72–q74); sp has difficulty differentiating emotions of a similar hedonic tone but with a different intensity, or with a too similar intensity (q59, q71). in this category too, beliefs often focused on specific experience features, components or dimensions believed to reduce emotion clarity (table a3 in the supplementary materials), including: intensity of emotions, either too strong or weak (q61–q65, q69–q71); high activation, inhibiting a reflexive stance (q55, q59, q62) and causing loss of rational control (q58, q70); (brief) duration of emotions, implicitly referring to emotion intensity and/or activation level (q65). as causes of concomitant or intense emotions many beliefs focused on appraisal, mentioning event’s novelty, unexpectedness (q79–q82), high salience (q77–q82), implications (q83–q87), and sp’s difficulty to decide the ‘correct way’ to appraise the event (q76, q78) and deal with it, immediately or in the future (q74, q83–q87). beliefs at times were more general: being in an emotional state implies inability to accurately perceive reality, including the internal one (q58, q63, q66, q67, q70), i.e., lack of clarity is a distinct feature of emotional experiences—a quite old concept in western lay thinking. other general-nature beliefs focused on the complexity of experiences—e.g., ... emotions and feelings … have 1000 nuances... (q60)—and the difficulty of labeling them —it’s completely normal to feel uncertain because there are more emotions than words that designate them (q68). in some cases, uncertainty, similarly to conflict, was attributed to not knowing whether one is conforming to the norms (q57). finally, several participants explained ‘unclear’ emotions as due to concomitant causes—e.g., feeling “concomitant and incoherent emotions” …norm incongruity as an additional cause of ‘confusion’, and intentional unawareness to protect the self-image (q15, table a1 in the supplementary materials). in sum, unclear-emotion beliefs focused on various experience aspects, especially concomitant, contradictory, and at times too strong or too weak feeling states, and on uncertainties about event appraisal, highlighting, on the whole, experience complexity. overall, beliefs in this category contribute to support hypotheses about emotion complexity (h6-u2), ambivalence (h6-u2.2), intensity (h5-u1), and regulation issues (h7-u3) about felt emotions. ‘other’ causes that explain felt conflict and/or uncertainty participants focused on ‘other causes’ too (zammuner, 2023, n4) (table 2). their frequency was quite low (range 8–16%) for pride and sadness conflict, and for jealousy and joy uncertainty, not so low in the remaining cases (23–38%). many ‘other’ beliefs referred to event-specific present or future implications for sp, especially for sadness and jealousy, e.g., mentioning sp’s fears about the relationship future in jealousy (q88–89; table a4 in the supplementary materials), or sp’s future emotions or thoughts following the loss in sadness (q90), or the event implications for sp’s self-esteem when the equal-ability colleague is promoted (q91). for all constellations, conflict or uncertainty other causes included focusing on sp’s personality (q92), or, more generically, how the event fits into its context, and/or its interpretation according to sp’s mood or personal characteristics (q93), stressing a relativistic, idiosyncratic, ‘it depends from’ approach. finally, some participants focused on sheer experience-complexity (q95), its opaqueness to rationality (q94), or on human psychology complexity (q96). beliefs about conflict and/or uncertainty absence as expected, not all participants believed that one feels conflict or uncertainty: 14% to 60% across constellations and events in fact gave no answers (table 1). specifically, whereas only a minority believed that sp in jealousy and envy would feel neither (frequencies varied with the event; no conflict range: 15–30%, no uncertainty: 38–48%), the frequency of no conflict and no uncertainty was relatively high in joy, pride and sadness (range 35–55%, depending on event and constellation). for instance, no answers were most frequent for joy (respectively 48% and 45%) and pride (respectively 55% and 44%). although a few participants simply said ‘there is no reason to feel uncertain’ (or ... ‘in conflict’), most explained their no answer (see table a4, bottom sections in the supplementary materials). beliefs were a specular reflection of the reported causes for conflict or uncertainty presence. namely, the absence of either phenomenon was believed to occur when sp does not feel opposite, ambivalent emotions (q100–101), and/or does not feel unclear emotions—e.g., because sp is aware of her emotions and/or accepts them (q102). emotion awareness, for participants, is due to strong intensity of emotions, and/or clarity about their cause (q109–112); however, feeling clear emotions does not imply lack of either intra-psychic or expression regulation (q104–106). emotions are clear also when they are all pleasant ones (q107–110). finally, some beliefs focused on event-specific reasons, such as the clarity or certainty of sp’s event appraisal (q113– zammuner 137 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 117), the event implications for sp’s goals (q113) or the future (q117). in sum, the conditions for not experiencing either phenomenon include clarity of felt emotions (and appraisals, action tendencies, etc.), due to their intensity, uniqueness or pervasiveness, sp’s ability to reflect upon her experience, and a ‘reason–emotion’ congruity. the latter cause further supports the hypothesis that, in participants’ beliefs, checks on emotion-norm conformity explain how people react to their own emotional experience and whether they will find it necessary to regulate it. participants, as reported, drew in fact a distinction between knowing what one feels and pretending that one does not know, or letting others believe that one does not know: accordingly, rather than unclear felt emotions, sometimes sp is simply unwilling to accept her emotions, or let others know about them. thus, even when participants believe that felt emotions do not imply either conflict or uncertainty, regulation is still salient. overall, beliefs explaining the absence of either conflict or uncertainty contribute to confirm all stated hypotheses. discussion the aim of this paper was to study beliefs about conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions, and to assess whether they varied according to constellation valence, nature of eliciting events and of felt emotions. conflict and uncertainty attributions were expected to vary as a function of emotion hedonic tone and norm-congruency (and norm clarity) from a personal and/or social viewpoint in relation to a specific event (context), and the presence of complex, mixed, and ambivalent felt emotions. attributions were expected to involve a rich set of beliefs, many of which implicitly or explicitly would refer to regulation processes. the results reported in this paper were obtained in parallel studies conducted on the emotion constellations joy, pride, sadness, jealousy and envy. the reported quantitative and qualitative study results (see tables 1 and 2, and the sections beliefs about conflict and uncertainty: yes/no attributions and beliefs about the causes of conflict and uncertainty) showed that conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions are believed to be frequent, almost inherent to emotional experiences because of their complexity and/or because some dysphoric element is present even when the overall hedonic tone is positive, and/or because one or more experience aspects are discrepant with respect to (idiosyncratic, or socially shared) emotional norms. the results, overall, supported the general hypotheses of the study, i.e., conflict and uncertainty attributions over felt emotions are more likely when the overall hedonic tone of the experience is unpleasant, for ‘serious’ than ‘light’ events, due to the greater salience of the former, when a felt emotion, and/or its expression, is perceived as norm-incongruent, and when the experience includes concomitant and/or ambivalent emotions. expressed beliefs on the whole imply a malleability theory of emotions, and emotion awareness, thus supporting recent results (ford & gross, 2019). the results also supported further specific hypotheses on uncertainty (see hypotheses section), i.e., it is greater when the experience is complex, including concomitant emotions (of a similar or opposite hedonic tone), making it difficult to grasp their cause, implications, etc., and when the person is uncertain about the need to regulate, and how, felt emotions. the results, overall, showed that both conflict and uncertainty attributions to story protagonist sp are based on a large variety of beliefs (many of which focused on event appraisal and implications), with a common (usually implicit) basis, namely that emotional experiences often need to be regulated to maximize the experiencer’s intra-psychic wellbeing as well as her ‘social adequacy’—although when several goals are active at the same time it is difficult to manage conflict/uncertainty over which goal to pursue. more specifically, for both phenomena and all constellations, beliefs frequently focused on event novelty and other appraisal dimensions, including agency (especially intentionality), norm congruency, relevance for the self (self-concept, and personal goals, concerns), coping potential, and implications for the future. many beliefs focused on action tendencies and, again, on their adequacy with respect to sp’s goals, concerns, self-concept, as well as sp’s relationship—at present and in the future—with other people involved in the event. in relation to appraisals and related action tendencies, in most beliefs regulation issues were implicit (sometimes explicitly mentioned), especially when focusing on the ‘most adequate’ event evaluation and its implications. furthermore, beliefs quite often explicitly focused on other emotion components, especially emotion hedonic tone and intensity, and, less often, emotion duration, and on the complexity of emotional experiences, highlighting issues that become salient when beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 138 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ feeling concomitant emotions, e.g., the need to evaluate their significance, or the most appropriate appraisal or action tendency among those associated with the concomitant emotions. in sum, participants focused on specific features and components of emotions, including hedonic tone, intensity, action tendencies, event appraisal and implications (e.g., for sp’s self-concept, or the future), and on basic aspects of the emotion process, such as emotion regulation. for instance, when referring to concomitant emotions (e.g., anger and anguish; sadness and relief), conflict and/or uncertainty were often explained in terms of emotion-related differences—in hedonic tone, action tendencies, event appraisals, implications for self-concept, norm-congruence, etc. the content of emotional-phenomena beliefs, their repertoire richness and articulation level however differed across individuals—who, for a given event, differed in the expected elicited emotions (e.g., envy rather than anger), or the emotional standards adhered to (e.g., feeling envious as un/comfortable), or which conclusion was drawn given the ‘same information’—e.g., an intense emotion, or a specific emotion, elicited uncertainty for some, but was the very cause for its absence for others. the major individual differences that were observed on the basis of the explanations (beliefs) collected in this study might be summarized as follows. first, participants differed in number of expressed beliefs, their explanation complexity. quite a few simply answered ‘the event is unexpected’ or ‘… has many consequences’ as a reason for both phenomena, or provided generic (but not unreasonable) causes such as ‘if he knew why he was uncertain, he would not be uncertain!’ or ‘conflict is inevitable’. likewise, participants at times simply said ‘no reason to be....’ most however explained either phenomenon supplying specific beliefs, not rarely complex ones, focusing on several issues (see q5, q6, q15, q16, q30, q51, q58, tables a1–a3 in the supplementary materials), highlighting more than one cause, such as reason–emotion plus ambivalent emotions plus beliefs focusing on implications for self-concept. defining individual belief complexity or richness is, however, neither a theoretically straightforward task nor an easy one. as the quotes illustrate (tables a1–a4 in the supplementary materials; see also the section, 'beliefs about the causes of conflict and uncertainty'), we might hypothesize that each participant p focused on what—the belief(s)—was immediately most salient to her as a potential explanation. that is, the greater or lesser complexity in accounts of either phenomenon does not imply that p’s expressed beliefs are the only ones that for p explain the phenomena, nor that p has a poor belief repertoire, i.e., a repertoire in which other relevant beliefs are absent. second, participants differed in whether they supplied distinct explanations for conflict and uncertainty: answering the uncertainty question, that followed the conflict one, some just replied, ‘same reasons’ or, ‘as said above’. in such cases it is impossible to know if participants actually believed uncertainty could be explained by the cause(s) they invoked for conflict (e.g., ‘the event is unexpected’), or if they were just tired, or unmotivated to answer (zammuner, 2023, n5). in sum, further studies, perhaps relying on both closedand open-question methods, are necessary to assess individual differences more precisely. as a collective entity, people's beliefs were quite varied—especially in relation to differences between events and con­ stellations and complex, as quotes illustrate (tables a1–a4 in the supplementary materials). the reported qualitative results on the whole confirm that people possess rich lay theories of emotions, comprising beliefs that might in turn focus on this or that component of the emotion response (e.g., typical behavioral and expressive responses, norms), as well as on aspects of major emotion processes (e.g., regulation) and their causes, in relation to emotion-specific antecedents. the results thus support the very general hypothesis (see the section, 'lay emotion theories as influences on emotion experience and its judgement') that people have an in-depth knowledge of emotions (lay theory) and rely on it when understanding and evaluating how someone reacts to an emotion-inducing event, why it so happens, and to what extent her emotional response and behavior is appropriate, normative—study participants did identify with the story protagonist, putting themselves in his/her shoes, as quotes indicate (tables a1–a4 in the supplementary materials). we might argue that, thanks to the many opportunities to get to know how, why, and when ourselves or others experience this or that emotion (e.g., when sharing emotions, reading books, seeing a movie, etc.), such emotional empathy and cognitive perspective taking are, as it were, routine tasks throughout one's life span. because emotions by their very nature are subjectively salient processes, people are motivated to continuously expand and update, as it were, their emotion knowledge, possibly checking whether it is congruent with significant others', with one's community and culture too. the results also showed that conflict and uncertainty beliefs include descriptive and prescriptive beliefs too (see the section, 'lay emotion theories as influences on emotion experience and its judgement') both of a superordinate zammuner 139 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 128–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5529 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nature (e.g., felt emotions might cause conflict (uncertainty) over their nature, their appropriateness), as well as more specific beliefs, i.e., emotionand context-specific beliefs that differ across emotion constellations and events. in conclusion, the reported study results on lay beliefs on conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions contribute, by expanding on related literature findings (see the section, 'the study of beliefs about emotions'), to our understanding of naïve, lay theories of emotion as socially-based representations comprising, at their core, beliefs about the complexity of emotions (and their components), and the extent to which experiences are norm-congruent as well as functional to ach­ ieve concerns and goals made salient by the eliciting event, including those dictated by actual or ideal self-concepts. the results overall indicate that, in lay thinking, event protagonists try to modulate, regulate their emotional experiences and associated behaviors by taking into account what the transactional context affords, or vice versa prohibits. future studies might further investigate what aspects of naïve theories of emotion are culture-specific, and to what extent. the study indirectly supports the hypothesis that beliefs about emotion influence people’s understanding of, and reactions to, their own emotions, and of how others are expected to understand, and react to, such experiences, and therefore affect the unfolding of the emotion process. to really understand a person’s emotional transactions with the world, we thus need to know her lay theory, because the latter influences the former (as much as the former influences the latter). in sum, the relevance of this special kind of naïve theory, namely naïve theories of emotion, might be more readily acknowledged than it has been so far. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: i gratefully wish to acknowledge the cooperation of the following women students who collected and initially analyzed the study data as part of their undergraduate thesis in psychology under my supervision: d. marchi and d. montagnoli (jealousy), c. walcher (sadness), i. bianchi (pride), l. seminati (envy), and v. massai (joy). i also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers, and the journal editor, for their critiques and suggestions that were very helpful in revising the paper. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the notes, tables, and associated references that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials zammuner, v. l. 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(2011). is sincerity the norm in lay theories about emotion sharing? a look at joy, pride, envy, jealousy, and sadness. in m. cadinu, s. galdi & a. maass (eds.), social perception cognition and language in honour of arcuri (pp. 27–50). cleup. about the author vanda lucia zammuner worked at the university of padova (italy), dept. of social & developmental psychology, from 1984 to 2020; her last position was as full professor. she is currently senior researcher at the university of padova. her main research areas include cognitive processes, emotions, language, gender issues, and data collection methods. beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty 142 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ beliefs over emotional conflict & uncertainty (introduction) the study of beliefs about emotions lay emotion theories as influences on emotion experience and its judgement conflict and uncertainty over felt emotions research aim, overall design and hypotheses hypotheses method participants experimental stimuli and procedure data analysis results beliefs about conflict and uncertainty: yes/no attributions beliefs about the causes of conflict and uncertainty discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the author a cue for rational reasoning: introducing a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks research reports a cue for rational reasoning: introducing a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks kaja damnjanović* a, vera novković a, irena pavlović a, sandra ilić a, slobodan pantelić a [a] laboratory of experimental psychology, department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract the dual process framework posits that we reason using the quick system 1, and the deliberate system 2, both of which are part of our “adaptive toolbox”. the cognitive reflection test (crt) estimates which system was used to solve a reasoning problem. usually, the crt tasks are solved incorrectly by using system 1, and correctly through system 2. we have applied the reference point hypothesis to the tasks of the crt and proposed that this change would facilitate the switch between systems, resulting in better performance on the version of the test with a reference point, compared to the crt without one. the results confirmed our assumptions, as evidenced by a generally higher score on the crt with a reference point, albeit with different effects between items. keywords: dual processes, cognitive reflection test, ecological rationality, heuristics, a reference point europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 received: 2018-07-05. accepted: 2018-10-09. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: čika ljubina 18-20, 11000 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: kdamnjan@f.bg.ac.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. we are cooking a lovely soup, and we see our pot on the stove, fully realizing that the pot-handles are hot. however, when the soup starts to boil, immediately we reach for the pot-handles in order to remove the pot from the heat-source, even though we know we are making a mistake. and just like that, we get burned. awareness of the mistake aside, in this situation, two response types were conflicted, and the automatic one prevailed over reasonable behaviori. but what would have been the outcome of this cognitive battle if there had been a kitchen cloth we could have turned to for aid between us and the pot? the traditional notions of dual process theories (dp) posit that there are two distinct kinds of thought processes: heuristic and analytic (evans, 1984; stanovich & west, 2000; wason & evans, 1974-1975). heuristic processes stem from the fast and intuitive system 1, and analytic processes stem from system 2, which is slow, deliberate and stepwise. systematic deviations from reasoning norms are thought to be rooted in the heuristic mind, which is sometimes prone to errors, because it tends to ignore a part of the available information. conceptual and applicative limitations of the dp framework are the subjects of scholarly debates (e.g. evans & stanovich, 2013); still, all of the iterations of the model of the duality of cognitive processing share two stances about our mind’s features: a) there are two subsystems within our cognitive system, and b) they have different phenomenology. while they are well elaborated in theoretical models, measuring heuristic processes is still ineurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ direct. one of the techniques used is the cognitive reflection test (crt) (frederick, 2005; toplak, west, & stanovich, 2014), devised to identify which system a person has used while solving a particular task. namely, in order to produce a correct answer, participants would have to effectively monitor and correct their impulsive, heuristic-response tendencies, as well as engaging in further reflection (frederick, 2005; primi, morsanyi, chiesi, donati, & hamilton, 2016), and this switch between the system 1 and system 2 has to happen (pennycook, 2018). the test originally contained three items, but it has been developed and expanded throughout the years, in an effort to create a measure which would not be easily skewed by either educational or developmental differences between subjects (primi et al., 2016). results indicate that the prolonged versions all present an adequate measure of the ability to switch between system 1 and system 2 processing, while also achieving the levels of between-subject distinction required (primi et al., 2016; toplak et al., 2014). the link between system 1 and system 2, as well as the nature of that relationship is currently the “it” question in the field of dual process theories. this issue can be approached from two positions, the first one being that there is a conflict between the two systems (evans, 2006; evans & stanovich, 2013; fontinha & mascarenhas, 2017). however, the idea of conflict automatically implies that system 2 was autonomously activated from the start, by a stimulus (task). this violates the basic assumption of the dual process theories, which posits that system 2 is deliberately, not autonomously, activated. the second approach, and the one that we employ, proposes that the relationship between the two systems can be defined as a switch occurring between them (evans & stanovich, 2013; pennycook, 2018; pennycook, fugelsang, & koehler, 2015). the main reason behind the assertion that the switch does, in fact, happen lies within the finding that incorrect answers on crt are almost never random (primi et al., 2016). namely, while the participants’ answers can be either correct or wrong, the wrong answers crt items facilitate are, to some extent, predictable that is, when participants make a mistake, a large percentage of the incorrect answers can be clustered as "typically erroneous”, and presumably stemming from heuristics. the cause for the switch between the employed systems can be something as simple as an instruction (evans, 2010), but it can also be prompted by the high level of importance of the situation, like in speed or strength testing. however, in most situations where we do employ system 2 reasoning, the cues are not so obvious, and there is no blatant instruction to “use your head” (pennycook, 2018). so, why does the switch happen? based on the concept of a reference point (rp), initially introduced in the prospect theory (kahneman & tversky, 1979; tversky & kahneman, 1992), the presence of a reference point within a situation could shift our thinking from one specific pattern of cognitive processing to another. the prospect theory postulates the concept of the rp as the demarcation between the two zones (gain and loss) in the value function. the two zones were initially proposed by markowitz (1952), but he does not discuss the transition from one zone to another. the implication of distinguishing these two zones is the assumption about the differential psychological treatment of gains and losses: risk-taking and risk aversion, or in more general terms, psychophysical function. the idea of the rp serves as the explanation for the mechanisms of some cognitive illusions, such as the framing effect. the rp directs the selection of the aspects of the situation that will be in focus, which consequently shapes information processing. for example, what the participants are going to do with two glasses, empty and full, depends on the reference point masked within the instruction (sher & mckenzie, 2006). applying it to the field of judgement, mckenzie and nelson (2003) argued that if a reference point is not presented, it is implicitly inferred from the way the information is presented. the reference point hypothesis (rph) is a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 26 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the foundation on which the information leakage approach was built (ila; sher & mckenzie, 2006). the ila posits that the way in which information is presented and conveyed to subjects influences the resulting inferences from said information. in other words, two logically equivalent sentences (e.g. a sentence in active and a sentence in passive voice) can be information non-equivalent, when additional information, stemming from the choice of the form of the sentence, leaks out above and beyond the literal presented information. while this implicit information can be misleading or used for manipulation, it can also facilitate successful communication and information transfer. applied to reasoning processes, this means that if a reference point is given within or can be easily extracted from the presented information, it might influence our ability to shift from system 1 to system 2 reasoning. this notion is in line with the concept of ecological rationality (er; gigerenzer, 2008; gigerenzer & brighton, 2009). according to er, people pursue objectives in their environments and they do so by utilizing their adaptive toolbox, which is not normatively but ecologically rational. that ecological rationality is defined functionally, as correspondence and congruency between the utilization of specific tools from the toolbox and the context in which they are used, and this congruency is triggered by environmental cues. human reasoning is in constant interaction with the environment and uses cues in order to be adaptive. if, for instance, an employed heuristic proves to be adaptive, it is also, from the perspective of er, considered to be rational, that is congruent with the structure of the environment, which is the consequence of the reaction to a particular signal from the environment. presumably, and contrary to this, a person can also use a cue from the environment in the opposite sense, as a signal to override the aforementioned tendency to ignore a part of the information, and engage in further reflection, i.e. switch to system 2. we propose that this presumption can be applied to reasoning tasks. if a person is presented with two equivalent tasks, one of which contains the cue to engage in system 2 reasoning, the person will extract additional information from this cue, and have a better chance of giving the correct answer. low rates of correct answers on the crt are sometimes attributed to the situation being wrongly interpreted as if it yields no cognitive conflict, leading the participant to give the first answer that comes to his or her mind, which is also incorrect (fontinha & mascarenhas, 2017). in order to solve a problem, people have to be able to notice the problem, but they also need to pay attention to the problem’s premises (mata, ferreira, voss, & kollei, 2017). previous research indeed shows that participants score higher on reasoning tasks when the conflict has been removed from the presented information (de neys & glumicic, 2008; ferreira, mata, donkin, sherman, & ihmels, 2016; mata & almeida, 2014; mata, ferreira, & sherman, 2013; pennycook, fugelsang, & koehler, 2015). another way to explain this is by using the concept of “cognitive miserliness” (stupple, pitchford, ball, hunt, & steel, 2017; toplak, west, & stanovich, 2011), which posits that participants, when completing the reasoning tasks, don’t even try to pay attention to all of the presented information. instead, they just give the first answer that comes into their minds. in other words, even though the participants might have been aware of the possibility that there was a conflict and that their answer was wrong, they nevertheless simply chose to give the intuitive satisficing response, which is in line with the finding that participants who gave the wrong answers also estimated their confidence about their answers as lower (de neys, rossi, & houdé, 2013; stupple et al., 2017), which could go along with the notion that the participants are aware of the level of their answers’ accuracy. however, for some types of reasoning tasks, such as syllogistic reasoning, or base rate, the results are almost straightforward: the participants are not good judges of their own performance (bajšanski, močibob, & valerjev, 2014; dujmović & valerjev, 2018; thompson & johnson, 2014; thompson & morsanyi, 2012). furthermore, some studies show that the first intuitive answer that comes to mind is usually accompanied by a very strong feeling of rightness, which in turn determines the probability of engaging in system 2 processing (thompson & damnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 27 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ morsanyi, 2012). with regard to the differences in reaction time, in the two-response paradigm, in which participants give their first intuitive response, evaluate how right the response feels, and then give the second response, the first response is faster and given heuristically (system 1). the second response comes after the analytical system 2 has been deployed, either through environmental cues or directly by the participants’ conflict detection (bago & de neys, 2017; dujmović & valerjev, 2018; pennycook, 2018). the process of “switching” from system 1 to system 2 is, aside from rendering confidence estimation lower, also expected to take more time. therefore, the inherent feature of system 2 processing is its slowness, while the heuristic processes and their respective answers, being intuitive, just “pop up” and require less time (alós-ferrer, garagnani, & hügelschäfer, 2016). we should note that the response time asymmetry, usually used as the observable differentia specifica of the two processing types, is not without doubt, as discussed by many researchers (ball, thompson, & stupple, 2018; dujmović & valerjev, 2018; stupple, ball, evans, & kamal-smith, 2011; trippas, thompson, & handley, 2017). one of the possible (and used) explanations is that the prolonged response times (e.g. ball, thompson, & stupple, 2018), which accompany heuristic responses in the original trials, compared to responses on items with an rp, are more appropriately explained as an effect of conflict detection and resolution, which probably mainly occurs without conscious effort. second, the reliability of response time as an indicator of the two types of processing is probably in interaction with the varying logical abilities of the participants. based on the concepts of ecological rationality, and the model of information leakage, we suggest that adding a reference point to the crt problem solving tasks might serve as an environmental cue for analytical reasoning. the goal of this research was to reveal whether the addition of a reference point (rp) has an effect on inducing further reflection in cognitive reflection tasks, as well as to pinpoint exactly in which cases the rp addition facilitated the proverbial "shift" to system 2, i.e. what kind of rp prompts us to devote more cognitive resources to a certain task. we hypothesized that: a) adding the reference point to the crt tasks would increase the average number of correct answers, while it would decrease the number of heuristic answers, compared to the standard version of the crt without an added reference point; b) the reaction time would be shorter for standard tasks than for the tasks with a reference point (alós-ferrer et al., 2016); c) the standard tasks would be accompanied by a higher estimation on the metacognitive self-assessment scale, while the self-confidence score would be lower on the tasks containing a reference point (primi et al., 2016; thompson & morsanyi, 2012). method sample the participants were first-year students of the university of belgrade, faculty of philosophy, department of psychology (n = 94, 77.66% female; the average age 20), who received course credit for completing the experiment. materials the stimuli were reasoning tasks compiled from three versions of the cognitive reflection test. these are tasks in which the correct answer can be easily calculated with basic algebra skills, but are constructed in such a way that a typical wrong answer appears to the participants as the correct one. two parallel versions of each of the tasks, like the two versions of the crt, were used: one was the standard (crts), and the other was an a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 28 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adjusted version, dubbed the crtr (damnjanović & teovanović, 2017). the conventional crt was created by combining all three standard versions of the test: the original three-item crt (frederick, 2005), the 7-item crt (primi et al., 2016) and the 9-item crt (toplak et al., 2014). in the construction of the tasks in the crtr, every item of the crts underwent additive changes; that is, a reference point was specified and introduced to each task, while the formal aspects of the tasks were kept constant. the number of words, characters, and syllables of the items did not differ by more than 10% across the tasks for a given pair. for example, at the very beginning of the question “a man buys a pig for $60, sells it for $70…” the clause “a man has $80.” was added as a starting point for further calculation (the list of stimuli is given in appendix). however, this addition of the rp is not indisputable. while the most straightforward operationalization of the theoretical concept of the rp was in the ‘pig-salesman’ task, changes in other items were not so straightforward. these specific challenges stem from the fact that the items of crts are not uniform regarding the operation (e.g. subtraction, speed comparison…) which they require for successful solving. the rationale for using these stimuli was based on intersecting two criteria. first, the item had to be an item from any of the validated crts, which means that it could yield both normatively correct and typically incorrect answers. the second was the idea that an rp could either be added before any calculus was needed (e.g. the pig tasks), or that it could focus the participant on the aspects of the tasks which were previously masked by the existing conflict, either by clarifying the offered information (e.g. printer), or by swapping the subject and the object (e.g. marko’s grade). in both versions, one dummy question was added, which had the structure of a simple string of calculations, without a conflicting aspect, with the aim of nesting of the participants more firmly into the mode of task solving. both versions were tested in a previous study in pen-and-paper form (damnjanović & teovanović, 2017). for both versions of every task, three types of answers were coded: correct (mathematically), heuristic (typical erroneous), and atypical all other answers that were not correct mathematically and weren’t typical heuristic answers either. metacognitive self-assessment was conducted using a likert-type 7-point scale on which the participants answered the question “how confident are you of your answer?”. design in a counterbalanced repeated design, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental groups (crts or crtr), so that one group first completed the standard version of the test (crts), and then two weeks later completed the crtr version, while the other group solved the tests in reverse order. the independent variable had two levels (crts, crtr) – whether an item had a reference point included or not. the dependent variables were: the number of correct responses (range from 0 to 8), the number of heuristic responses (0-8), response time from the moment when the item text appeared on the screen to when the participant gave an answer, and confidence – the participants’ estimate of how confident they were of the answer they gave (ranging from 1 to 7). procedure the experiment was constructed in opensesame v.2.9, and it consisted of three exercise tasks and nine main tasks, of which one was the dummy question, whose answers did not count. they were administered in random damnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 29 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ order to 94 participants. no time limit was imposed, but the participants were asked to respond “as quickly and as correctly” as they could in the instruction preceding the experiment. the registered response time for every item ranged from 23 to 104 seconds (m = 46.24). every item was followed by a 7-point self-confidence scale as a measure of metacognitive self-assessment. prior to the main part of the experiment, the participants went through a short trial, composed of three items resembling the crt ones. the data from the exercise was not used in the analyses. the study was conducted during the year 2017 in four sessions, in groups of about 25 subjects. prior to stimuli presentation, the participants signed a written consent form and were given instructions in both written and oral form. results scores on the crtr and crts in order to test whether there was an effect of the order of presentation of the two versions of the test (crts and crtr) a two-way anova was conducted. the order of presentation (two levels: session one and session two) and the version of the crt (two levels: crts and crtr) were used as the independent variables. the total number of tasks solved correctly by each participant was used as the dependent variable. the interaction between the two factors wasn’t significant, f(1, 327) = 0.076, p = .783. the main effect of the order was not significant either, f(1, 327) = 0.184, p = .668, while the main effect of the version of the test was significant, f(1, 327) = 19.259, p < .001, η2 = .056. we have also analyzed the total number of heuristic answers per participant as the dependent variable. the independent variables in this two-way anova were again the order of presentation and the version of the test. the analysis yielded results that confirm the absence of the effect of the order of presentation. namely the only significant main effect was the effect of the version of the test, f(1, 327) = 33.726, p < .001, η2 = .093. the main effect of the order of presentation as well as the interaction between the two factors were not statistically significant (p = .355 and p = .621, respectively). in short, the analysis showed that the participants’ solving of the tasks was not influenced by the order of presentation, but by the version of the test they were presented with. in order to test the differences in the numbers of correct, heuristic and atypical answers given in the two versions of the test, the total correct, heuristic and atypical scores for two versions of the test were used as the dependent variables. mean total scores and standard deviations for each type of answer, as well as the mean response time per item and mean confidence level for both experimental situations are shown in table 1. table 1 means and standard deviations for total scores, response time and confidence level on standard (crts) and the version with reference point (crtr) test version n response type response time confidencecorrect heuristic atypical m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd crts 90 3.66 2.01 2.76 1.51 1.58 1.24 45.45 14.23 4.11 1.27 crtr 85 4.61 1.99 1.78 1.30 1.61 1.32 47.27 14.69 4.21 1.24 note. means (m) and standard deviations (sd) on total correct, heuristic, and atypical scores, response time in seconds, and self-confidence for each test version separately. a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 30 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the number of correct answers significantly differed between the crts, 99% ci [3.09, 4.17], and the crtr, 99% ci [4.05, 5.17], t(84) = -3.24, p < .01. average number of heuristic answers also differed between the crts, 99% ci [2.41, 3.26], and the crtr, ci [1.41, 2.14], t(84) = 4.705, p < .001. the distribution of answer types per each task, between the two test versions, can be seen in figure 1. no significant difference was registered in the average number of atypical, t(84) = -0.182, p = .856, responses, nor in the response time, t(84) = -0.970, p = .335, and confidence self-assessment, t(84) = -0.510, p = .611, between the two test versions, not even when explored per each task. figure 1. percentages of correct, heuristic, and atypical answers per both versions of each task. scores on pairs of tasks further analysis focused on the correct, and heuristic answers, since atypical responses were non-indicative in the applied theoretical framework. each stimulus yielded either the correct or the heuristic answer, and the two versions of the same task, with the percentage comparison of both correct and heuristic answers for the two test versions are shown in table 2. in order to test whether there were more correct responses on the crtr than the crts, a t-test analysis was conducted, with the task version as the grouping factor. the dependent variable was computed as follows: the correct answers were coded as 1, and all the other answers (both heuristic and atypical) were coded as 0. a significant difference in the proportion of correct answers between the two item versions was registered on four pairs of tasks (athlete, gallon, printers, and pig): the items with a reference point produced more correct responses than their crts versions (t statistics ranging from -5.318 to -2.155). on the rest of the task pairs, there were no differences between items. the t-test analysis was performed on the heuristic answers as well, and the dependent variable was computed so that heuristic answers were coded as 1, and all the other answers (both normative and atypical) were coded as 0. again, a significant difference in the proportion of heuristic answers between the two item versions was registered on four pairs of tasks (athlete, gallon, printers, and elves). the items with a reference point, in total, did produce fewer heuristic responses than their crts counterparts (t statistics for items that differed significantly ranging from 2.185 to 6.843). damnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 31 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 differences in the proportion of correct and heuristic answers for two test versions per stimulus test version correct heuristic p 95% ci t(84) cohen’s d p 95% ci t(84) cohen’s dll ul ll ul class 0.491 -0.895 -0.466 1.076 crts 30.59% 20.73 40.44 34.12% 23.98 44.26 crtr 27.06% 17.56 36.56 37.65% 27.29 48.01 athlete -5.318*** 4.323 6.843*** 10.028 crts 31.76% 21.81 31.72 57.65% 47.08 68.21 crtr 71.76% 62.14 81.39 14.12% 6.67 21.56 gallon -2.547** -6.544 2.788** 0 crts 36.47% 26.18 46.76 20.00% 11.45 28.55 crtr 55.29% 44.66 65.93 5.88% 0.85 10.91 lily pad -0.652 -0.233 0.257 0.150 crts 75.29% 66.07 84.52 12.94% 5.76 20.12 crtr 78.82% 70.09 87.56 11.76% 4.87 18.65 elves -0.686 -0.293 2.185* 0.764 crts 80.00% 71.45 88.55 17.65% 9.49 25.80 crtr 83.53% 75.60 91.46 8.24% 2.36 14.11 racquet 0.948 -10.063 -0.307 7.387 crts 40.00% 29.52 50.48 55.29% 44.66 65.93 crtr 32.94% 22.89 42.99 57.65% 47.08 68.21 printers -3.256** -5.218 3.534*** -4.518 crts 35.29% 25.07 45.51 47.06% 36.38 57.73 crtr 58.82% 48.30 69.35 21.18% 12.44 29.91 pig -2.155* 11.594 1.533 -3.747 crts 36.47% 26.18 46.76 31.76% 21.81 41.72 crtr 52.94% 42.27 63.62 21.18% 12.44 29.91 note. crts = tasks without reference point; crtr = tasks with reference point; p = percentage of correct/heuristic answers in comparison to total answers per item. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit.. t(df) = value and degrees of freedom. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. to sum it up, the reference point inclusion both increased the number of normatively correct answers and reduced the number of heuristic answers on three tasks: athlete, gallon, and printers. on two items, the manipulation was successful only partially; that is, the added reference point influenced one of the types of answers. on the item pig, the added reference point increased the correctness, but did not decrease the number of heuristic answers, and on the item elves the rp did not increase correctness but did decrease the number of heuristic answers. the rest of the items (class, lily pad, and racquet) were not significantly affected by the introduction of the reference point. response time and self-assessed confidence a correlation between response time and self-assessed confidence has been registered on both the crts, r(718) = .53, p < .001, and the crtr, r(678) = .28, p < .001, version of the test. in order to test whether response time depended on the task type, or the status of the answer, a repeated measures anova was cona reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 32 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ducted. the status of the answer (correct, heuristic, and atypical) and the version of crt (crts, crtr) were used as the factors and rt as the dependent variable. the analysis showed no significant interaction between the factors, f(2, 112) = 0.222, p = .801, as well as no significant main effects of either the status of the answer, f(2, 112) = 0.251, p = .779, nor the version of the crt, f(1, 112) = 1.599, p = .209. the same analysis was conducted to observe the relationship between the status of the answer and the version of the crt with selfassessed confidence measures. a repeated-measures anova showed no significant interaction, f(2, 112) = 2.134, p = .123, and no significant effect of the version of the crt on self-assessed confidence, f(1, 66) = 3.026, p = .087. a significant effect of the status of the answer has been detected, f(2, 66) = 31.331, p < .001, η2 = 0.487. post-hoc analyses using the bonferroni post-hoc criterion for significance showed that all the levels of the status of the answer factor differed significantly (p values ranging from < .001 to .01). the participants reported the highest confidence when giving correct answers, m = 4.718, sd = 1.200. when the participants gave heuristic answers, their self-assessed confidence level was in the middle, m = 3.677, sd = 1.622, whilst the lowest assessment occured when giving atypical answers, m = 2.859, sd = 1.668. discussion our study was conducted with the aim of examining the effect of introducing a reference point into conflict problem-solving tasks, in order to trigger a rational approach to the same task. this is something of a “hot topic” in the research-grounded dual-process approach, and an extensive number of studies in the field currently aim to provide an answer to the question: “what could make us think (and therefore act) rationally, not quickly and heuristically, in situations which cause conflicting cognitive responses?” (evans & stanovich, 2013; pennycook, 2018; primi et al., 2016). on one end of the imaginary continuum of answers to this question is the notion that the human ratio is inherently “flawed” and hence systematically biased, or irrational – as postulated in more formal models, e.g. prospect theory (kahneman & tversky, 1979; tversky & kahneman, 1992) while on the opposite end is the idea that environmental cues can improve (ecological) rationality (gigerenzer, 2008). in accordance with our aim, we applied the latter to the infamous cognitive reflection test and the different types of answers which its conflict-invoking tasks can yield. we added a reference point to its tasks, which was meant to act as a helping cue from the environment, inciting a change in our reasoning, by using the tools from our socalled “adaptive toolbox”. basically, it would mean that cued answers would require more time, but be correct more often, and score lower on metacognitive self-assessments. we have tested this by comparing scores from the two versions of the crt, the original one and a version whose tasks contained cues (that is, reference points). our assumptions were confirmed on several of the tasks, though not on all of them. the stimuli that proved to be in line with our expectations regarding the proportions of correct and heuristic answers after the manipulation are ‘athlete’, ‘printer’, and ‘gallon’ tasks. the ‘pig-salesman’ and the ‘elves’ tasks also confirm our hypotheses, but not in their entirety. that is to say, when the participants were solving the first three tasks mentioned, they were more correct when a reference point was given, and also gave fewer heuristic answers. however, while the ‘pig-salesman’ task with an rp did produce a spike in correct answers, compared to its conventional counterpart, the reference point did not make a difference in the prevalence of heuristic answers. the opposite is true of the ‘elves’ task: our cue did not cause the participants to be “smarter” about solving it, seeing as how the number of correct answers is the same on both tests, but it did seem to stop them from latching onto the first seemingly feasible answer, since not as many of their answers were heuristic. so what makes these five damnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 33 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stimuli special? the reasonable explanation would suggest that the reference point presented within them was particularly effective (bago & de neys, 2017; pennycook, 2018). however, when their reference points are compared, the similarities between rps can be found in pairs: rps based on fractions calculus (‘athlete’ and ‘gallon’), rps based on indirect comparison of speed (‘printers’ and ‘elves’), or on the time necessary to perform a specific task. an rp in its most literal sense is the one introduced to the ‘pig-salesman’ task: a starting point for simple addition and subtraction operations. the task ‘printers’ with a reference point is the secondmost successful of them all (the ‘athletes’ task being the first), even though it contains a double reference point (which might have over-simplified it) although some participants still found it more difficult than a fraction-based task. further research is required to refine these findings and unearth the specifics of the “perfect” rp. a second cluster of stimuli has proven impervious to our experimental manipulation, consisting of the ‘lily pad’, ‘racquet’, and ‘class’ stimuli. firstly, the ‘lily pad’ task was overwhelmingly easy for all the participants in both versions of the test. additionally, the lack of difference in correct-answer proportions between the versions reveals that the rps in the two versions were not obviously (or at all) different to the participants. a similar explanation might be valid for the racquet task, the ‘paradigm’ crt task, which is difficult in any of its forms: a more obvious and simplifying rp might be required to cause an effect. the unaffected 'class' and 'racquet' stimuli have different kinds of rps from the five tasks which were affected, in the sense that their rps offer different types of information, and require a unique type of calculation compared to the other tasks in the crt. the rp in the ‘class’ and ‘racquet’ tasks contained no additional numbers to use in the calculation: rather, the c(l)ue referred to how the different elements in the task were related. it could be that these cues weren’t carrying enough information to trigger analytical thinking, as well as that the rp wasn’t eye-catching enough for the participants, so they focused on the same aspects in both versions of the test. in order to solve a problem, people need not only be able to solve it, but to pay attention to the problem’s premises (mata et al., 2017), and a lack of this might be the case with the ‘class’ and ‘racquet’ tasks. considering the potential effect of the reference point on response time, we assumed that the engagement in system 2 processing would go hand-in-hand with an rt extension, since deliberation takes more time than “jumping the gun” and answering heuristically (alós-ferrer et al., 2016). however, there were no overall differences in rt between the two versions of the tasks, nor between the different types of answers. this absence of the anticipated difference in response time between heuristic and correct answers can be explained by the fact that the prolonged response times which accompanied heuristic responses in the tasks are probably an effect of conflict detection and resolution, which probably mainly occurs without conscious effort (ball, thompson, & stupple, 2018). secondly, speed asymmetry as an indicator of the differences between the two types of processing has been called into question (ball, thompson, & stupple, 2018; de neys, 2014; dujmović & valerjev, 2018; evans, 2017; stupple et al., 2011; trippas, thompson, & handley, 2017) and the reliability of response time as the indicator of the two types of processing is probably in interaction with the varying logical abilities of the participants (stupple et al., 2011), which were not included in the scope of this study. the situation is partly similar with the lack of certainty we intended to cause in our participants by the type of task, with no difference in confidence registered between those. on the other hand, the participants were more confident about the correctness of their solution when that solution was actually correct, which is in accordance with some previous results (de neys et al., 2013; thompson & morsanyi, 2012). in fact, they were less confident when giving the wrong, heuristic answer, and the least confident when they gave atypical answers. this is in line with the aforementioned concept of "cognitive miserliness” (stupple et al., 2017; toplak et al., 2011), according to which the participants might be, when completing the tasks, aware of the possibility that there is a conflict and that their a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 34 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ answer could be wrong, but nevertheless, they choose to give the first, intuitive and satisficing response, or a random wrong response, and thus estimate their confidence in their answers as lower (de neys et al., 2013; stupple et al., 2017). these results confirm that reasoning doesn’t only depend on one’s cognitive ability, but also on the way (conflicting) information is presented (fontinha & mascarenhas, 2017). participants do score higher on reasoning tasks when the information is presented without conflicts, as confirmed by an abundance of earlier research (de neys & glumicic, 2008; ferreira et al., 2016; mata & almeida, 2014; mata et al., 2013; pennycook et al., 2015). the difference in this study is that we introduced a reference point which could help participants solve the problem in spite of the conflicting information, without changing the deep structure of the task, the calculations required for the correct answer, or the correct answer itself. this allowed better control in comparisons between the two forms of the tasks. however, it should be noted that the distribution of the three types of answers was in contrast with the findings in the previous studies which employed crt, in which the majority of answers were erroneous, mostly heuristic (frederick, 2005; primi et al., 2016; toplak et al., 2014). in our data, the percentage of correct answers was usually the highest, due to the successful experimental manipulation, but also presumably due to the student sample, which certainly limits the degree of possible generalization. furthermore, response time as the indicator of the type of processing is, as previously stated, a problematic measure, in both technical (the starting point for measurement) and interpretative manner, so these results should be taken cautiously into consideration (stupple, ball, evans, & kamal-smith, 2011). finally, the rps are still a work in progress. as is the usual problem with stimuli in the higher cognition paradigm (e.g. with the amount of information), it is a rather categorical and not a continuous measure. the rps were not all of the same variety, and this is especially challenging, because tasks in the crts are not uniform in the calculus operations they require (and thus whether system 2 is in the game). one of the ways this could be remedied is by splitting the crt into calculation-specific blocks, so that a comparison could be made between the types of stimuli and the types of their respective rps. we do consider this lack of refinement to be a drawback in our study. this is particularly obvious with the printers and athletes tasks, which all the participants found to be very easy, but although they differ by type (technically, printers has a double reference point, and athletes’ rp is fraction-based) their reference points differ by many parameters, which were not strictly defined enough for us to pinpoint the exact specifics which swayed the difficulty one way or the other. the same goes for the racquet task – it stands to reason that addition and subtraction tasks should be easier than multiplication and fractioning, but the racquet task remains the most difficult in the crt to solve, with or without an rp. therefore, one of the main pitfalls in our research is this lack of foresight to have defined the rp by several parameters (e.g. calculations required, number of rps, position of rp in the task), and then formulating the crtr in accordance with those parameters, which would have perhaps allowed us to give a more precise answer to the “switch-inducing rp” question. all the findings above seem to point in the same direction: the rp hypothesis does have merit, but the way we chose to test its validity needs to be refined. in accordance with ila, the framing of the tasks did influence the way they were solved, which is also in line with ecological rationality, positing that human reasoning is influenced by cues from the environment. in our research, this environment was the reasoning task, and the cue that caused the participants to change their answers was the rp. when analyzed separately, these cues difdamnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 35 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fered regarding both their formal aspects and their effectiveness. further research should focus on how to make these cues more balanced in order to make them more effective, and more importantly, to help us better understand the interplay between the two types of processing. notes i) example paraphrased from clark, 2003. funding this research was supported by the ministry of education, science and technological development of serbia (grant number 179033). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank our 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(1974-1975). dual processes in reasoning? cognition, 3(2), 141-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(74)90017-1 a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 38 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03196520 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2644392 https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1883 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.001 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00003435 https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2011.589381 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186404 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2013.869763 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-012-0100-6 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0104-1 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2013.844729 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-016-0680-1 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00122574 https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(74)90017-1 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix tasks tasks of crt without a reference point 1. a man bought a pig for 60$, then sold it for 70$, then bought it again for 80$, and finally sold it again for 90$. how much did the man earn? 2. marko got the fifteenth highest and, at the same time, fifteenth lowest grade in the whole class. how many students are there in this class? 3. if three elves can pack three toys in one hour, how many elves are needed to pack 6 toys in two hours? 4. it takes 5 minutes for 5 machines to print 5 posters. how much time is needed for 100 machines to print 100 posters? 5. in an athlete club, tall members have three times higher probability to win a medal than short members. this year, the club has won 60 medals until now. how many of these medals were won by short athletes? 6. a tennis racket and ball cost 1100 dinars together. the racket is 1000 dinars more expensive than the ball. how much is the ball? 7. if ivan drinks one gallon of water in 6 days, and marija drinks one gallon in 12 days, how many days do they need to drink one gallon of water together? 8. there’s a field of water lilies in a lake. the surface of the field is doubled every day. if it takes 48 days for the field of water lilies to cover the whole lake, how many days are required for the water lilies to cover half the lake? tasks of crt with a reference point 1. a man has 80$ in his pocket. he bought a pig for 60$, then sold it for 70$, then bought it again for 80$, and finally sold it again for 90$. how much did the man earn? 2. a single grade that marko got is, at the same time, the 15th highest and the 15th lowest grade in the whole class. how many students are there in this class? 3. if three elves can pack three toys in one hour, and one elf can pack one toy in one hour, how many elves are needed to pack 6 toys in two hours? 4. in 5 minutes, one machine prints out one poster. in 5 minutes, eight machines print out eight posters. how much time is needed for 100 machines to print 100 posters? 5. in an athlete club, tall members have three times higher probability to win a medal than short members; in other words the short members win every fourth medal. this year, the club has won 60 medals until now. how many of these medals were won by short athletes? 6. a tennis racket and ball cost 1100 dinars together. one of these things is a lot more expensive than the other: the ball is cheaper than the racket, by a 1000 dinars. how much is the ball? 7. if ivan drinks one sixth (1/6) of a gallon of water in one day, and marija drinks one twelfth (1/12) of a gallon in one day, how many days do they need to drink one gallon of water together? 8. there’s a field of water lilies in a lake. the surface of the field is doubled every day. if it takes 48 days for the field of water lilies to cover the whole lake, after how many days was half the lake covered in water lilies? dummy question a pair of size 32 shoes costs 3000 dinars. size 33 of the same model costs 3200 dinars, and size 34 costs 3400 dinars. size 35 costs 3500, and size 37 costs 3600. how much is a size 38? damnjanović, novković, pavlović et al. 39 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors kaja damnjanović is a researcher at the laboratory of experimental psychology, university of belgrade. the scope of her work encompasses the fundamental and applied approaches to complex cognition, reasoning, and jdm. vera novković is a bachelor of psychology and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology, with a field of interest encompassing higher cognition, machine learning and artificial intelligence. irena pavlović is a master’s student of psychology and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology, university of belgrade. her main interests include applied social and cognitive psychology, mainly through the domain of intergroup relations, dynamics and higher cognition. sandra ilić is a senior student of psychology at the university of belgrade, and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology. the scope of her interests covers the field of cognitive, social and developmental psychology, mainly in regard to higher cognition, reasoning, judgement, and decision-making. slobodan pantelić is a senior student of psychology at the university of belgrade, and an associate at the laboratory of experimental psychology. his interests are in the domain of decision-making, both as a phenomenon of cognitive and social psychology. a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks 40 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ a reference point in cognitive reflection tasks (introduction) method sample materials design procedure results scores on the crtr and crts discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix tasks about the authors what about fertility staff emotions? an explorative analysis of healthcare professionals’ subjective perspective research reports what about fertility staff emotions? an explorative analysis of healthcare professionals’ subjective perspective fabiola fedele* a, andrea caputo a, barbara cordella a, ludovico muzii b, daniela pietrangeli b, cesare aragona b, viviana langher a [a] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, “sapienza” university of rome, rome, italy. [b] department of gynecologicobstetrical and urologic sciences, “sapienza” university of rome, umberto i hospital, rome, italy. abstract infertility-related psychological research is traditionally oriented to analyze the wellbeing of couples undergoing assisted reproductive technologies (art), than to study the job-related effects on the healthcare fertility staff. this piece of research aims at understanding the subjective perspective of the fertility professionals and contribute to identify their emotional dynamics in their work environment. an in-depth explorative research study was conducted on 12 healthcare professionals of an italian art hospital clinic. structured interviews with openended questions were administered to explore their deep feelings about their professional experience. emotional text analysis was then conducted to analyze the textual corpus of their narratives to grasp their affective symbolizations. statistical multidimensional techniques were used to detect some thematic domains (cluster analysis) and latent factors organizing the contraposition between them (multiple correspondence analysis). five thematic domains were detected which refer to different emotional dimensions, as follows: performance anxiety (cluster 1), ambivalence between omnipotence and powerlessness (cluster 2), care burden (cluster 3), feeling of duty (cluster 4), and sense of interdependence (cluster 5). then, four latent factors were identified dealing with the laborious attempt to remedy, the realistic sense of limitation, the incumbent feeling of pressure and the restorative sense of justice, respectively. the results are discussed based on the existing literature and some useful recommendations for staff education, training and clinical supervision are provided accordingly. keywords: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, healthcare professionals, staff’s narratives, emotional text analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 received: 2019-11-05. accepted: 2020-02-24. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: barbara caci, university of palermo, palermo, italy *corresponding author at: department of dynamic and clinical psychology, “sapienza” university of rome, via degli apuli 1, 00185 rome, italy. email: fabiola.fedele@uniroma1.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the problem of infertility and its consequent treatment (commonly known as assisted reproductive technology [art]) represents an increasing phenomenon, especially in industrialized countries. infertility condition affects about 186 million people worldwide. on average, 9% of all couples in the reproductive age experience difficulties in conceiving spontaneously. in some regions of the world, infertility condition affect as much as 30% of couples (stevenson & hershberger, 2016). the term art refers to medical treatments used to helpcouples conceive a pregnancy when it does not occur spontaneously, such as intrauterine insemination (iui), in vitro fertilization (ivf), and third party-assisted art (with gamete donors). data from the italian assisted europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ reproduction technology register (iartr) from 2005 to 2016 confirm the presence of constantly increasing percentages of children born after art techniques in italy (scaravelli et al., 2016). several pieces of research have highlighted strong negative emotional reactions to procreative limitations such as frustration, pain, anger and dejection (fassino, pierò, boggio, piccioni, & garzaro, 2002; galhardo, cunha, & pinto-gouveia, 2011; vitale, la rosa, rapisarda, & laganà, 2017; wiweko, anggraheni, elvira, & lubis, 2017). infertility condition also appears to be related to feelings of powerlessness (batool & de visser, 2016; benyamini, gozlan, & kokia, 2005; cousineau & domar, 2007; cudmore, 2005; nouman & benyamini, 2019) and one’s own body (clarke, martin-matthews, & matthews, 2006). indeed, diagnosis of infertility may trigger a self-deprecating sense of feminine or masculine personal deficiency due to failing “essentially to do what you're put on earth to do” (schofield, 2015) and is perceived with shame, guilt, and reduced self-esteem (yao, chan, & chan, 2018). besides this, also the experience of infertility treatment represents as an overwhelming condition that dominates patients’ daily routine (daniluk, 2001; redshaw, hockley, & davidson, 2007) and may represent a critical moment because of the intrusion of medical procedures in the couple’s intimate life (e.g., injections, stimulations, oocyte pick-ups). in this regard, patients undergoing art procedures may perceive treatment as a source of deep stress, anxiety and concern (purewal, chapman, & van den akker, 2018; stanhiser & steiner, 2018), which increase with the progression of therapeutic failures, generating a sort of "failure syndrome" (langher, fedele, caputo, marchini, & aragona, 2019; milazzo, mnatzaganian, elshaug, hemphill, & hiller, 2016; verhaak et al., 2005). patients also show higher levels of depression and shame, compared to people with infertility problems who do not undergo art (galhardo, pinto-gouveia, cunha, & matos, 2011). despite previous research having deepened the patient’s psychosocial challenges of infertility, little is known about how healthcare members emotionally face infertility problems and treatment delivery. only in recent times, an interest in examining stress, job satisfaction and emotional wellbeing of fertility clinic staff has been developed, given the role of stressors and perceived difficulties in effectively dealing with patients’ complaints and in achieving optimal pregnancy success rates (gerson et al., 2004; klitzman, 2018). it is well acknowledged that patients with infertility problems challenge usual approaches to care, leading to potential difficulties in the therapeutic relationship (gameiro, boivin, & domar, 2013; grill, 2015; leone et al., 2017; schmidt, tjørnhøj-thomsen, boivin, & nyboe andersen, 2005). from a psychoanalytic perspective (fornari, 1976), medicine has generally two different functions respectively referring to curing disease as something separated from the patient (phallocentric function) and taking care of the good owned by the sick person (omphalocentric function). instead, in assisted reproductive medicine, there is no disease to cure and treatment is not aimed at healing (leone et al., 2017); therefore, the patient could be identified with his/her infertility condition that encompasses the entire self (jaffe & diamond, 2011). as well, the patient usually is not an individual but a couple that may have conflicting perspectives about treatment options and delivery (leone et al., 2017). in this regard, triangular relationships may take place in the medical encounter, with the doctor representing a potential persecutor that is excluded or attacked by the couple or, vice versa, an ally in illicit coalitions with one of the two partners when the couple has opposite preferences (shapiro, 2001). besides, most of couples already know that there is a problem and develop excessive expectations about receiving an effective solution from clinicians (fitzgerald, legge, & frank, 2013; leone et al., 2017), posing unrealistic expectations and demanding an excessive amount of time and attention from medical staff (boivin, bunting, koert, ieng, & verhaak, 2017; grill, 2015). therefore, due to the difference in expectations between medical what about fertility staff emotions? 620 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ staff and the couples, conflicting situations may emerge (norré & wischmann, 2011). in healthcare context, the concepts of transference and countertransference as manifestations of unconscious mental activity may help explain problematic care relationships (goldberg, 2000; o’kelly, 1998); for instance, in the art setting, medical staff may perceive a progressive defensive withdrawal and detachment towards patients as the result of the loss of control that patients project out (castellano et al., 2011). besides, patients may be experienced as manipulative, entitled, dependent, self-destructive, non-compliant and hostile, thus raising negative feelings of frustration, anxiety, guilt and dislike among healthcare professionals (grill, 2015). in this regard, such staff feelings may represent countertransference responses to what patients experience with regard to their infertility condition, as well as ambivalent emotions resulting from processes of idealization and devaluation enacted by patients (castellano et al., 2011). patients undergoing art are often dissatisfied with the level of empathy and attention received by the healthcare staff of the clinics where they are being treated (gameiro, boivin, & domar, 2013; grill, 2015; schmidt et al., 2005). from such a perspective, negative patient-staff interactions can be stressful for the clinic staff (fitzgerald, legge, & frank, 2013), leading to work burnout and lower job satisfaction. for example, in art centers in the usa, about two third of medical staff agreed that the clinic environment was stressful (gerson et al., 2004), especially because of time pressure (simpson & bor, 2001), work overload (harris & bond, 1987) and patients’ discontinuation (boivin et al., 2012). in line with the broader literature on the doctor-patient relationship, which assumes an increase in medical stress as patients’ stress increases (an et al., 2009), patients’ psychological burden related to intrusive and demanding medical procedures may negatively affect the relationship with their doctors (grill, 2015). besides, because of delivering bad news in the art context, concerning infertility diagnosis and repeated treatment failures, healthcare staff tend to experience blame, fluctuating between the power of helping the couple generate life and the potential impotence emerging from treatment failure (leone et al., 2017). this may increase the level of distress in fertility professionals, in turn negatively affecting their emotional reactions and overall quality of care (boivin et al., 2012; simpson & bor, 2001). based on the review of the literature, the present manuscript aims at deepening this particular area of medical practice by exploring fertility staff emotions about their professional experience in the art context. emotions are not merely intended as primary response to the stimuli of the external reality, which pertain to the individual’s intrapsychic world (e.g., fear, rage, anxiety, joy, love, etc.). rather, they mainly refer to the subjective experience resulting from affective symbolizations in terms of emotional meanings attributed to the reality (carli & paniccia, 2002). the sharing of affective symbolizations among individuals who coexist in the same context allows the establishment of implicit expectations regulating behaviors and consenting the development of interpersonal communication and adjustment (petitta, ghezzi, & jiang, 2018). the inspection of shared affective symbolizations by art professionals may provide some insights about the key aspects underlying their representations of art work and care relationships. in this regard, training and support programs for fertility clinical staff are advocated in order to reduce stress, prevent burnout and also improve the ability to care for patients (gameiro, boivin, & domar, 2013; grill, 2015; norré & wischmann, 2011; patel, sharma, & kumar, 2018). as well, the need for providing staff training in communication-skills, shared decision-making, empathy, breaking bad news has raised in recent times, as well as the relevance of mental health practitioners in infertility clinics (gameiro, boivin, & domar, 2013; grill, fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 621 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2015; patel, sharma, & kumar, 2018). this may be particularly relevant in the italian context, where the fertility staff’ experience is made more complex by ethical-religious issues and restrictive legislation, and third-party reproductive techniques, characterized by higher chance of success, have been allowed as a treatment option only in recent times. to this purpose, we have decided not to refer to a priori and specific emotional indicators such as anxiety and depressive symptoms. unlike the case of the aforementioned studies, we have formulated data-driven hypotheses by using professionals’ narratives. in fact, narrative represents a powerful strategy for making meaning of emotions and creating a sense of continuity about one's professional experience in facing work challenges. besides, compared to self-reports methods, narrative ones have some advantages concerning the reduction of social desirability bias, the identification of specific nuances of an emotional experience, and the accuracy of data interpretations (riessman, 2008). finally, the present manuscript deals with the emotional experiences of art staff members in line with the previous research study focused on the experiences of patients with infertility problems (langher et al., 2019). both research projects were carried out in the same time period, in the same art clinic and rely on emotional text analysis as used method. despite this, they are independent research projects in terms of study aims, recruited samples, and analyzed interviews. method participants study participants included twelve art professionals working for at least 12 months in the fertility clinic of a public healthcare hospital of rome. specifically, the purposive sample consisted of the director of the clinic, two gynecologists and two embryologists as permanent medical staff, two nurses and one midwife as permanent nursing staff, and four gynecology interns. three were women and nine men; with half of the staff members having been working in the center for more than six years. individual interviews were administered after having obtained informed written consent. all the interviews were conducted and audio recorded inside the hospital, in a reserved and silent environment, to protect the privacy of the interviewees and keep personal information confidential. all the interviews were conducted when staff members were free from work activities, thus avoiding interference to their clinical practice. all data identifying participants were removed from the transcripts to guarantee anonymity. the study received appropriate ethical approval from the ethics committee of the umberto i hospital in rome. materials a structured interview was administered to the staff members of the fertility clinic to explore their deep feelings about their professional experience. the interview consisted of twelve open-ended questions, grouped into four broad categories referring to the professionals’ perception of: 1) one's professional function; 2) patients’ decision to undertake treatment; 3) treatment and its effects; 4) therapeutic relationship. the questions were created ad hoc based on a comprehensive search of the scientific literature conducted on the psychinfo database on the topics of professionals’ perspectives in the context of infertility or fertility care, by using keywords what about fertility staff emotions? 622 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ such as: “work*”, “staff”, “team”, “health[care] professional* or provider*”, and “[in]fertility care or treatment”, “art”, “ivf”, “iui”. however, it should be acknowledged that the open-ended questions are just considered as prompts overall aimed at facilitating associative processes about the professional experience. therefore, all the four broad categories previously mentioned make sense about the main research goal, allowing the exploration of the affective symbolizations pertaining the experience in the art context, without representing well-established areas of investigation to be specifically addressed. the staff members were encouraged to talk by following their free associations, offering them non-judgemental listening on average, the interviews lasted about 25 minutes, ranging from 15 to 35 minutes. the interviews were administered from april to july 2017. data analysis research framework emotional text analysis (eta; carli, paniccia, giovagnoli, carbone, & bucci, 2016) was used to explore the study participants’ subjective experience, in line with previous research in healthcare settings (caputo, 2014; caputo, 2018a; caputo, giacchetta, & langher, 2016) and with specific regard to fertility issues (langher et al., 2019). from a methodological perspective, eta is grounded on a psychoanalytic theory of language (fornari, 1976) that, according to a ‘double reference’ principle, considers language as having both a lexical-cognitive (conscious) and symbolic-affective (unconscious) function. whereas the lexical-cognitive function refers to rational and logic meanings conveyed by the source culture, the symbolic-affective one refers to subjective meanings based on shared affective sense-making processes. this is consistent with matte blanco’s (1981) bi-logic theory of mind, assuming that language can be intended as a rational instrument addressed to organize reality following an asymmetrical logic (i.e., intentional structuring or ordered constituent parts of language), but also the gateway to grasp the rules of unconscious processing following a symmetrical logic (i.e., syntagmatic relations between parts of language). according to the psychoanalytic technique of free association (freud, 1966), such syntagmatic relations help researcher identify the emotional meaning of speech through deconstructing the typical linguistic links of the operational function of language to detect more spontaneous chains of associations between words (carli & paniccia, 2002). to this purpose, polysemy refers to emotional meanings attributable to a word, when it is extracted from the linguistic context, which allows the detection of two broad categories: dense words (with high polysemy) featured by a high emotional value disregarding the specific linguistic context (i.e., “bomb” or “good”); and non-dense words ( characterized by low polysemy) that include empty words without significant content (e.g., articles, adverbs, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs) or ambiguous words with contradictory emotional configurations (i.e., “to presume” or “however”). the identified dense words, which are emotionally relevant and consistent with the research goal, can be grouped based on their co-occurrence, so to detect different symbolic domains (caputo, 2013a). textual analysis procedures all the interviews were transcribed verbatim and combined in a single text corpus. then, eta was adopted through using the t-lab (version 9.1) software (specifically, “thematic analysis of elementary contexts” procedure; lancia, 2004), which performs both cluster analysis and multiple correspondence analysis from a digital fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 623 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “presence-absence” matrix with elementary context units (i.e., text segments) in rows and lexical units (i.e., words) in columns, respectively. cluster analysis allows the groupings of text segments including the same co-occurring words with the highest probability (evaluated through the chi-square test), whereas multiple correspondence analysis allows the inspection of the relationship between such groupings in a multi-dimensional space (evaluated through the test value; lancia, 2004). groupings of words (clusters) represent symbolic domains and cartesian axes (factors) are intended as latent dimensions organizing the contraposition between them. clusters are labelled and interpreted by the researcher by using models of affective symbolization (carli & paniccia, 2002), which reveal different affective dynamics and interpersonal patterns, integrating constructivism and object relations theory (caputo, 2013b; caputo, 2018b; langher, brancadoro, d’angeli, & caputo, 2014) through a psychoanalytic method following an evidential and conjectural paradigm (langher, caputo, & martino, 2017). in this regard, the focus of the textual analysis is on the identification of spontaneous chains of lexical associations, apart from their language context and the cognitive sense of the reported contents. specifically, the interpretations about clusters and factors were independently formulated by three researchers and then jointly discussed, resolving potential discrepancies by consensus. data interpretation is also based on the qualitative analysis of the interview extracts (i.e. text segments) as to get triangulation and semantic validity of data through cross verification. this was performed through comparing different sources (outputs of analysis about both grouping of words and the most characteristic elementary context units) and procedures (to infer the symbolic-affective meanings from the statistical word co-occurrence and to contextualize such meanings in terms of related contents from the participants’ direct quotations). results overall, the text corpus includes 27,002 occurrences, thus falling in the 15,000-45,000 range characterizing small-medium sized texts (bolasco, 1999). the percentage of distinct words (v = 3,510) out of the total occurrences (type/token ratio) is equal to 13%, whereas the percentage of hapaxes (h = 1,748) (i.e., words with only one occurrence) out of the distinct words is 49.8%. therefore, a statistical analysis of the text corpus can be allowed, since type/token ratio and percentage of hapaxes are respectively lower than 20% and 50% (bolasco, 1999). table 1 shows the five groupings of text units and relative keywords emerging from cluster analysis, which are detected throughout the interviews and refer to different semantic domains shared by participants in terms of emotional symbolizations. what about fertility staff emotions? 624 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 clusters with most characteristic lemmas (keywords) and percentage of the overall elementary context units cluster 1 (16.00%) performance anxiety cluster 2 (24.84%) ambivalence between omnipotence and powerlessness cluster 3 (24.21%) care burden cluster 4 (27.37%) the feeling of duty cluster 5 (7.58%) the sense of interdependence lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 monitoring 85.07 outcome 40.10 need 58.52 centre 21.30 intern 61.55 day 80.42 satisfaction 22.92 child 14.44 number 17.46 lab 50.51 transfer 57.90 great 19.19 oocyte 12.98 structure 14.05 biologist 44.73 pick up 52.44 positive 12.27 predisposition 12.62 responsibility 14.05 inside 30.92 stimulation 47.01 high 12.20 to gather 12.09 person 11.98 to occupy 28.39 embryo 37.88 frustration 10.96 pain 11.57 user 10.70 context 26.17 follicle 37.30 happy 10.90 couple 11.52 to offer 10.70 guard 26.17 ultrasound 36.29 to achieve 9.07 reproduction 11.51 detachment 10.70 porter 26.17 procedure 31.13 small 8.59 stress 11.51 commitment 9.34 to turn 26.17 to decide 20.62 to overcome 8.25 complicated 8.63 economic 9.34 structured 20.42 emotion 20.62 failure 8.25 spermatozoon 8.63 to close 9.28 to devote 15.61 negative 19.95 to search 8.16 husband 7.81 professional 7.85 function 13.32 therapy 15.95 to obtain 6.76 male 7.15 information 7.04 to change 12.62 visit 15.40 reality 6.69 criticality 7.13 to work 6.02 organization 12.62 to prescribe 15.40 hope 6.02 relationship 5.68 normal 5.05 service 7.58 insemination 11.60 pregnancy 5.46 psychologist 5.67 demand 5.05 role 10.26 anxiety 7.28 result 5.43 genetics 5.67 university 4.72 gynecologist 8.68 guide 5.23 omnipotent 5.43 partner 4.25 public 4.60 colleague 6.23 expectation 5.23 to attempt 5.32 delicate 4.19 to respect 4.18 to manage 5.72 exam 3.96 disappointment 3.97 to welcome 4.19 to succeed 3.99 to study 4.47 note. the threshold value of chi-square test (χ2) for each lemma is 3.84 (df = 1; p = .05). textual data were translated into english only for the purposes of the manuscript. thematic domains cluster 1: performance anxiety this cluster includes 16.00% of the overall elementary context units. this thematic domain evokes a sense of worry and hypervigilance expressed through the control and constant effort about the use of art procedures (“monitoring”, "ultrasound", “procedure”, “therapy”, “visit”), within a step-by-step path characterized by almost daily routines (“day”) and several medical performances ("transfer", "pick-up", “stimulation”, “insemination”). indeed, these crucial art-related actions are experienced by patients with high expectation because they allow fertility treatment continuation, thus evoking anxiety and fear for potential negative outcomes (“exciting”, “anxiety”, “expectation”, “exam”, “negative”). from this perspective, to handle such a performance anxiety, fertility specialists displace their attention from patient’s him/herself as a whole person to his/her fragmented bodily parts (“embryo”, “follicle”) as more controllable objects, on which they can exercise their expertise through embodying an assertive role ("to decide", "to prescribe”, “guide”). “in all weekly monitoring visits, patients always expect something more, one more follicle, and physicians to report something positive to them” (participant 2) fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 625 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “you have to be careful over the course of the entire path [...] this is a very difficult path, therapy is not easy, it is like an obstacle competition because everyday you have to pass an exam and you have high expectations” (participant 6) cluster 2: ambivalence between omnipotence and powerlessness this cluster includes 24.84% of elementary context units. this thematic domain describes both the fertility specialists’ sense of idealization and devaluation concerning their work. therefore, it mostly focuses on ambivalent feelings of omnipotence and powerlessness, within the “attempt” to find a balance between an optimistic (“hope”) and realistic (“reality”) perspective about achieving the expected “outcome”. each step of the therapeutic path entails, in fact, two extreme and antithetical alternatives, respectively resulting in a positive or negative outcome, without possibility of third options. generating a new life, bypassing the obstacles of nature (“outcome”, “to achieve”, “to overcome”, “to search”, “to obtain”), represents a miraculous action that may activate emotions of satisfaction, greatness and power (“satisfaction”, “happy”, "great", "positive", "high", "omnipotence"). however, feelings of helplessness and debasement ("frustration", "small", "failure" and "disappointment") may emerge when clashing with the infertility-related insurmountable limits, making one's professional behavior useless and vain. “if you succeed to achieve the outcome your self-esteem increases [...] making a person happy is an important personal achievement even if you risk feeling omnipotent, but you have to remember that negative outcomes may break down your expectations” (participant 4) “patients entrust the technological miracle. one may feel great expectation and also great frustration and grief when acknowledging to have failed, a possibility that is always around the corner, given the low success rates” (participant 7) cluster 3: care burden this cluster includes 24.21% of elementary context units. this thematic domain describes the staff’s attempts to deal with the procreative demand for art, which is not limited to a biological reproductive function, but also involves the emotional sphere concerning the desire for a “child”. the burden of taking care of a “couple” as a unit rather than of single patients emerges, as highlighted by further keywords regarding the male “partner”, not just the woman’s body as object of medical attention ("husband" and "male"). this entails the fertility specialists’ difficulties when confronted with patients’ suffering ("pain", "stress", “need”). this occurs especially when providing partners with a diagnosis, shedding lights on the responsibility for infertility problems (“predisposition”, “oocyte”, "spermatozoon", “genetics”) or handling “complications” and “critical” issues related to treatment failure. the reference to “psychologist” may represent the search for relief from this emotional burden in the doctor-patient “relationship”, by relying on an alternative professional specifically charged with psychological and relational issues. “couples are very delicate to deal with in the doctor-patient relationship [...] for me the most difficult moment is when the patient trusts you and begins to really get in touch with you” (participant 2) “what is mostly difficult is relating to the couple on a human level, especially when the outcome is not good [...] when you have to communicate bad news you feel troubled” (participant 8) what about fertility staff emotions? 626 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cluster 4: the feeling of duty cluster 4 consists of 27.37% of the elementary context units. this thematic domain mostly deals with the sense of professional responsibility, as highlighted by the reference to work effort in making the fertility service available to the entire population, trying to respond its procreative demand (“responsibility”, “commitment”, “professional”, “information”, “to work”, “to succeed”). indeed, this cluster highlights that people undergoing art procedures are not typical patients with a disease to cure, but persons who express a specific demand for realizing their procreative dream (“person”, “user”, “demand”). the high sense of responsibility is thus intertwined with the strong social relevance of infertility and its related intervention, intended as issues of public interest (“number”, "university", "public", “normal”). therefore, the focus is on the duty of healthcare provision and its efficiency at the organizational management level ("centre", "structure", “to offer”), without judging the patient’s decision to resort on art procedures, thus maintaining a neutral position (“detachment”). “this is a public center, so even those who do not have enough economic possibilities can access it, and at least try […] but we cannot judge, we must gather all those who come to the center” (participant 3) “you should get into the couple’s problem and try looking at it with detachment. i cannot do it because i feel very responsible about what i do. for example, if i have to choose a single spermatozoon and insert it (into the oocyte) i feel a very big duty” (participant 5) cluster 5: the sense of interdependence cluster 5 consists of 7.58% of the overall elementary context units. it seems to evoke a sense of dependence that is expressed on several levels. first, the focus on the different professional “roles” and “functions” in terms of internal human resources of the fertility center ("resident", "biologist", “inside”, "guard", "porter", "structured", "gynecologist", “colleague”) highlights the relevance of teamwork and interdependence among professionals. second, the constant need for adjustment and flexibility in terms of organizational management (“to shift”, “to change”, “service”, “to devote”, “to manage”) indicates the feeling of being subjected to a patient-centred service. then, dependency-related feelings emerge also from the inevitable need for high qualification and further diligent fieldwork (“intern”, “lab”, “to study”) to effectively realize job goals. from such a perspective, interdependency among professionals may be perceived as a potential limitation within a context featured by unpredictability and risk of failure. “this is surely a teamwork, i mean that the gynecologist cannot perform his/her job without a well functioning lab and obviously the biologist in the lab cannot do his/hers without the gynecologist’s contribution” (participant 5) “the physician can be the best in the world but, if a biologist or paramedic does not work adequately, all teamwork gets destroyed. so all the staff members have to behave in a certain way because if someone makes a mistake, the outcome is devastating and this in turn affects users” (participant 7) latent factors four latent factors have been detected from correspondence analysis, which highlight the main semantic oppositions, based on the different positions of the identified clusters within the factorial space. fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 627 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 shows the association between clusters and factors, expressed by relative contributions (squared cosines), indicating the quality of representation of each cluster on the different latent dimensions. the four latent factors explain the entire data variance (r2 = 100%). the sign reported in brackets (-/+) indicates the negative/positive factorial pole associated with each cluster. table 2 associations between clusters and factors (relative contributions) cluster factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 factor 4 cluster 1 0.9047 (-) 0.0379 (-) 0.0024 (-) 0.0549 (+) cluster 2 0.0350 (-) 0.5004 (-) 0.1722 (+) 0.2924 (-) cluster 3 0.0692 (+) 0.0569 (+) 0.8352 (-) 0.0387 (-) cluster 4 0.5765 (+) 0.0115 (+) 0.0850 (+) 0.3270 (+) cluster 5 0.0883 (-) 0.7279 (+) 0.1277 (+) 0.0560 (-) note. the sign reported in brackets (-/+) indicates the negative/positive factorial pole associated with each cluster. the highest associations between clusters and factors are indicated in bold. figure 1 represents the factorial space organizing the relationships between clusters and factors, thus providing a map of the emotional symbolizations shared by the professionals interviewed. figure 1. factorial space. the laborious attempt to remedy (f1) the first factor (39.96% of total variance) mainly differentiates cluster 1 from cluster 4. it refers to the laborious and solicitous attempt to remedy, at a symbolic level, infertility as damaged condition, accompanied by the what about fertility staff emotions? 628 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fear for professional failure. on the one hand, it is expressed through constant and accurate attention to technical procedures to remedy patients’ deficient reproductive function (cluster 1). on the other hand, it is expressed through the organizational effort to deliver a patient-centred treatment that is efficient and enables the realization of the couple’s procreative desire (cluster 4). the realistic sense of limitation (f2) the second factor (26.44% of total variance) differentiates cluster 2 from cluster 5. this factor describes the sense of limitation in realizing one’s job. on one hand, it is expressed through feelings of powerlessness and uselessness when failing to overcome the obstacles of nature, given the poor success rates of fertility treatment (cluster 2). on the other hand, it deals with the awareness of being dependent on other professionals, all having an essential role in art context, thus relying on teamwork to effectively realize goals (cluster 5). the incumbent feeling of pressure (f3) the third factor (20.22% of total variance) differentiates cluster 2 from cluster 3. it deals with the feeling of being under pressure in complying with patients’ expectations. on the one hand, it deals with the anxiety evoked by accomplishing positive outcomes that are highly invested on by patients but, at the same time, with low success rates (cluster 2). on the other hand, it highlights the strong care burden in handling with the couple’s complexity, in terms of different underlying emotions and motivations to undergo art (cluster 3). the restorative sense of justice (f4) this factor (13.36% of total variance) mainly differentiates cluster 2 from cluster 4. it describes a restorative sense of justice, accompanied by the feeling of devoting oneself to a relevant mission. on one hand, it highlights the sense of fulfillment resulting from achieving ambitious outcomes through the art “miraculous” capacity to restore the natural fertility of the couple (cluster 2). on the other hand, it shows the sense of responsibility and duty in guaranteeing everybody’s access to fertility services, so to rehabilitate his/her image in the society (cluster 4). discussion the results of this research study allowed the identification of the main emotional dimensions characterizing the experience of the staff members of an infertility center. in sum, the analysis identified five thematic domains (clusters) that describe the staff’s emotions emerging from their professional experience: performance anxiety, ambivalence between omnipotence and powerlessness, care burden, feeling of responsibility and sense of interdependence. with regard to performance anxiety, it seems mainly related to the strive for achievement in performing a highly specialized, technical and demanding job (fitzgerald, legge, & frank, 2013), as well as to the stressful conditions of the art environment, involving work overload and time pressure (gerson et al., 2004; harris & bond, 1987; simpson & bor, 2001). consistently with previous research on art patients (langher et al., 2019), the art treatment seems to be described as a step-by-step path consisting in huge obstacles to be overcome, which may induce anxiety feelings also in the fertility staff and predispose to an obsessional form fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 629 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of reparation (boivin et al., 2012; caputo, fregonese, & langher, 2018). indeed, hypervigilance and constant effort to repetitive and structured technical actions could suggest a compulsive way to placate anxiety evoked by infertility as a damaged condition that one tries to remedy. this great responsibility brings the healthcare staff to experience an ambivalent state fluctuating between the sense of power and of impotence, as found in other studies (leone et al., 2017). indeed, art treatment is characterized by well-known low success rates, generally ranging from 4% to 40% (centers for disease control and prevention, 2016); accordingly, repeated failed treatment may explain for such a sense of powerlessness. as well, the miraculous possibility to generate life beyond nature can trigger feelings of grandiosity and over-estimation of one’s abilities (castellano et al., 2011). this seems consistent with previous research highlighting that in caring work, helping professionals may resort to such a manic reparation, because they need to confirm that they have sufficient self-esteem to repair damage in others, so to defend themselves against failing to heal (caputo, fregonese, & langher, 2018; roberts, 1994). our results show fertility staff’s care burden as one of the major concerns, in line with a huge amount of literature (fitzgerald, legge, & frank, 2013; leone et al., 2017) reporting patients’ excessive expectations on clinicians, in terms of attention and effective solutions from medical staff (boivin et al., 2017; fitzgerald, legge, & frank, 2013; grill, 2015; leone et al., 2017), which negatively affects the therapeutic relationship (gameiro, boivin, & domar, 2013; grill, 2015; leone et al., 2017; schmidt et al., 2005). this seems specifically due to dealing with couples (not individuals) and complex demands for parenthood (not diseases), thus challenging some well-established healthcare assumptions about patient care (leone et al., 2017). the present study also found a feeling of duty of fertility staff that is intertwined with the strong social relevance of parenthood issues, which thus make art treatment as a mean to rehabilitate the image of people with infertility problems in the community. in this regard, high social and family expectations on the value of procreation techniques exist, which may influence the personal decision to undergo art (cordella, greco, carlini, greco, & tambelli, 2018) so to pursue belonging and inclusion in the procreative world, as found in recent qualitative narrative research (langher et al., 2019). indeed, “voluntarily” childless is still portrayed as selfish and deviant in many socio-cultural contexts (gillespie, 2001), especially for women, because motherhood is considered as a primary social role and infertility tends to be experienced as a “secret stigma” (greil, 1991; holmes, 2014). our findings show that teamwork and interdependence among professionals in fertility staff can represent a potential critical factor that may have a role in job satisfaction. indeed, organization, team and management issues are often a potential source of work stressor, as highlighted by boivin et al. (2017) who found that 60.4% of fertility health professionals reported team conflicts. therefore, an interprofessional and multidisciplinary team approach in infertility treatment is considered as highly recommended, and was found to be effective for helping patients continue infertility treatment (yano & ohashi, 2010). based on the previously detected factors explaining for the subjective experience of the reproductive healthcare professionals involved in this study, we can synthesize the main emotional dimensions shaping their narratives, which can provide useful recommendations for staff education, training and clinical supervision. the laborious attempt to remedy seems to feature the work of art staff, that is constantly confronted with potential failure in realizing job goals despite the high technical and organizational effort. from such a perspective, art professionals may feel an exaggerated and constant worry and get involved in compulsive activity, what about fertility staff emotions? 630 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ within the routine of repetitive and fragmented work procedures across the several steps of the art treatment like in an assembly line. the central role of the technical nature of the job and of the high accuracy required may trigger depersonalization, contributing to shift the focus from the whole person to his/her bodily parts (e.g., uterus, eggs, embryos, sperm), thus looking at patients as childbearing machines (gupta & richters, 2008). the specific attention to the risk for depersonalization should thus be adequately included in staff training to prevent potential burnout. in this regard, humanization of care could be promoted in health professionals’ education, aimed at perceiving patients as complex and unique human beings who require acceptance, empathy, and active listening, through the valorization of meanings they assign to their demand for treatment. the realistic sense of limitation emerges as a further key finding, concerning the actual power of action and effectiveness in delivering art treatment. this can potentially lead to a diminished sense of personal accomplishment, mainly due to the low success rates and the needy dependency on other professionals to be able to achieve. such conditions might make healthcare workers feel more uncertain about directly controlling the outcomes of one’s professional action and, in turn, engender unmotivation and sense of incompetence in helping patients. therefore, it is important to improve the individual’s capabilities to mourn potential job failures, as well as to learn to look at teamwork as a resource rather than as a constraint, thus building trust and cohesion among colleagues through a multidisciplinary approach. in this regard, a multidisciplinary approach to treating infertility could be promoted through facilitating fertility team groups reflecting on the intervention effectiveness, not only in terms of offering the highest chances of pregnancy, but also of producing the best overall patient trust and satisfaction. the incumbent feeling of pressure found in the present study seems to derive from anxiety in dealing with couples’ emotional complexity and expectations about the desire for a child. when failing to cure a disease, it is likely to rely on external attributions, such as task difficulty or bad luck in extirpating the evil. instead, if the art treatment fails to generate a new life, it is possible that this could be attributed to more internal factors, such as the lack of ability or effort of the staff in creating the good. this may lead to perceive patients as demanding, entitled and manipulative because they challenge the staff’s professional efficacy to a higher extent, in turn contributing to masked hostility and uncaring reactions. clinical supervision could thus benefit from working on the art professionals’ countertransference responses to patients, so to avoid potential passive-aggressive dynamics enacted in the therapeutic relationship. therefore, joint discussion of clinical cases during supervision could be an opportunity to reflect on the critical incidents (e.g., conflicts, low adherence) in order to shed light on the working alliance with patients and the entire process of care. for example, informed consent could be used to improve patients’ awareness about their decision to turn to the art treatment and to encourage a trusting relationship with the clinical staff. then, the restorative sense of justice in rehabilitating patients’ image in both biological and social terms through delivering fertility services represents the art social mandate. this may engender a profound sense of responsibility to comply with social demands and expectations in art professionals, beyond the mere sphere of medical intervention. therefore, it could be useful to foster healthcare professionals’ awareness about the underlying values, ideals and ethical issues regarding the shared socio-cultural representations of fertility/infertility and parenthood. indeed, the staff’s personal beliefs and implicit meanings regarding such issues may, to some extent, conflict with professional duties and the organizational mandate of fertility services. fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 631 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, the present study has some limitations, including the low generalizability of the findings due to the small sample size (n = 12) and the belonging of all the participants to the same art clinic, thus making this piece of research comparable to a case study (langher, caputo, & martino, 2017). indeed, it should be noted that the entire art staff population could be characterized by higher variability in the reported contents. besides, given the exploratory aim of this qualitative inquiry, further quantitative studies are needed to confirm the interpretative frames here proposed. in this regard, future research could be conducted to develop new tools, based on the operationalization and measurement of the emotional dimensions emerging from the present study. in such a way, a wider sample could be included to test the robustness of the current findings in statistical terms. besides, it could be interesting to deeply examine potential differences on the emotional dynamics characterizing the fertility staff, based on individual variables such as gender, professional role and years of tenure. as well, different groups of healthcare professionals (not working in the art field) could be involved in comparison studies, to identify both some general aspects about the professional experience across diverse medical settings and the specificities referring to the art context. despite these limitations, this study provides preliminary results allowing the better understanding of the subjective experience of the reproductive healthcare professionals, that is still scarcely examined in current literature, especially with regard to the italian context. besides, the use of narrative methods could be particularly useful in terms of action-research for staff education, training and clinical supervision to deliver more consistent, ecological and targeted interventions. the detection of the symbolic meanings referred to the professional function, patients, treatment and therapeutic relationship in the art context may favor the professionals’ awareness about the implicitly shared beliefs, values and goals orienting their work practices. as well, this may help expressing and reflecting on potential ambivalent or conflicting aspects, thus making sense of one’s subjective experience. for example, representing the patient in terms of a fragmented body may be a strategy to remove the human component of care relationship, which is anxiety-inducing due to the patient’s high expectations. the sharing of such emotional issues among professionals may encourage the staff’s listening, mutual understanding and cohesion, with fruitful benefits in terms of teamwork and organizational climate. in sum, the present manuscript provides interesting insights for developing the role of psychology into the medical management of the infertility. this is not only in terms of psychological consultations to couples undergoing art, but also in terms of education, training and supervision to art professionals with the aim of facilitating team work and care relationship. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we thank all the participants in the study for their contribution. the authors are grateful to the professionals who have agreed to tell their experiences, showing willingness and interest in knowing the future results of the research. what about fertility staff 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(2018). childbearing importance: a qualitative study of women with infertility in china. research in nursing & health, 41(1), 69-77. https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.21846 about the authors fabiola fedele is clinical psychology graduate major at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza”; student of the school of specialization in health psychology. her current research interests lie in the field of clinical and health psychology. andrea caputo is psyd in health psychology, phd in dynamic and clinical psychology at sapienza university of rome, italy. his research interests have mainly been focusing on clinical and health psychology. barbara cordella is researcher at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza”; psyd in health psychology and professor of the school of specialization in health psychology, university of rome “la sapienza”. her research interests have mainly been focusing on clinical and health psychology. ludovico muzii is full professor at the department of gynecologic-obstetrical and urologic sciences of the university of rome “la sapienza” and sterility and assisted reproduction unit at sapienza university hospital umberto i; president of the degree course in obstetrics, university of rome “la sapienza”. fedele, caputo, cordella et al. 637 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fh0089544 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f000711201160867 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.ogc.2018.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10865-005-3667-0 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f0167482x.2016.1244184 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.mefs.2017.01.005 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs12522-009-0038-5 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fnur.21846 https://www.psychopen.eu/ daniela pietrangeli is researcher at the department of gynecologic-obstetrical and urologic sciences of the university of rome “la sapienza” and sterility and assisted reproduction unit, sapienza university hospital umberto i; professor of the degree course in obstetrics, university of rome “la sapienza”. cesare aragona is associate professor at the department of gynecologic-obstetrical and urologic sciences of the university of rome “la sapienza”. his research interests have mainly been focusing on infertility and reproductive technologies. viviana langher is associate professor of clinical psychology at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza”; psyd in health psychology and professor of the school of specialization in health psychology, university of rome “la sapienza”. her research interests have mainly been focusing on clinical, social and organizational psychology. what about fertility staff emotions? 638 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 619–638 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2245 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ what about fertility staff emotions? (introduction) method participants materials data analysis research framework textual analysis procedures results thematic domains cluster 1: performance anxiety cluster 2: ambivalence between omnipotence and powerlessness cluster 3: care burden cluster 4: the feeling of duty cluster 5: the sense of interdependence latent factors the laborious attempt to remedy (f1) the realistic sense of limitation (f2) the incumbent feeling of pressure (f3) the restorative sense of justice (f4) discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school: validating of the parental expectations, confusion, anxiety and suitability scale (pecas scale) research reports measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school: validating of the parental expectations, confusion, anxiety and suitability scale (pecas scale) diego boerchi* a [a] faculty of education, department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. abstract this study was aimed to develop a new questionnaire, on school choice difficulties, with a limited number of items and scales to make it suitable both for pre-screening on large numbers of students and studies which use batteries of many tests. the pecas scale assesses four dimensions, parental expectations, confusion, anxiety, and suitability, which could be considered the most essential according to previous literature. in total, 1495 students participated in the study. both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported a fourdimensional factor structure. reliability and concurrent validity, concerning the process of choosing a school and a scale on career exploration, were also adequate. keywords: educational guidance, difficulties in career choices, career exploration, parental expectations, secondary school students europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 received: 2018-11-13. accepted: 2019-10-24. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: università cattolica del sacro cuore, l.go gemelli 1, 20123 milano, italy. tel. +39 02 7234.2905, mob. +39 347 0931161, email: diego.boerchi@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the choice of an upper secondary school is a difficult one, and all students are not mature enough or do not have access to adequate support to take on such a task (howard & walsh, 2010). in italy, this choice is more challenging because it has to be made when they are 13-14 years old and students have to choose between a wide range of schools (6 lyceums, with general topics and a focus on one of them like sciences, arts or languages; 11 technical institutes, very focused on technical topics like economics, tourism or informatics; 6 professional institutes and 21 professional qualifications, very focused on specific operative jobs like mechanic, cook or hairdresser). unfortunately, both schools and families tend to invest limited resources in these kinds of activities: sometimes they underestimate the importance and impact of this choice, with negative consequences such as school failure or strong dissatisfaction and poor performance of the students. on the one hand, it can be useful to enable targeted counselling aimed both at students, to help them to understand their psychological characteristics better and to collect information about educational prospects, and to their teachers and parents, so that they can support them (boerchi, d’urso, & pace, 2019). on the other hand, not all students need to be supported and, to optimise the use of limited resources, it could be useful to identify those with greater difficulties to intervene in a targeted and prompt manner. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the anglo-saxon language differentiates between "indecision", indicating an early and normal stage of any decision-making process and therefore a common experience in the life of every individual in relation to career choices (germeijs & de boeck, 2002; germeijs & verschueren, 2007), and "indecisiveness", which "refers to a chronic inability to make decisions in different contexts and situations" (di fabio, palazzeschi, asulin-peretz, & gati, 2013, p. 43). in this second case, it is essential to understand how specific personality characteristics can affect the process of choice, making it difficult. literature, for example, showed that negative relationships exist with extroversion and emotional intelligence and positive relationships exist with introversion (di fabio & palazzeschi, 2009; di fabio et al., 2013). but even if the problem cannot be traced back to a personal and structural limit on decision making, you can still identify a condition of difficulty related to personal or contingent factors that make career choices more difficult. according to gati and levin (2014), there are many factors that, combined, make a career choice more complex and difficult: the number of alternatives to choose from is becoming wider and wider; more and more factors should be taken into account (e.g. the employment context, length of training, choosing to use specific skills such as one's numeric aptitude); there is always greater uncertainty about both themselves and the world of work; most career decisions require more compromises than in the past; customers tend to limit their choices because of social barriers, both real and imaginary; finally, customers are increasingly aware of the importance of their decision and they worry about making the "wrong" choice. it is therefore important to understand if a lack of decision is due to an early stage of decision making, otherwise called "developmental indecision" (guay, ratelle, senécal, larose, & deschênes, 2006; osipow, 1999; tinsley, 1992;), or whether it is a structural element of the personality of the individual (saka & gati, 2007; saka, gati, & kelly, 2008). another possibility could be that it is just becoming a critical issue because of specific difficulties that need to be identified and thus addressed (osipow, 1999). the international literature provides us with different questionnaires, the purpose of which are to investigate what kind of difficulties you are encountering in the process of choosing a training course or a job. concerning indecisiveness, the most suitable questionnaire is the emotional and personalityrelated career decision-making difficulties (epcd; saka & gati, 2007; saka et al., 2008; 53 items). it explores 11 personality traits that may cause chronic career indecision like: pessimistic views (about the process, about the world of work, about one’s control); anxiety (about the process, about uncertainty, about the choice, about the outcomes); self-concept and identity (general anxiety, self-esteem, uncrystallized identity, conflictual attachment and separation). the authors found few gender differences and with small effect size: just for the scale of anxiety about the process (cohen’s d = 0.17), where females had greater difficulties, and for the scales of pessimistic view about the process (d = 0.29), where males had greater difficulties (saka et al., 2008). concerning indecision, kelly and lee (2002) argue that it is possible to identify three approaches, represented by the same number of questionnaires. the first approach is represented by the career decision scale (cds; osipow, 1987), developed from the clinical experience of the author and his colleagues, which is particularly effective in identifying changes related to targeted interventions. the main limitation of this tool is the uncertainty concerning its dimensionality. according to the author, it consists of a scale on certainty, including two items, and of a scale on indecision, comprising of a 16 items scale. but, concerning the scale on indecision, laplante, coallier, sabourin, and martin (1994) and martin, sabourin, laplante, and coallier (1991) argued that it is onedimensional considering just 6 items; kelly and lee (2002) proposed a three-dimensional model comprising of 11 items (identity diffusion, positive choice conflict, tentative decision); schulenberg, shimizu, vondracek, and hostetler (1988) and shimizu, vondracek, schulenberg, and hostetler (1988) identified four factors which include 16 items (negative confusion, positive confusion, desire for support, internal/external barriers). cds boerchi 589 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was adapted into an italian context (nota, ferrari, solberg, & soresi, 2007) on high school students, but its structure was not understandable on this occasion. authors, as a first step, found a four-factor structure, two of them analogous to those proposed by osipow (1987) and, in the end, they decided to average the 16 items as a global index of career indecision: the cronbach alpha coefficient was .81, and no differences were found between males and females in university-preparation school. the second approach is represented by the career factors inventory (cfi; chartrand, robbins, morrill, & boggs, 1990) composed of 21 items and based on the idea that there are two broad categories of problems related to decision making: lack of information and emotional impediments to the completion of the decision-making process. exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a stable structure of four factors: the need for career information; the need for self-knowledge; anxiety related to a career choice; general indecision (structural). the only significant gender difference was on the generalized indecisiveness scale, t(313) = 2.75, p < .01, with women describing themselves as more indecisive. cfi was adapted into an italian context (lo presti, pace, lo cascio, & capuano, 2017) and tested on students attending high school and university: the cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from .87 to .64. the third approach is represented by the career decision-making difficulties questionnaire (cddq; gati, krausz, & osipow, 1996) a 44 item questionnaire developed to test a theoretical taxonomy on the difficulties in career decision-making consisting of 3 categories and 10 subcategories: lack of readiness (lack of motivation, general indecisiveness, and dysfunctional beliefs); lack of information (about the career decision-making process itself, the self, occupations or majors, and ways of obtaining additional information and help) and inconsistent information (unreliable information, internal conflicts, external conflicts). the authors reported cronbach alpha coefficients for israeli and american samples ranging from .63 to .95. despite the wider range of difficulties considered, this questionnaire is limited to cognitive aspects, completely omitting the role of anxiety, as well as no-optimal levels of internal consistency in some scales. cddq was also adapted into an italian context (di fabio & palazzeschi, 2013) and tested on high school and university students: the cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from .87 to .70 and results were similar for women and men. none of the questionnaires considers the role of parents in choosing a school. according to the social cognitive career theory of lent, brown, & hackett (1994), parents represent one of the most important contextual influences proximal to choice behavior. on the one hand, they can provide support; on the other hand, their expectations can influence the choice negatively (boerchi & tagliabue, 2018). schmitt-wilson (2013) found that “perceiving parental expectations, along with the control variable of gender, significantly explained educational expectations” of the students (p. 234). shen, liao, abraham, and weng (2014) found, on a sample of asian americans, that living up to parental expectations influences self-efficacy directly in stereotypical occupations, interests in stereotypical occupations and outcome expectation in stereotypical occupation, and it mediates between these and parental pressure. the limit of these and similar studies is that parental expectations are limited to the intended educational level of child (andres et al., 2007) or academic achievements (wang & heppner, 2002), not to the parental expectations of choosing a specific school, which can be in contrast with child desires producing difficulties in the choice making. the present study some of the questionnaires on difficulties in choosing a school described here feature many items and factors, others have some psychometric limits, and all of them were developed on samples of high school or university students. for an operational use directly managed by teachers and for studies based on the use of a battery of questionnaires, a new scale would be useful featuring by: the representativeness of the most common psychomeasuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school 590 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ logical dimensions highlighted in the previous literature; a small number of items and factors; valid to be used with students from 13 years and older; simple to administer and interpret for teachers and non-psychologist counsellors. the aim of this study, then, was to draft and seek evidence of the reliability and structural validity of a new questionnaire about school choice difficulties by: 1. drafting the questionnaire structure starting from the previous literature; 2. testing the latent factor structure through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis; 3. providing evidence regarding the internal consistency of all the subscales through cronbach's α; 4. providing evidence regarding the concurrent validity of the subscales by testing the hypothesis of positive relation with a scale on an exploration of vocational issues; 5. providing evidence regarding the concurrent validity of the subscales by testing the hypothesis of positive relation with the number of options the students are considering. method participants the research involved 36 middle schools, composed of one to five groups of students. schools were in a specific region in the north of italy with middle and small cities, characterised by having a very wide, but not complete, range of upper secondary schools and some problems of transportation which partially reduce students’ choice. in total, 1495 students, attending the last year, answered the questionnaire. they corresponded to near the whole population of the region: just a few of them didn’t participate at the study or because not present at school, or because of the presence of severe physic or cognitive disabilities. 50.6% were male, and 49.4% were females. participants’ mean age was 12.93 (sd = 0.624), ranging from 11 to 15 (73% were 13 years old). procedure the administration took place in november, two months after the beginning of the school and three months before the deadline of the enrolment to the upper school. because of the aim to provide teachers with an instrument they can use directly, they were asked to administer the paper-pencil version of the questionnaire to their students in the classroom. previously, teachers were provided with clear instructions on how to administer the questionnaire and how to manage students’ possible questions avoiding steering their opinions. the administration was made exclusively after parents’ authorisation and only after clarifying that no one student should feel obligated to participate. measures pecas scale the conception of the questionnaire was to draft a scale characterised by simplicity and inspired to the previous literature. therefore, to design it, four psychologist experts in vocational guidance were involved in the study. boerchi 591 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ they were asked to analyze separately the explanations of each scale of the three questionnaires previously described, cds (osipow, 1987); cfi (chartrand, robbins, morrill, & boggs, 1990); cddq (gati, krausz, & osipow, 1996), and to group the scales for the similarity of the psychological variable assessed without any limitation about the number of clusters. later, they met and agreed on the presence of two main clusters (information and indecisiveness) and two independent scales related to anxiety and barriers (table 1). table 1 analytic classification of psychological dimensions assessed in the literature area career decision scalea career factors inventory career decision-making difficulties questionnaire information desire for support need for career information; need for self-knowledge lack of information; inconsistent information indecisiveness negative confusion; positive confusion general indecision (structural) lack of readiness anxiety ----anxiety related to career choice ----barriers internal/external barriers --------afor the career decision scale, the model of shimizu, vondracek, schulenberg, and hostetler (1988) was used. this taxonomy was the base to develop the new questionnaire, which was drafted to be simple and representative of the four areas of difficulty a student can encounter, but not necessarily exhaustive about all the criticalities connected to school choice. it was composed of the following four subscales: pe – parental expectations — starting from all the barriers a student can encounter, it was decided to concentrate on just one of them that particularly affect the students’ choices. sometimes students feel parents attempt to control too much of their actions and choices about their school. if this happens, they tend to be more confused and passive in the process of career preparation (dietrich & kracke, 2009). the first scale aims to assess if the student feels free or under pressure to respect parents’ expectations. c – confusion — this scale aims to assess the level of the indecisiveness of the student asking if he/she doesn’t feel able to choose because of the wide range of opportunity he/she likes. a – anxiety — this scale aims to assess the level of anxiety the student is feeling because of choice itself or the risk of making a mistake. s – suitability — this is the most complex scale of the questionnaire. it refers to the process of identifying the school, which better fits students’ expectations and abilities. it assesses the feeling of being able to gather information about the self, about the schools and to understand which one can be more suitable to his/her features. each subscale was composed of four items which were drafted selecting and adapting those more congruent with the scales’ content of the instruments previously described. students is requested to indicate how much they agreed with each of them using a five-point likert scale (1 = not at all; 2 = slightly; 3 = moderately; 4 = very; 5 = completely). measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school 592 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exploration of vocational issue scale it is plausible that those students who experience more difficulty in making a school choice will devote more time and energy in searching for information. a positive relation between exploration behaviours and the difficulties assessed by pecas can be considered a confirmation of its validity. it was decided to validate, in italian, the exploration of vocational issue scale of kracke (1997). it is a one-dimensional scale consisting of 6 items. in the original study (236 teenagers, mean age of 15.2 years and sd = .65), it showed a cronbach’s α index of .70. first, all the items were translated and checked with the method of back-translation. then, some items were partially modified to fit the specific choice of this sample of students better: for instance, “i talk to as many people as possible about occupations i am interested in” was modified into “i talk to as many people as possible about school courses i am interested in” (see table 3). to simplify the task of the compilers, it was the same five-point likert scale of pecas was used, instead of the four-point scale of the original version. the situation of the choice another index that is supposed to be related to the difficulties in choosing a school is the situation of the students about choice. those who have already chosen shouldn't feel in difficulty, while those who are still considering a wide range of opportunity is more likely are confused about the choice. thus, a positive relation between the number of courses the student is considering, and the difficulties assessed by pecas is expected, and it can be considered a confirmation of the validity of the questionnaire. the situation of the choice was investigated by a single question, and students distributed quite homogeneously between the four alternatives: 1) “i have already decided which course to enroll” (n = 340, 22.7%); 2) “i am considering two alternatives” (n = 429, 28.7%); 3) “i am considering three alternatives” (n = 383, 25.6%); 4) “i am considering four or more alternatives” (n = 343, 22.9%). results table 2 lists the pecas’ items and their psychometric characteristics: all of them showed to possess a clear normal distribution. table 2 pecas items and their psychometric characteristics code no. item m sd skewness kurtosis pe_1 1 i would choose a course that my parents agree with. 2.60 1.04 0.32 -0.31 pe_2 5 i think that parents are the most suitable people to say if a course is appropriate or not for their children. 2.72 1.05 0.24 -0.44 pe_3 9 i would choose a course that does not disappoint my parents’ expectations. 2.53 1.00 0.30 -0.29 pe_4 13 my parents' opinion is important to me about the courses that i am considering. 2.87 1.00 0.17 -0.27 c_1 2 right now, i consider interest in the same manner of many courses. 2.64 1.06 0.31 -0.52 c_2 6 since i have many interests, i find it hard to choose a course that i like more than all the others. 2.60 1.15 0.36 -0.68 c_3 10 i find many courses interesting that i can choose between. 2.99 1.00 0.03 -0.40 boerchi 593 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ code no. item m sd skewness kurtosis c_4 14 although i know that finally i will have to choose just one, right now there are many courses that attract me. 2.72 1.18 0.31 -0.75 a_1 3 i don't feel calm when i think of the choice of studies i shall make. 2.67 1.16 0.30 -0.72 a_2 7 the idea that i could make the wrong choice of my studies gives me a little bit of anxiety. 3.09 1.21 -0.04 -0.90 a_3 11 i am concerned about the idea that soon i will have to choose which course to do next year. 2.71 1.16 0.26 -0.74 a_4 15 i am nervous when i look for information on courses that i could attend next year. 2.24 1.01 0.69 0.10 s_1 4 i do not know to gather reliable information on the courses i could attend next year. 2.45 1.00 0.46 -0.23 s_2 8 i do not know what are the aptitudes that are needed to face the courses i am considering. 2.88 1.00 0.07 -0.42 s_3 12 i do not know how to assess the reliability of the information provided to me about the different courses. 2.23 0.83 0.47 0.19 s_4 16 i can't understand in which courses i could be more successful. 2.83 1.01 0.13 -0.42 also, all the items of the italian validation of the exploration of vocational issue scale of kracke (1997) adapted to school choices were normally distributed (table 3). confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) confirmed the one-dimensionality of the scale, χ2 = 48.610 (9), p < . 001; rmsea = .054, ci [.040, .070]; cfi = .971, and cronbach’s α was .72. table 3 school version of the exploration of vocational issue scale’s items and their psychometric characteristics no. item m sd skewness kurtosis 1 i talk to as many people as possible about school courses i am interested in 3.04 1.01 0.06 -0.41 2 i try to find out which subjects mostly interest me 3.92 0.86 -0.51 0.05 3 i try to get information about school courses i am interested in, in many possible ways (e.g., reading, talking, internships) 3.50 1.07 -0.31 -0.54 4 i try to find out which school courses best fit my strengths and weaknesses 3.63 0.94 -0.34 -0.21 5 when i seek information about a school course, i also try to find out about its negative aspects 3.23 1.03 -0.09 -0.53 6 i consider various school courses and try to get extensive information about all alternatives 3.29 1.02 -0.10 -0.49 construct validity to verify the structure of the questionnaire, the sample was randomly divided into two subsamples to test both the exploratory factorial analysis (efa; with spss [vesrion 25]) and the cfa (with amos [version 25]) with the maximum likelihood method for both. the two subsamples did not differ significantly both for items‘ psychometrics and gender distribution. efa was conducted on a sample of 748 students, and the number of factors to be extracted was defined comparing eigenvalue > 1 and scree plot criteria. four factors were considered the best measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school 594 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ solution because eigenvalue of the 4th factor was lower but very near to 1 (.931), and screen plot suggested this solution. factor loadings are reported in table 4. table 4 efa factor loadings item 1 2 3 4 a_3 .862 -.005 .031 -.030 a_1 .798 .013 .015 -.075 a_2 .657 .026 .034 .128 a_4 .560 .019 .061 .120 pe_4 -.041 .847 .062 -.033 pe_1 -.004 .685 -.044 -.033 pe_2 .002 .641 -.041 .014 pe_3 .068 .515 .048 .080 c_4 .006 -.042 .852 .067 c_3 -.100 .058 .785 -.036 c_1 .099 .030 .714 -.032 c_2 .110 -.080 .691 .052 s_2 -.033 -.023 -.027 .806 s_4 -.043 .098 .088 .729 s_3 .143 -.014 .038 .364 s_1 .221 .051 -.036 .254 note. in bold are values bigger than .25. the four factors explained 52.22% of the variance, with factors 1 to 4 accounting, respectively, for 29.73%, 11.06%, 7.67%, and 3.21% of the variance. all factors included the same items of the original model with loadings greater than .50, except two items of the scale suitability. cfa was conducted on a sample of 747 students, testing a model consisting of 4 latent variables which affected four items each, and the correlations between the variables. fit indexes confirmed the goodness of the model, χ2 = 326,787 (98), p < .001; rmsea = .056 ci [.049, .063]; cfi = .956). factors loadings were comprised between .57 and .86, and correlations between the factors were all positive and significant with p < .001 (see figure 1 for details). boerchi 595 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. structural model of the pecas. reliability internal consistency was estimated with cronbach’s α on the whole sample and all indexes were good: parental expectations = .77; confusion = .86; anxiety = .85; suitability = .73. concurrent validity all the scales of pecas correlated positively with career exploration, mostly confusion (r = .215, p < .001) followed by parental expectations (r = .151, p < .001), anxiety (r = .135, p < .001) and suitability (r = .105, p < .001). students grouped according to the situation of the choice differed also in their perception of school choice difficulty. just for parental expectations, anova statistics were not significant, f(3) = 1.572; p = .194. at the measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school 596 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ opposite, confusion was the variable which differed more between the four groups, f(3) = 291.261, p < .001, followed by anxiety, f(3) = 64.218, p < .001, and suitability, f(3) = 34.606, p < .001 (figure 2). figure 2. mean pecas scales depending on the situation of the choice. gender differences were all significant, with women with greater scores in all the four scales, but they were very small in effect size, ranging from d = 0.11 for confusion to d = 0.33 for anxiety, as it was for the first study of saka et al. (2008). discussion the objective of this study was to test the psychometric properties of pecas scale, a psychological questionnaire drawn to identify the perception of difficulties related to the choice of upper secondary school for students of the third year of middle school, and it demonstrated to possess very good psychometric features both for reliability and validity. confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of the theorised structure, consisting of 4 scales, in part related to each other, and each one composed of 4 items. also, reliability was good for all scales. to test concurrent validity, the exploration of vocational issue scale (kracke, 1997) was translated and validated in italian, adapting it to school choices and for a very young target. this study confirmed the mono-factorial structure and showed internal consistency in line with the original research. the presence of significant correlations between each scale of pecas and the exploration of vocational issue scales proved a relationship between variables. their modest intensity, on the other hand, showed that the five scales do not overlap and that, therefore, it is suggested to use both to understand the condition of students better. boerchi 597 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and future research directions the main limit of this study lies in the fact that the process of choosing can evolve differently for students and, consequently, their perception of difficulty. subsequent studies should assess the progress of the perception of difficulty by making more administrations in the period from the beginning of the school’s activities of the last year at the time of formalisation of choice. if on the one hand one of the strengths is its simplicity, on the other hand, it is not wide enough to examine, in-depth, the specific difficulties a student can encounter. so, the use of a supplementary questionnaire, like the cddq (gati, krausz, & osipow, 1996) is recommended to understand in more detail the reasons for which a specific student feels difficulty and to be able to proceed with a personalised counselling intervention more focused on his/her needs. even if the structure of the scale and the drafting of the items were inspired to several international questionnaires tested on different samples, this study was led only in one country, and students from just one type of school participated. future studies should test its validity also on students involved in choosing different types of schools and college courses in different countries. future studies could also verify if parental career support (boerchi & tagliabue, 2018) and peer support (muscarà et al., 2018) can play a role in school choice considering the mediation role of parental expectation. moreover, other researchers could further indeep if career decision difficulties are associated with personality traits (martincin & stead, 2015) and emotional intelligence (di fabio et al., 2013). implications for career counseling practice the simplicity of the instrument, both for compiling and interpreting the results, allows teachers, career counsellors, and school psychologists to use it directly to identify students who are experiencing more difficulties in choosing the upper secondary school or the university. this scale may also help them to implement pre-screening on a large number of students to plan guidance projects and to assess the effectiveness of school guidance support. moreover, it can be very useful for researchers because the limited number of items that compose the questionnaire make it suitable to be inserted in questionnaires composed of a large number of scales, reducing the risk of overwhelming respondents and, as a consequence, the risk of reducing the reliability of the data. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school 598 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references andres, l., adamuti-trache, m., yoon, e., pidgeon, m., & thomsen, j. p. 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(2002). assessing the impact of parental expectations and psychological distress on taiwanese college students. the counseling psychologist, 30(4), 582-608. https://doi.org/10.1177/00100002030004006 about the author diego boerchi, phd, assistant professor in developmental psychology at the faculty of education, department of psychology, catholic university of milan. member of the steering committee of the research center for vocational guidance and career counseling (cross) and scientific director of a specialization course in career counseling. research interests: vocational guidance, career counseling, career education, parents' influence on children scholastic choices, career ad education related tests and questionnaires. boerchi 601 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 588–601 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1812 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0036219 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0001-8791%2888%2990015-2 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0001-8791%2892%2990022-r https://doi.org/10.1177%2f00100002030004006 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring difficulties in choosing an upper secondary school (introduction) the present study method participants procedure measures results construct validity reliability concurrent validity discussion limitations and future research directions implications for career counseling practice (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationships between general causality orientations and locus of control with psychopathological symptoms research reports the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationships between general causality orientations and locus of control with psychopathological symptoms i̇hsan dağ a, gamze şen* a [a] department of clinical psychology, hacettepe university, ankara, turkey. abstract the main aim of this study is to investigate the mediator role of perceived social support in the relationship between general causality orientations and locus of control with psychopathological symptoms. total 751 participants were consisted of 558 female ages between 17 and 36 (female m = 19.03, sd = 0.09) (74.3%), 192 male ages between 17 and 37 (male m = 20.71, sd = 0.17) (25.6%) and a participant who did not provide any gender information. we used the general causality orientations scale (gcos) and locus of control scale (locs) in order to understand the basic motivation for the emergence of behavior. beck depression inventory (bdi) used to evaluate the psychological symptoms for depression, maudsley obsessive compulsive inventory (moci) for obsessive-compulsive symptomology and brief symptom inventory (bsi) for overall psychological distress and finally to evaluate mediating role of social support used the perceived social support scale (psss). according to the results, having internal locus of control and autonomy orientation have shown positive effect to statistically significant predictors for psychological symptomology, having external locus of control and impersonal orientation have shown negative effect. perceived social support was found to be suited for the role of partial mediator, and social support from friends was found to have more positive roles than social support from family. in conclusion, exceedingly considerable to conduct further research in order to contribute to the understanding of the mediating role of general causality orientations and locus of control with psychopathology symptomology. keywords: locus of control, perceived social support, psychological symptoms, general causality orientations, ocd, depression europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 received: 2017-11-17. accepted: 2018-02-26. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; nicholas a. kuiper, university of western ontario, london, canada *corresponding author at: department of clinical psychology, hacettepe university, beytepe campus, 06580, ankara, turkey. e-mail: gamzesen@hacettepe.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. causality orientations, as proposed in self determination theory (sdt), differ from rotter’s locus of control in respect to their emphasis on the causality of behaviors. locus of control, which was proposed by rotter (1966) and implemented in social learning models, is one of the prominent concepts in understanding the cognitive processes of behavior (rotter, 1966; skinner, 1996). according to the locus of control concept, individuals are motivated to behave in a specific pattern when they feel that pattern of behaviors will be subsequently reinforced. when these individuals acknowledge the positive or negative outcomes of self-behaviors, they tend to expect similar outcomes from similar behaviors in advance, and so these behaviors become generalized. consequently, individuals might gain a set of expectations (belief systems) about the origin of reinforcements, which are either dependent solely on themselves or are external in origin, such as chance, fate, or other extereurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ nal forces. while the first situation is considered as an internal locus of control, the second situation is taken considered as representing an external locus of control. as the appearance of locus of control coincides with self-determination theory, heider (1958) and decharms (1968) described the source of behaviors’ as being internal, external, and impersonal. in the following years, deci and ryan (1985) studied these terms along with causality orientations, describing them as autonomous, control, and impersonal, respectively. general causality orientations are considered as a set of concepts accounting not only internal processes, but also external processes and motivational states. individuals who follow autonomous orientations initiate or modify their behavior according to their own motives and objectives. these individuals behave through their own choice and tend to acknowledge the origin of their behaviors as the self. the control orientation can be initiated or modified, externally like awarding or internally as “i should do” or “this should be done”. while these individuals seek to find external control, they also acknowledge their surrounding environment as controlling. conversely, in impersonal orientations, initiation and modification of behaviors are under the control of another individual. these individuals do not possess a set of beliefs allowing them to think that they can accomplish objectives and goals by themselves; their behaviors are defined as nonmotivated and non-determined (deci & ryan, 1985). it is important to point out the distinction between the causality orientations of self-determination theory and the locus of control concept proposed by rotter (1966). according to locus of control, the source of behavior is dependent on the pattern of reinforcement (rotter, 1966, 1975, 1990). on the other hand, decharms (1968) proposed that either the source is internal cognitive processes and personal choices, or external pressure or force are the determining factors. in short, while rotter (1966) focused on the outcome of behavior decharms pointed out the importance of priming factors on behaviors. there are several publications in the literature about the importance of locus of control within psychopathologies (baydoğan & dağ, 2008; cheng et al., 2013; dağ, 1992; gülüm & dağ, 2014). however, there are few studies about the priming factors of behavior and their relation to psychological symptoms (brockelman, 2009; mcgregor, mcadams, & little, 2006). studying the origin of behaviors through a combination of both viewpoints (locus of control and causality orientations) which provide different explanations is very important in broadening current understanding and increasing clarification. several important studies point out the importance of the genotype-environment relationship with respect to psychological symptoms. despite similar environments, behaviors have been shown to vary greatly among individuals. as the behavioral tendencies and motivational states of individuals who experience similar environments cannot be assessed without an internal and external concept of control (deci & ryan, 1985, 2000; mcadams & olson, 2010; pelletier et al., 1999; ryan, deci, & grolnick, 1995), the environmental impacts on psychological symptoms, such as positive and negative social support, cannot be separated from the personal concept of control, or motivational states (deci & ryan, 1985; yıldırım, 2004a). in this respect, we have acknowledged social support as variable in order to understand the perception of environment in our study. one purpose of every society is to convey its thought system and values to young people (yörükoğlu, 1992). although the expected behavior patterns of young people are evident in every culture, these expectations may differ due to differences between each culture (akbağ, sayıner, & sözen, 2005). the young people involved in our study are thought to be shaped by their culture, and their perceptions of themselves and their environment are shaped the societal expectations that they grew up with and the environment in which they current live. in this sense, turkey has a rich cultural structure in terms of shaping young people’s perception of social support. sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 532 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procidano and heller (1983) defined social support as an individual’s own subjective judgment about whether they have enough social support to function. social support has been studied extensively from different perspectives (caplan, 1973; lewin, 1951). in following studies, psychological symptoms and well-being have been investigated with regard to social support, and social support has been found to significantly decrease psychological symptoms (wight et al., 2006; yıldırım, 2004a). self determination theory also proposes that with social support, personal well-being is expected to improve (deci & ryan, 1985). however, the tendency to show psychological symptoms in individuals with different personalities has not been studied so far in respect to role of social support. within this framework, the perception of social support is going to be studied in relation to psychological symptoms with general causality orientations and locus of control. until now, discussion of the distinctions and similarities between general causality orientations and locus of control has been very limited in the literature. in this study, while the distinction between causality orientations and locus of control has been emphasized, the relationship of these concepts with psychological symptoms is going to be investigated, with social support as a mediating factor. moreover, clarification of the role of social support — acknowledged as external factor — is thought to be an important mediator between the tendency for psychological symptoms with locus of control and general causality orientations in which motivational state and internal/external control which lie in the base of both locus of control and causality orientations. turkey is known as comprising both western (personal) and eastern (community) psycho-cultural values (kağıtçıbaşı, 2005; sayın, 1987). owing to the socio-cultural diversity of turkey, getting data from different region of the country will provide breadth of understanding in cultural aspect. the period of adolescence is the period when the perception of social support goes from family to friend. it is important for the adolescents to support from both family and friends in turkish culture (yörükoğlu, 1992). for this reason, our study has been conducted with participants who have were bachelor students with an age range of 17 to 37 in order to best observe the effect of social support. in this study, participants are assessed for emerging psychological symptoms along with general causality orientations and locus of control, with social support being a partial mediator. in order to expand the scope of study and investigate different cultural backgrounds, students from 10 different turkish universities have been incorporated into the study. methods participants to conduct this research, 799 undergraduate students (568 female, 227 male, 4 did not want to specify gender) were recruited. participants in different universities were reached by random assignment and participation in the research is voluntary. permission has already been granted for the application from these universities. the presence of the participant's reported psychiatric diagnosis is the only criterion for exclusion. the data of 16 participants were not included in the study, because they had a psychiatric diagnosis and were on medication. once the rest of the data is obtained, the homogeneity of the variances and normal distributions from the basic assumptions of the statistic was tested. subsequently, the data of the participants who were outside the normal distribution were examined. it was found that these participants responded randomly or left blank to an unacceptable level. according to results of the analysis therefore, the data of 32 participants outside the normal distribution were removed from the study, resulting in a final sample of 751 comprising 558 females (74.3%), dağ & şen 533 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 192 males (25.6%), and 1 participant with unknown gender. the demographic distribution of participants is shown in table 1a and table 1b. table 1a sample distribution of age, and gender gender n minimum age maximum age m sd female 558 17 36 19.93 2.32 male 192 17 37 20.71 2.38 total 750 17 37 20.14 2.36 table 1b sample distribution of university university region participants percent erzincan university eastern anatolia 31 4.1 gazi university central anatolia 89 11.9 i̇zmir university aegean region of anatolia 100 13.3 konya university central anatolia 76 10.1 çukurova university mediterranean region of anatolia 33 4.4 i̇stanbul bilim university marmara region of anatolia 100 13.3 antalya university mediterranean region of anatolia 92 12.3 ufuk university marmara region of anatolia 46 6.1 dicle university southeastern region of anatolia 87 11.6 ondokuzmayıs university black sea region of anatolia 97 12.9 total 751 100.0 measures and materials general causality orientation scale (gcos; deci & ryan, 1985): autonomy, control, and impersonal orientations were measured by the gcos (deci & ryan, 1985); a turkish adaptation of the scale was developed by şen and dağ (2016). the original gcos consisted of 3 subscales and 40 items which comprise autonomous orientations (16 items), impersonal orientations (14 items), and control orientations (10 items). each item of the gcos is rated on a 7-point scale. the reliability and validity of the gcos has been demonstrated (şen & dağ, 2016). in this study, cronbach’s alpha values are .86 for autonomy, .71 for control and, .76 for impersonal; the test-retest coefficient throughout a 3-week period was .81 for the total scale. the total variance of the entire scale is reported as 32.4%. locus of control scale (locs; rotter, 1966): following the pioneering works of phares (1957) and james (1957), rotter (1966) developed the scale with the aim of investigating the perspective (interior-exterior) of individuals toward generalized control expectations. moreover, the scale is established in way that it enables the measurement of general expectations or beliefs, to test whether reinforcements are under control of external (chance, fate) or internal forces. the turkish adaptation of the locus of control scale, developed by dağ (2002), consisted of 5-point likert-type scale with a total of 47 items. higher total scores relates to the increase in external locus of control. the turkish version of the scale had a cronbach alpha coefficient of .92, and a sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 534 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ monthly interval test-retest reliability coefficient of .88 (dağ, 2002). in this study the cronbach’s alpha is .90 for the total scale. beck depression inventory (bdi; beck, ward, mendelson, mock, & erbaugh, 1961): the original scale was developed (beck et al., 1961), and is a widely used self-report tool for assessing depressive symptoms; it consists of 21 items, each of which is rated on a 4-point scale. the aim of this scale not to diagnose depression, but rather to identify the symptoms of depression and their severity. the turkish adaptation of the scale was developed by hisli (1988, 1989). turkish adaptation version was used for this research. higher scores on the bdi represent the greater severity of depressive symptoms. arkar and şafak (2004) reported a cronbach’s alpha value of .90 for the turkish adaptation of the bdi. in this study the total scale had a cronbach’s alpha value of .89. perceived social support scale (psss; procidano & heller, 1983): the original scale was developed by procidano and heller (1983) and aimed to measure the level of perceived social support from friends, family, and teachers. the turkish adaptation of psss was developed by yıldırım (1997) and consists of a total of 50 items. only the family and friends’ aspects are used as a part of this research. responses are recorded in a triple grading format (suits me = 1, partially suitable = 2, not suitable for me = 3). cronbach’s alpha values of total psss, the friends and family aspects .93, .91, and .93 respectively; test-retest reliability of these were .89, .86, and .86 (yıldırım, 2004b). in this study the cronbach’s alpha for the total scale was .93. maudsley obsessive compulsive inventory (moci; sanavio & vidotto, 1985): the moci was used to investigate obsessive compulsive symptoms. the instrument was found to reliably discriminate between obsessional patients and normal controls, and between patients with anorexia nervosa versus those with anxiety disorders. the turkish adaptation of the scale was developed by erol and savaşır (1988). the moci contains 37 items in a true-false format. the moci is a form of self-report scale, participants fill out themselves (sanavio & vidotto, 1985). higherscores indicate a rise in obsessive-compulsive symptoms. in this study the cronbach’s alpha value for the total scale was .81. brief symptom inventory (bsi; derogatis, 1992): the bsi is an instrument that evaluates psychological distress and psychiatric disorders. the bsi is a 53-item self-report scale that uses a 5 point likert scale (derogatis, 1992; şahin & durak, 1994). rising scores reflect an increase in symptom severity. the turkish version of the bsi was found to consist of 5 factors during psychometric analysis: “anxiety,” “depression,” “negative self,” “somatization,” and “hostility.” the cronbach's alpha values of these factors were .87, .88, .87, .75, and .76 respectively. procedure this study, which is a part of project founded by the scientific and technological research council of turkey (tubitak) (project no.114k086), attained the necessary permissions from the hacettepe university ethics commission. the aim of the main study is to determine the variables affecting the psychological well-being of the individuals at the university level and to test a model that assesses variables that have positive intermediary role. owing to the total size of the results, the findings that include part of the study are presented in this research paper. dağ & şen 535 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ after obtaining written permission from the participating universities, questionnaire booklets were administered to participants during class by researchers. booklets took approximately 45-50 minutes to complete. the scales were listed in a different order to remove the order effect. participants were informed in writing about the study and written consent was obtained. when the data of the study were analyzed, the correlation values between the scales and the subscales were included in addition to the mean, standard deviation and standard error values of the variables. finally, path analysis was conducted and the model was tested via structural equation modeling. data was analyzed using spss 20.0 and amos 23.0 software. results firstly, the data was examined to check the basic assumptions of multivariate statistics, namely: normality, linearity, and homogeneity of variance. once these assumptions had been verified, data analysis progressed to the next stage. descriptive statistics for male and female subscale, psss, locs, and gcos are shown in table 2. table 2 descriptive statistics for male and female subscale, psss, locs, and gcos variable female (558) male (192) m sd se m sd se gcos-autonomy 90.59 11.51 0.48 83.85 14.47 0.41 gcos-control 42.97 8.07 0.34 43.19 7.05 0.50 gcos-impersonal 45.74 11.16 0.47 46.31 10.63 0.76 locsinternal 75.28 11.54 0.46 79.90 12.96 0.43 locsexternal 46.91 9.91 0.43 45.91 10.51 0.51 locs-total 122.34 16.10 0.68 120.57 17.42 0.57 psss 42.29 8.36 0.36 45.92 11.10 0.80 psss-friends 16.12 3.80 0.16 18.08 5.12 0.37 psss-family 26.21 6.38 0.27 27.88 7.50 0.54 bdi 12.07 9.27 0.39 12.34 9.68 0.69 moci 14.93 5.61 0.23 13.74 5.81 0.42 bsi 57.83 34.93 0.65 58.20 31.65 0.53 note. gcos = general causality orientations scales; locs = locus of control scale; psss = perceived social support scale; bdi = beck depression inventory; moci = maudsley obsessional-compulsive inventory; bsi = brief symptom inventory. otherwise, the correlations for general causality orientations, locus of control, perceived social support, depressive symptoms, psychological symptoms, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms are presented in table 3. in the first model based on gcos, three indicator variables (autonomous, control and impersonal orientation) were constructed using the parcel method based on exploratory factor analysis to show the latent variable (see hall et al., 1999 for more information on the parcel method). in the second model on which the locus of control is based, two indicator variables (internal and external locus of control) were constructed using the parcel method based on exploratory factor analysis to illustrate latent variables. analyzes were made using the maximum likelihood method and based on the model testing. when assessing compliance indices, it was used in the compilation of hooper, coughlan, and mullen (2008). analyzes were made using structural equation models. sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 536 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlation matrix of research variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. gcosimpersonal 2. gcos-control .19** 3. gcosautonomy -.13** .32** 4. moci .30** .20** -.06 5. locs-total .25** .06 -.18** .23** 6. locsexternal .26** .23** -.07 .28** .79** 7. locsinternal .13** -.16** -.27** .00 .70** .21** 8. bsi .38** .13** .11** .46** .25** .34** .04 9. psss-family .18** -.03 -.17** .11** .11** .12** .05 .30** 10. psss-friends .19** -.06 -.27** .11** .13** .01** .13** .25** .41** 11. psss .22** -.05 -.24** .12** .14** .13** .09** .33** .91** .74** 12. bdi .34** .04 -.17** .40** .23** .27** .09** .68** .32** .29** .23** note. gcos = general causality orientations scales; gcosimpersonal = impersonal orientations; gcos-control = control orientations; gcosautonomy = autonomous orientations; moci = maudsley obsessional-compulsive inventory; locs = locus of control scale; bsi = brief symptom inventory; psss = perceived social support scale; bdi = beck depression inventory. *p < .05. **p < .01. baron and kenny (1986) proposed a set of concept to be examined for analysis of mediating role; which was used to investigate the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between locus of control and general causality orientations with psychological symptoms. baron and kenny (1986) laid out 4 step requirements that must be met to form a true mediation relationship. accordingly, whether a variable act as a mediator variable depends on whether it encounters a four-digit list of criteria. a number of regression analysis and sobel tests are required to test these criteria. using this method, path analysis was conducted to ascertain the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between locus of control and general causality orientations with psychological symptoms (depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general psychological symptoms). detailed information of the analysis can be seen in table 4, results of the analysis for male and female can also be seen in table 5. dağ & şen 537 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 p at h a na ly si s s um m ar y of g en er al c au sa lit y o rie nt at io ns a nd l oc us o f c on tro l m ed ia to r ( ps ss ) v ar ia bl e: s ub -d im en si on ef fe ct o f m ed ia to r v ar ia bl e on p re di ct ed v ar ia bl e (p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s) d ep re ss iv e sy m pt om s o c d s ym pt om ol og y g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s so be l t es t to ta l v ar ia nc e so be l t es t to ta l v ar ia nc e so be l t es t to ta l v ar ia nc e g en er al c au sa lit y o rie nt at io n a ut on om y or ie nt at io n fa m ily s up po rt -4 .1 5* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 4% ) -2 .4 6* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 0% ) -3 .9 5* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 0% ) fr ie nd s up po rt -5 .6 5* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 8% ) -2 .7 9* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 0% ) -5 .5 4* * p ar tia l m od er at in g (6 % ) c on tr ol o rie nt at io n fa m ily s up po rt -0 .7 1 n on e -0 .6 9 n on e -0 .7 9 n on e fr ie nd s up po rt -1 .9 3* p ar tia l m od er at in g (3 % ) -1 .6 5 n on e -1 .9 2* p ar tia l m od er at in g (3 % ) im pe rs on al o rie nt at io n fa m ily s up po rt 4. 66 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 3% ) 2. 55 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 1% ) 4. 38 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 5% ) fr ie nd s up po rt 4. 51 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 4% ) 2. 61 * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 1% ) 4. 41 * p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 2% ) lo cu s of c on tr ol in te rn al lo cu s of c on tr ol fa m ily s up po rt 3. 04 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (8 % ) 2. 16 * p ar tia l m od er at in g (6 % ) 2. 96 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (8 % ) fr ie nd s up po rt 1. 96 * p ar tia l m od er at in g (4 % ) 1. 69 n on e 1. 99 * p ar tia l m od er at in g (4 % ) ex te rn al lo cu s of c on tr ol fa m ily s up po rt 1. 31 n on e 1. 21 n on e 1. 31 n on e fr ie nd s up po rt 3. 38 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (9 % ) 2. 33 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (7 % ) 3. 31 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g (1 0% ) *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 538 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 5 s um m ar y of p at h a na ly si s fo r g en er al c au sa lit y o rie nt at io ns a nd l oc us o f c on tro l b y g en de r pr ed ic tin g va ria bl e d ep re ss iv e sy m pt om s o c d s ym pt om ol og y g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s so be l t es t ex pl an at io n so be l t es t ex pl an at io n so be l t es t ex pl an at io n g en er al c au sa lit y o rie nt at io n: p er ce iv ed s oc ia l s up po rt f ro m f am ily fe m al e a ut on om y -3 .0 9* * p ar tia l m od er at in g -1 .9 7* * p ar tia l m od er at in g -3 .0 1* * p ar tia l m od er at in g c on tro l -0 .2 4 n on e 0. 25 n on e -0 .2 4 n on e im pe rs on al 2. 81 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g 2. 17 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 3. 86 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g m al e a ut on om y -1 .9 6* p ar tia l m od er at in g -1 .4 7 n on e 1. 92 * p ar tia l m od er at in g c on tro l -1 .0 4 n on e -0 .9 5 n on e -1 .4 5 n on e im pe rs on al 2. 14 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 1. 54 n on e 2. 08 * p ar tia l m od er at in g g en er al c au sa lit y o rie nt at io n: p er ce iv ed s oc ia l s up po rt f ro m f rie nd s fe m al e a ut on om y -5 .0 0* * p ar tia l m od er at in g -2 .1 6* p ar tia l m od er at in g -4 .1 4* * p ar tia l m od er at in g c on tro l -1 .4 9 n on e -1 .2 8 n on e -1 .4 8 n on e im pe rs on al 3. 28 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g 1. 98 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 3. 17 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g m al e a ut on om y -3 .1 5* * p ar tia l m od er at in g -2 .2 2* * p ar tia l m od er at in g -2 .9 0* * p ar tia l m od er at in g c on tro l -0 .9 8 n on e -0 .9 4 n on e -0 .9 6 n on e im pe rs on al 3. 13 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g 2. 21 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 3. 13 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g lo cu s of c on tr ol : p er ce iv ed s oc ia l s up po rt f ro m f am ily fe m al e in te rn al lo cu s of c on tro l 3. 07 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g 1. 98 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 2. 98 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g e xt er na l l oc us o f c on tro l 1. 54 n on e 1. 31 n on e 1. 52 n on e m al e in te rn al lo cu s of c on tro l 1. 04 n on e 0. 94 n on e 1. 03 n on e e xt er na l l oc us o f c on tro l 1. 56 n on e 1. 28 n on e 1. 54 n on e lo cu s of c on tr ol : p er ce iv ed s oc ia l s up po rt f ro m f rie nd s fe m al e in te rn al lo cu s of c on tro l 2. 06 n on e 1. 58 n on e 2. 03 n on e e xt er na l l oc us o f c on tro l 2. 68 n on e 1. 89 n on e 2. 62 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g m al e in te rn al lo cu s of c on tro l 1. 67 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 1. 47 n on e 1. 63 n on e e xt er na l l oc us o f c on tro l 2. 41 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g 1. 97 * p ar tia l m od er at in g 2. 29 ** p ar tia l m od er at in g *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. dağ & şen 539 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ according to the analysis, the measurement model was found to have adequate fit indices, resulting in no need for correction. in this case, the identical structural model and measurement overlap. in relation to the tested structural models, the relationships between locus of control and overall psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology, and depressive symptoms were tested with amos 23, and the explained variance values are shown in figure 1. when the model solely was tested for females, a fit index (χ2(27, n = 558) = 569.059, p < .001, gfi = 0.94, agfi = 0.93, nfi = 0.90, cfi = 0.92, rmsa = 0.066). the tested structural model’s relationship in terms of locus of control for males is shown in figure 1. when the model alone is tested, it was found to have a fit index (χ2(64, n = 192) = 325.667, p < .001, gfi = 0.97, agfi = 0.94, nfi = 0.84, cfi = 0.91, rmsa = 0.071) for psychological symptoms (depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general psychological symptoms). fit indices of the measurement model for locus of control and psychological symptoms (depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general causality orientations) are shown in table 6, for females and males separately. figure 1. the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between locus of control and psychological symptoms. n.b: while emboldened significance values show the significant relations of males, other, non-emboldened values display the significant relationships for females. according to the tested structural models, the relationships between general causality orientations and overall psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology, and depressive symptoms were tested with amos 23 and the explained variance values shown in figure 2. when the model alone is tested, it was found to have a fit index (χ2(27, n = 558) = 469.987, p < .001, gfi = 0.96, agfi = 0.93, nfi = 0.91, fci = 0.94, rmsa = 0.069). the tested structural model’s relationships between general causality orientations and overall psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology, and depressive symptoms were tested with amos 23 and the explained variance values for males are shown in figure 2. when the model is examined in relation to psychological symptoms, it sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 540 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was found to have a fit index (χ2 = 80.325, sd = 33, p < .001). given the significant value (χ2(30, n = 192) = 469,987, p < .001, gfi = 0.97, agfi = 0.94, nfi = 0.92, fci = 0.94, rmsa = 0.078). fit indices of the measurement model for general causality orientations and psychological symptoms (depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general causality orientations) are shown in table 6 for females and males separately. figure 2. the mediating role of perceived social support in the relationship between general causality orientations and psychological symptoms. n.b: while emboldened significance values show the significant relations of males, other, nonemboldened values display the significant relationships for female. according to our results, when perceived social support from family has a partial mediating role in the relationship between autonomous orientation, impersonal orientation, and psychological symptoms (general psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology, and depressive symptoms), control orientations do not play a significant role in any psychological symptoms. the variance explained by the mediating role of perceived social support from family ranges from 10% to 15% when perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between autonomous orientation, impersonal orientation, and psychological symptoms (general psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology and depressive symptoms), the variance explained by the mediating role of perceived social support from friends ranges from 3% to 18%. however, while perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between control orientation and depressive symptoms, general psychological symptoms have a partial mediating role. on the other hand, it does not have a mediating role in the relationship between control orientations and ocd symptomology. dağ & şen 541 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 6 in de x of c om pl ia nc e m ea su re d by s tru ct ur al e qu at io n m od el in g (n = 7 50 , f em al e = 55 8, m al e = 19 2) pr ed ic te d va ria bl e χ2 g fi a g fi n fi c fi r m se a lo cu s of c on tr ol fe m al e d ep re ss io n χ2 (3 8, n = 5 58 ) = 1 78 .9 82 0. 96 0. 94 0. 94 0. 95 0. 06 6 o c d χ2 (3 8, n = 5 58 ) = 2 37 .8 85 0. 97 0. 95 0. 84 0. 86 0. 08 0 g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s χ2 (3 3, n = 5 58 ) = 1 25 .5 32 0. 97 0. 95 0. 94 0. 96 0. 07 8 w ho le m od el χ2 (2 7, n = 5 58 ) = 5 69 .0 59 0. 94 0. 93 0. 90 0. 92 0. 06 6 m al e d ep re ss io n χ2 (3 2, n = 1 92 ) = 1 12 .9 74 0. 89 0. 86 0. 83 0. 80 0. 08 6 o c d χ2 (3 8, n = 1 92 ) = 1 22 .4 88 0. 92 0. 91 0. 82 0. 88 0. 08 4 g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s χ2 (3 8, n = 1 92 ) = 1 26 .1 91 0. 95 0. 94 0. 87 0. 92 0. 08 6 w ho le m od el χ2 (6 4, n = 1 92 ) = 3 25 .6 67 0. 97 0. 94 0. 84 0. 91 0. 07 1 g en er al c au sa lit y or ie nt at io ns fe m al e d ep re ss io n χ2 (1 6, n = 5 58 ) = 5 2. 79 7 0. 98 0. 96 0. 97 0. 98 0. 05 1 o c d χ2 (2 8, n = 5 58 ) = 6 9. 71 9 0. 96 0. 94 0. 94 0. 96 0. 05 2 g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s χ2 (3 1, n = 5 58 ) = 1 13 .4 36 0. 97 0. 95 0. 96 0. 97 0. 06 9 w ho le m od el χ2 (2 7, n = 5 58 ) = 4 69 .9 87 0. 96 0. 93 0. 91 0. 94 0. 06 9 m al e d ep re ss io n χ2 (1 8, n = 1 92 ) = 5 3. 57 1 0. 97 0. 95 0. 98 0. 96 0. 05 9 o c d χ2 (2 9, n = 1 92 ) = 6 2. 12 9 0. 96 0. 94 0. 98 0. 97 0. 06 1 g en er al p sy ch ol og ic al s ym pt om s χ2 (3 3, n = 1 92 ) = 8 0. 42 5 0. 94 0. 93 0. 91 0. 94 0. 08 7 w ho le m od el χ2 (3 0, n = 1 92 ) = 4 69 .9 87 0. 97 0. 94 0. 92 0. 94 0. 07 8 n ot e. f or a ll χ2 t es ts p < .0 01 . sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 542 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ according to the results, when perceived social support from family has a partial mediating role in the relationship between internal locus of control and psychological symptoms (general psychological symptoms, ocd symptomology, and depressive symptoms), external locus of control does not have a significant role in any psychological symptoms. the variance explained by the mediating role of perceived social support from family ranges from 4% to 8%. when perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between internal locus of control, depressive symptoms, and general psychological symptoms, but it does not have any mediating roles in external locus of control and ocd symptomology. as a partial mediator, perceived social support from friends has a role in the relationship between external locus of control and psychological symptoms. the explained variance of perceived social support from friends as a mediator ranges from 4% to 10%. analysis among both genders revealed that while perceived social support from family plays a partial role in respect to the relationships of internal locus of control with ocd symptomology, depressive symptoms, and general psychological symptom levels for female, in the case of support received from friends, locus of control has taken solely a partial role in depressive symptoms and general psychological symptoms. moreover, friends' support data did not show any significant relationships with ocd symptomology. when it comes to female, perceived social support from family has no significant mediating roles relating to external locus of control; but as a mediator, perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between external locus of control and general psychosocial symptoms. in relation to men, perceived social support from family had no mediating role in the relationships of internal locus of control; however, as a mediator, perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between internal locus of control and depressive symptoms. on the other hand, perceived social support from friends has a partial mediating role in the relationship between external locus of control and depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general psychological symptoms. discussion in our study, the relationship between general causality orientations and locus of control with psychological symptoms was analyzed while perceived social support was accounted as partial mediator. this kind of model has been studied for the first time in turkey. the confusion about general causality orientations and locus of control, which has been discussed in the literature extensively (soenens et al., 2005; vansteenkiste & sheldon, 2006), was clarified in our study. to underline the distinctive properties between these variables, each variable was analyzed separately and collectively as a partial mediator (figure 1 and 2), and those analyses provided valuable insights about this distinction. the proportions of female and male participating in the study are not equal. in this respect, data was sub-categorized according to gender and displayed separately. analysis via structural equation modeling provided very well fitting indexes for both genders. data obtained in this study was first analyzed according to general causality orientations, then locus of control variables have been discussed in respect to sub-categories of social support; support of family and friends. moreover, the impact of culture was also evaluated in our study. obtained data about general causality orientations in this study support and confirm the previous findings of deci and ryan (1985). in both studies, autonomous individuals showed a reduced tendency to experience psydağ & şen 543 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ chological symptoms. moreover, the finding of an increased tendency toward psychological symptoms in impersonal individuals is also consistent with previous literature (deci & ryan, 1987, 2008; brockelman, 2009; sadabadi et al., 2011). in addition to this finding, social support, which has never been studied in this context as partial mediator, was demonstrated to decrease psychological symptoms in autonomous and impersonal individuals. however, social support was not completely unnoticeable in individuals who are control oriented. in control oriented individuals, the source of social support was proven to be important. while social support was not a partial mediator when received from family, support from friends significantly improved psychological wellbeing and decreased depressive symptoms. the reason behind this result might be owing to the escalation of distance between generations in nuclear-families (kağıtçıbaşı, 1970), lack of communication and problem solving among family members (cerit, 2007), increased clashes among family members during adolescence (özgüven, 2001), and variations of support, interest, and communication of family depending on their socioeconomic status (genez muluk, 2004; kağıtçıbaşı et al., 2001; ulusavaş, 1990). moreover, since 84% of the individuals who participated in the study are bachelor students who are living with friends instead of family, the shift of social support from family to friends is considered to be an important factor about this finding (hortaçsu et al., 1991; lee, 2011). the impact of social support for individuals with an internal or external locus of control on psychological symptoms was emphasized in our study. support coming from family to individuals with internal locus of control exerted its effect on well-being by decreasing psychological symptoms. on the other hand, family support did not show any significant effect on individuals with external locus of control. this finding leads us to question whether social support from family is suitable as a partial mediator because there are several studies showing that individuals with an external locus have a higher tendency to experience psychological symptoms (baydoğan & dağ, 2008; dağ, 1992; daniels & guppy, 1994; erol et al., 2000; ryff, 1989). these circumstances indicate that an individual's perception of their family’s social support directly regulates psychological status as a partial mediator. moreover, the mediating roles of families' and friends' support between locus of control and psychological symptoms (depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general psychological symptoms) was investigated via pathway analysis, and interpreted with reference to the previous literature. although the theory is not in accordance with our study, we advise following studies to test alternative models in which the roles of variables are switched for mediator role. sub-categorical analysis of gender showed that only females demonstrated significant partial mediating roles for family social support in relationship between locus of control and psychological symptoms. we think that this finding can be interpreted through the nature of internal locus of control. internal locus of control combined with the beliefs of self-control might have diminished psychological symptoms (dağ, 1992; meijer et al., 2002). in traditional turkish families, female’s beliefs about self-control and prolongation of well-being are thought to be highly correlated with families' social support. cumulative analysis of families' social support revealed significant correlations between autonomy orientation, impersonal orientation, and internal locus of control with psychological symptoms. however, no significant correlation was found between control orientation and external locus of control with psychological symptoms. despite significant correlations reported in western literature about general causality orientations and locus of control (deci & ryan, 1985, 1987; williams et al., 1996), findings about impersonal orientations and external locus of control emphasize the importance of the distinction between these two personality types. self determination theory, as it states initiation, regulation, and continuation of behavior are not only affected by external stimuli, but more importantly influenced from internal motivations. this provides important clues to clarify this our findings. because impersonal orientation is affected by both consequences of behaviors and motivation (deci & sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 544 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ryan, 1985; hagger & chatzisarantis, 2011; olesen, 2011; olesen, thomsen, schnieber, & tønnesvang, 2010). especially, the conclusion, that external locus of control, which emphasizing external stimuli (social support) and showing no significant correlation, and impersonal orientations, pointing out the importance of motivation and internal stimuli and demonstrate significant correlation of interactive connection between internal and external processes. moreover, the validated contributions of family support might be based on motivation triggered by external processes (deci & ryan, 1985; koestner & zuckerman, 1994). discouraging children’s independence is frequently observed in families in turkey, and more seriously, the independent personal development of children does seem to pose a threat to families (kağıtçıbaşı, 1984). owing to these phenomena, families will try to raise an obedient child having strong ties to family, even when they settle to a new location. however, this kind of parenting does not guarantee a strong attachment to family. as kağıtçıbaşı (1970) stated, acting scrutinizing behaviors toward children cannot be accounted as loving or being supportive in turkish family structure and these two notions are totally separate from each other. especially for girls in turkey, this securative behaviors show themselves as conservative and in turkish culture, this effect is more noticeable compared to boys. data obtained in this study also strongly support these notions. social support coming from friends has shown significant effects on the relationships between autonomous and impersonal orientations and depressive symptoms, ocd symptomology, and general psychological symptoms. however, the impact of social support was not similar to control oriented individuals. those individuals experienced increased general psychological symptoms and depressive symptoms, but not ocd symptomology. control orientation was not significant for both gender. an important feature of the gcos is that each subscale does not sub-categorize or separate individuals. this lies in the nature of general causality orientations being more dimensional than categorical. at each subscale, rather than a separation, each individual should be considered to take a place on an axis; to illustrate, control oriented individuals should be considered and analyzed on an autonomous and impersonal axis (deponte, 2004). the investigation of individuals with an internal or external locus of control (with the partial mediator of friends’ social support) disclose significant relationships between internal locus of control, depressive symptoms, and psychological symptoms, but not with ocd symptomology. moreover, gender-based analysis illustrated significant relationships between internal locus of control and psychological symptoms solely in males. this kind of difference is thought to be the result of variations in sub-dimensions of locus of control. in the literature, there are discussions about variations in sub-dimensions of control individuals, and they review the expansion of female’s social networks and how they might have an impact on these variations (sherman et al., 1997). however, since we investigated internal and external locus of control in two dimensions only, this kind of analysis could not be inferred from our study. it is well known that individuals at university level initiate distant relations with family, at which point perceived support shifts from family to friends (lee, 2011). our study supports this notion but it does not explain the gender difference. our study illustrates that suitable independent variables for depressive symptoms are impersonal orientation, autonomous orientation, and external locus of control. while increasing impersonal orientation and locus of control causes elevated depressive symptoms levels; increased autonomous orientation related to declining depressive symptoms levels. moreover, when social support is accounted for as a partial mediator, the perceived social supports showed distinct results. perceived support coming from friends was shown to be much more effective in reducing depressive symptoms levels, rather than family. previous research on the topic shows that students who are living far away from family require more psychological support (i̇mamoğlu & yasak-gültekin, 1993), and decreased family support is correlated with increased psychological symptoms (armsden & greenberg, 1987; bayram, 1999; wentzel, 1998). there are also some studies which point out the importance dağ & şen 545 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of family toward the progression of depressive symptoms (chou, 1999; juang & silbereisen, 1999) while some other studies relate importance of elevated friends support on declined depressive symptoms (wentzel, 1998). moreover, chou's (1999) research showed that friend’s support has independent effects on personal well-being and an increased number of friends are associated with positive emotions. since all of these findings are covered in our study, new analyses were established, and those analyses revealed that the majority of students were senior university students (78%). accordingly, our study showed that junior and senior university students give more importance to friends than freshman (sophomore) university students. previous studies of depressive symptoms that describe social support as an important factor for treatment, showed that lack of perceived social support is recognized as an initiator and maintenance factor for depressive symptoms, and found that depressive symptoms increase without social support (paykel, 1994). moreover, perceived social support was found to be critical for depressive symptoms treatment in the early phases (brugha et al., 1997). in our study, most of the participants were far away from their hometown and living with friends in other cities. especially, while assessing the risk factors and managing protective measures for psychological well-being of freshman and sophomore students, different effects of perceived social support should not be neglected and must be implemented as critical factors. suitable independent variables for ocd symptomology were impersonal orientations, control orientation, and external locus of control. an increase in each of these variables was associated with elevated ocd symptomology levels. while social support has partial mediator effects, symptoms for both impersonal orientation and external locus of control were decreased. however, this effect has not been observed for ocd symptomology when control orientation has a mediating role, and neither perceived support of family nor friends has an effect on ocd symptomology levels. control orientation was studied as an independent variable while conducting pathway analysis combined with literature. however, another study (neighbors et al., 2006) in which these variables were in a different order and different theories were tested, showed that control orientation has significant contributions as a partial mediator. we advise to future studies to include control orientation as a partial mediator as well. when perceived social support is considered as a partial mediator, the source of support is proven to be important. while perceived social support is a partial mediator, and received from family, individuals having an external locus of control experienced reduced ocd symptomology although this situation might have arisen because of the probable co-existence of depressive symptoms and ocd symptomology (andrews et al., 2002; pigott et al., 1994), it might have happened due to the impact of depressive symptoms on cognitive functions, leading to vulnerability for ocd symptomology, or statistically masking symptoms of depressive symptoms toward ocd symptomology (rachman, 1998). according to the findings of our study, the most suitable independent variables for general psychological symptoms are impersonal orientations and external locus of control. in most cases where both perceived support from family and friends are partial mediators, a significant decrease in psychological symptoms was observed. only in the situation where social support from family is a partial mediator, reduced psychological symptoms were detected in individuals having an external locus of control. in our study, the most applicable dependent variables are depressive symptoms, general psychological symptoms level, and ocd symptomology, respectively. sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms 546 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion there were some limitations in our study, namely the fact that all the data acquired in this study was based on self-reports. although covering many students from different cities expands the breadth and replicability of the study, comprising only university students limits both age and educational levels, and results in a limited sample in turkey. therefore, the results obtained in terms of age and culture-dependent features can be mentioned. however, choosing university students who are in transition from puberty to adulthood is representative of an important part of society. in addition, these findings can better help us inform protective psychological measures for these individuals. however, involving other age groups in future studies will expand the knowledge about age group differences and their interpretations. furthermore, since our study does not comprise clinical samples, the findings present limitations about their clinical use. on the other hand, our study focused more on testing models and differentiating theoretical variances across different cultural backgrounds, rather than clinical findings. it will be advantageous for future studies to include clinical samples. non-equal distribution of our sampling in regard to gender presents difficulties when analyzing gender specific differences. owing to this factor, our study does not provide a comparative analysis between gender, and analyses for each gender were performed separately. although the sample for male is tried to be expanded, because of in-equal number of individuals gender in departments and voluntary basis, this effort could not be completely accomplished. including more male individuals will broaden the study and enable comparative studies about gender. as expected from the literature, the established model was confirmed to be productive for undergraduate students in turkey. sub-dimensions of causality orientations and locus of control were analyzed in detail and different results from western culture were obtained. this difference was discussed and thought to be based on for undergraduate students in turkey. especially, gender and attitudes toward raising children are considered to be the main reasons for this difference. perceived social support was found to be suited for the role of partial mediator, and social support from friends was found to have more positive roles than social support from family. as age, environment, and the distance from family were account for in this study, we were able to make critical deductions. since other similar studies are focused on individualistic cultures, owing to mosaic nature of turkey, our findings provided prosperity and variance to the literature, and reveal the variances of similar studies in different cultures. finally, general causality orientations, locus of control, perceived social support acting as variables showing different psychological symptoms can be used in different models and can assume different partial mediating roles. funding this study is a part of project founded by the scientific and technological research council of turkey (tubitak) (project no.114k086). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing 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(1992). çocuk ve ruh sağlığı [child and mental health] (17. baskı) i̇stanbul, turkey: özgür yayınları. about the authors i̇hsan dağ is a faculty member of hacettepe university department of psychology, clinical psychology program since 1984; and former chairperson of the department; and a former president of turkish psychological association. gamze sen is a research assistant at hacettepe university department of psychology, clinical psychology program since 2012. she received her undergraduate degree from hacettepe university in 2011; and still continues her education as a doctoral candidate. she is a member of turkish psychological association. dağ & şen 553 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 531–553 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1563 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.70.1.115 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sdt, locus of control and psychopathological symptoms (introduction) methods participants measures and materials procedure results discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the black pedagogy scale: a new task to explore educational practices for children’s well-being research reports the black pedagogy scale: a new task to explore educational practices for children’s well-being eleonora florio* a, letizia caso a, ilaria castelli a [a] department of human and social sciences, university of bergamo, bergamo, italy. abstract the present contribute focuses on the concept of “black pedagogy” (rutschky, 1977; isbn: 3548356702), meant as a set of educational practices assimilable into those that nowadays are included in the frame of physical and psychological maltreatment (e.g., corporal punishment, frightening children, etc.). the purpose of this work is to present our operationalization proposal of the concept and the results deriving from a first validation of the “black pedagogy scale”. the questionnaire was administered to 374 italian university students in their university classrooms (pilot study with double administration) and to 830 italian adults, parents of primary school-aged children, through an online survey platform (main study). in the pilot study, explorative analyses, paired-samples t-test and ml efa (with varimax rotation) were performed. in the main study, proprieties of the refined instrument and relations between the construct of black pedagogy and demographics were explored. the black pedagogy scale (α > .8) resulted composed by three factors, consistently with what was initially hypothesized: “values of black pedagogy” (var. 18.7%), “education of children over time” (var. 10.6%) “methods of black pedagogy” (var. 8.6%). participants resulted more in agreement with black pedagogy’s values rather than with its methods, and those with higher educational qualification showed less agreement with the construct, f(2, 813) = 28.22, p < .001, η² = .065. the possible legacy of a black pedagogy’s forma mentis can contribute to explain why some detrimental disciplinary practices are culturally deemed as acceptable. results suggest designing interventions focused on educational values to discourage such practices. keywords: black pedagogy, poisonous pedagogy, psychological maltreatment, disciplinary practices, authoritarian, child-rearing methods europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 received: 2019-01-11. accepted: 2019-11-28. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: piazzale s. agostino, 2, 24129 bergamo (bg), italy. e-mail: eleonora.florio@unibg.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. origin of the concept the concept of schwarze pädagogik, literally meaning “black pedagogy” slowly spread in discourses about child-rearing and child-education, and laid the foundations for interdisciplinary reflections connecting pedagogy and social-juridical psychology fields of study. the first appearance of the concept can be traced back to the work of katharina rutschky (1977), who gathered various sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth century with the precise purpose to show which were the considerations, values and practices promoted by pedagogists and physicians of those times and to problematize the “scientified” and socialized education through a historical, and critical, reflection on education as part of the civilization process (rutschky, 2015). the author argues indeed that “education” is a bourgeois phenomenon belonging to modernity and, instead of focusing on progresses and innovations arising from the enlightenment, she puts into the foreground the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ actual repercussions of educational principles and socio-cultural context of that time on the daily life of children, corroborated by the multitude of primary sources that the author collects in her florilegium of black pedagogy. the result is the description of a systematic use of power, violence and intimidation to “train” children in bourgeois virtues such as diligence and subordination (brokate, 2005). polarization of power in favor of adults is in fact the bedrock of black pedagogy, something that is immediately reflected on the resulting educational practices consisting in physical and psychological violence, control, surveillance, oppression and punishment (kühn, 2014; rutschky, 2015). miller (1980) provided a more systematic definition of the concept combining it with a psychological explanation of its foundations in the mind of educators and of its consequences on children, and vice versa: in fact, according to the author, such child-rearing culture creates a vicious circle of subtle and explicit violence that is transmitted through generations. in the english version of her work, miller (1983) refers to black pedagogy as to “poisonous pedagogy”, nonetheless in the present work it has been decided to use the label “black pedagogy” in order to maintain a direct semantic connection with the original term, which was also used as such by alice miller in her original publication (miller, 1980), and it has been translated into italian language maintaining the reference to the black color (miller, 2007; rutschky, 2015). it is necessary to strongly underline that this term is in no way referring or connected to “black pedagogy” meant as the education provided to black students or the implementation of black studies in schools’ curricula (johnson, pitre, & johnson, 2014; pitre, ray, & pitre, 2008): the semantic adherence to the originally coined term has been considered a priority, trusting that the clear disambiguation provided is sufficient to distinguish the different conceptual areas. therefore, in the context of the present work, the label “black pedagogy” represents the systematic use of educational methods focused on the primary objective of breaking the child’s will and to shape the child’s character according to the ideal values of educators and society: some of its more recognizable characteristics are discipline, the safeguard of educator’s authority, strict rules, as well as control and power of the educator over the child (kühn, 2014). some examples of black pedagogy’s methods are beating the child, using subterfuges and manipulation as parenting techniques, and humiliating or ridiculing the child (miller, 1983). current functionality of the construct an idea of the child as subject of rights and the cultural valorization of childhood emerges relatively recently, starting from the 1960s (di blasio, 2000) and culminating in the 1989 with the convention on the rights of the child, ratified in italy in 1991 with law 176/91. the convention states the need to protect the child from “all forms of physical or mental violence” (un general assembly, 1989, article 19, paragraph 2) providing a broad and all-embracing definition of violence against children. nonetheless, different countries vary in the reported normativeness of physical discipline (lansford et al., 2005) and, for this reason, there could have been a certain difficulty for individuals (teachers, parents, etc.) in recognizing and defining the very limit between a correct disciplinary practice and a detrimental one, due to specific cultural assumptions. in fact, the committee on the rights of the child issued a general comment on the aforementioned article 19 “since the extent and intensity of violence exerted on children is alarming” and reminded that “no violence against children is justifiable; all violence against children is preventable” (un committee on the rights of the child, 2011, p. 3). therefore, the committee provided a more detailed definition of the different forms of violence against children, among which mental and corporal violence result particularly similar to black pedagogy methods. in fact, mental violence (i.e., psychological maltreatment or emotional abuse) is described as all forms of iterated harmful interactions that convey to the child a sense of worthless, that are focused on scaring, threatening, humiliating and isolating, the black pedagogy scale 332 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as well as denying emotional responsiveness, exploiting, rejecting and ignoring. corporal punishment is instead referred to “any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light. it mostly involves hitting (‘smacking’, ‘slapping’, ‘spanking’) children, with the hand or with an implement” (un committee on the rights of the child, 2011, paragraph 24). physical violence for disciplinary purposes (e.g., harsh treatment, and cruel or humiliating punishment) is still common in the context of families both in industrialized and in developing countries (durrant, 2005; pinheiro, 2006), and it often coexists with psychological forms of violence harmful to children’s well-being both in domestic and in school contexts (pinheiro, 2006). according to perticari (2016), who edited the italian translation of katharina rutschky’s schwarze pädagogik, this level of children abuse is a contemporary problem and it deserves urgent attention, since this pathogenic education built on a devious authoritarian mentality is infecting children’s everyday life and disguising abuse as a form of love and care. the author specifies that such level of maltreatment is covert, difficult to recognize and also very complicated: most adults do not realize they behave in a harmful way when slapping, yelling at kids or humiliating them, and they are instead convinced that they are acting in children’s best interests. in fact, such disciplinary measures are considered necessary to promote a healthy and robust upbringing and, consequently, adults tend to justify or minimize them, often not recognizing them as something from which children have to be protected. in the face of such considerations, a reference to the italian legislation on the subject is necessary: before the reform of family law occurred in italy in 1975, the abrogated article 319 of italian civil code (i.c.c.) explicitly acknowledged the parent’s power of restraining a child’s misconduct, and it was interpreted as a sort of exemption from responsibility for the harmful acts committed by the parent towards the child if they were aimed at repressing bad behaviors, this being an area of exemption connected to the ius corrigendi (i.e., the right to correct), a corollary of parental potestas (paladini, 2012). the existence of ius corrigendi is deduced from art. 571 of italian penal code (i.p.c.) that defines the offense of “abuse of means of correction or discipline”. the fact of referring to an abuse implies that there is a legitimate and permitted use of disciplinary measures, which can result in abuse if the measure is excessive, arbitrary or untimely (ferraro, 2008). moreover, the literature reports that with specific reference to italian family relationships, part of the doctrine considers vis modica (i.e., moderate violence) a licit means of correction and also that it would be difficult to imagine the prospect of completely banishing it from family context (catullo, 2012; tortorelli, 2014). it seems therefore important to ponder further on two aspects: firstly, exploring whether and how the distinction between licit and illicit means of correction may be clear in the minds of educators – both parents and teachers –. secondly, verifying if and how they can realize they are mistaken when applying such educational practices (e.g., a slap or a verbal insult) that they have seen widely adopted by the previous generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) without questioning their legitimacy. these two aspects are based on the hypothesis that the ongoing practice of the subtlest forms of disciplinary physical or mental violence coincides with a persistence in our society of the hierarchical and authoritarian model of the family mentioned above, which appears to be well described by black pedagogy values. therefore, a measuring instrument capable of grasping such authoritarian educational model was needed. at first, we considered using the already existing “poisonous pedagogy scale” within the o’brien multiphasic narcissism inventory (o’brien, 1987), a subscale elaborated on the basis of alice miller’s definition of black pedagogy. it measures the belief of having the ability to control others by taking advantage of one’s own superordinate position (montebarocci et al., 2003; sines, waller, meyer, & wigley, 2008). nevertheless, we decided not to use such a scale and to develop a new one, in order to include more detailed and varied aspects of the black pedagogy concept, in line with the research interests of the present study. florio, caso, & castelli 333 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ purposes of the study this work is part of doctoral thesis (florio, 2018): the main aim of this part of the research is to elaborate the black pedagogy scale, a new instrument that carefully gathers the values and methods of black pedagogy, in order to explore the possible presence of this unexpressed legacy in our territory. in our view, this is important for children’s well-being, because the presence of such methods in educational contexts could hamper the complete abandon of physically and psychologically harmful disciplinary practices and undermine the course of establishing of a more positive adult-child relationship. secondly, we present the results of a first validation study of our black pedagogy scale, i.e. a pilot study carried out on university students to refine the black pedagogy scale, and the results of a new research on caregivers –parents of primary school-age children– in order to explore the presence of black pedagogy in the context of our territory. method instrument from the scientific literature on black pedagogy, we individuated 41 fundamental statements describing black pedagogy’s values, practices and main convictions, and we elaborated them according to the general rules of items’ construction (chiorri, 2011). two main sections composed the instrument in its first version: “black pedagogy observation” (bpo hereinafter) and “estimations of black pedagogy diffusion” (ed). the bpo explores the construct of black pedagogy as it has been described in the literature, with 41 items (e.g., “bad habits and character flaws must be eliminated through education”, “children should be kept constantly under control”, and “children must learn to be humble”) and a response set designed as an agreement 4-point likert scale. therefore, participants were asked to take a clear stance for or against each statement, and a possible change in the response scale would have been evaluated after analyzing missing data patterns. the ed section instead, gathers the estimations of the current diffusion of black pedagogy practices on our territory, and of the diffusion of these practices in the past. therefore, a forty-second item (i.e., “by educational means ‘used in the past’ are meant the educational practices that took place in italy from the post-world war ii period until the 1980s”) was added, in order to assess the time period to which participants referred when thinking of “the past”, namely when such practices were widespread. this second section consists of two identical 12-items lists of the disciplinary practices typical of black pedagogy educational style (e.g., “pedagogical beating (slaps, caning, etc.)” and “treating the child coldly as a consequence of his/her disobedience”): participants have to evaluate the diffusion of each method one first time in respect to the past, and a second time in respect to the present days. items of the second section were also accompanied by a 4-point likert scale response set, but based on frequency instead of agreement. clear instructions were given in order to inform respondents of the change in response options meanings (1 = “not present at all”; 2 = “present, but not common”; 3 = “present”; 4 = “widespread”). participants and procedures participants of the pilot study were italian university students of the department of human and social sciences in northern italy. most of them were attending the first year of their degree course in sciences of education (93.9% at time 1; 94.4% at time 2). we chose to include only students of the first year so that they could be still informative about their own folk beliefs concerning educational practices as they had developed them the black pedagogy scale 334 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ throughout their own life experience, and not as they have been taught about in university courses of psychology and pedagogy. the black pedagogy scale was administered in two different occasions to the same group of subjects in order to assess if there were changes in the answers over time. we expected a stability of answers across time since black pedagogy represents a body of values and beliefs that should not change unless training or intervention occurs. the two administration sessions took place with a temporal distance of two weeks and have been organized directly in students’ university classrooms, as well as the restitution of results, which has been designed as an interactive reflection with participants. table 1 summarizes sample descriptives of both administration sessions: as can be noticed, there is a considerable decrease in the number of participants from time 1 to time 2. this is possibly due to the normal decrease of class attendance across the semester. table 1 sample descriptives of pilot study variable time 1 time 2 n 374 251 males 7.8% 11.6% females 92.2% 88.4% age min 18 18 max 42 35 m 20 20 sd 2.6 2.6 secondary education diplomaa 97.3% 96.0% participants working 45.5% 43.4% participants working with children 25.7% 25.9% participants in contact with children in personal life 98.1% 98.4% alowest educational qualification. in the main study, the final version of black pedagogy scale has been administered through an online survey platform to a sample of 830 adult subjects, recruited in the context of northern italy primary schools with the support and consent of school head teachers. the following table (table 2) presents the sample descriptives of the main study. both in the pilot and main study, participants were clearly informed about the objectives and phases of the research, about their rights as participants including the guarantee of anonymity and the possibility to drop-out of the study at any moment. all participants were treated in accordance with the declaration of helsinki (world medical association, 2008), as well as with the ethical guidelines for research provided by american psychological association (american psychological association, 2017) and by italian psychological association (associazione italiana di psicologia, 2015). participants have had the possibility to receive further information following their questions and, afterwards, they were asked to express their informed consent in order to proceed to fill out the questionnaire. florio, caso, & castelli 335 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 sample descriptives of main study (n = 830) variable percentage mothers 72.3% fathers 27.7% age min 24 max 64 m 41.5 sd 4.9 parents of an only child 69.5% parents of two children 26.0% parents of three children 3.9% parents of four children 0.6% lower secondary school qualification 24.7% upper secondary school qualification 50.0% university diplomaa 3.0% bachelor’s degree 10.7% master’s degree 6.0% post-master’s specialization degree 3.9% participants involved in a sentimental relationshipb 94.1% italian nationality 96.0% foreigners 3.1% double citizenship 0.6% aitalian qualification established by law 341/90, no longer in force. bstable relationship, cohabitation, married, or remarried. the remaining 5.2% was not involved in a sentimental relationship (i.e., single, separated, divorced or widow). results results of the pilot study for what concerns the pilot study, a first exploration of the proprieties of 41-items bpo section was conducted in order to investigate its reliability and the distribution of responses. table 3 presents a summary of the exploration of bpo section (minimum score 41 maximum score 164) at time 1 and at time 2. the mean was similar to the 5% trimmed mean, thus indicating that it was not necessary to exclude outliers. in terms of mean response, the result was a value of 2.5 both at time 1 and at time 2 (minimum response 1 maximum response 4). the little’s mcar test was not significant (p > .05) thus suggesting that data were missing completely at random. cronbach’s α resulted in an adequate value of .83 at time 1 and .82 at time 2, suggesting reliability of the scale (devellis, 2016). the distribution is slightly heavy-tailed (westfall, 2014) and characterized by a positive asymmetry towards lower values of the scale in both occasions. at time2, both kolmogorov-smirnov and shapiro-wilk normality test resulted significant (p < .05) thus suggesting violation of normality assumption. nevertheless, values of skewness and kurtosis included between a range the black pedagogy scale 336 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of -1 and +1 are considered acceptable (muthén & kaplan, 1985) and the histogram, as well as the normal q-q plot, showed that responses were reasonably normally distributed. table 3 bpo section: results of exploration analyses at time 1 and at time 2 analysis time 1 time 2 n 338 232 m 104.14 102.72 sd 11.07 10.53 5%trimmed m 103.96 102.44 average response 2.54 2.51 cronbach’s α .83 .82 skewness .275 .348 kurtosis -.094 -.195 kolmogorov-smirnov normality test p < .01 p < .05 shapiro-wilk normality test p > .05 p < .05 little’s mcar test p > .05 p > .05 after time 2, a paired samples t-test on 104 subjects was carried out for the comparison of the scores obtained on the bpo section at time 1 (m = 103.13, sd = 11.07) and at time 2 (m = 102.7, sd = 11.04). this resulted as not significant, t(103) = 0.713, p = .477 (two-tailed), with a strong positive correlation (r = .85, p < .001) between the results of the two administrations, thus suggesting that what the scale is measuring remains stable and consistent over time. the unremarkable decrease of the mean was 0.423 with a 95% confidence interval ranging from -0.753 to 1.6 and a cohen’s d of 0.09. the condition of our data, i.e. violating normality but reasonably normally distributed, is commonly encountered in social sciences, and maximum likelihood (ml) approach has been chosen since it is still recommended when a sever violation of normality is not present (costello & osborne, 2005; fabrigar, maccallum, wegener, & strahan, 1999). data resulted adequate for factor analysis since kaiser-meyer-olkin value was .79 (kaiser, 1970, 1974) and bartlett’s (1954) test of sphericity was significant (p < .001). subsequently, ml exploratory factor analysis (efa) with varimax rotation has been performed. after the first output of efa it was decided to force the extraction of three factors following kaiser’s criterion of eigenvalues > 1 (kaiser, 1960) and on the basis of the inspection of the scree plot, which clearly showed a change of direction after the fourth dot (cattell, 1966). subsequently, cross-loadings items and items loading < .35 have been excluded, thus reaching a factorial structure (shown in table 4) that explained a total variance of 37.9%. according to the meaning of the 24 items included in the factorial structure, the three factors extracted have been entitled as follows: “values of black pedagogy” (explained variance: 18.74%), collecting items concerning the main educational values and objectives typical of black pedagogy’s perspective; “education of children over time” (explained variance: 10.62%), which refers to those items regarding attitudes towards the changes in children’s education (where adopting a black pedagogy’s perspective implies to be nostalgic about educational practices used in the past, because considered more effective and useful); “methods of black pedagogy” (explained variance: 8.57%), which collects the items on black pedagogy's disciplinary and educational methods used as means to pursue its values and objectives. florio, caso, & castelli 337 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 bpo section: final results of maximum likelihood exploratory factor analysis (with varimax rotation) item number factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 25 .590 27 .551 17 .539 23 .539 14 .533 6 .517 12 .465 28 .442 33 .419 13 .411 22 .395 30 .392 34 .762 1 .665 9 .627 8 (reversed) .571 16 (reversed) .433 21 .591 36 .506 26 .485 38 .465 31 (reversed) .447 41 .369 32 .353 note. extraction method: maximum likelihood; rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization; rotation converged in four iterations; cross-loading items and items loading < .35 have been discarded. table 5 shows exploration analyses of the three different factors. it is interesting to notice that the mean response on “methods of black pedagogy” is clearly lower than the one on “values of black pedagogy”, as expected. table 5 three factors of bpo section: results of separated explorations (pilot study) factor % of explained variance number of items cronbach’s α sk ku k-s normality test mean response (min = 1; max = 4) “values of black pedagogy” 18.74 12 .79 .041 .119 p < .01 2.9 “education of children over time” 10.62 5 .76 .103 .005 p < .001 2.8 “methods of black pedagogy” 8.57 7 .67 .255 -.68 p < .001 1.9 an independent samples t-test was performed to compare scores on bpo section between those who work with children (m = 102.66, sd = 11.8) and those who do not (m = 100.4, sd = 10.62). the difference resulted not statistically significant, t(99) = 1, p = .32. spearman’s rho coefficient between scores on bpo section and age showed a negative low correlation of -.142 (p < .05), thus suggesting a slight decrease in the agreement with black pedagogy construct with the increase of age. this result is certainly counter-intuitive if the reference the black pedagogy scale 338 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ literature is taken into account, but it has to be considered both in the light of the context of sample recruitment and of the fact that age distribution in the pilot study was very highly skewed towards lower values. item 42 is dedicated to temporal collocation and presented results that were quite challenging, since 61.1% of participants clearly agreed with this collocation, but the 38.9% was not completely satisfied with the temporal definition proposed by the item. this result suggested a reformulation of the item to help identifying what period of time participants have in mind when referring to the pedagogical practices used “in the past”. the comparison between the diffusion of black pedagogy’s practices in the past and nowadays revealed that participants report a general decrease in the use of such educational measures except for what concerns the practices of blackmailing to control children actions (method “m” in table 6) and of justifying unpleasant educational measures by telling the child that these are applied for his/her own good (method “n” in table 6). table 6 summarizes the mean response for each black pedagogy method and the significant level of average differences in the comparison between past and present diffusion. table 6 mean responses about the diffusion of black pedagogy’s practices in the past and nowadays black pedagogy method past today mean difference p a. pedagogical beating 3.48 2.19 1.29 < .001 b. denial of a meal 3.04 1.34 1.70 < .001 c. cautionary tales 2.97 2.38 0.59 < .001 d. providing false information 3.09 2.69 0.4 < .001 e. treating the child coldly 2.93 2.46 0.47 < .001 f. toughening children up 2.8 1.35 1.45 < .001 g. monitoring/discouraging sexuality 2.96 2.18 0.78 < .001 h. lying by exacerbating consequences 2.94 2.57 0.37 < .001 i. humiliating 2.74 1.9 0.84 < .001 l. physical violence 3.05 1.67 1.38 < .001 m. blackmailing 2.76 2.59 0.17 < .01 n. unpleasant measures for children’s own good 2.92 2.97 -0.05 > .05 note. 1 = “not present at all”; 2 = “present, but not common”; 3 = “present”; 4 = “widespread”. observing average comparisons, it emerges that mean differences are less pronounced for those educational practices that do not involve a physical type of harm to the child, culminating in the approximatively same level of current diffusion for what concerns method “m” and in a not significantly greater diffusion today than in the past of method “n”. finally, bivariate correlations have been performed between the three factors and the results on the lists of ed section. the only significant correlation was found between the scores on “values of black pedagogy” and the evaluation of the diffusion of black pedagogy practices in the past (r = .18, p < .01): a low positive correlation suggesting that those who observed a higher diffusion of black pedagogy practices in his/her past experience tended also to score higher on the “values of black pedagogy” factor. one possible interpretation of such result could be that those who have been in contact (even only as observers) with such practices tend to assimilate black pedagogy’s values and objectives, thus supporting the idea of an intergenerational transmission of physically and mentally violent disciplinary practices (miller, 2007; perticari, 2016). since the florio, caso, & castelli 339 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sample of pilot study was homogeneous with regard to gender, educational qualifications and age, no specific analyses were conducted involving these variables. results of the main study following the results of the pilot study, the black pedagogy scale has been adjusted to elaborate a final version, which was administered to the participants of the main study (n = 830). analyses on this second dataset replicate the exploration of scale proprieties but focus in particular on the investigation of the differences between the subgroups created on the basis of demographic information. to this purpose, t-tests, bivariate correlations and anovas have been performed, according to the suitability of data for each specific analysis. the black pedagogy scale in its final version (with a minimum possible score = 24 and a maximum possible score = 96 in bpo section) was administered to a sample of 830 adult subjects, parents of primary school-age children. the mean score was 60.33 (sd = 8.1, 95% ci [59.78, 60.88]), with a 5% trimmed mean of 60.36 and an average response of 2.5 (min = 1, max = 4). both skewness and kurtosis were close to zero (sk = -.062, se = .085, ku = .009, se = .170) and shapiro-wilk normality test was not significant (p > .05). cronbach’s α resulted .87, indicating reliability of the scale (devellis, 2016). table 7 summarizes the results of separated exploration analyses of the three different factors: responses show that the agreement with “methods of black pedagogy” is clearly lower than in the case of the other two factors, as emerged in the pilot study. table 7 three factors of bpo section: results of separated explorations (main study) analysis “values of black pedagogy” (factor 1) “education of children over time” (factor 2) “methods of black pedagogy” (factor 3) number of items 12 5 7 min 18 7 7 max 47 20 26 m 34.51 13.58 12.24 sem .16 .09 .11 sd 4.64 2.51 3.06 95% ci ll 34.19 13.41 12.03 ul 34.82 13.76 12.44 5% trimmed mean 34.54 13.58 12.16 average response (min = 1, max = 4) 2.89 2.72 1.75 skewness -.062 .056 .353 kurtosis .344 -.262 -.163 cronbach’s α .87 .75 .74 p (shapiro-wilk normality test) < .001 < .001 < .001 note. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. pearson product-moment correlation between bpo section and age resulted negative, weak, and significant (r = -.073, p < .05), thus suggesting again that there is slight decrease in scores on bpo section with the increase of age. nonetheless, no significant correlations have been found between age and bpo subscales. the continuous scale of age has been collapsed into two age groups, since the cases of under 30 years and the black pedagogy scale 340 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ over 50 years of age were very few (4.1%), and an independent samples t-test was conducted to compare scores on bpo for the age group under 40 years and for the age group over 40 years. unequal variances have been assumed since levene’s test for equality of variances was significant (p = .002), and a statistically significant difference has been found between the scores of participants aged under 40 years (m = 61.06, sd = 7.32) and those of participants aged over 40 years (m = 59.69, sd = 8.66): t(822.5) = 2.469, p = .014. another independent-samples t-test was performed to compare bpo scores for parents of an only child and for parents of more than one child. a significant difference has been also found in the comparison of these two conditions, indicating that scores of parents of one child (m = 60.74, sd = 8.22) were significantly higher than those of parents with more children (m = 59.40, sd = 7.73): t(828) = 2.2, p = .028. a first attempt to interpret this unexpected result could be that parents of one child rely more on culturally learned methods of parenting practice, whereas the increased experience, effort, and/or relational complexity resulting from having two or more children lead parents to deviate from their educational legacy and to work on their own parenting solutions. this is a possible interpretation that surely needs to be further investigated in future studies. in fact, according to edwards (2014) parenting experience (i.e., raising singletons or more than one child) is a variable that deserves more attention: in the context of her study, the author found that it is more likely for mothers raising two or more children to perceive their role in supporting their children’s emotional development and to be open to the idea of seeking professional behavior-related advice. no significant difference was found instead between bpo scores of mothers (m = 60.12, sd = 8.21) and of fathers (m = 60.88, sd = 7.78): t(828) = -1.213, p = .225. after assessing assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance, a one-way between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of educational qualification level on bpo scores. participants have been divided in three groups according to their educational qualification (lower secondary education, upper secondary education and higher education). there was a statistically significant difference at the p < .001 level in bpo scores for the three groups: f(2, 813) = 28.22, p < .001. the effect size, calculated through eta squared, resulted .065, representing a medium effect according to cohen (1988). post-hoc comparisons using the tukey hsd test showed that the mean score for the group of participants with lower secondary education diploma (m = 62.99, sd = 7.53) was significantly different from the group of participants with upper secondary education diploma (m = 60.44, sd = 7.86) and from the group of participants with higher education diploma (m = 57.11, sd = 8.18), indicating a significant tendency to score lower on bpo if a higher educational level is achieved. this result may indicate that refining knowledge and developing critical thinking, leads to diverge from methods and values of black pedagogy. no significant difference in bpo scores emerged if comparing different kinds of marital relationships in which participants were involved at the moment of administration. for what concerns instead data on nationality, no analyses were conducted to explore differences between italian and non-italian participants since the subgroups were too inhomogeneous in number. total scores of the double list in ed section concerning diffusion of black pedagogy methods in the past (m = 32.61, sd = 7.13) and nowadays (m = 22.53, sd = 5.51) differ significantly according to results of paired-samples t-test: t(802) = 46.36, p < .001, and are positively correlated (r = .55, p < .001). the item of temporal collocation, modified for the final version of the scale, was positioned as first item of the questionnaire and permitted to assess which generation respondents had in mind when answering to the ed later section (cf. appendix). the sample of the main study mostly identified the generation of their parents florio, caso, & castelli 341 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (37.8%) or of their grandparents (36.3%) as the last one in which “old fashioned” educational practices were applied. a small proportion indicated that such methods were used until their great-grandparents generation and no further (4.2%). an unexpected 20.1% declared that respondents’ own generation has witnessed the application of educational methods commonly referred to in our territory as those “old fashioned” and defined in the reference literature as black pedagogy practices. paired sample t-tests were conducted on responses concerning past and present diffusion of each black pedagogy method. all the differences between the mean responses resulted significant (p < .001), indicating a statistically significant decrease in the diffusion of such practices according to participants’ estimations, consistently with the clear low agreement on “methods of black pedagogy” subscale belonging to prior section. table 8 summarizes the results of paired samples t-test for each comparison. table 8 summary of paired samples t-test results for each comparison between past and current diffusion of black pedagogy methods method estimated diffusion paired differences t df p in the past nowadays m sd sem 95% ci of the difference m sd m sd ll ul pedagogical beating 3.1 0.77 1.8 0.7 1.3 0.88 .03 1.26 1.38 43.28 825 < .001 denial of a meal 2.4 0.93 1.2 0.45 1.2 0.92 .03 1.12 1.25 36.91 824 < .001 cautionary tales 2.9 0.85 1.9 0.73 1.0 0.89 .03 0.94 1.06 32.27 823 < .001 providing false information 3.1 0.76 2.2 0.77 0.85 0.86 .03 0.79 0.91 27.29 822 < .001 treating the child coldly 2.9 0.73 2.2 0.78 0.64 0.85 .03 0.58 0.7 21.71 824 < .001 toughening children up 2.2 0.93 1.2 0.47 0.98 0.9 .03 0.92 1.04 31.37 822 < .001 monitoring /discouraging sexuality 3.0 0.89 2.0 0.74 1.0 0.91 .03 0.96 1.09 32.32 820 < .001 lying by exacerbating consequences 2.8 0.8 2.1 0.78 0.71 0.82 .03 0.66 0.77 24.98 818 < .001 humiliating 2.5 0.89 1.8 0.74 0.77 0.89 .03 0.71 0.83 24.83 824 < .001 physical violence 2.7 0.9 1.4 0.61 0.85 0.86 .03 0.79 0.9 28.11 823 < .001 blackmailing 2.6 0.8 2.3 0.83 0.28 0.89 .03 0.22 0.34 8.86 821 < .001 unpleasant measures for children’s own good 2.9 0.74 2.4 0.8 0.47 0.84 .03 0.41 0.52 15.93 821 < .001 note. 1 = “not present at all”; 2 = “present, but not common”; 3 = “present”; 4 = “widespread”. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. however, if the specific amounts of such decreases are emphasized, it appears that they are not always similar for all methods. in other words, some clearly decreased more than others. in fact, it can be observed that “pedagogical beating” is the practice that decreased the most, whereas “blackmailing” decreased the less. in general, one can see that most methods involving a physical level decreased more than those concerning the psychological area (e.g., treating coldly, humiliating, lying, blackmailing, etc.). unexpectedly, according to respondents, physical violence decreased less than pedagogical beating, and “cautionary tales” is one of the methods that decreased more, contrary to what was found in the pilot study where respondents were students with a mean age of 20. more specifically, “pedagogical beating” is the method that theoretically could be considered the most representative of the black pedagogy construct. on this basis, it is to be presumed that if “pedagogical beating” was taken as a reference point, more harmful methods on the physical level (e.g., denial of food, toughening up, and physical violence) should be estimated as less diffused nowadays, whereas psychologically detrimental methods should appear more widespread. as can be seen in table 9, this supposition the black pedagogy scale 342 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ is confirmed with the exception of the “humiliating” method, which seems diffused as much as “pedagogical beating”. all the other estimations of diffusion are statistically different from the one regarding “pedagogical beating”: according to respondents, physically harmful methods are less diffused (positive mean difference), whereas psychologically detrimental disciplinary practices are more diffused (negative mean difference) than “pedagogical beating”. table 9 summary of paired samples t-test results for the comparisons between “pedagogical beating” diffusion nowadays (maximum decrease) and other methods method compared with “pedagogical beating” paired differences t df pm sd sem 95% ci of the difference ll ul denial of a meal 0.58 0.7 .02 0.53 0.63 23.68 824 < .001 cautionary tales -0.1 0.78 .03 -0.15 -0.05 -3.73 824 < .001 providing false information -0.41 0.86 .03 -0.47 -0.35 -13.81 824 < .001 treating the child coldly -0.44 0.88 .03 -0.5 -0.38 -14.23 825 < .001 toughening children up 0.55 0.77 .03 0.5 0.6 20.53 825 < .001 monitoring/discouraging sexuality -0.18 0.87 .03 -0.24 -0.12 -5.83 824 < .001 lying by exacerbating consequences -0.27 0.86 .03 -0.33 -0.21 -9.03 823 < .001 humiliating 0.03 0.86 .03 -0.03 0.09 0.9 825 .373 physical violence 0.36 0.68 .02 0.32 0.41 15.41 825 < .001 blackmailing -0.54 0.89 .03 -0.6 -0.48 -17.47 824 < .001 unpleasant measures for children’s own good -0.59 0.91 .03 -0.66 -0.53 -18.66 824 < .001 note. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. finally, bivariate correlations have been conducted between bpo section total score, its subscales, and the results on the doubled 12-items list of educational practices used in the past and at the present day. results are summarized in table 10. table 10 summary of pearson product-moment correlations between ed lists, bpo section and its subscales bpo subscale ed list bpo total “values of black pedagogy” (factor 1) “education of children over time” (factor 2) “methods of black pedagogy” (factor 3) black pedagogy in the past -.076* -.039 .014 -.153** black pedagogy nowadays -.130** -.095** -.072* -.140* note. ed = estimations of black pedagogy diffusion; bpo = black pedagogy observation. *p < .05. **p < .01. as can be seen, correlations do not resemble the results of pilot study, probably because university students do not have children yet. in fact, when parents are responding, a weak negative correlation emerges between the estimation of black pedagogy diffusion in the past and the agreement with its methods. it appears that those parents who in the past witnessed a greater diffusion of the educational practices typical of black pedagogy, florio, caso, & castelli 343 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tend to show less agreement with black pedagogy methods at the present day and, presumably, with their application to their own children. a result that is in line with the fact, already presented above, that scores on bpo seem to become lower with the increase of age and of the number of children. discussion and conclusions the final version of the black pedagogy scale is constituted by a first separated item of temporal collocation, 24 items concerning the detection of black pedagogy construct (viz., bpo section) loading on the three factors of “values of black pedagogy”, “education of children over time” and “methods of black pedagogy”. the second section, namely “estimations of black pedagogy diffusion” (ed), includes the doubled 12-items list of black pedagogy’s practices, which resulted particularly informative although not included in the factorial analysis. the final version of the black pedagogy scale and its factorial structure composed of re-numbered items are provided in the appendix. the results of this first examination of the black pedagogy scale seem to be encouraging for a future application of the instrument. the three factors that emerged are consistent with the structure initially hypothesized on the basis of the reference literature. the fact that the mean response on factor “methods of black pedagogy” was the lowest in both studies was an expected result, since policies of children protection have certainly made progresses in italy after reforms of the family law and the ratification of the convention on the rights of the child. nonetheless, the full implementation of the convention at all levels of our society may not result as a smooth process until individual citizens have completely introjected the image of the child as subject of rights, something that would lead them to have a clear idea of what are the boundaries that have to be respected in child rearing, care and education. therefore, whereas the most obvious and explicit abusive conducts are correctly identified, adults could still be hindered in recognizing as harmful forms of subtle violence, such as psychological abuse or other kinds of physical disciplinary methods. furthermore, even if our results suggest that physically maltreating educational practices of black pedagogy are not accepted nowadays, the same cannot be said for the educational values and objectives from which such practices consistently originated. the ongoing diffusion of the subtlest forms of disciplinary methods that are definable as psychologically harmful could be therefore due to the persistence of an obsolete hierarchical and authoritarian conception of the right way to raise and educate children. nowadays, the threshold of “acceptable” mental or physical violence in an educational relationship seems to be lower than in the past, but the impression is that not all forms of violence are subjected to the same rate of decrease in their use. in fact, responses on the doubled 12-items list regarding estimations of diffusion made by participants, give the impression that psychologically harmful educative and disciplinary practices have not decreased as much as physical ones. in our opinion, this result suggests two possible scenarios: if adults are pursuing educational ideals without being aware that these are consistent with abusive disciplinary methods, they could either apply a level of disciplinary violence deemed acceptable in their cultural and social context (e.g., a slap, a verbal insult, etc.) or, in the best case, they could feel deprived of the means to carry out their educational duty towards children. both these possibilities indicate that if a change at the level of child-rearing and educational practices is desired, intervention should be placed at the level of values and objectives in order to change them and to allow the spontaneous emergence of different methods. such consideration could have important implications in interventions aimed at promoting healthy relationships between adult and children. moreover, the black pedagogy scale 344 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the fact that a higher educational level is associated with lower scores on bpo section could help in identifying populations that are most at risk and in designing targeted intervention aimed at interrupting the intergenerational transmission of such practices and values. the present study shows some limitations that suggest some possible lines of future research. in fact, concurrent validity has still to be assessed, as well as the reliability of the instrument with subjects of different cultures. as mentioned above, the topic concerning the difference in scores on the bpo section between parents raising an only child and parents of more than one child deserves a further in-depth investigation. moreover, it could be worth exploring the responses of parents with children of different age groups (e.g., preschoolers, adolescents, etc.), and of adults who work in educational contexts with different roles (e.g., teachers, educators, sport trainers, child advocates, etc.) in order to use black pedagogy as a further interpretative construct of educational practices, thus designing possible projects of intervention in different contexts. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are grateful to the regional scholastic office of the territorial area of bergamo for promoting our research on the territory and to all participants who made this work possible. thanks to filippo arnoldi for his help in questionnaire administration and in data coding. special thanks to professor francesca costa, expert in english language, for manuscript linguistic revision. references american psychological association. 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(2008). world medical association declaration of helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. https://doi.org/10.3917/jib.151.0124 appendix the black pedagogy scale this translation is provided for presentation purposes only: it should not be used for administration because the instrument has yet to be validated in english. florio, caso, & castelli 347 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://doi.org/10.2466%2fpr0.1987.61.2.499 https://www.unicef.org/violencestudy/reports/sg_violencestudy_en.pdf https://doi.org/10.1348%2f147608307x267496 http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b38f0.html https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00031305.2014.917055 https://doi.org/10.3917%2fjib.151.0124 https://www.psychopen.eu/ child-rearing in the past and nowadays in your opinion, which generation was the last to apply “old fashioned” educational practices? parents grandparents great-grandparents my own generation here follow some statements about practices concerning the education of children drawn from the psychological and pedagogical literature on the topic. read each sentence and then please mark with a cross the number indicating your level of agreement with each statement, according to the following response scale: 1 = fully disagree (you fully disagree with the statement) 2 = slightly agree (you mainly disagree with the statement, but you find yourself in agreement with a part of it) 3 = agree (the statement is close to your thought) 4 = fully agree (the statement reflects exactly what you think) 1 today’s children are more ill-mannered than those of my generation 1 2 3 4 2 children need to learn to unconditionally obey adults who take care of them (parents, teachers, etc.) 1 2 3 4 3 the way in which children are educated has nowadays changed for the better 1 2 3 4 4 today’s children show less sense of gratitude towards adults who take care of them (parents, teachers, etc.) 1 2 3 4 5 children’s character should be shaped according to the rules and values of society 1 2 3 4 6 discipline is a fundamental value to be passed down to children 1 2 3 4 7 bad habits and character flaws must be eliminated through education 1 2 3 4 8 today’s children respect the “no” of parents and teachers 1 2 3 4 9 children must respect authoritarian power-holders of a certain context (school, family, etc.) 1 2 3 4 10 pedagogical beatings are sometimes necessary (slapping, caning, etc.) 1 2 3 4 11 children should be kept constantly under control 1 2 3 4 12 the value of honesty should be taught to children as early as possible 1 2 3 4 13 children must learn to be humble 1 2 3 4 14 punishment and confiscation are effective disciplinary means 1 2 3 4 15 children must learn to show gratitude and thankfulness for what is being done for them 1 2 3 4 16 it is essential to teach children tidiness and cleanliness from a very young age 1 2 3 4 17 children must learn to be diligent and willing to face the tasks they have been entrusted with 1 2 3 4 18 words are always more effective than pedagogical beating 1 2 3 4 19 children’s interest towards the sphere of sexuality should be discouraged 1 2 3 4 20 every error or disobedience must be followed by a corrective measure, or the child will not be coherently brought up 1 2 3 4 21 the way in which children are educated has nowadays changed for the worse 1 2 3 4 22 it is necessary to show children one’s own inflexibility to be obeyed. otherwise children will not cooperate 1 2 3 4 23 the most effective punishments are those that embarrass children in front of others (classmates, relatives, family members, etc.) 1 2 3 4 24 children must be submissive to parents 1 2 3 4 the black pedagogy scale 348 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ please refer now to the following response scale: 1 = not present at all 2 = present, but not common 3 = present 4 = widespread 25 in your opinion, how much were the following measures widespread as “old fashioned” educational means? a. pedagogical beating (slaps, to hit with a stick, etc.) 1 2 3 4 b. denial of meals or having these replaced with bread and water 1 2 3 4 c. cautionary tales focused on distressing characters in order to be obeyed (the boogeyman, ghosts, legends, etc.) 1 2 3 4 d. providing false information to divert from topics mentioned by the child but considered inappropriate for his/her age 1 2 3 4 e. treating the child coldly as a consequence of his/her disobedience 1 2 3 4 f. toughening children up in respect to physical exertions, namely to improve their stamina towards fatigue, heat, cold, hunger and tiredness 1 2 3 4 g. monitoring and discouraging children’s curiosity towards their own sexuality; 1 2 3 4 h. lying by exacerbating the consequences of a conduct considered wrong with the intention of scaring the child and thus preventing his/her attempts to put such conduct into practice; 1 2 3 4 i. humiliating: involving other people (family members, relatives, classmates, etc.) in showing disapproval of the child in response to his/her mistake or disobedience; 1 2 3 4 l. physical violence (beatings, whipping, etc.); 1 2 3 4 m. blackmailing the child to make him/her do something; 1 2 3 4 n. always highlighting that when unpleasant measures are executed this is done solely for children’s own good. 1 2 3 4 o. other: _________________________________________________ (you can add here an additional educational method “of the past”) 1 2 3 4 26 according to your experience, to what extent “old fashioned” educational means are still in use nowadays? a. pedagogical beating (slaps, to hit with a stick, etc.) 1 2 3 4 b. denial of meals or having these replaced with bread and water 1 2 3 4 c. cautionary tales focused on distressing characters in order to be obeyed (the boogeyman, ghosts, legends, etc.) 1 2 3 4 d. providing false information to divert from topics mentioned by the child but considered inappropriate for his/her age 1 2 3 4 e. treating the child coldly as a consequence of his/her disobedience 1 2 3 4 f. toughening children up in respect to physical exertions, namely to improve their stamina towards fatigue, heat, cold, hunger and tiredness 1 2 3 4 g. monitoring and discouraging children’s curiosity towards their own sexuality; 1 2 3 4 h. lying by exacerbating the consequences of a conduct considered wrong with the intention of scaring the child and thus preventing his/her attempts to put such conduct into practice; 1 2 3 4 i. humiliating: involving other people (family members, relatives, classmates, etc.) in showing disapproval of the child in response to his/her mistake or disobedience; 1 2 3 4 l. physical violence (beatings, whipping, etc.); 1 2 3 4 m. blackmailing the child to make him/her do something; 1 2 3 4 n. always highlighting that when unpleasant measures are executed this is done solely for children’s own good. 1 2 3 4 o. other: ___________________________________________________ (write here again the educational method “of the past” that you added in the previous question and now indicate how much is still used nowadays) 1 2 3 4 florio, caso, & castelli 349 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table of factors table a1 bpo section: final factorial structure with re-numbered items (ml efa -varimax rotation) item renumbered values of black pedagogy (factor 1) education of children over time (factor 2) methods of black pedagogy (factor 3) 13 .590 15 .551 9 .539 12 .539 7 .533 2 .517 5 .465 16 .442 20 .419 6 .411 11 .395 17 .392 21 .762 1 .665 4 .627 3 (reversed) .571 8 (reversed) .433 10 .591 22 .506 14 .485 23 .465 18 (reversed) .447 24 .369 19 .353 about the authors eleonora florio is ph.d. in “human capital formation and labour relations” (curriculum: clinical psychology) and clinical psychologist, currently collaborating in research concerning the well-being in adult-child relationship and the relations between adolescents and the internet. honorary fellow in developmental and educational psychology, psychology of the ages of life and childhood psychology. letizia caso is associate professor in the field of social psychology from 2015, teaching the subjects of psychology of vulnerability and protection of the person in the context of the three-year degree course “psychological sciences”. she is also chair of psychology and law for the master’s degree in clinical psychology. from october 2018 she is president of the three-year bachelor degree in psychological sciences and for the master's degree of clinical psychology. she has been a member of the teaching board of the ph.d. course in “human capital formation and labour relations” of the university of bergamo. her current themes of research regard child protection. ilaria castelli is associate professor in the field of developmental and educational psychology. she is chair of developmental and educational psychology in the five-year master’s degree of “sciences of primary education”, as well as of psychology of the life-span and childhood psychology in the three-year bachelor degree in “sciences of education”. she is a member of the teaching board of the ph.d. course in “human capital formation and labour relations” of the university the black pedagogy scale 350 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of bergamo, and delegate for the internationalization of the department of human and social sciences. her current activity in the field of research concerns mainly the themes of theory of mind/mentalizing and educational relationship. florio, caso, & castelli 351 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 331–351 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1876 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the black pedagogy scale (introduction) origin of the concept current functionality of the construct purposes of the study method instrument participants and procedures results results of the pilot study results of the main study discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix the black pedagogy scale about the authors differential effects of workaholism and work engagement on the interference between life and work domains research reports differential effects of workaholism and work engagement on the interference between life and work domains giovanni di stefano* a, maria gaudiino a [a] department of psychology, educational science & human movement, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract this study analyzed the differences between workaholism and work engagement in relation to their influence on work–life interference. workaholism is an addiction to work, characterized by obsessive attitude towards job, whereas work engagement concerns a positive pattern of thoughts and feelings about one’s job; these two constructs thus represent pathological and healthy forms of heavy work investment, respectively. as a consequence, it was expected that workaholism and work engagement would have different effects on perceived interference between work and life domains. we assessed levels of workaholism, work engagement, work-to-life interference, and life-to-work interference in a sample of 212 italian workers. results from structural equation modeling showed an inverse symmetry involving patterns and magnitudes of the relations observed: work engagement was more negatively related to life-to-work interference than work-to-life interference, whereas workaholism was more positively related to work-to-life interference than life-to-work interference. implications about findings of the study are discussed. keywords: workaholism, work engagement, work–life interference, work-to-life conflict, life-to-work conflict europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 received: 2018-03-29. accepted: 2018-06-25. published (vor): 2018-11-30. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: university of palermo – viale delle scienze, ed. 15 – 90128 palermo – italy. phone: +39 09123897766. e-mail: giovanni.distefano@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. workaholism and work engagement are studied in literature as two different ways of involvement in work activity, with distinctive outcomes affecting in turn life roles and well-being, in both work and nonwork domains of life (shimazu & schaufeli, 2009). the concept of workaholism appears several decades ago, introduced by oates (1971), and it is subsequently developed from different perspectives. porter (1996) defines workaholism “…as excessive involvement with work evidenced by neglect in other areas of life and based on internal motives of behavior maintenance rather than requirements of the job or organization” (p. 71), thus underlining the inner compelling drive that pushes workaholics to strenuously work (spence & robbins, 1992). although from an external point of view workaholic behavior might just be seen as hard working or overwork (del líbano miralles, 2011; douglas & morris, 2006; scott, moore, & miceli, 1997), the excessive amount of time and energy dedicated to work is not justified by need for money or organizational demands (harpaz & snir, 2003), but motivated by something workaholics feel inside, a compulsion towards work (robinson, 1998); consequently, as stated by machlowitz (1980), a simple europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ count of working hours is not an adequate strategy to differentiate workaholics from other workers. among the other conceptualizations (e.g., naughton, 1987; scott et al., 1997), spence and robbins’ (1992) “workaholic triad” model has received major attention in literature. according to spence and robbins (1992), workaholism is characterized by the dimensions of work involvement, drive, and low enjoyment which lead workaholics to feel they cannot stop their job activities, experiencing a deep sense of pressure, distress, and guilt when not working. more recently, work addiction has been described as resulting from the dimensions of working excessively and working compulsively (schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2006, 2008), with the former indicating workaholics’ long working hours and the latter underlining the internal feeling of obligation towards work. following schaufeli, salanova, gonzález-romá, and bakker (2002), the second type of work attitude, namely work engagement, is a “positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind” (p. 74) that leads individuals to intensively work long hours, being devoted to their job at the same time. since the outcomes expected from workaholism and work engagement on people’s life domains significantly differ (clark, michel, stevens, howell, & scruggs, 2014; shimazu & schaufeli, 2009; shimazu, schaufeli, kubota, & kawakami, 2012), especially when considering the adjustment of energy and time an individual addresses to each life spheres (kirchmeyer, 2000), the concept of work–life interface may have a critical role in making a difference between workaholics’ and engaged workers’ experience. surprisingly, this difference is not clearly highlighted in literature or in the field (douglas & morris, 2006; friedman & lobel, 2003), with the practical risk of a dangerous confusion concerning models of work behaviors: for example, promoting heavy investment in a job could seem a profitable occasion to increase production in organizations, but this naive idea shows a lack of awareness of all the negative outcomes implied by an exaggerate involvement in work. coherently, we believe that, if different types of such deep work investment entail so different repercussions in human life, it is crucial to try to understand their relation and refine the knowledge about them. the present study therefore aims to investigate the construct of interference between work and life domains (the negative side of work–life interface) (frone, 2003) as a possible outcome that allows to differentiate healthy and problematic heavy work investment (snir & harpaz, 2012), useful in both theoretical and practical point of view. healthy and pathological involvement in work: the role of work–life interface the comparison between workaholism and work engagement can be viewed from two broad perspectives: the first considers the underlying dimensions of the two constructs (e.g., bakker & oerlemans, 2011; schaufeli et al., 2002); the second takes into account the outcomes resulting from them (e.g., clark et al., 2014; matuska, 2010). from the first perspective, it is possible to disentangle the differences between workaholism and work engagement by paying attention to their distinctive nature and composition, and measuring the intensity of the attitudes they imply. as anticipated above, the most cited models used in research to study workaholism and work engagement are both proposed by schaufeli and colleagues (e.g., schaufeli et al., 2002; schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2006). in particular, on the one hand, workaholism is analyzed through a two-dimensional structure, consisting of working excessively and working compulsively (schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2008), according to which the former indicates an effort made at job that exceeds the normal request, whereas the latter involves the inner sense of obligation perceived towards working, even in obsessive terms. on the other hand, work enworkaholism, engagement and life-work interference 864 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gagement is measured through a three-dimensional model, including: vigor, the intense energy used to sustain hardworking; dedication, the sense of pride and importance related to doing a certain job; and absorption, the condition under which workers are fully immersed in their activity (schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2006; schaufeli et al., 2002). interestingly, schaufeli, taris, and bakker (2006) found a correlation between work engagement and the subdimension of working excessively, but not between work engagement and working compulsively, so that compulsion could be seen as the discriminating element of workaholic behavior. another point of distinction concerns the nature of emotions elicited by workaholism and work engagement (gorgievski & bakker, 2010; van wijhe, peeters, & schaufeli, 2011), particularly in relation to fun, which is considered a typical experience of engaged workers, not of workaholics (bakker, shimazu, demerouti, shimada, & kawakami, 2013; taris, schaufeli, & shimazu, 2010). according to the circumplex model (russell, 1980), workaholism could be described as a phenomenon characterized by high activation and low pleasure, and work engagement as characterized by high level of both activation and pleasure (bakker & oerlemans, 2011; dijkhuizen, veldhoven, & schalk, 2016). furthermore, griffiths and karanika-murray (2012) propose a continuum of engagement, where workaholism is placed on the highest pole (extreme engagement), whilst work engagement is located in the middle area (healthy engagement), between extreme engagement and the lowest pole of the continuum (withdrawal). with regard to similarities, the dimension of absorption identifies to a certain extent an overlapping area between workaholism and work engagement, since it seems to catch the difficulty to stop working and dedicate oneself to nonwork activities (del líbano, llorens, salanova, & schaufeli, 2012; schaufeli et al., 2002; schaufeli, taris, & van rhenen, 2008). all these contributions help to understand the conceptual basis and the individual experience of being a workaholic or an engaged worker. a second, different point of view used in comparing workaholism and work engagement underlines the outcomes of individuals’ work attitude on well-being and social life domains. work engagement is characterized by low levels in health complaints (hallberg & schaufeli, 2006) and high levels in in-role and extra-role performance and well-being (bailey, madden, alfes, & fletcher, 2017); further, it is related to job and personal resources, so that engaged employees are more likely to perceive themselves as self-efficacious, optimistic, and important for their organization, in comparison to nonengaged colleagues (xanthopoulou, bakker, demerouti, & schaufeli, 2009). conversely, research shows that workaholism is associated with low job and career satisfaction (burke & macdermid, 1999) and low levels of life satisfaction, whereas it is positively related to physical health problems and strain (clark, michel, zhdanova, pui, & baltes, 2016). moreover, as reported by ng, sorensen, and feldman (2007), workaholism is characterized by poor mental health and social relationships, and poor job performance in the long run. among the outcomes, in the last decades, research has increasingly focused on the concept of work–life interface (greenhaus, collins, & shaw, 2003; matuska, 2010), the configuration which takes shape from the relations between work role and other roles in life (marks & macdermid, 1996). we cannot find a unique definition of work–life interface: for example, demerouti and colleagues (demerouti, bakker, & voydanoff, 2010; demerouti, geurts, & kompier, 2004) define it as a process in which the functioning and behavior in one role is influenced by demands and resources from the other role. nevertheless, this concept covers multiple facets concerning what people perceive and experience when taking into account the relation established between their work and nonwork life: indeed, it is possible to distinguish the topics of balance, enrichment, and conflict between family and work domains. kirchmeyer (2000) suggests that work–life balance is linked to a satisfying di stefano & gaudiino 865 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ distribution of personal resources (e.g., energy, time) across all life domains, so that we expect that individuals experience positive thoughts and feelings in relation to those domains. in contrast, enrichment is a process by which the participation in one domain strengthens or improves the quality of the participation in the other one (ghislieri, martini, gatti, & colombo, 2011). finally, in the case of work–life conflict, a lack of such equilibrium in people’s lives might derive from an incompatibility between two or more domains and provoke potential harmful outcomes on individual well-being, owing to the pressure perceived from conflicting role requirements (burke & el-kot, 2010). the greatest part of researchers’ interest was directed towards conflict resulting from a negative interaction among life domains (grawitch, barber, & justice, 2010; greenhaus & beutell, 1985; kossek & ozeki, 1998), while more recently several studies have addressed the positive side of balance, concerning the effect of facilitating or enhancing multiple investment in roles (ghislieri et al., 2011; grawitch et al., 2010; grzywacz & butler, 2005). scholars have investigated positive and negative aspects of work–life interface as results of balance and conflict, respectively, between work and nonwork spheres; they focused in particular on balance between work and family domains (demerouti, taris, & bakker, 2007; frone, 2003) and introduced a finer specification of the direction in which the involvement in one of the two domains can affect the participation in the other (amstad, meier, fasel, elfering, & semmer, 2011; netemeyer, boles, & mcmurrian, 1996). from this point of view, we can refer to conflict “from work to family” in order to indicate when interference occurring in one’s family role is caused by work activities and, vice versa, we can refer to conflict “from family to work” in order to specify that demands from family hinder work task completion. since workaholism and work engagement both concerns an intense working style, work–life interference stands out among other possible outcomes and appears as particular relevant to investigate whether the two work attitudes can be distinguished in the field. workaholics’ behavior is characterized by tendency to indulge in work activities, exceeding specific organizational demands (porter, 1996), due to the compulsive constraint they feel (del líbano miralles, 2011; schaufeli & salanova, 2011; spence & robbins, 1992), so we expect that such behavior can lead to a consistent depletion of individual resources over time (bakker, demerouti, oerlemans, & sonnentag, 2013; van wijhe, peeters, schaufeli, & ouweneel, 2013); as a consequence, multiple life spheres are likely to be neglected and perceived like a source of interference for work-related tasks, increasing the risk of work–life interference and reducing the possibility of a positive interplay (bakker, demerouti, & burke, 2009; bonebright, clay, & ankenmann, 2000; shimazu & schaufeli, 2009; taris, schaufeli, & verhoeven, 2005). consequently, our first hypothesis is: hypothesis 1. workaholism is positively related to work-to-life and life-to-work interference. on the other hand, work engaged people express their passion for work in a healthier way (griffiths & karanika-murray, 2012), working long hours as workaholics do, but without the sense of compulsory obligation and with a strong feeling of enjoyment and fun (del líbano miralles, 2011; schaufeli & salanova, 2011; taris, schaufeli, & shimazu, 2010). engaged workers report high job and life satisfaction (christian, garza, & slaughter, 2011; schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2006; schaufeli, taris, & van rhenen, 2008; van beek, hu, schaufeli, taris, & schreurs, 2012) and more positive emotions than workaholics (clark et al., 2014; van wijhe et al., 2011), so they seem to possess personal and job resources that can protect them (burke & el-kot, 2010; greenhaus & powell, 2006; xanthopoulou et al., 2009), when confronting resources draining processes triggered by involvement in multiple life roles (amstad et al., 2011; grawitch et al., 2010). although some authors workaholism, engagement and life-work interference 866 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ posit engagement as a positive outcome of interactions between work and nonwork domains (e.g., li, zhong, chen, xie, & mao, 2014; montgomery, peeters, schaufeli, & ouden, 2003; timms et al., 2015), there are several models that emphasize the impact work engagement directly has on work–life interface (amstad et al., 2011; bakker & demerouti, 2013). we therefore hypothesize: hypothesis 2. work engagement is negatively related to work-to-life and to life-to-work interference. however, as reported before, workaholism and work engagement show at least a common area in relation to the excessive amount of time spent in job activity (schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2006) and the difficulty to detach from it (schaufeli, taris, & van rhenen, 2008). this partial overlapping leads to expect that: hypothesis 3. workaholism and work engagement are weakly and positively related. finally, despite the fact that the two directions of interference between work and nonwork domains are conceived and examined through distinctive constructs (netemeyer et al., 1996), findings from research show they are positively related (e.g., greenhaus et al., 2003; kinnunen, feldt, mauno, & rantanen, 2010). it seems that people reporting experience of work–life interference perceive to a certain extent both work-to-life and life-towork conflict, although they distinguish their levels. so, a positive relation between the two directions of work– life interference is also predicted: hypothesis 4. work-to-life interference and life-to-work interference are positively related. the hypothetical model defined in this study is depicted in figure 1. figure 1. theoretical model of the study. note. wipl = work interference to personal life; pliw = personal life interference to work. materials and method participants and procedure this study was carried out with 212 italian adults working in different organizations from different professional sectors (banking, health, food, industry, commerce). they were aged 18 to 66 years (m = 42.61, sd = 11.01) and 53.1% were men; 63.6% had a permanent contract and the organizational tenure was 1 to 40 (m = 17.99, sd = 10.39). to qualify for inclusion in our study, participants needed to work full time. we sent letters explaining the study, guaranteeing confidentiality and defining the requirements for inclusion to 300 employees (response rate was 70.7%) working in different organizations. questionnaires in paper format were individually di stefano & gaudiino 867 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ completed at the workplace. to reduce common method bias (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003), the survey was anonymous and had its item orders counterbalanced across the organizations participating in the study. measures work engagement was measured by the italian validation (balducci, fraccaroli, & schaufeli, 2010) of uwes-9 (schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2006), the 9-item version of utrecht work engagement scale (schaufeli & bakker, 2003). it consists of three scales reflecting work engagement components (i.e., vigor [vi], dedication [de], and absorption [ab]), containing 3 items each. example items are: “at my job, i feel strong and vigorous” (vi), “my job inspires me” (de), “i get carried away when i am working” (ab). participants answered how often they had experienced specific work-related feelings and states, according to a 7-point frequency scale from 1 (never) to 7 (always). work–life interference was measured by an italian adaptation (pipitone, 2015) of hayman’s (2005) instrument. in accordance to the specific interest of this study, we included only the two scales measuring the conflicting facet of balance, thus excluding work/personal life enhancement scale. the instrument used contained 11 items: 7 items from work interference with personal life scale (wipl; e.g., “my job makes my personal life difficult”), and 4 items for personal life interference with work scale (pliw; e.g., “my personal life drains me of energy for work”). all the items were scored on a 7-point frequency likert scale, from 1 (never) to 7 (always), in order to indicate how much participants had experienced the situations described by the statements, during the previous three months. workaholism was assessed by the italian validation (balducci, avanzi, consiglio, fraccaroli, & schaufeli, 2017) of schaufeli, taris, and bakker’s (2006) dutch work addiction scale (duwas). the instrument consists of two scales, working excessively (we) and working compulsively (wc), containing 9 and 6 items, respectively. the former derives from flowers and robinson’s (2002) compulsive tendency scale and refers to working hard, neglecting nonwork activities, staying busy over time; the latter derives from spence and robbins’ (1992) drive scale, is included in their measure of workaholism (workaholism battery: workbat), and evaluates the sense of obligation and guilt that pushes workaholics to work and their difficulties to relax. example items are “i find myself doing two or three things at one time such as eating lunch and writing a memo, while taking on the telephone” (we) and “i feel that there’s something inside me that drives me to work hard” (wc). subjects answered how often they had experienced the situations described by each item, by choosing an alternative on a likert scale, from 1 (never) to 6 (very often/always). results table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the variables and their zero-order correlations. as table 1 shows, virtually all correlations were in the expected direction. at first glance, the patterns of correlation of work engagement and workaholism with work-to-life conflict were similar, albeit we observed different magnitudes and opposite directions (r = -.17, p < .05, and r = .36, p < .01, respectively). furthermore, also the patterns of correlation of work engagement and workaholism with life-to-work conflict were similar, but with different signs (r = -.35, p < .01, and r = .16, p < .05, respectively). gender, age, and organizational tenure were unrelated to study variables and were therefore not included as control variables in subsequent model testing. workaholism, engagement and life-work interference 868 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means (m), standard deviations (sd), internal consistencies (cronbach’s α), and zero-order correlations of the study variables (n = 212) variables m sd α 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. gender 0.47 0.50 2. age 42.61 11.01 -.106 3. tenure 17.99 10.39 -.269** .839** 4. wipl 3.72 1.60 .92 .040 .052 .081 5. pliw 2.69 1.09 .73 -.020 .011 .063 .343** 6. w-en 5.22 1.34 .94 .078 -.009 -.032 -.170* -.348** 7. de 5.13 1.53 .86 .110 -.069 -.072 -.177* -.325** .920** 8. ab 5.46 1.34 .90 .060 .073 .026 -.168* -.278** .895** .706** 9. vi 5.06 1.50 .80 .044 -.020 -.038 -.280** -.353** .946** .819** .787** 10. wo 3.95 1.02 .82 .031 .053 .049 .363** .160* .285** .189** .328** .279** 11. we 3.77 1.03 .75 .043 .043 .090 .481** .192* .286** .234** .286** .274** .813** 12. wc 4.13 1.34 .80 .014 .047 .006 .182** .020 .213** .117* .279** .213** .895** .466** note. wipl = work interference with personal life; pliw = personal life interference with work; w-en = work engagement; de = dedication; ab = absorption; vi = vigor; wo = workaholism; we = working excessively; wc = working compulsively. gender was coded as a dummy variable (male = 0; female = 1). *p < .01. **p < .001. in order to test our hypotheses, structural equation modeling method with latent variables was used, as implemented by amos 20 (arbuckle, 2011). to evaluate the goodness of fit of the theoretical model to the data, maximum likelihood estimation was used and the input for the analysis was the covariance matrix of the items. the goodness-of-fit of the model was evaluated using the χ2 goodness-of-fit statistic and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). two relative goodness-of-fit indices were also computed: the nonnormed fit index (nnfi) and the comparative fit index (cfi). for both relative-fit indices, as a rule of thumb, values greater than .90 are considered as indicating a good fit (byrne, 2010), whereas values smaller than .08 for rmsea indicate an acceptable fit (cudeck & browne, 1993). the tested model showed a good fit to the data, with all the fit-indices meeting their respective criterion: χ2 = 226.45, df = 98, p < .0000, χ2/df ratio = 2.31, rmsea = .07, nnfi = .91, cfi = .93. as can be seen from figure 2, work engagement strongly and negatively loaded on life-to-work interference (hypothesis 2: γ = -.53, p < .001), whereas workaholism loaded less and in the opposite direction (hypothesis 1: γ = .26, p < .001); symmetrically, consistent with hypothesis 1, workaholism strongly and positively loaded on wipl (γ = .56, p < .001), while, consistent with hypothesis 2, work engagement loaded less and negatively (γ = -.19, p < .01). finally, figure 2 further shows, as expected, that the latent work engagement and workaholism factors were positively correlated (ϕ = .30, p < .001), thus confirming hypothesis 3, whereas wipl was positively correlated with pliw (hypothesis 4: ψ = .38, p < .001). di stefano & gaudiino 869 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. the relations between work engagement, workaholism, work-to-life conflict and life-to-work conflict. note. wipl = work interference to personal life; pliw = personal life interference to work; de = dedication; ab = absorption; vi = vigor; we = working excessively; wc = working compulsively. for parsimony, latent variable errors are omitted. *p < .01. **p < .001. discussion the objective of the current study was to examine two specific approaches to work in relation to the degree of interference between work and nonwork life of individuals. among all the possible outcomes to consider in order to study these associations, we chose work–life interference because workaholism and work engagement both point to an intense working style (bakker, shimazu, et al., 2013; schaufeli, taris, & bakker, 2006), so levels of conflict perceived by individuals between work and nonwork domains can represent a sign of imbalance in one’s life (aziz & cunningham, 2008), allowing to identify potential cases of pathological investment in work, namely workaholism. our first point of attention was the relation between workaholism and work–life interference, for which findings confirmed a positive correlation, when observed either from work domain to personal life domain or from personal life domain to work domain. workaholics’ obsessive attitude towards work hampers their opportunity to equally allocate time and energy to all their life spheres, so work drains their available resources (van wijhe et al., 2013) and they consequently report a high conflicting perception of work and nonwork roles (burke & elkot, 2010; taris, schaufeli, & verhoeven, 2005), in comparison to engaged workers. workaholism, engagement and life-work interference 870 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the contrary, as predicted, work engagement showed a negative relation with work–life interference, both for work-to-life and for life-to-work directions. engaged workers spend a large amount of time at work, seemingly to what happens for workaholics (schaufeli & salanova, 2011; van wijhe, peeters, & schaufeli, 2011), but with a substantial difference illustrated just by their level of balance perceived in personal life: in this case, deep investment in work does not prevent them from engaging in various roles other than work role (clark et al., 2014; timms et al., 2015). hence, their passion for work is compatible with their different interests or routine activities. interestingly, workaholism was positively associated with interference, while work engagement showed a negative correlation with it, but, further, each type of investment in work had the strongest relation with a different direction of interference. precisely, the link between workaholism and work-to-life interference was stronger than the link between workaholism and life-to-work interference, whereas the relation between work engagement and work-to-life interference was weaker than the relation between work engagement and life-to-work interference. with regard to the pattern of results emerged for workaholism, an explanation could be offered by the sense of constraint workaholics feel towards the action of working. although they might seem simply devoted to their job (douglas & morris, 2006), they experience work as an obsession, an obligation they are pushed to (spence & robbins, 1992), so it is perceived as something they cannot avoid. workaholics spend all their efforts in work activities, so they could be more likely to attribute to work, rather than to another side of their lives, the cause of lacking care about private and social life, the cause of difficulties in conciliating tasks from various roles, and even the cause of neglecting personal needs and well-being. since their time is dominated by need for work, it is plausible that workaholics feel work, more than nonwork domain, as the deleterious element of imbalance in life. moreover, our results can be seen in line with the prevalence of conflict from work to life, in respect to the opposite direction of interference (frone, 2003; o’driscoll, ilgen, & hildreth, 1992). moving attention to work engagement, a similar pattern was found by grawitch, barber, and justice (2010): engaged workers are inclined to perceive lower levels of work-to-life interference, probably since they are not obsessed with work, differently from work addicts (schaufeli, shimazu, & taris, 2009), although engaged workers are deeply involved in their job. however, they feel passionate about their work, not tantalizingly obliged to it. on the other hand, work engagement is much more strongly associated with lower levels of life-to-work interference, so it can be worthwhile to reflect upon the role played by nonwork context for engaged workers. these individuals do not appear to consider private life duties as obstacles to their work role and they seldom feel that private life depletes their energies, making them too tired for working. rather, the lower scores on life-to-work interference reported in this study by engaged subjects could suggest that time spent in nonwork domains has great importance, for them, and contributes to building a satisfying balance among all domains. this may correspond, to a certain extent, to the asymmetry o’driscoll et al. (1992) found between pressures exerted by demands from job domain and pressures exerted by demands from off-job domain in respect to the interferences aroused each to the complementary domain: it seems that a greater off-job time pressure does not predict a greater off-job interference; on the contrary, a greater job time pressure predicts a greater job interference. as a consequence, the hours dedicated to life spheres other than work could contribute to replenishing of self-regulation resources of those workers who are engaged in their job (barber, grawitch, & munz, 2013). finally, in our study, as emerged in some previous research also (shimazu & schaufeli, 2009; shimazu et al., 2012), workaholism and work engagement showed, to a certain extent, a positive relation, which supports the di stefano & gaudiino 871 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ idea that, although they are two different constructs, there is an overlapping portion at the basis of their meaning. moreover, as expected, and in line with previous research (greenhaus et al., 2003; kinnunen, feldt, mauno, & rantanen, 2010), the present study showed a positive relation between the two different forms of interference (i.e., work-to-life and life-to-work). conclusion, limitations, future research and practical implications in the current study we examined the relations between workaholism and work engagement, on the one hand, and between these two work attitudes, respectively, and work–life interference, on the other hand. findings confirmed the expectation of a differential sign of such relations: workaholism was positively associated with work–life conflict, in both work-to-life and life-to-work directions, while work engagement was negatively associated with both directions of conflict between work and life. more in detail, we further observed a reversed symmetry among the relations of the two work attitudes respectively with each of the two directions of conflict, that is we found that workaholism showed a stronger positive correlation with work-to-life conflict, and work engagement showed a stronger negative correlation with life-to-work conflict. these results raised interesting questions that should be addressed by future research on the theme. finally, workaholism and work engagement are different approaches to work, but they are likely to share a portion of their conceptual dimensions. the study presented here shows some limitations. first, it suffers from the typical limits of research based on self-report measures. all data are based on self-reports, which means that the magnitude of the effects that we reported may have been biased due to common method variance (conway, 2002; podsakoff et al., 2003). future research could include more objectively measured variables. second, cross-sectional nature of the study prevents us from advancing any conclusions about causal relations among the variables we investigated. third, the sample consists of a relatively homogeneous small group of people who come from a delimited geographical area; this might have led to a restriction of range. hence, future research should include more heterogeneous samples, thus increasing the generalizability of the results. however, there are some points emerged from this study that potentially stimulate new research questions. in particular, we refer to the possibility to deepen the research on the distinctive associations of workaholism and work engagement, as two types of work investment, with bidirectional work–life balance, since, as just suggested by our study, each attitude may determine significant differences not only in the amount of perceived conflict, but also in its nature or direction, that is its source. we conclude that common and distinctive components of workaholism and work engagement deserve further attention, by focusing, for example, on other variables that could be conceptualized as correlated with these peculiar approaches to work. moreover, this research may suggest some implications for managerial practice, by highlighting how two different types of heavy investment in work could be linked to the perception of imbalance between work and nonwork domains. although workaholics initially seem to represent an efficient type of hard workers in several work environments, they will probably demonstrate later the consequences of their lack of balance in life (ng et al., 2007). this ambiguity potentially yields a danger, especially in organizational contexts: if hardworking styles were indiscriminately and systematically stimulated as good behavioral models to be replicated and rewarded, without any consideration of the different underlying nature of attitudes that can activate such behavior, there workaholism, engagement and life-work interference 872 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 https://www.psychopen.eu/ could be a real risk for some employees to get into an escalation towards a workaholic way of working; workaholism, in turn, can produce negative outcomes, like a problematic work–life interface, as observed in our study. consequently, supervisors and managers should be aware of the real nature of workaholism and be able to recognize its behavioral signals among their employees. finally, since our results have shown a possible differentiation in the way heavy work investors perceive an interference among their life spheres, this knowledge might be efficiently used in the field of work–life balance policies, taking into account the distinctive characteristics of the different working styles. organizations should offer a variety of programs, provided that not all the workers perceive conflict between work and life field in the same perspective or in the same direction. these initiatives could be used to present and promote a healthy approach to one’s job and, in turn, motivate a positive, balanced interface between work and nonwork spheres, thus creating an organizational environment where employees are more likely to develop an engaged working style. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references amstad, f. t., meier, l. l., fasel, u., elfering, a., & semmer, n. k. 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(2009). reciprocal relationships between job resources, personal resources, and work engagement. journal of vocational behavior, 74(3), 235-244. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.003 about the authors giovanni di stefano assistant professor in work and organizational psychology (university of palermo, italy). he earned a ph.d. in public relations in the same university where he is a member of the psychology, educational science and human movement department since 2012. his research interests include the impact of organizational culture on human resource management practices, with particular emphasis on managing deviance and diversities, the organizational well-being, and the attachment to the workplace. maria gaudiino psychologist, is an independent consultant and researcher based in palermo, italy. specialist in training, her research interests include workaholism and work engagement. di stefano & gaudiino 879 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 863–879 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1626 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.003 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ workaholism, engagement and life-work interference (introduction) healthy and pathological involvement in work: the role of work–life interface materials and method participants and procedure measures results discussion conclusion, limitations, future research and practical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors humor styles are related to loneliness across 15 countries research reports humor styles are related to loneliness across 15 countries julie aitken schermer 1, radosław rogoza 2, marija branković 3, oscar oviedo-trespalacios 4, tatiana volkodav 5, truong thi khanh ha 6, maria magdalena kwiatkowska 2, eva papazova 7, joonha park 8, christopher marcin kowalski 1, marta doroszuk 9, dzintra iliško 10, sadia malik 11, samuel lins 12, ginés navarro-carrillo 13, jorge torres-marín 14, anna wlodarczyk 15, sibele d. aquino 16, georg krammer 17 [1] management and organizational studies, department of psychology, faculty of social science, university of western ontario, london, on, canada. [2] institute of psychology, cardinal stefan wyszyński university, warsaw, poland. [3] department of psychology, faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, belgrade, serbia. [4] delft university of technology, faculty of technology, policy and management, section of safety and security science, delft, the netherlands. [5] department of pedagogy and psychology, kuban state university, krasnodar, russian federation. [6] faculty of psychology, university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university, hanoi, vietnam. [7] institute for research in education, sofia, bulgaria. [8] school of management, nucb business school, nagoya, japan. [9] centre for social cognitive studies, jagiellonian university, krakow, poland. [10] institute of humanities and social sciences, center of sustainable education, university of daugavpils, daugavpils, latvia. [11] department of psychology, university of sargodha, sargodha, pakistan. [12] laboratory of social psychology, center for psychology, university of porto, porto, portugal. [13] department of psychology, university of jaén, jaén, spain. [14] department of research methods in behavioral sciences, university of granada, granada, spain. [15] escuela de psicología, universidad católica del norte, antofagasta, chile. [16] department of psychology, pontificia universidade catolica do rio de janeiro, rio de janeiro, brazil. [17] institute for educational sciences, university college of teacher education styria, graz, austria. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 received: 2020-12-08 • accepted: 2021-08-24 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: julie aitken schermer, management and organizational studies and department of psychology, faculty of social science, university of western ontario, london, ontario, n6a 5c2, canada. telephone: 001-519-661-2111 ext. 84699. e-mail: jharris@uwo.ca abstract the relationships between self-report loneliness and the four humor styles of affiliative, aggressive, self-defeating, and self-enhancing were investigated in 15 countries (n = 4,701). because loneliness has been suggested to be both commonly experienced and detrimental, we examine if there are similar patterns between humor styles, gender, and age with loneliness in samples of individuals from diverse backgrounds. across the country samples, affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles negatively correlated with loneliness, self-defeating was positively correlated, and the aggressive humor style was not significantly related. in predicting loneliness, 40.5% of the variance could be accounted. younger females with lower affiliative, lower self-enhancing, and higher selfdefeating humor style scores had higher loneliness scores. the results suggest that although national mean differences may be present, the pattern of relationships between humor styles and loneliness is consistent across these diverse samples, providing some suggestions for mental health promotion among lonely individuals. keywords humor styles, gender, human, adult, loneliness loneliness is a social problem experienced by many individuals. people have an essential human need to belong to a community and maintain social bonds (baumeister & leary, 1995; lavigne et al., 2011). when an individual has no group to belong to, he/she experiences a sense of loneliness (rokach, 2018). individuals adjust to the demands of social interactions in a variety of patterns. these patterns might be more or less adaptive (eder, 1990). in their social this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5407&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ interactions, some people use humor in a way that facilitates positive social interaction, while others may use humor in a less prosocial manner (martin, 2007). as loneliness may be partially explained by the use of specific humor styles in interpersonal situations, this study investigates the relationships between self-report loneliness and four humor styles in 15 countries (n = 4,701). loneliness loneliness is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, involving the feeling of absence of attachments, relations, and social bonds, resulting in sadness and frustration (maes et al., 2016). loneliness negatively affects one’s physical and psychosocial life and can increase the likelihood of symptoms of depression, social anxiety, poor physical health, and even cognitive decline (cacioppo et al., 2015; hawkley & cacioppo, 2010; ilhan, 2012; tharayil, 2012; ursin & eriksen, 2004; weiss, 1973). loneliness has become a feature of contemporary society and some researchers point to an existential loneliness as an element of the human condition linking it to the fundamental ontological condition (ettema et al., 2010). macdonald and associates (2020a) recently found that those who report higher loneliness also score higher on a new measure of anti-mattering, suggesting that those who feel lonely also do not feel that they matter to others. in addition, loneliness has been found to be more than a situation variable or a transitory mood or emotion. in recent behavior genetic studies, loneliness has been reported to have a genetic component, with heritability estimates ranging from 35% in a large twin sample from australia (schermer & martin, 2019) to 37% in a large sample from the netherlands (distel et al., 2010). these findings suggest that loneliness is an important individual difference variable, requiring further understanding. in a recent report, barreto et al. (2021) investigated loneliness from over 46,000 individuals from “273 countries, islands, and territories” using the data from the bbc loneliness experiment. analyzing the item of how frequently individuals experienced loneliness, barreto et al. (2021) reported that loneliness decreased with age, was higher in individualistic countries, and that men scored higher than women. these results suggest that loneliness may vary across samples based on where the sample was taken geographically and may vary due to the composition of the sample with respect to age and gender. with respect to age, it is of interest that barreto et al. (2021) reported that older people were less lonely than were younger people in their variable of frequency of experiencing loneliness. other research has indicated that older adults are more vulnerable to social loneliness, which is partially explained by their reduced social activity, living alone or widowhood (schiau, 2016). recently, macdonald et al. (2020b) demonstrated in a large sample of dutch adults, that loneliness had a curvilinear relationship with age such that both the younger and the older were the loneliest. how age is related to loneliness and types of loneliness is an area which has not been definitely explained. gender has also been examined with respect to loneliness. similar to the findings with age, the pattern of results is quite inconclusive. for example, mullins et al. (1996) report a higher level of loneliness among senior men compared to women in the usa. by contrast, women tend to report that they experience loneliness more in some studies (victor & yang, 2012), whereas a meta analyses of 30 loneliness studies indicated that men are typically lonelier (rokach, 2018). in scandinavian countries, the level of loneliness is higher among women due to their longer lifespan and experience of widowhood and many losses (jylhä, 2004). and, as described above, barreto et al. (2021) reported that men had a higher frequency of loneliness. because gender differences in loneliness may be age related or geographically related, in addition to other interpersonal variables such as personality and life circumstances, gender differences will be explored in the present study by examining the point-biserial correlations between gender and loneliness for each country sample as well as for the complete sample. studies have demonstrated differences in the level of loneliness across cultures. often culture classification is on the degree of individualism versus collectivism, as was done in the study by barreto et al. (2021). in more individualistic cultures, psychological autonomy is valued quite highly and may lead to social alienation and loneliness. in collectivist cultures, greater social support may lead to a greater sense of interpersonal connectedness (maes et al., 2016). for example, in western europe, with prevailing individualism and weaker community ties, the level of loneliness is higher when compared to eastern european cultures (rokach, 2018), while northern european cultures show high levels of isolation and loneliness (dykstra, 2009). the dimension of individualism has been suggested to be a distinct predictor schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 423 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of loneliness in cross-culture research (oyserman et al., 2002). however, one study of loneliness carried out in 25 countries revealed that the level of loneliness is much higher in eastern europe as compared with western european and northern european countries, with the highest level of loneliness reported in post-communist countries, such as ukraine, latvia, russia, hungary, poland romania, and bulgaria (yang & victor, 2011). this finding might be explained by the political and economic transformations and hardships in these countries, suggesting that there may be other relevant dimensions of cultural differences beyond individualism and collectivism in influencing loneliness. the present study adds to this body of research by examining self-report loneliness from 15 diverse geographical samples. humor and humor styles humor is one of the first social indicators (after crying) transmitted to babies. as early as about four months of age, children begin to smile and laugh in response to the actions of adults (martin, 2007). the idea that the mechanism of humor exists as part of the human nature is evidenced by the fact that children who are born deaf and blind can laugh without these senses (martin, 2007). martin et al. (2003) developed a comprehensive understanding of humor, based on a theoretical framework that cov­ ers the day–to–day functions of humor—adapting and dealing with crises, creating and maintaining close interpersonal relationships, bringing people together in a group, and established a research method to operationalize these significant functions. in this model, humor is multidimensional, encompassing four styles of humor. these styles are based on in-depth analyses of theoretical literature to determine what forms, functions, and styles (manners, types) of humor are considered adaptive or maladaptive in our relationships with others. martin et al. (2003) emphasize that positive and negative manifestations, as well as the target of the humor, are opposite and relatively independent of one another, forming four dimensions or styles of humor. the affiliative humor style describes people who tend to tell funny stories, witty teases, and entertain others (martin et al., 2003). in this way, they successfully reduce interpersonal tension and strengthen their relationships with others (lefcourt, 2001). the self-enhancing humor style reflects a general humorous outlook and a tendency to be entertained by the inconsistencies and absurdities of everyday life (martin et al., 2003). people who apply this style to their daily routine maintain a humorous perspective when facing stress and distress (kuiper, martin, & olinger, 1993). high scores on the aggressive humor style refer to the use of sarcasm, ridicule, humiliation, offending, or ignoring others (martin et al., 2003). this style also involves the use of humor to manipulate others by mocking or threatening (janes & olson, 2000). the fourth humor style, self-defeating, involves the overuse of negative jokey comments that may affect the self-concept. engaging in this style aims at entertaining others even if it is accompanied by emotional discomfort for them. thus, a person who engages in this style allows himself or herself to be the center of their mockery and sarcastic remarks (martin et al., 2003). at the same time, the self-defeating humor style is a defense mechanism by which the individual suppresses or pushes aside negative experiences, concealing emotional states and avoiding dealing with specific intrapsychic problems (kubie, 1971). schermer et al. (2015) reported that there were significant positive genetic correlations between the self-defeating humor style and borderline personality disorder dimensions (in a non-clinical sample), including affect instability, identity disturbance, negative relationships, and of great concern, self-harm, suggesting that self-defeating humor positively relates with loneliness possibly due to the negative relationships indicative with borderline personality disorder dimensions. humor and loneliness some studies have focused on humor to deal with loneliness. humor is one possible coping mechanism with loneliness, life hardships, and changes in one’s life. as reviewed above, humor may involve a constructive outlook on life, which assists with coping with difficulties or loss. humor may also facilitate building healthy relationships and bonds. with respect to the four humor styles, martin et al. (2003) suggest that individuals may use humor to deal with loneliness. hampes (2006) reported that higher loneliness scores were negatively related to affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles but positively related to the self-defeating humor style. the same pattern of relations was revealed by a study done in turkey (çeçen, 2007). zhao et al. (2012) studied how humor styles and self-esteem mediated the relation between shyness and loneliness in the asian culture. they reported a positive correlation between the self-enhancing humor style and self-esteem. further, they showed that shy people become lonely in part due to not loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 424 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ displaying self-enhancing and affiliative humor. the authors stressed the importance of both of these styles of humor for adaptive social functioning in the context of a collectivist culture. in addition, male students who tend to use less of the self-enhancing humor style were at a higher risk of loneliness compared with female students (zhao et al., 2012). in comparing hong kong and mainland china, yue et al. (2014) reported that self-enhancing and affiliative styles of humor predicted lower loneliness scores. the self-defeating humor style emerged as a significant predictor of social and emotional loneliness among hong kong students, but only for social loneliness among the mainland chinese. fitts et al. (2009) also found that people who engage in affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles are less lonely while people who use the self-defeating style are more prone to loneliness. this study further showed how humor styles mediated the link between shyness and loneliness through the finding that shy people use humor styles detrimental to their self and fail to use socially adaptive humor styles. further, schermer et al. (2017) explored genetic aspects in the study of humor styles and loneliness and reported phenotypic, genetic, and environmental correlations between the humor style scales and a loneliness scale. this study revealed that, at the phenotypic level, both adaptive humor styles (affiliative and self-enhancing) are negatively related with loneliness, while the two maladaptive dimensions (aggressive and self-defeating) are positively related to loneliness. in addition, the study suggested that these phenotypic correlations are attributable to shared familial and unique environmental factors. hypotheses accumulated evidence supports relationships between humor styles and loneliness. we hypothesized that affiliative humor styles and self-enhancing humor-styles are negatively related with loneliness, whereas the self-defeating humor style is positively related with loneliness. although the results described above were mixed with respect to the aggres­ sive humor style, we predicted that the aggressive humor style would have a non-significant correlation with loneliness. our inspection of the literature led us to expect that general patterns for the relationships would be culturally invariant. however, in that cultures have different emphases on human values, it is possible that the degree of relationships between different humor styles and loneliness may differ across the country samples. therefore, the current study aimed to illuminate geographical differences and similarities in use of different humor styles and their relationships with loneliness. method participants and procedure the sample consisted of 4701 participants (3201 females (64.26%) with 16 missing) in 15 countries. the sample sizes and demographics for each country are in table 1 and represent a subgroup of a 28-country study (schermer et al., 2019b). in the original 28-country study, samples were chosen with the goal of sampling as many countries as possible. of the 28 country samples, the 15 countries with acceptable measurement properties for the humor scales, such that the coefficient alpha value was greater than .60 for each of the four scales, was retained for this investigation with the correlations with loneliness. participants completed questionnaires either online or paper-and-pencil (see table 1) after indicating informed consent. materials the humor styles questionnaire (hsq; martin et al., 2003) assesses four humor styles: affiliative, aggressive, self-en­ hancing, and self-defeating. the hsq comprises 32 items (8 items for each of the four humor styles), responded to using a 1 (definitely disagree) to 7 (definitely agree) likert-type scale. the hsq has shown good internal consistency in previous research (alphas for subscales ranging from .77 to .81; martin et al., 2003). the internal consistencies of the four hsq scales for each of the country samples are in table 2 and, as stated above, are each above .60. to measure loneliness, we used the three-item loneliness scale (tils; hughes et al., 2004), which was designed for the needs of large survey studies. the tils scale consists of three items derived from the revised ucla loneliness scale (russell et al., 1980) which were first selected from a factor analysis and then adapted to the interview format (e.g., schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 425 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “how often do you feel left out?”). items are administered as questions in the second person and participants provide answers using a 3-point scale (1 = hardly ever, 2 = some of the time, 3 = often). in the current study, german, polish, and spanish adaptations (hawkley et al., 2016; rico-uribe et al., 2016) and newly prepared language versions of the tils (portuguese, bulgarian, estonian, russian, serbian, korean, and ukrainian) were used. the internal consistencies of the tils are in table 2 and cronbach’s coefficient α was between .62 and .88 across countries. table 1 demographic statistics for the samples across the 15 countries country language data collection procedure n females n males age m years (sd) age range brazil portuguese online 209 95 28.76 (11.38) 18–71 bulgaria bulgarian paper-pencil 128 131 19.94 (1.49) 17–33 canada english online 109 119 24.30 (5.20) 18–55 chile spanish online 164 69 20.97 (3.10) 17–49 colombia spanish online 142 114 21.06 (3.22) 18–48 estonia estonian paper-pencil 153 215 24.28 (6.96) 18–49 germany german online 258 75 26.83 (6.56) 17–57 poland polish online 167 78 23.75 (4.43) 18–40 portugal portuguese online 375 94 22.82 (7.46) 17–78 russia russian online 189 125 19.64 (1.64) 18–29 serbia serbian online 302 102 21.73 (4.86) 18–52 south korea korean paper-pencil 96 88 21.77 (2.13) 18–27 spain spanish online 226 100 23.71 (5.84) 18–55 ukraine ukrainian online 270 71 26.93 (9.82) 17–82 united states english online 233 188 26.75 (3.26) 19–55 table 2 scale descriptives for the four humor style scales and loneliness for each country country affiliative m (sd, α) aggressive m (sd, α) self-enhancing m (sd, α) self-defeating m (sd, α) lonely m (sd, α) brazil 44.47 (8.58, .84) 24.17 (7.36, .63) 34.11 (9.90, .82) 26.75 (9.69, .80) 5.59 (1.88, .82) bulgaria 44.48 (7.52, .73) 27.43 (7.97, .62) 35.32 (8.68, .71) 30.02 (7.89, .64) 4.76 (1.60, .76) canada 45.82 (6.74, .80) 28.78 (8.02, .73) 33.92 (9.52, .84) 28.12 (8.62, .78) 5.32 (1.76, .81) chile 42.76 (8.31, .82) 25.71 (7.94, .71) 35.78 (8.90, .81) 27.70 (8.46, .75) 5.71 (1.94, .81) colombia 41.06 (8.30, .78) 24.01 (7.51, .67) 35.77 (9.22, .81) 23.94 (8.21, .77) 5.15 (1.90, .82) estonia 44.26 (7.13, .80) 29.08 (7.56, .71) 35.48 (8.13, .78) 28.04 (7.76, .75) 4.86 (1.63, .76) germany 43.43 (8.23, .85) 26.71 (7.22, .66) 34.05 (9.16, .83) 25.54 (9.56, .85) 5.24 (1.49, .62) poland 42.86 (8.52, .85) 27.44 (7.79, .72) 34.10 (8.44, .80) 29.42 (8.72, .79) 5.67 (1.90, .82) portugal 43.57 (7.68, .81) 24.32 (6.73, .61) 33.33 (9.65, .83) 23.66 (9.46, .83) 5.26 (1.80, .79) russia 41.88 (8.40, .80) 29.73 (7.57, .63) 34.05 (8.49, .74) 28.25 (8.03, .70) 5.19 (1.78, .80) serbia 46.06 (6.59, .75) 24.57 (7.42, .64) 36.85 (8.86, .76) 27.60 (9.17, .79) 5.53 (1.52, .62) south korea 40.95 (6.79, .82) 25.31 (6.57, .70) 32.09 (6.54, .70) 28.29 (.32, .77) 4.47 (1.50, .73) spain 43.80 (7.14, .78) 22.26 (7.10, .66) 34.45 (8.64, .79) 26.66 (8.03, .74) 5.24 (1.86, .82) ukraine 42.66 (8.20, .81) 24.96 (6.93, .63) 35.03 (8.68, .79) 23.84 (8.12, .76) 4.93 (1.74, .78) united states 41.35 (8.99, .86) 27.84 (7.68, .71) 35.64 (9.20, .85) 27.37 (9.05, .82) 5.52 (2.14, .88) loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 426 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analyses after descriptive and correlative results, the relationship between humor and loneliness was tested using structural equation models. we examined how the four humor styles predict loneliness, while controlling for effects of gender and age. therefore, loneliness was modelled as a latent variable with the three items of the tils serving as ordinal indicators. the first loneliness item was used as a reference variable for identification purposes. the four humor style scores were computed from the hsq and the sum scores were regressed on loneliness. finally, gender and age were also regressed on loneliness. through this regression, the relation between gender and age on loneliness was modelled and thereby controlled. all exogenous manifest variables were allowed to correlate. in our model, we conceptualize loneliness as a latent variable and examine how the humor style scores, age, and gender predict loneliness. it should be noted that the same model may also be interpreted as a mimic-model (for an overview cf. bollen & bauldry, 2011; strube, 2015). in a mimic-model, the latent variable would represent a causal indicators model of the four humor styles. this would be consistent with the literature on humor styles, which does not assume a second-order factor of humor (martin et al., 2003). the three loneliness items are interpreted as three outcome variables. these are two competing views of the same latent variable. to harmonize these competing views, we 1) considered the latent variable as latent loneliness for ease of interpretation, but 2) interpreted the factor loadings of the three loneliness items as three regression weights for three indicators as outcomes. as the data was collected across 15 countries, there is a hierarchical data structure that should be considered. in a first step, we inspected the intraclass correlation (icc) of all manifest variables in the model across the countries. this icc can be interpreted as how much percentage of the variance within a variable can be explained solely by the country affiliation. if this percentage is substantial (e.g. hox et al. (2010) suggest 5% to be low and 15% to be high), then the hierarchical structure of the data needs to be considered. the iccs are given in table 3. as some humor styles varied substantially across countries (highest icc for aggressive = 7.2%), we concluded that the hierarchical data structure needed to be considered for the humor styles. in addition, the covariates gender and age had sizeable iccs reflecting that the samples were not entirely comparable across countries in age and gender. this difference is a limitation of our study and not a statistical artefact calling for correction. as the items assessing loneliness had negligible iccs (iccs ≤ .030), we concluded that the hierarchical data structure did not need to be considered for loneliness. as 15 countries are not a sufficient number of clusters to warrant multi-level structural equation modelling, we estimated all models two-fold: 1) without considering the hierarchical data structure; 2) accounting for the hierarchical data structure by group mean centering the humor styles. group mean centering removes the country level variance from the data (enders & tofighi, 2007). we thereby account for mean differences in humor styles across countries. similar results across models with and without group mean centered humor styles would point to effects not being driven by country-level differences; non-similar results would suggest the opposite. all models were estimated in r (r core team, 2018) with the lavaan package (rosseel, 2012). the loneliness items have three response categories. consequently, the loneliness items were treated as ordinal indicators. the models were therefore estimated with wlsmv (lei, 2009; savalei & rhemtulla, 2013) with the loneliness items as ordered variables. gender was dummy coded (0 = female, 1 = male) and considered as an ordinal variable. model fit was assumed with a non-significant chi-squared statistic (greiff & heene, 2017), cfi ≥ .95, rmsea < .06 and srmr < .08 (hu & bentler, 1999; marsh et al., 2004). should model fit not be achieved, modification indices were inspected to point to the source of the misfit and to propose an alternate model. the critical ratio test was used to determine if parameters estimates of the models were significant (p < .05). the data and r-script are available at the supplementary materials section. schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 427 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 d es cr ip tiv e st at is tic s an d c or re la tio ns b et w ee n th e h um or s ty le s, l on el in es s an d th e c ov ar ia te s g en de r an d a ge d es cr ip ti ve s ta ti st ic s h um or s ty le s c ov ar ia te s lo ne lin es s va ri ab le d et ai ls n m sd ic c m in m ax sk ew . ku rt . a ff ili at iv e a gg re ss iv e se lf en ha nc in g se lf de fe at in g g en de r a ge to ta l co m pa ny le ft o ut h um or s ty le s a ff ili at iv e 46 66 43 .3 6 7. 99 .0 33 8 56 -0 .7 1 0. 33 a gg re ss iv e 46 69 26 .0 9 7. 70 .0 72 8 55 0. 18 -0 .1 9 .1 2 se lfen ha nc in g 46 56 34 .7 5 8. 96 .0 13 8 56 -0 .0 7 -0 .3 4 .4 3 .1 0 se lfde fe at in g 46 71 26 .8 1 8. 85 .0 43 8 56 0. 23 -0 .2 9 .1 5 .3 0 .2 0 c ov ar ia te s g en de r 46 85 1. 36 0. 48 .0 60 0 1 0. 61 -1 .6 3 .0 2 .2 1 .0 8 .1 1 a ge 47 01 23 .7 5 6. 65 .1 61 17 82 2. 58 9. 29 -.0 4a -.0 9 .0 8 -.0 9 .0 2a lo ne lin es s to ta l 47 00 1. 75 0. 6 .0 31 1 3 0. 48 -0 .6 9 -.2 5 .0 1a -.2 4 .2 0 -.0 6 -.0 8 co m pa ni on sh ip 46 99 1. 86 0. 70 .0 24 1 3 0. 21 -0 .9 6 -.1 7 .0 1a -.1 7 .1 5 -.0 6 -.0 7 .8 0 le ft o ut 46 95 1. 71 0. 71 .0 30 1 3 0. 48 -0 .9 4 -.2 2 .0 2a -.2 2 .1 8 -.0 6 -.0 7 .8 6 .5 4 is ol at ed 46 98 1. 68 0. 73 .0 27 1 3 0. 59 -0 .9 5 -.2 5 .0 0a -.2 2 .1 6 -.0 3a -.0 5 .8 5 .5 0 .6 3 n ot e. g en de r (0 = fe m al e, 1 = m al e) . l on el in es s: t ot al = to ta l s co re o f t he t il s, c om pa ni on sh ip /c om pa ny = h ow o ft en d o yo u fe el th at y ou la ck c om pa ni on sh ip ?; le ft o ut = h ow o ft en d o yo u fe el le ft ou t? ; i so la te d/ is o. = h ow o ft en d o yo u fe el is ol at ed fr om o th er s? f or h um or s ty le s an d lo ne lin es s, h ig he r va lu es m ea n hi gh er s ta nd in g on th e tr ai t. po ss ib le r an ge o f t he h um or s ty le s be tw ee n 8 an d 56 , b et w ee n 1 an d 3 fo r lo ne lin es s. n ot s ig ni fi ca nt (p ≥ .0 5) . loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 428 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive results table 3 shows the descriptive statistics and correlations between the humor styles, loneliness, and the covariates gender and age for the complete sample. as stated above, table 2 gives the descriptive statistics and internal consistency esti­ mates for the four humor styles and the loneliness scores separated for the countries. table 4 presents the correlations between loneliness with the humor style scores, age, and gender, for each country sample. table 4 correlations between loneliness with humor styles, age, and gender for each country country affiliative aggressive self-enhancing self-defeating age gender brazil -.16* .02 -.32* .25* -.28* -.02 bulgaria -.26* -.02 -.16 .07 -.12 -.01 canada -.36* .04 -.14 .27* .05 -.04 chile -.26* .05 -.26* .11 -.10 .02 columbia -.22* -.03 -.17* .17* -.16 -.11 estonia -.31* -.10 -.26* .14* -.11 .01 germany -.25* -.02 -.21* .20* .07 .02 poland -.34* .08 -.30* .27* -.16 -.09 portugal -.23* .01 -.37* .32* -.18* -.02 russia -.22* .03 -.21* .15* -.01 -.15* serbia -.29* .06 -.21* .20* -.10 .10 south korea -.28* .06 -.11 .21* -.03 -.09 spain -.26* .08 -.15* .21* -.04 -.04 ukraine -.28* .01 -.33* .14* -.11 -.06 united states -.32* .03 -.36* .23* -.12 -.13* note. gender: 1 = female, 2 = male. *p < .01. across all of the country samples, the highest scores were for the affiliative humor style, followed by the self-enhancing humor style, with the lowest scores for the aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. for individual country compari­ sons, affiliative humor style scores varied significantly across the countries; f(15, 4936) = 11.14, p < .001. serbia had the highest mean for affiliative humor style (significantly, following bonferroni post-hoc with p < .001, higher than the values for chile, colombia, germany, hungary, poland, portugal, russia, south korea, ukraine, and the united states) and south korea had the lowest mean (significantly lower than the values for brazil, bulgaria, canada, estonia, and serbia). aggressive humor style scores varied significantly across the country samples; f(15, 4939) = 26.20, p < .001. russia had the highest mean for aggressive humor style (significantly (p < .001) higher than the values for brazil, chile, colombia, germany, hungary, portugal, serbia, south korea, spain, and the ukraine) and spain had the lowest mean (significantly (p < .001) lower than the values for bulgaria, canada, chile, estonia, germany, poland, russia, south korea, ukraine, and the united states). self-enhancing humor style scores significantly varied across country samples; f(15, 4926) = 5.34, p < .001. serbia had the highest mean for self-enhancing humor style (significantly (p < .001) higher than the values for portugal and south korea) and south korea had the lowest mean (significantly (p < .001) lower than the values for hungary, serbia, and the united states). self-defeating humor style scores varied significantly across the country samples; f(15, 4941) = 15.45, p < .001. bulgaria had the highest mean for self-defeating humor style (significantly (p < .001) higher than the values for brazil, colombia, germany, hungary, portugal, spain, and the ukraine) and portugal had the lowest mean (significantly (p < .001) lower than the values for brazil, bulgaria, canada, chile, estonia, poland, russia, serbia, south korea, spain, and the united states). loneliness scores varied significantly across country samples; f(15, 4962) = 10.30, p < .001, with the lowest scores for the south korean sample (significantly (p < .001) lower schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 429 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ than the values for brazil, canada, chile, germany, hungary, poland, portugal, russia, serbia, spain, and the united states) and the highest scores for the sample from chile (significantly (p < .001) higher than the values for bulgaria, estonia, south korea, and the ukraine). overall, there was only a small relationship between loneliness and gender, with men scoring slightly lower on the loneliness scale. as evident in the correlations in table 4, this small gender difference was mostly driven by the samples from russia and the united states, demonstrating a significant point-biserial correlation with women scoring higher on the loneliness scale. there was also a small relationship between loneliness and age, with older participants feeling less lonely, with the correlations reaching significance for the samples from brazil and portugal. when the possible curvilinear relationship between age and loneliness was assessed, it was found that the correlation between loneliness and the age value squared was not significantly different, and was slightly lower, than the linear correlations. as such, the linear correlations between age and loneliness are reported. as reported in table 3, lonelier participants used more self-defeating humor and less affiliative humor and had lower scores on the self-enhancing humor style scale. no significant relationship between loneliness and the aggressive humor style was found for the complete sample. when individual country samples were examined (see table 4), consistently a negative correlation was between loneliness and the affiliative humor style. although not always reaching statistical significance, there were negative correlations between the self-enhancing humor style and loneliness. similarly, the self-defeating humor style had positive correlations with loneliness although for some of the samples, the values did not reach statistical significance. for each sample, a non-significant correlation was between loneliness and the aggressive humor style. relationship between humor and loneliness the structural equation model in figure 1 was fitted to assess the relationship between the humor styles and loneliness. first, this model was fitted with uncentered humor styles. the uncentered model did not fit the data, χ2(12) = 39.232, p < .001, rmsea = .022, srmr = .011, cfi = .998. inspection of the modification indices revealed that the affiliative humor style had an influence on the feeling of being isolated from others over and above the latent variable. adding this path to the model resulted in a good model fit, χ2(11) = 16.514, p = .123, rmsea = .010, srmr = .008, cfi = 1.00. figure 1 structural equation model for testing the relationship between the humor styles and loneliness note. parameters on the left of the slash are derived from the uncentered model, parameters on the right from the centered model. the dashed path was added after the initial model showed misfit. all estimated are standardized. the parameter of gender was standardized only on the latent variable and can therefore be interpreted as cohen’s d. *non-significant (p ≥ .05) ahow often do you feel that you lack companionship? bhow often do you feel left out? chow often do you feel isolated from others? loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 430 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ second, the model was fitted with group mean centered humor styles. this model did also not fit the data, χ2(12) = 38.141, p < .001, rmsea = .022, srmr = .011, cfi = .998. again, modification indices indicated that the misspecification was a missing effect of the affiliative humor style on the feeling of being isolated from others over and above the latent variable. adding this path to the model made the model fit the data, χ2(11) = 15.466, p = .162, rmsea = .009, srmr = .008, cfi = 1.00. in the last step, the model parameters shown in figure 1 where inspected. both affiliative and self-enhancing humor style were related to feeling less lonely. by contrast, the self-defeating humor style was related to feeling lonelier. an effect of the aggressive humor style could not be found. all but the aggressive humor styles strongly affected all three outcomes—lacking companionship, feeling left out, and feeling isolated from others. the strongest effect was given for the feeling of being left out. furthermore, the feeling of being isolated from others was additionally reduced by a higher affiliative humor style. the covariates gender and age were both significant yet their effects negligible. these negligible effects suggest that being male and older was related to being slightly less lonely. the results from the centered and uncentered models were nearly identical. therefore, we conclude that the relationship between humor styles and loneliness was not driven by country-level differences. discussion this study examined the relationships between humor styles and loneliness for men and women from samples in 15 countries. consistently, the pattern suggests that individuals who use the affiliative humor style are less lonely. this pattern is as hypothesized, as the affiliative humor style is an adaptive style and reflects using humor to improve relationships with others (lefcourt, 2001; martin et al., 2003), and, as reviewed in the introduction, lonely individuals tend to report poor social bonds with others (maes et al., 2016). less robust, but consistent, was the hypothesized negative relationship between loneliness and the self-enhancing humor style. as reviewed in the introduction, the self-enhancing humor style is intrapersonal and involves using humor to “cheer” one’s self, which alleviates negative states such as stress (kuiper et al., 1993; martin et al., 2003). one possibility for the less robust relationship between self-enhancing humor style and loneliness, when compared to the relationship between loneliness and the affiliative humor style, is the focus of the humor. affiliative, by nature, is a humor style dealing with others. the self-enhancing humor style may alleviate feelings of stress but does not necessarily improve relationships with other people. possibly applied researchers and clinicians may use these findings when providing guidance for lonely individuals and assist by training lonely individuals to focus on affiliative humor styles which are inclusive to the group. as hypothesized, the self-defeating humor style positively correlated with loneliness (although for some of the individual country samples, the relationships did not reach statistical significance). these findings are consistent with schermer et al. (2017), who suggested that because individuals who engage in self-defeating humor are making fun of themselves, this behavior is possibly a source of discomfort for others, which may, in turn, result in others avoiding someone who uses a self-defeating humor style. future research may want to examine how others react to interacting with an individual who behaves with a self-defeating humor style. also consistent with past findings (schermer et al., 2017), the aggressive humor style did not correlate significantly with loneliness. the aggressive humor style, as reviewed above, involves belittling others. if this belittlement is directed towards an out-group, and the individual engaging in the aggressive humor style perceives themself as being a part of an in-group, they may not feel particularly lonely as they are a part of a group. schermer et al. (2019a) reported that individuals who utilize an aggressive humor style are more likely to have alcohol dependence problems. possibly those with an aggressive humor style are unaware or uninterested in their feelings of being lonely or not and hence the non-significant correlations between the two constructs. future research may wish to assess how individuals with aggressive humor styles feel about their relationships with others. if less interested in relationships with others, then those with the aggressive humor style may not even consider feelings of loneliness; a topic requiring future study. the geographical coverage of the 15 countries was fairly broad in this study. of interest was the rank order differences between the countries for the loneliness scores. in the present study, the sample from chile had the highest schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 431 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ loneliness scores and the sample from south korea had the lowest loneliness scores. why this difference occurred is hard to speculate about as south american countries have not been studied as extensively as other nations (yang & victor, 2011). hofstede’s cultural categorization (hofstede, 2001) describes both chile and south korea as collectivist societies, therefore the individualism versus collectivism findings with respect to loneliness (barreto et al., 2021; maes et al., 2016) would not apply. one possible influence could be the great differences in population density. according to google.com, chile has 26 people per square kilometer versus south korea which has 527 people per square kilometer. although, as stated in the introduction, people can be in a crowd and still feel lonely, possibly being in a collectivist society and being close together helps to alleviate loneliness more than being in a sparsely populated country. future research may want to further examine the possible factors which may cause similar countries on cultural levels to differ with respect to loneliness. limitations despite the fact that the present study incorporates data from multiple countries, one of its limitations reports to major differences within the various samples. the study gathered responses from 15 different countries incorporating participants with different age ranges across the samples. for those samples with more restricted age ranges, possible robust correlations with loneliness and age may have been missed, especially for assessing non-linear correlations between age and loneliness. furthermore, data were collected using different languages and different collection methods (paper and online). as stated in the method section, not all of the translated scales had been independently verified and require further study. in addition, the hsq was not designed to assess any one cultural or ethnic form of humor. greater information will be gleamed in future studies which examine culture-specific uses of humor. a second limitation to this study is the scale used to assess humor styles. the convergence and representativeness of the hsq in terms of its conceptual foundations has been questioned by some researchers, leading to the need for further research to ensure the instrument’s validity (heintz & ruch, 2015). an additional limitation refers to the fact that the tils scale does not switch between positive and negative wording, potentially leading to a ‘response pattern’—where participants might provide answers without taking the time to think carefully about each item before responding. conclusions humor needs to be studied from the transdisciplinary perspective in order to take into account not only psychological determinants but also specific cultural and historical context of every culture. as the previous review suggests, the relations between humor styles and loneliness could be dependent on the specific cultural context. of interest was the finding that the effects of country did not alter the fit of the model predicting loneliness, suggesting that for the 15 countries tested, the pattern of relations between humor styles and loneliness does appear to be “universal”. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: thank you to the following contributors (in alphabetical order): rahkman ardi (airlangga university, indonesia), henrietta bolló (hungarian academy of sciences, hungary), razieh chegeni (university of bergen, norway), jan crusius (university of cologne, germany), tomislav jukić (university josip juraj strossmayer, republic of croatia), emira kozarevic (university of tuzla, bosnia & herzegovina), gert kruger (university of johannesburg, republic of south africa), adil kurtic (university of tuzla, bosnia & herzegovina), jens lange (university of amsterdam, the netherlands), kadi liik (tallinn university, estonia), agim mamuti (university mother theresa, northern macedonia), laura martinez buelvas (universidad tecnológica de bolívar, colombia), benjamin mrkušić (international university of sarajevo, croatia), emrah özsoy (sakarya university, turkey), natalia pylat (ukrainian catholic university, ukraine), goran riđić (university of applied management studies, germany), ognjen riđić (international university of sarajevo, bosnia & herzegovina), dženan skelić (university of zenica, bosnia & herzegovina), chee-seng tan (universiti tunku abdul rahman, perak campus, malaysia), and osman uslu (sakarya university, turkey). competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials. loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 432 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the r code and dataset used in the research and can be accessed in the index of supplementary materials below. index of supplementary materials rogoza, r., & krammer, g. 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(2012). self-esteem and humor styles as mediators of the effects of shyness on loneliness among chinese college students. personality and individual differences, 52(6), 686–690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.12.024 about the authors julie aitken schermer (formerly harris) is a professor in the departments of psychology and management and organizational studies at the university of western ontario, london, canada. radosław rogoza (phd) is research assistant at the cardinal stefan wyszyński university in warsaw, warsaw, poland. marija branković is an associate professor at the faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, belgrade, serbia. oscar oviedo-trespalacios is an assistant professor in responsible risk management at delft university of technology, delft, the netherlands. tatiana volkodav, phd, associate professor in the department of pedagogy and psychology at kuban state university, krasnodar, russian federation. schermer, rogoza, branković et al. 435 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 422–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5407 https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.3.472 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8317.2012.02049.x https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00508-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.11.011 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.043 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.05.042 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00552-y https://doi.org/10.21018/rjcpr.2016.1.204 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118625392.wbecp549 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118625392.wbecp549 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9805-x https://doi.org/10.1016/s0306-4530(03)00091-x https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2011.613875 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0144686x1000139x https://doi.org/10.2466/20.21.pr0.115c11z1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.12.024 https://www.psychopen.eu/ truong thi khanh ha, university of social sciences and humanities, vietnam national university, hanoi, vietnam. maria magdalena kwiatkowska, phd student and research assistant at the faculty of christian philosophy at the cardinal stefan wyszyński university in warsaw, warsaw, poland. eva boyanova papazova, phd associate professor at the institute for research in education, sofia, bulgaria. joonha park, phd, is associate professor at nucb business school, nagoya, japan. christopher marcin kowalski, phd student in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario, london, on, canada. marta doroszuk, ph.d. student at the faculty of philosophy, institute of psychology at jagiellonian university, krakow, poland. dzintra iliško is a professor at daugavpils university, institute of humanities and societal sciences, daugavpils, latvia. sadia malik, associate professor, department of psychology, university of sargodha, sargodha, pakistan. samuel lins is professor of social psychology at the university of porto, porto, portugal. ginés navarro-carrillo is an assistant professor at the department of psychology at the university of jaén, jaén, spain. jorge torres-marín is a ph.d. candidate at the department of experimental psychology at the university of granada, granada, spain. anna wlodarczyk, assistant professor at the school of psychology at the universidad católica del norte, antofagasta, chile. sibele dias de aquino is a phd candidate at the graduate program in psychology, pontifical catholic university of rio de janeiro (puc-rio), rio de janeiro, brazil. georg krammer is university college professor for educational measurement and applied psychometrics at the university college for teacher education styria, graz, austria. loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries 436 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ loneliness and humor styles in 15 countries (introduction) loneliness humor and humor styles humor and loneliness hypotheses method participants and procedure materials statistical analyses results descriptive results relationship between humor and loneliness discussion limitations conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors little praise for "in praise of forgiveness" book reviews recalcati, m. (2020). in praise of forgiveness. polity press. 200 pp. isbn 9781509534906 (paperback softback). little praise for "in praise of forgiveness" catalina woldarsky meneses 1 [1] psychology and counselling department, webster university, geneva, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 319–321, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5571 received: 2021-01-07 • accepted: 2021-04-27 • published (vor): 2021-11-30 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland corresponding author: catalina woldarsky meneses, psychology and counselling department, webster university, route de collex 15, 1293 bellevue, geneva, switzerland. e-mail: woldarsky@webster.ch abstract this is a review of massimo recalcati's book "in praise of forgiveness" (polity press, 2020). it outlines recalcati’s position on the process of forgiveness and offers a critique of various aspects of this book. keywords forgiveness, psychoanalysis, intimate relationships in praise of forgiveness, is a book written by massimo recalcati (2020) that exalts forgiveness as the answer to the pain stemming from betrayals within the context of romantic relationships. the central argument of this book is that forgiveness is a maturational experience requiring the bruised ego to go beyond itself and see the other as who he or she truly is rather than some idealized version of him or herself. the thesis, however, is overshadowed in the first part of the book by the author’s critique of modern love, in particular the confusion between love and lust, and the endless quench for novelty. recalcati’s gender-normative descriptions of love and relationships are highly problematic on many levels, and immediately distort the focus of the book. written from a psychoanalytic perspective and heavily influenced by the christian position of “turning the other cheek” (biblical references are included), recalcati insists that forgiveness offers the injured partner an opportunity for growth that allows a for a more sophisticated and mature appreciation of love and life. according to recalcati (2020), “the work of forgiveness is not fed by narcissistic infatuation with one’s own ideal image.. it does not confront the subject with the ideal image of the other but with its most real real of the other.. bringing us closer to the mystery of the total recalcitrance of the other, of its being irreducibly foreign, heteros.” (p. 90). the author relies on classical freudian concepts to explain how forgiveness leads to a profound personal change in the injured partner’s perception of the other but does not actually offer a clear definition of what forgiveness is, how the recalcati, m. (2020). in praise of forgiveness. polity press. 200 pp. isbn 9781509534906 (paperback softback). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5571&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ resolution process unfolds, or how it can be facilitated in the context of therapy. in addition, recalcati does not include research, nor does he present existing works by other psychoanalytic writers on the subject of forgiveness. it is an unfortunate oversight that recalcati does not make reference to siassi’s (2013) book in which forgiveness is also framed as a maturational experience, one that is considered to be so deep that it goes beyond religious imperatives. it would have been interesting for recalcati to reflect and comment on the arguments presented by siassi (2013). in praise of forgiveness idealizes forgiveness as the best moral choice and fails to discuss or even acknowledge the dangers of promoting forgiveness. there are situations in which forgiveness may be contra-indicated (e.g., in situations of ongoing abuse). forgiveness researchers, woldarsky meneses and greenberg (2019) assume a “non-authoritarian” perspective on forgiveness and highlight that choosing to not forgive is an empowering choice that should be seen as a legitimate action in itself and depending on the situation it may be the most emotionally authentic course of action. “learning not to forgive, after a life in which forgiveness has been compulsive, imposed or uncon­ sidered, is an impressive achievement… choosing not to forgive however can differ from holding onto a grudge in that it can have involved profound self-examination, just like forgiveness-only with a different conclusion.” (p. 22). finally, a major point of contention of recalcati’s book that cannot be overlooked is his sexist and simplistic view of human functioning. for example, the author begins by establishing that there is a core difference between a woman’s way of experiencing romantic love (erotomania) and that of a man (fetishism). he then offers a personal anecdote to support his position and insists that it is this fundamental difference that leads to so many problems in romantic relationships. this reductionistic, hetero-normative view of men and women, as well as the simplistic understanding of intimate relationships is the first challenging aspect of the book that the reader encounters. this position becomes more apparent as he discusses betrayals, and then highly troublesome in the final section of the book, focused on the work of forgiveness where he includes numerous sub-sections that reinforce his sexist position. in the section on why men find it more difficult to forgive, recalcati (2020) argues that “phallic pride usually opposes the work of forgiveness” (p. 93) and outlines how men’s fear of castration surpasses that of women “for whom castration belongs, as it were to the structure of her being” (p. 93), and therefore they have more difficulty accessing vulnerability. the consequence, he suggests, is that men will seek justice or express violence. recalcati’s position on gender-based violence is revolting, as captured in the following reflection that he puts forth after briefly describing a woman he saw in therapy who returned to an abusive relationship in what he suggested to be feminine masochism: “why do women choose the worst for their love lives? why do they throw themselves into the arms of men who treat them only as objects? for many women, the difficulty of subjectivizing their otherness – the difficulty of being women – is falsely resolved by throwing themselves into the arms of men who offer the illusion of being compasses capable of guiding their path before transforming themselves into predatory tyrants.” (p. 97) in sum, in praise of forgiveness is an example of misogynist literature that can be openly published in academia because it is includes references to freud, lacan and other men whose theories reinforce the patriarchy. the transformative process of forgiveness is reduced to commentary about the shift in the views between self and other following a betrayal, without any support from the literature. this book is challenging to read for those who are not well-versed in psychoanalytic theory and its extensive lexicon, as well as for anyone with feminist views. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. book review "in praise of forgiveness" 320 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 319–321 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5571 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references recalcati, m. (2020). in praise of forgiveness. polity press. siassi, s. (2013). forgiveness in intimate relationships: a psychoanalytic perspective. karnac. woldarsky meneses, c., & greenberg, l. s. (2019). forgiveness and letting go in emotion-focused therapy. american psychological association. about the author dr. catalina woldarsky meneses completed her doctorate degree in clinical psychology at york university under the direction of dr. leslie greenberg. her research has focused on understanding how the process of forgiveness unfolds in couples, and she has published several articles in this area, as well as a book co-authored with leslie greenberg entitled letting go and forgiveness in emotion-focused therapy. dr. woldarsky meneses is involved in training and supervising therapists learning emotion-focused therapy (eft). she is currently based in switzerland where she works in private practice, while also teaching at webster university. woldarsky meneses 321 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 319–321 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5571 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mediating processes in the relations of parental monitoring and school climate with cyberbullying: the role of moral disengagement research reports mediating processes in the relations of parental monitoring and school climate with cyberbullying: the role of moral disengagement maria giuseppina bartolo* a, anna lisa palermiti a, rocco servidio a, pasquale musso a, angela costabile a [a] department of cultures, education and society, university of calabria, arcavacata di rende, italy. abstract in recent years, studies have extensively explored both personal and environmental predictors of cyberbullying. among these predictors, parental monitoring and school climate were often expected to be associated with cyberbullying behaviors. however, little is known about the mediating mechanisms through which these relations may develop. the present study aimed to expand the current research by testing a theoretical model including the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relations between parental monitoring (including less collaborative vs. more collaborative strategies), school climate, and cyberbullying behaviors. five hundred and seventy-one italian adolescents (54.5% male) aged 14 to 20 years were recruited from high schools. measures included demographics and parental monitoring, school climate, moral disengagement and cyberbullying scales. to test the hypothesized model, we estimated full and partial mediation models by structural equation modeling. results showed negative indirect links of parental monitoring (but only the more collaborative strategies) and school climate with cyberbullying via moral disengagement. less collaborative strategies of parental monitoring were neither directly nor indirectly related to cyberbullying. the findings revealed moral disengagement as an important process in explaining how ecological factors, such as parenting behaviors and school environments, are associate with cyberbullying. limitations, strengths, and implications for practice are presented. keywords: cyberbullying, moral disengagement, parenting, school climate, mediating processes europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 received: 2018-08-06. accepted: 2019-02-17. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland *corresponding author at: department of cultures, education and society, university of calabria, via p. bucci, cubo 18b, 87036 arcavacata di rende, italy. tel.: +39 0984 494441. e-mail: mariagiuseppina.bartolo@unical.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, cyberbullying has increasingly interested researchers (see slonje & smith, 2008, for a seminal paper; hutson, kelly, & militello, 2018) since adolescents use internet with increasing frequency, by their smartphones or other digital devices, not only to establish and maintain their relationships, but also to bully each other. cyberbullying is defined as a behavior occurring in the online space that willfully and repeatedly intends to inflict harm or discomfort on others by hostile or aggressive messages or acts (campbell, 2005; olweus & limber, 2018), representing a well-recognized critical social concern. this is why most studies have investigated factors to prevent cyberbullying among adolescents and/or tried to identify new forms of interventions. specifically, research has focused on exploring specific predictors of cyberbullying, both personal and environmental (chen, ho, & lwin, 2017). among these predictors, parental monitoring and school climate were often exeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ pected to be associated with cyberbullying behaviors (see baldry, farrington, & sorrentino, 2015, for a review). however, findings from the literature are controversial. with regard to parental monitoring, some studies underlined the negative association with cyberbullying (e.g., baldry et al., 2015), but other studies found a positive association (álvarez-garcia, pèrez, gonzàlez, & pérez, 2015; sasson & mesch, 2017); however, the literature has also quite consistently shown a negative association between the related dimension of child disclosure and cyberbullying (e.g., shapka & law, 2013). an explanation for these inconsistent results might be the broad conceptualization of parental monitoring. usually, it is thought of as an umbrella term for indicating parental solicitation, control and knowledge, which are flanked by adolescent’s disclosure (stattin & kerr, 2000). potentially, these specific dimensions of parental monitoring may be interpreted in terms of how they are associated in different ways with cyberbullying behaviors, with more collaborative aspects (e.g., parental knowledge and adolescent’s disclosure taken together) more likely to be negatively related to cyberbullying. as for school climate, although a number of studies found a positive relation between negative school climate and cyberbullying behaviors (see guo, 2016, for a recent meta-analysis), it is not still clearly known which specific components of school climate are related to cyberbullying. in fact, school climate has been conceptualized and measured in different ways (e.g., unidimensional vs. multidimensional, see wang & degol, 2016) and these different views led to observed relations between school climate and cyberbullying that are not easily interpretable. taken together, these results call for further study in order to shed light on the relations of parenting behaviors and school climate dimensions with cyberbullying. yet, little is also known about the mediating mechanisms through which these relations may develop. particularly, despite the crucial associations linking moral disengagement with parental behaviors (e.g., meter & bauman, 2018), school environment (pozzoli, gini, & vieno, 2012), and peer aggression and cyberbullying (e.g., gini, pozzoli, & bussey, 2015; renati, berrone, & zanetti, 2012), no study, to our knowledge, has examined moral disengagement as a mediator among these constructs. in light of this, the present study aimed to expand the current research in this area by testing a theoretical model including the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relations between parental monitoring, school climate, and cyberbullying behaviors. in doing so, we paid particular attention to how to conceptualize, by using both theoretical and methodological reasons, the proposed constructs, in order to prevent the potential problems already mentioned. cyberbullying aggression and victimization cyberbullying is a phenomenon characterized by negative social relationships through digital devices and internet (kowalski, limber, & agatston, 2008; smith et al., 2008). it maintains some specific characteristics of bullying such as intentionality and the imbalance of power (see smith, 2014; smith et al., 2008), but it occurs in cyberspace environments so that it reaches a far wider audience at rapid speed (e.g., kowalski, morgan, & limber, 2012). it manifests in different forms such as online harassment, denigration, happy slapping, trickery, impersonation and it is characterized by anonymity, stimulating more disinhibited behaviors and making cyberbullies’ identity masked to their victims (suler, 2004). usually, the negative cyberbullying messages gain popularity through social networking sites due to their multitude of users, who can simply witness or actively participate in the process. as a consequence, even when cyberbullies stop their aggressive acts, other different peobartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 569 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ple may continue to spread the harmful contents (e.g., smith, 2012), creating a dangerous loop that can have serious social and health implications. although there is substantial agreement on many of these aspects, the literature on cyberbullying also evidences some important differences. particularly, there are studies that identify cyberbullying exclusively as cyberaggression (e.g., calvete, orue, estévez, villardón, & padilla, 2010) and other studies as cyber-victimization (e.g., müller, pfetsch, & ittel, 2014). however, when considering the cyberbullying phenomenon, there are not only aggressors or victims as the substantial characters but also the bully-victims, who are aggressors and victims at the same time (see yang & salmivalli, 2013). therefore, there exists a dynamic nature of cyberbullying and related roles (see del rey et al., 2015), and studying only specific parts of the phenomenon (cyberbullying aggression or victimization) omits its complexity. our study took into account this dynamic and conceptualized cyberbullying as including both cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization dimensions that, in turn, imply intersectional behaviors and roles. parental monitoring: characteristics and relations to cyberbullying during adolescence, parent-child interactions usually tend to be more conflicted and less warmth (e.g., branje, 2018). however, the support of parents and positive mutual communication still play a crucial role in the life of adolescents in terms of promoting social competence and preventing problem behaviors (e.g., padilla-walker & son, 2018). parents often try to be involved in their adolescent children’s life through a variety of monitoring activities. they may control their teens, demanding direct information about or trying to influence their activities or relationships (stattin & kerr, 2000). also, they can solicit information from them or from knowledgeable others, such as friends, neighbors or teachers (waizenhofer, buchanan, & jackson-newsom, 2004). these two strategies along with one of their potential products, that is parental knowledge of out of home activities, have usually been conceptualized as parental monitoring, defined as “a set of correlated parenting behaviors involving attention to and tracking of the child’s whereabouts, activities, and adaptations” (dishion & mcmahon, 1998, p. 61). however, parental knowledge also derives from adolescents’ spontaneous disclosure about their life activities, relationships, and entertainments; accordingly, research identified adolescent’s disclosure as a strong predictor of how much parents know (keijsers, branje, frijns, finkenauer, & meeus, 2010; stattin & kerr, 2000). starting from this framework, parental monitoring has been studied in association with cyberbullying with findings being discrepant across studies (see, e.g., álvarez-garcia et al., 2015). a potential interpretation for these inconsistencies is that it should be taken more into account the nature of strategies used by parents. for example, elsaesser, russell, mccauley ohannessian, and patton (2017) found that strategies focused on parental control are only weakly related to cyberbullying victimization and perpetration; on the contrary, strategies that are more collaborative (e.g., mediation strategies) are more closely connected to cyberbullying behaviors. also, zurcher, holmgren, coyne, barlett, and yang (2018) showed that authoritarian parenting style (characterized by coercion and hostility) served as a risk factor for cyberbullying engagement, whereas authoritative parenting behaviors (warmth and support, reasoning, and democratic participation) were associated with lower levels of cyberbullying. in line with these considerations, our point of view is that parental monitoring activities may be also viewed in the context of less collaborative vs. more collaborative strategies. specifically, parental control and solicitation, as active parent requests, may be considered as less collaborative strategies, while the interplay between paparenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 570 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rental knowledge and adolescent’s disclosure (the strongest source of parental knowledge in adolescence; see, stattin & kerr, 2000) may be considered as a more collaborative strategy. based on this, we hypothesized that active parent requests were not or only weakly related to cyberbullying and parent-child collaborative knowledge was linked to lower levels of cyberbullying. school climate and cyberbullying cohen, mccabe, michelli, and pickeral (2009) affirms that school climate “refers to the quality and character of school life. it is based on patterns of people’s experiences of school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures” (p. 182). it may be therefore conceptualized as a multidimensional construct including diverse dimensions of school environment, such as teacher support, structure and clarity of rules and expectations, student commitment to achievement, positive peer interactions, negative peer interactions, disciplinary harshness, instructional innovation, student participation in decision making, support for cultural pluralism, and safety problems (see brand, felner, shim, seitsinger, & dumas, 2003). however, although studies appear to support this multifaceted conceptualization of school climate, evident limitations exist (see wang & degol, 2016, for a review). as an example, there seems to be little clarity about the number of dimensions characterizing school climate as well as a lack of theoretical or empirical reasoning for their inclusion or exclusion. in any case, many studies focus only on one or two domains in their research and the common practice is to use a single scale or combined averages of different scales for measurement issues. this makes it difficult to see which dimensions, or combinations of dimensions, have the most impact on different forms of student outcomes. this is also the case for cyberbullying. school climate and its perceptions are theoretically related to cyberbullying. from a socio-ecological approach, cyberbullying may result from a number of personal and contextual influences (cross et al., 2015) and school represents a significant environment in the lives of youth where individuals relate to each other in different ways, e.g., involving peer relationships, teacher attitudes within the classroom, and rules (kohl, recchia, & steffgen, 2013). for these reasons, school climate has been described as a risk and protective factor for cyberbullying behaviors (e.g. epstein & kazmierczak, 2006). however, although research has quite consistently found an inverse relation between positive school climate and cyberbullying (e.g., hinduja & patchin, 2012), more studies are needed to clearly determine the specific components of school climate which are related to cyberbullying experiences. based on a recent work of acosta et al. (2018), we conceptualized positive school climate as a multidimensional construct including positive peer relationships, good teacher behaviors, rule fairness and clarity, and school engagement to achievement. these dimensions have been demonstrated to be negatively related to aggressive/violent behaviors and cyberbullying (see, e.g., betts, 2016; casas, del rey, & ortega-ruiz, 2013). therefore, we hypothesized that higher levels of positive school climate, as defined here, was negatively associated with lower levels of cyberbullying. the mediating role of moral disengagement beyond the questions raised above, little is also known about the mediating processes through which both parental monitoring and school climate dimensions are associated with cyberbullying. to date, no research seems to have been specifically conducted to explore this issue, even though recent studies have been interested in better understanding the mechanisms involved in the links between some aspects of parenting and antisocial bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 571 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviors (e.g., bao, zhang, lai, sun, & wang, 2015) or between school climate and cyberbullying (e.g., acosta et al., 2018). yet, determining the roles of mediators in the relations between parental monitoring, school climate, and cyberbullying would be highly relevant to advance our knowledge in the field and provide guidance for interventions. one potentially relevant mediator worthy of consideration is moral disengagement (bandura, 1991, 2002; barkoukis, lazuras, ourda, & tsorbatzoudis, 2016) because of its associations with parenting, school climate, and aggressive behavior such as cyberbullying (e.g., gini, pozzoli, & hymel, 2014; meter & bauman, 2018; pozzoli et al., 2012; for a critical review, see kowalski, giumetti, schroeder, & lattanner, 2014). actually, moral disengagement has been one of the most studied variables in relation to cyberbullying (see chen et al., 2017) and it has been shown to be closely associated with cyberbullying behaviors (e.g. wang, lei, liu, & hu, 2016). bandura (1999) conceptualized moral disengagement as a set of cognitive mechanisms (such as moral justification, displacement of responsibility and diffusion of responsibility, and dehumanization of the victim) through which humans sometimes endorse conducts conflicting with moral standards without having a bad conscience. in connection with this definition, research showed that cyberbullies, and also cyberbully-victims (although they are also victims, like “pure” cyberbullies, they are perpetrators; see renati et al., 2012), may be less inclined to feel remorse or guilt; hence, they may report significantly higher levels of overall moral disengagement than school bullies or nonbully peers (e.g., pornari & wood, 2010; slonje, smith, & frisén, 2012). one possible explanation is that the lack of face-to-face contact may reduce social responsibility, thus making it easier for users to engage in cyberbullying behaviors (wachs, 2012). however, some other studies did not find significant associations between moral disengagement and cyberbullying (e.g., perren & gutzwiller-helfenfinger, 2012), but they are lesser in number. in that case, authors attributed such a finding to the lack of need to use cognitive distancing strategies since the victims are not concretely visible. however, these inconsistent results may be related to measurement issues and require further investigation (perren & gutzwiller-helfenfinger, 2012). with regard to the links between parenting and moral disengagement, both theory and research support these relations. social cognitive and interactionist theories propose that proximal social contexts are likely to be important predictors of moral disengagement. parents represent the main social agents for socialization and, therefore, for social and moral development. research confirmed this link. for example, positive parenting style (pelton, gound, forehand, & brody, 2004) and attachment (bao et al., 2015) were found negatively connected with moral disengagement. also, positive relations between rejecting or poor parenting and moral disengagement were evidenced (see, campaert, nocentini, & ersilia menesini, 2017; hyde, shaw, & moilanen, 2010). in terms of our conceptualization of parental monitoring, these findings seem to suggest that more positive and collaborative communication strategies between parents and their children (which we refer to as parent-child collaborative knowledge) may be negatively related to moral disengagement, while less collaborative parental strategies (active parent requests) may be only slightly or not associated with moral disengagement. in fact, it is plausible that in the first case more occasions to discuss daily events are implied, promoting the role of parents as agents of moral socialization (smetana, 2011). instead, in the second case these opportunities are limited or missing. concerning the link between school climate and moral disengagement, this relation seems to be understudied. nevertheless, there are different arguments to take it into account. as mentioned in the previous paragraph, moral disengagement is not only an individual (internal) process, but social (external) influences can also play an important role in its development (bandura, 2002). beyond the family, school represents another relevant parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 572 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ socialization agency, where children and adolescents spend most of their daily time across their developing years. at school, they meet other individuals, like teachers and peers, as well as organizational rules and achievement goals that, taken together and seen as a whole, constitute the community and the culture in which students may cultivate social behaviors and moral reasoning (pozzoli et al., 2012). this process of social influence can be particularly pervasive (e.g., bronfenbrenner, 1979). however, it seems to depend on the climate characterizing the school environment, that is on the “interactions among and between adults and students and individuals’ beliefs and attitudes” (wang, berry, & swearer, 2013, p. 297). accordingly, school climate may affect students’ moral attitudes and behaviors. following this line of thought, we expected that positive school climate may be negatively related to moral disengagement. all considered, we hypothesized that moral disengagement may be a relevant mediator between the associations of parenting and school climate with cyberbullying. specifically, we expected negative relations of parentchild collaborative knowledge and school climate, as well as only weak or no association of active parent requests, with moral disengagement. in turn, we predicted a positive link between moral disengagement and cyberbullying. gender and age differences gender and age have been largely considered significant predictors or control variables of cyberbullying. however, the literature shows mixed results. some studies have revealed no statistically significant difference between girls and boys in rates of cyberbullying perpetration or victimization (e.g., fletcher et al., 2014; lazuras, barkoukis, ourda, & tsorbatzoudis, 2013; smith et al., 2008), other research has found males (e.g., fanti, demetriou, & hawa, 2012) or females (e.g., palermiti, servidio, bartolo, & costabile, 2017; pornari & wood, 2010) more likely to cyberbully. as far as age is concerned, research shows that “adolescence is a peak period for involvement in cyberbullying” (slonje et al., 2012, p. 28) and that older students are more likely to engage in cyberbullying due to the increasing access to online environments (e.g. gradinger, yanagida, strohmeier, & spiel, 2015; smith et al., 2008). nevertheless, a number of studies support the lack of association between age and cyberbullying (e.g., lazuras et al., 2013; smith et al., 2008). more consistent results seem to have been obtained when considering the relations of parental monitoring behaviors with gender and age. in terms of gender, both theory (e.g., socialization models, holmbeck, paikoff, & brooks-gunn, 1995) and research (e.g., elsaesser et al., 2017) suggest that gender may play a critical role in how parents and their children influence each other. specifically, there are evidences that girls tend to be more involved in their family than boys (vieno, nation, pastore, & santinello, 2009) and, thus, more affected by parental educational style and practices (moreno-ruiz, martínez-ferrer, & garcía-bacete, 2019). with regard to age, the assumption that individuals, during adolescence, experience an increased need of independence from parental monitoring practices was supported by a recent meta-analysis on this topic (see lionetti et al., 2018), showing a decline in adolescent’s disclosure and parental control, knowledge and solicitation. also, prior research suggest that moral disengagement is correlated with adolescents’ gender. in bandura’s (1999) theoretical framework, gender differences in moral disengagement do not exist in early years of life, but they manifest quite quickly during the subsequent developing years with boys tending to be more morally disengaged than girls. research confirmed these predicted gender differences in adolescence (see thornberg & bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 573 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ jungert, 2014). in contrast, there are no particular evidences of relations between moral disengagement and age (e.g., bandura, 1996; pelton et al., 2004). finally, school climate seems to be associated with students’ age. in a longitudinal study, wang and dishion (2012) found adolescents’ positive perceptions of school climate decreasing during school years and related to an increase in behavioral problems. also, they showed girls reporting more positive perceptions of school climate than boys (see also way, reddy, & rhodes, 2007). however, current research on gender differences in school climate is quite inconsistent, with some studies showing no gender differences (e.g., kuperminc, leadbeater, emmons, & blatt, 1997). in light of this picture, we deemed it crucial to include gender and age while examining the relations of parental monitoring and school climate with cyberbullying as well as the moderating role of moral disengagement in these links. specifically, in line with the literature, we expected effects of adolescents’ gender and age on parental monitoring behaviors, effects of gender (but not age) on moral disengagement, and effects of age on school climate. we took a more explorative approach regarding the relations of gender and age with cyberbullying and of gender on school climate, considering the mixed findings in literature. the current study the current study sought to contribute to a more detailed knowledge of the mediating role of moral disengagement between parental monitoring behaviors (including active parent requests and parent-child collaborative knowledge), positive school climate, and cyberbullying. in order to achieve this aim, we tested a theoretical model summarized in figure 1. as mentioned in the introduction, we hypothesized that: a. active parent requests would be only weakly or not related to moral disengagement; b. parent-child collaborative knowledge would be negatively related to moral disengagement; c. positive school climate would be negatively related to moral disengagement; d. in turn, moral disengagement would be positively related to cyberbullying; e. active parent requests would be only weakly or not indirectly related to cyberbullying via moral disengagement; f. parent-child collaborative knowledge and positive school climate would be indirectly and negatively related to cyberbullying via moral disengagement. however, in our view, moral disengagement was not necessarily a full mediator of these described relationships. thus, we also compared this full mediation model with other three partial mediation models, each including a direct link between active parent requests, parent-child collaborative knowledge or positive school climate and cyberbullying (see figure 2 and the links named a, b, and c, respectively). all models controlled for gender and age, as literature suggested (see previous paragraph). parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 574 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. theoretical mediation model of the relations of parental monitoring behaviors (active parent requests and parentchild collaborative knowledge) and positive school climate with cyberbullying via moral disengagement only. note. the key study variables and their related paths are presented in bold black. covariances, control variables and their related paths to be included in the analysis are presented in bold gray. figure 2. partial mediation models of the relations of parental monitoring behaviors (active parent requests and parent-child collaborative knowledge) and positive school climate with cyberbullying including both one out of the three direct paths a, b, or c and the indirect paths via moral disengagement. note. the key study variables and their related paths are presented in bold black. covariances, control variables and their related paths to be included in the analysis are presented in bold gray. bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 575 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants a sample of adolescents (n = 571; males = 54.5% and females = 45.5%) aged 14 to 20 years (m = 15.81; sd = 1.36) was recruited from five public high schools located in southern italy (calabria region). the majority of participants were italians (94.9%), had cohabiting parents (94.5%), and came from middle-class backgrounds (79.6%) with less than 3% of parents who had elementary school education or lower and less than 18% who had university or post-university education. about 4% experienced parental separation and 1% death of mother or father. procedure the study and all the procedures were carried out in accordance with the italian association of psychology’s ethical principles for psychological research (2015). all the participants were contacted after randomly selecting 29 classes in the schools willing to participate in the study. the schools were initially selected by an internal university search database, where a list of local school institutions was stored, and encouraged to take part in the investigation through a motivation letter introducing the purpose of the research work. after receiving permission from the respective school-principals, the participants’ parents were informed by letter about the purpose of the research, the voluntary nature of participation and the anonymity of responses. all the parents provided informed consent for their son or daughter’s participation. in addition, participants provided signed assent agreeing to take part in the study. italian research assistants collected the data after providing a general description of the research aims and measures (particularly, defining what cyberbullying is in terms of aggression and victimization). participants had about 30 minutes to complete a paper-and-pencil survey during the class time and could withdraw at any time. measures all the participants completed the validated italian version of the european cyberbullying intervention project questionnaire (ecipq; brighi et al., 2012), containing a set of different measures. for the purposes of this study, only some of these measures were used. socio-demographics respondents were asked to indicate their gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic status (ses) as well as their parents’ marital status and education. parental monitoring the parenting questionnaire (stattin & kerr, 2000), as modified from law, shapka, and olson (2010) and adapted in the ecipq, was used to assess how parents manage their children's online activities. the original scale contains 16 items asking how often the respondent has experienced particular behaviors related to (a) parental knowledge (four items; e.g., “to what extent do your parents actually know about what you do on the internet and where you are going?”), (b) child disclosure (three items; e.g., “how often do you spontaneously tell your parents about what you are chatting about or posting on the internet?”), (c) parental control (three items; e.g., “to what extent do you have to tell your parents what you will be doing on the internet?”), (d) parental solicitation (three items; e.g., “how often do your parents talk to you about who you are chatting with onparenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 576 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ line?”), (e) parental rule setting (two items; e.g., “do your parents limit the amount of time you spend on the computer?”), and (f) parental control of internet use (one item; “do your parents install programs that keep track of where you are going online?”). except for this last item including a yes/no response set, the other items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (all of the time). in their study, law and colleagues (2010) found a two-factor structure including parent solicitation and child disclosure, after excluding the three items pertaining to rule setting and controlling internet use as they were meant to stand-alone. these factors showed good reliability estimates (cronbach’s α > .80). however, because they developed the scale in canada, it was questionable whether it could be applied to italian students. thus, a new latent structure of the items was determined through unweighted least squares exploratory factor analysis using oblimin rotation. after excluding the only negatively worded item (i.e., “how often do you hide from your parents about what you are doing on the internet?”), analyses suggested two factors explaining 54.88% of the total variance. they were appropriately named as follows: (1) parent-child collaborative knowledge (pcck) including six items of parental knowledge and child disclosure and (2) active parent requests (apr) including six items of parental control and parental solicitation. to test the correlated latent factor model of parent-child collaborative knowledge and active parent requests through robust maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis (cfa; see the “analysis plan” section for model fit criteria), we used the four composite variables of parental knowledge (pk), child disclosure (cd), parental control (pc), and parental solicitation (ps) as observed indicators. after finding good cronbach’s α values for parental knowledge (.84), child disclosure (.84), parental control (.82), and parental solicitation (.81), we computed the average of their corresponding items, with higher scores indicating higher levels of parental knowledge, child disclosure, parental control, and parental solicitation. then, we specified parent-child collaborative knowledge as the latent factor of the observed indicators parental knowledge and child disclosure as well as active parent requests as the latent factor of the observed indicators parental control and parental solicitation. this model was well supported, χ2 s-b(1) = 0.15, p = .70, cfi = 1.000, rmsea = 0.000, 90% ci [0.000, 0.081], srmr = 0.002, and thus used in subsequent analyses. school climate the inventory of school climate-student (isc-s; brand et al., 2003) was used to assess perceptions of whole school climate. the isc-s consists of 50 items assessing 10 different dimensions: teacher support, structure and clarity of rules and expectations, student commitment to achievement, negative peer interactions, positive peer interactions, disciplinary harshness, student participation in decision making, instructional innovation, support for cultural pluralism and safety problems. according to our conceptual definition of positive school climate and to limit the number of variables during analyses, in this study we used only four subscales (see acosta et al., 2018): teacher support (ts; six items, e.g., “teachers go out of their way to help students”), structure and clarity of rules and expectations (scre; five items, e.g., “when teachers make a rule, they mean it”), student commitment to achievement (sca; five items, e.g., “students work hard for good grades in classes”), and positive peer interactions (ppi; five items, e.g., “students get to know each other well in classes”). items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). prior research has provided reliability and validity data for the isc-s (e.g., acosta et al., 2018; brand et al., 2003). in the current study, cronbach’s α values for teacher support (.74), structure and clarity of rules and expectations (.68), student commitment to achievement (.79), positive peer interactions (.73), and the entire scale (.77) were acceptable. therefore, for each subscale, a composite variable was created by computing the average of the items, with higher scores indicatbartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 577 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ing higher levels of teacher support, structure and clarity of rules and expectations, student commitment to achievement, and positive peer interactions. these composites were modelled to form the latent factor of positive school climate (psc) to be used in subsequent analyses. this solution was supported through robust maximum likelihood cfa, χ2 s-b(2) = 3.67, p = .16, cfi = 0.996, rmsea = 0.038, 90% ci [0.000, 0.099], srmr = 0.020. moral disengagement the adolescent version of the moral disengagement scale (md-s; bandura, barbaranelli, caprara, & pastorelli, 1996; caprara, pastorelli, & bandura, 1995) was used to assess the degree of acceptance of moral exoneration of detrimental conduct. the scale consists of 24 items assessing six moral disengagement mechanisms: moral justification (“it is alright to fight to protect your friends”), advantageous comparison (e.g., “it is okay to insult a classmate because beating him/her is worse”), displacement of responsibility (e.g., “if kids are living under bad conditions they cannot be blamed for behaving aggressively”), diffusion of responsibility (e.g., “if a group decides together to do something harmful it is unfair to blame any kid in the group for it”), distorting consequences (“it is okay to tell small lies because they don’t really do any harm”), and attribution of blame (“if kids fight and misbehave in school it is their teacher’s fault”). items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). although md-s measures disengagement of different forms of negative conduct in diverse contexts and interpersonal relationships, prior studies have consistently provided evidence that its items load on a single factor with good internal consistency and have thus used a single score of moral disengagement (e.g., gini et al., 2015). following this line, also in this study cronbach’s α value for the composite measure of moral disengagement was good (.86). therefore, considering the unidimensionality of the md-s, we used a parceling approach (little, cunningham, shahar, & widaman, 2002) for latent modeling. specifically, items were parceled into four indicators comprising six items, with an equal distribution of factor loadings across parcels. each parcel was computed by averaging the responses across the six selected items, with higher scores meaning higher levels of proneness to morally disengage. a robust maximum likelihood cfa supported the one-factor structure, χ2 s-b(2) = 4.00, p = .13, cfi = 0.996, rmsea = 0.042, 90% ci [0.000, 0.102], srmr = 0.013. hence, the four parcels were modelled to form the latent factor of moral disengagement (md) also in the subsequent analyses. cyberbullying aggression and victimization the self-report ecipq cyberbullying scale (ecipq-cs; del rey et al., 2015) was used to assess two dimensions of cyberbullying behaviors—aggression and victimization—asking how often the respondent had experienced the listed behaviors as perpetrator (11 items; cyber-aggression subscale) and victim (11 items; cybervictimization subscale) during the previous 2 months either online or through cell phones. each subscale covers behaviors such as uploading and/or altering of embarrassing images or video (i.e., “i altered pictures or videos of another person that had been posted online” for aggression), identity theft (i.e., “someone created a fake account, pretending to be me” for victimization), and indirect abuse (e.g., “someone spread rumors about me on the internet” for victimization). items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no) to 5 (yes, more than once a week). reliability and validity data have been provided for the ecipq-cs subscales when used with students in cross-cultural studies (e.g., del rey et al., 2015). previous research also supported the use of the ecipq-cs as second order measure to obtain a latent variable of cyberbullying (cb) including cyber-aggression (ca) and cyber-victimization (cv) as observed indicators (see, e.g., casas et al., 2013). in the current study, this second-order factor structure was supported through robust maximum likelihood cfa, by speciparenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 578 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fying cyberbullying as the second-order factor and cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization as the first-order factors with the 11 corresponding items loaded on each of them, χ2 s-b(199) = 228.49, p = .07, cfi = 0.956, rmsea = 0.016, 90% ci [0.000, 0.025], srmr = 0.052. cronbach’s α values for cyber-aggression (.93) and cyber-victimization (.86) were consistent with prior researches. therefore, for each subscale, a composite variable was created by computing the average of the items, with higher scores indicating higher levels of cyberaggression and cyber-victimization. these composites were modelled to form the latent factor of cyberbullying to be used in subsequent analyses. analysis plan descriptive statistics for the observed variables were obtained using spss (version 23). specifically, frequencies of each of the cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization response options as well as mean scores, standard deviations and normality statistics of the study’s observed variables were computed. then, a series of structural equation models were estimated in mplus 7.2 (muthén & muthén, 2014). first, to obtain bivariate correlations we performed a structural equation model including control (age and gender) and specifying all latent (parent-child collaborative knowledge, active parent requests, positive school climate, moral disengagement, and cyberbullying) variables, as well as all covariances between them. second, to test the hypothesized model we estimated a full mediation model that specified parent-child collaborative knowledge, active parent requests, and positive school climate as predictors of moral disengagement and then this mediator as predictor of cyberbullying. third, we estimated three partial mediation models. the first included a direct path from parent-child collaborative knowledge to cyberbullying, the second from active parent requests to cyberbullying, and the third from positive school climate to cyberbullying. these models were to assess whether our proposed moral disengagement mediator fully accounted for relations of parent-child collaborative knowledge, active parent requests, and positive school climate with cyberbullying. all indirect paths through moral disengagement were tested and each model was controlled for age and gender. following faraci and musso (2013), and kline (2010), multiple indices were used to evaluate model fit (adopted cutoffs in parentheses): the chi-square (χ2) test value with the associated p value (p > .05), comparative fit index (cfi ≥ 0.95), root-mean-squared error of approximation (rmsea ≤ 0.06) and its 90% confidence interval (ci ≤ 0.05 for the lower bound and ≤ .08 for the upper bound), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr < 0.08). however, by acknowledging the potential limitation of the χ2 test because of its sensitivity to reject the null hypothesis with large sample sizes and complex models (sass, 2011), we mostly relied on the goodness-of-fit indices. nested model comparison (the more restrictive vs. the less restrictive models) was used to examine whether or not direct paths of parentchild collaborative knowledge, active parent requests, and positive school climate with cyberbullying were tenable. in this case, the criteria for ascertaining significant differences included significant χ2 difference (δχ2 with p < .05). results preliminary analyses tables 1 and 2 summarize the descriptive statistics. table 1 suggests how our sample quite closely reflected the distribution of the cyberbullying phenomenon in the adolescent population (e.g., del rey et al., 2016; italian national institute of statistics, 2015). table 2 shows how cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization were not bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 579 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ normally distributed with skewness and kurtosis values >|1.00| (kline, 2010). as multivariate non-normality was also evidenced (normalized mardia’s coefficient was 40.96, p < .001), the data were subsequently analyzed using the maximum likelihood robust estimation method, including satorra-bentler χ2 test statistic (χ2 s-b), robust cfi, and robust rmsea (satorra & bentler, 1994). table 1 frequencies of the cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization response options response options cyber-aggression cyber-victimization 1. no 87.6% 85.7% 2. yes, one or two times 8.1% 11.1% 3. yes, once or twice a month 1.6% 1.6% 4. yes, about once a week 0.6% 0.6% 5. yes, more than once a week 2.0% 1.0% note. n = 571. table 2 mean scores, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis of the study’s observed variables m sd skewness kurtosis 1. pk 3.15 1.09 -0.28 -0.75 2. cd 2.47 1.17 0.40 -0.94 3. pc 2.23 1.05 0.57 -0.49 4. ps 2.43 1.04 0.40 -0.56 5. ts 3.20 0.76 -0.21 -0.27 6. scre 3.65 0.73 -0.53 0.32 7. sca 3.39 0.80 -0.27 0.02 8. ppi 3.72 0.74 -0.47 0.04 9. md_p1 2.66 0.72 0.21 0.29 10. md_p2 2.46 0.75 0.27 -0.07 11. md_p3 2.35 0.81 0.39 -0.03 12. md_p4 2.28 0.78 0.46 0.24 13. ca 1.20 0.52 4.41 22.12 14. cv 1.20 0.36 3.82 21.18 15. age 15.81 1.36 0.19 -0.82 16. gender (0 = male; 1 = female) 0.46 0.50 0.18 -1.97 note. n = 571. pk = parental knowledge; cd = child disclosure; pc = parental control; ps = parental solicitation; ts = teacher support; scre = structure and clarity of rules and expectations; sca = student commitment to achievement; ppi = positive peer interactions; md_p1 = moral disengagement—parcel 1; md_p2 = moral disengagement—parcel 2; md_p3 = moral disengagement—parcel 3; md_p4 = moral disengagement—parcel 4; ca = cyber-aggression; cv = cyber-victimization. bivariate correlations among latent and control variables after estimating the structural equation model specifying all covariances between them are reported in table 3. the model fit the data well χ2 s-b(85) = 150.59, p = .00002, cfi = 0.973, rmsea = 0.037, 90% ci [0.027, 0.046], srmr = 0.032. results showed the following significant associations: • parent-child collaborative knowledge was positively correlated with active parent requests and positive school climate and negatively correlated with moral disengagement and cyberbullying. parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 580 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • active parent requests were positively correlated with positive school climate, negatively correlated with moral disengagement (no significant association with cyberbullying). • positive school climate was negatively correlated moral disengagement and cyberbullying. • moral disengagement was positively correlated with cyberbullying. • age was negatively correlated with active parent requests and positive school climate (no significant associations with parent-child collaborative knowledge, moral disengagement, cyberbullying, and gender). • gender (0 = male; 1 = female) was positively correlated with parent-child collaborative knowledge and active parent requests and negatively correlated with moral disengagement and cyberbullying (no significant association with positive school climate). table 3 bivariate correlations among latent and control variables of study after estimating a structural equation model specifying all covariances between them variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. pcck – 2. apr .79*** – 3. psc .19*** .18*** – 4. md -.25*** -.14* -.32*** – 5. cb -.13* .03 -.34*** .34*** – 6. age .04 -.14*** -.22*** -.07 .08 – 7. gender (0 = male; 1 = female) .35*** .36*** .08 -.18*** -.15*** -.03 – note. n = 571. pcck = parent-child collaborative knowledge; apr = active parent requests; psc = positive school climate; md = moral disengagement; cb = cyberbullying. *p < .05. ***p < .001. mediation model we estimated the full and partial mediation models. in the initial estimate of the full mediation model, we controlled for age and gender by allowing them to predict all the latent variables; however, age was only significantly linked to active parent requests and positive school climate, and gender to parent-child collaborative knowledge, active parent requests, moral disengagement, and cyberbullying. only the significant paths were retained, and the model was re-estimated. this full mediation model fit the data well, χ2 s-b(94) = 187.75, p = .00000003, cfi = 0.962, rmsea = 0.042, 90% ci [0.033, 0.050], srmr = 0.050. next, we similarly estimated the three partial mediation models. when comparing the full mediation and the first two partial mediation models including the direct path from active parent requests to cyberbullying and from parent-child collaborative knowledge to cyberbullying, no significant differences were found, δχ2 s-b(1) = 1.26, p = .26, and δχ2 s-b(1) = 0.04, p = .83, respectively. the comparison of the full and the third partial mediation model including the direct path from positive school climate to cyberbullying showed the full mediation model to have a significantly worse fit to the data, δχ2 s-b(1) = 9.31, p = .002. thus, the third partial mediation model was considered the final model (see figure 3). bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 581 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. estimated structural equation model for the best fitting mediation model among the key study variables. note. n = 571. standardized regression coefficients (betas) are shown. pk = parental knowledge; cd = child disclosure; pc = parental control; ps = parental solicitation; ts = teacher support; scre = structure and clarity of rules and expectations; sca = student commitment to achievement; ppi = positive peer interactions; md_p1, = moral disengagement—parcel 1; md_p2 = moral disengagement—parcel 2; md_p3 = moral disengagement—parcel 3; md_p4 = moral disengagement— parcel 4; ca = cyber-aggression; cv = cyber-victimization. the measurement part of the model (including observed indicators and factor loadings) is represented in gray. the key study latent variables and their related paths are presented in bold black. covariances, control variables and their related paths are presented in bold gray. solid lines represent significant paths and dashed lines represent nonsignificant paths. for better visualization, residuals of latent variables are not shown. the standardized indirect effects of parent-child collaborative knowledge and positive school climate on cyberbullying through moral disengagement were β = -.07* and β = .07***, respectively. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. this model showed how parent-child collaborative knowledge and positive school climate were significantly and negatively predictive of the mediator moral disengagement, whereas active parent requests was not significantly associated with moral disengagement. additionally, positive school climate had a significant and negative direct link to cyberbullying. the mediator was significantly and positively linked to the outcome of cyberbullying. furthermore, the indirect effects of parent-child collaborative knowledge (β = -.07, p = .02) and positive school climate (β = -.07, p = .001) on cyberbullying through moral disengagement were significant and negative. no significant direct and indirect associations of active parent requests with cyberbullying were found. finally, older adolescents perceived lower levels of active parent requests and positive school climate as well as reported higher levels of cyberbullying through the indirect effect of positive school climate (β = .05, p = .00008) and of positive school climate and moral disengagement (β = .02, p = .005) than younger ones, while female adolescents were more likely to perceive higher levels of parent-child collaborative knowledge and active parent reparenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 582 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ quests and to report lower levels of moral disengagement as well as of cyberbullying both directly and through the indirect effect of moral disengagement (β = -.03, p = .04) and of parent-child collaborative knowledge and moral disengagement (β = -.02, p = .03) than male ones. discussion this study aimed to examine the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relations of parental monitoring and school climate with cyberbullying. theoretical and methodological reasons suggested to conceptualize (a) cyberbullying as a dynamic phenomenon including both cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization (smith et al., 2008), (b) parental monitoring as including both a more positive and collaborative communication strategy between parents and their children (parent-child collaborative knowledge) and a less collaborative parental strategy (active parent requests) (stattin & kerr, 2000), (c) positive school climate as including positive peer relationships, good teacher behaviors, rule fairness and clarity, and school engagement to achievement (acosta et al., 2018), and (d) moral disengagement as a unidimensional construct (bandura, 1999). then, we tested a theoretical mediation model including the indirect paths of active parent requests, parent-child collaborative knowledge, and positive school climate to cyberbullying via moral disengagement. finally, we compared this full mediation model with three partial mediation models each including a direct path from active parent requests, parent-child collaborative knowledge, or positive school climate to cyberbullying. findings supported our hypotheses and revealed moral disengagement to be a significant intermediary mechanism for the relations of parentchild collaborative knowledge and positive school climate with cyberbullying. however, while moral disengagement fully mediated the relations between parent-child collaborative knowledge and cyberbullying, a direct link between positive school climate and cyberbullying was also evidenced. generally, in terms of definitional and measurement issues, the results of this study sustained the following ideas. first, cyberbullying can be viewed as dynamic in nature, including simultaneously cyber-aggression and cyber-victimization elements (del rey et al., 2015; kowalski et al., 2014). this overlap seems to be in line with the “role inversion hypothesis” (baldry et al., 2015, p. 44), according to which being a cyber-aggressor is also associated with being a cyber-victim. second, a conceptualization of parental monitoring in the context of less collaborative vs. more collaborative strategies can be meaningful in order to better distinguish which specific strategies of parental monitoring are associated with lower levels of cyberbullying behaviors. this reflects other studies (e.g., elsaesser et al., 2017; zurcher et al., 2018) where it has been suggested that parental strategies focused on authoritarian style or control can be only weakly related to, or even serve as a risk factor for, cyberbullying engagement. in contrast, authoritative style and collaborative strategies are more closely and negatively connected to cyberbullying. third, it is possible, not only theoretically but also methodologically and practically, to think of perceived school climate as a multidimensional construct (wang & degol, 2016), and thus to help to clarify, in line with recent works (e.g., acosta et al., 2018), which combinations of school climate dimensions can mostly have a negative impact on cyberbullying. fourth, as reported by bandura and colleagues (1996), it is reasonable to continue to use moral disengagement as a unidimensional construct. focusing on our hypotheses, we predicted that parent-child collaborative knowledge would be negatively associated with moral disengagement (directly) and cyberbullying (indirectly via moral disengagement). on the contrary, we expected that active parent requests would be only weakly or not related to the other two variables. findings supported our hypotheses. this may provide useful information about why, to date, literature showed bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 583 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discrepant results when investigating the relations between parental monitoring and cyberbullying (e.g., álvarez-garcia et al., 2015; law et al., 2010), with studies reporting parental monitoring as a risk factor (e.g., meter & bauman, 2018), and other studies as a protective factor for cyberbullying involvement. in fact, a potential explanation for these inconsistences is related to the differential strategies involved in the parent-child relationship (e.g., charalampousa et al., 2018; liga et al., 2017). close and positive communication interactions between parents and their children, characterized by adolescents’ disclosure and related parental knowledge, appear to be the most effective strategy in preventing involvement in cyberbullying. conversely, more constrictive parental practices, such as parental control and solicitation, seem not to be effective (or even detrimental under certain circumstances) in making adolescents less susceptible to aggressive behaviors. therefore, although active parent requests can increase parental knowledge about their adolescent children’s online activities, establishing a positive relational context in which adolescents feel comfortable to share information seems to be a more relevant aspect in decreasing cyberbullying. this is in line with both the specific and the broader literature. for example, in the specific case, buelga, martínez-ferrer, and cava (2017) recently found that cyberbullies-victims have low family climate (e.g., conflict) and communication patterns (e.g., non-open and avoidant communication). in the broader case, studies showed that parent-child communication has a great influence on adolescents’ well-being and life satisfaction (boniel-nissim et al., 2015). specifically, an open and honest communication style with parents can facilitate adolescents’ healthy development and prevent antisocial behaviors (davidson & cardemil, 2009); instead, an absence of positive parenting is seen as associated with adolescent maladaptive behaviors. however, these considerations need to be thought in light of the mediating role of moral disengagement. theories such as social cognitivism and interactionism argue that children’s moral development depends not only on cognitive advancement, but also on the social context that they live in (smetana, campione-barr, & metzger, 2006). particularly, parents represent the primary agents of socialization (nickerson, mele, & princiotta, 2008), also in terms of moral values and responsibility, and their parenting style is supposed to influence diverse aspects of their children’s behaviors and thinking (pelton et al., 2004). our findings seem to suggest that when adolescents experience a more positive communication environment, able to stimulate self-disclosure with parents and an enrichment of parental knowledge about their online activities, this may result in lower levels of moral disengagement. in such an environment, the occasion of discussing personal or extrapersonal daily events, and its moral implications, with parents could be more frequent, implying the cultivation of a more profound moral thinking. in contrast, when the parent-adolescent relationship is characterized by a unidirectional communication exclusively depending on the direct and indirect parents’ requests, this may not impact on moral reasoning formation. this is quite in line with the literature, indicating that diverse forms of positive or negative parenting are differently related to moral disengagement (bao et al., 2015; campaert et al., 2017; hyde et al., 2010). furthermore, in this study, higher levels of moral disengagement were associated with higher levels of cyberbullying involvement. hence, it seems that a more limited capability of experiencing remorse and feeling guilt may affect the tendency to aggressive behaviors. this evidence parallels the studies claiming that cyberbullying may be particularly influenced by moral disengagement due to both the lack of faceto-face contact and, therefore, the reduction of social responsibility (pornari & wood, 2010; renati et al., 2012; slonje et al., 2012; wachs, 2012). from all these results and related considerations, it is plausible to assume that there may exist an indirect path from parenting behaviors to cyberbullying involvement through the action of moral disengagement. when adolescents are experiencing a positive communication environment with parents, this can produce more opportunities for moral socialization that, in turn, can prevent cyberbullying. parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 584 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our expectations also implied that school climate would be negatively associated with moral disengagement (directly) and cyberbullying (indirectly via moral disengagement). findings supported this prediction, but additionally revealed a direct link between school climate and cyberbullying. thus, it can be reasonable to think that, when school environment is characterized by a perceived supportive relational atmosphere among peer students, clear and consistent rules with teacher support, and active involvement of the students in achieving school success, it may result in a general climate helping to reduce cyberbullying involvement, both directly and through its relation to moral sensitivity. this is in line with social learning theory (bandura, 1986) positing that the external environment and the observation of others largely influence individuals’ learning. hence, the reduction of aggressive behaviors (like cyberbullying) can result from repeated exposure to positive relationship models, support from teachers, clarity of rules and expectations, and prevailing achievement orientation among students at school (cross et al., 2015). furthermore, this exposure can lead to changes in cognitive sensitization to attacking others, resulting in more negative moral evaluations of aggressive behaviors (e.g., cyberbullying others), less justification for behavior inconsistent with moral standards and norms, and consequently less moral disengagement and, in turn, less cyberbullying. this interpretation is supported by empirical studies showing that positive school climate can be a protective factor for cyberbullying involvement (e.g., hinduja & patchin, 2012) as well as it is related to moral learning (pozzoli et al., 2012). finally, the evidence that gender could specifically influence the key variables of this study contributed to enrich the overarching understanding of the processes involved in explaining cyberbullying involvement. as expected, gender was associated with parental monitoring behaviors and moral disengagement. it was also related to cyberbullying. female adolescents seem to be more affected by parental practices, less morally disengaged, and less involved in cyberbullying. these results support recent research (e.g., de caroli & sagone, 2014; fanti et al., 2012; moreno-ruiz et al., 2019) and, in addition, suggest that gender differences in cyberbullying may be also mediated by other intervening variables, such as parent-child collaborative knowledge and moral disengagement. similarly, in line with the literature (lionetti et al., 2018; wang & dishion, 2012), our predictions about the links between age and both parental monitoring behaviors and school climate were supported. however, age was significantly associated only with active parent requests (the less collaborative parental strategy), but not with parent-child collaborative knowledge, producing no significant relations between age and cyberbullying through parental monitoring strategies. on the contrary, age was positively and indirectly linked to cyberbullying through positive school climate. older adolescents perceived less positive school climate, and, in turn, this was associated with higher levels of cyberbullying. together, our findings suggest that adolescents that live in a positive family and school ecology, where they can develop an authentic adherence to moral norms and standards, are less susceptible to cyberbullying. as the evidence indicated, positive parent-child relationships (more for girls than boys) and school climate (more for younger than older adolescents) are key factors in this process by maintaining an open communication climate in family as well as appropriate levels of student support, clarity of rules, positive relationships and specific achievement goals at school. limitations, strengths, and implications this study should be considered in light of several limitations. first, the cross-sectional nature of the study design precludes us from clearly concluding the direction of the associations among the study variables. thus, it would be important to conduct future longitudinal studies in order to draw clearer conclusions about causality bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 585 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and the developmental processes involved. relatedly, only adolescents aged 14–20 were assessed. although adolescence is the peaking period for involvement in cyberbullying, it would be extremely interesting to follow the same participants from late childhood to late adolescence to better understand the level of significance of our findings. second, while we conceptualized and assessed parental monitoring in terms of less collaborative vs. more collaborative strategies, the measure we used was not specifically developed for this intent. we, therefore, encourage future research to replicate this study using more fitting measures. third, we limited our examination to cyberbullying as an outcome (and not face-to-face bullying) since the parental monitoring measure specifically assessed how parents manage their adolescent children’s online activities. to further deepen our understanding of the bullying phenomenon in its many facets, future research should also incorporate school bullying, by using congruent measures of parental monitoring. fourth, we collected data only by selfreport questionnaires from adolescents, which might have increased bias in our results. a multi-informant approach would be desirable for future investigations. despite these limitations, our study contributes meaningfully to the literature because it extends the understanding of the relations between adolescent ecological environments and online aggressive behavior. specifically, our examination of moral disengagement as a mediating variable advances the literature by allowing us to identify and explicate mechanisms or processes that underlie the relationships of parental monitoring and school climate with cyberbullying. additionally, we were able to reveal some genderand age-related associations in these processes. these findings enhance the knowledge of factors that can contribute to the prevention of cyberbullying in adolescence through a perspective that integrates contributions from social cognitive and social learning theories (bandura, 1986), interactionist theory (thornberry, 2018), socialization models (holmbeck et al., 1995), and ecological models (bronfenbrenner, 1979). moreover, findings from this study provide implications for practice, suggesting some guidelines for designing socio-educational programs aimed at reducing cyberbullying involvement. such programs should have the intention of involving diverse actors at different levels, by providing adolescents, their parents, and their schools with opportunities of more collaborative and ethical environments. actions should mainly promote improvements in moral development of adolescents, relationship and communication skills of parents, positive educational environments of schools including mutual trust, support, active involvement of students, teachers and school staff. also, these actions should duly take into account gender and age differences, for example by increasing activities that favor a positive school climate among older adolescents. in the light of this study, interventions intended for one of these actors or considering some aspects of the processes linked to cyberbullying could have some success. however, only a more general and complex intervention program, able to simultaneously take into consideration the various ecological life contexts of the adolescent, seem to be able to ensure better possibilities to effectively prevent a concerning and ever-expanding social phenomenon such as cyberbullying. funding this research was supported by a research grant from the daphne iii program of the european commission (action no. jls/2008/dap3/ag/1211-30-ce-0311025/00-69; project title “cyberbullying in adolescence: investigation and intervention in six european countries” granted to the university of bologna, italy). the views expressed in this article are ours and do not represent the granting agency. parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 586 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references acosta, j., chinman, m., ebener, p., malone, p. s., phillips, a., & wilks, a. 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(2018). parenting and cyberbullying across adolescence. cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 21, 294-303. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.0586 bartolo, palermiti, servidio et al. 593 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1469-7610.2007.01846.x https://doi.org/10.1111%2f1467-8624.00210 https://doi.org/10.1089%2f1094931041291295 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fab.21509 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0016929 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13632752.2012.704318 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0893-3200.18.2.348 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00405841.2013.829735 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10648-015-9319-1 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1532-7795.2011.00763.x https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2016.04.056 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10464-007-9143-y https://doi.org/10.1080%2f17405629.2013.793596 https://doi.org/10.1089%2fcyber.2017.0586 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors maria giuseppina bartolo. she is postdoctoral research fellow in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are positive and negative behaviors among peers, bullying, cyberbullying, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. anna lisa palermiti. she is assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are positive and negative behaviors among peers, bullying, cyberbullying, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. rocco servidio. he is assistant professor in social psychology. his main research fields are cyberpsychology with a special focus on social media and internet addiction, prejudice and intercultural relations, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. pasquale musso. he is postdoctoral research fellow in developmental and educational psychology. his main research fields are social development of adolescents and emerging adults, especially as related to their positive development, acculturation processes, socio-psychological adaptation, and mutual intercultural relations. angela costabile. she is full professor in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are primary relationships, aggressive behavior among peers, risk of radicalization in youth. she was team leader on several national and international projects. parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement 594 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 568–594 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1724 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ parenting, school climate, cyberbullying, moral disengagement (introduction) cyberbullying aggression and victimization parental monitoring: characteristics and relations to cyberbullying school climate and cyberbullying the mediating role of moral disengagement gender and age differences the current study method participants procedure measures analysis plan results preliminary analyses mediation model discussion limitations, strengths, and implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychology in the post-truth era editorial psychology in the post-truth era vlad petre glăveanu* a [a] webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(3), 375–377, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1509 published (vor): 2017-08-31. *corresponding author at: webster university geneva, 15 route de collex, 1293 bellevue, switzerland. e-mail: glaveanu@webster.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. it is always difficult to define a historical period while being part of it; such work of classification is usually done afterwards with the benefit of hindsight. and yet, following the rise of nationalism and xenophobia in the west, and other places around the world, aided by the spread of lies through populist propaganda, some distinctive ways of referring to current events emerged. ‘post-truth’ is chief among them. in fact, the notion of ‘post-truth politics’ even entered the dictionaries recently, a term used to define a period in which “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”i. the existence of propaganda and its mission to conquer ‘hearts’ over ‘heads’ is not new here. neither is the fact that public opinion is shaped by emotions and personal meaning-making. if anything, it would be hard to be otherwise. what is particularly important – and particularly troubling – about this new era is the dismissal of or disregard for “objective facts”. and, more than this, the fact that we live in a completely different informational and technological landscape than a few decades ago. the use of the internet and social media as main sources of information and arenas of socialisation had consequences few could foresee. the great hopes of the founders of such projects were that they would serve as spaces of free dialogue and exchange, increase communication and, with it, mutual respect and tolerance. the reverse has often been the case. ‘social media bubbles’ in which ‘alternative facts’, including alternative histories, circulate as true, are of concern today for policy makers, media experts, educators and psychologists alike. the latter, i argue, have a fundamental contribution to make in the current context. it is not only the case that psychology – at least its social, cultural, cognitive and political branches – deals with public opinion and the emergence and transformation of (social) knowledge. what matters most is that psychology cannot stop at simply discovering new biases and errors in thinking processes, new dynamics within inter-group relations, or listing new forms of manipulation. it is imperative, now more than ever, that psychologists use their expertise to devise practical tools for cultivating critical thinking and reflexivity in relation to a number of areas of social life – e.g., history, politics, economics – and in relation to the distinction between personal beliefs and objective facts. this is not to say that the former are not to be trusted or should be eradicated in the quest for “perfect europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ objectivity”. far from it, psychology’s key role in this post-truth era should be to help people distinguish between beliefs and facts and understand the strengths and limitations associated with each. this is all the more important in relation to social media and in view of the kind of informational literacy that should be developed in new (and old) generations of users. being able to appreciate the soundness of the information found on social media is a crucial skill that needs to be educated from early on. unlike a legal or political approach, that might focus on criminalising the spreading of falsehoods on the internet, psychologists should be concerned with studying and developing the meta-cognitive skills required to search for, evaluate and make use of information in online or offline environment. it is this kind of literacy that needs both increased research attention and the efforts of practitioners to translate theory into concrete tools and motivate people to make good use of them. it is a well-known fact that psychology is one of the first disciplines to be shut down under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. more than this, the accusations usually brought against psychologists are those of intellectualism and of trying to undermine the state (typically the single or dominant party). one of the worrying signs of this dynamic in the ‘post-truth era’ takes the form of contempt for experts and expertise. psychological expertise is often disregarded on the basis that it serves a particular agenda and that it misconstrues human behaviour. while a close scrutiny of the validity of research is certainly needed and the discipline itself has in place a series of institutional practices dedicated to this exercise, we must resist as a community the temptation of isolating ourselves to the ivory tower of science and failing to reach out to the various groups of people we ultimately aim to understand and to help. in addition, we need to find new ways to disseminate psychological information, to increase awareness about its utility and its multiple practical applications. in the end, it is by demonstrating the value of one’s research (whether psychology or multidisciplinary) that we can hope to make an impact outside of the academic world and of our own ‘bubble’ populated by colleagues who hold similar beliefs and values. this is not a call to turn psychologists into activists but rather one encouraging colleagues to reflect more on the practical implications of their research – whatever field of psychology it belongs to – and the ways in which they contribute, through their work, to current debates. what is at stake in defining a new role for psychology within the post-truth era is not only the future of the discipline, faced with the double challenge of anti-intellectualism and increased authoritarianism, but also the way we understand and foster democratic values and civic participation. a psychological science aimed at strengthening the foundations of open and tolerant societies, based on ideals of social justice and embracing diversity is essential for the development of societies that are resilient to nationalism, populism, and discriminatory practices. this effort needs to be reflected in the quality of the work done by psychologists as well as its wider dissemination, including through making it more accessible for a general public. in this context, the development and growth of open access sources of credible, high-quality psychological information plays a special part. europe’s journal of psychology (ejop) has been at the forefront of this trend for almost 13 years and we continuously strive to improve our content and to reach wider audiences. given the particular challenges associated with living and working in an age of ‘post-truth politics’, we have been and continue to welcome manuscripts – including the proposal of special editions – that address pressing societal issues such as current uses of social media, inequality and social justice, migration and multiculturalism, terrorism, democracy and democratic values, protest and civic participation, climate change and environmental concerns, political behaviour and the psychology of human rights, among others. we are also searching for innovative ways to make psychological information available to non-expert audiences without compromising on the scientific standards of conducting and reporting research. these ways could include the psychology in the post-truth era 376 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 375–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1509 http://www.psychopen.eu/ option of writing non-technical abstracts or article summaries for lay people as well as asking authors to include more substantial sections on the implications and practical uses of their research, written with a wider audience in mind. in the end, the ‘post-truth era’ of today might very well be a momentary, negative development soon overcome and even forgotten. this is a rather optimistic view given the fact that its consequences are already being felt by various communities around the world: refugees unable to find shelter from war, protesters detained for expressing their dissatisfaction, people being displaced or losing their livelihood due to climate change, those who feel powerless in the face of growing inequality or afraid they might be killed or evacuated due to imminent conflicts. these are all part of the realities of today even more so than a decade ago given the increasing scorn for and dismissal of evidence coupled with embracing more or less unfounded views just because they suit one’s interests and reflect one’s emotions. a thorough psychological analysis of these phenomena is timely and necessary, as is the creation of practical tools to counter ‘post-truth’ mentalities. our hope at ejop is to make a positive contribution in this regard by opening the journal even more to critical inquiries about social issues. there is still a possibility that the notion of ‘post-truth’ will be remembered in a few years as a short-lived historical anomaly. for this to be the case, though, psychologists need to play a more active part in their society as scientists, practitioners and, above all else, as agents of change. notes i) https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i am grateful to constance de saint laurent for long and fruitful discussions on the topic of this editorial. about the author vlad petre glăveanu is associate professor and head of the department of psychology at webster university geneva in switzerland, and associate professor ii at the centre for the science of learning and technology at the university of bergen in norway. his research interests include creativity and culture, perspective taking, political imagination and social representations. he has recently edited the palgrave handbook of creativity and culture research (2016, palgrave) and coeditor, with james c. kaufman and john baer, of the upcoming cambridge handbook of creativity across domains (cambridge university press) and co-editor with tania zittoun of the handbook of imagination and culture (oxford university press). vlad has also been editor of europe’s journal of psychology for a decade. glăveanu 377 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(3), 375–377 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i3.1509 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/post-truth http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology in the post-truth era (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments about the author the impact of reminiscence on autobiographical memory, cognition and psychological well-being in healthy older adults research reports the impact of reminiscence on autobiographical memory, cognition and psychological well-being in healthy older adults andrew p. allen a, caoilainn doyle b, richard a. p. roche* b [a] trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland. [b] department of psychology, maynooth university, maynooth, ireland. abstract reminiscence therapy has improved autobiographical memory in older adults with memory impairment. however, there has been a relative lack of research examining the impact of reminiscence interventions on healthy older adults, despite the fact that healthy ageing has been associated with a reduction in episodic autobiographical memory. the current study examined the effects of a semi-structured reminiscence program, compared to a no-intervention control and an active control group focused on current life, in healthy older adults. before and after reminiscence or control, we assessed episodic and semantic autobiographical memory, as well as reliving of the memory and reexperiencing the emotion associated with the memory. we also examined new learning and executive function, as well as quality of life, satisfaction with life, anxiety, depression, and mood. the reminiscence intervention did not lead to a differing impact on autobiographical memory, cognition or psychological well-being, compared to the control groups. the current results indicate that simple reminiscence does not lead to enhanced autobiographical memory performance in healthy older adults. keywords: memory, reminiscence, autobiographical memory, episodic memory, ageing europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 received: 2019-08-04. accepted: 2019-11-08. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, john hume building, maynooth university, w23 f2h6, republic of ireland. e-mail: richard.roche@mu.ie this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. healthy ageing is a key aim of public health policy. for ageing adults, loss of memory function in general is a source of anxiety; this is a likely explanation for the finding that memory lapses in vignettes tended to be attributed more to greater mental difficulty, if the vignette’s protagonist was an older person rather than a younger person (erber, szuchman, & rothberg, 1990). despite broad evidence that cognitive training and mental stimulation can benefit cognition in healthy older adults (kelly et al., 2014), there has been a relative paucity of research on enhancing long-term memory, including autobiographical memories from across the lifespan. autobiographical memory interacts closely with our sense of self (e.g. conway & pleydell-pearce, 2000; prebble, addis, & tippett, 2013), and reminiscence about autobiographical memory may serve a number of functions in healthy ageing, such as building intimacy with others or communicating advice (cappeliez, o’rourke, & chaudhury, 2005). there is thus need for more research on the impact of reminiscence on autobiographical memory in healthy older adults. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ cross-sectional evidence indicates that episodic aspects of autobiographical memory (i.e. those relating to specific occurrences located in a specific place and time) may be more diminished with ageing (or less preferred in verbal reports of memory) compared to semantic aspects (i.e. those aspects of memory relating to general knowledge of one’s autobiography; levine, svoboda, hay, winocur, & moscovitch, 2002; st. jacques & levine, 2007). this suggests there may be specific effects of ageing on different components of autobiographical memory. previous research involving people with memory impairment has indicated that reminiscence can improve autobiographical memory (e.g. lopes, afonso, & ribeiro, 2016; meléndez, torres, redondo, mayordomo, & sales 2017). another study did not find an overall effect, although higher engagement with reminiscence was associated with improved autobiographical memory (woods et al., 2016). there is also evidence that reminiscence can improve mood and depressive symptoms in older adults living in long-term residential care (wang, 2005), and we have previously suggested that positive effects of reminiscence on autobiographical memory might be mediated by effects on mood and executive function (allen, doyle, commins, & roche, 2018). despite this promising research in people with memory impairment, there has been a relative lack of research examining the effects of reminiscence on autobiographical memory in healthy older adults with a lack of cognitive impairment. memory can decline even in healthy ageing, albeit with differing effects on differing forms of memory (e.g. hedden & gabrieli, 2004). it is thus of interest whether reminiscence can have beneficial effects on cognition and psychological well-being, particularly autobiographical memory. one study that did examine reminiscence and autobiographical memory in healthy older adults tested the effects of both oral reminiscence and autobiographical writing (de medeiros, mosby, hanley, pedraza, & brandt, 2011); their results suggested a lack of change in autobiographical memory performance. in the current study, we evaluated the effect of a reminiscence intervention on autobiographical memory, new learning and executive function, as well as self-reported memory and psychological well-being. in contrast to de medeiros et al., we assessed memory for a wider range of life epochs; de medeiros et al. employed three (childhood, early adult life, and recent life), whereas we examined five (0-15, 15-30, 31-45 years of age, 46 years of age-last 5 years, last 5 years). the period from 15-30 years in particular approximately aligns with what is referred to as the reminiscence bump, a period in life from adolescence to early adulthood that tends to be well-remembered compared to other periods of life by middle-aged and older adults (e.g. conway & rubin, 1993; jansari & parkin, 1996). furthermore, instead of two different reminiscence conditions, we employed an active control that was more focused on the present/future than the past, in order to control for factors such as social contact within a group setting and level of attention from the project staff. we also included a waiting list control to quantify the effects of repeated testing with no intervention. for autobiographical memory, in addition to semantic and episodic memory performance, we assessed autonoetic aspects of autobiographical memories. these are subjective mental “time travel” aspects of memory (e.g. wheeler, stuss, & tulving, 1997), which have been demonstrated to differ between younger and older participants (piolino et al., 2006) and to differ within older adults depending on time of encoding (luchetti & sutin, 2018). to assess autonoetic aspects of autobiographical memory, we specifically assessed self-reported extent of reliving the memory and re-experiencing the emotion associated with the memory. reminiscence and autobiographical memory 318 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our key hypothesis was that reminiscence would be associated with heightened episodic autobiographical memory performance, as well as increased re-experiencing of autobiographical memory, compared to the active control and waiting list control. we also hypothesized that reminiscence would be associated with improved cognitive performance (better performance on tests of executive function and verbal learning) and self-reported psychological well-being (enhanced quality of life, satisfaction with life, positive affect, and reduced negative affect, anxiety, and depression). method this research received ethical approval from the maynooth university research ethics committees. all participants provided informed consent before beginning their participation in the project. the methods and primary outcome measures of this study were pre-registered at open science framework (see supplementary materials). design this study employed a mixed factorial design, with reminiscence condition as the between-participants factor and preand post-assessment as the within-participants factor. participants were randomly assigned on a per-site basis to one of three conditions (reminiscence therapy, active control group, waiting list control group). those in the control groups were offered participation in a reminiscence group following their completion of the post-control research visit. materials autobiographical memory was assessed using the episodic autobiographical memory interview (eami; irish, lawlor, o’mara, & coen, 2008, 2010, 2011). this interview assesses episodic and semantic autobiographical memory, as well as autonoetic aspects of autobiographical memory, for five different life epochs (0-15, 15-30, 31-45 years of age, 46 years of age-last 5 years, last 5 years). participants were requested to think of different memories than what they had discussed at baseline, or during any reminiscence sessions, when they completed the eami for a second time, following the intervention/waiting list. we requested this in order to avoid participants building on any rehearsal of memories they had recently retrieved. new verbal learning was assessed with the rey auditory verbal learning test (ravlt; schmidt, 1996). this assesses learning of a 15-word list; there are five trials in which the list is read and participants are required to recall as many words as they can in any order. these five trials are followed by one trial of an interference list. participants are then requested to recall as many words from the first list, both immediately after the interference trial and at delay (following completion of the eami). we also assessed two aspects of executive function; response inhibition and verbal fluency. we assessed response inhibition using a computerised colour-naming stroop task (balota et al., 2010; doyle, smeaton, roche, & boran, 2018), presented using e-prime®. participants were presented with a series of words and asked to name the colour of ink in which they were presented. although previous research also included a word-naming block, we omitted this to reduce participant burden. we assessed verbal fluency from the allen, doyle, & roche 319 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ montreal cognitive assessment (moca; nasreddine et al., 2005); participants were required to think of as many words beginning with “f” as they could (or “a” for the parallel version) in one minute. we employed a number of self-report measures of subjective quality of life and satisfaction with life, mental health and affect; these were the control, autonomy, self-realisation and pleasure quality of life questionnaire (casp-19; netuveli, wiggins, hildon, montgomery, & blane, 2006); satisfaction with life scale (swls; diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin 1985), beck depression inventory (bdi; beck, steer, & brown, 1996), spielberger trait anxiety inventory (stai; spielberger, gorsuch, lushene, vagg, & jacobs, 1983), and positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). participants we included 36 participants in the analysis for this study; one participant was excluded following baseline assessment due to evidence of cognitive impairment. we assigned 14 to the reminiscence condition (10 females, 4 males; mage = 69, sem = 1.3), 11 to the active control (10 female, 1 male, mage = 68.8, sem = 1.5) and 11 to the no-intervention control (8 female, 3 male, mage = 71.9, sem = 2.0). all participants identified as white irish. participants were recruited from dublin and surrounding counties in the republic of ireland, via flyers and newspaper advertisements, as well as via community groups (e.g. active ageing groups, men’s sheds). all participants were over 60 years of age. exclusion criteria were as follows: severe visual impairments; history of psychological/neurological impairment, severe head trauma resulting in loss of consciousness, history of epilepsy, currently taking psychoactive medication, other relevant medical conditions, history of drug or alcohol problems (see figure 1 for recruitment flowchart). figure 1. recruitment flowchart. interventions the reminiscence and active control interventions were delivered in small groups of three to seven participants at a number of different venues. the reminiscence and active control groups comprised six weekly sessions, each lasting one hour. the reminiscence groups used a simple reminiscence approach, adapted from the “remembering yesterday, caring today” program (schweitzer & bruce, 2008). this program was used in previous research examining autobiographical memory as an outcome (woods et al., 2016). the sessions were more conversation-based than the “remembering yesterday, caring today”, which had a stronger focus on hands-on reminiscence and autobiographical memory 320 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ activities for working with clients with memory problems. we did not target a specific function of reminiscence as we were interested in observing which functions of reminiscence would emerge in the group context. for the reminiscence groups, in addition to autobiographical memories, participants were prompted to discuss memories of historical events in the public sphere (e.g. john f. kennedy’s visit to ireland in the 1960’s, economic recession in ireland in the 1980’s). for the active control groups, the topics of discussion were approximately matched to the content of the reminiscence groups, but with a focus on the present and future. for example, the active control group discussed learning new things whilst the reminiscence group discussed schooldays. as certain topics were more likely to provoke discussion of different epochs in autobiographical memory, the order of topics for the groups were reversed for half the groups (i.e. half of the reminiscence groups completed the sessions in one order, and the other half of the reminiscence groups completed them in the opposite order). the order of topics was similarly reversed for half of the active control groups. the weekly topics for the reminiscence group and active control group are outlined in table 1 below. table 1 session topics for reminiscence group and active control session reminiscence group active control session 1 introduction, childhood and family life introduction, health and well-being session 2 schooldays continued education/learning new skills session 3 historical session a current affairs (national) session 4 homes, gardens and animals, going out and having fun holidays and celebrations session 5 historical session b current affairs (international) session 6 weddings, babies, children, rounding up family life, grandchildren, relationships, rounding up reminiscence sessions were recorded, and, with participants’ permission, highlights from the reminiscence groups were added to an online archive at the digital repository of ireland (see supplementary materials). participants were encouraged to listen to previous entries in the archive, to help trigger memories of their own. procedure participants completed the cognitive measures in a small testing room one at a time. this testing session lasted approximately 60-90 minutes. participants completed the questionnaires in their own time prior to the first group session. after completing the reminiscence/active control group, or waiting an equivalent amount of time in the waiting list condition, participants completed the same measures again, 6-8 weeks after the baseline testing session. parallel versions of tests were used wherever available for the post-intervention study visit, to minimise learning or other carryover effects. statistical analysis where assumptions of parametric data were violated, we transformed variables using a square root transformation; where that transformation did not make the data parametric then a natural log transformation was used. data for participants who competed the baseline assessment but were lost to follow-up were imputed using last observation carried forward. allen, doyle, & roche 321 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we used ancova for the primary outcome (autobiographical memory) and mancova (using roy’s largest root; see field, 2009) for the secondary outcomes, which were executive function (verbal fluency and stroop effect reaction time), verbal learning (ravlt performance indices) and psychological well-being (quality of life, satisfaction with life, depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect). we employed reminiscence condition and pre-post assessment as predictors and age as a covariate. we assessed the interaction between the two predictors to determine if the change in outcome from baseline to post-intervention differed between the reminiscence group and the control conditions. we also examined whether there was a main effect of life epoch on autobiographical memory. results autobiographical memory autobiographical memory was the primary outcome assessed within this study. there was a significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for episodic memory, f(2, 32) = 3.98, p = .03, ηp2 = .2; this was due to a fall in episodic memory retrieval in the active control group, rather than a change in the reminiscence group. there was no significant main effect of reminiscence condition, f(2, 32) = 0.72, p = .49, ηp2 = .04. however, there was a main effect of pre-post assessment, f(1, 32) = 6.46, p = .02, ηp2 = .17, with participants performing slightly worse at post-intervention regardless of reminiscence condition (see figure 2a). figure 2. autobiographical memory preand post-intervention condition. note. (a) episodic memory, (b) semantic memory, (c) re-experiencing emotion, (d) reliving the memory. estimated marginal means adjusted for covariate (age) are reported. error bars represent standard error of the mean. reminiscence and autobiographical memory 322 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ there was no significant effect of reminiscence condition on semantic autobiographical memory; there no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition, f(2, 32) = 2.67, p = .09, ηp2 = .14, nor was there a main effect of reminiscence condition, f(2, 32) = 0.54, p = .59, ηp2 = .03 or pre-post assessment, f(1, 32) = 0.08, p = .78, ηp2 = .002 (see figure 2b). despite an increase in the no intervention condition, there was no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for extent of re-experiencing emotion associated with autobiographical memory, f(2, 32) = 2.49, p = .1, ηp2 = .14. there was a marginally significant main effect of pre-post assessment, f(1, 32) = 4.16, p = .05, ηp2 = .12, with participants generally reporting higher levels of re-experiencing emotion at post-intervention. there was no significant main effect of reminiscence condition on re-experiencing emotion, f(2, 32) = 0.94, p = .4, ηp2 = .06 (see figure 2c). there was no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for extent of reliving the memory, f(2, 32) = 0.2, p = .82, ηp2 = .01. there was a marginally significant main effect of pre-post assessment, f(1, 32) = 3.89, p = .06, ηp2 = .11, with participants generally reporting lower levels of reliving the memory at post-intervention. there was no significant main effect of reminiscence condition on reliving the memory, f(2, 32) = 1.03, p = .37, ηp2 = .06 (see figure 2d). there was some evidence of lower autobiographical memory performance for the childhood period (0-15 years), although there was no significant main effect of life epoch on episodic memory, f(4, 128) = 0.69, p = .60, ηp2 = .02 (see figure 3a), or semantic memory, f(3.05, 97.52) = 0.67, p = .57, ηp2 = .02 (greenhouse-geisser adjusted; see figure 3b). figure 3. autobiographical memory across epoch for (a) episodic memory, (b) semantic memory, (c) re-experiencing emotion, (d) reliving the memory. note. estimated marginal means adjusted for covariate (age) are reported. error bars represent standard error of the mean. allen, doyle, & roche 323 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ life epoch did have a main effect on re-experiencing of emotion, f(4, 104) = 3.14, p = .02, ηp2 = .11, with participants reporting less re-experiencing of emotion for childhood memories (see figure 3c). despite a simliar trend for reliving of the event, there was not a significant main effect of life epoch, f(4, 104) = 2.2, p = .07, ηp2 = .08 (see figure 3d). these main effects were not significantly moderated by condition or pre-post assessment. cognition using roy’s largest root, there was no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for executive function (verbal fluency and stroop effect rt), θ = .12, f(2, 28) = 1.72, p = .2, ηp2 = .11. there was no significant main effect of pre-post assessment θ = .03, f(2, 27) = 0.35, p = .71, ηp2 = .03, nor was there a significant main effect of reminiscence condition, θ = .17, f(2, 28) = 2.32, p = .12, ηp2 = .14 (see table 2). table 2 executive function before and after reminiscence intervention and control conditions outcome / condition pre post verbal fluency (words produced) reminiscence 16.28 (1.31) 16.25 (1.19) active control 14.04 (1.34) 12.48 (1.21) no intervention 14.14 (1.57) 11.74 (1.42) stroop effect rt (ms) reminiscence 201.94 (32.46) 192.45 (42.59) active control 178.88 (33.07) 165.62 (43.39) no intervention 193.97 (38.97) 118.04 (51.12) note. estimated marginal means reported; standard error of the mean in parentheses. there was no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for new learning, θ = .23, f(7, 27) = 0.88, p = .53, ηp2 = .19. there was no significant main effect of pre-post assessment, θ = .31, f(7, 26) = 1.15, p = .37, ηp2 = .24, nor was there a main effect of reminiscence condition, although this approached significance, θ = .57, f(7, 27) = 2.21, p = .07, ηp2 = .36. (see table 3). table 3 new verbal learning before and after reminiscence intervention and control conditions outcome / condition pre post ravlt trial 1 correct reminiscence 6.18 (0.41) 6.73 (0.36) active control 5.75 (0.46) 5.87 (0.4) no intervention 6.4 (0.47) 5.8 (0.41) ravlt trial 5 correct reminiscence 11.64 (0.64) 11.22 (0.57) active control 10.82 (0.71) 10.82 (0.63) no intervention 10.82 (0.73) 10.26 (0.65) reminiscence and autobiographical memory 324 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome / condition pre post ravlt trial 6 correct reminiscence 9.78 (0.73) 9.04 (0.8) active control 8.22 (0.82) 7.71 (0.89) no intervention 8.06 (0.84) 7.7 (0.91) ravlt delayed recall correct reminiscence 10.03 (0.85) 8.38 (0.87) active control 8.66 (0.95) 7.52 (0.97) no intervention 8.39 (0.97) 7.18 (1) ravlt learning reminiscence 5.47 (0.74) 4.49 (0.62) active control 5.07 (0.83) 4.95 (0.69) no intervention 4.42 (0.86) 4.42 (0.71) ravlt forgetting reminiscence 0.13 (0.06) 0.25 (0.06) active control 0.2 (0.06) 0.31 (0.07) no intervention 0.25 (0.06) 0.34 (0.07) ravlt interference reminiscence 0.16 (0.05) 0.19 (0.06) active control 0.24 (0.06) 0.29 (0.07) no intervention 0.26 (0.06) 0.28 (0.07) ravlt total repeats reminiscence 4.4 (0.98) 3.16 (0.7) active control 2.98 (1.09) 4.33 (0.8) no intervention 3.15 (1.12) 3.56 (0.82) note. estimated marginal means reported; standard error of the mean in parentheses. psychological well-being there was no significant interaction between pre-post assessment and reminiscence condition for psychological well-being, θ = .14, f(6, 14) = 0.33, p = .91, ηp2 = .12. there was no significant main effect of pre-post assessment, θ = .92, f(6, 13) = 1.99, p = .14, ηp2 = .48, nor was there a main effect of reminiscence condition, although this approached significance, θ = 1.2, f(6, 14) = 2.8, p = .053, ηp2 = .55 (see table 4). table 4 psychological well-being before and after reminiscence intervention and control conditions outcome / condition pre post positive affect reminiscence 37.7 (2.12) 40.71 (2.29) active control 35.5 (2.51) 40.24 (2.7) no intervention 37.8 (2.19) 39.6 (2.36) negative affect reminiscence 14.76 (1.77) 14.11 (1.25) active control 14.19 (2.1) 13.61 (1.48) no intervention 15.98 (1.84) 17.55 (1.29) allen, doyle, & roche 325 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome / condition pre post depression reminiscence 5.93 (1.84) 5.04 (1.86) active control 7.52 (2.17) 7.65 (2.2) no intervention 7.56 (1.9) 7.47 (1.92) anxiety reminiscence 33.13 (2.83) 29.83 (2.65) active control 30.46 (3.35) 29.93 (3.13) no intervention 33.41 (2.93) 31.59 (2.74) quality of life reminiscence 41.81 (1.02) 40.54 (1.09) active control 39 (1.21) 37.91 (1.29) no intervention 41.43 (1.06) 40.74 (1.13) satisfaction with life reminiscence 28.07 (1.1) 29.06 (1.51) active control 26.48 (1.3) 27.27 (1.79) no intervention 25.45 (1.14) 25.64 (1.56) note. estimated marginal means reported; standard error of the mean in parentheses. discussion the current findings do not suggest that reminiscence affects autobiographical memory in healthy older adults, compared to an active control and no intervention control. this is consistent with previous research contrasting oral and written reminiscence (de medeiros et al., 2011). there was also a lack of evidence that reminiscence was associated with better performance on other cognitive tasks, or with improved psychological well-being. cognitive performance and psychological well-being were generally good at baseline, and, in the case of semantic autobiographical memory, quite close to ceiling, consistent with previous evidence that semantic autobiographical memory is well preserved in healthy ageing (levine et al., 2002; st. jacques & levine, 2007). thus, although the current study had a low sample size, given the high level of performance at baseline it is unlikely that improvement would be demonstrated with a larger sample. the slight decline observed for some autobiographical memory measures may be due to participants being requested to think of a different memory following the intervention; they may have selected an autobiographical memory that had been less well-rehearsed prior to the project, or was less vivid than the memory they discussed at baseline. future research may determine if there are other means through which interventions may better help to increase autobiographical memory in older adults. a greater use of multimedia resources, or integrating reminiscence with other memory interventions (e.g. those usually more focused on short-term memory and learning) may lead to an enhanced effect on autobiographical memory. ongoing intervention with long-term follow-up may help to determine if there are preventative effects of reminiscence in healthy older adults at risk of mild cognitive impairment or dementia. although we employed simple reminiscence, more targeted reminiscence interventions may have more specific effects; for example, instrumental reminiscence focused on past experiences of coping has been shown to have a positive effect on resilience and coping strategies (meléndez, fortuna, sales, & mayordomo, 2015). however, we did not attempt to focus on a specific function of reminiscence in the current project, as we were interested in observing which functions of reminiscence would emerge in the group context. given that there are different functions of reminiscence (e.g. cappeliez et al., reminiscence and autobiographical memory 326 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2005), it would be of interest to see how older adults use discursive practises in reminiscing to acheive different aims. in conclusion, the current results are consistent with previous findings that a reminiscence intervention does not lead to enhanced autobiographical memory performance in healthy older adults (de medeiros et al., 2011). further research is required to ascertain the best means by which to preserve episodic memory in healthy ageing. we should also note that, even in the absence of individual psychological effects, participating in group reminiscence allows for healthy older adults to engage in an activity which may benefit themselves and those around them in other ways, such as preservation of oral history (e.g. bornat, 1989). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. funding the research described in this manuscript was supported by a new horizons grant from the irish research council (ref: repro bu 2050158). acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge the organisations that facilitated the reminiscence groups. ethics approval this research received ethical approval from the maynooth university research ethics committees. all participants provided informed consent before beginning their participation in the project. data availability data for this article is freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials the following supplementary materials are available: 1. the methods and primary outcome measures of this study were pre-registered at open science framework and are available via https://osf.io/9zd5u/. 2. reminiscence sessions were recorded, and, with participants’ permission, highlights from the reminiscence groups were added to an online archive at the digital repository of ireland and are available via https://repository.dri.ie/catalog/wp98p078n. participants were encouraged to listen to previous entries in the archive, to help trigger memories of their own. index of supplementary materials allen, a. p., doyle, c., & roche, r. a. p. (2020). supplementary materials to: the impact of reminiscence on autobiographical memory, cognition and psychological well-being in healthy older adults [methods and data]. osf. https://osf.io/9zd5u/ allen, doyle, & roche 327 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 https://osf.io/9zd5u/ https://repository.dri.ie/catalog/wp98p078n https://osf.io/9zd5u/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ allen, a. p., doyle, c., & roche, r. a. p. (2020). supplementary materials to: the impact of reminiscence on autobiographical memory, cognition and psychological well-being in healthy older adults [highlights of reminiscence sessions]. digital repository of ireland. https://repository.dri.ie/catalog/wp98p078n references allen, a. p., doyle, c., commins, s., & roche, r. a. p. 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(2005). the effects of reminiscence on depressive symptoms and mood status of older institutionalized adults in taiwan. international journal of geriatric psychiatry, 20(1), 57-62. https://doi.org/10.1002/gps.1248 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 wheeler, m. a., stuss, d. t., & tulving, e. (1997). toward a theory of episodic memory: the frontal lobes and autonoetic consciousness. psychological bulletin, 121(3), 331-354. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.3.331 woods, r. t., orrell, m., bruce, e., edwards, r. t., hoare, z., hounsome, b., . . . russell, i. (2016). remcare: pragmatic multi-centre randomised trial of reminiscence groups for people with dementia and their family carers: effectiveness and economic analysis. plos one, 11(4), article e0152843. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152843 about the authors andrew p. allen is a researcher at trinity college dublin. he completed the work described in this manuscript at maynooth university. he previously worked as postdoctoral researcher at the department of psychiatry and neurobehavioural science and apc microbiome ireland in university college cork, and completed his phd at cardiff university. he blogs at http:// andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.com/. he is a senior editor at europe’s journal of psychology. caoilainn doyle completed the work described in this manuscript at maynooth university. she has conducted postdoctoral research at the university of california, san francisco. she completed her phd at dublin city university, and has previously published in the area of executive function and dyslexia. richard a. p. roche is associate professor at the department of psychology, maynooth university, following undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral study at trinity college, dublin. his areas of interest are neuroscience/neuropsychology, particularly memory, ageing, dementia, stroke, brain injury and synaesthesia. he has published 34 research articles, over 90 conference posters, several book chapters and two books. he has to date accrued over €1.25 million in research funding, and has graduated 9 phd students and 2 msc students. he has served as president of neuroscience ireland and was founding president of the irish brain council. he is also strongly committed to science outreach and public engagement, and has given an ignite talk at science gallery’s mindfields at electric picnic 2016, performed for brightclub dublin in 2017, as well as hosting ‘the brain box’, a 2-part radio documentary about the brain on newstalk 106-108fm. reminiscence and autobiographical memory 330 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 317–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.2097 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0030146 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f09658210601119762 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fgps.1248 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.121.3.331 https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0152843 http://andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.com/ http://andrewspsychologyarchive.blogspot.com/ https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ reminiscence and autobiographical memory (introduction) method design materials participants interventions procedure statistical analysis results autobiographical memory cognition psychological well-being discussion (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments ethics approval data availability supplementary materials references about the authors who cares if not supposed to? moral foundations, consideration of immediate consequences, and mask-wearing intentions after revocation of the legal obligation to do so research reports who cares if not supposed to? moral foundations, consideration of immediate consequences, and mask-wearing intentions after revocation of the legal obligation to do so iwona nowakowska 1 [1] institute of psychology, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 received: 2023-10-04 • accepted: 2024-10-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: johannes karl, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: iwona nowakowska, szczęśliwicka 40, 02-353 warsaw, poland. e-mail: inowakowska@aps.edu.pl supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract after two years of obligation to wear masks during the pandemic, in march 2022, the legal requirement was revoked for public spaces (except for medical facilities) in poland. the aim of the study was to find out how individualizing moral foundations (focused on avoiding harm to others and concern for justice) shaped the intention to wear masks despite the revocation and how binding moral foundations (concentrated on respect for authorities, loyalty to the ingroup, and purity) and consideration of immediate consequences modify this relationship. for exploratory purposes, the same model was also tested for a retrospective declaration about the refusal to wear protective masks when legally required to do so. in both models, gender was controlled. n = 557 people from the general population participated in the online survey. results showed that in the case of intention to wear masks after the obligation was revoked, individualizing moral foundations and female gender were positive predictors. the lower the binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences, the higher the effect of individualizing moral foundations. no interaction effects were found for a retrospective declaration of participants refusing to wear masks during the pandemic. however, positive predictors were male gender, binding moral foundations, and consideration of immediate consequences, whereas individualizing moral foundations were a negative predictor. the results suggest morality plays a role in forming healthrelated communication. men should be targeted in order to enhance their acceptance of preventive measures. keywords consideration of immediate consequences, covid-19, mask-wearing, moral foundations, preventive measures the covid-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event in many people’s lives and caused a worldwide public health crisis. it resulted in the introduction of various legal obligations, including social distancing and mask-wearing, aimed at caring for oneself and others to prevent the spread of the disease (thunstrӧm et al., 2020). however, not everyone complied with these obligations, arguing that it compromised their liberty (gostin & hodge, 2020) or even denying the existence of the pandemic (kaźmierczak et al., 2022). one of the legal mandates was to wear protective masks in public (howard et al., 2021). in poland, on march 28th, 2022, the legal obligation to wear protective masks in public, closed spaces due to covid-19 was revoked (the legal obligation to wear them in public, open spaces was revoked earlier by the ministry of health of poland on twitter, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12957&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7701-5612 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ march 24th, 2022). it was argued that the number of infected people had decreased, and the wave of refugees from ukraine did not change the pandemic situation. the aim of the current study, conducted in the unique period between march 31st, 2022, and april 5th, 2022 (a few days after the obligation was revoked), was to test the potential predictors of mask-wearing intentions after the prevention law ended. based on the moral foundations theory (graham et al., 2009) and the norm activation model (schwartz, 1970), we take into account the moral foundations (individualizing versus binding) endorsed by participants and the extent to which they consider immediate consequences (caring for the short-term gain of resigning from mask-wearing). an additional exploratory model regarding the refusal to wear masks before the revocation was tested to show whether similar patterns shape previous behaviors and future intentions. the study aims to discuss the role of moral foundations in health behaviors. it can also assist in communicating prevention measures based on morality and consequence concerns, which could be helpful in the case of new pandemics or other public health threats. mask-wearing effectiveness/ineffectiveness as a covid-19 prevention measure mask-wearing and other preventive measures have been introduced in many countries, including poland, to lower the risk of spreading covid-19 (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). a systematic review that considered observational and interventional studies conducted during the first wave of the pandemic suggested that mask-wearing effectively controlled the pandemic's spread (mendez-brito et al., 2021). similarly, a systematic review and meta-analysis of obser­ vational and interventional data from 2020–2021 indicated that mask-wearing, handwashing, and physical distancing were associated with reducing covid-19 cases (talic et al., 2021). a further systematic review of studies from 2020–2023 (boulos et al., 2023) suggested that more research found that mask-wearing reduced infection rates rather than had no effect or favored control groups however, this conclusion is not definitive, and the studies were conducted before the highly transmissible omicron variant emerged. there is a clear need for further research to fully understand the effectiveness of mask-wearing, especially in the context of new variants. additionally, 95% of the reviewed studies were at critical risk of bias in at least one domain, often failing to distinguish between mask-wearing and concurrent interventions’ specific effects. finally, the most recent review of rcts only (jefferson et al., 2023) highlighted a contradiction in the evidence. it suggested that wearing masks in community settings made little or no difference in the case of influenza-like or covid-19-like illnesses compared to not wearing masks. however, the harms of mask-wearing were rarely measured in the reviewed rcts or were poorly reported. this evidence needs to be considered along with other available evidence. nevertheless, the current study focuses on community members’ behaviors in light of governmental directions when the study was conducted. generally, mask-wearing was considered a socially responsible behavior at the time of the pandemic (chi et al., 2022; kaul & palmer, 2023). however, mask-wearing mandates induced polarized reactions, including social media encouragement to put masks on or take them off (lang et al., 2021). notably, the resistance among some members of society focused on how mask-wearing can compromise human rights and contribute to the consolidation of societal inequalities (czarnecki & skowrońska, 2022). moral foundations and compliance with covid-19 prevention measures during the pandemic, it was found that moral foundations may serve as a framework for encouraging preventive behaviors, including mask-wearing (chan, 2021; nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). according to the moral foundations theory (graham et al., 2009; 2011; waytz et al., 2019), people judge the appropriateness of behaviors and assess them as “right” or “wrong” based on intuition, not on conscious thought. conscious processes only occur after. the theory suggests five foundational moral domains, according to which people form their judgments intuitively (graham et al., 2009). these five moral domains can be further grouped into individualizing (individual-centered), consisting of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity, and binding (group-centered), consisting of the three latter foundations (graham et al., 2011; haidt, 2012). these foundations are described as stable dispositions, despite the contextual factors (e.g., experimental manipulations) that can temporarily amend individuals’ moral foundations (haidt et al., 2009). table 1 presents an overview of the theory and a description of the moral foundations. who cares if not supposed to? 12 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 overview of the moral foundations theory overarching moral domain moral domain description moral foundation forming the domain moral foundation description individualizing concerns what is best for individuals in society and what leads to equality and the well-being of other people. it promotes empathy and prosocial behaviors. harm/care regards aversion to harm and promoting care for other people. fairness/reciprocity pertains to valuing fair behavior and reciprocal practices that promote equality. binding underlines the importance of tying together social groups by preserving roles and hierarchies. ingroup/loyalty concerns sacrifice for own ingroup's benefits. authority/respect regards obedience to leaders, authority figures, hierarchy, and traditions and respect toward them. purity/sanctity highlights the importance of bodily purity and avoidance of what is contaminated and degrading. note. source is own preparation based on clark et al. (2017), graham et al. (2009; 2011), and milesi and alberici (2018). individualizing-oriented people have a higher propensity to comply with covid-19 preventive behaviors (chan, 2021), assess the efficacy of covid-19 preventive behaviors (including mask-wearing) more positively, and accept covid-19 conspiracy theories to a lower degree (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). this is probably due to the empathic com­ ponent of the harm/care foundation and the concern for fairness because if everyone complies, then the reciprocal interaction would also be to comply. thus, it can be hypothesized that: (h1) an individualizing orientation is positively related to mask-wearing intentions after the mask-wearing obligation is revoked. a binding orientation, due to the concern for preserving the status quo (day et al., 2014; graham et al., 2009), which could, for example, manifest in not wearing extra accessories to prevent the spread of covid-19, may be associated with less acceptance for mask wearing. anti-mask views were positively related to binding moral foundations of authority/respect and purity/sanctity but negatively related to ingroup/loyalty (mejova et al., 2023). furthermore, binding-oriented people tended to assess the efficacy of covid-19 preventive behaviors (including mask-wearing) more negatively and endorse covid-19 conspiracy theories more (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). thus, it can be hypothesized that: (h2) a binding orientation is negatively linked to mask-wearing intentions after the mask-wearing obligation is revoked. individualizing and binding moral foundations are distinct. however, they are not mutually exclusive. profile analyses show that some people tend to endorse all moral foundations at a similar level (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023), and in some cases, an individual-protection-oriented-binding morality can arise, producing, for example, ostracization (graham et al., 2020; janoff-bulman & carnes, 2013). given that the government (authority) announced that the legal obligation to wear masks would be revoked based on arguments of the diminishing threat to individuals and this was approved by the ingroup, a binding orientation could weaken the individualizing moral foundations’ relationship with mask-wearing intentions. it can therefore be hypothesized that: (h3) the effect of individualizing moral foundations on mask-wearing intentions after the legal obligation to wear a mask is revoked is weaker the higher the binding moral foundations. nowakowska 13 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consideration of immediate consequences and compliance with covid-19 prevention measures according to the moral foundations theory, the moral judgment process appears at the first stage of deciding what behavior to undertake. the second stage is more conscious and based on reasoning. this is where some overlap with the norm activation theory appears (schwartz, 1970). in line with this, moral norms activate when a person sees the consequences of their behavior and assess them as manageable. consideration of immediate consequences (strathman et al., 1994) describes to what extent an individual takes into account the immediate consequences of their own behavior. it is linked to lower self-control than consideration of distant (future) consequences (joireman et al., 2008). graham and colleagues (2020) found that low self-control is the strongest predictor of non-compliance with social distancing rules, which was higher for people who endorsed binding moral foundations. nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that in this study, consideration of immediate consequences was not investigated directly. however, a study by joireman and colleagues (2012) showed that people who consider immediate consequences are more inclined to engage in unhealthy behavior patterns (i.e., eating) because of the short-lived pleasure they might give. considering the immediate gains of “letting go” of the masks (e.g., personal comfort) may be negatively related to continuing to wear masks after the revocation of the obligation to do so. taking into account this evidence, we hypothesize that: (h4) consideration of immediate consequences is negatively linked to mask-wearing intentions after the revocation of the law. similar to binding moral foundations, considering immediate consequences can serve as a “temptation” for individualiz­ ing-oriented people to not continue wearing masks, especially when they are not required to. it is possible that the reduced risk can activate the belief that there is no need to take care any longer, and mask-wearing is no longer a matter of fairness, as it is not expected. moreover, reciprocity concerns should not be relevant anymore—if other people do not wear masks, then the symmetrical action is not to wear them. if the majority decides to follow the new rule of not wearing masks, then the immediate and negative consequence of continuing to do so could be a lack of understanding from others. thus, it can be hypothesized that: (h5) the effect of individualizing moral foundations on mask-wearing intentions after the legal obligation to wear a mask is revoked is weaker the higher the consideration of immediate consequences. current study the aim of the current study, conducted in the unique period between march 31st, 2022, and april 5th, 2022 (a few days after the obligation to wear masks was revoked in poland), is to test the potential predictors (individualizing moral foundations and their interactions with binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences, as well as simple effects of binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences) of mask-wearing intentions right after the prevention law ended. for exploratory purposes, in a second model, we check whether self-reported mask-wearing behaviors before the revocation of the law are predicted by the same individual differences (individualizing/binding moral foundations, consideration of immediate consequences, and interactions are similarly hypothesized as for mask-wearing after the revocation of the law). for both models, gender will be controlled, as gender was consistently found to be related to mask-wearing behav­ iors during the pandemic (chuang & liu, 2020; haischer et al., 2020; looi, 2022). men were less keen to comply with this preventive measure than women, which led to the coining of the term “toxic mask-ulinity” (palmer & peterson, 2020), which is a wordplay based on the “toxic masculinity” concept that describes the unhealthy practices of masculinity, matching negative stereotypes about the male gender. these practices might encompass aggressiveness, oppression of weaker people, and entitlement (kupers, 2005; waling, 2019). it was interpreted as a function of higher risk aversion in women (chuang & liu, 2020). who cares if not supposed to? 14 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the study is unique in its timing (a few days after the obligation revocation) and is relevant to the fields of psychology and public health. the study was conducted at times when policymakers expected this behavior and consid­ ered it socially responsible. we focus on how people intend to behave when legal health-related regulations change. understanding people’s behavioral intentions in the face of changing legal circumstances can help predict real-life behaviors when mask-wearing or other health-related legal obligations are revoked. finding individual differences that correlate to such behavioral intentions is essential to observe who is most likely to sustain behaviors that were previously legally required and who is least likely to undertake the behavior regardless of the law or gives it up as soon as they are not obliged to perform it. the results may help form prevention-related messages and target specific moral concerns to promote socially responsible behaviors. moreover, they contribute to the body of research on moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences, adding to the knowledge of the links between morality and behavior and future discounting and behavior. method participants a total of 557 people participated in the study, 400 women (71.8%), 145 men (26.0%), and 12 people of other gender or preferring not to disclose gender information (2.2%). the age range was between 18 and 71 years (m = 24.44; sd = 5.69). eighty-one people (14.5%) lived in a village, 59 (10.6%) in a town with up to 50,000 inhabitants, 55 (9.9%) in a town with 50,000-100,000 inhabitants, 122 (21.9%) in a town with 100,000–500,000 inhabitants, and 240 (43.1%) in a town with over 500,000 inhabitants. regarding the last finished level of education, one person (0.2%) had vocational education, 251 (45.1%) had high school education, 190 (34.1%) had a bachelor's degree, 103 (18.5%) a master's degree, 7 (1.3%) a phd degree or higher scientific degree, and 5 (0.9%) other education status. for socioeconomic status rated from 1 – i can’t afford basic expenses, to 10 – i can afford all necessary expenses and save money monthly, participants ranged from 1–10 (m = 7.12; sd = 2.05). two hundred and nine people (37.5%) stated having contracted/suffered from covid-19 at least once in their lives, 164 (29.4%) declared that had not been the case, and 184 (33.0%) were unsure about it. five hundred people (89.8%) indicated knowing at least one person in their close social circle who had gone through covid-19, 26 (4.7%) responded having no such person in their close circle, and 31 (5.6%) were unsure about it. procedure on march 28th, 2022, the legal obligation of wearing protective masks in public spaces (except for medical facilities) was revoked. the study was performed between march 31st, 2022, and april 5th, 2022, to capture the beginning of the new reality period. the study was performed online, and the participants were recruited through facebook using the snowball sampling technique; the information about the study was posted on various student and city groups across poland to access people of various ages and places of residence. initially, respondents were informed that the study aimed to assess current mask-wearing intentions. all participants consented to participate prior to starting the survey, and the study was anonymous without the consequences of giving it up. there was no remuneration for participating. measures moral foundations moral foundations were assessed with the moral foundations questionnaire-mfq (graham et al., 2011) in a polish adaptation (jarmakowski-kostrzanowski & jarmakowska-kostrzanowska, 2016). the tool consists of 30 items and is a self-report. it enables us to determine which of five foundational moral domains (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity) are essential for people’s decision-making. for the current study, the domains were further aggregated into individualizing and binding, as suggested by the literature. it consists of two parts, 15 items each. in the first one, the participants have to decide whether a particular issue is relevant to their moral decision-making, e.g., whether or not some people were treated differently from others, rating their responses on a scale from 1 (not at all relevant) to 6 (extremely relevant). in the second part, the participants agree or disagree with nowakowska 15 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moral statements, e.g., people should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed, rating their responses on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). both parts of the questionnaire contain items that constitute the five subscales. despite the different construction of questions, according to the authors of the scale, the items from both parts are taken together when calculating the scores (graham et al., 2011). the scores were computed by calculating means for each subscale according to the key. cronbach’s α in the current study for the subscales were: .75 for individualizing moral foundations and .87 for binding moral foundations. consideration of immediate consequences this was assessed with the consideration of future consequences scale-14 (joireman et al., 2012; polish adaptation: frydrysiak, 2018). it measures how much people consider future and immediate consequences in their decisions. the scale consists of two subscales: consideration of immediate consequences and consideration of future consequences, the first of which is important for the current analysis. a sample item from this subscale is: my behavior is only influenced by the immediate (i.e., a matter of days or weeks) outcomes of my actions. the answers are marked on a 7-point likert scale (1 – not at all like me; 7 – very much like me). the general score was computed as the mean of the items relevant to the subscale. cronbach’s α for the consideration of immediate consequences scale was .75. mask-wearing refusal before the obligation revocation this was measured with one item of own construction: before the revocation of the obligation to wear protective masks, most often, i did not wear any. the participants gave their answers on a scale ranging from 0 (totally disagree) to 100 (totally agree). the current mask-wearing intention this was measured using a 6-item survey of own construction. the instruction provided was: on monday, march 28th, 2022, the obligation for covering the mouth and nose in public spaces was revoked, with some exemptions (e.g., medical institutions). read each of the following statements about your views carefully and mark on a scale from 0–100 to which extent you agree with them. the participants gave their answers on a scale ranging from 0 (totally disagree) to 100 (totally agree). a sample item was if someone asks me to wear a protective mask and it is not required in that place, i will wear one. principal component analysis (pca) was run to discover the structure of the survey. the criterion for choosing the number of factors was an eigenvalue greater than 1. pca suggested one factor accounting for 73.09% of the variance with all items with loadings over .79. k-m-o metric was .715, and bartlett's sphericity test was statistically significant, χ2(15) = 3403.48; p < .001. the general score was computed by calculating the items’ mean, acknowledging the two items’ reverse coding. the cronbach’s α for this scale was .93. the results of the exploratory factor analysis, along with the complete list of items, are provided in the appendix. analytic strategy ibm spss 28.0.1.0 for windows was used for data analysis. first, pearson’s r correlations were used to explore the rela­ tionships between variables. then, linear regression analysis with interaction was used to predict current mask-wearing intention. next, simple slopes post hoc tests were performed using process 4.3 for spss macro (hayes, 2018). all variables were standardized to z-scores prior to computing interaction variables and for post hoc interaction tests. open data open data, materials in original and english versions, and commands to recreate the analyses for the article can be found at nowakowska (2024). who cares if not supposed to? 16 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results first, in table 2, we present a correlation analysis along with descriptive statistics for the variables of interest to provide the first insight into the relationships between the variables. table 2 pearson’s r correlation analysis and descriptive statistics variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. gender (0 = female, 1 = male) – 2. individualizing moral foundations -.23*** – 3. binding moral foundations .05 .11** – 4. consideration of immediate consequences .02 -.05 .01 – 5. mask-wearing refusal before the obligation revocation .22*** -.24*** .20*** .09* – 6. current mask-wearing intention -.20*** .27*** -.18*** -.17*** -.58*** – m – 4.82 3.42 3.61 29.21 40.22 sd – .56 .76 .96 38.16 34.88 note. correlations with gender are provided for n = 545 (people who declared no information on gender are excluded). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. next, a regression with interaction analysis was performed to predict current mask-wearing intention. durbin-watson’s statistic for the whole model was 1.99. table 3 shows the results of this analysis. table 3 predicting current mask-wearing intentions: regression analysis results predictor b se β t p vif 1. gender (0 = female, 1 = male) -11.05 3.23 -.14 -3.42 < .001 1.08 2. individualizing moral foundations 8.55 1.47 .24 5.80 < .001 1.08 3. binding moral foundations -5.99 1.43 -.17 -4.18 < .001 1.06 4. consideration of immediate consequences -5.43 1.37 -.16 -3.96 < .001 1.01 5. individualizing moral foundations * binding moral foundations -3.45 1.47 -.10 -2.36 .019 1.07 6. individualizing moral foundations * consideration of immediate consequences -2.84 1.34 -.08 -2.12 .035 1.02 f(6; 538) 17.41 p < .001 r2 adj .153 data from table 3 shows that female gender and individualizing moral foundations were significant positive predictors of current mask-wearing intention. negative and significant predictors were binding moral foundations, consideration of immediate consequences, the interaction between individualizing and binding moral foundations, and the interaction between individualizing moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences. simple slopes post hoc tests indicated that individualizing moral foundations were related to current mask-wearing intentions on all levels of binding moral foundations (other variables and interaction from the regression analysis controlled). however, the relationship differed in strength. it was the strongest when the binding moral foundations were low, b = .34, p < .001; less strong when they were average, b = .24; p < .001, and the weakest when they were high, b = .15; p < .05. figure 1 shows the visualization of this interaction. nowakowska 17 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 interaction between individualizing and binding moral foundations in predicting current mask-wearing intention individualizing moral foundations were also related to current mask-wearing intentions on all levels of consideration of immediate consequences (other variables and interaction from the regression analysis controlled). however, the relationship differed in strength. it was the strongest when the consideration of immediate consequences was low, b = .33, p < .001; less strong when it was average, b = .25; p < .001, and the weakest when it was high, b = .16; p < .01. figure 2 shows a visualization of this interaction. figure 2 interaction between individualizing moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences in predicting current mask-wearing intention who cares if not supposed to? 18 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ next, for exploratory purposes, a regression with interaction analysis was performed to predict mask-wearing refusal before the obligation revocation. durbin-watson's statistic for the whole model was 1.99. table 4 shows the results of this analysis. table 4 predicting mask-wearing refusal before the revocation: regression analysis results predictor b se β t p vif 1. gender (0 = female, 1 = male) 14.49 3.61 .17 4.02 < .001 1.08 2. individualizing moral foundations -7.68 1.65 -.20 -4.66 < .001 1.08 3. binding moral foundations 7.86 1.60 .20 4.91 < .001 1.06 4. consideration of immediate consequences 3.02 1.53 .08 1.97 .049 1.01 5. individualizing moral foundations * binding moral foundations 1.67 1.64 .04 1.02 .307 1.07 6. individualizing moral foundations * consideration of immediate consequences 1.71 1.50 .05 1.14 .254 1.02 f(6; 538) 13.57 p < .001 r2 adj .122 table 4 shows that the significant negative predictor of mask-wearing refusal before the obligation revocation were individualizing moral foundations. positive and significant predictors were male gender, binding moral foundations, and consideration of immediate consequences. none of the interactions were significant. discussion the aim of the study was to test the role of moral foundations (individualizing versus binding) and consideration of immediate consequences (caring for the short-term gain of ceasing mask-wearing). in addition, it explored the interaction between individualizing and binding moral foundations as well as individualizing moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences when it comes to predicting mask wearing intentions after the legal obligation to do so was revoked in poland in march 2022. an additional model with the same predictors regarding the refusal to wear masks before the revocation was also tested. the data supported all five hypotheses. for h1, individualizing moral foundations were consequently associated with mask-wearing intentions at all values of both moderators (the link differed in strength, which will be discussed below). this aligns with previous research stating that concern for care and justice is important for mask-wearing behaviors during covid-19 (chan, 2021). valuing care means a person is concerned about others’ well-being (clark et al., 2017). as masks were referred to in poland as “a protection for others from your germs,” it could have been predicted that mainly other-oriented people would be more accepting of mask-wearing. regarding h2, binding moral foundations were negatively related to mask-wearing intentions after the revocation of the law. they were also related positively to the refusal to wear a mask when the obligation was present. this is congruent with how binding morality relates to preventive measure acceptance during the pandemic (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). it might be due to a willingness to preserve the status quo and avoid what is novel and what disturbs the known social order, which is characteristic of binding-oriented people (graham et al., 2011). another explanation is the linkage between binding moral foundations and lowered tolerance for ambiguity (nowakowska & zarazińska, 2023). mask-wearing decisions bear some ambiguity: whether they are safe for individuals, whether the benefit of caring for others outweighs the concern for personal liberty, among others. binding-oriented people may have decided not to comply to resolve this ambiguity and conflict. they might have preferred to remain with the familiar—that is, not using masks. nevertheless, as tolerance of ambiguity was not measured in the current study, this interpretation is speculative and needs further research. nowakowska 19 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for h3, consideration of immediate consequences was negatively related to mask-wearing intention after the revocation. it was also positively related to a refusal to wear a mask when the obligation was in effect. people with a high consideration of immediate consequences take into account the results that are not distant in time (strathman et al., 1994), for example, their comfort and lack of obligation to remember to put on a mask. that is why they might prefer the more straightforward solution of ignoring the obligation or giving up mask-wearing after the law was revoked. moreover, we observed interaction effects. for h4 and h5, both binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences moderated the role of individualizing moral foundations on mask-wearing intentions. the simple slope effect of individualizing moral foundations suggests that people who endorsed this type of morality—thus, caring for other people’s well-being (graham et al., 2009)—generally tended to wear masks, and this effect is substantial. at the same time, binding foundations may incline toward following authorities and conforming to the group. thus, for people who are individualizing and binding simultaneously, the concern for others might be related to a lower propensity to wear masks, presumably as a result of being fair to the authorities and ingroup. consideration of immediate consequences might trigger a search for what feels more comfortable and what bears less immediately visible consequences (for example, negative judgments from others). that is why simultaneous individualizing morality and consideration of immediate consequences could be associated with lower mask-wearing intentions after revoking the law. for the exploratory model, the moderating effects were not displayed in the relationship between individualizing moral foundations and mask-wearing before the revocation. this may be linked to the individualizing morality sense—if one is obliged to do something (as was the case when the mask-wearing mandate was in effect), it is a matter of fairness and reciprocity to comply. other moral considerations or consequences should not be that important. nevertheless, the data on mask-wearing during the pandemic is based on retrospective reports, and thus ought to be treated with caution. finally, the obtained results confirmed the previous findings regarding men’s lower tendency to wear protective masks (chuang & liu, 2020; haischer et al., 2020; looi, 2022; palmer & peterson, 2020). summing up the differences be­ tween predictors for mask-wearing refusal before the revocation and intentions for mask-wearing after the revocation, women were less likely to refuse to wear a mask when the relevant law was in effect and more likely to continue wearing them after it was revoked. binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences were positively related to mask-wearing refusal before the revocation of the law and negatively to the intention to continue mask-wearing after the revocation. individualizing moral foundations showed the opposite direction of correlations. moreover, both binding moral foundations and consideration of immediate consequences suppressed the effect of individualizing moral foundations on further mask-wearing intentions. our study provides interesting insights for prevention and public health. first, it highlights the need for more communication and targeted public health messages aimed at men to enhance cooperation and responsibility beyond gender. moreover, it shows that if health-related laws are in effect, individualizing and not binding moral foundations may play a role in complying with them. presumably, to encourage binding-oriented people to comply with such laws, underlining the importance of particular behaviors to preserve group integrity, being loyal to other members of society, or referring to preserving purity or sanctity concerns could be helpful when planning health communications. more­ over, as people considering the immediate consequences are less likely to comply or sustain health-related behaviors, highlighting the short-term benefits of health-related behaviors can play a role. nevertheless, wearing masks might be uncomfortable (thus having short-term negative consequences), which prevents engagement in such behavior. however, grounding the prevention messages in sound research results showing the short-term benefits for the community (e.g., fewer infected persons) or the individual (lack of contamination) can be helpful. limitations and future research directions the study was unique in terms of its timing and allowed us to capture specific phenomena of high social and health relevance. however, it is not free of limitations. first, it was cross-sectional and allowed us to interpret the results only in the context at the time of data collection. given that we collected the data right after the legal obligation to wear masks in public places was revoked, we were able to capture the behavioral intentions right when the relevant who cares if not supposed to? 20 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ circumstances changed. however, due to this study’s timing, the data on mask-wearing during the pandemic was only retrospective, and the model predicted it might be prone to bias related to recalling one’s own behavior from the past. given that a very short time passed after the revocation of the abovementioned laws, we cannot infer from our data how the investigated individual differences related to sustained mask-wearing behaviors after the pandemic. moreover, the study was done during the first months of the war in ukraine, which was a period of high activity in polish society for helping refugees (byrska, 2023). the attention of polish citizens could have shifted from the pandemic and related restrictions to the armed conflict taking place in the neighboring country and the refugee crisis. we need to acknowledge that the newest scientific reviews question the relevance of mask-wearing in preventing the spread of covid-19 (jefferson et al., 2023). however, as mask-wearing was considered socially responsible at the time of the study, our study contributes to understanding people’s intentions to continue expected health behaviors in the aftermath of a pandemic. moreover, all the declarations were based on self-report, which is somewhat dependent on the need for social approval. there was also a gender imbalance typical for snowball sampling studies conducted on social media. the online design and the data collection method, which did not involve context-setting or the presence of a researcher, did not allow control over the participants’ attentiveness while they answered the questions. the level of engagement of respondents is unknown, and as in many online studies, there is a risk that some of them did not take the study seriously and were filling out the survey without consideration. future studies could explore the topic of socially responsible behaviors in the framework of moral foundations theo­ ry to find out whether the effect is similar to other behaviors and intentions. more research and practical interventions are also needed to tailor public health communication to men in order to enhance their compliance with covid-19 and other disease preventive measures. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the maria grzegorzewska university research ethics committee approved the study protocol and materials, approval number 65/2021. data availability: for this article, data, codebook and materials are available at nowakowska (2024). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. 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(2019). ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle. nature communications, 10, article 4389. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12227-0 appendix factor analysis for the mask behavior survey the method used: principal component analysis, no rotation. criterion for number of factors chosen: eigenvalue > 1. nowakowska 23 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 11–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12957 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212449362 https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965221145904 https://doi.org/10.15557/pipk.2022.0020 https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20105 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250817 https://doi.org/10.21315/mjms2022.29.1.15 https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22173 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2021.06.018 https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430216675707 https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/q5jbc https://doi.org/10.1080/02109395.2023.2207300 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x20000422 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.4.742 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-068302 https://doi.org/10.1017/bca.2020.12 https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.2019.1679021 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12227-0 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire item factor loading since the revocation of the obligation to wear protective masks, i do not wear one in places where it is not required (r). .789 despite the revocation of the obligation to wear protective masks, i still wear one in places where it is not required. .858 if someone asks me to wear a protective mask and it is not required in that place, i will wear one. .864 if someone asks me to wear a protective mask and it is not required in that place, i will refuse to do so (r). .852 if during a 1:1 conversation, i would be without a protective mask and another person would wear one, i would wear one too. .875 if, during a meeting with several people, i would be without a protective mask and the majority would wear masks, i would wear one too. .888 note. r–reverse-coded item. one factor was revealed, explaining 73.09% of the total variance; k-m-o metric = .715; bartlett’s sphericity test χ2(15) = 3403.48; p < .001, cronbach’s α = .93. about the author iwona nowakowska is a psychologist, researcher of prosocial behaviors. author and co-author of over 20 journal articles. received grants from national science centre in poland, polish national agency for academic exchange, polish social psychological society, and awards for scientific activity from the ministry of science of poland. member of international society for the study of individual differences, international society for third-sector research, and polish social psychological society. who cares if not supposed to? 24 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ who cares if not supposed to? (introduction) mask-wearing effectiveness/ineffectiveness as a covid-19 prevention measure moral foundations and compliance with covid-19 prevention measures consideration of immediate consequences and compliance with covid-19 prevention measures current study method participants procedure measures analytic strategy open data results discussion limitations and future research directions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references appendix factor analysis for the mask behavior survey about the author the dark side of study: when study negatively affects relationships and school climate. the study-relationships conflict scale research reports the dark side of study: when study negatively affects relationships and school climate. the study-relationships conflict scale yura loscalzo* a, marco giannini a [a] department of health sciences, school of psychology, university of florence, florence, italy. abstract this study proposes a new instrument for evaluating the study-relationships conflict, or the conflict that may exist between study and personal relationships with family, friends, schoolmates, and teachers. we recruited a sample of 598 italian university students (age: m = 22.58 ± 3.85) of different majors. by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we reduced the 16-item pilot version to nine items and three factors: 1) quarrels at school—qs; 2) relationship impairment—ri; 3) family and friends’ complaints—ffc. moreover, we analyzed the correlation between these scales and some academic indicators: grade point average (gpa) and time spent studying. the results showed that the study-relationships conflict scale (srcs) has good psychometric properties. in addition, gpa positively correlates with the ffc scale; while time spent studying correlates positively with both the ri and the ffc scales. finally, qs has a statistically and low significant positive correlation with the hours a day of study before exams. the srcs will be useful in future research aiming to analyze how studying behaviors could affect social and school relationships. moreover, it could also be used as a quick screening for detecting student at-risk of high social impairment due to their overstudying, and for developing preventive interventions. keywords: students’ wellbeing, study addiction, study engagement, studyholism, study obsession, work addiction, workaholism, work-family conflict europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 received: 2017-11-22. accepted: 2018-08-02. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of health sciences, school of psychology, university of florence, via di san salvi 12 – padiglione 26, 50135 florence, italy. tel.: +39 055 2755071, fax: +39 055 2751093. e-mail: yura.loscalzo@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. work and study are respectively the primary activity for workers and students. in our society, overworking/overstudying is usually seen as a good and valuable behavior. though, when it becomes excessive, it could lead to clinical conditions such as workaholism (or work addiction; oates, 1971) and study addiction (atroszko, andreassen, griffiths, & pallesen, 2015) or studyholism (or study obsession; loscalzo & giannini, 2017a). in literature, a lot of attention has been devoted to workaholism and to the adverse effects that could be associated with it at the individual, organization and family levels. for example, workaholism could lead to psychological and physical impairment, to lower work performance, to higher aggressive workplace behaviors, and to work-family conflict (andreassen, 2014; clark, michel, zhdanova, pui, & baltes, 2016; loscalzo & giannini, 2017b; sussman, 2012). in the same line, atroszko et al. (2015) recently found that study addiction has adverse consequences for students. moreover, in their theoretical model, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) suggested some negative outcomes that may be associated to studyholism: physical and psychological health impaireurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ment, lower academic performance, aggressive behaviors at school/university and an impairment of the relationships with relatives, friends/partners, and classmates. in their papers, loscalzo and giannini (2017a, 2018a, 2018b) stressed that study addiction and studyholism are two different constructs due to their different theoretical frameworks. study addiction has been conceptualized referring to the core components of substance addictions (atroskzo et al., 2015). studyholism, instead, has been conceptualized going beyond the addiction model and, more specifically, as a problematic behavior which may be more similar to an obsession than to an addiction (loscalzo & giannini, 2017a, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c; loscalzo, giannini, & golonka, 2018). moreover, loscalzo & giannini (2017a) introduced the distinction between engaged and disengaged studyholics, hence adopting the heavy work/study investment model (see snir & harpaz, 2012). however, they also pointed out that, besides the different operationalization of the constructs, study addiction and studyholism are related to the same behavior, that is studying, or more specifically problematic overstudying. therefore, the studies about study addiction and studyholism are both critical as they might highlight the negative outcomes associated with problematic overstudying. hence, loscalzo and giannini (2017a) suggested that future studies should analyze their hypothesized relationships between problematic overstudying and its negative consequences. though, given that it is a new construct, many variables cannot currently be evaluated since there are not instruments for measuring such aspects. among these variables, there is the study-relationships conflict. the study-relationships conflict the study-relationships conflict (src) is assumed to be similar to the construct of work-family conflict (wfc), even if we have adapted it to the study and student’s life context. as far as the wfc is concerned, it is defined as a source of stress for many individuals (carlson, kacmar, & williams, 2000) and, more specifically, as an inter-role conflict between work and family domains, which may be expressed in three different forms: time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based (greenhaus & beutell, 1985). moreover, as suggested by greenhaus and beutell (1985), the wfc may have two directions: the work interferes with family functioning (work-to-family conflict), or the family interferes with the work functioning (family-towork conflict). in the workaholism literature, the work-family conflict scale (wfcs; carlson et al., 2000) is one of the most used instruments for evaluating the wfc, both in its work-to-family and family-to-work conflict components. though, the content of some of its items is not suitable to be adapted to the school context; moreover, the wfcs items do not address all the main students’ relationships besides family, such as those with friends and classmates. finally, the wfcs does not address aggressive behaviors, as it focuses on the work-family conflict specifically. hence, we propose the theoretical construct of src, and an instrument for evaluating it, since it is conceptualized as a different construct than the wfc. we define the src as an inter-role conflict between study and relationships, which includes both social (family, friends, and partner) and school (teachers and classmates) relationships. we specify that there may be both a study-to-relationships conflict (s-r-c) and a relationships-to-study conflict (r-s-c). the s-r-c is the form addressed by the instrument we present in this paper, as we are interested in the influence that overstudying may have on social and school relationships. however, it is crucial to analyze also the r-s-c as there might be students whose low grades or aggressive behaviors at school/university are due to problems they are experithe study-relationships conflict scale 200 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ encing within their family (e.g., parents’ divorce, disagrees within family, illness of a family member), with their friends/partners (e.g., quarrels with friends or partner, use or abuse of addictive drugs in social situations, social isolation), and teachers or classmates (e.g., low wellbeing at school). finally, we also stress that the src might be evident in both a relationships impairment (e.g., losing some friends, not going out with friends) and in overt aggressive behaviors (e.g., quarrels with teachers due to bad grades). it is important to have a construct and an instrument related to the conflict that may arise between the students’ main life domains, as the ones of students (pre-adolescents, adolescents, and youths) are different as compared to the ones of workers (adults). while for workers the two main life domains are work and family, for students these are study and social relationships, and the latter does not include the family only but also schoolmates, teachers, and friends. there are indeed some differences in the social lives of students and workers. besides the well-known changes in the biological and psychological areas that characterize pre-adolescence and adolescence (e.g., development of primary and secondary sexual characters, meta-cognitive abilities, and moral reasoning), there are also significant changes in the social domain. havighurst (1952) pointed out that, among the developmental task/ challenges of the adolescents, there are: building new and mature relationships with peers of both the genders, acquiring emotional independence from the family and other adults, and preparing themselves toward a job. in the same line, erikson (1968) theorized that the developmental stage of adolescence (identity vs. role confusion) is characterized by social relationships with peers that culminate in a heterosexual relationship. next, the youths experience the intimacy vs. isolation stage of development, whose main features are the social interaction with a person of opposite sex and the acceptance of the adults’ duties, also including the relationship with a partner. finally, in the adult developmental stage, people have already built their main relationships, and they are more oriented to be productive. it looks clear that there are some differences between the social relationships of adolescents and youths and those of adults. while students are involved in building new relationships, workers have a clear set of stable relationships, generally including a spouse and children. in addition, it is usually assumed that peers begin to have a higher influence on adolescents, as compared to parents and other adults. during adolescence, there is an increase in the development of peer relationships, in both the friendship and sentimental levels. a good relationship with peers during this developmental stage is critical as it is an index of the adolescents’ psychological well-being and a protective factor against psychosocial problems (hartup & stevens, 1997). however, the family maintains an essential role in adolescence, especially when the adolescents face stressful situations such as mental health problems or physical illness (hauser, vieyra, jacobson, & werlieb, 1985). hence, for students, both friends and family are equally important. moreover, while adolescents and youths mainly fulfill the roles of son/daughter, sibling, friend, and student, adults meet the roles of parent, spouse, and worker instead. it should also be noted that while the roles associated to adolescence and youth are mostly mandatory (with the exception of being a college student, which is a free choice), the roles associated to adulthood are instead generally due to a free choice, as an adult may decide if he/she wants to get married and have children, and he/she may also choose to give up a job. loscalzo & giannini 201 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, there are different consequences related to a conflict between the two primary domains of a worker and a student. the wfc may be associated with adverse outcomes such as partner’s dissatisfaction, neglecting the duties toward the spouse and the children, higher distress in children, work dissatisfaction and turnover intention (e.g., erdamar & demirel, 2014; fischer, zvonkovic, juergens, engler, & fredericj, 2015; nohe & sonntag, 2014; vahedi, krug, fuller-tyszkiewics, & westrupp, 2018). the src may be instead mainly associated to an impairment of peer and family relationships, with a higher risk for developing psychological disorders (hartup & stevens, 1997). in addition, especially as far as the relationships-to-study conflict is concerned, it may be associated to lower grades and higher risk for dropout, and hence to a low-level job later in life. given these features of social relationships in adolescence, as well as in the “late adolescence” that characterizes the youths still living within their family (such as, usually, college students), we posit that, when studying src, we should evaluate it in both the social (family, friends, and partner) and school (teachers and classmates) domains. finally, we suggest that this conflict may be evident not only in the form of relationships’ impairment, but also in overt aggressive behaviors, such as quarrels with classmates, teachers, and family members due to school issues (e.g., low grades). the present study the main aim of this paper is to propose a new instrument to be used for evaluating the study-to-relationships conflict as defined in the present report or, more specifically, the negative impact of the study on social and school relationships, both in term of aggressiveness and social impairment. this instrument will be useful in future research aiming to address the impact of overstudying on personal relationships and school climate, but it could also be used as a quick screening of students with the aim of detecting the ones who are experiencing social impairment due to their studying behaviors. they could receive a preventive intervention designed for helping them to develop more positive and constructive attitudes toward studying, as to preserve their relationships. we also analyzed the correlations between study-relationships conflict (i.e., quarrels at school, relationship impairment, and family and friends’ complaints) and academic indicators, that is time investment in the study (both generally and before exams) and grade point average (gpa). more specifically, we hypothesized that: 1) time investment in studying is not associated with aggressive behaviors at university, as we speculate that the students who spend a lot of time studying feel good in the school context, and hence they do not argue with teachers and schoolmates about grades or other school matters; 2) higher time investment in the study is associated to higher relationship impairment and family and friends’ complaints, since parents, siblings, and friends may negatively react to the reduced amount of time dedicated to them as compared to study (adkins & premeaux, 2012; major, klein, & ehrhart, 2002); 3) a higher gpa is not associated with quarrels at university, as we posit that the students are satisfied with their grades, neither to relationship impairment with family and friends; 4) a higher gpa is associated with more complaints from family and friends, as we speculate that they might blame these students for being too much focused on studying. the study-relationships conflict scale 202 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants we got the participation of 598 university students aged between 18 and 56 years (m = 22.58 ± 3.85; 82.8% females, 17.2% males). the students attended university in many different italian cities, with florence being the most represented (20.2%), followed by milan (10.9%). this total sample is made by a first sample of 290 students that we gathered to perform exploratory factor analysis (efa) and by a second sample of 308 students on which we did confirmatory factor analyses (cfas). table 1 shows the characteristics of the samples. table 1 socio-demographic characteristics of the two samples and total sample characteristic sample 1 (n = 290) sample 2 (n = 308) total sample (n = 598) age (m ± sd) 22.41 ± 3.42 22.75 ± 4.22 22.58 ± 3.85 gender (%) females 83.1 82.5 82.8 males 16.9 17.5 17.2 major (%) psychology 18.6 19.5 19.1 medicine 16.9 17.5 17.2 other 64.5 63.0 63.7 year (%) 1 18.3 16.9 17.6 2 20.0 20.1 20.1 3 26.6 23.1 24.7 4 15.5 17.8 16.6 5 19.7 22.1 20.9 materials study-relationships conflict scale (srcs) we developed a pool of 16 items covering social (family, friends, and partner) and school (teachers and classmates) problematic relationships due to study (including aggressive behaviors towards teachers and classmates). eight items address each of the two relationships’ domains. the participants have to fill out the questionnaire indicating how much they agree with each of the sentences using a 5-point likert scale ranging between 1 (completely disagree) and 5 (completely agree). the participants of the first sample filled the 16-item pilot version of the srcs, while the participants of the second sample filled the 9-item reduced version. we designed this scale both in the instructions and in the items using a language that could be easily understood by college students, but also by younger students, such as pre-adolescents and adolescents. academic variables the participants answered some questions related to their academic behaviors. more specifically, they reported approximately how many hours a day and how many days a week they spent studying, both generally and before exams. moreover, we asked them to tell their grade point average (gpa), as an academic performance indicator. loscalzo & giannini 203 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure once we got the authorization to conduct the study by the department of health sciences of the university of florence, we administered an online questionnaire including the study-relationships conflict scale and some demographic (i.e., age and gender) and study-related (e.g., gpa and hours a day of study generally) questions. in the questionnaire, we included a first page in which we presented the aims of the research and all the information about the anonymity and the right to stop filling the questionnaire at any time. at the end of this page, we highlighted that by keep on filling the questionnaire, the participants agreed to take part in the research and hence gave their informed consent. data analysis we performed the analyses using spss.24 and amos.22. first, we conducted exploratory factor analysis (efa; principal axis factoring and promax rotation) on the first sample of participants (n = 290), aiming to reduce the number of items of the study-relationships conflict scale (srcs). after that, we cross-validated the factor structure of the scale through confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) on the second sample of students (n = 308). to evaluate the goodness of fit of the model, we made reference to the following indexes and cut-off scores: the χ2/df ratio, which indicates a good fit if it is less than 3 (byrne, 2001); the goodness of fit index (gfi), the comparative fit index (cfi), and tucker-lewis index (tli), which have the same cut-off values: < 0.90 lack of fit, 0.90–0.95 good fit, > 0.95 excellent fit (hu & bentler, 1999); and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), whose cut-off values are: < 0.05 excellent fit, 0.05–0.08 acceptable fit (reeve et al., 2007). we performed efa as a first step, in order to reduce the number of items of the scale, because cfa “is primarily a method for assessing the construct validity of measures and it is not a means for data reduction unlike efa” (singh, junnarkar, & kaur, 2016, p. 27). indeed, “efa is normally the first step in building scales or a new metrics” (yong & pearce, 2013, p. 79), which applies in the present study as we developed a new instrument for evaluating a new construct and, in order to reach this aim, we created a pool of items to be reduced by means of efa. finally, we evaluated the internal reliability (cronbach’s alpha) and the item-total correlations of the three scales of the final version of the srcs and their correlations (pearson) with the academic indicators (i.e., gpa and hours of study a day and days of study a week generally and before exams) on the total sample (n = 598). results as a first step, we performed an exploratory factor analysis (efa; principal axis factoring, promax rotation) on the first sample (n = 290), aiming to evaluate the factor structure and to obtain a shorter version of the 16item pilot version of the srcs. following the criterion of the eigenvalues greater than one and based on the scree-plot, we extracted three factors, which explain the 31.95%, the 50.05% and the 61.67% of the variance cumulatively. with reference to the content of the three items belonging to the same factor (for a total of nine items), we labeled the three factors: 1) quarrels at school—qs, 2) relationship impairment—ri, and 3) family and friends’ complaints – ffc (table 2 shows the saturation values of the three factors). the study-relationships conflict scale 204 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 exploratory factor analysis of the study-relationships conflict scale (srcs), n = 290 srcs item [english translation] qs ri ffc 1. non sono molto presente in famiglia a causa dello studio. [family life is compromised by my studying.] .53 2. spesso litigo con i miei insegnanti. [i often quarrel with my teachers.] .56 3. i miei genitori e/o amici mi dicono che studio troppo. [my parents and/or friends tell me that i study too much.] .47 4. ho perso alcuni amici, a causa dello studio. [i have lost friends, because of my studying.] .48 5. spesso rispondo male ai miei insegnanti e/o ai miei compagni. [i often speak impolitely to my teachers and/or my classmates.] .79 6. i miei amici mi considerano un/a secchione/a. [my friends consider me a swot.] .88 7. spesso litigo con i miei compagni. [i often quarrel with my classmates.] .67 8. a causa dello studio, non esco molto con i miei amici e/o con il/la mio/a fidanzato/a. [because of my studying, i do not go out much with my friends and/or my boyfriend/girlfriend.] .79 9. i miei compagni mi prendono in giro perché penso solo allo studio. [my classmates joke me because i only think about studying.] .44 note. principal axis factoring, promax rotation; factor loadings below .30 are not presented. qs = quarrels at school; ri = relationship impairment; ffc = family and friends’ complaints. if interested in using this scale, you can write to the first author for having the instruction to be used jointly to the scale itself. after that, we performed confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) on the second sample of students (n = 308), which filled the reduced 9-item version of the srcs. the fit indexes indicate a good fit for the 3-factor model: χ2/df = 1.99; gfi = 0.96; cfi = 0.95; tli = 0.92; rmsea = 0.057, which reach an excellent fit if, following the modification indices suggestions, we allow to correlate two pairs of item errors, namely error 1 with error 8 and error 7 with error 9: χ2/df = 1.45; gfi = 0.98; cfi = 0.98; tli = 0.97; rmsea = 0.038 (see figure 1 for the graphical representation of this model). figure 1. three-factor model, study-relationships conflict scale, n = 308. note. the correlations between errors are not represented. loscalzo & giannini 205 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ then, we calculated the internal reliability and the item-total correlations of the three scales on the total sample (n = 598). we found the following cronbach’s alpha values: qs = .67 (item-total correlations ranging between .76 and .80), ri = .63 (item-total correlations ranging between .74 and .79), and ffc = .64 (item-total correlations ranging between .66 and .82). finally, we analyzed the correlation between the three srcs scales and the five academic indicators: gpa and time spent studying daily and weekly (generally and before exams). the results showed that the gpa correlates with the ffc scale only (r = .35, p < .001), while the variables related to time investment in study correlate with both ri and ffc, with values ranging between .26 and .35. finally, qs correlates with hours a day of study before exams only (r = .11, p = .008) (see table 3 for the results). table 3 correlations between the study-relationships conflict scale (srcs) subscales and the academic indicators (n = 598) academic indicators srcs—qs srcs—ri srcs—ffc hours a day of study generally .05 .35** .34** days a week of study generally .001 .29** .29** hours a day of study before exams .11* .34** .25** days a week of study before exams .08 .26** .26** grade point average -.04 .07 .35** note. qs = quarrels at school; ri = relationship impairment; ffc = family and friends complaints. *p = .008. **p < .001. discussion this study proposes a new instrument, the study-relationships conflict scale (srcs), for the assessment of the negative interference of studying with social (family, friends, and partner) and school (teachers and classmates) relationships, as defined in the present paper. we developed a pool of 16 items covering these two social domains; more specifically, eight items covered each area. by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, we reduced the instrument to nine items and three factors: 1) quarrels at school—qs, 2) relationship impairment—ri, and 3) family and friends’ complaints—ffc. this 9-item version of the test showed an excellent fit. moreover, all the three srcs scales have good internal reliability, as they reach the cutoff value of .60 for new scales (nunnaly & bernstein, 1994), even if they are composed by three items only. furthermore, the item-total correlations are good for all the three scales. next, we analyzed the correlation between the srcs scales and some academic indicators: daily and weekly time investment in the study (generally and before exams) and academic performance, or the self-reported grade point average (gpa). we found that the qs scale weakly correlates with the hours of study per day before exams only (r = .11, p = .008). the ri scale, instead, has medium values of correlation with all the four variables concerning the time spent studying, but not with the gpa. finally, the ffc scale shows medium values of correlation with all the academic indicators, including the gpa. hence, we confirmed all of our hypotheses, as the results showed the study-relationships conflict scale 206 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a correlation between time investment in studying and both ri and ffc, while there is no correlation with qs (even if there is a low correlation between this and hours of study per day before exams). moreover, we also found that the gpa correlates with ffc only. these results, taken all together, seem to suggest that the more a student spent his/her time studying and the more he/she experiences relationships’ impairment and family and peers’ complaints about his/her overstudying. moreover, the higher is the gpa, the higher are the complaints of the family and the peers, but not the quarrels with teachers and classmates and the relationships’ impairment. the main limit of this study is that the sample is predominantly female, even if it is quite large and representative of many italian cities and majors of study. moreover, all the participants are college students; hence, even if the instrument has been designed both in the instruction and in the items in order to be administered to students of various school levels (including pre-adolescents and adolescents), we have not been able to evaluate the psychometric properties of the srcs on a younger sample. we suggest that future studies aiming to use this scale with pre-adolescents and adolescents should analyze its psychometric properties on these populations before using it. beside these limitations, this study has the merit to provide researchers and people working with students (such as psychologists, counselors, or teachers) with an instrument that allows evaluating the negative impact that (over)studying could have on the students’ social and school relationships (ri and ffc scales) and on the school climate (qs scale). hence, it will allow evaluating how negative (e.g., studyholism/study addiction) and positive (e.g., study engagement) study behaviors could affect students’ well-being. moreover, given its easy and quick way of administration, it could be used in practice to detect if study behaviors that cause an impairment characterize students, and hence to develop preventive interventions aiming to improve their wellbeing. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references adkins, c. l., & premeaux, s. f. 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(2013). a beginner’s guide to factor analysis: focusing on exploratory factor analysis. tutorials in quantitative methods for psychology, 9(2), 79-94. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.09.2.p079 about the authors yura loscalzo is a licensed psychologist and she holds a phd in clinical psychology. her main areas of research are workaholism, studyholism (a construct she created during her phd studies) and students’ wellbeing. loscalzo & giannini 209 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 https://doi.org/10.1556%2f2006.7.2018.124 https://doi.org/10.15557%2fpipk.2018.0033 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-9010.87.3.427 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jvb.2014.03.007 https://doi.org/10.1097%2f01.mlr.0000250483.85507.04 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.hrmr.2011.11.011 https://doi.org/10.4172%2f2155-6105.s6-001 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.socscimed.2018.06.031 https://doi.org/10.20982%2ftqmp.09.2.p079 https://www.psychopen.eu/ marco giannini is an associate professor at the university of florence and he currently teaches models of psychotherapy and methods of research in clinical psychology. his main areas of research are workaholism, studyholism, and psychotherapy. the study-relationships conflict scale 210 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 199–210 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1567 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the study-relationships conflict scale (introduction) the study-relationships conflict the present study method participants materials procedure data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors scoring divergent thinking tests by computer with a semantics-based algorithm research reports scoring divergent thinking tests by computer with a semantics-based algorithm kenes beketayevab, mark a. runco* c [a]nazarbayev university, astana, kazakhstan. [b] sparcit, inc., davis, ca, usa. [c] american institute of behavioral research & technology, vista, ca, usa. abstract divergent thinking (dt) tests are useful for the assessment of creative potentials. this article reports the semantics-based algorithmic (sba) method for assessing dt. this algorithm is fully automated: examinees receive dt questions on a computer or mobile device and their ideas are immediately compared with norms and semantic networks. this investigation compared the scores generated by the sba method with the traditional methods of scoring dt (i.e., fluency, originality, and flexibility). data were collected from 250 examinees using the “many uses test” of dt. the most important finding involved the flexibility scores from both scoring methods. this was critical because semantic networks are based on conceptual structures, and thus a high sba score should be highly correlated with the traditional flexibility score from dt tests. results confirmed this correlation (r = .74). this supports the use of algorithmic scoring of dt. the nearly-immediate computation time required by sba method may make it the method of choice, especially when it comes to moderateand large-scale dt assessment investigations. correlations between sba scores and gpa were insignificant, providing evidence of the discriminant and construct validity of sba scores. limitations of the present study and directions for future research are offered. keywords: divergent thinking, assessing creativity, creativity test, flexibility, ideas, originality, semantic networks, associative networks, computer creativity, ideational fluency europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 received: 2016-02-05. accepted: 2016-04-26. published (vor): 2016-05-31. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark *corresponding author at: torrance center for creativity and talent development, aderhold hall, 110 carlton street, athens, ga, usa. e-mail: runco@uga.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. divergent thinking tests are probably the most commonly-used assessment for creative potential. divergent thinking (dt) is not synonymous with creativity but tests of dt do provide useful information about creative potential. in particular, they provide scores for ideational fluency, which represents the number of ideas an individual gives, ideational flexibility, which represents the number of different conceptual categories used by the individual, and ideational originality, which represents the statistical infrequency or uniqueness of ideas. originality is especially important because it is a part of the standard definition of creativity (runco & jaeger, 2012). ideational flexibility is also extremely important (runco, 1986). it allows an individual to avoid ruts and routines when solving problems. this in turn contributes to creative problem solving but is also related to adaptability and to the capacity to shift perspectives when solving a problem. there are different ways to score divergent thinking tests (acar & runco, 2014; hocevar, 1979; hocevar & bachelor, 1989; hocevar & michael, 1979; milgram, 1990; runco, okuda, & thurston, 1987; torrance, 1995). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ some of the most recent methods for the scoring of divergent thinking tests employ computers. acar and runco (2014), for example, gave divergent thinking tests to a group of individuals via computer and then scored these tests using three semantic networks. they were especially interested in associative distance. this represents how far (in conceptual space) one idea given by one individual was from other ideas given by the same individual. acar and runco reported that associative distance could be reliably measured and that it was statistically correlated with an originality scale from a creative attitudes and values survey. by far the most comprehensive computerbased method for scoring divergent thinking tests is the semantic-based algorithm (sba) developed by sparcit (http://cit.sparcit.com). it uses 12 semantic networks when coding ideas and continually improves over time as it processes more data. semantic networks quantify relationships between concepts (sowa, 1991). one variation of a semantic network is an association networkwherein semantic relations are interpreted as connections between words and concepts in natural language. these form lexical neighborhoods within an association network (rapp & samuel, 2002; ruge, 1992). the association networks used in the previous research (acar & runco, 2014) were the word association network (wan), developed by rotmistrov (http://wordassociations.net/), wordnet (http://wordnet.princeton.edu), and ideafisher (http://throughtrod.com/). the 12 semantic networks used in the present research were constructed using a combination of associative networks and semantic co-occurence distances. utilizing 12 semantic networks has an advantage over using fewer (such as the 3 in acar & runco, 2014), namely generalizability. simplifying some, results form 12 networks are more indicative of natural language (and associations) than are results from 3 networks. it is analogous to having a larger normative sample when interpreting some test result or score. the present study was conducted to determine how the indices produced by the sba are related to the traditional scores (fluency, originality, flexibility) from divergent thinking tests. information about these relationships is of enormous practical and psychometric interest. the computer program is likely to generate highly reliable scores, for instance, given that no human judgment is required. it is also highly cost efficient. but these computer-generated scores may not tell us everything about ideas and divergent thinking. they are, after all, based entirely on semantic networks. it is possible that the computer algorithm will provide reliable scores, but scores which are unrelated to those resulting from the standard manual system. this is of course an empirical question—and the primary justification for the present study. given the semantic basis of the sba method, a strong correlation was expected between the sba flexibility score and the flexibility index of the traditional scoring method. indeed, that correlation should be higher than a correlation of flexibility with fluency or originality. a second expectation was that the sba method would generate scores that would be unrelated to gpa. this follows from the theory that divergent thinking is unrelated to convergent thinking, and that gpa and other measures of traditional intelligence are highly dependent on convergent thinking (acar & runco, 2015; guilford, 1968; kim, 2005; runco & albert, 1986; torrance, 1995). actual creative behavior probably requires both divergent and convergent thinking (cropley, 2006; runco, 2013; runco & acar, 2012), and the correlation between sba and gpa might depart from zero, but for the sake of discriminant validity, it should be small. if the sba method is in fact strongly correlated with the traditional method of scoring dt, there may be instances where the sba method can be used instead of the traditional method. after all, the sba method provides immediate scores, without judges or raters, so inter-rater reliability is not an issue. the benefits of the sba method europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 beketayev & runco 211 http://cit.sparcit.com http://wordassociations.net/ http://wordnet.princeton.edu http://wordnet.princeton.edu http://throughtrod.com/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ would be especially clear when there are large samples of examinees and when the dt testing is online (e.g., mturk). the present study is the first to compare a large sba with the traditional method for scoring dt. method participants and data collection the sample consisted of 250 participants (107 female, 141 male, 1 preferred not to disclose, 1 didn’t answer). the mean age of participants was 33.65 years (sd = 10.97), and the average grade point average (gpa) was 3.36 on 4-point scale (sd = 0.47). a computerized online system (http://mturk.com) was employed to randomly select participants, who were then prompted to complete provided tasks and the survey. participants were paid $1.5. only participants with english as a primary language were accepted. task description and testing procedure themany uses test was used to assess divergent thinking (www.creativitytestingservices). this is very much like the alternate uses test of guilford (1968) and the uses test from wallach and kogan (1965). it contained three items (i.e., “toothbrush,” “tire,” “spoon,”) which were presented one at a time. it was given to participants without any limitations on response time or output. participants were told to type in as many ideas as they could and to take their time. instructions were paraphrased from earlier research on dt. a computerized online system for creativity assessment called creativity index testing (http://cit.sparcit.com) was employed to administer the dt test. after finishing the dt test, participants were given a survey asking about age, gender, and gpa. dt scoring responses of threemany uses items were scored using the semantics-based algorithmic (sba) scoring method, described earlier, and the standard dt scoring method from the runco creativity assessment battery (rcab; 2011). descriptions of scores, generated by both methods, are provided below. traditional dt scores the fluency score was computed as the number of answers given to each dt task. the standard dt flexibility score was computed following the method of runco (1985): each idea was assigned to an a priori conceptual category (one set of categories for each task) and the score calculated as the number of categories used by the individual. this method has demonstrated good inter-rater and inter-item reliability in numerous investigations (see runco, 2013). the traditional dt originality score was computed from the statistical infrequency of an answer within the pool of answers. if an idea was unique, it got 100pts. if an idea was given three times, it got (100/3=) 33.3pts. if an idea was given hundred times, it got (100/100=) 1pt. sba fluency score the sba fluency score was computed from the number of answers given by the individual. this coincides with standardized dt fluency score. for example, if a participant gave five uses of a “tire,” his or her sba fluency score was five. as is typical, the quality of the ideas is ignored when scoring fluency. fluency is just a measure of ideational productivity. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 scoring divergent thinking algorithmically 212 http://mturk.com http://cit.sparcit.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ sba flexibility score the sba flexibility score was computed in the following manner. for each item response, which may consist of one or more discrete ideas, the number of categories into which these answers fall is determined. each response is analyzed in its entirety, but associations with particular discrete parts of each (e.g., single words) are recognized and processed. the number of flexibility categories is literally digitally computed, which is exactly why this is an algorithmic method. the semantic statistic for any pair of ideas is an algorithmic statistic that reflects semantic similarity between two answers. this method has been used successfully by acar and runco (acar & runco, 2014), though they relied on three semantic networks when calculating semantic statistics. the system used in the present research utilized 12 semantic networks. sba item originality score the sba originality (sbairo) score was computed as an average of all semantic association statistics. these statistics capture how far apart ideas given by any one individual are in the semantic networks. the algorithmic originality score was adjusted by the idea association frequency rate (i.e., frequency of usage in wikipedia [www.wikipedia.com, 2014]). this adjustment is much like traditional dt scoring where an idea is scored based on frequency of occurrence, which is why the sba originality index represents a kind of originality. sbairo score cannot be computed if the item is non-verbal because it requires a verbal starting point as well as a verbal response, and nonverbal tests do not have verbal starting points. they have figural or visual starting points. this is why the many uses test was chosen for the present research. it has very clear verbal starting points (i.e., the stimulus object, such as “toothbrush,” “tire,” or “spoon”). the many uses test is also quite similar to alternate uses and other uses tests from other dt batteries, including that of guilford (1968) and torrance (1995). the mut only differs from aut in the objects named in the instructions. here used tire, toothbrush, and spoon were used instead of guilford’s (1968) “list uses for a brick” or wallach and kogan’s (1965) “list uses for a shoe.” thus very similar results would be expected from aut and mut, though of course that is an empirical question (for future research). analyses first, the reliability of all computed scores was analyzed. next, associations between sba and traditional dt scoring methods were analyzed with correlational methods. then, analyses were conducted to understand correlations of sba scores with gpa score and response times. results reliability descriptive statistics for all scores are shown in table 1. standardized dt and sba scores yielded satisfactory reliability alpha coefficients, as shown in table 2. alphas of sba scores were slightly lower than that of standardized dt scores, but still at adequate levels. and as more data are processed over time, the underlying semantic statistics of sba method are expected to become more robust, which will no doubt lead to improved reliability of the sba scores. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 beketayev & runco 213 http://www.wikipedia.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics sdmmaxminindexdt item toothbrush 23fluency .732.144.001 9dt-flexibility .171.562.001 100dt-originality .8928.5055.221 7sbaf .840.402.001 60sbairo .864020.641907.5549034 tire fluency .951.074.0011.001 dt-flexibility .241.822.007.001 100dt-originality .3224.5573.903 sbaf .830.502.005.001 171sfairo .999354.026217.0273675 spoon fluency .132.244.0013.001 dt-flexibility .091.492.006.001 100dt-originality .9426.2862.082 sbaf .840.572.005.001 sbairo .298212.374246.9353697.3388 note. fluency = total number of ideas; dt-flexibility = traditional flexibility score; dt-orig = traditional originality score; sbaf = semantic based algorithm flexibility; sbairo = semantic based algorithmic originality score. the standardized dt originality score was less reliable compared than the other scores, perhaps reflecting its sensitivity to sample sizes. indeed, this score is based on infrequency – a participant’s performance relative to others in the given sample – hence it can vary greatly depending on the composition of the group. still, the alphas indicate an acceptable level of inter-item reliability, even for originality. also, the use of such “local norms” (that is, only comparing ideas to others who took exactly the same tests relying on exactly the same procedure) has many advantages, most of important of which is that ideas from one participant are not compared to much older responses from very different normative samples. the use of local norms is very common in dt testing (runco, 1991, 2013; wallach & kogan, 1965). table 2 alpha (α) inter-item reliability coefficients standardized αraw α fluency .79.77 dt-flexibility .75.75 dt-originality .62.62 sbaf .70.70 sbairo .76.71 note. fluency = total number of ideas; dt-flexibility = traditional flexibility score; dt-orig = traditional originality score; sbaf = semantic based algorithm flexibility; sbairo = semantic based algorithmic originality score. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 scoring divergent thinking algorithmically 214 http://www.psychopen.eu/ sba scores vs dt scores the pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficients between the sba scores and standardized dt scores are provided in table 3. the first important observation from table 3 is a significant correlation between fluency and both the traditional dt flexibility and sba flexibility scores (rs = .79, .86, respectively, ps < .0001). indeed, the more the person ideates, the more likely he or she will diverge and find new angles, thus increasing the diversity of generated ideas. table 3 bivariate correlations between all dt indices 54321measure –1. fluency –2. dt-flexibility .79 –3. dt-originality .31.31 –4. sbaf .33.74.86 –5. sbairo .01-.36.03-.04note. fluency = total number of ideas; dt-flexibility = traditional flexibility score; dt-orig = traditional originality score; sbaf = semantic based algorithm flexibility; sbairo = semantic based algorithmic originality score. turning to the hypotheses, the analyses confirmed that the sba flexibility score was correlated to the dt flexibility score at r = .74 (p < .0001), providing strong evidence for the concurrent validity of the sba flexibility score. this result provides a level of confidence, needed for the use of sba flexibility scores instead of standardized dt flexibility scores, specifically in cases of midand large-scale studies, where the manual computation of dt flexibility scores is not feasible. also interesting was that the other sba scores showed small, but noticeable correlations (rs = .33 and .36, respectively, ps < .0001) with the traditional dt originality score. one explanation of this is the statistical nature of all three scores. it can be hypothesized that if one had an opportunity to collect an infinitely large number of responses, the dt originality score would have converged to account for a significant portion of information carried by semantic association characteristics. this presents a very interesting direction for future research, but it is beyond the scope of the present investigation. the sba item-response originality score demonstrated an independent nature, as the only noticeable correlation it had was with dt originality score (r = .36, p < .0001), which was already discussed. the correlation between sba flexibility and sba originality scores was non-significant (r = -.01), which indicates that the two sba scores seem to measure two independent aspects of divergent thinking. sba scores vs gpa the product moment correlation between sba flexibility and gpa scores for all participants was non-significant (r = .20). however, it was observed that for participants with a gpa score less than 3.0, the correlation increased to r = .26 (p = .001). all other sufficiently large groupings failed to uncover any significant correlations. the correlation between sba originality and gpa scores was also non-significant (r = -.06), and no sufficiently large groupings (by gpa level) yielded significant correlations. europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 beketayev & runco 215 http://www.psychopen.eu/ the correlation of gpa with traditional dt flexibility and dt originality were r = .08 and r = -.06, but non-significant. sba scores vs response time the product moment correlation between sba flexibility scores and the amount of time each participant spent completing the dt test (consisted of 3 many uses items) was significant (r = .46, p < .0001). however, further analysis revealed that for participants who spent at least 178 seconds completing a given dt test, such a correlation diminished (r = .24) and remained non-significant for other time ranges above the given threshold. for sba originality scores, the correlation with corresponding response times was non-significant (r = .07), and remained non-significant for all sufficiently large time ranges, suggesting that the originality of the responses was independent of the time spent by participants. the correlation of response time to traditional dt flexibility and dt originality scores were r = .45 and r = .38, respectively. discussion these results support the construct validation of the sbadt scores. indeed, the construct validation was supported both by the inter-index correlations (e.g., sba flexibility with traditional flexibility) as well as the low correlations with gpa. certainly additional research should be carried out with other measures of both dt and something like iq. still, at present it appears that only a minimal level of general knowledge (in this case represented by gpa) is required to produce ideas on this particular dt test. quite a bit of previous research has used the same method as used here, with gpa used as an estimate of general knowledge (e.g., runco & smith, 1992). earlier research has also shown that online testing, such as that used here, provides results that are quite similar to face-to-face testing (hass, 2015). the moderate correlations among dt indices are noteworthy given the debate over the use of fluency alone when assessing creative potential. various investigations have found high correlations between fluency and originality and flexibility, and one interpretation was that this could be used to justify relying on fluency alone. the correlations of the present investigation support the use of a dt profile rather than fluency alone. this is especially true of the fluency-originality correlations, which were quite low (.3 and -.04). admittedly the suggestion of relying on fluency alone was already questionable, given (a) theories of dt, which include various dimensions and not just fluency (guilford, 1968; torrance, 1995), (b) psychometric evidence that the variance attributable to originality or flexibility remains reliable even when the overlap with fluency is covaried (runco & albert, 1985), (c) additional data showing that explicit instructions can alter originality and flexibility without changing fluency (runco & okuda, 1991), and (d) theories of creativity which emphasize originality (and not fluency). the correlation between sba flexibility and sba originality scores was non-significant (r = -.01), which indicates that the two sba scores seem to measure two independent aspects of divergent thinking. that might come as a surprise, at least given that earlier investigations often find themmore highly correlated. then again, theory suggests that they should be relatively independent, as uncovered here. the fact that the present findings are entirely in line with creativity theory is laudable, even if the flexibility-originality correlation reported here was different (and better) than that reported in previous research. interestingly, the two flexibility estimates, one from the computer scoring system and one from the traditional scoring system, were in good agreement (i.e., correlated), but the two originality estimates (computer and tradieurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 scoring divergent thinking algorithmically 216 http://www.psychopen.eu/ tional) were not related very much at all. this is actually what was expected. that was because both the computer and traditional scoring of flexibility rely on semantic categories, so they certainly should be correlated. even the traditional system for flexibility uses semantic categories, though the assignment of ideas to particular categories is a human decision, while in the case of the algorithmic system the determination of categories is computerized (i.e., based on comparisons with semantic networks). the good agreement of computer and traditional flexibility was thus expected because both systems rely on semantic categories. the computer and traditional originality indices, on the other hand, were each based on different norms and different logic. the computer originality score was based on semantic distance. this is really all a computer can do–compare ideas given by examinees with existing data, and in particular with semantic networks (e.g., wordnet or word association network). the traditional originality score, on the other hand, does not compare ideas given by examinees with any existing norms. it compared ideas given by examinees with ideas given by other examinees! thus the low agreement between the computer and the traditional originality indices is not at all surprising. it does leave us with a question, namely, which is the better originality score, computerized/algorithmic or traditional/human. very likely, the traditional one is the best choice. that is because it is tied to theories of creativity (guilford, 1968; runco & acar, 2012; torrance, 1995) where originality is defined as thinking in a novel or unique fashion (i.e., unlike other people). that being said, the ideal may be to use both originality scores, though it might be a good idea to interpret the computer originality index as something like semantic distance. the semantic distance index may not replace the traditional originality score, but it may prove to provide useful additional information. and like the computer flexibility score, the computer “originality score” (i.e., semantic distance) is cost efficient. scoring requires little or no human time to be invested. there is a larger issue, in addition to cost-efficiency of scoring methods. this larger issue arose when questions were directed at the traditional originality score, the crux being that originality scores are “sample dependent” because points are given by comparing one person’s ideas only with other examinees who took the test(s) at the same time. this question is easily refuted. in actuality, the so-called sample dependency of traditional originality is a virtue or strength rather than a problem. that is because divergent thinking tests have only moderate generalizability (runco, abdulla, & paek, in press) and they are much more sensitive to testing conditions than academic and intelligence tests (runco, 2013; wallach & kogan, 1965). for these reasons it is not fair to compare one person’s ideas to people who took different dt tests or people who took them under different testing conditions. the only fair comparison, for calculating uniqueness and originality, is between one examinee and everyone else in the same sample (i.e., the others who took the test under the same conditions). in short, there are advantages to using “local norms” for calculating the traditional originality scores. originality could be based on judgments instead of objective novelty, but differences among judges (e.g., runco, mccarthy, & svensen, 1994; runco & smith, 1992) indicate that this would create all kinds of additional problems. even before data were collected it was obvious that the associative nature of networks (i.e., their quantifying how frequently words are associated in some corpus) implies that they are most useful for the understanding of ideational flexibility and less informative about ideational originality. this is not a limitation, however, even though it is originality that is always included in definitions of creativity (for a review, see runco & jaeger, 2012). we say that because flexibility is recognized in the more comprehensive theories of divergent thinking (guilford, 1968; torrance, 1995), even if it is not always a part of empirical investigation. as a matter of fact flexibility should be included more often, given that it is important for adaptability (flach, 1990) and allows individuals to avoid the rieurope's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 beketayev & runco 217 http://www.psychopen.eu/ gidity and conceptual ruts that so often derail problem solving. all of this makes the findings presented here about flexibility that much more important. the correlations of response time to traditional dt flexibility and dt originality scores were mildly disconcerting. then again, even the largest of these indicated approximately 20% of the variance was explained by time on task. this is not unreasonable if, as previous research suggested, time on task represents the contribution of intrinsic motivation (plucker, runco, & lim, 2006). the logic here is that, given a choice, an examinee will invests more time only when interested in the tasks at hand. still, additional research should investigate the relationship of time with dt. the present results suggested that there might be a curvilinear relationship, which in turn implies that there is an optimal amount of time for dt. research on this question would be very practical, given that it would indicate if there is an optimal amount for testing. other practical implications include cost-efficiency. as noted above, the algorithmic method using semantic networks is highly cost efficient in that it is immediate and requires no manual computation. it appears that it will lead to similar decisions as those reached with a traditional scoring method. the present results were based on one moderately sized sample, and one test of dt, but results are encouraging and indicate that additional research is warranted. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests author kb is co-founder and chief technology officer of sparcit, llc. sparcit developed the semantic-based algorithm used in this research. author 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(1965). modes of thinking in young children: a study of the creativity-intelligence distinction. new york, ny, usa: holt, reinhart, & winston. about the authors kenes beketayev holds a ph.d. in computer science and is a co-founder and chief science officer at sparcit, inc. (funded by nsf sbir grant). he also holds a senior staff scientist position at nazarbayev university. his research covers large-scale data analysis and visualization, natural language processing and mining, and machine learning. email: kenesb@sparcit.com mark runco holds a phd in cognitive psychology and is professor at the university of georgia, as well as distinguished research fellow at the american institute for behavioral research and technology. he is founding editor of the creativity research journal and co-editor of the encyclopedia of creativity (1999, 2011). in 2015 he collaborated with the international center for studies in creativity to introduce two new academic journals, business creativity and the creative economy and the journal of genius and eminence. his textbook creativity: theories and themes, research, development, and practice (academic press, 2007) has been translated into eight languages and was revised and expanded in 2014. dr. runco has been adjunct professor at the norwegian school of economics and business administration and torrance professor and director of the torrance creativity center. he is past president of the american psychological association’s division 10. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 210–220 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1127 scoring divergent thinking algorithmically 220 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002%2facp.2350050505 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2f073428298700500206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2f0191-8869%2892%2990105-x http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en scoring divergent thinking algorithmically (introduction) method participants and data collection task description and testing procedure dt scoring analyses results reliability sba scores vs dt scores sba scores vs gpa sba scores vs response time discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors conspiracy mentality: how it relates to populism, relative deprivation, mistrust of expertise and voting behaviour research reports conspiracy mentality: how it relates to populism, relative deprivation, mistrust of expertise and voting behaviour alexander loziak 1 , dominika havrillová 1 [1] institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of sciences, košice, slovakia. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 received: 2022-08-10 • accepted: 2023-10-03 • published (vor): 2024-02-29 handling editor: johannes karl, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: alexander loziak, institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of sciences, karpatská 5, 040 01 košice, slovakia. e-mail: loziak@saske.sk supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract background and research aims. considering the high prevalence of conspiracy theories and misinformation, there is an urgent need to explain the tendency to adopt a conspiracy mentality and identify behavioural (including voting) outcomes of a high conspiracy mentality. the aims of the present paper are 1) the examination of populist attitudes dimensions, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise as predictors of conspiracy mentality and 2) proposal of comprehensive models, that combine predictors of conspiracy mentality and its voting consequences. methodology. studies utilised osl regression and structural equation modelling. results. the overall regression was statistically significant. it was found that dimensions of populist attitudes (anti-elitism, sovereignty), relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise were significant predictors of conspiracy mentality. in line with the second research aim, the fitness of models was confirmed and results suggest mistrust of expertise is also a significant predictor of far-right voting. discussion. the contribution of the paper lies in connecting conspiracy mentality with not only attitudes but also with important behaviour outcome voting behaviour. we propose future research should experimentally examine whether the reduction of some of the identified predictors could possibly lower levels of conspiracy mentality and whether this reduction translates into voting behaviour. keywords conspiracy mentality, populism, voting, populist attitudes, relative deprivation, mistrust of expertise international research on belief in conspiracy theories has seen a massive increase in recent years (mancosu & vassallo, 2022). the reason is an alarmingly high rate of spreading of false news and misinformation around the world, mostly through social media platforms (cinelli et al. 2022). however, individuals differ not only in the extent to which they believe in conspiracy theories but also in their general susceptibility to explain phenomena and events based on these theories, which is called conspiracy mentality (bruder et al., 2013). the political sphere is one of many areas significant­ ly affected by conspiracy beliefs nowadays (imhoff & lamberty, 2018). conspiracy theories are associated with the rhetoric of populist political leaders or with political orientation, exemplified by the positive relationship between conspiracy beliefs and right-wing parties. the belief in conspiracy theories also predicts human voting behaviour (imhoff et al., 2022; swami et al., 2018). despite the increasing attention to conspiracy beliefs, the construct of conspiracy mentality in psychological research is still relatively new and there is a lack of research examining its predictors and behavioural outcomes. it is important to study why some people hold certain opinions and which factors make people more prone to believe this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10049&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2407-0970 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in conspiracy theories due to its negative consequences for personal and public life (e.g. rejecting scientific consensus, reducing intention to vote or the tendency to vote for radical parliamentary parties, etc.) (mikušková, 2021). existent research studies on conspiracy mentality are usually inconsistent, based on small samples and related variables are often examined in isolation (farkhari et al., 2022). next, the relationship between conspiracy mentality and populist attitudes has been explored, usually by looking at populist attitudes as a whole, not by their individual dimensions (balta et al., 2022). there is also almost a complete absence of studies examining the relationship between conspiracy mentality and relative deprivation. this study overcomes the gaps of existent conspiracy studies by providing a new and more comprehensive perspec­ tive on the relationship between conspiracy mentality, relative deprivation, mistrust of expertise, populist attitudes and voting behaviour using sem analysis. it also contributes to the knowledge of predictors of conspiracy mentality in a representative sample of respondents. the variables of interest are studied in context with each other, not in isolation. moreover, populist attitudes are explored by their dimensions, which provide more clear information about the concepts within populist attitudes that are related to conspiracy mentality. the aims of the present study are 1) the examination of populist attitudes dimensions (anti-elitism, sovereignty, homogeneity), relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise as predictors of conspiracy mentality and 2) to propose comprehensive models that combine predictors of conspiracy mentality and its voting consequences. background conspiracy mentality conspiracy theory, defined as the belief that several important social events, mostly negative, are the result of secret plans of powerful individuals, is a phenomenon that is commonly occurring in different times, populations and cultures (van prooijen & van vugt, 2018). such theories can help people answer questions about why something happened, who should be blamed and who benefits from this situation. however, people differ in their predisposition to explain events as conspiracies. some are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than others, suggesting that belief in conspiracy theories can be considered as a trait-like predisposition, which is referred to as a „conspiracy mindset“ or „conspiracy mentality“ (bruder et al., 2013). the conspiracy mentality is a relatively stable personality trait describing individual differences in the extent to which people believe in conspiracy theories. thus, it reflects the general tendency to believe in conspiracy theories (imhoff & bruder, 2014). there are three main motives that drive the belief in conspiracy theories (douglas et al., 2017). according to epistemic motives, conspiracy theories provide simple explanations and help people understand the world in a situation where they face uncertainty. second, existential motives are based on the fact that conspiracy theories can offer people a sense of security and safety in threatening situations. third, social motives explain that belief in conspiracy theories can help people maintain a positive image of themselves in a group. belief in conspiracy theories has a number of negative consequences for society. among the most common are rejection of science, such as refusal of vaccination (bertin et al., 2020) or negation of climate changes (van der linden, 2015), hostility against outgroups and reduced confidence in government (van der linden et al., 2021). currently, considering the relatively high prevalence of conspiracy theories, research efforts aim to explain the tendency to adopt a conspiracy mentality and identify its behavioural outcomes (e.g. farkhari et al., 2022; imhoff & bruder, 2014). researchers examine specific factors or predictors contributing to the belief in conspiracy theories, such as socio-demographic, psychological (personality traits, cognitive and social factors) or political factors. (douglas et al., 2019). although some previous studies examined conspiracy mentality as a predictor (e.g. mikušková, 2021; nera et al., 2022), we decided to approach it as a dependent variable following the prevalent line of research (e.g. bertin et al., 2020; landrum & olshansky, 2019). conspiracy mentality and feelings of relative deprivation feelings of relative deprivation are defined as the increased perception of one's own economic vulnerability. this concept reflects a person´s own vulnerability and disadvantaged position as a consequence of perceived injustice conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 2 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that also connects to perceived discrimination against ‘people like us’, who in society ‘never get what they deserve’ (elchardus & spruyt, 2016). recent research suggests relative deprivation (or related concepts) might have connections with conspiracy mental­ ity. salvador casara and colleagues (2022) suggest that perceived economic inequality (which strongly conceptually relates to feelings of relative deprivation) is associated with greater conspiracy beliefs prevalence. this effect was fully mediated by the perception that society is breaking down (due to growing inequality), which increases conspiratorial thinking, likely in an attempt to recover a sense of order and control. explanation of the connections between conspiracy mentality and perception of economic vulnerability is quite simple—conspiracy beliefs promise to explain problems that economic vulnerability creates (douglas et al., 2017). this vulnerability is also associated with a perceived lack of control, as feelings of relative deprivation are rooted in the perception of socially and economically disadvantaged positions. a recent meta-analysis (stojanov & halberstadt, 2020) confirmed lack of control is related to greater endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. also, high levels of feelings of relative deprivation are dependent on the social comparison (i do not get what i deserve but others do) and because of it, the need to maintain a positive image of the self. thus, believing in conspiracy theories might be a way to boost one's own image by feelings of importance and specialty, as well as to deal with unpleasant feelings and insecurities that might stem from relative deprivation (van prooijen, 2022). in line with these observations, we formulated the following hypothesis: h1: higher feelings of relative deprivation predict a higher conspiracy mentality. conspiracy mentality and mistrust of expertise the next factor, mistrust of expertise, indicates a general scepticism of science and expert opinions. mistrust of science, as a system of knowledge, often implies the suspicion of and lack of confidence in the independence of researchers and the scientific systems from large corporations (e.g. often pharmaceutical companies) as well as governments (lamberty & imhoff, 2018; mari et al., 2022). this concept reflects the idea that the views of ordinary people are considered to be more valid than expert opinions (oliver & rahn, 2016). in this sense, people can reject well-established scientific theories and can believe in fabricated, deceptive claims. a mistrusting mindset usually occurs in situations that create fear, insecurity or when one's own vulnerability is perceived. these situations can be associated with low self-esteem, poorer mental well-being, helplessness or anger (landrum & olshansky, 2019). researchers have examined contributors, which shape attitudes related to mistrust in science and experts. one of them is belief in conspiracy theories or conspiracy mentality. there is a large body of evidence showing a negative relationship between conspiracy theory beliefs and trust in science. for example, according to recent study (nera et al., 2022), conspiracy mentality negatively predicted trust in scientific institutions during the pandemic of covid-19 (e.g. the origin of the virus, vaccination against covid-19). however, the effects of mistrust in science can also be seen beyond covid-19. other studies have suggested that low trust in science is associated with low acceptance of a wide range of scientific information, among the most famous are negation of climate changes (van der linden, 2015) or genetically modified food (scott et al., 2018). scientific evidence is often rejected because they are seen as a product of conspiracy (rutjens & većkalov, 2022). based on these findings, we assume the following hypothesis: h2: higher mistrust of expertise predicts a higher conspiracy mentality. conspiracy mentality and populist attitudes populism, widely defined as an ideology that considers society to be divided into two homogenous and opposing groups, "the pure people" and "the corrupt elite", argues that politics should be following the general will of the people (mudde, 2004). it is a multidimensional construct whose dimensions are defined in different ways by different authors. according to schulz et al. (2018), the ideological core of populism is characterised by 3 key dimensions: anti-elitism, sovereignty and homogeneity of people. a negative attitude towards elites, anti-elitism, describes the degree of dissatisfaction and distrust of people towards politicians. it expresses the rejection of a narrow group of politicians, who profit from power and pursue only their own loziak & havrillová 3 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interests. in this sense, elites are perceived as corrupt and deceiving people. the second dimension, the preference for people's sovereignty, highlights people as the central focus of politics. people in this context contain the majority, which is not the elite. this dimension represents the belief that the will and interests of people must be taken into account in important political decisions. as a last resort, it can be a matter of handing over power to the people, for example through a referendum vote. the third aspect, the belief in the homogeneity of people, represents the unity of ordinary people who share the same values, interests and way of thinking, whereas specific population segments are stigmatised as a threat or burden on society and are excluded. particularly, the strongest and significant relationship was found between anti-elitism, as the populistic dimension and belief in conspiracy theories. an explanation is that people who have negative stereotypes towards power holders, in combination with their experience of powerlessness are more likely to perceive conspiracy theories. this opposi­ tion between the powerless people and the powerful elites increases the likelihood of endorsing conspiracy theories (christner, 2022). over the last few years, there has been a growing interest in researching the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and populism (castanho silva et al., 2017; hameleers, 2021). although populist attitudes relate more to the political aspect and conspiracy theories to society in general, their worldviews are very similar. both populism and conspiracy theories try to reduce the complexity of world events by presenting simple stories of conspirators that control society and ordinary people as their victims. at the same time, their roots are in general hostility toward anything official (castanho silva et al., 2017). several studies (e.g. bergmann, 2018; salvati et al., 2022) confirm the idea that populist voters are more likely to support conspiracy beliefs. also, one of the correlates of populist attitudes is conspiratorial thinking (erisen et al., 2021). the similarity between populism and conspiracy theories may lead us to expect that people who have developed populist attitudes tend to give greater credence to conspiracy theories. in line with these research findings, we formulated the following hypothesis: h3: higher scores in populistic attitudes predict a higher conspiracy mentality. conspiracy mentality and populist and far-right voting behaviour the tendency to support conspiracy theories is also related to the political orientation of individuals. several studies have found that people at the extreme ends of the political spectrum—at both left and right end are more likely than others to believe in conspiracy theories (krouwel et al., 2017; van prooijen et al., 2015). although different types of people can engage in conspiracy thinking, according to research by lamberty et al. (2018) people on the far right— conservatives and right-wingers—are particularly prone to believe in conspiracy theories compared to the far left. a recent study by imhoff et al. (2022) in 26 countries has shown that the conspiracy mentality culminates in supporters of parties that are perceived as extreme right-wing and disapproving of liberal values. the explanation for this might be that people on the right are more likely to have personality predispositions that stimulate conspiracy thinking, such as low tolerance for uncertainty or a desire for simple solutions (van prooijen et al., 2015). several studies suggest that conspiracy thinking can also influence voting behaviour (swami et al., 2018). in the cur­ rent political atmosphere, citizens/voters are confronted with fake news and alternative facts in the form of conspiracy theories. populism is often characterised by a false discourse. it refers to conspiracy theories, questions and rejects the expertise and presents alternative truths that resonate better with common sense and the experience of ordinary people (hameleers, 2020). some of the politicians of the populist parties, especially from the right-wing parties often use conspiracy rhetoric in their discourses. they actively contribute to the spread of conspiracy theories by providing false, harmful and unjusti­ fied explanations to influence people's beliefs or opinions and achieve particular social or political gain (hameleers et al., 2018). political conspiracies are typical for times of crisis which populist leaders can use in their favour (moffitt, 2015). this populist communication is used as one effective tool to maintain the support of voters. nowadays, social media also offers a great opportunity for populist leaders to spread their messages (schneiker, 2019). the spread of conspiracy theories by political leaders can be seen during the pandemic of covid-19, accompanied by the denial of the danger of covid-19 by far-right (and generally populist) politicians (druckman et al., 2021). the pandemic represented the opportunity for populists to mobilise support and keep their popularity and political strength relatively stable. such appeals are classic right-wing populist tactics (magnus, 2022). conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 4 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in line with these findings, we expect: h4: populistic attitudes, mistrust of expertise and relative deprivation have an effect on conspiracy mentality and conspiracy mentality has an effect on populist voting. h5: populistic attitudes, mistrust of expertise and relative deprivation have an effect on conspiracy mentality and conspiracy mentality has an effect on far-right voting. method participants and procedure a cross-sectional online sample representative of the slovak adult population with respect to gender, age, education and region of residence was used and analysed in this research. data were collected between 5th and 15th november 2021. informed consent was obtained from all participants in the study. participants were assured of confidentiality and anonymity of obtained data. from the initial sample (n = 902), 23 participants that completed the survey in less than 2 minutes were terminated. data were also tested for careless responses by calculating longstrings and the mahalanobis distance utilising r software. using this method, 47 responders were removed from the sample. the final sample consisted of 832 participants (406 men, 426 women, average age m = 43.79, sd = 15.01). for all analyses, r software was utilised. data, codebook, survey and r analysis script are available in loziak and havrillová (2023). measures the slovak versions of each scale were provided using a forward translation procedure. questionnaires are shortly described in this section and the full versions are available in full versions of scales in loziak and havrillová (2023). dependent variable measurement conspiracy mentality was measured by conspiracy mentality questionnaire (cmq) developed by bruder et al. (2013). it contains five items, e.g. “i think that events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of secret activities”. respondents answered the extent to which they think or do not think the following statements are true, on an 11-point scale, ranging from 0 (0% – certainly not) to 10 (100% – certain). predictors measurement populist attitudes were measured by the scale of schulz et al. (2018) consisting of twelve items divided into three dimensions: anti-elitism (4 items, e.g., “people like me have no influence on what the government does”), sovereignty of people (4 items, e.g., “the people, not the politicians, should make our most important policy decisions”), and homogeneity of people (4 items, e.g., “ordinary people share same values and interests.”). the scale ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). relative deprivation was measured using seven items from the scale of elchardus and spruyt (2016), e.g., “govern­ ment doesn’t do enough for people like me, others are always advantaged”. respondents answered the degree of agreement with individual statements on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). mistrust of expertise was assessed by the questionnaire developed by oliver and rahn (2016), which contained three items, e.g., “when it comes to really important questions, scientific facts don’t help very much”. respondents responded on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). voting behaviour was measured by two items: “who did you vote for in the last parliamentary elections in 2020?” and “who would you vote for in the next parliamentary elections?”. a list of political parties was provided to the respondents. regarding the first item, voters of 5 political parties (oľano, we are family, homeland, smer-sd and sns) considered populist were classified as populist voters. voters of the remaining 8 political parties and non-voters were classified as populist nonvoters. voters of 3 political parties (ľsns, homeland, we are family) considered far-right were loziak & havrillová 5 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ classified as far-right voters. voters of the remaining 10 political parties and nonvoters were classified as far-right nonvoters. the classification (of populist and far-right parties) was made based on the relevant classifying system (školkay et al., 2021). the classification was based on certain criteria—for example, demagoguery, nationalism or exclusion of certain groups. regarding the second item, participants who expressed an intention to vote for one of 5 political parties (oľano, we are family, smer-sd, sns and voice) considered populist were classified as a group with the intention to vote populist party. voters of the remaining 8 political parties and nonvoters were classified as a group without intention to vote populist party. voters of four political parties (ľsns, homeland, we are family, republic) considered far-right were classified as a group with the intention to vote for a far-right party. voters of the remaining nine political parties and non-voters were classified as a group without intention to vote for a far-right party. descriptives and correlation analysis analyses were conducted using r software, packages jtools, devtools and performance. the descriptive statistics of all the used measures are reported in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics and internal consistency of variables variable m scale sd 95% ci internal consistency ll ul ω α conspiracy mentality 6.78 0-10 2.11 6.64 6.92 0.858 0.845 anti-elitism 5.97 1-7 1.10 5.90 6.05 0.748 0.733 sovereignty 5.60 1-7 1.26 5.52 5.69 0.843 0.839 homogeneity 3.96 1-7 1.40 3.86 4.05 0.822 0.817 relative deprivation 4.62 1-5 1.07 4.54 4.69 0.801 0.797 mistrust of expertise 3.73 1-7 1.24 3.65 3.82 0.637 0.601 the internal consistency of the used scales was adequate, with mcdonald’s ω ranging from .637 to .858 (cronbach’s α ranged from .601 to .845). we also report basic statistics for all conspiracy mentality items. in items “i think that many very important things happen in the world, which the public is never informed about” and “i think that politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions” recorded the highest means, suggesting participants were especially vulnerable to ideas of important issues being kept secret from the public. in table 2, means, standard deviations, medians and modes for all conspiracy mentality items are available. table 2 descriptive statistics of conspiracy mentality items item m sd md mo i think that many very important things happen in the world, which the public is never informed about 7.86 2.40 9 10 i think that politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions 7.92 2.23 8 10 i think that government agencies closely monitor all citizens 4.90 3.05 5 5 i think that events which superficially seem to lack a connection are often the result of secret activities 6.54 2.72 7 5 i think that there are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions 6.66 2.94 7 10 the mutual correlation of all the used variables are in table 3. conspiracy mentality positively and significantly correlated with anti-elitism, sovereignty, homogeneity, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise. conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 6 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations of conspiracy mentality with other variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 1. conspiracy mentality 2. anti-elitism 0.44* 3. sovereignty 0.51* 0.58* 4. homogeneity 0.29* 0.13* 0.37* 5. relative deprivation 0.52* 0.35* 0.43* 0.32* 6. mistrust of expertise 0.41* 0.11* 0.29* 0.36* 0.43* *p < .001. the first aim of our study was the examination of populist attitudes dimensions including anti-elitism, sovereignty and homogeneity, along with relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise, as predictors of conspiracy mentality using regression analysis. results results of the first research aim osl regression was conducted to test if anti-elitism, sovereignty, homogeneity, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise significantly predicted conspiracy mentality. firstly, all required assumptions were tested to establish the adequacy of the data for regression analysis. all assumptions except for the assumption of homoscedasticity were met. because the assumption of homoscedasticity was not met, robust standard errors instead of conventional ses were utilised. standardized regression coefficients mean-centred and scaled by 1 sd are reported. regression statistics are available in table 4. table 4 summary of linear regression analysis predictor est. se t p collinearity tolerance vif intercept 6.78 0.06 121.56 < .001 anti-elitism 0.43 0.08 5.65 < .001 0.64 1.58 sovereignty 0.44 0.08 5.58 < .001 0.59 1.84 homogeneity 0.06 0.07 0.96 0.34 0.74 1.29 relative deprivation 0.55 0.08 7.22 < .001 0.69 1.47 mistrust of expertise 0.45 0.07 6.51 < .001 0.79 1.34 note. dependent variable: conspiracy mentality. f(5,826) = 123.87, p ≤ .001, r 2 = 0.43, adj. r2 = 0.43. the overall regression was statistically significant, r 2 = 0.43, f(4, 827) = 154.58, p = .001. it was found that all predictors except homogeneity (as a dimension of populistic attitudes) in regression significantly predicted conspiracy mentality. the second aim of our study was to propose comprehensive models that combine predictors of conspiracy mentality and its voting consequences using sem models. the models combine regression analysis concerning predictors of conspiracy mentality and regression analysis concerning conspiracy mentality as a predictor of voting behaviour. we have also explored other variables as possible predictors of voting behaviour. the advantage of this analysis is the mapping of relationships between variables with greater precision and comprehensiveness. sem analysis also allows the evaluation of the overall fit of the suggested models. loziak & havrillová 7 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results of the second research aim all the variables in regression analysis except for homogeneity (which was proved not to be a significant predictor of conspiracy mentality) were utilised in sem analyses. analyses were conducted using r software, packages tidyverse, dplyr, ggpubr, and rstatix. four comparisons in total were made. compared groups, group sizes, means and standard deviations are reported in table 5. table 5 n, mean and sd of conspiracy mentality for groups of nonvoters and voters group n m sd populist vote non-voter 430 6.53 2.21 voter 402 7.05 1.97 far-right vote non-voter 648 6.58 2.15 voter 184 7.49 1.79 intention to vote populist no intention 519 6.61 2.16 intention 313 7.05 2.01 intention to vote far-right no intention 685 6.65 2.12 intention 147 7.36 1.99 means score for conspiracy mentality scale is higher for voters of populist/far-right parties (compared with non-voters) and for groups with the intention to vote for populist/far-right parties (compared with groups with no intention). firstly, a normality assessment of items was conducted, using r software (lavaan, 2012). all items met recommended criteria of brown (2006), with values of skewness falling between -3 and +3, and kurtosis falling between -10 to +10, when utilizing sem. then, the structural model of conspiracy mentality, antielitism, sovereignty, relative deprivation, mistrust of expertise and populist voting was developed. for purpose of this model, the latent variable 'populist voting' was created, consisting of actual populist vote and intention to vote populist in the next election. calculations show model is overidentified. the path diagram of the model (model 1) is shown in figure 1. all regression paths in the model are statistically significant (ranging from p < .000 to p < .001). the fit of the model is evaluated in table 7. table 7 evaluation of fitness of a structural model category index level of acceptance (p) index value of model 1 index value of model 2 index value of model 3 absolute fit chi-square > .05 0.000 0.000 0.000 rmsea < .07 0.051 0.051 0.050 srmr > .05 0.050 0.052 0.050 incremental fit cfi > .90 0.931 0.931 0.934 tli > .90 0.921 0.921 0.924 conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 8 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 model 1 a model predicting far-right voting (model 2) was also developed, using the same structure of paths as in model 1. the latent variable 'far-right voting' consisted of indicators of far-right vote and intention to vote far-right. the path diagram of model 2 is shown in figure 2. loziak & havrillová 9 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 model 2 all regression paths in the model are statistically significant (ranging from p < .000 to p < .001). the fit of the model is also evaluated in table 7. modification indices calculated in model 2 revealed possible connections between variables of far-right voting and mistrust of expertise. therefore we decided to add mistrust of expertise as a predictor of far-right voting in model 3. the path diagram of model 3 is shown in figure 3. conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 10 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 model 3 mistrust of expertise was confirmed to be significant (p < .000) and based on the value of standardised estimate (0.32) also a fairly strong predictor of far-right voting. however, the path between conspiracy mentality and far-right voting is no longer significant in this model (p < .294). the fitness of models was evaluated by several indices, such as chi-square, rmsea or cfi. index values of indices of all models are available in table 7. most of the values of calculated indices ranged within acceptable levels, indicating a good level of fit for all three models. discussion present paper examined populist attitudes dimensions, relative deprivation and mistrust of expertise as potential predictors of conspiracy mentality. the regression including these predictors was statistically significant, with 43% of explained variance. results revealed all predictors except homogeneity significantly predicted conspiracy mentality. the correlation matrix revealed positive weak (anti-elitism, homogeneity, mistrust of expertise) to positive moderate (sovereignty, relative deprivation) correlations between variables and conspiracy mentality. this confirmed h1, h2 and h3 of the present study. these results also confirm previous research findings by (erisen et al., 2021; hameleers, 2021; nera et al., 2022). it is interesting that anti-elitism and sovereignty were significant predictors of conspiracy mentality but homogene­ ity was not. it seems not all dimensions of populist attitudes have an equal relationship with conspiracy mentality. loziak & havrillová 11 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ although a degree of dissatisfaction towards politicians/government elites (antielitism) and belief that the will of people must be taken into account in political decisions (sovereignty) can predict conspiracy mentality, belief in the unity of ordinary people who share the same values (homogeneity) cannot predict it. a possible explanation of these findings may be found in the nature of conspiracy theories. one of the key aspects of conspiracy theories according to van prooijen and van vugt (2018) is an element of secrecy, which assumes 'the truth' is available to only a narrow special group of people. this implies the majority of the population is not aware of 'the truth' and because of it possibly does not share the same values as a special group of conspirators. the nature of conspiracy theories and the nature of homogeneity thus does not align with each other very well. our results broaden other research findings that emphasise the role of anti-elitism in the relationship between populistic attitudes and conspiracy mentality (christner, 2022). a significant, positive and moderate relationship between feelings of relative deprivation and conspiracy mentality is the major finding of the present study. these findings are in line with previous research (salvador casara et al., 2022), supporting the idea that feelings of relative deprivation or perceived economic inequality in a population might create an environment in which conspiracy theories thrive. however, it is also possible, since we cannot determine the direction of causality of this relationship, that conspiracy mentality reinforces the perceptions of relative deprivation. proposed models supported h4 and h5. sem analysis investigated relationships between variables in more specific, exact way and also explored connections of these variables to electoral behaviour. conspiracy mentality was a signifi­ cant predictor of both populist and far-right voting in the proposed models. these findings demonstrate how a higher tendency for conspiracy mentality directly affects the world around us, in this case, the political world. although it is difficult to pinpoint the specific underlying mechanisms of studied relationships, some authors (hameleers, 2020; imhoff et al., 2022) do offer some explanation. populist and far-right politicians often intentionally exploit conspiracy theories in pre-election campaigns, with the goal of gaining popularity with voters that believe in such theories. populist and far-right political parties thus effectively mobilise this group of voters, which can be a significant portion of the population—during the covid-19 pandemic as much as 49,7% of the north american population believed at least one conspiracy theory (leibovitz et al., 2021). this could explain why voters of populist or far-right parties score higher in conspiracy mentality compared to non-voters. however, the exact causality of this relationship is unclear—we cannot assess the extent to which a conspiratorial mentality drives the election of these parties and, conversely, the extent to which political orientation fuels vulnerability to a conspiratorial mentality. either way, this relationship can work both ways. efforts need to be made to reduce the level of conspiratorial mentality and at the same time to increase critical thinking within this group. such efforts could possibly reduce the success of populist or extremist political parties. the results also revealed surprising findings regarding the mistrust of experts. model 3 demonstrated that mistrust of experts is a better predictor of voting for the far-right than a conspiracy mentality. however, this is not the case for voting for populist parties. thus, there is reason to believe that there are substantial differences in the predictors of populist and far-right voting. however, these findings need to be verified by further research. one of the strengths of the paper is the sample size and its representativeness with respect to a number of characteristics. it is permissible to assume that the research results are generalizable to the population. one of the contributions of the research is the comprehensiveness of the examination of the relationships that was undertaken in model testing. our proposed models incorporate many variables relevant to current research and reveal important findings—for instance, the dominant role of distrust of experts as a predictor of voting for the far right. our study also has some limitations. although it has some predictive capability, it cannot make conclusions on causality. an experimental study should be conducted to examine whether the reduction of the identified predictors could possibly lower levels of conspiracy mentality. considering alarming levels of conspiracy mentality in the population, conducting research on this topic is more important than ever. conspiracy mentality has in recent years impacted crucial spheres of our society (public health, political behaviour) and there is no evidence this trend is weakening. therefore, research needs to fully understand the concept of conspiracy mentality and identify tools that will be able to limit it. conspiracy mentality, populism and voting 12 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the research was supported by the scientific grant agency of the ministry of education, science, research and sports of the slovak republic (vega), no. 2/0065/21: social and psychological correlates of populist attitudes. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article, data is freely available (see loziak & havrillová, 2023). supplementary materials for this article, data, codebook, survey and r analysis script are available (see loziak & havrillová, 2023). index of supplementary materials loziak, a., & havrillová, d. 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(2015). political extremism predicts belief in conspiracy theories. social psychological & personality science, 6(5), 570–578. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614567356 about the authors alexander loziak is a researcher at the institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of sciences, slovakia. he earned a phd degree in social and work psychology in 2021. his work focuses specifically on the topics of populism, conspiracy mentality and work stress. dominika havrillová earned a phd degree in social and work psychology in 2023 at the institute of social sciences of the centre of social and psychological sciences, slovak academy of sciences, slovakia. she focuses her research on understanding the quality of life cancer patients and the concept of conspiracy mentality. loziak & havrillová 15 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 1–15 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10049 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104245 https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929918807712 https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edw037 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-nutr-071715-051223 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355782072_the_national_report_for_task_74_on_slovakia_demos_project_1_slovak_political_parties&apos;_responses_to_populism https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355782072_the_national_report_for_task_74_on_slovakia_demos_project_1_slovak_political_parties&apos;_responses_to_populism https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355782072_the_national_report_for_task_74_on_slovakia_demos_project_1_slovak_political_parties&apos;_responses_to_populism https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2690 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12252 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.045 https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12681 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101352 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618774270 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550614567356 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conspiracy mentality, populism and voting (introduction) background method participants and procedure measures descriptives and correlation analysis results results of the first research aim results of the second research aim discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors level of effort and economic dishonesty: are expectations relevant? research reports level of effort and economic dishonesty: are expectations relevant? tomas bonavia 1, josué brox-ponce 1, maría f. rodrigo 1 [1] faculty of psychology, university of valencia, valencia, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 received: 2022-10-06 • accepted: 2023-05-29 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: elisabetta lombardi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: tomas bonavia, faculty of psychology, university of valencia, blasco ibáñez avenue, 21., valencia 46010, spain. e-mail: tomas.bonavia@uv.es abstract some research has shown that expectations modulate people’s economic dishonesty. these studies have allowed their participants to precisely establish the dishonest extra financial gain, without threatening their image of honesty. in this article, we show that in situations where our economic dishonesty is driven by hard-to-quantify motivators such as level of effort, it is difficult to change the categorization of (dishonest) judgments. faced with this ambiguity, people make decisions guided by moral intuitions that are not conditioned by changing expectations. we carried out three studies (one single-group study and two experimental between-subjects studies) in which we tested whether the level of deception varies when manipulating expectations of transparency/privacy and dishonesty/honesty. our results show that the levels of dishonesty remain low, regardless of the participants’ expectations. when our decisions are motivated by more ambiguous factors, in terms of being able to justify ourselves, our economic dishonesty becomes more rigidly directed toward the dictates of our moral intuitions. keywords economic dishonesty, moral judgment, moral intuition, cheating behavior, expectations economic dishonesty has been found to have an extremely harmful global economic impact. the european commission (2014) suggested that corruption costs eu countries 120 billion euros each year. this problem has not gone unnoticed by citizens around the world, given that, according to the transparency international (2020) report, the perception of corruption remains high worldwide. in this context, understanding how economic dishonesty functions has become a particularly important topic in areas such as moral psychology, behavioral ethics, and economic psychology or behavioral economics. new contributions indicate that economic losses resulting from dishonesty are not just linked to a few bad apples, but rather they are the responsibility of a large number of people (mazar & ariely, 2015). in this direction, ariely (2012) has argued that people tolerate cheating to the extent that they can obtain an economic benefit and retain a positive image of themselves. this approach highlights the predominance of our internal motivation system over external rewards (mazar & ariely, 2006). this conception of economic dishonesty has been reintroduced in other studies that assess the impact of expect­ ations on our decisions. some research has proposed that the prevalence of breaking the rules can lead to high expectations of dishonesty (mazar et al., 2008; bicchieri, 2017), which can increase economic dishonesty (lefebvre et al., 2015). in this regard, new strategies to combat economic dishonesty, such as transparency measures, are beginning to take root in today’s societies (park & blenkinsopp, 2011). however, experimental research that has addressed the impact of expectations has one common feature: it has been conducted under conditions where participants could obtain small extra economic benefits from being dishonest. for this reason, the aim of the present research is to examine the impact this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10429&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of expectations of honesty or dishonesty and privacy or transparency under conditions where people obtain the same economic benefit whether they cheat or not, and where the motivating factor for the deception is more ambiguous than obtaining an extra financial gain. psychologically limited dishonesty throughout the years, great efforts have been made to propose behavioral models to explain dishonesty (see jacobsen et al., 2018). one of the most promising models is the theory of self-concept maintenance (scm) by mazar et al. (2008). this model states that dishonesty is the result of the competition between two main motivations: the benefit we get from cheating and the need to maintain a positive self-concept in terms of honesty. both factors reflect our tendency to harmonize our short-term self-interest with the desire to maintain a positive reputation in the long term (gino, 2015). this balance results in acceptable levels of deception or in ethical dissonance (barkan et al., 2015). people reduce ethical dissonance thanks to specific contextual factors, self-serving biases, and justifications that enable them to benefit from dishonesty without negatively updating their moral ledger (ayal et al., 2021). according to the scm, the two basic processes underlying our dishonest decisions are categorization and attention to one’s internal standards of conduct (mazar et al., 2008). studies have shown that certain types of actions and magnitudes of deception are easier to categorize as dishonest. mazar and ariely (2006) believe that, in situations where the potential level of economic dishonesty is extremely low or extremely high, our decisions are governed by a cost-benefit analysis. however, as the potential economic dishonesty reaches a more moderate range, internal standards of behavior are activated. in addition, our tolerance level for cheating can be affected by various factors that ariely (2012) groups into two classes. some of the factors that increase tolerance to cheating are the ability to rationalize or engage in self-deception, the exposure to conflicts of interest, creativity, past immoral actions, feeling depleted, a contagion effect from watching others behave dishonestly, and living in a dishonest culture. some of the factors that reduce tolerance to deception would be moral reminders, pledges, and supervision. the method used to show how these factors and magnitudes affect people’s economic dishonesty has consisted of finding out how much extra money they are willing to obtain by cheating (see ariely, 2012). however, this methodology has neglected situations where economic dishonesty may be mainly motivated by factors other than obtaining extra financial gain. thus, these types of observations involving economic gain should be complemented by others where factors other than economic profit can be the main reason for tolerance to deception. this approach would allow us to understand that the expected benefit mentioned in the scm does not have to be exclusively economic. instead, it can be linked to the internal preferences of the decision makers based on other variables such as: the level of effort, the intrinsic attraction of the activity, luck, its difficulty, or familiarity with it. in addition, in the case of attention to internal standards of behavior, the scm has not sufficiently addressed the role of emotions in this process. this question has been widely examined by authors who study the role of moral intuitions in judgment and decision making (sinnott-armstrong et al., 2010), such as jonathan haidt (2001) and his social intuitionist model (sim). the central thesis of the sim is that moral judgments are the product of intuitions, followed by a posteriori reasoning. the latter are understood as justifications or rationalizations for the previous unconscious moral assessment (haidt, 2013). as the main source of our moral intuitions, haidt (2003) points to moral emotions such as guilt, shame, disgust, anger, contempt, compassion, gratitude, and elevation. the way these moral emotions allow a variety of moral views to exist throughout the world is explained by the impact of cultural learning and socialization on an evolutionary moral structure common to our species (graham et al., 2013). for this reason, our dishonest judgments are strongly conditioned by affective elements that escape our conscious level. a similar approach is followed by nichols (2004), who understands that judging the correctness of an action, understood as a transgression of a sentimental rule, involves knowing a normative theory about the action and an affective mechanism that highlights its prohibitive nature. thus, when we lie, for example, we are aware of our lack of ethics because we have the norm that prohibits it and the emotional activation that makes this transgression important. emphasizing the role of intuitions in our moral judgments does not rule out the existence of all forms of deliber­ ation. greene's (2013) studies show that our moral judgements are the product of two competing and interacting psychological systems. one is based on automatic emotional responses, and the other is based on conscious deliberation expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty 336 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (bereby-meyer et al., 2020). the activity of these two systems takes place in different neural areas (greene et al., 2004): the former in the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and posterior superior temporal sulcus; and the latter in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral inferior parietal lobe. consequently, the two systems involve different emotional processes (cushman et al., 2010). the system of emotional automatic settings uses emotional alarms that provide definitive demands and restrictions, whereas the controlled cognition system offers negotiable motivations that are inserted into our practical reasoning (hatta et al., 2022). this proposal makes it possible to understand why some moral judgments show a certain degree of unconditionality to social factors, given that some behaviors activate the alarm system and are strongly rejected by our automatic emotional responses (moral intuitions). hence, moral emotions can function as (dis)honesty markers that direct our decisions to morally acceptable positions. this mechanism can explain that we have a window of tolerance for deception where we are relatively insensitive to external rewards (mazar & ariely, 2006). furthermore, it also explains that certain (dis)honest behaviors are unaffected by the influence of social factors, due to the activation of moral intuitions that do not alter the immoral consideration of an action. of course, this does not mean that certain social and situational elements do not condition our level of deception. it simply introduces the need to explore in what situations they do or do not facilitate tolerance to deception. therefore, in this paper, we will investigate how certain types of expectations influence the level of economic (dis)honesty. expectations of (dis)honesty bicchieri (2006, 2017) identifies two key concepts in discriminating between group behavioral patterns: preferences and expectations. she defines preferences as individual or social dispositions to act in a certain way in a specific situation. among the social dispositions, she differentiates between preferences conditioned by the expectations of others and those based on unconditioned social comparisons. in sum, she states that conditioned preferences are determined by empirical expectations (what we expect others to do) and normative expectations (what we expect others to think about what we should do). according to bicchieri and xiao (2009), both types of expectations affect our choices, but empirical expectations have the most influence. this conclusion is quite interesting if we transfer it to the field of economic dishonesty because, according to bicchieri (2017, p. 86): the updated empirical expectations easily bleed into the normative realm. disclosing information about how common some “bad” behaviors are is counterproductive. think of illegally downloading music or television shows. it is rampant, and people vaguely have the feeling that it is wrong, but at the same time, everyone does it. the same goes for bribing or violent behaviors when they are pervasive. we know these behaviors are condemned, but when empirical and normative expectations diverge, people are tempted to follow the crowd, because the normative message loses power. through this idea, c. bicchieri suggests that empirical expectations can condition dishonest people. this issue has not gone unnoticed, as some research shows. dong et al. (2012) propose the concept of “conditional corruption” to refer to situations in which people see their corrupt behavior conditioned by the behavior of others. these authors offer a large amount of data that indicate that people's propensity to display corrupt behavior depends on the quality of the institutions and the level of corruption they perceive in their social environment. they view corruption as a cooperative behavior that arises from the reduction in the moral and legal costs stemming from certain transgressions. along these lines, gächter and schulz (2016) showed that societies that are legislatively weak and culturally permissive about breaking the rules condition the intrinsic honesty of their citizens. similarly, falk and fischbacher (2002) found that people's theft behavior is affected by the level of theft inherent in their environment. this finding led them to use the term “conditional norm violators” to describe people who stole more due to the high levels of theft around them. in addition, lefebvre et al. (2015) found that people made the decision to evade paying taxes more when they were informed that there had been a generalized low tax compliance (this effect was not replicated when the expectation conveyed a generalized compliance). together, these approaches reveal that empirical expectations of economic dishonesty affect our decisions in partic­ ular circumstances, that is, when the main motivating factor is extra economic benefit and, by extension, when we bonavia, brox-ponce, & rodrigo 337 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ can precisely determine our level of dishonesty. most of the experiments carried out on expectations and dishonesty have consisted of allowing the participants to obtain small extra economic benefits from being dishonest (bicchieri 2006, 2017; mazar & ariely, 2006, 2015). we believe that factors other than economic benefit create more ambiguity for the decision maker about the acceptable level of economic dishonesty. in addition, given that we are often forced to make an exclusive choice between being dishonest or not, (dis)honest decisions can acquire a certain degree of unconditionality with regard to our expectations. it is clear that expectations have been shown to be a key factor in modulating cooperation and self-interest in our economic decisions (see bicchieri & chavez, 2010), but it is important to remember that dishonesty involves cheating, deception, and other types of unethical behavior that challenge the general interest of society (gino, 2015). for this reason, this type of behavior involves infringing norms that produce strong ethical dissonance, which crystallize into a decision that cannot easily be modified by social factors (barkan et al., 2015; bicchieri, 2017; turiel 1983). thus, although expectations have an impact on economic dishonesty in certain conditions, it is difficult to imagine that this effect can be extended to all kinds of situations. therefore, it is important to clarify when decisions driven by internal standards of behavior are robust enough to be unconditioned by our expectations. transparency as expectation transparency measures have also been suggested to influence dishonesty levels. in general, we can define transparency as open flow and public access to information (kolstad & wiig, 2009). in the context of decision making, a transparent decision can be understood as a decision that is made public to others. the possibility of unethical decisions being made public has been found to produce anticipated feelings of shame in the decision maker, leading him/her to make ethical decisions (bonavia & brox-ponce, 2018). this effect occurs because people try to avoid having their social image affected by behaviors that are rejected by others (leary, 2005). thus, people avoid making decisions that may be disapproved of by others, in an attempt to offer a positive image of themselves. the transparency of economic decisions has been studied from microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives. on the one hand, most macroeconomic research reveals a negative correlation between levels of transparency and levels of corruption. specifically, transparency has been found to reduce corruption by helping to maintain integrity and trust in people (park & blenkinsopp, 2011). however, it has been noted that transparency requires individuals to have the necessary resources and skills to process and access this information (lindstedt & naurin, 2010). on the other hand, in the microeconomic field, some studies have explored the isolated impact of transparency on certain economic decisions (see goulart et al., 2015). in these cases, the effect of transparency has been implemented by warning that the decisions would be made public to others, as in the case of an expectation. based on this approach, bonavia and brox-ponce (2018) showed that transparency has a moderate impact on reducing economic dishonesty in a situation where the options have unequal economic benefits. participants in their experiment could choose between honestly or dishonestly obtaining a sure or likely economic gain of a given amount. in this way, participants could assess whether the economic benefit they obtained from being dishonest justified their deceitful behavior. thus, the categorization of decisions as (dis)honest was simpler, and, therefore, transparency had a slight impact on the decision-making process. beyond the studies mentioned above, little is known about how the expectation of transparency can affect our level of economic dishonesty when it is motivated by factors that are quantitatively more ambiguous than the pursuit of economic gain. in this regard, analogous to the case of expectations of economic (dis)honesty, we might suspect that the deterrent effect of transparency is associated with experiments in which people can determine precisely how much money they can steal. objective and hypotheses according to the scm, the core of economic dishonesty consists of the tension between the motivation for economic gain and the desire to maintain a positive self-concept in terms of honesty. the possibility of establishing extra financial benefits facilitates the process of categorizing a decision as (dis)honest. in turn, it allows expectations about others’ behavior to influence our level of tolerance for deception, given that small leaps in dishonesty are morally acceptable to the decision maker. however, more ambiguous motivators can impede the categorization process and its moral justification. thus, people would be guided more by intuition or internal standards of behavior than by expectations expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty 338 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about others’ behavior. given the aforementioned arguments, the main objective of this paper is to test the effect of expectations of honesty or dishonesty, and transparency or privacy on people's (dis)honest behavior when the same economic benefit can be obtained. we aim to clarify the impact of these expectations on our decisions when they are based on difficult-to-quantify motivators such as the level of effort. we believe that under certain conditions, (dis)honest decisions reach a higher degree of unconditionality regarding the behavior we expect from other people. in the following three studies, the dependent variable is the decision (dishonest or honest) made by the participants when confronted with a dilemma. this is a dichotomous variable, so that the participants must choose between two options: a) the dishonest option (to gain 300 euros from a grant that does not correspond to him/her), and b) the honest option (to gain 300 euros from performing a job). the first option represents gain without effort, and the second represents gain with effort. study 1 consists of a single group design. studies 2 and 3 are one-way between-subjects designs. the independent manipulated variables are expectations of transparency (public vs. private decision) in study 2 and expectations of honesty or dishonesty in study 3. the proposed hypotheses for the three studies are: h1: people prefer to be honest if they can choose between options with the same economic value, even if it requires more effort (study 1). h2: people prefer to be honest if they can choose between options with the same economic value, even if it requires more effort and their decision is private to others (study 2. this hypothesis is a more specific version of h1, where participants are informed that their decision would not be known to anyone. h3: public and private expectations will have an effect on the decision, so that the public expectation will lead to a greater number of honest decisions (study 2). h4: people prefer to be honest if they can choose between options with the same economic value, even if it requires more effort and there are empirical expectations of dishonesty (study 3). this hypothesis is a more specific version of h1, where the participants are informed that most people had chosen the dishonest option in a previous experiment. h5: the empirical expectations of honesty and dishonesty will have an effect on the decision, so that the empirical expectation of honesty will lead to a greater number of honest decisions (study 3). hypotheses 1, 2, and 4 try to offer support for the same basic idea: motivators that are more ambiguous than extra economic benefit make it difficult to categorize a decision as dishonest and, as a result, block the effect of expectations. to test this, the decision-making problems offer the possibility of obtaining the same economic gain, either through a dishonest decision that does not require effort or through an honest one that does. therefore, our choice will depend on our preference to maintain a positive image of ourselves or, on the contrary, to obtain the same reward for less effort. this gives the dishonest choice a certain attraction, and some level of dishonesty is reached, which makes it possible to compare groups of participants. obviously, the level of effort is not as easily quantifiable as the extra economic benefit commonly used in experiments (ariely, 2012). thus, given that effort is a more ambiguous motivator, we expect the decision process to be determined by moral intuitions that function as moral markers of dishonesty because the decision maker will not be able to establish a specific level of deception that is morally acceptable to him/her. hypotheses 3 and 5 are derived from the literature review and focus on comparing the different expectations, so that both the expectations of transparency and the expectations of honesty will have the effect of increasing the choice of the honest option. the use of hypothetical scenarios in research on dishonesty hypothetical scenarios are widely used in social science research and, more specifically, in the study of dishonesty. the hypothetical scenario method is commonly used to study offender decision-making, and it is fundamental in a wide range of criminology and criminal justice research (exum & layana, 2018). much of the research on morality and ethical judgments has used the scenario-based approach (mcmahon & harvey, 2007). these scenarios have also been used to study organizational factors associated with dishonest employee behavior in the retail sector (jaakson et al., 2017), as well as in other research, for example, to find out what motivates consumers to lie (argo et al., 2006), a person’s reasons for deception (cassidy et al., 2019), or why students plagiarize or engage in other forms of cheating (waltzer & dahl, 2021). thus, to measure dishonest behavior, researchers often use scenarios because they can accurately reflect individuals’ emotions, intentions, and behaviors in different situations (wenzel & reinhard, 2020). bonavia, brox-ponce, & rodrigo 339 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the main limitation of using scenarios is that we cannot be sure that participants are sincere about their true inclination to act honestly or dishonestly. people who say they would behave unethically in a hypothetical situation might change their minds if they were in the real situation. likewise, when faced with situations that pose a moral dilemma, we might imagine that it is easier for a person to indicate that s/he would behave honestly because, in reality, s/he has nothing to gain or lose. however, according to argo et al. (2006, p. 107), “although scenario-based methodology has limitations, this approach may have provided a more stringent assessment of lying intentions because real situations are more involving, and the propensity to lie in such situations is likely to be higher than in response to scenarios”. currently, some studies successfully combine both procedures, hypothetical scenarios and real situations, to research dishonesty (see shu et al., 2011). simulated situations (such as a mock job interview), which would be halfway between a hypothetical scenario and a real situation, have also been used to determine when a person will lie or tell the truth (walczyk et al., 2016). these investigations, as in all the studies cited above, except one (exum & layana, 2018), confirm that the results found in hypothetical situations can be used as proxies for real life. finally, one of the advantages associated with the use of hypothetical scenarios is that they can be adapted to the type of participants who have to respond. in our case, because the sample consisted of undergraduate students, the scenarios were designed within an academic context to promote a higher level of engagement with the proposed situations (masip et al., 2016). studies 1 and 2: effect of expectations of transparency and privacy study 1 tests whether people prefer to be honest if they can choose between options with the same economic value, even if it requires more effort for them. in study 2, we experimentally assess whether the introduction of privacy and transparency expectations affect the dishonesty levels of the participants (h2 and h3). to test this, as in the investigation by bonavia and brox-ponce (2018), some participants were informed that their decision would be made public to others (expectations of transparency), and the rest were told that their decision would not be known to anyone (expectations of privacy). the basic proposal is that these expectations do not significantly influence the participants’ levels of economic dishonesty under these conditions. given that both options involve the same economic gain, our decisions have to be conditioned by factors that offer greater ambiguity in justifying our deception (because we cannot precisely quantify a preference based on the level of effort). this situation, along with the fact that the decisions are mutually exclusive, introduces the possibility that it is more difficult to justify our image of honesty if we choose the dishonest option. method the procedure followed was exactly the same in the three studies described below. university students (all over 18 years old) were asked to participate voluntarily in these experiments. before entering the room where the experimental procedure was carried out, all the students were informed of the conditions for participating in each experiment, and they were told that they could stop filling out the forms at any time. right before entering the room, their verbal consent was obtained to continue with the experiment. the privacy and anonymity of their answers were always guaranteed. at the beginning of each experiment, they received a sheet of paper with a decision problem. participants were told that, after reading the statement carefully, they should choose one of the options (or not answer, leaving the form blank if they did not want to participate in the study), and they were informed that there were no right or wrong answers. in addition, approval was received from the ethics commission on experimental research at the university where the study took place. this commission is governed by the guidelines stipulated in the helsinki declaration. study 1 consists of a single group design. the experiment in study 2 has a one-way between-subjects design with two conditions (privacy and transparency expectations). specifically, 39 students from a spanish university participated in study 1, and a total of 79 in study 2. in both studies, the majority of the participants were 24 years old or younger (85%); the mean age was 22.92 (sd = 6.21, range = 35) in study 1 and 23.45 (sd = 6.67, range = 40) in study 2. there was only one group in study 1, consisting of 6 men (15.4%), and 33 women (84.6%). two independent groups of expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty 340 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were randomly assigned to the two experimental conditions in study 2; the privacy expectation condition had 40 participants (8 men and 32 women, 20% and 80% respectively), and the transparency expectation condition had 39 participants (7 men and 32 women, 17.9% and 82.1% respectively). a chi-square test was performed to determine whether the proportion of women was equal in the two experimental conditions in study 2. the proportion of women did not differ by condition, χ2 (1, n = 79) = 0.05, p = .82. in study 1, the following introductory statement was presented: “please imagine that you have to choose between the two options presented below”. for each experimental condition in study 2, the following introductory statement was presented: • expectation of privacy group: “please imagine that you have to choose between the two options presented below. taking into account that your decision will never be known by anyone, please mark which one you would choose”. • expectation of transparency group: “please imagine that you have to choose between the two options below. taking into account that your decision will be made public and known by the whole world, please mark which one you would choose”. similar quantities and response options to those of bonavia and brox-ponce (2018) were used in both studies. thus, choosing option (a) involved receiving a dishonest financial gain (receiving a scholarship that does not correspond to you), and option (b) involved receiving an honest economic benefit (performing a routine job organizing documents in the faculty administration). both options had the same financial gain: 300 euros; but they involved a very different level of effort: the first option represents gain without effort, and the second represents gain with effort. literally, the participants chose one of the two response options: a. a 300 € gain due to receiving a grant that does not correspond to you. b. a 300 € gain from performing a routine job organizing documents in an administration office of the faculty. to test h1 (study 1) and h2 (study 2) a binomial test was performed to evaluate whether the proportion of honest decisions was equal to 0.5. to test h2, only the data under the privacy condition, in study 2, were considered. to test h3 (study 2), we performed a chi-square test (χ2) to test the effect of public and private expectations on the number of honest and dishonest decisions. in addition, the effect size was evaluated through the cramer v test. all the statistical analyses, both for these studies and the following one, were performed with the spss 22 statistical analysis program. a priori sample size analysis was performed using g*power (version 3.1.9.7; faul et al., 2007) to determine the sample sizes in studies 1 and 2 to ensure a power of 0.80. in study 1, the a priori power analysis showed that a sample of n = 30 would be enough to ensure a power of 0.80, with an α = .05, to detect an effect size of g = 0.25, in a binomial test. in study 2, a sample of n = 50 would be sufficient to detect a medium to large effect size (w = 0.40) in a chi-square test. to avoid possible incomplete data or other problems (non-attending participants, etc.), we decided to oversample. results in study 1, 30 participants (77%) chose the honest option, and 9 participants (23%) chose the dishonest option. the binomial test compared the proportion of honest decisions with p = .50 and the result was statistically significant (p = .001). in study 2, 67.5% vs. 32.5% of the participants in the private condition chose the honest option (see table 1). the binomial test showed, as stated in h2, that the proportion of honest decisions was statistically higher than 0.50 (p = .038). as for h3, the effect of privacy and transparency expectations on the number of honest and dishonest decisions was statistically significant (χ2 = 5.785,  p = .016) with a medium effect size (cramer’s v = 0.27), so that the percentage of honest decisions increased from 67.5% to 89.7% in the condition of public or transparency expectations. bonavia, brox-ponce, & rodrigo 341 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 frequency distribution of answers for both privacy and transparency groups (study 2) options group (a) dishonest (b) honest total n privacy group 13 (32.5%) 27 (67.5%) 40 (100%) transparency group 4 (10.3%) 35 (89.7%) 39 (100%) total 17 (21.5%) 62 (78.5%) 79 (100%) the results of study 1 and study 2 confirm h1, h2, and h3. the participants preferred to choose the honest alternative, even though the dishonest alternative allowed them to obtain the same economic benefit without any effort. this result was replicated (in study 2), even when their decision was not known to others. moreover, expectations of transparency or privacy had a significant effect on the decisions, so that the number of dishonest decisions decreased in the condition of public or transparency expectations. study 3: effect of expectations of honesty and dishonesty in experiment 3, we tried to discover how expectations of (dis)honesty affect the participants’ decisions (h4 and h5). contrary to the results of lefebvre et al. (2015), we expected that participants would feel compelled to choose the honest option, even if there are empirical expectations of dishonesty. as in experiment 2, this unconditionality is expected because there is no possibility of specifying an extra economic benefit. in these conditions, the participant had to choose between being completely honest or dishonest while assessing the level of effort required to obtain the money. for this reason, the unconditionality that characterizes certain moral judgments (bicchieri, 2017) can operate as a mechanism to contain the effect of expectations of (dis)honesty. method this experiment has a one-way between-subjects design with two conditions (dishonesty and honesty expectations). two independent groups of participants were randomly assigned to the two experimental conditions (n = 83). the mean age was 22.67 (sd = 3.61, range = 19). the expectations of dishonesty condition contained 42 participants (15 men and 27 women, 35.7% and 64.3%, respectively), and the expectations of honesty condition had 41 participants (13 men and 28 women, 31.7% and 68.3%, respectively). a chi-square test was performed to determine whether the proportion of women was equal in the two experimental conditions. the proportion of women did not differ by condition, χ2 (1, n = 83) = 0.15, p = .70. a priori power analysis using g*power (version 3.1.9.7; faul et al., 2007) showed that a sample of n = 50 would be enough to ensure a statistical power of 0.80, with an α = .05, to detect a medium to large effect size (w = 0.40) in a chi-square test. to avoid possible incomplete data or other problems (non-attending participants, etc.), we decided to oversample. to test hypotheses 4 and 5, one group was informed that most people had chosen the dishonest option in a previous study (expectations of dishonesty), and the other group was told that there had been a prevalence of honest decisions (expectations of honesty). the introductory statements to the expectations were selected followed the guidelines established by c. bicchieri, based on introductory questions used in other experiments that sought to assess the impact of empirical expectations on decision making (see bicchieri & chavez, 2010; bicchieri & xiao, 2009). the following are the introductory statements for each experimental condition: • expectation of dishonesty group: “please, imagine that you have to choose between the two options presented below. taking into account that 60% of the people who participated in this experiment last year chose option (a) instead of (b), mark the one you would choose”. expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty 342 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • expectation of honesty group: “please, imagine that you have to choose between the two options presented below. taking into account that 60% of the people who participated in this experiment last year chose option (b) instead of (a), mark the one you would choose”. the same response options were used as in studies 1 and 2. analogous to study 2, h4 and h5 were tested by binomial and chi-square tests (χ2), respectively. to test h4, only the data for the dishonesty expectations condition were considered. results regarding h4, in the condition of dishonesty expectation, 73.8% of the participants chose the honest decision, and 26.2% chose the dishonest decision (see table 2). the binomial test compared the proportion of honest decisions with p = .50 and the result was statistically significant (p = .003). regarding h5, the effect of empirical expectations of honesty or dishonesty was not statistically significant (χ2 = 0.307,  p = .579). table 2 frequency distribution of answers for both dishonesty and honesty groups (study 3) options group (a) dishonest (b) honest total n dishonesty group 11 (26.2%) 31 (73.8%) 42 (100%) honesty group 13 (31.7%) 28 (68.3%) 41 (100%) total 24 (28.9%) 59 (71.1%) 83 (100%) in summary, these results support h4, so that the number of honest decisions is superior to dishonest decisions, even under empirical expectations of dishonesty. in contrast, h5 is not supported, so that empirical expectations of honesty/dishonesty do not have an effect on the number of honest and dishonest decisions. general discussion although the research on economic dishonesty has advanced in the past decade, a coherent theoretical framework that accounts for the social components of deception has not yet been achieved (jacobsen et al., 2018). the scm (mazar et al., 2008) is a promising model, as shown in several experiments (see gino et al., 2009). it mainly places the origin of dishonesty in the tension between obtaining an economic benefit and maintaining a positive self-concept in terms of honesty. the resulting window of tolerance for deceit can be affected by various factors (ariely, 2012). one of the factors studied the most is the contagion effect of expectations of dishonesty, which is closely related to approaches such as conditional corruption (dong et al., 2012), conditional norm violators (falk & fischbacher, 2002), or culturally permissive societies with regard to norm violators (gächter & schulz, 2016). these theories share a common principle: people's economic (dis)honesty can be affected by their expectations about others’ behavior (bicchieri, 2006, 2017). however, this principle has been tested under experimental conditions that favor the effects of expectations. specifically, people could establish the exact economic amount for which they would be dishonest (see ariely, 2012; lefebvre et al., 2015). for this reason, we conducted three studies that offered the possibility of obtaining the same economic gain, either through a dishonest decision that does not require effort or through an honest one that does. our results show that most people take honest decisions if they can choose between options with the same economic value, even if it requires more effort (h1, study 1). this result was replicated under unfavorable conditions: private decision (h2, study 2) and empirical expectations of dishonesty (h4, study 3). moreover, the manipulation of private/public decisions had an effect on the number of honest decisions (h3, study 2), but the effect of the expectations of dishonesty/honesty was not statis­ bonavia, brox-ponce, & rodrigo 343 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tically significant (h5, study 3). future work could consider the effect of both variables (expectations of transparency and expectations of dishonesty/honesty) on the decision simultaneously through a two-factor experimental design. in summary, the participants’ levels of economic dishonesty remained low when different types of expectations were introduced. the experimental conditions involved having to exclusively choose between dishonest or honest behavior when there was a fixed economic amount. the main motive for economic dishonesty in these studies was to obtain easy money without effort (through a grant that did not correspond to the person who answered). we interpret this to mean that, when people are unable to establish a specific level of dishonesty, they tend to make decisions guided by pre-determined intuitions about what is right. as the sim proposes (haidt, 2013), a morally reprehensible event triggers an automatic intuitive reaction in people that guides the decision-making process. these reactions can be mitigated when we can determine a level of deception that is compatible with maintaining a positive self-concept; in other words, the benefit obtained is sufficient reward to justify a transgression that we consider minor (barkan et al., 2015; mazar et al., 2008). however, these small transgressions are possible in situations where we may need a specific economic benefit. our research shows that in cases where the benefit is related to rewards that are difficult to quantify (level of effort), people’s judgments are anchored in pre-determined moral intuitions. as a result, the process of categorizing an action as dishonest is less susceptible to fluctuations in our expectations, which indicates that our moral judgments sometimes acquire a certain degree of unconditionality (bicchieri, 2017; turiel, 1983). our results point in one direction: when our decisions are influenced by more ambiguous factors in terms of justifying our decisions, our economic dishonesty is more rigidly directed towards the dictates of our internal standards for behavior (and expectations, ours and those of others, have much less influence). this conclusion highlights the need to identify which specific circumstances and behaviors block the impact of our expectations on our levels of economic dishonesty. this task is quite difficult because dishonesty as a moral behavior depends on cultural socialization processes (haidt, 2013). however, to mitigate deceit effectively, it is essential to have a rational construction of what we understand as dishonesty (bicchieri, 2006) and obtain experimental information about culturally pre-determined contextual circumstances and behaviors. in fact, a limitation of our studies is that dishonest behavior is not free of cultural biases. in order to extrapolate these results to other groups of people and dishonest behaviors, it is necessary to use decision problems that are not affected by the context, such as the matrices employed by ariely (2012). of course, the two approaches are complementary because we need objective decision-making problems, but also problems that are specific to people's natural environment. future studies will have to more deeply examine how to work with expectations for higher or lower economic rewards. the function that relates the activation of our internal motivational system to the variation in the extra financial reward was proposed by mazar and ariely (2006), but not in cases where financial gain is not the driving force behind economic dishonesty. this could be one of the next steps in advancing the understanding of the social components of deception. another consideration is that, in the three studies in this work, the proportion of women was higher than the proportion of men. sex was not a confounding variable in study 2 and study 3 because the proportion of women and men was equal in the two experimental conditions in each study. the role of sex as a predictor variable of honest or dishonest decisions was not the focus of this work, but it should be addressed in future research. from a practical point of view, efforts to make people's economic dishonesty transparent and expose their levels of corruption are not the best strategies for the type of behavior analyzed in these studies (although hypothesis 3 has been confirmed). extra economic benefit is not always the driving force behind our economic dishonesty, and so we also need to understand behaviors that lead to savings at the level of effort. many people do not work because they are able to obtain enough money through dishonest effort-saving behaviors. some examples are the illegal sale of all kinds of products (music, drugs, counterfeiting...), undeclared work, or professional intrusion. these people choose to deceive, even though the economic gain obtained may not be greater than what they would achieve by making a morally correct effort. moreover, they are aware of their decision. according to our results, this type of economic dishonesty requires different measures, probably at the level of previously consolidated moral intuitions. these intuitions are shaped throughout the life cycle in all kinds of contexts, informing us about what is right, but sometimes they are ignored in favor of the benefit we hope to obtain. we think it is necessary to act in two directions: invest in ethical-civic education that makes it possible to reinforce the power of intuitions and moral reasonings that expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty 344 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.psychopen.eu/ avoid economic dishonesty; and create complementary intuitions that highlight the economic value of honesty in the long term. these latter intuitions can dissuade people from the short-term profit that greatly harms today’s societies. in short, in order to choose intervention strategies that effectively reduce the level of deceit, it is necessary to first know the nature of the main motivator for each specific economic behavior. not all dishonest behaviors are equal. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ariely, d. 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(2020). tests and academic cheating: do learning tasks influence cheating by way of negative evaluations? social psychology of education, 23, 721–753. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09556-0 about the authors tomas bonavia, psychology ph.d. (1996), lecturer in the department of social psychology in the faculty of psychology of university of valencia (spain). specialized in work and organizational psychology, and economic and consumer psychology. his current research focuses on teamwork, organizational culture, lean production, and corrupt behavior, emotions and decision making. josue brox-ponce, ba student in psychology and ma student in moral philosophy. interested in questions at the intersection of moral psychology and economic psychology with a focus on judgment and decision-making process. he researches how social factors condition economic dishonesty and what kinds of measures are effective to reduce unethical behaviors. maría f. rodrigo, professor of the department of research methods and statistics from the faculty of psychology at the university of valencia since 1994. she is author of numerous publications on statistics and psychometrics as well as on applied statistics in different fields as group decision making, and psychological well-being. bonavia, brox-ponce, & rodrigo 347 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 335–347 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10429 https://www.transparency.org/en/publications/people-and-corruption-citizens-voices-from-around-the-world https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3282 https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2020.1787961 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09556-0 https://www.psychopen.eu/ expectations, effort level and economic dishonesty (introduction) psychologically limited dishonesty expectations of (dis)honesty transparency as expectation objective and hypotheses the use of hypothetical scenarios in research on dishonesty studies 1 and 2: effect of expectations of transparency and privacy method results study 3: effect of expectations of honesty and dishonesty method results general discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors how to get rid of the belief bias: boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics research reports how to get rid of the belief bias: boosting analytical thinking via pragmatics laura macchi a, francesco poli b, laura caravona* a, michela vezzoli a, miriam a. g. franchella c, maria bagassi a [a] department of psychology, university of milano-bicocca, milan, italy. [b] donders institute for brain, cognition and behaviour, radboud university, nijmegen, the netherlands. [c] department of historical studies, university of milan, milan, italy. abstract the previous research attempts to reduce the influence of the belief bias on deductive thinking have often been unsuccessful and, when they succeeded, they failed to replicate. in this paper, we propose a new way to see an old problem. instead of considering the analytical abilities of the respondent, we focus on the communicative characteristics of the experimental task. by changing the pragmatics into play through a subtle manipulation of the instruction of the syllogism problem, we obtained a strong improvement in the accuracy of the performance in both untrained and trained in logic respondents. we suggest that current models of deductive thinking should be broadened to consider also communicative understanding as part of the processing of the problem. keywords: belief bias, categorical syllogism, pragmatics, analytical thinking, dual-process theories europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 received: 2018-10-02. accepted: 2019-01-14. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of milano-bicocca, piazza dell’ateneo nuovo (u6 building), 1, 20126 milano, italy. email: l.caravona@campus.unimib.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. deductive reasoning is pervasive and commonly used in everyday life. it allows, starting from some premises, to establish one (or more) conclusions that may do not extend our knowledge, but which are necessarily true. therefore, it allows us to establish the consequences of our beliefs. if all my friends greet me when they meet me (premise 1) and john is a friend of mine (premise 2), then i expect john to greet me when he meets me (conclusion). this kind of syllogism allows us to build expectations on how reality should occur and, thus, helps us to guide our behavior. besides being a common type of reasoning, deduction is also part of logic. in logic it is possible to establish with certainty whether a deductive reasoning is valid or invalid through a propositional calculus. psychology borrowed the propositional calculus to fully describe human reasoning, presupposing that it consisted sic et simpliciter with a formal logical system (henle, 1962; piaget, 1953). in this sense, therefore, logic was used as a psychological descriptive theory of human thought. but soon it became clear that, although under certain coneurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ditions the human being was able to reason according to the criteria of logic, under other specific and systematic conditions s/he produced errors of reasoning, called biases. an emblematic example of such biases is the belief bias that can be defined as the systematic tendency to evaluate a syllogism through the credibility of its conclusion rather than through the principle of logical necessity (evans, barston, & pollard, 1983; evans & curtis-holmes, 2005). the belief bias is one of the first reasoning biases ever discovered (morgan & morton, 1944; wilkins, 1929) and has resisted stricter methodological controls over the years (barston, 1986; de neys & franssens, 2009; evans et al., 1983; evans, handley, & harper, 2001; evans, newstead, & byrne, 1993; johnson-laird & byrne, 1991; markovits & nantel, 1989; roberts & sykes, 2003; shynkaruk & thompson, 2006). traditionally, the belief bias has been studied using categorical syllogisms that are deductive reasoning problems composed of two premises and a conclusion. studies using categorical syllogisms could involve a conclusion-evaluation or a conclusion-generation paradigm. the former requires participants to evaluate the validity of a conclusion that is presented, while in the latter participants are asked to generate a logical conclusion in response to given premises. most of the studies on the belief bias focused on the conclusion-evaluation paradigm, and therefore the following discussion centers on findings deriving from this paradigm. yet, it must be recognized that any comprehensive theory of belief bias should also capture data acquired with conclusion-generation tasks. the following examples (ball & stupple, 2016) depict how logical validity and conclusion credibility are usually manipulated in studies on the belief bias: (1) valid-believable syllogism: all birds have wings all crows are birds therefore, all crows have wings (2) valid-unbelievable syllogism: all mammals can walk all whales are mammals therefore, all whales can walk (3) invalid-believable syllogism: all flowers need water all roses need water therefore, all roses are flowers (4) invalid-unbelievable syllogism: all meat products can be eaten all apples can be eaten therefore, all apples are meat products the common findings in the literature show that most people consider (1) as valid, but not (2). however, they share the same logical structure; thus, they are both valid. moreover, they consider (3) as valid, but it is not. therefore, the credibility of the conclusion affects the conclusion’s validity evaluation: syllogisms with the same structure are considered as valid or invalid depending on whether the content of the conclusion is believable or how to get rid of the belief bias 596 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ not. typically, the validity judgment given by the participants departs from the logical validity in two cases: when the syllogism is logically invalid, but the content makes it believable (invalid-believable) and when the syllogism is logically valid, but the content makes it unbelievable (valid-unbelievable). to explain this type of bias, dual-process theories of thinking have been put forward. they are characterized by the distinction between two different systems of reasoning: an associative system, which is fast, automatic, unconscious and effortless (system 1), and a rule-based system, which is slow, serial, conscious and effortful (system 2). according to the theory, reasoning errors such as the belief bias are caused by the tendency to rely on system 1, while the involvement of system 2 would allow avoiding reasoning errors and would guarantee correct reasoning. the general term “dual-process theories” encompasses a wide number of models, which can be divided into different classes. a first class is composed of models that theorize a staged, sequential progression from system 1 to system 2, such as the selective-scrutiny model espoused by evans et al. (1983; for its more recent instantiation, termed selective-processing model, see evans, 2007, 2008; evans & stanovich, 2013) or the mental models theory proposed by oakhill, johnson-laird, and garnham (1989; see also johnson-laird & byrne, 1991). this class of theories shares the idea that unbelievable conclusions trigger analytic processing. a second class of models is named parallel-process account (sloman, 1996; stupple & ball, 2008), as it is founded on the assumption that system 1 and system 2 operate concurrently. a further model that is worth mentioning is the misinterpreted-necessity model (barston, 1986) which argues that when solving syllogisms, human beings misinterpret the logical meaning of necessity. hence, in some instances, this misunderstanding leads to a belief-based decision. independently of which specific model is preferred, all of them are characterized by the presence of a system 2 that can abstract information from the context, thus producing unbiased solutions (cognitive decoupling) and by a system 1 that, instead, automatically contextualizes the information and thus bases its response predominantly on the content of the syllogism, not on its logical validity. hence, according to the dualistic approach, the error could be attributed to a lack of decontextualization, which is caused by a strict reliance on system 1 and by the failure to employ system 2 (evans & stanovich, 2013; stanovich & west, 1999, 2008). the most compelling evidence that links the reliance on system 2 to a better performance in belief-biased problems have been obtained by correlating general cognitive abilities with the ability to solve problems containing biasing contextual information. sá, west, and stanovich (1999) found that relatively higher cognitive ability (measured with sat), greater disposition toward active and open-minded thinking and greater ability to decontextualize are all associated with a reduced probability that the response to belief-biased syllogisms is based on prior beliefs (stanovich, west, & toplak, 2016). dualistic theories are undoubtedly powerful in describing how the human mind works when it must tackle a logical problem. consequently, they also allow to formulate a prediction on how we can improve the performance in belief-biased problems: first, since system 2 seems to be initially inactive (or at least, less active than expected), it should be somehow triggered. additionally, one would ideally aim at inhibiting the automatic reliance on system 1. to the best of our knowledge, all the previous studies that attempted to improve performance in belief-biased tasks were based on those assumptions. so far, it has been hard to overcome the bias: experimenmacchi, poli, caravona et al. 597 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tal manipulations always resulted in absent or weak effects (evans, newstead, allen, & pollard, 1994; evans et al., 2001; handley, newstead, & trippas, 2011). in our view, even if triggering more heavily the analytical abilities that a person possesses is an important step to improve performance, its role has been overrated in previous research. an example that may help us to understand which factors trigger analytical reasoning can be found in stupple, ball, evans, and kamal-smith (2011). the authors divided participants in 3 groups depending on their performance on belief-biased syllogisms, obtaining high-performance, medium-performance, and low-performance groups. then, they analyzed participants’ response times to the syllogisms and found that individuals that were performing worse (low-performance group) were also quicker in solving them, compared to individuals performing well. since analytic thinking is slower than heuristic thinking, the slower response times of the high-performance individuals were interpreted by the authors as an index of the greater reliance on the analytic system. hence, they concluded that individuals that are more able to avoid the belief bias are the ones that possess higher logical abilities. however, this interpretation is all but compelling, as the only thing that is reasonable to conclude is that individuals who are more able to avoid the bias are the ones that engage more in analytical thinking, but this does not explain why they do so. it may be that they possess greater logical abilities than others, but there may be other reasons. it could be that they have better understood the problem, and thus they know they should use analytical skills. consequently, they engage more in analytical thinking, but this does not mean they possess greater analytical skills. even the greatest analytical mind may fail to solve the problem if s/he does not understand that thinking analytically is required in that specific situation. indeed, we argue that, before any system (heuristic or analytic) is involved, another fundamental step in the processing of the problem must be considered: the comprehension of the task’s aim. in other words, are we sure that a person that engages in a belief-biased task understands and represents the task in the same way as the experimenter has represented it? this communicative aspect has often been ignored in the previous studies on the belief bias, and it will be analyzed in greater detail in the next chapter. however, it is important to stress that the above-mentioned study by stupple et al. (2011) brought up a further, crucial piece of evidence: individuals tended to answer more quickly in no-conflict situations (i.e., when confronted with a valid-believable or an invalid-unbelievable syllogism) compared to conflict situations (i.e., when dealing with invalid-believable or valid-unbelievable syllogisms). this effect was particularly evident for the high-performance group. however, even in the low-performance group appeared the same pattern, suggesting that all individuals, at some point in the processing of the problem, were very likely unconsciously—detecting the conflict between logical thinking and knowledge of the world. this finding is very intriguing for multiple reasons (see ball & stupple, 2016) but particularly because it suggests that individuals might be able to think logically, if only they were adequately triggered to do so. as de neys (2012) puts it, people are in some way able to “detect that they are biased” (p. 29). can we activate this detection process? once the conflict is detected, how can we inhibit the response based on fast processing (knowledge of the world), in favor of the slower analytical processing? we successfully managed to do so, thus improving the response accuracy in belief-biased syllogisms, using a pragmatic approach to language and thinking. how to get rid of the belief bias 598 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the pragmatic approach according to us, everything that the text of the considered problems communicates affects the representation of the decisional framework: not only what literally is said (the sentence), but also what is implied and then effectively communicated. the distinction between sentence and utterance is the core of grice’s communication theory (grice, 1975), according to which the phrases imply and mean more than what they literally state. what is implied is the outcome of an inferential process, in which what is said is interpreted in the light of the intentions attributed to the speaker and of the context unavoidably elicited and determined by any communications. the central idea is that communication is achieved when a recipient recognizes the special kind of intention with which a communicative act is produced. more generally, grice’s theory of implicature postulates that meaning should be reduced to intention and, therefore, that semantics has to be reduced to psychology. we consider communication and thinking as two sides of the same cognitive process, which realizes in the discourse in the same way as the ancient greeks intended “logos”. in greek, in fact, the word “logos” means at the same time “language”, but also “calculation”, “reasoning”. any time we use language, we are not just “transmitting thinking” (chomsky, 1977, p. 90), but we are actually thinking. more precisely, what we mean is that “discourse-thinking” is a human cognitive process (mosconi, 1990, 2016). accordingly, analysis of the discourse is the proper methodology for studying reasoning. the intuition that the rules of discourse influence the inferential processes does not seem surprising. problems studied in reasoning, indeed, are mainly submitted in a verbal form. nevertheless, this obvious intuition did not influence the psychology of thinking and reasoning, at least until a few years ago. numerous studies have shown the importance of the pragmatic approach to the study of thinking and reasoning (bagassi & macchi, 2016; hilton, 1995; politzer & macchi, 2000) from problem-solving (macchi & bagassi, 2012, 2015), conditional reasoning (sperber, cara, & girotto, 1995) and deductive reasoning (van der henst, sperber, & politzer, 2002) to probabilistic reasoning (dulany & hilton, 1991; macchi, 1995, 2000; mosconi & macchi, 2001; politzer & macchi, 2005), decision making (bagassi & macchi, 2006) and children’s reasoning (bagassi, d’addario, macchi, & sala, 2009). consider, as an example, the results obtained by tversky and kahneman (1983) with the well-known “linda problem.” not only laypeople but also informed and even sophisticated subjects in the field of statistics committed the so-called conjunction fallacy, failing to recognize the conjunction rule (i.e., the probability of two events occurring together is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone). in our view, the fact that people trained in decoupling failed to recognize the inclusion rule, which is a relatively elementary logical rule, raises questions that need to be addressed (macchi & bagassi, 2018). as stressed by bagassi and macchi (2016; see also dulany & hilton, 1991; mosconi & macchi, 2001), the misleading contextualization of the task, which was centered on an irrelevant personality sketch from a logical perspective, hindered even statistically trained respondents from grasping the experimenter’s communicative aim concerning the inclusion class rule. analogously, in a recent experiment involving the wason selection task, we found (bagassi & macchi, 2016) that the performance of participants trained in logic did not differ significantly to that of untrained participants who had not received such training. with the original wason selection task, only 13% of the trained respondmacchi, poli, caravona et al. 599 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ents and 5% of the untrained group gave the correct response. paradoxically, a great number of participants were able to use the material implication correctly but were not able to identify the only case that was crucial for falsifying the rule. how can it be that people trained in logic or statistics had such difficulty with these tasks? one would have expected that their training and experience would have facilitated them in logical reasoning, but this was not the case. a similar issue can be raised when considering invalid-believable syllogisms such as the following, which are very common in the literature: all flowers fade all roses fade all roses are flowers advocates of dualistic theories of thought would argue that people will accept the invalid conclusion because when there is a conflict between logic and beliefs, beliefs always prevail. but, as observed by bagassi and macchi (2016) the terms “roses” and “flowers” can be seen as two classes, and crucially the former is implicitly included in the latter. hence, one can implicitly infer that “all roses are flowers” (which is the conclusion of the invalid-believable syllogism), but according to logic it is not correct from the two premises to conclude that “roses are flowers.” however, this error from a logical point of view can be interpreted as the result of a cooperative act: concluding that roses are flowers does not add knowledge, it only allows the communicative interaction, although at the lowest level of informativeness. as in the socratic dialogue, rhetorical questions have a common basic function from which the argument will start and will be developed. saying that “roses are flowers” is to give its own consent on an obvious but shared knowledge. in a non-experimental context the two premises would raise a spontaneous reply such as “we know this, so what?”, the natural equivalent to the logical: nothing ensues (bagassi, & macchi, 2016; p. 49). a further example of the importance of a correct understanding of the aim of the experimenter can be found in a study by mata, schubert and ferreira (2014; see also, mata, ferreira, voss, & kollei, 2017). they asked participants to solve many different problems, among which there were syllogisms. crucially, syllogisms had a conflict and a no-conflict version. in the conflict version, the syllogism was invalid but believable: all flowers need water roses need water roses are flowers in the no-conflict version, the syllogism was valid and believable: all flowers need water all roses are flowers roses need water even if the first premise is identical, the two syllogisms differ in the second premise and in the conclusion. mata et al. (2014) found that participants that were more able to detect the differences between the two versions were also more likely to solve the conflict version correctly. how to get rid of the belief bias 600 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in our view, a successful representation of the aim of the problem (i.e., what the experimenter wants the participants to do) seems to be crucial for a successful performance. we speculate that the few who answered correctly to the belief-biased syllogisms had a particular ability to grasp the intention of the experimenter and the aim of the task rather than the ability to decouple from contexts and contents. in so doing, they revealed a form of “interactional intelligence” and “interpretative ability” (bagassi & macchi, 2016). how do participants reach an understanding of the experimenter’s intentions? crucially, within a pragmatic framework (grice, 1957, 1975; levinson, 1983; mosconi, 1990, 2016; sperber & wilson, 1986) communication is not limited to what is said (i.e., the content that the experimenter intends to communicate explicitly to a participant), but it also involves what is implied (i.e., the content that the experimenter intends to communicate implicitly using that particular expression). therefore, there is an implicit content that participants must infer through a specific type of conversational implicature. we believe that only a few individuals that possess a high interactional intelligence manage to do so, thus inferring the experimenter’s intentions. this crucial feature of communicative interactions has two important consequences for the topic dealt with here. in general, in experimental psychology, communicative interactions between experimenters and participants unavoidably occur. these communicative interactions are not exempt from implicit pragmatic inferences, and it is therefore extremely important to evaluate in detail the implicit content that one is communicating using a specific instruction or a specific statement. specifically, in psychology of thought it is necessary to stress that natural language and logical language do not possess the same type of rules (nor even the same type of rule violation, see bagassi & macchi, 2006; hilton, 1995; levinson, 1983, 2000; mosconi, 2016; politzer & macchi, 2000). both logic and natural language have the common goal of transmitting meaning efficaciously. however, as suggested by bagassi and macchi (2016), this objective is achieved by these two language forms in opposite ways. logic achieves a univocal communication through simplification, eliminating any meaning that might interfere with the univocal meaning to be communicated. on the contrary, natural language exploits the expressive richness of the words but avoids slipping into chaos and tripping over misunderstandings, by relying on the pertinence of the meaning to the context. there is no hierarchical order between natural language and logical language in the sense that the former is inferior or subordinate to the latter. the two reflect different needs: in the first case, the need to ensure the efficacy of the communication; in the second, the need to guarantee the rigor of the inferential process (bagassi & macchi, 2016, p. 46). in general, even if participants are required to infer the experimenter’s intentions, experimenters have communicative obligations too. they are required to be cooperative (grice, 1975) and to express what they mean clearly and adequately to avoid misunderstanding. in previous literature, the instructions utilized by experimenters did not communicate the aim of the task optimally. in fact, before reading the syllogism, the participant usually finds a long text in which s/he is recommended to think logically. for example, evans et al. (1983, experiment 1) gave to participants long instructions that, according to us, contain conflicting information. the participant was asked to think logically (“you will be given a prose passage to read and asked if a certain conclusion may be logically deduced from it”), and at the same time to assume that all information was true (“you should answer this question on the assumption that all the information given in the passage is, in fact, true”). to unmacchi, poli, caravona et al. 601 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trained participants, the boundary between truth and validity might be fuzzy, and their co-presence in the instructions might facilitate the confusion between the two. thus, the participant may end up implying that they are the same thing and that s/he is allowed to think just on the believability of the content. this is in line with the misinterpreted-necessity hypothesis (barston, 1986), which argues that incorrect performance originates from a misunderstanding of logical necessity. hence, in later research attempts have been made to improve performance in belief bias through the manipulation of task instructions, emphasizing that only logically-necessary conclusions must be drawn (barston, 1986; evans et al., 2001; handley et al., 2011) but they were not successful. newstead, pollard, evans, and allen (1992, experiment 5) obtained an improvement with very long instructions in which it was explained how logic works and what is meant by logical validity and necessity. the improvement in performance was remarkable, as 83% of the participants responded correctly with invalid-believable syllogisms. we do not deny that their results may be partly due to the continuous stressing of the importance of logical validity, but other factors may be at play. in fact, their instructions stressed that if the participant was not “absolutely sure” about the validity of the conclusion, s/he must had rejected it. this may have triggered a general tendency toward rejection. consistently, acceptance rates for valid-believable syllogisms were lower than usual (75%, against the 92% of the study by evans et al., 1983) implying a paradoxical worsening of the performance. furthermore, they obtained remarkably high rejection rates (50%) even in the control condition, as if they picked up a particularly talented sample. consistently with these observations, an attempt to replicate the results (evans et al., 1994) was less successful. the same instructions led to poorer performance in the invalidbelievable syllogisms (56% of correct responses), and the acceptance of valid-believable syllogisms was still slightly lower than usual (81%). see table 1 for comparing the cited results. table 1 percentages of correct responses for valid-believable and invalid-believable syllogisms in the three different studies. experiment valid-believable invalid-believable evans et al. 1983 92% 8% newstead et al. 1992 (exp. 5) 75% 83% evans et al. 1994 81% 56% note. a correct response in valid-believable syllogisms implies the acceptance of the conclusion, while a correct response in invalid-believable syllogisms implies the rejection of the conclusion. hence, in previous attempts to improve performance, instructions were probably closer to the task aim than the original one, but still inadequate. the key point we would like to stress is that for an instruction manipulation to be successful, it must follow pragmatic principles and maxims (grice, 1957; levinson, 1983, 2000), and such characteristic was absent in previous research. experimental research from the theoretical assumptions described above, it is possible to draw the following experimental hypotheses: how to get rid of the belief bias 602 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. when the instructions do not clearly convey the exact nature of evaluation of the inference, and thus it is not possible for the participant to understand how s/he is supposed to reason (following the rules of natural language and common knowledge of the world or following the rules of logic), the strength of the belief bias will be unrelated to the degree of expertise in logic. in other words, not even people that have been trained in logic can solve the problem, if they cannot understand that they must think logically. hence, in experimental terms, we expect that the degree of acceptance of invalid-believable syllogisms (which is an index of the strength of the belief bias) will be high both in respondents trained in logic and in respondents that are untrained to logic. 2. subtle modifications of the instructions can lead to strong changes in performance, if such modifications are aimed specifically at making clearer the aim of the task. the experimenter must make the participant understand that s/he is not expected to follow the rules that are commonly present in the natural language (i.e., reasoning taking into account truth), but that s/he has to switch to different rules, the ones of logical language (i.e., reasoning considering necessity): as demonstrated by bagassi and macchi (2016), the performance of participants trained in logic did not differ significantly to that of untrained participants who had not received such training. how can it be that people trained in logic had such difficulty with these tasks? one would have expected that their training would have facilitated them in decontextualizing and abstracting, but that was not the case. paradoxically participants that were able to execute the material implication truth table correctly were not able to identify the only case that was crucial for falsifying the rule. in the absence of specific indications, they reasoned in the same manner as the untrained group and used conversational rules of natural language to interpret. experiment 1 experiment 1 was designed to test the first experimental hypothesis according to which the performance of participants trained in logic do not differ from that of untrained participants who had not received such training. method participants and procedure the first experiment involved 130 undergraduate students from humanity faculties of milano-bicocca university. participants included males and females and were aged between 19 and 25 years. in the sample, there are 50 untrained and 80 trained in logic participants. participants were considered as trained in logic if they followed at least one 64-hour university annual course concerning fundamentals of logic and took the exam. the day of the exam, some additional sheets were given to students together with the exam sheets. students were invited to fill in the additional sheets at the end of the exam and it was made clear that they concerned an experiment on psychology of thought. untrained participants were university students that didn’t follow any course on logic, and they were asked to participate to the experiment at the end of a lesson. material in this experiment we used the conclusion-evaluation paradigm that is evaluating the validity of the given conclusion based on the premises. we asked to each participant to perform a paper-and-pencil task containing two different syllogisms presented in random order. one syllogism was valid-believable: macchi, poli, caravona et al. 603 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all animals are mortal all humans are animals all humans are mortal the other syllogism was invalid-believable: all flowers fade all roses fade all roses are flowers both syllogisms were followed by the instruction: “does the conclusion follow from the premises?” the instruction was followed by the question “why?” that allowed us to gather additional qualitative information on the conscious cognitive processes performed by the participants. results a highly significant difference was found between the performance in the valid-believable syllogism and the invalid-believable syllogism, both in untrained (χ2(2, n = 50) = 81.03, p < .001) and trained participants (χ2(2, n = 80) = 119.49, p < .001). in the valid-believable syllogism, 94% of untrained participants and 96% of trained participants responded correctly (see figure 1) and there was no statistical difference between the two groups (χ2(2, n = 130) = 0.95, p = .69); in the invalid-believable syllogism, 4% of untrained participants and 10% of trained participants responded correctly and performance did not differ significantly between the two groups (χ2(2, n = 130) = 1.56, p = .31). figure 1. percentage of correct responses for the valid-believable syllogism and for the invalid-believable syllogism in untrained and trained participants. how to get rid of the belief bias 604 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to assess the strength of evidence in favor of the hypotheses that there are no differences in the performance of the trained group and the untrained group, we used the bayesian contingency table analysis. statistical analyses were conducted using the free software jasp and default priors (jasp team, 2018). moreover, we used the fixed column multinomial sampling method (jamil et al., 2017) because the number of participants in the untrained and logic groups were fixed. the bayes factor suggests that, for the invalid-believable syllogism the hypothesis stating no differences between groups is 8.52 times more likely than the alternative hypothesis (95% ci: [−1.038, 2.016]); for the valid-believable syllogism, our hypothesis of independence is 4.20 times more likely than the dependence hypothesis (95% ci: [−0.504, 2.422]). this can be considered as moderate evidence in favor of our hypotheses (lee & wagenmakers, 2013). discussion both with valid-believable and invalid-believable syllogisms, the performance of untrained participants was comparable to that of trained participants, thus suggesting that the degree of expertise in logic has no influence on the performance when it is not possible for the respondent to infer from the instructions that s/he is expected to think logically. moreover, the performance was very high with the valid-believable syllogism, suggesting that the instructions allowed the participant to obtain a satisfactory performance in the no-conflict situation. experiment 2 experiment 2 was designed to test the second experimental hypothesis according to which the pragmatic manipulations of the instructions may change how the participants understand experimenter’s intentions and the aim of the task and thus improve the performance. given that our goal was to observe an improvement in performance, we focused only on the invalid-believable syllogism, which is characterized by very low rates of correct responses. method participants and procedure the second experiment involved 162 undergraduate students from humanity faculties of university of milan-bicocca. participants included males and females and most were aged between 19 and 25 years; 101 participants were considered untrained and 61 trained in logic. again, we considered as “trained” those participants that followed at least one 64-hour university annual course concerning fundamentals of logic and took the exam. the procedure was identical to that of experiment 1. the control group considered in this experiment refers to the participants that worked on the invalid-believable syllogism in experiment 1. material one invalid-believable syllogism was administered to each participant (the same used in the first experiment): all flowers fade all roses fade all roses are flowers we manipulated the instruction of experiment 1 in two ways, with the intention of communicating to the participant to follow the principle of logical necessity, and with the subsequent expectation to see an improvement in macchi, poli, caravona et al. 605 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the performance. the new instructions were: “does the conclusion necessarily follow from the given premises?” (from now on, the necessarily instruction) and “can you infer, following the criteria of logic, the conclusion from the given premises?” (from now on, the criteria-of-logic instruction). the two instructions are similar, but they stress different aspects. the former communicates directly the principle of logical necessity, stressing the type of relation that must occur between the premises and the conclusions, thus explaining the essence of logical, deductive thinking. the latter communicates, more indirectly, that the participant is expected to strictly adhere to logical rules while judging the validity of the syllogism. this reminds to a knowledge common to logicians, telling untrained respondents just that the type of reasoning is different from the usual one. hence, in this second case an improvement in the performance can be seen only if the participant has at least a rough idea of how logic works. for this reason, we can make a further prediction: the necessarily instruction will lead to a similar improvement in performance both in untrained and trained participants, whereas the criteria-of-logic instruction will improve the performance of the trained group more than that of the untrained group, as they know better which are the logical criteria that must be followed. for half of the participants the syllogism was followed by the necessarily instruction and for the other half of the participants it was followed by the criteria-of-logic instruction. as in the first experiment, instructions were always followed by the question “why?”. results when tested with the criteria-of-logic instruction, 41% of untrained participants and 67% of trained participants answered to the invalid-believable syllogism correctly. the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (χ2(2, n = 80) = 4.91, p = .03). when tested with the necessarily instruction, 66% of untrained participants and 77% of trained participants answered correctly. as expected, there was no significant difference between the two groups (χ2(2, n = 82) = 1.02, p = .45). when comparing untrained participants’ performance with the criteria-of-logic instruction to untrained participants’ performance with the necessarily instruction (see figure 2), a significant difference was found (χ2(2, n = 101) = 6.25, p = .017). instead, when comparing trained participants’ performance with the criteria-of-logic instruction to trained participants’ performance with the necessarily instruction, the difference was not statistically significant (χ2(2, n = 61) = 0.74, p = .39). further comparisons were made between the results obtained in the control group and the results obtained with the same syllogism in the two experimental conditions of experiment 2. the performance of untrained participants of the control group differed significantly from the performance of untrained participants in the experimental groups, both when compared to the criteria-of-logic condition (χ2(2, n = 100) = 19.84, p < .001) and the necessarily condition (χ2(2, n = 101) = 42.24, p < .001). similar results were found analyzing the performance of trained participants, as there was both a significant difference between the control condition and the criteriaof-logic condition (χ2(2, n = 110) = 36.92, p < .001) and between the control condition and the necessarily condition (χ2(2, n = 111) = 47.91, p < .001). how to get rid of the belief bias 606 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the results of the experiment show that the manipulation of the instructions by using a pragmatic approach led to an improvement in the performance, both in untrained and trained participants. with the necessarily instruction, which clearly and concisely stresses that there must be a relationship of logical necessity between the premises and the conclusion, performance was greatly improved independently from the level of expertise in logic of the respondent. a similar improvement was found with the criteria-of-logic instruction for the trained group. as expected, the same instruction improved also untrained participants’ performance, but the improvement was not as consistent as for the trained group. general discussion a consolidated line of research claims that the ability to abstract (cognitive decoupling) is an essential condition for correct reasoning. however, from a pragmatic point of view, it might be argued that the participant who performs syllogisms correctly, without falling into the belief bias, is not just required to possess an ability for abstraction. indeed, s/he must possess what we can call “interpretative talent” (bagassi & macchi, 2016), a skill in perceiving the real aim of the task, better contextualizing the information rather than de-contextualizing it. indeed, the person must be able to understand a) the communicative intention of the experimenter; and b) that what s/he is required to do is to shift from an interpretation of the task based on the communicative rules we commonly use (the ones of natural language), to a different interpretation based on a different linguistic tool, that is logic. figure 2. results of experiment 2 (criteria-of-logic condition and necessarily condition) compared to the results obtained with the same syllogism in experiment 1 (control). macchi, poli, caravona et al. 607 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in line with this hypothesis, a number of interesting studies shows that beliefs affect both intuitive and reflective reasoning (verschueren, schaeken, & d’ydewalle, 2005) and that many cognitive biases are independent of cognitive abilities (evans, handley, neilens, & over, 2007; stanovich & west, 2008) . moreover, the ability to understand another person’s intentions are often conceptualized as theory of mind, and in the literature, it is generally agreed that theory of mind is linked to executive functions (carlson & moses, 2001; chasiotis, kiessling, campos, & hofer, 2006; setoh, scott, & baillargeon, 2016). hence, even when a correlation between cognitive abilities and performance in belief-biased problems has been found, it was well possible that theory of mind was playing a role as mediating factor1, and the better performance could have also been partially explained by a greater interpretative talent. however, this is just a speculation that would be interesting to further investigate in future research. in summary, we succeeded in improving the performance of participants that were untrained to logic, bringing them to the same level as participants who were trained in logic. the current results suggest that what in literature has been considered as a typical error of logical thinking is actually a consequence of a task that does not clarify that the requested layer of evaluation is different from the common sense, by distinguishing between factual truth and logical validity. we improved the performance of untrained participants by triggering those analytical abilities that respondents already possess, but that they failed to express with the classical instructions of the task. in other words, we improved performance by restructuring the environment such that existing skills and tools could have been more effectively applied. specifically, we restructured the environment through an accurate analysis of how a message is expressed. taking into account the communicative inferences that the receivers implicitly draw on led to a change in the way the message was processed and in the cognitive skills that participants employed to process it. this, in turn, led participants to think more analytically. we believe that communication is a form of nudge (thaler & sunstein, 2008) in that depending on what we say we can orient another person’s thinking and decision making. hence, a pragmatic perspective may have important applications in the field of policy interventions, specifically as part of behavior change programs, because they can be used to modify the choice architecture of laypeople (gigerenzer, gaissmaier, kurz-milcke, schwartz, & woloshin, 2007; hertwig, 2017; thaler & sunstein, 2008). notes 1) the rationality test (stanovich et al., 2016) should be able to detect the thinking dispositions of the reflective mind, concerned with the “goals of the system, beliefs relevant to those goals, and the choice of action that is optimal given the system’s goals and beliefs”. in doing that, the book proposes something very innovative, summarized in the “thinking dispositions”, about the ability to identify relevant goals and beliefs (actively open-minded thinking, needed for cognition, conscientiousness, curiosity, diligence), even if it still maintains the frame of the traditional logical-deductive paradigm of the psychology of thinking. actually, the relevance of goals and beliefs depends on the normative theory (macchi & bagassi, 2017). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. how to get rid of the belief bias 608 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments we would like to thank vlad glăveanu, andrew patrick allen and the two “anonymous” reviewers for their valuable comments and insights. references bagassi, m., d’addario, m., macchi, l., & sala, v. 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(1929). the effect of changed material on ability to do formal syllogistic reasoning. archives of psychology, 102, 83. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/140/2/403 about the authors laura macchi is full professor of psychology of thinking and decision making at milano-bicocca university (italy). she carries out experimental studies about probabilistic reasoning and decision-making, insight problem solving, and pragmatics. she developed, in collaboration with m. bagassi and g. mosconi, a pragmatic approach to the study of thinking. francesco poli is a ph.d. candidate in cognitive psychology at radboud university (netherlands). he is currently investigating learning abilities in 1-year-old infants, to understand what are the cognitive mechanisms underlying them and whether they are related to intelligence. he is also interested in computational modeling of cognition. previously, he worked on social cognition (intention attribution and prosocial behavior) and the relationship between communicative and logical abilities. he mainly employs eye-tracking methodologies. laura caravona is a ph.d. candidate in psychology at milano-bicocca university (italy). she received her master’s degree in psychology of social processes, decision making and financial behaviors at milano-bicocca university (italy). during her ph.d., she is working on problem solving and decision making, in particular she is investigating which process is responsible for solving a particular kind of problems known in literature as insight problems. michela vezzoli is a ph.d. candidate in psychology at milano-bicocca university (italy). she received her master’s degree in psychology of social processes, decision making and financial behaviors at milano-bicocca university (italy). during her ph.d., she is investigating the psychological processes that underlie customer churn behavior through the quantitative analysis of consumer’s behavior with statistical methodologies like data mining and machine learning. miriam a. g. franchella is an associate professor of logic and philosophy of science at university of milan (italy). her research interests are history of logic in the 20th century (main focus on foundational questions); computational logic; science popularization and relationships between logic and society (in the variety of its cultural and institutional aspects). maria bagassi is senior researcher of psychology of thinking and language at milano-bicocca university (italy). she carries out experimental studies about insight problem solving and pragmatics. she developed, in collaboration with l. macchi and g. mosconi, a pragmatic approach to the study of thinking. macchi, poli, caravona et al. 613 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 595–613 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1794 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-295x.90.4.293 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13546780143000071 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13546780442000178 https://doi.org/10.1088%2f0004-6256%2f140%2f2%2f403 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ how to get rid of the belief bias (introduction) the pragmatic approach experimental research experiment 1 method results discussion experiment 2 method results discussion general discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors examining the relationship between engagement and perceived stress-related cognitive complaints in the argentinian working population research reports examining the relationship between engagement and perceived stressrelated cognitive complaints in the argentinian working population agustín ramiro miranda* abc, luisina rivadero a, jorge ángel bruera d, virginia villarreal a, laura yhicel bernio a, lorena de los ángeles baydas a, mónica liliana brizuela a, silvana valeria serra a [a] escuela de fonoaudiología, facultad de ciencias médicas, universidad nacional de córdoba, córdoba, argentina. [b] instituto de investigaciones en ciencias de la salud, consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas, córdoba, argentina. [c] instituto de educación superior “dr. domingo cabred”, facultad de educación y salud universidad provincial de córdoba, córdoba, argentina. [d] facultad de psicología, universidad nacional de córdoba, córdoba, argentina. abstract stress has a negative impact on cognitive functioning and occupational well-being. the aim of this study was to assess the relationship among perceived stress, cognitive complaints and work engagement in public employees from córdoba, argentina. in this cross-sectional study, self-report questionnaires were administered to 240 participants. spanish versions of the following instruments were used: perceived stress scale (pss), utrecht work engagement scale (uwes), memory failures in everyday (mfe), executive complaint questionnaire (ecq). statistical analysis included anova, path analysis, and multiple logistic regression. stressed workers showed lower work engagement and more cognitive complaints, even after adjusting for demographic variables. negative associations were also observed between work engagement and cognitive complaints, suggesting that cognitive difficulties are related to engagement. given the relation among stress, cognition, and work engagement, it is important to consider these factors to foster workers’ health and work productivity. keywords: occupational health, stress, executive function, memory, work engagement europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 received: 2018-11-26. accepted: 2019-06-04. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva switzerland *corresponding author at: instituto de investigaciones en ciencias de la salud, boulevard de la reforma s/n, ciudad universitaria, córdoba 5014, argentina. phone\fax: +5493514334020. e-mail: armiranda@fcm.unc.edu.ar this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the last few years, the study of the development of positive attitudes, skills and experiences in the workplace has been addressed by occupational health psychology (leka & houdmont, 2010; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000; zoupanou & rydstedt, 2017), hence the concept of engagement meaning a positive, persistent, emotional and cognitive state related to work (kašpárková, vaculík, procházka, & schaufeli, 2018; orgambídez-ramos, borrego-alés, & mendoza-sierra, 2014; spontón, medrano, maffei, spontón, & castellano, 2012). kahn (1990) proposes a multidimensional approach for the definition of work engagement, defining it as the manner individuals express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during work roles. this concepeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ tualization highlights three components: a physical component referring to the physical energies exerted to achieve levels of effort during work, an emotional component referring to how people feel about their work and the way in which work meets their emotional demands, and a cognitive component referring to the mental processes underlying the work role, such as attention, vigilance and concentration. in addition, kahn (1990) identifies three psychological conditions that have an impact on work engagement: psychological fullness (i.e. rewarding idea by being intensely involved in work), psychological security (i.e. getting involved in work without suffering negative consequences for self-image or status), and psychological availability (i.e. the sense of having the necessary personal resources to perform the task favourably). the conceptualization made by kahn (1990) was later recovered by rothbard (2001), who defines engagement as the psychological state associated with activities linked to the work role. rothbard (2001) suggests that engagement is determined by two critical components: attention and absorption. in this two-dimensional motivational construct, absorption refers to the intensity of immersion individuals experience at work, and attention refers to the cognitive resources, including concentration and psychical energy that individuals invest during work. later, rich, lepine, and crawford (2010) expanded the concept and introduced subtle changes. authors integrated kahn’s (1990) three-dimensional concept and rothbard’s (2001) two components into brown and leigh (1996) and russell and barrett (1999) investigations. the study of brown and leigh (1996) was retrieved to evaluate the physical aspect of engagement, whereas the study of russell and barrett (1999) was used to define the emotional component of engagement. conversely, several authors use the concept of burnout to define, by opposition, the concept of engagement. according to maslach and leiter (1997), engagement can be conceptualized as the opposite pattern to burnout. in this sense, engagement represents a state of high energy levels, participation and effectiveness, and burnout represents exhaustion, cynicism and inefficiency. nevertheless, schaufeli, salanova, gonzález-romá, and bakker (2002) define burnout and engagement as two distinct constructs that must be accessed independently. from this perspective, if an employee does not experience burnout, he or she should not necessarily be affected by engagement, and vice versa. this theorization gives rise to one of the most widespread definitions of engagement: "... a positive, satisfactory and work-related mental state characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption" (schaufeli et al., 2002, p. 74). these dimensions were operationalized by the theorists with the development of the utrecht work engagement scale, an instrument designed to measure work engagement. vigour is related to high energy levels and the desire to invest effort and endeavour in work. dedication is associated with involvement levels and meaning of work. absorption refers to complete concentration and enjoyment at work (bakker, 2011). engagement is intimately linked to the conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 1989), an integrated model that incorporates several approaches to understand the effects of stress. according to this theory, people tend to make efforts to achieve to obtain, retain, protect and create resources important to them. resources can be either material (e.g., food), personal (e.g., self-esteem), living conditions (e.g., family support), and energy resources (e.g., cognitive status). when these resources are in danger, lost or not obtained after investing in them, subjects begin to experience stress. therefore, the availability of these resources determines the efficiency with which people can adapt to the demands underling their daily life, such as those required to succeed in their work role. miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 13 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ meijman and mulder (1998) developed the effort-recovery theory, which establishes that continuous exposure to stressful demands (related or not related to work) poses a risk to employees’ optimal functioning, since stressful demands compromise the restoration of energy resources and self-regulation mechanisms, in accordance to baumeister’s (1998) self-regulation theory. in this sense, self-regulatory capacity is essential for work engagement, which is achieving a state of cognitive, affective and behavioural connection with work. moreover, engagement has been consistently associated with work performance (halbesleben & wheeler, 2008), as well as with workers’ psychological and physical health (hamilton skurak, malinen, näswall, & kuntz, 2018). in this regard, it is related to higher cognitive and behavioural performance, and lower depression risk. schaufeli and bakker (2004) observed positive cognitive and behavioural effects of engagement, such as work satisfaction and proactive performance. what is more, lower stress, depression levels (schaufeli, bakker, & van rhenen, 2009) and psychosomatic complaints (demerouti, bakker, nachreiner, & schaufeli, 2001) were reported in engaged workers. therefore, to foster occupational health it is essential not only to develop healthy workplaces and labour practices, but also to identify conditioning factors for engagement, among which stress highlights. in this vein, workers who experience lower levels of stress might have higher levels of engagement (anthony‐mcmann, ellinger, astakhova, & halbesleben, 2017). as employees must have the capacity (both environmental and personal) to successfully invest in their engagement while facing daily conflicts, they require great material, social, personal and energy resources (folkman, 2011). in the face of high daily-life stressful demands, employees reduce their engagement levels as they prioritize everyday-life demands. this also prevents the depletion of resources for potential future demands. as a result, gains and losses cycles are generated (hakanen, perhoniemi, & toppinen-tanner, 2008). losses spirals indicate those employees with reduced resources are more vulnerable to suffer future resource losses. on the contrary, gains spirals indicate that employees who obtain more resources are more capable of gaining resources, resulting in future gains. in consequence, “as people make resource gains and successfully experience the rewards of dedication and absorption, they experience more positive health and well-being and become more capable of further investing resources into the engagement process” (hobfoll, 2011, p. 138). concerning cognitive complaints, studies account for an association with stress. workers with chronic stress might suffer cognitive impairments due to hippocampus damage (barbe, kimble, & rubenstein, 2018). moreover, prolonged work-related stress has a negative impact on attention, learning, and memory domains (eskildsen et al., 2017), as on concentration, information processing (elfering, grebner, & dudan, 2011), and decision-making abilities (ceschi, demerouti, sartori, & weller, 2017). in this sense, there are several studies describing the association between cognitive deficits and work performance (birnbaum et al., 2010; mcintyre et al., 2015). in clinical populations, such as patients with major depressive disorder, cognitive impairments in the domains of executive functioning influence work productivity (clark, dibenedetti, & perez, 2016). executive functions are higher-order cognitive processes, which form a construct composed of multiple interrelated skills that serve goal-directed behaviour (miranda, franchetto sierra, et al., 2019). hence, these processes have significant implications for work. given the evidence accounting for the benefits, reliability and validity of self-report instruments, a growing number of health-related research use this approach (gharibi et al., 2016; gordts, uzieblo, neumann, van den bussche, & rossi, 2017). barbe et al. (2018) found a relationship among subjective cognitive complaints, perceived stress, and work performance in healthcare workers by using self-report measures. although engagestress, cognition, and engagement 14 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ment is a crucial factor in human-services occupations (educators, health workers and customer service workers) for its positive outcomes related to client satisfaction and organizational performance (bakker, demerouti, & sanz-vergel, 2014), there lacks evidence on its association with stress and cognition in this population. based on the above arguments and theories, we hypothesize that perceived stress is negatively associated with the level of work engagement, being mediated by cognitive-perceived dysfunctions. thus, the present study was conducted with the aim of assessing the relationship among perceived stress, cognitive complaints and work engagement among public employees from córdoba, argentina. method subjects in this cross-sectional study, self-report questionnaires were administered to a total of 286 public employees from córdoba (argentina) that participated in one of the two editions of a short-term voice training course in 2018, conducted by the school of speech and language at the national university of córdoba in collaboration with government of the province of córdoba, argentina. 240 participants returned the questionnaires after the training course (questionnaire return rate: 83.91%). the majority of participants in the sample were women (86%). sixty-seven percent were in couple (married or living with a partner). most of the sample (96%) reported an education of 12 years or more. eighty percent of the subjects did not report medical diseases. participants’ occupational characteristics (occupation, hours/day, years of service and working shift) are summarized in table 1. table 1 demographic characteristics of 240 public employees from córdoba (argentina, year 2018) variable n % age, m (se) = 43.18 (0.59) 24-36 71 29.58 37-49 105 43.75 50-63 63 26.25 sex women 206 85.83 men 34 14.16 educational level < 12 years of instruction 9 3.75 ≥ 12 years of instruction 231 96.25 occupation teaching work 172 71.66 administrative work 57 23.75 other 11 4.58 miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 15 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable n % hours/day ≤ 4 34 14.17 5-9 179 74.58 10-14 26 10.83 ≥ 15 0 0.00 years of service ≤ 4 35 14.58 5-9 42 17.50 10-14 42 17.50 15-19 37 15.42 20-24 33 13.75 25-29 27 11.25 ≥ 30 24 10.00 working shift morning 105 43.75 evening 52 21.66 morning-evening 52 21.66 night 3 1.25 rotating 28 11.66 marital status single 79 32.92 in couple 161 67.08 medical disease no 193 80.42 yes 47 19.58 perceived stress category low 54 22.50 moderate 115 47.92 high 71 29.58 instruments engagement was assessed by using the spanish version of utrecht work engagement scale (uwes) (spontón et al., 2012). this version consists of 17 items grouped into three subscales, as revealed by the factor analysis: “vigour” (items 1, 4, 8, 12, 15, 17; e.g.: “at my work i always persevere, even when things do not go well”), “dedication” (items 2, 5, 7, 10, 13; e.g.: “i find the work that i do full of meaning and purpose”), and “absorption” (items 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16; e.g.: “when i am working, i forget everything else around me”). each item was rated on a 7point likert´s scale (0 to 6, where 0 indicates never and 6 corresponds to everyday). scores were transformed on a scale ranging from 0 to 102, where higher scores indicate higher work engagement. previous studies have tested the psychometric properties of the uwes, showing its good construct validity and reliability (schaufeli, salanova, gonzález-romá, & bakker, 2002; spontón et al., 2012). in this study, cronbach’s coefficient α were calculated to assess internal consistency reliability, showing acceptable values ranging from .82 to .94 (table 2). stress, cognition, and engagement 16 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive complaints two self-report questionnaires were applied. first, participants responded to a spanish modified version of memory failures of everyday (mfe) questionnaire, which explores subjective memory complaints and related cognitive processes, such as attention, perceptual recognition, and language (lozoya-delgado, de león ruizsánchez, & pedrero-perez, 2012). the spanish version of mfe consists of 30 items (e.g.: “forgetting important details of what happened to you the day before” and “having difficulty picking up a new skill”) and was designed in a 5-point likert's scale (0 to 4, where 0 indicates never and 4 corresponds to always). psychometric analyses of this questionnaire showed it is unifactorial and reliable (garcía martínez & sánchez cánovas, 1994). in addition, the executive complaint questionnaire (ecq) was used (mías, 2010). this questionnaire explores the subjective complaints of executive functions. to respond the questionnaire, the subject must judge to what extent a series of behaviours of daily life concerning mental functioning in general occur. the questionnaire has 15 items divided into five subscales that assess the presence of cognitive, behavioural and emotional symptoms related to the functioning of the prefrontal cortex. each item was rated on a 5-point likert´s scale (0 to 4, where 0 indicates never and 4 corresponds to always). the original factor analysis showed the following subscales: “attention and immediate memory” (items 1, 6 and 11; e.g.: “you find it difficult to recall messages after a few minutes”), “initiative and scheduling” (items 2, 7 and 12; e.g.: “you need to be pushed into action to start some activity off”), “behavioural flexibility” (items 3, 8 and 13; e.g.: “you find it difficult to adapt to new situations”), “apathy and decision” (items 4, 9 and 14; e.g.: “you find it difficult to take an interest in new things”), and “inhibitory control” (items 5, 10 and 15; e.g.: “your mood might abruptly and remarkably change”). scores of each subscale are made up by the sum of the three corresponding items divided by four, with values ranging from 0 to 4 (higher scores indicate higher degree of executive complaints). both questionnaires have recently been validated in the general spanish-speaking population showing adequate psychometric properties (miranda, rivadero, serra, & soria, 2019; lozoya-delgado et al., 2012). perceived stress the spanish version of perceived stress scale (pss-10) was used (campo-arias, bustos-leiton, & romerochaparro, 2009). this 10 item self-report scale evaluates the level of perceived stress during the last month (e.g.: “in the last month, how often have you been/felt unable to control the important things in your life?” and “in the last month, how often have you been/felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?”). the items are rated on a 5-point likert’s scale (0 to 4, where 0 indicates never and 4 corresponds to very frequently). scores of items 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 13 are reversed. higher scores correspond to higher perceived stress. internal consistency (α) for the four scales and subscales are presented in table 2. the α for pss-10, mfe-30, uwes, ecq were found to be .78, .95, .94, .90, respectively, indicating satisfactory results (tavakol & dennick, 2011). regarding uwes subscales, “vigour”, “dedication” and “absorption” revealed being adequate. acceptable values were found for the majority of ecq-subscales, except for “inhibitory control” (α = .58). miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 17 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 internal consistency reliability of the measuring instruments instrument cronbach’s α number of items pss-10 .78 10 mfe-30 .95 30 uwes .94 17 vigour .85 6 dedication .91 5 absorption .82 6 ecq .90 15 attention and immediate memory .79 3 initiative and scheduling .74 3 behavioural flexibility .71 3 apathy and decision .60 3 inhibitory control .58 3 this research was in accordance with declaration of helsinki and current legislation, being approved by the corresponding ethics committee of the national university of córdoba (registration: repis-3450 córdoba). for all participants who chose to enrol in the study, informed consent was obtained, and their responses were confidential and anonymous. statistical analysis all statistical analyses were performed using the infostat software (version 2012, infostat group, argentina), except for the internal consistency analysis that was performed by ibm spss statistics (version 22.0; ibm inc., usa). p values below .05 were considered significant (p < .05). the reliability related to internal consistency was measured by α coefficient. descriptive statistics (mean, standard error, median and range) were calculated with all variables; percentage of sex category was also described. analysis of variance (anova, followed by tukey test) and student's t test were used to estimate differences among sociodemographic and occupational groups (table 1), as well as perceived stress groups. based on the approach of othman, ahmad, el morr, and ritvo (2019), participants were divided into three categories according to their pss sum scores: low stress (from 0-13), moderate stress (from 14-26), and high stress (from 27-40). the path coefficient analysis method was used to identify the possible causal explanations of the correlations observed between engagement (response variable) and cognitive complaints and perceived stress (predictors) (balzarini et al., 2015; valencia-ramírez & ligarreto-moreno, 2012). in other words, this method allows to decompose the correlation between a variable x and the final product (y), in a "direct" path of x over y and in "indirect" path of x over y, which are made effective through the relationship of x with other components of y (z, w, etc.) (di rienzo et al., 2016). the following variables were considered as component x: executive complaints (“attention and immediate memory”, “initiative and scheduling”, “behavioural flexibility”, “apathy and decision”, and “inhibitory control”), memory complaints, and perceived stress. the following variables were considered as component y: overall engagement, vigour, absorption and dedication. multiple logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the adjusted odds ratio (aor) of each of the executive complaint according to perstress, cognition, and engagement 18 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ceived stress, comparing the high-stressed employees with the low and moderate perceived stress groups as the reference category and simultaneously controlling for age, sex, educational level, and medical disease. results descriptive statistics of questionnaires scores are presented in table 3. by comparing scores between groups according to demographic and occupational variables, significant differences using test t were only found for sex and medical disease. in this sense, women showed higher scores in pss-10 (15.23 vs. 12.47; p = .0026) and “vigour” subscale (27.88 vs. 24.71; p = .0011) than men. healthy subjects reported lower “apathy and decision” (0.88 vs. 1.14; p = .04) and “behavioural flexibility” (1.13 vs. 1.49; p = .003) scores. table 3 summary table of the mean, standard error, minimum, maximum and median values of questionnaires scores of 240 public employees from córdoba (argentina, year 2018) instrument m (se) min-max median pss-10 14.81 (0.32) 3-31 15 mfe-30 20.70 (1.56) 0-107 18 uwes 81.54 (1.10) 3-102 85 vigour 29.34 (0.37) 1-36 30 dedication 25.06 (0.36) 1-30 27 absorption 27.38 (0.43) 1-36 29 ecq 17.85 (0.57) 0-49 17 attention and immediate memory 1.32 (0.05) 0-3.67 1.33 initiative and scheduling 1.07 (0.05) 0-4 1 behavioural flexibility 1.20 (0.05) 0-3.67 1.33 apathy and decision 0.93 (0.04) 0-4 1 inhibitory control 1.42 (0.05) 0-4 1.33 when subjects were classified into stress groups based on perceived stress, levels of executive complaints were significantly higher in the high group, 24.22 (0.90), than in the low, 11.40 (1.00), and moderate, 16.90 (0.69), groups (figure 1 a). moreover, when analysing ecq domains, this significant difference was also present in the five subscales (figure 2). similarly, differences were found between groups in memory complaints: low group, 9.94 (2.87), moderate group, 18.48 (1.90), and high group, 34.74 (2.70), p < .0001 (figure 1 b). miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 19 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. overall scores of the executive complaints questionnaire (a) and the memory failures in everyday (b) by perceived stress groups (low n = 54; moderate n = 115; high n = 71). statistical analysis was performed using anova with tukey test. error bars represent the standard error of the mean. higher scores of ecq and mfe indicate a higher frequency of self-reported cognitive failures. ***p < .0001. figure 2. executive complaints questionnaire scores by perceived stress groups (low n = 54; moderate n = 115; high n = 71). statistical analysis was performed using anova with tukey test. error bars represent the standard error of the mean. higher scores indicate a higher frequency of self-reported executive failures. ***p < .0001. in addition, the group with higher perceived stress reported lower scores in engagement (figure 3). mean scores of overall uwes were 87.42 (2.28) for the low group, 81.78 (1.59) for the moderate group and 76.77 stress, cognition, and engagement 20 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (1.96) for the high group, being significantly different (p = .002). further, lower levels of “vigour” and “dedication”, but not “absorption”, were found in subjects with low and moderate perceived stress. figure 3. overall and domains scores of the utrecht work engagement scale by perceived stress groups (low n = 54; moderate n = 115; high n = 71). statistical analysis was performed using anova with tukey test. error bars represent the standard error of the mean. higher scores indicate a higher work engagement. **p < .001. ***p < .0001. on the other hand, it was found that perceived stress correlated significantly with “vigour” (path coefficient = -.42, p < .0001), “dedication” (path coefficient = -.39, p < .0001) and “absorption” (path coefficient = -.26, p < .001). these correlations have shown to be mainly determined by the correlation between these three occupational variables with “attention and immediate memory” (path coefficients = -.27, -.22, -.19, respectively) and “inhibitory control” (path coefficients = -.20, -.20, -.21, respectively). similarly, the correlation between engagement and perceived stress was significant (path coefficient = -.37, p < .0001). in this case, there was a greater participation of “attention and immediate memory” (path coefficient = -.24) and “inhibitory control” (path coefficient = -.22). the direct effect of stress was low (path coefficients between -.01 and -.05). when analysing the effects of cognitive complaints on work engagement variables, perceived stress was found to participate indirectly in the associations, showing negative correlations and explaining moderately the total effect. table 4 presents the estimates of path coefficients analysis. miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 21 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 path coefficients of direct and indirect effects of cognitive complaints and perceived stress on work engagement mediator variable models aim is bf ad ic mfe pss vigour (p < .0001; ci [33.83-40.02]) attention and immediate memory (aim) .29 -.16 .13 -.38 -.09 -.08 -.27 initiative and scheduling (is) -.10 .18 .16 .14 .13 .20 .15 behavioural flexibility (bf) .08 .09 -.11 -.10 -.08 -.10 -.08 apathy and decision (ad) -.18 -.23 -.26 .09 .07 .07 .07 inhibitory control (ic) -.04 -.05 -.05 -.04 -.18 -.21 -.20 memory failures in everyday (mfe) -.05 -.05 -.04 -.04 -.04 -.04 -.04 perceived stress scale (pss) -.14 -.14 -.14 -.15 -.13 -.16 -.05 total effect -.16 -.36 -.31 -.48 -.32 -.32 -.42 p-value n/s *** *** *** *** *** *** dedication (p < .0001; ci [28.93-34.45]) attention and immediate memory (aim) .18 -.06 .11 -.38 -.13 -.05 -.22 initiative and scheduling (is) -.04 .11 .10 .09 .08 .12 .10 behavioural flexibility (bf) .06 .08 -.04 -.03 -.03 -.04 -.03 apathy and decision (ad) -.19 -.23 -.26 .07 .06 .06 .06 inhibitory control (ic) -.06 -.07 -.07 -.06 -.18 -.21 -.20 memory failures in everyday (mfe) -.03 -.03 -.02 -.02 -.02 -.06 -.06 perceived stress scale (pss) -.12 -.11 -.12 -.12 -.10 -.13 -.03 total effect -.19 -.31 -.30 -.46 -.33 -.30 -.39 p-value * *** *** *** *** *** *** absorption (p < .0001; ci [29.87-37.10]) attention and immediate memory (aim) .35 -.16 .26 -.39 -.17 -.02 -.19 initiative and scheduling (is) -.10 .21 .20 .17 .16 .24 .18 behavioural flexibility (bf) .15 .18 -.11 -.10 -.08 -.10 -.08 apathy and decision (ad) -.19 -.24 -.27 .17 .13 .14 .14 inhibitory control (ic) -.08 -.08 -.09 -.08 -.19 -.21 -.21 memory failures in everyday (mfe) -.02 -.01 -.01 -.01 -.01 -.08 -.08 perceived stress scale (pss) -.10 -.10 -.10 -.10 -.09 -.11 -.01 total effect .01 -.20 -.13 -.35 -.24 -.15 -.26 p-value n/s * n/s *** ** n/s ** total engagement (p < .0001; ci [93.24-110.98]) attention and immediate memory (aim) .29 -.14 .18 -.41 -.14 -.05 -.24 initiative and scheduling (is) -.09 .18 .17 .14 .14 .20 .15 behavioural flexibility (bf) .10 .13 -.10 -.08 -.07 -.09 -.07 apathy and decision (ad) -.20 -.25 -.27 .12 .09 .10 .10 inhibitory control (ic) -.06 -.07 -.07 -.07 -.19 -.22 -.22 memory failures in everyday (mfe) -.03 -.03 -.03 -.03 -.02 -.07 -.06 perceived stress scale (pss) -.13 -.12 -.13 -.13 -.11 -.14 -.03 total effect -.11 -.30 -.25 -.45 -.31 -.27 -.37 p-value n/s *** *** *** *** ** *** note. direct effects in bold. ci = confidence interval. *p < .05. **p < .001. ***p < .0001. the aor for executive complaints according to perceived stress category are shown in table 5. these estimates were obtained from the multiple logistic regression model with low/moderate stress as the reference category and controlling for age, sex, educational level, and medical disease. as shown, the aor of executive stress, cognition, and engagement 22 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ complaints increased as perceived stress increased. when compared to the reference category, subjects with high perceived stress were 7.78 times more likely to report greater executive complaints (aor = 7.78, 95% ci [3.86, 15.69]. moreover, perceived stress associated positively with executive domains. high-stressed participants were significantly more likely to report complaints in “attention and immediate memory” (aor = 5.29, 95% ci [2.64, 10.63], “initiative and scheduling” (aor = 3.35, 95% ci [1.84, 6.11], “behavioural flexibility” (aor = 6.04, 95% ci [3.05, 11.98], “apathy and decision” (aor = 4.09, 95% ci [2.13, 7.85], and “inhibitory control” (aor = 3.09, 95% ci [1.68, 5.68]. table 5 adjusted odds ratios (aor) for executive complaints depending on perceived stress executive function domain aora 95% ci p attention and immediate memory 5.29 [2.64, 10.63] < .0001 initiative and scheduling 3.35 [1.84, 6.11] .0001 behavioural flexibility 6.04 [3.05, 11.98] < .0001 apathy and decision 4.09 [2.13, 7.85] < .0001 inhibitory control 3.09 [1.68, 5.68] .0003 overall executive complaints 7.78 [3.86, 15.69] < .0001 note. ci = confidence interval. aadjusted for age, sex, educational level, and medical disease. high-stressed employees compared with low/moderate-stressed ones (reference category). discussion the aim of this study was to assess the relationship among perceived stress, cognitive complaints and work engagement among public employees from córdoba, argentina. according to the study results, stressed workers showed lower work engagement and more cognitive complaints. first, regarding the relation between stress and cognitive complaints, our results are consistent with previous cross-sectional findings. oosterholt, maes, van der linden, verbraak, and kompier (2014) showed that stressed workers have more cognitive problems than non-stressed workers by evaluating cognitive performance using self-report questionnaires and neuropsychological tests. accordingly, gavelin, boraxbekk, stenlund, järvholm, and neely (2015) showed a direct correlation among stress and cognitive impairments, especially in executive, attentional, and mnesic domains. this might be explained by the deleterious effect that stress-related hormones have on the prefrontal system and the medial temporal lobe (alderson & novack, 2002; lupien & lepage, 2001; öhman, nordin, bergdahl, slunga birgander, & stigsdotter neely, 2007). executive impairments might be due to changes in the employees’ prefrontal system (öhman et al., 2007), for it is involved in cognitive processes such as “attention and immediate memory”, “initiative and scheduling”, “behavioural flexibility”, “apathy and decision”, and “inhibitory control”. in the same vein, chronic stress remodels hippocampus neural architecture, leading to memory impairments (mcewen, nasca, & gray, 2016). moreover, negative associations were observed between work engagement and cognitive complaints, suggesting that cognitive difficulties have an impact on engagement. all the theories proposed to explain engagement define it as a multidimensional concept (eldor & vigoda-gadot, 2017). among the most important theoretical models is the one proposed by rothbard (2001), which theorizes that two critical components are involved in miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 23 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ engagement: attention and absorption. both components are determined by the employees’ cognitive status, since subjects require cognitive energy to be deeply engrossed and not easily distracted, to ignore distractors, concentrate, and inhibit behaviour. subsequently, rich et al. (2010) propose a three-dimensional model, describing physical, based on the theory of brown and leigh (1996), and emotional, based on russell and barrett (1999), components in addition to the cognitive components. the three-dimension approach used in this study, proposed by schaufeli and bakker (2010), suggests that engaged workers require cognitive energy to invest in their work practice. we detected through path analysis that the effect of cognitive complaints on engagement was specifically mediated by concerns about “attention and immediate memory” and “inhibitory control”. in this regard, barbe et al. (2018) found that perceived stress and subjective cognitive complaints were associated with lower work performance. what is more, cognitive impairments may affect work safety (fisher, chaffee, tetrick, davalos, & potter, 2017). in accordance with other study, women reported higher levels of stress, which could be due to the presence of more stressful life events (cohen & janicki‐deverts, 2012). in addition, there exist evidence supporting the fact that workers with cognitive difficulties show less vigour and dedication (fisher et al., 2017). the compromise of resources in stressed workers has an impact on cognitive abilities during work performance (ford, cerasoli, higgins, & decesare, 2011). this might explain the lack of engagement in employees who report cognitive complaints, since cognition is essential to learn and develop work-related skills (salthouse, 2012). in line with our results showing that executive functioning is associated with low work engagement, fisher et al. (2017) suggested that poor inhibitory control affects learning processes by draining already limited resources. moreover, the link between stress and engagement might be modulated by the cognitive status (deligkaris, panagopoulou, montgomery, & masoura, 2014), which was also demonstrated by our results through the path analysis: concerns in “inhibitory control” and “attention and memory” explained the indirect effect of perceived stress on work engagement. on the other hand, the results of this study indicated a negative association between perceived stress and engagement. stressed individuals showed lower “vigour” and “dedication”. this finding is in line with self-regulatory, effort-recovery, and conservation of resources theories (barber, grawitch, & munz, 2013; hobfoll, 1989). in this sense, chronic stress leads to poor self-regulation of resources needed for work engagement maintenance. therefore, employees with higher stress levels undergo lower energy levels and are less enthusiastic about work related tasks. in consequence, work performance is compromised (guerrero & puerto barrios, 2007). finally, similar internal consistency values to those reported previously were recorded in this investigation for all the self-report questionnaires used (gonzález-ramírez, rodríguez-ayán, & hernández, 2013; lozoya-delgado et al., 2012; rodríguez montalbán, martínez-lugo, & sánchez-cardona, 2014). some limitations of our study should be addressed. first, although we had adjusted for a variety of individual characteristics and used different statistical approaches, the cross-sectional nature limits the inference on causality among variables (rothman & greenland, 2005). in spite of having used path analysis to assess our hypothesized model to investigate whether data were consistent with causal links between outcome measures and predictors, cause-and-effect relationship cannot be established. thus, the present findings contribute to available evidence, and open new questions for further research using longitudinal designs. second, since the sample size may be considered a limitation, we suggest conducting studies with larger samples. third, 85% of the participants were women, a higher sex ratio than the reported in argentina (51.33% of women) (national institute of statistics and censuses, 2010). however, it should be noted that there is a predominance of women stress, cognition, and engagement 24 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the education field (ferreira et al., 2010), which indicates that the study sample is representative of that population, justifying the scope of this study. fourth, concerning the sample selection, participants were recruited from a voice-training course, which may have influenced the composition and characteristics of the sample, limiting generalizability (giannini, latorre, fischer, ghirardi, & ferreira, 2015). results discussed in this article allow a better understanding of mental health processes related to work engagement. briefly, given the association between stress, cognition, and work engagement, it is important to consider these factors to foster workers’ health and work productivity. neuropsychological difficulties might affect the cognitive resources necessary to perform the tasks and functions required at the workplace. therefore, from a paradigm based on the conservation of resources theory, policies and interventions should be oriented towards the prevention of stress, the identification of cognitive and mental complaints, and the promotion of engagement. considering the results published by knight, patterson, and dawson (2017), the creation of labour resources, creation of personal resources, training for leadership and health promotion are common interventions to promote work engagement. thus, future investigations should be oriented towards the evaluation of the impact of these interventions in different work environments. ethical approval this study was approved by the corresponding ethics committee of the national university of córdoba (registration: repis-3450 córdoba). all procedures performed were in accordance with the helsinki declaration. competing interests the authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. funding arm was supported by phd fellowships of secretaría de ciencia y tecnología, universidad nacional de córdoba. lr was supported by consejo interuniversitario, ministerio de educación de la nación argentina. jab was supported by instituto nacional del cáncer, ministerio de salud de la nación argentina. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge maría a. martinez thompson, mariel a. serra, marisa garcía and amelia hernández catan for their contributions to this research study. we give special thanks to all subjects for participating in the study, as well as luis robles for facilitating sample collection. references alderson, a. l., & novack, t. a. 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(2017). do work beliefs moderate the relationship between work interruptions, wellbeing and psychosomatic symptoms? europe’s journal of psychology, 13(2), 214-230. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1169 about the authors agustín ramiro miranda holds a professional degree in medicine and is a ph.d. student in health sciences at the national university of córdoba, argentina. he is assistant professor at faculty of medical sciences in the same university. the focus of his research is on epidemiological and methodological issues in neuropsychological research. luisina rivadero is a speech and language therapist and has a research fellowship of the consejo interuniversitario nacional, argentina. she is professor at faculty of medical sciences, national university of córdoba. the focus of her research is on epidemiological and methodological issues in neuropsychological research. jorge ángel bruera holds a professional degree in psychology and is a ph.d. student in psychology at the national university of córdoba, argentina. he is professor at faculty of psychology in the same university. he has a fellowship of the stress, cognition, and engagement 30 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 https://doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev-psych-120710-100328 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fjob.248 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fjob.595 https://doi.org/10.1023%2fa%3a1015630930326 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0003-066x.55.1.5 https://doi.org/10.5116%2fijme.4dfb.8dfd https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v13i2.1169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ iberoamerican association of postgraduate universities at the university of salamanca, spain. the focus of his research is on psychological epidemiology. virginia villarreal speech and language therapist, professor at faculty of medical sciences, national university of córdoba. her research interests focus on occupational health. laura yhicel bernio speech and language therapist. her research interests focus on occupational health. lorena de los ángeles baydas speech and language therapist, professor at faculty of medical sciences, national university of córdoba. her research interests focus on occupational health. mónica liliana brizuela is a ph.d. student in health sciences at the national university of córdoba, argentina. she is professor at faculty of medical sciences in the same university. her research interests focus on occupational health, public health and epidemiology. silvana valeria serra is a full professor at faculty of medical sciences, national university of córdoba. she has a ph.d. in speech and language. one of her research interests concerns the study of the health factors influencing cognitive processes in workers. miranda, rivadero, bruera et al. 31 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 12–31 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1832 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ stress, cognition, and engagement (introduction) method subjects instruments statistical analysis results discussion (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments references about the authors psychometric evaluation of the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale (poss) and further construct validation research reports psychometric evaluation of the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale (poss) and further construct validation bojana bodroža 1 , chris fullwood 2 , bojana m. dinić 1 [1] department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of novi sad, novi sad, serbia. [2] college of psychology, birmingham city university, birmingham, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 received: 2024-09-02 • accepted: 2025-06-21 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: johannes karl, stanford university, stanford, ca, usa corresponding author: bojana bodroža, faculty of philosophy, department of psychology, dr zorana djindjica 2, 21000 novi sad, serbia. tel: 00381 64 6355721. e-mail: bojana.bodroza@ff.uns.ac.rs supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the presentation of self scale (poss) was designed to measure four aspects of online self-presentation behaviour: ideal self, multiple selves, consistent self, and online presentation preference. very few scales have been developed to measure online-self presentation attitudes and behaviour in serbia. thus, there is a need to validate a serbian language version of the poss to support further investigation of an increasingly ubiquitous aspect of the daily lives of serbian people. this study aimed to examine psychometric properties of the poss in the serbian context i.e., its reliability, factor validity, and construct validity. the study was conducted on a sample of 360 adults. the four-factor model was confirmed, and it is invariant across genders. the ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation preference scales converge and show a similar pattern of relationships with validity variables, with ideal self and multiple selves showing high profile similarity. these three scales are associated with less sensitivity to the expressive behaviour of others, greater fear of negative evaluation, social media addiction, anxiety, lower self-esteem, and less loneliness. on the other hand, the consistent self-scale is generally unrelated to the other poss scales and correlates with better sensitivity to the expressive behaviours of others, less fear of negative evaluation, but greater loneliness. the poss proved to be useful for examining selfpresentation behaviours in the serbian cultural context. the study revealed two main self-presentational patterns: one that is inauthentic and facilitated by the features of online communication and the other that is authentic and related to better social sensitivity. keywords self-presentation, impression management, online presentation, validity, social media communicating online differs from face-to-face communication in a variety of meaningful ways. while not all online communication platforms should be considered equal, there are numerous features, or affordances, broadly associated with internet-mediated forms of communication that have been shown to influence self-disclosure and self-presentation behaviour (schlosser, 2020). in some instances, these affordances (e.g., perceived anonymity) may encourage deeper and broader self-disclosures (clark-gordon et al., 2019), while other features (e.g., magnified audience feedback) may lead to more idealised self-presentation (manago et al., 2008). there has been considerable debate and academic interest in which, if any, of these features might facilitate inauthentic self-presentation, and the extent to which people present their ‘true’ selves while they are online (fullwood, 2019; schlosser, 2020). such knowledge is not only of theoretical this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15483&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4165-0678 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7714-6783 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5492-2188 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ interest but may also be applied to understanding behaviour in various real-world contexts where it is important to gather an accurate impression of another person, for example during online dating or when using online platforms as screening and selection tools during job recruitment. roulin and levashina (2019) found that linkedin was an effective tool for accurately assessing an applicant’s skills, personality and cognitive ability. the professional nature of the site, as well as the potential for one’s networks to be tied to existing offline contacts, might encourage users to present themselves authentically (haimson et al., 2021). online dating, on the other hand, may be associated with an increased potential for inauthentic self-presentation, and this may in part be explained by increased competition and motivation to attract other daters (peng, 2020). thus, there is a complex nexus between the affordances the medium offers to users and the individual’s motivations for using the medium in determining self-presentation behaviour. self-presentation may be seen as “the goal-directed activity of controlling information to influence the impressions formed by an audience about the self” (schlenker & wowra, 2003, p. 871). because there are numerous personal, material, occupational and social rewards associated with leaving others with desired impressions, self-presentation is usually a daily concern for most people (leary & allen, 2011). with the proliferation of information and communication technologies over the past few decades, as well as an increase in the amount of time people are spending online, self-presentation concerns have arguably become more pervasive, with the potential to reach and influence a much wid­ er audience than previously possible (fullwood, 2019). understanding how different internet-mediated communication tools affect how we relate to and present ourselves to others is thus a topic of significant psychological interest. while observing people’s online conduct may provide a window into their self-presentation behaviour, many individuals prefer to remain anonymous online (kang et al., 2013), and there are significant ethical and methodological challenges for researchers associated with linking online behaviour to psychological constructs of interest (kraut et al., 2004). thus, there is a need to establish reliable and valid self-report measures which tap into online self-presentation behaviours and attitudes. one such measure is the presentation of online self scale (poss) (fullwood et al., 2016). the development of the poss was underpinned by walther’s (1996) and walther and parks (2002) hyperpersonal theory of computer-mediated communication and goffman’s (1959) notion of the performed self. the basic premise of goffman’s self-presentation theory is that people are highly motivated to control the impressions others form of them and project desirable self-im­ ages. using a dramaturgical analogy, goffman proposed that, as social actors, we are attuned to our audiences and adjust our performance accordingly, and this often involves accentuating positive aspects of the self while suppressing more negative aspects. hyperpersonal theory (walther, 1996; walther & parks, 2002) argues that technology-mediated forms of communication provide individuals with numerous unique affordances, which permit greater control over the information they present to others, potentially resulting in more optimal forms of self-presentation. these affordances, though not necessarily associated with all internet-mediated communication platforms, include anonymity (others do not know who i am, so i can be who i want to be), invisibility (others cannot see me, so i do not have to worry about how i come across), asynchronicity (as some interactions are not in real-time, i have more time to think about what i am saying), and the reallocation of cognitive resources (with fewer communication cues to attend to, i can put all my efforts into presenting myself more optimally). as an example, when individuals are anonymous, they may feel less inhibited about disclosing certain types of information (e.g., private or personal) that they might find more difficult revealing face-to-face. indeed, lapidot-lefler and barak (2015) found that participants disclosed more emotion during dyadic interactions when they were anonymous (i.e., using random aliases over real names) and invisible to their chat partner. conversely, there is also evidence that social media users are more likely to communicate in a manner that reflects their actual rather than idealised personality traits when they are identifiable (back et al., 2010). the poss measures the degree to which individuals perceive their online self-presentation to be idealised (ideal self); the extent to which we show different sides of ourselves across multiple online platforms (multiple selves); the degree to which online and offline self-presentations are similar (consistent self); and an individual’s preference for presenting the self online over face-to-face (online presentation preference). to date, the poss has been mostly tested in the uk (fullwood et al., 2016; fullwood et al., 2020; wilson et al., 2024), the usa (fullwood et al., 2020; mann & blumberg, 2022), and australia (fullwood et al., 2020). however, when applied to adults in ireland, results showed that one item (15) should be excluded due to low factor loading and that the optimal is the 3-factor solution with factors adaptable self, authentic self, and freedom of self online (strimbu et al., 2021). furthermore, its use in non-english speaking countries bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 235 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ has revealed some issues with factor structure. for example, in a turkish sample in which the multiple selves scale was not used, model fit testing suggested the exclusion of three items in order to achieve a good model fit (güler et al., 2022). when used on an indonesian sample, three items were deleted due to low item-total correlation (sari & sa’id, 2023), but no test of factor analysis was provided. factor structure was not tested in other studies using indonesian samples (candra et al., 2023; sa’diyah & fauziyah, 2021). in addition, no test of factor structure was provided in a russian sample (rubtsova et al., 2021). in this study, we explore the construct validity of the poss in a sample of serbian social networks users. according to datareportal’s ‘digital in serbia’ 2024 report, approximately 90% of the serbian population were online at the start of 2024, with around 5 million, or 70.3%, of the total population using social media (kemp, 2024). the current internet penetration rate in serbia represents a 20% increase from january 2020 (kemp, 2024). in comparison, in the uk around 98% of the population were using the internet in 2024, but this was only a 3% increase from 2020 (statista, 2024). alongside the recent rapid growth in internet use in serbia, there has been increasing academic interest in how being online affects the self-presentation behaviour of serbian people. goljović (2024) for example investigated the link between smartphone addiction and perfectionist self-presentation behaviour. yet while numerous measures of general self-presentation behaviour have been adapted for the serbian context (e.g., goljović, 2024; simunović & žeželj, 2023), there exist few measures in the serbian language which focus on online-specific behaviour. notable exceptions include majstorović et al.’s (2024) adaptation of the self-presentation on facebook questionnaire (michikyan et al., 2015) and jovanović et al.’s (2023) psycho-social aspects of facebook use (psafu) scale, which includes a self-presentation subscale. the use and application of these scales, however, are more limited in the online context as they focus exclusively on facebook and are thus unsuitable for investigating broader self-presentation attitudes and behaviour across varied technology-mediated communication platforms. previous research has uncovered several associations between the four subscales of the poss and various theoret­ ically related psychological constructs and individual difference factors, supporting the measure’s construct validity. ideal self has been found to be more pronounced among female rather than male adolescents (candra et al., 2023), which may be a consequence of greater pressure for female sexual objectification and heightened social comparison with other females (manago et al., 2008). ideal self is also associated with lower self-concept clarity (fullwood et al., 2016; fullwood et al., 2020), being younger, and more socially anxious (fullwood et al., 2020). these traits are often linked to lower levels of self-esteem (campbell, 1990; fatima et al., 2017; meier et al., 2011) and thus idealised online self-presentation may be a compensatory behaviour to improve self-worth (fullwood et al., 2016). collectively, these findings support the poor-gets-richer hypothesis (or social compensation model), which argues that individuals may make use of the affordances of online communication to offset any social deficits, for example poorer social networks, experienced in their offline lives (kraut et al., 2002; mckenna & bargh, 1998). indeed, mehdizadeh (2010) found that people with lower self-esteem produced more self-promotional content on their social media profiles. multiple selves is associated with lower levels of self-concept clarity (fullwood et al., 2016; fullwood et al., 2020). low self-concept clarity is associated with identity uncertainty, and thus more varied self-presentation behaviours may reflect a level of doubt about how to present the self to others. alternatively, this behaviour may represent a form of self-exploration to help resolve an identity crisis (fullwood et al., 2016). using an adapted version of the poss (possa, strimbu et al., 2021), nitschinsk et al. (2022) found that adaptable self-presentation, which is conceptually similar to multiple selves, was associated with machiavellianism and psychopathy, suggesting that it might also be understood as a manipulative strategy. multiple selves is also associated with engaging in less frequent self-monitoring and having lower self-esteem (fullwood et al., 2020). low self-monitors manifest more authentic self-presentation and are less likely to adjust their self-presentation based on audience reactions (snyder, 1987). it may be that the affordances of online communication channels permit low self-monitors to behave more spontaneously and with less inhibition. those with lower self-esteem, however, may cater their self-presentation styles to different audiences in a bid for approval (fullwood et al., 2020). wilson et al. (2024) also found a link between multiple selves and self-oriented perfectionism. as with the ideal self, perfectionists may value the online world for providing them the opportunity to present a more perfect version of the self to others, while simultaneously masking their imperfections (wilson et al., 2024). consistent self has been associated with having higher self-esteem, engaging with social media less often (mann & blumberg, 2022), better wellbeing (güler et al., 2022) and higher self-concept clarity (fullwood et al., 2016; fullwood et validation of the serbian adaptation of poss 236 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2020). overall, these findings suggest that those with more positive self-regard are more likely to present a version of the self online which is analogous with their offline self-presentation. conversely, online presentation preference has been associated with having poorer wellbeing (güler et al., 2022), lower self-concept clarity (fullwood et al., 2016), lower self-esteem and higher social anxiety (fullwood et al., 2020), once more supporting the social compensation model (kraut et al., 2002; mckenna & bargh, 1998). additionally, high self-monitors display a preference for communicating offline, whereas low self-monitors prefer online interaction (fullwood et al., 2020). it is not surprising that high self-monitors prefer to communicate with others offline, as they may feel that this allows them to more easily read the reactions of their audience, for example because they have access to a greater variety of communication cues (e.g., non-verbal communication), which may be missing or attenuated in many online platforms. so far, self-presentation, as measured by poss, has not been studied in relation to social anxiety, social media addiction or loneliness — widely-researched negative correlates of social media use in general. however, a number of studies have investigated these relationships using other measures of self-presentation. bodroža and jovanović (2016) showed that, across a wide range of social media behaviours, social anxiety was most strongly related to self-presenta­ tional behavioural patterns, specifically efforts to present oneself in a positive or idealized fashion. additionally, the more individuals self-presented on social media, the more they exhibited problematic or addictive patterns of social media use. zahra and muhammad (2024) confirmed that inauthentic self-presentation is indeed related to social anxiety, while monacis et al. (2021) provided evidence that presenting a more idealised version of the self on social media fuels addiction, perhaps because it makes people feel good about themselves. based on these findings, it seems that inauthentic (whether idealized or multiple) self-presentation could be understood as a defensive strategy to protect one’s sense of self-worth, whereby presenting a polished version of the self, individuals are shielding themselves against criticism. however, such a defence may come at the price of social media addiction. regarding self-presentation in relation to social functioning and adaptation, studies have shown that authentic and honest self-presentation could lead to better perceived social support, which could further benefit an individual’s well-being (gao et al., 2023; kim & lee, 2011; wang et al., 2019). studies have also shown that people who score higher on loneliness use social media to compensate for what they lack from offline relationships (see o’day & heimberg, 2021). based on all these findings, we could indirectly infer that authentic and consistent online-offline self-presentation would be related to less loneliness, but also that lonely individuals would prefer online presentation. however, the direct relationship between the different forms of self-presentation and loneliness remains unaddressed and is yet to be studied. the aim of this study was to explore psychometric characteristics of the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale (poss). more precisely, the originally proposed four-factor model was tested via confirmatory factor analysis, as well as gender invariance in order to ensure that the items have the same meaning across genders. based on previous research findings, we make a number of predictions for potential associations between the four poss subscales and numerous theoretically related variables: h1: ideal self: we expect ideal self to be associated with, a) being female (candra et al., 2023), b) younger (fullwood et al., 2020), c) greater social anxiety (zahra & muhammad, 2024), and d) social media addiction (monacis et al., 2021). h2: multiple selves: we expect multiple selves to be associated with, a) lower self-monitoring (fullwood et al., 2020), b) lower self-esteem (fullwood et al., 2020), and c) social media addiction (monacis et al., 2021). h3: consistent self: we expect consistent self to be associated with, a) higher self-esteem (güler et al., 2022; mann & blumberg, 2022), and b) higher self-monitoring (fullwood et al., 2020). h4: online presentation preference: we expect online presentation preference to be associated with, a) lower selfmonitoring (fullwood et al., 2020), b) lower self-esteem (fullwood et al., 2020), and c) social media addiction (monacis et al., 2021). while no previous literature has tested relationships between poss subscales and loneliness, it was shown that authentic and consistent online-offline self-presentation could benefit social functioning (gao et al., 2023; kim & lee, 2011; wang et al., 2019). additionally, people who score higher on loneliness have been consistently shown to use social media to address unfulfilled needs from their face-to-face relationships (see o’day & heimberg, 2021), which might suggest that communication in an online setting could be especially attractive for them. based on this, we would expect loneliness to positively correlate with online presentation preference (h4d) and negatively to consistent self (h3c). bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 237 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ furthermore, while no previous literature is available to guide specific predictions relating to the poss subscales and generalised anxiety, muzaffar et al. (2018) found an association with increased and repetitive facebook behaviour, thus we deemed its inclusion warranted. method sample the sample comprised 360 adults (61.2% identified as women) from the serbian general population active online, aged 18 – 56 (m = 22.60, sd = 6.01). the majority of participants were students (70.4%), with 18% having finished elementary or high school, 1.9% finishing college, and 9.1% having a university bachelor’s or master’s degree. data were collected online as a part of students’ pre-exam activities. each student collected data (i.e., sent a link to the instruments) from 5 participants, ensuring sex and age balance. informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. the study was approved by the ethics committee for psychological research, faculty of philosophy in novi sad. instruments the presentation of online self scale (poss; fullwood et al., 2016) comprises 21 items with a 5-point response scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), measuring 4 aspects of online self-presentation behaviour: ideal self (9 items), multiple selves (5 items), consistent self (4 items), and online presentation preference (3 items). the back-translation method was used to ensure the correct meaning of the scale (hedrih, 2020). in the first instance, after the preparation and contacting the author of the scale, bd translated the poss from english to serbian. this was followed by a back-translation of the scale to english by bb, and a comparison between the original and back-translated scale by the author of the scale, cf. then this version was evaluated by 50 psychology students to check understandability, interpretation, and cultural relevance of the translation. in line with this cognitive debriefing, some terms were rephrased and updated to be more appropriate to serbian language (e.g., instead of “real life”, we used “who i really am”, instead of “offline”, we used “in person”). the proposed changes were again reviewed by cf and proofread. the final version of the serbian adaptation can be seen in the appendix. revised self-monitoring scale (lennox & wolfe, 1984). this scale consists of thirteen 6-point scale items (from ‘0 = certainly, always false’ to ‘5 = certainly, always true’) measuring ability to modify self-presentation (7 items) or sensitivity to expressive behaviour of others (6 items). as croatian and serbian languages are considered different national variants and official registers of the pluricentric serbo-croatian language (šipka, 2019), we used the croatian translation of the scale (burušić, 2003) with slight wording modifications. the calculated model fit for proposed 2-factor structure and fit indices were good (dwlsχ2(64) = 101.10, cfi = .98, tli = .97, rmsea = .04, 90% ci [.02, .06], srmr = .06) and significantly better than one-factor solution (δχ2(1) = 110.11, p < .001). correlation between factors was .58. brief fear of negative evaluation scale (brief-fne: leary, 1983, for serbian adaptation see ranđelović & želeskov đorić, 2017). this scale consists of twelve 5-point scale items (from ‘1 = not at all characteristic of me’ to ‘5 = extremely characteristic of me’) measuring social anxiety. bergen social media addiction scale (bsmas; andreassen et al., 2012, for serbian adaptation see dinić et al., 2021). bsmas consists of six 5-point scale items (from ‘1 = very rarely’ to ‘5 = very often’), each referring to criteria for social media addiction. single-item self-esteem scale (robins et al., 2001; for serbian adaptation see dinić & branković, 2022). it consists of one item (“i have high self-esteem”) on a 7-point response scale (from ‘1 = not very true of me’ to ‘7 = very true of me’). short de jong gierveld loneliness scale (short djgls; de jong gierveld & van tilburg, 2006, for serbian adaptation see jovanović & žuljević, 2013). this scale comprises six binary items (yes/no) referring to emotional or social loneli­ ness. generalized anxiety disorder-7 (gad-7; spitzer et al., 2006, for serbian adaptation see rokvić, 2019). gad-7 consists of seven 4-point scale items (from ‘0 = not at all’ to ‘3 = nearly every day’) measuring symptoms of generalised anxiety disorders (gad) over the past two weeks. validation of the serbian adaptation of poss 238 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ descriptives and reliabilities for all used instruments are presented in table 1. table 1 construct validity correlations of the serbian adaptation of the presentation in online self scale (poss) scale/variable ideal self multiple selves consistent self online presentation preference m (sd) α ideal self 1 1.93 (0.72) .77 multiple selves .56** (0.14) 1 1.36 (0.56) .74 consistent self -.03 (0.62) -.14** (0.30) 1 3.45 (0.10) .65 online presentation preference .50** (0.25) .31** (0.25) .003 (0.78) 1 1.82 (0.73) .44 ability to modify self-presentation .09 .04 .03 -.11* 2.79 (0.91) .75 sensitivity to expressive behaviour of others -.03 -.10* .25** -.17** 3.54 (0.89) .79 fear of negative evaluation .25** .10* -.13* .25** 2.95 (0.86) .89 social media addiction .37** .19** -.03 .22** 2.51 (0.93) .79 self-esteem -.21** -.06 .04 -.29** 5.27 (1.56) loneliness -.17** -.06 .11* -.19** 2.30 (0.49) .69 general anxiety disorder .11* .08 -.07 .16** 1.31 (0.84) .91 age -.12* -.05 -.04 .05 22.60 (6.01) note. profile (dis)similarity d was in parentheses. *p < .05. **p < .01. data analysis the factor models were tested via confirmatory factor analysis. due to the violation of multivariate normality, a diagonally weighted least squares (dwls) estimator was used. model fit was evaluated via values ≥ .90 for comparative fit index (cfi) and tucker-lewis index (tli), as well as ≤ .08 for root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) and standardized root mean square residual (srmr), which refer to acceptable model fit (hu & bentler, 1999). for measurement invariance across genders, configural (equal factor structure), metric (equal loadings), and scalar invariance (equal thresholds) were tested. a difference in cfi (δcfi) ≤ .01 and a difference in rmsea (δrmsea) ≤ -.015 were considered indicative of nonsignificant differences between the models (cheung & rensvold, 2002). all models were tested in jasp 0.19.0 (jasp team, 2024). gender differences were tested via t-tests and cohen’s d was provided as an effect size measure. construct validity correlations were tested via pearson correlation coefficients. profile (dis)similarity between the poss scales, based on correlations with validity variables, was calculated using cronbach and gleser’s (1953) d statistic. lower d values indicate smaller distances and higher similarity. d could be interpreted in terms of cohen’s d as an effect size measure (small 0.2, medium 0.5, and large 0.8). the data is available at bodroža et al. (2025). the data for this study are part of a larger project and all data from the project are available at bodroža et al. (2025). the study was not preregistered. results confirmatory factor analysis the originally proposed 4-factor model had marginal model fit (dwlsχ2(183) = 513.50, p < .001, cfi = .88, tli = .86, rmsea = .07, 90% ci [.06, .08], srmr = .09). based on modification indices, only when residual correlations between items 4 and 3, and 4 and 2 were included, model fit was satisfactory (dwlsχ2(181) = 419.28, p < .001, cfi = .91, tli = .90, rmsea = .06, 90% ci [.05, .07], srmr = .08). however, since these items are from different scales and considering that item 4 emerged in both combinations, we deleted item 4 from the final solution. the final solution had good fit indices (dwlsχ2(164) = 312.51, p < .001, cfi = .94, tli = .93, rmsea = .05, 90% ci [.04, .06], srmr = .07). factor loadings ranged from .35 to .75 and correlations between factors from -.20 to .82 (figure 1). omegas were .74 (ideal self), .73 (multiple selves), .67 (consistent self), and .41 (online presentation preference). bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 239 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 model parameters for the 4-factor model of the serbian adaptation of the presentation in online self scale (poss) note. items were recoded before analysis. considering relatively high correlations between 3 factors (ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation prefer­ ence), we tested a hierarchical model with 4 first-order factors and one second-order factor consisting of the three first-order factors. this model had comparable cfi (δcfi = -.004) and rmsea (δrmsea = .002) fit indices to the 4-factor model (dwlsχ2(166) = 325.06, p < .001, cfi = .93, tli = .92, rmsea = .05, 90% ci [.04, -.06], srmr = .07), although δχ2(2) = 12.55 was significant at p < .002, but nonsignificant at p < .001 level. loadings on the first-order factors ranged from .35 to .74, while loadings on the second-order factor were high, .98, .76, and .80, respectively. correlation between the second-order factor and consistent self was -.15. we also tested the 2-factor model with items from the scales ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation preference merged into one factor and consistent self scale representing a separate factor and this solution showed worse fit indices compared to the hierarchical model, with δcfi = -.011, δrmsea = .003, and δχ2(3) = 28.8, p < .001 (dwlsχ2(169) = 353.86, p < .001, cfi = .92, tli = .91, rmsea = .06, 90% ci [.05, .06], srmr = .08). considering equally well fit indices of the 4-factor model and the hierarchical model, we decided to further examine the 4-factor model, as it allows us to compare our results with the results of previous studies. additionally, we tested a reduced, 3-factor model proposed by strimbu et al. (2021) but the model did not converge. measurement invariance across genders results of measurement invariance testing showed that there is scalar invariance between genders, considering that δcfi and δrmsea did not reach the thresholds for significantly worse model fit in scalar compared to the rest of the invariance levels (table 2). therefore, gender comparisons are justified. table 2 measurement invariance of the serbian adaptation of the presentation in online self scale (poss) model across genders level dwlsχ2(df) cfi tli rmsea 90% ci srmr δcfi δrmsea configural 433.63(328) .95 .95 .04 [.03, .05] .09 – – metric 476.74(344) .94 .94 .05[.04, .06] .09 .01 .003 scalar 492.92(360) .94 .94 .05[.04, .06] .09 .00 .001 note. all χ2s were significant at p < .001. validation of the serbian adaptation of poss 240 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ considering that scalar invariance had been achieved, gender differences were tested. the only significant and small differences were found in multiple selves, with men scoring higher than women (table 3). table 3 gender differences in the serbian adaptation of the presentation in online self scale (poss) scales men (n = 139) women (n = 221) gender comparisons poss scales m sd m sd t(358) d ideal self 1.98 0.68 1.89 0.73 1.12 0.12 multiple selves 1.44 0.59 1.30 0.52 2.37* 0.26 consistent self 3.44 1.01 3.46 0.92 -0.18 0.02 online presentation preference 1.87 0.77 1.78 0.70 1.09 0.12 *p < .05 construct validity correlations and alpha reliabilities considering the number of items per scale, alpha reliabilities for the poss scales were acceptable, except for online presentation preference (table 1). the poss scales ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation preference are positively related, whereas consistent self is only weakly negatively related to multiple selves (table 1). regarding the self-monitoring domains, the ability to modify self-presentation formed a negative relation with online presentation preference (supporting h4a), while sensitivity to expressive behaviour of others was related positively to the consistent self (supporting h3b) and negatively to multiple selves (supporting h2a) and online presentation preference (supporting h4a). fear of negative evaluation of others (social anxiety) correlated positively to ideal self (supporting h1c), multiple selves (no prediction made), and online presentation preference (no prediction made), and negatively to consistent self (no prediction made). social media addiction also correlated positively to ideal self (supporting h1d), multiple selves (supporting h2c), and online presentation preference (supporting h4c). lower self-esteem was related to ideal self (no prediction made) and online presentation preference (supporting h4b). loneliness was related to ideal self (no prediction made) and online presentation preference (supporting h4d), while hypothesized negative correlation with consistent self (h3c) was not observed. generalised anxiety disorder was positively related to ideal self (no prediction made) and online presentation preference (no prediction made), while consistent self had a positive correlation with loneliness (no prediction made). finally, younger individuals showed a preference for presenting the ideal self online (supporting h1b). profile (dis)similarity showed that differences in validity correlations (all presented in table 1, except age) were negligible between ideal self and multiple selves, small between online presentation preference on the one side and ideal self and multiple selves on the other, as well as between multiple selves and consistent self, while they were medium for comparison between consistent self on the one side and ideal self and online presentation preference on the other side. thus, ideal self and multiple selves showed high profile similarity1, while there are small to medium differences between the rest of the scales considering tested validity correlations. discussion the results of this study confirm the factor validity of the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale, after slightly adjusting item formulations and removing one item. the mean factor loading was .56, which is comparable 1) considering the results of profile similarity, we tested a hierarchical model with 4 first-order factors and a second-order factor consisting of the ideal self and multiple selves. the model fit was: dwlsχ2(165) = 324.31, p < .001, cfi = .93, tli = .92, rmsea = .05, 90% ci [.04, .06], srmr = .07, with δcfi = -.004 and δrmsea = .002 that showed no difference in comparison to 4-factor model (but δχ2(1) = 11.8 was significant at p < .001). however, the correlation between second-order factor and online presentation preference was high, .81, pointing, again, that second-order factor with online presentation preference included would be more appropriate. in addition, 3-factor model with merged items from ideal self and multiple selves showed worse mode fit: dwlsχ2(167) = 348.53, p < .001, cfi = .92, tli = .91, rmsea = .06, 90% ci [.05, .06], srmr = .08. bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 241 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to original research (.65 in fullwood et al., 2016). although in the original research the lowest loading was .43, in this study 2 items had loading below .40 (1 and 8), but still significant and above .33, which is the recommended cut-off (tabachnick & fidell, 2019). considering the number of items, it could be concluded that the scales showed adequate alpha and omega reliability, with alphas in line with previous research (fullwood et al., 2016, 2020). however, the alpha and omega of the scale online presentation preference is somewhat below acceptable level. this issue could partly be attributed to a low number of items (only 3). additional analysis suggested that items in this scale are somewhat difficult and had low variability, meaning that there is a stronger preference for online compared to offline communication in the sample. future studies should address this issue either by adding more items or by rephrasing the existing ones. intercorrelations of the factors suggest that three factors — ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation preference converge, whereas the consistent self is relatively independent. the alternative model with a second-order factor consisting of these three factors showed comparable model fit. however, the profile similarity index showed that only ideal self and multiple selves showed high similarity, while online presentation preference showed a somewhat distant profile of validity correlations. we should also note that model with a second-order factor consisting of ideal self and multiple selves showed a very high correlation between this second-order factor and online presentation preference. therefore, although correlations between latent factors can be considered as high, correlations based on average scores, which are usually used, showed the distinction between online presentation preference and the other two factors. analysis of the ideal self scale items reveals a strong emphasis on the possibility of being different, with only one item explicitly referencing an ideal version of the self. this suggests that the scale's core content may primarily revolve around divergence from the real self, potentially reflecting idealised self-presentation. consequently, the observed high convergence with the multiple selves scale is unsurprising. presenting multiple identities online can be a means of exploring diverse self-presentational possibilities, including idealised ones. however, this finding necessitates a more nuanced conceptual distinction within the ideal self scale. as previously noted, high to moderate correlations emerged between the ideal self, multiple selves, and online presentation preference scales, contrasting with the largely independent consistent self scale. this suggests the exis­ tence of two distinct patterns of online self-presentation. the first pattern, characterized by inauthenticity, involves variations in idealised or multiple identities that diverge significantly from the perceived real self. this pattern is often associated with a preference for online interactions. the second pattern is characterized by a more realistic online identity, converging with an individual's self-perception and offline presentation. however, the low negative correlation between these two broad patterns (or zero to low correlations between the three scales and consistent self) indicates that they are not mutually exclusive. most individuals likely engage in both types of online self-presentation, contingent upon the specific context and their goals. results showed that the proposed four-factor solution is invariant across genders, justifying further gender comparisons. inconsistently with h1a and previous research (candra et al., 2023), women did not self-present in a more idealistic manner compared to men. contrary to expectations, men preferred multiple self-presentations over different platforms more than women. it may be that, for the serbian men in this sample, presenting multiple selves is a useful strategy when flirting or seeking intimate partners online, and indeed these are behaviours more often practised by men (e.g., rice et al., 2015). this is consistent with the conclusion that multiple self could serve as a manipulative strategy, as it is closely related to socially aversive or dark traits (nitschinsk et al., 2022), which are generally higher in men (e.g., dinić et al., 2018). as this finding on gender differences in multiple self has not been found in previous research, this is however a tentative explanation, and we would recommend further investigation to shed light on this relationship. in line with previous findings (fullwood et al., 2020) and h1b, idealistic self-presentation was also characteristic of the younger population. as suggested by fullwood et al. (2020), it is likely that younger people may have a greater need to be liked by others. in addition, correlations with construct validity variables were meaningful and largely consistent with theoretical expectations and our hypotheses. individuals with an online presentation preference and those who engage in multiple online self-presentations tend to exhibit lower sensitivity to others’ expressive behaviours, therefore supporting h4a and h2a, however only online preference was also associated with an ability to modify self-presentation. consistent self on the other hand was positively associated with sensitivity to the expressive behaviour of others, supporting h3b. individuals who present idealised selves were more likely to fear negative evaluations by others, supporting h1c. validation of the serbian adaptation of poss 242 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, individuals who prefer online, idealised and multiple self-presentation demonstrate a more addictive pattern of social media use, supporting h1d, h2c, and h4c. finally, those with a preference for presenting the self while online tend to have lower self-esteem, supporting h4b. this pattern of online self-presentational behaviour supports the poor-gets-richer hypothesis or compensation theory (kraut et al., 2002; valkenburg et al., 2005) which states that poorly adapted individuals will be more attracted to online communication, as they feel protected by anonymity and possibility of careful crafting of the messages. these findings are also largely in line with the results of previous studies (e.g., fullwood et al., 2020). it should be noted, however, that some of our hypotheses were not supported, while we obtained some of the non-hypothesised relations. for example, we did not obtain a negative relation of multiple selves with self-esteem (h2b), but we obtained negative correlations between idealised self-presentation and online presentation preference with self-esteem and loneliness, which was not hypothesised. these results indicate that low self-esteem individuals tend to present themselves in a slightly idealised manner, and perhaps prefer communicating online because of this, however they do not necessarily feel confident in presenting multiple identities. we also found that those who are more fearful of negative evaluations from others, prefer to communicate online and are more likely to present idealised and multiple self-presentations. this suggests that being online can shield people from negative evaluations, perhaps because one can hide one’s identity more easily or because there is greater control over which information one chooses to share, which aligns with the core tenets of hyperpersonal theory (walther, 1996; walther & parks, 2002). it also appears that self-presentational strategies aimed at impressing others can be effective and beneficial, as individuals who employ them may experience reduced feelings of loneliness. this finding is comparable to the results of błachnio et al. (2016) who found that the use of self-promotional self-presentation is negatively related to loneliness. given the limited prior research on the relationship between loneliness and self-presentational tactics — especially those measured by the poss, further investigation into these relationships is warranted. on the other hand, consistent self, i.e., realistic and congruent online/offline self-presentation is related to better social sensitivity, i.e., sensitivity to the expressive behaviours of others and less fear of others’ negative evaluation, but also to higher loneliness. therefore, individuals who are not overly sensitive to negative evaluations but are sensitive to others’ communication style, tend to communicate honestly with others in the online environment, which corresponds with previous findings (fullwood et al., 2020; mann & blumberg, 2022). however, it seems that expressing your true self online could bring unexpected perils, namely it could be linked to feelings of loneliness. this finding is opposite to the hypothesis h3c and largely inconsistent to previous studies (gao et al., 2023; kim & lee, 2011; wang et al., 2019). tentatively, this might suggest that people who express a consistent self are less prone to compromising and might expect that others take them as they are. as this is the only study so far to reveal such a relationship, replication of this finding is necessary. the findings of this study are limited in several ways. first, our sample was 70% students, limiting our conclusions primarily to emerging educated adults. as the online presentation preference scale had low alpha and omega, results regarding this aspect of self-presentation should be interpreted with caution. future studies should widen the content and improve the reliability of this scale by adding new items. to date, no research has examined poss longitudinally, leaving the temporal stability of online self-presentational behaviours uncertain. furthermore, an individual's online self-presentation may vary across different platforms. therefore, future research could investigate differences in poss scores at a single platform over time, as well as across various online platforms, where we might anticipate diverse affordances and communication norms. we argue that this work offers valuable support to serbian scientists and practitioners by providing a psychometri­ cally validated instrument in their own language to assess diverse forms of online self-presentation behaviours and attitudes. as social interaction increasingly shifts to digital platforms, the serbian version of the poss enables more nuanced investigation of a central and pervasive aspect of modern life. we anticipate that this tool will facilitate deeper understanding of the psychological implications of digital connectivity, including how online communication preferences may relate to experiences of loneliness, self-esteem, and broader social well-being. to conclude, the results of this study indicated that the poss measure, after certain improvements, is an adequate and useful instrument for measuring the self-presentational behaviours of adult social media users. the self-presentational behaviours measured by the poss could be brought down to two general patterns: one that is inauthentic and facilitated by the features of bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 243 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://www.psychopen.eu/ online communication, which is characteristic of less adapted individuals, and the other that is authentic and related to better social sensitivity. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. prof. dr. chris fullwood as a senior editor of ejop had no influence in the acceptance or publication process. author contributions: bojana bodroža: writing original draft (equal), writing review & editing (equal). chris fullwood: writing original draft (equal), writing review & editing (equal). bajana dinić: conceptualization (lead), formal analysis (lead), investigation (lead), methodology (lead), writing original draft (equal), writing review & editing (equal). ethics statement: all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethical committee of the department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of novi sad, serbia (no. 202303261350_uwl9) and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. informed consent was obtained from all individual adult participants included in the study. data availability: the data that support the findings of this study are openly available on the open science framework at bodroža et al. 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(2024). the effect of social anxiety on inauthentic self-presentation in instagram users. journal of social and industrial psychology, 13(1), 35–40. https://doi.org/10.15294/sip.v12i1.10172 appendix the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale (poss) na sledeće stavke odgovorite tako što ćete označiti odgovor koji najbolje opisuje kako se osećate u onlajn okruženju. 1 – uopšte se ne slažem bodroža, fullwood, & dinić 247 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 234–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15483 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201272002 https://doi.org/10.5937/engrami1902068r https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12296 https://doi.org/10.17759/pse.2021260402 https://doi.org/10.17977/um023v12i22023p274-283 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.871 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.025 https://doi.org/10.31577/sp.2023.02.869 https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1124328/internet-penetration-uk/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100073 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108685795 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444805052282 https://doi.org/10.1177/009365096023001001 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9711-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.teler.2024.100147 https://doi.org/10.15294/sip.v12i1.10172 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2 – ne slažem se 3 – podjednako se i ne slažem i slažem 4 – slažem se 5 – potpuno se slažem 1. onlajn okruženje mi omogućava da se izrazim svoja razmišljanja i osećanja. 2. onlajn ne mogu da budem to što zaista jesam. 3. onlajn sam uvek onaj pravi ja (ona prava ja). 4. način na koji sebe predstavljam onlajn značajno se razlikuje od toga kakav sam zaista. 5. onlajn komunikacija mi omogućava da kažem stvari koje ne mogu uživo. 6. imam osećaj da je moja onlajn ličnost pravo ja. 7. volim da budem onlajn jer mi to dozvoljava da budem drugačija osoba. 8. lakše mi je da komuniciram licem-u-lice nego onlajn. 9. teško mi je da budem to što jesam u realnom svetu, van interneta. 10. imam utisak da sam ista osoba na internetu i u realnom svetu. 11. više volim da sam onlajn, nego oflajn. 12. u onlajn okruženju stalno se predstavljam kao više različitih osoba. 13. kad sam onlajn mogu da pobegnem od sebe. 14. često glumim da sam različita osoba na određenim onlajn platformama. 15. onlajn okruženje mi dozvoljava da kreiram nov identitet. 16. onlajn lakše mogu da pokažem svoje najbolje kvalitete. 17. onlajn mogu da pričam s ljudima koji inače ne bi pričali sa mnom uživo. 18. drugačija sam osoba u zavisnosti od toga na kojoj sam onlajn platformi. 19. mnogo mi je prijatnije da se ponašam onako kako želim kada sam onlajn. 20. uživam da glumim različite identitete onlajn. 21. osećam kao da onlajn mogu da budem idealna verzija sebe. key / ključ: ideal self / idealistična samoprezentacija: 1, 4, 5, 7, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21 multiple self / višestruka samoprezentacija: 12, 14, 15, 18, 20 consistent self / usklađena samoprezentacija: 2(r), 3, 6, 10 online presentation preference / preferncija onlajn samoprezentacije: 8(r), 9, 11 about the authors bojana bodroža completed her phd at the university of novi sad and is currently an associate professor at the department of psychology, university of novi sad. her research interests focus on human behaviors online, gender roles and gender-based violence, and self and identity. she participated in several large-scale studies dealing with the replicability of findings in psychology, cross-cultural studies on cyberbullying and social networking. chris fullwood completed his phd at the university of stirling, uk, and is currently a senior lecturer in psychology at birmingham city university. his research primarily explores online self-presentation and impression management, with additional interests in digital inequalities and the socio-psychological benefits of virtual embodiment and engagement in virtual worlds and video games. bojana m. dinić is a full professor in psychology at the department of psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of novi sad. her research interests include the exploration of dark traits (e.g., psychopathy, narcissism, and antagonism) and their outcomes (e.g., aggression and violence) in both offline and online environments. furthermore, her interests include psychometrics, and she has developed and adapted over 60 measures to the serbian language. she has been actively involved in numerous national and international projects, and she was the principal investigator for a national project focusing on online risky behaviors among adolescents. validation of the serbian adaptation of poss 248 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ validation of the serbian adaptation of poss (introduction) method sample instruments data analysis results confirmatory factor analysis measurement invariance across genders construct validity correlations and alpha reliabilities discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references appendix the serbian adaptation of the presentation of online self scale (poss) about the authors “liberty can be for you one thing, and for me something different”: muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging in switzerland research reports “liberty can be for you one thing, and for me something different”: muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging in switzerland rachael loxston 1, liza jachens 2 [1] psychology, sociology and professional counselling, webster university, geneva, switzerland. [2] centre for organizational health and development, division of psychiatry and applied psychology, school of medicine, university of nottingham, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 received: 2022-11-08 • accepted: 2023-04-16 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: rachael loxston, 15, route de collex, 1293 bellevue, webster university geneva, switzerland. e-mail: rachaelloxston@gmail.com abstract belonging and identity are fundamental human needs, with positive experiences closely correlated with affirmative mental health. this paper investigates how these concepts are experienced by muslim women in switzerland, a minority group targeted in the political campaign nicknamed the “burka ban.” there were two research questions: how do muslim women construct their identity in switzerland? how do muslim women experience a sense of belonging in switzerland? semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants, and data was analyzed using thematic analysis. six themes were identified: religion as a public versus private identity, islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation, sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness, challenging dominant representations, impression management, and religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths. participants used several strategies to construct a positive identity and experience belonging in response to negative representation. findings are summarized in the form of recommendations for counselors working in switzerland. keywords counseling, muslim women, gendered islamophobia, identity, belonging, switzerland in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in islam and its place in european society (grinell, 2020). specifically, there has been a collective fixation on muslim women’s dress, bringing muslim women to the political forefront. around one-third of european countries have introduced some form of national or local legislation prohibiting islamic veiling (abdelgadir & fouka, 2020). the broader media and political focus on islam and muslim women’s attire contribute to gendered islamophobia (allen, 2015) and have encouraged the view that muslim women have become the symbol of islam in western countries (chakraborti & zempi, 2012). gendered islamophobia in its seminal report, the runnymede trust (1997) defines islamophobia in three parts: first as “unfounded hostility towards islam,” second as “the practical consequences of such hostility in unfair discrimination against muslim individu­ als and communities,” and third as “the exclusion of muslims from mainstream political and social affairs” (runnymede trust, 1997, p. 4). importantly, islamophobic attacks in western countries consistently target muslim women (zempi, 2020). several factors contribute to this phenomenon, including the intersection of multiple identities, such as race, religion, and gender. crenshaw (1991) coined the term intersectionality to highlight how different identities intersect to this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10623&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ contribute to an individual’s unique experiences of discrimination. muslim women who choose to veil are particularly vulnerable, as their dress makes them a visible target for islamophobes (allen, 2015). consequences of anti-muslim sentiment muslim women in europe are at risk of suffering physical or verbal attacks, ethnic and religious profiling, and restrictions on religious practices (open society foundations, 2019). the psychological impact of discrimination can be significant since an individual’s identity is formed partially through recognition by others, including their perception of how the groups to which they feel they belong are recognized (taylor, 1994). cohen and garcia (2005) argue that negative group representation and recognition can encourage fear in in-group members, known as a collective threat. the term collective threat encapsulates group members’ desire to be viewed positively and the undue stress this creates for them as they carry the responsibility of defying group stereotypes. the psychological burden of representing an entire religion and the threat that negative group recognition poses to an individual’s sense of identity and belonging have also been demonstrated in studies on hate crimes. research has revealed that, regardless of their severity, hate crimes can cause severe psychological distress because victims are targeted due to an important aspect of their identity (iganski & lagou, 2014). a victim’s awareness of being singled out for who they are and what they represent can have a lasting impact on them and their community (chakraborti & garland, 2012). concealing an identity is a strategy often employed after a threat (sønderlund et al., 2017). however, this strategy has been found to negatively affect well-being. in addition, disruptions to an individual’s sense of belonging can impair cognitive, emotional, and physiological functioning (andersen et al., 2000) and increase mental health disorders (victim support, 2013). this renders the study of identity and belonging critical for mental health professionals. identity and sense of belonging for this paper, identity is defined as an essential aspect of the self (individual and collective) and central to people’s understanding of themselves as social beings. this definition is understood as “something to be valued, cultivated, supported, recognized, and preserved” (brubaker & cooper, 2000, p. 7). on a collective level, identity is established through recognizing similarity, either objectively through shared characteristics or subjectively through imagined collective experiences. belonging is a fundamental human need (andersen et al., 2000; maslow, 2019) and is a measure of an individual’s connection to their social and physical environments (hill, 2006). this research adopts the two dimensions of a sense of belonging that hagerty et al. (1992) proposed. first, a sense of belonging is constructed through “valued involvement,” the “experience of feeling valued, needed, [and] accepted” (p. 173). second, through “fit,” the individual must perceive that their “characteristics articulate with or complement the system or environment” (p. 173). muslim women in europe identity and belonging have emerged as significant themes in studies that explore the experiences of muslim women in europe (allen, 2015; bouteldja, 2011; van es, 2019). these studies were conducted during periods of heightened anti-islamic discourse. allen (2015) found that veiled muslim women in the uk suffered discrimination based on being representatives of islam. participants reported being cast as unwelcome outsiders regardless of additional identifying markers, such as being a british national. disruptions to a sense of belonging were found by bouteldja (2011), who documented the experiences of 32 veiled muslim women before and after the french national banning of the face veil. several findings support the view that muslim women sought to assert their religious identity in reaction to increased scrutiny (bouteldja, 2011; el-halawany, 2003; gupta, 2004; kundnani, 2002; van es, 2019). van es (2019) highlighted that muslim women reacted to scrutiny by becoming self-appointed ambassadors of islam and representing themselves as “modern” and “emancipated” (van es, 2019, p. 389), for some women wearing a headscarf allowed them to be “visibly muslim,” which was important in constructing their ambassador role. loxston & jachens 309 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as muslim women are aware of stereotypes about them and yet are unaware of which individuals hold these views, they monitor their behavior. women, therefore, participate in essentializing their muslim identity by “reducing their own identity to a single element” (van es, 2019, p. 387). this reduction in identity may negatively affect individual well-being, particularly when the salient identity is threatened (barnett & hyde, 2001; koch & shepperd, 2004). muslim women in switzerland despite the increasing number of academic papers on islamophobia in europe, research in switzerland is limited (yendell & huber, 2020). the muslim minority accounts for only around 5% of the swiss population (schweizerische eidgenossenschaft confédération suisse, 2021a), yet islam in switzerland is strongly debated (arlt, 2021). on march 7, 2021, switzerland introduced a ban on face coverings in public (bbc, 2021, march 7). although the ban includes all items of clothing that cover an individual’s face, it was dubbed the “burka ban” due to the focus on islamic dress. provocative posters of menacing-looking muslim women alongside slogans such as “stop extremism” were displayed across the country (waterfield, 2021). despite this focus on muslim women in switzerland, little is known about their experiences, so further exploration is recommended (gasser, 2020)1. the need for further research becomes apparent when one considers aspects that separate switzerland from neighboring countries. switzerland’s immigration and citizenship policies are considered some of the strictest in europe, and its migration policies seem designed to encourage assimilation (gasser, 2020). additionally, switzerland’s muslim population is more heterogeneous than neighboring countries such as france and germany. furthermore, events that spotlight muslims can increase islamophobic incidents (allen, 2005; bouteldja, 2011). the “burka ban” has been a catalyst for ongoing debates on muslim women’s dress in switzerland—for example, the relevance of the headscarf in schools and the appropriateness of the burkini in public swimming pools (gasser, 2020)2. under these restrictions, muslim women are confined to “the conditions of european stereotypical gender construction” and denied the freedom to choose what they wear (kaya, 2012, p. 124)3. research aims and questions two research questions were posed. first, how do muslim women construct their identity in switzerland? this question is used to assess how muslim women make sense of the political and social narratives constructed about them and express their muslim identity. second, how do muslim women experience belonging in switzerland? given the political campaigns that have singled out muslim women and argued that certain islamic symbols do not belong in switzerland, this question is used to establish how muslim women have experienced belonging since the “burka ban.” this research also aims to aid counselors in clinical practice in switzerland by highlighting the plight of a minority group. the interviews and research in this investigation are intended to identify coping mechanisms that the population might use. method research design a qualitative method was chosen so participants could express their unique experiences. participants’ experiences were collected using semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews. the study received ethical approval from the institutional review board of webster university. 1) entire article translated from german into english using deepl pro software. 2) entire article translated from german into english using deepl pro software. 3) entire article translated from german into english using deepl pro software. muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging 310 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participant selection various methods were used to recruit participants, including asking the first author’s network of friends and acquain­ tances, attending a one-day networking event for young swiss muslims (which led to the opportunity to recruit through a trusted community member), and posting a flyer on several facebook groups for english speakers in switzerland. recruiting participants using different approaches reflected the challenge of finding participants. furthermore, research­ ers who are considered outsiders often experience more significant difficulties with recruitment than those who are considered in-group members (okumus et al., 2007). we sought women over 18 years of age who self-identified as muslim. in addition, participants were required to be current swiss nationals or permanent residents (short-term visas excluded). the decision to include residents and nationals was due to the lengthy process of applying for swiss citizenship (schweizerische eidgenossenschaft confédération suisse, 2021b). the interviews were conducted in english; therefore, participants were required to be comfortable answering in-depth questions in this language. all participants provided both their written and verbal informed consent. sample description the sample consisted of six muslim women currently living and working in switzerland. participants were assigned arabic pseudonyms to ensure anonymity. the women interviewed varied in nationality, age, ethnicity, location, lan­ guages spoken, and length of stay in switzerland (see table 1). additionally, three of the participants wore the hijab, and three did not. table 1 participants demographics age nationality ethnicity languages spoken length of stay canton wore hijab pseudonym 42 singaporean indian english, malay, urdu 3 years zürich no faheema 58 swiss/sri-lankan ceylon moors english, french 32 years geneva no hind 36 swiss pakistani english, italian, urdu, german, french 36 years ticino & zürich yes nur 29 swiss somali english, german, swiss german, somali 28 years zürich yes amira 30 swiss european english, german, swiss german, spanish, catalan, french 6 years in total; 3 years at a time zürich yes zaara 49 british british-pakistani english, urdu, arabic, french, punjabi 4 years vaud no fara note. the nationality and ethnicity descriptions reflect how the participants described themselves. data collection: qualitative interviews the qualitative interviews were conducted via zoom by the first author (camera on by choice). individual interviews were conducted to encourage disclosure and limit external influences. the semi-structured format and interview questions were guided by previous research (moradi et al., 2019; sadiq, 2019). the interview guide was used to encourage exploration of experiences of belonging and identity and included questions such as the following: 1. what details about yourself and how you live identify you as a muslim woman? 2. would you tell me something about your experience as a muslim woman in switzerland? 3. in what way(s) do you feel switzerland is your home? loxston & jachens 311 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the first author utilized follow-up questions, reflective listening, and summarizing to confirm understanding and identify coping mechanisms. the interviews lasted 56 minutes on average, with the shortest lasting 40 minutes and the longest 90 minutes. analysis the interview transcripts were analyzed using braun and clarke’s (2006) six-phase guide to thematic analysis using an inductive approach. two coders (authors) coded the material separately. codes were generated and collated into prospective themes that were then reviewed and named. after this step, the coders worked together to expose disagree­ ments and reach a consensus on the final themes. after the final themes and accompanying quotations were chosen, the participants were sent the analysis via email and invited to comment on the interpretation of their experiences with written feedback. four of the six participants participated in this step and confirmed that valid interpretations were made. results the analysis sought patterns across shared experiences, and differences between participants were respected as they contributed to telling unique stories. despite the diverse sample, six themes emerged. the first three themes were relevant to the issue of identity construction: religion as a public versus private identity, islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation, and sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness. the final three were relevant to the issue of belonging: challenging dominant representations, impression management, and religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths. religion as a public versus private identity there was a stark contrast between how the women who wore the hijab and how the women who did not were perceived and treated by others. each woman described her choice to wear or not wear the hijab as a personal decision and did not agree that this choice reflected religiosity. the three women who wore the headscarf recounted experiences of being publicly defined and identified by their religion, which was sometimes essentialized. “people think just because you’re muslim, they can’t talk to you about certain things, or some topics are off, [… or] you can’t say your opinion on some things because it’s maybe against islam or that you’re so—because i’m wearing hijab. yes, i’m a muslim woman, but that isn’t all i am.” (amira) amira felt that, as a visibly muslim woman, people projected their expectations onto her. having her identity reduced to a single aspect and being expected to have certain opinions was frustrating. in response to perceived stereotyping and identity reduction, amira drew attention to her identity being multifaceted. nevertheless, the responsibility to represent islam was not always framed as a burden: “i’m really happy to talk about it [islam]. and so, if people ask questions, i know there is a lot of misinformation, and people don’t know. and if they can come to me and get this information, why not? so, it’s important that i gather this knowledge [about islam]—but it’s not that it’s a chore like i have to study or something. for me, it was just something that we do.” (nur) while the women who wore the hijab recounted experiences of being seen as religious representatives, the women who did not wear the hijab shared a sense of their religious identity being invisible. although none of the women felt that choosing not to wear the hijab made them less religious, they were aware that their decision affected how others viewed and treated them: muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging 312 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “questions don’t come at me like whether i’m muslim or not, because most people would think that being a muslim woman is someone with the hijab or with the full burka, which is not the case. because not all muslim women are wearing hijab, though we are practicing.” (faheema) faheema expressed frustration that other people fail to recognize her as a religious woman because of her choice not to wear the headscarf. in contrast, hind’s (who also chose not to wear the hijab) preference was to keep her faith private: “my faith is private, and that is how i like it. i don’t think people view me as a muslim woman because i don’t wear a hijab. i don’t talk about my religion. i mean, unless it comes up in the conversation and somebody asks me.” (hind) importantly, all the women who did not wear the hijab mentioned a sense of freedom that came with not being recognizably muslim. the sense of freedom was discussed in terms of not being judged solely as a muslim woman and feeling less fearful of discrimination and physical attacks. the findings show the detrimental effects of identity reduction during times when the salient identity is under threat. islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation the women felt that, far from being oppressive, their faith was a great liberator. although they differed in their opinions on covering one’s hair and face (one participant was strongly opposed to any type of religious veil), all the women chose to dress modestly and agreed that women were highly valued in islam: “the whole idea of women in the quran is not how it is portrayed now. so, for me—and i’ve never felt that my faith, that islam has been an oppression upon me. women are revered in islam. i don’t feel that islam dictates to me. i think what islam does is that it offers you the ideal path. take, for example, being modest, dressing modestly—i don’t feel that that’s oppressive because it’s my choice.” (fara) similar to five of the women interviewed, fara stated that misconceptions of female oppression in islam are partly due to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of islamic texts. fara explained that she had studied the quran extensively and felt strongly that women are highly respected in islam. individual choice was cited by five of the participants as an argument against perceived oppression. despite their different interpretations of hijab, all the women interviewed opposed the recent “burka ban.” in addition, zaara cited “western” gendered norms as restrictive and a barrier to how she would like to express her gender identity: “we always see it [women’s liberation] from that point, from the western view. but there are many different points of view. liberty can be, for you, one thing, and for me, something different. for you, it can be to wear a bikini, and for me, it can be to wear a niqab or a burka or whatever. we should—i think we should stop forcing the western image of women—of what a woman is.” (zaara) zaara expressed frustration about having a particular ideology of female empowerment forced onto her. she also noted that although this ideal was liberating for some, it was oppressive for others. furthermore, the interviewees described dressing modestly and wearing the hijab as a form of protection that felt liberating in their everyday lives. this protection was primarily discussed in terms of men’s behavior in public spaces: “when people see me [with my hijab] or when they don’t know me, it’s always—oh, they step back a bit, and then they try to talk to me. i think that’s a good thing because sometimes, as a woman, people are too much—or like men in general—they are too much in your face. they try to get too close to you.” (amira) the gendered guidance in islam offered the participants the opportunity to express their gender identity in ways that felt empowering and sacred. loxston & jachens 313 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness notably, all six participants commented that due to the linguist diversity and cantonal differences, it was challenging to define a collective swiss identity. however, the women described experiences of identifying with collective swiss characteristics. these included cultural traits such as being reserved and punctual and having a love of the environment: “compared to people in my home country, the people here are a bit more private, a bit quieter, and laid back. they don’t really integrate much with the rest of the people, which is fine. i’m also quite quiet and reserved.” (faheema) faheema highlights some swiss stereotypes, and although she recognizes that switzerland is culturally very different from her home country, she notes that these traits are more aligned with her personality. fara expressed that she connected to switzerland through shared values: “i love the fact that switzerland cares about, uh, climate change. it has an affinity with me, because, you know, i’m a product of the current world, and clearly, i’m living in a place that aligns with my environmental values.” (fara) nevertheless, although the interviewees acknowledged their similarities with the majority population, these similarities were not enough to encourage a sense of collective identity and belonging for four out of six participants. for example, hind felt that shared characteristics were superficial: “of course, there are similarities, but my religion and my asianness keep me apart from the europeans. so, i don’t really belong if you look at it that way.” (hind) challenging dominant representations all six of the women interviewed were conscious of how islam is portrayed in the media and were aware of the “oppressed muslim woman” stereotype. furthermore, they agreed that there was a distinct lack of positive muslim women role models presented in the swiss media. the lack of positive group representation meant that interactions sometimes became moments to dispute stereotypes: “you know that people know who you are, what you believe, and all the negative representation or the negative narratives that we—muslims—have in the media. you know, you kind of feel a little bit that you must contrast it, you know, a little bit, somehow—i mean, it’s impossible, but at least to try.” (zaara) zaara challenged these negative perceptions in her everyday life. this sentiment was repeated by five of the six participants. fara worked as a teacher, and in lessons, she explicitly challenged stereotypes: “in my role, i’m trying to consciously teach units that are reflecting minorities, one of which is women. as a teacher, i’m trying to break down these stereotypes, starting with my job. i’m lucky that i’m teaching children who are very impressionable.” (fara) sometimes, however, stereotypes were contested unintentionally, as described by nur: “i remember once—so, my team leader—it was at the beginning—when, i mean, i started working at my company. and once, i bought some chocolate, like ferrero rocher or something. i was like, i’m not opening it now— i’ll open it this evening—because i want me and my husband—we will eat it together. and for me, it was a very normal thing. we always eat sweet things like this together in the evening. and she [the team leader] was like, “oh!” she said, “oh, it’s the first time i realized that you’re in love with your husband.” and i was like—yeah! she always thought—before getting to know me—she thought that i would be married to someone—and […] it might have been even an arranged marriage. they assume muslim people have arranged marriages. women are oppressed and not happy.” (nur) muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging 314 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these everyday examples provided the participants with an opportunity to take control of their group narrative by highlighting the difference between how they see themselves and how their group is portrayed in the media. impression management five of the six women interviewed gave examples of adapting their behavior to fit their context. the women who wore the hijab described a shared responsibility that came with being recognizably muslim. each of the three women recounted instances where they monitored their behavior in the presence of others because they were aware that wearing the hijab meant that others could judge them as representatives of islam and not as individuals. “even a smile is an act of charity in islam. right? so, like, even by smiling, one could say, “oh, look, muslims, they are smiling.” and there are people like that! they are kind and nice. even by doing just this.” (nur) nur recognized how practicing fundamental aspects of islam could influence others’ opinions of the religion. by adapting her behavior and smiling, she achieved two goals: performing charity and promoting a positive representation of islam. all three women remarked that this responsibility encouraged them to monitor and positively adapt their behavior. in contrast, other examples of impression management were viewed as negative and restrictive. “i think if i was to wear the abaya—for example, to go to the mosque— there’s been occasions when i’ve said, “fara, be brave and go into the mosque,” especially during ramadan, but the thought of me wearing a hijab and abaya to enter the mosque worries me. because i think somebody seeing me is going to realize, “oh, she’s a muslim, and therefore she must be dangerous, and we need to stay clear from her.” (fara) fara stopped wearing islamic dress and going to the mosque for fear of being “outed” as a muslim woman. thus, she limited her public religious activities to better fit within the community where she lived. faheema was also worried about the reaction of others if she were to wear the hijab: “to wear a hijab now in switzerland, i still may not be comfortable because people might look at me differently. so that is something that i have to think about if i want to do it somewhere outside of my home country.” (faheema) while earlier in the interview, both faheema and fara stated it was their personal choice not to wear the headscarf, the above extracts reveal the complexity of their decision as both women describe negotiating personal choice and the fear of islamophobia. in addition, the extracts demonstrate how islamophobia can become internalized and restrict identity expression. religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths drawing on personal and religious strengths was one of the most prominent themes. all the interviewees felt at ease discussing their strengths, and these were attributed to their islamic faith; hardships that they had faced living as a minority group; and innate personality traits. these strengths were identified as coping mechanisms that were critical to the participant's resilience. “it’s been difficult, but, i mean, that also has to do with my religion […] there’s a reason why this is happening to me, to make me stronger, and i believe […] that it has made me a lot stronger.” (amira) discrimination in switzerland was often reported as “subtle.” for example, amira revealed that she had struggled to find employment and felt that this was partly because she wore the hijab. nevertheless, she viewed this experience through a religious lens and felt that this adversity had given her inner strength. “i had the feeling that before i reverted to islam, i was lost in this world. you know, i didn’t have any vision or any idea. i was really lost, and then, since i reverted and got to know this religion loxston & jachens 315 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ […], i feel i have a foundation for the first time in my life. i really enjoy belonging to the muslim community.” (zaara) for zaara, islam provided her with a sense of purpose. despite declaring that she did not physically belong anywhere, she recognized the importance of her faith and the muslim community in providing her with a sense of belonging. five of the six participants repeated that belonging to the wider muslim community provided solace in times when they felt disconnected from their country of residence. finally, growing up and experiencing multiple cultural influences or experiencing culturally diverse countries such as singapore and the uae was cited as a strength by three of the six participants, as it expanded the participant's worldview. “i grew up […] in singapore and, having been exposed to different ethnicities and religions and also learning my religion from a young age, i learned we need to not judge people based on, where they’re from, their color, or religion. so that kind of defines me.” (faheema) discussion muslim women’s construction of identity in switzerland the following themes were important in answering the first research question (how do muslim women construct identity in switzerland?): religion as a public versus private identity, islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation, and sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness. through the theme of religion as a public versus private identity, it emerged that the women who wore the hijab were not completely free to choose a salient public identity, as they were judged by their physical appearance. each of the women who wore the hijab described their decision as personal and did not believe that their choice reflected religiosity. however, their choice of dress did affect how others perceived and treated them. the women who wore the hijab recounted experiences of having their muslim identity essentialized, which caused frustration for two of the three participants who wore the headscarf. although the third participant gladly stepped into an ambassador role, it was a role that was given to her at a young age rather than adopted. these reactions differed from those found by van es (2019), where, in response to negative stereotyping, muslim women in the netherlands participated in self-essentializing. in contrast, the women who wore the hijab in the present study highlighted that, although their muslim identity was an important aspect of who they are, it was not their only identity. the participants asserted their individuality and emphasized that there was more to them than their outward appearance. consequently, the women demonstrated the benefits of having multiple identities. when comparing the findings, it is essential to note the differences between the two studies; van es’s (2019) study included a much larger participant sample from organized muslim women’s groups that actively encourage their members to take on an ambassador role. in contrast, our study included women who weren’t socially connected to one another. in addition, our participants reported that due to switzerland’s linguistic diversity (which differentiates it from the netherlands), it was challenging to define a collective “swiss identity,” which we argue provided greater flexibility in identity construction. emphasizing multiple identities could be interpreted as a coping mechanism in response to discrimination. multiple identities can be used as psychological buffers that protect the individual when an aspect of their sense of self is threatened (koch & shepperd, 2004). this coping mechanism may be particularly relevant in the context of the ‘burka ban,’ a political campaign that purposely positioned european and islamic values as opposing. in contrast, the three women who chose not to wear the hijab recounted experiences of not being recognized as muslim. while this caused frustration for one participant, the three participants acknowledged that this also granted them freedom from surveillance. this freedom allowed them to assert their religious identity when they wanted and practice their religion in private. again, conversely to van es’s (2019) study, only one of the participants who did not wear the headscarf said they wanted to take on an ambassador role. nevertheless, she felt restricted in her ability to do so because she was not recognized as a muslim woman. muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging 316 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ another significant theme in identity construction was islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation. in line with other studies (allen, 2015; bouteldja, 2011; van es, 2019), the participants were aware of the “oppressed muslim woman” stereotype that they all vehemently opposed. instead, the women felt that practicing their faith and their decision to dress modestly were expressions of female empowerment. even though the participants differed in their opinions on the role of the niqab and burka in islamic practice, they were keen to highlight the contradiction in taking away the freedom of choice to liberate a group with legislation such as the ‘burka ban’. in contrast to studies such as bouteldja (2011), the choice to dress modestly and/or wear the hijab was not discussed by the participants as a way to assert their religious identity in reaction to negative representation. instead, they saw the hijab as offering protection, particularly in relation to men, because it encouraged distance. the women, therefore, expressed part of their gender identity through religious practices. many of the participants in bouteldja’s (2011) study wore a full-face veil and thus felt directly affected by the legalization banning their religious garments. in contrast, none of the participants in the present study reported wearing the burka or niqab. the findings also differ from academic research that focuses on whether islamic dress makes muslim women more vulnerable to hate crimes (allen, 2015; chakraborti & zempi, 2012; zempi, 2020). however, the former studies purposely researched women who had experienced gendered islamophobia. none of the participants in the present study felt they had experienced “direct” prejudice because of their faith; however, they agreed that discrimination in switzerland was often “subtle”. finally, the women reported sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness. sameness was defined as sharing cultural traits and experiences (brubaker & cooper, 2000). it is important to note that only two of the six participants felt ‘swiss’. cultural traits and collective experiences were cited as more superficial than other identity markers, such as ethnicity and religion. muslim women’s sense of belonging in switzerland the following themes were used to answer the second research question (how do muslim women experience a sense of belonging in switzerland?): challenging dominant representations, impression management, and religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths. negative representations of islam and muslims were cited as barriers to belonging. furthermore, although participants cited experiences of feeling valued and accepted—both essential elements of belonging (hagerty et al., 1992)—these experiences were infrequent. the participants recognized adverse perceptions of muslim women and, in response, challenged these representa­ tions through education and sometimes unintentionally. challenging representation has been documented as a known coping mechanism employed by muslim women in response to negative stereotyping (van es, 2019). likewise, educating others is recognized as contributing to society, encouraging a sense of belonging (hagerty et al., 1992). like those in van es’s (2019) study, the participants remained vigilant during their social interactions. the scrutiny encouraged them to monitor and adjust their behavior to achieve a more positive image. their actions ranged from smiling to demonstrate that they were not threatening, to concealing their muslim identity. in some examples, monitor­ ing their behavior was framed as positive because it made them more conscious of their actions. however, in other examples, adjusting behavior to better fit their environment came at the cost of masking an important aspect of their identity. muslim women are often portrayed as passive victims (allen, 2015). in contrast, this study found that the women displayed great resilience and had access to positive coping strategies. religious and cultural identities that separated the participants from the majority population were framed as strengths. one of the coping mechanisms highlighted was faith, and a relationship with god was integral to everything the participants did. five of the six participants recognized faith as encouraging a sense of belonging to god and the wider muslim community. the participants acknowledged that experiencing multiple cultural influences had greatly benefited them by increasing their tolerance and expanding their worldview. loxston & jachens 317 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 308–320 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10623 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and suggestions for future research due to time constraints, the sample was small, and recruitment stopped after six women agreed to participate. a larger sample may have been more beneficial. the research was limited to a highly selective sample (i.e., over the age of 18, identified as muslim, english-speaking, and current swiss nationals or residents). future researchers should be aware that allowing participants to speak in their first language may enable them to express themselves more freely. as non-muslim women, we were concerned about being outsiders and how this may influence the research. however, we approached our research with open curiosity. this position meant that we did not take the information participants provided for granted and endeavored to discover the meaning behind our participant's experiences. four of the six participants commented that this factor aided their disclosure as they did not feel pressured to live up to any religious or cultural standards. conclusion the muslim women interviewed faced challenges in forming positive muslim identities and experiencing a sense of belonging in switzerland. nevertheless, challenges were met with great strength and resilience. the women took control of their narratives by challenging negative representations, expressing their gendered identity in ways that contradicted the dominant culture, and emphasizing their multiple identities. however, achieving both a positive muslim identity and a sense of belonging in switzerland sometimes came at the cost of concealing their religious identity and monitoring their behavior. implications for counseling practice based on previous research and the results, the following guidelines are proposed for counselors in this context. first, non-muslim counselors are encouraged to question their own assumptions and biases. counselors need to be aware of the likelihood of negative depictions of islam and muslim women being internalized not only by themselves but possibly also by their muslim clients. second, counselors need to remain open to exploring the importance of religion for their clients. not integrating religion into therapy could strengthen muslim women’s beliefs that parts of their identity should be hidden. third, counselors need to be careful not to solely define muslim women by their religion. exploring intersections of various identities is vital in understanding each client’s unique worldview and in helping to counter any negative experiences of essentialization. finally, counselors are encouraged to adopt a strengths-based approach. highlighting resources can emphasize the resilience of clients who have experienced discrimination. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: thank you to dr. erik mansager and dr. bridgid hess, for their feedback and support of the study. the authors would like to thank the participants for their trust, time, and commitment to the research. thank you to the reviewers for their helpful feedback and time. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references abdelgadir, a., & fouka, v. 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(2020). veiled muslim women’s responses to experiences of gendered islamophobia in the uk. international review of victimology, 26(1), 96–111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019872902 about the authors rachael loxston, ma, is a counsellor (certified by the swiss counselling association) and yoga teacher. rachael has worked to provide mental health services within private clinics and non-profit organizations. her research interests include exploring the relationship between identity and belonging and their correlation to affirmative mental health. dr. liza jachens, is an assistant professor at the university of nottingham in the uk. she is the deputy course director on the workplace health and well-being master’s course. she also works for unmind in london as a senior organizational psychologist. her phd is in occupational health and management psychology, from the university of nottingham (2018). her research has focused mainly on identifying aspects of the work environment that are related to the mental health and well-being of humanitarian aid workers. muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging 320 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/846566 https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/gesellschaft/sprachen/die-sprachen---fakten-und-zahlen.html https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/integration-einbuergerung/schweizer-werden.html https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01038 https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289x.2017.1346985 http://www.victimsupport.org.uk/help-forvictims/how-crime-can-affect-you https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/switzerland-bans-facial-coverings-after-far-right-campaign-d6zvssr5j https://doi.org/10.3390/rel11030129 https://doi.org/10.1177/0269758019872902 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ muslim women's experiences of identity and belonging (introduction) gendered islamophobia consequences of anti-muslim sentiment identity and sense of belonging muslim women in europe muslim women in switzerland research aims and questions method research design participant selection sample description data collection: qualitative interviews analysis results religion as a public versus private identity islam and dressing modestly as expressions of gendered liberation sharing a sense of swiss identity through sameness challenging dominant representations impression management religious and cultural identity as psychological strengths discussion muslim women’s construction of identity in switzerland muslim women’s sense of belonging in switzerland limitations and suggestions for future research conclusion implications for counseling practice (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks research reports accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks arben hysenaj 1,2, mariel leclère 1,3, bernard tahirbegolli 1,4, dorentina kuqi 1, albane isufi 1, lulejete prekazi 1, nevzat shemsedini 1, driton maljichi 5, rina meha 1,6 [1] faculty of social and psychological sciences, heimerer college, prishtina, kosovo. [2] department of clinical psychology and health psychology, university of bamberg, germany. [3] department of cognitive psychology, aix-marseille university, marseille, france. [4] national sports medicine center, prishtine, kosovo. [5] institute for sociological, political and juridical research, university of ss. cyril and methodius, skopje, north macedonia. [6] institute of sports and preventive medicine, saarland university, saarbrücken, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 received: 2023-04-20 • accepted: 2023-11-28 • published (vor): 2024-02-29 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: rina meha, veranda d4, hyrja c dhe d lagja kalabri, (rruga për veternik), 10000 prishtinë, republika e kosovës. e-mail: rina.meha@kolegji-heimerer.eu abstract wearing face masks is one of the important actions to prevent the spread of covid-19 among people around the world. nevertheless, social interaction is limited via masks, and this impacts the accuracy and speed of emotional perception. in the present study, we assess the impact of mask-wearing on the accuracy and speed of emotion recognition. fifty people (female n = 39, male n = 11) aged 19–28 participated in the study (m = 21.1 years). we used frontal photos of a kosova woman who belonged to the same participants’ age group, with a grey background. twelve different pictures were used that showed the emotional states of fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutrality, and disgust, in masked and unmasked conditions. the experiment was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. participants were faster for identifying emotions like joy (1.507 ms) and neutral (1.971 ms). the participants were more accurate (emotions identification) in unmasked faces (m = 85.7%) than in masked faces (m = 73.8%), f(1,98) = 20.73, mse = 1027.66, p ≤ .001, partial η² = 0.17. masks make confusion and reduce the accuracy and speediness of emotional detection. this may have a notable impact on social interactions among peoples. keywords emotions, face mask, accuracy, speed, emotion recognition, covid-19 the global spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19), resulting in the world health organization (who) declaring covid-19 as a pandemic, has become a medical serious concern across more than 200 countries worldwide (wang et al., 2020; world health organization [who], 2020). to restrain the spread of the virus, by mid-2020 in addition to restrictions in traveling, in-house isolation or quarantine, face masks have become a pervasive feature in the everyday lives of many citizens as governmental authorities made their use compulsory in many circumstances (chopra et al., 2020; marini et al., 2021). in addition to positive medical impact in terms of preventing the virus from spreading to those who are most vulnerable (wu & mcgoogan, 2020), face masks, per definition, cover a major part of the human face, which can crucially affect social interaction. in recent years, studies provide evidence of the impact of face masks on emotion recognition. by making the mouth invisible, emotional expressions are more difficult to interpret (calbi et al., 2021; noyes et al., 2021) due to compromising of the facial mimicry and behavioral synchronicity (palagi et al., 2020). face masks influence the human ability to infer emotions by observing facial configurations (gori et al., 2021), to perform this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11789&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ perceptual face matching tasks (carragher & hancock, 2020), decreasing confidence in expression identification and perception of intensity for all expressions (pazhoohi et al., 2021). consequently, covering face impede the ability to perceive socially relevant information of great importance in our everyday life (marini et al., 2021). given that different parts of the face are informative about the different emotions a person experiences (bassili, 1979), the lack of salient stimuli might impact the ability to retain and consolidate learning and memory phenomena underlying face recognition (ferrari et al., 2021), which significantly effects on daily activities and social interactions (freud et al., 2020). while understanding emotions is crucial for social interaction, recent findings suggest that emotion readings were better in the part around the mouth than in fixing the gaze in the eye (blais et al., 2017; marini et al., 2021). researchers studying which parts of the face are associated with specific emotion recognition; show that the part around the mouth is more important in identifying positive emotions like happiness, and the eyes in identifying emotions of aggression, fear and despair (bombari et al., 2013; kim et al., 2022), while for neutral emotions, the focus is on both the eyes and the mouth face region (eisenbarth & alpers, 2011). recent studies (grenville & dwyer, 2022; nestor et al., 2020) investigating the implications of mask-wearing on inferring emotions from facial configurations shows that face masks impair mainly positive social interactions, hindering the perception of positive emotions and increasing the perception of negative emotions. on the other hand, a study done by schurgin et al. (2014) shows that the focus of difference for positive emotions is mainly the part of the lips while in the emotions of sadness the focus was on the eyes. it is also easier for children to recognize the emotion of sadness through the eyes, but not others (guarnera et al., 2015). some studies suggest that mask-wearing may make it more challenging to recognize positive emotions while potentially affecting the perception of negative emotions (spitzer, 2020). these changes can have critical implications for various aspects of social interaction, including perceptions of trustworthiness, likability, and closeness (grundmann et al., 2021), as well as potential influences on behavior change (nestor et al., 2020). in addition, the mask also affects the speed of emotion recognition. the study of fox et al. (2000), investigating whether speed and spatial cues affect an observer's judgments of emotion showed that participants were likely to produce angry and happy expressions more quickly, in contrary to sad expressions, identified more slowly. although this study does not specifically address the pandemic or face masks, it provides valuable insights into the rapid detection of facial expressions, especially those conveying anger or threat. in the light of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic in 2021, we seized a unique opportunity to investigate how the reading of facial emotions may change when individuals are required to interact with others wearing face masks. the widespread use of face masks as a preventive measure during this period presented a compelling societal backdrop for our research. we hypothesize that the use of face masks during the covid-19 pandemic has a significant impact on the accuracy of emotion recognition. specifically, we anticipate that the masking of facial features, particularly the mouth area, may lead to reduced accuracy in perceiving emotions. additionally, we hypothesize that the speed of emotion recognition is affected by face mask-wearing. we expect that participants may experience delays in identifying emotions when crucial facial expressions are partially obscured by masks. method participants fifty people (female n = 39, male n = 11) aged 19–28 years (m = 21.1 years; sd = 2.2) participated in the study. participants were recruited from the prishtina region in kosovo, they were students of medical sciences from a private higher institution. prior to enrollment all participants gave written permission and completed a questionnaire before performing the emotion recognition task. this questionnaire consisted of ten questions regarding the participants’ sociodemographic characteristics. the sample size (50 participants) showed 0.93 power (1-β) when analyzed with the g-power program for the difference between two dependent means, for two tails, α = 0.05, and effect size 0.5. materials for all face stimuli, we used frontal photos of kosova woman who belonged to the same participants’ age group, with a grey background. twelve different pictures were used that showed the emotional states of fear, joy, sad, angry, neutral, hysenaj, leclère, tahirbegolli et al. 17 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and disgust, in masked and unmasked condition. we drew a conventional (grey) community mask to apply the mask to our six original photographs. the mask drawing was cut out via photoshop and applied to the several face versions individually. afterwards, realistic shadows were applied to make the model wearing the face mask look as natural as possible (figure 1). a pre-test was conducted, revealing that emotions were correctly identified when no mask was worn. figure 1 the model showing one of the six different emotions (i.e., joy) without a mask (a.) and wearing a mask (b.) procedure and design the experiment has been run on a windows 10 version 21h1 and was conducted between june and july 2021. participants were individually tested in one session that lasted approximately 10–15 minutes. before encountering the experimental task, participants were told to perform a demonstration about how the trials would be presented. participants practiced this demonstration task on six random trials (three masked and three unmasked trials) to get familiarized with the procedure of the experiment. the order of the stimuli was randomized across participants, and each participant was exposed to the complete set of stimuli one by one. participants were asked to assess the depicted person's emotional state spontaneously using a list of six emotions (fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutral and disgust) shown by the different versions of the condition (masked unmasked). there was no time limit for giving a response. however, as soon as each participant thought they had recognized the emotion, they had to answer as fast as possible. the experimental stimuli (young woman picture with face masked or unmasked) were presented in the center of a 17-inch computer by lenovo c360 pc 10147. the experiment was controlled by psychopy software. the program generated the displays and recorded latencies to the nearest millisecond. each trial began with a blank screen for 500 milliseconds (ms), followed by a signal (‘+’) presented for 500 ms in the center of the screen. then, the picture was displayed on the computer screen and was presented until the participant gave his/her response. participants were asked to press on one of the six letter keys (‘a’, ‘e’, ‘f’, ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘l’) of the qwertz keyboard. letter keys have been decided according to the balance between the use of each hand. thus, the ‘a’, ‘e’, and ‘f’ keys were assigned to the left hand and ‘h’, ‘i’, ‘l’ were assigned to the right hand. additionally, the three first letters of each emotion were sticked to each response key. after each picture, a blank screen for 500 ms was finally displayed at the end of each picture and before the next picture appeared. the results are reported in two main sections. first, we analyze the differences between condition faces and emotion states with accuracy percentages. then we examine the variations in latencies (in milliseconds) between our dependent variable (emotion) and our factor (masked vs. unmasked face). unless otherwise stated, all differences are significant at least at p < .05, and effect sizes were computed as partial eta-squared (ηp2) for anovas. all analyses were performed accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks 18 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 https://www.psychopen.eu/ through statistica 12 software. the procedure of this study complied fully with the provision of the helsinki declaration regarding research on human participants. results emotion recognition accuracy if participants recognized the right emotion on the photos, the emotion recognition accuracy was coded 1; otherwise, 0. anovas were performed on mean percentage of accuracy with 2 (condition face: masked, unmasked) x 6 (emotion: fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutral, and disgust) design with repeated measures on the last factor. participants were more accurate when they had to identify facial emotions in faces unmasked (m = 85.7% ± 1.8) than in faces masked (m = 73.8% ± 1.8), f(1,98) = 20.73, mse = 1027.66, p ≤ 0.001, ηp2 = 0.175. moreover, as shown by the data for each emotional state (see table 1), participants were more accurate for identifying the positive emotion of joy (m = 98.5% ± 0.7) and neutral emotion (m = 91.3% ± 1.9), than for identifying other emotions, connoted as negative emotions, like fear (m = 86.0% ± 1.9), anger (m = 82.0% ± 2.6), sadness (m = 62% ± 3.1), and disgust (m = 58.5% ± 3.7), f(5,490) = 46.07, mse = 561.99, p ≤ .001, ηp2 = 0.086. the two-way interaction involving the condition face factor came out significant. the condition face x emotion state, interaction f(5,490)= 18.85, mse = 561.99, p ≤ .001, ηp2 = .037, revealed that the difference in the accuracy for identifying emotions between masked and unmasked faces was bigger with sad state, 52%, f(1,98) = 68.47, mse = 987.24, p ≤ .001, ηp2 = .411, than with disgust state, 15.0%, f(1,98) = 4.17, mse = 1348.47, p = .043, ηp2 = .041. no other significant effects came out when we compared masked and unmasked faces with fear, joy, anger, neither neutral states (f < 1). table 1 mean correct emotional recognition and mean solution latencies in each condition face as a function of each emotion state condition face emotion state meanfear joy sadness anger neutral disgust accuracy (in %) masked 83.5 ± 2.7 97.5 ± 0.9 36.0 ± 4.4 81.5 ± 3.7 93.0 ± 2.8 51.0 ± 5.2 73.8 ± 1.8 unmasked 88.5 ± 2.7 99.5 ± 0.9 88.0 ± 4.4 82.5 ± 3.7 89.5 ± 2.8 66.0 ± 5.2 85.7 ± 1.8 total 86.0 ± 1.9 98.5 ± 0.7 62.0 ± 3.1 82.0 ± 2.6 91.3 ± 1.9 58.5 ± 3.7 79.7 differences 5.0 n.s 2.0 n.s 52.0* 1.0 n.s 3.5 n.s 15.0* 11.9* solution latencies (in ms) masked 2.804 ± 0.2 1.632 ± 0.1 3.129 ± 0.1 2.449 ± 0.1 1.988 ± 0.1 2.694 ± 0.1 2.449 ± 0.7 unmasked 2.829 ± 0.2 1.382 ± 0.1 2.445 ± 0.1 2.519 ± 0.1 1.954 ± 0.1 2.768 ± 0.1 2.316 ± 0.7 total 2.816 ± 0.1 1.507 ± 0.1 2.787 ± 0.1 2.484 ± 0.1 1.971 ± 0.1 2.731 ± 0.1 2.382 differences .02 n.s 250* 684* 70 n.s 34 n.s 74 n.s 133 n.s *p < .05. n.s = non-significant. emotion recognition performance means of correct solution latencies were analyzed with mixed-design anovas, 2 (condition: masked, unmasked faces) x 6 (emotion: fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutral, and disgust), with repeated measures on the last factor (table 1). the main effect of the condition was not significant (f > 2). however, the main effect of emotion was significant, f(5,490) = 40.04, mse = 0,71, p ≤ .001, ηp2 = .076, and revealed that participants were faster for identifying emotion like joy (1.507 ms ± 0.1) and neutral (1.971 ms ± 0.1) than the other emotions like anger (2.484 ms ± 0.1), disgust (2.731 ms ± 0.1), sadness (2.787 ms ± 0.1) and fear (2.816 ms ± 0.1). the two-way interaction came out significant, f(5,490) = 3.07, mse = 0,71, p ≤ .01, ηp2 = .006. it revealed that the difference in the speed to identifying emotions between masked and unmasked faces was bigger with sadness state, 684 ms, f(1,98) = 23.82, mse = 0,49, p ≤ .001, ηp2 = .196, than with joy hysenaj, leclère, tahirbegolli et al. 19 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 https://www.psychopen.eu/ state, 250 ms, f(1,98) = 5.87, mse = 0,26, p = .017, ηp2 = .057, with a faster identification in unmasked than masked faces. no other significant effects came out when we compared masked and unmasked faces for fear, anger, neutral neither disgust state (f < 1). however, interestingly, the latencies’ appeared faster, in anger, fear and disgust states, in masked than in unmasked faces. discussion in the present study, we investigated the impact of face masks on emotion recognition, which has garnered significant attention during the covid-19 pandemic, as it holds substantial consequences for daily social interactions, particularly in emotion identification. our first hypothesis posited that the use of face masks during the pandemic would significant­ ly impact the accuracy of emotion recognition. specifically, we anticipated that masking facial features, especially the mouth area, could lead to reduced accuracy in perceiving emotions. in this regard our results align with existing data (bani et al., 2021) and confirm that emotion recognition is indeed more challenging when faces are masked. however, it is essential to note that this reduction in recognition accuracy was more pronounced for certain emotions, with joyful and neutral expressions being exceptions. this observation partially aligns with previous research that utilized various forms of occlusions (e.g., cardboard enclosures, bubbles technique), including face masks (carbon, 2020). our findings are also consistent with reports of face masks having a negligible effect on the recognition of neutral expressions (noyes et al., 2021). this lack of effect on neutral stimuli may be attributed to previous research emphasizing the importance of the eye region in the expression and recognition of neutrality (blais et al., 2012; wegrzyn et al., 2017), as closing the mouth region with a mask may not significantly affect such recognition. notably, our results showed increased accuracy in recognizing joyful expressions in the mask condition, which aligns with pazhoohi et al.'s (2021) findings of greater confidence in identifying happiness and sadness in masked faces of women. moreover, our second hypothesis proposed that the speed of emotion recognition would be affected by face maskwearing. we expected that participants might experience delays in identifying emotions when crucial facial expressions were partially obscured by masks. in this regard, our analyses on the reaction times for recognizing emotions in both masked and unmasked conditions revealed that there was no significant main effect between the conditions. however, participants were notably faster at identifying joyful and neutral emotions. these findings are consistent with previous research indicating that happiness is the fastest emotion to be recognized (martinez & du, 2010). in line with this evidence, we observed that sadness and anger constitute the group of emotions that require the longest time for recognition, approximately ten times slower than happiness (martinez & du, 2010). interestingly, the neutral emotion recognition time differed, with evidence suggesting it takes three to four times longer to recognize than happiness (martinez & du, 2010). in this study, we employed a singular gender of mannequin to express emotions, prompting a discussion within the broader context of gender implications in emotion recognition. previous research has explored the connections between specific emotions and gender bias, suggesting that certain expressions may be more strongly associated with either men or women (hess et al., 2009). it is crucial to note, however, that conflicting findings exist, as recent research indicates no significant primary influence of model gender on the perception of emotions (rinck et al., 2022). aligned with this recent perspective, our current investigation suggests that participants' emotion recognition skills may not have been affected by the gender of the selected model. to enhance our understanding of these dynamics, future research should adopt a more comprehensive, gender-diverse approach, incorporating stimuli representing both male and female genders. this study highlights the challenges posed by face masks in interpreting emotions solely through facial expressions. nevertheless, these challenges should not be seen as a reason to avoid wearing masks when required. other cues, such as voice characteristics (golan et al., 2006), body posture (aviezer et al., 2008), head orientation (sauer et al., 2014), and social context aspects (mondloch, 2012), provide additional information for emotional recognition. moreover, direct verbal communication remains a valuable tool for understanding a person's mental state. accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks 20 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations there are a few limitations in this study. the first limitation is that just one gender was used as a mannequin to display emotions. the researchers made this decision because they wanted to keep the testing duration short and maintain uniformity with one person. another limitation is that the researchers did not reveal the entire body/posture position so that other perceptions associated with the masked face could be elicited. the use of a limited number of participants may have constrained our ability to detect smaller effects and generalizability to a broader population. our study included medical students, and it is important to acknowledge that this specific demographic might not fully represent the general population. the gender-based study sample was too small to perform specific statistical analysis and assumptions. additionally, our study was conducted during the mid-pandemic period, and the societal context was characterized by evolving public health measures and individual behaviors. conclusion in conclusion, we can say that this study also revealed that the covid-19 pandemic, specifically the use of face masks to prevent the spread of infection, has provided valuable insights into the challenges associated with recognizing emotions when individuals are wearing face masks. we observed that face masks indeed have a significant impact on emotion recognition, making it more difficult for individuals to perceive emotions displayed on masked faces, particularly for certain emotions. leaving room for misunderstandings in nonverbal communication and necessitating verbal communication. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we would like to thank ermelinda rukolli for having put intensive effort into facial expressions and making photos. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the heimerer college. the participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. the procedure of this study complied fully with the provision of the helsinki declaration regarding research on human participants. human and animals rights: no animals were used for studies that are the basis of this research. all the human procedures used were in accordance with the ethical standards of the committee responsible for human 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(2017). mapping the emotional face. how individual face parts contribute to successful emotion recognition. plos one, 12(5), article e0177239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177239 about the authors arben hysenaj is the dean of the faculty of social and psychological science and a ph.d. candidate at the university of bamberg, researching the impact of migration on mental health. mr. hysenaj is also a seasoned trainer in areas such as inclusive education and stress management, and he has contributed to international conferences on topics like voluntary return programs. his diverse exper­ tise includes depression, trauma, ptsd, migration, psychosocial health, and resilience factors, demonstrated through co-authoring a publication on improving reintegration assistance for migrants returning to kosovo. mariel leclère is a neuropsychologist, earned her ph.d. in 2012 from aix-marseille university, focusing on strategies in normal and pathological aging. as a lecturer and assistant researcher, she enriched her teaching skills and deepened her knowledge in clinical psychology. specializing in older adult care, including alzheimer's and parkinson's, mariel works in diverse settings, providing cognitive assessments and rehabilitation procedures. joining rit kosovo in 2021 as an adjunct lecturer and mental health consultant, she previously served as a professor at heimerer college in prishtina-kosovo. bernard tahirbegolli is an assistant professor at heimerer college, where he teaches public health, epidemiology, and statistics. he received his doctoral degree in public health from istanbul university. his recent publications mainly focus on the impact of the covid-19 pandemic in different aspects on the health of individuals and the health system. doruntina kuqi was educated at the university of prishtina with a bachelor's in psychology. she worked at heimerer college as a research assistant where she was part of different research projects. now she works in public relations. she is passionate about product perception, marketing and research. what drives a product to success interests and inspires her." albane isufi is an assistant at heimerer college and a licensed clinical psychologist. she is currently pursuing her phd in psychology at the international university of sarajevo. her research focuses on mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), and personality disorders. lulejete prekazi is phd cand. in psychology at uet in albania. she completed her master’s and bachelor’s studies in psychology and have specialized in traumatherapy. she is a licensed clinical psychologist. she teaches at heimerer college and directs and acts as a psychotherapist at uni clinic in kosovo. driton maljichi is an assistant professor at the institute for sociological, political and juridical research st cyril and methodius university in skopje. “the persistence of hope” a collection of 100 stories about the refugee crisis and it is his first book. he has been hysenaj, leclère, tahirbegolli et al. 23 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 16–24 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11789 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257740 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-022-00430-5 https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst100 https://doi.org/10.1167/14.13.14 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2020.100138 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30185-9 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200327-sitrep-67-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=b65f68eb_4 https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.2648 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177239 https://www.psychopen.eu/ part of many researches, presented at a number of international conferences and coordinated a number of humanitarian and legal aid initiatives for refugees. his research interest is focused on multiculturalism, social crisis and sociology of health. member of the european social survey team (ess -2021) for north macedonia. nevzat shemsedini is an assistant professor at heimerer college, where he teaches psychology courses within the faculty of social and psychological sciences. he has held this position since 2011 at "fama" college, and as of 2020, he has been a part of heimerer college. dr. shemsedini is the author of 10 scientific works published in international magazines and actively participates in various local and international conferences. rina meha is an assistant and responsible for teaching processes in the faculty of social and psychological sciences at heimerer college. additionally, she leads the psychology clinic at the heimerer therapeutic center. mrs. meha completed her bachelor's studies at the university of prishtina in the faculty of philosophy, department of psychology, and pursued master's studies in cognitive neuropsychology at the university of sheffield. currently, she is pursuing her doctorate at the university of saarland in germany, specializing in science and health in football, with a focus on cognition in football. mrs. meha is a licensed clinical psychologist. accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks 24 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ accuracy and speed of emotion recognition with face masks (introduction) method participants materials procedure and design results emotion recognition accuracy emotion recognition performance discussion limitations conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement human and animals rights references about the authors “dysrationalia” among university students: the role of cognitive abilities, different aspects of rational thought and self-control in explaining epistemically suspect beliefs research reports “dysrationalia” among university students: the role of cognitive abilities, different aspects of rational thought and self-control in explaining epistemically suspect beliefs nikola erceg* a, zvonimir galić a, andreja bubić b [a] department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb, zagreb, croatia. [b] department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of split, split, croatia. abstract the aim of the study was to investigate the role that cognitive abilities, rational thinking abilities, cognitive styles and self-control play in explaining the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs among university students. a total of 159 students participated in the study. we found that different aspects of rational thought (i.e. rational thinking abilities and cognitive styles) and self-control, but not intelligence, significantly predicted the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. based on these findings, it may be suggested that intelligence and rational thinking, although related, represent two fundamentally different constructs. thus, deviations from rational thinking could be well described by the term “dysrationalia”, meaning the inability to think rationally despite having adequate intelligence. we discuss the implications of the results, as well as some drawbacks of the study. keywords: dysrationalia, epistemically suspect beliefs, cognitive abilities, rational thinking, self-control europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 received: 2018-07-03. accepted: 2018-10-02. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: ivana lučića 3, 10000 zagreb, croatia. e-mail: nerceg@ffzg.hr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recently, there was an interesting story trending in croatian media. it was about a well-known local movie director that sued a clairvoyant and tarot master. despite spending large amount of money on consultations, neither telephone nor tarot sessions helped the director. therefore, she decided to sue the psychic because the psychic was obviously a fraud. approximately at the same time, a relatively famous serbian football player came out with the devastating story about black magic spells being cast on his family. however, this one had a happy ending: after they found a striped shirt and burned what was on the inside, exactly what a psychic told him and his family to do, the things luckily went back to normal. although these stories are extreme examples of irrational behavior, most of us probably know some people that, despite being sufficiently intelligent, nevertheless hold weird or irrational beliefs. stanovich (2009) coined the term „dysrationalia” to describe the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence. similar to the examples in the introduction, the irrational beliefs often take form of the epistemically suspect beliefs (esb). esb can be defined as beliefs that are in conflict with common naturalistic conceptions of europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the world (pennycook, cheyne, barr, koehler, & fugelsang, 2015a). the main goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between this kind of beliefs and rational thinking. rational thinking and cognitive abilities: definition and measurement by looking at the above definition of the term „dysrationalia”, it is clear that some authors hold the view that cognitive abilities, i.e. intelligence, and the ability to think rationally are not the same thing. moreover, they argue that rational thinking abilities are a broader concept than the cognitive abilities, a construct that encompasses intelligence, but also some other characteristics such as reflection, open-minded thinking etc. (stanovich 2009, 2014; stanovich & west, 2008; stanovich, west, & toplak, 2016). there are at least two positions from which it can be argued for a separation of rational thinking and cognitive abilities. the first set of arguments comes from the tripartite theory of mind that differentiates between autonomous, algorithmic and reflective parts of the mind (pennycook, fugelsang, & koehler, 2015b; stanovich, 2009; stanovich et al., 2016). this theory is a direct expansion of the dual-process theory that differentiates between the system 1 and system 2 (evans & stanovich, 2013). whereas autonomous, fast, parallel, non-conscious, and automatic processing of information characterize system 1, system 2 is more serial, conscious, rulebased, abstract and working memory dependent. however, it seems that it is possible to differentiate between two different aspects of system 2 processing, the algorithmic and the reflective mind. now relatively famous, the bat-and-ball problem from the cognitive reflection test (crt; frederick, 2005) elegantly illustrates this. consider the following problem: „a bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. the bat costs $1 more than the ball. how much does the ball cost?“ the peculiarity of this, as well as other problems from the test, is that they automatically trigger relatively strong initial response (i.e., 10 cents). however, after a more careful reflection, it is clear that this is an incorrect answer, and that the right response is in fact 5 cents. thus, in order to overcome the initial wrong response (generated by the autonomous mind), and arrive to the correct one, one has to first reflect on the answer and recognize the need to engage in a more deliberate processing (the reflective mind), but also to possess adequate computational power, knowledge and abilities to calculate the right answer (algorithmic mind). by looking at this example, it becomes clear that what is generally assessed by iq tests mostly taps into the operations of the algorithmic mind, but not the reflective mind. therefore, in order to think rationally, the adequate computational power (e.g. intelligence) is necessary, but not sufficient: the willingness to reflect on one's initial responses and engage in more deliberate thinking seems to be the key factor here (pennycook et al., 2015b). the second position from which it is possible to argue for a separation of rational thinking and cognitive abilities relies on the definition of rationality. namely, there appears to be two kinds of rationality: epistemic and instrumental rationality (stanovich et al., 2016). the first one, epistemic rationality, refers to the correctness of the beliefs, i.e. “how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world” (stanovich, west, & toplak, 2017, p. 205). for our beliefs to be rational, they must be true, or correspond to the objective state of the world. the second type of rationality, instrumental rationality, refers to „behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you“ (stanovich et al., 2017, p. 205). thus, it is said that epistemic rationality is about what is true and instrumental rationality is about what to do. however, these two types of rationality are interrelated. namely, to be able to take actions that fulfill our goals (instrumental rationality), we need to base those actions on beliefs that are properly matched to the world (epistemic rationality; stanovich, 2014). the key argument here is that conventional iq tests, while measuring the “dysrationalia” among university students 160 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ computational power of the algorithmic mind (stanovich, 2012), do not capture the two types of rational thinking, and that different tasks should be developed in order to measure one’s rational thinking abilities. given that the conventional iq tests do not properly assess the rational thinking abilities, what kind of tasks would be appropriate for measuring these kinds of abilities? as it follows for the previous argumentation, one of the frameworks for the classifications of these tasks could be along the two dimensions: a) which of the two types of rationality the task is supposed to assess; b) in what degree does the performance on the task depend on the reflective versus algorithmic mind. for example, previously discussed crt (frederick, 2005) is widely used in judgment and decision literature as it clearly taps into the functioning of the reflective mind, while being somewhat less demanding for the algorithmic mind (requiring certain amount of computational power and only the knowledge of basic algebra that most of the people possess). furthermore, other tasks have been used in judgment and decision making literature that tap into epistemic and instrumental rationality. on the one hand, some aspects of epistemic rationality include the ability to make coherent probability judgments, resistance to overconfidence in judgments, understanding of chance events, and consideration of the alternative hypothesis when evaluating evidence (stanovich, 2014). thus, these kinds of tasks are used to assess the epistemic rationality. on the other hand, among key aspects of instrumental rationality is the ability to make judgments and decisions without the influence of irrelevant context. for example, one cannot make good decisions in their own interest if those decisions are influenced by irrelevant inputs such as frames, defaults, vividness of stimuli or irrelevant affect (stanovich, 2014). thus, the tasks that measure judgments free from these irrelevant facts are often used as measures of instrumental rationality. there are currently no developed and widely used measures of rational thinking that are based on the described theoretical consideration. perhaps the most ambitious one is the comprehensive assessment of rational thinking battery (cart; stanovich et al., 2016). however, it still represents work-in-progress, and in its current form, with over 100 items, seems cumbersome for both researchers and participants. therefore, the rational thinking measures in most of studies are often developed ad-hoc, by lumping together several categories of the previously described items (e.g. pennycook, ross, koehler, & fugelsang, 2016; toplak, west, & stanovich, 2011, 2017). these rational thinking measures generally show two important characteristics. first, their correlation with intelligence is generally either low or non-existent (stanovich, 2009; stanovich & west, 2008, 2014; stanovich, west, & toplak, 2013, 2016). second, they are able to predict a wide range of real-life outcomes. for example, low scores on these tasks have been shown to predict physicians choosing more often suboptimal medical treatments, people failing to accurately assess risks in their environment, parents failing to vaccinate their children, the amount of money wasted on questionable medical remedies, as well as holding more esb (pennycook et al., 2015a; pennycook, cheyne, seli, koehler, & fugelsang, 2012; pennycook et al., 2015b; pennycook et al., 2016; stanovich & west, 2014). epistemically suspect beliefs, cognitive abilities and rational thinking as noted before, the esb are the main topic of interest in this paper. although there are different types of those kind of beliefs (e.g. paranormal, supernatural, magical, superstitious, and even religious beliefs), it seems that they all share one common characteristic ontological confusion. more precisely, these beliefs involve category mistakes, such that the core ontological distinction between the categories of physical, biological and psychoerceg, galić, & bubić 161 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ logical phenomena are blurred (lindeman & svedholm, 2012). some of the examples would be thoughts that can move objects, existence of mind independently of bodies or sense of purpose in chance events. lindeman and svedholm (2012) conclude that all these different beliefs are not fundamentally different, which is corroborated by lindeman and aarnio's (2006) findings demonstrating that all these beliefs can be explained by one higher-order factor. recently, risen (2016) discussed superstitious thinking within the dual-process framework. however, given the above discussion, different types of esb can probably be accommodated within that same framework. specifically, in line with the default-interventionist model (kahneman & frederick, 2005), she proposed that system 1, due to its features such as reliance on heuristics and attribute substitution, causal intuitions and confirmation bias, generates superstitious intuitions quickly and easily and that these intuitions then serve as a default for judgment and behavior. system 2 may or may not correct the initial intuition. features of system 1 such as representativeness and availability heuristics, causal intuitions or conformation bias work together in supporting the superstitious intuitions. certain characteristics of system 2 such as the motivation and the ability to be rational increase the probability that the system 2 will engage and override the initial intuition. when represented in the tripartite theory of mind framework, system 2 refers to the rational mind and consists of both the algorithmic and reflective mind. therefore, based on the risen’s theory, it can be hypothesized that esb will especially be prominent in people with lower abilities of algorithmic and reflective mind. as postulated previously, algorithmic mind can be assessed with a cognitive ability test, while the reflective mind should be assessed with a battery of different tasks that capture instrumental and epistemic rationality (i.e. rational thinking tasks). however, besides these types of tasks, reflective mind is often assessed by so called thinking dispositions or cognitive styles (e.g. aarnio & lindeman, 2005; lindeman & svedholm-häkkinen, 2016; pennycook et al., 2015a; stanovich et al., 2016). although several models and theories of cognitive styles were proposed (e.g. allinson & hayes, 1996; dewberry, juanchich, & narendran, 2013; scott & bruce, 1995), one of the best known and widely used theory is epstein’s (1991) cognitive-experiental self-theory. this theory draws directly from dual-process theory and posits two independent styles, analytic and intuitive one. analytical style, emphasizing a conscious, analytical thinking approach, is often measured by the need for cognition scale (nfc; cacioppo & petty, 1982), while the intuitive style is assessed with the faith in intuition scale (fi). these two scales represent subscales of the rational – experiental inventory (epstein, pacini, denes-raj, & heier, 1996; norris, pacini, & epstein, 1998). previous research has shown that analytical cognitive style was negatively related to esb (lindeman & aarnio, 2006; lindeman & svedholm häkkinen, 2016; pennycook et al., 2012), while the intuitive style was positively related with the esb (aarnio & lindeman, 2005; sadler-smith, 2011). in addition to that, we hypothesized that the rational thought could also be aided by self-control. self-control is widely regarded as a capacity to change and adapt the self to produce a better, more optimal fit between self and world (tangney, baumeister, & boone, 2004), which resembles stanovich et al. (2016) notion of epistemic rationality. in a similar fashion as the system 2 which overrides initial intuitions, self-control is defined as the capacity to alter or override dominant response tendencies and to regulate behavior, thoughts and emotions (de ridder, lensvelt-mulders, finkenauer, stok, & baumeister, 2012). one of the ways in which self-control could operate is through the education, where those with high self-control should be more successful as they are probably better at getting tasks done on time, using study time effectively, choosing appropriate courses, “dysrationalia” among university students 162 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ etc. (tangney et al., 2004). regardless of the mechanisms of the self-control operation, if self-control could enhance one’s rationality of thinking and behaving, it would be possible for it to have the effect of suppressing the esb. our study the main goal of this study is to explore the role that different aspects of rational thought play in esb. more precisely, we aimed to compare the validity of different measures of rational thought encompassing measures of cognitive abilities, reflective thinking abilities and cognitive styles in their capacity to predict variance of esb measures. we therefore postulated five hypotheses. first, we expected that both cognitive abilities and rational thinking abilities, as components of rational thought (i.e. algorithmic and reflective mind), will be negatively related to esb. furthermore, based on the previous findings, we expected a negative correlation between the analytical cognitive style and the esb, and a positive correlation between the intuitive cognitive style and the esb. finally, based on the previous description of self-control, we expected it to be negatively correlated with the esb. methodology participants and procedure a total of 159 students of faculties of humanities and social sciences from zagreb and split (129 females and 29 males), aged 18 – 26 (m = 21.30; sd = 1.50) participated in this study. they were given a battery of tasks and scales in a classroom setting, and they all received course credits for their participation, regardless of their performance on the tests. due to the questionnaires being in a paper and pencil format, order of the questionnaires and tests was fixed and same for all the participants. cognitively more demanding tasks were presented first (cognitive ability test was always the first one, followed by the cognitive reflection test, rationality tasks and syllogistic reasoning tasks), followed by the self-report measures (i.e. cognitive styles and self-control). instruments esb were assessed using items from toplak et al. (2011). the scale consisted of 13 items in total, assessed on the five-point scale (cronbach α = .75). the total score was calculated as a mean score of all the items, meaning that it could take any value between one and five. the items tapped into four different concepts: superstitious beliefs (e.g. “when something good happens to me, i believe it is likely to be balanced by something bad.”), luck (e.g. “i have personal possessions that bring me luck at times.”), paranormal beliefs (“astrology can be useful in making personality judgments.”), and extrasensory perception (“dreams can provide information about the future.”). cognitive ability was assessed using advanced progressive matrices (apm; raven, court, & raven, 1988). the instrument consists of 36 items overall, so a total individual score can be any number between 0 and 36. participants had 30 minutes to solve the test, and it was always the first test in the battery. rational thinking abilities were assessed with three different types of tasks: erceg, galić, & bubić 163 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a) cognitive reflection test (crt; frederick, 2005) is an instrument used for measuring individuals’ ability to resist reporting an intuitive incorrect answer and to calculate and report the correct one. it consists of three items (cronbach α = .70), with the total score representing the proportion of correctly answered items. b) rationality tasks (toplak et al., 2011) were designed to mostly tap into either instrumental or epistemic rationality. for example, instrumental rationality was assessed mainly with different tasks emphasizing the ability to disregard irrelevant contextual factors when making judgments and decisions (i.e., tasks that measure the ability to resist framing effects, sunk costs, outcome bias or being affected by vivid stimuli). for example, in the framing task, we captured whether an individual’s choice was affected by the problem being framed in terms of gains or losses. if one’s choices were consistent irrespectively of the frame, it would mean that one is generally more able to resist the irrelevant context when making judgments and, therefore, that one is more rational. on the other hand, epistemic rationality was assessed with tasks such as those related to gambler’s fallacy, covariation detection, base rate neglect, denominator neglect etc. for example, in the context of the gambler’s fallacy task, if a person would realize that the outcomes of chance events (such as rolling a dice) cannot be influenced by previous outcomes, it would suggest that that person in more rational. there were 11 tasks in total (cronbach α = .44). the total score on these 11 tasks was calculated as a proportion of correct answers, and similarly as with the crt, it was in range between 0 and 1. c) syllogistic reasoning tasks (toplak et al., 2011) measure susceptibility to belief bias. they pit the believability of a conclusion against its logical validity. in that regard they are somewhat similar to the crt tasks in that, in order to arrive at the correct conclusion, a person must first notice that the believable conclusion, although intuitively receptive, is false. the total score, similarly as with the crt and rationality tasks was a proportion of correct answers given on these five tasks (cronbach α = .62). finally, a rational thinking ability (rta) score was calculated by combining the score of these three types of tasks into one composite score. this approach was previously used by a number of researchers in the field of individual differences in decision making (e.g. barr, pennycook, stolz, & fugelsang, 2015; pennycook et al., 2016; toplak et al., 2011; west, toplak, & stanovich, 2008). the main rationale behind combining these three constructs into a composite score is that all of the items/constructs represent some component of rational thinking (stanovich et al., 2016). specifically, the rational thinking ability score was calculated by averaging the scores on the three different types of tasks. therefore, a person could score anywhere between a 0 and 1 on the rational thinking ability. when calculating the total score in this way, the internal consistency coefficient for this measure containing three items was cronbach α = .59i. relatively low reliability coefficients in this field are not uncommon. as stanovich et al. (2017) put it, “rationality is multifarious concept, it is unlikely to yield as substantial a g-factor as is the case with intelligence” (p. 216). however, it is important to note that cronbach’s alpha can underestimate reliability, especially when applied to very short measures of broad constructs (sandy, gosling, schwartz, & koelkebeck, 2017), since the alpha is a function of a number of items in a scale and average correlations among them. since there are only three items combined in this composite score, the low alpha coefficient is not surprising. on the other hand, another index of internal consistency, omega, which is deemed to be a more sensible index of internal consistency (dunn, baguley, & brunsden, 2014), yields higher estimate of reliability of ω = .67. furthermore, inter-correlations among the three measures are all medium to high (lowest correlation is r = .32 between syllogistic reasoning and crt), which also suggests that cronbach’s alpha probably underestimates the real reliability in this case. “dysrationalia” among university students 164 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analytical cognitive style was measured by the adapted need for cognition scale (nfc; cacioppo & petty, 1982) and consists of five items (e.g., “i would prefer complex to simple problems”; cronbach α = .84). on the other hand, faith in intuition scale (fi) is used for measuring the intuitive cognitive style, and also consists of five items overall (e.g., “my initial impressions of people are almost always right”; cronbach α = .83). the participants were instructed to assess how well each of the items describes themselves using five point ratings (1 = not at all to 5 = very much). the total score on both scales was calculated as average assessment over five items. thus, on both scales a person could score anywhere between 1 and 5. self-control was measured with the brief self-control scale (bsc; tangney et al., 2004). the bsc is designed for measuring self-control, or the ability to control one's instincts, emotions, thoughts, habits and behavior. it consists of 13 items (e.g., “i wish i had more self-discipline”; cronbach α = .83) and the participants were instructed to indicate, using five point ratings (1 = not at all to 5 = very much), how well each of the items describes how they typically behave and feel. similarly as with nfc and fi, the total score was calculated as average assessment over thirteen items. thus, an individual score could be anywhere between 1 and 5. results as seen from the relatively low mean for the esb score in the table 1, college students are a relatively nonsuperstitious group. on the other hand, they seem to be highly intelligent as a group, with most individuals having above average intelligence score. to examine the relationship between the esb on the one hand, and rational thinking ability, analytical and intuitive cognitive styles and self-control on the other hand, we calculated the correlation coefficients. table 1 descriptive statistics and reliability coefficients of the measures used in the study measure m mdn sd min max esb esb scale 1.92 1.77 0.59 1 4.15 cognitive abilities apm 27.24 28 4.50 14 36 rational thinking abilities crt 0.58 0.67 0.39 0 1 rationality tasks 0.67 0.64 0.18 0.09 1 syllogisms 0.69 0.60 0.28 0 1 rta 0.66 0.67 0.22 0.10 1 cognitive styles nfc 3.79 3.80 0.76 1.40 5 fi 3.33 3.40 0.73 1 5 self-control bsc 3.05 3.00 0.61 1.46 5 note. esb = epistemically suspect beliefs; apm = advanced progressive matrices; crt = cognitive reflection test; rta = rational thinking abilities; nfc = need for cognition; fi = faith in intuition; bsc = brief self-control scale. erceg, galić, & bubić 165 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the correlational analysis indicated that the esb were significantly correlated with all the variables except for the cognitive abilities (r = -.04). specifically, esb were negatively correlated with the rational thinking ability (rta) score (r = -.18), the need for cognition (nfc) score (r = -.23) and the self-control score (r = -.16), while they were positively correlated with the faith in intuition (fi) score (r = .35). the correlations between all the variables are presented in the table 2, while scatter plots of their relationships and their distributions are seen in figure a in the appendix. table 2 correlation coefficients between the assessed variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. esb – 2. apm -.04 – 3. rta -.18* .43** – 4. nfc -.23** .14 .24** – 5. fi .35** .00 -.08 -.02 – 6. self-control -.16* -.14 -.19* .12 .01 – note. esb = epistemically suspect beliefs; apm = advanced progressive matrices; rta = rational thinking ability; nfc = need for cognition; fi = faith in intuition. *p < .05. **p < .01. as seen in the table 2, the correlation between the apm score and rational thinking abilities score was r = .43, which could be classified as a medium sized correlation. contrary to that, the correlation between apm and cognitive styles was much lower and non-significant. these effect sizes are pretty similar to those generally observed in the literature (e.g. stanovich et al., 2016). next, to identify variables that serve as unique predictors of esb, as well as to assess how much of the variance in those beliefs can be explained by the variables included in the model, we conducted a regression analyses. the results of this analysis are presented in the table 3. table 3 regression analysis with cognitive abilities, rational thinking abilities, analytic cognitive style, intuitive cognitive style and self-control as predictors, and epistemically suspect beliefs score as an outcome predictors β dominance coefficients cognitive abilities .04 0.00 rational thinking abilities -.17* 0.03 analytic cognitive style -.18* 0.04 intuitive cognitive style .33** 0.11 self-control -.16* 0.02 note. r = .45; r2 = .21**; adj. r2 = .18**; f(5, 147) = 7.62**. *p < .05. **p < .01. as can be seen from the table 3, the model explained overall 21% (corrected 18%) of the variance in the esb. as expected from looking at the correlation coefficients, cognitive abilities did not predict esb, being the only non-significant predictor in the model. on the other hand, higher scores on the rational thinking abilities, analyti“dysrationalia” among university students 166 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cal cognitive style and self-control predicted lower susceptibility to esb. contrary to that, higher score on the intuitive cognitive style predicted higher susceptibility to esb. in addition to regression analysis, we also conducted the dominance analysis (azen & budescu, 2003; budescu, 1993; lebreton & tonidandel, 2008) that can quantify the relative importance of each of the predictors for the outcome. specifically, we calculated the general dominance coefficient for each of the predictors. this is done by averaging the added variance explained by the predictor in all possible subsets of regression models. for example, if we wanted to calculate the general dominance coefficient for the predictor x1 in the model with three predictors, we would first calculate the proportion of variance explained by that predictor in all possible scenarios: when there are no additional predictors in the model besides x1, when there is additional predictor x2, when there is additional predictor x3 and when all three predictors (x1, x2 and x3) are in the model. finally, we would average all calculated δr2 and that number would represent the general dominance coefficient for that predictor. this coefficient has several important advantages over beta coefficients. for example, it is more intuitive since it represents the amount of variance explained in the outcome by each of the predictors in the model. also, the sum of the general dominance coefficients of all the predictors in the model equals the total amount of variance in the outcome explained by the model. by inspecting the general dominance coefficients (table 3), it is clear that cognitive abilities were irrelevant in explaining esb. on the other hand, the intuitive cognitive style was by far the most important predictor of esb, explaining over 50% of the total variance explained by the model. finally, as an additional, exploratory analysis, we tested for possible interactive effects of the individual differences in cognitive abilities, rational thinking and cognitive styles on esbii. for example, čavojová (2016) showed that there was an interactive effect of cognitive abilities and thinking dispositions on esb. to test for this possibility, we conducted three separate regression analyses. cognitive ability (apm) was included as a predictor in every analysis, while rta, nfc and fi were included in one of the analysis each. in the second step of every analysis, we included the interactive term of the predictors (apmxrta, apmxnfc and apmxfi). the results showed that, contrary to čavojová’s (2016) findings, neither of the interactions were significant and neither was able to explain additional portion of the variance above the effects of the individual predictors. therefore, it seems that the effect of cognitive abilities on esb does not depend on the level of the individual’s rational thinking ability or preferred cognitive style. discussion probably the biggest contribution of our study follows from the use of a wide range of instruments for assessment of different aspects of rational thought. this aspect of study design allowed us to draw conclusions about relations among different aspects of the rational thought with esb. what we found is that, somewhat surprisingly, intelligence could not predict extent to which individuals hold esb. contrary to that, other constructs that underpin rational thought, rational thinking ability, cognitive styles and self-control, were all independent predictors of esb. on the one hand, the greater the rational thinking abilities, propensity for analytical thinking and selfcontrol, the lesser the probability of a person endorsing esb. on the other hand, greater propensity for intuitive thinking was related with holding more esb. both the regression analysis and supplementary dominance analysis indicated that inclination towards intuitive thinking is the most important predictor of all assessed within this study. erceg, galić, & bubić 167 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these results somewhat corroborate risen’s (2016) model in which esb arise from the heuristical and intuitive system 1 and thrive unless detected and overridden by the system 2. assuming this model of esb is correct, it is not surprising that the tendency for intuitive thinking was the most powerful predictor of endorsing these beliefs. similarly, it is not surprising that various aspects of rational thought acted in another way, deterring those beliefs. therefore, what can be concluded from this study is that the esb are the result of some kind of interplay between the system 1 and system 2 processes. for example, in accordance with the parallel-competitive model, it could be that the two systems are activated at the same time and are constantly competing for an influence on the final response. or it could be that, according to a default-interventionist model, system 1 generates the default intuitive response, but its expression depends on whether or not system 2 will intervene to correct it (see evans, 2007, for a discussion about different models of a system 1/system 2 conflict resolution). however, it is important to note that, whatever the cognitive underpinnings of conflict resolution may be, greater disposition towards rational thinking would always be expected to result in lower esb. although it was somewhat expected that the components of rational thought will be negatively related with the propensity to hold esb, the puzzling finding of this research is the complete irrelevance of intelligence for these beliefs. even from the laypeople point of view, one would expect that the smarter people would be less prone to foolish beliefs. also, in the model proposed by stanovich and associates (2016), intelligence is one of the essential parts of the rational thought and, in the cases when rational thought goes astray, it can be an indication of why that happened. however, it seems to follow from this case that the rational thought can go astray regardless of intelligence. our results indicate that other aspects of rational thought, rather than intelligence, such as the ability or the motivation to notice incorrect intuitive inputs and overcome them, play a much more important role in the development and endorsement of foolish thoughts. thus, it seems that stanovich (2009) captured a real phenomenon when he coined the term “dysrationalia” it indeed seems that people can hold irrational beliefs despite being reasonably intelligent. however, before drawing stronger conclusions from these findings, few words of caution are needed. first, despite different aspects of rational thought being significant predictors of esb, the complete model explained only about 20% of the variance in those beliefs. this means that some additional factors must play important role in explaining esb. these factors can be related to rational thinking, but some other constructs could also be important. for example, in their comprehensive assessment of rational thinking (cart) battery, as components of rational thought, stanovich et al. (2016) also measure constructs such as scientific reasoning, probabilistic numeracy or risk knowledge. they also suggest assessing additional cognitive styles such as active open-minded thinking (e.g. baron, scott, fincher, & metz, 2015). thus, these additional components of rational thought could perhaps explain some additional variance in esb. in addition to these, there are several other factors that were shown to be important for these kinds of beliefs, such as locus of control (groth-marnat & pegden, 1998; tobacyk, nagot, & miller, 1988), and even socio-demographic, socio-economic and cultural background (torgler, 2007). therefore, although rational thinking is an important factor in explaining epistemically suspect beliefs, it might not be the only one, and possibly not even the most important one. in addition to the variable choice, the important drawback of this study is the sample. namely, only students of humanities and social sciences participated in this study (and mostly females). narrow samples such as this one can be problematic for several reasons. the first is the range restriction. although the width of the distribution of majority of the variables was satisfactory, the distribution of esb was particularly narrow (see figure a in appendix) which could perhaps distort the effect sizes. similarly, although the distribution of apm results is sur“dysrationalia” among university students 168 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prisingly wide given the student sample, it is nevertheless shifted towards higher values. it is thus possible that, in a more representative sample with a wider range of intelligence scores, intelligence would be significant predictor of esb. finally, using a student sample here may be an example of the conditioning on a collider. a collider is a variable that is related to both predictor and outcome. for example, being a student might be positively related with intelligence, and perhaps negatively with holding esb. in cases like this, it is possible that controlling for a collider (whether statistically or by sampling) could distort and bias the relationship between the predictor and outcome (see rohrer, 2018). in conclusion, the current study fits well with risen’s (2016) dual process model of superstitious beliefs which posits that system 1 provides intuitive, superstitious inputs, that, in order to dismiss superstitious thoughts, must be overridden by system 2 processing. however, we also show that not all aspects of system 2 processing are equally important. namely, the ability and propensity to think rationally and analytically play an important role, whereas cognitive abilities do not. therefore, our results suggest that “dysrationalia”, defined as holding irrational beliefs despite adequate intelligence, could be a real phenomenon. in other words, it is not about how intelligent someone is, but how willing and able one is to question the intuitive impulses, rather than uncritically embracing and accepting them. an intelligent person, but without a motivation or ability to reflect on his/her own intuitive ideas and beliefs, can nevertheless hold unsubstantiated beliefs. these beliefs are sometimes just weird or funny, as in the case of a football player from the introduction, but other times can be quite serious and dangerous. such is the case of the “heaven’s gate” cult whose 39 members committed suicide in 1997 in order to reach the hale-bopp comet that was supposed to help them reach "the evolutionary level above human”. these individuals left behind a series of video interviews that make it clear that there was nothing wrong with their cognitive abilities. on the contrary, they were very thoughtful and reasoned, and seemed quite smart. yet, they managed to hold such extreme irrational beliefs that ultimately led them to commit suicide. thus, it is clear that people do not hold irrational beliefs primarily because they are not intelligent enough, but that the underpinnings of irrational thoughts are much more complex. understanding more about motivational and cognitive underpinnings of irrational beliefs is important first step in reducing the prevalence of these beliefs or preventing people from embracing them in a first place. we believe that this study is a step in that direction. notes i) the other possible approach for calculating the composite score of these three types of tasks was simply summing the correct answers to the 19 items. although this approach, i.e. having a test with 19 items, would result in acceptable reliability of cronbach α = .72, we nevertheless decided against it. the main reason behind our decision was that, without clear theoretical arguments, we did not want to give a higher weight in a composite score to either of the constructs. for example, if we just summed the raw scores, then the score on the rationality tasks would have higher weight in the composite since there were 11 such items, compared to three items in crt and five syllogistic reasoning tasks. importantly, subsequent results and conclusions remained the same regardless of the way of calculating the rational thinking ability score. ii) we thank the anonymous reviewer for this suggestion. funding the authors have no funding to report. erceg, galić, & bubić 169 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aarnio, k., & lindeman, m. 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(2008). heuristics and biases as measures of critical thinking: associations with cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. journal of educational psychology, 100(4), 930-941. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012842 erceg, galić, & bubić 173 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.x https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5202_5 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0104-1 https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1973 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2007.01.007 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012842 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix figure a. the distributions of the variables measured within the study, together with scatter plots and correlation coefficients representing the relationships between them. note. esb = epistemically suspect beliefs; apm = advanced progressive matrices; nfc = need for cognition; fi = faith in intuition. “dysrationalia” among university students 174 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors nikola erceg obtained his master's degree in psychology in 2012 at the department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences in zagreb. he started his ph.d. in 2015 and since 2017, he works at the same institution as a research and teaching assistant, at the chair for work psychology and ergonomics. his main scientific interests are judgment and decision making and economic psychology. zvonimir galic is an associate professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the university of zagreb, croatia, europe. his main research interests relate to the relationship between personality and work behavior. his other research interest include work motivation, leadership and decision making. his research has been published in outlets such as journal of vocational behavior, personality and individual differences, journal of personality assessment, human performance, and international journal of selection and assessment. he was visiting researcher at purdue university, psychological sciences (fulbright’s postdoctoral research award), and the australian national university, research school of management (endeavour postdoctoral research fellowship). andreja bubic is an associate professor at the faculty of humanities and social sciences at the university of split. she obtained her ph.d. in psychology at the faculty for biosciences, pharmacy and psychology at the university of leipzig and the max planck university for human cognitive and brain sciences in leipzig. thereafter she completed a fellowship in the laboratory for multisensory research in jerusalem, israel and a postdoctoral stay in a.a. martinos center for biomedical imaging at the massachusetts general hospital and harvard medical school in boston, usa. currently in split, she lectures and studies various aspects of judgment and decision making processes, and their application in the field of educational sciences. she has published over 40 scientific articles, participated in several national and international scientific projects and supervised over 20 undergraduate, as well as one doctoral student thesis. erceg, galić, & bubić 175 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 159–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ “dysrationalia” among university students (introduction) rational thinking and cognitive abilities: definition and measurement epistemically suspect beliefs, cognitive abilities and rational thinking our study methodology participants and procedure instruments results discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors who believes in esp: cognitive and motivational determinants of the belief in extra-sensory perception research reports who believes in esp: cognitive and motivational determinants of the belief in extra-sensory perception marija branković* a [a] department of psychology, faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, belgrade, serbia. abstract many people believe in extra-sensory perception, e.g. the ability to communicate with thoughts, to sense future events or locate radiation with the help of a v-shaped piece of wood. addressing a gap in research specifically focused on esp beliefs, we investigated cognitive styles and basic motivations related to these beliefs in two survey studies. the findings suggest that a propensity to use intuition is the best predictor of esp beliefs in terms of cognitive style. esp belief is positively related to fear of death, and this relation is partly mediated by fatalism, i.e. the belief that chance controls one’s life. esp beliefs do not seem to be perceived as irreconcilable with a rational view of reality however, they do not necessarily provide psychological protection from existential concerns. the implications of the findings in terms of costs and benefits of these beliefs and the possibility to change them are discussed. keywords: paranormal belief, extra-sensory perception, intuition, fear of death, fatalism europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 received: 2018-06-29. accepted: 2018-11-15. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: department of psychology, faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, karađorđeva 65, 1100 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: marija.brankovic@fmk.edu.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the one million dollar paranormal challenge was an offer of 1 million us dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal ability under scientific testing conditionsi. from 1964 to 2015, when the competition was terminated, not a single person of over thousand applicants succeeded in proving their supernatural ability. however, recent studies reveal that around two-thirds of americans believe in psi phenomena (rice, 2003). esp or “psi” refers to extra-sensory perception, i.e. phenomena as telepathy (communicating with thoughts), psychokinesis (the ability to move objects without physical contact), precognition (the ability to predict future events), psychometry (reading the past from an object) or dowsing (the ability to locate underground water, buried metals and gravesites using dowsing rod). the common denominator for all the phenomena in question is that they break the fundamental scientific principles known to date (broad, 1953). the most recent attempts to demonstrate the reality of esp were made by daryl bem (bem, 2011), but several labs promptly attempted and failed to replicate his findings (galak, leboeuf, nelson, & simmons, 2012; ritchie, wiseman, & french, 2012). since they failed to stand numerous scientific tests (e.g. enright, 1995) these phenomena are thus considered pseudoscientific or, as other authors prefer to term this “…not empirically attested to the satisfaction of the scientific establishment.” (irwin, 2009, p. 16). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the high prevalence of esp beliefs, even among well-educated individuals (rice, 2003; wuthnow, 1978), calls for a better understanding of their psychological determinants. in two studies we, therefore, investigated cognitive and motivational determinants of esp beliefs, more precisely which kind of cognitive style predicts these beliefs and whether they are deeply founded in some basic existential concerns, i.e. fear of death. esp as a type of paranormal belief paranormal belief is a term with very wide and varying content. the most widely used instrument for studying paranormal beliefs (tobacyk & milford, 1983, also a revised version tobacyk, 2004) has been extensively criticized for grouping together different types of beliefs that have different origins and different correlates (aarnio & lindeman, 2005; lawrence, 1995; rice, 2003; thalbourne, 1995; wiseman & watt, 2004), e.g., belief in god and other religious beliefs, beliefs in ghosts, supernatural healing, precognition, superstition etc. although authors in the field appear to agree that paranormal belief is a multidimensional phenomenon (aarnio & lindeman, 2005; irwin, 1993, 2009) the exact number and nature of the relevant dimensions are yet to be established. however, in previous studies, factor analytical analyses have often identified a component that is related to psi or similar phenomena (e.g. lange, irwin, & houran, 2000; tobacyk & milford, 1983). beliefs in esp phenomena are interesting because they are seemingly a more “modern” form of paranormal belief, perhaps more in line with the current worldviews, compared to more traditional forms of superstitious beliefs or religious beliefs. for instance, schouten (1983) found that students espousing esp beliefs did not express negative feelings about the influence of technology in the modern society (see also wuthnow, 1978). supporting this, a recent survey conducted on a representative sample of the us public revealed that 60% of participants expressed their belief in esp, which makes them one of the most prevalent forms of paranormal belief (in comparison with 33% who believe in astrology, 35% believing that extraterrestrials visited the earth in the past, or 24% acknowledging that they are at least somewhat superstitious; rice, 2003; see also irwin, 2009). another finding illustrating the prevalence of esp beliefs is that people tend to interpret their unusual experiences in life in terms of psi, although in most cases it is possible to rule out this interpretation (kennedy, 2005). traditionally, researchers interested in esp came mostly from the ranks of parapsychologists and their interest was primarily related to the issue of how belief in esp affects performance in esp tasks (irwin, 2009). they studied the sheep-goat effect, that is, the phenomenon that persons who believe in esp (sheep) are also more successful at tasks created to demonstrate esp phenomena, compared to skeptics (goats) (e.g. storm & thalbourne, 2005; thalbourne, 2010). otherwise, most of the previous research was related to paranormal beliefs in general, and thus have a limited applicability to esp beliefs specifically. in this study, we therefore decided to focus on this specific type of paranormal belief and study some of its psychological foundations. a more thorough understanding of esp beliefs has implications for the wider debate related to personal, social and political consequences of holding and acting upon such beliefs (see also irwin, 2009). it would also help better delineate the relations of these specific beliefs and the more general category of paranormal belief. branković 121 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study in this manuscript, we will present two studies. study 1 examined whether esp beliefs can be reliably measured and whether rational or intuitive cognitive styles are better predictors of these beliefs. study 2 examined the motivational foundations of esp beliefs, in particular, their relation to fear of death and external/internal locus of control. as already argued, since research on esp has been largely integrated within the study of paranormal belief in general, we will start by presenting the findings from this wider framework and then discuss whether they also apply to esp, theoretically and (if possible) empirically. study 1 theoretical rationale cognitive predictors of paranormal belief previous research suggests that socio-demographic differences account for a very small percentage of the variance in paranormal belief, disproving the “deprivation theory”, i.e. the idea that poorer educational and sociocultural background should make individuals more susceptible to paranormal belief (rice, 2003, cf. haraldsson, 1981; pennycook, cheyne, seli, koehler, & fugelsang, 2012; wuthnow, 1978). the existent research also failed to reveal deficits in critical reasoning ability among paranormal believers (hergovich & arendasy, 2005; roe, 1999). portions of research suggest that it is the individual’s cognitive style, rather than cognitive ability or education that makes the difference. a propensity for an analytical thinking style has been shown to negatively predict paranormal belief although this link has been studied most extensively with regard to religiousness or using the undifferentiated measures of paranormal belief (gervais & norenzayan, 2012; morgan, 2016; pennycook et al., 2012; pennycook, ross, koehler, & fugelsang, 2016). for instance, pennycook and colleagues recently presented a meta-analytical integration of a number of studies which go to show that non-believers are more analytical and reflexive than believers (pennycook et al., 2016). the authors argue that a propensity for analytical thinking undermines religiosity and other kinds of paranormal belief because people prone to analytical thinking are readier to critically examine culturally accepted beliefs and renounce them (pennycook et al., 2012, 2016). paranormal belief has also been related to more specific deficiencies in rational thinking, such as misperception of chance (blackmore & troscianko, 1985; brugger, landis, & regard, 1990; dagnall, parker, & munley, 2007) or confusion of ontological domains (lindeman & aarnio, 2007). however, the existent research suggests that a lack of rationality cannot be the exclusive explanation since a large percentage of variance still remains unexplained (pennycook et al., 2016; cf. gray, 1985). furthermore, different authors, especially developmental psychologists, argue for the important role of intuitive thinking in development and maintenance of paranormal belief, religious belief in particular (boyer, 2008; epley, converse, delbosc, monteleone, & cacioppo, 2009; kelemen, 2004). in line with this, intuitive cognitive style has been demonstrated to predict esoteric thinking and superstition (epstein, pacini, denes-raj, & heier, 1996). lindeman and aarnio (2007) also found that intuitive thinking was the more important predictor of superstition and paranormal belief than analytical thinking. determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception 122 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive styles and esp belief a central issue of interest for the present study is whether the previous findings can be extrapolated to esp beliefs in particular. similar to other paranormal belief, belief in esp was found not to be related to the reasoning ability (hergovich & arendasy, 2005), suggesting that it is differences in cognitive style rather than cognitive ability that are of importance. furthermore, it has been established that better-educated individuals are in fact more likely to endorse belief in psi (rice, 2003). it is possible that esp beliefs have some specific relations to cognitive style. first, it is possible that an analytical cognitive style can be related to an interest in and espousing of esp beliefs, as an alternative to more traditional religious and superstitious ones (cf. morgan, 2016). another issue of interest is the relationship between analytic and intuitive cognitive styles. in the cited research analytical style has most frequently been defined as the propensity to overcome highly salient intuitive solutions to problems (pennycook et al., 2012), and measured with the cognitive reflection task (frederick, 2005). this conceptualization has two tacit assumptions, namely that the two cognitive styles exclude each other and that the preferred styles identified in a problem solving context can be generalized to other issues and domains. however, it is possible that a person with a highly analytical cognitive style in rational problem solving would still lean on the intuition when thinking about whether there is more to reality than we can perceive. we, therefore, chose to investigate both intuitive and rational cognitive styles. based on dual system models of information processing (evans, 2003; kahneman, 2015; petty & cacioppo, 1986), pacini and epstein (epstein et al., 1996; pacini & epstein, 1999) distinguish between a rational (analytical, objective, fact-oriented) mode and an experiential (intuitive, associative, emotional) mode of information processing. the core proposition of the model is that the two systems operate independently so that individuals can hold conflicting beliefs arising from the two different systems (e.g. death is an irreversible ending of life / the soul continues to exist after death). following this distinction, belief in esp could be more closely related to the operation of the intuitive than the (inconsistency) of the rational system, resulting in esp beliefs existing side-by-side with rational and scientifically based worldviews. in the current study, we wanted to investigate whether analytical or experiential style are significant predictors of esp beliefs as well as which style contributes more to their prediction. method participants and procedure two hundred and fifty-seven students from the faculty of philosophy, faculty of media and communications and faculty of mathematicsii in belgrade participated in a survey study (43% female, mean age 21.94, sd = 5.74). roughly a half of the students (58%) were administered a pen-and-paper questionnaire during classes at the university, while the remaining participants responded online. students participated voluntarily and signed (clicked on) informed consent prior to answering the questionnaire. instruments the questionnaire consisted of a short socio-demographic section and three scales that were counterbalanced, to prevent any order effects. extra-sensory perception belief scale — was developed, which consisted of 12 items with 5-point rating scales. we chose to examine belief in most common phenomena related to esp: telepathy, precognition, dowsing and perception of causality instead of chance. the scale tapped into phenomena close to the everyday experience that could be interpreted as evidencing esp (e.g. i believe that it is not a coincidence that when i inbranković 123 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tend to call someone, that very person calls me. or i always feel when a close person is not feeling well, even when we do not have direct contact). the scale showed good internal consistency (α = .85). principal component analysis revealed a clear unidimensional structure of this scale (detailed in table 1). the first principal component explained 38.7% of the variance and had high loadings (a minimum of .40) from all the items in the scale. the second component explained additional 9.82% of the variance, and it appears to be a more specific aspect of esp belief, most closely related to “sensing” events or people without direct contact. inspection of the scree plot suggests that the largest difference in the percentage of the explained variance is between the first and second component (the third component explained 8.03% of variance), so we therefore conclude that the one-factor solution is the most adequate for this scale. table 1 factor loadings for the first principal component extracted from the scale of esp beliefs item factor loading i believe that some people can sense future events. .747 i believe that is not a coincidence when the very person i am thinking about calls me. .741 the alleged parapsychological powers boil down to pure speculation or fraud. .717 with the help of certain instruments (as dowsing rod), people can detect sources of dangerous radiation in the house. .652 i think that the modern science has shown there is no evidence for parapsychological claims. .649 i believe it is possible for people to sense things from the domains beyond their physical senses. .625 when i guess correctly the side on which a coin will lend, i know that it is a result of pure chance. .615 i can sense when somebody is watching me from behind. .610 i believe that profilers have the ability to read the circumstances of a crime from objects. .562 even though i do not know how, i can always feel when a close person is unwell, without any direct contact. .537 sometimes i dream about things that later happen. .523 i do not believe that dowsing (using metal or tree vshaped instruments) is a reliable method of detecting underground water. .409 superstition — was measured by the scale developed in serbian and validated by žeželj, pavlović, vladisavljević, and radivojević (2009). this scale taps into the most frequent traditional forms of superstitious beliefs, e.g. when somebody mentions some unfortunate event, it is good to knock on wood, for protection. or i never go under a ladder, even when this is more convenient for me. it has 20 items with 5-point rating scales (α = .89). cognitive styles — were measured by a translated version of the 40-item rational-experiential inventory (rei; pacini & epstein, 1999). this inventory assesses rational and experiential styles through two dimensions: engagement (motivation to use rational and intuitive thinking) and self-rated ability. rational style is indicated by the endorsement of items as i am much better at figuring things out logically than most people (ability) or using logic usually works well for me in figuring out problems in my life (engagement). intuitive style is indicated by items as when it comes to trusting people, i can usually rely on my gut feelings (ability) and intuition can be a very useful way to solve problems (engagement). a principal component analysis was conducted to explore the structure of the scale since we did not find any previous report using the scale in serbian translation. the first two components (18.11%, 16.73%) could clearly be interpreted as experiential and rational cognitive styles, since they had loadings from all the respective items from the scales. scree plot suggested that the largest difference in explained variance was between the second and the third factor (which explained 5.49% of the variance), so a two-factor solution appears to be the best determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception 124 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fitted to the data. however, since the subscales suggested by the authors provided reliable measures of the described dimensions (α = .75 for ra, .78 for re, .82 for ea, and .78 for ee), and they offered the distinction relevant to the current research question, we used them in the analyses to allow more precise conclusionsiii. results descriptive statistics and correlations between variables are presented in table 2. table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations between variables in study 1 variable m sd correlations 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. esp beliefs 2.90 .75 – .58** -.12* -.05 .32** .43** 2. superstition 2.13 .72 – -.20* -.31** .20** .25** 3. rational ability 3.81 .58 – .69** .14 -.09 4. rational engagement 3.69 .69 – .12* -.05 5. experiential ability 3.29 .68 – .69** 6. experiential engagement 2.97 .68 – note. we report spearman coefficients since the variables deviated from normal distribution. *p < .05. **p < .01. while there is a substantial correlation between the superstition and esp belief scale scores, belief in esp is endorsed significantly more than the traditional forms of superstitious beliefs, t(243) = 16.33, p < .001. both types of beliefs are related to the dimensions of cognitive styles, as evidenced by the presented correlations. however, it is predominantly the dimensions of the experiential rather than the rational cognitive styles that are related to esp beliefs. we further explored the ability of cognitive styles to predict esp beliefs by way of a regression analysis. regression analyses revealed that cognitive styles explained 20.4% of the variance in esp beliefs and that the best predictor was intuitiveness, more precisely the motivation to use intuition (β = .35, p < .001) (detailed in table 3). the self-rated rational ability was only marginally significant as a predictor (β = -.15, p = .066). in comparison, cognitive styles explained 16% of the variance in superstition, but the predictors that emerged significant were different: traditional superstitious beliefs are best predicted by a lack of rational engagement (β = -.27, p = .001) and the self-rated experiential ability (β = .20, p = .018). branković 125 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 results from multiple regression analyses in study 1 criterion / predictor b se β p esp constant 1.75 0.39 – < .001 rational ability -0.19 0.10 -.15 .066 rational engagement 0.06 0.08 .06 .467 experiential ability 0.12 0.90 .10 .216 experiential engagement 0.42 0.10 .35 < .001 superstition constant 2.49 0.39 – < .001 rational ability -0.08 0.10 -.06 .452 rational engagement -0.29 0.08 -.27 .001 experiential ability 0.22 0.90 .20 .018 experiential engagement 0.10 0.10 .08 .340 discussion in the present study, we set out to investigate beliefs in extra-sensory perception, as one specific type of the wider category of paranormal beliefs. we argued that, in addition to further study of the multiple dimensions of paranormal belief and their mutual relations (irwin, 2009), an approach focusing on specific types of these beliefs can be warranted. our short scale developed to measure esp beliefs proved a reliable and relatively unidimensional instrument so we believe its further use and refinement can be recommended. to establish convergent and discriminant validity of this scale, we compared it to a reliable measure of more traditional forms of superstitious belief (žeželj et al., 2009). we have seen that the scales do correlate to a considerable extent but also that the average scores are higher on esp beliefs than superstition scale, which means that these beliefs appear to our young participants as more acceptable than the traditional ones. importantly, superstition and esp beliefs showed distinct patterns of relations with the aspects of cognitive styles: while intuitive engagement predicted esp, a lack of rational engagement and self-rated intuitive ability predicted superstitious beliefs. we can thus conclude that esp beliefs are a phenomenon related to other types of paranormal belief (superstition) but can be recognized as a distinct and seemingly more acceptable type, more in line with the modern life. a clear limitation of the present analysis is the fact that the superstition and esp scales have been developed independently, so that we can observe some overlaps in their contents (e.g. related to foreseeing the future). future studies need to distinguish more clearly between these two dimensions, to achieve optimal discriminative validity. now turning to the main issue of the present study, our findings reveal that a propensity to rely on intuition is a more important predictor of esp belief than a lack of rationality. this is in line with some of the previous research theoretically founded in the idea of rationality and intuitiveness as independent rather than contrasting thinking styles (lindeman & aarnio, 2007). at the same time, our findings complement previous studies that defined a rational thinking style (more precisely, ability) as the propensity to overcome intuitive responses (pennycook et al., 2012). an obvious difference is that our measures relied on self-report rather than more objective assessment. it can be argued that the fact that rational ability did not emerge as a predictor of esp depends on the nature of the measure, which does not have to reflect more objective measures of ability. this remains an issue to be addressed by future studies that should focus more specifically on esp beliefs. another determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception 126 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interesting issue would be examining intuitive ability, however, this appears to be a much more elusive construct, difficult to conceptualize and measure objectively. our findings thus lend support to a relative independence of intuitive and rational cognitive styles, both structurally (in terms of principal components) and functionally (as predictors of different types of beliefs). apparently, esp belief can exist side by side with rational and scientific worldviews within the same individual. this could be either because some individuals do not acknowledge a sharp dividing line between these worldviews or, quite contrary, that they do recognize this division and keep their intuitive approach for the domains other than science. as an example of the former stance, we can consider daryl bem, the scientist we mentioned earlier in this paper. he is at the same time an enthusiastic proponent of parapsychological research and a scientist who adheres to stringent scientific principles of research. an example of the second stance is the approach called noma (non-overlapping magisteria; gould, 1997) advocating treating science and religion as independent fields – science as providing facts and religion as the domain of morality, values and meaning. future studies should investigate how and why individuals choose to combine this seemingly opposite views. perhaps these worldviews fulfill different psychological needs of the individual. in the following study, we will focus on some of these needs and motives. study 2 theoretical rationale the motivational underpinnings of paranormal belief the ubiquity of paranormal beliefs opens up the question of whether they could have some important psychological functions, i.e. serve some basic psychological needs. existential motives have been proposed as basic motivations of paranormal belief, i.e. the need for meaning in life, for overcoming uncertainty, establishing (an illusion of) control or diminishing fear of death (irwin, 1993, 2009; kennedy, 2005). a frequent motivational account of paranormal belief is that it is primarily motivated by a desire to achieve control over the unusual or uncertain aspects of life (irwin, 1993). for instance, rudski and edwards (2007) examined the use of superstitious rituals in the everyday life of students and concluded that these rituals mostly occur in uncertain situations, thus providing the students with an illusion of control and a way of coping. following the same basic idea, an interesting study of the occurrence of psychological papers examining parapsychology through several decades (from 1929 to 1977) found that unfavorable social conditions (expressed through both subjective and objective indicators) predicted scientific interest in parapsychology (mccann & stewin, 1984). previous findings also suggest a relation between paranormal belief and the external locus of control, i.e. the tendency to ascribe events in one’s life to external forces (dag, 1999; groth-marnat & pegden, 1998; tobacyk & tobacyk, 1992), although this was not demonstrated for the psi-subscale of the general paranormal belief (e.g. groth-marnat & pegden, 1998). previous research also established a link between paranormal belief and death anxiety (irwin, 1993), however, there is still controversy as to whether this relationship is positive or negative. in an experimental study, it was found that making thoughts about personal mortality salient lead participants to report more belief in supernatural agents, coming from both one’s own and other religions, as well as a strengthened belief in divine intervention (norenzayan & hansen, 2006). from the opposite perspective, kennedy and kanthamani (1995) found branković 127 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that participants who thought they had paranormal and/or transcendent experiences reported a stronger belief in life after death, belief in a higher power and sense of purpose in life as well as decreased fear of death. the authors, however, did not clearly distinguish what they termed paranormal and transcendent experiences and in particular transcendent experiences appear to be defined circularly, so that the effects of the experience cannot be delineated from the experience itself (see p. 251). motivations underlying esp beliefs in this study, we chose to focus on the relation of esp beliefs with death anxiety and the locus of control, as representative of the most common underlying motivations suggested by previous research. theoretically, it can be argued that these motivations are also relevant for esp belief, that is, that esp is motivated by a desire to better control one’s environment and reduce some basic anxieties. what is more, since death is one of the ultimately non-controllable aspects of life, need for control and fear of death appear to be related. this proposition has received empirical support from other domains of research. in one study (fritsche, jonas, & fankhänel, 2008) the authors showed that death anxiety can be diminished when participants are induced to perceive some level of personal control over the circumstances of the process of dying as opposed to those who did not. these findings suggest that the need for control could be one of the crucial components of death anxiety. contrary to more traditional superstitious and religious beliefs, davies and kirkby (1985) show that belief in psi is related to an internal locus of control, at least regarding personal and interpersonal spheres. irwin (2000) also found that a component he interpreted as psi beliefs may be related to a heightened desire for control and a conviction that one has the means to control the events in the sociopolitical arena. the latter finding is difficult to interpret, so the author suggests its further validation. it is apparent from this short review that the relation between the locus of control and esp belief needs further investigation with more focused and reliable measures. however, it is questionable whether belief in psi can offer psychological certainty one strives for. some studies suggest that potentially protective function of paranormal belief in facing existential uncertainties and fears could be limited to religious beliefs. in line with this, tobacyk and pirttilä-backman (1992) found a positive correlation between death anxiety and the dimension of paranormal belief related to psi, at least among their finnish participants. wong (2009) proposes a sort of a vicious circle of superstition and anxiety in which anxiety leads to superstition, which cannot relieve the anxiety, thus leading to it becoming even more intensive, which in turn leads to more superstition and so on. this reasoning might also be applicable to esp belief. psi phenomena suggest a certain alternative perspective on reality and it has been shown that people tend to explain their unusual experiences in terms of psi (kennedy, 2005). however, this is not comparable to the sort of more organized worldviews as religion, with clear values and standards of behavior, and coming with a promise of literal immortality. therefore, these beliefs might not offer sufficient comfort in facing basic anxiety. based on these combined insights, we wanted to test the idea that esp beliefs are related to basic existential anxieties, more precisely to the individual’s chronic level of fear of death. based on previous research suggesting that control is one of the most important aspects of death anxiety (fritsche et al., 2008), we also wanted to examine whether the locus of control would mediate this relationship, that is, whether a tendency to attribute outcomes in one’s life to chance would mediate the relationship between fear of death and esp beliefs. determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception 128 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we expect that fatalism should mediate the effect of fear of death on esp beliefs, since fear of death is proposed to be the basic existential concern, which shapes the way in which a person perceives the environment (pyszczynski, greenberg, & solomon, 1997). if fear of death gives rise to a need to control the environment and perceive it as less uncertain, fatalism could be one of possible responses or paths through which some people deal with this basic fear (e.g. believing in destiny alleviates at least some of the fear in dealing with the uncertain future). however, it is also possible that people more prone to fatalism experience more fear of death, which, in turn, motivates them to seek to believe in something “more” that is out there (e.g. psi phenomena). therefore, we will also test this alternative mediation model (from fatalism, through fear of death, to esp beliefs). method participants and procedure two hundred and twenty students from the faculty of media and communications, faculty of philosophy and faculty of mathematics in belgradeiv were surveyed (66.8% female, mean age 21.34, sd = 3.49). the surveys were administered during classes at the university. participants read and signed informed consent prior to participation. they were thanked and provided with either oral or written debriefing. instruments esp beliefs — were assessed using the scale described in the previous study (α = .83). principal component analysis suggested a single-factor solution, with almost the exact same percentage of explained variance as in study 1 (38.64%). fear of death — was measured by the 28-item collet-lester fear of death scale (lester & abdel-khalek, 2003) (α = .92). the scale was translated for the purposes of the present study by two independent translators, while the final formulations were agreed upon through discussion. no substantial change was made in comparison to the original item wording. participants indicated the degree to which they found different aspects of death and the process of dying troubling, on a 5-point rating scales. according to the authors, the scale consists of four subscales: own death, own dying, death of (close) others and dying of (close) others. a principal component analysis was performed to explore the structure of the scale. the first component explained the largest proportion of variance (32.85%) and had high loadings (> .46) from all the items included in the scale. also, the largest difference in the percentage of the explained variance was between the first and the second component (second component explained 9.58%, third component 6.59%), suggesting a one-factor solution. we thus computed a total score indicating the level of fear of death. locus of control — was measured by the multi-dimensional ipc (internality, powerful others, and chance scales) (levenson, 1981), a 24-item instrument with 6-point rating scales, ranging from -3 (do not agree at all) to +3 (fully agree). this scale was intended to offer a more differentiated measure of locus of control, an individual’s chronic tendency to interpret the events in his or her life as mostly dependent on the individual himor herself (internal locus) or dependent on external factors, such as chance (fatalism) or the will of powerful others. a principal component analysis suggested that the first extracted component explained the largest percentage of variance (25.59%) while the second and the third component explained 10.40% and 7.40% of variance, respectively. factor loadings suggest that there is a common, bi-polar dimension, underlying this construct. however, since the previous research highlights the role of the perception of chance or fatalism as a specifically branković 129 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ important determinant of paranormal belief, we computed the scores for the three subscales, internality (α = .68)v, powerful others (α = .84), and chance/fatalism (α = .73), according to the original instruction (levenson, 1981) and divided the sums with the number of items. results descriptive statistics and correlations between variables are presented in table 4. table 4 descriptive statistics and correlations between variables in study 2 variable m sd correlations 1 2 3 4 5 1. esp beliefs 3.09 .76 – .28** .05 .29** -.03 2. fear of death 3.40 .73 – .16** .33** -.12* 3. ips powerful others 1.41 .91 – .43** -.42** 4. ips fatalism 2.51 .98 – -.29** 5. ips internal 1.93 .63 – note. we report spearman coefficients since the variables deviated from normal distribution. *p < .05. **p < .01. as can be seen from the table, belief in esp was positively related to fear of death and the dimension of the external locus of control related to the perception of chance / fatalism, but not to the dimension of powerful others or internality. also, fear of death was positively related to fatalism as well as the other external dimension of “powerful others” while being negatively related to internal locus of control, in line with previous research relating fear of death to a lowered sense of control (fritsche et al., 2008). we further explored the relations among the variables using process macro for spss (hayes, 2013). since only the fatalism subscale correlated with esp beliefs, we entered this variable in the mediation analysis. mediation analysis showed that fear of death and ips fatalism subscale explained 12% of the variance in esp belief scores, f(209, 2) = 14.07, p < .001, (figure 1). death fear had both a direct (b = .22, se = .07, 95% ci [.07, .36]) and an indirect effect on esp beliefs, that is, this relation was partially mediated by the tendency to attribute events to chance (b = .08, se = .03, 95% ci [.03, .15]). figure 1. relations between esp beliefs, fatalism and fear of death. determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception 130 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we also tested the alternative model, in which fatalism is entered as the predictor and fear of death as the mediator. this model also showed partial mediation, however, the effect sizes were slightly smaller compared to the previous model: the direct path from fatalism to esp (b = .16, se = .05, 95% ci [.06, .27]), and the indirect path through fear of death (b = .06, se = .02, 95% ci [.02, .10]). discussion in this study, we addressed some important motives underlying esp beliefs. we established a positive relation of esp belief with death anxiety as well as the propensity to attribute events in life to chance. moreover, fatalism partially mediated the effects of death anxiety on esp. the findings are in line with the rare studies that investigated the relationship between fear of death and forms of paranormal belief other than religious (tobacyk & pirttilä-backman, 1992; wong, 2009). these findings need to be distinguished from those related to more traditional religious beliefs that have typically exhibited a negative relation with death anxiety (e.g. tobacyk & pirttilä-backman, 1992; norenzayan & hansen, 2006). the present findings speak to the conclusion that esp beliefs are at least partly driven by some fundamental existential concerns, as facing the uncertainty of existence and death. a relevant theoretical framework to understand this relation is offered by terror management theory (tmt; tmt, greenberg, pyszczynski, & solomon, 1986; pyszczynski et al., 1997; pyszczynski, solomon, & greenberg, 2015; solomon, greenberg, & pyszczynski, 2004). this theory posits that simple defense mechanisms as negation or rationalization do not suffice to avert fear arising from the awareness of mortality and that people, therefore, need to lean on more elaborate symbolic defenses. complex cultural worldviews are potent enough to offer solace and a hope of individual transcendence to people who espouse them and strive to attain self-esteem within the standards they define. religion has a particular importance as a defensive structure, owing to its direct relation with the promise of afterlife and immortality (vail et al., 2010). for instance, it has been shown that offering proof of literal immortality (existence of an afterlife) buffers other defensive reactions to mortality reminders (dechesne et al., 2003). a similar logic can be extended to the role of esp beliefs, as a sort of belief in invisible forces that speak about a reality that is beyond our senses or reason. from terror management perspective, the allure of such beliefs can be explained by the desire for transcending the limitations of the mortal self. however, since these beliefs are only loosely related to a sense of an afterlife or supernatural agents, they could not be as effective a defense as the more traditional religious beliefs. thus, they could be driven by similar motivation but not offer the same kind of psychological protection. since the data at hand are correlational, the exact causal pathways are not possible to establish: one the one hand, it makes sense that more fear creates more need to believe in esp (among other things); on the other, stronger belief could also lead to more fear, which is at least partly consistent with some previous studies including people who had unusual experiences (kennedy & kanthamani, 1995). moreover, both directions could, in fact, combine and result in what wong (2009) describes a vicious circle of anxiety creating more belief, which, in turns, does not succeed in relieving the anxiety. as the relation between esp beliefs and fear of death was partly mediated by fatalism, i.e. belief that chance controls one’s outcomes in life, this appears to be one of the relevant concerns addressed by these beliefs. the less one feels one can control the events in life and environment, the more alluring do esp beliefs become as at least some kind of framework for understanding reality. the present results are thus consistent with previous branković 131 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research relating at paranormal belief with the need for control (irwin, 1993, 2000; rudski & edwards, 2007), as well as the external locus of control (dag, 1999; groth-marnat & pegden, 1998; tobacyk & tobacyk, 1992). the present findings further specify this locus, as well as its relations with other basic motivations. as mentioned, the exact nature of relations between fear of death and fatalism as determinants of esp belief needs further, preferably experimental, research. the findings are also in line with the studies done by fritsche and colleagues (2008), showing that a need for control can underlie fear of death. however, since the mediation we established was only partial, there appear to be other relevant aspects of death fear as a basic motivation for esp. they could also address the need for meaning in life, in suggesting the possibility that there is a wider or a transcendent reality beyond ours. this potential source of motivation should be explored in future studies. general discussion as the two studies reveal, esp beliefs can be conceptualized and measured as a coherent and a relatively distinct set of paranormal beliefs. these beliefs appear to be more strongly related to an intuitive cognitive style than (a lack of) rationality. in line with the dual-process models of information-processing, these beliefs are thus not irreconcilable with a rational worldview, rendering the well-educated individuals susceptible or even particularly inclined to them (pennycook et al., 2012; rice, 2003). the findings related to the motivational underpinnings of these beliefs suggest that these beliefs have some very basic motivational foundations and also that their psychological role can be ambivalent (wong, 2009). apparently, esp beliefs could be traced back to a psychological need to account for some aspects of reality that one cannot readily understand or control and perhaps an expression of the fear of the unknown. with this initial study, we hope to contribute to a more focused and elaborate study of this specific type of paranormal belief, as a complementary approach to the study of the multidimensionality of paranormal belief in general (irwin, 2009). a reader of literature on esp phenomena gets easily struck by a certain duality in research that could be traced back to whether the researchers are skeptics or believers (e.g. irwin, 2009; kennedy, 2005). we can concur with that esp belief can be studied regardless of whether one thinks esp phenomena actually exist (irwin, 2009). however, there are two inevitably controversial issues that we would like to briefly touch upon: the costs and benefits of esp beliefs, and, relatedly, the possibility to change them. as regards the costs and benefits of holding esp beliefs, one important aspect is their consequences for individual well-being. whether or not esp phenomena are real, people might experience consolation or a sense of meaning believing in them – along the lines of the literature supporting the utility of illusions (e.g. illusion of control, langer, 1975; taylor & brown, 1988, 1994). the research on this is still scarce and without conclusive evidence. we have mentioned one study in particular that explored the effects of the (self-reported) unusual experiences (kennedy & kanthamani, 1995) and concluded these effects are predominantly positive – related to a heightened sense of meaning, belief in an afterlife and supernatural agents. however, these positive effects were not reported by each individual and, furthermore, 45% of participants also reported that these experiences caused fear. the current findings are consistent with those less favorable outcomes: esp beliefs can arise from a need for more certainty and control but fail to offer it. more research is clearly needed to support (or refute) this. another important aspect of the costs-and-benefits issue is the wider socio-political consequences. aldeterminants of belief in extra-sensory perception 132 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ though esp beliefs in their own might appear more intimate and less related to the political realm, they could also acquire more societal provenance. this could happen in particular under conditions of social unrest and uncertainty, as evidenced, for instance, by a proliferation of seers and magical healers in serbia in the turbulent decade of nineties. in such circumstances, these beliefs and resulting behaviors can easily be manipulated towards political motives and aims, for instance providing alternative (e.g. supernatural) explanations for the current social events. the second issue is the stability or, put differently, the possibility to change esp beliefs. this is a clearly controversial issue for the parapsychologists, which would claim there is no need to change them and that the mainstream scientists should consider changing their dogmatic skepticial views (kennedy, 2005). although there is a possibility that skepticism can outgrow its own benefit (blackmore, 1992) one can certainly hold that acting on any belief that defies rational reflection or scrutiny might become problematic, both for individual and for the society. the present findings do speak to the relative stability of the esp in that they a. are not reducible to a deficit in reasoning that can easily be unlearned, b. have some basic motivational foundations. the previous attempts to educate students into a more critical stance towards paranormal claims have had at least some short-term favorable effects in developing more skepticism (banziger, 1983; gray, 1985; manza et al., 2010). such efforts might also benefit from an open discussion of the motives and needs that these beliefs fulfill, with the expectation that achieving insight into one’s beliefs would make a person more reflective and less uncritically attached to them. this expectation should be tested experimentally. limitations of the present study and suggestions for further investigations the present studies have important limitations. as they were correlational in design, they do not allow drawing any causal conclusions and further experimental studies are needed to more clearly establish these. also, the present studies revealed only some of the important determinants of esp beliefs, and future studies should include other variables. other determinants might be related to the social context, both wider socio-political contexts (mccann & stewin, 1984) as well as more immediate interpersonal context (markovsky & thye, 2001). for instance, participants were more likely to express belief in the energy of a pyramid vs. an ordinary shaped cardboard box to preserve the freshness of fruit when other people also expressed it (markovsky & thye, 2001). the issue of cross-cultural specificity of paranormal belief has yet to be addressed thoroughly, although some of the initial studies do suggest a degree of cultural specificity (tobacyk & pirttilä-backman, 1992; tobacyk & tobacyk, 1992). the present studies are also interesting in that they study esp beliefs in a specific socio-cultural setting, one characterized by high and rising levels of religiosity (blagojević, 2013; dušanić, 2007). therefore, it might be interesting to study esp beliefs in relation to religious beliefs and identification in future studies. with these initial studies, we hope to have contributed to understanding of the psychological bases of esp belief, as a specific and a highly prevalent form of paranormal belief in the contemporary society. notes i) this was offered by james randi educational foundation https://web.randi.org/ ii) of the total sample, 114 were students of archeology, 107 students of psychology and 36 students of programming. iii) the ability and engagement subscales within both experiential and rational styles did correlate highly, but this did not lead to multicollinearity issues, as evidenced by the relevant indices (tolerance statistics ranged between .47 and .53). branković 133 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 https://web.randi.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ iv) there were a total of 134 psychology students, 62 archeology students and 23 students of programming. a nonparametric median comparison did not reveal significant differences in the level of esp beliefs among students from different fields. also, exclusion of the students of programming from the sample did not change the findings. we therefore report the analyses conducted on the whole sample. v) one item was removed that did not correlate with the total score (the number 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(2009). construction and behavioral validation of superstition scale. psihologija, 42, 141-158. https://doi.org/10.2298/psi0902141z about the author marija branković obtained her phd from the faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade in 2016. she is working as an assistant professor at the faculty of media and communications, singidunum university, belgrade. her research interests focus on intergroup relations, social identities, terror management strategies, self enhancement, persuasion and argumentation. branković 139 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 120–139 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1689 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.2298/psi0902141z https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ determinants of belief in extra-sensory perception (introduction) esp as a type of paranormal belief the present study study 1 theoretical rationale method results discussion study 2 theoretical rationale method results discussion general discussion limitations of the present study and suggestions for further investigations notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people: a comparative investigation of physical education and leisure-time in four countries research reports perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people: a comparative investigation of physical education and leisure-time in four countries istvan soos a, ibolya dizmatsek b, jonathan ling* c, adedokun ojelabi c, jaromir simonek d, iulianna boros-balint e, peter szabo e, attila szabo f, pal hamar b [a] department of pedagogy and methodology, university of physical education, budapest, hungary. [b] university of physical education, budapest, hungary. [c] faculty of health sciences and wellbeing, university of sunderland, sunderland, united kingdom. [d] department of physical education & sport, faculty of education, constantine the philosopher university, slovakia. [e] babes-bolyai university, clujnapoca, romania. [f] eotvos lorand university, budapest, hungary. abstract physical education focuses on the development of sports skills as well as fitness for health. in central european countries there has been a shift in these focuses since the fall of communism to follow internationally-recognised health-related physical activity recommendations, similar to western european countries. in this study we investigated the extent to which motivation from school physical education transfers to leisure-time physical activity providing autonomy support by three social agents: school (physical education teachers), family and peers. our study utilised the aetological approach (aa), ecological model (em) and the trans-contextual model (tcm) that consists of the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) and the self-determination theory (sdt) to explore how autonomous motivation is transferred between contexts (physical education, leisure-time and current behaviour). nine-hundred and seventy-four students aged 11–18 (55% girls) participated in our study from four countries: hungary, united kingdom, romania and slovakia. a prospective research design was employed, and questionnaires were administered at three time points. using 7-point likert scales, attitude, usefulness, and affectiveness were measured. furthermore, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control (pbc) were tested within tpb. autonomous and controlling motivation were measured within sdt by administering the behavioural regulation in exercise questionnaires (breq and breq-2). finally, past physical activity, intention and current physical activity behaviours were tested. results indicated that perceived autonomy support from family and friends predicted autonomous motivation towards leisure-time physical activity in all four countries. however, teachers’ behaviour in some eastern european countries did not predict this transfer. in general, in line with previous literature, boys reported more physical activity than girls. a strong influencing factor in the path model was that past behaviour predicted current behaviour, and according to that factor, boys reported being more active than girls.boys also perceived more support from pe teachers than girls which was likely to have influenced their autonomous motivation in pe, which in turn transferred to leisure time. we discuss these results in the context of theories exploring the role of motivation and social environment on children’s choices related to physical activity. in conclusion, we suggest providing more autonomy support, especially by schools, for the enhancement of autonomous motivation of young people to promote their leisure time physical activity. keywords: perceived autonomy support, autonomous motivation, physical education, leisure-time physical activity, young people europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 received: 2018-08-02. accepted: 2019-01-15. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: faculty of health sciences and wellbeing, university of sunderland, chester road, sunderland, sr1 3sd, uk. tel: +0191 515 3496. e-mail: jonathan.ling@sunderland.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in eastern european countries, prior to the fall of communism, the main aim of school physical education was to improve students’ physical and mental skills, and to prepare them for compulsory national military service. however, since the fall of the iron curtain, many changes have occurred in school education, including physical education. while the main emphasis of school physical education is still partly skills development, attention has shifted towards health-related exercise/physical activity. in particular, there may be cross-cultural variations in how behaviour from school physical education is transferred to leisure-time physical activity (weinberg et al., 2000), such as between predominantly collectivist countries and individualist countries (hagger et al., 2009), however no previous research has investigated this issue. in summary, individualist and collectivist cultures can be characterized as follows (see also fattah, darwish, & huber, 2003). conformity may occur more frequently in collectivist cultures, when the norms are clear and sanctions are likely to be imposed for deviant behaviour. individualistic cultures emphasize promoting the individual’s self-interest (underlining individual rights, not responsibilities), personal autonomy, privacy, self-realization, independence, an understanding of personal identity as the sum of attributes of the individual, and less concern about the needs and interests of others. the uk, usa and australia are examples of typical individualistic societies. collectivism is exemplified by eastern european countries such as hungary, romania and slovakia. positive experiences in school physical education may be transferred to young people’s leisure time (also referred to as free time or free living) which may lead to a physically active lifestyle in later life (shephard & trudeau, 2000; taylor, blair, cummings, wun, & malina, 1999). therefore, school physical education has an important role not only in young people’s physical and mental health, but can ultimately affect public health (sallis & mckenzie, 1991). in the past two decades, several researchers have investigated the role of different agents in motivating young people to adopt active lifestyles. these agents may include teachers in delivering an efficient physical education system, and family and friends as role models in young people’s free time. according to pate et al. (1995) and taylor et al. (1999), physical education teachers can effectively orient young people toward leisure-time physical activity outside school. thus, a positive motivational climate adopted by physical education teachers can foster wider positive health-related behaviours whereby in a stimulating environment, students are more likely to adopt autonomous motivation in order to pursue health-related physical activities out of choice in their free time and in the absence of external persuasion (ames & archer, 1988; pakarinen, parisod, & smed, 2017). several theories, models and approaches have attempted to explain the determinants of young people’s physical activity (or inactivity) as well as the pre-cursors (mediators) of these, such as how motivation and other factors can influence intention that finally becomes the actual behaviour. in this study, we explore the relationship between these determinants for the most commonly used approaches. • the aetiological approach (hagger & chatzisarantis, 2016) describes both the correlational relationships (in which factors are associated with activities), as well as the determinants of intentions, decision making and physical activity behaviour. we investigated these relationships by examining the perceived autonomy support path to leisure-time physical activity intention and behaviour through the antecedents of autonomous motivation both in physical education and leisure-time contexts. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 510 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • the em (baumann et al., 2012) describes not only psychological and biological, but interpersonal determinants, such as social support (from family, friends and work or school), and cultural norms and practices. the environmental determinants comprise the social, built and natural environments. these factors are linked to a range of policies, including parks and recreation, health, education, organised sports and national physical activity advocacy. finally, global determinants involve factors from economic development to social and cultural norms. • the tpb attempts to explain the volitional antecedents of intentional behaviour (ajzen, 1985) with intention argued to be the strongest predictor of behaviour (armitage & conner, 2001), and to summarize people’s general affective and cognitive orientation toward a specific behaviour (hagger, chatzisarantis, culverhouse, & biddle, 2003). tpb comprises three constructs, attitude, subjective norm and pbc. attitude reflects an individual’s personal orientation toward engaging in the behaviour. subjective norms reflect social pressure from significant others regarding to the behaviour. pbc reflects the impact of perceived abilities and barriers with respect to engaging in the behaviour (hagger, chatzisarantis, barkoukis, wang, & baranowski, 2005). while much research has supported the basic principles of tbp (hamilton & white, 2008), ryan and deci (2000) found that if subjective norm is perceived as social pressure, then it impedes rather than enhances motivation. they suggest implementing non-pressurising forms of social influence, such as providing young people with choice (significant others encourage participation in decision-making), rationale (significant others explain why participating in an activity is important), and acknowledgement of intrapersonal conflict (significant others acknowledge personal feelings and perspectives). ultimately, these three factors should facilitate perceived autonomy support and hence autonomy support facilitates internalization of the behaviour, so that beliefs, attitudes and emotions are consistent with the behaviour (chatzisarantis, hagger, & smith, 2007). • the sdt consists of three basic needs to satisfy, the need for autonomy (the belief that one is the origin and regulator of his or her own action), competence (the belief that one can efficaciously interact with the environment), and relatedness (the seeking and development of secure and connected relationships with others in one’s social context) (deci & ryan, 1985). the perceived locus of causality (ploc) is viewed as a continuum of motivation, and a focal point to sdt that draws a distinction between autonomous and nonautonomous (controlled) motivation (ryan & connell, 1989). the origin or causes of the behaviour can be either internal, intrinsic motivation, or from external sources, demands or expectations—extrinsic motivation. according to vallerand’s (1997) hierarchical model of motivation (hmm) the three qualities of intrinsic motivation are intrinsic motivation to know (engagement in an activity to exploring and attempting to understand something new), intrinsic motivation toward accomplishments (engagement in an activity for the satisfaction and pleasure experienced when attempting task mastery or in creating something new), and intrinsic motivation to experience stimulation (engagement in an activity for feeding of sensory pleasure, fun, excitement and aesthetic enjoyment). overall, vallerand’s model incorporates the fundamental tenets of sdt (deci & ryan, 1985) and contends that motivation operates at three levels, first the global (or personality), second the contextual (or life domain) and finally, third, situational (or state) levels (vallerand, 1997, 2001). • the tcm is an integrated model of motivation incorporating special aspects of the sdt (deci & ryan, 1985, 2002), the hierarchical model of motivation (hmm; vallerand, 1997, 2007) and tpb (ajzen, 1985, 2002).the tcm is a theoretical model which explains how autonomous motivation transfers across contexts, for example adolescents’ autonomous motivation in leisure time can be determined by autonomous motivation in pe (barkoukis, hagger, lampbropoulos, & tsorbatzoudis, 2010). further, hagger and chatzisarantis (2007) soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 511 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ proposed the premise of the tcm, namely that autonomy support in an educational context (e.g., pe) is related to autonomous motivation in an educational context which is in turn transferred to autonomous motivation in a non-educational context (e.g., leisure time). this effect might be especially enhanced if the leisure time behaviour is also reinforced, while significant others support autonomy. we aimed to investigate the link between perceived autonomy support from three social agents (school, family and friends) and autonomous motivation in an educational context (physical education) as well as leisure-time physical activity. we also examined how perceived autonomy support can be translated into leisure-time physical activity intention and behaviour as based on sdt, tpb and the tcm. like previous studies (hagger et al., 2009), we compared results from collectivist countries (hungary, slovakia and romania) with a country (united kingdom) where historically individualist cultural norms are dominant (markus & kitayama, 1991). previous research has reported consistent differences in the physical activity of boys and girls, with boys tending to be more active. we anticipated that the reason for this could come from motivation to participate, rather than any differences in physical maturation (sherar, esliger, baxter-jones, & tremblay, 2007) and so would predict higher scores for boys on a range of measures related to motivation. hypotheses: 1. national differences were predicted in sdt (perceived autonomy support by three social agents) as well as in tpb (attitude, subjective norm and pbc) elements within the tcm as those from individualistic countries are hypothetized as enjoying more autonomy than students of collectivist countries. 2. gender differences were predicted in sdt (perceived autonomy support by three social agents) as well as in tpb (attitude, subjective norm and pbc) elements within the tcm. 3. positive inter-correlation links were hypothesized between (a) autonomous motivation in pe and leisuretime, as well as between (b) sdt (perceived autonomy support from three social agents: school, family and friends) and tpb (attitude, subjective norm and pbc) elements within the tcm. these factors ultimately influence (c) intention and determine physical activity behaviours. method participants national research co-ordinators invited schools to participate in the project, and a convenience sample by voluntary participation from various regions were included in the study. the sample was stratified on the basis of age, type of school and geographical region. sampling was led by local co-ordinators, who contacted schools and recruited participants on a voluntary basis. inclusion criteria comprised healthy school students, at least 11 years of age, but no more than 18 years of age. the mean age of participants was 15 years (sd = 1.79; range 11.0–18.0 years. frequencies and percentages of participants are shown in table 1. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 512 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 number of participants by country and gender country boys girls total n % n % n % uk 87 56 68 44 155 16 hungary 113 29 276 71 389 40 romania 99 54 84 46 183 19 slovakia 110 45 137 55 247 25 total 409 42 565 58 974 100 instruments instruments were employed according to the tpb (ajzen, 1985) and sdt (deci & ryan, 1985). we followed hagger et al.’s (2009) study protocol, which also reported the validity of the instruments used in this study. reliability of our questionnaires is reported in the results. the tpb measures (ajzen & madden, 1986; courneya & mcauley, 1994) assessed attitudes based on moral evaluations (bad-good), instrumental evaluation (useful-useless, harmful-beneficial) and affective evaluation (enjoyable-unenjoyable, interesting-boring). subjective norms were measured by three items on 7-point likertscales, ranging from 1 (extremely unlikely) to 7 (extremely likely). an example was “most people close to me expect me to do active sports and/or vigorous exercise for at least 20 minutes, 3 days per week during my free time over the next 4 weeks.” pbc was assessed through three items on 7-point likert scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). an example was “if i wanted to i could do active sports and/or vigorous exercise for at least 20 minutes, 3 days per week during my free time over the next 4 weeks.” the focal point of sdt is a continuum of autonomous motivation to controlling motivation, known as the ploc (ryan & connell, 1989) and measured by the behavioural regulation in exercise questionnaire (mullan, markland, & ingledew, 1997) both in physical education and leisure-time contexts. the items measure intrinsic regulation (e.g., “i exercise because i enjoy my exercise sessions”), identified regulation (e.g., “i exercise because i value the benefits of exercise”), introjected regulation (e.g., “i exercise because i will feel bad about myself when i don’t exercise”), and exercise regulation (e.g., “i exercise because people important to me, parents, family, etc., say i should”) on 7-point likert scales ranging from 1 (not true at all for me) to 7 (very true for me). past physical activity behaviour was also measured in accordance with previous studies (hagger et al., 2003) by using one item: “i engaged in active sports and/or vigorous activity for 20 minutes at a time the in the past 4 weeks with following regularity.” participants were asked to indicate the frequency of their past active sport and/or physical activity participation during their free time on a six-point likert-scale, anchored by not at all (1) and most of the days during the week (6). self-reported physical activity was assessed in the third wave of data collection by an adaptation of the leisuretime exercise questionnaire (godin & shephard, 1985). the 12-item perceived autonomy support scale for exercise settings (passes; hagger et al., 2007) was also administered in order to measure participants’ perceived autonomy support in physical education, family and friends settings. an example item from the scale is “i feel that my physical education teacher provides me with choices, options, and opportunities to do active sports and/or vigorous exercise.” regarding family context, the words “physical education teacher” were replaced with soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 513 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “family” in all items, and in the third scale regarding friends context, “family” was replaced with “friends” in all items. intentions were measured by three items (e.g., i intend to do active sports and/or vigorous physical activity during my leisure time in the next 5 weeks) rated on 7-point likert-scales ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). translation procedure a translation procedure was employed according to brislin (1986). bilingual translators drafted the questionnaires in the language of the county where data collection was taken place, which was back-translated into english by two independent translators. the two versions were compared, and any inconsistencies, errors, biases and incongruences were corrected, with further translation and back translation was conducted until the two versions were identical (see bracken & barona, 1991). the final version was administered to participants in the study. procedure ethical approval was granted by the research ethics committee at the principal investigator’s university. consent forms were signed both by parents and participants. all ethics met the helsinki declaration (harris & atkinson, 2009). data collection followed a three-wave prospective design. for the first phase, participants completed a short questionnaire of their physical activity in the past 6 months, the perceived autonomy support scale (hagger et al., 2007) for physical education, the ploc in a physical education context, and their intention for leisure-time physical activity in the future. one week later, participants completed a short attitude scale in a quiet classroom environment, a subjective norm scale and social norm scale towards physical activity behaviour and the ploc in a leisure-time physical activity context. in addition, they completed the perceived autonomy support scale (hagger et al., 2007) both for family and friends. finally, 4 weeks later participants completed a short scale on their current participation in physical activity, under the same quiet classroom environment as they did 4 weeks earlier (godin & shephard, 1985). data analysis ibm spss v.24 and amos v.24 (arbuckle, 2016) software package were employed for data analysis. after preliminary analyses (reliability analyses, calculation and the relative autonomy index (rai), descriptive statistics, pearson correlations, independent samples t-tests and univariate analysis of variance [anova]), path analyses were performed for each country separately as well as for the full data set. in this study we report the combined model. significance was set at p < .05. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 514 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analyses reliability analysis reliability analysis indicated that the reliabilities for all scales were satisfactory: attitude α = .895, perceived behavioural control α = .872, subjective norm α = .755, passes pe teacher α = .952, passes family/parents α = .958, passes peers α = .943, external regulation pe α = .697, introjected regulation pe α = .823, identified regulation pe α = .800, intrinsic regulation pe α = .801, external regulation leisure time α = .819, identified regulation leisure time α = .816, intrinsic regulation leisure time α = .886, and intention α = .898. relative autonomy index (rai) according to the ploc constructs (ploc; guay, magean, & vallerand, 2003), weights were assigned to each individual’s intrinsic regulation (+2), identified regulation (+1), introjected regulation (−1) and extrinsic regulation (−2). rai was the composite of the weighted scores and reflected participants’ autonomous motivation both in physical education (pe) and leisure-time physical activity contexts. we employed this protocol as the rai provides a direct measure of motivational autonomy (vaz, pratley, & alkire, 2016). preliminary analysis indicated that there were no significant age differences found so we did not explore this variable further. national differences hypothesis 1: national differences were predicted in sdt as well as in tpb elements within the tcm. univariate anova showed that there were significant differences (p < .001) between all the four countries (see table 2) in perceived autonomy support from teachers, f(3, 970) = 307.455, perceived autonomy support from family, f(3, 970) = 40.758, perceived autonomy support from friends, f(3, 970) = 14.378, attitude to exercise, f(3, 970) = 8.051, subjective norm, f(3, 970) = 19.419, pbc, f(3, 970) = 22.176, past physical activity behaviour, f(3, 970) = 14.974, intention for doing physical activity, f(3, 970) = 12.883, current physical activity behaviour, f(3, 970) = 7.449, autonomous motivation for physical education (ampe), f(3, 970) = 31.786, and autonomous motivation for leisure-time physical activity (amlt), f(3, 970) = 5.508. post hoc tests (with bonferroni correction) revealed that uk students perceived the most autonomy support from pe teachers, compared with hungary (p < .001), slovakia (p = .001) and romania (p = .001). hungarian students perceived the most autonomy support from family, compared with uk (p = .001), slovakia (p = .001) and romania (p = .001). also, hungarian students perceived the most autonomy support from friends, compared to slovakia (p = .001. uk students had the highest level of attitude to exercise, compared with slovakia (p = .001). uk students demonstrated higher subjective norm than slovakia (p = .001) and romania (p = .028). pbc was higher in romania than uk (p = .015) and slovakia (p = .001). the level of past physical activity behaviour was the highest in the uk, compared with hungary (p = .001), slovakia (p = .001) and romania (p = .001). however, the intention to perform physical activity was higher in hungary than slovakia (p = .001) and romania (p = .007). uk students demonstrated the highest current physical activity behaviour, as opposed to slovakia (p = .001). slovakia showed higher ampe than hungary (p = .002) and uk (p = .001). finally, romania showed higher amlt than uk (p = .049). soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 515 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hypothesis 1 is partially accepted. gender differences hypothesis 2: gender differences were predicted in sdt as well as in tpb elements within the tcm. overall sample (all 4 countries) perceived autonomy support from physical education teachers, f(1, 972) = 14.249, p < .001 (boys), past physical activity behaviour, f(1, 972) = 23.820, p < .001 (boys), and current physical activity behaviours, f(1, 972) = 5.136, p = .024; all were higher in boys as opposed to girls. perceived autonomy support from family, f(1, 972) = 17.167, p < .001 (girls); perceived autonomy support from friends, f(1, 972) = 12.274, p < .001 (girls), subjective norm, f(1, 972) = 8.579, p = .003 (girls), perceived behaviour control (pbc), f(1, 972) = 8.921, p = .003 (girls), autonomous motivation in pe (ampe), f(1, 972) = 52.462, p < .001, and amlt, f(1, 972) = 9.280, p = .002, were higher in girls than boys. there were no other significant difference between girls and boys. hungary perceived autonomy support from physical education teachers, t(387) = 6.241, p < .001, and past physical activity behaviour, t(387) = 2.16, p < .001, were higher in boys. pbc, t(387) = -2.239, p = .026, ampe, t(387) = -4.688, p < .001, and amlt, t(387) = -2.241, p = .026, were higher in girls. there were no significant differences between girls and boys for the other variables. united kingdom most of the variables were similar, with only perceived autonomy support from pe teachers, t(153) = 4.803, p < .001, was higher in boys, and ampe, t(153) = -1.998, p = .047, was higher in girls. table 2 descriptive statistics for gender, country and age groups by tpb construct group pas teachers pas peers pas family attitude subjective norm pbc past behaviour intention pa behavior ampe amlt m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd boys 4.39 1.50 4.70 1.30 4.87 1.25 5.70 1.21 5.02 1.21 5.37 1.33 3.87 1.53 5.08 1.64 3.76 0.75 -2.05 2.14 5.93 5.08 girls 4.14 1.29 4.98 1.18 5.20 1.21 5.79 0.97 5.24 1.08 5.61 1.14 3.41 1.38 5.10 1.55 3.66 0.58 -1.03 2.17 6.90 4.89 hungary 4.61 1.21 5.10 1.14 5.48 1.14 5.81 0.88 5.36 1.06 5.69 0.97 3.58 1.51 5.41 1.50 3.72 0.52 -1.42 2.26 7.06 5.07 uk 5.22 1.06 4.86 1.29 5.03 1.39 5.93 1.13 5.36 1.21 5.49 1.34 4.24 1.38 5.09 1.44 3.86 0.89 -2.89 2.33 5.54 4.94 romania 2.89 0.38 4.91 1.16 5.07 1.15 5.84 1.25 5.09 1.12 5.81 1.31 3.58 1.43 5.03 1.48 3.73 0.65 -1.10 1.86 6.98 5.02 slovakia 4.50 0.89 4.46 1.14 4.42 1.08 5.47 1.16 4.71 1.12 4.99 1.30 3.26 1.33 4.62 1.76 3.56 0.64 -0.88 1.97 5.86 4.73 youngera 4.42 1.36 4.91 1.27 5.22 1.22 5.88 1.01 5.32 1.17 5.62 1.19 3.87 1.44 5.23 1.51 3.78 0.69 -1.77 2.25 5.96 5.11 olderb 4.09 1.40 4.82 1.22 4.92 1.24 5.63 1.13 4.99 1.1 5.41 1.25 3.36 1.44 4.96 1.64 3.63 0.61 -1.18 2.15 6.98 4.83 note. pas = perceived autonomy support; pbc = perceived behaviour control; ampe = autonomous motivation in physical education; amlt = autonomous motivation in leisure time. aage 11–14. bage 15–18. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 516 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ slovakia only past physical activity behaviour, t(181) = 4.121, p < .001, was higher in boys. perceived autonomy support from family, t(181) = -2.048, p = .042, subjective norm, t(181) = -2.432, p = .016, and ampe, t(181) = -4.911, p < .001, were higher in girls. romania girls had higher values than boys in all the following parameters: perceived autonomy support from family, t(245) = -3.047, p = .003, perceived autonomy support from peers, t(245) = -2.806, p = .006, subjective norm, t(245) = -2.109, p = .036, pbc, t(245) = -3.568, p < .001, ampe, t(245) = -2.154, p = .033, and amlt, t(245) = -2.241, p = .026. hypothesis 2 is therefore accepted. inter-correlations between model components hypothesis 3: positive inter-correlation links between (a) autonomous motivation in pe and leisure-time, (b) sdt and tpb and (c) intention and physical activity. hypothesis 3 which hypothesised that positive inter-correlation links were between (a) autonomous motivation in physical education and leisure-time, (b) sdt (perceived autonomy support from 3 social agents: school, family and friends) and (c) tpb (attitude, subjective norm and pbc) elements was also accepted. details of these results are presented in table 3. table 3 descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among the extended trans-contextual model components factor m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. pas (pe teacher) hungary 4.61 1.21 uk 5.22 1.06 romania 2.29 0.38 slovakia 4.50 0.89 2. autonomous motivation (pe) hungary −1.42 2.26 -.50** uk −2.90 2.23 -.29** romania −1.10 1.86 -.06 slovakia −0.88 1.97 -.26** 3. pas (peer) hungary 5.10 1.26 .23** -.25** uk 4.86 1.29 .29** -.18* romania 4.91 1.16 -.23** -.02 slovakia 4.46 1.14 .49** -.17** 4. pas (family) hungary 5.48 1.14 .22** -.27** .72** uk 5.03 1.39 .34** -.17* .77** romania 5.07 1.15 -.26** -.01 .76** slovakia 4.42 1.08 .46** -.16* .65** soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 517 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5. autonomous motivation (lt) hungary 7.05 5.07 .12* -.41** .38** .42** uk 5.54 4.94 .25** -.45** .36** .42** romania 6.98 5.02 -.07 -.07 .32** .31** slovakia 5.86 4.73 .35** -.47** .37** .33** 6. attitude hungary 5.81 0.88 .26** -.28** .54** .64** .42** uk 5.93 1.13 .39** -.36** .51** .60** .48** romania 5.84 1.25 -.32** -.02 .43** .47** .43** slovakia 5.47 1.16 .35** -.23** .41** .44** .50** 7. subjective norm hungary 5.36 1.06 .18** -.20** .55** .69** .25** .55** uk 5.36 1.21 .35** -.25** .64** .76** .40** .58** romania 5.09 1.12 -.20** .12 .54** .61** .10 .41** slovakia 4.71 1.12 .30** -.15* .52** .62** .27** .49** 8. pbc hungary 5.69 0.97 .23** -.27** .49** .57** .36** .68** .57** uk 5.49 1.34 .32** -.32** .55** .65** .53** .64** .75** romania 5.81 1.31 -.17* .10 .34** .46** .36** .58** .45** slovakia 4.50 1.30 .33** -.27** .53** .44** .51** .51** .52** 9. intention hungary 5.41 1.50 .16** -.27** .50** .51** .41** .41** .49** .34** uk 5.09 1.44 .27** -.21** .53** .63** .35** .50** .51** .52** romania 5.03 1.48 -.31** .04 .36** .39** .35** .54** .39** .47** slovakia 4.62 1.76 .31** -.34** .48** .41** .53** .59** .50** .64** 10. behaviour hungary 3.72 0.52 .09 -.04 .08 .05 .05 .02 .05 .10* .09 uk 3.86 0.89 .04 -.01 .30** .23** .12 .18* .21** .23** .29** romania 3.73 0.65 -.04 .11 .03 .14* -.03 .12 .12 .05 .11 slovakia 3.56 0.64 .15* -.06 .16* .19** .12 .13* .01 .25** .25** 11. past behaviour hungary 3.58 1.51 .21** -.25** .40** .38** .30** .40** .36** .32** .60** .13* uk 4.24 1.38 .20* -.14 .31** .36** .21** .33** .30** .43** .60** .32** romania 3.58 1.43 -.17* -.02 .23** .21** .24** .36** .29** .28** .53** .28** slovakia 3.26 1.33 .19** -.30** .24** .23** .37** .37** .33** .46** .63** .20** note. for hungarian sample: n = 389; uk sample: n = 155; romanian sample: n = 183; slovakian sample: n = 247; pas = perceived autonomy support; pe = physical education context; lt = leisure-time context; pbc = perceived behavioural control. *p < .05. **p < .01. having compared the gender differences by country, we found that perceived autonomy support in pe was higher in uk and hungarian boys than girls. in slovakia and hungary past physical activity behaviour was higher in boys than girls. in contrast with the other two countries, in romania and hungary both ampe and amlt were higher in girls than boys. slovakian and romanian girls perceived higher autonomy support from family than boys perceived. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 518 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ main analyses data were analysed by path analysis, followed this protocol according to previous studies (barkoukis et al., 2010; hagger et al., 2003; hagger et al., 2009), using a simultaneous process with ibm spss amos v24 software (ingram, cope, harju, & wuensch, 2000) and a robust maximum likelihood (ml) estimation method. composites of the study were averaged and goodness of fit of the proposed model with the data was evaluated using multiple recommended indices of good fit. ml attempts to maximize the likelihood that obtained values of the criterion variable will be correctly predicted. cmin compares the tested model and the independence model to the saturated model. cmin/df, the relative chi-square, is an index of how much the fit of data to model has been reduced by dropping one or more path. gfi, the goodness of fit index, is the proportion of the variance in the sample variancecovariance matrix accounted for by the model. values exceeding .9 are indicative of a good model. the normed fit index (nfi) is the difference between the two model’s chi-squares divided by the chi-square for the independent model. values approaching .95 for the nfi and cfi are indicative of an acceptable model. the comparative fit index (cfi) uses a similar approach (with a non-central chi-square) to nfi and is a good index for use even with a smaller sample. the root mean square of approximation (rmsea) estimates the lack of fit compared to the saturated model. values of .05 or less indicates good fit, and .08 or less adequate fit (hu & bentler, 1999). path analysis data were analysed by path analysis (table 4) using a simultaneous process with ibm spss amos v24 software and a robust ml estimation method. averaged composites of the study variables were computed prior to analyses. goodness of fit of the proposed model with the data was evaluated using multiple recommended indices of good fit: cmin, nfi, cfi, and rmsea. table 4 standardised parameter estimates and univariate comparisons from the path analyses of the extended trans-contextual model for each national sample sample relationship hungary uk romania slovakia pas (pe teacher) → autonomous motivation (pe) -.500**abc -.221*b -.062 -.192 pas (pe teacher) → autonomous motivation (lt) -.183**b -.032 -.006 .056 autonomous motivation (pe) → autonomous motivation (lt) -.425**bc -.373**b .043 -.388 pas (peer) → autonomous motivation (lt) .095* .051 .086 .270*abd pas (peer) → attitude .530**a .801**c .413**ad .448** pas (peer) → subjective norm .540** .911**bcd .565** .476** pas (peer) → pbc .452**abc .031 -.196* .136 pas (family) → autonomous motivation (lt) .309** .394** .322** .127abd pas (family) → attitude .694**a -.232*b .724** .605**ab pas (family) → subjective norm .568**abc -.164 .143 -.056 pas (family) → pbc -.044 .299*bd .122 .157 autonomous motivation (lt) → attitude .386**c .507** .455** .532** autonomous motivation (lt) → subjective norm .067 .048 -.157*c -.009 autonomous motivation (lt) → pbc .696**bc .696**bc .218** .185 autonomous motivation (lt) → intention .283*bc -.006 .110 .119 autonomous motivation (lt) → behaviour .101 .147 .014 .121 attitude → intention .108a .296* .206* .185 soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 519 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sample relationship hungary uk romania slovakia subjective norm → intention .444**bc .385**bc .151* .065 pbc → intention -.095 -.112 .153* .260*d intention → behaviour .052 .199 -.084 .210 pbc → behaviour .152*abc .097 .008 .055 past behaviour → pas (pe teacher) .213**b .209*b -.171 -.271*b past behaviour → autonomous motivation (pe) -.050 -.114 -.069 -.256*bd past behaviour → autonomous motivation (lt) .136*b .037 .147*b .179 past behaviour → pas (peer) .067abc .314** .294** .253* past behaviour → pas (family) -.038abc .375** .265** .274* past behaviour → attitude .173* .719**bcd .165* .235* past behaviour → subjective norm -.014 .564**bcd .198*d .237*d past behaviour → pbc -.005 .182*d .112 .188*d past behaviour → intention .501**bc .471 .320** .378** past behaviour → behaviour .087 .208* .280**c .078 note. r2 intention: hungarian sample 49.6%; uk sample 51.1%; romanian sample 42.7%; slovakian sample 44.3%; overall (4 countries) 50.9%. r2 behaviour: hungarian sample 4.4%; uk sample 13.9%; romanian sample 6.2%; slovakian sample 7.2%; overall (4 countries) 7.8%. pas = perceived autonomy support; pe = physical education context; lt = leisure—time context; pbc = perceived behavioural control. asignificantly different from uk sample. bsignificantly different from romanian sample. csignificantly different from slovakian sample. dsignificantly different from hungarian sample. *p < .05. **p < .001. relationships in the model standardised path coefficients for the free parameters in the path analyses from the overall and each sample are provided in table 2 the model accounted for 50.9%, 49.6%, 51.1%, 42.7% and 44.3% of the variance of leisure time physical activity intentions and 7.8%, 4.4%, 13.9%, 6.2% and 7.2% of the variance in physical activity behaviour in the overall, hungarian, uk, romanian and slovakian samples, respectively. the model (figure 1) contains the following observed, endogenous variables: perceived autonomy support from friends, perceived autonomy support from family/parents, attitude to exercise in leisure time, intention to exercise, current physical activity behaviour, perceived behaviour control (pbc), autonomous motivation in physical education, and autonomous motivation in leisure-time; and contains observed, exogenous variables: past physical activity behaviour and perceived autonomy support from teachers. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 520 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. antecedents and consequences: the extended trans-contextual model. note. solid lines illustrate the effects from the proposed motivational sequence that were tested in the model; broken lines indicate paths set to be free in order test indirect and mediation effects. sdt = self-determination theory (sdt consists of three basic needs to satisfy, the need for autonomy, i.e., the belief that one is the origin and regulator of his or her own action, competence, i.e., the belief that one can efficaciously interact with the environment, and relatedness, i.e., the seeking and development of secure and connected relationships with others in one’s social context). tpb = theory of planned behaviour (tpb shows the attitude that reflects an individual’s personal orientation toward engaging in the behaviour; subjective norm that reflects on social pressure from significant others regarding to the behaviour; perceived behavioural control that reflects on the impact of perceived abilities and barriers with respect to engaging in the behaviour. aa = aetological approach (aa shows determinants of intentions, decision making and physical activity behaviour). em = ecological model (em describes the interpersonal determinants, such as social support, from family, friends and school). tcm = trans-contextual model (tcm explains the processes of how autonomous motivation transfers across contexts, and incorporates sdt, tpb and hmiem). hmiem = hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (hmiem contends that motivation operates at three levels, first the global or personality, second the contextual or life domain and third, situational or state levels, also incorporates the fundamental tenets of sdt). overall and each sample analyses for the overall sample (all four countries, figure 1), the hypothesised model exhibited a good model fit with the data (cmin = 67.84, df = 21, p = .001, nfi = .98, cfi = .99, rmsea = .048, and gfi = .99). for hungary, the hypothesised model also exhibited an acceptable model fit with the data (cmin = 58.62, df = 21, p = .001, nfi soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 521 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = .97, cfi = .98, rmsea = .068 and gfi = .97). for the uk the model also showed an acceptable model fit (cmin = 47.011, df = 23, p = .002, nfi = .95, cfi = .97, rmsea = .082 and gfi = .95). regarding slovakia, the model also demonstrated a good fit with the data (cmin = 25.77, df = 18, p = .001, nfi = .98, cfi = .99, rmsea = .042 and gfi = .98). for romania, the model exhibited a good fit (cmin = 30.54, df = 22, p = .01, nfi = .96 cfi = .99, rmsea = .046 and gfi = .97). discussion our study aimed to investigate the mechanism by which perceived autonomy support from three social agents (school/pe teachers, family and friends) influences autonomous motivation in physical education and leisuretime physical activity, what the link is between the two factors, and how these effects can generate physical activity intention leading to current physical activity behaviour. ultimately, the study aim was to uncover why some people are physically active and others not, and whether there are any national or gender differences. the aa explained the correlational relationships within the components of perceived autonomy support , as antecedents of autonomous motivation, and how these factors influenced intention and ultimately behaviour. the em revealed the power of the social environment, and again, social support influenced young people’s intention to perform physical activity and current beehaviour. the tpb explained the volitional antecedents of intentional behaviour within attitude, subjective norm and pbc. sdt predicted the important role of autonomy, relatedness and competence in behavioural regulation. vallerend’s hmm clarifyied the qualities of motivation on three levels: global—personality, contextual—life domain and state—situational level. finally, the tcm revealed how autonomous motivation transfers across contexts (e.g., from school/educational to free living) andtherefore explained how leisure time behaviour is reinforced. physical education classes are supposed to instil behaviours and attitudes that promote physical activity in free-time and promote healthy lifestyle (gonzales-cutre, cope, harju, & wuensch, 2014a). according to the overall sample in our study, autonomous motivation in pe was negatively correlated with most other variables. the rigorously structured curriculum in central-eastern european countries, as well as in some parts of the uk provides students with few options. therefore, the expected function of physical education in schools fails to meet the criteria that lead to developing self-determined or autonomous motivation to young people’s leisuretime intention, and especially physical activity. hein, emeljanovas, and mieziene (2016) found that estonian and lithuanian students perceive pe teachers’ behaviours as controlling, and even intimidating in some cases. however, many other studies (e.g., hagger & chatzisarantis, 2016) have found physical education teachers promote students’ autonomous motivation toward class activities by structuring the learning environment in favour of students. self-regulated participation and engagement in activities can be achieved by fostering autonomous motivation in young people, who will take ownership over their actions, when they feel a sense of competence and satisfaction (guay et al., 2010). our results, consistent with hagger et al. (2009), confirm that perceived autonomy support from friends as well as family predicted autonomous motivation towards leisure-time physical activity across the four countries. however, hungarian students received the most autonomy support from family compared with students from the other three countries, and more support from friends than those from slovakia. nevertheless, the effect of autonomy support from physical education teachers either had no or a negative effect on autonomous motivaperceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 522 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tion in physical education classes, with the exception of uk students, who perceived more autonomy support from physical education teachers than the other three countries. these results support gonzales-cutre et al.’s (2014b) finding that autonomous motivation is transferred from physical education to leisure-time physical activity, and predicts attitudes, pbc and subjective norms, as well as forming intentions to participate in future physical activity. however, our findings support hein et al. (2016), who reported controlling behaviour by pe teachers’ in some eastern european countries. according to martins (2015) a positive motivational climate should be created in physical education and sport to promote active lifestyles. therefore, as pakarinen et al. (2017) reported, positive motivational climate in physical activity can enhance physical and mental health benefits for young people. like bagozzi and kimmel (1995) and chatzisarantis, hagger, smith, and phoenix (2004), we investigated the relationship between past physical activity behaviour and intention as well as current physical activity. our data revealed the strongest positive relationship between hungarian and uk students’ past behaviour and intention followed by a moderate relationship in slovakian and romanian students’ past behaviour and intention. the relationship between past behaviour and current behaviour was moderate in uk and romanian students, but weak in hungarian and slovakian students. while previous work has examined national differences, this has usually been in the context of countries with similar cultures (eg weinberg et al., 2000), unlike the individualistic and collectivist countries investigated in this study. overall, students perceived more family support in collectivist countries than in individualistic countries. however, no other conclusive differences were found between cultures which implies that this factor may only have, at best, a weak impact on physical activity. however, all countries are (currently) part of the european union and so may share values and behaviours.comparisons between these countries and non-western cultures may yield more widespread differences. regarding gender differences, girls reported more autonomy support both from family and friends than boys, furthermore girls reported higher autonomous motivation both in physical education and leisure time, while boys reported a higher level of current and past physical activity. these findings correspond with those observed by gustafson and rhodes (2006) and telford, telford, olive, cochrane, and davey (2016). furthermore, boys perceived more support from pe teachers compared to girls which is likely to influence their autonomous motivation in pe that can be transferred to free living, as another major determinant of current behaviour.boys alsoperceived more autonomy support in physical education than girls. there was no significant difference between the intention of future physical activity behaviour in girls and boys. these results demonstrate the complexity of the casual relationships in behaviour in young people by explaining our findings within the tcm. practical recommendations our findings have several practical implications. we found that decision-making by students in relation to physical activity was determined by physical education teachers’ autonomy support and/or controlling motivating style (amoura, berjot, gillet, caruana, & finez, 2015; haerens et al., 2017). these interpersonal and environmental determinants were modified by social and autonomy support from family (parents, sisters/brothers) and friends. understanding students’ autonomous motivation transfer through the tcm (hagger et al., 2003) from a school context to leisure time can help educational and health practitioners to understand what influences soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 523 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ young people’s behaviour. this has implications beyond physical activity, and can help understanding of why young people make a range of choices related to health. furthermore, clarifying the relationship between the influence of social agents (school, family friends) and students’ physical activity in collectivist as opposed to individualist countries can aid the development of educational materials and methods to orient young people to choose a healthy, physically active lifestyle across different nations. limitations our study was correlational, and as such we cannot infer causal relationships between variables. we also focused our research on european countries which may have similar values and so differences between countries may be smaller than if we had obtained a more globally distributed sample. future work an exploration of the relationship between autonomous motivation and perceived autonomy support in different countries is recommended, to clarify the relationship between these and different approaches to school physical education, in particular investigating the relationship between physical education teaching style and outcomes. further work is also required to understand why the relationship between past behaviour and current behaviour is stronger in some countries than others. an examination of gender differences in outcomes would be beneficial for future work, as girls reported being less active than boys. exploration of the influence of teaching styles on physical activity also have potential for future study as these could provide practitioners with a greater understanding of the role they play in promoting physical activity in children outside the school environment. further work is also needed to replicate the results of this study in relation to physical actvity behaviour in collectivist and individualistic countries, and also to examine whether these findings are replicable in a wider international sample. conclusions we found, like mcdavid, cox, and amorose (2012), that parents and friends play significant roles in children’s motivation to participate in leisure-time physical activity. furthermore, physical education teachers, although present at school only, still had an important role in supporting young people’s physical activity outside school. furthermore, most physical education teachers (except those who employed a controlling style) still had an important role in supporting young people’s attitudes and behaviour related to physical activity outside school. overall, our study supports previous work regarding the relationship between young people’s perceived autonomy support in physical education and leisuretime and their leisure-time physical activity intention and behaviour by using the sdt, the tpb as well as the tcm. findings also revealed a number of differences as well as similarities between collectivist countries (hungary, slovakia and romania) and a country more orientated towards individualistic cultural norms (united kingdom) (markus & kitayama, 1991). our results also suggest that an optimal relationship should be developed between physical education teachers and students, and that autonomy support be maintained by family and friends to encourage students to pursue physical activity behaviour. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 524 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to martin hagger, who provided guidance on an earlier draft of this paper, the students who participated in the study and gary ankers, who assisted with the data collection in the united kingdom. references ajzen, i. 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(2016). measuring women’s autonomy in chad using the relative autonomy index. feminist economics, 22(1), 264-294. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2015.1108991 weinberg, r., tenenbaum, g., mckenzie, a., jackson, s., anshel, m., grove, r., & fogarty, g. (2000). motivation for youth participation in sport and physical activity: relationships to culture, self-reported activity levels, and gender. international journal of sport psychology, 31, 321-346. about the authors istvan soos is research professor at the university of physical education, budapest, hungary. previously, he served as a reader at the university of sunderland, uk (2002–2018), and as an associate professor at the university of pecs, hungary (1986–2002). his research interest incorporates the practical applications of motivational theories in health-related physical activity, sport and academic settings. ibolya dizmatsek barsiné has been a university lecturer since 2008 at the university of physical education, budapest. she is based in the gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, dance and aerobics department and she teaches artistic gimnastics and conditioning. in addition, she is a phd student at the university of physical education doctoral school for sport sciences. she is a co-author of international cross-collaborative studies. her research focuses on motivation of physical activity of young people in physical education classes at school and free time. jonathan ling is professor of public health in the faculty of applied sciences at the university of sunderland. a fellow of the royal society of public health, the higher education academy and a chartered psychologist, jonathan has interests across public health and health sciences. he has an extensive research track record in public health and psychology and been awarded national funding to examine health-related decision making. adedokun ojelabi is a statistician and works with the university of ibadan, nigeria. he has a phd in public health from the school of nursing and health sciences, university of sunderland. his research interests are in public health, quality of life and statistical modelling. jaromír šimonek is a full-time professor with the constantine the philosopher university in nitra, slovakia. his has phd. in human kinetics from comenius university in bratislava, slovakia. he was inaugurated in kinanthropology at the palacky university in olomouc, czech republic. his research is in public health, agility development and didactics. iuliana boros-balint is an associate professor at the babeș-bolyai university of cluj-napoca, faculty of physical education and sport. her main research interests are physical activity and health, the effects of whole body vibration (wbv) on physical performance, stress and physical effort capacity. she is a member of several national and international sport science associations. she is the member of the interdisciplinary research centre in the field of physical education and sport, babeș-bolyai university of cluj-napoca, and the executive editor of studia universitatis babeș-bolyai educatio artis gymnasticae journal. peter zsolt szabo is a phd student and assistant teacher at the babes-bolyai university cluj-napoca, faculty of physical education and sport. he holds a masters’ degree in mass and multimedia and a bachelors’ degree in athletics. his main responsibilities are teaching athletics and teaching physical education classes, scientific research and assisting in coordinating bachelor’s diploma works. attila szabo is a full professor in the institute of health promotion and sport sciences in the faculty of education and psychology at elte eötvös loránd university in budapest. he is a member of the behavioural addictions research group in soos, dizmatsek, ling et al. 529 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13545701.2015.1108991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the institute of psychology at the same university, and doctor of the hungarian academy of sciences (dsc) in the field of psychology. professor dr. pal hamar is a director of the institute for education, professor at the department of pedagogy and methodology, as well as a deputy vice-chancellor at the hungarian university of physical education, budapest. he obtained his university doctorate at hupe, phd at eotvos lorand university and dr. habil. in education at the university of pecs. he has over 300 publications and presentations. he is author or co-author of 16 university textbooks and/or workbooks. he is president of the somatic educational sub-committee of the educational scientific committee at the hungarian academy of sciences. he holds memberships of editorial boards of scientific journals. perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people 530 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 509–530 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1735 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived autonomy support and motivation in young people (introduction) method participants instruments translation procedure procedure data analysis results preliminary analyses national differences gender differences main analyses overall and each sample analyses discussion practical recommendations limitations future work conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors internet addiction and psychological distress: can social networking site addiction affect body uneasiness across gender? a mediation model research reports internet addiction and psychological distress: can social networking site addiction affect body uneasiness across gender? a mediation model rossella bottaro 1, giusy danila valenti 2 , palmira faraci 1 [1] department of human and social sciences, university of enna “kore”, enna, italy. [2] department of psychological, educational sciences and human movement, university of palermo, palermo, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 received: 2022-09-12 • accepted: 2023-09-20 • published (vor): 2024-02-29 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, cardiff, united kingdom corresponding author: rossella bottaro, department of human and social sciences, university of enna “kore”, cittadella universitaria – 94100 enna, italy. +39 0935 536536. e-mail: rossella.bottaro@unikorestudent.it abstract introduction: the internet, with its unlimited information, revolutionary communication capabilities, and innovative potential to expand knowledge, is ubiquitous throughout the world, but it also has significant implications for users’ mental health. given the not yet clearly defined and distinguishable nosographic categories of online addiction and the resulting difficulties in describing the impact on users’ mental health, the present cross-sectional study aimed to gain new insights into the relationship between internet addiction (especially social networking site [sns] addiction), psychological distress, and physical discomfort, as well as gender differences in impact among users. method: a sample of 583 italian speakers (50.8% males; 48.7% females) with a mean age of 30.96 (sd = 12.12) completed an online survey in july 2021. a set of psychometric self-report instruments was administered to assess the study variables. mediation analyses were performed for both the whole sample and across genders. results: the study found that men exhibited higher levels of internet addiction and craving than women, but no differences were found for sns addiction. furthermore, indicators of psychological distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, insomnia, and self-esteem) mediated the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness, with slight differences across genders. conclusion: this paper contributes to the existing literature on online addictive behaviors by also highlighting gender differences. the findings underscore the need for educational experiences that can prevent problematic use of the internet and snss. keywords internet addiction, social networking sites, body uneasiness, self-esteem, psychological distress the internet is widely available worldwide, and user access continues to grow. the covid-19 pandemic has led to an increase in internet connectivity in recent years, as it has been the only means of communication with others (bhandari, 2020). in 2022, 69% of the world’s population and 89.7% of european inhabitants have been surfing the internet (internet world stats, 2022). currently, 6.3 billion people use smartphones to access the internet, and this trend is expected to grow in the coming years, reaching 7.5 billion by 2026 (statista, 2021). these digital devices provide simple access to the internet with its vast information, novel ways to communicate, and several potentials to increase knowledge due to their ease of use and portability. the increasing use of the internet has been accompanied by scientific concerns about addictive behavior on the internet. however, different authors have used various terms to refer to this problematic behavior. for example, compul­ sive internet use (black et al., 1999), pathological internet use (davis, 2001), and internet addiction (ia; sherer, 1997) have this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10273&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0529-8515 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7377-8011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ been used to define online addictive behavior or problematic mobile phone use (billieux et al., 2015). all these different terms seem to refer more or less to the same concept: a user who is so involved in online use that he/she neglects other areas of his/her life (widyanto & griffiths, 2006). however, the choice of a single designation seems premature, as the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder (dsm-5th text revised; american psychiatric association, 2022) has not yet come out clearly. although many researchers have raised questions about the improvement of internet addictive behaviors during the pandemic (masaeli & farhadi, 2021), some results have showed a similar occurrence compared to the pre-pandemic era (burkauskas et al., 2022). despite the lack of terminological agreement, many studies (ballarotto et al., 2021; bottaro & faraci, 2022; cipolletta et al., 2020; holmberg et al., 2018; verduyn et al., 2020) have addressed the negative psychological effects of internet use. previous findings have shown that ia is a predictor of stress, depression, anxiety, insomnia, loneliness and low self-esteem (corrêa rangel et al., 2022; mamun et al., 2020; mathew & krishnan, 2020; saikia et al., 2019; stanković et al., 2021; younes et al., 2016; yücens & üzer, 2018) in both men and women (ha & hwang, 2014), although the results are still inconclusive. thus, costa et al. (2019) have shown that mechanisms for detecting satisfying social relationships rely on sensory information and body feedback; these cannot be exploited in online interactions, which have negative consequences in terms of loneliness. therefore, loneliness is positively associated with ia (mamun et al., 2020; saadati et al., 2021; simcharoen et al., 2018) and leads to social avoidance (ahmed et al., 2021). however, a non-statistically significant association between loneliness and ia has been found in another research (turan et al., 2020). in summary, further studies are needed to establish a possible causal relationship between ia and other relevant variables (e.g., loneliness, self-esteem, etc.). for example, moretta and buodo (2020) have recently suggested a dynamic relationship between ia and loneliness that could lead to a vicious cycle, with ia as a possible starting point. on the other hand, according to recent studies (ostovar et al., 2016), mood disorders in people with ia were a relevant outcome in about one in three patients (ostinelli et al., 2021). furthermore, the role of self-esteem in ia is unclear. while some studies focused on the predictive role of self-esteem (aydm & san, 2011; stieger & burger, 2010), others pointed to a reciprocal relationship (wang et al., 2022). however, most studies have investigated its mediating role in the association between ia and psychological well-being (pichardo et al., 2021; senol-durak & durak, 2011). in addition, a recent review and meta-analysis has highlighted the strong association between ia and sleep disorders (alimoradi et al., 2019). in the current study, the focus is on the predictive role of ia for the indicators of psychological distress, which provides important insights into the health of online surfers (see hypothesis 2). recently, the interaction of person-affect-cognition-execution model (i-pace model; brand et al., 2019) has been used to analyze the psychological and neurobiological processes common to addictive behaviors. the process model considers ia as “the consequence of interactions between predisposing factors, such as neurobiological and psychological consti­ tutions, moderators, such as coping styles and internet-related cognitive biases, and mediators, such as affective and cognitive responses to situational triggers in combination with reduced executive functioning. conditioning processes may strengthen these associations within an addiction process” (brand et al., 2016, p. 1). this theoretical model is a valuable starting point for the purpose of the present study. the subjectively perceived situation (e.g., stress, personal conflict, and abnormal mood) and the affective and cognitive response (e.g., urge for mood regulation, craving, and attentional bias) have been recognized as important constructs for understanding online addictions (see hypothesis 3). the i-pace model also points out that craving is the key mechanism for maintaining online addictive behaviors, with negative consequences in daily life, as well as substance addictions (anton, 1999; sun et al., 2021). namely, craving is defined as an urgent and uncontrollable desire to use a substance or engage in a particular behavior (caretti et al., 2008). negative health outcomes of craving have been documented for various addictive behaviors (e.g., joyner et al., 2015; king et al., 2016), but there do not appear to be any studies examining the direct effects of craving on psychological distress in internet addiction, as far as we know. furthermore, according to studies on addiction disorders, men progress more rapidly from behavior onset to dependence than women (becker & hu, 2008; hallam et al., 2016). gender differences in internet addiction (ia) have been of interest in recent research. some studies have shown that men experience higher levels of ia than women (shan et al., 2021), with more intense experiences for men (veltri et al., 2014) and worse psychological outcomes for women (twenge & martin, 2020). however, other studies have not found gender differences in ia (shen et al., 2021). gender differences have been found for several types of ia. for example, a recent meta-analysis (su et al., 2020) has confirmed a gender-specific distinction, highlighting that men are more likely online addiction and body uneasiness 42 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to suffer from internet gaming disorder, whereas women are more likely to experience social networking site (sns) addiction. it is important to note that internet addiction is an umbrella term that encompasses different types of addictive online surfing behaviors, such as excessive shopping, gaming, and working. for the specific purpose of the present study, which mainly focuses on social networking sites addiction (sns), we will present the previous findings on this particular type of online behavior. social networking sites addiction sns addiction is a specific type of ia strongly associated with smartphone use (e.g., instagram was developed only for smartphones; for a time, it was possible to use the platform on a pc as well, but with significant functional limitations) and body image (ryding & kuss, 2020). kuss and griffiths (2011, p. 3539) defined snss as “virtual communities where users can create individual public profiles, interact with real-life friends, and meet other people based on shared interests.” although not yet defined as a diagnostic category with different theories and models (sun & zhang, 2021), the prevalence of sns addiction is increasing in both men and women in different countries (cheng et al., 2021), with a higher incidence in women than in men (aparicio-martínez et al., 2020; su et al., 2020). social networking sites (sns) addiction is associated with negative psychological symptoms such as anxiety, stress, depression (hussain & griffiths, 2018), and insomnia (lin et al., 2021). specifically, due to the interactive nature of snss, a recent study has showed that sns users have higher levels of social appearance anxiety than individuals who do not use snss (korkmazer et al., 2022). a recent meta-analysis (zhang et al., 2022) has supported the association between sns addiction and loneliness, with no differences between genders. in addition, some studies (bányai et al., 2017; busalim et al., 2019) have found an association between sns addiction and self-esteem. the direction of this association is controversial. many studies (ahmed et al., 2021; błachnio et al., 2016; busalim et al., 2019; seabra et al., 2017) have suggested that low self-esteem predicts sns addiction in various countries such as turkey, italy, and the united states. however, other studies have shown a large impact of sns addiction on self-esteem (for a review, see krause et al., 2021). according to the social compensation hypothesis (kraut et al., 2002), people who have low levels of self-esteem compensate for their social interaction problems with online “no-body” relationships (lancini, 2015). the “like” mechanism typical of snss has a large negative impact on people with low levels of self-esteem (martinez-pecino & garcia-gavilan, 2019; yücens & üzer, 2018). a recent systematic review (ryding & kuss, 2020) has found that sns addiction is a risk factor for body image dissatisfaction. according to the social comparison theory (festinger, 1954), which also extends to online spaces characterized by perfect self-presentation, it has been suggested that people who overuse snss may decrease their self-acceptance (cipolletta et al., 2020; holmberg et al., 2018; verduyn et al., 2020). these processes of self-comparison with others on snss reinforce users’ negative body perceptions. excessive use of sns, which includes sharing online photos and appearance-based comparisons, is often associated with control of body image in photos (boursier et al., 2020; ryding & kuss, 2020), increases in psychological problems, such as depressive symptoms and weight control behaviors (patte et al., 2021; pollina-pocallet et al., 2021; zhang & liu, 2021), and decreases in self-esteem (andreassen et al., 2017). finally, body image concerns are associated with sns addiction symptoms. according to fardouly and vartanian (2016), snss may contribute to body image concerns in several ways: i) snss are used by ‘regular people’ and not just celebrities, ii) people upload only the most attractive pictures of themselves, iii) peer comparison is common and could be more influential for the users’ body image, and iv) comments could influence self-perception. moreover, these associations showed different negative psychological effects across genders (boursier et al., 2020; ryding & kuss, 2020; yurdagül et al., 2021). for example, problematic instagram use (i.e., a popular sns platform) “was directly associated with loneliness, general anxiety, and social anxiety among males only, whereas among females, problematic instagram use was indirectly associated with general and social anxiety but was not related to loneliness” (yurdagül et al., 2021, p. 1385). further, body image uneasiness showed controversial results between genders: some previous studies (fischetti et al., 2020) reported that women were more dissatisfied than men, but other results showed the same relationship for men and women (holland & tiggemann, 2016). however, men appeared to engage in greater body advertising on sns than women (mahon & hevey, 2021). bottaro, valenti, & faraci 43 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ objectives and hypotheses the evidence to date suggests that online addictions (e.g., ia and sns addiction) are not yet clearly defined and distinguishable nosographic categories. this has led to confounding results regarding the impact on users’ psychological well-being, including gender differences. further evidence is needed to provide a clear definition of diagnosis and outcomes. the present study aimed to: i) provide new insights into the relationship between internet disorders and sns addiction and its negative impact on psychological distress, ii) deliberately focus on a theoretical model of sns addiction and its little-studied association with body uneasiness, and iii) assess gender differences. we also proposed a new theoretical model (figure 1) to explain how sns addiction might negatively affect users’ body uneasiness through indicators of psychological distress and tested it for both the whole sample and the two genders separately. this study may provide new insights into a previously undefined diagnostic category while having important clinical implications. thanks to an exploratory gender perspective, it could make a significant contribution to the discovery of intermediate differences in the relationship with the internet and sns use. figure 1 hypothesized mediation model of social networking sites addiction, psychological distress, and body uneasiness note. sns addiction = social networking sites addiction. based on the above literature findings and the objectives of the present study, we derived the following research hypotheses: hypothesis 1 (h1): internet addiction, craving, and sns addiction are not equally distributed among men and women. specifically, males are expected to report higher levels of internet addiction and craving, while females will report higher levels of sns addiction. hypothesis 2 (h2): internet addiction and craving behavior will predict indicators of psychological distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, insomnia, and self-esteem) in both men and women. hypothesis 3 (h3): sns addiction will show a positive association with body uneasiness. hypothesis 4 (h4): the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness will be mediated by indicators of psychological distress (i.e., anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, insomnia, and self-esteem). hypothesis 5 (h5): a similar pattern of relations between genders is expected, but with different magnitudes: greater direct and indirect effects for women than for men. online addiction and body uneasiness 44 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sample consisted of 583 italian speakers living in italy. gender was balanced (296 males, 50.8%; 284 females, 48.7%), and the average age was 30.96 years (sd = 12.12). only three participants preferred not to report their gender (0.5%). they mostly had an intermediate level of education (high school diploma = 42%; degree = 44.1%) and used sns mainly to keep in touch with others (e.g., chatting and sharing photos or videos; 63.1%). further descriptive information about the sample can be found in table 1. table 1 sample descriptive characteristics (n = 583) variable n % men women i prefer not to specify n % n % n % educational level middle license 29 5 18 6.1 11 3.9 0 0 high school graduation 245 42 134 45.3 110 38.7 1 33.3 degree 257 44.1 118 39.9 137 48.2 2 66.7 post-degree 52 8.9 26 8.8 26 9.2 0 0 greater use of internet stay with others (e.g., chat, share photos and videos) 369 63.3 169 57.1 198 69.7 2 69.7 leisure (e.g., play) 133 22.8 83 28 50 17.6 0 0 shopping online (e.g., amazon, ebay) 42 7.2 21 7.1 21 7.4 0 0 work 20 3.4 9 3.0 10 3.5 1 33.3 news 13 2.2 11 3.7 2 .7 0 0 other 5 .9 3 1.0 2 .7 0 0 measures the present study used ad hoc items to capture the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. in addition, the following psychometric self-report instruments were used to assess the selected variables. internet addiction the internet addiction test (iat; young, 1996, 1998) is the most commonly used psychometric instrument for the assessment of internet addiction. it was developed according to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th edition) criteria for pathological gambling. the iat consists of 20 items (e.g., “do people around you complain about the amount of time you spend online?” and “are your performance at work or your productivity affected negatively by the internet?”) that assess the disorder’s severity on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (always). in this study, we used its italian version (faraci et al., 2013), which also demonstrated good psychometric properties for the one-factor solution (cronbach’s α = .91). the present sample’s cronbach’s α was .94. craving the severity index (second section) from the addictive behavior questionnaire (abq_si; caretti et al., 2016), an italian psychometric instrument, was selected to point out craving specific to internet addiction. unlike other craving tools, it does not refer to a particular type of addiction but has already been validated in italy in reference to internet addiction. its 11 items (e.g., “i happen to think about the last time i went online” and “thoughts and images related to internet use suddenly emerge”) use a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (always). this instrument showed good reliability (cronbach’s α = .84) and validity. the cronbach’s α for the present sample was .82. bottaro, valenti, & faraci 45 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social networking sites addiction the bergen social media addiction scale (bsmas; andreassen et al., 2016) is a 6-item (e.g., “have you tried to stop using social media without succeeding?” and “have you become anxious or agitated if you’ve been banned from using social media?”) self-report scale that assesses addictive behaviors related to the use of snss. it measures six core features of social media addiction: salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse, and it uses a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (very rarely) to 5 (very often). a high score is indicative of sns addiction. its italian version (monacis et al., 2017) confirmed the single-factor structure of the original instrument and showed good psychometric properties (cronbach’s α = .88; andreassen et al., 2016). for the present sample the cronbach’s α was .87. self-esteem to evaluate the levels of self-esteem, we used the rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965). rses is a 10-item (e.g., “i think i have a number of qualities” and “i guess i don’t have much to be proud of”) self-report scale that uses a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (strongly disagree). we used its italian version (prezza et al., 1997), which showed good internal coherency (cronbach’s α = .84). in the present study the cronbach’s α for the rses was .91. stress, anxiety, and depression to assess stress, anxiety, and depression, we used the depression anxiety stress scales-21 (dass-21; lovibond et al., 1995) in its italian version (bottesi et al., 2015). it is a short measure that evaluates three indicators of psychological distress simultaneously. the 21-item (e.g., “i felt a lot of tension and i had difficulty recovering a state of calm,” “i just couldn’t feel any positive emotions,” and “i felt stressed out”) self-report scale uses a 4-point likert scale ranging from 0 (never happens to me) to 3 (it almost always happens to me). indeed, it has good internal consistency and temporal stability for each subscale (anxiety cronbach’s α = .74; depression cronbach’s α = .82; stress cronbach’s α = .85). in the present sample all of the subscales showed good internal consistency (anxiety cronbach’s α = .87; depression cronbach’s α = .92; stress cronbach’s α = .91). loneliness the ucla loneliness scale, version 3 (ucla-ls; russell, 1996) was used to measure one’s subjective feelings of loneliness in its italian version (boffo, mannarini, & munari, 2012). the 20-item scale uses a 4-point likert scale ranging from 1 (i never feel this way) to 4 (i often feel this way; e.g., “i am unhappy doing so many things alone” and “i feel isolated from others”). this measure had high internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .96; russell, 1996) and a test-retest correlation of .73 over 2 months. the cronbach’s α for the present sample was .92. body perception the body uneasiness test (but) is a self-report instrument to evaluate body perception that was first presented at the 5th international conference on eating disorders (new york, 24–26 april 1998). in line with the objectives of the present study, we used its italian version (cuzzolaro et al., 2006), specifically part a, the global severity index (but_gsi). the but_gsi derives from the average rating of all 34 items constituting the but part a, which is composed of five subscales (i.e., weight phobia, body image concerns, avoidance, compulsive self-monitoring, and depersonalization). the items use a 6-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 5 (always; e.g., “i spend a lot of time in front of the mirror” and “when i undress i avoid looking at myself”). it showed good internal coherency (cronbach’s α ranged from .79 to .90 for each subscale). in the present sample, which used only the total score for but, the but-gsi showed a good cronbach’s α = .97. insomnia the insomnia severity index (isi; morin et al., 2011), in its italian version (castronovo et al., 2016), was used to assess sleep quantity and quality. this 7-item self-report questionnaire assesses, during the prior 2 weeks, the severity of sleep onset, the severity of sleep maintenance, early morning awakenings, satisfaction level with the current sleep pattern, online addiction and body uneasiness 46 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interference with daily living, noticeability of impairment due to the sleep difficulty, and level of distress caused by the sleep problem. the total score ranges from 0 to 28, with a higher score indicating greater insomnia severity. each item is rated on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 to 4 (for items 1–3, 0 = no problem and 4 = very severe problem; for item 4, 0 = very satisfied and 4 = very dissatisfied; for items 5–7, 0 = not at all and 4 = very much; e.g., “how satisfied/dissatisfied are you with your current sleep?”). the internal reliability coefficient was 0.75 (morin et al., 2011). the cronbach’s α for the present sample was .83. procedure and ethics data were collected in july 2021 through an online survey on snss (e.g., facebook, instagram, and whatsapp; n = 244) and amazon mechanical turk (n = 339). to avoid missing data, participants completed the online survey using a google form with a mandatory response format. according to our eligibility criteria, italians older than 18 voluntarily participated in the research. after explaining the purposes of the study, all participants gave their informed consent. the research project proposal was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki and was approved by the internal review board of the psychological research of the university kore of enna with the code uke-irbp­ sy-07.21.03. the administration of the measures was carried out in a fixed order and in compliance with the privacy guarantee regulations according to legislative decree n. 196/2003 and the gdpr (eu regulation n.2016/679). on average, participants spent 20 minutes responding to the survey. data analyses using g*power (faul et al., 2007), we conducted a sensitivity power analysis to determine the minimum effect size required to find statistical significance. performing a sensitivity power analysis is useful to see whether, given a limited n, the size of the effect that can be found is at all realistic (or, otherwise, too large to be expected realistically) (faul et al., 2007). given a sample size of 583, an alpha level of .05, and a minimum power of .80 (cohen, 1992), there is an 80% chance of detecting an effect size of f 2 = .02, assuming statistical significance and that such an effect size actually exists. before testing our hypotheses, we first analyzed the correlations between all variables. we then performed an independent samples t-test to explore eventual differences in internet addiction, craving, and sns addiction across genders (h1). additionally, we conducted a series of standard multiple regression analyses using the statistical package for social sciences version 25 (spss v.25) to test h2 for both the total sample and gender groups. further, we tested our theoretical model using the jamm module for jamovi 2 (gallucci, 2020; jamovi project, 2021; r core team, 2021; rosseel, 2019; soetaert, 2019) to analyze the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness (direct effect; h3) and the mediation hypothesis (indirect effect) by psychological distress indicators (i.e., anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, insomnia, and self-esteem) for the whole sample (h4) and across genders (h5). results preliminary analyses the descriptive statistics (table 2) highlighted the score distribution in the sample. the normality distribution of the investigated variables was checked through the inspection of both skewness and kurtosis statistics, which were regarded as indicative of a violation of the assumption of normality if > |1| and |3|, respectively (kim, 2013). results from our analyses indicated that, except for si, which reported a skewness value greater than 1, all the other variables reported normality tests under the recommended thresholds, suggesting that they were normally distributed. figure 2 depicts the graphical visualization (i.e., q-q plots) of the variables’ distribution. moreover, moderate to high positive correlations among the study variables were found (estimated at p < .001), except for self-esteem, which reported negative associations (p < .001; table 3). bottaro, valenti, & faraci 47 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics for the study variables variable sample men women skewness kurtosism sd m sd m sd iat 46.9 16.6 50.1 16.8 43.6 15.7 0.80 0.42 si 13.3 7.62 14.7 8.0 12.0 7.0 1.21 1.88 bsmas 12.9 5.67 13.2 5.7 12.7 5.6 0.86 0.19 dass-21_anxiety 12.0 9.32 11.5 8.8 12.6 9.7 0.63 -0.43 dass-21_depression 16.3 11.8 16.3 11.1 16.3 12.4 0.51 -0.73 dass-21_stress 20.4 10.9 19.8 10.2 21.0 11.5 0.07 -0.75 ls 45.9 11.0 47.5 10.7 44.3 11.2 0.18 -0.39 isi 11.0 4.17 11.2 4.2 10.9 4.1 0.70 0.24 rses 29.4 7.38 29.5 7.3 29.4 7.4 -0.51 -0.45 but_global severity index 1.54 1.12 1.5 1.1 1.6 1.1 0.77 -0.10 note. iat = internet addiction test; si = addictive behavior questionnaire severity index; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but = body uneasiness test. figure 2 q-q plots of the study variables note. iat = internet addiction test; si = addictive behavior questionnaire severity index; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but_gsi = body uneasiness test_global severity index. online addiction and body uneasiness 48 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 correlations between the study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. iat — 2. si .84*** — 3. bsmas .82*** .77*** — 4. dass-21_anxiety .49*** .48*** .52*** — 5. dass-21_depression .50*** .48*** .54*** .75*** — 6. dass-21_stress .43*** .40*** .49*** .78*** .81*** — 7. ls .45*** .45*** .43*** .43*** .63*** .48*** — 8. isi .35*** .32*** .36*** .46*** .44*** .42*** .38*** — 9. rses -.48*** -.45*** -.48*** -.51*** -.63*** -.50*** -.51*** -.31*** — 10. but_global severity index .57*** .56*** .56*** .57*** .62*** .52*** .51*** .42*** -.58*** — note. iat = internet addiction test; si = addictive behavior questionnaire severity index; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but = body uneasiness test. ***p < .001. gender differences in internet addiction, social networking sites addiction, and craving to test h1, we performed an independent samples t-test for ia, craving, and sns addiction (table 4). the results showed a significant gender difference for ia (t = 4.76, p < .001, cohen’s d = .395) and craving (t = 4.36, p < .001, cohen’s d = .362) (i.e., men showed higher levels of internet addiction and craving than women), but no difference for sns addiction (p = .285). table 4 results of independent samples t-test for men and women variable student’s t df p cohen’s d 95% ci ll ul iat 4.76 578 < .001 .395 0.23 0.56 si 4.36 578 < .001 .362 0.20 0.53 bsmas 1.07 578 .285 .089 -0.07 0.25 note. iat = internet addiction test; si = addictive behavior questionnaire severity index; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. internet addiction, craving, and psychological distress before testing h2, we evaluated the collinearity between ia and craving. the collinearity diagnostic results did not show any problematic values (tolerance = 0.29, variance inflaction factor = 3.39, and condition index < 15). we per­ formed several multiple regression analyses in which ia and craving were entered as predictors, and the psychological distress indicators (i.e., stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-esteem, and insomnia) were specified as criterion variables for both the whole sample and disaggregated by gender. generally, for the whole sample, both ia and craving predicted the selected psychological distress indicators. high levels of ia predicted high levels of psychological distress (anxiety: β = 0.16, t = .44, p < .001; depression: β = 0.24, t = 5.10, p < .001; stress: β = 0.21, t = 4.60, p < .001; loneliness: β = 0.15, t = 3.45, p < .001; insomnia: β = 0.07, t = 3.79, p < .001), but also low levels of self-esteem (β = -0.16, t = -5.27, p < .001). likewise, high levels of craving predicted high levels of psychological distress (anxiety: β = 0.29, t = 3.63, p < .001; depression: β = 0.31, t = 3.07, p < .01; stress: β = 0.20, t = 2.02, p < .05; loneliness: β = 0.38, t = 3.90, p < .001), except for insomnia (β = 0.05, t = 1.35, p = .178), and low levels of self-esteem (β = -0.14, t = -2.25, p < .05). bottaro, valenti, & faraci 49 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ secondly, the standard multiple regression analyses disaggregated by gender (table 5) supported the previous findings also for men, confirming ia and craving as predictors for most psychological distress indicators. however, ia was not able to predict loneliness (β = 0.05, t = .48, p = .629), and craving was not able to predict insomnia for men (β = 0.15, t = 1.55, p =.121). on the other hand, ia was able to predict all the investigated indicators of psychological distress, but craving did not predict any psychological distress indicators for women. table 5 regressions of associations between internet addiction, craving, and psychological distress indicators across gender variable men women β se t p β se t p anxiety iat .34 .04 3.98 .000 .29 .06 3.09 .002 si .29 .09 3.40 .001 .18 .13 1.91 .057 depression iat .34 .06 3.82 .000 .36 .07 3.90 .000 si .27 .12 3.06 .002 .13 .16 1.36 .174 stress iat .29 .06 3.05 .002 .36 .07 3.81 .000 si .20 .12 2.12 .035 .10 .16 1.07 .285 loneliness iat .05 .06 .48 .629 .40 .07 4.29 .000 si .43 .13 4.55 .000 .08 .15 .89 .373 insomnia iat .31 .02 3.18 .002 .25 .03 2.45 .015 si .15 .05 1.55 .121 .01 .06 .07 .944 self-esteem iat -.28 .04 -3.01 .003 -.46 .04 -4.92 .000 si -.27 .08 -2.98 .003 -.02 .10 -.19 .846 note. iat = internet addiction test; si = addictive behavior questionnaire severity index. the proposed mediation model: associations between social networking sites addiction, body uneasiness, and psychological distress indicators as mediators table 6 shows the results of the proposed model (figure 1)—that is, when sns addiction is an independent variable, body uneasiness is a dependent variable, and psychological distress indicators are mediators. the use of a percentile bootstrap (alfons et al., 2022) ensured robust statistical analysis. the direct effect (h2) showed significant results (β = 0.044, p < .001, 95% ci [0.098, 0.124]) and the magnitude of this effect increased when psychological distress indicators were introduced as mediators (h3; total effect: β = 0.111, p < .001, 95% ci [0.028, 0.059]). sns addiction indirectly predicted body uneasiness through almost all psychological distress indicators (i.e., anxiety: β = 0.018, p < .001, 95% ci [0.007, 0.029]; depression: β = 0.018, p < .05, 95% ci [0.003, 0.032]; loneliness: β = 0.010, p < .01, 95% ci [0.003, 0.017]; insomnia: β = 0.038, p < .05, 95% ci [0.002, 0.013]; self-esteem: β = 0.022, p < .001, 95% ci [0.013, 0.032], respectively), explaining 61% of the total variance (anxiety 16%, depression 16%, loneliness 9%, insomnia 6%, and self-esteem 20%). however, when stress mediated the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness, there was not a significant indirect effect, β = -0.007, p = 177, 95% ci [-0.019, 0.003] (figure 3). online addiction and body uneasiness 50 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 total, direct, and indirect effects of the hypothesized mediation model for sns addiction, body uneasiness, and psychological distress for the whole sample effect estimate se 95% ci β z pll ul indirect bsmas ⇒ dass21_anxiety ⇒ but_gsi 0.018 0.005 0.007 0.029 0.095 3.19 < .001 bsmas ⇒ dass21_depression ⇒ but_gsi 0.018 0.007 0.003 0.032 0.095 2.35 < .05 bsmas ⇒ dass21_stress ⇒ but_gsi 0.007 0.005 -0.019 0.003 -0.040 -1.35 .177 bsmas ⇒ ls ⇒ but_gsi 0.010 0.003 0.003 0.017 0.054 2.91 < .05 bsmas ⇒ isi ⇒ but_gsi 0.007 0.003 0.002 0.013 0.038 2.40 < .05 bsmas ⇒ rses ⇒ but_gsi 0.022 0.005 0.013 0.032 0.118 4.65 < .001 direct bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.044 0.008 0.028 0.059 0.023 5.58 < .001 total bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.111 0.007 0.098 0.124 0.563 16.43 < .001 note. confidence intervals computed with method: bootstrap percentiles. betas are completely standardized effect sizes. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but_gsi= body uneasiness test_global severity index. figure 3 measurement model testing the relationship between social networking sites addiction and body uneasiness mediated by psychological distress for the whole sample note. coefficients are standardized betas; dotted lines indicate components; solid lines indicate total and direct effects (direct effect are shown in parentheses). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the proposed mediation model across gender finally, we tested the proposed mediation model (figure 1) across gender to test h4. table 7 and figure 4 show the results for men. the direct effect showed significant results, β = 0.063, p < .001, 95% ci [0.098, 0.124], and the magnitude of this effect increased when psychological distress indicators were introduced as mediators (total effect: β = 0.127, bottaro, valenti, & faraci 51 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ p < .001, 95% ci [0.028, 0.059]). sns addiction indirectly predicted body uneasiness through almost all psychological distress indicators (i.e., anxiety: β = 0.025, p < .001, 95% ci [0.013, 0.036]; stress: β = -0.011, p < .05, 95% ci [-0.019, -0.002]; loneliness: β = 0.010, p < .01, 95% ci [0.003, 0.018]; insomnia: β = 0.006, p < .05, 95% ci [-0.001, 0.014], self-esteem: β = 0.025, p < .001, 95% ci [0.016, 0.035], respectively). however, when depression was entered as a mediator, there was no significant indirect effect, β = 0.008, p = 136, 95% ci [-0.002, 0.018]. table 7 total, direct, and indirect effects of the hypothesized mediation model for sns addiction, body uneasiness, and psychological distress for men effect estimate se 95% ci β z pll ul indirect bsmas ⇒ dass21_anxiety ⇒ but_gsi 0.025 0.006 0.013 0.036 0.129 4.28 < .001 bsmas ⇒ dass21_depression ⇒ but_gsi 0.008 0.005 -0.002 0.018 0.041 1.49 .139 bsmas ⇒ dass21_stress ⇒ but_gsi -0.011 0.004 -0.019 -0.002 -0.055 -2.34 < .05 bsmas ⇒ ls ⇒ but_gsi 0.010 0.004 0.003 0.018 0.053 2.72 < .01 bsmas ⇒ isi ⇒ but_gsi 0.006 0.004 -0.001 0.014 0.032 1.57 .116 bsmas ⇒ rses ⇒ but_gsi 0.025 0.005 0.016 0.035 0.132 5.11 < .001 direct bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.063 0.013 0.037 0.089 0.329 4.74 < .001 total bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.127 0.009 0.110 .0144 0.638 14.22 < .001 note. confidence intervals computed with method: bootstrap percentiles. betas are completely standardized effect sizes. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but_gsi= body uneasiness test_global severity index. figure 4 measurement model testing the relationship between social networking sites addiction and body uneasiness mediated by psychological distress for men note. coefficients are standardized betas; dotted lines indicate components; solid lines indicate total and direct effects (direct effect are shown in parentheses); only significant results. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. online addiction and body uneasiness 52 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the proposed model was also tested for women (table 8, figure 5). the direct effect showed a lower significant result (β = 0.026, p < .05, 95% ci [1.28e-4, 0.052]) than men, and the magnitude of this effect considerably increased when psychological distress indicators were introduced as mediators (total effect: β = 0.095, p < .001, 95% ci [0.075, 0.115]). table 8 total, direct, and indirect effects of the hypothesized mediation model for sns addiction, body uneasiness, and psychological distress for women effect estimate se 95% ci β z pll ul indirect bsmas ⇒ dass21_anxiety ⇒ but_gsi 0.007 0.004 -0.002 0.016 0.038 1.580 .114 bsmas ⇒ dass21_depression ⇒ but_gsi 0.028 0.006 0.0117 0.039 0.154 4.931 < .001 bsmas ⇒ dass21_stress ⇒ but_gsi -0.004 0.004 -0.013 0.005 -0.022 -0.901 .367 bsmas ⇒ ls ⇒ but_gsi 0.012 0.004 0.004 0.021 0.067 2.896 < .05 bsmas ⇒ isi ⇒ but_gsi 0.006 0.002 0.001 0.011 0.034 2.390 < .05 bsmas ⇒ rses ⇒ but_gsi 0.020 0.005 0.010 0.029 0.108 4.006 < .001 direct bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.026 0.013 1.28e-4 0.052 0.141 1.970 < .05 total bsmas ⇒ but_gsi 0.095 0.010 0.075 0.115 0.487 9.374 < .001 note. confidence intervals computed with method: bootstrap percentiles. betas are completely standardized effect sizes. ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; bsmas = bergen social media addiction scale; dass-21 = depression, anxiety, stress scale; ls = loneliness scale; isi = insomnia severity index; rses = rosenberg self-esteem scale; but_gsi= body uneasiness test_global severity index. figure 5 measurement model testing the relationship between social networking sites addiction and body uneasiness mediated by psychological distress for women note. coefficients are standardized betas; dotted lines indicate components; solid lines indicate total and direct effects (direct effect are shown in parentheses); only significant results. *p < .05. ***p < .001. bottaro, valenti, & faraci 53 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sns addiction indirectly predicted body uneasiness through almost all of the psychological distress indicators (i.e., depression: β = 0.028, p < .001, 95% ci [0.017, 0.039]; loneliness: β = 0.012, p < .01, 95% ci [0.004, 0.021]; insomnia: β = 0.006, p < .05, 95% ci [0.001, 0.011], self-esteem: β = 0.019, p < .001, 95% ci [0.010, 0.029], respectively). however, neither anxiety (β = 0.007, p = .114, 95% ci [-0.002, 0.016]) nor stress (β = -0.004, p = .367, 95% ci [-0.015, 0.005]) mediated the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness. discussion the widespread use of internet surfing and increasingly easy access to the internet have led to greater interest in online addictive behaviors and their negative effects on users’ psychological well-being (corrêa rangel et al., 2022; mamun et al., 2020; mathew & krishnan, 2020; saikia et al., 2019; stanković et al., 2021; younes et al., 2016; yücens & üzer, 2018). however, the diagnostic criteria for online addictions are still not clearly shared. this has led to conflicting and confusing measurements and results. with the present study, we aimed to: (i) provide new insights into the gender differences in ia and craving in predicting indicators of psychological unwellness; (ii) propose a mediation model for the unexplored relationship between sns addiction, indicators of psychological unwellness, and body uneasiness; and (iii) explore its gender differences. as suggested in previous research, our preliminary analyses supported the idea that ia is an umbrella term (ryding & kuss, 2020). in particular, the strong positive correlation analyses supported the theoretical conceptualization of sns addiction as a distinct form of ia. in addition, previous studies (su et al., 2020; twenge & martin, 2020) have found several gender differences in online addictive behaviors. regarding h1, our results partially supported previous findings: males in our sample were found to have higher levels of ia and craving. based on our results, men―who more often use the internet to play than women―show higher levels of addictive behavior and craving than women. while women’s presence in online games continues to increase, for men it is often a fun and intense behavior, they are more motivated to play, start earlier, and spend more time than women (jung et al., 2020, veltri et al., 2014). however, in contrast to previous research, sns addiction did not show significant differences between genders. one possible explanation is that recently—also due to covid-19 restrictions (valenti & faraci, 2021)—both men and women have seen sns as an environment where they can express themselves and socialize beyond their physical presence. people may have experienced social networks as the only possible venue for communication (bhandari, 2020), thus eliminating the gender differences seen prior to the pandemic. this collective experience may have made the pre and post-lockdown results regarding the use of sns not comparable. consistent with previous studies (corrêa rangel et al., 2022; ha & hwang, 2014; krause et al., 2021; mamun et al., 2020; mathew & krishnan, 2020; saikia et al., 2019; stanković et al., 2021; younes et al., 2016; yücens & üzer, 2018) and h2, our results confirmed the negative effects of ia and craving on the selected indicators of psychological distress for both men and women. in particular, high scores of ia and craving predicted high scores of anxiety, depression, stress, loneliness, and low scores of self-esteem across the whole sample. only insomnia was predicted by ia, not by craving. a possible explanation is that insomnia could also be a consequence of craving, as the desire to stay connected would lead to a reduction in sleep hours, likely resulting in a bidirectional relationship. however, this goes beyond the scope of this work. as a further confirmation, in gender-disaggregated analyses, ia predicted psychological distress indicators for both men and women. only for men, ia was unable to predict loneliness. based on these findings, women—who use the internet more than men to stay connected with others―suffer from negative affect caused by a lack of social interaction, while men―who use the internet less than women for interactions―experience few moments of online socialization. men’s interpersonal relationships may not depend on the online world, and the consequences of ia in terms of loneliness are lower. a plausible explanation might be that men are more reluctant than women to admit their loneliness, especially when using psychometric self-report instruments, because of social masculine norms of independence and self-confidence. as a clinical implication, this knowledge could promote the use of targeted clinical treatments differentiated by gender to better tailor a patient-centered approach. in contrast to h2, craving predicted the indicators of psychological distress only in men. to our knowledge, there is no previous research on gender differences in internet-related craving. following controversial findings in the addiction literature, men show addictive behavior faster than women and report more intensive use from the beginning. as a possible explanation, the low average age of online addiction and body uneasiness 54 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our sample might better describe the situation of individuals with relatively young addictive behaviors. further studies, including longitudinal methods, should delve into the consequences of internet craving disaggregated by gender. they should also reveal comparisons between different age groups or the age of first addictive use of the internet. these findings could reveal different clinical treatments depending on the duration of ia and the severity of craving. the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness mediated by psychological distress we proposed a mediation model (figure 1) to evaluate the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness, where psychological distress mediated this association. our results partially supported h3–h4 and were consistent with previous research (boursier et al., 2020; cipolletta et al., 2020; holmberg et al., 2018; krause et al., 2021; patte et al., 2021; pollina-pocallet et al., 2021; ryding & kuss, 2020; verduyn et al., 2020; zhang & liu, 2021). we found a partial indirect effect of sns addiction on body uneasiness, when the psychological distress indicators were entered as mediators. according to our results and previous studies (boursier et al., 2020; ryding & kuss, 2020; pollina-pocallet et al., 2021; patte et al., 2021; zhang & liu, 2021), sns addiction is partially able to predict body uneasiness, and the introduction of the psychological distress indicators as mediators provides a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. people might find online satisfaction of their social needs, such as recognition and approval, on sns platforms through the like-mechanism. based on this reasoning and according to the social compensation hypothesis (kraut et al., 2002), psychological distress is a negative consequence when social recognition is not provided through the online interactions of others. as with any other addictions (corrêa rangel et al., 2022; ha & hwang, 2014; mamun et al., 2020; mathew & krishnan, 2020; saikia et al., 2019; stanković et al., 2021; younes et al., 2016; yücens & üzer, 2018), sns addiction predicted poorer psychological well-being among users, with an increase in anxiety, depression, loneliness, and insomnia scores, and a decrease in self-esteem scores. as a clinical implication, prevention against intentional sns reuse could be useful to provide opportunities for socialization in body-related contexts and to reduce time spent online. in addition, our findings showed a significant mediating role for psychological distress in the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness. based on social comparison theory (festinger, 1954) extended to online platforms, sns users frequently compare themselves to unattainable models. based on these findings, the perception of one’s own body is worse when the level of sns addiction increases, with adverse consequences for psychological distress. one possible interpretation is that individuals with higher levels of sns addiction (associated with psychological distress) continue to be exposed to more harmful stimuli for their self-representation; constant comparison with perfect models would increase discomfort with one’s own body. lastly, only stress showed a non-significant association with body uneasiness but was directly predicted by sns addiction. one possible interpretation is that stress could be a consequence of sns addictive behavior but does not affect body image because the world of snss ends not only in social comparison with others but also in addictive behaviors, that go beyond the body dimension (e.g., sports, news, politics, etc.). further research should delve into the role of stress as a risk factor for online addiction. finally, we tested our proposed model across genders. consistent with h4 and previous findings (holland & tiggemann, 2016), the overall results are similar for both the whole sample and the two subsamples disaggregated by gender. however, the direct effect of sns addiction on body uneasiness (i.e., excluding the mediation of psychological distress) is higher for men than for women. one possible explanation is that men engage in more body-related behaviors in online spaces than women, which is also consistent with previous findings. therefore, their body uneasiness might be more influenced by external feedback (e.g., the like mechanism) than by internal experiences of psychological distress. moreover, we found some small differences regarding the influence of mediators: specifically, depression and insomnia had no significant influences on men, whereas anxiety and stress had no significant influences on women. although these results are rather prodromal in psychological research, they have some clinical implications: psychological support for patients with body image disorders should also be provided by understanding their online lives (i.e., self-presentation and communication on sns) to better understand the role of their psychological symptoms. again, gender differences should be taken into account for an increasingly patient-tailored approach. bottaro, valenti, & faraci 55 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 41–62 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10273 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations the results of the present work should be taken with caution because of some limitations. first, we examined the association between many variables, and second, our convenience sample was not very large and was recruited from two different sources (i.e., snss and amazon mturk). further research should replicate the present findings with a better and larger sampling procedure and in other cultures. finally, only some participants have received a small symbolic economic reward through amazon mechanical turk (i.e., 0.5$); this could be a limit to the accuracy of the answers provided. additional studies could examine whether the reward mechanism may have led to differences between groups. conclusion despite its limitations, this empirical study provides new insight into ia and craving and their effects on psychological well-being, highlighting gender differences as well. moreover, the proposed model provides a deeper understanding of the impact of sns on body uneasiness, emphasizing the mediating role of psychological stress indicators across genders. at the theoretical level, our findings offer new perspectives for a better knowledge of the diagnostic classifications (i.e., ia and sns addiction), which are not yet well defined, and their impact on users’ well-being. at the clinical level, the worst mental health consequences of internet and sns addiction should be addressed in programs guided by scientific evidence on other addictive behaviors and taking into account specific gender differences. as practical implications, we support measures to prevent excessive internet and sns use (groth et al., 2017)—for example, schools, families, and informal educational agencies should activate teachable opportunities to learn healthy use of the internet and prevent social discomfort and poor relationships with one’s own body. it is also important to look at long-term negative psychological symptoms to understand longitudinally how men and women cope with the internet and sns use to buffer the consequences of an increasingly pervasive technology. overall, this research contributes to our understanding of addiction in the digital age and provides empirical findings that have direct implications for clinical practice and research (for example, by providing a better understanding of new addictions and contributing to their improved nosographic classification). it also highlights the need for continued efforts to promote healthy online behaviors. indeed, these findings underscore the importance of focusing on users’ overall mental and physical health. the body and mind should be clinically cared for in a holistic manner. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the research was conducted in accordance with current ethical standards and received the approval of the internal review board of university kore enna with the code uke-irbpsy-07.21.03. references ahmed, o., siddiqua, s. j. n., alam, n., & griffiths, m. d. 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(2022). social networking site use and loneliness: a meta-analysis. the journal of psychology, 156(7), 492–511. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2022.2101420 about the authors rossella bottaro, psychologist and phd student at university kore of enna, italy in context, environment, and life-styles for health and well-being. her main areas of interest are research methodology, measurement techniques in psychology, health psychology and research/applications in digital contexts. giusy danila valenti, phd, assistant professor at the department of psychology, educational sciences and human movement, university of palermo. her main research interests include personality assessment and psychological testing, with a focus on construction, validation, and adaptation of psychological measurement tools. palmira faraci, phd, full professor in psychometrics at the university kore enna, italy, director of the psychometrics lab, president of the teachers-students joint commission, and component of the presidential committee of the faculty of human and social science. her research activity is focused on the issues related to methodological procedures and psychological testing, with particular reference to measurement techniques and data analysis, scale development and validation, assessment applied to personality and psychological well-being. online addiction and body uneasiness 62 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.105969 https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2022.2101420 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ online addiction and body uneasiness (introduction) social networking sites addiction objectives and hypotheses method participants measures procedure and ethics data analyses results preliminary analyses gender differences in internet addiction, social networking sites addiction, and craving internet addiction, craving, and psychological distress the proposed mediation model: associations between social networking sites addiction, body uneasiness, and psychological distress indicators as mediators the proposed mediation model across gender discussion the association between sns addiction and body uneasiness mediated by psychological distress limitations conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors the contribution of meaning making and religiosity to individuals’ psychological wellbeing during the covid-19 pandemic: prosocial orientation matters research reports the contribution of meaning making and religiosity to individuals’ psychological wellbeing during the covid-19 pandemic: prosocial orientation matters daniela villani 1 , angela sorgente 1, alessandro antonietti 1, paola iannello 1 [1] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore of milan, milan, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 received: 2022-04-29 • accepted: 2022-08-19 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: daniela villani, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore of milan, italy–largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milan, italy. e-mail: daniela.villani@unicatt.it abstract the covid-19 pandemic has dramatically affected individuals’ psychological well-being worldwide, thus representing a challenge for flourishing among emerging adults. to understand psychological processes involved in the positive adaptation to this challenge, the present study examined the role of meaning in life and religious identity as crucial resources for flourishing in a sample of 255 italian emerging adults. specifically, as in the midst of a stressful event individuals may experience the potential for flourishing through the process of search for meaning, the study examined the mediated role of existential, spiritual/religious and prosocial orientations as the three primary trajectories for building meaning. results from path analytic mediation models revealed a positive influence of presence of meaning and in-depth exploration on flourishing. findings also suggested the contribution of prosocial orientation in building meaning and, ultimately, in increasing flourishing. implications are discussed. keywords covid-19 pandemic, flourishing, psychological well-being, religiosity, meaning making, emerging adults in 2021 high rates of covid-19 cases have been reported worldwide. initial responses to contain the infection included non-pharmacological interventions, such as lockdowns, remote working and online schooling, and social distancing. these interventions, which have been unquestionably effective to slow down the spread of the virus and protect physical health (nussbaumer-streit et al., 2020), have required significant changes in individuals’ behavioral patterns that impacted on their mental health and well-being (brooks et al., 2020; hossain et al., 2020). furthermore, the lack of personal control when facing uncertain, unpredictable and uncontrollable events, represents another critical source of threaten and stress (evans et al., 2001). thus, a large number of studies highlighted the adverse impact of covid-19 pandemic on subjective and psycholog­ ical well-being across different ages and countries, including italy (favieri et al., 2021; mazza et al., 2020; pagnini et al., 2020; paleari et al., 2021; papapicco et al., 2021; petrocchi et al., 2022). the protective role of meaning making and religiosity meaning making and religiosity represent two important resources that could act as protective factors against the negative impact of the covid-19 pandemic on people’s psychological well-being. finding life meaningful is one of the inner processes that may enhance the perception of control over the situation and reduce the negative impact of this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9389&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2435-4036 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ stressors. the presence of meaning in life implies the belief that what happens in the world is coherent, predictable, and controllable (baumeister & vohs, 2002; heintzelman & king, 2014). hence, people who consider life as meaningful tend to perceive also a sense of control over adverse situations. similarly, constructing meaningful interpretations of highly negative events has been found to be an effective response for dealing with such stressors, which facilitates adaptation processes (silver & updegraff, 2013). in dealing with covid-19 emergency, meaning in life has been found to have a positive relationship with the ability to cope with the situation (karataş & tagay, 2021), confirming its protective role on mental health (arslan et al., 2021; trzebiński et al., 2020). another personal resource that may play an important role in coping with adverse situations is religiosity. in times of uncertainty, it is not surprising that people might turn to religion for solace. indeed, there is some compelling evidence for a rise in religiosity in people who are facing negative and unpredictable situations, such as severe illness or deaths in close family members (sinding bentzen, 2019). positive religious coping has been associated with various favorable outcomes, such as reduced depression, anxiety, and increased psychological well-being (koenig, 2018). for many people, religion as “a search for significance in ways related to the sacred” (pargament, 1997, p. 32) represents a core schema that informs their beliefs about themselves and the world and provides understanding of both ordinary and extraordinary occurrences (spilka et al., 2003). religiosity is thus strongly and positively linked to a sense of meaning in life (steger & frazier, 2005) and may be a powerful resource for mental health since it involves a framework of meaning-making associated with decreased psychological distress and a value-based pursuit of psychological well-being (rosmarin & koenig, 2020; steger, 2018). rebuilding meaning through re-orientation paths the pandemic represents a challenge and according to several recent studies (hooker et al., 2020; trzebiński et al., 2020) cultivating meaning in the midst of this ongoing pandemic represents a protective factor for mental health and well-being. by focusing on the development of restoring and rebuilding meaning in the midst of a distressing experience, people may experience the potential for growth and flourishing (van tongeren & van tongeren, 2021), intended as the optimal psychological functioning accompanied by feelings of meaning, engagement, and purpose in life (keyes, 2002; ryan & deci, 2001). the cultivation of meaning is an active process that allows people to metabolize experiences of suffering in ways that can lead to transformative expressions of the good life. to investigate this process of reflection and re-orientation, we draw from three relevant areas of empirical research that share a common feature of meaning (van tongeren & van tongeren, 2021). specifically, we focus on existential issues (i.e., questioning about the origin and finality of the world and the meaning of life), spirituality and religiosity (i.e., transcending the self and connecting with the divine), and prosociality (i.e., improving others’ lives) as three primary trajectories for building meaning that can lead to flourishing. first, the exploration of existential issues represents a valuable dimension in the promotion of psychological well-be­ ing, which sustains the realization of human strengths and virtues (ryan & deci, 2001). addressing the fundamental questions of existence is a universal human experience that crosses cultures and religious status and may be important for optimal individual functioning (ryff, 2014). second, when people consider their global meanings about life and death, they often refer to the sacred aspect involved in both the definition of religiousness and spirituality (zinnbauer & pargament, 2005). the sacred includes concepts such as the divine, god, and the transcendent dimension, which provide an ultimate meaning to life and a sense of personal security and safety toward the unknown (pargament et al., 2005). when people build meaning through connections to religion and spirituality (park, 2013), they address the stress of existential concerns and transcend themselves to live more flourishing lives (myers, 2008). for some people, religiosity can represent a key aspect of identity that people rely upon to cope with adversity (aten et al., 2019) and may facilitate coping with uncontrollable situations, such as the covid-19 pandemic, especially through an intensification of prayer activity, intended as a way of dealing with hardship and seeking closeness to god (pirutinsky et al., 2020; sinding bentzen, 2020). but not everyone focuses on a religion-oriented spirituality; nontheistic seekers may still try to look beyond the current situation and physical limitations experienced in order to transcend their own boundaries, to pursue and engage with a higher purpose, mission, or vocation connected to or serving a greater good (gan et al., 2023). villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 193 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, relationships constitute a primary source of meaning in life and research showed that the active participation to others’ well-being is associated with greater meaning in life (van tongeren et al., 2016) and that focusing on others, compared to focusing on oneself, enhances psychological flourishing (nelson & padilla-walker, 2013). with the umbrella term of prosociality, we refer to prosocial and altruistic behaviors that share common aspects: they both reflect acts of positive social behavior towards one or several others, namely acts that are often being intended to promote the welfare of others (penner et al., 2005; pfattheicher et al., 2022). the present study many studies found that the pandemic has strongly decreased emerging adults’ well-being and mental health (germani et al., 2020; liu et al., 2020). emerging adults are individual aged 18–30 years (arnett, 2014), who are no more adolescent, but not yet adult: their adulthood is still “emerging” as, during the third decade of life, they have to accomplish some transitions to reach adulthood markers (billari & liefbroer, 2010). since emerging adults are called to face complex and uncertain challenges, it becomes particularly relevant to identify those factors that might contribute to emerging adults flourishing during the covid-19 era. to better understand psychological processes that may sustain emerging adults’ flourishing in facing the covid-19 pandemic, the present study examined the role of meaning in life and religious identity as principal resources (gutierrez & park, 2015). furthermore, we considered existential, spiritual/religious, and prosocial orientations as the three primary trajectories for building meaning that can lead to flourishing. given the individuals’ differences in religiosity, we distinguished people strongly committed to religion (believers), people with weak or unsure belief (uncertain), and people with complete non-belief (completely non-religious or atheists), without collapsing the non-religious individuals and the uncertain ones (galen & kloet, 2011; villani et al., 2019). specifically, the present study aims at: (1) investigating the role of meaning in life on emerging adults’ flourishing during pandemic both directly and indirectly through the orientations processes. we also tested whether the relation­ ships in the model were invariant across the three different religious statuses (believers, atheists, and uncertain); (2) examining the role of religious identity on emerging adults’ flourishing during pandemic both directly and indirectly through the orientations processes. we also tested whether the relationships in the model were invariant across the two groups who have some sort of religious beliefs (believers and uncertain). method participants the convenient sample was composed by 255 italian emerging adults (87.5% female) aged 18–30 (m = 21.64; sd = 2.37). most participants had high school diploma (69.8%) or degree (29.0%) as highest level of education. regarding their religious status, most of the participants reported to be believers (44.2%) or to have unsure beliefs about their religious status (44.3%; i.e., they stated to be neither religious nor non-religious). the remaining 14.5% declared to be atheist. religious and uncertain participants were also asked to indicate which religion they belong to and 92.5% of them reported to be christian (mainly catholic). few respondents selected other options, like islamic (1.5%) or buddhist (1.5%). procedure an advertisement for research participation containing a hyperlink to a survey was first sent by email to authors’ personal contacts. then, the sample was recruited through the method of non-random snowball sampling. the only inclusion criterion concerned the emerging adulthood age range (18–30; arnett, 2014). participants volunteered to respond to the online survey, which took approximately 20 minutes to complete. each of them signed an online informed consent. considering the anonymous, voluntary and minimal risk associated with participating in this online survey where no personal data were provided, ethical approval from a research ethics meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic 194 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ committee (rec) was considered not to be an absolute requirement. all procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the declaration of helsinki. measures the online survey included the following measurement scales: meaning in life the perceived meaning in life was assessed through the italian validation (negri et al., 2020) of the 10-item meaning in life questionnaire (steger et al., 2006), measuring the presence of meaning in life, referring to perceived meaning and purpose in life (e.g., “my life has a clear sense of purpose”) and the search for meaning in life, referring to the active commitment to find meaning in life (e.g., “i am always looking to find my life’s purpose”) (α = .854 and α = .871 respectively) through a 7-point scale from 1 (absolutely untrue) to 7 (absolutely true). religious identity within the broader construct of religiousness (or religiosity) concerning the public or private adherence to beliefs and rituals of a religion, here we focused on religious identity conceived as the extent to which people self-identify with a faith tradition/community (lopez et al., 2011). the religious identity formation was measured by the 13-item utrechtmanagement of identity commitments scale (u-mics; crocetti et al., 2008) recently validated in italian language within the religious domain (sorgente et al., 2022). the scale is composed of three subscales, each corresponding to a different identity formation process: the 5-item commitment subscale indicates the process of strong engagement in a religion; the 5-item in-depth exploration subscale refers to the process of active probing own current religious commitment; the 3-item reconsideration of commitment subscale pertains to the process of questioning different religious commitment when current religion is no longer fulfilling. items were rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (completely untrue) to 5 (completely true). as items referred to “my religion”, we prefer not to administer this scale to atheists, in accordance with previous publications (villani et al., 2019). all the subscales were highly reliable in our sample, respectively α = .949, α = .870, and α = .849. orientation processes the orientation processes that people activated due to their covid-19 experience was measured through an ad hoc questionnaire. no pre-existing questionnaire was available, thus the questionnaire was designed by this research group in accordance with the literature (van tongeren & van tongeren, 2021). the ad hoc questionnaire aims at measuring three distinct processes that individual may rely on to cope with the covid-19 experience, namely reflecting on existential concerns (“existential orientation”), cultivating spirituality and religiosity (“spiritual/religious orientation”), and focusing on others (“prosocial orientation”). the questionnaire includes eight items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = completely untrue; 5 = completely true) concerning each specific orientation path that the covid-19 diffusion could have activated in participants (“the covid-19 pandemic outbreak...”). in particular, we developed two items measuring the existential orientation (e.g., “led me to reflect on issues such as the fragility of existence, the meaning of life, the destiny of humanity”), three items measuring the spiritual/religious orientation (e.g., “induced me to read texts—papers, books, internet sites, etc.—on spiritual and/or religious issues”), and three items measuring the prosocial orientation (e.g., “has increased my awareness and sensitivity to other people’s problems and social issues”). after verifying that the expected factorial structure was confirmed [χ2 (17) = 36.284; p = .0042; rmsea = 0.067 (0.036 0.097); p = 0.518; cfi = 0.951], we estimated the reliability of each subscale: α = .669, .733, and .704. see table s1 and table s2 in the supplementary materials section for more details. flourishing emerging adults’ psychological well-being was assessed using the italian validation (giuntoli et al., 2017) of the flourishing scale (diener et al., 2010). this mono-dimensional scale includes eight items assessed on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree) and was highly reliable in our sample (α = .818). villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 195 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ covid-19 impact we administered eight items developed ad hoc to rate on a 5-point scale, from (1 = not at all) to (5 = a lot), how much the covid-19 have impacted participants’ life domains (i.e., personal/relatives’ health, family relationships, personal/family finances, work activities, personal course of study). at the time of this writing no appropriate validated pre-existing tool was available, thus the research team specifically constructed the eight items of the questionnaire in accordance with the literature, which identified specific key life domains (see ryan et al., 2021). after confirming that this scale was mono-dimensional, χ2(20) = 52.388, p = < .001; rmsea = 0.080 , 95% ci [0.054, 0.107], p = 0.031; cfi = 0.915, and reliable (α = .772), we adopted it as control variable in our statistical models. data analysis firstly, we verified if the mean level of the measured variables was different across the three groups here investigated (believers, uncertain, and atheists) by running, for each variable, a one-way anova though spss and using the fisher's least significant difference (lsd) test for post-hoc comparisons. secondly, we performed two path analytic mediation models, one for each predictor (meaning in life and religious identity) in order to verify their total, direct, and indirect (via the orientation processes) impact on participants’ flourishing. these models were run in mplus adopting the maximum likelihood as estimation method and the full information maximum likelihood as method to manage missing data. meaning in life model the model testing the meaning in life as predictor was run on the entire sample (n = 252). to address our mediation hypothesis, we constructed a saturated path analytic mediation model and estimated direct, indirect, and total effects linking the two meaning in life dimensions (presence and search for meaning in life) to emerging adults’ flourishing, directly and indirectly via the three parallelly mediating orientation processes (existential, spiritual/religious, and prosocial orientation). bootstrapping procedure was used to estimate bias-corrected confidence intervals (95% cis based on 10,000 randomly sampled subsets; stride et al., 2015) for indirect effects. to account for the effect of covid-19 impact on this mediating process, we include the covid-19 impact score as a control variable in this model. finally, using the multiple group analysis approach and parameter constraints, we tested if parameters in our model were equivalent (i.e., structural invariance) across the three religious status groups (believers, uncertain, and atheists). parameters were considered equivalent if the constrained model was not significantly different (i.e., δχ2 with a p > .05; bollen, 1989) from the freed model. religious identity model the model testing the religious identity as predictor was run only on believer and uncertain emerging adults (n = 216), as the religious identity scale was not administered to atheists. in this case, the path analytic mediation model estimated direct, indirect, and total effects linking the three religious identity dimensions (commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of the commitment) to emerging adults’ flourishing, directly and indirectly via the three mediating orientation processes. as for the previous model, the indirect effects’ confidence intervals were estimated using bootstrapping procedure and the covid-19 impact score was included as a control variable in the model. the only difference from the previous model is that the structural invariance of the model was tested across two groups (believers and uncertain) instead of three groups. results descriptive statistics in table 1 we reported mean and standard deviation for each variable separately for diverse participants’ religious statuses and verified whether the means were significantly different across groups. meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic 196 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results indicated that the means of search for meaning and covid-19 impact were not significantly different across groups. regarding the three dimensions of the religious identity, commitment and in-depth exploration were significantly higher in believers than uncertain emerging adults, while the reconsideration of commitment was higher for those with uncertain beliefs. regarding the orientation factors, both the existential and the spiritual/religious ones were higher in believers than uncertain emerging adults, who, in turn, had higher levels than atheists. prosocial orientation was higher for believers than uncertain and atheists. finally, presence of meaning and flourishing were both higher for believers than uncertain and atheist emerging adults. meaning in life model the first model testing the relationship between meaning in life’s dimensions and psychological well-being, via three mediators (existential, spiritual/religious, and prosocial orientation) was tested on the entire sample (figure 1). figure 1 the direct and indirect influence of meaning in life on flourishing note. saturated path analytic mediation model testing the direct and indirect influence of meaning in life on flourishing (n = 252). for the sake of simplicity, correlation between the two predictors as well as correlations among the three mediators are not represented. standardized values are reported. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 1 descriptive statistics, m (sd), and mean comparisons for all study variables psychological dimension believer uncertain atheist anova result presence of meaning 4.85 (1.03)a 4.54 (1.24)b 4.38 (1.25)b f(2, 252) = 3.16; p = .044; η2 = .024 search for meaning 5.20 (1.25) 5.33 (1.07) 4.93 (1.46) f(2, 252) = 2.20; p = .227; η2 = .012 commitment 3.25 (0.83) 2.05 (0.88) / f(1, 214) = 105.93; p < .001; η2 = .331 in-depth exploration 3.31 (0.77) 2.41 (0.97) / f(1, 214) = 56.46; p < .001; η2 = .209 reconsideration 1.61 (0.77) 1.97 (0.85) / f(1, 214) = 10.92; p = .001; η2 = .049 existential orientation 3.61 (0.80)a 3.32 (0.96)b 2.86 (0.98)c f(2, 249) = 10.25; p < .001; η2 = .076 spiritual/religious orientation 2.32 (0.82)a 1.81 (0.80)b 1.42 (0.73)c f(2, 248) = 21.14; p < .001; η2 = .146 prosocial orientation 3.66 (0.79)a 3.42 (0.83)b 3.26 (0.90)b f(2, 248) = 4.20; p = .016; η2 = .033 flourishing 5.70 (0.66)a 5.47 (0.81)b 5.40 (0.88)b f(2, 249) = 3.49; p = .032; η2 = .027 covid-19 impact 2.80 (0.86) 2.84 (0.79) 2.64 (0.76) f(2, 249) = 0.82; p = .441; η2 = .007 note. statistics about religious identity dimensions are not available for atheists because the instrument measuring religious identity was not administered to them. a mean is significantly different from another mean if they have different subscripts (i.e., a, b, c). a mean without a subscript is not significantly different from any other mean. villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 197 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while in the figure only the direct effects are represented, in table 2 we reported the direct, indirect, and total effects tested in this first model. in particular, we found that the presence of meaning in life has a strong total effect (β = .619) on flourishing. this total effect is divisible in two effects: a direct positive effect (β = .545) that the subjective sense that one’s life is meaningful has on the flourishing and an indirect positive effect (β = .073) that this predictor has via the prosocial orientation (β = .061) activated by the covid-19 pandemic. table 2 direct, indirect and total effect that meaning in life (presence and search) has on flourishing dimension indirect effect direct effect total effect presence of meaning in life total .073** [.030, .117] .545*** .619*** via existential orientation .009 [-.022, .039] via spiritual/religious orientation .004 [-.012, .021] via prosocial orientation .061** [.019, .102] search for meaning in life total .071** [.023, .120] .004 .075 via existential orientation .008 [-.016, .037] via spiritual/religious orientation .004 [-.009, .020] via prosocial orientation .059* [.020, .105] note. standardized values are reported. in brackets we report the 95% confidence interval of the indirect effects. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regarding the search for meaning in life, we found that it has a non-significant total (β = .075) as well as direct (β = .004) effect on the flourishing. its indirect effect, instead, has a significant and positive impact (.071) on the flourishing, particularly via the prosocial orientation (β = .059). in order to verify if the model represented in figure 1 is invariant across believers, uncertain, and atheists, a multi-group model was run where all the paths were constrained to be the same across groups. this constrained model had very good fit indices, χ2(34) = 37.46, p = 0.313; rmsea = .035 (95% ci [.000, .089]); p = 0.621; cfi = .989. furthermore, as the freed model was a saturated model, the chi-square of this model corresponds to the δχ2, which being non-significant (p > .05) shows that the direct, indirect and total effects of the meaning in life on the flourishing are the same regardless the emerging adult’s religious status. religious identity model the second model testing the relationship between religious identity’s dimensions and flourishing, via three mediators was tested only on participants who filled in the religious identity scale (believer and uncertain emerging adults) (figure 2). meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic 198 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 the direct and indirect influence of religious identity on flourishing note. saturated path analytic mediation model testing the direct and indirect influence of religious identity on flourishing (n = 216). for the sake of simplicity, correlations among the three predictors as well as correlations among the three mediators are not represented. standardized values are reported. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. commitment is not significantly related to the flourishing, as its total (β = .108), direct (β = .129), and indirect (β = -.021) effects are not significant. instead, the in-depth exploration has a significant total effect on the emerging adults’ flourishing (β = .236). this significant effect is attributable to the direct effect of the in-depth exploration on the outcome as it is significant (β = .201), while its indirect effect via the orientation processes is not significant (β = .035). finally, the reconsideration of commitment is not significantly related to flourishing, as its total (β = -.052), direct (β = -.035), and indirect (β = -.017) effects are both not significant (table 3). table 3 direct, indirect and total effect that the religious identity (commitment, in-depth exploration, reconsideration) has on the flourishing dimension indirect effect direct effect total effect commitment total -.021 [-.115, .073] .129 .108 via existential orientation .000 [-.013, .013] via spiritual/religious orientation -.035 [-.088, .017] via prosocial orientation .015 [-.060, .089] in-depth exploration total .035 [-.046, .116] .201* .236** via existential orientation .005 [-.034, .045] via spiritual/religious orientation -.024 [-.067, .019] via prosocial orientation .053 [-.017, .124] reconsideration of commitment total -.017 [-.072, .037] -.035 -.052 via existential orientation .001 [-.011, .012] via spiritual/religious orientation -.008 [-.027, .011] via prosocial orientation -.010 [-.063, .043] note. standardized values are reported. in brackets we report the 95% confidence interval of the indirect effects. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 199 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we verified if this model was invariant across believer and uncertain emerging adults. the model in which parameters were constrained to be equivalent across groups, χ2(22) = 23.223, p = 0.389; rmsea = 0.023 (95% ci [0.000, 0.085], p = 0.695; cfi = 0.996] was not significantly different from the freed model (pδχ2 > .05), indicating that the model works well both for believers and uncertain. discussion the recent threat of the covid-19 pandemic has come with a large number of potential stressors that caused psycho­ logical distress among emerging adults worldwide (glowacz & schmits, 2020; ranta et al., 2020). capitalizing on the idea that people, in the midst of a stressful event, may experience the potential for flourishing through the process of searching for meaning (trzebiński et al., 2020; yu et al.,2020), we aimed to investigate specific patterns of reflection and re-orientation in a group of emerging adults. in particular, we focused on existential issues, spirituality and religiosity, and prosociality as three primary trajectories for building meaning that may lead to flourish­ ing. specifically, first we investigated the role of meaning in life on emerging adults’ flourishing during pandemic both directly and indirectly through the orientation processes. results provided further support to previous literature about the protective role of the presence of meaning in life on psychological well-being, thus confirming that considering life as meaningful contributes to individuals’ sense of control over adverse situations such as covid-19 emergency (arslan et al., 2021; karataş & tagay, 2021; schnell & krampe, 2020; trzebiński et al., 2020). yet our findings also added a peculiar facet to the relationship between meaning and flourishing in emerging adults during pandemic. in fact, prosocial orientation emerged as a crucial mediator of the relationship between both presence and search for meaning and flourishing. this means that the process of building meaning in the midst of adversity is associated with the experience of flourishing both directly (as demonstrated in previous studies; mcadams et al., 2001) and indirectly, via prosocial behavior. the relationship between the constructs of meaning and flourishing turned out to be mediated by the motivation and capacity to engage in prosocial activities, that is those who developed a sensitivity towards others and implemented prosocial behaviors during the covid-19 pandemic were able to activate a positive adjustment process that incremented their flourishing level. our findings are in support of the notion that being able to engage in more prosocial behavior in the context of adversity can be considered as a protective factor against negative adjustment (masten & reed, 2002) and is highly connected with resilience (russo et al., 2021). caring about and being oriented toward others implies the tendency to transcend oneself (ardenghi et al., 2023; schwartz, 2012), self-actualizing and find connections with other people (schwartz & sortheix, 2018), which, in literature, has been recognized as a fundamental source of both meaning in life (van tongeren & van tongeren, 2021) and well-being (sortheix & lönnqvist, 2014). as confirmed by a recent meta-analysis (hui et al., 2020), prosociality may significantly contribute to both the alleviation of distress and the enhancement of well-being and flourishing life (nelson et al., 2016). thus, cultivating meaning through developing a specific emphasis on social interactions can move people toward states of wholeness (vanderweele, 2017). furthermore, we found that the direct, indirect and total effects of meaning in life on flourishing are the same, regardless of the emerging adults’ religious status. we then examined the role of religious identity—the other key aspect that people rely upon to cope with adversity (aten et al. 2019)—on emerging adults’ flourishing during pandemic both directly and indirectly, namely through the orientations processes. despite different studies have found that emerging adults tend to question the religious beliefs in which they were raised (barry & nelson, 2005) and may become less attached to the religion (mcnamara barry et al., 2010), religiosity remains a potential resource during this life stage. results showed that only in-depth exploration has a significant direct effect on flourishing, while its indirect effect via the orientation processes was not significant. this means that actively probing one’s own religious commitment in emerging adulthood is positively associated with individual functioning. this result is partially in line with previous studies finding that religious commitment is positively associated with subjective well-being (villani et al., 2019). even if the lack of the effect of religious identity on prosocial orientation leading to the non-significant indirect effect on flourishing appears as inconsistent with other studies showing the association between religiosity and feelings of empathy and compassion (markstrom et al., 2010), meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic 200 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prosociality (bennett & einolf, 2017) and altruistic behaviors in young adults (zarghi & bolghan-abadi, 2021), this result should be read with caution because the questionnaire used to measure religious identity does not consider the social dimension of religiosity, such as belonging to the religious community (sorgente et al., 2022). also in this case we found that the model works well both for believer and uncertain emerging adults keeping the covid-19 impact variable under control. thus, both models presented in this study are invariant across different religious statuses, although the results of the anova reported some differences between groups in favor of the group of believers. this means that, despite the groups having different levels of the constructs/variables under investigation, the processes linking these constructs are the same across groups. this study presents some limitations. first, to measure the orientation processes that people activated due to their covid-19 we used a self-report scale which was constructed ad hoc, albeit on the basis of prior work. even if we found a good reliability of the three orientation processes, there is no similar assessment tool that allows us to compare our results with those coming from other studies (van tongeren & van tongeren, 2021). second, due to the correlational nature of the data, caution is required in the interpretation of both causal relationships and mediations among the variables. future longitudinal designs are encouraged to better ascertain temporal ordering and causality. the third limitation is related to the need to generalize results to the national cultural context in which the relationship among variables are examined (cohen & johnson, 2017). thus, as the sample was mostly composed of italian catholic emerging adults, we should be cautious in generalizing these results to individuals with different ages and belonging to other cultural contexts. conclusion taken together, our results revealed a positive influence of presence of meaning and in-depth exploration on flourishing among emerging adults, thus providing further support for the potential of both meaning making and religiosity for growth and well-being in adverse times. specifically, within this process of reflection and re-orientation, prosociality seems to be a particularly effective path to build meaning and, ultimately, to increase flourishing (vanderweele, 2020). the link between prosociality and well-being is particularly strong among younger people who, by engaging in prosocial behaviors, not only may experience higher levels of overall well-being, but also have the chance to fulfill a crucial developmental task, that is (re)conceptualizing the self and enhancing the understanding of the purpose and meaning of their own life (hui et al., 2020). our findings support the idea that this process becomes even more important when emerging adults are called to face challenges that might significantly change their life trajectories and could be taken into account to sustain the emerging adults’ well-being during the pandemic. therefore, it would be welcomed to develop interventions that directly target emerging adults and also adolescents aimed at promoting their motivation and capacity to engage in prosocial behaviors (coulombe & yates, 2022). given its strong link with flourishing, promoting the development of prosocial-oriented perspectives and attitudes should become an increasing part of the educational practices offered by all the significant socialization agencies (russo et al., 2022), especially in view of other possible challenges that the citizens of tomorrow might have to face in future. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data are freely available, see villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello (2023). supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the tables containing the factor loadings and latent correlations for the orientation scales that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 201 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials villani, d., sorgente, a., antonietti, a., & iannello, p. 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(2005). religion and spirituality. in r. f. paloutzian & c. l. park (eds.), handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (pp.21–42). guilford press. about the authors daniela villani is associate professor in general psychology at the faculty of education of the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan. in the research area of psychology of religion and spirituality she is interested in the study of cognitive and emotional processes associated with religious and spiritual beliefs and experiences and their implications on individual and psychosocial health and well-being. angela sorgente currently works as postdoctoral researcher at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan, italy (department of psychology). angela does research in quantitative psychology. her main research topic is emerging adults' financial wellbeing that she studies using new research methodologies or statistical techniques. villani, sorgente, antonietti, & iannello 205 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 192–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9389 https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uez008 https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000665 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022113504621 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.52.4.574 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80 http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/fio/models_and_index.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2020.1765098 https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1048814 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.641747 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702996114 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01031-6 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01525 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00900-z https://www.psychopen.eu/ alessandro antonietti is full professor of cognitive psychology and head of the faculty of psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan (italy). he is member of the board of various international and national journals and academic editor of plosone, as well as reviewer of many scientific journals. he carried out experimental studies about creativity, problem-solving, decision-making, mental imagery, and analogy. he is interested in the applications of cognitive issues in the field of instruction and rehabilitation. he devised tests to assess thinking skills and interventions to train cognitive abilities. paola iannello is associate professor in general psychology at the faculty of psychology of the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan. her main research interests are in cognitive psychology. specifically, the study of cognitive processes involved in decision-making in the economic-financial and medical fields, with a focus on the role of individual differences in influencing both the process and the outcome of the decision. meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic 206 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ meaning making and religiosity during the covid-19 pandemic (introduction) the protective role of meaning making and religiosity rebuilding meaning through re-orientation paths the present study method participants procedure measures data analysis results descriptive statistics meaning in life model religious identity model discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors when workers feel like objects: a field study on self-objectification and affective organizational commitment research reports when workers feel like objects: a field study on self-objectification and affective organizational commitment roberta rosa valtorta 1, maria grazia monaci 2 [1] department of psychology, university of milano-bicocca, milan, italy. [2] department of human and social science, university of valle d’aosta, aosta, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 received: 2021-01-05 • accepted: 2021-11-20 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom corresponding author: roberta rosa valtorta, department of psychology, university of milano-bicocca, piazza dell’ateneo nuovo 1, 20126 milano, italy. email: roberta.valtorta@unimib.it supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract objectification is a form of dehumanization that implies the perception of others as mere objects. the present study aimed to expand research on objectification in the work domain by exploring the relationships between objectifying job features, self-objectification, and affective organizational commitment within a real work setting. building on previous literature, we hypothesized that the execution of objectifying work activities would be positively related to workers’ tendency to objectify themselves. further, we expected a decrease in affective organizational commitment as the outcome of these perceptions. a study involving 142 italian supermarket clerks (75 females) supported our hypotheses. workers with a low-status job role (i.e., cashiers and salespeople vs. managers) perceived their activities as more objectifying. in turn, this perception heightened their self-objectification, which decreased workers’ commitment towards the organization. our results enrich the understanding of workplace objectification by also providing relevant insights into the link between social-psychological and organizational processes. keywords dehumanization, objectification, self-objectification, affective organizational commitment, workers objectification is a form of dehumanization that involves the perception of others as objects, instruments, or goods (lacroix & pratto, 2015; volpato & andrighetto, 2015). in particular, the philosopher martha nussbaum (1995) specified seven ways to objectify a person, including treating others as instrumental, fungible, violable and owned as well as denying others autonomy, agency, and subjectivity. during the last decades, social psychology has generally focused on sexual objectification, that is, the experience of being treated as a body (or collection of body parts) valued predomi­ nantly for its use to (or consumption by) others’ (see gervais, 2013; loughnan & pacilli, 2014, for reviews). however, objectification is a much broader phenomenon that may encompass many human interactions and domains. perceiving others as mere objects is indeed a powerful cognitive strategy that rationalizes their exploitation or subordination (volpato et al., 2017). marx (1844) claimed that workers in a capitalistic society are denied the traits that define their humanity and are judged exclusively for what they produce. in marx’s view, the capitalist model’s goal is to produce wealth, and workers are the essential instruments in creating this wealth. although these reflections may appear to belong to a past era, workers’ objectification still permeates many workplaces. a report (bbc, 2013) documented the object-like treatment of amazon “order-pickers.” their daily activity is highly repetitive, imposed by a timer, and mostly limited to picking this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5549&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orders from supervisors and finding products in the warehouse. more recently, a former worker at amazon’s swansea warehouse has claimed that clerks were treated like robots and routinely sacked for not meeting “unrealistic targets” (bbc, 2018). similarly, a picker at a warehouse in minnesota has stated that amazon workers were considered more similar to machines than human beings (bbc, 2019). despite the relevance of these considerations to workers’ well-being, only recently social psychologists have be­ gun to investigate objectification in the workplace. for example, baldissarri et al. (2017a) showed that the activities performed by a factory worker led to an association of the work with alienation. in turn, work that is perceived as potentially alienating—something that can estrange the worker from him/herself—triggered a worker’s perception no longer as a human being but as an object. a growing amount of studies have added a tile to this picture by revealing that objectification in the workplace can be triggered by multiple factors (e.g., baldissarri et al., 2017b; wang & krumhuber, 2017). for instance, andrighetto et al. (2017) showed that workers performing subordinate activities characterized by repetitive movement, fragmented activities, and other direction were perceived as instrument-like and less able to experience human mental states. consistent with these findings, loughnan et al. (2017) found that merely recalling an objectifying work experience led employees to perceive themselves as less human. furthermore, valtorta et al. (2019a) found that, because of their characteristics, most subordinate job activities were associated with an objectifying image of workers. baldissarri and colleagues (2017b) provided evidence for the effect of objectifying job features and self-objectifica­ tion. in particular, the authors found that performing a manual or a computer task that was repetitive, fragmented, and other-directed was a relevant antecedent of working self-objectification per se, which led people to objectify themselves more than when performing a corresponding but non-objectifying activity. further, the authors found that this increased self-perception as object-like led, in turn, to a decrease of belief in having free will, that is, the perception of having the ability to make free and conscious choices (baumeister & monroe, 2014; feldman, 2017). by expanding these results, andrighetto et al. (2018) showed that working objectification and the consequent self-objectification could also lead to an increase in conforming behaviors. furthermore, rollero and tartaglia (2013) focused on the consequences of objectification in the occupational domain and found that objectified individuals were considered more suitable for low-status job activities than non-objectified ones. more recently, caesens et al. (2014; see also caesens et al., 2019) speculated that dehumanization in the work domain has a strong relationship with attachment and intentions to leave the organization. indeed, several authors argued that perceptions and self-perceptions of humanity within a work setting might impact both employees’ subjective well-being and organizational outcomes (e.g., bell & khoury, 2016; caesens et al., 2017; christoff, 2014). in this sense, prior studies reported that dehumanizing perceptions are positively related to employees’ emotional exhaustion, psychosomatic strains, and turnover intentions, and negatively associated with workers’ job satisfaction (e.g., baldissarri et al., 2014; bell & khoury, 2016; caesens et al., 2017). crucially, bell and khoury (2011) claimed that feelings of dehumanization should also be related to affective organizational commitment, namely the relative strength of an individual’s identifica­ tion with and involvement in a particular organization (mowday et al., 1982). dehumanization is indeed a negative experience that diminishes the individual humanity and is thus likely to motivate the individual to dissociate from the organization. in addition, according to several scholars (e.g., caesens et al., 2017; christoff, 2014), dehumanizing perceptions and the internalization of these views might impair workers’ well-being by enhancing, for example, their level of anxiety or depression as it thwarts basic individual needs such as the needs for competence or affiliation. organizational commitment has been the subject of numerous investigations over the last few decades, and this is due mainly to its importance for employees and employers (see yousef, 2017). meyer and allen (1991; see also meyer et al., 2012) identified three forms of organizational commitment: affective commitment, namely the emotional attachment to the organization, based on identification with collective goals; continuance commitment, which refers to the costs associated with leaving; normative commitment, which is a felt moral obligation to stay. literature has shown that, compared to normative and continuance commitment, affective commitment is associated with more variables and more strongly with each of them (see, e.g., meyer et al., 2002; trifiletti et al., 2014). indeed, affective organizational commitment tends to relate positively to employees’ well-being (meyer & maltin, 2010) and negatively to psychosomatic symptoms (addae & wang, 2006; richardsen et al., 2006). despite these relevant findings, no previous research has investigated affective commitment by analyzing its link with dehumanization and objectification in the working objectification and organizational commitment 16 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work domain. therefore, through the present field study, we aimed to fill this gap in the literature by deeper examining working objectification in the supermarket sector and its potential antecedents and consequences, especially in terms of objectifying job features and affective commitment towards the organization. considering the findings and suggestions reported above, we first assumed that performing a repetitive, fragmented, and other-directed work activity (i.e., objectifying job features) would be associated with workers’ tendency to objectify themselves (hypothesis 1). furthermore, we assumed that this association would emerge especially among workers with a low-status job role. importantly, we explored the link of these perceptions with affective organizational commitment, assuming that, in turn, self-objectification would be associated with a decrease in the workers’ commitment towards the organization (hypothesis 2). we tested our assumptions among workers of supermarkets, where low-status employees (e.g., cashiers) typically perform objectifying work tasks. as reported by baldissarri and colleagues (2014), this work context is indeed characterized by job features strongly related to the critical conditions of objectification identified in previous research (e.g., blauner, 1964; nussbaum, 1995), such as repetitiveness, fragmented tasks, and dependence on the machine. method participants one hundred and forty-two workers (75 females) employed in full-service supermarkets in piedmont, italy, participated in the study in july 2019. the age distribution ranged between 18 and over 50, with approximately 60% of the respond­ ents reported an age between 26 and 40 years old. participants were employed in different job roles, such as salespeople (n = 81, 57%), cashiers (n = 50, 35%), and managers (n = 11, 8%) (for more details on demographic characteristics by job role, see table 1). a sensitivity power analysis for a linear multiple regression with 3 predictors, using g*power (faul et al., 2009), indicated that the f 2 = .08 would be the minimum effect size that this sample can detect with 80% power (α = .05). table 1 demographic characteristics by job role characteristic total, n (%) salespeople, n (%) cashiers, n (%) managers, n (%) gender male 67 (47%) 45 (56%) 15 (30%) 7 (64%) female 75 (53%) 36 (44%) 35 (70%) 4 (36%) age in years 18-25 22 (15%) 10 (13%) 12 (24%) 0 26-30 32 (22%) 18 (22%) 14 (28%) 0 31-35 25 (18%) 17 (21%) 7 (14%) 1 (9%) 36-40 27 (19%) 17 (21%) 6 (12%) 4 (37%) 41-45 21 (15%) 13 (16%) 5 (10%) 3 (27%) 46-50 11 (8%) 5 (6%) 4 (8%) 2 (18%) 50 and older 4 (3%) 1 (1%) 2 (4%) 1 (9%) grand total 142 81 50 11 design and procedure with adult participants and anonymous questionnaires, ethical approval was not required, in line with national guide­ lines of the italian association of psychology (aip). all procedures performed in the study were in accordance with the apa ethical guidelines and the ethical principle of the “helsinki declaration” and the oviedo convention on human rights and biomedicine. full informed consent was obtained in writing before participants started the study. valtorta & monaci 17 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we chose some italian supermarkets on the basis of our connections. then, we presented the study to the manage­ ment and requested authorization to collect data among all the workers of the company. supermarket clerks were recruited by word of mouth and fliers placed in the supermarkets with the assistance of the management and senior human resources specialists of the participating companies. finally, one investigator administered individually to each worker a paper-and-pencil questionnaire presented as a survey on “attitudes and perceptions of workers.” participants completed the survey at the supermarket where they work and during their break time. after completing the scales described below, participants were asked some demographics, were thanked and fully debriefed. measures perception of objectifying job features the workers’ perception of their activity as objectifying was measured by using five items regarding repetitiveness, fragmentation, and other direction (e.g., “the job is quite simple and repetitive”; α = .78) already used and validated in previous research (e.g., baldissarri et al., 2019; hackman & oldham, 1976). participants were asked to rate the extent to which their job had these characteristics on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all, 5 = extremely). higher scores denote greater workers’ perception of their activities as being characterized by objectifying job features. self-objectification to measure self-objectification, workers were asked to rate the extent to which they perceived themselves to be similar (1 = not at all, 5 = extremely) to four instrument-related words (i.e., instrument, tool, thing, machine; α = .81) and three human-related words (human being, person, individual; α = .66) during their work activity. these items were previously used in research concerning objectification in the work domain (e.g., baldissarri et al., 2017a, 2017b, 2019). a single index was computed by subtracting the human-related score from the instrument-related score so that higher scores indicated greater self-perceptions as being instrument-like (vs. human-like). affective organizational commitment affective organizational commitment was measured by using the affective subscale of meyer and allen’s instrument (1991). in particular, the subscale was constituted by eight items (e.g., “i really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own”) valuable on a 5-point likert scale (1 = not at all; 5 = extremely). following the preliminary analysis conducted on the scale, we removed one item (i.e., item 4, “i think i could become as attached to another organization as i am to this one”) because it worsened the scale reliability and the factor solution (for more details, see supplementary materials section). thus, the final score of affective commitment was computed as the average of seven items (α = .82). results introductory analyses overall, affective organizational commitment (m = 2.63, sd = 0.75) negatively correlated with both objectifying job features (m = 3.42, sd = 0.82), r = -.46, p < .001, and self-objectification (m = -0.53, sd = 1.48), r = -.43, p < .001. furthermore, self-objectification was positively associated with workers’ perception of their activity as objectifying, r = .57, p < .001. to explore the relationships between our variables by job role we conducted further correlation analyses for separated groups. results showed that affective organizational commitment negatively correlated with both objectifying job features (r = -.44, p < .001 for salespeople; r = -.32, p = .025 for cashiers; r = -.64, p = .036 for managers) and self-objectification (r = -.43, p < .001 for salespeople; r = -.31, p = .029 for cashiers; r = -.61, p = .046 for managers) for all the job roles. instead, the self-perception as object-like was positively associated with objectifying job features only for salespeople (r = .56, p < .001) and cashiers (r = .47, p = .001). the association between self-objectification and objectifying job features was not significant for managers (r = .46, p = .151). table 2 presents means and standard deviations for all the variables considered in the study by job role. as shown in table 2, cashiers perceived their activity as more objectifying than salespeople, t(129) = 3.36, p = .001, 95% ci [0.18, 0.70], working objectification and organizational commitment 18 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and managers, t(59) = 7.98, p < .001, 95% ci [1.26, 2.11]. further, managers perceived their job as less objectifying than salespeople, t(23.26) = -8.92, p < .001, 95% ci [-1.54, -0.96]. in addition, as reported in table 2, salespeople and cashiers reported higher self-objectification than managers, t(90) = 4.15, p < .001, 95% ci [0.90, 2.55] for salespeople; t(59) = 3.43, p = .001, 95% ci [0.73, 2.79] for cashiers. moreover, self-objectification of salespeople and cashiers did not significantly differ, t(129) = -0.15, p = .881. thus, while salespeople and cashiers reported similar ratings of self-objectification, managers described themselves as less similar to instrument-related words than the other two categories of workers. finally, managers reported more affective organizational commitment than cashiers, t(59) = 3.07, p = .003, 95% ci [0.25, 1.20], and salespeople, t(90) = 2.51, p = .014, 95% ci [0.12, 1.06]. further, affective organizational commitment reported by cashiers and salespeople did not significantly differ, t(129) = -1.00, p = .320. main analyses to investigate the relationships between job role, perceived objectifying job features, self-objectification, and affective organizational commitment, we tested a double mediation model in which job role was considered the predictor varia­ ble, perception of the work activity as objectifying was the first-level mediator, self-objectification was the second-level mediator, and affective organizational commitment was the outcome variable. the double mediation hypothesis was tested using hayes’ (2013) process macro (model 6) and the bootstrapping method (5,000 resamples). since the independent variable was multicategorical, by following the recommendations of hayes and preacher (2014), we used indicator coding. the role of the manager was coded as the reference group and was compared to the role of salesperson (d1) and cashier (d2) separately. table 2 means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for each variable by job role job role variable salespeople cashiers managers objectifying job features 3.36a (0.75) 3.80b (0.68) 2.11c (0.37) self-objectification -0.41a (1.30) -0.38a (1.61) -2.13b (1.20) affective organizational commitment 2.63a (0.74) 2.50a (0.72) 3.23b (0.66) note. values with different subscripts on the same row are significantly different at p ≤ .05. valtorta & monaci 19 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 unstandardized regression coefficients from the tested double mediation model note. values in brackets refer to the total effect of the independent variables. *p < .05. **p < .001. as show in figure 1, the effects of managers vs. salespeople (d1) and of managers vs. cashiers (d2) on the perception of objectifying job features were significant, b = 1.25, se = 0.23, t(139) = 5.51, p < .001 and b = 1.69, se = 0.23, t(139) = 7.18, p < .001, respectively, indicating that salespeople and cashiers (vs. managers) reported a higher perception of their activity as objectifying. in turn, perceived objectifying job features were positively related to self-objectification, b = 1.03, se = 0.15, t(138) = 7.05, p < .001. finally, higher levels of self-objectification were significantly related to less affective organizational commitment, b = -0.13, se = 0.05, t(137) = -2.79, p = .006. as a first support to our double mediation hypothesis, the direct effects of both d1 and d2 on affective organizational commitment were not significant, b = -0.02, se = 0.23, t(137) = -0.07, p = .942 for d1 and b = -0.02, se = 0.26, t(137) = -0.08, p = .939 for d2. importantly, the examination of the confidence intervals of the indirect effects showed that the indirect effect of managers vs. salespeople (d1) and managers vs. cashiers (d2) on affective organizational commitment via perceived objectifying job features and self-objectification were significant, the point estimate was -0.16, and the 95% ci was [-0.28, -0.05] for d1; the point estimate was -0.22, and the 95% ci was [-0.38, -0.07] for d2, supporting a double mediation model. thus, there was support for both our hypotheses. working objectification and organizational commitment 20 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the purpose of this study was to expand research on workplace dehumanization by exploring the associations between objectifying features related to specific job roles, self-objectification, and commitment towards the organization. we assumed that, especially among workers with a low-status job role, the perception of objectifying job features would be positively related to workers’ tendency to objectify themselves. in turn, this perception would be associated with a decrease in affective organizational commitment. the double mediation analysis, as reported in the present study, sup­ ported both our expectations. in the supermarket sector, salespeople and cashiers (vs. managers) reported an increased perception of their work activity as objectifying, which in turn heightened levels of workers’ self-objectification. in turn, this self-perception was closely tied to a decreased affective commitment to the organization. we believe that our findings extend and complement previous organizational and socio-psychological research in different ways. first, results revealed that workers with low-status job roles (i.e., cashiers and salespeople) self-objecti­ fied themselves more than workers in a high-status position (i.e., managers). these findings are in line with several studies (e.g., baldissarri et al., 2017a, 2017b; loughnan et al., 2017; valtorta et al., 2019b), according to which low-status occupations characterized by repetitive movements, fragmented activities, and other direction led to an objectified view of the worker. here we provided a step forward to the analysis of workplace dehumanization by examining self-dehumanization and expanding previous research in a real work context. regarding affective organizational commitment, we found that cashiers reported less commitment towards the organization than managers, but not than salespeople. in a sample of schoolteachers, feather and rauter (2004) showed that permanently employed workers who had secure jobs reported stronger affective and emotional commitment to their school than contract teachers, who also reported higher feelings of insecurity, perceptions of little influence or control over their role-related duties. although we did not collect data on contracts and job insecurity in our research, it is plausible to think that workers with low-status job roles reported lower levels of affective organizational commitment because of these potential negative effects deriving from their position within the organization. literature suggests indeed that perceptions of job insecurity might have detrimental consequences for low-status employee attitudes (rosenblatt et al., 1999), such as an increase in job dissatisfaction (davy et al., 1997), an increase in negative health outcomes (hellgren & sverke, 2003; mohren et al., 2003), and higher reports of psychological distress (dekker & schaufeli, 1995; probst, 2000). crucially, workers with low job security perceptions are more likely to engage in work withdrawal behavior (o’quin & lotempio, 1998) and report lower organizational commitment (preuss & lautsch, 2002). our results seem to complement this literature by providing further evidence of the negative association between low-status job roles and attachment to the organization. furthermore, we found a relationship between objectifying work features and self-objectification. this association is in line with the abovementioned studies; however, no previous research has assessed this link taking into account the job roles within an existing work setting. thus, through the present field study, not only did we confirm the relation between workers’ perceptions of their activity as objectifying and self-dehumanization, but we also demonstrated that, in the work setting considered in the current research, this correlation seems to exist only for workers with low-status job roles. in this regard, it is important to note that there might be other factors at play here, which could explain why some individuals perceived their job to be repetitive and lacking autonomy. indeed, work design literature highlights managers’ role in designing jobs (e.g., parker et al., 2019; parker et al., 2017), meaning that managers have the control to design stimulating, engaging jobs or dull, repetitive jobs. therefore, while one supermarket worker in one company might be relegated to the tills for an entire day, in another company, it might be that employees are rotated around different tasks, such as restocking, serving on the tills, taking a customer service role, or ordering new stock. it is plausible that employees in the latter jobs are likely to feel that their work features are less objectifying as they are more varied and thus experienced lower levels of self-objectification. to date, several studies (e.g., andrighetto et al., 2018; baldissarri et al., 2019) have reported that working self-objecti­ fication is positively associated with the key dimensions of job burnout (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism), conforming be­ haviors, and a decrease in belief in personal free will. our findings provide support for the idea that the self-perception as object-like also has a negative association with workers’ affective organizational commitment by therefore impacting on both individuals’ well-being and organizational efficiency. in this respect, our results might provide an interesting valtorta & monaci 21 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ integrated perspective between social-psychosocial and organizational constructs. indeed, by showing the relationship between working dehumanization and affective organizational commitment, our research is the first to investigate the link between workers’ self-perceptions and attitudes towards the organization within a real workplace environment. research efforts on organizational commitment have, so far, mainly focused on organizational aspects, such as turnover intensions and job performance. the present study extends these research efforts by focusing on the concept of working objectification, a somewhat neglected construct in organizational psychology and management literature, even if it is described as a frequent and common experience by workers (e.g., bell & khoury, 2016). finally, and importantly, our findings can be particularly relevant for companies. several studies have conceptualized and tested the relationship between employees' engagement and affective organizational commitment (see jena et al., 2017). for example, albrecht and andreetta (2011) found that when employees perceive that their managers have an empowering style of leadership, they feel empowered. such feelings of empowerment will lead employees to feel engag­ ed and also lead to feelings of belongingness to their organization. furthermore, schaufeli and salanova (2007) pointed out that with the enhancement of employees' engagement, organizational commitment gets heightened. crucially, the job demands-resources model—the most popular framework in occupational health psychology to investigate the relationships between job characteristics and employees' well-being—explains that engagement at work is much more effective than job demand in predicting organizational commitment (hakanen et al., 2008). our research adds a tile to this picture by demonstrating the link between working objectification and organizational commitment. implementing labor policies that prevent the rise of self-objectification and its relative consequences in the workplace may improve workers’ psychological state and provide broader benefits for organizations and their efficiency. in addition, managers and organizations may redesign work to make it less objectifying and more stimulating and engaging, leading to organizational commitment, better well-being, and performance (for a review of work design interventions, see knight & parker, 2021). related to this point, our findings can be considered a relevant starting point for future studies and interventions in the field of working motivations. several authors (e.g., amdan et al., 2016; mowday et al., 1979; wong et al., 1999) stated that motivation functions as a significant predictor of organizational commitment. with reference to the present research, extrinsic motivation—the motivation to work primarily in response to something apart from the work itself, such as reward, recognition, and benefits—may play an important role in compensating the lack of affective commitment provoked by the processes of objectification. limitations and future directions it is important to acknowledge that our study has some limitations that may restrict its generalizability. although the associations we observed among variables are consistent with previous findings, the correlational nature of the current data does not allow us to draw any causal inferences. it is likely indeed that the relationships between some of our constructs are bidirectional and dynamic. longitudinal research would be an important next step towards determining the direction of these paths. a second important limitation concerns the (explicit) measure that we employed in our study. in particular, it is noteworthy that the mean ratings of self-objectification were negative for all the considered job roles, indicating a weak association of the workers’ perceptions with the instrument-related words. however, it should be noted that our measure assessed this association using a self-report scale, which may have been affected by the participants’ desirabili­ ty concerns (e.g., crowne & marlowe, 1964; nederhof, 1985). greater associations with dehumanizing metaphors may emerge in studies using a subtler measure of dehumanization and implicit techniques, which are less susceptible to motivated responding (gawronski & bodenhausen, 2006). in this regard, it is important to note that the mean scores of affective commitment reported especially by salespeople and cashiers were low, and this result may be due to some work-related aspects that we did not consider in our research (e.g., number of working hours a week, number of years working within the supermarket; see, for example, sanders et al., 2011). further studies are needed to corroborate our findings and the relationship between workplace dehumanization and commitment towards the organization. in addition, although the power of our sample size gives us confidence in the robustness of our results, we acknowledge that only 8% (i.e., n = 11) of participants were workers employed as managers in the current research. our sample describes the reality of the considered work context (i.e., supermarket). however, we reason that a more working objectification and organizational commitment 22 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exhaustive picture will be obtained through future studies that will replicate and expand our findings with a more balanced sample, in which all the different job roles are sufficiently and equally represented. furthermore, in this study, we focused only on affective organizational commitment as outcome of working objec­ tification. however, several investigations showed that dehumanizing perceptions in the work domain are positively related to workers’ turnover intentions and negatively associated with workers’ satisfaction (e.g., bell & khoury, 2016; caesens et al., 2017). by expanding these findings, future research should analyze whether objectifying job features and self-objectification can also be associated with workers’ voluntary turnover and job satisfaction. finally, our research focused on working objectification in a specific work setting. nowadays, a number of jobs (e.g., call center operators; see baldissarri et al., 2014; pierantoni et al., 2007) are characterized by fast rhythms of work and severe forms of performance control, features that somewhat recall the nussbaum’s facets of objectification. thus, we believe it would be interesting to replicate and extend these findings to different work contexts. conclusion the present study contributes to the understanding of the process of workplace dehumanization by showing that a change in specific objectifying job features might lead to a change in self-objectification and affective organizational commitment. considering that work is one of the central aspects of human life, understanding the conditions under which work becomes a source of dehumanization and their potential consequences in terms of identification with and involvement in a particular organization is an interesting task for scholars. we hope that our findings and future investigations encourage social-psychological and organizational research to join efforts in order to increase the comprehension of the impact of dehumanization on workers’ identity and well-being. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials. supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the dataset, scales, and measures used in the research and can be accessed in the index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials valtorta, r. r., & monaci, m. g. 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(2017). organizational commitment, job satisfaction and attitudes toward organizational change: a study in the local government. international journal of public administration, 40(1), 77–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2015.1072217 about the authors roberta rosa valtorta is a post-doctoral research fellow in the department of psychology at the university of milano-bicocca, italy. her main research interests include dehumanizing processes, gender stereotypes, and economic inequality. working objectification and organizational commitment 26 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1998.86.1.339 https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000383 https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2014.0054 https://www.frareg.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/inail_call_center.pdf https://doi.org/10.7202/006888ar https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.63 https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.13.4.555 https://doi.org/10.21909/sp.2013.02.631 https://doi.org/10.1080/135943299398320 https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496410378894 https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12267 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12315 https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.213 https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12211 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12158 https://doi.org/10.1108/09596119910272766 https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2015.1072217 https://www.psychopen.eu/ maria grazia monaci is a full professor of social psychology at the university of valle d’aosta, italy. her current research interests focus on the development of prejudice in children, prejudice and emotions in intergroup relationships, and regulation of emotions, health promotion, and risk behaviors. valtorta & monaci 27 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 15–26 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5549 https://www.psychopen.eu/ working objectification and organizational commitment (introduction) method participants design and procedure measures results discussion limitations and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the possible as a field of inquiry editorial the possible as a field of inquiry vlad petre glăveanu* a [a] department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland. abstract in this editorial i introduce the possible as an emerging field of inquiry in psychology and related disciplines. over the past decades, significant advances have been made in connected areas – counterfactual thinking, anticipation, prospection, imagination and creativity, etc. – and several calls have been formulated in the social sciences to study human beings and societies as systems that are open to possibility and to the future. however, engaging with the possible, in the sense of both becoming aware of it and actively exploring it, represents a subject in need of further theoretical elaboration. in this paper, i review several existing approaches to the possible before briefly outlining a new, sociocultural account. while the former are focused on cognitive processes and uphold the old dichotomy between the possible and the actual or real, the latter grows out of a social ontology grounded in notions of difference, positions, perspectives, reflexivity, and dialogue. in the end, i argue that a better understanding of the possible can help us cultivate it in both mind and society. keywords: possible, imagination, creativity, counterfactuals, anticipation, sociocultural psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 published (vor): 2018-08-31. *corresponding author at: webster university geneva, 15 route de collex, 1293 bellevue, switzerland. e-mail: glaveanu@webster.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the notion of the possible has a long history in philosophy and psychology, even if the type of phenomena it designates has often been named differently. what is undisputable, at minimum, is the fact that humans live not only in the here and now, but are capable of enriching and expanding their experience of the world by remembering the past, imagining the future, considering alternatives, anticipating problems, and continuously engaging in ‘as if’, ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ thinking processes. the common denominator between these experiences is the capacity to go beyond the actual or the real and to explore the possible. which doesn’t mean that the possible is completely outside of reality or opposed to it. indeed, both our sense of possibility and its exploration are grounded in what is already actualized and, most of all, transforms our experience of the actual. to live with(in) the possible is not a pathological state; on the contrary, it helps us adapt and grow within ever-changing physical and social environments. the key questions for those who recognize the possible as a field of inquiry is how to best define, study, and cultivate it for self and others. various answers to these interrogations have been offered through the centuries. in antiquity, it was considered that philosophy has its origins in wonder (see plato’s theaetetus; bostock, 1988), a state in which we start examining reality beyond what is given or what is visible. during the renaissance, pico della mirandola, in his oration on the dignity of man (della mirandola, 1496/2012), argued that human beings are defined by their openness to the possible and not predetermined by nature. a similar line of argument has been developed in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the 20th century by existentialists such as sartre (1996), who famously articulated the consequence of this view: that we are all condemned to be free. but what exactly does it mean to be ‘open’ and ‘free’, and how do these two relate to the possible? and what happens in experiences of the possible such as wonder? these definitional and process-based questions are of concern today across the social sciences, especially in recent years. in sociology, tavory and eliasoph (2013) stressed the fact that “any interaction includes a relationship to a future” (p. 909). in anthropology, appadurai (2013), called for a more sustained study of imagination, anticipation, and aspiration. in psychology, gergen (2015) thought research should generate possible futures – “not to illuminate what is, but to create what is to become” (p. 294). the possible is thus rapidly emerging as an inter-disciplinary field of study with contributions from the social sciences and humanities, as well as from the natural sciences and the arts. basically, all the disciplines that have an interest in anticipation, imagination, wonder and creativity, among others, can contribute unique perspectives to this old topic. psychology is in a privileged position in this regard, as it has traditionally studied all these phenomena, including from different – sometimes radically different – perspectives. in this editorial, i will start by briefly reviewing theories and research on the possible in four key areas – possible worlds, possible selves, possible pasts, and possible future – before returning to the difficult questions of theory and its implications. through the paper, it will become clear that there are at least two main approaches to the possible in psychology and connected disciplines. one focuses on cognitive processes and is concerned first and foremost with the dichotomy between the possible and the actual or the real (and, as a consequence, with how well cognitive processes can anticipate what can be and contribute to it). the other one, the sociocultural position, considers the possible as a relational phenomenon embedded within self–other, person–world relations. the emphasis here falls on differences of perspective and the way in which they create the necessary space for novelty to emerge. towards the end, i will outline my own sociocultural framework for the study of the possible, not a definitive or comprehensive theory but one that could hopefully contribute to what is becoming today one of the most exciting fields of interdisciplinary research. exploring possible worlds one of the most obvious forms of engaging with the possible has to do with imagining the world differently than what it is or, in other words, imagining possible worlds. these possible words might differ in small ways from the actual one (for instance, we might wonder what would happen if we didn’t wake up on time for an important exam) or they can be fully imaginary, even impossible (like a fantastic universe). importantly, there are already multiple worlds we experience, sometimes at once, on a daily basis – we effectively construct reality, at least in part, especially the reality of the societies we live in. one of the best known philosophical arguments about possible worlds was formulated by leibniz in early eighteenth century, when he famously claimed that our existing world is the best one god could have created (leibniz, 1710/1760). in making this claim, he was trying to resolve the contradiction between claiming that god is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, and the presence of evil in god’s creation. while this view was satirically rejected by some and considered by many to reflect leibniz’s optimism, it did contribute to another long-standing debate in philosophy regarding the ontological status (i.e., the reality) of possible worlds. do they have an ‘objective’ existence (see lewis, 1979) or do they always depend on the mind that is imagining them (see rescher, 1979)? while the former could never be demonstrated, given the definition of possible worlds as the possible as a field of inquiry 520 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ not actual or actualized, the second position risks reinforcing the kind of solipsism that makes possibility an exclusive product of the mind. in the end, these ontological debates remain trapped within the strict separation (and the opposition) between the possible and the actual. this way of framing the possible might be good for definitional purposes, but it is counterproductive for understanding its role in the development of mind and society. a sharp distinction between the two invites questions regarding how close or how far the possible is from the actual, and even whether exploring it might actually disconnect us from reality. there is a second dichotomy that is at play here, that between the ‘inner’ worlds constructed by the mind and the single, ‘outside’ world the person inhabits, together with others. in essence, following also rescher’s (1979) argument, possible worlds are imagined ones. this doesn’t mean that they are completely disconnected from or inconsequential for the ‘real’ world. on the contrary, our imagination uses what the shared reality offers while transcending it by accessing the past, the future, the general, and the possible (zittoun & gillespie, 2016). such imaginations, although seemingly subjective, build upon an intersubjective space of cultural resources (e.g., language and technology, among others), and often end up transforming ‘objective’ reality. in this sense, the psychic ontological status of possible worlds needs to be expanded in order to account for the material, the social, and the political, all of them crucial for the origin and the expression of possible worlds. this is nowhere more obvious than in the case of imagining possible societies. in his well-known book, the imaginary institution of society, castoriadis (1987) points us to the basic fact that our social organization, from its mundane interactions to its laws and institutions, is based on a series of myths explaining the world, how it came about, and what the place of man might be within it. these vast imaginaries transform through history, from traditional societies to communist and capitalist ones, but they also deeply communicate with each other (for instance, both communism and capitalism share the imaginary of the industrial revolution and the ideal of rationality). ideology as a form of world-making is, indeed, essential for a deeper analysis of social and political life. it also comes to show very clearly the power of possible worlds in relation to the actual. even when material conditions are similar, the way they are perceived and interpreted leads individuals and entire communities to different conclusions, different beliefs, and different courses of action. ultimately, without grasping the imaginary institution of society, we would not be able to understand it as it is or why and how it transforms. this last point is important when it comes to social change and, in particular, to political art and creative activism (see boros, 2012; harrebye, 2016). in these contexts, it is not only different groups of people, animated by different goals, that seek to influence each other and shape society; what takes centre stage are their different views of what society is and, most of all, what it could be. once more, possible worlds emerge from, respond to, but also get to drive, the constitution of ‘real’ ones. exploring possible selves the idea that human selves are possible selves is not new. as mentioned above, pico della mirandola (1496/2012) argued centuries ago that human beings don’t have a predetermined, fixed nature. on the contrary, they are beings open to the possible. a broader argument can be made that all living beings share, to different degrees, this kind of openness (and, in fact, any open system does). however, not every being is endowed with a self in the same way humans are. the human self emerges within a field of social relations and cultural resources, a field of actions and interactions that afford particular forms of agency and ways of relating to others, to one’s past and to the future. according to bruner (1996, p. 36): glăveanu 521 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “what characterizes human selfhood is the construction of a conceptual system that organizes, as it were, a ‘record’ of agentive encounters with the world, a record that is related to the past (that is, ‘autobiographical memory’, so-called) but that is also extrapolated into the future – self with history and with possibility. it is a ‘possible self’ that regulates aspiration, confidence, optimism, and their opposites”. the notion of possible selves has been used more than three decades ago by markus and nurius (1986) who defined it as conceptions of one’s self in future states. this conceptualization calls our attention to the important regulatory function of possible selves through the contribution they make to the person’s overall self-concept. it is not only the case that we consider who we are in the present, but do so at all times in view of the future and, importantly, of the multiple futures we can participate in. this latter precision is significant as it brings forth the issue of agency. as erikson (2007) specifies, possible selves necessarily include an experience of being an agent in a future situation. these clarifications are all useful, and yet the question arises of whether possible selves are only (envisioned) future ones. going back to bruner’s (1996) quote, we need to observe the role played by autobiographical memory and, more generally, the ways in which memory and imagination collaborate in expanding the self, at once, towards past and future. it is also important to recognize that future or imagined selves can become actualized and this process is, at least potentially, creative. such dimensions are well captured by zittoun and de saint-laurent’s (2015) concept of life-creativity. this notion points to the fact that selves are constructed and reconstructed, throughout the life-course, within imaginative explorations of the past, the future, and the possible. considering the developmental dynamic of both the person and her context is of key significance here. possible selves are not merely mental schemas or representations. they are forged within material, social and symbolic interactions and effectively transform these interactions. in this sense, possible selves have very real, tangible consequences for the development of the person and those around her. interestingly, possible selves are often enacted beyond the realm of imagination. they are embodied in play and role-playing episodes, in activities online and in the virtual world. adopting different roles, including those of other or of different people, is part and parcel of daily, inter-personal interactions (see also goffman, 1959), but it also finds notable, collective forms of expression during anime, sci-fi, or game conventions for instance. most of all, online environments offer new opportunities for the development of virtual selves (evans, 2012). the choice and use of avatars on social media and other interactive platforms connects to one’s image of oneself, both actual and possible. leaving aside ongoing debates about the positive and negative effects of online participation, including for the user’s identity, self-concept and self-esteem, it is increasingly important to understand virtual selves, avatars and social media platforms within the context of possible selves and possible lives. while not always leading to an enhanced imagination or creativity (although the possibilities for this are everpresent, see literat & glăveanu, 2018), the use of technology – from using basic tools to the most sophisticated computers of today – has always accompanied human imagination, driven by a desire to expand the self’s immediate possibilities (gillespie, corti, evans, & heasman, 2017). in the end, as heidegger (1962) noted through his use of the term dasein, the person doesn’t just live but does so through developing projects and being open to the future. openness to others and to the world are fundamental dimensions of what it means to exist as a human self. human beings exist, at all times, between the ‘here and now’ of their concrete life situation and the then and there of creativity, wonder, and imagination. in this manner, the self is, at once, both actual and possible. the opposite of possible selves is thus not the the possible as a field of inquiry 522 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ present or actual self but, as heidegger reminds us, nothingness or the absence of possibility and, especially, of the possibility of becoming. exploring possible pasts while possible worlds, societies and selves are more or less easy to imagine, possible pasts are perhaps a harder concept to grasp – after all, the past is supposed to be singular and somewhat ‘objective’ given that it cannot be changed anymore. and yet, our relation to the past, either personal or collective, is just as complex and dynamic as the one with the future (discussed in the next section). this is because we never simply remember the past ‘as is’ (bartlett, 1932), but constantly reconstruct it and wonder what might have happened if… these kinds of memory, thinking and imagination applied to the past open it to the possible and, in doing so, reinforce its connection with and relevance for the present and the future. one of the clearest expressions of engaging with possible pasts is represented by counterfactual thinking. counterfactuals are generally defined as conditional statements in which the first clause proposes something contrary to facts or to what is the case. while they can be applied to the future as well, most work in this area has been done on “alternative versions of past or present outcomes” (roese & olson, 1995, p. 1). reflecting on what the present would be like if certain things in the past would have (or would not have) happened, is both a common exercise and one with powerful consequences. it not only helps us understand something about the past, present, and their relation, but it also can influence how we feel about them (could we have done anything to prevent a bad thing from happening? or, conversely, helped something better happen?). in the literature it is common to distinguish between upward counterfactuals (when alternatives are better than actuality) and downward counterfactuals (when alternatives depict a worse state of affairs) (roese, 1997). a lot of research over the past decades went into understanding how useful it is to employ each one of them. this led to functionalist models of counterfactual thinking, models that point to its value; for instance, downward counterfactuals can provide comfort while upward counterfactuals prepare the person for the future (see markman, gavanski, sherman, & mcmullen, 1993). in this sense, counterfactual thinking helps the individual engage not only with what might have been possible (the past), but also what is and could be possible (the present and future), effectively bridging these temporalities. one of the main limitations of old and new research into counterfactual thinking, however, is the overly cognitive description of this phenomenon as constructing and reconstructing mental models (see byrne, 2017). even when emotions are taken into account – and a lot of this research does study emotions – they are not considered outside an information processing framework. a sociocultural approach to possible pasts is more readily employed in studies of autobiographical memory (e.g., de saint-laurent & zittoun, 2018) and collective memory (e.g., de saint-laurent, 2018). in this kind of research, the person is considered in a social and developmental manner, as an agent that uses cultural means – such as symbols, narratives, life philosophies, etc. – to make sense of the past, present, and future, both individual and collective. imagining collective pasts is not reduced here to singular mental processes, for instance counterfactual thinking, but seen as an activity in its own right, integrated within the life course and contributing to it. within this framework, the link between collective memories and collective futures is emphasized, as well as that between possible selves and possible worlds. indeed, giving new meanings to the past, and thus opening it to multiple possible interpretations, is fundamental for how people understand their place and their role in relations to others, in a shared society. the past is open to the possible precisely because it is not simply glăveanu 523 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ‘there’, to be made sense of in an objective manner, by detached observers. this observation is not contesting in any way the existence of facts and the fact that some stories about the past are more accurate than others. the idea that there is always a sense of openness and possibility about the past should not be used to ‘rewrite history’ (as it sometimes is, unfortunately), but to understand it better by inviting multiple perspectives on it. in this way, the past can be reflected upon instead of taken for granted, and it can also serve as a reference point for building multiple visions of the future. exploring possible futures most of the times we think about the possible what we actually consider are possible futures. this is not only because the future is inherently open (despite our best efforts to predict it as best we can), but also because we live lives that are fundamentally oriented towards the future (valsiner, 2007). when reflecting on the latter, imagination is a key psychological process that comes to mind. and yet, in the last section i argued that memory, individual and collective, is shaped by (oftentimes implicit) visions of the future. anticipations of the future or causal links made between past and future form the basis of counterfactual thinking and play an important part in making meaning about the past. at the same time, basic psychological processes such as perception, which are supposed to anchor us strongly in the here and now of the present, are equally future oriented. gibson (1986), for instance, offered a classic account of visual perception that connects it to action and orients it towards discovering and enacting the affordances (or action possibilities) of the environments we live in. there is, therefore, ample support for the claim that our psychology is driven equally by the actual and the possible, the past and the future, and that this interplay transforms the present and our possibilities of acting within it. it is not surprising then that the future received considerable attention in the human and social sciences for many decades. the field of futures studies finds its origins in the post-world war ii era and the desire to build better, more peaceful and prosperous societies. according to poli (2017, p. 59), “the two main principles underlying futures study are that the future is open and unknowable – notwithstanding all our efforts to argue in favor of the contrary – and that there is always a multiplicity of futures”. one of the most important and common distinctions in futures studies is that between forecasting and foresight. the former, widely found in a series of disciplines, from economy to meteorology, is typically grounded in quantitative analyses and predictive models. it starts from the premise that the world, both physical-biological and social, is organized around some given principles that govern both the past and the present. as such, knowledge about the past becomes useful for anticipating the future with different degrees of certainty. although not labelled as forecasting, this kind of logic is common also in psychology, for example in developmental studies, whenever linear models of development are used, i.e., every person is assumed to necessarily pass through a series of pre-ordered stages. in contrast, foresight is not pointing to one – the most statistically likely – future, but a multiplicity of possible futures. it is more often qualitative in its analyses and focused on discontinuities between past and future. the most recent development within this area is concerned with both forecast and foresight and with the way they guide personal and collective decisions and actions. as noted by poli in his introduction to anticipation studies: “an anticipatory behavior is a behavior that ‘uses’ the future in its actual decision process. anticipation as here understood includes two mandatory components: a forward-looking attitude, and the use of the former’s result for action. a weather forecast in itself is not anticipatory in the sense used by this book. the possible as a field of inquiry 524 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ watching a weather forecast and as a consequence taking an umbrella before going to work is instead an anticipatory behavior” (poli, 2017, pp. 1-2). this is an important observation that reveals the deeply pragmatic orientation of anticipation studies as an emerging field of research. instead of reducing anticipation to a mental process, we are invited to connect it back to action and, through this, to the intentionality of the person and her interactions with the environment. as hoffman (2016) rightfully observes, the ‘birth defect’ of information processing models was to assume that all cognition starts from stimuli. in reality, “organisms and above all human beings typically do not respond on stimuli but they almost always act in order to create the stimulations or situations they are striving for” (p. 21). this means that anticipations of the future are not merely a second phase or an outcome of information processing, they are part and parcel of the way we perceive, think about and act in the world. possible futures are not simply envisioned by the person based on information about the past and the present, they are driving the ways in which we acquire and process this kind of information. and, by becoming actualized, over time, they create new conditions that lead to new anticipations and open new possibilities for the person, the group, or society as a whole. this kind of theorizing is fruitful for novel concepts such as speculative thinking. the idea of speculation, as proposed by savransky, wilkie, and rosengarten (2017), goes against usual associations with finance, for instance, and an excessive reliance on forecasting. “by contrast, speculation is associated with a sensibility concerned with resisting a future that presents itself as probable or plausible, and to wager instead that, no matter how pervasive the impasse may be, it can never exhaust the unrealised potential of the present” (p. 8). it is an invitation to reflect on what might seem impossible, to take risks, and to explore the plurality of the present. it is, as the authors aptly define it, a “struggle against probabilities” (p. 7), one aimed at keeping the future open and, with it, also our decisions and actions in the present. the impossible or the highly unlikely are also exploited by utopias and dystopias. located in a distant or unspecified future, these literary projects are well anchored in past and present and they tend to exacerbate one or more of their dimensions. while offering concrete and detailed description of what societies could be like in the future, it would be wrong to assume that they are closing up possibilities. on the contrary, “in each instance, the specific utopias produce consequences that force a questioning of the original vision and that shape both its development and how individuals experience it” (gordin, tilley, & prakash, 2010, p. 4). whether intentionally or not, utopian and dystopian visions alike are meant to present us with the consequences of actualizing a certain future and, consequently, to help us reflect on it and consider alternatives. in doing so, they cultivate the kind of anticipations and speculations that open up – rather than close – possible futures. exploring possible theories the possible as a field of inquiry, as suggested until now, has both a long past and a short history. in many ways, and due to its profoundly interdisciplinary nature, it finds its roots in the philosophy of antiquity and the renaissance. at the same time, calls to consider the possible, possibility, and the future have intensified over the last two decades in a variety of disciplines across the social and natural sciences, including the humanities and the arts (both of them highly invested into experimenting with the possible). from research practices to interventions, these calls are starting to bear fruit. what about theoretical developments? what theories of the possible – of engaging and cultivating it – are available today? glăveanu 525 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this is a difficult question to answer given that, oftentimes, a relevant theory or philosophical orientation might not directly focus on the possible but on connected issues (agency, freedom, emergence, and so on). at the same time, it is hard to offer comprehensive overviews of theories of the possible in such a brief editorial. my focus in this last section will thus be necessarily selective and cover mainly psychological theories. psychology as a discipline has an important part to play in the multior trans-disciplinary science of the possible. this is due to the fact that it deals itself with a topic – the human psychic – that is, on the one hand, central for any discussion of possibility and, on the other, situated at the intersection between multiple systems, from biological to societal. in psychology, there are a number of recent candidates for ‘possible’ theories of the possible. one of them is prospection theory, put forward by seligman, railton, baumeister, and sripada (2013). in line with the general ethos of studying the possible, the authors proposed an incipient science of prospection as a way of changing psychology’s focus from past to future. indeed, most schools within psychology, from psychoanalysis and behaviorism to cognitive science, tend to place a lot of weight on the past and to emphasize the fact that it shapes the present. in contrast, the notion of prospection reverses this relationship and claims that we are guided by the future. importantly though, seligman and colleagues specify that it is not the future itself, but evaluative representations of possible future states. as prospective organisms, we “construct an evaluative landscape of possible acts and outcomes” (seligman et al., 2013, p. 120) and constantly revisit these representations. in summary, the cognitive model proposed includes expectations, observing reality, noting discrepancies, reducing them by changing the initial expectations, and repeating this cycle. the focus, predictable for cognitive psychology, is on information processing and typical biases in how we envision the possible. is this the only way to theorize its dynamic? certainly not. a great counter-example is offered by the notion of possibility thinking developed over the last two decades by craft and her collaborators (see craft, 2015). coined to capture the creative and developmental quality of interacting with others and the world across the life-span, possibility thinking revolves around common interrogations such as ‘what if’ and ‘as if’. in craft’s (2015, p. 153) words: “by asking ‘what if?’ the transition is made from ‘what is’ to ‘what might be’, or from ‘what is this?’ to ‘what can i/we do with this?’. (…) such what if? thinking can be seen in the toddler who makes mud and grass ‘soup’, in teenagers designing hypotheses and fair tests in science and in adults taking a short cut in traffic or considering whether to introduce one friend to another”. not only is possibility thinking wider than the notion of prospection but, despite its use of the term ‘thinking’, it is anything but reducing the possible to mental processes. in fact, it considers it a highly embodied process of experiencing the world, one characterized by posing questions, playing, being immersion and imaginative, acting with self-determination and taking risks, among others. possibility thinking is also, by definition, a social phenomenon as it can only be scaffolded by social interactions and the use of culture. these premises are common for sociocultural theories of mind, creativity, imagination, education, and society. while sociocultural psychology is a diverse and emerging field (more accurately referred to as sociocultural or cultural psychologies; see valsiner & rosa, 2007), its many branches are unified by an embodied, symbolic, social, and developmental conception of the mind. this level of complexity is particularly important for understanding the possible and, indeed, the possible as a notion has been – either implicitly or explicitly – central for most sociocultural authors (e.g., vygotyky, mead, dewey, & bakhtin). particularly in recent years, sociocultural psychologists initiated substantial explorations of agency (gruber, clark, klempe, & valsiner, 2015), imagination (zittoun & the possible as a field of inquiry 526 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gillespie, 2016) and creativity (glăveanu, 2014), each one of them bringing new insights into the possible and its cultivation. in this last segment of the editorial i will briefly sketch a new, sociocultural account of the possible, one that builds on what i formulated in the past as the perspectival model of creativity (see glăveanu, 2015). the core argument behind the model is as follows: experiencing difference, in particular self-other differences, offers individuals and groups new perspectives from which to understand and act on the world. creativity emerges out of putting these perspectives in dialogue with each other in a playful and reflective manner. it is by being able to ‘see’ a problem, situation or issue from multiple perspectives that we become freer, more flexible and more open-minded in relation to it. this increases our changes of being creative (although the mere presence of differences and even of different perspectives doesn’t guarantee, by itself, a creative outcome). at the heart of this argument is the claim that what creative actions do is open up, exploit and expand the possible for both self and others. in other words, multiple perspectives, growing out of difference and enhanced by dialogue, are the basis of the possible in all its forms of expression (possible worlds, possible selves, possible pasts and futures, among others). to experience the possible, one needs to become aware of differences in perspective and of the fact that we all live, as human beings, in a perspectival world. how do we gain this awareness to begin with? it is because we occupy various positions in this world – in physical, social, and symbolic terms – and that we interact with others from their position, that we diversify our range of perspectives in the first place. being able to move between positions and adopt more than one perspective on the problem or issue at hand is a tremendous developmental achievement, a way of experiencing the world simultaneously as is and as different from how it is. the ontological history of engaging with the possible begins thus with differences of position and perspective and finds its expression in our capacity to occupy meta-positions vis a vis reality. the latter are fundamental for the experience of wondering (glăveanu, 2017), an ever-present companion of exploring the possible. the theory briefly outlined above has a series of conceptual and practical consequences. to start with, it proposes that the real or the actual are not the opposite of the possible. since the possible is rooted in difference and the multiplicity of perspectives, its antithesis is sameness or the absence (or denial) of difference. we often encounter in our daily lives perspectives that are dominant, hegemonic, and overpowering – views that ‘hide’ their ontological existence as one perspective among many and, based on the rhetoric of truth, objectivity or sanctity, impose themselves as legitimate and singular. from science to religion and through nationalist and totalitarian discourses, individuals and groups are often subjected to monological, possibility-closing discourses and practices and fortunately, just as often they struggle to resist them. it is particularly painful to notice that such processes, that are averse to the possible and possibility, are often inscribed within education. this observation led generations of educators, psychologists and philosophers to question schooling and challenge its practices. bruner (2007), famously spoke in one of his last lectures about “the crucial importance of cultivating a lively sense of the possible in the rising generation”; he continued: “knowledge (…) is not just what we store inertly in our heads. it also provides a launching pad into the realm of the possible. and cultivating the uses of knowledge as such a launching pad must (…) become a crucial task of the educational establishment” (bruner, 2007, pp. 1-2). a sociocultural theory of the possible is, indeed, incomplete without a pedagogy of the possible. both of them find their place within the expanding, and extremely exciting, field of research and inquiry that has been introduced here. if multiple perspectives open up the possible, then the most important developments in this glăveanu 527 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ new/old field of study will come from systematically placing the conceptions above in dialogue, in particular dialogues that cut across disciplinary, cultural, geographic and temporal boundaries. the present editorial represents an open invitation to contribute new viewpoints to these exciting conversations. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references appadurai, a. 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(2015). life-creativity: imagining one’s life. in v. p. glăveanu, a. gillespie, & j. valsiner (eds.), rethinking creativity: contributions from cultural psychology (pp. 58-75). london, united kingdom: routledge. zittoun, t., & gillespie, a. (2016). imagination in human and cultural development. london, united kingdom: routledge. about the author vlad petre glăveanu is associate professor and head of the department of psychology and counselling as well as director of the webster center for creativity and innovation (wcci) at webster university geneva, switzerland, and associate professor ii at the university of bergen, norway. he obtained his ba in psychology (with honors) from the university of bucharest and his msc (with distinction) and phd in social psychology from the london school of economics. vlad published over 150 chapters and articles mainly in the areas of creativity, imagination, culture and collaboration. editor of the creativity reader (oxford university press, 2018), and co-editor the cambridge handbook of creativity across domains (cambridge university press, 2017) and the handbook of imagination and culture (oxford university press, 2017), he began editing in 2018 the palgrave encyclopedia of the possible. he is also editor-in-chief of europe’s journal of psychology (ejop), an open-access peer-reviewed journal published by psychopen (zpid leibniz institute for psychology information, germany). vlad received in 2018 the berlyne award from the american psychological association (division 10) for outstanding early career contributions to the field of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts. the possible as a field of inquiry 530 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 519–530 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1725 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.41.9.954 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.121.1.133 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612474317 https://doi.org/10.1086/668646 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the possible as a field of inquiry (introduction) exploring possible worlds exploring possible selves exploring possible pasts exploring possible futures exploring possible theories (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author exploring perceptions of control within offender cognition and recidivism paradigms research reports exploring perceptions of control within offender cognition and recidivism paradigms anistasha h. lightning 1, danielle polage 1 [1] department of psychology, central washington university, ellensburg, wa, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 received: 2021-01-27 • accepted: 2021-07-25 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, california university of pennsylvania, california, pa, usa corresponding author: anistasha h. lightning, department of psychology, central washington university, ellensburg, wa, usa. e-mail: anistasha.lightning@outlook.com abstract elements of perceived control are associated with recidivism in offender populations. we investigated the application of locus of control to the frequency of personal involvement with the law and to beliefs surrounding the likelihood of future contact with the legal system. we hypothesized that, as the number of sentencings or legal experiences increased, locus of control would externalize. we also predicted that increased legal involvement would lead to greater belief in the likelihood of future involvement. a statistically significant path model suggests that locus of control appears to be a predictor of increased criminality, as opposed to the other way around. further, data suggests that an offender will view future legal involvement as more likely if they have experienced greater lifetime contact with the legal system. we speculate on the possible application of these data to intervention strategies identifying offenders with high priority intervention needs. keywords control, helplessness, incarceration, recidivism, rehabilitation consistent stress, loss of control, and hopelessness have been linked to recidivism and external locus of control in both adult and juvenile populations (barnett & fitzalan howard, 2018; halliday & graham, 2000; nowicki et al., 2018). locus of control, a construct first described by rotter (1966), appears to be an influential factor in offender rehabilitation and recidivism reduction. internalizing locus of control, or the belief that one has control over what happens to them, is associated with improvements in mental health pathologies, drug addiction, general treatment amenability, decreases in future criminality for both adults and juveniles, and increased personal wellbeing in offender populations (asberg & renk, 2014; morgan & flora, 2002; page & scalora, 2004; van der helm et al., 2009). unfortunately, many offenders enter the legal system with more externalized locus of control, the belief that they have little or no control over what happens to them. understanding more about where this externalization comes from may help correctional systems to better rehabilitate offenders toward more internalized control thinking. many express hopeless resignations when faced with the prospect of incarceration for current or continued criminal activity. often, offenders attribute criminality to survival necessities and to a sense of resignation directed at their surrounding environments (halliday & graham, 2000). this application of helpless thinking is tied to mental and emo­ tional rehabilitative outcomes in both adult and juvenile populations. feelings of control, helplessness, and resignation have been linked to low levels of treatment amenability, increased lifelong criminality, depression, and lower levels of adaptive resilience (archer, 1980; chorpita & barlow, 1998; contreras et al., 2011; han et al., 2001; munoz et al., 2017; page & scalora, 2004). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5997&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ these feelings can be perpetuated by consistent exposure to stressful external factors (nowicki et al., 2018; takase et al., 2005). these can have a significant influence on criminality. family setting factors such as broken homes, low incomes, and deprived neighborhoods are linked to recidivism in juvenile offenders (contreras et al., 2011). in adults, a lack of rehabilitative efforts tied to emotional and economic health may be predictive of recidivism (gaum et al., 2006). consistent and seemingly inescapable stress, such as relationship stress, factors of poverty, violence exposure, and drug use are strongly associated with criminality. these stressors may influence the development of external locus of control (abrams & snyder, 2010; lodewijks et al., 2010; nowicki et al., 2018; passini, 2012; richaud, 2013). this is often expressed behaviorally as hopelessness, and may be an important influencing factor in recidivism, or the tendency to relapse into criminal behavior after incarceration or other legal intervention (halliday & graham, 2000; takase et al., 2005). this hopelessness may lead individuals back toward criminality if their surrounding environmental factors do not change. up to 83% of offenders in the united states are re-arrested or re-incarcerated within three years of their release from detention (u.s. department of justice, 2018). this can reinforce feelings of futility and hopelessness, antecedents to external locus of control (halliday & graham, 2000; nowicki et al., 2018; takase et al., 2005). it may thus be possible to use locus of control measurements to identify those individuals at greater need for intervention early on in their involvement with the legal system. in order to do this, however, the predictive relationship between the two must first be demonstrated empirically. this is the goal of the present study. perceptions of control and antecedents to recidivism factors such as poverty, dangerous living conditions, and social influences are often linked to criminal behavior (abrams & snyder, 2010; halliday & graham, 2000; passini, 2012). these factors can lead to significant exposure stress even outside of the correctional system, removal of feelings of control, and may affect resiliency. all of these have been identified as potential antecedents to recidivism (han et al., 2001; lodewijks et al., 2010; richaud, 2013). locus of control does not appear to be a static construct. rather, the literature points to a more dynamic and malleable nature where locus of control may change and shift from internal to external and back again based on varying environmental factors (nowicki et al., 2018). this is flexibility is particularly emphasized in changing social relationships and through the stability of surrounding environments (kubala et al., 2012; maier, 2001; nowicki et al., 2018; takase et al., 2005). thus, sustained exposure to social and environmental stressors is a predictor of an externalizing locus of control over time (nowicki et al., 2018). this principle of flexibility is an important one for the investigation of externalizing locus of control and its potential use as an early indicator of intervention need. if locus of control can be changed based on environmental factors and treatment, then it may be possible to use the construct as a viable testing platform for intervention programs. concerning the potential applications to rehabilitative practice, internal locus of control has been linked to adaptive behaviors and high levels of resilience (munoz et al., 2017). external locus of control has been linked to depression, anxiety, and other psychopathologies (archer, 1980; chorpita & barlow, 1998; han et al., 2001). since locus of control appears to be elastic, the link to both adaptive and maladaptive mental formations is important for its potential as an early intervention and treatment amenability tool (archer, 1980; chorpita & barlow, 1998; han et al., 2001; munoz et al., 2017; nowicki et al., 2018; page & scalora, 2004). the increased stress exposure, autonomy restriction, social restriction, and danger exposure often coupled with incarceration may, then, influence the development of the more maladaptive external locus of control (dmitrieva et al., 2012; halliday & graham, 2000; nowicki et al., 2018; takase et al., 2005). internal locus of control is far more psychologically adaptive, with links to increased resiliency, positive behavior patterns, and better stress management, several of which are linked to better behavioral control (dmitrieva et al., 2012; munoz et al., 2017). this has significant implications for treatment efficacy in offender populations as well. any intervention focused on controlling the individual, deterrence, building extrinsic motivation, or basic discipline does little to curb recidivism. this is true for interventions based inside a correctional facility or out in the community. however, programs focused on building intrinsic motivation and those based upon restorative intent are far more effective in reducing recidivism (barnett & fitzalan howard, 2018). perceptions of control and recidivism 392 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this is particularly impactful here because of the analytic distinction between extrinsic ineffectiveness and intrinsic effectiveness. extrinsic interventions, or those designed to emphasize external reasoning, appear to be ineffective in dealing with recidivism while those focused on building internal motivation for change and behavioral decisions, appear to be effective in curbing recidivism (barnett & fitzalan howard, 2018). therefore, those with higher individual recidivism rates may have a greater degree of external reasoning which may reflect external locus of control. behavioral disturbance, locus of control, and recidivism incarceration itself results in behavioral disturbances and significant mental health consequences that may lead to repeat incarceration, particularly in juvenile offenders (lambie & randell, 2013). indeed, criminal behavior continues from adolescence to adulthood in as many as 40% to 60% of offenders in the united states (national institute of justice, 2013). more internal orientations predict greater levels of help-seeking behavior, treatment participation, and positive treatment outcomes. individuals with more external orientation displayed more resistance to behavioral changes and treatment strategies. these are significant locus of control-based influencers on treatment amenability (page & scalora, 2004). helplessness is a related concept when discussing treatment and intervention efficacy. it is a depression-like behavior observed consistently in animals and humans when perceived control over the environment is lacking (kubala et al., 2012; maier, 2001; takase et al., 2005). this feeling can be reinforced by repeated and failed attempts to escape from the adverse environment and has links to externalized locus of control (cohen et al., 1976; hiroto, 1974; takase et al., 2005). this construct has a neurobiological foundation, granting important biological validity to this investigation. repea­ ted exposure to inescapable tail shocks in rats results in decreased observable desire to leave the aversive environment, decreases social exploration, and activates the serotonergic dorsal raphe nucleus, an area of the brain implicated in depression (kubala et al., 2012; takase et al., 2005). this type of escape-avoidance has been linked to learned helplessness in humans, which itself has been previously linked to external locus of control, depression, anxiety, and other pathologies (archer, 1980; chorpita & barlow, 1998; cohen et al., 1976; han et al., 2001; hiroto, 1974; maier, 2001). for offenders, failed attempts to break a criminal cycle or feelings of hopelessness relating to uncontrollable environmental factors create stressors that influence criminal continuity (halliday & graham, 2000; page & scalora, 2004). feelings of control, treatment amenability, and stress exposure have been identified as related environmental factors with ties to locus of control (barnett & fitzalan-howard, 2018; halliday & graham, 2000; page & scalora, 2004). the current study given established relationships between locus of control, environmental factors, treatment amenability, and lifetime recidivism risk, we examined whether repeated contact with the legal system is related to externalizing locus of control in adult criminal offenders. from the available literature, we developed and tested the following hypothesis: as the number of sentencings or legal experiences increases, locus of control will predictively externalize. meaning that the more times an individual has been in contact with the legal system, the more they will view the causes of their legal involvement as external. we further hypothesized that increased legal involvement would lead to greater belief in the likelihood of future legal involvement. method procedure this research utilized a correlational design. all participants were given the same surveys in similar conditions. informed consent was obtained from each participant, and all participants were educated on the definitions of the variables before completing the survey to ensure self-reporting could be as accurate as possible. lightning & polage 393 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ surveys were administered on a volunteer, one-on-one basis in designated jail visitation areas or in the inmate’s personal living area. participants retained the option to fill out the survey on their own or have the administrator read the survey to them and transcribe their responses to compensate for any limited literacy, educational disadvantage, or other written language barriers. participants we surveyed 117 county jail inmates in washington, a state in the northwest of the united states. in order to participate in the study, volunteers needed to be currently incarcerated in a county jail and at least 18 years of age. additionally, they needed to understand written or spoken english at an appropriate level to receive informed consent, as we did not have the ability to provide translators for non-english speaking participants. five surveys were removed from analysis for lack of completion or as extreme outliers. the final sample for analysis was n = 112. materials demographics in order to ensure the protection of inmate identity, minimal demographic data were collected, at the insistence of both the participating jail facilities and the institutional review board (irb). this was due to the potentially undecided nature of some legal cases, as county jail inmates may be awaiting trial, sentencing, or some part of their record may be sealed. this was an unfortunate omission, as we lost any potential ability to evaluate relationships within these demographic areas. nonetheless, compliance with this requirement was necessary for the completion of the research. participants were asked to answer limited demographic questions regarding their age, race/ethnicity, education level, household type (to determine homelessness status), and household income. it is important to note that demographic factors were recorded only to give a descriptive representation of the population. excluding age, which we did analyze in line with established age-crime relationships, they were otherwise not intended to be used in the analysis and were not expressly relevant to the hypothesis. additionally, many participants did not know their household income, and thus we lacked significant information to use this variable in the analysis. of course, we understand that there may be significant relationships between these factors and locus of control and are aware that these factors play important parts as antecedents to criminality. however, our hypothesis sought to explore only the relationships between locus of control, legal involvement, and predictive thoughts on future incarceration. a detailed analysis on the relationship between these variables and our demographic identifiers is both interesting and valuable, but beyond the intended scope of this research. involvement with the law questionnaire we developed a questionnaire designed to record self-reported data concerning the legal history of study participants. this questionnaire asked participants to estimate their lifetime “legal involvement”, defined as the number of times they had experienced arrest, jail time awaiting trial or court date, jail sentences, prison sentences, electronic home monitoring (house arrest), community service or community restitution, group homes or work release programs, probation, and “other” involvement with the law, which they were asked to explain. we computed “legal involvement” as the sum-total of all self-reported involvement in these categories. to develop the list of categories, we consulted with participating jail facilities and a corrections expert present on the irb in order to determine possible sentencing types. participants then used a likert-type scale to indicate how likely, if at all, they believed they were to be involved with the law post-release, which we termed “future likelihood”. finally, they were presented with an open-ended question which prompted them to reflect on the causes for their current and past legal involvement. for the involvement with the law questionnaire, cronbach’s alpha was .78. the revised causal dimensions scale (mcauley et al., 1992) mcauley et al.’s (1992) revised causal dimension scale immediately followed the involvement with the law question­ naire. it divides locus of control into four dimensions, namely “locus of causality,” “stability,” “personal control,” and “external control.” the scale was used with permission from the copyright owner, sage publications. the original scale perceptions of control and recidivism 394 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ authors performed reliability testing during development of the scale. the average internal consistencies (cronbach’s alpha) across the four categories were .67 for locus of causality, .67 for stability, .79 for personal control, and .82 for external control (mcauley et al., 1992). the revised causal dimension scale was selected because it is designed to examine locus of control with respect to prompting scenarios, allowing locus of control to be examined with specific respect to legal involvement (mcauley et al., 1992; russell, 1982). this allowed us to examine locus of control with specific respect to thoughts on incarceration. this was a great boost to the ability to evaluate our specific hypothesis using validated study instruments developed for locus of control research. in our case, the prompting scenario was the open-ended question discussed above. data coding procedure we coded data based on participant responses to numeric or scale-based questions. some responses were converted to bivariate data to reflect affirmative/negative answer types. we recorded self-reported frequencies of juvenile legal involvement and lifetime legal involvement. we calculated a third variable, adult legal involvement, as the difference between lifetime and juvenile legal involvement. we were not able to access personal files to verify these numbers, as county jail inmates typically have protected files, and thus rely only on the assumed accuracy of the self-reported frequencies. we coded two different variables concerning future likelihood. the first was a dichotomous response variable concerning whether participants thought future legal involvement was likely. those that selected “yes” were asked to rate how likely future legal involvement was to occur on a likert-type scale. a score of one denoted “extremely unlikely,” and a score of eight denoted “extremely likely.” a score of zero was coded for all participants who indicated “no” on the bivariate question, to indicate they did not believe there was any likelihood of future involvement. finally, we recorded total scores for each of the four revised causal dimension scale elements, termed “locus of causality,” “stability,” “personal control,” and “external control” after their original operational designations (mcauley et al., 1992). the scale is divided into 12 likert-type questions, with response values ranging from 1 to 9. each of the scale’s four metrics are measured by three of these questions. we computed total values for each of the four metrics as a sum of response values for each of these three sub-divided questions. the specific divisions used were established by the original scale authors. results we first performed a preliminary data check to examine our data for normality. some data were highly kurtotic, and thus we performed appropriate logarithmic transformations to achieve the required normality for further parametric testing. we then performed descriptive analysis, correlational analysis and linear regression analysis to extrapolate meaning from the data using a combination of r, a programming language used for statistical analysis, ibm’s spss statistics software, and g*power analysis software. demographics the mean age of participants was 33.73 years (sd = 8.886), 75.9% reported graduating from high school or a general education diploma (g.e.d.) program, and 33.9% reported being homeless before becoming incarcerated. ethnically, the participants identified as white (48.2%, n = 54), hispanic or latin american (17.9%, n = 20), black or african american (2.7%, n = 3), native american or alaska native (9.8%, n = 11), asian (1.8%, n = 2), multiracial (15.2%, n = 17), or some “other” ethnicity (4.5%, n = 5). power analysis we first performed a power analysis to determine the required sample size for a medium effect size and an acceptable statistical power factor of .85 at the p = .05 and p = .01 levels for pearson’s correlations and linear regression, using g*power version 3.1.9.2 for this analysis (faul et al., 2007). lightning & polage 395 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for pearson’s r, analysis predicted that 163 participants would yield a .85 power factor at the p = .05 level, along with 255 participants at the p = .01 level. a medium effect size for a pearson correlation is approximately .30, according to the g*power software we utilized (faul et al., 2007). for linear regression analysis, the recommended n was 87 at the p = .05 level, given three predictor variables, 76 for two predictors, and 62 for one predictor. these numbers increase to 120 participants for three predictors, 108 for two, and 91 for one at the p = .01 level. for linear regression, a medium effect size is considered to be .15. for linear regression analysis, our sample size effectively met size requirements for a .85 power factor. the regres­ sion analysis was the most important analysis for our hypothesis, so the effect size here is promising. however, our sample size did not meet the size requirement for a .85 power factor and medium effect size for pearson’s r correlation. nonetheless, data show statistically significant results. additionally, we chose to perform correlational analysis in order to establish preliminary relationships between the data for reference in future studies of this type. indeed, these relationships may be used as a baseline for future analysis on larger participant groups, which may increase the statistical power of the results. thus, correlation analysis was maintained both to contribute to the future of scientific discussion on this topic and due to the presence of statistically significant results despite the lower statistical power. descriptive statistics concerning past legal involvement, 56.3% of participants (n = 112) reported a juvenile criminal record (n = 63). concerning future legal involvement, 68.8% indicated that they believed future legal involvement was likely (n = 77). the mean future likelihood score across participants was 3.67 (sd = 3.08). we divided legal involvement into juvenile, adult, and lifetime frequencies. the mean juvenile legal involvement was 11.47 individual instances of involvement (sd = 25.57). for adult and lifetime legal involvement, the mean frequencies were 51.19 (sd = 66.02) and 62.65 (sd = 77.18), respectively. we divided lifetime legal involvement into low, moderate, and high levels of involvement. these are defined as total involvement greater than 0.5 standard deviations below the mean for low, within +/0.5 standard deviation from the mean for moderate, and greater than 0.5 standard deviation for high involvement. these parameters were selected in order to achieve the most even distribution possible between the categories. maintaining a standard deviation difference of less than 1 likewise ensured that the low and high categories would represent more than just the extreme ends of the overall distribution, giving a more realistic picture of the differences between participants. the low legal involvement category represented only 28.6% of participants (n = 32), while the moderate and high categories represented 38.4% (n = 43) and 33.0% (n = 37), respectively. for the revised causal dimensions scale, the range of response scores was between 3 and 27. for locus of causality, the mean score was 17.11 (sd = 6.00). external control had a mean score of 13.71 (sd = 6.69), while the mean stability score was 12.28 (sd = 5.82). finally, personal control exhibited a mean score of 17.41 (sd = 6.20). correlations we first examined correlation coefficients between hypothesis-testing variables, the results of which are summarized in table 1. future likelihood was statistically significantly correlated with juvenile, adult, and lifetime legal involvement, r(110) = .24, p = .01, r(110) = .33, p = .000, and r(110) = .35, p = .000, respectively. all correlations were positive, suggesting a positive relationship between these variables. future likelihood was significantly and positively correlated with the stability element in mcauley et al.’s (1992) revised causal dimension scale, r(110) = .25, p = .007. this reflects a relationship between the belief in future legal involvement and the perception of surrounding environmental stability. in our case, it is likely that “stability” reflects a continuity of the conditions that surrounded incarceration, thus influencing future likelihood predictions in a positive correlational relationship. locus of causality was significantly correlated with adult and lifetime legal involvement, r(110) = .24, p = .01; r(110) = .20, p = .04, but not with juvenile legal involvement, r(110) = .14, p = .15. stability was significantly correlated with juvenile legal involvement, r(110) = .20, p = .03, and future likelihood, r(110) = .25, p = .01. perceptions of control and recidivism 396 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ personal control and external control were minimally correlated with legal involvement. personal control was only statistically significantly correlated with future likelihood, r(110) = -.22, p = .02, and external control was not statistically significantly correlated with any of the causal dimensions variables. some correlations are present between the various revised causal dimension scale elements, all of which reflect correlations measured by the original scale authors. our data showed a significant negative correlation between personal control and both external control and stability, r(110) = -.32, p = .001; r(110) = -.29, p = .002. there is a significant positive correlation between personal control and locus of causality, r(110) = .34, p = .000. these relationships reflect the statistically significant correlations between the same variables identified by the original authors at the p < .05 level. regression models linear regression and multiple linear regression analyses were used to build predictive models between our variables of interest (figure 1). to establish a measure of validity, we first checked our results for established age-crime relationships (rocque et al., 2015; shulman et al., 2013; u.s. department of justice, 2018). age was a significant predictor of adult legal involvement, β = .27, t(110) = 2.95, p = .004, accounting for an acceptable proportion of variance therein, r2 = .07, f(1, 110) = 8.67, p = .004. this offers some evidence that our results are in line with known relationships. table 1 correlations and p-values for study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. age — 2. lifetime legal involvement .195* (.040) — 3. adult legal involvement .225* (.017) .950**(.001) — 4. juvenile legal involvement -.091 (.341) .525** (.000) .303** (.001) — 5. future likelihood .057 (.552) .352** (.000) .334 (.000) .236* (.012) — 6. locus of causality .139 (.144) .200* (.035) .238* (.012) .067 (.482) .085 (.375) — 7. external control -.020 (.833) -.024 (.798) -.048 (.616) .068 (.476) .081 (.393) -.314** (.064) — 8. stability .134 (.159) .030 (.754) -.036 (.706) .201* (.033) .252** (.007) -.093 (.330) .176 (.064) — 9. personal control -.069 (.472) -.054 (.575) -.030 (.752) -.034 (.721) -.216* (.022) .343** (.000) -.316** (.001) -.286** (.002) — note. table entries are pearson's correlations for study variables with p-values in parentheses (n = 112) *p < .05. **p < .01. lightning & polage 397 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 path analysis model of associations between locus of control elements and legal involvement variables note. solid lines indicate statistically significant associations. dotted lines indicate insignificant relationships. *p < .05. **p < .01. predictive relationships between revised causal dimensions scale elements external control significantly predicts personal control, β = -.32, t(110) = -3.49, p = .001, and accounts for a modest proportion of the variance, r2 = .10, f(1, 110) = 12.18, p = .001. additionally, external control is significantly predictive of locus of causality, β = -.31, t(110) = -3.46, p = .001, and predicted a modest amount of variance, r2 = .10, f(1, 110) = 11.99, p = .001. personal control is individually predictive of stability, β = -.29, t(110) = -3.13, p = .002, but accounts for less of the variance compared to external control, r2 = .08, f(1, 110) = 9.97, p = .002. predictive relationships between locus of control elements and legal involvement variables stability significantly predicts juvenile legal involvement, β = .20, t(110) = 2.21, p = .03, but accounts for a small proportion of the variance, r2 = .04, f(1, 110) = 4.64, p = .03. juvenile involvement is significantly predictive of future likelihood, β = .24, t(110) = 2.54, p = .01, and accounts for a proportion of the variance in likelihood scores, r2 = .06, f(1, 110) = 6.47, p = .01, suggesting more juvenile involvement leads to viewing future legal involvement as more likely. a combined model of stability, personal control, and locus of causality is overall a statistically significant predictor of future likelihood (p = .004) and accounts for a significant proportion of the variance there, r2 = .12, f(1, 110) = 4.66, p = .004. stability and personal control were both significant predictors in this model individually, β = .21, t(110) = 2.19, p = .03; β = -.22, t(110) = -2.18, p = .03, with locus of causality approaching significance as an individual predictor, β = .18, t(110) = 1.86, p = .07. thus, higher stability and lower personal control scores significantly predict higher future likelihood scores. adult legal involvement is significantly predicted by locus of causality, future likelihood, and juvenile legal involve­ ment. a multiple linear regression containing all three predictors was statistically significant (p = .000) and accounted for a sizable proportion of variance in adult involvement, r2 = .20, f(1, 110) = 9.24, p = .000. locus of causality, β = .20, t(110) = 2.32, p = .02, future likelihood, β = .26, t(110) = 2.98, p = .004, and juvenile legal involvement, β = .23, t(110) = 2.57, p = .01, all provided significant contributions to the model. discussion a large majority of individuals who become incarcerated are likely to recidivate throughout life. up to 83% of released prisoners may be re-arrested or re-incarcerated within three years of release (u.s. department of justice, 2018). this problem is partially reflected in our correlation data, with a statistically significant positive correlation between both perceptions of control and recidivism 398 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lifetime and adult legal involvement when compared to age, suggesting that legal involvement increases throughout life for those who end up involved in the system. of course, the age-crime relationship tells us that legal involvement increases throughout life as more opportunity for criminality presents itself (rocque et al., 2015). this relationship is precisely why our correlations are informative. our results demonstrate that individuals are continuing to capitalize on those opportunities for criminality, rather than opting for non-criminal behaviors upon release from detention. literature both explores and acknowledging the socioeconomic stressors such as poverty, violence, addiction, and social contagion that influence this recidivism (abrams & snyder, 2010; dmitrieva et al., 2012; halliday & graham, 2000; han et al., 2001; lodewijks et al., 2010; nowicki et al., 2018; passini, 2012; richaud, 2013). these are important factors that merit investigation independently beyond the scope of this research. shulman et al. (2013) demonstrate a factor of independence from these socioeconomic factors in some of the data related to recidivism. this is important for our purposes in that it suggests locus of control can be related to recidivism without the need to use sociocultural variables as a mitigating step. the established predictive nature of the age-crime relationship in combination with the predictive nature of our results concerning elements of locus of control and criminality is particularly noteworthy. given that locus of control is an established interaction factor with inmate rehabilitation, measuring an offender’s locus of control and treating it as a predictor of future criminality may help identify those inmates with a higher priority need for intervention (asberg & renk, 2014; morgan & flora, 2002; page & scalora, 2004; van der helm et al., 2009). hypothesis evaluation our original hypothesis was only partially correct. the predications involving belief in the future likelihood of legal involvement were fully supported by the data. we accurately predicted a positive correlation between legal involvement and beliefs concerning future likelihood. further, the correlations between future likelihood and both stability and personal control suggest an externalizing locus of control related to belief in future likelihood. the statistically significant path model in figure 1 illustrates that locus of control may be predictive of increased criminality. our original hypothesis predicted that this relationship would exist in the opposite direction. while not in support of our original hypothesis, this result is in line with literature that indicated offenders have many opportunities to develop external locus of control prior to their incarceration based on stressful environmental factors (abrams & snyder, 2010; halliday & graham, 2000; nowicki et al., 2018; passini, 2012). the correlation between adult legal involvement and locus of causality was positive, indicating that more legal involvement reflected viewing the involvement as an aspect of personal quality (an internal locus of control trait). it is important to remember that the prompting scenario for the revised causal dimension scale scores asked participants to describe the overall cause for their legal involvement. this means that stability scores are reflective of how stable (i.e., unchanging) they believe that cause to be. thus, results suggest that the less changeable one perceives the causes of legal involvement to be, the more likely they will be to believe future involvement will occur. the positive correlation between stability and both juvenile involvement and future likelihood is also noteworthy. it suggests that individuals with greater juvenile involvement and those viewing future involvement as more likely display proportionate increases in stability scores, suggesting they view the causes of their legal involvement as more stable. together, these results point to a relationship between legal involvement, locus of causality, stability, and future likelihood. in an unexpected finding contradictory to our hypothesis, we identified a positive correlation between locus of causality and both adult and lifetime legal involvement. this suggests that those individuals with a greater number of legal involvement occurrences in adulthood are displaying proportionately higher locus of causality scores, and thus more internal locus of control traits. mcauley et al. (1992) noted a related positive correlation between locus of causality scores and stability scores during the development of the revised causal dimension scale. this may be because causes viewed as a part of oneself are generally viewed as more stable. in the context of legal involvement, a stable, unchanging cause reflected more external locus of control dimensions. however, viewing the cause as reflecting an aspect of the self rather than an aspect lightning & polage 399 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the situation, as was common among participants, is ultimately reflective of internal locus of control dimensionality. thus, we note that an increase in this variable appears to be more predictive of recidivism compared to a decrease when it specifically concerns causes for legal involvement. study limitations external control was not significantly correlated with any legal involvement variables, though it was negatively correlated with personal control. this may be due to several factors. take, for example, a personal control question in the scale asking whether the cause is something “you can regulate” or “you cannot regulate” versus an external control question asking if the cause is something “other people can regulate” or “other people cannot regulate” (mcauley et al., 1992). aligning a certain way on one of those scales does not necessarily mean that the other is not also true. combined, these factors may be producing the effect we saw in our data. this is an unfortunate limitation in our findings. it must therefore be noted as a potential weakness in this study model that future research on this topic may be able to mitigate. we did not record the gender of participants, and therefore were unable to include it as a variable in analysis. this was an unfortunate requirement of the irb which approved the study. we remain unclear regarding the necessity of this requirement, given that the role of an irb is to assess the risk involved in research with human subjects. women may have different pathways to criminality compared to men, and this may affect their locus of control in relation to the explored variables. the current study, unfortunately, may be masking these important relationships with the omission of gender data. this issue will be an important one to correct in future studies of this type. concerning statistical power, our sample size met requirements for at least a .85 power factor concerning linear regression analysis but fell short of the .85 power factor mark concerning parson’s r correlational analysis. it must be acknowledged that linear regression is dependent on the initial correlation between variables. therefore, it is notable that the small effect size of our pearson r correlations may have weakened any conclusions here. additionally, it remains important to acknowledge that the self-report data measurement method of this research is a notable weakness in terms of objective data accuracy. this is particularly true regarding reported juvenile legal involvement that may have been years behind the offender at the time of participation. we were not permitted to access records for the purposes of cross checking any self-reported information, as county jail inmates may be pre-trial, resulting in the protection of their personal records. conducting this research in prisons, where individuals have already been sentenced, or in a location with more accessible criminal records may be a partial solution in future studies. conclusions together, the correlations and regression models suggest that legal involvement increases with age and that factors of locus of control may predict increased legal involvement and other factors related to recidivism. results suggest a multifaceted relationship between locus of control and recidivism. the hypothesized direction of the relationship was incorrect, yet a predictive relationship still exists. together, the results of the regression analyses suggest that (a) identifying measurable scores on locus of control would allow for a prediction of how likely an individual believes future legal involvement is and (b) may allow for predictive identification of those at high risk for recidivism, which we defined as increased adult legal involvement. the significance of our data rests in the suggestion that high-recidivism individuals may already have elements of external locus of control when they enter the system. this may fuel a continuation in criminality. further, our correlations suggest that offenders view criminality as a personal attribute, yet still view the related life circumstances as unchangeable. linear regression analysis also provides evidence to support this latter portion, illustrating that such control-based orientations may be predictive of increased legal involvement in adulthood. together, these results suggest that addressing control orientations centered on life circumstances may be an effective strategy for offender rehabilitation. further research is necessary to properly evaluate this in a treatment-oriented setting. it is also possible that identifying those individuals with high stability and low personal control orientations related to these legal causes may serve as the first indicator to high recidivism risk. if these patterns could be identified while the offender still has relatively low legal involvement, they may be more likely to break the criminal cycle following perceptions of control and recidivism 400 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 391–402 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5997 https://www.psychopen.eu/ control orientation-based treatment. further research is needed to properly evaluate the efficacy of these speculations. nonetheless, our results provide an important foundation to these future rehabilitative directions. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no 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(2009). what works for juvenile prisoners: the role of group climate in a youth prison. journal of children’s services, 4(2), 36–48. https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200900011 about the authors anistasha h. lightning is an applied psychology and neuroscientific researcher interested in understanding how environmental factors shape human experiences, perceptions, and mental formations, with a particular focus on pathological development and treatment from this perspective. danielle polage is an associate professor of psychology at central washington university, ellensburg, united states. her general areas of interest include memory and applied cognitive psychology research as it pertains to law, eyewitness testimony, lying, and jury deliberation. perceptions of control and recidivism 402 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/s0006-3223(00)01095-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167292185006 https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2699.6.3.203 https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000102 https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/pages/delinquency-to-adult-offending.aspx https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.01.017 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1359-1789(03)00047-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2012.01.012 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034327 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118519639.wbecpx275 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.6.1137 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-9950-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2005.04.008 https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/18upr9yfup0514.pdf https://doi.org/10.1108/17466660200900011 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceptions of control and recidivism (introduction) perceptions of control and antecedents to recidivism behavioral disturbance, locus of control, and recidivism the current study method procedure participants materials results demographics power analysis descriptive statistics correlations regression models discussion hypothesis evaluation study limitations conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors gender differences in mother-child conversations about shame and pride in a hungarian sample research reports gender differences in mother-child conversations about shame and pride in a hungarian sample melinda pohárnok 1, andrás láng 1 [1] department of developmental and clinical psychology, institute of psychology, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 received: 2020-02-24 • accepted: 2020-09-02 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: flavia cangià, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland corresponding author: melinda pohárnok, institute of psychology, university of pécs, 7623, ifjúság útja 6, pécs, hungary. e-mail: poharnok.melinda@pte.hu abstract although meta-analytic reviews repeatedly found significant gender differences in the experiences of shame and pride throughout the life span, to date, gender differences in conversations about these emotions have not been studied. our research was aimed at investigating the effect of child gender on maternal conversational style in and emotional content of mother-child conversations about shameand pride-related past events in preschool years. fifty four mother—preschool child dyads (52% girls, children’s age m = 70.36 months [sd = 8.13], mothers’ age m = 37.51 years [sd = 3.70]) from middle class hungarian families were asked to talk about two past events, one in which children felt ashamed, and one in which they felt proud. the conversations were transcribed and coded for maternal conversational style and for emotional content. maternal conversational style was indicated by maternal elaboration and evaluation of the child’s contributions. emotional content was indicated by specific emotion terms, emotional behavior and emotional evaluations. in mother-son shame conversations, we found higher amount of negative emotional behavior. boys also had longer conversations with their mothers, and mothers used more open-ended memory questions and more repetitions with boys in both shame and pride conversations. girls had shorter contributions to pride stories than to shame stories, which was not the case for boys. exploration of verbal socialization of shame and pride helps us to understand the development of individual differences in proneness to self-conscious emotions, and their implications for mental health. keywords parent-child conversations, pride, shame, gendered socialization of emotions, conversational style, emotion words one arena of emotion socialization in the preschool period is the parent-child discussion of emotion-related events (brody, 1999). several studies found gender related differences in talking about basic negative and positive emotions, which influence gendered expression and experience of emotions later on (fivush & grysman, 2019 for a review). however, we are ignorant of any studies investigating gender differences in conversations about shame and pride in this salient age range for gender and emotion socialization. our purpose was to investigate gender-related differences in mother-child conversations about shame and pride, which might have implications for gender-differences in the experi­ ences and in the expression of these emotions in later childhood and adulthood (chaplin & aldao, 2013; else-quest, higgins, allison, & morton, 2012). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2859&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ shame and pride shame and pride—similarly to other self-conscious emotions, such as guilt and embarrassment—are human-specific emotional experiences that are evoked by self-reflection and self-appraisal (tangney & tracy, 2012). guilt and shame are both experienced in situations in which behavioral and/or moral standards are violated, and the individual expects that others will disapprove their action resulting in rejection or losing face (tangney & tracy, 2012). although these emotions are often referred to (and experienced) as interchangeable, theorists suggested several aspects by which they could be differentiated. lewis (1971) indicated that guilt is concerned with the negative evaluation of a specific behavior, and shame derives from the negative evaluation of the global self. olthof, ferguson, bloemers, and deij (2004) assumed that shame is linked to the threat of unwanted identity, and guilt arises from the individual’s perception of being involved in the causation of moral wrong. pride is evoked if we perceive that we achieved a socially valued outcome and we are valued as a person (mascolo & fischer, 1995). thereby pride not only enhances one’s self-worth, but maintains or even improves the person’s position in the social hierarchy (see tangney & tracey, 2012). with the advance of theory of mind children become increasingly aware of the fact that parents and significant others have expectations regarding their behavior, others evaluate them from an external perspective and they can generate emotional states in these others. this makes children more prone to experience guilt, shame and pride (lagattuta & thompson, 2007). lewis (2000) argued that beside conceiving of social rejection and acceptance, children also require the capacity of self-awareness—the ability to form a stable self-representation—and an increasing awareness of rules and norms to be able to experience self-conscious emotions. since complex cognitive attributional process and cognitive self-awareness are essential to experience these emo­ tions, the precursors and early manifestations of guilt, shame and pride cannot be seen earlier than 30–36 months (kochanska, gross, lin, & nichols, 2002; tracy, robins, & lagattuta, 2005). it should also be noted that children become only progressively capable of differentiating negative self-conscious emotions, and they become able to differentiate the meaning of the terms “guilt” and “shame” only from the end of the preschool period (olthof, schouten, kuiper, stegge, & jennekens-schinkel, 2000). gendered socialization of shame and pride emotional experience and emotional response are organized and modulated by gender related social norms and cul­ ture-specific beliefs about the appropriate and valued responses associated with affections in a given culture (ellemers, 2018). in western culture, women are stereotyped as experiencing more guilt, shame, and embarrassment, but less pride than men (plant, hyde, keltner, & devine, 2000). several research findings (e.g., ferguson & crowley, 1997; tangney, 1994) support the presumption that women are encouraged and therefore more liable to experience guilt and shame. ferguson and eyre (2000) argued that the socialization process, situational pressures, and the roles of men and women in the social hierarchy could affect women’s higher report of shame and guilt. gender roles and stereotypes suggest that women and girls are more interpersonally sensitive and therefore more threatened by the loss of love and more dependent on others' approvals (lewis, 1978; cit. ferguson & eyre, 2000). given this communal orientation of women and the fact that guilt arises from the individual’s belief that her behavior disadvantaged a loved one, it is not surprising that women are more susceptible to believe that they disadvantaged others without an acceptable reason. on the other hand, the traditional female roles are associated with lower social status and with interpersonal submission over dominance (ellemers, 2018). this may lead women to report (and/or experience) more shame than men, because of their feelings of passivity and helplessness that are internalized through gender-specific socialization. in contrast, men are seen through the lens of gender stereotypes as more achievement-oriented, autonomous and agentive, and as generally having greater status and power in relationships than women (haines, deaux, & lofaro, 2016). consequently, it can be expected that men would report lower guilt and shame, because disadvantaging others is more accepted from men in their competitive relationships. moreover, because of their higher status, men are less probable to encounter the threat of devaluation. ferguson and eyre (2000) summarized some supportive evidence that these differences are deeply rooted in the gender related socialization of self-conscious emotions. during the childhood years parents and other socialization pohárnok & láng 59 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ agents emphasize girls’ responsibility and blameworthiness for others' well-being, and girls receive more person-orien­ ted and psychologically oriented inductions, that are aimed at facilitating empathy and responsibility for other’s feelings (zahn-waxler, 1993; zahn-waxler & robinson, 1995). in a study examining parents’ evaluative behavior toward their 3 years old children in a problem-solving situation, alessandri and lewis (1993) found that parents gave more positive evaluations to boys and more negative evaluations to girls. mills, arbeau, lall, and de jaeger (2010) found that girls experienced more frequent shaming especially from mothers that increased with age between preschool and school age. current meta-analytic studies with different age groups point to the outcome of the previously mentioned socializa­ tion effects with finding that in both children and adult samples females experience more shame and guilt than men. else-quest et al. (2012) aimed to investigate the extent of gender differences in self-conscious experience and found that these gender differences were small but significant with regard to shame and guilt. studies investigating younger age groups—preschoolers, school-aged children, and adolescents—produced similar results. chaplin and aldao (2013) in their comprehensive meta-analytic review of gender differences found that girls showed more shame expression than boys especially in novel situations with non-familiar adults. in another study (mills et al., 2010) exploring shame responding in childhood and shame proneness in middle childhood, girls showed more shame than boys by school age. finally, girls—compared with boys—displayed higher levels of negative self-conscious emotions in a scenario-based study of shame and guilt at 9–13 years and at 13–18 years as well (muris et al., 2014). whereas there are small but consistent gender gaps in experiencing and expressing shame and guilt, the previously mentioned meta-analytic studies (chaplin & aldao, 2013; else-quest et al., 2012) did not find any significant differences between males and females in the experience of pride. in a qualitative review, brody (1999) described boys to minimize emotional expressions with some important exceptions: notably anger, pride, and contempt. men were also found to report more pride and feelings of success than women (brody, 1999). in theorizing about the gender differences in positive emotions, alexander and wood (2000) presumed that men experienced more self-oriented positive emotions (e.g., pride for own success) and women were more probable to feel other oriented positive emotions (e.g., joy for others’ success). parent-child conversations about emotional events parent-child conversations about emotions and past emotional events are arenas in which children acquire how to express and modulate their emotions, what kind of situational and behavioral antecedents and consequences typical emotions have (denham, bassett, & wyatt, 2010). what and how children learn about emotion are influenced by gender-related cultural norms that determine the appropriateness of emotional experiences and displays for males and females (root & denham, 2010). fivush (1989) proposed that in discussing past emotional events with children, mothers may encourage boys to engage in problem-solving and emotional control, and may encourage girls to focus on emotional states and sensitivity. parents’ socialization efforts aimed at facilitating detailed verbal expression of emotions in girls may be associated with a general stereotype in western culture, namely that reminiscing, especially emotional reminiscing is a stereotypically female activity (fivush & zaman, 2014). individual differences in parental conversational activity and facilitation can be conceptualized through elaboration. highly elaborative parents use many questions and statements that add new information to the ongoing narrative, and provide a great deal of evaluative feedback to the child, namely confirm and repeat the child’s utterances (reese & fivush, 1993). by confirming and praising their children, highly elaborative parents both encourage their children's participation and convey that this involvement is valued (fivush, haden, & reese, 2006). as a result, a more elaborative parental conversational style will lead to greater emotional understanding in children (laible, 2004a). studies found that mothers generally talk more and in a more elaborative conversational style about emotions with their daughters than with their sons (e.g., fivush, berlin, mcdermott sales, mennuti-washburn, & cassidy, 2003). this is especially true for submissive negative emotions: mothers discuss the emotional aspects of sad events more frequently with their daughters than with their sons (fivush, brotman, buckner, & goodman, 2000). moreover, mothers use a more elaborative conversational style when discussing sadness with their daughters—as compared to discussions of sadness with sons (reese & fivush, 1993; sales, fivush, & peterson, 2003). by contrast, stories involving anger and moral transgressions are discussed in a more elaborative way with sons as compared to daughters (bird & reese, 2006; fivush, gender differences in mother-child conversations 60 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1989). therefore, it might be concluded that mothers may encourage boys to have an elaborated understanding of anger and girls to have an elaborated understanding of sadness. this is in line with studies that suggest sadness to be a stereotypically female and anger to be a stereotypically male emotion (see plant et al., 2000 for a review). some studies however (e.g., laible, 2004b; laible, panfile murphy, & augustine, 2013) did not find significant associations between children’s gender and the quality of mother-child reminiscing, or found gender differences that were independent from the emotion discussed. in the studies of sales et al. (2003) and fivush et al. (2003), mothers were more elaborative with daughters, than with sons when discussing both positively and negatively valenced experience. this means that mothers more frequently told and asked for enriching new details in conversations with daughters and confirmed, negated or repeated girls’ utterances more frequently, but asked sons more close-ended questions—asked them to confirm or deny new information. authors assumed that boys’ decreased willingness and/or capacity to participate in reminiscing made mothers provide more structured questions to keep boys engaged. it could also be presumed that not just the conversational style of discussions about past events would be affected by the gender of the child, but the emotional content (i.e., the frequency of words or phrases referring to specific emotions or emotional behavior), and evaluative language would differ for boys and girls as well. however, research results are mixed. although fivush et al. (2000) found that parents discussed the causes of sadness in more length with daughters than with sons, they did not find gender differences in discussing the causes of happy, angry or scared feelings, nor in the explicit use of emotion words in emotion conversations. bird and reese (2006) found that in past event conversations girls referred more often to their negative emotions and used more external evaluation of themselves or other people. similarly, the previously mentioned study of fivush et al. (2000) showed that girls used more emotion words when talking about scary events. in contrast, laible et al. (2013) found that gender was not significantly correlated with maternal or child discussion of emotions, causes of emotions and coping when mothers and their 42 to 48 months old children discussed an event in which the child experienced a negative emotion. these contradictory results could be explained if we take into consideration the analyzed aspect of reminiscing, the age group under investigation, and the intensity of the emotion discussed. for example, in a study applying a detailed coding of conversational style, reese and fivush (1993) found that mothers are more elaborative with daughters than with sons between 40 and 70 months of age, but using a global coding of elaboration, zaman and fivush (2013) did not find differences in maternal elaborative style as a function of child’s gender. in the use of emotion words in the discussion of sad events, adams, kuebli, boyle, and fivush (1995) found that there were significant differences favoring daughters at 40 months, but there were no differences at 70 months of age. the intensity of distress might also influence the effect of gender. when discussing a highly emotional event—an emergency room visit (peterson, sales, reese, & fivush, 2006) or intensely positive and negative events in general (fivush & wang, 2005)—authors were unable to find gender-related differences in maternal elaboration. fivush and zaman (2014) concluded that activation of gender specific attitudes and behaviors, activation of gender schema is a flexible process. contexts, such as the age of the child, and the content of the emotional event, activate gender-related cognitions, but other contexts put them into the shade. to sum up the previous findings we can conclude that narrating emotions is connected to culturally stereotyped gender norms (grysman & hudson, 2013) and parents socialize their daughters to focus more on emotions in general and sadness in particular (fivush & grysman, 2019). as a result, girls and women report experiencing submissive negative emotions more frequently and intensely than do boys and men (chaplin & aldao, 2013). gender stereotyping studies (brody, 1999; plant et al., 2000; roberts & goldenberg, 2007) also found that pride was more strongly associated with men than with women. however, alessandri and lewis (1993) were unable to observe this gender difference in children as young as 3 years of age. we are ignorant of any investigation of gender differences in mother-child conversations about shame and pride in preschool children. this paucity of research is highly interesting because it is the end of the preschool period when children begin to fully understand self-conscious emotions including shame and pride (olthof et al., 2000). this is also a salient period of gender and emotion socialization (brody, 1999; root & denham, 2010). in the investigated age range the effect of parental gender role socialization and childrens’ emerging gender ster­ eotyping may amplify small or negligible gender differences in emotion expression of shame and pride (else-quest et al., 2012). based on the above rationale, we designed our study to fill this gap in investigating mother-child conversations about shame and pride in preschoolers. pohárnok & láng 61 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aim of the study the major purpose of our study was to examine how mothers socialize their sons and daughters to discuss and understand shame and pride. previous studies found gender differences in maternal conversational style and emotional content in discussing events related to basic positive and negative emotions (e.g., fivush et al., 2000). we were interested in whether we can find these differences in conversational style and in the emotional content when mother-child dyads discussed events involving shame and pride that are not basic, but self-conscious positive and negative emotions. based on the gender-stereotypes and gender related socialization of the emotions of shame and guilt (see ferguson & eyre, 2000), we assumed that mothers would discuss shame related events in more detail (i.e., we expected longer conversations) with daughters than with sons, and use a more elaborative conversational style with daughters than with sons. it means that mothers were expected to give and ask for more new details—elaborative statements—and praise their daughters’ participations with more frequent use of confirmation and repetition of child’s utterances. in addition, we assumed that mother-daughter conversations would be richer in emotional content. mother-child dyads were expected to use more reference to emotion, emotional behavior and emotional evaluation in shame-conversations, than mothers and sons. given the scarce evidence regarding gender differences in experiencing pride, we made no strong predictions, but we assumed that maternal conversational style and emotional content would not show any significant differences between mother-son and mother-daughter pride-conversations. the rationale for formulating this hypothesis comes from the following. if gender differences in shame stories are absent in pride stories, we would consider this to be an evidence for emotion-specific gender differences as opposed to general gender differences in emotion socialization. further, sales and colleagues (2003) found that negative events were discussed in a more elaborative way and with more detailed emotional content. therefore, as a second goal, we wanted to investigate whether shame-conversations (as recollection of a negative event where the self is negatively appraised) would be more elaborated and contained more references to emotions than pride-conversations (as recollection of a positive event where the self is positively appraised). method participants participants were 54 mother-child dyads (28 girls, 26 boys) from low-risk, middle class families living in three mid-sized hungarian towns. children were healthy and typically developing. they ranged in age between 50 and 88 months with an average age of 70.36 months (sd = 8.13 months). mothers’ age ranged from 28 to 45 years with an average age of 37.51 years (sd = 3.70). fifty-seven percent of the mothers had high-school education, 43 percent of the mothers had college or university degrees. mothers and their children mostly lived in two-parent families (9.5% lived in single parent families). using ibm spss (version 22) for windows, statistical analyses were done in order to check whether girls and boys differed on any demographic variable. results of one-way analyses of variance (anovas) and a χ2-test revealed that there was no significant difference between girls and boys with regard to their age, f(1, 52) = 0.524, p = .472, to their mothers’ age, f(1, 52) = 1.974, p = .166, and to their mothers’ level of education, χ2(3) = 1.190, p = .755. informed consent was obtained from all participating mothers in the study, and no monetary compensation was offered in exchange for participation. however, the children got a small gift after completing the conversations. after completing the conversation both participants were thanked for their time and debriefed. this study was approved by the united ethical review committee for research in psychology according to the guidelines of the hungarian psychological society (reference number: 45/2015). procedure participants were recruited in seven preschools through flyers and personal contact through preschool teachers to take part in a study about how parents and children discuss the emotional experiences of the child. we used the structured narrative co-construction protocol (fivush & grysman, 2019) to get conversations of emotional events. female research gender differences in mother-child conversations 62 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ assistants visited the mother-child pairs in their homes. during the home visit, the mother and the child were asked to jointly recall two types of events: one in which the child was ashamed, and one in which the child felt proud. the order of telling the emotional events and the selection of what kind of shameand pride-events to tell, were decided by the member of the pairs. there were no time restraints and the parents were asked to discuss the events as naturally as if they would if the topic came up in everyday conversations. after informing the mother-child pair about the conversations and how to record the conversations, the assistant left them alone in a room, and asked them to call her when they finished. all conversations were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. coding coding of the two types of conversations (shame and pride) was conducted in three phases, in order to capture different aspects of the dialogues. the conversations were firstly cleared and only event talk and associative talk—“spinoff” comments related to the event—were involved in later analyses. in the second phase, maternal conversational style was coded using a system adopted from reese and fivush (1993). in the third phase, the occurrence of emotional content was counted. the second and third phases are detailed below. coding units and maternal conversational style event talk and associative talk were segmented into coding units, each consists of a subject-verb construction with a unique or implied verb. the total number of coding units, and the number of maternal and child coding units were counted. in the next step, each coding unit was given an elaboration or an evaluation code. twenty five percent of the conversations were coded by the first author and independent research assistants unaware of research aims. all parent and child coding units were combined across the shame and pride conversations to compute a reliability score for each elaboration and evaluation code. interrater reliability was calculated by intraclass-correlation coefficient (icc). all discrepancies were discussed between the coders before proceeding. the remaining conversations were coded by the first author. definitions for coding units and maternal conversational style and coding reliability can be seen in table 1. table 1 definitions and coding reliability for coding units and maternal conversational style coding unit and maternal conversational style code definition interrater reliability icc 95% ci total number of cu’s subject-verb construction with a unique or implied verb (independent clause as proposational unit) .92 [.90, .94] maternal cu’s independent clauses told by the mother .90 [.86, .94] child cu’s independent clauses told by the child .93 [.90, .96] maternal elaborations open-ended memory questions mother asks the child to provide a piece of new memory information about an event .95 [.93, .97] close-ended memory questions mother asks questions requiring to confirm or deny a piece of information, or gives a statement including a question tag in order to get confirmation .92 [.89, .95] statement mother gives a statement that provides the child with new information .94 [.90, .98] maternal evaluations confirmation mother confirms the child previous utterance .71 [.65, .77] repetition mother repeats the gist or exact content of a previous utterance of the child .85 [.81, .89] note. icc = intraclass-correlation coefficient; cu = coding units. pohárnok & láng 63 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional contents in order to examine how participants explicitly or implicitly referred to emotions, each word referring to specific emotion, emotional behavior and emotional evaluation of the actors or events was counted. definitions for emotional content and coding reliability can be seen in table 2. table 2 definitions and coding reliability for emotional contents emotional content category/emotional content subcategory interrater reliability exampleicc 95% ci specific emotion positive .74 [48.65, 92.95] happy, was a good feeling negative .78 [48.95, 94.28] sad, felt sorry emotional behavior positive .88 [67.48, 96.55] laughed, kissed negative .84 [59.67, 95.78] cried, hurted emotional evaluation positive .82 [53.70, 95.27] of the child: “you were brave” of others’: “they were nice” negative .96 [88.35, 98.89] of the child: “you were nasty” of others’: “they were mean” note. icc = intraclass-correlation coefficient. statistical analysis two-way mixed effects, single measurement intraclass correlation coefficients (iccs) were calculated as indices of interrater reliability. following the guidelines of portney and watkins (2000), we interpreted icc values less than .5 as indicative of poor reliability, values between .5 and .75 as indicative of moderate reliability, values between .75 and .9 as indicative of good reliability, and values greater than .9 as indicative of excellent reliability. mean (m) and standard deviation (sd) were calculated for each variable for descriptive purposes. to test the effects of gender, story type, and story type by gender interactions on the frequency of coded content, we used mixed-method anovas. because each mother-child dyad had conversations about both shame and pride events, we used story type as a within-subject effect. gender was used as a between-subject effect. in order to further elaborate on results—especially in the case of significant story type by gender interaction, further repeated measure (for comparing shame and pride stories) or one-way (for comparing boys’ and girls’ conversations) anovas were run. although the level of significance was set at .05, we also report results as marginally significant at the level of .1. partial η2 was used to indicate effect size. according to cohen (1988), values of .01, .06, and .14 indicate small, medium, and large effects, respectively. statistical analyses were done with ibm spss (version 22) for windows. results first, we calculated iccs to test interrater reliability of coding. results are presented in table 1 and table 2. according to these results, all codes showed good to excellent reliability, except for confirmation. the reliability of confirmation slightly fall below the level of good reliability. this might have been due to coders’ ambiguous interpretation of contentless confirmatory utterances such as “uh-uh” or “uhm.” next, we analyzed potential effects of conversation type (shame vs. pride conversations), gender, and conversation type by gender interaction on the emotional content of the stories. to do so, we used repeated measures anovas with conversation type as a within-subject factor and gender as a between-subject factor. descriptive data for emotional gender differences in mother-child conversations 64 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ contents’ frequency by conversation type and gender and the results of repeated measures anovas are shown in table 3. table 3 effects of story type, gender and story type by gender interaction on the frequency of emotional contents—descriptive data and results of repeated measures anovas emotional content shame story pride story total f(1, 52) (partial η2) m sd m sd mestimated se story type gender story type by gender specific emotions total 11.253** (.178) 0.780 (.015) 0.500 (.010) boys 1.58 1.98 0.69 0.97 1.14 0.24 girls 2.11 2.49 0.75 0.93 1.43 0.23 total 1.85 2.25 0.72 0.94 positive 4.598* (.081) 0.259 (.005) 0.207 (.004) boys 0.19 0.40 0.58 0.76 0.39 0.09 girls 0.32 0.72 0.57 0.84 0.45 0.08 total 0.26 0.59 0.57 0.79 negative 27.385*** (.345) 0.631 (.012) 0.378 (.007) boys 1.39 1.75 0.12 0.43 0.75 0.21 girls 1.79 2.27 0.18 0.48 0.98 0.20 total 1.59 2.02 0.15 0.45 emotional behaviour total 25.792*** (.332) 3.755 (.067) 16.082*** (.236) boys 4.04 3.77 1.00 2.08 2.52 0.41 girls 1.61 1.71 1.25 1.48 1.43 0.39 total 2.78 3.11 1.13 1.78 positive 6.337* (.109) 0.320 (.006) 1.211 (.023) boys 0.65 1.16 0.96 1.91 0.81 0.21 girls 0.25 0.59 1.04 1.37 0.64 0.20 total 0.44 0.93 1.00 1.64 negative 55.331*** (.516) 7.128* (.121) 13.329** (.204) boys 3.390 2.94 0.04 0.20 1.71 0.25 girls 1.36 1.62 0.21 0.57 0.79 0.24 total 2.33 2.54 0.13 0.44 emotional evaluation total 4.124* (.073) 0.121 (.002) 0.323 (.006) boys 2.23 1.99 3.50 3.09 2.87 0.35 girls 2.68 2.47 3.39 2.51 3.04 0.34 total 2.46 2.24 3.44 2.78 positive 56.131*** (.519) < 0.001 (< .001) 0.808 (.015) boys 0.39 0.80 3.39 2.80 1.89 0.28 girls 0.71 1.18 3.07 2.34 1.89 0.27 total 0.56 1.02 3.22 2.55 negative 42.094*** (.447) 0.408 (.008) 0.029 (.001) boys 1.85 1.64 0.12 0.59 0.98 0.18 girls 1.96 1.88 0.32 0.72 1.14 0.18 total 1.91 1.75 0.22 0.66 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. pohárnok & láng 65 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to specific emotions, pride conversations contained significantly more positive specific emotions than shame conversations. shame conversations contained significantly more negative specific emotions than pride stories. the frequency of overall specific emotions was higher in shame stories than in pride stories. from the three above-men­ tioned results, we might infer that shame stories contained significantly more negative specific emotions compared to positive specific emotions in pride stories. the result of a repeated measures anova supported the above inference, f(1, 53) = 11.736, p < .005, partial η2 = .181; for means and sds see table 3. with regard to emotional behavior, a significant story type by gender interaction effect was found on the frequency of emotional behaviors in total and for negative emotional behaviors as well. to be able to better interpret these interactions we used repeated measures anovas separately for the subsamples of boys and girls. we found that boys’ stories of shame contained significantly more overall emotional behaviors than their stories of pride, f(1, 25) = 25.759, p < .001, partial η2 = .507; for means and sds see table 3. for girls, stories of shame didn’t significantly differ from stories of pride with respect to total frequency of emotional behaviors, f(1, 27) = 1.199, p = .283, partial η2 = .043; for means and sds see table 3. using the same statistical analyses for negative emotional behaviors revealed that the above-mentioned interaction effect on overall emotional behaviors was predominantly due to negative emotional behaviors. stories of shame contained significantly more negative emotional behaviors than their stories of pride for boys as well as for girls, f(1, 25) = 37.154; p < .001; partial η2 = .598 for boys; f(1, 27) = 16.615, p < .001, partial η2 = .381 for girls; for means and sds see table 3. effect size was smaller for girls. analyzing the effect of gender on negative emotional behaviors with anovas separately for shame and pride stories revealed what follows. whereas the amount of negative emotional behaviors was the same in pride stories for boys and for girls, f(1, 52) = 2.240, p = .141; for means and sds see table 3, shame stories of boys contained significantly more negative emotional behaviors than the shame stories of girls, f(1, 52) = 10.055, p < .005; for means and sds see table 3. with respect to positive emotional behaviors, pride stories contained significantly more positive emotional behaviors than shame stories. with regard to emotional evaluations, pride stories contained significantly more positive emotional evaluations than shame stories. shame stories contained significantly more negative emotional evaluations than pride stories. the frequency of overall emotional evaluations was higher in pride stories than in shame stories. from the three above-mentioned results, we might infer that pride stories contained significantly more positive emotional evaluations compared to negative emotional evaluations in shame stories. the result of a repeated measures anova supported the above inference, f(1, 53) = 9.237, p < .005, partial η2 = .148; for means and sds see table 3. next, we analyzed the potential effects of story type (shame vs. pride stories), gender, and story type by gender interaction on the frequency of coding units and indices of maternal conversational style with the same statistical procedure as described above. descriptive data for the frequency of coding units and indices of maternal conversational style by story type and gender along with the results of repeated measures anovas are shown in table 4. table 4 effects of story type, gender and story type by gender interaction on the frequency of coding units and maternal conversational style codes— descriptive data and results of repeated measures anovas coding unit and maternal conversational style code shame story pride story total f(1, 52) (partial η2) m sd m sd mestimated se story type gender story type by gender coding units total 3.235# (.059) 4.1157* (.074) 2.331 (.043) boys 48.23 21.06 47.35 24.93 47.79 3.59 girls 43.04 25.64 32.21 14.03 37.63 3.46 total 45.54 23.47 39.50 21.25 gender differences in mother-child conversations 66 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ coding unit and maternal conversational style code shame story pride story total f(1, 52) (partial η2) m sd m sd mestimated se story type gender story type by gender mother 3.655# (.066) 2.601 (.048) 1.607 (.030) boys 30.69 14.88 29.23 17.16 29.96 2.71 girls 27.50 20.84 20.29 9.50 23.89 2.61 total 29.04 18.12 24.59 14.33 child 1.828 (.034) 6.287* (.108) 3.128# (.057) boys 17.58 8.05 18.12 10.03 17.85 1.35 girls 15.18 8.34 11.14 6.74 13.16 1.30 total 16.33 8.21 14.50 9.11 maternal elaborations open-ended memory questions 0.073 (.001) 4.172* (.074) 0.296 (.006) boys 5.23 3.45 5.65 4.61 5.44 0.62 girls 3.75 3.33 3.61 3.32 3.68 0.60 total 4.46 3.44 4.59 4.09 close-ended memory questions 2.496 (.046) 3.004# (.055) 0.225 (.004) boys 7.85 6.23 6.92 5.04 7.39 0.80 girls 6.32 5.10 4.61 3.80 5.46 0.77 total 7.06 5.67 5.72 4.55 statements 1.081 (.020) 0.085 (.002) 0.350 (.007) boys 6.77 7.37 6.31 5.21 6.54 1.02 girls 6.96 8.11 5.29 4.25 6.13 0.98 total 6.87 7.69 5.78 4.72 maternal evaluations confirmations 1.024 (.019) 0.025 (< .001) 1.985 (.037) boys 0.81 1.27 1.46 2.37 1.14 0.28 girls 1.25 1.71 1.14 1.41 1.20 0.27 total 1.04 1.52 1.30 1.92 repetitions 1.757 (.033) 6.186* (.106) 0.178 (.003) boys 2.46 2.30 2.23 1.90 2.35 0.30 girls 1.54 1.35 1.11 1.40 1.32 0.29 total 1.98 1.91 1.65 1.74 #p < .1. *p < .05. according to the results with respect of the length of conversations (as indicated by the frequency of coding units), shame stories were marginally significantly longer and contained marginally significantly more maternal contributions than pride stories. stories of boys were significantly longer than stories of girls. a marginally significant story type by gender interaction effect on the length of children’s contributions was revealed. comparing length of child contributions separately in the subsamples of boys and girls with repeated measures anovas showed what follows. for boys, the length of their own contributions didn’t significantly differ in shame and pride stories, f(1, 25) = 0.062, p = .806, partial η2 = .002; for means and sds see table 4. girls made significantly shorter contributions to pride stories than to shame stories, f(1, 27) = 7.540, p < .05, partial η2 = .218; for means and sds see table 4. with respect to maternal elaborations, mothers used significantly more open-ended memory questions and margin­ ally significantly more close-ended memory questions with boys than with girls. with regard to maternal evaluations, mothers used significantly more repetitions with boys than with girls. neither story type nor the story type by gender interaction had a significant effect on maternal elaborations and evaluations. pohárnok & láng 67 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in this study, we explored how mothers discuss shame experiences and pride experiences with their 4–6 years old daughters and sons. the results indicated gender differences in some aspects of the conversations, although in the opposite direction than it was expected. mothers generally tended to discuss both self-conscious emotions in a more elaborated way with their sons than with their daughters. effects of the conversation type (shame vs. pride) were also found, but the effects of conversation type and gender were in mixed directions depending on the outcome variable. first, we found that shame conversations contained more negative specific emotions, and pride conversations contained more positive specific emotions. this result was not surprising because words referring to specific emotions might have reflected the positive and negative emotional valence of pride and shame stories, respectively. former studies also found higher proportion of positive emotion than negative emotion in the positive event conversations, and higher proportion of negative emotion than positive emotion in negative event conversations (e.g., sales et al., 2003). these results also confirmed that the prompting of the stories was successful: the dyads discussed more positive feelings related to pride, and more negative feelings related to shame. more interestingly mothers and children told more specific emotions in total (i.e., independent of valence) in shame stories than in pride stories. compared to positive emotion words in pride stories the number of specific negative emotion words was higher in shame stories. this result corresponds with previous results of mother-child conversations about negative and positive events, which found that the discourse between mothers and children in the negative event conversations was richer in emotions than in the positive event conversations (e.g., laible, 2011; sales et al., 2003). although in sales et al.’s (2003) or laible’s (2011) studies the emotional richness reflected more references to causes of emotions in the negative stories, and the number of emotional terms was not higher in negative stories, in our study participants referred more frequently to specific emotions—especially to specific negative emotions –in shame stories. according to edelstein and shaver’s (2007) review about the lexical representation of self-conscious emotions, in western individualistic cultures shame is categorized as either a subcategory of sadness or fear as superordinate emotions. the representation of shame depends on the culture’s emphasis on shame as an experience and whether it is linked more with the individual’s negative affections—regret, remorse—after doing something inappropriate or with the anxiety or ambivalence about committing a particular transgression. it could be argued that in discussing events related to negative self-conscious emotions, mothers and children may refer to negative emotions associated to shame-experience to understand the negative aspects of shame. basic emotions of sadness and fear are conceived of as developmentally earlier than self-conscious emotions (e.g., bretherton & beeghly, 1982), and children between 3–5 years are already able to categorize pride with positive emotions and shame, guilt, and embarrassment with negative emotions (e.g., lagattuta & thompson, 2007). mothers may scaffold the child’s emerging emotional understanding by anchoring the feeling of shame and guilt to other salient negative emotions—such as sadness and fear. here it should be noted that prompting shame-conversations was at one side successful, because mother-child dyads talked about events that were related to negative self-conscious emotions, but on the other hand, most of the conversations were rather about guilt than shame. the topics of shame/guilt events were mostly breaches of decorum (e.g., saying naughty/dirty words); hurting others; damaging objects; and in a smaller extent threat of unwanted identity in face of peers (e.g., unintentional soiling; failure in peer activity). it is not surprising however, if we consider the age of the children. in the preschool years, shame and guilt are intermingled in experience, and children have difficulties in differentiating them (olthof at el., 2004). shame-stories in our study therefore were more often associated to moral transgressions than to the child’s appraisal of the self as fundamentally defective (lewis, 1971). therefore, sadness caused for example by the child’s aggressive behavior and fear of expected punishment and/or fear of rejection by the parent occurred as well. on the other hand, it should also be taken into account that parents report using conversations about emotions to facilitate the acquisition of social norms (kulkofsky, wang, & koh, 2009). perhaps guilt-events were more salient for mothers and children, and discussing moral transgressions might have been emotionally less painful. it could have been also easier for the mother to perceive the child’s guilt that could have been linked to more transparent breaches of moral norms, than to perceive the child’s shame that could have been associated with the mothers’ own disapproval or rejection of the child, or with the child’s experience of shame in face of peers—which is usually more difficult for mothers to perceive. gender differences in mother-child conversations 68 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with regard to emotional behaviors, we found that shame stories contained more negative emotional behaviors than the stories of pride, irrespective of the child’s gender. further, shame stories of boys contained significantly more negative emotional behaviors than the shame stories of girls. tangney and dearing (2002) in their review concluded that when describing personal shame and guilt experiences preschool aged children were more likely to mention visible and concrete behaviors, such as hitting a sibling, damaging an object, or disobeying parents, than less visible failures and transgressions. this is in line with our results, because in our study negative emotional behaviors referred to visible negative behavioral antecedents of shame/guilt (e.g., hurting someone) and the consequences of breaking the rules (e.g., parental physical punishment). the results also showed that this emphasis on the behavioral aspects of shame/guilt is more intense in boys than in girls. with regard to triggering events, mothers and sons identified aggressive moral transgressions as leading to shame/guilt more frequently. with regard to consequences, the results could have also reflected the more intense externalization tendencies of boys. as a reaction to shame/guilt, they showed more anger than girls—as previously described by muris and meesters (2014)—and this anger was controlled by the parent in the case of sons at the behavioral level as well. parents with traditional attitudes toward gender roles usually use physical punishment more frequently with boys (endendijk, groeneveld, bakermans-kranenburg, & mesman, 2016) and this could have been expressed by the greater number of negative emotional behavior words in the shame-stories of boys. alternatively, this result can be explained by previous findings that pointed to the fact that anger as a basic emotion was discussed more deeply and in a more detailed way with boys than with girls (e.g., bird & reese, 2006). as previously mentioned, anger was intensely related to shame/guilt in most of the conversations in our study. with regard to emotional evaluations, also these results reflected the emotional valence of the stories: pride stories contained significantly more positive emotional evaluations than shame stories. interestingly however, the frequency of overall emotional evaluations was higher in pride stories than in shame stories, and pride stories contained significantly more positive emotional evaluations compared to negative emotional evaluations in shame stories. this might suggest that whereas the experience of shame/guilt could be best elaborated by the help of referring to the internal state of the experiencer and to behaviors that elicit or follow shame/guilt, negative evaluations are avoided by parents. this could be the result of parents’ willingness to protect the child’s face and the parent-child relationship in the conversations by the use of less negative appraisals in shame/guilt stories. expanding the meaning of shame/guilt experiences by the means of devaluing negative emotional evaluations would humiliate the child in the reminiscing situation. this speculation is in line with the general assumption about the aversive nature of shame/guilt experiences in most european cultures (edelstein & shaver, 2007). the other side of this emotionally supportive parental attitude could have been represented in the result that parents used more frequent positive evaluations—praise—when expanding the meaning of pride. this corresponds with the major theories of socialization of pride that point to the role of parental praise and approval (lagattuta & thompson, 2007). consequently, it can be speculated that in shame/guilt stories the use of specific emotion words and references to emotional behaviors serve the processes of emotional understanding. negative emotional evaluations may be more related to the affective aspects of the parent-child relationship, therefore parents use them more cautiously in elaborating on shame/guilt events. considering the length of conversations, we found that shame stories were marginally significantly longer and contained marginally significantly more maternal contributions than pride stories. talking more about an emotion could implicate that the members of the dyad—and especially the mother—find it important to learn/teach more about nature of shame/guilt and how to cope with these feelings (fivush et al., 2000). this process of teaching/learning about emotions could be especially significant for boys, since we found that stories of sons were significantly longer than stories of daughters, irrespective of the emotion under discussion, and it was due to greater participation of sons (and not mothers). we might argue that mothers grabbed the opportunity—as expressed by more maternal elaboration and evaluation as discussed later—to talk about emotion-laden events with their sons in this laboratory situation. if future research proves this suggestion to be valid, it could mean that boys are at least as open to discuss emotions as girls. previously observed gender differences (e.g., fivush et al., 2003) might rather be interpreted in terms of motivation or adherence to social norms than in terms of socioemotional competencies. we might speculate that in adhering to social expectations, mothers—and maybe their sons—actively avoid situations where emotions could be discussed. a marginally significant story type by gender interaction showed that boys made the same amount of contribution to shame stories as to pride stories, whereas girls made significantly shorter contributions to pride stories than to pohárnok & láng 69 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ shame stories. investigating girls and boys display of shame related behavior, alessandri and lewis (1993) found that 3–6 year-old girls displayed more shame-relevant behaviors after failure. if this means that girls are socialized more to experience shame/guilt and are more skilled in expressing them in daily interactions, there is no need to an intense support of teach about the emotions in the emotional conversations, as it is in the case of boys. a similar gender specific tendency can be observed in pride stories, in which boys’ contribution was significantly higher than girls’. brody (1999) in her review summarized findings in which men report more pride and this may reflect their higher status and higher self-esteem. we could argue that former socialization experiences of boys lead them to show a more intense participation in pride-conversations, because they are taught to be more skilled to verbalize pride experiences, than girls. with respect to maternal elaborations and evaluations, we found that mothers used significantly more open-ended memory questions and marginally significantly more close-ended memory questions with boys than with girls, and mothers used significantly more repetitions with boys than with girls. this means that irrespective of the emotion discussed, mothers provide more structured questions and use more motivation with boys than with girls. this is in line with sales et al.’s (2003) findings and we share their assumption that boys’ decreased willingness and/or capacity to participate in reminiscing might make parents use this more directive and motivating narrative style to keep their sons engaged in conversation. besides the tempting results, several limitations of the study must be acknowledged. language and communication are highly influenced by sociocultural and sociodemographic background (otto, 2006). results of statistical analyses further confirmed that girls and boys did not significantly differ with regard to their own age and to their mothers’ age or level of education. thus, our homogenous sample made it possible to draw specific conclusions about the role of the gender per se. however, the homogeneity of our sample prevents us to generalize our findings to mother-child dyads coming from different sociodemographic background. further studies should clarify whether our findings apply to dyads from, for example, economically disadvantaged environments or from psychologically vulnerable groups, for example, children at risk for mental disorders. emotions and their functions are interpreted in different ways in different cultures, thus, the cross-cultural general­ izability of our findings is highly questionable. although cultural differences in the meaning of shame and guilt in other european languages have been already published (e.g., olthof et al., 2004 for dutch), there has not been any research about the cognitive representation of shame and guilt in hungarian, yet. in the everyday practice when parents in hungary use the formula “ezért most szégyellheted magad!” (“you should be ashamed because of this!”) the preceding event is a violation of an external standard, and the parent intend to induce negative self-conscious emotion relevant to the situation—whether it should be shame or guilt. the conceptual overlap of shame, embarrassment and guilt in hungary could have affected how children and mothers interpreted the instruction and chose the event to tell. the function that parents attribute to parent-child conversations about past events is culturally varied as well. zevenbergen, haman, and olszańska (2012) found significant differences between east-european (polish) and us mothers’ reports on the reasons of reminiscing. polish mothers emphasized the differentiation of morally good from morally bad in the polish sample. presumed the cultural and historical similarities between hungary and poland, we suppose that our results could be influenced by these underlying beliefs about the functions of emotional reminiscing. although previous studies with similar paradigm analyzed parental and child conversational style separately, we decided to analyze maternal conversational style only. we did this because children’s participation in conversations at this age is highly organized and influenced by adults’ scaffolding (haden, haine, & fivush, 1997). thus, we assumed that children’s conversational style would rather be the reflection of maternal conversational style than the independent characteristic of the children themselves. further studies should check whether this assumption could be empirically supported. another limitation could be the fact that we coded emotional contents in general, irrespective of the source of contri­ bution. because maternal and child contributions were not coded separately, it is difficult to determine which partner’s participation contributed more to the results. at the same time, it depends on the outcome of the conversation—that is a bidirectional and reciprocal activity—how the child organizes her knowledge about experiencing and expressing an emotion (laible, 2004a). therefore, it might make more sense to code and interpret emotional content irrespective of contributor, as we did it in our study. gender differences in mother-child conversations 70 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://www.psychopen.eu/ last—but not least—only mother-child dyads and no father-child dyads participated in our study. although in the hungarian culture—just like in other societies with more conservative gender ideologies—mothers are more intensely involved in socialization processes (murinkó, 2014), we are reluctant to conclude that a replication of this study with fathers would lead to the same results. what makes us reluctant is the fact that the gendered nature of emotion socialization might not only affect children but parents as well. future research should take not only child gender, but parent gender into account as well. investigation of verbal socialization of shame and pride helps us to understand the sociocultural aspects of the devel­ opment of self-conscious emotions and the individual differences in proneness to shame and proneness to pride. since shame and pride are self-evaluative emotions and both are related to the vicissitudes of self-esteem their investigation has an implication for mental health. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the preparation of this manuscript was supported by the european union, co-financed by the european social fund. comprehensive development for implementing smart specialization strategies at the university of pécs. grant number: efop-3.6.1.-16-2016-00004. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adams, s., kuebli, j., boyle, p. a., & fivush, r. 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(2012). middle-class polish and american mothers’ beliefs regarding parent-child narratives. journal of cross-cultural psychology, 43(6), 979-998. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111416005 pohárnok & láng 73 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 58–74 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2859 https://doi.org/10.1353/mpq.2010.0001 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-013-0137-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9817-z https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930341000077 https://doi.org/10.1348/026151000165562 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1314 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2000.tb01024.x https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.29.3.596 https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.265 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327647jcd0402_03 https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.3.251 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579400004272 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-013-0270-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111416005 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors melinda pohárnok, phd is an assistant professor of developmental and clinical psychology in the institute of psychology, universi­ ty of pécs (pécs, hungary). her main fields of research interest include narrative psychology, early social and emotional development and emotion socialization. andrás láng, phd is an associate professor of developmental and clinical psychology in the institute of psychology, university of pécs (pécs, hungary). his main fields of research interest include personality disorders, dark personality traits, and moral emotions. he is the co-author of several papers as an expert in statistical analyses. gender differences in mother-child conversations 74 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gender differences in mother-child conversations (introduction) shame and pride gendered socialization of shame and pride parent-child conversations about emotional events aim of the study method participants procedure coding statistical analysis results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors contemporary digital life: cyberpsychological perspectives book reviews harley, dave, morgan, julie, & frith, hannah (2018). cyberpsychology as everyday digital experience across the lifespan. london, united kingdom: palgrave macmillan. 252 pp. isbn 978-1-137-59199-9. contemporary digital life: cyberpsychological perspectives camelia gradinaru* a [a] department of interdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities, “alexandru ioan cuza” university of iași, iași, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(4), 966–969, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1795 published (vor): 2018-11-30. *corresponding author at: department of interdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities, “alexandru ioan cuza” university of iași, lascăr catargi no. 54, 700107, iaşi, romania. e-mail: camelia.gradinaru@uaic.ro this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the very recent book published by macmillan is a provocative immersion in contemporary digital experiences and also a meta-theoretical approach of cyberpsychology, in terms of powers and limits. the three authors of this book are teaching cyberpsychology at the university of brighton, their competencies being easily identifiable in the structure of the book. dave harley has as main research topics cyberpsychology and human computer interaction, with a particular interest in older people’s use of digital media. julie morgan focuses on autobiographical memory, social anxiety and the development of social fears, and the social dimension of nature-connectedness within mental health recovery. hannah frith centres her research on sexuality, embodiment and subjectivity. this review will provide an overview of the volume, a list of shifts and trend lines advanced by the authors, and also some questions raised by the book. first, the authors felicitously put together a structure that is more inclusive than other papers dedicated to cyberpsychology. instead of focusing on a certain subject or age category, the topics are chronologically developed, from childhood to older age, emphasising key aspects for every stage. the role of new technologies is longitudinally studied, searching for the right place that new media have in this complex puzzle of our lives. thus, the relationship with technology is harley, dave, morgan, julie, & frith, hannah (2018). cyberpsychology as everyday digital experience across the lifespan. london, united kingdom: palgrave macmillan. 252 pp. isbn 978-1-137-59199-9. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ constantly changing, emerging from different needs, and creating diverse subjective and contextual meanings. the book explores the experience of “growing up online” for children and adolescents (chapter 2), aspects of online activities that transcend age – such as online identity, online social relationships, cybersex, trolls, and being alone online (chapters 3-7) – and also the experiences of older people engaged in digital processes (chapter 8). one recent research area is represented by the modalities in which dying and grieving are mediated online (chapter 9). as larissa hjorth and kathleen m. cumiskey discussed in their last contribution to a networked self and platforms, stories, connections, edited by zizi papacharissi (2018), the images of dead, especially the selfies at funeral, became an affective witnessing media. online practices of memorialisation could change the social rules about grieving, or could introduce new rites. the first and the last chapter are reflections about the subjective kinds of experiencing online contexts and about the embedded digital way in which we live today. second, i truly appreciated the strong standpoint of the authors, who opt for an approach that tries to surpass the general “disease” of polarization. a lot of research on human – technology interactions is extremist, devoid of nuances, and applicable to a small number of situations. the disjunctive logic of “or – or” is given up in favour of an inclusive logic of “and – and”. the phenomena are too complex to be interpreted as easy to categorize or to generalise. in this vein, harley, morgan, and frith always look up for both bad and good sides of using technology in a particular context, emphasising the common misinterpretations encountered in literature review. the historical perspective about media and technology is a good treatment for the predisposition to good – bad judgements. every new medium was initially perceived as an imminent danger for the human sanity, physical wellbeing or social presence. in my view, patrice flichy’s concept of “technological imaginary” (flichy, 2003) represents a useful lens through which we can explain this reaction in front of a novelty. also, the greek word “pharmakon” includes the quintessence of the concerns related to the effects of new technology on the human beings, society and culture. thus, the technology is conceived both as a remedy and a poison, a positive and a negative thing, a perfect scapegoat for many types of decline. multiple inventions are ambivalent in terms of their uses ‒ they can help and destruct in the same time. instead of negative or positive approaches, pharmacological interpretations are more comprehensive and “realistic”. third, the authors clearly appreciate the role of context for an adequate understanding of the various modalities in which people use digital technologies. the situated, contextual approaches are antidotes for the simplistic way to judge the multifarious experiences that people have within new media settings. even if the “context collapse” (marwick & boyd, 2011) is a known reality of new media – social media melts diverse contexts into one, bringing together different audiences, and making difficult the negotiation of interactions – harley, morgan, and frith underline the need for more subjective and nuanced approaches. the way in which they conceive context is more general, including not only social media but all the digital experiences that a user can encounter at the interface with technology. they privileged an edifying path of integrating the most important factors such as age, life orientation, level of digital literacy, socio-cultural data. thus, the authors are strongly advocating the value of contextual perspectives in attempting to make sense of our digital lives, by rejecting the general biases, presuppositions and oversimplifications in this domain. thus, the deterministic views are challenged in favour of an alternative perspective that values a more subjective and situated dynamic of relationships between humans and technology and a more phenomenological and ethnographic methodology. fourth, the authors re-problematize the concept of causality, its misunderstandings and fallacious uses. cyberpsychology research has been following for too much time the main principle that new technologies cause a gradinaru 967 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 966–969 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1795 https://www.psychopen.eu/ plethora of bad effects on our psyche, so that the testing of this hypothesis seems to be mandatory. as a logical consequence, the causality itself and its use in cyberpsychology are to be verified. the “media effects” theory in line with positivist views on cyberpsychology constructed a strong “technologically deterministic agenda” that exaggerated the role of technology, transforming in the same time the user in a passive, vulnerable, and overstimulated recipient. in spite of being a philosophical consecrated term, the concept of causality underlies many of these assertions, so its validity has to be checked every time, in every area. moreover, harley, morgan, and frith prefer a cyberpsychological view that moves research “beyond the blaming of technology for social and psychological ‘effects’ and towards a greater awareness of social context and subjectivity as significant in explaining digital technology use” (p. 241). fifth, a central concern is the practices of meaning-making in the context of digital technology. proving once again that cyberpsychology represents an interdisciplinary realm of study, the researchers insist on the great value of meaning for our lives and on the ways in which digital technology contributes to the emerging of personal, social, political, cultural meanings in the contemporary techno-sphere. individuals engage differently with new media and make sense personally to the mediated experiences and interactions. we all search for meaning and assigning meaning to our lives constitutes a main quest for us. the question is whether the internet and the online medium could provide some significant ways of meaning-making for people living in the 21st century. instead of searching for trends that can be generalized over populations, the user experience research could better capture the motivations that informs the everyday use of technology. thus, life stages are essential in defining the meanings that arise in symbiosis with technology, from childhood to the old age, because every stage has some dominant characteristics. moreover, in order to grasp the practices of meaning-making we have to renounce the dichotomy between “real life” and online life. the pervasiveness of mobile communication transformed our everyday experiences and our references to digital platforms in such a manner that become hard to separate the offline from the online. of course, this makes things difficult for the researcher that has the complicated task to reunite data derived from both “spaces”. sixth, what are the theoretical implications of the assumptions advanced in this book for cyberpsychology as a discipline? what is the meta-theoretical discourse sustained by harley, morgan, and frith? i have to point out the authors’ desire for radical remodelling, the entire volume being a set of arguments that plead together for alternative approaches. the aim of the book is a change of paradigm from quantitative, experimental, deterministic perspectives towards qualitative, subjective, ethnographic views. also, the interdisciplinary collaboration is discussed, cyberpsychological research has to incorporate studies from other disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, media studies, human-computer interaction and other related fields. cyberpsychology studies should not be restricted only to the identification of the potential risks or negative traits but also they should explain the underlying processes. they have to do more than detect possible trends or causes for different behaviours, they have to be apt to capture how internet-based platforms become meaningful for such diverse groups. “the subjective dimensions of meaning” (p. 230) seems to be a better route for cyberpsychology in the view of the authors, because it provides an understanding “from the inside”. thus, the experiences of people alongside the deep comprehension of context direct the readers to a more nuanced and authentic look at the interplay between individuals and the digital realm. seventh, the question that we have to raise is whether such a seductive and reforming perspective could hold. the authors did not show how this alternate approach could be translated in efficient methodological ways of research. they indicate valuable paths for cyberpsychology but they did not really test their conjectures. theobook reviews 968 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 966–969 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1795 https://www.psychopen.eu/ retically, their critiques are reasonable, but the complexity of the phenomena seems to overpass the actual methodological powers of cyberpsychology. the enlargement of the theoretical horizon of cyberpsychology is desirable, especially in deepening the explanations and the correlations among elements that until now were considered separated. the single concern is if this theoretical perspective could be accurately put into practice. in conclusion, cyberpsychology as everyday digital experience across the lifespan is a solid and compelling work that makes itself conspicuous through criticism, inclusiveness, interdisciplinary perspectives, and sharp points of view. this book offers a distinguishable approach to cyberpsychology, and it will be of great interest to anyone who wants to decipher the complex relationship between technology and our lives. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references flichy, p. (2003). l’innovation technique. paris, france: editions la découverte. harley, d., morgan, j., & frith, h. (2018). cyberpsychology as everyday digital experience across the lifespan. london, united kingdom: palgrave macmillan. marwick, a. e., & boyd, d. (2011). i tweet honestly, i tweet passionately: twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. new media & society, 13(1), 114-133. doi:10.1177/1461444810365313 papacharissi, z. (ed.). (2018). a networked self and platforms, stories, connections. new york, ny, usa: routledge. about the author camelia grădinaru, ph. d. in philosophy (2008), is a researcher at the department of interdisciplinary research in social sciences and humanities at “alexandru ioan cuza” university of iasi, romania. she currently teaches new media and branding at ma level at the same university. she is the author of the book the postmodern philosophical discourse. the baudrillard case (published in romanian, 2010). co-editor: perspectives in humanities. keys for interdisciplinarity (2015), from manuscript to e-book (2015), figures of migration (2016), revolutions: the archeology of change (2017). also, she published book chapters at romanian and international publishing houses (france, poland), papers, introductory studies and reviews in new media studies, rhetoric, postmodern philosophy, and philosophy of communication. gradinaru 969 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(4), 966–969 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i4.1795 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ book reviews (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author promoting or opposing social change: political orientations, moral convictions and protest intentions research reports promoting or opposing social change: political orientations, moral convictions and protest intentions stefano passini* a [a] department of education studies, university of bologna, bologna, italy. abstract the issue of the motivations behind the decision as to whether or not to join protest actions has been investigated by many scholars. in particular, recent studies have considered violations of one’s own moral convictions and identification with the protest group as the main predictors of collective actions. the present research will focus on the three orientations to the political system identified by kelman and hamilton (1989), which consider distinct reasons behind the attachment to the political system and explain the motivations behind supporting or opposing the institutions. the aim is to examine whether these three orientations have an effect on collective action (through moral convictions, politicized identification, anger, and efficacy) considering social protests both against and in favor of the status quo. specifically, the political orientations should explain why individuals hold a given attitude (positive or negative) towards a policy position, hold it with moral conviction, and decide to join a protest action. the results of three studies confirm the relevance of considering political orientations. depending on the aim of the protest, each political orientation has a distinct effect on collective action. keywords: protest intentions, simca, political orientations, moral convictions, values europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 received: 2018-07-02. accepted: 2019-03-07. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: kevin r. carriere, georgetown university, usa *corresponding author at: department of education studies, university of bologna, via filippo re 6, 40126, bologna, italy. e-mail: s.passini@unibo.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent times, the growth of many protest and disobedience movements around the world within totalitarian regimes as well as democratic countries has led many scholars of social psychology (see van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2008) to inquire as to why some people decide to join these movements while others do not. indeed, people often support movements that may prove to be costly (i.e., in terms of personal time, money, and risks) and from which they do not accrue rational benefits even in the event of a successful outcome (e.g., movements for the rights of third world countries). moreover, not all these protest movements are against the institutions and authorities in power and seek to promote social change. many protest demonstrations defend the status quo and oppose social changes as well. for instance, due to the large wave of new immigration towards industrialized western countries, some movements have expressed disapproval as concerns the hosting of migrants (willis-esqueda, delgado, & pedroza, 2017). this is the recent case of the antiislamic german organization pegida which held rallies in 2016 in several european cities to protest against mass immigration and so-called “islamization” of europe. similarly, in opposition to the broadening of civil rights to homosexual couples, some people have protested in defense of the so-called traditional family. for example, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ in 2016 thousands of protesters demonstrated in paris against same-sex marriages and in support of those politicians who defend long-established family values. recent research has underlined the relevance of the psychology of collective action towards understanding the motivations behind the support to a protest (van zomeren, postmes, spears, & bettache, 2011). in particular, theories of social identity and social identification (see simon & klandermans, 2001; van zomeren et al., 2008) consider identification with a social movement organization as the main predictor of collective action. however, although identification with the protest group does play a relevant role, considering what the vision of the society is which leads to the decision to join in a protest may be helpful for understanding social stability/social change dynamics. the recent extension of the social identity model of collective action (simca, see van zomeren et al., 2011; van zomeren, postmes, & spears, 2012) highlights how violations of moral convictions can motivate collective action by increasing identification with the protest group. nevertheless, moral convictions are measured as a violation of a specific moral norm related to that collective action and the inclusion of this variable does not really explain why people hold such moral convictions in the first place, as also suggested by some research (e.g., wisneski & skitka, 2017). the novelty of the present study is to consider those individual beliefs and motivations that lead people to view some policies as a violation of the relationship between the individual and the political system and to engage in collective actions. specifically, the present research will focus on the three orientations to the political system (namely, rule, role, and value) identified by kelman and hamilton (1989) which consider distinct reasons behind the attachment to the political system and that explain the motivations behind supporting or opposing the institutions. the aim of the present research is to examine whether these three orientations have an effect on collective action (through moral convictions, politicized identification, anger, and efficacy) considering social protests both against and in favor of the status quo. the context of the research is italy, a european country where the issue of minority rights (e.g., homosexuals, immigrants, and women) is constantly at the center of media, public and political debates. in the next paragraph, the simca is presented. after that, the three political orientations are introduced. the social identity model of collective action according to the social identity model of collective action (simca), the identification with the protest group increases participation in collective actions. that is, people who identify with a protest group are motivated to engage in those protest actions enacted for or by that group (van zomeren et al., 2012). moreover, group identification indirectly predicts support for protest movements via feelings of group-based anger and a sense of group efficacy (van zomeren et al., 2008). group-based anger refers to those explanations based on perceived injustice, by which the perception of relative deprivation propels collective action (see walker & smith, 2002). group efficacy refers to an instrumental explanation for collective action focusing on peoples’ expectations of whether the group action would be effective towards achieving its goal (see mummendey, kessler, klink, & mielke, 1999). in order to investigate what motivates people to challenge social inequality regardless of whether they belong to the advantaged or disadvantaged group, van zomeren et al. (2011, 2012) have recently taken into consideration the notion of moral convictions. as suggested by these authors, political action can be driven by groupbased and personal moral motivations that reflect the goal of protecting or promoting some specific core values promoting or opposing social change 672 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (van zomeren, 2016). that is, political action is linked to subjectively absolutist stances on an issue and to a personal threshold for their violation, so-called moral convictions. by increasing identification with the protest group, moral convictions constitute a powerful engine for motivating collective action. in this sense, group identification provides “a conceptual bridge between seemingly individualistic moral convictions and group-based predictors of collective action identified by the social identity model of collective action” (van zomeren et al., 2011, p. 736). however, moral convictions are measured as a violation of a specific moral norm connected to the protest in question. therefore, they do not clarify why people hold such moral convictions in the first place. where do specific moral convictions come from and what is the worldview behind such a moral activation? could we connect them with specific ways of considering the relationship between the individual and the political system? by considering three distinct ways by which individuals relate to the political system, the orientations theorized by kelman and hamilton (1989) should explain the reasons why people consider that their moral conviction has been violated and consequently decide to join a protest action. the three political orientations the analysis of the distinct patterns of relationship with the political system by kelman and hamilton (1989) deals with the reasons behind the attachment to the political system and explains the motivations behind supporting or opposing the status quo. by examining the sources of the legitimacy of the system and its institutions, kelman and hamilton (1989) identify some individual differences in the way in which the political system is assessed and experienced. in particular, they recognised three types of political orientation of citizens to the political system: namely, rule-, roleand value-orientation. people who mainly focus on the social effects of their behavior exhibit some concern with how adequately they conform to societal rules (i.e., rule-oriented). people who mainly focus on the social anchorage and on social roles pay attention to how securely they are embedded in their positions within the society (i.e., role-oriented). finally, people who mainly focus on a congruence with ethical values and principles place an emphasis on how fully they live up to societal values they share (i.e., value-oriented). the three orientations characterise three ways by means of which the legitimacy of political authorities is generated, assessed and maintained by individuals. although these orientations are not mutually exclusive—since they are likely to appear at some level in all individuals and they may coexist (kelman & hamilton, 1989)—they underline systematic differences in the way in which individuals define themselves as citizens and relate to the political system. that is, they support distinct beliefs as concerns the conception of authority and citizens’ responsibility, participation in performing citizenship duties, and the motivations to support or challenge authority’s policies and decisions. specifically, for rule-oriented citizens their duties hinge on abiding by the rules and respecting authorities’ demands. in return, they expect authorities to enforce the rules, protect their basic interests and ensure societal order. their participation tends to be passive and aims to protect their interests through a cost-benefit analysis (e.g., avoid penalties for rule-breaking). for role-oriented citizens, good citizens should meet their role obligation by actively and trustworthily obeying a government’s demands. in return, they expect authorities to uphold the integrity of their roles and to ensure their status. their participation tends to be supportive, that is they are concerned with meeting their obligations as citizens by giving substantive support and taking an active part in implementing national policies (e.g., pursuing the affairs of a society). finally, valueoriented citizens tend to be active in formulating, evaluating and questioning national policies. they expect both passini 673 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ citizens and authorities to follow and enforce those policies that reflect the fundamental and universal values of a just and fair societyi (fattori et al., 2015; morselli & passini, 2012, 2015; passini & morselli, 2010; pozzi, quartiroli, alfieri, fattori, & pistoni, 2018). these different ways of relating to political authorities translate into differences in the readiness to join collective actions for supporting or challenging an authority’s policies and decisions. specifically, each orientation might lead to supporting protest actions when there is the perception that the contract with the political system has been or is likely to be violated. given that rule-oriented citizens are sensitive to threats to their personal security, they will protest in the event of policies concerning personal security: i.e., contesting policies that they perceive as lessening their security or supporting collective actions to defend/enforce it. some examples may be those protests against mass immigration or in favor of tougher sentencing for offenders. role-oriented citizens will instead protest in case of policies concerning social status: that is, contesting policies that constitute a threat to their social position or supporting collective actions to defend/enforce it. some examples may be those protests in defence of the privileges and benefits of a social group and against the enforcement of the same rights to other groups (e.g., protests that oppose the enactment of laws legalizing same-sex marriages). finally, value-oriented citizens will be active in supporting protests concerning values of equality and fairness: that is, contesting policies that threaten values of social equality or supporting collective actions to defend/enforce them. some examples may be those protests in favor of the extension of legal and civil rights to those social groups that were previously excluded (e.g., protests to grant citizenship rights to second-generation immigrants). thus, each orientation should predict a willingness to attach importance to certain distinct moral convictions and therefore to be involved in distinct collective actions in their defense: that is, rule-oriented citizens should focus on convictions and engage in actions more related to personal security, role-oriented citizens on those concerning social roles, and finally value-oriented citizens on those more connected to social equality. hypotheses the aim of the present research is to analyze whether participation in collective action is influenced by the three individual orientations to the political system. in particular, the political orientations should explain why individuals hold a given attitude (positive or negative) towards a policy position, hold it with moral conviction, and decide to join a protest action. as outlined in the introduction, each political orientation is not affected by every protest issue and so they should predict collective action in distinct protest situations. rule-oriented citizens should be involved in the event of policies concerning personal security and public order (e.g., a protest against an open-doors immigration policy); role-oriented citizens should be active in the case of policies concerning social status (e.g., a protest against the restriction of motor vehicle use during the week); and finally value-oriented citizens should be active in case of policies concerning values of equality and fairness (e.g., a protest against the restriction of press freedom). in the present research, three protest scenarios were used. study 1 comprised a greenpeace protest against the non-visible use of cloned meat in consumer products. study 2 comprised a scenario with two protest groups (a and b): that is, a law-enforcing (pro-status quo) vs. a human rights-protecting (pro-social change) collective action. study 3 comprised another scenario with two protest groups (a and b): that is, a tradition-protecting (pro-status quo) vs. a human rights-protecting (pro-social change) collective action. specifically, it is hypothesized that rule orientation should have a positive effect on collective action in those protests related to the protection of personal security and public order (i.e., study 2a); role orientation should have a positive effect on promoting or opposing social change 674 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ collective action in those protests related to the safeguarding of one’s own social status (i.e., study 3a); valueorientation should have a positive effect on collective action in those protests related to the safeguarding of social equality (i.e., study 1, study 2b and 3b). in study 1, these effects are controlled for the effects of other variables linked to the individual-political system relationship, such as system justification, authoritarianism and social dominance orientation (sdo). in order to reduce the length of the questionnaire in study 2 and 3, this hypothesis was tested only in study 1. analytical procedures hypotheses were tested using path models analyzing the effect of the political orientations on the variables of simca related to collective action (i.e., moral convictions, politicized identification, anger, efficacy, and protest intentions) via maximum likelihood estimation. moreover, in study 1 the same model with the addition of the effects of system justification, authoritarianism and sdo was tested. consistent with the recommendation of hu and bentler (1999), goodness-of-fit criteria were used in order to quantify (relatively) good model fit (cfi > 0.95, tli > 0.95, srmr < 0.08, rmsea < 0.06). data were analyzed with mplus 7.1 (muthen & muthen, 2012). finally, the significance of indirect effects from the three political orientations on protest intentions through the mediating effects of moral convictions, politicized identification, anger, and efficacy was computed with mplus (delta method; taylor, mackinnon, & tein, 2008). study 1 method participants an online questionnaire was constructed using limesurvey, a survey-generating tool (http://www.limesurvey.org). the questionnaire was publicly accessible and an invitation with the link to the questionnaire was emailed to the potential participants by various methods (e.g., mailing lists, newsgroups, social networking services). they were informed that their participation was voluntary and that their responses would be anonymous and confidential. no financial incentive was offered. the questionnaire was written in italian. in order to check and prevent a person reentering the survey site, the subject’s ip address was monitored. the data were collected in 2015. a total of 120 italian citizens (64.2% women) responded by accessing the website and filling out the questionnaire. participant ages ranged from 18 to 73 years (m = 41.56, sd = 13.71). as regards their level of education, 3.4% declared they had finished middle school, 39.3% declared they had earned a high school diploma, 47% had a university degree and 10.2% a master’s or ph.d. qualification. job-wise, 34% stated they were white collar workers, 16.5% university students, 4.9% factory workers/craftsmen, 9.7% self-employed, 11.7% teachers, 6.8% unemployed, 10.7% retired, and, finally, 5.7% chose “other.” procedure the first section of the questionnaire contained the political orientation, system justification, authoritarianism and sdo scales. to avoid set responses, scale items were randomized each time for each participant by the computer program. next, as in the study of van zomeren et al. (2012), participants were introduced in the context of a greenpeace protest against the non-visible use of cloned (i.e., genetically modified) meat in consumer passini 675 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 http://www.limesurvey.org https://www.psychopen.eu/ products. they read a document stating that italian universities and greenpeace had joined forces in order to investigate what people think about the issue of cloned food. some information about cloned food and about the plan of the european committee to allow food producers to use cloned meat in their products without stating this clearly on food labels was provided. the protest thus concerned consumers’ “right to know” and should be supported by a value orientation because of its focus on the protection of basic individual rights. afterwards, participants responded to the measures related to consumers’ “right to know” (i.e., variables measuring simca). measures all measures employed seven-point response scales (ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much). where not specified, the original english versions were translated into italian and submitted to a back-translation by a native english speaker. the back-translated items were then reviewed by the authors and, where necessary, any unclear statement was reformulated. scale reliabilities are shown in appendix a. political orientation scale — a reduced form composed of 12 items of the political orientation scale constructed by kelman and hamilton (1989) was used. the original english 25-item version was reduced to a 12-item version by choosing for each of the three factors (i.e., rule, role, and value-orientation) the items that most adequately identify the orientation and with a high loading on the factor analysis computed by kelman and hamilton (1989, p. 284–285). the scale measures each of the three orientations (rule, role and value) with four items. this structure was upheld by a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) computed with mplus 7.1 (muthen & muthen, 2012). no cross-loadings were allowed. one item (i.e., “one should obey one's government, even when it means going against one's principles”) was dropped because it was not strongly associated with its factor (i.e., role orientation). the final three-factor model fit the data well (see table 1): χ2(39) = 73.44, cfi = 0.94, tli = 0.91, rmsea = 0.06, srmr = 0.06. table 1 confirmatory factor analysis on the political orientation scale on all the studies item study 1 2 3 rule orientation the government must sometimes set constitutional principles aside in order to deal with problems of the modern world. .53 .85 .53 one reason for supporting the government is that anarchy will result if there are too many critics. .56 .33 .54 the most you can expect the government to do is to see it that all citizens are able to earn a living and be safe. .53 .68 .50 in matters involving the national interest, we cannot apply the same moral principles that we follow in everyday life. .45 .27 .68 role orientation a good italian is one who is prepared to play his/her part in carrying out government policies. .87 .62 .85 the most valuable contribution an individual citizen can make is to give active support to government policies. .81 .50 .72 i feel an obligation to support the government even when its policies run counter to my values. .55 .77 .67 promoting or opposing social change 676 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ item study 1 2 3 value orientation i feel obligated to protest both vigorously and publicly if the government does something that is morally wrong. .69 .51 .62 i expect a good citizen to be politically aware and active all year long, not just around election time. .62 .63 .76 the most valuable contribution an individual citizen can make is to maintain an active and questioning approach toward government policies. .62 .55 .58 the most important thing the government can do is to see that the basic rights and freedoms of all citizens are protected. .38 .47 .44 note. all the items loaded on the hypothesized factor and were significant at p < .001. loadings are standardized. system justification — participants completed the 8-item measure of the italian version of the system justification scale, developed by jost, kivetz, rubini, guermandi, and mosso (2005) which assesses “perceptions of the fairness, legitimacy, and justifiability of the prevailing social system” (kay & jost, 2003, p. 828). a sample item is “society is set up so that people usually get what they deserve.” authoritarian submission — in the present research, only the authoritarian submission dimension was considered given that it is the dimension more pertinent to the attachment to the system and the relationship with the authority. this construct was measured by an italian 4-item scale based on the right-wing authoritarianism (rwa) by altemeyer (1996), constructed and validated by passini (2017). an example of an item is “our country will be great if we do what the authorities tell us to do.” social dominance orientation (sdo) — social dominance orientation was measured with the italian 4-item version of the sdo scale (pratto et al., 2013). a sample item of the scale is “some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.” moral convictions — moral convictions were measured with three items: “my opinion on the right to know is an important part of my moral norms and values,” “my opinion on the right to know is a universal moral value that should apply everywhere in the world” and “my opinion on the right to know is a universal moral value that should apply at all times.” group-based anger — group-based anger was measured with three items: “as a consumer, i feel angry/furious/outraged because of these european committee plans.” group efficacy — group efficacy was measured with three items: “as consumers, i think we can change these european committee plans,” “as consumers, i think that we can successfully stop these european committee plans” and “i think that, as consumers, we can change this situation together.” politicized identity — politicized identity was measured with three items: “i see myself as a member of greenpeace,” “i identify with greenpeace members” and “i feel strong ties with greenpeace.” protest intentions — protest intentions were measured with four items: “i would participate in a demonstration against these european committee plans,” “i would like to sign a petition against these european committee plans,” “i would like to do something together against these european committee plans” and “i would like to send a protest letter or an e-mail to the european committee.” passini 677 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results two participants were excluded because of missing values. the path model (see figure 1) explained 66% of the variance of protest intentions: χ2(13) = 19.05, cfi = 0.98, tli = 0.96, rmsea = 0.06, srmr = 0.07. as hypothesized, value orientation had a positive effect on moral conviction, anger, efficacy, identity, and protest intentions. both rule and role orientation did not predict any variable. the mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of value orientation on protest intentions (b = .35, se = 0.05, t = 5.93, p < .001). rule and role orientations did not have a significant indirect effect on protest intentions. figure 1. path model of study 1. note. reported coefficients are standardized. in parentheses, the indirect effect from the orientation to protest intentions. polit. = politicized. system justification, authoritarianism, and sdo were inserted in the model, by setting free all the paths to the other variables. non-statistically significant paths were therefore trimmed from the model. in the final model [χ2(34) = 52.02, cfi = 0.95, tli = 0.92, rmsea = 0.07, srmr = 0.09], authoritarianism and sdo did not predict any variable and sdo had just a negative effect on anger (β = −.18, p < .01). chi-square difference test indicated a non-significantly better fit over the previous model: δχ2(−21) = −32.97, p = ns. discussion as hypothesized, in the case of a protest related to the protection of basic individual rights, value orientation has a both direct and indirect effect on collective action, while rule and role orientations do not. this is in line with the theory of kelman and hamilton (1989) who define this orientation to the political system as supporting protests in defending values of equality and fairness. instead, rule and role orientations do not have an impact on this kind of protest, because the latter’s focus is separate from the reasons behind the adhesion to the political system. secondly, the other variables related to the relationship with the political system (i.e., system justification, authoritarianism, and sdo) are not predictive of collective action as value orientation is. although these variables have a validity in explaining the individual’s attachment to the system and the support of hierarchy intergroup relations, in the case of the current protest scenario they do not sufficiently explain why people should engage, or not engage, in a protest action. promoting or opposing social change 678 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 methods participants the participants were contacted online using the same procedure as the previous study. a convenience sample of 213 italian citizens (62.4% women) responded by accessing the website and filling out the questionnaire. the data were collected in 2014. participant ages ranged from 19 to 67 years (m = 28.59, sd = 11.10). as regards their level of education, 3.3% declared they had finished middle school, 58.1% declared they had obtained a high school diploma, 38.1% had a university degree and 0.5% a master or a ph.d. qualification. jobwise, 56.1% stated they were university students, 13.8% white collar workers, 9.2% self-employed, 8.7% factory workers/craftsmen, 5.1% teachers, 4.1% unemployed, 2% retired, and, finally, 1% chose “other.” procedure participants firstly responded to the political orientation scale. next, the protest scenario was introduced by a make-believe document affirming that the italian parliament is debating whether or not to pass a law on the right to host migrants to regulate the migration flow, to restrain the italian navy’s actions to send back them and to improve the living conditions of immigrants held in detention centers. then, on the basis of their month of birth, participants were randomly assigned to two different protest groups. the first one (n = 97) was a lawenforcing protest group: “the citizens commission for security is organizing a demonstration in defense of the current laws and in defense of personal and job security of italian citizens. the committee demands more effective supervision of our borders by strengthening the navy’s actions.” this protest group should be supported by a rule orientation because of its focus on policies concerning personal security. the second one (n = 116) was a human rights-protecting protest group: “the committee of citizens for human rights is organizing a demonstration to promote the right to host migrants in order to urge parliament to approve this law in a short time.” this protest group should be supported by a value orientation because of its focus on policies concerning values of social equality. all measures employed seven-point response scales (ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much). scale reliabilities are shown in appendix b. all the measures used were the same of study 1, adapted for the context of the protest scenario. examples of items are: “my opinion on the [security of italian citizens vs. the right to host migrants] is an important part of my moral norms and values” (moral convictions); “i feel angry [for the proposal to pass vs. because we do not proceed to the approval of] a law to host migrants” (group-based anger); “i think that together we can successfully fight [against vs. for] the approval of a law to host migrants” (group efficacy); “i see myself as a member of the [citizens commission for security vs. committee of citizens for human rights]” (politicized identity); “i would participate in a demonstration [against vs. in favor of] the approval of a law to host migrants” (protest intentions). as concerns the political orientation scale, the three-factor model fit the data well (see table 1): χ2(39) = 73.44, cfi = 0.93, tli = 0.90, rmsea = 0.06, srmr = 0.06. results none of the participants had missing values. the path models explained 80% of the variance in protest intentions for the law-enforcing protest group [χ2(13) = 16.35, cfi = 0.99, tli = 0.99, rmsea = 0.03, srmr = 0.05] and 89% for the human rights-protecting protest group [χ2(16) = 21.60, cfi = 0.99, tli = 0.99, rmsea = 0.04, passini 679 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ srmr = 0.04]. for the law-enforcing protest group (see figure 2), rule orientation had a positive effect on moral conviction and politicized identity, while value orientation had a negative effect on moral conviction, politicized identity, and anger. role orientation did not predict any variable. the mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of rule orientation (b = .30, se = 0.06, t = 4.80, p < .001) and a negative indirect effect of value orientation (b = −.42, se = 0.07, t = −6.18, p < .001) on protest intentions. role orientation did not have a significant indirect effect on protest intentions. figure 2. path model of study 2 (law-enforcing protest group). note. reported coefficients are standardized. in parentheses, the indirect effects from the orientations to protest intentions. polit. = politicized. for the human rights-protecting protest group, the path model (see figure 3) showed a positive effect of value orientation on moral conviction and a negative effect of rule orientation on it. role orientation did not predict any variable. the mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of value orientation (b = .45, se = 0.06, t = 7.39, p < .001) and a negative indirect effect of rule orientation (b = −.14, se = 0.07, t = −2.13, p < .05) on protest intentions. role orientation did not have a significant indirect effect on protest intentions. figure 3. path model of study 2 (human rights-protecting protest group). note. reported coefficients are standardized. in parentheses, the indirect effects from the orientations to protest intentions. polit. = politicized. promoting or opposing social change 680 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion as hypothesized, rule and value orientations have a direct effect on moral convictions and an indirect effect on protest intentions depending on the specific protest condition: that is, rule orientation has positive effects in those protests reinforcing security and public order, while value orientation has positive effects in those protests in favor of the enlargement of social equality. moreover, the two orientations have also negative effects on moral convictions and protest intentions for the other protest group: specifically, rule orientation against open-door immigration policies and value orientation against curbing immigrants’ rights. study 3 methods participants the participants were contacted online using the same procedure as the previous study. a convenience sample of 266 italian citizens (53% women) responded by accessing the website and filling out the questionnaire. the data were collected in 2015. participant ages ranged from 18 to 70 years (m = 35.51, sd = 13.79). as regards their level of education, 11.6% declared they had finished middle school, 53.8% declared they had obtained a high school diploma, 30.4% had a university degree and 4.2% a master or a ph.d. qualification. job-wise, 30% stated they were university students, 23.8% white collar workers, 11.9% teachers, 11.5% factory workers/craftsmen, 8.4% self-employed, 5.3% retired, 4.8% unemployed, and, finally, 4.3% chose “other.” procedure participants first of all responded to the political orientation scale. afterwards, they read a make-believe document stating that the italian parliament is discussing as to whether or not to pass a law on civil unions, that is, on the civil and legal recognition of unmarried couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and its equivalence to couples united through the marriage. then, depending on their month of birth, participants were randomly assigned to two different protest groups. the first one (n = 111) was a tradition-protecting protest group: “the forum of the family associations is organizing a demonstration in defense of the traditional family model, established and legitimized by the marriage between a man and a woman, as opposed to the legal recognition of unmarried couples.” this protest group should be supported by a role orientation because of its focus on policies concerning the defence of one’s own social status. the second one (n = 155) was instead a human rightsprotecting protest group: “the group ‘civil unions for everyone’ is organizing an event to promote the rights of unmarried couples, both heterosexual and homosexual, as opposed to the maintenance of the legal recognition to traditional marriages alone.” this protest group should be supported by a value orientation because of its focus on policies concerning values of social equality. all measures employed seven-point response scales (ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much). scale reliabilities are shown in appendix c. all the measures used were the same of study 1 and 2, adapted for the context of the protest scenario. examples of items are: “my opinion on the [defense of the traditional family model vs. the rights of unmarried couples] is an important part of my moral norms and values” (moral convictions); “i feel angry [for the proposal of vs. because we do not proceed with] the legal recognition of unmarried couples” (group-based anger); “i think that together we can successfully fight [against vs. for] the legal recognition of unpassini 681 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ married couples” (group efficacy); “i see myself as a member of the [forum of the family associations vs. civil unions for everyone]” (politicized identity); “i would participate in a demonstration [against vs. in favor of] the legal recognition of unmarried couples” (protest intentions). as concerns the political orientation scale, the three-factor model fit the data well (see table 1): χ2(36) = 67.35, cfi = 0.97, tli = 0.96, rmsea = 0.05, srmr = 0.05. results none of the participants had missing values. the path models explained 71% of the variance in protest intentions for the tradition-enforcing protest group [χ2(17) = 23.52, cfi = 0.99, tli = 0.98, rmsea = 0.04, srmr = 0.06] and 87% for the human rights-protecting protest group [χ2(18) = 34.68, cfi = 0.98, tli = 0.97, rmsea = 0.06, srmr = 0.05]. as hypothesized, for the tradition-enhancing protest group (see figure 4) role orientation had a positive effect on moral conviction. moreover, value orientation had a negative effect on protest intentions. rule orientations did not predict any variable. the mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of role orientation (b = .22, se = 0.06, t = 3.80, p < .001) on protest intentions. rule and value orientations did not have a significant indirect effect on protest intentions. figure 4. path model of study 3 (tradition-enhancing protest group). note. reported coefficients are standardized. in parentheses, the indirect effect from the orientation to protest intentions. polit. = politicized. for the human rights-protecting protest group (see figure 5), the path model showed a positive effect of value orientation on moral conviction and group efficacy. rule and role orientations did not predict any variable. the mediation analysis showed a positive indirect effect of value orientation (b = .22, se = 0.06, t = 3.69, p < .001) on protest intentions. rule and role orientations did not have a significant indirect effect on protest intentions. discussion as hypothesized, role and value orientations have a direct effect on moral convictions and an indirect effect on protest intentions depending on the protest group analyzed. role orientation has positive effects on those protest related to the defense of the status quo and of the traditional family model. this protest was conceived by participants as a support for the protection of one’s own social status and privileges, like those derived from the promoting or opposing social change 682 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ established civil rights for married couples. protest in favor of the rights of unmarried couples (both heterosexual and homosexual) were instead predicted by the value orientation, as a confirmation of a focus of this orientation on the broadening of civil rights and social equality. moreover, value orientation also negatively predicts the involvement in protests against these rights. general discussion the aim of the present research was to extend the analysis of the motivations that drive people to participate in social protests both against and in favor of the status quo, by considering the three political orientations detected by kelman and hamilton (1989). by exploring the different ways people have of feeling loyalty to the political system, this theory should explain the reasons why people hold a positive or negative attitude towards a policy position, hold it with moral conviction, and decide to join a protest action. first, results of all the three studies show a distinct effect of each political orientation on moral convictions (direct effect) and intention to protests (indirect effect), depending on the aim of the protest. that is, protests reinforcing personal security and law and order are mainly pursued by rule-oriented citizens; those linked to one’s social status by role-oriented citizens; and finally those focused on social equality by value-oriented citizens. in particular, the path models show a direct connection between the three orientations and the specific moral convictions related to the protest action in question. the three orientations explain why these convictions are central to one’s own sense of justice to the point that a person decides to protest in favor or against the status quo. moreover, each orientation indirectly predicts the intention to engage in the protest. these indirect effects are mediated by the other variables of simca, that is, moral convictions, politicized identification, anger, and efficacy. it is worthwhile noting that while all these variables are, by definition, closely related to the single protest considered, the three orientations measure a more general opinion in respect to the relationship between the individual and the political system. in this way, the three orientations identified by kelman and hamilton (1989) further clarify the understanding of the reasons why certain moral convictions are considered as violated, why figure 5. path model of study 3 (human rights-protecting protest group). note. reported coefficients are standardized. between parentheses, the indirect effect from the orientation to protest intentions. polit. = politicized. passini 683 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ people identify with a protest group and why they decide to participate in their collective action as a consequence. second, results of all the studies confirm the validity of the simca in explaining protest intentions in case of a social equality’s violation scenario. indeed, moral convictions and identification with the protest group have an effect on protest intentions via group-based anger and group efficacy. in the case of a protest scenario in defense of the status quo, the simca is not totally confirmed as politicized identity is not a robust predictor of protest intentions. this result suggests that, in cases of a protest in support of the status quo, motivation to protest is more related to a sense of anger and group efficacy than to the identification with the protest group (see reichert, 2016). it can be supposed that individuals do not need to identify with a specific group as the position is the one held by the authority and the political system itself. future studies should analyze this lack of effect of politicized identity in explaining pro-authority scenarios. limitations and directions for future research this research has some limitations that can be overcome in future studies. first, future research should deepen the relationship between political orientations and the violation of moral convictions. for instance, it should be assessed whether an orientation facilitates how easily individuals perceive their moral convictions are being violated and in which cases. experimental designs (e.g., explicit violation vs. no explicit violation) may deepen this issue. second, it may be interesting to explore why the population at times pays attention to a minority’s claim and why at other times this fails to occur (passini & morselli, 2013, 2015). it may be interesting to consider the role of media and political parties in directing attention to one issue rather than another. third, it may well be interesting to involve participants who are political activists (e.g., morgan & chan, 2016), in order to see whether their involvement may strengthen or weaken the models. despite these limitations, the results presented in this article provide some novel considerations into the socialpsychological analysis of the motivations behind protest actions. specifically, they improve the understanding of why some people engage in protest actions supporting the status quo while other people support collective actions against it. the focus on the social contract that defines the reciprocal relationships between individuals and the authority provided by the theory of kelman and hamilton (1989) improves the understanding of the reasons why people consider this contract to be undermined by some policies and why they are motivated to protest against them. to sum up, the present research suggests that people protest because of a view of the society in which certain violations run counter to the principles underpinning the contract with the political system. notes i) the assumption that these values should be related to the principles of equality and egalitarianism has been discussed by morselli and passini (2015). indeed, kelman and hamilton (1989) did not explicitly specify which values these citizens defend. however, in the same book the authors assert that value-oriented citizens consider higher-order principles as fundamental and as a priority both in the evaluation of individual action and the legitimacy of the state’s policies. in this sense, it seems that even if the “cultural and institutional values” on which value-oriented citizens base their relationship with authority are not explicitly defined by the authors, these values can be defined as ethical values towards social equality. moreover, these remarks are consistent with the empirical findings that kelman and hamilton report in their book, in which they state that “value orientation taps a sort of anti-authoritarianism” (kelman & hamilton, 1989, p. 291). in agreement with these assertions, morselli and passini (2015) define value-oriented citizens as people who do not attach importance to indefinite values, but to the specific democratic principles of equality and fairness (morselli & passini, 2010, 2011). promoting or opposing social change 684 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references altemeyer, b. 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(2017). moralization through moral shock: exploring emotional antecedents to moral conviction. personality and social psychology bulletin, 43(2), 139-150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216676479 appendix appendix a pearson correlation coefficients among all the variables (study 1) measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. orientation rule .63 2. orientation role .52*** .77 3. orientation value .08 .11 .66 4. system justification .14 .29** −.19* .75 5. authoritarianism .48*** .45*** −.14 .22* .68 6. sdo .18* .15 −.19* .24** .35*** .71 7. moral convictions −.02 .12 .33*** −.02 −.05 −.15 .88 8. anger −.10 .05 .47*** −.21* −.18 −.34*** .62*** .89 9. efficacy .06 .17 .40*** −.07 −.05 −.20* .56*** .65*** .89 10. politicized identity .19 .22* .34*** −.01 .02 −.14 .51*** .52*** .44*** .94 11. protest intention −.06 .10 .53*** −.16 −.18 −.28** .53*** .74*** .67*** .54*** .87 note. sdo = social dominance orientation. all the variables extended from 1 to 7. cronbach’s α in italics on the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. appendix b pearson correlation coefficients among all the variables (study 2) measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. orientation rule .62 .47*** .24*** −.02 −.01 .03 −.03 −.04 2. orientation role .47*** .75 .10 −.01 −.04 −.05 −.01 .03 3. orientation value .24*** .10 .62 .51*** .31*** .45*** .39*** .39*** 4. moral conviction .34*** .28** −.11 .80/.87 .73*** .79*** .80*** .83*** 5. anger .30** .28** −.40*** .64*** .89/.88 .74*** .84*** .86*** 6. efficacy .32*** .29** −.08 .64*** .70*** .81/.87 .82*** .84*** 7. politicized identity .35*** .24* −.28** .68*** .76*** .74*** .89/.88 .91*** 8. protest intention .28** .30** −.31** .63*** .89*** .70*** .75*** .91/.90 note. all the variables extended from 1 to 7. values below the diagonal are for the law-enforcing protest group. values above the diagonal are for the human rights-protecting protest group. cronbach’s α in italics on the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. passini 687 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00224545.2016.1184125 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167216676479 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix c pearson correlation coefficients among all the variables (study 3) measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. orientation rule .69 .65*** .20*** −.02 .10 −.07 −.04 −.08 2. orientation role .65*** .78 .12 −.08 .01 −.16* −.07 −.15* 3. orientation value .21*** .12 .69 .25** .17* .30*** .23** .25** 4. moral conviction .26** .34*** −.05 .94/.81 .70*** .75*** .78*** .75*** 5. anger .21* .30*** −.16 .75*** .92/.89 .70*** .82*** .78*** 6. efficacy .19* .32*** −.11 .73*** .73*** .76/.91 .81*** .85*** 7. politicized identity .28** .37*** −.05 .87*** .79*** .70*** .92/.92 .92*** 8. protest intention .19* .25** −.22* .64*** .82*** .73*** .68*** .81/.90 note. all the variables extended from 1 to 7. values below the diagonal are for the tradition-protecting protest group. values above the diagonal are for the human rights-protecting protest group. cronbach’s α in italics on the diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. about the author stefano passini (phd in social psychology) is associate professor at the department of education sciences of the university of bologna (italy). his studies are focused on authoritarian attitudes, obedience and disobedience to authority and crimes of obedience, intergroup indifference, moral inclusion/exclusion processes, and human rights. in these last years, he is studying when disobedience to authority may constitute an advancement for democracy and an enlargement of human rights—supporting a social change enacted for the sake of every social group—and when instead it is enacted mainly for achieving specific and restricted rights denying the rights of the others. promoting or opposing social change 688 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 671–688 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1693 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ promoting or opposing social change (introduction) the social identity model of collective action the three political orientations hypotheses analytical procedures study 1 method results discussion study 2 methods results discussion study 3 methods results discussion general discussion limitations and directions for future research notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the author social support and adherence to self-care behavior among patients with coronary heart disease and heart failure: a systematic review literature reviews social support and adherence to self-care behavior among patients with coronary heart disease and heart failure: a systematic review athira babygeetha 1, dhanalakshmi devineni 1 [1] department of applied psychology, pondicherry university, puducherry, india. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 received: 2023-06-07 • accepted: 2023-08-19 • published (vor): 2024-02-29 handling editor: sara peretti, università degli studi dell'aquila, l'aquila, italy corresponding author: athira babygeetha, department of applied psychology, pondicherry university, kalapet 605014, puducherry, india. e-mail: athirababygeetha@gmail.com abstract cardiovascular diseases stand out as the foremost cause of mortality on a global scale and encompass conditions that require long term self-care. coronary heart disease and heart failure are two cardiovascular conditions that require significant lifestyle modifications. adherence to self-care is a multifaceted phenomenon, and is influenced by various factors that include social, economic, disease-related and healthcare system-related factors. a key factor in adherence to self-care in chronic illnesses is social support. to explore this relationship between social support and adherence to self-care, a systematic review was carried out across scopus, ebsco host and proquest from october 2022 to february 2023 using predefined search criteria. studies from inception to february 2023 were considered for the review, ultimately incorporating a total of 11 studies. six studies had an adult population with coronary heart disease while the remaining five had adults with heart failure. all the studies reported a significant positive correlation between social support and adherence to self-care. our findings revealed that social support plays a significant role in promoting self-care, emphasizing the need for a holistic understanding of self-care to develop effective interventions. along with selfreport measures, objective measures should be used to assess adherence accurately. there is a need for scales that assess all aspects of self-care, as well as the development of new interventions and teaching strategies to facilitate the individual’s self-care journey. in addition, family members and trusted resources should be involved in encouraging self-care, and interventions should target both patients and their family members. keywords social support, adherence to self-care, coronary heart disease, heart failure, systematic review chronic diseases persistently affect the well-being and quality of life, and their prevalence is increasing at an alarming pace in both developed and developing countries (sprangers et al., 2000). among the various chronic diseases, cardio­ vascular diseases (cvds) constitute the foremost cause of death globally (world health organization [who], 2021). the incidence of cardiovascular disease has surged from approximately 285 million in 1990 to 523 million in 2019 (world heart federation, n.d.). furthermore, the mortality rate has steadily increased, from 12.1 million in 1990 to approximately 18.6 million in 2019 (roth et al., 2020). according to the world heart federation (n.d.), the prevalence of coronary heart disease (chd), rheumatic heart disease, and stroke has increased exponentially from 1990 to 2019, with the highest death rate observed for coronary/ischemic heart disease (ihd). cvds encompass various conditions requiring long-term self-care. compared to other cvds, coronary heart disease, also called coronary artery disease (cad) or ischemic heart disease (ihd), and heart failure require greater lifestyle modifications (wenn et al., 2022). according to the mayo clinic (2022) and the centers for disease control and this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12131&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ prevention (2021), coronary artery disease can lead to symptoms such as chest pain (angina), heart attack (myocardial infarction), and eventually heart failure. an analysis of the epidemiological burden of heart failure indicates that it is primarily caused by ischemic or coronary heart disease (43% of all cases), followed by other conditions (lippi & sanchis-gomar, 2020). heart failure is associated with significant clinical and economic burdens, posing challenges for healthcare systems and providers, as approximately 17–45% of patients die within a year of hospitalization, and most die within five years of admission (ponikowski et al., 2014). the heart failure association of the european society of cardiology has identified appropriate self-care and lifestyle changes as significant factors that can help manage the condition without worsening it (mcdonagh et al., 2021). similarly, the american heart association (2015) posited that appropriate self-care and a healthy lifestyle can considerably delay the progression of chd (iestra et al., 2005) and positively impact the long-term prognosis of the condition. hence, focused attention on self-care and the adoption of a healthy lifestyle can significantly reduce the burden of cvd by addressing the specific needs of chd and heart failure. adherence to self-care activities is essential for the prevention and management of cvds (riegel et al., 2017). the world health organization (who, 2003) defines adherence as “the extent to which a person's behavior corresponds with the agreed recommendations of a healthcare provider.” to reduce the risk of recurrent events, secondary preven­ tion of cvd involves adherence to treatment regimens and lifestyle recommendations (fuster, 2014; national heart foundation of australia, 2011). poor adherence is associated with increased hospitalization and premature mortality rates among patients with heart failure and chd (kumbhani et al., 2013; mozaffarian et al., 2016). self-care is a multi-faceted and complex phenomenon that requires knowledge, skills, and lifelong commitment (horowitz et al., 2004), and patients spend most of their time outside of clinical settings engaging in self-care behaviors (riegel et al., 2017). despite its association with improved symptom control and reduced hospitalization (attebring et al., 2005), non-adherence to recommended treatment strategies is prevalent among individuals with cvd in developed countries, with approximately 50% failing to adhere (laba et al., 2013). the theory of self-care for chronic illness provides a comprehensive picture of self-care and posits that it involves decision-making for maintaining and managing one's health and is comprised of three core elements: self-care maintenance, self-care management, and self-care monitoring (riegel et al., 2012). this approach to self-care provides a more comprehensive picture than viewing self-care as mere activities or behaviours. adherence to self-care in chronic illnesses such as cvd is influenced by various factors, including social, economic, disease-related, and healthcare system-related factors (schafer, 2017, as cited in gast & mathes, 2019; who, 2003). the role of social support in influencing health behaviors has been extensively researched, and patients with cvd often require assistance from family and friends to initiate and maintain self-care practices (graven & grant, 2014; riegel et al., 2007). a systematic review by rashidi et al. (2020) demonstrated that social support contributes significantly to the adherence to treatment plans in chronic diseases. conversely, the lack of social support has been linked to a higher likelihood of high-risk factors, such as atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, slower recovery from cvd events, and increased mortality (frasure-smith et al., 2000; lett et al., 2009; rosengren et al., 2004; rozanski et al., 1999). social support is a complex construct that encompasses an individual's social relationships and the specific functions they serve (uchino, 2004). the functions of social networks can be categorized into received and perceived support, encapsulating emotional, instrumental, and informational support (luszczynska et al., 2013; rashidi et al., 2020; uchino, 2004). emotional support involves expressions of care and concern, instrumental support involves material aid or fulfilment of tangible needs, and informational support refers to providing information and guidance (schultz et al., 2022). additionally, appraisal and affirmative support are closely related to emotional support (berkman & glass, 2000; langford et al., 1997). according to the health action process approach (hapa, schwarzer, 2016), social support is an important volitional factor and significantly promotes adaptive cognitive appraisal processes and coping efforts during difficult times (reyes-fernández et al., 2014). regarding health, social support helps individuals adopt and maintain healthy lifestyle changes (teleki et al., 2022), which is crucial for long-term prognosis. the situation-specific theory of self-care (riegel & dickson, 2008), views it as a process shaped by an individual's health beliefs and social factors, including social support (artinian et al., 2002), and is specific to the situation and context in which it occurs. social support and self-care adherence in cvds 64 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, research in chronic illnesses has revealed that social support has a significant influence on adherence to self-care. the results have, however, been inconsistent and inconclusive regarding chronic conditions such as chd and heart failure. in this systematic review, the authors are investigating how past studies have highlighted the relationship between social support and adherence to self-care in these conditions. to the best of our knowledge, no systematic review of cross-sectional studies has been conducted to explore the association between these two variables for patients with chd and heart failure. hence, this study aims to gather prospective evidence on how the two variables are related, providing new insights that can be translated into practice. method the systematic review was performed as per the guidelines given in preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses (prisma, page et al., 2021). initially, a scoping search was conducted between october 2022 and january 2023 to identify relevant studies exploring the association between social support and adherence to self-care among patients with chd and heart failure. the search was conducted on multiple databases, including scopus, ebscohost, proquest, google scholar, and prospero using the search terms “social support,” “adherence to self-care behavior,” “coronary artery disease,” “heart failure,” “cardiovascular diseases” and “systematic review.” however, the search results did not identify any existing or ongoing systematic reviews exploring the correlation between the proposed study variables among individuals with chd and heart failure. eligibility criteria the inclusion criteria for the eligible studies were as follows: (1) peer-reviewed studies in english, (2) studies including patients with chd and/or heart failure, (3) quantitative studies including other chronic conditions but with a separate analysis conducted for chd and/or heart failure, (4) studies undertaking the quantitative measurement of the relation­ ship between social support and adherence to self-care behaviors, with social support including different forms of structural and functional support, such as emotional and/or belonging support, informational support, and instrumental and/or tangible support. adherence to self-care behavior included adherence to medication; physical activity; diet; weight control; cessation of smoking; and reduced alcohol use (riegel et al., 2017), (5) studies conceptualizing self-care from the perspective of the middle range theory of chronic illness (riegel et al., 2012), which defines self-care in chronic illness as comprising self-care maintenance, management, and monitoring, (6) multivariate studies that computed pearson’s/spearman’s correlation between the relevant variables, and (7) review papers (systematic reviews, scoping reviews, meta-analyses) that contained studies relevant to the variables in the current review. the exclusion criteria included: (1) randomized controlled trials (rcts), and intervention, longitudinal, cohort, and qualitative studies, (2) multivariate studies that have not computed the correlation between the study variables separately/apart from the multivariate analyses, (3) studies with insufficient measurement of variables, (4) studies focusing on the association between social support and self-care adherence in the emergency department of hospitals, (5) studies assessing dyadic processes between patients and caregivers, where social support was only considered from the caregiver’s perspective, (6) studies focused on tool development, (7) studies including patients with other comorbid chronic diseases (diabetes, chronic renal disease, cancer, and diagnosis of severe mental disorders such as depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia), (8) conference papers, (9) studies published in languages other than english, and (10) editorials, opinion papers/commentaries, and conceptual papers. information sources the ebsco, scopus and proquest databases were searched from inception up to february 2023. the search was performed on february 7 and 12, 2023. relevant studies were also identified from the references of the included studies and google searches. the authors of these studies were contacted when further information was required. babygeetha & devineni 65 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ search strategy the search strategy was formulated based on database-specific headings, medical subject headings (mesh), and relevant terms were identified through free-text search. the terms used included synonyms for “adherence to self-care behavior,” “coronary heart disease,” “heart failure” and “social support.” all terms were combined using boolean logic commands appropriate for each database. study selection two reviewers independently assessed the article titles and abstracts retrieved from the search databases and additional sources mentioned. subsequently, based on the predefined criteria they read the full text of the articles. data were extracted using microsoft excel. any discrepancies between the reviewers were resolved through discussions, and a consensus was reached. quality assessment the quality assessment of the selected studies was conducted using the joanna briggs institute checklist (moola et al., 2020). each reviewer independently evaluated the included studies, and discrepancies were resolved through discussion. the quality appraisal aimed to determine the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the selected studies, rather than excluding them based on quality. data extraction and synthesis the included studies were reviewed based on various aspects, including author, publication year, population charac­ teristics (number and demographics of the study group), study setting, variables measured, instruments used, and study outcomes. a narrative synthesis approach was employed to synthesize the findings of the included studies, as meta-analyses were deemed unsuitable owing to the heterogeneity among the selected studies. results study selection and characteristics of the studies the search process identified 3341 papers, with 212 from ebscohost, 986 from scopus, and 2143 from proquest. in addition, 74 papers were identified from the references of the selected studies and google searches. after removing duplicates, 3198 studies were considered for the title and abstract screening. out of these, 2930 studies were deemed irrelevant to the review question and were excluded, resulting in 268 studies for full paper retrieval. however, full papers were not available for three of the studies despite contacting the authors. finally, 264 papers were filtered for full-text reading and only 11 studies were selected based on the predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. one of the 11 studies was selected using an alternative method (google scholar search). figure 1 presents an illustration of the study selection process. nine of the selected studies employed a cross-sectional design (fang et al., 2017; ginting et al., 2016; hammash et al., 2017; khaledi et al., 2014; mei et al., 2019; rocha et al., 2017; rokhmah et al., 2020; tawalbeh et al., 2015; yunus & sharoni, 2016), while two used a mixed-method design (dickson et al., 2013; presseau et al., 2017), with the quantitative data from the latter being included in this review. hammash et al. (2017) conducted a secondary analysis of baseline data obtained from a longitudinal prospective study on the factors contributing to the exacerbation of heart failure. the total number of participants across the studies was 2098, all of whom were adults aged 18 years or older. the sample sizes of the individual studies ranged from 30 to 609 participants. six studies focused on adults with chd (presseau et al., 2017, included adults post-mi; fang et al., 2017; ginting et al., 2016; presseau et al., 2017; rocha et al., 2017; rokhmah et al., 2020; tawalbeh et al., 2015), while the remaining five studies included adults with heart failure (dickson et al., 2013; hammash et al., 2017; khaledi et al., 2014; mei et al., 2019; yunus & sharoni, 2016). social support and self-care adherence in cvds 66 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 flowchart of the included studies the multidimensional scale of perceived social support (mspss, zimet et al., 1988) was used to assess social support in five studies (dickson et al., 2013; ginting et al., 2016; hammash et al., 2017; khaledi et al., 2014; mei et al., 2019). fang et al. (2017) utilized the social support dimension of the social capital scale. rocha et al. (2017) used the instrumental-expressive social-support scale (iesss) developed by guerra (1995) to measure family support, while yunus and sharoni (2016) and tawalbeh et al. (2015) used the medical outcomes study (mos) social support survey (sherbourne & stewart, 1991) and the personal resource questionnaire (prq, weinert, 2000), respectively, to assess babygeetha & devineni 67 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social support. presseau et al. (2017) utilized a standardized questionnaire informed by the hapa model to evaluate social support, which consisted of three items based on molloy et al. (2010). self-care was measured using the self-care of heart failure index (schfi version 6.2, riegel et al., 2009) in three studies (dickson et al., 2013; mei et al., 2019; yunus & sharoni, 2016), while khaledi et al. (2014) used the european heart failure self-care behavior scale (jaarsma et al., 2003). the adherence scale (arabic version) developed by alm-roijer et al. (2004) was used in tawalbeh et al. (2015) to measure adherence to a healthy lifestyle. hammash et al. (2017) and ginting et al. (2016) used the medical outcomes study (mos)-specific adherence scale (dimatteo et al., 1993) and health behavior inventory (hbi), respectively, to measure adherence to treatment and health behaviors in individuals with chd. the other three studies (fang et al., 2017; presseau et al., 2017; rocha et al., 2017) measured physical activity, medication adherence, and smoking cessation using the health promoting lifestyle profile ii (hplpii, walker et al., 1987), morisky medication adherence questionnaire (mmas-8; morisky et al., 2008), and treatment self-regulation questionnaire (levesque et al., 2007), respectively. rokhmah et al. (2020) was the only study that did not specify the questionnaires used to measure the variables. in nine of the included studies, the relationship between the relevant variables was evaluated using pearson’s correlation, while two studies used spearman's rho (dickson et al., 2013; rokhmah et al., 2020). all the studies reported a significant positive correlation between the study variables (see table 1). the correlation coefficients of all studies ranged from 0.10 to 0.75. tawalbeh et al. (2015) found a strong positive correlation (r = 0.75) between social support and adherence to a healthy lifestyle, whereas presseau et al. (2017) identified a weak correlation between social support and adherence to medication. ginting et al. (2016) explored the relationship between social support and various health behaviors, including addictive behaviors, consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods, exercise, weight control, and medication adherence. while the authors provided a range of correlation values, they did not specify which values corresponded to each specific behavior. table 1 characteristics of included studies (n = 11) no. author and year country study design population outcome 1 fang et al. (2017) china cross-sectional 609 adults with coronary heart disease social support was significantly positively associated with adherence to physical activity and nutrition respectively (r = 0.41, r = 0.48) 2 rokhmah et al. (2020) indonesia cross-sectional 105 adults with coronary heart disease family support was significantly positively correlated with diet adherence (r = 0.626, p = .000) 3 mei et al. (2019) china cross-sectional 210 patients with heart failure men: social support was significantly positively associated with self-care maintenance (r = 0.366, p < .01), self-care management (r = 0.418, p < .01) and self-care confidence (r = 0.458, p < .01) women: social support was significantly positively associated with self-care management (r = 0.262, p < .01) and self-care confidence (r = 0.248, p < .01), but not with self-care maintenance (r = 0.166) 4 hammash et al. (2017) usa cross-sectional 157 in-patients with heart failure perceived social support was significantly positively correlated with adherence to treatment (r = 0.24; p = .003) 5 rocha et al. (2017) portugal cross-sectional 110 patients hospitalized with acute coronary syndrome family social support was significantly positively associated with autonomous self-regulation for smoking cessation (r = 0.25, p < .05) 6 ginting et al. (2016) indonesia cross-sectional 386 adults with coronary heart disease (chd) most health behavior domains correlated significantly with perceived support from the family (r = −.19 to .16, social support and self-care adherence in cvds 68 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ no. author and year country study design population outcome p < .01), friends (r = −17 to .17, p < .05), and significant others (r = −.12 to .10, p < .05). 7 yunus and sharoni (2016) malaysia cross-sectional 113 adults with chronic heart failure (chf) social support was significantly positively associated with self-care (r = 0.26, p < .05) 8 tawalbeh et al. (2015) jordan cross-sectional 113 adults with coronary artery disease perceived social support was significantly positively correlated with adherence to a healthy lifestyle (r = .75; p ≤ .001) 9 dickson et al. (2013) usa mixed method 30 black patients with hf social support was significantly positively correlated with self-care maintenance (r = 0.483, p = .008), self-care confidence (r = 0.384, p < .04) and not associated with self-care management (r = 0.204) 10 khaledi et al. (2014) iran cross-sectional 64 adults with heart failure total perceived social support was significantly positively correlated with self-care behaviors (r = 0.481, p < .001). family support had the strongest positive correlation with self-care behavior (r = 0.462, p < .001), while significant others and friends support had a significant positive correlation of r = 0.261, p < .001 and r = 0.331, p < .001 respectively 11 presseau et al. (2017) canada (telephone interview) mixed method 201 adults post myocardial infarction social support was significantly positively associated with adherence to medication (r = 0.15, p < .05) therefore, the results from all of the studies indicate a significant positive relationship between social support and adherence to self-care behaviors in patients with chd and heart failure. this indicates that higher levels of social support are associated with better adherence to self-care behaviors among patients with chd and heart failure. quality appraisal among the 11 studies included in the analysis, ten studies clearly outlined the criteria for inclusion in the sample (dickson et al., 2013; fang et al., 2017; ginting et al., 2016; hammash et al., 2017; khaledi et al., 2014; mei et al., 2019; presseau et al., 2017; rocha et al., 2017; tawalbeh et al., 2015; yunus & sharoni, 2016), while seven studies also provided criteria for exclusion (dickson et al., 2013; ginting et al., 2016; hammash et al., 2017; mei et al., 2019; rocha et al., 2017; tawalbeh et al., 2015; yunus & sharoni, 2016). the study subjects and settings are described in detail in all studies, except for rokhmah et al. (2020). fang et al. (2017) reported correlation values but did not provide p-values. the variables were measured using reliable and valid measurements and appropriate statistical analyses in all studies, except for rokhmah et al. (2020). presseau et al. (2017) used three items based on molloy et al. (2010) to measure social support, however, the internal consistency of these items was reported. the instruments used by fang et al. (2017), ginting et al. (2016), mei et al. (2019), rocha et al. (2017), and tawalbeh et al. (2015) were translated into native languages (chinese, arabic, portuguese) using expert back-to-back translations. confounding factors were identified and strategies to address them were stated in the studies by ginting et al. (2016), hammash et al. (2017), presseau et al. (2017), and tawalbeh et al. (2015) and only two studies (khaledi et al., 2014; presseau et al., 2017) employed objective standard criteria to measure the condition and verify the diagnosis. eight of the selected studies failed to report the method for determining the sample size, while three studies (presseau et al., 2017, tawalbeh et al., 2015, yunus & sharoni, 2016) reported this information. presseau et al. (2017) was the only study that met all quality appraisal criteria; however, it relied on telephonic interviews to collect data babygeetha & devineni 69 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on hapa predictors and medication adherence. this raises concerns about the extent to which psychological aspects and behavior are captured compared to in-person interviews, where the subject's non-verbal cues and behavior can be observed. these factors are particularly relevant when examining vulnerable populations, such as those with cvds. in addition to this, all the studies relied on self-report questionnaires, leading to a high likelihood of social desir­ ability bias and recall bias. most studies relied solely on subjective measures through self-reported questionnaires. incorporating objective measures, such as drug monitoring and counting pills, alongside subjective measures would yield more reliable data. furthermore, sample size calculation was not reported in most (eight) of the studies, indicating a potential methodological weakness. additionally, one study that explored a model-based approach (presseau et al., 2017) did not utilize a standardized instrument for measuring social support but used three items based on another study. this raises concerns regarding the reliability of the measurement and the generalizability of findings when using model-based approaches with limited tools available for certain factors of a model. table 2 shows the quality appraisal checklist for each of the selected studies. discussion the present systematic review was conducted to identify and summarize studies investigating the relationship between social support and adherence to self-care behaviors in cardiovascular conditions such as chd and heart failure. adherence to self-care behaviors is crucial for individuals with chronic illnesses, and various psychological factors, including social support, have been recognized as influential. the findings indicated significant positive correlations between social support and adherence to self-care behaviors, suggesting that enhancing social support could play a vital role in promoting adherence among patients with chd and heart failure (liu et al., 2022; park et al., 2021; presseau et al., 2017; saiwutthikul et al., 2021; zhou et al., 2022). the verbal encouragement and affective influence provided by family members and significant others can improve emotion regulation, decision-making, self-worth, and self-confidence, thereby enhancing self-care (cohen & wills, 1985, as cited in hammash et al., 2017). magrin et al. (2015) found that functional social support, rather than solely structural aspects such as living arrangements or marital status, significantly influence adherence to diet, physical activity, medication and smoking cessation among individuals with chronic conditions such as hypertension. khodaveisi et al. (2017) discussed the relevance of pender’s revised health promotion model (hpm) in supporting the association between social support and medication adherence. according to the hpm, individuals are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors when they receive support, guidance, and encouragement from family, friends, and healthcare providers. these individuals serve as important sources of influence who can help improve the patient’s commitment to health-promoting behaviors (tawalbeh et al., 2015). the health action process approach, which delineates the formation of health behavior in two phases (motivational and volitional), also highlights the significance of social support (schwarzer, 2016). social support is important in both phases, facilitating the translation of intention into behavior, however, its role becomes particularly crucial in the volitional phase. this is consistent with the finding that social support is significantly and positively associated with adherence to self-care behaviors. the results highlight that only a few studies explored social support and adherence to self-care behavior as their primary aim (khaledi et al., 2014; tawalbeh et al., 2015; yunus & sharoni, 2016). for an in-depth understanding of the intricate relationship, it is essential to conduct empirical studies that focus solely on examining these constructs rather than incorporating them within broader models or frameworks. social support and self-care adherence in cvds 70 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 q ua lit y a pp ra is al u si ng th e jo an na b ri gg s in st itu te a pp ra is al c he ck lis t f or a na ly tic al a nd c ro ss -s ec tio na l s tu di es q ua lit y cr it er ia fa ng e t a l. (2 01 7) r ok hm ah et a l. (2 02 0) m ei e t a l. (2 01 9) h am m as h et a l. (2 01 7) r oc ha e t al . ( 20 17 ) g in ti ng e t al . ( 20 16 ) yu nu s an d sh ar on i (2 01 6) ta w al be h et a l. (2 01 5) d ic ks on e t al . ( 20 13 ) k ha le di e t al . ( 20 14 ) pr es se au e t al . ( 20 17 ) 1. w er e th e cr ite ri a fo r in cl us io n in th e sa m pl e cl ea rl y de fi ne d? y n y y y y y y y y y 2. w er e th e st ud y su bj ec ts a nd th e se tt in g de sc ri be d in d et ai l? y n y y y y y y y y y 3. w as th e ex po su re m ea su re d va lid ly a nd re lia bl y? y n y y y y y y y y y 4. w er e ob je ct iv e, s ta nd ar d cr ite ri a us ed fo r m ea su re m en t o f t he c on di tio n? n n n n n n n n n y y 5. w er e th e co nf ou nd in g fa ct or s id en tif ie d? n n n y n y n y n n y 6. w er e st ra te gi es s ta te d to d ea l w ith th e co nf ou nd in g fa ct or s? n n n y n y n y n n y 7. w er e th e ou tc om es m ea su re d va lid ly a nd re lia bl y? y n y y y y y y y y y 8. w as a pp ro pr ia te s ta tis tic al a na ly si s us ed ? y n y y y y y y y y y n ot e. y = ye s; n = n o. babygeetha & devineni 71 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations the review has some limitations worth mentioning. chd and heart failure were the only two conditions considered for this review as they involve significant lifestyle changes. in addition, relevant studies in other languages and databases had to be excluded because the selection of the studies was based on predefined criteria. furthermore, all the studies were cross-sectional in design, preventing the establishment of a causal relationship between the study variables. since only the r-value between the variables was considered, important information that other multivariate analyses could have provided was not considered. finally, due to the limited number of studies and the heterogeneity of the methodology and instruments used, a meta-analysis could not be conducted. strengths the present systematic review followed the prisma guidelines and aimed to investigate the relationship between social support and adherence to self-care in individuals with coronary heart disease and heart failure based on recent literature. while some studies and reviews have focused on these variables in the context of heart failure alone, no previous systematic review has investigated chd and heart failure together, despite the fact that chd is a major cause of heart failure. this review also highlighted the importance of early psychological interventions in improving health outcomes and thereby reducing healthcare costs in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases. the insights generated from the review can be effectively implemented in practice to improve self-care and mitigate the global burden of cardiovascular disease and fatalities. implications this systematic review found that most studies on self-care primarily focused on health-enhancing behaviors, such as diet and physical activity, with fewer studies on health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol cessation. to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between self-care and psychological factors, future research should consider both types of behaviors. additionally, a more comprehensive understanding of self-care can be achieved through a theoretical model that considers all aspects of self-care adherence, such as the theory of self-care for chronic illnesses. by conceptualizing self-care through established theoretical models researchers can obtain a holistic perspective that can inform the development of interventions oriented along these theoretical foundations. an important insight from this review is that studies on adherence and self-care mostly rely on self-reported meas­ ures, which may be influenced by bias. to enhance the accuracy of outcomes, future investigations should incorporate both self-reported and objective measurements, such as drug monitoring or electronic devices. additionally, developing scales with robust psychometric properties, and combining them with other objective measures, could provide a clearer understanding of self-care behaviors in future research and practice. adequate self-care involves the development of tactical and educational skills over time with the involvement of family and friends. traditional patient education may be insufficient, and interventions involving trusted resources are necessary to encourage self-care and rectify misconceptions. culturally sensitive community-based interventions are needed to reduce social isolation and provide social support resources for individuals with chronic illnesses and their families. existing self-care interventions are mostly patient-centered and neglect the influence of family members, which is detrimental to improving self-care. the construct of social capital, which includes social support, social participation, and social trust, is beneficial in improving adherence to self-care. personality is also an important factor in how social support is perceived and utilized by individuals in self-care. therefore, interventions should consider the multidimensional nature of social support and tailor it to individual needs, including personality traits and specific types of social support. self-care is a complex process that requires careful consideration. when addressing social support in the context of self-care for cardiovascular conditions like chd and heart failure, all relevant factors must be taken into account. tail­ ored interventions that focus on an individual's unique genetic makeup, sociodemographic factors, available resources, and illness severity are more effective than generic interventions targeting all patients. social support and self-care adherence in cvds 72 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion this systematic review provides a comprehensive overview of the evidence linking social support and adherence to self-care behaviors in patients with chd and heart failure. the review highlights the need to develop rigorous standardized tools for measuring situational and context-specific variables related to adherence to self-care behaviors. additionally, the findings underscore the significance of conducting studies with robust methodological design and designing interventions that are grounded in appropriate theoretical framework, personality factors and socio-cultural influences. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article, the complete search string used for the study is available (see babygeetha & devineni, 2023). index of supplementary materials babygeetha, a., & devineni, d. 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(1988). the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. journal of personality assessment, 52(1), 30–41. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 about the authors athira babygeetha is a full-time research scholar in the department of applied psychology, pondicherry university in india. she has done her masters and bachelors in psychology and her research interests are in the area of health psychology (particularly chronic illnesses) and positive psychology. dhanalakshmi devineni is an assistant professor in the department of applied psychology, pondicherry university in india. she has an m. phil and ph.d. in psychology and has more than 25 years of teaching and research experience. her area of specialization is health psychology. babygeetha & devineni 77 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 63–77 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12131 https://doi.org/10.1177/23743735221074170 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/42682 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds) https://worldheartobservatory.org/trends/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332627135_social_support_and_self-care_management_among_patients_with_chronic_heart_failure https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332627135_social_support_and_self-care_management_among_patients_with_chronic_heart_failure https://doi.org/10.2147/ppa.s337634 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social support and self-care adherence in cvds (introduction) method eligibility criteria information sources search strategy study selection quality assessment data extraction and synthesis results study selection and characteristics of the studies quality appraisal discussion limitations strengths implications conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors the estimation of physical distances between oneself and a social robot: am i as far from the robot as it is from me? research reports the estimation of physical distances between oneself and a social robot: am i as far from the robot as it is from me? jean-baptiste lanfranchi 1 , sophie lemonnier 2 [1] université de paris cité and univ. gustave eiffel, lapea, boulogne-billancourt, france. [2] université de lorraine, perseus, metz, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 received: 2022-05-20 • accepted: 2023-04-06 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: alice cancer, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: jean-baptiste lanfranchi, lapea institute of psychology, 71 avenue edouard vaillant f-92100 boulogne-billancourt, france. email: jean-baptiste.lanfranchi@u-paris.fr supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract research on the perception of interpersonal distance has shown the existence of an asymmetry effect which depends on the reference point of the estimation: the distance from oneself to others can be perceived as longer or shorter than the distance from others to oneself. the mechanism underlying this asymmetric effect is related to the object’s cognitive salience. the self often functions as a habitual reference point and therefore one’s own salience may be higher than that of other objects. in this case, an egocentric asymmetry effect appears with a perceived shorter distance from others to oneself. however, if others are more salient than oneself, then the reverse can happen (allocentric asymmetry effect). the present work investigates if asymmetry in self-other(s) distance perception changes when the other is a social robot. an experiment was conducted with 174 participants who were asked to estimate the distance between themselves and both robotic and human assistants on a schematic map of a hospital emergency room (betweensubjects design). with robust anova, the results showed that the participants felt closer to the human assistant than to the robot, notably when the person served as the estimation reference point. perceived distances to the social robot were not significantly distorted. if a rather allocentric effect with the human assistant might reflect an affiliation goal on the part of the participants, the absence of effect with the social robot forces us to reconsider its humanization. this could nevertheless reflect a purely mechanical and utilitarian conception of it. keywords distance perception, social robot, self-concept, egocentric/allocentric asymmetry effects, human-robot interaction in 1985, codol showed that an asymmetry effect exists in the estimation of interpersonal distance and is dependent on the point of reference of the estimation. in a series of studies on perceived physical distance (“how far are you from others?” versus “how far are others from you?”), participants were asked to estimate either from a graphical depiction or from standing in a room how far they were from the specific others. the findings of these studies showed that the distance of others to the self was consistently underestimated comparatively to the distance from the self to others. for codol (1985), feeling that our personal space is threatened leads to the activation of a self-centering schema effect, which is the underlying explanation for this egocentric asymmetry. a later study showed that in addition to the management of personal space, the fundamental processes of affirmation and defense of the specificity of personal or social identity are at work (codol et al., 1989). asymmetrical distance perception has also been observed in the this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9519&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9484-6311 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9650-7054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ context of social perception, for example achieving in-group assimilation (self vs. others) and maintaining out-group differentiation (us vs. them). building on findings from these studies, jarymowicz et al. (2016) argued that this effect of egocentric asymmetry can be explained by a typical cognitive bias extensively studied in social psychology: self-representation has a privileged position as a habitual reference point in social comparison (codol, 1984; de la haye & penvern, 2002; holyoak & gordon, 1983; srull & gaelick, 1983). indeed, like other perceptual, spatial, and semantic standards (rosch, 1975; sadalla et al., 1980; tversky, 1977), familiarity with another’s personal qualities, and the number and salience of shared traits are more likely to incite feelings of closeness than the opposite. nonetheless, this asymmetric effect can also occur allocentrically (i.e., oneself closer to others versus others closer to oneself), notably when dispositional and contextual factors are likely to favor reference to others over ourselves. deindividuation, anonymity of participants, openness to others and saliency of the stereotype of the other, for example, favor an allocentric rather than an egocentric effect (jarymowicz et al., 2016; kamińska-feldman, 1991). this brief review of the literature shows that varying the reference point of estimations of interpersonal distance perception can serve as an indirect and heuristic measure of how we conceive ourselves in relation to others. but what becomes of this paradigm when it comes to understanding the relationship between a human being and a social robot? social robots are autonomous robots designed to interact and communicate with humans. they are increasingly used in a variety of settings, such as health care (papadopoulos et al., 2020), education (belpaeme et al., 2018) or home care (shishehgar et al., 2018). physically, they can be made to appear machine-like or animal-like, but it has been shown that social robots with human-like features are more effective at facilitating communication with people (kanda & ishiguro, 2017). the proxemics, defined as the human preferences of distance (hall et al., 1968), is used to evaluate how a human feels about a social robot and thus study the different characteristics of the social robot or the interaction situation that may have an impact. many studies seem to show that an anthropomorphic design of the robot does not facilitate acceptability (cornelius & leidner, 2021), nor the proxemics (walters et al., 2009), probably due to the uncanny valley effect (mori et al., 2012). on the other hand, the quality of interactions, such as interactions close to those that one can have with another human, seems to have a positive influence, and decrease the proxemics (huettenrauch et al., 2006). we can for example cite the work of walters et al. (2009) who studied the effect of different attributes or factors of robots (e.g., mechanoid robot, humanoid robot, verbal communication, verbal interaction, giving object, passing) on comfortable approach distances. thus, interactions between social robots and humans have shown tremendous potential in both richness and scope, especially for robots designed to interact in the hospital setting, where they are thought of as tools to help patients, from the pediatric to the geriatric population, even providing emotional support (prescott & robillard, 2021). to our knowledge, no studies to date have been conducted on the asymmetry effect in interpersonal distance percep­ tion when one agent is a social robot. however, two aspects of the literature allow us to think that this asymmetry effect in front of a social robot could be observed: 1) in relation to the study of the proxemic effect described above, personal experience with robots in particular seems to diminish a person’s personal space around robots (takayama & pantofaru, 2009); 2) the similarity of psychological mechanisms, in particular of social cognition, which is known when interacting with a human and that is also observed when interacting with a robot (wykowska, 2020). that being said, two investigations do make use of codol’s paradigm with non-human stimuli. a study by housiau (2004), considered estimates of distance perception between oneself and pigeons. the results showed an egocentric effect with humans and an allocentric effect with pigeons. the latter effect appeared to occur irrespective of the status of the human (self or anonymous), meaning that a human is, on average, perceived as being closer to a pigeon than pigeons are to humans. the author largely attributed these results to differences between humans and non-human species (deconchy, 2000). another perspective, however, suggests that the self may not be able to play a sufficiently prominent role as an estimation reference point when we consider the stereotypical representation of eight pigeons positioned peacefully on a square. a study by formanowicz and karylowski (2011) compared the estimation of distance between oneself, represented by a black dot labeled “yourself”, and a red triangle, without any additional further information regarding placement. the red triangle, in this case, was perceived as being further away from oneself (as reference point) than when the distance to oneself was estimated using the red triangle as the reference. the effect of perceived interpersonal distance with social robot 300 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ allocentric asymmetry disappeared, without becoming egocentric, when the visual brightness of the red triangle was diminished by surrounding points of different colored geometric shapes (square, pentagon, cross, etc.). here, again, the self no longer seems to play its usual role as a reference point when the stimuli (dots) are not labeled as representing humans. we therefore wondered whether an asymmetry effect would occur in relation to social robots and whether this effect would be amplified by the salience of human-like attributes. the presence of such effects would be encouraging for developing indirect measures of social robot perception alongside questionnaire-based attitude measures (nomura et al., 2006; spatola et al., 2021). in this exploratory perspective, we made two hypotheses: (h1) the perception of distances between oneself and a social robot will be asymmetric depending on the estimation reference point. (h2) this asymmetry will be more pronounced when the social robot has extended communica­ tion capabilities. materials, data, detailed results are available through the open science framework (see supplementary materials). method participants the experiment involved 174 participants. two experimenters coded participants’ responses separately, and after discussion, rejected five that were too illegible or degraded. the 169 selected participants (including 25 men = 15%) were all undergraduate students enrolled at the university of lorraine in france, without exclusion criteria. participants signed a consent form and were not compensated. the average age was 21 years (sd = 4.3 years). we did not calculate a required sample size in advance given the exploratory nature of the study. however, a post hoc sensitivity analysis was performed using g*power software version 3.1.9.6 (faul et al., 2007) to determine the minimum effect size that could be achieved with 169 individuals. the results showed that with a statistical power of .80 and a significance level of α = .05, the minimum effect size to be detected was f = 0.22 (rather moderate-sized effects). material the material consisted of two sides of an a4 sized sheet of paper (see the ‘verbatim instructions.pdf’ in supplementary materials). the facing page provided participants with text describing a scene placing the participant in an interactive situation that took place in a hospital waiting room. the situation participants were asked to imagine was that they were waiting in the emergency room for news of the person they had accompanied to seek care for a sprained ankle. indeed, in order to create a scenario with different possibilities of interaction, we wanted a public place, where everyone can project themselves, and where meeting a social robot is credible in the medium term. we chose the hospital because many studies tend to show that many social robots are already implemented there, as mentioned in the introduction, with very encouraging results (gonzález-gonzález et al., 2021, for a systematic review). the next paragraphs of this text described an interaction with an administrative assistant based on experimental variables we describe in the next section. on the back of the a4 sheet was a pictorial representation of the physical situation (map drawing) on which partic­ ipants were asked to estimate physical distances and respond to several socio-demographic questions. the drawing consisted of 15 points scattered within a frame measuring 16 cm wide by 10.6 cm high. thirteen points, labeled with letters of the alphabet, represented other people waiting in the emergency waiting room with the participant. the two remaining dots were labeled “me” for the participant’s position, “aas” for administrative assistant or “ras” for robot assistant (see figure 1). a scale indicated that two centimeters on the drawing of the space represented one meter. the distance between “me” and “aas” / “ras” was 7.4 cm (3.7 meters). lanfranchi & lemonnier 301 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 sample drawing of the space with the administrative assistant (aas) assistant type (human vs. robot) the second paragraph describing the situation introduced the administrative assistant as being either a person or a robot. in this section, the robot described its capabilities (e.g., “able to understand natural language, provide information and conduct an interview”) and the human assistant described her mission and objectives. on the map drawing, the dot is labeled as either “aas” (administrative assistant) or “ras” (robot assistant). an image of either the robot or the human assistant was provided to the participants (see ‘human_and_robot.jpg’ in the supplementary materials). the photo of the robot was chosen from those of 19 robots evaluated in a pre-test phase involving 113 students (see ‘pre-test photos of the robots.pdf’ in the supplementary materials). for each of the 19 robot photos, the responses were aggregated according to three 7-point likert scales (not human at all – very human; not realistic at all – very realistic; unattractive – attractive). the selected photo represented reem-c (from pal robotics), an expressionless humanoid robot. among all the robots presented, this was median in terms of human characteristics attractiveness, with a good score in terms of human likeness and realism. for the image of the human assistant, we used a random face generator website (wang, 2019). one judge chose an image of a woman that elicited a neutral response from him: neither strange, such as a significant failure of the ai to generate all the correct parts of the face, nor alarming, with an important asymmetric position of the ears and eyes. only the absence of negative feedback from two other participating judges validated the final choice. we considered the image of a woman rather than a man, as administrative assistants are most often women in french hospitals (ministry of health and prevention of france, 2022). interplay (low vs. high) the next paragraph introduced the fact that the assistant would soon interact with the participant, the level of which could be low (i.e., distributes a form to be completed), or high (i.e., gives a detailed update about the person the participant accompanied and conducts an interview). consequently, the repertoire of various forms of interaction could differ in terms of richness, depending on the scenario. reference point (me vs. assistant) below the drawing of the space was a question regarding distance estimation, the meaning of which varied. the reference point could be either the assistant (“how far am i from the human assistant/robot?”), or the participant (“how far is the human assistant/robot away from me?”). perceived interpersonal distance with social robot 302 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experimental design and procedure we used a 2 (assistant type: human vs. robot) x 2 (interplay: low vs. high) x 2 (reference point: me vs. assistant) between-subjects experimental design. the participants were randomly allocated to the experimental conditions. the experimenter began by presenting the framework of the study and instructing participants to refrain from using rulers, objects, or their fingers to estimate distances, but rather to imagine building a mental representation of the scene and estimating distances in meters using the scale provided on the schematic diagram. completion time averaged 15 minutes and entries were logged anonymously. data analysis all analyses were conducted using a dependent variable set to 100: distance estimations in meters proposed by the participants were related to the real distance of the graphical plane. thus, an estimate of 110 translated an overestima­ tion of 10% of the real distance between oneself and the assistant situated within the plane. these recoded data were analyzed using a three-way robust between-subjects’ anova. we based our decision to use a robust anova on the observation of q-q plots, shapiro-wilk tests and levene’s homogeneity of variances test, which revealed on the one hand, a non-normality of the data, significant in six out of eight experimental conditions (p < .01), and on the other hand, the trend significant presence of non-homogeneous variances, f(7, 161) = 1.91, p = .071. wilcox’s q test and cohen’s robust d were then applied considering the 20% trimmed means (mt) and the 20% winsorized standard deviation (sdw) as robust estimators (algina et al., 2005; wilcox, 2017). the “walrus” module (love & mair, 2018) added to the jamovi 1.2 software (jamovi project, 2020) together with the wrs2 package under r (mair & wilcox, 2020; r core team, 2019) served as references for all the above analyses. results a main effect of assistant type revealed that the human assistant was perceived closer to the “me” point (mt = 93.58, sdw = 12.22) than the robot (mt = 98.99, sdw = 14.57), q = 4.09, p = .047, robust cohen’s d = 0.24. moreover, this effect was expressed differently depending on the reference point of the distance estimation, q = 8.22, p = .006 (see figure 2). no other main effect or interaction was detected as significantly in this study (see ‘detailed results.pdf’, table s2 in the supplementary materials). figure 2 effect of the reference point as a function of the type of assistant on the estimation of interpersonal distances note. a ratio of less than 100 indicates an underestimation of the actual distance. within this interaction, one of the six post-hoc comparisons, tested according to hochberg’s method (hochberg, 1988), indicated that the human assistant (mt = 88.86, sdw = 10.85) versus robot assistant (mt = 101.56, sdw = 11.27) was lanfranchi & lemonnier 303 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived as being much closer to the “me” point, but only when the reference point of the question asked was the human assistant, p =.002, robust cohen’s d = 0.72. on the other hand, the human (mt = 98.75, sdw = 15.55) versus robot (mt = 96.20, sdw = 15.02) difference was very small and insignificant with “me” as a reference point, p = .64, robust cohen’s d = 0.11. discussion our primary objective for this experiment was to test whether the asymmetry effect in the perception of interpersonal distance between oneself and another human being according to the estimation reference point also exists for perceived distances between oneself and a social robot. while our results tend to underestimate the perceived self–other distances when the other agent is a human assistant, the observed difference is not significant with oneself as the reference point. this underestimation is totally absent when perceived distance estimation is performed with a robot. we note that the participants in this study gave fairly accurate distance estimations when they consider themselves in relation to a robot, regardless of the experimental condition. we also, however, observe a significant difference in perceived distances between the human assistant and the robot when each serves as the estimation reference point, with a tendency to feel closer to the human than to the robot. finally, our results indicate that enriching relational attributes of either assistant type (human or robot) does not lead to any significant effect in terms of interpersonal distance perception. therefore, by maintaining sufficient statistical power, the use of robust anova allowed us to detect some effects without necessarily assuming that our observations were normally distributed with homogeneous variances. the use of conventional anova would have led to the absence of significant effects for all the factors of the experiment (see ‘detailed results.pdf’, table s1 and s2 in the supplementary materials). the allocentric appearance effect suggests to us that the salience of the human assistant stereotype tends to outweigh the representation of the self in this context. one could consider that an aim of affiliation, or feeling of likeness with the assistant, contributes to this salience and thus to the distorted perception of distance (stel & van koningsbruggen, 2015). regarding the social robot, the absence of effect on distance perception seems to imply that participants treat their perceptions of distance in a purely “geometric” manner, suggesting that the robot itself is perceived as purely mechanical, which participants regarded with relative indifference: the self as reference, or activation of salient, fairly rich social features of this robot, appears to have no effect on distance perception between two points. in order to change the status of the social robot to make it more human, one possible working direction would be to manipulate (augment) its outward expression of ‘emotions’ or ‘desires’ (haslam et al., 2008). the scenario given to participants in this study, which we designed specifically to help them visualize the robot and immerse themselves actively participating in the situation, focused only on the robot’s skills (e.g., “it is able to understand natural language, provide information and conduct an interview”). adding a dimension of empathy framed as a soft skill might have helped make it seem more human. an evaluation of the degree of humanization/dehumanization of the robot according to the evolution context must then be considered (spatola et al., 2021). indeed, ending the scenario with judgment questions about the robot to make the participants more aware of their own perceptions of the robot, might have made the robot’s attributes even more salient while providing a manipulation check. demonstrating that it is possible to provoke asymmetry effects in interpersonal distance perception between oneself and a robot would be an original and resourceful way to gauge how we perceive their position on a continuum between an inhuman (rather the case of our study), animal or human status. in this way, the experimental paradigm proposed by codol brings a relevant perspective to the ongoing debate on the advantages and disadvantages of humanizing social robots. while the degree of humanization undeniably increases the quality and quantity of social interactions with a social robot (spatola, 2019), it is also a source of a social comparison that can lead to identity threats regarding beliefs about human uniqueness and its agency (giger et al., 2019). modulating the perceived distance between oneself and a social perceived interpersonal distance with social robot 304 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://www.psychopen.eu/ robot could then be a first indirect measure of these issues, alongside more complex and direct investigations (e.g., attitude scales). there are several limitations to the results of our experiment. on the one hand, this study was carried out only with a convenience sample made up solely of psychology students with very few men. on the other hand, the scenario, based on a hospital emergency room situation, does not allow us to know what would happen in a much less emotionally charged situation, such as a train station lobby or a shopping center. finally, regardless of the scenario or the degree of humanization to be reviewed, the physical humanoid aspect of the social robot has not been manipulated here. it would be wise to use the range of social robots already installed in public places to perform this experiment with people who frequent them. this last limitation naturally leads to a study perspective that might have stronger ecological validity. indeed, the second person neuroscience framework (schilbach et al., 2013) shows that human social cognition may function differently when we are facing a social agent. therefore, we may be better able to identify the conditions of activation of the self when estimating distances by considering the social situation as experienced by people interacting with a social robot they already encountered (‘online social cognition’ with engaged people), rather than simply reading a map with an unknown social robot (‘offline social cognition’ with detached people). nevertheless, we believe that our results reflect a certain reality, or specific circumstances, where the social robot presented in our scenario might be considered neither as a human nor as a threat, but rather as a functional tool, regardless of the fact that we highlighted some human-like skills. admittedly, our representation of social robots is largely influenced by more advanced industrial applications (piçarra et al., 2016; tns opinion & social, 2012). it is perhaps in this very form, far from any technophobia and close to a dynamic of acceptance of new technological means, that we prepare ourselves to encounter them much more often in our daily lives. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we thank the following research assistants for their help: danaé bekiaris and othmane outmouhine (data collection), clémence lanfranchi (proofreading). competing interests: we have no known conflict of interest to disclose. data availability: the data, codebook, and material used for this study are freely available and can be found in the supplementary materials. supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are data, codebook, and material that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials lanfranchi, j.-b., & lemonnier, s. 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(2020). social robots to test flexibility of human social cognition. international journal of social robotics, 12(6), 1203– 1211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00674-5 about the authors jean-baptiste lanfranchi is a senior lecturer in social and work psychology at the université paris cité. these main research interests focus on psychosocial resources in relation to well-being. sophie lemonnier is a senior lecturer in cognitive psychology and ergonomics at the university of lorraine. her research focuses on the psychological mechanisms involved in human/machine interactions, and on the influence of external factors on behavior during these interactions. lanfranchi & lemonnier 307 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 299–307 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9519 https://doi.org/10.1075/is.7.3.14nom https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-033096 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2016.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101993 https://www.r-project.org/ https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(75)90021-3 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.6.5.516 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x12000660 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smhl.2018.03.002 https://doi.org/10.3917/anpsy1.194.0515 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00667-4 https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1983.2.2.108 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2124 https://doi.org/10.1109/iros.2009.5354145 https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/s1044_77_1_ebs382?locale=en https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.4.327 https://uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/9670/903515.pdf?sequence=1 https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00674-5 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived interpersonal distance with social robot (introduction) method participants material experimental design and procedure data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors psychological well-being, multiple identities, and discrimination among first and second generation immigrant muslims research reports psychological well-being, multiple identities, and discrimination among first and second generation immigrant muslims cristina giuliani* a, semira tagliabue b, camillo regalia a [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [b] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, brescia, italy. abstract given the growing number of muslim immigrants in western countries, there is a need for research focusing on their psychological wellbeing and correlates. the present study investigated whether perceived discrimination is associated with depression and satisfaction with migration through the mediating role of several identity dimensions (ethnic, national, and religious) among 204 first and second generation adult muslim immigrants living in italy. they participated in structured interviews, and a multi-group path analysis model was conducted using mplus. while the impact of perceived discrimination on psychological well-being was modest for first generation muslims, in the case of second generation muslims perceived discrimination was directly associated with lower psychological well-being (higher depression and lower satisfaction with the migration decision) and indirectly associated with satisfaction with migration through the mediation of national and religious identity. the higher the levels of discrimination that second generation muslims perceived, the weaker their national (host country) identity and the greater their religious identification. in turn, national and religious identities were associated with respectively higher and lower levels of satisfaction regarding their migration decision. the findings showed clear differences between first and second generation immigrant groups, revealing that perceived discrimination represents an obstacle to integration processes more for second generation immigrants than for first generations. keywords: discrimination, muslims, immigration, identity, first and second generation, psychological well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 received: 2017-04-11. accepted: 2017-08-15. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; flavia cangia, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, largo gemelli, 1, 20123 milano, italy. e-mail: cristina.giuliani@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. immigration and acculturation (that is, the process of adapting to a majority or new cultural context) are stressful experiences that can have positive or negative consequences on the psychological well-being of immigrants and ethnic minority youth (berry, 1997). research carried out in the last decades, mostly in countries with long and established tradition of immigration (e.g., the united states, canada), has extensively documented the complex and multifaceted struggles and challenges faced by immigrants and their descendants. focusing on specific ethnic minorities living in the west, most studies have shown how immigrants’ and ethnic minorities’ well-being is linked to several acculturation-specific risk and protective factors that distinguish immigrants’ experience, in accordance with their migration history, national origin, and resettlement experiences (berry, 1997; miconi, moscardino, altoè, & salcuni, in press; phinney, horenczyk, liebkind, & vedder, 2001). among these factors, discrimination and racism have been found to negatively europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ affect psychological well-being among ethnic minority groups (e.g., asian, latino, and black americans; brittian et al., 2015; lee, 2003; utsey, ponterotto, reynolds, & cancelli, 2000). little is known about immigrants from muslim-majority countries who live in the west (sirin & fine, 2008). like other minority groups, muslim communities are frequently the targets of negative prejudice; notably, they face growing discrimination as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, which has generated an atmosphere of fear and suspicion towards them (pew research center, 2016). more recently, concern about muslim communities has become a prominent issue in the media and public discourse, which have emphasized the role played by young muslim generations—born and educated in western countries—in violent actions (riots, terrorist attacks in europe). indeed, in the last decade, researchers began to explore the impact of current shifting socio-political contexts on the integration process of muslim immigrants in countries with long and established tradition of immigration (e.g., the united states, canada, the united kingdom) (bhatia & ram, 2009; sirin & fine, 2007; thomas & sanderson, 2011). also, in many european countries, where muslim immigrants and their descendants constitute a large community today (e.g., germany, france, the netherlands; pew research center, 2010), the issue of muslim immigrants’ integration and psychological well-being has become urgent. this issue is crucial not only for the first generation of muslim immigrants, who have directly experienced migration, but also for second generation youth, who were born and are growing up in western countries and are primarily exposed to the host cultural environment during their formative years (berry & sabatier, 2010; sirin & fine, 2008; stevens, pels, vollebergh, & crijnen, 2004). second generation muslims need to negotiate multiple issues pertaining to identity processes, and need to combine feelings of belonging to their ethnic and religious community with those to the host country. furthermore, they face these challenges within a social and political context characterized by terrorist events and growing religious discrimination (allen & nielsen, 2002; sirin & balsano, 2007). for these reasons, concerns about the mental health and psychological well-being of muslim youth increase (berry, phinney, sam, & vedder, 2006; heim, hunter, & jones, 2011; van geel & vedder, 2010). empirical studies examining the psychological well-being of muslims living in europe (mainly moroccans and turks) are scant and exploratory in nature. a large number of factors have been proposed as being associated with the psychological well-being of muslims. these include socio-demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, age at the time of immigration, length of stay in the host country, generation of immigration), post-migration variables (e.g., acculturation factors, religious identity), and social contextual variables (e.g., perceived discrimination). the present study tested a model investigating how these variables are associated with the psychological well-being of first and second generation immigrants. perceived discrimination, identity, and well-being the discrimination that immigrants perceive in their country of settlement is one of the major stressors for immigrants, and negatively impacts their acculturation and psychological adjustment, as widely recognized in the literature (brittian et al., 2015; utsey et al., 2000). for immigrants, perceptions of being discriminated—that is, being unfairly and differentially treated—may be conveyed in many forms based on their ethnicity, race, and religious membership (brittian et al., 2015; lee, 2003). a strong relationship between perceived ethnic and racial discrimination and poorer mental health outcomes (including lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression, anxiety, and psychosomatic complaints) has also been widely documented among second generation and minority youths in a variety of countries (berry et al., 2006; fisher, wallace, & fenton, 2000; giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 67 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lee, 2003; utsey et al., 2000). more recently, in a current climate marked by growing fear related to islamic radicalization and terrorism (alba, 2005; allen & nielsen, 2002), some preliminary studies have explored the link between perceived ethnic and religious discrimination and psychological well-being among first generation (heim et al., 2011) and second generation muslims living in the west (berry & sabatier, 2010; vedder, sam, & liebkind, 2007). however, further evidence in the context of europe is needed. several studies support a relationship between perceived discrimination and different dimensions of identity processes. for muslims living in western europe, acculturation includes not only the negotiation of competing heritage and mainstream host cultural orientations, but also issues of religious diversity within european societies that are historically christian, highly secularized, and increasingly hostile to the presence of muslims in western societies (duderija, 2008; güngör, fleischmann, & phalet, 2011; verkuyten, 2007; verkuyten, thijs, & stevens, 2012). indeed, although immigration and acculturation studies have mostly neglected religious identity dimensions (sheikh, 2007), a growing number of studies about muslim immigrants have revealed that muslim identification and religiosity (practices, beliefs, values) are salient components of daily life for muslim immigrant communities (duderija, 2008; hussain & bagguley, 2005; thomas & sanderson, 2011). the majority of muslim immigrants in europe shows high or the highest scores on measures of muslim identification (thomas & sanderson, 2011; verkuyten, 2007), hence confirming the centrality of this identity dimension and its meaning as an identity marker. many authors have also noted that the demarcation between ethnic identity and religion is “blurred”; religious and ethnic identities are positively intertwined for first generations and, even more, for second generation immigrants (duderija, 2008; güngör et al., 2011; maliepaard, lubbers, & gijsberts, 2010; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007), whereas the relationship between religious and national identification is unclear. some studies have reported that among muslim youth residing in europe, the highest level of religious identification implies a low level of national (host country) identification (alba, 2005; crul & doomernik, 2003; heim et al., 2011; maliepaard et al., 2010; verkuyten et al., 2012; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). the task of coping with multiple cultural systems of reference is intensified within societies where immigrants experience prejudice and rejection for their religious and ethnic affiliations (brewer, 2010), as it has been happening in recent years in european societies characterized by the rise of islamophobia (pew research center, 2016). high levels of perceived discrimination seem to explain why “biculturalism” (that is, a combination of strong heritage and strong mainstream cultural orientations) is not a feasible choice for muslims in europe, forcing them to defend and valorize their in-group identification (fleischmann, phalet, & klein, 2011; heim et al., 2011). perceived discrimination is associated with both a strong or exclusive ethnic group attachment and a weakening of the ties with the host cultural context (berry & sabatier, 2010; fleischmann et al., 2011; sabatier 2008; sirin et al., 2008; vedder et al., 2007) among second generation muslims. furthermore, the view of islam as a threat to “western” identity and mainstream values produces a defensive intensification of muslim in-group identification (verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). immigrant muslims’ identities and psychological well-being perceived discrimination is associated with both muslims’ well-being and identity, and identity processes, in turn, are associated with well-being (berry et al., 2006; berry & sabatier, 2010). indeed, multiple dimensions of muslims' identity and how they change during the acculturation process strongly affect the psychological wellmuslims’ psychological well-being 68 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ being of these immigrants and second generation youth, as widely documented in acculturation studies (berry et al., 2006). the complexity and multidimensional nature of muslims’ identity processes in post-migration settings has been documented (britto, 2008; giuliani, olivari, & alfieri, 2017; giuliani & tagliabue, 2015; verkuyten, 2007; verkuyten & martinovic, 2012; verkuyten et al., 2012), but studies have rarely considered simultaneously how multiple and interrelated aspects of muslims’ identities (e.g., ethnic, national, and religious) impact their psychological well-being (brewer, 2010). notably, religious identity has been rarely included in studies that explore heritage (ethnic) or mainstream (national) cultural orientations (verkuyten et al., 2012; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007), yet it should be included to understand the extent to which different dimensions of identity are likely to differently affect well-being. indeed, the bulk of research on post-migration identity processes and adaptation outcomes stems from the two-dimensional model of acculturation based on the study of berry (1997). according to this model, more positive adaptation outcomes imply that immigrants are able to navigate between their own heritage culture and the host culture and to integrate them. hence, two independent dimensions are considered crucial in the process of identity construction: ethnic acculturation attitude (i.e., maintenance of own heritage cultural identity) and national attitude (i.e., contacts in larger society, adoption of cultural values of the nation of settlement) (arends-tóth & van de vijver, 2004; berry & sabatier, 2010; donà & berry, 1994; goforth, oka, leong, & denis, 2014). similarly to what has been found in studies on different groups of immigrants and ethnic minorities (berry et al., 2006), research on muslim immigrants has widely explored national (host country) and ethnic (country of origin) components of identity (phinney et al., 2001) and their role in adjustment. a combination of strong ethnic and national attitudes—leading to better psychological adjustment—has been documented in studies conducted in countries with a long history of immigration and of promoting “multiculturalism” as national policy, such as the united states, canada, australia, new zealand, and the united kingdom (nguyen & benet-martínez, 2013). in these countries, which berry and colleagues (2006) called “settler societies” for their colonial origin and multiculturalism, muslim immigrants (as with all immigrants) have more opportunities to successfully combine their own culture and the host culture (berry & sabatier, 2010; britto & amer, 2007; sirin & fine, 2007, 2008; stuart, ward, & adam, 2010; zaal, salah, & fine, 2007). conversely, european studies about muslim immigrants—in particular, moroccans and turks living in europe (the netherlands, belgium, the united kingdom, france, germany, finland)—document greater difficulties experienced by muslims in their acculturation process and adaptation outcomes. ethnic and national attitudes are not or are negatively correlated (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005; sabatier, 2008) among first and second generation muslims. furthermore, ethnic identity prevails over national identity (sabatier, 2008; verkuyten et al., 2012). therefore, immigrants rarely achieve an integrated or bicultural identity and more frequently adopt a separation strategy—that is, a path characterized by a high value placed on the wish to retain their own cultural heritage and, simultaneously, little interest in interacting with and adopting the host society culture (arends-tóth & van de vijver, 2004; berry & sabatier, 2010; crul & doomernik, 2003; heim et al., 2011; stevens et al., 2004; vedder et al., 2007; verkuyten, 2007). the link between separation strategy and well-being outcomes still remains largely unexplored in european studies about muslim communities. according to the bidimensional acculturation model (nguyen & benet-martínez, 2013), separation is a less adaptive strategy in comparison with biculturalism or integration (i.e., high ethnic and high national cultural preferences), whereas evidence from research among highly devalued minority groups (e.g., latino, african, giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 69 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and asian minorities living in the united states) has shown that a strong or exclusive ethnic identity may represent an alternative means of protecting identity and enhancing psychological well-being (branscombe, schmitt, & harvey, 1999; brittian et al., 2015; phinney, 1990; umaña-taylor, 2011). for example, the rejectionidentification model (branscombe et al., 1999) suggests that perceived discrimination and rejection lead individuals to intensify their in-group identifications, which in turn protects their psychological well-being. additionally, research shows that second generation muslims are more likely to struggle with combining loyalty to their cultural heritage and host society values than their adult counterparts. hence, they not only retain a strong ethnic identity but are also more willing—in comparison to their adult counterparts—to adopt values and practices of the host country (stevens et al., 2004). a recurring issue is that they can be unable to face the task of reconciling these two cultural universes. in stevens and colleagues’ (2004) study, for instance, muslim moroccan girls experienced major conflict between loyalty to their family and community heritage and external pressures like the gender models offered in western host countries. studies that focus on ethnic (country of origin) and national (host country) cultural orientations (without creating typologies of strategies) reveal different associations with well-being. in particular, a strong orientation towards ethnic culture among muslims leads to positive psychological well-being and has a protective effect on health outcomes, in particular fewer psychological problems (depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms) and better life satisfaction and self-esteem (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005; vedder et al., 2007). on the other hand, national identity (i.e., adoption of host country culture, participation in larger society) seems more linked to socio-cultural aspects of adjustment such as school and work success as well as successful participation in the host society (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005). studies have also considered religious identity (amer & hovey, 2007; friedman & saroglou, 2010; jasperse, ward, & jose, 2012; stuart et al., 2010). while religiosity has a positive role in the acculturation process and adjustment to the host society for immigrant populations (abu-rayya & abu-rayya, 2009; harker, 2001), little is known about the link between religious identity and adjustment among muslim immigrants. in north american and new zealand studies, religiosity (strong muslim identity, high engagement in religious practices) is predictive of fewer psychological symptoms and higher life satisfaction among first and second generation muslim immigrants (amer & hovey, 2007; jasperse et al., 2012; stuart et al., 2010). in european studies, this link is rarely investigated, and preliminary findings show a more complicated and negative relationship between religiosity and well-being among muslims living in belgium, where they suffer from religious discrimination and stigmatization (friedman & saroglou, 2010). no study has simultaneously investigated the mediator role of ethnic, national, and religious identities in the relationship between perceived discrimination and psychological adjustment (mossakowski, 2003; phinney, 1990). for example, heim and colleagues (2011), in a recent study on minority youth living in the united kingdom (including a pakistani subgroup), showed that perceived discrimination influences physical and psychological well-being via multiple mediators, like minority (ethnic) and majority (national) identities. they suggested that discrimination intensifies ethnic identification, which in turn negatively influences perceived stress and positively influences psychological well-being. moreover, discrimination weakens national identification, which in turn negatively influences perceived social capital and physical well-being. no consideration of the role of religious identity was included in the study (heim et al., 2011). muslims’ psychological well-being 70 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, the literature on psychological well-being and adaptation among first and second generation muslim immigrants often focuses on positive (subjective life satisfaction, self-esteem, good mental health) and negative (behaviour problems, anxiety, and depression) dimensions but only rarely on well-being dimensions specifically related to the migration experience (williams, jobes, & gilchrist, 1986). in this regard, the current study used two indices of psychological well-being: depression and satisfaction with migration decision. the former has been widely used in previous studies on discrimination, while the latter represents a migration-specific aspect of psychological well-being that has rarely been used in research on immigrants (williams et al., 1986). satisfaction with migration decision measures the degree of satisfaction related to the choice of leaving the country of origin (whether the decision was carried out by themselves or made by their parents or family of origin), the willingness to repeat the choice, or conversely, the desire to return to the country of origin. since it expresses a reconfirmation or a rejection of the family migration project, it is an interesting index of psychological well-being for comparing the experience of the first and second generations of immigrants. the majority of the above-mentioned studies involves second generation muslims (e.g., berry & sabatier, 2010; crul & doomernik, 2003) yet it does not distinguish the generational status of immigrants (verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). there is a lack of studies comparing post-migration experiences of first and second generations in the considered domains (acculturation, identity processes, perceived discrimination). based on these considerations, the aim of the present research was to investigate the mediating role not only of ethnic and national but also of religious identity in the association between discrimination and two aspects of psychological well-being (i.e., depression and satisfaction with the migration decision), by comparing first and second generations. aim evidence in the literature has shown that discrimination and multiple dimensions of identity processes influence psychological well-being. moreover, a recent study revealed the mediator role of ethnic and national identity (heim et al., 2011). in the present study, we aimed to test a model in which perceived discrimination affects muslims’ psychological well-being (depression and satisfaction with migration) through the mediation of religious, ethnic, and national dimensions of identity processes in first and second generation muslim immigrants. following the widely used bidimensional cultural model of berry (1997), we explored two independent dimensions of identity: attitudes and identities towards the “italian culture” (national identity) and attitudes and identities towards their heritage cultural background (ethnic identity). furthermore, we investigated religious identity by considering two of its facets (islam identification and religious practices). the model is presented in figure 1. we go beyond existing research in three ways. first, we focused simultaneously on multiple intertwined dimensions of identity processes (ethnic, national, and religious). second, we examined psychological adaptation not only with depression but also with a specific and new index focused on the assessment of migration experience, such as the level of satisfaction with migration. third, we investigated the direct and indirect role of perceived discrimination comparing first and second generation muslim immigrants. giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 71 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mediational model. method participants the participants were 204 adult muslim immigrants who originated from many muslim-majority countries and lived in the highly urbanized northern part of italy. the age of the participants ranged from 18 to 72 years, with a mean age of 36.6 (sd = 12.1). among them, 59.8% were first generation immigrants (range: 35–72 years; m = 45.6 years, sd = 5.77; 59% males, 41% females), and 40.2% were second generation immigrants (range: 18–34 years; m = 23.3 years, sd = 4.18; 42.7% males, 57.3% females). first generation immigrants were defined as those born in a non-western country who came to italy when they were young adults. using a broad operational definition of second generation, we included in the second generation immigrant group either italyborn children of foreign parents or foreign-born children who were brought to italy at the age of 11 or younger (rumbaut & portes, 2001). a majority of the participants were married (59.1%; the majority belonged to the first generation, among whom 89.3% were married), while 34% were single (the majority belonged to the second generation, among whom 82.9% were single), 5.9% were separated or divorced, and 1% were widowed. in terms of education, the modal educational level was high school or less (71% for first generation; 91% for second generation). only 28% of the first generation and 8.6% of the second generation participants had a college or advanced degree. among participants, 67.5% came from north african states (mainly from morocco and egypt); the others had a different non-western origin, such as sub-saharan africa (11.8%), south asia (11.8%), and eastern europe (9.9%). on average, first-generation immigrants came to italy when they were 28.5 years old (sd = 5.30); among the second generation participants, 28% were born in italy, and 72% arrived in italy before they turned 11 years old (m = 4.33; sd = 3.86). the average length of residence in italy was 17.8 years (range: 3–44 years; sd = 6.26): 17.1 years (range: 3–44 years; sd = 6.86) among first-generation and 18.9 (range: 7–34 years; sd = 5.08) years among second generation immigrants. a majority of the participants (91.8%) reported being sunni muslim, which is the most represented muslim group in italy (fondazione ismu, 2017). muslims’ psychological well-being 72 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure participants were recruited with the support of ethnic and religious groups and organizations located in the milan metropolitan area. additionally, we employed “snowballing” methods for recruiting participants who met the criteria for participation (i.e., self-identified as muslim, first and second generation, 18 years and older) and approached organizations, groups, and individuals. data were collected by means of a questionnaire (pretested by the first author and presented in italian) in a one-on-one interview by trained multilingual interviewers from february to december 2015. before collecting the data, the questionnaire was evaluated by a multidisciplinary team that included the researchers and linguistic/cultural/religious experts from the international oasis foundation (www.oasiscenter.eu) in order to verify the religious and cultural appropriateness and meaningfulness of each item for muslim participants. the interviewer read the questions and filled out the questionnaire. only participants who were foreign-born and not fluent in italian, were assisted by trained multilingual interviewers. the interview took 60 min on average to complete and took place in public spaces (cafes, libraries, associations, schools) selected by the respondents. the participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and that their responses would be confidential. written informed consent was obtained. the university ethical committee approved the research protocol, which fulfilled the ethical standards of the italian psychology association (aip, associazione italiana di psicologia). measures in addition to a socio-demographic information sheet, the questionnaire contained measures of ethnic, national and religious identity, perceived discrimination, and psychological well-being. ethnic and national identity. two dimensions of identity were assessed through a reduced version of the acculturation attitudes scale (aas) of berry and sabatier (2010). specifically, 11 items reflected identification with “heritage culture” (ethnic identity), and six items assessed identification with the “mainstream italian culture” (national identity) related to various domains (language, social networks, values, emotion, cultural transmission). sample items included: “i think that it is important that [heritage culture] be maintained across generations”, “i like to attend [own ethnic group] parties”, “i think that [ethnic] parents should make an effort for their children to develop ties with [own ethnic group] people outside the house” for ethnic identity; “i like to attend to italian parties”, “i want to adopt the italian way of life”, and “i think that parents should make an effort for their children to develop relationships with italian society” for national identity. the participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement on each item on a scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). the acculturation attitudes scale was translated from french into italian, and an independent back translation into french was performed to check the accuracy of the translation. the literature has established good validity and reliability for this measure (berry & sabatier, 2010). in the current study, we performed an exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring, extracted one factor explaining 42.46% of variance (factor loadings for the ethnic dimension ranged between .48 and .84, whereas the factor loadings for national dimension ranged between .38 and .80). the coefficient alphas were .85 for ethnic identity and .81 for national identity. giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 73 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 http://www.oasiscenter.eu https://www.psychopen.eu/ religious identity. religious identity was measured with one pictorial item for religious identification and several for religious practices. religious in-group identification was assessed with a single pictorial item derived from the inclusion of in-group in the self measure (iis, tropp & wright, 2001), which consists of seven venn-like diagrams, with pairs of circles varying in their degree of overlap, and the respondents were asked to select the pair of circles that best represented their level of identification with a given in-group (in this case, with islam). responses to the iis ranged from 1 (two separate circles/no overlap) to 7 (high degree of overlap). tropp and wright’s study (2001) established good validity for this one single-item measure. religious practices was assessed with six items, selected from güngör and colleagues (2011). the items measured the participants’ observance of religious rules and rites, including dietary practices (e.g., eating halal food), worship (e.g., saying prayers), religious transmission (explicit, e.g., the teaching of religious beliefs, and implicit routes of religious transmission, e.g., parental modeling of religious behaviours). the measure included items such as “how often did you fast during the last ramadan?”, “how often do you say daily prayer?”, and “did you attend koran lessons as a child?”. a 5-point rating scale (from 1 = none to 5 = regular practice) indicated the frequency with which the participants engaged in specific practices. the items were translated from english into italian, and an independent back translation into english was performed to check the accuracy of the translation. good validity and reliability of the measure have been established by güngör and colleagues (2011). an exploratory factor analysis, using principal axis factoring, extracted one factor explaining 58.66% of variance (factor loadings ranging between .64 and .87). an overall religious index (termed religious identity), including both religious ingroup identification and behavioural components of muslim identity (α = .89), was created. perceived discrimination. perceived discrimination was measured by two items derived from fleischmann and colleagues (2011). the items addressed personal experience of unfair treatment, offensive words, or hostility due to religion or background more generally, and were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (almost daily). the items were “have you ever experienced hostility or unfair treatment because of your origin or background?” and “have you ever experienced hostility or unfair treatment because of your religion?”. the items were translated from english into italian, and an independent back translation into english was performed to check the accuracy of the translation. good validity and reliability of this measure have been established (fleischmann et al., 2011). in our study, the items formed a reliable scale (r(204) = .57, p < .001). psychological well-being. positive (satisfaction with migration decision) and negative (depressive symptoms) indicators of psychological well-being were used. satisfaction with migration decision was measured by three items created ad hoc. the items addressed subjective satisfaction with the choice for the participants to leave their country of origin (whether the decision was carried out by themselves or made by their family of origin) and willingness to repeat the migration choice. an examples of the items included: “if i could go back, i would make the same choice”. the response options ranged from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). for the present study, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring and asking for one factor; the analysis extracted one factor explaining 46.76% of the variance (factor loadings ranging between .50 and .92). the reliability was sufficient (α = .64). depression. depression was measured by six items from the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (ces-d, radloff, 1977; italian version, fava, 1983) in order to assess depressive symptoms (e.g., “i was bothered by things that don’t usually bother me”; “i felt that everything i did was an effort”). the responses ranged from 0 (rarely or none of the time to less than 1 day) to 3 (most or all of the time to 5–7 days). a good validity and reliability of this measure have been confirmed for italian translation (fava, 1983). for the present study, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis using muslims’ psychological well-being 74 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ principal axis factoring and asking for one factor; the analysis extracted one factor explaining 49.70% of the variance (factor loadings ranging between .51 and .86). the coefficient alpha for this was is .85. results the means and intercorrelations among the measures are presented in table 1. table 1 means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among measures (first and second generation immigrant muslims) variable 1st generation 2nd generation t df p 1 2 3 4 5 6m sd m sd 1. perceived discrimination 2.15 0.95 2.10 0.81 -0.39 202 .689 — .14 .06 .16 .10 -.20* 2. ethnic identity 3.61 0.62 3.30 0.68 -3.27 202 .001 .28* — .39** .45** .11 -.14 3. national identity 3.16 0.72 3.39 0.71 2.22 202 .027 -.38** -.14 — .07 .25** .17 4. religious identity 3.72 1.06 2.79 1.07 -6.05 201 .000 .29** .75*** -.26* — .04 -.22* 5. depression 1.05 0.63 1.07 0.64 0.17 201 .868 .36** .36** -.02 .34** — -.19* 6. satisfaction with migration 3.02 0.96 3.38 0.75 2.68 180 .008 -.38** -.31** .38** -.37** -.23 — note. correlations for first generation muslims are above diagonal, correlations for second generation muslims are below diagonal. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. mediational model we tested, using mplus 7.1 (muthén & muthén, 1998–2010), a multi-group path-analysis model, in which discrimination is connected with depression and satisfaction with migration through the mediation of ethnic and national identity, as well as religious identification. the model is a saturated one because we tested both direct and indirect effects of perceived discrimination. we first ran a baseline model, in which the same model was simultaneously tested in the first and second generations, but the path estimates were allowed to be different across the two groups. then, we tested a constrained multi-group model in which all of the paths were constrained to be equal; this second model was significantly different from the baseline one, δχ2(16) = 40.588, p < .05; cfi = .868; rmsea = .123 (90% ci [.076, .170]). the inspection of paths in the baseline model revealed that some, but not all, paths were similar between the two groups. thus, we tested a partial invariant multi-group model in which we constrained those paths to be equal (the direct effects of ethnic and religious identity on depression, all of the paths between the independent and mediator variables and satisfaction with migration, and the covariances between religious identification and national and ethnic identity). this model was not significantly different from the baseline multi-group model, δχ2(8) = 13.495, p = .096; cfi = .971; rmsea = .082 (90% ci [.000, .156]). figures 2 and 3 show the standardized paths in the first and second generation models. giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 75 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. multigroup mediational model: first generation muslims. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 3. multigroup mediational model: second generation muslims. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. among first generation immigrants, discrimination was directly and negatively associated only with satisfaction with migration, whereas it was not significantly linked with any aspects of identity. for second generation immigrants, discrimination was directly associated with depression (positively associated) and satisfaction with migration (negatively associated), and indirectly associated with satisfaction with migration through the mediation of national and religious identities. indeed, discrimination was negatively associated with national identity, which, in turn, was positively associated with satisfaction with migration; also, discrimination was positively associated with religious identity, which in turn was negatively associated with satisfaction. moreover, discrimination was positively associated with ethnic identity, although no mediation was found for that dimension of identity. the variance explained was larger for second generation than for first generation immigrants, whose depression variance was not significantly explained by the other variables. it is also muslims’ psychological well-being 76 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ noteworthy that depression and satisfaction with migration were significantly and negatively associated with each other only among first generation immigrants. despite the absence of mediation, among first generation immigrants, national identity was significantly and positively associated with both satisfaction with migration and depression, and religious identity was significantly and negatively associated with satisfaction with migration. finally, among the first and second generation immigrants, the covariance between ethnic and religious identity was significant and positive, whereas the other covariances among ethnic, national, and religious identity were not significant, with the exception of the one between ethnic and national identity among the first generation. discussion the present study aimed to test a mediational model in which perceived discrimination was hypothesized to affect psychological adjustment directly and through the mediation of multiple dimensions of identity processes, comparing first and second generation muslim immigrants. the findings show clear differences between first and second generation immigrants and only give support to the posited mediational model for second generation immigrants. second generation immigrants who perceived high levels of discrimination seemed to have weakened national identity perception and increased religious identification, as previously suggested (fleischmann et al., 2011; heim et al., 2011; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007), which in turn is associated with respectively higher and lower levels of satisfaction about their migration decision. hence, national and religious identities are likely to mediate the effect of discrimination on satisfaction with migration but not on depression. direct links between discrimination and both depression and satisfaction with migration decision were also found for both generations. in particular, second generation immigrants who felt discriminated against were more depressed, and participants in both generations who felt discriminated against were less satisfied with their decision to immigrate. considering both indirect and direct paths, we found that the percentage of variance in psychological well-being explained by both discrimination and identity was higher and significant for second generation and lower for first generation immigrants. these results are in line with many previous european studies about muslim immigrants (berry & sabatier, 2010; vedder et al., 2007). as suggested by heim and colleagues (2011), discrimination seems to be a stronger obstacle for second generation immigrants than for first generations, making integration into the new society more difficult. this finding is also consistent with previous research showing the role played by generational status (first and second generation) on the post-migration experience of asian and latino minority groups (inman, 2006; kaduvettoor-davidson & inman, 2013; liu & suyemoto, 2016; wiley, deaux, & hagelskamp, 2012). indeed, although we did not directly test the climate of suspicion in italy, we can speculate that analogously with other stigmatized ethnic minorities. the experience of being discriminated against within the countries where they were born or grew up may be more challenging for second generation muslim youth than for first generation people. previous research seems to support this interpretation about the different perceptions of giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 77 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discrimination across generations (inman, 2006; kaduvettoor-davidson & inman, 2013; liu & suyemoto, 2016; wiley et al., 2012). firstly, second generation individuals would have greater exposure to discrimination experiences than first-generation individuals as a result of having more opportunities to interact in socialization contexts (school and workplaces, with peers and adults, such as teachers). they grow up and spend their formative years within host societies, where they are a religious/ethnic minority and where religious and ethnic markers are emphasized (kaduvettoor-davidson & inman, 2013). higher linguistic competences among the second generation are likely to facilitate and increase opportunities for interactions within the host society and make the second generation more aware of the subtleties of unfairness and discrimination (kaduvettoordavidson & inman, 2013). furthermore, the maintenance of a stronger connection with homeland cultural aspects (language, habits and traditional customs and values, social networks) among the first generation is likely to buffer their exposure to negative and harmful experiences in the host country (inman, 2006; kaduvettoor-davidson & inman, 2013). on the contrary, second generation youth are deeply engaged in developmental processes of identity construction, which lead to more conflicts between external and family pressures, making them more vulnerable to external pressure (stuart et al., 2010). lastly, as suggested by liu and suyemoto (2016), whereas first generation adults born outside the host country attribute discrimination experiences to their immigrant status, second generation individuals (but also 1.5 generation individuals who grew up in the host society) tend to consider themselves as members of the host society, and perceive discrimination as a result of their distinctiveness (linked to ethnicity, race, or religiosity). thus, the second generation is likely to attribute their negative experience in the host society to societal barriers and systemic rejection, and they are less optimistic and more disillusioned about the future than the first generation (wiley et al., 2012). direct effects have also been found between discrimination and identity processes, but only for second generation immigrants. in fact, among the second generation, discrimination is positively associated with ethnic and religious identities and negatively associated with national identity. hence, when they feel discriminated against, they tend to have both intensified links with their religious and ethnic systems of reference and a weakened link with the mainstream culture. these findings are in line with several european studies regarding young muslims living in europe (berry et al., 2006; berry & sabatier, 2010; sabatier, 2008; sirin et al., 2008; vedder et al., 2007), which confirm the role played by discrimination on identity processes. as expected, discrimination seems to produce defensive behaviour and strengthen bonds with the ethnic and religious ingroup (fleischmann et al., 2011; heim et al., 2011; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). however, verkuyten (2007) suggested distinguishing two different processes: in fact, a weak national identity could reflect a low level of identification with the host group (that is, people resisted identifying themselves with the mainstream culture) or a national de-identification from the host group (that is, people do not want to belong to the host society). according to verkuyten (2007), only in the second case do immigrants reject and distance themselves from the host group and are able to develop an “oppositional identity” (p. 354), whereas in the former case, people can be indifferent towards the other culture but have a sense of belonging and commitment to the new society. finally, direct links have been found between identity dimensions and the two aspects of well-being that were investigated. national identity is the only aspect of identity that is significantly linked with better psychological well-being for second generation (and partially for first generation) immigrants, whereas ethnic and religious identities were not. in particular, when second generation muslims identify themselves as italian, they are satisfied about their migration decision. for first generation muslims, high national identity seems to generate ambivalent feelings: high satisfaction with migration but also higher levels of depression and anxiety. this may muslims’ psychological well-being 78 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ be seen as a counterintuitive finding, and more research is needed to understand which moderating variables could explain this link. for instance, there is empirical evidence showing that ambivalent feelings are especially present among second generation muslim women (gennari, giuliani, & accordini, 2017; stevens et al., 2004). cultural pressures seem to be especially consistent for young muslim women who are caught between loyalty to heritage cultural orientations and attraction to western gender models, placing them in a more vulnerable position within western contexts conducive to ambivalent outcomes on well-being. they would be depressed because they feel constrained to a traditional role that is difficult to break: as the main custodians of traditional and heritage values, it would be difficult for them to be completely satisfied with “western” values supporting a more autonomous self-construal. another explanation could be related to the extent to which first generation muslims are satisfied with their decision, while contextual circumstances—and perhaps the limited recognition as nationals that they receive from others—might cause a sense of otherness, and thus causing them anxiety or making them feel depressed. future studies could shed light on this issue and show which speculation is more adequate. overall, these findings confirm previous studies about muslim immigrants in europe, particularly those on second generation immigrants, in which national identity was generally found to be positively connected to psycho-social well-being (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005). conversely, our study failed to confirm the buffering role played by ethnic and religious identity on well-being (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005; vedder et al., 2007). in fact, no significant association between ethnic identity and the two indices of well-being (depression and satisfaction with migration decision) was found for either first or second generation immigrants. furthermore, unlike previous research suggesting that religiosity is positively related to well-being (abu-rayya & abu-rayya, 2009; harker, 2001; jasperse et al., 2012), in our study, religious identity (including measures of identification with islam and engagement in practices) did not positively impact either well-being outcome. rather, a negative link between religious identity and satisfaction with migration was found among both generations: the more important the religious dimension was for them, the more dissatisfied they were with their choice to leave their country of origin and to live in another context. our findings are consistent with friedman and saroglou’s (2010) belgian study, which show that the relationship between religiosity and well-being is complex within societies where religiosity represents an important aspect of stigmatization of muslims (pew research center, 2016). among muslims facing consistent stigmatization in current western intergroup contexts (like belgium but also like many other european countries), religiosity has been associated with decreased self-esteem and increased depression through the intervening variables of perceived religious intolerance and feelings of anger towards the host culture (friedman & saroglou, 2010, p. 192). finally, it is interesting to note that ethnic and religious identity dimensions are strongly positively intertwined for firstand, even more, for second generation immigrants. this result is in line with studies confirming that the demarcation between ethnic and religious components of identity is subtle and tends to become even more confused for second generation immigrants (güngör et al., 2011; maliepaard et al., 2010; verkuyten, 2007; verkuyten et al., 2012; verkuyten & yildiz, 2007). however, unlike european studies, in which national and religious identities are negatively correlated or incompatible orientations (heim et al., 2011; ouarasse & van de vijver, 2005; sabatier, 2008), in our work, national identity was not correlated with the religious dimension (for both generations) and was weakly positively correlated with ethnic components (only for the first generation). in other words, our data suggest that ethnic and religious identities highly overlap and are not perceived as being giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 79 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ incompatible with national identity. hence, it seems muslims’ in-group affiliations do not occur at the expense of identification with the host culture. three aspects distinguishing italy from other european countries in which those issues were investigated could explain those differences. first is the specific and weak nature of italian secularism in comparison with those of other european countries like france or the netherlands (diotallevi, 1999; kosmin & keysar, 2009; roy, 2007): in italy, the catholic church, activism by ecclesiastical organizations in many sectors (school, sport, social assistance, education, health, etc.), and religious values remain strong and exert influence on the public and political spheres. religiosity and the role of religion in social and political domains could be perceived as an element of proximity between muslims and catholics. second, the history of muslim immigration is more recent in italy than in other european countries, and their density is lower. third, italy has been less directly affected by muslim terrorism, at least until now, keeping antagonism between the autochthon and muslim communities lower than in other parts of europe. in sum, it is conceivable that the important role of religion for italians along with the lower perception of threat linked to the muslim presence can contribute to explaining why muslims’ religious and ethnic belonging are not perceived as being opposite to italian cultural values. as pointed out by vedder and colleagues (2007), little is known about post-resettlement factors associated with acculturation processes and adaptation. in this regard, comparative studies within europe are needed to explore the complexity of the relationship between muslim immigrants’ acculturation experience and different countries of settlement. limitations and conclusions the study presents some limitations. the first issue concerns the cross-sectional nature of the design, thus limiting the possibilities for testing causal links among variables. for example, although many empirical studies support the causal link between perceived discrimination and intensification of ethnic identity, evidence also suggests that a strong ethnic/religious identification may increase perceptions of discrimination. longitudinal research will be important in future studies to establish directional influences (phinney, 1990). the second limitation concerns the choice and recruitment of participants. sampling biases derived from the participant recruitment (a convenience sample, based on voluntary participation from a population living in the highly urbanized northern part of italy) may reduce the representativeness of the italian social reality and the demographic context. furthermore, muslims constitute a very heterogeneous group of people: the label muslim used for selecting participants does not capture the diversity of national origins among immigrant muslims living in italy, and our data did not allow us to explore the role played by the context of origin on acculturation processes (phinney et al., 2001). future studies could directly focus on the largest muslim immigrant communities in italy (that is, moroccans, albanians, egyptians, bangladeshis, pakistanis, and tunisians; fondazione ismu, 2017; istat, 2016). moreover, the small sample of second generation participants in the current study did not allow us to explore gender differences. as documented (sirin & fine, 2008; stevens et al., 2004), future studies should also explore the second generation experience among men and women. “culture” and “islam” set different standards and norms for males and females, thus influencing their migration experience and well-being in the host country. finally, additional limitations to note concern the instruments used to assess the main constructs investigated in the current study. perceived discrimination, identity, and well-being are multidimensional constructs. with muslims’ psychological well-being 80 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 https://www.psychopen.eu/ respect to discrimination, recent studies have highlighted how several types of ethnic/religious discrimination experiences have different impacts on well-being (brittian et al., 2015). notably, it would be useful in future studies about muslims to consider perceived ethnic group discrimination (e.g., denigration of one’s groups as a whole) in addition to the widely used interpersonal (individual) perceived discrimination. furthermore, we need to consider the multidimensionality of the concept and measurement of identity dimensions. each of the identity dimensions explored in the current study (ethnic, national, and religious identity) includes different aspects and operationalizations (e.g., sense of belonging, centrality, identification, adoption of cultural practices and values, citizenship) that are rarely investigated in the same study. we adopted a cultural framework to define identities; nevertheless, future studies should include more facets of identity processes, in line with recent research interests, such as the study of citizenship identities and their relationship with national identity (hussain & bagguley, 2005; thomas & sanderson, 2011). lastly, we only considered the psychological well-being of muslims, whereas researchers recommend investigating several aspects of well-being. no indicators of sociocultural well-being (e.g., school success, work performance, behavioural problems) have been included in the current study in addition to psychological well-being, and both are indeed relevant outcomes of the acculturation process, as already documented (searle & ward, 1990). notwithstanding these limitations, the present study is the first in italy to underline the negative role played by perceived discrimination among second generation muslims. complex relationships among perceived discrimination, identity dimensions, and well-being have been shown, mainly for second-generation muslims and less for first generation muslims. in line with previously cited european literature, the former seem to face more challenging tasks in facing discrimination and reconciling multiple identity dimensions. an innovative aspect of the study was the evaluation of immigrants’ psychological well-being using an index of satisfaction that was specifically related to their migration decision, which is rare in the literature. our findings about that variable were particularly interesting for second generation immigrants: when they felt discriminated against and “less italian”, they were unsatisfied and rejected the migration decision, which had not been made by themselves but by others (their parents or their family of origin). thus, the second generation’s psychological well-being is strictly connected to the personal meaning that these youth give to their family migration project: they need to personally reconfirm the migration project carried out in the past by their parents to experience well-being. future studies need to further explore these issues to understand and support integration processes among muslim generations in the face of increasing discrimination. funding the research has been funded by a grant of the oasis international foundation (http://www.oasiscenter.eu/it). competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 81 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 http://www.oasiscenter.eu/it https://www.psychopen.eu/ references abu-rayya, h. m., & abu-rayya, m. h. 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(2007). the weight of the hyphen: freedom, fusion and responsibility embodied by young muslim-american women during a time of surveillance. applied developmental science, 11, 164-177. doi:10.1080/10888690701454674 muslims’ psychological well-being 86 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 http://doi.org/10.1177/0038038511416161 http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167201275007 http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb02562.x http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9450.2010.00831.x http://doi.org/10.1080/10888690701454617 http://doi.org/10.1177/1368430207078695 http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212446164 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01794.x http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207304276 http://doi.org/10.1037/a0027661 http://doi.org/10.1007/bf00288219 http://doi.org/10.1080/10888690701454674 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors cristina giuliani is academic researcher and assistant professor in social psychology at the faculty of linguistic sciences, catholic university of the sacred heart, italy. her main issues of research are: critical family transition and resiliency processes, migration and acculturation processes, first and second generation muslims living in italy. semira tagliabue is a researcher and assistant professor in psychometric at the faculty of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, italy. her main issues of research are: interpersonal relationships, methodology of research with a specific interest in dyadic data analyses; validation of quantitative and qualitative instruments to assess family relationships and individual well-being. camillo regalia is full professor in social psychology at the faculty of education catholic university of the sacred heart, italy. his main issues of research are: psychosocial integration of first and second generation of immigrants; muslim migration and adaptation in italian context. giuliani, tagliabue, & regalia 87 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 66–87 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1434 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ muslims’ psychological well-being (introduction) perceived discrimination, identity, and well-being immigrant muslims’ identities and psychological well-being aim method participants procedure measures results mediational model discussion limitations and conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors mentalities and mind-sets: the skeleton of relative stability in psychology’s closet editorial mentalities and mind-sets: the skeleton of relative stability in psychology’s closet gordon sammut* a [a] university of malta, malta. europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of malta, msida msd 2080, malta. e-mail: gordon.sammut@um.edu.mt this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. over its brief history, the discipline of psychology has seen its fair share of crises (farr, 1991). in the grand scheme of academic scholarship, it has sandwiched itself between the natural and the social sciences. this positioning, in itself, has fuelled fierce as well as productive debates concerning the discipline’s scope, its phenomenology, epistemology, and methodology (see toomela & valsiner, 2010). the latest crisis to afflict the discipline is the infamous ‘replication crisis’, precipitated by the reproducibility project which claimed that it was only able to find evidence for successful replication of published psychological findings in 47% of cases (i.e. less than chance, or 50%). no doubt, many expected a higher replication rate, betraying a long held but little researched assumption concerning the immutability of psychological phenomena. to put it simply, many expect psychological findings to replicate invariably across diverse sociocultural contexts in the same way that, for instance, medical diagnoses do (see sammut, foster, salvatore, & andrisano-ruggieri, 2016). if one is diagnosed with diabetes in the us, one does not expect different insulin uptake upon migration to china. similar expectations are levelled at psychology, based chiefly upon the discipline’s claims to knowledge concerning psychopathology and personality. like medical research, psychological scholarship here serves to typify and characterize individuals in ways that facilitate treatment of psychological symptoms, conditions, or disorders. unlike medical research, however, psychological functioning seems to be amenable to, if not contingent upon, sociocultural influences. for instance, we are not entirely sure whether the human personality is primarily composed of the big five trait constellation (costa & mccrae, 1992), or whether it becomes seven if one is socialised in china (wang, cui, & zhou, 2005; zhou, saucier, gao, & liu, 2009). a recent commentary by baucal, gillespie, krstić, & zittoun (2019) argues that the discipline has, over the years, entertained three basic assumptions concerning the universality of psychological phenomena and the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ extent to which these demonstrate variable manifestation in diverse ecological contexts (gigerenzer, 2000). the results emerging from the reproducibility project have thrown into crisis research programmes resting on assumptions of immutability. conversely, they have provided support to research traditions that have assumed otherwise. in this contribution, i propose that the challenge precipitated by the replication crisis may have its silver lining, inasmuch as it requires the discipline to confront a skeleton in its closet – the issue of relative stability. in so doing, i query whether there might be something that psychologists might have missed along the way. specifically, i propose that psychological research might be converging on a range of phenomena that lie at the heart of the dynamic stability that has long afflicted personality research (see connelly, ones, & chernyshenko, 2014), but that might help explain how humans with genetically-rooted dispositions are capable of adapting to situated circumstances (gigerenzer, 2000; sammut, foster, salvatore, & andrisano-ruggieri, 2016. the problem of people who kill themselves and a lot of others with them ‘charlie hebdo’, ‘9/11’, ‘the london bombings’ – these terms today need no contextualisation; they are remembered as terrorist events by virtue of their virality. the issue of individual differences in the endorsement of militant extremist beliefs has been, for some time now, a matter of intensive scientific research (sageman, 2004). the overarching aspiration in this line of inquiry is to understand the root cause of extremist violence. a promising line of inquiry is the investigation of the extremist mindset. međedović & knežević (2019) claim psychopathology inspired research amongst militants and terrorists has yielded mixed empirical results. the issue has been noted since arendt’s (1963) landmark analysis of eichmann’s trial in jerusalem, convicted and executed for war crimes perpetrated during his tenure as a nazi officer. according to arendt, eichmann was no deranged psychopath, but “terribly and terrifyingly normal” (p. 276). međedović & knežević (2019) investigated the role played by certain personality traits in an effort to identify a constellation marking the militant extremist personality (p. 92). the trait constellation in question is disintegration, defined as “a proneness to see and feel connections among factually unrelated phenomena” (p. 93). this is investigated in light of the dark tetrad of human personality (paulhus, 2014). the study is moot on the point as to whether this proneness is an individual psychological vulnerability associated with personality structures of a certain type, or whether this is an ideological vulnerability associated with ideologies of a certain type. that is, is extremism a function of the personality structure of the individual, or a function of the radical component in organized beliefs? the authors report that the militant extremist mindset [mem] is predicted by a subtle balance of dispositions (p. 101), although sadism is demonstrated to be unrelated to psychopathy, which contradicts previous findings. the crucial issue, however, is whether mem transpires similarly in clinical populations as subclinical ones, that is whether individual differences transpire in degree or in type. if the difference is in degree, then it is fair to investigate clinical traits in subclinical populations focusing on trait-like manifestations, as per the cited inquiry. but if the difference is in type, then the findings concerning one population do not generalise to the other and the expectation of replicating findings across this contextual diversity is misguided. crucially, in the present case, the authors proffer a situational explanation for militant extremism that is neither construed in terms of a editorial 422 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ characteristic trait constellation marking the extremist personality type, nor in substantive ideological terms typifying certain beliefs as radical or extremist. međedović & knežević (2019) go on to claim that “in a context where everyone is using others for their own purposes, it becomes justifiable to employ the same strategies in order to change the state of affairs” (p. 100). in other words, in certain situations militant terrorism, terrifying as it may be, is justifiably normal. this construal, however, strikes at the heart of personality research based on the individual differences tradition that also aspires to characterise types. if the predictive value of personality dispositions is contingent on their activation in specific situations, then their predictive validity, along with the expectation of replicability, is necessarily limited due to situational contingencies that are in themselves wholly unpredictable. to take stock, personality research has, broadly speaking, discerned trait-like structures that are seemingly associated with determined inclinations. the fruition of these inclinations in behaviour, however, is contingent on situational circumstances that are in themselves, open-ended. that is, if the stability of personality structures is only discernible in the specific situation, that is, if stability is relative – not to cultural context, but to situational context – then the burden facing personality researchers to map the precise structure of situational influences acting on the agent at the particular moment in which the structure has evinced becomes, truly, an untenable task. along with the expectation of trans-situational replicability. clearly, it is time for the discipline to acknowledge that universalistic aspirations regarding human cognition and personality have not been supported and rather than fixing statistics with more statistics (baucal, gillespie, krstić, & zittoun, 2019), it is time for the discipline to consider more deeply the range of phenomena that enable human adaptation to situational contingencies, given some stability in both personality dispositions and sociocultural contexts. situated cognition a critical concern that has underlined numerous other debates in psychology is whether knowledge of psychological structures and processes serves descriptive or predictive purposes. for instance, does knowledge of the existence of racial stereotypes in a population serve to (aside from describing the state of the distribution of racial stereotypes in the specific population at the specific point in time it is investigated) predict correlated outcomes, such as frequency of hate crimes, on the basis of knowledge of the relations between racial stereotypes and hate crimes observed in other instances? the extension from descriptive research to inferential research aspiring to describe underlying and invariant processes has been long challenged theoretically (harré & secord, 1972) and, if the findings of the reproducibility project are anything to go by, now also empirically (open science collaboration, 2015). a situated view of personality and cognition counterbalances both foci. as smith & semin (2007) have argued, the situated view proposes that any description of human behaviour is only meaningful if it serves to establish grounds for communicative mutuality. this is due to the fact that human cognition is motivated (kunda, 1990) and predisposed towards sociality (tomasello, carpenter, call, behne, & moll, 2005). human cognition enables individuals to form social identities around collective interests (sammut, 2012). this form of sociality is only relatively enduring – as individuals’ interests change, the composition of the social group ebbs and flows, resulting in situational influences on group members. the situated view opposes the idea that inclinations flow invariably from autonomous, invariant cognitive processes located within independent agents. it proposes instead that motivated functions determine the nature of these processes. sammut 423 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for instance, an agent’s emotional state influences behavioural outcomes in the situation aside from sociocultural features of the society in which the behaviour occurs, or the personality dispositions of the agent involved. the situated emotional state of the agent is unstable in ways that go beyond general psychological orientations (such as personality structure) and are contingent on the unpredictable. for instance, need for closure research has demonstrated that time pressure (e.g. running late) leads to cognitive shortcuts in decision-making (kruglanski, 2004). this suggests that if certain behavioural responses do not serve a motivated function, the cognitive processes leading to them will not be activated (smith & semin, 2007, p. 133). consequently, this invites researchers to specify not only the psychological processes observed in themselves, but more importantly, the boundaries limiting their activation. the variable potential that inheres in personality structures, making stability in behavioural influences as a function of trait dispositions merely relative, provides plenty of scope for inquiry in its own right. i propose this might be key to understanding, more deeply, the human potential for situational adaptation. the explanation of social behaviour psychological researchers investigating stable dispositional orientations in human personality have reliably observed, over the years, that personality structures are inherently unstable across variable circumstances. specifically, it seems that the factor concerned with ‘openness to experience’ might have something to do with reconfigurations in the personality structure (connelly, ones, & chernyshenko, 2014). i argue that such reconfigurations are adaptive and contingent on the individual’s situated circumstances. i propose that personality structure resembles a psychological camouflage by which dispositional inclinations are reconfigured (i.e. the personality structure is re-structured) to match situated ecological demands. as noted, personality researchers looking for stable structures have routinely observed instability in personality dynamics. conversely, researchers investigating social-psychological dynamics have routinely observed stable structures. by analogy to the rubin vase, those looking for a chalice have observed human faces whilst those searching for human faces have observed a chalice. rather than an empirical inconsistency, i argue that this is a case of convergence in disparate research traditions. the big five model of human personality comprised of a five-factor personality structure is very well-known (costa & mccrae, 1992). the premise underlying this personality model is that human behaviour is geneticallybased, at least in part, through inherent dispositions that develop in individuals over the course of maturation. by the time they reach adulthood, human beings develop an idiosyncratic personality, rooted in a constellation of traits shaped by genetic influences, that predisposes them to characteristic behavioural responses. what this model falls short in explaining is how and why these trait-based dispositions may change in the same individual over time, or why behavioural responses shaped by the same trait dispositions are inconsistent across situations for the same individuals. an equally well-known model that is similarly based on factor analytic techniques is the cultural dimensions model (hofstede, 1991). the premise underlying this sociological model is that human behaviour is a function of cultural values transmitted through socialisation. different cultures prioritise different values, depending on which cultural dimensions are salient in different societies, that lead to individuals expressing this cross-cultural variability in behavioural outcomes. what this model falls short in explaining is how and why some individuals demonstrate similar behavioural dispositions across different cultures, or how within a given culture individual differences may be highly marked. these two models are amongst similar efeditorial 424 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ forts that have aimed to map out psychological and sociological structures in an effort to account for behavioural diversity. both programmes, however, are prone to relative influences that lead to observed structural changes over time, situations, people, and contexts. on the other hand, three other research programmes have investigated belief dymanics. the symbolic universes programme has investigated dynamics of sense-making in europe in response to the financial and immigration crises. the social axioms programme sought to investigate cross-cultural differences in core beliefs that can account for behavioural diversity within and across cultures. the moral frameworks programme has studied the fundamental moral choices individuals make when they opt for a particular behavioural response that is justified in a given context against similarly justifiable alternative responses that lie at the individual’s disposal. all three programmes have claimed that behaviour is responsive to contextual characteristics that may precipitate changes in the current order. all three have also reported five loosely stable structures that seem to play a role in how individuals respond to other people and the events happening around them. symbolic universes salvatore et al. (2018) propose that human cognition is organised around embodied and affect-laden generalized worldviews that determine the construal of situations by different individuals. in other words, the same stimulus may be construed as an opportunity by some, or an obstacle by another – depending on the generalized worldview the individual has privately subscribed to and regardless of their own private personality-based inclinations. according to the authors, these universes foster social engagement due to perspectival solidarity achieved between agents. in their europe-wide study concerning the effects of the economic and migration crises in europe, the authors report the presence of 5 universes. the ordered universe represents adherence to systems-based rules and regulations. the interpersonal bond universe represents valorization of social capital. the caring society universe is marked by a striving for community. niche of belongingness represents the effort to find a legitimate place in life for oneself and one’s loved ones. the others’ world universe represents an attitude of helplessness and grit in the face of adversity. social axioms leung and bond (2010) propose that human cognition is structured around generalized beliefs individuals hold about other people, social groups, institutions, society, and the spiritual realm. these general beliefs grant coherence in thinking about disparate elements in the world around us. consequently, they are endorsed in an axiomatic fashion and serve to guide everyday conduct that involves the mutual presence of others. the authors distinguish between 5 social axioms, which they claim are universal in existence but variable in their manifestation: (a) religiosity, representing an unquestioning attitude towards prescribed dogma; (b) social complexity, representing an attitude of strategic contingency based on interpersonal situations; (c) reward for application, representing a generalised attitude of striving for the betterment of one’s condition; (d) fate control, representing a generalised belief in the necessity to find a place for oneself in a powerful and controlled social order; and (e) social cynicism, representing a generalised belief that there is little one can do about the prevalent order to ameliorate one’s condition. sammut 425 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moral foundations haidt (2012) claims that human beings are equipped with intuitive ethics that originate in their evolutionary survival. according to haidt, these moral foundations provide us with flashes of affect in specific situations that serve to guide our conduct and shape our interpretation of the situation. different cultures use these moral foundations differently to censure or otherwise particular action strategies. in the process of socialisation, individuals learn the normative rules that prevail around them. violation of these rules triggers affective responses that predispose individuals towards determined responses. haidt (2012) distinguished between 5 moral frameworks, that is (a) sanctity, concerned with violations of degradation; (b) loyalty, concerned with violation of trust and betrayal; (c) care, concerned with violations resulting in harm; (d) fairness, concerned with possibilities for cheating; and (e) authority, concerned with subversion of a prevalent order. haidt further proposes that additional frameworks may develop as a function of particular sociocultural concerns, such as the framework of liberty in the us. the psychological gearbox: mentalities, or is it mindsets? clearly, a full theoretical rapprochement of these disparate research traditions is beyond the scope of the present contribution. however, the similarities reported in the descriptions of the underlying factors are palpable (see table 1) and warrant consideration of the possibility of converging evidence. table 1 five factor outputs in generalized beliefs research traditions symbolic universes social axioms moral foundations ordered religiosity sanctity interpersonal bond social complexity loyalty caring society reward for application care niche of belongingness fate control fairness others’ world social cynicism authority all three research programmes have extended psychological inquiry beyond personality-based dispositions to generalized mental frames that mark individuals’ situated positioning relative to others on matters of social concern. the central idea investigated in these programmes is whether there are individual differences in how human beings interpret the events that happen to them and the world around them, controlling for personality structure. for instance, we can readily understand cultural differences in preferences for individual behavioural responses. these represent social norms of conduct. we can also readily understand how, within the same culture, different personality structures demonstrated by different individuals may precipitate different behavioural responses to the same stimulus. what we struggle to understand as readily is how the same individual, within the same culture, behaves in one way in one situation and a different way in another situation, when facing the same stimulus. we struggle with this because we expect the phenotype to match the genotype. unless, that is, one considers a range of phenomena amenable to situational influences that also determine behaviour in part. i propose that mentalities are one such variable and that the three programmes considered above have tapped this very construct and similarly reported the same five-factor structure. editorial 426 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the notion of mentalities has been proposed by burke (1986) to delineate a stress on collective attitudes that serve the purposes of practical reasoning and that are structured in terms of how people think as well as what they think. that is, mentalities represent substantive cognition. etymologically, mentality refers to a ‘thinking style’. a related construct that arguably constitutes the other ground in this rubin vase is ‘mindset’, which etymologically represents a ‘thinking habit’. we have seen how mindsets extend the search for behavioural dispositions beyond the big five, as in the search for a militant extremist mindset [mem] cited above. i propose that mindsets are akin to specific mentalities and that this range of mentalities in human psychology constitutes the social-psychological mechanism by which individuals with pre-determined inclinations adapt their responses to ecological demands. to use a metaphor, mentalities are like a 5-piece psychological swiss army knife that enables individuals to psychologically adapt their mindset to tangibly situated environmental demands. if individual psychological adaptation to situational demands was not a successful strategy, then we would be justified in expecting personality structures to be much more enduring – you would have a knife for a knife job and a fork for a fork job. this is not how human behaviour manifests. to pose an example, g.i. joe can go from being a foot soldier concerned with obliterating the enemy to a networking strategist coordinating logistics upon receiving a promotion. an adaptation in mindset might be called for, as one cannot adopt a combative stance in logistics. many human beings routinely adapt to similar circumstances without issue. on the other hand, g. i. joe may adapt by joining a security business at the end of his duty, where the same combative mindset may pay off in a novel environment. what this simple example makes clear is that neither personality structure nor sociocultural dimensions are very useful in understanding how an individual actuates their behavioural inclinations in situated circumstances. conclusion the replication crisis has precipitated renewed concerns about the nature of psychological phenomena and their manifestation in ecologically diverse contexts. clearly, universalistic expectations concerning the manifestation of psychological phenomena are not supported. i have proposed that human psychology may demonstrate phenotype switching, which enables individuals to camouflage their inclinations for adaptation to situated ecological demands. this occurs by adopting a best-fitting mindset out of a range of mentalities that inhere in human psychology. i have argued that research looking at social dynamics suggests that human cognition is structured along five mentalities. i have then argued that this range of mentalities equips individuals with a multipurpose psychological mechanism to suit different ecological demands, like a swiss army knife provides a range of instruments to cater to different requirements. mentalities, therefore, provide human beings with the capacity for environmental calibration. further research is required to determine what factors precipitate changes in mentality. presumably, a mentality that is no longer functional due to situational constraints leads to maladaptive behaviour. this should precipitate psychological discomfort, or cognitive dissonance, that is reduced by revisiting the individual’s construal of the event, as per festinger’s (1957) original findings. phenotype switching of mentalities, therefore, enables individuals to adapt to changing circumstances. i propose that mentalities work like a psychological gearbox for individuals to cope with their particular life terrain. the individual’s personality dispositions, partly rooted in genetics, are like a vehicle. some vehicles are better than others, given particular environmental demands. a sports car may be a sight to behold at the racesammut 427 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ track, but in off-road conditions it will likely turn out to be a maladaptive choice. this is individual differences. but human beings demonstrate a capacity for adaptation in the same way that different cars can be driven in ways that accommodate ecological requirements – that is, environmental calibration. if driving a sports car offroad, one is advised to select a lower gear that permits the driver to ride slowly over bumps. if driving an offroad vehicle at the racetrack, one is advised to select a higher gear for the vehicle to increase and maintain velocity. mentalities, therefore, are like gears – a range of five that enable the particular agent to calibrate their dispositional inclinations to ecological demands. sometimes, it pays an individual to be open, positive, or innovative. this might be due to the fact that the individual finds themselves in a stable environment that provides for the individual’s needs. an open and positive mindset enables the individual to explore and reap opportunities for growth. at other times, it pays an individual to adopt a more cautious demeanour, to consider risk and worst-case scenarios. these help the individual overcome challenges and strife in times of adversity. necessarily, for the behavioural response to be adaptive, the behavioural strategy needs to match the situated ecological demands. a growth mindset when facing bankruptcy is as maladaptive as a helpless mindset when opportunity beckons. individuals, i argue, calibrate their behavioural strategies to environmental demands by adapting their psychological mindset to the situation, such that uncharacteristically cautious behaviour, for example, might start making sense to the bullish investor. equally, uncharacteristically positive behaviour might start making sense to the re-settled refugee whose suspicious inclinations paid off in the past when facing a highrisk environment. clearly, adaptation in the human species is psychologically, not biologically, based – human beings do not demonstrate biological camouflage. rather, in the human species, this involves an ability to change one’s mindset to a more profitable one. the capacity to switch mindsets is observable as situated cognition on the one hand, or relative stability on the other. further research is required to determine the criteria that precipitate change; to determine whether the range of 5 mentalities is true to every individual or whether, like language, this might be a question of inherent potential contingent on socialisation; to determine whether psychological intervention may help individuals precipitate mentality changes; and to determine which mentalities might be indicated in specific circumstances. in any case, a focus on mentalities may provide answers concerning the potential for human adaptation. changing one’s mentality or mindset involves the re-construal of particular events that opens up a profitable and cognitively consistent course of action – was this a good thing or a bad thing? who gains, who loses? should we act, or stay put? i conclude by suggesting that the study of psychological adaptation mechanisms may be key to understanding a host of dynamic behaviours such as creativity, decision-making, empathy, communication styles, resilience, and other behavioural strategies humans adopt to face the situated challenges they encounter over their lifetime. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. editorial 428 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references arendt, h. 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(2009). the factor structure of chinese personality terms. journal of personality, 77(2), 363-400. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00551.x about the author gordon sammut is associate professor in social psychology at the university of malta and visiting fellow at the london school of economics and political science. his interests concern intercultural and intergroup relations, the theory of social representations, social influence, and issues relating to divergent perspectives in social relations. he is past editor of papers on social representations and chief-editor of the cambridge handbook of social representations [cambridge university press], understanding self and others: explorations in intersubjectivity and interobjectivity [routledge], and methods of psychological intervention: yearbook of idiographic science vol. vii [information age]. editorial 430 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 421–430 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.2103 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0189885 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1354067x11434837 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8721.2007.00490.x https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs0140525x05000129 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-839x.2005.00158.x https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-6494.2008.00551.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ editorial (introduction) the problem of people who kill themselves and a lot of others with them situated cognition the explanation of social behaviour symbolic universes social axioms moral foundations the psychological gearbox: mentalities, or is it mindsets? conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author emotion regulation questionnaire-adapted and individual differences in emotion regulation research reports emotion regulation questionnaire-adapted and individual differences in emotion regulation rita seixas a, anne pignault b , claude houssemand a [a] department of education and social work, institute for lifelong learning and guidance, university of luxembourg, luxembourg. [b] laboratory of psychology & neurosciences (2lpn, ea7489), université de lorraine, nancy, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 70–84, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 received: 2020-02-07 • accepted: 2020-05-04 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: claude houssemand, university of luxembourg, 11, porte des sciences, l-4366 esch-alzette, luxembourg. e-mail: claude.houssemand@uni.lu abstract emotion regulation is a human adaptation process with important implications for daily life. two specific emotion regulation strategies were the principle areas of study: reappraisal (cognitive change in which individuals adapt their state of mind about a given situation) and expressive suppression (response modulation in which individuals change their emotional response after its initiation). the emotion regulation questionnaire (erq), that captures individual tendencies to reappraise and to suppress the expression of emotions, was also developed. response modulation strategy was analyzed by considering two distinct processes: expressive suppression (down-regulation) and expressive enhancement (up-regulation). this latter modulation process has been less frequently studied by researchers. the present study investigates the psychometrical properties, individual differences and correlates of a french adapted version of the erq, which comprises reappraisal and the two response modulation tendencies – expressive suppression and expressive enhancement. based on the initial erq, new items were created and added to the scale. the three-factor structure of the erq adapted was confirmed. as expected, emotion regulation is linked to individual differences: the tendency to reappraise has a positive low correlation with age; and men are significantly more disposed to suppress and to enhance than women. finally, the tendency to suppress the expression of emotions is negatively correlated with extraversion, and the disposition to enhance the expression of emotions is negatively correlated with conscientiousness. keywords emotion regulation, expressive enhancement, individual differences, personality emotions are central to human life (cosmides & tooby, 2000; frijda, 1987; keltner & kring, 1998; williams et al., 2004, phelps, 2006) but they can be unhelpful if they occur at inconvenient moments or with an inappropriate intensity level (gross, 1998; gross & thompson, 2007). emotion regulation is currently a frequently studied research domain, with numerous studies attesting to its importance for human adaptation, and its implications for people’s lives (gross, 2002, 2015; gross & john, 2003; gross & muñoz, 1995; john & gross, 2004; mikolajczak, tran, brotheridge, & gross, 2009; snyder, simpson, & hughes, 2006). emotion regulation refers to “the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience and express them” (gross, 1998, p. 275). it can be automatic or effortful, conscious or unconscious, intrinsic (to regulate one’s own emotions) or extrinsic (to regulate others’ emotions) (gross & thompson, 2007). according to gross´s process model of emotion regulation (gross, 1998), individuals can use numer­ ous strategies to regulate their emotions. these can be organized according to the moment at which they intervene this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2755&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7946-3793 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2417-9004 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in the emotion-generative process, regardless of their potential adaptive or maladaptive value (gross & thompson, 2007). five families of emotion regulation strategies can be differentiated: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation (gross, 1998, 2008; gross & john, 2003; john & gross, 2004). the first four families of strategies are considered antecedent-focused because they take place before the emotion response tendency is completely activated. the last family of strategies (response-modulation strategies) are considered response-focused because they are activated after an emotion has started to manifest itself and a response tendency has already been generated (gross, 1998; john & gross, 2004). gross and colleagues developed a vast body of research on two families of strategy – cognitive change and response modulation – and more specifically on two specific strategies: reappraisal (cognitive change) and expressive suppression (response modulation). reappraisal is an antecedent-focus strategy, as it occurs before the emotion is installed. it refers to a cognitive process in which individuals change the way they think about a situation in order to change (by increasing – “up-regulation” or by decreasing – “down-regulation”) its emotional significance and impact (gross, 2008). for example a person noticing that his/her best friend forgot to wish her a happy birthday can create feelings of disappointment or sadness. reappraising the situation to down-regulate negative emotions would involve finding an alternative explanation for this forgetfulness, such as an excess of work or family-related problems, instead of seeing it as a neglect. suppression is a response-focused strategy as it occurs after the emotion is installed. it consists of changing the (experiential, behavioral, or physiological) emotional response after it has been initiated (gross, 2008). an example is the efforts made by a person to hide her anxiety in an oral presentation. the emotion regulation questionnaire with the purpose of capturing individual differences in cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, gross and colleagues developed the emotion regulation questionnaire (erq; gross & john, 2003). the erq comprises 10 items capturing individuals’ tendencies (self-perceived frequencies) to reappraise and to suppress the expression of emotions. respondents are presented with statements regarding the use of reappraisal and suppression. they indicate their agreement or disagreement on a rating scale, ranging from 1 for “strongly disagree” to 7 for “strongly agree”. in the devel­ opment of the erq items, care was paid to not associate any strategy with affective, social or well-being consequences, as these could influence individuals’ responses. the validity, reliability and factor structure of this questionnaire has been demonstrated (gross & john, 2003) and replicated consistently (e.g., brandão, schulz, gross, & matos, 2017; ireland, goh, & marais, 2018; melka, lancaster, bryant, & rodriguez, 2011; moore, zoellner, & mollenholt, 2008; peng, min, & chen, 2016). regarding its factor structure, these two strategies have been shown to be statistically independent. this means that they should not be seen as being negative (using one does not imply not using the other), nor as positively dependent (the frequent use of one of them has no influence on the tendency or disposition to use the other; gross & john, 2003). research has been interested in studying the consequences of their use, individual differences in their regard and their links to related constructs such as personality. consequences of reappraisal and expressive suppression the self-perceived use of reappraisal and expressive suppression have distinct affective, cognitive and social consequen­ ces: a. affective consequences: reappraisal is linked to subjective well-being (ortner, briner, & marjanovic, 2017), lower depression and lower trait anxiety, while expressive suppression is linked to lower well-being and greater negative emotions, feelings of inauthenticity and depression (aldao, nolen-hoeksema, & schweizer, 2010; egloff, schmukle, burns, & schwerdtfeger, 2006; gross & john, 2003; nezlek, vansteelandt, van mechelen, & kuppens, 2008); b. cognitive consequences: frequent “suppressors” have poorer self-reported and objective memory than those who suppress less frequently, while “reappraisers” have comparable or enhanced memory than “non-reappraisers” (richards & gross, 2000); c. social consequences: the habitual use of suppression is correlated with lower levels of social connection (social support and closeness), while reappraisal is positively linked to peer-rated social connection, both using crosssectional (gross & john, 2003) and longitudinal databases (english, gross, john, & srivastava, 2012). seixas, pignault, & houssemand 71 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ even though these data suggest that suppressing the expression of emotions has worse outcomes than expressing or reappraising situations, there is also evidence on the adaptive benefits of suppression (gross & muñoz, 1995; keltner, kring, & bonanno, 1999) and on the maladaptive effects of reappraisal (troy, shallcross, & mauss, 2013). for example, to inhibit the expression of emotions can lead to better long-term adjustment in adverse contexts (bonanno & keltner, 1997). reappraisal is only related to depression in highly stressful contexts (troy, wilhelm, shallcross, & mauss, 2010) and its effects can be deleterious if the stress is high but controllable (troy et al., 2013). taken together these findings support a functionalist perspective (nesse, 1990), according to which emotion regulation strategies are not adaptive or maladaptive per se, but their impact varies according to the situational/context variables and the goals of the individual (gross, 2013; troy et al., 2013). individual differences in reappraisal and expressive suppression do men and women differ in their self-perceived use of reappraisal and suppression? does its use vary over the course of a life? these are some of the questions that have merited researchers’ attention. as regards gender differences, stud­ ies are generally consistent in demonstrating that men and women differ in their use of emotion regulation strategies (hess et al., 2000; nolen-hoeksema & aldao, 2011; tamres, janicki, & helgeson, 2002; zimmermann & iwanski, 2014). specific data on the original erq indicates that men use expressive suppression significantly more frequently than women, while the use of reappraisal does not seem to differ between genders (gross & john, 2003). these results on the use of suppression to regulate (by decreasing) an experienced emotion are in line with studies showing that men tend to conceal the expression of emotions more than women (nolen-hoeksema & aldao, 2011; tamres et al., 2002). however, men and women reappraise with the same frequency, giving support to the view that the use of antecedent and more cognitive-based strategies are not a gender characteristic. in terms of its development, emotion regulation is conceptualized as changeable in time as individuals develop and learn from life experiences, and perceive the costs and benefits of different emotion regulation strategies (blanchard­ fields & coats, 2008; blanchard-fields, stein, & watson, 2004; john & gross, 2004; nolen-hoeksema & aldao, 2011). as previously mentioned, reappraisal has been shown to be associated with healthier outcomes than suppression (gross & john, 2003). thereby it is expected that the use of reappraisal increases with age, while the use of suppression decreases. longitudinal and cross-sectional studies using the erq support this idea. they report that the use of reappraisal increases from early adulthood (20s) to later adulthood (60s), while the use of suppression decreases (john & gross, 2004). these age related changes are arguably related to both a change in the contexts faced by younger and older adults, and to a learning process which leads to a higher use of strategies linked to better consequences, to the detriment of strategies linked to more negative consequences (gross & thompson, 2007). links between personality traits and reappraisal and expressive suppression individuals differ in their personality traits, these distinct affective predispositions influence the use of emotion regula­ tion strategies, specifically by facilitating or making it difficult to use reappraisal and expressive suppression (john & gross, 2004). even if there is no consensus about the nature of these links (balzarotti, john, & gross, 2010; cabello, salguero, fernández-berrocal, & gross, 2012; gresham & gullone, 2012; john & gross, 2008; larsen & ketelaar, 1991; ng & diener, 2009; páez, seguel, & martínez-sánchez, 2013), some results are recurrent throughout the studies: expressive suppression is negatively related to extraversion, and reappraisal is negatively related to neuroticism. extraverts actively seek social interactions, use their emotions constructively to change situations (john & gross, 2004), and are more likely to express emotions than introverts do (gross & john, 1998). this contrasts with introverts who tend to be more self-conscious and sensitive to rejection cues from others. this would explain a tendency to suppress the expression of emotions in order to avoid potential rejection (ayduk et al., 2000). the negative correlation between neuroticism and reappraisal is in line with the fact that emotionally unstable individuals tend to experience strong negative emotions and to feel overwhelmed by their feelings (wang, shi, & li, 2009). this characteristic makes it less likely for these individuals to use cognitive strategies like reappraisal, as it requires being capable of adopting alternative and constructive points of view in order to regulate their emotions (gross & john, 2003). erq-adapted and individual differences 72 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ways of improving the erq given its strong psychometrical properties (brandão et al., 2017; enebrink, björnsdotter, & ghaderi, 2013; gross & john, 2003; ioannidis & siegling, 2015; ireland et al., 2018; melka et al., 2011; peng et al., 2016) and its easy application, the erq is used frequently in studies of individual differences in the self-perceived use of reappraisal and expressive suppression (balzarotti et al., 2010; cabello et al., 2012; gross & john, 2003; moore et al., 2008; uphill, lane, & jones, 2012). however, expressive suppression represents one “side” of response modulation. in fact, individuals can modulate their emotional responses by down-regulating them (using expressive suppression – for example when avoiding laughing at a friends´ joke during a funeral) but also by up-regulating them (using expressive enhancement – for example when a boxer tries to cultivate feelings of anger before entering the ring) (gross, 2014). these two strategies represent very distinct (opposed) ways of modulating ones´ emotional responses, which present distinct patterns of individual differences and correlates. less investigation has been undertaken on expressive enhancement, however some studies have investigated this emotion regulation strategy both at the dispositional (self-reported) and ability levels. for example, being disposed to regulate positive emotions by amplifying their expression promotes goal attainment in interactions with superiors at work (wong, tschan, messerli, & semmer, 2013), leads to lower emotional exhaustion and higher professional efficacy (andela, truchot, & borteyrou, 2015), and to greater job satisfaction (côté & morgan, 2002), and being capable of enhancing the expression of emotions is linked to greater well-being, and higher disposable income and socioeconomic status (côté, gyurak, & levenson, 2010). these studies are motivation for further research. the erq does not include the assessment of expressive enhancement. this scale can nevertheless be adapted easily in order to add a third dimension comprising self-perceived use of expressive enhancement. being able to use an adapted version of the erq is potentially useful for researchers interested in studying response-modulation, both in terms of down-regulation (expressive suppression) and up-regulation (expressive enhancement). the present study this study sought to investigate the psychometrical properties, individual differences and correlates of a french adapted version of the erq. it comprises reappraisal and two response modulation tendencies – expressive suppression and expressive enhancement. more specifically, it investigates the following hypothesis: h1 – the erq-adapted presents adequate internal consistency both overall and for each of its subscales (comparable to the internal consistency of the original scale: e.g., christophe, antoine, leroy, & delelis, 2009; gross & john, 2003); h2 – the erq-adapted reveals a three-factor structure (exploratory factor analysis) with an appropriate fit to the data (exploratory factor and item-response theory analysis: e.g. brandão et al., 2017; gross & john, 2003; ireland et al., 2018; melka et al., 2011; peng et al., 2016); h3 – reappraisal and suppression within age and gender differences replicate previous research: (h3a) men suppress significantly more frequently than women, while no significant differences exist in the disposition to reappraise (h3b). individuals’ tendency to reappraise increases with age, while the tendency to suppress decreases. individual differences in expressive enhancement are explored. to our knowledge, no data exists regarding gender differences on the self-perceived use of expressive enhancement to regulate one’s own emotions. however, on the basis of previous evidence pointing out that women are more emotionally expressive than men (who present a more controlled display of emotions; buck, miller, & caul, 1974; kret & de gelder, 2012; kring & gordon, 1998), this study investigates the hypothesis that women will up-regulate their inner emotions by enhancing their expression more frequently than men (h3c). regarding age, despite the lack of dispositional (self-reported) data on expressive enhancement strategy, research at the ability level indicates that individuals capable of using this strategy report greater well-being, as well as higher disposable income and socioeconomic status (côté et al., 2010). the fact that this strategy is linked with positive outcomes, allied to the fact that individuals’ ability to use this strategy is not affected by age (vieillard, harm, & bigand, 2015), make us expect that expressive enhancement disposition will also not be affected by age (h3d). h4 – the linkage of reappraisal and suppression with personality replicates previous research: expressive suppres­ sion is negatively related to extraversion, and reappraisal is negatively related to neuroticism (e.g., cabello et al., 2012; gresham & gullone, 2012; gross & john, 2003; páez, seguel, & martínez-sánchez, 2013). individual differences in expressive enhancement are explored, with us expecting to observe that because this strategy requires a disposition seixas, pignault, & houssemand 73 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to disclose and experience more intensively one’s own emotions. we explore the hypothesis that extraverts (as they openly express both positive and negative emotions and use them to modify situations) (h4a), and those with low conscientiousness (who are less governed by conscience/reason, and exert less control over emotional experiences), will report a greater use of expressive enhancement (h4b). method participants and procedure a sample of 255 adults in paid employment (152 females; 97 males; 6 missing) aged between 17 and 68 years (m = 37.71, sd = 11.41) participated in this study. the sample was recruited through collaboration with two professional organizations in luxembourg (one in finance and one in the health-care sector) and through public advertisements. participants had heterogeneous professional profiles. while the entire sample filled in the erq-adapted, a subsample of 142 participants (93 females; 43 males; 6 missing) also responded to the big five personality inventory (bfi-fr; plaisant, courtois, réveillère, mendelsohn, & john, 2010). participants of the subsample were aged between 20 and 61 (m = 39.01, sd = 9.35). participants signed consent forms and filled in the questionnaires which were subsequently given directly to the researchers or sent to the university via pre stamped-addressed envelopes. measures emotion regulation dispositions the erq-adapted was presented to the participants french-items of the original version were available by christophe et al. (2009) and used in the present study. two expressive enhancement items were added to the original scale – “when i want to feel more positive emotions, i increase their expression” and “in certain situations, i increase the expression of what i am feeling (be it positive or negative)”. items for the new scale were selected from a set of questions related to expressive enhancement, and were created specifically for the study. this choice was made and validated by a group of researchers from the university of luxembourg, who are specialists in the study of emotional regulation and psychometrics. none of the items related to negative expressive enhancement were retained in the final version of the scale. indeed questions such as "when i want to feel more negative emotions, i increase their expression", were not considered relevant for the questionnaire. this conclusion was verified empirically by a pre-study in which all respondents answered in the negative to these type of questions. these items were therefore not retained in the final version used in this study. the erq-adapted assesses the self-perceived frequencies or dispositions of individuals to use reappraisal (rd; 6 items), expressive suppression (sd; 4 items) and expressive enhancement (ed; 2 items). participants were presented with 12 affirmations; towards which they were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement on a 7-point likert scale, ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree” – e.g. “i control my emotions by changing the way i think about the situation” (reappraisal item) or “i control my emotions by not expressing them” (expressive suppression item). a high score in each subscale means a high tendency (or self-perceived frequency) to use the corresponding strategy. personality personality dimensions were assessed using a french version of the big five inventory (bfi; plaisant et al., 2010). this scale comprises 45 items assessing extraversion (8 items), agreeableness (10), conscientiousness (9), neuroticism (8) and openness to experience (8). participants were presented with affirmations concerning these five dimensions of personality (e.g., “i am talkative” for extraversion) and indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement on a 5-point likert-scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”. a mean score was computed for each subscale. a high subscale score indicates that the individual rates highly on that personality dimension. erq-adapted and individual differences 74 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics, internal consistency and intra-scale correlations the erq-adapted presents acceptable internal consistency, both when considering the overall scale (α = .75) as well as its sub-dimensions: reappraisal (α = .82), expressive suppression (α = .75) and expressive enhancement (α = .76) (see table 1). further, an item analysis was performed by applying classical test theory and item response theory (microsoft excel tools using the eirt add-in; valois, houssemand, germain, & belkacem, 2011), and this confirmed each item’s psychometric characteristics. thus, all items revealed appropriate discrimination indices (item-total correlations between .40 and .69) and logistic curves. the tendency to regulate emotions by reappraising the situation is independent from the tendency to suppress the expression of emotions. however, expressive enhancement is slightly positively related to reappraisal (r = .19, p < .01) and to expressive suppression (r = .14, p < .05). this means that individuals who frequently enhance the expression of emotions also have a small tendency to use the other two strategies, and vice-versa. table 1 descriptive statistics, internal consistency and intra-scale correlations instrument n min max m sd α intra-scale correlations a b c d age 255 17 68 37.71 11.41 erq adapted 255 .75 a. reappraisal 1.17 7.00 4.68 1.10 .82 .07 .19** b. expressive suppression 1.00 7.00 3.41 1.31 .75 .14* c. expressive enhancement 1.00 6.50 3.11 1.48 .76 bfi 142 .73 a. extraversion 1.38 5.00 3.42 0.79 .85 b. agreeableness 2.60 5.00 3.94 0.50 .75 .09 c. conscientiousness 1.22 5.00 3.93 0.58 .82 .19* .14 d. neuroticism 1.13 4.63 2.81 0.75 .83 -.15 -.17* -.23** e. openness to expressive 1.70 5.00 3.56 0.64 .81 .18* .08 .08 .03 note. erq = emotion regulation questionnaire; bfi = big five personality inventory. *p < .05. **p < .01. factor structure of the adapted version for this adapted version of the erq to be valid, it is to be expected that it presents a three-factor structure. this would include the original reappraisal and suppression factors (comprising respectively, reappraisal and suppression items), and a third factor representing expressive enhancement. firstly, non-graphical solutions to scree tests were computed on data with psych and nfactors r-packages. these analyses confirmed an optimal structural solution composed of three factors. secondly, exploratory factor analysis (efa) using method minres (minimum residual method adapted for ordinal data) and principal components analysis (pca) based on polychoric correlations matrix (adapted for ordinal data), with varimax rotation, were conducted to test whether the theoretically expected structure was observed empirically. for these analyses, the r-packages psych and gparotation were used. the erq-adapted revealed empirically the expected factor structure (table 2). for efa, factor 1 comprises the reappraisal items (items 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11) and it explains 23% of the variance. factor 2 comprises the suppression items (items 2, 4, 6, 10) explaining 15% of the variance. the addition of the two enhancement items (items 9 and 12) reflected statistically by the addition of a third factor which explains 11% of the variance. the total percentage of variance explained by the observed three factors is 49%. for pca, the results are convergent and the three factors explain respectively 27%, 19% and 14% of explained variance of the items. seixas, pignault, & houssemand 75 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 loadings of erq-adapted items item factor 1-reappraisal factor 2-suppression factor 3-enhancement communalities efaa pcab efaa pcab efaa pcab efaa pcapb % of variance explained 23 27 15 19 11 14 1. when i want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), i change what i’m thinking about. .59 .68 .05 .06 -.05 -.11 .36 .48 2. i keep my emotions to myself. .04 .04 .73 .82 -.02 -.06 .54 .68 3. when i want to feel less negative emotion (such as sadness or anger), i change what i’m thinking about. .66 .73 -.06 -.06 -.09 -.13 .44 .56 4. when i am feeling positive emotions, i am careful not to express them. -.13 -.17 .53 .65 .22 .28 .34 .53 5. when i’m faced with a stressful situation, i make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm. .54 .62 .09 .09 .08 .10 .30 .41 6. i control my emotions by not expressing them. .04 .04 .83 .85 -.05 -.07 .69 .73 7. when i want to feel more positive emotions, i change the way i’m thinking about the situation .77 .80 .03 .03 .11 .11 .61 .66 8. i control my emotions by changing the way i think about the situation i’m in. .62 .69 .07 .07 .13 .16 .41 .51 9. when i want to feel more positive emotions, i increase their expression .11 .11 .16 .16 .84 .86 .74 .77 10. when i am feeling negative emotions, i make sure not to express them. .21 .22 .54 .67 .14 .15 .36 .52 11. when i want to feel less negative emotion, i change the way i’m thinking about the situation. .76 .80 -.01 -.01 .10 .11 .59 .65 12. in certain situations, i increase the expression of what i am feeling (be it positive or negative). .05 .04 .03 .00 .69 .87 .48 .77 note. efa = exploratory factor analysis; pca = principal component analysis; erq = emotion regulation questionnaire. arotation varimax, extraction method: minres. brotation varimax. finally, a structural analysis based on item response models (mirt r-package) confirmed the previous results and the three-factor structure of the erq-adapted (table 3). erq-adapted and individual differences 76 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 loadings of erq-adapted items (structural analysis based on item response models) item factor 1-reappraisal factor 2-suppression factor 3-enhancement communalities % of variance explained 29 19 13 1. when i want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), i change what i’m thinking about. .66 .05 -.01 .45 2. i keep my emotions to myself. .02 .80 .06 .63 3. when i want to feel less negative emotion (such as sadness or anger), i change what i’m thinking about. .73 -.02 -.06 .54 4. when i am feeling positive emotions, i am careful not to express them. -.13 .57 .19 .38 5. when i’m faced with a stressful situation, i make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm. .62 -.10 .09 .40 6. i control my emotions by not expressing them. .06 .86 -.01 .73 7. when i want to feel more positive emotions, i change the way i’m thinking about the situation. .84 .03 .11 .73 8. i control my emotions by changing the way i think about the situation i’m in. .73 .09 .10 .55 9. when i want to feel more positive emotions, i increase their expression. .11 .08 .98 .97 10. when i am feeling negative emotions, i make sure not to express them. .19 .57 .19 .40 11. when i want to feel less negative emotion, i change the way i’m thinking about the situation. .84 .01 .10 .71 12. in certain situations, i increase the expression of what i am feeling (be it positive or negative). -.01 .01 .69 .48 note. erq = emotion regulation questionnaire. bold values represent highest loading of each erq-adapted item. links between emotion regulation dispositions and sex one-way anova analysis was conducted. results show, as expected, that men and women do not present significant differences on the self-perceived use of reappraisal (mmen = 4.73, sdmen = 1.17; mwomen = 4.64, sdwomen = 1.06; f(1, 247) = 0.41, p > .05), and men are significantly more disposed to suppress than women (mmen = 3.89, sdmen = 1.28; mwomen = 3.13, sdwomen = 1.27; f(1, 247) = 20.72, p < .05, ω2 = .07, f = .29). regarding the self-perceived use of enhancement as a strategy to regulate emotion, data indicates that, contrary to which might be expected, men are significantly more disposed to enhance than women (mmen = 3.43, sdmen = 1.45; mwomen = 2.90, sdwomen = 1.45; f(1, 247) = 8.05, p < .05, ω2 = .03, f = .18). the observed significant effects of sex on emotion regulation dispositions are small (for enhancement) and medium (for suppression) (cohen, 1988). links between emotion regulation dispositions and age an initial correlational analysis revealed that suppression and enhancement dispositions are not significantly related to individuals’ age, but reappraisal disposition presents a small positive correlation with age (r = .15, p < .05). this indicates that the self-perceived tendency to reappraise increases as the individuals get older. for a more comprehensive seixas, pignault, & houssemand 77 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interpretation of this result, five groups were created based on the participants’ age, and one-way anova were conducted to investigate significant differences between the groups (table 4). table 4 age differences in the self-perceived use of emotion regulation strategies variable age group f(4, 247) p ω2 group 1a (17-27) group 2b (28-37) group 3c (38-47) group 4d (48-57) group 5e (58-67) m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd reappraisal 4.40 1.11 4.54 1.06 4.87 1.05 5.00 0.94 4.43 1.78 3.04 .02 .03 expressive suppression 3.51 1.49 3.42 1.22 3.34 1.30 3.36 1.28 3.86 1.44 0.39 .82 expressive enhancement 3.09 1.57 3.15 1.42 3.07 1.49 3.14 1.46 3.39 1.71 0.10 .98 an = 54. bn = 87. cn = 49. dn = 53. en = 9. results show that age does not significantly affect the self-perceived use of suppression, f(4, 247) = 0.39, p = .818, or enhancement, f(4, 247) = 0.10, p = .982. nonetheless, the difference in the self-perceived use of reappraisal between the five groups of age was revealed to be statistically significant although small in size, f(4, 247) = 3.04, p <.05, ω2 =.03, f = .22. post-hoc tests using hochberg’s gt2 (to account for different sample sizes) revealed significant differences between group 1 (m = 4.40, sd = 1.11) and group 4 (m = 5.00, sd = 0.94), but no other significant differences were observed (involving groups 2, 3 and 5). the self-perceived tendency to suppress and enhance appears to be identical regardless of individuals’ age, however. individuals aged between 48-57 years old report reappraising significantly more often than individuals aged between 17 and 27. links between emotion regulation dispositions and personality as reported in table 5, the tendency to reappraise is not significantly related to any personality trait. the tendency to suppress the expression of emotions is negatively related to extraversion (r = -.41, p < .01) and the disposition to enhance the expression of emotions is negatively related to conscientiousness (r = -.25, p < .01). in other words, being introverted is linked with a more frequent use of suppression and being less controlled by conscience/reason. whereas being spontaneous and permeable to emotions and impulses (low conscientiousness) is linked with a greater use of expressive enhancement. table 5 spearman correlation between personality traits and self-perceived use of emotion regulation strategies variable extraversion agreeableness conscientiousness neuroticism openness reappraisal .10 .10 .08 -.06 .09 expressive suppression -.41** -.08 -.12 .09 -.13 expressive enhancement .01 -.14 -.25** .11 .02 **p < .01. discussion – conclusion the original erq was adapted in order to complement its dimensions with a third dimension addressing expressive enhancement. two items were developed in french and tested with a francophone sample. the choice of two items was made in order to maintain a balance between reappraisal (6 items), response modulation (6 items – 4 suppression and 2 enhancement), and to avoid redundancy. further, acknowledging the debates on the necessary number of items erq-adapted and individual differences 78 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ per subscale (bollen, 1989; marsh, hau, balla, & grayson, 1998), there are methodological arguments suggesting that 2-item and even 1-item dimensions can be justifiable (e.g., gogol et al., 2014; nagy, 2002; wanous, reichers, & hudy, 1997). indeed, the addition of this 2-item dimension modified the original erq structure in the expected sense, by creating a new factor comprising the new expressive enhancement items. further, the results of this study indicate that the addition of these items revealed the expected three-factor structure which explains an important percentage of variance (61%), and has adequate goodness-of-fit indices, as well as good internal consistency overall and by dimension. in other words, three dimensions (reappraisal, expressive suppression and expressive enhancement) were extracted by exploratory factor analysis applying classical test theory and item response theory, with the items’ loadings on theoretical unexpected factors being small. in addition, the items of each dimension present good homogeneity (adequate cronbach alphas), and the correlation between reappraisal and expressive suppressive is small. this supports the argument that the tendency to use one does not affect the tendency to use the other (gross & john, 2003). in the case of expressive enhancement and reappraisal, the correlation is small but attains .19 – which suggests that individuals who tend to reappraise have also a low tendency to enhance and vice-versa. this information allows researchers to investigate these two opposite response modulation strategies with some confidence as to the psychometrical properties of this adaptation. secondly, individual differences on these strategies and their respective correlates with personality were studied. regarding gender, data replicates that the tendencies of men and women to reappraise are similar, and men tend to suppress more often than women. as such, men appear to be more predisposed to regulate their emotions by concealing their visible signs. as for expressive enhancement, unexpectedly, our results suggest that men tend to use expressive enhancement significantly more often than women. this result is of interest as it questions our idea that having a higher tendency to display emotions (in this case for women; buck et al., 1974; kret & de gelder, 2012; kring & gordon, 1998) would motivate a more frequent use of enhancement. as for the data, even though men tend to display fewer emotions than women, and they regulate their emotions by suppressing their expression more frequently than women (e.g., gross & john, 2003), they also report a greater use of expressive enhancement. one could interpret this finding as follows: because spontaneously men tend to express less emotion than women (buck et al., 1974). this strategy might be perceived as being more necessary and useful for them when they want to up-regulate their emotions. in contrast, because emotional expression by women is already generally greater than by men, their use of up-regulation strategies may be perceived as being less necessary and less frequently used. in terms of age, it was expected that the use of reappraisal would increase, expressive suppression would decrease, and expressive enhancement would not be affected by age. results confirm the reappraisal and enhancement predic­ tions, however, they indicate that the self-reported use of suppression is not significantly lower for older individuals. regarding reappraisal, as expected, older individuals (aged from 48-57 years old) report using this cognitive change strategy significantly more often than younger individuals (aged from 17-27 years old). this suggests that, between beginning and more-advanced period of life experience, people appear to develop more cognitive-based methods of dealing with their emotions, experience the advantages of being able to regulate emotions in the desired direction, and thereby increase the use of these strategies. it is particularly noteworthy that an age-related increase in the use of reappraisal does not imply an age-related reduction in the use of strategies focused on modulating the visible signs of an installed emotion (particularly suppression). as expected, no age effects were observed for expressive enhancement. the self-perceived frequency at which individuals up-regulate their emotions by amplifying their visible signs is the same regardless of age group. this suggests that life experience does not impact the perceived utility of this strategy, and nor whether it leads to individuals significantly increasing or decreasing its use. contrary to our hypothesis, the use of expressive suppression does not significantly decrease with age, but remains identical for different age groups. if the self-perceived tendency to suppress does not decrease as individuals grow older, this could be explained by an assessment of the utility of this strategy that does not change over a life. this evidence points to these types of regulation (expressive suppression and enhancement) appearing to be perceived by individuals as useful (and used) at different stages of life. further, both in terms of suppression and enhancement, instead of an absolutist maladaptive categorization (particularly in the case of suppression), research has also shown that these strategies are also linked with positive outcomes (bonanno & keltner, 1997; côté et al., 2010) which can contribute to explaining why a decrease in its use was not observed. seixas, pignault, & houssemand 79 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, this study analyzed the correlations between these three emotion regulation strategies and personality. the hypotheses tested were: that a high self-reported use of reappraisal would be negatively linked to neuroticism; suppression would correlate negatively with extraversion; and enhancement would correlate positively with openness and negatively with conscientiousness. like the original erq (gross & john, 2003), data on this adapted version indicates that the self-perceived use of expressive suppression has a moderate negative correlation with extraversion. introverted people express themselves less in social situations and fear potential rejection, which expectably links to a greater tendency to regulate their emotions by concealing their expression, as it protects them from being exposed to these risks. the results for reappraisal did not confirm the expected negative link to neuroticism. neurotic individuals are characterized by greater emotional instability and a tendency to feel overwhelmed by negative emotions (gross & john, 1998). these traits have been shown previously to be linked to a lower disposition to regulate emotions by reappraising situations (gross & john, 2003). that this was not observed might be indicative that emotionally unstable individuals may use this strategy. however, although they may deploy it, as emotionally stable individuals do, they may not necessarily be capable of doing so effectively. on the other hand, it may reflect potential social desirability bias associated with self-reported measures. our exploratory hypothesis tested whether expressive enhancement would be negatively correlated with conscien­ tiousness, and positively correlated with extraversion. results confirms that highly conscientious individuals report less use of expressive enhancement. this is because they present more controlled behavior, which would be preferably gov­ erned by conscience/reason rather than emotion. this contrasts with low conscientiousness, more impulsive individuals. to enhance the expression of emotion might not be a preferable strategy when regulating one’s emotions. contrary to expectations, extraverts do not seem to use expressive enhancement more often than introverts. the line of thought guiding this hypothesis was based on the fact that extraverts, in contrast to introverts, use less suppression to regulate their own emotions (cabello et al., 2012; gross & john, 2003; ioannidis & siegling, 2015), and express more openly both positive and negative emotions (anderson, john, keltner, & kring, 2001). however, this result suggests a different interpretation. the erq (and the adapted version proposed in this study) assesses regulation of emotions and not their expression. if extraverts spontaneously express more emotions, it can also be the case that when questioned about whether they up-regulate their emotions by enhancing their expression, they might perceive this strategy as not being particularly necessary, and thereby not a strategy they use (in comparison with introverts). to sum up, an adapted version of the erq is pertinent. it complements the original reappraisal and expressive suppression dimensions with the measurement of expressive enhancement. this study sought to investigate whether the modification of the scale would affect its psychometrical properties. the results indicate that the erq-adapted has appropriate psychometrical properties, including the expected three-factor structure, which adjusts properly to the data. the gender and age differences observed are partially in line with previous research about the erq. men tend to use expressive suppression significantly more than women, and older individuals tend to reappraise more than younger people (gross & john, 2003). however different age-groups have similar tendencies to suppress. as for the new expressive enhancement suppression, men report enhancing the expression of emotions more often than women, and the use of this strategy does not vary across age group. finally, the relationship between personality and these emotion regulation strategies were studied. results replicated to suggest that introverts are greater “suppressors” than extraverts (gross & john, 2003), but without supporting the negative link between reappraisal and neuroticism. finally, regarding expressive enhancement, our results suggest that up-regulating emotions by amplifying expressions is reported less frequently by individuals with high levels of conscientiousness than those with low-conscientiousness traits. limitations as with all research, this study has a number of limitations and thus should be regarded as a first analysis of the proposed adaptation of the erq. even though this initial data gives evidence of the reliability and construct validity of the scale, further more detailed research will have to be conducted to assure its psychometric qualities and its validation. in the present study, the number of persons in the sample was relatively small, with only half answering the questions relating to emotional regulation as well as the personality dimensions. in addition, the respondents were people working in luxembourg, who thus live in a particular cultural, economic, social and linguistic context. thus erq-adapted and individual differences 80 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 70–84 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the size and characteristics of the sample do not allow for a complete generalization of the results. further empirical research, with larger and more heterogeneous samples, will be required to verify the robustness and replicability of these findings. the current analyses were exploratory and will have to be confirmed by analyses which will seek to verify the latent three-factor structure of erq. further more detailed research testing on convergent and divergent links, as well as criteria validity, is still necessary. in this way, the structural and construct validity of the scale can be verified by structural equation modeling (sem mixing confirmatory factor analyses and path analysis). this would integrate the measures of the psychological dimensions of the present study along with others. thus this allows the highlighting of a heuristic model of emotional regulation processes and its individual sources of variation. finally, there is further area of particular relevance for future research. since the processes of emotional regulation seems to vary according to life experience (even if these changes are not totally monotonic), it would be interesting to complement cross-sectional data with longitudinal data. this is the only method by which to draw conclusions on an intra-individual variation of emotional regulation processes during different lifespans. this would allow more straight­ forward conclusions to be drawn about individuals’ development in the use of these emotion regulation strategies. funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. references aldao, a., nolen-hoeksema, s., & schweizer, s. 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(2014). emotion regulation from early adolescence to emerging adulthood and middle adulthood: age differences, gender differences, and emotion-specific developmental variations. international journal of behavioral development, 38(2), 182-194. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515405 about the authors rita seixas, phd, defended her doctoral thesis on emotion regulation in work context. she is an associate researcher at the institute for lifelong learning and guidance, department of education and social work (university of luxembourg). anne pignault, phd-hdr, is an associate professor of work psychology at the university of lorraine, (2lpn, psychology and neuropsychology laboratory, france). her main research interests include well-being, work context, career transitions and career development. claude houssemand, phd, is a professor of differential and cognitive psychology and head of the department of education and social work and of the institute for lifelong learning & guidance (university of luxembourg). his main research interests include cognition and differences, adaptability and flexibility at work, and statistics. erq-adapted and individual differences 84 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/11468-000 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0601_1 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613496434 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020262 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.05.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.03.140 https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2015.00011 https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2009.37.2.193 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.247 https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.10154 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00188 https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025413515405 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ erq-adapted and individual differences (introduction) the emotion regulation questionnaire consequences of reappraisal and expressive suppression individual differences in reappraisal and expressive suppression links between personality traits and reappraisal and expressive suppression ways of improving the erq the present study method participants and procedure measures results descriptive statistics, internal consistency and intra-scale correlations factor structure of the adapted version links between emotion regulation dispositions and sex links between emotion regulation dispositions and age links between emotion regulation dispositions and personality discussion – conclusion limitations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychiatry (3rd ed.) by neel burton, md book reviews burton, neel (2016). psychiatry (3rd ed.). exeter, united kingdom: acheron press. 250 pp. isbn 978-1405190961. psychiatry (3rd ed.) by neel burton, md beatrice popescu*a [a] ejop founding editor; university of bucharest, bucharest, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2016, vol. 12(2), 309–311, doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1182 published (vor): 2016-05-31. *corresponding author at: 4-6 bucur street, bucharest, romania, 040292. e-mail: beatrice.popescu@ejop.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. burton, neel (2016). psychiatry (3rd ed.). exeter, united kingdom: acheron press. 250 pp. isbn 978-1405190961. psychiatry, the new textbook by neel burton, philosopher, psychiatrist and writer as he loves to present himself to its newest readership, is not the typical manual a student or a resident in psychiatry is used to. the author, seduced forever by the art of psychiatry as much as by the art of philosophy, is therefore challenged to make the discipline more accessible, interesting and vibrant to the students eager to delve into the hottest specialism on the market, considered not long time ago the ‘cinderella’ of healthcare. trying to break away from the arid and scholastic dsm-5 style, especially via the introductory chapter, the history of psychiatry, neel burton invites the reader to indulge himself into a cultural travel through ages, from ancient greece through enlightenment to the modern era. chapter 2 is dedicated to the psychiatric assessment or the anamnestic interview, the most important stage before reaching a diagnosis. what distinguishes this manual from a classical standard psychiatric manual are the text boxes that teach clinical skills, using open, closed and leading questions and also the genogram, usually one of the diagnostic tools of psychotherapy when assessing genetic determinism or early schemas. towards the end of the chapter, a thorough sample psychiatric assessment is presented, while the etiology is explained in a tripartite description. chapter 3 which is an overview of the ukmental health community care system contains a so much needed ethics section, backed by an interesting case study and also by a so much useful part with the uk mental health act explained. a very brief overview of the most important types of therapies follows soon. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ part two of the manual is entirely dedicated to the plethora of pathologies, the heart and soul of psychiatry, from schizophrenia to sexual disorders, but in a manner slightly different from the dsm or icd arid, unengaged and pathologizing and labeling style. perhaps one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of psychiatry and also in the history of philosophy is suicide. albert camus is stating in the myth of sisyphus that "there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide". the suicide complex phenomenon is comprised by the author in chapter 6 of his manual, suicide and deliberate self-harm. a large introduction in the suicide ethics quoting david hume, satre and pliny the elder prepares the reader for the philosophical assumptions behind choosing death over life. a more didactic approach of assessing suicide risk factors and management follows and the chapter closes with listing useful clinical skills when counseling people with self-harm thoughts. perhaps the extensive clinical skills section is highly justified, considering the self-harm and suicidal behaviors the scariest ones for a mental health professional when dealing with a patient or client. the mental health professional is therefore fully equipped, at least theoretically, with the clinical skills required when faced with this sort of dramatic and challenging theme. in chapter 7, a special attention is given to the anxiety, stress related and somatoform disorders especially from a psychosocial perspective, and also a philosophical cure for anxiety following maslow’s pyramid of needs is provided. according to the existential outlook of anxiety, also shared by paul tillich, sartre, camus and yalom, the author of this book also supports the view that pathological anxiety, although grounded in threats of life, in fact arises from repressed existential anxiety. in a way, neel burton seeks a cure for anxiety in the same manner as reid wilsoni does: if the ultimate source of anxiety is uncertainty, then the cure itself proposes to seek out uncertainty while accepting death as the only certainty. however, fear of death should be able to make us seek "the most out of our lives and out of ourselves", concludes the author. personality disorders, described extensively in chapter 8 of this fascinating textbook are those character disorders firstly coined by jc pritchard as "moral insanity" behaviors to the kraepelin’s "psychopatic personality" disorders. the author stresses the fact that not only characterizing the personality disorders is a difficult task, but also diagnosing them. we would add that treating them seems even tougher, especially since there are patterns relatively stable across time and consistent across situations. the particularity of neel burton’s approach is seeing personality disorders as possible routes to high professional achievements. the author thinks that while personality disorders may lead to "severe impairment", they may also lead to extraordinary achievements. quoting the board and fritzon study, neel burton describes the executives with a personality disorder as "successful psychopaths", while criminal offenders are seen as "unsuccessful psychopaths". in the same chapter a complete review of ego defense mechanism follows, revealed in a psychoanalytical tradition and also from the hindu bhagavad gita viewpoint, the latest adding the flavor of originality to the ‘orthodox’ view. chapter 11 is dedicated to a profound understanding of the substance misuse (alcohol and drugs) reasons behind. the blue butterfly box reveals the psychological causes of delving into such a behavior by quoting a character from trainspotting, renton. this draws me very close to an idea possible to implement when trying to present the perils of starting smoking marijuana to the high-school teenagers by offering them to watch a shortcut version of aronofsky’s requiem for a dream. the author believes that rather than employing a cold outlook when presenting a sufferer the dangers of using alcohol and recreational drugs, a mental health professional should actually use motivational interviewing techniques which he exposes in the clinical skills section (p. 154). europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 309–311 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1182 psychiatry 310 http://www.psychopen.eu/ dr. neel burton’s complex anthropological, psychiatric, philosophical and psychological approach when designing psychiatry textbook makes the student’s job very enjoyable and captivating while preparing for exams. not only students or residents in psychiatry could benefit from his fresh and lively approach, but also other professionals: clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, general practitioners in their effort to screen mental disorders and also sociologists and anthropologists. the profound humanistic view and storytelling approach drawing slightly further from the canonic style of dsmmakes this interesting manual an enjoyable reading and also a powerful professional tool. notes i) reid wilson – one of the leading expert in treating anxiety disorders www.anxieties.com funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. about the author beatrice popescu is a cognitive behavior psychotherapist at bellanima medical center bucharest and the founding editor of europe’s journal of psychology. she has published papers and book reviews on clinical psychology, psychotherapy and psycho-practice politics. her research interests are cognitive behavior therapy, rebt, existential psychotherapy and philosophical counseling ethics. she is now undergoing a phd program at the faculty of philosophy of university of bucharest, supervised by ccny with the thesis title: “philosophical counseling and psychotherapy. ethical issues in philosophical counseling”. since 2005, beatrice has developed a passion for interviewing personalities of psychology along with her old professional interest in media and communication industry, having worked for multinational companies and agencies based in bucharest. psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en europe's journal of psychology 2016, vol. 12(2), 309–311 doi:10.5964/ejop.v12i2.1182 popescu 311 http://www.anxieties.com http://www.psychopen.eu/ http://www.zpid.de/en psychiatry (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments about the author relationand task-oriented roles as antecedents of ethical leadership: examining synergistic effects research reports relationand task-oriented roles as antecedents of ethical leadership: examining synergistic effects h. m. saidur rahaman 1 [1] department of psychology, jagannath university, dhaka, bangladesh. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 received: 2023-05-05 • accepted: 2024-05-22 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: james brunton, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: h. m. saidur rahaman, department of psychology, jagannath university, dhaka-1100, bangladesh, tel.: +8802222250315. e-mail: sayeed@psy.jnu.ac.bd abstract a growing body of literature demonstrates that ethical leadership has positive effects on employees’ work outcomes. ethical leadership upholds the importance of “normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships” (brown et al., 2005, p. 120; doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002). however, extant empirical research does not answer the questionof how ethical leaders balance their relation maintenance (i.e., relationship-oriented role) and performance maintenance (i.e., task-oriented role) behaviors with their employees to be perceived as ethical leaders. in the present paper, drawing upon the propositions informed by opposing domains theory and related research, i theorize that leaders’ relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles create synergistic effects that predict their employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership. results across two studies (an experiment and a correlational study involving samples from two different cultures) convergently confirmed the hypothesized relationships. i conclude by discussing several key theoretical and practical implications of these findings. keywords ethical leadership, opposing domain theory, relationship-oriented role, task-oriented role more than a decade ago, and even in recent years, we witnessed large-scale ethical meltdowns of leaders in global corporations (e.g., enron, worldcom, tyco, volkswagen) where such leaders compromise ethical issues either for profit or for personal gain. keeping such examples in mind, leadership scholars have shown tremendous interest in doing research on ethical leadership. ethical leadership is “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers [employees] through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision making” (brown et al., 2005, p. 120). a growing body of research has shown a range of important consequences of ethical leadership for the employee, such as encouraging ethical behavior (mayer et al., 2012), stimulating employee in-role and extra-role performance (piccolo et al., 2010), reducing workplace conflict (mayer et al., 2012), and minimizing employee’s dysfunctional resistance in the time of organizational change (rahaman et al., 2020). however, compared to the consequences, research examining the antecedents (i.e., personal antecedent) of ethical leadership has been slowed, which has triggered heightened interest among scholars along this line of research in recent years (marquardt et al., 2021). until now, apart from the dispositional trait approach, a relatively small growing body of research has focused on the antecedents of ethical leadership grounded on any specific theoretical perspective to broaden the scholarly understanding of its emergence. a few exceptions are the work of rahaman et al. (2019), keck et al. (2020), and brown & treviño (2014). indeed, in a recent meta-analytic review, ko et al. (2018) have urged this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11891&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ doing further research examining the antecedents of ethical leadership, such as different leader characteristics, so that knowledge can be garnered to develop and cultivate such leadership in the organization. one such characteristic can be the leadership role (i.e., relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles, bales, 1958), which is distinct from leadership style but can be enacted by the same (see boyatzis et al., 2014). any task a leader may want to accomplish can have a relational component (i.e., relationship-oriented role) and an analytical component (i.e., task-oriented role), which can be done in ethical/unethical ways (boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017; yukl, 2012). a leader’s sole focus on the relationship-oriented role can hamper his/her concentra­ tion toward meeting the clearly defined goals at work, such as lapses in attention and performance errors, which can reduce the performance on the analytic task (boyatzis et al., 2014; fassbender et al., 2009; mason et al., 2007; mckiernan et al., 2003). however, the application of conscious reasoning, as demonstrated in attention toward analytical tasks, is essential for any leader to be an ethical leader (greene, 2007; jordan et al., 2013). similarly, a leader’s sole focus on the task-oriented role may make the leader prone to be a machiavellian thinker, which can have negative implications for ethical leadership (bagozzi et al., 2013; brown & treviño, 2006) as in such instances he/she may fall short for openness to new ideas, people, emotions, and ethical concerns, which are important to any organization’s success (boyatzis et al., 2014; marquardt et al., 2021). specific to ethical leadership, people orientation and role clarification are two important behavioral components of ethical leadership (kalshoven et al., 2011), which are argued to be consecutively similar to relationship-oriented and task-oriented behaviors (yukl et al., 2013). people orientation mirrors “genuinely caring about, respecting, and supporting subordinates and where possible ensuring that their needs are met” whereas role clarification mirrors “transparency in clarifying performance goals and expectations” (kalshoven et al., 2011, p. 53). hence, it is likely that ethical leaders need to trade off between a relationship-oriented role and a task-oriented role. while ethical leadership stresses normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationship (brown et al., 2005), any empirical research has not yet addressed whether ethical leaders focus more on the satisfaction, motivation, and general well-being of the employees (i.e., relationship-oriented role, bales, 1958) or they focus more on the tasks that need to be carried in order to meet certain goals, or to achieve certain performance standards (i.e., task-oriented role, bales, 1958)? in other words, how do they balance between these two leadership roles to be perceived as an ethical leader? the answer to this question is vital as it can provide a thorough understanding of the relational predictors of ethical leadership, which have practical implications for training and developing such leadership behavior in the organization (waldman et al., 2017). moreover, unraveling the mechanism of how leaders can increase their ethical leadership perceptions of their employees can be vital as such leadership is crucial for organizations’ long-term success and cost-saving (see marquardt et al., 2021). in the present study, i ground on the propositions informed by a neuroscientific theory, namely opposing domain theory (jack et al., 2013) and related theoretical pieces (boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017) to seek an answer to the question as mentioned above. opposing domain theory describes the antagonistic nature of two modes of human cognition consisting of two different neural networks—the default mood network (dmn), which constitutes the socioemotional reasoning of the brain, and the task-positive network (tpn), which constitutes analytic reasoning of the brain. the theory further suggests that a moral dilemma creates a fundamental tension between these two neural networks (jack et al., 2014). to accomplish any given task, the activity of one network inhibits the other (jack et al., 2013). that is, the involvement in analytic tasks would impede our ability to engage in social or relational reasoning and vice versa. however, their negative correlation only means that the activity of one’s inhibits the other. and leaders can be highly analytical and attentive to their followers’ relationship needs. following the theory and building upon the insights of classic ohio state leadership studies, scholars have argued that these two networks, at the psychological level, consecutively correspond to relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership roles, and switching between these two roles is also possible (see boyatzis et al., 2014), and they can be positively related (breevaart & de vries, 2021). furthermore, scholars have also argued that leaders need to make a dynamic balance by switching between these two neural networks, which correspond to their respective leadership roles, to emerge as ethical leaders (rochford et al., 2017). given the above, in the present paper, across two studies, i theorize that there are synergistic effects between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles, which can predict employees’ perception of ethical leadership. putting it differently, both the relationship-oriented role and the task-oriented role influence each other in predicting ethical rahaman 273 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ leadership. this influence on ethical leadership is optimized when both relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles are at a high level. the present study offers a number of noteworthy contributions to ethical leadership research. first, i address the call of ko et al. (2018) by examining leader characteristics as the antecedents of ethical leadership through the lens of relationship maintenance behaviors of the leaders (i.e., relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles) with their employees to effectively cultivate ethical leadership at the workplace. as such, gaining further insight into how ethical leadership can be trained and developed in the organization has been urged in recent research (marquardt et al., 2021). second, i elaborate on and make an empirical contribution by theorizing and examining the synergistic effects between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles in predicting ethical leadership, which have been assumed in theoretical pieces (i.e., boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017). in doing so, i meaningfully extend the line of research that sug­ gests mainly focusing on cognitive/analytic reasoning capacity building for ethical leadership training and development purposes while apparently overlooking the necessity of socioemotional reasoning (i.e., relationship-oriented role) in this regard (brown & treviño, 2006; jordan et al., 2013; wells & schminke, 2001). third, i empirically test and expand some propositions that have been theorized based on the findings of a neurological theory (boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017) at the psychological level. such an approach provides an integrative perspective and complementary level of analysis (marshall, 2009). along this line, de jong (2002) further notes, “the change of meaning of concepts and theories in psychology, and the interpretation of anatomy and biochemistry in psychological terms is a major asset of interlevel synchronous investigation. it allows both top-down and bottom-up influences on theorizing” (p. 457). consequently, my approach enhances the robustness and explanatory power concerning the theory development process to expand the current understanding of the antecedents of ethical leadership (butler et al., 2017; rochford et al., 2017). theoretical review and hypothesis development implications of opposing domain theory for ethical leadership theorization applying opposing domain theory at the psychological level, leaders may feel the tension to be an analytical (focusing on the task-oriented role that underlies dmn) or a socioemotional (focusing on the relationship-oriented role which underlies on tpn) leader, which has ethical implications (i.e., ethical leadership) at work as any task a leader needs to accomplish has both relational component and analytical component which can be done in ethical/unethical ways (boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017; yukl, 2012). while there can be tension in focusing on task-oriented or relationship-oriented roles to be an ethical leader, switching between these two roles is possible, and they can be positively related at the psychological level (boyatzis et al., 2014; breevaart & de vries, 2021; rochford et al., 2017). however, focusing solely on the relationship-oriented role—making sense of leaders’ own and other people’s emotions around them to help in constructing a sense of purpose or vision for the group through their assistance—may hamper concentration on meeting the clearly defined goals at organizations such as lapses in attention and performance errors which reduces the performance on the analytic task (boyatzis et al., 2014; fassbender et al., 2009; mason et al., 2007; mckiernan et al., 2003). this reduced attention toward analytical tasks may have negative implications for ethical leadership as it requires the application of conscious reasoning to reach a justifiable moral verdict (greene, 2007; jordan et al., 2013). likewise, focusing solely on emphasizing task-oriented role—financial planning, metrics, forecasting, problem solving, and strategic engagement intending to accomplish task achievement—may lead to harmful effects when openness to new ideas, people, emotions, and ethical concerns are important to an organization success (boyatzis et al., 2014). particularly, it may make the leader prone to be a machiavellian thinker, which has negative implications for ethical leadership (bagozzi et al., 2013; brown & treviño, 2006). instead of prioritizing the long-term and big picture importance of fulfilling fairness and justice, these leaders tend to put importance on short-term strategic advantage. for example, a decision that seems feasible in terms of budget analysis may not be the best decision for the company in the long run (boyatzis & jack, 2018). recent research has demonstrated the direct role of dmn in predicting ethical leadership (waldman et al., 2017). schaich borg et al. (2011) further show that the weighting of moral consideration is associated with the regions of dmn, while making the moral verdict is associated with the regions of tpn. at the psychological level, this finding indicates the requirement of both socioemotional (i.e., relationship-oriented role) antecedents of ethical leadership 274 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and analytical (i.e., task-oriented role) reasonings to make an ethical decision. hence, translating the above mentioned arguments in the case of ethical leadership, i expect that relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles positively predict ethical leadership. therefore, i hypothesize: h1a. leaders’ relationship-oriented role will positively predict ethical leadership. h1b. leaders’ task-oriented role will positively predict ethical leadership. neuroscience research shows not only parallel but also the interactive nature of the dual processing (reason and emotion) in our brain (satpute & lieberman, 2006). furthermore, a synergistic interaction may occur between emotion (i.e., relationship-oriented role) and reason (i.e., task-oriented role) as they are interdependent (see de caro & marraffa, 2016). indeed, at the psychological level, weed et al. (1976) have shown evidence of interaction between task type and employee preferences for task vs. relationship-oriented leaders (as cited in boyatzis et al., 2014). the tri-dimensional leadership model of hersey and blanchard (1969) also outlines the outcomes of different combinations of relationship and task behaviors. research in consumer behavior and social behavior also shows the interaction between cognition (i.e., analytic reasoning) and emotion (gutnik et al., 2006; shiv & fedorikhin, 1999). specific to ethical leadership, scholars have grounded on the insights of opposing domains theory and gone beyond to theorize at the psychological level that it is necessary to have a dynamic balance between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles for a leader to emerge as an ethical leader as such, privileging one perspective over another may result in ethical failure while both of them are required to be an ethical leader (boyatzis et al., 2014; rochford et al., 2017). such dynamic balance implies the presence of an interaction between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles. specifically, the pattern of such interaction can be synergistic as either role alone cannot optimize the emergence of ethical leadership (c.f., rousseau et al., 2008). hence, i further theorize the presence of synergistic interactions between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles in predicting ethical leadership. cohen et al. (2003) define synergistic interaction as when “both predictors affect the [outcome] in the same direction, and together they produce a stronger than additive effect on the outcome” (p. 285). that is, the effect of a relationship-oriented role can be influenced by the presence of a task-oriented role and vice versa. hence, they can reinforce (i.e., amplification of positive effect) each other in predicting ethical leadership (c.f., gerpott et al., 2020). taken together, i formulate the following hypotheses: h2. there is an interaction between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles, which predict ethical leadership. h3a. task-oriented role moderates the relationship between relationship-oriented role and ethical leadership, such that the relationship is strongest when the task-oriented role is high (vs. low). h3b. relationship-oriented role moderates the relationship between task-oriented role and ethical leadership, such that the relationship is strongest when the relationship-oriented role is high (vs. low). overview of studies in the present research, i test my proposed hypotheses across two studies employing different designs and samples. initially, i conducted a vignette study involving participants to explore the causal nature of the stated hypotheses 1 and 2 (see aguinis & bradley, 2014). as such, i manipulated the relationship-oriented role and the task-oriented role and asked the participants to rate their perception of ethical leadership. in the second study, i conducted a cross-sectional survey with employees to replicate the findings of the first study (hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2) further and test hypothesis 3. in designing the second study, i particularly rely on the research that has shown that leader-observer ratings are of similar magnitudes for relationand task-oriented behaviors (lee & carpenter, 2018) and took the followers’ rating of their perceptions of their leaders’ relationand task-oriented roles. indeed, followers’ perceptions of the leader are indispensable for the construction of leadership (see oc et al., 2023). altogether, the two studies demonstrate the evidence of internal and external validity for the tested hypotheses. rahaman 275 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 1 method participants one hundred and ten students from a large european university were invited to participate in this study voluntarily. the author individually approached each participant in one of the university libraries and a student social club. one hundred one participants responded, which constitutes a response rate of 91.82%. the respondents consist of 43 females and 58 males with an average age of 22.27 (sd = 2.85) years. 47 of them were bachelor’s students, while 54 were master’s students. 63 had work experience either as part of an internship, a part-time job, or weekend or holiday jobs. work experience averaged 10.91 (sd = 17.59) months. procedure and measures based on previous scenario experiments, which provide a clear behavioral description of the task-oriented and relation­ ship-oriented leadership roles (cohen et al., 2004; ehrhart & klein, 2001), i manipulated the two leadership roles resulting in a 2 x 2 i.e., (relationship-oriented role: high vs. low) x (task-oriented-role: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. participants were randomly allocated to the conditions. at the beginning of the vignette, participants were asked to answer demographic questions about their age, sex, education, and work experience. then, they were instructed to read the text, which describes the behavior of a leader named david working in the fictitious company abro, which consists of one of the four conditions of the vignette as per the factorial design. the description of all four conditions is given in table 1. after reading the scenario, participants were instructed as follows: “based on the above descriptions of the leader, david, please answer the two questions below: to what extent do you think david puts importance on managing the relationship with employees at work? and to what extent do you think david puts importance on assisting in the tasks employees have in their work?” consecutively, these two questions were used as manipulation checks for relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership roles. the manipulation check items were grounded on a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 7 (extremely important). after rating the manipulation questions, participants were instructed as follows: “now imagine that you are working with david, and he is your boss. how will you rate him as your supervisor?” participants rated the 10-item ethical leadership scale of brown et al. (2005). i used a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). sample scale items included: ‘david conducts his personal life in an ethical manner’ and ‘makes fair and ethical decisions.’ in the present study, the cronbach alpha reliability of the scale was .89. results manipulation check i ran a 2 x 2 anova on the relationship-oriented role manipulation check, which revealed a significant main effect for a relationship-oriented role manipulation on relationship-oriented role manipulation check, f(1, 97) = 402.66, p < .001, partial η2 = .81. this indicated that participants perceived that their leader is having a high relationship-oriented role in the high relationship-oriented condition than in the low-relationship-oriented condition (see table 2). unexpectedly, task-oriented role manipulation also showed a significant main effect on the relationship-oriented role manipulation check, (1, 97) = 5.02, p < .05, partial η2 = .05. however, the degree of spillover was rather small compared with the magnitude of the intended effect. specifically, the f statistic for the effect of relationship-oriented role manipulation on the relationship-oriented role manipulation check was almost 80 times larger than the statistic for task-oriented role manipulation on the relationship-oriented role manipulation check, and the partial η2 value was over 16 times larger. hence, relationship-oriented role manipulation appeared to be successful and unlikely to impair the interpretations of the main results of this experiment (see he et al., 2017). the interaction effect was not significant, f(1, 97) = .11, p = .74, partial η2 = .001. a 2 x 2 anova on the task-oriented role manipulation check revealed a main effect of task-oriented role manipula­ tion, f(1, 97) = 165.10, p < .001, partial η2 = .63. participants in the high task-oriented role condition rated the leader antecedents of ethical leadership 276 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ higher on task focus than participants in the low task-oriented condition (see table 2). unexpectedly, the main effect of relationship-oriented role manipulation was also significant for task-oriented role manipulation check, f(1, 97) = 7.41, p < .01, partial η2 = .07. however, the degree of spillover was rather small compared with the magnitude of the intended effect. in particular, the f statistic for the effect of task-oriented role manipulation on the task-oriented role manipulation check was almost 22 times larger than the statistic for relationship-oriented role manipulation on the task-oriented role manipulation check, and the partial η2 value was over 9 times larger. hence, task-oriented role table 1 description of the four conditions of the vignette experiment high relationship-oriented condition high task-oriented condition the first thing david emphasizes in his interaction with employees is to treat them with kindness and consideration. he is committed to being friendly and respectful, even when stress is high or when there is a lot of work. another thing he emphasizes is to keep employees informed of progress on projects or any other organizational issues that might affect them, and he is always available to listen to employees’ problems, whether these are personal or work-related. in addition, he shows trust and confidence in his employees. he wants them to feel involved in their work and to know that he thinks they can do a good job. the final thing he does with his employees is that he recognizes their contributions. if they work hard and do a good job, he goes out of his way to make sure they know that their work is appreciated. david begins by working with the employees to set goals for their work. he does not want to overwhelm them with unachievable standards, so he makes sure their goals are realistic yet still challenging. he is very careful and detailed in laying out what employees need to get done. once they know what specific objectives are, he makes sure that employees have the necessary tools to successfully meet their goals. he provides them with the necessary supplies, equipment, and technical assistance to ensure that they can be successful. finally, he coordinates the work so that employees and their fellow subordinates know what their job content is and there is no overlap between the two. david wants everyone to know what his or her role is so that he or she can see how he or she is contributing to the accomplishment of the organization’s goals. low relationship-oriented condition low task-oriented condition david does not emphasize maintaining all his interactions with his employees in a way to treat them with kindness and consideration. he is not committed to being friendly and respectful when stress is high or when there is a lot of work to be done. another thing he does not emphasize is to keep employees informed of progress on projects or any other organizational issues that might affect them, and he is mostly not available to listen to his employees’ problems, whether these are personal or work-related. in addition, he does not show trust and confidence in his employees. he does not want them to feel involved in their work and to know that he thinks they can do a good job. the final thing he does with his employees is that he does not care about recognizing their contributions. if they work hard and do a good job, he does not go out of his way to make sure they know that their work is appreciated. david does not begin by working with the employees to set goals for their work. he wants to overwhelm them with unachievable standards, which make it seem to them that their goals are unrealistic and very challenging. he is very careless and not detailed in laying out what employees need to get done. once they know what specific objectives are, he does not make sure that employees have the necessary tools to successfully meet their goals. he does not provide them with the necessary supplies, equipment, and technical assistance to ensure that they can be successful. finally, he does not coordinate the work so that the employees and their fellow subordinates know what their job content is, and there is no overlap between the two. david does not care whether everyone knows what his or her role is so that he or she can see how he or she is contributing to the accomplishment of the organization’s goals table 2 mean predicted ethical leadership as a function of relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles in study 1 low relationship-oriented role high relationship-oriented role low task-oriented role 1.95(.46) 2.81(.60) high task-oriented role 2.38(.49) 3.80(.41) note. n = 101. higher ratings indicated higher ethical leadership. standard deviations are provided within parentheses. rahaman 277 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ manipulation appeared to be successful and unlikely to impair the interpretations of the main results of this experiment (see he et al., 2017). the interaction effect was not significant, f(1, 97) = .19, p = .67, partial η2 = .002. hypothesis testing a 2 x 2 anova revealed a significant main effect for relationship-oriented role on ethical leadership, f(1, 97) = 134.05, p < .001, partial η2 = .58. i also found a significant main effect of task-oriented role on ethical leadership, f(1, 97) = 51.76, p < .001, partial η2 = .35. this revealed that in the high relationship-oriented-role condition, participants perceived the leader as higher on ethical leadership as compared to the low relationship-oriented role condition. in the high task-oriented role condition, participants perceived the leader as higher on ethical leadership compared to the low task-oriented condition (see table 2). thus, the results confirmed my proposed hypothesis 1a and hypothesis 1b. a significant interaction effect was also found between relationship-oriented and task-oriented conditions on ethical leadership, f(1, 97) = 8.10, p = .005, partial η2 = .08 (see figure 1). these results confirmed hypothesis 2. figure 1 interaction between relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles on participants’ perceptions of ethical leadership in study 1 study 2 method participants and procedure i aimed at getting a heterogeneous sample to be able to tap employees’ perceptions of leadership roles from a wide range of organizations. i followed past research to attain this aim and recruited participants by using the snowball sampling technique (see keck et al., 2020, for a similar approach). i invited the participants via personal messages on social network sites to voluntarily participate in a web-based survey. i further requested the participants to invite further participants via their personal network. i took several steps to make sure that the surveys were completed accurately. at the beginning of the survey, i provided complete instructions about the nature and scope of the study in the first place and then what the participants needed to do to fill out the survey form accurately (i.e., not skipping any survey items). i ensured the participants the confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. i got responses from 131 participants from a wide range of organizations situated in a south asian country (e.g., banking, insurance, education, financial institutions, etc.). in my sample, the participants averaged 29.73 years of age antecedents of ethical leadership 278 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (sd = 4.45) and 3.64 years (sd = 3.07) of work experience. 71.80% of them were male. of them, 0.80% had an mphil/phd degree, 3.80% had a master’s degree, 25.90% had a bachelor’s degree, and 69.50% had a higher secondary education certificate. measures i followed the standard back-translation procedures to translate all the study measures from english to bangla (brislin, 1986). unless otherwise stated, all the measures were grounded on a five-point likert-type scaling (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). ethical leadership — participants rated a ten-item ethical leadership scale developed by brown et al. (2005). a sample item was “my supervisor has the best interest of employees in mind” (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). relationship-oriented role — to assess leaders’ relationship-oriented role, participants rated four items used in a previous study (ehrhart & klein, 2001). the items are: my supervisor treats subordinates with kindness and respect, em­ phasizes communication with and listening to subordinates, shows trust and confidence in subordinates, and provides recognition and shows appreciation for subordinates’ contributions and accomplishments. task-oriented role — participants rated four items used in ehrhart and klein’s (2001) study. the items are: my supervisorguides subordinates in setting performance goals that are high but realistic, plans and schedules at work, provides necessary supplies, equipment, and technical assistance, and coordinates subordinate activities. control variables research showed that people’s gender, age, and education are related to their (un)ethical intention and behavior (kish-gephart et al., 2010), which may confound the interpretations of my findings for ethical leadership (bernerth & aguinis, 2016). consequently, i first checked the correlations of these variables with employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership (i.e., dependent variable) and found no significant correlations between these variables and ethical leadership. hence, as per the recommendations of becker (2005) and carlson and wu (2012), i did not control these variables (i.e., impotent control variable) in the case of hypothesis testing. that is, i ran the analysis excluding the control variables. confirmatory factor analysis i conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses to examine the distinctiveness and validity of the study measures. to do so, i included all the items of the study measures. also, while running the model, i neither correlated any items pertaining to their corresponding specific factors nor the error terms. a three-factor model (χ2 = 224.98, df = 132, p < .001, cfi = .90, rmsea = .07, srmr = .06) demonstrated a good fit to the data (hu & bentler, 1999). a two-factor model revealed a relatively poor fit to data (χ2 = 238.25, df = 134, p < .001, cfi = .89, rmsea = .08, srmr = .06). furthermore, a one-factor model (χ2 = 278.66, df = 135, p < .001, cfi = .85, rmsea = .09, srmr = .07) revealed relatively worse fit to data. overall, these indices support the distinctiveness of the three measured variables rated by the employees. common method variance test though research showed that the interactive effect (as proposed in hypothesis 2) could not be the artifact of common method variance (siemsen et al., 2010), i performed two tests to examine the issue further. first, i did a harman single-factor test. the test results showed that a single factor could explain 40.67% variance, which is less than 50%. hence, common method variance (cmv) does not seem likely to be a problem in this data set (podsakoff & organ, 1986). second, i followed a clf (common latent factor) approach to test for common method bias. i compared the value of standardized regression weights with and without having the clf in the three-factor cfa model. i found that the differences in the regression coefficient values for having and not having clf in the cfa models were as follows: values of 15 items were less than 0.10, the value of 1 item was 0.10, and the values of the two items were less than 0.15. all of these value differences are less than the threshold value of 0.20 to raise concerns for common method bias (statwiki, rahaman 279 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2022). these results showed that clf is not taking away a substantial amount of variance from the observed items in the cfa model, which indicated that cmb is less likely to be an issue for this dataset (see podsakoff et al., 2003). results the descriptive statistics, correlations, and cronbach alphas of the measured variables are presented in table 3. i used ols regression analyses to test the hypotheses. consistent with hypothesis 1, results revealed a significant relation between relationship-oriented role and ethical leadership, β = .54, t(127) = 7.62, p < .001 (supported hypothesis 1a) and a significant main effect for the task-oriented role on ethical leadership, β = .31, t(127) = 4.28, p < .001 (supported hypothesis 1b) (see table 4). i computed an interaction term by multiplying the mean-centered scores of the relationship-oriented role and task-oriented role and also regressed it on ethical leadership. an interaction effect between relationship and task-oriented roles was also found β = .13, t(127) = 2.07, p < .05, which supported the proposed hypothesis 2 (see table 4). furthermore, the inclusion of the interaction term in the regression models significantly increased the explained variance in ethical leadership by 2% (see table 4). table 3 descriptive statistics, zero-order correlations, and reliabilities of study 2 variable m sd 1 2 3 1. relationship-oriented role 3.31 1.05 .79 2. task-oriented role 3.44 .84 .50* .61 3. ethical leadership 3.14 .88 .67* .55* .89 note. n = 131. alpha coefficients are noted in the diagonal. the cronbach alpha value for the task-oriented role .61 can be regarded as acceptable considering the composite nature of the scale (cf., hair et al., 2010; peterson, 1994). table 4 results of regressing relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles on ethical leadership in study 2 predictor b se β step 1 relationship-oriented role (ro) .60 .05 .67** task-oriented role (to) ro x to adjusted r2 .44** δr2 f change df 129 step 2 relationship-oriented role (ro) .44 .06 .53** task-oriented role (to) .29 .07 .28** ro x to adjusted r2 .50** δr2 .06** f change 15.52** df 128 step 3 relationship-oriented role (ro) .45 .06 .54** task-oriented role (to) .32 .07 .31** ro x to .12 .06 .13* adjusted r2 .51* antecedents of ethical leadership 280 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictor b se β δr2 .02* f change 4.26* df 127 note. n = 131. the table presents the unstandardized b-coefficients and standard errors for centered variables, following the recommendation of cohen et al. (2003). **p < .001. *p < .05. to test hypothesis 3a and hypothesis 3b, i further conducted a simple slope difference test (see figure 2a and figure 2b) by regressing the interaction term on ethical leadership along with the relationship-oriented role and task-oriented role using the path analytic test in mplus. a simple slope difference test showed that the positive effect of relationshiporiented role on ethical leadership was significantly higher at a high level (+1sd; simple slope = .55, p < .001) as compared with the low level of task-oriented role (-1sd; simple slope = .35, p < .001, simple slope difference = .19, p < .05), supporting hypothesis 3a. figure 2a the moderating effect of task-oriented role on the relationship between relationship-oriented role and ethical leadership in study 2 note. el ethical leadership, ro = relationship-oriented role, to = task-oriented role. rahaman 281 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2b the moderating effect of relationship-oriented role on the relationship between task-oriented role and ethical leadership in study 2 note. el ethical leadership, ro = relationship-oriented role, to = task-oriented role. furthermore, a simple slope difference test showed that the positive effect of the task-oriented role on ethical leadership was significantly higher at a high level (+1sd; simple slope = .44, p < .001) as compared with the low level of the relationship-oriented role (-1sd; simple slope = .20, p < .05, simple slope difference = .25, p < .05), supporting hypothesis 3b. general discussion in this paper, i draw on the propositions informed by a neuroscientific theory named opposing domain theory and rela­ ted research to examine how the synergy between leaders’ relationship-oriented role and task-oriented role operate as the antecedents of ethical leadership. as hypothesized, across two studies, i found support in favor of my theorizing that leaders’ relationship-oriented roles and task-oriented roles independently and interactively (i.e., synergistically) predict ethical leadership. in the following sections, i discuss the theoretical implications, practical implications, strengths, limitations, and future research directions of the findings. theoretical implications this paper makes three major theoretical contributions to advance ethical leadership literature. first, as previously discussed, extant research is largely focused on examining the consequences of ethical leadership compared to its antecedents. despite some meaningful progress, the literature on the antecedents of ethical leadership still lacks the understanding of how ethical leaders balance (i.e., dynamic) between playing the role of relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles, which may have implications for ethical leadership in the organization (rochford et al., 2017)— as such, putting too much attention toward one role while ignoring the other is potentially pernicious for ethical leadership. results of the conducted studies indeed showed that both relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles synergistically predict ethical leadership. that is, relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles not independently but contingently optimize (i.e., synergistic interaction) the prediction of ethical leadership when both of them are at a high level. these findings provide empirical evidence and elaboration in favor of the arguments in theoretical pieces of boyatzis et al. (2014) and rochford et al. (2017) that our brain’s dmn and tpn networks consecutively constitute relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership roles and a dynamic balance (i.e., synergistic interaction) between these two roles is required to be an ethical leader. hence, the propositions drawn from opposing domain theory show antecedents of ethical leadership 282 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a viable theoretical lens to expand the current understanding of the antecedents of ethical leadership. indeed, such findings augment the organizational theorizing informed by the findings of neuroscientific research (rochford et al., 2017). second, the findings of the present paper may offer a meaningful departure from the extant research in ethical leadership literature, which largely stresses cognitive/analytic reasoning as a basis for ethical leadership training and development (brown & treviño, 2006; jordan et al., 2013; wells & schminke, 2001). in the present paper, i particularly expand this line of research by empirically demonstrating the importance of socioemotional reasoning (which is exerted through the demonstration of a relationship-oriented role) in contingent with analytic reasoning (which is exerted through the demonstration of a task-oriented role) as the antecedents of ethical leadership. specifically, the findings show the presence of synergistic effects of relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles on employees’ perception of ethical leadership. these findings demonstrate that ethical leaders use neither of the leadership roles alone but both of them in a balanced way to be perceived as ethical leaders. perhaps they have the ability to understand different cues around them, which helps them switch between socioemotional and analytical cognitive reasoning modes, correspondingly switching between their corresponding relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles as necessary (boyatzis et al., 2014; french & jack, 2015). in the same vein, these findings also shed initial light on scholars’ recent arguments that both moral reasoning and moral intuition (i.e., socioemotional reasoning) are required for developing an ethically-oriented leader (egorov et al., 2019). third, the present paper’s findings can be deemed as a bridge to the research in psychology and neuroscience in the development of ethical leadership theorizing. in this paper, i tested and expanded the propositions developed based on a neurological theory at a psychological level, which permits interlevel synchronous investigation and provides explanatory robustness (de jong, 2002). hence, the present study findings demonstrate that the relationship between psychology and neuroscience concepts and data can be reconciled and complemented with each other as a way of a theory-building process in ethical leadership research. practical implications this paper offers important insight to train leaders to be ethical leaders in the organization. extant research in ethical leadership mainly suggests building leaders’ cognitive/analytic reasoning capacity to be ethical leaders (jordan et al., 2013). the findings of the present research suggest that leaders can optimize their employees’ perception of ethical leadership if they uphold a high level of relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles, which correspond to their use of socioemotional and analytic reasoning. that is, they need to balance between their relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles by switching between those as necessary to be perceived as an ethical leader. moreover, leaders need to effectively cycle back and forth between these two leadership roles to be ethical leaders, which can be trained by using different pedagogical techniques and experiential learning (see boyatzis & jack, 2018; kolb, 2015; rochford et al., 2017). strengths, limitations, and future research directions like every study, despite having some strengths (e.g., pairing experimental and correlational designs), the current research is not free of a set of limitations that can be addressed in future studies. first, in the field study, i measured leaders’ relationship-oriented and task-oriented roles by employee ratings but not by the supervisors’ ratings. however, recent meta-analytic research has shown that leader-observer ratings were of similar magnitudes for relationand task-oriented behaviors (lee & carpenter, 2018). hence, i do not deem it problematic to interpret the study findings. indeed, a future study can be carried out with the supervisor ratings of these roles. second, i collected cross-sectional and single-source data for the field study, which may fall into the common method bias (podsakoff et al., 2003). as i tested the interactive effect in this study, which is virtually impossible to create through common method variance (siemsen et al., 2010), i did not expect common method variance to be a vital threat to the interpretation of the findings. moreover, i found similar findings across the experimental and field studies designed with participants from different parts of the world (western europe and south asia), which gave me the confidence to generalize my findings. nevertheless, a future study can be carried out following multi-source data and a time-lagged design. third, the rahaman 283 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures of relationship-oriented and task-oriented leadership roles were previously used in experimental studies and not extensively validated for survey research, which is a potential limitation to acknowledge. however, i did cfa to provide evidence of the validity and distinctiveness of the measures (conway & lance, 2010). indeed, i acknowledge that more research is needed to not only further validate (e.g., convergent validity) or refine the current field study measures but also carry out future research with other appropriate measures on this topic. fourth, in this study i theorize based on the evidence informed by neurological measures but did not include any of those. hence, caution is advised in interpreting the study findings. indeed, it would be worthy to replicate the present study findings along with neurological measures to further increase the robustness of the same. the present study findings offer some interesting avenues for future research. for example, organizational culture or climate or cultural congruence (i.e., as a moderator) may bind the leaders to be more susceptible toward one mode of reasoning over others, which may tend to make them toward excessive use of the corresponding leadership role over the other (den hartog & de hoogh, 2024; rochford et al., 2017). conclusion in conclusion, drawing on the propositions informed by opposing domain theory and related research, i examine lead­ ers’ relational role maintenance behaviors with employees as the antecedents of ethical leadership. specifically, across two studies, i show that leaders’ relationship-oriented roles and task-oriented roles synergistically predict employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership. i hope that the current investigation will act as a stepping stone to gain scholars’ interest in this promising direction. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: i thank jeroen stouten for constructive comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. i also thank zhenduo zhang for helping me with part of the data analysis. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: i certify that i have complied with the apa ethical principles regarding research with human participants in the conduct of the present research. data availability: data of the present research can be available upon reasonable request. references aguinis, h., & bradley, k. j. 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(2013). an improved measure of ethical leadership. journal of leadership & organizational studies, 20(1), 38–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051811429352 about the author h. m. saidur rahaman is working as an associate professor at the department of psychology at jagannath university, dhaka, bangladesh. he obtained his phd from the university of leuven, belgium. his research interests include leadership and positive organizational scholarship. he has published papers in peer-reviewed journals such as the international journal of hospitality management, applied psychology: an international review, personnel review, leadership & organization development journal, and journal of managerial psychology among others. rahaman 287 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 272–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11891 https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj-11-2018-0417 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-016-3264-x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00368.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2006.01.005 https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2011.559363 https://doi.org/10.1086/209563 https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428109351241 https://statwiki.gaskination.com/index.php/cfa https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0644 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.61.1.58 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1053-4822(00)00044-9 https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088 https://doi.org/10.1177/1548051811429352 https://www.psychopen.eu/ antecedents of ethical leadership (introduction) theoretical review and hypothesis development implications of opposing domain theory for ethical leadership theorization overview of studies study 1 method results study 2 method results general discussion theoretical implications practical implications strengths, limitations, and future research directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the author lawrence kohlberg’s suicide: an analysis of his final life stage research reports lawrence kohlberg’s suicide: an analysis of his final life stage vikki botes 1, roelf van niekerk 1 [1] industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 received: 2025-05-09 • accepted: 2025-08-28 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: vikki botes, industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, po box 77000, gqeberha, 6031, south africa. tel: +27 21 671 7692. e-mail: vikki@sacap.edu.za related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract objective: this article focuses on the last stage of kohlberg’s life, his career success years, between ages of 41 to 59 years. the aim of the study was to explore and describe how an accomplished moral development expert reached the point of taking his own life. the objectives of this article were to illuminate kohlberg’s life story through (a) formulating a comprehensive and contextualised description of kohlberg’s last stage of his life and (b) interpreting part of kohlberg’s life story according to bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development framework. method: the psychobiographical analysis used a qualitative paradigm, longitudinal single-case research design from a descriptiveinterpretive approach. bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development, incorporating its enmeshed, most recent scientific research design, the proximal-person-context-time model was used as the theoretical framework. results/findings: the findings illustrate the direct influence of the context, person and time components on kohlberg’s proximal processes’ functioning levels and their outcomes. kohlberg’s proximal processes were impacted by several areas. these were his interpersonal relationships, career, challenges versus protective factors and visionary qualities. conclusion: this article underscores the critical importance of suicide awareness and advocates for a comprehensive, holistic approach to addressing mental health challenges. it also stresses the need to investigate intricate and multifaceted factors that can influence suicidal behaviour, along with identifying protective factors that may help prevent suicidal ideation and intent. understanding the complex factors that contribute to the risk of suicide allows for the effective identification and management of challenges, ultimately supporting greater mental health and well-being. keywords psychobiography, lawrence kohlberg, bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development, bronfenbrenner’s proximal-person-contexttime model, career success stage according to the world health organization (2024), more than 720,000 deaths occur on an annual basis due to suicide. suicide can occur at any stage of life, and it usually has a lasting impact on significant others in the individual’s life. suicide is not driven by an isolated event. it is often driven by multiple factors, such as adverse life events, mental health, cultural and social factors. some suicides are impulsive acts, taking place during a crisis such as relationship dif­ ficulties, financial challenges, illness and chronic pain. in 2022, 49,449 individuals committed suicide in the united states of america (usa). this number increased by 2.6% since 2021, when 48183 individuals committed suicide (substance abuse and mental health services administration, 2023). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.17971&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ with the high prevalence of suicide rates, this article seeks to destigmatize suicide and highlight the importance of incorporating a more holistic approach when assisting clients in overcoming crises. kohlberg’s psychobiography (botes, 2022) illuminates the importance of understanding the complex factors associated with the increased risk of suicide, thereby enabling more effective identification and management of challenges which can assist in the prevention of suicide. this article, based on a doctoral study, focuses on kohlberg’s last stage of his life, his career success years (1968–1987), and emphasises the importance of addressing and working through challenges in various areas of life to create more balanced functioning (botes, 2022). the application of bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development (bthd) and the proximal-per­ son-context-time model (ppct) to kohlberg’s career success years allows for a multilayered and multidimensional exploration and description of those years. the ppct model was developed by bronfenbrenner to operationalise the bi­ oecological theory of human development, thereby not only increasing the reliability and validity of the bioecological theory of human development but also increasing the multifaceted structure and complexity of this framework (botes, 2022; bronfenbrenner & morris, 1998, 2006; rosa & tudge, 2013). due to the breadth of this theoretical framework, the depth of each facet is limited within the parameters of a single article. the focus in this article is on forming an understanding of how various facets interacted and preceded kohlberg’s eventual suicide. thus, this study is not only an in-depth application of the bthd to kohlberg’s career success years but also provides grounding for future research into how intricate systems interact in cases of suicidality, especially with high-functioning individuals. overview of kohlberg’s life story kohlberg was known for his forward-thinking research on moral development (kohlberg, 1958, 1971, 1981, 1984; snarey, 2012; snarey & samuelson, 2014). he achieved success in his career as a moral development specialist and teacher, yet he committed suicide in 1987 (botes, 2022). although this psychobiographical analysis focuses on kohlberg’s last stage of his life namely, his career success years, a brief overview of kohlberg’s life follows. kohlberg faced several challenges during his childhood and adolescent years. for example, he witnessed and experienced family turmoil and upheaval due to his parents’ divorce. furthermore, kohlberg and his siblings rotated between each parent every six months for five years (fowler et al., 1988). kohlberg rebelled against his own wealthy socio-economic status and his challenging childhood experiences by misbehaving at the private boarding school he attended, as well as how he chose to travel, who he interacted with during his travels and his physical appearance (fowler et al., 1988; garz, 2009). after high school, kohlberg wanted to study law or psychology. however, he became increasingly concerned with the horrors committed by the nazis in world war ii (wwii). thus, he joined the united states marines in 1945 instead (snarey, 2012). after serving in the marines, kohlberg became a member of the jewish defence force haganah and worked aboard one of their ships. during kohlberg’s time with the haganah, he smuggled jewish refugees from europe into palestine. he was eventually captured by the british forces and sent to a detention camp in cyprus. after seven weeks in the detention camp, kohlberg escaped to palestine (snarey, 2012). kohlberg returned to the usa in 1948. due to kohlberg’s experiences during wwii, he questioned how a cultured and educated nation such as germany could approve of the nazi reign. therefore, after studying clinical psychology, kohlberg focused on academic psycholo­ gy, where he could explore morality. kohlberg’s doctoral dissertation focused on moral development in children. this research brought kohlberg to the attention of psychologists, and he gradually became known as one of the distinguished psychologists at the time (snarey, 2012; walsh, 2000). this article focuses only on the last stage of kohlberg’s life, namely his career success years between 1968 to 1987. the aim is to explore and describe the behaviours and events that preceded his suicide (botes, 2022). the following section provides an overview on the approach and methods used in the study. lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis 320 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method the aims were to illuminate kohlberg’s life story through, (a) formulating a comprehensive and contextualised descrip­ tion of kohlberg’s last stage of his life and, (b) interpreting part of kohlberg’s life story according to bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development (bthd) framework (botes, 2022). this psychobiographical analysis used a qualitative paradigm, longitudinal single-case research design from a descriptive-interpretive approach. the descriptive-interpretive paradigm approach allowed for the exploration of the informal applicability of bronfenbrenner’s bthd framework to kohlberg last life stage. the study used the theoretical framework of the bthd, by including its most up-to-date scientific research design, the proximal-person-context-time model (ppct) (botes, 2022; bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). the data collection process focused on publicly available sources. these included biographic and autobiographic material, books, newspapers and journal articles. the search for sources was conducted over an 18-month period using internet and academic database searches. these included databases such as the directory of open access journals (doaj), jstor, google scholar, sabinet, and ebscohost. the assessment of the data trustworthiness was guided by lincoln and guba’s (1985) model of trustworthiness (botes, 2022). lincoln and guba’s (1985) model of trustworthiness criteria focus on four areas. those are namely, credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. credibility was established through data triangulation to corroborate the information across sources. data was considered to be accurate and trustworthy when the content in different sources of data corresponded during the data triangulation process, increasing the true value and trustworthiness of the data (botes, 2022; yin, 2018). transferability was achieved by providing rich descriptions to enable theoretical generalisation rather than statistical generalisation, consistent with psychobiographical methods (botes, 2022; mayer & kőváry, 2019; van niekerk, 2021). dependability was reinforced through oversight by a supervisor who is an expert in psychobiographical research to ensure consistent interpretation of the data. lastly, confirmability was ensured through two measures. these were prolonged engagement with data and using an independent reviewer to verify the accurate use of alexander’s (1990) two-question model, strengthening the study’s objectivity and internal validity (botes, 2022; yin, 2018). alexander’s (1990) two-question model ensured relevancy of the data by providing criteria for data inclusion based on the aims of the study. the use of alexander’s two-question model allowed for the inclusion of suitable data, the discovery of new insights and exclusion of irrelevant data. data collection was concluded once data saturation had been reached. to assess the study’s internal validity, an independent reviewer examined the sources to verify the accurate application of alexander’s model (du plessis, 2017). overview of bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development the bthd framework describes human development, action and behaviour from different facets. this framework, incorporating the ppct model, concentrates on important interactions between diverse systems in the development of individuals. these are individual characteristics, proximal processes (motivating drives for human development), context and time (mc guckin & minton, 2014; rosa & tudge, 2013). bronfenbrenner’s theory was considered appropriate for this psychobiographical analysis as it is a grand theory. therefore, it focuses on different aspects in individuals lives such as education, culture, intelligence, religion, personality and education instead of only focusing on one factor such as personality (du plessis, 2017). in kohlberg’s psychobiog­ raphy, the bthd framework allowed for the exploration and description of numerous factors present during his last stage. these included factors such as kohlberg’s personality, family, cultural and historical background, health and vocation (botes, 2022). botes & van niekerk 321 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ findings kohlberg’s development during the final stage of his life (1968–1987), his career success years, spanned from the ages of 41 to 59 years. firstly, kohlberg’s career success stage was explored within the context component, by describing the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems. this component explores how different environments interact with the individ­ ual in a reciprocal manner to shape the individual’s development (bronfenbrenner, 1977). secondly, the characteristics of force, resource characteristics and demand characteristics were presented within the person component. the person component focuses on individual characteristics at various levels, such as dispositions, abilities and competencies. thirdly, the macrotime within the time component was explored. the macrotime explores historical and sociocultural influences on an individual. this was done by sub-dividing the macrotime into family origins and historical context (botes, 2022; bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). a discussion of each of these in kohlberg’s last stage of life follows. the context component visual depictions were created to illustrate the dynamic interplays of the elements in kohlberg’s last stage of his life. this was achieved by using the last version of the bthd framework by combining the bthd and the ppct model. figure 1 shows the context components applicable to kohlberg during his career success years stage (botes, 2022; bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). figure 1 the bthd — career success — the context component note. created from bronfenbrenner and morris (2006). the microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) in kohlberg’s career success stage relates to the interactions he had with those within his academic sphere, his identity as an academic, researcher and moral educator, as well as his drive to assist humanity in a concrete and realistic approach (devries, 1991; springer, 2005). kohlberg’s behaviour and lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis 322 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ physical appearance were also noted to have developed into that of an academic (walsh, 2000). kohlberg interacted with students, colleagues, friends, scholars and critics (bronfenbrenner, 1977; snarey, 2012; walsh, 2000). walsh (2000) explained that while kohlberg became the authority on moral development, he did not only interact with people who promoted his research, but he also surrounded himself with his critics, becoming friends with many. additional significant individuals within kohlberg’s academic microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) were the participants in his research. this microsystem was deemed important to include in the findings, as the participants became an inspiration for kohlberg to become a moral educator (garz, 2009; springer, 2005; walsh, 2000). kohlberg’s personal life in his microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) included his mental and physical health due to contracting chronic giardiasis. it also included his interactions with his wife lucille, his extended family, as well as his girlfriend and colleague ann higgins after his marriage to lucille had ended (snarey, 2012; springer, 2005; walsh, 2000). snarey (2012), springer (2005), and walsh (2000) recalled that while kohlberg experienced professional triumph, he suffered from depression due to his continuous gastric challenges and his deteriorating relationship with lucille. although the literature explaining the reasons for kohlberg and lucille’s marriage disintegration is limited, their marriage was reported to be unhappy. they separated in 1974 and divorced 11 years later in 1985 (snarey, 2012; springer, 2005). during this time, the interactions of kohlberg with his extended family were illuminated when kohl­ berg’s sister marjorie stated that despite his deteriorating health, kohlberg remained a source of support for the family (fowler et al., 1988). due to kohlberg’s chronic giardiasis and his depression, his microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) also evolved to include alternative health and medical professionals (springer, 2005). although the literature does not discuss kohlberg’s interactions with health and medical professionals, it is assumed that he would have interacted with them, when he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1979 and a suicide attempt in january 1987 (garz, 2009; higgins, 1991; springer, 2005). guided partially by his own suffering, towards the end of kohlberg’s life, his microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) changed once more to self-exploration through religion and spirituality (fowler et al., 1988; snarey, 2012). due to his imminent death, kohlberg reflected on different questions such as: ‘how to face death?’ and ‘why be just in an unjust world?’, kohlberg found comfort in believing that we are a part of the cosmos which is continuously evolving and intrinsically lawful. once this is understood, we acquire an awareness of moral relief (higgins, 1991; zizek et al., 2015). the coinciding mesosystem elements from kohlberg’s microsystem (bronfenbrenner, 1977) were his changes in home structures. his home structures changed three times during this stage. it altered from a nuclear family during his marriage to lucille, to a split family during his separation and divorce from lucille in 1985. then kohlberg’s home structure changed once more when he dated and become engaged to a colleague, ann (springer, 2005). other mesosystem elements were his extended family and the centre kohlberg founded at harvard. there was a negative interaction between kohlberg’s physical health and his marriage to lucille versus the centre of moral development and education at harvard university (bronfenbrenner, 1977; snarey, 2012; walsh, 2000). the more successful kohlberg’s career became, the more his marriage and health deteriorated (bronfenbrenner, 1977; snarey, 2012; walsh, 2000). other factors contributing to the decline of kohlberg’s health and the deterioration of his marriage to lucille was his demanding work schedule and his over-availability and sociability with people around him (springer, 2005). power (1991) explained that many people consistently queued to meet with kohlberg. despite kohlberg’s declining health, he adhered to a demanding workload. his sister marjorie begged him to take time off work, so that his health could improve (fowler et al., 1988). however, kohlberg continued to sustain a demanding work schedule (fowler at al., 1988; higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012). other mesosystems were the hospital environment and the kibbutz where he conducted his research, and the just community project. an additional environment noted within the mesosystem was kohlberg’s holiday house at cape cod (bronfenbrenner, 1977; higgins, 1991; kurtines & gewirtz, 1991; springer, 2005; zizek et al., 2015). kohlberg’s exosystem (bronfenbrenner, 1979) included the vocational fields of academia and moral-based education (devries, 1991; kurtines & gewirtz, 1991). both of these had successes and setbacks. due to kohlberg’s success with his theory of moral development, he had international people come to meet him at the centre for moral education and development (snarey, 2012; walsh, 2000). an example of a setback kohlberg encountered was to his professional reputation when it was discovered that moral development was bi-directional. this contradicted kohlberg’s doctoral research findings claiming that it was unidirectional (kohlberg, 1958; springer, 2005; zizek et al., 2015). botes & van niekerk 323 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ kohlberg’s macrosystem (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006) in the last stage of his life was made up of the economic, social and political systems of capitalism, democracy and anti-communism. kuhmerker (1991) provided an illustration of how the macrosystem had a direct reciprocal influence on kohlberg’s environment (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). this was shown though an account provided by sprinthall in kuhmerker (1991). sprinthall explained that the faculty at harvard university was angry over the nixon-kissinger invasion of laos and cambodia between 1969 to 1973. despite this, people were reluctant to take the departments condemnation to the nixon administration, however, kohlberg volunteered for this (kuhmerker, 1991). in this section, the context components pertaining to kohlberg’s last stage of life, his career success stage were presented (bronfenbrenner, 1979). the next section explores the person components relevant to this stage of kohlberg’s life (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). the person component figure 2 illustrates the person components relevant to kohlberg during his career success years stage (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). figure 2 the bthd — career success — the person component note. created from bronfenbrenner and morris (2006). during this period, kohlberg’s characteristics of force are identified as openness to others, curiosity and inquisi­ tiveness. the negative characteristics of inattention and impulsiveness were also seen in some of kohlberg’s behav­ iours such as when he continued to ram his car for a second time into the brick wall at the larsen parking lot (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006; kuhmerker, 1991). prior to kohlberg contracting chronic giardiasis, he possessed the resource characteristics of observation, knowledge, insight and skills in his work environment (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis 324 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, after kohlberg became ill in 1971/1972, he became known as being peculiar and unreliable at work. kohlberg excused himself from meetings due to his painful physical symptoms (devries, 1991; higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012; springer, 2005). a change in kohlberg’s demand characteristics (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006) was also evident when marjorie confirmed the shift in kohlberg’s demand characteristics from being an enthusiastic, amusing and optimistic individual to becoming an agitated, erratic and pessimistic individual (fowler et al., 1988). kohlberg’s physical appearance was also highlighted through a story his friend helkama shared. when kohlberg arrived at his hotel in finland, he saw a drunk man lying by the hotel entrance and tried to assist him. the doorman at the hotel saw this and assumed that kohlberg was also homeless, due to the way he dressed (zizek et al., 2015). this section within kohlberg’s last stage of life, his career success stage, described the context and person components relevant to this stage. a discussion of the time components relevant to this stage follows (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). the time component the time component within kohlberg’s career success stage (from 1968 to 1987) is divided into two macrotime categories. those are kohlberg’s family origins and the historical context. macrotime — family origins the first themes identified to have contributed to kohlberg’s mental health during his career success years were the themes of rebelliousness and fighting for a cause. kohlberg backed civil unrest, supporting the pursuit of independent thinking and justice. the cultural and political climate increased kohlberg’s popularity within the usa (carlisle, 2009; rest et al., 1988). another theme identified is the theme of avoiding being a burden on others. this was evident in this last stage of his life when kohlberg attempted to commit suicide in early january 1987. during kohlberg’s stay at mount auburn hospital, helkama (zizek et al., 2015) recalled that kohlberg continuously apologised to those around him for the trouble he was causing. macrotime — historical context during kohlberg’s career success stage beginning in 1968, the usa was still encountering substantial civil unrest, due to the country’s involvement in the vietnam war. this caused a divide in public opinion, leading to violent protests in the runup race to the presidential election in 1968 as well as the assassination of prominent figures such as robert kennedy and martin luther king, jr. however, when nixon was re-elected in 1972, a truce was negotiated with north vietnam (carlisle, 2009; gettleman et al., 1995). despite this, two decades of the cold war, nuclear threats and fighting communism had a powerful effect on the daily lives of usa citizens. however, the usa economy continued to grow, leading to decreased unemployment rates and increased incomes. by the end of the 1970’s, the usa also advanced in its racial and gender equalities, as well as made gains in medicine, technology, science and further education (carlisle, 2009; fink, 2017; gaddis, 2006; gettleman et al., 1995). discussion based on the findings of the context, person and time components during kohlberg’s last stage, his career success stage, kohlberg’s proximal processes and their outcomes are reviewed in relation to his mental health (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). these were his interpersonal relationships, career, challenges versus protective factors and visionary qualities. a discussion on each of these areas follows. the proximal processes component the first area explored during kohlberg’s career success years was his interpersonal relationships. in kohlberg’s microsystem he focused on establishing and maintaining friendships with students, colleagues, scholars and critics. snarey (2012) explained that kohlberg was eager to get involved in his students lives. this resulted in many of his botes & van niekerk 325 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ students becoming his colleagues and friends. however, kohlberg’s sociability and over accessibility to others also created an enmeshment between kohlberg’s personal life and his vocation/academic life. after kohlberg became sick with chronic giardiasis, his interpersonal relationships changed towards a dysfunctional outcome (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). kohlberg was perceived to have changed from possessing the demand characteristics of optimism, humour and enthusiasm to possessing the characteristics of pessimism, instability and irritability (fowler et al., 1988). kohlberg’s physical appearance in his characteristics of force, demonstrated how it formed his environment’s response to him within his microsystem (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). this was seen through helkama’s story of kohlberg in finland (zizek et al., 2015). despite kohlberg’s appearance, his demand characteristic of caring stayed strong. according to marjorie, kohlberg was the person the extended family would turn to for support (fowler et al., 1988). however, the demand characteristics of being unstable, pessimistic and frantic also impacted on the quality of the interactions between kohlberg and his environment, shaping it to become more negative (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). thus, it is assumed that kohlberg’s professional triumphs and the demands it placed on his time, as well as his poor mental and physical health, combined with his over-availability to others took their toll on kohlberg and lucille’s marriage (kurtines & gewirtz, 1991; snarey, 2012; springer, 2005; zizek et al., 2015). this reduced the effectiveness of the proximal processes, leading to a dysfunctional outcome in their marriage (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). in addition, kohlberg’s parents’ divorce in his childhood and adolescence years, could have further influenced kohlberg’s interactions and perceptions within his own marriage to lucille (fowler et al., 1988). although there was limited literature on the impact of kohlberg’s separation and divorce from lucille, helkama recalled that kohlberg seemed disorientated due to their separation (zizek et al., 2015). the second outcomes area related to kohlberg’s mental health within his success years was his career. between the years of 1968–1970, his proximal processes in the academic sphere were functioning at an optimal level (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). however, due to kohlberg’s chronic giardiasis, the efficiency of his proximal processes from 1971/1972 onwards was challenged. he often had to excuse himself from meetings and gradually developed the resource character­ istics of being unreliable at work (devries, 1991; higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012; springer, 2005). demonstrating the impact of kohlberg’s poor health on his work, before his death, kohlberg’s physical pain was so extreme, that he could no longer focus on his work and function effectively. these accounts pointed to the deterioration of kohlberg’s once optimally functioning proximal processes. this led to a dysfunctional outcome in productivity levels within his career sphere, resulting in kohlberg eventually handing over a lot of his own work to his colleagues and students (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006; devries, 1991; rest et al., 1988). the third area considered in relation to kohlberg’s mental health within the proximal processes during kohlberg’s career success years stage was his challenges versus protective factors. while kohlberg’s marriage to lucille soured, he had the protective factors of his love for his work within his mesosystem and exosystem, as well as his friendships with his colleagues, students and friends within his microsystem. after kohlberg’s marriage to lucille ended, he also had the protective factor of his relationship with ann higgins within his microsystem (higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012; springer, 2005; walsh, 2000). these protective factors assisted kohlberg to achieve a competence outcome with some of his interpersonal relationships (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). one important area where protective factors failed to mitigate kohlberg’s challenges was with his physical health. in the last few years of kohlberg’s life, he tried to find a cure for his giardiasis, after modern medicine failed to help him. this was evident when kohlberg travelled to finland after reading that the finnish doctors had come up with a new treatment for giardiasis. another example was kohlberg experimenting with different unconventional remedies (springer, 2005; zizek et al., 2015). in addition, despite kohlberg’s ailing health, he continued working to a relentless work schedule (fowler et al., 1988). kohlberg found it difficult to take time off work to recover. as a result, there was a complementary relationship between kohlberg’s deteriorating health and his levels of productivity at work. while his proximal processes once functioned optimally within his vocation, his deteriorating health and mental health challenges eventually led to an outcome of dysfunction with kohlberg’s productivity levels (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). despite the deterioration in kohlberg’s productivity levels, the historical context in the usa served as a protective factor for kohlberg reputation. rest et al. (1988) explained that the social, political lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis 326 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and cultural atmosphere in the usa within his macrosystem increased kohlberg’s popularity. these protective factors assisted in maintaining competence outcomes within kohlberg’s career (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). the final theme related to kohlberg’s mental health was his visionary qualities. kohlberg showed visionary qualities in his development of a seventh stage in his theory of moral development, referred to as the metaphysical stage (higgins, 1991; zizek et al., 2015). the seventh stage provided him with comfort as it answered questions such as ‘why live?’ (higgins, 1991; zizek et al., 2015). these activities gave kohlberg’s proximal processes a competence outcome within this area (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006). mental health although the information regarding kohlberg’s mental health was limited, this area is important, as his mental health probably played an important aspect in the tragic ending to his life. during kohlberg’s childhood, there is no mention of his mental health. during kohlberg’s time with the haganah forces, the literature implied that he might had experienced mental health difficulties. this was apparent when kohlberg’s friend gutmann, who met kohlberg when they served together on the haganah boat for a year, revealed that kohlberg had suffered from mood swings throughout the years (langley, 1987). despite this revelation, the literature did not bring to light mental health difficulties during kohlberg’s early career substage within his career establishment years. this could mean that during kohlberg’s time with the us marines and the haganah forces, his possible mental health issues were situational, due to the inherent stress and anxiety from seeing the devastation from wwii and from breaking international law by smuggling refugees into palestine (devries, 1991; higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012). however, the suggestion from gutmann that kohlberg suffered from mood swings throughout the years (langley, 1987) could signify that his mental health challenges were present prior to him contracting chronic giardiasis. however, kohlberg’s mental health was not specifically discussed in the literature until he contracted giardiasis (devries, 1991; higgins, 1991; snarey, 2012). the deterioration of kohlberg’s physical health, and his separation and subsequent divorce from lucille worsened his mental health (snarey, 2012; springer, 2005). perpetuating kohlberg’s poor mental health was his disinclination to take a break from work or to ease his workload so that he could recover (fowler et al., 1988; zizek et al., 2015). further exasperating kohlberg’s mental health difficulties was that he endured physical and mental anguish in silence (walsh, 2000). the authors’ experience is that often society holds gifted or extraordinary individuals to unrelenting standards with their mental health. in kohlberg’s case, society’s high expectations were perpetuated further as he was also working within the helping vocation. society often perceives individuals in helping professions to be able to efficiently attain holistic well-being due to their specialised knowledge and training. perhaps this was why kohlberg continued with a demanding work schedule, thereby allowing him to maintain the image of functioning optimally despite his difficulties (botes, 2022). this corresponds with kohlberg’s friends and family being angry with him for committing suicide and feeling guilty for not being able to help him. an example of this was when his friends and family stated, “if only we would have been more sensitive to his state of mind, perhaps it would have never led to this” (fowler et al., 1988, p. 219). conclusion with the increased rates of suicidal ideation and suicide due to the lasting impact of covid-19 on society (high unemployment rates, new mental health challenges and social isolation) (substance abuse and mental health services administration, 2023), this article highlights the importance of suicide awareness through destigmatizing suicide and emphasising the importance of approaching mental health challenges through a holistic approach in overcoming crises. the psychobiographical analysis of kohlberg in the last stage of his life, using bronfenbrenner’s bthd framework (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006) illustrated the importance of exploring the complexities and multi-layered factors involved in understanding motivating factors which increase chances of suicide, as well as protective factors which could mitigate suicidal ideation and intent. understanding the complexities involved in factors increasing the risk of suicide allows for challenges to be addressed and worked through more thoroughly to attain greater equilibrium in overall mental health well-being (botes, 2022). botes & van niekerk 327 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this study endeavoured to explore the utility in bronfenbrenner’s bthd in offering an intricate view of the nuances and complexities involved in understanding suicidality. by exploring the complex interactions between kohlberg’s characteristics, environmental influences, family origins and historical context, this psychobiography illustrated how these interactions contributed to the functioning of his proximal processes and eventual suicide. thus, this study demonstrated the helpfulness of this theoretical approach in offering a more interconnected understanding of factors associated with kohlberg’s emotional deterioration and suicide. this psychobiography also contributes to research focused on bioecological factors influencing the mental health and suicidality in high-performing individuals. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors declare that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: this research is based on a phd study (botes, 2022) completed through nelson mandela university. ethics approval number: h21-besiop-032. informed consent was obtained. data availability: primary and secondary sources available in the public domain. references alexander, i. e. 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(2015). kohlberg revisited. sense publishing. about the authors vikki botes is a clinical psychologist and head of faculty for applied psychology at the south african college of applied psycholo­ gy (sacap). she holds a phd in industrial and organisational psychology from nelson mandela university. she obtained a bachelor of arts in health sciences and social services, specialising in psychological counselling (cum laude), and an honours bachelor of arts in psychology from the university of south africa. she later completed her master’s degree in clinical psychology (cum laude) at nelson mandela metropolitan university. her academic interests include mental health advocacy, ethics, psychopathology, and psychobiographical research. roelf van niekerk is a registered clinical and industrial psychologist as well as a master human resource professional. he obtained a ba theology, ba honours (psychology), and ma (industrial psychology) at the university of stellenbosch; a ma (clinical psychology) and d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth, and a m ed (general education theory and practice) at rhodes university. van niekerk is currently an emeritus professor in the school of industrial psychology and human resorces at the nelson mandela university in summerstrand, south africa. he was previously employed at the universities of port elizabeth, free botes & van niekerk 329 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 319–330 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17971 https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1987/4/9/missing-profs-body-found-in-harbor/ https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16953-4 https://doi.org/10.1017/jgc.2013.10 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0091958 https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12022 https://www.samhsa.gov/data/ https://lectures.mandela.ac.za/lectures/media/store/documents/inaugural%20lectures/prof-r-van-niekerk-full-lecture.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02686189 https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/suicide https://www.psychopen.eu/ state, fort hare, and rhodes university. van niekerk’s research focus is on psychobiographical research projects, particularly in the fields of personality-, career-, and leadership development. he teaches a range of modules including psychological assessment, career management, organisational development, personality psychology, psychotherapy, and psychopathology. lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis 330 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ lawrence kohlberg’s final life stage analysis (introduction) overview of kohlberg’s life story method overview of bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development findings the context component the person component the time component discussion the proximal processes component mental health conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the authors organizational culture, justice, dehumanization and affective commitment in french employees: a serial mediation model research reports organizational culture, justice, dehumanization and affective commitment in french employees: a serial mediation model jean-félix hamel 1, fabrizio scrima 1, lucie massot 2, benoît montalan 1 [1] centre de recherche sur les fonctionnements et les dysfonctionnements psychologiques (crfdp, ur7475), university of rouen normandy, rouen, france. [2] university of paris 8 (ied), paris, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 received: 2022-01-27 • accepted: 2023-03-24 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: austin lee nichols, central european university, vienna, austria corresponding author: benoît montalan, université de rouen normandie, rue thomas becket, 76130 mont-saint-aignan, france. e-mail: benoit.montalan@univ-rouen.fr abstract the instrumentality of employees can be considered a common feature of the modern workplace. to investigate the influence of this instrumentalizing culture on organizational performance on the individual level, we tested whether perceived clan values (according to the competing values framework) could explain affective commitment directly and indirectly through perceptions of organizational justice and organizational dehumanization in employees. using the process macro, we tested a corresponding serial mediation model in a convenience sample of 306 french employees. although employees who perceived a lack of clan values were less committed, the observed indirect effect was greater. our findings highlight the role of perceived organizational culture in influencing affective commitment and how perceived justice and dehumanization may explain part of this relationship. this research also contradicts widespread beliefs stating dehumanizing strategies are universally beneficial in terms of organizational efficiency. limitations and directions for future research are discussed. keywords commitment, organizational dehumanization, organizational culture, organizational justice, serial mediation the relationship between organizational culture and various effectiveness criteria has long been a focus of this field of research (sackman, 2011; schneider et al., 2013; wilderom et al., 2000). a meta-analysis by hartnell et al. (2011) used the competing values framework (cvf) (cameron & quinn, 2011) to establish and clarify the culture-performance relationship. the meta-analysis confirmed different types of culture related differently to effectiveness criteria and revealed the dimensions of this widely-used framework (cameron et al., 2006) provide a better account of overall organizational effectiveness when combined. this finding reinforced the need for organizations to take an interest in their overall cultural configuration and its underlying stakes such as occupational health outcomes (dextras-gauthier et al., 2012), which explains why it remains the topic of much discussion today (e.g., kim & chang, 2019). concurrently, the global socioeconomic context promotes a “growing tendency for organizations and leaders to see humans as ‘means’ rather than ‘ends in themselves’”, in stark contradiction with the kantian moral imperative (rochford et al., 2017, p. 763). in line with this trend, multiple authors theorized such instrumentalizing practices to have become an ordinary occurrence in the workplace due to widely shared beliefs about their necessity (e.g., christoff, 2014) or the legitimizing role of neoliberal ideology (bal & dóci, 2018). despite the instrumentalized representation of employees seemingly becoming a fixture of the modern world of work, its influence on employees and their effectiveness in relation to organizational variables remains relatively unknown. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.8243&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ using the competing values framework (cameron & quinn, 2011), the present study aims at investigating whether the extent to which employees perceive their organization to convey humanizing cultural elements (i.e., values) may af­ fect a relevant effectiveness criterion such as affective commitment (meyer et al., 1989). our second objective is to test a possible psychological mechanism that could explain, in part, the relationship between perceived organizational culture and affective commitment – i.e., whether it could be mediated by variables such as the perception of organizational justice and the perception of organizational dehumanization. thus, we hypothesized as to the relationship between all mobilized variables before investigating the corresponding serial mediation model. theoretical framework the relationship between clan culture and affective commitment the competing values framework frames organizational culture by combining two theoretical axes: focus (internal vs. external) and structure (flexibility vs. stability). crossing them yields four different culture-types (i.e., clan, hierarchy, adhocracy, market) with corresponding—and conceptually exclusive—values, foci and desired outcomes for organizations (cameron & quinn, 2011). in order to provide empirical evidence that dehumanizing cultural practices may influence organizational effectiveness through individual perceptions, we focused our efforts on the clan culture (internal and flexible). clan culture translates an inherent investment in the inner organizational environment and its members (e.g., employees) as well as a belief that “the organization’s trust in and commitment to employees facilitates open communication and employee involvement” (hartnell et al., 2011, p. 679). in line with the kantian moral imperative, authors have suggested that the most harmful aspect of instrumentalizing employees may not be considering them as disposable assets, but the act of only considering them so (rochford et al., 2017; väyrynen & laari-salmela, 2018). the core values of clan culture (i.e., human affiliation, attachment) being theoretically antithetical to that of an objectifying psychosocial environment and its main effectiveness criteria including commitment (hartnell et al., 2011; schneider et al., 2013), it seemed best suited for our purposes. the values conveyed by typically clannish organizations gravitate toward positive human interactions (e.g., respect, attachment, support, collaboration) (schneider et al., 2013). the associated effectiveness criteria of such motivations and means include employee satisfaction and organizational commitment—a “psychological state that binds the individual to the organization” (allen & meyer, 1990, p. 14). as it describes employees’ emotional attachment to their organization, as well as the extent to which they identify with its values, affective commitment should theoretically be closely related to perceived clan culture (krajcsák, 2018). in fact, abbott et al. (2005) showed that employees who work in organizations that adopt prosocial values such as humanity are more affectively engaged. in their meta-analysis, hartnell et al. (2011) identified a strong association between clan culture and affective commitment. using the same framework, past research suggests employees perceiving their organization to have motivations, means and ends dedicated to their welfare may have a stronger affective bond to it (e.g., kim, 2014). h1: perceived clan culture is positively associated with affective commitment. organizational justice as mediator organizational justice can be considered the integration of multiple research currents each concerned with different aspects of the perception of fairness in the workplace (greenberg & colquitt, 2005): distributive justice (adams, 1963; homans, 1961), procedural justice (thibaut & walker, 1975) and interactional justice (greenberg, 1993). values such as trust, tolerance and communication being prominent features of the clan culture, we propose employees that attribute these core values to their organization should perceive procedures, decisions and interactions within the organization as fair—i.e., report higher levels of organizational justice perceptions. the influence of culture on justice systems and perceptions has mostly been studied on higher levels (e.g., national, organizational) (james, 2015). nonetheless, multiple studies successfully explored this relationship on the individual level by investigating the influence of values systems on a variety of employee attitudes including fairness (e.g., di stefano et al., 2019; rita silva & caetano, 2014; schminke et al., 2015; zhou et al., 2019). in line with these findings, we propose employees may understand un/fairness in their organization through the values they attribute to it (and the motivations and objectives so implied). simply speaking, it may be easier for an employee to judge interactions in culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment 286 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the workplace as un/fair regarding the set of values conveyed by the organization than to interpret these interactions as reflections of organizational goals. for instance, a supervisor being impolite might be attributed to the supervisor’s personality, and does not readily fit in with traditional organizational motives; on the other hand, considering the organization to have little regard for the respect of individuals gives actionable insight into the relative un/fairness of the interaction. furthermore, past research theorized supporting employees, communicating with them and ensuring fair processes should lead to high levels of commitment (e.g., meyer et al., 2002)—a claim substantiated by recent work linking justice perceptions with increased commitment (jang et al., 2021). finally, a study by st-pierre and holmes (2010) suggested managers were responsible for “implementing and maintaining a culture of trust and justice” (p. 1174), giving organizational justice a mediating role between culture and outcomes such as workplace aggression. we suggest a similar phenomenon could be observed between clan culture and affective commitment: for employees, perceiving their organization to care about them may strengthen their emotional bond directly, but also indirectly via repeated experiences of fair treatment. h2: perceived clan culture is positively associated with perceived organizational justice (2a), which is positively associated with affective commitment (2b). h3: perceived organizational justice partially mediates the relationship between perceived clan culture and affective commitment. organizational dehumanization as mediator numerous currents of research inside and outside of work and organizational psychology (wop) have taken an interest in the dehumanizing effects of the modern workplace. for instance, dehumanization is a cornerstone of both marx’s critique of the inherently alienating capitalistic system and weber’s writings on the impeding bureaucratization of work (see bell & khoury, 2011). related works in recent wop literature mainly stem from the social psychology of dehumanization (haslam, 2006) and objectification (gruenfeld et al., 2008). however, too few of these studies have examined this phenomenon from the perspective of targets (baldissarri & andrighetto, 2021; haslam & loughnan, 2014), and even less so from that of employees (or in the context of work at large). this shortcoming in the literature has notably been addressed by contextualizing metadehumanization—which describes the subjective experience of feeling dehumanized by others (kteily et al., 2016)—to the work domain. thus, exploring instrumentalization from the perspective of employees and recognizing that it may also emanate from the organization itself (see väyrynen & laari-salmela, 2018), bell and khoury (2011) defined organizational dehumanization as “the experience of an employee who feels objectified by his or her organization, denied personal sub­ jectivity, and made to feel like a tool or instrument for the organization’s ends” (p. 170). in other words, organizational dehumanization represents the extent to which employees feel their organization dehumanizes and objectifies them for its own benefit. as such, it examines the role of higher-level phenomena than objectifying interpersonal interactions, such as reifying human resources management practices (see shields & grant, 2010, cited by baldissarri & andrighetto, 2021, p. 86). a burgeoning literature has since identified organizational dehumanization as a frequent mediator between critical constructs of wop research such as organizational justice and turnover intentions (bell & khoury, 2016) or abusive supervision and affective commitment (caesens et al., 2019). recent work suggests organizational dehumanization perceptions may arise when individuals feel hindered in meeting their psychological needs (i.e., competence, autonomy and control) (demoulin et al., 2021). thus, organizational dehumanization also speaks to the representation employees have formed of their employer-employee relationship insofar as it contributes to their needs not being met. in this study, we propose this representation may be informed by cultural elements such as the perceived organizational values underpinning the observable behaviors conveying an in­ strumentalized representation of employees. while dehumanizing strategies may be common in modern organizational settings (christoff, 2014), organizations which exhibit clan values tend to establish conditions aiding employees in main­ taining feelings of competence, self-esteem and support (dextras-gauthier et al., 2012; hartnell et al., 2011). if conditions help employees fulfill this psychological need, there is reason to think it might prevent organizational dehumanization from emerging in the first place (demoulin et al., 2021). simply speaking, employees perceiving their organization to hamel, scrima, massot, & montalan 287 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ foster a culture which considers their psychological needs should not feel considered as mere instruments devoted to its ends. finally, given both the already established negative relationship between organizational justice and organizational dehumanization (e.g., bell & khoury, 2016) and the one hypothesized above (h2a), we expect organizational justice to play the role of mediator between perceived clan culture and organizational dehumanization—i.e., clan culture may influence organizational dehumanization directly but also indirectly by influencing un/fairness perceptions. h4: perceived clan culture is negatively associated with feelings of organizational dehumanization (4a). perceived organizational justice partially mediates the relationship between perceived clan culture and organizational dehumanization (4b). in their seminal work, bell and khoury (2011) suggested feelings of organizational dehumanization would diminish employees’ attachment and encourage them to dissociate from their organization both physically and emotionally. this would notably translate into a decrease in organizational commitment, which other work has since supported (e.g., caesens et al., 2019; stinglhamber et al., 2021). the mediating role of organizational dehumanization in the relationship between organizational justice and turnover intentions has also been reported (bell & khoury, 2016). we propose the same can be said of the justice-commitment relationship: un/fair interactions in the workplace might affect the psychological bond between and employee and their organization directly, but also indirectly by fostering a detrimental representation of the employer-employee relationship in the latter’s eyes. the sum of all our hypotheses amounts to a serial mediation model represented in figure 1 (mediation hypotheses are in bold). h5: organizational dehumanization partially mediates the relationship between perceived organi­ zational justice and affective commitment (5a) as well as perceived clan culture and affective commitment (5b). figure 1 hypothesized serial mediation model method sample and procedure participants (n = 306) were recruited online, via email and social media. prospecting participants were required to report reading french and being employed in order to participate. first, they were informed about the general purpose of the study and assured that their anonymity would be guaranteed. finally, they were asked to give their consent to participate before filling the survey. almost two-thirds of participants were women (65%). the mean age of participants was 41 years old (m = 40.63, sd = 9.59). culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment 288 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ instruments and statistical analyses statistical analyses were conducted using spss statistics 25, amos graphics 24 and the 4.2 version of the process macro (hayes, 2017). among other advantages, process allows for the isolation of each mediator’s indirect effect and addresses some of the issues traditionally associated with the popular approach described by baron and kenny (1986) or the sobel test (see cole et al., 2008). internal consistency was determined using mcdonald’s omega, which is considered by some authors to be more robust than cronbach’s alpha (e.g., hayes & coutts, 2020). perceived clan culture to assess perceived clan culture, we used a dimension of the organizational culture profile (ocp, o’reilly et al., 1991) comprised of 7 values theoretically associated with this form of organizational culture (cameron & quinn, 2011) (e.g., respect for individuals’ rights, fairness, being people-oriented). participants had to rate on a 1 (not well at all) to 5 (very well) likert-scale the extent to which each value described the organization they are employed by (ω = .90). the ocp is recommended in the quantitative study of organizational culture and its influence on occupational health outcomes (dextras-gauthier et al., 2012). in 2013, marchand et al. (2013) demonstrated their french version could be used to accurately replicate the framework’s culture-types in this context, including clan culture. a confirmatory factor analysis suggests a satisfactory fit of the measurement model (χ2 = 32.84, df = 12, p < .01, χ2/df = 2.73, cfi = .98, nnfi = .97, srmr = .03). organizational dehumanization organizational dehumanization was measured using the scale created and validated by caesens et al. (2017). a french version was provided by the authors. the scale is composed of 11 statements (e.g., “my organization considers me as a tool to use for its own ends”, “my organization treats me as if i were an object”) regarding how workers think they are treated by their organization as a whole. answers were self-reported on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) likert-scale. internal consistency was very high (ω = .95). the results of a confirmatory factor analysis indicate a good fit to the data (χ2 = 102.14, df = 37, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.76, cfi = .98, nnfi = .97, srmr = .03). organizational justice validated by jouglard-tritschler and steiner (2005) and adapted to the french organizational setting by piasecki (2017), colquitt’s (2001) scale was used to measure organizational justice. the scale’s four dimensions—distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational justice—were respectively represented by 4, 7, 4 and 5 items. they were formulated as questions such as “does your outcome reflect what you have contributed to the organization?” or “does your supervisor treat you in a polite manner?” for each query, participants had to answer on a 1 (not at all) to 5 (absolutely) likert-scale. for the purpose of analyzing the construct as a whole in our serial mediation model, we averaged the scores of all dimensions into a global organizational justice score (ω = .95). confirmatory factor analysis suggests the measurement model fits well to the data (χ2 = 485.24, df = 166, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.92, cfi = .94, nnfi = .93, srmr = .05). affective commitment affective commitment was measured using the french version (belghiti-mahut & briole, 2004) of the organizational commitment scale (meyer et al., 1993). the affective dimension of the scale contains 6 items for which participants had to answer on a 5-point likert-scale (1 = totally disagree and 5 = totally agree). items include statements such as “i would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization” or “this organization has a great deal of personal meaning for me” (ω = .83). confirmatory factor analysis suggests a good fit of the measurement model (χ2 = 13.68, df = 5, p < .05, χ2/df = 2.74, cfi = .98, nnfi = .96, srmr = .03). control variables control variables were chosen based on their potential relationships with dependent variables according to previous literature. for instance, bell and khoury (2016) showed gender could moderate the effect of procedural justice on feelings of organizational dehumanization. tenure was previously shown to correlate with affective commitment (meyer hamel, scrima, massot, & montalan 289 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2002). tenure was measured by asking participants to place themselves regarding six tenure intervals (less than one year, followed by 5-years increments up to 21 years and more). control variables were then analyzed according to the recommendations of becker et al. (2016). standardized coefficients from hierarchical regression models were compared with and without the relevant control variables. in all cases except for tenure, the differences could be considered negligible according to these authors’ decision rule (δβ < .1). hence, tenure was included as a covariate in further analyses. results preliminary analysis considering the cross-sectional design of this study, we tested whether the data were influenced by the commonmethod bias (podsakoff et al., 2012) using structural equation modeling. we compared four alternative models. the first was unifactorial—all the items of the four scales loaded on a single latent factor. the second model was composed of a latent factor on which clan culture items loaded and another covaried latent factor on which all other items did. in the third model, items related to affective commitment and organizational justice loaded on a common covaried latent factor while the other items still loaded on their respective ones. the final model contained four covaried factors (clan culture, organizational justice, organizational dehumanization and affective commitment) in which each item loaded on its respective latent factor. we calculated the following fit indices for each model: the carmines-mciver index (i.e., the ratio between χ2 and degrees of freedom), the value of which must be between 2 and 3 to indicate a satisfactory fit (mciver & carmines, 1981); the comparative fit index (cfi) and the non-normed fit index (nnfi), with values above .90 considered to reflect good fit given our sample size (e.g., hair et al., 2014); the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), with values lower than .08 considered as satisfactory (hu & bentler, 1999). the models were also compared using δχ2. we used the maximum likelihood method to estimate parameters. the results of this procedure are provided in table 1. only the last model managed to satisfy all retained fit criteria; it is also confirmed to be the best model by δχ2 tests. overall, these results suggest our data are not subject to common-method bias. table 1 common-method bias analysis model χ2 df p χ2/df cfi nnfi srmr δχ2 δdf p model 1 – single factor 2293 346 *** 6.63 .70 .67 .10 model 2 – covaried 2 factors 1722 345 *** 4.99 .79 .77 .10 571 1 *** model 3 – covaried 3 factors 1188 343 *** 3.46 .87 .86 .07 534 2 *** model 4 – covaried 4 factors 891 340 *** 2.62 .92 .91 .06 297 3 *** note. n = 306. df = degrees of freedom. χ2/df = carmines-mciver index. cfi = comparative fit index. nnfi = non-normed fit index. srmr = standardized root mean square residual. ***p < .001. descriptive statistics descriptive statistics, scale reliability as well as correlations between variables were reported in table 2. all skewness and kurtosis values were between -1 and 1, suggesting small departures from normality. organizational dehumanization was significantly (p < .001) and negatively related to perceived clan culture (r = -.57), affective commitment (r = -.47) as well as perceived organizational justice (r = -.65). as expected, perceived clan culture was positively and significantly (p < .001) associated with affective commitment (r = .50), as well perceived organizational justice (r = .63). finally, affective commitment was positively and significantly (p < .001) related to perceived organizational justice (r = .51). culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment 290 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations variable m sd s k 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. clan culture 3.24 0.86 -.25 -.32 (.90) 2. organizational justice 3.26 0.86 -.34 -.49 .63*** (.95) 3. organizational dehumanization 3.77 1.58 .11 -.82 -.57*** -.65*** (.95) 4. affective commitment 3.22 0.89 -.43 .08 .50*** .51*** -.47*** (.83) 5. sex -.06 -.04 .08 -.09 6. age 40.63 9.59 .13 -.55 .03 -.07 -.01 .07 -.19** 7. tenure .01 -.02 .09 .14* -.25*** .61*** note. n = 306. sex (0 = male, 1 = female). tenure (0 = less than one year – 6 = 21 years or more). s = skewness. k = kurtosis. diagonal: mcdonald's ω. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. hypothesis tests table 3 summarizes all of the models tested in the serial mediation analysis. all models were significant (p < .001). based on 10,000 bootstrap samples with 306 cases, none of the 95% confidence intervals contained zero except for constants. as expected (h1), the total effect of perceived clan culture on affective commitment was positive and significant (β = .491, se = .049, p < .001). our hypotheses were also supported by the predictor’s effects on perceived organizational justice (h2a) and organizational dehumanization (h4a). h2b was supported by the positive and significant effect of per­ ceived organizational justice on affective commitment. our results also seem consistent with past literature regarding the relationship between perceived organizational justice and organizational dehumanization as well as organizational dehumanization and affective commitment. results indicate tenure had a small positive effect on both organizational dehumanization and affective commitment. indirect effects and their bootstrapped 95% confidence intervals are reported in table 4. none contain zero, which supports all remaining mediation hypotheses (h3, h4b, h5a and h5b). the largest effect is the one translating perceived clan culture’s indirect influence on affective commitment through perceived organizational justice. smaller indirect effects can also be observed through organizational dehumanization mediating this relationship or by considering both mediators. finally, the total indirect effect (β = .269) was larger than the direct effect (β = .222). a visual representation of the overall model has been provided (figure 2). figure 2 serial mediation model of clan culture’s effect on affective commitment discussion while the relationship between organizational culture and effectiveness criteria has been the object of a large body of work in the past twenty years, few studies have investigated it on the individual level. in the larger context of hamel, scrima, massot, & montalan 291 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ employees sometimes feeling considered as mere instruments by organizations, the purpose of our study was twofold. first, we tested whether a traditionally studied effectiveness criterion in the form of affective commitment (meyer et al., 1989) could be influenced by the manner in which employees perceive organizational culture; more specifically, whether the extent to which employees perceived values associated with the clan culture—often considered humanizing values—could explain their level of affective commitment. second, we investigated this effect in relation to two potential mediators—un/fair treatment (i.e., perceived organizational justice) and feeling considered as means to the organization’s ends (i.e., organizational dehumanization). taking past literature into consideration, we proposed a serial mediation model which integrated already established relationships between these variables to our hypotheses. all hypotheses were supported by the data. all other things being equal, employees who perceive their organization to lack in their enforcement of human-oriented values (e.g., tolerance, trust, support) tend to be less committed in the first place. however, it is of note that the overall indirect effect was greater than the direct effect: this affective distancing might not only find its source in this initial perception but also in its reverberation through other variables. this perceived lack of humanizing elements might simultaneously make it harder for employees to find their organiza­ tional environment fair yet easier for them to believe they are not being considered in a morally appropriate way—as whole human beings and not simply as human resources. in doing so, it might encourage employees to question table 3 serial mediation results 95% ci predictor β se ll ul p m1 (organizational justice) x .63 .05 .55 .72 *** m1 m2 constant .01 .04 -.09 .09 n.s. tenure -.02 .05 -.11 .06 n.s. r2 = .40 f(2, 303) = 101.19*** m2 (organizational dehumanization) x -.26 .05 -.37 -.16 *** m1 -.48 .05 -.59 -.38 *** m2 — — — — — constant .01 .04 -.08 .08 n.s. tenure .09 .04 .01 .17 * r2 = .47 f(3, 302) = 88.86*** y (affective commitment) x .22 .06 .10 .34 *** m1 .24 .07 .11 .38 *** m2 -.20 .06 -.33 -.08 ** constant .01 .05 -.09 .09 n.s. tenure .16 .05 .07 .26 *** r2 = .35 f(4, 301) = 41.20*** note. n = 306. all variables were standardized. x = clan culture. ci = confidence interval. ll = lower limit. ul = upper limit. confidence intervals were determined using 10,000 bootstrap samples. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment 292 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ their employer-employee relationship in a more profound way, which begs a simple question: how long until they’re no longer content with feeling treated this way? indeed, as these variables may for instance foster higher turnover intentions (e.g., lagios et al., in press; stanley et al., 2013) or emotional exhaustion (caesens & stinglhamber, 2019), it would behoove organizations to not only consider culture from a macro perspective, but also from an individual one. as all culture-types collaborate with one another to form a holistic organizational pattern (hartnell et al., 2011) even organizations not traditionally centered on clan values should take heed of such results. organizational culture has long been considered a multilayered construct (e.g., schein, 2010). part of the confusion surrounding its study revolves around scholars not acknowledging its different levels of analysis or not distinguishing it from organizational climate (ostroff et al., 2013). to these points, the provided results are not intended for the analysis of a specific organizational unit but rather as evidence of employees’ active role in influencing the outcomes of organizational values. consequently, and to the second point, our operationalization of perceived organizational culture can be understood as the individual integration of both publicly embraced organizational values (corporate culture) and the ones employees feel are actually conveyed by their everyday experience of the work environment (i.e., climate). in their correlational study, auzoult and personnaz (2016) introduced the idea that organizational culture may play a role in employee self-objectification (i.e., internalizing an objectified representation of the self). in a similar fashion, recent work using both cross-sectional and experimental data proposed the existence of a causal relationship between instrumentalizing treatment and self-objectifying perceptions (baldissarri & andrighetto, 2021; sainz & baldissarri, 2021). these studies questioned the representation employees had of interpersonal relationships (e.g., with their supervi­ sors, with a colleague). however—as highlighted by multiple scholars (e.g., eisenberger et al., 2002; ng & sorensen, 2008)—they cannot be considered the same as the relationship between employees and their organization as an entity. building on this literature, our study provides novel empirical evidence suggesting an individual’s perception of their organization’s culture may influence how they feel considered by it as a whole in terms of fairness and organizational dehumanization. this implies employees are not passively influenced by their organization’s culture—in fact, rather the contrary: by appropriating the underlying values and interpreting their relative detrimental or beneficial role in promoting fairness or helping them fulfil their needs, employees appear to actively participate in shaping the effect of culture on their own effectiveness. limitations and future directions of course, these conclusions need to be put into perspective, as they exclusively relied on self-reported and cross-sec­ tional data. although we provided statistical evidence that our data was not subject to common-method bias (podsakoff et al., 2012), our research design is unable to support causal relationships between the mobilized variables. consequent­ ly, our choice of predictor may be questioned; conversely to our model, one could argue justice perceptions may table 4 bootstrapped indirect effects of perceived clan culture on affective commitment boot. 95% ci path β boot. se ll ul pcc → oj → ac .154 .042 .077 .237 pcc → od → ac .054 .020 .019 .096 pcc → oj → od → ac .062 .020 .024 .104 total effect .491 .049 .394 .588 direct effect .222 .062 .100 .344 total indirect effect .269 .043 .186 .356 note. n = 306. all variables were standardized. pcc = perceived clan culture. oj = organizational justice. od = organizational dehumanization. ac = affective commitment. ci = confidence interval. ll = lower limit. ul = upper limit. confidence intervals were determined using 10,000 bootstrap samples. hamel, scrima, massot, & montalan 293 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 285–298 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ inform values perceived by employees (i.e., reversed directionality). such choices should preferably rely on theoretical arguments rather than statistical ones (hair et al., 2014). therefore, we acknowledge the relationship between clan culture and organizational justice perceptions may be circular and recursive—much like bell and khoury (2011) admitted the one between organizational justice and organizational dehumanization might be. additionally, cross-sectional data traditionally does not allow for robust conclusions on mediation hypotheses (see maxwell & cole, 2007). hence, future research should turn to both longitudinal and experimental designs so as to provide more robust conclusions regarding the directionality of the proposed paths. alongside the addition of pertinent variables further specifying which employees could be the most affected by perceived clan values (part-time vs. full-time; smaller vs. larger organizations, etc.), qualitative studies could also shed new light on the underlying processes. in addition, the validity of our findings would benefit from being reproduced in the context of single organizational units as well as being included in a multilevel analysis of the culture-effectiveness relationship. in doing so, future work would not only confirm the tendency we uncovered in this paper persists within the confines of distinct organizations (or their subparts) but also integrate these findings to already documented culture-effectiveness models. moreover, while the size of our sample was satisfactory, it is possible to question its representativeness of employees in general. for instance, almost 8 out of 10 participants reported being full-time employees (79%) and a majority of participants had the equivalent of a master’s degree or an even higher form of education (61%). although no specific effect was detected in relation to these variables, future studies may want to investigate their role as potential moderators. overall, they should use more representative samples so as to extend any replicated findings to the general population. finally, using tenure intervals to assess its influence on our dependent variables not being optimal, future work should measure it continuously. conclusion the first objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of organizational values conveying interest in fostering a fulfilling work environment (i.e., clan culture) and affective commitment. we also explored the mediating role of the extent to which employees feel fairly treated by organizational agents (i.e., organizational justice) and their organization as a whole (i.e., organizational dehumanization) between these variables. consistent with previous literature (bell & khoury, 2016; caesens et al., 2019; jang et al., 2021), our results outline a theoretically and practically relevant serial mediation model which could be the basis of new research avenues or psychosocial interventions. while they reinforce the clan—commitment relationship, organizational justice and organi­ zational dehumanization perceptions relate to different work relationships (i.e., interpersonal vs. employer-employee). it may be worthwhile to consider the role of managers’ organizational embodiment (eisenberger et al., 2010) by testing whether organizations conveying low clan values may gain by having managers compensate (and vice-versa). practically, our findings should encourage organizations to veer away from the pervasive instrumental representation of employees they might carry. they 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(2019). impact of perceived organizational culture on job involvement and subjective well-being: a moderated mediation model. social behavior and personality, 47(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.7478 about the authors jean-félix hamel is a phd student in social and organizational psychology at the university of rouen normandy. his doctoral thesis investigates the psychological outcomes of uberization (a specific type of digital platform-work), namely its dehumanizing aspects. fabrizio scrima is a full professor in social and organizational psychology at the university of rouen normandy. his research interests are: attitudes and behaviors at work, workplace attachment styles, well-being and comfort at work. lucie massot is an undergraduate student in social and organizational psychology at university of paris 8. her research interests are: organizational culture, management style, meaning of work and work recognition. benoît montalan is an associate professor in social psychology at the university of rouen normandy. his research interest is focused on stigmatization and dehumanization in societal and organizational contexts. culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment 298 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.7478 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ culture, justice, dehumanization and commitment (introduction) theoretical framework method sample and procedure instruments and statistical analyses results preliminary analysis descriptive statistics hypothesis tests discussion limitations and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references about the authors the structure of academic self-concept when facing novel learning content: multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change research reports the structure of academic self-concept when facing novel learning content: multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change julia gorges* a, jelena hollmann a [a] department of psychology, educational psychology, bielefeld university, bielefeld, germany. abstract academic self-concepts of ability are key factors in promoting education and learning throughout students’ school career. yet we know little about their structure and structural change when students leave high school to face novel academic tasks. the present study investigated the structure and structural change of first-year students’ study-related self-concepts of ability. data stems from a longitudinal study with two measurement points covering the initial study phase (t1: n = 341; age: m = 21.6; sd = 3.56; 57.5% female). self-concepts were assessed regarding the participants’ study program and four of its subordinate subjects. confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation models were used to compare structural models and to investigate structural stability and directional effects. results support the assumption of multidimensionality (i.e., distinct self-concepts for different subjects) and hierarchy with a generic field-of-study-specific selfconcept at the apex. specifying generic field-of-study-specific self-concept as a method factor (i.e., indicated by both subject-specific and field-of-study-specific items) was most consistent with theoretical assumptions. the structural model was invariant over the first months at university. generic field-of-study-specific self-concept and subject-specific self-concepts largely developed independently from one another. the results emphasize the recently suggested conceptualization of generic self-concept as a method factor to reflect self-concept hierarchy. self-concepts were structurally stable over time. several significant horizontal effects (i.e., stability within subjects) suggest that students align their self-concepts closely to the curriculum they encounter in educational contexts and, therefore, may benefit from ample feedback on their performance to develop appropriate subject-specific self-concepts. keywords: academic self-concept, self-concept structure, higher education, motivation, confirmatory factor analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 received: 2018-07-23. accepted: 2019-01-18. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, educational psychology, bielefeld university, po 100131, 33501 bielefeld, germany. e-mail: julia.gorges@uni-bielefeld.de this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ample research has documented the significance of ability perceptions for individuals’ well-being and success in many different contexts such as education (marsh, 2007), work (leonard, beauvais, & scholl, 1999), and daily life in general (elliot & dweck, 2005; see marsh, martin, yeung, & craven 2017, for a recent review). the conceptualization of academic self-concept of ability in particular stems from research on self-esteem and selfviews in different life domains. hence, researchers distinguish an individual’s emotional, social, and academic self-concept, for example (marsh & craven, 2006). the academic self-concept became very prominent in educational psychological research because academic self-concepts predict students’ self-esteem, motivation, task choice, and achievement in academic contexts (cf. marsh, 2007; marsh et al., 2017). academic self-concepts of ability—that is to say, students’ beliefs about what they can and cannot do in academic contexts—are key factors in promoting education and learning (cf., marsh, 2007; marsh et al., 2017). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-concept research has mostly focused on high school students’ development and achievement. theoretical models of academic self-concept posit a multidimensional and hierarchical structure with a generic academic self-concept enthroned at the apex of a range of subject-specific self-concepts (byrne & gavin, 1996; shavelson, hubner, & stanton, 1976). strong evidence supports the idea that self-concept is highly subjectspecific (marsh, 1992; marsh, hey, johnson, & perry, 1997; yeung, chui, & lau, 1999; vispoel, 1995). by contrast, evidence for its hierarchical nature is less consistent (brunner et al., 2010; marsh, 1990; yeung et al., 1999; yeung et al., 2000). related to the question of hierarchy, the question of structural development—i.e., whether a generic academic self-concept develops from subject-specific self-concepts or vice versa—has likewise rarely been addressed (but see marsh & yeung, 1998). finally, only a few studies have explicitly focused on self-concept structure and development when learners face novel academic tasks outside the high school curriculum, for example, in higher education (tempelaar, gijselaers, van der loeff, & nijhuis, 2007; yeung et al., 1999). against this background, the present study seeks to extend the scarce research on the structure and structural change of academic self-concept when learners face novel academic tasks using two waves of data from firstyear students in germany. first, drawing on brunner et al.’s (2010) work, we tested different structural models of self-concept, which have been primarily derived from high school contexts. second, we investigated the structural stability of students’ self-concepts during the initial study phase. third, we scrutinized marsh and yeung’s (1998) findings regarding directional effects between generic and subject-specific self-concepts over time. multidimensionality of academic self-concept the shavelson et al. (1976) self-concept model posits that academic self-concepts are tied to specific learning contents—typically high school subjects—and that these specific self-concepts are subordinate to a generic academic self-concept conceptualized as second-order factor. this assumption has been supported by a range of studies set within a primary or secondary school context, which operationalized self-concept specifically to school subjects (e.g., byrne & gavin, 1996; marsh, 1992). similarly, self-concepts may be specific to different facets of skills or subjects (e.g., languages; arens & jansen, 2015; lau, yeung, jin, & low, 1999; yeung et al., 2000; creative arts; vispoel, 1995; sports; marsh, hey, johnson, & perry, 1997). focusing on a specific study program or educational context, yeung et al. (1999) and tempelaar et al. (2007) reported distinct self-concepts regarding subjects taught in higher education, such as accounting and economics. extending the assessment of self-concept beyond labels of school subjects, jansen, schroeders, lüdtke, and pant (2014) found differential self-concepts for biology, chemistry, and physics in a sample of secondary school students who only have been taught science instead of biology, chemistry, and physics as distinct subjects. similarly, gorges and göke (2015) report good discriminate validity for first-year students’ self-concepts with respect to four fields of study, only one of which the students were going to study. these findings led us to believe that self-concepts typically reflect the learning content structure of students’ educational context. differential experiences as well as labels attached to different areas of experience appear to be key factors that enable specific self-concept development even beyond curriculum areas. thus, when respondents know which past experiences—achievements, failure, and affect—or future tasks—mathematical or verbal, for example—they are supposed to look at, they apparently are able to verbalize a self-concept for their ability in this area. multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 492 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hierarchical structure and the conceptualization of generic academic self-concept research on the hierarchical nature of self-concept is scarce, and results have been mixed. most prominently, a lack of correlation between subject-specific self-concepts from the mathematical versus verbal domain led marsh to develop a revised structural model (1990) distinguishing two second-order factors (known as the marsh/shavelson model). transcending high school subjects, research on self-concept hierarchy has focused on specific domains or content areas (e.g., creative arts; vispoel, 1995; language; arens & jansen, 2015; lau et al., 1999; yeung et al., 2000), or specific educational contexts. in fact, yeung et al. (1999) suggested that the assumption of hierarchy only holds in educational contexts focusing on one particular content domain because the high school curriculum covers a too diverse range of topics to build a hierarchal structure of subject-specific self-concepts. consequently, the authors investigated self-concepts of students at a school of commerce, covering subject-specific self-concept for math/statistics, economics, accounting, english, and chinese. generic academic self-concept has been measured with reference to the students’ current educational context (“perception in most subjects,” p. 379). results support the hypothesized structure. comparing conceptualizations of the second-order factor as a latent variable based on the specific first-order factors versus a latent variable based on manifest items referring to a generic academic self-concept shows that both ways of conceptualizing generic (academic) self-concept overlap substantially (r > .90) when parallel self-concept items on both hierarchical levels were used (arens & jansen, 2015; yeung et al., 2000). figure 1. first-order factor model (standardized loadings and correlations). note. ba = business administration (i.e., field of study); hrm = human resources management; significant correlations (p < .05) are printed in bold, factor loadings and correlated uniqueness are not depicted in the figure. reconciling the three theoretical predictions made by shavelson et al. (1976)—multidimensionality and hierarchy with a generic academic self-concept at the apex of the hierarchy—and inconsistent findings from empirical studies, brunner et al. (2010) proposed a nested marsh/shavelson model, which accounts for the assumptions of multidimensionality and hierarchy, with only one superordinate generic academic self-concept. drawing on confirmatory factor analytic approaches that enable researchers to differentiate between variance attributed to latent constructs and variance attributed to method factors (eid, lischetzke, nussbeck, & trierweiler, 2003), they conceptualized generic academic self-concept as a method factor. hence, the model differentiates between subject-specific portions of variance in self-concepts (first-order factors) and portions that reflect a person’s generic academic self-concept drawing on both subject-specific items and items that tap generic academgorges & hollmann 493 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ic self-concept directly (method factor; see figure 4). comparative analyses of a first-order factor model with correlated factors, a shavelson model, a marsh/shavelson model (see figures 1–3), and their nested marsh/ shavelson model supported brunner et al.’s structural model. hence, the hierarchical nature of self-concept may best be reflected by specifying a generic academic self-concept as a method factor. figure 2. shavelson model with a correlated first-order factor reflecting the field-of-study (i.e., business administration)specific self-concept (standardized loadings and correlations). note. ba = business administration (i.e., field of study); hrm = human resources management; significant correlations (p < .05) are printed in bold, factor loadings and correlated uniqueness are not depicted in the figure. figure 3. marsh/shavelson model (standardized loadings and correlations). note. asc = academic self-concept; ba = business administration (i.e., field of study); hrm = human resources management; significant correlations (p < .05) are printed in bold, factor loadings and correlated uniqueness are not depicted in the figure. multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 494 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. nested marsh/shavelson model (standardized loadings and correlations). note. ba = business administration (i.e., field of study); significant correlations (p < .05) are printed in bold, factor loadings and correlated uniqueness are not depicted in the figure, for factor loadings and factor correlations, see table 2 and table 3, respectively. structural changes of self-concepts self-concepts of ability generally develop from students’ experience within the respective content domain (cf. marsh, 2007) resulting in increasingly stable self-concepts (denissen, zarrett, & eccles, 2007; musu-gillette, wigfield, harring, & eccles, 2015), including structural stability (byrne & gavin, 1996). focusing on longitudinal within-person development, of particular interest is the relation between generic academic and subject-specific self-concepts. testing directional effects based on two datasets using different self-concept measures, marsh and yeung (1998) found support for neither top-down effects (i.e., generic self-concept affects subject-specific self-concepts) nor bottom-up effects (i.e., subject-specific self-concepts affect generic self-concept). rather, both subject-specific and generic academic self-concepts appear to be stable over time, with little to zero crosslagged effects, but substantial horizontal effects (i.e., effects over time within the respective level of abstraction). it has to be noted, however, that the data used by marsh and yeung (1998) stemmed from adolescent high school students with presumably highly stable subject-specific self-concepts (denissen et al., 2007; musugillette et al., 2015). horizontal effects—that is, stability coefficients—unsurprisingly are stronger than top-down or bottom-up effects that indicate some variability. given that self-concepts rely on personal experience with a content or domain, variability in self-concept should be particularly pronounced when students face novel contents or domains (gorges, 2017). hence, changes should become observable when students build new selfconcept structures. with this in mind, the present study draws on a sample of first-year students who have been surveyed about their academic self-concepts right at the beginning of the study program (i.e., when the gorges & hollmann 495 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ field of study constitutes a novel learning content), and toward the end of their first semester. one may argue that such anticipated self-concepts prior to the beginning of students’ study program rather constitute self-efficacy beliefs because they are future-oriented (bong & skaalvik, 2003). however, we focus on aggregated and presumably hierarchically structured ability beliefs tied to a general field of study or to a subordinate subject, respectively, rather than a specific task. furthermore, previous studies have shown that self-concepts regarding novel academic tasks rely on school subject-specific ability beliefs (gorges & göke, 2015). hence, anticipated academic self-concepts considering future learning contents are still past-oriented. the present study the present study investigated the basic assumptions of self-concept structure and its structural development. the first goal of this study is to extend the scarce research on self-concept structure when learners face novel academic learning content. we deliberately focused on a study program encompassing a wide array of curriculum content areas (i.e., business administration). we investigated multidimensionality and hierarchy based on the four structural models outlined by brunner et al. (2010): the first-order factor model, the shavelson model, the marsh/shavelson model, and the nested marsh/shavelson model. unlike previous studies, we postulated generic field-of-study-specific self-concept—and not generic academic self-concept—to be at the apex of the hierarchy. second, we assumed that first-year students initially develop ability perceptions regarding their field of study as a whole, which is typically associated with mathematics (gorges & göke, 2015). with time and personal experience, students should discover that their field of study is associated with a range of different subject matters, some of which are rather similar to mathematics (e.g., business arithmetic, accounting) and some of which are not (e.g., human resources, law). accordingly, we assumed that—prior to beginning their study program—first-year students’ anticipated self-concept would be less differentiated and focused on mathematical components. by contrast, relations between verbal subject-specific self-concepts (i.e., law and human resources) and a generic field-of-study-specific self-concept would be weaker but increase over time (see gorges, 2017, on the revision of motivational beliefs). third and finally, we investigated potential directional effects between field-of-study-specific and subject-specific self-concepts. method participants and procedure participants were first-year students enrolled in study programs labeled business administration (in german “betriebswirtschaft” or “betriebswirtschaftslehre”) at one of six cooperating universities of applied sciences in germany participating in the research project 'valcom' (values and competencies in adulthood). online data collection took place during the weeks preceding the first semester up to the first weeks after the start of the study program (t1) and 3–4 months afterwards (i.e., toward the end of the first semester; t2). a participant-generated code linked the data across the two waves of data collection. overall, 408 students started the survey (response rate: 34%). all participants were informed about the purposes for which their data will be used and gave their consent. we excluded participants with missing data on all variables, and participants for whom codes and sociodemographic information could not be recorded due to technical problems. the final sample contained nt1 = 341 students (age: m (sd) = 21.6 (3.56); 57.5% female). of these participants, 57% did not take part in wave two (nt2 = 195; m (sd) = 21.4 (3.55); 63.5% female). multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 496 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures we used four items adapted from the literature (dickhäuser, schöne, spinath, & stiensmeier-pelster, 2002) and parallel wording to tap students’ academic self-concepts for different learning contents. we asked for students’ self-concept for arithmetic, law, accounting, and human resources indicating non-mathematical basic economics in all but one curricula. each item included a blank (“…”) and participants were instructed to fill this blank with the respective learning content stated on the survey page. thus, the item “i consider my aptitude for ‘…’ to be high” could mean “i consider my aptitude for business administration to be high”, or “i consider my aptitude for human resources to be high”, and so on. we used the same items and the same mode of presentation at both measurement points. to have the same subject label across all participating universities, we used the same major headings, but gave examples tailored to the specific curriculum. participants were explicitly asked to anticipate their self-concept regarding study-related learning contents at t1. items were presented in terms of a matrix where business administration shared a survey page with three more fields of study and the four subjects were presented together on the following survey page. answers to all items were recorded using a four-point likert-type scale (1 = absolutely not true, 2 = rather not true, 3 = somewhat true, 4 = absolutely true). internal consistency of all scales was high (α > .80). analyses we started our analyses by performing manovas and χ2-tests to see whether dropout between t1 and t2 would bias the findings. to address the structure of students’ self-concepts we specified four structural models using t2 data: the first-order factor model (model 1; see figure 1), the shavelson model alongside a first-orderfactor reflecting business administration-specific self-concept (model 2; see figure 2), the marsh/shavelson model (model 3; see figure 3), and the nested marsh/shavelson model (model 4; see figure 4). we accounted for parallel items by specifying correlated uniqueness in all models (marsh, byrne, & craven, 1992). we compared the four models based on fit indices, factor loadings, and factor correlations. in addition, we examined how closely the models reflect the theoretical assumptions of multidimensionality and hierarchy with a generic field-of-study-specific self-concept at the apex of the hierarchy. we moved on using the best fitting model. with respect to our second goal, we investigated structural stability by specifying the same structural model for t2 and t1 data. again, correlated uniqueness was specified within each measurement point. next, we tested structural invariance by successively fixing factor loadings, intercepts, and residual variances to be equal across measurement points (i.e., testing weak, strong, and strict invariance; meredith, 1993). in addition, we inspected changes in factor correlations. finally, we replicated the structural development models proposed by marsh and yeung (1998). our first model included horizontal effects for generic field-of-study-specific self-concept only (model 5). next, we added horizontal effects of subject-specific self-concepts (model 6). in model 7, we tested top-down effects only, whereas model 8 contained bottom-up effects only. finally, we tested a model including top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal effects simultaneously (model 9, see figure 5). gorges & hollmann 497 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. structural development (standardized loadings and correlations). note. ba = business administration (i.e., field of study); * p < .05; single items and correlated uniqueness are not depicted to increase clarity of the figure (see figure 4 for a detailed depiction of the structural model), broken lines reflect top-down effects (model 7), dotted lines represent bottom-up effects (model 8), and solid lines reflect horizontal effects (model 5, 6 and 9). mplus 7.11 (muthén & muthén, 1998–2016) was used to fit the data to the specified models in all analyses. to make use of all available data for model estimation, we used the full information maximum likelihood estimation (film; schafer & graham, 2002). we evaluated model fit based on the following fit indices: the akaike information criterion (aic; the smaller the better), the comparative fit index (cfi, good >.95; acceptable > .90), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea; good <. 05; acceptable < .08), and the standardized root mean residual (srmr; acceptable < .10; good < .05; schermelleh-engel, moosbrugger, & müller, 2003). to compare nested models in tests of structural invariance, we considered a decrease in cfi > .01 and an increase in rmsea > .015 as indicators of significant changes in model fit (chen, 2007; cheung & rensvold, 2002). results dropout analyses drop-out analyses revealed that the proportion of females was significantly higher at t2 (p < .05). however, manova indicates no main effect of dropout on the t1 variables (p = .094). thus, attrition does not appear to bias the findings. multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 498 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ structure of students’ self-concept as expected, all structural models provided an acceptable fit to the data (see table 1, models 1–4). fit-indices were within a rather small range, indicating comparable fit across the four models. model 1 (first-order factor model) supported the assumption that academic self-concepts of university students are subject-specific by showing substantial factor loadings across all first-order factors (all λ > .69, p < .05) and moderate factor correlations. the pattern of correlations suggested that subject-specific self-concepts contain a substantial proportion of shared variance. in addition, verbal and mathematical self-concepts, respectively, correlated more strongly within than across domains (see figure 1) in model 2—the shavelson model—first-order factor loadings were almost identical to those in model 1. factor loadings of the second-order factor are depicted in figure 2. the second-order factor correlated almost perfectly with the first-order generic field-of-study-specific self-concept factor indicated by field-of-study-specific items. in model 3, subject-specific first-order factors were well defined with almost identical factor loadings to those in model 1. mathematical and verbal self-concept correlated substantially (r = .621, p < .05), and second-order factor loadings supported the assumption that the field of study, business administration, covers both verbal and mathematical subjects (see figure 3). compared to the shavelson model, loadings on the domain-specific higher-order factors were somewhat higher. the two verbal subjects, law and human resources, show higher loadings on a domain-specific verbal self-concept compared to a generic field-of-study-specific self-concept factor. however, the correlation between verbal and mathematical self-concept still suggests substantial shared variance. table 1 model fit of alternative structural models (1–4) and for longitudinal models (5–9) model χ2 df aic cfi rmsea 95% ci rmsea srmr 1 227.993* 120 5152.552 0.963 0.068 [0.054, 0.081] 0.047 2 237.664* 125 5152.223 0.961 0.068 [0.055, 0.081] 0.061 3 232.380* 123 5150.939 0.963 0.068 [0.054, 0.081] 0.055 4 206.091* 108 5154.650 0.966 0.068 [0.054, 0.082] 0.040 5 1316.975* 666 15828.459 0.921 0.054 [0.049, 0.058] 0.106 6 1207.146* 662 15726.630 0.934 0.049 [0.045, 0.054] 0.073 7 1356.990* 663 15874.474 0.916 0.055 [0.051, 0.060] 0.141 8 1359.129* 663 15876.613 0.915 0.056 [0.051, 0.060] 0.135 9 1200.590* 654 15736.074 0.934 0.050 [0.045, 0.054] 0.071 note. model 1 = first order factor model; model 2 = one latent second-order factor (shavelson model) correlated with a first-order generic ba factor; model 3 = two higher-order factors indicating mathematical and verbal self-concept (marsh/shavelson model); model 4 = first order factors and generic business administration self-concept (sc) as method factors (nested marsh/shavelson model); model 5 = horizontal effect of generic business administration sc; model 6 = model 5 with additional horizontal effects of subject-specific scs; model 7 = top-down effect of t1 generic business administration sc on t2 subject-specific scs, model 8 = bottom-up effects of t1 subject-specific scs on t2 generic business administration sc; model 9 = top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal effects; χ2 = chi-square goodness-of-fit, df = degree of freedom; aic = akaike information criterion; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; srmr = standardized root mean square residual. *p < .05. gorges & hollmann 499 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ first-order factor loadings in model 4—the nested marsh/shavelson model (brunner et al., 2010)—are summarized in table 2. results revealed substantial factor loadings for all first-order subject-specific self-concepts (all λ > .597; p < .05). for the generic field-of-study-specific self-concept factor, factor loadings ranged between λ = .222 and λ = .847 (all p < .05). in addition to factor loadings for items referring to the field of study directly (all λ > .739; all p < .05), loadings for items referring to the subject arithmetic were lowest, whereas items referring to the subject human resources were highest. in line with theoretical assumptions, the generic field-ofstudy-specific factor captured variance shared by the first-order factors indicated by markedly lower and mostly non-significant factor correlations (see figure 4). for the remaining analyses, we had planned to use the best fitting structural model. looking at the fit indices for models 1–4, model 4 showed a slightly higher cfi and clearly the lowest srmr compared to the other models. in addition, low factor correlations suggested particularly well-distinguished first-order factors. therefore, we picked the nested marsh/shavelson model (model 4) as the basic structural model to analyze the structural development of self-concept. table 2 standardized factor loadings obtained in model 4 (nested marsh/shavelson model) for t1 and t2 item (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) t1 t2 t1 t2 t1 t2 t1 t2 t1 t2 (1) business administration ba 1 .786 .780 ba 2 .769 .847 ba 3 .787 .796 ba 4 .756 .739 (2) arithmetic a 1 .268 .250 .718 .801 a 2 .350 .289 .585 .911 a 3 .350 .325 .847 .892 a 4 .256 .222 .825 .866 (3) accounting acc 1 .416 .398 .421 .705 acc 2 .545 .437 .670 .808 acc 3 .521 .537 .777 .764 acc 4 .488 .363 .638 .758 (4) law l 1 .345 .315 .778 .790 l 2 .373 .383 .735 .816 l 3 .398 .386 .767 .818 l 4 .308 .358 .777 .597 (5) human resources hr 1 .409 .432 .727 .666 hr 2 .458 .614 .734 .636 hr 3 .398 .462 .746 .679 hr 4 .336 .477 .785 .604 note. coefficients for t1 were obtained from model 4a, all factor loadings are significant (p < .05). multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 500 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ structural change of students’ self-concept to investigate structural change, we first cross-validated the nested marsh/shavelson model with respect to the two waves of measurement. we began by specifying the model for t1 and t2 data with correlations of generic field-of-study-specific—i.e., business administration (ba)—self-concept and for subject-specific self-concepts across measurement points (model 4a). fit indices for this and the following models are summarized in table 3. the model fit for model 4a was acceptable. as depicted in table 2, most factor loadings at t1 were similar to factor loadings at t2. as expected, loadings for mathematical subjects mostly decreased slightly, whereas loadings for verbal subjects mostly increased slightly. first-order factor correlations were higher at t1 compared to t2, and significant (all p < .05; see figure 5). next, we tested structural invariance by fixing loadings (weak invariance, model 4b), loadings and intercepts (strong invariance, model 4c), and loadings, intercepts, and residual variances (model 4d) to be equal across measurement points. model comparisons based on changes in fit indices supported the assumption of both metric and scalar, but not strict, invariance (see table 3). finally, to investigate whether subject-specific self-concepts are derived from a generic self-concept or vice versa, we replicated analyses suggested by marsh and yeung (1998). fit indices are summarized in table 1 (model 5–9). the baseline model was model 5 with a horizontal effect of generic ba self-concept only. as indicated by the srmr, fixing all but the direct effect of generic ba self-concept to zero apparently produces misfit in the model. hence, the next model allowed for a direct horizontal effect of generic ba self-concept and of all subject-specific self-concepts (model 6). this model showed an acceptable overall model fit. interestingly, t1 generic ba self-concept significantly predicted t2 generic ba self-concept (β = .524, p < .05), t1 accounting self-concept significantly predicted t1 accounting self-concept (β = .569, p < .05), and t1 arithmetic self-concept significantly predicted t2 arithmetic self-concept (β = .593, p < .05), whereas law (β = .036) and human resources (β = .012) self-concepts at t1 did not show significant effects on the respective t2 self-concepts. next, we tested top-down effects of generic ba self-concept only (broken lines in figure 5; model 7). results revealed a significant effect of t1 generic ba self-concept on t2 accounting self-concept (β = .176, p < .05). the remaining effects were non-significant (arithmetic: β = .058; law: β = -.162; hrm: β = .057). similarly, the test for bottom up effects of subject-specific self-concepts at t1 on generic ba self-concept at t2 (dotted lines in table 3 model fit of measurement invariance for model 4 (nested marsh/shavelson model) across anticipated and actual self-concept model χ2(df) δχ2(df) aic cfi δcfi rmsea 95% ci rmsea δrmsea srmr δsrmr 4a 1070.278 (591)* 15731.762 0.942 0.049 [0.044, 0.053] 0.081 4b 1135.257 (622)* 64.979 (31)* 15734.741 0.938 -0.004 0.049 [0.045, 0.054] 0.000 0.083 +0.002 4c 1179.828 (642)* 44.471 (20)* 15739.312 0.935 -0.003 0.050 [0.045, 0.054] +0.001 0.085 +0.002 4d 1333.468 (661)* 153.640 (19)* 15854.952 0.918 -0.027 0.055 [0.050, 0.059] +0.005 0.093 +0.008 note. model 4a = nested marsh/shavelson model for t1 and t2 with correlations between the same constructs at t1 and t2; model 4b = model 4a with factor loadings and structural weights constrained to be equal across measurement points; model 4c = model 4b with intercepts constrained to be equal across measurement points; model 4d = model 4c with residual variances constrained to be equal across measurement points; χ2 = chi-square goodness-of-fit, df = degree of freedom; aic = akaike information criterion; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; srmr = standardized root mean square residual. *p < .05. gorges & hollmann 501 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5, model 8) revealed a significant effect only for accounting (β = .229, p < .05), whereas all other effects were non-significant (arithmetic: β = .004; law: β = -.022; human resources: β = .039). in addition, model fit suggested a worse fit of model 7 and 8 compared to model 6. finally, we tested a model that allowed for top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal effects simultaneously (model 9). as depicted in figure 5, we found horizontal effects as revealed in model 6. by contrast, this model did not reproduce the top-down and bottom-up effects between generic ba self-concept and accounting self-concepts. in addition, the negative effect of t1 generic ba self-concept on t2 law self-concept reached significance. discussion the present study examined the structure and structural change of first-year students’ study-related self-concept using a longitudinal dataset (t1 at the beginning of study program; t2 toward the end of the first semester). a first-order factor model, a shavelson model, a marsh/shavelson model, and a nested marsh/shavelson model all showed an acceptable fit to the data. nevertheless, the nested marsh/shavelson model captured large proportions of shared variance in a generic field-of-study-specific self-concept factor specified as method factor (eid et al., 2003), leading to well-distinguished subject-specific factors. building on the nested marsh/shavelson model, further analyses revealed strong structural invariance. further, results revealed significant horizontal effects for generic field-of-study-specific self-concept (i.e., the method factor) as well as for self-concepts related to the subjects accounting and arithmetic, but only one negative top-down effect of t1 generic field-of-studyspecific self-concept on the self-concept related to the subject law. our results did not show any bottom-up effects. thus, our results suggest an independent development of generic field-of-study-specific and subject-specific self-concepts. placing generic field-of-study-specific self-concept in relation to subject-specific self-concepts our results support the assumption of both multidimensionality and hierarchy regarding self-concept structure when students face novel academic learning content. with respect to the shavelson model, factor loadings on one second-order factor were relatively low, especially for verbal subjects, even though in our study—unlike languages in yeung et al.’s (1999) study—all subjects were clearly field-of-study-related. the marsh/shavelson model could capture more domain-specific variance, but showed a high correlation between verbal and mathematical self-concept, which indicated shared variance unaccounted for by the model. following the call for a higher-order factor that captures as much variance as possible shared by the first-order factors, the nested marsh/shavelson model incorporating generic field-of-study-specific self-concept as a method factor clearly performed best in this task, indicated by mostly non-significant first-order factor correlations. hence, our results further support the validity of the nested self-concept structure proposed by brunner et al. (2010). our study differed in the conceptualization of the second-order self-concept factor in that we proposed a generic, but field-of-study-specific, self-concept factor rather than a generic academic self-concept to be at the apex of the hierarchy. supporting this proposition, results from the shavelson model showed an almost perfect correlation between a second-order factor indicated by first-order subject-specific factors and a generic field-ofstudy-specific self-concept factor indicated by items referring to the field of study directly. this finding challenges yeung et al.’s (1999) argument stating that a global academic self-concept conceptualized superordinate to multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 502 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subject-specific self-concepts can be found in educational contexts with a distinct focus. rather, because yeung et al. (1999) measured academic self-concept in relation to the students’ current educational context (i.e., a school of commerce), their academic self-concept measure may be considered identical to a generic commerce-specific self-concept (i.e., analogous to our generic business administration-specific self-concept in a sample of business adminstration students). thus, we argue that in educational settings with a distinct focus, the hierarchy is established because all subjects relate to a specific domain or field of study, which may be similar to artistic self-concept (vispoel, 1995), for example. from our results, this assumption appears to be valid although business administration covers a broad range of different subjects. structural change of self-concept during the initial study phase the present study was set at the beginning of students’ study program because we assumed substantial structural variability during the initial study phase. however, although some parameters changed somewhat, the overall structure of the nested marsh/shavelson model was invariant with respect to both factor loadings and intercepts. the most notable changes occurred regarding factor correlations, which were substantial at the beginning of the study program, but markedly lower and mostly non-significant toward the end of the first semester. in line with expectations, these results point to a better alignment of subject-specific self-concepts under the roof of a generic field-of-study-specific self-concept once students have made personal experiences with the subject matters in the context of their study program (labeled revision by gorges & kandler, 2012). regarding directional effects between generic field-of-study-specific self-concept and subject-specific self-concepts, we found but one (negative) top-down effect on subject-specific (i.e., law-specific) self-concept. hence, as has been reported by marsh and yeung (1998), self-concepts are rather stable on their level of specificity, suggesting a relatively independent development of self-concept on the different levels of specificity. as this study was set early in students’ course of study, more top-down effects may be revealed at the beginning of the following semesters when novel subjects enter students’ schedule yet again, but by then, the students have a better idea of their field of study than at the very beginning of the study program. in the future, such longitudinal studies could offer further insight into self-concepts’ structural development. in addition, it may be worthwhile to extend the levels of specificity to, for example, topics within subjects (dietrich, viljaranta, moeller, & kracke, 2017). subject-specific self-concepts appear to gain stability rather quickly, whereas topical self-concepts may still be malleable and may be informed more by subject-specific self-concepts than subject-specific self-concepts by academic or field-of-study-specific self-concept. in addition, linking self-concepts on different levels of specificity to relevant outcome variables, such as academic achievement, will be important tasks to be addressed in the future. implications for self-concept research the majority of self-concept research has focused on the level of school subjects, or on the two higher-order factors proposed by marsh (1990). beyond that, a handful of studies have addressed the position of academic self-concept at the apex of the self-concept hierarchy (byrne & gavin, 1996; yeung et al., 2000). however, selfconcept—defined as beliefs about one’s ability—is not limited to these analytical levels. rather, self-concept may be addressed based on different structures provided by students’ educational context, for example, fields of study, specialized upper secondary schools, or even vocational and further education contexts. zooming in, self-concepts may also relate to smaller entities of learning content than school or university subjects (e.g., gorges & hollmann 503 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dietrich et al., 2017). hence, we suggest that self-concept research could benefit from a broader view of selfconcept structures. analogous to research on self-concept hierarchy, its structural development has hardly been addressed. therefore, our second proposition for future self-concept research is that more attention should be paid to processes of self-concept formation and structural development when students face novel academic tasks in particular. although we focused on students’ entering college, such processes should also be found during secondary school, when new subjects are added to the curriculum, as well as in vocational and further education contexts. these areas of academic self-concept have been neglected but should receive more attention in future research. in addition, perceptions of ability depend on a range of factors (e.g., past achievement, reference groups; marsh, 2007) and their effect of performance and task choice probably interacts with perceptions of social norms and expectations (e.g., stereotypes about what a girl can or cannot do well; schmader, johns, & forbes, 2008). therefore, self-concept research could benefit from taking into account mechanisms outside of already well-established developmental models as well. practical implications the results of the present study suggest that first-year students anticipate differential study-related self-concepts both on the level of field of study and on the level of singular subjects that are part of the study program. the initial structure of their self-concept shows some variability during the initial study phase, but does not change fundamentally. importantly, development of subject-specific and field-of-study-specific self-concepts appears to be relatively independent. hence, teachers could help students to develop appropriate and—if possible—positive self-concepts by providing information on the competences attached to the various subjects that are part of the students’ study program (i.e., setting learning goals) and giving students frequent opportunities for practice and informative feedback (e.g., tutorials, exercises). building and stabilizing students’ self-concept from day one may help them to overcome initial insecurity with respect to their aptitude for the study program, which, in turn, may prevent student attrition (stinebrickner & stinebrickner, 2009). a deliberate promotion of self-concept could thus be a bridge between ability perceptions that students bring with them when they face novel learning content (e.g., based on college aptitude tests or self-assessments), and the first round of exams, which may not be before the end of students’ first year in a new educational context. limitations and outlook the present study is the first to examine students’ study-related self-concept structure and structural change when they face novel academic learning content. following seminal work by marsh, brunner, and their colleagues, we used well-established measures to assess self-concepts and sophisticated statistical approaches for our analyses. nevertheless, the study has some important limitations that need to be considered in its interpretation. first, compared to typical studies on self-concept structure (e.g., arens & jansen, 2015; marsh, 1990), our sample may be considered relatively small. in addition, it has been recruited from a specific educational context and field of study, namely study programs labeled business administration at universities of applied sciences in germany. hence, the results need replication using different samples and educational contexts to further support claims for generalization. in particular, to establish the novelty of the learning content, the present study focused on a study program that did not relate to a school subject from the high school curriculum. it would be interesting to see if results were any different in a study focusing on a study program that has the same label as multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 504 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a school subject (e.g., mathematics, biology). in addition, universities of applied sciences typically have a substantial proportion of students’ with study-related practical experience (willich, buck, heine, & sommer, 2011), who may already have a more accurate notion of the subjects related to business administration (but see gorges, 2017). second, the present study included self-concept measures only. while measuring self-concepts necessarily draws on self-report measures, the study lacks external criteria, such as subsequent achievement or task choice. given that the relation of self-concept to other constructs (i.e., its “empirical network”; brunner et al., 2010, p. 964, italics in original) is the second-most important component of self-concept research, future studies should incorporate achievement and/or task choice into their study design. funding the present study was funded by a grant from the german research foundation (dfg), support code: go 2353/1-1, to the first author. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments this study has been presented at the “fachgruppentagung pädagogische psychologie” in münster, germany, september 13, 2017. we thank anastasia byler for native speaker support. references arens, a. k., & jansen, m. 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(2000). where is the hierarchy of academic self-concept? journal of educational psychology, 92(3), 556-567. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.92.3.556 about the authors dr. julia gorges is a post-doctoral researcher in the department of psychology at bielefeld university in germany. dr. jelena hollmann is a school psychologist in bielefeld, germany. multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change 508 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 491–508 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1716 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0663.87.1.134 https://doi.org/10.1006%2fceps.1998.0994 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0663.92.3.556 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ multidimensionality, hierarchy, and change (introduction) multidimensionality of academic self-concept hierarchical structure and the conceptualization of generic academic self-concept structural changes of self-concepts the present study method participants and procedure measures analyses results dropout analyses structure of students’ self-concept structural change of students’ self-concept discussion placing generic field-of-study-specific self-concept in relation to subject-specific self-concepts structural change of self-concept during the initial study phase (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing in unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age research reports using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing in unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age rimma m. aysina* a, galina i. efremovaa, zhanna a. maksimenko a, mikhail v. nikiforov b [a] institute of basic and applied research, north-caucasus federal university, stavropol, russian federation. [b] nextret s.l., barcelona, spain. abstract unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age face significant challenges in finding a new job. this may be partly due to their lack of psychological readiness to go through a job interview. we view psychological readiness as one of the psychological attitude components. it is an active conscious readiness to interact with a certain aspect of reality, based on previously acquired experience. it includes a persons’ special competence to manage their activities and cope with anxiety. we created job interview simulation training (jist) – a computerbased simulator, which allowed unemployed job seekers to practice interviewing repeatedly in a stress-free environment. we hypothesized that completion of jist would be related to increase in pre-retirement job seekers’ psychological readiness for job interviewing in real life. participants were randomized into control (n = 18) and experimental (n = 21) conditions. both groups completed preand post-intervention job interview role-plays and self-reporting forms of psychological readiness for job interviewing. jist consisted of 5 sessions of a simulated job interview, and the experimental group found it easy to use and navigate as well as helpful to prepare for interviewing. after finishing jist-sessions the experimental group had significant decrease in heart rate during the post-intervention role-play and demonstrated significant increase in their self-rated psychological readiness, whereas the control group did not have changes in these variables. future research may help clarify whether jist is related to an increase in re-employment of pre-retirement job seekers. keywords: unemployed job seekers, pre-retirement age, psychological readiness for job interviewing, computer-based simulation, simulated job interview europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 received: 2016-07-17. accepted: 2017-02-03. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; andrew allen, university college cork, cork, ireland *corresponding author at: laboratory of virtualistics, institute of basic and applied research, north-caucasus federal university, pushkin street, 1, stavropol, russian federation, 355009. e-mail: reiner@bk.ru this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. unemployment is an extremely acute social problem worldwide. the number of unemployed in 2015 reached 197.1 million. it is about 1 million more than in 2014 and experts predict increase in a number of unemployed by nearly 2.3 million in 2016 and by a further 1.1 million in 2017 (international labour organization, 2016). russia’s unemployment rate also remains, on average, very high. according to a report by the federal state statistics service, there were 4.0 million people out of work in august 2016. that level of unemployment equals 5.2 percent of the country's working population (federal state statistics service, 2016). generally, unemployment leads to a significant income decrease and lower quality of life. moreover, unemployment destroys social relationships that were created by work (layard, 2004). being jobless can bring a wide range of psychological consequences. research suggests that having a job not only provides a person financially, but it also plays a significant part in self-structuring, stabilizing everyday life (van hoye & lootens, 2013) and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ contributes to psychological well-being (anderson & winefield, 2011; cole, 2007; van hoye & lootens, 2013; waddell & burton, 2006). when people lose their jobs, they are deprived of psychological benefits that are advantages of people who have a job (nesterova, 2011; van hoye & lootens, 2013). unemployment leads to decreasing self-confidence and self-respect as well as to partial loss of social communication skills (anderson & winefield, 2011; efremova, aysina, kolotilova, maksimenko, & shagurova, 2015; potutkova, 2011). furthermore, worklessness has the negative effects on physical and mental health (waddell & burton, 2006). all unemployed workers face significant challenges in finding new employment, but it can be especially challenging to find a new job for unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age (ahmed, andersson, & hammarstedt, 2012; aysina & suslova, 2013; badaraev, 2010; berger, 2006; heidkamp, corre, & van horn, 2010; kadefors & hanse, 2012; klehe, koen, & depater, 2012; wanberg, kanfer, hamann, & zhang, 2016). recent research suggests that there was a negative relationship between age and re-employment status, and more important, a negative relationship between age and re-employment outcomes became stronger for individuals over the age of 50 (wanberg еt al., 2016). moreover, re-employment after job loss takes longer for older job seekers than younger job seekers (klehe et al., 2012; wanberg et al., 2016), and «even when older job seekers do find re-employment, it is usually in exchange for a steep decline in earnings and benefits» (klehe et al., 2012, p. 331). one of the most important steps toward successful re-employment is a job interview. it may be a significant challenge for pre-retirement unemployed individuals. employers often restrict applicants to those under the age of 50 years old in the belief that younger employees will be more productive and more effective than older workers (ahmed et al., 2012; aysina & suslova, 2013; berger, 2006; heidkamp et al., 2010; potutkova, 2011). thus, applicants of pre-retirement age are often victimized by age discrimination. they are often perceived as being unable to use modern technologies and keep up with new developments (badaraev, 2010; kadefors & hanse, 2012; klehe et al., 2012; roscigno, mong, byron, & tester, 2007). in addition, many hiring managers may feel uncomfortable supervising someone who is older and more experienced than they are (aysina & suslova, 2013; brandon, 2015). however, despite all these difficulties, a job interview is an ordinary procedure in most developed countries. it is comprehensible to job seekers of different ages, including mature-aged applicants. in russia the situation is quite different. social and psychological aspects of pre-retirement job seekers’ re-employment in russia russian people of currently pre-retirement age (women over the age of 53 years and men over the age of 58) had been developed as personalities during the soviet period. in the ussr, after getting a degree, everyone was guaranteed a specialty-related job. there was no such problem as active job searching or competition among applicants, and there was no such practice as a job interview. it was nearly impossible to switch jobs or transfer to another organization, with a higher salary and better perspectives for professional self-actualization. wages for any given position were standardized nation-wide, in any region or organization. there were no opportunities to earn more, to achieve a higher social status only due to one’s talent, professional skills and experience. likewise, it was impossible to manifest one’s entrepreneurial initiative as in the soviet union there was no private economy sector, and individual commerce was illegal and punishable by the criminal law (aysina & suslova, 2013). using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 252 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ such social context produced a fully formed demotivator for the most part of the employable population: people understood that putting more effort into their professional functions is fruitless and would result in increase of neither their personal wealth nor career possibilities of any interest and significance (badaraev, 2010; potutkova, 2011). today, according to the russian federation legislation, pre-retirement age citizens, registered as unemployed at the employment service authorities, have the right to retire early; however, in this case they will no longer be recognized as unemployed and will lose the whole «package» of governmental guarantees that provide help in finding a job (badaraev, 2010). regarding a relatively low pensions in russia, this situation could not be considered favorable as early retirement will surely lead to a significant income decrease and, as a result, to lower quality of life. psychology-related issues also become pressing – primarily, feeling of uselessness, lack of life perspectives, decrease in self-esteem (aysina & suslova, 2013; potutkova, 2011). nevertheless, many preretirement unemployed consciously abandon all attempts to find a job and choose early retirement, since they dramatically underestimate their chances to get a position according to their qualification (badaraev, 2010). moreover, many job seekers over the age of 50 still perceive a job interview as an «alien» and thus «obscure» procedure (aysina & suslova, 2013). from our point of view, it could be explained by the lack of their subjective psychological readiness to go through a job interview. the psychological readiness phenomenon and its relationship to the job interviews process our understanding of the psychological readiness phenomenon is based on the concept of «psychology of attitudes» by v. n. myasishev, who emphasized that a human’s psychological attitude was an integral system of individual, deliberate connections between the person and diversified aspects of the objective reality. a psychological attitude is not an inherent trait but is developed through individual experience, defining human actions and emotions in a given life situation. therefore, the key features of the attitude are consciousness and mediation through individual experience (myasishev, 1995). it is also consistent with the concept of attitudes by g. w. allport who said that an attitude was «a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related» (allport, 1935, p. 810). we view psychological readiness as one of the psychological attitude components, to be more precise, as an active conscious readiness to interact with a certain aspect of reality, based on previously acquired experience. it includes a persons’ special competence to manage their activity and cope with anxiety (morosanova, 2014). here, the main criteria of psychological readiness would be the quality of self-regulation in a given life situation. in the context of a job interview, this approach to understanding psychological readiness is also consistent with the a. bandura’s self-efficacy theory, according to which any personal achievements increase and strengthen the sense of self-efficacy (bandura, 1997). in other words, a chance to undergo recurring success generates positive experience and allows an unemployed person to feel more confident about their readiness and ability to resolve life issues in situations that seemed extremely difficult and frightening before. from our point of view, this exact experience appears to become the foundation of psychological readiness for job interviewing and may allow the unemployed to better control their behaviors while interacting with a recruiter, by decreasing the level of tension and increasing emotional comfort. aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 253 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ simulated job interviews in practice of psychological support to unemployed people as research has shown, unemployed individuals’ preparedness for job interviewing could be improved through role-playing because of facilitating job seekers’ beliefs about their self-efficacy (cole, 2007; gychev, 2011; nesterova, 2011; potutkova, 2011; tay et al., 2006; van hoye & lootens, 2013). unfortunately, a job interview role-play requires significant financial, time and staff resources. employment services in russia cannot always afford to put those resources into helping the unemployed (efremova et al., 2015). we believe that role-playing with computer-based simulations might improve the situation. computer based-simulations are usually well structured, simple and clear for trainees. they also provide in-themoment feedback (e.g. as specific comments to trainees’ responses or advices related to further actions for training a certain skill) and allow trainees to practice skills in a safe environment where they can exercise maximum control (botella, garcia-palacios, baños, & quero, 2009; loon, 2014; riva & mantovani, 2012). moreover, the use of simulation technologies significantly reduces the time spent on teaching social skills (aysina, 2014; efremova et al., 2015). despite the advantages of role playing with computer based simulations over traditional learning methods there are lack of research and trials that would allow us to say that using simulated job interviews made unemployed people feel them well-prepared for future interviews in real life. few studies that have shown feasibility and efficacy of simulated job interview skill training were focused on the unemployed individuals with psychiatric disabilities (smith et al., 2014a), and autism spectrum disorders (asd) (smith et al., 2014b). the results obtained provide some evidence for improvement in job interview performance and job interview selfconfidence among participants who had completed 5 sessions of simulated job interview. authors considered that success of the intervention was due to the simulator allowed trainees to practice interviewing in a virtual environment closed to real job interview situations (smith et al., 2014a; smith et al., 2014b). but the issue of simulated job interviews efficacy in psychological support to other categories of unemployed people, including healthy individuals of pre-retirement age, is still unresolved. present study the aim of the present study was to assess the efficacy of a computer simulation job interview simulation training (jist) in preparing healthy unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age for job interviewing. we have already tested jist on a sample of job seekers of different ages, including short-term and long-term unemployed persons, as well as on a small group of the long-term unemployed (aysina, 2016; aysina, maksimenko, & nikiforov, 2016). our findings demonstrated that the training system could enhance psychological willingness to go through a job interview in different categories of the unemployed (aysina, 2016) and improve job interview performance and job interview self-confidence in individuals who had been jobless for 12 months or longer (aysina et al., 2016). the current study sought to examine whether jist could help to increase psychological readiness for job interviews in pre-retirement job seekers. we hypothesized that the unemployed of pre-retirement age would rate the intervention as easy to use, easy to navigate, useful to train communication skills and helpful to enhance their psychological readiness for interviewing. we also hypothesized that completion of jist sessions would be related both to decrease in the participants’ heart rate during the post-intervention role-play interviews and to increase in their self-rated psychological readiness for real life job interviews. using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 254 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ methods participants initially, our sample consisted of 42 unemployed individuals (20 male and 22 female). they were registered in the moscow state employment center as unemployed. the average age was 55.60 years (sd = 2.53). on average, participants had 33.36 years (sd = 5.01) of work experience and had been unemployed for 11.98 months (sd = 8.51). regarding education, 71.4% of our sample obtained a high school degree, and 28.6% a vocational school degree. we take into account five inclusion criteria. participants were required to a) be of preretirement age (58 years old for male and 53 years old for female), b) have prior time in employment at least for 5 years, с) have a secondary or vocational school degree at least, d) be actively seeking work. the study exclusion criteria included a) having a physical, intellectual or psychiatric disability, b) a current diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence. all the participants provided consent to participate. after enrolment, the participants were randomly assigned to experimental (n = 22) or control (n = 20) groups. randomization was performed using the method of random numbers. given that three subjects (one from the experimental and two from the control group) did not complete the follow-up assessments, their characteristics were not included in the data analyses. thus, the final sample size was n = 39, and there were 21 participants in the experimental group and 18 participants in the control group. intervention the participants were taught job interview skills with using job interview simulation training (jist) a computer-based training system for teaching job interview skills to unemployed individuals. it was designed by the research group of the north-caucasus federal university (russia), in cooperation with a programmer of the nextret s.l. (spain). while developing jist we followed behavioral learning principles: active participation and not passive observation; an opportunity for trainees to practice skills repeatedly; providing in-the-moment feedback to trainees about their performance; access to educational materials that promote learning skillful strategies (bandura, 1997; latham & budworth, 2006; roelfsema, van ooyen, & watanabe, 2010; skinner, 1968). the program was based on a scenario, which included questions of varying complexity (the total number of 10 questions). these are the open questions that an employer might ask a job seeker during a job interview (e.g., what factors influenced you to choose your career path? how did you choose your college major? do you have weaknesses? describe your most serious weakness?). there are various answer options for each question (from 6 to 10 options depending on the question specifics), from which a user should choose the most appropriate one. answer options, comments and recommendations for users that were designed by our team and included in the software reflected specific social and psychological problems of unemployed people in russia: age discrimination in employment (aysina, 2014; potutkova, 2011); insufficient orientation in modern job interview rules and standards; poor verbal and nonverbal communication skills (aysina & suslova, 2013); a passive lifestyle (a dependant position), falling social activity (efremova et al., 2015). the questions are presented to a user sequentially one after the other both in text (on the monitor screen) and voice formats. in each jist-session, a user is required to answer all the 10 questions. aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 255 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ voice presentation was included in our program to provide a trainee with the «presence effect»: creating a situation of a job interview close to the real one. at the same time, a trainee can choose between two difficulty levels of a voice presentation: 1) a virtual recruiter’s voice sounds friendly and reassuring throughout the interview; 2) a virtual recruiter’s voice fluctuates from indifferent, unemotional to brusque. prior to each session, a user can choose the first option, which we designated as «easy», or the second option («hard»). the first session is always held on the «easy» level. at the beginning of each jist-session, trainees should sit in front of the monitor at the distance that permitted them to most easily focus on the screen. then they should read and follow the instructions on the screen. if the instructions are clear to the trainees they are required to click the «go to the interview» button to begin the job interview process. after hearing and reading each question, they should choose the most appropriate answer option from the list of answer choices that appeared on the screen. then they are required to confirm the selected option by mouse click. the results of each simulated interview are evaluated in scores in accordance with the scoring system programmed into the software. besides, the jist system allows a trainee to get information both why he/she has received certain scores for his/her answer and which level of job interview skills he/she has achieved: poor, fair, average, good, or excellent. after completing each simulated interview, a trainee can view his/her results on the screen. he/she can also receive written feedback by clicking on the «print» button. figure 1. detailed comments to the answer the question nº 1. note. an english translation is available in the appendix. the jist program enables users to review a transcript of every question and answer. thereby, the unemployed can view detailed comments to each answer and identify, which answers were successful and which were not, and get recommendations on recovering from mistakes (see figure 1 and appendix). we constructed the content of comments in such a way so that a trainee could understand both resource and problematic aspects of his/her answers and could get a clear idea of how each answer would characterize him/her as a candidate for the position. as a result, jist provides unemployed job seekers with the opportunity to gain a comprehensive learning experience for practicing a successful job interview. using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 256 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ study procedures first, the participants completed the baseline assessments, including a standardized role-play and a self-report of psychological readiness for job interviewing. the role-play was a modeled situation of a job interview with a recruiter. specially invited experts that had a great experience in the field of hiring acted as recruiters. the experts’ main task was to make the job interview role-play as realistic as possible. all the participants were interviewed individually: they were randomly assigned to two experts, and each of them answered the same questions. each role-play lasted approximately 15 minutes. before the start of the role-play special physiological sensors were applied to the participants’ bodies for measuring their heart rate during the interview. after finishing the role-play, the participants filled a self-reporting form of psychological readiness for job interviewing. second, the control group was studying the didactic materials on the theme of job seeking and job-interviewing for a week. the control group participants also had watched training videos on this theme (3 videos for 5-7 min). the experimental group was invited to attend 5 sessions of jist within a week period too. once participants were oriented to the simulation software, they began the first session to demonstrate that they could navigate the program. a member of our research team provided assistance and answered the questions on any aspect of jist. the participants were required to progress through two jist-difficulty level: from «easy» to «hard». they could move to the «hard» level if average or higher scores in job-interview skills (in accordance with the jist scoring system) were achieved. then the trainees played on the «hard» level until the end of the training. we recorded the participants’ jist performance scores for each simulated interview as well as time spent engaged in each trial. then we reviewed the completed transcript with each trainee and we answered the trainee’s questions on any aspect of the program. additionally, the experimental group participants answered the jist-usability questions. third, the experimental and the control groups completed the follow-up assessments, which again included a job interview role-play and a self-report survey. the post-intervention and pre-intervention job interview roleplays were similar to each other, but the experts asked new questions to the participants. just as in the preintervention role-play, the participants were fitted with sensors that recorded heart rate data throughout the interview. after the role-plays had been over, the participants completed the self-reporting forms of psychological readiness for job interviewing as follow-up test. study measures the participants’ demographic (age, sex, educational level) and vocational (prior time in employment, months since any prior employment,) characteristics were obtained via a psychosocial interview. we measured the participants’ heart rate on the role-play at baseline and follow-up. we considered these data as indicators of the participants’ emotional state. average heart rate indexes (beats a minute) were calculated for each participant, both at baseline and follow-up. a self-report method was used to assess psychological readiness for job interviewing. we have revised the psychological willingness to a job interview questionnaire that we used in our previous study (aysina, 2016) and developed the psychological readiness for job interviewing scale, which included a set of seven items (see appendix). aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 257 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were required to rate each item using a 10-point scale. there were three reverse items (items 1 3), with higher scores reflecting more negative views (e.g., discomfort level during the job interview role-play; anxiety level during the job interview role-play) and four straight items (items 4 7) with higher scores reflecting more positive views (e.g., self-confidence during the job interview role-play; readiness for the job interviews in real life). to get the scores on the items 1 3, it is required to recalculate a participant’s rating via the following system: if a participant chose rating of «1» point, it was equal to 10 points, of «2» to 9 points, of «3» to 8 points, etc. the scores on the items 4 7 corresponded to a participant’s rating. then we summarized the scores on all items and computed total scores. the internal consistencies at baseline (cronbach’s alpha = .87) and follow-up (cronbach’s alpha = .86) across all subjects were good. we also developed a brief self-report form to measure jist-usability. it included 7 items that were rated on a 5point scale (1 = poor to 5 = excellent), with higher scores reflecting more positive views of jist. the jistusability items were adapted from previous studies of this kind (bell & weinstein, 2011; smith et al., 2014a; smith et al., 2014b). the jist-usability scale had an internal consistency of cronbach’s alpha = .74, in the current sample. data analysis we characterized jist usability with descriptive statistics. between-group differences for demographics and vocational characteristics were assessed via mann–whitney test and chi-square analysis. we used wilcoxon signed-ranks test to evaluate whether significantly changes were in the participants’ heart rate and psychological readiness for job interviewing between baseline and follow-up. according to fritz, morris, and richler (2012), we calculated r proposed by cohen to estimate effect sizes for mann–whitney and wilcoxon non-parametric tests. study data were analyzed using statistical software – ibm spss statistics 21. results the experimental and control groups did not differ with respect to age, the number of months since prior employment, as well as prior time in employment (see table 1). the groups also did not differ in gender, (χ2(1, n = 39) = .63, p = .43), and in levels of educational attainment, (χ2(1, n = 39) = .003, p = .95). as can be seen in table 1, comparative analysis of heart rate indicators and self-rated psychological readiness for job interviewing has also revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups. the jist sessions were well attended (= 95.5%). elapsed simulation time varied between 15 to 27 minutes for the first session (m = 18.82, sd = 3.47), and between 5 to 18 minutes for the fifth session (m = 13.04, sd = 3.19). the participants reported that jist was easy to use and navigate, useful to train communication skills, had helpful introductory screens guidelines, various choices of what to say to an interviewer and useful comments to answers (all means are above 4.0). overall simulation rating (item 7) showed a mean of 4.33 and had a range of 3-5 (data are available in table 2). using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 258 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 usability characteristics of jist (scale 1–5; poor to excellent) features of the simulation n minimum maximum m sd ease to use 21 3 5 4.05 0.59 ease to navigate 21 3 5 4.00 0.55 simulation useful to train communication skills 21 3 5 4.24 0.70 helpful introductory screens guidelines 21 4 5 4.33 0.48 choices of what to say to an interviewer 21 4 5 4.67 0.48 usefulness of comments to answers 21 3 5 4.19 0.60 overall simulation rating 21 3 5 4.33 0.48 in order to determine the efficacy of jist in preparing the participants for a job interview, we calculated the wilcoxon signed-ranks test. the results are presented in table 3. as can be seen in table 3, the wilcoxon signed-ranks test revealed a significant change in the experimental group participants’ heart rate: decrease at follow up as compared to baseline. thus, we can say that the experimental group participants felt more emotional comfort and less emotional stress in the job interview role play at follow up, after finishing jist-sessions. in contrast to the experimental group, there was not a significant change in the control group participants’ heart rate (see figure 2 for further details). according to the results of self-reports, the experimental group increased psychological readiness for interviewing on the total score between baseline and follow-up, whereas the control group did not (see table 3 and figure 3 for further details). table 1 pre-intervention between group differences group mdn mean rank sum of ranks u z p r age experimental 54 18.8 394 163 0.73 .46 .120 control 57 21.4 386 prior time in employment experimental 33 17.7 372 141 1.35 .18 .210 control 35 22.7 408 months since any prior employment experimental 11 19.8 416 185 0.11 .91 .022 control 9 20.2 364 heart rate experimental 77 20.4 429 198 0.25 .80 .040 control 75 19.5 351 psychological readiness for job interviewing experimental 33 19.2 404 173 0.45 .65 .073 control 35 20.9 376 aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 259 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. between-group differences in heart rate data. figure 3. between-group differences in self-reported psychological readiness for job interviewing. table 3 change in heart rate and psychological readiness for job interviewing group mdn1 mdn2 n-ranks sum of ranks mean rank z p rpr nr pr nr pr nr heart rate experimental 77 72 3 17 7 203 2.33 11.94 -3.66 <.001 .78 control 75 77 10 6 97 39 9.70 6.50 1.51 .13 .36 psychological readiness for job interviewing experimental 33 45 20 1 229.50 1.50 10.90 1.50 3.96 <.001 .87 control 35 34.50 11 3 81.50 23.50 7.41 7.83 1.84 .066 .43 note. mdn1 = median score at baseline; mdn2 = median score at follow-up; n-ranks = number of ranks; pr = positive ranks; nr = negative ranks. using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 260 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, the results suggest that jist may be an efficacious strategy for increasing participants’ psychological readiness to go through job interviews. discussion in this study, we examined whether jist could help to increase psychological readiness for job interviewing in unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age. we also evaluated the usability characteristics of our simulator, its usefulness in developing job seekers’ preparedness to go through a job interview in real life. in russia, many people over the age of 50 have no sufficient computer skills and have no confidence in their ability to learn new skills through the use of a computer simulation. therefore, it was extremely important for us to find out whether they could see the benefit of jist. the usability results suggest that participants had a positive response to the simulated job interviews. they were engaged with the simulated interviews and found jist easy to use, easy to navigate and useful to train communication skills. they saw the benefit of the jist program’s special features such as introductory screens guidelines, choices of what to say to interviewer, and comments to answers. thus, despite the age of these participants, they could use the software to improve their job interview skills and increase their psychological readiness for interviewing in real life. the findings indicated that jist might be efficacious given that the experimental group had significant decrease in heart rate during the post-intervention role-play and demonstrated significant increase in their self-rated psychological readiness. the control group had changes in these characteristics too, but they were not statistically significant. hence, it is possible that unemployed individuals in the experimental group became more skilled after completing jist-sessions and their anxiety and emotional tension lessened. on the other hand, the observed increase in the participants’ psychological readiness for job interviewing reflected the improvement in their regulatory competencies. changes in the participants’ heart rate enabled us to reach this conclusion. our results also suggest that jist may be used successfully in social and psychological support for unemployed people of pre-retirement age. despite the fact that jist has not an animated avatar, which is available in other computer-based training systems, developed to teach social skills (bell & weinstein, 2011; kandalaft, didehbani, krawczyk, allen, & chapman, 2013; persky, 2011; smith et al., 2014a; smith et al., 2014b; strickland, coles, & southern, 2013), nevertheless, it has provided a unique training experience with each simulation and has made trainees feel well-prepared for future interviews. the findings are consistent with recent studies demonstrating improved job interview performance and job interview self-confidence among individuals with psychiatric disabilities (bell & weinstein, 2011; smith et al., 2014a) and autism spectrum disorders (smith et al., 2014b; strickland et al., 2013). but our study was carried out on a sample of healthy unemployed individuals, unlike the above-mentioned studies. our results are also consistent with our previous study, where we showed that jist could help to improve job interview skills and increase self-confidence in people of different age who had been jobless for 12 months or longer (aysina et al., 2016). however, in the present study we did not focus on interview skills or self-confidence. we suggested that low psychological readiness for job interviewing among job seekers of pre-retirement age was a more acute problem. aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 261 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ self-confidence and psychological readiness are closely related, but they are not the same. according to barbalet, self-confidence is a person's judgment of certainty about a future event or outcome (barbalet, 1998). from our point of view, psychological readiness is a broader concept than self-confidence. as we wrote above, psychological readiness includes a person’s capacity for conscious self-regulation in a given life situation. our understanding of psychological readiness for job interviewing, based on the concept of «psychology of attitudes» by v. n. myasishev and allport's approach to the study of the attitude phenomenon, is consistent to bandura’s theory. each of these scientists believed that human actions and emotions in a given life situations are organized through previously acquired experience. but bandura emphasized that performance achievements were especially useful (bandura, 1997) whereas both myasishev and allport paid special attention to regulatory competence of a person who could consciously use its as a means of solving various goals (allport, 1935; myasishev, 1995). when developing jist, we tried to integrate ideas from these theoretical models. as a result, jist had provided the unemployed of pre-retirement age with the opportunities: to train at their own pace; to make, detect, and correct mistakes without adverse consequences; to apply multiple answering strategies to the interview’s questions; to receive consistent in-the-moment feedback. thereby, jist allowed our participants to view job interview situations that they had previously perceived as threatening from a new perspective. limitations and implications for future research the findings must be interpreted while considering some limitations. first, the psychological readiness for job interviewing scale has not yet been validated. therefore, between-group differences in self-rated psychological readiness must be interpreted with caution. second, the jist-usability scale had an internal consistency of cronbach’s alpha = .74. it was a satisfactory level of reliability, but not high enough. likely, the items are not yet optimally constructed to measure the usability characteristics of jist. third, the sample of unemployed individuals of pre-retirement age was small, and we used only non-parametric analysis in this study. thus, it is possible that jist does not have a strong effect. further research with a larger sample would be needed to assess the efficacy of our training system more carefully. for instance, it would be appropriate to use t-test and cohen’s d effect size computation to analyze changes in outcome measures. fourth, the study was conducted in a laboratory setting. future studies are needed to gather data in a community setting to better prove the effectiveness of jist. further research could also assess whether motivational characteristics and personal traits of mature-aged unemployed individuals as well as length of time seeking employment impact the results of jist. fifth, we have not collected data on the participants' employment outcomes. further research should fill this gap. in the future, it becomes important to assess whether jist helps unemployed people of preretirement age find new jobs. lastly, the current version of jist is not a final product. the extended version of our computer simulation will include a virtual human character that interacts with users. we also intend to develop a wider variety of job interview questions. moreover, users will be provided with the opportunity to choose one of three difficulty levels, where the virtual recruiter is friendly («easy»), formal, indifferent («medium»), or curt and dismissive («hard»). the extended software will also be capable of video recording and analyzing trainee’s nonverbal responses during each simulated job interview (facial expressions, heart rate, galvanic skin response). thus, the updated jist program will enhance the «presence effect» and provide trainees with the opportunity to create a naturalistic conversation with the virtual interviewer in the computer-generated environment. using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 262 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions in russia, many pre-retirement unemployed consciously abandon all attempts to find a job and choose early retirement, since they dramatically underestimate their chances to get a position according to their qualification (aysina & suslova, 2013; badaraev, 2010). from our point of view, it could be explained by their low psychological readiness to go through a job interview. in this study, we assessed the effectiveness of job interview simulation training (jist) in developing pre-retirement job seekers’ preparedness for interviewing. the results suggest that after finishing jist-sessions the experimental group felt more emotional comfort in the job interview role-play and demonstrated significant increase in their self-rated psychological readiness for job interviewing in real life, whereas the control group did not have changes both in emotional state and psychological readiness for job interviewing at follow-up compared with baseline. thus, jist might be an efficacious tool to enhance pre-retirement unemployed people’s job prospects in a tough market. funding this work was supported by the ministry of education and science of russian federation and was prepared as a part of a state task in scientific research area: project nº 25.1815.2014/к of 11.07.2014. competing interests we declare that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank our participants for their motivation and enthusiasm for the task. references ahmed, a. m., andersson, l., & hammarstedt, m. 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(2016). age and reemployment success after job loss: an integrative model and meta-analysis. psychological bulletin. 124(4), 400-426. doi:10.1037/bul0000019 appendix the screenshot’s content (figure 1) question 1 how did you choose your college major? comments on the question (question purpose): the question purpose is to estimate the person’s decision making and his\her actions to accomplish what was decided. estimated are decision-making parameters typical for the current applicant: social opinion influence, authorities attitude towards the decision, significance of the individual choice. time spent to answer: 1 min. 11 sec. score given for the answer: 18 out of 30 user’s answer: it was my own choice. my parents were against it, but i insisted. comments on the user’s answer: the answer suggests the candidate’s distinct determination and aspiration to implement his\her choice, with no regard to the social opinion and possibly contrary to it. the answer will be estimated as correct, if the candidate is applying for a position related to active commerce and will work in the area of strategic marketing and innovative research and development. using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 266 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://doi.org/10.1097/nmd.0000000000000187 http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-014-2113-y http://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1800-4 http://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.2.446 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2013.01.004 http://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000019 http://www.psychopen.eu/ simultaneously, the recruiter might consider this candidate to be in need of strict supervision, since he\she might be willing to promote (the following text goes beyond the screenshot) personal interests at the cost of common cause. in this case, the candidate might be declined. this answer is not recommended for candidates applying for «regular» positions assuming higher level of responsibility and discipline. along with the exhibited user’s answer, question 1 contains six more answer options, each with comprehensive teaching comments. the psychological readiness for job interviewing scale instructions: for each of the following items, please circle the point on the scale that you feel is most appropriate in describing you items points very low very high 1.* discomfort level during the job interview role-play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2.* anxiety level during the job interview role-play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3.* sense of fatigue after the completion of the job interview role-play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4. self-confidence during the job interview role-play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5. ability to communicate in a calm manner during the job interview role-play 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6. ability to regulate your behavior, altering it in accordance with the demands of the job interview role-play situation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7. readiness for job interviews in real life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 note. *indicates items that are reverse-scored. higher scores indicate higher levels of psychological readiness for job interviewing. about the authors rimma m. aysina received her ph.d. in personality psychology from russian state social university in 2007. after completion of his degree she was appointed as an associate professor in the department of general psychology at russian state social university, moscow. in 2014, dr. aysina joined the laboratory of virtualistics of the institute of basic and applied research at north-caucasus federal university, as a leading research associate. her interests are focused on the use of virtual technologies in psychotherapy, mental health counseling and psychological support service. additionally, she is currently working on understanding the phenomenon of alternative employment in terms of vital space virtualization. email: reiner@bk.ru galina i. efremova was awarded the d.sc. degree in psychology of labour and organisation from tver state university in 2002. she served as the head of the department of general psychology at russian state social university, moscow, from 2006 to 2013. dr. efremova has been in her current position as the head of the institute of basic and applied research at north-caucasus federal university since 2014. her area of interest includes community psychology, experimental and social psychology. e-mail: efremova_ncfu@mail.ru zhanna a. maksimenko received her ph.d. in personality psychology from the institute of psychology of russian academy of sciences in 2008. she worked as an associate professor in the department of general psychology at russian state aysina, efremova, maksimenko et al. 267 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 http://www.psychopen.eu/ social university, moscow. in 2014, dr. maksimenko joined the laboratory of virtualistics of the institute of basic and applied research at north-caucasus federal university, as a leading research associate. her research interests include community psychology as well as emotion, stress and health psychology. e-mail: xlissa@yandex.ru mikhail v. nikiforov received his diploma degree (equivalent to m.sc.) in aeronautic engineering from moscow aviation institute (national research university), in 1988. he worked as a programmer and it-expert in russia, sweden and spain. besides data analysis and management, his other major interest area is adaptive technologies and vr services for vulnerable people. e-mail: m.nikiforov@gmail.com using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing 268 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 251–268 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1250 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ using a computer simulation to improve psychological readiness for job interviewing (introduction) social and psychological aspects of pre-retirement job seekers’ re-employment in russia the psychological readiness phenomenon and its relationship to the job interviews process simulated job interviews in practice of psychological support to unemployed people present study methods participants intervention study procedures study measures data analysis results discussion limitations and implications for future research conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix the screenshot’s content () the psychological readiness for job interviewing scale about the authors feeling threatened by the war in ukraine: a study in italy on identification, entitativity and attitudes toward the eu research reports feeling threatened by the war in ukraine: a study in italy on identification, entitativity and attitudes toward the eu francesco la barbera 1, carmela altamura 1, roberta riverso 1 [1] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 received: 2023-11-20 • accepted: 2024-11-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: mehmet a. orhan, nyenrode business university, breukelen, the netherlands corresponding author: francesco la barbera, department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, via rodinò 22, 80138 napoli, italy. e-mail: francesco.labarbera@unina.it supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract russia’s invasion of ukraine in february 2022 posed a practical and symbolic threat to eu citizens. did this threat affect citizens’ identification with the eu? this was the main research question addressed in the current paper. in addition, we sought to evaluate whether the influence of perceived threat on the identification with the eu was mediated by perceived entitativity of the eu. finally, we expected perceived threat to improve participants’ attitudes towards eu integration and enlargement, through the mediation of entitativity (mediator 1) and identification with the eu (mediator 2). we conducted a survey (n = 349, 186 females; mage = 34.52) to assess this pattern of relations through structural equation models. results show that perceived threat affects identification with the eu only indirectly, through the mediation of entitativity. in addition, perceived threat and entitativity have a significant indirect effect on attitude toward eu integration and attitude toward eu enlargement, yet they are directly associated only to the former. from a theoretical perspective, results are discussed in relation to previous research that shows the effect of perceived threat on identification, failing to consider the mediating role of entitativity. from a practical point of view, results may provide new insights on communication commonly used to reinforce the ingroup identity—mainly by threat-based strategies—through a re-consideration of the critical role of entitativity. keywords european identity, eu integration, eu enlargement, structural equation modeling, serial mediation the european union (eu) and the whole world are currently going through a time of wide crisis and transformation. the war in ukraine has exerted a strong pressure on international relations, energy systems, and economic dynamics, challenging established balances and bringing unresolved conflicts to the fore (deng et al., 2022; schepers, 2022). russia’s invasion of ukraine in 2022 has triggered a series of consequences, ranging from reduced imports of energy commodities from russia, to rising inflation with consequent impact on global production chains (quintana, 2022); from reduced exports of agricultural products from ukraine, to the global food security crisis (ben hassen & el bilali, 2022), and the humanitarian crisis of refugees escaped from war (duszczyk & kaczmarczyk, 2022; johannesson & clowes, 2022; osendarp et al., 2022; patel & erickson, 2022; żuk & żuk, 2022). in this complex scenario, the eu immediately took a stand, with a firm and shared condemnation of russian aggression (celi et al., 2022; steiner et al., 2023): “our union as a whole has risen to the occasion […] this year, as soon as russian troops crossed the border into ukraine, our response was united, determined and immediate.” (von der leyen, 2022). the economic sanctions imposed on russia, together this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13279&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ with the military aid provided to ukraine, strongly characterized, in practical and symbolic terms, the eu’s position (beauregard, 2022; deng et al., 2022). some preliminary empirical evidence suggests that, in eu member states, citizens show a high perceived threat in relation to the war in ukraine, together with an overall condemnation of russia’s invasion and positive attitudes towards sanctions against russia (hilbig, 2022). in order to make a further contribution in this direction, the present study aims to explore the role of perceived threat related to russia’s invasion on perceived entitativity of the eu and identification with eu, also considering the pattern of relations with attitudes towards eu integration and enlargement. from a theoretical point of view, our study is guided by the social identity approach (tajfel et al., 1971; tajfel & turner, 1979; turner et al., 1987), which maintains that a part of individuals’ self-concept derives from belonging to social groups; therefore, feeling one-self as a part of the group has strong implications on its members’ attitudes and behaviors. group membership provides attitudes and values to its members, namely a lens for interpreting the surrounding world; acting as a group member, their behaviours conform to the ingroup norms (turner et al., 1987). additionally, in order to achieve a positive self-concept—which depends on ingroup-outgroup social comparison—people are driven towards favoring in-group and derogating groups to which they do not belong (brewer, 2017; gerard & hoyt, 1974; tajfel, 1974). given the importance of group membership, the social identity approach has been used to understand several intergroup phenomena, including political events and conflicts, and applied to several contexts, such as identification with the eu. for instance, research shows that european identity and national identity can coexist because they operate at different levels of abstraction (castano, 2004; cinnirella, 1997). european identity fosters cooperation with european partners, predicts positive attitude towards europe and acts of solidarity with other eu member states during crises (la barbera, 2015; la barbera et al., 2014; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012; verhaegen, 2018). this is consistent with the common ingroup identity model (ciim; gaertner et al., 1993; gaertner et al., 2000), which maintains that the recategorization of different groups within a superordinate group fosters tolerance between previously divided groups, reducing perceived threat. indeed, several studies have shown that identification with the eu improves intergroup relations between groups coming from european countries by fostering mutual tolerance (curtis, 2014; curtis, 2024). drawing on social identity prospective, the uncertainty reduction hypothesis (hogg, 2000) states that one way to reduce subjective uncertainty is through self-categorization, which is responsible for identification processes. uncertainty “motivates people to affirm a social identity, form new groups, join pre-existing groups, and (re)construct prototypes to better resolve uncertainty” (hogg, 2000; p. 233). the present article is structured as follows. in the next section, we review the main literature behind our hypotheses through the lens of social identity approach. with a focus on the ukrainian crisis, we describe the rationale underlying our model of relation between perceived threat, entitativity and identification with the eu, predicting a significant serial mediation and a significant association with attitudes towards eu integration (deepening) and enlargement (widening). in the materials and method section, we describe the sample, procedure and measures that we used to test our hypotheses. structural equations testing our conceptual model, with the assessment of the measurement model and convergent/discriminant validity of measures, are presented in the results section. finally, we discuss results in relation to previous studies, suggesting theoretical considerations and practical implications. perceived threat from russian invasion and identification with the eu there are several reasons which might explain why the perception of threat related to the ukrainian crisis is relevant among eu citizens, even if not directly involved in war. first, the sanctions eu imposed on russia have had large negative consequences in the eu member states and in citizens’ everyday life, such as the rising of prices of energy, raw materials and consumer goods (berner et al., 2022; rühl, 2022). therefore, even if not directly involved in the war and battlefields, eu’s citizens are bearing war-related hardships (guenette et al., 2022). in addition, some governments, such as italy’s, have implemented measures to curb the energy consumption. this may well pose a threat to citizens’ well-being and lifestyle (barchielli et al., 2022). second, the possibility of the conflict escalating into the use of nuclear weapons depicts a life-threatening scenario also for european countries not directly involved in the war (bollfrass & herzog, 2022). third, geographical proximity of eu countries with ukraine and russia should also be considered, feeling threatened by the war in ukraine 26 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ because it is a variable thought to increase dramatically the sense of threat (gehring, 2019). finally, it is important to consider the threat that russia poses on eu values. eu has traditionally proposed its foundation in values of human rights, human dignity and freedom, and eu is widely seen as a democratic and humanitarian international agent (giumelli et al., 2021; steiner et al., 2023). hence, russia’s invasion of ukraine poses a symbolic threat to basic eu’s values, as it has been explicitly stated several times by the highest authorities of the eu institutions: “this is not only a war unleashed by russia against ukraine. this is a war on our energy, a war on our economy, a war on our values and a war on our future. this is about autocracy against democracy.” (von der leyen, 2022, p. 3). this might also increase eu citizens’ perceived threat; in addition, threatening the ingroup values may increase the effect of identification on ingroup favoritism and outgroup derogation (bianco et al., 2022; voci, 2006). our first research question—on which there is currently no specific empirical evidence—is whether this sense of perceived threat is influencing the strength of citizens’ identification with the eu, which has often been seen as weak and problematic (carl et al., 2019; la barbera & ajzen, 2020). research in social and experimental psychology has shown that perceived threat increases individuals’ identification with the ingroup (festinger, 1950; hogg, 2000; smeekes & verkuyten, 2013; tajfel & turner, 1979), which acts as a buffer against individual perceived vulnerability. hence, from a concrete point of view, eu’s citizens may perceive the eu as a powerful alliance and a source of safety, stronger and more reliable than the single member states (gehring, 2019). importantly, facing a common threat, eu citizens may categorize themselves as “us” in contrast to “them”, increasing their identification with the superordinate common ingroup (gaertner & dovidio, 2014). this would be consistent with the social identity approach, according to which the perceived threat can lead people to feel closer to the ingroup and increase aggression towards the outgroup (tajfel & turner, 1979; vergani, 2018), and with previous studies related to ukrainian crisis that have shown a “rally effect” around the eu flag (steiner et al., 2023) and positive effects of the war in ukraine on the eu integration process (fiott, 2023; håkansson, 2024). in addition, this line of reasoning is somewhat supported by considerations drawn in relation to russia’s invasion of crimea in 2014. in a secondary analysis of eurobarometer data, gehring (2019) found a significant increase of eu identification in countries theoretically assumed to be more threatened by russia’s aggressive behavior (estonia and latvia, countries bordering russia directly). this increased identification with eu was accompanied by increased trust in eu institutions and greater support for eu policies at a central level. steiner and colleagues (2023) also report an improvement of eu identification and attitudes towards the eu. these studies did not provide direct measurement of perceived threat; nevertheless, they support us in expecting that eu citizens’ level of perceived threat from the russian aggression in ukraine of february 2022 should be significantly and positively associated with identification with eu. second, we sought to explore whether this effect of perceived threat on identification with eu was mediated by perceived entitativity of the eu. entitativity has been described as the psychological existence of a group (castano, sacchi & gries, 2003)—that is, the extent to which the group is perceived as a real entity—and it has been linked to beliefs about the group members’ sharing of common values and common past, having things in common and being similar on personal traits and characteristics (agadullina & lovakov, 2018). highly entitative groups are perceived as a whole, homogeneous and cohesive entity (agadullina & lovakov, 2018; yzerbyt et al., 2000). research shows that the ingroup entitativity strengthen ingroup identification (sacchi et al., 2009), and perceived entitativity of the eu has been found to increase individuals’ levels of identification with eu (castano, 2004). research has also shown that individuals identify more strongly with an ingroup when they are in a condition of uncertainty and the group is highly entitative (hogg et al., 2007), and perceived threat may exert a direct effect on entitativity (jutzi et al., 2020). it is reasonable to think that russia’s invasion of ukraine has increased eu’s entitativity; for example, creating the perception of common fate between european citizens (castano, yzerbyt & bourguignon, 2003). in addition, the threat related to russia’s invasion of ukraine may increase eu’s entitativity by enhancing the importance citizens assign to commonality rather than differences between european peoples, because external threats have been found to reduce the perceptions of dissimilarities (vezzali et al., 2015) and enhance the perceived similarity of ingroup members (rothgerber, 1997). therefore, russia’s invasion of ukraine might have both a direct effect on identification and an indirect effect through enhancing eu’s entitativity. la barbera, altamura, & riverso 27 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ threat, identification, and eu-related attitudes research has shown that the strength of identification with the eu is a predictor of a number of very important variables (la barbera, 2015; la barbera et al., 2014), such as attitudes in favor of eu integration (eu deepening) and eu enlargement (eu widening). despite the eu enlargement has often been considered as a part of eu integration process, they are two different concepts because the support for eu integration is not always accompanied by support for enlargement and vice versa (karp & bowler, 2006). attitude toward eu deepening has been defined as the attitude citizens hold toward the increase of eu’s power in political and economic decision-making, even in substitution of national sovereignty (castano, 2004; la barbera, 2015). this attitude is especially important, because eu deepening is an ongoing process of progressive integration and centralization of power aimed at an ever-closer union; although the most part of international issues require cooperation and trans-national solutions that transcends national boundaries (buchan et al., 2011), eu integration process has been in many occasions contrasted by public opinion, citizens at referenda, and political parties in different member states (la barbera & ajzen, 2020). from a social identity perspective, european identity is a pre-condition for legitimacy and citizens supporting eu integration (castano, 2004; fuchs & schlenker, 2006). this is in line with research showing that citizens’ identification and attachment with their own nation and with eu influences support for eu integration process (herrmann et al., 2004; la barbera, 2015) and promote cooperation between citizens from different european countries (la barbera et al., 2014; la barbera & cariota ferrara, 2012). although initially the eu enlargement literature was centered on the elites’ politics and preferences, exploring public attitudes towards enlargement has been considered essential to ensure stability in europe (maier & rittberger, 2008). the enlargement of the eu is related to the issue of demarcation between who is a group member and who is not, and it has stimulated a wide debate among scholars (maier & rittberger, 2008; mclaren, 2007; thomassen, 2008; vetik et al., 2006; zielonka, 2007). attitude toward eu enlargement has been found to be positively correlated with attitude toward eu integration and identification with eu (boomgaarden et al., 2011; de vreese & boomgaarden, 2006; fuchs & schlenker, 2006). previous research on the point also found evidence of a causal effect of identification with eu on attitude towards eu widening (la barbera, 2015). the eu’s enlargement policy has navigated through various phases and geopolitical contexts to build a united and prosperous europe ensuring stability and democracy in all member countries (schimmelfennig & kakhishvili, 2024). this notwithstanding, russia’s invasion of ukraine created an unprecedented situation as regards eu enlargement. on 28 february 2022, the government of ukraine signed an application for eu membership, asking for immediate accession; three days later, georgia and moldova submitted similar applications. eu leaders decided to grant ukraine and moldova the status of candidate country at the june european council. this unprecedented immediate eu’s positive response to an application for eu membership has been publicly defined as a “political gesture” by french president emmanuel macron, which would not have been possible without the war in ukraine and the fight of its people “to defend our values, their sovereignty, their territorial integrity” (sapir, 2022). therefore, eu widening might be at a turning point, and the reaction of member states’ citizens toward this unprecedented enlargement policy is largely unknown. aims and hypotheses in the current study, we aimed to test whether the pattern of relations deriving from the theoretical considerations outlined above was supported by data. we evaluated the relation between participants’ perceived threat related to russia’s invasion of ukraine and their strength of identification with the eu. we also tested whether this relation was mediated by perceived entitativity of the eu. in addition, we sought to explore the pattern of relations between perceived threat, perceived entitativity of the eu, and eu identification, with eu-related attitudes, namely the attitude toward eu integration (eu deepening) and enlargement (eu widening). specifically, we hypothesized to find a significant association of perceived threat with identification with eu (h1) as well as between identification with eu and attitude towards eu deepening (h2) and eu widening (h3). in addition, we expected to find a significant indirect effect of perceived threat on attitude toward eu deepening (h4) and eu widening (h5) via entitativity (mediator 1) and identification with eu (mediator 2). we also expected the effect of perceived threat on identification to be mediated by perceived entitativity of the eu (h6). perceived threat (h7) and entitativity feeling threatened by the war in ukraine 28 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (h8) are expected to have significant association with attitude towards eu deepening, whereas their direct association with attitude towards eu enlargement—drawing on the considerations outlined above—was more difficult to predict and has been evaluated in a more explorative fashion. figure 1 summarizes the conceptual model. figure 1 conceptual model of relations between perceived threat, entitativity, identification with eu and attitudes toward eu deepening and widening note. the figure depicts the conceptual model of the effect of perceived threat (threat) on attitude towards eu integration (eu deep) and eu enlargement (eu wide) via entitativity and identification with eu (id eu). hypothesized direct effects are represented with arrows; indirect effects are depicted by dotted lines. method participants a convenience sample of 350 italian participants was recruited in march 2022. participants were recruited through an online snowball sampling, sharing the link to the online questionnaire on social networks (e.g., facebook) and asking people to further share the link with friends and acquaintances on their own social network page and/or through instant messaging apps (e.g., whatsapp). one respondent failed to complete half of the questionnaire, thus was removed from final dataset (see la barbera, 2025), which consists of 349 individuals, 186 of whom identified themselves as females, 124 as males, 1 as non-binary and the remaining 38 preferred not to communicate their gender. the mean age of the sample was 34.52 (sdage = 14.58), ranging from 18 to 87. slightly less than half participants (170) hold a university degree and 137 completed high school. procedure participants volunteered for the study and received no compensation for their participation. they were assured of anonymity and informed that they were free to discontinue participation at any time without penalty. after giving their consent, they completed an online questionnaire containing the measures described below. the items employed a 7-point response format and were presented in non-thematic order. the full list of items, with descriptive statistics, is provided in table a1 in the appendix. measures perceived threat five items were used to measure the individuals’ perceived threat from ukrainian crisis. drawing on previous research (riverso et al., 2022), items made reference to general concern (e.g., in general, how concerned are you about the war in ukraine?), perceived probability and seriousness of negative consequences, direct and indirect perceived risks. participants answered on a 7-point response scale. responses were averaged, with higher values indicating higher perceived threat (cronbach’s α = .85). la barbera, altamura, & riverso 29 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived entitativity of the eu drawing on the work by agadullina and lovakov (2018), we used three items for measuring participants’ perceived entitativity of the eu. the items tapped into perceived similarity (e.g., european citizens are very similar to each other), commonalities, and shared past of the group members. participants answer on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). a composite measure was computed by averaging the scores (cronbach’s α = .83). higher values indicate a higher perceived entitativity of the eu. identification with eu participants’ identification with eu was measured using the four-item identification scale by spears and colleagues (1997), in the italian version used by la barbera (2015) for measuring participants’ strength of identification with eu. participants indicated their agreement or disagreement for each statement (e. g., i think about myself as a european citizen) on a scale from 1 to 7. a composite measure was computed by averaging the scores (cronbach’s α = .87). higher values indicate a higher level of identification with eu. attitude towards eu deepening — participants’ attitude toward the integration of the eu (eu deepening) was measured by means of the five-item scale by la barbera (2015). participants indicated their agreement or disagreement for each statement (e. g., i see positively a more immediate action in applying european norms) on a scale from 1 to 7. a composite measure was computed by averaging the scores (cronbach’s α = .86). higher values indicate more positive attitude toward eu deepening. attitude towards eu widening — participants’ attitude toward the enlargement of the eu (eu widening) was meas­ ured by means of the five-item scale by la barbera (2015). participants indicated their agreement for each statement (e. g., i see positively the enlargement of the eu beyond the countries that have joined from the beginning) on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). a composite measure was computed by averaging the scores (cronbach’s α = .92). higher values indicate more positive attitude toward eu widening. statistical analysis as regards the main objective of the study, the a priori power analysis—ran by the software g-power 3.1—indicated a sample of 287 participants in order to detect a small effect (f2 = .03) with 1 – β = .90 and α = .05. descriptive statistics, correlations between measures, t-tests and reliability tests have been conducted by the soft­ ware spss 22 (ibm). the software stata 15 (statacorp llc) has been employed in order to perform structural equation modeling, including the assessment of the measurement model and convergent/discriminant validity of measures. the level of significance was set at p < .05. results the average scores and intercorrelations of the study variables are shown in table 1. perceived threat and identification with eu were significantly over the scale mid-point, t(348) = 16.68, p < .001 and t(348) = 5.43, p < .001, whereas entitativity was not, t(348) = 1.25, p > .20. attitude towards eu deepening was not different from the scale mid-point, t(348) = 1.85, p > .05, whereas the average score of attitude towards eu enlargement was significantly different, t(348) = 6.25, p < .01. the correlations between all the study variables proved statistically significant. noticeably, the associations of perceived threat with entitativity, eu identification and eu attitudes were weak, whereas the intercorrelations among entitativity, eu identification and eu attitudes were moderate to large. feeling threatened by the war in ukraine 30 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of the study variables construct 1 2 3 4 5 1. threat 5.12 (1.25) 2. entitativity .167* 3.90 (1.47) 3. ideu .183* .720** 4.44 (1.51) 4. deep .209** .472** .494** 4.16 (1.65) 5. wide .212** .449** .496** .541** 4.52(1.54) note. diagonal cells show means (sd in parentheses). threat = perceived threat; entitativity = perceived entitativity of the eu; ideu = identification with eu; deep = attitude toward eu deepening; wide = attitude toward the enlargement of eu. *p < .01. **p < .001. a sem was run with 22 items reflecting five correlated latent factors: perceived threat (threat), perceived entitativity (entitativity), identification with eu (ideu), attitude towards eu deepening (deep), attitude towards eu widening (wide). the measurement model fit-to-data was sufficient (hu & bentler, 1999): tli = .920; cfi = .930; rmsea = .070. the full list of items with cfa loadings and descriptive statistics is provided in table a1 in the appendix. the item’s standardized loadings ranged from .58 to .92, p < .001. the ave was above .50 for all latent constructs and always exceeded the squared correlations between them (see table 2), thus indicating convergent and discriminant validity (fornell & larcker, 1981). table 2 convergent and discriminant validity assessment for the latent constructs construct 1 2 3 4 5 1. threat .543 2. ideu .047 .633 3. deep .061 .306 .554 4. entitativity .032 .576 .266 .674 5. wide .043 .274 .327 .179 .706 note. diagonals are average variance extracted (ave) by each latent construct. lower diagonals are squared correlation coefficients. in order to assess the presence of a significant common method bias, we also run an alternative model with one latent factor reflected in all 22 items. common method bias is present if the one factor model fits the data as well as the hypothesized model (korsgaard & roberson, 1995). the fit-to-data of the one-factor model was unsatisfactory, tli = .477; cfi = .526; rmsea = .177. in line with our expectations, the association between threat and entitativity was significant, β = .33, z = 2.97, p < .01, as it was the association between entitativity and ideu, β = .81, z = 14.72, p < .001. in addition, ideu had a significant direct effect either on deep, β = .36, z = 4.17, p < .001, and on wide, β = .46, z = 5.32, p < .001. the direct effect of threat on ideu was not significant, β = .17, z = 1.91, p = .056, whereas the total effect of threat on ideu was significant, β = .44, z = 3.59, p < .001. in addition, threat showed a significant direct effect on deep, β = .24, z = 2.39, p < .05, yet not on wide, β = .19, z = 1.89, p = .059. similarly, entitativity exerted a significant effect on deep, β = .20, z = 2.22, p < .05, but not on wide, β = .05, z < 1. as regards indirect effects, the double-mediation path from threat to deep via entitativity (mediator 1) and ideu (mediator 2) was significant, β = .22, z = 3.39, p < .001. the indirect effect of threat on wide via entitativity (mediator 1) and ideu (mediator 2) was significant as well, β = .22, z = 3.43, p = .001. finally, we found a significant indirect effect of threat on ideu via entitativity, β = .27, z = 2.93, p < .01; a significant indirect effect of entitativity on deep, β = .29, z = 4.09, p < .001, and wide, β = .38, z = 5.11, p < .001, via ideu. la barbera, altamura, & riverso 31 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ total and direct effects are shown in figure 2. figure 2 structural equation model of the effect of perceived threat on attitude towards eu integration and enlargement via entitativity and identification with eu note. structural equation model of the effect of perceived threat (threat) on attitude towards eu integration (eu deep) and attitude towards eu enlargement (eu wide), via entitativity and identification with eu (id eu). direct effects are shown on arrows (total effects in parentheses). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion results provide support to the hypothesized indirect effect of perceived threat related to russia’s invasion of ukraine on attitudes toward a further integration of the eu (h4) and eu widening as well (h5), through entitativity and citizens’ identification with eu. eu identity is directly associated with both the eu-related attitudes (h2 and h3). importantly, the direct influence of perceived threat on eu identification is not significant (in contrast with h1), and the correlation between these two variables is significant but relatively small. perceived threat has been found to influence indirectly citizens’ identification with the eu, through entitativity (h6). perceived threat and entitativity have a significant direct effect on attitude towards eu integration (h7 and h8); they do not exert any direct influence on attitude towards eu enlargement, instead. the notion that large and heterogeneous political entities such as eu are kept together and reinforced by the fear of an external threat is very common in the history of human thought (montesquieu, 1777; simmel, 2010; steiner et al., 2023). perceived threat deriving from russia’s invasion of ukraine might influence identification with eu directly, yet also indirectly, through the raising of eu’s perceived entitativity. our findings support the latter scenario. noticeably, if entitativity was the direct antecedent of eu identification, which mediates the effect of perceived threat, the traditional idea of conflict and threat as necessary conditions for identity would be weakened. perceived threat has been shown to be only one possible antecedent of ingroup entitativity, which can be enhanced also by perception of common fate, perceived similarity, communication and symbols (callahan & ledgerwood, 2016; deng et al., 2022). from a practical point of view, this could mean that political efforts to promote eu identity may be directed toward strengthening the eu’s entitativity, rather than toward the identification of common enemies. our findings confirm and expand previous research showing that individuals identify more strongly with an ingroup when they are uncertain and the group is highly entitative (hogg et al., 2007). our findings are also in the path of previous research suggesting that entitativity may play a key role in intraand intergroup relations: ingroup entitativity may foster perceived groups’ efficacy, whereas not necessarily determining outgroup derogation (yzerbyt et al., 2000). individuals identify with their ingroup and tend to defend its values, because this enhances their sense of self-con­ tinuity (smeekes & verkuyten, 2013). hence, the symbolic threat that russia’s invasion represents—which appears amplified in the narratives of eu’s highest representatives—may well strengthen citizens’ identification with the eu. nevertheless, at least in the case of the eu, our findings show that this influence is mediated by entitativity, and entitativity—not perceived threat—is the direct antecedent of eu identity. this seems original and different from the widespread idea that perceived threat is the direct antecedent of ingroup identification (brewer, 2011; vergani, 2018). however, our findings are not necessarily incompatible with results of previous research on which this idea relies feeling threatened by the war in ukraine 32 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ upon. first, research showing a significant direct link between perceived threat and ingroup identification did not consider/test entitativity as a mediator (giles & evans, 1985; greenaway & cruwys, 2019); without considering the role of entitativity, also our studies would have shown a significant (total) effect of threat on identification. in this sense, the current research is not in contrast with previous psychological-social literature on threat-identity relation, yet expands it considering the mediating role of entitativity. second, our study suggests that entitativity fully mediates the effect of perceived threat on identification in relation to the eu, which is a supranational/supraordinate group with its own characteristics. as such, the full or partial mediation of entitativity cannot be taken for granted in relation to other groups, categories, and contexts. future research could fruitfully investigate whether this mediation is also relevant in relation to different context and groups, or whether it is specific to european identity. our findings show that perceived threat exerts a significant indirect effect—via identification with eu—on attitudes towards eu’s deepening and widening. perceived threat also directly affects citizens’ attitude towards eu’s deepening, yet it has no direct effect on their attitude towards eu’s enlargement. this different association of perceived threat to those two attitudes seems in line with research showing that, when individuals feel threatened, they not only tend to identify more strongly with their group, but also tend to operate a cognitive closure to the outside (hogg & adelman, 2013; kruglanski et al., 2006). this closure involves the rejection of any change and the desire to maintain a stable and immutable situation, predictable and familiar (bianco et al., 2022; federico et al., 2013). in a similar fashion, entitativity is directly associated with attitude towards eu deepening, whereas the direct association with attitude towards eu widening is not significant. this result could be interpreted in line with research on essence-based vs. agency-based perceived entitativity (brewer et al., 2004): the entitativity of a group may be based on perceive common properties or in terms of their goals and actions. in this study, we measured entitativity with items that mostly address the essence-based entitativity. however, previous research suggests that essence-based entitativity— compared to agency-based entitativity—may be less correlated to the attitude towards eu enlargement (la barbera, 2015). therefore, future developments of the current research may deepen the role of entitativity in the pattern of relations between perceived threat, eu identification and eu-related attitudes, distinguishing between essence-based and agency based entitativity. in sum, the present research extends the literature on the relation between european social identity, threat and entitativity; although previous research have shown a significant effect of threat and entitativity on identification, the present study provides specific evidence related to the eu, as well as the threat deriving from the war in ukraine and suggests that, at least in the case of the eu, threat is not the direct antecedent of group identification, because its influence is (totally) mediated by entitativity. in addition, the present study extends the literature on attitudes towards eu deepening and widening, showing that the perceived threat fosters attitude towards eu’s deepening and widening whereas entitativity influences only attitudes towards integration; however, further research is needed on this point. therefore, our findings suggest that the perception of the eu as a cohesive and united entity is crucial to strengthen the sense of belonging to the eu as well as more positive attitudes toward eu integration and enlargement. politics and governments might work/focus on two main aspects: awareness of the role of the eu in citizens’ life and on the perception of a united europe. strengthening the eu’s social policy and reducing disparities between eu countries could promote trust in the eu and shared sense of belonging, increasing awareness of the role of the eu in citizens’ lives as well. drawing on previous research about different contents of european identity (la barbera, 2015), the eu’s institutional policies and communication might also try to strengthen entitativity focusing on common goals and directions, rather than on characteristics linking people through (the construction/representation of) a common history. our studies present several limitations that need to be acknowledged. first and foremost, the research work has been conducted with a convenience sample and all participants were from italy. in addition, the education level of our sample is higher than the average population in both italy and the eu, whereas the mean age is lower than the average age of italians (m = 46.4) as measured in 2022 by the italian institute of statistics (istat, 2023). the online snowball sampling allowed us to obtain an adequate number of participants in a relatively brief amount of time, as we were interested in measuring individuals’ attitudes and perceived threat potentially correlated to russia’s invasion soon after the event. nevertheless, the characteristics of our sample raise concerns about the generalizability of results. overall, the insights provided in the current article should need to be supported by further research, conducted on large and multi-national samples. it would be interesting to test the pattern of relations proposed in the current study—specially la barbera, altamura, & riverso 33 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the effect of threat on eu identification fully mediated by entitativity—in different countries, such as northern and southern european member states, early and new member states, states with different distance from russia, and so forth. the correlational nature of the study poses a limitation to the strength of causal assumptions implied in the concep­ tual model proposed. this notwithstanding, the context of a historical situation in which europeans are exposed to real threatening scenarios was a precious opportunity to gain knowledge on the relations between citizens’ perceived threat, perceived entitativity of the eu, identification with the eu, and attitudes towards eu integration and enlargement. experimental assessment of this pattern of relations might of course help in shedding light further on the topics addressed in the paper, especially regarding the assumptions of causality between the study variables. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the study was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki and approved by the review board of the psychological and social research lab r. gentile, federico ii university of napoli, research protocol number 01032022. data availability: for this article, data, codebook and materials are available at la barbera (2025). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. 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(2022). energy/power as a tool that disciplines and reproduces the energy order and as a critical-analytical perspective on energy policy. energy policy, 161, article 112750. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112750 appendix table a1 items (and latent constructs) cfa loading m (sd) (perceived threat) in general, how concerned are you about the war in ukraine? .59 5.82 (1.40) how likely do you think it is that the war in ukraine will negatively affect your and/or your loved ones’ lives? .83 5.45 (1.60) how serious do you think the possible negative repercussions of the war in ukraine are likely to be on your and/or your loved ones’ lives? .88 5.25 (1.43) i believe that in the coming months the war in ukraine may pose a direct danger and put my and/or my loved ones’ safety at risk. .64 4.31 (1.81) i believe that in the coming months the war in ukraine may have negative consequences on my level of well-being. .70 4.75 (1.68) (entitativity) european citizens share a common past. .59 4.29 (1.83) european citizens have many things in common with each other. .92 3.86 (1.64) european citizens are very similar to each other. .90 3.56 (1.64) (identification with eu) i think about myself as a european citizen. .88 4.17 (1.88) i feel i am deeply tied to other european citizens. .60 4.23 (1.83) overall, i am glad to be a european citizen. .75 5.50 (1.57) being a european citizen fully represents me. .91 3.86 (1.86) (attitude towards eu deepening) eu should be a single country. .68 4.13 (2.25) i am in favor of a centralized management scheme of the european economy to replace the economic powers of individual states. .77 3.98 (2.07) i see positively a more immediate action in applying european norms. .70 4.55 (1.78) i would be in favor of the creation of one single european army to replace national armies. .76 4.17 (2.12) i would be in favor of giving a greater political power to the eu, greater than the power of each single country. .80 3.96 (2.09) (attitude towards eu widening) i see positively the enlargement of the eu beyond the countries that have joined from the beginning. .92 4.69 (1.75) i think that eu enlargement represents an opportunity for all of us. .92 4.71 (1.76) italy will experience more advantages than disadvantages from the enlargement of the eu. .77 4.42 (1.77) the enlargement of the eu is important for the future of the eu. .81 4.54 (1.77) for me personally, the enlargement brings more advantages than disadvantages. .76 4.23 (1.78) feeling threatened by the war in ukraine 38 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8066-1_2 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41295-017-0106-x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2006.00674.x https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000242 https://doi.org/10.1348/014466605x52245 https://state-of-the-union.ec.europa.eu/index_en https://doi.org/10.1080/14792772043000059 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2007.00708.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112750 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors francesco la barbera, ph.d., is associate professor of social psychology at the university of napoli federico ii (italy). his main research interests are into the theory of planned behavior, european identity, consumer behavior and sustainability, explicit and implicit attitudes in predicting behavior. carmela altamura is a ph.d. candidate at the university of napoli federico ii (italy). her research deals with european social identity, social dominance orientation, and intergroup relations. roberta riverso, ph.d., is a research fellow at the university of napoli federico ii (italy). her research interest is focused on environmental sustainability, beliefs and attitudes, innovation, uncertainty, and consumer behavior. la barbera, altamura, & riverso 39 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 25–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ feeling threatened by the war in ukraine (introduction) perceived threat from russian invasion and identification with the eu threat, identification, and eu-related attitudes aims and hypotheses method participants procedure measures statistical analysis results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references appendix table a1 about the authors the illusion of knowing in college: a field study of students with a teacher-centered educational past research reports the illusion of knowing in college: a field study of students with a teacher-centered educational past maura a. e. pilotti* a, khadija el alaoui a, huda mulhem a, halah a. al kuhayli a [a] college of science and human studies, prince mohammad bin fahd university, al khobar, kingdom of saudi arabia. abstract in the present study, the tendency to overestimate performance (illusion of knowing) was examined in college students whose educational past experiences had emphasized verbatim learning. female students enrolled in core curriculum classes were sampled. classes taught by the same instructor were randomly assigned to a self-assessment practice condition, where students predicted their test and class performance and were asked to reflect on discrepancies between predictions and actual performance, or to a control condition. at the end of the semester, irrespective of condition, as performance declined on the final test, predictions of final test grades became more inflated, but less confident, indicating that students were aware of their own deficiencies. overall, students in the practice condition displayed not only greater prediction accuracy, but also greater final test performance than students in the control condition. practice, however, benefited the most self-assessment accuracy of students whose final test grades were just above the passing grade. although the responses to selfassessment practice of students with a teacher-centered educational past were largely similar to the responses of students from western countries reported in the extant literature, differences in impact and meaning could be inferred. keywords: self-assessment, performance, culture europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 received: 2019-02-13. accepted: 2019-05-02. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: frederic vallee-tourangeau, kingston university, london, uk *corresponding author at: prince mohammad bin fahd university, p.o. box 1664, al khobar 31952, kingdom of saudi arabia. tel: +966 5351 66572. e-mail: mpilotti@pmu.edu.sa this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. metacognitive monitoring refers to activities that gather information about one’s own knowledge and skills in relation to the demands of a task (e.g., a test, a reading assignment, etc.), and then use it to adapt one’s actions to achieve desired performance standards (koriat, ackerman, adiv, lockl, & schneider, 2014). according to this view of metacognition, two conditions must be met by learners in their pursuit of desired performance: first and foremost, learners must have a realistic grasp of their knowledge, understanding, and competence in relation to the demands of the situation (e.g., a test). thus, the illusion of knowing phenomenon, which is a common judgment of overestimation of one’s knowledge, understanding, and/or competence is to be prevented at all costs (dunning, heath, & suls, 2004; glenberg, wikinson, & epstein, 1982). second, learners must be willing and able to use strategically information about their knowledge, understanding, and competence to modulate thought and action during learning and testing (avhustiuk, pasichnyk, & kalamazh, 2018). this model of metacognition, according to which increasing students’ awareness of their knowledge in relation to the specific demands of a situation aids achievement, informs several activities that spontaneously take europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ place in college classes around the globe. consider, for instance, the instructors’ practice of reviewing the content of a test or assignment in class after having graded it, as well as students’ inquiries about their grades. the model has also generated targeted-interventions whose effects have yielded mixed results. an example is the practice of asking students to predict their exam scores before and after tests, which is later followed by a comparison of predicted and actual performance (achacoso, 2004). this practice is firmly rooted in the belief that inaccurate judgments about knowledge and capabilities are likely to interfere with students’ recognition of their deficiencies and needs for improvement (dunning, johnson, ehrlinger, & kruger, 2003). as a result, it relies on a set of sequential assumptions: first, students who experience the illusion of knowing will likely overestimate their performance and feel confident about their overestimations, only to discover afterward that they were wrong. second, discrepancies between predicted and actual performance will make students aware of what they do and do not know. third, such awareness will lead them to make needed adjustments to their learning. it is reasonable to ask whether these assumptions are supported by unequivocal facts. evidence exists that predictions of test performance may improve students’ accuracy of self-assessment (dunlosky, serra, matvey, & rawson, 2005), but not always performance (miller & geraci, 2011a). in addition, students’ accuracy of self-assessment decreases as their performance declines (jee, wiley, & griffin, 2006; pallier et al., 2002). namely, the most vulnerable students in the class are those that overestimate their performance the most (bol & hacker, 2001; hacker, bol, horgan, & rakow, 2000; kruger & dunning, 1999). however, miller and geraci (2011b), who differentiated functional overconfidence (e.g., predicting a grade higher than the one received on a test), from subjective overconfidence (e.g., being certain that one’s prediction is correct), found that vulnerable students place little confidence in their inflated estimates (miller & geraci, 2011b). thus, low-performing students are not “blissfully incompetent” (williams, 2004), “unskilled” and “unaware” (ehrlinger, johnson, banner, dunning, & kruger, 2008), as it has been claimed, but rather their overestimates appear to be a form of wishful thinking that temporarily shields their self-concept from adverse events. yet, evidence mostly comes from the western world. the cultural environments in which people have been raised may shape learning in different ways, thereby promoting some abilities over others (hofstede, 1986; lundeberg, fox, brown, & elbedour, 2000). for instance, a culture that relies on oral transmission of knowledge is likely to promote verbatim learning in its youngsters, and thus enhance their verbatim memory skills relative to those of young westerners (rogoff, 1990). in such a culture, older adults are often given the key role of transmitting knowledge, including cultural traditions and history. not surprisingly, a teacher-centered pedagogy (stipek, 1991; weimer, 2002), which emphasizes verbatim learning and sees the teacher as the authority ultimately responsible for assessment, comes to shape formal education. in a nutshell, this is the history of primary and secondary education in the kingdom of saudi arabia (al khazim, 2003; al lily, 2011; al mezani, 2010; günther, 2006; hamdan, 2014; mahrous & ahmed, 2010). although verbatim learning is largely inadequate for successful performance in college, it is a habit that is resistant to change. students revert to it as they find it a comforting escape from the more nebulous problem-solving approach of higher education. through the lenses of this form of teacher-centered education, there is no uncertainty regarding what constitutes successful performance (oettingen, 1995; weimer, 2002). performance attainment is defined by students’ ability to repeat the words uttered by the instructor or written in textbooks (säljö, 1981). the principal source of assessment is the instructor who is regarded as “the sage on the stage.” obviously, when faced with learning tasks of hundreds of pages, students cannot rely entirely on a reproductive approach to learning (biggs, 1976), which is their preferred mode. nevertheless, they resist fully exploring a more reflective and active approach, including organizing and linking new to known materials (säljö, 1981). for inthe illusion of knowing 790 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stance, students may mention selected facts, and describe discrete contents, but rarely venture into reorganizing contents or attempt to go beyond the information given (entwistle, 1979). not surprisingly, disaster strikes when this habit of information processing is applied to prepare for tests that require not just retention and local comprehension of key concepts, but also application, analysis, evaluation, and generation of original work (bloom, 1976). even then, students may resist abandoning their preferred mode of processing entirely (fareh, 2010; mclellan, 2012). the habit of faithful reproduction is also selectively reinforced in particular classes, such as arabic and islamic studies (douglass, & shaikh, 2004) and oral communication, where verbatim learning is often seen as an efficient (i.e., quick and reliable) strategy of information acquisition and retention. rationale of the present field study the present study is based on the metacognitive model described above, according to which self-regulation of thought and action for the purpose of optimizing learning or testing is dependent on students’ ability to gather realistic information about the knowledge and skills they possess. thus, to induce metacognitive awareness (flavell, 1979) of what is known and what is not known, students are asked to predict their test and class performance (functional confidence) and report their degree of trust in the predictions made (subjective confidence) at four different times during the semester. they are also required to examine their predictions against the grades they actually receive and reflect on any discrepancies. students with a teacher-centered educational past offer an uncharted ground for testing the power of recurrent and explicit self-assessment on metacognitive awareness and performance as they habitually rely on the instructor for self-assessment. it is hypothesized that in such students self-assessment practice, relative to a condition without practice, will improve metacognitive awareness and thus estimates of final test performance made at the end of the semester. based on the findings of miller and geraci (2011b), students with less than desirable performance are expected to benefit the most from self-assessment practice in terms of improved metacognitive awareness rather than actual performance. however, such students in ksa may also be those that most firmly rely on verbatim learning and on the assessment provided by the instructor (i.e., the expert). thus, students who routinely treat the instructor as the principal source of appraisal may discount the feedback provided by explicit self-assessment, rendering self-assessment practice moot. namely, a pedagogical tool, which has been proven to be effective in the western world, may not be equally effective in the middle east (mahrous & ahmed, 2010; smith, 2006). alternatively, its novelty may grab students’ attention, leading them to recognize the usefulness of the information it provides. as a new gadget whose utility is suddenly recognized due to compulsory use, self-assessment practice may induce a change not only in metacognitive awareness, but also in performance through new habit formation. additionally, students may be more or less sensitive to an intervention intended to enhance metacognitive awareness depending on the adverse experiences they encountered in college. consider that time constraints, poor academic background, and limited course-relevant experiences and skills have been reported to be key sources of withdrawal from courses (hayward, 2003; lee & choi, 2011; poling, 1979). thus, the number of college classes students completed compared to those they attempted (i.e., class completion ratio) can be treated as an index of experiences in which performance did not match expectations. studies have shown that, in addition to interventions that encourage or require students to use support services (gordanier, hauk, & sankaran, 2018), simply reminding students of their standing in a course can improve performance and thus reduce course withdrawal rates (chen & okediji, 2014; smith, white, kuzyk, & tierney, 2018). it is reasonable to expect responses to a technique that is intended to promote self-understanding, such as self-assessment practice, to vary with students’ class completion rate. namely, we pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 791 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predict that smaller class completion ratios may be associated with students’ increased sensitivity to overt selfassessment practice, as such practice in class both encourages and normalizes the task of understanding one’s current situation. if functional and subjective confidence ratings are considered local judgments, it is reasonable to ask whether they are informed by broader traits, such as general self-efficacy. general self-efficacy refers to students’ underlying confidence to perform well across diverse tasks and situations. it is considered a motivational trait (chen, gully, whiteman, & kilcullen, 2000) positively correlated with task completion rates (eden, 1984, 1988; pajares, 1996), persistence (bandura, 1977; pajares, 1997), motivation and engagement (bandura, 1989; bandura & schunk, 1981). in the western world, some evidence exists that it can predict functional confidence (avhustiuk et al., 2018), but evidence of its ability to predict academic achievement is mixed (pintrich, smith, garcia, & mckeachie, 1993; wilhite, 1990; zeegers, 2004). in students with a teacher-centered educational past, general self-efficacy may predict functional and subjective confidence ratings if such local judgments are the reflection of a motivation to change established learning habits. it may even predict performance if motivation has led to action. in addition, general self-efficacy may specifically modulate students’ responses to selfassessment practice so that students with varying confidence in their abilities are more or less sensitive to the practice of estimating grades. method participants the participants were 685 female college students at a university in the eastern province of ksa. participants reported arabic as their first language and english as their second language. for university admission, students had demonstrated english language competence through standardized english proficiency tests. students completed primary and secondary schooling in ksa. they were all commuters from nearby towns or cities who were enrolled in a core curriculum class, which offered practice in basic academic skills (e.g., writing, speaking, reasoning, etc.) across a variety of topics or focused on a specific domain of knowledge, such as history, arabic culture and religion, and psychology. if a student was enrolled in more than one of the selected core curriculum classes, withdrew, or missed the midterm or the final test, her data were not included in the current sample (12.51%). weimer’s dimensions differentiating educational approaches (weimer, 2002) were used to classify students as possessing a teacher-centered educational past and habits of information acquisition reliant on verbatim learning. due to gender-segregation rules, a corresponding male sample was unattainable. materials and procedure convenience sampling (i.e., consent of the instructor, and minimal or absent overlap of students) was used to select 32 classes. for each instructor, sections of the same class were randomly assigned to either a self-assessment practice condition (n = 337 students) or a control condition (n = 348 students) to ensure that instructors would have half of the classes assigned to practice and the other half to control. instructors were either local hires or foreigners, but all possessed graduate degrees obtained outside ksa. in table 1, the practice condition involved 4 phases in which students estimated their class grade (phase 1 and phase 3) as well as their grade on the midterm (phase 2) and final exams (phase 4), before and after each test. the illusion of knowing 792 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as per institutional guidelines, all classes required a midterm test and a final test, which 1) included a fair mixture of short-answer and multiple-choice questions, and 2) assessed not only retention and understanding of key information, but also use of knowledge, such as application, analysis, and evaluation (see bloom’s taxonomy; bloom, 1976). table 1 procedure of the field experiment and descriptive statistics (means and standard errors of the mean) by phase and condition variable practice condition control condition phase 1 estimation of class grades accuracy 2.39 (0.50) — confidence 2.50 (0.05) — phase 2 midterm test grades 84.19 (0.85) 83.17 (0.84) estimation of midterm test grades prospective accuracy 3.84 (0.87) — prospective confidence 2.11 (0.05) — retrospective accuracy 0.83 (0.77) — retrospective confidence 1.96 (0.06) — phase 3 estimation of class grades accuracy 1.85 (0.43) — confidence 2.10 (0.06) — phase 4 final test grades 86.75 (0.77) 82.56 (0.76) estimation of final test grades prospective accuracy 2.33 (0.70) 4.69 (0.69) prospective confidence 2.23 (0.06) 2.28 (0.06) retrospective accuracy 0.92 (0.68) 3.57 (0.67) retrospective confidence 2.13 (0.06) 2.28 (0.06) end of semester class grades 89.06 (0.52) 88.17 (0.51) phase 1 was initiated during the first 2 weeks of the semester. students assigned to the practice condition were given a sheet on which they were to predict their class grade on a scale from 0 to 100, as well as to express their confidence in the prediction made on a scale from 0 (not at all confident) to 4 (extremely confident). all students, irrespective of the condition to which they were assigned, completed the new general self-efficacy (ngse; chen, gully, & eden, 2001) inventory. the ngse required students to report the extent to which they agreed with each of eight statements of general confidence in one’s abilities on a scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). phase 2 of the practice condition was implemented during the administration of midterm tests. before starting the midterm test and after having completed it, each student predicted her performance. for both prospective and retrospective estimates, the student expressed her confidence in the prediction made. instructors discussed the content of the midterm test upon returning it to students to ensure adequate performance feedback. phase 3 of the practice condition was administered during the last 2 weeks of the semester. students were pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 793 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ again asked to predict their class grade as well as express their subjective confidence in the prediction made. estimates and confidence ratings of phases 1–3, which were made on separate sheets of paper, were returned to students within a week so that information was available for review before additional predictions were required. students were encouraged to reflect on discrepancies between predictions and actual performance, and, where needed, to consider remedies either by themselves or with the aid of the instructor. they were informed that explicit and periodic assessment of their performance followed by self-reflection would offer them the opportunity to understand what they acquired and how they acquired it in reference to the demands posed either by a specific activity or by the collection of activities that a class placed on them. as predictions of class grades could be verified only at the end of the semester, students were encouraged to check the running average of all completed activities on their course management system to evaluate the extent to which their predictions matched their actual performance. phase 4 was implemented during the administration of the final tests. each student predicted her performance on the final test, as well as expressed her confidence in the prediction made before and after the test. to minimize the temptation of aspirational predictions, in all phases, students were reminded to report what they reasonably believed to be their grade at the time of the inquiry. they were explicitly discouraged to report what they wished their grade to be. as the semester moved closer to its end, all students were expected to have increased their knowledge of the demands of the class in which they were enrolled (i.e., as assessed by differences between phase 1 and phase 3), and of the more specific demands of its tests (i.e., as assessed by differences between phase 2 and phase 4). thus, the control condition, where students did not predict their grades in phases 1–3, served to offer a “business-as-usual” setting, against which the effects of self-assessment practice could be measured. as in the practice condition, however, instructors discussed the content of the midterm test upon returning it to students to ensure adequate performance feedback (see mahrous & ahmed, 2010). furthermore, students assigned to the control condition predicted their grades and reported their confidence in their predictions during phase 4 so that functional and subjective confidence estimates expressed without any practice could be compared with those made in the condition where estimates were a recursive exercise. results all results reported in this section are considered significant at the .05 level. the first set of analyses involved comparisons between control and practice conditions to assess initial baseline equivalence. thus, at the start of the semester, the grade-point average (gpa) values of the students assigned to the control condition (m = 3.10, sem = 0.03) and practice condition (m = 3.09, sem = 0.03) were compared. they were found not to be different, f < 1, ns. because gpa represents a global criterion, subject to influences from a large array of factors, completion rate (i.e., number of courses completed over number of courses attempted) as well as general self-efficacy (bandura, 1977), a motivational factor that might impact performance, were also examined. selfefficacy, measured by the new general self-efficacy inventory (ngse; chen et al., 2001), did not differ between control (m = 4.30, sem = 0.02) and practice (m = 4.36, sem = 0.02), f(1, 683) = 3.31, p = .069. similarly, class completion rates were not different between control (m = 0.95, sem = 0.01) and practice (m = 0.94, sem = 0.01), f(1, 683) = 1.99, p = .159. in compliance with the guidelines of the office for human research protections of the u.s. department of health & human services, data collected were entered into a database in which each student was assigned a the illusion of knowing 794 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ random number. thus, upon completion of the study, records were devoid of identifying information. the data analyzed involved those of students for whom the midterm, final test, class grades, and functional and subjective confidence ratings were available. prediction accuracy (i.e., functional confidence) was measured as a difference between estimated grades and actual test or class grades. thus, a value of 0 represented perfectly accurate self-assessment, a value greater than 0 indicated an overestimation and a value below 0 represented an underestimation. predictions of final test grades: students’ accuracy of estimation and confidence at the end of the semester, predictions made by students who practiced self-assessment were expected to be more accurate and confident than those of students assigned to the control condition. performance might follow suit if self-assessment practice affected students’ study activities. however, because knowledge of a test increased after having taken it, all students were expected to be more accurate and confident in their predictions after having completed the final test. to test these predictions, a 2 timing of prediction (prospective and retrospective) x 2 condition (control and practice) mixed factorial anova was conducted on functional confidence (i.e., accuracy) and subjective confidence of estimation of final test grades. descriptive statistics are displayed in table 1. retrospective estimations were more accurate than prospective estimations, f(1, 683) = 33.64, mse = 16.36, p < .001, ηp 2 = .047. as illustrated in figure 1, estimations in the practice condition were superior to those of the control condition, f(1, 683) = 7.04, mse = 304.45, p = .008, ηp 2 = .010 (interaction: f < 1, ns). subjective confidence in estimated values, however, was not sensitive to either condition or timing of prediction (fs ≤ 2.34, p ≥ .127). figure 1. mean prospective and retrospective prediction accuracy (left) and subjective confidence (right) of final test grades as a function of condition. standard errors of the mean are represented by the error bars attached to each column. a 2 condition (control and practice) x 2 test (midterm and final exam) mixed factorial anova on students’ grades indicated that not only prediction accuracy, but also overall performance was higher in the practice than in the control condition, f(1, 683) = 6.65, mse = 348.96, p = .001, ηp 2 = .010. no significant differences between tests were observed, f(1, 683) = 3.01, p = .069. yet, a significant interaction suggested a more complex pattern, f(1, 683) = 8.81, mse = 98.24, p = .003, ηp 2 = .013 (see figure 2). tests of simple effects indicated that students’ final test performance was higher in the practice than in the control condition, t(683) = 3.87, p < .001. pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 795 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ if predictions of final grades reflected the impact of self-assessment practice on students’ test performance, the absence of a difference between conditions in midterm test grades (t < 1, ns) indicated that explicit self-assessment required time before it could be beneficial to performance. figure 2. midterm and final grades as a function of condition. standard errors of the mean are represented by the error bars attached to each column. predictions of class grades: students’ accuracy of estimation and confidence predictions of class grades (see table 1) were considered more complex than those involving test grades as they would require students to combine estimates of the outcomes of an array of activities carried out during an entire semester. nevertheless, as students’ knowledge of class demands improved from the beginning (phase 1) to the end of the semester (phase 3), predictions in the practice condition were expected to be more accurate and confident. a one-way anova indicated that accuracy did not change, f(1, 336) = 2.43, p = .120, from phase 1 to phase 3. however, subjective confidence declined, f(1, 336) = 42.15, mse = .63, p < .001, ηp 2 = .111, suggesting that increasing knowledge of class demands made students less likely to trust their estimates. consistent with the null finding regarding prediction accuracy, a one-way anova on class grades indicated that performance in the practice and control condition did not differ, f(1, 683) = 1.49, p = .223. in our study, class grades not only combined performance evaluations from multiple sources (e.g., tests and assignments), but also received less clearly targeted feedback (mahrous & ahmed, 2010), thereby being more difficult to estimate than final test grades. according to students, predictions of final test grades could benefit from the objective feedback obtained from the midterm, whereas predictions of class grades on phase 3 had to rely in part on the running average of all completed activities on the course management system. running averages were considered by students less informative than the feedback gathered from estimating midterm performance and completing the midterm. the nebulous feedback of class grades appeared only to have made students more cautious. indeed, as self-assessment practice increased from phase 1 to phase 3, it had no visible impact on the accuracy of estimation of class grades or on actual grades, but it promoted less confidence in the estimates made. the illusion of knowing 796 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prediction accuracy and subjective confidence as a function of performance level and condition regression analyses were conducted to assess whether high and low performing students’ functional and subjective confidence would be differentially sensitive to self-assessment practice (see table 2). in these analyses, condition (control and practice), performance (final test grades) and the interaction term served as predictors. performance, which was treated as a continuous variable, was centered on its mean value (field, 2009). retrospective ratings of final test grades and related confidence served as the outcome variables because they provided a stringent test of the impact of self-assessment practice above and beyond the knowledge of class and test demands that would be normally acquired by students at the end of the semester. table 2 regression analyses of retrospective prediction accuracy and subjective confidence of final test grades as a function of condition, performance, and interaction predictor b se beta t p prediction accuracy constant +1.956 0.421 condition +0.283 0.599 +0.011 +0.47 .636 performance* −0.700 0.021 −0.801 −32.87 <.001 interaction* +0.080 0.021 +0.090 +3.74 <.001 subjective confidence constant +2.345 0.058 condition* −0.260 0.082 −0.117 −3.18 .002 performance* +0.025 0.003 +0.319 +8.51 <.001 interaction* −0.006 0.003 −0.076 −2.04 .042 note. prediction accuracy (functional confidence): r = 0.79. subjective confidence: r = 0.32. *significant contribution of predictor to dependent variable. performance contributed to the accuracy of retrospective predictions (see top half of table 2), indicating that predictions changed from liberal (i.e., overestimation) to conservative (i.e., underestimation) as performance increased. the significant interaction, however, revealed that estimation accuracy benefited from practice selectively, depending on the students’ performance level. the same regression analysis performed on students’ subjective confidence regarding their retrospective predictions uncovered a significant independent contribution of condition and performance (see bottom half of table 2), indicating that self-assessment practice made students less confident in their predictions and that confidence decreased as performance declined. yet, the significant interaction revealed that confidence declines as a function of assessment practice were dependent upon students’ performance level. regression analyses pertaining to prospective predictions and related subjective confidence are reported in the appendix 1. they showed a similar pattern for prospective estimates, and an attenuated pattern for subjective confidence, whereby confidence and performance merely decreased together. the contribution of performance to both outcome variables illustrated a phenomenon also reported by miller and geraci (2011). namely, as performance declined, retrospective estimates became more inflated, but less confident. to better understand the patterns yielded by the interaction of condition and performance, we organized students into four performance levels based on their final test grades: (highest: 100–90%; high: 89–80%; low: 79–67%; and lowest: below 67%, which corresponded to failing the test). table 3, which reports descriptive pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 797 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistics, uncovers several patterns involving the selective impact of self-assessment practice. the practice exercise benefited the most the accuracy of retrospective estimates of students with barely passing (i.e., low) performance, whereas it reduced the subjective confidence in the estimates made as performance increased. table 3 mean retrospective prediction accuracy and subjective confidence of final test grades, grouped by performance level and condition performance level (%) practice condition control condition difference accuracy lowest + 24.23 (1.15) +24.53 (1.30) −0.03 low +3.83 (1.45) +12.67 (0.84) −8.84 high −0.53 (1.03) −1.81 (0.72) −1.28 highest −4.33 (0.55) −4.91 (0.75) −0.58 subjective confidence lowest 1.63 (0.16) 1.42 (0.17) +0.21 low 1.62 (0.20) 2.02 (0.11) −0.40 high 1.93 (0.14) 2.38 (0.10) −0.45 highest 2.36 (0.07) 2.67 (0.10) −0.31 note. standard errors of the mean are in parentheses. prediction accuracy, subjective confidence, and performance as a function of selfefficacy, completion rates, and condition self-assessment of test performance, including functional and subjective confidence, might be the expression of students’ broader sense of trust in their abilities (as indexed by general self-efficacy), and failed expectations (as indexed by class completion rates). regression analyses were conducted to determine the contribution of these factors, in addition to self-assessment practice, to functional and subjective confidence and final test grades. as discussed earlier, retrospective ratings of final test grades and related confidence served as the outcome variables because they provided a stringent test of the impact of self-assessment practice above and beyond the knowledge of class and test demands that students would normally acquire in a semester. in these analyses, condition (control and practice), general self-efficacy, class completion rates and two key interaction terms (condition x general self-efficacy, and condition x class-completion rates) served as predictors. interaction terms were selected in recognition of the fact that the impact of self-assessment practice might vary depending on students’ class completion rates or self-efficacy. class completion rates and general self-efficacy, which were treated as continuous variables, were centered on their respective mean values (field, 2009). the results of these regression analyses are displayed in table 4. the only significant contributor to functional and subjective confidence ratings was self-assessment practice. however, both self-assessment practice and general self-efficacy (ngse) contributed to students’ final test performance. specifically, students’ self-efficacy increased with their test performance, suggesting that a broader sense of confidence in one’s ability may promote a more efficient execution of test requirements. yet, it did not predict local judgments, such as functional and subjective confidence of final test grades, suggesting that such judgments may be considered the expression of a motivational state rather than of a motivational trait. the illusion of knowing 798 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 regression analyses of retrospective prediction accuracy and subjective confidence of final test grades, and final test grades as a function of condition, general self efficacy (gse), class completion rates (ccr), and relevant interactions predictor b se beta t p prediction accuracy constant +3.574 0.672 condition* −2.573 0.957 −0.103 −2.69 .007 gse −1.928 1.202 −0.061 −1.60 .109 ccr −2.882 4.660 −0.024 −0.62 .536 interaction (gse & condition) −0.272 1.202 −0.009 −0.23 .821 interaction (ccr & condition) +6.640 4.660 +0.056 +1.43 .155 subjective confidence constant +2.286 0.060 condition* −0.171 0.085 −0.077 −2.00 .046 gse +0.196 0.107 −0.070 +1.83 .068 ccr −0.239 0.415 −0.023 −0.57 .566 interaction (gse & condition) +0.085 0.107 +0.030 +0.79 .428 interaction (ccr & condition) −0.025 0.415 −0.002 −0.06 .952 final test performance constant +82.638 0.759 condition* +3.916 1.082 +0.137 +3.62 <.001 gse* 4.516 1.359 +0.125 +3.32 <.000 ccr −2.316 5.266 −0.017 −0.44 .660 interaction (gse & condition) +0.662 1.359 +0.018 −0.49 .626 interaction (ccr & condition) −6.263 5.266 −0.046 −1.19 .235 note. prediction accuracy (functional confidence): r = 0.14. subjective confidence: r = 0.10. final test performance: r = 0.20. *significant contribution of predictor to outcome variable. qualitative evidence informal focus groups (as part of debriefing sessions) and observations were conducted at the end of the semester with students and instructors regarding the impact of self-assessment practice. given the hectic nature of end-of-the-semester activities, convenience sampling of students and instructors was utilized. to ensure candor and respect anonymity, individual comments were recorded without a link to the self-assessment data collected in class. these inquiries led to the following additional qualitative findings: 1) practice helped students keep attention focused on discrepancies between predicted grades and actual grades. it also made them acutely aware of the distinction between desired grades and grades that could be predicted if exerted effort, adopted study strategies, and demands of tests or class are carefully and objectively considered. 2) attention to self-assessment helped some students feel more in control of their learning and led them to seek a better understanding of how their study efforts and strategies to prepare for tests could be related to their performance. (3) noticeably diminished were instructors’ reports of grade groveling inside and outside the classroom, grade appeals, as well as reports of adversarial interactions between instructors and students regarding performance. of course, given our reliance on convenience sampling, and the absence of a link between individual comments and the data collected in class, these opinions and observations are informative, but of limited impact and in need of additional testing. pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 799 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the overall findings of the present investigation can be summarized in three points: first, at the end of the semester, practice with self-assessment improved students’ ability to predict final test performance (i.e., functional confidence) and their actual performance, but did not markedly affect their subjective confidence in the predictions made. second, practice with self-assessment did not improve students’ ability to predict class grades from the start (phase 1) to the end of the semester (phase 3), but it made subjective confidence in their predictions more conservative. third, general self-efficacy along with self-assessment practice predicted final test performance, but not functional or subjective confidence. these findings obscured two key individual differences. first, at the lowest performance level, overestimations dominated predictions, whereas at the highest level, underestimations prevailed. yet, the students whose prediction accuracy of final test performance benefited the most from practice were those with score just above the passing level (68–79%). as performance increased, students responded to self-assessment practice by becoming less confident in their estimates. these patterns indicated that self-assessment practice effects were selective, either targeting deficiencies in metacognitive awareness in students with barely passing grades or restraining subjective confidence in students who already possessed adequate metacognitive awareness and performance. second, low performers overestimated their final test grades, but exhibited little confidence in their optimistic estimations. high performers underestimated their final test grades but did so with greater confidence. thus, patterns of underestimation and overestimation associated with performance levels did not appear to be merely statistical artifacts (see krueger, & mueller, 2002) or undiluted differences in metacognitive skills (kruger & dunning, 1999). they appeared to be sensible judgments based on students’ knowledge of their capabilities in relation to the demands of the situation they faced. as judgments are made within a socio-cultural context, they are also likely to reflect self-presentation tactics. it has been argued that a person’s confidence is shaped by the culture in which he/she lives (hofstede, 1986). unlike western culture, which is, in essence, individualistic, arabic culture is collectivistic/situational, whereby the needs and goals of the group to which one is affiliated take precedence over the needs and goals of the individual (feghali, 1997). thus, if western students see test and class performance as having implications primarily for themselves, arab students see performance as having implications for themselves within the social fabric of the group(s) to which they belong. lundeberg et al. (2000) reported that students of arab descent (palestinian) tended to be overconfident compared to western students. although we found the self-assessment patterns of students of arab descent (ksa nationals) to be largely equivalent to those of western students, differences may exist in the meaning attributed to overestimations. indeed, for arab students, overestimations may be the byproducts of strategies intended to maintain positive views not only of themselves in the communities to which they belong, but also of such communities. for western students, overestimations may be the byproducts of self-serving strategies intended to maintain a positive self-image. thus, the impact of self-assessment practice on arab students with a teacher-centered training can be considered broader, implicating key aspects of the social fabric in which students carve their identities. a reproductive approach, which is often promoted by a teacher-centered education, and a reflective/active approach generally lead students to focus on different kinds of information when learning. these approaches have consequences, affecting what students learn, and ultimately their grades (säljö, 1981). although it is generally believed that a reflective/active approach has a positive impact on learning outcomes, the examination of the illusion of knowing 800 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the relationship between learning approaches and academic outcomes (e.g., gpa) has produced inconsistent results (heikkilä, niemivirta, nieminen, & lonka, 2011; watkins & hattie, 1981; zeegers, 2001, 2004; zeegers & martin, 2001). qualitative evidence from students with a teacher-centered educational past, such as ours, may help understand these inconsistencies in the literature. in fact, for students with a teacher-centered educational past, not only the reflective/active approach is adopted on a limited basis when circumstances demand it, but also a reproductive approach may be seen as effective under other circumstances. for instance, consider test questions that require definitions of key concepts to be applied to real-life situations, analyzed, or evaluated (bloom, 1976). according to our debriefing and focus-group data, students see memorization and comprehension of definitions as a means to ensure retrieval of key concepts during a test that may ask them to explain, compare, contrast, or apply such concepts to real-life situations. thus, awareness of one’s performance, induced by repeated exercise of grade estimation, may not be sufficient to quickly induce new habit formation in students with a teacher-centered educational past (i.e., rejection of their proclivities for replication). rather it may encourage a more optimal calibration of learning approaches based on the demands of the variety of situations that students face at different times. if self-assessment practice can shape metacognitive awareness, functional and subjective confidence may be expected to be related to a motivational trait, such as self-efficacy. in the present study, self-efficacy predicted final test grades, but not self-assessment accuracy and confidence. thus, our findings are consistent with those illustrating a positive correlation between self-efficacy and academic achievement (pintrich et al., 1993; zeegers, 2004). however, they are inconsistent with those of avhustiuk et al. (2018), who found that students’ general self-efficacy increased with the accuracy of self-assessment. in an earlier study (al kuhayli et al., 2019), involving a larger group of students with a teacher-centered educational past, we found no link between general self-efficacy and measures of self-assessment and performance. these inconsistencies require further examination. aspects of the methodology of the present field study may raise questions about the unambiguous interpretation of our findings, such as random assignment of sections of the same class, rather than participants, to conditions. we relied for data collection on courses, but we selected instructors who taught at least two different sections of the same course so that for each section assigned to control another was assigned to practice. as per information collected from debriefings of students after the study was completed, the estimates made in the practice condition tended to be perceived by the students as routine class activities, perhaps less noteworthy than the content of assignments and tests, but as required as class attendance, timing submission of work, etc. students mentioned their heavy workload, usually long commutes, and family obligations as their primary concerns. main topics of conversation outside the classroom were reported to be specific troublesome assignments, instructors’ demands and behavioral styles, and social life matters. thus, it is not surprising that students assigned to the practice condition did not appear to treat the estimation task as a significant topic of discussion outside of the classroom. lastly, although our sample was female-only, it is important to note that cross-cultural evidence of gender differences in functional and subjective confidence is meager. namely, contrary to stereotypes, women appear to be just as confident as men (lundeberg et al., 2000). funding the authors have no funding to report. pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 801 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references achacoso, m. v. 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(2001). a learning-to-learn program in a first-year chemistry class. higher education research & development, 20, 35-52. https://doi.org/10.1080/07924360120043630 appendix appendix 1 regression analyses of prospective prediction accuracy and subjective confidence of final test grades as a function of condition, performance, and interaction. predictor b se beta t p prediction accuracy constant +2.993 0.403 condition +0.783 0.573 +0.030 +1.37 .172 performance* −0.750 0.020 −0.834 −36.79 <.001 interaction* +0.071 0.020 +0.078 +3.50 .001 subjective confidence constant +2.332 0.054 condition −0.142 0.076 −0.069 −1.86 .064 performance* +0.021 0.003 +0.296 +7.82 <.001 interaction −0.003 0.003 −0.044 −1.17 .243 note. prediction accuracy (functional confidence): r = 0.82. subjective confidence: r = 0.29. *significant contribution of predictor to outcome variable. about the authors maura a. e. pilotti, faculty, college of science and human studies, prince mohammad bin fahd university, al khobar, kingdom of saudi arabia. she is a cognitive psychologist whose research interests include learning and memory processes across the lifespan. currently, her research focuses on the interrelations of memory, language, and emotion. she received her ph.d. in cognitive psychology at the city university of new york (usa). khadija el alaoui, faculty, college of science and human studies, prince mohammad bin fahd university, al khobar, kingdom of saudi arabia. she is a scholar of american cultures whose specializations encompass history and peace and justice studies. currently, her research focuses on the history of the arab and western worlds, human diversity, and cultural practices. she received her ph.d. in american studies from the university of dresden (germany). huda mulhem, faculty, college of science and human studies, prince mohammad bin fahd university, al khobar, kingdom of saudi arabia. she is a scholar of islamic studies and education. her research focuses on the impact of religious beliefs and culture on educational practices. she received her ph.d. in islamic studies at iman ouzai university (lebanon). the illusion of knowing 806 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1529-1006.2004.00017.x https://doi.org/10.1348%2f000709901158424 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f0729436032000168487 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f07924360120043630 https://www.psychopen.eu/ halah a. al kuhayli, faculty, college of science and human studies, prince mohammad bin fahd university, al khobar, kingdom of saudi arabia. she is a researcher of islamic cultures. her major expertise is education and cultural studies. she earned her m.a. in islamic culture from imam muhammad ibn saud islamic university (ksa). pilotti, el alaoui, mulhem, & al kuhayli 807 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 789–807 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1921 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the illusion of knowing (introduction) rationale of the present field study method participants materials and procedure results predictions of final test grades: students’ accuracy of estimation and confidence predictions of class grades: students’ accuracy of estimation and confidence prediction accuracy and subjective confidence as a function of performance level and condition prediction accuracy, subjective confidence, and performance as a function of self-efficacy, completion rates, and condition qualitative evidence discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors integrative review of the recent literature on human resilience: from concepts, theories, and discussions towards a complex understanding literature reviews integrative review of the recent literature on human resilience: from concepts, theories, and discussions towards a complex understanding clément métais 1,2, nicolas burel 3,4, jane e. gillham 5, cyril tarquinio 1, charles martin-krumm 1,6,7 [1] ea 4360, apemac udl, metz, france. [2] f3s, university of strasbourg, strasbourg, france. [3] teaching and research unit in physical education and sport (uer-eps), university of teacher education, lausanne, switzerland. [4] sens-ea.3742, université grenoble alpes, grenoble, france. [5] psychology department, swarthmore college, swarthmore, pa, usa. [6] laboratoire de psychologie de l'ecole de psychologues praticiens, paris, france. [7] irba, brétigny, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 received: 2019-11-11 • accepted: 2020-09-15 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: austin lee nichols, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa corresponding author: clément métais, 14 rue de bergheim, 67100, strasboug, france. tel: +33 6 60 87 27 08. e-mail: clement-metais@laposte.net supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract resilience may be viewed as the capacity of an individual, or perhaps of a dynamic system, to adjust and adapt positively to adversities and disruptions that impact one’s functioning and development. yet a common statement in the literature is that there are still today numerous ways of defining and conceiving resilience. this multiplicity of approaches calls for clarification and generates a need of common theoretical ground. therefore, this review aims to examine, to clarify and to synthesize how “human” resilience is conceptualized within the recent human sciences literature to help answer the question: ‘what are the key approaches, concepts, and definitions of resilience?”. following whittemore and knafl (2005, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2005.03621.x) methods, an integrative review of the recent resilience literature (2013–2019) was undertaken. four databases were used for the search: psycinfo, pubmed, eric, google scholar. a reference and citation tracking was then performed on the papers identified. sixty-nine papers passed all the stages (identification, screening, eligibility, inclusion) and formed the sample. results show that resilience definitions are nowadays either about “adapting and bouncing back to previous levels of health” or about “thriving and rising above the adversity towards increased levels of health.” results also show that resilience features—antecedents, mechanisms, consequences—are mainly conceptualized in a vertical sequence where an antecedent influences another or influences a mechanism leading to consequences. this paper concludes that modern conceptions can fit within a transactional and constructivist approach that goes beyond the former approaches by providing a more nuanced and realistic picture of the resilience process and by viewing it as a dynamic and personsituation-defined process. keywords resilience, ecological approach, transactional approach, integrative methods resilience throughout the years owing its inception to material sciences, the term resilience has been broadly used in many disciplines to forward change, disruption, adaptation, or to illustrate flexibility and sustainability (scoloveno, 2016; sivilli & pace, 2014; xu & kajikawa, 2017). when studying such a construct it should always be remembered that resilience is much about the consideration of adversity and positive adaptation, these two dimensions being inherent to the study of resilience (fletcher & sarkar, 2013; luthar, cicchetti, & becker, 2000; luthar, crossman, & small, 2015; masten, 2015; wright, masten, & narayan, 2013). in psychology, although resilience is a broadly studied topic, the large amount of published this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2251&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ work about this construct still generates a lack of consensus (ayed, toner, & priebe, 2019; christmas & khanlou, 2019; panter-brick, 2014; park & kim, 2014; ungar, 2008; vella & pai, 2019). the multiplicity of definitions, approaches, and theoretical orientations beclouds all the knowledge gained (masten, 2018) and calls for clarification (christmas & khanlou, 2019; fletcher & sarkar, 2013; fogarty & perera, 2016; leys et al., 2018; luthar et al., 2000; rasmussen et al., 2019). as such clarification is essential in shaping a substantial and coherent basis for practical applications and health policies (ayed et al., 2019; christmas & khanlou, 2019; leys et al., 2018), the major goal of this paper is to examine and synthesize the more recent approaches to resilience. its novelty is first to provide such a clarification by performing an integrative review (whittemore & knafl, 2005) of human resilience within the recent (2013–2019) human sciences literature, and second to extend its overall discourse by discussing about an innovative transactional and constructivist approach subjective to situations so that it accounts for contextual, inter-individual, and developmental differences. although progression might not have been streamlined as hereafter, four great eras can yet be distinguished within the five or so decades that saw the rise and evolution of resilience research (luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2007, 2014, 2018; wright et al., 2013). it started in the ‘50s and ‘60s with the field of mental health—quite dominated by disease-oriented models—being the playground for studies focusing on mental illness problems and on significant threats to development (luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2007; wright et al., 2013). it is at that time the term resilience was brought to replace the term “invulnerability” used to describe children who were thought to be impervious to adversity (luthar et al., 2000; wright et al., 2013). during this first era, the purpose was to define and to understand resilience. observations led to noticing differences between individuals’ adaptation (positive or negative outcomes); these were ascribed to internal psychological resources such as personal abilities and strengths (garcia-dia, dinapoli, garcia-ona, jakubowski, & o’flaherty, 2013; luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2007; wright et al., 2013). the second era, since the late ‘70s and ‘80s, brought clarification and induced a more ecological understanding of the construct, arguing that external factors were also extremely important so that resilience, rather than a trait, should now come to be understood as a process implying internal and external influences. this ecological broadening progressively saw a shift from the “‘what’ questions of description to the ‘how’ questions of underlying processes that influence adaptation” (masten & best, 1990, p. 439) and led the way towards the third era (‘90s, 2000s) of the field. progress on the theoretical understandings of the resilience functioning allowed researchers from this wave to develop and experiment with interventions to foster well-being such as preventive resilience-based interventions (masten, 2007). finally, the modern and fourth era (2000s through the present) of resilience is about integrating understandings of internal and external resources with knowledge from a variety of disciplines (e.g., genetics, neurobehavioral development, or mathematics with the use of statistical analysis) to fully grasp the complexity of this construct and to bring our comprehension a step further (liu, zhang, ji, & yang, 2018; shi, sun, wei, & qiu, 2019; shrivastava, de sousa, & lodha, 2019; van der werff, van den berg, pannekoek, elzinga, & van der wee, 2013). this modern era is said to be integrative and holistic (christmas & khanlou, 2019; vella & pai, 2019), so that it combines all the previous findings since the birth of resilience research, with technical progress enabling better physiological understandings and more realistic outcomes assessment, and with the growing influence of multidisciplinary knowledge (masten, 2007). throughout the evolution of the resilience construct, three central questions seemed to raise debates, and to feed the critics between divergent theoretical approaches. is resilience based on internal or external factors? the traditional approach and early conceptions were viewing resilience as a binary or dichotomous inner property as the individual was considered having the internal psychological dispositions to face adversity, or simply not having them (anthony, 1974). an individual was then deemed resilient or not, only by assessing an absence or presence of psychopathology and disorder within him or her upon experiencing adversity. although such former acceptations viewing resilience as the absence of disorder amount to saying health could solely refer to the absence of disease (almedom & glandon, 2007), an advantage of the traditional approach is the recognition that people can have internal cognitive resources and coping skills that are helpful in overcoming adversity. these findings greatly helped increase the understanding of the profile and of the internal characteristics of those being resilient, those that were able through métais, burel, gillham et al. 99 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ resilience to meet homeostasis needs (i.e., getting back to an equilibrium, to normal functioning). prince-embury (2014) summarizes the main personal qualities (internal factors) that were believed to be the only ones leading to resilient outcomes; those were intellectual ability, easy temperament, autonomy, self-reliance, communication skills, and effective coping strategies. on the other hand, the lack of consideration about the fact human beings are evolving in an environment with external influences, can be considered as a disadvantage as the traditional conception of resilience only draws a partial explanation of what truly happens when someone is confronted to adversity. though this approach has given place today to a more ecological and dynamic understanding of resilience encom­ passing the influence of external factors (fritz, de graaff, caisley, van harmelen, & wilkinson, 2018; luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2007; wright et al., 2013). ungar and liebenberg (2013) advanced that the emphasis on personal assets might be beneficial, but that on an ecological point of view “the environment accounts for far more of the developmental gains of a population at risk than individual factors” (ungar & liebenberg, 2013, p. 246). the definition of resilience within such an ecological approach would hence be about “the capacity of a dynamic system [the individual] to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten system function, viability, or development” (masten, 2014, p. 6) or about processes that predict developmentally appropriate outcomes in the face of threats to development (kaplan, 1999; masten, 2001). anyhow, in a situation where an individual is experiencing adversity (chronic or acute) and then engages in an adaptative process, we can concretely distinguish both deleterious factors and factors that foster positive outcomes. since distance has been taken from the primary focus on the inner qualities of the resilient child, ecological understandings led several researchers to sort out those factors according to three main categories encompassing both internal and external features: 1) children’s (or any individual) personal attributes, 2) aspects and attributes of their families such as secure and caring relationships (ideally), and 3) broader external influences from their social environment such as social relations with peers, school, or the wider community (anaut, 2015; luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2014; masten & garmezy, 1985; werner & smith, 1992). is resilience a static or dynamic construct? quite analogous and complementary to the question of resilience being related to internal or external factors, another central question is whether to view this construct as an internal trait or as a process (southwick, bonanno, masten, panter-brick, & yehuda, 2014). these concerns in the end, may both lead towards asking more generally whether to consider resilience in a static or in a more dynamic fashion. although quite authentic, this interrogation seems yet unanswered and is still often debated in the current literature (leys et al., 2018; liu et al., 2018; rolin, fossion, kotsou, & leys, 2018; shrivastava et al., 2019; sisto et al., 2019). solely relying on internal factors and psychological traits accounts for saying that resilience is a personality characteristic stable over time (block, 1995). this was common sense in the early eras of resilience, where such a construct—termed ego-resiliency—would then be defined as someone’s ability to adapt its emotion control up or down depending on the situation (block & block, 1980). although nowadays a few researchers still relate to resilience as a trait (e.g., kalathil et al., 2011; taormina, 2015), much of these traditional understandings were rapidly declared partial and research moved towards the perspective of dynamic processes, so that today there is a growing consensus against the use of resilience as a fixed and stable trait (craciun, 2013; infurna & luthar, 2018; liu et al., 2018; luthar et al., 2000, 2015; malhi, das, bell, mattingly, & mannie, 2019; masten, 2014, 2015; masten & barnes, 2018). in this perspective, the ecological approach is a first reaction to the limits of the traditional approach, so that resilience is seen as a “developmental process or a dynamic capacity rather than as a static outcome or trait” (yates, tyrell, & masten, 2015, p. 773). researchers have also highlighted two types of underlying processes, that is, compensatory processes and moderat­ ing processes. on the one hand, compensatory processes are associated with factors that have neutralizing or counteract­ ing effects regardless of the adversity level. in this first category, resources—also known as promotive factors (sameroff, 2000), or assets—compensate or neutralize the effects of adversity (e.g., intellectual ability, extraversion), whereas risk factors act against positive adjustment or might precipitate the occurrence of adversity itself (e.g., childhood maltreatment, neglect). on the other hand, moderating processes are associated with factors that have effects varying in towards complex understandings of human resilience 100 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regard to the level of adversity. in this second category, vulnerability factors exacerbate the already ongoing negative effects of adversity (e.g., absence of health-care increasing the negative effects of one being ill), whereas protective factors are moderators that temper negative effects of adversity, or show stronger salience in high levels of adversity (e.g., supportive teacher-pupil relation being particularly effective when the pupil encounters problems) (luthar et al., 2015; masten, 2014; prince-embury, 2014; rutter, 2013; wang, zhang, & zimmerman, 2015; wright et al., 2013; yates et al., 2015). does resilience consist of bouncing back or bouncing forward? as mentioned earlier, it is important to consider resilience both upon adversity and positive adaptation such as clearly displayed in the definition proposed by yates et al. (2015) where resilience pertains to “the processes by which individuals achieve positive developmental outcomes despite exposure to known threats to adaptation” (yates et al., 2015, p. 773). yet does this positive adaptation mean bouncing back to previous homeostasis and well-being levels (i.e., pre-adversity healthy functioning levels), or does it rather relates to an individual thriving towards increased levels of health (i.e., bouncing forward)—which would amount to using adversity as an opportunity for growth (e.g., post traumatic growth; see tedeschi et al., 2018)? to this question, the encounter of resilience research—mainly influenced in its evolution by developmental psycholo­ gy—with clinical psychology brought a fresh momentum and offered a distinct and more nuanced perspective on the matter. in fact, developmental research on children’s resilience and clinical psychology studying adults, have grown in two separate ways (infurna & luthar, 2018), whereas they could have gained insights from one another. nowadays, as opposed to the field of developmental psychology which focused largely on the “gradual emergence of signs of favorable adjustment” to chronic (i.e., ongoing, long-lasting) adversity (bonanno & diminich, 2013, p. 380), several trauma researchers (e.g., bonanno, 2004; bonanno & diminich, 2013; galatzer-levy, huang, & bonanno, 2018) focus now on adults’ positive adaptation after experiencing a potentially traumatic event (pte)—that is, acute adversity or a specific stressor occurring at a given time (bonanno, 2004). other research confirms that adversities can either be chronic or acute (masten, 2014; masten & narayan, 2012; noltemeyer & bush, 2013; yates et al., 2015). additionally, advances in statistical methods such as growth curve modeling enabled bonanno and diminich (2013) to highlight several outcome trajectories following this acute kind of adversity: chronic dysfunction, delayed dysfunction, recovery (i.e., gradual emergence of positive adaptation), and minimal-impact resilience (i.e., rapid emergence of positive adaptation). conducive to the full consideration of individual and contextual differences, these trajectories have somehow grown to a consensus so that a trajectory approach became quite accepted (galatzer-levy et al., 2018) and has even spread to the developmental field (masten, 2018). moreover, although in the last decade resilience research moved forward thanks to new subfields of psychology— such as research on resilience in the workplace (e.g., vanhove, herian, perez, harms, & lester, 2016)—its encounter with positive psychology came to be quite significant as well. in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, seligman and csikszent­ mihalyi argued on the urgent need for rethinking psychology and creating a field of positive psychology that aims at enhancing the positive side of psychology rather than the traditional focus on pathology (seligman, 2000; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). akin to the clinical field, positive psychology offered interesting new perspectives such as the promotion of well-being in treatment therapies, in school-based programs (positive education, resilience programs), or when facing lighter adversities of the every-day life. although such an encounter came to be relevant first in terms of field applications and interventions, positive psychology—by its emphasis on well-being promotion—also gave more weight to a “thriving” and “bouncing forward” orientation of the resilience process (schwarz, 2018). yet even today questions about the orientation to be given to the resilience process and outcome have not been properly resolved. many researchers in their studies argue that bouncing back is a key component of resilience and several authors support the idea that resilience is about recovering from the negative effects of adversity and returning to the standard base level of health and wellbeing (aburn, gott, & hoare, 2016; dowrick, kokanovic, hegarty, griffiths, & gunn, 2008; edward, welch, & chater, 2009; felten & hall, 2001; garmezy, 1991). others suppose that “perhaps it is better to conceptualize resilience as a process of moving forward and not returning back” (southwick et al., 2014, p. 3). this makes sense if we consider existence as a developmental continuum, where every experience brings the individual métais, burel, gillham et al. 101 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a step forward on his or her developmental path. this design is also shared by cyrulnik and duval (2006) via the idea of a “neo-development” as the outcome of the resilience process (anaut, 2015, p. 36). method research question as per the aims exposed earlier, the primary research question was: what are the key approaches, concepts, and definitions of resilience within the recent literature? protocol integrative methods described by whittemore and knafl (2005) were used in order to capture a clear picture of our topic and to draw conclusions. these methods enabled the inclusion of theoretical as well as methodological papers. the process of this review followed five stages: problem identification, literature search, data evaluation, data analysis, and presentation—which is a display of the results (discussions, tables, and figures of this paper). information sources the following databases: google scholar, psycinfo, pubmed, and eric, were used for the search focusing on the recent literature about resilience (i.e., search covering a 7-year period: 2013–2019). all the records went through the prisma stages, that is, identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion (moher, liberati, tetzlaff, altman, & group, 2009). search strategy the following key words were searched: (english terms) resilience review, resilience concept, resilience concepts, resilience construct, resilience theory, resilience adversity, resilience science, resilience and [reply or debate or discus­ sion], resilience perspectives; (french terms) résilience concept, résilience concepts, résilience revue, résilience principe, résilience définition, résilience théorie. these key words were searched in the title of the papers. the main reviewer being french, the french equivalents of the english terms were searched to provide extra valuable references to be potentially added to the review sample. no other languages were targeted as the authors do not speak more than french and english. study records and criteria a total of 2,776 records were found after the initial search. these records were screened by title and abstract, and out of this stage 1,079 papers were excluded because relating to irrelevant sorts of resilience (e.g., ecology, finance, physics, policies and organizational studies). the remaining 1,697 papers relating to “human” resilience were kept and transferred into a reference management software able to manage bibliographic data. as well data of the “search history” was registered by the means of a spreadsheet software. at the beginning of the eligibility stage papers were included if they focused on human psychological resilience (i.e., general approaches, theories, concepts), or if they contained section(s) on general approaches, theories, and concepts of resilience. at this point, 1,490 papers relating to specific domains, specific topics, specific contexts, specific subjects involved—for example diabetes patients, cyberbullying, lgbtqia2+ populations (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, allies, pansexual, others), geriatrics, ethnic systems, racism, family violence, cancer survivors, etc.—were excluded of the review, and 207 papers were retained because of being either gen­ eral papers on human psychological resilience (i.e., general approaches, theories, concepts), or other papers containing section(s) on general approaches, theories, and concepts of resilience. then in order to complete this stage, 98 duplicates were finally removed from the retained papers. however, the inclusion criteria exposed here above should not be connoted to a lack of awareness. specific or targeted papers contribute to the knowledge of resilience, and for sure every psychological, emotional, or social towards complex understandings of human resilience 102 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ constructs/processes occur in a specific context. we did not intend to strip resilience of any meaning; our focus here was rather about grasping general theoretical patterns of resilience. we looked for papers displaying an overview of the field, general understandings and patterns of resilience applicable to several contexts, current debates and discussions, as well as future perspectives of the field. ultimately, out of the 109 eligible papers 27 were excluded for being still not general enough (i.e., those ones having passed eligibility because containing sections on general approaches and theories of resilience but then eventually considered too specific in this more selective ultimate stage; for example, contexts and topics on firefighters, sport athletes, medical employees, post tbi therapy, homeless people), and 13 full-text pdfs could not be gathered (i.e., not found on the internet, then not accessible via the reviewers’ french university web-library access, then no positive answer to the requests sent to authors). a total of 69 papers were included in the final selection for the integrative review. the review process was performed by the main author; yet, inclusion processes and final selection were supervised and assessed by two other reviewers (second and last authors). a great majority of the papers included in the review stem from psychology literature, but a few pertain to the fields of medicine, nursing, sociology, neuroscience, and sustainability science (cross-field domain). the sample includes a few book chapters (9), book review (1), plenary panel and conference reports (2), published thesis work (2), scholarly report paper (1), but most of the papers are journal articles (54). these journal articles are mainly theoretical articles; only a few are literature reviews, concept analysis or systematic reviews. empirical articles have not been avoided on purpose, the ones found in the search were very context-subject-situation-specific and did not fit our criteria. inclusion criteria, search words, and a list of the papers are available in the appendix (see tables a1–a3), part of the supplementary materials of this paper. flow chart (see figure 1) is presented here below. extra theoretical ground—landmark papers throughout our readings (i.e., final literature sample of the present review and cross-reference readings) two papers (luthar et al., 2000; masten, 2007) were regularly cited and stood out before undertaking any process of coding and data extraction. having in mind that our primary focus is the recent literature about resilience, it should be noted that—although not included in our sample—both of these papers from the previous decade really helped inspire and organize our reflection and the structure of this paper. they confirmed our ideas about some shift in the evolution of resilience research from quite traditional paradigms to more ecological paradigms. thereby, we came into coding already cognizant of traditional versus more ecological and complex approaches to resilience. attention was paid to this distinction through the coding and data extraction processes. data selection process first, definitions of resilience were extracted from each paper and registered as well via a spreadsheet software. although it seemed appropriate to give credit to the whole selection no matter the weight/strength of the paper it remained important to extract and specify the source of the definitions (author’s own/from other author). of the 69 papers included in the review, nine (13%) did not present a clear definition of resilience, but 60 (87%) provided one. note that out of those 60, 36 (60%) displayed the author(s)’ own definitions, whereas 24 (40%) presented definitions from other authors. in a second step, features of resilience were extracted from each paper and registered via a spreadsheet software. thereby every term referring to factors influencing resilience, to some attributes, or consequences were included and extracted. of the 69 papers included in the review, 12 (17%) did not provide any data regarding resilience features, but 57 (83%) provided some pertaining to features of the ecological conception of resilience. métais, burel, gillham et al. 103 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 study flow chart data items the definitions of resilience retrieved from the papers were sorted into the following subgroups that the authors came up with as they thought such groups would illustrate well the definitions’ theme and orientation: adapting and maintaining health and functioning levels; adapting and bouncing back; adapting (no specificity added); adapting towards positive development (rising above, thriving, growth); mix of previous categories. on the other hand, features of resilience could have been clustered in accordance to the walker and avant process of concept analysis highlighting antecedents, attributes, and consequences of a construct (walker & avant, 2011). yet, following a discussion between the first two authors and the last author, it was decided to adopt a slightly refitted sequence—that is, antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences. contrastingly to hartmann, weiss, newman, and hoegl (2019) highlighting—in their paper on resilience in the workplace—the importance of studying resilience mechanisms, towards complex understandings of human resilience 104 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the recent literature does not significantly highlight the features relative to what truly happens during resilience. that is, regularly, when mentioning resilience attributes—that is, core functioning features of resilience—authors tend to refer to features influencing resilience, rather than real mechanisms or processes occurring in the context of this successful adaptation. how does resilience really work? step by step, what occurs? what are the mechanisms triggered/activated? these concerns should be paid true attention as the ‘how’ question about resilience is crucial in terms of field applica­ tions and health strategies (christmas & khanlou, 2019; mc gee, höltge, maercker, & thoma, 2018). therefore, antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences were preferred to the walker and avant categories (walker & avant, 2011). all of the terms or resilience features referring to mechanisms or processes illustrating how resilience works and to what truly occurs were then clustered into the ‘mechanisms’ array, whereas some features such as self-esteem (scoloveno, 2016) or self-efficacy (garcia-dia et al., 2013)—often categorized as attributes in the recent litera­ ture—were re-categorized as antecedents. these examples—self-esteem, self-efficacy, and the like—are not mechanisms or processes, they are rather pieces defining the individual, something that she or he “has in store,” standing as a trait or as a skill. data synthesis as mentioned before, the definitions were organized by theme categories. yet the authors found that such categories could be more broadly illustrated by two ideas reflecting the two orientations taken by resilience definitions in the recent literature: adapting and bouncing back to previous levels of health and development, versus thriving and rising above the adversity towards increased levels of health. similarly, features of resilience were more accurately repacked: antecedents were divided into “internal supportive features” (physical states, character traits, and cognitive, social, and emotional states) and “environmental (external) sup­ portive features” (family, social cluster, broader external systems/clusters, inanimate features, others), whereas mechanisms were divided into “coping, mentalization-coherence, empowerment” sub-groups, and consequences into “homeostasis purpose” or “growth purpose”. regarding this categorization, the chosen groups and categories were not set prior to the coding process. the authors did not start coding with these particular traits, states, mechanisms’ sub-groups, and consequences in mind; it is rather through the process of coding that these appeared to categorize well the data extracted. more precisely, “character traits” were additionally divided according to the “big five personality traits” theory (costa & mccrae, 1992)—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism. note that the use of the “big five personality traits” here does not mean only the data pertaining to those traits were extracted. data extraction did not take credit of this classification; it is only afterwards that character traits were repacked according to this well-established model. furthermore, most of the features clustered in the “states” categories might appear rather like skills. though, the use of the label “states” is based on the fact these features are resources and skills that might be temporary, and that can be improved or lessened across lifespan. distinction between traits versus states seemed interesting to us. regarding the mechanisms of resilience, proper definitions of the coping, mentalization-coherence, and empowerment concepts will be presented further in this paper. results characteristics of the ecological approach divergent orientations in the acceptation of resilience as an illustration to the unresolved questions about the orientation to be given to the resilience process and outcome, a great variability within the resilience definitions appears to stem from the recent literature on modern and ecological approaches to resilience. illustrated below (see figure 2) are the definitions of resilience gathered in the review sample. as mentioned earlier these were sorted into five categories: adapting and maintaining health levels; adapting and bouncing back; adapting (no specificity added); adapting towards positive development (rising above/thriving); mix of previous categories. métais, burel, gillham et al. 105 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ somehow, these categories reflect two broader directions that resilience could take: adapting and bouncing back to previous levels of health and development versus thriving and rising above the adversity towards increased levels of health. these two broader directions induced by the categories of the definitions confirm that no consensus has yet been found upon whether resilience is about bouncing back or bouncing forward. raw extracted data on resilience definitions is available upon request from the first author. figure 2 theme categories of resilience definitions features of the ecological approach—antecedents, mechanisms, consequences here below (see figure 3) is a condensed and simplified illustration of the different categories and great features that revolve around the construct of resilience. for an exhaustive and detailed view of the features, please refer to tables 2a and 2b available as supplementary material and in which these features extracted from the review sample are all listed and clustered. raw extracted data about resilience features is available upon request (from the first author). figure 3 ecological approach—overall display of the resilience features towards complex understandings of human resilience 106 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as detailed previously in the methods section, the “antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences” features classification was preferred to the walker and avant classification (walker & avant, 2011). more precisely, antecedents were divided into “internal supportive features” (physical states, character traits, cognitive and socio-emotional states) and “environ­ mental (external) supportive features” (family, social cluster, broader external systems/clusters, inanimate features, others). consequences were divided into “homeostasis purpose” and “growth purpose”. similarly, as discussed between the au­ thors and according to the concepts exposed in the paragraph below, “coping, mentalization-coherence, empowerment” were thought to illustrate well sub-groups into which the extracted features pertaining to mechanisms of resilience could be clustered. the term “coping” comes from lazarus and folkman (1984) with their cognitive appraisal theory. it corresponds to the “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (lazarus & folkman, 1984, p. 141). through different appraisals (i.e., first appraisal concomitant with the detrimental experience and second appraisal occurring later) the individual becomes aware of those taxing demands begotten by the adversity encountered. therefore coping usually oc­ curs during the adversity or in the aftermath of this adverse experience so that the individual may deal with and reduce the resulting stress. it is a process that also enables the development of one’s first narrative of the experience lived. yet let us note that although appraisal theories have been largely supported, other theories—such as the conservation of resources (cor) theory (hobfoll, 1989, 2001) upon which the stress produced by adversity is rather due to the objective loss of resources than due to the subjective appraisals of the adversity (hobfoll et al., 2007; johnson et al., 2007)—have started to show interest and bring nuance in conceptualizations of stress processes. the term “coherence” (sense of) was formulated by antonovsky in 1979. it relates to the anticipation of events—by the means of believing in the predictability of the environment—and to the analysis and synthesis of particular situations in order to avoid detrimental outcomes (antonovsky, 1979). more simply, it could be related to a process of meaning-mak­ ing, or mentalization, (i.e., standing back to re-interpret and reflect on a past or an on-going adverse situation, in order to build up alternative narratives). the mentalization/coherence process in the case of acute adversity could occur some while after the experience of adversity as the individual needs time to assimilate the adverse experience in order to reflect on it and to start building up intentions to set goals of “doing better.” in the context of a more chronic adversity, this process could occur also during the adverse experience itself (e.g., dealing with ongoing stress at work, or dealing with a loved one’s serious illness). finally, the term “empowerment” was introduced by rappaport (1987). it pertains to a process by which the individ­ ual—through concrete actions, with the help of relational support, or by the means of his agency on the environment— socially and psychologically adjusts and adapts (le bossé & lavallée, 1993; rappaport, 1987). more recently, empower­ ment was defined as “a meaningful shift in the experience of power attained through interaction in the social world” (cattaneo & goodman, 2015, p. 84), where power is “one’s influence in social relations at any level of human interaction, from dyadic interactions to the interaction between a person and a system” (cattaneo & chapman, 2010, p. 647). in fact, sometimes meaning-making through coherence/mentalization mechanisms is not enough. turning this around towards action-growth—doing what is meaningful—should be an additional goal in order to adapt positively (hobfoll et al., 2007). such a perspective is particularly relevant when considering post-traumatic growth (ptg). that is, when not associated with proper action (which can as well be in the mind, i.e., facing and challenging our thoughts and emotions) from the individual then ptg is not necessarily corollary of well-being and can rather be related to more distress (hobfoll et al., 2007; johnson et al., 2007). therefore in the present review, empowerment was used to categorize the mechanism by which an individual has some kind of extroversion intention and fulfils it with proper actions, such as seeking social help, sharing narratives of the adverse experience to better bounce back from it, or even one taking control of his or her agency/power on the surrounding system (e.g., setting new resolutions, putting on some fresh and constructive mindset to work better). empowerment processes could occur a little while after mentalization/coherence when the individual is ready for extroversion, or it could occur soon after the experience of adversity to foster coping processes, yet it may also take place later and throughout time to enhance mentalization. more generally, it should be noted these three mechanisms (coping, mentalization/coherence, empowerment) are iterative processes; they can be concomitant and enhance or even trigger each other. métais, burel, gillham et al. 107 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limits of the ecological approach limits arising from the “cripping” critics although resilience research has since a while moved towards the inclusion of external factors, the current ecological conceptions still have their missteps and still generate a lot of pressure and expectations on the inner capacities of the individual. in fact, modern conceptions of resilience are quite immersed in a western normative point of view—that is, standardized western conceptions of resources, strengths, and adaptation to adversity, where an individual is expected to show competence (fletcher & sarkar, 2013; hutcheon & lashewicz, 2014; hutcheon & wolbring, 2013; schwarz, 2018; ungar, 2008; ungar & liebenberg, 2011; wright et al., 2013). this could even lead to the term “cripping” resilience, as today’s definitions “are plagued by hegemony in that they align with western, middle-class, ableist norms of healthy, normal, or valued functioning” (hutcheon & lashewicz, 2014, p. 1387). this represents a real discriminating issue when such standardization might legitimate as “aberrant behaviour” the responses of disabled people, of people categorized as impaired and who do not fit in these norms, or simply of those showing particular functioning (schwarz, 2018, p. 530). added to that, the commodification processes—that is, goods, ideas, and skills established as tradable and as having commercial value (timimi, 2017)—and the division between sick and healthy, or vulnerable and resilient, altogether reinforces the reproduction of social imbalances in a somewhat hegemonic society (schwarz, 2018) where the only perspective is to demonstrate resilience competence in socially acceptable ways, whereas we should on the contrary think about “contextual differences in the definition of what it means to be ‘doing okay’” (yates et al., 2015, p. 775). limits arising from rutter’s approach additionally, although modern and ecological conceptions of resilience tend to view resilience as a dynamic process involving internal and external influences, the significance of such a property is still not quite enough acknowledged. rutter (2015) demonstrates that too much emphasis is still put on those protective and risk factors. resilience should rather be “concerned only with the differences (albeit large differences) that remain after risk and protective factor variations have been taken into account” (rutter, 2015, p. 342). these factors are neither fixed in their effects nor in what their presence/absence will trigger (luthar et al., 2015), they are to be considered as nested in and dependent to a context. in the end, the level of stress perceived impacts more the outcome of the resilience process than the “object nature of the [adverse] event itself” (galatzer-levy et al., 2018, p. 51). discussion—towards a transactional and constructivist approach having suggested an overall picture of how resilience research evolved towards the current ecological approach, and having attempted to clarify and display concepts, features, and some of the concerns embedded in this field of research, a consensus by the means of a transactional and constructivist approach can now be discussed. the transactional and constructivist approach does not completely replace the previous approaches, but it encompasses them and positions itself as innovative especially because it offers complex conceptual interpretations closely reflecting the human reality. it should be noted that the authors did not go through the process of coding and reviewing with the idea of transactional and constructivist labeling, these paradigms/terms were noticed in the literature reviewed and were thought to fit well the complex approach next to be described. this section might be considered as a form of conceptual development that stems from the literature reviewed but also goes beyond. core principles and theoretical ground towards transactions: resilience in a systems-oriented perspective looking at resilience from a systems perspective could bring understandings further. as research evolves, resilience increasingly draws inspiration from theories of the systems and developmental system theories (bennett, 2017; bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006; dekker, bergström, amer-wahlin, & cilliers, 2013; lerner, 2006). a notable illustration can be found in the transactions some ecosystems engage with their environment in order to face disasters and endure the damaging strokes so that they would adapt and maintain viable functioning (koffi, 2014; sivilli & pace, 2014). in towards complex understandings of human resilience 108 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychology, research is increasingly taking consideration of systems’ understandings to shape the theoretical framework of resilience (masten, 2007, 2014, 2018; wright et al., 2013). this shift towards developmental systems theories (dst) in developmental science (masten & barnes, 2018) parallels the growing dominance of the trajectory approach in clinical psychology and the positive paradigm shift from deficits-based and individual-level approaches to strength-based and environment-enhancing approaches (christmas & khanlou, 2019). all in all these innovations are beneficial to a closer and more nuanced understanding of human reality. more precisely, yates et al. (2015) add that the development of an individual is influenced by transactions from very different hierarchical levels of the system such as micro, meso, and macro levels. each level could have stronger or lighter influence, and transactions could even occur between the levels themselves: “many systems interact or “co-act” to shape the course of development, across levels of function, from the molecular to the macro-levels of physical and sociocultural ecologies” (masten, 2014, p. 9). concretely the micro system corresponds to internal characteristics of the individual and peer/family relations, the meso system corresponds to the broader community and institutions such as school, whereas the macro system represents national policies and the cultural context (bronfenbrenner & morris, 2006; thomas, 2005). such a system-oriented and transactional perspective could as well evoke the cor theory (hobfoll, 1989, 2001) ad­ vancing that facing adversity triggers transactions of resources, which relates to the individual investing and engaging resources in order to prevent resource loss, to recover from it, or to gain new resources (hobfoll, 2001). resilience as a constructivist and dynamic person-situation-defined process within the ecological approach, competence comes from the individual who has to adapt to the environment and to the “information” delivered. precisely in this approach the competence of an individual falls under his or her capacity to adapt to the environment. this aspect is what hutcheon and colleagues (2013, 2014) were condemning in the above “cripping” critics paragraph. on the contrary, within a constructivist approach competence would arise from the actual interaction between the individual and the environment, and would not lie on the individual’s shoulders. concretely in such an approach the relation between the individual and the environment is perceived in a more complex manner: competence would rather come from an equilibrium between the information released by the environment and the agency of the individual on this environment. seeing resilience through this lens might then offer opportunities to offset, or at least soften, the current discriminating focus on competence. currently, several authors such as ungar and liebenberg are increasingly turning to constructivist understandings of resilience; they refer to “a person's successful navigation towards the resources necessary to sustain well-being, and the negotiations with those who control resources for these to be provided in ways that are culturally meaningful” (ungar & liebenberg, 2013, p. 247). additionally, although the terminology used mainly remains about “systems’ thinking” and “ecological-transactional" labels, several other figures of the field also offer complex understandings similar to constructivist reflections (luthar et al., 2015; masten, 2015; panter-brick, 2015). also shared by pangallo, zibarras, lewis, and flaxman (2015), another crucial matter relates to the person-situationdefined pattern of this conception of resilience. this specificity pertains to the need for resilience to be truly considered as subjective to a situation in which such a process takes place and where both the individual and the context have to be taken into account (schwarz, 2018). inter alia, it means that the concept of resilience based on vulnerability, risk, and protective factors could still prevail and function well as long as those notions are renegotiated and rethought depending on the situational context, and on the individual’s profile. according real credit to this specificity could also allow us to keep in mind the subjectivity and contextuality of risk and protective factors’ effects, which would prevent them from being defined simply on the grounds of their nature. overall, these dynamic perspectives and situational subjectivity first address that resilience is not “an across-theboard phenomenon” (luthar et al., 2015, p. 248). individuals experience resilience in some domains and situations but not in others (infurna & luthar, 2018; luthar et al., 2000, 2015; rutter, 2013; wright et al., 2013). similarly, adversity and protective factors might not affect individuals the same way depending on their subjective sensitivity, or differential susceptibility (masten, 2014). two different individuals might not rate risk, adversity, and supportive factors the same way (bartett, 1994; luthar et al., 2000). métais, burel, gillham et al. 109 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ second, these perspectives indicate that resilience fluctuates across the lifespan and is highly development-depend­ ent. it might appear to be “ordinary” rather than extraordinary (masten, 2001)—and minimal-impact resilience and recovery trajectories may be the most consistently observed (galatzer-levy et al., 2018; infurna & luthar, 2018)—yet resilience should be considered as never guaranteed (anaut, 2015). “although a person responds resiliently to a certain circumstance, new points of vulnerability or strength might appear as a response to change” (craciun, 2013, p. 4). hence, time and timing are crucial aspects: 1) as per the “temporal issues” deplored by fisher, ragsdale, and fisher (2019) the “time” variable is too often ignored or underestimated even though the duration, frequency, cycle, and rhythm aspects are crucial elements to consider. 2) resilience evolves through time points in the lifespan—that is, an individual might experience resilience at some point in life but not at another (masten, 2014, 2015; rutter, 2013, 2015; wright et al., 2013)—and the effects of detrimental experiences or more positive ones on the individual depend on the moment they occur. this is scientifically related to “biological programming effects and the time-varying plasticity of the human brain to lasting effects of both adverse and positive experiences” (masten, 2015, p. 189)—for example, beneficial effects of early secure mother-infant attachment. all together, the way antecedents occur and express themselves is evolving as the individual develops, so do the mechanisms and consequences. third, the acknowledgement of both chronic and acute adversity adds to consideration the possibility for a co-occur­ rence of either both kinds of adversity or multiple adversities (hughes et al., 2017). these piling-up or sensitization effects (evans, li, & whipple, 2013; fisher et al., 2019; hobfoll, 2001; leys et al., 2018; masten, 2007, 2015)—that is, ongoing or simultaneous occurrence of stressors/adversity—trigger even more diversity in how adversity expresses itself and impacts the individual. moreover, in regard to the broader context sphere, adversity and factors that foster resilience might have diverse effects depending on culture (masten, 2014; masten & barnes, 2018; noltemeyer & bush, 2013; panter-brick, 2015; ungar, 2011; wright et al., 2013). resilience is not just about doing well in the face of adversity, it is strongly related to cultural norms, moral values, and social aspirations (noltemeyer & bush, 2013; panter-brick, 2015), so that for example war, violence, enduring, or more general concepts of adversity, resources, positive outcome, good life, aspiration, and relationships, are culturally specific and can therefore bear very different meanings (liebenberg & joubert, 2019; panter-brick, 2015). a “measured/proportional” understanding of resilience beyond the situational/contextual property mentioned above, resilience could finally be considered in a measured and balanced way, it could be “proportionally” understood. adaptative processes occurring in lighter adversity contexts or brief processes of adjustment are sometimes dismissed from the resilience field or poorly considered. yet those processes in lighter contexts could be proportionally registered under the “resilience” label, because much of the adversity most humans will encounter would more probably constitute lighter disruptions of the every-day life (davis, luecken, & lemery-chalfant, 2009; leys et al., 2018). as well rutter’s “chemistry of the moment” (rutter, 2015, p. 342) could be debated. he argues that adjustment to lighter or one-time adversity is more about a momentary adaptation rather than resilience. perhaps this kind of adaptation might seem meaningless when considering resilience under a developmental lens—that is, evolving across the life span, making it a construct the individual builds along his or her development—but according to a balanced and measured design, smaller adjustments to milder stressors could also be held as constructions pertaining to some kind of resilience (liebenberg & joubert, 2019; rolin et al., 2018) which might be appraised as part of a greater resilience based on a lifespan perspective. however, a measured and balanced understanding must not drag resilience towards positivism and simplistic conceptions. the point here is to emphasize the fact that resilience could be suggested regardless of the type, the amount, or the gravity of adversity, as somehow similar patterns of adaptative processes seem to be implied. a definition that reflects the complexity of the construct defining resilience is not simply about providing a condensed digest of all the principles discussed previously, it is also about trying to answer the need of consistency (luthar et al., 2000) and the call for “a generic theory that can be applied across different groups of people and potentially stressful situations” (fletcher & sarkar, 2013, p. 17). a complex and nuanced definition could provide researchers with a shared theoretical ground. towards complex understandings of human resilience 110 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from here, within a transactional and constructivist approach, resilience could be referred to as a person-situation-de­ fined process, referring to the ability of an individual to evidence and draw support from available resources (internal and external) when confronted to adversity. this interaction itself will trigger adaptative mechanisms, therefore enabling the person to face and adjust to that very disturbing or rather challenging adversity. the trajectory of this whole process could either lead back to similar levels of health or drive to improved levels of health. but as we are evolving living creatures, the outcome would anyhow be about a neo-development. features of the transactional and constructivist approach the complex approach here at stake does not replace the former features inherent to the traditional and ecological resilience approaches. by looking both subjectively and outwardly (to an individual and a context), the transactional and constructivist approach puts the former approaches together to offer a more complex and realistic understanding of the resilience construct. thereby, traditional and ecological features do not disappear. yet, in this complex view they cannot be considered as a sum of sporadic and isolated features (fritz, fried, goodyer, wilkinson, & van harmelen, 2018). the difference lies—and therefore the progress is held—in the way internal and external antecedents coalesce and interact with each other to influence mechanisms of resilience towards consequences. disadvantages of both the traditional and the ecological approaches stemmed from the fact they respectively assigned value to either internal psychological characteristics or environmental elements while ignoring to a certain point their complex interactions. consequently, in the transactional and constructivist approach, features rather operate and behave as dynamic, subjective, and systemic patterns. clusters might then remain similar (see tables 2a and 2b in the supplementary materials), such as antecedents being divided into “internal supportive features” and “environmental (external) supportive features,” whereas sub-groups of mechanisms being “coping,” “mentalization/coherence” processes and “empowerment,” to end up with consequences. yet, figure 4 below is an illustration of how features of resilience in a transactional and constructivist approach might be processed; they are not listed and clustered separately, they interact and merge together. the features agency here is not about a vertical sequence where an antecedent influences another, but on the contrary it is more about a circular alchemy where antecedents and mechanisms modulate one’s perception, sensitivity, and ultimately pervade his or her adaptative functioning. figure 4 transactional and constructivist approach—features agency métais, burel, gillham et al. 111 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ where the traditional approach had a very subjective eye, and where the ecological approach has a contextual eye, the transactional and constructivist approach stands as integrative and has a situational eye granting the full consideration of a specific individual in an environment and their agency. conclusion the aim of this integrative review was to examine, to understand, and to synthesize how human resilience is concep­ tualized within the recent human science literature. the primary research question of this integrative review was: what are the key approaches, concepts, and definitions of resilience within the recent literature? altogether, 69 papers were included in the review and a reference and citation tracking was performed. besides data abstraction implying a meticulous reading of every paper, definitions and features (antecedents, mechanisms, consequences) of resilience were extracted from every paper. yet a limitation might be acknowledged: to ensure the review was of a manageable size, four databases were used and the search ranged from 2013 to 2019 (7 years). as confirmed by several authors and previous reviews, the lack of consensus regarding resilience, as well as the multiplicity of approaches and conceptions present within the recent literature, conceals all the findings relevant to human mental health and therefore calls for clarification. to this end the present paper has focused on the different conceptions, definitions and key approaches to resilience, and has proposed a consensus through the means of a novel and nuanced complex approach. in the first sections of our discourse we have concisely looked at the history of resilience research and at the different waves of its evolution. going through three authentic controversies, it was then pointed that the ecological approach is a first reaction to the limits of the traditional approach as it illustrates a move from the perspective of an inborn gift or trait and an individual subjectivity, to perspectives of a resilience subject to external demands and seen as a process and as a state—therefore more dynamic and more educable. the results section saw the display of all the features involved in the resilience process. these were listed in a quite extensive table and clustered as antecedents, divided into “internal supportive features” and “environmental (external) supportive features,” whereas mechanisms were divided into “coping,” “mentalization/coherence,” “empowerment,” leading then to consequences. additionally, the results have highlighted five types of resilience definitions which were then refitted into two broader categories, reflecting whether resilience is about adapting and bouncing back to previous levels of health and development, or about thriving and rising above the adversity towards increased levels of health. yet the ecological broadening of resilience illustrated a switch from the focus on the internal psychological func­ tioning of the individual to a somewhat unequivocal focus on environmental demands. the individual—no matter the context, the culture, nor his profile—has to adapt to external elements to be considered competent and resilient. both this overemphasis on competence and this lack of consideration of “situational” subjectivity are detrimental issues to the ecological approach as they obscure and devalue natural diversity. therefore, in response to the previous approaches, a more complex approach was discussed and proposed as a consensus of all the recent theoretical orientations about resilience. the transactional and constructivist approach brings research forward as it provides a more nuanced and realistic picture of the resilience process which overcomes disadvantages of earlier conceptions. such an approach may be held as subjective to situations so that it accounts for contextual, inter-individual, and developmental differences. yet, such as the current and fourth wave of resilience not ignoring previous findings, but rather combining them with technological progress (e.g., neuroimaging techniques), with statistical progress (e.g., growth curve modeling), and with multidisciplinary knowledge, the transactional and constructivist approach, too, tends to appreciate multiple insights and integrates all the diversity embedded in humanenvironment interactions. in this complex and nuanced consideration of resilience, competence comes from an equilibrium between the information released by the environment and the agency of the individual on this environment. here adaptation is not only about the individual’s capacity, it is rather a construction that stems from this complex interaction and from the multiple transactions occurring within and between the levels of a whole system. the advantage of this complex approach over the former ones is that where the traditional approach had a very subjective eye, and where the ecological approach has a contextual eye, the transactional and constructivist approach stands as integrative and has a situational eye granting the full consideration of a specific individual in an environment and their agency. towards complex understandings of human resilience 112 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, one significant difficulty comes now with field application. as general understandings of resilience become more complex, measures that need to reflect such nuance and complexity shall become as well more complex to implement. in line with this perspective, it could be added that although statistical methodology has evolved, it seems dangerous to make statements about rates of resilience: “it is practically impossible to make definitive ‘diagnoses of resilience’ because of the range of plausible adjustment difficulties that must be ruled out” (infurna & luthar, 2016, p. 201). yet, all in all such a complex approach could be seen as offering an innovative and consistent pattern matrix or framework for resilience. the idea here would be for researchers and practitioners to rely on a framework and an approach that allow complex and deep understanding of the resilience construct, while offering an array of features, agencies, and patterns for any specific field application. yet, the large scope and complexity of such a framework could allow room for scientists to keep their very specific conceptions and definitions unspoiled. it would enable applications across contexts and situations. therefore, in the near future of resilience research, the perspective would be to reflect on field interventions able to focus on supporting one’s internal features and strengths while supporting at the same time external features and their beneficial influence. as team resilience and resilience of the team members (see organizational science, workplace) not being the same but still mutually influencing each other (hartmann et al., 2019), human resilience too is a multidimensional construct where the resilience of individuals, communities, and higher-level institutions may build-up together and influence each other. interventions must not only target the individual to develop well-being and resilience, but efforts should also encompass the surrounding environments such as resilient families, groups, communities, and institutions via the help of public policies. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see index of supplementary materials below). • tables 2a and 2b, in which the extracted features of resilience are listed and clustered. these tables represent a more detailed version of figure 3. • an appendix including tables a1 – a3, which display the literature inclusion and exclusion criteria, the search words, and the list of the papers included in the review. index of supplementary materials métais, c., burel, n., gillham, j. e., tarquinio, c., & martin-krumm, c. 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(2014). from extraordinary invulnerability to ordinary magic: a literature review of resilience. journal of european psychology students, 5(1), 3-9. https://doi.org/10.5334/jeps.bk wright, m. o., masten, a. s., & narayan, a. j. (2013). resilience processes in development: four waves of research on positive adaptation in the context of adversity. in s. goldstein & r. brooks (eds.), handbook of resilience in children (pp. 15–37). new york, ny, usa: springer. xu, l., & kajikawa, y. (2017). an integrated framework for resilience research: a systematic review based on citation network analysis. sustainability science, 13, 235-254. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0487-4 *yao, z.-f., & hsieh, s. (2019). neurocognitive mechanism of human resilience: a conceptual framework and empirical review. international journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), article 5123. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16245123 yates, t. m., tyrell, f. a., & masten, a. s. (2015). resilience theory and the practice of positive psychology from individuals to societies. in s. joseph (ed.), positive psychology in practice: promoting human flourishing in work, health, education, and everyday life (2nd ed., pp. 773–788). retrieved from http://adlab.ucr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/yates-tyrell-masten-2015-published-copy.pdf about the authors clément métais is a doctorate student at the apemac research laboratory of the university of lorraine, france. interested in positive psychology, positive education, and outdoor education, clément’s work focuses on resilience and on its application in school-based resilience programs. he has a particular interest in whole-school and fully embedded programs such as the positive education program set by geelong grammar school, a school where he lived and worked in the past. nicolas burel, phd, works at the teaching and research unit in physical education and sport (uer-eps) in the university of teacher education of lausanne (hep-vaud, switzerland). he’s also associate researcher at the lab sens of the university of grenoble-alpes (ea.3742, france). his research interests focus on the emotional and motivational dimensions of education. more specifically he’s investigating the affective dynamics of the teaching experience during the lesson and its influence on instructional behaviors. jane gillham is a professor of psychology at swarthmore college, where she directs the resilience and well-being lab. much of her work focuses on developing, evaluating, and disseminating schooland community-based interventions that promote resilience, well-being, and mental health in children and adolescents. cyril tarquinio is professor in health psychology and in clinical psychology at the university of lorraine. he is currently director of the following departments in the university of lorraine: (1) health and clinical psychology master, (2) d.i.u. (diplôme interuniversitaire) in sexology, (3) d.u. (diplôme universitaire) psychotraumatism and emdr psychotherapy. cyril’s research focuses on the study of modern forms of psychotherapies such as the emdr psychotherapy. charles martin-krumm is a full professor of psychology at the ecole de psychologues praticiens de paris and heads the vulnerabil­ ity, capability and recovery (vcr) research laboratory. he is also a member at the apemac research laboratory of the university of lorraine, france. his field of research touches on education in a general, therapeutic, managerial, school or sport domains in order to develop the different aspects of quality of life. psychological resources, physical activity, emotions, health and well-being are therefore central to his research. métais, burel, gillham et al. 119 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 98–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2251 https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/evaluation/spectrum/eef_spectrum_guidance_document_conceptual_mapping.pdf https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/evaluation/spectrum/eef_spectrum_guidance_document_conceptual_mapping.pdf https://doi.org/10.5334/jeps.bk https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0487-4 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16245123 http://adlab.ucr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/yates-tyrell-masten-2015-published-copy.pdf https://www.psychopen.eu/ towards complex understandings of human resilience (introduction) resilience throughout the years is resilience based on internal or external factors? is resilience a static or dynamic construct? does resilience consist of bouncing back or bouncing forward? method research question protocol information sources search strategy study records and criteria extra theoretical ground—landmark papers data selection process data items data synthesis results characteristics of the ecological approach limits of the ecological approach discussion—towards a transactional and constructivist approach core principles and theoretical ground a definition that reflects the complexity of the construct features of the transactional and constructivist approach conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors humor styles and empathy in junior-school children research reports humor styles and empathy in junior-school children caitlin charlotte halfpenny* a, lucy amelia james a [a] school of psychology, keele university, keele, united kingdom. abstract humor is a complex phenomenon. for one individual a joke may be perceived as comical, yet for another, the same joke may be deemed completely inappropriate. the appropriate use of humor is perhaps dependent on how a humorist relates to, understands and can empathize with their audience. thus, the present research aimed to determine whether empathy is related to junior-school children’s use of different humor styles. it has been proposed that four styles of humor exist, two of which are thought to be adaptive (affiliative and selfenhancing) and two of which are thought to be maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating). however, research exploring the role of humor styles in younger children’s development has been limited. to investigate this the humor styles questionnaire for young children (hsq-y) and the thinking and feeling questionnaire were administered to 214 uk children aged 9-11 years old. correlational analyses revealed that self-enhancing humor is associated with cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy, affiliative humor is positively associated with cognitive empathy specifically and aggressive humor is negatively associated with affective empathy and sympathy. possible explanations for these associations are explored, with a consideration of the direction for future research in this predominantly unexplored field of study. keywords: children, humor, humor styles, empathy, quantitative research europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 received: 2019-02-28. accepted: 2019-08-04. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: school of psychology, keele university, newcastle-under-lyme, st5 5bg, united kingdom. e-mail: cchalfpenny@live.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the four humor styles approach humor is a universal experience, occurring many times in everyday life, in all cultures across the globe (frew, 2006). martin, puhlik-doris, larsen, gray, and weir (2003) aimed to develop a multidimensional measure of humor that incorporated adaptive and maladaptive styles of humor, in addition to both self and other directed functions that are not tapped by other measures. martin et al. (2003) proposed that humor could be categorized into four distinct styles that could be measured. subsequently, the humor styles questionnaire (hsq) was developed, measuring affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating humor. martin et al. (2003) described affiliative humor as a tendency to say funny things and to make jokes to facilitate social interaction through the amusement of others. affiliative humor is adaptive as it is positively correlated with positive social interaction (norrick & chiaro, 2009), social intimacy, self-esteem and overall psychological wellbeing and negatively correlated with depression and anxiety (martin et al., 2003). self-enhancing humor is also adaptive, although it is self-directed. thought to be closely related to the concept of coping humor and europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ consistent with the definition of humor as a healthy defence mechanism (freud, 1928), self-enhancing humor can be used to release tension and boost mood to overcome hardship. it is positively correlated to overall psychological wellbeing, optimism, self-esteem, and satisfaction with social support and negatively related to anxiety and depression (martin et al., 2003). in contrast, aggressive humor is described as the use of jokes, teasing or sarcasm to enhance the self at the expense of others, regardless of the potentially hurtful impact. akin to zillmann’s (1983) description of humor which proposed that the intent of humor was to target others to gain superiority over them. accordingly, martin et al. (2003) reported that aggressive humor is maladaptive as it is positively related to hostility and negatively correlated to self-reported agreeableness and conscientiousness. as such the use of this humor style precludes prosocial behaviour and has negative effects on one’s social relationships and personal wellbeing. finally, self-defeating humor which refers to an individual’s attempts to make others laugh at the expense of the self (martin et al., 2003). this humor style, largely untapped by previous humor scales has been found to be positively correlated with bad mood, hostility, self-reported anxiety and depression, and negatively related to overall psychological wellbeing, self-esteem and satisfaction with social support (martin et al., 2003). it is predominantly maladaptive in nature as it is thought to reflect a social deficiency, emotional neediness and low self-esteem (fabrizi & pollio, 1987) that inhibits healthy social relationships and psychological wellbeing. the hsq has been found to exhibit good psychometric properties across a range of cultures (chen & martin, 2007; kazarian & martin, 2004; saroglou & scariot, 2002). martin et al. (2003) stressed that though the four humor styles are distinguishable, there should be some overlap between them. for instance, self-defeating and self-enhancing humor should be related to a degree, as they are both self-directed, however correlation results of the four humor styles did not support this relationship (martin et al., 2003). applying the humor styles approach to children klein and kuiper (2006) praised the humor styles approach for considering individual differences in adaptive and maladaptive forms of humor. however, they highlighted that this model had not been considered in respect to children’s humor. based on evidence that humor is fundamental to children’s social interactions (goleman, 2006), klein and kuiper (2006) proposed that the humor styles model could be applied to children, particularly during middle childhood. in line with previous associations between children’s humor and their status within the peer group (masten, 1986; sherman, 1988), klein and kuiper (2006) proposed that specific humor styles could influence children’s peer relationships and have important implications for their social competence and adjustment. as such, they suggested that children’s use of adaptive humor has a cyclical effect on social competence; with the use of these humor styles, opportunities to develop and understand positive uses of humor increases, thus allowing the growth of these humor styles and contributing overall to positive social development. similarly, use of maladaptive humor styles could result in a vicious cycle of peer rejection, in which peer rejection deprives children of the opportunity to develop more adaptive humor styles. overall, klein and kuiper’s (2006) proposals are consistent with martin et al.’s (2003) original humor styles model, providing an extension by considering adaptive and maladaptive humor in middle childhood. erickson and feldstein (2007) attempted to utilize the adult hsq with adolescents, however, they found unacceptable reliability coefficients for the maladaptive humor styles. as the adult-standardized hsq could not be halfpenny & james 149 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ applied as a psychometrically sound instrument for the measure of adolescents’ humor styles, fox, dean, and lyford (2013) adapted it to create the child hsq. although this measure was found to have test-retest reliability across two time points, confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the four factor structure was not appropriate for children below the age of 11 years old. it appeared that the self-directed humor styles were not present for this younger age group, thus fox et al. (2013) questioned whether young children could sufficiently self-report their own humor use or if self-directed forms of humor emerged later in life with cognitive development. as such, it was recommended that a two factor questionnaire comprised of affiliative and aggressive humor would better represent younger populations’ use of humor. however, an interview study by james and fox (2016a) indicated that although individual differences were evident, some children aged 8-11 years old were able to discuss the use of self-enhancing and self-defeating humor. it appeared that a hsq for younger children should incorporate all four styles of humor. consequently, james and fox (2016b) successfully developed a four factor humor styles questionnaire for younger children (hsq-y), aged 8-11 years old. children’s self-reported use of adaptive humor styles were found to be positively associated with self-perceived social competence and peer acceptance and negatively correlated with loneliness. these findings were supportive of martin et al.’s (2003) original findings with young adults; adaptive humor styles were positively related to overall psychological wellbeing and social outcomes. moreover, james and fox (2016b) found a low positive relationship between self-enhancing and self-defeating humor among the correlations of the four humor styles, as supposed but not supported by martin et al. (2003). james and fox (2016b) also demonstrated the validity of the hsq-y by utilizing peer reports to corroborate children’s self report and by administering the measures on two occasions to achieve test re-test reliability. the application of the four humor styles approach to children was further validated by james and fox (2018) who established longitudinal relationships between children’s self-reported humor on the hsq-y and psychological adjustment. overall, these findings reinforced the justification for applying martin et al.’s (2003) hsq to children, providing an opportunity for the present research to utilize the hsq-y in the exploration of children’s humor styles in relation to empathy. empathy one generally accepted definition of empathy is the apprehension and sharing of perceived emotion with another (eisenberg & strayer, 1990): this definition is brief and exceedingly broad. one of the key controversies in the definitional issues of empathy is whether it is a cognitive or affective phenomenon (ickes, 1997). while the earliest studies considered cognitive and affective components of empathy as separate (duan & hill, 1996; kerr & speroff, 1954), most contemporary research incorporates both components, using multidimensional measures such as the interpersonal reactivity index (iri; davis, 1980) which avoids artificial compartmentalization of cognitive and affective empathy by studying these elements in parallel (staub, 1987). though the iri has good psychometric properties when used with adults (carey, fox, & spraggins, 1988; hawk, keijsers, branje, van der graaff, de wied, & meeus, 2013), it is not suitable for use with children. though garton and gringart (2005) devised a successful adaptation of the iri for use with children aged 8-11 years old, it has been criticized profoundly for containing a number of items that equate empathy with sympathy (fernández, dufey, & kramp, 2011). although sympathy can be considered related to empathy, it is important for researchers to distinguish critical differences between them. for example, eisenberg and strayer (1990) differentiated sympathy as having an humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 150 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ additional response to empathy. an individual may have empathy for another but not necessarily sympathy; it is possible for one to understand another’s feelings and have empathy for them but not have sympathy, perhaps because they feel that the other person deserves their distress. although empathy and sympathy can be linked, it is important that measures do not equate these constructs, rather measure them as separate subscales (villadangos, errasti, amigo, jolliffe, & garcia-cueto, 2016). accordingly, the present research utilized an extension of zoll and enz’s (2005) empathy questionnaire (eq). while the eq has been established as an accurate measure of cognitive and affective empathy, with a validated two factor structure amongst children aged 8-14 years old from the uk, portugal, germany (zoll & enz, 2005) and bolivia (roth, 2018), the present research endeavored to incorporate a measure of sympathy. the extended version of the eq, the thinking and feeling questionnaire (zoll & enz, 2005) was utilized to measure cognitive and affective empathy, alongside sympathy. cognitive empathy cognitive empathy refers to the individual’s ability to intellectually assume the perspective of another person (gladstein, 1983). essentially zoll and enz (2005) characterized cognitive empathy as the thinking and understanding aspect of empathy, the “theory of mind” construct that davis (1983) referred to as “perspective-taking”. it is the ability to represent the internal states of others by decoding their behaviours, labelling their emotions and using situational cues. from a developmental perspective, this type of empathy is dependent on the cognitive development of children and so, does not develop until children possess the relevant cognitive capabilities. affective empathy under piagetian influence empathy has been equated with cognitive abilities such as perspective-taking until recently in which an affective component has been acknowledged (lamb & keller, 2019). according to zoll and enz (2005) affective empathy equated to davis’ (1983) “empathic concern” in which an individual is able to feel with another person, experiencing a congruent emotion in response to their condition. affective empathy can be considered a result of cognitive empathy or as an established expression of a child’s innate drive to respond appropriately to the emotions of others (zoll & enz, 2005). these opposing perspectives present a matter of contention within the literature; as the proposal that affective empathy is the result of the cognitive apprehension of another’s emotional state suggests that cognitive empathy is a prerequisite of the emotional component of empathy (eisenberg, 2005). while wispe (1987) argued that affective empathy cannot occur without the fundamental cognitive components that work to serve the experience of affective empathy, shamay-tsoory (2009) contended that affective empathy is entirely separate and represents the other-orientated prosocial behaviours displayed by infants from a young age. it appeared that employing a measure that incorporated both affective and cognitive components of empathy and examining them in parallel was the most appropriate, particularly as the relationship between these components and their development in childhood remained a complex issue (raine & chen, 2018). the use of the thinking and feeling questionnaire allowed for the examination of the possible interactive effects of affective and cognitive empathy. halfpenny & james 151 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sympathy zoll and enz (2005) referred to sympathy as a construct related to, but separate from empathy. sympathy is a vicarious emotional reaction and concern for another that is based on the understanding of their emotional condition. sympathy not only includes empathizing but also entails positive regard and intention to help. rather than feeling with another, sympathy is the sympathizers’ concern and subsequent action to help (eisenberg & miller, 1987). considering the shortcomings of the iri for equating the measurement of sympathy with that of empathy, the use of the thinking and feeling questionnaire will allow each of these constructs to be measured in their own right. humor and empathy there are a substantial number of parallels between humor and empathy, such as the similarities in their emergence in child development. both humor and empathy mature across cognitive development in the social context, though the foundational elements of each are often considered innate (fogel et al., 1997; sroufe & wunsch, 1972). with cognitive development children’s innate sensitivity to humor and tendency to appreciate another’s emotions matures. though due to the cognitive demand of both humor and empathy, the emergence of the most sophisticated forms of these qualities do not appear until later in development. for instance, at the age children become less egocentric as they begin to recognize that the thoughts and feelings of others may differ from their own (piaget, 1970). it is with this cognitive capability that children are able to develop the most advanced level of social understanding, theory of mind (tom). tom is the recognition that the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires and intentions of another may differ from our own (howe, 2013). it is this capacity to feel things from another person’s perspective that gives rise to more sophisticated, other-orientated forms of humor and is the basis of empathy. finally, the social nature of humor and empathy relative to their function and impact on social behaviours and relationships are similar. both humor and empathy are perceived as positive and desirable interpersonal qualities that promote a range of social functions across the lifespan. for instance, empathy is a valuable characteristic in the workplace (arnold et al., 2016) and in romantic relationships (perronemcgovern et al., 2014), much like a “sense of humor” is highly valued in children, parents, employees, partners and friendships (ziv, 2010). overall, it appears that humor and empathy are intrinsically linked to prosocial outcomes and behaviour. despite the wealth of similarities between humor and empathy, few researchers have endeavored to explore the relationship between these variables. martin and dutrizac (2004) found that greater use of adaptive humor styles and lesser use of maladaptive humor styles among undergraduate students can result in more positive social interactions in daily life. moreover, the giving and receiving of empathy was characteristically linked to the prosocial nature of adaptive humor styles. however, this study was limited by the use of a single, global measure of empathy. martin and dutrizac (2004) proposed that additional measures or multiple subscales of empathy could improve the validity of the findings. accordingly, hampes (2010) examined the associations between humor styles and empathy using the iri, a multidimensional measure of empathy. hampes (2010) found that adaptive humor styles were positively associated with empathic concern, sympathy, compassion and perspective-taking and aggressive humor was negatively associated with perspective-taking and empathic concern. humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 152 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ beyond the observed associations between humor and empathy, wu, lin, and chen (2016) proposed that differential relationships in humor styles are mediated by gender differences in empathy. overall, wu, lin, and chen (2016) findings strengthened those of hampes (2010), substantiating the rationale for the exploration of associations between humor styles and empathy; not only is there an association between humor styles and empathy but an individual’s tendency to use either adaptive or maladaptive humor is mediated by gender differences in empathic skills and abilities. for instance, females were significantly more likely to score highly on perspective-taking empathy and consequently, were more likely to report using adaptive humor styles. whereas males were more likely to score low on empathic concern and consequently, reported using maladaptive humor styles. despite the apparent similarities and associations between humor and empathy, few researchers (hampes 2010; martin & dutrizac, 2004; wu, lin, & chen, 2016) appear to have investigated the differential associations between specific humor styles and various measures of empathy. moreover, these studies utilized the iri (davis, 1980) to measure empathy. as previously discussed, the iri has been criticized for equating sympathy with the construct of empathy on the same subscale, therefore it was imperative that the present research implemented a measure such as the thinking and feeling questionnaire (zoll & enz, 2005) which examined affective empathy, cognitive empathy and sympathy as related but separate constructs. besides the aforementioned studies have been conducted with young adults and adolescents only, the evidence for associations between humor styles and empathy among children is absent. the present research the primary aim of the present research was to bridge the gap in the study of children’s use of humor styles by exploring associations with cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy. as the association between juniorschool aged children’s use of humor styles and empathy were yet to be explored, the present research employed correlational analyses to establish the presence of any relationships. based on previous research conducted with young adults it was hypothesized that: adaptive humor styles would be positively associated with empathy, maladaptive humor styles would be negatively correlated with empathy, girls would self-report using adaptive humor styles and empathy significantly more than boys and boys would self-report using maladaptive humor styles significantly more and empathy significantly less than girls. method participants 214 children were recruited from two primary schools in the north west of england. children completed a demographic form for their age and gender. the sample consisted of year 5 and year 6 pupils aged 9-11 years with a mean age of 10.12 years (sd = 0.68). there were 97 boys and 116 girls. parental consent was obtained using the opt-out method. halfpenny & james 153 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials a questionnaire was used to assess children’s humor styles and empathy. this questionnaire employed two self-report scales, the hsq-y (james & fox, 2016b) and the thinking and feeling questionnaire (zoll & enz, 2005). the hsq-y is an adapted version of martin et al.’s (2003) original hsq that measures affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive and self-defeating humor. however, the hsq-y was considered more appropriate for children with a flesch reading ease score of 84.90 (us grade level = 3.60, uk year 4, age 8-9 years). this measure presented children with 24 questionnaire items in which each dimension of humor style was assessed on a subscale of 6 items. an example question from the affiliative humor subscale is: “my jokes and funny stories make people laugh”, from the self-enhancing subscale: “if something is difficult, it helps to find something funny about it”, from the aggressive subscale: “when i think of something that is funny about someone, i say it, even if it gets me into trouble” and the self-defeating humor subscale: “i often find myself laughing with others about things i am not very good at”. all items required a self-report tick box response on a likert-type scale. the response scale scores were 1 = “not at all like me”, 2 = “not like me”, 3 = “a bit like me”, 4 = “a lot like me”. subscale scores ranged from 6 to 24, with 6 being low for each humor scale and 24 being high for each humor scale. a mean score was then calculated for participants on each of the four humor subscales. the thinking and feeling questionnaire was selected as it overcomes the compartmentalization of different components of empathy and sympathy. it examined cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy in parallel on separate subscales. the thinking and feeling questionnaire was considered appropriate for the sample with a flesch reading ease score of 85.40 (us grade level = 4.7, uk year 5, age 9-10 years). this measure presented children with 28 questionnaire items with each of the three dimensions measured on a sub-scale. one example from the affective empathy subscale is: “it makes me sad to see a child who can’t find anybody else to play with”, the cognitive empathy subscale: “i notice straight away when something makes my best friend unhappy” and the sympathy subscale: “i feel sorry for people who don’t have the things that i have”. although zoll and enz (2005) supported the utilization of the thinking and feeling questionnaire for children 8 years old and above, the decision was made to adapt the response scale for the present research. this research implemented a four-point response scale in preference of the original five-point response. the mid-point response was removed to avoid the potential tendency for children to opt for the neutral mid-point response (borgers, hox, & sikkel, 2004). thus, within the present research children responded to the thinking and feeling questionnaire items on a likert scale where response scale scores were 1 = “strongly disagree”, 2 = “disagree”, 3 = “agree”, 4 = “strongly agree”. subscale scores varied as there were a different number of items on each. the cognitive empathy subscale had 12 items, with a score of 12 being low for that subscale and 48 being high. the affective empathy subscale had 10 items, where a score of 10 was low for that subscale and 40 was high. the sympathy subscale had 6 items, where a score of 6 was low for that subscale and 24 was high. one item on the sympathy subscale was reverse coded; “i don’t feel sorry for other children who are being picked on” as it was negatively worded. a mean score was calculated for each participant on each of the subscales. humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 154 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure ethical approval was gained from the school of psychology ethics committee. the head teachers from two primary schools were approached by email and agreement to participate was received following a discussion of the research. parental consent letters that contained the details of the research were distributed by the school. the opt-out method was deemed appropriate as the research was not considered sensitive in nature. the researcher obtained any consent forms returned to the school and the class teacher ensured that those children (6 pupils) were not within the classroom at the time of data collection. the researcher led the data collection sessions, which took place on a whole class basis. first, a standardized preamble was used to ensure that the instructions given were consistent. it was stressed to children that participation was their choice and despite their parents having given permission for them to take part: they could withdraw themselves at any point. children were provided with the opportunity to ask any questions but did not need any clarifications at this stage. children responded to the hsq-y followed by the thinking and feeling questionnaire. at the end of the session children were given a full debrief in which the aims of the research were explained, children were reassured that their answers would remain confidential and informed that they should talk to a teacher if they had any further questions. data analysis strategy ibm spss statistics 24 was used to conduct the data analysis. statistical analyses included means, ranges and standard deviations to describe participants and cronbach’s alpha to evaluate the internal consistency of the subscales on the hsq-y and thinking and feeling questionnaire. prior to further data analysis, it was necessary to conduct preliminary screening to ensure that the assumptions about the data were satisfied. pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient was selected to examine relationships between subscales as there were two variables (humor styles and empathy), both measured on a continuous scale. the assumption of linearity was checked by plotting each humor style against each measure of empathy. a visual inspection of the scatterplots revealed a linear relationship between all variables. however, when the scatterplots were checked for the presence of outliers, it was found that this assumption was violated in four cases. according to field (2013), these outliers could be retained in the analyses as each case did not exceed the boundary of 3.29 and -3.29 standard deviations from the mean. based on the assumptions check, it was deemed acceptable to proceed with the correlational analysis. a 2 (gender) x 2 (year group) manova was selected to investigate gender and year group differences in humor styles and empathy. the assumptions of homoscedasticity and linearity were checked via a matrix of scatterplots; it was found that the variance surrounding the regression line was fairly equal for all values and that the independent variables were linearly related. mahalonoblis distances were obtained to check multivariate normality. this assumption was violated as the value exceeded the maximum threshold, however further investigation revealed that the critical value was exceeded in only three cases and it was not necessary to remove these from the sample. the assumption of univariate normality was checked through an inspection of histograms, detrended normal q-q plots and boxplots. although the assumption appeared satisfied in the figures, the kolomogorov-smirnov statistic suggested a possible violation of normality. however, as pallant (2013) states that such a violation is common in larger sample sizes, this was not considered an issue. to check for multicollinearity, pearson’s correlation was run to check the strength of association between the dependent varhalfpenny & james 155 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ iables. this test revealed that the dependent variables were moderately correlated. next, the assumption of homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices were checked with an inspection of box’s test, this revealed a value of .02, indicating that this assumption had been met. as there were no values less than .05 in levene’s test, it was presumed that the assumption of equality of variance had been met. based on the assumptions check, it was deemed acceptable to proceed with manova. results reliability analysis the reliability of all subscales on both the hsq-y and the thinking and feeling questionnaire were reviewed. all subscales were found to have acceptable reliability .70 and above, the level considered satisfactory by pallant (2013). table 1 presents the cronbach’s alphas for each subscale. table 1 cronbach’s alphas and n for individual subscales subscales α n affiliative .87 210 aggressive .84 211 self-enhancing .70 211 self-defeating .80 210 affective empathy .81 203 cognitive empathy .71 203 sympathy .80 211 note. discrepancies in sample size due to illegible or incomplete questionnaires, total sample size; n = 214. correlational analysis preliminary assumption checks were satisfied. the relationships between each humor style and each dimension of empathy were investigated using pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. affiliative humor and cognitive empathy (r = .31, n = 214, p < .001) and self-enhancing and cognitive empathy (r = .35, n = 214, p < .001), affective empathy (r = .31, n = 214, p < .001) and sympathy (r = .25, n = 214, p < .001) were significantly and positively correlated, partially supporting the hypotheses. aggressive humor was significantly and negatively correlated with sympathy (r = -.36, n = 214, p < .001) and affective empathy (r = -.28, n = 214, p < .001), also partially supporting the hypotheses. the findings for self-defeating humor did not support the hypotheses as there were no significant correlations found. intercorrelations table 2 presents the intercorrelations between all variables in the research. self-defeating humor was positively correlated with all three other humor styles; aggressive, (r = .47, n = 214, p < .001), affiliative, (r = .33, n = 214, p < .001) and self-enhancing, (r = .20, n = 214, p = .004). affiliative humor was positively correlated with selfenhancing humor only, (r = .46, n = 214, p < .001). the remaining intercorrelations were non-significant. it was found that all measures of empathy were positively correlated with one another. the strongest association was humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 156 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ between affective empathy and sympathy, (r = .72, n = 214, p < .001), next cognitive and affective empathy, (r = .44, n = 214, p < .001), sympathy and cognitive empathy, (r = .41, n = 214, p < .001). table 2 intercorrelations between measures measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. aff .10 .46* .33* .12 .31* .13 2. agg .04 .47* -.28* -.11 -.36* 3. sen .20* .31* .35* .25* 4. sdf -.03 .12 -.08 5. affemp .44* .72* 6. cogemp .41* 7. symp note. aff = affiliative; agg = aggressive; sen = self-enhancing; sdf = self-defeating; affemp = affective empathy; cogemp = cognitive empathy; symp = sympathy. *p < .001. gender and year group differences preliminary assumption checks were satisfied. a 2 (gender) x 2 (year group) fully unrelated manova was performed to investigate gender and year group differences in humor styles and empathy. this manova accounted for all 7 dependent variables alongside gender and year groups in one analysis. see table 3 for means and sds. analyses revealed a significant main effect of gender on aggressive humor, f(1, 208) = 7.24, p = .008, ηp 2 = .03 with boys reporting this humor style significantly more than girls: and a significant main effect of gender on affective empathy f(1, 208) = 30.81, p < .001, ηp 2 = .13 with girls reporting this type of empathy significantly more than boys. there was also a significant main effect of year group on self-enhancing humor, f(1, 208) = 30.81, p < .001, ηp 2 = .13 and self-defeating humor f(1, 208) = 13.19, p < .001, ηp 2 = .06, with increased reports of these humor styles among year 6 pupils and of year group on cognitive empathy f(1, 208) = 7.14 p = .008, ηp 2 = .03 with increased reports of these humor styles among year 6 pupils compared to year 5 pupils. there were no significant interaction effects. table 3 means (and sds) for gender and year group differences of humor styles and empathy measures year 5 year 6 overall aff male 3.20 (0.63) 3.23 (0.64) 3.21 (0.63) aff female 3.22 (0.78) 3.25 (0.60) 3.23 (0.70) aff overall 3.21 (0.71) 3.24 (0.61) 3.23 (0.67) agg male 1.92 (0.68) 2.05 (0.64) 1.98 (0.66) agg female 1.64 (0.67) 1.83 (0.64) 1.73 (0.66) agg overall 1.77 (0.69) 1.93 (0.64) 1.84 (0.67) sen male 2.50 (0.57) 2.98 (0.66) 2.73 (0.66) sen female 2.52 (0.60) 2.97 (0.58) 2.73 (0.63) sen overall 2.51 (0.59) 2.97 (0.61) 2.73 (0.64) sdf male 2.24 (0.69) 2.71 (0.76) 2.47 (0.76) sdf female 2.17 (0.72) 2.41 (0.68) 2.29 (0.71) sdf overall 2.20 (0.70) 2.55 (0.73) 2.37 (0.74) affemp male 2.90 (0.59) 3.03 (0.53) 2.96 (0.56) halfpenny & james 157 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures year 5 year 6 overall affemp female 3.22 (0.45) 3.34 (0.46) 3.28 (0.46) affemp overall 3.08 (0.54) 3.20 (0.51) 3.14 (0.53) cogemp male 3.03 (0.41) 3.19 (0.39) 3.11 (0.40) cogemp female 3.13 (0.39) 3.26 (0.36) 3.19 (0.38) cogemp overall 3.09 (0.40) 3.23 (0.37) 3.15 (0.39) symp male 3.35 (0.61) 3.52 (0.47) 3.44 (0.55) symp female 3.50 (0.57) 3.60 (0.35) 3.54 (0.48) symp overall 3.42 (0.58) 3.57 (0.41) 3.49 (0.51) note. 96 males, 116 females (year 5: n = 110, year 6: n = 102). aff = affiliative; agg = aggressive; sen = self-enhancing; sdf = self-defeating; affemp = affective empathy; cogemp = cognitive empathy; symp = sympathy. discussion the present research was the first to address the association between children’s humor style use, empathy and sympathy. although a handful of other researchers have conducted similar studies, these studies have focused on young adults and have employed the iri, a measure which has been criticized for equating sympathy with empathy. thus, the present research focused on childhood associations between humor styles, affective empathy, cognitive empathy and sympathy using the thinking and feeling questionnaire which examined these constructs in parallel. the findings were generally supportive of the hypotheses and the previous literature, though it appeared that the associations between the variables are not as evident as previously assumed. this research indicated that different elements of empathy and sympathy are associated with different humor styles. humor styles and empathy the hypothesis that adaptive humor styles would be positively correlated with both measures of empathy and sympathy and that maladaptive humor styles would be negatively correlated with both measures of empathy and sympathy was partially supported, the results did not indicate such a simple association. instead, different humor styles were related to specific components of cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy. self-enhancing humor was the only style found to be positively correlated to both measures of empathy and sympathy. this suggests that children who use self-enhancing humor are able to conceptualize the perspective of another (cognitive empathy), understand their emotional condition (affective empathy) and sympathize with them. this finding contrasts with hampes (2010) who observed a positive association between self-enhancing humor and perspective taking (iri; davis, 1980) empathy only. while hampes (2010) suggested that self-enhancing is specifically associated with the perspective-taking elements of the cognitive empathy construct, in line with the intrapersonal function of this humor style, the findings from the present research suggest a more explicit link with interpersonal functioning. perhaps there is some element of self-enhancing humor that is other orientated; as children learn to engage in prosocial behaviours, they are able to refine their empathic abilities and practice using adaptive styles of humor. through interpersonal development, empathic abilities and use of self-enhancing humor could emerge together. the link between self-enhancing humor and interpersonal functioning is further supported by the positive correlation with sympathy. sympathy is an interpersonal characteristic, with early work on the topic describing it as the epitome of prosocial behaviour (murphy, 1937). perhaps children who have learnt to use self-enhancing huhumor styles and empathy in junior-school children 158 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mor to overcome adversity are able to transfer these skills into sympathetic action in an attempt to alleviate others’ emotional distress. this idea was supported by the observed intercorrelations between self-enhancing and affiliative humor in the present research. in addition to evidence that children who score highly on measures of empathy also score highly on measures of other altruistic behaviours, such as motivation to help others (malti, gummerum, keller, & buchmann, 2009). thus, self-enhancing humor appears to include interpersonal elements, in addition to intrapersonal functions. the findings for affiliative humor partially supported the hypothesis as it was found that this humor style was positively correlated with the cognitive construct of empathy only. these findings directly oppose hampes (2010) who found that affiliative humor was instead solely associated with empathic concern, the affective component amongst young adults. it is somewhat surprising that the same correlation was not observed in the present research; after all, high levels of affiliative humor would be compatible with other prosocial behaviours, such as the ability to feel the emotions of others. this, therefore, might indicate that affiliative humor is significantly related to each component of empathy at different stages in development. for instance, cognitive empathy may be more significant amongst children as the cognitive capabilities to emotionally understand how others might perceive humor is still in development. it is only by age 9 that children are able to distinguish others’ emotions and understand subtle facial expressions (gosselin, perron, legault, & campenella, 2002). perhaps the positive association between affiliative humor and cognitive empathy arises from the flourishing cognitive capabilities of the children in the present research. alternatively, these findings may reflect the impact of anderson’s (2014) recommendations regarding curriculum changes in the teaching of interpersonal skills in the uk. perhaps the increased teaching of empathy and empathic skills, such as perspective-taking amongst junior-school aged children contributed to the differential outcomes from hampes (2010). overall, the findings for affiliative humor appear in line with those for self-enhancing humor; with the prosocial values of adaptive humor styles and empathy, children are able to understand how to use humor positively. aggressive humor was negatively correlated to affective empathy and sympathy. although the correlational design does not permit an indication of the causal relationship, it is likely, based on previous literature that increased aggressive humor is associated with decreased affective empathy and sympathy. hampes (2010) provided support for the negative association between aggressive humor and the affective components of empathy; individuals who have difficulty experiencing the emotional condition of others tend to use more aggressive humor. perhaps in the present research, children who frequently use aggressive humor are not able to emotionally experience the feelings of others and so, do not understand the need to adapt their humor style to achieve more prosocial outcomes. this affective deficit may actually inhibit children’s development of adaptive humor styles as they enter a cycle in which aggressive humor limits social opportunities and limited social opportunities prohibit the opportunity to practice adaptive humor (fox, hunter, & jones, 2016). as aggressive humor was not significantly correlated with cognitive empathy, this might suggest that this humor style is related to an emotional deficiency, rather than a cognitive one. perhaps children do possess the cognitive capabilities to engage in perspective-taking behaviours but are unable to use more adaptive humor styles as they lack the emotional capacity to appreciate how others perceive their use of humor. this mirrors the work of klein and kuiper (2006) who suggested that direct bullies’ use of aggressive humor reflected a deficiency of social and emotional skills. these bullies use aggressive humor to victimize their peers, though as they cannot feel the emotional impact that their humor has on others, they experience peer rejection. halfpenny & james 159 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, this affective deficit amongst those who use aggressive humor is likely to preclude sympathy. children who are unable to feel the emotional distress of another through affective empathy are unlikely to experience the emotional drive to assist and alleviate distress. as sympathy has not previously been examined in relation to humor styles, there is no evidence to support this proposal. though empirical evidence from interventions that target children’s interpersonal helping behaviours may provide some insight; domitrovich, cortes, and greenberg (2007) found that interventions targeting children’s sympathetic responses led to a decrease in hostile interactions, arguments with peers and expressions of aggression. finally, self-defeating humor was not correlated to any of the measures of empathy. this absence of association reflects hampes (2010) who also found non-significant relations between these variables. perhaps one explanation of this is that self-defeating humor is self-orientated whilst empathy is predominantly other-orientated. although self-orientated humor has been noted to affect others, for example resulting in lower quality relationships (perry & bussey, 1984), it appears that this might be an indirect effect that is not related to children’s perception and understanding of what others will find funny. it appears that variables other than empathy could explain the maladaptive nature and outcomes of this humor style. additionally, the present results indicate that children are unable to self-report on self-directed humor styles, as james and fox (2016a) suggested, some but not all children use and understand self-defeating humor at this age. overall, the findings from this research indicated that each humor style is differentially related to cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy. it appears that these differential relationships were not dependent on the adaptive-maladaptive or self-other orientations of humor style, rather the different components of empathy and sympathy. furthermore, these findings sustained the argument that cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy are different constructs that should be measured separately in relation to other phenomena. although these findings build on previous literature, more still needs to be done to examine why certain relationships might exist between different humor styles, the two components of empathy and sympathy in childhood but not later in development. gender and year group differences there were several main effects of gender and year group for humor styles and empathy. although these main effects partially supported the hypotheses, the effects observed were not as simple as initially hypothesized. notably, there was a significant main effect of gender on aggressive humor, with boys self-reporting this humor style more frequently than girls. this is in line with martin et al. (2003) who found that male undergraduate students reported a much greater tendency to engage in aggressive expressions of humor, such as sarcasm and ridicule than females. as well as james and fox (2016b) who found that boys aged 8-11 years old use maladaptive humor styles more frequently. though contrary to the hypotheses, the same effect of gender was not found for the other maladaptive humor style, self-defeating humor. this is in contrast to wu, lin, and chen (2016) who found that gender was predictive of the maladaptive humor styles, with males using both more frequently than females. the discrepancies between these findings might indicate cross-cultural gender differences between the samples. the relationships between humor styles and gender have been found to vary with cultural differences, across cultural influences and social norms (martin, 2007). perhaps it is these cultural differences that lead males from other cultures, such as taiwan (wu, lin, & chen, 2016), belgium (saroglou & scariot, 2002) and lebanon (kazarian & martin, 2004) to report self-defeating humor more frequently than humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 160 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ those in the present research. alternatively, it is also possible that gender differences in the use of self-defeating humor emerge later in life as each of the aforementioned studies were conducted with older samples. there was also a main effect of gender on empathy, as boys self-reported affective component significantly less than girls. this finding is supportive of the generally accepted view that boys are less likely to engage in and exhibit empathy behaviours from the age of 4 and across the lifespan (christov-moore et al., 2014). specifically males are also less likely to engage in emotionally orientated or prosocial behaviours (roberts & strayer, 1996) and report consistently lower scores on measures of affective empathy (jolliffe & farrington, 2006). overall, the effect of gender on humor styles and empathy was more complex than anticipated. the relationships found in the present research were more varied than those of wu, lin, and chen (2016) who found that gender differences in all measures of empathy mediated gender differences across all styles of humor. it should be considered that developmental and cultural differences between wu, lin, and chen’s (2016) taiwanese sample of adolescents and that of the present research may reflect the observed discrepancies. the same effects of gender in humor styles and empathy were not found among english junior-school aged children. limitations and future research although the present research made important contributions regarding the link between humor styles and empathy among children, it is not without its limitations. firstly, the research is correlational and does not reveal causal relationships between particular humor styles and types of empathy. although correlational research was appropriate as this study was the first to explore these variables among children, future research should seek to examine causal relationships. moreover, future research should attempt to address the differential relationships between different styles of humor and different measures of empathy. it would be beneficial for future research to replicate the current findings and explore why, for example, affiliative humor is related only to cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy or sympathy. the divergence of this finding from associations found between affiliative humor and affective empathy among young adults should also be explored, with the intricacies between each humor style, empathy and sympathy examined across the lifespan and differing cultures. evaluating the hsq-y the hsq-y is a relatively new measure that appears to have good psychometric properties when utilized alongside measures of psychological wellbeing and adjustment (james & fox, 2016b; james & fox, 2018). however, the present research was the first to use the hsq-y alongside a measure of empathy in children. it was found that each of the subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency, suggesting that the hsq-y is a reliable measure of the four humor styles among junior-school aged children. however, the original hsq has been challenged. for instance, ruch and heintz (2017) found that both humorous and non-humorous contexts could determine the hsq scales, thereby suggesting that humor may not be the primary source of the variance within the hsq scales, limiting their construct validity. furthermore, that the relationships between the hsq scales, the big five personality traits and subjective wellbeing were reduced when non-humorous context within hsq items were controlled for. ruch and heintz called for a reevaluation of the role of humor within the hsq scales and their relationships to personality and wellbeing. nevertheless, the evidence against the hsq does not yet appear sufficient enough to dismiss the humor styles approach or its application to children. halfpenny & james 161 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion the present research has extended the humor styles literature with regard to younger children, magnifying the differential relationships of humor styles with cognitive empathy, affective empathy and sympathy. future research should now aim to expand the foundation of knowledge surrounding these relationships in childhood, for example, considering the divergence of the associations between humor styles and empathy from those previously found among young adults. moreover, the causal relationships between these variables should also be explored. in summary, this research has contributed a broader base of knowledge in the emerging area of children’s humor styles, opening the doors to the exploration of these relative to empathy and sympathy. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we are extremely grateful to the children who took part in this research and to the schools, teachers and parents who allowed them to do so. references anderson, r. 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(2005). a questionnaire to assess affective and cognitive empathy in children. journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 15, 165-174. retrieved from https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:473-opus-2359 about the authors caitlin halfpenny is an msc child development graduate of keele university. she is interested in pursuing a phd to further explore her research interests in children’s humor styles. lucy james is a teaching fellow in psychology at keele university. her research has examined associations between children’s humor styles and psychosocial adjustment and considered how awareness of different forms of humor in children can be raised. she is also interested in the development of different styles of humor. humor styles and empathy in junior-school children 166 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 148–166 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1934 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.2307%2f1127519 https://doi.org/10.7334%2fpsicothema2016.6 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.paid.2016.05.018 https://doi.org/10.1007%2f978-1-4612-5572-7_5 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs12115-009-9283-9 https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bvb:473-opus-2359 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ humor styles and empathy in junior-school children (introduction) the four humor styles approach applying the humor styles approach to children empathy humor and empathy the present research method participants materials procedure data analysis strategy results reliability analysis correlational analysis intercorrelations gender and year group differences discussion humor styles and empathy gender and year group differences limitations and future research evaluating the hsq-y conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging: analysis of their content research reports emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging: analysis of their content carlos gantiva 1 , miguel sotaquirá 2, vanessa chaparro 2, laura colorado 2, alejandra gómez 2 [1] department of psychology, universidad de los andes, bogotá, colombia. [2] department of psychology, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 received: 2020-03-01 • accepted: 2020-10-30 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom corresponding author: carlos gantiva, department of psychology, universidad de los andes, cr 1 # 18a-12, bogotá, colombia. tel: +57(1) 3394949. e-mail: c.gantiva@uniandes.edu.co supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the use of graphic health warnings (ghws) on tobacco packaging is one of the most widely used public health strategies worldwide, but there is little evidence of the emotional impact of its content and craving they generate. the objective of the present study was to evaluate the emotional and craving responses to ghw content. the study included 300 men and women of different ages (adolescents, young adults, and adults), both smokers and non-smokers. we evaluated the participants’ emotional and craving responses to 16 ghws with different content (i.e., cancer, cardiovascular disease, abortion, and childhood illness). we analyzed the effects of sex, smoking status, and age. ghws exhibited the capacity to elicit aversive emotional states, with low levels of arousal and high levels of dominance and did not produce craving. ghws that showed images of cancer and abortion had the greatest emotional impact. non-smoking adolescent females experienced the greatest emotional impact of ghws. the results suggest that ghws effectively reduce the attractiveness of cigarette packages and discourage consumption, and increasing the size of ghws may favor avoidance of the package. ghws that depicted explicit threats had a greater emotional impact, especially in women. keywords graphic health warnings, emotion, craving, tobacco, smoking tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year worldwide. six million of these deaths are directly related to cigarette smoking, and approximately 890,000 deaths result from second-hand smoke. tobacco consumption is currently the leading cause of lung cancer worldwide, is directly responsible for more than 29 diseases, and it is also associated with at least 50% of cardiovascular diseases (world health organization, 2015). to reduce global tobacco use and demotivate new tobacco users, the world health organization (who) developed and promoted the framework convention on tobacco control (fctc) in 2005. the fctc was adopted by 168 nations, representing 86.5% of the countries worldwide (who, 2005, 2008). one of the most cost-effective methods that are defined by the fctc for advertising about the dangers of tobacco is the use of graphic health warnings (ghws) on tobacco packs. currently, this strategy has been implemented by 135 countries (who, 2015). following fctc, since 2009 colombia introduced the use of ghws on tobacco packages. these warnings cover 30% of the area of the main face in the pack and make use of powerful visual images and warning texts to show the negative impacts of tobacco consumption. however, their emotional impact and craving response has not yet been assessed for these warnings. in colombia, the lifetime and last year prevalence rate of smoking was 33.3 and 12.1%, respectively; with this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2885&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9232-121x https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ an age onset of 17.4 years. in adolescents with ages between 12 and 17 years, the lifetime and last year prevalence rate of smoking was 6.5 and 2.4%, respectively. in young people (18–24 years), these rates increase to 31.2 and 14.6% (dane, 2020). evidence suggests that ghws are more effective among non-smokers, recent smokers (one year of consump­ tion), and smokers with intentions to quit, compared with moderate and heavy smokers without intentions to quit (hammond, fong, mcneill, borland, & cummings, 2006; hammond, reid, driezen, & boudreau, 2012; hammond, thrasher, et al., 2012; thrasher et al., 2012). ghws that consist of images are more effective than text-only warnings (noar et al., 2015) and ghws compliance with the minimum size that was established by who (i.e., 30% of the cigarette pack) is insufficient to generate an attentional response to the health message and an emotional impact associated with avoidance of the cigarette pack (gantiva et al., 2016; gantiva, palacio, ortega, castillo, & ortiz, 2018). instead, ghws with an area covering 60% of the cigarette pack generate a greater attention and emotional response (gantiva, sotaquirá, et al., 2019). recently, it has been found that ghws equal to 85% of the cigarette pack have been shown to be more effective in increasing label awareness, motivating cessation, preventing initiation, and conveying the intended health message (nazar et al., 2019). the emotional impact of ghws can be assessed using the bio-informational model that was proposed by lang (1995). in this model, emotions are defined as predispositions to actions and are composed of three dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. valence is the main dimension of emotion, which determines the activation of the appetitive motivational system (associated with pleasant emotions) and regulates approach behaviors when the goal is consummation, procreation, or nurturance. the defensive system is associated with unpleasant emotions and regulates defense mechanisms to protect the organism from threat. there is evidence that the neurophysiological substrate of valence determines its bipolar character and primacy over the other two dimensions (bradley & lang, 2007). arousal refers to the energy invested in emotion (i.e., intensity of the emotional experience) and, different from valence, does not have a separate neurophysiological substrate. lastly, the dominance dimension explains the degree of control over the perceived emotional response and implies the interruption or continuity of the behavioral response. studies in multiple countries and cultures have corroborated the organization of emotional experience in these three dimensions (dufey, fernández, & mayol, 2011; gantiva, barrera-valencia, et al., 2019; irrazábal, aranguren, zaldúa, & di giuliano, 2015; lang, bradley, & cuthbert, 2008; romo-gonzález, gonzález-ochoa, gantiva, & campos-uscanga, 2018; verschuere, crombez, & koster, 2001; vila et al., 2001). several studies have shown that tobacco-related stimuli (e.g., cigarette packages) elicit activation of the appetitive motivational system in smokers, thus favoring approach behavior (cinciripini et al., 2006; cui et al., 2012; gantiva et al., 2015). restrictions (e.g., not allowance of advertising, or the use both pictorial and text warnings illustrating the risks of smoking), that were established by the fctc resulted in tobacco companies’ investing heavily in testing, researching, and designing more appealing cigarette packages (wakefield, morley, horan, & cummings, 2002), by constantly modi­ fying the package design, its color combinations and textures to incentivize consumers. the effectiveness of ghws relies on their ability to activate the defensive motivational system (i.e., aversive valence), thus allowing this strategy to compete with activation of the appetitive motivational system that is provoked by tobacco packs. the affective image visualization paradigm is one of the most used methodologies to evaluate the emotional response to visual stimuli (lang, greenwald, bradley, & hamm, 1993). this paradigm consists of inducing emotional responses through the passive image viewing, and assesses emotional responses in the valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions with self-report or physiological measures. using this methodology, nascimento et al. (2008) used a set of 19 pictorial health warnings from the brazilian tobacco control program. the ghws elicited emotional states in the participants that ranged from neutral to very unpleasant with low to moderate arousal. the authors also found that ghws that depicted scenes of people who smoked caused less unpleasant affective states in smokers. furthermore, muñoz et al. (2013) evaluated a set of 35 european tobacco-warning pictures and found that 83% of these images elicited unpleasant affective states, whereas 17% elicited pleasant states. only 11.4% of the pictures received high arousal scores, and the authors found that women over 17 years old experienced higher levels of arousal. in both studies, ghws that depicted explicit damage had a higher emotional impact than those that contained only symbolic imagery of danger. however, these previous studies had three notable limitations. first, the pictures were presented using a slide projection screen; therefore, the size of the stimuli (e.g., 2.20 m × 2.50 m) was much larger than the actual size of ghws gantiva, sotaquirá, chaparro et al. 41 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that are presented on tobacco packs. previous studies have shown that the size of the picture is directly related to levels of arousal, in which smaller pictures are associated with lower arousal (codispoti & de cesarei, 2007). second, these studies did not focus on assessing the emotional impact of specific ghw content (e.g., cancer and cardiovascular disease). thus, there is no evidence of the most appropriate content that is able to elicit an aversive emotional state that competes with the positive emotional state that is elicited by the cigarette package. third, the studies did not evaluate craving (i.e., the desire to smoke) that was caused by ghws. therefore, the hypothesis that these stimuli do not induce craving themselves has not been tested. therefore, the aim of the present study was to establish the differences in the emotional and craving responses to different visual contents of the ghws (using their real size), and to analyze the effects of sex, age, and smoking status on these responses. based on previous studies on the emotional response to affective pictures (lang et al., 2008), our hypothesis is that images that show more explicit harm directed towards the person will be the most effective in inducing an aversive affective state, especially in women. however, due to the small size of the warning images, a low arousal is expected (codispoti & de cesarei, 2007). regarding the craving response, it is expected that ghws do not generate craving despite the possible association with the cigarettes pack, because the content of the images inform about the negative consequences of cigarette smoking (who, 2015). method the ethics committee of universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, approved the experimental protocol described below. participants a convenience sample of 300 subjects (137 females and 163 males), ranging from 12 to 40 years of age (m = 24.27 years, sd = 8.66 years) and residing in bogotá, colombia, participated in the study. we decided to include teenagers as part of this sample, since most smokers initiate smoking when they are adolescents (sussman, 2002). additionally, in colombia, the prevalence of tobacco consumption is studied from 12 years, with an onset age of 17.4 years (dane, 2020). the sample was recruited through flyers that were posted both in different areas of the city (i.e., universities, schools, companies, factories, and libraries) and also on the internet and social networks. for the analysis, the sample was divided into three age groups (ministerio de salud y protección social, 2018): adolescents (12–18 years old), young adults (19–26 years old), and adults (27–40 years old). table 1 summarizes the basic demographic characteristics and smoking status of the sample. table 1 demographic characteristics and smoking status of the participants characteristic adolescents (n = 100) young adults (n = 91) adults (n = 109) f or χ2 p age (years), m (sd) 15.58 (1.70) 21.89 (2.10) 34.22 (5.16) 785.78 < .001 female, % 41 48.35 47.70 1.32 .51 male, % 59 51.65 52.30 non-smokers, % 86 73.62 65.13 12.07 .002 smokers, % 14 26.38 34.87 note. sd = standard deviation. none of the participants reported current physical or psychological problems, and none of the participants were current­ ly under pharmacological treatment for mental disorders. all of the participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and audition, and provided written informed consent. for participants who were younger than 18 years of age, consent was also obtained from their parents. all of the participants’ information was coded to guarantee anonymity of the data (sociodemographic characteristics, smoking status and emotional ratings). emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging 42 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stimuli previous studies have shown that ghws that depicted explicit consequences had a higher emotional impact (muñoz et al., 2013; nascimento et al., 2008). therefore, the ghws that were used in the present study had to explicitly show a consequence of smoking and not simply symbolical consequences (e.g., erectile dysfunction through symbolic representation). based on these criteria, 16 ghws without text were selected from the set of 39 ghws that have been used in colombia since 2009 (see s1 in the supplementary materials). these ghws were further grouped into four categories: 1) cancer, 2) cardiovascular disease, 3) abortion, and 4) childhood illness. additionally, we selected 48 pictures (16 pleasant, 16 neutral, and 16 unpleasant) from the international affective picture system1 (iaps; lang et al., 2008) according to colombian normative ratings (gantiva, guerra, & vila, 2011). iaps pictures were used as comparison stimuli and to reduce the effect of habituation to the ghws. all of the pictures were presented in color. to simulate the size of ghws on actual cigarette packages, the size of all of the images (i.e., both iaps pictures and ghw pictures) was 200 × 148 pixels. unlike with the iaps pictures, the ghw images represent the consequences of cigarette smoking. self-report measures the self-assessment manikin (sam; bradley & lang, 1994) was used to evaluate emotional responses (i.e., valence, arousal, and dominance dimensions) to the ghw and iaps pictures. the sam is a pictorial nonverbal measure of emotion that consists of three affective 9-point scales. for the valence scale, the sam ranges from a smiling, happy figure to a frowning, unhappy figure. scores range from 1 (extremely unpleasant) to 9 (extremely pleasant), and 5 is neutral. for the arousal scale, the sam ranges from a relaxed, sleepy figure with eyes closed to an excited, wide-eyed figure. scores range from 1 (low arousal) to 9 (high arousal). for the dominance scale, the sam ranges from a very small figure that represents a feeling of being controlled to a very large figure that represents being in control. scores range from 1 (low dominance) to 9 (high dominance). the pictographic assessment of desire (pad; muñoz et al., 2010) was used to assess the strength of craving that was produced by the images. similar to the sam, it consists of a scale with five humanoid figures that represent different degrees of craving. the figure on the extreme left depicts a salivating face, representing maximum desire to consume the substance (score of 9). the figure on the extreme right depicts a relaxed face, representing no desire to consume the substance (score of 1). procedure presentation of the pictures and sam and pad scales was programmed using e-prime 2.0 software (psychology software tools, pa, usa). the participants viewed the pictures individually on a 13-inch laptop that was located approximately 60 cm from the subject. initially, a video with instructions was presented to evaluate the emotional response to each picture on the sam and pad scales. the participants practiced the assessment procedure using five control pictures from the iaps. all of the pictures were presented only once in four counterbalanced blocks with 64 trials each, with the constraint of not presenting the same picture category consecutively. each trial consisted of three parts: 6 seconds of picture presentation, picture rating using the sam and pad scales, and a 5-second intertrial interval. each session lasted an average of 40 minutes. statistical analysis initially, the distribution of the 64 pictures was analyzed in the emotional dimensions using a scatterplot with two axes (valence vs. arousal). pearson’s linear correlation was used to analyze correlations between appetitive valence and arousal and between aversive valence and arousal. to evaluate emotional and craving responses, we performed separate 1) pleasant pictures: 2071, 2075, 2151, 2155, 2347, 5829, 7405, 7461, 7492, 7660, 8163, 8186, 8191, 8208, 1731, 8158. neutral pictures: 2235, 2393, 2493, 2595, 2745.1, 2980, 7018, 7026, 7036, 7038, 7041, 7161, 7179, 7493, 7021, 2579. unpleasant pictures: 2688, 2981, 3195, 3213, 6415, 9185, 9187, 9321, 9341, 9435, 9904, 9908, 9922, 9940, 2095, 9332. gantiva, sotaquirá, chaparro et al. 43 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mixed 3 × 2 × 4 analyses of variance (anovas) for the valence, arousal, dominance, and craving scales, with age (adolescents, young adults, and adults) and sex (male and female) as the between-subjects factors and picture (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant iaps pictures and ghw pictures) as the within-subjects factor. subsequently, the emotional and craving responses to the four categories of ghws (i.e., cancer, cardiovascular disease, abortion, and childhood illness) were analyzed using 3 × 2 × 4 anovas, with age and sex as between-subjects factors and picture (cancer, cardiovascular disease, abortion, and childhood illness) as the within-subjects factor. green­ house-geisser correction was used to correct any violation of sphericity for the repeated measures. post hoc analyses of mean values were performed using paired multiple comparisons, adjusted with bonferroni correction. finally, to study the influence of sex, age, and smoking status on the evaluations of the ghws, four multiple regression analyses were performed using the mean valence, arousal, dominance, and craving scale scores as dependent variables. the level of significance was set at p < .05. all of the statistical analyses were performed using spss 20.0 software. results emotional impact of ghw and iaps pictures figure 1 shows the distribution of all of the pictures (i.e., iaps and ghw) in the two-dimensional affective space, composed of valence (y-axis) and arousal (x-axis) ratings. as expected, the iaps pictures are distributed in the form of a boomerang. pictures that generated appetitive affective states (positive pole) and those that generated aversive affective states (negative pole) elicited moderate arousal, whereas neutral pictures generated low arousal. ghws are located exclusively at the negative pole, indicating activation of the defensive motivational system (i.e., associated with avoidance behaviors), although with a moderate level of activation. figure 1 distribution of graphic health warnings (ghws) and international affective picture system (iaps) pictures in the two-dimensional affective space (valence and arousal dimensions) for all pictures, the quadratic correlation was significant (r 2 = .80, p < .001). pearson’s correlation was positive and significant between appetitive valence and arousal (r = .90, p < .001, r 2 = .81) and negative and significant between aversive valence and arousal (r = −.94, p < .001, r 2 = .88). emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging 44 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ valence dimension table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for valence, arousal, dominance, and craving ratings. the anova of the valence dimension revealed significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 1718.27, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.85, and sex, f(1, 294) = 4.44, p = .03, ηp2 = 0.01. as expected, significant differences were found between pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures (all p < .001). ghws elicited more aversive affective states than unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant iaps pictures (all p < .001). women experienced more negative affective states than men (p = .03). however, as indicated by the significant sex × picture interaction, f(3, 882) = 5.66, p = .006, ηp2 = 0.01, only unpleasant iaps pictures and ghw pictures generated higher negative affective states in women than in men (both p < .02). table 2 valence, arousal, dominance, and craving ratings emotional dimensions and craving m (sd) women men adolescents young adults adults total valence pleasant 6.88 (1.05) 6.87 (1.10) 6.57 (1.11) 7.02 (0.91) 7.03 (1.12) 6.88 (1.07) neutral 5.26 (0.76) 5.10 (0.87) 5.13 (0.81) 5.13 (0.76) 5.25 (0.88) 5.17 (0.82) unpleasant 2.37 (0.82) 2.75 (1.03) 2.58 (0.97) 2.48 (0.97) 2.65 (0.93) 2.57 (0.96) ghw 2.12 (1.01) 2.43 (1.21) 2.29 (1.15) 2.37 (1.09) 2.22 (1.16) 2.29 (1.13) arousal pleasant 4.34 (1.99) 3.94 (1.79) 3.74 (1.90) 3.98 (1.98) 4.59 (1.71) 4.12 (1.89) neutral 2.54 (1.46) 2.17 (1.42) 2.30 (1.35) 2.28 (1.35) 2.42 (1.49) 2.34 (1.45) unpleasant 4.48 (1.82) 3.56 (1.68) 3.64 (1.88) 4.23 (1.71) 4.09 (1.78) 3.98 (1.80) ghw 4.89 (2.10) 3.81 (1.99) 4.00 (2.08) 4.22 (1.94) 4.64 (2.24) 4.30 (2.11) dominance pleasant 7.18 (1.62) 7.55 (1.43) 7.65 (1.49) 7.55 (1.46) 7.00 (1.56) 7.38 (1.53) neutral 7.76 (1.70) 8.20 (1.35) 8.07 (1.49) 7.90 (1.66) 8.02 (1.47) 8.00 (1.53) unpleasant 6.63 (1.78) 7.36 (1.54) 7.36 (1.77) 6.81 (1.58) 6.90 (1.68) 7.03 (1.69) ghw 6.13 (1.97) 7.11 (1.67) 6.95 (1.81) 6.69 (1.87) 6.38 (1.92) 6.67 (1.88) craving pleasant 1.51 (1.10) 1.64 (1.20) 1.29 (0.72) 1.47 (1.00) 1.93 (1.47) 1.58 (1.16) neutral 1.41 (0.94) 1.46 (0.97) 1.29 (0.84) 1.34 (0.86) 1.64 (1.09) 1.44 (0.96) unpleasant 1.49 (1.18) 1.65 (1.29) 1.28 (0.67) 1.41 (0.96) 1.99 (1.67) 1.58 (1.24) ghw 1.40 (1.06) 1.49 (1.04) 1.28 (0.70) 1.32 (0.81) 1.72 (1.40) 1.45 (1.05) note. ghw = graphic health warning. arousal dimension for the arousal dimension, the anova yielded significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 174.64, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.37, and sex, f(1, 294) = 14.85, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.04, and a trend toward a significant main effect of age, f(2, 294) = 2.82, p = .06, ηp2 = 0.01. pleasant and unpleasant iaps pictures elicited higher levels of arousal compared with neutral iaps pictures (both p < .001). ghws generated higher levels of arousal than unpleasant and neutral iaps pictures (both p < .001). women experienced more arousal than men (p < .001). however, as indicated by the significant sex × picture interaction, f(3, 882) = 6.75, p = .001, ηp2 = 0.02, only neutral and unpleasant iaps pictures and ghw pictures generated higher arousal levels in women than in men (all p < .05). adults experienced more arousal than adolescents (p = .05). however, as indicated by the significant age × picture interaction, f(6, 882) = 2.77, p = .01, ηp2 = 0.01, only pleasant iaps pictures generated higher arousal levels in adults than in adolescents (p = .006). gantiva, sotaquirá, chaparro et al. 45 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dominance dimension the anova of the dominance dimension revealed significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 95.71, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.24, and sex, f(1, 294) = 14.14, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.04, a significant age × picture interaction, f(6, 882) = 3.27, p = .007, ηp2 = 0.02, and a significant sex × picture interaction, f(3, 882) = 5.31, p = .003, ηp2 = 0.01. significant differences were found between pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant iaps pictures (all p < .001). ghws generated lower feelings of dominance compared with pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant iaps pictures (all p < .001). women experienced lower levels of dominance than men (p < .001). however, these differences were exclusive to neutral and unpleasant iaps pictures and ghw pictures (all p < .02). pleasant iaps pictures elicited lower feelings of dominance in adults than in adolescents and young adults (both p < .04). craving response for craving, the anova yielded significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 7.27, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.02, and age, f2,294 = 8.44, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.05, and a significant picture × age interaction, f(6, 882) = 3.34, p = .004, ηp2 = 0.02. all of the pictures produced low levels of craving, but ghws and neutral iaps pictures generated the lowest levels of craving compared with pleasant and unpleasant iaps pictures (all p < .04). adolescents experienced lower levels of craving than adults (p < .001). the age × picture interaction indicated that adolescents and young adults experienced lower levels of craving in response to pleasant and unpleasant iaps pictures and ghw pictures than adults. additionally, adolescents reported lower levels of craving in response to neutral iaps pictures compared with adults (all p < .03). emotional impact of ghw content valence dimension the anova revealed significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 21.93, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.06, and sex, f(1, 294) = 6.15, p = .01, ηp2 = 0.02. ghws that depicted cancer and abortion generated higher unpleasant feelings than cardiovascular and childhood illness-related ghws (all p < .001; figure 2). generally, women (m = 2.11, se = 0.09) experienced higher unpleasant feelings than men (m = 2.44, se = 0.08, p = .01). figure 2 valence, arousal, dominance and craving scores to graphic health warning (ghw) note. bars indicate the standard error of the mean. *p < .05. emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging 46 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ arousal dimension the anova yielded significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 26.26, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.08, and sex, f(1, 294) = 19.31, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.06. ghws that depicted abortion generated higher arousal compared with the other ghw categories (all p < .009). ghws that depicted cancer elicited higher arousal than cardiovascularand childhood illness-related ghws (both p < .002; figure 2). women (m = 4.86, se = 0.17) experienced higher feelings of arousal in response to ghws compared with men (m = 3.81, se = 0.16, p < .001). dominance dimension the anova revealed significant main effects of picture, f(3, 882) = 15.29, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.04, and sex, f(1, 294) = 19.96, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.06. ghws that depicted cancer and abortion generated lower feelings of dominance than cardiovascular and childhood illness-related ghws (all p < .005; figure 2). generally, women (m = 6.17, se = 0.15) experienced lower feelings of dominance than men (m = 7.11, se = 0.14, p < .001). craving response the anova yielded a significant main effect of age, f(2, 294 = 5.62, p = .004, ηp2 = 0.03. ghws produced low levels of craving in all of the participants, but adolescents (m = 1.27, se = 0.10) reported lower levels of craving compared with adults (m = 1.71, se = 0.10, p = .007). influence of sex, age, and smoking status on ghw ratings for valence ratings, the stepwise regression yielded a significant model for smoking status (β = 0.16, r 2 = .02, t = 2.81, p = .005). non-smokers experienced higher aversive feelings in response to ghws. for arousal ratings, three significant models were found: sex (β = −0.25, r 2 = .06, t = −4.54, p < .001), smoking status (β = −0.12, r 2 = .07, t = −2.12, p = .03), and age (β = 0.15, r 2 = .10, t = 2.64, p = .009). non-smoker adult women experienced higher feelings of arousal. for dominance ratings, a significant model for sex was found (β = 0.26, r 2 = .06, t = 4.65, p < .001). women experienced less feelings of dominance than men. finally, for craving ratings, two significant models were found: smoking status (β = 0.38, r 2 = .14, t = 7.20, p < .001) and age (β = 0.13, r 2 = .16, t = 2.41, p = .01). ghws generated lower levels of craving in non-smoker adolescents. discussion the aim of the present study was to evaluate emotional (i.e., valence, arousal, and dominance) and craving responses to ghws using stimuli that had a similar size as those that are used on actual cigarette packs. we also evaluated the influence of ghw content (i.e., images that depict cancer, abortion, cardiovascular disease, and childhood illness), sex, age, and smoking status on emotional responses and craving. the results showed that ghws generated aversive affective states, with low arousal, high levels of dominance, and low craving. we also found that ghws that depicted cancer and abortion had a greater emotional impact. finally, our results suggested that ghws have a greater emotional impact in non-smoker adolescent females. evaluation of the emotional impact showed that ghws activated the defensive motivational system (i.e., aversive valence). similar results were found with ghws in brazil (nascimento et al., 2008) and the european union (muñoz et al., 2013). these results indicate that ghws generally elicit affective states that are associated with avoidance behaviors (bradley & lang, 2007). ghws are located on the cigarette package, thus favoring avoidance of the pack. however, unlike the studies cited above, our results indicated that ghws generated low levels of arousal and high levels of dominance, which can reduce their effectiveness because this decreases the probability of avoidance of the package. these results may be attributable to the fact that we used ghws with a similar size as those on actual cigarette packages and also to a desensitization effect associated with the length of the exposure to these warnings, as previously described by ratneswaran et al. (2014, 2016), and woelbert and d’hombres (2019). regarding ghw size, previous studies showed that a smaller image size is associated with lower arousal that is generated by the picture (codispoti & de cesarei, 2007). previous studies found that the minimum size of ghws stipulated by who (i.e., 30% of the cigarette gantiva, sotaquirá, chaparro et al. 47 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pack) is insufficient to have a significant emotional impact (gantiva et al., 2016) and capture the attention of smokers and non-smokers (gantiva et al., 2018). altogether, these results suggest that increasing the size of ghws can increase their emotional impact, especially the level of arousal, which also coincides with findings of previous studies (scollo, lindorff, coomber, bayly, & wakefield, 2015; wakefield et al., 2015; white, williams, faulkner, & wakefield, 2015). in the present study, the craving scores indicated that ghws did not generate any desire to smoke, which is consistent with the objectives of who (2015) with regard to discouraging cigarette smoking. low levels of craving and the aversive affective state that is generated by ghws are necessary to compete with the positive affective state and high craving that are produced by stimuli that are associated with cigarettes (i.e., their packaging), especially in smokers (cinciripini et al., 2006; cui et al., 2012; gantiva et al., 2015). our results also indicated that ghw content differentially impacts emotional responses. ghws that depicted cancer and abortion generated more aversive valence, higher arousal levels, and lower dominance levels than cardiovascular and childhood illness-related pictures. these results can be explained by activation of the defensive motivational system in response to pictures that represent explicit threat (bradley, codispoti, cuthbert, & lang, 2001) and suggest that ghws that depict this kind of threat may more effectively generate an aversive emotional response compared with other ghw categories. additionally, in colombia abortion is not legalized, so messages related to this topic can generate a greater negative emotional response, which is reflected in a negative moral judgment (haidt, 2001). since only self-report measures were used in the study, cognitive assessment processes may also have been more clearly reflected. previous studies have shown that ghws that show explicit damage have a greater emotional impact (gantiva et al., 2016). in fact, in the study by nascimento et al. (2008) that was conducted in brazil, ghws that depicted images of fetuses and newborn babies with diseases generated more aversive feelings compared with other picture categories. warnings of cancer and abortion favor the use of images that are more explicit, and this content is more motivationally relevant because it represents a more direct threat, thus more reliably activating the defensive motivational system. previous studies have also found that ghws that negative valence and high arousal are associated with greater intention to quit smoking (bekalu et al., 2019). it has also been shown that aversiveness could serve as one of the mechanisms through which ghws produce desirable outcomes (hammond, fong, mcdonald, brown, & cameron, 2004). noar et al. (2015), developed a meta-analysis of ghws experimental studies, they found that ghws are more likely than text-only labels to produce reactance and aversiveness due possibly to the negative emotional reactions that such labels evoke. finally, the findings with regard to sex, smoking status, and age showed that sex was an important predictor of levels of valence, arousal, and dominance. in general, ghws generated more negative affective states in women, with more arousal and lower feelings of dominance compared with men. these results are similar to muñoz et al. (2013) and suggest that the design of ghws for anti-tobacco campaigns should consider using warning images that target this group. such measures may counteract the enormous efforts that tobacco companies have made in designing more appealing cigarette packages to increase women’s tobacco consumption (carpenter, wayne, & connolly, 2005; doxey & hammond, 2011; wakefield et al., 2002). previous studies have also found that women rate ghws as more effective than men (tan, bigman, nagler, minsky, & viswanath, 2017). other studies conducted only with women, have also found that participants reported looking more closely at the warnings on plain packs and thinking more about what the warnings were telling them (moodie & mackintosh, 2013). the assessment of craving that was caused by ghws showed that this feeling depends on both smoking status and age. our results supported the hypothesis that ghws can reduce the desire to smoke. specifically, we observed lower levels of craving in adolescents and young adults compared with adults, regardless of the ghw content. non-smoker adolescents exhibited the lowest desire to smoke among the studied groups. accordingly, we consider that ghws can be effective stimuli to discourage the initiation of smoking among youth, which is an expected outcome of the fctc (who, 2005). a recent systematic review found that adolescents perceived ghws as more effective than text-only warnings, with warnings depicting lung cancer, and oral diseases being perceived as particularly effective (drovandi, teague, glass, & malau-aduli, 2019). ghws have also been found to generate fear and guilt in adolescents, and these emotions increase the motivation to change in adolescent smokers (netemeyer, burton, andrews, & kees, 2016). ghws that convey the risk of specific health effects from smoking can increase beliefs and knowledge about the health emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging 48 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 40–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consequences of smoking, particularly for health effects that are lesser-known (reid et al., 2017). taken together, these results suggest that adolescents may benefit more from ghws. interpretations of the present results should consider the following limitations. first, the measures of emotional impact involved only self-report instruments. future investigations should use more objective measures of emotion (e.g., physiological responses, including facial electromyography, skin conductivity response, and electroencephalography). second, the warnings that were assessed in the present study consisted only of images, and the emotional impact of text was not analyzed. previous research showed that the use of text increases attention to the warning label (brown, reidy, weighall, & arden, 2013), but few studies have analyzed the emotional impact of such text. third, the methodology that was employed in the present study should be replicated in other countries to confirm whether these results are generalizable to other cultures or societies. nonetheless, the emotional response to stimuli that represent a threat has been reported to be quite stable across different countries. for example, united states (lang et al., 2008), spain (vila et al., 2001), mexico (romo-gonzález et al., 2018), belgium (verschuere et al., 2001), colombia (gantiva et al., 2011, gantiva, barrera-valencia, et al., 2019), and chile (dufey et al., 2011). finally, exposure to multiple stimuli containing ghw may lead to habituation effect which in turn might decrease the expected levels of valence and arousal. future studies should consider reducing the number of ghw used as stimuli, and assess the corresponding emotional responses accordingly. conclusions overall, the present study suggests that ghws effectively reduce the attractiveness of cigarette packages, although their relatively small size (i.e., 30% of the cigarette package) decreases their effectiveness in generating avoidance behavior toward the package. the ghws that were used in the present study did not generate craving, thus meeting the objective of decreasing the motivation to smoke cigarettes. with regard to ghw content, the present results suggest that images that depict cancer and abortion are the most effective in having an emotional impact that discourages smoking. finally, the results suggest that ghws have the greatest effect in non-smoker adolescent females. funding: this work was supported by minciencias under grant (ct 020-2018). acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials the graphic health warnings (ghws) used in the study are available via the psycharchives repository (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials gantiva, c., sotaquirá, m., chaparro, v., colorado, l., & gómez, a. 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(2005). who framework convention on tobacco control. geneva, switzerland: who. retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42811/9241591013.pdf;jsessionid=5ad6aba77d063bf9ff2defd58c092c48? sequence=1 world health organization (who). (2008). the mpower measures. geneva, switzerland: who. retrieved from http://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/package/en/ world health organization (who). (2015). who report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2015: raising taxes on tobacco. geneva, switzerland: who. retrieved from https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/178574 about the authors carlos gantiva, ph.d., associate professor at the department of psychology, universidad de los andes, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions, addictions and social neuroscience. miguel sotaquirá, ph.d., associate professor at the faculty of engineering and vice-principal of research, universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on digital signal processing and artificial intelligence applied to health and medicine. vanessa chaparro, earned his b.a. in psychology at the universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions and health psychology. laura colorado, earned his b.a. in psychology at the universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions and health psychology. alejandra gómez, earned his b.a. in psychology at the universidad de san buenaventura, bogotá, colombia. his current research focuses on psychophysiology of emotions and health psychology. emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging 52 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1186/1617-9625-1-1-35 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-017-0954-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-012-9899-8 https://doi.org/10.5334/pb.981 https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-052050 https://doi.org/10.1136/tc.11.suppl_1.i73 https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2014-052085 https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054402 http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42811/9241591013.pdf;jsessionid=5ad6aba77d063bf9ff2defd58c092c48?sequence=1 http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42811/9241591013.pdf;jsessionid=5ad6aba77d063bf9ff2defd58c092c48?sequence=1 http://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/package/en/ https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/178574 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional impact of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging (introduction) method participants stimuli self-report measures procedure statistical analysis results emotional impact of ghw and iaps pictures emotional impact of ghw content influence of sex, age, and smoking status on ghw ratings discussion conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors influences of complexity on decision making in young and older adults research reports influences of complexity on decision making in young and older adults stephen p. badham* a, calum a. hamilton b [a] department of psychology, nottingham trent university, nottingham, united kingdom. [b] institute of neuroscience, newcastle university, newcastle, united kingdom. abstract leading theory hypothesizes that age deficits in decision making may rise as the complexity of decision-related information increases. this suggests that older adults would benefit relative to young adults from simplification of information used to inform decision making. participants indicated political, nutritional and medical preferences and then chose between politicians, foods and medicines. the amount of information presented was systematically varied but age differences were largely similar for simple and complex trials. paradoxically, the data showed that decisions based on simpler information could be less aligned with participant’s preferences than decisions based on more complex information. further analyses suggested that participants may have been responding purely on the basis of their most valued preferences and that when information about those preferences was not presented, decision making became poorer. contrary to our expectations, simplification of information by exclusion may therefore hinder decision making and may not particularly help older adults. keywords: aging, decision-making, complexity, executive functioning, applied psychology europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 received: 2019-03-26. accepted: 2019-09-12. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland *corresponding author at: college of business law & social sciences, school of social sciences, department of psychology, nottingham trent university, burton street, nottingham, ng1 4bu, united kingdom. e-mail: stephen.badham@ntu.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. higher life expectancy (salomon et al., 2012) and the maturity of the wwii ‘baby boom’ generation (van bavel & reher, 2013) has led to a large increase in the age of people in positions of power in business and politics (cf. frey, mata, & hertwig, 2015). it is therefore becoming ever more important to understand age-related change and its impact on individuals and society, particularly because of the large range of cognitive differences shown between young and older adults (e.g., craik & salthouse, 2008; deary et al., 2009). these factors have led to an exponential increase in cognitive aging research (salthouse, 2010), including research into the role of aging in decision making (strough, löckenhoff, & hess, 2015). the process of making decisions is crucial to everyday functioning such as deciding who to vote for, which foods are best to eat and what medicine to take. however, there has been less cognitive research evaluating older adults’ decision making in these applied contexts and this has been identified as an area in particular need of further research (carstensen & hartel, 2006). aspects of executive functioning/cognitive control that are involved in decision making have been shown to decline in healthy older adults. decision making benefits from increased working memory (hinson, jameson, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ & whitney, 2003) and inhibitory control (del missier, mäntylä, & bruine de bruin, 2010) and leading theories of age-related cognitive decline propose age deficits in working memory (e.g. craik, 2000; craik & byrd, 1982) and inhibition (e.g., hasher & zacks, 1988) as well as executive functioning in general (e.g., allain et al., 2007; buckner, 2004; west, 1996). broadly, the role of executive functioning in decision making (e.g., del missier, mäntylä, & bruine de bruin, 2012) has been used to explain many age-related deficits that are found in decision-making literature (see brand & markowitsch, 2010; denburg & hedgcock, 2015, for reviews). the influence of task complexity has been linked to executive functioning in age comparisons of decision making, usually showing age deficits for tasks of increasing complexity (e.g., see brand & markowitsch, 2010; peters & bruine de bruin, 2012, for reviews). for example, during complex decision making, older adults (relative to young adults) can show difficulty applying rules and greater susceptibility to the way decision-related material is framed/presented (bruine de bruin, parker, & fischhoff, 2007). similarly, finucane et al. (2002) and finucane, mertz, slovic, and schmidt (2005) showed that when information needed to be processed before decisions could be made (e.g., combinations of percentages weighed against one another), age deficits were particularily large and they also showed greater inconsistency in older adults’ decisions relative to young adults’ decisions when the same information was presented in different ways (e.g., ordered vs. unordered). most relevant to the current study are age differences in decision strategies that investigate complexity due to the amount of information utilized by young and older adults. besedeš, deck, sarangi, and shor (2012) showed that decisions involving more information led to greater age deficits than decisions involving less information. a variety of studies on information seeking show that older adults seek less information than do young adults, indicating that they do this in order to minimize the use of executive functioning (mather, 2006). in a decision-making simulation, management teams of older adults engaged in less information searching than management teams of young adults (streufert, pogash, piasecki, & post, 1990), older women have been shown to seek less information than young women when making medical-treatment decisions about breast cancer (meyer, russo, & talbot, 1995), and in a more abstract task involving evaluation of diamonds, older adults sought less information than did young adults (mata, schooler, & rieskamp, 2007). a review by liu, wood, and hanoch (2015) also indicated that older adults prefer making decisions with fewer options. in contrast to the above, some research has shown similar age deficits in decisions based on more or less information (finucane et al., 2005) and similar information seeking in young and older adults (e.g., queen, hess, ennis, dowd, & grühn, 2012). however, overall the literature suggests that older adults improve relative to young adults when decisions are simpler. in the current study, we aimed to evaluate if young and older adults could make better decisions when less information was presented by manipulating the amount of information available for decision making across simple and complex trials. we are only aware of five aging studies with such a manipulation, three which showed that age deficits increased with complexity (larger age deficits for more complex trials, besedeš et al., 2012; frey et al., 2015; hanoch et al., 2011) and two that did not (finucane et al., 2005; queen et al., 2012). despite the mixed results, the theoretical consensus reviewed above seems to be that older adults should perform disproportionally worse as decision complexity increases. peters and bruine de bruin (2012) argued that policy makers and practitioners seeking to inform older adults’ decisions should provide simpler materials that are summarized into fewer key points. this is an important issue to resolve as it is essential that older adults are provided with the best opportunity to make optimum decisions. badham & hamilton 281 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in previous studies that manipulated complexity, simpler trials often involved a reasonably large amount of information. besedeš et al. (2012) had four options, each with multiple attributes and finucane et al. (2005) and hanoch et al. (2011) had at least three options, each with multiple attributes. all of these studies involved decisions based on new information learned in the experiment that may have placed larger demands on working memory. even the least difficult measure of working memory span (forward digit span) in a meta-analysis by bopp and verhaeghen (2005) shows mean span scores of seven items for older adults. this suggests that older adults’ working memory capacity may have been exceeded, even in simple trials. the study by queen et al. (2012) had participants base their decisions on their own preferences which would have reduced memory requirement, nonetheless their simpler trials still involved five options, each with five attributes and the attributes were only visible one at a time (requiring additional mental retention). finally, the study by frey et al. (2015) had just two options in their simple trials but participants made their decisions after sampling multiple pieces of numerical information which was allowed to vary between young and older adults (their study was more focused on strategy use than complexity). in the current study, decisions involved just two options with simple trials consisting of one to three attributes based on participants’ real-life preferences. overall, the current study provided the optimal conditions for older adults to perform well in simple trials, therefore evaluating the potential for information simplification to reduce age deficits in decision making. method design young and older participants filled in basic data about their political, nutritional and medical preferences in three conditions. following each of these, they made a series of binary decisions about politicians, food and medicines. for each condition there were simple decisions based on minimal information and complex decisions based on multiple pieces of information. the overall design was age (young, older; between participants) x topici (political, nutritional and medical; within participants) x complexity (simple, complex; within participants). participants thirty young adults (22 female) aged 19–30 years (m = 24.4, sd = 3.3) and 30 healthy older adults (19 female) aged 61–82 years (m = 71.7, sd = 4.5) took part in the experiment. young participants were recruited from nottingham trent university and reported no issues with eyesight, hearing or reading. older participants were recruited from the university’s trent aging panel which is populated by the local community; their self-rated corrected eyesight, hearing, and general health averaged 3.8, 4.0, and 3.9 (equivalent to “good”), respectively, on a five-point scale (1 = “very poor” to 5 = “very good”). all participants provided written informed consent and the study was approved by nottingham trent university’s research ethics committee. to assess cognitive functioning, participants completed the digit symbol substitution test from the wechsler adult intelligence scale – revised (wechsler, 1981) as a measure of processing speed and the multiple choice part of the mill hill vocabulary test (raven, raven, & court, 1988) as a measure of crystallized intelligence. the results were consistent with the literature (e.g., salthouse, 2010); young adults performed better than older adults at the speed task, t(58) = 9.44, p < .001, d = 2.44 (myoung = 74.33, sdyoung = 9.25; molder = 49.47, sdolder = 11.07) and older adults performed better than young adults at the vocabulary task, t(58) = 5.89, p < .001, d = 1.52 (myoung = 18.90, sdyoung = 2.91; molder = 23.57, sdolder = 3.22). influences of complexity on decisions 282 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials and procedure all materials were presented digitally on a desktop pc running opensesame software (mathôt, schreij, & theeuwes, 2012). the three conditions within the topic factor (political, nutritional and medical) were presented in blocks and were fully counterbalanced in their order of presentation. participants were allowed to rest between each task and condition. political condition initially, participants were asked how they would assign £100 million of government spending between education, healthcare and defense. three boxes were provided and participants typed in three values (in millions) that added up to 100. assigning exactly 1/3 to each sector was prohibited to aid later analysis (see table 1 for means, which show largely similar preferences for young and older adults). table 1 mean initial preferences for young and older adults for each experimental condition age group m sd political education spending young 37.73 7.263 older 34.83 5.983 health spending young 42.73 10.017 older 41.03 7.384 defence spending young 19.53 10.471 older 24.13 8.513 nutritional energy rank young 2.23 1.612 older 2.87 1.502 total fat rank young 2.70 1.489 older 3.43 1.612 carbohydrates rank young 3.97 1.402 older 3.53 1.432 fibre ranka young 4.73 1.388 older 3.83 1.392 protein rank young 3.10 1.470 older 2.87 1.737 salt rank young 4.27 1.437 older 4.47 1.943 badham & hamilton 283 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ age group m sd medical joint/muscle pain unpleasantness young 5.03 2.092 older 5.03 2.236 nausea unpleasantness young 7.20 1.540 older 6.23 2.388 headache unpleasantnessa young 6.07 1.982 older 5.00 1.912 drowsiness unpleasantness young 3.53 2.177 older 3.47 2.636 aage difference significant at p < .05. following the assignments, participants were asked to choose between two politicians. in the complex trials, education, health and defense voting choices were indicated for each politician (see figure 1).in the simple trials, information about just one spending sector (e.g., just education voting) was provided. thirty complex trials and 18 simple trials were constructed. only percentages of 20, 40 and 60 were used to indicate the proportion of votes each politician made in favor of more or less spending in a given sector. for complex trials, the voting behavior always added up so that a given politician was voting for more spending exactly 1/3 of the time (i.e., the three percentages indicated for more spending always added up to 100 and the three percentages indicated for less spending always added up to 200; see figure 1). the above constraints meant that there were six ways to assign a given voting profile for a politician. this meant that there were five ways of assigning a different profile for the opposite politician. therefore 6 x 5 = 30 complex trials were presented. for simple trials, there were only six ways to assign different percentages to each politician and this was done for each of the three spending sectors, resulting in 18 simple trials. during the experiment, complex and simple trials were presented randomly, intermixed in a single block. at the end of the block, participants were asked again to assign their £100 million spending budget. this was to later check that participants had not forgotten their initial assignments. influences of complexity on decisions 284 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. example of a complex trial in the political condition (top), the nutritional condition (middle) and the medical condition (bottom). simple trials were presented identically but with items removed from each option. the participant must press 1 or 2 on the keyboard to indicate their choice of the left or right option. the traffic-light colors in parenthesis for the nutritional condition are displayed in text here but were the font colors in the original experiment. nutritional condition in this condition participants initially ranked how important the following six nutritional properties of food were to them personally: energy, total fat, carbohydrates, fibre, protein and salt. the factors were listed on the screen and participants ranked them from one to six with one being the most important to them and six being the least important to them (see table 1 for means, which show largely similar preferences for young and older adults). this was done by using the number keys after clicking a box next to each property. all ranks from one to six had to be used once and only once.ii following the rankings, participants were asked to choose between two foods ‘which tasted and looked the same but had different nutritional properties’. the nutritional properties were listed in two grids (see figure 1) badham & hamilton 285 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and a traffic-light system was used to indicate if a property was good (green font), average (amber font) or bad (red font). this was done to avoid using specific measurements of quantity that participants may not be familiar with. additionally, if one participant thought more fat was good and another thought less fat was good, the traffic light system would cause them to both respond in the same way as long as they both viewed fat with similar levels of importance based on rank. in the complex trials, information about all six nutritional properties was presented for each food. there were always two good, two average and two bad properties for each food. forty-eight different combinations were created and a random subset of 24 of these was selected separately for each participant. in the simple trials, information about three nutritional properties was presented for each food (the same three properties were always used for both foods in a given trial). there was always one good, one average and one bad property for each food. again, 48 different combinations were created and a random subset of 24 of these was selected separately for each participant. during the experiment, complex and simple trials were presented randomly, intermixed in a single block. at the end of the block, participants ranked the nutritional properties again. medical condition in this condition, participants initially rated their opinion about four medicinal side effects: joint/muscle pain, nausea, headaches, and drowsiness. they were presented with the four side effects and rated each of them on a 10point likert scale from 1 slightly unpleasant to 10 extremely unpleasant (see table 1 for means, which show largely similar preferences for young and older adults). following the ratings, participants were asked to choose between two ‘equally effective medicines’ based on their side effects. the side effects for the medicines were presented in two grids (see figure 1). each side effect was listed as the number of people out of 10 who experience this side effect (e.g., ‘2 in 10 people may experience nausea’). in the complex trials, all four side effects were presented for each medicine. in the simple trials, two side effects were presented for each medicine and these were always the same two types of side effect for both medicines. for the complex trials, the numbers out of 10 for the four side effects were always a 2, another 2, a 4 and a 6 (therefore, the sum frequency of the combined four side effects was always 14 out of 40). for a given medicine this resulted in 12 possible combinations across the four side effects leaving 11 possible different combinations for the other medicine in the same trial. this resulted in 12 x 11 = 132 possible complex trials and a random subset of 24 of these was selected separately for each participant. for the simple trials, the numbers out of 10 for the two side effects presented always summed to eight (i.e., either a 2 and a 6, or a 4 and another 4). this resulted in six possible combinations of different side-effect frequencies across the two medicines and there were also six ways to choose two out of the four side effects to present. therefore, 6 x 6 = 36 different simple trials were possible and a random subset of 24 of these was selected separately for each participant. during the experiment, complex and simple trials were presented randomly, intermixed in a single block. at the end of the block, participants rated the unpleasantness of the side effects again. influences of complexity on decisions 286 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results scoring political condition the proportion of money that the participants assigned to each spending sector was compared to the proportion of the time each politician voted in favor of more spending in that sector. given that in the complex trials the politicians always voted for more spending exactly 1/3 of the time, the proportion of their spending in each sector was comparable to the proportion of money the participant would assign to that sector. the root mean square error (rmse) was calculated between the participant’s spending habits and each of the two politicians’ spending habits for each trial. decision accuracy for each trial was determined by establishing if the participant chose the politician with the smaller rmse in relation to the participant’s spending. trials where rmse was equal for the two politicians were excluded from the accuracy measurement (5% of complex and 17% of simple trials). the overall accuracy proportion and the mean rmse between the participant’s spending and their chosen politicians were dependent variables. these values were calculated separately for the participant’s preferences at the start and end of the block. this was done to confirm that participants were not forgetting their initial choices which may have had a greater impact on older adults who typically have poorer memory performance than do young adults (naveh-benjamin & ohta, 2012). additionally, a separate rmse difference between the reported start and end preferences was calculated for each participant. nutritional condition the ranks of the six nutritional properties chosen by the participants were used to compute a score for each food in each trial. firstly, the participants’ chosen ranks were inverted so that 6 was the most important and 1 was the least important. then for each food, good properties were given a score of +1, average properties a score of 0 and bad properties a score of -1. a score for each nutritional property was computed by multiplying the participant’s inverted rank by the score for that property. then a score for each food was computed by summing the scores for each property.iii therefore, properties considered more important by the participant would have a greater influence on the overall score for a given food and higher scores would correspond to a more desirable food. the food scores were used to compute the optimal (accurate) choice for a participant on a given trial. similar to the political condition, the overall accuracy and mean scores for the chosen food were computed as dependent variables separately for the nutritional property ranks indicated by the participant at the start of the block and for the nutritional property ranks indicated by the participant at the end of the block (a separate rmse difference between the raw start and end ranks was also calculated for each participant). trials resulting in identical scores for each food were excluded from the accuracy measurement (6% of complex and 6% of simple trials had no correct response and were excluded from the accuracy analysis). medical condition the ratings for the unpleasantness of each side effect indicated by the participants were used to establish the unpleasantness of each medicine in a trial. firstly, the participants’ ratings were weighted so that they summed to one. (e.g., if a participant rated joint/muscle pain, nausea headaches, and drowsiness as 1, 2, 9 and 10 respectively then each value would be divided by the overall sum to give 0.05, 0.09, 0.41, and 0.45). likewise, for each medicine, the frequency of occurrence of each side effect was weighted so that the sum of all the frequencies was 1 (e.g., 1/10, 2/10, 4/10 and 5/10 would be 0.08, 0.16, 0.33 and 0.42, respectively). this badham & hamilton 287 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ allowed comparison between a participant’s preferences and a medicine to be made across a fixed range of 0-1. the rmse was then calculated between the weighted participants’ ratings and the weighted frequencies of occurrence of each side effect for each medicine for each trial. an accurate response was established by determining if the participant chose the medicine with the maximum rmse compared to their preferences (note that we chose the maximum rmse because participants were trying to avoid unpleasant side effects, unlike the political condition where participants tried to choose a politician with similar views). for the complex trials, the weights were based on all four ratings; for the simple trials, the weights were based on the two ratings relevant to side effects presented (e.g., if just nausea and headaches were relevant with ratings of 2 and 9, respectively, then their weights would be 0.18 and 0.82, respectively). again, similar to the political and nutritional conditions, overall accuracy and mean rmse between the participants rating and their chosen medicine for each trial were calculated separately for ratings made at the start and end of the block (a separate rmse difference between the raw start and end ratings was also calculated for each participant). trials resulting in identical rmse values for both medicines were excluded from the accuracy measurement (8% of complex and 5% of simple trials had no correct response and were excluded from the accuracy analysis). analysis throughout the article, standard null hypothesis tests are accompanied by an estimated bayes factor implemented through jasp computer software (love et al., 2015). the bayes factor (bf10) provides an odds ratio for the alternative/null hypotheses (values < 1 favor the null hypothesis and values > 1 favor the alternative hypothesis). for example, a bf10 of 0.40 would indicate that the null hypothesis is 2.5 times more likely than the alternative hypothesis (see jarosz & wiley, 2014). all bayesian t-tests are two-tailed using the standard cauchy prior width of 0.707. overall analysis the only comparable measure across the topic factor was the accuracy of each decision with respect to each participants’ stated preferences. this was assessed in a 2 (age; young, older) x 3 (topic; political, nutritional, medical) x 2 (complexity; complex, simple) mixed anova (see figure 2, for means) where accuracy was determined by the preferences indicated by participants at the start of a block.iv young adults made more accurate choices based on their preferences than did older adults, f(1, 55) = 9.98, mse = 0.050, p = .003, ηp2 = .154, bf10 = 11.172. participants responded with similar decision accuracy across the three topics for the standard, f < 1, but not for the bayesian, bf10 = 1.579 x 107, analyses: performance was highest in the medical condition then the political condition and then the nutritional condition. surprisingly, participants were more accurate for complex trials involving more information in each decision than for simple trials involving less information in each decision, f(1, 55) = 94.55, mse = 0.016, p < .001, ηp2 = .632, bf10 > 1015. age did not interact with complexity, f < 1, bf10 = 0.381, or with topic, f(2, 110) = 2.12, mse = 0.038, p = .125, ηp2 = .037, bf10 = 3.767, and there was no triple interaction between age, topic and complexity, f(2, 110) = 2.17, mse = 0.011, p = .119, ηp2 = .038, bf10 = 0.321. there was an interaction between topic and complexity, f(2, 110) = 53.43, mse = 0.011, p < .001, ηp2 = .493, bf10 = 8.721 x 107, which is explored below. the same patterns of significance were found when basing accuracy from the participants’ preferences given at the end of each block, indicating that the observed patterns were not due to participants forgetting their reported preferences. influences of complexity on decisions 288 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. proportion of accurate responses (.5 = chance) for young and older adults when making complex and simple decisions based on their political (a) nutritional (b) and medical (c) preferences. error bars are ± 1se. political condition a 2 (age; young, older) x 2 (complexity; complex, simple) mixed anova was conducted on the accuracy of political decisions based on participants’ preferences indicated at the start of a block. there was no main effect of age, f(1, 58) = 1.14, mse = 0.042, p = .291, ηp2 = .019, bf10 = 0.550. participants were more accurate for complex trials than for simple trials, f(1, 58) = 90.39, mse = 0.019, p < .001, ηp2 = .609, bf10 = 2.806 x 1011. there was no interaction between age and complexity, f(1, 58) = 3.00, mse = 0.019, p = .088, ηp2 = .049, bf10 = 1.077. the actual rmse data were also analyzed but because rmse was calculated differently for complex and for simple trials, only the effects involving age were meaningful to report. t-tests showed that older adults performed better than young adults (lower rmse) for complex trials, t(50.27) = 2.28, p = .027, d = 0.59, bf10 = 2.227, (myoung = 14.43, sdyoung = 2.91; molder = 12.97, sdolder = 1.92), and there were no age deficits for simple trials, t < 1, d = 0.15, bf10 = 0.303, (myoung = 15.05, sdyoung = 2.99; molder = 15.52, sdolder = 3.32). these results may differ from the accuracy data because trials were excluded from the accuracy data when there was no correct choice but the rmse data include all trials and the rmse was calculated for whichever badham & hamilton 289 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ option was chosen, regardless of whether or not it was correct. additionally, there was no evidence that older adults were changing their mind about their political preferences throughout the experiment due to age-related memory impairment: the difference between a participant’s preferences at the beginning of the political block and their preferences at the end of the political block (also based on rmse, lower is better) was calculated and compared for young and older adults and there was no significant effect (t < 1, d = 0.07, bf10 = 0.270, myoung = 1.75, sdyoung = 4.06; molder = 1.49, sdolder = 3.35). the fact that participants performed better for complex trials than for simple trials is interesting because we would naturally predict the opposite. however, there is a factor that could influence participants’ behavior for simple trials, namely that the two politicians to choose from were not equated in their spending voting as they were for complex trials. in complex trials, both politicians always voted for more spending exactly 1/3 of the time so more spending in one sector can be cancelled out by less spending in another. for simple trials, where each politician’s spending for only one sector is presented, there is always one politician who votes for more public spending than the other. the data were analyzed to see how often a given participant chose the more generous (higher spending voting) politician for simple trials. one-sample t-tests showed that both young and older adults selected the more generous politician more than half the time (tyoung(29) = 7.80, p < .001, d = 5.23, bf10 = 9.971 x 105, myoung = 0.68, sdyoung = 0.13; tolder(29) = 8.29, p < .001, d = 4.63, bf10 = 3.156 x 106, molder = 0.74, sdolder = 0.16). there was also no significant age difference in the choice of the more generous politician, t(58) = 1.46, p = .151, d = 0.38, bf10 = 0.636. therefore the participants have a natural bias that hinders performance for simple trials in the political condition so this could explain the superior performance in complex trials. however, this problem does not occur for the nutritional and medical conditions where the simple trials have more than one item which allows the two options to be balanced. nutritional condition a 2 (age; young, older) x 2 (complexity; complex, simple) mixed anova was conducted on the accuracy of nutritional decisions based on participants’ preferences indicated at the start of a block. young adults were more accurate than were older adults, f(1, 55) = 9.03, mse = 0.055, p = .004, ηp2 = .141, bf10 = 7.119. there was no effect of complexity, f(1, 55) = 3.45, mse = 0.009, p = .072, ηp2= .059, bf10 = 0.706, although the numerical trend was in the predicted direction with better performance for simple trials than for complex trials. there was no interaction between age and complexity, f < 1, bf10 = 0.466. the scores for each food chosen by a participant (see above for scoring system; higher is better) based on their preferences at the start of a block were analyzed but due to the fact that scores were calculated differently for simple and complex trials, only effects involving age were meaningful to report. t-tests showed that older adults performed worse than young adults for complex trials, t(55) = 3.74, p < .001, d = 0.99, bf10 = 61.035 (myoung = 1.70, sdyoung = 0.77; molder = 0.69, sdolder = 1.21), but not for simple trials, t(48.51) = 1.42, p = .163, d = 0.38, bf10 = 0.622 (myoung = 0.85, sdyoung = 0.73; molder = 0.51, sdolder = 1.03). the difference between participants’ ranks at the start of the nutrition block and their ranks at the end of the nutrition block (based on rmse, lower is better) were calculated and compared for young and older adults. young adults were more consistent than were older adults, t(55) = 2.15, p = .035, d = 0.57, bf10 = 1.795, (myoung = 0.58, sdyoung = 0.59; molder = 0.99, sdolder = 0.81). therefore, the above analyses were repeated using accuracy and rmse values based on the participants’ ratings provided at the end of the block and there were no changes in significance to those reported above. overall, the nutritional condition behaves more like our predictions; complex trials were influences of complexity on decisions 290 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (numerically) more difficult than simple trials, age deficits were present and these deficits were more evident for the complex trials compared to the simple trials. medical condition a 2 (age; young, older) x 2 (complexity; complex, simple) mixed anova was conducted on the accuracy of medical decisions based on participants’ preferences indicated at the start of a block. older adults were marginally less accurate than were young adults, f(1, 58) = 3.76, mse = 0.029, p = .057, ηp2 = .061, bf10 = 1.170, accuracy was better for complex trials compared to simple trials, f(1, 58) = 99.38, mse = 0.011, p < .001, ηp2 = .631, bf10 = 1.076 x 1012, and there was no interaction between age and complexity, f < 1, bf10 = 0.594. the rmse data were also analyzed based on participants’ ratings of side effects indicated at the start of the medical block. here participants were trying to avoid choosing a medicine which had side effects they did not like so higher rmse between their ratings and their chosen medicine’s side effects reflects a better choice. the rmse was calculated differently for complex and simple trials so only effects involving age were meaningful to report. t-tests showed that there was no age difference for complex trials, t < 1, d = 0.00, bf10 = 0.263 (myoung = 0.16, sdyoung = 0.02; molder = 0.16, sdolder = 0.03), and no age difference for simple trials, t < 1, d = 0.18, bf10 = 0.311 (myoung = 0.25, sdyoung = 0.05; molder = 0.24, sdolder = 0.06). the difference between participants’ ratings at the start of the medical block and their ratings at the end of the medical block (based on rmse, lower is better) were calculated and compared for young and older adults. young adults were more consistent than were older adults, t(58) = 2.27, p = .027, d = 0.58, bf10 = 2.179, (myoung = 0.71, sdyoung = 0.58; molder = 1.17, sdolder = 0.95). therefore, the above analyses were repeated using accuracy and rmse values based on the participants’ ratings provided at the end of the block and there were no changes in significance to those reported above. overall, there were no interesting effects of age in the medical condition. more interesting is the fact that participants were able to perform better for complex trials compared to simple trials. unlike the political condition, there was no systematic bias in the simple trials that could have explained poor performance because the overall frequency of side effects was the same for both choices in simple trials. single-dimension analysis the higher performance for complex trials than for simple trials for the political and medical conditions was unexpected so further analyses were conducted based on whichever aspect of the participant’s preferences was most dominant. if, for example, a participant in the political condition cared much more about education than healthcare and defense, then they may have chosen their politician purely on the basis of education. this would lower their performance for some of the simple trials where education was not presented. the accuracy scores were recomputed assuming that participants were trying to respond on the basis of their most extreme preference, ignoring other items. all trials where a single-dimensional response could not be determined were excluded. this occurred when the maximum preference was not presented in simple trials (24.5% of overall trials) or when a participant had multiple maximum preferences with contradicting ideal responses (7.5% of overall trials). a 2 (age; young, older) x 3 (topic; political, nutritional, medical) x 2 (complexity; complex, simple) x 2 (accuracy measure; original measures outlined above, single dimensional) mixed anova was conducted on the accuracy data (based on preferences indicated at the start of each condition) for only trials where a single dimensional measure of accuracy could be ascertained (i.e., regardless of accuracy measure, the exact same trials were used). figure 3 shows the means. violations of sphericity were accounted for by applying greenhouse-geisser corrections to degrees of freedom. young adults responded more accurately than did older adults, f(1, 55) badham & hamilton 291 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = 5.60, mse = 0.089, p = .021, ηp2 = .092, bf10 = 3.371. accuracy varied across topic; political > medical > nutritional, f(1.70, 93.53) = 9.19, mse = 0.095, p < .001, ηp2 = .143, bf10 > 1015. there was no effect of complexity with standard statistics, f(1, 55) = 1.053, mse = 0.025, p = .309, ηp2 = .019, but there was with bayesian statistics, bf10 = 2.654 x 109. interestingly, accuracy was higher when determined via a single dimensional measure as opposed to the original rms/scoring measures described above, f(1, 55) = 63.10, mse = 0.017, p < .001, ηp2 = .534, bf10 > 1015, indicating that participants were responding mainly on the basis of their maximum preferences. there were interactions between topic and accuracy measure, f(2, 110) = 21.39, mse = 0.013, p < .001, ηp2 = .280, bf10 = 8.516 x 104, between complexity and accuracy measure, f(1, 55) = 99.92, mse = 0.008, p < .001, ηp2 = .645, bf10 = 3.128 x 107, and a triple interaction between topic, complexity and accuracy measure, f(2, 110) = 31.26, mse = 0.008, p < .001, ηp2 = .362, bf10 = 1211: figure 3 shows that the single-dimensional measures are at least as accurate as the original scoring measures, particularly for decisions involving fewer items. there was also an interaction between topic and complexity, f(2, 110) = 17.50, mse = 0.020, p < .001, ηp2 = .241, bf10 = 1.059 x 106, revealing a qualitatively similar pattern to the earlier data depicted in figure 2 (but attenuated by the single-dimensional measure where simple trials were more accurate than complex trials). finally, there were no interactions involving age, indicating that both age groups were responding similarly to the task (fs < 2.06; age x topic bf10 = 7.246, age x complexity bf10 = 0.124, age x accuracy measure bf10 = 0.190, age x topic x complexity bf10 = 0.056, age x topic x accuracy measure bf10 = 0.069, age x complexity x accuracy measure bf10 = 0.023, age x topic x complexity x accuracy measure bf10 = 2.759 x 10-4). table 2 shows the number of young and older adults performing more accurately with the original or single dimensional measures for each type of decision (participants with equal accuracy for both measures are excluded). a further anova was conducted using just the single-dimensional measure, retaining the age, topic and complexity factors outlined above. notably, there was no longer a main effect of age, f(1, 55) = 2.78, mse = 0.055, p = .101, ηp2 = .048, bf10 = 1.364, and performance on simple trials now exceeded that of complex trials, f(1, 55) = 21.94, mse = 0.013, p < .001, ηp2 = .048, bf10 = 1021. figure 3. proportion of accurate responses (.5 = chance) for young and older adults based on original scoring or singledimensional (sd) scoring. the x-axis shows the decision types in order of the number of attributes (indicated in parentheses) involved in each decision. error bars are ± 95% ci. influences of complexity on decisions 292 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 number of young and older adults showing higher accuracy with original or single-dimensional (sd) scoring for each decision type age group and measure political simple (1) medical simple (2) nutritional simple (3) political complex (3) medical complex (4) nutritional complex (6) young original scoring 1 1 11 6 10 14 young sd scoring 19 24 6 13 8 14 older original scoring 0 1 7 12 3 13 older sd scoring 22 25 12 12 9 12 note. numbers in parentheses show the number of attributes involved in each decision. discussion the data showed that manipulating the amount of information involved in political, nutritional and medical decisions can have unpredictable effects and that policy makers and practitioners should be cautious when simplifying information that needs to be conveyed to aid decision making. our main analyses showed that excluding information in order to simplify decisions sometimes led to a reduction in decision making performance. it appears that simplification sometimes led to the exclusion of information that was highly valued by participants, impeding performance: an accuracy measure assuming participants were responding purely on the basis of the most valued attributes explained the response data better than a measure assuming responses based on weighing multiple attributes against one another. across conditions, simplification of information generally influenced both age groups similarly and was not particularly beneficial to older adults as initially hypothesized here, and elsewhere in the literature (e.g., brand & markowitsch, 2010). participants rated their political, medical and nutritional preferences across a range of attributes upon which later decisions were made. our main analyses focused on a compensatory (payne, 1976) accuracy measure that assumed decisions were made on the basis of weighing attributes against one another in order of their rated preferences. this mechanism of information integration has been hypothesized to be cognitively demanding (payne, bettman, & johnson, 1993) and we initially expected to enhance performance by reducing the number of attributes that needed to be compared against one another. as discussed in the introduction, reducing such demands was expected to disproportionally benefit older adults (e.g., bruine de bruin, parker, & fischhoff, 2012) and this did occur in the nutritional condition where we saw age deficits for complex trials but not for simple trials. however, the political and medical conditions showed better performance for complex trials, where more attributes needed to be weighed against one another, than for simple trials. further analyses revealed that participants’ responses were better explained by a non-compensatory mechanism. when we defined the accuracy of a decision on the basis of its congruence with each participant’s most valued attribute (i.e., single-dimensional/non-compensatory decisions), this accuracy measure described the response data significantly better than the compensatory measure. additionally, in contrast to johnson (1990), there was no evidence that the use of compensatory mechanisms were more likely in young adults than in older adults: the bayes factor provided ‘substantial’ evidence (wetzels et al., 2011) in favor of the null hypothesis for the interaction between the compensatory and non-compensatory measures and age group (although this conclusion can only be applied to the particular measures that were used in this study). additionally, when the analysis was conducted with just the single-dimensional/non-compensatory measure, age differences were badham & hamilton 293 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nonsignificant and performance was higher for simple than for complex trials. both young and older adults’ data was similarly explained better by the non-compensatory measure of accuracy which may have been driven by the simplicity of the tasks. one limitation of the current study is the breadth of topics used as stimuli. as we initially hypothesized that complexity would have similar effects in all contexts, we had aimed to demonstrate this as widely as possible by covering the applied topics of politics nutrition and medicine. this meant that because the complexity manipulation may not have been the same in each condition, participants may have had more prior knowledge of one topic than another and this is a factor known to influence age differences (e.g., badham et al., 2016). it may be necessary to move away from applied topics and to utilize abstract stimuli to evaluate more specific theoretical differences between young and older adults’ decision-making processes. in the introduction, we argued that a potential limitation of earlier research investigating complexity manipulations with young and older adults was that simple trials often contained large amounts of information which may have still challenged older adults. the current study therefore used minimal amounts of information for assessment of decision making accuracy for simple trials. the single-dimensional measure of accuracy showed no significant age differences overall, indicating that the design was successfully simplified but it may be the case that the complex trials utilized were not complex enough to encourage compensatory processes and to challenge older adults. nonetheless, there was little evidence of ceiling performance in the data and single-dimensional performance dropped as trials became more complex, demonstrating that complexity influenced difficulty. the interaction between accuracy measure and complexity also indicates that some participants may have adopted compensatory processing as trials became more complex (see also table 2). the applied nature of the study was partly utilized to aid simplification for older adults. as the decisions were based on participants’ real-life preferences there was no need for them to memorize experimental materials which may have disproportionately hindered older adults relative to young adults due to age-related memory deficits (naveh-benjamin & ohta, 2012). by assessing preferences again at the end of each condition, it was possible to ascertain that age differences were not driven by forgetting the preferences. it has also been argued that real-world contexts help older adults engage with experimental materials and therefore provide a better assessment of their abilities (peters & bruine de bruin, 2012). this may have been why age differences were not apparent in the final single dimensional analysis. there is some research to suggest that individuals do not necessarily make decisions based on their stated preferences (lindberg, gärling, & montgomery, 1989). to briefly test for this in the current data, the variance was compared between young and older adult’s chosen options for each complexity level and for each condition. this would establish if there were age differences in consistency of responding to any preference. there was no evidence of age differences in consistency for simple trials (all bf10 < 0.6) or for complex trials (all bf10 < 1.2) across the political, medical and nutritional conditions. a consistent feature of complexity on age differences in the literature was in studies of information seeking, where older adults generally sought less information than young adults before making decisions (see, mather, 2006, for a review and see the current introduction for examples). mather hypothesised that age-deficits in executive function may lead to seeking less information as older adults are less able to deal with higher executive demands. however, this finding is also consistent with age deficits in self-initiated processing (cf., craik & byrd, 1982, where older adults perform better if given sufficent motivation) because older adults may be influences of complexity on decisions 294 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ less motivated to continue seeking information. this could potentially explain why there is inconsistency of age deficits in the literature when the amount of available information is manipulated; just because the information is presented, it does not mean that older adults would have the motivation to utilise it. to account for this, future research may use manipulations of stimulus presentation to ensure that all available information is evaluated (e.g., forcing a response to each attribute before final evaluation is this feature good or bad?). another method to ensure compensatory processing could be to explicitly instruct participants to use all information presented; results from the memory literature have shown that older adults can utilise optimal strategies if encouraged to do so (e.g., naveh-benjamin, brav, & levy, 2007) and this may equally apply to decision making. individual differences have also been shown to influence strategy use in decision making. shiloh, koren, and zakay (2001) showed links between compensatory decision-making style and the subjective complexity of the decision. they argued that the perceived difficulty of a task may prevent decision making or lead to non-optimal decisions. this is a pertinent problem for older adults who often have subjective cognitive complaints which are not strongly related to their actual cognitive performance (see burmester, leathem, & merrick, 2016, for a review) as they may begin to utilise simpler, and non-optimal decision-making processes. this may be further problematic for old-old adults who typically have greater subjective cognitive concerns (than older adults) that are also not linked to actual cognitive performance (pearman, hertzog, & gerstorf, 2014; shmotkin, et al., 2013). future ageing research on decision making should aim to include a subjective difficulty measure to account for age differences in cognitive confidence, especially if aiming to assess compensatory processing. overall, the current data raises important issues relevant to the understanding of decision making. in contrast to prior theory suggesting that simplifying important decision-making information would be particularly beneficial to older adults (peters & bruine de bruin, 2012), the current results indicate that the process of simplification via exclusion of information can hinder decision performance for all age groups. our data shows that young and older adults’ decisions were explained well by a measure that assumed participants responded purely based on the single piece of information they valued most. therefore, simplification that excludes this information could be particularly detrimental to performance. we recommend that professionals preparing information materials for older adults should be fully informed of the recipients’ preferences and priorities before simplification via exclusion and should seek other methods of simplification where possible such as improved organization of material about which decisions are to be made (cf. zaval et al., 2015). notes i) it should be noted that the political, nutritional and medical topics not only had different subject matter, but that they also addressed the complexity manipulation in different ways. therefore, the reader should be cautious of interpreting topic effects due to subject matter alone. ii) one young and two older participants were excluded from analyses involving nutrition because they did not rank their preferences correctly. iii) for example, if a participant ranked energy, total fat, carbohydrates, fibre, protein and salt as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 respectively, and if these properties for a given food were good (+1), good (+1), average (0), average (0), bad (-1) and bad (-1) respectively, the overall score for that food would be calculated as follows. the participant’s ranks would be inverted (e.g., 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) then multiplied by the values assigned to each property with the resulting numbers summed together: 6*(1) + 5*(1) + 4*(0) + 3*(0) + 2*(-1) + 1*(-1) = 8. iv) the anova was also completed with the order in which topics were presented as a six-level, between-participants factor. there were some significant interactions involving order; however when the data were analyzed with just the first topic the participant completed (which made topic a between-participants factor), the main effects and interactions were the same as the presented anova. badham & hamilton 295 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding this work and the trent aging panel were supported by qr investment from nottingham trent university. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. 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(2015). complementary contributions of fluid and crystallized intelligence to decision making across the life span. in c. e. löckenhoff (ed.), aging and decision making (pp. 149-168). cambridge, ma, usa: academic press. about the authors stephen badham’s phd was based on investigating age differences in associative memory: older adults can perform well at remembering individual pieces of information but struggle more relative to young adults when combining information (e.g., associating a name to a face). more recently his research has developed to investigate visual memory processes and mild cognitive impairement. calum hamilton worked as a research assistant at nottingham trent university and is currently completing his phd at the institute of neuroscience at newcastle university. badham & hamilton 299 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 280–299 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1958 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f07317115.2013.788115 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0882-7974.5.4.551 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1728-4457.2013.00591.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.120.2.272 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1745691611406923 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ influences of complexity on decisions (introduction) method design participants materials and procedure results scoring analysis discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors psychiatric morbidity among youth patients at nakuru county referral and teaching hospital in kenya: a cross-sectional study research reports psychiatric morbidity among youth patients at nakuru county referral and teaching hospital in kenya: a cross-sectional study mercy cheptoo kipkemboi 1,2, teresa ndilu mutavi 1, john maina mburu 1 [1] department of psychiatry, university of nairobi, nairobi, kenya. [2] clinical psychology department, healthx africa, nairobi, kenya. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 received: 2024-04-29 • accepted: 2025-05-28 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: johannes karl, stanford university, stanford, ca, usa corresponding author: mercy cheptoo kipkemboi, department of psychiatry, university of nairobi/healthx africa, nairobi, kenya. e-mail: mcheptoo82@gmail.com supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract there is a decreased life span of 10 – 15 years in persons with psychiatric illnesses in contrast with the public population; hence interventions on first onset may improve some end results. this article explores the psychiatric morbidity among youth patients of age group 18 – 35 years. the study implemented a cross-sectional descriptive design. the study was carried out at nakuru county referral and teaching hospital in kenya: 385 youth patients were sampled for this study using simple random sampling. there were more female (55.3%) participants compared to male (44.7%). marital status and employment status were found to have a statistically significant association with psychiatric morbidity. the singles (p = .024) had an or (4.771) higher chance of having a psychiatric morbidity as compared to the married. on the other hand, those who were widow/widower (p = .016) had an or (5.650) times of developing a mental illness compared to the married. in conclusion, the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among youth outpatients of the age bracket 18 – 35 years at nakuru county referral and teaching hospital stands at 46.5%. marital status and employment status were noted to have a statistically significant link with psychiatric morbidity. regular psychological assessments should be conducted as part of treatment evaluations for patients to get other more interventions necessary for them, bettering their health outcome broadly. keywords psychiatric morbidity, youth, youth patients, 18 – 35 years, kenya among the most rampant leading causes of global burden of disease are psychiatric disorders (meyer & ndetei, 2016). mental illnesses have risen to be a major public health challenge (wu et al., 2023). in addition, the world health organization indicates that roughly 1 billion individuals struggle with psychiatric disorders (wu et al., 2023). psychiatric illness is a disorder manifested by medically significant distress in a person’s behavior, emotions and cognitive functions which indicates a disorder in the biological, developmental and psychological activities of psychiatric functions (dsm-5, 2013; tse & haslam, 2023). the frequency of common psychiatric disorders in kenya accounts for 10.3% (ministry of health of kenya, 2021). however, kenya is considered a youthful country since most of its inhabitants constitutes of age bracket 18 – 34 years (chumo, 2018). a youth is a person who falls in the age category of 18 – 35 years old as per the 2010 constitution of kenya (hope, 2012) being used presently. this age group has significant social and economic chances but correspondingly extensive challenges (ministry of ict, innovation and youth affairs of kenya, 2019). however, if consistent education and quality healthcare are provided, the nation will experience advantages from this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14511&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ this group (mwadime, 2022). therefore, there is need to understand the specific psychiatric morbidity among the youths since high rates may affect their productivity in this crucial stage. previous studies show that the general practitioners in hospitals may lack the expertise necessary to perform psychiatric assessments; hence they rarely provide these critical evaluations (zhang et al., 2019). some patients seeking general treatment in hospitals may have undiagnosed psychiatric illnesses which may endanger their lives. for instance, persons with depressive symptoms have high risk of taking their own life (world health organization, 2022). the results of this study will inform policy makers in enhancing policies that will strengthen the psychological mental health of youths aged 18 – 35 years in response to psychiatric morbidity rate in nakuru county teaching and referral hospital and other similar hospitals. it will also give insight to youths who are not aware of their mental health status; to take caution and seek the necessary help for those in need. the primary objective of this study is to determine the psychiatric morbidity among youth patients aged 18 – 35 years and identify the associated demographic factors, to inform effective public health interventions. method the target population was youths aged 18 – 35 years being seen at the outpatient casualty in kenya, for general medical conditions by general medical doctors. a simple random sampling technique was used to randomly select participants. a complete list of the registered outpatients was acquired at the outpatient’s casualty area in the hospital. a list of randomly generated numbers using excel was done, for each participant. a lottery method was used; participants were assigned a number, which were randomly picked until required sample size of 385 participants was achieved. the sample size was found using cochran’s (1977) formula. the mini international neuropsychiatric interview (m.i.n.i) tool version 7.0.0 was administered together with a socio-demographic questionnaire. for participants to complete the interview, it approximately took 20 – 30 minutes. the socio-demographic data collection sheet included interviewer identification, location, age group (18 – 23, 24 – 29 and 30 – 35), gender, marital status, education level, employment status and religion. the mini instrument is a short organized diagnosis assessment tool whose author is sheehan (2015), and the interview contained 17 disorders recognized as modules. psychiatric morbidity occurs when a participant fits into one of the categories of disorders included in the mini instrument, whose questions are derived from the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders v (dsm-5) (kwobah et al., 2017). results participants included in the present study were 385: 55.3% of the participants were female while 44.7% were male. the majority of the participants were 24 – 29 years old (39.2%) followed by age group 18 – 23 (31.7%) and age group 30 – 35 years (29.1%). most participants were single (53.5%), married (41.6%), widow/widower (1.3%), and divorced/separated (3.6%). most participants (38.7%) had completed a secondary level of education, while 22.3% had not completed tertiary, 16.4% had completed tertiary, 11.4% had not competed secondary, 7.8% had completed primary, 2.6% had not completed and 0.8% had no level of education. almost half of the participants (45.5%) were unemployed, while self-employed comprised 35.8% and less than a quarter of the participants (18.7%) were employed. majority of participants (91.9%) were christians, 5.2% of muslims, 1.6% belonged to other faiths and 1.3% identified as atheists. (table 1) table 1 socio demographic profiles of study participants socio-demographic profile category frequency percentage marital status single 206 53.5 married 160 41.6 widow/widower 5 1.3 divorced/separated 14 3.6 total 385 100 kipkemboi, mutavi, & mburu 195 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 https://www.psychopen.eu/ socio-demographic profile category frequency percentage education level none 3 0.8 primary not completed 10 2.6 primary completed 30 7.8 secondary not completed 44 11.4 secondary completed 149 38.7 tertiary not completed 86 22.3 tertiary completed 63 16.4 total 385 100 employment status employed 72 18.7 self-employed 138 35.8 unemployed 175 45.5 total 385 100 religion christian 354 91.9 muslim 20 5.2 atheist 5 1.3 others 6 1.6 total 385 100 the prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among youth patients in the hospital was 46.5%. the psychiatric illness with the highest prevalence was major depressive episode (mde) (21.8%) systematically followed by; suicidality (8.8%), alcohol use disorder (aud) (8.6%), suicidal behavior disorder (8.3%), post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) (6.2%), generalized anxiety disorder (gad) (5.2%), social anxiety disorder (sad) (4.9%), panic disorder (2.9%), manic and hypomanic episodes (2.3%), agoraphobia (2.3%), obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) (2.3%), substance use disorder-non-alcohol (sud-na) (2.1%), psychotic disorder lifetime (1.8%), antisocial personality disorder (aspd) (1%), mood disorders with psychotic features lifetime (0.8%), binge eating disorder (0.8%), psychotic disorders current (0.5%), anorexia nervosa (0.5%), mood disorders with psychotic features current (0.5%) and bulimia nervosa (0.3%) (table 2). table 2 prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among youth patients in the hospital variable frequency percentage major depressive disorder 84 21.8 suicidality 34 8.8 alcohol use disorder 33 8.6 suicidal behavior disorder 32 8.3 post-traumatic stress disorder 24 6.2 generalized anxiety disorder 20 5.2 social anxiety disorder 19 4.9 panic disorder 12 3.1 manic and hypomanic episodes 9 2.3 agoraphobia 9 2.3 obsessive compulsive disorder 9 2.3 substance use disorder (non-alcohol) 8 2.1 psychotic disorders lifetime 7 1.8 antisocial personality disorder 4 1 mood disorder with psychotic features lifetime 3 0.8 binge eating 3 0.8 psychiatric morbidity among youth patients 196 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable frequency percentage psychotic disorders current 2 0.5 mood disorders with psychotic features current 2 0.5 anorexia nervosa 2 0.5 bulimia nervosa 1 0.3 marital status and employment status were found to have a statistical relationship with psychiatric morbidity. partici­ pants who identified as single had an odds ratio (or) higher chance of having a psychiatric morbidity as compared to the married (p = .024), or 4.771. participants who were a widow/widower had an or 5.650 times of developing a mental illness compared to the married. those who were divorced/separated had a low odds ratio (0.000) of having a psychiatric morbidity compared to those who were married (p = .016). participants who were self-employed indicated strong odds of developing a psychiatric morbidity as compared to those who were unemployed (p = .007, or 2.440); (p = .018). logistic regression analysis indicated age and marital status having a strong significant statistic link with mde. despite age being significant to mde, the mde rates in both the 24 – 29 and 30 – 35 year old age groups were lower than those in the 18 – 23 year old age group (p = .009) (or: 0.323); (p = .024) (or: 0.370). most of the participants had met a single diagnosis criterion by 26.8% (103), 9.9% (38) had 2 comorbidities, 6.8% (26) had 3 comorbidities while 3.1% (12) had 4 comorbidities (table 3). table 3 psychiatric comorbidities among youth patients number of comorbidities frequency percentage 0 206 53.5 1 103 26.8 2 38 9.9 3 26 6.8 4 12 3.1 total 385 100 discussion the present study was investigating the associations between psychiatric morbidity and being a youth. the outcome indicated that majority of the participants were women. this could be because health care-seeking tendencies are determined by various personal traits such as age and gender, whereby men are inadequately represented in medical care, and it is hard to comprehend why because it’s a continuing matter (thompson et al., 2016). moreover, the male gender was also noted to inadequately utilize the medical services specifically health screening and primary care (mursa et al., 2022) and to also use medical services minimally as compared to the female gender (australian institute of health and welfare, 2019; mursa et al., 2022). nevertheless, more youthful patients both men and women are ready to get health care assistance as opposed to older patients (thompson et al., 2016) as also seen in our findings. this study indicates that the most prevalent mental illness in youth patients of age bracket 18 – 35 years was major depressive episode (21.8%) this was less in contrast to research done by greenberg et al. (2021) that showed major depressive disorder to be at 53.7%% among those in age bracket of 18 – 34. however, age category 30 – 35 years had the highest level of major depressive episode suggesting that there is an increase of major depressive episode with increase in age. similarly, solmi et al. (2022) noted that average age onset of depressive disorder was 30 – 35 years. this was in contrast with villarroel and terlizzi (2020), who noted that those who were of age bracket of 18 – 29 years (21.0%) had the majority incidences of symptoms of depression while those in age group 30 – 44 years (16.8%) had the least symptoms. kipkemboi, mutavi, & mburu 197 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the level of education indicated a correlation to major depressive episode; it was noted that those who were of secondary level and below had higher prevalence of major depressive episode compared to those of tertiary level and above. this was in alignment with the findings of lee et al. (2016). in addition to that, arias-de la torre et al., (2021) also noted in their study that education level impacts outcome of mdd. in this study divorced/separated respondents (64.3%) showed a high level of major depressive episode this was in alignment with gutiérrez-rojas et al. (2020), whose results indicated a strong correlation between major depressive disorder and being divorced/separated. additionally, bulloch et al.’s (2009) findings concluded that individuals who are divorced or separated have higher risk of developing major depressive disorder. married participants (24.4%) followed in second position. this was in contrast to the findings of islam and adnan (2017), which indicated that married individuals 56% had a tendency to develop depression the highest. those who were unemployed (82.4%) had a slightly higher percentage of major depressive episode as opposed to those who were employed (81.0%) and self-employed (81.4%). this could be because unemployment is persistently linked with increased rates of depression in young adults (mcgee & thompson, 2015). this finding is also consistent with findings on depression and unemployment in young adults by mcgee and thompson (2015). aud had a prevalence rate of 8.6% and indicating a correlation with gender, education level and employment status. the male gender (14.0%) used more alcohol as compared to the female (4.2%), this could be because males and females are attributed with contrasting societal morals and norms (gilbert et al., 2019; goh et al., 2024). similarly, maxwell et al. (2022) and goh et al. (2024) supported that sociocultural viewpoints, customary masculine norms particularly could be the reason for men’s high levels of alcohol consumption with possibility of having more alcohol related challenges. those who were of secondary level of education and below indicated a higher intake of alcohol use as compared to those of tertiary level and above, this corresponded with murakami and hashimoto’s (2019) findings which indicated that less educational level was correlated with more risk of having a drinking challenge. similarly, norström and landberg’s (2020) findings also supported this. moreover, lesser educational level predisposes one to being a binge drinker due to occasional predisposition to social distress and poor health enlightenment about dangers of alcohol consumption (murakami & hashimoto, 2019). employment status was also linked to alcohol use disorder whereby the self-employed had 15.2% aud while those employed had 11.1% and those unemployed had 2.4% this was similar to kiarie (2021), who found a significant link between self-employment and alcohol use. however, this contrasted with collins’s (2016) findings, which indicated that unemployment was what was found to be greatly linked with heavy alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorder. although age was not statistically significant to aud, the age group of 30 – 35 rated a higher percentage (11.6%) of aud in contrast to other age groups which was consistent with world health organization (2022), and wysokińska and kolota (2022), who noted those of age group 25 – 45 years had a peak in alcohol usage. this differentiated with delker et al.’s (2016) findings which indicated a heightening of alcohol use in age group 18 – 29 years. marital status and employment status were noted to have a statistically significant link with psychiatric morbidity. this was in contrast with kwobah et al. (2017) who noted that there was no link found between marital status and employment status having an association with psychiatric morbidity. on the other hand, bulloch et al. (2009) indicated an association of marital status and psychiatric illness while eid et al. (2013) indicated an association between employment status and psychiatric illness. limitations and future studies the main limitation noted was that some youth patients would get tired while answering questions due to a long questionnaire which had long different questions for 16 different mental disorders, hence future studies would benefit from using a brief tool with just as good validity as mini international neuropsychiatric interview version 7.0.0. to tackle this limitation, the participants who did not wish to continue with the interview were allowed to leave since participation was voluntary. this research was a cross-sectional study whose duration was 3 months hence a longitudinal study may be of importance to further evaluate the temporality of the results and predictors of psychiatric morbidity among youth patients (18 – 35 years). the present study found that self-employment was significantly correlated with psychiatric psychiatric morbidity among youth patients 198 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 https://www.psychopen.eu/ morbidity. future studies may benefit looking into the specific factors related to self-employment that may play a role in the vulnerability of psychiatric morbidity in the age 18 – 35 years. conclusion the primary outcome of this research indicates that there is a correlation between psychiatric morbidity and being a youth. major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorder had the highest prevalence among the youths. mdd indicated a relationship with increase in age while marital status and employment suggested a significant relationship with psychiatric morbidity. these findings could help inform policy makers in enhancing policies that strengthen the mental health of youths of 18 – 35 years. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we would like to acknowledge nakuru county referral and teaching hospital for permitting data collection and support given. we would also like to thank those who took part in the study. in addition, this article was based on the master’s thesis of the principal author, mercy cheptoo kipkemboi. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist ethics statement: the study was approved by kenyatta national hospital-university of nairobi (knh-uon) ethics research committee (erc) issue number p722/09/22. it was licensed by the national commission of science, technology and innovation (nacosti) license number 119086. it was further reviewed by the nakuru county health department board and nakuru county referral and teaching hospital before commencing the data collection. data availability: data can be accessed through the open science framework. see kipkemboi (2025). supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access code spss syntax. kipkemboi (2025) material a. interview protoccol in kiswahili and english. kipkemboi (2025) b. mini 7.0.0 study material in english. kipkemboi (2025) c. mini 7.0.0 study material in kiswahili. kipkemboi (2025) other codebook/data dictionary. kipkemboi (2025) references australian institute of health and welfare. 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(2023). changing trends in the global burden of mental disorders from 1990 to 2019 and predicted levels in 25 years. epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 32, article e63. https://doi.org/10.1017/s2045796023000756 wysokińska, m., & kolota, a. (2022). assessment of the prevalence of alcoholic beverage consumptions and knowledge of the impact of alcohol on health in a group of polish young adults aged 18–35: a cross-sectional study. international journal of environmental research and public health, 19(23), article 15425. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192315425 zhang, h., yu, d., wang, z., shi, j., & qian, j. (2019). what impedes general practitioners’ identification of mental disorders at outpatient departments? a qualitative study in shanghai, china. annals of global health, 85(1), article 134. https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2628 about the authors mercy cheptoo kipkemboi received her ba degree in psychology with it from maseno university and her msc degree in clinical psychology from the university of nairobi. she currently works as a clinical psychologist at healthx africa. teresia ndilu mutavi is a senior lecturer, department of psychiatry (university of nairobi). john maina mburu is a senior lecturer, department of psychiatry (university of nairobi). kipkemboi, mutavi, & mburu 201 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14511 https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13114 http://ir.mu.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/3982/mini%207.0.pdf?sequence=2&isallowed=y https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01161-7 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-016-0440-0 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-04680-5 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db379.htm https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders https://doi.org/10.1017/s2045796023000756 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192315425 https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2628 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychiatric morbidity among youth patients (introduction) method results discussion limitations and future studies conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the spiritual wellness of an intellectual, novelist, journalist and politician: the meaningful life of sol plaatje theoretical contributions the spiritual wellness of an intellectual, novelist, journalist and politician: the meaningful life of sol plaatje crystal welman 1, paul j. p. fouché 2, pravani naidoo 2, roelf van niekerk 3 [1] wellness centre, central university of technology, bloemfontein, south africa. [2] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. [3] department of industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 received: 2020-12-10 • accepted: 2021-02-10 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: crystal welman, wellness centre, central university of technology, private bag x20539, bloemfontein, 9300, south africa. e-mail: cwelman@cut.ac.za abstract the study investigates sol plaatje’s (1876–1932) spiritual wellness across his lifespan. he was purposively sampled due to his impact upon south african society. as an intellectual, novelist, journalist, and politician, plaatje was also a founder member of the south african native national congress, which later became the african national congress. his life history reflected a significant degree of spiritual wellness, which was uncovered through the systematic analysis of publicly available life-history materials, including primary and secondary sources. the wheel of wellness (wow) model by sweeney and witmer was applied to interpret the biographical evidence of spirituality and meaning in his life. spirituality, as the central life task of the wow, and regarded as the most influential domain of a healthy individual, incorporates religious beliefs and other individualised aspects of meaning-making. findings indicate that spirituality characterised plaatje’s childhood years and continued to play a role throughout his adult years. his sense of meaning and purpose was personified in the promotion and preservation of human rights and dignity, which embraced interracial respect, compassion, and service to others. keywords sol plaatje, psychobiography, spirituality as life task, wheel of wellness model solomon (sol) tshekisho plaatje was born on 9 october 1876 in the free state province of south africa (molema, 2012; willan, 2018). he was the seventh of nine children to two devout lutheran christians, johannes and martha plaatje (midgeley, 1997), who belonged to the royal barolong tribe1. they treasured their african identity and culture (south african history online [saho], 2019). plaatje’s mother named him after solomon, the wise biblical king because she believed that her son too, would one day become a wise man (molema, 2012). shortly after plaatje’s birth, his parents moved to the multi-cultural pniel mission station, where they worked for german missionaries in charge of the berlin missionary society (bms2; schoeman, 1991). the mission school offered plaatje an elementary education up to grade 5 (midgeley, 1997). at the age of 14, he worked as a student-teacher while receiving additional private tuition from a german reverend and his wife (willan, 2018). they introduced him 1) barolong is a tribe of setswana-speaking people from botswana and south africa (ramoroka, 2009) 2) the bms was a german protestant (old lutheran) christian missionary society that supported work in south africa, china and east africa. they established the pniel mission station on the vaal river between modern barkly-west and kimberley, south africa, in 1845. the bms emphasised spiritual inwardness and puritanical values such as morality, hard work and self-discipline (schoeman, 1985). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5417&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ to shakespeare and cultivated his natural gift for classical music and languages (leflaive, 2014), while his mother, grandmother, and aunts steeped him in setswana culture and oral tradition (rule, 2016). he matured into a polyglot, proficient in english, dutch, german and african languages, including sesotho and zulu (lunderstedt, 2014). plaatje’s fascination with african history, folklore, and proverbs was fittingly captured years later in his novel, mhudi—the first of its kind published in english by a black south african (lunderstedt, 2014). when he worked as a court interpreter in mafeking3 from 1898 until 1910, he acted as a mediator between the english and dutch magistrates, prosecutors and plaintiffs, and vice versa (willan, 2018). this period involved a tumultuous political change in south africa, including the anglo-boer war4 and the creation of the white-dominated union of south africa5 (odendaal, 2012). plaatje also became a pioneer of african independent journalism. his extensive newspaper articles attacked unjust laws and racial discrimination in south africa, which gave him a national voice and profile (lunderstedt, 2014). in 1912, he co-founded the south african native national congress (sannc) in protest of the natives’ land act, which deprived africans of the right to own land (rule, 2016). the sannc later changed its name to the african national congress (anc), the present-day ruling party in south africa. plaatje also travelled abroad extensively as part of the sannc delegations to present the “native case” and published a book, native life in south africa, in 1916 to expose the ruinous effects of the 1913 natives’ land act (willan, 2018). these acts laid roots for the later anti-apartheid movement as plaatje embraced a vision of a joint south africa (rule, 2016). he advocated for a united, inclusive nation based on justice and equality, sadly at great personal cost to himself and his family (willan, 2018). this study aimed to demonstrate the value that spirituality, as a life task of holistic wellness within the wheel of wellness (wow) model, held for plaatje over his lifespan. plaatje’s spiritual wellness, despite adversities, is of scientific interest in terms of how it relates to resilient living and wellbeing. thus, this contributes to the study of meaning-creation in psychobiographical research. plaatje remains “one of the great south africans of the 20th century” (lunderstedt, 2014, p. 78). the life tasks of the wow model: the role of spirituality in personal meaning-making firmly positioned within the positive psychology movement, the wow model provides a holistic, integrative approach to wellness (myers, sweeney, & witmer, 2000; sweeney & witmer, 1991; witmer & sweeney, 1992). it emphasises adler (1927, 1992) concepts related to adaptive and optimal human functioning, strengths, and coping (myers & sweeney, 2004, 2008). the wow model’s multi-dimensional nature explores the expression of personal wellness as a function of five interrelated life tasks as they interact with external life forces, which are, in turn, influenced by the broader context of global events (myers et al., 2000; roscoe, 2009). spirituality is conceived as the central life task of the wow model, further integrating the life tasks of self-direction (previously called self-regulation), work and leisure, friendship, and love (myers & sweeney, 2004; shannonhouse, myers, & sweeney, 2016). the life forces include family, community, religion, education, government, media and business or industry, while global events include natural or human-made disasters, such as war, pollution, and poverty (myers et al., 2000; witmer & sweeney, 1992). the multi-dimensional concept of spirituality is considered a creative energy source for purposiveness in life (sweeney & witmer, 1991), which is distinguishable from the institutionalised concept of religiosity (mayer, van niekerk, & fouché, 2020). spirituality, as described by myers et al. (2000, p. 9) is “an awareness of a being or force that transcends the material aspects of life and gives a deep sense of wholeness or connectedness to the universe,” with a focus on “life-enhancing beliefs about human dignity, human rights and reverence for life” (witmer & sweeney, 1992, p. 141). the seven “subtasks” of the life task of spirituality include: 1) belief in god as a higher power; 2) religious choice and practices; 3) transcendence; 4) meaning and purpose in life; 5) hope and optimism; 6) values; and 7) love, compassion and service towards others (myers et al., 2000; witmer & sweeney, 1992). within the wow model, optimism refers to “… an expression of hope that, with a certain degree of confidence, one can either expect the best possible 3) the capital city of the north west province of south africa (mbenga & manson, 2012). 4) a war between the british and two boer republics in south africa (willan, 2018). 5) britain granted dominion to the white minority over all africans and other mixed races in the country (ramoroka, 2009). the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje 222 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of the situation” (witmer & sweeney, 1992, p. 141). transcendence is an individual’s need to attain inner peace and experience a sense of oneness with nature and the universe or the infinite (myers et al., 2000), which is another core component in the life task of spirituality (witmer & sweeney, 1992). transcendence supposedly increases life satisfaction, which, in turn, promotes psychological wellness (toner, haslam, robinson, & williams, 2012). furthermore, in conjunction with optimism and inner harmony, moral and ethical values may also result in guiding an individual’s behaviour toward the promotion of the common good, love, compassion, and service to others (sweeney & witmer, 1991). studies have indicated that individuals with a sense of purpose and those that demonstrate altruistic behaviour tend to experience a higher sense of meaning and wellbeing in their lives (aknin, dunn, & norton, 2012; mosak & maniacci, 2008), which also cultivates future resilience to adversity (diener & seligman, 2004; steger, 2012). ultimately, spirituality is the core dimension or life task to be developed for it to positively influence the develop­ ment of the rest of the life tasks in the wow model (myers & sweeney, 2008; sweeney, 2009). personal meaning greatly relates to spirituality (fouché, burnell, & van niekerk, 2015), and also endorses a sense of oneness, inner life, purposiveness, optimism and values. research aim the purpose of this study is to contribute to psychobiographical research on meaning-creation. more specifically, the study aims to explore spirituality as the central life task of plaatje within significant historical periods over his lifespan and the impact it had on his ability to consistently create meaning through the lens of the wow model as postulated by myers et al. (2000). method design and subject psychobiography aims to explore and describe the development, growth, creativity, and productivity of distinguished, extraordinary and even controversial individuals over their entire lifespan, within their socio-historical contexts and from a psychological frame of reference (fouché & van niekerk, 2010; ponterotto, 2015; ponterotto & reynolds, 2017). therefore, this qualitative, longitudinal study, with its morphogenic perspective, utilised a psychobiographical single case study research design and methodology (flick, 2006; köváry, 2018; ponterotto, 2014; roberts, 2002). the psychobiographical subject, south african born anti-apartheid activist, journalist, and novelist, sol plaatje (1876–1932), was selected through non-probability purposive sampling. a leading figure in south africa’s liberation history, plaatje is best remembered as one of the founding members of the 1912 sannc, the forerunner of the present-day anc. plaatje lived through times of tumultuous political change, yet he consistently demonstrated tenacity and resilience, often under very trying conditions (willan, 2018). plaatje’s personal commitment and contribution to the establishment of democracy in south africa might be described as acts of “lifelong heroism,” which, according to franco, blau, and zimbardo (2011) may be seen as the pinnacle of an exemplary life. the researchers contend that a renewed focus on anti-apartheid activists might contribute to a deeper understanding of south africa’s troubled past by exploring these individuals’ roles in the journey towards democracy. this, combined with a personal interest in his unique and controversial personality, served as the rationale for selecting plaatje as psychobiographical subject. furthermore, despite the wealth of information available on plaatje, a documented in-depth psychological analysis of his life did not exist at the time of undertaking this study. posthumously, plaatje was awarded an array of accolades, including an honourary doctorate degree from the university of the north west in 1998 (willan, 2018), for his humanitarian conduct and contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle. his 1916 classic, native life in south africa, was republished in 2007 and continues to inform debates about the struggles of the african people who were relegated to landless and dispossessed squatters by the natives’ land act of 1913 (jaffer & tshabalala, 2014). other tributes include the following (jaffer & tshabalala, 2014; willan, 2018): welman, fouché, naidoo, & van niekerk 223 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. plaatje's home in kimberley was declared a national monument in 1992 and is currently operating as the sol plaatje library and museum. 2. his grave in kimberley’s west end cemetery was declared a provincial heritage site in 1999. 3. the kimberley municipality was renamed sol plaatje local municipality in 1995. 4. in 2000, the anc initiated the sol plaatje award, which annually recognises the best performing anc branch. 5. the sol plaatje secondary school in mafikeng opened its doors in 2002. 6. the sol plaatje university in kimberley officially opened its doors in 2014. 7. on 8 january 2020, south african president cyril ramaphosa honoured plaatje’s memory at his gravesite in the west end cemetery during an official visit as part of the 108th anniversary celebrations of the anc. data collection, extraction, and analysis the authors retrieved numerous published documents. primary sources included a wide range of newspaper articles, books, public speeches, and extracts from letters written by plaatje. his politically-based book, native life in south africa, his romance novel, mhudi, and anglo-boer war diary, provided valuable personal information about the subject. secondary sources included written biographical accounts (e.g., midgeley, 1997; mokae, 2012; molema, 2012; pampalis, 1992; rall, 2003; willan, 1984, 2018), as well as audio-visual documentaries (e.g., couzens, 2001; couzens & willan, 1979). additional journal articles, literary essays and critiques on plaatje ensured data triangulation that enhanced the study’s trustworthiness and rigour (welman, fouché, & van niekerk, 2019). important biographical data were extracted via alexander’s (1988, 1990) nine well-known indicators of salience. also, the wow model (myers et al., 2000; sweeney & witmer, 1991; witmer & sweeney, 1992) was utilised to concep­ tualise and uncover plaatje’s spiritual wellness or spirituality as central life task. the authors ensured the systematic extraction and analysis of salient biographical material collected from across five significant historical periods in his life, namely: the formative years: doornfontein and pniel (1876–1894); plaatje at kimberley (1894–1898); plaatje at mafeking (1898–1910); tales of travels (1910–1923); and the autumn years (1923–1932). ethical considerations permission to conduct this study was granted by the faculty’s institutional review board (irb), the committee for title registrations within the faculty of the humanities at the university of the free state. relevant written consent to undertake this research, and access to unpublished archival documents, were granted by plaatje’s family members and the director of the sol plaatje educational trust. all information was treated with respect, and best ethical practice was informed by the decision-making guidelines as prescribed by ponterotto (2013, 2014, 2015, 2017) and ponterotto and reynolds (2017, 2019). following a contextualised approach to ethical decision-making, including personal and professional reflexive research practice (e.g., reflective journalling, regular consultations with knowledgeable colleagues) and rigorous methodological checks (ponterotto, 2014; willig, 2013; yin, 2018), served to enhance the trustworthiness and rigour of the study. findings and discussion the findings pertaining to spirituality as life task (i.e., spiritual wellness) are presented and discussed chronologically according to five significant historical periods throughout the lifespan of plaatje. the formative years: doornfontein and pniel (1876–1894) plaatje’s family of origin and family-like community cultivated particular values in him, especially concerning spiritual­ ity and faith. as the son of devout lutheran christians, religious worship formed a significant part of his upbringing (mokae, 2012; willan, 1984, 2018). religious practices within the plaatje household (e.g., bible study and prayer) attest to his early exposure to the concept of god as a “higher power.” his father and brother’s respective involvement in the church as deacon and elder also affected plaatje’s consciousness as he matured (willan, 2018). the pniel residents’ the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje 224 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work ethic, diligence, and impeccable behaviour highlighted the values of the christian faith and philosophy and heightened plaatje’s awareness to adhere to this “higher power” and certain moral and ethical obligations (molema, 2012; willan, 2018). the racially-integrated environment at pniel and exposure to the values of the christian faith, in combination with the beliefs and customs of his african identity, further contributed to the development of values such as respect for diversity and human dignity, which, according to myers et al. (2000), are important aspects of spirituality. findings further suggest that plaatje derived meaning from spending time outdoors because, as an adult, he would often longingly reflect on this time, as well as the continuing impact of nature on his mood. this aspect of spirituality (i.e., transcendence) remained an important part of his spiritual wellness experience throughout his lifespan (welman, 2020). at the age of 16, spirituality developed into a more personal experience for plaatje when he was formally christened into the lutheran faith (fromme, 2010; midgeley, 1997). the singing of hymns also became more meaningful as he matured, reflected by his unyielding devotion to the translation thereof in subsequent historical periods (willan, 1984, 2018). as a student-teacher, plaatje’s popularity with children (molema, 2012; rall, 2003) allowed him to experience another dimension in the life task of spirituality, namely meaning and purpose. furthermore, plaatje’s well-mannered demeanour, combined with his optimistic and confident interpersonal attitude (willan, 2018), laid the foundation for his future sense of compassion and dedication to being of service to others. in terms of global events, findings indicate that the discovery of diamonds and gold in south africa not only escalated levies and taxes that led to financial hardship on many africans in the area, but it also intensified land and labour disputes between the afrikaners6 and the british (midgeley, 1997; willan, 2018). another global event that impacted plaatje’s spiritual wellness includes the domination of mission christianity and its associated educational institutions on african political life (nasson, 2004), which eventually influenced plaatje’s parents’ decision to adopt various practices of european missionaries (gerhart & karis, 1977; nasson, 2004; saho, 2019). plaatje at kimberley (1894–1898) after his arrival in kimberley7, plaatje formed a friendship with isaiah bud-m’belle, which integrated him with other mission-educated africans who stayed at the malay8 camp, a racially mixed residential area (leflaive, 2014). this african community shared plaatje’s morals and commitment to the christian faith, which possibly further influenced his spiritual wellness and sense of connectedness. isaiah later became plaatje’s brother-in-law when he married isaiah’s sister, elisabeth, in 1898 (rall, 2003). despite initial opposition from their families, plaatje and elisabeth’s inter-tribal union eventually gave a romantic expression to the spiritual dimension of love (willan, 1984, 2018). throughout this period, plaatje remained a faithful christian and was involved in church fundraising campaigns and even became secretary of the young men’s christian association (ymca) in 1896 (midgeley, 1997). it is thus inferred that plaatje derived a significant sense of meaning and purpose by serving others and by gaining exposure to belief systems different from those of his family of origin (welman, 2020). his belief in a higher power and the practice of prayer and reflection remained an important part of plaatje’s life (welman, 2020). while his faith remained unchanged, the exposure to the community at the malay camp and the broader town of kimberley triggered questions regarding certain government policies of segregation and division, and plaatje became more spiritually aware that a form of political dissent had started to develop within his work environment (willan, 1984, 2018). therefore, when he qualified to vote in the national elections mid-1898, he did so without hesitation (midgeley, 1997; willan, 1984). for plaatje, it was his duty to vote since it directly impacted his life in terms of liberty, morality and ethics, and the focus on human dignity (welman, 2020), which are all important aspects of spirituality within the wow model (myers et al., 2000; witmer & sweeney, 1992). a global event, the rinderpest epidemic (also called the cattle plague) that swept across the country in 1896 (saho, 2019), exacerbated the struggling economy and intensified land and labour disputes between the afrikaners and the british (willan, 2018). although plaatje’s father also died during this time, evidence in the literature suggests that it 6) a south african ethnic group (willan, 2018). 7) the capital city of the northern cape province of south africa (willan, 2018). 8) a name given to inhabitants originally from malaysia and indonesia (willan, 2018). welman, fouché, naidoo, & van niekerk 225 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ did not negatively impact plaatje’s spiritual wellness. at the end of this historical period, plaatje’s pursuit of a more meaningful job culminated in his appointment as a clerk/court interpreter at mafeking’s magistrate’s court (midgeley, 1997; molema, 2012). however, his optimism of moving to mafeking in 1898 was thwarted by an illness suspected to have been malaria—the first of many documented incidents of ill-health (midgeley, 1997; molema, 2012; willan, 2018). nevertheless, plaatje was excited about becoming a father and enjoyed spending time at home with his pregnant wife (rall, 2003). plaatje’s marriage anchored him throughout his life and seemed to also consistently promote his spiritual wellness (welman, 2020). plaatje at mafeking (1898–1910) plaatje’s religious milieu remained unchanged as the community where he stayed when he moved to mafeking shared his moral and ethical values (willan, 1984). a strong affiliation with the local barolong also allowed him to experience companionship that likely elevated his degree of spiritual wellness (welman, 2020). plaatje was, however, affected by the government’s indifference to the plight of many poverty-stricken africans who were struggling economically in the aftermath of the rinderpest epidemic (lunderstedt, 2014; molema, 2012). it invoked in him strong feelings of compassion and a sense of moral obligation and service to these affected families (willan, 1984, 2018). despite obvious tensions and conflict at work, plaatje maintained an optimistic attitude, which constitutes an important dimension of the wow model’s life task of spirituality (myers et al., 2000). his work as court interpreter could be seen as an expression of this spiritual dimension. the combination of optimism, inner harmony, and values may lead to the promotion of important dimensions of the life task of spirituality, such as social interest in the form of compassion and service to others (myers et al., 2000; sweeney & witmer, 1991). the anglo-boer war was a global event during this historical period that not only impacted plaatje’s personal development, but it also fuelled his sense of purpose and inspired the writing of the boer war diary: an african at mafeking—a documentation of events during a painful and disturbing time (jaffer & tshabalala, 2014). biblical and musical metaphors were two of plaatje’s favourite ways of connecting his past and present experiences in these diary entries (willan, 1984, 1996). they reflected his belief in god as a higher power despite the circumstances. he referred to sundays as “the lord’s day” (plaatje, 1999, p. 50), indicating his continued participation in worship at church. horse-riding offered him another spiritual experience (plaatje, 1999). his supplementary job as liaison between the white british administration and the black barolong chiefs (leflaive, 2014) was another opportunity for him to serve others with purpose and meaning (welman, 2020). recurring incidents of ill-health throughout this period frustrated plaatje because it disrupted his sense of inner harmony, peace, and purpose (welman, 2020), especially when he was confined to bed and unable to work (willan, 2018). plaatje experienced significant spiritual growth in this historical period. bearing witness to the increasing apartheid policies sensitised him to the effects of discrimination and persecution (willan, 2018) and further fuelled his sense of purpose. the biased nature of the afrikaner government also stimulated his interest in the ethical issues involved in local politics, and so he frequently attempted to engage with the afrikaner community about the iniquities of their policies (willan, 1996, 2018). after the war, plaatje experienced a personal injustice when he was deprived recognition as the top candidate in the cape civil service examinations9 (midgeley, 1997). this was especially difficult for him to accept because, since childhood, he had always derived much meaning and purpose from improving himself, particularly on an educational level, and linked his achievements to a sense of inner harmony, peace, and spiritual growth (rall, 2003; willan, 2018). changing to a career in journalism full-time in 1902 boosted his sense of hope and optimism for the future (welman, 2020). as its editor, the setswana-english newspaper’s political creed echoed plaatje’s own long-standing belief in equality before the law and pride in his african heritage (willan, 2018). plaatje’s advocacy for educational advancement for africans was often juxtaposed with public criticism when he disagreed with their use of alcohol, gender discrimination or enforcement of traditional customs (such as circumcision) incompatible with christian practice (leflaive, 2014; willan, 2018). the media thus became a powerful influence on plaatje’s wellness during this historical 9) entry examinations required for recruitment and admission to government service (willan, 2018). the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje 226 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ period, as it provided him a platform from which to shape public policies as leading spokesperson for african opinion (welman et al., 2019). plaatje’s political involvement increased significantly during this historical period. his vehement opposition to the implementation of the new union of south africa, amongst other activities, earned him the position of assistant secretary of the sannc (willan, 2018). his dedication to serving his people reflects courage and a high degree of spiritual wellness in the dimension of love, compassion, and service to others (myers et al., 2000). on the home front, when elisabeth and their first-born son, sainty, finally moved to mafeking, plaatje was excited to express his love and care to his own family and not only to the broader community (welman, 2020). he also fathered two daughters, olive and violet, and two more sons, richard and halley (molema, 2012). however, his regular, long absences away from home came at a great personal cost as it created an imbalance between his personal acts of love to his family and the need to contribute to society (welman et al., 2019). setswana orthography, specifically the research of setswana linguistics and the preservation of vernacular languages, also kept him busy (lunderstedt, 2014; midgeley, 1997) and added an extra element of spiritual wellness in terms of personal meaning and purpose (welman, 2020). unfortunately, his newspaper's demise in 1906 sparked a decline in his general sense of meaning and purpose, along with an already precarious financial situation that remained dire for almost 3 years (lunderstedt, 2014). tales of travels (1910–1923) plaatje experienced a renewed sense of hope and optimism once he was back in kimberley. the media became a significant life force that provided him a wider platform to distribute information about the struggles of the black south african community (shillington, 1985; willan, 2018), thus, enabling him to better meet his goal of opposing the apartheid government. he wrote editorials, addressed and broadly participated in protest meetings mainly against the abolishment of the cape’s non-racial franchise (odendaal, 2012; shillington, 1985), which relates to aspects of social connectedness and social interest (myers et al., 2000) in the larger south african community. through his literary endeavours, speaking engagements, and contact with people at grassroot level, he contributed towards the empowerment and education of his culture. two global events, world war i (willan, 2018) and the spanish influenza (phillips, 1990), significantly impacted plaatje’s generative concern, although he continued to enhance his overall experience of meaning and purpose by writing the book, native life in south africa, in reaction to what he experienced as an extremely challenging life force, the 1913 natives’ land act (odendaal, 2012). he also capitalised on his position as secretary-general of the sannc (later the anc), as well as his ties to two other inter-racial organisations, the independent order of the true templars (iott) and the brotherhood movement, to raise public awareness on issues regarding racial segregation in south africa (rall, 2003; willan, 2018). he felt particularly connected to the values of spirituality, sobriety, self-improvement, and racial equality promoted by the iott and the brotherhood movement (plaatje, 1916). furthermore, plaatje co-authored two books dedicated to the preservation of setswana proverbs (jones & plaatje, 1916) and wrote a chapter in a book commemorating shakespeare’s 300th anniversary, published in 1916 (gollanz, 1916; remmington, 2013). sweeney and witmer (1991) stated that the combination of optimism, inner harmony, and values may also promote the common good and social interest, which myers et al. (2000) defined as the dimension of love, compassion, and service to others. plaatje’s vast involvement in activities despite his declining health highlighted an expression of wellness in his spiritual dimension. his travels abroad during this period also reflected a significant experience of meaning and purpose particularly since it was linked to his sense of responsibility towards the preservation of human rights and dignity, morality, and ethics (myers et al., 2000). plaatje’s spiritual wellness was negatively impacted when his youngest son, johannes, and eldest daughter, olive, died (odendaal, 2012; willan, 2018). although he tried to appear as optimistic as ever in public, these events impacted his belief in a higher power, especially since financial constraints prevented him from being able to attend their funerals (willan, 2018). welman, fouché, naidoo, & van niekerk 227 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the autumn years (1923–1932) plaatje’s family and friends continued to play an important role in his spiritual life. they formed an integral part of his support system during the periods when his sense of optimism was particularly challenged by the life forces of government and community and thus promoted his effective management of stress (welman, 2020). his newspaper articles and temperance work under the auspices of the iott, as well as personal visits and interviews with political leaders to protest against additional segregation policies (e.g., the 1926 colour bar act) (lunderstedt, 2014; rall, 2003; willan, 2018), relate to spiritual wellness as well as concepts in the life task of love, compassion and service to others (myers et al., 2000). this dogged dedication to the advancement of human rights, morality and civil liberties reflects that his ethical and moral values remained a prominent dimension of his spiritual life task (lunderstedt, 2014). the abolishment of the non-racial cape franchise in 1930 exacerbated the dissent within the sannc, and plaatje resigned as its secretary-general (jaffer & tshabalala, 2014). south africa’s growing apartheid system weighed heavily on him, but he maintained his trust in the potential of individuals to behave righteously (molema, 2012). he continued to engage in activities that served a social purpose (e.g., sobriety campaigns, preserving setswana linguistics) and, in doing so, continued to express his generative concern for the next generation of south africans, despite persistent financialand health-related difficulties (willan, 2018). this behaviour reflected a dimension of spirituality that allowed him to translate his own ethical beliefs and moral convictions regarding equality and liberty into practice. while plaatje’s anti-apartheid work was being recognised by the international community (lunderstedt, 2014), he was aware that his contributions were not always appreciated amongst people from his own community. furthermore, the excessive drinking of his sons, sainty and halley, directly challenged his efforts to advocate sobriety (willan, 2018), which may have negatively influenced the life task of spirituality within his own family. plaatje’s customary belief in a power beyond himself was again reflected in this context when he noted: “blessed are the dead who die in the lord, for they rest from their labours” (willan, 2018, p. 462). plaatje’s involvement in the preservation of setswana literature was an important theme throughout the last years of his life (midgeley, 1997). his close personal relationships with family and friends, and his literary achievements (i.e., the setswana translation of shakespeare’s comedy of errors and his novel, mhudi, in addition to the already published the boer war diary: an african at mafeking and native life in south africa), facilitated a sense of meaning, purpose, and service (myers et al., 2000). his spirit and passion were as undaunted as ever, despite struggling with ubiquitous health issues (molema, 2012), which suggests that plaatje still experienced a sense of hope and optimism as a dimension of the spirituality life task (myers et al., 2000). career-wise, plaatje seemed to have maintained a relatively high degree of wellness in the life task of spirituality throughout his lifespan, especially regarding the dimensions of meaning, purpose, and a sense of worth (welman, 2020). his resilience during challenging circumstances endured until the end when he, despite being critically ill and bed-ridden, braved the cold weather and attended to prior arranged work appointments (rall, 2003). this tenacity suggests that work facilitated a significant sense of fulfilment and remained a major influence on his ability to lead a meaningful spiritual life. conclusion and recommendations within the wow model, spirituality is seen as the core trait for the maintenance of spiritual health and wellbeing as it impacts positively on the other life tasks of wellness. plaatje’s environment cultivated within him aspects of the life task of spirituality, namely: 1) moral and ethical values to guide daily living; 2) some form of worship, prayer in relation to the infinite, and self-reflection; 3) hope and optimism; and 4) transcendence, which includes inner peace, harmony, and oneness with nature, the universe or the infinite (myers et al., 2000). belief in god as a higher power, respect for diversity, and the preservation of human dignity and human rights, as well as love, compassion, and service to others, were equally prominent features of plaatje’s life task of spirituality. his sense of meaning and purpose was personified, especially through the promotion and preservation of human rights and dignity, evident by his extensive involvement as a political activist and human rights campaigner. life forces and global events, including plaatje’s reactions towards them, influenced his degree of spiritual wellness and ability to experience meaningfulness at any given stage. despite specific and significant changes (e.g., the imple­ mentation of the 1913 natives’ land act) and challenges (e.g., the death of his two children) that occurred at different the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje 228 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ points in his life, plaatje’s response to these changes and challenges created an opportunity to fortify both his generative concern and sense of purpose. this relates to the contention that a source of generativity has been found to be a good predictor of meaningfulness (schnell, 2011). contextual and systemic life forces of government, community, family, and religion had the most identifiable influence on his life task of spirituality. the study demonstrated how plaatje’s spiritual wellness contributed to his ability to lead a meaningful life. the findings affirm the applicability of the wow model for psychobiographical studies of extraordinary individuals. the authors suggest that future research projects exploring the relationship between meaning-creation and holistic wellness may uncover further insights that could possibly be developed into inspirational coping resources to be used with clients in counselling. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adler, a. 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(2018). sol plaatje: a life of solomon tshekisho plaatje, 1876–1932. johannesburg, south africa: jacana. willig, c. (2013). introducing qualitative research in psychology (3rd ed.). london, united kingdom: mcgraw-hill education. witmer, j. m., & sweeney, t. j. (1992). a holistic model for wellness and prevention over the lifespan. journal of counselling & development, 71(2), ), 140-148. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb02189.x yin, r. k. (2018). case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.). thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage. about the authors crystal welman is a registered counselling psychologist currently employed as a senior psychologist at the central university of technology in bloemfontein, south africa. her research interests reside mainly within the field of psychobiography, with a focus on personality development. she has recently completed a psychobiographical study on the life of sol plaatje and obtained her dphil at the university of the free state (ufs). paul j. p. fouché, (dphil), is a full-professor of counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, in south africa. he serves on the scientific committee for social sciences and the faculty research welman, fouché, naidoo, & van niekerk 231 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 221–232 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5417 https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2013.767546 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1002/j.1556-6678.2009.tb00570.x https://theconversation.com/remembering-sol-plaatje-as-south-africas-original-public-educator-65979 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.06.006 https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826171825.0093 http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/solomon-tshekisho-plaatje https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.12.014 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.1992.tb02189.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ committee. paul has published psychobiographical and psychohistorical articles in various journals. his interest is in the field of psychobiography and psychohistory and he acts as research supervisor to post-graduate scholars undertaking life history research. pravani naidoo (phd) lectures in the department of psychology at the university of the free state in bloemfontein, south africa. she has a keen interest in exemplary personalities within the field of psychohistory. she also acts as research supervisor to post-grad­ uate students undertaking research within the field of positive psychology. pravani initiated, and continues to co-ordinate, the therapeutic horse riding community service learning project engaging psychology students and children with neurodevelopmental diagnoses. roelf van niekerk is a registered clinical and industrial psychologist as well as a master human resource practitioner. he obtained a ba theology, ba honours (psychology), and ma (industrial psychology) at the university of stellenbosch; a ma (clinical psychology) and d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth, and a m ed (general education theory and practice) at rhodes university. prof van niekerk is currently the director: school of industrial psychology and human resorces at the nelson mandela university in port elizabeth, south africa.he was previously employed at the universities of port elizabeth, free state, fort hare, and rhodes university.prof van niekerk’s research focus is on psychobiographical research projects, particularly in the fields of personality-, career-, and leadership development.he teaches a range of modules including psychological assessment, career management, organisational development, personality psychology, psychotherapy, and psychopathology. the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje 232 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the spiritual wellness of sol plaatje (introduction) the life tasks of the wow model: the role of spirituality in personal meaning-making research aim method design and subject data collection, extraction, and analysis ethical considerations findings and discussion the formative years: doornfontein and pniel (1876–1894) plaatje at kimberley (1894–1898) plaatje at mafeking (1898–1910) tales of travels (1910–1923) the autumn years (1923–1932) conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? the role of psychological capital, perceived learning from an entrepreneurship education program, emotions and their relationships research reports how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? the role of psychological capital, perceived learning from an entrepreneurship education program, emotions and their relationships séverine chevalier 1, isabelle calmé 2, hélène coillot 1, karine le rudulier 3, evelyne fouquereau 1 [1] ee 1901, work and organizational psychology, university of tours, tours, france. [2] ea 6296, management science, university of tours, tours, france. [3] umr cnrs 6262, management science, university of rennes 1, rennes, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 received: 2020-03-02 • accepted: 2020-11-09 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: austin lee nichols, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa corresponding author: séverine chevalier, département de psychologie, ufr arts et sciences humaines, 3 rue des tanneurs, 37000 tours cédex 1, france. e-mail: severine.chevalier@univ-tours.fr supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract entrepreneurship education has become a major focus of interest for researchers and national policy makers to encourage students to pursue entrepreneurial careers. the research on entrepreneurship education–entrepreneurial intentions (eis) has yielded mixed results, and indicates the need to focus on antecedents of ei. more precisely, the aim of this paper was to examine antecedents of students’ ei in french entrepreneurship education programs. participants were 460 french university undergraduates. structural equation modeling results revealed that students’ psychological capital (psycap) had a significant positive relationship with perceived learning from the program and a significant negative relationship with negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions. they also show that psycap indirectly enhanced ei. more precisely, students with high psycap learned more from the program in terms of perceived skills and knowledge and in turn had a higher ei. moreover, students with high psycap had less entrepreneurial action-related doubt, fear and aversion, which also increased ei. this decrease in negative emotions can be explained notably by what students perceived they had learned from the program. this article concludes with the implications of these findings for future research and practical applications. keywords psychological capital, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurship education entrepreneurship education has received increasing attention in recent years, from both scholars and practitioners (barba-sanchez & atienzo-sahuquillo, 2018), and there is growing interest in undertaking and intensifying actions to promote and support the idea of entrepreneurship among students around the globe (gelard & saleh, 2011). many authors have stressed the importance of entrepreneurship education to increase students’ awareness of the possibility of an entrepreneurial career (fini, grimaldi, santoni, & sobrero, 2011). more precisely, a number of empirical studies have already explored the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention (ei), showing how it can help create the desire to start new businesses (adekiya & ibrahim, 2016). however, other studies found that the effect of entrepreneurship training on ei in university students taking entrepreneurship courses was only moderate (iglesias-sánchez, jambrino-maldonado, velasco, & kokash, 2016), or even negative (von graevenitz, harhoff, & weber, 2010). these conflicting results raise the question of the psychological mechanisms underlying these differences. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2889&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in the field of entrepreneurial cognition, which concerns understanding how entrepreneurs think (mitchell et al., 2002), some authors have investigated the reasons why individuals start up a business (shepherd, 2004), examining notably their perceptions of the entrepreneurial skills they have acquired and their emotions regarding entrepreneurial actions (e.g., fear, doubt and aversion). following the same line, it has been suggested that an entrepreneurship education program is first and foremost a way for students to test their aptitude for an entrepreneurial career (von graevenitz et al., 2010), and that entrepreneurial education programs should give students a more realistic view both of themselves and of what it takes to be an entrepreneur (oosterbeek, van praag, & ijsselstein, 2010). entrepreneurial aptitudes (i.e., the capacity to acquire entrepreneurial competences and skills through training) are related to ei and are thus considered as an antecedent of ei for students following entrepreneurial education programs (martin, mcnally, & kay, 2013). previous studies have observed differences in students’ perceptions of the benefits of these courses in terms of developing entrepreneurial skills, influencing their intentions to start a venture; the authors suggest that these differences could be explained by psychological characteristics of the students (fairlie & holleran, 2012). recent studies have thus investigated psychological characteristics, and more precisely personality traits (e.g., internal locus of control, proactive personality), as antecedents of ei (see the review by schlaegel & koenig, 2014). in other words, the trait approach has become one of the major ways of investigating the antecedents of ei (frese & gielnik, 2014). however, other authors suggest that studies should focus on psychological resources that can be developed, rather than on traits, which do not change over time (mitchell et al., 2002). these resources include what the positive psychology movement describes as state-like, such as self-efficacy (“having confidence to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks”), hope (“persevering towards goals and when necessary redirecting paths to goals”), optimism (“making a positive attribution about succeeding now and in the future”), and resilience (“when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond to attain success”) (luthans, youssef, & avolio, 2007, p. 3). these are the core psychological resources of a construct known in the literature as psycap (i.e., psychological capital; luthans et al., 2007). in line with all these considerations, the aim of the present study is to gain a greater understanding of the psychological and cognitive mechanisms that can enhance the ei of students on entrepreneurship education courses in french universities. to this end, we examined the relationship between the multi-dimensional core construct of positive psychological capital (psycap) (luthans & youssef, 2004; luthans et al., 2007) and students’ ei (luthans et al., 2007). according to the literature, psycap is a psychological resource that could help students to choose an entrepreneurial career (contreras, de dreu, & espinosa, 2017), but no study has yet examined why and how it affects ei. to fill this gap, it is important to understand the key theoretical mechanisms through which psycap operates. to identify these cognitive mechanisms, we examined two mediational variables. the first is linked to the benefits of training in terms of perceived learned entrepreneurial skills, in line with findings that this variable is an antecedent of ei (tsai, chang, & peng, 2016). moreover, certain psychological characteristics can predispose individuals to benefit more from entrepreneurial training than others (fairlie & holleran, 2012), and psycap has been shown to be positively related to learning empowerment (you, 2016). the second mediational variable concerns the negative emotions associated with entrepreneurial actions (i.e., doubt, fear, aversion). it has been demonstrated, for example, that fear of failure could have a negative influence on ei (tsai et al., 2016) and that some individuals with high psycap manage their emotions better and have more positive emotions than others. our research thus aims to shed light on the processes leading from psycap to ei by examining the role of perceived learned skills and emotions among students following entrepreneurship education programs. while previous research focused on the direct effects of these variables, the present study examines the structural relationships between them, providing a better understanding of the factors that affect students’ ei. this could have theoretical and practical implications, notably regarding the design of effective education programs in line with regional and national policies. psycap and entrepreneurial intentions this research focuses on the relationship between psycap and ei, arguing that individuals’ intentions to start their own business is influenced by four factors that are related to their perceived ability to influence their future, namely self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience. studies focusing on the relationship between psycap and ei remain scarce chevalier, calmé, coillot et al. 85 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (contreras et al., 2017; sebora & tantiukoskula, 2011), but indicate that individuals who pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career option tend to have a high level of psycap (sebora & tantiukoskula, 2011). in line with the research of magaletta and oliver (1999, p. 540), we assume that self-efficacy, optimism, and hope are related to the core construct of expectancies, in other words “beliefs that desired outcomes would occur, either due to one’s own efforts or to other factors not under one’s control.” in the same vein, psycap is concerned with a change from “who you are” to “who you are becoming,” in other words developing one’s actual self to become the possible self (avolio & luthans, 2006). more specifically, self-efficacy is thought to influence not only the individual’s level of effort and persistence on a specific task but also the choice of activities and behaviors. for example, chen, greene, and crick (1998) found evidence of a positive relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and ei in a sample of business and psychology students. according to snyder et al. (1991), hope is a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful 1) agency (goal-directed energy) and 2) pathways (planning to meet goals). hope strengthens an individual’s willpower and ability to cope in the face of hurdles. it is thus one of the determining factors in setting goals and devising plans for the future, imagining multiple pathways towards achieving goals, and responding strongly in the event of unexpected occurrences (peterson & luthans, 2003). optimism is another aspect of psycap, defined as an individual’s expectation of positive outcomes or making positive attributions about the likelihood of success in the short or long term (luthans et al., 2007). according to magaletta and oliver (1999, p. 541), the difference between optimism and hope is that the latter concerns the expectancy that positive outcomes are “obtained by the efforts of oneself,” whereas optimism is the expectancy that outcomes are “obtained through others and forces outside the self.” people take the risk of investing money or other resources, even when there are uncertainties, because they expect positive returns on investment (rigotti, ryan, & vaithianathan, 2011). hence, individuals need to have optimism in order to accept the risks of starting or developing a business venture (storey, 2011). more broadly, research on entrepreneurs and optimism suggests that it is likely that ei will be associated with the belief that, although the future is uncertain and the path to it bumpy, outcomes will generally end up being positive rather than negative (puri & robinson, 2007). finally, resilience, which is the ability to go on with life, or to continue living a purposeful life after hardship or adversity (tedeschi & calhoun, 2004), has gained recent interest in entrepreneurship research from the viewpoint of how entrepreneurs start new projects after previously failed attempts (cope, 2011). being an entrepreneur will involve having to confront hardship because of uncertain situations. furthermore, apart from the effect on ei of perceptions of desirability and feasibility, the individual’s “propensity to act” on perceived opportunities is also critical (krueger, reilly, & carsrud, 2000). resilient individuals take action in the face of adversity; they have a higher propensity to act than less resilient individuals, who are easily discouraged by the challenges of a risky environment (bullough, renko, & tamara, 2014). while these previous studies suggest the importance of the link between these psychological resources and ei, little attention has been paid to these components of the higher order construct of psycap (luthans & youssef-morgan, 2017) as an important antecedent of student’s ei. the present research fills this gap by examining the relations between psycap and the ei of young students following entrepreneurial education programs. h1: psycap is positively related to entrepreneurial intention. the mediational role of perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program in the relationship between psycap and ei some studies have revealed differences between students in terms of the perceived benefits gained from entrepreneur­ ship education programs, with some perceiving their entrepreneurial skills to be poor after the training sessions (othman & nasrudin, 2016). these findings suggest the importance of examining individual antecedents that could increase students’ perceived entrepreneurial skills and knowledge at the end of their training course. we suggest that the quality of the student learning experience (i.e., perceived acquisition of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge) depends on the individual’s psychological resources (i.e., psycap). while there has been little research on psycap in academic settings (e.g., you, kim, & wang, 2014; you, 2016), findings generally support the positive impact of psycap on students’ self-directed learning and learning engagement (you et al., 2014), or learning empowerment (you, 2016). how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? 86 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ recently, liao and liu (2016) found a link between psycap and perceived competence among nursing students, which they postulated could be due to the fact that students with higher psycap have the determination and willpower to carry out their internship tasks better, have the capability to deal with obstacles, and have positive attributions (sun, zhao, yang, & fan, 2012). there is a growing body of empirical evidence that psycap has a significant influence on students’ attitudes that is positively related to their academic performance and self-perceived skills (blumenfeld & pokay, 1990). these findings suggest that students’ psycap could be an important resource for learning from education programs and could facilitate the development of perceived entrepreneurial skills and knowledge, which would in turn increase their ei. indeed, perceived capability (i.e., perceived entrepreneurial skills and knowledge) has been demonstrated as a key predictor of intent to start a business (tsai et al., 2016). as suggested by souitaris, zerbinati, and al-laham (2007), ei might be influenced by the specific knowledge about entrepreneurship acquired during a learning program. more precisely, learning-derived knowledge leads to more and better entrepreneurial opportunities (shepherd & detienne, 2005) and could also raise students’ ei (souitaris et al., 2007). h2: the relationship between psycap and ei is mediated by perceived learning from the education program. the mediational role of negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions in the relationship between psycap and ei recognizing the centrality of affect in motivation and decision-making, some studies have examined how this emotional experience influences entrepreneurial decision-making processes (e.g., li, 2011) and intention (tsai et al., 2016). more precisely, some authors argue that some action-related emotions in entrepreneurship, such as doubt, fear or aversion, produce hesitancy, promote indecision and encourage procrastination (mcmullen & shepherd, 2006). for example, some studies have found that people are prone to postponing aversive tasks to avoid the unpleasant feelings they provoke (steel, 2007). ekore and okekeocha (2012) also observed that fear of failure discourages university graduates from starting a business, even when the opportunity exists; more generally, this emotion exerts a negative impact on the decision to become self-employed (arenius & minniti, 2005). thus, there is a pervasive tendency to focus on this emotional state and its impact on the intention/decision to start a business, indicating that these negative emotions reduce an individual’s propensity to start a venture (li, 2011). some authors have also demonstrated that certain psychological variables, such as trait self-control, exert a negative and statistically significant effect on action-related fear, aversion, and doubt (i.e., negative emotions) in relation to ei (van gelderen, kautonen, & fink, 2015). following this line, we suggest that psycap could decrease these negative emotions. according to van gelderen et al. (2015), doubt in aspiring entrepreneurs is defined as not knowing how to embark on the start-up process, and as feeling uncertain about the effects and appropriateness of alternative actions. fear is defined as the experience of anxiety in relation to conducting entrepreneurial activities. aversion refers to feeling repelled by conducting entrepreneurial activities. from a psycap perspective, the common resource between the four capabilities is “positive agent striving” (avey, wernsing, & luthans, 2008), in other words, the desire to act in one’s environment as agent, based on positive personal appraisal of the situation. in line with this view, higher levels of psycap have been shown to trigger positive emotions (snyder et al., 1991). more precisely, according to the definition of psycap, people who are optimistic tend to “dare to dream” and pursue their dreams because they do not fear change, and they also tend to see the positive side of a situation. hopeful people also experience fewer negative emotions, even when faced with obstacles (snyder, ilardi, michael, & cheavens, 2000). people with high self-efficacy have a conviction (or confidence) about their abilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed to successfully execute a specific task within a given context (stajkovic & luthans, 1998). moreover, resilience, because it is the capacity to bounce back from negative events such as adversity, conflict and failure, is seen as the most important positive resource to manage stressful situations such as an entrepreneurial creation project (luthans, 2002). in sum, by increasing positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions, psycap can help activate more positive cognitive-affective processing system units (e.g., positive chevalier, calmé, coillot et al. 87 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ expectancies, approach rather than avoidance goals, see hannah & luthans, 2008), which can indirectly raise ei. based on these findings, we made the following hypotheses: h3: the relationship between psycap and ei is mediated by negative emotions related to entrepre­ neurship (action doubt, action fear and action aversion). the mediational role of perceived learning from the education program and negative emotions related to entrepreneurship what is learnt from the entrepreneurship education program and the negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions mediate the effect of psycap on ei. this mediation is expected to occur because the perceived acquisition of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge may be an effective way to reduce negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions. in other words, the incentive to start up a business is greater when the entrepreneurs believe that their actions will have achievable outcomes (students perceive that they have acquired knowledge and entrepreneurial skills), notably because this belief reduces avoidance-oriented emotions (action doubt, fear and aversion). in the context of experiential learning, the control-value theory (pekrun, 2009) postulates that the perceived value and degree of control over an activity or outcome influence the student’s emotional response. in this way, perceived control and value of outcomes form important antecedents of achievement emotions (pekrun & perry, 2014). perceived control refers to how individuals think they can effectively manage a given situation, based on causal expectations and attributions of success and failure (e.g., weiner, 2007) and on their underlying belief in their competence (e.g., self-concept of ability; marsh, 1993). it is hypothesized that perceived control positively influences positive emotions, and negatively influences negative emotions (e.g., niculescu, tempelaar, dailey-hebert, segers, & gijselaers, 2015). in other words, in the entrepreneurship context, entrepreneurs who have learned from the education program (i.e., with high levels of perceived acquisition of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills) would have greater perceived control on entrepreneurial actions and consequently feel fewer negative emotions related to them. h4: the perceived learning from the education program in terms of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills (m1) and negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions (m2) mediate the effect of psycap on ei. method data, setting, and participants data were collected from a sample of 460 french university undergraduates (249 men [54.13%], 209 women [45.43%] and two who did not specify their gender), aged between 18 and 48 years (m = 22.45 years; sd = 3.14 years). all the participants were at the end of their degree course and were taking an optional 6-month entrepreneurial program (see supplementary materials). this program is based on group learning and team competition. the participants were in 298 teams of two to eight members. this entrepreneurship program aims to develop a sense of business, and includes a “taught” component, with different modules (accounting, finance, marketing, management); a “business-planning” component, which includes business plan competitions and advice on developing a specific business idea; and an “interaction with practice” component, which includes talks from practitioners and networking events. participants completed this questionnaire on the final day of the course. they were informed about the study’s aims and procedure and were told that the questionnaires were for research purposes only and that their participation was voluntary and anonymous. all participants provided their informed consent to participate in the study. ethical approval of the study was obtained from the relevant university ethics committee. how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? 88 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials all multi-item scales were translated from english into french using a four-step procedure: forward translation, assess­ ment, back translation, and assessment based on the criteria of clarity, everyday language, and cultural appropriateness (presser et al., 2004). psychological capital psychological capital (psycap) was assessed with a reduced version (12 items) of the original 24-item psychological capital questionnaire (luthans et al., 2007). this 12-item questionnaire (pcq-12) included three items for self-efficacy, four items for hope, two items for optimism, and three items for resilience. the pcq-12 has demonstrated acceptable reliability, and its construct validity has been confirmed by several previous studies (avey, luthans, & mhatre, 2008). items included: “i feel confident contributing to discussions about the team’s strategy” for self-efficacy; “i can think of many ways to reach my current work goals” for hope; “i always look on the bright side of things regarding my job” for optimism; “i can get through difficult times at work because i’ve experienced difficulty before” for resilience. answers were given on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program was measured with the perceptual scale developed by souitaris et al. (2007). at the end of the course, the students were asked five questions (e.g., “to what extent did the entrepreneur­ ship program enhance your practical management skills in order to start a business) that they answered on a 7-point likert scale from 1(not at all) to 7 (to a large extent). negative emotions negative emotions were assessed with eight items in three subscales developed by van gelderen et al. (2015): the action doubt subscale (three items), the action fear subscale (two items), and the action aversion subscale (three items). examples of items are: “it was unclear to me what actions are required to start a business” for action doubt; “the thought of actually taking steps to start my intended business scared me” for action fear; “there were tasks associated with starting my intended business that felt aversive to me” for action aversion. response categories ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). entrepreneurial intentions entrepreneurial intentions (ei) were measured with a 2-item scale drawn from lee, wong, foo, and leung (2011). respondents indicated their level of agreement with each statement (“if i had the opportunity, i would start my own company” and “i have always wanted to work for myself (i.e., be self-employed)”) on a likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). lee et al. (2011) reported adequate reliability (α = 0.72) and convergent validity with an established measure of eis (kolvereid, 1996, r = .79, p < .01). tolentino, sedoglavich, lu, garcia, and restubog (2014) also reported adequate reliability (α = 0.85). control variable due to the gender differences observed in entrepreneurship (ahl, 2006; herrington & kew, 2017), gender was measured as a dummy variable, with men coded as 0 and women coded as 1, and was used as a control variable for ei. statistical analysis see supplementary materials. chevalier, calmé, coillot et al. 89 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analyses first, the age distribution of the sample was examined (see supplementary materials), and eight participants aged over 33 years and three participants who did not specify their age were excluded. hence, we performed the analyses with a sample of 449 individuals. secondly, shapiro-wilk tests revealed that all study variables were non-normally distributed (see table 1). therefore, the mlr estimation was used in structural equation models. table 1 results of shapiro-wilk tests conducted on the study variables (n = 449) variable statistic df p psychological capital .98 449 < .001 learning from the program .97 449 < .001 negative emotions .99 449 .02 entrepreneurial intention .95 449 < .001 examination of the correlations between the variables used in this survey (see table 2) provided support for our hypotheses, as the relationships between all study variables were statistically significant (p < .001). moreover, all the scales demonstrated good internal consistency, with cronbach’s α coefficients higher than 0.77 (see table 2), and confirmatory factor analysis yielding a satisfactory fit: sbχ2 (311) = 544.36, p < .001, tli = 0.92, cfi = 0.93, rmsea = 0.05 and srmr = 0.04. these findings support the validity and reliability of the tools used in this research. table 2 cronbach’s alphas, means, standard deviations and pearson correlations among the study variables (n = 449) variable α m sd 1 2 3 1. psychological capital 0.85 3.95 0.53 2. learning from the program 0.82 5.45 0.94 .38*** 3. negative emotions 0.84 3.64 1.09 −.43*** -.35*** 4. entrepreneurial intention 0.77 4.93 1.45 .31*** .34*** −.37*** note. sd = standard deviation. ***p < .001. main analyses our hypothesized model illustrated in figure 1 yielded a satisfactory fit to the data: sbχ2 (337) = 633.58, p < .001, tli = 0.90, cfi = 0.91, rmsea = 0.05 and srmr = 0.06. for clarity, gender is not represented but is included in the model as a control variable for entrepreneurial intention. the results of sem path analysis did not support hypothesis h1: there was no significant direct effect of psycap on ei (β = 0.05, p = .56) but its indirect effects were significant, as described below. bootstrap analyses revealed that psycap had a significant positive indirect effect on ei (β = 0.31; 95% ci [0.22, 0.43]). the indirect effect of psycap on ei was significant, whereas the direct effect was insignificant. thus, the relationship between psycap and ei was fully mediated. how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? 90 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 results of the hypothesized mediational model using sem note. all variables are latent variables. standardized parameter estimates of direct effects obtained with the mlr method are displayed. **p < .01. ***p < .001. more precisely, the results indicated that the three indirect effects corresponding to our hypotheses h2, h3 and h4 (i.e., psycap → learning from the program → ei, psycap → negative emotions → ei and psycap → learning from the program → negative emotions → ei, respectively) were significant (see table 3). therefore, hypotheses h2, h3 and h4 were supported. table 3 estimated standardized indirect effects and 95% confidence intervals for testing h2, h3 and h4, using bias-corrected bootstrapping mediation path β 95% ci ll ul h2: psycap → learning from the program → ei 0.12 0.06 0.20 h3: psycap → negative emotions → ei 0.16 0.08 0.28 h4: psycap → learning from the program → negative emotions → ei 0.03 0.01 0.07 note. ei = entrepreneurial intention. for this analysis, 5,000 bootstrap samples were generated. discussion in entrepreneurship research, ei is considered to be a significant predictor of subsequent business creation behavior (kautonen, van gelderen, & tornikoski, 2013), which is a crucial issue for economic development in all the countries of the world. accordingly, there are increasing efforts to foster entrepreneurship through education and training in universities. to understand how ei can be increased among students taking part in entrepreneurship programs, this study focused on the individual antecedents of ei on which it could be possible to act. more precisely, we investigated the relationships between psycap, perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program, negative emotions and ei. to date, there is insufficient empirical evidence to establish any meaningful relationship between psycap and ei among students in these education entrepreneurship programs and to identify the mediational variables that could explain this relationship. moreover, the results about the impact of these programs on ei are inconsistent, and there is little knowledge about the individual antecedents of students’ ei, notably concerning the specific variable of psycap, for which there have been few studies in this area. our results showed that students’ psycap had a significant positive relationship with perception of learning from the program and a significant negative relationship with negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions. they also underlined that psycap indirectly enhanced ei. more precisely, students with high psycap learned more from the program in terms of perceived skills and knowledge and in turn had a higher ei. moreover, students with high psycap chevalier, calmé, coillot et al. 91 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ had less entrepreneurial action-related doubt, fear and aversion, which also increased ei. this decrease in negative emotions can be explained notably by what students perceived they had learned from the program. several conclusions can be drawn from our findings. first, the results are consistent with previous research about the influence of psycap on positive entrepreneurial outcomes more generally (baluku, kikooma, bantu, & otto, 2018), and with studies revealing the benefits of psycap in the academic domain (you, 2016) and on positive emotions (avey, wernsing, & luthans, 2008). our study extended the conclusions of those studies by including all these variables in an integrative model in a sample of students participating in an entrepreneurship program. moreover, as our findings support the psycap literature and confirm the benefits of psycap in entrepreneurship education, they enhance our understanding of the effects of psycap. this study also addresses an issue raised by previous research, namely that entrepreneurship studies should take a state-rather than a trait-based approach. increasing students’ intent to start a business is an important issue, and enhancing their psycap adds a new dimension. from a practical point of view, this research suggests that entrepreneurship education can be enhanced by focusing on the components of psycap (i.e., self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience), and encouraging students to build on these dimensions. indeed, in addition to its scholarly contribution, this study can help raise institutional awareness of the importance of students’ psycap, by showing that it is a fundamental resource for developing the intention to create a business. in line with research showing that psycap is a malleable, open-to-development individual difference variable (e.g., luthans, avey, & patera, 2008), our results suggest that the assessment, development, and management of psycap should be included in the entrepreneurship program. for example, luthans and his colleagues (2008, 2010, 2012) developed a specialized psychological capital intervention (pci) model, designed to develop psycap in the workplace. they showed that psychological capital development led to significant improvement in individual and organizational performance. this pci model could be used in entrepreneurial education to enhance students’ self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience, as well as their overall psycap (dello russo & stoykova, 2015; luthans et al., 2007, 2008). for example, to develop hope, participants could be asked to identify key goals they wish to achieve during the session. the instructor could then explain the need for 1) concrete end points to measure success; 2) an approach (rather than an avoidance) framework enabling them to work toward goal accomplishment; and 3) a “stepping” method to identify subgoals in order to reap the benefits of even small achievements. for self-efficacy, participants should be given the opportunity to experience success through positive “self-talk” and visualization to gain “imaginal” task mastery experience. this psycap training intervention could also help develop students’ resilience. for example, participants could be asked to identify recent personal minor or major setbacks and their immediate reactions to these situations. their coping strategies could then be compared with examples of an ideal resilient process for dealing with setbacks, based on the broaden-and-build positivity approach advocated by fredrickson (2001). while a number of studies have reported that even short training programs are effective in increasing psycap (luthans et al., 2008, 2012), more research is needed to confirm our results, before developing psycap training programs and specific instructional design guidelines for embedding psycap in entrepreneurship education programs. the present study highlights the crucial role of psycap on ei and suggests that training programs should focus on its development in order to optimize the learning benefits and the emotions related to entrepreneurship. overall, in view of the positive outcomes of psycap, it seems particularly important to focus on this psychological resource. limitations and future research this study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research. due to its cross-sectional design, it is difficult to generalize the findings. further studies are therefore needed with other samples of students, particularly in other countries, as research has shown that cultural dimensions influence students’ career decisions through social norms, valuations and practices (ozarally & rivenburgh, 2016). indeed, there are consistent findings of cross-cultural differences in the desire to become an entrepreneur (flores, robitschek, celebi, andersen, & hoang, 2010), notably among students (lüthje & franke, 2003). for example, u.s. students consider their national culture more “entrepre­ how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? 92 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://www.psychopen.eu/ neurially supportive” than turkish students (ozarally & rivenburgh, 2016), underlining the need to control cultural dimensions in future multi-cultural research. more research is needed to confirm these results in other entrepreneurship courses and programs. our findings also raise the issue of whether entrepreneurship education can have broader repercussions on both the psychological and the cognitive development of young people (groves, vance, & choi, 2011). moreover, future research should investigate other mediational variables between psycap and ei, such as stress management (baron, franklin, & hmieleski, 2016), which is a crucial skill for entrepreneurs. it would also be interesting to investigate sleep as a mediational variable; psycap has already been observed to be related to fatigue (hystad & eid, 2016), and it has recently been postulated that sleep could be related to eis, not only by influencing perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of pursuing existing entrepreneurial ideas, but also by heightening the propensity to act (gunia, gish, & mensmann, 2021). longitudinal studies could also provide further information about the links between the relationships between psycap, learning from the program, emotions, and ei or other positive constructs related to entrepreneurship education programs. while this study has a number of limitations, it highlights the positive relationship between psycap and ei in students following entrepreneurship education programs. it suggests avenues for future research in this area and contributes to our knowledge of ways to train tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see index of supplementary materials below). • a figure displaying the course outline of the entrepreneurial training. • a frequency histogram displaying the age distribution in the sample of the study. • the statistical procedure used to the test the hypothesized model using sem. index of supplementary materials chevalier, s., calmé, i., coillot, h., le rudulier, k., & fouquereau, e. 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(2014). the effects of psychological capital on self-directed learning and learning engagement for college students. journal of learner-centered curriculum and instruction, 14(3), 45-70. about the authors severine chevalier is an associate professor in organizational psychology at the university of tours. her research interests include the psychological mechanisms that explain entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial well-being, and more generally workers’ psychological health. isabelle calmé is an associate professor in management sciences at the university of tours. her research interests include entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises in france. hélène coillot is a statistical engineer at the university of tours. karine le rudulier is an associate professor in management sciences. she is vice-president of bretagne-loire university, and associate director of student entrepreneurship. her research interests include entrepreneurship (e.g., teaching methods, development of entrepreneurial intent among students on training courses). evelyne fouquereau is a full professor in occupational and organizational psychology at the university of tours. her research interests include the antecedents and consequences of workers’ quality of life. chevalier, calmé, coillot et al. 97 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 84–97 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2889 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2015.01.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2010.02.015 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2016.05.001 https://www.psychopen.eu/ how can students’ entrepreneurial intention be increased? (introduction) psycap and entrepreneurial intentions the mediational role of perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program in the relationship between psycap and ei the mediational role of negative emotions related to entrepreneurial actions in the relationship between psycap and ei the mediational role of perceived learning from the education program and negative emotions related to entrepreneurship method data, setting, and participants materials psychological capital perceived learning from the entrepreneurship program negative emotions entrepreneurial intentions control variable statistical analysis results preliminary analyses main analyses discussion limitations and future research (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors the work of a revolutionary: a psychobiography and careerography of angela y. davis research reports the work of a revolutionary: a psychobiography and careerography of angela y. davis jason d. reynolds (taewon choi) 1, bridget m. anton 2, chiroshri bhattacharjee 2, megan e. ingraham 2 [1] department of counseling psychology, school of education, university of san francisco, san francisco, ca, usa. [2] department of professional psychology and family therapy, college of education and human services, seton hall university, south orange, nj, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 received: 2020-12-24 • accepted: 2021-04-10 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: jason d. reynolds (taewon choi), department of counseling psychology, school of education, university of san francisco, 2130 fulton street, san francisco, ca 94117, usa. e-mail: jreynolds6@usfca.edu abstract dr. angela y. davis is a political activist, academician, and writer who has navigated and discussed issues of race, class, gender, and usa social policies across her 75 years of life. davis’s activism established her as the icon of a larger social movement and further related to her decision-making and legacy. using psychobiographical methods, data were gathered through publicly available sources to explore davis’s personal, professional, and representational life, as well as understand davis’s lived experience through a sociocultural-historical perspective. two established theories, social cognitive career theory and politicized collective identity model, were applied to davis’s life. findings suggested that in addition to her unique intersectional identities, a confluence of factors including growing up in a family of activists, incarceration, federal bureau of investigation (fbi) surveillance, communist party involvement, marginalization within activist spaces, and practicing radical self-care impacted davis committing to a life as an activist, academic, and the leader of a social movement. keywords angela y. davis, psychobiography, careerography, social cognitive career theory, politicized collective identity i’m no longer accepting the things i cannot change… i’m changing the things i cannot accept. — dr. angela y. davis (peer, 2018) political activist, academician, writer, and african american revolutionist dr. angela y. davis became a master scholar and joined the usa communist party in 1969. she was incarcerated for charges related to freeing political prisoners, during which time she wrote her first autobiography. davis established herself as a revolutionary icon during the civil rights movement. she has worked as a professor at various ranks at university of california los angeles (ucla), the claremont colleges, san francisco state university, and is currently distinguished professor emerita at the university of california santa cruz (ucsc) where she continues her work as an activist fighting against discrimination and injustices. davis has endured much pain and suffering throughout her life and professional career as a black queer woman in her fight for social justice. she continues to inspire millions of people as a leading figurehead of a political movement through her dedication to advocacy and activism, and much can be learned from davis’s life and the meaning she has ascribed to her life work. psychobiography, or psychological biography, is the intensive and purposeful study of an individual life through es­ tablished psychological theories within a socio-cultural-historical context (ponterotto & reynolds, 2017; schultz, 2005b). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5507&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ psychobiography has been foundational to psychology, psychological theory development, and clinical interventions to better understand personhood and how to promote healing and well-being through the rigorous case study of an individual life (ponterotto & reynolds, 2017; schultz, 2005b). psychobiographers have shifted their focus by incorporat­ ing the impact career development and work experiences have on an individual’s life course, trajectory, and vocational contributions through careerography (park-taylor et al., 2021). the present study utilized social cognitive career theory (scct; lent et al., 2002) as a lens for understanding davis’s career decision-making in relation to her interests, values, and environment, and simon and klandermans’ (2001) politicized collective identity (pci) model allowed for deeper understanding of davis’s contributions to social change. the authors discuss the initial psychobiographical and careerographical research questions, method, anchoring theories, then provide a sketch of angela davis’s life, and conclude with theory application and a discussion. initial research questions revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary’s life. when one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime. — dr. angela y. davis (moore-gilbert et al., 2014, p. 233) this study is based in the application of two theories, scct and simon and klandermans’ (2001) pci model in relation to the following research questions: 1) what factors, such as identity and historical and cultural experiences, are related to davis’s career development? what role did self-efficacy play in her different career functions and goals? 2) how can davis’s life be understood through the tenets of pci, including historical antecedents, shared grievances with different political groups, and the involvement of the larger general public in her activism? 3) how does davis’s work as an activist and scholar contribute to others’ development of pci development? method procedure the four-person research team initially researched psychobiography and psychobiographical methods. next, the team researched and eventually chose angela davis as a subject because of her incredible contribution to society through writing, scholarship, and activism as a queer black woman. a plethora of data on davis’s life was available. the team chose davis’s 1974 autobiography, books she had written, recorded interviews and commentary, and live conferences in which davis was the keynote speaker over the course of a year. these sources were chosen because they provided a balanced range of media and were psychologically salient to understanding davis across her full lifespan, with partic­ ular attention to her upbringing, young adult experiences including communist party involvement and incarceration, her intersectional identities, as well as her later life work accomplishments and activism (schultz, 2005a). next, the team began to construct a life sketch of davis and explore possible psychological and social science theories to conceptualize davis’s journey, with the goal of understanding davis’s life and career success, as well as answering the research questions above. validity and reliability issues of validity and reliability were considered. attempts were made to triangulate data by using a variety of salient data sources (e.g., autobiography, books, recorded interviews, live in-person events and conferences). davis was not, however, directly spoken to, nor were any friends or family members. while every psychobiography has some level of subjectivity and choosing psychological theories varies, attempts were made to provide balanced findings and a clear outline of how the project was completed. ethical considerations prior to the project, the team had a limited understanding of davis’s work. ponterotto and reynolds (2017) described the ethical challenges in choosing a subject to study and the potential temporal impacts of the project. the authors reynolds (taewon choi), anton, bhattacharjee, & ingraham 199 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stated that writing about a living subject, compared to a person recently-deceased or long-deceased, has unique ethical challenges and concerns. regardless of the subject chosen, schultz (2005a) described the importance of exploring “why” this subject was chosen and how these reasons impact or may even interfere with each subsequent step in the psychobiographical research process, most importantly findings and interpretations. in choosing davis, the team recognized that she is a living, breathing subject and that extremely high ethical vigilance and caution would be required in order to arrive at a balanced interpretation (ponterotto & reynolds, 2017). the team discussed the potential risk for distress or harm that could occur for davis and her community from engaging in a psychobiographical study focused on her life accomplishments, career decisions, and social impacts. it was concluded that the potential impact would be extremely low, considering no sensitive or private health information was brought to light through the study (ponterotto, 2015; ponterotto & reynolds, 2017). anchoring theories the following two theories were used to gain a deeper understanding of davis’s life, how she found her calling as an activist and educator, the meaning she ascribed to her work, and ways in which revolutionaries and activists may be better supported. to understand davis’s life and mission, her psychobiography warrants a thorough review of her career life course. since the central focus of this psychobiography and careerography is to highlight the many intersecting identities of the subject, the scct model was used to capture davis’s dynamic life course. in addition, simon and klandermans’ (2001) pci model was chosen to understand how davis’s collective identity was influential in her work and accomplishments, and how her work may inspire future activists. social cognitive career theory while research focused on black women in career and academic self-efficacy is limited, given its theoretical background scct appears suitable to guide davis’s careerography. the model has two overarching elements that include cultural and ethnic dynamics such as early influences that serve as precursors of important socio-cognitive variables and ongoing contextual influences that serve as moderators, facilitators, or deterrents (lent et al., 2002). the model also attends to individuals’ developmental stages and elaborates on how outcome beliefs are influenced by early and ongoing learning experiences; in addition, it focuses on how efficacy percepts and outcome expectations influence each other (hackett & byars, 1996). scct captures domain-specific subjective well-being and is designed to honor unique cultural influences in the development of an individual’s career self-efficacy (hackett & byars, 1996). byars-winston and rogers’ (2019) recent social cognitive model of academic and career choice explains ways in which dimensions of identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status) influence career efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, interests, and goal setting. it is imperative to recognize the experiences of black women in the usa during the time period when davis was raised in the 1940s–1960s (i.e., the end of world war ii and postwar baby boom; the cold war; the korean war; the civil rights movement; brown v. board of education ruling; the bay of pigs and cuban missile crisis; the vietnam war). scct also accounts for structural inequality, institutionalized discrimination, and other hurdles that minority groups often encounter (byars-winston & rogers, 2019). according to bandura (1986), there are four major sources of efficacy information: performance accomplishments, vicarious learning, physiological and affective states, and verbal persuasion. strong career self-efficacy expectations are linked to positive outcome expectations and facilitate performance attributions, such as increasing interest in areas in which one feels efficacious and promoting persistence in the face of obstacles (lent et al., 2002). as outlined in the life sketch, davis developed and strengthened her self-efficacy through her many activist accomplishments, her arrest and subsequent vindication, as well as her achievements as social activist, leader, professor, and queer black woman in the 1960s and 1970s. politicized collective identity model simon and klandermans (2001) developed a social psychological model for pci based around three triads. the first triad involves the reasons why individuals engage in pci, including established collective identity, inter-group power a careerography of angela davis 200 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ struggles, and larger sociohistorical context. the second triad involves the antecedents to a pci, including awareness of shared grievances, adversarial attributions, and societal involvement. the third triad conceptualizes pci itself as the struggles between the ingroup and outgroup, with one usually representing the elite or authority, alongside the involvement of a larger third party such as the general public or a more powerful authority. a collective identity is an individual’s identity shared with a group who have (or are perceived to have) some charac­ teristic in common, such as race, ethnicity, gender, or political party (deaux, 1996; simon & klandermans, 2001). deaux (1996) described that collective identity is a subjective claim that relies on an individual’s personal acknowledgement of the identity as a self-defining piece. therefore, in the pci model, the third party witnessing the ingroup/outgroup conflicts may include individuals who share identities with those locked in the inter-group power struggles but have not claimed these identities as self-defining (ashmore et al., 2004). in this model, pci is a specialized form of collective identification committed to political consciousness and communal action, but not all collective identities require this type of engagement. at the individual level, several studies (drury & reicher, 2005; klein et al., 2007; stewart & mcdermott, 2004; van zomeren et al., 2008) identified that an individual’s endorsement of pci transforms political projects into personally valuable labors, thereby creating activist or agentic identities based on individuals’ collective identities and connections to structural inequalities. social change, simon and klandermans (2001) argued, occurs when subordinated groups develop a distinct collective identity, with associated goals, values, and beliefs, to contest dominant groups’ power as illegitimate. based on extant literature, the pci model can be used to understand the experiences of black women’s pcis and meaning-making. for example, african american group consciousness and identification with feminist movements are significant predictors of political participation and willingness to undertake collective action (dawson, 1994; hercus, 1999; tate, 1994). pci can also offer a lens in considering davis as not only an activist but as a symbol of her movements. individuals can become emotionally attached to pci groups as part of their self-concept, as well as develop affective ties to leaders and symbols, which further deepen their commitment to collective action (ashmore et al., 2004). therefore, pci appears to be suitable for understanding both davis’s own identities and motivations as well as her legacy as a symbol of these movements. a life sketch of angela davis early life dr. angela y. davis was born on january 26, 1944, in birmingham, alabama. she lived in a segregated neighborhood and attended segregated schools in the 1940s and 1950s until the age of 15. her neighborhood in birmingham was labeled “dynamite hill” because her black neighbors’ homes were targeted by the ku klux klan (davis, 1974, 2018). both of davis’s parents were teachers in segregated schools. her mother earned a master’s degree during summer breaks from school, and shortly after the birth of davis, her father quit teaching and became a mechanic (davis, 1974; weisman, 1972). davis is the oldest of four children: fania davis jordan, reginald davis, and benjamin davis. her parents were heav­ ily involved in revolutionary and anti-racist work and were members of the national association for the advancement of colored people (naacp), which at the time was illegal in the eyes of the government, and the southern negro youth congress (snyc), a group focused on creating alliances among black people and defending the wrongfully accused (davis, 1974; platt, 2013; radcliffe institute for advanced study, 2019). davis’s parents maintained close relationships with other revolutionaries in the neighborhood, including members of the underground black communist party, with whom davis spent ample time with as a child, likely influencing her future as an activist (cspan, 2009). from the age of six, davis recalled her fear of the federal bureau of investigation (fbi) as they closely monitored her family, due to her parents’ involvement with the communist party (cspan, 2009; platt, 2013). davis’s parents had a profound impact on the development of her beliefs and values, given her early exposure to revolutionary and anti-racist work through the naacp and the black communist party. in 2018, davis stated: reynolds (taewon choi), anton, bhattacharjee, & ingraham 201 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from the moment i became aware that black people were treated as inferior, i can remember hearing my mother’s voice saying, ‘this is not the way things are supposed to be, this is not the way the world is supposed to be organized and one day they will be different’. (davis, 2018, 36:07) as a result, davis learned how to imagine a world different from the world in which she lived. davis acknowledged she walked down a path focused on activism and education that was carved out by her mother, even though she actively resisted this path as a child (cspan, 2009). davis stated, “my own political activism is in many ways a legacy of my mother’s” (cspan, 2004, 3:52). by 15, davis became more aware of segregation in the south after several visits and spending a summer with family friends in new york city (davis, 1974; platt, 2013). these visits influenced davis’ perception that freeing black people in the south would free all black people everywhere (davis, 2019b). from a young age, davis also recognized class differen­ ces among the black community and often advocated for her marginalized schoolmates. in 1955, 11-year-old davis was involved with an organization that held interracial discussion groups at a local church, which was subsequently burned as a result of the meetings (platt, 2013). at age 14, davis received a scholarship for southern black students to attend the elizabeth erwin high school, an integrated, progressive private school in new york city (hornsby, 2011). during her high school years, davis became politically active and engaged with communism and marxist-leninist literature and philosophy. in 1960, she joined advance, a marxist-leninist youth group with connections to the communist party (davis, 1974). after graduating from high school in 1961, davis attended brandeis university in waltham, massachusetts, during which she divided her time between activism and studying french literature and western philosophy, including the communist manifesto (davis, 2019a; gay, 2011; marx & engels, 1848/2014; platt, 2013). for davis, exposure to marxist theory allowed her to articulate the important changes that she felt society needed for improvement. emerging and young adulthood davis continued her education in graduate school at the frankfurt school in west germany and joined the anti-war organization students for a democratic society (sds), protesting the vietnam war at the usa embassy (davis, 1974). she studied under herbert marcuse, a political philosopher, social critic, and supporter of the new left and the protest movements in the 1960s (cobb & abromeit, 2004). according to davis, herbert marcuse taught her that it was possible to be an academic and an activist, a scholar and a revolutionary (juutilainen, 1996). in september 1963, davis was notified of the 16th street baptist church bombing in birmingham, resulting in the death of four girls with whom davis was close friends (davis, 1974). this horrific news, combined with the growing black liberation movement in the usa, led davis to transfer from the frankfurt school to the university of california san diego to continue her academics alongside her involvement with the movement, before completing her ph.d. in east germany at humboldt university of berlin (davis, 1974). the beginning of davis’s commitment to the freedom of political prisoners was seen through her work as the head of bobby seale’s defense committee in los angeles (davis, 2016). in 1969, davis joined the black panther party (bpp) and the los angeles student nonviolent coordinating committee (sncc) while she was teaching in the philosophy department at the university of california in los angeles (ucla). notably, davis recognized issues in the bpp and sncc regarding women’s roles and felt compelled to join intersectional organizations that addressed class as well as race and gender, such as the communist party, the national alliance against racism and political repression, and the black women’s political caucus (platt, 2013). during this time, davis illegally traveled to cuba to protest the usa trade blockade (davis, 1974). on june 19, 1970, davis was fired from ucla due to her association with the communist party and using inflam­ matory language (weisman, 1972). on august 7, 1970, jonathan jackson opened fire in a san rafael courtroom; the aftermath of this conflict resulted in the deaths of judge harold j. haley, james d. mcclain, and william a. christmas (caldwell, 1970). unknown to davis, jonathan jackson used guns which were registered in her name, and subsequently, davis became a fugitive. on august 19, 1970, davis was added to the fbi’s most-wanted list. on october 13, 1970, davis was charged with murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy (davis, 1974). during her initial days of detention, davis’s a careerography of angela davis 202 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ friends and family provided support and encouragement when she lost sight of her goals. these remarks resembled the consistent theme of davis’s journey as a radical revolutionist: collective movement. in an interview, davis stated: i think i was able to use my time in jail productively…there was an enormous movement on the outside. i had family, i had friends, i had colleagues and comrades all over the world who were concerned about my predicament. so, i didn’t feel alone in solitary confinement. (cspan, 2009, 1:01:30) uniquely, davis learned yoga and practiced karate in jail. however, she was emotionally and psychologically impacted by her experience in solitary confinement. davis spent 13 weeks on trial, 16 months in jail, and a million dollars on court fees before being acquitted 11-1 of all charges, all of which would have a lasting impact on her life’s work (hager, 1972). davis wrote her first autobiography at the age of 28 (davis, 1974). this work serves as a chronicle of the incidents of late 1960s and early 1970s through the lens of a young black female activist and a member of the communist party fighting for liberation. throughout her autobiography, davis reminded the readers that her fame was merely luck and stated that any other political prisoner could have been subjected to such extraordinary life events. davis described in meticulous detail her time in prison, the organized rallies, and the court trials through her memoir (davis, 1974). she described the jury, the racist comments, the internal struggles, the identity transformation, and the evolving value system through powerful and persuasive language painting a very prominent picture for the reader (davis, 1974). middle adulthood following davis’s acquittal, she taught at various institutions (san francisco state university, ucsc) in various de­ partments (women’s studies, philosophy, interdisciplinary ph.d. program history of consciousness). she was a full professor at ucsc in the history of consciousness and feminist studies department for 15 years until her retirement in 2008 where she remains a distinguished professor emerita (rappaport, 2019). since its creation in 1972, davis has co-chaired the national alliance against racist and political repression, with which she has led demonstrations in 48 states (beyette, 1989). in the early 1980s, davis organized a demonstration in montgomery, alabama to raise awareness for johnny harris, a black man on death row for a conviction of murder and rape (beyette, 1989). in 1980, davis married hilton braithwaite, a photographer and faculty colleague at san francisco state university, but their relationship ended in divorce in 1987 (beyette, 1989; people staff, 1980). in 1997, davis came out publicly as lesbian at the diverse sexuality and gender alliance at johns hopkins university (gay, 2011). notably, davis stated that she preferred romantic relationships remain private (miles, 1998). late adulthood davis’s mother was diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease (cspan, 2004, 4:05) and passed away in 2007, one of the major sources of inspiration for davis in her anti-racist and activism work. in her late sixties, davis became heavily involved with solidarity activism in palestine. in 2011, she traveled to palestine with a group of black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) feminist scholars and activists and formed a campaign for israel to end modern-day racial segregation (chokshi, 2019; barat, 2014). in 2019, birmingham civil rights institute rescinded its highest honor, the fred shuttlesworth human rights award, from davis due to this activism for palestine (chokshi, 2019). presently, davis continues her committed work for social justice. since her release from prison in 1972, she has written over a dozen books and continues to speak at invited talks and symposiums for academic and lay communities (history, 2009). davis reported she is currently in the process of writing another book on prisons and american history (davis, 2020a). she is on the executive board of the women of color resource center (wcrc) in the san francisco bay area (davis, 2020a) and also works with justice now which is an organization that provides legal assistance to women in prisons and advocates for prison abolition (davis, 2020a). davis continues to speak at local colleges and events to continue the discussion on prison abolition, radical feminism, lgbtqia+ rights, and racial and social justice. during the current coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic, davis advocated for prison abolition by spreading the news of reynolds (taewon choi), anton, bhattacharjee, & ingraham 203 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the san quentin prison social-distancing protest and the social inequalities exemplified with limited healthcare access for people of color as highlighted during this pandemic (davis, 2020a). presently, davis practices daily yoga, pilates, meditation, (davis, 2020a) and veganism (davis, 2019b). her dedication to her overall wellbeing exemplifies that staying healthy allows her to continue her dedicated work for many more years to come. recently, davis spoke about her radical self-care practices, specifically during pandemic times, with an organization for black women’s health called girltrek (davis, 2020b). davis defined radical self-care as “self-care that involves community as well, self-care that is not simply individualistic…self-care that helps us all to heal” (davis, 2020b, 44:18). theory application dr. angela y. davis’s life was explored using scct and pci models in an effort to gain additional insight and understanding to how davis’s identity and the meaning she ascribed to her lived experiences as a queer black woman may have impacted her career as an academic, activist, and revolutionist, as well as how her work led her to developing a pci and subsequently became a symbol for her movements. social cognitive career theory contemporary society is increasingly shaped by transnational interdependencies; what happens economically and politically in one nation can have geopolitical impacts across the globe. one aspect of scct is to understand the collective efficacy in changing societies (bandura, 1999). davis’s activism called upon global interconnectedness, leading activists from around the world to collectively empower the marginalized and the vulnerable. her work not only expanded across the world but also challenged the efficacy of governmental systems. she openly opposed structural racism and sexism, the prison-industrial complex, the broken immigration system, capitalism, and imperialism (davis, 1974). just as scct predicts, “bureaucracies thwart effective social action” (bandura, 1999, p. 68). davis faced criticism, threats, imprisonment, rejection, and disappointment, yet continued to pursue her life’s work as a revolutionist and academic. how was she able to maintain her collective action despite these obstacles? an explanation for her resiliency may be her ability for self-development, continual self-renewal, and self-regulatory efficacy (bandura, 1999). according to bandura (1999), one way to regulate self-efficacy is to gain primacy in diverse spheres of life. in davis’s case it could be her educational domain, occupational pursuits, close interpersonal relationships, and conception of health and well-being. davis’s developmental trajectory, unique cultural experiences, career choices, self-efficacy, strengths, and struggles can be understood by the tenets of scct. in accordance with scct, davis’s personal and professional goals are consistent with the views of her personal capabilities and outcomes she expected to attain. from her interviews and writings, we witnessed how her childhood, family system, educational upbringing, and parental involvement in social justice movements acted as precursors of important socio-cognitive variables, strengthening davis’s self-efficacy. her parents modelled how to stand up against injustice which left her with a sense of duty to support her community (davis, 1974). davis recognized her role as an activist very early on in life; she embraced it by addressing the issues of institutional injustice by making her work a collective endeavor rather than a personal agenda which gave her a sense of meaning, purpose, and motivation that went beyond her personal goals (cspan, 2004). as an author, all of davis’s works have encompassed her salient identities. her autobiography highlighted her own powerful story which she narrated with much humor and vigor, giving readers a glimpse of her perseverance and conviction. she followed her passion and continued to write books that purposefully demonstrated the intersectionality of her multiple marginalized and privileged identities (davis, 2018). her narrative evolved throughout the years, staying congruent with the time and her developmental stage. the books she wrote demonstrated her insatiable desire to see radical changes for a more socially-just and egalitarian world, just as her mother had imagined. davis’s writing illuminated the struggles of the oppressed, connecting the audience cognitively and emotionally. as scct predicts, davis’s variant roles as a writer, scholar, black feminist, activist, professor, and woman of color each drove the same message which strengthened her self-efficacy and brought congruency to the meaning of her work a careerography of angela davis 204 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and her sense of self. even through difficult times as a political prisoner, she found a purpose. her critical understanding of the systematic oppression, social power, and public concerns about racism evoked the type of motivation she needed to persevere as a leader (byars-winston & rogers, 2019). just as she did as an author and activist, she continued to elevate society’s political, racial, and social consciousness as a professor and speaker in diverse cultural spaces and platforms. politicized collective identity model i was unwilling to render my life as a personal “adventure”—as though there were a “real” person separate and apart from the political person. — dr. angela y. davis (davis, 1974) davis’s life and meaning-making can be understood using the pci model’s three triads. in the first triad, reasons for engagement in pci, davis was familiar with inter-group power struggles from childhood. racially motivated bombings of southern neighborhoods and churches by white supremacist groups, segregation, and the fbi’s surveillance of her family made davis aware of the ways in which inequality was systematically maintained (cspan, 2009; davis, 1974, 2018; platt, 2013; weisman, 1972). davis’s experiences with racialized violence and remembrance of her parents speaking out against oppression both personally and through sociopolitical organizations laid the groundwork for the politicization of davis’s collective identity. in the second triad, antecedents to pci, davis’ awareness of shared grievances are apparent through her involvement with several different organizations across her life, including anti-war, communism, black liberation, interracial discus­ sion, and anti-incarceration groups (davis, 1974; hornsby, 2011; platt, 2013). with this range of involvement, davis utilized an intersectional lens regarding shared grievances, speaking out not only against injustices based on race but also based on gender, class, and religion (davis, 1981, 1989; platt, 2013). this wider lens capturing the shared grievances of the larger population encouraged the triangulation of society in these inter-group struggles. the third triad understands pci as the struggle between the ingroup and outgroup with the involvement of a larger third party, such as the general public or a more powerful authority. with davis’s widespread activism, this ingroup/outgroup dynamic can change. examples of the ingroup include the fbi, white supremacist organizations, the prison-industrial complex, and beneficiaries of unchecked capitalism, to name a few. both the ingroup and outgroup contribute to this involvement of the larger society. the fbi contributed, for example, by placing davis on the fbi’s most wanted list and thus bringing her motivations to the national stage (davis, 1974). the media contributed through publicizing her manhunt, trial, and continued activism (davis, 1974). similarly, davis maintains her involvement with the larger society and the development of others’ pci through her educational and activist roles. as an educator in topics such as the history of consciousness, philosophy, and feminist studies, she utilizes her platform to teach these same concepts of collective identity, involvement in sociopolitical movements, and radical self-care. as a writer, she speaks about her own experiences and meaning-making, thereby challenging the powerful ingroup’s narrative of the events, and writes about global power struggles to educate the public. as an activist, she continues to demonstrate a wide, intersectional lens which facilitates others to find common­ ality and create meaning in their shared grievances. by raising awareness about power struggles, allowing herself to be identified as an icon and symbol of massive sociopolitical movements, and educating others about the power in collective identity and communal action, davis’s legacy continues to foster the development of others’ three pci triads (simon & klandermans, 2001). in relation to the development of an individual’s pci, davis recently acknowledged in a keynote address that one can feel exhausted in the fight for social justice, and recommended that people take time to rest in order to continue doing long-term activist work (davis, 2019a). she suggested cultivating community and not doing this work alone so when you do step back for some rest, someone else will step forward to share the responsibility. davis also suggested that activists acknowledge the challenges and trauma associated with doing this work and incorporate restful and healing practices into daily routines such as meditation and yoga. davis stated, have fun. we are not going to move in a forward direction unless we can feel pleasure in the course of engaging in the struggle. if it’s all sacrifice, if it’s, you know all bad, then no. but we have reynolds (taewon choi), anton, bhattacharjee, & ingraham 205 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to learn how to generate joy and pleasure in the process of doing our organizing. and i think that’s what has allowed me to remain in this movement. (davis, 2019b, 1:32:36) davis emphasized the importance of having a strong support system that ensures a sense of community especially for people from minority backgrounds. she mentioned the term “radical self-care” in one of her interviews with girltrek’s #daughterof campaign, where she explained the value of self-care that involves the community. she shared, when i was in jail, it was a pretty frightening experience. but i began to realize at one point when i started receiving letters from people who were active in the black community, open letter from james baldwin, people in africa, asia, europe, and latin america coming together to fight for my freedom. i realized that the source of so much of my fear was that i felt alone. the moment i realized that i was not alone, it wasn’t that i seized feeling afraid, but the emotions of gratitude towards those that were generating solidarity became so vast that those emotions overwhelmed the sense of fear. (davis, 2020b, 46:00–48:04) she reminded her audience that the idea of self-care is often very individualistic in nature that focuses on helping oneself. however, social justice work does not happen individually. davis developed into a strong, independent woman, while simultaneously learned to rely on her community in order to remain steadfast in the struggle for justice, equality and freedom (dixon & garrison, 2020). radical self-care, according to davis, requires us to involve the entire community which can further enhance the healing process through a collective identity. activism is most meaningful and effective when performed individually, collectively, and systemically. radical self-care techniques, particularly in response to adverse and traumatic experiences in life, may also include personal counseling and therapy to process trauma and the ongoing struggles in the fight for justice. discussion davis’s early childhood experiences and pedigree as a child of activists might suggest she was destined to become a famous black female revolutionist. yet to become a leader and the face of a world-wide social movement requires more than simply heredity and early exposure. davis’s experiences with hardship, in particular her incarceration in her late twenties, her commitment to the communist party and the subsequent discrimination she experienced from the usa government, and her experiences as a black woman (later coming out as lesbian) in largely male-driven activist spaces had a profound impact on her work as a revolutionist and affected the causes to which she dedicated her time and energy. it was never simply about fighting for racial justice, although race remained a central focus of her work, but rather her work more broadly attended to the intersections of multiple disenfranchised identities such as class and gender. she also fought for other social issues such as prison reform, the freeing of political prisoners, the israeli-palestinian conflict, and protesting the vietnam war, which provided her with a wider panorama than some of the other contemporary revolutionists. davis’s focus on these intersections was ahead of her time in many ways, given that third-wave feminism and intersectionality movements did not officially emerge until decades later (crenshaw, 1989). by conceptualizing davis’s life through both the scct and pci theories, we gained a deeper understanding of the important life experiences that unlocked her true potential for activism and leading a social movement. through her status as an outgroup member of multiple disenfranchised communities, including her outgroup status as a woman in male-dominated activist spaces, as a black woman in white feminist-dominated spaces, and as an anti-incarceration, black liberation, and communist party member and leader in fbiand white supremacist-led spaces and systems, davis was a driving force behind intersectional work including black women’s liberation, the prison-industrial complex, and international solidarity. through her continued activist and revolutionist work, davis continues to be an inspiring teacher and mentor for all. davis’s life was full of hardship and trauma as a black queer woman, yet her determination, passion, and unwavering dedication to the movement are what kept her on track to become one of history’s most revered and celebrated female social activists and revolutionists. her continued work as an activist and educator within a politicized collective movement speaks to her commitment, durability, and continuous leadership abilities, as well as a careerography of angela davis 206 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ her ability to practice self-care and find support in community building. the findings and interpretations from this paper only begin to elucidate the full complexity of davis’s remarkable life and journey. davis’s lifework to create a more just society for all is needed now more than ever. the covid-19 pandemic has shed light on the impact of centuries of systemic and institutional racism that has left bipoc communities at significantly higher risk for alarming health disparities, as well as the deleterious impact it has had on women (cheng et al., 2021). these same bipoc communities continue to be killed both at the hands of police officers and white supremacists in 2021. thus, davis’s messages are more relevant than ever. much work is required, and it must be done collectively through radical self-care, restorative justice, and community healing. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ashmore, r. d., deaux, k., & mclaughlin-volpe, t. 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(2005b). introducing psychobiography. in w. t. schultz (ed.), handbook of psychobiography (pp. 3–18). oxford university press. simon, b., & klandermans, b. (2001). politicized collective identity: a social psychological analysis. american psychologist, 56(4), 319-331. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.56.4.319 stewart, a., & mcdermott, c. (2004). civic engagement, political identity, and generation in developmental context. research in human development, 1(3), 189-203. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427617rhd0103_4 tate, k. (1994). from protest to politics: the new black voters in american elections. harvard university press. van zomeren, m., postmes, t., & spears, r. (2008). toward an integrative social identity model of collective action: a quantitative research synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives. psychological bulletin, 134(4), 504-535. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.504 weisman, s. (1972, june 5). scholarly activist. the new york times. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/ home/davis-scholarly.html about the authors jason d. reynolds (taewon choi), ph.d., (he/him) is an assistant professor in the department of counseling psychology at the university of san francisco. his research focuses on the areas of transracial identity, identity development, names, mentorship, racial and ethnic socialization, qualitative research and psychobiography, and social justice training. he enjoys mentoring and learning from his graduate students. bridget m. anton, m.a., (she/her) is a fifth-year doctoral student in counseling psychology at seton hall university. her research focuses on severe psychopathology and identity development. her clinical work is focused on providing evidence-based psychothera­ py to clients in both private practice and inpatient settings. chiroshri bhattacharjee, m.s., (she/her) is a fifth-year doctoral student in counseling psychology at seton hall university. her research focuses on areas of bicultural identity development, psychological trauma, and other long-term impacts associated with experiencing and witnessing domestic violence. her clinical work is focused on providing multiculturally competent and evidence-based psychotherapy to patients from marginalized communities. she also enjoys teaching as an adjunct professor and working as a psychometrician. megan e. ingraham, m.s., (she/her) is a fifth-year doctoral student in seton hall university’s counseling psychology program. her research focuses on lgbtqia+ concerns and the intersectionality of social identities, including race, gender, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation. she enjoys her clinical work in university mental health services and teaching as an adjunct professor. reynolds (taewon choi), anton, bhattacharjee, & ingraham 209 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 198–209 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5507 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.56.4.319 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15427617rhd0103_4 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.504 https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-scholarly.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-scholarly.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/08/home/davis-scholarly.html https://www.psychopen.eu/ a careerography of angela davis (introduction) initial research questions method procedure anchoring theories a life sketch of angela davis early life emerging and young adulthood middle adulthood late adulthood theory application social cognitive career theory politicized collective identity model discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors knowledge of depression and malingering: an exploratory investigation research reports knowledge of depression and malingering: an exploratory investigation ashley cartwright* a, rebecca donkin b [a] behavioural sciences, school of human and health sciences, university of huddersfield, huddersfield, united kingdom. [b] department of psychology, leeds trinity university, leeds, united kingdom. abstract malingering mental disorder for financial compensation can offer substantial rewards to those willing to do so. a recent review of uk medico-legal experts’ practices for detecting claimants evidenced that they are not well equipped to detect those that do. this is not surprising, considering that very little is known regarding why individuals opt to malinger. a potential construct which may influence an individual’s choice to malinger is their knowledge of the disorder, and when one considers the high levels of depression literacy within the uk, it is imperative that this hypothesis is investigated. a brief depression knowledge scale was devised and administered to undergraduate students (n = 155) alongside a series of questions exploring how likely participants were to malinger in both workplace stress and claiming for benefit vignettes. depression knowledge did not affect the likelihood of engaging in any malingering strategy in either the workplace stress vignettes or the benefit claimant vignettes. differences were found between the two vignettes providing evidence for the context-specific nature of malingering, and an individual’s previous mental disorder was also influential. keywords: malingering, mental health literacy, depression, deception, cognitive load europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 received: 2018-07-31. accepted: 2019-06-12. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: behavioural sciences, school of human and health sciences, university of huddersfield, queensgate, huddersfield, hd1 3dh, united kingdom. e-mail: a.cartwright@hud.ac.uk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the worldwide prevalence of depression is increasing (global burden of disease study, 2015) and it is estimated that depression accounts for half of all psychiatric consultations and 12% of all hospital admissions (kuo, tran, shah, & matorin, 2015). estimations for the global prevalence of depressive disorders is estimated at 3.5% in males and 5.1% in females (world health organisation, 2017) and the most debilitating depressive disorder, major depressive disorder (mdd) is estimated to affect 7% of society according to the american psychiatric association (apa, 2013). this highly prevalent mental disorder seriously reduces the quality of life and also produces serious economic and social implications (monaro, gamberini et al., 2018). such economic implications arise through a variety of avenues including the cost of treatment, the cost for employers covering absences from work, and the cost associated with compensation. indeed, the economic costs associated with depressive disorders are high and these are surely exacerbated by those willing to feign or exaggerate symptomology. in the united kingdom, research has demonstrated that residents’ do not perceive fraudulently claiming mental disorder for financial compensation to be a severe act of criminality (cartwright & roach, 2016). this behaviour europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ is defined clinically within the dsm-5 as malingering (apa, 2013). estimations of the prevalence of malingered mental disorders vary substantially depending upon the context but within contexts involving compensation, depressive disorders are suggested to be malingered within 16.08% of cases (mittenberg, patton, canyock, & condit, 2002). one situation which presents itself to those willing to commit this type of behaviour is the road traffic accident (rta). research has alluded to fraud being rife within uk rta claims through figures illustrating that between 2006-2011 the number of rtas reduced by 20%, whilst the number of personal injury claims because of such accidents increased by 60% (merten et al., 2013). a similar paradox to the one outlined within rta claims is also evident within uk disability claims through a 44% increase in claims whilst the average health status according to the department for health and pensions continues to improve (merten et al., 2013). alongside fraudulent claims occurring within benefit payments and rta claims, a further category of claims which are vulnerable to malingered depression, are psychological injury claims in the workplace. yoxall, bahr, and o’neill (2017) suggest that in australia between 9-31% of workplace compensation cases for psychological injury involve some form of symptom exaggeration. cartwright and roach (2016) provide further insight into this issue in the uk and suggest that only 6% of individuals questioned would be likely to make up symptoms of mental disorder after having a traumatic experience in the workplace. the claims culture in the uk is certainly a concern and the economic ramifications of fraudulent claims are vast affecting the regular insurance/ taxpayer, the insurance industry, and the government. therefore, it is important to gain an in-depth understanding of those who commit fraudulent claims for psychological and physical injury. the first theoretical model of malingering labelled the criminological model was proposed by rogers (1990) and this explanation is adopted in the dsm-5 (apa, 2013), whereby malingerers are regarded as anti-social and bad. however, scholars are yet to find a definitive link between psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder and malingering (wooley, 2013). a differing theoretical approach suggested by rogers (1990) is the pathogenic model, which argues that individuals malinger due to an underlying psychological reason. the model posits that the production of malingered symptomology is an attempt to control underlying psychopathology (rogers, 1990). this model of malingering is not well supported (rogers, 2008) and is better placed to explain factious disorder. the final theoretical model is the adaptation model which suggests that malingering is due to the context of the situation and the individual making the best of a difficult situation through the consideration of rational choice (rogers, 1990). at present, there is no clear and accepted explanation for why individuals malinger, although research has indicated that in a sample of australian psychologists the adaptational model receives the most support (yoxall, bahr, & barling, 2010). other than the models suggested by rogers (1990) very few attempts have been made to explain the behaviour. typically, research has focused upon examining the response styles of malingering within one context (peace & masliuk, 2011), however, should one accept the premise of the adaptational model, then understanding the contexts in which an individual malingers is crucial. research has demonstrated that feigning symptoms which have arisen because of a sexual assault, produce more exaggerated symptoms than rta respondents (edens, otto, & dwyer, 1998). furthermore, peace and masliuk (2011) reported that where the following motives, no motivation, compensation motive, attention-seeking motive, and revenge motive were implicit this resulted in different extents of symptom exaggeration. participants in the revenge and compensation vignettes obtained the highest self-report symptomology scores (peace & masliuk, 2011). cartwright & donkin 33 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the definition given by the dsm-5 describes malingering as a singular construct despite research illustrating that malingering occurs at different levels (walters et al., 2008). resnick’s (1977) proposes three types of malingering that can occur and these are as follows, pure malingering (pure-m), partial malingering (par-m), and false imputation (f-imp). pure-m refers to a claimant who experiences no symptoms of disorder or impairment despite claiming to suffer symptoms. par-m refers to claimants who do suffer symptoms of disorder or impairment but exaggerate their symptoms to attain higher rewards. lastly, f-imp refers to claimants who experience genuine symptoms of disorder or impairment but attribute these to an event which did not cause the symptoms. research indicates that par-m is viewed as the least severe followed by f-imp, and then pure-m (cartwright & roach, 2016). such findings are particularly important due to par-m and f-imp being argued to be the most difficult to detect due to the claimant experiencing some genuine aspect of the disorder (cartwright, roach, wood, & wood, 2016; hall & hall, 2006; resnick & knoll, 2005). cartwright, roach, and armitage (2019) examined the assessment methods used within the uk to detect malingered mental disorder and uncovered numerous issues within clinicians’ assessments in compensation cases. as a result, a sister article was produced providing guidance on the most appropriate assessment tools to employ for detecting malingered psychopathology (cartwright, 2019). notably, it should be acknowledged that an extensive review of the methods for detecting malingering is not attempted here but should the reader require this rogers’ (2008) seminal text is advised. extensive research within the deception literature indicates that telling a lie is cognitively taxing (e.g. monaro, gamberini, & sartori, 2017; monaro, galante et al., 2018; wang, spezio, & camerer, 2010; vrij, 2008; zuckerman, depaulo, & rosenthal, 1981). through this knowledge, that lying is cognitively taxing, has recently led to the development of behavioural methodologies to detect malingering (ferrara et al., 2016; monaro, galante et al., 2018; sartori, agosta, & gnoato, 2007; sartori, orrù, & zangrossi 2016). such methods of lie detection are possible by measuring behavioural reactions such as response time which may be indicative of cognitive load. such methods have demonstrated impressive discrimination rates when differentiating malingers from genuine respondents in a variety of conditions including: whiplash (sartori et al., 2007), phantom limb pain (ferrara et al., 2016), psychogenic amnesia (sartori et al., 2016), and more recently depression (monaro, toncini et al., 2018). in monaro, toncini and colleagues’ (2018) recent paper a tool was developed based upon tracking and recording participants mouse movements whilst completing 76 questions deriving from numerous psychometric assessment instruments alongside questions regarding the experiment itself. 30 out of the 76 questions were categorised as simple questions and the remaining 46 questions were categorised as complex and thus required greater levels of cognitive load. through the analysis of behavioural responses to these questions (by tracking mouse movements), this resulted in an impressive accuracy rate of 96% when identifying simulated malingers (monaro, toncini et al., 2018). indeed, this is impressive and the practical implications of such an approach for clinical forensic practice are vast, although further research and development are required until such a tool could be implemented. the use of malingering detection approaches based upon identifying cognitive load as outlined above certainly demonstrates a move in the right direction for the detection of malingering and certainly overcomes some of the limitations associated with psychometric measures of malingering (monaro, gamberini et al., 2018) and clinicians’ assessments of malingering (cartwright et al., 2019). knowledge of depression and malingering 34 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ due to the recent success of applying the cognitive load approach to malingering, this led the current researchers to question whether cognitive load or lack of cognitive load could be an influential predictor in an individual’s decision to malinger. as a result, the present study seeks to explore whether those with a more sophisticated knowledge of mental disorder may be more likely to malinger as the cognitive load required to lie would be reduced. in a study which analysed the british social attitudes survey data, holman (2015) evidenced that, in general, the uk public has significantly more knowledge regarding depression as opposed to other disorders such as schizophrenia or asthma obtaining a diagnosis accuracy score of 72% in comparison to 35% and 62% respectively. indeed, this suggests that the publics’ knowledge of depression is particularly pronounced, arguably due to the many campaigns aimed at increasing depression literacy in order to improve national mental health. accurate knowledge of mental disorder clearly can be positive, however, the present article aims to investigate whether such knowledge could be associated with negative behaviours such as malingering. the present paper investigates the following research question, does a participant’s level of knowledge regarding depression affect their attitude towards malingering the disorder? the experimental hypothesis of the present study is that higher levels of depression knowledge will be associated with malingering being perceived less seriously. this hypothesis will be explored measuring participants’ attitudes towards malingering depression in order to receive benefit payments due to being unemployed and the malingering of depression to receive compensation for work placed stress. both contexts have been chosen due to the paucity of research exploring these two areas which are clearly vulnerable to those willing to malinger depression. method ethics the present study was designed in accordance with the british psychological society’s code of human research ethics and was approved by leeds trinity university’s ethics committee. participants the sample consisted of 155 students studying at a uk university. as can be seen in table 2 the sample comprised of 123 females and 32 males with a mean age of 23.5 (sd = 9.35). students were recruited from advertisements sent via email to students on the following programmes: criminology, psychology, and business studies. materials brief depression literacy scale after a search of the literature which resulted in two scales being created to assess depression literacy; gabriel and violato’s (2009) 27 item scale which achieved an internal reliability of α = .68, and the 22-item depression literacy questionnaire which achieved an internal reliability of α = .70 (griffiths et al, 2004). for the present study, the two scales measured all aspects of depression literacy and thus were not necessary for investigating the present research question. the reason for this being is that the present study aims only to assess whether knowledge of depression influenced malingering as opposed to the wider constructs associated with deprescartwright & donkin 35 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sion literacy. therefore, the brief depression knowledge scale was created comprising of 10 true or false questions which were generated based on the dsm-5 (apa, 2013) diagnostic criteria for depression. as discussed in the results section the internal reliability of the scale was good reaching kr(20) = .69. the scale comprised of the following true or false questions: 1. feelings of sadness, emptiness, and hopelessness nearly every day is a symptom of depression 2. diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities is a symptom of depression 3. inability to sleep or excessive sleep is a symptom of depression 4. weight loss at a change of more than 5% a month is a symptom of depression 5. weight gain at a change of more than 5% a month is a symptom of depression 6. fatigue or loss of energy is a symptom of depression 7. feelings of restlessness is a symptom of depression 8. feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt is a symptom of depression 9. diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness is a symptom of depression 10. recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal thoughts are a symptom of depression in order to calculate a participant’s total depression knowledge score, participants were allocated one point for every question they answered as being true except for question 3 where they were allocated a point for answering the question as false. following this, a total score can be calculated out of ten as a measure of a participant’s level of knowledge regarding depression. brief social desirability scale the brief social desirability scale (haghighat, 2007) was used to capture the levels of social desirability due to the present article exploring contentious social behaviours. a discussion of social desirability is not provided here but should the reader wish to explore the theoretical underpinnings of social desirability, tracey’s (2016) review is recommended. in short, social desirability is measured in the present study due to malingering being socially unacceptable and therefore participants may respond in a socially desirable way as opposed to honestly. the scale comprises of four questions and allows researchers to assess whether social desirability is a confounding variable. the four questions are as follows: 1. do you always practice what you preach? 2. do you always keep your promises no matter how inconvenient they may be? 3. would you smile at people every time you meet them? 4. would you ever lie to people? procedure once participants had agreed to take part they were directed to an online survey portal (bristol online surveys) which displayed the study information sheet. upon reading the information sheet participants completed the study consent form before being asked several demographic questions. following the demographic questions, knowledge of depression and malingering 36 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants were required to complete the brief depression literacy scale, followed by the brief social desirability scale (haghighat, 2007). upon completion of these questions, participants were asked to read two vignettes which are displayed in table 1, and were randomised to control for order effects. table 1 vignette questions displayed to participants malingering strategy vignette and question descriptions vignette vignette a: you have recently been going through a stressful period at work. please answer the following questions in relation to how likely you would be to do the following. vignette b: you have recently been made unemployed and have made an application for benefit payments. please answer the following questions in relation to how likely you would be to do the following. parm you are suffering from minor symptoms of depression following the stressful period at work, how likely are you to exaggerate these symptoms in order to claim a larger amount of personal injury compensation? you are suffering from minor symptoms of depression due to being unemployed. how likely are you to exaggerate these symptoms in order to obtain increased benefits? purem following your stressful experience at work you are not suffering from any symptoms of depression. how likely would you be to state that you were to a medical professional in order to obtain financial compensation? following being made unemployed you are not suffering from any symptoms of depression. how likely would you be to state that you have been in order to obtain increased benefits? f-imp you found yourself suffering from symptoms of depression before you experienced a stressful period at work, how likely are you to claim that you started suffering from these symptoms after the stressful work period in order to receive personal injury compensation? you found yourself suffering from minor symptoms of depression before your period of unemployment. how likely are you to claim that you started suffering from these symptoms due to being unemployed in order to obtain increased benefits? note. par-m = partial malingering; pur-m = pure malingering; f-imp = false imputation. the first vignette placed participants in a situation whereby they had experienced stress due to work and then participants were asked three questions regarding how likely they would be to malinger depression. the three questions investigated how likely they would be to use an par-m strategy, a pure-m strategy, and an f-imp strategy. again, the order in which the three questions were displayed was randomised. participants were required to respond to these questions using a 5 point likert scale (not very likely, not likely, somewhat likely, likely, very likely). the second vignette placed participants in the same three questions as described above, however, the context changed to benefit payments. following completion, participants were displayed with a debrief form. analysis non-parametric statistics were utilised due to the assumption of normality being violated with the shapiro-wilk test revealing that all dependent variables did not have a normal distribution. the following non-parametric inferential statistics were used in the present study: spearman’s rho, mann-whitney u test, friedman’s repeated measures anova, and the wilcoxon signed rank test. variables included in the analysis are as follows: particicartwright & donkin 37 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pant demographics (including a self-report history of depression), measures of malingering, social desirability scores, and knowledge of depression scores. results table 2 displays the demographic information of the participants included in the present study. table 2 participants’ demographic information demographic variable statistic age m = 23.50 (sd = 9.35) sex females 79.4% (n = 123) males 20.6% (n = 32) history of depressive symptomology no 47.1% (n = 73) yes 52.9% (n = 82) history of claiming disability allowance no 93.5% (n = 145) yes 6.5% (n = 10) history of claiming compensation no 89% (n = 138) yes 11% (n = 17) depression literacy score m = 8.11 (sd = 1.90) social desirability score m = 1.89 (sd = 1.06) note. n = 155. to determine the extent to which socially desirable responding influenced the participants’ responses, spearman’s rho correlations were undertaken. as can be seen in table 3 spearman’s rho correlations revealed that social desirability was significantly negatively correlated with four out of the six questions asked following the two vignettes. thus, demonstrating that the results should be interpreted with caution as social desirability appears to be a confounding variable. table 3 spearman’s rho correlations for the malingering strategies across the two vignettes and social desirability total score malingering strategy rs for social desirability pure-m disability allowance -.27** pure-m compensation at work -.12 par-m disability allowance -.23** par-m compensation at work -.28** f-imp disability allowance -.35** f-imp compensation at work -.14 note. n = 155. par-m = partial malingering; pur-m = pure malingering; f-imp = false imputation. **p < .01. knowledge of depression and malingering 38 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this study primarily aimed to investigate whether depression knowledge affects the likelihood of participants’ taking part in a hypothetical malingering strategy, the brief depression knowledge scale was created. a kuderrichardson kr(20) analysis was run to determine the overall test reliability; the analysis indicated that the brief depression literacy scale had moderate reliability kr(20) = .69. participants’ obtained an average score of m = 8.12 (sd = 1.90). interpreting the kr(20) and the average score of 81% suggests that the depression knowledge questionnaire did not sufficiently discriminate those with high depression knowledge from those with low depression knowledge. alternatively, it could be the case that participants within the present study had a very good knowledge of symptoms associated with depression. to determine whether depression knowledge affected the participants’ responses to the vignettes, further spearman’s rho correlations were undertaken; no significant correlations emerged at the < .01 level (p = .37 .87). participants were asked prior to taking part in the survey whether they have previously experienced symptoms of depression. to determine whether those participants who have previously experienced symptoms of depression are more likely to engage in malingering strategies mann-whitney u tests were undertaken and the results are displayed in table 3. as can be seen in table 4 only one significant difference occurred. those who had suffered from depressive symptoms in the past were more likely to malinger using an f-imp strategy to claim compensation due to the stress experienced at work (mdn = 2.00, m = 2.22) than those who have never experienced symptoms of depression (mdn = 2.00 m = 1.89), u = 2854, p < .038, r = .17. additionally, a further man-whitney u test was conducted to determine whether those who have experienced depressive symptoms in the past differ in their levels of depression knowledge than those who have not. the man-whitney u test indicated that those who have experienced depressive symptoms in the past (mdn = 9.00, m = 8.48) scored significantly higher than those who had not (mdn = 8.00, m = 7.71) on the depression literacy questionnaire u = 2379, p < .024, r = -.16. table 4 likelihood of malingering and previous history of depressive symptomology malingering vignette history of depression (n = 82) no history of depression (n = 73) u p rmdn m mdn m pure-m disability allowance 1.00 1.29 1.00 1.42 2703 .19 -.11 pure-m compensation at work 1.00 1.57 1.00 1.70 2860 .59 -.04 par-m disability allowance 2.00 2.04 2.00 2.12 2918 .78 -.02 par-m compensation at work 1.50 1.70 2.00 1.97 2650 .18 -.11 f-imp disability allowance 2.00 2.04 2.00 2.12 2443 .60 -.04 f-imp compensation at work 2.00 1.89 2.00 2.22 2854 < .038 -.17 note. n = 155. par-m = partial malingering; pur-m = pure malingering; f-imp = false imputation. a further area of exploration was to determine whether the three malingering strategies were perceived with differing severity. to do this, friedman’s repeated measures anova was undertaken. friedman’s anova revealed a significant difference between the three malingering strategies in the vignettes examining compensation in the workplace χ2(2, n = 155) = 29.86, p < .001. post-hoc pairwise comparisons using the wilcoxon signed rank test indicated significant differences between: par-m (mdn = 2.00, m = 1.83) and pure-m (mdn = 1.00, m = 1.63), z = -2.63, p < .009, r = .21; f-imp (mdn = 2.00, m = 2.05) and par-m (mdn = 2.00, m = 1.83), z = -3.28, p < .001, r = .26; and f-imp (mdn = 2.00, m = 2.05) and pure-m (mdn = 1.00, m = 1.63) z = -4.42, p cartwright & donkin 39 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ < .001, r = .36. the friedman’s anova investigating whether there is a significant difference between the three malingering strategies for claiming disability allowance evidenced that the three strategies were not viewed differently χ2(2, n = 155) = 4.76, p = .09. to determine whether the situation in which an individual malingers affects the likelihood of participants engaging in malingering wilcoxon signed rank tests were undertaken. the first wilcoxon test indicated that participants were significantly more likely to utilise a pure-m (mdn = 1.00 m = 1.63) for financial compensation in the workplace as opposed to using an pure-m strategy to claim benefits (mdn = 1.35, m = 1.00), z = 3.68, p < .001, r = .30. conversely, a second wilcoxon test indicated that participants were significantly more likely to utilise a par-m to claim benefits (mdn = 2.00 m = 2.16) as opposed to using a par-m strategy to claim financial compensation in the workplace (mdn = 2.00, m = 1.83), z = 4.17, p < .001, r = .33. the third wilcoxon test indicated that the situation in which participants were asked about their likeliness of engaging in an f-imp strategy did not result in a significant difference z = .42, p = .67. discussion this article addressed an important and emerging area of research examining whether a relationship exists between depression knowledge and malingering. the findings reported here would suggest that an individual’s knowledge of mental disorder does not affect their likelihood of engaging in malingering for a financial reward and as a result the experimental hypothesis is not supported. having said this, the brief knowledge of depression scale used was unable to differentiate those with high levels of depression knowledge from those with lower levels. indeed, it could be the case that the sample included in the present study have particularly high levels of knowledge or it might be the case that the uk population, in general, are well educated regarding depression. at the very least, this study corroborates previous research demonstrating that as a society we seem to have a high level of knowledge when it comes to depression (holman, 2015). as a result, future research is needed to provide a better understanding of the relationship between knowledge of depression and malingering. the present study provides evidence that malingering is not a singular construct. the three strategies of malingering were perceived differently, with pure-m being viewed more severely, followed by par-m, and then f-imp. however, this was only true for the workplace vignette as participants did not differentiate between the three malingering strategies in the benefit vignette. as a result, it is argued that the context in which an individual malingers is a significant factor in the causation of the behaviour. interestingly, when the two contexts were compared individuals were more inclined to commit the more serious form of malingering (pure-m) to obtain financial compensation in the workplace, but were more likely to use a par-m strategy to obtain benefit payments than to behave in the same way for financial compensation in the workplace. this finding is complicated but provides further evidence of the complexity of the relationship between the context where one might malinger and an individual’s choice to malinger. individuals perceive totally fabricating symptoms to be significantly more serious if it is for benefit payments and it is suggested here, that this is perhaps due to a stigma attached to those who cheat the benefits system. a converse relationship is found when individuals are asked about simply exaggerating symptoms of depression and doing this to attain benefits is viewed more favourably than workplace compensation. however, f-imp was viewed as the most favourable in both vignettes but the context in which participants were asked about this behaviour did not affect their responses. knowledge of depression and malingering 40 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a further important finding is that those participants who self-reported previous histories of depression were significantly more likely to state that they would be willing to use an f-imp strategy to claim workplace compensation, however, the same relationship was not found for the benefit vignette. to use an f-imp strategy, participants need to have a previous history of mental disorder but considering that this study was simply exploring participants’ perceptions provides evidence that it is this type of malingering that is most likely to occur with individuals who have a history of mental disorder. this is concerning considering that it is argued to be the most difficult to spot (cartwright et al., 2016; hall & hall, 2006; resnick & knoll, 2005). the present article provides further support for rogers (1990) adaptational model of malingering by demonstrating how contexts can alter an individual’s attitude towards malingering. furthermore, the present article suggests that cultural social forces may play a role in the decision to malinger whilst providing further evidence for the role of previous mental disorder. as a result, this research provides an indication of some factors that underpin rogers (1990) adaptational model, however, an individual’s knowledge of the mental disorder is not one of these. having said this, it is imperative that future research investigates this hypothesis utilising a sophisticated measure of depression knowledge. future research would be encouraged to measure all aspects of depression literacy and not simply individuals’ knowledge of depressive symptomology. the exploration of different mental disorders should also be encouraged within future research, as it may be the case that society, in general, has high levels of knowledge regarding depression. it must be acknowledged that this article is a theoretical approach to the study of malingering exploring attitudes and intentions as opposed to actual behaviour. critics of this method will rightly outline that what people say and what they actually do are often two different things. indeed, this is correct but the study of malingering is particularly problematic and alternative methodologies also suffer from internal reliability issues due to the problem of obtaining the ground truth. furthermore, the reader must acknowledge that the sample size of the present paper is small and not representative of the uk demographic, however, it is argued that it is sufficient to investigate this study’s exploratory hypothesis of whether depression literacy influences malingering using bivariate analyses to detect correlation coefficients of 0.3 with an alpha level of 0.05 and a power of 80% (bujang & baharum, 2016). future research nonetheless would be encouraged to increase the sample size to detect even smaller changes in the correlation coefficient, whilst utilising a cross-sectional design to recruit a representative demographic. in summary, the present paper offers a unique contribution to the malingering literature through the exploration of a previously untested hypothesis aimed at enhancing the understanding of malingering for financial compensation. the current understanding of malingering which outlines that it is context specific and the result of a cost-benefit analysis, is in no way sufficient or helpful to forensic examiners. as a result, the present paper provides a methodology for developing the theoretical explanations of malingering through testing the underlying constructs that may be influential during the would-be malingerer’s cost-benefit analysis. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. cartwright & donkin 41 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references american psychiatric association. 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(1981). verbal and non-verbal communication of deception. in l. berkowitz (ed.), advances in experimental and social psychology (vol. 14, pp. 1-59). new york, ny, usa: academic press. about the authors dr ashley cartwright is currently a senior lecturer in criminology at the university of huddersfield. his research interests relate to the application of psychology to criminal justice contexts, specifically malingering for financial compensation and policing. rebecca donkin is a bsc psychology graduate from leeds trinity university. knowledge of depression and malingering 44 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 32–44 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1730 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fcou0000135 https://doi.org/10.1257%2faer.100.3.984 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1040-3590.20.3.238 https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc283796/ http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/254610/who-msd-mer-2017.2-eng.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13218719.2017.1291295 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ knowledge of depression and malingering (introduction) method ethics participants materials procedure analysis results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the relation between empathy and aggression: the role of attachment style research reports the relation between empathy and aggression: the role of attachment style maria grazia lo cricchio 1, pasquale musso 2, alida lo coco 3, rosalinda cassibba 2, francesca liga 4 [1] department of humanities, university of studies of basilicata, potenza, italy. [2] department of educational sciences, psychology, communication, university of studies of bari “aldo moro”, bari, italy. [3] department of psychology, educational science and human movement, university of studies of palermo, palermo, italy. [4] department of clinical and experimental medicine, university of studies of messina, messina, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 received: 2020-10-03 • accepted: 2021-05-26 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: pasquale musso, department of educational sciences, psychology, communication, university of studies of bari (italy), palazzo chiaia–napolitano, floor 4, room 406, via scipione crisanzio, 42, 70122 bari, italy. phone: +39 080 5714762. e-mail: pasquale.musso@uniba.it abstract this study aimed to examine the explaining and moderating role of attachment style profiles on the association between empathy and aggression. participants were 548 italian adults (m = 47.62 years, sd = 6.14) who completed a survey measuring attachment, empathy, and aggression. using cluster analytic methods, initial results indicated two attachment style profiles to be considered (secure vs. insecure). however, we also extracted a more theoretically guided four-cluster solution including preoccupied, secure, fearful, and dismissing profiles. moreover, structural equation modelling showed that higher levels of empathy linked to lower levels of aggression. nonetheless, when introducing in the model the dichotomous or the multi-categorical attachment style profile variable as predictive of both empathy and aggression, their association became not significant, while secure attachment profile significantly presented higher levels of empathy and lower levels of aggression compared to the other profiles. furthermore, attachment style profile moderated the link between empathy and aggression. specifically, in the secure group empathy and aggression were negatively related, but no significant association was evidenced in the other groups. findings are discussed in the light of the literature. keywords empathy, aggression, attachment style, profile, moderation aggression among individuals refers to the intention to harm another person, while aggressive behaviour is the conduct that follows it (anderson & bushman, 2002). it is a central public health and societal problem that may produce direct physical damage and psychological and behavioural difficulties. aggression may be expressed in many life aspects and contexts, and it is not only a problem for victims, but also for the aggressors, especially in adulthood: aggressive adults often show psychological problems, illegal behaviour, poor marital relationships, and unemployment (coccaro, noblett, & mccloskey, 2009). the strong effect of aggression on psychosocial adjustment underlines the need to recognize variables that can predict aggressive behaviour and that make some populations less or more susceptible to its perpetration. awareness of such variables is fundamental for designing effective programmes for prevention, so a growing body of research has pursued the aim of understanding the processes and the personal characteristics that can reduce aggression, suggesting the potential role of empathy (e.g., vachon, lynam, & johnson, 2014). it is widely assumed that there is a connection between aggression and low empathy and that a lack of empathic responsiveness may be one of the main causes of aggression (van hazebroek, olthof, & goossens, 2017). however, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4509&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ despite the general agreement on the association between these two constructs, several systematic reviews, and metaanalyses during the last years have found no or weak correlation between them (bush, mullis, & mullis, 2000; jolliffe & farrington, 2004). these puzzling results call for new theoretical justifications, such as considering the explaining and moderating role of variables, such as attachment style, which has historically been considered as one of the stronger predictors of both empathy and aggression (mikulincer & shaver, 2001). the relation between empathy and aggression empathy refers to the ability to take the psychological point of view of another person, to understand and vicariously experience his/her thoughts and feelings (davis, 2018). there is a consensus among scholars about its key role in the reduction of aggressive behaviour (jolliffe & farrington, 2004). individuals that adopt the perspective of others and feel sympathy and compassion for them are more likely to refrain from behaving in ways that may cause harm to other people (eisenberg, 2000). bush and colleagues (2000) found that individuals who show, even occasionally, a higher level of aggressive behaviour, express lower empathic concern. according to gini, albiero, and benelli (2005), empathy can reduce aggressive manifestations by two main mecha­ nisms: role-taking, which in ambiguous situations allows individuals to understand each other and to comprehend their reciprocal intentions and motivations; and perspective-taking, in which the vicarious sharing of the same emotions discourages mutual aggression. farrington (1998) suggested that empathic responsiveness reduces aggressive behaviour because, especially in situations of conflict, it fosters the ability to understand the real motivations of others’ behaviours, reducing the risk of identifying as aggressive those conducts that do not have this nature or, where they have this connotation, enhancing the ability to tolerate them. despite these considerations, studies have not always confirmed these results. for example, lindsey, carlozzi, and eells (2001) found no differences in empathy levels between violent and non-violent youths. similar results were obtained by goldstein and higgins-d’alessandro (2001) on groups of adults. moreover, as previously mentioned, the same weak association between empathy and aggression has been well documented in recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews (vachon, lynam, & johnson, 2014). vachon et al. (2014) suggested that their relationship could vary depending on the type of moderating variables considered, such as age, gender, ethnicity, or level of education of the participants. however, they did not mention the need to consider attachment style, even though it has been shown to have a meaningful role in both empathy and the ability to manage aggressive behaviours. the role of attachment style attachment theory (bowlby, 1969) is one of the most important frameworks considered by researchers to investigate and explain the differences in individuals’ behaviours. according to bowlby’s theory (1969), children’s relationships with their caregivers play an important role in the individuals’ social and emotional development. the ability to relate to others appropriately, sharing emotions with them and understanding their points of view, is the consequence of childhood relationships with one or more caregivers defined as “sensitive” (ainsworth, blehar, waters, & wall, 1978), which enable the development of a secure attachment bond. this type of relationship is established as an expression of a deep and warm emotional relationship with the caregiver: from repeated experiences with sensitive caregivers, children develop confidence in their availability as secure bases, which allow them to explore the environment counting on their help and protection, in case of danger (srivastava & beer, 2005). these feelings of trust and support, however, are missing in some individuals, who, in contrast, develop an insecure attachment style, based on a relationship in which affective needs were not satisfied (saltaris, 2002). the first relational experiences are the basis for the development of internal working models (iwm), representations of themselves, and others, which generally guide individuals’ behaviours during development (pietromonaco & barrett, 2000). in the case of secure attachment, iwm involve a positive representation of self and others: adults with a secure attachment bond are more inclined to trust others and expect positive intentions from them (dodge, 2006). these positive iwm can explain why adult attachment security has been frequently related with higher levels of empathy and lower personal distress (mikulincer, shaver, gillath, & nitzberg, 2005). concerning insecure attachment, bartholomew and horowitz (1991) distinguished three prototypically different styles depending on their iwm of self and others: empathy, aggression and attachment style 320 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing. preoccupied people have a positive view of others, but a negative view of self and they are often searching for others’ approval. fearful people have negative views of themselves and others, and feel unloved, expecting to be rejected by others. dismissing people have a positive view of self and a negative view of others, and they are rejecting other people to maintain their high sense of self (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; feeney & noller, 1990). literature has broadly underlined that insecurely attached people are susceptible to experiencing negative emotions due to the rejecting or inconstant responses offered by their caregivers (grattagliano et al., 2015; troyer & greitemeyer, 2018). moreover, they might show more self-centred emotional reactions and difficulties in considering the real emotions and needs of others (van der mark, van ijzendoorn, & bakermans-kranenburg, 2002). as such, attachment insecurity can distort or inhibit empathic responsiveness (feeney & collins, 2001). for example, the extreme worries of rejection that characterize highly preoccupied individuals might leave them with little cognitive resources to emotionally share others’ distress (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). additionally, highly fearful and dismissing people may be less likely to express empathy as a consequence of their mistrust in others’ support and help in case of need: a lack of empathy may be a way to maintain others at distance, preventing them from becoming too close, and precluding potential reliance and dependence (mikulincer & shaver, 2007). even the ability of self-regulation of aggressive behaviour is closely related to the type of attachment bond. in this sense, an individual experiencing security and trust in relationships with others would more probably be a person not inclined to aggression, because he/she does not see dangers and threats in the people he/she meets (mikulincer & shaver, 2001). on the other hand, fearful and dismissing individuals may become aggressive to keep others at distance and avoid intimacy because they have learned that closeness means being upset and rejected (negative model of others) (péloquin, lafontaine, & brassard, 2011). moreover, they might develop a mental model that enhances the likelihood of thinking that others may reject or damage them, diminishing their ability to evaluate situations in an objective manner (thompson, 2008). contrariwise, preoccupied individuals wish complete intimacy with others, but, since they are extremely concerned with their lovability (negative model of self), they might have fears of remaining alone (péloquin et al., 2011). consequently, they would use more likely aggression toward others to express their irritated and frustrated needs of closeness in the relationship. despite this evidence, to our knowledge, no studies seem to have explored whether and how attachment style affects the association between empathy and aggression. however, as mentioned, it is theoretically sustainable that this relationship can vary according to the type of attachment bond. specifically, individuals with a secure attachment are more likely to understand and share others’ emotional states and, therefore, are more likely to have psychological resources and instruments that can be useful to manage and to inhibit their aggressive behaviours generating concern for the well-being of others. as a result, a secure attachment style may strengthen the negative association between empathy and aggression. in contrast, insecurely attached individuals seem to live their life with a lower capacity to share desires, needs, and emotions with others. on the one hand, it is more likely that other people’s negative emotions can cause high emotional distress to preoccupied people (davis, 2018) and potential aggressive motivations/behaviours to reduce this perceived discomfort. on the other hand, insecure fearful or dismissed individuals might be less interested in other emotions, showing low or even no willingness to keep in contact with them, which can enhance their aggressive behaviour to maintain others at distance (eisenberg, shea, carlo, & knight, 1991). in this sense, for insecurely attached people, the negative association between empathy and aggressive behaviour could be lower. accordingly, our study had the main and original goal to investigate how attachment style can influence the relations between empathy and aggression. moreover, the methodology adopted may limit the existing knowledge on the relation between these constructs in that most of the studies have exclusively used a variable-centred approach in their examinations that may not be optimal for capturing their multi-composite nature. in fact, variable-centred methods are aimed at describing differences in the mean-level and/or the linear associations of unique dimensions, whereas the person-centred approach emphasizes the need to understand the individual as a whole, rather than on his/her single characteristics (bergman, 2001). within the broad debate about the best approach to measure and conceptualize attachment (e.g., fraley, hudson, heffernan, & segal, 2015), our perspective is that the person-centred approach best reflects the goal of grasping attachment styles by assigning individuals sharing similar patterns of attachment-related variables to subgroups within a given population: this holistic and dynamic view emphasizes the potential uniqueness of individuals and allows to obtain lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 321 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ profiles which, then, can be compared on several correlates to detect interindividual differences. therefore, our second aim was to investigate the specific differences in the relations between empathy and aggression arising from the diverse configurations of attachment style, by using a mixed personand variable-oriented approach. method the current study aimed at investigating the explaining and moderating role of attachment style on the associations between empathy and aggression. first, we studied whether the attachment style can explain the expected negative association between empathy and aggression within a variable-centred approach. second, we examined how different attachment style profiles may influence the link between empathy and aggression within a mixed personand varia­ ble-centred approach. specifically, we hypothesized that: (a) empathy and aggression are negatively related; (b) when introducing the attachment style dimension as an explaining variable of both empathy and aggression, their association will be lower due to the important predictive role of this dimension; and (c) a more securely attached profile group will show a stronger negative association between empathy and aggression than insecurely attached profile groups, due to higher level of psychological resources of secure individuals that can inhibit one's aggressive behaviours by having concern and interest for the others' welfare. participants five hundred and forty-eight adults (64% females and 36% males) aged 36 to 63 years (m = 47.62, sd = 6.14), living in the urban area of the city of palermo (italy), participated in the study. the sample size was derived based on a theoretical correlation coefficient of r = -.113 between empathy and aggression, as suggested by the recent meta-analyses of vachon et al. (2014). by establishing the threshold probability for rejecting the null hypothesis (σ two-tailed, type i error rate) at .05 and the probability of failing to reject the null hypothesis under the alternative hypothesis (type ii error rate) at .20, the exact sample size was computed to be 612. however, we were able to collect a sample that was only 90% of this expected number but still acceptable (corresponding to a theoretical correlation coefficient of r = -.119). participants were almost all caucasian italians (91%). most of them (86%) were married, 10% were never married, 3% were separated/divorced, and 1% were widowed. in terms of educational level, 21% of the entire group had completed primary school level, 42% had finished middle school, 27% had obtained a high school diploma, and 10% had graduated. additionally, 54% of the participants declared themselves as employed and the remaining 46% as unemployed (but 86% of this group presented themselves as homemakers). these demographic data were satisfactorily consistent with the general trends for middle-aged adults in southern italy, as reported by the italian national statistics institute (istat, 2018). procedure the ethical code of the italian association of psychology (2015) was followed throughout the research process. partici­ pants were equally recruited from each of the eight districts of the city of palermo during public events open to a wide range of people, such as music and folkloristic festivals or exhibitions. on these occasions, the members of the research group distributed leaflets informing the public about the purpose of the study and asking for voluntary anonymous participation. upon initial acceptance, interested persons were further made aware of the study and its implications by a written informed consent sheet, to be signed to give consent or not signed to indicate lack of consent. all the individuals who were initially available to contribute to the study agreed to the signed informed consent and, therefore, they were invited to fill in a self-administered questionnaire. they could withdraw at any time, but there were no withdrawals. on average, participants completed the questionnaire in 30 minutes. measures socio-demographics participants were asked to report their gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, level of school completed, and occupation. empathy, aggression and attachment style 322 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment different attachment dimensions were assessed by the italian version of the attachment style questionnaire (asq; fossati et al., 2007). this self-report questionnaire asks participants to rate on a 6-point scale the degree to which they agree with 40 statements concerning their perceptions of themselves and their relationships (1 = totally disagree to 6 = totally agree). specifically, asq measures: confidence (eight items; “i feel confident that other people will be there for me when i need them”), discomfort with closeness (10 items; “i find it difficult to depend on others”), relationships as secondary (eight items; “achieving things is more important than building relationships”), need for approval (seven items; “it’s important to me that others like me”), and preoccupation with relationships (seven items; “i worry a lot about relationships”). the confidence scale, representing secure attachment, refers to the extent to which individuals are confident about themselves and their relationships with others. each of the other four scales represents aspects of insecure attachment. discomfort with closeness refers to the difficulty in trusting others, depending on other people, or having other people depend on them. relationships as secondary refers to the belief that achievement is more important than relationships. the need for approval refers to the view that it is important to measure up to others’ standards and to be positively identified by other people. finally, the preoccupation with relationships dimension refers to the anxiety of being abandoned because of the belief of being unable to cope alone. in the current study, cronbach’s alpha (α) values were .78, .81, .70, .75, and .79 for confidence, discomfort with closeness, relationships as secondary, need for approval, and preoccupation with relationships, respectively. empathy empathy was assessed by the italian version of the interpersonal reactivity index (iri; albiero, ingoglia, & lo coco, 2006). this self-report questionnaire asks participants to rate on a 5-point scale the degree to which they agree with 28 statements concerning the responsivity to others (1 = never true to 5 = always true). specifically, iri consists of four 7-item subscales: personal distress ("being in a tense emotional situation scares me") and empathic concern ("i often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me") being emotional aspects, and perspective-taking ("i sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective") and fantasy ("i really get involved with the feelings of the characters in a novel") being cognitive aspects. the personal distress scale assesses the personal experience of feeling anxious and awkward in stressful interpersonal situations, and the empathic concern scale assesses feelings of understanding, consideration, and kindness for others experiencing negative events. the perspective-taking scale assesses the ability to assume the viewpoint of other people in everyday life, and the fantasy scale assesses the tendencies to be imaginatively moved by feelings and actions of invented characters in books, movies, and plays. cronbach’s α values for the present study were .72 for personal distress, .70 for empathic concern, .76 for perspective-taking, and .73 for fantasy. however, we excluded fantasy from the analyses because this construct is less consistent with the definition of empathy and, for this reason, it was often overlooked in studies (e.g., davis, hall, & meyer, 2003). aggression aggression was assessed using the irritability and rumination/dissipation questionnaire (i-rq; caprara, barbaranelli, pastorelli, & perugini, 1991). this self-report questionnaire asks participants to rate on a 7-point scale their reaction to 20 statements concerning emotive-impulsive and cognitive dimensions of aggression behaviour (1 = completely false for me to 7 = completely true for me). this questionnaire consists of two 15-item scales, each composed of 10 items supplemented by 5 additional items used to check compliance: irritability (“when someone raises his voice, i raise mine higher”) and rumination/dissipation (“when i am outraged, the more i think about it, the angrier i feel”). the irritability scale measures the emotive processes affecting aggressive behaviour, which is the tendency to react impulsively, argumentatively, or rudely at the slightest provocation or disagreement. the rumination/dissipation scale assesses the cognitive processes affecting aggressive behaviour, that is respondents’ tendencies to hold grudges and to hold thoughts of retaliation, in addition to difficulty in forgetting injustices that have been committed towards them. cronbach’s α values for the present study were .75 for irritability and .85 for rumination/dissipation. lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 323 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ plan of analysis data analysis followed three main steps. first, we computed descriptive statistics for the key study variables and verified for univariate and multivariate normality. second, we utilized a cluster analytic approach to identify attachment style patterns based on the standardized scores of the asq subscales. initially, agglomerative hierarchical cluster analyses were carried out to determine the most appropriate number of clusters. using ward’s method based on the squared euclidean distance (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984), solutions from two to five clusters were assessed. the best number of clusters was chosen as a balance among theoretical meaningfulness, parsimony, and explanatory power (i.e., the proportion of the variance explained in each asq dimension). after that, study participants were grouped by k-means cluster analysis procedures. to check the validity of the solution, a multivariate analysis of variance (manova) on the five asq dimensions by cluster was performed. we also tested the replicability of the solution by randomly dividing the data into two samples (a and b) and performing a full cluster analysis on each sample. sample b was then classified into clusters according to the cluster centres derived from sample a, and the agreement between the two sample b solutions was computed using cohen’s kappa, with higher agreement indicative of a more stable cluster solution. third, once participants were classified, we explored the explaining and moderating role of attachment style on the association between empathy and aggression using a structural equation modelling (sem) approach. we initially tested the relationship between the latent variable with three indicators of empathy (personal distress, empathic concern, and perspective-taking) and the latent variable with two indicators of aggression (irritability and rumination/dissipation). this relationship was modelled in terms of a direct pathway from empathy to aggression. gender (0 = male; 1 = female), age, marital status (dummy coded: 0 = not cohabiting with a partner; 1 = cohabiting with a partner), and school level (dummy coded: 0 = up to middle school; 1 = high school and beyond) were controlled for. then, we tested the explaining and moderating models. the explaining model included the attachment style profile variable in the initial model to analyse its influence on the previous relationship between empathy and aggression. in this case, we modelled the new associations adding direct pathways from attachment style profile to both empathy and aggression. the moderating model corresponded to a multiple-group sem with attachment style profile as the grouping variable. following kline (2015), multiple indices and their associated cut-offs were used to evaluate model fit: the chi-square (χ2) test value with p > .05 or close to .05, cfi ≥ .90 for acceptable and ≥ 0.95 for good fit, rmsea ≤ .08 for acceptable and ≤ .05 for good fit, and srmr ≤ .10 for acceptable and ≤ .05 for good fit. given the different number of variables, fit comparison between the initial and explaining (non-nested) models was performed using the akaike information criterion (aic; burnham & anderson, 2004). a better fitting model would significantly have had a lower aic value when the following criterion was ascertained: δaic ≥ 15.00 as an absolute value (viola, musso, ingoglia, lo coco, & inguglia, 2017). nested model comparisons for the more restrictive vs. the less restrictive multi-group models were used to examine whether the path between empathy and aggression differed by attachment style profile. to ascertain significant differences at least two out of these three criteria had to be satisfied: δχ2 significant at p < .05, δcfi ≤ –.010, and δrmsea ≥ .015 (kline, 2015). results descriptive statistics table 1 reports the descriptive statistics. all the variables were normally distributed with skewness and/or kurtosis values < |1.00| or close to this value as well as values of standardized scores < |3.29| (tabachnick & fidell, 2013). multivariate inspection of the data, using mahalanobis distance with p < .001 and mardia’s multivariate kurtosis coefficient, evidenced four slight outliers. after replicating the analyses with or without these cases, no significant effects on the results were found. thus, the initial sample was fully maintained. attachment style profiles based on the initial agglomerative hierarchical cluster analyses, a two-cluster solution emerged as the most adequate. generally, solutions with a greater number of clusters violated the principles of parsimony, explanatory power, and/or empathy, aggression and attachment style 324 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ theoretical meaningfulness, including clusters that presented slight differences compared to the two clusters and were scarcely interpretable. thus, participants were clustered into two groups by k-means cluster analysis. figure 1 displays the emerged attachment style profiles. the first cluster (n = 174; 31.8%) was composed of adults who scored higher on discomfort with closeness, relationships as secondary, need for approval, and preoccupation with relationships, but lower on confidence. the second cluster (n = 374; 68.2%) consisted of adults scoring higher on confidence but lower on all the other variables. we respectively named these clusters as insecure and secure attachment style profiles. figure 1 mean z-scores for the attachment style questionnaire variables by the two attachment style profiles table 1 means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis for the key study variables variable m sd skewness kurtosis 1. confidence 4.28 .58 -.44 .11 2. discomfort with closeness 3.81 .65 -.29 .25 3. relationships as secondary 2.61 .88 .44 .23 4. need for approval 2.89 .90 .11 -.37 5. preoccupation with relationships 3.49 .74 -.41 .76 6. personal distress 2.14 .52 .32 .41 7. empathic concern 2.98 .34 -.32 -.62 8. perspective taking 2.69 .43 .40 .34 9. irritability 3.62 1.83 .34 -1.08 10. rumination/dissipation 4.05 1.85 -.09 -1.13 lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 325 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the manova performed on the asq variables by profile revealed a significant multivariate effect, wilks’ lambda = .40, f(5, 542) = 159.47, p < .001, partial η2 = .60, showing that 60% of the variability was explained by differences among the two clusters. post-hoc tests of between-subjects’ effects revealed that the two-cluster solution explained 15% of variability for confidence, 15% for discomfort with closeness, 28% for relationships as secondary, 37% for need for approval, and 18% for preoccupation with relationships, as reported by partial eta square (η2). according to richardson (2011), partial η2 effect size of greater than or equal to .1379 (that is, 13.79% of variability explained) is considered large; accordingly, the two-cluster solution explained large proportions of variance for each variable. moreover, the replicability procedure confirmed that the two-cluster solution was the best also for both the two random subsamples and that the agreement value was substantial (k = .69). in addition to this first set of analyses, we also conducted a new k-means cluster analysis of asq scores, in which we “forced” a four-cluster solution based on the results of prior studies indicating three (quite different) prototypically insecure attachment styles (see, for example, bartholomew & horowitz, 1991). figure 2 shows the attachment style profiles obtained. the first cluster (n = 224; 40.9%) included participants who scored higher on confidence and preoc­ cupation with relationships, moderately higher on need for approval and discomfort with closeness, but lower on relationships as secondary. the second cluster (n = 122; 22.2%) comprised adults scoring higher on confidence but lower on all the other variables. the third cluster (n = 110; 20.01%) consisted of adults scoring lower on confidence but higher on all the other variables. the fourth cluster (n = 92; 16.8%) was composed of adults who scored higher on relationships as secondary and discomfort with closeness, but lower on confidence, need for approval, and preoccupation with relationships. we respectively named these clusters as preoccupied, secure, fearful, and dismissing attachment style profiles, because they approximately resembled the attachment styles suggested by bartholomew and horowitz (1991). figure 2 mean z-scores for the attachment style questionnaire variables by the “forced” four-cluster solution of attachment style empathy, aggression and attachment style 326 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the manova performed on the asq variables by this four-profile solution revealed a significant multivariate effect, wilks’ lambda = .12, f(15, 1491) = 116.55, p < .001, partial η2 = .51, showing that 51% of the variability was explained by differences among the four clusters (less than 60% of the two-cluster solution). post-hoc tests of between-subjects’ effects revealed that the four-cluster solution explained 13% of variability for confidence (below the cut-off for large effects suggested by richardson, 2011), 40% for discomfort with closeness, 57% for relationships as secondary, 49% for need for approval, and 37% for preoccupation with relationships. moreover, the replicability procedure revealed a cohen’s k equal to .63, indicative of a just sufficiently stable solution. these results revealed that this theoretically guided four-cluster solution was not perfectly adequate, but still acceptable. therefore, we used it as a comparison to the more optimal two-cluster solution in subsequent analyses. association between empathy and aggression table 2 shows bivariate correlations among the key and control study variables. the attachment style profile is presented both as a dichotomous (0 = insecure; 1 = secure) and a multi-categorical (preoccupied, secure, fearful, and dismissing) variable. in this latter case, we used a dummy coding strategy to represent the groups in the correlation matrix and the subsequent models. the secure attachment style profile was not explicitly coded; that is, all the k-1 dummy variables (k denotes the total number of categories) were set to 0 for cases in that group. thus, the secure attachment style profile functioned as the reference group in the analyses, and coefficients and parameters interpreted relative to this reference group. table 2 correlations for key and control study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. attachment style profile (0 = insecure; 1 = secure) — 2. preoccupied vs. secure attachment profile .22*** — 3. fearful vs. secure attachment profile -.73*** -.42*** — 4. dismissing vs. secure attachment profile .10* -.37*** -.23*** — 5. personal distress -.08 .01 .12** .00 — 6. empathic concern .09* -.05 .02 -.13** -.20*** — 7. perspective taking .10* -.02 -.09* -.06 -.26*** .32*** — 8. irritability -.30*** .00 .23*** .07 .04 -.07 -.09* — 9. rumination/dissipation -.08* .02 .10* .15*** .04 -.06 -.06 .40*** — 10. gender (0 = male; 1 = female) .03 .08 -.04 -.17*** .04 .03 .03 -.29*** -.19*** — 11. age .08 .02 -.09* .02 -.05 .05 .09* .08 .13** -.24*** — 12. marital status (0 = not cohabiting; 1 = cohabiting with partner) -.05 -.10* .07 -.05 .05 .03 -.03 .06 .08 -.10* -.06 — 13. school level (0 = up to middle school; 1 = high school and beyond) .07 -.09* -.05 -.02 -.11** .06 -.03 -.22*** -.12** .07 .08 -.35*** — *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. we estimated the initial model by testing the association of the latent variable of empathy with the latent variable of aggression. we controlled for gender, age, marital status, and school level by allowing them to predict both the latent variables; however, only the parameters with p ≤ .10 were finally estimated while the others were fixed to zero. this model fitted the data well, χ2(20) = 25.60, p = .18, cfi = .981, rmsea = .023, 90% ci [.000, .046], srmr = .025, aic = 7,517.34. as shown in figure 3a, empathy was significantly and negatively associated with aggression. additionally, age was significantly and positively linked to empathy (the higher the age, the higher the empathy), while gender and school level were only significantly and negatively linked to aggression (females showed lower aggression as well as the higher the school level, the lower the aggression). lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 327 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 estimated structural equation models for the empathy-aggression relation before and after including the dichotomous and multi-categorical attachment style profile variable note. maximum likelihood standardized coefficients are shown. correlations among control variables and residuals are not shown for brevity. solid lines represent significant pathways, dashed lines are nonsignificant. pathways not represented are fixed to zero. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. when including the dichotomous attachment style profile variable, the new model also had a good fit, χ2(23) = 31.06, p = .12, cfi = .976, rmsea = .025, 90% ci [.000, .046], srmr = .025, aic = 7,468.59, indeed a better fit compared to the initial model, δaic = 48.75 (see figure 3b). results showed that the secure attachment style profile was significantly and positively related to empathy, while it was significantly and negatively linked to aggression (the opposite for the insecure attachment style profile). also, the association between empathy and aggression was not significant (β = -.10, p = .11), supporting the evidence that the initial significant association could be fully explained by their common relationship with the attachment style profile. control variables showed the same pattern of associations with empathy and aggression as for the initial model. furthermore, we tested a model that included, instead of the dichotomous, the multi-categorical attachment style profile variable through the dummy variables of preoccupied vs. secure profile, fearful vs. secure profile, and dismissing vs. secure profile. the model fit was acceptable, χ2(29) = 46.04, p = .02, cfi = .955, rmsea = .033, 90% ci [.012, .050], srmr = .025, aic = 7,446.01, and had a better fit compared to the initial model, δaic = 71.33 (see figure 3c). results showed that the three dummy variables were significantly and negatively related to empathy as well as significantly and positively related to aggression. that is, participants in the preoccupied, fearful, and dismissing attachment profiles showed lower empathy and higher aggression compared with participants in the secure attachment profile. as in the empathy, aggression and attachment style 328 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ previous model including the dichotomous attachment style profile variable, the association between empathy and aggression was not significant (β = -.07, p = .30) and control variables showed the same pattern of associations with empathy and aggression except for age which was significantly and positively linked to aggression and not to empathy. we also replicated the analysis using, in turn, the preoccupied, the fearful, and the dismissing attachment profiles as the reference group for the dummy variables. while no significant differences were found between participants in these three different profiles concerning empathy, participants in the fearful attachment profile showed higher aggression compared with those in the preoccupied and dismissing attachment profiles (respectively, β = .20, p < .001, and β = .26, p < .05, when the preoccupied and the dismissing attachment profiles were the reference group). table 3 correlations for study variables by dichotomous attachment style profile variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. personal distress — -.27*** -.30*** .08 .05 .03 -.04 .08 -.15** 2. empathic concern .01 — .33*** -.11* -.11* .08 -.03 .05 .05 3. perspective taking -.14 .26*** — -.15** -.11* .10 .07 -.03 -.03 4. irritability -.12 .12 .13 — .45*** -.33*** .04 -.06 -.24*** 5. rumination/dissipation -.01 .12 .09 .26*** — -.19*** .12* .03 -.15** 6. gender .08 -.08 -.14 -.23** -.18* — -.18*** -.05 .13* 7. age -.07 .22** .11 .25** .19* -.38*** — .00 .06 8. marital status -.06 -.02 -.02 .29*** .18* -.21** -.20** — -.27*** 9. school level .02 .05 -.05 -.15* -.03 -.07 .10 -.52*** — note. lower diagonal: correlation matrix for insecure attachment style group. upper diagonal: correlation matrix for secure attachment style group. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the moderating model first, we considered the multiple-group sem with the dichotomous attachment style profile as the grouping variable. table 3 reports the bivariate correlations. an initial model was run so that all the pathways, and especially that from empathy to aggression, were freely estimated, while all factor loadings were constrained to be equal across the two attachment style profile groups (secure vs. insecure). the model had adequate fit, χ2(38) = 53.52, p = .05, cfi = .952, rmsea = .039, 90% ci [.003, .061], srmr = .036. next, we also constrained the pathway from empathy to aggression, obtaining a significantly worse fit, δχ2(1) = 7.24, p = .007, δcfi = .019, δrmsea = .006. this suggested that the association between empathy and aggression was moderated by the attachment style profile as seen in figure 4. particularly, empathy was significantly and negatively related to aggression in the secure attachment style group, but not in the insecure one (β = .37, p = .06). also, in the insecure attachment style group, higher age and cohabiting with a partner were significantly associated with higher aggression, while in the secure one being female and cohabiting with a partner as well as higher school level were linked to lower aggression. lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 329 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 estimated multiple-group structural equation with the dichotomous attachment style profile as the grouping variable note. maximum likelihood standardized coefficients are shown. non-significant pathways for control variables, correlations among control variables, and residuals are not shown for brevity. solid lines represent significant pathways, dashed lines are nonsignificant (p > .05). the estimate of the empathy-aggression pathway in the insecure attachment style profile group was nonsignificant due to the high standard deviation value (.194). **p < .01. ***p < .001. second, we repeated the analysis using the multi-categorical attachment style profile as the grouping variable. table 4 reports the bivariate correlations. the initial model, with only the factor loadings constrained to be equal across the four attachment style profile groups, had a bad fit, χ2(82) = 182.70, p < .001, cfi = .775, rmsea = .095, 90% ci [.076, .113], srmr = .070. additional analyses suggested excluding the control variables of age, marital status, and school level to ensure a more adequate fit. thus, we re-ran the model by including only gender among the control variable. the new model showed an acceptable fit, χ2(46) = 72.81, p = .01, cfi = .904, rmsea = .065, 90% ci [.034, .093], srmr = .063. the nested model constraining the pathway from empathy to aggression across all groups resulted in a significantly worse fit, δχ2(3) = 8.00, p = .046, δcfi = .015, δrmsea = .003. modification indices suggested to freely estimate the empathy-aggression link for the secure attachment profile group. the resulting partial constrained model was sufficiently supported when compared to the initial model, δχ2(2) = 0.43, p = .80, δcfi = .006, δrmsea = -.003. again, this suggested the moderating role of the attachment style profile in the relation between empathy and aggression, with empathy significantly and negatively related to aggression in the secure attachment style group, but with no significant relation to aggression in any of the other groups (see figure 5). also, being female was significantly linked to lower aggression in the preoccupied, secure, and fearful groups, and was significantly associated with higher empathy in the preoccupied group but with lower empathy in the fearful group. discussion the current study was aimed at contributing to the knowledge concerning processes leading to aggression. our first aim was to analyse the link between empathy and aggression, starting from the contrasting results found in the literature and trying to clarify them by introducing the possible explaining and moderating role of attachment style. the data substantially confirmed our hypothesis. when considering the association between the two constructs, higher levels of empathy were linked to lower levels of aggression. this result appears in line with the traditional idea that empathy, aggression and attachment style 330 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sharing others’ internal state and vicariously experiencing their distress would encourage supportive behaviours, and discourage aggressive behaviours (vachon et al., 2014). however, the introduction of the attachment style profile as a predictive variable of both empathy and aggression made their association non-significant, supporting the assumption that the negative relation between empathy and aggression might be accounted for by the underlying role of the table 4 correlations for study variables by multi-categorical attachment style profile variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 preoccupied profile 1. personal distress — 2. empathic concern -.22** — 3. perspective taking -.25*** .35*** — 4. irritability -.09 -.08 -.06 — 5. rumination/dissipation -.06 -.09 -.10 .45*** — 6. gender -.11 .08 .17** -.23*** -.13 — 7. age -.01 .03 .01 .13 .17* -.10 — 8. marital status .17* .08 -.01 .06 -.11 -.21** -.19** — 9. school level -.22*** .16* .03 -.04 .05 .13 .14* -.43*** — secure profile 1. personal distress — 2. empathic concern -.27** — 3. perspective taking -.27** .30*** — 4. irritability .12 .07 -.27** — 5. rumination/dissipation -.03 .12 -.03 .32*** — 6. gender .18* -.06 -.02 -.63*** -.21* — 7. age -.08 .03 .09 -.12 .18* -.11 — 8. marital status -.17 -.06 -.10 -.01 -.06 .09 .15 — 9. school level .13 -.07 -.13 -.30*** .08 .25** .22* -.16 — fearful profile 1. personal distress — 2. empathic concern .06 — 3. perspective taking -.12 .17 — 4. irritability -.01 -.05 .16 — 5. rumination/dissipation .10 .05 .06 .27** — 6. gender .20* -.12 -.18 -.25** -.24* — 7. age .00 .15 -.01 .12 .13 -.50*** — 8. marital status -.15 -.20* .02 .28** .44*** -.13 -.22* — 9. school level .04 .07 -.11 .00 -.20* -.14 .05 -.45*** — dismissing profile 1. personal distress — 2. empathic concern -.23* — 3. perspective taking -.29** .29** — 4. irritability .05 .01 .12 — 5. rumination/dissipation .10 -.05 .14 .26* — 6. gender .19 .02 -.18 -.05 -.04 — 7. age -.12 .02 .32** .32** .13 -.47*** — 8. marital status .13 .03 -.10 .02 .43*** -.04 .21* — 9. school level -.18 -.15 -.11 -.58*** -.50*** -.12 -.33** -.39*** — *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 331 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment style. results highlighted that, generally, securely attached individuals show higher empathy and lower aggressiveness than insecure individuals regardless of their type of insecure attachment style (preoccupied, fearful, or dismissing). within insecurely attached individuals, no differences in the level of empathy were found, whereas fearful attached individuals showed higher aggressiveness than the preoccupied and dismissing individuals. this finding may be explained in light of the negative model of self and others that characterize the fearful individuals, which has the consequence of producing the need for keeping the others at distance, even using aggressiveness, to avoid intimacy and rejection episodes (péloquin et al., 2011) furthermore, to better understand the potential mechanism through which attachment may influence the relation between empathy and aggression, we examined how different attachment style profiles may moderate their association, considering two general groups of secure and insecure people, but also distinguishing among specific groups of insecurely attached individuals, namely preoccupied, fearful and dismissing. results showed that the secure attachment style group was characterized by a negative association between empathy and aggression, but no significant association was evidenced in the general or specific insecure groups. this difference could be a consequence of how generally insecure people feel both concerning self and others: negative models of self and/or others could involve feelings of discomfort toward others, as well as mixed feelings of need for approval and fear of being abandoned; this might be figure 5 estimated multiple-group structural equation with the multi-categorical attachment style profile as the grouping variable note. maximum likelihood standardized coefficients are shown. non-significant pathways for gender and residuals are not shown for brevity. solid lines represent significant pathways, dashed lines are nonsignificant. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. empathy, aggression and attachment style 332 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ related to greater levels of aggressive behaviour to avoid potential close relationships or rejection events and could make it difficult to understand the thoughts and the real intentions of others. according to mikulincer and shaver (2007), individuals with a secure attachment may easily draw on the entirety of their psychological resources to maintain positive relationships; on the contrary, people with insecure attachment may be completely absorbed by their needs, consuming those attentional and caring resources that can be addressed to others. consequently, empathy appears to be a well-rooted resource for securely attached individuals in deterring aggressive behaviour, but not for insecure people. additionally, attachment theory suggests that secure individuals, who can trust, seek advice from, and communicate openly with others may show better reactions than insecure individuals when experiencing others’ emotional states. security promotes emotion regulation, a key capacity underlying empathic concern, and it is more likely that, when exposed to others’ feelings, secure individuals can vicariously feel them, without distress and anxiety, so reducing their aggressive tendency (calkins & leerkes, 2011; eisenberg, 2000). contrariwise, insecure individuals are more likely to lack coping skills and abilities to regulate their emotions when exposed to other emotional states: for example, they might feel distressed and their empathic ability would not be able to limit their aggression tendencies, probably related to high personal physiological arousal and hyperactivation of emotionality (stern & cassidy, 2018). as mentioned, the present research provides a contribution that opens new perspectives in the existing literature about the relationship between empathy and aggression, but it is not without limits. first, the research design limits the generalizability of the results, given that it is a cross-sectional study. longitudinal studies would have allowed obtaining more conclusive results both in terms of cause and effect and in terms of long-term consequences of attachment style on the relationships between empathy and aggression. furthermore, the study was based only on self-report measures, and this may have produced an overestimation/un­ derestimation of the studied relationships. in this line, vachon et al. (2014) suggested that the study of the relation between empathy and aggression would be more valid if direct detection tools, such as observation, were used. additionally, even if we forced cluster analysis on asq scores to obtain theoretically guided insecure attachment styles, our findings seem to suggest that asq is more suitable for pondering only a general group of insecurely attached adults (e.g., fuchshuber et al., 2018). maybe, the use of more discriminant measures, such as the adult attachment interview (george, kaplan, & main, 1985), would have given us the chance to detect specific differences in aggression management within insecurely attached individuals, which have not emerged in our study. considering these differences would be one of the most interesting advancements in future research. despite these limitations, our study has practical implications. it meets the urgent need for both new comprehensive knowledge of the psychological processes involved in reducing/exacerbating aggression and the development of empir­ ically informed strategies to guarantee more successful prevention programmes (moeller, 2001). the improvement of empathic skills is often an essential part of educational programmes for reducing aggressive and antisocial behaviour. however, these interventions often neglect the relevance of other aspects and personal characteristics. the awareness that attachment style, whose foundations are structured in early childhood, can intervene in explaining and moderating the effect of empathy on aggression would facilitate the development of more wide-ranging programmes aimed at promoting not only the construction of positive attachment relationships starting from childhood but also a work of de-structuring the dysfunctional internal working models toward re-structuring new and more functional ones. in this line, specific support interventions based on strengthening the personal abilities to manage emotions and relationships, rather than actions aimed at repairing aggressive behaviours, would be crucial to improve the quality of life of individuals with fewer psychological resources, such as those insecurely attached. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. lo cricchio, musso, lo coco et al. 333 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 319–336 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4509 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references ainsworth, m. d. s., blehar, m. c., waters, e., & wall, s. 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(2014). the (non)relation between empathy and aggression: surprising findings from a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 140(3), 751–773. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035236 van der mark, i. l., van ijzendoorn, m. h., & bakermans-kranenburg, m. j. (2002). development of empathy in girls during the second year of life: associations with parenting, attachment, and temperament. social development, 11(4), 451–468. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00210 van hazebroek, b. c. m., olthof, t., & goossens, f. a. (2017). predicting aggression in adolescence: the interrelation between (a lack of) empathy and social goals. aggressive behavior, 43(2), 204–214. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21675 viola, m. m., musso, p., ingoglia, s., lo coco, a., & inguglia, c. (2017). relationships between career indecision, search for work selfefficacy, and psychological well-being in italian never-employed young adults. europe’s journal of psychology, 13(2), 231–250. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 about the authors maria grazia lo cricchio is assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology. her research areas focus on autonomy development, immigration, aggressive behaviors, parenting, and adolescents’ adjustment. pasquale musso is assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology. his research areas focus on social develop­ ment of adolescents and emerging adults, especially as related to their positive development, acculturation processes, socio-psycho­ logical adaptation, and mutual intercultural relations. alida lo coco is full professor in developmental and educational psychology. her research areas focus on social and emotional development from childhood to adulthood, socialization practices in immigrant families, and psychological well-being in emerging adults. rosalinda cassibba is full professor in developmental and educational psychology. her research areas focus on attachment, parenting, adopted children and adoptive parents, and psychosocial adaptation along the life span. francesca liga is full professor in developmental and educational psychology. her research areas focus on different aspects of developmental psychology, particularly regarding risk and protective factors in adolescence and the process of adolescents’ individuation, as well as the psychological well-being in emerging adults. empathy, aggression and attachment style 336 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035236 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00210 https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21675 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ empathy, aggression and attachment style (introduction) the relation between empathy and aggression the role of attachment style method participants procedure measures results descriptive statistics attachment style profiles association between empathy and aggression the moderating model discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors expressive suppression within task-oriented dyads: the moderating role of power research reports expressive suppression within task-oriented dyads: the moderating role of power stefania balzarotti* a, stefano cesana a, federica biassoni a, maria r. ciceri a † [a] department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. †author deceased prior to publication of this paper. abstract although research has so far consistently revealed that using suppression to regulate emotions has adverse personal and social effects, it has been argued that suppression may be less detrimental within non-close relationships. in the present work, we examined the effects of experimentally induced suppression on expressive behavior, emotional experience, and social outcomes within task-oriented interactions between individuals randomly assigned to high/low vs. equal power positions. eighty-eight participants were randomly paired with a partner of the same gender (forty-four dyads). after being randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions created to manipulate suppression use and power, each dyad was asked to complete two problem-solving tasks. the results showed that the participants who were assigned to the subordinate (low-power) role and who used suppression to regulate their emotions reported more negative emotional experience than did individuals assigned to equal-power roles, as well as more inauthenticity and diminished feelings of rapport compared to subordinates who freely expressed their feelings. moreover, we found that the use of suppression also influenced participants assigned to the manager (high-power) role, as they exhibited less positive behavior, reported less positive experience and lower feelings of rapport when interacting with a partner asked to suppress. when individuals were assigned to equal power roles, the participants instructed to use suppression reported lower levels of positive emotions than did their partners as well as higher feelings of inauthenticity compared to uninstructed participants. overall, these findings seem to suggest that suppression may impair task-oriented interactions between high/low power individuals more than interactions between individuals sharing equal power. keywords: expressive suppression, nonverbal behavior, emotional experience, power europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 received: 2019-03-12. accepted: 2020-01-27. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, largo gemelli 1, 20123 milano, italia. e-mail: stefania.balzarotti@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. a common strategy people use to regulate their emotions is expressive suppression, which refers to the attempt to hide and avoid the outward display of positive and negative feelings (butler et al., 2003; gross, 1998). compared to other strategies, suppression has been considered as a more interpersonal form of emotion regulation, since it directly targets outer expressive behavior which is visible to others (impett et al., 2012). this consideration has led researchers to study the implications that using this strategy may have for the individual’s social functioning (butler et al., 2003; english & john, 2013; english, john, & gross, 2013; english, john, srivastava, & gross, 2012; gross & john, 2003; impett et al., 2012; srivastava, tamir, mcgonigal, john, & gross, 2009; velotti et al., 2016). overall, existing evidence suggests that hiding feelings has a number europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of negative side effects on relationships, leading individuals to experience higher inauthenticity, less social support, and lower social satisfaction (gross & john, 2003). similarly, partners of habitual suppressors report lower relationship closeness and interpersonal warmth (english et al., 2012; srivastava et al., 2009). most research has adopted an individual-difference, correlational approach; however, a few studies using experimental manipulation have also found harmful effects such as lower perceived responsiveness and less willingness to form a friendship (butler et al., 2003). although these studies have deepened our understanding of the effects that concealing feelings may have on social functioning, research has so far mainly focused on close relationships (english & john 2013; english et al., 2012; gross & john, 2003; impett et al., 2014; le & impett, 2013; srivastava et al., 2009; velotti et al., 2016) and it is thus still unclear whether these detrimental social outcomes generalize to other types of social contexts. people may choose to inhibit their emotional reactions when dealing with various types of social partners, including strangers or casual acquaintances, and it has been proposed that suppression use may not impair non-close relationships or interactions that do not involve intimacy and emotional disclosure (english et al., 2013). also, other prevalent features of social relationships such as power differences may moderate suppression effects. in attempting to address these gaps, the current study adds to the existing literature in two ways. first, we examined the social outcomes of instructed suppression within task-focused dyads, that is, interactions that do not involve intimacy and emotional sharing. second, we examine whether power differences moderate these social outcomes by using randomly assigned positions of power. the study takes into account the consequences for both the regulator and his or her partner in terms of nonverbal expressive behavior, emotional experience, and social outcomes (e.g., mutual liking, and feelings of rapport). expressive suppression and its consequences for the individual’s social functioning within the theoretical framework of the process model of emotion regulation (gross, 2001, 2015), expressive suppression has been conceptualized as belonging to the so-called category of ‘response-focused’ strategies. because they intervene late in the emotion generation process, these strategies are thought to be more resource demanding and generally less effective at modulating emotion compared to other forms of regulation (for a review, see gross, 2007). consistent with this theoretical prediction, many studies have shown that the use of suppression effectively reduces the outward display, but not the subjective experience of negative emotion (gross, 1998). moreover, suppression has been associated with adverse side effects such as increased physiological arousal (e.g., gross, 1998), impaired memory (e.g., richards & gross, 1999), and negative social effects (e.g., butler et al., 2003). among the detrimental consequences of suppression for the individual’s psychological functioning, much attention has been given to its social implications. suppression directly targets outward expressive behavior, which is considered to be critical to the regulation of social interactions (e.g., keltner & kring, 1998; van kleef, 2009). several correlational studies have investigated the social consequences of habitually using suppression across various domains of social functioning in everyday life; these studies have found that habitual suppression is associated with less social support, less relationship closeness, and lower relationship satisfaction (e.g., english & john, 2013; english et al., 2012; gross & john, 2003; srivastava et al., 2009; velotti et al., 2016). moreover, habitual suppression has been linked to reduced feelings of subjective authenticity (gross & john, emotional suppression and power 562 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2003), which has been found to mediate the association of this regulatory strategy with measures of social functioning (english & john, 2013; impett et al., 2012). comparatively fewer studies have examined the social costs of expressive suppression using an experimental paradigm (i.e., instructing participants to suppress their emotions). while correlational studies have focused on close relationships (e.g., spouses, friends; gross & john, 2003; velotti et al., 2016), experimental research has manipulated suppression to test the effects of this strategy on social exchanges among relative strangers to eventually understand its consequences on relationship formation. it has been hypothesized that suppression may disrupt two main processes within face-to-face interactions (butler et al., 2003). first, it may interfere with interpersonal coordination in the service of accomplishing various joint goals by reducing responsive behavior; second, it may impair partners’ negotiation of interpersonal distance and intimacy by inhibiting emotional expressive cues. this can lead the partners to experience distress, to have difficulties in accomplishing joint tasks, to feel less connected and less willing to form a friendship with the suppressing individual. existing evidence supports these predictions. for instance, butler et al. (2003) asked pairs of previously unacquainted women to discuss their thoughts and feelings after viewing an upsetting film. unbeknownst to the partner, one person in each dyad was asked to hide her emotional reactions. the results showed that the participants instructed to suppress their emotions exhibited less responsive behavior, higher distraction, and increased blood pressure (i.e., higher stress) during the conversation than did the control participants. moreover, they reported less positive and more negative emotions about the interaction. similarly, the partners of suppressors showed higher blood pressure during the conversation than did controls; moreover, they also reported less rapport and less willingness to form a friendship. using a similar procedure, other studies have found that instructed suppressors were judged as more hostile and withdrawn by their partners compared to controls (butler, lee, & gross, 2007) and that suppression use had contagious interpersonal effects, leading partners of suppressors to exhibit less positive and less negative expressive behavior (butler, gross, & barnard, 2014). finally, lebowitz and dovidio (2015) found that participants instructed to suppress while reading information about the distress and misfortune of a fictitious individual reported less empathic concern. potential moderators of social consequences of suppression thus far, both experimental and correlational studies have consistently revealed that using suppression to regulate emotions leads to adverse social effects. however, it has been argued that these social outcomes may vary according to the type of social context (e.g., butler et al., 2003; clark & finkel, 2005; english et al., 2013). close vs. non-close relationships among the characteristics that differentiate individuals’ social relationships, most researchers have focused on closeness, advancing the idea that expressive suppression may especially impair the development and maintenance of close relationships, while having less significant effects on other types of interactions and relationships in which mutual self-disclosure and intimacy are not expected (english et al., 2013). for instance, correlational studies examining the link between habitual suppression and peer-rated social functioning have shown that this strategy is associated with peer reports of reduced interpersonal warmth and closeness to others, whereas it does not significantly impact the sociometric standing (e.g., likability, social status) of the regulator (english et al., 2013; gross & john, 2003; srivastava et al., 2009). this result suggests that, although balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 563 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it impairs the formation of close bonds, suppression does not hinder the individual’s chance to make a positive impression on others or to achieve social status (fatigante et al., 2016). along with this line of reasoning, there is evidence that people are less willing to display their emotions and report less liking for partners who do so within exchange (e.g., business) relationships compared to communal relationships (e.g., friends, romantic partners; clark & finkel, 2005; clark & taraban, 1991). in exchange relationships, individuals expect an immediate reciprocation of benefits (rather than being concerned for the other’s needs), and thus interpersonal distance is seen as normative or desirable (clark & mills, 1979). nevertheless, experimental studies directly examining the social outcomes of suppression have found that concealing feelings leads to various detrimental consequences (e.g., greater stress, lower feelings of rapport) for both the regulator and his or her partner even in interactions between unacquainted individuals (butler et al., 2003, 2007), thus suggesting that suppression may impair social interactions more broadly. this research, however, has used tasks that require emotional self-disclosure between the partners, such as talking about one’s own emotions in response to a shared negative event. it is therefore still unclear whether the results may extend to task-oriented dyads (or groups; gross, guerrero, & alberts, 2004) ‒ that is, to situations in which unacquainted individuals are asked to accomplish a joint task that does not entail any emotional content. overall, more experimental research is needed to understand the social consequences of suppression in non-close relationships. power disparity a second characteristic of human relationships that may moderate the social effects of suppression is power, which has been broadly defined as the influence that an individual exerts over other people through the allocation of resources and punishments (anderson & berdahl, 2002; fiske, 1993; kelley & thibaut, 1978; van kleef, de dreu, pietroni, & manstead, 2006). past evidence suggests that power affects a wide range of social behaviors, including emotional expression. for instance, people with low power have been found to talk less (dovidio, brown, heltman, ellyson, & keating, 1988), to exhibit more inhibitive nonverbal behavior (ellyson & dovidio, 1985), and to engage in more facial actions that inhibit emotional displays such as lip press (keltner, young, heerey, oemig, & monarch, 1998), compared to people with high power. by contrast, powerholders tend to express their emotions more (hecht & lafrance, 1998) and to pay less attention to others (fiske, 1993; goodwin, operario, & fiske, 1998; hall, carter, & horgan, 2001; keltner & robinson, 1996, 1997). two main theories have been formulated about power. first, the approach-inhibition theory of power (keltner, gruenfeld, & anderson, 2003) has posited that having high power activates the behavioral approach system (reflecting motivation to respond to and approach potentially rewarding situations), while having low power activates the inhibition system (which reflects motivation to withdraw from potential threats or punishments). thus, compared to powerholders, people with low power are expected to be more inhibited in the expression of their opinions in order to avoid conflicts (anderson & berdahl, 2002). this theory also predicts that people with low power will experience and express more negative and less positive affect than will people with high power (e.g., berdahl & martorana, 2006; langner & keltner, 2008). second, theorists have more recently posited that power creates social distance (magee & smith, 2013; smith & trope, 2006), such that individuals within power relationships experience more social distance from each other (i.e., lower closeness) than do people within symmetrically dependent relationships. according to this emotional suppression and power 564 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ approach, individuals are motivated to affiliate with each other and have expectations of closeness when their relationship is characterized by equal power and shared control over resources. by contrast, within power relationships, the highand low-power parties will differ (lammers, galinsky, gordijn, & otten, 2012): because power-holders are less dependent on their low-power counterparts to satisfy their goals, they will be less motivated to affiliate and will expect efforts to approach and affiliate from their low-power counterparts; thus, they will experience higher social distance than low-power individuals. in this view, power-holders are expected to be less concerned with and less responsive to others’ mental states, as well as less accurate in recognizing others’ emotions. thus far, little research has examined the moderating role of power differences on the affective and social consequences of suppression, and the few available results are mixed. using an experience sampling design, catterson et al. (2017) found that, in daily life, individuals were more likely to rely on suppression in situations in which they feel low in social hierarchy; moreover, in such situations, the negative consequences of the use of this regulatory strategy on well-being were reduced (though still significant). moreover, suppression and social hierarchy were negatively associated. however, these findings were not replicated within a different cultural context (i.e., poland; pilch et al., 2018), as in this research no significant interaction between suppression and social hierarchy emerged in the prediction of individuals’ well-being. finally, in a correlational study examining the consequences of emotion regulation strategies for school directors’ (leaders) and teachers’ (subordinates) work-related outcomes, kafetsios et al. (2012) found that suppression use in subordinates was related to lower job satisfaction and higher to negative affect, thus indicating that the use of this strategy may have negative affective consequences for low-power individuals. the present study the present study examined the effects of instructed suppression on emotional expressive behavior, emotional experience, and social aspects (e.g., status, feelings of rapport, mutual liking) within task-oriented interactions between individuals randomly assigned to high/low vs. equal power positions. while existing research examining the social consequences of expressive suppression has mostly targeted close relationships, the present study (1) focuses on temporary task-oriented dyads (i.e., unacquainted dyads assigned to work on a task; gross et al., 2004; meyerson, weick, & kramer, 1996) rather than on participants required to share their emotions, and (2) examines the potential moderating effect of power. although our experimental task did not include any emotional content, we nonetheless expected that emotions would be generated during the interactions. first, dyads were asked to complete problem-solving tasks, which can generate both positive and negative feelings (e.g., in response to failure or success; e.g., nummenmaa & niemi, 2004). second, conflict and disagreement can easily arise within interactions between temporary dyads, in which members who have never worked together are asked to complete a task over a limited period of time (gross et al., 2004). the study adopted a dyadic design, as participants were paired to form dyads. three variables were manipulated by giving instructions to participants: suppression use (butler et al., 2003), power (galinsky, gruenfeld, & magee, 2003), and role. in the suppression condition, unbeknownst to the partner, one member of the dyad was asked to conceal the outward display of his or her emotions; in the uninstructed (control) condition, both members of the dyad were free to respond as they typically would. concerning power and role, in the balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 565 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ power disparity condition, participants were randomly assigned to either a manager (high-power) or subordinate (low-power) role, while in the equal power (control) condition, the members of the dyad were instructed to cooperate as peers. for the purpose of simplifying our design, only subordinates received the suppression instructions in the power disparity condition. whereas suppression and power were manipulated at the dyad level, role was manipulated at the individual level. thus, each participant was assigned to one of following roles: manager (interacting with either an instructed or uninstructed subordinate), subordinate (either receiving instructions to suppress or acting spontaneously), or cooperator (either receiving instructions to suppress or free to express his or her emotional reactions; either interacting either with an instructed or uninstructed partner). the study examined multiple outcomes of suppression use. specifically, we considered (a) expressive behavior by using video-coded data (i.e., positive and negative emotional expressions), (b) self-reported emotions experienced during the interaction, and (c) participants’ ratings of social outcomes (i.e., social status, feelings of inauthenticity during the interaction, feelings of rapport, mutual liking). we limited our sample to same-sex dyads to simplify our design (butler et al., 2003) and measured trait suppression and dominance ‒ a personality trait associated with power, as people high in dominance have been shown to attain more power in dyadic interactions with strangers (anderson & berdahl, 2002). drawing from prior experimental studies employing unacquainted dyads (butler et al., 2003), we hypothesized that the use of suppression would also lead to detrimental affective and social consequences in the context of task-focused dyads. in more detail, concerning the personal consequences of suppression for the regulators: h1. we expected that suppression would reduce regulators’ positive and negative expressivity. thus, we hypothesized that participants instructed to suppress would show less positive and less negative emotional behavior compared to (h1a) uninstructed participants as well as (h1b) to regulators’ partners in both the disparity and equal power conditions. h2. we predicted that participants instructed to suppress would report less positive and more negative emotional experience compared to (h2a) uninstructed participants as well as (h2b) to regulators’ partners in both the power disparity and equal power conditions. h3. we expected that regulators would report heightened feelings of inauthenticity compared to (h3a) uninstructed participants and (h3b) to their partners. h4. finally, concerning the moderating role of power, we expected that suppression would have more harmful consequences for participants assigned to the low-power role than for participants in the equal power condition. thus, we hypothesized that participants instructed to suppress in the power disparity condition (subordinates) would report less positive and more negative emotional experience (h4a), as well as higher inauthenticity (h4b) compared to participants asked to suppress in the equal power condition (cooperators). another group of hypotheses concerned the consequences of suppression for the partners of the regulators. we expected that the partners of participants asked to suppress: h5. would display less positive and more negative emotional behavior than would the partners of uninstructed participants; emotional suppression and power 566 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h6. would report less positive and more negative emotional experience compared to their counterparts in the no-suppression (control) condition; h7. would report diminished feelings of rapport (h7a) and mutual linking (h7b) compared to their counterparts in the no-suppression (control) condition. by contrast, we did not expect to find any effect of suppression on social status (h7c; e.g., english et al., 2013). h8. concerning the moderating role of power, we expected that suppression would affect the partners of instructed participants in the equal power condition more than their counterparts assigned to the high-power role, as powerholders are posited to experience higher social distance and to pay less attention to others’ emotional states (magee & smith, 2013). thus, we expected that the partners of suppressors in the equal power condition (cooperators) would show less positive and more negative expressive behavior (h8a) compared to the partners of suppressors in the power disparity condition (managers). likewise, we predicted that they would report less positive and more negative emotional experience (h8b), as well as diminished feelings of rapport (h8c) and mutual linking (h8d) compared to the partners of suppressors in the power disparity condition (managers). method participants the sample consisted of 88 participants, mage = 23.44, sd = 3.63; age range: 20-28; 62.5% females. italian undergraduate students (in their first, second, and third year of study) constituted 89% of the sample (42% psychology, 7% medicine, 6% political science, 6% foreign languages, 6% media studies, 5% economy, 2% law, 2% architecture, 2% natural sciences, 2% philosophy, 2% engineering, 7% others), while the remaining 11% of participants were employed and had achieved a high school degree or a university bachelor degree. all participants were caucasian. the participants were volunteers and received no compensation for their participation in the study. procedure approximately half of the undergraduate students were recruited during class lessons (after asking the class professor for cooperation and permission, researchers briefly explained the project and asked students whether they were willing to participate). other participants were recruited using an announcement on facebook. upon giving their consent, participants were asked to provide their email address, which the researchers later used to send them a questionnaire package (including the questionnaires to measure trait suppression and dominance), which they were asked to fill out and send back to the researchers. participants were randomly paired with a partner of the same gender (for a total of 44 dyads) and individually contacted by email to arrange an appointment to come to the university laboratories. dyads were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions (see figure 1). the procedure for manipulating power and role were adapted from galinsky et al. (2003), while the instructions used to manipulate expressive suppression were adapted from gross (1998). balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 567 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the figure displays the procedure used in the study for each experimental condition to which dyads were randomly assigned. condition 1 (power disparity, expressive suppression) unacquainted pairs of participants were introduced to each other (after the experimenter verified that they had not met before). they were seated approximately 1 meter apart on either side of a rectangular desk and were emotional suppression and power 568 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ informed that the session would be videotaped. the experimenter explained that the goal of the research was to better understand people’s problem-solving and reasoning abilities and asked the participants to fill out a consent form and to respond to the items of the cognitive estimation test (della sala, macpherson, phillips, sacco, & spinnler, 2003). after the questionnaires were completed, the experimenter informed the participants that they would be doing two problem-solving tasks and that they would win chocolate candies for each problem they were able to solve. the experimenter explained that the tasks required one person to be the manager and the other to be the subordinate, adding that their responses on the cognitive estimation test would be used to assign one of them to the role of manager. the experimenter then left the room to mark the test answers. in reality, the roles of manager and subordinate were randomly assigned before the participants arrived. after a few minutes, the experimenter came back and asked the participant assigned to be the subordinate to go into a separate room, ostensibly because of a problem with reading his or her handwriting. while in this second room, the subordinate was instructed to use expressive suppression as a strategy to regulate and hide his or her emotional reactions. specifically, he or she read the following instructions: dear collaborator: we ask you not to show your emotional reactions (either positive or negative) when you are working with your partner to solve the two problem tasks. please try your best not to let your feelings show. in other words, as long as you and your partner are together, please try to behave such that someone watching you would not know that you are feeling anything at all. after reading these instructions, the experimenter and the participant returned to the previous room and the experimenter announced which of the participants had been selected to be the manager. the manager and the subordinate were given printed instructions about their role and were asked to read them aloud. the ‘manager’ instructions emphasized that he or she would have complete control over the work process and the division of rewards. specifically, the instructions were as follows: dear collaborator: as manager, you are in charge of directing the subordinate in solving the problem tasks. you will decide how to structure the solving process and you will have the last word on the responses to the task questions. if you and the subordinate disagree, you can tell the subordinate, “because i am the manager and it’s up to me to make decisions, we will give the answer that i believe is the correct one”. your goal is to solve the highest number of problems possible. moreover, at the end of each task, you are in charge of determining the rewards you and the subordinate will receive. that is, you will decide how the chocolate candies will be divided between you and the subordinate, based on your evaluation of the quality of the subordinate’s work. for instance, you can decide to reward good-quality work or to punish a poor contribution. the ‘subordinate’ instructions emphasized that he or she would have no control over how the work was done or the divisions of reward. specifically, the instructions were as follows: dear collaborator: as subordinate, you will have the responsibility of carrying out the tasks according to instructions given to you by your manager. you will have to contribute to solving the tasks but keep in mind that the last word will be up to the manager. your goal is to solve the highest number of problems possible. moreover, at the end of each task, the manager will be in charge of determining the rewards you will receive. that is, he or she will decide how the chocolate candies will be divided between the two of you, based on his or her evaluation of the quality of your work. balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 569 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ condition 2 (power disparity, free expression) in this condition, the procedure was the same as in condition 1, with the exception that the subordinate was not asked to temporarily leave the room and was not instructed to suppress his or her emotional reactions. condition 3 (equal power, expressive suppression) before the participants arrived, one of them was randomly assigned to receive the suppression instructions. upon arrival, they were accompanied in two different rooms and were asked to wait until everything was ready for the session. in the meantime, both participants were asked to read and fill out the consent form. the participant assigned to the suppression condition was also instructed to use expressive suppression as a strategy to regulate and hide his or her emotional reactions using the same instructions as in condition 1. then, both participants were accompanied in the same room and were introduced to each other. the experimenter asked them to collaborate to solve a number of task problems. specifically, both participants read the following instructions: dear collaborator: you are asked to collaborate with your partner to carry out the tasks. as peers, you will decide together how to structure the process and you will have to agree about which is the correct answer to give. you can use sentences like “i think that this is the correct response, do you agree?” your common goal is to solve the highest number of problems as possible. at the end of each task, the chocolate candies you have won will be equally divided between you. condition 4 (equal power, free expression) in this condition, the procedure was the same as in condition 3, with the exception that neither of the participants was instructed to suppress his or her emotional reactions. after the participants received the instructions, they were asked to complete the positive and negative affect schedule (panas; terracciano et al., 2003; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) to test possible differences among conditions in the participants’ baseline emotional state. the participants were then given a sheet with the rules of the two problem-solving tasks. in the power disparity conditions, the manager was in charge of reading the rules first and then explaining them to the subordinate; in the equal power conditions, the participants read the instruction sheet together. the first task consisted of an adapted version of the remote association test (rat; mednick, 1962). the rat is a creative, problem solving task measuring people’s ability to connect remote concepts to find a correct solution (dewhurst, thorley, hammond, & ormerod, 2011; subramaniam, kounios, parrish, & jung-beeman, 2009; taft & rossiter, 1966). the participants were presented with nine groups of three words each and were asked to find a fourth word semantically connected to them (e.g., light, birthday, church = candle). participants were given a time of 2 minutes for each group of words. the second task consisted in the tangram game, in which the players are asked to arrange seven cards of different shapes and sizes so that they match specified templates. the tangram is a visual, rather than verbal, problem-solving task which has been previously used in experimental research (e.g., langens & mörth, 2003; saleem, anderson, & barlett, 2015). in this study, the participants were given three target templates (e.g., a rabbit) and ten minutes to solve each of them. they received three points (and three chocolate candies) for each correct solution. half of the dyads were asked to solve the rat first, while the other half were first presented with the tangram game. emotional suppression and power 570 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ after completing the activities, the participants received their rewards (in conditions 1 and 2, the manager decided how many candies the subordinate received). they were then asked to individually answer a questionnaire including post-test measures. finally, they were debriefed about the goals of the study and thanked for their participation. measures pre-test questionnaire expressive suppression — the four-item scale of the emotion regulation questionnaire (erq; balzarotti, 2019; balzarotti, john, & gross, 2010; gross & john, 2003) was used to assess participants’ habitual use of expressive suppression (e.g., “i control my emotions by not expressing them”). the items are rated on a likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). in this study, cronbach’s alpha was .75. dominance — dominance was assessed using the big five adjectives questionnaire (bfa; barbaranelli, steca, & caprara, 2002). this questionnaire is used to assess the degree to which respondents believe that each of 175 adjectives describes their personality, measured on a likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). in this study, we considered only the 10 adjectives (a sum score was computed) referring to the sub-dimension of dominance (α = .81). pre-test emotional state — the panas (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) comprises a 10-item negative affect (na) scale (including adjectives such as afraid, distressed, and nervous) and a 10-item positive affect (pa) scale (including adjectives such as active, determined, and strong). respondents rate the extent to which they usually experience each term on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). the italian adaptation of the panas (terracciano et al., 2003) has demonstrated robust psychometric properties. in this study, cronbach’s α were = .84 for pa and α = .82 for na. expressive behavior expressive behavior was recorded during each session. two synchronized jvc video cameras were used, with each camera focused on one participant’s face and upper torso. the videos were scored for each participants’ emotion expressive behavior using an open-source computer software (virtual dub) allowing for slow-motion (frame by frame) inspection of the videos, and microsoft excel was used to score the presence/absence of behavioral units. a sampling rate of 1 second was used. the coding scheme included the recording of a selection of the main action units of the facial action coding system (facs; ekman, friesen, & hager, 2002). specifically, we considered upper (au1, au2, au4, au5, au6, au7) and lower face action units (au9, au10, au12, au15, au17, au24, au25, au26, au28, au32; balzarotti, piccini, andreoni, & ciceri, 2014). one coder who was trained in the use of the coding scheme coded all videotapes, and another certified facs coder provided reliability ratings on 60 of the 88 recordings (average inter-observer agreement r = .79). both coders were unaware of the experimental condition to which participants were assigned. the coding of a single interaction took approximately 3 hours. after facs coding, a dimensional approach was used so that expressive behaviors (i.e., single aus or combinations) were classified based on their positive or negative valence (mehu & scherer, 2015). each dimension of valence was scored on a three-point scale (from 0 to 2) depending on the intensity of exhibited facial behavior. reliabilities were good (average inter-observer agreement r = .80). mean scores were then computed for balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 571 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ positive and negative expressivityi across the two activities. analyses were conducted on positive and negative expressivity scores (rather than on aus raw frequencies). post-test questionnaire: emotional experience and social outcomes emotional experience — following butler et al. (2003), after the interaction, participants were asked to provide a retrospective report of the emotions that they felt during the interaction. specifically, participants indicated the extent to which they had felt seven negative emotions (i.e., anxiety, sadness, disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, disgust, fear), and seven positive emotions (i.e., tenderness, amusement, happiness, interest, surprise, enjoyment, pride). the categories were derived from the geneva emotion wheel (scherer, 2005). cronbach’s alpha was .70 for the negative emotions scale and .80 for the positive emotions scale. subjective authenticity — the respondents were asked to rate the following statements on a 5-point likert scale: (a) “i felt that i could not express my true self,” (b) “the way i behaved was very different from the way i usually behave,” (c) “i had to become a different person.” cronbach’s alpha for this composite was α = .81. rapport — to assess participants’ evaluation of the quality of the interaction, we used two items from butler et al. (2003): (a) “the interaction was warm and smooth” and (b) “i felt that i ‘clicked’ with my partner.” we also added one ad hoc item (c) “i felt at ease while interacting with my partner.” cronbach’s alpha for this composite was α = .83. mutual liking — the participants’ mutual liking and willingness to form a friendship were assessed with the following questions from butler et al. (2003): (a) “to what extent do you like your partner?” (b) “how well do you think you would get along with your partner in the future?” (c) “to what extent would you be interested in talking to your partner again?” (d) “to what extent is your partner the type of person you could become close friends with?” agreement with these statements was rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). cronbach’s alpha for this composite was α = .84. social status — the participants were asked to assess their partner’s social status using two items adapted from english et al. (2012): (1) “my partner is the kind of person who commands respect” and (2) “my partner is the kind of person who is able to influence others.’’ agreement with these statements was rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). pearson correlation was r = .57. analytic strategy as remarked by butler et al. (2003), one characteristic of social interaction is that the responses of the two individuals within a conversational dyad may be correlated and violate assumptions of independence. because of nonindependence, multilevel modelling was run (using spss [version 23]) by means of linear mixed models (lmm; hoffman & rovine, 2007) nesting participants (level 1) within dyads (level 2). following kenny et al. (2006, p. 78) compound symmetry was used to model the covariance between dyad members considering unacquainted pairs of participants as undistinguishable dyads. eight models were run, one for each dependent variable. in each model, suppression (yes vs. no) and power (disparity vs. equal) were included as fixed factors at level two. a third dichotomous variable named role was also included in the model as a fixed factor at level 1 to identify each dyad member (1 = member instructed to be manager/not instructed to suppress; -1 = member instructed to be subordinate/instructed to suppress). emotional suppression and power 572 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the two-way and three-way interactions between the fixed factors were also included in the model. in the equal power, no suppression condition the dyad members were randomly assigned to role. pseudo-r2 was computed as a measure of effect size running an empty model (i.e., no predictors except for the intercept) following kenny et al. (2006, p. 95). type iii tests and parameter estimates of the full models are reported in supplementary materials (see tables s3, s4, s5). bonferroni adjusted pairwise comparisons were used to analyze significant mean differences (spss emmeans compare command). specifically, ‘compare by suppression’ was used to contrast participants asked to use suppression vs. uninstructed participants (h1a, h2a, h3a), as well as partners of participants asked to suppress vs. partners of uninstructed participants (h5, h6, h7). ‘compare by dyad’ was used to contrast dyad members (h1b, h2b, h3b). finally, ‘compare by power’ was used to contrast participants in different power conditions (h4, h8). results preliminary analyses random assignment check we ran a manova to test differences between experimental conditions on trait variables (power x suppression x role). no significant effects emerged on trait suppression (see supplementary materials, table s1). however, despite random assignment, a significant power x role effect emerged for dominance, f(1, 78) = 6.12, p = .016, with participants assigned to the role of managers reporting significantly higher dominance than those assigned to the role of subordinates. thus, grand mean centered trait variables (i.e., trait suppression and dominance) were included as covariates in each model in the main analyses. baseline emotional state no significant differences in baseline emotional state emerged among conditions (see supplementary materials, table s2). duration of the interactions overall, interactions lasted an average of 29 minutes and 50 seconds (sd = 6.05). participants spent more time on the tangram game (m = 19.31, sd = 5.60) than on the rat (m = 10.06, sd = 2.04), f(1, 40) = 100.43, p < .001, η2 = .72. neither suppression, f(1,40) = 1.29, p = .263, nor power, f(1, 40) = 0.63, p = .803, influenced overall duration. main analyses descriptive statistics are reported in table 1. balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 573 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics: means and standard deviations measure suppression control power disparity equal power power disparity equal power manager subordinatea cooperator cooperatora manager subordinate cooperator cooperator m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) m (sd) trait dominance 45.83 (7.95) 38.25 (9.35) 39.50 (7.12) 40.60 (9.83) 46.80 (8.63) 40.60 (9.83) 44.75 (7.49) 45.42 (8.55) suppression 2.67 (0.96) 3.25 (1.80) 4.20 (0.90) 3.47 (1.24) 3.19 (0.76) 2.95 (1.32) 3.14 (1.25) 3.01 (1.13) nonverbal behavior positive 0.69 (0.35) 0.33 (0.31) 1.56 (0.94) 0.40 (0.27) 1.39 (1.34) 1.64 (0.70) 1.54 (0.78) 1.55 (0.55) negative 0.67 (0.45) 0.37 (0.24) 0.72 (0.33) 0.34 (0.15) 0.65 (0.23) 0.95 (0.40) 0.74 (0.36) 0.67(0.26) emotional experience positive emotions 2.59 (0.79) 2.61 (0.69) 3.18 (0.74) 2.55 (0.55) 3.42 (0.60) 2.70 (0.33) 3.00 (0.92) 2.94 (0.73) negative emotions 1.55 (0.44) 2.23 (0.80) 1.52 (0.50) 1.70 (0.72) 1.50 (0.54) 2.00 (0.65) 1.53 (0.33) 1.61 (0.38) social outcomes status 3.58 (1.04) 3.21 (0.62) 3.55 (0.64) 3.30 (0.59) 3.70 (0.54) 3.40 (0.81) 3.46 (0.58) 3.87 (0.56) inauthenticity 1.50 (0.64) 3.17 (1.34) 1.63 (0.55) 2.33 (1.27) 1.40 (0.64) 1.40 (0.41) 1.50 (0.50) 1.44 (0.48) rapport 3.47 (0.67) 3.36 (0.85) 3.77 (1.01) 3.43 (1.03) 4.17 (0.64) 4.13 (0.74) 3.75 (0.75) 3.87 (0.57) mutual liking 3.35 (0.73) 3.25 (0.61) 3.55 (0.44) 3.72 (0.90) 3.45 (0.45) 3.55 (0.66) 3.48 (0.43) 3.38 (0.89) aparticipant receiving suppression instructions. positive and negative expressive behavior the results showed that, consistent with our hypothesis (h1a), participants instructed to suppress showed less positive behavior than did uninstructed participants both in the power disparity, mdiff = 1.30, se = 0.30, p < .001, 95% ci [0.71, 1.90], and in the equal power condition, mdiff = 1.13, se = 0.30, p < .001, 95% ci [0.54, 1.72]. likewise, participants instructed to suppress showed less negative behavior than did participants who received no instructions in both the power disparity, mdiff = 0.58, se = 0.133, p < .001, 95% ci [0.31, 0.84], and equal power condition, mdiff = 0.33, se = 0.133, p = .016, 95% ci [0.06, 0.59]. moreover (h1b), instructed participants showed significantly less positive, mdiff = 1.22, se = 0.22, p < .001, 95% ci [0.77, 1.66], and less negative behavior, mdiff = 0.40, se = 0.12, p = .002, 95% ci [0.16, 0.64], than did their partners in the equal power condition; by contrast, in the power disparity condition, participants instructed to suppress showed less negative expressive behavior than did their partners, mdiff = 0.30, se = 0.12, p = .011, 95% ci [0.07, 0.52], but no difference emerged in positive expressivity, mdiff = 0.37, se = 0.21, p = .085. thus, this hypothesis was partially confirmed. the results also indicated that suppression affected the number of positive, but not of negative expressions displayed by the partners of suppressors in the power disparity condition (h5). specifically, managers in the suppression condition showed less positive behavior compared to managers interacting with uninstructed subordinates, mdiff = 0.78, se = 0.30, p = .011, 95% ci [0.18, 1.37], while no difference in outward positive expressions emerged between partners of uninstructed and instructed participants in the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.09, se = 0.30, p = .767. also, the partners of suppressors did not exhibit more negative expressions emotional suppression and power 574 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ than did the partners of uninstructed participants in either the power disparity, mdiff = 0.02, se = 0.14, p = .889, or the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.01, se = 0.15, p = .960. concerning the moderating role of power (h8a), managers in the suppression condition showed less positive behavior compared to partners of instructed cooperators, mdiff = 0.99, se = 0.31, p = .002, 95% ci [0.37, 1.60]. these results are shown in figure 2. figure 2. means and significant differences for a) positive and b) negative nonverbal behavior. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. high-low = power disparity condition; equal = equal power condition. member 1 = manager/ cooperator; member 2 = subordinate/cooperator. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. positive and negative emotional experience disgust, fear, and tenderness were excluded from the analyses, as mean scores for these emotions were < 1.5, indicating that most participants rated them as very low. concerning the consequences of suppression for the regulator (h2), no significant differences emerged in positive emotional experience between instructed and uninstructed participants (h2a) in either the power disparity, mdiff = 0.03, se = 0.29, p = .907, or the equal power conditions, mdiff = 0.32, se = 0.29, p = .278. likewise, no difference in negative emotions emerged between instructed and uninstructed participants in either the power disparity, mdiff = 0.12, se = 0.22, p = .414, or the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.18, se = 0.24, p = .442. this hypothesis was thus not confirmed. instructed participants reported lower levels of positive emotions than did their partners (h2b) in the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.70, se = 0.24, p = .006, 95% ci [0.21, 1.19], but not in the power disparity condition, mdiff = 0.19, se = 0.24, p = .447. by contrast, participants instructed to suppress reported a higher rate of negative emotions compared to their partners in the power disparity, mdiff = 0.61, se = 0.19, p = .003, 95% ci [0.23, 1.00], but not in the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.27, se = 0.21, p = .198. concerning the moderating role balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 575 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of power (h4a), instructed subordinated reported more negative emotions compared to instructed cooperators, mdiff = 0.55, se = 0.22, p = .015, 95% ci [0.11, 1.00], but no significant differences were observed in positive emotions, mdiff = 0.15, se = 0.30, p = .613. these hypotheses were thus only partially confirmed. concerning the consequences of suppression for the partners of suppressors, consistent with our hypothesis (h6), managers who interacted with instructed subordinates experienced fewer positive emotions than did managers who interacted with uninstructed subordinates, mdiff = 0.80, se = 0.28, p = .005, 95% ci [0.25, 1.35]. however, no significant difference in positive emotions emerged between partners of instructed and uninstructed cooperators, mdiff = 0.31, se = 0.30, p = .310. likewise, no significant differences in negative emotional experience emerged between the partners of instructed and uninstructed participants in either the power disparity, mdiff = 0.12, se = 0.22, p = .588, or the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.14, se = 0.22, p = .540. concerning the moderating role of power (h8b), partners of instructed cooperators reported higher (rather than lower) positive emotional experience than did managers who interacted with instructed subordinates, mdiff = 0.74, se = 0.29, p = .013, 95% ci [0.16, 1.32]. these results are shown in figure 3. figure 3. means and significant differences (linear mixed models) for (a) positive and (b) negative emotional experience. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. high-low = power disparity condition; equal = equal power condition. member 1 = manager/cooperator; member 2 = subordinate/cooperator. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. social outcomes: authenticity, rapport, mutual liking, and social status concerning subjective authenticity (h3; figure 4a), participants who were asked to suppress reported higher inauthenticity than did uninstructed participants (h3a) in both the power disparity, mdiff = 1.73, se = 0.33, p < .001, 95% ci [1.08, 2.38], and equal power conditions, mdiff = 0.83, se = 0.33, p = .013, 95% ci [0.18, 1.48]. also, instructed participants reported higher inauthenticity than did their partners (h3b) in both the power disparity, mdiff = 1.58, se = 0.32, p < .001, 95% ci [0.98, 2.18], and the equal power conditions, mdiff = 0.79, se = 0.34, p = .017, 95% ci [0.15, 1.43]. finally, subordinates (h4b) reported higher inauthenticity than did instructed co-operators, mdiff = 0.85, se = 0.33, p = .012, 95% ci [0.20, 1.50]. emotional suppression and power 576 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. means and significant differences (linear mixed models) for (a) inauthenticity, (b) feelings of rapport, (c) mutual liking, and (d) social status. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. high-low = power disparity condition; equal = equal power condition. member 1 = manager/cooperator: member 2 = subordinate/cooperator. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. concerning rapport (figure 4b), the hypotheses (h7a) were only partially supported: partners of suppressors reported lower feelings of rapport than did partners of uninstructed participants in the power disparity condition, mdiff = 0.68, se = 0.32, p = .034, 95% ci [.05, 1.31], but not in the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.13, se = 0.32, p = .696. moreover (h8c), no significant difference in rapport emerged between managers of instructed subordinates and their counterparts in the equal power condition, mdiff = 0.43, se = 0.33, p = .200. finally, the results showed that in the power disparity condition instructed participants reported less rapport than did uninstructed participants, mdiff = 0.72, se = 0.31, p = .024, 95% ci [0.10, 1.35]. balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 577 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ concerning mutual liking (figure 4c), no significant effects emerged (see supplementary materials, table s5). the hypotheses (h7b, h8d) were thus not confirmed. finally, concerning status (h7c; figure 4d), the analysis yielded no significant effects, with the exception of trait dominance, β = 0.02, se = 0.009, t = 2.38, p = .019, 95% ci [0.01, 0.04]. the participants reporting higher dominance tended to be perceived by their partners as more able to gain the respect of and influence over others. discussion one common way to regulate one’s emotions is to hold back from showing them. the present study adds to the existing literature investigating how using this regulatory strategy − called expressive suppression − impacts the individuals’ social functioning (e.g., butler et al., 2003, 2007; english et al., 2012). specifically, while previous studies have mostly investigated the consequences of suppression within the context of close relationships, we examined the interpersonal outcomes of instructed suppression within task-oriented dyads (gross et al., 2004), testing whether power differences moderate these effects. temporary task-oriented dyads (or groups) represent a type of social context in which unacquainted individuals are assigned to work together on a task (meyerson et al., 1996), which requires them to engage in cooperative and coordinated activity. concerning the personal consequences of suppression for the regulators (h1-h4), consistent with our hypothesis (h1a), the results showed that the participants asked to suppress exhibited less positive and less negative emotional behavior than did uninstructed participants in both the power disparity and the equal power conditions, thus indicating that the instructions were effective. moreover, consistent with the hypothesis of reduced expressivity (h1b), instructed participants exhibited fewer positive and negative expressions than did their partners, even though the difference in positive expressivity between the two members of the dyad was significant in the equal power condition only. thus, the participants assigned to the low-power role and asked to suppress their emotional reactions showed levels of positive emotional behavior similar to those of their partners assigned to the high-power role. this result seems to indicate that, in the power disparity condition, the use of suppression reduced the number of positive expressions displayed by the regulator as well as by his/her partner. when looking at self-reported emotional experience, our hypotheses (h2) were overall not confirmed. first (h2a), we found no significant differences between instructed and uninstructed participants in terms of self-reported (positive and negative) emotional experience in either the power disparity or the equal power condition; thus, the study failed to replicate the negative impact of suppression on the regulator’s self-reported emotions. this result may be due to the fact that we addressed positive and negative emotions generated by the situation in general (including the emotions elicited by the tasks) rather than specifically asking participants to report the emotions they experienced in response to the interaction with their partner. previous studies (see butler et al., 2003) have also found a significant negative influence of suppression on regulators’ emotional experience, but this influence is limited to the emotions provoked by the (disrupted) interaction with one’s partner. second (h2b), we found that instructed participants reported less positive and more negative emotional experience than did their partners, but this difference was limited to the equal power condition for positive emotions and to the power disparity condition for negative emotions. in other words, participants asked to suppress and to emotional suppression and power 578 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cooperate as peers reported less positive emotional experience than did their partners, while participants asked to suppress and assigned to the low-power role reported more negative emotional experience than did their partners assigned to the high-power role. concerning social outcomes, our hypotheses about inauthenticity were confirmed (h3): overall, regulators reported feeling more inauthentic than did uninstructed participants in both high/low and equal power conditions. this finding extends previous evidence regarding the association of expressive suppression with diminished perceived authenticity in close relationships (english & john, 2013; gross & john, 2003) to the social context of temporary task-oriented dyads. in addition, the results indicated that regulators reported less feelings of rapport than did uninstructed participants in the power disparity condition. finally, our hypothesis concerning the moderating role of power (h4) was only partially confirmed. specifically, we found that instructed participants in the power disparity condition reported higher inauthenticity and more negative emotions than did instructed participants in the equal power condition, thus indicating more detrimental consequences of suppression for the participants assigned to the low-power role. however, no difference emerged in positive emotional experience between the regulators in the power disparity and equal power conditions. concerning the consequences of suppression for the partners of the regulators (h5-h8), our hypotheses were only partially confirmed. we found that (h5) suppression affected the display of positive emotional behavior of the partners of the regulators in the power disparity condition: managers interacting with instructed subordinates exhibited a lower number of positive expressions than did managers interacting with uninstructed subordinates. moreover, the results also showed that the participants assigned to the high-power role reported lower levels of positive emotional experience (h6) as well as lower feelings of rapport (h7a) than did participants assigned to the high-power role interacting with an uninstructed subordinate. however, no significant differences emerged in either negative emotional behavior or negative emotional experience. finally, unlike participants assigned to the role of manager, partners of instructed participants in the equal power condition did not report less positive and more negative affect or less rapport than did partners of uninstructed participants. concerning the hypothesis about the moderating role of power (h8), we found differences between the partners of the regulators in the power disparity condition and the partners of instructed participants in the equal power condition, but not in the expected direction. instead, the participants assigned to the manager role exhibited significantly fewer positive expressions and reported less positive emotional experience than did the partners of suppressors in the equal power condition. thus, although previous literature suggests that powerholders experience higher social distance (magee & smith, 2013) and pay less attention to others (fiske, 1993; goodwin et al., 1998; keltner & robinson, 1996, 1997), in our results managers showed less positive emotional behavior when their subordinates were induced to hide their feelings and reported lower positive emotional experience than partners of instructed cooperators. one possible explanation may be related to violated role expectations (hall et al., 2001): it has been argued that high-power individuals expect low-power individuals to make explicit efforts to affiliate with them, because of the latter’s dependence (magee & smith, 2013). when subordinates are induced to use suppression, however, their reduced expressive behavior may be interpreted by managers as withdrawal and thus as role-incongruent. also, powerholders are motivated to judge their subordinates (our instructions explicitly asked managers to judge their partners’ performance), and this may lead them to be more sensitive to expectancy-disconfirming behaviors (hall et al., 2001). balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 579 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, our findings seem to suggest that the use of suppression to regulate one’s emotions may negatively influence task-oriented interactions between individuals assigned to high and low power positions more than interactions between individuals sharing equal power. although the existing literature has so far suggested that the use of suppression impairs the formation and maintenance of close relationships (e.g., butler et al., 2003; srivastava et al., 2009), our results seem to indicate that suppression may also lead to detrimental consequences for the individual’s social functioning within the context of task-focused dyads − that is, within social contexts that are not characterized by intimacy and closeness. in more detail, we found that the use of suppression as a regulatory strategy may have negative implications for interactions involving social distance: when the low-power participants had to hide their emotional reactions, this led the regulators to report heightened negative emotions, inauthenticity, and lower feelings of rapport. the high-power participants were also affected: participants assigned to the role of manager and asked to interact with a suppressor showed less positive behavior and reported lower positive emotional experience, as well as lower feelings of rapport than did participants assigned to the high-power role interacting with an uninstructed subordinate. in our results, two social outcomes were not affected by the use of suppression as regulatory strategy: sociometric standing and mutual liking. the judgments about one’s ability to influence other people (social status) were influenced by trait dominance only. this result is consistent with prior literature (english et al., 2013; gross & john, 2003; srivastava et al., 2009), which has found no significant effects of suppression on this social outcome. finally, although we found that participants assigned to the roles of subordinates and managers reported lower feelings of rapport when subordinates were experimentally induced to hide their feelings rather than free to express them, no significant effects emerged concerning participants’ reports of mutual liking and willingness to form a friendship. this social aspect was not affected by either suppression or power. one possible explanation for this may be related to the type of social context considered in this study: in temporary task-oriented dyads the relational dimension is minimized (gross et al., 2004), as individuals have never worked together and do not expect to work together again. moreover, the task-oriented nature of the interaction does not entail any form of emotional sharing or disclosure. limitations and future directions although the results of the current study are promising, several limitations should be noted. the first important limitation is the relatively small sample size (du & wang, 2016), which reduced statistical power, making the analyses less able to detect an effect of a small size and increasing the likelihood of incorrectly accepting the null hypothesis. the small sample size may also explain our partial failure in the random assignment of participants to the experimental conditions, as the group of individuals assigned to the role of manager reported higher trait dominance. both trait personality measures, however, were included in the analyses as covariates and the analyses yielded few significant effects. our results, however, should be interpreted with caution and need further replication by future research. second, the use of an experimental paradigm (i.e., instructions, laboratory setting) may limit the generalizability of our results to everyday life. although we believe that the experimental design also represents a strength of the current study, as it allows us to infer causality, further research is needed to further examine the interaction between the use of suppression as a strategy to regulate emotions and individuals’ power differences. for instance, future research could examine the consequences of suppression within dyadic or group social contexts in which individuals share a task (e.g., collective performance, goals) besides social concerns (e.g., emotional suppression and power 580 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationships within the group, cohesion; carron & brawley, 2000) and have more or less uneven power roles (e.g., work groups, sport teams, musical groups; gaggioli et al. 2017; wagstaff, hanton, & fletcher, 2013). a third limitation is our focus on same-sex dyads. although we included both male and female dyads, future work could examine the personal and social consequences of suppression in the context of mixed-sex dyads or groups. also, for the purpose of simplifying our design, subordinates but not managers received instructions to suppress. this choice was based on the fact that most literature examining emotional expression within relationships characterized by power differences (leaders-subordinates) has so far focused on the influence that leader’s emotional displays can exert on subordinate’s mood, motivation, and performance (e.g., sy, côté, & saavedra, 2005; tjosvold, 1984; van kleef et al., 2009), while comparatively little is known about whether subordinate’s emotional displays may affect leader’s mood and behavior. conclusions despite the aforementioned limitations, our research provides important insight about the social consequences of expressive suppression. overall, our findings seem to suggest that – within the social context of task-oriented dyads ‒ suppression may impair task-focused interactions between people with high-low power more than interactions between people sharing equal power. individuals assigned to a low-power role (subordinates) and using suppression to regulate their emotions reported more negative emotional experience than did individuals assigned to equal-power roles, as well as more inauthenticity and diminished feelings of rapport compared to low-power individuals who were free to express their feelings. notably, we found that the use of suppression also influenced their high-power partners (the individuals assigned to the role of manager), who exhibited less positive behavior, and reported less positive experience and lower feelings of rapport. by contrast, suppression had few effects when individuals were assigned to equal power roles: we found that participants asked to suppress in the equal power condition reported less positive experience and heightened feelings of inauthenticity. in sum, these results provide initial promising evidence that ‒ although suppression may be less detrimental in non-close social contexts such as task-oriented dyads than in close relationships, power differences could play a role in moderating its personal and interpersonal negative effects. this role deserves further attention in future research. notes i) in order to check the assessment of positive and negative valence, correlations were computed between positive and negative expressivity scores on the one hand and actions units on the other (exhibition frequency rates were computed for each au). on average, positive facial scores were positively correlated with the display of au6 (r = .76, p < .01), au7 (r = .73, p < .01), au12 (r = .74, p < .01), au25 and 26 (r = .79, p < .01), while negative facial scores were positively correlated with the display of au4 (r = .46, p < .01), au9 (r = .23, p < .05), au15 (r = .44, p < .01), and au17 (r = .53, p < .01). funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 581 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. compliance with ethical standards the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available (balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri, 2020): • tables s1 and s2 report the results of preliminary analyses. • tables s3-s5 display the results of linear mixed models (type iii tests and parameter estimates) for all the dependent variables included in the study. index of supplementary materials balzarotti, s., cesana, s., biassoni, f., & ciceri, m. r. 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(1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 about the authors stefania balzarotti is a research fellow in general psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan. she has a ph.d. in psychology. her research interests concern emotion and emotion regulation. stefano cesana got his m.sc. in psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milano. he is a psychologist in the areas of communication and development. his expertise concerns nonverbal communication and the empowerment of the individual’s resources. federica biassoni is lecturer at the faculty of psychology and member of the laboratory of communication psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano. she has a ph.d. in psychology. her research interests include individuals’ wellbeing, nonverbal behavior analysis, verbal and vocal nonverbal expression of emotions. maria rita ciceri was associate professor in general psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milano. she had a ph.d. in psychology. her research interests concerned emotion generation and regulation processes, positive emotions, and the individuals’ wellbeing. balzarotti, cesana, biassoni, & ciceri 587 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 561–587 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1947 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8721.2009.01633.x https://doi.org/10.1002%2fejsp.320 https://doi.org/10.5465%2famj.2009.41331253 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0265407515574466 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.psychsport.2013.01.006 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional suppression and power (introduction) expressive suppression and its consequences for the individual’s social functioning potential moderators of social consequences of suppression the present study method participants procedure measures analytic strategy results preliminary analyses main analyses positive and negative expressive behavior positive and negative emotional experience social outcomes: authenticity, rapport, mutual liking, and social status discussion limitations and future directions conclusions notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments compliance with ethical standards supplementary materials references about the authors associations between big-5 personality traits, cognitive ability, and climate beliefs and behaviours: results from a longitudinal uk birth cohort research reports associations between big-5 personality traits, cognitive ability, and climate beliefs and behaviours: results from a longitudinal uk birth cohort ken freminot 1 , katie major-smith 2 , kate northstone 1 , isaac halstead 3 § , daniel major-smith 3 § [1] population health sciences, bristol medical school, university of bristol, bristol, united kingdom. [2] sustainability, creativity and innovation research group, plymouth marjon university, plymouth, united kingdom. [3] centre for academic child health, population health sciences, canynge hall, bristol medical school, university of bristol, bristol, united kingdom. §these authors contributed equally to this work. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 received: 2024-01-23 • accepted: 2024-08-22 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: mayer claude-hélène, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: daniel major-smith, centre for academic child health, population health sciences, bristol medical school, university of bristol, bristol, bs8 2ps, united kingdom. e-mail: dan.smith@bristol.ac.uk supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to both humans and wider biodiversity. however, cumulatively, individuals’ actions can help to mitigate the impacts of climate change. understanding the factors which shape individuals’ beliefs about climate change, and their environmental behaviours, is therefore crucial. here, we explore whether individual differences—big-5 personality traits and cognitive ability—are associated with climate beliefs and behaviours, using longitudinal data from a uk birth cohort study. individual differences were measured when the participants were teenagers (aged 13 to 15 years), with climate beliefs and behaviours assessed at approximately age 30 years. these climate beliefs and behaviours included: belief that the climate is changing, concern over climate change, whether humans are to blame for climate change, whether individual actions can mitigate climate change, and whether they were undertaking a range of pro-environmental behaviours for climate reasons (e.g., reducing air travel, reducing meat/ dairy consumption). regression models were used to explore the associations between individual differences and climate belief and behaviour outcomes, adjusting for a range of relevant sociodemographic confounders. overall, we found consistent positive associations between agreeableness, openness to experience and cognitive ability scores and environmental knowledge and action. weaker, and more inconsistent, associations were reported for extraversion, conscientiousness and emotional stability. these results suggest that individual differences may shape an individual’s beliefs and actions regarding climate change, and potentially indicates groups where climate information campaigns could be targeted. keywords alspac, individual differences, personality, cognitive ability, climate change, sustainability climate change represents both an ecological and existential threat to human and non-human animals. driven by human activity, the impacts of climate change are intensifying, causing an increasing array of environmental, social and economic issues worldwide, including loss of livelihood, negative health impacts and potentially irreversible envi­ ronmental damage (ipcc, 2023). while the paris agreement aims to address this crisis by mobilising international action (unfccc, 2016), and governments have adopted net-zero commitments worldwide to meet this agreement (unep, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13657&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5003-5615 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3700-9239 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0602-1983 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0463-4062 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6467-2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2023), atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions are at their highest levels compared to the previous million years (ipcc, 2023), emphasising the urgent need to take stronger action to mitigate the climate crisis. an important aspect to addressing climate change is individual action (hampton & whitmarsh, 2023). sustainable action among the public can collectively have a large impact on reducing climate change (boehm et al., 2023), with actions such as eating a fully plant-based diet, driving less and reducing plane travel, significantly reducing an individual's carbon footprint (ivanova et al., 2020; wynes & nicholas, 2017). while macro-level systemic changes are needed to stop anthropogenic climate change (such as industry transformation and stronger government regulations; chater & loewenstein, 2023), individual action is a core component to helping achieve global net-zero targets, with the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) advocating a shift among the public to more sustainable behaviour and less emission intensive consumption (ipcc, 2023). since individual action is important for helping mitigate climate change, understanding the characteristics that may predispose individuals to support or oppose climate change policies and engage with pro-environmental behaviours to minimise their personal impact on climate change is needed. several studies have been conducted to identify factors that predict pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. for example, several demographic variables such as age, gender, and education have been found to be associated with environmental attitudes, with women, younger individuals, and those with greater educational attainment displaying greater concern regarding climate change (poortinga et al., 2019). researchers have also investigated the role of individual difference variables, such as personality. personality traits are often measured using the big-5 personality trait model, which is comprised of 5 personality traits formed from many facets of personality. these personality traits can be briefly summarised as openness (being open to new ideas and experiences), conscientiousness (a preference for order, attention to detail, and self-discipline), extraversion (gregarious, outgoing, optimistic), agreeableness (trusting, compliant, altruistic), and neuroticism (impulsive, self-conscious, and pessimistic; note that some authors refer to this trait as ‘emotional stability’, which is the inverse of ‘neuroticism’). when examined in the context of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, the most commonly associated traits are openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, all of which have been found to be positively associated with climate beliefs and actions; however, there is a high degree of heterogeneity in study findings (soutter et al., 2020). some of this inter-study variability may be accounted for by limitations found in the existing literature. for example, many studies in this area are based upon small sample sizes (e.g., less than 500 participants; soutter et al., 2020), which may prevent smaller effect sizes from being reliably detected (e.g., r = .15, which are typical in both personality research in general (gignac & szodorai, 2016) and specifically in environmental attitudes research soutter et al., 2020). many studies also focus on either pro-environmental attitudes or behaviours separately. this can be an issue when accounting for the large disconnect between attitudes and behaviours, especially in environmental research, where holding a positive attitude towards pro-environmental behaviours would not make a meaningful impact compared to actually performing those behaviours (whitmarsh et al., 2021). additionally, previous environmental attitudes and behaviour research is largely cross-sectional in nature, assuming the associations between personality and environmental attitudes to be unidirectional (i.e., personality causes environmental attitudes and behaviours), and often with little adjustment for potential confounders (soutter et al., 2020). longitudinal studies that measure personality (or any other exposure; the term ‘exposure’ is largely synonymous with ‘independent variable’) prior to measuring environmental beliefs and behaviours may be able to provide more evidence for a potential causal relationship between individual difference variables and environmental attitudes or behaviour. in addition, previous studies have also neglected the role of intelligence (or ‘cognitive ability’) in pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. intelligence can be considered as a measure of an individual’s ability to acquire knowledge and make decisions (deary et al., 2009). in the context of environmental attitudes and behaviours, cognitive ability may aid an individual in acquiring accurate information regarding climate change, its impact, and ways to mitigate it, as well as the actions that can be performed by an individual for this to be achieved. furthermore, as openness is one of the most consistent and strongly associated traits with environmental attitudes and behaviours, and openness is also moderately related to intelligence (furnham & cheng, 2016), it is conceivable that intelligence may be another candidate variable for predicting environmental attitudes and behaviours. freminot, major-smith, northstone et al. 289 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present study seeks to address the limitations of previous work by using a large, longitudinal cohort study that measured individual difference variables in childhood and environmental attitudes and behaviours in adulthood. it will also expand upon previous work that has investigated the role of openness, by also exploring the role of intelligence. method participants pregnant women resident in the former county of avon (southwest uk) with expected dates of delivery between 1st april 1991 to 31st december 1992 were invited to take part in the alspac study (the avon longitudinal study of parents and children). the initial number of pregnancies enrolled was 14,541, of which there were a total of 14,676 foetuses, resulting in 14,062 live births and 13,988 children who were alive at 1 year of age (boyd et al., 2013; fraser et al., 2013). when the oldest children were approximately 7 years of age, an attempt was made to bolster the initial sample with eligible cases who had failed to join the study originally, resulting in an additional 913 children being enrolled. the total sample size for analyses using any data collected after the age of seven is therefore 15,447 pregnancies, resulting in 15,658 foetuses, of which 14,901 were alive at 1 year of age (northstone et al., 2019). these offspring are the focus of the present study. participants were excluded if they were not alive at 1 year of age, were from triplet or quadruplet pregnancies (for confidentiality reasons), or if they or their mother had withdrawn consent for their data to be used; this resulted in a final sample size of 14,834 alspac offspring. of this full sample, only participants with complete exposure, outcome and confounder data were included in the analytic sample (n = approx. 2,100 to 2,400, depending on the exposure and outcome combination). this reduction in sample size is due to a number of reasons, including: i) participants opting-out or losing contact with the study, and hence not being invited to participate in alspac data collections; ii) participants being invited to take part in data collections, but declining to participate; iii) participants taking part in data collections, but not answering the relevant questions or sections; and iv) many participants also take part in some data collections but not others (e.g., they may have climate change beliefs/behaviours data, but no data on personality). please note that the study website contains details of all the data that is available through a fully searchable data dictionary and variable search tool at alspac (2024). study data gathered since the study offspring were aged 22 were collected and managed using redcap electronic data capture tools hosted at the university of bristol (harris et al., 2009). personality and cognitive ability exposures personality was measured using the 50-item international personality item pool (ipip) questionnaire to assess the ‘big-5’ personality traits (goldberg, 1992). data were collected via self-report on a computer at an alspac study clinic when the study children were approximately 13 years of age. of all alspac offspring, ~11,300 (~75%) were invited to this clinic, of which ~6,100 (~55%; ~40% of the total sample) attended. the majority of those who attended (> 90%) had complete personality data. response options were on a five-point likert scale from ‘very like me’ to ‘not like me at all’ (for all items and response options, see table s1, found in the supplementary materials section; freminot et al., 2024). each personality trait consisted of 10 items, which were summed to give the total score for said personality trait (i.e., between 10 and 50). internal consistency assessed via cronbach’s alpha was either ‘acceptable’ or ‘good’ (agreeableness = 0.73; conscientiousness = 0.75; openness = 0.75; emotional stability = 0.83; extraversion = 0.85). cognitive ability was assessed by the wechsler abbreviated scale of intelligence (wechsler, 1999) at a clinic when the children were approximately 15 years of age. of all alspac offspring, ~10,700 (~70%) were invited to this clinic, of which ~5,500 (~50%; ~35% of the total sample) attended. the majority of those who attended (> 95%) had complete cognitive ability data. this measure consisted of two subtests to measure the child’s ‘intelligence quotient’ (iq). these tests were conducted face-to-face by a trained fieldworker, and included the following tasks: a vocabulary task (understanding the meaning of a range of words) and a matrix reasoning task (i.e., pattern recognition). scores on these tests were then standardised by age and converted to iq scores with approximately a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. individual differences and climate change 290 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all exposures were analysed as continuous variables (i.e., scores for each of the 5 personality traits and iq scores for cognitive ability). climate change beliefs and behaviours outcomes questions on climate beliefs and behaviours were collected via questionnaire between november 2021 and may 2022 when the participants were approximately 30 years of age. of all alspac offspring, ~9,000 (~55%) were invited to complete this questionnaire, of which ~4,300 (~50%; ~30% of the total sample) returned a questionnaire. the majority of those who returned a questionnaire (> 98%) had completed at least some of the questions in the section on climate change beliefs and behaviours. these questions consisted of a range of topics regarding beliefs on climate change and its causes and impact, including: • do you believe that the climate is changing? (responses: definitely not vs. yes maybe vs. yes probably vs. yes definitely). • how concerned are you about the impact of climate change? (responses: not at all concerned vs. not very concerned vs. somewhat concerned vs. very concerned). • do you believe that humans are to blame for climate change? (responses: not at all vs. yes, for some of it vs. yes, for most of it vs. yes, for all of it). • do you think that what you do, however small, will make a difference to the long-term effects of changes to our climate? (responses: no vs. not sure vs. yes). participants were also asked whether they undertook a range of pro-environmental behaviours (e.g., travel, recycling, diet) for climate and/or non-climate reasons. all climate questions used in the present study are summarised in table s2. many of these questions were adapted from bristol city council’s quality of life survey 2019 (bcc, 2020), with all others—questions 1, 2b, 2c and 4g to 4q (table s2)—developed in-house by the alspac team. for more information on these climate change belief and behaviour questions, see (major-smith, halstead, et al., 2024). the climate belief questions were analysed on their original scale. for the climate behaviour questions, we categor­ ised and analysed them in three ways: i) exploring each action as a four-level categorical variable (not done action vs. action taken due to climate change vs. action taken for other reasons vs. action taken due to climate change and for other reasons); ii) exploring each action as a binary variable (whether action taken due to climate change or not); and iii) as a ‘total number of actions taken for climate reasons’ score, by summing together the number of actions taken for climate reasons (excluding ‘other reasons’, as fewer participants answered this question). confounders while the aim of this paper is primarily descriptive, we will adjust for a range of key sociodemographic variables to try and remove some common sources of plausible confounding, which may provide stronger evidence for a causal interpretation compared to studies which do not adjust for confounders. these include the participants’ sex assigned at birth and their ethnicity, in addition to their mother’s age at birth of the child, home ownership status, highest educational attainment, and area-level index of multiple deprivation quintiles during pregnancy (see table s3 for coding details). all confounders were measured during pregnancy, either abstracted from medical records (offspring sex), based on postcode information (deprivation) or self-reported questionnaires (all other confounders). as these confounders were measured early in the study, few participants have missing data for these variables (< 20% missing). while not a confounder, as it may impact climate beliefs and behaviours, we also adjusted for the participant’s age at completion of the questionnaire including climate questions to try and improve precision in our estimates. analysis our main analyses were a series of regression models specific to the outcome of interest (e.g., ordinal models for ordered categorical outcomes, multinomial models for unordered categorical outcomes, and logistic regression for binary outcomes). models were repeated both unadjusted and adjusted for all potential confounders. we used pseudo-r2 values to estimate the improvement in model fit when including the exposure of interest. for ordinal models, we tested freminot, major-smith, northstone et al. 291 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the proportional odds assumption via the brant test; if it was found to be violated (i.e., p < .05), analyses were repeated using multinomial models. for multinomial models, we used a likelihood ratio test to assess whether there was an overall association between the exposure and outcome. as the coefficients of ordinal and multinomial models are not necessarily intuitive to interpret, we converted these models to predicted probabilities of each outcome category to improve interpretability. for the ‘total number of actions taken for climate reasons’ score, we initially modelled this using a linear regression model. however, as the distribution was non-normal (i.e., an excess of zeros; see ‘results’ section) we explored a range of sensitivity analyses to see how robust these results were to different modelling specifications. first, as the data are technically counts, we used both poisson and negative binomial models (the latter to account for potential over-dispersion). however, this model may also be mis-specified due to the excess zeros; we therefore also performed a zero-inflated poisson and zero-inflated negative binomial regressions to model both the count data and the excess zeros. despite the risk of potential model misspecification, as all models produced largely equivalent results we focus primarily on the linear regression results in the main text for ease of interpretation, with the count model results presented in the supplementary information (freminot et al. 2024). rather than arbitrarily dichotomising our observational results into ‘significant’ and ‘non-significant’ (e.g., based on a p-value < .05, for instance), throughout this paper we interpret p-values as a continuous measure of the strength of evidence against—or incompatibility with—the null hypothesis of no association between the exposure and outcome (sterne & davey smith, 2001). the only exception was for the brant test, where we used p < .05 as a cut-off to indicate potential violation of the proportional odds assumption. analyses were conducted in stata version 18, other than the creation of the synthetic datasets which was performed using r 3.4.1 (r development core team, 2021). results descriptive statistics a summary of the sociodemographic profile of participants can be found in table s3. in the full sample (n = 14,834), approximately half of participants were female, 13% had a mother with a degree, 17% were from the most deprived areas, and 95% were of white ethnicity. however, in the complete-case sample—which includes participants with fullyobserved data on all confounders, all exposures and the ‘believes climate is changing’ outcome (n = 1,927)—two-thirds of participants were female, 22% had a mother with a degree, 8% were from the most deprived areas, and 96% were of white ethnicity. approximately 40% (~6,000) of participants had data on the personality and cognitive ability exposures, although there was little difference between these values comparing the full vs. complete-case samples (table s4). the means (m) and standard deviations (sd) for these variables are as follows: extraversion (m = 35.3; sd = 6.87); agreeableness (m = 37.9; sd = 5.19); conscientiousness (m = 31.9; sd = 5.82); emotional stability (m = 31.6; sd = 6.57); openness to experience (m = 35.8; sd = 5.65); cognitive ability/iq scores (m = 94.4; sd = 13.1). descriptive statistics of the climate beliefs are presented in table 1, with the climate behaviours summarised in figure 1 (and table s5; plus figure s1 for binary behaviours). overall, < 2% of this sample believed that the climate was ‘definitely not’ or ‘probably not’ changing, with 90% of individuals ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ concerned about climate change and < 1% of participants believing that humans were ‘not at all’ to blame for climate change. the actions taken for climate change varied substantially, with more than 60% of participants reducing household waste, recycling/upcycling more and reducing plastic use, to < 20% who changed the way they travelled locally, reduced air travel, purchased/hired electric/hybrid vehicles, improved home insulation, installed solar panels, grew vegetables, planted trees, avoided organisations that support fossil fuel or reduced the number of children planned. on average, participants engaged in 5 of these 17 pro-environmental activities, although a substantial minority of participants (16%) engaged in zero (figure s2). approximately 30% (~4,000) of participants had data on these outcomes, and there was little difference in the descriptive statistics of these climate beliefs and behaviours in the full vs. complete-case samples (tables 1 & s5). individual differences and climate change 292 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics of the climate beliefs outcomes variable full sample—n (%) complete-case sample—n (%) believes that the climate is changing definitely not 45 (1.1%) 18 (0.9%) probably not 44 (1.0%) 15 (0.8%) yes, maybe 216 (5.1%) 83 (4.3%) yes, probably 545 (12.8%) 232 (12.0%) yes, definitely 3,401 (80.0%) 1,579 (81.9%) missing 10,583 (71.3%) na concerned about the impact of climate changea not at all concerned 97 (2.3%) 44 (2.3%) not very concerned 357 (8.5%) 154 (8.1%) somewhat concerned 2,028 (48.3%) 906 (47.5%) very concerned 1,721 (40.9%) 805 (42.2%) missing 10,631 (71.7%) na believes that humans are to blame for climate changea not at all 40 (1.0%) 15 (0.8%) yes, for some of it 742 (17.7%) 321 (16.9%) yes, for most of it 2,076 (49.4%) 913 (47.9%) yes, for all of it 1,342 (31.9%) 656 (34.4%) missing 10,634 (71.7%) na thinks that personal actions will make a difference to long-term climate changesa no 879 (20.9%) 405 (21.3%) yes 2,193 (52.3%) 1,014 (53.2%) not sure 1,125 (26.8%) 487 (25.5%) missing 10,637 (71.7%) na note. columns display descriptive statistics for both the full sample (n = 14,834) and the complete-case sample with fully-observed data on all confounders, all exposures and the relevant outcome (n = 1,905 to 1,927). note that the percentages of missing data are calculated separately from the observed data. aindividuals who answered ‘definitely not’ to the question “do you believe that the climate is changing?” did not answer this question. climate beliefs in adjusted ordinal models, agreeableness (odds ratio [or] = 1.07, 95% confidence interval [ci] = 1.04 to 1.09, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 0.9%), openness to experience (or = 1.06, 95% ci = 1.04 to 1.08, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 1.2%) and iq scores (or = 1.06, 95% ci = 1.05 to 1.07, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 5.0%) were all positively associated with belief in climate change (figure 2). emotional stability had a weaker positive association (or = 1.02, 95% ci = 1.00 to 1.04, p = .002, pseudo-r2 = 0.2%), with little-to-no association found for extraversion (or = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.02, p = .926, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%) or conscientiousness (or = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.99 to 1.02, p = .666, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%; full results in table s6). although the proportional odds assumption was violated for conscientiousness and cognitive ability, multinomial models reported similar results (table s7). freminot, major-smith, northstone et al. 293 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 stacked bar chart showing the percentage of individuals who engaged in each of the pro-environmental climate actions note. (n = 2,754 to 4,244). actions are ranked by the percentage of participants engaging in each action for climate reasons. figure 2 predicted probabilities of answering ‘believe that the climate is changing’ for each of the exposure variables note. exposure values are on the x-axis. results are based on adjusted ordinal regression models, except where the proportional odds assumption was violated in which case results are from multinomial models (denoted by an asterisk; n = 2,327 to 2,426). individual differences and climate change 294 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ comparable patterns of results were found for concern over the impact of climate change (figure s3), with agreeable­ ness (or = 1.06, 95% ci = 1.05 to 1.08, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 1.1%), openness (or = 1.07, 95% ci = 1.05 to 1.09, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 1.7%) and iq scores (or = 1.04, 95% ci = 1.03 to 1.05, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 3.0%) strongly associated with greater concern, but weaker and largely null associations for extraversion (or = 0.99, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.00, p = .136, pseudo-r2 = 0.1%), conscientiousness (or = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.99 to 1.01, p = .992, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%) and emotional stability (or = 0.99, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.00, p = .197, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%). this pattern was again repeated for the extent to which humans are to blame for climate change (figure s4), with agreeableness (or = 1.03, 95% ci = 1.02 to 1.05, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 0.3%), openness (or = 1.03, 95% ci = 1.02 to 1.05, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 0.3%) and iq scores (or = 1.03, 95% ci = 1.02 to 1.04, p < .001, pseudo-r2 = 1.5%) associated with believing humans are to blame, and largely null associations for extraversion (or = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.99 to 1.01, p = .562, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%), conscientiousness (or = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.01, p = .625, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%) and emotional stability (or = 0.99, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.01, p = .239, pseudo-r2 = 0.0%). a different pattern of response was found for the question ‘do you think that what you do, however small, will make a difference to the long-term effects of changes to our climate?’ (figure 3; table s8). the strongest associations were found for conscientiousness and emotional stability, with higher scores on these personality traits associated with an increased probability of answering ‘yes’, relative to ‘no’ (extraversion: relative risk ratio [rrr] = 1.05, 95% ci = 1.03 to 1.07, p < .001; emotional stability: rrr = 1.05, 95% ci = 1.03 to 1.05, p < .001); weaker associations, but in the same direction, were reported for extraversion (rrr = 1.03, 95% ci = 1.01 to 1.04, p = .001) and agreeableness (rrr = 1.02, 95% ci = 1.00 to 1.04, p = .092). little association was found for openness (rrr = 1.00, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.02, p = .731), while for cognitive ability, relative to ‘no’ responses, higher iq scores were associated with a lower probability of answering both ‘yes’ (rrr = 0.99, 95% ci = 0.98 to 1.00, p = .025) and ‘not sure’ (rrr = 0.98, 95% ci = 0.97 to 0.99, p < .001); from the predicted probabilities from this model (figure 3), it can be seen there was no association between cognitive ability and ‘yes’ responses, but higher iq scores were associated with an increased probability of answering ‘no’ and a lower probability of answering ‘not sure’. however, the pseudo-r2 values indicated relatively small improvements in model fit across all these models for this outcome (all < 0.6%). figure 3 predicted probabilities of answering ‘what you do, however small, will make a difference to the long-term effects of changes to our climate’ for each of the exposure variables freminot, major-smith, northstone et al. 295 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ note. exposure values are on the x-axis. results are based on adjusted multinomial regression models (n = 2,300 to 2,399). climate behaviours we focus first on the total number of actions that participants report engaging in due to climate change (from 0 to 17). when analysed using a linear model, there was a strong positive association between agreeableness (b = 0.11, 95% ci = 0.08 to 0.14, p < .001, r2 = 1.8%), openness to experience (b = 0.11, 95% ci = 0.08 to 0.14, p < .001, r2 = 2.5%) and iq scores (b = 0.06, 95% ci = 0.05 to 0.08, p < .001, r2 = 4.1%) and the total number of actions taken (figure 4; table s9). weaker positive associations were reported for extraversion (b = 0.02, 95% ci = 0.00 to 0.04, p = .043, r2 = 0.2%) and emotional stability (b = 0.02, 95% ci = 0.00 to 0.05, p = .022, r2 = 0.2%), while there was little-to-no association with conscientiousness (b = 0.01, 95% ci = -0.01 to 0.04, p = .169, r2 = 0.1%). results were comparable when using poisson, negative binomial, zero-inflated poisson, or zero-inflated negative binomial models (figures s5–s8; model comparisons in table s10; full regression results in tables s11–s14). results for the actions analysed individually show a similar pattern, with higher agreeableness, openness to experience and iq scores being positively associated with engaging in many of these behaviours due to climate change (figures s9–s26; table s15; with similar findings using binary versions of these pro-environmental behaviours variables; table s16). figure 4 predicted number of pro-environmental behaviours taken due to climate change for each of the exposure variables note. exposure values are on the x-axis. results are based on adjusted linear regression models. the red line indicates the line of best fit with 95% confidence intervals in grey (n = 2,074 to 2,154). discussion in this paper we have demonstrated robust associations between a number of individual difference variables—namely agreeableness, openness to experience and cognitive ability—and climate-related beliefs and behaviours. we found weaker, and/or more inconsistent, associations with other personality variables, including conscientiousness, extraver­ sion and emotional stability. individual differences and climate change 296 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these results somewhat support the findings from previous studies—namely the positive association between agree­ ableness and openness to experience—but failed to replicate positive associations with conscientiousness (soutter et al., 2020). there are several plausible explanations for this finding. firstly, conscientiousness appears to have a high degree of geographical heterogeneity—even within us states, there are differences in levels of conscientiousness (rentfrow, 2010). furthermore, we examined trait level conscientiousness, rather than individual facets. previous research has suggested that some of the facets of conscientiousness may work against each other in predicting environmental attitudes and behaviour (e.g., self-discipline and preference for order; markowitz et al., 2012). agreeableness may result in greater climate awareness/action as individuals higher in this trait may be more likely to act cooperatively and follow group norms (wilmot & ones, 2022). for openness to experience, those who score higher on openness (and specifically the curiosity facet), may be more likely to seek out more sources of information (jach & smillie, 2021). those with higher iq scores may be more able to critically assess information, and be more resistant to misinformation (pennycook & rand, 2020; ross et al., 2021). alternatively, the pathway between cognitive ability and environmental beliefs and behaviours could be more indirect. as cognitive ability and educational attainment are tightly linked (deary et al., 2007), it could be that cognitive ability causes education, and education in turn causes climate knowledge/actions; that is, education may be a mediator on the pathway between intelligence and environmental attitudes and behaviours, rather than cognitive ability causing these beliefs and attitudes directly. this pattern of results was replicated for the majority of the climate beliefs and behaviours, suggesting that these associations are robust, and that individual differences have similar associations with both environmental attitudes and actions. one interesting exception to this pattern, however, was for the question regarding the impact of one’s individual actions on the impact of climate change. individuals higher in extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability were more likely to believe that their individual actions would have an impact, while openness to experience and iq scores had no association with agreeing with this statement, and those with higher iq scores were more likely to disagree with it (figure 3). perhaps this reflects those with higher iq scores being able to critically assess climate information, as an individual’s actions are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on climate change; it is only the cumulative impact of large numbers of individuals’ actions which can have such an impact. to raise awareness of climate change and behaviours to mitigate its impact, this study suggests that targeting and/or designing campaigns to more effectively engage those who score lower on agreeableness, openness to experience and cognitive ability may be effective. for instance, those scoring lower on agreeableness may be less likely to cooperate in the public interest (wilmot & ones, 2022); focusing on the self-interested benefits of engaging in pro-environmen­ tal actions—such as the health or economic benefits of reducing fossil fuel use, perhaps—may be more effective than campaigns which rely on altruism and self-sacrifice. similar ideas could also be applied regarding openness to experience and cognitive ability. for instance, as cognitive ability scores are related to processing and understanding information, presenting messages regarding climate change using a range of formats—such as narratives and numerical information—with clear messages may help communicate this information to all (betsch et al., 2011; brust-renck et al., 2013). similarly, making pro-environmental behaviours seem less ‘radical’ and more consistent with existing behaviours may be more effective for individuals lower in openness to experience. however, although similar interventions based on personality and cognitive ability have been proposed by others (e.g., in relation to health; deary et al., 2010), these suggestions are very preliminary, rely on these associations being causal, and need to be experimentally tested before being applied in the real-world. similar approaches have been shown to be effective previously, such as how the effectiveness of climate messaging may vary by cognitive complexity (i.e., thinking about concepts from multiple perspectives; chen & unsworth, 2019). a key strength of this study is the use of large, broadly-representative, longitudinal birth cohort with individual dif­ ference exposures measured prior to the climate beliefs and behaviours outcomes. this, combined with the adjustment for a range of plausible baseline sociodemographic confounders, potentially provides stronger evidence for causality compared to previous studies which have tended to be small-scale, cross-sectional, and with minimal adjustment for potential confounders (for several examples of such studies, see soutter et al., 2020). however, there are also several limitations. a key limitation is the possibility of unmeasured confounding. while we adjusted for a range of sociodemographic covariates, it is possible that other factors which cause both individual differences and climate beliefs/behaviours may confound these relationships. for instance, educational attainment prior freminot, major-smith, northstone et al. 297 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to the individual difference measurements may be such a confounder, as education is associated with higher iq scores (ritchie & tucker-drob, 2018). alternatively, factors such as political ideology, which are associated with both individual differences and climate beliefs (at least in predominantly us samples; drummond & fischhoff, 2017; onraet et al., 2015), may also be confounders. however, in both instances the direction of causality between individual differences, climate beliefs/behaviours and the proposed unmeasured confounders (i.e., education or political ideology) is not known with certainty; longitudinal studies which take an explicitly causal approach, which include a wider range of baseline confounders and baseline information on the exposures and outcomes, are necessary to rule out potential unmeasured confounding and provide greater evidence for causality (vanderweele et al., 2016). note that measures of educational attainment or political orientation assessed prior to the exposures were not available for this study, so could not be included here as additional confounders. a further potential limitation is that, although the original alspac sample consisted of ~15,000 offspring, only ~4,000 had data on the climate beliefs and behaviours questions, with only ~2,000 having complete-case data for the analyses. there were also differences in the study characteristics between the full and complete-case samples (table s3); this missing data and patterns of loss-to-follow-up raises the risk of selection bias potentially biasing our results (hernán & robins, 2020; munafò et al., 2018). while we adjusted for a range of variables known to predict selection in alspac—such as socioeconomic position, offspring sex and ethnicity—which ought to reduce the risk of selection bias, we cannot rule this possibility out. we also acknowledge the risk of measurement error potentially biasing our results. for instance, due to social desira­ bility bias participants may have over-reported the extent to which they engaged in pro-environmental behaviours, or were less likely to report climate scepticism. this could especially lead to bias if this measurement error was associated with our individual difference exposures (e.g., participants higher in agreeableness or iq scores being more likely to report socially desirable outcomes). however, some patterns of results did differ by the climate-related question (e.g., the impact of environmental actions, as discussed above), suggesting that answers were unlikely to be solely driven by social desirability. previous alspac work has also indicated little bias due to social desirability for other potentially-sensitive topics—such as medical history and mental health—when comparing self-reported questionnaires to ‘gold standard’ medical records and clinical interviews (golding et al., 2001), which together provide some confidence in these results. related to the issue of measurement error, there is a large gap between the personality and cognitive ability measures assessed in adolescence (at ages 13 and 15, respectively), and the climate change beliefs and behaviours at approximately age 30. although previous work suggests that these individual differences are largely stable over the life-course (atherton et al., 2021; deary, 2014), they can change over time; for instance, personality may change in response to life events (bühler et al., 2024) while education can influence iq scores (ritchie & tucker-drob, 2018). any such change could perhaps introduce measurement error, potentially weakening any relationships between these exposures and outcomes; for instance, personality traits in adulthood, rather than adolescence, may have a greater impact on climate change beliefs and behaviours. this may be less of an issue for extraversion and openness, which have previously been found to be largely stable from adolescence (age 18) to mid-adulthood (age 40), but may potentially bias associations with conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional stability, all of which have been found to increase slightly with age (atherton et al., 2021). while longitudinal data are needed to provide greater evidence for causality, we are somewhat beholden to the alspac data available, which does not include more recent assessments of personality. nonetheless, we encourage further research using longitudinal data but with a smaller gap between the exposure and outcome to see whether these results replicate. finally, as this study was conducted on a sample of young adults from the southwest of england, the extent to which these results are generalisable to a wider population is unknown. for instance, these associations may differ in older generations, in other cities in the uk (bristol is an especially green city), or in other countries. while similar patterns have been reported across a range of populations (soutter et al., 2020), additional research is nonetheless necessary to explore how generalisable these results are. in conclusion, this study has shown that a range of individual differences—namely agreeableness, openness to experience and cognitive ability—are associated with increased awareness of climate change and its impacts, and a greater probability in engaging in a range of pro-environmental behaviours. the extent to which these results are individual differences and climate change 298 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 288–302 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13657 https://www.psychopen.eu/ causal, how generalisable they are, and whether they can be used to improve climate literacy, are important open questions for future research. funding: the uk medical research council and wellcome trust (grant ref: 217065/z/19/z) and the university of bristol currently provide core support for alspac. this publication is the work of the authors and isaac halstead and daniel major-smith will serve as guarantors for the contents of this paper. a comprehensive list of grants funding is available on the study website (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/external/documents/grant-acknowledgements.pdf). this project was made possible through the support of a grant from the john templeton foundation (ref. no. 61917). the opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the john templeton foundation. acknowledgments: we are extremely grateful to all the families who took part in this study, the midwives for their help in recruiting them, and the whole alspac team, which includes interviewers, computer and laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers, managers, receptionists and nurses. competing interests: the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. author contributions: kf: formal analysis, investigation, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review & editing km-s: writing—review & editing kn: funding acquisition, methodology, project administration, supervision, writing—review & editing ih: conceptualisation, methodology, project administration, supervision, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review & editing dm-s: conceptualisation, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, project administration, supervision, visualisation, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review & editing ethics statement: ethical approval for the study was obtained from the alspac ethics and law committee and the local research ethics committees. informed consent for the use of data collected via questionnaires and clinics was obtained from participants following the recommendations of the avon longitudinal study of parents and children ethics and law committee at the time. data availability: access to alspac data is through a system of managed open access. information about access to this data is given on the study website (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/access/) and in the data management plan (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/data-access/documents/alspac-data-management-plan.pdf). data used for this submission will be made available on request to the executive (alspac-exec@bristol.ac.uk). the datasets presented in this article are linked to alspac project number b4293, please quote this project number during your application. analysis code and synthetic alspac datasets (created using the ‘synthpop’ r package; (nowok et al., 2016)), are openly available on dm-s’s github page: https://github.com/djsmith-90/indivdiffsandclimate_b2493. as raw alspac data cannot be released, these synthesised datasets are modelled on the original data, thus maintaining variable distributions and relations among variables (albeit not perfectly), while at the same time preserving participant anonymity and confidentiality, thus allowing this research to be ‘quasi-reproducible’ (major-smith, kwong, et al., 2024). please note that while these synthetic datasets can be used to follow the analysis scripts, as data are simulated they should not be used for research purposes; only the actual, observed, alspac data should be used for formal research and analyses reported in published work. supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • supplementary tables of study data options and responses. 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(2017). the climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. environmental research letters, 12, article 074024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 about the authors ken freminot is a medical doctor at seychelles hospital who recently completed an msc in epidemiology at the university of bristol. this paper is based on his master’s dissertation. katie major-smith is a social scientist who works on sustainability-focused cross-disciplinary research projects. areas of focus include understanding peoples’ perceptions of climate change, examining methods for sustainably transforming the food system and exploring how to encourage pro-environmental behaviours among the public. outside of academia, she can be found surrounded by her foster cats or out walking in nature. kate northstone is a professor of epidemiology and medical statistics at the medical school in the university of bristol. she is executive director (data) for the avon longitudinal study of parents and children. isaac halstead obtained a phd in psychology at royal holloway, university of london. he is a senior research associate at the university of bristol in the centre for academic child health. daniel major-smith is a somewhat-lapsed evolutionary anthropologist who now spends most of his time working as an epidemiol­ ogist. he is currently a senior research associate in population health sciences at the university of bristol, and works on various topics, including causal inference, selection bias, climate change beliefs, open science, and relations between religion, health and behaviour. outside of academia, he fosters cats and potters around his garden pleading with his vegetables to grow. individual differences and climate change 302 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-016-1281-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.04.002 https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211073007 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ individual differences and climate change (introduction) method participants personality and cognitive ability exposures climate change beliefs and behaviours outcomes confounders analysis results descriptive statistics climate beliefs climate behaviours discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors relationships between career indecision, search for work self-efficacy, and psychological well-being in italian never-employed young adults research reports relationships between career indecision, search for work self-efficacy, and psychological well-being in italian never-employed young adults maria maddalena viola a, pasquale musso a, sonia ingoglia a, alida lo coco a, cristiano inguglia* a [a] department of psychological, educational and training sciences, università degli studi di palermo, palermo, italy. abstract although different studies have investigated career choices as cognitive acts of decision-making, non-cognitive components also play an important role. the study tries to develop an empirically based model of career decision-making process linking cognitive (search for work self-efficacy swse) and non-cognitive (psychological well-being pwb) components. in particular, the study investigates, among 148 never-employed italian young adults, to what extent the relationship between swse and career indecision in terms of lack of readiness (lor) can be explained by their common relationship with pwb. results highlighted that swse is negatively associated with lor when considered in absence of pwb. however, when pwb was included in one comprehensive model, it was positively associated with swse and negatively related to lor. moreover, the presence of pwb nullified the negative association between swse and lor, meaning that pwb shares a large extent of variance with these variables. implications are discussed in the light of theoretical expectations and limitations. keywords: career decision-making, career indecision, search for work self-efficacy, psychological well-being, young adults europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 received: 2016-08-25. accepted: 2017-02-03. published (vor): 2017-05-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark; izabela lebuda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychological, educational and training sciences, università degli studi di palermo, viale delle scienze, ed. 15., 90128, palermo, italy. e-mail: cristiano.inguglia@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the process of career decision-making can be considered as an important developmental task for young adults that involves a series of changes in the organization of their life (gati, krausz, & osipow, 1996). the beginning of such a process can be delayed or even arrested by the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity that the current economic and employment crisis is likely to arouse in young people. in fact, in recent years, many young adults are never-employed and seem to be blocked in their career decision-making process, feeling lost and unable to choose a career and start on building a professional pathway (miller & rottinghaus, 2014). specifically, the italian labor market is characterized by a relatively high mismatch between skills supplied and skills demanded, and by high rates of people who have never worked in their lives. according to the italian national institute of statistics (istat, 2015), these rates refer particularly to young adults aged 18–29 years who present an inactivity rate of 50% in italy as a whole and 58% in its southern regions. in such a context, it is important to enhance the understanding of the processes that may reduce the difficulties related to career and professional choices. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ scholars who have dealt with this issue have associated difficulties that arise during the career decision-making process with the construct of career indecision (gati, asulin-peretz, & fisher, 2012; gati et al., 1996; gati, osipow, krausz, & saka, 2000). even though there is an amount of studies showing how several aspects of life or professional domains can impact the overall process of career decision-making (e.g., braunstein-bercovitz, benjamin, asor, & lev, 2012; duffy & sedlacek, 2007; konstam & lehmann, 2011; lehmann & konstam, 2011; miller & rottinghaus, 2014; slaten & baskin, 2014), to date, there is a lack of knowledge about the beginning phase of this process, and specifically among never-employed young adults. moreover, although different studies have investigated career choices as acts of decision-making, emphasizing the cognitive aspects (i.e., self-efficacy) associated with this process, non-cognitive and affective components also play an important role. for instance, strauser, lustig, and çiftçi (2008) highlighted the existence of a negative association between psychological well-being and career indecision. accordingly, the current study is based on the premise that non-cognitive aspects are integral to the career decision-making process (gati & tal, 2008) and tries to develop an empirically-based model of this process linking cognitive (search for work self-efficacy) and non-cognitive (psychological well-being) components. in particular, the study investigates, among young adults at the beginning of the career decision-making process, to what extent the relationship between the search for work self-efficacy and career indecision can be explained by their common relationship with psychological wellbeing. the reason for this choice is that such relationships have not already been adequately and simultaneously taken into account by the prior research, as well as by the models of career development, although the association between these concepts seems to be self-evident. consequently, to understand if psychological well-being has to be considered as a crucial covariate while studying the relationships between personal cognitive dimensions and career choice difficulties represents an important advance in the field of career development studies. the theoretical background choosing a career is a complex task for young adults and it might involve different variables. for instance, brown and rector (2008) identified over 50 possible correlates of this process. traditionally, decision-making models have over-emphasized specific cognitive components of career choices (gati et al., 2012), while overlooking more general and dynamic factors that might play a major role in such decisions. instead, our study is framed on an advancement of gati’s model of career indecision (gati et al., 1996) through acknowledging the importance of non-cognitive aspects in the career decision making process (gati et al., 2011; gati & tal, 2008) and particularly referring to the positive psychology framework, in which the eudaimonic well-being plays a central role in career development (di fabio, 2014; ryff 1995, 2014). according to gati et al. (1996), career indecision is not a single problem, but rather a group of difficulties that can slow or stop the decision-making process. in particular, the authors distinguish two main groups of difficulties that occur at different moments of the career decision-making process: on one hand, those that may occur before the beginning of the decision-making process (i.e., lack of readiness due to low motivation, general indecisiveness, and dysfunctional beliefs); on the other hand, those that may be encountered after it has been started (i.e., lack of information about the process, self, and occupations; inconsistent information due to the receipt of unreliable information or internal and external conflicts). based on this taxonomy, our paper is focused on the dimension of lack of readiness (lor) that refers to the difficulties that precede the engagement in making a specific career decision (gati et al., 1996). in particular, lor includes three categories of difficulties: those related to lack of motivation to engage in the career decision career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 232 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ process, those related to general indecisiveness concerning all types of decisions, and those related to dysfunctional myths about the process of career decision making. our choice of focusing just on lor stemmed from the consideration that this dimension concerns most of the difficulties that can inhibit the beginning of the career decision-making process. however, we decided to not consider dysfunctional myths on the basis of the findings of previous studies reporting that the measures of this category often show low reliability and low consistency (e.g., albion, 2000; gati et al., 1996). additionally, the theoretical framework of the study implies that career indecision is associated with both cognitive and non-cognitive components (di fabio, 2014; gati, kleiman, saka, & zakai, 2003; gati & tal, 2008). traditional models of career choice identified self-efficacy with regard to search for work as an important cognitive component for starting career planning and job searching activities (e.g., pepe, farnese, avalone, & vecchione, 2010; saks, zikic, & koen, 2015). in terms of non-cognitive aspects, psychological well-being was found to be a critical affective component in relation to career difficulties (gati et al., 1996). in this latter case, we refer to the positive psychology framework (di fabio, 2014; seligman, 2002; seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000) that postulates that psychological well-being is a resource enabling individuals to achieve several outcomes, such as successful career decision-making. in particular, we focus on the construct of eudaimonic well-being that is conceptualized as “the striving for perfection that represents the realization of one’s true potential” (ryff, 1995, p. 100) that is supposed to have a specific influence in the domain of career choices since the positive psychological functioning contributes to career commitments (ryff, 2014). furthermore, eudaimonic psychological well-being is also associated with search for work self-efficacy (e.g., bucki, karathanasi, & baumann, 2015), because the realization of individual potential is likely to positively impact on the perception of efficacy in searching for work. for instance, literature shows that dimensions pertaining to eudaimonic well-being like autonomy or personal growth are supposed to contribute to the engagement in career search process (ryff, 2014). search for work self-efficacy and lor search for work self-efficacy (swse; avallone, pepe, & porcelli, 2007; pepe et al., 2010; wanberg, kanfer, & rotundo, 1999) is a concept anchored in bandura (1997)’s theory. generally, self-efficacy concerns a feeling of trust about the personal ability to successfully carry out an action, to perform the tasks assigned to an individual, and to achieve the expected performance results. framed from this theoretical perspective, swse comes up as a specific dimension of the broader notion of self-efficacy and is related to beliefs that people hold about the use of effective strategies in planning a career and finding a job. pepe et al. (2010) operationalized swse in four categories: proactive career planning concerning the ability to actively plan a future career, frustration coping referring to the ability to handle difficulties during the career and job search, enterprising exploration regarding the ability to actively engage in job searching, and relational integration pertaining to the perception of being able to establish and maintain functional relationships in the workplace. this conceptualization of swse is theoretically and practically relevant because it provides a multidimensional structure, tapping into not only the key capacities needed to be successful in searching for a work, but also into those related to developing and managing career choice. in this sense, self-efficacy in regards to career planning activities and job searching are two sides of the same coin, that are associated, at the same time, with the career decision-making process at its beginning, as some researchers have reported (lahuis, 2005; pepe et al., 2010; wanberg et al., 1999). specifically, people do not tend to be effectively engaged in the process of career decision-making if they do not have confidence in their ability to perform good viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 233 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ work searching activities including adequate plans about their future career. moreover, individuals who feel effective with regard to the ability to successfully plan a career and search for suitable work may show lower levels of career indecision (lahuis, 2005; nota, ferrari, solberg, & soresi, 2007; pepe et al., 2010; solberg, good, fischer, brown, & nord, 1995). in addition, swse is interesting for our study because the concept was expressly developed by pepe et al. (2010) in the light of the current complexities of the european labor market, with particular reference to italy and spain. psychological well-being, lor, and swse as mentioned, swse and career indecision are theoretically associated. however, this relationship may be explained by other variables. in particular, our theoretical background (gati et al., 1996; gati & tal, 2008) suggests taking into account non-cognitive aspects, such as eudaimonic psychological well-being (pwb), a multifaceted concept referring to the possibility of growing and reaching fulfillment in several domains of life, including career and work (ryff & singer, 2008; ryff, 2014). pwb and lor were shown to be negatively related to each other (albion & fogarty, 2002; multon, wood, heppner, & gysbers, 2007; viola, musso, inguglia, & lo coco, 2016). furthermore, pwb was also found to be positively associated with swse (e.g., bucki et al., 2015). although some studies have already analyzed the associations between variables such as optimism, quality of life, and career decision (creed, patton, & bartrum, 2002; magnano, paolillo, & giacominelli, 2015; santilli, marcionetti, rochat, rossier, & nota, 2017), highlighting that optimism and quality of life are strong correlates of career planning, to our knowledge, research on specific associations between pwb, lor, and swse is not available in the current literature about career development. in particular, no work has analyzed whether pwb can explain the negative relationship between swse and lor. the present study precisely attempts to fill this gap. starting from this perspective, we referred to the concept of eudaimonic pwb outlined by ryff (1995), as a multidimensional process related to healthy, satisfied, and fully functioning persons. accordingly, pwb is seen to have multiple facets that include six dimensions: autonomy, a sense of independence in thought and action; personal growth, the continued development as a person; self-acceptance, a positive attitude toward the self; positive relations, the establishment of quality ties to others; environmental mastery, the ability to manage complex environments to suit personal needs and values; meaning in life, the pursuit of meaningful goals and a sense of purpose in life. however, in the current study, we specifically considered the first three dimensions, namely autonomy, personal growth, and self-acceptance, because in our opinion they are more clearly associated with swse and lor, as well as being very relevant during young adulthood (ryff, 1989). as a matter of fact, to start feeling confidence in career planning and in finding a job, and thinking about one’s career choices, are linked to the possibility for a young adult to self-determine his/her own life, to maximize personal potential expression, and to achieve high levels of self-regard. autonomy is the ability to evaluate oneself according to personal values and standards and not looking for the approval of others. this variable was shown to be positively related to young adults’ confidence in their ability to plan a career and search for work (guay, ratelle, senécal, larose, & deschênes, 2006; pepe et al., 2010). high levels of autonomy are associated with a major sense of self-efficacy in relation to seeking information on career opportunities and engaging in job searching activities. moreover, autonomy is negatively related to difficulties in the career decision-making process at its beginning. for instance, guay et al. (2006) showed that young adults with lower levels of autonomy were at risk of experiencing chronic career indecision. career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 234 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ personal growth relates to the possibility that an individual realizes his or her potential in accordance with the idea that one of the main goals of life is the achievement of a good level of self-actualization (ivtzan, bernard, sekhon, gardner, & hart, 2013). personal growth is positively linked to swse because the feeling of being able to realize his or her own potential for a young adult means also feeling confident to effectively plan a career and search for work (karavdici & baumann, 2015; pepe et al., 2010). furthermore, individuals who identify themselves as growing and aspiring to maximize their potential also show lower levels of career indecision (robitschek et al., 2012; strauser et al., 2008). these expectations can be explained considering that people with high levels of personal growth are supposed to be more proactive in their life, intentionally seeking out or capitalizing on opportunities for development, as well as having a clear sense of what career paths they should pursue (robitschek & cook, 1999; ryff, 2014). finally, the dimension of self-acceptance is a long term self-evaluation that includes a positive attitude toward the self, balancing and integrating the presence of both good and bad qualities (ryff & keyes, 1995; ryff & singer, 2008). this is a central construct also for the traditional maslow (1968) theory of self-actualization and for life-span theories (erikson 1959). in this line, positive psychology framework (di fabio, 2014; seligman, 2002) suggests that self-acceptance is likely to positively impact on swse because the global attitude towards the self can be predictive of the ability to perform dynamic activities of career planning and job searching, especially during young adulthood (karavdici & baumann, 2015; pepe et al., 2010). moreover, it is also relevant for career decision making in the light of the relationships between the career area and the process of selfactualization during this period of life (kunnen, 2014). the current study the current study was aimed at advancing the literature in the field of career development by enhancing the understanding of the relationships between career choice difficulties and simultaneously cognitive and noncognitive dimensions associated with the career decision process. in this sense, we considered specific variables for the career choice difficulty (lor), the cognitive dimension (swse), and the non-cognitive dimension (pwb). moreover, we considered an understudied sample of never-employed italian young adults. as noted by nota et al. (2007), much of the research on career development involves united states samples, whereas other countries, such as italy, are rarely considered. this made our study different from, and complementary to, the ones already done. the study was guided by the following two hypotheses. 1. based on previous studies, we expected that swes was significantly and negatively associated with lor when analytically in absence of pwb (bucki et al., 2015; pepe et al., 2010). 2. we hypothesized that, when simultaneously considered, pwb (in terms of autonomy, personal growth and self-acceptance) was significantly and positively related to swse (bucki et al., 2015) as well as significantly and negatively linked to lor (albion & fogarty, 2002; multon et al., 2007). in view of these basic hypotheses, the consequent and central research question was to what extent the association between swse and lor could be explained by their common relationship with pwb. in other terms, to what extent pwb shared variance with the other constructs, by contributing to change the negative association between swse and lor. viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 235 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants participants were randomly recruited using a student database from the placement service at the tutoring and counseling center of palermo university, which supports students and young university graduates in the development of a personal career project and in promoting active methods of job searching. after obtaining permission to use that database, we initially extracted 200 potential participants for the study, who had asked for access to the service for assistance in making a career decision and thereby reducing the levels of decisional distress. we succeeded in contacting 193 out of these 200 students and university graduates. as the database consisted of data coming from people at different stages of their counseling program, we preliminarily presented the participants with three questions to make sure that the analyses were based on the responses of individuals who were still never-employed, were at the beginning of the career choice process (as implied by the theoretical definition of lor), and had some difficulties in making a career decision. firstly, they were asked to report if they had worked previously, excluding odd jobs which is under the classification of nonemployment in the italian work system (“have you ever worked, except for odd jobs?”). secondly, they were asked to report if they had already entered a decision-making process about their career (“have you ever decidedly entered a clear and methodical decision-making process about your future career?”). thirdly, they were asked to report if they were experiencing some difficulty in making this decision (“is it somehow difficult or not for you to make a career decision at this time of your life?”). the participants responded on the basis of dichotomical answers (yes or no). those who simultaneously replied negatively to both the two questions and positively to the last one were included in the analyses. our final sample thus consisted of 148 young adults (males = 39%; females = 61%) living in western sicily, a southern region of italy. their age ranged from 18 to 29 years (m = 25.95, sd = 2.73). the majority of them were white italians (96%) from middle-class backgrounds, and were still living at home with their parents (87%), even though more than half of them were involved in a stable romantic relationship (68%), and had already a university degree (59%). overall, participants’ majors were diverse: architecture (7.43%); economics (9.46%); engineering (6.76%); agricultural sciences (7.43%); mathematical, physical, and natural sciences (9.46%); law (10.14%); political science (8.78%); humanities and philosophy (12.16%); psychology and educational science (11.49%); medicine (7.43%); other (9.46%). procedure the study was performed in accordance with the italian association of psychology (2015) ethical guidelines. signed assent was obtained from all study participants prior to collecting research data during university activities or in an agreed place. young adults individually completed an anonymous printed self-report questionnaire in the italian language as part of a larger study on career decision-making difficulties in italy. they were not paid for participation, but all participants who completed the questionnaire were eligible for a lottery reward, consisting of a free discount card to buy goods and services in more than 100 shops in the city of palermo. career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 236 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ measures lack of readiness in career decision-making process we assessed lor using the 10-item lack of readiness subscale of the italian version of the career decisionmaking difficulties questionnaire (cddq; di fabio & palazzeschi, 2010; gati et al., 1996, 2000), consisting of three minor subscales: (a) lack of motivation to make a decision (3 items; e.g., “i know that i have to choose a career, but i don’t have the motivation to make the decision now”), (b) general indecisiveness regarding all types of decision (3 items; e.g., “it is usually difficult for me to make decisions”), and (c) dysfunctional beliefs that implied the presence of negative thoughts or irrational expectations about career (4 items; e.g., “i believe that a career choice is a one-time choice and a life-long commitment”). items were rated on a 9-point likerttype scale, from does not describe me (1) to describes me well (9), and scores were reversed when this is the case. as mentioned in the introduction, we did not consider the dysfunctional beliefs subscale due to the low internal consistency reliability estimates reported in the literature (e.g., albion, 2000; gati et al., 1996), and also confirmed in the present study (cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .53). except for this measure, the cddq and its subscales have been found valid and reliable across cultures and also the italian version has been found to have adequate psychometric properties, with an internal consistency reliability estimate (cronbach’s alpha) of .86 for lor (see di fabio, palazzeschi, asulin-peretz, & gati, 2013). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .70 for lack of motivation and .76 for general indecisiveness. considering that each subscale comprises only three items, they appeared to show acceptable levels of internal consistency reliability. furthermore, the average item-total correlations was .52 for lack of motivation, and .59 for general indecisiveness, which were higher than the acceptable level of .30 suggested by nunnally and bernstein (1994), indicating that the different groups of items were measuring each construct in the same direction. search for work self-efficacy we assessed swse using the search for work self-efficacy scale developed by avallone et al. (2007; see also pepe et al., 2010). it is a 12-item self-report questionnaire, designed to detect the perceived capability to manage and cope with different situations in the search for a job and consisting of four subscales: proactive career planning, which pertains to the perception of personal ability to actively plan a future career (3 items; e.g., “to what extent do you feel capable of planning your own professional projects?”); frustration coping, which concerns the personal perception of being able to handle difficulties during the job search (3 items; e.g., “to what extent do you feel capable of considering a failure as a challenge, rather than as a problem, when searching for work?”); exploration enterprising, which refers to the perception of being able to actively engage in job searching (3 items; e.g., “to what extent do you feel capable of looking for information that you will need when searching for work?”); relational integration, which is related to the perception of being able to establish and maintain functional relationships in the workplace (3 items; e.g., “to what extent do you feel capable of asking for advice from those with more experience?”). items were rated on a 5-point likert-type scale, from not well at all (1) to very well (5). although concurrent and predictive validity studies are currently lacking, the swse scale has been found to show good factorial validity in italy and spain (pepe et al., 2010) as well as acceptable reliability, with internal consistency for its subscales (cronbach’s alpha) ranging from .73 to .84 (avallone et al., 2007). in this study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were satisfactory, with values of .84, .82, .83, and .81 for frustration coping, exploration enterprising, proactive career planning, and relational integration, respectively. viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 237 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological well-being we assessed pwb using the 18-item italian version of the psychological well-being scale (ryff & keyes, 1995; sirigatti et al., 2009). as already mentioned in the introduction, three out of the six original subscales were used: autonomy (3 items; e.g., “in general, i feel i am in charge of the situation in which i live”), personal growth (3 items; e.g., “for me, life has been a continuous process of learning, changing, and growth”), and selfacceptance (3 items; e.g., “i like most aspects of my personality”). items were rated on a 7-point likert-type scale, from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7), and scores were reversed when this is the case. the pwb scale and its subscales showed acceptable to very good validity and reliability across a variety of cultures, with internal consistency reliability coefficients ranging from .76 to .95 (see žukauskienė, kaniušonytė, truskauskaitė-kunevičienė, & malinauskienė, 2015). in the current study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients were .63, .64, and .66 for autonomy, personal growth and self-acceptance, respectively. though these reliabilities are modest, these coefficients evidenced sufficient levels of internal consistency reliability, considering the small number of items for each subscale and the average item-total correlations of .46, .47, and .48 for autonomy, personal growth and self-acceptance, respectively. analytic approach data analysis proceeded in two main steps using structural equation modeling (sem). although our sample size might be a concern for sem according to some common rules-of-thumb (e.g., “about 200 cases”; see kline, 2016, p. 16), recently there has been an increasing evidence that sem models can perform well even with small samples (e.g., 50 to 150; see iacobucci, 2010; muthén & muthén, 2002; sideridis, simos, papanicolaou, & fletcher, 2014; wolf, harrington, clark, & miller, 2013). for instance, sideridis et al. (2014) found that a sample size of 50-70 would be enough for a model involving 5 latent variables, each defined by 3 indicators. in this line, we deemed appropriate this analytic strategy. we first tested the relationship between the latent variable with four indicators of swse (proactive career planning, frustration coping, exploration enterprising, and relational integration) and the latent variable with two indicators of lor (lack of motivation and general indecisiveness). this relationship was modeled in terms of a direct pathway from swse to lor. second, we tested a different model including a latent variable with three indicators of pwb (autonomy, personal growth, and self-acceptance) to analyze the previous relationship between swse and lor in the presence of the influence of this new factor. in this case, we modeled the new associations considering direct pathways from pwb to swse and lor. according to bollen and long (1993) and faraci and musso (2013), we inspected different indices to evaluate model fit (adopted cut-offs in parentheses): chi-square test with the associated p-value (p > .05), non-normed fit index (nnfi ≥ .95), comparative fit index (cfi ≥ .95), standardized root mean square residual (srmr ≤ .05), and root mean squared error of approximation (rmsea ≤ .05, rmsea 90% c.i. ≤ .10). the akaike information criterion (aic), a well-known measure to balance complexity and goodness of fit of a model (burnham & anderson, 2004; lee & ghosh, 2009), was used to compare the quality of the different models in view of the different number of variables (a better fitting model will have a lower aic value). in this regard, in order to ascertain significant differences, the following criterion had to be satisfied, δaic ≥ 15.00 as an absolute value (linley, maltby, wood, osborne, & hurling, 2009). career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 238 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analyses multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was conducted to examine whether participants’ scores on the key study observed variables (i.e., the indicators of the latent variables swse, lor, and pwb) differed based on gender (0 = male, 1 = female), household composition (0 = not with parents, 1 = with parents), romantic relationship (0 = not involved in, 1 = involved in), and educational level (0 = not university degree, 1 = university degree). significant multivariate effect of household composition was found, wilks’ lambda = .81, f(9, 117) = 3.09, p= .002, η 2 = .19. univariate analyses of variance (anovas) showed that household composition had a significant effect on proactive career planning, f(1, 125) = 8.20, p = .005, η 2 = .06. young adults living at home with their parents scored higher on proactive career planning than those living without their parents. no significant multivariate effects were observed for gender, wilks’ lambda = .88, f(9, 117) = 1.79, p = .08, η 2 = .12, romantic relationship, wilks’ lambda = .89, f(9, 117) = 1.65, p = .11, η 2 = .11, and educational level, wilks’ lambda = .90, f(9, 117) = 1.52, p = .15, η 2 = .10. furthermore, participants’ age was not significantly related to any of the study variables. sem analyses descriptive statistics for the key study variables are displayed in table 1. based on the preliminary analyses, household composition was controlled by allowing it to predict all of the observed variables considered in the models we tested. the initial model analyzing exclusively the relationship between swse and lor (see figure 1, model 1) had an excellent fit, χ2(8) = 4.16, p = .84, nnfi = 1.00, cfi = 1.00, srmr = .02, rmsea = .00, rmsea 90% c.i. = .00 – .06, aic = -11.84, suggesting that the association between swse and lor was significant, moderately-sized, and negative. when including pwb (see figure 2, model 2), also the new model had an excellent fit, χ2(24) = 18.85, p = .76, nnfi = 1.00, cfi = 1.00, srmr = .03, rmsea = .00, rmsea 90% c.i. = .00 – .05, aic = -29.15, as well as a better fit compared to the first model, δaic = 17.31. results showed that pwb is significantly and positively related to swse, while it is significantly and negatively linked to lor. in addition, they indicated evidence supporting that the association between swse and lor can be fully explained by their common relationship with pwb, implying a kind of spurious relationship between the former two latent variables. viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 239 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 correlations, means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis for the key study variables observed variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. lack of motivation 2. general indecisiveness .29*** 3. proactive career planning -.19* -.23** 4. frustration coping -.16* -.25** .58*** 5. exploration enterprising -.19* -.19* .69*** .62*** 6. relational integration -.09 -.17* .53*** .44*** .53*** 7. autonomy -.33*** -.29*** .26** .24** .33*** .11 8. personal growth -.37*** -.31*** .30*** .32*** .34*** .21* .49*** 9. self-acceptance -.39*** -.39*** .43*** .38*** .42*** .15 .61*** .63*** m 2.76 4.14 3.16 3.28 3.71 4.07 5.24 5.77 5.00 sd 1.71 1.96 0.81 0.74 0.78 0.76 1.11 1.01 1.09 skewness 0.78 0.21 0.05 -0.15 -0.33 -0.61 -0.79 -0.57 -0.63 kurtosis -0.46 -0.79 0.12 0.14 -0.64 -0.32 0.25 -0.32 0.17 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 1. estimated structural equation model for the relationship between search for work self-efficacy and lack of readiness. note. maximum likelihood standardized coefficients are shown. household composition is controlled for but is not shown here for brevity. swse = search for work self-efficacy; lor = lack of readiness. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 240 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. estimated structural equation model for the relationships between search for work self-efficacy, lack of readiness, and psychological well-being. note. maximum likelihood standardized coefficients are shown. household composition is controlled for but is not shown here for brevity. swse = search for work self-efficacy; lor = lack of readiness; pwb = psychological well-being. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the general purpose of this study was to expand the knowledge about the factors that contribute to promote the beginning of the process of career decision-making among young never-employed adults still not involved in career pathways. specifically, this study investigated the relationships between career choice difficulties (lor) and simultaneously cognitive (swse) and non-cognitive (pwb) dimensions associated with the career decision process. our first hypothesis was fully confirmed because we found a negative relationship between swes and lor when analytically in the absence of pwb. this result is in line with previous studies showing that higher levels of career self-efficacy, and more specifically of swse, are associated with fewer difficulties with regard to career decision-making (anderson & betz, 2001; betz, 2004; bucki et al., 2015; creed, patton, & prideaux, 2006; pepe et al., 2010). thus, it seems that a sense of self-efficacy toward planning a career and searching for work is an important correlate of young adults’ ability to face the complexity of the demands of the viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 241 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ current labor context, associated with their own active involvement in the process of career and job choice at its beginning. also, the second hypothesis was confirmed because pwb was significantly and positively associated with swse as well as significantly and negatively related to lor. these findings are not surprising and are in line with previous studies (albion & fogarty, 2002; bucki et al., 2015; multon et al., 2007; ryff, 2014). as expected, young adults’ higher levels of autonomy, personal growth, and self-acceptance appear to be related to higher confidence in their own ability to effectively engage in the activities of career planning and job searching. furthermore, pwb seems to be negatively associated with young adults’ difficulties at the beginning of their personal process of career choice. this result, in line with the assumptions of the positive psychology, highlights one more time the important contribution of eudaimonic well-being in the domain of career development (ryff, 2014). however, the most interesting aspect of our study relates to the analysis of the simultaneous relationships between pwb, swse and lor. as said, we tried to understand to what extent pwb contributes to change the relationship between swse and lor. data showed that the negative association between swse and lor is nullified by the presence of pwb in one comprehensive model. this means that pwb shares a large extent of variance with swse and lor, playing a relevant role in possibly explaining their links. hence, young adults’ career decision-making processes seem to be principally associated with a variety of personal non-cognitive resources, such as the sense of autonomy, self-acceptance and personal growth. such a view is consistent with the opinion expressed by some scholars (bernaud, 2014; maree & twigge, 2016) that career choices faced by young adults inevitably raise the question of the meaning that they intend to give to their lives, and requires a steady sense of autonomy and an acceptance of the self. apart from these findings, our study also provides some other interesting insights, when considering the observed variable level rather than the latent factor level. in this case, relational integration, as compared to the other indicators of swse, showed lower associations with the indicators of both lor (lack of motivation and general indecisiveness) and pwb (autonomy, personal growth, and self-acceptance). a possible explanation for this evidence may be given by taking into account the content of the swse subscales. as mentioned in the method section, relational integration refers to the perception of being able to establish and maintain functional relationships in the workplace. hence, it seems to be more related to aspects occurring after the job search, whereas proactive career planning, frustration coping, and exploration enterprising assume processes that generally arise during the job search itself. this opens a question about the construct validity of the swse scale that future research should further examine (see also later in the text). additionally, we found that participants living at home with their parents scored higher on proactive career planning than those living without their parents. as some studies highlighted (e.g., lewis, west, roberts, & noden, 2016), securing a career job is crucial to ensure more positive feelings about co-residence of parents and their young adult children. without it, anxiety may prevail in the mutual relationships because it is not clear how long the cohabitation might continue. conversely, planning a career and finding a good job may remove some of the uncertainty, given that it becomes possible to think that at some point the child will be able to move out. in view of all these considerations, the current paper contributes to the literature in some relevant ways. first, it expands the knowledge about the relationships between pwb, swse and lor at the beginning of the career choice process among young adults still not employed, using a theoretical framework that integrates gati’s career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 242 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ model of career indecision (gati et al., 1996; gati & tal, 2008) and the positive psychology framework (di fabio, 2014; seligman, 2002). so far, studies on career decision-making have focused mainly on the cognitive aspects of decision-making rather than on other resources, such as pwb. therefore, the current study showed how levels of autonomy, personal growth and self-acceptance are related to both swse and lor, and to what extent pwb shares variance with swse and lor. when considered together, non-cognitive aspects (pwb) seem to be more strongly associated with lor than cognitive aspects (swse). the second contribution is to suggest a complex vision of career choice as a process in which different dimensions may be involved. in a speculative vein, we propose that the non-cognitive dimension (here operationalized as pwb) may represent a quite significant aspect of this process since it seems to be underlying the relationships between the cognitive dimension (here swse) and difficulties in career choice. this result may support the possibility for professional counselors to take into account the importance of pwb that, although is not directly connected to work demands, is positively related to a good sense of confidence about personal efficacy to choose a career and find a job, and negatively to career indecision. in fact, as stressed by seligman (2004), in the xxi century it is necessary to create a science of human strengths with the mission of understanding and learning how to nurture the virtues and skills of young people. in this perspective, counselors should learn and implement appropriate techniques to address the sources behind psychological well-being to increase the effectiveness of their interventions. furthermore, the third contribution of the paper regards its implications for the development of counseling interventions specifically tailored to those young adults at the beginning of their career choice process. specifically, we conjecture that these interventions should take into account the joint influence of some dimensions of pwb, such as autonomy, selfacceptance and personal growth, on those difficulties that can inhibit the beginning of the career decision-making process. in this perspective, career counselors and vocational psychologists should be trained to assess and improve the subjective sense of well-being of their clients and in this way promote young adults’ confidence in career planning and job searching activities, as well as reducing their difficulties in choosing a career. hence, the educational paths for these practitioners have to be aimed at enhancing their competence to use techniques and tools suitable to foster psychological well-being of young adults, in terms of autonomy, personal growth and self-acceptance. with this in mind, career counselors are required to know how to promote the sense of autonomy and the acceptance of the self in order to equip their clients to act wisely (bernaud, 2014; maree & twigge, 2016). beyond this, it is also necessary to take into account the context in which the person is living. for instance, one may have high self-efficacy expectation and beliefs in one’s ability to look for work and to choose a career, but this confidence may be tempered by threats linked with the current labor crisis. in fact, youth unemployment rates in the european union rose noticeably in the last decade (eurostat, 2015). thus, the sense of security and predictability of work has been damaged, and this may create the spectre of a lost generation of young people who might become permanently excluded from productive employment (bell & blanchflower, 2011; scarpetta, sonnet, & manfredi, 2010). with regard to italy, data produced by italian national institute for statistics (istat, 2015) outlined in the introduction of our paper show that the number of young adults who are discouraged about finding a job is dramatically high. in such a context that may be detrimental to the search for work self-efficacy, we presume that psychological well-being may become a protective factor with regard to career indecision. this is in line with previous research reporting that high levels of autonomy and personal viola, musso, ingoglia et al. 243 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 http://www.psychopen.eu/ growth are fundamental to promote good functioning among emerging italian adults (ingoglia, inguglia, liga, & lo coco, 2016; inguglia, ingoglia, liga, lo coco, & lo cricchio, 2015; inguglia et al., 2016). to conclude, there is a series of limitations to this study to be kept in mind. first of all, the generalizability of results is limited because of the small sample, which may not be representative of the broader population, and also these findings are limited since they concern only italian young adults. secondly, although we have attempted a provisional speculation, it is not possible to clearly infer a casual relation between the variables because of the non-experimental and cross-sectional nature of the research design. future research is needed to examine causal relationships among the study variables also considering alternative paths compared to those we have modeled. for example, it would be interesting to investigate if the improvement of the career decision-making abilities of young adults may lead to higher self-acceptance, autonomy and personal growth. in order to reach this goal, it would be useful to develop longitudinal studies following the same participants in their career decision-making process and career developments during their passage to maturity and adulthood. thirdly, our findings indicate that there may be a potential lack of construct for the swse scale. thus, future research should provide more information about the concurrent and predictive validity of this measure, for instance, by specifically analyzing why the relational integration subscale seems to work in a partially different way than the other subscales. moreover, since some of the subscales of lor and pwb have shown only sufficient internal consistency reliabilities which attenuates their utility (although possibly due to the small number of items), further studies should still address this issue both by testing the psychometric characteristics of these measures in samples similar to the one we selected and by using alternative consistent measures. finally, as many authors have emphasized (mau, 2000; 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(2013). sample size requirements for structural equation models an evaluation of power, bias, and solution propriety. educational and psychological measurement, 73, 913-934. doi:10.1177/0013164413495237 žukauskienė, r., kaniušonytė, g., truskauskaitė-kunevičienė, i., & malinauskienė, o. (2015). systematic review of the measurement properties of questionnaires for the measurement of the well-being of children and adolescents. social inquiry into well-being, 1, 40-75. doi:10.13165/siiw-15-1-1-05 about the authors maria maddalena viola. ph.d. in psychological and social sciences at the university of palermo (italy). visiting student at the department of organizational psychology of the erasmus university, rotterdam (the netherlands), working in the group of prof. a. bakker on job demands-resources model. her research interests focus on career development, psychological well-being, dispositional resilience, career self esteem in young adults. pasquale musso. master’s degree in developmental and educational psychology and phd in public relations at the university of palermo, italy. he has ongoing participations in different research projects and in different european and non-european countries. his research interests focus on issues in developmental psychology, as related to the social development of adolescents and emerging adults, especially to their positive development, acculturation processes and socio-psychological adaptation. sonia ingoglia. assistant professor in psychometrics at the university of palermo (italy). visiting student at ucla working with the group of prof. p. bentler on multivariate analysis with latent variables and structural equation modeling. her research interests focuses on psychological well-being of adolescents and emerging adults, emotional autonomy in adolescence, and empathy. alida lo coco. full professor in developmental and educational psychology and coordinator of the ph.d. in psychological and behavioral sciences at the university of palermo (italy). coordinator of the several international and national research projects in the developmental psychology and education area. her research interest includes the study of social, emotional and personality development, peer relationships and friendship, empathic responsiveness, student’s academic and psychological adjustment; intercultural relations, autonomy and relatedness during adolescence, cultural studies. cristiano inguglia. assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology at the university of palermo (italy). he is involved in several international research projects in eu and not eu countries. his research interests focus on the field of developmental psychology, as related to the social development of children, adolescents and emerging adults, especially with regard to their positive development, acculturation processes and socio-psychological adaptation. career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being 250 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(2), 231–250 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i2.1277 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://doi.org/10.1177/0013164413495237 http://doi.org/10.13165/siiw-15-1-1-05 http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ career indecision, self-efficacy, and well-being (introduction) the theoretical background search for work self-efficacy and lor psychological well-being, lor, and swse the current study method participants procedure measures analytic approach results preliminary analyses sem analyses discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the dark web of machiavellianism and psychopathy: moral disengagement in it organizations research reports the dark web of machiavellianism and psychopathy: moral disengagement in it organizations alexandra maftei 1 , andrei-corneliu holman 1, alina-georgiana elenescu 1 [1] faculty of psychology and education sciences, alexandru ioan cuza university of iaşi, iaşi, romania. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 received: 2020-07-09 • accepted: 2021-03-03 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: panagiotis gkorezis, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece corresponding author: alexandra maftei, department of education sciences, alexandru ioan cuza university of iaşi, 3 toma cozma street, iaşi, romania. e-mail: alexandra.maftei@uaic.ro abstract in the current paper, we were interested in examining a series of predictors of organizational moral disengagement, namely machiavellianism and psychopathy, along with a series of demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, and work experience). our sample consisted of 114 it employees aged 21 to 54 (m = 28.51, 62% males). we used a cross-sectional approach and an original scale to measure organizational moral disengagement. the hierarchical regression analysis suggested that the most important predictor of organizational moral disengagement was machiavellianism, followed by gender (i.e., males). a significant, negative association emerged between organizational moral disengagement and age, suggesting that the older we grow, the lower the organizational moral disengagement. machiavellianism and psychopathy were significantly associated with all moral disengagement mechanisms, except one diffusion of responsibility. the most powerful association we found were between machiavellianism and moral justification and between psychopathy and euphemistic language. theoretical and practical implications are discussed. keywords organizational moral disengagement, it, age, gender, ethical behavior organizational moral disengagement is, generally, a costly behavior to many companies and employers. while some predictors of immoral organizational behavior have already been identified, our aim was to add to our predictive capabilities by exploring a series of predictors and associations related to moral disengagement and its mechanisms within several it romanian organizations. a recent study (ernst & young, 2017) suggested that 15% of romanian employees would resort to immoral behavior to advance or to obtain a salary increase. also, 30% of the interviewees mentioned that they were afraid to report the company's or a colleague's fraud because it would slow down their career advancement. however, almost a quarter of the respondents resigned after acknowledging immoral behavior at their workplace. within the it environment, immoral behavior may include online fraud, hacking of various databases (especially those containing with sensitive information, such as money spending), or collecting and using data to manipulate internet users (e.g., the famous facebook and cambridge analytica case, which proved that the latter company collected information from users of the facebook platform without their consent, by displaying various advertisements intended to influence their vote in the presidential elections in the united). additionally, one of the most unethical behaviors related to the it domain is the creation and usage of the dark web (and, more recently, the deep web) – an online network that facilitates various crimes, from drug and arms sales to paid assassins and child pornography. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4011&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9700-8794 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ learning our moral (dis)engagement over time, several theories explained the human learning process, from classical conditioning (pavlov, 1926), operant conditioning (skinner, 1966; thorndike, 1898), cognitive learning (tolman, 1932), to social learning (bandura, 1971). bandura's paradigm emphasizes the role of the individual as the agent who influences the actions of those around him or the course of events through one takes action. the human agent manifests itself through prediction, reaction, and reflection. in the prediction phase, people are motivated and guided by action plans, goals and challenges, and, more importantly, by visualizing their efforts' potential results. this anticipatory behavior is governed by the visualization of goals and expected results rather than by the future's unfulfilled state. however, regulating behaviors that violate specific rules operates on a legal, social, and evaluative level, based on anticipated consequences. therefore, people may refrain from violating the laws due to the fear of being caught and suffering the consequences of their transgressions (i.e., imprisonment) or the fear of social censorship and other social negative consequences. the moral disengagement (md) theory (bandura et al., 1996) explains why individuals can engage in immoral behaviors without any apparent guilt or self-censorship. most people have developed moral standards, which they use to anticipate and judge their behaviors. actions that contravene these standards lead to guilt and self-condemnation. typically, individuals behave ethically, following internal moral values, because they anticipate positive or negative self-assessments of potential behaviors. on the other hand, moral self-regulation can be activated and deactivated selectively so that, when inactive, using moral disengagement, people may be freed from the guilt and self-censorship that usually arise when they behave immorally (qin et al, 2020). specifically, bandura et al. (1996) described eight moral disengagement mechanisms, which serve to distance the individual from harmful behavior cognitively and avoid negative feelings, such as guilt or shame. these mechanisms can be grouped by location, depending on whether they target the behavior, agent, effects, or victim. in short, the mechanisms of moral disengagement referring to the locus of behavior explain how the individual considers negative and harmful behaviors to be more positive, as a result of moral justification (by restructuring negative actions into something socially acceptable), advantageous comparison (contrasting negative behavior with something more negative), or euphemistic labeling (using language to consider the immoral behavior as less harmful). the agent's locus includes mechanisms by which the individual minimizes his/her role and detaches from moral responsibility by either shifting responsibility (considering his/her behavior as a result of pressure from authority) or minimizing if others are involved). the mechanisms involving the locus of effects refer to disregarding or distorting the consequences of inhuman behavior. finally, mechanisms implying the victim's locus refer to the cognitive processes by which feelings of guilt or remorse can be avoided either by dehumanizing or blaming the victim while also holding them accountable for his/ her suffering (bandura, 2002; bjärehed, 2020). the organizational environment seems to provide multiple opportunities for moral disengagement: organizations tend to have a hierarchical scale, often providing the possibility to shift responsibility; work is often undertaken in a team, making it possible to spread responsibility; the organization generally defines the boundaries of its employees when it comes to their work behavior (barbaranelli, 2004; barsky, 2011), thus providing numerous opportunities for moral justifications (e.g., "i did that to protect the organization") and minimizing the consequences of immoral behavior (moore, 2012). the predilection for moral disengagement can be detrimental to both the individual and the organization­ al environment (moore, 2008). disengaged moral reasoning can occur and persist in almost all organizations, including those who make both formal and informal efforts to promote and support ethical behavior, and may lead to corrup­ tion, job insecurity, negative emotions, and general deviant work-behavior (barsky, 2011; fida, paciello, tramontano, fontaine, barbaranelli, & farnese, 2015; huang, wellman, ashford, lee, & wang, 2017; martin, kish-gephart, & detert, 2014; moore, 2008; samnani, salamon, & singh, 2014). machiavellianism, psychopathy, and organizational behavior undoubtedly, there is a particular fascination in exploring the characteristics of people who have antagonistic traits (jonason, webster, schmitt, li, & crysel, 2012). the social adversity of the dark triad of personality caught both researchers and the general public's attention. since its conceptualization (paulhus & williams, 2002), it has been extensively investigated in a high number of various scientific approaches (e.g., glenn & sellbom, 2015; kaufman, yaden, predictors of organizational moral disengagement 182 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hyde, & tsukayama, 2019; lyons, houghton, brewer, & o’brien, 2022; moraga, nima, & garcia, 2017; sabouri et al., 2016; szabó & bereczkei, 2017; wissing & reinhard, 2019). the dark triad consists of three distinct personality traits, which can sometimes overlap: machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy. they all share common features, such as manipulativeness, insensitivity, and selfishness (jones, 2013; pilch & turska, 2015) and the general indifference to social norms, which often leads to immoral behaviors (e.g., lying, deception, manipulation). individuals who score high on the dark triad traits are considered untrustworthy and unromantic as relationship partners (jonason, li, & czarna, 2013), cold parents, and obsessed with control, and they are often betraying their co-workers. in short, the dark triad has toxic consequences for those around people with these characteristics. on the other hand, the dark triad also has positive parts: especially in competitive situations (where they might win something), individuals with the features of the dark triad can be loyal friends, effective leaders, and heroic saviors (lyons, 2019). more importantly, the dark triad has been the subject of numerous studies within the organizational environment (e.g., nübold et al., 2017; palmer et al., 2017; prusik & szulawski, 2019; wu, wang, zheng, & wu, 2019). for example, palmer et al. (2017) studied its impact on organizational behavior and the moderating role of perceived organizational support. their results suggested that employees with elevated levels of narcissism or psychopathy tend to exhibit various counterproductive organizational behaviors (e.g., sabotage, abuse, theft, reduced production). although the correlations between machiavellianism and counterproductive behaviors were positive, a causal relationship between them could not be established. in terms of organizational support, the authors reported a positive, significant correlation with narcissism and a negative one with psychopathy. in a meta-analysis related to the link between the dark triad and counterproductive organizational behavior, cohen (2016) suggests that there may not be a direct link between them, while others suggested their connection may actually be lying on moderation or mediation processes (schyns, 2015). we focused on two of the triad's personality traits within the current study, namely, machiavellianism and psy­ chopathy. though previous studies explored narcissism (i.e., the third dark triad dimension) and its link to unethical behavior, results generally suggested more significant associations between moral disengagement and machiavellianism and psychopathy, respectively, as important psychological antecedents to unethical behavior (e.g., egan, hughes, & palmer, 2015). additionally, narcissism was suggested to be differently related to moral disengagement compared to machiavellianism and psychopathy (sijtsema, garofalo, jansen, & klimstra, 2019), as several studies identified different mechanisms of action concerning immoral behavior related to the latter two (e.g., roeser, mcgregor, stegmaier, mathew, kübler, & meule, 2016), at various age stages. machiavellianism is a personality trait characterized by a manipulative interpersonal style and the willingness to exploit others (brewer & abell, 2017). machiavellian individuals are usually cynical, manipulative, secretive, and suspi­ cious, avoiding norms and lacking empathy, who usually follow utilitarian models (christie & geis, 1970; ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015; 2016; jaffé, greifeneder, & reinhard, 2019). researchers also hypothesized that machiavellianism might not be qualitatively different from psychopathy but a less severe sub-clinical manifestation of it (e.g., mealey, 1995). within the organizational environment, machiavellians usually hold leading positions, from which they manage to manipulate and control others. they are less willing to adhere to rules and procedures, focusing on their power over those around them (d’souza, 2015). machiavellians are usually sensitive to the social and organizational context and may change their tactics, from cooperation to competition, when necessary (czibor, 2012). sometimes, they engage and support emotional manipulation, to the point they manage to put other people against each other (austin, 2007). they are more likely to lie during hiring interviews to get a job, compared to psychopaths or narcissists, and rarely show humility (levashina & campion, 2006; roulin & bourdage, 2017). machiavellians may also spread rumors about their co-workers, hide important work information, or find subtle ways to denigrate his/her organizational team member (greenberg & baron, 2013). however, despite its harmfulness, machiavellians are also distinguished by flexibility in the use of various strategies, from withdrawal to cooperation (depending on the context), to gain various personal benefits. psychopathy is, perhaps, the darkest component of the triad, and the reason behind lies within the strong association with indifference to others and the manifestation of disruptive interpersonal behaviors, such as bullying and sadism (mathieu, neumann, babiak, & hare, 2015 paulhus & williams, 2002). ignorance of others is all the more evident in the context of breaking the law. individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy are more likely to violate social and legal norms and to engage in immoral activities ranging from minor daily abuse to a lifestyle based on illegal activities, leading to incarceration and high levels of recurrence (lyons, 2019). psychopathy is marked by egocentrism, impulsivity, maftei, holman, & elenescu 183 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and lack of moral emotions such as guilt and regret. psychopaths usually hold the ability to influence and dominate those around them; they generally have low levels of anxiety and engage in risky behaviors (lebreton, binning, & adorno, 2006). individuals high in psychopathy are thoughtless, selfish, aggressive, profiteering, and insensitive, usually blaming others or victimizing themselves. they are present-oriented and usually act without planning (d’souza, 2015). psychopathy encompasses other dimensions, such as impulsivity, risk-taking, and limited empathy for others (ali, amorim, & chamorro-premuzic, 2009). individuals with high levels of psychopathy are usually more opportunistic and less flexible than those with machiavellianism. within the organizational environment, many managers (and those in leading positions, in general) present the gen­ eral features of psychopathy (ten brinke, kish, & keltner, 2018; spurk, keller, & hirschi, 2016). psychopathic managers lead their organizations through power, money, and prestige and are indifferent to their colleagues' or employees' fate, generating a general toxic working environment (hogan, hogan, & kaiser, 2011). they are opportunistic, self-centered, cruel, and cynical, but at the same time, they can be charming, manipulative, and ambitious. however, they usually jeopardize the business's performance and longevity because they put their interests above those of the organization. moreover, the sense of social responsibility is threatened by the lack of guilt, shame, or regret about their immoral deeds (boddy, 2005). as managers, individuals high in psychopathy were also found to be lacking relationship skills, being unable to build effective working teams (hogan, hogan, & kaiser, 2011), and usually determining subordinates' stress, work-family conflicts, and low levels of job satisfaction, and counterproductive work behavior (mathieu et al., 2015; o’boyle et al., 2012). aims of the present research the present research aimed to explore a series of predictors of organizational moral disengagement. more specifically, we were interested in finding whether age, gender, education level, work experience, machiavellianism, and psychop­ athy predict organizational moral disengagement within the it work sector. previous research suggested that men are generally more predisposed to disengage morally, compared to women (e.g., clemente, espinosa, & padilla, 2019; samnani et al., 2014; wang et al., 2016), and that females generally have a more ethical work behavior (e.g., chonko & hunt, 1985; fritzsche, 1988). research on adolescents suggested that moral disengagement may decrease with age due to maturation and the internalization of moral values and social adjustment (paciello, fida, tramontano, lupinetti, & caprara, 2008). however, other studies claimed the opposite (wang, ryoo, swearer, turner, & goldberg, 2017). therefore, we assumed that the series of proposed predictors would significantly predict moral disengagement within the it sector. more specifically, our hypotheses were the following: (a) age, gender, education level, work experience, machiavellianism, and psychopathy would predict organizational moral disengagement within the it work sector; (b) preliminary correlational analyses would suggest that men present more elevated organizational moral disengagement levels than women; (c) younger participants would be more likely to express morally disengaged organi­ zational behavior, compared to older ones; and, finally, (d) in line with previous findings (e.g., roozen, de pelsmacker, & bostyn, 2001), we also considered that participants with limited work experience would score less on the organizational moral disengagement scale. an important clarification is needed concerning the last two assumptions: within the it sector, generally dominated, in romania, by relatively young employees, compared to the mean european age (eurostat, 2017), older participants do not necessarily have extended work experience. the novelty of the present study lies in both the proposed association of predictors, as well as the original version of the scale that we used to measure organizational moral disengagement. thus, our contribution is three-folded: first, the results from the current study would contribute to the general field of research related to the unethical behavior in organizational environments; additionally, the instrument that we propose, i.e., an adapted version of bandura et al.'s (1996) moral disengagement scale, may be used in future research that focuses on unethical organizational behavior, regardless of the work domain. second, we address some of the contrasting results related to the relationship between age and moral disengagement behavior, aiming to expand this area's results. furthermore, our paper's practical contri­ bution lies within the importance of predicting immoral organizational behavior for the work climate and company management. moreover, given the specific area that we focused on (i.e., it organizations) and the implications of predictors of organizational moral disengagement 184 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the related potential unethical conduct (i.e., dark web or deep web), it is all the more important to identify personal characteristics that may predict organizational moral disengagement. method participants and procedure one hundred and fourteen individuals voluntarily participated in the present research. their age varied from 21 to 54 (m = 28.51, sd = 4.56), most of them being males (62.1%), with a bachelor's degree (49%). their work experience varied from 2 years (13.1%) to 34 years (.08%). they were all employees of private it international companies, with romanian offices in the country's capital. all participants were active it workers at the time of the study, with work experience at their current workplace, varying from less than one year (.08%) to 8 years (1.6%). participants were selected using the linkedin platform. they all received an individual message with the invitation to participate in the current online study anonymously. they were informed that participation was voluntary and anonymous and may withdraw at any time from the study. confidentiality was guaranteed, and the completion time was estimated to be around 15 minutes. the form comprised five sections: the first section contained the informed consent, and the last one asking for demographic data (i.e., age, gender, education, it work experience, experience at the current workplace). the other sections consisted of the machiavellianism and psychopathy measurements and the organizational moral disengagement scale. the study was presented as part of a more extensive study on the romanian organizational it environment. measures we used the two subscales from the short dark triad (sd3, jones & paulhus, 2014) to measure machiavellianism and psychopathy. the machiavellianism scale contained nine items (e.g., "whatever it takes, you must get the important people on your side"; "there are things you should hide from other people to preserve your reputation"), participants answering on a 5-point likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). similarly, the psychopathy scale contained nine items, such as "payback needs to be quick and nasty" or "people who mess with me always regret it," on the same 5-point scale. we used an adapted version (to the organizational environment) of bandura et al.'s (1996) moral disengagement scale. describing the same eight mechanisms proposed by the authors, we developed a similar instrument, containing 32 items (as in bandura et al.'s original version of the scale), four for each moral disengagement dimension (moral justification, advantageous comparison, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, disregard or distortion of consequences, dehumanization, and attribution of blame). participants answered on a 5-point likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), a lower score suggesting a lower organizational moral disengagement level. example items include: it is all right to fight to protect your co-workers (moral justification); slapping and shoving a colleague at work is just a way of joking (euphemistic labeling); stealing some money from work is not too serious compared to those who steal a lot of money (advantageous comparison); employees cannot be blamed for using bad words when all their co-workers do it (displacement of responsibility); if a group of co-workers decides together to do something harmful, it is unfair to blame any employee in the group for it (diffusion of responsibility); teasing a co-worker does not really hurt them (distorting consequences); if employees fight and misbehave at work it is their leader's fault (attribution of blame); some employees have to be treated roughly because they lack feelings that can be hurt (dehumanization). cronbach's alpha indicated a satisfying value of .865 for the scale. we followed the back-forward translation method for all scales and pretested them in a sample of 27 individuals aged 20 to 42 (m = 27.92, sd = 5.71), 70.4% females. no issues were found within the items of the scales in the translation procedure, and all instruments provided satisfying internal consistency values (cronbach's alphas > .70). all instruments were self-report questionnaires. maftei, holman, & elenescu 185 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results we used the 20.0 version of the spss program to analyze our data. we first conducted a series of preliminary analysis before computing a multiple linear hierarchical regression. first, we tested for multi-collinearities, results indicating that the variance inflation factor (vif) values were all within the acceptable limits. next, we analyzed the residual and scatter plots (pallant, 2002) and verified the homoscedasticity condition. we then explored the associations between the variables we included in our prediction model (see table 1). results suggested a significant association with gender (r = -.253, p = .007) and age (r = -.185, p = .049), as well as with machiavellianism (r = .551, p < .001) and psychopathy (r = .363, p < .001). in other words, younger males, with higher scores on both the machiavellianism and psychopathy measures, scored higher on the organizational moral disengagement scale (see table 1). table 1 means, standard deviation, and pearson correlation matrix for the main variables (n = 114) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. gender 1 2. age 28.42 4.58 .082 1 3. education 4.16 0.65 .087 .148 1 4. it experience 6.56 4.60 .053 .915** .104 1 5. current workplace 2.15 1.58 .112 .099 .137 .086 1 6. moral disengagement 55.31 11.62 -.253** -.185* -.032 -.169 .109 1 7. machiavellianism 25.37 6.13 -.181 -.013 -.098 .029 .006 .551** 1 8. psychopathy 20.38 4.89 -.199* -.031 -.118 -.017 -.057 .363** .462** 1 *p < .05. **p < .001. we then performed a four-step linear hierarchical regression, with gender and age (step 1), total work experience and current work experience (step 2), machiavellianism (step 3), and psychopathy (step 4) as predictors for organizational moral disengagement. regression statistics are presented in table 2. table 2 summary of hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting organizational moral disengagement (n = 114) model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 variables b se b β b se(b) β b se b β b se b β gender -6.06 2.29 -.241* -6.45 2.30 -.257* -4.27 1.95 -.170* -0.391 1.96 -.156* age -0.412 0.232 -.162 -0.375 0.573 -.147 -0.074 0.483 -.029 -0.091 0.481 -.036 it work experience -0.081 0.567 -.032 -0.392 0.478 -.155 -0.372 0.477 -.147 current workplace 1.13 0.672 .155 1.01 0.564 .138 1.058 0.563 .144 machiavellianism 1.00 0.148 .527** 0.907 0.164 .475** psychopathy 0.280 0.206 .117 r2 .092 .115 .383 .394 f for change in r2 5.55* 1.44 46.42** 1.85 *p < .05. **p < .001. the hierarchical multiple regression revealed that at stage one, age and gender significantly contributed to the regres­ sion model, f (2, 112) = 5.55, p = .005) and accounted for 7.5% of the variation in organizational moral disengagement. introducing the total work experience and current work experience explained an additional 1.8% of the dependent variable variation, but this change in r2 was not significant, f (2, 108) = 1.44, p = .241. adding machiavellianism to the predictors of organizational moral disengagement 186 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regression model explained an additional 27.1% of the variation in organizational moral disengagement, and this change in r 2 was significant: f (1, 107) = 46.42, p < .001. the psychopathy measure added at stage 4 explained an additional 0.5% of the organizational moral disengagement variation, but this change in r2 was not significant, f (1, 106) = 1.85, p = .177. when all six independent variables were included in stage four of the regression model, the most significant predictor of organizational moral disengagement was machiavellianism (β = .475), followed by gender (β = -.156). together, the six independent variables accounted for 35.9% of the variance in organizational moral disengagement. for a deeper understanding of the present results, we explored the associations between all eight dimensions of moral disengagement, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. machiavellianism significantly correlated with all eight dimensions, and the most powerful correlation found was with the moral justification dimension (r = .496, p < .001). similarly, psychopathy also correlated with most moral disengagement dimensions, except diffusion of responsibility (r = .159, p = .093) and dehumanization. the most powerful association with psychopathy, among the eight moral disengagement mechanisms, was found to be with euphemistic language (r = .319, p = .001) (see table 3). table 3 correlation matrix between the main variables and md mechanisms variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. machiavellianism 1 2. psychopathy .462** 1 3. moral justification .496** .287** 1 4. euphemistic language .329** .319** .382** 1 5. advantageous comparison .288** .184 .196* .426** 1 6. displacement of responsibility .398** .278** .361** .448** .375** 1 7. diffusion of responsibility .265** .159 .286** .241** .343** .355** 1 8. distorting consequences .400** .208* .291** .510** .399** .504** .257** 1 9. attribution of blame .340** .311** .228* .118 .256** .467** .341** .306** 1 10. dehumanization .406** .181 .342** .452** .453** .473** .288** .430** .350** 1 *p < .005. **p < .001. discussion in a cross-sectional study among it workers aged 21 to 54, a hierarchical regression analysis suggested that the most important predictor of organizational moral disengagement was machiavellianism, followed by gender. we assumed that all the other considered predictors in our final prediction model would be found significant (i.e., age, total work experience, current workplace experience, psychopathy), but no other significant predictors were found. a significant, negative association emerged within the correlational analysis between organizational moral disen­ gagement and age, confirming previous findings that suggest that the older we grow, the lower the moral disengage­ ment (paciello, fida, tramontano, lupinetti, & caprara, 2008). however, this result has been contradicted by several other studies (e.g., roozen, de pelsmacker, & bostyn, 2001), and further studies are needed to clarify this specific association. more importantly, though significantly associated with organizational moral disengagement, age was not a significant predictor in our model. we also found that males are more likely to morally disengage within the organizational environment compared to females, confirming previous research related to gender differences in moral disengagement (chonko & hunt, 1985; clemente, espinosa, & padilla, 2019; fritzsche, 1988; samnani et al., 2014; wang et al., 2016). machiavellianism was the most powerful predictor in our final model, confirming the strongest correlation we previously found with organizational moral disengagement. our results confirm the significant link between unethical behavior and the associated behaviors expressed by individuals high in machiavellianism, such as spreading rumors about their co-workers, hiding important work information, or denigrating other co-workers (czibor, 2012; greenberg & baron, 2003; levashina & campion, 2006; roulin & bourdage, 2017). maftei, holman, & elenescu 187 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ unsurprisingly, we found that machiavellianism and psychopathy were significantly associated with all moral disengagement mechanisms (with one exception, namely psychopathy and diffusion of responsibility). the most pow­ erful association we found between the eight mechanisms and the two dimensions of the dark triad were between machiavellianism and moral justification and between psychopathy and euphemistic language. in the process of moral justification, people can act upon presumed moral imperatives that are used to justify immoral acts. according to bandura (1999), through the "moral justification of violent means, people see themselves as fighting ruthless oppressors, protecting their cherished values, preserving world peace, saving humanity from subjugation, or honoring their coun­ try's commitments" (p. 195). within the organizational environment, using moral justification may be expressed by individuals who justify their immoral behavior by considering their unethical conduct as a way of "saving," for example, other co-workers from managers' exploitation. one may use other reasons, such as the good of the company, or the good of team-workers to wrap unethical deeds morally. our results suggest that high levels of machiavellianism, as well as psychopathy, are significantly associated with such cognitive mechanisms, which is not surprising, given previous data that describes such individuals as manipulative, cynical, secretive, opportunistic, suspicious (christie & geis, 1970; ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2015; 2016; jaffé, greifeneder, & reinhard, 2019), and lacking empathy (ali, amorim, and chamorro-premuzic, 2009). euphemistic language is generally used to make harmful, unethical behavior look less negative and lower one's responsibility for an immoral act. according to bandura (1999), "by camouflaging pernicious activities in innocent or sanitizing parlance, the activities lose much of their repugnancy" (p. 195). for example, civilians killed during bomb-attacks are presented as "collateral damage," pornography is portrayed as a form of cheap sex, and fired employees are "let go." other frequently used forms of sanitized language within the organizational environment are words and expressions such as "economically disadvantaged" instead of poor, "compensation plan" instead of "pay," "to downsize," instead of "to fire." the significant association with both psychopathy and machiavellianism is unsurprising, given their general characteristics. in line with previous findings (e.g., roozen, de pelsmacker, & bostyn, 2001), we assumed that participants with limited work experience would score lower on the organizational moral disengagement scale. our results did not confirm any associations between the general work experience nor one's experience at the current workplace. instead, results confirmed other personal factors (i.e., gender, age, machiavellianism, and psychopathy) as significantly correlated with organizational moral disengagement and its mechanisms. therefore, it seems that the organizational environment itself and the organizational culture seem to matter less when it comes to moral disengagement within one's workplace. in other words, personal characteristics, both demographic and those related to personality, were much stronger predic­ tors and associated factors compared to the correlates of the organizational environment. this result is all the more important as it suggests that those responsible for monitoring and preventing unethical behaviors in the workplace should consider the individual himself, formulate strategies taking into account his or her individual characteristics, and concentrate less on organizational policies. though we used a novel approach to measure organizational moral disengagement, namely a personalized scale, adapted from bandura et al. 's (1996) well-known scale, our instrument did not specifically measure the it environment. therefore, our results are not highly generalizable for several reasons: on the one hand, due to the small number of participants, and on the other hand, because the scale used has not yet been validated nor specifically adapted to the it industry. additionally, causality, common method bias, and the sample's diverse nature may also be considered impor­ tant limitations for the current research. therefore, future studies might want to benefit from using experimental and longitudinal approaches to address such issues and limit social desirability or consistency motif (podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012). however, despite these limitations, we consider the present study results as an important starting point for future studies that will try to define and establish the most significant predictors of moral disengagement in the organizational environment. there are several theoretical and practical implications for the present research. first, our results add to the data re­ lated to the link between machiavellianism, psychopathy, and moral disengagement at the organizational level. second, our results confirm a series of studies related to the associations between age and moral disengagement, which, in turn, contradict other results in the area. on the other hand, the associations between the dimensions of organizational moral disengagement and psychopathy, respectively, machiavellianism, can be beneficial for organizations fighting unethical predictors of organizational moral disengagement 188 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 181–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4011 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviors in the workplace. at a more practical level, our result highlighted the importance of organizational moral education programs, such as collective and group ethically focused trainings. more specifically, our findings suggest that human resources managers and organizational leaders should consider employees' personal traits when shaping effective strategies for monitoring and preventing unethical behaviors in the workplace. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ali, f., amorim, i. s., & chamorro-premuzic, t. 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(2019). the dark triad and deception perceptions. frontiers in psychology, 10, article e1811. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01811 wu, w., wang, h., zheng, c., & wu, y. j. (2019). effect of narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism on entrepreneurial intention —the mediating of entrepreneurial self-efficacy. frontiers in psychology, 10, article e360. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00360 about the authors alexandra maftei, phd, is an assistant teacher in the educational sciences department of the faculty of psychology and education­ al sciences, “alexandru i. cuza” university, iași, romania. her areas of research include moral cognition, child development, disability and special educational needs, human reproduction ethics, and clinical psychology. andrei corneliu holman, phd, is a professor in the psychology department of the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, “alexandru i. cuza” university, iași, romania. his areas of research include moral cognition, emotion-cognition interplay, embodied cognition, and traffic psychology. alina georgiana elenescu has a master’s degree in psychology from the “alexandru i. cuza” university in iași, romania. her main areas of research include organizational behavior and clinical psychology. predictors of organizational moral disengagement 192 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615609735 https://doi.org/10.5709/acp-0230-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217733080 https://doi.org/10.1037/10780-000 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0577-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.04.056 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01811 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00360 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of organizational moral disengagement (introduction) learning our moral (dis)engagement machiavellianism, psychopathy, and organizational behavior aims of the present research method participants and procedure measures results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors affective reactions when learning that our answer is biased: the role of negative feedback in the arousal of epistemic emotions research reports affective reactions when learning that our answer is biased: the role of negative feedback in the arousal of epistemic emotions katerina nerantzaki 1, paraskevi stergiadou 1, panayiota metallidou 1 [1] department of psychology, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 received: 2024-01-29 • accepted: 2025-03-18 • published (vor): 2025-05-28 handling editor: sahir hussain, lancaster university, lancaster, united kingdom corresponding author: katerina nerantzaki, panepistimioupoli, 54124, thessaloniki, greece. e-mail: neratzak@psy.auth.gr supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract this study investigated how different types of feedback influence emotional reactions in decision-making tasks involving highconfidence errors. the sample consisted of 596 undergraduate and postgraduate university students. participants completed tasks and received either low informative feedback (indicating correctness) or high informative feedback (offering detailed explanations of correct answers). they reported their confidence levels and epistemic emotions of surprise, confusion, and curiosity. participants reported epistemic emotions after each type of feedback. the results showed that confidence ratings did not differ between correct and incorrect answers. incorrect answers elicited higher levels of surprise, curiosity, and confusion than correct answers. high informative feedback significantly reduced epistemic emotions, especially confusion, compared to low informative feedback. these results highlight the importance of detailed feedback in shaping epistemic emotions and enhancing learning in problem-solving contexts. implications for research and teaching practices are discussed. keywords heuristic biases, feedback, confusion, curiosity, epistemic emotions, surprise how do we feel when we are confident that we have answered a task correctly but are told that the answer is wrong? this study attempts to provide empirical evidence for affective reactions to different types of feedback received after providing a biased heuristic solution. two different research traditions are combined, namely, the heuristics and biases tradition in decision-making situations (kahneman, 2011) and the epistemic emotions tradition in learning situations (muis et al., 2018; vogl et al., 2020). well-known decision-making tasks that tend to activate biased heuristic solutions were used as epistemic emotion-eliciting situations. heuristic solutions are often accompanied by strong confidence in the correctness of an incorrect answer. two types of external feedback were provided to inform participants about the correctness of their answers. the following subsections present information about heuristics and epistemic emotions in problem-solving situations. heuristics people are not always rational when they have to choose an answer or make a decision. rather, they tend to use an effort-reducing method of processing information called heuristics (see also kahneman & tversky, 2013). the term “heuristics” is derived from the greek word “evrisko”, which means to find or to discover. heuristics are widely used in this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13847&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-05-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ decision-making problems because they help to speed up the decision-making or problem-solving processes (emiliano, 2015). according to shah and oppenheimer (2008), heuristics facilitate effort reduction by, (a) considering fewer cues, (b) reducing the effort to retrieve cue values, (c) reducing the weighting of cues, (d) combining less information, and (e) exploring fewer alternatives. to illustrate, a heuristic method is a quick way to solve a problem with a solution that is not the best but the most likely one, like a “mental shortcut” (kahneman, 2011). this has the advantage of saving time and effort while simultaneously ending up (very often) making the right decision in the end. however, the disadvantage of these mental shortcuts and effort-reducing solutions is that they can sometimes lead to errors and biased judgments or logical fallacies (liberali et al., 2012). they are statements that seem to be logical, but when examined using the rules of logic, turn out to be biased. logical fallacies are often associated with a high feeling of confidence in an incorrect answer (kahneman & tversky, 2013). metacognitive feeling of confidence has been found to be associated with affective reactions (nerantzaki & efklides, 2019; vogl et al., 2019). in general, many theorists have acknowledged the important role of affect in decision-making processes (garcés & finkel, 2019). for instance, the “affect heuristic” (slovic et al., 2007) refers to a mental shortcut in which individuals make quick decisions primarily guided by their emotions. while the important role of affective processes in the formulation of judgments or decision making is well established (garcés & finkel, 2019; schwarz & clore, 2007), little is known about affective responses following the recognition of biases in our judgments. the present study aims to fill this gap by providing empirical evidence on affective reactions following biased heuristic errors. one category of affective reactions that is closely related to problem-solving activities (d’mello & graesser, 2014) and arises from unexpected and complex information (chevrier et al., 2019; vogl et al., 2019) are the so-called epistemic emotions. epistemic emotions epistemic emotions were initially described by philosophers as affective states that can motivate critical reflection, knowledge acquisition, and exploration (see brun et al., 2008; morton, 2010). from a philosophical perspective, epistemic emotions drive knowledge acquisition and knowledge inquiry (muis et al., 2018). from an educational psychology perspective, epistemic emotions are categorized within the broader domain of academic emotions (pekrun, 2024). academic emotions, which are specific to educational contexts, are closely associated with learning processes and academic achievement (pekrun, 2006, 2016). pekrun and stephens (2012) defined epistemic emotions as emotions related to knowledge and knowledge-generating activities. any emotion associated with knowledge can be characterized as epistemic (morton, 2010; muis et al., 2018). however, as brun et al. (2008) suggest, curiosity, surprise, and confusion are epistemic emotions per se, whereas other affective states can fall into different emotional categories depending on their object focus. for instance, frustration or anxiety, arising from the inability to solve a mathematics problem, may be considered epistemic emotions if they stem from cognitive incongruity and the unresolved problem itself. however, if they are primarily focused on personal failure and the perceived inability to arrive at the correct solution, they should be classified as achievement emotions (muis et al., 2015). specifically, epistemic emotions are triggered by a lack of prior knowledge, conflicting information, or a mismatch between new information and existing knowledge schemas (muis et al., 2021; nerantzaki et al., 2021; vogl et al., 2019). a recent analysis of think-aloud protocols identified three key factors that precede epistemic emotions: assessments of epistemic (in)congruence (the congruence or incongruence between prior knowledge and new information), assess­ ments of the novelty or conflicting information, and judgments about the achievement of epistemic goals (chevrier et al., 2019). within this context, it is important to distinguish between cognitive conflict and schema incongruence, as both concepts are closely related to epistemic emotions. cognitive conflict arises when learners encounter contradictory information, in tasks involving conflicting responses or in texts presenting opposing perspectives on a topic (d’mello & graesser, 2014; nerantzaki et al., 2024). schema incongruence occurs when new information does not align with existing cognitive frameworks, prompting cognitive adjustments to resolve the mismatch (reisenzein et al., 2019). schema incongruence also occurs when task-related feedback reveals that one’s beliefs are incorrect, such as in “high-confidence errors” (marshall & brown, 2006; vogl et al., 2019). “high-confidence errors” refer to incorrect responses that individuals strongly believe to be correct. vogl and collaborators (2019, 2020) examined those errors in epistemic emotions and heuristics 110 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the context of feedback provided after trivia questions were answered incorrectly. their findings support propositions that the mismatch between expected and actual outcomes is a prime driver of epistemic emotions. this phenomenon can be further explained through the concept of cognitive dissonance. cognitive dissonance refers to the psychological discomfort that arises when newly acquired information contradicts prior beliefs, expectations, or knowledge (festinger, 1957). this tension creates a motivational drive to resolve the inconsistency, by adjusting one’s beliefs, seeking addition­ al information, or reinterpreting the conflicting evidence (harmon-jones & mills, 2019). in the context of negative feedback, this process can trigger epistemic emotions such as confusion, surprise, or curiosity as individuals attempt to reconcile the discrepancy and restore cognitive consistency (stergiadou et al., 2023; vogl et al., 2020). despite the similarities, it has been proposed that surprise, confusion and curiosity are triggered by different cognitive states (nerantzaki et al., 2021). surprise is a leading epistemic emotion that occurs when a stimulus is unexpected, discrepant, or inconsistent with a previously activated cognitive schema (reisenzein et al., 2019; topolinski & strack, 2015). confusion occurs when people encounter information that they cannot easily understand. it is generally associated with challenging tasks in the presence of impasse, complexity, conflict, contradiction, or incongruity (d’mello & graesser, 2012; silvia, 2009). curiosity represents a driving force or desire to seek new information that motivates the exploration and acquisition of knowledge (kashdan & silvia, 2009). curiosity is aroused by unexpected events, unsolved problems, ambiguous ideas, conceptual puzzles, or information that makes one aware of gaps in one’s knowledge. it is a complex emotion, and its arousal involves both positive feelings (e.g., the satisfaction of learning something new, and negative feelings (e.g., impatience due to lack of knowledge) (ainley, 2019). in summary, the role of epistemic emotions in problem-solving activities is only beginning to be explored. a recent study examined the role of external feedback and found that the intensity of these emotions increased in proportion to the confidence participants had in their incorrect answers (vogl et al., 2019). the focus of the present study was to extend these findings by examining how different types of feedback influence epistemic emotions in decision-making tasks involving high-confidence errors. for this purpose, two widely recognized scenarios were used. the first scenario was the conjunction fallacy, where participants were asked to estimate the probability of two events occurring together, often resulting in an overestimation of the combined probability (liberali et al., 2012). the second scenario is a cognitive reflection task that tests participants' ability to override an intuitive response (brañas-garza et al., 2019). the choice of these scenarios was deliberate. the scenarios are not inherently difficult when approached with logical reasoning. however, many people tend to give incorrect answers, mainly due to an overestimation of their own intuitive judgement (kahneman, 2011). we assumed that these scenarios would induce a high level of confidence in the participants’ answers, even though these answers ultimately were incorrect. in line with this, both scenarios are anticipated to evoke epistemic emotions, as they involve the evaluation of epistemic incongruence (chevrier et al., 2019; vogl et al., 2019). the present study the present study aimed to investigate epistemic emotions (surprise, confusion, curiosity) following different types of feedback after participants engaged in a faulty heuristic solution. this work bridges two different research traditions: the heuristics and biases tradition, which focuses on decision-making under uncertainty (kahneman & tversky, 2013) and the epistemic emotions tradition in learning and decision-making situations (muis et al., 2015; vogl et al., 2019). while prior research has explored epistemic emotions in response to schema-discrepant information (e.g., chevrier et al., 2019; muis et al., 2015; vogl et al., 2019), these emotions have not been specifically examined in the context of heuristic errors that generate logical inconsistencies. to address this gap, we provided participants with two types of feedback: “low-informative” feedback that merely indicated whether an answer was correct and “high-informative” feedback that included detailed justifications for the correct response. we hypothesized that high-informative feedback would facilitate the integration of new information into existing cognitive schemas (muis et al., 2015), potentially reducing the intensity of epistemic emotions as cognitive dissonance is resolved (nerantzaki et al., 2021). based on these considerations, two hypotheses were proposed: 1. performance would be negatively related to epistemic emotions. specifically, surprise, curiosity, and confusion were expected to arise when discrepant information challenged existing cognitive nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 111 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ schemas (hypothesis 1a). the reported epistemic emotions were expected to be higher following biased heuristic answers compared to correct answers (hypothesis 1b). 2. a significant decrease in the intensity of epistemic emotions was expected in the second measurement, following the provision of detailed feedback that explained the correct answer’s underlying principles (hypothesis 2). method participants the sample consisted of 596 (66.4% female) undergraduate and postgraduate students (mage = 25.09, sd = 6.84) from greek university departments. to broaden generalizability of the results, participants were included students from various departments: psychology (n = 80), engineering (n = 76), natural sciences (n = 158), education (n = 25), economics (n = 25), law school (n = 10), and other departments. to enhance the generalizability of the findings to a broader student population, the sample included students from a diverse range of academic disciplines, including psychology, engineering, natural sciences, education, economics, law, and other fields. participants completed the study online and were recruited through a university-related facebook page. their participation was voluntary. materials main task the main task involved two well-known decision-making scenarios. many people give incorrect answers to these problems because they use a faulty procedure. (a) the job scenario, also known as the “linda problem” (tversky & kahneman, 1973), is designed to trigger the representativeness heuristic. the representativeness heuristic occurs when people assume that specific details are more likely than a general description (richie & josephson, 2018). in the linda problem, participants are given a description of a woman who is 31 years old, very intelligent, and politically active, particularly in social justice issues. they are then asked to judge the likelihood of different statements about her. the “conjunction fallacy” demonstrated by the linda problem, occurs when people mistakenly believe that the probability of two or more events occurring together is higher than the probability of any one of those events occurring alone (kahneman, 2011). this violates basic principles of probability theory because the likelihood of two events occurring together (a and b) can never be greater than the likelihood of either event occurring alone (a or b). (b) the disease scenario is a cognitive reflection task designed to measure how well people can override an initial, incorrect response (toplak et al., 2011). it was first introduced by kahneman and frederick (2002) as a test of common reasoning errors, where people quickly give the first answer that comes to mind without thinking carefully enough to spot their mistake. in this scenario, participants are presented with a situation in which a doctor develops a new drug to treat a disease. the doctor tests the drug on a group of patients and compares their results with a control group that doesn't receive the treatment. the task usually includes a table showing the success or failure of the treatment, which participants use to evaluate statistical data and make probability judgements. when solving this problem, many people make a typical reasoning error: they behave like “cognitive misers” (toplak et al., 2014). to solve the problem correctly, participants need to critically reassess their initial answer and engage in more thoughtful reasoning to arrive at the correct solution (frederick, 2005). epistemic emotions and heuristics 112 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performance and epistemic emotions measurement performance was estimated as correct (1) or wrong (0) for each scenario. participants were asked to choose the answer they thought was correct and to report how difficult it was to find the answer in each scenario and how confident they were about their answer on a 4-point likert scale (1 = not at all to 4 = very much). then, to elicit the target emotions, they received feedback indicating the correct answers and were asked to rate how surprised, curious, and confused they felt at that very moment on a 4-point likert scale (1 = not at all to 4 = very much). after the first measurement of their epistemic emotions, they again received “high informative” feedback, in which the correct answer was explained in detail. a second measurement of epistemic emotions was then administered. to avoid the effects of time, half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive the “high informative” feedback immediately after the completion of the first epistemic emotions measurement (condition a). the other half received it after the completion of the first measurement of epistemic emotions in both tasks (condition b). no statistically significant differences were found in epistemic emotions (ps > .05) or performance (ps > .05) between the two conditions. the design of the study is outlined in schema 1 below. schema 1 — the design of the study — phase α’ • reading scenario. • selection of the correct answer. • measurement of the feeling of difficulty and confidence for each answer. phase β’ • feedback about the correct answer after the feeling of confidence in each scenario (low informative feedback). • 1st measurement of epistemic emotions (surprise, curiosity and confusion) after the first feedback. phase c’ • condition 1 (feedback after the completion of each task). ◦ feedback with detailed justification of the correct answer (high informative feedback). ◦ 2nd measurement of epistemic emotions (surprise, curiosity and confusion) after the second feedback. • condition 2 (feedback after the completion of both tasks). ◦ feedback with detailed justification of the correct answer after the first measurement of epistemic emotions in both tasks (high informative feedback). ◦ 2nd measurement of epistemic emotions (surprise, curiosity and confusion) after the second feedback. procedure the research was conducted using the online open-source platform “limesurvey”. the participation was voluntary and anonymous. no sensitive personal information was asked. the participants reported their gender, level of studies, and university department. the study also was fully in line with rules of ethics of the american psychological association and with the european union regulation on sensitive personal data (gdpr; https://gdpr.eu/tag/gdpr/), as in force from 25 may 2018 and as applicable in the greece according to law 4624/2019 (issue a´ 137/29.08.2019). it is important to note that scenarios were translated by the researchers and were provided in greek language (see the appendix). the tasks were translated using a rigorous forward-backward translation process (see muis et al., 2015), followed by a review by a bilingual expert to ensure accuracy. additionally, the scenarios were pilot tested with participants from the target population to identify and address any potential cultural misinterpretations that may have been missed in the translation process (harkness et al., 2010). the results showed that the success rates (~ 40%) in the translated scenarios were consistent with those in the original scenarios. participants were first informed of the purpose of the study, the profile of the sample, and the confidentiality procedures. when the data were coded, each participant was given a corresponding number as a name, from 1 to 596. nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 113 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://gdpr.eu/tag/gdpr/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ they were also informed that they could withdraw from the survey at any time they wished. the timing option was also activated to determine the time spent by the participants in each scenario to exclude either random answers (too short time spent in each task) or answers that might result from searching on the internet or giving too much thought (too much time spent). the time allocated for each task was determined based on a pilot study with 30 participants. this timing was influenced by multiple factors, including the number of words in each scenario (i.e., scenario length), the difficulty of the task, and the available response options. using the average engagement times observed in the pilot study, standardized time limits were established for each scenario. participants who spent significantly more or less time on a taskrelative to the scenario’s average timewere excluded to minimize the likelihood of random responses. more especially, forty (40) participants were excluded from the initial sample (n = 636) due to either very short (-3 sd) or very long time spent (+3 sd). the response time in the job scenario was m = 77 sec. and in the disease scenario was m = 65 sec. the data together with a data dictionary, the analysis script and the study materials are available in full at nerantzaki et al. (2025). results the percentage of correct answers and biased heuristic answers was calculated for each task to create two groups: those who found the correct answer and those who did not. descriptive statistics for all the variables in each scenario are presented in table 1. specifically, in the job scenario, 241 (40.5%) of the participants chose the correct answer. in the disease scenario, 279 (46.7%) participants selected the correct response. table 1 descriptive statistics of variables in each scenario correct answer incorrect answer (heuristic) variable mean sd mean sd job scenario surprisea 1.54 0.65 2.32 0.96 confusiona 1.27 0.56 2.17 0.97 curiositya 1.68 0.88 2.50 0.98 surpriseb 1.37 0.64 1.99 0.92 confusionb 1.15 0.47 1.45 0.75 curiosityb 1.54 0.78 2.04 0.89 disease scenario surprisea 1.44 0.62 2.47 0.96 confusiona 1.17 0.43 2.59 0.95 curiositya 1.64 0.81 2.66 0.95 surpriseb 1.19 0.48 2.09 0.95 confusionb 1.09 0.31 1.63 0.88 curiosityb 1.39 0.71 2.03 0.95 aimmediate “low informative” feedback. bsubsequent “high informative” feedback. task performance and time of measurement effect pearson’s correlations were computed within and across each type of feedback for both scenarios to explore: (a) the interrelations between performance and epistemic emotions, and (b) the extent to which these relations differed between different types of feedback. correlations ranged from r = 0.22, p < .001 to r = 0.70, p < .001 (see table 2). as expected, performance in both scenarios was negatively associated with epistemic emotions. correlations were stronger with epistemic emotions following the first feedback, particularly with surprise and confusion, and lower with curiosity. performance was also correlated with epistemic emotions after the second feedback, although these epistemic emotions and heuristics 114 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ correlations were generally medium to low, with surprise showing a slightly higher correlation. there was also a complex network of relationships between epistemic emotions across scenarios. the emotions following the first feedback were all interrelated, with the strongest correlations found between surprise and confusion. this pattern of correlations was maintained at the second measurement time, with the highest r between surprise and curiosity in both scenarios. furthermore, most of the epistemic emotions experienced after the first feedback were related to those after the second feedback, with surprise showing significant correlations with almost all the emotions observed after the second feedback. finally, each epistemic emotion was significantly correlated with its counterpart across the two measurements. in addition, a series of 2 (performance -correct vs incorrect) by 2 (type of feedback -low vs high informative feedback) within-subjects’ anovas were conducted for each epistemic emotion in each scenario. to ensure the validity of the anova results, the assumptions of sphericity and homogeneity of variances were tested. mauchly’s test of sphericity was not significant (ps > .05), indicating that the assumption of sphericity was met for each epistemic emotion in each scenario. furthermore, levene’s test of equality was also not significant (ps > .05). the main results are presented in table 3. the main effect of feedback type was found to be significant in all cases (p < .001). as expected, the mean ratings of all epistemic emotions (surprise, confusion, curiosity) were significantly higher in the first measurement (low informative feedback) compared to the second one (high informative feedback). the main effect of performance was also found to be significant in all cases (see table 3). to illustrate, epistemic emotions were statistically significantly higher (p < .001) for participants who chose the biased heuristic answer compared to participants who chose the correct answer. confusion was the only emotion that showed the most drastic decrease in the second measurement but only for those who chose the biased heuristic answer (see figure 1). table 2 pearson correlations between epistemic emotions and performance job scenario variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. performance — 2. surprisea -0.41** — 3. confusiona -0.47** 0.65** — 4. curiositya -0.39** 0.58** 0.58** — 5. surpriseb -0.35** 0.54** 0.47** 0.40** — 6. confusionb -0.22** 0.30** 0.35** 0.24** 0.44** — 7. curiosityb -0.28** 0.39** 0.36** 0.47** 0.56** 0.38** — disease scenario variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. performance — 2. surprisea -0.53** — 3. confusiona -0.68** 0.70** — 4. curiositya -0.50** 0.67** 0.65** — 5. surpriseb -0.41** 0.57** 0.60** 0.57** — 6. confusionb -0.37** 0.39** 0.49** 0.37** 0.53** — 7. curiosityb -0.35** 0.44** 0.44** 0.51** 0.68** 0.43** — aepistemic emotions after the “low informative”. bepistemic emotions after the “high informative” feedback. **p < .001. nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 115 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 performance effect and feedback type effects on epistemic emotions in two scenarios variable effect of feedback effect of performance interaction job scenario surprise f(1, 593) = 46.87, p < .001, ηp2 = .07 f(1, 593) = 139.53, p < .001, ηp2 = .19 f(1, 593) = 5.38, p = .021, ηp2 = .01 confusion f(1, 593) = 127.63, p < .001, ηp2 = .18 f(1, 593) = 144.52, p < .001, ηp2 = .20 f(1, 593) = 65.01, p < .001, ηp2 = .10 curiosity f(1, 593) = 53.83, p < .001, ηp2 = .08 f(1, 593) = 109.50, p < .001, ηp2 = .16 f(1, 593) = 15.66, p < .001, ηp2 = .03 disease scenario surprise f(1, 593) = 77.87, p < .001, ηp2 = .12 f(1, 593) = 308.52, p < .001, ηp2 = .34 f(1, 593) = 2.79, p = .095, ηp2 = .01 confusion f(1, 593) = 238.91, p < .001, ηp2 = .29 f(1, 593) = 411.05, p < .001, ηp2 = .41 f(1, 593) = 171.62, p < .001, ηp2 = .22 curiosity f(1, 593) = 126.61, p < .001, ηp2 = .17 f(1, 593) = 190.29, p < .001, ηp2 = .24 f(1, 593) = 23.40, p < .001, ηp2 = .04 figure 1 plotted change in epistemic emotions over the scenarios additionally, it is important to consider the effect sizes of the results. based on the guidelines provided by cohen et al. (2003), ηp2 ≈ .01 indicates a small effect, ηp2 ≈ .06 represents a medium effect, and ηp2 ≈ .14 reflects a large effect size. for the emotion of surprise, the performance effect showed a large effect size, suggesting that performance significantly influenced participants' feelings of surprise. the feedback effect, on the other hand, showed a medium effect size, suggesting that the feedback type (low vs. high informative) had a moderate effect on surprise ratings. this pattern was consistent across both scenarios, reinforcing the robust role of performance in eliciting surprise. curiosity followed a similar pattern. the performance effect again had a large effect size, showing that participants who performed better epistemic emotions and heuristics 116 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (correct answers) experienced significantly higher levels of curiosity. however, the feedback effect was medium in size, suggesting a more moderate influence of feedback type on curiosity, which was consistent across both scenarios. for confusion, both the performance and feedback effects were large, with ηp2 values approaching or exceeding .14. this highlights the strong role that both performance (correct vs. biased answer) and feedback type (low vs. high informative) play in eliciting the emotion of confusion. in particular, the large effect of feedback underscores its critical role in eliciting confusion. furthermore, the interaction (type of feedback x performance) was statistically significant in all cases (p < .05), except for the emotion of surprise in the second scenario (p = .09). the interaction effect indicates that the effect of feedback type depends on the performance variable. more specifically, the variation in epistemic emotions between the two types of feedback was higher for those who chose the biased heuristic answer than for those who found the correct one. however, the effect sizes of the interaction were small for surprise and curiosity in both tasks (ηp2 < .04). a significantly larger interaction effect was found for the emotion of confusion (ηp2 = .10 for the job scenario and ηp2 = .22 for the disease scenario). discussion the present study investigated how different types of feedback influence emotional reactions in decision-making tasks involving high-confidence errors. participants completed two decision-making scenarios that activate biased heuristic solutions and received either low informative feedback (indicating correctness) or high informative feedback (offering detailed explanations of correct answers). they reported their confidence levels and epistemic emotions of surprise, confusion, and curiosity. participants’ performance and the type of external feedback on their performance significantly affected all epistemic emotions. the results confirm previous evidence for the important role of high-confidence errors in eliciting epistemic emotions but also extend the role of external feedback. to illustrate, negative external feedback following an incorrect answer led to significantly higher levels of surprise, confusion, and curiosity in both tasks compared to those emotions following the correct answers. epistemic emotions were also negatively associated with performance in both tasks. the findings are consistent with the notion that cognitive incongruity serves as a key trigger for epistemic emotions (d’mello & graesser, 2012; vogl et al., 2019). it seems that an incongruity between an activated schema (response) and newly received information (feedback) activated epistemic emotions. participants were forced to construct a new schema by assimilating new information (efklides, 2017). the aroused epistemic emotions reflect the activation of such revision processes (vogl et al., 2019). correlations between performance and epistemic emotions were stronger following the first feedback, as the second feedback provided all the necessary information to finalize the accommodation of the new schema. in contrast, participants who answered correctly experienced feedback that aligned with their existing cognitive schemas, resulting in low-intensity epistemic emotions from the outset. furthermore, one of the most interesting findings of the present study was the significant decrease in epistemic emotions after receiving highly informative feedback. the first external feedback activated epistemic emotions and induced a cognitive imbalance (muis et al., 2015). indeed, the intensity of these emotions was shaped by participants’ confidence in their incorrect answers, indicating a mismatch between their prior beliefs and the correct answer (vogl et al., 2019). the cognitive imbalance was restored after the second feedback, which provided all the explanations neces­ sary to assimilate the new information into one's existing cognitive schemas (nerantzaki et al., 2021). vogl et al. (2019) proposed that epistemic emotions are inherently situation-dependent, changing over time in response to variations in task information. this is indicative of the dynamic nature of epistemic emotions in learning or decision-making situations (nerantzaki, et al., 2024; pekrun, 2024). however, there were also some differences in the arousal of epistemic emotions. although all epistemic emotions followed a similar pattern of activation, the feedback effect was lower for curiosity and surprise, and higher for confusion. the differences in effect sizes for surprise, curiosity, and confusion can be interpreted through the distinct cognitive mechanisms underlying each epistemic emotion (nerantzaki et al., 2021; vogl et al., 2021). surprise is often triggered by unexpected outcomes or violations of expectations (reisenzein et al., 2019). curiosity arises from an nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 117 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intrinsic desire for knowledge and information-seeking behavior, often stimulated by uncertainty or gaps in understand­ ing (litman, 2008). both emotions strongly depend on cognitive evaluations of performance. in contrast, confusion demonstrated a higher effect size for feedback, but also of performance, indicating a stronger link with difficulty in processing information (d’mello et al., 2014; nerantzaki et al., 2024). confusion arises during complex learning activities that involve challenging tasks, particularly when encountering discrepancies that disrupts understanding (d’mello & graesser, 2014). that means that the nature of the task plays a crucial role in determining which epistemic emotions are elicited (vogl et al., 2021). in addition, confusion was the emotion that showed the most drastic decrease in the second measurement for those who chose the biased heuristic answer. informative feedback seems to be important in reducing confusion caused by information that is incongruent with previous beliefs. confusion is triggered by complex information that is not fluently understood (d’mello & graesser, 2012; silvia, 2009). unlike surprise, which primarily refers to unexpected events (reisenzein et al., 2019), confusion can also occur under so-called “mismatch conditions”, such as incongruence, dissonance, or conflict (d’mello et al., 2014). in fact, confusion is not simply the detection of a mismatch, but an intense emotional state characterized by significant cognitive conflict, leading to uncertainty about how to proceed (d’mello et al., 2014). furthermore, d’mello and graesser (2014) suggested that confusion persists until the cognitive conflict is effectively resolved. overall, decision-making processes are often influenced by affective states (garcés & finkel, 2019). our findings provide support for the proposition of vogl et al. (2019) that epistemic emotions arise during high confidence errors, but we also found that the type of external feedback matters. the first negative feedback activated epistemic emotions and cognitive imbalance, which were restored after the second feedback, which presented the logical principle underlying the correct answer. in what follows, we consider limitations and directions for future work. we also discuss educational implications for research on epistemic emotions. limitations while the findings of this study are significant, several limitations should be acknowledged. first, the sample was exclu­ sively composed of university students, which may limit the generalizability of the results to non-student populations or individuals outside of academic contexts. expanding the sample to include a more diverse range of participants could enhance the applicability of the findings. second, the study relied on a specific set of tasks and stimuli, which raises concerns about the robustness of the results. the findings need to be tested with varied types of stimuli to ensure they are not influenced by intrinsic characteristics of the specific scenarios used. additionally, participants’ prior knowledge was not assessed. this structured approach may not fully capture the complexity of real-world decisionmaking processes. third, individual differences such as linguistic abilities, learning styles, and cultural interpretations of scenarios were not examined. these factors could play a significant role in shaping epistemic emotions and their impact on performance. future research should explore how task characteristics, such as the distinction between reading-based versus nonverbal problem-solving tasks, influence the arousal of epistemic emotions and their effect on learning outcomes. investigating how individual differences and contextual factors contribute to variability in emotional responses could also provide deeper insights into the mechanisms underlying learning and decision-making processes. finally, future research could explore whether similar patterns of epistemic emotions and cognitive processes emerge in decision-making contexts beyond probabilistic reasoning, thereby enhancing the generalizability of these results. implications for research and practice the findings emphasize the situational nature of epistemic emotions, which fluctuate in response to different types of external feedback. these emotions are inherently dynamic, evolving alongside the progression of cognitive processing (efklides, 2017). this underscores the importance of employing repeated measures to track changes in epistemic and other affective states throughout problem-solving tasks and learning activities. in the context of problem-solving, the key question is not merely whether an epistemic emotion is elicited but how it evolves during cognitive engagement. for example, initial low levels of surprise may intensify into heightened surprise and curiosity upon detecting a discrepancy (see vogl et al., 2019). conversely, prolonged confusion may lead to negative affective states such as epistemic emotions and heuristics 118 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frustration or boredom (d’mello & graesser, 2014). understanding these emotional dynamics is essential for designing interventions and feedback mechanisms that support effective learning and decision-making processes. the present study underscored the importance of informative feedback. while feedback is widely acknowledged as a key factor in enhancing learning outcomes, its effectiveness can vary greatly depending on the context (frank et al., 2018). recent findings by cáceres et al. (2021) highlight that elaborated feedback, which provides detailed explanations, is more effective than simple feedback that merely indicates the correct response. in the current study, participants who received detailed explanations were able to resolve their cognitive imbalances, suggesting that such feedback not only corrects errors but also supports the assimilation of new information into existing cognitive schemas. for instance, in domains like mathematics or logical reasoning, feedback that pinpoints specific reasoning errors and offers constructive alternatives has been shown to significantly improve problem-solving skills. these findings emphasize the importance of understanding the dynamic interplay between feedback and cognitive processes, shedding light on the complex mechanisms underlying effective problem-solving and learning. the study highlights the pivotal role of external feedback in influencing epistemic emotions following a faulty heuristic solution. external feedback serves dual purposes: it can act as a trigger for epistemic emotions (vogl et al., 2020), encouraging students to engage actively with educational material, or as a regulator of emotional responses in cases of cognitive dissonance or conflict. from an educational standpoint, these findings emphasize that feedback should be seen not merely as a tool for transmitting information but also as a mechanism for managing emotional responses. teachers can enhance their practices by incorporating highly informative feedback that addresses cognitive imbalances and supports their resolution during learning. however, as the effect sizes for the feedback effect on curiosity and surprise were lower (cohen et al., 2003), it is important to consider their potential impact in educational settings. these effects may interact with other cognitive factors, such as task difficulty, motivation, and prior knowledge, potentially amplifying their influence in real-world learning environments. future research could explore whether different types of feedback enhance these emotions more effectively, leading to stronger learning outcomes. since curiosity and surprise are primarily driven by cognitive evaluations of performance, educators can foster these emotions by incorporating open-ended problems, inquiry-based learning, and scenarios that introduce uncertainty to stimulate exploration. on the other hand, confusion, which is closely tied to both feedback and performance, should be carefully managed to ensure it remains productive. providing timely feedback, structured guidance, and scaffolding can help students navigate challenging tasks without becoming overwhelmed (d’mello et al., 2014). by promptly and effectively addressing confusion, educators can mitigate the risk of students becoming overwhelmed or disengaged (d’mello & graesser, 2012; silvia, 2009). this approach underscores the importance of integrating both cognitive and emotional dimensions into feedback strategies to optimize learning outcomes. conclusion in conclusion, this study contributes to the expanding literature on emotions by examining the pivotal role of external feedback. the findings build on prior research by highlighting the dual function of feedback: as a trigger for epistemic emotions (vogl et al., 2019) and as a regulator that helps manage these emotions during cognitive processing. given the critical role of epistemic emotions in driving knowledge exploration and promoting deeper learning (pekrun, 2024), the study underscores the importance of designing feedback mechanisms that not only challenge learners but also support them in achieving resolution and understanding. the positive effects of curiosity on learning, alongside the potential drawbacks of prolonged high confusion, highlight the necessity of feedback as a tool for emotional regulation. these insights open avenues for future research to further explore how feedback can be optimized to balance challenge and support, ultimately enhancing learning outcomes. nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 119 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: this research was co-financed by greece and the european union (european social fund) (mis-5000432), implemented by the state scholarships foundation. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article, data, codebook, program codes, and translated survey items are available at nerantzaki et al. 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(2019). surprise, curiosity, and confusion promote knowledge exploration: evidence for robust effects of epistemic emotions. frontiers in psychology, 10, article 2474. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02474 appendix scenarios with english translation scenario & feedback: original language and translation job scenario in greek job scenario in english η λίντα είναι 31 ετών, δεν έχει παντρευτεί, είναι πετυχημένη και πολύ έξυπνη. το πτυχίο της ήταν στη φιλοσοφική. ως φοιτήτρια, ενδιαφερόταν πολύ για θέματα διακρίσεων και κοινωνικής δικαιοσύνης, και έπαιρνε μέρος σε αντιπυρηνικές διαδηλώσεις. α. η λίντα είναι τραπεζική υπάλληλος. b. η λίντα είναι τραπεζική υπάλληλος και ενεργό μέλος του φεμινιστικού κινήματος. γ. η λίντα είναι τραπεζική υπάλληλος, ενεργό μέλος του φεμινιστικού κινήματος και ασχολείται με τη γιόγκα linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. she majored in philosophy. as a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice and participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. α. linda is a bank teller. β. linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. c. linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement and yoga instructor feedback in greek feedback in english 1. η σωστή απάντηση είναι το a. η λίντα είναι τραπεζική υπάλληλος 1. the correct answer is α. linda is a bank teller epistemic emotions and heuristics 122 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://doi.org/10.1080/10401334.2017.1332631 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.207 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014632 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2005.04.006 https://doi.org/10.12681/psy_hps.30131 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0104-1 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034910 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00134 https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51673-4 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000578 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02474 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scenario & feedback: original language and translation 2. η πιθανότητα της σύζευξης δύο συμβάντων ή και τριών δεν μπορεί να είναι πιο μεγάλη από την πιθανότητα του κάθε συμβάντος από μόνο του. αποτελεί σφάλμα λογικής και ονομάζεται σφάλμα σύζευξης (tversky & kahneman, 1973). η προσθήκη λεπτομερειών στο σενάριο σχετικά με την προσωπικότητα, την ακαδημαϊκή εκπαίδευση και τα παλιά ενδιαφέροντα της λίντα καθιστά τις άλλες επιλογές πιο πειστικές, αλλά λιγότερο πιθανές. 2. the probability of the conjunction of two events, or even three events, cannot be more probable than any one of the events on its own. this is a logical error called the conjunction fallacy (tversky & kahneman, 1973). adding details to the scenario about linda’s personality, education, and interests makes the other options more believable, but less likely. disease scenario in greek disease scenario in english ένας γιατρός δούλευε για αρκετό καιρό πάνω σε μία θεραπεία για μια μυστηριώδη ασθένεια. τελικά, δημιούργησε ένα φάρμακο που πιστεύει ότι θα θεραπεύσει τους ανθρώπους από τη συγκεκριμένη ασθένεια. προτού αρχίσει να χορηγεί το φάρμακο, πρέπει να δοκιμάσει την αποτελεσματικότητά του. επέλεξε 300 άτομα που είχαν την ασθένεια και τους έδωσε το φάρμακο. ακόμη, επέλεξε 100 άτομα που είχαν την ασθένεια και δεν τους έδωσε το φάρμακο, για να δει τι θα συμβεί. ο παρακάτω πίνακας δείχνει τα αποτελέσματα του πειράματος: a doctor had been working on a cure for a mysterious disease. finally, he created a drug that he thinks will cure people of the disease. before he can begin to use it regularly, he has to test the drug. he selected 300 people who had the disease and gave them the drug to see what happened. he selected 100 people who had the disease and did not give them the drug in order to see what happened. the table below indicates what the outcome of the experiment was: θεραπεία cure ναι όχι yes no παρουσία θεραπείας 200 100 treatment present 200 100 απουσία θεραπείας 75 25 treatment absent 75 25 σύμφωνα με τον πίνακα, το φάρμακο συνδέεται θετικά ή αρνητικά με τη θεραπεία αυτής της ασθένειας; υποδείξτε την απάντησή σας έχοντας στο νου σας μία κλίμακα το -10 (ισχυρή αρνητική σχέση) έως + 10 (ισχυρή θετική σχέση). α. -10 έως -1 β. 0 γ. +1 έως +10. according to table, this treatment was positively or negatively associated with the cure for this disease?. circling a number from a scale ranging from −10 (strong negative association) to +10 (strong positive association). α. -10 to -1 β. 0 γ. +1 to +10 feedback in greek feedback in english 1. η σωστή απάντηση είναι το a. -10 έως -1 2. το συγκεκριμένο πρόβλημα είναι ένα πρόβλημα ανίχνευσης συνδιακύμανσης. η αναλογία θετικών προς αρνητικών αποτελεσμάτων στη θεραπεία της ασθένειας είναι υψηλότερη στη συνθήκη όπου απουσιάζει το φάρμακο σε σύγκριση με τη συνθήκη στην οποία δόθηκε το φάρμακο στους ασθενείς. στη συνθήκη που δόθηκε το φάρμακο το 1/3 των ασθενών δεν θεραπεύτηκε (100 ασθενείς στους 300). ενώ, οι 75 από τους 100 ασθενείς που δεν έλαβαν το φάρμακο θεραπεύτηκαν (δηλαδή τα 3/4 των ασθενών). αν, λοιπόν, συγκρίνουμε αυτά τα δυο αποτελέσματα, καταλαβαίνουμε ότι όχι μόνο το φάρμακο δεν είναι αποτελεσματικό, αλλά έχει αρνητική συσχέτιση με το θεραπευτικό αποτέλεσμα. 1. the correct answer is a. -10 to -1 2. this problem is a covariance detection problem. the ratio of positive to negative outcomes in the treatment of the disease is higher in the condition where the drug was not given than in the condition where the drug was given to the patients. in the condition where the drug was given, 1/3 of the patients were not cured (100 patients out of 300). on the other hand, 75 out of 100 patients who did not receive the drug were cured (i.e. 3/4 of the patients). if we compare these two results, we can see that not only is the drug is not only ineffective, but also negatively correlated with the outcome of the treatment. (kahneman, 2011; toplak et al., 2011) about the authors katerina nerantzaki is a cognitive psychologist and holds a ph.d. from aristotle university of thessaloniki. her research interests span cognitive and educational psychology, focusing on areas such as metacognition, epistemological and critical thinking, and academic emotions, particularly within educational contexts. she is currently an adjunct lecturer and a postdoctoral researcher at the school of psychology, aristotle university of thessaloniki. stergiadou paraskevi is a psychologist with a master’s degree in cognitive psychology from aristotle university of thessaloniki. her research has focused on metacognition, epistemic emotions, and decision-making processes. alongside her academic work, she has practical experience in psychological assessment and intervention for children, adolescents, and vulnerable populations. she nerantzaki, stergiadou, & metallidou 123 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 109–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13847 https://www.psychopen.eu/ currently works as a psychologist at a mental health and special education center in athens while pursuing further training in existential-systemic psychotherapy. panagiota metallidou is a professor of cognitive psychology and educational applications at the school of psychology, aristotle university of thessaloniki. with over 25 years of experience in cognitive and educational psychology, as well as in teacher professional development, she specializes in quantitative research methodologies and advanced statistical data analysis techniques. her research primarily focuses on attention development and meta-attention, social cognition, epistemological thinking in children and adolescents, and self-regulated learning across diverse educational contexts. epistemic emotions and heuristics 124 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ epistemic emotions and heuristics (introduction) heuristics epistemic emotions the present study method participants materials procedure results task performance and time of measurement effect discussion limitations implications for research and practice conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references appendix about the authors lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts research reports lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts diego lasio ab, jessica lampis* a, roberta spiga a, francesco serri a [a] department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy of university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. [b] centro de investigação e intervenção social, instituto universitário de lisboa (iscte-iul), lisbon, portugal. abstract the cultural, social and institutional barriers that lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) individuals have to face play crucial roles in their desires and intentions to have children. however, unlike the many studies on the decision-making process in the transition to parenthood, few studies have analysed the origins of parenting desires and intentions among lgbt individuals. this study explores the desires and intentions to have children amongst a sample of childless lesbian and gay italian individuals. a sample of 285 participants (127 women and 158 men) completed a research protocol composed of items evaluating the strength of their desire to have children, their intentions about having children and their general attitudes towards parenting. the findings revealed how, despite the persisting depth of heteronormativity in the country and the absence of legal protection for lesbian and gay parents, a large percentage of participants expressed the desire and intention to have a child. these parenting intentions would seem to be positively influenced mainly by the negative attitudes towards childlessness and by the value attributed to parenthood. keywords: lgbt, heteronormativity, parenting desire, parenting intention europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 received: 2018-11-02. accepted: 2019-2-12. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy of university cagliari, via is mirrionis, 1, 09123 cagliari, italy. telephone +390706757507, fax +39070274778, e-mail: jlampis@unica.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. although new discourses on families have emerged since the 1980s (weston, 1991), and the process of “homonormalization” (roseneil, crowhurst, hellesund, santos, & stoilova, 2013) has contributed to challenging the notion of “the family” as a unique and fixed object, many individuals are still denied access to kinship due to their non-compliance with the heteronormative model of family. gay and lesbian couples constitute one of the most widely debated cases of exclusion from “the family”, both because of the growing number of same-sex couples who do decide to have children and because of the political pressures for their legal recognition applied by lgbt (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) social movements and supra-national institutions, such as the eu (santos, 2004, 2013). although their rights are not always recognized, lesbian and gay families exist throughout europe and the united states, with a level of incidence that makes no longer possible to consider them as a silent minority. in the usa, for example, ever since the early 2000s, the national survey of family growth (chandra, martinez, mosher, abma, & jones, 2005) revealed that, although lgbt individuals were still less likely than heterosexual individuals to have children (gates, badgett, macomber, & chambers, 2007), 35% europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ of lesbian women and 16% of gay men had either biological or adopted children. furthermore, about 23% of lesbian and bisexual women reported caring for someone else’s child, compared to 12% of heterosexual women. however, despite numerous studies (e.g. biblarz & stacey, 2010; carneiro, tasker, salinas-quiroz, leal, & costa, 2017; fedewa, black, & ahn, 2015; tasker, 2010) having demonstrated no relationship between the wellbeing of children and the sexual orientation of their parents, negative beliefs about lesbian and gay parenthood still remain very widespread (e.g. baiocco, nardelli, pezzuti, & lingiardi, 2013; costa, pereira, & leal, 2019; gato & fontaine, 2016; lingiardi et al., 2016). as regards the legislative landscape, most western countries have now recognized the rights of same-sex couples, with legal recognition of lesbian and gay parenthood also gradually increasing. nowadays, the majority of eu countries have detailed regulations concerning same-sex marriages or civil unions and gay and lesbian parenthood: denmark, for instance, was the first to introduce a civil union register, which included same-sex couples in 1999, and the first to allow adoption for non-married persons regardless of their sexual orientation. moreover, since 2007, danish lesbian women have also received access to assisted reproduction technologies. in the late 1980s and during the 1990s, many northern european countries, such as sweden, iceland and the netherlands followed suit, with different forms of regulation of more uxorio cohabitation, marriage, civil union and gay and lesbian parenthood. in the 2000s, such principles spread throughout the whole of europe: countries including france, the united kingdom and germany recognized same-sex partnerships and in some cases gay and lesbian couples have been allowed to adopt and to access reproductive technologies. with regard to the countries where the legacy of catholicism remains more significant, spain was the first to legalize gay and lesbian civil marriages. despite the catholic church campaigning heavily against same-sex marriage in the country, the parliament amended the civil code, rendering same-sex civil marriages equal to heterosexual relationships and extending the right to have children to gay and lesbian couples by any form of adoption or assisted reproductive technologies, including in vitro fertilization but not surrogacy. portugal, a country where the catholic church has long played a dominant role in defining “what is socially desirable and what is morally wrong” (santos, 2004, p. 168), was the eighth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2010, which followed the recognition of same-sex couples to the right of civil partnership ten years before. in this country, same-sex marriage was approved with the provision that lesbian and gay couples could neither adopt children nor access reproductive technologies (brandão & machado, 2012), but the portuguese parliament overturned the bans on parenting and allowed adoption and assisted reproduction by same-sex couples and single women in february 2016. however, such legislative progress did not bring to an end heteronormativity nor even to the multiple forms of discrimination in the public sphere (de oliveira, lopes, cameira, & nogueira, 2014). within this framework, italy presents specific features and peculiarities because until may 2016 it was one of the few european countries where same-sex couples received no legal recognition. this legislative gap was partially filled through the approval of law 76/2016 (gazzetta ufficiale, 2016), which recognized same-sex civil unions and extended to them most of the rights of married heterosexual couples, such as the right to receive a widow(er)’s pension and to inherit each other’s assets. however, the law has also reinforced the distinction between heterosexual and non-heterosexual couples by defining same-sex civil unions as ‘specific social formations’, and excluding the duty of fidelity between their partners because, according to opponents, it would have made civil unions too similar to traditional marriage (lasio & serri, 2019). the three-year long debate which led to the approval of the law featured strong opposition both inside and outside parliament as lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 211 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ well as sustained opposition by civil society organizations, vatican hierarchies, and citizen movements informed by catholic thought (lasio, congiargiu, de simone, & serri, 2019; lasio & serri, 2019). the nodal point around which the different and opposing positions were built up was section number 5 of the draft bill, which would recognize the right of one partner to adopt the biological children of the other partner by introducing the so-called step-child adoption. this legal stipulation on adoption rights proved so controversial that it led to deep divisions in the government majority and, as a result, had to be deleted in order for the law to pass, thus denying many children growing up in families with same-sex parents the same legal protection as their peers (lampis, de simone, fenu, & muggianu, 2017). the absence of legal protection for same-sex parents and their children affects a large number of individuals who live in the country: according to the fifteenth census of the italian national institute of statistics (istat, 2012), there were 7,513 same-sex couples in italy totalled and with 529 raising children. as the institute itself pointed out, these data might represent an underestimate not only because many couples have preferred not to come out but also due to the census referring only to cohabiting couples (baiamonte & bastianoni, 2015). the data nevertheless reveal that same-sex couples and lesbian and gay parenthood are a well-established reality in the country even while heteronormativity (kitzinger, 2005; warner, 1991) still vetoes any expression of nonconventional sexualities and makes heterosexual reproduction and kinship appear as the obvious choice, while lesbian and gay couples remain alienated from kinship (weston, 1991). the abovementioned opposition to the recognition of same-sex couples and their children testify to the persisting depth of heteronormativity in the country, and contribute towards perpetuating homonegativity, stigmatization and discrimination (e.g. lingiardi, falanga, & d’augelli, 2005; lingiardi et al., 2016; pistella, tanzilli, ioverno, lingiardi, & baiocco, 2018). according to the european union agency for fundamental rights (2012), the percentage of italian people who believe that gay and lesbian parenthood harms children stands at among the highest in europe. as many authors (baiocco et al., 2013; bertone, 2017; bertone & franchi, 2014) have argued, these prejudices also persist because of religious and cultural traditions that encourage homophobic opinions and sentiments. different studies identified how a conservative political orientation and deep religious involvement are related with negative attitudes towards lesbian and gay marriage and parenthood (averett, strong-blakeney, nalavany, & ryan, 2011; baiocco et al., 2013; costa et al., 2014; d’amore, green, scali, liberati, & haxhe, 2014; gross, vecho, gratton, d’amore, & green, 2018; olson, cadge, & harrison, 2006). hegemonic heteronormative norms maintain lgbt individuals in vulnerable positions, which bear evident effects in terms of citizenship, rights and social prejudices (lopes, de oliveira, nogueira, & grave, 2017). furthermore, institutionalized heteronormativity wields negative influences on the self-beliefs of lgbt individuals, who can correspondingly manifest negative attitudes toward themselves and their parental competences (e.g. baiocco, argalia, & laghi, 2014; lingiardi, baiocco, & nardelli, 2012; pacilli, taurino, jost, & van der toorn, 2011). heteronormativity may thus be upheld by lgbt individuals who might perceive transgressions of the heteronorms as a cost and a personal risk (de oliveira, costa, & nogueira, 2013), and negative religious-based attitudes are therefore susceptible to internalization by lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals who effectively end up endorsing religious arguments that they are not fit to be parents (baiocco et al., 2014). a recent portuguese study (costa & bidell, 2017), for example, found that religiosity negatively predicted lesbian and gay individuals’ intentions over raising children. the collusion of lgbt individuals with the (hetero)norms about gender, sexuality, reproduction and kinship, together with the absence of legal recognition and the negative social attitudes lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 212 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ toward non-heterosexual parenthood, contribute to maintain lgbt individuals exiled from kinship (lasio, serri, ibba, & de oliveira, 2019). in the italian context, gay and lesbian individuals sometimes share the same negative attitude as heterosexual individuals as regards the parental competences of same-sex couples (pacilli et al., 2011). recent research (lasio, serri, ibba, & de oliveira, 2019) has highlighted that the pervasiveness of hegemonic heteronormativity is so deep reaching that lgbt activists might collude in some respects with the cultural assumptions that sustain the premises of their subjugation. moreover, heteronormativity in italy prevents sexual minorities from expressing themselves even in social contexts that, on the one hand, are involved in combatting social exclusion and, on the other hand, that deny any marginalization of lgbt employees or consider this a problem these employees have to solve themselves (priola, lasio, de simone, & serri, 2014; priola, lasio, serri, & de simone, 2018). the cultural, social and institutional barriers that lgbt individuals face all play crucial roles in their desires and intentions around raising children; however, unlike the many studies on decision-making processes in the transition to parenthood (goldberg, 2010), few studies have analysed the origins of parenting desires and intentions among lgbt individuals. bos, van balen, and van den boom (2003) identified three main facets to understanding the desires and intentions of becoming parents that focused on the importance parenting assumed for women. according to a first perspective, grounded on a psychoanalytic point of view, motherhood plays an essential role in the development of female identities. a second perspective, supported by feminist researchers, claims that the desire to have children arises out of the social pressures that constrain women in both body and motherhood (amâncio & de oliveira, 2006), while also highlighting how the traditional view of motherhood constitutes an obstacle to the personal development of women (de simone, lasio, onnis, & putzu, 2017; lasio, putzu, serri, & de simone, 2017; lasio, serri, de simone, & putzu, 2013). a third branch of research studies parenthood according to a cost-benefit model: mothers decide whether or not to have children by evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of parenthood. according to bos et al. (2003), this evaluation holds no influence on the desire for the first child but might weigh on the decision to have further children. while these perspectives may generate insights into the understanding of heterosexual couple desires and intentions to have children, they lack any scope for understanding the parenting desires of lgbt individuals. although from the 1990s onwards there has been broad acceptance that lesbian and gay individuals would like to become parents, only few studies have analysed the origins of parenting desires and intentions among lgbt individuals. in sbordone’s (1993) study, for a sample of gay men, about half of the participants expressed the desire to have children. moreover, no differences were found between those men who were already fathers and those who were not. in the united states, research findings (d’augelli, rendina, sinclair, & grossman, 2007) identified how lgbt youths between the ages of 16 and 22 held high expectations and desires about parenthood: in a sample of 133 lesbian and gay individuals, only 14% reported not being interested in becoming parents. this percentage perfectly matches the data from the national survey of family growth on heterosexual women: only 14% declared a lack of desire for parenthood (chandra, martinez, mosher, abma, & jones, 2005). two other research teams (gates et al., 2007; riskind & patterson, 2010) analysed data from the 2002 national family growth survey with the aim of studying parenting intentions, desires, and attitudes among lgbt individuals in the united states. participants were aged from 15 to 44 years with both studies highlighting lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 213 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ how lgbt individuals might be less likely than heterosexual individuals to state a desire to have children but also revealing how half of gay men and lesbian women held the desire to have children while furthermore endorsing the value of parenthood just as strongly as heterosexual participants (riskind & patterson, 2010). riskind and patterson (2010) also inquired whether participants really intended to have children. among those expressing parenting desires, 67% of gay men and 83% of lesbian women stated an intention to have a child versus 90% of heterosexual men and 72% of heterosexual women. globally, 30% of gay men and 33% of lesbian women expressed both parenting desires and intentions. consistent with previous findings (gates et al., 2007), the gap between parenting desires and intentions was larger for gay men than for their heterosexual counterparts even when controlling for variables such as participant age, ethnicity and education. research also demonstrated how women had stronger desires to parent than men regardless of their sexual orientation (bos et al., 2003; d’augelli et al., 2007; van balen & trimbos-kemper, 1995). there is little research about parenting desires and intentions in same-sex couples outside of the united states but the existing research confirm the u.s. based findings. bos et al. (2003), for example, studied the desires and motivations to have children in a sample of 100 lesbian couples and 100 infertile heterosexual couples, all attending a fertility clinic in the netherlands. according to these authors, lesbian mothers spent more time thinking about the reasons for having children than heterosexual parents. in addition, lesbian biological mothers expressed stronger desires for parenthood than heterosexual mothers with the same also applying to lesbian social mothers when compared to heterosexual fathers. rossi, todaro, torre, and simonelli (2010) also reported a strong desire to have children in their exploratory study of an italian sample of 226 lesbian and gay individuals: 57% of participants (61.4% women and 53.8% men) stated they wished to have children. this applied particularly to persons in relationships (61% expressing a desire for parenthood versus 39% of single individuals). among those who expressed the desire to have children, 68% of gay men and 84.3% of lesbian women also stated the intention to advance with childbearing. baiocco et al. (2013) studied parenting desires and intentions in a sample of italian gay men and lesbian women aged between 18 and 35. they reported that 51.8% of gay men and 60.7% of lesbian women declared parenting desires and that 30.2% of gay men and 46.3% of lesbian women expressed parenting intentions. lesbian and gay individuals here reported significantly lower parenting desires and intentions than their heterosexual counterparts with lesbian women reporting higher desires and intentions when compared with gay men. this study also identified lesbian women as reporting stronger parenting desires than gay men. both lesbian and gay individuals reported a higher gap between desires and intentions than heterosexual individuals. finally, scandurra and colleagues (2019) explored, in a sample of 290 italian childless lesbian and gay individuals the influence of minority stress, gender differences, and legalization of civil unions in italy on parenting desire and intention. the results indicated that the minority stressors associated with parenting dimensions partly explained the intention and desire to become parents, while perceived support from family or significant others buffered the effects of minority stressors on parenting dimensions. furthermore, they found that lesbian women showed higher levels of parenting desire and intention than gay men and the levels of these parenting dimensions increased after the law on civil unions was enacted. both the riskind and patterson (2010) and rossi and colleagues (2010) studies also approached participant attitudes toward parenting. their results showed that homosexual individuals endorsed the values of parentlesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 214 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hood as strongly as their heterosexual peers. consequently, attitudes toward parenting were not susceptible to consideration as the reason gay and lesbian people were less likely to have children. despite the strength of religious values in italy, we are not aware of any published research that considers the role of religious belief in the desire and intention to have children amongst lesbian and gay individuals. in addition to the study of rossi and colleagues (2010), we have found only one other study that analysed attitudes toward parenting among italian gay and lesbian people (petruccelli, baiocco, ioverno, pistella, & d’urso, 2015). this research reported that left wing political preferences correlated with positive attitudes towards lesbian and gay parenthood. however, contrary to researchers’ expectations, no significant correlations were identified between religious involvement and attitudes toward same-sex parenthood. study aims starting out from these premises, this research project explores the parenting intentions and desires of childless lesbian and gay italian individuals. specifically, in keeping with previous studies, we assume that: 1. lesbian women report stronger parenting intentions than gay men 2. there is a gap between the parenting desires and the intentions of gay and lesbian individuals 3. individual variables (age, relationship status, religiosity, political positioning), general attitudes toward parenting and ideological positioning (agreement to the legal recognition of same-sex civil unions, marriage between same-sex individuals and adoption of children by same-sex couples) affect and shape parenting desires and intentions. method procedure and participants the study took place through an online survey. the platform google forms was used to send the questionnaires to italian associations politically active in combating discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, with the invitation to forward them to their members and supporters. the inclusion criteria required potential participants to identify as either lesbian or gay, be aged over 18, and without any children. participants gave their consent to study participation on the first page of the survey instrument. a demographic questionnaire was completed on the next survey page following receipt of the participant’s consent. the final sample of 285 participants consisted of 127 women (44.6%) and 158 men (55.4%), with their ages ranging from 18 to 48 (m = 28.36 years, sd = 7.5). as regards their educational level, 7.4% held phd degrees, 46% master’s or undergraduate degrees with 38.9% having graduated from high school, 2.1% with middle school certificates, and 5.6% with primary school certificates. 53.3% of the respondents were single, 22.5% cohabited and with 20.7% in stable relationships although neither married nor cohabiting. the relationship durations ranged from 1 to 32 years (m = 2.3 years, sd = 3). table 1 presents the full sociodemographic characteristics of participants before table 2 sets out their ideological positionings as regards same-sex couple civil unions, marriage between same-sex individuals and the adoption of children by same-sex individuals. lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 215 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sample characteristics (n = 285) characteristic n % sexual orientation gay 158 55.4% lesbian 127 44.6% education below high school 22 7.7% high school diploma 111 38.9% university degree 131 46% phd degree 21 7.4% religious beliefs catholic 66 28.5% buddhism 12 3.5% eastern religion 9 2.5% atheist 198 69.5% religious practice assiduous 9 3.2% frequent 13 4.6% occasional 59 20.7% never 204 76% political positioning left 80 28.1% centre-left 149 52.1% centre 37 13% centre right 17 6.1% right 2 0.7% relationship status single 152 53.3% cohabiting 74 22.5% partner 59 20.7% table 2 ideological positioning (n = 285) question n % how much do you agree with the civil recognition of homosexual unions? disagree 2 0.7% neither agree nor disagree 16 5.6% agree 158 93.7% how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? disagree 7 2.5% neither agree nor disagree 13 4.6% agree 265 93% how much do you agree with allowing homosexual individuals to adopt children? disagree 11 3.9% neither agree nor disagree 9 3.2% agree 265 93% lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 216 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures individual and demographic characteristics participants were asked specific questions about their demographic and personal characteristics, including age, gender, sexual orientation, education, professional status, nationality, relationship status, religiosity, political positioning (left, centre-left, centre, centre-right, right) and ideological positioning (agreement to the legal recognition of same-sex civil unions, marriage between same-sex individuals and adoption of children by same-sex couples). desire and strength of desire to have children to measure the desire to have children, participants were asked to answer the item “looking to the future, if it were possible, would you, yourself, want to have a baby at some time?” (yes/no) (riskind & patterson, 2010). to evaluate the strength of this parenting desire (intensity of desire) we asked participants to answer the question “what are you willing to give up in order to have children?” (1 = it doesn't really matter to me, 6 = more than anything) (bos et al. 2003). intentions and reflections to measure parenting intentions, participants were then asked: “sometimes what people want and what they intend are different because they are not able to do what they want. looking to the future, do you, yourself, intend to have a baby at some time?” (yes/no) (riskind & patterson, 2010). to measure the thought process (reflection) involved in the process of deciding to have children, we asked “how often have you thought about the reasons for having children?” (1 = never, 3 = often). general attitudes toward parenting we explored attitudes toward childlessness with the item “if it turns out that you do not have any children, would that bother you a great deal, somewhat, a little, or not at all?” (1 = not at all, 4 = a great deal) (riskind & patterson, 2010) before measuring the value of parenthood with the item “the rewards of being a parent are worth it, despite the cost and the work involved” (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) (riskind & patterson, 2010). results hypotheses h1gender differences in parenting desires and intentions 84.6% of participants (m = 84.8%, f = 84.3%) reported parenting desires and 64.6% (m = 62%, f = 67.7%) reported their specific intention to have a child. the chi-squared test and anova served to assess gender differences for these variables. the χ2 test did not reveal any significant differences between gay and lesbian individuals about parenting desire (χ2 = 0.017, p > .5) and parenting intention (χ2 = 0.997, p > .5). additionally, the anova results did not reveal any univariate effect of gender either on the strength of parenting desire, f(1, 283) = 0.48, p > .5, or on reflexivity, f(1, 283) = 0.97, p > .5. lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 217 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h2discrepancy between parenting desires and intentions the χ2 test revealed a significant difference between parenting desire and parenting intention (χ2 = 81.9, df = 1, p < .001). the desire to become parent was significant higher of the intention to have children. this trend was present both in the female (χ2 = 42.71, df = 1, p < .001) and in the male subsample (χ2 = 40.22, df = 1, p < .001). h3the predictors of parenting desire and intention two binomial logistic regressions (one for the desire dimension and the other for intention) and two hierarchical linear multiple regression analysis (one for the strength of desire and the other for reflexivity in relation to the intension dimension) were conducted to test our hypothesis and to analyse which of the variables considered shaped and affected parenting desires and intentions. the predictor variables included into the regression equation were age, gender, relational status, religiosity, political positioning, general attitudes toward parenting and ideological positioning with regard to same-sex civil unions, marriage between same-sex individuals and the adoption of children by same-sex individuals. there were neither correlations above .80 nor were there problems with multicollinearity (variance inflation factor results of < 2.5 for each independent variable) in the regression analyses. parenting desire the results conveyed how the model adapted well to the data from the first block of analysis. the appropriateness of the model reflected across the fit index value results (omnibus tests χ2 = 113.864, df = 11, p > .001; hosmer and lemeshow test χ2 = 14.402, df = 8, p > .05, -2 log likelihood = 131.038; cox & snell r2 = .330; nagelkerke r2 = .572). the odds ratio, measured for each of the predictor factors, referred to the increase or decrease in the probability of the subjects falling into two groups. this correspondingly found that by increasing by one unit in the attitudes toward childlessness (b = -1.570; or = 0.208; p < .001), the value of parenthood (b = -.997; or = 0.369; p < .001) and the level of agreement with recognition of the opportunity to adopt children (b = -1.004; or = 0.336; p < .001), the probability of subjects falling into the “desire” group increased. sexual orientation, age, religiosity and political positioning did not produce any significant effects (table 3). table 3 logistic regression model predicting the parenting desire (yes = 0, no = 1) variable b es wald(df = 1) or 95% ci for or ll ul gender 0.734 0.521 1.984 2.084 0.750 5.788 age -0.001 0.031 0.001 0.999 0.941 1.061 relational status -0.019 0.217 0.008 0.981 0.641 1.502 religiosity -0.545 0.770 0.501 0.580 0.128 2.624 religious practice -0.307 0.461 0.443 0.736 0.298 1.815 political positioning -0.049 0.168 0.084 0.953 0.685 1.325 attitudes toward childlessness -1.570 0.326 23.261* 0.208 0.110 0.394 lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 218 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable b es wald(df = 1) or 95% ci for or ll ul value of parenthood -0.997 0.240 17.227* 0.369 0.231 0.591 how much do you agree with the civil recognition of homosexual unions? 1.375 1.250 1.210 3.956 0.341 45.849 how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? 0.993 0.687 2.088 2.699 0.702 10.374 how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children? -1.004 0.364 7.607* 0.366 0.180 0.748 note. or = odds ratio; ci = confidence interval. *p < .01. strength of parenting desire the predictor variables were entered into the regression equation in three blocks by using the stepwise conditional method. in the first step (model 1) we inserted the socio-demographic variables (gender, age, relational status, religiosity, religious practice an political positioning), in the second step (model 2) we added, as predictors, the psychological variables (attitudes toward childlessness and value of parenthood), finally in the third step (model 3) we added, as predictor, ideological positioning variables (how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children?). model 3 was significant (f = 18.15, p < .001). the total proportion of variance in the strength of the parenting desire explained by all of the independent variables was 37.7% (r2 adjusted = .377). according to the standardized regression coefficient, attitudes toward childlessness (β = .472, p < .001) and the value of parenthood (β = .233, p < .001) significantly related to the strength of the parenting desire (table 4). table 4 hierarchical linear multiple regression model predicting the strength of parenting desire model 3variable b se β t p vif gender .010 .102 .005 .099 .922 1.094 age -.006 .007 -.046 -.925 .356 1.144 relational status .079 .047 .081 1.686 .093 1.066 religiosity -.047 .149 -.021 -.312 .755 2.014 religious practice .068 .093 .048 .733 .464 1.933 political positioning .013 .032 .020 .408 .684 1.151 attitudes toward childlessness .465 .056 .462 8.296 < .001 1.422 value of parenthood .224 .053 .226 4.194 < .001 1.327 how much do you agree with the civil recognition of homosexual unions? -.096 .142 -.040 -.677 .499 1.573 how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? -.049 .083 -.034 -.588 .557 1.506 how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children? .148 .084 .110 1.755 .080 1.815 parenting intentions the results demonstrated that the model adapted well to the data from the first block of analysis. the appropriateness of the model also reflected in the fit index value results (omnibus tests χ2 = 113.134, df = 11, p > .001; hosmer and lemeshow test χ2 = 8.265, df = 8, p > .05; -2 log likelihood = 232.557; cox & snell r2 = .383; nagelkerke r2 = .526). lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 219 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these results also identified how one unit increase in the attitudes toward childlessness (b = -1.216; or = 0.296; p < .001), the value of parenthood (b = -0.777; or = 0.460; p < .001), the level of agreement with the recognition of same-sex marriage (b = -0.681; or = 0.506; p < .05) and the level of agreement with the opportunity for lgbt adoption of child (b = -0.846; or = 0.429; p < .05) increased the probability of subjects falling into the “intention” group. the results also demonstrated that one unit increase in the age (b = 0.083; or = 1.087; p < .001) raised the probability of subjects falling into the “no intention” group. sexual orientation, religiosity and political positioning did not return any significant effects (table 5). table 5 logistic regression model predicting the parenting intention (yes = 0, no = 1) variable b es wald(df = 1) or 95% ci for or ll ul gender 0.211 0.347 0.370 1.235 0.626 2.436 age 0.083 0.024 12.343** 1.087 1.037 1.138 relational status 0.066 0.156 0.178 1.068 0.787 1.450 religiosity -0.941 0.510 3.402 0.390 0.144 1.061 religious practice 0.116 0.316 0.134 1.123 0.604 2.087 political positioning -0.031 0.114 0.076 0.969 0.775 1.212 attitudes toward childlessness -1.216 0.219 30.700** 0.296 0.193 0.456 value of parenthood -0.777 0.194 16.066** 0.460 0.314 0.672 how much do you agree with the civil recognition of homosexual unions? 0.865 0.441 3.840* 2.375 1.000 5.643 how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? -0.681 0.257 7.044* 0.506 0.306 0.837 how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children? -0.846 0.289 8.583* 0.429 0.244 0.756 note. or = odds ratio; ci = confidence interval. *p < .05. **p < .01. reflexivity respect parenting intentions the predictor variables were entered into the regression equation in three blocks by using the stepwise conditional method. in the first step (model 1) we inserted the socio-demographic variables (gender, age, relational status, religiosity, religious practice an political positioning), in the second step (model 2) we added, as predictors, the psychological variables (attitudes toward childlessness and value of parenthood), finally in the third step (model 3) we added, as predictor, ideological positioning variables (how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children?) model 3 was significant (f = 16.007, p < .001). the total proportion of variance in the reflexivity respect parenting intentions explained by all of the independent variables was 36.8% (r2 adjusted = .368). according to the standardized regression coefficient, attitudes toward childlessness (β = .472, p < .001) and the value of parenthood (β = .233, p < .001) significantly related to the strength of the parenting desire (table 6). our analytical findings also revealed how older participants, who would regret not having children and who valued parenthood, reported greater levels of reflexivity as regards parenting intentions. lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 220 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 hierarchical linear multiple regression model predicting reflexivity with respect to parenting intentions model 3 -variable b se β t p vif gender .054 .088 .031 .619 .537 1.094 age .014 .006 .116 2.290 .023 1.144 relational status -.009 .040 -.010 -.212 .832 1.066 religiosity .071 .129 .037 .552 .581 2.014 religious practice -.097 .080 -.079 -1.203 .230 1.933 political positioning -.038 .028 -.069 -1.364 .174 1.151 attitudes toward childlessness .455 .048 .529 9.389 < .001 1.422 value of parenthood .112 .046 .132 2.428 .016 1.327 how much do you agree with the civil recognition of homosexual unions? -.183 .123 -.088 -1.492 .137 1.573 how much do you agree with marriage between same sex individuals? .007 .071 .006 .103 .918 1.506 how much do you agree with recognition of the opportunity for homosexual people, to adopt children? .129 .073 .112 1.765 .079 1.815 discussion this study sought to analyse the desires and intentions of becoming parents in a sample of gay and lesbian italian individuals. our data revealed that 84.6% of the participants (m = 84.8%, f = 84.3%) reported parenting desires and that 64.6% (m = 62%, f = 67.7%) declared their intention to have a child. these percentages were high but remain in keeping with data observed in previous studies carried out in the united states (riskind & patterson, 2010), portugal (costa & bidell, 2017), and italy (baiocco & laghi, 2013; rossi et al., 2010). the increasing number of gay and lesbian individuals who reported the desire and the intention to have children indicates that, despite the prevailing prejudices and the italian legislative system failing to protect lesbian and gay parents, gay and lesbian individuals tend to represent themselves as on a path to parenthood. the current study, in contrast with others carried out in italy (baiocco et al., 2014; scandurra et al., 2019), but similar to a recent portuguese study (costa & bidell, 2017), did not report any significant gender differences in parenting desires and intentions among lesbian and gay participants. in their studies, baiocco et al. (2013) and scandurra et al. (2019) found that lesbian women had higher desire and intention than gay men to become a parent. they explained this data focusing on the strong social pressures on italian women to become mothers, regardless of their sexual orientation. our results may be interpreted in the light of the strong family-oriented culture present in the country. in italy, the desire to have children largely depends on the idea that "making a family" is an important value and this might lead young adults participating in this study to emphasize the positive aspects of becoming parents, regardless of their gender. moreover, the stigmatization of individuals who voluntarily choose not to have children might have played a role in participants expressing desire and intention of becoming parents, regardless of their gender. research on the perceptions of people without children has showed more negative perceptions of non-parents than of parents, regardless of their gender, with the former who are perceived as psychologically unfulfilled or maladjusted (ashburn-nardo, 2017). these findings indicate parenthood more as a social imperative rather than an individual choice independent from a specific socio-cultural context. lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 221 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our data also conveyed a significant gap between parenting desires and parenting intentions not only in the female subsample but also in the male subsample. thus, the desire to have a child did not always result in the actual intention to have children. this reflects the deep contradictions in the italian cultural, social and political context, which, on the one hand, emphasizes the values of family and parenting but, on the other hand, denies the recognition of these rights to same-sex parents. due to this social and political context, the decision by gay men or lesbian women to become parents is more difficult than that for heterosexual men and women (baiocco & laghi, 2013) and this may give rise to a gap between desires and intentions. to fully understand these results, we need to focus on the specific barriers for gay and lesbian individuals seeking to have children (riskind & patterson, 2010). in fact, although in recent years several countries have enacted legislation to provide political and social recognition of gay and lesbian parenting, and with scientific research having now demonstrated that children born into a same-sex couple parenting project do not run greater risks in their psychosocial developmental outcomes compared with children raised by heterosexual parents (biblarz & stacey, 2010; tasker, 2010), nonetheless, prejudice regarding lesbian and gay parenting continues, often motivated by conservative religious and political beliefs (lasio, congiargiu, de simone, & serri, 2019). in italy, this prejudice still remains very present because different religious and cultural traditions encourage homophobic opinions and sentiments (baiocco et al., 2013). previous research, for example, has shown that religious affiliation and strong religiosity represent significant predictors of negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women, and particularly toward marriage equality and lgbt families (costa et al., 2014; whitley, 2009). these religious-based negative attitudes are susceptible to internalization by gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals, who may even come to endorse religious arguments claiming they are not fit to be parents (lasio, serri, ibba, & de oliveira, 2019). among lgbt individuals, religiosity partially accounts for their self-stigma and endorsement of negative beliefs about gay and lesbian-parented families (baiocco et al., 2014; costa & bidell, 2017). regarding individual political positionings, an italian study on the attitudes of lesbian and gay individuals towards same-sex parenting (petruccelli et al., 2015) found that left-wing political orientations correlated with a positive evaluation of lesbian and gay parents. our study also sought to examine what factors might influence both the desire and the decision to have children. we correspondingly considered, in addition to the personal value attributed to parenting, religious practice and political and ideological positioning. however, contrary to our expectations, religious affiliation, religious involvement and political positioning did not return any significant effect on either parenting desires or intentions. parenting desires and intentions seemed to be positively influenced mainly by negative attitudes towards childlessness and by the value attributed to parenting. our results conveyed how individuals who would regret not having children and who valued parenthood, reported higher levels of parenting desires and intentions. moreover, the level of agreement with the adoption of children by same-sex couples positively impacted on parenting desires and intentions. indeed, only age returned a significant effect on the intention to become a parent: higher aged participants declared greater intentions over having children. this data is in line with previous research findings (baiocco & laghi, 2013), which identified how older lgbt individuals (up to 35 years old) declared stronger parenting intentions; moreover, these findings are congruent with a general trend in italy to have children when aged over 31 for women and 35 for men (istat, 2012). lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 222 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and future research directions there is a need to point out some limitations in our study, which do not allow for any generalization of the results. first, we collected our data in italy and these findings may not be consistent with the realities prevailing in countries where laws and policies are more favourable toward lgbt individuals. we are currently working on a comparison between certain mediterranean countries with different political and cultural heritages (italy, spain and portugal) in order to analyse the role that context exerts on the desires and intentions to have children amongst gay and lesbian individuals. a further limitation of this study stems from having applied only self-report instruments to detect the significantly relevant variables. future research should also consider recourse to qualitative methodologies (e.g., in-depth interviews) in order to overcome single-method biases and some of the major limitations of the self-report methodology. finally, parenting desires and intentions might be influenced by a number of different variables beyond the scope of our study. our results, for example, might be mediated or moderated by specific factors, such as personal attitudes, family values, motives towards parenthood and the level of social support available. these issues need to be explored in future research. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. ethics approval in conducting the present research, we followed ethical guidelines. all the procedures performed were in accordance both with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. participation in the study was voluntary and the information provided was anonymous and confidential. written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation in the study. references amâncio, l., & de oliveira, j. m. 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(2009). religiosity and attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: a meta-analysis. the international journal for the psychology of religion, 19(1), 21-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508610802471104 lasio, lampis, spiga, & serri 227 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 https://doi.org/10.1111%2f1467-8551.12043 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1350508418790140 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0017941 https://doi.org/10.1093%2fsp%2fjxt006 https://doi.org/10.3280%2frsc2010-001002 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f1360874042000253528 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f1550428x.2017.1410460 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1741-3737.2009.00681.x https://doi.org/10.3109%2f01674829509024462 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f10508610802471104 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors jessica lampis is a research fellow and lecturer in dynamic psychology at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari (italy). her current research interests include differentiation processes from family of origin and couple functioning, parenting and psychological wellbeing. diego lasio is a research fellow and lecturer in social psychology at the university of cagliari (italy) and an associate member at the instituto universitário de lisbon (iscte-iul), centro de investigação e intervenção, social, lisbon, portugal. his research interests focus on the discursive construction of gender and sexualities, and related practices of marginalization and discrimination. roberta spiga is a licensed family therapist and voluntary assistant at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari (italy). her research interests focus mainly on parenthood, family transitions and family diversity. francesco serri is a research fellow and lecturer in social psychology at the department of pedagogy, psychology, philosophy, university of cagliari (italy). his current research interests include social identity, sexualities, and power and privilege in societies. lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts 228 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 210–228 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1808 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ lesbian and gay individual parenting desires in heteronormative contexts (introduction) study aims method procedure and participants measures results hypotheses parenting desire strength of parenting desire parenting intentions reflexivity respect parenting intentions discussion limitations and future research directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethics approval references about the authors age of acquisition of personality terms: implications for personality theory research reports age of acquisition of personality terms: implications for personality theory eka roivainen 1 [1] department of medical rehabilitation, oulu university hospital, oulu, finland. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 received: 2020-03-30 • accepted: 2020-12-17 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: eka roivainen, department of medical rehabilitation, oulu university hospital, pl 26, 90029 oys, oulu, finland. e-mail: eka.roivainen@ppshp.fi supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract analysis of the age of acquisition (aoa) of personality terms represents a genetic method for the study of the individual personality lexicon and offers a potential alternative to correlational analysis for identifying the fundamental personality descriptors among the thousands of terms that appear in language. in the present study, the relationship between aoa, word frequency, word desirability, and factor loading in the big five and hexaco models of 274 and 408 personality adjectives was analyzed. it was found that young children (2nd graders or younger) acquire personality terms that represent traits at the core of the broad personality factors in the big five and hexaco models slightly earlier than words that represent more peripheral traits. in older children beyond second grade, the correlation between factor loading and aoa is weak. words that describe the broad openness and stability/emotionality aspects of personality are learned later than words for the other broad factors. word frequency (in book texts) and desirability have a weak negative correlation with aoa. it is hypothesized that the aoa of a personality term reflects the importance of the corresponding trait for children and may be used as one criterion for ranking facet level traits independent of the broad factors. keywords age of acquisition, personality terms, trait taxonomy, language development, personality facets prevailing trait taxonomies in contemporary personality science are based on the factor analysis of personality descrip­ tions. mccrae and costa (1987) analyzed a large pool of personality test items (short statements describing behavior or attitudes) and found that five broad personality factors underlie the multitude of test items. the five broad factors in mccrae and costa’s five-factor model (ffm) were labeled agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness, stability, and openness to experience. the big five (goldberg, 1990) and the six-factor hexaco (lee & ashton, 2008) models are instead based on factor analysis of personality terms found in dictionaries. this lexical approach to personality research is based on the lexical hypothesis that states that personality traits and differences that are the most important and relevant to people are described in natural language using words (goldberg, 1982; klages, 1926). the five broad traits are essentially the same in the ffm and big five models, while the hexaco model has honesty-humility as the sixth factor. many prominent personality tests, such as the neo-pi-r (costa & mccrae, 1992) and hexaco-pi (lee & ashton, 2004) are based on the fiveand six-factor models of personality. extensive empirical evidence on the good predictive validity of these tests provides major support for the underlying theoretical models. however, attempts to find the neu­ rophysiological correlates of the broad five or six factors have until now been unsuccessful (saucier, 2018; trofimova, robbins, sulis, & uher, 2018), and without further proof the big five and the hexaco models are to be understood simply this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2987&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ as strongly abbreviated and abstract versions of the lay lexicon of personality terms (asendorpf, 2016; mottus, 2020; revelle & elleman, 2016). however, even if the broad factors are, as suggested by franić, borsboom, dolan, and boomsma (2014) and wiernik, yarkoni, giordano, and raghavan (2020) mere statistical constructs emanating from factor analysis and not real psycho­ logical entities this does not falsify the entire lexical hypothesis. but what are the other options besides factor analysis for extracting the most important traits from the pool of lay descriptions? according to mccrae, gaines, and wellington (2012), “the ffm arose precisely because the thousands of lay adjectives …were unmanageable.” one alternative solution, based on cluster analysis, has been suggested by wood, nye, and saucier (2010), who developed the inventory on individual differences in the lexicon (iidl), which has 61 scales based on 61 clusters of three or more synonymous terms extracted from a pool of 504 frequently used personality descriptors. another approach has been proposed by roivainen (2016) based on the observation that the frequency distribution of personality terms roughly follows zipf’s (1949) law, which states that in a corpus of words, the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table. therefore, if word frequency correlates even moderately positively with the importance of the corresponding trait, then a list of the most frequently used 40–50 terms (excluding synonyms and antonyms) most likely includes all significant traits. roivainen’s studies (2013, 2015, 2016) also showed that those big five/hexaco marker adjectives that represent the cores of the broad factors are not more frequently used words than are “blended adjectives” with moderate loadings on several factors. this means that laymen do not recognize the high loading marker adjectives as especially useful personality descriptors in everyday use. a third option to discover the most important traits in the lexicon is to study personality descriptions in more limited lexicons. for example, we may hypothesize that new immigrants to a country first learn those words that are most needed for everyday communication (“hello,” “thank you,” “good,” “bad”) and this also applies to personality descriptors. expressions such as “good man” and “bad person” are probably learned before more advanced-level descriptions such as “agreeable man” and “conscientious person.” another group of persons with limited vocabularies is children. in the present study, the age of acquisition (aoa) of common personality adjectives was investigated as another potential indicator for important traits. the typical first words used by infants include mama, dada, ball, hi, and dog, and the average 1-year old child has a vocabulary in comprehension of roughly 100 words. at the age of 18 months, the average passive vocabulary is around 600 words and the average productive vocabulary is close to 100 words. toward the age of 30 months, the total productive vocabulary increases to more than 1,000 words (mayor & plunkett, 2011). studies on the aoa of words (brysbaert & ellis, 2016; dale & o’rourke, 1981) show that common personality descriptors are included in the vocabulary of 2–4 year olds. we may hypothesize that children first learn those personality-related concepts that are important in their lives: these words may describe the child herself (don’t be shy!), friends or family members (be brave like your brother!) or other significant characters (practical pig is smarter than zeke the wolf, who is evil). the child gradually acquires a theory of mind and personality (brown, mangelsdorf, agathen, & ho, 2008; eder, 1990), and as the lexicon of psychological concepts becomes larger, these implicit models become more refined and sophisticated. early-acquired words are processed faster than words with a later aoa in semantic categorization tasks (brysbaert, van wijnendaele & de deyne, 2000), in lexical decision tasks (cortese & khanna, 2007), and in pictured object naming (holmes & ellis, 2006; navarrete, pastore, valentini, & peressotti, 2015). they also tend to be more positive, less dominant, more easily imageable and more frequently used as compared to words learned later on in life (montefinese, vinson, vigliocco, & ambrosini, 2019; moors et al., 2013; morrison & ellis, 2000). however, according to brysbaert and biemiller (2017), words learned early in life are processed more efficiently than later-acquired words, even when word frequency, word length, and similarity to other words are controlled for. early acquired concepts are richer, more accessible, and also, for example, more robust against brain damage (brysbaert & ellis, 2016). these effects have been explained by the semantic locus hypothesis that suggests that early-acquired words help to build the semantic network for the acquisition of later-learned words (steyvers & tenenbaum, 2005) and consequently they have more connections compared to later-acquired words. the present study investigates the relationship between aoa, word frequency, and big five/hexaco factor loading of personality adjectives. it is hypothesized that words that describe important traits are learned at an earlier age, have higher frequency of use, and have higher loadings in the factor models. a high (negative) correlation between aoa and roivainen 133 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor loading in one factor model and a lower correlation with loading in another factor model may be interpreted as supporting the validity of the former model. a low correlation between aoa and factor loading for both the big five and hexaco models may be interpreted as supporting other trait taxonomies. method big five factor loadings reported for 339 personality-descriptive adjectives by saucier and goldberg (1996) and hexaco factor loadings reported for 449 adjectives by lee and ashton (2008) were used in the study. these terms originally come from norman (1967), who created a list of 2,800 personality adjectives based on the study by allport and odbert (1936), who found 18,000 terms that describe personality or behavior in dictionaries. norman excluded from allport and odbert’s list those words that were purely evaluative, obsolete, or described physical characteristics. the set of 2,800 adjectives was further cut down to 1,711 words by goldberg (1990), who used a panel of 10 student judges to pick the most familiar terms on norman’s list. consecutively, larger panels of judges were used by lee and ashton and goldberg to reduce the list of adjectives to 449 and 339 words, respectively. the data for word frequency was adopted from the studies by roivainen (2015, 2016), who investigated the frequen­ cy of the use of personality adjectives as qualifiers of the nouns person and woman (e.g., intelligent person, kind woman) in the google books corpus, which is the largest existing text corpus, comprising 155 billion words in 2012 (michel et al., 2011). word frequency for the year 2000 was reported in these studies using 3 year-smoothing (= mean word usage for the years 1997–2003). in the present study, frequency of the use of personality adjectives as qualifiers for the noun boy was additionally studied using the same methodology. three different qualified nouns, person, woman, and boy were used as previous studies show that there are small differences in the usage frequencies of adjectives depending on the qualified noun. for example, in the study by motschenbacher and roivainen (2020), correlation between usage frequency for adjectives qualifying woman and person was r = .71, and between man and person r = .67. word frequencies of adjectives qualifying boy were analyzed in the present study to control for the potential differences in the description of adults (woman) and children (boy). the data on aoa of the words came from brysbaert and biemiller (2017) and is largely based on the study by dale and o’rourke (1981), who used three-alternative multiple choice test items to analyze the knowledge of 31,000 words in american children from school grades 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 and college students (grades 13 and 16). each word was tested with 200 children. the testing took place between the years 1950–1980 in the us midwest. the criterion for aoa for a word was that 70–80% of children at a specific grade level knew the meaning of that word. the dale and o’rourke compilation was expanded by biemiller (2010), who made an additional category for grade 2, in which he included the words known by more than 80% of the children in grade 4. data from studies by goodman, dale, and li (2008) and morrison, chappell, and ellis (1997) that investigated vocabulary of toddlers and kindergarten-age children were additionally used for the aoa estimates by brysbaert and biemiller (2017). the brysbaert list gives different aoa ages for different meanings of a word. for example, aoa for warm meaning “medium hot” is grade 2 while the aoa for warm meaning “kindly” is grade 6. obviously, in these cases, the aoa for the meaning involving personality description was used. among the personality terms studied by saucier and goldberg (1996), there are many pairs of adjectives consisting of a frequently used term such as intelligent or critical and a less frequently used antonym formed by the prefix nonun-, or in-, for example, uncritical and unintelligent. while these pairs of terms are most likely learned at the same age, only those adjectives that appeared on the brysbaert list were accepted for the present study. in all, aoa for 274 of the 339 adjectives used by goldberg (1990) and aoa for 408 adjectives out of the 449 studied by lee and ashton (2008) were included in the analyses. desirability ratings (scale −3 to +3) of adjectives from the study by chandler (2018) were compared to aoa data. in all, 250 adjectives out of the 408 analyzed in the present study had been rated in chandler’s study. the data set is freely available (see supplementary materials). age of acquisition of personality terms 134 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results age of acquisition of big five adjectives table 1 shows 28 big five adjectives that are learned before or during second grade, another 33 adjectives that are learned before or during 4th grade, and 15 adjectives that are typically learned after the 12th grade. thus, 198 of the big five adjectives analyzed in the present study are learned and become part of active vocabulary between the 5th and 12th grades. table 1 early and late-acquired personality adjectives age of acquisition grade 2 grade 4 grade 13+ bashful (e) pleasant (a) absentminded (c) insecure (s) condescending (a) brave (e) polite (a) active (e) jealous (s) cordial (a) bright (o) proud (e) artistic (o) mannerly (c) devious (a) careful (c) quiet (e) bossy (a) nervous (s) fretful (s) careless (c) shy (e) bull-headed (a) nosey (s) gregarious (e) cheerful (e) smart (o) carefree (e) patient (a) introspective (o) cruel (a) talkative (e) courageous (e) rude (a) pompous (a) dependable (c) thoughtless (a) crabby (a) selfish (a) vindictive (a) forgetful (c) trustful (a) cranky (a) shallow (o) docile (e) friendly (a) truthful (a) dishonest (a) silent (e) exacting (c) helpful (a) unkind (a) excitable (s) sloppy (c) impetuous (e) kind (a) explosive (a) sly (a) lethargic (e) lazy (c) grumpy (a) stubborn (a) self-indulgent (a) merry (e) honest (a) suspicious (a) surly (a) greedy (a) humorous (e) unfriendly (a) unassuming (a) peaceful (a) impolite (a) unreliable (c) playful (e) industrious (c) note. age of acquisition from brysbaert and biemiller (2017). personality adjectives from saucier and goldberg (1996). big five factors (factor with primary loading in saucier & goldberg, 1996): e = extraversion, a = agreeableness, c = conscientiousness, s = stablity, o = openness. as table 1 shows, only few adjectives known by 2nd—4th graders describe the stability and openness factors of personality. in the big five framework, 28 of the adjectives known by 2nd—4th graders have their highest loading on the agreeableness factor, 14 describe extraversion, and 10 are conscientiousness adjectives. the correlation between aoa and big five primary loading was r = −.24, p < .001. age of acquisition of hexaco adjectives table 2 shows the number of adjectives at each level of aoa, the mean word frequency, and the mean primary factor loading of the adjectives in the hexaco model. as table 2 indicates, words that are learned at an early age have a higher frequency of use as compared to words learned at later stages. the correlations between aoa and word frequency for adjectives qualifying person, boy, and woman were r = −.19, p < .001, r = −.28, p < .001, and r = −.21, p < .001, respectively. the difference in word frequency between the 96 words known by grade 4 and the 80 words known only by the 12th and 14th graders categories is significant for adjectives qualifying person, t (174) = 2.95, p = .0036; woman, t (174) = 3.15, p = .0019; and boy, t (174) = 3.78, p < .001. roivainen 135 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 personality adjectives: age of acquisition (aoa), word usage frequency and factor loading aoa before school grade number of terms number of terms with primary loading on hexaco factor mean word frequency qualifying mean primary loadingx c a o e h person boy woman 2 39 12 10 5 1 5 6 20 6.2 18.1 41 4 57 8 11 17 2 11 8 14.6 1.7 9.7 36.4 6 96 16 25 19 7 19 10 12.9 1.4 9.9 37.5 8 90 15 17 13 12 12 21 9.3 0.9 5.6 38.6 10 46 9 9 9 8 5 6 5.2 0.4 3.6 34.9 12 57 14 9 5 15 4 10 7.7 0.4 4.4 36.0 14 23 3 6 1 7 3 3 4.1 0.3 2.6 31.0 total 408 77 87 69 52 59 64 note. age of acquisition (aoa) from brysbaert and biemiller (2017). google books ngram word frequency per billion words. primary factor loading from lee and ashton (2004). hexaco factors: extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, emotionality, honesty-humility. as table 2 shows, adjectives in the openness category seem to be learned at a later age than other adjectives. there were only four adjectives that had their highest loading on the openness factor that are known to 2nd—4th graders: bright, smart, artistic, and clever. the correlation between mean primary loading in the hexaco model and aoa was fairly low, (r = −.17, p < .001). however, the mean loading was slightly higher (41) for the youngest grade 2 category as compared to the older children (36.6); t(406) = 3.10, p = .0020. word desirability had a weak negative correlation with aoa, (r = −.10, p = .114). the difference observed between the mean desirability of adjectives learned before grade 2 (0.77) and that of adjectives learned in grade 4 or later (0.19) approached significance, t (248) = 1.94, p = .0530. discussion the results of the study show that children first learn those personality terms that have high usage frequency in books, and presumably in language in general. words that describe the broad openness and stability/emotionality factors of personality are learned somewhat later than words for the other broad factors. young children (2nd graders and younger) seem to learn adjectives that describe the core features of the big five and hexaco domains slightly earlier than those adjectives that refer to more peripheral traits in these factor models. however, the correlations between aoa and factor loading were low when older children were included in the analysis. there are several potential explanations for this: differences between adult and children’s personality. the big five and hexaco models are based on studies with adults and may not be fully valid for children and adolescents. hampson and edmonds (2018) conclude that the big five can be identified in young children, and children's big five traits can predict adult outcomes, even if the big five factor structure does not necessarily emerge as clearly as it does in adults. it has been suggested that early temperamental traits may develop into more complex personality traits as the child matures (caspi, roberts, & shiner, 2005; shiner & caspi, 2003). for example, agreeableness and conscientiousness may reflect a common trait in childhood and become differentiated in older children (rothbart, ahadi, hershey, & fisher, 2001; soto, john, gosling, & potter, 2008). the broad domain of openness is also absent from early age temperamental models suggesting that this trait may emerge at later stages of childhood (lamb, chuang, wessels, broberg, & hwang, 2002; tackett et al., 2012). alternatives to the big five and hexaco taxonomies have been suggested, for example, by wilson, schalet, hicks, and zucker (2013) who found two broad personality dimensions in children and labeled them adaptive socialization and anxious inhibition, and by soto (2016) who has proposed a six-factor model integrating personality and temperament theories for describing the personality of children and adolescents. the “little six” model by soto includes activity as the sixth broad factor in addition to the traditional big five factors. such alternative models of childhood personality were not included in the present study, and it may be that the correlation between aoa and factor loading would be higher for these models than age of acquisition of personality terms 136 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for aoa and big five/hexaco models. for example, the observation that openness-related adjectives are learned at a later age than other adjectives seems to conform to the hypothesis that this trait emerges in older children. different functions of personality terms in language. while the big five and hexaco models aim to be maximally efficient for the purposes of differential psychology, the personality lexicon that children learn from their parents and friends has many other important functions involving social interaction. in the present study, personality adjectives that are learned before grade 2 were found to have both higher desirability ratings and higher usage frequency than words learned at a later age. this finding is in accordance with previous research, such as the study by wood (2015), who found desirability and usage frequency to have a correlation of .25 in a sample of 504 common personality terms. according to wood, “the association between a term’s relational impact and its frequency of use may in turn be mediated by normative pressures which cause the actual frequency of socially valued traits to increase.” such factors may also partly explain why words such as friendly and wise are learned at a very young age, despite their being distant from the cores of the broad factors. non-representative sample of adjectives. the groups of adjectives studied in the present study are highly selected samples. the correlations between aoa and word frequency observed in the present study (between r = −.19 and r = −.28) were much lower than that observed by brysbaert and biemiller for the 18,000 words in their study, r = −.587. this could be explained by the selected nature of the sample of adjectives used in the present study. in goldberg’s study, student panels were used to select the most familiar adjectives from the list of 2,800 adjectives created by norman. thus, the words studied by brysbaert and biemiller probably also include much more rarely used terms. the same logic applies to the observations involving factor loadings. the observed correlations (r = −.17 and r = −.24) were fairly low. however, if there were factor loading data available for 2,800 adjectives rather than only for the 300–400 most popular adjectives, it might be that the adjectives at the core of the five broad factors would have clearly lower aoas as compared to adjectives at the margins of the broad factors. the big five and hexaco factors are not real psychological entities. in a recent discussion article (open peer commentary, 2020) on the validity of the hexaco model, many influential personality scientists seem to take this view. according to saucier (2020), "the big five is an empirically derived structure that has tended (and still tends) to be theoretically ill‐defined." wiernik et al. (2020) argue that, "any attempt to carve personality space into a low‐di­ mensional (e.g., five‐ or six‐factor) solution necessarily discards important information," and call for "a moratorium on attempts to identify a universally optimal low‐dimensional personality structure." mottus (2020) concludes that, "choosing between any number broad domains (three? five? six?) will always be an arbitrary decision." in a similar vein, revelle, dvorak, and condon (2020) believe that, "by forming higher level constructs and ignoring the meaningful signals available at the item level, our field has been led astray." consider the trait of honesty that is a peripheral trait in the big five model, falling between the agreeableness and conscientiousness superfactors, while in the six-factor scheme, honesty-humility is one of the broad factors. as table 1 shows, dependable, truthful, honest, and unreliable are among personality descriptors that are learned at an early age. the frequency of the use of honest as qualifying person in book texts is roughly equal to the sum of the frequencies of the 100 terms with lowest usage frequencies used in the study by saucier and goldberg (1996). thus, the aoa and frequency data suggest that honesty is an important trait. however, in factor analytic models, the status of this trait varies considerably depending on how many factors are extracted. the paradigmatic factor analytic studies in personality science might also be criticized for having an inconsistent attitude toward lay theories of personality. while it is assumed that the lay lexicon reliably covers the semantic field of personality description, there is a lack of trust in the results of the evolution of language involving the division of the semantic field into words. hierarchical taxonomies are highly common in natural language, for example, letter-word-language, computer-device-object, and writing-communicating-doing something. the absence of lay words that would correspond to the five or six broad personality domains in the factor models may be caused by shortcomings in observation and analysis of behavior by laypeople, but another possibility is that there are no real referent entities. attempts to find the neurophysiological correlates of the broad five or six factors have until now been unsuccessful (trofimova et al., 2018). if the broad factors are not real psychological entities, the description of personality at the facet level should probably be independent of the broad factors, as proposed by wood et al. (2010) and saucier, iurino, and thalmayer (2020). condon and mroczek (2016) observe that "hierarchically nested facets (like those for the neo-pi-r)..., roivainen 137 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ are intrinsically limited in scope to the multidimensional space of the highest level; they are a 30-factor model of the big-five space but not a 30-factor model of personality space." thus, for a model with 30 facets, the semantic field of personality descriptors should be directly divided into 30 parts and not into five parts that are then divided into six parts each. correlational studies involving the identification of clusters of personality terms, and the analysis of their frequency of use, desirability, and aoa are complementary methods for identifying those terms that are fundamental in personality description. if the critics cited above are correct and the use of a larger number of narrow facets in the description of adult personality outperforms descriptions based on a small number of broad traits, then the usefulness of the big five and hexaco models in developmental psychology is even more questionable. studying the ontogeny of the 15, 21 and 28 personality dimensions identified by saucier and iurino (2019), that of the 61 traits found by wood et al. (2010), or the 23 personality facets analyzed by roivainen (2016) may be more fruitful for theories of childhood personality. arguably, the approach of classical theories such as those by erikson (1980), vygotsky (1987) or piaget (1970) that describe and explain the development of narrow traits identified by laypersons, for example, shyness, creativity, and selfishness, is perfectly valid. observations on the aoa of personality terms might be also used to analyze the validity of such classical theories. for example, do children learn words that denote aspects of being independent and self-reliant versus helpless and clinging at an especially fast rate between the ages of 3 to 5, a period that corresponds to erikson’s third stage of development (purpose, initiative vs. guilt)? or, do children learn concepts referring to creativity (creative, imaginative, original) later than synonyms for intelligence (intelligent, rational, wise) and is there an association between word knowledge and manifest behavior such as suppressed creativity in primary-school aged children (gardner, 2008; vygotsky, 1987)? moreover, how does the level of the abstractness of personality terms known by the child correspond to his/her interpersonal skills and theory of mind? conclusions analysis of the aoa of personality terms represents a genetic method for the study of the individual personality lexicon and offers a potential alternative to correlational analysis for identifying the fundamental personality descriptors among the thousands of terms that appear in language. young children seem to learn personality terms that represent traits at the cores of the broad personality factors in the big five and hexaco models slightly earlier than words that represent traits that are more peripheral. this may be interpreted as supporting the notion that the broad factors are real psychological entities and not just statistical constructs. however, in older children beyond second grade, correlations between factor loading and aoa are weak. words that describe the broad openness and stability factors of personality are learned somewhat later than words for the other broad factors. it is hypothesized that the aoa of a personality term reflects the importance of the corresponding trait for children and may be used as one criterion for selecting facet level scales for personality tests. further analyses of aoa of personality terms are needed, as they may contribute to theories of childhood personality, the development of the theory of mind in children, and the development of personality tests. supplementary materials funding: the author has no funding to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this study a data set is freely available (see supplementary materials). age of acquisition of personality terms 138 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supplementary materials index of supplementary materials roivainen, e. 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(1949). human behavior and the principle of least effort. cambridge, ma, usa: addison-wesley press. about the author eka roivainen obtained his phd from the university of oulu in 2015. he works as an assessment psychologist at the department of medical rehabilitation, oulu university hospital. roivainen 141 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 132–141 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2987 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0170 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2284 https://doi.org/10.1002/(sici)1099-0984(199603)10:1%3c61::aid-per246%3e3.0.co;2-d https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000273 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2235 https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-7610.00101 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12168 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.718 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2901_3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2011.00748.x https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0152 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2284 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.02.010 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038343 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.02.003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ age of acquisition of personality terms (introduction) method results age of acquisition of big five adjectives age of acquisition of hexaco adjectives discussion conclusions supplementary materials (additional information) funding competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the author restricted self-transition: a journey of divorcees through lasting marital dissolution in eastern european society research reports restricted self-transition: a journey of divorcees through lasting marital dissolution in eastern european society lina butkutė 1,2, dimitri mortelmans 2, jolanta sondaitė 1 [1] faculty of social and human studies, mykolas romeris university, vilnius, lithuania. [2] faculty of social sciences, university of antwerp, antwerp, belgium. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 received: 2022-06-03 • accepted: 2023-02-04 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: flavia cangià, université de fribourg, fribourg, switzerland corresponding author: lina butkutė, faculty of social and human studies, mykolas romeris university, ateities st. 20, lt-08303 vilnius, lithuania. e-mail: livoort@stud.mruni.eu abstract although most empirical research has focused on divorcing individuals’ experiences before or after marriage dissolution, how people understand and evaluate themselves during their lasting divorce processes has been largely understudied. we aimed to close this gap by learning how individuals regard their longer-lasting divorce process and how those experiences could relate to changes of self. data were collected via semi-structured interviews and then analyzed by applying a grounded theory approach. twenty-one research participants residing in lithuania who were 6 months or more into their divorce processes (not living together or in a litigation process) participated in the study. by allowing participants to reflect on their ongoing divorce, data indicated three main categories illuminating the changes in self: temporal self-disruption, restricted self-transition, and transition-supporting strategies. these interconnected categories point toward complex paths of the divorcees from experienced losses toward a more stable and clear yet not finalized self-redefinition. individuals’ increased vulnerability, especially during the first years of the divorce, requires particular attention from child protection officers, lawyers, mediators, and other involved professionals. unfortunately, support is often unavailable or refuted due to the perceived low effectiveness and lack of professionalism. keywords self, lasting divorce, qualitative study, lithuania divorce is not a single, discrete stressful event. instead, the most commonly accepted theoretical divorce model supports a process perspective (amato, 2010). most couples find ways to manage timely their marriage’s formal termination; however, up to 25% result in long-lasting, complex, usually highly conflictual, and more expensive trajectories (smyth & moloney, 2017). breaking marital bonds with significant others usually associates with many negative consequences for divorcing individuals, including increased unclarity and instability of self-perception and decreased general well-being (schiller et al., 2016; slotter et al., 2014). the above negative consequences could lead to an expected prolonged (legal) divorce trajectory associated with more pronounced and complex inner changes. however, some research indicates that neither conflict nor duration of divorce relates to depressive feelings or life satisfaction (symoens et al., 2013). a significant number of divorcees achieve observed gains in perceptions about themselves and psychological well-being (treloar, 2019). despite the importance of the topic and several studies tackling the divorce phenomenon, in their recent literature overview, haddad et al. (2016) argue that many of these studies provide only theoretical knowledge and backgrounds of ongoing divorce. data are primarily gathered in pre-divorce or post-divorce settings (crabtree & harris, 2020; francia et al., 2019). most of the studies on this topic employ quantitative methods that focus on variables the researchers this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9619&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ identified and therefore, are unlikely to represent divorcees' contextualized experiences (mercer, 2011). one of a few qualitative studies examining the ongoing legal divorce period focused primarily on the conflict tactics between divorcing partners, as the researchers observed (see gulbrandsen et al., 2018). however, their results did not include divorcees' perspectives. individuals' views of themselves amidst their divorce and the associated emotions are important when discussing timely and more effective divorce conflict-resolution approaches (hopper, 2001; slotter & walsh, 2017). to respond to the above gaps and conflicting results, with this study, we aim to show what transformations of the self individuals experience during their lasting divorce process and the ways they respond to them to make divorce life more bearable. we advance the divorce literature in several ways. first, taking the lasting divorce process framework as a focal point prompts looking at divorce as a more complex process, exploring how various transitions related to a divorce account for variance in outcomes (amato, 2010; crabtree & harris, 2020). second, as divorce-related self-perceptions diminish over time (booth & amato, 1991; strohschein, 2005), providing real-time data permits contex­ tualizing lived experiences and provides a better understanding of the phenomenon. third, grounding results in the divorcees’ standpoint allows accommodating the complexity and variation of the self in the specific context, opposite to generalized models of a “theoretical divorcee” (bertelsen, 2023; mercer, 2011). finally, we present three main categories, providing an in-depth understanding of the transformations and preservation of the self. more profound empirical knowledge of the phenomenon is needed to ensure that the desired divorce-related results are more durable and that they are achieved more effectively (bartolucci & gallo, 2010; hald et al., 2020). literature review people create themselves by fusing with various elements from valued life domains (tabri et al., 2017). for example, the more the person values particular self-aspects related to the relationship, the more aspects of it define that person (tabri et al., 2017). people strive to maintain stability through time and place, and they are usually reluctant to change (lodi-smith et al., 2017). stability and clarity of the self-construal associate with low levels of distress, high self-esteem, active coping styles, and low neuroticism levels (smith et al., 1996). however, divorce often stands in the way of individuals’ ability to narrate themselves and it leads to disturbances in inner clarity (schiller et al., 2016). experienced disturbances during life transitions can catalyze the adjustment and emergence of new forms of conduct, which in some cases might involve restructuring the whole self system (zittoun, 2008). the self can be understood as an intra-psychological structure concerned with one’s self-perception that evaluative inferences continually reinforce, which reflect both cognitive and affective responses (arens et al., 2011; kohut, 2013). the experience of the self includes consciousness of one’s physicality as well as one’s inner character and emotional life. mattingly et al. (2014) underlined the above duality of the self when discussing changes related to romantic relationship dissolutions. they argued that the self changes along two dimensions: diversity (increased or decreased) and experienced emotional response (positivity or negativity) regarding the change. the more the person values particular self-aspects related to marriage, the more aspects of it define that person (tabri et al., 2017). in that case, losing valued self-aspects is particularly difficult because doing so feels like losing significant parts of oneself. however, in some relationships, individuals might experience decreased positive self-attributes or increased negative ones, for example, by developing new bad habits. consequently, such a bond’s dissolution would provide a sense of relief when it ended, allowing the rediscovery of neglected self-aspects and the experience of growth (lewandowski & bizzoco, 2007). literature indicates that self-transformation is tightly connected to changes related to the roles established during marriage. individuals stand before a task to redefine their identity to make it distinct from the identity of both the former couple and the former spouse (bohannan, 1971). in his qualitative study, hopper (2001) conceptualized that divorce often became more than a loss of a partner and therefore, it became more about the loss of a dream of togetherness and self-wholeness projected into the future. particularly lithuanians still consider marriage as a highly valued, sacred union intended to last until death (kanopienė et al., 2015). breaking this sacred union brings to the foreground many internal moral disputes. divorce also involves changes in the parental role to establish a new parental identity. this task requires transforming the emotional attachment between the parents to a functional attachment that confines the relationships to parenting alone (emery, 2011). restricted self-transition 274 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ staying for a prolonged time in an unclear situation could prevent timely and effective self-redefinition and it could lead to increased inner unclarity. qualitative research exploring the lasting separation without clear intent to divorce indicated that finding the self in lasting and unclear settings related to higher stress levels and a greater role of unclarity (crabtree & harris, 2020). individuals were unsure about what was expected from them and how long such settings would last. some researchers related experienced uncertainty about the expectations associated with particular roles and the existence of certain relational status to the so-called role-relational ambiguity phenomenon (tabor, 2019). this phenomenon points to the unclarity of the self in ambiguous and unfinalized life situations, such as a lasting divorce process. individuals use various resources to help ease divorce-related stressors, among them the ones residing within individuals (e.g., coping skills, social skills) (amato, 2000). zittoun et al. (2003) referred to them as symbolic resources that helped to reframe and reorganize a changing situation’s uncertainty. hattie (2008) argued that these resources or strategies were integral components of the self and they strengthened it. therefore, to understand how the self works and on which rationales it is formed, the focus should lie on these dynamic internal strategies and choices. people mainly choose strategies to protect, preserve, and promote their selves (alicke & sedikides, 2009; hepper et al., 2010). so-called self-enhancement and self-protection strategies help to preserve and enhance positively the valued self-dimensions (sherman & hartson, 2011). for example, viewing perceived gains and feeling positivity from otherwise adverse events relate to a smoother reconstruction of identity and increased clarity (jayawickreme et al., 2021). accept­ ance-based strategies could also be ways to support divorce transitions. these strategies focus on increasing the ability to tolerate actively and accept aversive internal experiences and to lead to further adaptive behavior (forman & butryn, 2015; veletsianos et al., 2018). last, forming a new stable romantic relationship supports the divorce adjustment process and is one of the essential factors in adjusting to post-divorce stress and self-redefinition (langlais et al., 2016). method study design we chose a qualitative approach to investigate changes related to the self for several reasons. first, given the absence of studies investigating the lasting divorce process, a more exploratory study seemed appropriate to provide a potentially more profound understanding of the lived phenomenon among a specific group of divorcees. second, we employed a constructivist grounded theory (cgt) because it provides a systematic approach to understand the development of the self during ongoing traumatic life events (thornberg & charmaz, 2014). the cgt is particularly suitable for an exploratory study such as this one because it allows remaining close to the data and contextualizing the divorcees’ experiences without preconceived or anticipated patterns. the cgt suggests that data are constructed through an ongoing interaction between participants and the researcher and that the analysis reflects both perspectives (thornberg & charmaz, 2014). in conducting our analysis, no explicit use was made of theoretical constructs; however, the research­ ers’ conceptual framework inevitably informed the analysis, as did the reflections on the findings in the discussion section. third, we have selected the self as this study’s focus because it is a self-related construct that includes both an affective and a cognitive dimension. the self can be sufficiently broadly defined to capture a wider, more holistic set of beliefs, feelings, and used strategies associated with lasting divorce and more general life context. this study is part of the ph.d. research trajectory. the university research ethics committee granted ethics approval (protocol no. 6/-2021). the first author (a doctoral psychology student) carried out all data collection and led the analysis. participants the sample consisted of 21 married individuals (5 males and 16 females) who, at the time of the interviews, identified as (a) still legally married, (b) living in lithuania, and (c) in the process of divorce for at least 6 months (not living together or in a litigation process) (mortelmans, 2020). participants ranged from 28 to 64 years (m = 43.8; sd = 8.24). since the beginning of a divorce, the mean number of years was 2.1, ranging from 6 months to 4 years (sd = 1.11). our participants had been married for 16.1 years on average, with a range of 2 to 40 years (sd = 10.63). all participants had one or more children with their divorcing spouses and identified themselves as white. all of the relationships with butkutė, mortelmans, & sondaitė 275 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ spouses described in this study were heterosexual and gender normative. because the initial strategy to interview both individuals from a divorcing couple did not materialize due to the sensitivity of the divorce situation, we focused our data collection and analysis strategy on individuals instead. consequently, 2 participants were (former) spouses of 2 other participants. furthermore, as interviews took place online, it allowed for recruiting divorcees from various towns across the country, including cities and rural villages. recruitment we recruited the sample through convenience, snowball, and purposive sampling techniques. first, we contacted via email various social and mental health support centers, community agencies, governmental institutions, lawyers, and counselors with a request to support the recruitment process. the emailed text explained the study’s design and purpose. second, to increase the number of participants, we utilized announcements on social media platforms, particularly facebook, and specific divorce-related facebook discussion groups. third, we approached individuals from a personal network with a request to disseminate information about the research to people they knew who were going through a divorce or could share the information with others. finally, after each interview, we asked participants to share information about the research with other individuals who fit the criteria. interview procedures the first author contacted interested participants to arrange a 60to 90-min. semi-structured interview by audio (n = 19), or video call (n = 2), whichever the participant preferred. before conducting interviews, we extensively discussed the study’s goal and aim and the interview process with each participant. we underlined, among others, the anonymous and confidential handling of data, the participants’ rights to terminate the interview, and participation in the study. we conducted interviews using a topic guide developed after the initial literature review. interview questions concerned experiences regarding the ongoing divorce process, how divorcees viewed themselves, and their interactions with other people. all interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. coding and analysis after the data were transcribed, we analyzed the data, applying a grounded theory (gt) approach informed by charmaz (2014). coding is essential in gt studies and occurs in particular stages, which we have followed (see figure 1). first, the researcher read each interview to gain a holistic sense of the text and wrote a summary statement to capture the overall essence of that participant's experience. second, readings helped identify and code what individual sentences or sentence clusters revealed about the ongoing divorce experience (initial coding). third, by constantly comparing codes with codes and seeing how the codes coalesced, she identified the most important codes and engaged in focused coding. this coding process involves identifying the most frequently occurring and more important initial codes and using them to group data for deeper analysis. fourth, codes were arranged in various levels of abstraction, thus creating categories. finally, theoretical arrangements were assigned to the data and subsequently revised until the collection of structural experiences captured the similarities across and variations within the participants' experiences (theoretical coding). although the gt name suggests that a fully fledged theory must arise from a gt study, scholars argue that significant progress toward constructing categories and spelling out links between them, with the aim of achieving conceptual clarity, is a sufficient (if not necessarily the ideal) outcome (timonen et al., 2018). consequently, with our study, we focused on developing core categories and the interlinkage between them to show in-depth the changing self during the lasting divorce process. coding was done using nvivo 12 software. strategies for trustworthiness we followed trustworthiness criteria to ensure the findings’ quality (schwandt et al., 2007). to increase credibility, which included showing how well the findings reflect collected data (mcginley et al., 2021), we met monthly to discuss the interviews and concepts that emerged from the data and to explicate personal assumptions and biases as they surfaced. in addition, the first author practiced ongoing reflexivity to enhance confirmability, which concerned restricted self-transition 276 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ minimizing the researcher's bias (charmaz & thornberg, 2021). for that, she used a reflective journal. in qualitative studies, the journal records complete and thorough information (memos) about what, how, and why actions were undertaken and what conclusions we came to (and why) (charmaz, 2014; clarke & braun, 2013). in memos, the first author reflected, among other considerations, on the process and practice of recruitment and data collection, analytic insights during data analysis, and emotional aspects of the research that affected the researcher and the research. the first author made memos available to two scholars who were not involved in the study but offered content and methodological expertise. results looking at the data gathered during the interviews, main categories of understanding and evaluating self during divorce came forward: temporal self-disruption, transitional self-redefinition, and transition-supporting strategies, which are discussed below in detail. temporal self-disruption this concept includes two components, which indicate a kind of cracking and gap in the experience of self and emotions associated with the experience. these components are mainly focused on the disruptions in the past self as well as continuing threats to the current self. losing a togetherness dream most participants experienced their divorces as the end of the world or the dream of a sacred union “till death sets us apart.” people talked extensively about realizing that, “everything in life is falling apart” and “all dreams are collapsing,” particularly in the first year of the divorce. emotional disconnection was one of the most crucial and complicated parts of the divorce process experienced. katrina (37) revealed that, “emotional disconnection was very hard…. i understood how much i am glued to him. i compare it with a co-dependence on a person.” for most, this process started a long time ago. however, some argued they still found it difficult to relinquish their spouses. consequently, forming a functional relationship with their former spouses came with its own challenges. many mothers living with their offspring embraced the idea of co-parenting, yet they feared that disagreements regarding children would continue beyond divorce. although for most of the divorcees, the physical separation was no longer an acute question, unresolved questions regarding the division of the property were lagging and creating future-related unclarities. figure 1 visual representation of the research data analysis process note. steps that were taken to arrive at the study’s core categories. butkutė, mortelmans, & sondaitė 277 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ losing clarity of a traditional parent throughout the interviews, parents with minor children have underlined a need to “be a good parent” and do every­ thing for their children’s sake. however, their ability to enact a parental role depended on whether children were living with them or their visitation was blocked in specific ways. the most challenging experiences were among parents whose children showed reluctance to interact. those individuals were the most unsure about their parental roles. their mixed emotions ranged from sadness about the loss of their children to anger toward their ex-spouse for manipulating them, as well as shame for, “being the mother whose children refuse to see her.” divorcees expressed inner doubts about their importance as parents after the divorce. paul, a father of two, doubted, “whether i will be needed [for the] children or [if it is] only the money when they are in need.” being in increased uncertainty for a prolonged period, the doubts reached such extremes that some were elaborating to renounce officially their roles as parents. in contrast, parents residing with their children underlined the burdensome, lonely responsibility of raising their offspring without a spouse’s support. many of them reported identifying “more with a role of a mother than a woman” as they expected to live the “intensive life of a mother in the coming years.” restricted self-transition this concept refers to the emerging renewed self in the midst of the ongoing divorce, paired with multiple sources preventing the finalization of the process. it is a transitional space within an increasingly unstable situation with a hope to enter potentially the new and different life conditions. re-building valued-self besides reflecting on their losses, participants contemplated the increase in their self-worth, self-respect, and self-love. especially divorcees who were more than a year into their divorce discussed inner healing and re-building of an “old” valued self. individuals felt more stable, peaceful, and stronger. they set self-protecting boundaries and refused self-guilt. one participant reflected on the process as “a return to self:” “it seems like now i'm a little stronger, more stable…. now somehow it's a lot better, a lot. there has happened a return to myself” (daisy, 47, 3 years into divorce). with the return to self, individuals experience a sense of liberation, freeing the self from the dysfunctional family environment, and allowing the self to do things that matter most. new partners played a significant role in restoring a valued self. participants felt loved and secure with a stronger sense of self-belief and self-worth. constrained by uncertainty many individuals experienced the binding of the status of still being legally married as constraining and prohibiting from moving forward. virginia (39), 4 years into divorce, shared her experiences of this, “you understand that you are like a free person, we do not live together for five years. but at the same time, i am still formally a married woman…it’s a complicated thing.” divorcees talked extensively about the sense of feeling stuck in the process. they viewed divorce as something they were dragging behind that did not allow them to be free completely or to plan according to their wishes. people did not know when their divorce would be finalized and what would be the results. divorcees saw themselves as caught in the process without a clear future, expecting the unexpected and unsure if they would be prepared to face it. peter, a 46-year-old father, expressed the experience as finding self in the absurdity as it is in the kafka novel, “something will happen again, that child is again incited, again. i always get something. and you continuously feel hung, not released…. so you sit, and you wait.” this kept divorcing individuals in constant alertness and having an inability to complete the separation process. enduring externally derived attacks many interviewees reported constant alertness due to feeling their former spouses or legal advisors were attacking or blaming them. some of them referred to the situation as fighting in a war. the prevalence of this aspect could be partly related to the specificity of a purposefully selected sample, which includes individuals in highly conflicted litigation processes. participants saw themselves manipulated and put down to “simply see me suffering.” they also faced direct negative labeling from their spouses. steven, 45 and 3 years into divorce, told us, “those night messages-letters as i restricted self-transition 278 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ call them. the topic is practically the same that you are guilty guilty guilty, a scoundrel scoundrel, but you still have a chance to improve.” being blamed and attacked was often associated with fear and anxiety, as well as anger because most of the time, the accusations were seen as lies or tools of manipulation. participants felt attacked not only from their spouses and legal advisors but also various employees of institutions. they felt being looked upon as fools: “those people with problems” or “a criminal caught committing some kind of terrible crime.” negative self-attributions arose from being involved in the institutionalized divorce process as such. experiences with various institutions (courts, social services, child protection offices, and judicial offices) left people feeling humiliated, asocial, and helpless. they saw themselves as “forgotten pieces” in the “lion’s jaws” or in “a self-moving machine” that did not care about them as human beings, their needs, feelings, and experiences. i feel like some kind of asocial. all these lawsuits, those things, oh jesus, you know. i tell you, i feel like on those shows on lnk, tv3, or tv help [reality shows], where they are showing those. i feel that level of a person. it is so low for me. (karen, 47) transition-supporting strategies this concept includes strategies that are intentionally or unintentionally used to reconstruct the self that has been disrupted with the start and continuation of the divorce. it is also associated with preserving the emerged valued self-parts in the transitional period and protecting them from possible disruptions. staying strong and truthful during the interviews, participants reported two main strategies for encouraging themselves. first, divorcees reported seeing themselves as vital individuals. experiencing the self as strong often connected to being able to provide for the new family financially, reaching professional self-realization, and having their colleagues like them. for some, the proof of their strength was a decision to divorce. as katrina (47) stated, “divorce is not an easy thing. it is a myth that only weak people divorce. because being in a destructive relationship, i think, is even easier than getting out of it.” to encourage themselves, individuals talked about their determination to stand for what they valued. they reflected on having the strength to fight for what they thought was rightfully theirs and they were ready to face any obstacles to achieve it. for some, the strength to fight came from seeing themselves as truthful individuals, not having anything of which to be ashamed or for which to be blamed. counteracting the blame due to the ongoing uncertainty, perceived manipulation, and humiliation, people saw themselves as “guilty without proven guilt.” these experiences enhanced a need to protect themselves by proving that reality was not how the outside world depicted it. individuals turned toward common truths about the normality of the behavior. they discussed behaving according to certain standards applicable to the general public or specific professions. martin (43) expressed his argumentation regarding his wife’s accusations, “she [wife] repeats [to everybody] that i scream, that i raise my voice. but it is natural, because i am a guide, for me to talk in front of an audience of 40 people.” second, individuals used other people to prove their truthfulness. these were relatives, friends, close people, or professionals from various institutions (particularly psychologists, doctors, and private attorneys). finally, some interviewees went a step further, pointing out their spouses’ inadequacy, calling them stupid, narcissistic, pathological liars, manipulators, and the like. reconstructing the past the interviews revealed that divorcees engaged in two types of past reconstruction. from one side, it is related to seeing themselves in a relationship with someone unable to appreciate their input. research participants expressed regrets about investing much effort in their families yet being treated as “nothing or nobody.” reflecting on their marriage, they realized they were not appreciated or valued, despite “doing everything for the family.” they saw their partners using them as a tool to gain certain benefits (e.g., to “tidy the house, because you are a maid, as a hostess”). from another side, individuals reported seeing themselves as directly involved in maintaining their marriage’s dysfunctional structure. butkutė, mortelmans, & sondaitė 279 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ individuals accepted that their passive behavior influenced marital problems or even led to the relationship’s collapse. for some participants, this realization with much pain and suffering. when [my eyes] opened, it was terribly painful, it hurt a lot, it hurt for months. when i found out about my codependence, i don't know, maybe for a month i was in such a shock. (paul, 48) accepting the ongoing some divorcees reported working on accepting the past and present. for them, it seemed to be the only way to work through the issues they could not change. people encouraged themselves that everything would be resolved, and all came back to a particular normal. karen (47), 1 year into divorce, argued, “you try to let go, analyze the situation, the why, and then you realize that you cannot change the fact; you have to accept it.” somewhat similar to the acceptance is what divorcees expressed as letting the divorce process go parallel to their everyday lives. they argued that heightened emotions related to divorce took over and “sucked them” initially. however, with time, especially when the legal process takes years, divorcees had to let the legal process “go like something natural, which is happening along with all your other things” (virginia, 39, 4 years into divorce). discussion this qualitative study was conducted to explore the change of the self in people going through a lasting divorce process. according to the present study, people experienced a self-disruption amidst an ongoing divorce, particularly related to spousal and parental roles. individuals lost the sense of self-continuity over time, thinking that important parts of the self they had built in the past were lost and that the future self to build on vaguely existed or was continuously interrupted. consistent with the two-dimensional change model (mattingly et al., 2014), these results could be explained through self-contraction. because the self is formed and apprehended through everyday practice with family members, the inability to interact freely and uncontrollably with them and enact the “traditional” roles of a parent or spouse creates a clash with the self, followed by feelings of self-related loss, pain and stress (balmer et al., 2018; mattingly et al., 2014). despite the results’ initial straightforwardness, the losses are more complicated. losses of a spousal role were largely connected to the loss of future-oriented togetherness dreams. parental role losses also associated with the inability to enact parental responsibilities, the idea of what it meant to be a “traditional” parent and behave according to it. particularly, divorcees who could not freely interact with their children felt these changes. consequently, results show that disconnection with ideas and dreams connected to the closest people plays an essential role when discussing divorce-related losses. marriage and being in a traditional family remain highly valued aspects for many people (hopper, 2001). this notion is particularly prevalent among lithuanians viewing family life, including raising children as the center and foremost priority of a person's life (kanopienė et al., 2015). therefore, divorce becomes highly stressful because it threatens highly valued core self-aspects connected to the notion of being a part of the traditional family structure. next to the losses of valued self-aspects, some losses provided the opportunity for individuals to experience rebuilding a more valued self. these changes associated with increased positivity and a sense of self-liberation. scholars underline that although individuals usually strive for positive self-expansion, they also add negative parts or neglect more valued self-parts (mattingly et al., 2014). as people lose negatively experienced self-parts, they move closer to an ideal self and consequently experience increased well-being (lewandowski & bizzoco, 2007). however, creating a more valued self was not without challenges. divorcees experienced the self as stuck, “hanged in the process,” and therefore, restricted in various ways that conveyed feelings of the impossibility of a definite self-reconstruction. the role-relational ambiguity phenomenon comes closest to explaining this experience (tabor, 2019). results of qualitative research, which focused on individuals living apart from their spouses without the intent to divorce, showed that finding the self in a lasting ambiguous situation without a clear understanding of what roles an individual is supposed to perform and what is expected of them associated with much negatively experienced self and situation unclarity (crabtree & harris, 2020). restricted self-transition 280 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the constant alertness and insecurity about being unfairly attacked, blamed, and coerced strengthened the above experiences. next to attacks from the ex-spouse, ongoing litigation, and interactions with institutions complicated the divorce and timely self-redefinition. despite associated professionals’ duty to provide support, divorcing parents often felt unheard, misunderstood, or misrepresented, questioning their role and effectiveness. scholars underline that when divorcees lose trust, they are reluctant to cooperate with officials (bouma et al., 2020). in this way, associated professionals lose the possibility to influence divorce-related conflict, indirectly and directly restricting effective and timely self-transition. consequently, we argue that the stress of long-term divorce is not only related to adverse losses and emotional work to adjust for that. it also comes from the continuity of the process without a clear end line and it results in the perceived hostile environment enforcing the experiences of the self as incomplete, helpless, attacked, and stuck, unable to timely, and according to their own wishes, proceed with the process and finalize it. our results indicated that divorcees use particular strategies to counteract the negative experiences mentioned above, meaning that they see themselves as individuals actively engaging in the inner work to support self-transfor­ mation. counteracting the blame and underlining being strong and truthful individuals who act according to moral standards can increase the sense of agency and self-coherence, while reconstructing the past and the past-self can help provide further motivation to move closer to a more valued self. according to the literature, people employ various strategies to protect, preserve, and promote their inner selves, which helps them to become stronger (alicke & sedikides, 2009; hepper et al., 2010). however, the strategies can be efficient or inefficient depending on the situation and the amount of use. for example, behaving in a morally correct way or seeing themselves as strong and rightful individuals provided more strength to divorcees. however, the literature indicates that employing this strategy could lead to developing moral superiority, undermining others’ experiences, or showing a tendency to present the self as more moral and better than one is (dong et al., 2019). we could argue similarly about the acceptance strategy. redefining identity through accepting divorce-related experiences as a part of the self had helped participants to manage their emotional reactions and to continue with their lives. literature underlines that more self-accepting individuals show less need to prove themselves to others and they tend to be more objective in their self-evaluations (chamberlain & haaga, 2001). this strategy could associate with positively experienced self-redefinition and clarity. however, being sure of oneself and one’s ways of dealing with the situation could hamper accepting others’ perspectives and preventing timely conflict de-escalation. therefore, as people generally use strategies for self-enhancement and protection purposes, they do not always support effective conflict dissolution and consequently, self-redefinition. the study’s strengths and limitations by allowing participants to reflect on their experiences in real time, results point toward three interconnected main categories explaining self-transformations during the lasting marital dissolution process. overall, these categories indicate the ongoing transitional self-redefinition process. this process starts mainly with disruptions in spousal and parental roles and it continues through self-transition, which requires internal support strategies to counteract perceived restrictions. this study is not without certain limitations. this sample was self-selected, relatively socioeconomically advantaged, and better educated. limitations around received, rehearsed, and edited narratives should also be considered because several participants in this group appeared to be well-informed about lay and psychological theories regarding psycho­ logical violence, co-dependency, and parental alienation. furthermore, this is a qualitative study, thus, we are not claiming that the findings can be generalized simplistically; they should be treated as suggestions for issues worthy of additional investigation rather than as definitive statements. theoretical and practical implications specific areas that might be interesting and beneficial for future studies stood out during the research process. notably, the so-called moral-hypocrisy phenomenon (dong et al., 2019), re-partnering, and parent–child relationships from the parent perspective could play a substantial role in the ongoing conflicts. furthermore, despite the prevalence of qualitative studies investigating the self phenomenon, employing a quantitative approach provides a richer and more butkutė, mortelmans, & sondaitė 281 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 273–284 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9619 https://www.psychopen.eu/ profound understanding of divorcees’ contextualized experiences. last, we cannot emphasize more the importance of early interventions to support people through the first years of an emotionally intensive decoupling process. associated professionals should remember that the stress of long-term divorce is not only related to perceived losses and emotional work to adjust for that. it also comes from the continuity of the process without a clear end line and results in a perceived hostile environment. providing trust and safety should be the main aspects of tackling uncertainties and insecurities. considering emotional labor is significantly high for individuals involved in litigation processes, lawyers could become individuals who help divorcees prepare psychologically for the legal process and prevent overwhelming reactions to triggers. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank all participants for their collaboration with the research on which this paper is based. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references alicke, m. d., & sedikides, c. 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(2003). the use of symbolic resources in developmental transitions. culture & psychology, 9(4), 415–448. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x0394006 about the authors lina butkutė is a phd student of psychology at mykolas romeris university (vilnius, lithuania) and the university of antwerp (belgium). her research interests concentrate on family psychology, relationships, and conflicts. she also works as a clinical psycholo­ gist in her private practice setting. dimitri mortelmans is a senior full professor in sociology at the university of antwerp (belgium). he is a head of the centre for population, family and health. his research concentrates on family sociology and sociology of labour. he has published on divorce, new constituted families, gendered labour careers and work-life balance. jolanta sondaitė is a professor of psychology at mykolas romeris university (vilnius, lithuania). she received her doctorate in psychology from lithuanian university of education sciences & vilnius university. her research interests include conflicts, relationships, mediation, etc. she also works as a mediator in family and cross-border family mediation disputes. restricted self-transition 284 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2017.1280528 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1996.tb00516.x https://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12294 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00217.x https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2013.773792 https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12537 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-017-9673-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918758086 https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1347 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818781324 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03172743 https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067x0394006 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ restricted self-transition (introduction) literature review method study design participants recruitment interview procedures coding and analysis strategies for trustworthiness results temporal self-disruption restricted self-transition transition-supporting strategies discussion the study’s strengths and limitations theoretical and practical implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors narrating refuge editorial narrating refuge colette daiute* a [a] the graduate center, city university of new york, new york, ny, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15, doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 published (vor): 2017-03-03. *corresponding author at: graduate center, cuny/psychology, 365 fifth avenue, new york, ny 10016. e-mail: cdaiute@gc.cuny.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. refuge is a human responsibility as i complete this essay, people across the world are protesting a recent executive order banning refugees from entering the united states. millions of people, organizations, other collectives, and even some corporations are crying out in solidarity that it is a human responsibility to provide refuge to those fleeing inhuman conditions. a detailed analysis of the ban and the reaction is beyond the scope of this essay, but my argument is deeply related to the issue at the center of the protests – refuge. i will argue that considering refuge brings to the analysis of contemporary conflict and displacement a focus on human capacity and responsibility. millions of people protesting government bans against welcoming those most in need highlights the importance of understanding refuge – what it involves and who participates. this essay presents an argument about refuge as an urgent and practical concept for understanding challenges and interventions, especially for children and youth affected by war and displacement. i introduce the related processes of refuge, symbolic refuge, and narrating refuge with a vignette of how a family in yemen is coping with daily life in the midst of war. drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, i build the definition of “refuge” as a political analysis of material and symbolic zones of purpose and responsibility. with this foundation, my central point is that research and practice in child and youth development should be supporting young people’s uses of language, in particular narrative, to mediate interactions in challenging environments and to foreground their perspectives on the issues. to illustrate this process of “narrating refuge”, i draw on examples from a study of dynamic storytelling by children and communities involved in conflict and displacement during and after the 1990s wars of the former yugoslavia. narrating refuge involves young people in interactions to make sense of what is going on in their environments, how they fit, and what they would like to achieve. the argument concludes by explaining how involving young people in such dynamic storytelling activities is an activist approach to practice and research in displacement. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://ejop.psychopen.eu/ http://www.psychopen.eu/ what is refuge? in october 2016, mr. al-asaadi, a yemeni former journalist and communications specialist still living in his home in war-torn sana wrote: “during one of our family meetings, i asked my three daughters to write about what is happening around them. the oldest daughter at age 15 wrote the following: ‘we, the children of yemen, want to achieve our hopes: to study and play and achieve our goals. we sleep afraid, we wake up afraid and leave our homes afraid.’” (al-asaadi, 2016) in spite of the air strikes shaking their house “badly, blowing open doors and windows… feeling like … the explosions are inside your ears”, mr. and mrs. al-asaadi tried to establish some kind of normal routine, by making sure their children went to school when it was open, did their homework, checked it, and also stayed informed of news in town, including about neighbors who had been killed in bombings of the day. dad explained to his daughters “what the war is about, who is fighting whom and why – that they are not the targets but could be collateral damage should we happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time”. in addition to talking, reading, writing, the family did a big group hug, not always but especially when a bomb hit their house. one of the children wrote, “‘the situation is getting worse daily. … however, i have two questions that are confusing me: how will our future be beautiful if they have destroyed yemen? when will this war end and yemen will be liberated and the future will be beautiful, god willing?’” (al-asaadi, 2016). this story is not about trauma or resilience. it is about a different phenomenon – refuge. there are several dimensions of refuge in this family’s coping with war. one dimension of the family process that comes across most poignantly is their use of language – parents explaining violent events to children, rather than trying to protect them or distract them. the father’s encouragement led to children writing their experiences with others in mind, posing probing questions, and imagining a beautiful future. such uses of language to make sense of what is going on in the environment, how one fits, and what one might want to change should occur much more than it currently does in research and practice with children growing up in extremely challenging circumstances like war and displacement. such a psychology based on active engagement of children’s capacities is integrated with other social sciences and humanities, to maintain relevance in the contemporary world. this approach is consistent with positive youth development (damon, 2004), but it goes further in our emphasis on language as a basic capacity and developmental process of humanity. while narratives by those in power are used to justify war, displacement, and humanitarian aid, we must consider whether and how using language for collective sense-making in violent like mundane circumstances might provide refuge for those suffering the consequences, especially young people. inquiry into displacement as a global process can usefully shift from the current focus on refugee to refuge and what is at stake in that shift. considering child and youth development, in particular, this discussion involves an analysis of concepts that “conceal the scenes of their making” (stoler, 2016, p. 68, after derrida, 1982, p. 213) and “reveal[s] conflicting discourses enacted in the process” (stoler, 2016, p. 69). with refuge and similar narrating refuge 2 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ concepts such as sanctuary, those of us concerned with the sustainability of childhood as a developmental period of life even in extreme circumstances can advance our inquiries by paying close attention to causes and consequences of displacement – as implied in refuge. with their narratives, like those of the al-asaadis, young people can mediate the system of purposes and responsibilities of displacement, rather than being positioned only as victims for others to interpret. the broadened perspective of such an analysis embeds symbolic and physical meanings by those front and center in migration scenes and those directing behind the scenes. in this way, rather than standing alone as the object of inquiry, the figure of the refugee is integrated in broader scenes of interacting narratives from diverse relevant perspectives. implications of focusing on “refugee” the category “refugee” does important work but also limits the scene of the plight of those it attempts to name. a brief review of benefits and issues of such labeling provides a background for a shift to refuge. focus on refugees reveals the human face of displacement and its consequences. a persuasive argument for labeling comes from refugee studies asserting that since 1951 formal categorizations of displaced persons cooccur with policies, rights, and benefits (zetter, 1995; zetter, 2007). multinational agreements based on the 1951 refugee convention identify qualifications and rights of refugees, asylum seekers, returnees, internally displaced persons, and stateless persons (www.unhcr.org). non-governmental organizations employ such categories to seek funding for and provide assistance to migrants. because the nature and frequency of political conflict and displacement intensified since 1951, the refugee convention was updated in 1967, and is currently being debated in european, american, and other courts. convention updates, the relevance of the original labels, and the use of the labels to assist those in need have fallen behind the original plan, which promised: “since, by definition, refugees are not protected by their own governments, the international community steps in to ensure they are safe and protected” (www.unhcr.org). research in the field has shown that ingenuity by individuals and nation-states in contemporary mobility challenges humanitarian functions of labeling. mass migrations out of wars in syria, libya, eritrea, and south sudan and displacements from gang violence in el salvador, honduras, and guatemala, among other situations globally involved over 60 million “persons of concern” in 2015 (www.unhcr.org). forced by inter-state violence, assisted abusively by traffickers, and detoured by governments placing obstacles in the way, the persons of concern included for human rights protections have walked across continents, hopped on and off trains, traveled on small boats, backtracked, been claimed and rejected by governments making deals, languished in detention centers, then escaped to begin the process of seeking refuge again. although many young adults are escaping processing centers, detention centers, and refugee camps, some have spent entire lifetimes in such places (rawlence, 2016). with such dynamics of mobility, “push versus pull” factors no longer clearly characterize migration factors. while migration studies continue to define “push” factors – displacement caused by wartime destruction or expulsion – or “pull” factors – promise of a better life – contemporary migration involves much more complicated movements, including “… ‘iterative’ process, and ‘staggered’ or ‘cyclical’ return” (harild, daiute 3 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.unhcr.org http://www.unhcr.org http://www.unhcr.org http://www.psychopen.eu/ christensen, & zetter, 2015, p. x). each step along the way of contemporary displacement journeys provides new obstacles, hopes, abuses, and inventions. analyzing displacement in terms of push and pull forces fails to capture evolving dynamics, such as secondary migration and knowledge afforded by digital technologies in the migration process. the situation is so fluid that governments and multinationals cannot keep track of appropriate categories and rights for different circumstances. while sending and receiving nations might once have handled much of the process, contemporary categories fail to characterize the complexity of the process, as suggested in the following account of the broad migration zone from the perspective of a settlement in calais, france: “… many migrants will take big risks to reach one european country over another. most of the jungle's inhabitants have trudged right across europe, taking advantage of its schengen passport-free rules, to arrive in calais. as they slipped through rich countries with an obligation to consider asylum claims, refugees in effect became economic migrants. asif, an enterprising afghan who has set up a small grocery shop in the camp, says he has already been granted asylum in italy. yet he was unable to find work there, and so he, along with most of his fellow jungle-dwellers, will continue to seek a brighter future in britain” (“learning from the jungle”, 2015). also indicative of the fluid nature of contemporary migration, an ethnographic study in detention centers in southern italy, where many migrants arrive on rickety boats, described “undeportability”. undeportability characterizes the chaotic process of survival and striving in the midst of institutions that scramble, for the most part, unsuccessfully, to control human needs (campesi, 2015). migration and criminality, humanitarian aid and rigid border enforcement interact when migrant processing centers become de facto prisons (campesi, 2015). before being deported or after multiple cycles of deportation and return, migrants are forced to ensure for themselves that they are not returned to states that they had been forced to flee. these escapes are problematic, thus adding the label “criminal” to “refugee” (campesi, 2015). such fluid migration systems also defy humanitarian functions of labeling, in particular in the light of increasing border closings. another problem with a focus on the figure of the refugee is that while it garners sympathy, current right leading geo-political movements use the refugee as a focal point for blame and weakness. beyond providing a foundation for status claims, visual and verbal media narratives of individual refugees highlight the inhuman nature of the plights of those living in the midst of bombed out villages, camps, and along railroad tracks. images of children suffering from wounds, isolation, filth, or starvation may invoke sympathy and outrage, but a residual use of those images is to point to those persons in terms of deficits and security threats. the very appeals for sympathy then imply that refugees do not have thoughts, feelings, or arguments on their own behalf. with all these deficits implicated in the label, refugees become scapegoats of broader problems or symbols of different political orientations. that kind of focus on refugees renders them as exceptions to the norm of people who have self-determination, control over their lives, and something to say about their circumstances. the emphasis on “refugee” allows for ongoing exclusion from human communities who perceive newcomers as counter to the nation-state’s political-economic goals and power. if the refugee is always represented as an individual victim, object of sympathy, scorn, or fear, the responsible collectives with motivations to enact inclusive projects are undermined. research and journalistic focus on gathering stories can also undermine attempts to humanize the situation. stories of individual refugees are used to highlight their positions as victims or resilient heroes. narratives offer narrating refuge 4 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ specific details of strife about circumstances of displacement. those details can be used in policy decisions, such as in appeals for asylum status, when an individual explains why she cannot return to a homeland ravaged by violence. nevertheless, in the absence of a theory of collective narrating, researchers and journalists who highlight individual stories isolated from the broader range of purposes and responsibilities may not be serving their noble goals. gathering stories from refugees could instead usefully shift to dynamic storytelling from the perspectives of those involved, as i discuss later in relation to narrating refuge. also suggesting a broadening from a focus on the individual refugee is the argument for open borders. drawing on three political theories, one scholar argued that there is little justification for keeping the many “poor and oppressed people [who] wish to leave their countries of origin in the third world to come to affluent western societies” out of places where they have a better chance for life (carens, 1987, p. 251). thinking beyond borders also gains force from questioning the label “citizen”. just as rights claims with the label “refugee” often shrivel in displacement politics, “citizen” invites scrutiny. as one scholar argued recently, citizen is a doublefacing issue that includes and excludes (bosniak, 2007). “recognizing citizenship as a liminal concept revolving around political conflicts contributes to understanding why non-citizens though marginalized and subordinated in significant ways are also in many respects treated as citizenship subjects” (bosniak, 2007, p. 5). in summary, the problem is not isolated in the refugee or group of refugees. something is wrong with structures. while the syntax implied by refugee embodies the problem in the individual, the syntax around refuge broadens the scale of analysis. “the proposition is to move away from treating the migrant population as the unit of analysis and investigation and instead direct the focus on parts of the whole population, which obviously includes migrants” (dahinden, 2016, p. 11). even beyond whole populations, the geo-political contexts must become the unit of analysis. this approach of broadening to a global system was useful in shifting the analysis of children as helpless victims of war or potential perpetrators of ethnic violence in an earlier intervention study with young people growing during and after the 1990s wars across the former yugoslavia (daiute, 2010). working with community organizations who engaged children experiencing wars and displacements, that study involved young people in their own analysis of the political as well as the personal situation, via their use of oral and written narrating for one another, for the community, and for public officials (daiute, 2010, 2016). my proposal here extends findings from that project to employ the concept “refuge” and similar ones like “sanctuary” to broaden analysis the migration process. refuge as zones of purpose and responsibility refuge derives from latin “refugium” roughly “to flee” (“refuge”, n.d.). this concept implies a complex zone of participation across time and space. implicated in any sentence with refuge and its synonyms, “sanctuary”, “asylum”, and “shelter” are circumstances of danger requiring people to flee and circumstances of safety by those in positions to offer support at least temporarily. refuge, thus, involves zones of purpose and responsibility. the concept, refuge (and similar concepts), begs questions such as “refuge from what?” “refuge where?” “refuge with whom?” and so on. considering these questions invokes a scene with multiple persons in diverse roles, with diverse purposes and resources, engaged in activities, across dimensions of space-time. when mapping a zone of refuge, we identify a system of structural relations causes, consequences, and participants. zooming back from the individual or group implied in the figure of the refugee, the inquiry becomes daiute 5 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ complicated, as it should. in this sense, refuge is a process of interactions albeit often implicit across individuals, groups, and institutions enacting purposes and meanings relevant to displacement journeys. like refuge, home, colony, camp, and sanctuary have become reference points for scholars of displacement and migration. each of those concepts implies collective spaces fueled by intentions and affects, thus, living manifestations of imposition and responsibility. for example, “colony emphasizes the movement and containment of peoples by imperial political forces, pushing people into enclaves” (stoler, 2016). colony is also an analytic lens for tracing shifting and shifty processes of imperial power grabbing. examining “colony” as a process of exclusion then sheds light on “camp”. while refugee camps are places of humanitarian aid, examining them as consequences of “messy troubled spaces of ambiguous colonial lineages” reveals the value of identifying zones of displacement across time and space (stoler, 2016, p. 75). the concept home in migration studies also extends beyond individual refugee with an emphasis on the human need for safe shelter, preferably a permanent one. some scholars have also acknowledged the circumstances of conflict and instability in claims to home. for example, home is a contested space in west bank settlements of israel and palestine (kotef, 2016). in the politics of home and belonging in israel/palestine, people develop attachments to spaces and places when these attachments themselves facilitate nation-state violence. processes of those having to move out of areas and those moving in involve affects and justifications of one’s right to displace another (kotef, 2016). the political transfer of homes plays out in very personal ways, such as when a young israeli who moved in to the former home of a palestinian woman shared tea one afternoon. for one of these young women the scene of their cordial tea evoked a robbed childhood home, and for the other it was the unquestioned foundation of her future. with a detailed analysis of the psychological dimensions of home in this political conflict, kotef examined the affective experiences of these conflicting homebodies in terms of memory and entitlement within a half-century of displacements. examining the meaning of displacement as environmental spaces, like colony, camp, and home, requires paying attention to subjective processes. the affective dimension of home in political tensions of displacement was indicated in another study in canada (alinejad, 2011). discourse in a blog by iranian-born young people living in canada and the united states evoked home as past and present. analyses of iranian diaspora blogs indicated that sensory memories and emotional reactions expressed longing for their homelands in terms of their present experiences, creating trans-geo-spatial realities. this study situated home in emotional connections between two distant nation-states. in these ways, people’s accounts of their once and current lived environments enact home as a politically extended zone (alinejad, 2011, p. 59). more explicitly political than home, sanctuary is a concept relevant to contemporary displacement. sanctuary as a place of refuge is an old concept. sanctuary has traditionally referred to consecrated places, such as a religious temple, and as a place of refuge and protection. sanctuary is now a common practice in over 200 american cities, having declared actions and/or written policies against federal laws that require reporting information about neighbors, clients, students, and others whose citizenship status might be questioned. sanctuary has emerged as salient in the context of mass migrations and expulsions in europe, the u.s. and elsewhere. although not a scientific test, an indicator of this emerging focus was a “google trends” search of “sanctuary” compared to “colony” and “camp” in “law and government news” from october 26 to january 26, 2016 (daiute, in preparation). “sanctuary” rose considerably over “camp” during that period of time, with notable peaks one week after donald trump, won the u.s. presidential election (november 8), in part on an narrating refuge 6 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ aggressive anti-immigration agenda and during his first week in office when he wrote executive orders including one to punish sanctuary cities by withholding federal funds (january 26). also contributing to the upsurge in news about sanctuary in fall 2016, the french government cleared the calais “jungle” settlement where people displaced mostly from several african countries had been living while waiting passage for productive lives in england. while “sanctuary” and “camp” varied in terms of the frequency of their mention in law and government news, “colony” continued to appear, albeit with much less frequency. this analysis offers support of an argument for analyzing displacement in terms of zones of purpose and responsibility – that is the political significance of the concepts. political tensions captured in “sanctuary” include international pressures to assume responsibility for human consequences of wars, including civil wars where imperial powers have intervened and spaces of daily life where migrants are involved in and enriching communities in a variety of ways. the material and symbolic embodiments of displacement as a global process come to life in conflicts over sanctuary cities and sanctuary universities. this excerpt of a recent report acknowledges debates between federal laws requiring local governments and institutions to share information about citizenship status. “supporters of sanctuary cities (and universities) argue that many cities have higher priorities than serving federal immigration enforcement goals, and that local efforts to deter the presence of unauthorized aliens would undermine community relations, disrupt municipal services, interfere with local law enforcement, or violate humanitarian principles” (garcia, 2009, p. 2). increasing acknowledgment of the politics and psychology of refuge in public discourse around sanctuary cities indicates a useful expansion of units of analysis from individuals to social structures of humanitarian intervention. symbolic refuge symbolic processes fuel systems of refuge. this idea is consistent with capacity to aspire (appadurai, 2004) and social imaginary (vigh, 2009) offered in previous analyses of life in extreme adversity. social imaginary is “the imagined unfolding of social life which orients our movement and positions in the present… [and] allows us to anticipate, position and act in relation to a world that is constantly approaching and engaging us rather than merely being subject to our command or a solidified surface of enactment” (vigh, 2009, p. 100). the capacity to aspire has been described as a future-oriented cultural capacity, taking into account traditional foundations and aspirations (appadurai, 2004). while capacity to aspire was initiated in populations growing up in poverty, an imagination for a different condition is likewise relevant to those living in other circumstances, typically co-occurring with poverty, such as violence, displacement and the related unpredictability of a pathway for different lives. circumstances that limit cultures of aspiration include social structures constraining people to adhere to norms that have defined them as less-than-worthy of full access to cultural resources (appadurai, 2004). an inherent material human capacity, storytelling by those in adverse circumstances rather than only stories about them reveals and supports the capacity to aspire. narratives in non-refuge circumstances tend to emphasize struggle and sadness rather than participants' engagement in activities to make policy changes. policies and practices in all kinds of places – families under attack, in camps, schools, or community organizations – can organize to daiute 7 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ assist people seeking refuge in their capacity building, such as with local education about the situation and a possible time beyond it. this can occur by listening to their reasoning in specific communication and creative activities. life in extremely challenging circumstances may become more bearable and transformable in such imagined spaces. fieldwork among would-be migrants in ginneau-bissau and migrants from there to portugal traces the social imaginaries of young men from bissau. the study reported on young men’s aspirations for peace, prosperity and progress they saw as possible elsewhere, such as from the concrete evidence of remittances of those who have already emigrated. migration became a process for imagining better lives in other times and places than possible for black men in their country. young men who migrated to a country that did not fully accept them because of racism and other discriminations found that being able to provide remittances back home fulfilled a dimension of the social position they had sought (vigh, 2009). this result is clearly not ideal but illustrates the dimension of symbolic refuge. although aspiration is not typically described as embodied in language, i argue that narrating makes symbolic refuge material and, thus, available as a catalyst to social action. in some ways, the research projects that engage people on the move in extended social narrating are serving a function more than simply gathering stories. narrating refuge language can be a means of creating refuge. although narrative can be an overly general metaphor obscuring dialogic tensions within and across narratives from different perspectives, narrating is a cultural activity that integrates collectives and individuals, in tension as much as in harmony. narrating is thus a form of refuge in that it involves interpretation and critique as well as voice and creativity. like the al-asaadis, those of us working with children and youth in the midst of war and displacement must recognize the sense-making process – narrating experience, conflict, and possibility – as a dimension of refuge. gathering individual stories often serves to show suffering, exclusion, or a few resilient stars. what would it mean to think critically about how uses of language in conflict and mobility circumstances are useful to everyone involved? in what ways, if at all, do they serve as refuge? language is a powerful tool for sense making and development, yet its function in extremely challenging and changing circumstances requires more integration in research and practice. research has relied on children’s language as they read or listen to items on research instruments, answer questions about their experiences, and sometimes share their stories. while those methods offer information, shifting to practice and research with relational uses of language – such as narrating and other expressive media – involves developing knowledge, not only reporting it. drawing on cultural-historical activity theory [vygotsky, 1978], i explain that discourse is a relational means of development. language is the quintessential tool to “conduct human influence on the object of activity” (vygotsky, 1978, p. 55). language and other symbolic products are “externally oriented ... aimed at mastering and triumphing over nature” (p. 55). purposeful uses of cultural products (newsletters, narratives, surveys, etc.) further development as “tools” become “higher order consciousness”: “a means of internal activity aimed at mastering oneself” (vygotsky, 1978, p. 55). narrating refuge 8 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ extended for this discussion of narrating refuge, what that means is that none of us has one single story. instead, we use storytelling as a complex process for connecting with others for a wide range of purposes. we use storytelling to do things in the world – to figure out what is going on, to connect with others, and sometimes to imagine how life could be (daiute, 2014). language genres like narrative are thus human resources for making sense of extremely challenging circumstances, gaining symbolic control over them and possibly creating a path for action. several examples indicate the power of future narrating could be explored further as refuge. future narrating is a means of describing what may be past but re-cast toward the future by narrating experiences from a variety of perspectives. language involves creating novel sentences each day, that is using old words in different arrangements fitting with what a child by the age of 4 knows as the native language. as the child learns new words, this range of novel sentences, never before spoken by her or maybe anyone, increases as does the world she/he perceives, understands, and wants to engage. likewise, with the familiar ways of narrating characters’ involvement in sequences of events, children by the age of 6 or 7 who have had the opportunity of verbal interchange can express new meanings, new possible scenarios. in this way, the narrative becomes a possible world (bruner, 1987). affordances of narrating also include, for example, a pull to a plot – a beginning, middle and end. across many linguistic cultures, plots include an initiating action, complicating actions, resolutions, and a moral – a framework for plotting possibilities. plot conflict is, of course, likely to be one revolving around building from a current situation, often a problem or trouble, complicating that situation, perhaps with additional troubles but also characteristically with surprises and suspense. a turning point or high point is typically expected and is a move toward resolution. possible worlds (bruner, 1987) can thus be nurtured with fictional stories if not “true” stories, as models in collectives. in practices like dynamic storytelling workshops, we allow for possibilities with certain genres, like writing letters to those in power with suggestions for improving lives in the future. for example, in one collective storytelling activity in an indigenous community in colombia that had suffered bombings resulting in deaths of village children, youth used future and subjective tenses, which we refer to as “imagined time”. analysis of the collective narrative honoring the mothers of children who had been killed revealed that adults reified current circumstances, while the young people narrated going to the city and at least having a chance for a different life there. some of the adults in the story circle observed that life in the city was not going to be a utopia, but the youth emphasized possibility. children and youth growing up in political violence and displacement have urgent needs to connect with others and to influence the course of their own and others’ development. in that process, language is a major relational and developmental tool, especially with positive engagement in collectives addressing bad situations. symbolic refuge involves using affordances of cultural media – such as narrating – to engage with others and the environment. the anecdote of the al-asaadi family indicated involving children in focusing on what was going on around them, how the events affected others as well as themselves, and using a variety of cultural media to express and reflect on different issues from different perspectives to different audiences. in previous practice-based research in conflict related displacement, we have found that narrating experiences in informal as well as formal community organizations, young people used different narrative genres – including autobiographical and fictional narrating – for future aspiration. evidence from hundreds of narratives, with three daiute 9 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ by each participant, showed that the 12 to 27 year old participants used first person narrative genres to express past events. these brief narratives by aida, 21, who had been displaced from the 1990s bosnian wars to germany for several years and then to the u.s., wrote these stories in an informal workshop at a local bosnian bakery. write about a time when you or someone you know had a conflict with someone your age. what happened? how did those involved think and feel about the event? how did it all turn out? in high school american kids would always pick on bosnians telling that we get everything for free from government, we don’t pay taxes. they thought that they are right and that they know everything. i tried to explain the way it is but they didn’t listen. write about a time when adults you know or your community had a conflict with someone your age. what happened? how did those involved think and feel about the event? how did it all turn out? my cousin got into a fight with my parents because we were going to visit bosnia and my cousin’s son was going to hawaii because he’s in the military and we didn’t know that and we got mad because they didn’t come to wish us luck with our flight. as we came back from bosnia they still don’t come over and we haven’t seen them in 3 years. write another story: ___ and ___ (from two groups) met at a ground-breaking of the new town center building. everyone at the event had the opportunity to break the earth for the foundation and to place a brick for the building. it was an exciting community event and everyone was pleased that the new building would mark a new future. as they were working to begin the new foundation, ___ and ___ had a conversation about how they would like to make a difference in their town so children could live happily together. all of a sudden, someone came with news that changed everything! what was the news? how did everyone involved think and feel? how did it all turn out? nina and elma the news was that the mayor canceled the event. everyone was so sad. they canceled it because they didn’t like everybody in the community. everyone went up against the mayor and they won and the mayor went to prison for discrimination. aida used these three narrating activities in different ways that might have offered her different types of relief. she recounted a past unpleasant experience, an event that appears to have been confusing for its lack of resolution, and a future event with collective action going against a negative force. recounting past conflicts is typically considered relief, so in that sense, there may be symbolic refuge. nevertheless, also narrating possible yet fictional events, invited refuge with what may have been aspiration. if empowerment comes, at least in part, from uses of cultural tools in relation to others and to environmental circumstances, these diverse narrative enactments are symbolic and perhaps even physical refuge. narrating in speech and writing is symbolic activity connecting with emotions and context. concrete affordances of diverse narrative genres, such as the use of “i” or “he” or “she” as well as other qualities point directly to beings in the world. narrative sense making is, moreover, dynamic, meaning that when accounts of specific events narrating refuge 10 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ and different perspectives on events (such as whether autobiographical or fictional) change over time and between expressions with different narratives, the speaker/author and listener/reader creates a new orientation to the event. such linguistic changes enact different perceptions and interpretations. for those youth on the move and in great need of refuge being able to narrate their experiences in real and diverse ways might constitute resilience. in most cases, such narrating more than individual traits, is worthy of supporting as refuge. underscoring this argument, we can observe responses to the prompts above by diana, also aged 21, whose family remained in sarajevo during and after the wars. notice that diana used the different narrating opportunities to focus on the past more consistently than aida did. write about a time when you or someone you know had a conflict with someone your age. what happened? how did those involved think and feel about the event? how did it all turn out? the discussion was about yugo-nostalgia. the girl that i was talking with thought that it was stupid to love something you never saw or experience, thinking about my nostalgia for yugoslavia. i was thinking the same for her religion. we did not talk to much about it, everyone has its own view on life and i respect that as long it does not harm others. write about a time when adults you know or your community had a conflict with someone your age. what happened? how did those involved think and feel about the event? how did it all turn out? there is a debate about building a monument for children killed during the war, and it is very sad to see disagreement whether or not it should be for all children from all of sarajevo or only for its federation part. they still debate this issue, tensions are really big, and parents of those children feel used. write another story: ___ and ___ (from two groups) met at a ground-breaking of the new town center building. everyone at the event had the opportunity to break the earth for the foundation and to place a brick for the building. it was an exciting community event and everyone was pleased that the new building would mark a new future. as they were working to begin the new foundation, ___ and ___ had a conversation about how they would like to make a difference in their town so children could live happily together. all of a sudden, someone came with news that changed everything! what was the news? how did everyone involved think and feel? how did it all turn out? foreign nationals found a massive graveyard again. it is still unknown whose it is. old wounds are freshened once again and mistrust is growing among people. activities/work on the tomb brought mild, and untold uncomfortable feelings. that diana did not use these narrative experiences flexibly as aida did to engage a range of pasts and futures suggests that narrating refuge is worthy of more inquiry. in summary, narrating may enact refuge, when opportunities to narrate are supported in the context, allowed to be flexible (that is not just one narrative), and orient to future possibilities rather than only the past. because such narrating interacts with contexts, especially as different genres pull those contexts into the text, family and community may or may not support narrating as refuge. based on differences between the narratives of youth daiute 11 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ who remained in sarajevo compared to their cousins and neighbors who migrated, the ongoing in stability of the political situation in sarajevo during the time of our study seems to have supported more past-oriented preoccupations for older youth like diana than for adolescents. future research can consider whether and how such relational narrating provides a sense of refuge for young people in ongoing challenging circumstances like aida and diana. these examples of uses of different genres as providing symbolic refuge are worth enacting in practice and considering for their developmental potential, for the context as well as for the individual young people. the activist potential of narrating refuge an important dimension of symbolic refuge is its activist potential. interventions building on the fact that children continue to interact, play, think, and desire with verbal and other symbolic means is long overdue (wessells, 2016). toward that end, i propose that future inquiry could examine narrating refuge as a relational theory and practice. we can ask “what is the activist potential of symbolic refuge analysis? how can researchers, educators, and community organizers support symbolic refuge? what is at stake?” organizing migration studies in terms of symbolic refuge is activist research in several senses. symbolic refuge designs include stakeholders whose influence and consequences in the process openly interact, while more typically interacting only implicitly. symbolic refuge analyses can occur in practice, as workshops or projects with young people at the center. outlines of relevant actors occur in relation to local contexts, as obvious and as gently guided by diverse participants. participants like diana and aida in dynamic storytelling workshops could, for example, reflect on their own and others' narratives, considering whether and how they provide a sense of refuge. of particular interest is the use of such dynamic storytelling to imagine and aspire to collective action. the ethics of this shift to refuge as an organizing concept of migration studies, especially for children and youth, rests in this activist challenge. we must craft a research method that occurs within the context of intervention with best practices encouraging and listening to diverse individual and collaborative, oral, written, autobiographical, and fictional narratives. broadening occurs with more than one narrative, across diverse stakeholders not only examining those of children and youth but also pointing to those of the forces causing migration and creating policies. conclusion defining the problem in individual bodies of those labeled “refugees” averts the analytic gaze from the broader problem, while a focus on “refuge” shifts our gaze to the politics of displacement. i have argued that focusing on concepts implicating a range of actors in the migration process is a way to analyze and consider possible interventions for children and youth in migration. in addition to highlighting purposes and responsibilities in the migration process, this shift from the individualistic focus on refugee to refuge also provides a perspective for more powerful engagement of children’s perspectives than showing images of vulnerability or gathering stories. i have offered several examples of symbolic refuge to adapt and explore in other circumstances. narrating as a deliberate form of refuge provides a context for aspiring to better events and idealized characters. having narrating refuge 12 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://www.psychopen.eu/ multiple opportunities to do that, like the al-asaadi children and others mentioned in this essay, allows for refuge in expressive connection, imagination and action. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. previously presented a previous version of this essay was presented at the university of neuchatel, maps meeting, november 1, 2016. acknowledgments the author thanks antonio iannaccone, flora didonato, and the assembled group at the university of neuchatel, maps meeting, november 1, 2016, for their generous comments, questions, and suggestions. references al-asaadi, m. (2016, october 11) ‘we sleep afraid, we wake up afraid’: a child’s life in yemen. the new york times. retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/yemen-children-in-a-war-zone.html?_r=0 alinejad, d. (2011). mapping homelands through virtual spaces: transnational embodiment and iranian diaspora bloggers. global networks, 11(1), 43-62. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0374.2010.00306.x appadurai, a. (2004). the capacity to aspire: culture and the terms of recognition. in v. rao & m. walton (eds.), culture and public action (pp. 59-84). stanford, ca, usa: stanford university press. bosniak, l. (2007). the citizen and the alien: dilemmas of contemporary citizenship. princeton, nj, usa: princeton university press. bruner, j. s. (1987). actual minds, possible worlds. cambridge, ma, usa: harvard university press. campesi, g. (2015). hindering the deportation machine: an ethnography of power and resistance in immigration detention. punishment & society, 17(4), 427-453. doi:10.1177/1462474515603804 carens, j. h. (1987). aliens and citizens: the case for open borders. the review of politics, 49(2), 251-273. doi:10.1017/s0034670500033817 dahinden, j. (2016). a plea for the ‘de-migranticization’ of research on migration and integration. ethnic and racial studies, 39(13), 2207-2225. doi:10.1080/01419870.2015.1124129 daiute, c. (2010). human development and political violence. new york, ny, usa: cambridge university press. daiute, c. (2014). narrative inquiry: a dynamic approach. thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage publications. daiute, c. (2016). a relational approach to human development research and practice in 21st century violence and displacement. human development, 59(2-3), 128-151. doi:10.1159/000448230 daiute 13 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/world/middleeast/yemen-children-in-a-war-zone.html?_r=0 http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2010.00306.x http://doi.org/10.1177/1462474515603804 http://doi.org/10.1017/s0034670500033817 http://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2015.1124129 http://doi.org/10.1159/000448230 http://www.psychopen.eu/ daiute, c. (in preparation). crisis and sanctuary in the 21st century community college (manuscript in preparation). available upon request: cdaiute@gc.cuny.edu damon, w. (2004). what is positive youth development? the annals of the american academy of political and social science, 591, 13-24. doi:10.1177/0002716203260092 derrida, j. (1982). white mythology: metaphor in the text of philosophy (a. bass, trans.). in margins of philosophy (pp. 207-271). chicago, il, usa: university of chicago press. garcia, m. j. (2009). “sanctuary cities”: legal issues (crs report for congress, rs22773). url: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/rs22773.pdf harild, n., christensen, a., & zetter, r. (2015). sustainable refugee return: triggers, constraints, and lessons on addressing the development challenges of forced displacement. washington, dc, usa: the world bank group. kotef, h. (2016). home and the ruins that remain: an inquiry into the desires of settle colonialism. presentation at the graduate center, city university of new york, ny, usa. learning from the jungle: migrants in calais. (2015, august 6). the economist. retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21660581-camp-channels-edge-sideshow-europes-migrant-crisis-it-offersimportant rawlence, b. (2016). city of thorns: nine lives in the world’s largest refugee camp. new york, ny, usa: picador. refuge. (n.d.). in oed online. retrieved from http://www.oed.comnim stoler, a. l. (2016). duress: imperial durabilities in our times. durham, nc, usa: duke university press. vigh, h. (2009). wayward migration: on imagined futures and technological voids. ethnos, 74(1), 91-109. doi:10.1080/00141840902751220 vygotsky, l. s. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. cambridge, ma, usa: harvard university press. wessells, m. (2016). supporting the rights and well-being of children and youth in settings of forced migration: a resilience approach. presentation at the 9th annual psychology day at the united nations: from vulnerability to resilience: using psychology to address the global migration crisis [webcast]. retrieved from http://webtv.un.org zetter, r. (1995). labelling refugees: forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity. journal of refugee studies, 4(1), 39-62. doi:10.1093/jrs/4.1.39 zetter, r. (2007). more labels, fewer refugees: remaking the refugee label in an era of globalization. journal of refugee studies, 20(2), 172-192. doi:10.1093/jrs/fem011 about the author colette daiute is professor at the graduate center, city university of new york, in the ph.d. program in psychology/ developmental psychology and the committee on globalization and social change. dr. daiute does research on individual and societal development in extremely challenging and rapidly changing environments. she has created and implemented narrating refuge 14 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716203260092 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/rs22773.pdf http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21660581-camp-channels-edge-sideshow-europes-migrant-crisis-it-offers-important http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21660581-camp-channels-edge-sideshow-europes-migrant-crisis-it-offers-important http://www.oed.comnim http://doi.org/10.1080/00141840902751220 http://webtv.un.org http://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/4.1.39 http://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fem011 http://www.psychopen.eu/ innovative research methods in education and community interventions, highlighting child, youth, and adult uses of language and technologies as means of empowerment. colette daiute’s recent book publications include narrative inquiry, a dynamic approach (sage publications, 2014) and human development and political violence (cambridge university press, 2010). dr. daiute also recently edited and authored “collective strategies for human development in war and its long shadow”, a special issue of the journal human development. website: http://www.colettedaiute.org daiute 15 europe's journal of psychology 2017, vol. 13(1), 1–15 doi:10.5964/ejop.v13i1.1386 psychopen is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.zpid.de/en http://www.colettedaiute.org http://www.zpid.de/en http://www.psychopen.eu/ narrating refuge refuge is a human responsibility what is refuge? implications of focusing on “refugee” refuge as zones of purpose and responsibility symbolic refuge narrating refuge the activist potential of narrating refuge conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests previously presented acknowledgments references about the author one-minute silent video clips: a database of valence and arousal research reports one-minute silent video clips: a database of valence and arousal vladimir kosonogov 1, kirill efimov 2, olga kuskova 2, isak b. blank 2 [1] affective psychophysiology laboratory, institute of health psychology, hse university, saint petersburg, russian federation. [2] institute for cognitive neuroscience, hse university, moscow, russian federation. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 received: 2024-05-20 • accepted: 2025-04-11 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: alice cancer, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: vladimir kosonogov, 190068, griboyedova 123, saint petersburg, russian federation. e-mail: vkosonogov@hse.ru supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract researchers in the behavioral and social sciences use linear discriminant analysis (lda) for predictions of group membership (classification) and for identifying the variables most relevant to group separation among a set of continuous correlated variables (description). in these and other disciplines, longitudinal data are often collected which provide additional temporal information. linear classification methods for repeated measures data are more sensitive to actual group differences by taking the complex correlations between time points and variables into account, but are rarely discussed in the literature. moreover, psychometric data rarely fulfill the multivariate normality assumption. the article introduces a dataset consisting of 160 one-minute affective video clips with normative values of valence and arousal. each video was evaluated by 30 subjects, while each subject evaluated at least 20 videos. compared to previous attempts to collect affective videos, the dataset has several advantages. firstly, the high number of videos in different valence categories allows researchers to compile appropriate subsets for their studies. secondly, the approximately equal and conventional duration of videos makes it possible to use them in psychophysiological studies applying eeg, fmri, peripheral polygraphy, posturography, tms, etc. thirdly, the exclusion of sound or speech that might provoke culture-dependent interpretation makes the dataset useful in different cultures. the relationship between valence and arousal showed a typical quadratic pattern, with very negative and very positive videos receiving higher levels of arousal. several negative videos received greater arousal scores than the most positive ones, reflecting negativity bias. the dataset encompasses more than 50 videos of different valence (negative, neutral, and positive ones). we believe that it will permit researchers to select corresponding subsamples of videos from different categories for their studies. keywords emotion, valence, arousal, video, database in the field of emotion research, affective stimuli in the form of images, words, and video clips are frequently employed. the availability of these stimuli sets is constantly increasing, leading to a vast number of options for researchers to choose from. this can pose a challenge for those seeking the most suitable stimuli for their studies. however, ecologically valid media-based stimuli, like video clips, can offer meaningful insights into the natural progression of mental processes, including emotion regulation and speech perception (jääskeläinen & kosonogov, 2023). additionally, research indicates that naturalistic paradigms, like presentation of video clips, music and spoken stories, may be more effective in capturing the attention of participants compared to event-related paradigms (bezdek et al., 2017), and are preferable for emotion induction (joseph et al., 2020; siedlecka & denson, 2019). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14685&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ to our knowledge, the first affective video databases were introduced by philippot (1993) and gross and levenson (1995). after them, in order to enlarge such stimulus sets, many researchers began to compile their own. schaefer et al. (2010) introduced filmstim, a collection of 70 movie clips designed for the purpose of inducing emotional responses in experimental psychology studies. jenkins and andrewes (2012) presented a dataset of verbal and non-verbal contempo­ rary films. the deap database, which was created by koelstra et al. (2012), is a publicly available database consisting of 120 one-minute-long musical video excerpts. at least 14 volunteers using an online self-assessment tool that measures the levels of arousal, valence, and dominance induced by each clip rated these excerpts. another noteworthy database is the mahnob-hci, which was released by soleymani et al. (2012). this multimodal database consists of 20 short emotional excerpts taken from commercially produced movies and video websites. the clips were carefully selected to represent a wide range of emotions and are accompanied by physiological data, including facial expressions and heart rate variability. carvalho et al. (2012) also contributed to the field of emotional database creation by developing the emotional movie database (emdb). this database is composed of 52 non-auditory film clips, each lasting 40 seconds that were extracted from movies. the clips were selected to cover the entire affective space and were rated by 113 participants in terms of induced valence, arousal, and dominance using a nine-point scale. liris-accede consists of 9,800 good quality video excerpts with a large content diversity (baveye et al., 2015). although they found a great amount of negative videos of high arousal, their positive videos induced largely “passive”, but not “active” arousal. in other words, this database formed a negative correlation between valence and arousal, which contradicts previous literature on the curvilinear relationship between these scales. chieti affective action videos is another database designed for the experimental study of emotions (di crosta et al., 2020). it consists of 360 videos of 15 seconds that depict only human actions, albeit in a good continuum of valence and arousal. “biovid emo db” (zhang et al., 2016) is another database, which contains not only self-reported data, but also skin conductance level, electrocardiogram, trapezius electromyogram of 86 subjects in response to affective videos. in order to systematize all these properties and discrepancies between affective databases, diconne et al. (2022) recently presented kapodi, a searchable database of emotional stimuli sets in the tabular form. they found 24 databases of affective videos. however, only in nine of them were valence and arousal collected, and only six of them contained neutral videos. in two of the nine databases, 3 or 4 raters evaluated stimuli. only in one database was the duration of videos fixed (2 s), while in others it ranged greatly (10 – 60 s or 25 – 161 s). overall, existing databases of emotion-eliciting video stimuli have different drawbacks. in many of them, the video duration varies, which does not permit researchers to select a sufficient number of equivalent videos (cropping videos is not appropriate since raters evaluated the whole videos in original databases). speaking of cross-cultural studies, in many videos the voice is included that does not allow the use of it by scientists from other cultures. though we admit that presenting the videos without audio can reduce the intensity of the emotions. in the current study, we decided to select silent (muted) video clips during preparation of the database. this was done in order to avoid cultural differences in the perception of voices and screams in different languages, situation nuances, faux pas and other languageor culture-specific affective factors. we chose 1-minute excerpts in order to enrich stimulus material collection for neuroscientists. thus, taking into account many central and peripheral variables, a one-minute epoch seems to fall into a range appropriate for many physiological systems. thus, to begin with electroencephalography (eeg), the engagement index has been studied for epochs of one minute (libert & van hulle, 2019), as well as valence and arousal indices of eeg (xu et al., 2023). many attempts on emotion recognition via eeg have been done using one-minute excerpts (koelstra et al., 2012). different metrics of subject synchronization, for example, inter-subject correlation of eeg, could be calculated for an epoch lasting for 1 minute (dmochowski et al., 2014). likewise, 1-minute stimuli can be used for inter-subject correlation calculations in fmri paradigms within a standard range of temporal resolution (imhof et al., 2017). in a neuroimaging study, it is essential to have repeated emotional experiences, but, at the same time, the procedure is generally constrained by time. therefore, researchers require sufficiently long video clips to evoke and assess emotions each time, while ensuring they have enough time to allow for multiple samples of the same emotion. that is why, we believe, one-minute video clips could resolve the problem of duration/repetition (for example, a one-hour study can number about 30 – 45 video clips, that is 10 – 15 of each valence category, which may be enough for many designs). kosonogov, efimov, kuskova, & blank 153 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as for the autonomic nervous system, kreibig (2010) found that 1-minute epochs are the most popular segment type in studies of emotional responses. for instance, 1-minute intervals were found to be long enough in order to measure cardiac activity. thus, takahashi et al. (2017) found that low and high frequencies of heart rate variability could be extracted from one-minute epochs. in a study of nussinovitch et al. (2011), rr intervals (intervals between two heartbeats) and root mean square of successive differences in rr intervals proved their reliability in 1-minute intervals. however, for such short periods, they did not recommend calculating standard deviation of the rr intervals and the proportion of intervals differing by 50 msec from the preceding interval. skin temperature and skin conductance also could be studied for an interval of around 1 minute (kosonogov et al., 2017). as for postural control, carpenter et al. (2001) suggested that a sample duration of at least 60 s should be used to obtain a stable and reliable center of pressure characteristics. method first, six professional psychologists browsed the internet (youtube.com, vk.com, videezy.com) in order to find each one independently 45 video clips (15 negative, 15 neutral, and 15 positive), approximately of one minute (they watched videos without sound). video clips were muted one-minute excerpts from fiction, educational and documentary films or home movies. they represented a broad spectrum of plots, such as surgeries, suffering animals, starvation, and fights (negative), household, street and industrial scenes (neutral) and landscapes, joyful children, sports, romantic comedies (positive). this set of 270 videos was then evaluated by them on a three-point scale (negative/neutral/positive). of them, 175 videos received the 100% inter-rater reliability (the same valence was assigned by all six raters). we then randomly selected 160 video clips (55 negative, 53 neutral and 52 positive ones) which comprised the final database. the mean duration was 60.7 s, sd = 1.9 s, ranging in length from 46 to 65 seconds, 87% of videos were from 58 to 62 s, 74% of videos were from 59 to 61 s. as in many affective video databases, like deap, manhob-hciu, and open_emorec_ii (rukavina et al., 2015) and also in a moral video database (mccurrie et al., 2018), we intended to obtain at least 30 ratings (subjects) for each video clip. that is why, of these 160 video clips, we built eight separate video clip samples consisting of 20 clips each to present to the study subjects. in other words, each rater evaluated 20 video clips, while each video clip was assessed by 30 raters. each of eight video clip sample contained supposedly pleasant, unpleasant and neutral clips in approximately equal proportion (from 6 to 8 of each valence, 20 in total). the order of video clip presentation was chosen at random, corrected to avoid consecutive presentation of more than two clips of the same emotion category (kosonogov, 2020). participants were asked to evaluate each video clip in terms of valence (where 1 meant very negative and 9 meant very pleasant) and arousal (where 1 meant “very calm” and 9 meant “very arousing”) immediately after the presentation of each video clip. there was a break of 12 seconds between video clip presentations to minimize carry-over effects. the experimental paradigm was created with the use of psychopy software and conducted using the pavlovia platform (pavlovia.org). from 20/09/2023 to 6/02/2024, 185 raters (74% female participants, mage = 24.8 years, sd = 8.0 years) participated in the study. participants were recruited through electronic advertisements on the vk social network (they read instructions in russian language and reported to live in russia). fifty-three participants took part in the study twice and one participant — three times: all recurring participants evaluated different video clip samples to avoid reassessments. between-subject design was implemented: each person was randomly assigned to the group evaluating one 20-clip sample. all expressed the informed consent, were warned about violent content and blood in the scenes and were granted an equivalent of 5.5 usd (at purchasing power parity). the university ethical committee approved the study (nº 92, 19.09.2022). results the mean of valence was 4.99, sd = 1.60, min = 1.33, max = 7.80; while the mean of arousal was 5.13 sd = 0.98, min = 2.63, max = 8.0. fifty-five videos resulted to be negative, mean valence = 3.09, sd = 0.65, mean arousal = 5.60, sd = 0.90; 53 were neutral, mean valence = 5.25, sd = 0.50, mean arousal = 4.39, sd = 0.83, and 52 were positive, mean valence silent video clips: a database of valence and arousal 154 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = 6.72, sd = 0.48, mean arousal = 5.38, sd = 0.74. apparently, the analysis of variance revealed that positive videos were more positive than neutral, and neutral were more positive than negative ones, f(2,104) = 542.6, p < .001 (all post hoc test ps < .001). what is more important, negative and positive videos provoked greater arousal than neutral ones, f(2,104) = 31.8, p < .001, both post hoc test ps < .001, but the arousal between negative and positive videos did not differ, post hoc test p = .37. as for valence distribution, skewness (-0.27) and kurtosis (-1.05) were small, while a kolmogorov-smirnov test showed a non-normal distribution, w = .092, p < .001. arousal turned out to be distributed normally, skewness = -0.03, kurtosis = -0.13, d = .057, p = .53 (figure 1). figure 1 the distribution of (a) valence and (b) arousal of affective videos the relationship between valence and arousal showed a typical quadratic pattern, f(2,157) = 87.66, p < .001, r 2 = .52 (figure 2). the same patterns were observed for the male, f(2,157) = 57.31, p < .001, r 2 = .42, and the female subsamples, f(2,157) = 87.13, p < .001, r 2 = .52. the internal consistency was questionable for valence (.60), while very good for arousal (.90). correlations between means and standard deviations were significant. means and sds of valence correlated negatively, r = -.19, p = .017, while in the case of arousal the correlation was positive, r = .45, p < .001. figure 2 the relationship between valence and arousal of affective videos for the three categories of all subjects, males, and females kosonogov, efimov, kuskova, & blank 155 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the presented dataset provides normative values of valence and arousal of 160 one-minute affective video clips. each of the videos was evaluated by 30 subjects, while each subject evaluated at least 20 videos. the advantages of our dataset, in comparison to previous attempts to collect affective videos, are the following. first, the high number of videos of different valence categories allows researchers to compile appropriate subsets for their studies. second, the equal and conventional duration of videos makes possible the usage of these videos in psychophysiological studies of many types (eeg, fmri, peripheral polygraphy, posturography, tms, etc.). third, we excluded any sound or speech which would provoke any culture-dependent interpretation (e.g., language jokes), thus making our database useful in different countries. as in many previous studies, the relationship between valence and arousal showed a typical quadratic pattern, that is, very negative and very positive videos were assessed with higher levels of arousal. neutral videos received the lowest arousal scores. however, we admit that the lowest value of arousal was 2.63 (1 being the theoretical minimum over the scale from 1 to 9), while, for example, in the e-movie database the lowest value of arousal was 1.9 (maffei & angrilli, 2019). we suppose that the mere situation of watching videos from different categories maintain the arousal level higher than 1. our videos were distributed along a quadratic curve, typical for valence-arousal relationship. many other video databases also found this pattern (e.g., ack baraly et al., 2020). curiously, some databases did not reveal a quadratic relationship, liris-accede (baveye et al., 2015) as well as in gabert-quillen et al. (2015), valence and arousal also correlated negatively, meaning that pleasant videos were perceived as less arousing. in line with a broad spectrum of studies, conducted with other types of affective stimuli such as pictures (lang et al., 2008), sounds (soares et al., 2013), and odors (toet et al., 2020), we believe that the quadratic pattern found in our study reflects the nature of the relationship between valence and arousal of affective videos. it is worth noting that the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) for valence was questionable, while it was very good for arousal. this may indicate the high ambivalence associated with some highly affective stimuli. additionally, we highlight that the standard deviation for valence was higher compared to arousal, contrary to findings from e-movie (maffei & angrilli, 2019), where arousal displayed less variability than valence. in simpler terms, the videos in our dataset were generally seen as arousing stimuli, but their valence ratings were less certain on average. some neutral video clips received high arousal ratings, which may reflect not the neutral nature of these stimuli, but rather a mixture of both negative and positive emotions. future studies could employ not the unique valence scale (from negative to positive), but two distinct scales of negativity and positivity of each stimulus (ito & cacioppo, 2005). such an evaluation could identify ambivalent stimuli which can be important for researchers to select or avoid them, depending on the purposes. we also examined the correlation between means and standard deviations. there was a weak negative correlation between the means and sds of valence, that is for negative videos sd was higher. the means and sds of arousal displayed a moderate positive correlation, which aligns with the oasis database (kurdi et al., 2017). curiously, several negative videos received greater arousal scores than the most positive. three negative videos provoked arousal scores greater than 7, while no positive video was perceived with an arousal score higher than 7. also, the most negative videos were very close to the negative pole (valence < 2), while there was no video which received a valence score greater than 8. this seems to reflect an effect, called negativity bias, (ito et al., 1998) that lies in the fact that the most unpleasant pictures evoke greater emotional reactions than the most pleasant. in other words, threatening stimuli typically provoke faster and larger reactions because evolution processes favored those types of behavior which are related to survival, in comparison to behavior in response to neutral or pleasant stimuli. nevertheless, our database encompasses more than 50 videos of each category (negative, neutral, and positive). taking into account that the duration of future experiments and the number of videos to be presented are limited, we believe our database will permit researchers to select corresponding subsamples of videos from different categories. silent video clips: a database of valence and arousal 156 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the article was prepared within the framework of the basic research program at hse university. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: vladimir kosonogov: conceptualisation, methodology, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing review & editing. kirill efimov: software, data curation, investigation, writing review & editing. olga kuskova: software, data curation, investigation, writing review & editing. isak b. blank: conceptualisation, methodology, writing review & editing. ethics statement: the hse university ethical committee approved the study (nº 92, 19.09.2022). all participants expressed informed consent by launching the application and were warned before the beginning about violent content and blood in some videos. data availability: the dataset for this study can be found at kosonogov (2024). s-table 1 contains the averaged valence and arousal for each video with its duration and source. s-table 2 contains the raw data of each rater. the videos can be found via links or upon request. supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access data a. silent video clips. kosonogov (2024) b. s-table 1 contains each video's averaged valence and arousal with duration and source. kosonogov (2024) c. s-table 2 contains raw data of each rater. kosonogov (2024) references ack baraly, k. t., muyingo, l., beaudoin, c., karami, s., langevin, m., & davidson, p. s. r. 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(2016). “biovid emo db”: a multimodal database for emotion analyses validated by subjective ratings, 2016 ieee symposium series on computational intelligence (ssci) (pp. 1–6). athens, greece. https://doi.org/10.1109/ssci.2016.7849931 about the authors vladimir kosonogov, phd, is the head of affective psychophysiology laboratory at the institute of health psychology, working on a broad spectrum of topics in affective psychophysiology. kirill efimov is a junior researcher at the institute for cognitive neuroscience, working on neuroimaging problems. olga kuskova is a research assistant at the institute for cognitive neuroscience. isak b. blank, phd, is a full professor at the institute for cognitive neuroscience, working on neuroimaging and psychophysiology of emotion and cognition. kosonogov, efimov, kuskova, & blank 159 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 152–159 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14685 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0310-1 https://doi.org/10.1109/t-affc.2011.25 https://doi.org/10.1111/pace.13138 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-019-09275-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-022-02686-x https://doi.org/10.1109/ssci.2016.7849931 https://www.psychopen.eu/ silent video clips: a database of valence and arousal (introduction) method results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the meaning of life and death in the eyes of frankl: archetypal and terror management perspectives special thematic section the meaning of life and death in the eyes of frankl: archetypal and terror management perspectives claude-hélène mayer 1,2 , nataliya krasovska 3, paul j. p. fouché 4 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. [2] faculty of cultural studies, european university viadrina frankfurt (oder), frankfurt, germany. [3] european university viadrina frankfurt (oder), frankfurt, germany. [4] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 received: 2020-11-10 • accepted: 2021-04-22 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, auckland park campus, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net abstract this article aims to uncover the meaning of life and death across the lifespan of the extraordinary person, viktor e. frankl (1905– 1997). frankl was purposively sampled due to his international acclaim as an austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, who later became famous as a holocaust survivor and the founder of logotherapy. through his approach of “healing through meaning,” he became the founder of the meaning-centred school of psychotherapy and published many books on existential and humanistic psychology. the study describes the meaning of life and death through two theoretical approaches: the archetypal analysis based on c.g. jung’s and c.s. pearson’s work and a terror management approach based on the melancholic existentialist work of ernest becker. the methodology of psychobiography is used to conduct the psycho-historical analysis of the interplay of archetypes and death annihilation anxiety throughout frankl’s lifespan. the article evaluates how archetypes and death anxiety interacts and how they built meaning in different stages of frankl’s lifespan. the theories are discussed and illustrated in the light of viktor e. frankl’s life. keywords archetypes, carl gustav jung, ernest becker, meaning, psychobiography, terror management, viktor frankl when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. — viktor e. frankl without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete. — viktor e. frankl (1946/2006, p. 67) viktor e. frankl was born in 1905 in vienna, austria. in his childhood he already appeared to be thinking deeply about the nature of life. aged four, for example, he already expressed his anxiety of the transitory nature of life (frankl, 2000). this experience of deep philosophical questions at an early stage continued and led, during his teenage years to a deeper interest in in natural philosophy, such as wilhelm ostwald and gustav theodor fechner (frankl, 2000). frankl gave his first lecture on the meaning of life in the philosophical study group of a community college at the age of 15 (längle, 2013) which he anchored in different psycho-philosophical thoughts, such as of freud’s psychoanalysis and adler’s individual psychology. during his life, frankl published scientific articles and founded the magazine “man in everyday life—a magazine for the distribution and application of individual psychology” (längle, 2013). in 1927, however, adler excluded frankl from this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4689&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the association for individual psychology (frankl, 2000), since their basic ideas regarding humans motives and drives different strongly (wong, 2017). aged 25, he completed his studies and worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist at the psychiatric university clinic (frankl, 2000), and later on at the rothschild hospital in vienna. in 1941, frank married nurse tilly grosser (frankl, 2000). soon after, he and his entire family were deported to theresienstadt (frankl, 2000). all of his family members died in concentration camps (frankl, 2000). after the liberation, he worked as a primary physician in the vienna polyclinic (längle, 2013). in 1946 he published the book “a psychologist experiences the con­ centration camp,” later entitled “man’s search for meaning” (frankl, 2000). soon he started to lecture internationally. in 1947, he married the nurse eleonore schwindt. he dedicated his life to psychology, the exploration of meaning in life and sharing his experiences of a concentration camp survivor. frankl died in vienna in 1997 (längle, 2013). this article aims to uncover the meaning of life and death within the life of viktor e. frankl (1905–1997). more specifically, the study describes the meaning of life and death in frankl’s life through two theoretical stances: the archetypal analysis based on jung’s (1969, 1971, 1980) and pearson’s (2012) and pearson and marr’s (2002, 2007) work, as well as the terror management theory (tmt) based on becker (1967, 1973). firstly, this article presents four archetypes—the seeker, destroyer, caregiver, and magician—and their expression in the context of finding meaning in life’s adversities and during suffering. buffardi (2019) highlights that archetypes are innate and pre-existent to the psychic development of the individual. he criticised that archetypes are viewed from an existential psychology perspective rather than created by the individual interacting with the environment. buffardi (2019) explains how the interpretation of archetypes can support existential therapy and the client’s internal maps. based on this approach, the authors argue that archetypal analysis within an existential positive psychology approach can be helpful in analysing the meaning of life and death—as two most important anchors in tmt of becker (1967, 1973) in extraordinary individuals. secondly, the articles explain the tmt and relate it to the life and death experiences of frankl, interpreting his life, thoughts, experiences and actions in the context of selected tmt aspects. frankl’s life was further analysed by using alexander’s indicators as means to extract salient data (see schultz, 2005). these indicators are referred to in the article, where relevant. overall, the article illustrates and evaluates how archetypes, death anxiety, and terror management interact or interplay with one another and how they built meaning in different stages of frankl’s lifespan. the archetypal theory of jung and pearson jung is the pioneer of archetypal theory and has defined archetypes as images, symbols, and themes of the collective consciousness (jung, 1969, 1971, 1980). thus, archetypes can be both positive (represented in the light aspect) and negative (represented in the shadow aspect; jung, 1971; snider, 2013). archetypes are universal patterns with individual and culture-specific nuances (buffardi, 2019; hall, 1989). according to jung (1971), archetypal events, such as birth, death, separation of parents, initiation, marriage or the union of opposites, usually bring about archetypal patterns (jung, 1980). jung (1971) is primarily associated with 12 archetypes, namely the sage, the innocent, the explorer, the ruler, the creator, the caregiver, the magician, the hero, the rebel, the lover, the trickster, and the orphan. various studies have focused on different patterns as archetypal formations (bolen, 2014; moore & gillette, 1991; myss, 2013). also, psychobiographies have used archetypal theories to analyse the life of extraordinary individuals (mayer, 2020). in this study, the archetypes of pearson (2012) and pearson and marr (2002, 2007) were used for several reasons: firstly, pearson describes archetype and their development in-depth, up to their fullest potential (pearson, 2012), thereby providing a well-established framework of analysis in psychobiography. secondly, four out of the 12 archetypes of pearson (2012), namely the seeker, the destroyer, the caregiver, and the magician were chosen, as they allow a deeper insight in the process of meaning-seeking and meaning-making in different life contexts. the seeker: search for a better life the goal of the seeker archetype is to explore the new inner and the outer world, based on yearning: “cinderella longs for her prince to come; geppetto longs to have a child. telemachus searches for odysseus; the prince searches for a great treasure” (pearson, 2012, p. 133). according to jung (see dunne, 2015), the seeker often feels floating, setting a course between light and dark but ultimately moves along by unseen currents deep within. the seeker tends to search mayer, krasovska, & fouché 165 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for their identity and struggles to fulfil their true potential (pearson & marr, 2012). the call to the journey can be an urge to function at a higher or deeper level, to find a more significant way to live, to find out who the person is beyond the social norms. the quest often starts with the need to make choices as the hero feels confined or empty (pearson, 2012). the yearning is fulfilled when giving birth to the true self and realising that “the real issue is expanding our consciousness beyond the boundaries of ego reality” (pearson, 2012, p. 134). to find the inner truth, one must “answer the call to embark on the heroic life” (pearson, 2012, p. 134). the destroyer: metamorphosis pearson (2012) proposes the archetype of the destroyer as a representation of the unwanted change rather than an active choice. it is particularly relevant for the life of viktor e. frankl as he was challenged to deal with alienation, suffering, and human mortality, which he could not control or change. the destroyer is an independent archetype (pearson, 2012), associated with tragedy or loss to rebuild one’s own life (pearson & marr, 2007). the goal of the destroyer is growth and metamorphosis through a life situation caused by the death of a close person or a sudden awareness of human mortality (pearson, 2012). entering the journey requires an encounter with fear and recognition that the reality is not neat and in human control (pearson, 2012). it is essential to trust the process of letting go, whether chosen or not, as part of the metamorphosis for which the destroyer aims (pearson & marr, 2007). the key to the journey is to sacrifice something in order to be healed or to save the world (pearson, 2012). this sacrifice has many reasons: freedom from attachment, openness to transformation, compassion in ourselves and others (pearson, 2012). the caregiver: love, compassion and sacrifice the archetype of the caregiver represents people who gain satisfaction from caring for others and who value kindness (pearson & marr, 2007). essential in the caregiver’s story is an element of power or hierarchical distinction, which is used to care for another in need (rutledge & atlee, 2013). it is the caregiver’s story that pushes us to tend to those in need, to take care of those less able, and to nurture. it is typical for the caregiver to create community by helping people feel that they are valued and by encouraging nurturing relationships (pearson, 2012), and it is reflected in the tree of life, which continually feeds and sustains. caregivers know who they are and what they aspire. the caring attitude towards others is more potent than the predisposition for self-preservation. examples of this archetype are christ and gandhi, who are asked to die for others, a cause or faith (pearson, 2012). the magician: transformation and healing the power of the magician archetype is to transform reality by changing their attitude, thoughts, and reactions (pearson, 2012). people claiming the magician role in society have been known as shamans, witches, healers, for­ tune-tellers, priests or priestesses, and contemporarily as doctors or psychologists. the magician understands that the structure of consciousness governs the outer circumstances; therefore, the magician uses prayer, meditation, psycho­ therapy or other methods to ensure that their state of mind is clear and corresponds to their life purpose (pearson & marr, 2002). when they establish order in their inner world, it becomes simple for them to have order in the external world, working on synchronicity (jung, 1971, 1980). synchronistic events draw us to experiences that match our inner realities (pearson, 2012) and support the experience of reciprocation of internal and external worlds, realising complex connections. ernest becker’s existentialist tmt tmt is an existentialist theory, referring to “a philosophy that confronts the human situation in its totality to ask what the basic condition of human existence is and how man can establish his own meaning out of these conditions” (barrett, 1958, p. 126). the tmt, developed by the social-anthropologist becker, based on the research of otto rank (1950), assumes that human behaviour is motivated by conscious and unconscious mortality salience. questions such as ”why am i here?,” “who am i?,” “how do i relate to other people and to nature itself?,” but also “how much control do i have over my life?” and “what happens when life ends?” are core questions of human’s existence. tmt argues that individuals deal with these questions by either reasoning consciously or using unconscious mechanisms that help them the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life 166 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cope with life and death (pyszczynski, greenberg, koole, & solomon, 2010, p. 2). tmt’s early developments are rooted in the works of yalom (1980), greenberg, koole, and pyszczynski (2004), and koole, greenberg, and pyszczynski (2006). recent developments in existential social psychology have focused particularly on the impact of death and mortality on mental health and social functioning (greenberg et al., 2004; vail & routledge, 2020), as well as on meaning in life (steger, 2012). directions in tmt theory there are three main strings in tmt theory which have been discussed over the past decades and which are introduced in the following section: firstly, according to becker’s existentialist theory, nearly every human being fears death, and this death anxiety drives individuals to adopt worldviews that protect their worthiness, their self-esteem, and their sustainability. this idea has been supported by other researchers (e.g., van kessel, den heyer, & schimel, 2020) and is described as mortality salience hypothesis (rosenblatt, greenberg, solomon, pyszczynski, & lyon, 1989). based on this, individuals believe that they play a meaningful role in the world and create a meaningful life, as a means to overcoming their existential anxiety to die. examples include writing a book, living up to one’s standard and worldview, and believing in an afterlife (vail et al., 2012). becker (1967) highlights that the tmt supports individuals in dealing with uncertainty regarding their own worldview and building amicable ways in relationships with others, which might be interpreted as a contribution to a peaceful society. becker, as an existential psychoanalytical anthropologist, further argues that humans’ primary death anxiety drives them to distraction, to the illusion of immortality and the denial of death. further, he assumes that cultural worldviews aim at providing the potential for humans to have value and giving them hope of transcending death (pyszczynski et al., 2010). by denying death, individuals cope with existential terror, manage social cohesion and individual approaches to resolve the terror. fisher (2020) adds that even 45 years after the work of kübler-ross (1975) and her criticism that humans do not deal enough with death, death is denied in many societies. furthermore, culture, as well as religion, support the idea of overcoming death through transcendence by providing ideas of overcoming it in either a symbolic (continuing as part of something greater and longer-lasting than oneself) or literal way (believing that life continues after death; pyszczynski et al., 2010). secondly, another hypothesis in tmt is the anxiety-buffer hypothesis, which assumes that certain psychological constructs, such as high self-esteem, secure relational attachment, or religious faith, can buffer mortality salience (vail et al., 2012). juhl (2019) emphasises that investing in cultural belief systems, maintaining close relationships and self-esteem all impact on minimising negative affect and anxiety. thirdly, hayes, schimel, arndt, and faucher (2010) have described the death thought accessibility hypothesis in tmt, which highlights that if an element buffers against death awareness (e.g., stereotyping, prejudiced thought), death-related cognitions will increase unconsciously. for example, individuals who experience threat as their worldview are more prone to death thoughts, showing that a strong and solid faith in own values and cultural assumptions buffers the awareness of mortality, while a weak faith and belief in one’s own values and cultural assumptions increases death awareness (schimel, hayes, williams, & jahrig, 2007). the shadow and the light side of tmt van kessel, den heyer, and schimel (2020) assert that tmt supports individuals to reflect about life and death, while vail et al. (2012) state that the awareness of mortality can increase motivations in positive ways, such as enhance their physical health, or prioritise growth-oriented goals, adhere to positive standards and beliefs, develop themselves in peaceful, charitable communities, foster open-mindedness and growth-oriented behaviours, as well as positive and supportive relationships. according to the authors, the encounter with death can be a potentially enriching and impactful experience and increase the promotion of well-being globally—it can become a positive health resource. in this context, the meaning of life can, while increasing death awareness, change from extrinsically motivated goals towards more intrinsically motivated goals (vail et al., 2012). if ascribed meaning is changed or disrupted, it might create anxiety. while meaning in life is a strong coping mechanism with regard to tragedy or trauma, it can also be seen as a symbolic mechanism to deal constructively with death and mortality awareness (heine, proulx, & vohs, 2006). mayer, krasovska, & fouché 167 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ design and method a psychobiography can be defined as a biography written on a significant individual, based on the use of psychological theory or models (du plessis, 2017; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; mayer & maree, 2017; ponterotto, 2017a, 2017b). it is a subdivision of psychohistory, with the researcher implementing psychological theory and socio-historical methods in order to uncover and reconstruct the life of the subject under study (ponterotto, 2017a, 2017b). this psychobiography utilised a “multiple-lens” approach. the two main approaches included: 1) archetypal analysis, based on jung’s (1969, 1971, 1980), pearson’s (2012) and pearson and marr’s (2002, 2007) theories on archetypes and 2) tmt, based on the existentialist work of becker (1973), to uncover the meaning of life and death across frankl’s lifespan. through the exploration of archetypes and death anxiety, the researchers illustrate and evaluate the interrelationship of meaning-making through these two theoretical lenses at different points in frankl’s life. the methodology thereby entailed longitudinal life-history research (fouché, 2015; fouché & van niekerk, 2005, 2010) with a qualitative and single-case research design (yin, 2018). victor frankl: the psychobiographical subject one of the initial steps in conducting a psychobiography is to select the psychobiographical subject (du plessis, 2017; mayer, 2017). frankl was chosen as the subject for this study utilising a non-probability, purposive sampling technique. purposive sampling relies on the researcher's judgement in determining the desired characteristic attributes to be investigated and ensuring the richness of data (strydom & delport, 2005). frankl was chosen due to his contemporary, historical and theoretical significance (längle, 2013). another important factor to consider is the amount of readily and publically available primary and secondary sources based on the subject’s life. although the quantity of available sources is considered important, the quality of the data is equally important in terms of the subject’s life-narrative (mayer, 2017; mayer & kőváry, 2019). another guideline to be followed includes the ethical considerations surrounding a psychobiographical study on a renowned subject (du plessis, 2017; mayer & kőváry, 2019; ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). collection of data sources psychobiographical researchers use two main sources of data to extract their evidence, namely primary and secondary sources (du plessis, 2017; fouché & van niekerk, 2005; saccaggi, 2015). the authors included primary sources, such as personal documents, diary entries, letters, recorded items, and autoethnographical books (yin, 2018), as well as secondary sources, such as hearsay reports, articles and biographies related to the subject (fouché & van niekerk, 2005; yin, 2018). only publically available sources were utilised, which reduces ethical risk to the study since no private data are being exposed which have been been exposed to the public before (ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). extraction and analysis of data a psychobiography can be considered well-suited and sophisticated if the researchers can extract relevant evidence on the subject and apply it to the psychological theories utilised in the study, and vice versa. generalising the case findings or evidence to the theories used to interpret the case refers to analytical generalisation (yin, 2018). evidence in the data was extracted, categorised, and analysed using two theories and a strategy to identify salience (i.e., the identification of significant evidence). alexander’s (1988) nine identifiers or indicators of saliencewere the first strategy that assisted the researchers in making sense of the vast amount of sources and data gathered, especially evidence derived from personal interviews with the subject, and first-person or primary written documents. although alexander (1988) originally developed this method, demorest (2005) further refined the strategy. these nine indicators of salience include frequency, primacy, emphasis, isolation, uniqueness, incompletion, and error or distortion (see alexander, 1988), which assisted in revealing the subject’s personal experience (demorest, 2005) and formulating tentatively proposed hypotheses (elms, 2007). the researchers collected data on frankl with the following question in mind: which sections of the data collected will allow for an in-depth understanding, evaluation, and illustration of meaning-making in the interaction between the archetypes and existential death anxiety of frankl? the researchers the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life 168 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conceptualised frankl’s meaning-making of life and death by making use of jung and pearson, as well as becker’s theoretical constructs. quality criteria to enhance the study’s trustworthiness and its consistency or reliability (creswell, 2013; silverman, 2017; yin, 2018), the following strategies were operationalised: 1. data triangulation and analyst triangulation (yin, 2018) and the use of two psychological approaches (i.e., theoretical triangulation). 2. prolonged, extensive engagement with the biographical and historical data on the subject. 3. the researchers upheld a constant awareness of the cautious alliance (ponterotto & moncayo, 2018) between them, as psychobiographers, and the biographical relationship with frankl. 4. frankl’s unique socio-historical, cultural, and political contexts were investigated to facilitate a contextually accurate interpretation of his life. 5. the researchers strove for procedural rigour through the systematic application of established strategies for extracting salient data via the salience indicators of alexander (1988). 6. the researchers considered the close connection between methodological competence and ethical considerations in psychobiography, as suggested by ponterotto and reynolds (2019). findings in the following section, the authors apply the theories utilised in this study to frankl’s life. archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the seeker the call of the seeker occurs in frankl’s life during childhood and interpenetrates his life path until he finds responses to his questions about the meaning of life and death. as a child, frankl was called “the thinker” as he asked adults many questions concerning life and death (frankl, 2015). the feeling of emptiness brought him to the journey of exploring if “the transitory nature of life might destroy its meaning” (frankl, 2000, p. 29). in his autobiography, he discusses his habit of daily self-contemplation (frankl, 2000) to not only explore the meaning of life for humankind, but in particular the meaning of his own life for humankind (frankl, 2000). frankl’s journey to an understanding of the meaning of life shows ambition, perfectionism, and suppressed desire to be appreciated. in his book “autobiography” (frankl, 2000), alexander’s (1988) pointer of isolation can be found when he suddenly begins speaking about himself: “i have always been amused when i heard that others had an idea that i had had a long time before” (frankl, 2000, p. 33). in the preface of his book “man’s search for meaning,” frankl mentions the immense global popularity of this book which expands its original context while speaking to human’s need for search for meaning (krasovska & mayer, 2021). through the popularity of his writings, frankl experienced appreciation, driving him to explore meaning of his own life: in some respects, it is death itself that makes life meaningful. most importantly, the transitoriness of life cannot destroy its meaning because nothing from the past is irretrievably lost. whatever we have done, or created, whatever we have learned and experienced—all of this we have delivered into the past. there is no one and nothing that can undo it (frankl, 2000, p. 29). therefore, the understanding of death is transformed through the seeker's journey in the life of frankl. death is not the enemy; it becomes part of an eternal life. mayer, krasovska, & fouché 169 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the destroyer the destroyer archetype in frankl’s life is expressed when he becomes a “renegade of the spirit” (frankl, 2000, p. 62) and by emphasising his opinion in the society for individual psychology about how individual psychology had still to free itself from psychologism (frankl, 2000). however, the destoyer archetype was also active in his strong experience of the loss of his family which led to 10 years of void and disorientation and the stopping of the logotherapy development (längle, 2013). his experience of powerlessness, however, was followed by new accomplishments, turning to practice, organising youth counselling centres. one such accomplishment was seen when frankl proudly reported: “that was the first time in many years when no student suicides were reported in vienna” (frankl, 2000, p. 68). people in many countries showed interest in his work and invited him to present lectures. during that time, frankl “gained a treasure chest” of experience (frankl, 2000, pp. 72–73), developing his professional occupation. alexander’s (1988) pointer of uniqueness can be found regarding frankl’s opportunity to work as a psychotherapist before graduation: i tried to forget what i had learned from psychoanalysis and individual psychology so that i could learn from listening to my patients. i wanted to find out how they managed to improve their conditions. i began to improvise (frankl, 2000, p. 73). the destroyer archetype enabled frankl to let go of anything that no longer supported his growth and find out his true values and meaning. the experience of chaos and uncontrolled power of others over his life led him to explore the lives and perspectives of others and build his more in-depth and reconstructed worldview. another example of the destroyer archetype can be seen after the liberation from a concentration camp when frankl was informed about his family’s deaths. frankl’s hope was destroyed, and his survival became meaningless. he wrote that he had “nothing to look for” (frankl, 2015, p. 51): “who has no analogous fate, cannot understand me: tired, unspeakably sad, unspeakably lonely, i have nothing to hope for and nothing to fear anymore, i have no joy in life anymore, only duties, i live out my conscience …” (frankl, 2015, p. 48). he had lost his initial motivation to live and to overcome suffering and experienced powerlessness, disorientation, and meaninglessness. only years later, he managed to accept mortality and loss and focused on his obligations as a doctor and author: “nothing has remained—except the responsibility for the spiritual work that i have to fulfil—still and despite, or: perhaps also because i have to suffer so much” (frankl, 2015, p. 13). finally, the lost hopes caused by the destroyer archetype enabled frankl to re-define his life’s purpose and meaning (krasovska & mayer, 2021). archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the caregiver the archetype of the caregiver is particularly noticeable in frankl’s life regarding the relationship with his parents. no recollections are found in his books about the conflicts between his own needs and that of others. the caregiver occurs in the story regarding an immigration visa: frankl decided to stay with his parents in vienna instead of taking his opportunity to go to the usa (frankl, 2000). this decision put his own life in danger as a jew; however, he felt obliged in terms of a metaphysical explanation and his conscience to stay with his parents to take care of them (frankl, 2000). another example of the caregiver occurs during frankl’s stay in a concentration camp, where he visited his ill father despite the curfew. the morphine he smuggled into the camp was supposed to relieve his father’s pain. after his father's death, frankl wrote: “[…] i had the most wonderful feeling one can imagine. i had done what i could. i had stayed in vienna because of my parents, and now i had accompanied father to the threshold and had spared him the unnecessary agony of death” (frankl, 2000, p. 26). the caregiver archetype, who aims at caring for others beyond one’s own family and friends, is noticeable in frankl’s professional occupation. before the deportation and concentration camps, frankl made efforts to save people from suicide. frankl recalls his motivation as follows: “i do respect the decision of people to end their lives. but i also wish others respect the principle that i have to save lives as long as i am able” (frankl, 2000, p. 79). finally, the archetype of the caregiver enabled frankl to find meaning through caring for others despite any danger. in his book “recollections. an autobiography” (frankl, 2000), he mentions the words of john ruskin, reflecting his attitude towards the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life 170 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the suffering of others: “there is only one power: the power to save someone. and there is only one honour: the honour to help someone” (frankl, 2000, p. 55). archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the magician the magician seems to be the most pronounced archetype throughout frankl’s life. already in childhood, frankl frequently experienced synchronistic life events, which he noticed but was not able to rationalise: “[…] i am too ignorant to explain them and too smart to deny them” (frankl, 2000, p. 59). an example of such an event is the “hint from heaven” (frankl, 2000, p. 83). frankl’s father cited a relevant passage from the bible at the time when frankl had to decide on his immigration to the usa (frankl, 2000). the following examples of decisions resulted from frankl’s belief in the unconditional meaning of life found throughout his life path (see krasovska & mayer, 2021): 1. the will to survive in concentration camps despite any circumstances; 2. readiness to accept reality, sacrifice the most important, and be humble (the loss of his manuscript in a concentration camp, later the death of his first wife); 3. doing good deeds for others and not to “vegetate.” the magician enabled frankl to change the physical reality by seeing “beyond the misery of the situation” and “thus to turn an apparently meaningless suffering into a genuine human achievement” (frankl, 2000, p. 53). unconditional meaning orientation enabled frankl not only to stay resilient during suffering, but influence other people not to give up by helping them to discover meaning in suffering. terror management in frankl’s life already at a very early age, frankl dealt with the question of death and whether life had meaning despite human mortality. with this, he addressed a core question of the tmt theory (barrett, 1958). frankl came to the understanding that the person should take the responsibility to answer the question of life’s meaning on their own, instead of looking for the answer outside (frankl, 2000). early in childhood, frankl also developed the idea of an ultimate meaning, or suprameaning, which is basically incomprehensible. since this suprameaning is extremely complex and derives from a higher source, it can only be grasped through faith (frankl, 2000). this perspective suggests that a human’s life serves a higher goal; life is valuable and has meaning despite suffering and future death. this notion has a crucial meaning for prevention of death-related cognitions when viktor e. frankl’s general goals and motivations to survival were challenged. according to pyszczynski et al. (2010), frankl dealt with these questions consciously, by relating to the works of yalom (1980), greenberg et al. (2004), and koole et al. (2006). throughout his whole life, frankl lived according to his ideas of life’s meaning as well as suprameaning. his occupation as a physician, psychotherapist, and author helped him to create a meaningful life through serving and doing good deeds for others, despite the feeling of alienation and personal tragedies—to protect himself from the death threat, he adopted a worldview, which protected his worthiness, his self-esteem, and its sustainability, as described by van kessel et al. (2020); this created meaning to overcome his existential fears (see vail et al., 2012). frankl (2000) was conscious about death as a part of life and showed this, for example, when he decided consciously to stay with his parents in vienna and risked deportation. he, however, constructed his immortality (see becker, 1967) through his writing and lectures and through becoming famous. a strong emotional connection to his family enabled frankl to preserve his will to live. he felt responsible for his parents and tried to minimise their suffering during world war ii (wwii). his love for his first wife, tilly, strengthened his hope for a better future during the suffering in concentration camps. finally, when all hopes for a better future were destroyed, the idea of suprameaning helped frankl to preserve his will to live and cope with existential terror. tilly and his hopes might be interpreted in a way that they were distractions from death anxiety to create the illusion of immortality through love and a future together with his wife, subsequently, transcending death (pyszczynski et al., 2010). however, after he had lost his entire family, he faced death and could not minimise fear and effect anymore (juhl, 2019). mayer, krasovska, & fouché 171 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frankl changed his attitude towards his unchangeable fate by transforming his thoughts to conducting his duties as a doctor and a book author. his transcendent views on life, as well as religious practices (e.g., reading psalms and praying to god), helped him to overcome death anxiety. death became part of his thoughts more consciously (hayes et al., 2010) and might have buffered against death anxiety at the same time. as described by schimel et al. (2007), frankl increased his prayers and faith to transform his awareness and painful experiences of death. further, it might be assumed that frankl’s ability to minimise the negative effects of death anxiety resulted from his childhood experiences with his parents: primarily his father provided him with safety and security, while his mother represented emotional warmth (frankl, 2000). secure relational attachment, belief in the meaning in life, might have provided frankl with a sense of self-worth and buffered his death anxiety even in times of adversity (as in heine et al., 2006; vail et al., 2012). in his autobiography, frankl (2015) writes: “i increasingly realise that life is so infinitely meaningful, that even in suffering and even in failure there must still be meaning” (p. 49). this statement shows that frankl developed a sense of life’s internal meaning by accepting its shadow and light side and integrating it towards a meaningful whole (vail et al., 2012). conclusion and recommendations this article aimed to explore the meaning of life and death across the lifespan of viktor e. frankl utilising two theoretical approaches, namely archetypal theory and tmt. the archetypes and their impact on his life changed across the life span. however, they were impactful symbols creating meaningful throughout his entire life. his views on the meaning of life and death changed over his life and are defined in relation to the archetypes and tmt. he consciously addressed his losses in life, his death anxieties, the pain and the suffering and finally concluded that pain as well as happiness, have an internal and intrinsic meaning that makes life and death meaningful. future research should focus on the life of frankl from different psychobiographical, methodological, and theoretical perspectives to gain a deeper and more holistic view of the complexities of his life. it would be further beneficial to explore the meaning of life in extraordinary individuals, and compare these individuals’ experiences based on comparative psychobiographical approaches. in applied psychological contexts, psychobiographical works of extraordinary individuals can be used as examples as role models. these works can also be used for client’s increased and in-depth understanding of overcoming suffering and pain and integrating light and shadow experiences across the lifespan. psychobiographies can finally serve as prac­ tical illustrations of coping resources of extraordinary individuals to provide clients in psychotherapy and counselling with new ideas and inspirations. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references alexander, i. e. 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(2018). case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.). thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage. the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life 174 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-017-9295-x https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000176 https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511311 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.681 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789 https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840x.2012.720832 https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868312440046 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2019.1659416 http://www.drpaulwong.com/adler-versus-frankl/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors claude-hélène mayer (dr. habil., phd, phd) is a professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, an adjunct professor at the european university viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany, and a senior research associate at rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. she has published several monographs, text collections, accredited journal articles, and special issues on transcultural mental health, sense of coherence, shame, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, creativity, and psychobiography. nataliya krasnovska (m.a.) studied cultural sciences at the european university viadrina. during her studies, she researched the interplay between language acquisition and motivation, the use of language in coaching and therapy, and the issues of psychological resilience and well-being. her master’s thesis was dedicated to the life of viktor frankl from the psychobiographic perspective. her sphere of interests also includes emotional intelligence, mindfulness, non-violent communication, and neurolinguistic programming. today, nataliya krasovska works as a teacher of russian language and a language consultant at the european university viadrina. paul j. p. fouché (dphil) is a full-professor of counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, in south africa. paul has published psychobiographical and psychohistorical articles in various journals. his interest is in the field of psychobiography and psychohistory and he acts as research supervisor to post-graduate scholars undertaking life history research. his e-mail address is: fouchejp@ufs.ac.za mayer, krasovska, & fouché 175 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 164–175 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life (introduction) the archetypal theory of jung and pearson ernest becker’s existentialist tmt design and method victor frankl: the psychobiographical subject collection of data sources extraction and analysis of data quality criteria findings archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the seeker archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the destroyer archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the caregiver archetypal theory in frankl’s life: the magician terror management in frankl’s life conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors an investigation of the 10:20 protection rule for detecting aquatic hazards research reports an investigation of the 10:20 protection rule for detecting aquatic hazards jenny smith 1 , emmanuel a. c. obine 2 , jo talbot 3, nick grazier 3, charlotte stevens 1 , sarah needham-beck 1 , iker bautista 1 , benjamin t. sharpe 2 [1] institute of applied science, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [2] institute of psychology, business and human sciences, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [3] royal life saving society (rlss), worcester, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 received: 2024-09-13 • accepted: 2025-05-28 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: sahir hussain, lancaster university, lancaster, united kingdom corresponding author: jenny smith, institute of applied science, university of chichester, chichester, po19 6pe, united kingdom. e-mail: jenny.smith@chi.ac.uk supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract seven percent of all injury-related global deaths in 2019 were attributed to drowning, relating to 236,000 lives claimed and the stark reality persists that incidents of drowning continue to occur within zones overseen by trained lifeguards. some lifeguard training agencies advocate the use of specific scan techniques and patterns and the 10:20 protection rule is recommended by a variety of lifeguarding agencies. this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the 10-second element of the 10:20 protection rule (referred to as the 10-second scan strategy) compared to a more natural scan strategy. two 30-minute videos were developed capturing scripted and unscripted swimming pool hazards. water safety experts were then employed to collectively review, identify, and achieve consensus on hazards. in a within-subject design, lifeguards (n = 25) were instructed to watch videos under two conditions (i.e., 10second and natural scan conditions) and respond via whistle blow and vocal response. in the 10-second scan condition, lifeguards were instructed to use the 10:20 system of supervision and scan the zone every 10-seconds whilst supervising the pool. in the natural scan condition, lifeguards were told to follow a scan strategy that felt comfortable for them. the results demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the percentage of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition compared to the natural scan condition. however, the results show that lifeguards were unable to execute the 10-second scan strategy (i.e., scanning the full zone every 10 seconds). while results show that hazard detection is similar in both conditions, lifeguards were not adhering to the 10second scan and thus comparisons between the 10-second scan strategy and natural scanning are not possible. the key conclusion from this study is that it is not possible for lifeguards to scan the full zone every 10 seconds, despite explicit instructions to do so, and thus the 10:20 protection rule should be carefully considered if agencies are advocating it as an effective scanning strategy. keywords hazard detection, scanning, mental demand, drowning, safety drowning accounted for 7% of all injury-related global deaths in 2019, claiming 236,000 lives (world health organization, 2023). empirical evidence demonstrates the efficacy of lifeguards in mitigating water-related incidents (avramidis et al., 2009; harrell & boisvert, 2003). however, the stark reality persists that incidents of drowning continue to occur within zones overseen by trained lifeguards (pelletier & gilchrist, 2011; schwebel et al., 2011). surveillance constitutes a fundamental component of a lifeguard's professional duties. given this, one would expect a comprehensive this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15577&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0405-0251 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3697-9025 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7612-6228 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0576-4790 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7409-6290 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8539-9935 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ coverage of surveillance methodologies throughout lifeguard manuals and training programs. unfortunately, this is not the case with surveillance often being overlooked (lanagan-leitzel & moore, 2010). some lifeguard training agencies advocate the use of specific scan techniques and patterns (united states lifeguard standards coalition, 2011). for example, until july 2023, the royal life saving society uk (rlss uk) national pool lifeguard qualification (nplq) held a dedicated section, titled 10:20 scanning system, referring to the ‘...most widely used scanning technique used by lifeguards in the world’ (nplq, 2022, p. 67). this system was also noted by the health and safety executive (hse) as an internationally recognised practice, states that lifeguards should be able to scan their zone within 10-seconds and reach an incident in the furthest part of the zone within 20 seconds (hse, 2018, p. 30). however, the evidence that underpins the efficacy of this guidance is limited and the authors are unable to access any peer-reviewed studies supporting this system. despite this, it continued to be endorsed by ellis and associates (2020) in their international lifeguard training program manual and is widely referenced by other lifeguard training bodies. the absence of research prevents a definitive assessment of whether the 10-second scan strategy provides any discernible advantages to a lifeguard beyond a more natural (i.e., instinctive) scanning approach. as a result of the lack of empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of the 10-second scan strategy, we propose the following implications. when assigned to supervise poolside or beach areas, the principal responsibility of a lifeguard is to diligently observe bathers, ready to respond to actual or potential threats (hunsucker & davison, 2008; lanagan-leitzel, 2012; petrass & blitvich, 2014), while sustaining unwavering focus over extended durations (schwebel et al., 2011). this task presents distinct challenges, considering the variable influx of bathers (lanagan-leitzel, 2012; vansteenkiste et al., 2021) and the unpredictable behaviours involved in drowning incidents (carballo-fazanes et al., 2020). these dynamics impose considerable cognitive demands on lifeguards, aligning with a decline in information-pro­ cessing resources (matthews et al., 2000), potentially impeding performance outcomes (sharpe et al., 2023). this view is consistent with attentional resource theories (grier et al., 2003; helton et al., 2005) which typically describe the potential for a decline in performance over time, arising from the task demands to continuously process stimuli (e.g., bathers). it is this phenomenon that leads to the onset of fatigue and subsequent depletion of cognitive resources. if a lifeguard’s resources are depleted beyond a minimum threshold required for the task, then a lifeguard may be unable to control attention (i.e., maintain the capacity to direct attention towards their zone and minimise external distraction). the ability of a lifeguard to sustain attention determines whether an individual can maintain engagement on a pool or suffer a decline in monitoring performance (e.g., petersen & posner, 2012). sharpe et al. (2023, 2024) showed that high task demands through increased bather numbers and decreased ‘drown’ duration negatively influenced performance, as attentional lapses are likely to increase when the task at hand is objectively more challenging. as such, it is plausible that mandating lifeguards to adhere to a prescribed scanning strategy (such as the 10:20 protection rule) may influence a lifeguard’s capacity to perform optimally. specifically, if a lifeguard observes their zone for 60 minutes (rlss uk, 2018) and no intervention was conducted, this should equate to 360 scans of the pool (following the prescribed scan strategy). given the demand on lifeguards may already be high due to the environmental context (e.g., high bather numbers in a dynamic environment), the additional cognitive load imposed by maintaining a prescribed scan strategy may decrease detection performance. to explore the impact of a prescribed scanning strategy, the study of a lifeguard’s gaze behaviour may discern the differences between prescribed and instinctive scan strategies. to date, however, our understanding of the optimal gaze behaviours conducive to lifeguard detection performance remains limited, exacerbated by conflicting findings within the existing body of literature (e.g., laxton et al., 2022; laxton, crundall et al., 2021; laxton, guest et al., 2021; page et al., 2011; sharpe & smith, 2024; smith et al., 2020). nonetheless, prior reports have demonstrated that experienced lifeguards hold longer fixations on task-relevant stimuli compared to novice lifeguards (vansteenkiste et al., 2021). the utilisation of the 10-second scan strategy could potentially prompt lifeguards to execute swift ocular motions, ensuring comprehensive coverage of the designated zone within the allocated 10-second timeframe. these expeditious and ballistic ocular movements are formally known as saccades, which pose challenges to the visual system. the primary concern arises from the rapid and extensive retinal motion associated with saccades, consequently altering the spatial relationship between the object's position in the external environment and its corresponding image projection on the retina (ross et al., 2001). consequently, a heightened frequency of saccadic movements might not be optimal for smith, obine, talbot et al. 195 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lifeguarding performance due to the potential constraints it imposes on processing time in contrast to an alternative visual approach characterised by prolonged fixation durations and reduced reliance on saccadic ocular motion. it is plausible that the 10-second scan strategy fosters an increased number of briefer fixations. this could diminish the temporal window available to lifeguards for discerning potential distractors. this reduction in fixation duration could cause delays in hazard detection. these delays may contribute to instances of profound consequences, such as enduring life-altering injuries due to prolonged submersion or a fatality (lanagan-leitzel et al., 2015). finally, a potential outcome of reduced fixation durations may be limiting lifeguards’ capacity to comprehensively grasp the contextual environment, thereby impeding the ability to formulate appropriate responses hazards. as there is no evidence to support the 10:20 protection rule, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the 10-second scan strategy (the 10-second element of the 10:20 protection rule) compared to a more natural (instinctive) scan strategy in lifeguards. to achieve these aims we explored the following predictions: 1. there will be no significant difference in the number of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition compared to the natural scan condition. 2. the percentage of correct hazards detected across the 30 minutes will decline over time in both conditions. 3. the number of fixations will be greater and of shorter duration in the 10-second scan condition compared to the natural scan condition. 4. mental demand will be higher in the 10-second scan condition compared to the natural scan condition. method video development and consensus two 30-minute videos were developed that included approximately 35 people (adults and children; figure 1). during each 30-minute video, numerous scripted hazards (e.g., bather hanging on a lane rope, bather having a (simulated) medical episode, near collision, a person swimming in incorrect lane) and unscripted hazards (e.g., bombing, diving in an unsafe area, child standing on adults shoulders), occurred amongst a scene of typical swimming pool behaviours (e.g., swimming, standing, and treading water) by competent swimmers, as well as two drowning scenarios acted out by qualified lifeguards. the same scripted hazards occurred in both videos but occurred at different time points. the participants who were not performing the scripted hazards were asked to take part in natural swimming behaviours for both videos. the scripted hazards were evenly spaced throughout the 30 minutes. the hazards were performed in the presence of an experienced lifeguard who was not involved in the study. upon completion of recording and editing, the videos were subjected to evaluation by six water safety experts (mage = 36 years, sd = 4.65), each possessing extensive lifeguarding experience (mexperience = 97 months, sd = 87.01). these experts collectively reviewed both videos and achieved consensus regarding the identification of hazards and the corresponding timestamps. specifically, video one included 35 identified hazards, while video two had 45 identified hazards. figure 1 screenshot from videos 1 and 2 investigating the 10:20 protection rule 196 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants a total of 25 lifeguard participants aged 18 to 62 years (mage = 26.5, sd = 11.39 years) took part in the study. all lifeguards were actively employed with a range of experience (mlifeguard employment = 46.28 months, sd = 64.39). this sample size closely resembles prior lifeguard literature (sharpe et al., 2023). procedure prior to the commencement of the tasks, participants were requested to complete a consent form and a demographic questionnaire, which collected information such as age and lifeguarding experience. the videos were presented 88 cm from the participant on a 366 x 229 cm screen, back projected by a high definition (4k) samsung widescreen 16:9 projector. the stimuli covered 300 cm of the screen, representing 119 degrees of visual angle. the distance from the screen was chosen to ensure a minimum 30-degree head turn to the left and right was required to capture the front corners of the pool in the outer position of their central vision, as to reflect the head motions required by lifeguards on a poolside. in the 10-second scan condition, lifeguards were instructed to “use the 10:20 system of supervision from your lifeguard qualification. scan the zone every 10 seconds whilst supervising the pool.” in the natural scan condition lifeguards were told “while you were taught the 10:20 system of supervision during your lifeguard qualification, we have no evidence that this instruction is better than others. you must ensure that you supervise the whole zone and scan it using a natural scan method that feels comfortable to you, whilst supervising the pool. ensure that you supervise the whole zone.” in both conditions, lifeguards were told “if you spot a hazard, please respond with a whistle blow and say out loud the location and the hazard, before immediately continuing your scanning strategy.” the conditions and videos were counterbalanced to avoid order effects. participants were unaware of the number of hazards occurring throughout the videos. the whistle and verbal data were captured by the mobile eye-tracking device (see instruments). instruments gaze behaviour a head mounted 50 hz four sensor mobile eye tracking system (tobii pro glasses 2) was used to simultaneously record eye movement of the lifeguards during the hazard detection video task. the integrated perspective camera captured imagery at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, maintaining a frame rate of 25 frames per second, and encompassing a field of view spanning 90 degrees. accurate alignment of both horizontal and vertical aspects of the system was attained upon achieving a precision of 0.5 degrees. the head-mounted eye tracker possessed a field of view measuring 82 degrees horizontally and 52 degrees vertically. a fixation was defined as a gaze that was maintained on a location within 1 degree of visual angle for a minimum of 100 ms (vickers, 1996; vickers & williams, 2007). the high-definition eye-tracker allowed for the analysis and live video recording of lifeguard gaze behaviour using tobii pro lab. perceived mental demand the nasa-task load index (hart & staveland, 1988) was used to determine the perceived workload after each task. participants provided a rating (0 – 100) for each subscale. the nasa-tlx is a widely accepted and validated measurement for overall perceived workload after completing a task (grier, 2016; rubio et al., 2004). in line with prior literature (sharpe et al., 2023) we solely adopted mental demand and frustration for all analysis. data analysis to determine the percentage of the pool covered, the gaze behaviour was analysed in two ways. first, the zone was split into three equal areas of interest (aois), as shown in figure 2. the aoi sizes were chosen so that if the participant was looking straight ahead, they would fixate in aoi two, and if they turned their heads 30 degrees left and right, they would fixate centrally in aoi one and three. they could then use the outer limits of their normal visual field (see spector, 1990) to detect hazards occurring at the edges of each area of interest. second, the zone was divided into 15 aois. the size of these aois was based on 10 degrees of visual angle as generated by the eye tracking device (see smith, obine, talbot et al. 197 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3). the purpose of generating these areas of interest was to ascertain the percentage of the zone fixated on. each 30-minute video was divided into 180, 10 second epochs. the percentage of epochs where the participants fixated on all three and 15 areas of interest were calculated across the 180 epochs as well as more in-depth analyses of epoch 1 (first 10 seconds [00:00 – 00:10]), epoch 91 (middle 10 seconds [15:00 – 15:10]) and epoch 180 (final 10 seconds [29:50 – 30:00]). figure 2 three areas of interest (aois) figure 3 fifteen areas of interest (aois) investigating the 10:20 protection rule 198 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all variables were expressed as a mean and standard deviation. the normality assumption was checked using shapirowilks test. the percentage of hazards detected, number of fixations, fixation duration, and perceived mental demand between the 10-second scan condition and the natural scan condition were compared using a series of paired samples t-tests. 2 x 3 repeated measures analysis of variance (rm anovas) were conducted to analyse the effect of condition (i.e., 10 second scan vs natural scan) and time (i.e., either epoch 1, 91 and 180 or the beginning, middle and end) on percentage of aois fixated on and percentage of hazards detected. post hoc t-tests were employed to explore simple effects with bonferroni adjustment employed to lower the significance threshold and avoid type i errors (mclaughlin & sainani, 2014). a pearsons correlation coefficient was used to analyse the relationship between the percentage of the three and 15 aois covered in epochs 1, 91, and 180 and the overall percentage of hazards detected in the 10 second scan condition and were considered negligible (0 to .10), weak (.10 to .39), moderate (.40 to .69), strong (.70 to .89) or very strong (.90 to 1; schober et al., 2018). alpha level (p) was set at 0.05, partial eta squared (η2p) was used to measure effect size for all anova analysis, and cohen’s d used for pairwise comparisons (cohen, 1988) and considered trivial (< 0.20), small (0.20 – 0.59), moderate (0.60 – 1.19), large (1.20 – 1.99), and very large (> 2.00; hopkins et al., 2009). all variables met criteria for normality (i.e., shapiro-wilks test) and outliers were identified as data points > 1.5 times the interquartile distance (fallowfield et al., 2005; kline, 1998). all analysis were done using statistical analysis software (the jasp v.0.18.2, the netherlands). data, materials, and codebook can be found under the open science framework (smith et al., 2025) results performance there was no statistically significant difference (t(24) = -.868, p = .393, d = 0.174) in the percentage of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition (m = 53%, sd = 20) compared to the natural scan condition (m = 50%, sd = 14), see table 1 and figure 4. table 1 summarised descriptive statistics for the percentage of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition and natural condition condition m (sd) ci (95%) median min – max 10-second scan condition 53 (20) [45, 61] 49 26 – 100 natural condition 50 (14) [44, 56] 51 16 – 74 note. descriptive statistics include mean, median, standard deviation, 95% confidence interval, and min and max. to assess any potential decline in performance across the 30-minute videos, the videos were separated into three separate segments to represent a ‘time’ variable (i.e., the first, the second, and the final third of total hazards). for video 1 the time phases were 1.03 to 4.01 (12 hazards), 4:10 to 15:24 (12 hazards), and 15:40 to 29:00 (11 hazards). for video 2 the time phases were 0.05 to 6.53 (15 hazards), 7.17 to 13.36 (15 hazards), and 13:53 to 29:35 (15 hazards). the authors wish to note that the timings did not match because video 1 and video 2 had different timings of hazards and numbers of hazards. however, such crude composite scores provided a means to preliminarily observe the influence of performance over time. in the 10-second scan condition there was a significant main effect for time (f(2, 48) = 3.295, p = .046, η2p = .121). post hoc tests with bonferroni correction revealed a statistically significant decline in performance between the second and final third of hazards with a mean percentage difference of 9% (t = 2.54, p = .043), with remaining comparisons yielding no significant differences (p > .05). in the natural scan condition, there was no significant main effect for time (f(2, 48) = 0.327, p = .723, η2p = .013). smith, obine, talbot et al. 199 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 percentage of hazards detected in both conditions gaze behaviour the paired sample t-test did not show a statistically significant difference, t(24) = 1.723, p = .098, d = 0.345 [-0.06 to 0.74], in the total number of fixations in the 10-second scan condition (m = 3935, sd = 606) compared to the natural scan condition (m = 3781, sd = 540). likewise, there was no statistically significant difference (t(24) = -.924, p = .365, d = -0.185) in the mean fixation duration in the 10-second scan condition (m = 315 ms, sd = 73) compared to the natural scan condition (m = 327 ms, sd = 78), see table 2 and figure 5. table 2 summarised descriptive statistics for total number of fixations and fixation duration in the 10-second scan condition and natural condition outcomes conditions m (sd) ci (95%) median min – max total number of fixations 10-second scan condition 3935 (606) [3697, 4172] 4017 2826 – 4901 natural condition 3795 (540) [3569, 3992] 3795 2722 – 4607 mean fixation duration 10-second scan condition 315 (73) [287, 344] 301 200 – 498 natural condition 327 (78) [297, 358] 312 220 – 497 note. descriptive statistics include mean, median, standard deviation, 95% confidence interval, and min and max. investigating the 10:20 protection rule 200 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5 total number of fixations (a) and mean fixation duration (ms) in both conditions (b) three areas of interest in the 10-second scan condition, three participants fixated in all three areas of interest in epochs 1, 91 and 180 whereas in the natural condition six participants fixated in all three areas of interest in epochs 1, 91 and 180. participants fixated in all three areas of interest in 42% (sd = 26.65%) of the epochs in the 10-second scan condition and 37% (sd = 23.0%) of the epochs in the natural scan condition. no participants were able to maintain the 10 second scanning strategy for 100% of the epochs in either condition based on the three areas of interest analysis. there was a non-significant weak and negative relationship between the percentage of the 3 aois covered in epochs 1, 91, and 180 and the overall number of hazards detected in the 10 second scan condition (r = -.308, p = .134) and non-significant weak and positive relationship in the natural condition (r = .250, p = .229). there were no statistically significant differences (t(24) = .615, p = .544, d = 0.123) in the percentage of the three aois fixated on across the 180 epochs in the 10 second scan condition (m = 42%, sd = 27%) compared to the natural scan condition (m = 37%, sd = 24%). a 2 (condition) x 3 (time) rm anova showed that there was no main effect for condition (f(1, 24) = .036, p = .851, η2p = .002) or time (f(2, 48) = .060, p = .924, η2p = .002) for the percentage of the three aois fixated on. there was also no interaction effect (f(2, 48) = .356, p = .702, η2p = .015). in epoch 1, 15 participants (60%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the 10-second scan condition and 10 participants (40%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the natural scan condition. the mean percentage of the three aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 80% (sd = 27.22%) compared to 76% (sd = 22.60%) in the natural scan condition. in epoch 91, 9 participants (36%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the 10-second scan condition and 10 participants (40%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the natural scan condition. the mean percentage of the three aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 76% (sd = 20.46%) compared to 79% (sd = 18.95%) in the natural scan condition. in epoch 180, 11 participants (44%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the 10-second scan condition and 9 participants (36%) fixated in all three areas of interest in the natural scan condition. the mean percentage of the three aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 77% (sd = 23.01%) compared to 76% (sd = 20.46%) in the natural scan condition. fifteen areas of interest conditions were then compared for each epoch based on the 15 smaller aois. in the 10-second scan condition, no participants (0%) fixated in all 15 areas of interest in epochs 1, 91 and 180 in either condition. no participants (0%) fixated in all 15 areas of interest in any of the 180 epochs in the 10 second scan condition or the natural scan condition smith, obine, talbot et al. 201 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and therefore no participants were able to maintain the 10-second scanning strategy for 100% of the epochs in either condition based on the 15 areas of interest analysis. a negligible and non-statistically significant correlation between the percentage of the 15 aois covered in epochs 1, 91, and 180 and the overall number of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition (r = .032, p = .878) was found. however, there was a moderate, positive and statistically significant relationship in the natural condition (r = .411, p = .041) suggesting that when they are able to scan naturally, the greater the coverage of the pool, and the more effective they were at spotting hazards. a 2 (condition) x 3 (time) rm anova showed that there was no main effect for condition (f(1, 24) = .593, p = .449, η2p = .024) or time (f(2, 48) = .749, p = .478, η2p = .030) for the percentage of the 15 aois fixated on. there was also no interaction effect (f(2, 48) = .122, p = .885, η2p = .005). in epoch 1, no participants (0%) fixated in all 15 areas of interest in either condition. the mean percentage of the 15 aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 45% (sd = 20.70%) compared to 43% (sd = 15.88%) in the natural scan condition. in epoch 91, 0 participants (0%) fixated in all 15 areas of interest in either condition. the mean percentage of the 15 aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 43% (sd = 12.91%) compared to 39% (sd = 13.37%) in the natural scan condition. in epoch 180, 0 participants (0%) fixated in all 15 areas of interest in either condition. the mean percentage of the 15 aois fixated on in the 10-second scan condition was 44% (sd = 13.86%) compared to 42% (sd = 13.13%) in the natural scan condition. perceived workload a paired sample t-test revealed no statistically significant differences in mental demand between the 10-second scan condition (m = 70.08, sd = 20.77) and the natural scan condition (m = 64.52, sd = 23.12; t(24) = 1.664, p = .109, d = 0.333). likewise, there was no statistically significant differences in frustration between the 10-second scan condition (m = 44.00, sd = 31.52) and the natural scan condition (m = 39.40, sd = 27.44; t(24) = 0.986, p = .197, d = 0.197). discussion the aim of this study was to compare the 10-second scan strategy to a natural scan condition. the main finding of this study was that there was no significant difference in the percentage of hazards detected in the 10-second scan condition compared to the natural scan condition. however, the results showed that no lifeguards were able to execute the 10-second scanning strategy (i.e., scanning the full zone every 10 seconds) for the full 30 minutes. this is reinforced by the fact that in the 10-second scan condition the percentage of the zones covered during the initial, middle, and concluding 10 seconds of the videos ranged from 76% to 80% in the three aoi analysis, and from 43% to 45% in the 15 aoi analysis, as opposed to the expected 100% coverage stipulated by the 10-second scan strategy. among the cohort of 25 lifeguards, only three (12%) successfully fixated on all three areas of interest during the initial, middle and final 10 seconds. these findings underpin the challenges associated with both executing and sustaining a 10-second scan strategy. in relation to hazard detection, in the 10-second scan condition there was a significant decline over time that was not present in the natural scan condition. whilst this could be explained through the demands of the 10-second scan strategy, as the lifeguards were not able to adopt the strategy it is unlikely that this is the case. in addition, if the lifeguards were working harder in the 10-second scan condition we should have seen increases in perceived workload and fixation variables that were not detected in our study. therefore the ‘vigilance decrement’ may be caused by more nuanced factors that were not measured in this study, for example, increased brain related activity, or perhaps the 10-second scan condition was fatiguing, but the nasa-tlx measure was not sensitive to the temporal nature of the task. results indicated that instructing lifeguards to employ a natural scanning approach yields comparable hazard detection capabilities and similar pool coverage. interestingly, the two conditions resulted in similar levels of perceived investigating the 10:20 protection rule 202 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental demand and frustration. whilst we predicted an increased mental demand in the 10-second scan condition, it appears that the lifeguards were not able to accurately execute the strategy and therefore it is not surprising that there are no differences. it seems that lifeguards adopted a strategy they were comfortable with regardless of the instructions. the 10-second scan condition resulted in lifeguards using similar number of fixations and fixation durations. this may be because the lifeguards were unable to adopt the 10-second scan strategy for 30 minutes and thus may adjust to a more natural scan as time continues. in the first 10 seconds, 15 lifeguards fixated in all three areas of interest and by 15 minutes only 9 lifeguards fixated in all three areas of interest. whilst the intention behind the 10-second scanning strategy may be to promote more exhaustive patterns of visual exploration which may initially appear advantageous, our data does not conclusively show that those that fixated on more areas of interest were better at hazard detection. considering these observations, the implications derived from our findings tentatively suggest that the 10:20 protection rule lacks statistically discernible advantages for lifeguards. this reinforces the notion that the 10-second scan strategy does not seem to offer substantial benefits for hazard detection beyond more natural scanning strategies. while the findings imply the suitability of a natural scanning approach for lifeguards, it’s important to note that this study did not definitively establish an optimal strategy for hazard detection. subsequent research endeavours might consider manipulating the instructions provided to lifeguards to ascertain whether alternative scanning methodologies yield superior hazard detection outcomes compared to natural scanning. for example, researchers may wish to investi­ gate the impact of other scanning instructions such as ‘stop your eyes momentarily every 10 to 15 degrees to detect details’ or ‘stay focused and vigilant’ as detailed by the ymca (2016) or ‘lifeguards should be able to recognize and reach patient within 30 seconds’ as recommended by the american red cross (2024). relevantly, prior studies by isler et al. (2009) and mckenna et al. (2006) demonstrated that hazard detection among young drivers was augmented through commentary-based training, thus highlighting the potential of verbal instructions to enhance hazard detection capabil­ ities. it is noteworthy that the lifeguards in this study exhibited a broad spectrum of experience, ranging from one month to thirty-seven years. future investigations could delve into potential discrepancies in the adoption of various scanning strategies by experienced lifeguards, despite possessing well-established cognitive schemas, as elucidated by the principles of cognitive load theory (sweller, 1988). likewise, a notable aspect of this study lies in the uniform treatment of all identified hazards. the study design did not permit the differentiation of whether a specific strategy excels in the detection of overt and covert hazards. however, it's important to acknowledge a challenge inherent in studies aiming to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques deployed in real-world scenarios is whether they are captured in laboratory-based studies. while meticulous efforts were undertaken to ensure task congruence (reflecting real-world settings), contextual authenticity (typical pool-related hazards), and dynamic target events (unpredictable timing of hazards), and to maintain task durations consistent with the operational demands of a lifeguard (30 minutes), and authentic head movements and visual angles — the potential remains for participants to employ disparate scanning strategies and exert varying levels of motivation and effort while viewing videos within the laboratory, as compared to actual poolside situations. given the sensitivity of scanning behaviour to context, the ideal solution would entail each participant viewing the same scene in the genuine operational setting, while wearing eye-tracking equipment. however, such an approach is constrained by logistical challenges. alternatively, the recent advancements in virtual reality applications within the domain of lifeguarding (as demonstrated by lim et al., 2023) offer a promising avenue to address these challenges. to conclude, this study showed that lifeguards were unable to execute the 10-second scan strategy (i.e., scanning the full zone every 10 seconds) as advised by some lifeguarding agencies. whilst improvement in hazard detection performance in the natural scan condition would provide stronger support to remove the 10-second scan advice, the fact that lifeguards are not able to execute the 10-second scan strategy is problematic. given these findings, it is our proposition that lifeguard agencies carefully consider the efficacy of the 10:20 protection rule. this proposition is driven by the observed constraints associated with lifeguards' ability to adhere to the 10-second scan strategy. smith, obine, talbot et al. 203 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: jo talbot and nick grazier work for the funding body (royal life saving society uk). acknowledgments: we would like to acknowledge the lifeguards who took part in the study. royal life saving society uk funded this study. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: ethical approval was granted by the university of chichester (authorisation number 2223_11). all lifeguards provided informed consent before participating in the experiment. data availability: all analysis were done using statistical analysis software (the jasp v.0.18.2, the netherlands) and can be found on the open science framework. see smith et al. 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(2016). on the guard: the ymca lifeguard manual (5th ed.). ymca usa. about the authors dr jenny smith is a reader in performance psychology and member of the occupational performance research group (oprg) at the university of chichester. she is an hcpc registered sport and exercise psychologist and bps accredited chartered psychologist. jenny’s main research area is drowning prevention, and she has conducted studies into the identification of cognitive factors that underpin hazard detection by lifeguards, decision-making process employed by lifeguards, and observation strategies used by lifeguards. emmanuel obine obtained his msci in advanced applied psychology at the university of chichester and is currently completing a phd. emmanuel holds the position of lecturer in psychology (student experience) at the university of chichester. jo talbot is the commercial director of the royal life saving society uk (rlss uk). with over 25 years of experience in the leisure industry, jo’s knowledge spans operations, health and safety, qualification creation and delivery, and lifeguarding. jo is regarded as an expert in lifeguarding and is valued worldwide for her contribution and dedication to making swimming pools places where people can enjoy water safely. nick grazier is rlss uk’s senior head of qualifications and training for the royal life saving society uk (rlss uk). he specialises in developing regulated vocational awards and qualifications, with a particular emphasis on pool lifeguarding and first aid. investigating the 10:20 protection rule 206 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.05.02.08 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.4139 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2023.08.014 https://doi.org/10.25035/ijare.13.01.06 https://osf.io/pkhrx/ https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4 https://cdn.ymaws.com/usla.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/lifeguard_library/lifeguard_standards_final_re.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3760 https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.22.2.342 https://doi.org/10.3200/jmbr.39.5.381-394 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning https://www.psychopen.eu/ dr charlotte stevens was a research fellow for the oprg at the university of chichester when analysing data for this study. she is now a research fellow with the thermosenselab, skin sensing research group at the university of southampton. dr iker bautista iis a lecturer and researcher for the institute of applied sciences at the university of chichester. dr sarah needham-beck is a research fellow in the oprg at the university of chichester where she primarily works on delivery of research projects for the british army, investigating topics such as the development of physical employment standards and use of wearable technology to monitor training. dr benjamin sharpe is a senior lecturer and researcher specializing in cognitive psychology at the university of chichester in the institute of psychology, business, and human sciences. his expertise lies in human cognition, with a particular focus on sustained attention, and his research spans a range of critical areas, including virtual reality, mild cognitive impairment, mental health assessment and validation, neuromodulation, and skill acquisition across diverse populations such as individuals with dementia, esports professionals, lifeguards, and military personnel. smith, obine, talbot et al. 207 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 194–207 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ investigating the 10:20 protection rule (introduction) method video development and consensus participants procedure instruments data analysis results performance gaze behaviour three areas of interest fifteen areas of interest perceived workload discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors guidelines for the revision and use of revised psychological tests: a systematic review study research reports guidelines for the revision and use of revised psychological tests: a systematic review study johan h. cronje 1 , mark b. watson 1 , louise-anne stroud 1 [1] department of psychology, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 received: 2020-03-03 • accepted: 2021-05-05 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wrocław, wrocław, poland corresponding author: johan h. cronje, department of psychology, p.o. box 77000, nelson mandela university, gqeberha, south africa. e-mail: johan.cronje@mandela.ac.za abstract tests are updated and revised periodically in order to remain current, valid and reliable in a competitive psychological testing industry. despite the prevalence of test revisions, especially in recent years, a number of authors have commented on the lack of comprehensive guidelines for test revision. whilst some guideline documents from test associations have mentioned test revision, these guidelines tend to be focussed on test user responsibility, with limited guidance for practitioners embarking on a test revision project. test revision is expensive and time consuming, leaving little scope for experimentation or trial-and-error. test revision deserves a comprehensive document that addresses aspects such as what the different types of revision are, when to embark on a revision, what process to follow and how test users should use revised tests. the current study developed a comprehensive and practical set of 23 guidelines across ten phases of a revision project to assist revision teams, test users and publishers. these guidelines were peer-reviewed and refined. keywords test revision, guidelines, psychological tests, revised tests revised editions of psychological tests have appeared regularly in the past two decades. despite this, national and international test organisations have not provided clear guidelines for revision teams or test users that cover the lifespan of revision projects. a search for guidelines from organisations, such as the international test commission (itc), american psychological association (apa), american educational research association (aera), european feder­ ation of psychologists’ associations (efpa), and education testing service (ets), indicates that these organisations have focussed on guidelines related to fair and ethical test use (aera, 2014; ets, 2009, 2014; international test commission, 2013a). the itc has been the most prolific organisation in generating guidelines regarding technical aspects of psychological testing such as test translation and adaptation (2017), test security (2014), and computer-based and internet-delivered tests (2005). the most comprehensive guidelines for test revision are within the guidelines on practitioner use of test revisions, obsolete tests, and test disposal published by the international test commission (2015). these, in brief, address three areas, namely the relationship between test publisher and test users, the communications from test publishers to test users, and the responsibilities of test users in relation to revised tests. these guidelines do not address the process of test revision thereby implying that those involved in such projects should be well versed in the practice as there are similarities between test construction, adaptation, and revision. thus, practitioners involved in test revision can find some direction by reading different test guidelines. however, test revision presents unique challenges that practitioners engaged in such projects should be aware of. these include the this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2901&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0662-7384 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6659-0782 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3627-4121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ expectations of existing test users, the increased economic pressures placed on the revised test by its owner or publisher, and the difficulty of the revised test’s relationship to its possibly well-regarded predecessor. more experienced practitioners may navigate their way successfully through a test revision by using guideline statements from different documents. many aspects are not directly addressed, however, by existing guidelines, making it difficult for novice practitioners to navigate a test revision process. utilising different guideline documents is also problematic, as the intentions of some statements may contradict each other, and practitioners could decide to adhere to only some guidelines. a 2000 issue of the apa journal, psychological assessment, called for comprehensive guidelines on test revision (adams, 2000; butcher, 2000; silverstein & nelson, 2000; strauss, spreen, & hunter, 2000), a call that nearly two decades later has not been addressed by test organisations. test revision guidelines could be comprehensive and cover aspects such as what the different types of revision are, when to embark on a revision, what process to follow and how test users should use revised tests. the reality of developing such comprehensive guidelines is the challenge of balancing aspects that may be self-evi­ dent and important for test revision, with the need for robust guidelines focussed on actions that can be controlled by revision teams, and for which they can be held accountable. examples of important, yet difficult to control suggestions would be that: • revision teams should consist of a mix of internal and external stakeholders of the test (ets, 2009; foxcroft, 2004). • agreements about ownership, revision budget and royalties should be decided early in the revision process (butcher, 2000). • the economic circumstances of test users should be considered when determining the cost of a revised test (adams, 2000; camara, 2007; naglieri et al., 2004). • test publishers and users share a joint responsibility to engage with each other regarding revised tests (adams, 2000; international test commission, 2015). • test publishers should develop a reasonable strategy to assist test users to switch to a revised test edition (bush, 2010; international test commission, 2015). • test publishers should offer comprehensive training to promote the level of competence with which test users employ revised tests (butcher, 2000; efpa, 2013b; international test commission, 2013a). • test users should guard against resistance to change, keep current with changes to tests, and strive to adopt a revised test as soon as possible, with due consideration for the best interests of their clients (bush, 2010; butcher, 2000; international test commission, 2015; king, 2006). the above guidelines are worthy of notice, but dependent on the specific test being revised, the scope of the revision, the level of influence of the revision team on financial matters and ownership, and the specifics surrounding the decisions made by test users. guidelines differ from standards or policies. guidelines are most likely created by experts to provide practical guidance for practitioners, that they can opt to adhere to or not. rosen, proctor, and staudt (2003) define guidelines as “systematically compiled and organised knowledge statements to help practitioners select and use the most effective and appropriate interventions for attaining desired outcomes” (p. 209). standards are adopted by organisations, thereby cre­ ating a level of compliance from members. according to the apa (2017), standards tend to focus on broader issues such as acting with competence, dealing with ethical dilemmas, exercising respect for others, maintaining confidentiality, the right to privacy, seeking informed consent, and maintaining adequate records. policies are more direct and enforced by organisations. a certified information systems auditor study (cisa, 2011) offers insight into these terms from an institutional perspective. according to cisa (2011), policies are considered high-level documents that exercise control over staff, and they are usually enforced at managerial level. given the scarcity of standards or policies for test revision, the researchers embarked on the present study to provide such guidance on the process of test revision. method the systematic review was performed according to the standards set by moher, liberati, tetzlaff, altman, and the prisma group (2009). a systematic review from 2000–2017 was conducted of existing standards and guidelines publish­ guidelines for test revision 294 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ed by authors and organisations. documents were sourced using relevant keyword searches [psycho* and test* or measure* and revis* and guide* or standard* or polic*] in online databases (including ebscohost, findplus, sabinet, science direct, springer, taylor & francis, and wiley online library). the search terms reflect that only resources in english were included in the study, which is a limitation of the research. the database search results and number of resources that were included in the review are displayed in table 1. table 1 database search results database resources found included in systematic review ebscohost 242 4 findplus 325 1 sabinet 94 1 science direct 275 1 springer 577 0 taylor & francis 248 0 wiley online library 64 0 total 1825 7 to increase the number of sources the researchers expanded the search to include websites of national and international test organisations, and conference proceedings. an additional filter was applied to remove duplicate documents, limit author bias and to conduct a quality check for institutional endorsement or peer-review. in all, 21 original resources were included in the systematic review, to highlight themes and extract guidelines. the authors used the results of the systematic review, together with their experience in test construction and revision to build on the relevant information contained within the 21 sources to develop 23 guidelines across ten phases of test revision as conceptualised by the researchers. the guidelines were submitted for peer review to an international panel of seven practitioners with experience in test construction or revision. feedback from the panel was used to refine the guidelines. each guideline starts with a broad topic statement that is explained in the subsequent text. the guidelines are discussed according to the phases of test revision they relate to, but as they represent overarching themes there may be some overlap or repetition of key messages throughout the explanatory texts. guidelines phase one: pre-planning 1.1 test revisions should endeavour to improve the quality, utility, accuracy, reliability and fairness of a test. after obtaining permission from the test’s owner to conduct a test revision, a revision team should take cognisance of preceding versions of the test and the body of research evidence and test user feedback. different aspects that can be revised in a test include: refinements to the underpinning construct of the test, the relevance of stimuli, and normative information, an extension of the age range of the test population, broadening the intended test population in terms of ethnic, cultural or language groups, improved accuracy and reliability of the test, and alternative forms of administration, scoring and reporting (bush 2010; strauss, spreen, & hunter, 2000). phase two: initial investigation 2.1 test publishers are responsible for monitoring the context within which tests operate, including the use of and feedback about tests, and the industry requirements for psychological tests, as this information may inform the decisions of revision teams. test publishers have a responsibility to monitor changes in test conditions and the use of their test products (aera, 2014). changes to industry standards may require a publisher to revise a test to align it with the updated cronje, watson, & stroud 295 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ standards. if significant test information or content has been published within the public domain, it may challenge test validity, which will require test revision earlier than anticipated (naglieri et al., 2004). publishers should be proactive in seeking feedback from test users and researchers (adams, 2000). in the event that any changes to the use of a test are made, test users should be informed of the changes that affect them, including the intention to embark on a revision project (ets, 2014). 2.2 a test should be revised or withdrawn when new research data, significant changes in the test domain, or altered conditions of test use may affect the validity of test score interpretations. it can be challenging to choose the correct moment to revise a test. an important cue is when critical test components have become outdated (adams, 2000). a key indicator that this has occurred is changes to the theoretical framework that underpins the test. in addition to this, advances in measurement theory, psychological testing practice, and norm development are also important considerations (king, 2006). changes in the intended test population over time may also necessitate a change. publishers should remain cognisant of changes to important industry standards and benchmark their products against them. 2.3 during a test revision, feedback should be obtained from diverse internal and external sources, including test users and test takers. it is important to gather feedback from test users and researchers early in the project regarding changes that are required in the test (butcher, 2000). requesting input serves multiple functions. firstly, it recognises and values the experience of test users and makes them feel included in the revision. secondly, it allows for identification of latent experts on the test, who may be drawn on during later phases of the revision project (international test commission, 2013b). thirdly, it creates a sense of collaboration between the revision committee and test users. finally, it creates a database of interested users and researchers who may be approached later to review the revised test and to provide feedback on the likely acceptance of the product by the broader market (adams, 2000; ets, 2014). phase three: project planning 3.1 revision teams should provide a plan to address fairness in the design, development, administration, and use of a revised test. the ultimate goal of a psychological test is to measure a construct or set of constructs accurately and fairly, without any interference from sources that are not integrally linked to the construct(s). the intended changes of a test revision should include therefore plans to improve fairness and accuracy (ets, 2009). for a current test revision, the measures taken to improve fairness, validity and reliability, including the analyses used and results thereof should be documented (aera, 2014). 3.2 the rationale, goals, scope, and process of a test revision should be planned, followed and documented. the goals and scope of the revision project should be delineated at the outset to act as a compass. each step in the process should be documented to demonstrate how technical quality has been achieved (international test commission, 2013b). the rationale for major decisions about the current test revision should be explained in detail, as these will be important for existing users of previous versions of the test, as well as for future revisions of the test (ets, 2014). phase four: academic enquiry 4.1 the conceptualisation and operationalisation of components of revised tests should be reviewed and appropriately revised to minimise construct-irrelevant sources of score variance. the variance in test scores should be linked directly to variance in the assessed construct, and not because of construct-irrelevant sources (camara, 2007). as such, performance should provide valid evidence of the test construct for test takers from all populations for whom the test was designed (international test commission, 2013a; oliveri, lawless, & young, 2015). revision teams should conduct research to determine the extent of construct-irrelevant interference in test scores, as such interference may affect the recommenda­ tions that are based on test scores (ets, 2009, 2014). culture and language are important considerations in this regard, as they can inform the choice of specific words or phrases, as well as item formats and modes of testing (foxcroft, 2004). 4.2 revision teams should balance the needs of test users and the domain measured, when deciding on test items and the nature of tasks required from test takers of a revised test. as part of the academic enquiry of a test revision, revision teams should familiarise themselves with the needs of practitioners who use the test. it is important to understand the contexts in which a test is used, as well as for what purpose. the nature of tasks included in a revised test should be informed by the contexts in which the test is utilised, as well as by the test takers (liu & dorans, 2013). guidelines for test revision 296 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 4.3 utilising careful analysis, optimally functioning components of a test should be considered for inclusion in a revised test to act as anchor items, or to foster a sense of brand familiarity between different test editions. the product of a major revision that reflects a shift in underpinning constructs, test questions, target populations, as well as scoring or norming methods, can create a sense of disconnect between the revised and previous test versions. steps to address this potential lack of connection are to include items from previous versions in a revised test to create an anchor block, which can assist in establishing the link in test difficulty between different versions (geisinger, 2013), or to retain the item formats and scoring systems of the previous version, to minimise administrator error (adams, 2000). phase five: item development 5.1 the development of test items should consider multicultural contexts, and the possibility that revised tests may be used eventually in settings for which they were not initially intended. a popular test may be used eventually in contexts and countries for which it was not originally designed. revision teams need to be aware of this possibility and develop items that either are applicable for a global audience or easily adapted for other cultures (foxcroft, 2004, international test commission, 2013a). another trend in psychological testing is the conversion of standard tests to computer-based or online tests. these modes of testing require special considerations and adaptations. the equivalence of traditional and technological versions of a revised test would be improved if revision teams were mindful of such future developments, and if they created test items from the outset that could be extended to other modes of testing (strauss, spreen, & hunter 2000). 5.2 when authoring item content and test instructions, revision teams should anticipate translation of a revised test into other languages in the future. a popular practice in the test industry is to translate tests into other languages to extend the test user market and for cross-cultural research. multiple-language tests are not only desirable, but also often necessary to reduce bias and promote accurate and fair testing in international settings (geisinger, 2013). translation from the original source language to a new target language without accounting for cultural differences can be a significant source of construct-irrelevant interference. test translations should be performed by qualified experts to minimise language bias as a nuisance variable. revision teams should provide evidence of the similarity in meaning and difficulty levels of test questions for all intended populations for a revised test (international test commission, 2017; oliveri, lawless, & young, 2015). phase six: test piloting 6.1 test items and equipment must be field-tested and piloted sufficiently using samples that represent the intended population for the revised test. in test revision, there is a chance that the final item mix in a test will consist of newly developed items, intact items from the previous version, and items from the previous version that have been updated or refined. revision teams should not rely on assumptions as a basis for final item selection and placement in the revised test, but all decisions should be informed by field-testing and pilot studies (butcher, 2000). the purpose of field-testing is to obtain feedback from test takers and users, which can be utilised to refine items. it also assists in quality control by detecting errors in the administration, content, and scoring of items (camara, 2007). piloting is used mainly to collect quantitative data on a pool of potential test items, to allow for item analysis and to assist in the selection of items for the final revised test (international test commission, 2017). it is advisable that samples for field-testing and piloting closely resemble the intended test population (aera, 2014). 6.2 revision teams should select a balanced mix of items for a revised test to ensure that all intended underpinning constructs are adequately assessed at various ability levels. selecting appropriate items for inclusion in a revised test is crucial. consideration should be given to user needs, test length, and coverage of underlying constructs at all intended levels of difficulty. the number of test items will depend on the focus of the test, as screening tests may require fewer items per construct than diagnostic tests (liu & dorans, 2013). for revised tests that provide broader assessment of a construct, evidence should be provided to prove even coverage of the test construct and its ability to assess the knowledge, skills, and abilities of test takers (oliveri, lawless, & young, 2015). cronje, watson, & stroud 297 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ phase seven: test standardisation 7.1 revision teams should give due consideration to the representativeness and size of standardisation samples in order to develop normative information for a revised test that is applicable to intended test takers. revision teams should design a strategy to develop norms that maximise generalisability and usability, whilst keeping costs within acceptable parame­ ters (butcher, 2000). the norm sample should consist of participants that are relevant for the intended test populations. in the event that the norm sample cannot consist of sufficient representation from all groups, research should be conducted to demonstrate the equivalence in performance of different groups on a revised test (international test commission, 2013a, 2017). revision teams should consider sample size from test classification agencies. all information about size, composition, and source of norm groups, including their representativeness, should be provided in test manuals (efpa, 2013a). 7.2 revised tests should be accompanied at launch with adequate norms and standardisation information. revised tests should be published with the relevant documentation and information that would allow test users to determine the suitability of a test for their clients. the standard information required includes evidence to support the norms, and the validity and reliability of the revised test for the intended populations (international test commission, 2017). some tests are used to assist in the diagnosis of certain disorders or illnesses, and to monitor the effectiveness of treatment for clients. with the fragmentation of traditional diagnoses into ever-widening and deepening layers, producing norms or research relevant to each category may be unfeasible. test manuals should therefore provide at least some information about the scores of test takers from certain clinical groups, compared with matched samples from non-clinical samples (geisinger, 2013). phase eight: conduct supporting research 8.1 revision teams should prioritise research into all target populations of a revised test, including clinical and non-clinical samples. it may take years after publication for research to be conducted with a revised test on clinical populations. revision teams should identify key populations and conduct research for such populations, for inclusion in the test manuals and training materials. research should draw on samples from various clinical and non-clinical populations, and effort should be made to produce research that will maximise the usability and generalisability of findings (oliveri, lawless, & young, 2015). users of revised tests should request research information on clinical populations from test publishers, and consider contributing to such projects (bush, 2010). 8.2 multiple methods should be employed to investigate the relationship between previous and revised editions of a test. it is important for test users to understand how a revised test compares to its predecessors. failure to do so would lead to misleading results, and result in unintended and inappropriate use of a revised test (strauss, spreen, & hunter, 2000). this information includes a comparison of the validity and reliability of the previous and revised editions, differences in the intended populations, conditions for test use, administration and scoring guidelines, and how norm tables should be used and results interpreted. 8.3 research should be conducted into the validity and reliability of a revised test. revision teams have a responsibility to provide comprehensive evidence of the test validity and reliability of a revised test (butcher, 2000). this information should include technical documentation that highlights different types of validity and reliability (camara, 2007). re­ search is ever expanding in these fields, but revision teams should focus on tried-and-tested methods that communicate the strengths and weaknesses of a revised test in a clear and unbiased fashion (mattern, kobrin, & camara, 2012). phase nine: test product assembly and launch 9.1 the extent of a revision should be communicated in the product description of a test. butcher (2000) identifies ‘light’, ‘medium’ and ’extensive’ as three types of test revision. a ‘light’ revision entails changes made mostly to the test manual, such as minor updates to item wording or editorial changes. a ‘medium’ revision is more intensive and includes changes to or replacing non-performing items, and updating the norms of a test. an ‘extensive’ revision involves a complete reanalysis and reconstruction of the test. this could include re-examining the theoretical foundation of the test and major changes to items or subscales, together with a new set of test instructions. an extensive revision would also include new norm data, as well as validity and reliability studies (butcher, 2000). the term ‘revised’ should only be guidelines for test revision 298 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attached to tests that have been updated in significant ways, such as in ‘medium’ and ‘extensive’ revisions. if the test has not been changed significantly after a ‘light’ revision, the test should rather be marketed as containing minor changes or updates (aera, 2014). 9.2 when tests are revised, users should be informed of the changes to the specifications, underlying constructs, and changes to the scoring method. revision teams should present any changes to a revised test in comprehensive technical documentation including how the revised test differs from its predecessor (international test commission, 2017). the theoretical foundations for updates to constructs should be supplied (efpa, 2013a). any differences in target populations, methods of norm development, and the correspondence between norms from previous and revised test editions and their potential impact should be unpacked (international test commission, 2015). emphasis should be placed on evidence regarding how the revised test builds or improves on its predecessor (naglieri et al., 2004). 9.3 test users should be clearly informed of the comparability and relationship between the previous and revised editions of a test. there are many reasons why the ties between the previous and revised editions of a measure should be clearly established. the first is that a revision team may face change resistance from established test users (butcher, 2000). the second reason is that test users conduct an assessment based on the construct in question and should be made aware of the comparability of the constructs between previous and revised test versions (efpa, 2013b). a third motivation is that, despite following explicit blueprints in test revision, changes may occur over time, as it is more difficult to develop, clone or replicate some items for a revised test (international test commission, 2013b). this could affect the overall difficulty of the revised test, which will affect how its test scores compare to a previous version (liu & dorans, 2013). 9.4 documentation for revised tests should be amended and dated to keep information for test users current. any substantial changes to a test should be reflected in its updated documentation, and with supplementary information to existing test users. this includes general information as well as cautions regarding test use (aera, 2014). the focus should be on the adequacy of information for test users, including administration guidelines, technical information, and norm supplements (efpa, 2013a). phase ten: post-launch activities 10.1 revision teams should develop a comprehensive post-launch research strategy and encourage the dissemination of independent research studies. as a revised test is adopted by test users, it is used in many contexts with test takers from different backgrounds. each test session is unique and provides an opportunity for research and learning. revision teams should spearhead ongoing research into a revised test. they should develop a list for test users and researchers that highlights the evidence required to validate a revised test for use on different populations (mattern, kobrin, & camara, 2012). in addition, revision teams should encourage independent research aimed at replicating the validity and reliability claimed in test materials (international test commission, 2013b). test users should be open to participating in research studies (international test commission, 2013a). discussion these 23 guidelines provide guidance for stakeholders of test revision, including revision teams, test publishers, and test users. the guidelines highlight 8 pertinent themes on test revision: 1. the various reasons to revise a test, including factors that are internal to the test, and aspects that constitute the external environment that a test operates in. 2. the participation of different role players throughout a test revision. 3. communication between publishers, revision teams, test users, and researchers. 4. the continuing role of planning to determine the scope and process during a test revision, and post-launch activities. 5. the relationship between previous and revised test editions. 6. considering fairness towards different cultural and language groups when selecting test items. 7. validity and reliability evidence that highlight the fairness of the test. 8. maximising the generalisability of the test norms and interpretation of test results. cronje, watson, & stroud 299 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it is worth noting that the guidelines in the last two phases refer to the launch and continued responsibility of developers beyond the launch of the test. these extend beyond the extant standards and guidelines on test revision from notable organisations such as the aera, apa, ets, and international test commission, who provide few guidelines on these areas (aera, 2014; ets, 2009, 2014; international test commission, 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2017). whilst the guidelines in the last two phases referred to existing guidelines from these organisations, these organisations did not create a clear link in their guidelines to test revision. this means that practitioners engaged in test revision may not be aware of these guidelines. further, the relative silence of these organisations on the responsibilities of revision teams and publishers after a test is launched may add to a misconception amongst test users and less experienced revision teams that a revision journey ends with the revised test’s launch. the present guidelines highlight however that a revision can be viewed as a precursor to the work that follows the launch. the success of a revised test depends on the effort that goes into the marketing, training and follow-up that occurs after it enters the test market (geisinger, 2013). at the point of launch, a revised test enters the test user market. some questions and issues will initially surface in practical daily test sessions between test users and test takers (silverstein & nelson, 2000). this will necessitate communication with test publishers and the refinement of some revised test components by revision teams. a final comment would be that a test revision project continues post-launch and only ends when the following revised edition is launched. this implies a continuous cycle of responsibility for a test from all its stakeholders that requires cooperation and collaboration in order for the test to succeed. conclusion the present study placed a spotlight on test revision to highlight its uniqueness from test development and adaptation, and the challenges faced by revision teams. by developing guidelines specific to test revisions and the use of revised psychological tests the study aimed to address calls over the last 20 years for such guidelines. the guidelines cover the lifespan of a test’s revision and will therefore be useful to revision teams, practitioners who participate in specific aspects of a test revision project, and the users of revised psychological tests. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adams, k. m. 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(2000). implications of test revisions for research. psychological assessment, 12(3), 237–244. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.12.3.237 about the authors johan h. cronje is a senior lecturer in research methodology, psychological testing, and statistics at the nelson mandela university. his interests are in the construction and revision of psychological tests, and the use of psychological tests in child development research. he is a member of the association for research in infant and child development (aricd) in the united kingdom. mark b. watson is an emeritus and former distinguished professor at the nelson mandela university, an honorary professor at the university of queensland, and a former research fellow at the institute of employment research at the university of warwick. he is on the editorial board of the british journal of guidance and counselling and is co-editor of the international journal for educational and vocational guidance. louise-anne stroud is a registered clinical psychologist and full professor at the nelson mandela university. she is also the lead researcher for the association for research in infant and child development (aricd) based in the united kingdom. her specific research interests include the study of the psychology of people and their lives, the development of children, neuropsychology and ecopsychology. cronje, watson, & stroud 301 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 293–301 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2901 http://www.ets.org http://www.efpa.eu/download/650d0d4ecd407a51139ca44ee704fda4 http://www.efpa.eu/download/1b272a998e297c248413fbb761134697 https://doi.org/10.4102/sajip.v30i4.171 http://www.intestcom.org/files/guideline_test_use.pdf https://www.intestcom.org/files/guideline_quality_control.pdf https://www.intestcom.org/files/guideline_test_disposal.pdf https://www.intestcom.org/files/guideline_test_adaptation_2ed.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/emip.12001 https://doi.org/10.1080/15366367.2012.677355 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.59.3.150 https://doi.org/10.1177/1049731502250496 https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.12.3.298 https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.12.3.237 https://www.psychopen.eu/ guidelines for test revision (introduction) method guidelines phase one: pre-planning phase two: initial investigation phase three: project planning phase four: academic enquiry phase five: item development phase six: test piloting phase seven: test standardisation phase eight: conduct supporting research phase nine: test product assembly and launch phase ten: post-launch activities discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos research reports autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos barbara caci* a, maurizio cardaci a, silvana miceli a [a] department of psychology, educational science, and human movement, university of palermo, palermo, italy. abstract the present study analyzed the relationships between directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memory, personality traits, as defined by the five factor model, and the facebook mementos. we defined facebook mementos as objective measures of the textual (i.e., facebook status updating) and visual (i.e., photos uploading) information people record on their facebook profiles. questionnaires gathered data from a sample of 193 italian facebook users (148 female; 45 male; age m = 22.8, sd = 6.8). results at path analysis using amos showed direct significant positive associations between personality traits related to extraversion, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and facebook mementos. extraversion and openness were positive precursors of the directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memory, whereas neuroticism predicted directive and self-functions, and conscientiousness was a positive precursor of the directive function of autobiographical memory. as well, indirect significant positive paths among extraversion, neuroticism, openness and the frequency of photos uploaded on facebook for collecting life events have emerged via the mediation of the self-continuity function of autobiographical memory. in sum, the present study highlights how individual differences in motivations for using autobiographical memory for directive-behavior, self-continuity or social-bonding purposes deeply related with the personal experience of using social media as a repository tool for textual or visual information. keywords: autobiographical memory, personality, big five, facebook, social network sites europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 received: 2018-07-18. accepted: 2019-05-31. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: austin lee nichols, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa *corresponding author at: department of psychology, educational science, and human movement, university of palermo, palermo, italy, viale delle scienze, building 15, room 412, 90128, palermo. tel: +39 091 23897739. e-mail: barbara.caci@unipa.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. autobiographical memories (ams) are long-term memories, defined by psychologists as recollections of the first-person experience of past episodes that refer to spatially and temporally specific life events rather than to semantic knowledge about the world (bayley, hopkins, & squire, 2006; manns, hopkins, & squire, 2003; remondes & schuman, 2004; squire, knowlton, & musen, 1993). ams are memories in which individual events that occurred throughout the life guides self-building and personal identity (seyfi & soydaş, 2017), and represents a link between what people have been in the past, what are in the present, and what they want to be in the future (e.g., schacter, 1996). strictly related to the life story of a person, ams also connected with dispositional personality traits (mcadams, 2001; mcadams & pals, 2006). specifically, the different directive, self and social functions of ams (bluck, 2003; cohen, 1998; pillemer, 1992) modulate individual differences (er & yaşın, 2016). nowadays, people use social networking sites (sns) for collecting and sharing memories. for instance, on facebook individuals edit and manage different kind of textual or visual memories about themselves and their life events (back et al., 2010; boyd, 2009; nosko, wood, & molema, 2010). in this paper, we specifically europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ focus on the relationships between ams, personality traits and facebook mementos considering that to date (on our knowledge), little studies have analyzed the relationships between these variables. hence, this paper aims to fill to this gap, also examining the predictive role of personality traits on facebook mementos through the mediation of directive, self and social functions of ams (e.g., bluck, 2003). the study of such relationships might provide, first, an empirical evaluation of the universality of the traditional functional approach to ams when we applied it to personal life events posted online (e.g., alea & bluck, 2007; baddeley, 1988; baddeley & singer, 2008; fivush, 1998; kulkofsky, wang, & hou, 2010; nelson, 1993; rasmussen & berntsen, 2009). second, we might explore whether and how social media represent a virtual extension of our memories (e.g., lee, im, & taylor, 2008; lenhart & fox, 2006; wang, lee, & hou, 2017). a literature overview of autobiographical memories scholars analyzed ams on a wide range of cognitive (e.g., conway, 2005), clinical (e.g., berntsen & rubin, 2007), developmental (e.g., kulkofsky, 2011), social (e.g., beaman, pushkar, etezadi, bye, & conway, 2007; goddard, dritschel, & burton, 1996), and personality psychological studies (e.g., habermas, 2007; mclean, 2005). people use their ams as motivations for thinking and talking about their past and to develop a coherent sense of their selves, emotions, future plans, and social relationships with other people (bluck & alea, 2008; conway, 2005; conway & pleydell-pearce, 2000; habermas & de silveira, 2008; mclean & pasupathi, 2006; olivares, 2010; pasupathi, 2006). ams serves three broad functions: directive, self and social (e.g., bluck, 2003; cohen, 1998; pillemer, 1992). the directive-behavior function (i.e., dbf) refers to the use of ams in guiding present and future thinking and behavior (e.g., baddeley, 1988; pillemer, 2003). the self-continuity function (i.e., scf) regards the method of am for providing material for the self-concept, and telling people who they are (e.g., baddeley, 1988; conway, 1996; fivush, 1998; habermas & bluck, 2000). the social-bonding function (i.e., sbf) relates to the sharing of one's personal memories with others to facilitate social bonding, to stimulate empathy or intimacy, and to communicate or inform (e.g., alea & bluck, 2003, 2007; kulkofsky et al., 2010; nelson, 1993; pillemer, 1992). the three am functions are associated with both measures of detailed recollections (e.g., rasmussen & berntsen, 2009) and with dimensions that address the general usage of ams (e.g., bluck & alea, 2009). several studies examined individual differences in am functions, showing that individuals who use memories of their relationships to serve social purposes tend to report closer and more satisfying levels of marital satisfaction (alea & bluck, 2007; alea & vick, 2010); as well, people use the directive function of ams for guiding their current behavior (kuwabara & pillemer, 2010; kuwabara, rouleau, & pillemer, 2011). autobiographical memories and personality relating ams to the concept of self (e.g., brewer, 1986, 1996; nelson, 1993; tulving, 2002), previous work assumed a reciprocal association between autobiographical information and personality (e.g., conway & pleydellpearce, 2000; habermas & bluck, 2000; mcadams, 2001; rubin & siegler, 2004). authors proposed that the life story of a person constitutes the most global and abstract level of ams, encompassing both past and future event representations from the person's entire life (e.g., bluck & habermas, 2000; conway, 2005). some studies have applied the five-factor model (ffm) of personality (e.g., john & srivastava, 1999; mccrae & costa, 1999) to study the relationships between personality dimensions and directive, self and social functions of ams. the ffm is a well-known approach describing personality variation along five dimensions, called the big five, that are respectively named: extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness. extraversion refers to personality traits such as energy, assertiveness, and sociability. openness regards the caci, cardaci, & miceli 615 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tendency to be informed, creative, insightful, curious and to have a variety of experience. conscientiousness is related to the tendency to be self-disciplined, act dutifully, and aim for achievement. neuroticism means a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, or vulnerability. agreeableness means the tendency to be compassionate, trusting and cooperative rather than suspicious and antagonistic towards others (mccrae & costa, 1999). studying the relationships between ams and personality, rubin and siegler (2004) showed that people who are rated high on openness subjectively experience their ams with a stronger sense of sensory reliving, vividness, and emotion. as well, rasmussen and berntsen (2009) evidenced that openness correlated positively with the ams directive and self-functions, while neuroticism correlated positively only with the self-function. neither extraversion, agreeableness nor conscientiousness were associated significantly with any of the three functions. autobiographical memories and facebook mementos our memory is in a constant mutual interaction process with technologies and social media (huyssen, 2003). a wide range of research showed not only that individuals who interact with technologies enhance their cognitive skills as, for instance, working-memory (e.g., caci, d’amico, & chiazzese, 2013), but that they also consider social media as virtual storage of transactive memory for their autobiographical self (lee et al., 2008; lenhart & fox, 2006; wang et al., 2017). even more often, users' life events are uploaded, for instance, on facebook and presented, using a short phrase, a picture, a web link to a song or movies, the last book read, the parties attended, the countries visited. indeed, people collect and share their thoughts, feelings, and activities with friends on their facebook status (ryan & xenos, 2011). moreover, people use facebook albums as a repository for photos, recording moments from their lives, or at least a view of life that they wish to portray (şeyfi & soydaş, 2017). more specifically, on facebook textual (i.e., phrases people post on their status) and visual information (i.e., photos and albums) become digital media by which individuals preserve memories about significant people, places or life events in the past (back et al., 2010; kalnikaite & whittaker, 2011; marshall, 2008; nosko et al., 2010; petrelli, whittaker, & brockmeier, 2008). the act of posting as well as of uploading media facilitate people to retain and recall their memories (stevens, abowd, truong, & vollmer, 2003). however, when people use social media, they do much more. as stated by konrad, isaacs, and whittaker (2016), the digital records of people lives, or the so-called technology-mediated memories, facilitate people also to record and reflect upon their life events. while people write about their own experiences in a public and shared sphere, they often receive subsequent social feedback and reflect on the experiences and their relevance. consequently, the process of posting online life events that are reflected upon leads people to integrate them into their autobiographical knowledge base and effectively store them for long-term retention. in line with the autobiographical memory literature that highlights the contribution of rehearsal and social sharing to remembering personal experiences (conway & pleydell-pearce, 2000; nelson & fivush, 2004; pillemer, 1998; wang, 2013), recent studies support the idea that facebook not only creates a social memory by gathering friendships together but gives users the possibility to collect, remember and share their ams (richardson & hessey, 2009; wang et al., 2017). a recent study by seyfi and soydaş (2017) has analyzed the relationship between ams and social media usage. more specifically, authors performed ethnographic research on a sample of people, aged between 18 and 50 years, and administered them a semi-structured interview aimed at determining which of the functions of the ams is influenced by childhood photographs on social media. results showed that facebook supports all am functions offering people a crucial sharing area for present or past events and future purposes. autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 616 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ facebook mementos and personality a considerable amount of research has examined the association between textual or visual information people collect on facebook and personality traits as classified by the ffm (e.g., amichai-hamburger & vinitzky, 2010; gosling, augustine, vazire, holtzman, & gaddis, 2011; ljepava, orr, locke, & ross, 2013; moore & mcelroy, 2012; ross et al., 2009; ryan & xenos, 2011; seidman, 2013). for instance, in the study by lee, ahn, and kim (2014) extraverted facebook users were to actively engage in uploading photos and status or wrote comments more frequently than introverted ones. differently, those scoring high on neuroticism and conscientiousness use facebook passively. as well, marshall, lefringhausen, and ferenczi (2015) have evidenced that extraverts more frequently updated their facebook status sharing their social activities and everyday life; whereas, people high in openness were more likely to upgrade about intellectual topics, and those who were high in conscientiousness were more likely to update information about their children. recently, dupuis, khadeer, and huang (2017) have shown that individuals scoring high on extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism are more likely to post positive status updates on facebook (e.g., job promotion, feeling happy, the birth of a child). as well, individuals scoring low on conscientiousness are more likely to post negative status updates (e.g., feeling lonely, sad, depressed, stressed or angry; disdain for a specific politician and political party). similarly, caci, cardaci, and miceli (2019) evidenced that extraversion and openness are positive precursors of the amount of information people disclose on facebook, whereas conscientiousness is a negative one. the present paper starting from the literature mentioned above (e.g., dupuis et al., 2017; rasmussen & berntsen, 2009; seyfi & soydaş, 2017), the present study has a twofold goal. the first goal is to empirically analyze the relationships between am functions, personality traits, and facebook mementos. we took into account both the number/ topics of facebook status updating (fsu) and the number/contents of photos uploaded on the facebook by users (i.e., photos uploading—pu) as objective measures for rating the ways people use the facebook for recording their ams (i.e., facebook mementos). even if previous studies have agreed about the role of extraversion and openness in promoting the collection and sharing of textual or visual information on the facebook, they showed inconsistent results for neuroticism and conscientiousness (dupuis et al., 2017; lee et al., 2014). hence, we would verify if personality traits are associated with facebook mementos (hypothesis 1). more specifically, we tested the predictive role of each personality factors, as defined by the ffm (mccrae & costa, 1999), both on fsu and pu. even if the association between personality traits and directive, self and social functions of ams is not clear (e.g., rubin & siegler, 2004; rasmussen & berntsen, 2009), we expect to corroborate previous results about the relationships between each of personality traits and the directive, self and social functions of ams (hypothesis 2). since people use facebook for collecting personal reminiscences (e.g., huyssen, 2003; kalnikaite & whittaker, 2011; petrelli et al., 2008; seyfi & soydaş, 2017; wang et al., 2017), a significant association between measures of all the directive, self and social function of ams and the number and content of information about life events posted by participants on their facebook profile was finally expected (hypothesis 3). the second goal of the present study is to test a model in which personality factors are related to facebook mementos both directly and indirectly, through the mediation of the directive, self and social functions of ams. the introduction of mediator variables (i.e., dbf, scf, and sbf) in the model allows us to deeply understand the relationships between personality traits and textual or visual information people collect on their facebook caci, cardaci, & miceli 617 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ profiles (i.e., fsu and pu). direct paths between personality traits and fsu or pu show whether and how personality dimensions are related to behavioral actions people make during the process of collecting their ams on facebook. as well, indirect paths allow us to study the modulation of the relationship between personality and facebook mementos via the mediation of the functional use of ams for directive-behavior, social-bonding or self-continuity purposes. considering that facebook users collect personal mementos about their lives and share their self for present and future purposes (seyfi & soydaş, 2017), the self-continuity function of ams was expected to mediate this relation more than the directive or social ones (hypothesis 4). method participants participants were 193 italian facebook users (148 female; 45 male) that voluntarily took part in the study after recruitment via the facebook page of the researchers' local university. they were mostly undergraduates (82%) aged between 18 and 55 years old (mage = 22.8, sd = 6.8). all of them were facebook users, respecting our inclusion criterion for the sample composition. in prevalence, participants were active users of facebook from more than 5 years (75%); they accessed daily to this social application from three to six times per day (56%) and spent less than 1 hour actively using it (69%). procedure due to the goals of the research and considering that we did not gather information related to health or medical issue, data collection procedures did not need to be approved by the human research ethics committee of the research institution. however, the study followed the international ethical guidelines of the declaration of helsinki. thus, no personal information was collected, and all data were handled according to the italian law on privacy and the “ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct”. all participants received no monetary compensation or other kinds of reward for taking part in the study. potential participants had access to a flyer with a brief explanation of the study and a url link. the flyer was made available on the researchers' university's facebook page to recruit participants. the link allowed access to the participant information sheet and a confidential online survey via the university's website. all participants provide online consent forms before taking part in the study. then, they click a “proceed” button, thus starting the online survey, consisting of demographic questions, three questions about their facebook usage (i.e., how many years ago did you create your facebook profile? how many times do you check your facebook profile per day? how much time do you spend on your facebook profile per day?), and the following measures. measures thinking about life experiences scale-revised this 15-item questionnaire by bluck and alea (2011) assesses the directive (directive-behavior), self (selfcontinuity), and social (social-bonding) functions of ams as individuals' motivations for thinking and talking about the past. it comprises three sub-scales, each consisting of five items related to one of the three functions. participants rate items on a 5-point scales (1 = rarely, five = very frequently). to ensure fidelity with the original english version of the instrument, we followed the standard guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaption of self-report measures (beaton, bombardier, guillemin, & ferraz, 2000). specifically, we developed an italian autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 618 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ version by process of independent back-translation and discussion with italian-english bilinguals. for each subscale, the total score was computed by averaging the scores obtained by the participants for each of the items of the scale. cronbach's alpha values in the present study were: 0.74 for directive-behavior function scale (dbf); 0.76 for self-continuity function scale (scf), and 0.82 for social-bonding function (sbf) scale, and they are quite similar to those reported by bluck and alea (2011), in their validation study. personality inventory this 20-item scale questionnaire by caci, tabacchi, scrima, and cardaci (2014) measures personality in five broad dimensions under the ffm (e.g., costa & mccrae, 1992). it has five subscales, each consisting of four items related to one of the personality factors: extraversion defined as energy, sociability, and talkativeness; conscientiousness considered as efficiency and diligence at work; neuroticism related to emotional instability; openness concerned with openness to culture and experience, and agreeableness referred to cooperation with others and trusting. participants rate items on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). for each scale, the total score was computed by averaging the scores obtained by the participant for each of the items of the scale. cronbach's alpha values of pi in the present study were: .72 for extraversion; .70 for conscientiousness; .73 for neuroticism; .75 for agreeableness; and, .70 for openness respectively, in line with those reported by caci et al. (2014). facebook mementos scale to have an objective measure of the facebook mementos, we asked participants to fill the following subscales. facebook status updating — we requested participants to rate both how frequently they update their facebook status on average per day (1 = never; 10 = 10 times) and each of the following 18-items related to positive or negative topics of facebook status update, we derived by dupuis et al. (2017), using a 5-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). participants answered the question: "think back to your status updates on facebook in the last year. what and whom did it refer, in prevalence?" to answer, participants referred only to their memory. nine items were related to positive topics for status updating: – for example, job promotion or a new job; support and advocacy for a specific politician and/or political party; feeling happy; acceptance into a college/university; a major accomplishment in an academic, sport, or work setting; vacation. the other nine items were associated with negative topics for facebook status updating – for example, asking for support and/or prayers; feeling lonely, sad, and/or depressed; feeling angry, upset, and/or mad; feeling stressed and/or dealing with a stressful situation; disdain for a specific politician and/or political party; major news events that have an adverse outcome. photos uploading — participants first rated how frequently they upload their photos on the facebook in a week (1 = never, 10 = 10 times) and then answered the question: "think back to the photo(s) you uploaded to facebook in the last year. what and/or whom did it depict?" rating on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often) each of the following seven topics derived by houghton, joinson, caldwell, and marder (2013): myself, friend, life events, family, scene, objects, and animals. also, in this case, participants referred only to their memory to answer. caci, cardaci, & miceli 619 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis to reach our goals, we first calculated descriptive statistics and pearson's linear correlations using ibm spss 20.0 software package (ibm corp. released 2011. ibm spss statistics for macintosh, version 20.0. armonk, ny: ibm corp). then, to examine whether personality traits were associated with facebook mementos via the am directive, self-continuity, and social-bonding functions, we performed a path analysis, using analysis of moment structures (amos) software package (arbuckle, 2014). in line with results of previous studies (e.g., rasmussen & berntsen, 2009; dupuis et al., 2017), we tested a path model consisting of five predictors: extraversion (e), neuroticism (n), conscientiousness (c), agreeableness (a) and openness (o); two outcomes: facebook status updating (fsu) and photos uploaded on facebook (pu), and three mediators: directive-behavior function (dbf); self-continuity function (scf); social-bonding function (sbf). we introduced ams functions as mediators in the path model to deeply understand the interrelations between personality factors and textual or visual information people store on their facebook profiles. direct paths will evidence only the association between personality traits (i.e., the predictors) and facebook mementos (i.e., the outcomes). vice versa, the introduction of mediators in the model path will allow us to evaluate the specific role of the three different functions of ams (i.e., dbf, sbf e scf) in modulating the direct paths (see figure 1). results descriptive statistics and relationships among am functions, personality traits, and facebook mementos table 1 reports the means and standard deviations for the variables of the study. participants stated they use their ams more for directive or social-bonding rather than for self-continuity. they describe themselves as extraverts, conscientious, agreeable, and open-minded on average, but with low levels of neuroticism. they update their facebook status 3.37 times a day, posting mostly fsu related to their feeling of happiness or life events such as acceptance into college/university, a major accomplishment, and vacations. descriptive data show that participants upload on average 4.58 photos a week, regarding mostly themselves, their friends or their life events. table 2 shows pearson’s zero order’s correlations between personality traits, directive-behavior, self-continuity, and social-bonding functions of autobiographical memories. we found that dbf and scf are both positively associated with neuroticism, r = .24, p < .01, 95% ci [.10, .36], and openness, r = .31, p < .01, 95% ci [.17, .43], whereas, sbf positively correlated with extraversion, r = .27, p < .01, 95% ci [.13, .39], and openness, r = .38, p < .01, 95% ci [.25, .49]. autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 620 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means and standard deviations of the variables of the study (n = 193) variables m sd min max am directive-behavior functiona 3.40 0.71 1 5 am self-continuity functiona 2.63 0.78 1 5 am social-bonding functiona 3.33 0.80 1 5 extraversionb 3.27 0.72 1 5 neuroticismb 2.69 0.77 1 5 conscientiousnessb 3.48 0.69 1 5 agreeablenessb 3.07 0.65 1 5 opennessb 3.29 0.62 1 5 frequency of fsu in a day 3.37 2.28 1 10 positive fsu vacationsc 2.10 1.22 1 5 positive fsu job promotionc 1.45 0.94 1 5 positive fsu weight loss and/or fitness goalsc 1.22 0.62 1 5 positive fsu major accomplishmentc 2.15 1.26 1 5 positive fsu acceptance into college/universityc 2.26 1.31 1 5 positive fsu feeling happyc 2.27 1.26 1 5 positive fsu getting engagedc 1.43 0.85 1 5 positive fsu birth of a childc 1.17 0.52 1 5 positive fsu support for a politicianc 1.44 0.85 1 5 negative fsu asking for supports (i.e., medical issue)c 1.13 0.41 1 5 negative fsu feeling lonely/sad/depressedc 1.43 0.81 1 5 negative fsu feeling stressedc 1.53 0.78 1 5 negative fsu feeling angryc 1.44 0.71 1 5 negative fsu mad/angry/upset at a significant otherc 1.14 0.47 1 5 negative fsu having difficultiesc 1.30 0.59 1 5 negative fsu news events that have a negative outcomec 1.46 0.82 1 5 negative fsu mad/angry or upset at a friendc 1.21 0.52 1 5 negative fsu disdain for a politicianc 1.42 0.90 1 5 average number of pu in a week 4.58 2.57 1 10 pu myselfc 2.95 1.24 1 5 pu friendsc 2.94 1.24 1 5 pu life eventsc 2.60 1.28 1 5 pu familyc 2.18 1.14 1 5 pu scenesc 2.35 1.23 1 5 pu objectsc 1.41 0.72 1 5 pu animalsc 1.83 1.17 1 5 note. fsu = facebook status updating; pu = photo uploading. aam = autobiographical memories. bpersonality. cfacebook mementos. caci, cardaci, & miceli 621 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 pearson’s zero-order correlations between directive-behavior, self-continuity, social-bonding functions of autobiographical memories, and personality (n = 193) variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. am directive-behavior function r – 95% ci – 2. am self-continuity function r .48* – 95% ci [.36, .58] – 3. am social-bonding function r .48* .47* – 95% ci [.36, .58] [.35, .57] – 4. extraversion r .18 .18 .27* – 95% ci [.03, .31] [.03, .31] [.13, .39] – 5. neuroticism r .24* .22* .07 -.09 – 95% ci [.10, .36] [.08, .35] [-.07, .20] [-.22, .05] – 6. consciensiousness r .18 -.03 .13 .06 .27* – 95% ci [.03, .31] [-.17, .11] [.01, .26] [-.08, .19] [.13, .39] – 7. agreeableness r .12 .07 .06 –.05 .07 .08 – 95% ci [-.02, .25] [-.07, .20] [-.08, .19] [-.18, .09] [-.07, .20] [-.06, .21] – 8. openness r .31* .22* .38* .10 .00 .22* .09 – 95% ci [.17, .43] [.08, .35] [.25, .49] [-.04, .23] [-.14, .14] [.08, .35] [-.22, .05] – note. as suggested by bujang and baharum (2016), considering the sample size (n = 193), we accepted as significant correlations r values above .20, fixing the power to 80% and alpha to .05. *p < .01. there were no significant correlations between dbf scores and frequency of fsu textual information posted online both with positive and negative contents. whereas, significant positive correlations have emerged between dbf scores and frequency of visual media uploaded by participants (i.e., pu), and having contents related respectively to friends, r = .23, p < .05, 95% ci [.09, .35]; life events, r = .30, p < .05, 95% ci [.16, .42]; scenes, r = .24, p < .05, 95% ci [.10, .36], and animals, r = .23, p < .05, 95% ci [.09, .35]. similarly, scf scores not significantly related with the frequency of positive or negative textual information posted on the facebook status, but significant positive correlations between scf scores and visual media related to life events, r = .31, p < .05, 95% ci [.17, .43], and friends, r = .23, p < .05, 95% ci [.09, .35], have emerged. positive significant correlations between sbf scores with textual information related to vacations, r = .24, p < .05, 95% ci [.10, .36], and with visual media related to friends, r = .29, p < .05, 95% ci [.15, .41], and life events, r = .24, p < .05, ci [.10, .36], have emerged too. furthermore, results have shown that people scoring high on extraversion and neuroticism uploaded more frequently photos related to their friends, e: r = .24, p < .05, 95% ci [.10, .36]; n: r = .21, p < .05, 95% ci [.10, .34]. people with a high level of conscientiousness tend to post more frequently on their facebook status textual information regarding their major accomplishment, r = .28, p < .05, autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 622 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ci [.14, .40], or acceptance into college/university, r = .20, p < .05, 95% ci [.06, .33]. participants with high scores on agreeableness uploaded less information related to fitness, r = -.20, p < .05, ci [-.33, -.06]; whereas those with a high level of openness upload their facebook status with textual information related both to support for politicians, r = .20, p < .05, ci [.06, .33], and to news events that have a negative outcome, r = .25, p < .05, ci [.11, .37]. a complete table with pearson’s zero-order correlations among directive-behavior, selfcontinuity, social-bonding functions of autobiographical memories, personality, and facebook mementos variables is provided as supplementary material (table s1). path analysis the indices of fit and path coefficients were examined using maximum likelihood estimates. path analysis initially performed in a model (model 1) with all personality factors as predictors (i.e., e, n, c, a, o) two outcomes (i.e., fsu and pu) and three mediators (i.e., dbf, sbf, scf) revealed bad model fit according to all indicators: gfi = 0.90, agfi = 0.78, cfi = 0.68, rmsea = 0.142, 95% ci [0.116, 0.169], χ2 = 112.19, df = 23, n = 193, p = 0.000, χ2/df = 4.87 > 2 (schreiber, nora, stage, barlow, & king, 2006). then, considering that no direct associations have emerged between agreeableness and dependent measures, we refined the model and excluded agreeableness by predictors (model 2). path analysis performed on model 2 with four predictors (i.e., e, n, c, o) two outcomes (i.e., fsu and pu) and three mediators (i.e., dbf, sbf, scf), revealed a good model fit according to all indicators: gfi = 0.99, agfi = 0.96, cfi = 0.99, rmsea = 0.004, 95% ci [0.000, 0.109], χ2 = 4.013, df = 4, n = 193, p = n.s., χ2/df = 1.0 < 2 (schreiber et al., 2006). figure 1 shows the standardized path coefficients for model 2. for the overall sample, results at path analysis showed positive direct paths between conscientiousness and pu, β = .72, p < .05, as well as between openness and fsu, β = .63, p < .05, partially verifying h1. our data corroborated h2 evidencing significant direct paths between personality factors and mediators (i.e., directive, self and social functions of ams). specifically, extraversion and openness were positively associated with dbf, e: β = .17, p < .01, o: β = .28, p < .001; scf, e: β = .20, p < .01, o: β = .26, p < .001, and sbf, e: β = .27, p < .001, o: β = .26, p < .001; neuroticism was positively associated with dbf, β = .29, p < .001, and scf, β = .23, p < .001, and conscientiousness was positively related only with dbf, β = .21, p < .05. the present findings partially verified h3 showing that scf was directly and positively associated only with pu, β = .53, p < .05, but not with fsu. as well, no significant direct effects between dbf or sbf and fsu or pu has emerged. finally, we found significant indirect positive paths between personality traits and pu via the mediation of scf, so corroborating h4. specifically, high levels of extraversion, neuroticism and openness increase levels of posting photos on facebook via the mediation of scf. however, scf does not mediate the relationship between personality traits and fsu; as well as dbf and sbf do not mediate the relationship between personality traits and fsu or pu. finally, we found significant indirect positive paths between personality traits and pu via the mediation of scf, so corroborating h4. specifically, high levels of extraversion, neuroticism and openness increase levels of posting photos on facebook via the mediation of scf. however, scf does not mediate the relationship between personality traits and fsu; as well as dbf and sbf do not mediate the relationship between personality traits and fsu or pu. we tested the significance of indirect effects using bootstrapping procedures. standardized indirect effects were computed for each of 1,000 bootstrapped samples, and the 95% confidence intervals were calculated by determining the indirect effects at the 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles. table 3 reports standardized coefficients and 95% confidence intervals for the structural paths. caci, cardaci, & miceli 623 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the mediating effect of directive-behavior (dbf), self-continuity (scf) and social-bonding (sbf) functions of autobiographical memories in associations between personality traits (i.e., e = extraversion; n = neuroticism; c = conscientiousness; o = openness) and facebook mementos (i.e., fsu = facebook status updating; pu = photos uploaded). direct paths between personality traits and facebook mementos were removed to improve clarity. standardized coefficients were presented. solid lines indicate significant paths at *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .01; dotted lines indicate not significant paths at p >.05. table 3 indirect effect of personality traits on the number of photos uploaded on the facebook (pu) mediated by self-continuity function (scf) of autobiographical memories with associated bootstrap standard errors and bias-corrected confidence intervals personality traits effect se 95% ci ll ul extraversion .26* .006 .003 .26 neuroticism .26* .006 .002 .31 conscientiousness .27 .006 -.140 .07 openness .30* .007 .004 .36 note. se = standard error; ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; ses and cis based on 1,000 bootstrap samples. *p < .05. autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 624 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in the present study, we examined first the relationships between am functions, personality traits, and facebook mementos. we evaluated the facebook mementos rating both the fsu and the pu. secondly, we tested a path model to evaluate the predictive role of personality traits on facebook mementos both directly and indirectly, through the mediation of the directive, self and social functions of ams. personality traits and facebook mementos results at pearson's zero-order correlations in the present study showed that personality traits are related to the ways people use facebook for recording textual and visual information about their ams. we found that participants scoring high on extraversion collect and post pictures about their friends on their facebook profiles as mementos for their autobiographical events. this result is in line with wang and stefanone (2013), who reported that extravert facebook users, who actively engage in facebook self-presentation, update their status or upload photos more frequently than introverts. moreover, our data showed that people with high levels of conscientiousness, who usually tend to be devoted to work and family (wolfradt & doll, 2001), and are also careful or vigilant on facebook self-disclosure (caci et al., 2019; ozer & benet-martínez, 2006), collect positive mementos related both to their familiar or working life events (i.e., vacations, university acceptance or job promotion). surprisingly, we found that people high on neuroticism also tend to collect photos regarding their friends and upload them to their facebook profiles. this result is in contrast with literature outcomes regarding the tendency to neurotic people to post fewer photos on facebook (amichai-hamburger & vinitzky, 2010; ross et al., 2009; seidman, 2013). however, young women are a significant proportion of participants in the present study; thus, this outcome might be an effect of gender differences, as evidenced in the literature depicting young women who use facebook, as more neurotic than man (amichai-hamburger, 2013; correa, hinsley, & de zuniga, 2010). it has to be noted that high neurotic young woman also tend to share on facebook photographs that display essential moments in their lives, or portraying relationships with significant others, such as friends and family (haferkamp, eimler, papadakis, & kruck, 2012; huang & park, 2012; livingstone, 2008; mclaughlin & vitak, 2012; siibak, 2009; strano, 2008). in the present study, people scoring high on agreeableness collect few mementos on facebook because of their tendency to be cooperative and optimistic toward the others (amichai-hamburger & vinitzky, 2010; cervone & pervin, 2013). on the contrary, people rating high on openness are more engaged in using facebook for recording their life events. they update their status more frequently, choose contents more related to ask for support, or advocacy for a specific politician, or to significant news events that have an adverse outcome. such results are consistent with the literature that describe high openness people as curious individuals, having multiple interests and friends both in their real life and on the facebook, so tending to disclose and share more information about them, their opinions or their life experiences (amichai-hamburger & vinitzky, 2010; caci et al., 2019; john & srivastava, 1999; seidman, 2013). in sum, results of the present study confirm the role of extraversion, openness, neuroticism and conscientiousness as personality traits that are strongly related with fsu and pu (e.g., dupuis et al., 2017; lee et al., 2014; marshall et al., 2015), showing also specific associations among personality traits and positive or negative topics of fsu and pu. caci, cardaci, & miceli 625 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality traits and directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memories the path model tested in the present study evidenced that extraversion and openness are positive precursors of all the three function of ams (i.e., dbf, scf, and sbf), whereas, neuroticism positively predict dbf and scf, and conscientiousness dbf. such results are partially consistent with previous findings by literature on personality traits and ams (e.g., rasmussen & berntsen, 2009). it is not surprising that people scoring high on extraversion, who generally tend to be sociable, assertive, active, and energetic (mccrae & costa, 1999), use their ams to develop, maintain, and enhance their social bonds also on facebook (alea & bluck, 2003; neisser, 1988; nelson, 1993; pillemer, 1998). as well, is entirely comprehensible that people with high levels of openness, who are characterized by intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety (john & srivastava, 1999), might benefit from the dbf of ams (e.g., king, mckee walker, & broyles, 1996; mccrae, 1987; silvia, 2007, 2008), so collecting on their facebook profiles many mementos related to their interests. further association between openness and scf or sbf we found are also consistent with previous outcomes reported by the literature (bluck & alea, 2009; cappeliez & o'rourke, 2002; rasmussen & bertnsen, 2010). however, the main novelty of the present study regards the predictive role of extraversion both on dbf and scf of ams, as well as that of neuroticism and conscientiousness. starting from the consideration that maintaining existing relationships or creating new friends are two core motives that lead people to develop and use the facebook (dunbar, 2016; gosling et al., 2011; wang & wellmann, 2010), we can argue that extrovert people collect their facebook mementos both for serving directive and self-functions of ams. extraverts facebook users applying the dbf of their ams use their own experience to construct models that allow them to understand the inner world of the others (i.e., the friends) and thereby to predict their future behavior (robinson & swanson, 1990). moreover, by applying the scf function of their ams, they develop a sense of self-continuity, which provides them with knowledge of their extended self (neisser, 1988) – that is, a self in the past that can be related to the present self and the projected future self so as to locate themselves across time (conway, 2005; conway, singer, & tagini, 2004). as well, the “surveillance function” that characterizes facebook (joinson, 2008) becomes an enhancing stimulus for nervous and emotionally unstable individuals that, trying to control what is going on online as often as they can, also serve the directive function of ams. indeed, they retrieve their past experiences to directing and orienting their future thoughts and behaviors (baddeley, 1988; bluck, dirk, mackay, & hux, 2005; pillemer, 1998), also promoting continuity and development of their identity (e.g., conway, 1996; fivush, 1998). similarly, results from high consciousness individuals, who generally use facebook purposefully to attain their personal goals (bachrach, kosinski, graepel, kohli, & stillwell 2012), support the idea that on facebook they report past events and the lessons they learned from them as useful in guiding present or future behaviors (e.g., bluck & glück, 2004). the directive, self and social functions of ams and facebook mementos coherently with our expectation and in line with previous studies (e.g., huyssen, 2003; kalnikaite & whittaker, 2011; petrelli et al., 2008; seyfi & soydaş, 2017; wang et al., 2017), we found higher significant relationships between directive, self and social functions of ams and pu. such results highlight that individual differences on functions of ams are related to the ways people use the facebook for recording their life events (e.g., seyfi & soydaş, 2017; wang et al., 2017). moreover, our findings show that to describe their life events today's young autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 626 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ people use sns more for sharing visual material such as photographs than for writing or posting textual elements (malik, dhir, & nieminen, 2015). the relation between personality traits and facebook mementos as mediated by the directive, self and social functions of ams to our knowledge, the current study is the first to provide empirical evidence for the association between personality traits and facebook mementos via the mediation of the different functions of ams. specifically, we found the linkage between personality traits and pu on facebook for collecting life events depend on extraversion, neuroticism, and openness and the self-continuity function of ams mediates it. even if authors well documented the effect of personality traits on pu (e.g., eftekhar, fullwood, & morris, 2014), it can better be understood in the light of the modulation effect by ams. indeed, we can argue that individual differences in personality traits lead people to use facebook as a new technological medium for collecting and sharing their ams; in turn, individuals having high levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and openness, are mostly driven by the possibility to use their ams to experiment a sense of continuity for their self (zhao, grasmuck, & martin, 2008). finally, during the collection and sharing of photos about their life events, people modulate their past to preserve a sense of being a coherent person over time (bluck et al., 2008; fivush, 1998). limitations although the research has reached its aims, there are some inherent limitations for interpreting results. first, data comes from an italian sample; therefore, to generalize the results for larger groups, further studies need to include facebook users from other countries and cultures. second, questionnaires of personality traits and directive, self and social functions of ams adopted self-report measures that, as it is well-known in the literature (corbetta, 2003), are affected by a social desirability bias. hence, a social desirability scale should be added to a future version of the questionnaires to reduce this limitation. third, the facebook mementos scale, we developed and used in the present study, requested participants to recollect information about the frequency and contents of their facebook status updating, as well as those about their photo uploading only by memory. future studies might use measures of information posted online by people, requesting them to look back at their facebook accounts and to record it. however, in this latter case, privacy concerns need to be taken into account by researchers. another limitation of the present study is that the path model verified the predictive role of personality factors on objective measures of facebook mementos through the mediation of directive-behavior, social-bonding and self-continuity functions of ams without considering the effect of positive vs. negative contents both of the facebook status updating and of the photo uploading. with concerns to the facebook status updating subscale we used in the present study, the positive ones that are more related to crucial events of individuals’ life, such as, for instance, a new job, the acceptance into college or the birth of a child, differently from the negative topics referred mostly to feelings or mood state about participants. hence, further studies are needed to deeply investigate if personality factors and am functions depend upon the positive or negative topics people posted online as well as if emotion regulation plays a fundamental role. finally, the prevalence of woman in our sample might be responsible for specific outcomes so that it will be of importance performing future studies aimed at deeply analyzing gender and age differences. caci, cardaci, & miceli 627 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion the present study fills the gap in the literature panorama about individual differences related to personality traits defined in the light of ffm (mccrae & costa, 1999) and the ways people use the facebook for recording textual or visual information related to their ams. we found that personality traits are peculiarly associated both to motivations of using autobiographical memory for the directive, self or social purposes and to visual information people uploaded on facebook. more specifically, we found that personality traits such as extraversion and openness are positive precursors of the directive, self and social functions of ams; whereas, neuroticism predicts directive and self-functions of ams and conscientiousness is a precursor of the directive one. however, only the self-continuity function of ams modulate the reasons that lead extravert, openness and neurotic people to choose peculiar visual personal mementos to upload (i.e., photos). in this sense, we can argue that people made a personal experience of social media like facebook using it as repository tool for serving the scf that give them a sense of being the same person over time while maintaining continuity (e.g., conway, 2005). implications of our findings refer to a new way of intending autobiographical memories with the pervasive environments of social media. ams are continuously constructed and reconstructed by individual and serve an accessible and adaptive function. in turn, social media allow people to retain that personal experiences better. thus, we can argue that individuals might benefit from this interactive process of posting online, also enhancing the long-term retention of their life events. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. data availability for this study, supplementary materials are freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials the following supplementary materials are available via the psycharchives repository (caci, cardaci, & miceli, 2019; https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2598): • table s1, which reports the results of pearson’s zero-order correlations among directive-behavior, self-continuity, social-bonding functions of autobiographical memories, personality, and facebook mementos variables (n = 193) index of supplementary materials caci, b., cardaci, m., & miceli, s. (2019). supplementary materials to "autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos". psychopen. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2598 autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 628 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2598 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2598 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references alea, n., & bluck, s. (2003). why are you telling me that? a conceptual model of the social function of autobiographical memory. memory, 11, 165-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/741938207 alea, n., & bluck, s. (2007). i’ll keep you in mind: the intimacy function of autobiographical memory. applied cognitive psychology, 21, 1091-1111. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1316 alea, n., & vick, s. c. 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(2008). identity construction on facebook: digital empowerment in anchored relationships. computers in human behavior, 24(5), article 1816. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.012 about the authors barbara caci, phd in general and clinical psychology, is an assistant professor in general psychology at the department of psychology, educational science, and human movement, university of palermo. her studies are primarily concerned with the following topics: web-psychology, personality, internet addiction, facebook addiction, computer-anxiety, human factors & ergonomics, human-computer-interaction. maurizio cardaci is a full professor in psychology of personality at the department of psychology, educational science, and human movement, university of palermo and the coordinator of the degree courses in psychology. his primary areas of interest are concerned with computational models of cognition and perception, personality, reasoning, decision-making, and online researches. silvana miceli is an associate professor of psychology at the department of psychology, educational science, and human movement, university of palermo (from 2008). her published research and teaching focuses on cognitive psychology, decision-making and internet addiction. autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos 636 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 614–636 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1713 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev.psych.53.100901.135114 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f09658211.2016.1221115 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0894439313481424 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0002764209356247 https://doi.org/10.2190%2fanpm-ln97-aut2-d2ej https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.chb.2008.02.012 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ autobiographical memory, personality, and facebook mementos (introduction) a literature overview of autobiographical memories autobiographical memories and personality autobiographical memories and facebook mementos facebook mementos and personality the present paper method participants procedure measures statistical analysis results descriptive statistics and relationships among am functions, personality traits, and facebook mementos path analysis discussion personality traits and facebook mementos personality traits and directive, self and social functions of autobiographical memories the directive, self and social functions of ams and facebook mementos the relation between personality traits and facebook mementos as mediated by the directive, self and social functions of ams limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children theoretical contributions deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children renato pessoa dos santos 1,2 , rita francisco 2,3 , maria t. ribeiro 4 [1] academia militar, exército português, lisbon, portugal. [2] crc-w: catolica research centre for psychological, family and social wellbeing, universidade católica portuguesa, lisbon, portugal. [3] faculdade de ciências humanas, universidade católica portuguesa, lisbon, portugal. [4] faculdade de psicologia, centro de investigação em ciências psicológicas, universidade de lisboa, lisbon, portugal. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 received: 2018-07-02 • accepted: 2020-10-29 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, california university of pennsylvania, california, pa, usa corresponding author: renato pessoa dos santos, academia militar, exército português, av. conde castro guimarães, 2720-113 amadora, portugal. e-mail: santos.recp@exercito.pt abstract this exploratory study investigates the impact of a military mission on portuguese families, specifically on children. although most research seeks the negative consequences of this lived experience, through the “deployment risk and resilience model” the present study intends to explore if this period can also be an opportunity for military’s children to grow and become more resilient. aiming to express freely their lived and felt stories about the phenomenon under study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 children of the service members of the portuguese army, aged between 8 and 21 years old. the results of the thematic analysis indicated that the most critical moments of the mission were the notification period, the last days before the departure of the service member, and the deployment. the preparation of activities for the service members’ absence in the pre-deployment and the increase of tasks to be carried out, during the deployment, were the most referenced changes. in the post-deployment, children perceived a rapid readjustment of the family system. despite the military's children's difficulties in readjusting during the mission, they reported that the feelings of closeness to the nuclear family, increased responsibility, and personal growth were positive results experienced. it would be interesting to extend similar studies within family systems, as in other branches of the armed forces. as practical implications, the findings of our pioneering study may significantly contribute to the construction of programs and/or actions that promote a possible growth in the personal resilience of the children of portuguese service members, and not only the recovery of the state prior to the mission. keywords military children, deployment cycle, coping strategies, risk and resilience model, resilient outcomes generally, an international military mission is organized in three phases: pre-deployment, which begins with the notifi­ cation of the deployment until the departure of the service member to the theater of operations (to); the deployment, period that corresponds to the time during which the service member, men or women, is in the to, geographically separated from their family (usually 6 months in portuguese missions); and post-deployment, which begins when the service member returns home (e.g., paley, lester, & mogil, 2013). each phase of the mission is associated with particular stress-inducing circumstances that influence the family system of the deployed military (pincus, house, christenson, & alder, 2001), including fear and apprehension that the service member can be injured, or even die during the deployment phase. to this challenge other stress inducers are added, such as, increased workload (e.g., taking care of household chores, taking children to school and being in charge of bills), disturbing news and rumors and/or the possibility of difficulties in the communication with the service member, for example, lack of internet or lack of delayed this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0300-4675 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9101-523x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8314-205x https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ communication, such as letters or parcels (e.g., andres & coulthard, 2015; bóia, marques, francisco, ribeiro, & santos, 2018). studies have shown that separations caused by the service members participating in a mission have an impact on their children, considering that emotional and behavioral adverse effects are frequently reported (e.g., chandra et al., 2010). andres and coulthard (2015) report that the negative consequences inherent to a mission may be related to the absence of the military caregiver rather than the duration of the separation or the type of to where the father was deployed to. on the other hand, chandra et al. (2010) mention that there is a positive relationship between the difficulties in dealing with domestic and school responsibilities, and the duration of the deployment phase. also, some studies suggest that the existence of the fear that something can happen to the military caregiver is amplified by the perception of the dangerousness of the to (e.g., kelley, 1994). other studies mention that the children of the deployed military can experience an emotional cycle similar to that of their mothers, so showing externalization problems, such as aggressiveness and somatic complaints, and internalization problems, such as, crying, sadness, anger, and anxiety (e.g., kelley, 1994; knobloch, pusateri, ebata, & mcglaughlin, 2015). thus, these factors can influence their daily lives (e.g., flake, davis, johnson, & middleton, 2009; knobloch et al., 2015; lester et al., 2010). many studies focus on the negative effects of missions, leaving possible positive effects unanswered (park, 2011). however, this (re)adjustment period can also be an opportunity for personal growth, promoting individual and family resilience (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015; park, 2011). in the study conducted by knobloch et al. (2015), the children of deployed service members reported that during the mission they felt more responsibilities, family traditions were lost, there were changes in routines or they felt the family incomplete, among other negative consequences. however, constructive and beneficial results were also reported, such as the feeling of greater family cohesion, a perception of greater independence, the notion of enjoying new activities with the deployed service member, and having the feeling that they are better prepared for future missions (knobloch et al., 2015). children’s coping and resilience although a military mission presents risks, especially for some families (park, 2011), for example, coping with distur­ bances to everyday activities, emotional problems, heightened family conflict (knobloch et al., 2015), many children and military families show resilience and growth. resilient children are those who, after exposure to risk factors, can overcome those risks, so avoiding negative outcome, such as behavioral problems, psychological imbalances and/or school difficulties (rak & patterson, 1996). considered more dynamic than static, varying with situations and over time, resilience can be seen as a result, a response, or a process (silgo & mora, 2013). richardson, neiger, jensen, and kumpfer, (1990) presented a “resilience model,” in which a person faces adversities reacting to them for later reintegration of the lived experience, that is, the premise of the model is that, for a person to become more resilient, he/she must face challenges and risks that induce stress, having moments of disorganization and reorganization, learning from the experiences to further strengthen their coping skills and protective factors. this conceptual model shows how a person passes through adversity, starting from his bio-psycho-spiritual homeostasis (i.e., "comfort zone") and resorting to protective factors, such as the existence of a family support network, good self-esteem and great self-confidence (richardson, 2002, 2011). subsequently, the reintegration of this (un)conscious experience causes one of the four results: 1) dysfunctional reintegration, when the person does not overcome the adverse situation, reacting with risk behaviors (e.g., addictive behaviors such as alcohol and drugs or aggressive behaviors); 2) reintegration with loss, when the person has the desire and motivation to overcome adversity, but suffers losses (e.g., self-esteem); 3) reintegration and return to homeostasis, characterized by recovery of homeostatic balance, without any gain (i.e., has not really learned from the experience and will probably go through similar problems again until he learns from the life event); or 4) resilient reintegration, when there is growth and increased resilience, that is, the person benefits from positive growth as a result of lived learning (richardson, 2002; richardson, neiger, jensen, & kumpfer, 1990). this fact leads to a better capacity of preventing or precluding the onset of pathological symptoms (lester et al., 2010). in this perspective, we can also mention that resilience is seen as an inner strength which drives personal growth (richardson, 2002, 2011), because in the case of military families, living similar experiences in the past may enable them to be more prepared for future situations. therefore, despite experiencing stress inducing moments during a mission, it is important to note deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 220 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that military families have demonstrated resilience and growth after a mission. thus, reformulating situations from a positive perspective can be a valuable coping mechanism (ebata & moos, 1991). as mentioned by u.s. army (2007), one of the factors that seem to have the greatest influence on the reactions of the children to changes inherent to a mission is the coping strategies used, which may not be effective. the coping concept is defined by lazarus and folkman (1984) as a process, a "way to deal with" with adverse situations, where the cognitive-behavioral effort of a person subsists to mitigate the external and/or internal pressures that are evaluated by it as something beyond their resources. this process is active and may change with evaluations obtained on the events (lazarus & folkman, 1984), and with the developing age in which the person is found (skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007). coping represents a non-passive attitude of the person to demands to (re)balance, recover and prepare for new challenges (skinner, 2007). skinner, edge, altman, and sherwood (2003) identified 12 "coping families" of higher-order: problem solving, information search, helplessness, escape, self-confidence, seeking support, delegation, social isolation, accommodation, negotiation, submission and opposition. each "family" includes more than one way of dealing with adverse events, considering these forms of lower-order. the "coping families" can complement each other because the answers are innumerable, adapted to specific demands and modeled by existing context and resources (skinner, 2007; skinner et al., 2003). therefore, the results that contribute to resilience are resulting products from effective coping strategies, the existence of protective factors, as well as successful adaptations in past events, and the absence of internal disturbances (richardson et al., 1990). younger children of school age are likely to use strategies that reflect internalization behaviors, reflecting in emotions like anxiety and fear, in an increased sensitivity to media coverage, and a reduced school performance. for watanabe and jensen (2000) adolescents may be more resourceful in coping strategies than younger children. adolescents who take on domestic responsibilities become more independent, and their extracurricular and social activities with their peers are more reduced. they are also more likely to have a decrease in academic performance and an increase in depressive symptoms and behavioral problems due to the emotional stress inherent to the period they are living. a study of military children aged 11 to 17 revealed that adolescents, especially girls, reported more difficulty in school performance, family and peer relationships than younger children (chandra et al., 2010). based on the bioecological and resiliency theories, wooten (2013) presented the "deployment risk and resilience model" (drr model). adapted from the resilience model of richardson et al. (1990), the drr model has a structure that helps to understand the risks of a mission, the protection factors, the homeostasis imbalance, the reintegration, and the final result in the end of the post-deployment phase. this model, when presented and adapted to the theme under study, focused on the service members and his specific context (organizational and social), suggests that both can influence the characteristics of the bio-psycho-social trajectory, and the reintegration after a mission cycle (wooten, 2013). being so, the unit of analysis is the service members, and the hypothetical relationships are transactional and interdependent, implying a process of mutual causality (wooten, 2013). in the drr model, resilience is conceptualized as a dynamic construction involving transactions between person-process-context-time (richardson, 2002). since the drr model mirrors life events throughout a mission, that is, positive and negative experiences lived by the service members, from the deployment up to the reintegration of these experiences after the mission (wooten, 2013), it can help to understand the intensity of the impact of a mission on the children of the assigned and deployed military. the importance of the reintegration process after post-deployment is shaped in the model, helping to understand the reintegration trajectories and their effects of equifinality and multipurpose (wooten, 2013). briefly, the drr model provides for this study a conceptual bio-psycho-social framework of evaluation for future interventions with military families, especially with their children. the portuguese military portuguese service members have been participating in united nations operations since 1996. for decades, they have been present in so-called "new missions" in to such as bosnia, kosovo, timor, lebanon, afghanistan and iraq. in 2014, some studies began to be conducted with members of portuguese military families, where the need for institutional support was mentioned (e.g., barbudo, francisco, & santos, 2014), but few resources and support from the portuguese military services aimed at portuguese military families were developed only in the last decade, such as the portuguese dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 221 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ army's "i, you & we" project (barbudo et al., 2014). despite this fact, the families of portuguese service members continue to mention the need to implement specific programs for military families (duarte, francisco, ribeiro, & santos, 2020) because they identify gaps in military service support (e.g., bóia et al., 2018; duarte et al., 2020). method the general purpose of this exploratory and qualitative study is to understand the impact of an international military mission on the children of the deployed military. specifically, it intends to answer the following questions: 1) what were the most critical moments for the children during a mission; 2) what perceptions of the children regarding the family and individual changes, felt during an international military mission of one of the caregivers; 3) what coping strategies were used by the children during this period (considering its “coping families”); 4) what were the outcomes in every phase of the mission; and 5) what outcomes identify the trajectory of the reintegration after the mission. participants twenty-two children of the service members of the portuguese army participated in the study (13 boys and 9 girls) aged between 8 and 21 years old (m = 13.95, sd = 3.30), who, at the time of the mission, aged between 6 and 18 years old (m = 11.41, sd = 3.79). from the total participants, only two had no siblings at the time the military parent carried out the mission. all service members caregivers were male and have participated in one to six international peace support missions (m = 2.36, sd = 1.14), deployed for about 6 months in afghanistan, timor, lebanon and/or kosovo. procedure a purposive sample was used. the participants were selected based on the fact that, at least, one of the caregivers was a service member, who participated in an international mission. after the authorization of the chief of staff of the portuguese army, contacts were established with the various units of the army (mainland portugal, madeira and azores archipelagos), through one of the authors (the psychologist-lieutenant-colonel of the portuguese army). the service members who met the above criteria were subsequently contacted with the intention of asking their permission to interview children. the interviews, with an average duration of 55 minutes, were conducted at service members’ homes or military units. after consents were signed by the parents, and after verbal consent of their children, the interviews were recorded in audio. the interviews conducted with children aged between 6 and 9 years old were supported by drawings identifying moments related to the missions (e.g., time of the notification, moment of departure, thinking about the military caregiver during the deployment and the moment of arrival), in order to facilitate communication, being considered as a conversation tool (pires, 2015). measures semi-structured interview guide taking into account the exploratory nature of the study, the interview guide, specifically designed for a doctoral project in which this study is inserted, consists of four thematic blocks, informed by previous research and the existing literature on this topic: a. pre-deployment, b. deployment, c. post-deployment, and d. experiences comparing missions and perceived learning. the blocks a, b and c sought to explore similar themes, such as, adaptation to change (e.g., “what else helped you deal with the changes during this period?”), expression of thoughts and feelings (e.g., “what difference did you feel in the way you expressed your affections to your parents? did you get closer to him?”), family activities and leisure activities (e.g., “have there been any changes in your daily life in your leisure time and family activities?”), change of responsibilities and family routines (e.g., “what changes have you felt in terms of responsibilities and routines?”). block d, besides comparing missions lived by those who had more than one experience, it also sought to identify advices they would give to other children of the same age who could go through the same experience (e.g., “if you could give advice to a child who knows that his or her father/mother has been appointed to the mission, what would you say?”). deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 222 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ socio-demographic questionnaire it was built specifically for this study to gather socio-demographic data related to the mission of the service members (e.g., age, household and academic qualifications). data analyses after transcription, the interviews were submitted to the thematic analysis procedure, considered a flexible approach to analyzing qualitative data (braun & clarke, 2006), using qsr nvivo 10 software. the four main categories were previously defined, based on previous studies, the interview guide, and the specific research questions. after the identification of topics, the units of meaning were organized into specific categories whenever a given pattern was noticed (braun & clarke, 2006). the categorization was performed through a deductive-inductive process in which the thematic categories that emerged in the text where also compared with the existing literature and the four main previously defined categories (daly, 2007). the credibility and validity of the research was also assured by triangulation of researchers (miles & huberman, 1994). therefore, raw data responses were individually identified and grouped into themes and subthemes developed by the first author and checked for reliability and validity by the other authors until a consensus was reached. results and discussion the thematic analysis resulted in an interrelated hierarchical system with four main categories: mission phases (pre-de­ ployment, deployment and post-deployment); family and individual experienced changes (examples of subcategories: routines, responsibilities), coping strategies used (examples of subcategories: accommodation, information search, trou­ bleshooting) and trajectories of reintegration perceived during the phases of the mission (examples of subcategories: impact of the mission, advice to be given to other children). the following subsections report our findings on the referred categories, presenting the number of participants who referred to each theme. the citations presented, illustrat­ ing the content codified in the respective categories, are accompanied by the identification of the participants, by sex (male, m; female, f), number and age, thus ensuring the confidentiality of the data (e.g., m3, 17y). mission phases: most critical moments this category is associated with all other categories and subcategories, because it allows to distinguish the specific aspects of each theme under analysis, according to the moment of the mission cycle which the participants referred to. however, the "most critical moments of the mission" emerged as a specific subcategory and in this regard the pre-deployment (17 participants [p]) and the deployment (16p) were considered as critical moments, which is in line with results of previous studies. for example, the national military family association (nmfa, 2005) showed that the most stressful moments of military families were the notification, the moment of departure of the service member, and the actual deployment. in our study, regarding the pre-deployment, the moment of the notification stands out and sadness was the emotion that most prevailed (10p), accompanied or sometimes replaced by surprise (5p) or by irritability (3p). these emotions were prompted mainly by the fear that something might happen to the military caregiver (7p). this fear increases if the to is "of war" and if children are more aware of the dangers that can arise from it (andres, 2010). i was not expecting it the first time. of course i was upset because i did not want it… i was 11 or 12 years old (m5, 15y). it was more difficult because it was in afghanistan, but when i was younger it was even more difficult, i did not understand very well. yes, this time i was more afraid (f9, 18y). it is interesting to notice that nine children really appreciate the way the notification is made, being important to explain and clarify the situation so that it makes sense, what is in agreement with literature (e.g., u.s. army, 2007). participants also consider that the notification should be made as early as possible to avoid biased fantasies (mainly dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 223 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ caused by the news about the wars that appear in the media), and with the presence of both caregivers so that there is a feeling that they are all together in this decision. they must have talked to each other about how they should tell me the news, and afterwards they talked to my brother and me, (…) my father explained the reasons why he was leaving, my mother helped him to convey the message, and this prevented us from entering into a state of shock (m5, 15y). this particularity is also referred to by other authors (bóia et al., 2018), who consider important the service member to explain, together with the spouse, what will happen, the reasons why the father is leaving, what he will do, etc. this is because, after the notification, there are doubts and concerns associated with expectations about the prolonged absence of the military caregiver. however, the perception that something is going to change sometimes precedes the notification itself (5p). he himself gave me the news, i had also perceived it by his conversations with my mother (m5, 15y). still during the pre-deployment, the last days and the farewell were also considered as very difficult moments (8p), what is in agreement with literature (nmfa, 2005). it was more difficult, to see him leaving … and me staying here, because i was thinking a lot about dad (f3, 8y). however, it is the beginning of the deployment that is identified by most children (15p) as one of the most difficult peri­ ods due to the need to adapt to the physical absence of the service members, new routines, and increased responsibility. at this stage, feelings of nostalgia, sadness and anxiety are added, and can last up to 2 months (6p), school performance was affected at this stage (3p), and there was an increase in conflicts with the at-home caregiver (2p teenagers). yes, there were two months when i had to do everything. then they would say to me "do this, don’t do this" and i would immediately react, there was nothing else to do, for some reason, i was also very nervous to have a lot of responsibility on me, and it was difficult for me (m10, 21y). these reactions caused by the physical "loss" of the military caregiver are found in several studies which report that changes felt together with intense negative emotions provoke behavioral outcomes, such as, anger projection and verbal aggression on others (huebner, mancini, wilcox, grass, & grass, 2007), as well as changes in school performance (misra & singh, 2014). however, the last days of the deployment were also very emotional for 15 children, because anxiety, nostalgia, and joy are triggered by expectations raised by the post-return. (…) we were always stressed out. "is he coming tomorrow?" and that was when "ah!, he is coming in two or three days," "is he already on the plane?," no! "do you already know when you will get on the plane?," me too. on the following day more two or three days were added, we were even more nervous (m10, 21y). the results of this research are in line with some studies (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015; nmfa, 2005), partially differenti­ ating them from others, such as chandra et al. (2010) which revealed that children, in addition to having had more difficulties in deployment, also felt it in the post-unemployment, due to the addition of new responsibilities. also sheppard, malatras, and israel (2010) consider preand post-deployment as the most critical phases. these differences in results between the various studies may be due to multiple variables, such as, the nature of the mission, the danger in the to, the individual characteristics of the children, and the idiosyncrasies of the systems where they are inserted. also, regarding their age, children report greater difficulty of adaptation at earlier ages, because they have little awareness of reality, so causing confusion, surprise and sadness projected in irritability behaviors, seeking attention and affection (van breda, 2001). grown up children (i.e., adolescents) are more aware of the potential risks involved, the concerns, and the real well-being experienced in the moments lived (andres, 2010). deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 224 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ another aspect that we believe is relevant to highlight is that during the deployment there is a possibility of the service members having leave days, which is seen by the children as a good thing, although later on it will be difficult to say farewell "again." yes, it is very important for us, but on the other hand it is so difficult, because it will be another separation… but the good part stays (f9, 18y). the changes experienced during the mission pre-deployment upon notification, simultaneously with the raising of expectations about "how it will go," participants reported they were given advice, mainly from the service members, and a small "training" according to the responsibilities of their new domestic tasks. these are intended to prepare the family for the deployment phase, which is in agreement with literature (e.g., pincus et al., 2001). (…) when my father gave me the news he said, "let's start doing it. i will help you too, but you are going to have to get used to it so it will not be so hard when i am gone.” and that was important. it was very important (m5, 15y). "now you are the man of the house," "you are the eldest" or " take care of your mother now" are the expressions given to older children of the family, sometimes producing feelings of ambiguity in roles and responsibilities (huebner et al., 2007), or even a sense of inability to fulfill the imposed "mission." these ideas were also identified in other studies (e.g., misra & singh, 2014; paley et al., 2013), although it is considered a practice to be avoided (pincus et al., 2001; van breda, 2001). be the man of the house? i thought i was not going to measure up. i even thought "hey! now i have to deal with things, now i have to take care of something, my mother is not here, filipe is leaving, filipe is leaving” (m10, 21y). deployment during the deployment, 17 children perceived and felt changes mainly related to the increase of household tasks (12p), such as, helping in the kitchen (10p), tidying up and cleaning the house (8 p), taking care of pets (4p) and cleaning outside the house, the pool and the garden (4 p). however, they have also been reported changes in study support (11p) and between siblings (10p), since the young ones have acknowledged the help of their older sibling(s), especially the firstborn who assumed himself as the substitute of the service members. all these results are consistent with other studies (e.g., chandra et al., 2010; huebner et al., 2007; knobloch et al., 2015; misra & singh, 2014). maybe my father made my brother my second father, so to speak. my brother (…) said "you have to study," to this day he says "do not forget to study," and i think that this adjustment of position … helped me to get through this situation (m5, 15y). according to existing studies (e.g., barbudo et al., 2014; knobloch et al., 2015; misra & singh, 2014), it was reported by 10 children that there was an increase of "responsibilities and duties" for the at-home caregiver. the change in parental responsibility, along with the increased burden of duties for the at-home caregiver, also implied a greater sense of freedom, essentially felt by the older children (4p). this fact is also referred to in the study by misra and singh (2014) in which young adolescents report that the absence of the military caregiver meant greater relaxation, greater freedom and fewer restrictions. however, this feeling of greater freedom goes against the study of huebner et al. (2007), in which adolescents describe a greater "prison" caused by new routines and responsibilities. then when he went on mission, we had too much freedom, we had a lot of time alone because my mother could not always be there… (m1, 18y). dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 225 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ at first it affected a lot because my father is more rigid than my mother regarding obligations. my mother says 'go to study', and sometimes i would go and sometimes i wouldn’t… it is not like this with my father (m5, 15y). post-deployment during the post-deployment, the majority of the participants (12p) identified the need for readjustments, both from the service member and the family, so that the reintegration of the service member into everyday family life was as natural as possible. (…) one can notice a little bit his natural effort. it lasted six months and we had a very fixed routine, so i guess it costed him a little bit because he came from there, but it was quick [the readjustment] (f9, 18y). this readjustment after the return is referred to in existing literature, which evidences the existence of challenges of reintegration and renegotiation of roles and/or rules, both for the service member and the family (e.g., andres & coulthard, 2015; huebner et al., 2007). this means that, despite the stressful challenges inherent in this phase, the availability of the resources used to communicate during the displacement with the service member (the video call stands out) contributed to maintain the connection and permanent closeness, continuing a secure bond, which subsequently enhanced the ease of reintegration after their return and is also described in the literature (devoe & ross, 2012). coping strategies pre-deployment the results showed that accommodation (e.g., focus on the positive, acceptance) was one of the coping strategies most used by the children to deal with the mission of the military father in the pre-deployment phase (9p), especially in the period prior, during and after the notification. this can result in positive thinking about the situation, in cognitive restructuring, and in minimizing the problem, or simply in acceptance (skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007). this flexibility can be the product of past experiences which leads to see the world as predictable and consistent (van breda, 2001). in fact, eight participants reported that the previous experiences of separation for the same reason are a source of emotional stability, a built-in feature that acts as a protective factor (e.g., riggs & cusimano, 2014). it was easier because i was used to another mission, this went faster and i already knew what i had to do (f16, 13y). i think i can help because i've been through this experience, as well as my friends who had already had this experience and who helped me. (f21, 15y). several studies converge with these results, and even a few reported that the children of the deployed service members manifest a high level of resilience (e.g., u.s. department of defense, 2010). another strategy widely used after the notification was the search for information (20p), a strategy that is widely reported in literature about adolescent’s coping skills in general (skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007). although they admit that they have avoided talking about the mission (7p), knowing the to where the service member will be deployed, and what he will be doing are examples of information that the children want to have. this happens through the media, and the reading of other existing resources, which demonstrates the importance of the existence and accessibility of appropriate information to the ages of the children. after we had finished our meals, and instead of everyone going to their room and being on the internet, we would sit on the couch and talk … and we wouldn't talk about him leaving, because it was more difficult for him (m1, 18y). deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 226 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ [information from the portuguese army's "i, you & we" project] … can always be a help for families to prepare and know. i think it's funny, the vision of kabul, climate, temperature… i think it helps in the interaction of families (f1, m17). the search for support during the pre-deployment was also a strategy widely used by the military children (13p). this strategy, according to skinner and zimmer-gembeck (2007), is one of the most used in all ages. being influenced by the development and by the chronological maturity, this form of strategy may be different either by the source of support required (e.g., parents, peers, teachers), either by the domain (e.g., doctor, academic), by the type of support sought (e.g., contact, comfort, guidance, instrumental assistance), and/or by the way the support is sought (e.g., distress, social references, proximity, verbal requests). in this study, the children reported that the main sources of pre-deployment support were parents and peers, and the type of support sought was essentially comfort through greater proximity. friends were also very important during the pre-deployment (…). my family got closer during the pre-deployment… (m5, 15y). before he left, i spent more time with him, to enjoy him, i was already feeling that i would be missing him … not so much, but giving him love all the time, and at that time even more (f20, 12y). generally, the use of the problem-solving strategy also differs according to the age of the children. while younger children sought to solve problems through a combination of strategies, which may include seeking adult support, older children used mostly instrumental actions and building action plans (skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007). also during pre-deployment, the perception and feeling that routines and responsibilities should be kept is referred as relevant by 13 children, being essential for individual and family balance, what is in agreement with existing literature (e.g., pincus et al., 2001; van breda, 2001), thus being a very important coping strategy for the children of the deployed service members. i tried not to change too much to be able to distract myself too. the routine was very important (m5, 15y). another way for military children to face the challenges of the mission it is the avoidance (which may be behavioral and/or cognitive avoidance, denial attempt or illusory thinking; skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007), as reported by seven children. this strategy is sometimes supported by carrying out activities to occupy "the mind and the heart" (e.g., computer games, listening to music), or seeking support from the family or social network, and it is sometimes opposed to a control strategy which reflects a more conscious approach to adversities to adopt preventive measures later (latack & havlovic, 1992). i listened to music, played games, went out with my friends, hung out with them, i avoided talking about these things. in part it worked, but we were always thinking about it. there is a time of the day when we would think more (m1, 18y). the self-confidence, materialized by an emotional and behavioral "control" to allow a greater restraint in the emotional expression, was mentioned by six children as a coping strategy used in the pre-deployment. to deal with the situation i … i do not get worried before things happen, i get worried when they happen. it will take time (f20, 12y). finally, other strategies were used during the pre-deployment phase, although being mentioned by less participants: feeling of helplessness (confusion, interference and/or cognitive exhaustion), as perceiving the limit of capacity (3p); opposition strategy, through guilt projection and aggressive behaviors, fundamentally verbal (2p); and negotiation strategy through persuasion (1p). i was not expecting it the first time. of course i was upset because i did not want it… i was 11 or 12 years old (m5, 15y). dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 227 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ if there was news “attack kills i do not know how many in afghanistan”… that's it! "hey!," it would start right there, the theme was “maybe you should not go…do not go, do not go.” it started like this (m10, 21y). deployment regarding the deployment, two coping strategies were mentioned by all the children: the search for support, which reinforces the idea of being one of the strategies most commonly used by all ages; and problem solving, which reflects the concern of carrying out effective actions to mitigate the stressful situations, whether they are instrumental, strategic or planned (skinner & zimmer-gembeck, 2007). in relation to the search for support, relatives (especially the nuclear family, including the physically absent service member), colleagues and teachers, and friends were the sources of support to encourage and help during this stage of the mission, according to existing findings (e.g., chawla & solinas-saunders, 2011). riggs and riggs (2011) refer that the literature suggests that a secure bonding system between the at-home spouse, the service member and the children, is a protective factor that promotes strategies for effective coping during deployment and post-deployment. essentially i shared my problems with my mother, also with my friends because i do not like to keep so many things for me… (m1, 18y). my mother spoke with the head of the class who spoke with the teachers. i think the school has an important role during the period of deployment (f5, 15y). to talk to him on the computer and to know he's okay (m14, 15y). at the deployment stage, communication between the children and the service member resulted in an emotional sup­ port, a collection of advice and/or a sharing about everyday life (e.g., by the children about school and extracurricular activities, by the service member about work and daily life in the to). this communication was mostly interactive or direct, especially through video calls (19p) and the telephone/cell phone (6p). late communication (e.g., letters, packages and emails) was identified by four children as a resource of high satisfaction, as it is embodied in something concrete and tangible, providing repeated support, and the possibility of "turning to" several times (e.g., barbudo et al., 2014). this almost permanent contact allows the service member to be present psychologically, even if he is physically absent (andres & coulthard, 2015). during the deployment i did not have difficult phases. it was very easy. i do not know, we talked every day… skype is fantastic, we can see each other! (f21, 15y). i wrote two letters and received one. it was good to feel a little bit relieved (f21, 15y). routine is by itself a fundamental strategy to "normalize" and balance the daily life of the children during the period of the service member absence (riggs & cusimano, 2014). if keeping the routine during the pre-deployment was a concern for the children, during the deployment this issue is of utmost importance. this problem-solving strategy is essential during the absence of the service member. maintaining or restoring routine has the positive consequence of making daily life undisturbed, or, if these exist, to be of minimal impact (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015; paley et al., 2013). if we change the routine drastically there may be major consequences for the person (m10, 21y). (…) there was communication during the deployment. as if it was normal. we have not done anything new. we have kept our routine, but without him! (f21, 15y). the cognitive-behavioral effort of the children also involves implementing other strategies, such as, accommodation (10p), that is, distraction, cognitive restructuring, minimizing lived circumstances, or simply acceptance; but also the escape (12p), mainly materialized in mental withdrawal. i was always worried about my father that something was going to happen, so i tried not to think about it, i tried to think about other things (m5, 15y). deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 228 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ i began to get used to it … first i felt sad and then i started to feel happy, because i knew my father was well and i could talk to him every day (m17, 10y). the search for information was mentioned by most of the participants (17p), mainly through the service member himself. therefore, direct communication with the service member is essential, not only to find support, as previously mentioned, but also to know about his situation, and news are essential to calm down. he said he was helping that country to achieve peace. (…) i thought he was making peace. i felt happy (f3, 8y). another strategy recognized by six participants, especially the youngest, was the perception of helplessness. as skinner and zimmer-gembeck (2007) refer, this type of strategy may be used by children with less solid bonding to their caregivers and/or experiencing the separation anxiety for the first time, in this case because the military caregiver is deployed. the feeling of insecurity due to the absence of the primary caregiver who provides security and shelter, it is also described in the study of misra and singh (2014). when i was younger, i thought that i would not see him again … (f4, 11y). i missed him more, because he was not here, and then i began to feel his absence. at night i move around a lot and hit the wall for my dad to say, "come on, make less noise." [did you keep hitting the wall even with your father absent?] yes, to keep myself calm (…) because i like to fan myself… and i hoped my father would come (m17, 10y). finally, some of the military children (3p) mentioned that they had some opposition behaviors, as a challenge or a manifestation of anger towards the caregiver who left them. this behavior is also referred to in other studies with children of the deployed military (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015). (…) when i was very, very sad, i would do things [parental opposition behaviors because i was angry that the service member was absent], and mom would be angry at me, but then it would pass (f3, 8y). (…) other people say “oh, poor mother, your father is not here, you have to help your mother, now that your father is not here"… i did not like it, but i wouldn’t think "oh, poor me"…no! he simply was not here, that's it! [manifestation of anger about her father not being with her] (f11, 17y). the emotions most associated with post-deployment phase, especially the moment before the arrival, were anxiety (9p) and joy (21p) with the return of the service member, meeting the existing literature (e.g., pincus et al., 2001; riggs & riggs, 2011). i was anxious and happy, i knew it wouldn't be long, he was going to stay with me (f4, 11y). post-deployment for most of the children, the readjustment after the return of the service member lasted no longer than 1 month. this perception may indicate that there were factors that contributed to minimize the impact of the mission on children, such as activities carried out together (e.g., leisure activities, talking, eating out). despite being a bit difficult to go back to what it was before, i think it was easier for me to adapt, than to adapt myself to his absence. but a month later everything went naturally (m1, 18y). these results are in agreement with some studies that show that, although the children exhibit some behavioral changes during the deployment of the service member, most seem to adapt quickly to the reunion (jensen, martin, & watanabe, 1996). possibly, for this quick and easy readjustment of the family system, "easy and permanent" contact with the service member may have contributed throughout the deployment (riggs & riggs, 2011). dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 229 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcomes and reintegration in pre-deployment, 16 children referred that they got close to the service member and the nuclear family, sometimes aiming to alleviate the suffering and fears of their parents. during the deployment, 20 children mentioned a closer relationship to the at-home caregiver, and the siblings, while being careful to stay "connected" to the service member. already in the post-deployment, 16 children also mentioned that they got closer to the service member after his return, restoring this relationship (riggs & cusimano, 2014; riggs & riggs, 2011) and even reinforcing it in some cases. through conversations, hugs and cuddles we were also reassuring him before going on mission. so… not to be very difficult for him (m1, 18y). [deployment] made the bond between my brother, my mother and me much stronger (…). my father has been adapting, and the relationship… of course it has grown! and now it is much better (m5, 15y). the perception of closeness to the elements of the nuclear family, throughout the mission is in agreement with previous studies (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015). during the interviews, when asked if they would be able to help/advise other children/youth who might be going through the same situation, 21 children said yes, sharing possible advice. during pre-deployment the children advised the other children/youth not to be sad, to be strong and not to worry (12p), to spend more time with the service member and the family (6p), and to do activities that they like (5p). during the deployment, they advised them to talk to the service member, preferably by videoconference (11p), not to worry so much, and to distract themselves (9p), to seek support in friends, teachers and family (8p), and to maintain the routine (3p). finally, in the post-deployment, they advised, as a priority, to be close to the service member to catch up. before his father leaves, he should spend a lot of time with him and to make the most of it (f16, 13y). to spend time playing, forgetting every day, and one day daddy comes back (f3, 8y). during the post-deployment? enjoy! (f21, 15y) being able to advise peers can be a sign of personal growth or adaptation (resilient reintegration), and not just the recovery of their condition before the mission. as mentioned before, resilient reintegration is a process in the presence of adversity that results in growth (richardson, 2002), being referred to by wooten (2013) regarding the deployed military. in the same sense, in addition to the negative effects identified in our findings and in existing literature in this study we also point out that the children perceived positive changes in their life after the mission(s), attributing new meanings to the experience lived. in addition to re-connecting to their family, they felt an increase in their own responsibility (4p) and in the attribution of tasks (8p), some of them embodied in new routines, and they also recognized their maturity gain (10p). these testimonies are in line with some literature (e.g., lester et al., 2010; park, 2011; riggs & riggs, 2011) que suggest that most children show evidence of resilience over the course of the deployment cycle. i agree that the missions help us to be prepared (…) it did no harm (m12, 18y). i think that if there was no mission i would have also grown up, but with the absence of an important person, it makes us grow up faster, and have responsibilities that i didn’t have (f21, 15y). conclusions the present study showed that the military children trigger a set of strategies and resources (protective factors), with the purpose of minimizing the adverse events inherent to each one of the phases of the mission, which can contribute to a resilient reintegration, as referred by several authors, depending on individual characteristics and skills and experiences lived (rutter, 1999). during the presentation of our findings, we highlight the variability of coping strategies by children throughout the phases of a mission, which is an interesting finding of our study. the most critical moments of a mission were mainly identified as the notification period and the last days before the departure deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 230 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the service member, as well as the phase of deployment, especially the first weeks. this is caused by changes in the routine, the increased responsibility, the freedom, and the domestic tasks, due to the absence of an important element of the nuclear family, which is in agreement with literature (e.g., knobloch et al., 2015; misra & singh, 2014; pincus et al., 2001). regarding the changes perceived during the pre-deployment, the children felt they were given advice and "training" for the next phase. during the deployment the perceived changes are related to the increase of tasks, the closeness between elements of the family, and the younger ones recognizing the support of their older siblings, feeling that these are the substitute of the absent caregiver. during the post-deployment there was the perception that there was a concern in the readjustment of the family system, so that it was as natural as possible. in the beginning of the deployment, as well as in the post-deployment, the children seem to be adapting quickly to the situation lived (jensen et al., 1996). the coping strategies most used by the children were the search for support from their peers, family members and teachers (e.g., chawla & solinas-saunders, 2011; knobloch et al., 2015; misra & singh, 2014), and problem solving. however, and especially during the pre-deployment, the search for information was also a practiced strategy. finally, and as outcomes, it was mentioned that the reintegration of the lived experience allowed a greater closeness between the family, especially the nuclear one, and an increase in responsibility, maturity and personal growth. not only looking for the risk factors, we attempted to highlight some strategies used by the service members' children in the most critical moments of a mission, through first-person narratives. as this kind of studies are scarce, our findings, pioneers with children of portuguese military personnel, offer a set of guidelines that may help military families, especially children, to structure their mission experiences in terms of strengths and gains, instead of focusing only on negative effects (knobloch et al., 2015). as park (2011) points out, if military families, in general, have done well in the past, then in the present, they should seek to disseminate it as a source of pride and inspiration. the study presents some limitations that must be taken into consideration when reading the results, such as, the range of the age of the participants given the sample size. on the other hand, the results do not reflect the perspectives of several family subsystems (e.g., parental subsystem), and they only report experiences of the children of the male service member of the portuguese army, which should be rectified in the future studies, namely through comparative studies of various branches of the armed forces. these studies should be extended to the whole family system, in order to better understand the strategies and resources that can contribute to the readjustment of children (and parents) during a mission. some practical implications should also be considered. taking into consideration that the children of the deployed military prefer the informal support (e.g., family and friends), it will be important to create informal social support networks which address the specific needs of the military families, especially in the deployment phase (andres & coulthard, 2015). however, other entities (e.g., religious, military, school) will also be important in supporting the children during all phases of the mission (flake et al., 2009). the branches of the armed forces should explore and materialize the results of studies carried out with the portuguese military families using existing forms of support (e.g., intervention and psychological support model provided by the center for applied psychology of the army), also enriching them with positive adaptation to international military missions. by analyzing the positive coping strategies of the service members' children, we can expand the existing resources of support to military families, emphasizing that the focus of what has resulted is not underestimated or ignored what has gone wrong (park, 2011). it would also be important to promote social cohesion between organized military units and families, through family support centers, whose core work consists of immediate provision of services (e.g., spiritual, bureaucratic and peer support), or referral to other services. such interventions will help military families to successfully adapt to the demands of the military life, especially during missions, at which time the challenges can be more severe (andres & coulthard, 2015), so enhancing protective factors and, at the same time, reducing risk factors. dos santos, francisco, & ribeiro 231 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 219–234 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v18i2.1694 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors declare that they have not received any funding. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank the military families who participated in the study and to marta gil for her work on the translation of the manuscript into english. competing interests: the authors have declared that no conflicting interests exist. ethics statement: all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.informed consent was obtained from all individual participants in the study and their parents.this article does not contain any studies with animals 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(2013). a bioecological model of deployment risk and resilience. journal of human behavior in the social environment, 23(6), 699–717. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2013.795049 about the authors r. pessoa dos santos, phd in family psychology from universidade de lisboa, invited professor at the portuguese military academy (exército português). r. francisco, phd in family psychology from universidade de lisboa, assistant professor at the school of human sciences (universidade católica portuguesa). m. t. ribeiro, phd in psychology from universidade de lisboa, associate professor of the faculty of psychology (universidade de lisboa). deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children 234 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/mos/reports/report_to_congress_on_impact_of_deployment_on_military_children.pdf http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/mos/reports/report_to_congress_on_impact_of_deployment_on_military_children.pdf http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/mos/reports/report_to_congress_on_impact_of_deployment_on_military_children.pdf https://www.academia.edu/19596069/van_breda_a_d_2001_resilience_theory_a_literature_review_pretoria_south_africa_south_african_military_health_service https://www.academia.edu/19596069/van_breda_a_d_2001_resilience_theory_a_literature_review_pretoria_south_africa_south_african_military_health_service https://www.academia.edu/19596069/van_breda_a_d_2001_resilience_theory_a_literature_review_pretoria_south_africa_south_african_military_health_service https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2013.795049 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ deployment risk and resilience model applied to military children (introduction) children’s coping and resilience the portuguese military method participants procedure measures results and discussion mission phases: most critical moments the changes experienced during the mission coping strategies outcomes and reintegration conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the authors negative valence effect in affective forecasting: the unique impact of the valence among dispositional and contextual factors for certain life events research reports negative valence effect in affective forecasting: the unique impact of the valence among dispositional and contextual factors for certain life events virginie christophe 1, michel hansenne 1 [1] psyncog research unit, liège university, liège, belgium. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 received: 2019-03-12 • accepted: 2019-10-13 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: ljiljana b. lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia corresponding author: virginie christophe, liège university, place du 20 août 7(bât a1), 4000 liège, belgium. tel: +32 4 3662008, e-mail: v.christophe@uliege.be supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract decades of research on affective forecasting have shown a persistent intensity bias—a strong tendency by which people overestimate their future hedonic response for positive events and underestimate it for negatives one. while previous research has provided answers on the isolated impact of various individual or contextual factors, this study is original in that it brings them together to determine which ones most influence the inaccuracy of affective forecasting. participants were asked to predict their emotional satisfaction for a personal life event, the course (positive or negative) and date of which were already known. first, the results support previous research by showing that affective predictions are highly associated with people’s affective experience. moreover, multiple regression showed that among the individual and contextual factors previously reported to be in relation with affective forecasting inaccuracy, only the valence of the event could explain inaccuracy of forecasting. according to a growing body of literature, these findings point out a tendency to underestimate the intensity of the affect predicted both for negative and positive, with a stronger underestimation for negative events: the negative valence effect. keywords affective forecasting, intensity bias, negative valence effect affective forecasting forecasting how we are going to feel in the future; that is what affective forecasting is. despite the adaptive role of our exceptional ability to mentally travel in time, several lines of evidence have showed that affective forecasting is subjected to many errors (e.g., coteţ & david, 2016; miloyan & suddendorf, 2015; wilson, wheatley, meyers, gilbert, & axsom, 2000). affective forecasting bias mainly comes from people's tendency to overestimate their future hedonic response. for example, people could overestimate how happy they will be after positive events such as getting promoted and how sad they will feel after negative events, such as the loss of a match/ election by a favorite sports team or political candidate. this tendency to overestimate the intensity of future emotion was first called intensity bias (buehler & mcfarland, 2001). later, the overestimation of both intensity and duration errors were termed impact bias (wilson, meyers, & gilbert, 2003): in short, people think that they will be impacted by stronger emotions and for a longer period than initially imagined. these biases are robust and have been observed in many diverse life events (e.g., valentine's day, political election, soccer, romantic breakup, or christmas day). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1945&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ although the intensity bias is considered as a robust phenomenon, recent studies have pointed out some methodo­ logical problems behind the studies shedding light upon it, and others have demonstrated that both dispositional and contextual factors could modulate it (hoerger, chapman, & duberstein, 2016; levine, lench, kaplan, & safer, 2012, 2013;verner-filion, lafrenière, & vallerand, 2012). different approaches in the study of affective forecasting recently, some authors have raised concerns about the usual means of measuring and interpreting affective forecasting inaccuracies, challenging the significance and validity of the intensity bias (lench et al., 2019; levine et al., 2012, 2013; mathieu & gosling, 2012). a main concern that directly challenges the intensity bias is relative to a procedural artifact. thus, the inaccuracy or the accuracy of our affective forecasting could be considered as being two facets of the same reality according to the choice of the data analyses (dunn & laham, 2006; epley & dunning, 2006; gagné & lydon, 2004). convinced that the accuracy of affective forecasting can indeed be approached in several ways, mathieu and gosling (2012) conducted a meta-analysis. they explained that when researchers study the accuracy of forecasting via the subtraction of the affective forecasted score with the affective experienced score, the result obtained can be qualified as absolute. it reveals by “how much” we overor underestimated our future affect, if at all. however, when the accuracy of the projections is studied through a correlation analysis between the predicted and the experienced score, the result obtained can be qualified as relative. it reveals the global direction of the forecasting error and reveals whether the trend of all the participants is leaning towards an overestimation or rather towards an underestimation of the forecasted affects. their results showed that when accuracy was computed in the absolute sense, people tended to misestimate the absolute intensity of the hedonic response that they will experience, meaning that forecasters inaccurately predict exactly how happy positive events will make them and how unhappy negative events will make them. but, when accuracy was computed in the relative sense, the direction of people’s forecasts was reasonably accurate, meaning that forecasters accurately predict which positive events will make them happy and which negative events will make them unhappy. thus, when researchers simultaneously consider the accuracy of forecasting in the absolute and the relative sense, it appears that, people can be seen as both good or bad predictors. the previously demonstrated impact of some dispositional and contextual factors on affective forecasting in order to better understand the conditions of occurrence of the intensity bias, a group of studies explored the impact of several factors on people’s affective forecasting (e.g., personality traits, event valence, importance or emotional intelligence). the purpose of these studies was to point out whether individual traits or contextual factors may lead individuals to overestimate or underestimate their future emotions, in other words, who are the people and which are the contexts favorable to the errors of affective forecasting? the personality traits and the accuracy of prediction first, several studies focused on individual traits reported evidence supporting the link between personality traits and affective forecasting (e.g., hoerger & quirk, 2010; zelenski, santoro, & whelan, 2012). recently, hoerger et al. (2016) showed that neuroticism and extraversion personality traits can be associated to both predicted and experienced affect for upcoming various life events (e.g., valentine’s day, football games, and birthday), meaning that personality modu­ lates affective forecasting. more specifically, individuals who were lower in extraversion and higher on neuroticism anticipated, correctly, that they would experience relatively more unpleasant emotional reactions, and those who were higher on extraversion and lower on neuroticism predicted, rightly, that they would experience relatively more pleasant emotional reactions. the level of optimism and the intensity bias previously, research indicated that people believe unrealistic optimism to be preferable to realism (armor, massey, & sackett, 2008) and exhibit optimistic biases about their personal abilities and their future (for a review, see dunning & negative valence effect in affective forecasting 118 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ story, 1991). despite these suggestive findings indicating that people might assume that they will feel better than they end up doing in reality, only one published study directly examined the optimistic trait on affective forecasting. indeed, quoidbach and dunn (2010) showed that the dispositional trait of optimism influenced the intensity bias for a positive event (i.e., 2008 victory of obama). ironically, the results showed that more optimistic individuals were less likely to see their emotional future positively. the emotional intelligence competencies and accuracy in affective forecasting according to hoerger, quirk, chapman, and duberstein (2012), emotional intelligence could serve as a theoretical framework for organizing research on the influence of individual differences in affective projections. while previously, dunn, brackett, ashton-james, schneiderman, and salovey (2007) showed that management of emotion—a subcompo­ nent of a performance measure of emotional intelligence—emerged as the strongest predictor of forecasting ability, hoerger et al. (2012) provided further proof that high emotional intelligence is associated with more accuracy for both performance and self-reported tests. by controlling participants' cognitive skills in addition to emotional intelligence, they asked students to predict the intensity of the emotions they would feel when viewing images that were first descri­ bed to them. the results revealed that even with cognitive skill measures included in the model, emotional intelligence accounted for some of the variance of the forecasting accuracy score. also, the authors demonstrated that emotional intelligence was associated not only with the accuracy of emotional projections, but also to their improvement across participants’ experience. thus, the literature provides a series of studies suggesting that high emotional competencies improve affective forecasting accuracy (dunn et al., 2007; gasper & clore, 2000; gohm, 2003; hoerger et al., 2012), just as personality or the level of optimism can modulate the predicted and experienced affect. the direct or indirect consideration of the contextual valence in literature many studies have examined the role of the valence of the event on affective prediction through its direct or indirect “positive” or “negative” categorization. for example, christophe and hansenne (2016) focused on the influence of dispositional happiness on affective forecasting accuracy, through different levels of success at an event (i.e., good, moderate or bad results in an exam). they showed that happy participants predicted less negative emotional feelings than unhappy people for moderate results, but no differences occurred between the two groups for good and bad results (i.e., an arbitrary positive and negative valence). also, hoerger and quirk (2010) showed that neuroticism was associated with the forecasted and experienced affect in participants who did not have a valentine's day date (i.e., negative valence), but was only associated with experienced affect for those having had one (i.e., positive valence). through its direct or indirect consideration, the valence was one of the most common factors found in the literature about affective forecasting. to our knowledge, it was the only contextual factor to have been studied along with many other dispositional factors in the affective forecasting accuracy literature. although research has shown that both positive and negative valences can impact the prediction of affect and accuracy, most showed a stronger effect for negative events (e.g., andrade & van boven, 2010; coteţ & david, 2016; feys & anseel, 2015; finkenauer, gallucci, van dijk, & pollmann, 2007; loewenstein, 2007; mathieu & gosling, 2012; wilson, meyers, & gilbert, 2001). studies about the impact of the subjective importance of an event while dispositional traits and the valence were the first factors to be investigated to try to identify what might increase or decrease inaccuracy in affective forecasting, other contextual factors were subsequently explored. few studies have investigated the implication of subjective importance given by participants to the event for which affective forecasting was asked (eastwick, finkel, krishnamurti, & loewenstein, 2008; hoerger, quirk, lucas, & carr, 2010; verner-filion et al., 2012) and little research has been published. the results showed that when the subjects have moderate expectations regarding the outcome of the event (e.g., moderate expectations in love or for a football team), the intensity bias is lowered compared to important expectations where the intensity bias is stronger. christophe & hansenne 119 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the controversial role of the familiarity of an event could the fact that we have already experienced an event improve the accuracy of forecasting? previous studies have highlighted the relationships between memory and predictions (levine, lench, karnaze, & carlson, 2018), showing that we anticipate future affects based on memories of similar past events. remembering is not as exact as one might think because of several recollection errors (gilbert & wilson, 2007; morewedge, gilbert, & wilson, 2005; yonelinas & ritchey, 2015). however, in a meta-analysis, coteț and david (2016) did not find any effect of familiarity (i.e., familiar vs. unfamiliar vs. unknown) as a moderator on the accuracy of affective predictions. in order to study this factor more precisely, a continuous variable like the frequency would be more appropriate. the present investigation while many individual and contextual explanatory factors have been investigated mainly separately in affective fore­ casting research, few studies—if any—have yet studied them together. with regards to theoretical contribution, to the best of our knowledge, the present study provided the first piece of evidence examining which of these factors are the strongest predictors of affective forecasting inaccuracy. considering the two distinct ways of approaching the accuracy of affective forecasting, we propose to explore both the absolute and relative forecasting accuracy through different analyses. the first step will be to assess the relative accuracy between the predicted and experienced scores with a correlation analysis. following mathieu and gosling (2012), we expect that participants will accurately predict their affects in the relative sense. then, to answer our main question, we will include in the same analysis: extraversion, neuroticism, optimism and emotional intelligence as dispositional factors, and the subjective importance of the event, the valence and frequency as contextual factors to explore which of them predict inaccuracy in affective forecasting for a likely life event. according to the predictors detected by the multiple regression model, we will know which contextual or dispositional factors most impact the absolute accuracy of affective forecasting for a personal life event. outside of valence, there is little data on the combined impact of contextual and individual factors on affective forecasting. therefore, no assumptions can be made about the prevalence of some predictors over others. however, given the robustness of the valence found in multi-factor research, we expect that its effect will persist alongside other factors in our analyses. method participants a total of 335 participants was recruited in the main hall of the university hospital. they were asked to participate in a study on positive psychology. the main investigator of the study informed them that they would be asked to answer a series of online questionnaires on a tablet for 30 minutes. after providing informed consent, demographic measures of age, gender and highest level of diploma (ranging from 1 to 7 for primary school degree, lower secondary, high school, bachelor, master, phd and honorary degree) were asked. additionally, the current affect was measured by the positive and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988; french adaptation by gaudreau, sanchez, & blondin, 2006) to control for the possible influence of their current affective state on our measure of interest (i.e., the inaccuracy score of affective forecasting). participants completed the scales assessing both positive (10 items, α = .79) and negative affect (10 items, α = .85) on a 5-point likert scale ranging from very slightly to very much. measures extraversion and neuroticism were assessed by the extraversion (8 items, α = .83) and neuroticism (8 items, α = .84) subscales from the french version of big five inventory (bfi-fr; john & srivastava, 1999; french adaptation by plaisant, courtois, réveillère, mendelsohn, & john, 2010). participants indicated the degree to which the brief descriptive statements apply to them on a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. negative valence effect in affective forecasting 120 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional intelligence was assessed by the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire-short form (teique-sf; petrides & furnham, 2006). the teique-sf consisted of 30 items (α = .92) arranged on a 7point response scale (from strongly agree to strongly disagree). optimism was measured by the french version of the life orientation test–revised (lot–r; scheier, carver, & bridges, 1994; french adaptation by trottier, mageau, trudel, & halliwell, 2008), which consists of 10 5-point items (α = .76). dispositional happiness was assessed by the french version of the subjective happiness scale (shs-f; lyubomirsky & lepper, 1999; french adaptation by kotsou & leys, 2017), which includes four 7-point items (α = .83). procedure events and contextual measures in the present study, participants were given the freedom to predict their feelings about a personal and likely event (for additional design information, see sm1 in supplementary materials) that they shared with the main investigator. although the target event was not the same for all participants, some standardized instructions were given to them in order to frame their choice. valence — in previous research we have seen that the valence of the event can be arbitrarily attributed by researchers (e.g., christmas day as a positive event and no valentine's day date as a negative event). however, two people can attribute a different valence to the very same event depending on their ethnicity, age, needs, past experiences, life goals and personal characteristics. in the present study, participants were randomly instructed to give either a positive or a negative personal future life event. through this procedure, we ensured that the valence data were in accordance with the subjective valence of the participant. occurrence — considering the role of the likelihood of the outcome of an event on the accuracy of affective forecasting (andrade & van boven, 2010; ayton, pott, & elwakili, 2007; buechel, zhang, & morewedge, 2017; buehler & mcfarland, 2001; buechel, zhang, morewedge, & vosgerau, 2014), we decided to control its variability. the event chosen could not be an event with a random outcome (e.g., football match, response to a job interview, medical examination results). the investigator made sure that the participants gave an event outcome that had an extremely high likelihood. thus, a variety of personal life events was given by participants such as signing for the purchase of a new home, going to a dinner at their mother-in-law's house, celebrating their grandson's first birthday or having to announce poor diagnostic medical results to family members. event timing — finally, the event should fulfill two timing conditions: it should be scheduled on a specific date already known at the time of answering the questionnaire and, occurring 4 weeks after predicting the affect. a tolerance of 2 days around the 4-week delay was granted in order to give the participants the opportunity to find an event that was already scheduled. like the occurrence, event timing was therefore a fixed factor common to the entire sample. only the valence, as a dichotomous variable, presented categories and was therefore included in our analyses as a contextual factor. once the personal event had been selected, the subsequent contextual measure of subjective importance and past frequency of the chosen event were asked for. the subjective importance was assessed on a 10-point likert scale and the following frequency question was presented: “how many times have you experienced this event in the past?” because of its large dispersion, frequency was converted to logarithmic scores. affective forecasting time 1participants were asked to perform a forecast of the level of their emotional satisfaction about the event (for detail about the choice of the affective target, see sm2 in supplementary materials). the following instruction was presented: “shortly after the end of this event, how do you think you will feel about it on a scale of 1 (extremely bad) to 10 (extremely good)?” christophe & hansenne 121 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ time 2a month later, the event for which affect had been predicted occurred. the experienced emotion was evaluated by phone within an 8-hour delay following the event. after having been asked if the event had occurred, participants were requested to rate their current affective state regarding the event on the same likert’s scale. following previous warnings found in the literature on affective forecasting about the method (see, levine et al., 2012), a specific question about the experienced affect was presented (for additional information about metric issue in affective forecast­ ing literature, see sm3 in supplementary materials): “today was the day of the event you had previously forecasted. on a scale of 1 (extremely bad) to 10 (extremely good), how do you currently feel about it?” past research on affective forecasting has been based on a conceptualization of accuracy as the mathematical difference between the forecasted and the actual affect (mathieu & gosling, 2012). this method was presently used, and allowed us to obtain a measure of affective forecasting accuracy for each participant in order to study its potential mod­ ulation according to independent factors (e.g., sevdalis & harvey, 2007; verner-filion et al., 2012). thus, the experienced affect score was subtracted from the forecasted affect score. a positive accuracy score indicated overestimation of the level of emotional satisfaction, a negative accuracy score showed its underestimation and a score of zero reflected exact prediction of the level of emotional satisfaction. results preliminary analysis ninety-one percent of the 335 individuals accepted to participate. we excluded one participant who did not answer to the recall concerning experienced emotion, six for whom the event had not occurred, and four for whom the event that the participants actually experienced was not the one initially chosen. analyses were conducted on a final sample composed of 295 individuals. prior to the main analysis, a preliminary analysis was conducted to determine whether the data was suitable for the analysis to be performed. kurtosis statistics were used to examine normality assumption. according to curran, west, and finch (1996), the data are normally distributed if kurtosis values fall within the range of +1 and −1. table 1 shows means, standard deviations, and kurtosis values with corresponding standard errors for each of the variables used in the study. as seen in table 1, all variables were distributed within the range of +1 and −1, proving normal univariate distribution. however, the two dichotomous variables of gender and valence showed a platykurtic distribution due to their intrinsic non-metric properties. correlation analyses pearson correlation coefficients were estimated among all the study variables assessed in the present study. table 2 presents the correlation coefficients between the study variables. results showed that predicted levels of emotional sat­ isfaction were significantly correlated with the experienced level of emotional satisfaction, meaning a strong accuracy of forecasting in the relative sense. also, table 2 showed that the predicted and experienced scores were correlated with the inaccuracy score, with a positive association for the predicted emotional satisfaction and a negative association for its experience. no relationship between the inaccuracy score and any other factor was found. all individual variables of extraversion, neuroticism, emotional intelligence, optimism and dispositional happiness shared significant inter-correlations. regression analyses in order to find which dispositional and contextual factors primarily impact the inaccuracy of affective forecasting, a multiple regression model was generated. this procedure allows for multicollinearity between some of the predictors to be handled (see table 2) and to determine which independent variables most predict the absolute score of forecasting inaccuracy. the multicollinearity assumption was assessed during data analysis, through the tolerance statistic test and the variance inflation factor (vif) to demonstrate the absence of multicollinearity among independent variables. negative valence effect in affective forecasting 122 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tolerance values typically range from 0 to 1 (mertler & vannatta, 2005). tolerance values less than .1 and vif values greater than 10 indicate multicollinearity. table 3 shows no evidence of multicollinearity in the study. table 1 descriptive statistics of study variables (n = 295) variable range m sd kurtosis 1. gender 0 1 0.45 0.498 −1.97 2. age 16 86 40.83 15.31 −0.901 3. education level 1 7 3.67 1.6 −0.805 4. positive affect 12 40 27.76 4.84 −0.188 5. negative affect 11 41 27.42 4.91 0.163 6. extraversion 1.37 5 3.22 0.731 −0.445 7. neuroticism 1 4.75 2.83 0.823 −0.698 8. emotional intelligence 92 197 144 19.08 −0.132 9. optimism 1 24 14.4 4.22 −0.059 10. dispositional happiness 8 28 19.9 3.72 0.468 11. valence −1 1 0.105 0.996 −1.96 12. importance 1 10 5.98 2.82 −0.997 13. frequency 0 3.6 0.937 0.823 −0.143 14. predicted score 1 10 6.99 1.95 0.208 15. experienced score 1 10 7.49 1.97 0.214 16. inaccuracy score −5 4 −0.51 0.498 0.698 table 2 correlations among the study variables (n = 295) variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 1. age − 2. education level −.134* − 3. positive affect −.044 −.009 − 4. negative affect −.034 −.003 .804*** − 5. extraversion −.004 .019 .146* .054 − 6. neuroticism −.152** .021 −.175** .216*** −.201*** − 7. emotional intelligence .025 .159** .007 −.080 .514*** −.534*** − 8. optimism .098 .139* .002 −.066 .299*** −.389*** .511*** − 9. dispositional happiness .056 −.006 .033 −.087 .318*** −.489*** .520*** .535*** − 10. importance .192** −.178** .238*** .213*** .107 −.077 −.009 .069 .050 − 11. frequency .170** −.004 −.080 −.102 −.054 −.002 −.011 −.033 −.068 −.103 − 12. predicted score .213*** −.122* .035 .030 .049 −.152** .103 .140* .190*** .268*** −.027 − 13. experienced score .164** −.158** .034 .069 .101 −.146 .138* .147* .206*** .242*** −.090 .700*** − 14. inaccuracy score .062 .049 .001 −.051 −.068 −.006 −.047 −.012 −.023 .031 .082 .375*** −.399*** − *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. christophe & hansenne 123 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 multiple regression model of predictors on inaccuracy score of forecasted emotional satisfaction dependent variable unstandardized β se standardized β p collinearity statistics tolerance vif individual factor extraversion −0.133 0.143 −0.064 .353 .694 1.441 neuroticism −0.048 0.134 −0.026 .723 .626 1.597 emotional intelligence −0.003 0.007 −0.032 .703 .469 2.133 optimism 0.011 0.026 0.031 .670 .878 1.139 shs −0.005 0.031 −0.012 .870 .655 1.526 contextual factor valence 0.527 0.185 0.173** .005 .907 1.103 importance −0.003 0.033 −0.005 .938 .867 1.154 frequency 0.153 0.108 0.083 .160 .969 1.032 note. dependent variable: inaccuracy score of level of emotional satisfaction. vif = variance inflation factor; shs = subjective happiness scale. **p < .01. we performed this multiple regression analysis with the inaccuracy score as dependent variable and with extraversion, neuroticism, emotional intelligence, optimism, dispositional happiness, valence (dummy coded −1 = negative; 1 = positive), importance and frequency as predictors. table 3 contains the results of the multiple regression analyses with simultaneous predictor entries. the results revealed that the valence was the only predictor that exhibited a significant effect on the inaccuracy of affective forecasting (p < .01), meaning that participants differently misestimate their emotional satisfaction according to the positivity or negativity of the event. the percentage of explained variance of inaccuracy score was 4% (model fit: r = .203, r 2 = .041, adjusted r 2 = .015). although the multiple regression reveals the direction of the inaccuracy score according to the predictors, the analysis does not allow us to know the details of the forecasting error. by using the inaccuracy score, the slope direction alone does not allow us to determine if the participants have underor overestimated their affect. indeed, one needs to take into account the predicted values of the dependent variable, as a similar slope coefficient may either translate the fact that overestimation is observed for a positive event, while underestimation holds true for negative events; or the participants could have simply underestimated to a lesser degree their affect for a positive rather than for a negative event. to better understand the direction of the impact of this last significant predictor, we examined how much intensity bias differed by experimental condition of valence. analysis of variance in order to evaluate the inaccuracy of participants in the absolute sense according the valence, emotional satisfaction ratings were submitted to a 2 (time: predicted vs. experienced) × 2 (valence: negative vs. positive) repeated measure anova. the analysis revealed a dominant effect of time, f(1, 293) = 36.54, p < .001, and valence, f(1, 293) = 133.00, p < .001. more importantly, the analysis revealed a time × valence interaction showing that accuracy of affective forecasting was more sensitive to negative valence than to positive valence, f(1, 293) = 8.32, p < .01 (figure 1). follow up post hoc comparisons revealed that participants predicted a lower level of emotional satisfaction (m = 5.72, sd = 0.14, 95% ci [5.46, 5.99]) than what was actually experienced (m = 6.51, sd = 0.15, 95% ci [6.21, 6.82]) for negative events, p < .001, d = 0.4, 95% ci [−1.07, −0.05], and predicted lower levels of emotional satisfaction (m = 8.01, sd = 0.12, 95% ci [7.76, 8.25]) as compared to the experience (m = 8.29, sd = 0.138, 95% ci [8.02, 8.56]) for positive events, p < .01, d = 0.21, 95% ci [−0.49, −0.07]. figure 1 reveals that in contrast to the classical pattern of intensity bias showing an underestimation of the predicted level of emotional satisfaction for negative events and an overestimation for positive events, the direction of the prediction error tends to be an underestimation of the predicted level of emotional satisfaction in both positive and negative conditions. however, the difference between predicted and actual feelings of negative valence effect in affective forecasting 124 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional satisfaction (i.e., the inaccuracy score), was higher for the negative events (−0.79) than for the positive ones (−0.29). figure 1 predicted and experienced level of emotional satisfaction rates for events with positive and negative subjective valence discussion affective forecasting accuracy as expected, the present study showed that participants were both accurate and inaccurate to predict their feeling. according to mathieu and gosling (2012), the very strong association found between the participants’ prediction and experience of emotional satisfaction allows us to conclude that they were highly accurate at predicting how they will feel in the relative sense. this indicates that the direction of forecasts was correct: participants who predicted to feel high emotional satisfaction tended to feel high emotional satisfaction and vice-versa. however, they fail to be accurate in the absolute sense by misestimation of the degree to which they will feel emotionally satisfied according to event valence, congruently to previous findings in the affective forecasting literature (gilbert, pinel, wilson, blumberg, & wheatley, 1998; wilson et al., 2000, 2001). in addition, dispositional factors previously reported to be in relation with affective forecasting did not explain the inaccuracy of prediction: neither the participant’s level of extraversion, neuroticism, emotional intelligence, optimism or subjective happiness, nor the importance or the frequency with which the event was encountered in the past was in relation with an inaccuracy of the forecast (see table 3). even if multiple regression analyses enables the handling of multicollinearity between predictors, the effect of dispositional variables on the accuracy of affective forecasting could have been limited by some inter-correlations between dispositional factors (see table 2). the certainty of the outcome of the events could also have influenced the accuracy of the forecasts. historically, affective forecasting was mainly studied for events with unlikely outcomes like a housing attribution (dunn, wilson, & gilbert, 2003), a football match (wilson et al., 2000) or having a date on valentine's day (hoerger & quirk, 2010). in their study about the outcome probability on affective forecasting, buechel et al. (2014) showed through several gambling experiments that the forecasted affect is impacted by the probability of occurrence, whereas the affect experienced is more impacted by the result itself, thus inducing an inaccuracy between the affect forecasted and experienced through the degree of attention people payed to these different contextual elements. in our 100% probability condition study, christophe & hansenne 125 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the design may have allowed to reduce the general intensity bias by preventing the forecast of the affect from being influenced by a variation in probability. a common direction of underestimation in the present study, the valence was the only predictor of the intensity bias when predicting the level of emotional satisfaction for a personal and certain event, meaning that subjects experienced a higher level of emotional satisfaction than they had predicted 1 month earlier, both for negative and positive events (see figure 1; for a discussion about the averages of emotional satisfaction for negative events, see sm4 in supplementary materials). even if for negative events, the intensity bias commonly predicts an underestimation of the forecasted hedonic response, the slight underestimation of the forecasted hedonic response reported in the present study for positive events is not congruent with previous findings usually showing the opposite pattern (i.e., overestimation). however, a growing part of the forecasting literature challenges the classical intensity bias direction, and more particularly through this inversion of the direction of the error for events with a positive valence (buechel et al., 2017). for example, the demonstration of an underestimated hedonic response is increasingly observed in many contexts such as gambling games (andrade & van boven, 2010; buechel et al., 2014), fictional sad stories (ebert & meyvis, 2014) and social interaction or exclusion (dunn et al., 2007; gilbert, lieberman, morewedge, & wilson, 2004; nordgren, bos, & dijksterhuis, 2011). buechel et al. (2014) suggested that the tendency for the underestimation of the hedonic intensity could be explained by the difference in richness between what is imagined and what is actually experienced. while the experience of an event outcome is vivid and replete with emotional responses, an affective prediction, in contrast, is an imagined reaction toward an abstract event. the authors explain that even if the mental simulation of an event allows to imagine how intense it will be, it is less likely to induce the same intensity of affect during the forecasting when compared to the actual experience. in the present study, underestimations of the level of predicted emotional satisfaction for negative and positive events bring additional findings in favor of a new line of studies challenging the direction of the traditionally observed forecasting error. together, these findings indicate that the bias is less uniform than suggested previously. even if the underestimation of the level of emotional satisfaction is significant for both valence conditions (negative: p < .001, d = 0.4, 95% ci[−1.07, −0.05], positive: p < .01, d = 0.21, 95% ci[−0.49, −0.07]), it can be noticed that the size effect is stronger for negative than for positive events (i.e., moderate effect for negative and low effect for positive). in addition, the positive relationship found between the forecasting inaccuracy and the valence in the multiple regression analyses can be explained by a stronger underestimation of emotional satisfaction for negative than for positive events, which supports previous findings highlighting the prevalence of the negative valence on the intensity bias for life events (the stronger value of the effect observed for negative events is discussed through memory bias and motivational theories in sm5, in supplementary materials) (e.g., feys & anseel, 2015; finkenauer et al., 2007; loewenstein, 2007). before drawing any conclusions, it is necessary to put forward several limitations of the study in order to more critically interpret its results. the main strength of this study is at the same time its greatest weakness: the diversity of events used for forecasting by the participants. although this methodological choice allowed to provide a higher variability within responses among the many studied factors, and guaranteed that subjective valence indeed went in the intended direction, it nonetheless limited the scope of our conclusions on the resulting relationships between variables. as a result, interpretation of results must be carried out with utmost caution. in the future, the use of personal life events limited to fixed predefined categories (e.g., health, family or professional events) could be a methodological compromise to more solidly back up the present data. secondly, the procedure was thought up to limit the impact of occurrence probability of the event through the instruction to forecast only for an event for which the outcome was absolutely certain. an interesting question for future research would be to use a similar multifactorial procedure by including groups of events with different levels of probability of occurrence. finally, following the robustness of the negative effect found in this study and throughout the literature, we suggest that future studies should include the valence as a continuous variable rather than a categorical one. negative valence effect in affective forecasting 126 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 117–130 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1945 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion these findings suggest that among the main dispositional and contextual variables previously studied in the literature, the subjective valence of the event is the stronger predictor of inaccuracies in affective forecasting. in addition, our findings showed a stronger underestimation of the forecast for negative life events compared to positive ones which can be considered as low, representing a negative valence effect. we found an underestimation of the emotional satisfaction both for the positive and negative events, that is, a classical direction of misestimation for negative events but a reversal of direction for the misestimation of positive ones. congruently to a growing body of literature in affective forecasting, our results challenge the direction of the traditional intensity bias. finally, the results of the present study support that people can be both accurate in the direction of the forecast of their affect and inaccurate in the absolute intensity of their prediction according the valence of the predicted event. funding: this research was funded by the university of liège under grant number nfb-14/19, and meets its expectations in regards to research data, which are available in the open science framework (osf) public data repository. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethical approval: procedure performed in this study on human participants was approved by the ethical committee of the university of liège psychology school and in accordance with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments. all participants included in this study gave their written informed consent. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via the psycharchives repository (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • sm1: additional design information. • sm2: detail about the choice of the affective target. • sm3: metric issue in affective forecasting literature. • sm4: discussion about the averages of emotional satisfaction for negative events. • sm5: discussion about the stronger value of the effect observed for negative events through memory bias and motivational theories. index of supplementary materials christophe, v., & hansenne, m. 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(2012). would introverts be better off if they acted more like extraverts? exploring emotional and cognitive consequences of counterdispositional behavior. emotion, 12(2), 290-303. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025169 about the authors virginie christophe, ph. d., is candidate in psychology at university of liège—her doctoral research activities focus on the topic of “affective forecasting.” the main goal of her researches is to determine the factors (contextual and/or individual) influencing the quality of people’s emotional predictions (i.e., affective forecasting). michel hansenne, ph. d., is a professor in psychology at university of liège. his research activities aim to better understand the impact of personality on emotional and cognitive processes. by behavioral and psychophysiological measures (erps) as well as by neuromodulation (tdcs) techniques, he is investigating the role played by dispositional factors on information processing. negative valence effect in affective forecasting 130 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013244 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.014 https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672012712008 https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.21.6.421.28688 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.5.821 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.02.009 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025169 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ negative valence effect in affective forecasting (introduction) affective forecasting different approaches in the study of affective forecasting the previously demonstrated impact of some dispositional and contextual factors on affective forecasting the present investigation method participants measures procedure results preliminary analysis correlation analyses regression analyses analysis of variance discussion affective forecasting accuracy a common direction of underestimation conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethical approval supplementary materials references about the authors the role of sexual prejudice and aetiology beliefs in the italians’ attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples research reports the role of sexual prejudice and aetiology beliefs in the italians’ attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples silvia di battista 1, daniele paolini 2, lucia mongelli 3, monica pivetti 1 [1] university of bergamo, bergamo, italy. [2] university iul, florence, italy. [3] university of chieti–pescara, chieti, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 received: 2021-07-29 • accepted: 2022-01-25 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: sandra obradovic, open university, milton keynes, united kingdom corresponding author: silvia di battista, department of human and social sciences, university of bergamo, via salvecchio 19, 24129, bergamo, italy. email: silvia.dibattista@unibg.it abstract research found that those who believe sexual orientation is inborn have generally positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women. however, other studies have also found that these beliefs could include negative eugenic ideas. this study aims to investigate the role of people’s beliefs about the aetiology of sexual orientation in attitudes toward adoption for both gay and lesbian couples in italy. we hypothesized that this relationship would be mediated by sexual prejudice. to test the predictions, 256 italian heterosexual participants were asked to answer questions on a scale about their beliefs regarding the aetiology of sexual orientation, sexual prejudice, and attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples. results confirmed that the relationship between aetiology beliefs and support for adoption by gay and lesbian couples was fully mediated by sexual prejudice. these results suggest that the belief that sexual orientation is controllable may serve to justify one’s prejudice and, in turn, result in a lower support for same-sex couples’ adoption. keywords aetiology beliefs, sexual orientation, sexual prejudice, same-sex couples, same-sex parenting, gay fathers, lesbian mothers opinions of italian people toward adoption for same-sex couples have rapidly become more positive in recent years. eurispes (the italian institute for political, economic, and social studies) surveys showed that in 2015 only 27.8% of italians declared themselves to be in favour of adoption by same-sex couples, while in 2020 this percentage rose to 42% (eurispes, 2020). in 2016, the italian parliament recognized the civil partnerships for same-sex couples. however, reproductive rights for same-sex partners and parenting were excluded. currently, the medically assisted reproduction for same-sex couples (e.g., use of donated gametes and embryos, surrogate motherhood) is not allowed (law 40/2004, art. 5 and art. 12). furthermore, the process of recording children born abroad from surrogacy or donor insemination in the national registry of births is complex for italian same-sex couples. for instance, in april 2020, the italian supreme court (the highest court in italy) denied a couple of lesbian women the possibility of recognizing jointly a child who was born in italy but conceived abroad through the use of medically assisted procreation (resolution 7668/2020). the supreme court also denied this possibility to a couple of gay men for their child who was born abroad through surrogacy (resolution 12193/2019). furthermore, in italy, in a limited number of situations, step-child adoption and foster care can be done by a court order regulated by the law no. 184/1983–art. 44 (the so-called “adoptions in particular cases”). however, adoption is in principle permitted only to couples who must be of different-sex by the law no. 149/2001 (art. 6, modifying the law no. 184/1983). this situation persists although research showed that no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7243&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ differences were found for children raised by same-sex parents as compared with those raised by different-sex parents (e.g., carone et al., 2018; fedewa et al., 2015; patterson, 2017). research has revealed that negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting are widespread (e.g., hosking & ripper, 2012; tušl et al., 2020; webb & chonody, 2012). italian people still show a preference for the adoption by different-sex parents than for both lesbian and gay couples (e.g., di battista et al., 2020). the most common arguments against same-sex parents are either based on judgments of inability to be parents or on the negative effects that these parents have on child development (clarke, 2001). people who hold more negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting are more likely to be heterosexual men than heterosexual women (e.g., costa et al., 2019; rye & meaney, 2010; smith et al., 2011), and to be fervent adherents of their religious faith (e.g., crawford et al., 1999; costa et al., 2019). heterosexual men endorse higher levels of sexual prejudice than heterosexual women in many countries and cultures (ciocca et al., 2015; furnham & saito, 2009; harbaugh & lindsey, 2015; herek, 2002; parrott et al., 2002) including italy (ciocca et al., 2015; lingiardi et al., 2016). another key factor in predicting negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting is what people think about the controllability of sexual orientation and the developmental origins of non-heterosexual behaviors (e.g., costa et al., 2019; crawford et al., 1999; frias-navarro et al., 2015; rye & meaney, 2010; smith et al., 2011). indeed, perceiving controllability for non-heterosexual behaviors suggests a level of choice which is sometimes accompanied by negative evaluations of same-sex parent families (e.g., costa et al., 2019; crawford et al., 1999). in this study, we argued that belief that sexual orientation is controllable may serve to justify negative attitudes in those with high levels of sexual prejudice and subsequently result in opposition to adoption by same-sex couples. in italy, these negative beliefs would be institutionally reinforced by religious preaching and would be more likely to remain undisputed among heterosexual men (e.g., ciocca et al., 2015; lingiardi et al., 2016; scandurra et al, 2017). the beliefs on the aetiology of sexual orientation sexual orientation can be seen as either controllable, thus changeable (i.e. influenced by social and environmental factors, or by individual choice), or not controllable and thus unchangeable (i.e. influenced by biological or genetic fac­ tors). in literature, perceiving controllability for sexual orientation is associated with negative evaluations of same-sex behaviors and relationships (costa et al., 2019; whitley, 1990). haslam and levy (2006) argued that the belief that same-sex sexual orientation is biologically based, immutable, and fixed early in life is one dimension of the essentialist beliefs. in general, essentialist beliefs are a set of ontological assumptions that have important implications for attitudes and they involve an inappropriate understanding of social categories such as “natural kinds”. following the study by rothbart and taylor (1992), haslam and levy (2006) argued that essentialist beliefs are a fundamental component of prejudice, because they tend to accentuate group differences. for instance, studies found that the belief in the biological basis of gender and race is associated with greater endorsement of gender and racial stereotypes (martin & parker, 1995). however, haslam and levy (2006) showed that some essentialist beliefs applied to sexual orientation, particularly the belief that same-sex sexual orientation is biologically based and immutable were not associated with negative attitudes but with positive ones. in their investigations, participants who expressed stronger anti-gay attitudes saw being gay or lesbian as more changeable and culturally specific, rather than being biologically based. in general, research has consistently found that those who believe sexual orientation is inborn or based on biological factors (such as genetics) and that it is not a personal choice, are more likely to have positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbian women (haslam et al., 2002; hegarty, 2002; hegarty & pratto, 2001; smith et al., 2011). on the contrary, heterosexual people who perceive same-sex behaviour as a choice or a controllable state were found to hold higher levels of sexual prejudice (e.g., costa et al., 2019; hans et al., 2012). for instance, whitley (1990) examined how college students’ perceptions of the controllability of being gay or lesbian influence their perceptions of gay men and lesbian women. results of this study showed that heterosexual individuals’ attitudes were more negative when same-sex sexual orientation was attributed to controllable than to uncontrollable causes. however, the authors cannot confirm the prediction that people expressing more favourable attitudes toward lesbian and gay people attribute same-sex sexual orientation to less controllable causes. investigating predictors of sexual prejudice regarding lesbian and gay parenting among a sample of portuguese heterosexual people, costa et al. (2019) revealed that being older, male, and more religious, as well as having a lower education level, were associated with stronger beliefs of same-sex sexual orientation di battista, paolini, mongelli, & pivetti 465 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as being controllable, and these beliefs were in turn associated with more negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting. exploring portuguese university students’ attitudes toward same-sex parenting and toward gay and lesbian rights, costa et al. (2014) also revealed that men were significantly more likely than women to believe that “homosexuality is a choice”, that “parents play an important role in the development of their children’s sexual orientation”, that “homosexuality is learned in contact with homosexual people”, that “homosexuality is a mental illness”, and to disagree that “homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality” (p. 1677). gender differences were also found in relation to support for gay and lesbian civil rights: men were more likely than women to be uncomfortable with same-sex marriage and to disagree with the need for gay and lesbian people to fight for their rights and, in particular, the right to have children. authors also found that beliefs about the social and environmental basis of same-sex sexual orientation were weakly correlated with negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting and toward gay and lesbian civil rights, while the belief that same-sex sexual orientation is a mental illness was highly correlated with these attitudes. these authors concluded that the beliefs about the aetiology of same-sex sexual orientation “may not be direct predictors of attitudes toward gay and lesbian rights, but more closely linked to negative affective reactions toward lesbian and gay men, i.e., homophobia” (p. 1681). in a sample of spanish university students, frias-navarro et al. (2015) found that when participants attributed a non-controllable origin to the same-sex sexual orientation, they showed greater support for the rights of gay men and lesbian women to marry and adopt children, compared to the participants who believed that the origin was environ­ mental. rye and meaney (2010) investigated the predictors of canadian psychology students’ attitudes toward same-sex parents’ adoption using a quasi-experimental design in which participants read one of three adoption scenarios (i.e., heterosexual couple, gay male couple, or lesbian couple). results showed that beliefs about the aetiology of same-sex sexual orientation were predictive for both men’s and women’s attitudes: participants who more strongly endorsed environmental explanations of same-sex sexual orientation rated same-sex parent adoption candidates more negatively than those who endorsed biological explanations. investigating the attitudes toward adoption by gay and lesbian couples in a sample of psychologists across the united states, crawford et al. (1999) found that beliefs about the aetiology of same-sex sexual orientation was the most predictive variable in the custody recommendations for same-sex partners. participants who believed same-sex sexual orientation is a matter of choice were more likely not to recommend custody for both gay and lesbian couples. smith et al. (2011) explored the relationships between beliefs about the aetiology of same-sex sexual orientation, sexual prejudice, and support for gay-relevant legislation (comprising adoption) among u.s. undergraduate psychology students. results revealed that the relationship between aetiology beliefs and support for gay-relevant legislation was mediated by sexual prejudice. the authors proposed that it is not the existence of empirical evidence for either side of the nature versus nurture aetiology debate on sexual orientation that affects the negative attitudes toward gayand lesbianrelevant legislation, but rather how people use their own understanding of the aetiology of sexual orientation. in the same way, haslam and levy (2006) also suggested that the associations between the beliefs about the aetiology of sexual orientation and prejudice or discrimination are not straightforward. other studies have also found that the belief that same-sex sexual orientation is based on biological factors could also increase sexual prejudice and discriminatory policies (halley, 1994; haslam et al., 2004), because it can be used to support negative opinions, including those of people who agree with negative eugenic ideas (sheldon et al., 2007). furthermore, haslam et al. (2002) found that even if beliefs in the immutability and naturalness of male same-sex sexual orientation were associated with less negative attitudes toward gay men, essentialist beliefs were also associated with the perception of gay men as being a categorically different “species”, a belief that may increase intolerance. in croatia, huic et al. (2018) investigated essentialist beliefs about same-sex sexual orientation as determinants of discriminatory intentions against gay men and lesbian women, and the readiness to engage in positive action toward them. results showed that essentialist beliefs about homosexuality were strong predictors of both negative and positive behavioral intentions. beliefs about the immutability of same-sex sexual orientation were associated with fewer intentions to discriminate, and more readiness to engage in positive behavior, while discreteness beliefs (a belief that there are clear and sharp boundaries between sexualities) were inversely related to both. furthermore, essentialist beliefs impacted attitudes toward lesbian and gay people which were in turn associated with intention to discriminate, and readiness to engage in positive action. in this investigation and linked to the aforementioned literature, we intended to explore italian cisgender heterosex­ ual beliefs about the aetiology of sexual orientation. particularly, we examined how the aetiology beliefs would affect aetiology beliefs and attitudes toward same-sex couples 466 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual prejudice toward same-sex parents and people’s acceptance of adoption by both gay and lesbian couples. what is missing in the literature is a more solid understanding of the relationship between the beliefs in the aetiology of same-sex sexual orientation and the negative attitudes toward adoption by both gay men and lesbian women couples in italy. we proposed that an increase in personal beliefs that same-sex sexual orientation is controllable would be related to higher levels of sexual prejudice toward same-sex parents that, in turn, would impact on negative attitudes toward same-sex parents’ adoption. therefore, we tested the role of sexual prejudice as a mediator in the relationship between italians’ aetiology beliefs and their level of support for adoption by both lesbian couples (hp1) and gay couples (hp2). furthermore, as previous research showed that women were more likely to support same-sex parent adoption and reported sexual prejudice less often than men (e.g., salvati et al., 2019), one could expect that women would be more in favour of same-sex (step)parenting than men. furthermore, in italy, religious institutions might tend to reinforce the belief that same-sex orientation is controllable, and even changeable, increasing negative attitudes toward lesbian women and gay men and same-sex parenting. for these reasons, we controlled for gender and religiosity. method participants and procedures this empirical study consisted of a 20-minute self-reported questionnaire implemented online using the qualtrics.com form and administered throughout italy. a total of 285 questionnaires were administered online. since the study aims to investigate italian heterosexuals’ attitudes toward adoption by same-sex couples, non-heterosexual participants were not included in the analyses (n = 29). the final sample consisted of 256 self-identified cisgender and heterosexual italian men (n = 128) and women (n = 128) aged from 18 to 72 years (m = 36.48 years, sd = 13.09). the sample was medium-to-highly educated with 46.5% having completed secondary school (n = 119), 45.3% having a university degree (n = 116), and 8.2% having a post-graduate degree or a phd qualification (n = 21). participants originated from regions of the center (n = 112; 43.8%), the south (n = 105; 41%), and the north (n = 39; 15.2%) of italy. as regards religious belief, 102 participants (39.8%) were not religious at all, 75 were occasionally religious people (29.3%), and 79 were medium-to-highly religious people (30.9%). the research complied with the ethics code of the italian psychology association (associazione italiana di psicologia, 2015), and it was conducted in accordance with the world medical association's declaration of helsinki (1964/2013). measures aetiology beliefs to measure participants’ ideas about the origins of sexual orientation, a measure of beliefs about the controllability of sexual orientation was administered (adapted by costa et al., 2019; smith et al., 2011). the instrument measures beliefs about the developmental origins and controllability of same-sex sexual orientation. the six items included the following statements: “children raised without clear gender roles are more likely to be gay or lesbian;” “individuals who have more stressors and pressures put on them may become gay or lesbian as a result;” “having a dysfunctional family is a cause of being gay or lesbian;” “being gay or lesbian has biological bases (r);” “people are born gay or lesbian (r);” “being gay or lesbian is not a choice (r).” we assessed each item on a likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree). three items that indicated a greater belief that sexual orientation is inborn were reverse coded and then, the six items were averaged to form a reliable measure (α = .84). higher scores on this measure indicated a stronger belief that a same-sex sexual orientation is due to a social reaction to one’s environment and that being gay or lesbian is controllable. sexual prejudice against same-sex parents five items of the attitudes toward the gay and lesbian parenting scale (adapted from costa et al., 2014) measured participants’ beliefs about the negative impact of gay and lesbian parents on child development and whether gay men and lesbian women were unfit parents (“gay men and lesbian women should not have children because it is a sin;” “gay and lesbian parents do not care about children’s best interests;” “children of gay and lesbian parents will become gay or di battista, paolini, mongelli, & pivetti 467 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lesbian or will be confused about their sexuality;” “children of gay and lesbian parents do not have the needed masculine and feminine references for their normal development;” “it is not natural for gay men and lesbian women to have children.”) we assessed each item on a likert-type scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). then, the items were averaged to form a reliable measure (α = .91). higher scores on this measure indicate a greater sexual prejudice. attitudes toward adoption by gay and lesbian couples two independent items of the attitudes toward pathways to parenthood for same-sex couples measure (ioverno et al., 2018) were used to evaluate attitudes toward the adoption pathway to parenthood for both gay couples and lesbian couples. participants first read: “how much are you in favour of these methods used for having children by gay men couples (couples made up of two men) or lesbian women (couples made up of two women)?” they then rated the “adoption for lesbian couples” and “the adoption for gay couples” on a 7-point scale from 1 (completely contrary) to 5 (completely favourable). higher scores on these items indicated positive attitudes toward adoption by gay or lesbian couples. demographic questions we measured the participants’ gender (1 = male; 2 = female; 3 = other), gender identification (1 = i am identified with the assigned biological sex; 2 = i am not identified with the assigned biological sex), age, nationality, self-reported italian region (1 = central italy; 2 = southern italy; 3 = northern italy), level of education (from 1 = none; up to 7 = post-graduate degree). participants were also asked about their sexual orientation by answering one item with four alternative responses (1 = heterosexual, 2 = gay men, 3 = lesbian women, 4 = other). we also measured self-assessment of religious belief and practice with a single item (1 = i am not religious at all; 2 = i am slightly religious; 3 = i am quite religious; 4 = i am very religious; 5 = i am extremely religious). analyses we used the statistical package for the social sciences (spss 25.0) to run descriptive, reliability, correlational analyses, analyses of variance, and regression analyses. in order to test mediational hypotheses, we performed mediation analyses by using the spss macro developed by hayes and preacher (2014). results table 1 shows the means and standard deviations among all variables and the correlations between all measures investi­ gated in the study. the analyses indicated that these measures were related. significant positive correlations were found between the perception of controllability of same-sex sexual orientation and sexual prejudice against same-sex parents, whereas negative correlations were found between the perception of controllability of same-sex sexual orientation and the support adoption by both gay and lesbian couples. these findings suggested that greater degrees of belief that being lesbian or gay is due to social factors were associated with less support for adoption by same-sex couples. furthermore, religious belief and practice was found to be positively related with both sexual prejudice and perception of controllability of same-sex sexual orientation but negatively related with the support for adoption. table 1 means (standard deviation) and zero-order correlations among variables measure means (sd) 1 2 3 4 1. perception of controllability of homosexuality 2.82 (1.83) 1 2. sexual prejudice 2.29 (1.25) .56** 1 3. support for adoption by gay couples 4.75 (2.38) -.45** -.79** 1 4. support for adoption by lesbian couples 4.78 (2.35) -.45** -.79** .97** 1 5. religious belief 2.00 (0.99) .21** .26** -.45** -.45** **p < .001. aetiology beliefs and attitudes toward same-sex couples 468 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to investigate the role of gender, one-way analyses of variance—anova, were performed. concerning the perception of controllability of homosexuality, anova yielded a significant main effect of gender, f(1, 255) = 15.68, p < .001, showing male participants’ perceived homosexuality as more controllable (m = 3.26, sd = 1.85) compared to female participants (m = 2.79, sd = 1.71). concerning sexual prejudice, anova yielded a significant main effect of gender, f(1, 255) = 19.01, p < .001, showing male participants have higher levels of sexual prejudice (m = 2.63, sd = 1.26) compared to female participants (m = 1.96, sd = 1.16). finally, concerning the support for adoption's paths, we carried out a 2 (gender: male or female participants) × 2 (adoption support: lesbian couples or gay couples) mixed anova, with the latter factors varying within subjects. the anova did not yield a significant main effect for adoption typology, f(1, 254) = .90, p = .34, ηp2 = .004, showing no different evaluations concerning the support adoption by gay or lesbian couples (mlesbian = 4.78, sd = 2.35; mgay = 4.75, sd = 2.38). however, a reliable main effect for gender, f(1, 254) = 14.51, p < .001, ηp2 = .05, and a reliable interaction, f(1, 254) = 4.01, p = .05, ηp2 = .02, emerged showing as follows: (1) male participants were more supportive for adoption by lesbian couples (m = 4.27, sd = 2.42) compared to adoption by gay couples (m = 4.16, sd = 2.46), f(1, 254) = 5.36, p = .04, ηp2 = .02, while female participants did not differ concerning support for adoption in the case of lesbian or gay candidates (mlesbian = 5.29, sd = 2.18; mgay = 5.33, sd = 2.16), f(1, 254) = 0.90, p = .34, ηp2 = .004; and (2) female participants were more supportive—compared to male participants—for both lesbian couples candidates, f(1, 254) = 12.48, p < .001, ηp2 = .05, and gay couples candidates, f(1, 254) = 16.18, p < .001, ηp2 = .06. mediation analyses according to the literature and the rationale described above, we tested two different mediation models (process model number 4) in which aetiology beliefs were modelled as an independent variable, the sexual prejudice against same-sex parents as mediator, and the support for adoption by lesbian couples and by gay couples as separated dependent variables, by controlling for participants’ gender and level of religious belief. support for adoption by lesbian couples the model in which the effect of the participants’ aetiology beliefs on adoption support for lesbian couples was mediated by the participants’ level of sexual prejudice was significant, r2 = 0.64; f(4, 251) = 112.06, p < 0.001 (see figure 1 and table 2). participants’ gender did not emerge as a significant covariate in the full model, b = -.12; 95% ci [-0.2469, 0.4938], while the religious belief was significant, b = -.27; 95% ci [-0.4630, -0.0910]. the bootstrap analysis with 5,000 resampling showed that indirect effect via the sexual prejudice was significant, b = -0.47; 95% ci [-0.6006, -0.3421], while the direct effect considering the mediator was not significant, b = 0.001; 95% ci [-0.1180, 0.1155]. the sobel test was significant confirming the role of sexual prejudice as a mediator in this model, z = 7.86; se = .06; p < .001. figure 1 sexual prejudice mediates the effect of aetiology beliefs on support for adoption by lesbian couples **p < .001. di battista, paolini, mongelli, & pivetti 469 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 the results of mediation analysis testing for lesbian couples 95% ci variable standardized coefficients se t p lower upper perception of controllability of homosexuality→sexual prejudice .48 .03 9.04 < .001 .2586 .4027 sexual prejudice→support for adoption -.75 .09 -15.97 < .001 -1.5918 -1.2423 perception of controllability of homosexuality→support for adoption -.36 .07 -6.43 < .001 -.6136 -.3260 indirect effect -.36 .06 -.5986 -.3455 note. covariates: sex of participants: 0 = male; 1 = female; religiosity. for indirect effect, the values of se (standard error), llci (lower level of confidence interval), ulci (upper level of confidence interval) were computed using bootstrapping. support for adoption by gay couples the model in which the effect of the participants’ aetiology beliefs on support for adoption by gay couples was mediated by the participants’ level of sexual prejudice was significant, r2 = 064; f(4, 251) = 113.78, p < 0.001 (see figure 2 and table 3). participants’ gender did not emerge as a significant covariate in the full model, b = 0.25; 95% ci [-0.1189, 0.6283], while the religious belief was significant, b = 0.23; 95% [-0.1189, 0.6283]. the bootstrap analysis with 5,000 resampling showed that indirect effect via the sexual prejudice was significant, b = -0.48; 95% ci [-0.6123, -0.3530], while the direct effect considering the mediator was not significant, b = 0.01; 95% ci [-0.042, 0.1314]. the sobel test was significant confirming the role of sexual prejudice as a mediator in this model, z = 7.89; se = .06; p < .001. figure 2 sexual prejudice mediates the effect of aetiology beliefs on support for adoption by gay couples **p < .001. table 3 the results of mediation analysis testing for gay couples 95% ci variables standardized coefficients se t p lower upper perception of controllability of homosexuality→sexual prejudice .48 .04 9.04 < .001 .2586 .4027 sexual prejudice→support for adoption -.76 .09 -16.23 < .001 -1.6287 -1.2762 perception of controllability of homosexuality→support for adoption -.37 .07 -6.28 < .001 -.6129 -.3205 indirect effect -.37 .05 -.2559 -.1491 note. covariates: sex of participants: 0 = male; 1 = female; religiosity. for indirect effect, the values of se (standard error), llci (lower level of confidence interval), ulci (upper level of confidence interval) were computed using bootstrapping. aetiology beliefs and attitudes toward same-sex couples 470 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the present study expands the line of research into beliefs about the aetiology of sexual orientation and sexual prejudice. results shed more light on the antecedents of support for adoption by gay men/lesbian women and clarified the role of sexual prejudice in modulating the role of beliefs in inborn sexual orientation on support for adoption by gay/lesbian couples. specifically, the results revealed that cisgender heterosexual italian participants’ greater beliefs that same-sex sexual orientation is controllable (i.e. due a reaction to one’s social environment) were associated with higher levels of sexual prejudice toward same-sex parenting and less support for adoption by both 1) lesbian and 2) gay parents. furthermore, the results also revealed that the relationship between aetiology beliefs and support for adoption by both gay and lesbian couples was fully mediated by sexual prejudice toward same-sex parenting. the results suggest that beliefs that sexual orientation is controllable may contribute to one’s prejudice and this prejudice could, in turn, serve to justify the opposition to adoption by same-sex couples. furthermore, we controlled for gender and religious beliefs which are important predictors of the attitudes toward same-sex parenting in many studies (e.g., ciocca et al., 2015; lingiardi et al., 2016). results showed that italian men have indeed higher levels of perception of controllability of homosexuality, sexual prejudice, and less tendency to support adoption by same-sex couples (particularly by gay couples) compared to women. however, the gender of participants had no effects in the full mediation models. religious beliefs did play a role in our model. these results are consistent with previous evidence that has shown that the perceptions of the controllability of a same-sex sexual orientation are related to more negative perceptions of gay men and lesbian women (whitley, 1990) and more negative attitudes toward same-sex parenting (crawford et al., 1999; frias-navarro et al., 2015; rye & meaney, 2010). previous studies have also similarly shown that the relationship between aetiology beliefs and support for gay and lesbian people’s rights (including support for adoption by homosexuals) was mediated by sexual prejudice toward lesbian and gay people (huic et al., 2018; smith et al., 2011). however, this is the first study to examine how aetiology beliefs and sexual prejudice against same-sex parenting together are negatively related to support for adoption by both lesbian and gay parents in a sample of cisgender heterosexual italians. there is scientific evidence and consensus that same-sex parenting does not negatively impact child development (e.g., hosking & ripper, 2012; pistella et al., 2018; webb & chonody, 2012). however, sexual prejudice toward both lesbian and gay parents is still widespread throughout western society. the lack of a social and legal recognition of same-sex parenting is a threat for the psychosocial well-being of same-sex parents and their children (costa et al., 2019). we point to the need for social policies to reduce prejudice toward sexual minority groups in italy and in turn to increase the legal recognition of these families. reproductive rights for same-sex partners and parenting are still excluded in italy. furthermore, many italian conservative and religious people still strongly contest same-sex couples and same-sex parents’ rights (e.g., baiocco et al., 2020). the biology vs. choice (or nature vs. culture) debate remains a point of serious contention within the lgbt+ community for its possible consequences on sexual prejudice and gay rights (fry et al., 2020). within scholarly debates, there are divergent positions on the aetiology of sexual orientation (de cecco & elia, 1993). for instance, social constructionists have argued that sexual orientations are a socially constituted entity, whereas essentialists have argued that sexual orientations are natural categories that are grounded in biology. along these lines, a recent large human genetics study (ganna et al., 2019) has shown that genetic variation (i.e., the difference in dna sequences between individuals within a population) accounts only for a small fraction of sexual behavior of gay/lesbian people, leaving room for the many ways in which genetics and the socio-cultural context may interact. however, it is challenging to predict the potential impact which any present or future genetic discoveries will have on the attitudes toward—and the rights of—lgbt+ individuals. we suggest that people with high levels of sexual prejudice could look for any insight that would emerge from scientific debates on the aetiology of sexual orientation to support their discriminatory view. in this line, haslam et al. (2002) argued that both social constructionist and essentialist positions on the origin of a same-sex sexual orientation can carry risks for sexual prejudice and discrimination. on the one hand, the constructionist belief that sexual orientation is socially determined could justify the acceptance that sexual orientation can be modified ignoring the harm caused by sexual orientation change efforts (apa, 2009). on the other hand, essentialist beliefs on the origin of same-sex sexual orientation can be also used to promote intolerance by those with high levels of sexual prejudice. for instance, haslam and levy (2006) argued that di battista, paolini, mongelli, & pivetti 471 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ biological determinist beliefs represent controversial reasons for challenging antigay attitudes since they can equally be used in the same way to medicalize homosexuality and to promote eugenic ideas. hegarty (2002) also indicated that the belief in the immutability of sexual orientations does not have a direct impact on tolerance, but it does have one for those people and groups who believe that such an association exists. therefore, we argue that it is not the existence of scientific evidence for either side of the nature versus environmental aetiology debate that affects discrimination but rather how people perceive or use their own understanding of the aetiology of sexual orientation. supporting this view, recent experimental studies found that the majority of u.s. people already believe that sexual orientation is not a choice and a scenario including multiple beliefs about sexual orientation aetiology—comprising social constructionist themes—were more effective in reducing heterosexist attitudes toward sexual minorities than focusing only on beliefs about biogenetic origins of sexual orientation (fry et al., 2020). in the study, limitations are evident. first, this research is correlational, thus, it is not possible to establish the causality in the relationship between aetiology beliefs and sexual prejudice or support for adoption. however, we assume that aetiology beliefs would precede the other two variables in line with other researches showing a similar pattern of results (e.g., smith et al., 2011). we have used self-reported measures to measure aetiology beliefs as used in prior research (e.g., smith et al., 2011). definitely, the nature of these measures has some criticisms and future studies could propose a quasi-experimental design by manipulating aetiology beliefs. furthermore, concerning the sample, other demographic variables such as political orientation and/or race/ethnicity of participants may be measured. one limitation of this study is that the sample was disproportionally highly educated and participants mainly came from the regions of central and southern italy. since the literature suggested educational level is effective in diminishing sexual prejudice (e.g., ohlander et al., 2005), further studies should include larger more balanced samples. our findings contributed to the theoretical understanding of how the people's support for adoption by same-sex couples is formed. the results can contribute to promote the implementation of more effective and ad-hoc intervention programs to face and fight sexual prejudice suffered by gay and lesbian people. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we gratefully acknowledge dr. sara de lucia for her helpful advice on the italian legal norms. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references apa. 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(1964/2013). wma declaration of helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-humansubjects/ about the authors silvia di battista is psychologist and a post-doc researcher in social psychology at the university of bergamo (italy). her main research interests are in the area of prejudice, social justice, cooperation in groups, and morality. daniele paolini is psychologist and a post-doc researcher in social psychology. his main research interests are in the area of ostracism, prejudice based on sexual orientation, and group processes. aetiology beliefs and attitudes toward same-sex couples 474 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1348460 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-015-0197-6 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167295211006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2004.12.004 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(01)00117-9 https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12207 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-017-0284-y https://doi.org/10.1080/15504280903472485 https://doi.org/10.4458/2337-04 https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2017.1286794 https://doi.org/10.1300/j082v52n03_06 https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2011.598417 https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2019.1674365 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-016-0691-9 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167290162016 https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ lucia mongelli is psychologist. she obtained a master’s degree in psychology from the university of chieti – pescara (italy) and a postgraduate certificate in human resources management. she works as an entry-level human resources specialist. monica pivetti is researcher in social psychology at the university of bergamo (italy). her main research interests include social representations theory, dehumanization processes, health psychology, qualitative research methods. di battista, paolini, mongelli, & pivetti 475 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 464–475 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7243 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aetiology beliefs and attitudes toward same-sex couples (introduction) the beliefs on the aetiology of sexual orientation method participants and procedures measures analyses results mediation analyses support for adoption by lesbian couples discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors voters’ attributions of psychopathic traits to donald trump and hillary clinton after the 2016 u.s. presidential election and the 2020 trump impeachment trial research reports voters’ attributions of psychopathic traits to donald trump and hillary clinton after the 2016 u.s. presidential election and the 2020 trump impeachment trial paul e. jose 1 , ira j. roseman 2 , anna geiserman 1 , taylor winter 1 , boris bizumic 3 [1] victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand. [2] rutgers university camden, camden, nj, usa. [3] australian national university, canberra, australia. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 received: 2024-04-23 • accepted: 2025-02-09 • published (vor): 2025-05-28 handling editor: torven schalk, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: paul e. jose, school of psychology, p.o. box 600, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand 6012. e-mail: paul.jose@vuw.ac.nz supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract we sought to determine if voters’ personological characteristics influence perceptions of psychopathic traits in political candidates and predict vote choice. our first dataset was collected soon after the 2016 u.s. presidential election between hillary clinton and donald trump. the sample, 159 trump voters and 154 clinton voters, rated their own authoritarian beliefs and their perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in both candidates, and reported their vote. as predicted, clinton voters perceived low levels of psychopathic tendencies in clinton and high levels of psychopathic tendencies in trump, and trump voters displayed the opposite pattern. a concurrent mediation analysis found that highly authoritarian voters perceived trump to be low on psychopathic tendencies, and they tended to vote for trump. these results were replicated from a different sample of 300 voters about three years later, soon after trump’s first impeachment. the results suggest that authoritarian beliefs profoundly color perceptions of psychopathy in political candidates. keywords psychopathy, authoritarianism, mental health literacy, politics, voters the u.s. presidential election of 2016 was widely perceived by political experts as an anomalous event (e.g., gibson & shaw, 2019), with one candidate presenting traits outside the expected norms. one candidate, donald trump, gained support during the primaries as an “outsider” who seemed to flout traditional rules of political campaigning, that is, he rejected “political correctness” and overtly embraced polarizing political and social positions. political commentators, particularly left-leaning ones, dismissed his candidacy as amateurish, off-putting, and divisive. seventy-five experts in u.s. politics described trump’s personality and campaign style several weeks after the 2016 election (nai & maier, 2018) as “populist, negative, and based on fear appeals” (p. 80). notably, relevant to the present research efforts reported here, trump was perceived by these experts as exhibiting higher levels of psychopathic behaviors (e.g., ‘shows a lack of remorse’). nevertheless, donald trump won the gop presidential nomination and the electoral college, despite losing to hillary clinton in the popular election by almost 3 million votes. political scientists and social and personality psychologists continue to assess the shockwave of this political event. as part of this endeavor, the present study was conducted to examine how laypeople’s background personological traits this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14475&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-05-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3104-1871 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7247-0728 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2776-1040 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5097-9163 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2574-4893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ affect perceptions of candidates. we know that knowledge bases and belief systems (e.g., evangelical christian beliefs) affect perceptions of candidates and thus affect vote choice (e.g., layman, 1997). the intent of the present study was to extend this insight to authoritarianism. the study of authoritarian beliefs within politics has a long history, dating back to world war ii (gøtzsche-astrup & hogg, 2024), and a fruitful line of research has demonstrated that this psychological construct significantly shapes voting behavior (conway & mcfarland, 2019; godbole et al., 2022; ludeke et al., 2018). further, we wanted to investigate whether authoritarian beliefs of a voter affect their perceptions of psychopathic characteristics in the candidates and thereby influence for whom they vote. how accurately can laypeople detect mental illness in others? is the average citizen equipped with the requisite knowledge and person perception skills to discern whether or to what degree a political candidate possesses disqualifying psychiatric traits? jorm (2000) has referred to this knowledge base as mental health literacy, and a number of studies have been devoted to assessing the extent to which non-experts can accurately label vignettes of hypothetical exemplars of certain types of mental illness. jorm et al. (1997) reported that 39% of australian adults correctly labelled an instance of depression and only 27% correctly labelled an instance of schizophrenia. regier et al. (1988) demonstrated that american non-experts were also more familiar with negative mood disorders than other types of mental illness but generally were not very accurate. furnham et al. (2011) have noted that british university students had “heard of” just over one-third of 90 psychiatric illnesses. lam (2014) and vovou et al. (2021) have shown that mental health literacy varies for different syndromes, and recognition rates fall below 50% for psychotic syndromes and personality disorders. few studies have been performed on the ability of laypeople to accurately identify psychopathy, but a study by furnham et al. (2009) showed that only about 39% of a community sample correctly identified psychopathy compared to 97% for depression and 61% for schizophrenia. jorm (2000) concluded, “many members of the public cannot correctly recognize mental disorders and do not understand the meanings of psychiatric terms” (p. 396). most studies of mental health literacy have focused on disorders frequently discussed in the media and common human discourse: depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. however, as noted by furnham et al. (2011), numerous other psychiatric illnesses are diagnosed and treated by mental health professionals yet are poorly understood by laypeople. furnham has demonstrated this tendency with regard to narcissistic personality disorder (wright & furnham, 2015), borderline personality disorder (furnham et al., 2015), and psychopathy (furnham et al., 2009). these mental illnesses fall in the area of personality disorders, and the dsm-5 has defined a personality disorder (pd) in this way: “the essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits.” included in this broad category are specific syndromes such as antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and several other types. although disagreement exists regarding the precise boundaries among these subtypes of pds (anderson & sellbom, 2018), most psychologists suggest that the construct of psychopathy, the topic of the present study, significantly overlaps with antisocial personality disorder. original measures of psychopathy (e.g., hare, 1991) were chiefly based on affective and interpersonal traits such as conning behavior and lack of remorse, but subsequent definitions have been more focused on habitual breaching of societal norms and engaging in non-normative behavior (hare, 1993, 1996). to be consistent with the historical roots of the construct, we base our assessment on hare’s psychopathy checklist–revised (hare, 2012), which has been widely adopted as a reliable and valid assessment of psychopathy. laypeople tend to be unaware of the features of this psychiatric disorder and often describe psychopaths that they encounter in their everyday life as “manipulative,” “mean,” and “inconsiderate” (hare, 1999; stout, 2006). we conducted the present study to examine the degree to which mental health non-experts (in this case, voters) would attribute psychopathic tendencies to political candidates and, further, whether these attributions would be shaped by the voter’s endorsement of authoritarianism. authoritarian belief system we sought to investigate one possible basis for diverging opinions about mental health between the two u.s. presiden­ tial candidates: authoritarian beliefs held by the voter. authoritarian beliefs have been studied in the u.s. since world perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 78 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ war ii, and a number of self-report measures have been created to assess the “authoritarian personality” (adorno et al., 1950), such as the right-wing authoritarian (rwa) scale (altemeyer, 2007) and the related measure of beliefs in rigid social hierarchies called the social dominance orientation (sdo) scale (pratto et al., 1994). consistent with findings by crowson and brandes (2017), we hypothesized that voters reporting high levels of rwa/sdo personality traits would likely vote for donald trump and would likely not vote for hillary clinton. trump has been perceived by many american citizens as authoritarian/socially dominant in outlook and behavior (walt, 2017), whereas the other candidate, hillary clinton, in the lead-up to the election accepted the label of being “moderate and center” (merica, 2015). further, we reasoned that if a potential voter held strong authoritarian/socially dominant beliefs, they would be less likely to attribute psychopathic traits to trump, viewing his striking behavior instead in a positive light, that is, believing he was “a strong leader” and “his own man.” in contrast, we predicted that a voter espousing low levels of authoritarianism would be more likely to view trump’s behavior as evidence of psychopathy, that is, pathological lying, sexual predation, and conscienceless manipulation. predictions of the present study we designed our research efforts to determine how voters attribute psychopathic traits to presidential candidates, which we believe is a novel contribution to the literature in political psychology, although a journalist observed over a decade ago that some politicians exhibit clinical psychopathy (silver, 2012). first, we sought to determine whether samples of voters, equally distributed between trump and clinton voters, would evidence support for a main effect difference in attributed psychopathy between the candidates. specifically, based on expert ratings of the personalities and behaviors of the two candidates (nai & maier, 2018; visser et al., 2017), we predicted that trump would be perceived as exhibiting more psychopathic traits than clinton, although the size of the effect was expected to be small. second, given that it has been demonstrated that political social identity significantly shapes and molds perceptions of ingroup vs. outgroup members (basyouni et al., 2022; sparkman et al., 2019; wright & tomlinson, 2018), we also expected to see trump and clinton voters diverging in opposite directions in attributing psychopathic tendencies to the two candidates consistent with the “eye of the beholder” theory (killian, 2023) that voters exhibit (i.e., seeing positive traits in their favored candidate and negative traits in their disfavored candidate). and third and last, we sought to identify associations among the three variables of: (a) background authoritarian beliefs of voters with, (b) attributions of psychopathy symptoms of the two candidates with, (c) the person’s voting choice. in particular, we thought that individuals endorsing high levels of authoritarian/socially dominant beliefs would view trump as normal (i.e., non-psychopathic) and likely rate clinton as higher than trump on an array of psychopathic traits, and these ratings, in turn, would be likely to predict votes for trump. in contrast, we thought that low authoritarian/socially dominant belief individuals were likely to perceive high psychopathic tendencies in trump and low psychopathic tendencies in clinton, and these ratings, in turn, would be likely to predict votes for clinton. our research effort constituted two data collections: (1) study 1, two weeks after donald trump’s inauguration as u.s. president on january 20, of 2017 and, (2) study 2, shortly after donald trump’s acquittal in his first impeachment, on february 5, 2020. the second collection of data (with different participants) was employed in an attempt to replicate study 1’s basic findings three years later, as well as to determine whether events of the intervening three years might have altered associations identified in study 1. method: study 1 participants using the online survey tool mturk, we recruited adults who had voted in the 2016 u.s. presidential election. we sought a total sample in excess of 300 to allow the identification of small effect sizes with power at .80 and p < .05 (cohen, 1992). we obtained 159 individuals who reported that they had voted for donald trump and 154 individuals who reported that they had voted for hillary clinton. although research indicates that mturk volunteers are representative of american adults (levay et al., 2016), a limitation of the study was that we could not determine whether the present sample was representative of all u.s. voters in the 2016 election. jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 79 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the sample included 182 males and 131 females, and this ratio was similar for clinton and trump voters in the sample, χ2(1) = .01, ns. the age range was 18 to 70 years, and the average age of respondents was 35.04 years (sd = 10.6). no difference in age between clinton and trump voters was found, t(311) = .07, ns. in the overall sample, ethnic group identification was weighted toward non-hispanic whites (75%) in comparison with african american, hispanic american, and others (25% total). a contemporaneous accounting of u.s. voters yielded 69% non-hispanic whites and 31% hispanic, black, and other registered voters (gramlich, 2020). in our data, more european americans than non-european american individuals voted for trump than for clinton, χ2(1) = 5.65, p = .019. frequencies of the types of highest level of schooling were: high school (12%), some college education (31%), a four-year college degree (40%), and advanced degree (13%). a significant chi-square result was obtained for schooling by endorsed candidate, χ2(5) = 11.61, p = .04, which was accounted for by more high school graduates and individuals with some college education being counted among trump voters and more individuals with four-year college degrees among clinton voters. measures authoritarian and socially dominant beliefs the first measure was the right-wing authoritarian scale (altemeyer, 2007). although the full scale includes 22 items, we shortened the measure to 16 items due to space limitations in our survey. (for a list of the included items, please write to the corresponding author.) a sample item is “there are many radical, immoral people in our country today, who are trying to ruin it for their own godless purposes, whom the authorities should put out of action.” a 7-point likert scale was used to elicit responses, offering options from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). the cronbach’s alpha in the present dataset was found to be .95, indicating high internal consistency for the abridged version of the scale. the second scale, aimed at assessing endorsement of rigid hierarchical structures, was the social dominance orien­ tation scale (pratto et al., 1994). we used the full 16-item scale, which is commensurate in length with the shortened rwa scale used here. sample items are “to get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups” and “it’s ok if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.” a 7-point likert scale was used to elicit degree of endorsement, running from very negative (1) to very positive (7). the cronbach’s alpha in the present dataset was found to be .97, indicating high internal consistency. perceived psychopathic behaviors of the candidates we used items from the psychopathy checklist–revised (pcl-r; hare, 2012), which is composed of 20 items (e.g., “failure to accept responsibility for own actions”) and it is typically completed by a mental health professional who has access to comprehensive information about a target individual. to adapt the scale for our present purposes, we deleted three items that are specific to criminal evaluations (i.e., juvenile delinquency, revocation of condition release, and criminal versatility), and we expanded the three-point scale to a more sensitive 5-point likert scale (1 = never; 2 = a little; 3 = sometimes; 4 = often; 5 = very often). we introduced the set of questions with this context: “presidential candidates: now we are going to ask you about your perceptions of the two main presidential candidates in the last election. please tell us how much each person displays each of the characteristics displayed along the left side of the box.” descriptors such as “many short-term relationships” were arrayed on the left, and five likert–style options were displayed for donald trump and the same options separately for hillary clinton. in addition to the 17 psychopathy items (see appendix), we also randomly inserted 10 positive filler items (e.g., “acts like a good role model” and “cares about others”). in the present study, the cronbach’s alpha for trump-rated psychopathic tendencies was .95 (.92 for trump voters and .91 for clinton voters), and the alpha for clinton-rated psychopathic tendencies was .94 (.85 for trump voters and .91 for clinton voters). self-reported vote at the end of the survey, we asked, “who did you vote for in the 2016 presidential election? (please remember that your answer is anonymous, so we ask for you to be honest.)” as alternatives, we offered donald trump, hillary clinton, other (third party candidate), prefer not to say, and did not vote. we only included individuals in the final dataset who selected one of the first two options. perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 80 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure participants were recruited within the mturk online survey website for a study named “political views about today’s society” in the two weeks following donald trump’s presidential inauguration on january 20, 2017. demographic variables were assessed but no name or other identifying information was obtained. completion of the entire survey took about 20–30 minutes, and participants were paid $3 for their time. ethics approval was obtained from the first author’s host institution. transparency and openness data, copies of surveys, and the codebook for both studies are available at osf.io in a folder titled “perceptions of psychopathy in u.s. presidential candidates” (se jose, 2025) data were analyzed using spss and mplus for this report. this study's design and its analyses were not preregistered. results: study 1 descriptive statistics means, standard deviations, and correlations for the two groups of voters are reported in table 1. table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlations of the key variables separately by trump and clinton voters electoral subset sdo rwa perceived psychopathy of trump perceived psychopathy of clinton m sd clinton voters (n = 154) sdo .61*** -.44*** .28*** 1.78 0.98 rwa -.57*** .22** 2.25 1.17 perceived psychopathy of trump -.28*** 4.24 0.69 perceived psychopathy of clinton 2.08 0.65 trump voters (n = 159) sdo .44*** -.14~ .12 3.25 1.45 rwa -.23** .12 3.87 1.23 perceived psychopathy of trump -.25*** 2.79 0.82 perceived psychopathy of clinton 3.37 0.67 note. sdo = social dominance orientation; rwa = right-wing authoritarianism; item ranges for both are 1–7. psychopathy = perceived psychopathic tendencies, range from 1-5; sd = standard deviation. ∼p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. less than 1% missingness was noted, little’s chi-square test yielded p > .30, and em imputation was used to obtain a full dataset. no outliers were noted. means for self-reported sdo and rwa scores were higher for trump voters compared with clinton voters, consistent with expectation. means for attributions of psychopathic tendencies for own vs. other candidate seem to be mirror images. hypothesis 1: was trump perceived as more psychopathic than clinton? to analyze the data for hypothesis 1, we performed a repeated measures manova in which attributions of psycho­ pathic tendencies were the repeated measures across the two groups of voters. further, we covaried out gender, ethnicity, highest schooling obtained, and age. a power analysis (cohen, 1992) based on power at .80, an alpha level of .05, and an intention to identify medium effect sizes, suggested that a sample size of 125 would be needed. our total sample of about 300 satisfied this initial basic criterion, but covarying out four covariates and planned analyses of interactions increased the recommended total sample to 325. thus, our obtained sample fell slightly short of this more rigorous sample target. caution is recommended for interpreting small effect size differences. jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 81 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ contrary to prediction, we obtained a non-significant difference between the two candidates on perceived psychop­ athy, wilk’s λ = .998, f(1, 307) = 0.61, p = .436, ηp2 = .002: collapsing across the two groups of voters, in addition, a non-significant effect for voter was obtained, f(1, 307) = 2.71, p = .101, ηp2 = .009, suggesting that trump and clinton voters attributed almost identical amounts of psychopathy, collapsing across the two candidates. hypothesis 2: did voters perceive higher psychopathic behaviors in the disfavored candidate than in their favored candidate? by far and away, the largest effect size obtained in this analysis was the significant candidate × voter interaction, wilk’s λ = .405, f(1, 307) = 451.37, p < .001, ηp2 = .60. estimates of partial eta squared greater than .14 are considered “large” (gray & kinnear, 2012), so the effect size of this interaction can be considered to be extremely large. figure 1 graphically depicts the interaction effect, and although it conforms to a classic cross-over interaction, the largest divergence occurred among clinton voters considering the two candidates. although both groups of voters rated their disfavored candidate as higher on psychopathic tendencies, clinton voters’ perceptions more widely diverged than did trump voters. figure 1 perceived psychopathic behavioral tendencies of both candidates by voting choice simple effects analyses indicated that all four pairwise comparisons were significantly different. in sum, this pattern is consistent with hypothesis 2, which suggested that voters would attribute psychopathic tendencies to the two candidates in a mirror image fashion: lower for their own candidate and higher for the opposing candidate. hypothesis 3: how would authoritarian/socially dominant beliefs be associated with attributions of psychopathic tendencies and vote choice? a path model was constructed in mplus (muthén & muthén, 1998–2015) in which background ideological beliefs (sdo and rwa) predicted perceptions of psychopathic tendencies of both candidates and these, in turn, predicted vote choice (see figure 2). since the dataset was concurrent, this mediation analysis illuminated amounts of shared variance among the three variables, not temporal or causal relationships discernible with experimental or longitudinal datasets (jose, 2013). in such a case, sequential placement of variables in the model can be uncertain. we positioned these variables in this particular order for theoretical reasons (i.e., background personological variables were expected to explain variance in attributions of psychopathy to candidates, which, in turn, were expected to explain variance in vote choice behavior). to obtain a generalizable result, covariates of the model were gender, age, highest educational attainment, and ethnicity perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 82 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (not depicted in the figure). the fully saturated path model featured a dichotomous dependent variable in voting choice, so theta parameterization in mplus (muthén & asparouhov, 2002) was used to accommodate this variable type. figure 2 path model including background authoritarian beliefs, perceptions of psychopathic tendencies of candidates trump and clinton, and voting choice note. rwa = right-wing authoritarianism; sdo = social dominance orientation; psychopathy = perceived psychopathic tendencies; vote = selfreported voting choice. ~p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 the numerical values in figure 2 are beta weights, and every path was significant in the expected direction, except for one path which was marginally significant. several significant direct effects can be noted in the model: (1) high rwa and high sdo predicted higher perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in clinton; (2) in contrast, high rwa and high sdo predicted lower perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in trump; (3) higher perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in trump and lower perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in clinton predicted voting for clinton (and the reverse pattern for voting for trump); and (4) rwa and sdo weakly and directly predicted voting for trump. four significant indirect effects were identified: 1) rwa to psychopathic tendencies in trump to vote: a*b = -.29, se = .09, 95% ci [-.47, -.15], p < .001; 2) rwa to psychopathic tendencies in clinton to vote: a*b = -.26, se = .08, 95% ci [-.44, -.13], p < .001; 3) sdo to psychopathic tendencies in trump to vote: a*b = -.11, se = .05, 95% ci [-.23, -.03], p = .027; and 4) sdo to psychopathic tendencies in clinton to vote: a*b = -.21, se = .08, 95% ci [-.38, -.08], p = .005. these indirect effect sizes fell between medium and large (kenny, 2024). in sum, these findings supported hypothesis 3: we found that voters reporting higher authoritarian beliefs perceived fewer mental health problems in trump’s behavior while at the same time they perceived greater psychopathic tendencies in clinton. in contrast, individuals reporting lower levels of authoritarian beliefs evidenced associations in the opposite direction. method: study 2 the goals of the second study were to replicate and extend the key findings from study 1. the first three years of trump’s presidency were marked by several key actions that may have contributed to increases in perceptions of psychopathy by voters: his reaction to the alt-right march in charlottesville, his efforts to build a wall on the southern border, and his executive order banning people from six muslim-majority countries from entering the u.s. we sought to determine the persistence of the relationships identified in study 1 as well as entertain the possibility that these views might be more polarized after three years of trump’s presidency. we obtained a comparably sized sample of voters in the two weeks following trump’s acquittal in his first impeach­ ment trial on february 5, 2020. the same measures were used with a newly recruited sample of trump and clinton voters within a cohort study design. although obtained at two different times of measurement, these data are not longitudinal, so we could not examine intraindividual change over time. nevertheless, this attempt to replicate study 1’s findings was considered to be valuable because the results would speak to the durability (and/or changeability) of perceptions of psychopathy for key political figures over time. jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 83 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants as before, using the online survey tool mturk, we recruited adults who had voted in the 2016 u.s. presidential election, and we obtained data from 149 individuals who reported that they had voted for donald trump and 148 individuals who reported that they had voted for hillary clinton. the sample included 147 males and 150 females, and this ratio was similar for clinton and trump voters in the sample, χ2(1) = 2.79, p > .10. the age range was 20 to 78 years, and the average age of respondents was 40.97 years (sd = 18.13). the age difference between clinton and trump voters was small, t(295) = 0.86, p = .589; trump voters (m = 41.6 years) were slightly older than clinton voters (m = 40.3 years). results: study 2 descriptive statistics cronbach’s alphas of all key constructs for study 2 were high and very similar to study 1: sdo (α = .94), rwa (.94), perceived psychopathic traits of trump (.96), and perceived psychopathic traits of clinton (.94). a chi-square test of gender yielded a significant difference between the two studies: χ2(1) = 4.59, p = .032, revealing that the male/female gender ratio was more equal for study 2 (49%) than study 1 (58%). a similar chi-square test of white vs. non-white ethnicity yielded a non-significant difference, χ2 = 1.63, p = .201. the sample of study 2 was found to be older (m = 40.1) compared with study 1 (m = 35.0), t(608) = 4.97, p < .001. a chi-square test of highest level of schooling yielded a significant difference: χ2(5) = 17.6, p = .003, revealing that study 2 included fewer individuals with high school degrees and more individuals with professional degrees than study 1. these results led us to covary out gender, age, and level of schooling in comparing mean levels and associations between the two samples in subsequent analyses. table 2 reports the correlations, means, and standard deviations of the four key variables divided by trump vs. clinton voters within study 2. table 2 means, standard deviations, and correlations of the key variables separately by trump and clinton voters for study 2 electoral subset sdo rwa perceived psychopathy of trump perceived psychopathy of clinton mean sd clinton voters (n = 148) sdo .63*** -.52*** .47*** 1.91 0.97 rwa -.65*** .41*** 2.24 1.07 perceived psychopathy of trump -.47*** 4.37 0.63 perceived psychopathy of clinton 2.12 0.72 trump voters (n = 149) sdo .54*** -.34*** .32*** 3.27 1.16 rwa -.36** .18* 3.90 1.06 perceived psychopathy of trump -.07 2.97 0.92 perceived psychopathy of clinton 3.43 0.70 note. sdo = social dominance orientation, range from 1–7; rwa = right-wing authoritarianism, range from 1–7; psychopathy = perceived psycho­ pathic tendencies, range from 1–5; sd = standard deviation. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. replication of findings from study 1 we next analyzed the data from study 2 alone; as before, we performed a repeated measures anova in which attributions of psychopathic tendencies was the repeated measure across the two groups of voters. further, we covaried out gender, ethnicity, highest schooling obtained, and age. first, we obtained a significant (albeit small) difference between the two candidates for perceived psychopathy, wilk’s λ = .986, f(1, 291) = 4.17, p = .042, ηp2 = .014. collapsing across the two groups of voters, trump was perceived, on average, in study 2 to display higher psychopathic tendencies, m = 3.67, se = .045, 95% ci [3.58, 3.76], than clinton, m perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 84 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = 2.78, se = .041, 95% ci [2.70, 2.86]. thus, support for hypothesis 1 was obtained, however statistical significance was barely achieved and the effect size was small. as before, a non-significant effect for voter was obtained, f(1, 291) = 0.63, p = .427, ηp2 = .002, suggesting that trump and clinton voters attributed almost identical amounts of psychopathy, collapsing across the two candidates. again, a very large effect size was obtained in this analysis for the candidate × voter interaction, wilk’s λ = .443, f(1, 291) = 365.40, p < .001, ηp2 = .56. as with study 1, this effect size was extremely large. the pattern of the interaction strongly supports hypothesis 2. figure 3 graphically depicts the interaction effect for study 2, and it bears a remarkable similarity to the same graph generated for study 1. figure 3 study 2 perceived psychopathic traits of both candidates by voting choice next, to explicitly compare the ratings between study 1 vs. study 2, we performed a three-way mixed model manova in which study (1 vs. 2) was crossed with voter, and the repeated measures factors were perceived psychopathic traits for the two candidates, and four demographic variables were entered as covariates. the main effect for study yielded a significant difference, f(1, 602) = 11.45, p < .001, ηp2 = .02 (albeit a small effect size), and it was accounted for by slightly higher average ratings of perceived psychopathic traits for study 2, m = 3.23, 95% ci [3.18, 3.29], compared with study 1, m = 3.11, 95% ci = [3.06, 3.16]. these means were determined after collapsing across candidates and voters, and covarying out demographic variables. importantly, no interaction term involving study yielded significance: study × voter (p = .73); study × candidate (p = .21); or study × candidate × voter (p = .65). the single significant univariate result was a main effect for study for perceived psychopathic traits for trump, f(1, 602) = 7.91, p = .006, ηp2 = .012. notably, both trump and clinton voters (i.e., no significant three-way interaction was found) evidenced a small increase in these perceptions from the time of the election (m = 3.50) to the first impeachment (m = 3.69). a change of .19 unit constituted about 18% of the standard deviation for this variable and, interestingly, trump voters increased slightly more than clinton voters. against the backdrop of overwhelming similarity in means for variables over time, the one key difference was a modest increase in the perceived psychopathy of trump by both clinton and trump voters after three years of his presidency. the final replication effort was to compare the path model findings of study 1 with the same model constructed with study 2 data. to statistically evaluate similarity, equality constraints were applied to all paths (direct paths as well as mediations) one by one, and all eight direct tests and four indirect tests yielded non-significance, ps > .05. thus, hypothesis 3 was supported in that perceptions of candidates’ psychopathy were found to significantly share variance with rwa/sdo scores as well as the decision to vote for trump or clinton. more broadly, this result, similar to the jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 85 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ manova findings, provides support for the proposition that these findings were almost universally replicated with a different set of participants at a different point in time. general discussion the question of political candidates’ fitness for office is an issue of paramount importance for society’s well-being because elected politicians consequentially ‘steer the ship of state.’ in the u.s., voters make the ultimate decision of whether a person is suitable for a particular office or not, and events over recent years have raised questions about how well voters discern critical qualifying and disqualifying characteristics in candidates. the present research project examined three key issues relevant to this issue. we first sought to determine whether voters generally would yield a significant difference in attributing more psychopathic traits to trump than to clinton. the initial data collection indicated a conclusive “no” and the second data collection after trump’s first impeachment trial indicated “weakly yes.” given the effect size of the small difference in the second data collection and the sample sizes, we conclude that the evidence for this hypothesis was weak. in the second case, we explored the hypothesis that trump and clinton voters would view their favored candidate differently from their disfavored candidate in terms of attributed psychopathy. the significant voter × candidate interaction that we found was extremely large, and it strongly supported our view that psychopathy would be attributed to the rejected candidate, but not to the favored candidate, and this pattern was apparent in opposite directions for both trump and clinton voters. in particular, clinton voters perceived high levels of psychopathic behavior in trump and low levels of psychopathic behavior in clinton, whereas trump voters evidenced the opposite pattern. next we sought to test the third hypothesis that background authoritarian beliefs by voters would be associated with attributions of psychopathy and voting behavior. the path model revealed that voters who reported high levels of authoritarian/social dominance beliefs were likely to perceive candidate trump as low in psychopathy and candidate clinton as high in psychopathy, which, then in turn, predicted for whom they voted. highly authoritarian/sdo individuals tended to vote for trump and against clinton. and fourth and last, a comparison of data obtained at trump’s inauguration (study 1) and after the first trump impeachment trial (study 2) evidenced remarkable stability of means and associations, but a small effect over time was noted in a general increased tendency to evaluate trump as more psychopathic, possibly due to his performance in office up to that point. linkages of findings to the literature on lay perceptions of psychopathic traits mental health literacy, as defined by jorm (2000), is the skill and knowledge base of laypeople to accurately label instances of behavior as conforming to particular psychiatric syndromes. little research evidence has been obtained on this issue, but the available evidence suggests that laypeople are poor at correctly labelling even well-known mental disorders such as depression and schizophrenia (furnham et al., 2011; jorm et al., 1997; regier et al., 1988). research is scarce on whether laypeople are able to correctly identify instances of psychopathic behavior (a type of personality disorder) and research is further lacking on whether voters are able to accurately identify psychopathic behavior in political candidates and officeholders. one significant contribution of the present work is that it broaches the question of how skilled laypeople are in the ability to identify disqualifying psychological characteristics of candidates. the present work does not tackle the issue of how accurate these perceptions were (we had no means to make this determination), but future work should explore that issue. a notable finding in the study was that the cross-over statistical interaction depicted by figure 1 revealed an almost mirror-image pattern of voters attributing absence of psychopathy in their preferred candidate at the same time as attributing presence of psychopathy in the rejected candidate. this dramatic and opposite bifurcation of views is consistent with ingroup vs. outgroup perceptions held by democrats and republicans in u.s. politics (greene, 2004) and the phenomenon described by wright and tomlinson (2018), that political orientation profoundly shapes one’s attributions of personality to candidates. we did not assess political affiliations of voters in these data collections, but perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 86 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ voter preferences in these data likely well represent voters’ political loyalties. the interaction pattern strongly suggests that voters see no flaws in their preferred candidate and see many disqualifying problems in their disfavored candidate. however, the pattern was not perfectly symmetrical: clinton voters more strongly attributed psychopathy to trump and lack of psychopathy to their own candidate than did trump voters. in other words, clinton voters more strongly felt that their candidate lacked psychopathic traits relative to the opposing candidate. the widespread and intense incredulity and dismay of clinton voters to trump’s electoral victory is consistent with the highly polarized perceptions of psychopathic behavioral tendencies obtained in this study. clinton voters were surprised and dismayed that the candidate they perceived as exceedingly unsuitable for the office of president was elected by the american public to the highest office in their country (degroot & carmack, 2021; teng, 2017). linkages to the literature on associations among authoritarian/sdo beliefs, candidate perceptions of psychopathy, and voting choice the set of results obtained in the path model may provide some tentative answers as to why so many voters chose to vote for donald trump. our prediction was that individuals who held high levels of authoritarian/sdo beliefs would be likely to perceive trump’s behaviors as consistent with the authoritarian mindset and thus view him more positively than clinton (based on findings by crowson & brandes, 2017). in short, authoritarian-leaning voters attrib­ uted psychopathic traits, for example, dishonesty and a tendency to con other people, to clinton and did not attribute these pernicious traits to trump, whereas voters lacking in authoritarian beliefs attributed psychopathic traits to trump and not to clinton. and last, unsurprisingly, the path model showed that individuals who attributed high levels of psychopathy to trump tended to vote for clinton, and those individuals who attributed high levels of psychopathy to clinton tended to vote for trump. the results of this study support the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” theory of perceptions of political actors (killian, 2023). clinton voters were aghast at the stance of trump voters explaining away the access hollywood recording concerning trump’s claim of “pussy grabbing” as “locker room talk,” while at the same time many trump voters wanted (and still want) clinton to be jailed for perceived criminal mishandling of her e-mails. this extreme polarization of political views may be explained in part by the range of authoritarian beliefs held by voters. if a voter holds strong authoritarian/sdo views, trump’s actions and words are not considered to be psychologically disturbed or psychopathic; instead, they are perceived as evidence of his strong leadership skills and socially dominant status. thus, a voter who endorses authoritarian views is likely to view trump’s treatment of minorities as legitimate and appropriate. someone who rejects authoritarianism interprets trump’s behavior differently, noticing the motives for self-aggrandizement and deception, imposition of power over other people, and joy in the misery of others (lee, 2017). these findings are consistent with caprara and zimbardo’s (2004) congruency model of political preference, which argues that “individual characteristics of voters, such as their traits and values, become decisive for political choice” (p. 581). their findings reveal that people tend to vote for candidates whose personality traits accord with the ideology of their preferred political party. they also select politicians whose “traits match their own traits” (p. 581). the findings of the present study show that individuals who held authoritarian beliefs tended to vote for donald trump, the more overtly authoritarian candidate relative to hillary clinton, in agreement with caprara and zimbardo’s model. the theory of “ideology as motivated social cognition” similarly claims that personality characteristics inform and drive, to a substantial extent, political positions and choices (carney et al., 2008; fortunato et al., 2018; jost, 2006; jost & amodio, 2012). thus, the data suggest that an authoritarian ideology motivated trump supporters to vote for him, and, in service of this behavior, attributed lower levels of aberrant behavior to him. limitations of the present study and future directions a significant caveat that we need to highlight is that the authors of the present paper have no authoritative evidence on the mental health status of donald trump or hillary clinton. however, it is relevant that empirical researchers, similar to us, have asked political experts, voters, and even politicians themselves about their perceptions of candidates (e.g., dutton, 2016; nai & maier, 2018) but lacking objective, authoritative evidence, we could not, within the present jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 87 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study, ascertain whether voters accurately perceived the presence of psychopathic tendencies in the two u.s. presidential candidates. another significant limitation is that we do not know the direction of the influences of these perceptions and behavior over time, but, still, we ordered the three sets of variables within the path models to reflect a likely temporal sequencing. beliefs in authoritarianism/sdo are stable belief systems partially based on personality, so they were placed as exogenous variables in the path model. attributions of psychopathic characteristics were likely based upon the voters’ perceptions of the candidates’ behavior unfolding over months and years leading up to the day of the election when the voting choice was recorded. longitudinal data would have provided a more nuanced picture of how these variables affected each other over time. another limitation in the present dataset is that party affiliation was not empirically assessed. much research in political psychology has shown that party loyalty and identification exert considerable influence upon political perceptions and behavior (e.g., folke & rickne, 2020), and it would have been helpful to have this information to determine whether and how party affiliation interacts with authoritarian political beliefs in determining candidate preference. in particular, to what extent did trump voters ignore or discount reports of his unsavory behavior out of party loyalty? at the same time, boundaries of political parties move over time to accommodate potential new members and new political leaders (habersack, 2024). an illuminating future research direction would be to determine how party loyalty affects perceptions of candidates over time as critical events unfold. in addition, future work should examine the mediators between authoritarian belief systems and attributions of psychopathy. a hypothesis worthy of further examination is to what extent do authoritarian voters publicly approve candidates who use extreme (and possibly criminal) behaviors to exert dominance over marginalized outgroups. anoth­ er useful direction would be to include measures of constructs antithetical to right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation such as belief in democratic systems and racial equality (“wokeness”; jose, 2024). and last, further investigation of the willingness of trump supporters to excuse and dismiss his overtly antisocial behavior is needed. it is not clear at present whether they are uninformed, informed but consider this behavior as irrelevant, informed but consider his behavior as proof of his dominant and superior status, or something else. we would also like to extend the examination of this attributional bias to other politicians’ supporters to determine whether supporters across the full range of political affiliations show similar or dissimilar biases. conclusions and implications the 2016 u.s. presidential election raised a number of important questions about how voters in the american democrat­ ic system consider candidates’ behavior and estimate future political performance of candidates. one such question is whether the average american voter possesses a sufficient knowledge base to discern significant psychological pathologies in candidates and uses those judgements to guide their choice among candidates. we need to improve our understanding of how background ideological beliefs, whether benign or malignant to the body politic, may influence perceptions of candidates and consequently lead individuals to cast their vote for one individual or another. the consequences of misperceiving psychopathic tendencies in candidates are potentially immense, and our democratic institutions need to identify and minimize such dangers. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article, data, code, codebook and materials are available at jose (2025). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 88 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • data. 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(2015). how to spot a narcissist: mental health literacy with respect to narcissistic personality disorder. personality and mental health, 9(2), 150–161. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.1277 appendix psychopathy items 1. grandiose sense of self-worth 2. lack of remorse or guilt 3. superficial charm 4. callous/lack of empathy 5. pathological lying 6. displays a need for stimulation 7. behavior problems in childhood/adolescence 8. promiscuous sexual behavior 9. lack of realistic goals 10. shallow affect (lack of authentic feelings) 11. irresponsibility 12. poor behavioral controls 13. many short-term relationships 14. failure to accept responsibility 15. conning/manipulative 16. impulsivity 17. parasitic lifestyle (living off other people) about the authors paul jose is a professor of psychology at victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand. he has conducted research and published in the areas of developmental, social, personality, clinical, and cross-cultural psychologies, and he has recently focused his work on the nature of emotional bases for motivation and their role in political perceptions. jose, roseman, geiserman et al. 91 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 77–92 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14475 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.4.741 https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.145.11.1351 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startling-accuracy-of-referring-to-politicians-as-psychopaths/260517/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430218819794 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.053 https://doi.org/10.1080/09638237.2020.1713999 http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/27/top-10-signs-of-creeping-authoritarianism-revisited/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.02.019 https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.1277 https://www.psychopen.eu/ anna geiserman, msw, lcsw, is a psychotherapist based in new york, ny, usa, specializing in the treatment of eating disorders and trauma. she has conducted research on the association between trait mindfulness and mood, and her research interests include the impact of belief systems on perception and behaviour. ira j. roseman is a professor of psychology at rutgers university in camden, nj, usa. his widely-cited theory of the emotion system encompasses 17 emotions, with their causes, components, and functions. his published work in political psychology includes theories of ideological structure and attachment, and studies of voting for and against political candidates. taylor winter is a senior lecturer in mathematics and statistics at the university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand. his research focuses on using advanced statistics to investigate social identity-based approaches to health and wellbeing. boris bizumic is an associate professor at the australian national university, canberra, australia. his research spans social, personality, political, and cross-cultural psychology, investigating the interplay between these areas of psychology. his research interests include ethnocentrism, prejudice, narcissism, machiavellianism, and authoritarianism. additionally, he has a background in psychometrics and scale development. perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates 92 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived psychopathy of presidential candidates (introduction) how accurately can laypeople detect mental illness in others? authoritarian belief system predictions of the present study method: study 1 participants measures procedure transparency and openness results: study 1 descriptive statistics hypothesis 1: was trump perceived as more psychopathic than clinton? hypothesis 2: did voters perceive higher psychopathic behaviors in the disfavored candidate than in their favored candidate? hypothesis 3: how would authoritarian/socially dominant beliefs be associated with attributions of psychopathic tendencies and vote choice? method: study 2 participants results: study 2 descriptive statistics replication of findings from study 1 general discussion linkages of findings to the literature on lay perceptions of psychopathic traits linkages to the literature on associations among authoritarian/sdo beliefs, candidate perceptions of psychopathy, and voting choice limitations of the present study and future directions conclusions and implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references appendix psychopathy items about the authors what makes happy counselors? from self-esteem and leader-member exchange to well-being at work: the mediating role of need satisfaction research reports what makes happy counselors? from self-esteem and leader-member exchange to well-being at work: the mediating role of need satisfaction par eric dose* a, pascale desrumaux a, jean-luc bernaud b, catherine hellemans c [a] department of psychology, university of lille, lille, france. [b] centre de recherche sur le travail et le développement – crttd ea 4132 – inetop-cnam, paris, france. [c] laboratoire de psychologie du travail et economique, université libre de bruxelles, bruxelles, belgium. abstract this study was aimed at examining the extent to which well-being at work is linked to self-esteem and psychosocial resources such as leader-member exchange (lmx). drawing on self-determination theory, we looked at whether psychological needs (perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness) act as specific mediators between self-esteem and well-being, and between lmx and well-being. two hundred and twenty four employment counselors (psychologists) from a french national employment office (pôle emploi) answered a questionnaire. the data were analyzed using hayes and preacher’s method for testing multiple mediations. the results showed that satisfaction of psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness mediated the links between self-esteem and lmx as inductors, and well-being as a criterion. these findings confirm the relevance of self-esteem and lmx for counselors, and of the importance of need satisfaction that plays a critical role in matters of well-being. keywords: well-being, self-esteem, lmx, need satisfaction, counselors europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 received: 2019-01-16. accepted: 2019-05-01. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of lille, ea 4072 – psitec – psychologie: interactions, temps, emotions, cognitions, lille, france. e-mail: eric.dose@outlook.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. taking into account factors that influence the dimensions of well-being, a growing body of empirical research supports the view that psychological need (pn) satisfaction can strongly affect well-being (deci et al., 2001). according self-determination theory, needs are universal necessities, for they are essential ingredients of optimal human development and integrity (ryan, sheldon, kasser, & deci, 1996). in line with this reasoning, need satisfaction promotes psychological health and positive states. the literature has shown that the satisfaction of three needs (competence, relatedness, and autonomy) is positively correlated with various indicators of psychological well-being (baard, deci, & ryan, 2004; gagné & deci, 2005; van den broeck, vansteenkiste, de witte, & lens, 2008). pioneering studies by lévesque, blais, and hess (2004) found evidence of a link between well-being and satisfaction of basic needs (deci & ryan, 2000, 2008). when looking at factors that may influence dimensions of psychological well-being, the literature on well-being recommend including pn satisfaction. by examining need satisfaction as a possible mediator between self-esteem and leader-member exchange (lmx), the predictors, and well-being, the criterion measure, our contributions to the literature are threefold. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ first, the literature is rather scarce concerning counselors’ health problems (bernaud, cohen-scali, & guichard, 2007), and we do not know if their job can satisfy their psychological needs. second, with few exceptions, the mediating effects of psychological needs and their links to self-esteem and well-being have not been studied much in regard to careers, vocational guidance, and counselors. third, many studies on psychological needs focus on personal or organizational causes and do not examine, in the same study, the parallel links between personal and organizational variables and each need. it is important to understand whether two factors that reflect positive relations and human growth, self-esteem and leader-member exchanges, are bases for pn satisfaction at work which can be a lever of good psychological health on the job. self-esteem and good lmxs are based on relationships, and according to graen and uhl-bien (1995), the quality of lmx is based on signs like satisfaction expressed toward employees, recognition of their potential, and willingness to promote their efficacy. these signs are also indicators of self-esteem, which refers to a person’s appraisal of his or her value (bardou & oubrayrie-roussel, 2014; baumeister, tice, & hutton, 1989; rosenberg, 1979), which in turn results from a positive attitude toward oneself. because leadership-member exchanges involve satisfaction via the facilitation of autonomy, affiliation (with colleagues and leader), implemented competence, it enables access to well-being. in the same vein, high self-esteem (brown & marshall, 2006), which includes positive overall esteem, positive feelings of self-worth, and positive self-evaluations, is a strong personal component for satisfying the three psychological needs. self-esteem can therefore be a basis for personal growth through recognition of oneself as being capable of improvement over time and for seeking fulfillment of one’s potential (competence) through self-confidence in one’s ability to work autonomously and to maintain warm and trusting relationships with colleagues. it is important to add that a second positive pillar, positive psychosocial exchanges at work (lmx), will participate in this mechanism because personal growth cannot evolve without others. well-being and self-esteem self-esteem is an evaluation of oneself that depends on the person’s identity, and that fluctuates with age and psychosocial transitions. self-esteem refers to an individual’s view of his or her own value as a person (coopersmith, 1967), or “the individual’s positive or negative attitude toward the self as a totality” (rosenberg, schooler, schoenbach, & rosenberg, 1995, p. 141). according to rosenberg (1979), the self-concept is “the totality of an individual’s thoughts and feelings having reference to himself as an object” (1979, p. 7). referring to the self-assessment that an individual makes of his or her own value as a person (coopersmith, 1967), selfesteem includes a single affective evaluative dimension (bardou & oubrayrie-roussel, 2014; baumeister et al., 1989; brown & marshall, 2006). although certain scholars consider self-esteem to be multidimensional, most studies a unidimensional approach and an overall measure (rosenberg, 1985; vallières & vallerand, 1990). good self-esteem favors social integration, productive behaviors, and high performance at work (brockner, 1983; judge & bono, 2001), a feeling of competence (bardou & oubrayrie-roussel, 2014; bowling, eschleman, wang, kirkendall, & alarcon, 2010), and occupational success (baumeister, campbell, krueger, & vohs, 2003). self-esteem has effects on psychological and physical health, and on well-being as well (baumeister et al., 2003; oyserman, bybee, terry, & hart-johnson, 2004). one firmly established finding in the literature is the negative correlation between self-esteem and bad health (rosenberg, 1985). first, low self-esteem has somatic consequences such as eating disorders and addicting conduct and, is a factor of depression well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 824 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and negative emotions (andré, 2006; zeigler-hill, 2013). low self-esteem is also a factor of distress and exhaustion. for example, makikangas and kinnunen (2003) found that low levels of self-esteem and optimism had a direct negative effect on emotional exhaustion and psychological distress. and a loss of self-respect is correlated with professional burnout (janssen, schaufeli, & houkes, 1999), particularly among the managers (leroy-frémont, desrumaux, & moundjiegout, 2014). accordingly, persons with high self-esteem are considered less affected by job stressors and are thus less affected by the consequences of those stressors (hobfoll & freddy, 1993). self-esteem favors individual well-being and better resistance to stress (oyserman et al., 2004). it facilitates adaptation through self-fulfillment, as well as the social integration (bardou & oubrayrieroussel, 2014). self-esteem is correlated with life satisfaction among managers, and explains their well-being (leroy-frémont, desrumaux, moundjiegout, & lapointe, 2014). finally, high self-esteem seems to be essential to promoting a satisfactory level of well-being (diener & diener, 1995; paradise & kernis, 2002; rosenberg, 1985). longitudinal studies have shown that se can have marked positive effects on the life outcomes of the individuals (orth, robins, & widaman, 2012; trzesniewski et al., 2006). paradise and kernis (2002), who examined the relationships between self-esteem (level and stability) and psychological well-being measured on ryff’s (1989) scale, found main effects of high self-esteem on the six well-being subscales. these studies led us to propose the following hypothesis: hypothesis 1: self-esteem is positively related to well-being. well-being and leader-member exchange reflecting the direct and interpersonal exchange between the supervisor (the leader) and the subordinate (the member) (dansereau, graen, & haga, 1975; graen & uhl-bien, 1995), lmx is a one of the factors of well-being (atkinson, hill, matthews, & morgenson, 2016; borgonovi, farr-wharton, & trinchero, 2014; epitropaki & martin, 1999; sparr & sonnentag, 2008). lmx is used to indicate the quality of the supervisor–subordinate relationship. subordinates reporting high levels of lmx, perceive that their supervisors are satisfied with their work, understand their job problems and needs, recognize their potential, and are willing to help them solve workrelated problems (graen & uhl-bien, 1995). according to graen and uhl-bien (1995, p. 238), “lmx is both transactional and transformational: it begins as transactional social exchange and evolves into transformational social exchange.” subordinates perceiving high lmx feel acknowledged, supported, and trusted by their supervisors. the link between lmx as an organizational resource and well-being need to be tested in the specific context of counselors. indeed, research has found that counselors are subject to psychosocial risks (e.g., burnout: thompson, amatea, & thompson, 2014; workaholism: machado, desrumaux, & dose, 2015). counselors in particular may have work-related health problems because of work schedules and fragmented activities (bernaud et al., 2007). other studies (e.g., dose, desrumaux, sovet, & de bosscher, 2018 showed that counselors can have a sense of well-being when their work conditions are good (i.e., objective career success, recognition of the hierarchy). therefore, we hypothesized that: hypothesis 2: leader-member exchange (lmx) is positively related to well-being. need satisfaction as a mediator according to self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 1985, 2000, 2008), human beings have three basic pns (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), and satisfaction of those needs is essential to their well-being. the need for autonomy involves the freedom to act within one’s environment, to organize one’s own work, and to dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 825 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ make decisions and execute behaviors that are in keeping with one’s will (decharms, 1968; deci & ryan, 1985). the need for competence (white, 1959) is satisfied when people feel they are effective and thus have the resources and capabilities required to achieve their goals. the need for relatedness is satisfied when they feel related to others (i.e., they have consideration for others, who show consideration in return). empirical studies have confirmed that when all three pns are satisfied, the individual attains a certain degree of vitality (ryan & frederick, 1997) and self-concordance (sheldon & elliot, 1999). a deficiency in any one of the three can directly diminish well-being. satisfaction of these needs is thought to be related to general well-being (deci & ryan, 2000) and a recent study revealed that need satisfaction in a work setting was positively related to enjoyment of work (andreassen, hetland, & pallesen, 2010). the relationship between need satisfaction and well-being at work has been established in many studies (boudrias et al., 2011, 2014; desrumaux et al., 2015; gillet, fouquereau, forest, brunault, & colombat, 2012). the satisfaction of the three needs appears as positively connected to various indicators of psychological wellbeing (baard et al., 2004; boudrias et al., 2011, 2014; desrumaux et al., 2015; dose, 2018; gillet et al., 2012; van den broeck et al., 2008). hypothesis 3: satisfaction of the needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy is related to wellbeing. a number of studies have also shown that satisfaction of pns could be considered as a mediator of the relationship between job resources and positive psychological states (van den broeck et al., 2008). the mediating effects of pns were found with specific populations, including teachers for well-being at work (boudrias et al., 2011, 2014; desrumaux et al., 2015). for example, in a study by desrumaux et al. (2015) with 298 french teachers, satisfaction of the psychological needs for competence and relatedness fully mediated the relationships between climate and well-being, and only satisfaction of competence mediated the relationship between optimism and well-being. it is therefore possible that other personal-factor effects will be mediated by the satisfaction of the three psychological needs. study of dose et al. (2018) with counselors showed that the three pn had a mediating effect between the social and psychological career success, and the psychological well-being while only autonomy and relatedness pns mediatized the relation between financial career success and psychological well-being. indeed, self-esteem effects on well-being can be explained 1) by the fact that a high se generates a good appraisal of one’s work and environment (e.g., by generating protective, positive affects such as the feeling of being challenged and competitive rather than threatened), and 2) by the fact that se facilitates social relations, affiliation, and reciprocity (pyszcynski, greenberg, solomon, arndt, & schimel, 2004). generally, se generates a positive state that will facilitate the satisfaction of the three needs. given that high se generates good appraisal of one’s work and environment, we presume that high se will be linked to high pn satisfaction. so we can guess that satisfaction of each of the three psychological needs will play a mediating role between selfesteem and well-being. according to self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 2000), employees strive to actualize their potential and competence (need for competence), develop their relations and build meaningful and satisfying relationships with colleagues (need for affiliation), and grow and progress toward autonomy at the workplace (need for autonomy). considering the three faces of self-esteem (brown & marshall, 2006), which are positive overall esteem, positive feelings of self-worth, and positive self-evaluations, we can assume that positive self-esteem well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 826 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ provide the necessary ingredients for satisfying the major psychological needs. regarding the need for affiliation, it can be argued that, at work, when the values of self-respect, self-esteem and self-development prevail, members will feel confidence in their colleagues and leaders, and will feel encouraged to develop positive and supportive relationships. as a result, employees are able to develop a positive state of health and well-being. regarding the need for competence, it can be argued that when persons are appreciated and feel they have intrinsic value for their company, they will feel capable and able to engage in various challenging, stimulating, and difficult tasks. regarding the need for autonomy, it can be assumed that members who have trust in their ability to solve problems and to work without depending on coworkers are more likely to be involved in decision making (hetland, hetland, andreassen, pallesen, & notelaers, 2011), take personal initiatives, and express their true selves (sonnentag, 2003). accordingly, we set forth the following hypothesis: hypothesis 4: satisfaction of the three pns mediates the relationships between self-esteem and wellbeing. according to graen and uhl-bien (1995, p. 238), “lmx is both transactional and transformational: it begins as transactional social exchange and evolves into transformational social exchange.” with respect to pn, subordinates perceiving high lmx feel acknowledged, supported, and trusted by their supervisors, and self-determination theory predicts that their needs for competence, belongingness and autonomy will be fulfilled (deci & ryan, 2000). thus, high levels of lmx may indicate that supervisors are sources of need satisfaction. theoretically and empirically, links between transformational leadership and need fulfillment (hetland et al., 2011) are established. hetland et al.’s (2011) results showed that both transformational leadership and the transactional behavior of management are significantly related to fulfillment of basic needs. kovjanic, schuh, jonas, van quaquebeke, and van dick (2012) showed that need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction. we propose to analyze an extended view of the positive psychological state by using well-being as criterion measure, leading us to predict that employees who feel important and valued by their supervisors will feel supported at the organizational level and will probably feel that their needs at work are satisfied, and finally will feel high well-being. resources have “motivational potential” and lead to increased well-being, through the satisfaction of psychological needs (e.g., with social support satisfying the need for affiliation; self-efficacy satisfying the need for competence) (bakker & demerouti, 2007; boudrias et al., 2011, 2014). according to the eudemonic perspective, wellbeing is not a state but refers to optimal functioning of persons. therefore, relationships at work are a pathway for developing well-being at work. the links between lmxs and psychological well-being could function through the mechanism of need satisfaction. first, the need for relatedness can be satisfied through positive professional relationships between an employee and a leader. being supported by the leader, supporting the leader, feeling that daily presence, daily exchanges, and daily information sharing are important, can be strong sources of satisfaction and of good health on the job. second, the need for autonomy can be satisfied through interdependent positive relationships between an employee and a leader, and autonomy entails wanting to participate in designing one’s work and the team’s work organization. this implies that the leader facilitate participation in professional and social activities and tasks at work. the expected results of these processes are the development of psychological well-being. third, receiving compliments and accreditation from the leader for one’s competence at work are strong sources of satisfaction that reinforce occupational well-being. consequently, we can assume that need satisfaction will have indirect effects for all three pns. hypothesis 5: satisfaction of the three pns plays a mediating role between lmx, and well-being. dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 827 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in sum, the present study was aimed at verifying our hypotheses using a multivariate approach (figure 1). we test for the respective effects of each type of predictor (self-esteem as a personal predictor, lmx as a psychosocial predictor) and each mediator (satisfaction of competence, relatedness, and autonomy) on psychological well-being. the relevance of these determinants of well-being was observed on a sample of counselors (psychologists), a professional category known to be subjected to psychosocial risks. figure 1. hypothetical model of psychological well-being at work and psychological need satisfaction among counselors. method participants two hundred and twenty-four professional counselors (97% were psychologists) participated. they all were working in a french national public institution (“pole-emploi”) whose role is to follow up onjob seekers and facilitate their employment. they were53men and171women of various ages (m = 39.86, sd = 10.56), and 4.8 years of work experience ranging. the number of years of seniority at work also varied (m = 8.52, sd = 8.30). the counselors were working either full time (89.79%) or part time (10.21%). the counselors worked in only one national organization and the sample was homogeneous (french unemployment agency). procedure and measures participants were contacted at work and were asked to fill out an online questionnaire. the questionnaire consisted of 54 items and 20 demographic questions (age, sex, seniority, etc.). the participants filled out the queswell-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 828 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tionnaire at work using seven-point likert scales ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). we varied the instructions and response scales in order to minimize response biases (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). all scales were translated from english into french using a standard translation/back-translation procedure (brislin, 1980). cronbach’s α for the study instruments indicated satisfactory internal consistency for all scales. leader-member exchange leader-member exchange (lmx) was measured using graen, novak, and sommerkamp’s (1982) 7-item lmx 7 instrument. meta-analytic empirical research has shown that this version of the lmx (e.g., my manager recognizes my accomplishments and my potential) provides the soundest psychometric properties and the highest correlations with outcomes, of all available lmx versions (gerstner & day, 1997). the seven items (α = .96) were presented as likert scales with response alternatives ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). self-esteem scale rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1979) includes 10 items (α = .87; e.g., i feel that i have a number of good qualities) with 7-point likert-type scales ranging from 1 (do not agree at all) to 7 (completely agree). satisfaction of the three needs satisfaction of the three pns was measured using gillet, rosnet, and vallerand’s (2008) scale, adapted to work (rather than sports) and validated. participants were asked to rate 12 items (overall cronbach’s α = .91) on a 7point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (absolutely) distributed across three categories of four items. four items measured the need for autonomy (α = .86; e.g., i often can give my opinion about planning of tasks i have to do). four items explored the need for competence (α = .84; e.g., i often feel very competent), and four items covered the need for relatedness (α = .81; e.g., i often feel a lot of sympathy for people with whom i interact). well-being at work dagenais-desmarais and savoie’s (2011) measure of psychological well-being at work covered five sub-dimensions (interpersonal fit at work, thriving at work, feeling of competency at work, desire for involvement at work, and perceived recognition at work), with 25 items (α = .96; e.g., recently at my job, a smile comes easily to me). the participants rated the 25 items using a seven-point likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). results the means, standard deviations and, bivariate correlations are presented in table 1. the correlation matrix gives us a preliminary view of the links between the independent, dependent, and mediating variables. out of the 15 correlations tested, all were significant and generally went in the expected direction. dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 829 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations, and correlations between the study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. self-esteem 3.57 1.92 .87 2. lmx 5.46 1.33 .30** .96 3. autonomy need satisfaction 5.14 1.29 .38** .67** .86 4. relatedness need satisfaction 3.71 1.71 .37** .39** .49** .81 5. competence need satisfaction 5.86 1.14 .43** .57** .71** .58** .84 6. well-being 3.57 1.77 .42** .72** .77** .63** .81** .96 note. n = 224; cronbach’s alphas are in boldface along the diagonal. **p < .01. for testing the hypotheses, we used hayes and preacher’s (2014) spss macro, which verifies the existence of direct and indirect links based on regression and non-parametric bootstrapping. we preferred this method over structural equation modeling because the model we tested had too many parameters for our sample (i.e., the ratio of the number of participants to the number of to-be-estimated parameters was less than 20:1) (kline, 2011). the advocated approach (hayes & preacher, 2014) calculates the mediation effect or indirect effect as the product of link a (specific effect of an iv on a mediating variable (mv)) and link b (specific effect of an mv on the dv). link c represents the total effect of an iv on the dv when the effects of the other ivs are controlled; it is equal to the sum of the direct and indirect effects (preacher & hayes, 2008). in the present study, indirect effects were tested by bootstrapping, which here generated 10,000 alternative samples. one can conclude that a mediation link exists when the confidence interval obtained by way of bootstrapping does not contain zero. the bootstrapping method is robust against potential biases resulting from non-normal data distributions (preacher & hayes, 2008). the effects and links between the variables are presented in table 2. they show, firstly, that all of the ivs (selfesteem variables and, lmx variables) had significant direct effects on the dv (well-being) (link c’). more specifically, self-esteem and lmx had detrimental effects. all self-esteem and lmx variables significantly promoted need satisfaction (link c’). in table 2, we can see that link b (satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) had positive effects on well-being. these results showed that satisfaction of the three pns significantly explains well-being. the results showed that when the indirect effect was factored out of the total effect (link c’), self-esteem and lmx continued to significantly affect well-being. moreover, the direct effect of these two ivs was weaker than the total effect, suggesting partial mediation. regarding the indirect effects, the results of the bootstrap analyses (10,000) showed that self-esteem (figure 2) and lmx (figure 3) had a significant impact via satisfaction of the three needs. well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 830 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. mediation results with self-esteem (iv) and, well-being as the dependent variable. table 2 mediation results with well-being as the dependent variable mv total effect (link c) effect of iv on mv (link a) effect of mv on dv (link b) direct effect (link c’) indirect effect (link c—link c’) 95% ci [ll, ul] self-esteem autonomy need satisfaction .43*** .54*** .53*** .14** .29a [0.05, 0.24] competence need satisfaction .43*** .34*** .60*** .23*** .20a [0.13, 0.30] relatedness need satisfaction .43*** .46*** .74*** .09* .35a [0.24, 0.45] lmx autonomy need satisfaction .47*** .59*** .39*** .24*** .23a [0.18, 0.28] competence need satisfaction .47*** .24*** .44*** .37*** .10a [0.06, 0.15] relatedness need satisfaction .47*** .40*** .25*** .25*** .22a [0.17, 0.28] note. n = 224; iv = independent variable; mv = mediating variable; dv = dependent variable; ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit, ul = upper limit; bootstrapping n = 10,000. ap < .05 (bootstrapping 95% ci does not include zero). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 831 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. mediation results with leader-member exchange (iv) and, well-being as the dependent variable. discussion as hypothesized (h1), our results confirmed that the self-esteem of employment counselors, i.e., their affective or evaluative appraisal of themselves, is linked to their well-being. as many authors have found, self-esteem is positively related to well-being (baumeister et al., 2003; leroy-frémont et al., 2014; oyserman et al., 2004; paradise & kernis, 2002; rosenberg, 1985). self-esteem affects well-being in multiple ways. not only does a high se generate a good appraisal of one’s own work and of one’s environment, but it also facilitates social relations and reciprocity. in a review of the perspectives on happiness, ryff (1989) concluded that the recurrent criterion for positive well-being is the individual’s sense of self-acceptance or self-esteem. a second essential criterion for well-being is exchange. according to hypothesis 2, our results confirm the relationships between lmx and well-being (atkinson et al., 2016; borgonovi et al., 2014; sparr & sonnentag, 2008): a high quality of exchange between counselors and their supervisor increase the counselors’ well-being. the core of our study was to analyze the mediating role of psychological need satisfaction between resources (self-esteem and lmx) and well-being. for that, we began by testing and confirming (h3) that the satisfaction of each psychological need was linked to well-being. as prior studies have shown for persons with different occupations, such as teachers, healthcare professionals, police, sports (baard et al., 2004; boudrias et al., 2011, 2014; deci et al., 2001; gagné & deci, 2005), our results revealed that affiliation-need satisfaction was associated with counselors’ well-being at work. our results also confirmed that competence-need satisfaction is signifwell-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 832 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ icantly associated with counselor’s well-being at work. prior research has also shown that employees who believe in their ability to organize and execute their tasks displayed higher levels of well-being (deci et al., 2001). lastly, satisfaction of the need for autonomy, which is related to a sense of personal volition and freedom significantly explained well-being at work. these results, which focus specifically on well-being on the job, are in line with many findings showing that feelings of need satisfaction are related to well-being across many contexts (boudrias et al., 2011, 2014; deci & ryan, 2008; desrumaux et al., 2015; gagné & deci, 2005; ryan & deci, 2008, 2017; sheldon, 2004). next, we tested the total, direct, and indirect links between our variables. our results, which validate hypothesis 4, yielded indirect effects of relatedness, competence, and autonomy linking self-esteem to well-being. as stated above, self-esteem is a general estimation of the personal value which affects the general vision of the world, the social relations and the work (content, organization, professional relations…). in a study by graves, ruderman, ohlott, and weber (2012), self-esteem was positively related to enthusiasm, which in turn had a beneficial effect on psychological health. self-esteem, then, is a necessary ingredient of psychological well-being because it maintains a positive balance at work. self-esteem is a strength that point out, to the individuals themselves (and to the leader and colleagues), their social value, their ability to implement skills, and their ability to work autonomously and to cope with demands (leary, tambor, terdal, & downs, 1995). as a result, by satisfying the three needs, self-esteem will enable well-being. we showed also, confirming h5, that psychological need satisfaction is also a condition that links lmx and well-being. in a more detailed manner, autonomy need satisfaction and relatedness need satisfaction explain a great part (see in direct effect) of the link observed between self-esteem and well-being and also lmx and wellbeing, and more so than competence need satisfaction. so, it is clearly the satisfaction of social needs that best contributes to understanding the relationship between resources and well-being among counselors. this result is very interesting seeing that the two resources studied are quite different from one another. indeed, self-esteem is a personal resource, often seen as rather stable, and lmx is a psychosocial resource, in other words, one that depends not only on the individual but also on the psychosocial environment. to conclude, we learned at least two things from our data. firstly, it is a good idea to simultaneously analyze the roles of different kinds of resources such as self-esteem and lmx exchanges in order to understand counselors’ well-being. as many psychological health models have shown (e.g., boudrias et al., 2011), well-being cannot be explained by personal dispositions alone, or by psychosocial factors alone. it necessarily results from two kinds of factors (personal and psychosocial) that optimize our explanation of well-being. in fact, many studies have demonstrated the role of personality in well-being, but our study insists on the fact that a good environment with appropriate leadership is fundamental. our results showed that having satisfying personal relationships in which empathy and confidence between leader and member are mutually expressed, is a condition for experiencing well-being at work. secondly, taking need satisfaction into account as a facilitator is a must because doing so enhances the understanding of the well-being drawn from resources. this helps us understand that personal and psychosocial resources have “motivational potential” to increase well-being, through the satisfaction of psychological needs (e.g., social support will help satisfy the “need to belong”). ensuring the psychological need satisfaction of employees is an important factor that drives well-being at work (deci, olafsen, & ryan, 2017; gagné & deci, 2005). dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 833 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our findings confirm the eudemonic perspective and the idea that well-being is not a state but refers to optimal psychological experiences and functioning. in this sense, healthy human relationships at work, because they increase self-esteem and positive exchanges, are an avenue for developing well-being. our study shows that the link between leader member exchange and psychological well-being indeed functions through need satisfaction. in the introduction, we have justified the relationships between iv and dv for each of the three needs, and followed ryan and deci’s point of view (2000, p. 335), which states that: « each need is independently necessary for well-being, and some of our studies, such as that by reis, sheldon, gable, roscoe, and ryan (2000) show that each of the three needs does make an independent contribution to the prediction of daily well-being ». all three psychological needs usually gave rise to a statistically significant indirect effect. the mediating effects worked for each of the three needs, but this implies that each one acted as a mediator—although in a singular and complementary manner—and had an indirect effect in the relationships between each iv and dv. it was necessary to test the effects of each need separately because we did not want to combine different complementary needs into an overall score. sdt (ryan & deci, 2000) points out the complementarity and singularity of each need, and insists on the fact that if one of the needs is not fulfilled, there will be a negative effect on an individual’s development, well-being, and health at work. taken together, the results of this study on counselors provide support for the idea that lmx and self-esteem promote psychological need satisfaction, and that satisfaction of these three needs in turn lead to psychological well-being. limitations a number of limitations need to be mentioned. given that this study was based on volunteer participation, one can wonder whether the respondents might not have been those counselors who were the most available and the least stressed, rather than those in difficulty, absent, or ill. also, self-report questionnaires can favor socially desirable responses. added to that, all of our information was obtained from the same source. those two circumstances could create problems related the common variance (lindell & whitney, 2001). for future investigations, it might be worthwhile to obtain objective information about the different kinds of social support provided by supervisors, and to take into account of the number of agents assigned to a team, the worker/supervisor ratio, and so on. lastly, the present cross-sectional study did not allow us to draw any conclusions about causal relations or changes over time in the predictors of well-being. longitudinal or experimental study designs are needed to test the causal effects of social support and self-esteem on well-being. implications for practical applications and research improving the well-being of counselors has many consequences, not only for the counselors themselves but also for jobseekers, applicants, and persons experiencing difficulties at the occupational level. employment counselors’ well-being is an important contributor to the effective employment of job seekers. generally, people are motivated to improve or maintain their self-esteem (pyszczynski, greenberg, solomon, arndt, & schimel, 2004), because the consequences on their lives are numerous. for counselors, these consequences are extended to people they guide and help. a happy counselor can therefore be more efficient. the conditions for such well-being are related to self-directed attention and especially self-esteem, and to need satisfaction. superiors well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 834 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://www.psychopen.eu/ also play a major role because supervision help counselors choose their work priorities, decide on their organization, and understand the meaning of their work. based on our findings, we can contend that promoting exchanges between supervisors and staff members is critical in increasing well-being. organizations must seek ways of increasing opportunities to obtain social support for all staff members. employment agency supervisors play a very important protective role by valorizing, recognizing, and highlighting the capacities and abilities of counselors, and helping them understand their work and tasks by offering them direct assistance with job seekers. supportive behaviors, such as understanding and acknowledging the employee’s perspective, providing meaningful information, offering opportunities for choice and encouraging initiative taking (e.g., deci, connell, & ryan, 1989) will enhance well-being. if managers are engaged in positive, supporting behaviors (baard et al., 2004; deci et al., 2001) and are encouraged and trained to act in a supportive manner (deci et al., 1989), subordinates will display better physical and psychological well-being. another question concerns the relationships between well-being and self-esteem. empirical evidence shows that these variables are very close to each other (lyubomirsky, tkach, and dimatteo, 2006) with various studies revealing moderate to high correlations between measures of happiness and measures of self-esteem. the question of these close links needs to be further explored using different methods (e.g., interviews, experimental methods). in the same way, a closer inspection of the reciprocal influences of lmx and well-being and of well-being and lmx is needed, just as some authors have done for the relationship between job satisfaction and lmx (volmer, niessen, spurk, linz, & abele, 2011). studies that have found that well-being measures affect measures that are similar to lmx (e.g., social support). future research should explore the temporal dynamics of the lmx–well-being relationship in greater detail. further research might also consider potential differences between counselors working in different organizations (guidance of students, guidance of jobseekers, guidance of people seeking career success) with respect to the multiple dimensions of psychological well-being. among the variables to add to future studies, the organizational climate (schultz, ryan, niemiec, legate, & williams, 2014) or the safety climate (idris, dollard, coward, & dormann, 2012) known to have positive effects on worker psychological health, well-being and performance, could also be tested. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references andré, c. 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(2012). what is psychological well-being, really? a grassroots approach from the organizational sciences. journal of happiness studies, 13(4), 659-684. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-011-9285-3 about the authors eric dose is phd, associate professor of work and organizational psychology at the university of lille. his research focuses on quality of life at work, well-being, career success, satisfaction, counseling and, on information and communication technologies (ict) and psychological health at work (telepressure…). pascale desrumaux is phd, professor of work and organizational psychology at the university of lille. her research focuses on quality of life at work, on bullying at work, on burnout, telepressure and, on hiring, judgments and stereotypes of physical appearance. dose, desrumaux, bernaud, & hellemans 841 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-3514.76.3.482 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-9010 https://doi.org/10.1146%2fannurev-orgpsych-032414-111347 https://doi.org/10.17744%2fmehc.36.1.p61m73373m4617r3 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0012-1649.42.2.381 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00207599008247865 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f02678370802393672 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1464-0597.2011.00446.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2fh0040934 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10902-011-9285-3 https://www.psychopen.eu/ jean-luc bernaud is phd, professor of psychology at the cnam (conservatoire national des arts et métiers) of paris. his research focuses on life and work meaning, career counseling in existential psychology perspective. catherine hellemansis phd, professor of work psychology at the université libre de bruxelles (ulb). her research focuses on psychosocial risks and well-being at work, with an emphasis on bystander’s role in case of bullying at work. well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors 842 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 823–842 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1881 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ well-being, need satisfaction, lmx, and self-esteem of counselors (introduction) well-being and self-esteem well-being and leader-member exchange need satisfaction as a mediator method participants procedure and measures results discussion limitations implications for practical applications and research (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story theoretical contributions searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story hanan bushkin 1, roelf van niekerk 2, louise stroud 3 [1] the anxiety and trauma clinic, johannesburg, south africa. [2] department of industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa. [3] department of psychology, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 received: 2020-12-13 • accepted: 2021-03-08 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: hanan bushkin, 1 robant lane, edenburg, joahnnesburg, gauteng, 2191, south africa. e-mail: hanan@atclinic.co.za abstract the existential psychiatrist viktor frankl (1905–1997) lived an extraordinary life. he witnessed and experienced acts of anti-semitism, persecution, brutality, physical abuse, malnutrition, and emotional humiliation. ironically, through these experiences, the loss of dignity and the loss of the lives of his wife, parents and brother, his philosophy of human nature, namely, that the search for meaning is the drive behind human behaviour, was moulded. frankl formulated the basis of his existential approach to psychological practice before world war ii (wwii). however, his experiences in the concentration camps confirmed his view that it is through a search for meaning and purpose in life that individuals can endure hardship and suffering. in a sense, frank’s theory was tested in a dramatic way by the tragedies of his life. following wwii, frankl shaped modern psychological thinking by lecturing at more than 200 universities, authoring 40 books published in 50 languages and receiving 29 honorary doctorates. his ideas and experiences related to the search for meaning influenced theorists, practitioners, researchers, and lay people around the world. this study focuses specifically on the period between 1942 and 1945. the aim is to explore frankl’s search for meaning within an unpredictable, lifethreatening, and chaotic context through the lens of his concept of noö-dynamics. keywords viktor frankl, existentialism, holocaust, noö-dynamics, psychobiography viktor emil frankl (26 march 1905–2 september 1997) was an austrian psychiatrist and neurologist, a holocaust survivor, and the founder of logotherapy—a school of therapy centred around meaning creation, considered the third viennese school of psychotherapy. a central tenet of frankl’s theory is the concept of noö-dynamics (frankl, 2014) which helps to explain the relationship between frankl’s chaotic external world and his search for meaning within the chaos. this study aims to explore how frankl made sense of his world and ultimately how he found meaning during his time in the concentration camps, between 1942 and 1945. more specifically, this psychobiographical case study explores—through the lens of frankl’s concept of noö-dynamics—the strategies he employed in the concentration camps to find purpose and create meaning. the life of viktor frankl frankl was born on the 26th of march 1905 in vienna in the jewish area of leopoldstadt where he personally witnessed and experienced daily acts of anti-semitism and persecution (frankl, 2000). in 1930 frankl received a medical degree from the university of vienna, and was put in charge of the hospital ward in vienna for the treatment of females who had attempted suicide (redsand, 2006). in 1937 frankl established a private practice in neurology and psychiatry in his sister’s living room (redsand, 2006). during world war ii in september 1942, frankl and his wife, tilly were deported to this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5439&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ theresienstadt concentration camp. this was the first of four different camps where frankl experienced physical abuse, malnutrition, emotional humiliation and torture (klingberg, 2001; redsand, 2006). during his time in the concentration camps, frankl experienced the loss of his wife and parents, and perhaps most significantly, the loss of hope, dignity and meaning, which ultimately moulded his philosophy of human nature (frankl, 2006; klingberg, 2001). he was liberated from türkheim concentration camp in 1945 after spending two and a half years in four concentration camps. a year later frankl wrote his most distinguished book, man’s search for meaning (frankl, 1959), which chronicled his experiences in the concentration camps and proposed the foundation of his theory (southwick, gilmartin, mcdonough, & morrissey, 2006). after the war frankl was appointed as chief of neurology at the vienna policlinic hospital. here he met his second wife, elly schwindt (klingberg, 2001; redsand, 2006). they were married in 1947 and together taught frankl’s theory and philosophy (redsand, 2006). frankl’s contribution to the academic world has been recognised by major institutions throughout the globe (graber, 2004; redsand, 2006). he became blind at the age of 85, and died in 1997 at the age of 92. frankl’s existential theory frankl’s philosophical background is grounded in existentialism and his theory has been placed in the tradition of existential philosophy (klingberg, 2001; pytell, 2015). he described a situation at the age of 13 that would become a central tenet of his theory (frankl, 2000; klingberg, 2001; pytell, 2015; redsand, 2006). when a teacher told frankl’s class that life is processes of combustion and oxidation, frankl asked: “professor fritz, if this is the case, what meaning then does life have?” (redsand, 2006, p. 18). later frankl described reductionism “as today’s nihilism” (frankl, 2000, p. 60). frankl believed that reductionism failed to grasp the uniqueness of humanness by describing human beings as mere machines, as opposed to possessing the ability to transcend beyond their unique physicality (frankl, 1988, 2006, 2014). frankl (2010, 2011, 2014) maintained that the search for meaning is not a secondary thought process to instincts, but rather the primary motivation in life. his theory (2010, 2011, 2012, 2014) highlighted the need to acquire the tools necessary to find meaning, rather than to view a person as a two-dimensional machine with separate parts. a person’s ability to transcend their environment was a central component of frankl’s existential theory. frankl (2004, 2006, 2014) stated that the individual is the only one to decide about the meaning of their life and that the individual has to take responsibility for creating and deciding its unique meaning. furthermore, the ability to decide the meaning of a situation has the power to create a positive outcome from the worst of situations, as frankl (2000) explained: i can see beyond the misery of the situation to the potential for discovering a meaning behind it, and thus to turn an apparently meaningless suffering into a genuine human achievement. i am convinced that, in the final analysis, there is no situation that does not contain within it the seed of meaning. to a great extent, this conviction is the basis of logotherapy. (p. 53) noö-dynamics frankl (2006) asserted that mental well-being is not about achieving emotional equilibrium, but rather “the existential dynamics in a polar field of tension where one pole is represented by the meaning that is to be fulfilled and the other pole by the man who has to fulfil it” (p. 110). this is a foundational concept of frankl’s existential theory, which is based on a person’s drive to achieve purpose in life. frankl (2004) referred to this tension between a person’s end goal and where a person is currently as noö-dynamics. the term noödynamics is derived from noetics which was a central feature of the austrian philosophical-psychological tradition to which frankl was a part. the origin of the term stems from the greek word noös meaning mind or spirit (hatt, 1965). hence, the noölogical dimension according to frankl refers to the uniquely human experience of transcending one’s environment and entering into the dimension of noetic phenomena (or the noölogical dimension; frankl, 1988). according to frankl (2004), human beings should aim to create this tension in order to re-orientate themselves towards their meaning in life. this constant tension provides a person with a sense of drive and purpose (frankl, 2006, 2014). frankl stated that working towards a sense of emotional homeostasis is mentally healthy and that tension aroused by a goal that needs to be fulfilled is what makes a person live in this world with purpose. frankl (2004), therefore, maintained that noö-dynamics is a healthy state for a person to be searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story 234 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in and while a state of emotional homeostasis is naturally comforting, noö-dynamics is what one should aim to create in one’s life. method the present study on the life of frankl may be described as a longitudinal life history study with a qualitative-morpho­ genic, idiographic-morphogenic research design (burnell, 2013; yin, 2013). the research design may be defined further as a longitudinal, single-case, psychobiographical study (ferrer & ponterotto, 2020; fouché, 1999; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; ndoro & van niekerk, 2019; van niekerk, prenter, & fouché, 2019), which portrays an individual’s life through the use of evidence, theory and interpretation (du plessis, 2017; du plessis & du plessis, 2018; mayer, van niekerk, & fouché, 2020; ndoro & van niekerk, 2019; schultz, 2005). psychobiographical research is simply the construction of a subject’s lived experiences through the application of psychological theory and involves the comprehensive application of biographical information with the aim of illuminating patterns in thinking, feelings and behaviours in extraordinary individuals (du plessis & du plessis, 2018; ferrer & ponterotto, 2020; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; mayer et al., 2020; ponterotto, 2014, 2018; prenter, van niekerk, & fouché, 2019; van niekerk et al., 2019). this qualitative psychobiographical study can also be described as both exploratory-descriptive and descriptive-dia­ logic in nature. the exploratory-descriptive nature refers to the nature of exploration of frankl’s process of creating meaning through the lens of his concept of noö-dynamics, while the descriptive-dialogic nature of this approach allowed for the informal assessment of the same psychological concept to be applied to frankl’s experiences in the concentration camps. sampling a non-probability sampling procedure, purposive sampling, was employed in the selection of frankl as the psychobio­ graphical subject. in purposive sampling, the researcher’s judgement is used to determine the characteristic attributes desired and to ensure that the data collected and analysed are in-depth (strydom & delport, 2005). frankl was selected for this study based on his unique, significant and interesting life. data collection and analysis multiple sources of data were collected and reviewed. the researchers searched for publicly available material related to the historical period in which frankl lived. the material included primary data such as books written by frankl, as well as secondary data, which included materials produced by others about frankl’s life and contributions. the sources of information collected were aligned with the primary aim of this study and included an autobiography, biographies, published books and articles by frankl and about frankl, transcribed interviews and lectures presented by frankl. yin (2013) proposed two strategies that should be employed by researchers, namely data analysis that is guided by objective theoretical approaches and the strategy of case description. the first strategy refers to how the researcher relies on the theoretical approaches to identify and select the data to be used in the collection and analysis process. this selection is achieved through the researcher asking questions that will provide insight into the objectives of the study, as well as the theoretical approaches used (fouché, 1999). the second strategy entails the development of a descriptive framework to organise and integrate case information (yin, 2013). according to fouché (1999), the researcher should achieve this through the development of a conceptual matrix that would guide the data extraction and categorisation. both alexander’s model (alexander, 1990), as well as du plessis’s 12-step process (du plessis, 2017) was used for this purpose. qualitative research criteria in order to ensure a satisfactory qualitative research quality, the researchers applied qualitative criteria, more specifical­ ly referring to trustworthiness, credibility, dependability, transferability and conformability (yin, 2013). in addition, a process of triangulation of theories, data and method was applied (tindall, 1999). bushkin, van niekerk, & stroud 235 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ethical considerations ethical clearance was provided by the nelson mandela university in port elizabeth, south africa. the researchers chose to study a long-deceased individual, which eliminated the need to receive consent from the subject. however, the researchers obtained written consent from the viktor frankl institute for conducting the study. in addition, the researchers strictly followed the recommendations made by elms (1994) and also complied with the general ethical guidelines as stipulated by the health professions council of south africa. finally, the study was written with consciousness regarding the sensitive personal information used and the findings made. this was done with the intent to not cause embarrassment to frankl’s family. frankl’s search for meaning in chaos frankl’s concept of noö-dynamics and homeostasis (frankl, 1988, 2004) is a central idea that explains the push-pull relationship between frankl’s inner and outer chaotic world and his subsequent need to create meaning within the chaos. frankl’s struggle to understand his life, his need to find answers and to establish the meaning in such a struggle permeated throughout his life, and more specifically during his time in the concentration camps between 1942 and 1945. frankl wrote, discussed, and taught many principles and strategies to help others find meaning in their lives. the researchers have observed, collated, and highlighted at least eight specific strategies which frankl had utilised in order to create meaning within his chaotic environment. more specifically, the creation of meaning through: 1) creative pursuits, 2) servicing others, 3) contradictory experiences, 4) the commitment to a decision, 5) spiritual connection, 6) perceiving meaningless tasks through a meaningful lens, 7) creating and chasing goals, and lastly 8) maintaining an unconditional attitude of strength. more specific examples of how frankl utilised these strategies are highlighted below. over a period of two and a half years, frankl had lived in four concentration camps: theresienstadt, auschwitz, dachau and türkheim. life at theresienstadt concentration camp was harsh and filled with daily suffering, although frankl recalled how the jews in the camp attempted to keep their lives meaningful and entertaining (frankl, 2000, 2012). children and artists painted, actors performed for the crowds, musicians played the music that uplifted people and scholars gave lectures (adler, 2017). frankl found that witnessing and participating in creative pursuits provided him with meaning and purpose in a place which was intent on creating suffering. for frankl, engagement with creative outlets provided him with meaningful distraction, which ultimately allowed him to transcend the chaos of his environment and escape through engagement with something meaningful. in essence, the daily suffering had created a sense of noö-dynamics, and the engagement in creative pursuits helped frankl to achieve a sense of homeostasis. frankl volunteered to give public talks on different topics related to medicine and psychology, for example, sleep disturbances, the psychology of alpinism (mountain climbing), medical ministry, and psychotherapy (klingberg, 2001). furthermore, as he had organised in vienna, frankl was in charge of a team of like-minded individuals who participated in and ran suicide-prevention programs that helped prisoners adjust to life in theresienstadt (klingberg, 2001; redsand, 2006). frankl and his team often helped depressed and suicidal prisoners with logotherapeutic techniques that aimed at assisting them in finding meaning and reasons to live despite their living conditions (frankl, 2000). frankl found that pursuing activities for the service of others allowed him to transcend the suffering of his environment. such pursuits had changed frankl’s focus from himself to focusing on others. this change in focus had resulted in living a life of meaning within an environment that was designed to take meaning away. the daily life in the camp had created a sense of suffering or noö-dynamics for frankl, and his engagement in activities that contributed to others, provided him with meaning and purpose, ultimately at times homeostasis. the psychological need to create homeostasis had once again provided frankl with a pursuit for meaning. another example of frankl finding meaning in the pursuit of serving others was when after 5 months of hard labour at kaufering, which was one of the sub camps in dachau (on 5 march 1945), he was approached by the chief doctor of kaufering, a hungarian who felt favourable towards frankl (frankl, 2000). frankl was asked if he had wanted to head towards türkheim (also known as kaufering iv), where he would work as a doctor. frankl was sceptical of the offer as he did not trust the real intention of the officials, especially since there was a chance that he would be tricked into going to a death camp. frankl decided to go as he felt that if he spent the last remaining moments of his life searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story 236 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ caring for sick prisoners, at least his suffering, life and death would have some meaning. such act of engagement in a meaningful pursuit, allowed frankl to gain meaning in the chaotic and challenging circumstances. the noö-dynamics created through the unpredictable environment was given meaning through the pursuit of helping others, offering them hope and emotional comfort (frankl, 2000). the nazis humiliated and tortured the people of theresienstadt daily (klingberg, 2001). frankl recalled that one day he was called to the gestapo run police prison, where a ss officer ordered him to fill a bucket with water, run to a compost pile and pour the water on top of the pile. the pile was higher than frankl in length and when he could not reach the top of the pile to pour water over it, the ss officer beat him and ordered him to repeat this exercise for hours. eventually, frankl was dragged back to his quarters with 32 injuries (frankl, 2000). tilly cleaned his wounds and in an attempt to lift his spirit, she took him to a jazz concert that evening. the contrast provided frankl with a fascinating insight. he described it as follows: “the contrast between the indescribable torture of the morning and the jazz in the evening was typical of our existence—with all its contradictions of beauty and hideousness, humanity and inhumanity” (redsand, 2006, p. 65). frankl once again found meaning in engaging with creative pursuits, but also through the contradiction of his experience. the experience of suffering had created a sense of noö-dynamics, and through the engagement with meaningful activities such as art, culture, and music had created a relief or distraction. in addition, the contradiction between suffering and meaningfulness heightened the feelings of noö-dynamics which ultimately created a greater sense of purpose. frankl had endured a total of four separate selections, each one carrying the anxiety of an unknown fate, which he acknowledged taught him to resign to the decisions that were not under his control and “to let fate take its course” (frankl, 1961, p. 54). in the fourth selection, frankl was selected for labour in the dachau camp and was loaded with another group onto a freight train. frankl had no idea where the train was headed and he and the rest of the prisoners tried to guess the direction (klingberg, 2001). the train was heading west and frankl feared that they were heading for mauthausen, a camp so notorious for torture, that it was feared even amongst the prisoners in auschwitz. frankl and the rest of the prisoners on the train felt a sense of relief when the train swerved away from mauthausen onto a track that led to dachau in southern germany. frankl recalled that it was a joyous moment for all the prisoners, later emphasising that the size of human suffering is relative and that a trivial experience can cause the most amount of joy (frankl, 2000). for the prisoners at that moment realising that they were not going to be sent to mauthausen camp but were instead being sent to dachau was something to celebrate, even though being sent to dachau was hardly a cause for celebration (frankl, 2000; klingberg, 2001). frankl had discovered for himself that meaning is constructed through the contradiction of one’s experiences. for frankl, the bigger the gap between one’s current position and one’s goal, vision or the position of where one wants to be, the greater the sense of noö-dynamics. once the difference lessens, the experience and the emotion felt is joy. frankl also found meaning in enjoying small pleasures (frankl, 2012). frankl recalled sleeping in his clothes at night because the wintertime was unbearably cold. he remembered the moment of heat as he lay on the loose earth and urinated in his clothing, which gave him immense pleasure (frankl, 2000). the same pleasurable moment was when he was standing in soup lines, enjoying the warm sensation of urinating in his clothes. at that moment, it felt like “sipping a hot tea” (klingberg, 2001, p. 2632/6819). frankl found that meaning was relative, and is constructed through the contradiction of one’s experience. the conditions in the ghetto took its toll on frankl’s father, gabriel. he was placed in the same barracks where viktor had lived and worked (klingberg, 2001). six months into their stay in theresienstadt, gabriel died of starvation and pneumonia at the age of 81 years (frankl, 2000). frankl reported that his father’s death left him feeling at peace because he knew that he had done all he could in order to protect his father by the choice that he made to stay in vienna. regarding his choice frankl recalled: i kissed him and left. i knew i would not see him alive again. but i had the most wonderful feeling one can imagine. i had done what i could do. i had stayed in vienna because of my parents and now i had accompanied father to the threshold and had spared him the unnecessary agony of death. (klingberg, 2001, p. 2289/6819) bushkin, van niekerk, & stroud 237 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frankl had found meaning through committing to a decision without considering the alternative. this commitment had allowed frankl to not place value on alternative positions and hence live fully engaged with the decision made. such act of committing to a position had created psychological closure or homeostasis, as it helped frankl counterbalance the loss of his father with the sacrifice that he made by staying with his parents. ultimately providing his sense of loss with meaning. another example of frankl finding meaning through his commitment to a position or a choice was when he was at auschwitz. frankl and the rest of the prisoners in the line were ordered to go to the cleansing station, where they were instructed to toss their valuables onto blankets on the ground. frankl rebelled and hid his two most valuable items in his possessions, with the first being his manuscript about logotherapy, which he had hoped would be his legacy and the second being the donauland alpine pin he had earned as a climbing guide. he hid both in his jacket, which he had also hoped to keep. unfortunately, frankl was ordered to throw his clothes into a pile and with it, his most treasured possessions (frankl, 2000). frankl’s commitment to a decision to hold onto his meaningful objects had created the counterbalance to the psychological chaos (noö-dynamics) which was created in his environment. at auschwitz, frankl’s body hair was shaved off and he was ordered to shower with the other prisoners (klingberg, 2001). the prisoners had heard stories about other prisoners being ordered to get ready for the showers, given soap, only to realise that they were in the gas chamber when the door closed behind them. frankl was relieved when he realised that real water poured out of the showerheads (frankl, 2000). frankl emerged from the showers and was ordered to pick clothes from a pile of clothes that lay on the floor. these clothes belonged to prisoners who were murdered in the gas chambers. frankl picked a thin, torn coat from the pile and found a scrap of paper in the pocket (redsand, 2006). it was a torn page from the jewish prayer book and on it was written the shema yisrael, the prayer frankl had heard his father say every day as a young boy. the prayer translated from hebrew said: “hear, o israel, the lord our god, the lord is one god; and you shall love the lord our god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (redsand, 2006, p. 70). frankl later wrote that this prayer and his connection to a spiritual realm was a “challenge to me to live what i had written, to practice what i had preached” (p. 70). the chaos which frankl was living in had created a sense of noö-dynamics which motivated him to search for a meaningful reason to continue living through the suffering. frankl had found the words of the prayer and spiritual connection as a message that had once again created a stronger sense of homeostasis and purpose. another example of frankl connecting to a spiritual dimension in order to find inner resiliency and ultimately meaning, was when he recalled shovelling snow and struggling to find meaning for such great suffering. frankl questioned the purpose of this type of life, and at that moment, he “heard a victorious yes” (redsand, 2006, p. 75), looked up and a light from a farmhouse in the distance went on. the light turning on coincided with his inner voice resounding that life does have a purpose, which helped reignite frankl’s desire to continue living (frankl, 2000). it was at that moment that frankl decided to pursue the rewriting of the book he had lost at auschwitz, which would later be titled the doctor and the soul. frankl acknowledged that the connection to a spiritual dimension provided him with a sense of purpose and ultimately kept him alive (frankl, 2000; klingberg, 2001). frankl also created meaning by perceiving a meaningless task through a meaningful lens. for example, when the prisoners reached dachau and were sent to one of its subcamps, known as kaufering iii. at this camp, while enclosed by barbed wire, there were no gas chambers, ovens and no crematoria at this camp (klingberg, 2001). in the kaufering iii camp, prisoners were assigned to build concrete bunkers and railway supply embankments. under the physically challenging conditions, prisoners fell ill quickly after arriving and in september and october 1944, 1,322 ill prisoners were selected to be deported to auschwitz to be gassed (redsand, 2006). frankl was assigned to be a manual labourer, working on railroads, digging ditches and building new camps. frankl later acknowledged that his mountain climbing experience had helped him to survive physically. frankl recalled loading sick prisoners onto a wagon, while another prisoner said to him: “frankl, i see from how you are proceeding that you have a way of conserving your energy when you are not using it to do something, like an alpine climbing guide” (redsand, 2006, p. 74). frankl, found meaning in a task that seemed meaningless, by assigning meaningful pursuits to meaningless activities, more specifically in this example was the activity of mountain climbing which provided him with so much joy. for survival, frankl recalled that the prisoners focused their attention on their dreams and fantasies and on relatively small goals, such as attaining food, getting better clothes to wear or just avoiding punishment (frankl, 2012). however, searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story 238 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for frankl, it was not only the small goals that helped him cope emotionally, but focusing on the future and future goals that provided him with the most meaning (frankl, 2000). this realisation which would become one of the central principles of his existential theory came up during what frankl called “the endless little problem of our miserable life” (redsand, 2006, p. 75). during his suffering, while strategising on how to get bread with his meal or how to get a piece of wire to tie his shoe or how to get the capo (a prisoner with extra privileges who acted as a foreman) to give him a safer job, frankl had this insight and he daydreamed about his future, about standing on a platform of a well-lit lecture hall, lecturing about the psychology of the concentration camp. this future dream would become his goal and frankl realised that focusing on that future goal, rather than on the unchangeable situation, served as his coping and survival mechanism. frankl wrote that at that moment, he “succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the suffering of the moment” (redsand, 2006, p. 75). another example of frankl’s approach to chasing goals as means of attaining meaning in chaos was when he would council suicidal prisoners. for the prisoners, life was filled with daily suffering and ending one’s life was an enticing option (langer, 1982). therefore, a strict rule to be adhered to by the prisoners was to not interfere with a man in the process of committing suicide (frankl, 2000). many times, frankl would approach a suicidal prisoner and attempted to help the person discover a goal to live for, something unique to that person that was aligned with his or her personalised values. whether it be to live for a child or complete some project which they had begun, whatever the reason, frankl would attempt to help the person look for it. frankl recalled being asked by a warden to speak to the group of prisoners and offer words of encouragement. since frankl also experienced a sense of hope, the topic of his talk to his fellow prisoners was about hope for the future, loved ones and about chasing goals that were unfinished that needed to be finished. frankl spoke about finding meaning despite their situation and quoted friedrich nietzsche: “that which does not kill me makes me stronger” (redsand, 2006, p. 76). frankl recalled that he had offered his fellow hopeless men hope for the future by getting them to focus on meaningful goals to pursue (frankl, 2000). frankl noticed something interesting in the camp; often, it was not the physically strong men who emotionally survived (frankl, 2006). frankl questioned the reasons behind such observation and realised that emotional and psycho­ logical survival in an unchangeable environment is often not dependent on physical strength, but rather inner strength (frankl, 2006, 2012). frankl found that maintaining an unconditional attitude of strength despite one’s environment was a significant ingredient that allowed the prisoners to develop emotional resiliency in their chaotic environment. discussion frankl’s theory places much emphasis on strategies and principles of how to create meaning in one’s unchangeable circumstance and environment. more specifically, frankl (2014) proposed that the creation and discovery of meaning in one’s life can be achieved through creative pursuits, the experience of love, and through an attitudinal value. through such methods, frankl maintained that a person can overcome the anxiety surrounding one’s own finite life, suffering, and guilt. the push-pull relationship or the emotional tension created within the individual when chasing one’s goals and the eventual relief of achieving the desired results was a common theme throughout frankl’s experiences in the camp and his methods of creating meaning in his experiences. more specifically, frankl created meaning in his experiences through: 1) creative pursuits, 2) servicing others, 3) the contradiction of experiences, 4) the commitment to a decision, 5) spiritual connection, 6) perceiving meaningless tasks through a meaningful lens, 7) creating and chasing goals, and lastly 8) maintaining an unconditional attitude of strength. whilst the researchers found frankl’s theory useful in exploring and describing his own search for meaning within his chaotic environment, frankl’s theory has some limitations which will be highlighted for the reader in order to provide a more robust context and understanding. firstly, frankl’s existential theory has been criticised for its simplistic views of human drive and motivation. more specifically, frankl’s theory oversimplifies the complexities of what motivates human beings to search for meaning (pytell, 2015; tengan, 1999). secondly, tengan (1999) criticised frankl’s existential theory on the basis that his theory is not comprehensive enough. more specifically, tengan believed that frankl’s notion of freedom of will (frankl, 1988) is simplistic. however, the researchers maintained that this criticism should not detract from frankl’s emphasis on the importance of individual will and responsibility, which he bushkin, van niekerk, & stroud 239 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://www.psychopen.eu/ had exercised when attaining meaning in his life. the researchers explored and described frankl’s life and thematic strategies for attaining meaning through the lens of his key theoretical concept of his existential theory (frankl, 2014). whilst the study offered a unique perspective on frankl’s pursuit for meaning during his time in the concentration camps between 1942 and 1945, the researchers recommends that future researchers explore the underlying psychological reasons as to why frankl was driven to find meaning in an unchangeable environment. whilst the researchers maintain that the study has been successful in terms of the achievement of its aims, future research should consider frankl’s methods of creating meaning in his earlier development. such research could possibly shed light on additional findings and understanding of frankl’s methods of creating meaning in other environments, situations, and development. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adler, h. g. 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(2013). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage publications. about the authors hanan bushkin is a registered psychologist and the head of the anxiety and trauma clinic in johannesburg, south africa. dr bushkin specialises in the treatment of mood disorders, and has worked extensively on the problem of behavioural patterns and its effect on mood and cognition. hanan has also been involved in front-line crisis intervention and organisational training. hanan is also the founder of a.b.a. (anchor based approach) which is a structured and systematic approach to the treatment of psychological conditions. dr bushkin has lectured extensively and completed his ph.d. with special interest in relationship dynamics and the psychological process and structures necessary to creating a meaningful life. dr bushkin has been featured and quoted in various media outlets and forums, and is currently involved in research focusing on the specialised categories which are attributed to the acquisition of meaning and purpose. roelf van niekerk is a registered clinical and industrial psychologist as well as a master human resource practitioner. he obtained a ba theology, ba honours (psychology), and ma (industrial psychology) at the university of stellenbosch; a ma (clinical psychology) and d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth, and a m ed (general education theory and practice) at rhodes university. prof van niekerk is currently the director: school of industrial psychology and human resorces at the nelson mandela university in port elizabeth, south africa. he was previously employed at the universities of port elizabeth, free state, fort hare, and rhodes university. prof van niekerk’s research focus is on psychobiographical research projects, particularly in the bushkin, van niekerk, & stroud 241 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 233–242 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5439 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2020.1735317 https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2019.1620421 https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000005 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000320 https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2006.60.2.161 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fields of personality-, career-, and leadership development. he teaches a range of modules including psychological assessment, career management, organisational development, personality psychology, psychotherapy, and psychopathology. prof louise stroud is a registered clinical psychologist and full professor employed in the department of psychology, faculty of health sciences, at the nelson mandela university in port elizabeth, south africa. she is also the lead researcher for the association for research in infant and child development (aricd) based in london, united kingdom. her specific research interests include the study of the psychology of people and their lives, the development of children, neuropsychology and ecopsychology. searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story 242 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ searching for meaning in chaos: viktor frankl’s story (introduction) the life of viktor frankl frankl’s existential theory method sampling data collection and analysis qualitative research criteria ethical considerations frankl’s search for meaning in chaos discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors narratives of self-harm at school: identifying trajectories of intervention in educational contexts research reports narratives of self-harm at school: identifying trajectories of intervention in educational contexts anna gargiulo* a [a] department of humanities, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. abstract recent studies have shown that self-harming behaviour is increasingly widespread among adolescents, in particular at school. however, educational institutions perceive themselves unable to cope with the phenomenon, searching for protocols and guidelines to improve its management. considering schools as useful contexts for intercepting the young malaise, this study aims at exploring the main meanings of self-harming behaviours made within the educational cultural contexts starting from the student’s narrations, in order to understand the possible trajectories of practice. in two high schools we have collected 96 narratives of self-harm written by adolescents (mean age 14; 74% females), who have been engaged in non-suicidal self-injury once in their life. the analysis of the narratives, produced with the help of a software for the automatic qualitative analysis of texts, has allowed to identify four prevalent themes organized into three sense vectors. the findings highlighted significant gender differences in the representation of the experience of self-harm between males and females, as well as the importance of meaningful relationships developed in familiar and educational contexts, which may allow the help seeking process. the emerging of culturally-shared meanings among adolescents within the investigated contexts may allow to think about possible protocols of preventive and clinical practices in schools. keywords: self-harm, narrative, school cultural context, gender, psychodynamic perspective europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 received: 2019-01-18. accepted: 2019-06-24. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: porta di massa, 1. 80123 naples, italy. e-mail: anna.gargiulo2@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the self-harming behaviours have been defined as superficial and intentional injuries of one’s body tissue, inflicted without conscious suicidal intent and for not socially accepted reasons (favazza, 1996; gargiulo et al., 2014); examples are behaviours such as cutting, burning and scratching the skin. in recent years we have seen an increase in these behaviours, particularly widespread among the school youth population (lewis & heath, 2015). in particular, recent studies have shown that self-harming behaviours increase in adolescence (brown & plener, 2017), and tend to decline in late adolescence (plener et al., 2015), with high rates of incidence in pre-adolescence (brown & plener, 2017; heath, toste, nedecheva, & charlebois, 2006). concerning to the gender variable, great part of the literature shows that girls are more likely to implement the indicated behaviours than males (bresin & schoenleber, 2015; valencia-agudo et al., 2018), although other studies show a gender gap, less evident in prevalence (klonsky, 2011; sornberger et al., 2012), but linked to europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ aetiology, trajectories and contexts (gargiulo & margherita, 2014; whitlock & rodham, 2013). significant gender differences have been found with respect to the kind of self-harm (girls mostly resort to cutting), to the injured body parts, to the age of onset (earlier for girls), to the increase in self-harming behaviour and to the suicidal ideation in pre-adolescence (andover et al., 2010; sornberger et al., 2012), to the access to the request for help (heath et al., 2010), as well as to the social dimensions of self-harm (the boys tend to self-harm in group; whitlock et al., 2011). a part of the literature has shown that adolescents who self-harm have difficulty in putting their sufferings into words and consider self-harm as a means of communication that allows them to share the emotions of anger and anguish and which allows families and those who surround them to realize how much they were suffering (abrams & gordon, 2003; crouch & wright, 2004; fortune, sinclair, & hawton, 2008; moyer & nelson, 2007). in fact, it has been shown that teenagers who self-harm have a poor ability to identify, name and express their emotions (gratz, 2007; paivio & mcculloch, 2004) and they report the affective regulation as the most common motivation to get injured (laye-gindhu & schonert-reichl, 2005; madge et al., 2008; nock & prinstein, 2004). thus, self-harming behaviour becomes a strategy for the regulation of emotions that replaces the possibility of expressing negative emotions through language. from this point of view, self-harm has been regarded as a primitive form of communication (farber et al., 2007), pre-symbolic state (gregory & mustata, 2012), difficulty in symbolizing and mentalizing affects (haza & keller, 2005; rossouw & fonagy, 2012). on the other hand, the adolescence represents a phase of development in which the instinct can physiologically exceed the capacity of representation of the adolescent, who can resort to acting out as a specific phase mechanism, in which impulsive behaviours are used to express, through the body, emotions that cannot be put into words yet (blos, 1967). from a psychoanalytic perspective, the self-harm has been considered as an extreme attempt to search for individuation through the contact of the body limit (biven, 1982; fattori, 2013). furthermore, the construction of one’s own identity, as a structuring of a feeling of self separated from the other, endowed with structure and boundaries, represents one of the evolutionary tasks of the adolescent process (blos, 1967). in terms of object relations, the psychodynamic literature has shown that the conduct of self-harm can fulfil some unconscious tasks, related to the attempt to separate from the other significant, made possible only by ‘cutting away’ in a violent way the other lived as living intrusively his own body (lemma, 2005). thus, the object is attacked whose dependence is intolerable, denying its loss. at the same time, the pain for the loss of the bond is experienced with peaks of despair, performed and evacuated in self-destructive actions (ruggiero, 2007). the behaviours of self-harm at school starting from the first school study (ross & heath, 2002), much of the research aims at investigating self-harming behaviour in adolescence was carried out in schools (de leo & heller, 2004; hawton et al., 2002; madge et al., 2008; o’connor et al., 2009), showing a prevalence of behaviour between 14% and 20% of high school students (laye-gindhu & schonert-reichl, 2005; ross & heath, 2002). recent international studies show an increase in self-injurious behaviours in schools with a female prevalence (muehlenkamp et al., 2009): in fact, 18% of teenagers who attend school report to have been severely self-harmed at least once in their lifetime (muehlenkamp, claes, havertape, & plener, 2012; swannell, martin, page, hasking, & st john, 2014). in particular, in italy, lifetime prevalence of 42% for self-harming behaviours was observed in a sample of adolescents from high schools, without substantial gender differences (cerutti, manca, presaghi, & gratz, 2011). narratives of self-harm at school 96 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, although self-harming behaviours commonly emerge in the scholastic context, where teachers and other scholastic professionals often represent the first contact, studies show that the school staff is perceived as uncertain and impotent in addressing the difficulties associated with these behaviours with students (berger, hasking, & reupert, 2014). in fact, despite 74% of teachers report to have come across cases of self-harm during their working career, perceiving that the behaviour is increasing in schools, 78% of them underestimate the spread of the same at school (best, 2004; heath, toste, & bettam, 2006). therefore, the need to prepare some clear guidelines for the management of self-harm behaviour at school is gaining ground. contemporary literature is questioning the issue and various protocols have been produced (bubrick, goodman, & whitlock, 2010; hasking et al., 2016; toste & heath, 2010), sensitive to the identification of self-harming behaviours, to the response of the school staff, to the involvement of parents, to the respect for the ethical grounds of intervention in educational institutions, as well as to the management of possible phenomena of infection of the conduct at school (walsh, 2012). however much still needs to be done in order to intercept the specific needs of teenagers with self-harm, to identify gender differences and to prepare targeted interventions. on the other hand, the school represents the most suitable context for the prevention of selfharm (shaffer & gould, 2000), since it is possible to get in contact with most adolescents at risk of self-harm, achieving less stigmatizing interventions than those conducted in specialized clinical centres. the elaborative function of narrative assuming a cultural and semiotic psychology perspective (salvatore & freda, 2011; valsiner & rosa, 2007), each semiotic dynamic is considered always a socially distributed and intersubjective process, as well as deeply embodied and affective (salvatore, 2016; salvatore & zittoun, 2011; valsiner & de luca picione, 2017). the language, as a semiotic mediator, enables to narratively construct one’s own identity and one’s experiences with others (salvatore, 2016; valsiner, 2001; vygotsky, 1987). in this framework, the narration is a psychological, intersubjective and cultural process (brockmeier, 2000; bruner, 1990; schafer, 1992; spence, 1982) which allows to construct meaning (martino, lemmo, et al., 2019; neimeyer, burke, mackay, & van dyke stringer, 2010) and to reconfigure temporal perspectives (brockmeier, 2000; martino, gargiulo, lemmo, & margherita, 2019), supporting processes of transformation and elaboration of traumatic experiences (margherita, boursier, gargiulo, & nicolò, 2017; valsiner, 2007). during their lifetime, individuals constantly re-configures the narration of their experiences contextually, within a recursive, open, intransitive cycle in mediating self-other-world (de luca picione, 2015; de luca picione & valsiner, 2017). in adolescence, several studies have investigated the narrative development (habermas & de silveira, 2008; mcadams, 1993; mclean & breen, 2009; mclean & mansfield, 2012), considering it as an important attempt for young people to understand oneself and an opportunity to articulate their own feelings and thoughts about the self, the others and the events. in particular, researches on narratives from adolescents who self-harm, highlighted the presence of a magical thinking in their language to elaborate the emotions (gregory & mustata, 2012), and family difficulties and traumas as sources of underlying distress in young women (abrams & gordon, 2003). nowadays, the self-harm among young people is narrated commonly through virtual communities (lewis & seko, 2016), where the malaise is shared throughout narratives and images of injured bodies, projecting emotions into the network, and using the same virtual space as emotional regulator (gargiulo & margherita, 2019; gargiulo 97 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ margherita & gargiulo, 2018). the meanings emerging from these virtual cultural contexts propose the representation of the self-cutter in oscillation between the normalization and the pathology (gradin franzén & gottzén, 2011). therefore, several clinical interventions are taking place within the virtual contexts in order to intercept the specific needs of young people with self-harm. in this sense, it could be useful to explore also the meanings about self-harm emerging from school context, which constitutes a specific field of development of the preventive and clinical interventions. considering the school as a cultural context (ligorio & pontecorvo, 2010; margherita, 2007), in which its actors can build meanings and develop practices for the elaboration of experiences, and considering that the self-harm is a contemporary theme of clinical relevance in schools, the work aimed to explore the meanings about self-harming behaviours emerging from the educational institutions, in order to identify possible trajectories of intervention. to do this, it stars from the narratives produced by adolescents in high schools, enabling the emerging of contextual meanings from the intersection between the individuals and the environments. method from a perspective of cultural and semiotic psychology (de luca picione & valsiner, 2017; salvatore & freda, 2011; valsiner & rosa, 2007), in which subjective experience is considered as a continuous process of formation through the mediation of semiotic devices (meaning, linguistic and aesthetic canons, ways of acting and so on), a narrative construction that allows to access to culturally shared meanings (bruner, 1990), and the narration is considered as a device capable of activating possible fields of knowledge and transformation, we have chosen a qualitative approach aimed to explore the meanings using the narrative tool. the exploratory qualitative approach allows to start from data, and, through a bottom up method, it provides to identify the main themes. participants within a larger research project on self-harm, which involved 589 students from two public high schools in naples, 97 narratives written by adolescents, who, through a series of funnel questions, had declared that they had implemented self-harming behaviours at least once in life (72 females and 25 males, average age 14) were collected. tools a narrative task was arranged to invite to narrate an episode of self-harm (“tell a story in which the protagonist intentionally wounds his body. the history can be real or completely invented.” / “racconta una storia in cui il protagonista ferisce intenzionalmente il suo corpo. la storia può essere reale o inventata.”). the participants were asked to indicate whether the protagonist was an imaginary or real character, indicating in this case whether the narration concerned themselves or others. procedure after contacting twelve higher institutes in naples, in the two which decided to collaborate, the research passed to the scrutiny of the ethical commissions. the research design was also approved by the ethics committee of narratives of self-harm at school 98 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the federico ii university of naples. the meetings with the classes for the research were followed by a moment of group discussion with the students. all participants signed the informed consent form for the research. in addition, research return days open to parents and teachers have been set. data analysis within an explorative and qualitative methodology of research, we used a thematic analysis of narrative texts. to analyse the narratives, we used t-lab (lancia, 2004), a qualitative-quantitative software for texts automatic analysis. we choose to use t-lab because, based on a comparison of different lexical profiles, it identifies dimensions of meanings, shared themes or issues present in the text under analysis, through the study of vocabulary (bolasco, 1999). the software analyses the texts as a single set of data (denzin & lincoln, 1994), identifying the lexical choices and carrying out on them co-occurrence and comparative analysis. each lexical choice, the word, has a meaning in the ‘relationship’ with the other words, therefore, within a discursive dynamic it is observed how much that word presents itself recursively in the relationship with the others (co-occurrence). in this way, the frequency of lexical choices informs us of the semiotic process of meaning construction, allowing to understand how a person constructs meanings of his/her experience. the narratives as documents were codified following the variables considered, and all the documents were merged into a single body of text. the variables considered were: sex of participant (female; male); protagonist of the narrative (myself; real other; imaginary protagonist). the documents analysed are equal in size of textual corpus for the balancing of statistical weight. we carried out a preliminary treatment of the text (table 1). table 1 preliminary organization of the text type of treatment explication lemmatization the forms of the verbs are brought back to their present infinitive forms, the nouns and adjectives to their singular masculine form, articulated prepositions to their article-less form. disambiguos it is an operation by which ambiguous semantic cases are solved. in particular those cases which deal with homographs whose graphic form is the same but with a different meaning. lexicalization to turn the unit into a string phrases consisting of two or three words that refer to a unitary meaning. cleaning the vocabulary words from empty or insignificant, such as the abbreviations techniques, proper names. articles, conjunctions are deleted. we performed the analysis of the elementary context unit (e.c.u., like sentences or short texts characterized by the same patterns of keywords), carrying out some thematic clusters which were projected, as active variables, on the factorial plane through an analysis of multiple correspondences. the analysis of the elementary context unit is based on a statistical study of the co-occurrence of words in the same e.c.u. the final product synthesizes the shared concerns in few significant thematic clusters as a contextual field of meanings (reinert, 1995) that allow us to build up ‘a thread’ in the discourse. lexical units (words or lemmas) are the result of a selection process aimed at creating a list of “key words”. each cluster consists of a set of e.c.u. and is described through a set of keywords that, ranked according to the decreasing value of χ2, indicates that the typicality of each of them within the cluster is associated for semantic value. this allows to gargiulo 99 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ reflect on the meaning of individual words by reference to a number of e.c.u. analysing it in the context in which they are used. the meaning of a word is known only through its relations with the contexts, that is, through its distribution within portion of text (greimas, 1983). furthermore, according to the studies of rommetveit (1998), linell (2009), and valsiner (2001), the language use and the semiotic systems can only be understood in their inter-relationship between culture, context and history; thus, the words and the clusters emerged have meanings only considering a network between individuals and environments. finally, the projection of clusters on the factorial plane allows to observe relationships (oppositions and neighbourhoods) between the issues emerged by interpreting the axes that bind them together. results and discussion we proceeded with the analysis of the clusters, according to their location on the factorial map (figure 1) starting from the cluster that is statistically more significant (threshold value p = .05). for each cluster, to which an interpretative label has been assigned, the key words that mainly characterize it, based on the value of χ2, will be presented. four thematic clusters emerged (table 2). table 2 description of cluster percentage of cluster based on number of e.c.u. lemma that mainly characterize the cluster based on the value of χ2 cluster 1 (composed by 97 e.c.u. on a total of 280 equal to 34.64%) feeling the emotions: the pain embodied in the female bodies she (27.377), friends (22.302), meaning (16.576), people (10.082), hate (9.237), became (8.793), fabiana (8.667), marta (8.439), reply (8.439), know (7.948), injury (7.347), alone (6.771), hade (6,65), suicide (6.75), wrong (6.75), body (6.663), approach (6.345), continue (5.582), try (5.582), sense (5.464), bear (5.464), show (4.892), pain (4.785), seeing (4.654), feeling (4.222), help (3.918), provoke (3.918), sign (3.918). cluster 2 (composed by 83 e.c.u. on a total of 280, equal to 29.64%) the spaces of destructiveness at the look of the other cry (23.771), come back (21.652), enter (18.84), professor (17.792), room (12.702), red (12.702), home (12.177), ended (10.158), quiet (10.158), white (10.158), look (8.984), happy (8.751), arrive (8.681), wound (8.632), door (8.609), call (8.609), mother (7.533), blood (7.476), love (6.606), punish (6.6.06), wish (6.606), immediately (6.558), wrist (5.776), leg (4.368), bathroom (4.207). cluster 3 (composed by 51 e.c.u. on a total of 280, equal to 18.21%) couples, families, groups: the relationships which contain together (43.307), alfredo (35.7649), month (34.026), tired (22.334), friendship (21.299), life (20.315), cousin (18.818), tell (16.985), take (16.258), class (14.831), family (14.166), strong (12.891), school (12.299), change (11.649), fear (11.649), round (10.779), useless (8.602), perfect (8.602), fun (8.602), cut (8.602), day (7.069), engage (5.817). cluster 4 (composed by 49 e.c.u. on a total of 280, equal to 17.5%) self-harm as a test of strength of the masculine drake (36.343), michael (25.945), john (20.75), fire (19.99), big (18.328), high (15.79), physical (15.337), music (15.041), pleasure (12.322), unique (12.014), window (10.219), immense (10.219), protagonist (10.219), choose (10.219), own (7.091), last (7.091), listen (7.091), play (5.317). sex male (10.257). note. e.c.u = elementary context unit. on the lower left quadrant of the factorial map we find cluster 1, named ‘feeling the emotions: the pain embodied in the female bodies’. this cultural context brings the issue of feminine into an emergency in the elaboration narratives of self-harm at school 100 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the experience of self-harm. in fact, it is clear that the cluster incorporates many lemmas declined to the feminine (she, friends, alone, and the presence of female names of a person like fabiana and marta). the cluster aggregates also lemmas that lead back to a sensory level of self-harm practice (meaning, body, seeing, feeling, signs), telling us about the psychic suffering through a wounded female body (wound). references to the emotions of hatred, to the experiences of pain and loneliness, to suicide, as well as to the guilt (wrong) seem to shape female self-harm as particularly connected to a depressed mood, close to the drive of self-destruction, of death. a lonely and frustrated child mocked by everyone for the sole reason that she was not as beautiful as the others, she felt inferior. every boy who passed only looked at her friends and never at her. nobody was interested in knowing her and she felt so alone and wrong that she got to physically hurt herself (female, real story, protagonist other than herself). he decided to try to see if she could feel better too. he initially tried only with insignificant scratches. when he did he felt better, because he could vent all his anger. she vented on herself because she did not want to hurt the others (female, real story, protagonist herself). thus, the narratives that are aggregated in this cluster seem to offer us a representation of female self-harm as a marker of anguish, which passes through experiences of loneliness, suicidal ideas, feelings of inferiority and experiences of devaluation for one’s body. the emphasis is on the use of a sensorial-perceptive nature representation that starts from the body, from the colours, from the sensations. on the upper right quadrant there is cluster 2, named ‘the spaces of destructiveness at the look of the other’. they join lemmas that refer to the spaces in which young usually self-harm, like the room or the bathroom of the house or school. at the same time, it seems that these places can be used in their psychic function to limit, as ‘borderline’ spaces where they can bring a request for help that moves from the body to the door. however, these boundaries, as real as psychic, expose to the other’s gaze, telling a possible unconscious need to be discovered by the mother, the professor (even the entries ‘enter’ and ‘get’ tell of someone who enters and discovers those injured). moreover, in adolescence, interstitial spaces can be sought to bring many conflicting and secret contents, sometimes in an ambivalent form. in addition, the cluster brings out different references to the size of the urgency (immediately), as well as to the injured parts of the body such as the wrist or the leg, or to colours ranging from clean white to red blood, all elements that connote the phenomenology of the self-harming act. once inside, he took a cutter out of his pocket and made cuts on his wrist. he began to lose a lot of blood to the point that he fainted, a boy entered the bathroom and accidentally saw blood flowing out the door. he immediately called the janitors who brought the ambulance. the boy who had cut himself did not make it (male, invented story, protagonist of fantasy). ... mother where he kept the razor blades, the boy took it, rolled his sleeves up and 1 2 3 4 5 cuts that made so much blood come out that the sink turned from white to all red the boy felt bad he stayed there crying for one hour thinking of that girl who one day before leaving called him best friend (male, real story, protagonist other than himself). the second theme, therefore, represents the phenomenology of the self-harm symptom with reference to the concrete dimensions of the act (the wounding modalities, the injured parts) and the urgency of the symptom. gargiulo 101 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the psychological operation that the adolescent is called to do in the invitation to narrate, is specular to that of the clinician, that is to move from the real to the symbolic, to go beyond the urgency of the concrete and beyond the factual reality, to access the psychic reality, to fantasy on facts. through the narration we begin to talk, to name emotions, to attribute meaning to events, in a process of change in the relationship with the object, with the present and the past. moreover, the spaces in which the symptom is brought are the liminal ones between the self and the other, psychic places in which to be watched, thresholds with psychic relational functions. recalling green (1991) and his theory of limit cases, we share that those who are self-harmers, beyond being and acting on the limit / edge, embody the elusive limit, they are the limit themselves. between the two quadrants at the top of the factorial map we find cluster 3, named ‘couples, families, groups: the relationships which contain’. this cultural context brings together lemmas that refer to sentimental relationships (together, engagement), family (cousin), as well as social (friendship, class, school) that seem to act as good containers capable of accommodating disturbing (fearful) and non-disturbing (fun) contents; there is a search for a place where to store emotions, and it turns out that, besides the body, there is the other, the family and the peer group. at the same time, it is the cluster of relationships put to the test through provocative acts aiming at testing if the container can resist attacks (ruggiero, 2007), as well as relational events that may presage self-destructiveness scenarios. it is a cluster where words, that evoke the possibility of narrating experience (telling), also through references to temporality (month, days), are aggregated. once there was nothing. there’s everything now, now there’s alfredo, he’s not a prince, he’s all, he’s a friend, a body, he’s mine, he’s that person, even if you stab him, he’s not going, he’s heart, he’s body, life (female, real history, protagonist herself). a girl who had a life that was thought to be perfect... but then her cousin got sick ... the girl with her cousin did everything, they attended the same school and even the same class, they slept together and they had a loving family very tied up. in short, everything was perfect (female, real story, protagonist herself). offering the link to the relationship seems to be an important relapse, a possible answer, since, as ladame (1983) points out, in cases of self-harm, we observe the presence of a primitive, archaic narcissism, which acts in an anti-relational direction, attacking the link. the urgency of the facts overwhelms the story, as well as the urgency of the symptom overwhelms the other by causing it to counter-acted and cancelling the space of suspension and think-ability. in this sense, then, the narrative of the standing bond seems to be an invitation to stay, to resist attacks, to tolerate frustration. besides, also in the literature it has been shown how, on the clinical side, the relationship with such patients is difficult to establish and to maintain, often subject to interruptions and acts; where an insufficient basic narcissistic structure accentuates the dependence on the object, it is often the recognition of this dependence that triggers the use of violent action, in an extreme attempt to stem a threat of invasion and colonization by the object. in this sense, it is important to underline that intervention programs have been developed in schools that are sensitive to managing the relationship difficulties with such adolescents. finally, in the lower left quadrant cluster 4 is placed, called ‘self-harm as a test of strength of the masculine’. the cluster aggregates lemmas that refer to a grandiose dimension of oneself (big, tall, physical) and of what the protagonist is facing (fire, immense). this cultural unification represents male self-harming as physical renarratives of self-harm at school 102 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sistance, proof of strength, far from how the feminine one is told. we can hypothesize the presence of a profound difficulty in representing himself as self-harmer in depressed and sad tones, preferring to narrate the adventures of a protagonist who wounds himself in war or in a duel, in a polarized dynamic on the maniacal side that denies a part of the self. this dimension is approached through the use of imagination, the area of ‘as if’; in fact, the cluster is full of references to people far from reality, as the proper names allow us to understand (drake, michael, john), which instead seem to refer to heroes of novels, movies or video games. drake raised his sword to the sky, while the fire deteriorated the little body that remained attached to him. he pointed the blade at himself and suddenly pierced the side of drake (male, invented story). she started from the wrist, then the whole arm, then the calf, the thigh and the part she liked the most: the belly. how much she loved to see that hated belly that was being hurt. when she stopped she liked to touch the wounds and feel the blood flowing, she went to the bathroom and rinsed (female, real story, protagonist herself). finally, the representation of male self-harm seems completely overwhelmed by the practice of self-harm as a test of resistance to pain, where it seems difficult to describe oneself as suffering and where one prefers to use imaginary protagonists, vigorous heroes with whom it is reassuring to identify oneself. if self-harm in female representation is a marker of distress, the masculine one is a marker of physical endurance. interpretation using factorial axes on the i factor, the horizontal one, we find the axis named ‘through gender differences’. this factor is organized along a continuum that opposes, as shown in the figure, on the one hand the self-harm to the feminine, using stories of real characters (positioning of the ‘other real’ variable), on the other hand, the cluster of male selfharm with its specific meanings and recourse to an invented story with a fictional character. in psychic terms, we interpret his polarization of genders on the physical graphic plane in the construction of a discourse on selfharming behaviours in scholastic contexts that is articulated in a semiotic trajectory on gender issues, a sense vector that gives us back the idea that a speech about self-harm as it emerges in these cultural contexts is something incarnate, of peculiar respect to the bodies and to their biological and cultural differences. on the second factor, we find the vertical axis called ‘emotional experience: from concrete to symbolic’, which sees the opposition between a polarization based on the sensorial and physical dimensions of the emotions that are acted in self-harming conducts and in relational attacks, and on the other, an organization based on the representable experience of self-harm that, through the contexts in which it is acted, can access the plan of the imaginary and the symbolic. therefore, on the one hand we find clusters 1 and 3 that are opposed to clusters 2 and 4 accompanied by the variable ‘imaginary protagonist’. on the psychic level, if from a pole there is the recognition of the concrete dimensions that pass through the body, on the other there is the possibility of access to a process of affective symbolization, which falls within spaces that become cultural contexts. it seems to prefigure a semiotic trajectory that pertains to the difficult process of emotional regulation: raw sensory elements, urgent and intense emotions such as anger and boredom need to be recognized, felt, tolerated, reclaimed, in a process that moves towards imagination and attribution of meaning. gargiulo 103 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the iii factor, named ‘towards change: from the individual to the relationship’, we find the clusters 1 and 4, based on the symptomatic declinations of the behaviour of self-harm, which are opposed to clusters 2 and 3, based on relational dimensions. this three-dimensional axis, both on the factorial and psychic level, grasping the depth of graphic space and internal space, allows the theme of self-harm to be harmonized, finding in the relationships the point of arrival for the various aspects involved in this process of signification. a third semiotic trajectory, therefore, appears as a relational one: it is in the link with the object that one can access the possibility of bringing a request for help in context. in conclusion, this vector of meaning opens up to possible interventions that investigate the area of relationships, which can sometimes prefigure self-harm scenarios. figure 1. factorial map of clusters. conclusion the present work aimed to explore the meanings about self-harm emerging within the school context, starting from the narratives shared by students with experiences of self-harm. although some issues emerged from the analysis refer to the idea that self-harm is a behaviour strongly sensitive to gender differences, the study has highlighted that the area of relationships is a dimension that unites adolescents with such behaviour, therefore both clinical and educational interventions are possible. moreover, considering that self-harming behaviour acts narratives of self-harm at school 104 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as an emotional regulator, according to the literature (gratz, 2007; klonsky, 2007), being aware of using selfharm as a regulator of emotions is accompanied by the possibility of being able to express a request for help. so the centrality of the difficulties in regulating emotions in self-harm in adolescence highlights the need to work in order to develop programs that allow the recognition of emotions, so that adolescents can achieve effective regulation of the same, even in previous school years as a possible preventive measure. in general, the work made it possible to observe that the phenomenon of self-harming circulates in school contexts and belongs to both the imaginary and the real level of adolescents, who respond positively when invited to tell it, as evidence of a desire to narrate as well to be seen and helped. thus, in line with the literature on the subject (bareiss, 2014; hill & dallos, 2012), narration is a functional tool for developing meaning and meaningmaking processes in adolescents with conduct of self-harm; where the concrete plan of the act obscures the possibility of think disturbing emotions and memories, the narration of self-harm allows to access to a first symbolization and transformation of the emotion towards the representation of experience. through this study, therefore, we emphasize the importance of school as a valuable context of research and intervention to intercept young malaise. the quali-quantitative work allows reflections on specific needs, on possible areas of clinical intervention, offering guidelines for developing intervention protocols in school settings. in fact, prevention strategies can be developed for all adolescents as well as strategies for groups of adolescents at risk, or plans that include the training of teachers and parents, as suggested also in literature (shapiro, 2008). specifically, assuming the symptomatology of self-harm as strongly non-verbal and pre-verbal, it will be useful to develop safe environments for young adults with self-harming behaviours moderated by a psychologist, where is possible the welcoming, the naming of emotions, the encouraging of relationships, as well as an interpretation of behaviours. therefore, the trajectories of the discourse produced in the investigated cultural context can act as guidelines for possible trajectories of intervention within the same contexts. thus, the issues that concern gender differences, the area of emotional regulation, the difficulty in managing relationships can represent possible areas in which to draw up intervention plans and guidelines for work with both students and teachers in schools. among the limitations of the study we can include an unbalanced sampling by gender, even if the data analysis software allows to check this variability and to proceed to a qualitative study; the future aim is to extend the research sample. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. gargiulo 105 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 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(2013). understanding nonsuicidal selfinjury in youth. school psychology forum, 7(4), 1-18. about the author anna gargiulo, ph.d. in gender studies, post-doctoral research fellow at department of humanistic studies, university of naples federico ii, italy. visiting researcher at centre of cultural psychology of aalborg university denmark. visiting ph.d. student at medical university of vienna. psychology and psychotherapist. adopting quali-quantitative methods, she studies the narrative elaboration of traumatic experiences, deepening the self-harming behaviors among adolescents and young adults, also within virtual communities. please direct correspondence to anna.gargiulo2@unina.it. gargiulo 111 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 95–111 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1883 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111%2fsltb.12070 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.adolescence.2018.02.012 https://doi.org/10.1159%2f000057048 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f07448481.2010.529626 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ narratives of self-harm at school (introduction) the behaviours of self-harm at school the elaborative function of narrative method participants tools procedure data analysis results and discussion interpretation using factorial axes conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author death and melody: a psychobiography of rezső seress, composer of “gloomy sunday” research reports death and melody: a psychobiography of rezső seress, composer of “gloomy sunday” virág rab 1 [1] department of contemporary history, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 received: 2025-05-09 • accepted: 2025-08-28 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: virág rab, rókus street 2. m building, office 213, university of pécs, pécs 7624, hungary. e-mail: rab.virag@pte.hu related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract rezső seress (1899–1968), the composer of the world-famous song “gloomy sunday,” whose life ended in suicide, is analyzed using a psychobiographical approach. the research question is how can suicide be read through seress’s self-narrations, embedded in the hungarian cultural, social, and historical context? to answer this question, we integrate kézdi’s theory of the negative code, wallerstein’s world-systems theory, and mcadams’s narrative identity theory, linking language, structure, and the self. we analyzed nine song lyrics: counted explicit and narrowly defined implicit negations, calculated negation density (per 100 words), and coded narrative tone and plot, key life events, and agency/communion cues. throughout the analysis, interpretation is hermeneutic and context-sensitive, with numbers serving as guides. peaks in negation density appear in the songs “nobody has ever loved me” (1930) and especially, “just drink, drink” (1940), aligning with personal and historical crises. agency markers are minimal or defensive, while communion is consistently framed as loss. no redemptive arc is identifiable; the life story follows a contamination sequence beginning in adversity. these patterns motivate the introduction of the tragic semiperipheral self (tss) as a culturally and structurally situated narrative type. keywords rezső seress, gloomy sunday, tragic semiperipheral self (tss), suicide, negation, hungary, world-systems theory “i never lie in a song; i don’t want to write beautiful lies — i write about life, about reality in my songs, because without experience, one cannot write truthfully. i don’t look for the words or the melody — they come on their own. that’s why i can plant every single song of mine directly into people’s hearts.” — rezső seress (hiradó, 1936, august 27) significance and relevance of the topic rezső seress (1899–1968), a hungarian composer-pianist, wrote “gloomy sunday,” a song that achieved an international career and remains, to this day, a symbol of death and suicide in collective memory (assmann, 1995, 2011; halbwachs, 1992). the song functions as a cultural signifier (bruner, 1990) linked to suicide, and both high culture (theatre, literature) and popular media use it as a reference point for loss and mourning (patakfalvi-czirják, 2017; stack et al., 2008; wertsch, 2002). because both the song (transnationally circulating) and its composer (whose remembrance is this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.19131&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9896-5714 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ largely domestic) have been remembered across generations — and a cult has formed around them — both have become part of collective identity. thus, seress’s individual tragedy — the lack of recognition, his marginalization, and his death — has entered the available collective narrative repertoire (master narrative) (hammack, 2008; mclean & syed, 2015; somers, 1994). when such a template becomes a lasting part of a life story, we may speak of a self-type (mcadams, 1993, 2001, 2006). accordingly, below we introduce the concept of the tragic semiperipheral self (tss), a self-type tied to a sociocultural context (cf. mcadams, 2006). hungarian national identity has been examined by numerous scholars, with differing emphases (csepeli, 2002; erős, 2001; hunyady, 1997; lászló et al., 2002; pataki & ritoók, 1999). among these, lászló and colleagues assign a decisive role to collective memory and to the major historical events that shape it (lászló, 2008; lászló et al., 2002). they highlight, on the one hand, a losing narrative perspective (lászló, 2008), and, on the other, an emotional pattern of collective victimhood (see bar-tal et al., 2009; lászló, 2008) — both serving as background and shaping influences for the tss (mclean & syed, 2015). seress lived through both world wars — which, from a hungarian perspective, were defeats — as well as the treaty of trianon, a national trauma, and he also endured the holocaust. focus of the study and research aims the study is a psychobiography that focuses on understanding seress — as an interpretive, reflective agent — (ponterotto, 2025, p. 7), whose life ended tragically: within a short period, he made two suicide attempts. seress is a subject from a non-weird (i.e., not western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) cultural context (mayer et al., 2023), whose career does not fall among traditionally successful life paths. moreover, since the phenomenon and meaning of suicide are complex issues, we created an integrated theoretical framework (fekete, 2002; fekete & kelemen, 1991, p. 55; fekete & osváth, 2004; kézdi, 1995, p. 38; mclean & syed, 2015): kézdi’s theory of the negative code (kézdi, 1995), wallerstein’s world-systems theory (wallerstein, 2010), and mcadams’s theory of narrative identity (mcadams, 1993). guided by this framework, the study seeks to examine seress’s meaning-making through his linguistic–cultural and semiperipheral structural embeddedness. in addition, through seress’s life course and his self-destructive act, it also attempts to identify collective experiences such as suffering, loss, and marginality. finally, to uncover seress’s identity and interpret his suicide, it attempts to resolve the paradox arising from the tensions between his protest against the label “the song of suicides” and his own suicide. theoretical and methodological framework the literature describes suicide as a complex sociopsychological phenomenon (fekete & osváth, 2004; zonda, 2006). therefore — as shown in table 1 — we also aimed to examine the psychological aspects of seress’s self-destructive act in interaction with its cultural and social context, within an integrative (kézdi–wallerstein–mcadams) theoretical and methodological framework. this underscores the fact that the different aspects are in a reflexive relationship with one another — that is, they mutually shape each other (kézdi, 1995, pp. 41–54). table 1 theoretical frameworks and their disciplinary focus theory discipline/approach focus of analysis negative code (kézdi, 1995) psychology, cultural anthropology, sociology / hermeneutics interpretation of the cultural meaning of tragic actions world-systems theory (wallerstein) social sciences consequences of the center–periphery relationship (for identity and culture) context-sensitive reading of mcadams's narrative identity theory (narrative) psychology self-understanding constructed in a resilient or tragic mode rab 347 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ balázs kézdi’s “negative code” offers a culturally embedded interpretive framework through which members of a culture are able to make sense of suicide. as he puts it, “the difference between languages is not a difference of sounds and signs but of worldviews” (kézdi, 1995, p. 55, our translation). the negative code thus structures the way suicide is conceptualized. the individual interprets this code through linguistic features — such as negation. the “negation code” is one of the linguistic markers through which the negative code becomes legible (see also fekete, 2002) — and this phenomenon is not unique to the hungarian language. however, hungarian has a feature that is absent from most other languages: the duplication of negative words (for example, instead of “nobody knows,” it says “nobody does not know”). triple negation is also possible: “senki(1) sem(2) mondott semmit(3)” (“no one said anything”), which, according to kézdi, also carries cultural significance. beyond expressing absence, multiple negation signifies finiteness. hungarian, through negation, privileges not only impossibility but also finiteness, thereby fostering the emergence of finalistic narratives. in the case of the previous sentence, it implies that we do not even consider the possibility of any alternative to “nobody said anything”. this plays a role in the formation of one’s narrative identity as well. thus, negation is highly represented in the hungarian language. “negative language use” is common even in everyday communication. wallerstein’s world-systems theory, which explains the functioning of the capitalist economy and highlights the unequal relationship between the center and the periphery, also offers insight into why the meaning of suicide is interpreted the way it is in the semiperiphery. his theory can serve as a tool to reveal the structural background of the hungarian composer’s invisibility and marginalization. in particular, the cultural context of the global center–periphery relationship is suitable for understanding the “seress phenomenon”. additional support for this comes from the research of emília barna. barna points out that cultural values are distributed unequally at the systemic level to the disadvantage of the semiperipheral musical world. production reaches the market through intermediary networks and platforms controlled by the center; consequently, the flows of revenue are also controlled by the center. this often entails the ‘repackaging’ of musical products originating from the semiper­ iphery, in order to fade the semiperipheral context (barna, 2025). within this framework, seress can be seen as a victim of a musical and cultural system that is unable to cope with unprocessed pain and only allows the semiperipheral creator to benefit in a very limited way from the profit generated by the song (barna, 2025; barna et al., 2019). the theories of kézdi and wallerstein not only complement each other but also align well with the perspective of non-weird psychobiography. both the negative code and the semiperipheral position influence how an individual’s personal narrative is constructed: hungarian identity assumes a position in relation to the center, and this constant pressure of comparison reveals the structural background of the tragic self. in seress’s case, it also explains why there is no redemptive narrative. the tragic semiperipheral self — in contrast to mcadams’s redemptive self (cf. mcadams, 2006) — is constructed not through redemption but through tragedy. it follows a mcadamsian contaminative narrative, but not by ruining something once good — it begins from an already adverse position. moreover, balázs kézdi’s theory also reveals that seress was both a subject who experienced the negative code and, through his songs, a musical carrier and shaper of collective emotional patterns structured by that code. when applied in a psychobiographical framework, kézdi’s theory helps us understand how this fed back into seress’s identity and became integrated into his personal narrative. in relation to the historical context of the psychobiography of seress, the research of fekete and kelemen deserves special mention, as it focuses on the mentality history of suicide and emphasizes the historically shifting meanings of self-destructive acts (fekete & kelemen, 1991, p. 56). furthermore, the study by fekete and osváth (2004) stresses that hungarian culture does not offer a clearly life-affirming response to those in crisis. because it is neither explicitly rejecting nor openly accepting, it transmits contradictory messages to members of the culture. since self-understanding always occurs through cultural mirrors, such contradictory reflections may increase the likelihood of extreme decisions during crises. contradictory social responses and the individual’s contradictory identity are therefore never a random coincidence, but rather mutually reinforcing relational systems (fekete & osváth, 2004, p. 11). death and melody 348 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interpretive and structural frames this psychobiography is fundamentally idiographic, examining seress’s oeuvre, songs, and self-narratives within a specific cultural and historical embeddedness. it is also partly nomothetic — that is, generalizing — regarding the systemic absence of a redemptive narrative and the structural patterns of central and eastern european identity. the interaction between idiographic and nomothetic levels is enabled by investigating the interplay among three theoretical frameworks: kézdi’s theory of the negative code, wallerstein’s world-systems analysis, and mcadams’s theory of narrative identity. this triangulation allows us to explore identity patterns that reflect both personal and structurally conditioned characteristics. we begin with the assumption that seress’s suicide can be understood only within cultural, linguistic, social, and historical contexts (fekete & kelemen, 1991; fekete & osváth, 2004; kézdi, 1995). furthermore, hungary — at the semiperiphery, where political, economic, and social instability are persistent — contributes to the meaning of seress’s tragic fate and explicitly self-destructive act (wallerstein, 2010, pp. 88, 144). therefore, it is not sufficient to search for the objective causes of seress’s actions; we must also apprehend the narratives, linguistic codes, and metaphors that his cultural milieu employed as interpretive frameworks (fekete & kelemen, 1991; fekete & osváth, 2004; kézdi, 1995). rather than relying solely on the idiographic/nomothetic dichotomy, wallerstein’s world-systems analysis offers a distinct epistemic frame for knowing social reality (wallerstein, 2010). data collection and analysis psychobiography is built on consistent systematization of data and on their critical, complex interpretation (burnell, 2013). within the reception history of seress (e.g., müller, 1983), numerous commonplaces (topoi) not verifiable by primary sources have entered public knowledge; therefore, source criticism has been a central methodological consider­ ation. for source authentication, róbert gál’s (2010) monograph served as a key point of reference; it is based on the composer’s papers — which are no longer accessible — and reproduces several primary sources (civil registry extracts, notes, postcards, photographs) in facsimile, although it does not provide explicit references for some biographical details. since seress’s papers can no longer be consulted directly (the custodian has passed away and the family sold the documents), we pursued source-critical verification of contested biographical points via a targeted interview with the archivist who processed the materials (gál, 2025). the methodological strategy followed yin’s case study logic: the collected data (“case record”) were filtered according to themes relevant to identity formation and suicide in seress’s oeuvre, and the selection of the song lyrics to be analyzed was carried out accordingly (yin, 2009). the corpus contained nine song lyrics written by seress; the inclusion criteria were: (i) unambiguous verification of authorship; (ii) identifiability of the time of composition; (iii) substantive fit to the research question. the interpretive framework combined the triad of cultural codes (kézdi), semiperipheral position (wallerstein), and personal narrative (mcadams) in a theory triangulation, yielding a framework coherent with the research aim (yin, 2009; cf. morrow, 2005). in line with the specificity of psychobiography, we treated the song lyrics as self-narration, that is, we read them as a primary source of the subject’s inner development and meaning-making. the quantitative textometric measures (e.g., negation density) served solely as heuristic waypoints in this procedure; every numerical signal was followed by qualitative, context-sensitive close reading and the search for counterexamples (negative case analysis). our aim was to uncover the mechanisms and characteristics of meaning-making operating in seress’s self-narration. relying on kézdi’s theory, we counted both the explicit and the implicit forms of negation: after automatic pre-process­ ing (tokenization, lemmatization), we calculated “negation density” (the number of negation occurrences per 100 words), and then manually checked and interpreted every case in context. we treated the indicator not as causal evidence but as a compass initiating qualitative analysis. we organized the songs around life-history-defining key episodes and, within mcadams’s framework, examined narrative tone and plot, as well as the appearance of agency and communion. we approximated agency (and its absence) by the relative proportion of first-person singular verbs expressing will or control and of phrases marking constraint; we mapped communion by the occurrence of lexemes expressing belonging and of constructions denying belonging. each rab 349 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ numerical signal was followed by thematic coding and the search for counterexamples, so that pattern detection would not harden into deterministic claims. the above procedure was supplemented by thematic-level analysis: we identified the appearance of semiperipheral and macro-level codes (wallerstein) and the recurrent motifs (lack–desire, compulsion–freedom, proximity–isolation). this multilayered reading made it possible to describe the seress narrative coherently as one possible configuration of the “tragic semiperipheral self”. beyond the songs, we also included external primary sources (contemporaneous descriptions, interviews, press materials) in the analysis. these served both as data sources and as controls: we compared the patterns identified in the songs with these external observations and interpretations. the secondary sources helped reconstruct the historical contexts that decisively influenced seress’s life course (the world wars, the economic crisis, the rise of the radical right, the holocaust). all findings were interpreted within the integrated theoretical framework, with particular attention to kézdi’s theory of the negative code (linguistic–cultural codes), wallerstein’s concept of the semiperiphery (structural position), and mcadams’s narrative psychology (life-history organizing principles). the goal was to understand — through concrete artistic self-expression (the songs) — what role culture and hungary’s position in the world system played in shaping seress’s inner development, and how to frame the interpretation of the self-destructive act. accordingly, the quantitative indicators (e.g., negation density) functioned as context-sensitive waypoints supporting qualitative interpretation. ana­ lytic decisions were made verifiable and traceable via a decision log and reflexive memos (audit trail). ethical considerations, and author positionality all research decisions were guided by a commitment to preserve the subject’s human dignity and to understand his tragic fate. the study followed the ethical guidelines in force at the university of pécs. given that the subject died more than half a century ago, we adopted a respectful and empathic approach: we checked the reliability of secondary sources and compensated for the limited availability of primary sources by conducting an interview with the biographer who processed seress’s legacy. although the researcher was born after seress’s death, from the late 1970s onward she became familiar with — and occasionally recognized — seress’s name and works through popular television programs and cinematic portrayals, such as gloomy sunday (schübel, 1999) and, indirectly, schindler’s list (spielberg, 1993). the researcher’s interest in seress was sparked by the many disturbing contradictions she has more recently encountered regarding the composer’s life path. the most salient of these is the contrast between the song’s global triumph and seress’s marginalization. trained as a historian, the author reads the lyrics as a form of self-narration and treats them as narrative (subjective) truth, analytically distinct from historical fact, applying source criticism and contextualization throughout (bálint, 2012; elms, 1994; schultz, 2005). from a psychobiographical perspective, data necessary to trace the subject’s inner development are of paramount importance. at the same time, this interpretive work must rest on accurate historical scaffolding; accordingly, it is thought-provoking that, although he continues to be the subject of academic studies, plays, articles, and performance evenings to this day, his year of birth is still most often incorrectly cited as 1889 — ten years earlier than the reality (1899). finally, it should be noted that the author writes as a member of semiperipheral hungarian society, embedded in — and using — the hungarian culture and language; this positionality, an emic asset but also a potential source of normalization bias, explicitly informed the interpretation of seress’s suicidal act. psychobiography of rezső seress (1899–1968) rezső seress’s original name was rezső spitzer, a name inherited from his mother, as he was born out of wedlock, not from a legally recognized relationship. his mother, blanka spitzer, was a 20-year-old jewish seamstress (budapest district viii civil birth registry, 1899, entry no. 6171), who came from a strong cultural and religious background: her father (jakab spitzer) did not allow her to marry seress’s father, andrás dékány, who was not of jewish faith (gál, death and melody 350 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2010, p. 13). the prohibition of the marriage signified the dominance of collective norms over personal relationships and emotions — something that directly shaped seress’s future. the absence of a father figure may have contributed to emotional instability and the experience of conditional love. this theme returned frequently in his songs, especially in connection to women, from whom love could only be hoped for in exchange for money (one more night, 1924; no one has ever loved me, 1930). the name “spitzer” may have served as a constant reminder of the negative emotions associated with paternal absence, which perhaps led him, in his early twenties, to adopt the stage name “seress”. this chronologically coincided with the 1920 numerus clausus law, which institutionalized antisemitism in hungary by restricting access to higher education for jewish citizens. the official name change — according to a later amendment in his birth certificate (budapest district viii civil birth registry, 1899, entry no. 6171) — did not occur until 1936. moreover, being born out of wedlock and the internal experience of marginality may be interpreted as the beginning of structural exclusion. at the cost of many sacrifices, his mother raised her two children — rezső and his six-year-younger sister klára — with the help of her sister, irma. due to her demanding work schedule, blanka only had time for her children on weekends (gál, 2010, pp. 17, 20). the situation of the mother and her sister reflects the structural burden placed on women in the semiperiphery: in the lower-middle class, women were responsible not only for work, housekeeping, and childcare, but, as irma’s role indicates, also for extended family care and certain economic functions (bódy, 2012; gyáni & kövér, 2001; cf. barna, 2017, 2025). family life although seress’s relationship with his mother was loving — he remained emotionally attached to her throughout his life — this maternal figure, representing emotional stability, was only partially accessible due to the cultural pressures imposed by semiperipheral norms. this, too, may have evoked ambivalent emotions in the young seress. rezső maintained a lifelong and close relationship with his sister klára (1905–1980) (gál, 2010, p. 12). alongside his mother, klára served as a stable emotional anchor, which significantly shaped seress’s narrative self. when rezső was nine, his mother married béla purgesz, a master baker from komárom, who was a widower and had a son named kálmán (gál, 2010, pp. 20–21). although their relationship was good, the stepfather did not replace the absent father figure in seress’s life. as an adult, seress never had children — he never became a father — meaning that the absence of the paternal role remained unresolved. his mother’s marriage marked a completely new phase in the family’s life — one into which seress could not fully integrate. one reason was that klára, his sister, was allowed to remain in the family only until the age of seven, after which she was entrusted to the care of their aunt irma, who also lived in budapest. for seress, this represented a renewed experience of marginality. he may have also felt that his situation was unstable, and his trust in the permanence of a safe home and his mother’s love could have been shaken. he may even have begun to doubt his own self-worth. education klára began school in budapest and became a student of istván tomka, a renowned music teacher. years later, she would be the one to transcribe seress’s compositions (gál, 2010, p. 24). for seress, his sister’s continuous professional support may have offered a path out of marginality — yet at the same time, it also underscored the cultural gap between them. he sensed that music, which had always been close to him, might offer a solution, a way out of marginality. at the same time, he was acutely aware of the cultural gap between his sister and himself. due to his lack of formal music education, seress relied throughout his life on others to write down his songs. this created a persistent sense of unpredictability — characteristic of life on the semiperiphery — and instilled in him the inner conviction that stability is never guaranteed. working together with his sister may have been a positive experience of family collaboration. at the same time, he also came to realize that his constant efforts to adapt did not result in advancement, but merely in catching up — specifically, in compensating for his lack of theoretical musical knowledge. the ongoing pressure to compensate for deficiencies is itself a collective experience typical of the semiperiphery (wallerstein, 2010). rab 351 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rezső attended a local school in komárom, the boys' secondary school on majláth street (gál, 2010, p. 25). according to the recollections of his best friend, imre székely molnár, he was not a good student, but he had a good voice and ear for music, read a great deal, and was a skilled writer (gál, 2010, pp. 26, 28; gál, 2025). at music school, his piano teacher did not predict a great future for him (gál, 2010, p. 29). overall, his experiences within formal education were not positive. on the semiperiphery, talent alone was not enough. creative works his passion for reading and creative writing pointed to an inner world he had begun to build — still under the protective wing of his family. in his free time, he frequently went to the cinema with imre székely molnár — his lifelong friend — during their school years. cinema was one of the defining modern cultural institutions of the time. his favorite actress became pola negri, of polish origin, who was nearly his contemporary. later, seress would accompany silent films on the piano — evidence of his particularly sensitive cultural sensibility: he improvised music that matched the mood and visual rhythm of the scenes, and he was able to align it with the audience’s reactions as well. for the student seress, playing the piano brought pocket money — and thus a certain degree of autonomy and freedom. he experienced that, even if he could not achieve success through formal channels in the field of music, he could still do so on his own path. after finishing school, he found work at the nearby shipyard but soon made a spontaneous decision: at the age of 17, he joined the benneweis circus, which was performing in komárom at the time (gál, 2010, pp. 33–36; gál, 2025). he was drawn to the glamour of the circus and the free life of the performers. for him, the circus represented a kind of escape from an average life. based on the research of voigt (2016), it may also have offered seress a form of legitimacy and recognition at the time. life journey challenges this becomes particularly significant when we consider the genre he chose: he became a trapeze artist, a role that enjoyed especially high prestige among audiences. seress, in this sense, “aimed high” — he desired outstanding recogni­ tion, and understood that this would require risk-taking and courage. however, three years later, at the age of 20, he suffered an accident: he fell from the trapeze and was seriously injured. the accident occurred in vecsés, near budapest — the longed-for center — which he could not reach with the traveling circus. actually, he was also forced to abandon the dream of a career he had envisioned. this fall he experienced the threshold moment of transformation: his life story took a new direction — not only did he have to choose a new path, but he also had to build a new identity. he never spoke about his time as a circus performer in later interviews. he experienced it as a failure, one that marks the origin point of the tragic semiperipheral self: his personal narrative had to be rewritten once again. he was once more confronted with the fact that on the semiperiphery, there is neither a secure path nor any guarantee of success. after the end of the traveling circus period, seress returned to komárom in 1919 and soon moved to budapest to live with his sister who was then living with her husband, gyula sztopa, at rákóczi street 65, on the second floor. although moving to the capital was a significant step, it was also a cautious one, as seress initially lived in a small room within the safety of the family environment, from where he sought his next opportunity for a breakthrough. (fifteen years later, at the time of his marriage, he was still living at this address.) on the other hand, this room represented a small, marginal space within the large city, so seress’s scope of movement remained limited. he was also physically constrained, as he walked with a crutch — a constant symbolic reminder of his bodily limitations. in his early twenties, following the suggestion of grawatsch (bilicsi) tivadar, who was also applying, he enrolled in szidi rákosi’s actors’ school (gál, 2010, pp. 39–40). at that point, seress was still struggling with inner uncertainty and needed external affirmation. although enrollment in acting school was not the result of an entirely autonomous decision, it can still be considered a new identity experiment — reinforced by the fact that he registered there under the name seress (gál, 2025). he wanted to prove himself. precisely because of this, it was a major disappointment that, after obtaining his acting diploma, he was assigned humiliatingly small roles at the városliget theatre. he experienced death and melody 352 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this, like his earlier acrobat career, as a failure (gál, 2010, p. 47). he remained in marginality and invisibility. the tragic semiperipheral self was reinforced. he terminated his contract. his experiences — those of cultural exclusion and restricted mobility — were intensified by the antisemitic legislation introduced in the early horthy era, in the first years of the 1920s (karsai, 2005). accomplishments and highlights his first success came relatively late, at the age of 25, when his song just one more night (1924) was published by the nádor kálmán music publishing house. this marked the beginning of his musical career, even though he had never received formal training in music. while in komárom he had been a member of the local male choir, and had played in several venues in pest, his first serious pianist job (at the later kulacs restaurant) was obtained for him by nádor józsef, the son of the music publisher’s owner, who continued to support him later on (gál, 2010, p. 48). this was the first time he received both institutional and professional recognition — for a work that stemmed solely from his autodidactic learning and persistence. in addition, through nádor (as a mentor), he also gained social capital, which remained essential for his success. the venue was located just behind the immensely popular new york café and was colloquially known as “little new york” (from 1932, officially named kulacs). in its grand hall, seress was employed as a pianist and composer in his late twenties (gál, 2010, p. 118). he found music — his own mode of self-expression — through which he could also hope for a livelihood. this experience was identity-forming, but did not result in an absolutely stable status, so the tragic semiperipheral self likely continued to strengthen. one more night, as a form of self-narrative, reflects an identity without support, whose earlier dreams had collapsed. as a tragic semiperipheral self motif, it symbolically evokes a death wish as well (“then i shall leave forever”). he uses words such as pain and beggar, which are classic markers of the negative code. a true breakthrough in songwriting came for seress in the early 1930s, that is, in his early thirties (gál, 2010, p. 66). in 1930, at the age of 31, he composed both the lyrics and music for the song no one has ever loved me (engem még nem szeretett senki), rich in linguistic negations. in 1932, he wrote the lyrics to come, my dog bodri (gyere bodri kutyám). during the great depression, the revenues at kulacs plummeted, and the owner, béla vágó, tried to compensate by “commissioning” seress to write a more positive song. the result was the seemingly positive let’s love each other, children (szeressük egymást, gyerekek, 1932). unusually, gloomy sunday (szomorú vasárnap) was not released by nádor, but by the publishers csárdás and marnitz in 1933, who held both domestic and international distribution rights. the lyrics were written by lászló jávor, a police radio reporter for the 8 órai újság, who asked seress to set them to music. the orchestration was done by kornél arányi, a trained musician who had studied at the academy of music (gál, 2010, p. 69). this marked a step toward professionalization, as up until that point, it had been seress’s sister who helped transcribe his music. this time, seress was also able to translate the success into financial gain. with the advance payment for gloomy sunday, he had a fashionable suit and a new tuxedo made. this was, in his own words, “the first luxury” of his life (gál, 2010, p. 73) — a visible marker of success that also shaped his identity. “this is my spring,” as he called march and april of 1933 (gál, 2010, p. 75; gál, 2025). the contemporary media played a major role in the unprecedentedly rapid spread and international resonance of the song (patakfalvi-czirják, 2017). seress himself gained widespread media attention only after the first suicides were publicly linked to gloomy sunday. a feature article in a mai nap (1935, p. 7) quoted a line from their interview with him as a subtitle: “whoever dies with a song must have a beautiful soul, but i never wanted this kind of publicity”. the interview revisited his earlier career. he spoke positively about his transition from acting to songwriting and listed his successful songs, concluding that “these songs are known by everyone — even abroad”. this statement reflects a kind of strengthened cultural self-confidence — an important element of his narrative self-understanding. he had come to recognize that what he created had value in the eyes of others, and that this recognition extended beyond the listeners who personally connected with his music. the subject of financial recognition also came up in relation to international success: “a fashionable songwriter like me could easily earn three to four thousand pengő a month abroad just from royalties, without needing to perform publicly — i’m just happy i can live in peace like this”. this reflects a typically semiperipheral narrative: comparing rab 353 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ one’s own situation with that of artists living in the western center. according to barna (2025), this is a typical pattern in the music industry among semiperipheral creators — the lack of stable livelihood and visibility often translates into existential experiences different from those in the global center. this moment also reveals a tone of resignation — an acceptance of limitations. seress reflects on the center–semiperiphery relationship, economic and technological inequalities, and the vulnera­ bility of the semiperiphery from the perspective of hungarian composers: “hungarian composers write songs just as good as the americans. the secret of their success is that in america, they are fantastic at arranging music. … if a hungarian song is recorded on gramophone in berlin, it completely changes due to the new arrangement.” (author’s translation; as quoted in müller, 1983, p. 9) then, addressing the consequences, he states: “no one buys hungarian compositions because the audience demands english. that’s how it becomes possible for hungarian composers to be left penniless… and for the hungarian pengő to be sent to those ‘poor’ american composers, who already earn 50–100 thousand dollars with a single successful song.” (author’s translation; as quoted in müller, 1983, p. 9; see also barna, 2025) when asked in a mai nap whether he enjoyed playing music, seress drew an equal sign between his life and music. music was everything to him; he emphasized that he didn’t sing songs but spoke or performed them, and that he often cried while doing so. this indicated a total identification with the song — performance was part of his identity. this made him emotionally authentic and compelling to his audience. regarding the suicides, he rejected the accusations. using the phrase “deadly publicity,” he suggested that what was being circulated was a myth (see patakfalvi-czirják, 2017; stack et al., 2008). although gloomy sunday made him famous — through the myth of the “killer song” that lured listeners to their deaths — this myth also trapped him in a particular interpretation. he became, irrevocably, “the composer of the suicide song,” a role he could never escape. his rising fame and popularity clashed more and more starkly with the political rightward shift of the late 1930s, marked by antisemitic laws and open support for hitler. the conditions for pursuing the kind of career seress had imagined for himself were increasingly undermined. in 1934, at the age of 35, seress married hani (helén) nádler, the waitress at the kulacs restaurant (budapest district vii civil marriage register, 1934). it was around the time they met that he composed the song when everything ends (ha minden véget ér). this song explicitly deals with finality and the inevitability of loss. themes of death and transience also appear implicitly through metaphors such as “silent path,” “quiet passing,” and even hints at the closure of the narrative self: “we can no longer think about the past”. in this song, seress addresses the woman he hopes to win over in the language of the negative code with an unusually dense pattern of implicit negations — a mode of communication that had previously brought him emotional validation and success and did so once again. by this point, the tragic semiperipheral self had become fully internalized. paradoxically, his goal — winning another person’s love — was achieved through a song that emphasized endings. the newlyweds moved into a dark, courtyard-facing apartment above the kulacs, physically merging the spaces of work and private life. from that point on, these domains were no longer separate. in the summer of 1935, seress returned home to komárom, and the local press covered his visit; he was also interviewed in pozsony (híradó, 1936, p. 4). this marked the peak of his career, yet the recognition he received remained characteristic of the semiperiphery: it was limited to local and regional attention rather than emanating from the cultural center — budapest or the west. the spotlight remained fixed on his homeland. devolution and dissolution around the same time, he was also involved in a plagiarism lawsuit (filed by another composer who had written a similarly titled and themed song), concerning his work if i were god (ha én lennék az isten). the case deeply affected seress, as it cast doubt on his artistic authenticity. since he was so intimately identified with his works, the challenge seemed to threaten his very identity. although the curia ultimately ruled in his favor in 1936, declaring him innocent death and melody 354 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (gál, 2010, pp. 85, 87), the ordeal took an emotional toll. meanwhile, his operetta love all along the line (szerelem az egész vonalon) failed. it simply could not enter the elite musical space dominated by major operetta composers such as ferenc lehár, imre kálmán, and szabolcs fényes. once again, seress found himself reliving the experience of marginality. he may have found some consolation in the fact that several of his songs became real hits during the mid-1930s, including the wheel turns up and down (egyszer fent és egyszer lent a kerék) and she became everyone’s woman (mindenki asszonya lett). the former expressed the instability and unpredictability of life on the semiperiphery. to this body of work we can also add the world has ended! (vége a világnak!), a text that responded to the historical context — war and suffering — and was set to the same melody as gloomy sunday. this song will be discussed in greater detail later. a profound rupture — and the culmination of the tragic semiperipheral self — came when helén, his wife of jewish faith (budapest district vii civil marriage register, 1934), left him. sometime after the anschluss (march 1938) and amid the increasingly frequent enactment of antisemitic laws, she disappeared — we do not know where — and urged her husband to flee as well. seress, however, chose to stay. it was during this time (1940) that he composed the music for just drink, drink (csak inni, inni), a song about coping with pain through self-destruction. by this point, nearly everyone had vanished from his life — even his closest friend, imre székely molnár, who had emigrated to canada. in response to this new loss, he composed the ironically entitled hello, you old rake (szervusz, te vén kujon, 1938), in which he again turned to alcohol to numb the emotional pain of losing a friend. from then on, seress gradually — and eventually completely — withdrew into isolation. despite the increasingly strong antisemitism, seress remained in hungary even when the country joined world war ii on hitler's side. in the spring of 1942, he was conscripted into labor service. according to act xiv of 1942, this was how jews were required to fulfil their military obligations. jewish labor servicemen were treated like prisoners of war. they were not regarded as human beings, and they were forced to carry out life-threatening tasks: they were made to bury live mines and were kept in inhumane conditions. many perished due to the cruelty, and even those who survived suffered lasting physical and psychological injuries (braham, 1997, pp. 317–325). there is little reliable information available regarding this period in seress’s life. what is certain is that seress experienced dehumanization and the immediate proximity of death. he internalized the most severe experiences of the semiperiphery and of historical cataclysm. he lost weight, his health declined, and his deteriorated condition was accompanied by hopelessness. in april 1945, upon the arrival of the first russian tanks, he composed the song fizetek főúr (“waiter, the bill, please”), in which he spoke about having ruined his life. he returned home at the end of april, when the war was over. his sister’s family survived as well, but their parents, who were deported, died on the train en route to auschwitz. in the reviving capital, one of the rooms of the kulacs restaurant reopened by the end of april. everything in the apartment above the kulacs had remained in place, and seress moved back there. for a long time, he only felt safe in the apartment and did not leave it (gál, 2010, p. 112). at that time, he was dejected, melancholic, slow, and lacked willpower — he was depressed. his sister pulled him out of this state. his mood improved, and what also helped him rebuild his life was that frigyes marnitz, the publisher of gloomy sunday, informed him that a gloomy sunday club operated overseas and that a budapest-based ceramic artist was making a bust of rezső seress for them (gál, 2010, p. 113). in other words, the myth was reborn, and seress became a cult figure in the distant center. what was most important for him, however, was that helén, his wife, unexpectedly returned to him. it was also at this time that the famous quote from otto klemperer, the chief music director of the budapest opera house, was entered into the well-known seress guestbook: “er ist kein musiker — er ist nur ein genie” (“he is not a musician — he is only a genius”), which, alongside being a compliment, also reinforced the feeling that had always tormented seress: that without institutional background or formal studies, he stood outside the circle of professional musicians. furthermore, following world war ii, his songs evoking the atmosphere of the horthy era (1920–1944) were not tolerated by the new sovietized regime. his identity was under threat from all sides: on january 19, 1949, szabad nép published an article by miklós molnár launching an ideological campaign against artists evoking the past, and seress rezső’s songs were blacklisted. his network of connections also suffered a serious blow when béla vágó, the former owner of the kulacs restaurant and seress’s benefactor and supporter, died by suicide on september 18, 1951 (gál, 2010, p. 127). rab 355 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ at the height of the communist dictatorship, seress played the piano at the kispipa restaurant, and it was from there that he eventually retired. he did nothing but make music. “he barely slept and barely ate. he drank coffee by the liter.” (gál, 2010, p. 130; gál, 2025) he was afraid, and his dejection became chronic. the experiences he had during the labor service and the persecution of jews caused symptoms consistent with trauma-related distress (gál, 2025). at this time, his wife had become emotionally distant from him (gál, 2010, p. 132). by living solely for his work, he became even more marginalized and even more vulnerable. he was not deeply embedded in any social network — his only living relatives were his sister klára’s son and his wife, though they were genuinely close to him. in december 1967, the elderly (68-year-old) seress was forced into retirement (after an ill-considered and unfortu­ nate decision left him without a contract) (gál, 2010, p. 138). having played music continuously for approximately 40 years, being stripped of his vocation plunged seress into deep depression. at that time, he and helén were already living near the kispipa restaurant (dob street 46b). it was during this period that the song in my life i only loved two women (életemben csak két nőt szerettem) was composed. as the song itself suggests — referring to his mother and his estranged wife — he and his wife had, to his regret, already grown very distant from each other. near the end of his life, he shared the following reflections with gyuláné sztopa (klára’s daughter-in-law), who was close to him: “after my death, they’ll write beautiful things about me in the obituaries. that’s how it goes here. that more people know my songs than the man who wrote them. that i was a small, unnoticed little man, a schlemiel, in a small budapest restaurant… i was little seress, rudi, to my close friends dudi.” (gál, 2010, p. 152) let us juxtapose this confession with the interview excerpt chosen as the study’s motto. his interview was marked by the tone of the negative code and the tragic semiperipheral self, conveying two important messages. first, complete identification with his works. second, the notion that composing music was a kind of fated internal compulsion — something that aligns with what jung also described: “whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled and molded by the unconscious as against the active will, and the conscious ego is swept along on a subterranean current, being nothing more than an observer of events. the work in progress becomes the poet’s fate and determines his psychic development. it is not goethe who creates faust, but faust which creates goethe.” (jung, 1966) that was the case in 1935, but in the final years before his death, seress had written nothing further. as he told to klára’s daughter-in-law, his songs (which were known) and he himself (who was not) were not truly one and the same. the tragic semiperipheral self had reached its conclusion — seress knew he would never again play a leading role in life, and thus his marginalization on the semiperiphery had become final. as long as he worked, he was a “little man” in a little restaurant. and once he lost his job, he wasn't even that anymore. his life, perhaps unsurprisingly, ended in suicide. on january 12, 1968, seress rezső, who had been hospitalized with severe injuries, hanged himself (budapest district viii civil death register, 1968). a few days earlier, he had jumped from the window of his third-floor apartment, but that suicide attempt had not ended in death. the sources do not clearly indicate whether this first attempt occurred on sunday the 7th (perhaps as a reflection on the gloomy sunday myth) or thursday the 11th. historical context and cultural patterns according to the research of fekete and kelemen (1991), the changing meanings of suicide derive partly from the different mentalities of various eras. in hungary, following the lost first world war and the dissolution of the austrohungarian monarchy, society underwent a transformation, as a result of which certain social groups — primarily the lower classes but also parts of the remaining gentry — could not find their place in the new social structure (bódy, 2012). among them was the autodidact musician, who was also excluded because of his jewish origin, and who, due to political rightward shifts and the antisemitic environment, had no access to resources that might have supported his social mobility (bódy, 2012). throughout his life, he remained outside the cultural centers such as the prestigious new york café and restaurant (czina, 2022); the most esteemed venue in which he performed, the “little new york” (kis new york), could at best be described as semiperipheral. death and melody 356 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the existential questions arising from social problems and the collective sense of suffering were articulated through the dominant artistic and cultural language of the era — namely, art nouveau (szabadi, 1981). seress was socialized into this context, a cultural space in which the aestheticization of the “tragic self” became dominant. alongside this, the sui­ cide rate was also high (bálint, 2016; stack et al., 2008). suicide became interpretable for members of the culture through numerous literary and musical works (stack & lester, 2009). melancholy and a sensitivity to death represented a kind of shared language for members of contemporary society. according to fekete and kelemen (1991), between the two world wars in hungary, a symbolic suicide culture developed, particularly in the gentry world and among “inadequate little people,” which the authors describe as a form of stylish withdrawal — an aesthetic and existential self-elimination. beyond marginalization, suicidal behavior was also intensified at the societal level by historical traumas, including the collective trauma of the holocaust, which seress also experienced (gál, 2010, pp. 99–119; gál, 2025). cross-sectional results we analyzed nine song lyrics written by seress for which, (i) authorship is unambiguously verified, (ii) the time of composition is identifiable, and (iii) they are connected to seress’s life events. since the widely known 1933 lyrics of gloomy sunday were written by lászló jávor, we instead analyzed the narrative of seress’s 1936 variant. however, we also included jávor’s 1933 lyrics in the negation-density analysis (table 2) as a comparator. let’s love each other, children is documented to have been written on commission (to increase foot traffic of the kulacs during the great depression); therefore, we treated it as a counterpoint when interpreting narrative tone, plot, agency/communion, and linkage to life events. table 2 negation metrics across seress song lyrics year title of the song total words explicit negations number negation densitya number of explicit and implicit negationsb 1924 one more night (még egy éjszaka) 122 4 3.25% 13 (10.65%) 1930 nobody has ever loved me (engem még nem...) 150 17 11.33% 30 (20%) 1932 let’s love each other, children (szeressük...) 162 5 3.09% 22 (13.58%) 1933 (jávor) gloomy sunday (szomorú vasárnap) 69 1 1.45% 10 (14.49%) 1936 the world has ended! (vége a világnak!) 81 2 5.13% 14 (17.28%) 1938 i love to be drunk (én úgy szeretek...) 187 19 10.16% 29 (15.51%) 1940 just drink, drink (csak inni, inni) 183 27 14.75% 60 (32.78%) 1945 check please, waiter (fizetek, főúr) 148 5 3.38% 14 (9.46%) 1957 i’m just a passenger on earth (csak átutazó...) 115 9 7.83% 17 (14.78%) 1962 i’ve only loved two women (életemben csak...) 169 8 4.73% 20 (11.83%) note. all song lyrics were downloaded from zeneszoveg.hu (2025). a (negation/100 words) b (negation density) the analysis was conducted within the integrated kézdi–wallerstein–mcadams framework, in triangulation; we read the song lyrics as self-narration. in examining negation, we applied automatic pre-processing (tokenization, lemmatiza­ tion), then checked the results by manual verification and context-sensitive interpretation. we counted both explicit and narrowly construed implicit negations — as shown in table 2; the indicator is negation density (negations per 100 words). we treated quantitative signals as heuristic compasses; every numerical result was followed by close reading and the search for counterexamples (negative case analysis). according to table 2, negation density shows two peaks: in the 1930 nobody has ever loved me and the 1940 just drink, drink. at the time of the former, seress was 31 years old and had been living for roughly ten years in the household of his sister and her husband, who enjoyed a stable, happy marriage. in our reading, this contrast — together rab 357 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with the everyday burdens within the macroeconomic context of the great depression (pogány, 2023) — contributed to the negative-code formulation of the self-narrative. the line “nobody has ever loved me” is repeated four times; the double (at points triple) negation together with the pronoun “me” (engem) strongly supports the life-narrative reading. the co-presence of past–present–future perspectives (“i am not allowed to be happy”) — following kézdi (1995) — raises not only past lovelessness but also doubt about the very possibility of being loved. from the many negations one can read off the deepest desire: to be loved. just drink, drink (1940) is the song with the highest negation density. by this time — also in connection with the anschluss and the first anti-jewish laws — he suffers a personal loss as well (his wife, likewise of jewish origin, leaves him). in the lyrics, defensive strategies appear one after another: “just drink, drink,” “trust no one,” and “and lie that i am happy” — that is, the suppression of emotion and the prior rejection of connection to others, and the deliberate control of self-presentation (impression management) also appears. we did not identify a redemptive arc; the focus is on forgetting. through negation, in both songs seress emphasizes the feeling of lack and rejection. a similar pattern is shown in the lyrics of one more night and i am just a passenger. negation appears as a defense in just drink, drink, i love to be drunk, and check please, waiter. these latter three lyrics are connected to the most difficult period of seress’s life, to world war ii and to labor service. examples for the development of the mcadamsian agency–communion pattern are shown in table 3. agency is characteristically present in a defensive form: first-person singular will/control is weak, while the markers of constrain­ ed agency (“must,” “cannot,” “i cannot”) are strong. communion is mostly (self-)constrained and is framed as loss (e.g., nobody has ever loved me). let’s love each other, children functions as a counterpoint, explicitly signaling connection, that is, as a negative case it makes the dominant pattern more differentiated. table 3 narrative coding by song még egy éjszaka (1924/age 25) — one more night life-event link transitional period in budapest: no stable livelihood and no relationship; seeking a breakthrough amid pronounced precarity. key lines “i will leave forever”; “i will no longer be in your way”; “i won’t see you again anyway”. explicit negation “there is no other request”; “i will no longer be in your way”;“i won’t see you again anyway” implicit negation / finality “i will leave forever”; “for the last time”; “my last complaint”. agency – active (1st person) “i will leave”; “i wait for you / i’ll be waiting for you”. agency – constraint “i will no longer be [there / in your way]”. communion – presence direct address (“come to me”), offer to pay as an attempt at connection. communion – absence “i won’t see you again anyway”. tone / plot tragic/finalistic; loss/constriction. semiperipheral codes vulnerability; transactionalized intimacy (money). engem még nem szeretett senki (1930/age 31) — nobody has ever loved me life-event link living for ~10 years in his sister and brother-in-law’s household; no stable relationship; daily hardships of the great depression. key lines “nobody has ever loved me” (×4); “i’m not allowed to be happy”; “there is no one to wait for me”. explicit negation not; there is no/none; ‘not allowed / may not’. implicit negation “orphan/alone”; “there is no one to wait for me”. agency – active (1st person) little; mostly longing rather than action. agency – constraint “must buy” (commodified kiss); “not allowed.” communion – presence desire for connection. communion – absence “nobody”; “orphan/alone”; “no one to wait for me.” death and melody 358 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tone / plot tragic/finalistic; loss. semiperipheral codes monetization of intimacy (“must be bought for base money”). szeressük egymást, gyerekek (1932/age 33) — let’s love each other, children (negative case) life-event link commissioned by the kulacs owner during the depression to counter falling patronage; a deliberate counter-tone. key lines “let’s love each other, children”; “the grave closes over us”; “there is no awakening”. explicit negation ‘there is no’; ‘anyway/inevitably’ (fatalistic marker). implicit negation / finality “terminal station,” “comes to an end,” “the grave encloses”. agency – active (1st person plural) “let us love,” “let us make … happy”. agency – constraint “life flies away anyway”. communion – presence explicit affiliation (we, togetherness, love). communion – absence the closing force of mortality. tone / plot affiliative counter-tone; reconnection (under mortality). semiperipheral codes scarcity of time; ephemeral stability. vége a világnak (1936/age 37) — the world has ended! life-event link era of war anxiety and political radicalization; apocalyptic public mood. key lines “my heart no longer waits for or hopes for a new spring”; “love has died!”; “the world has ended!”. explicit negation not; ‘in vain’. implicit negation / finality “has died,” “it’s over,” war imagery. agency – active minimal (e.g., “i say my prayer”). agency – constraint “i cry in vain,” “i suffer in vain”. communion – presence prayer, address to the transcendent. communion – absence “heartless… people,” devastation. tone / plot apocalyptic, finalistic; loss/constriction. semiperipheral codes helplessness amid historical cataclysm. én úgy szeretek részeg lenni (1938/ age 39) — i love to be drunk life-event link in the shadow of the anschluss and anti-jewish legislation; mounting existential anxiety, alcohol as coping. key lines “then nothing hurts”; “i cannot live sober”; “i search for a better world”. explicit negation does not hurt; i cannot. implicit negation “words are deceitful,” “the world is treacherous”. agency – active (defensive) “i avoid” (sobriety), “i search for” (a better world). agency – constraint “i cannot live sober”. communion – presence collective intoxication (1pl: “it lifts us to heaven”). communion – absence connection substituted by alcohol. tone / plot avoidant/escapist; contaminative. semiperipheral codes coping via alcohol; instability. csak inni, inni (1940/ age 41) — just drink, drink life-event link wife’s disappearance/departure after the anschluss; first anti-jewish laws; deepening isolation. key lines “trust no one”; “to lie that i am happy”; “i have no true good friend”. explicit negation nobody/none; there is no; not. implicit negation “(s/he) left me,” “to forget”. rab 359 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ agency – active (defensive) “to go/keep going,” “to lie”. agency – constraint “let no one find out”; “i don’t care about the world”. communion – presence — communion – absence “i have no true good friend”; “trust no one”. tone / plot tragic/finalistic; loss/constriction. semiperipheral codes isolation, mistrust, vulnerability. fizetek, főúr (1945/ age 46) — check please, waiter life-event link after labor service and wartime trauma; return to budapest; period of withdrawal followed by gradual rebuilding. key lines “i don’t have much time left”; “i go on without farewell”; “heavenly café”. explicit negation there is no; “never good” (negated evaluation). implicit negation / finality farewell, “there is no more light”. agency – active (limited) “i pay,” “i hurry”. agency – constraint “i ruined it (my life)”. communion – presence waiting for someone; “heavenly café” as imagined sociability. communion – absence farewell, departure. tone / plot elegiac, finalistic; farewell/loss. semiperipheral codes acceptance of ‘little man’ status; transposition to the afterlife. csak átutazó vagyok itt a földön (1957/age 58) — i’m just a passenger on earth life-event link resident pianist at kispipa; sovietized cultural policy; post-’56 years of resigned reflection. key lines “i do not expect miracles from life”; “nothing is ever enough”; “we are all passersby”. explicit negation do not expect; nothing is ever (enough). implicit negation “passerby/sojourner”; “the light goes out”. agency – active “i spend [my days] cheerfully”; normative framing: “if we do it well”. agency – constraint life as transit (limited control). communion – presence collective ‘we’. communion – absence — tone / plot stoic/ironic mixed; quest/journey with a shade of loss. semiperipheral codes impermanence, lack of stability. életemben csak két nőt szerettem (1962/age 63) — i’ve only loved two women life-event link late years; emotional distance from wife; impending retirement and existential anxiety. key lines “i have no restful nights”; “she left forever”; “i walk the cemetery”; “nothing remained but a grave mound”. explicit negation there is no; ‘not … only’ construction; “did not complain”. implicit negation bereavement/lack, “forever”. agency – active minimal. agency – constraint “i sought the opposite of that” (repeated failure). communion – presence mother and lover as emotional anchors. communion – absence loss of both; visiting the cemetery. tone / plot elegiac/finalistic; loss. semiperipheral codes enduring loss; weak social embeddedness. note. all song lyrics were downloaded from zeneszoveg.hu (2025). death and melody 360 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ likewise, table 3 provides examples of the characteristics of narrative tone and plot. the narrative voice is predom­ inantly tragic/finalistic, which is connected to the sense of loss. affiliative counter-tones occur only sporadically. the lyrics consistently show a closing tendency, which calls forth codes characteristic of the semiperiphery — lack, instability, vulnerability. discussion as a result of integrating the kézdi–wallerstein–mcadams theories, we gain insight into several further connections. first, that high negation density covaries with a finalistic character of the narrative tone. second, that the two songs with high negation density mentioned above (nobody has ever loved me, just drink, drink) are tied to significant negative life events. furthermore, that implicit negations, although not grammatical negations, nonetheless signal a narrowing of possibilities. the co-movement of high negation density and constrained agency (“must,” “cannot,” “i cannot”) regularly yields a loss narrative; in other words, a redemptive narrative is rare. the absence of communion (nobody, alone, abandonment) likewise reinforces this and also well represents semiperipheral lack. let’s love each other, children — a commissioned, positive-toned song — and the collective “we” voice of i’m just a passenger on earth add further nuance to the seress narrative. definition of the tragic semiperipheral self in the case of the tragic semiperipheral self, the interaction between person and context shows a characteristic pattern. on the semiperiphery, the negative code offers narrative schemata characterized by a persistently negative tone, which makes it more likely that the narrative will not be redemptive and narrows the room for agency and communion; that is, it results in low and defensive agency and communion framed as loss and lack, ultimately producing a finalistic self-narration. the possibility of an alternative self-interpretation becomes smaller the more strongly cultural and structural markers operate in the individual’s life. contemporary reception as mirror the key motifs of seress’s songs were fate, destiny, and rejection, which may have been connected with his historically and structurally rooted isolation and marginalization. as a self-taught composer of jewish origin who could not read sheet music, he suffered from the lack of recognition and from not being able to step out of the role of the “little man”. this image already appears in contemporary sources: “…and who could possibly list how many nationally popular songs he composed — yet night after night he plays the piano here, providing the music in this few-square-meter, dimly lit tavern… his fee: a few pengő and a small serving of stew for dinner,” they wrote about him in gong in 1935 (as quoted in müller, 1983, p. 8). memoirs decades later reflect the same image back to seress: “a small, inconspicuous little man” (népszabadság, 1968, p. 12), “a strongly localized figure” who “almost never crossed the boundaries of district vii” and who lived and created within the inner world of the jewish petit bourgeoisie of pest. it was seress’s choice to identify with this position: in this way he could authentically express the feelings of the “average person,” which was an advantage especially during socialism, but could also elicit the audience’s sympathy in times of crisis. according to merton’s (1948) theory of the self-fulfilling prophecy, a false definition of a situation can elicit behaviors that make the false situation come true. the legend woven around gloomy sunday — the “song of suicides” — as a stigma shaped seress’s self-image and may even have contributed to seress’s suicide. practical implications and pedagogical reflection through a multi-perspectival reading of seress’s inner development and suicide — starting from cultural, structural, and personal narrative — lessons can also be articulated that may be relevant even today. our examples reflect on the connections between cultural and structural codes and the personal narrative; our aim is to develop cultural and structural code-awareness, particularly in higher education. rab 361 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ kézdi’s negative-code theory points out that negation — especially multiple negations — can signal the absence of possibilities and the restriction of alternatives, which may appear as finality in the personal narrative. members of the cultural–linguistic community may, by decoding these signs, experience their scope for action as limited. a thorough knowledge of the codes, however, opens space for reflection and reframing. similarly, insight into resource scarcity arising from a semiperipheral position, the background of vulnerability, and the operation of the capitalist world-system can also affect the shaping of personal narratives. in both examples, useful strategies may include: expanding the time horizon, practicing an active agency-language, and strengthening relational embeddedness. these strategies can also be applied in educational institutions through already proven tools (e.g., reflective journals, relational maps, etc.). in the hungarian educational environment, the application of code-awareness, knowledge of the relationship between agency and language, and the support of relational embeddedness are also warranted because they promote resilience. language, by shaping what and how we reflect on the world, imposes limits on agency. conclusions our aim in this study was to interpret seress’s suicide by integrating kézdi’s negative code, wallerstein’s semiperipheral framework, and mcadams’s theory of narrative identity — reading the song lyrics as self-narration. we examined the relations between the “suicide song” myth and seress’s personal narrative, with particular attention to the tension between his aversion to the stigma of the suicide song and his own suicide. based on table 2, negation density peaks in two songs (engem még nem szeretett senki, 1930; csak inni, inni, 1940), which have a finalistic narrative tone. according to table 3, in these texts the markers of agency are minimal/defensive, while communion is consistently framed as absence. both songs are linked to life events in which historical and personal crises are simultaneously present. contemporary reception consistently fixed seress in the position of the “little man”; the continuous performance of gloomy sunday turned the myth into a lasting interpretive frame that fed back into his self-narration (internalization), while negotiation was possible only in limited ways. within the integrated framework, we identified the co-occurrence of multiple negation (negative code), a finalistic plot, and limited/defensive agency (in the mcadamsian sense). following wallerstein, semiperipheral resource scarcity and gatekeeping explain the persistence of institutional marginality; from mclean & syed’s perspective, in encounters with master narratives internalization appears to dominate negotiation. these processes almost invisibly incorporated not only the gloomy sunday myth but also the losing national perspective, which further narrowed the structure of opportunities (opportunity structure). on this basis we proposed the analytic concept of the tragic semiperipheral self (tss) as a strongly context-bound self-type. according to our results, although seress strives to distance himself from the “suicide song” label, he cannot durably detach himself from it. the room for maneuver is narrow: cultural and social constraints are further narrowed by contemporary ideology and politics (antisemitic legislation, the holocaust). agency thus appears mostly in defensive form and moving on a narrow track. methodologically, we combined a qualitative hermeneutic approach with a negation-density analysis, supported by an audit trail and reflexive memos; in this way we contributed to the literature on non-weird psychobiography from an integrative (cultural–semiperipheral–narrative) point of departure. in the future, it would be worthwhile to expand the text corpus (additional song lyrics and press interviews), and — examining other semiperipheral artists — to compare redemptive and tragic patterns. seress’s case shows that under the pressure of a semiperipheral master narrative and the negative code — where agency is defensive and communion is written mostly as absence — the songs become at once mirror and shaping force: they give voice to collective suffering while reinforcing a narrative that closes meaning-making in a finalistic manner. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: i am grateful to professor sándor fekete, emeritus psychiatrist at the university of pécs, for his insightful consultations. i also thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful remarks and suggestions, which improved the manuscript. competing interests: the author declares that no competing interests exist. death and melody 362 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references a mai nap. 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(2016). sokkal több, mint cirkusz! – új self-made-man világkép: a budapesti harry houdini-kiállítás megnyitója [much more than a circus! – a new self-made-man worldview: opening of the budapest harry houdini exhibition]. múlt és jövő, 77(1), 113– 115. wallerstein, i. (2010). bevezetés a világrendszer-elméletbe [introduction to world-systems analysis] (m. b. koltai; trans.). l’harmattan – eszmélet alapítvány. (original work published 2004) wertsch, j. v. (2002). voices of collective remembering. cambridge university press. yin, r. k. (2009). case study research: design and methods (4th ed.). sage. (original work published 1984) zeneszoveg.hu. (2025). magyar dalszövegek gyűjteménye [collection of hungarian song lyrics]. https://www.zeneszoveg.hu/egyuttes/1685/seress-rezso-dalszovegei.html zonda, t. (2006). öngyilkosság, statisztika, társadalom [suicide, statistics, society]. kairosz kiadó. about the author virág rab is a historian and associate professor at the university of pécs (institute of history, department of contemporary history). she leads an honors college and supervises student research labs that bridge coursework and empirical projects. trained in economic and social history, she has pursued psychobiographical research over the past five years. her current work investigates cultureand language-mediated perception and resilience within world-systems and narrative frameworks, including educational board game development. her research interests include 20th-century hungarian history, psychobiography, and qualitative research methodology. she has published psychobiographical studies in the international review of psychiatry, including a study on tibor scitovsky and a co-authored article on chatgpt. her main academic focus is the relationship between historical context and the inner development of historical figures. rab 365 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 346–365 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19131 https://www.zeneszoveg.hu/egyuttes/1685/seress-rezso-dalszovegei.html https://www.psychopen.eu/ death and melody (introduction) significance and relevance of the topic theoretical and methodological framework interpretive and structural frames data collection and analysis ethical considerations, and author positionality psychobiography of rezső seress (1899–1968) family life education creative works life journey challenges accomplishments and highlights devolution and dissolution historical context and cultural patterns cross-sectional results discussion definition of the tragic semiperipheral self contemporary reception as mirror practical implications and pedagogical reflection conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author from controlled to automatic processes and back again: the role of contextual features research reports from controlled to automatic processes and back again: the role of contextual features rosa angela fabio a, tindara caprì* a, martina romano a [a] department of clinical and experimental medicine, university of messina, messina, italy. abstract in cognitive psychology, classical approaches categorize automatic and controlled processes from a dichotomous point of view. automatic processes are believed to be rigid, whereas controlled processes are thought to be flexible. new theories have softened this dichotomous view. the aim of the present study is to examine the possibility of implementing flexibility in automatic processing through reliance on contextual features. one hundred and twenty subjects (mean age 22.4, sd = 4.2), 60 male and 60 female, participated in this study. an automatic sequence task (with and without contextual features) was used to test flexibility in automatic processing. results showed that the use of contextual cues can increase flexibility in automatic processes. the results are discussed in light of new theories on softened automaticity. keywords: automaticity, context-specificity, controlled and automatic processes, cognition europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 received: 2018-08-07. accepted: 2019-02-21. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of clinical and experimental medicine, university of messina, via bivona, 98100, messina, italy. e-mail: tcapri@unime.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the first distinction between automatic and controlled processes was introduced by shiffrin and schneider (1977; see also schneider & chein, 2003) with the dual-process theory. this theory suggests that there are two distinctive cognitive processes, namely, controlled and automatic processes (also called controlled cognition and automatic cognition, respectively) that play roles in predicting behavior. automatic processing is fast, effortless, autonomous, stereotypic, unavailable to conscious awareness and fairly error-free. it can be accomplished simultaneously with other cognitive processes without interference, it is not limited by attentional capacity and it can be unconscious or involuntary (cuzzocrea, grasso, & nucita, 2014; fabio, 2009, 2017; fabio & antonietti, 2012; fabio & caprì, 2015, 2017, 2019; fabio et al., 2018a; grasso, cuzzocrea, & nucita, 2014; martino, caprì, castriciano, & fabio, 2017; mohammadhasani, fabio, fardanesh, & hatami, 2015; mohammadhasani, fardanesh, hatami, mozayani, & fabio, 2018; moors & de houwer, 2006). most commonly, automatic cognitions are depicted as unconscious mental associations between concepts and valences in an associative network or in habitual responses that can generate quick, spontaneous behavioural tendencies without intention (xu, li, ding, & lu, 2014). in contrast, controlled processing is effortful, slow, and prone to errors, but at the same time, flexible and useful to deal with novel situations (fabio, 2009; fabio & urso, 2014; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ moors & de houwer, 2006; nucita et al. 2013). furthermore, in controlled processing, people carry out deliberate behaviors by retrieving information from memory with effort which is particularly important as it support behaviours that achieve goals and ultimately promote survival (xu et al., 2014). according to classical theories of cognitive control and automaticity, automaticity has been considered as an all-or-none phenomenon, that is, a process is either automatic or controlled. controlled processes were considered exclusive to the domain of conscious cognition, and automatic processes were thought to be in the domain of unconscious cognition (posner & snyder, 1975; shiffrin & schneider, 1977). this classical view implies that a behavioral or neurophysiological effect has to be context-independent to induce a “truly automatic” process (abrahamse & verwey 2008; pessoa, kastner, & ungerleider, 2003). however, it is difficult to identify processes that actually meet the classical criteria for automaticity as task demands frequently modulate behavioral and neurophysiological effects (kiefer, 2012; moors & dehouwer, 2006). behavioural studies also suggest a set of phenomena associated with automaticity that indicate a continuous process rather than an all-or-none process: gradual development with practice; concomitant improvements in speed (and a reduction of variance); reduced reliance on, but not complete autonomy from, the effects of attention, the relative nature of interference effects and the interacting influences of stimulus information and attentional allocation on responding (cohen, servan-schereiber, mellon, & mcclelland, 1992). moreover, even if most daily tasks are performed almost automatically, it is sometimes necessary to alter a routine if something changes in the environment and routine behavior becomes inappropriate. in some “real-world” situations the habituation/automatization processes may lead to disadaptive behaviour, for example, in learning settings, when a student automatize the wrong procedure to solve a problem may be useful to contrast such wrong automatization; moreover, in clinical settings, patients may need to stop automatic negative thoughts and to switch to positive ones to reach a better adaptation to the external world. this behavioural switching can occur either retroactively based on error feedback or proactively by detecting a contextual cue (hikosaka & isoda, 2010), so, it requires a shift from automatic to controlled processes and back again. summarizing, such evidence suggests that automatic processing can be flexible and context-dependent. unlike classical theories, refined theories of automaticity and unconscious processing allow for more flexibility and adaptability of unconscious automatic processing (fabio, gangemi, caprì, budden, & falzone, 2018b; fabio, caprì, nucita, iannizzotto, & mohammadhasani, 2018; fabio, magaudda, caprì, towey, & martino, 2018c; kiefer, 2007, 2012; kiefer & martens, 2010; moors & dehouwer, 2006; naccache, blandin, & dehaene, 2002; neumann, 1990). these theories postulate that unconscious or automatic processing, in general, depends on a configuration of the cognitive system regarding attention and task sets. in his theory of direct parameter specification (dps), neumann (1990) proposes that unconscious information will only be processed and will influence the motor response to a target stimulus to the extent that it matches current intentions. similarly, the global workspace model of consciousness by dehaene and naccache (2001) explicitly assumes that unconscious processes are susceptible to attentional amplification. by contrast to classical theories, refined theories propose that executive control factors such as attention, intentions, and task sets orchestrate the unconscious processing streams toward greater optimization of task performance. summarizing, recent evidence shows that automatic processes can develop gradually with practice and, furthermore, that they may depend on the context in which they are evaluated. automatic and controlled processing 774 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in line with aforementioned new theoretical perspectives, a key issue for researchers is to understand whether and how automatic processes can be flexible and adaptive in spite of their apparent rigidity. one potential answer to this question is that automaticity gains flexibility through sensitivity to contextual cues (d’angelo, milliken, jimenez, & lupinez, 2013). context refers to those perceptual features of the task setting that are not formally required for successful task performance, yet which may influence performance with practice based on contingencies with task-relevant information. indeed, context-dependent learning and related concepts such as procedural reinstatement or specified learning patterns are typically related to the notion that context-features become associated with the task during acquisition and subsequently enhance performance by acting as a cue for memory retrieval processes (ruitenberg, abrahamse, de kleine, & verwey, 2012a). d’angelo, jiménez, milliken, and lupiáñez (2012; see also d’angelo et al., 2013) investigated the role of contextual factors in the expression of automaticity in an implicit learning task. in three experiments, the authors showed that participants can learn two complementary sequences implicitly that are associated with distinct contexts, and that when the two contexts are randomly intermixed automaticity depends on the distinctiveness of the two contexts. the results demonstrated that context-specific characteristics can control the acquisition and expression of implicit sequence knowledge. moreover, in a recent study, ruitenberg, verwey, and abrahamse (2015) examined whether changes in the perceptual context can have a differential impact across distinct processing phases (preparation vs. execution of a motor chunk) within an ongoing movement sequence. their results confirmed context-dependence in sequential action. anyway, re-examining the role of contextcue in implicit sequence learning, d’angelo, milliken, jiménez, and lupiáñez (2014) conducted two experiments but did not confirm their previous results. they confirmed that two complementary sequences can be learned on alternating blocks during the training phase, but the authors do not find a facilitation effect due to the context. therefore, the literature is unclear about the conditions under which context can implement flexibility in automatic processing of learned sequences. more works are needed to clarify how automatic processes can be flexible through reliance on contextual features (d’angelo, 2012, 2013). in light of this knowledge gap, the main focus of the current paper is to analyze how the learned task could become more flexible through the inclusion of context-specific features. in this study, learning of a sequence task was used to test automatic processing. according to previous studies (caprì, gugliandolo, iannizzotto, nucita, & fabio, 2019; d’angelo, 2012, 2013, 2014; fabio, 2017; fabio, caprì, iannizzotto, nucita, & mohammadhasani, 2019; fabio, iannizzotto, nucita, & caprì, 2019; logan, 1988, 1989; ruitenberg et al., 2012a, 2015; ruitenberg, de kleine, van der lubbe, verwey, & abrahamse, 2012b) automaticity can develop from previous experiences and can be revealed by the gradual increment of processing speed. the specific aim was to demonstrate that participants can increase the processing speed (automatization) of two sequence tasks, and that this increment can be tied to contextual features associated with the two tasks. the first goal of this study was to induce an automatization process of two sequence tasks. the second aim was to examine whether the contextual features influenced flexibility on the learned sequences. the role of contextual features was evaluated through the manipulation of the distinctiveness of contextual information. in the condition with contextual cue, we helped the subject to recognize the target by providing two different contexts for each different target. in the condition without contextual cue, the context was always the same. fabio, caprì, & romano 775 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ summarizing, we hypothesized that: 1) when the subjects identified the same target stimulus during many trials (first sequence), speed of execution and accuracy in the identification of target would increase (showing gradual automatization process); 2) after the first sequence automatization, the target changed in two different ways: with and without contextual distinctiveness (cue), therefore we awaited that subjects in the condition without contextual-cue would show a loss of processing speed; whereas in the condition with contextual-cue, the subjects might not show this loss; 3) successively a second sequence with the second target for many trials was presented and when the two targets were intermixed (and the controlled processes were necessary to identify the two different targets), we awaited that the loss of processing speed and accuracy should be higher in the condition without contextual-cue. method participants one hundred and twenty subjects between 18 and 30 years (mean age 22.4, sd = 4.2), 60 male and 60 female, participated in this study. they were individually asked to indicate their level and type of education: 62% of the subjects had been or were about to achieve a secondary diploma in the scientific or humanistic field, 38% had a bachelor's degree or worked. all participants had normal or corrected to normal vision. participants were recruited through an article in the local newspaper, a university e-newsletter, and networks of acquaintance. each subject voluntarily agreed to participate in this research study. after providing informed consent, they were tested individually. task the experimental task was the clock test sequences (moron, 1997), a visual-spatial attention test used in previous works to investigate the automaticity (szymura, slabosz, & orzechowski, 2001; fabio, castriciano, & rondanini, 2015; valle, massaro, castelli, & marchetti, 2015). the clock test consisted of 400 visual stimuli: 40 targets and 40 distractors. the target stimulus was a black and white clock-face showing 04:00 or 05:00 hours on a white background. the distractor stimulus was another clock-face showing different hours. the stimuli were presented on a white sheet. the participants were required to mark only the target stimulus (the clock in the header line on the sheet) mixed with others (distractor stimuli), as fast as they were able. procedure subjects were seated in a well-lit, quiet room. the clock test sequence was presented seven consecutive times for 2 minutes each. in the first three trials, the target clock-face was the one indicating 4 o’clock. these three trials were also called “first learned sequence.” from the fourth to the sixth trial, the target clock-face was 5 o’clock. this sequence was called “second learned sequence.” in the seventh trial, the target clock-faces were both 4 and 5 o’clock that were randomly intermixed. this trial was called “intermixed task.” following this stimulus sequence, we wanted to induce an automatization process of two target clock-faces and we also evaluated flexibility in two ways: with the shift of the target clock-face after the first target was automatized (from 3rd to 4th trial); and with an intermixed presentation of the first and second target (during the 7th trial). automatic and controlled processing 776 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the loss of processing speed, between the 3rd and 4th trial, and after, between the 6th and 7th trial, was considered an index of the rigidity/flexibility continuous process. as described in the “task” section, the participants were asked to mark the stimulus targets as quickly as possible, from left to right, following the instructions for searching for targets. the subjects were presented with seven sheets of paper with a different ordering of clock-faces throughout all the trials. test duration was 2 minutes for each sheet. since the aim was to examine whether contextual features influenced flexibility on the learned sequences task, the clock test sequence was presented in two conditions: “with and without contextual cue.” the term context refers to features that can help the participants in distinguishing between different sources of information and in recognizing the two target clock-faces. in this experiment, we manipulated the distinctiveness of contextual information in the two conditions, providing two different contextual cues for the two targets. precisely, the contextual cue was the shape of clock-faces depicted on the sheet: a circle for the clocks showing 04:00 and a square for the clocks showing 05:00, respectively. in the condition with contextual cue, the shape of the clock-face changed from the fourth trial onwards (see figure 1). more precisely, in the first, second and third trial, the clock shape was a circle, in the fourth, fifth and sixth trial it was a square; whereas in the seventh trial the circle and square shapes were intermixed. figure 1. condition with contextual cue. in the condition without contextual cue, the context was always the same, that is, all the clock-faces had the shape of a circle on all the sequence tasks (see figure 2). fabio, caprì, & romano 777 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. condition without contextual cue. the two conditions were randomized. the number of the two targets was equal to that of the previous condition. the loss of the processing speed between the two conditions was considered as an index of the rigidity/ flexibility continuous process. in particular, we were interested in the loss of processing speed in the shift from third to fourth trial, and from sixth to seventh trial in the two conditions. measurements the subject’s performance was coded as follows: • the number of correct responses—cr (since the time is fixed, a period of 2 minutes of continuous attention for each trial, the number of correct responses is considered as an index of processing speed); as many works suggest, processing speed measures automaticity and fluency of cognitive performance across a wide variety of tasks (bryan & luszcz, 2001; finkel, reynolds, mcardle, & pederson, 2005; kail & salthouse, 1994; salthouse, 2005). • the number of false alarms—fa (erroneous “detection”) that measures the accuracy of performance. statical analyses data were analyzed using spss 14.0 for windows. the descriptive statistics of the dependent variables were tabulated and examined. alpha-level was set at .05 for all statistical tests. in the case of significant effects, the effect size of the test was reported. the effect sizes were computed and categorized according to cohen automatic and controlled processing 778 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (1988). the greenhouse-geisser adjustment for nonsphericity was applied to probability values for repeated measures. results results are presented, as mentioned in the procedure section, with reference to 4 units: 1) first learned sequence, with the first three trials indicating the 4 target, to detect automaticity of the first target; 2) second learned sequence, with the second three trials indicating the five target, to detect the automaticity of the second target; 3) target shift (from 4 to 5 o’clock, from 3rd to 4th trial), to detect the rigidity/flexibility due to the shift; 4) intermixed task (7th trial) ), to detect the rigidity/flexibility due to the the intermixed stimuli. first learned sequence (1st, 2nd, 3rd trials) table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of cr related to the 4 o’clock target. table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of fa related to the 4 o’clock target. a repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out with two within subject factors: 2 (contextual features: with vs. without contextual cue) x 3 (sequences: first, second and third trial). since the first three trails in the conditions with and without contextual cue were the same, we awaited no differences related to contextual features. table 1 means (m) and standard deviations (sd) of cr related to the targets 4 and 5 hours in all trials trials target with contextual-cue condition without contextual-cue condition m sd m sd i 4 27.50 4.36 27.90 6.31 ii 4 31.80 3.80 31.90 4.82 iii 4 35.60 3.46 34.80 4.09 iv 5 35.50 2.83 27.43 6.14 v 5 36.83 2.15 30.69 4.50 vi 5 37.91 1.53 33.90 3.56 vii 4 35.85 3.85 30.26 5.47 5 36.91 3.96 29.77 5.39 table 2 means (m) and standard deviations (sd) of fa related to the targets 4 and 5 hours in all trials trials target with contextual-cue condition without contextual-cue condition m sd m sd i 4 14.69 6.99 16.95 7.55 ii 4 10.32 5.35 11.92 5.80 iii 4 6.86 4.26 8.79 5.72 iv 5 10.74 4.95 13.58 6.86 v 5 8.88 5.15 9.62 4.65 vi 5 6.25 4.00 6.43 3.76 vii 4 6.23 2.50 9.82 3.55 5 6.22 4.11 9.63 3.45 fabio, caprì, & romano 779 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with reference to both cr and fa, the “sequences” factor showed significant effects, respectively f(2, 238) = 199.45, p < .0001, d = 0.90 and f(2,238) = 298.21, p < .0001, d = 0.90. this result indicated that when subjects identified the same target stimulus in many trials the speed of execution and accuracy (decrease in the number of errors) increased, respectively, from 27.50 and 27.90 to 35.60 and 34.80 and from 16.95 and 14.69 to 8.79 and 6.886 (figures 3 and 4). figure 3. cr related to the targets 4 and 5 hours in all trials. figure 4. fa related to the targets 4 and 5 hours in all trials. automatic and controlled processing 780 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ second learned sequence (4th, 5th, 6th trials) as mentioned above, cr and fa of the fourth, fifth and sixth trials are presented in tables 1 and 2. a repeated measures analysis of variance was carried out with two within subject factors: 2 (contextual features: with vs. without contextual cue) x 3 (sequences: fourth, fifth and sixth trials). with reference to both cr and fa, the “sequences” factor showed significant effects, respectively f(2, 238) = 218.56, p < .0001, d = 0.90 and f(2, 238) = 78.45, p < .0001, d = 0.81. this result indicated that the subjects automated the new target both in condition with and without contextual cue, from 35.50 and 27.43 to 37. 91 and 33.90 and from 13.58 and 10.74 to 6.43 and 6.25. similarly, in this sequence task, the contextual cue was added as a counterbalancing condition, and, as expected, it had no statistical effect. target shift (from 4 to 5 o’clock, from 3rd to 4th trials) cr of the third and fourth trials are presented in table 1. to examine the role of contextual features, t-test for dependent measures was carried out. we compared the performance in trials in which the target clock-face was shifted (3rd and 4th trials), in both conditions. results showed no significant effect in the condition with the contextual cue, t(119) = 0,34; p = .61. a significant effect in the condition without contextual cue was found, t(119) = 4.41, p < .05. as expected, without contextual cue, the subjects showed a loss of processing speed in the trial in which the target changed. whereas the subjects did not show a loss of processing speed in the trials with contextual cue. these results evidenced the role of contextual features in flexibility. intermixed task (7th trial) cr of the seventh trial is presented in table 1. to examine the role of contextual features, t-test for dependent measures was carried out. we compared the performance between the sixth and seventh trials in both conditions. results showed no significant effect in the condition with contextual cue for the two clock-face targets, t(119) = 0.16; p = .81 and t(119) = 0,02, p < .62. as expected, a significant effect in the condition without contextual cue for both target 4 and 5 was found, respectively t(119) = 8.23, p < .03, and t(119) = 6.26, p < .05. similarly, in the intermixed task, the participants showed a loss of processing speed without contextual cue. discussion the specific aim of the present study was to demonstrate that participants can increase processing speed (automatization) of two sequence tasks, and that such increment can be tied to contextual features associated with the two tasks. the first goal was to induce an automatization process of two sequence tasks. secondly, we examined whether contextual features influenced flexibility on the learned sequences. as expected, the results showed that when subjects identified the same target stimulus on the first and second learned sequence, the speed of execution and the accuracy (decrease in the number of errors) increased. therefore, performance improved through exercise, and, the two sequence tasks were learned progressively. these results are in line with the classical theories of skill acquisition (fitts & posner, 1967) for which the performance becomes automatized, and there may be an increment of speed and decrement of errors, as a funcfabio, caprì, & romano 781 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tion of practice (d’angelo, 2012, 2013, 2014; ruitenberg et al., 2012a, 2012b, 2015; ruitenberg, abrahamse, & verwey, 2013). with reference to the second goal, results indicated that contextual features influenced flexibility on the learned sequences. more precisely, the target shift (unexpected change of the stimulus to detect), which requires reactivation of the controlled processes, produced a loss of processing speed in trials without contextual-cue, whereas, in the condition with contextual-cue the subjects did not show loss of processing speed. furthermore, we also found loss of processing speed when the two targets were randomly intermixed in the without contextualcue condition compared to the condition with contextual-cue. thus, it seems plausible to assume that contextual features play an important role in automatization processes. the difference between the performance in the target shift and in the intermixed task reveals that the benefits of automation are higher and more significant when the subject was presented the contextual-cue. these results are in line with literature on context-specific proportion congruent effects showing evidence for flexible transfer of context-specific control across different items (bugg & crump, 2012; crump, brosowsky, & milliken, 2016; crump & logan, 2010; crump & milliken, 2009; crump, milliken, leboe-mcgowan, leboe-mcgowan, & gao, 2018). it is interesting to note that when participants identified the same target on the first and second learned sequence, the contextual cue had no effects. these two sequences implied activation of the automatic processes. in addition, the process became more automatic after the first learned sequence, and the controlled processes were again needed at the start of the second learned sequence. instead, when the subjects simultaneously detected two targets in the intermixed task, the contextual cue showed a significant effect. this task required the activation of both controlled and automatic processes. thus, all the results indicate that participants can switch between both processes and that context cues facilitate this switching. therefore, it is reasonable to assume that contextual features facilitate the activation of controlled and automatic processes and that a learned task can become more flexible through the inclusion of context-specific features. in light of the above, the present study aim to fill the knowledge gaps about the conditions under which the contextual cue is involved in the automatic processing. in particular, with reference to previous studies (d’angelo, 2012, 2013, 2014), this work is based on some substantial methodological differences which could explain the different results. the design of this experiment doesn’t include a practice phase, because this can facilitate the rapid learning of the two sequence tasks. the intermixed phase of the circles is controlled by the two base-line sequences of the first and second learned circle sequences. since both sequences are base-line controlled, it is reasonable to assume that the only change between the conditions with and without contextual cue is due to the facilitation of contextual features. moreover, d’angelo et al. (2012, 2013, 2014) employed a localization task in which two sequences were used to assign the location of the target on every trial; the location of two targets was determined by two complementary sequences that were derived from the artificial grammars used in their previous research. this localization task consisted of two main phases, a training phase and a transfer phase. while, in this study, we used a visual search task with two learned sequences phases and one intermixed phase. given the different results between our work and previous studies, probably, the type of task can reflect the absence or presence of reliance on contextual features. other previous studies investigated the conditions that promote feature search (bacon & egeth, 1994; leber & egeth, 2006a, 2006b; leonard & egeth, 2008). more specifically, graves and egeth (2015) analyzed the condiautomatic and controlled processing 782 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tions under which the resistance to attentional capture can be found. they employed a visual search task in which the shape of the target was a circle with other shapes as distractor stimuli (diamond, square and triangle). they performed three experiments to examine the conditions in which the effect of color uncertainty of shape stimuli can be observed. the results of experiment 1 indicated that attentional capture occurs when the learning of an association between the shape and a particular color or colors was prevented. whereas, in experiments 2 and 3, the attentional capture did not occur even when most color or singleton color had two possible values. probably, in these experiments the color of the shapes was an unable contextual cue to determine an automatic processing. anyway, it is possible that other factors could explain the interplay among contextual cue learning, visual attention and task switching, such as: the type of shape and the experience with the salient feature of the distractor. future works could test this hypothesis. in short, we assume that the effects of context are a consequence of the experimental design used. future research is required to support for this view. anyway, the current study introduces significant novelty about the methodological strategies under which is possible to analyze the effect of contextual features on automatic processing of two learned sequences. from a conceptual point of view, the present study suggests that the classical distinction between automatic and controlled processing as separable processes can be softened, as the automatic processes can gradually become flexible and context-dependent, as shown in this work. also, our findings have a theoretical implication; they highlight the necessity to reconsider the classical theories and support the refined theories of automaticity, which assume more flexibility and adaptability of automatic processing (fabio, 2017; fabio, caprì, buzzai, pittalà, & gangemi, 2019; kiefer, 2007, 2012; kiefer & martens, 2010; moors & dehouwer, 2006; naccache et al., 2002; neumann, 1990). from the prospective of refined theories, the flexibility reported in this study can be explained as the result of reliance on two contextual-specific features, which are incorporated in the task. the inclusion of these context features can in turn lead to context-specific expression of the learned task when those contextual features are presented and are able to effectively cue the retrieval of appropriate knowledge. in conclusion, the present study highlights two key points: the first concerns the possibility that context-specific features can affect the learned task and can implement flexibility in automatic processing; and the second concerns the revision of theories on automaticity in the direction of the complex model in which automatic and controlled processes are conceptualized as two continuous processes which interact with each other. it is instructive to look at the role of contextual features in a cognitive task from a complex prospective, by recognizing that human performance often results from an interplay between automatic and controlled processing and these processes may be mediated by systems that evolve to satisfy the need for operation in a complex environment, where attention must be guided to process selectively critical stimuli. compliance with ethical standards the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest and no funding. all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. fabio, caprì, & romano 783 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we would like to thank all participants for their cooperation, effort and kindness throughout the study. references abrahamse, e. l., & verwey, w. b. 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(2015). theory of mind development in adolescence and early adulthood: the growing complexity of recursive thinking ability. europe's journal of psychology, 11, 112-124. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829 xu, y., li, y., ding, w., & lu, f. (2014). controlled versus automatic processes which is dominant to safety the moderating effect of inhibitory control. plos one, 9, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087881 about the authors tindara caprì is a adjunct professor and psychologist. her research areas are: attention, automatic and controlled processes and adhd. she is the author of several international and national publications. rosa angela fabio is full professor of general psychology at university of messina. she is the author of several international and national publications including several books. her research areas are: automatic and controlled processes, adhd, neuroplasticity, rett syndrome and gifted children. martino romano is a psychologist. she is doing research on general psychology. automatic and controlled processing 788 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 773–788 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1746 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00221-012-3193-6 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00426-011-0388-6 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2013.04.005 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.humov.2015.01.006 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0894-4105.19.4.532 https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs15516709cog2703_8 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-295x.84.2.127 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v11i1.829 https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0087881 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ automatic and controlled processing (introduction) method participants task procedure measurements statical analyses results first learned sequence (1st, 2nd, 3rd trials) second learned sequence (4th, 5th, 6th trials) target shift (from 4 to 5 o’clock, from 3rd to 4th trials) intermixed task (7th trial) discussion compliance with ethical standards (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors a journey towards meaning: an existential psychobiography of maya angelou research reports a journey towards meaning: an existential psychobiography of maya angelou nadene harisunker 1, carol du plessis 2 [1] department of psychosocial health, north west university, vtc, gauteng, south africa. [2] school of psychology and counselling, university of southern queensland, ipswich, australia. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 received: 2020-12-21 • accepted: 2021-05-05 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: carol du plessis, university of southern queensland, ipswich campus, po box 4393, raceview lpo, raceview, qld, 4305, australia. e-mail: carol.duplessis@usq.edu.au abstract this psychobiography focuses on meaning making in the early life and young adulthood of acclaimed african american author maya angelou (1928-2014) through the lens of frankl’s existential psychology with a specific focus on the tri-dimensional nature of human beings and the fundamental triad. the primary data source was angelou’s own published autobiographies, which contain an in-depth narrative of her early life and young adulthood. data was extracted, organised and analysed according to established qualitative research methods as well as through the identification of psychological saliences. the search for meaning within angelou’s own narrative of her life was clearly apparent in the thematic analysis. angelou’s narrative of her journey through the physical (childhood and adolescence), psychological (travelling and searching years) and spiritual (sensemaking years) dimensions was core to her meaning making. the three tiers of the fundamental triad (awareness of meaning, will to meaning, freedom of will) were present in various aspects of angelou’s existential journey, manifesting as a focus on choice, responsibility, purpose, and acceptance. this study provides a more in-depth understanding of meaning making processes in the lives of extraordinary individuals, as well as contributing to the development of the research method of psychobiography, with a specific focus on meaning making. keywords psychobiography, maya angelou, victor frankl, existential psychology, meaning making, fundamental triad this psychobiographical study explores meaning making processes in the early life and young adulthood of maya angelou, an acclaimed african american female poet, author, playwright, and teacher. angelou chronicled this period of her life through her extensive autobiographies containing personal commentary and reflexive engagement with her socio-historical milieu (angelou, 2004). the books, beginning with i know why the caged bird sings (angelou, 2004), span the first 40 years of her life and are used in this analysis to chart her engagement with, and relationship to, meaning. as such, this analysis focuses on the first 40 years of her life, in keeping with the focus in her autobiographies. maya angelou: a brief biography maya angelou was born marguerite ann johnson on the 4th of april 1928. her parents separated soon after her birth (agins, 2013; angelou, 2004; lupton, 1998) and angelou spent her early childhood years living with her paternal grandmother (momma) in arkansas (agins, 2013; angelou, 2013; lupton, 1998). momma provided a strict religious upbringing that was devoid of any overt expressions of love – both physical and verbal (angelou, 2004, 2013). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5491&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in 1934, when angelou was 6 years old, she moved to live with her mother. angelou reported experiencing low self-esteem and poor body image and she frequently compared herself unfavourably to her beautiful mother, brother, and father (angelou, 2004; lupton, 1998). in 1935 angelou was sexually abused and subsequently raped by mr f., her mother’s boyfriend. when angelou told her uncles about her abuse, they responded by beating mr f. to death. in her autobiography angelou notes that she came to believe her voice was deadly and poisonous, and she became selectively mute for several years. angelou moved between living with her mother, grandmother, and father throughout her teenage years (agins, 2013; lupton, 1998). although she excelled academically this was also a time of tumult. for example, in 1943 she spent a month living in a junkyard with fellow teenagers after a physical altercation with her father’s girlfriend. angelou also became pregnant as a teenager and her son, guy, was born in 1945. following her graduation from high school, angelou worked at various jobs. she was insecure and acted out in ways she believed would help her fit in (angelou, 2004). two specific incidents are highlighted in her autobiographies: once when she prostituted herself for her boyfriend in order to ensure his continued investment in her and once when she argued with a white staff member at a shop due to her need to prove herself superior (angelou, 2004). during this time angelou also experienced frequent anxiety and guilt concerning her role as a mother as she felt tension between her desire to be a perfect mother and her desire to explore her career (angelou, 2004). relationships also played an important role in angelou’s development during this time. in her autobiographies, she notes that she often became submissive and changed who she was in order to be accepted by her partner. in 1953 she married tosh angelos, a white man with whom she believed she could have a perfect life. however, she failed to find meaning and purpose in the relationship, and when the marriage ended she rediscovered a love for dance that characterised the next ten years of her life. angelou worked as a professional dancer, addressing her insecurities and chafing against the control of a second, fairly short, unofficial marriage to vus, a south african freedom fighter. following the end of this relationship angelou moved to ghana where she grappled with her ‘africanness’ and eventually accepted her african american identity (angelou, 2004, 2013). once she returned to america in 1965, angelou continued to move frequently and her dance career gradually gave way to a career in political activism and writing. she became a successful playwright and author with a career spanning the next five decades. one of her major contributions as an author was a six volume autobiography, published between 1969 and 2002, charting the first 40 years of her life prior to her career as a writer. these volumes, as well as a seventh volume that focuses on her relationship with her mother and grandmother, are the primary data set for this study. angelou died on may 28th 2014 at 86 years of age. her legacy includes her incredible corpus of writing as well as significant contributions to the civil rights movement and to recognition for female black authors. she has been described as a warm, kind, generous, powerful, and phenomenal individual (cadet, 2014; snow, 2014) and her main message was that “[p]eople must work to overcome their hardships with dignity and view the world with hope and love” (agins, 2013, p. 101). the multilayered chronological chart (mcc; see hiller, 2011) in table 1 below captures core moments in angelou’s life in accordance with various themes evidenced in her narrative – specifically relationships and career. it also illustrates the time period covered by each of the first six volumes1 of her autobiography. 1) note that there is a 7th volume, mom & me & mom, published in 2013, but this does not relate to a specific time period but instead focuses on her relationship with her mother and grandmother. harisunker & du plessis 211 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 multilayered chronological chart: maya angelou childhood (1928–1940) teenage years (1941-1945) searching for escape/ pleasure (1945-1955) travelling and self discovery (1955–1965) the sense making years (1965-2014) biographical events 1928: born 1931: moved to arkansas 1933: first contact with parents 1935: moved to live with mother 1935: molested and raped by mr f. 1935: mr f. was beaten to death by maya’s uncles 1935–1940: selectively mute 1935: returned to arkansas 1941: returned to live with mother 1943: lived briefly with father until she was stabbed by step-mother and lived on the streets for 1 month 1945: returned to arkansas 1946: returned to live with mother 1948: guy kidnapped 1953: death of grandmother 1953: began to use the name maya 1955–1957: moved several times within usa 1962: moved to cairo 1962: moved to ghana 1962: guy was involved in a serious car accident 1965: returned to usa 1965: guy was involved in another car accident 1966: looked after guy 1967: returned to new york 1982: moved to north carolina 1990: mother diagnosed with cancer 1992: mother passed away relationships 1945: birth of son (guy) 1948: dated an older man and agreed to work as a prostitute for him 1953: married tosh (marriage lasted 2 years) 1961: verbally married vus (south african freedom fighter) 1962: relationship with vus ended 1973: married paul de feu 1981: divorced paul de feu career 1940: graduated top of her class 1943: became first black female street conductor 1945: graduated highschool 1948: worked briefly as a prostitute, along with other insecure jobs 1953: began a career as a dancer 1954-1955: two year dance tour of europe 1956: worked as a singer, became interested in writing 1957: joined harlem writers guild 1967: decided to focus on a career as a writer received many accolades, including: 1971: nominated for pulitzer prize 1973: acted in a broadway play 1976: nominated for an emmy 1981: appointed reynolds professor in american studies 1993: recited poem at us presidential inauguration autobiography 1928-1945 i know why the caged bird sings (published 1969) 1946–1947 gather together in my name (published 1974) 1945–1955 singing’ and swinging’ and getting’ merry like christmas (published 1976) 1952–1957 the heart of a woman (published 1981) 1962–1965 all god’s children need travelling shoes (published 1986) 1965–1968 a song flung up to heaven (published 2002) theoretical framework: frankl’s existential psychology this study explores meaning making using frankl’s tri-dimensional view of humans as well as his fundamental triad, with a focus on a striving to meaning and meaning through struggle (bruner, 2012). frankl’s theory, developed in the 1920s and refined through his experiences in the nazi concentration camps, is existential in nature and emphasises individual choice and meaning making. frankl’s theory highlights major concepts that are fundamental to meaning making such as an awareness of the spiritual dimension, the responsibleness to meaning, and the purposeful nature of meaning making (wong, 2014). the core aspects of frankl’s theory used in this psychobiography are discussed below. psychobiography of maya angelou 212 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tri-dimensional view of humans within frankl’s theory, humans are viewed as tri-dimensional, consisting of a biological/physical body, the psychologi­ cal/inherited self and finally, a noetic (spiritual) dimension. for frankl, the ‘noos’ or ‘mind’ constitutes the very being of humans (wong, 2014). while frankl accepts that there are drives (biological/physical and psychological) within humans and that societal circumstances impact individuals, within his theory the spiritual ‘noetic’ self is in control over and above these (morgan, 2012). the spiritual dimension is a defiant power within humans that provides for transcendence from both instinctual/internally and externally determined sources and allows for meaning making (ras, 2000). within this spiritual dimension, meaning making is unique to each individual, and each individual experiences unique obstacles to meaning making, which usually occur when the spiritual dimension is ignored and conflicts arise. these must be engaged with to ensure meaning making in a human life. fundamental triad the fundamental triad forms the basis of meaning and consists of three facets: an awareness of the existence of meaning, a will to meaning, and a freedom to will. these are all inherent to the noetic dimension of human beings and are all interlinked (mun, 2005). an awareness of the existence of meaning is the first aspect of the fundamental triad. the spiritual core within all individuals enables the process of awareness, allowing for the discovery of meaning. once there is awareness of a spiritual sphere, there is a striving for meaning and therefore a realisation that meaning exists in the world. meaning can never be created but only discovered through indirect means. therefore, all that people can do is pursue what fulfils them and gives them a greater purpose. in addition, the discovery of meaning comes as a result of extending beyond the individual self through the acknowledgement of social reality and others within this reality. meaning exists in every moment of an individual’s life; it is the individual’s responsibility to discover these meaning moments (frankl, 1969). the second aspect of the fundamental triad is the will to meaning, and it is this feature that makes every individual unique as they strive to discover their own meaning in life. a pivotal tenet of frankl’s theory is the motivating and striving force of the human spirit (frankl, 1967, 1969). the will is a driving force; defined by its future orientation, its inclination away from self-absorption and the movement towards experiencing meaning outside of the self (meyer, 1997). the will to meaning is defined by self-awareness and a way of being that is inclined towards growth. conflicts arise but they are necessary and contribute to the discovery of meaning. an individual can be understood through the situations and experiences that they find meaningful and the way in which they direct their energy to discover meaning (frankl, 1967). the third component of the fundamental triad is the freedom to will. every individual has the freedom to make choices in their lives that lead to the discovery of meaning. freedom to will lies in the responsibleness of a person: responsibleness is within the internal locus of control of the individual while responsibility entails an obligation that is imposed from outside the individual (fabry, 1987). an individual is not driven to meaning but is free to make choices. individuals are often unaware that allowing their circumstances to control them is making a choice to relinquish their freedom (fabry, 1987; frankl, 1965, 1985, 2000). aim of the present study the primary aim of this study was to explore meaning making in the early life and young adulthood (until approximate­ ly age 40) of maya angelou, through the lens of frankl’s existential framework. this aim was addressed by meeting the following specific objectives: 1. developing a psychological portrait of maya angelou using psychobiography methods and an mcc. this portrait focused on her development until the age of 40. 2. explore meaning making in the early life and young adulthood of maya angelou through the lens of frankl’s tridimensional view of human nature as well as the fundamental triad. harisunker & du plessis 213 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method psychobiography aims to develop an understanding of an individual life through the application of a theoretical frame­ work (ponterotto, 2013, 2014; runyan 2005; schultz, 2005). psychobiography involves both case study and narrative research (schultz, 2005). the theoretical framework provides a lens through which to view a biographical account from a psychological perspective in order to arrive at a greater understanding of an individual life (elms, 1994). in order to ensure credibility and trustworthiness, all psychobiographies follow rigorous methods of data collection and data analysis, and follow certain ethical guidelines. these processes are discussed in detail below. data collection angelou produced extensive autobiographies detailing her life story from age three to age 40. these autobiographies, published in seven volumes, constituted the primary source of data for this analysis (angelou, 2004, 2013). information regarding the remainder of her life was accessed through secondary sources, including biographies and critical literary works. however the primary focus of the analysis was on the earlier years of her life, as this is the period presented in her autobiographies. ethical approval was not sought for this study as the data used is in the public domain and the subject of the psychobiography is deceased. however, ethical guidelines specific to psychobiography were adhered to including ensuring that no confidential information was disclosed in the published psychobiography and ensuring that the psychobiographical subject was treated with respect and dignity (ponterotto & reyonlds, 2017). data extraction the data extraction process for this psychobiography followed the guidelines provided by miles, huberman, and saldaña (2014). in the first step, data condensation was used to reduce the volume of data. two methods were selected to condense data into meaningful units: alexander’s indicators of psychological saliency and schultz’s prototypical scenes (schultz, 2005). both techniques comprised a framework used to elicit the psychologically salient aspects present within the data to ensure that valid conclusions were drawn (perry, 2012; schultz, 2005). data identified as psychologically salient was extracted from the primary data sources and collated into a single document. the data was then organised so that patterns and themes could be identified. data was first organised in a chronological fashion and this chronology forms the basis of the mcc (hiller, 2011) presented in the introduction to this paper. data analysis a deductive thematic analysis was conducted, where the two triads from frankl’s theory (the view of a person and the fundamental triad) were used to identify themes in the data. this resulted in the identification of themes that were directly related to the concepts within frankl’s theory. in order to ensure that themes were not artificially imposed on the data, runyan’s (1981) criteria for good psychobiographical interpretation were applied to the analysis. this deductive thematic analysis process was cyclical in nature as there was a continuous vacillation between data and conclusions to ensure trustworthiness and quality of the research (miles et al., 2014). findings and discussion the analysis process resulted in the identification of all aspects of frankl’s triads within angelou’s chronological narrative in the first 40 years of her life. in the sections below the two triads are discussed separately. tri-dimensional view of humans frankl proposed that individuals move through the different dimensions throughout their lives, and this appears to have been true of angelou’s progression in the first 40 years of her life. beginning in childhood, she moved from a focus on the biological dimension, through the psychological dimension before finally embracing the spiritual dimension in her psychobiography of maya angelou 214 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ early 40s as she moved into travelling and self-discovery. this progression is presented in figure 1 below and discussed in more detail in the following paragraphs. figure 1 maya angelou’s progression through the three dimensions throughout her early life and teenage years, angelou appears to have been absorbed with her body and her physicality. this is apparent in the opening sections of her first autobiography, where she writes of an intense dissonance between her sense of self and her body: “wouldn’t they be surprised when one day i woke out of my black ugly dream … [i was] … a too-big negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth” (angelou, 2004, p. 8). in combination with her dislike of her physical appearance, angelou also experienced an intense need for physical affection and intimacy that was unmet during her childhood. angelou was never hugged or held by her grandmother (referred to as momma) who was embarrassed by any show of emotion that was not directly linked to religion. angelou recalled that her grandmother would have “been more surprised than i had she taken me in her arms … her world was bordered on all sides with work, duty, religion” (angelou, 2004, p. 47). the lack of physical affection became linked to her dislike of her body, which made her almost desperate for validation and connection. “i wasn’t pretty or even cute. that woman who looked like a movie star deserved a better looking daughter than me.” (angelou, 2013, p. 14). during this stage in her life, the young angelou equated good looks with worthiness and believed that her physical appearance made her unworthy of receiving love. the entrenchment within the biological and psychological dimensions continued throughout childhood and was compounded by angelou’s experience of childhood sexual abuse. angelou was traumatised by the abuse and was confused by the fact that she also enjoyed the physical intimacy and longed for it (angelou, 2004), as it was lacking in her other relationships. this event defined angelou’s relationships with men through most of her adolescent and early adult years and led to angelou developing distorted views on love and sex. in these relationships, young angelou would completely ignore her own feelings in favour of those of her partner: “back in the car, it never occurred to me to put up resistance…i wanted to do what he wanted, so i sat quiet” (angelou, 2004, p. 241). angelou wanted to completely immerse her entire being into her relationships and had a poor sense of self as she mentioned that “the naturally lonely person does not look for comfort in love, but accepts the variables in due course” (angelou, 2004, p. 341). the most extreme example of this occurred when angelou willingly worked as a prostitute at the request of her partner. as she moved into adolescence and early adulthood, angelou continued to experience unhappiness with her physical appearance, but this became increasingly linked to psychological conflicts related to trying to clarify her harisunker & du plessis 215 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ identity and roles. she became fixated on certain aspects of herself, such as her need to be a perfect mother and her striving for a dance career. she experienced extreme guilt over her abandonment of guy (her only child) but was simultaneously intent on ignoring this in her search for temporary happiness. this resulted in her becoming depressed and contemplating suicide (angelou, 2004). “… i can’t see any reason for living … i’m so unhappy. and i have done such harm to [guy]” (angelou, 2004, p. 611). angelou’s psychological conflicts (see frankl, 1965; wessels, 2013) were manifested in her continued determination to prove herself to others and her desire to be seen as perfect, admired, and successful. she desperately wanted love, belonging, and acceptance (angelou, 2004) and believed that she needed to act a certain way in order to achieve these things. her need for acceptance resulted in her acting in ways that were inauthentic: “i had spent so many years being people other than myself …” (angelou, 2004, p. 240). angelou’s movement away from the biological and psychological dimensions and into the spiritual dimension appears to be marked by two themes. firstly, her discovery of herself as a dancer allowed her to reconcile with the physical dimension and secondly, her discovery of her voice through writing appears to have allowed her to enter the spiritual dimension in her ability to find meaning through self-expression. towards the end of the period covered in her autobiographies, as she approached her 40s, angelou began to be more accepting towards herself as she wrote that “love was what i had been waiting for. i had done grown up things out of childish ignorance or juvenile bravado, but now i began to mature” (angelou, 2004, p .242). angelou’s description of love (angelou, 2004, 2013) appears to mark her transcendence beyond self-absorption into the spiritual dimension (see frankl, 1969; morgan, 2012) and she began to start working through her conflicts. she stopped focusing on her image and fearing rejection and moved to embracing the love of family and friends as well as finding ways, through racial activism and her career, to share this love. based on her ability to reflect back on her early years in her autobiographies, it would appear that this ability to make meaning within the spiritual dimension persisted into the remainder of her life and career. reflecting back on her earlier life in one of her autobiographies, angelou (2013) wrote: … the ship of my life might or might not be sailing on calm seas. the challenging days of my existence might or might not be bright and promising … i maintain an attitude of gratitude. if pessimism insists on occupying my thoughts, i remember there is always tomorrow. today, i am blessed (p. 137). this quote epitomises the journey described in this analysis, where angelou moved away from the physical and psychological crises that typified her early life and young adulthood and towards a more spiritual dimension. her youthful search for hedonism gave way to a search for purpose and fulfilment in her life. she began to feel uncomfortable about her life and these tensions signalled her awareness of meaning. “i decided that the time had come to stop my dangerous habits like smoking, drinking and cursing … imagine i might really become somebody. someday.” (angelou, 2013, p. 81). angelou wanted to transcend beyond herself by helping, loving, and educating others. once she found her purpose in her career and love and security within her family, angelou felt comfortable within herself. she had acknowledged that meaning existed, she was motivated to discover meaning, and she believed that she was free to discover it no matter her circumstances (frankl, 1985). it is interesting that angelou chose to conclude her autobiographical recount at this point, as it clearly indicated a point at which she felt that a phase of her life had been completed. fundamental triad unlike the tri-dimensional view of humans where angelou clearly progresses through the various dimensions of being, there is no clear chronological development of meaning in angelou’s life as recounted in her autobiographies. instead, she appears to have engaged with each of the three components of the triad throughout the period of her adult life (age approximately 20 to 40) recounted in the autobiographies, developing an increasing awareness of and engagement with each aspect of meaning as her life progressed. this may be because the account we have of her meaning making is retrospective (in the form of autobiographies) and so the very process of writing for angelou constituted a discovery of meaning. however, although there is no chronological development it is still possible to trace each aspect of the fundamental triad within angelou’s life narrative. psychobiography of maya angelou 216 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ angelou’s awareness of the existence of meaning was a gradual process. she was aware of the existence of god from childhood but did not have a spiritual connection until her early to mid-adulthood years. although young angelou grew up in a religious home and attended church frequently, she was cynical about religion. during her teenage years, angelou was disconnected from religion and focussed on her career and academics. angelou initially became aware of meaning not through organised religion, but through the realisation that there was a purpose and a fulfilment to be sought through a career. angelou’s reaction to her rejection by the army “… my life has no centre, no purpose…” (angelou, 2004, p. 308) was an early foreshadowing of the meaning she attached to her career. she went on to discover meaning throughout her involvement in her careers as a dancer, activist and writer – she wrote that “dancing liberated me and even made me feel as if my body had a reason to be” (angelou, 2013, p. 110). her involvement in racial politics connected her to the discovery of meaning as she was able to transcend beyond herself to be concerned about other people. angelou was aware of the tensions within herself and this caused her to search for something beyond herself as is evident in the various movements in her career throughout her life: “my position had always been that no one was responsible for my life except me.” (angelou, 2004, p. 755). although the autobiographies do not cover the later years of angelou’s life, it seems likely that her career as a writer allowed her to discover meaning through her writing as she reflected on her life. thus, in adulthood she appears to have experienced a settling down and an increased spirituality and connection with others (agins, 2013; angelou, 2004; frankl, 1969). the second component of the fundamental triad, the will to meaning, is evident throughout angelou’s narrative. as a child, she refused to believe in the passivity of momma and the people in arkansas. instead, she believed that the racial system could be changed, and she was determined to do something about it. one of the first instances of her asserting herself was with her employer mrs cullinan: “for a week i looked into mrs cullinan’s face as she called me mary … when i heard mrs cullinan scream, “mary!” i picked up the casserole and … the green cups … i let them fall on the tiled floor” (angelou, 2004, p. 87). this became constant in her life and was especially prominent during the years when she was involved in black activism (agins, 2013; angelou, 2004). it is important to note the shift in angelou’s will to meaning. her assertations and defiance against the entrenched racial political system were initially reactive and involved working through psychological conflicts related to her insecurities surrounding race. her will to meaning arose from her understanding of the system where “the historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state of victimisation. when access to a better life has been denied often enough … one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts.” (angelou, 2004, p. 461). for angelou, this thinking indicated a shift in how she perceived race and relations, where she started to increasingly assert that black people should not just accept a victim identity but instead should fight for their place in society. another theme that provides evidence of angelou’s will to meaning was her involvement in her career. she wanted a career that would fulfil her and give her purpose. she tried several careers throughout her lifetime, each time seeking a career that would provide her with purpose and make her feel fulfilled. she enjoyed dancing and writing and this allowed her to transcend biological and psychological issues and fully engage with life and the meaning making process (angelou, 2004). she knew that she was free to make her own choices and was also responsible for them (frankl, 1967, 1969; meyer, 1997). the third component of the fundamental triad is freedom to will, where individuals are free to explore their lives in the discovery for meaning but must also accept responsibility for every choice that they make (frankl, 1985). angelou believed that it was important to explore and experience life to the fullest. she wanted to be active and engaged in all aspects of her life and was especially vehement against the racial system. she believed that she was free to act against the racial systems imposed on black people (lupton, 1998). she was involved in organisations during adulthood as chronicled in her autobiographies and felt free to question her entrenched racial assumptions. her freedom to will is evident in her movement towards settling down and accepting herself as she realised that “as always, again. we survived. the depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls … i was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful negro race.” (angelou, 2004, p. 143). she began to embrace meaning making in her life as she discovered the freedom within her to do so, as well as accepting the responsibility for her own life. angelou took responsibility for her choices and felt that she had to carry out racial activism in a responsible manner (agins, 2013; angelou, 2004, 2013; frankl, 1985). angelou also felt responsible for her career; she believed that she had the freedom to choose the jobs that she wanted and the responsibility to be the best she could in these jobs. racial politics and her harisunker & du plessis 217 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ career were always a freedom to will for angelou and motivated her throughout her narrative. angelou believed that, in general, she was responsible for any choices or decisions that she made, even those that were considered mistakes. this included her becoming pregnant with guy: for eons, it seemed, i had accepted my plight as the hapless, put-upon victim of fate and the furies, but this time i had to face the fact that i had brought my new catastrophe upon myself … so i hefted the burden of pregnancy at sixteen onto my own shoulders where it belonged (angelou, 2004, p. 218). her responsibility moved to responsibleness where she felt free to carry out her purpose and therefore have freedom in meaning making. a poignant quote by angelou perfectly summarises her engagement with life and the importance of meaning making: … how did i get to be maya angelou … i knew that i had become the woman i am because of my grandmother i loved and the mother i came to adore … love heals … a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions … this book has been written to examine some of the ways love heals and helps a person to climb impossible heights and rise from immeasurable depths (angelou, 2013, p. x). limitations and direction for future research the most notable limitation of this study is the specific focus on meaning making, which precluded the discussion of other aspects of angelou’s life (e.g. her literary achievements, her activism). future research should aim to utilise multiple theoretical lenses, such as those that explore creativity or social change, to offer a more comprehensive portrait of this extraordinary life. this study did indicate that frankl’s theory provides a useful lens through which to analyse the development of meaning in an individual life and as such it is suggested that future research in psychobiography make use of this theory. a further limitation is the focus on the first 40 years of angelou’s life. this limitation is based on the period of time covered in angelou’s autobiographies and as such is inevitable due to the nature of the available data. future research may wish to expand the data set by including more extensive biographies and perhaps also interviews with angelou’s friends and family to develop a portrayal of meaning making in the period of angelou’s life not covered by her autobiographies. conclusion the primary aim of the study was to explore and reach an understanding of meaning making in the early life and young adulthood of maya angelou, as illustrated in her autobiographies, through the application of frankl’s existential psychology. the article utilised two major concepts within frankl’s theory: that of the tri-dimensional nature of humans and the fundamental triad. the tri-dimensional nature of humans indicated angelou’s movement from the biological dimension, through the psychological and achieving meaning making in the spiritual dimension. her childhood, adoles­ cent and early adult years were defined by biological concerns and psychological conflicts. she was able to come to terms with these and move towards transcendence into a spiritual dimension of existence (frankl, 1967, 1969), which she seems to have reached by the time that her autobiographical narrative ceases. the fundamental triad draws from and builds on this view of humanity, as there needs to be an internal striving toward meaning making before understanding how meaning making works in a human life. maya angelou worked through insecurities and had become aware of meaning during her adult years and had an active will to meaning and freedom to will. she was motivated to create and to educate. she wanted to tell people about her experiences and struggles so that they could learn from them (lupton, 1998). she wanted to spread love and peace across the world. she had the freedom to choose her attitude and accepted responsibility for her life. she chose to do something worthy and purposeful with her life (agins, 2013; angelou, 2013; frankl, 1985). psychobiography of maya angelou 218 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 210–220 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5491 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: financial support was received from a merit scholarship for the first authors masters’ dissertation. the merit certificate was awarded at the university of johannesburg, gauteng, south africa. the article drew on the dissertation. acknowledgments: this study forms part of a dissertation that was completed by the first author under the supervision of the second author while the first author was a student at the university of johannesburg. both authors wish to acknowledge the support of the university of johannesburg in the completion the original dissertation. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references agins, d. b. 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(2014, december). maya angelou remembered by jon snow. retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/21/maya-angelou-remembered-by-jon-snow wessels, n. j. (2013). a study into the relevancy of logotherapy in the modern era, and the effect of its application on south african teenagers. retrieved from streetschool.co.za wong, p. t. p. (2014). viktor frankl’s meaning-seeking model and positive psychology. in a. batthyany & p. russo-netzer (eds.), meaning in positive and existential psychology (pp. 149-184). new york, ny, usa: springer. about the authors nadene harisunker is a clinical psychologist (registered in south africa) and a lecturer in the school of psychosocial health at north west university. nadene has an interest in working with severe pathologies such as personality disorders and severe trauma often experienced within south africa. she is passionate about her work as a psychologist and lecturer and enjoys disseminating knowledge. nadene is planning on carrying out further research related to meaning making using the psychobiographical method. dr. carol du plessis is a clinical psychologist (registered in australia and south africa) and a senior lecturer in the school of psychology and counselling at the university of southern queensland, australia. carol’s research specializes in qualitative small sample and narrative methods, and she is passionate about sharing the stories of vulnerable and marginalized communities. in addition to psychobiography she is currently working on projects related to the experiences of transgender incarcerated people, lived experiences of suicide attempt survivors, and methods of teaching counselling online. psychobiography of maya angelou 220 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://uzspace.uzulu.ac.za https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.40.6.1070 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/21/maya-angelou-remembered-by-jon-snow http://streetschool.co.za https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychobiography of maya angelou (introduction) maya angelou: a brief biography theoretical framework: frankl’s existential psychology aim of the present study method data collection data extraction data analysis findings and discussion tri-dimensional view of humans fundamental triad limitations and direction for future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors learning to wait and be altruistic: testing a conversational training in economic education for primary school children research reports learning to wait and be altruistic: testing a conversational training in economic education for primary school children elisabetta lombardi 1, annalisa valle 1, teresa rinaldi 1, davide massaro 1, antonella marchetti 1 [1] theory of mind research unit, department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 received: 2019-12-12 • accepted: 2020-06-23 • published (vor): 2021-11-30 handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland corresponding author: elisabetta lombardi, department of psychology, largo agostino gemelli, 1 – 20125 milan, italy. e-mail: elisabetta.lombardi@unicatt.it supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract individual economic competence is important but increasingly challenging to manage due to the growing complexity of the nature of economic decisions people must make and the substantial impacts of some of these decisions on their lives. decision-making ability develops from childhood and is closely related to specific economic components and prosocial behaviour such as fairness, altruism, and delay of gratification. however, while there are financial-education programs for children and young people focusing on financial products, few studies have examined training for the psychological abilities underlying economic decision-making. to promote those psychological skills that contribute to a more socially effective decision-making, we designed and tested a conversational-based training program for primary school children using reflective thinking. a total of 110 (male = 47, female = 63) children aged 8 to 10 years (mean age = 9.71 years) from two schools in northern italy participated in the study with 55 children in a training group and 55 in a control group. all participated in pre-tests measuring their socio-economic background and economics-related skills and abilities. the training group were told stories relaying values of fairness, altruism, and delayed gratification. both groups participated in taskbased post-tests relating to fairness, altruism, and delayed gratification. results revealed that children in the training group showed significant improvement at the post-test in altruistic and investment behaviour, showing the training efficacy, suggesting that similar programs could be implemented in primary schools as foundational teaching of economics and fiscal responsibility. keywords decision making, training, altruism, intertemporal choice, investment, fairness, school-age children economic education has become an increasingly important issue in the last decade, due to the numerous changes in the economic and social context. literature has aimed at investigating economic and financial phenomena, particularly financial literacy (lusardi & mitchell, 2014), evidencing that a lack of economic-financial knowledge is disadvantageous to people lives (bucher‐koenen et al., 2017). lower levels of such knowledge, as in the case of women, have an impact on the active participation within the economy, also within the household (hung et al., 2012), and makes people vulnerable. on the contrary, high levels of financial literacy result in positive economic outcomes, that is, planning for retirement, paying bills on time, budgeting, saving, and setting financial goals (grohmann et al., 2015), and positively correlate with day-to-day financial management skills, the participation in financial markets and investments and the capacity to undertake a retirement planning. these evidences highlight the need for providing children and young people with effective financial education programs since an early age to prepare them for understanding and experiencing the economic and financial occurrences (aprea, 2015; berti et al., 2017; lombardi & ajello, 2017). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2453&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd; oecd, 2014) defines financial literacy combining three aspects: knowledge of financial concepts; financial capacity (the ability to apply this knowledge in real life); and financial inclusion (describing the opportunities and motivations for inclusion in various financial scenarios). the second aspect directly connects to decision-making—a psychological process relevant to improve good financial literacy. in fact, both the first definition of financial education (oecd, 2005) and the most recent literature identifying the key features of financial education programs (amagir et al., 2018) focusing on the importance of being able to make appropriate economic and financial choices to achieve positive economic behaviours. decision-making is a complex process, involving a number of psychological constructs, such as fairness, altruism, and the ability to delay a gratification; as for childhood, literature focuses on developing and educating decision-making skills in order to better manage goods, money and to become able to understand economic world (castelli et al., 2014; castelli et al., 2017; lombardi et al., 2017; marchetti et al., 2016). fairness can be defined through the inequity aversion concept (fehr & schmidt, 1999), that is, people’s tendency to resist inequitable outcomes. in economic transactions, fairness can lead people to give up possible profits in order to re-establish equity. this is considered a strategic approach to economic decision-making, because increases over time the chance of reciprocity: an individual can currently give up part of her/his assets to another knowing that in the future she/he will be treated fairly, thus gaining an advantage. the main task evaluating fairness is the ultimatum game (ug), an economic interactive game involving one proposer and one receiver that have to share an amount of money. fair receivers accept fair offers, in which the amount of money is similar for the two players, and refuse unfair offers, in which one of the players receives significantly more money than the other. concerning childhood, around 3–4 years of age, children show aversion to disadvantageous inequity by rejecting offers that provide for a lower good for oneself and a higher good for the other; around 8 years of age, they show aversion also to advantageous inequity, rejecting offers that provide for a higher good for oneself and a lower good for the other (smith et al., 2013). thus, the baseline for fairness shifts from an egoistic/egocentric perspective, oriented to maximize profit without considering others’ perspectives, to an equal/multicentric perspective, which allows children to play considering the partner perspective on the fairness norm (castelli et al., 2017). altruism is a predisposition of human beings to help others achieve their goals and to share valuable goods, services and information, with the long-term aim to improve the society well-being and consequently also one's own (warneken & tomasello, 2009). children learn to act altruistic behaviours on the basis of their own culture’ social norms, expecting of being reciprocated and thinking to their social reputation. altruism is studied by the dictator game (dg), where the proposer decides how much to offer to the receiver, who is obliged to accept. children start helping others and share with others already during the second/third year of life (warneken & tomasello, 2009, 2013), then propensity to altruism becomes stable at early school-age (benenson et al., 2007). furthermore, people are often called to make decisions between choices that have an immediate benefit and choices that have a greater benefit in the future. this decision is named “intertemporal choice” and regards the behaviour to act when choices in the present influence future availabilities, as in the case of saving, investment, education, health care. investigated through the delay of gratification paradigm (marchetti et al., 2014), the ability to wait for a higher award affects developmental psychology, because predicts school context adaptation, attainment of academic achievement, high salaries and good job positions in adult life (casey et al., 2011). this ability surfaces at preschool age (a turning point is around four years) and continues to develop until 8–10 years of age, when children can inhibit an immediate impulse in order to obtain future gains (lombardi et al., 2017). why a conversational training for decision-making components? analysing financial-literacy education programs, amagir and colleagues (2018) show that these programs usually teach basic concepts and/or content of the economic and financial world. authors argue that an educational approach based exclusively on knowledge has limited effectiveness (perry & morris, 2005): in order to obtain a significant improvement is important to consider the financial capability. hence, several existing programs focus training on some of personal aspects involved in economic and financial decision-making (i.e., self-confidence, perseverance, and “economic thinking,” but also mathematic competency), transferable skills, willingness to invest in oneself to achieve lombardi, valle, rinaldi et al. 307 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ economic improvements, and problem-solving skills. to become a good decision-maker (making effective decisions on a personal level that are socially acceptable from an interpersonal point of view) is important making adaptive long-terms decisions, depending on a person’s planning skills, ability to wait, and capacity to delay a gratification, all abilities studied in psychology as processes underlying the development of individuals’ social skills. moreover, a large part of daily decisions are the basis of the prosocial behaviour—costly to the individual and benefits others at the individual or group level (yamagishi et al., 2012); examples include altruism, charitable donations, and helping behaviours. böckler and colleagues (2018) identify three factors constituent prosocial behaviour that can be trained: altruistic motivated prosocial behaviours (demonstrating individual desire to enhance other’s well-being even at a cost to oneself and evaluated through, for example, the donation task or the dg); norm motivated prosocial behaviours (the tendency to enforce social norms using costly punishment) evaluated through second and third-party punishment tasks (a variation of the ug); self-reported motivated prosocial behaviours (perceiving oneself as moral and helpful) evaluated through self-reported scales. more specifically, the trainings concerning prosocial behaviours focus on: individual affec­ tive components, that is, compassion, gratitude, prosocial motivation; socio-cognitive skills, that is, perspective-taking ability; mindfulness, that is, compassion-based contemplative practices. these trainings may involve adults (parents or teachers) to train or to teach specific strategies to use with children or adolescents (e.g., šramová, 2004; valle et al., 2016) or may be applied directly children and adolescents. with regard to the latter, heck and colleagues (2018) proposed a training for primary school children focusing on the construct of fairness, demonstrating that training children in perspective-taking, influences their decisions in economic games. in light of these considerations, we involve primary school children in a conversation-based training to enhance prosocial behaviour and competencies by developing perspective-taking abilities. this conversational training applies methods used by financial education programs, such as group discussion and guided readings (amagir et al., 2018), and focuses on metacognitive ability to think about self and perspective-taking ability (böckler et al., 2018). our training use conversations as a means of co-constructing knowledge (siegal, 1999): children are guided to discuss each other’s, with the aim of discovering and accepting multiple perspectives, in order to compare different points of view and promote reflection on experiences (durlak et al., 2011). in this way, this training supports the application of the decision-making and its components, that is, altruism, fairness, and intertemporal choice, in children’s daily life. the aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the conversation-based training in fairness, altruism, and delay of gratification ability on economic decisions in children from 8 to 10 years old. we hypothesize that reflections facilitated by a conversational methodology on the issues above-mentioned will lead children to change their behaviours in decision-making from preto post-test, compared to children in the control group (cg). we expected that children evaluated at the end of the training would show more inequity aversion in the fairness test, would become more altruistic and better able to wait for a greater good than in the pre-test evaluation with respect to children of the cg. method participants initially 121 children were recruited for this study belonging to six classes (from 3rd to 5th primary school classes) from two schools in northern italy, near milan, who took part in this study. children who did not complete all the measures or children did not speak or understand italian were removed from the main dataset. six children assigned to the training group (tg) and three children assigned to the control group (cg) didn’t complete preor post-test sessions and two children, assigned to cg, had moved to italy for no more than 3 months and did not understand or speak italian. the total of participants was 110 (male = 47, female = 63) aged between 8 to 10 years (mage = 116.51 months, sd = 10.49 months). two classes for each age range participated and for every range one class was randomly assigned to the cg (n = 55, mage = 118.15 months, sd = 10.31, male = 26, female = 29) and one to the tg (n = 55, mage = 114.91, sd = 9.80, male = 21, female = 34). the tg participated in the training program, while a cg followed only the regular school program of citizenship education. children was made up of typically developing who were fluent in italian and had not difficulties in taking part (and learn from) the activities of our training program. parental informed consent was learning to wait and be altruistic 308 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ obtained from each participant. the research was conducted according to apa ethical standards and was approved by the local ethics committee. procedures the study was organized into three steps: step 1 (pretest): all children were tested firstly through a collective session and secondly through an individu­ al one. the collective session, lasting about 50 minutes, included a guided-by-the-experimenter protocol to assess socio-economic families’ level, linguistic and mathematical abilities of the children. the individual session tasks were randomized and evaluate children's inhibitory control, sensibility of fairness, altruism and the delay of gratification. during the two individual sessions, lasting about 25 minutes, children could play with and had the chance to win football players or puppies trading cards used as traded goods for the proposed games. before starting each task, children were asked about their trading cards preferences. each task was presented randomly. step 2 (training): only those children in the tg took part in the training sessions, which started one week after the end of the pre-test phase. children in the cg only attended civics education classes, established in their state curricula. both training and cg followed the school curriculum based on the italian national guidelines for the pre-primary school and the first cycle of school education curriculum (ministero dell’istruzione, dell’università e della ricerca [miur], 2012). it indicates that the general objective of the educational process in the school system is the achievement of some key competences for lifelong learning recommended by the european parliament and the council such as the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, strictly linked with economic and financial education. according to these guidelines, every teacher individually and in a personal way shows the principles of the economic and financial education, explaining, for example, the economic trend of industry sector (morselli & ajello, 2016). step 3 (post-test): all children took part in this session one week after training sessions end. they only attended the individual session in which they were re-tested about fairness, altruism and delay of gratification. tasks were run in random order during one individual session lasting a maximum of 25 minutes. the post-test session ended at the end of the school year, after 4 months from the pre-test session. both pre-test and post-test individual sessions were conducted in a quiet room different from children's classes. the training sessions were conducted in the classroom. the three steps of researcher were conducted by independent researchers. as shown in table 1, we organized the variables in “control variables,” potentially confounding variables that are known to be related to fairness, altruism and delay of gratification and “decision making variables,” focus of the intervention. decision making tasks were played for real, giving a final amount of trading cards. table 1 target dimensions and tasks for the pre-test and post-test administrations type of variable/dimension task pre-test post-test control variables socio-economic background family affluence scale (fas, currie et al., 2008) x verbal ability primary mental ability (pma, rubini & rossi, 1982; thurstone, & thurstone, 1982) x mathematical ability ac-mt 6-11 (cornoldi et al., 2012) x inhibitory control fruit stroop task (archibald & kerns, 1999) x decision making variables fairness ultimatum game (ug) x x altruism dictator game (dg) x x donation task (dt) x x delay of gratification intertemporal choice task x x investment task x x lombardi, valle, rinaldi et al. 309 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ decision-making variables fairness a modified version of the ug (güth et al., 1982) was used to assess fairness. children played a game in which they could be shared with another child represented by a drawing image up to 10 trading cards. playing the role of receiver, the child could decide whether to accept or refuse the proposed division. the children played three rounds as receiver categorized as follows: unfair (8–2: eight trading cards for the proposer and two trading cards for the receiver); hyperfair (2–8: two trading cards for the proposer and eight trading cards for the receiver); and fair (5–5: equal division). all rounds were presented randomly. the children scored 1 when the offer was accepted and 0 when refused. a total of 3 independent scores were hence obtained, one for each type of offer. altruism the dg (kahneman et al., 1986) and the donation task (dt; angerer et al., 2015) were used to assess altruism. in the dg, the child (playing as proposer/dictator) decided how to distribute 10 trading cards, between him and a passive player, that did not have the option to decline the offer. also, in this case, the other child (the receiver) was presented as a drawing image and the dictator has chosen between two different typologies of trading cards. the children played only one round, in which the offered amount was scored. based on the donation experiment run by angerer and colleagues (2015), we used the dt, that is, a dg-like experiment on donations to a charity. the experimenter first asked the child if he/she could see a box placed on the other side of the room. once the child replied “yes,” the experimenter began to explain to him/her that the box contained all the trading cards donated by the children participating in the project to some children whose families didn’t have money to buy them. then the experimenter told the child he/she would have had 10 trading cards and he/she could decide how many of them donate and how many taking home. the child was informed that he/she could donate from 0 to 10 trading cards, inserting the donated cards in the box. cards he/she would take home had to be put in a white envelope, without being observed by anyone. after a couple of control questions on the understanding of the right donated and taken-home trading cards’ allocation, the experimenter accompanied the child in front of the box and gave him/her all the time waiting for him/her in another part of the room. scores could vary from 0 to 10, depending on the number of trading cards donated. delay of gratification the intertemporal choice task (ict-version of marchetti et al., 2014) and the investment task (it; angerer et al., 2015) were used to assess the delay of gratification (mischel et al., 1972). in the ict, the experimenter asks the children to decide whether they want to delay gratification in hopes of gaining larger future reward. children were first told the following sentence: “you know, sometimes you can choose between receiving a small gift right away or a bigger one later” and then they had to answer the following question: “do you prefer having a pack of trading cards now or wait four weeks, the day xx (showing the right day on a calendar) to have two trading cards’ packs?.” in case the child chose to take one pack of trading cards immediately, he was asked how long he would be willing to wait to get two packs. the experimenter took to school in the right day after four weeks trading cards children won. the child scored 0 if could not wait four weeks and 1 if waited. the it (angerer et al., 2015) assess the investment propensity as a part of the delay of gratification paradigm. compared to the former task, the it requires to apply a more strategic thinking in the decision to delay an immediate gratification in favour of a greater future reward, because the child has to decide how many trading cards to take home immediately and how many to invest. in this case, the child has to manage the pursuit of two objectives, one immediate and one long-term, assessing whether and how much more important for her/him the immediate reward or the greater future reward is. in fact, in this task children were endowed with 10 trading cards and they were told they had to choose how many trading cards they could take home immediately and how many they want to put inside of “four weeks” box. every card inserted in the box would have been doubled if children would have waited for four weeks (children had been shown the exact day on a calendar). to understand children's rule comprehension, they were asked to repeat it with some control question. once the children real comprehension was verified, they were told to make their choice. learning to wait and be altruistic 310 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the score was the invested trading cards number (range 0–10). the experimenter took to school in the right day after four weeks trading cards children invested. training a new conversational training focused on fairness, altruism, and delay of gratification was created in order to train these skills. the conversational approach (siegal, 1999) assumes that child is involved in conversational interactions, typical of social life, early in development. the conversational activity, in particular during the school-age period, allows transforming the implicit knowledge into explicit knowledge, discussing them with others. the training was designed to have three one-hour sessions each, conducted in class by a researcher over a period of about two weeks of school time. for each topic (i.e., fairness, altruism, and delay of gratification ability), two stories have been invented or created based on children's (varela, 2014) or on scientific literature (larsen et al., 2017), with the aim of stimulating group reflection and understanding of one's own and other points of view. according to literature about the training programs (bianco et al., 2019; bianco et al., 2021), each story was followed by four multiple-choice questions create with the purpose of verifying child's actual understanding of the content, his/her ability to put themselves in the shoes of the story characters (perspective-taking) and to stimulate the subsequent discussion. results performance on the ict as well as on the ug was evaluated through non-parametric statistics (binomial analysis and mann-whitney u test). we conducted some preliminary analyses to verify the homogeneity of the groups for the considered variables at the pre-test session. we controlled gender differences and no significant results emerged. to assess differences in the pre-test rate of acceptances of hyperfair, fair and unfair proposals and of ict’s success the mann-whitney u test (bonferroni corrected for multiple comparisons) by paired-group showed no significant differences between the two groups (p > .05). for the other variables, we conduct the t-test for independent samples and it didn’t show any statistically significant differences between children assigned to the tg and children assigned to the cg (p > .05), with exception of the verbal abilities, t(108) = 2,376, p = .019. for this significant difference in subsequent analyses, we controlled verbal abilities scores. subsequently, in order to analyse the effect of training, we performed a glm for repeated measures for each deci­ sion-making continuous variable explored, that is, dg, dt, it with time (pre-test and post-test) as the within-subjects factor and groups (training and control) as the between-subjects factor, and verbal ability as the covariate. pairwise comparisons revealed that, as shown in figure 1, for the dg, children in the tg showed significantly higher post-test offers compared to the post-test offers in the cg, f(1, 108) = 5.431, p = .022, η2 = .071, θ = 0.700. furthermore, for the it children in the tg showed a significantly higher post-test investment compared children in the cg, f(1, 108) = 4.270, p = .041, η2 = .038, θ = 0.535, showing the efficacy of the training program (see figure 2). however, for the dt, glm for repeated measures does not show significant effect of training, f(1, 108) = 0.143, p = .706, η2 = .006, θ = 0.130. in order to evaluate the effect of training for the dichotomous variables, that is, the ug—fair, unfair and hyperfair proposals—and ict, we used the mcnemar’s statistic in the two groups. this test was significant for both cg and tg for the ict (tg, n = 55, χ2 = 10.9, p < .001; cg, n = 55, χ2 = 10.9, p < .001), showing an effect of the time and it was no significant in the two groups for ug fair proposal (tg, n = 55, χ2 = 0.40, p = .527; cg, n = 55, χ2 = 0.50, p = .480), ug unfair proposal (tg, n = 55, χ2 = 0.258, p = .108; cg, n = 55, χ2 = 0.07, p = .796) and ug hyperfair proposal (tg, n = 55, χ2 = 1.0, p = .317; cg, n = 55, χ2 = 0.82, p = .366). these results show that the training had no efficacy in the performance of these tasks. lombardi, valle, rinaldi et al. 311 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 dictator game proposals for training group and control group at pre-test and post-test figure 2 investment task performance for training group and control group at pre-test and post-test discussion in this study, we tested the efficacy of a conversational training about fairness, altruism, and the ability to delay gratification in children aged from 8 to 10 years. results evidence that the training increases altruistic behaviour and the ability to delay gratification, whereas does not impact the fairness behaviour. regarding the altruism increase, the literature suggests that the propensity for altruism is already seen in early childhood (warneken & tomasello, 2009) and stabilizes in early school-age (benenson et al., 2007). nonetheless we find that the training modifies altruistic behaviour in the late school-age: children who participated in the conversational training increase the number of the trading cards shared in the dg, but they didn’t increase the number of the trading cards donated in the dt. the latter explicitly evokes the construct of charity (a concept similar to that of a donation considered here) consisting of resources allocation to a recipient identified by need, not by personal characteristics (niemi & young, 2017). the dg requires children to play with another hypothetical—but well defined—child, because of a schoolmate depicted in a drawing, whereas the dt asks to share some trading cards with an unfamiliar child. it is possible that children trained in the perspective-taking with their classmates become more able to assume the learning to wait and be altruistic 312 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perspective of a specific child similar to them, then they based the choice of the number of trading cards to share on the assumption of a hypothetical relationship with her/him. in the dt, charitable behaviour is based on the identification of a need, without implying or hypothesizing a direct relationship with the other; consequently, in this case the ability to take others’ point of view may be less involved. regarding the ability to delay gratification, children of the tg increase the number of trading cards invested in the it, compared to the cg, but we do not find differences in the ict. in the ability to delay a gratification are involved self-control (kidd et al., 2013), used to inhibit the desire to obtain the gain immediately, anticipation, the capacity to anticipate the hedonic consequences related to the good in the future, and representation, the tendency to evoke specific interpretative frames about the salience of the delayed reward (berns et al., 2017). we assumed that the application of these capacities during the training helped children to become more strategic in an it, a complex situation that involves the ability to anticipate and represents both the immediate and the future gain and that requires to find an equilibrium between them (both ensured, the decision is about the amount of the rewards). conversely, the intertemporal choice is less complex and less strategic because imply an “all or nothing” decision (a reward immediately or a reward in the future), then it is possible that children continue to apply their usual behaviour without benefiting from more complex reasoning. regarding fairness, we had assumed that after participating in a training focused on the fairness norm, children showed more inequity aversion that in the pre-test phase, by the increase of the rejections of unfair and hyperfair offers. instead, results suggest that the training did not have an effect on the inequity aversion, in both directions. to understand this result it is useful refer to the overlapping of the concepts of fairness and inequity aversion: indeed, the fact that to train fairness does not impact on inequity related behaviour may mean that in this age groups, social norm of fairness is something different from its behavioural operationalization in inequity aversion. this hypothesis is in line with a recent work of engelmann and tomasello (2019), affirming that children decide about the resources’ allocation on the basis of the social meaning attributed to this distribution and specifically on the basis of the desire that people are equally respected. in this perspective, children’ decisions are not moved by an abstract norm of fairness (object of the present training), rather by the application of this norm involving an interpersonally based reasoning on the mutual respect, the merit (in the case of collaboration) and the resource’s need. we can assume that to obtain a change in the economic behaviour it might be useful to work on these social aspects, rather than on the norm itself, as proposed during the training. finally, results showed that using guided conversations and training children to focus themselves on the reflective thinking about norms, values and possible different perspectives, altruism and investment decision-making behav­ iour are modified. reflective thinking can help to monitor and display the solution/decision process, through the problem-solving with logical reasoning, in order to analyze and think about the options, choosing the most useful alternative. decision-making requires to reflect knowingly on their own mental structures and procedures, emerging as a solution to interpret, delay and understand the issues of thinking in prediction and decision-making for the future (rasyid et al., 2018). we think that reflective thinking supports reflections and discussions and helps children to develop higher-order cognitive skills through the link of the new to their previous knowledge, the implementation of specific strategies for new tasks and the aware understanding of their own thinking processes and decision strategies. many studies showed how learning occurs through social and communicative processes, as forms of "dialogic" interaction, such as classroom discourse (mercer & littleton, 2007). in the training, each child discussing with other participants recognizes the diversity of voices, values, beliefs and perspectives and the meaning emerges from the tension between the perspectives in that "dialogic space" which develops through the social construction of meaning (lombardi et al., 2018; perret-clermont et al., 1991). training helps children to reflect on their own thoughts and decision-making. participating in shared reasoning and thoughts, and critically considering other points of view were useful to learn and generalize new forms of thinking. at the end of this training, new knowledge in children derived not only from materials prepared by the researcher, used just as a stimulus to start the discussion, but also from listening to mutual comparison, in a more active and interesting way. furthermore, children learn something about the topic and something about aspects of this topic related to their social world and, putting themselves in the story protagonists’ shoes, they may change their decisions. this is particularly important due to the relevant influence on children’s development of symbolic representation of other’s mind (giovanelli et al., 2020). children rely on previous knowledge and work lombardi, valle, rinaldi et al. 313 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to actively welcome new information to make sense of the story situation; they move from considering the concrete, action-oriented, context-specific details of the stories to building an understanding of the wider and longer-term emotional implications for their own situation (immordino-yang, 2015). the training may also have stimulated cognitive processes underlying thoughts and behaviours regulation in children, such as cognitive flexibility, refers to our ability to switch between different mental sets, tasks, or strategies (diamond, 2013). the tg children refocus attention to relevant theme of the training session and simultaneously consider conflicting representations of information in order to modify one's thinking in response to changes in their own internal or external environment and in relation to their decisional process. limits, strenghts and conclusions about the limits of this study, in the future it will be important to let children play as proponents of the ug: in fact, literature evidences that school-age children evaluate differently the fairness of the offers when they play as proposer or receiver (castelli et al., 2014). it might be interesting to check whether playing as a receiver can bring changes that are not appreciable when the children play as proponents. moreover, we did not evaluate the trust in the experimenter role: an experimenter tested all children in the pre-test and post-test phases, and she came back to deliver the gained trading cards during the games. it is possible that to verify the experimenter’s reliability in the first phase has led the children to trust that person even in the second phase, influencing in some way decisions in the post-test (about the importance of the reliability of the experimenter see kidd et al., 2013). from the methodological point of view, another limit concerns the difficulty of discriminating the effect of learning in the post-test session, although the tg is significantly improved compared to the cg. in future studies, will be useful consider the transfer effect of our training in order to test its efficacy in producing improvements on practiced but also on transfer tasks. moreover, the two groups followed normal school programs, future research should use a control training with the same structure as the experimental one, but with neutral contents. a strength of the training concerns the applicability in the educational context in order to improve both specific and broad psychological dimensions. in fact, results showed that a training applying school methods, familiar for teachers and pupils, have an impact on very specific dimensions such altruism and delay of gratification, but also may promote more general psychological abilities, for example reflective thinking as discussed above. in light of our results, we think that the application of this training at school might be useful for teachers and children. the training’s structure, based on narratives’ stimuli and guided discussion, is near to the teaching methods usually used at school, they might be easily accepted and applied in a classroom. moreover, this training does not directly refer to the subject of economics, which is generally not included in primary school curricula, but its application provides foundational learning related to economic topics for this age group. funding: the research was financed by the “foundation for financial education and saving” (feduf) on the basis of an arrangement with fondazione nord milano. acknowledgments: we are grateful to panini and pizzardi editore for gifting us some trading cards. a special thanks to children, parents and teachers for their collaboration. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author note: the first two authors are the main contributors to the writing of this paper. supplementary materials for this article appendices 1 and 2 are available via psycharhives (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • appendix 1: decision making training. • appendix 2: descriptive statistics, binomial analysis and correlations. learning to wait and be altruistic 314 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials lombardi, e., valle, a., rinaldi, t., massaro, d., & marchetti, a. 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(2013). the emergence of contingent reciprocity in young children. journal of experimental child psychology, 116(2), 338-350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.002 yamagishi, t., horita, y., mifune, n., hashimoto, h., li, y., shinada, m., miura, a., inukai, k., takagishi, h., & simunovic, d. (2012). rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game is no evidence of strong reciprocity. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 109(50), 20364-20368. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212126109 about the authors elisabetta lombardi, postdoctoral researcher of developmental psychology and educational psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore of milan. member of the research unit on theory of mind. adjunct professor of developmental psychology and psychology of education and digital media at the same university. main research interests: theory of mind development, mental language, decision making processes, conversational mentalizing training programs for children and teachers, children's argumentation in typical development and social competences, mental language well-being in students with learning disabilities and children with language disorder and application of ict in educational intervention. annalisa valle, researcher of developmental psychology and educational psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan. member of the research unit on theory of mind. adjunct professor of educational psychology and psychology of infancy. main research interests: theory of mind in a life-span development, in particular related to: emotional development, educational relation­ ships from a mentalistic and affective point of view, the role of theory of mind in the economic and financial education and the design of training concerning mentalistic abilities. teresa rinaldi, phd in sciences of the person and education, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan. member of the research unit on theory of mind. adjunct professor for the faculties of education at the same university in brescia and piacenza. main research interesets: financial education for primary school and theory of mind in educational relationships. lombardi, valle, rinaldi et al. 317 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 306–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2453 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-017-0291-4 https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264208094-en https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6606.2005.00016.x https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/947/1/012041 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00048 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059510 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01213 https://doi.org/10.1348/000712608x379061 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.002 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1212126109 https://www.psychopen.eu/ davide massaro, full professor of developmental psychology and educational psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan. he is “senior” member of the research unit on theory of mind; coordinator of the research unit of psychology of religion; didactic coordinator of the doctorate in sciences of the person and education and co-coordinator of the master's degree course in media education. he co-directs the specialization course in “growing and living with robots: psychology, education and care at the time of social robots. design and development of robot-assisted interventions (crescere e vivere con i robot: psicologia, educazione e cura al tempo dei robot sociali. progettazione e sviluppo di interventi robot-assistiti).” main research interests: theory of mind development, decision making, cognitive bias, understanding of irony in children, theory of mind in hri (human robot interaction). antonella marchetti, full professor of developmental psychology and educational psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan. head of the department of psychology, director of the research unit on theory of mind, coordinator of the doctorate in sciences of the person and education, member of the scientific board of the humane technology lab. of the same university. she is issbd executive committee member and issbd regional coordinator for italy and member of the scientific committee of feduf (foundation for the financial education and saving). she co-directs the specialization course in “growing and living with robots: psychology, education and care at the time of social robots. design and development of robot-assisted interventions (crescere e vivere con i robot: psicologia, educazione e cura al tempo dei robot sociali. progettazione e sviluppo di interventi robot-assistiti).” main research interests: theory of mind in typical and atypical development in life span perspective from infancy to elderly, decision making, mental language, development of irony understanding, trust, attachment and mentalization, theory of mind training for teachers and children, neuroesthetic, theory of mind in hri (human robot interaction). learning to wait and be altruistic 318 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ learning to wait and be altruistic (introduction) why a conversational training for decision-making components? method participants procedures decision-making variables training results discussion limits, strenghts and conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author note supplementary materials references about the authors exploring basic psychological need satisfaction and relationship quality as protective factors of mental well-being during the covid-19 pandemic research reports exploring basic psychological need satisfaction and relationship quality as protective factors of mental well-being during the covid-19 pandemic barbara horvát 1 , tamás martos 1 , claudia chiarolanza 2 , viola sallay 1 , ashley k. randall 3 [1] department of personality, clinical and health psychology, university of szeged, szeged, hungary. [2] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, and health studies, sapienza university of rome, rome, italy. [3] school of counseling and counseling psychology, arizona state university, tempe, az, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 received: 2024-01-16 • accepted: 2024-11-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: torven schalk, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: barbara horvát, department of personality, clinical and health psychology, university of szeged, egyetem street 2, szeged, 6722, hungary. e-mail: horvat.barbara@med.u-szeged.hu supplementary materials: code, data, materials, preregistration [see index of supplementary materials] abstract covid-19’s global impact on mental health has been profound. to better understand factors that mitigate effects of stress, particularly during quarantine periods, this study examined roles of basic psychological need satisfaction and relationship quality in mental well-being in the context of covid-19-related stress. conducted from march to may 2020, this online questionnaire research involved 805 individuals in romantic relationships (mean age = 37.88 ± 12.50 years; 70.19% female). path analysis revealed that higher mental well-being was associated with satisfaction of basic psychological needs, positive relationship quality, and lower covid-19related stress. higher autonomy satisfaction was linked to lower covid-19-related stress, whereas increased relatedness satisfaction and better relationship quality predicted higher covid-19-related stress. the findings implicate complex associations among basic psychological need satisfaction, relationship quality, and mental well-being. while better relationship experiences might even heighten perceived stress during a global crisis, they simultaneously function as protective factors for overall mental health. keywords covid-19 pandemic, mental well-being, basic psychological needs, relationship quality, autonomy, competence, relatedness the coronavirus disease (covid-19) emerged in 2019, and by march 2020, the world health organization had officially declared it a pandemic. worldwide, people’s lives have undergone profound changes, with social distancing, quarantine measures, and lifestyle adjustments becoming the norm (e.g., brooks et al., 2020; wang et al., 2020.). as nations struggled to contain and prevent infections, implementation of measures such as social distancing, cancellation of public events, and quarantine became imperative (public health england, 2020). although necessary to prevent the disease’s spread, isolation and quarantine adversely affected mental health (brooks et al., 2020; wang et al., 2020), leading to feelings of helplessness, fear, and disappointment (taylor & asmundson, 2021). results of the covid-19 advisory initiative conducted among university members in hungary from march 4 to may 25, 2020, show that fear and anxiety were widespread among participants, who routinely battled a variety of challenges, including persistent feelings of depression, fatigue, disrupted eating and sleeping patterns, hopelessness, and decreased interest and motivation (szlamka et al., 2021). despite these documented difficulties, data on interrelated aspects of mental health, fulfillment of basic psychological needs, and dynamics of interpersonal relationships caused by the covid-19 pandemic still need to be comprehensively supplemented. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13741&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2518-2096 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5946-1299 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8726-4724 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1326-1704 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3794-4163 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ according to self-determination theory (sdt; ryan & deci, 2017), satisfaction of basic psychological needs (bpn) is essential for well-being (ryan & deci, 2017). moreover, sdt defines three bpns: (1) autonomy, a sense of volition or the need to act freely without external pressure; (2) competence, a sense of efficacy or the need to experience oneself as effective and successful; and (3) relatedness, the need to feel that one is connected to others, has loving relationships, and belongs to a community. covid-19 not only disrupted social norms but also profoundly affected the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (e.g., calvo et al., 2020; cantarero et al., 2020) by necessitating social distancing and remote work. despite this, certain activities, for example, regular physical exercise and routines may have positively contributed to coping with the anxiety induced by the pandemic’s challenges (bentzen et al., 2021; brooks et al., 2020; calvo et al., 2020; cantarero et al., 2020; costa et al., 2022; müller et al., 2021). certainly, the covid-19 pandemic highlighted social relationships’ importance to our physical and mental health (e.g., bond, 2021; cooper et al., 2021; costa et al., 2022; sommerlad et al., 2022). specifically, romantic relationships’ criti­ cal role was placed under a unique lens (pietromonaco & overall, 2021). challenges imposed by the pandemic—financial insecurities, altered routines, and shared anxieties—tested romantic partners’ resilience (e.g., candel & jitaru, 2021; estlein et al., 2022). while previous research has emphasized relationship quality’s importance for mental well-being (teo et al., 2013), the connection between the quality of romantic relationships and the fulfillment of basic psychological needs, which serve as protective factors for mental well-being, has remained unexplored in the context of perceived covid-19 stress, even though people in satisfying relationships reported better mental health during the pandemic. indeed, the quality of the relationship mattered the most for well-being, not just being in a relationship. thus, a supportive romantic partner might help manage an individual’s emotions related to the covid-19 situation (e.g., worry or hopelessness) (randall et al., 2021; till & niederkrotenthaler, 2022). despite evidence that individuals in fulfilling relationships reported better mental health during the pandemic (e.g., till & niederkrotenthaler, 2022), no study has simultaneously investigated the interrelationship between basic needs satisfaction, relationship quality, and mental well-being during the covid-19 crisis and its related stress. present study covid-19-related stress, which encompasses perceptions of threat, concern, and control, has been negatively associated with emotions and well-being (erbiçer et al., 2021; pérez-fuentes et al., 2020; quigley et al., 2023). this study aimed to provide understanding of the interplay in mental well-being among basic psychological needs, relationship quality, and covid-19-related stress during the pandemic and quarantine for those living in hungary. by investigating associations between these variables, our research aimed to provide nuanced insights into mental health’s protective factors and close relationships’ reciprocal nature, examining how covid-19-related stress impacted both basic psychological need satisfaction and relationship quality. grounded in the basic psychological need microtheory (ryan & deci, 2000) of sdt (ryan & deci, 2017), we first tested whether bpns and relationship quality (rq) predicted lower covid-19 stress. next, we investigated whether bpns and higher rq positively predicted mental well-being. finally, we assessed whether covid-19-related stress predicted lower mental well-being and, thus, partially mediated the predictive power of bpns and rq on mental well-being. figure 1 overviews the model and hypothesized relationships between variables. horvát, martos, chiarolanza et al. 55 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 model summary with hypothesized paths note. “+” stands for positive association, and “−” for reversed association. specifically, the following hypotheses (h) were tested using structural equation modeling: h1: basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e., autonomy, relatedness, and competence) are associated with higher mental well-being. h2: higher relationship quality (rq) is positively associated with higher mental well-being. h3: higher covid-19-related stress predicts lower mental well-being. h4: higher bpns predict lower covid-19-related stress. h5: higher rq predicts lower covid-19-related stress. method recruitment and participants this study’s data were collected from march to may 2020 during hungary’s initial national quarantine. reached by online request, participant-volunteers were recruited from social networking sites (e.g., facebook) using convenience sampling. participants met the following inclusion criteria: aged above 18 years, in a romantic relationship, and formally consenting to participate. exclusion criteria were aged under 18 years and currently or within the last year receiving psychiatric treatment. our 805 participants’ average age was 37.88 ± 12.50 years, and the majority (70.19%) were women. table 1 summarizes participants’ demographic information. table 1 demographic information demographic n percent (%) mean sd age 805 37.88 12.50 gender female 565 70.19 male 240 29.81 relationship duration less than 6 months 41 5.09 more than 6 months, less than 1 year 40 4.97 more than 1 year 724 89.94 mental well-being protecting factors during covid-19 56 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ demographic n percent (%) mean sd living together with partner yes 659 81.86 no 146 18.14 level of education high school or less 232 28.82 ba 268 33.29 ma and higher 305 37.39 procedures taking approximately 20–30 minutes, study participants completed an online survey questionnaire, in which they first received comprehensive information about the research objectives and the terms of their involvement. measures all procedures performed in the study were following the ethical standards of the institutional, regional and national research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. ethics approval was provided under the unified ethics committee for psychological research (epkeb, hungary). throughout the study, we strictly followed ethical guidelines. documents included in the study (the complete data file, the jasp file including the r code used by jasp, a data code book in excel format with the variable names and hungarian and english labels and answer options in english, and the materials used in the study (ethical approval and the original limesurvey questionnaire) are available in the “hungarian data ejop submission 2024” subfolder in the open science framework folder of the main research on randall et al. (2024). basic psychological needs basic psychological needs were measured with the hungarian version of the basic psychological need satisfaction scales (la guardia et al., 2000; martos & szondy, 2023), adapted for everyday life. reflecting personal experiences with basic psychological need satisfaction, the questionnaire contains nine items on three subscales: autonomy (e.g., “i generally feel free to express my ideas and opinions”), competence (e.g., “most days i feel a sense of accomplishment from what i do”), and relatedness (e.g., "i really like the people i interact with”). items were rated on a 7-point likert-type scale (1 = not at all characteristic to 7 = fully characteristic). the subscales (three items each) demonstrated good internal consistency for autonomy (cronbach’s α = .69), competence (cronbach’s α = .70), and relatedness (cronbach’s α = .70). relationship quality relationship quality was measured with the perceived relationship quality components inventory (fletcher et al., 2000; martos & sallay, 2023b, designed to measure relationship satisfaction. the scale consists of six subscales with three items each: relationship satisfaction (e.g., “how satisfied are you with your relationship?”), commitment (“how committed are you to your relationship?”), intimacy (“how intimate is your relationship?”), love (“how much do you love your partner?”), passion (“how passionate is your relationship?”), and trust (“how much do you trust your partner?”). items are rated on a 3-point response scale (1 = not at all, 2 = neutral, 3 = strongly). we used the total average score, and the questionnaire demonstrated good internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .94; 18 items). perception of covid-19-related stress the level of covid-19-related stress was measured with the hungarian version of the 7-item brief illness perception questionnaire (broadbent et al., 2006; látos et al., 2021). in this study, we used four stress-related items from the questionnaire, modified for the covid-19 context (e.g., “how concerned are you about the covid-19 outbreak?” and “how well do you feel you understand the situation with covid-19?”). items were rated using a 10-point likert-type scale (0 = i am not at all concerned to 10 = i am very concerned). even though the bipq-7 subscale’s internal consistency was less than ideal (cronbach’s α = .58; four items), we decided to retain the score for further analysis. horvát, martos, chiarolanza et al. 57 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental well-being to measure well-being, we used the hungarian version of the warwick–edinburgh mental well-being scale (wemwbs; martos & sallay, 2023a; tennant et al., 2007), which contains 14 items on positive emotions, satisfying interpersonal relationships, and positive functioning (e.g., “i’ve been feeling optimistic about the future”; “i’ve had energy to spare”). items were rated on a 5-point likert-type scale (1 = none of the time to 5 = all of the time). the total scale score was calculated by summing the 14 individual item scores. higher scores indicate higher well-being. the questionnaire exhibited good internal consistency (cronbach’s α = .91; 14 items). results correlational analyses jasp 0.14.6.0 was used for the data’s statistical analysis. table 2 shows the weak, significant negative correlation between the total score for mental well-being and covid-19-related stress: rp (805) = −.30, p < .001. our results indicate a weak to medium-strong, positive, significant correlation among autonomy, competence, relatedness satisfaction, and mental well-being. specifically, autonomy and mental well-being showed a medium, significant positive correlation: rp (805) = .50, p < .001; competence and mental well-being showed a medium, significant positive correlation: (805) = .52, p < .001; and relatedness and mental well-being showed a weak, significant positive correlation: rp (805) = .35, p < .001. finally, we examined the correlation between relationship quality and mental well-being: rp (802) = .28, p < .001. table 2 correlation matrix and participants’ characteristics and psychological variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. bpns autonomy 4.81 1.29 1 2. bpns competence 4.58 1.39 .548*** 1 3. bpns relatedness 5.87 1.00 .513*** .363*** 1 4. prqc total score 2.69 .38 .225*** .153*** .209*** 1 5. covid-19-related stress 5.00 1.32 -.305*** -.179*** -.028 .062 1 6. wemwbs total score 3.63 .62 .499*** .515*** .345*** .281*** -.302*** 1 note. minimum-maximum values: prqc: 1–3, bpns: 1–7, wemwbs: 1–5, bipq: 1–10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. denote significant values. path analysis structural equation modeling was used to investigate the associations in a multivariate manner. model fit was tested using the following indices (hu & bentler, 1999): chi-square statistic (χ2), comparative fit index (cfi), normed fix index, tucker lewis index or nonnormed fit index (tli or nnfi), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), and standardized root mean square error of approximation. these indices indicated good fit to the data: χ2 (10) = 56.64, p < .001, cfi = .96, tli = .81, rmsea = .08, srmr = .034. table 3 summarizes the model’s defined paths and standardized parameter estimates of direct effects. the variables explained 41% of wemwbs variance (r 2 = 0.41). see figure 2 for depiction of significant paths. mental well-being protecting factors during covid-19 58 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 path model note. only significant paths are included. hypotheses 1, 2, and 3: predictors of mental well-being according to structural equation modeling, mental well-being was significantly and positively predicted by autonomy (β = .12, p < .001), competence (β = .16, p < .001), relatedness (β = .09, p = .007), and relationship quality (β = .19, p < .001). it was significantly and negatively predicted by covid-19-related stress (β = -.14, p < .001). hypotheses 4 and 5: predictors of covid-19-related stress covid-19-related stress was significantly negatively predicted by autonomy (β = -.26, p < .001) and significantly positively predicted by relatedness (β = .12, p = .003) and relationship quality (β = .09, p = .008). covid-19-related stress was not significantly predicted by competence (β = -0.01, p = .74). table 3 standardized parameter estimates of direct effects for the model parameter estimate z p autonomy → covid-19 stress -0.26 -5.82 < 0.001 competence → covid-19 stress -0.01 -0.33 0.74 relatedness → covid-19 stress 0.12 2.98 0.003 rq → covid-19 stress 0.09 2.63 0.008 autonomy → wemwbs 0.12 6.08 < 0.001 competence → wemwbs 0.16 8.97 < 0.001 relatedness → wemwbs 0.09 2.61 0.007 rq → wemwbs 0.19 6.95 < 0.001 covid-19stress → wemwbs -0.14 -4.88 < 0.001 note. in the model beyond the variables presented in the table, associations were controlled for gender, age, level of education and relationship duration. acronyms: rq = relationship quality, wemwbs = warwick–edinburgh mental well-being scale. horvát, martos, chiarolanza et al. 59 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study investigated the covid-19 pandemic’s psychological impact, focusing specifically on satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), relationship quality in romantic relationships, and per­ ceived covid-19-related stress. hypothesis 1 on the relationship between basic psychological needs (bpn) satisfaction and mental well-being indicated that, indeed, individuals experiencing autonomy, competence, and relatedness during quarantine exhibited better mental health. this aligns with prior research indicating that satisfying basic psychological needs can act as a protective factor for mental health in challenging circumstances, such as the covid-19 pandemic. consistent with the principles of self-determination theory (sdt) proposed by ryan and deci (2017), activities that fulfill autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs contribute to well-being and alleviate stress in challenging situations (behzadnia & fatahmodares, 2020; weinstein et al., 2016). the ability to choose activities autonomously and engage in self-regulated behavior leads to increased vitality, reduced stress, and enhanced well-being, even during social distancing or lockdowns (behzadnia & fatahmodares, 2020). learning activities considered personally significant and taking responsibility for oneself have also proven beneficial (ryan & deci, 2017; weinstein et al., 2016). these findings have important implications for healthcare professionals, the need to develop mental health preventive programs that address basic psychological needs. the second hypothesis on the association between mental well-being and relationship quality, revealed that a higher rq predicted better mental well-being. this is consistent with existing research according to which that emotionally satisfying romantic relationships and positive relationship processes can buffer stress in general (randall & messerschmitt-coen, 2019) and specifically in crises (randall et al., 2021). the third hypothesis, focused on the association between covid-19-related stress and mental well-being, was confirmed, with a higher level of perceived stress predicting lower mental health. this aligns with prior studies, indicating that a more threatening perception of the covid-19 pandemic is associated with increased feelings of irritation and lower well-being (erbiçer et al., 2021; pérez-fuentes et al., 2020; quigley et al., 2023). the fourth and fifth hypotheses identified predictors of covid-19-related stress. analysis partially supported hypothesis 4; only autonomy significantly and positively predicted covid-19 stress. in contrast, competence did not significantly predict perceived stress, whereas relatedness satisfaction predicted covid-19 stress in the opposite direction. when considered with the results of hypotheses 2 and 5, these associations suggest that in globally stressful situations like the covid-19 lockdown, relationships may not only serve as protective factors but also as sources of vulnerability. the positive association with well-being confirms previous research findings that better relationship functioning can buffer covid-19-related mental problems (e.g., randall et al., 2021). however, satisfying relationships may not only contribute to well-being but also make the individual perceive the stressful situation as more threatening. experiencing a loving and reciprocal relationship in a stressful situation where everybody is affected and uncertainty prevails, covid-19 might have been perceived as more threatening due to concerns for close others. (fino et al., 2022; heanoy et al., 2021; sams et al., 2023; whitehead & torossian, 2021). strengths and limitations although these observed associations may be particularly relevant to the pandemic’s early phase, they also offer meaningful insights into the crucial role of basic psychological needs and relationships in mental health during times of uncertainty and stress. however, we must acknowledge certain limitations in our study. reliance on online data collection, necessitated by lockdown restrictions preventing in-person surveys, is a noteworthy constraint. despite the sizable number of respondents, the sample cannot be considered fully representative, given the inherent biases associated with convenience sampling. this methodological choice resulted in an uneven distribution across gender, age, and education levels. in addition, the research’s cross-sectional design imposes constraints on the results’ interpretative scope, offering only a snapshot rather than dynamic understanding of the studied relationships. another limitation arises from initial use of certain instruments on a hungarian sample, potentially introducing bias. adoption of validated questionnaires would have enhanced the results’ comparability and reliability. notably, the bipq-7 questionnaire exhibited low internal consistency, further highlighting a limitation in our measurements’ precision. finally, although mental well-being protecting factors during covid-19 60 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significant, many associations were weak, suggesting that the studied phenomena cannot be simplified to individual factors and that inclusion of multiple measures may provide a more comprehensive model. conclusion this study investigated the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on mental health, specifically focusing on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), relationship quality in romantic relationships, and perceived covid-19-related stress. despite its limitations, the study’s novel contributions and insights remain valuable for advancing understanding of the complex dynamics between basic psychological needs satisfaction, relation­ ship quality, stress, and mental well-being in the context of a global crisis such as the covid-19 pandemic. importantly, among the basic psychological needs, satisfaction of the need for autonomy directly and indirectly predicted higher well-being by reducing perceived stress, highlighting the crucial role autonomy might play in global situations of uncertainty and constraints. clinical implications despite intricate challenges posed by the pandemic and other global uncertainties, our aim was to provide profound insights into mental health protection factors and the social environment’s impact during times of adversity. under­ standing factors that shape individuals’ mental well-being in crises such as the covid-19 pandemic is of paramount importance. this study has considerable implications for shaping interventions and support systems to address spe­ cific psychological needs and relationship dynamics during crises. by integrating our findings into mental health interventions, we anticipate heightened efficacy in aiding individuals as they navigate challenging situations, ultimately contributing to improved overall mental health outcomes. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: data assessment process was supported by funding from american psychological association’s office of international affairs (pi: randall). manuscript preparation was partly supported by project no. k 138372, which was implemented with the support of the ministry of innovation and technology of hungary from the national research, development and innovation fund and financed under the k_21 funding scheme. open access funding was provided by the university of szeged (szte). competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. all procedures performed in the study were following the ethical standards of the institutional, regional and national research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. the study was approved by the unified ethics committee for psychological research (epkeb, hungary). data availability: for this article, data, code and study materials are available at randall et al. (2024). the preregistration is available at randall et al. (2020) supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. (randall et al., 2024) • code. (randall et al., 2024) • study materials. (randall et al., 2024) • preregistration. (randall et al., 2020) horvát, martos, chiarolanza et al. 61 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 54–64 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references behzadnia, b., & fatahmodares, s. (2020). basic psychological need-satisfying activities during the covid-19 outbreak. applied psychology: health and well-being, 12(4), 1115–1139. bentzen, m., brurok, b., roeleveld, k., hoff, m., jahnsen, r., wouda, m. f., & baumgart, j. k. (2021). changes in physical activity and basic psychological needs related to mental health among people with physical disability during the covid-19 pandemic in norway. disability and health journal, 14(4), article 101126. bond, b. j. 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(2021). older adults’ experience of the covid-19 pandemic: a mixed-methods analysis of stresses and joys. gerontologist, 61(1), 36–47. about the authors barbara horvát is a clinical health psychologist, an assistant lecturer, and a phd student at the institute of psychology, university of szeged, hungary. her research interests include the health goals of people with inflammatory bowel disease, with a particular focus on the importance of autonomy support and self-concordance. her interests also include body image, interoceptive awareness and somatization. tamás martos is a clinical health psychologist, systemic practitioner, and full professor at the institute of psychology, university of szeged, hungary, and at sigmund freud private university, vienna–paris. his research interests include the role of motivational processes and goal constructs in healthy human functioning, the measurement of positive psychological constructs, and systemic aspects of couples’ functioning. claudia chiarolanza is an assistant professor in dynamic psychology. she is the coordinator of the family mediation laboratory at sapienza–university of rome. her main research interests focus on the role of conflict and dyadic coping in the management of stress. she is currently running a project aimed to assess the post-pandemic effects in close relationships, with particular attention to the topic of forgiveness and vengeance. she has authored or co-authored more than 20 articles and three books. viola sallay is a clinical health psychologist, systemic psychotherapist, and associate professor at the institute of psychology, university of szeged, hungary, and full professor at sigmund freud private university, vienna–paris. her research interests include environmental and systemic aspects of well-being, the role of environmental self-regulation in personal growth processes, and the use of qualitative methodologies in well-being research. ashley k. randall is a professor and senior global future scientist at arizona state university in tempe, arizona, usa. she takes a strength-based approach and applies an international lens to examine couples’ stress and coping dynamics. dr. randall is a fellow of the american psychological association’s divisions 17 (society of counseling psychology), 43 (society for couple and family psychology), and 52 (international psychology). mental well-being protecting factors during covid-19 64 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental well-being protecting factors during covid-19 (introduction) present study method recruitment and participants procedures measures results correlational analyses path analysis hypotheses 1, 2, and 3: predictors of mental well-being hypotheses 4 and 5: predictors of covid-19-related stress discussion strengths and limitations conclusion clinical implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors disordered eating behaviors through the lens of self-determination theory research reports disordered eating behaviors through the lens of self-determination theory catherine bégin* ab, annie fecteau a, marilou côté a, alexandra bédard b, caroline senécal a, carole ratté c [a] school of psychology, laval university, quebec, canada. [b] institute of nutrition and functional foods, laval university, quebec, canada. [c] faculty of medicine, laval university, quebec, canada. abstract this study aimed to verify a conceptual model of eating regulation based on the self-determination theory. this model suggests that basic psychological needs satisfaction is related to general self-determined motivation and autonomous regulation toward eating, which in turn are associated with less disordered eating behaviors and attitudes and better satisfaction with life. two hundred thirty-nine women without an eating disorder completed self-reported questionnaires. the hypothesized model was tested with a serial multiple mediation analysis using process macro. the overall indirect effect of basic psychological needs satisfaction on life satisfaction through the three mediators, i.e. general motivation, regulation of eating behaviors, and eating behaviors and attitudes, was significant. results are coherent with the self-determination theory and add to past research by suggesting that basic psychological needs satisfaction might be a key target when addressing women’s disordered eating behaviors and attitudes. keywords: self-determination theory, disordered eating, basic psychological needs, eating regulation, life satisfaction europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 received: 2017-12-15. accepted: 2018-03-24. published (vor): 2018-08-31. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; andrew allen, maynooth university, maynooth, ireland *corresponding author at: pavillon f-a.-savard, 2325, rue des bibliothèques, local 1116, laval university, quebec (qc), canada, g1v 0a6, phone: (418) 656-2131, ext. 12997, fax: (418) 656-3646. e-mail: catherine.begin@psy.ulaval.ca this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. much effort has been devoted in last decades to prevent and reduce disordered eating behaviors. it becomes clear that a deeper understanding of the etiology of these disorders and of the motivational processes potentially involved in their development are needed to develop more effective public health initiatives and interventions (matusitz & martin, 2013; verstuyf, patrick, vansteenkiste, & teixeira, 2012). a conceptual framework of human motivation which has been studied in light of disordered eating is the selfdetermination theory (sdt) (verstuyf et al., 2012). the sdt argues that individuals can build a self-determined motivation and develop their full potential only if the three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competency and relatedness needs) are satisfied (deci & ryan, 1985, 1991, 2000). according to the sdt, autonomy refers to the perception of an individual that he/she is the source of his/her own behaviors and that he/she is acting in line with his/her values and interests. competency refers to the feeling of being effective and to the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ tendency to seek the opportunity to express and develop one’s own capacities. relatedness refers to the desire to care for reciprocal self and others well-being, and the need to feel connected to others (deci & ryan, 2002). the satisfaction of these basic psychological needs significantly contributes to individuals’ self-determined motivation, which leads individuals to behave specifically in accordance with their own values and goals (autonomous regulation), and experiences psychological well-being. inversely, individuals for whom basic psychological needs are not satisfied develop a less self-determined motivation in general, and are more prone to behave in response to internal and external pressures or to avoid negative consequences (controlled regulation), which is linked to detrimental effects on psychological well-being (deci & ryan, 2000, 2008; ryan & deci, 2000). some evidence suggests that unsatisfied basic needs or basic needs thwarting for autonomy, competence and relatedness may be implicated in the etiology of disordered eating behaviors. needs satisfaction has been demonstrated to be related to a healthier diet (e.g. higher intake of fruits and vegetables) (ryan, patrick, deci, & williams, 2008) while needs thwarting is associated with unhealthy weight control behaviors (thøgersenntoumani, ntoumanis, & nikitaras, 2010) and a greater presence of eating disorder symptoms (kopp & zimmer-gembeck, 2011; schüler & kuster, 2011). as reviewed by verstuyf et al. (2012), general thwarting of the basic psychological needs seems to lead to need substitutes, such as endorsement of the thin ideal and body dissatisfaction, and to compensatory behaviors, such as rigid restrictive eating and/or excessive uncontrolled eating. these results suggest that control over eating behaviors, body and weight could be a way to compensate underlying autonomy, competency and relatedness basic deficiencies (deci & ryan, 2000). in addition, as proposed by pelletier and collaborators, sdt may be an interesting model to examine motivational processes underlying disordered eating behaviors (pelletier & dion, 2007; pelletier, dion, & lévesque, 2004; pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004). their results support that women who are more selfdetermined are less prone to endorse sociocultural pressures toward thinness, to be dissatisfied with their body image, and to adopt bulimic symptoms (pelletier, dion, & lévesque, 2004). moreover, general self-determination toward one’s life is a determinant of the motivation toward the regulation of eating behaviors. as well, the motivation toward the regulation of eating behaviors is an important predictor of eating behaviors per se and psychological well-being. indeed, two other studies conducted by pelletier and colleagues (pelletier & dion, 2007; pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004) showed that an autonomous regulation toward eating leads to healthy eating while controlled regulation toward eating is expected to be associated with more bulimic and depressive symptoms, as well as with a negative self-esteem and a poorer life satisfaction. although previous findings suggest that the sdt represents a promising theoretical framework to understand the motivational processes involved in disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, literature is still scarce and more research is needed (verstuyf et al., 2012). previous studies which examined eating behaviors through the lens of the sdt (pelletier & dion, 2007; pelletier, dion, & lévesque, 2004; pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004) did not include in their explanatory model the contribution of basic psychological needs satisfaction, while needs satisfaction is the basis of this theory. it would be therefore interesting to examine whether basic needs satisfaction predicts eating behaviors and life satisfaction through a mechanism involving general motivation and motivation toward eating. thereby, the present study aimed to verify empirically a global conceptual model of eating regulation based on the sdt. this model proposes that basic psychological needs satisfaction is related to general self-determined motivation and autonomous regulation toward eating, which in turn is associated with less disordered eating behaviors and attitudes and greater life satisfaction. disordered eating and self-determination theory 572 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ methods participants and procedure two hundred thirty-nine adult women without eating disorders were recruited in quebec city, canada, through email lists that reach the laval university community (students and employees). participants mean age was 22.8 year (sd = 4.3). most of them were students (91%). regarding their marital status, they reported being mainly single, separated or divorced (66%). seventy percent had obtained a college degree, and 27% had obtained a university degree, 3% had a high school degree or less. sixty-five percent were normal weight, 14% were underweight, 16% were overweight and 5% were obese. all women interested in the study were invited to the laboratory. they first signed the informed consent form, which had been approved by the laval university’s institutional review board. thereafter, they completed selfreported questionnaires assessing variables under study. measures basic psychological needs satisfaction was evaluated with the basic psychological needs scale (deci & ryan, 2000), a 21-item scale measuring competency, autonomy and relatedness. participants rated their satisfaction of psychological needs on a 7-point likert scale, with higher scores reflecting a higher level of satisfaction. this instrument has a good internal consistency (gagné, 2003). an alpha coefficient of .76 for the total scale was observed in the present study. the global motivational scale short version (guay, mageau, & vallerand, 2003) is a 16-item questionnaire with a 7-point likert scale measuring general motivation in life. it assesses intrinsic motivation, identified, introjected and external regulation, as well as amotivation. the global self-determination index was calculated for each participant, with higher scores reflecting higher degree of self-determined motivation. this instrument has high level of reliability and validity among adult population (vallerand, 1997). in the present sample, alpha coefficients for subscales ranged from .72 to .87. the regulation of eating behaviors scale (pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004), a 48-item questionnaire, was used to assess reasons for which women regulate their eating behaviors on a 7-point likert scale. participants indicated the extent to which each item was compatible to their personal motive for regulating their eating behaviors in response to the question: “why are you regulating your eating behaviors?”. this instrument comprise following subscales: intrinsic motivation, integrated, identified, introjected and external regulation as well as amotivation, from which a total score was derived. higher scores indicated a higher degree of autonomous regulation of eating behaviors. in the present sample, alpha coefficients for subscales range from .73 to .88. disordered eating behaviors and attitudes were measured by the eating disorders inventory-2 (edi-2) (garner, 1991), a 91-item questionnaire measuring eating pathology on a 6-point likert scale. only three subscales directly assessing eating behaviors and attitudes were used in this study (i.e. bulimia, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness), and they were combined to form a total mean score. a higher score indicated a higher degree of disordered eating behaviors and attitudes. the edi-2 has good psychometric properties (convergent bégin, fecteau, côté et al. 573 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and discriminant validity) (garner, olmstead, & polivy, 1983). in the present sample, alpha coefficients ranged from .65 to .92. the satisfaction with life scale (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985) is a 5-item questionnaire assessing general satisfaction with one’s life on a 7-point likert scale. a global score was calculated by summing the five items. a higher score indicated a higher satisfaction with life. in the present sample, alpha coefficient was .86. statistical analyses assumptions regarding normal distribution were verified. analyses were performed using spss v24.0. means, standard deviations and pearson’s correlations between study variables were examined. the hypothesized model was tested with a serial multiple mediation analysis using process macro (hayes, 2013). the independent variable was basic need satisfaction, the dependent variable was life satisfaction, and the mediators were general motivation, specific motivation in the regulation of eating behaviors as well as disordered eating behaviors and attitudes. process produces bias-corrected bootstrap samples (10,000 samples) to generate 95% confidence intervals (cis) for the indirect effect (ie) of each mediator, as well as for the serial indirect effect of the three mediators. a significant indirect effect is found when the confidence intervals do not include zero. prior to analyses, all variables were z-standardized. potential multivariate outliers were screened through mahalanobis distance. two cases were identified as multivariate outliers (p < .001). since there was no significant difference in the mediation results when the two outliers were included, the analyses include these outliers. two participants were dropped from analyses because of missing data on regulation of eating behaviors. the analysed sample consisted of 237 participants. results descriptive and correlation analyses table 1 shows means, standard deviations, and pearson’s correlation coefficients for study variables. in general, there were moderate to strong relationships between variables included in the model, as proposed by the sdt. table 1 means, standard deviations, and pearson’s correlation coefficients for study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. basic needs satisfaction 113.03 15.22 .600** .423** -.311** .618** 2. global motivation 9.07 3.87 .412** -.190** .402** 3. regulation of eating behaviors 19.06 9.17 -.268** .314** 4. disordered eating behaviors and attitudes 3.88 3.75 -.399** 5. satisfaction with life 27.57 5.57 note. n = 237. **р < .01. disordered eating and self-determination theory 574 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ serial multiple mediation analysis the serial mediation model’s results first showed a significant direct effect of basic psychological needs satisfaction on life satisfaction (β = .1912, se = .058; p < .0001). the overall indirect effect of basic needs satisfaction on life satisfaction through the three mediators, i.e. general motivation, regulation of eating behaviors, and disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, was also significant (ie = .0045, 95% bootstrap ci .001 to .014). the specific indirect effects of basic needs satisfaction on life satisfaction through (1) regulation of eating behaviors, and disordered eating behaviors and attitudes (ie = .009, 95% bootstrap ci .001 to .029), as well as only through (2) disordered eating behaviors and attitudes (ie = .054, 95% bootstrap ci .020 to .110) were also both significant. no other specific indirect effects were found to be significant (cis included zero). figure 1 shows significant paths (p < .05) and their regression coefficients. figure 1. serial multiple mediation analysis relating basic psychological needs satisfaction, general motivation, regulation of eating behaviors, disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, and life satisfaction. note. n = 237. values are standardized regression coefficient; only significant paths are reported. (the exact same model has been reproduced with only the disorder eating attitudes). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. discussion the aim of the present study was to get a better understanding of the possible etiological factors of disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, and their underlying motivational processes, by testing the links between basic psychological needs satisfaction, global motivation, motivation to regulate eating behaviors, disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, and life satisfaction. a model based on the sdt and inspired by pelletier and his colleagues’ work (pelletier & dion, 2007; pelletier, dion, & lévesque, 2004; pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004) was elaborated and tested among women from the general population. the tested model succeeded in bringing out a significant serial mediation effect, showing that the more women’s basic psychological needs are satisfied, the more their motivation is self-determined, the more they regulate their eating behaviors autonomously, the less they adopt disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, and the more they report satisfaction with their life. in line with previous studies (pelletier & dion, 2007; pelletier, dion, & lévesque, 2004; bégin, fecteau, côté et al. 575 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pelletier, dion, slovinec-d’angelo, & reid, 2004; verstuyf et al., 2012), these findings provide a strong support to the usefulness of the sdt when studying disordered eating behaviors and attitudes and their impact on wellbeing. although the present results are based on a general sample of women without an eating disorder, they are, nevertheless, in line with the eating disorder recovery literature, which suggests that patients who entered treatment with higher level of motivation to change, especially the intrinsic level of motivation, or who have a higher motivation during treatment, had favorable outcomes (clausen et al., 2013; vall & wade, 2015). the main contribution of the present study is the inclusion of basic psychological needs satisfaction as a precursor variable in the explanatory model of disordered eating behaviors and life satisfaction through the lens of sdt. our findings thus support the assumption that a self-determined motivation that leads to a more autonomous regulation of eating behaviors and less disorder eating behaviors and attitudes stems from fulfilled basic psychological needs. one possible explanation could be that unsatisfied psychological needs could influence eating behaviors and attitudes through an impact on negative affect (verstuyf, vansteenkiste, soenens, boone, & mouratidis, 2013). since unsatisfied psychological needs are linked to negative affect (ryan, bernstein, & brown, 2010), and that negative affect may serve as a trigger for pathological eating behaviors (leehr et al., 2015), the presence of negative affect when psychological needs are not satisfied may at least partly account for the association between psychological needs satisfaction and disordered eating symptoms. this hypothesis awaits additional examination. from a clinical standpoint, it is also possible to think that women with unsatisfied basic psychological needs may try to compensate these deficiencies by building a false sense of mastering, autonomy and competency over food, something that they can control more easily than their deeper sense of being weak, powerless, and alone (bruch, 1981; slade, 1982). even though this study gives empirical support to the proposed model based on the sdt, some limitations need to be highlighted. first, associations found between variables do not demonstrate any causal link, since the cross-sectional design does not allow any inference about causality. longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate the impact of changes across time in psychological needs satisfaction and motivational processes on disordered eating behaviors and attitudes. second, data were collected from volunteered women who showed an interest in participating in the study. these women might have been more motivated or more self-determined in comparison to the women who did not volunteered to participate in the study and this may have influenced results when testing the underlying motivational processes toward eating behaviors and attitudes. in addition, since a majority of women was normal weight in our study and that higher bmi has been associated with lower level of intrinsic motivation and autonomous regulation, results can not be extrapolated to overweight/obese individuals (gropper et al., 2014; leong et al., 2012). since we recruited women with no formal eating disorder diagnosis, we also cannot extrapolate these results to the eating disorder population. third, constructs were mainly tested with self-reported measures, so results could have been influenced by social desirability. therefore, conclusions should be drawn carefully. in sum, results from this study suggest that a global conceptual model based on the sdt including basic psychological needs satisfaction may help to understand possible etiological factors implicated in disordered eating behaviors. findings propose that satisfaction of basic psychological needs is related to self-determined motivation in general, autonomous regulation of eating and less disordered eating behaviors and attitudes, which are linked to a better life satisfaction. these results may have interesting implications from a clinical standpoint. that is, interventions on disordered eating behaviors may benefit from working on the improvement of basic psychological needs satisfaction per se, i.e. autonomy, competency and relatedness, rather than focusing only disordered eating and self-determination theory 576 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the enhancement of self-determined motivation to quit pathological eating or promote health behaviors (bellg, 2003). thus, strategies promoting autonomy, and reinvestment in different spheres of the patient’s life instead of an over-investment in control over food and weight should be recommended. future studies should examine our model among a diagnosed eating disorders sample. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bellg, a. j. 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(2013). daily ups and downs in women’s binge eating symptoms: the role of basic psychological needs, general self-control, and emotional eating. journal of social and clinical psychology, 32(3), 335-361. doi:10.1521/jscp.2013.32.3.335 about the authors catherine bégin is professor of psychology at the school of psychology of laval university. she is the director of a multidisciplinary clinic specialized in the treatment of eating and weight disorders. her main research interests stands on profiling people suffering from eating and weight issues. she is also interested in the etiology and treatment of eating and weight disorders. annie fecteau completed her clinical doctoral degree (d.ps.) at laval university. she is now working as a clinical psychologist in a local community services center in quebec city. the present study stems from her doctoral dissertation. marilou côté completed her ph.d. in psychology at laval university. she is research coordinator and clinical psychologist specialized in the treatment of eating disorders at laval university. her main research interests cover the mechanisms underlying disordered eating behaviors. she is also interested in the interconnections between interpersonal relationships and eating and weight issues. bégin, fecteau, côté et al. 579 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.68 https://doi.org/10.1080/17509840701827437 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-010-9200-y https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8260.1982.tb00549.x https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440902783628 https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.22411 https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-9-21 https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2013.32.3.335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ alexandra bédard completed her ph.d. in nutrition at laval university. she is research coordinator working on eating disordered population. her main research interests cover disordered eating disorders, eating pleasure and intrinsic motivation related to foods. caroline senécal is professor of psychology at the school of psychology of laval university. her research interests include human motivation in health behaviors. carole ratté is a retired professor of psychiatry at the faculty of medicine of laval university. she founded the intervention program for eating disorders provided in quebec ciuss. her research interests include the etiology and treatment of eating disorders. disordered eating and self-determination theory 580 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(3), 571–580 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i3.1577 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ disordered eating and self-determination theory (introduction) methods participants and procedure measures statistical analyses results descriptive and correlation analyses serial multiple mediation analysis discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors are dimensions of gender inequality uniformly associated with human values? research reports are dimensions of gender inequality uniformly associated with human values? serena stefani 1,2, gabriele prati 2 [1] department of psychology and cognitive science, university of trento, rovereto (tn), italy. [2] department of psychology, university of bologna, cesena (fc), italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 received: 2019-11-15 • accepted: 2020-09-10 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: gabriele prati, dipartimento di psicologia, università di bologna, piazza aldo moro, 90, 47521 cesena fc, italy. tel: +39 0547 338509, fax: +39 0547 338503, e-mail: gabriele.prati@unibo.it supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract a previous work of schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015546) highlighted the association between human values and gender equality. however, gender equality is not a monolith. indeed, it is a multidimensional phenomenon. we started from this multidimensionality to understand how the relative importance of human values varies through the different dimensions of gender equality index (gei)—namely work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health. we have designed a cross-national study based on secondary data analysis from international databases (i.e., european social survey [ess] and gei). through the bayesian correlational analysis of 18 european countries, findings revealed that 1) universalism, benevolence and self-direction are strongly and positively correlated to gender equality; 2) security, power and achievement are strongly and negatively correlated to equality while 3) conformity, tradition, stimulation, and hedonism have weak/non-significant correlation coefficients with gender equality. relevance to cultural values and ideologies that support social equality are discussed. furthermore, we find that some values are related to certain specific gender equality dimensions. our results provide a more fine-grained analysis compared to previous findings, by outlining a more complex scenario. keywords gender, equality, values, dimensions, cross-sectional, women there are different socio-cultural mechanisms related to gender roles (eagly, wood, & diekman, 2000) and stereotypes (fisk & ridgeway, 2018) that legitimate unequal outcomes in a multitude of areas of gender experience. therefore, it is essential to take gender equality's complexity into account in analyzing the beliefs, values, and attitudes linked with it. in the present study, we focus on the relationship between dimensions of gender inequality and schwartz’s (1992) human values. before discussing these associations in detail, we first present an overview of the dimensions of gender inequality and its implications. then, we critically discuss the findings of schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009) in light of a multidimensional framework on gender equality. gender (in)equality: a multidimensional phenomenon gender (in)equality is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon (walby, 2004). gender equality has multiple dimensions because inequalities arise from numerous interactions and feedback between actions at individual, family, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2261&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0749-183x https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ community, and societal scales (acker, 1990; verloo, 2006). an action to promote an aspect of gender equality can undermine (and implicitly devalue) other areas of equality (acker, 1990, 2000, 2006, 2009, 2012). a common example is the management of interplay between job and domestic work: the women's increasing participation in the labor market does not constitute actual work equality without redistribution of domestic work and equal gender pay (kan, sullivan, & gershuny, 2011; lewis, 1992; mcginnity & whelan, 2009). so, there are many dimensions of gender equality and care must be taken into account to ensure an organic understanding of it. a fragmented overview can have repercussions on other sectors where inequality exists (o'brien et al., 2019). for this purpose, the european institute for gender equality (eige, 2017) identified and indexed six dimensions in which gender inequality manifests itself: in work, in the holding of money and economic position, in knowledge and education, in the use of free time, in socio-political power and in health. in addition to the multitude of aspects of life in which gender inequality reverberates, it is interesting to note how the harmful effects are not only manifested at microlevel, but also at a social and economic macrolevel. it has been in fact studied that gender inequality reflects impoverished society at several junctures. countries with greater gender inequality have slower economic growth and more pronounced economic inequalities (cuberes & teignier, 2016; mitra, bang, & biswas, 2015; seguino, 2000), lower stocks of democracy (beer, 2009; inglehart, norris, & welzel, 2002) larger corruption in political institution (dollar, fisman, & gatti, 2001; swamy, knack, lee, & azfar, 2001) and lesser educational attainment (hirshfield & glass, 2018; knowles, lorgelly, & owen, 2002). instead, greater gender equality at country level is associated with ecological footprints (dietz, kalof, & stern, 2002; mckinney & fulkerson, 2015), job satisfaction (mencarini & sironi, 2010) and general well-being (bjørnskov, dreher, & fischer, 2008; fischer, bjørnskov, & dreher, 2007). these characteristics are known to be linked to the system of human values identified by schwartz (1992, 2006, 2007b), that is, they influence the importance that individuals attach to each value (arciniega & gonzález, 2005; arikan & bloom, 2015; dietz et al., 2002; inglehart, basanez, & moreno, 1998; öcal, kyburiene, & yiğittir, 2012; yeganeh & may, 2011). gender inequality has also been associated with the human value system (schwartz & rubel-lifschitz, 2009). an overview of schwartz human values system, along with table s1 and figure s1, is provided in supplementary materials: sm1. previous results on association between human values and gender equality gender equality is associated with relative importance that people attribute to basic human values (schwartz & rubel-lifschitz, 2009). using archival data (study 1) and a sample of students (study 2) schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009) tested the effects of gender equality on the overall importance of the 10 values for women and men (hypotheses 1 and 2) and effects of gender equality on the size of sex differences in the importance of values (hypothesis 3–6). according to both study 1 and study 2, greater gender equality within countries was associated with the importance of values of benevolence, universalism, self-direction, stimulation and hedonism (anxiety-free values), while in countries with less gender equality greater importance was given to power, achievement, security, conformity and tradition values (anxiety-based values). it was also discovered that the preference for some values had a divergent effect for the two sexes based on the gender inequality of the country: women gave more importance to values of benevolence and universalism more than men did, whereas men valued power, achievement, and stimulation more than women. moreover, where gender equality was higher, sex differences in these values increased. sex differences in tradition, conformity, security, hedonism, and self-direction values were not be affected by increases in gender equality. in their work, schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009) highlighted the association between two clusters of values and gender inequality; however, a unique gender inequality index was used in their study, neglecting the multidimensionali­ ty of the phenomenon. since gender equality is a multidimensional construct, it is not clear whether these relationships would hold when considering multiple dimensions of gender equality. hypothesis our study is based on the results of schwartz and rubel-lifschitz’s (2009) work, and aspires to deepen the link between values and gender inequality in the various areas in which gender inequality exists. our aim is to understand which values deviate from the pattern identified by schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009) when it comes to gender inequality in stefani & prati 93 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ defined contexts, such as in the workplace, monetary, health, in places of institutional political power, in leisure time and in education. to accomplish this, we have designed a cross-national study based on secondary data analysis from international databases: european social survey (ess) and gender equality index (gei). the exploratory focus of this study fills the gap in the literature on the relationship between multiple dimensions of gender inequality and human values. based on the study of schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009), we address the following research questions: rq1: does the importance of power, achievement, security, conformity, and tradition values decrease with greater scores on dimensions (i.e., work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health) of gender equality? rq2: does the importance of benevolence, universalism, stimulation, hedonism, and self-direction values increase with greater scores on dimensions (i.e., work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health) of gender equality? method data data were obtained creating ad hoc datasets through data linkage between two international databases: round 8 of the ess and gei of the european institute for gender equality (eige). round 8 of the ess includes representative samples of the population aged 15 and older (44,387 participants, 47.4% men and 52.6% women). we used data from 18 total countries1; the countries included were: austria, belgium, czech republic, germany, estonia, finland, france, hungary, ireland, italy, lithuania, netherlands, poland, portugal, slovenia, spain, sweden, and the united kingdom. data from ess were collected using face-to-face interviews held between 2016 and 2017. the eige is a european institute that supports the development and implementation of evidence-based gender equality policies and legislation and shows the different outcomes of those policies for women and men. it provided data at aggregate level on gender gaps between women and men within 28-eu countries. we used only the same 18 countries of ess. we adopted data released in 2017 and collected between 2014 and 2016. measures in this study, two measures were used: human values and gender equality. human values were measured by ess thorough portrait values questionnaire (pvq; schwartz et al., 2001), shortened and revised in a 21-items scale. the pvq includes short verbal portraits of different people, gender matched with the respondent. each portrait describes a person’s goals, wishes or aspirations that point implicitly to the importance of a single value type. for each portrait, the participants answer the question “how much like you is this person?” by choosing one of the likert scale boxes from 1 to 6 where 1 is “not like me at all” and 6 “very much like me.” for example: “being very successful is important to her. she likes to impress other people.” thus, respondents’ own values are inferred from their self-reported similarity to people who are described in terms of particular values. such an instrument is more adaptable than the schwartz values survey (svs) for this kind of survey because it is shorted (svs has 56 items) and more suitable for use with all segments of the population, including those with little or no formal education. pvq permits use of cross-culturally validated theory to predict and explain variation in macro phenomena like inequalities (schwartz et al., 2001). the internal reliability of the values in the 21 items pvq ranged from .39 for tradition to .79 for hedonism. each value is based on two items only (only universalism is based on three items). the associations of these value scores with variables as political orientations, attitudes, interpersonal trust, and social involvement support their validity (schwartz, 2007a, 2010). we centered each person’s responses on their own mean values to eliminate individual differences in use of the response scale. such corrections convert absolute value scores into scores that indicate the relative importance of each value in the value system—that is, the individual’s value priorities (schwartz, 1992). each mean was then aggregated at country level. for gender equality, we used the gei provided by the eige. gei is a complex gender equality indicator to assess the status and monitor the progress of this phenomenon across the eu over time (eige, 2017). the gei has an overall score 1) ess collects data for 23 european countries, while gei holds data for 28 countries. eighteen total countries were matching in both datasets. gender inequality and human values 94 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and six main domains (work, money, knowledge, time, power, and health). the gei assigns scores for member states between 1 for total inequality and 100 for full equality. statistical analysis we tested the relationships between human values and dimensions of gender equality by performing bayesian correla­ tions (i.e., bayesian inference about pearson correlation coefficient). since for some values—namely tradition, power, and self-direction—the alpha level was very low (< .50), we made separate analyzes for each of the items. we computed the posterior median of the correlation coefficient and the corresponding bayesian 95% credible intervals (cis). this interval is interpreted as having a 95% probability of including the true correlation. when the 95% credible interval does not contain zero, this indicated a statistically significant correlation. compared with the standard frequentist test, the bayesian approach has several practical advantages, especially when the sample size is small or when parameters are not normally distributed (e.g., lee & song, 2004; mcneish, 2016; stegmueller, 2013). another advantage of the bayesian approach is the use of cis rather than on hypothesis testing by p values. the analyses were conducted using ibm spss statistics (version 25). the magnitude (i.e., effect size) of the correlation coefficients was evaluated using the guidelines provided by cohen (1988): about .10 = small effect, about .30 = medium, about .50 = large. results combining the data from the two databases, we were able to obtain complete information for 18 european countries. figure 1 and table 1 report results of the analyses across the 18 countries. in columns there are values and relative items (centered mean aggregated by country), while in the rows the overall gender inequality and each dimension of it are listed. figure 1 displays correlation coefficients using data bars: a longer bar represents a higher correlation coefficient, while blue and red bars represent positive and negative correlation coefficients, respectively. figure 1 representation of correlation coefficients using data bars note. gei = gender equality index; v = variable (item of the scale and its number). stefani & prati 95 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 posterior distribution characterization (and 95% credibility intervals) for pairwise correlations among human values and gender equality domains human value gei work money knowledge time power health r 95 % ci r 95 % ci r 95 % ci r 95 % ci r 95 % ci r 95 % ci r 95 % ci power (v2) −.63 [−.25, −.84] −.37 [.07, −.69] −.52 [−.11, −.78] −.28 [.17, −.63] −.39 [.05, −.70] −.69 [−.35, −.87] −.45 [−.02, −.74] power (v17) −.47 [−.04, −.75] −.42 [.02, −.72] −.28 [.18, −.63] −.20 [.25, −.57] −.52 [−.10, −.78] −.47 [−.04, −.75] −.28 [.17, −.63] achievement −.62 [−.24, −.83] −.52 [−.10, −.78] −.43 [.01, −.73] −.42 [.02, −.72] −.58 [−.18, −.81] −.61 [−.22, −.83] −.46 [−.03, −.74] hedonism .33 [.67, −.11] .49 [.76, .06] .41 [.71, −.03] .20 [.58, −.24] .36 [.68, −.08] .29 [.63, −.16] .33 [.67, −.11] stimulation .30 [.64, −.15] .36 [.68, −.09] .23 [.59, −.22] .32 [.65, −.13] .54 [.79, .13] .17 [.56, −.27] .18 [.56, −.27] benevolence .66 [.85, .29] .54 [.79, .13] .53 [.79, .12] .44 [.73, .01] .52 [.78, .10] .63 [.84, .25] .57 [.81, .17] universalism .71 [.88, .37] .51 [.77, .09] .47 [.75, .04] .37 [.68, −.08] .57 [.81, .17] .75 [.90, .45] .45 [.74, .02] self−direction (v1) .72 [.89, .39] .54 [.79, .13] .65 [.85, .28] .48 [.76, .06] .60 [.82, .21] .69 [.87, .34] .75 [.90, .45] self−direction (v11) .41 [.71, −.03] .53 [.79, .12] .31 [.65, −.13] .11 [.51, −.33] .52 [.78, .10] .33 [.66, −.12] .33 [.66, −.12] tradition (v9) .34 [.67, −.11] .05 [.46, −.38] .07 [.47, −.37] .16 [.54, −.29] .07 [.48, −.36] .51 [.77, .08] .10 [.50, −.34] tradition (v20) −.67 [−.31, −.86] −.69 [−.35, −.87] −.53 [−.12, −.79] −.44 [−.00, −.73] −.63 [−.25, −.84] −.63 [−.25, −.84] −.58 [−.19, −.82] conformity −.17 [.28, −.55] −.34 [.11, −.67] −.20 [.25, −.57] −.04 [.39, −.46] −.08 [.36, −.48] −.17 [.27, −.55] −.30 [.16, −.64] security −.67 [−.31, −.86] −.60 [−.21, −.83] −.61 [−.23, −.83] −.52 [−.10, −.78] −.66 [−.30, −.86] −.59 [−.19, −.82] −.50 [−.08, −.77] note. n = 18 european countries. the 95 % credible interval of coefficients in boldface did not include zero. gei = gender equality index; v = variable (item of the scale and its number). as regards to the directionality of correlations (table 1 and figure 1), we observe that all the coefficients are negative for security, conformity, tradition, achievement, and power values, while they are positive for benevolence, universalism, self-direction, stimulation and hedonism values. the values, however, show different degrees of statistical significance which reflect peculiarities relating to each dimension of gender inequality. looking at the values associated negatively with gender equality, negative and statistically significant correlations were found between gei and security, r = −.67, 95% cis [−.31, −.86], achievement, r = −.62, 95% cis [−.24, −.83], both items of power, v2 r = −.63, 95% cis [−.25, −.84] and v17 r = −.47, 95% cis [−.04, −.75], and the second item (v20) of tradition (“important to follow traditions and customs”), r = −.67, 95% cis [−.31, −.86]. in this case, security value reported the strongest negative coefficient and was significantly associated with all dimensions of gender equality. gei was positively correlated with benevolence, r = .66, 95% cis [.85, .29], universalism, r = .71, 95% cis [.88, .37], and the first item (v1) of self-direction, r = .72, 95% cis [.89, .39]. benevolence and the first item (v1) of self-direction (“important to think new ideas and being creative”) were significantly and positively associated with all the dimensions of gender equality. also, universalism was significantly associated with all the dimensions of gender equality except for gender inequality in knowledge. gender inequality in knowledge was significantly associated with security, r = −.52, 95% cis [−.10, −.78], the second item (v20) of tradition, r = −.44, 95% cis [−.00, −.73], benevolence, r = .44, 95% cis [.73, .01], and first item (v1) of self-direction, r = .48, 95% cis [.76, .06]. as far as power and achievement values are concerned, significant negative correlations with gei and power dimensions are shown, while their associations with gender inequality in knowledge were not significant. however, some peculiarities were present. only achievement correlated with work dimension, r = −.52, 95% cis [−.10, −.78], and only the first item (v2) of power correlated with gender equality in money, r = −.52, 95% cis [−.11, −.78]. in addition, gender equality in health was significantly correlated with the first item (v1) of power (“important to be rich, have money and expensive things”), r = −.45; 95% cis [−.02, −.74], but not with the second item (v17) of power (“important to get respect from others”), r = −.28, 95% cis [.17, −.63]. instead, the second item (v17) of power was negatively associated with gender equality in time, r = −.52, 95% cis [−.10, −.78]. stimulation correlated positively with gender equality in time, r = .54, 95% cis [.79, .13], while hedonism was significantly related to gender equality in work, r = .49, 95% cis [.76, .06]. the first item (v9) of tradition was significantly associated with gender equality in power, r = .51, 95% cis [.77, .08], while the second item (v20) was negatively related to all the dimensions of gender equality. conformity was not significantly associated with any dimension of gender equality. gender inequality and human values 96 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the aim of the current work was to investigate the relationships between multiple dimensions of gender inequality and human values. it was found that the endorsement of human values is linked to the degree of gender equality in a country. according schwartz and rubel-lifschitz (2009) outcomes, values of universalism, benevolence, self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism are considered more important by countries where there is greater gender equality, while power, achievement, security, conformity and tradition are the values that assume greater importance in more gender unequal countries. this pattern refers to the relationship of values with anxiety: anxiety-free values and anxiety-based values. however, it is important to emphasize that gender inequality is a multidimensional phenomenon and appears in different forms, from the scarce presence of women in institutions to the pay gap, up to the uneven amount of free time between genders. therefore, a possibility is that the values elicited in a society vary according to the dimension of gender inequality referred to. our results provided support for this perspective. overall, our fine-grained analysis seems to identify a different clustering, although with some reservations. an overview of the results is given in table s2, supplementary materials: sm2. the relationship between values and gender inequality changes according to the dimension considered and it is based on the significance/magnitude of the correlations. based on our results, 1) universalism, benevolence, and self-direction were strongly and positively correlated to gender equality; 2) security, power, and achievement were strongly and negatively correlated to equality and; 3) conformity, stimulation, tradition, and hedonism had inconsistent/weak/non-significant correlations coefficients with gender equality. our analysis also revealed that the value index changes based on the items content (e.g., tradition value), hence, it is important to take the formulation of items into account (explained in detail below). the results of our study indicated that in the structure of relations among motivationally distinct values, the key axis involved in gender equality is the one going from self-direction to universalism up to benevolence (two values of self-transcendence and one of openness) and the one going from achievement to power up to security value (two values of self-enhancement and one of conservation). so, gender equality involves both values of self-transcendence and openness to change, while gender inequality includes both values of self-enhancement and conservation. cultural values of conservatism and autonomy had already been as­ sociated with the gender gap within countries, the former in a positive sense and the latter negatively (yeganeh & may, 2011). the conservatism value is characterized by social order, respect for tradition, propriety, and family security. the security value, which is associated with more unequal countries in the present research, fits well with characteristics of conservatism, and it is no coincidence that in conservative cultures the beliefs that men are better political leaders and have more right to a job than women are widespread (inglehart et al., 2002). by contrast, self-direction is conceptually very close to the cultural value of autonomy which was associated with greater gender equality in the study of yeganeh and may (2011). autonomy (which emphasizes the opportunity to pursue one's own ideas and intellectual directions) is the prevailing cultural value of more gender-equal societies. however, it is important to differentiate that in our study the first item (v1) of self-direction (“thinking of new ideas and being creative”) was significantly related to all the dimensions of gender equality, while the second item (v11) of self-direction (“importance of making own decisions and being free”) was linked to gender equality in work and time only. the item v1 of self-direction refers to the self-expression through innovation and denotes a certain mental openness and progressist thinking which is typical of societies that tend to embrace a broader sense of inclusion on issues of abortion/divorce/homosexuality (inglehart & baker, 2000; inglehart et al., 2002; welzel & inglehart, 2005). differently, the second item of self-direction seemed to be more tied to an emancipatory measure. above all, the importance of freedom may be directly reconnected to work and leisure gender balance. although there are no previous studies investigating gender equality in relation to the values of self-transcendence, such values fit very well with political issues related to equality. gender equality is a phenomenon inscribed in the broader concept of social equality, a concept whereby all individuals must have the same state of social respectability by breaking down issues of class, gender, race, and socioeconomic status. the aims and values of equality, solidarity and social justice refer to values of universalism and benevolence historically supported by liberal leftist ideologies (jost, nosek, & gosling, 2008; lipset, 1960; lipset & rokkan, 1967). in fact, center-left supporters have given priority to universalism and values of benevolence while center-right voters have given higher priority to the values of power, achievement, security, and conformity in an italian sample (caprara, schwartz, capanna, vecchione, & barbaranelli, stefani & prati 97 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2006; caprara, schwartz, & vecchione, 2010); similar findings were found in another cross-country study that included 20 countries (piurko, schwartz, & davidov, 2011). the values of conformity, hedonism, tradition, and stimulation make up the group of values that were weakly, inconsistently, or non-significantly associated with the gei. it is interesting to note that tradition and conformity “share an underlying motivation to avoid threats and anxiety” (schwartz & rubel-lifschitz, 2009, p. 174), whereas hedonism, and stimulation express anxiety-free motivations (schwartz, 2006). however, the role of tradition is quite controversial because one item correlates positively and the other negatively with gender equality and related dimensions. at first, we had averaged the item scores, but the internal consistency was low so we decided to uncouple them. the analyses conducted on the two separated items of tradition revealed that the second item of tradition (v20: “important to follow traditions and customs”) was significantly and negatively associated with all gender equality dimensions, while the first item (v9: “important to be humble and modest, not draw attention”) was not associated with any of the dimensions of gender equality, except for a positive correlation with power. the content of item v20 of tradition seems more associated with the idea of a traditionalist society that defends the status quo, so more averse to gender equality at all. differently, the positive association between item v9 of tradition and dimension of power could highlight how in societies where more women occupy managerial/political positions, the leadership style assumes less stereotypical masculine-agentic characteristics (such as self-promotion or dominance) in favor of humility and modesty (eagly & karau, 2002; rudman, 1998). indeed, descriptions of leadership roles are highly imbued with cultural masculinity (atwater, brett, waldman, dimare, & hayden, 2004) in which the role of leader is almost incompatible with the female gender (eagly & karau, 2002; schein, 2001). schein (2001) labeled this phenomenon as the “think manager—think male” effect. nonetheless, with greater gender equality in power roles, these biases could fade. these results suggest that the formulation of the items could change the relationship even if both items are theoretically embedded in the same value. hedonism value was related to gender equality in work, while the value of stimulation was associated with greater gender equality in time. conformity was not associated with any dimension of gender equality. the value of hedonism is specifically associated with fairer gender working societies, so the equal inclusion of women in work can increase the national average importance that the population attaches to direct gratification and in the pursuit of pleasure. indeed, women have always been disadvantaged in the labor market and still they are (arulampalam, booth, & bryan, 2007; betti, 2018; eige, 2017; sundötrom, 1991). without deploying strong commitment and efforts, females—as a disadvantaged social group—have less expectations of success in the workplace and they are much more concerned about demonstrating their abilities (marini, fan, finley, & beutel, 1996). the data found that workers in higher social class positions attach more importance to the intrinsic aspects of work, (opportunity for self-expression, interest-value of work) while those in lower social class positions attach more importance to extrinsic rewards, such as high wages (centers & bugental, 1966). greater gender equality in work would allow women greater tranquility and fewer worries about the income, which could explain the rise of hedonism in this dimension. another specific association is between stimulation (e.g., novelties and challenges, need for variety and stimuli) and gender equality in leisure time and related activities. the dimension of time considers both the large disparity in the division of care work for children / elderly and the time to devote to cultural activities, sports, and volunteering. the disparity in the division of care and assistance work could negatively affect the happiness of women (mencarini & sironi, 2010) limiting their free time to devote to more enjoyable and stimulating activities (e.g., playing sports). indeed, physical activity and sport had already been shown to be linked to the importance of stimulation (souchon, bardin, perrissol, & maio, 2015). the three clusters of values identified by this study reflect a bidirectional shaping (citizens-institutions) of needs and beliefs based on the national gender gap. countries for which values of universalism, benevolence, self-direction are important are negatively affected when these values are threatened and are happier when they can enjoy their full social application, in terms of egalitarian policies and non-discriminatory actions. the construction of the judgment on the facts and on the consequences that derive from them is based on the relative importance that people attribute to values, which perform the function of reference criteria. although people are often unaware of the impact of values on daily decisions, the evaluation of actions to reduce or maintain gender inequality is filtered by the groups of values that we have identified here. the motivational continuum of values of self-direction, universalism, and benevolence positively directs actions aimed at promoting gender equity and transcending one's selfish interests to struggle social gender inequality and human values 98 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ injustices, as well as trusting one's own judgment and feeling at ease in the face of the diversity of existence. otherwise, the motivational continuum of values of achievement, power, and security, steer positive attitudes to social superiority and esteem, contributing to the solidity of the hierarchy based on patriarchy. in particular, security and power—through the control of gender relations and the male monopoly of resources—are the values mostly in charge of preventing social changes. however, it is important to underline that, also in this case, the meaning of the items affects the correlations. for example, item v2 of power (“important to be rich, have money and expensive things”) is significantly related to the money dimension of gender equality, while the second item (v17: “important to get respect from others”) is not. the relationship could be explained by the direct verbal reference to the money in the first item (v2) which is missing in the second one. although this work has proved to be important and innovative, it has some limitations that must be acknowledged. statistical power of this study is limited by the low number of countries involved (n = 18). it is possible that, with a higher number of countries, we would have found other significant small correlations between human values and gender equality. despite this, we would exclude substantial changes in the results, since 18 countries are enough to establish a realistic trend using bayesian correlations (e.g., lee & song, 2004; mcneish, 2016; stegmueller, 2013). further studies are also needed to establish the generalization of these results beyond the european union. the internal consistency of some items was low hence we have conducted a separated analysis for each item. this type of procedure has highlighted the limit of values measures: relationships changed according to the distinctive formulation of items. therefore, we are not able to establish if some values are wholly tied to country-level gender equality. it depends on the aspect investigated by the items. however, by recognizing such items formulation bias it is possible to overcome this limit and make accurate interpretations. most of the studies that have investigated the relationship between values and gender equality have focused on cross-sectional analysis (schwartz & rubel-lifschitz, 2009; yeganeh & may, 2011) and our study is part of this chain, as this type of investigation is suitable for investigating the relationships between indagated variables, generating new knowledge at a theoretical level. other works will confirm these findings through multiple-panel experiments. future research may incorporate additional variables (economic development and inequality, unemployment rate, social and institutional trust) to better understand which processes and mechanisms mediate the relations between values and gender inequality. conclusion this research has contributed in an essential way to broaden the debate on gender inequality and human values, highlighting how gender inequality is not a uniform phenomenon, but stands out on different configurations. these configurations proved to be closely related to schwartz’s human values system. this research provides a fine-grained analysis of the relationships among human values and gender inequality dimensions. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via the psycharchives repository (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • sm1: overview of schwartz human values system, table s1 and figure s1. • sm2: overview of the results is given in table s2. stefani & prati 99 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 92–102 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2261 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials stefani, s., & prati, g. 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(2011). cultural values and gender gap: a cross-national analysis. gender in management: an international journal, 26(2), 106-121. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542411111116536 about the authors serena stefani, in 2018 she graduated from the school of psychology of the university of padova. after graduating in 2018, she did her scientific internship at the department of psychology of the university of bologna, in the group of gabriele prati. her internship focused on gender equality and ideology. gabriele prati is currently senior assistant professor (fixed-term) at the department of psychology of the university of bologna. he teaches theories and methods of community psychology and social psychology and deviance. his research interests focus on gender differences, attitudes, well-being, and sense of community. gender inequality and human values 102 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60281-6 https://doi.org/10.3917/rfs.474.0929 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849209458.n9 https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400701388963 https://doi.org/10.1037/12061-000 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022101032005001 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015546 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0305-750x(00)00018-8 https://doi.org/10.3917/sta.107.0063 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12001 https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1991.11505134 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0304-3878(00)00123-1 https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506806065753 https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxh024 https://doi.org/10.1080/03906700500038579 https://doi.org/10.1108/17542411111116536 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gender inequality and human values (introduction) gender (in)equality: a multidimensional phenomenon previous results on association between human values and gender equality hypothesis method data measures statistical analysis results discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors what is behind the buzzword for experts and laymen: representation of “artificial intelligence” in the it-professionals’ and non-professionals’ minds research reports what is behind the buzzword for experts and laymen: representation of “artificial intelligence” in the it-professionals’ and non-professionals’ minds paweł fortuna 1 , oleg gorbaniuk 1 [1] institute of psychology, john paul ii catholic university of lublin, lublin, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 received: 2020-12-18 • accepted: 2021-03-30 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: federico manzi, università cattolica del sacro cuore milan, italy corresponding author: paweł fortuna, institute of psychology, john paul ii catholic university of lublin, al. racławickie 14, 20-950 lublin, poland. e-mail: pawel.fortuna@kul.pl supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the aim of the presented research was to define the differences between information technology (it) professionals (itp) and nonprofessionals (np) in the way of understanding artificial intelligence (ai). the research was designed in the tradition of categorization research. in an online study participants were asked to make typicality and familiarity judgments for 50 ai exemplars. two types of analyses were carried out, which made it possible to identify and compare the hierarchy of ai designates (graded structure) and the dimensions of their groupings. we have found that “invisible ai” exemplars were highly rated by itp, but “visible ai” by np. expert knowledge allows itp to systematize ai exemplars based on both structural and functional elements. on the other hand, laymen indicate the functions that ai-driven products perform, rather than their structures. for itp, they are primarily algorithmic systems, while for np they are systems that emulate the functions of living organisms. keywords mental representation, expertness, it-professionals, artificial intelligence ai is currently one of the most fashionable and ambiguous terms. it is said that “ai applies to…” “ai can…,” “ai threatens…,” but what does it actually mean? at the individual level, the concept of ai is a mental representation that refers to a set of designates (exemplars of a category) and includes their essential properties (smith & medin, 1981). the content of the representation depends on the experience of the individual and the context in which it is acquired and applied, which makes it different for experts and novices (murphy & medin, 1985). until now, no systematic research has been conducted into representations of ai but the problem is not being ignored. the source of data on this subject are mainly the surveys, which indicate that for the respondents ai is mainly perceptually identified artifacts, such as humanoid robots (davies, 2020). these studies allow to capture the most mentally accessible exemplars of categories, but they do not provide insight into how people arrange designations within the category and ignore individual differences in understanding ai, treating the respondents as a homogeneous group. the research presented in this article intends to fill this gap by defining how information technology professionals (itp) and np deal with the transformation of informational “chaos” about ai into a subjective “cosmos.” both cognitive and practical reasons decided to differentiate between these groups. first, due to the qualifications of itps, they meet the criterion of expertise, with its indicator in the form of structured and usable specialist knowledge (farrington-darby & wilson, 2006). second, the importance of itps in the modern world grows as they are the ones who give direction this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5473&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0633-4453 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9830-8537 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and impetus to digital transformation. third, the social role of itp as people building a bridge between developers and users of ai-based solutions is changing. due to the need to work closely with people who do not have an it education, the expectations of employers regarding the itp competence profile are constantly changing (patacsil & tablatin, 2017). an it-job today has the “hybrid” form because it requires a multidimensional skill set combining technology skills and human focus (bullen, abraham, gallagher, kaiser, & simon, 2009). programmers and administrators less and less often resemble stereotypical nerds who have been described as “intelligent but anti-social people” (ward, 2014). such an unfavorable image has been perpetuated for years by media messages, in which a computer expert is most often a man with admirable cognitive attributes, but still socially awkward or even avoiding people altogether (wong, 2019). although this stereotype is reproduced in popular culture (mendick & francis, 2012), it is no longer widely accepted among young people who understand that it experts must develop both “hard” (technical) and “soft” (non-technical) skills (wong, 2019). the theoretical basis of the presented research is the theory of prototypes (rosch, 1973) and the theory of concepts as naive theories (medin & wattenmaker, 1987). the theory of prototypes is useful in relation to areas that are difficult to define, because it is based on the observation that the concepts, that people use in everyday life, do not have sharp boundaries (dean, 2003). according to it, man cognitively orders the world by prioritizing the items in terms of their typicality as examples. on the other hand, the idea of concepts as naive theories indicates that people flexibly select the dimensions on which they arrange objects in the psychological space. identifying the hierarchy of ai designates and the dimensions of their grouping brings us closer to grasping how people understand this part of their world. in turn, capturing the differences in this area between itp and np facilitate the design of activities, supporting better cooperation between the two groups. difficulty with defining ai the introduction of the name ai (mccarthy, minsky, rochester, & shannon, 1955) was also the beginning of the discussion on the definition of this concept (nilsson, 2009). although there is a general consensus that ai is the attempt “to make a computer work like a human mind” (wang, liu, & dougherty, 2018, p. 2), at the more detailed levels of analysis we deal with terminological “tower of babel.” the very concept of "intelligence" is problematic. in the area of ai research, over 28 definitions have been developed in the last decade and subsequent attempts to systematize the approaches are still lively discussed (monett, lewis, & thórisson, 2020). regardless of the debate over the concept of intelligence, ai develops as “…a scientific study of what problems can be solved, what tasks can be accomplished, and what features of the world can be understood computationally (i.e., using the language of turing machines), and then to provide algorithms to show how this can be done efficiently, practically, physically, and ethically” (rapaport, 2020, p. 54). many subdomains are developing within it, and exemplars of the concept of ai can be classified at various levels of generality. at the general level, russell and norvig (2016), classify intelligent agents on the basis of program design, and at a more detailed level, according to their functions, distinguishing systems specialized in solving various types of problems. some of them are softbots, while others are robots endowed with effectors to perform tasks by manipulating objects in physical world. the number of areas in which ai is used is growing, which only widens the range of possible meanings of this concept. on a detailed level, we can indicate applications used by the governments and military, transportation, information searching, art, communication, education, entertainment, finance, industry, medicine, science, security, services, etc. in addition, many of the new “intelligent tools” operate under marketing names, for example, alexa or siri. acquisition of ai representation most people encounter the notion of ai and portraits of ai on a daily basis in popular culture. the frequency and scope of direct contacts with intelligent agents depend on the habits of using technology and the professional specialization. surveys show that people who contact ai-based products are not always aware of it (brown, 2017). it is considered, that social awareness of ai seems to depend on the visibility of its application (davies, 2020). it found that 90% of respondents are aware that the voice assistant (tangible device qualified as “visible ai”) is ai-based, while only one in three has associated ai with online shopping sites, video streaming services and social media (algorithms qualified mental representation of artificial intelligence 208 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as “invisible ai”). the obtained results are consistent with the observations collected in the british research (the royal society, 2018), which revealed the limited knowledge of respondents about ai: only 9% know the term “machine learning.” polish respondents, on the other hand, asked to spontaneously provide examples of ai most often mentioned a humanoid robot, a technologically advanced computer, and self-driving car (av) (maison, 2019). it has been found that for the average pole, ai is a phenomenon remote from everyday life, although as many as 81% believe that they know what it is, but only 17% of them believe that ai is committed to innovative smartphones. the fact that the respondents indicated “visible ai” exemplars as typical examples of ai is probably the result of the influence of media messages. ai-narratives present in pop culture include “…portrayals of any machines (or hybrids, such as cyborgs) to which intelligence has been ascribed, which can include representations under terms such as robots, androids or automata” (cave, dihal, & dillon, 2020, p. 5). some of the narratives about ai are non-fictional (e.g., tv news), and some are fictional messages (e.g., sci-fi movies). an analysis of the content of articles on ai, published in the new york times in 1985–2016, shows that their subject matter has changed: from space weapons, through chess, search engines, to av (fast & horvitz, 2017). it-professionals as experts participants are classified as experts in expertise research most often on the basis of their qualification (farringtondarby & wilson, 2006). the itp meet this criterion, although they differ in terms of specialization, experience and position (e.g., junior, mid-level and senior developer). the report of the it community survey 2020 conducted in poland shows that the itps are educated and development-oriented people. they obtain additional specialist information mainly from blogs and articles, online courses and books, and the greatest source of motivation for them is the desire to self-improve (70%). knowledge of new technologies and experience resulting from contact with innovations distinguish itp from nps. the most important skills that characterize experts include perceiving meaningful patterns in their domain and representing a problem at a deeper level than novices chi, glaser and farr (1988). shanteau (1992) highlights extensive and up to date content knowledge and sense of what is relevant when making decisions. in turn, according to cellier et al. (1997) experts have more complete representations of the task domains, a more global and functional view of a situation and take a wider range of data into account in diagnosis. research shows that experts differ from laymen in both the amount and type of information they have, and different types of experiences with a taxonomic category influence the internal structure of the category (bailenson, shum, atran, medin, & coley, 2002). current study the aim of our research was to determine the differences between itp and np in the way of understanding ai by comparing the hierarchy of ai designates (graded structure) and the dimensions of their grouping. the research is exploratory in nature, so no hypotheses have been formulated. the justification for the adopted research concept is presented below. typicality and graded structure of category as previously shown, currently there is no unambiguous definition of ai, because it is not possible to indicate one ontological basis of ai. however, such concepts are rare in human cognition, and people use almost exclusively concepts with blurred boundaries, when creating a colloquial representation of the world (gluck & bower, 1988). in line with the prototype concept and other similarity-based models (smith & medin, 1981), categories exhibit graded structure, in which some exemplars represent the category better than others, and there is a stable within-category structure, usually described as the typicality gradient. typicality reflects how representative an exemplar is for a category (hampton, 2007). the attribution of typical features to a given specimen depends on the experience of the individual (murphy & medin, 1985) and the level of expertise (bailenson et al., 2002). in this study we used the method of determining typicality, which consists in presenting the participants with the referent of the category and instructing them to evaluate goodness-of-example (goe), delineated in rosch and mervis, 1975. as people differ in the level of knowledge of the designations of the concept of ai, apart from the goe assessment, they also estimated the degree of familiarity. this term was also used to confirm the differences between itp and np in terms of expertise. fortuna & gorbaniuk 209 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dimensions of ai exemplars grouping the category of ai is diverse and every day brings information about new innovations. a person who wants to reduce such a variety of stimuli cannot refer to a normative systematization as for example when he group elements in the mendeleev table. the mental “taxonomic sort of exemplars” must therefore be based on subjectively defined dimensions that explain the similarities and differences between the categorized objects. rosch (1978) distinguished two dimensions of conceptual representations (vertical and horizontal), however the studies comparing experts and laymen show that these dimensions are not universal. johnson and mervis (1997) found that experts used information from different levels, while novices only duplicated information from the basic level. this is in line with the notion of concepts as naive theories, according to which concepts should be treated not as isolated mental representations, but as part of the individual’s knowledge that is influenced by them (medin & wattenmaker, 1987). the idea of concepts as naive theories makes it possible to predict differences in the dimensions used by itp and nps, due to different knowledge about ai and experience in contact with exemplars of this category. method subjects due to the fact that the analyses were to be carried out separately for the itp and np groups, the same size of both samples was not forced. at the same time, due to the fact that the stability of the factor structure depends on the size of the sample, the largest possible samples were recruited for the study. accessibility to itp was weaker, therefore the number of participants in this group is lower than in np. it-professionals one hundred seventy-three itp (15.6% female, mage = 34.7, range: 19–65 years) participants took part in the study; all participated voluntarily. the gender distribution, age and education were controlled according to survey data obtained in surveys on the polish it community (ministerstwo rozwoju polski & polski towarzystwo informatyzne, 2020). participants were recruited via advertisements placed in internet it groups in social networks and discussion boards and at intranet of various it companies. non-professionals three hundred thirty-eight np (42.0% male, mage = 30.7, range: 16–85 years) voluntaries participated in the study. they were recruited via advertisements placed in various internet groups in social networks. materials the research used a set of 50 ai exemplars (e.g., humanoid robot, robotic animal, book writing program). their selection was based on: studies providing comprehensive ai kits; results obtained after entering the terms “ai” and “ai-driven products” into search engines; results of surveys; information contained in websites devoted to ai-related issues; youtube videos; and ai-popularizing books. each exemplar was presented to the participants in the form of a verbal label and a photo. the names of the examples were given the way they appear in popular messages. in the preliminary tests, three illustrative photos were selected for each exemplar, which appeared in search engines after entering its name. these photos were assessed by a group of students (n = 35), whose task was to indicate the one that best described the exemplar. illustrations selected by the majority of respondents were selected for the study. the table with the names of the exemplars being assessed, and photos given to the subjects are listed in appendix a. procedure an online study was conducted in may and june 2020 with the use of the google forms platform. participants made typicality judgments for each of the 50 ai exemplars by goe ratings (rosch & mervis, 1975). this instruction told participants to assess how good the example of the ai category was on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 for very poor mental representation of artificial intelligence 210 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ example to 7 for very good example. in addition, familiarity ratings of each ai example were collected. participants rated their knowledge on a seven-point scale, with 1 meaning unfamiliar and 7, familiar. after typicality rating task and judgment of familiarity of each ai example respondents were asked to assess their general self-knowledge about ai on 5-point likert scale, with 1 i am a layman and 5 i am an expert. finally, they provided their gender, age, education, and professional background and were thanked for their contribution. statistical analysis two separate types of analyzes were performed in itp and np sample. in order to identify and compare the hierarchy of ai designates (graded structure) we applied t-test and mann-whitney’s test. principal component analysis (pca) with varimax rotation was performed to determine the dimensions of ai exemplars grouping in each sample. results perceived expertise of participants participants were assigned to the itp and np groups on the basis of the information they provided about their occupation, but it was also checked whether there were differences in subjectively perceived specialist knowledge between these groups. the assessments of the knowledge of ai referents for all respondents were averaged (cronbach’s αitp = 0.97 and αnp = 0.97), and then they were compared between the groups. statistically significant differences were found between the groups, t(509) = 2.91, p < .01, effect size cohen’s d = 0.26. the itp’s scores for the knowledge of the exemplars (m = 4.43, sd = 1.21) were higher than those of the np (m = 4.11, sd = 1.17). the self-assessment of knowledge about ai of the two groups was compared and statistically significant differences were also found (mann-whitney’s test z = 6.09, p < .001, effect size r = .27). itp assessed their knowledge of ai significantly higher (m = 3.17, sd = 0.82) than np (m = 2.64, sd = 0.91). additionally, a positive correlation was found between the ratings of familiarity and self-knowledge in both groups (τ-citp = 0.30, p < .001 and τ-cnp = 0.29, p < .001). typicality and graded ai category structure the goe scores of all subjects were averaged to obtain an overall typical index (cronbach’s αitp = 0.96 and αnp = 0.95). the comparison of these indicators showed significant differences—there was a lower overall assessment of the typicality of ai designates in the itp group than in the np group, mitp = 4.58 (sd = 1.09); mtp = 4.95 (sd = 0.93); t(509) = 3.98, p < .001; effect size cohen’s d = 0.36. moreover, in the np group, a significant positive correlation was found between the overall rating of typicality and the rating of familiarity with the items, r(338) = .35, p < .001. a similar relationship was not observed for the itp group, r(173) = .05, p = .494, because the difference between correlation coefficients was statistically significant: z = 3.36, p < .001. the graded structure of ai category has been established based on goe ratings. the item with the highest average goe grade received rank 1. table 1 lists the ranks for all assessed ai representatives in the compared groups along with the average goe and familiarity scores and the difference in ranks for each object (a positive value means that the item has a higher rank in the itp category than np). it was found that the most typical exemplar of the category in both groups was av, although its goe score in the itp group was significantly higher than in the np group (mitp = 6.12, mnp = 5.88, u = 25,640, p < .05). similarly, the itp group had a significantly higher av familiarity rate than the np group (mitp = 5.42, mnp = 4.72, u = 22,968, p < .001). there were no significant differences in both groups between the goe rating of this object and the next ai example in the ranking. however, differences were noticed with regard to the type of successive ai objects with a lower rank than av. in the itp group they were (in descending order): facial recognition system, neural network and system for debating, and in the np group: police robot, humanoid robot that creates images and social robot. similarly, differences between groups were noted for objects with the lowest goe scores. in the case of itp, vr was the least typical example of the category, and in the case of np, the product recommendation software (m = 3.79). the goe vr score was significantly lower for itp than for np (mitp = 2.50, mnp = 4.07, u = 16,890, p < .001). itp rated goe product recommendation software higher than np (mitp = 2.50, mnp = 4.07, u = 16,890, p < .001). fortuna & gorbaniuk 211 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dimensions of ai exemplars grouping in order to determine the dimensions of the perception of psychological space, items of the ai category pca with varimax rotation were employed, counted separately in the itp and np group. a determinant of the correlation matrix for itp and np groups were respectively 4.71 × 10-17 and 2.20 × 10-13. kmo measure of sampling adequacy was .916 and .926, whereas bartlett’s sphere test also proved to be considerably significant for itp, χ2(1,225) = 5808.25, p < .001, and np, χ2(1,225) = 5808.25, p < .001, groups. the eigenvalues of the first 10 non-rotated components in the itp and np group indicate that, according to the test scree, the optimal solution in both groups will be a 3-factor solution. it explains 50.7% (itp) and 46.1% (np) of the input variance, respectively. in order to assess the degree of similarity between the factor structures (see table 2) obtained in both groups, tucker’s coefficients of congruence were computed, which is a measure of similarity between factor loadings. the highest congruence coefficients for the pairs of factors of both structures were as follows: .74 (between i itp and iii np components), .91 (between ii itp and ii np components), .83 (between iii itp and i np components). in the light of the criteria proposed by lorenzo-seva and ten berge (2006), the obtained tucker’s coefficients attest to the high similarity between ii itp and ii np components and only moderate similarity between iii itp and i np components. the second component in both structures can be described as “supporting systems” (see table 2). these are systems whose specific feature is making it easier for a person to go beyond their own limitations, as well as strengthening the ability to achieve goals in a difficult environment. the first component in itp group, which explains the highest percentage (21.8%) of the variance of typicality scores, can be described as “algorithmic systems.” the exemplars are mainly autonomous softbots whose “engine” is hidden in an algorithmized “black box.” partially similar, but much lower in the percentage of explained variance (12.2%), is the third component in the np group. as in the case of itp group, these are autonomous systems, but they refer to a narrower range of problems solved in the computer environment. these algorithms are utilitarian because they offer a new quality through data processing. that is why we refer to this factor as “useful programs.” we called the third component in itp group “robotic creatures.” the common feature of these specimens is their mechanical construction, which makes them similar to various individuals occurring in natural conditions, while allowing them to perform some of their functions. we used the label “creatures” because not all robots are humanoid (though in some ways all are animate), but they are examples of embodied ai. the first factor in np group explains the largest percentage (18.4%) of the variance of the typicality scores. we have defined it as “nature imitating systems.” it includes, among others, such exemplars as: humanoid robot, robotic child, virtual therapist, system for debating and social bot. these specimens differ in terms of design (robots and softbots), and their common feature is to imitate the functions assigned to living organisms. artifacts grouped in this dimension are characterized by a high level of human-likeness. this is the result of work carried out in the developmental cybernetics (dc) and in the developmental robotics (dr) perspectives, which at the same time facilitate the perception of robot humanness and attribution of mental states (manzi et al., 2020). activities undertaken as part of dc focus on designing anthropomorphic physical and behavioral characteristics of robots, as well as simulating human mental processes and observing the dynamics of human-robot interaction. in turn dr focuses on the development of cognitive neural networks in the robot, leading to autonomous acquisition of complex cognitive functions. the example which reflects dc perspective in this factor is a robotic child and the dr research-debating system. table 1 comparison of typicality and familiarity assessments of the ai exemplars for it-professionals (itp) and non-professionals (np) ai category exemplarsa itp np rank differencesgoe ranksb goe ratingsc familiarity ratings goe ranks goe ratings familiarity ratings av 1 6.11 5.42 1 5.88 4.72 0 facial recognition system 2 5.94 5.43 5 5.71 4.90 −3 neural network 3 5.93 5.11 43 4.44 3.45 −40 system for debating 4 5.73 3.31 9 5.46 2.86 −5 mental representation of artificial intelligence 212 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ai category exemplarsa itp np rank differencesgoe ranksb goe ratingsc familiarity ratings goe ranks goe ratings familiarity ratings strategy game program 5 5.55 4.30 18 5.12 3.87 −13 risk determining program 6 5.50 4.08 14 5.28 3.63 −8 skynet/terminator 7 5.46 5.28 30 4.88 4.18 −23 humanoid robot that creates images 8 5.44 3.90 3 5.83 3.49 5 chess program 9 5.39 5.40 6 5.57 5.14 3 chatbot 10 5.39 5.46 7 5.53 5.19 3 police robot 11 5.32 3.86 2 5.84 3.69 9 behavioral biometrics 12 5.28 4.73 8 5.52 3.75 4 go playing program 13 5.28 4.37 21 5.05 3.66 −8 press articles writing program 14 5.20 3.92 17 5.14 3.51 −3 social robot 15 5.19 4.30 4 5.72 4.28 11 poem-writing software 16 5.11 3.69 26 4.96 2.93 −10 social bot 17 5.10 4.26 22 4.98 3.97 −5 book writing program 18 5.03 2.86 16 5.19 2.57 2 face generating program 19 4.97 4.09 32 4.78 3.37 −13 virtual therapist 20 4.97 3.66 25 4.96 3.08 −5 music generation program 21 4.94 4.32 29 4.89 4.30 −8 image generation algorithm 22 4.92 4.06 39 4.63 3.50 −17 financial service software 23 4.91 3.54 24 4.97 3.21 −1 portrait-drawing robot 24 4.90 4.06 12 5.34 3.89 12 humanoid robot 25 4.90 4.23 10 5.42 4.06 15 program reconstructing images 26 4.88 3.50 11 5.34 3.18 15 face replacing software 27 4.86 4.85 45 4.23 4.13 −18 medical diagnostic software 28 4.62 3.83 17 5.12 3.81 11 text translation program 29 4.57 5.80 34 4.75 6.11 −5 video recommendation algorithm 30 4.38 5.69 42 4.46 5.87 −12 license plate recognition software 31 4.23 5.47 37 4.69 5.15 −6 space robot 32 4.17 4.75 13 5.30 4.91 19 intelligent teaching/learning support system 33 4.16 3.00 33 4.78 3.61 0 uav 34 4.13 4.80 31 4.81 4.57 3 product recommendation software 35 4.08 5.59 50 3.79 5.63 −15 robotic animal 36 4.02 4.40 35 4.74 4.20 1 ar 37 3.98 4.89 38 4.68 4.09 −1 nanobot 38 3.97 4.24 20 5.10 3.84 18 robotic child 39 3.94 2.89 40 4.54 2.82 −1 cyborg 40 3.88 4.54 15 5.22 4.65 25 car navigation 41 3.75 6.16 27 4.93 6.29 14 robot/android priest 42 3.65 2.13 46 4.17 1.99 −4 sexbot 43 3.61 3.73 48 4.13 3.49 −5 military robot 44 3.58 4.46 41 4.49 4.31 3 vacuum cleaning robot 45 3.52 5.36 44 4.33 5.67 1 iot 46 3.40 5.20 23 4.97 4.45 23 surgical robot 47 3.23 4.05 28 4.89 4.46 19 covid-19 contact tracing apps 48 2.88 3.82 47 4.15 3.11 1 cobot 49 2.70 5.23 36 4.71 4.74 13 vr 50 2.50 5.34 49 4.07 5.00 1 note. ai = artificial intelligence; av = autonomous vehicle; uav = unmanned aerial vehicle; ar = augmented reality; iot = internet of things; vr = virtual reality; goe = goodness-of-example. aai exemplars are listed in goe ranks for itp order. the table presents the short names of the items being assessed. bgoe ratings were averaged across all participants for each exemplar of ai, and the goe ranks and mean goe ratings are presented in the table. caveraged familiarity ratings for each object are presented here. fortuna & gorbaniuk 213 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 the structure of perception of ai category in itp and np groups: loadings of principal components exemplars principal components itp group np group i ii iii i ii iii ar .30 .69 −.11 .19 .61 .39 av .66 .21 .23 .35 .17 .32 behavioral biometrics .57 .14 .12 .48 .11 .31 book writing program .58 .11 .45 .57 .14 .37 car navigation .46 .44 .01 −.19 .50 .36 chatbot .65 .27 .29 .38 .14 .38 chess program .47 .45 .25 .46 .03 .42 cobot .00 .75 .14 .08 .79 .15 covid-19 contact tracing apps .16 .51 .14 .17 .39 .36 cyborg .00 .57 .33 .28 .63 −.12 face generating program .62 .08 .08 .52 .19 .38 face replacing software .70 .06 .10 .36 .09 .52 facial recognition system .70 .22 .23 .44 .13 .33 financial service software .58 .28 .24 .46 .12 .46 go playing program .68 .20 .29 .49 .01 .46 humanoid robot .20 .39 .70 .76 .31 −.12 humanoid robot that creates images .38 .20 .56 .67 −.01 .07 image generation algorithm .71 .13 .13 .38 .12 .57 intelligent teaching/learning support system .40 .52 .24 .17 .34 .51 iot .06 .66 .04 .18 .51 .30 license plate recognition software .57 .42 −.10 −.02 .58 .43 medical diagnostic software .43 .34 .11 .10 .51 .47 military robot .18 .67 .19 .15 .72 .11 music generation program .44 .17 .39 .23 .09 .56 nanobot .17 .67 .36 .30 .67 −.02 neural network .45 −.12 .11 .18 −.25 .20 poem-writing software .59 −.04 .49 .57 −.04 .33 police robot .42 .19 .60 .63 .33 .08 portrait-drawing robot .33 .28 .55 .61 .23 .21 press articles writing program .64 −.07 .45 .60 .04 .40 product recommendation software .68 .07 −.14 .01 .03 .53 program reconstructing images .39 .44 .27 .43 .37 .12 risk determining program .66 .27 .17 .23 .31 .55 robot/android priest .13 .34 .70 .71 .22 −.06 robotic animal .14 .44 .56 .56 .36 −.01 robotic child .18 .46 .60 .71 .32 −.13 sexbot .22 .41 .39 .51 .34 .02 skynet/terminator −.14 −.04 .47 .50 −.13 −.06 social bot .60 .06 .48 .62 −.01 .31 social robot .47 .31 .61 .57 .41 .21 space robot .13 .75 .17 .14 .77 .07 strategy game program .57 .17 .31 .58 .02 .40 surgical robot −.05 .72 .29 .16 .74 .06 system for debating .56 −.01 .46 .64 −.08 .29 text translation program .57 .25 .03 −.11 .34 .68 uav .26 .65 .13 .13 .69 .16 vacuum cleaning robot .35 .63 .13 .03 .58 .37 video recommendation algorithm .74 .22 −.09 .08 .23 .72 virtual therapist .57 .27 .38 .67 .03 .25 vr .02 .80 .01 −.04 .75 .22 eigenvalue 10.91 8.43 6.00 9.22 7.72 6.10 proportion of explained variance 21.8% 16.9% 12.0% 18.4% 15.4% 12.2% note. av = autonomous vehicle; uav = unmanned aerial vehicle; ar = augmented reality; iot = internet of things; vr = virtual reality. loadings with absolute values of .50 or greater are printed in boldface. mental representation of artificial intelligence 214 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in our study, we looked for an answer to the question: what do people mean when they use a buzzword such as ai? in our research we identified a representation of ai in the itp and np minds. in the context of the obtained results our answer is as follows: it depends on the level of expertise of a given person. despite the fact that there is no normative, universal systematization of the designations of the concept of ai, people manage to organize them using the knowledge they have, and this transpires both in the hierarchy of ai designates and in the dimensions of their grouping. the analysis of the obtained results allows to draw both theoretical and practical conclusions the analyzes show the legitimacy of including the variable of it specialist knowledge to psychological research on reception of new technologies. it industry is one of the fastest-growing and it is in this area that the professions of the future are most often indicated. our research shows that itp and nps can be described as experts and laypeople not only because of their professional experience, but also because of their subjective beliefs, the indicators of which are the higher self-esteem of knowledge and familiarity of ai exemplars. itps showed greater caution in terms of the overall assessment of the typicality of ai exemplars and the goe scores in this group were not correlated with the familiarity scores, which was recorded in the case of np. we can explain this if we accept that itp and np mean something different when assessing familiarity. the average reader will probably say without hesitation that leo tolstoy is a fine example of a writer, while literary specialists may hesitate to categorize him solely in such narrow terms and see him as a philosopher as well. it can be assumed that nps combine knowledge of ai with popularity, which is consistent with the results of surveys in which respondents declare their knowledge of ai, although they are only slightly aware of the use of ai-driven products (maison, 2019). the significant influence of expertise in the categorization process was confirmed (bailenson et al., 2002). we found similarities and differences between itp and np in mental representing of ai both in terms of the hierarchy of ai designates and the dimensions of their grouping. av was placed at the top of ai categories both for itp and np, which may suggest the influence of the clear presence of this exemplar in the media. but while the goe rating of av was the highest, it is not the undeniable leader of the category. this is indicated by the similarity between goe ratings of this object and three exemplars with lower ranks in both groups. based on the survey responses, our research shows that ai means primarily "visible ai," which is a far-reaching simplification. we found that highly rated by itp exemplars of “invisible ai” had a lower rank in the graded structure identified in np, and in the case of neural network this difference was extremely large (40). on the other hand, in the np group, out of 15 assessed robots, which are examples of “visible ai” differing in human-likeness (e.g., social robot, cobot), as many as 13 had a higher rank than in the graded structure itp, and the largest difference was related to the humanoid robot (15). itps seems to grasp ai more cognitively than sensually, which is understandable if you take into account the expertise of this group. the overriding conclusion that itp perceives ai rather as a “nervous system,” and np “corporeality” cannot be sustained. the source of doubt is a more careful analysis of the graded structure of ai exemplars. the obtained results confirm that the prototype theories of concepts are insufficient to understand and fully describe the image of reality arising in the minds of people (medin & wattenmaker, 1987). while the taxonomies disclosed for itp and nps are based on three dimensions, their content is not identical. specialist knowledge allows itp to systematize ai exemplars based on both structural and functional elements. on the other hand, laymen refer rather to the functions that ai-driven products perform. for itp, they are primarily algorithmic systems, while for np they are systems that imitate the functions of living organisms. if we consider that the concept of intelligence means the ability to solve hard problems (minsky, 1985), then we can assume that in the “ai” itp emphasize the intelligence of artificial systems, while np their artificiality. itp primarily see in ai systems based on algorithms that, using mathematical models, are able to autonomously solve problems without human supervision. these systems, embodying ai defined as computational cognition (rapaport, 2020), are undoubtedly for people professionally interested in digital technologies “core objects” of the category of ai. classifying av in this dimension suggests that for itp it is primarily an example of an intelligent system, and only secondarily an ai-driven mechanism. on the other hand, fact, that for np ai is mainly “nature imitating systems” corresponds to the understanding of ai as machines with minds. np see in ai mainly the possibility of replacing the functions of various types of organisms, which confirms the relationships noticed in the graded fortuna & gorbaniuk 215 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ structure. in this dimension, both robots and softbots are grouped as artificial forms of life that imitate the unique abilities of organisms. it can be said that intelligent algorithms do this as well, but according to the dichotomy between the cognitive and emotional abilities (haslam, 2006) “nature imitating systems” reveal the abilities commonly associated with affect and intuition, which also applies to the robotic animal. the practical conclusions of our research concern the sphere of education and communication. as it is known, for a biologist, a tomato will always be fruit, and for a consumer, a vegetable, although the problem will arise only when a biologist, when asked to buy fruit, brings a tomato grid. the initiative in the field of shaping knowledge about ai should be shown by teachers working with children, because they are sensitive to presence of the human-like physical features of robots (manzi et al., 2020). this should shape an unbiased relationship with ai-based technologies from an early age. one way of doing it may be by incorporating elements of educational program at an early academic level, which aoun (2018) called “humanics,” and proposed as a new academic discipline. “humanics” extends old literacies (reading, writing, mathematics) by adding three new areas of literacy: data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy. this learning model would include both machine understanding, data management, creative thinking, critical thinking, systems thinking, entrepreneurship, cultural agility and communication. the basis for unifying knowledge about ai may be the common dimension for the designation grouping of the concept of ai, which are “supporting systems,” for itp and nps. this is where the spaces for the systematization of ai exemplars of itp representatives and nps meet. on this basis, activities supporting agreement and cooperation between the two groups can be designed. it is important for itp to recognize that humanoid forms of little importance to them are the gateway to the world of ai for nps. on the other hand, better knowledge of algorithms by nps should reduce undesirable phenomena such as algorithm aversion, fear of ai, or even cyberparanoia strengthened by dystopian narrations. as we know “artificial intelligence,” as other buzzwords, is used more to impress or persuade than to inform. thus sensational reports on the next possibilities of artificial intelligence (ai) should be counterbalanced by factual explanations. the initiative, especially in the working environment, should be taken over by itp, whose role has increased even more during the pandemic. our research does not only show that it is necessary, but it also indicates some common ground for cooperation with nps. this study contains a few notable limitations. the research identified the most typical designata of the concept of ai, while the prototype of ai was not identified. this requires the use of a different research methodology, with participants comparing individual exemplars with each other, which is a difficult though not an impossible task to perform due to their number. the ai exemplars taken into account in the study can be critically referred to. the selection of stimuli in this type of research is always a difficult decision, especially as the number of ai exemplars increases. in subsequent studies artificial humans should be included, because their presence on social networks is becoming more and more visible. for more in-depth analyzes, it seems important to collect detailed data on the sources of information on ai used by the respondents. this way it will be possible to define ai-narratives significant for the knowledge structure more precisely. finally, this research was conducted during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, when we saw a surge in interest in new technologies. in our research, we took into account the innovations that appeared on the market at that time (e.g., covid-19 contact tracing apps), but the assessments of their typical nature were not graded highly in the structure of ai category. nevertheless, we believe that it is worth treating our results as a benchmark for post-pandemic research. funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data for this article is freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see index of supplementary materials below) mental representation of artificial intelligence 216 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 207–218 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5473 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • an appendix with the names of the exemplars being 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(2019). “i’m good, but not that good”: digitally-skilled young people’s identity in computing. computer science education, 26(4), 299–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2017.1292604 about the authors paweł fortuna (pawel.fortuna@kul.pl) is a ph.d. psychologist with an expertise in new media and technology reception, and is assistant professor at the john paul ii catholic university of lublin. oleg gorbaniuk (oleg.gorbaniuk@kul.pl) is a ph.d. psychologist with an expertise in methodology and social psychology, and is associate professor at the john paul ii catholic university of lublin. mental representation of artificial intelligence 218 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2011.564575 https://bulldogjob.pl/it-report/2020#profile https://doi.org/10.2478/jagi-2020-0003 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.92.3.289 https://doi.org/10.3926/jotse.271 https://doi.org/10.2478/jagi-2020-0003 https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90017-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(75)90024-9 https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/ai-narratives/ai-narratives-workshop-findings.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-34290-0_2 https://doi.org/10.3390/info9040079 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2014.953918 https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2017.1292604 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental representation of artificial intelligence (introduction) difficulty with defining ai acquisition of ai representation it-professionals as experts current study method subjects materials procedure statistical analysis results perceived expertise of participants typicality and graded ai category structure dimensions of ai exemplars grouping discussion (additional information) funding competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors behavioral and neuropsychological correlates of emotion regulation via attentional deployment: an expanded replication research reports behavioral and neuropsychological correlates of emotion regulation via attentional deployment: an expanded replication christian salas 1, nicolas núñez 2, luz maría pozo 2, marko bremer 1, daniel rojas-líbano 1 [1] centro de estudios en neurociencia humana y neuropsicología (cenhn). facultad de psicología, universidad diego portales. santiago, chile. [2] programa de magíster en neurociencia social. facultad de psicología, universidad diego portales. santiago, chile. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 received: 2024-10-09 • accepted: 2025-06-12 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: sahir hussain, lancaster university, lancaster, united kingdom corresponding author: daniel rojas-líbano, facultad de psicología, universidad diego portales, vergara 275, santiago, chile. e-mail: daniel.rojasli@mail.udp.cl supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract attentional deployment (ad) constitutes an emotion regulation (er) strategy that shifts the attentional focus to modulate the emotional experience. there are very few experimental paradigms that can study ad. one such task studies ad by using emotional images with zones of focus within them, to manipulate visual attention toward arousing or non-arousing portions of the scene. however, this task has only been implemented with participants inside a scanner and has no replications beyond the work of the original research group. in the present study, we replicated and extended a previously introduced ad task, implementing it with a sample of 55 adult participants. our sample performed the task in a regular laboratory setting, including eye-tracking to monitor instruction following, and in addition, participants completed an attentional test. we replicated the original ad effect in a new population sample, although we found a lower effect size. we conceived and computed an estimate of ad abilities by comparing intensity and valence ratings across attentional conditions. we also analyzed the association between attention measured through the attention network test (ant) and ad capacities and found no relationship. the task can be used in the laboratory to analyze the ad process. our replication and expansion of the ad task provide valuable insights into the behavioral and neuropsychological correlates of er strategies. keywords emotion regulation, attentional deployment, attention network test, process model of emotion regulation the interaction between affect and cognition has been a long-standing area of scientific interest and debate (forgas, 2008). most of this debate has focused on how affect confers value to, and modulates, cognitive processes such as perception, memory, or thinking (bower et al., 1983; clore & schiller, 2016; isen, 1984). less attention, however, has been given to understanding how cognition influences emotional responses. emotion regulation (er) refers to the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions (gross, 1998). er has been defined as a top-down process, largely conscious and dependent on cognitive control (mcrae & gross, 2020). several studies have offered neuropsychological data to suggest that the regulation of emotion via the use of er strategies requires specific cognitive processes, such as inhibition, working memory, and verbal fluency (salas et al., 2014, 2016). in consequence, the study of er and er strategies can bring some relevant insights into the affect-cognition interaction. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15803&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9517-5545 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ a framework that has structured research on er is the “process-model”, which proposes five intrinsic strategies often used to regulate emotions (gross, 1998): situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive reappraisal, and response modulation. despite the explosive recent growth in er research, most efforts have focused on cognitive reappraisal (mcrae & gross, 2020) with other strategies receiving less attention. here, we focus on attentional deployment (ad), which involves the manipulation of the attentional focus during an emotional situation to downregulate negative emotional experience. even though ad has been described as emerging early during development (posner et al., 2014), its behavioral and neuropsychological correlates are still being investigated. a variety of emotion elicitation procedures with images have been used to study ad in the laboratory (dunning & hajcak, 2009; ferri et al., 2013, 2016). in 2009, dunning and hajcak devised a task by superimposing or removing circles around specific areas of negatively valenced pictures to manipulate the participants’ focus of attention. they showed this manipulation modulated the amplitude of electroencephalographic markers of emotional processing (dunning & hajcak, 2009). later, ferri and colleagues designed an ad task based on similar principles, where participants had to focus their attention within circles placed on emotionally arousing sections or on non-arousing areas of the images. subsequently, participants were asked to provide emotional ratings, which allowed the assessment of ad by rating comparisons across attentional conditions (ferri et al., 2013, 2016). the authors showed interactions between the amygdala and frontoparietal regions during ad, assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. these data have offered valuable information regarding ad’s neural basis and have shown that this er strategy can be studied in the laboratory. interestingly, to date, we know of no reports or independent studies replicating the ad task presented originally by ferri et al. (2013). a current challenge in psychology and neurosciences is to replicate and extend its findings to diverse population samples and contexts (kopal et al., 2023), to evaluate the generalizability of our models and empirical effects. in this regard, we currently lack data from one of the very few experimental tasks that assesses ad in the laboratory, and therefore we do not know to what extent previous results apply to different population samples. in addition, we still know little about ad’s behavioral and neuropsychological correlates. for example, we would like to know the response times people require to report their emotional experiences. how long does it take for people to make these decisions? is the response time influenced by the valence and arousal of negative pictures? how does the attentional focus affect decision time? we also would like to know the size of the experimental effect of ad: how different is the emotional response to an unpleasant image under different attentional conditions? this is also related to the need to have a readout variable from the task that would serve as an estimate of the ad capacities. as for the neuropsychological correlates, it has been assumed that ad requires several basic attentional and executive processes. ad would require the ability to sustain attention (urry & gross, 2010) and the capacity to decouple attention from emotional stimuli (compton, 2000). despite the interest in the literature on the role of cognitive processes in ad, few articles have offered data on this matter, most of them not using ad experimental paradigms. for example, it has been reported that older adults with good executive abilities (measured with the attention network test (ant), exhibit better resistance to declines in mood (isaacowitz et al., 2009). an association has also been described between the activation of the orienting attentional network and the subjective report of emotion regulation (xiu et al., 2018). all this evidence suggests a potential role of attentional abilities in ad. consequently, exploring the relationship between attentional components, or attentional networks, and ad would be extremely informative for the field of er specifically, and for the study of cognition-affect interactions more generally. the present article aims to achieve three primary objectives: firstly, it seeks to replicate the ad experimental task originally introduced by ferri et al. (2013), which, to the best of our knowledge, has not been replicated beyond the original research group or implemented with participants outside a scanner. secondly, the study aims to behaviorally explore ad ability in detail through the analysis of the response time of emotional ratings. lastly, the study endeavors to investigate the relationship between attentional abilities, as measured by the ant, and ad performance. salas, núñez, pozo et al. 217 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method sample size we based our calculation of sample size on the publication that we used as a reference to build the task and that we are replicating here (ferri et al., 2013). they used n = 41 participants (study 1). there, we focused on the size of effect that the attentional manipulation had on participants’ emotional ratings. ferri et al. reported a rating of m = 3.22, sd = 0.77 for unpleasant images with arousing focus, and a rating of m = 2.11, sd = 0.75 for unpleasant images with non-arousing focus. this results in an effect size of g = 1.4. using this effect size, we used the software g*power 3.1 to estimate sample size considering a matched pairs t-test, one tail, α = 0.05, and a power of 0.95. this calculation resulted in a sample size of n = 8. in a second report that used the task, sample size was n = 51 and there was no report of rating data to calculate effect size (ferri et al., 2016). given that it is not a recommended practice to use estimates of effect size from isolated reports, and that published effect size estimates tend to be large and misleading (button et al., 2013; gelman & carlin, 2014), we simply set out to have a sample size larger than the original studies (i.e., n = 41 and n = 51). thus, we ended data collection at n = 55. participants a total of 55 participants completed the task (32 female; age: m = 21.9, sd = 4.1 years). participants were recruited through printed posts and social media. the data collection process occurred in two different periods. the first occurred during 2019 (n = 39 participants). the second occurred in 2022 (n = 16 participants). our inclusion criteria were to be older than 18 years old and to have completed secondary education. the exclusion criteria were a refusal to sign the written consent or a diagnosis of a neurological condition. the institutional ethics committee reviewed and approved the study. all participants signed a written consent form for participation. task and procedure all data was collected at the same location, in our laboratory. participants performed the task individually in a sound-proof, dimly lit experimental room. we used a computer screen view sonic xg2402, with a spatial resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and dimensions of 53.4 cm (width) and 30.1 cm (height) to present the instructions and images throughout the task. after reviewing and signing the informed consent, the entire procedure was explained to the participants. after this explanation, and before commencing the task properly, they were familiarized with the task by executing five exercise trials that used images that were not part of the task. the ad task adopted the procedures described by ferri and collaborators (ferri et al., 2013). our main changes to the task were two: first, participants provided emotional ratings using the original manikin 1 to 9 scale (instead of the 1 to 4 scale used by ferri et al.) and second, participants were asked to provide two ratings, one of emotional intensity and one of emotional valence (instead of intensity only as in ferri et al.). see figure 1a. thus, depending on focus conditions and stimuli (i.e., image) types, each trial belonged to one out of five possible categories (see figure 1b). stimuli could be neutral or unpleasant, and they were combined with three focus conditions. unpleasant stimuli were paired with one of the following conditions: focus-free (no circle on the image), arousing focus (circle on an arousing part of the image), and non-arousing focus (circle on a non-arousing part of the image). neutral stimuli, by definition, did not have arousing parts, and therefore, they were paired only with focus-free or non-arousing focus. see figure 1b for an example. the 100 iaps images used in this task were identical to the ones employed in previous studies (ferri et al., 2013, 2016; hajcak et al., 2009). stimuli were either unpleasant (low valence, high intensity) or neutral (higher valence, lower intensity). of the 100 stimuli, 60 were unpleasant, with low valence on the 1 to 9 scale (m = 2.28, sd = 1.47), and 40 were neutral, with higher valence (m = 5.14, sd = 1.28). conversely, unpleasant stimuli had a significantly higher level of intensity on the 1 to 9 scale (m = 6.05, sd = 2.25) compared to neutral stimuli (m = 2.91, sd = 1.92). see figure 1c for the distributions of valence and intensity values reported for the set of stimuli. emotion regulation via attentional deployment 218 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 task structure, stimuli and focus types, and trial sequences note. a. task and trial structure. each trial began with an instructions screen, indicating to the participant to focus on the blue circle or to observe it freely. after instructions, stimuli (i.e., five pictures from iaps) were presented, which could be neutral or negative. then, the participant had to rate the stimuli in valence and intensity. then, five grey color screens were presented before the next trial. b. examples of stimuli and focus types. stimuli could be unpleasant or neutral, and they could have no focus (‘free’), a focus on a non-arousing area of the image, or on an arousing area. neutral stimuli did not have arousing areas. c. valences and intensities of the stimuli used. left: distributions of valence ratings of the images, according to iaps data, parsed by type: unpleasant (red) and neutral (green). right: corresponding data for intensity ratings. d. trial sequences. each participant was randomly assigned to one out of three possible sequences, constructed not to contain successive trials of the same type. numbers on top are the participants assigned to each sequence. each trial began by presenting the instructions written on the screen for 4 seconds. instructions were “focus your attention on the circle” or “observe the image freely”. after instructions, five images of the same type (neutral or unpleasant) were presented for 4 seconds each. then, a screen containing an image with numbers 1 to 9 appeared, with the instruction “rate the valence, from 1 to 9”. below the instruction, an image depicting the manikin figures (lang et al., 2008) alongside a horizontal scale showing numbers 1 to 9. below number 1 was a text: “negative”, and below number 9 was a text: “positive”. the participant had 5 seconds to complete the rating. they did not have the instruction to answer quickly. participants delivered their responses through a regular computer keyboard. after delivering the response, the number corresponding to the assigned rating was shown on the screen for 0.35 seconds. if the participant did not complete it, the next screen appeared, containing instructions for intensity rating. the procedure to record the participant’s intensity rating was similar to the one for valence. after participant ratings, a small fixation circle was presented at the center of the screen. this fixation circle was kept through five homogeneous gray backgrounds: 40%, salas, núñez, pozo et al. 219 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 10%, 50%, 30%, and 20% of light saturation, which lasted 4 seconds each. after the sequence was completed, a new trial started. the task ended after 20 trials. one out of three possible trial sequences was randomly assigned to each participant to prevent possible confounding order effects (see figure 1d). see table 1 for the details of these sequences. due to the random assignment procedure, we ended up with different numbers of participants in each sequence. table 1 sequences of images used as stimuli in the task sequence 1 sequence 2 sequence 3 trial image stimulus-focus image stimulus-focus image stimulus-focus 1 9570 unpl-nonarous 6555 unpl-arous 9252 unpl-arous 1 8480 unpl-nonarous 3060 unpl-arous 6260 unpl-arous 1 3181 unpl-nonarous 3017 unpl-arous 6571 unpl-arous 1 9584 unpl-nonarous 9040 unpl-arous 3016 unpl-arous 1 3015 unpl-nonarous 8480 unpl-arous 6313 unpl-arous 2 7100 neut-nonarous 6312 unpl-nonarous 7490 neut-nonarous 2 5250 neut-nonarous 9428 unpl-nonarous 2880 neut-nonarous 2 7550 neut-nonarous 6370 unpl-nonarous 7550 neut-nonarous 2 7950 neut-nonarous 3212 unpl-nonarous 7217 neut-nonarous 2 7490 neut-nonarous 3530 unpl-nonarous 5875 neut-nonarous 3 9435 unpl-free 9435 unpl-free 9265 unpl-free 3 9252 unpl-free 9403 unpl-free 9300 unpl-free 3 9430 unpl-free 6560 unpl-free 9430 unpl-free 3 6370 unpl-free 9410 unpl-free 3053 unpl-free 3 9403 unpl-free 6260 unpl-free 6560 unpl-free 4 2880 neut-free 7004 neut-free 2393 neut-free 4 7233 neut-free 5875 neut-free 2320 neut-free 4 2383 neut-free 2270 neut-free 7700 neut-free 4 2440 neut-free 2102 neut-free 2440 neut-free 4 7285 neut-free 5250 neut-free 5250 neut-free 5 3530 unpl-arous 7140 neut-nonarous 3261 unpl-nonarous 5 2717 unpl-arous 7705 neut-nonarous 3530 unpl-nonarous 5 2800 unpl-arous 7550 neut-nonarous 8480 unpl-nonarous 5 6242 unpl-arous 2745.1 neut-nonarous 3005.1 unpl-nonarous 5 3060 unpl-arous 2320 neut-nonarous 3010 unpl-nonarous 6 7090 neut-free 2580 neut-free 7175 neut-nonarous 6 7025 neut-free 7491 neut-free 7595 neut-nonarous 6 7560 neut-free 2440 neut-free 2102 neut-nonarous 6 5530 neut-free 2880 neut-free 2235 neut-nonarous 6 2270 neut-free 7700 neut-free 7150 neut-nonarous 7 3030 unpl-free 5740 neut-nonarous 3212 unpl-nonarous 7 3261 unpl-free 7090 neut-nonarous 9635.1 unpl-nonarous 7 3266 unpl-free 7100 neut-nonarous 3063 unpl-nonarous 7 9410 unpl-free 7490 neut-nonarous 9428 unpl-nonarous 7 6571 unpl-free 2206 neut-nonarous 3015 unpl-nonarous 8 3212 unpl-nonarous 6570.1 unpl-nonarous 3030 unpl-free 8 3016 unpl-nonarous 3181 unpl-nonarous 6555 unpl-free 8 9810 unpl-nonarous 9571 unpl-nonarous 9571 unpl-free 8 3005.1 unpl-nonarous 6550 unpl-nonarous 3220 unpl-free 8 9433 unpl-nonarous 9570 unpl-nonarous 9410 unpl-free 9 2811 unpl-arous 9405 unpl-arous 7285 neut-free 9 3225 unpl-arous 2717 unpl-arous 7950 neut-free 9 6260 unpl-arous 3213 unpl-arous 2190 neut-free 9 3010 unpl-arous 9430 unpl-arous 2745.1 neut-free 9 2703 unpl-arous 3220 unpl-arous 7560 neut-free 10 7175 neut-nonarous 3015 unpl-free 9405 unpl-arous 10 5390 neut-nonarous 2811 unpl-free 2811 unpl-arous 10 7217 neut-nonarous 9252 unpl-free 3213 unpl-arous emotion regulation via attentional deployment 220 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sequence 1 sequence 2 sequence 3 trial image stimulus-focus image stimulus-focus image stimulus-focus 10 2580 neut-nonarous 9400 unpl-free 9584 unpl-arous 10 7491 neut-nonarous 3016 unpl-free 6370 unpl-arous 11 2235 neut-nonarous 9584 unpl-arous 2800 unpl-free 11 2745.1 neut-nonarous 9300 unpl-arous 6242 unpl-free 11 7150 neut-nonarous 3550 unpl-arous 9435 unpl-free 11 2190 neut-nonarous 9433 unpl-arous 3181 unpl-free 11 7020 neut-nonarous 6022 unpl-arous 9253 unpl-free 12 9405 unpl-free 7000 neut-free 6415 unpl-nonarous 12 6570.1 unpl-free 7020 neut-free 6022 unpl-nonarous 12 6555 unpl-free 2383 neut-free 3195 unpl-nonarous 12 3220 unpl-free 5530 neut-free 3225 unpl-nonarous 12 3017 unpl-free 7002 neut-free 2730 unpl-nonarous 13 7010 neut-free 7175 neut-nonarous 7491 neut-nonarous 13 7140 neut-free 7560 neut-nonarous 7000 neut-nonarous 13 2980 neut-free 7950 neut-nonarous 2383 neut-nonarous 13 2320 neut-free 2393 neut-nonarous 5740 neut-nonarous 13 7000 neut-free 7150 neut-nonarous 7020 neut-nonarous 14 6831 unpl-nonarous 6415 unpl-free 9403 unpl-arous 14 3195 unpl-nonarous 2800 unpl-free 6831 unpl-arous 14 3550 unpl-nonarous 6315 unpl-free 9810 unpl-arous 14 9040 unpl-nonarous 3266 unpl-free 6312 unpl-arous 14 6560 unpl-nonarous 9253 unpl-free 9040 unpl-arous 15 9400 unpl-arous 3261 unpl-nonarous 5390 neut-free 15 2730 unpl-arous 3211 unpl-nonarous 7705 neut-free 15 9300 unpl-arous 3063 unpl-nonarous 7025 neut-free 15 9420 unpl-arous 6190 unpl-nonarous 7140 neut-free 15 9428 unpl-arous 3010 unpl-nonarous 2206 neut-free 16 6550 unpl-nonarous 9635.1 unpl-free 9400 unpl-free 16 3213 unpl-nonarous 2730 unpl-free 6550 unpl-free 16 9635.1 unpl-nonarous 9810 unpl-free 9433 unpl-free 16 6022 unpl-nonarous 6831 unpl-free 6315 unpl-free 16 9571 unpl-nonarous 6242 unpl-free 2703 unpl-free 17 7004 neut-nonarous 3005.1 unpl-arous 7100 neut-free 17 5875 neut-nonarous 3053 unpl-arous 7002 neut-free 17 2102 neut-nonarous 3030 unpl-arous 7233 neut-free 17 7705 neut-nonarous 2703 unpl-arous 2580 neut-free 17 7595 neut-nonarous 6313 unpl-arous 7090 neut-free 18 3211 unpl-free 7233 neut-nonarous 2717 unpl-nonarous 18 6190 unpl-free 7010 neut-nonarous 3266 unpl-nonarous 18 9265 unpl-free 7025 neut-nonarous 6190 unpl-nonarous 18 6415 unpl-free 7285 neut-nonarous 9420 unpl-nonarous 18 9253 unpl-free 2980 neut-nonarous 3550 unpl-nonarous 19 6313 unpl-arous 7595 neut-free 5530 neut-nonarous 19 3053 unpl-arous 5390 neut-free 2980 neut-nonarous 19 6315 unpl-arous 7217 neut-free 7010 neut-nonarous 19 3063 unpl-arous 2235 neut-free 2270 neut-nonarous 19 6312 unpl-arous 2190 neut-free 7004 neut-nonarous 20 5740 neut-free 9420 unpl-nonarous 3060 unpl-arous 20 7700 neut-free 6571 unpl-nonarous 3211 unpl-arous 20 7002 neut-free 3195 unpl-nonarous 3017 unpl-arous 20 2393 neut-free 3225 unpl-nonarous 6570.1 unpl-arous 20 2206 neut-free 9265 unpl-nonarous 9570 unpl-arous note. table 1. possible trial sequences. each participant was randomly assigned to one out of three possible trial sequences, constructed not to contain successive trials of the same type. the combination of the image and focus types determined the trial type. sequence 1 was assigned to 19 participants, sequence 2 to 23 participants, and sequence 3 to 13 participants. for each sequence, the table shows the trial number (each trial consists of the presentation of 5 images), the iaps image name, and the corresponding stimulus and focus type. neut: neutral image; unpl: unpleasant image; arous: arousing focus; nonarous: non-arousing focus; free: focus-free (no focus). salas, núñez, pozo et al. 221 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all hardware controls and data acquisition (behavioral and physiological) routines were written in matlab (version: 9.6.0.1472908 (r2019a) update 9), using the psychophysics toolbox extension (brainard, 1997; kleiner et al., 2007). eye tracking recording and analysis eye movement data, used to monitor instruction-following behavior, was acquired using an eyelink 1000 (sr research ltd., mississauga, ontario, canada) with a 500 hz sampling frequency. throughout the task, participants sat in front of the computer screen and the eye tracker device and kept their heads in a forehead/chin rest (sr research ltd.) placed 56 cm from the screen. gaze data files were converted to the ascii format using eyelink’s edfconverter, and then analyzed using custom routines written in matlab (version: 9.6.0.1472908 (r2019a) update 9). we discarded gaze data from trials in which gaze detection was lost due to excessive blinks or other software/recording errors (for example). this resulted in completely discarding 12 participants from the statistical descriptions and comparisons. gaze behavior was quantified as dwelling time: the percentage of total time spent by the gaze within the focus circle during the image presentation (4 seconds). the raw data contained the (x, y) screen coordinates where the gaze was located on each sampled data point. we classified each sample by marking whether it was inside or outside the focus circle. this allowed us to count the number of samples inside the circle, divide it by the total number (4 s x 500 samples/s = 2000 samples), and express it as a percentage to obtain the dwelling time. we calculated this dwelling time for each image and the mean of the five images of a trial. this gave us a single value of dwelling time per trial. the overall dwelling time was obtained by averaging dwell times across trials. ant to estimate the participants’ attentional abilities, we used a computerized version of the ant, which measures the capacity for alertness, orientation, and attentional executive control (fan et al., 2002). the efficiency of the alerting network was examined through differences in reaction times in response to a warning signal before the presentation of stimuli. the efficiency of the orienting network was examined through differences in reaction times in response to a cue indicating where a stimulus will appear. the efficiency of the executive control network was examined through differences in reaction times in response to the presentation of a central arrow surrounded by congruent or incongruent indicators (arrows in the same or different directions to the central arrow). the differences in the reaction times associated with using each attentional system were used as a score to evaluate the performance of each attentional network (alertness, orientation, and executive control score). for all these measurements, we followed the standard previously published procedures (fan et al., 2002). given that participants completed the ant after the experimental task, we had two periods of data collection (see method section, participants subsection). however, due to technical problems in retrieving the ant data from the software, we were able to use only the data from the first period. and in this period (n = 39), data was lost for 4 participants. therefore, we have ant data only for 35 participants. data analysis in general, data are summarized by means (m), medians (mdn), standard deviations (sd), and inter-quantile range (iqr). for two-group comparisons, we implemented a non-parametrical permutation test based on the t-statistic. this allowed us to deal with heterogeneity in our data, which were not always normally distributed. we based our tests on previously published protocols (ernst, 2004; maris & oostenveld, 2007). first, we computed the regular two-sample t-test and saved the corresponding t-value (i.e., the t-statistic value). we then randomly permuted (reorganized) the values from both groups, forming two new groups, and implemented the t-test, calculating the new t-value and saving it. we repeated this permutation procedure 1500 times and constructed a distribution of the permutation-based t-values. we then computed the p-value as the proportion of t-values in the distribution equal to or larger than the non-permuted t-value. therefore, we report the non-permuted t-value, the corresponding degrees of freedom, and the p-value. for each two-group comparison, we also present the hedges’ g statistic as a measure of effect size (hedges, 1981), which calculates effect size as a difference in means standardized by the pooled standard deviation. hedges’ g value and associated confidence intervals were calculated using a previously available matlab toolbox (hentschke & stüttgen, 2011). emotion regulation via attentional deployment 222 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ transparency and openness the matlab code used for controlling hardware and implementing the task, and all the code used to analyze the data, produce plots, and compute statistics are available at salas et al. (2025a) and salas et al. (2025b). all the data collected and used to compute the results presented in this article are available at rojas libano (2025). all the image files used as stimuli for the task trials are available at salas et al. (2025a). we report in the methods section how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions, manipulations, and all study measures. we also report effect sizes and confidence intervals. this study was not preregistered. results participants completed the task in around 20 minutes (m = 23.7, sd = 4.6, n = 55) (see figure 2a). in general, participants did not omit response ratings (from a total of 2200 possible ratings (20 trials x 2 ratings/trial = 40 ratings per participant), we collected 2169 (98.6%), with 16 participants omitting 1 rating, 2 participants omitting 2 ratings, 2 participants omitting 3 ratings, and 1 participant omitting 5 ratings). the response time (time between the presentation of the rating screen and the completion of the rating response) for individual ratings of valence and intensity was around 2 seconds (mdn = 2.44 s, m = 2.46 s, sd = 1.0 s, n = 2169 ratings), even when participants had 5 seconds to deliver the response (see figure 2a). therefore, these responses, associated with the ad process, were relatively quick. figure 2 task duration, response times, and ratings for each image type note. a. left: distribution of the duration of the experimental session for the 55 participants. right: distribution of response times, in seconds, for all ratings. 55 participants x 20 trial/participant x 2 ratings/trial = 2200 ratings. the orange curve read in the right y-axis corresponds to the empirical cumulative distribution of these response time values. b. mean intensity (left) and valence (right) ratings for each participant, sorted by image types. each marker corresponds to the mean of all trials of a given stimulus type for the entire task. grey lines link markers for the same participant. the responses evoked by the unpleasant images were markedly different from neutral ones, showing that the images elicited emotions in participants (figure 2b). on the 1 to 9 scale used, emotional intensity ratings were significantly higher for unpleasant than for neutral images (unpleasant: mdn = 5.75, m = 5.99, sd = 1.56; neutral: mdn = 2.25, m = 2.55, sd = 1.3), with a large effect size, t(54) = 13.57, p < .01, g = 2.38, 95% ci [1.96, 2.96]. correspondingly, emotional valence ratings on the 1 to 9 scale were lower for unpleasant than neutral images (unpleasant: mdn = 2.42, m = 2.5, sd = 1; neutral: mdn = 5.38, m = 5.4, sd = 0.9), with a large effect size, t(54) = -13.52, p < .001, g = -2.97 [-4.52, -2.04]. these results show that the task worked as expected, eliciting in participants emotional responses that were detectable salas, núñez, pozo et al. 223 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ through their subjective reports. these effects were the same for all three trial sequences, showing that they depended on the image types and not the specific sequence of images. gaze behavior we monitored participants’ gaze through eye tracking to observe their instruction-following behavior while viewing the task images. participants generally followed the instructions given (for some examples see figure 3a and 3b). the gaze behavior was quantified as the dwelling time of the gaze within the blue circle presented in the images and expressed as a percentage of the total time (4 s) of image presentation. the overall dwelling time was high (mdn = 81.97%, m = 69.76%, sd = 30.6%, n = 43), meaning participants tended to keep their gaze within the circle when required (figure 3c, left-side plot). when we computed the difference in dwelling time between image types (neutral vs. unpleasant), we found that participants spent slightly less time within the circle for unpleasant than neutral images (neutral: mdn = 86.3%, m = 71.94%, sd = 30.95%; unpleasant: mdn = 81.87%, m = 70.31%, sd = 28.96%), with t(41)= 4.39, p < .01 (see figure 3c, right-side plot). when we considered different experimental conditions (arousing focus vs. non-arousing focus), differences in dwelling time were smaller (arousing: mdn = 85.52%, m = 76.97%, sd = 23.43%; non-arousing: mdn = 82.43%, m = 76.92%, sd = 21.19%). in summary, these results show that participants engaged in the task and followed the instructions related to the visual attentional focus, irrespective of image or focus type. figure 3 gaze data during the task note. a. example of gaze trajectory during a single trial. in this trial. images were of a negative type, and the focus was on a non-arousing area of the image. the blue and yellow dots mark the gaze position at the start and end of the image's 4-second period. the yellow line corresponds to the gaze trajectory. since the images were presented in the same sequence shown, the gaze end position of an image corresponds to the start position in the next image. b. heat maps of pixels visited by participants’ gaze. data corresponds to all trials where the image was presented, parsed by the three attentional conditions: focus-free (left), focus on a non-arousing area of the image (center), and focus on an arousing part (right). spatial data from all participants was summed to obtain each heat map. c. the left plot shows the dwell gaze times in the focus circle as a percentage of the time the image was shown. dots mark the mean, and error bars represent the standard deviation, where each marker corresponds to a participant. some participants were excluded because of missing data. the right plot shows the dwell time difference between image types (neutral minus unpleasant) and between attentional conditions (arousing minus non-arousing). each dot represents one participant. the black bars correspond to the mean. * indicates a significant difference compared to a distribution of mean = 0. emotion regulation via attentional deployment 224 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attentional deployment participants had 5 seconds to provide their responses of emotional ratings. within this temporal frame, they were faster to produce emotional ratings in the arousing than in the non-arousing focus conditions. this difference was presented for intensity (non-arousing mdn = 2.43 s; arousing mdn = 2.2 s), t(54) = -1.8, p = .03, g = -0.22 [-0.6, 0.16], with 60% of the participants showing faster responses for the arousing focus. the same was observed for valence ratings (non-arousing: mdn = 2.93 s; arousing: mdn = 2.66 s), t(54) = -3.8, p < .01, g = -0.44, [-0.84, -0.09], where 67% of the participants displayed faster responses for the arousing focus (see figure 4a). figure 4 intensity and valence ratings and ad estimates note. a. response times for intensity (left) and valence (right) ratings for arousing and non-arousing focus. black horizontal bars are the group means, and gray circles represent the means of individual participants across the task. lines represent increases (purple) and decreases (orange) in response times. pie charts represent the corresponding percentage of participants . b. intensity (left) and valence (right) ratings for unpleasant images, sorted by focus type. colors and insets as in a. c. ad estimates. left: the mean rating for a given focus type was subtracted from the mean rating of the other focus type, separately for intensity and valence. each circle represents one participant. boxplots represent the distributions. right: same data from the left plot, with rating differences in valence and intensity plotted against each other. to further characterize the behavioral responses, we then assessed for associations, computing spearman’s rank correla­ tion coefficient between the ratings’ response times and the value of the ratings, parsed by attentional focus condition. for the relation between intensity response times and intensity ratings, we obtained rho = -0.24, p = .07 (non-arousing focus), and rho = -0.51, p < .01 (arousing focus). for the relation between valence response times and valence ratings, we obtained rho = 0.19, p = .16 (non-arousing focus), and rho = 0.32, p = .02 (arousing focus). thus, specifically for the arousing focus condition, we report a small albeit detectable relationship. under this condition, the larger the intensity rating, the shorter the response time, and conversely, the larger the valence, the larger the response time. salas, núñez, pozo et al. 225 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional ratings were expressed on a 1 to 9 scale. for emotional intensity, we found that the non-arousing focus condition elicited lower ratings than the arousing focus, evidencing a regulation of the emotional experience (non-arousing: m = 5.5, sd = 1.67; arousing: m = 6.5; sd = 1.99), with t(54) = 4.37, p < .01, g = 0.43 [0.06, 0.86]. conversely, we found that for emotional valence, the non-arousing focus elicited higher ratings than the arousing focus, again evidencing regulation (non-arousing: m = 2.82, sd = 1.16; arousing: m = 2.34, sd = 1.23), with t(54) = -3.89, p < .01, g = -0.4 [-0.85, -0.04]. these results are shown in figure 4b. we then computed our ad estimates, constituted by the differences in rating between the non-arousing and arousing focus conditions. the rating difference was calculated as the participant’s mean rating for the non-arousing focus minus the mean rating for the arousing focus. given that we had ratings for emotional intensity and valence, we computed two estimates, one for each emotional dimension. for emotional intensity, we found a distribution that was centered on negative values, mdn (iqr) = -1(1.5), reflecting a decrease in emotional intensity in the presence of a non-arousing focus. the opposite was true for emotional valence, with a distribution of differences centered in positive values, mdn (iqr) = 0.5(1), reflecting an increase in valence for the non-arousing focus. finally, we estimated the relationship between these two estimates to assess their congruence using the pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. we found a correlation between intensity and valence rating differences, r 2 = 0.35; p < .01. this result implied that, on average, the effects of changing attentional focus (i.e., attentional deployment) were consistent across the two emotional dimensions: the larger the effect in intensity, the larger in valence. therefore, our task produced valence-based and intensity-based estimates of ad. we also studied the ratings and rating differences for the images in the focus-free condition. in these cases, participants did not have an instructed attentional focus on the image and were free to explore it visually. regarding response times, we found no differences between non-arousing focus and focus-free conditions, both for intensity (focus-free mdn = 2.4 s; arousing mdn = 2.2 s), with t(54) = 1.42, p = .93, g = 0.13 [-0.24, 0.53], and valence (focus-free mdn = 2.68 s; arousing mdn = 2.66 s), with t(54) = 0.44, p = .67, g = 0.04 [-0.34, 0.42]. when examining ratings, we found very small differences between focus-free and arousing focus, for intensity (focus-free: m = 6.5, sd = 1.76; arousing: m = 6.5, sd = 1.99), t(54) = 1.69, p = .05, g = 0.12 [-0.26, 0.46], and also for valence (focus-free: m = 2.1, sd = 1.08; arousing: m = 2.34, sd = 1.23), t(54) = -2.72, p = .003, g = -0.2 [-0.57, 0.15]. these slim differences meant the focus-free attentional condition was similar to the arousing focus one regarding the emotional response it elicited. ant the ant allowed us to measure performance in three types of attention or attentional systems (fan et al., 2002). data from this sample showed a linear increase in the amount of time used by participants, reflecting an increase in the cognitive load of each attentional sub-task; from alerting to orientation to executive: alerting network (mdn = 33 ms, m = 35.46 ms, sd = 22.88 ms), orientation network (mdn = 46, m = 49.43 ms, sd = 20.1 ms), executive network (mdn = 111 ms, m = 116.16 ms, sd = 30.82 ms). when error rates were analyzed, a sharp increase in the percentage of errors in the executive network task compared to the alerting network and orienting network was found: alerting network (mdn = 0%, m = 0.66%, sd = 1.21%), orientation network (mdn = 0%, m = 0.26%, sd = 0.78%), executive network (mdn = 4%, m = 4.86%, sd = 5.27%). a key question of this study was the relationship between attentional ability -measured by performance on the antand ad ability (ad estimate). contrary to our hypotheses, no relationship was found between ad ability and performance on attentional tasks (see figure 5b). we examined the pearson product-moment correlation coefficient between the intensity-based ad estimate and the alert network, r = 0.31, p = .06, orientation network, r = 0.11, p = .53, and executive network, r = 0.14, p = .43, subdomains of the test. the same was true for the valence-based ad estimate and the alert network, r = -0.33, p = 0.05, orientation network, r = -0.16, p = .34, and executive network, r = -0.27, p = .11, although in this case all correlation values were negative. these results suggest that attentional capacities, as assessed by ant, do not seem to explain the observed ad ability in our sample of participants. emotion regulation via attentional deployment 226 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5 relationship between ant scores and ad estimates note. left: intensity rating difference as a function of ant scores, parsed by the attentional networks assessed by the ant. right: valence rating difference as a function of ant scores, parsed by the attentional networks. in summary, we replicated a previously published ad task (ferri et al., 2013, 2016), extending the sample to a different country, and studied in more detail some of its behavioral and neuropsychological correlates. this is a simple and brief experimental task that requires no more than 20 minutes to complete. in terms of emotional elicitation, our data showed that the task is effective, as emotional intensity ratings increase for unpleasant images compared to neutral ones, and emotional valence ratings are lower for unpleasant images (see figure 2). in terms of behavioral correlates of the task, we observed for unpleasant images that rating response times were shorter (quicker) for ratings involving images with an arousing, as compared to non-arousing, attentional focus. we also found that, specifically for the arousing focus conditions, intensity ratings were inversely related to response times, and conversely, valence ratings were positively associated with response times. in addition, data from eye tracking showed that participants generally followed instructions, with no significant difference in gaze dwelling time between image types or focus conditions. regarding estimates of ad, we operationalized it as a rating difference between attentional conditions (non-arousing and arousing focus). we observed that the manipulation of attentional focus generated a decrease in emotional intensity and an increase in emotional valence, consistent with previous reports. as for the neuropsychological correlates of ad, no significant relationships were found between ad ability and performance on any of the ant subtasks. discussion this study aimed to replicate a previously published experimental task devised to estimate ad capacities, analyze emotion regulation (ad) behavioral performance in detail, and study the relation between ad and attentional capacities measured through a neuropsychological test. our results provide several insights into the ad process specifically and the emotion-cognition interaction more generally. our task extends the original sample of participants, consistent with english speakers from the usa. in contrast, our study used a sample of spanish speakers from the global south. this contributes to addressing the challenge of sample diversity, ensuring that research encompasses a wide range of populations for a more comprehensive understanding (kopal et al., 2023). the replication implemented in our study extends reported results to previously unexplored participant samples, thus contributing to bridging these gaps. however, we sought not only to replicate the task but also to extend and further characterize its findings. in this regard, we successfully replicated the task's main effect, which is the change in intensity rating when switching the attentional focus from arousing to non-arousing portions of salas, núñez, pozo et al. 227 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ unpleasant images. in this case, our effect size was g = 0.43 [0.06, 0.86], smaller than the one reported previously by ferri et al. (2013), which was g = 1.4. several differences between our study and ferri et al.’s could account for the difference in effect size. first, there are the global, general, and diffuse issues related to the repetition of the task that occur in a sample of individuals from a different country, year, language, and culture. we cannot know which of these factors is more important in this case, but they have been described as crucial in assessing cognitive and emotional processes (barrett, 2012; barrett et al., 2007; gutchess & rajaram, 2023; immordino-yang et al., 2016). a second set of differences is specific to the study and related to experimental design: we used a slightly larger sample (n = 55 compared to n = 41), which could account for some of the increase, as described (loken & gelman, 2017). ferri et al. used a reduced rating scale (1 to 4 compared to ours, 1 to 9), which could also explain some of the increase, as it changed our effect from g = 0.4 to g = 0.5 when we remapped our ratings to the reduced scale. in addition, ferri et al. asked participants for emotional intensity only, whereas we asked for both intensity and valence, which could have resulted in a larger cognitive load for our participants. and finally, in our case, participants were sitting in an experimental room, and in ferri et al.’s study they were inside a magnetic resonance scanner, which can affect the behavioral outcomes of a task, most probably in a paradigm-specific manner (assecondi et al., 2010; koch et al., 2003; kolodny et al., 2022; van maanen et al., 2016). aside from effect size issues regarding our replication of the previous protocol, nevertheless, the fact that not only intensity but also valence shifted in the predicted direction (increase) when switching from arousing to non-arousing focus, maintaining an effect size of g = 0.4, reinforces the robustness of the result and provides evidence that the task provides an experimental instance of ad. ad estimates our analysis of the ad task proposed an estimate of the ad capacity based on the difference in participants’ ratings between non-arousing and arousing focus conditions. we reasoned that the change in emotional rating, depending on the focus (i.e., attentional) condition, would constitute a behavioral readout of such an estimate. it is interesting to note that while our ad estimates clearly show that participants indeed regulate their emotions during the task and that they are consistent, the valence-based and intensity-based metrics show an important degree of inter-individual variability. we think that explaining this variability is an important task to better understand ad as a process. one way forward in this regard is to study the physiological correlates of behavioral readouts. for instance, several reports have shown a relationship between emotion regulation capacities and physiological markers such as heart rate variability (min et al., 2023). another interesting way to unpack this variability is considering personality traits or er traits to explain how individuals respond to negative visual stimuli and down-regulate their emotions. neuroticism, for example, has been described as the tendency presented by some individuals to experience negative emotions and distress (ormel et al., 2013). several studies have offered evidence suggesting that neuroticism is associated with specific patterns of gaze behavior toward negative emotional stimuli (e.g., armstrong et al., 2010) and may influence selective attention (richards et al., 2014). unfortunately, no instruments are available to measure individuals' disposition to use ad as a strategy. this contrasts with other er strategies, such as reappraisal and suppression, which have received more attention from the research community and have more established measurement tools (mcrae & gross, 2020). future studies should develop tools that can contribute to measuring this ability. behavioral correlates of ad we aimed to fill the gap in the current literature regarding a deeper characterization of ad. concerning behavioral correlates, interesting data were found in terms of response time. specifically, participants were faster to produce emotional ratings in the arousing focus condition compared to the non-arousing focus condition. this difference was evident for both intensity and valence ratings, with 60% and 67% of participants, respectively, showing faster responses for the arousing focus. the difference was larger for the valence rating, which is the first rating the participants had to report after watching iaps images. interestingly, we found associations between the ratings’ response times and the rating values, specifically for the arousing focus condition in the unpleasant images; higher intensity ratings were asso­ ciated with shorter time responses, and conversely, lower valence ratings (more negative) were associated with faster emotion regulation via attentional deployment 228 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ response time. furthermore, we observed that focusing attention on arousing portions of pictures, within unpleasant emotional stimuli, tends to prompt faster responses. this aligns well with previous studies, where faster recognition of emotional stimuli was associated with higher intensity and lower valence ratings, in the case of emotional faces (sato & yoshikawa, 2010), abstract emotional stimuli (bartoszek & cervone, 2022) and also of emotional events in experience sampling methodologies (arndt et al., 2018). overall, these data offer supporting evidence to the view that attentional focus is key to emotional experience and particularly to the process by which emotions are generated (storbeck & clore, 2007). neuropsychological correlates of ad no robust associations were found when exploring the relationship between attentional capacities, evaluated through the ant, and ad performance. only performance on the alerting network exhibited a small and negative association with valence-based ad (r = -.33, p = .05) and a positive association with intensity-based ad (r = .31, p = 0.06). the alerting network has been closely linked to arousal (petersen & posner, 2012) and is described as responsible for achieving and maintaining an alert state. according to the review by compton (2003), this network is crucial for processing emotional stimuli, as emotional states can enhance alertness and thus influence how attentional resources are allocated. our data does not support the involvement of other attentional networks related to the selection of information, shifting attention (orienting network), or resolving conflicts amongst competing responses (executive network). one plausible explanation is that ad, as measured by our task, does not recruit these networks, since participants are simply instructed to fix their gaze on arousing and non-arousing areas of emotionally negative pictures. to explore further the relationship between ad and attentional abilities, future studies could replicate this task with other well-known neuropsychological tools that measure attention, such as the paced auditory serial addition test (pasat, gronwall, 1977) or the continuous performance test (cpt, conners & sitarenios, 2011). another relevant area to explore is the assessment of ad in individuals with attentional disorders due to neurological damage, where ad impairment has been described (salas et al., 2019). conclusion in conclusion, our study contributes to the growing body of literature on ad specifically, and emotion-cognition interaction more generally, by providing a detailed behavioral characterization of a task that measures this emotion regulation strategy. it also offers novel data regarding the attentional correlates of ad, suggesting a potential role for the alerting network. while some of our findings challenge existing assumptions about arousing focus conditions in ad paradigms, they also open new avenues for methodological refinement in this field. future research should continue to investigate the cognitive and neural bases of ad, employing diverse measures and paradigms to unravel the complex interplay between attention, emotional reactivity, and emotion regulation. salas, núñez, pozo et al. 229 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: daniel rojas líbano receives funding from agencia nacional de investigación y desarrollo (anid), fondo nacional de desarrollo científico y tecnológico (fondecyt), chile, project # 1230481. christian salas receives funding from agencia nacional de investigación y desarrollo (anid), fondo nacional de desarrollo científico y tecnológico (fondecyt), chile, project # 1231200. acknowledgments: the authors would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to their friends and colleagues at cenhn for enriching conversations and discussions, which make our center an inspiring place for research. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: christian salas: conceptualisation, methodology, project administration, funding acquisition, supervision, writing original draft, writing review & editing. nicolas núñez: conceptualisation, methodology, software, investigation, data curation, writing review & editing. luz maría pozo: software, investigation, data curation, writing review & editing. marko bremer: writing review & editing. daniel rojas-líbano: conceptualisation, methodology, software, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, project administration, resources, supervision, validation, visualisation, writing original draft, writing review & editing. ethics statement: the present study was reviewed and approved by the ethical committee at universidad diego portales, facultad de psicología, santiago, chile. all study participants read, reviewed, and signed an informed consent document before participation in the study. data availability: all the data collected and used to compute the results presented in this article are available at rojas-libano (2025). supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access code matlab code for controlling hardware and implementing task; and the code used to analyze data, produce plots, and compute statistics. salas et al. 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(2018). working memory training improves emotion regulation ability. scientific reports, 8(1), article 15012. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31495-2 emotion regulation via attentional deployment 232 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-021-00557-x https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-01812-3 https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/rsaitov/experimental-psycholoy-ltu-final/raw/d3b3ec5364d25179c983d82c944baf04e06fd7ee/iaps.techmanual.1-20.2008.pdf https://gitlab.pavlovia.org/rsaitov/experimental-psycholoy-ltu-final/raw/d3b3ec5364d25179c983d82c944baf04e06fd7ee/iaps.techmanual.1-20.2008.pdf https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal3618 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2007.03.024 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000703 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-023-00974-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.04.003 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-062111-150525 https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/405094 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.10.006 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26406529 https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw075 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00242 https://doi.org/10.1037/pne0000174 https://github.com/dirl75/attentional-deployment-task https://github.com/dirl75/attentional-deployment-analysis https://doi.org/10.1080/13506280902767763 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930701438020 https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721410388395 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0563-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31495-2 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors christian salas is a clinical neuropsychologist and director of the clinical neuropsychology unit at diego portales university in chile, where he also serves as an associate professor at the center for human neuroscience and neuropsychology (cenhn). his research explores changes in emotion regulation following acquired brain injury. he holds a phd in psychology from bangor university, wales, united kingdom. nicolás nuñez is a clinical psychologist and associate professor at andres bello university in chile. he co-founded origamis therapy center, a clinical center located in santiago, chile, for the treatment of mental diseases. his work focuses on the clinical care of patients, couples and families, with problems of emotional origin. he has a master’s in social neuroscience from diego portales university in chile. luz maría pozo holds a bs in biochemistry from pontificia universidad católica de chile and a master’s in social neuroscience from universidad diego portales, chile. she currently works as a high school science teacher in chile. she has a particular interest in bridging scientific knowledge with education to promote meaningful learning experiences in the classroom. marko bremer is a clinical and educational psychologist with a private practice and work as an educational consultant that develops projects related to education and childhood. his work focuses on clinical care and educational interventions within childhood contexts. he holds a master’s in social neuroscience from diego portales university in chile. daniel rojas-líbano is a biologist and researcher at the centro de estudios en neurociencia humana y neuropsicología (cenhn) at universidad diego portales, chile. his work focuses on psychophysiological processes across a range of experimental tasks, with a strong emphasis on replication studies. he earned his phd in neurobiology from the university of chicago. salas, núñez, pozo et al. 233 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 216–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15803 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotion regulation via attentional deployment (introduction) method sample size participants task and procedure eye tracking recording and analysis ant data analysis transparency and openness results gaze behavior attentional deployment ant discussion ad estimates behavioral correlates of ad neuropsychological correlates of ad conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the emperor of fashion’s new starts: creativity and meaning in life in karl lagerfeld special thematic section the emperor of fashion’s new starts: creativity and meaning in life in karl lagerfeld claude-hélène mayer 1,2 , james l. kelley 3 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. [2] faculty of cultural studies, european university viadrina frankfurt (oder), frankfurt, germany. [3] independent researcher, norman, ok, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 received: 2020-10-05 • accepted: 2020-11-08 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editors: paul j. p. fouché, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa; roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, auckland park campus, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net abstract during his lifetime, karl otto lagerfeld (1933–2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the emperor of fashion. lagerfeld ran several fashion houses, such as chanel and fendi, leading them to unprecedented profits. he also created his own fashion label. owing to his unremitting pursuit of excellence through creative expression, lagerfeld’s creativity, energy and intuition for fashion trends seemed only to expand throughout his long career. the authors suggest that, through his creative approach to fashion, architecture, and publishing, lagerfeld articulated and refined a core set of values-such as “bildung,” “lightness” and “the unexpected”—that served as a diltheyan “nexus” linking the prussian-born designer with the global consumer. the authors apply two specific creativity theories to lagerfeld’s life and work, namely the mini-c, little-c, pro-c and big-c creativity theory and sternberg’s wics-model (wisdom, intelligence and creativity). the article uses a psychobiographical case study design formulated according to a research paradigm of modern hermeneutics. firstand third-person data on lagerfeld were collected and evaluated through a hermeneutically-informed syntho-analysis. research ethics were followed. the findings demonstrate the interplay of minic, little-c, pro-c and big-c creativity throughout the subject’s lifetime, as well as the subject’s application of wics, both of which led to the subject’s worldwide success. conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future research and practice are provided. keywords creativity, meaning in life, four c-model, big-c, pro-c, little-c, mini-c, wics, psychobiography, fashion world, haute couture what i like best in life is new starts. — karl lagerfeld creativity emerged as a popular research topic in the middle of the last century (guilford, 1950), and has since become a prominent theme in a wide array of fields such as psychology and sociology (amabile, 2018 ; damian & simonton, 2015; runco & albert, 2010). ever since its rise to prominence in academe, creativity has also been closely linked with psychobiography (johnson, 1985; john-steiner, 2015; kováry, 2011, 2016; latilla & kramer, 2018; mayer, 2017; mayer & van nierkerk, 2020). during the past decades, psychobiographers have explored creativity at work in extraordinary, imaginative individuals, such as lyricists, writers, psychologists, and politicians (schultz, 2005). in particular, these researchers have focused on the characteristics, development, and expression of creative individuals across the life span (holm-hadulla, 2012; kasser, 2013; kováry, 2011; mayer, 2017; mayer & van niekerk, 2020; mcadams, 1988; mcrunyan, 2005; osorio, 2016; ponterrotto, 2015; runco & albert, 2010). creativity has not only been considered in its positive this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4521&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ aspects, but also in its challenging facets, such as mental disorder and psychopathology (belli, 2009; holm-hadulla, 2018). creativity is the skill to develop original ideas that are generally valuable and useful (sternberg & lubart, 1995). the creative individual’s work is characterised by its originality, but also by its effectiveness (runco & jaeger, 2012). creativ­ ity develops across the life span (hilton, 2008; trilling & fadel, 2009), helping individuals to cope with life challenges at every phase of personal development (romero, hyvönen, & barberá, 2012). many factors work together to determine the shape creativity will take, such as the genetic predispositions of the creator, as well as the type of environment in which the creator finds herself, and also the context that informs each creative endeavour (csíkszentmihályi, 2014). these factors are operative from the earliest stages of the development of the creative skill, to their full flowering. in lagerfeld’s case, throughout his childhood and early adult years he constantly oscillated between viewing artworks and fashion magazines, and translating what he saw into sketches of outfits. this basic process continued throughout his entire life, though it was doubtless refined as time wore on. creativity research supports what lagerfeld’s specific experience bore out: not only at its root, but also throughout its development, creativity seems to be strongly connected to meaning-making and meaning in life (kaufman, 2018a, 2018b). meaning in life is a concept that encompasses not only life’s inherent value (adler, 1964), and the framework through which life can be interpreted (frankl, 1963), but also the sense of achievement in meeting goals (seligman, 1991) and an enthusiastic orientation that views life as exciting, interesting, or engaging (rogers, 1951). reker (2000) defines the meaning of life as a “multidimensional construct consisting of the cognisance of order, coherence, and purpose in one’s existence, the pursuit and attainment of worthwhile goals, and the accompanying sense of fulfillment.” the present writing explores creativity and meaning in life as they manifested in karl lagerfeld, the german-born, paris-based creative fashion designer, photographer and artist who lived and worked for most of his life in france (langkjaer, 2019). lagerfeld, born in 1933, achieved iconic status as the “emperor of fashion” in the 20th and 21st century by building up several fashion houses, such as chanel, fendi, and his own eponymous brand, all of which he led to unprecedented success (hall, 2019). lagerfeld passed on in 2018; he has, however, left a legacy as a highly creative, innovative and extravagant designer and artist (hall, 2019). owing to his unremitting pursuit of meaning in life through creative expression, lagerfeld’s intuition for fashion trends seemed only to expand throughout his long career. matheson (2016) points out that creativity impacts on the meaning of life, and vice versa, thereby increasing mental health and well-being. this article suggests that lagerfeld generated meaning in his life through his creative approach to fashion, architecture, and publishing. after having discussed the interlinkages of creativity and meaning in life, the authors apply two creativity theories to lagerfeld’s life and work, namely beghetto, glăveanu and runco’s mini-c, little-c, pro-c and big-c creativity and robert sternberg’s wics-model (wisdom, intelligence and creativity). creativity and meaning in life creativity bolsters the capacity to cope with challenging situations (romero et al., 2012), and also contributes positively to mental health and well-being (forgeard, 2013; simonton, 2014). according to csíkszentmihályi (1997), creativity affords positive development by transforming an existing sphere of activity into a new, more inclusive shape. in lagerfeld’s case, his creativity transformed the fashion and design industry from a merely reactive and nostalgic domain into one that established forward-looking trends and concepts (bacqué, 2020; hall, 2019). creativity is not a free-floating attribute that can be segregated either from the process through which it is enacted or from the products that are its result; even less can we consider creativity apart from the lives of those who bring it into being (sak & oz, 2010; sternberg, 2006). indeed, at creativity’s core is an interplay between 1) the personality of the creative person who juxtaposes divergent perspectives into a unified, bounded product (csíkszentmihályi, 2007; glăveanu, 2015), and 2) the socio-cultural milieu in which the creative situation is framed (amabile, 1983; glăveanu, 2015; glăveanu & sierra, 2015; helfand, kaufman, & beghetto, 2016; kaufman & beghetto, 2013). kaufman (2018b) points out that creativity can help individuals to lead happier, more fulfilling lives by linking their own efforts to lead the good life to global issues of perennial concern (kaufman, 2018b). for sääksjärvi and gonçalves (2018), creativity is built upon three essential components: meaning, novelty and utility. bock (2016) supports mayer & kelley 153 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the hypothesis that basic creative activity, such as drawing and journaling, not only fosters meaning-making in an individual’s life, but also can serve as a basis for generating socially relevant content. if individuals have the capacity to express themselves freely and can chose their mode of expression, agency and voice can be established through creative meaning-making (bock, 2016). creative and meaningful leadership over the course of many decades, karl lagerfeld influenced and even led the haute couture and fashion industry to new heights of creative expression. sternberg (2005) has emphasised that extraordinary and effective leadership synthesizes three qualities: wisdom, intelligence and creativity (the wics model). wisdom is the ability 1) to use intelligence, creativity and knowledge in a manner that reflects a greater common good; 2) to balance intra-, inter and extra-personal interests; 3) to adopt a long-term perspective and include well-defined value sets; 4) to recognise problems of injustice; as well as 5) to apply dialogical thinking that considers problems from multiple perspectives. intelligence refers to the contextualized ability to plan, monitor and evaluate problem solutions, define performance components and execute solutions while acquiring knowledge and the ability to solve problems through the allocation of resources. finally, creativity is the skill to generate novel, high-quality ideas and products. sternberg (2005) further differentiated between skills and types of creative leadership. the nine skills underlying successful leadership in a field are: redefining and analyzing problems, selling solutions, taking sensible risks, surmount­ ing obstacles, believing in one’s ability to accomplish the task at hand, tolerating ambiguity, finding extrinsic rewards for the things one is intrinsically motivated to do, and avoiding stagnation by continuing to grow intellectually. the eight types of creative leadership (sternberg, 2005) are: replication (maintaining the field or organization where it is), redefinition (viewing the status of the organization from a different point of view), forward incrementation (leading a field or organization in the direction it is already going), advance toward incrementation (moving a field or organization in the direction it is already going, but beyond the expected rate of progression), redirection (redirecting an organization or field toward a different direction), reconstruction (moving a field or organization back to where it once was), reinitiation (moving a field or organization from a new starting point in a direction different from the one previously pursued), and synthesis (integration of ideas that were previously seen as unrelated or opposed). the viability of creative individuals’ output is reflected in whether or not the narratives they create inspire others to succeed (sternberg, 2005, 2008). it follows that successful leadership narratives enable innovators to fulfill their mission by realizing their creative potential. these success-breeding stories both align with the extraordinary individual’s action and relate to the life events and emotions of their followers. stories that are creative, but fail to match the follower’s needs are not persuasive, and thus fail disseminate the leader’s values (press, mclean, & mccauley, 2020; sternberg, 2005). big-c, little-c, pro-c, and mini-c creativity in creating a meaningful life ronald a. beghetto’s and james c. kaufman’s big-c creativity theory highlights extraordinary individuals who create extraordinary products (beghetto, 2010; beghetto & kaufman, 2007, 2009; glăveanu & sierra, 2015; runco, 1995). later, theorists appended three other components to big-c, which we will outline below: little-c, pro-c, and mini-c (beghetto & kaufman, 2007, 2009). the products of big-c creativity are exceptional, long lasting, and socially relevant (glăveanu & sierra, 2015); they are exemplified by the work of picasso, mozart, dickinson and einstein (beghetto, 2010). this category of creativity is often favoured in western creativity research (glăveanu & sierra, 2015), since it presents a tangible product (beghetto, 2010; runco, 2007) that is recognised, valued (gralewski & karwowski, 2016; klausen, 2010), and verified by the audience (kasof, 1995). in contrast with big-c creativity (genius creativity) stands little-c creativity (everyday creativity), typified by small­ scale, basic products originating at school, the home, or the workplace (kaufman & beghetto, 2009, p. 3). between these two categories, kaufman and beghetto (2009) placed pro-c (expert creativity) to indicate a lower-impact, smaller-scale level of creativity that, despite falling short of big-c’s genius, nonetheless exhibits marked facility and worthwhile innovation. most professionals with a creative flair are little-c creators, and only a handful will ever qualify as pro-c the emperor of fashion’s new starts 154 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://www.psychopen.eu/ creators. a fourth level of creativity was also proposed by beghetto and kaufman-mini-c creativity-which, like pro-c, is sandwiched between big-c and little-c. mini-c is subjective, being comprised of daily creative processes, which, according to kaufman and beghetto (2009) include “the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events” (kaufman & beghetto, 2013). researchers agree that to develop big-c creativity, preparatory acts of pro-c and mini-c creativity are required (kaufman & beghetto, 2009, 2013). in support of this developmental line of thinking, harrison (2016) has presented an applied analytical autoethnography of a songwriter and his journey from little-c to pro-c creativity. rowles (2017) has helped to further differentiate beghetto’s and kaufman’s componential theory by providing evidence that creativity is perceived differently across the four c’s: while mini-c’s meaning centers on the individual, big-c’s meaning often fans out to effect social groups and even the entire globe (rowles, 2017). the aim of the study the aim of the present study is to construct a unique perspective on karl lagerfeld by exploring how his creativity guided his life and work. the study follows elms’ (1994) method of holistic life reconstruction, but does so with the full knowledge that any such reconstitution can only be partial, since the authors chose a specific psychobiographical theory and highlighted selected core events in his life. it is assumed that lagerfeld’s creative activity was instrumental in his achievement of a meaningful life. the article therefore fits into this special issue on psychobiography as an exploration of creativity as a life-meaning generator. method psychobiography was chosen as a guide to the authors’ exploration of karl lagerfeld’s life and work (jareño gómez, chiclana actis, & noriega garcía, 2019). the study focuses on a single case and explores the life, creativity and creative work of an extraordinary individual across the life span (gruber & bödeker, 2005), following long’s (2014) call for more substantive qualitative studies in creativity research. research method and paradigm in recent years, psychobiography has become more commonly utilized as a research method (kováry, 2011) to explore the lives of extraordinary individuals (alexander, 1990; fouché & van niekerk, 2005, 2010) by applying specific psycho­ logical theories to reconstruct their lives from new and original perspectives. theories on creativity have been applied previously in psychobiographical research (john-steiner, 2015; kováry, 2011; mayer, 2017; mayer & van niekerk, 2020; mcrunyan, 1988, 2013) and are explored here further with regard to meaning in life. in terms of the theoretical frame, this study fits within the context of positive psychology. it examines positivity in the life of lagerfeld through the theoretical lenses of creativity (seligman, 2019) and meaning-making (wong, 2011, 2019). this study thus contributes to the positive psychology approach recently promoted as part of psychobiographical approaches (mayer, 2017). along with positive psychology and the creativity theories used in this study, hermeneutics acknowledges that values are constructed by individuals who encode their socially-influenced meanings into gestures, attitudes, speeches, writings and other signs that can only be decoded by investigators who bring their own experiences to bear on the process of interpretation. thus, the present writing, as a hermeneutically-attuned psychobiography, follows dilthey in assuming that positivity, creativity and intelligence are not objectively definable in same way that the natural sciences measure regularities in the material world (dilthey, 1956, p. 3). following dilthey's (1997, 2002) modern hermeneutics, the authors take up a holistic approach to understand creativity in the context of personal development across a lifespan, holding together a dual focus on life processes and life events. lagerfeld’s creative activity is examined according to dilthey’s hermeneutically-aware “verstehen” approach, which provides a more holistic picture by yielding both emic and etic insights (dilthey, 2002; kováry, 2011, 2015; nortjé, fouché, & gogo, 2013). our diltheyan approach to the materials examined about lagerfeld-which pays heed to the deeper motivations submerged both in the texts themselves as well as in us, the authors, as outsiders to the meanings embedded therein-allowed us to avoid a simplistic, flat reading of the data. for example, we cannot take at face value lagerfeld’s oft-quoted remark about his creative ideas arising spontaneously while he relaxes in the bathtub: “i saw mayer & kelley 155 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://www.psychopen.eu/ it in a dream, [and] put it on my paper” (karl lagerfeld transforms grand-palais, n.d.). instead, we must take into account the subject’s own construction of meaning, what meaning means to him, all the while understanding that we, the investigators, are always at the mercy of our own submerged presuppositions about meaning creation. lagerfeld was steeped in the neo-romantic aesthetics of kandinsky and baudelaire (wsj magazine, 2020), and thus appealed to pure inspiration to distance himself from his influences. however, lagerfeld used this notion of romantic productivity (schmitt, 1998) to turn consumers’ attention to the emotional effect his creations evoke, rather than getting bogged down in pedantic, heady questions about art history (givhan, 2019). karl lagerfeld in perspective karl lagerfeld was chosen purposefully as the subject of research (elms, 1994) on account of his outstanding creativity, which he displayed through his paradigm-shifting work as a fashion designer (langkjaer, 2019), an example being his unique collaboration with the swedish mass-market retailer h&m (rollet, hoffmann, coste-manière, & panchout, 2012; rosa, 2014). lagerfeld’s influence stretches far beyond the world of fashion design, however, leaving its mark in politics, aesthetics, and entrepreneurialism (bacqué, 2020) as when he staged a “runway protest” in 2014, which featured models holding picket signs sporting slogans such as “history is her story” and “be your own stylist” (givhan, 2019). this spectacle provoked fresh discussion in the media about gender and the political implications of the fashion industry. as of the time of this writing, no psychobiography on karl lagerfeld was found. data collection, analysis, and reporting data was collected through first-person and third-person documents (allport, 1961). the former included autobiograph­ ical accounts, internet sources, journal and newspaper articles, public interviews, video documentaries and selected lagerfeld products (alpinrunner, 2021). among the third-person documents were biographies, interview accounts and case studies (ellington, 2018; langkjaer, 2019; nyt, 2015). the authors followed the content analysis of krippendorff (2018), including the collection of information with respect to the subject (step 1), creation of topics (step 2), coding of information (3), categorization and labelling of the content (4), and (5) creation of dissected meaning characteristics. our content analysis was aided by our overarching hermeneutical approach, as when we linked sternberg’s three characteristics-1) creativity, 2) intelligence, and 3) wisdom-into a hierarchy that encompassed, respectively, 1) everyday creativity, 2) interpersonal relations, and 3) ideological or value-oriented sphere. such a structuring follows dilthey’s and other hermeneutics scholars’ insistence on integrating an understanding of the subject’s own socio-cultural constructions of meaning into the analysis of said subject’s life. the presentation of the findings was guided by the qualitative analysis process (yin, 2013). ethical considerations customary ethical standards for psychobiographical research were followed by the authors, leading them to explore the subject of research in an ethical, respectful, empathetic and accountable manner (elms, 1994; ponterrotto, 2015; schultz, 2005). findings and discussion this section will examine the wics model of leadership and the big-c, pro-c, little-c, and mini-c theory as it played out in the life and work of karl lagerfeld. wics model of leadership and the big-c, pro-c, little-c, and mini-c theory each of the components of sternberg’s wics leadership model can be found to be at work at different junctures in karl lagerfeld’s life. creativity is displayed in lagerfeld’s constant generation of new ideas; intelligence is evinced in his ability to arrange these new ideas into constellations that form the basis for products that the public finds compelling; wisdom comes into play for lagerfeld at those junctures when he has taken care to craft his productions with the values the emperor of fashion’s new starts 156 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the wider public in mind. in the present essay, the synthesis of these three components (wics) have been conceived as an ideal type of the creative process, progressing from the mini-c and little-c beginnings-the everyday creative steps that generate the raw materials for creation-to the pro-c and big-c levels. in the latter, works and projects are crafted and brought to fruition through the institutions and channels necessary to bring them into being. creativity at the level of creativity, raw ideas are called forth from everyday experience and are provisionally framed for use in later, higher-level refinements. if an individual does not possess this spontaneous fount of creativity, she has nothing to process, no bricks and no mortar with which to build. young karl was brought up in the rural area close to hamburg, germany, where he busied himself reading books and drawing-creative activities that he had chosen early in his life which fostered his imagination and creativity-far removed from social contact of his siblings and other children (alpinrunner, 2021). it was not only in his youth, however, but also throughout his life, that “[lagerfeld felt] an inner compulsion to find out everything there is to know, read everything; the curiosity [was] ceaseless” (colapinto, 2007, pp. 114–115 cited in langkjaer, 2019, p. 4). it is here, in his adult years, that we can find evidence of the wics creative sphere as posing a specific challenge. lagerfeld seems to have been tempted to allow his creative work to swallow his private life, turning even close friendships into grist for artistic productivity. though he often broke ties with associates such as anna piaggi once they outlived their usefulness, he nonetheless showed concerns for his companion jacques de bascher as well as for his seamstresses that went far beyond utility (bacqué, 2020). overall, lagerfeld’s tendency to overwork was counterbalanced by his constant attempt to turn his life into a vessel overflowing with conceptions that could be turned into items that were marketable and thus shared by a broad swathe of the public. intelligence lagerfeld’s intelligence is evinced through his ability to frame his creative ideas so that they follow a well-worn aesthe­ ticist path by bringing seemingly distant elements together in surprising juxtaposition. without a deep knowledge of every phase of modern culture-from frederick the great’s era to that of dalì-lagerfeld would have had no basis for mak­ ing his bold fashion moves. one of the german designer’s apt insights was that people want to buy products that pull them away from the workaday, “bourgeoise” sphere, though without placing them squarely in either the dressed-down, ragamuffin, lower-class category, or its opposite, the icy, aloof, humorless category of the rich. this tightrope walk was performed by lagerfeld in many variations, but a prominent one is his use of the theme of “lightness.” as one commentator put it: “lagerfeld’s particular genius was in bringing a feelgood factor to the traditionally chilly world of parisian elegance” (cartner-morley, 2019). the opulent aura of joan collins as she appeared in the tv drama dynasty (moore, 1981–1989), lagerfeld once averred, did not have a direct effect on fashion, it being seen as too “hard” and aristocratic. however, mediated through pop singers such as madonna and sade, collins’ stylized dresses garnered mass appeal (pomazan, 1998, p. 23). madonna’s and sade’s self-presentation is descended from the hollywood trope of the nightclub singer-immortalized by rita hayworth in the film gilda (vidor, 1946)-who makes every patron in the room feel integrated into her glamourous persona. as an example of how lagerfeld followed this tradition of splicing together the upscale with the casual, consider his ready-to-wear “pearl trim bell sleeve gown.” the garment’s design follows this casual-formal, light-heavy theme, being a simple, black polyester spandex evening dress fitted out with pearl-rimmed sleeves that flare out in a bell shape, affording its wearer the kind of staid glitz that befits a day at the market as much as a night at the opera. wisdom in the creative process, wisdom is the level at which products are sent out into the world, having been guided along the steps of their production by reflection on how consumers and collaborators can be co-opted into the values that these creations embody (sternberg, 2003, pp. 178–179). whereas creativity is more concerned with the flow of simple, bedrock processes that are judged and refined by intelligence, wisdom stands apart as the highest-order executive level wherein decisions are made concerning what to do, how to do it, and how well something was done (sternberg, 1998). though the three wics levels overlap somewhat, wisdom can be distinguished by its dual concern both with the internal mayer & kelley 157 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://www.psychopen.eu/ consistency of the values reflected in the creative product, and with the possible appeal these value choices may have with consumers. lagerfeld’s attainment of wisdom is evinced through his nightly vigil at his partner jacques de bascher’s bedside when the latter was in the last throws of aids-related illness in 1989. though lagerfeld had up to that point “hated sickness and death,” keeping “away from any colleague with a mild cold” (bacqué, 2020, p. 191), when his close associate and quondam muse took ill, the famous designer overcame his aversion. though he retained a frenetic pace of work even during this vigil period, lagerfeld forced himself to sleep on a cot in a hospital room with a dying friend, forsaking the comforts of his lavish apartment. though lagerfeld’s actions certainly did not directly inspire his subsequent fashion productions, we can surmise that personal growth and value development were their unseen fruits. lagerfeld seems to have struggled with a potential drawback at the value-wisdom level, in that he often made offensive comments that were likely intended to generate interest in his creative, neo-decadent persona, but which often got him into hot water with journalists and other media figures who found his put-downs simply crude and mean-spirited. examples abound, so it will suffice to mention just a few of lagerfeld’s quips. meryl streep was called “cheap” (van der meer, 2020); adele was decried as “fat” (fox, 2012). even the deceased princess diana found herself at the business end of a lagerfeld one-liner: “she was pretty, and she was sweet, but she was stupid” (grigoriadis, 2006). however, in the case of adele and a few others, lagerfeld remained flexible enough to make apologies and other concessions (misener, 2012; thr staff, 2012). overall, he remained firm in his fashion choices, and also in his self-fashioning as a wildean fount of witticisms, though with an added understanding that offending the public’s sense of propriety in a deep and abiding manner is bad business. conclusion and recommendation the aim of the study was to explore creativity in karl lagerfeld’s life and thereby reconstruct it by homing in on the theme of meaning-in-life. in this way, the study explores lagerfeld’s core values by clarifying the link between his creative output and his attempt to foster meaning across his lifespan. first, the interlinkages of creativity and meaning in life were discussed; secondly, the big-c theory of beghetto, glăveanu and runco and robert sternberg’s wics model were called upon to forge a unique account of the life of karl lagerfeld in the context of creativity and meaning. the study showed that karl lagerfeld’s creativity was evinced in his constant production of new ideas, his intelligent arrangement of his ideas, and his ability to sell his ideas to the broader public. traces of mini-c, little-c, pro-c and big-c could be found across his lifespan, starting during his childhood with mini-c and little-c acts that blossomed into pro-c and big-c creativity during his years as a professional. through the study’s in-depth analysis of lagerfeld’s life, it was established that he used, applied and developed crea­ tivity, intelligence and wisdom throughout his life. his facility for both witty anecdotes in interviews and unexpected twists in his fashion designs served to keep lagerfeld’s name in the media, and also showed forth his uncanny ability to generate life-meaning in which the public was invited to participate. although other associations were important, his relationship with his parents and particularly with his mother was paramount in creating a foundation for his later ability to create meaning through aestheticallyand entrepreneurially-informed decision-making. future research on specific phases of lagerfeld’s life could bear much fruit, as they could make manifest the interconnections between specific events in the fashion designer’s life and the aesthetic productions coeval with them, the latter being explicated as solutions to developmental crises. such studies should shed further light on lagerfeld’s inner life by reading backwards from his fashion creations to the root of their inspiration in his thought-world. in general, future psychobiography should concern itself more with comparative analyses of creativity and meaning in extraordinary individuals from different socio-cultural backgrounds and professional contexts. psychobiography in this comparative vein 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(2013). case study research: design and methods. thousand oaks, ca, usa: sage. about the authors claude-hélène mayer (dr. habil., phd, phd) is a professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, an adjunct professor at the european university viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany and a senior research associate at rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. she holds a ph.d. in psychology (university of pretoria, south africa), a ph.d. in management (rhodes university, south africa), a doctorate in political sciences (georg-august university, germany), and a habilitation in psychology with focus on work, organizational, and cultural psychology (european university viadrina, germany). she has published several monographs, text collections, accredited journal articles, and special issues on transcultural mental health, sense of coherence, shame, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, creativity, and psychobiography. james l. kelley has over a decade's experience in the publishing worlds of psychiatry, history, theology, and vocational studies. as a researcher, he has published books and articles in various fields since 2009, when a realism of glory (rollinsford, nh: orthodox research institute) appeared. since then, his translations, essays, and monographs have been published in the u.s., canada, france, romania, and greece. mr. kelley's research interests include political theory, object relations theory, psychobiography, new religious movements, western esotericism, and modern eastern orthodox theology. he has taught at east central university (ada, ok) and the university of oklahoma (norman, ok). mayer & kelley 163 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 152–163 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 http://www.drpaulwong.com/positive-psychology-2-0-towards-a-balanced-interactive-model-of-the-good-life/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/andre-leon-talley-on-the-time-he-scandalized-paris-society-11590582956 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the emperor of fashion’s new starts (introduction) creativity and meaning in life creative and meaningful leadership big-c, little-c, pro-c, and mini-c creativity in creating a meaningful life the aim of the study method research method and paradigm karl lagerfeld in perspective data collection, analysis, and reporting ethical considerations findings and discussion wics model of leadership and the big-c, pro-c, little-c, and mini-c theory creativity intelligence wisdom conclusion and recommendation (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors experimental investigation examining the effects of acute exercise on implicit memory function research reports experimental investigation examining the effects of acute exercise on implicit memory function paul d. loprinzi* a, morgan gilbert a, gina robinson a, briahna dickerson a [a] exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, oxford, ms, usa. abstract emerging work suggests that acute exercise can enhance explicit memory function. minimal research, however, has examined whether acute exercise is associated with implicit memory, which was the purpose of this study. three separate experimental studies were computed (n = 120; mean age = 21). in experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to either a moderate-intensity bout of acute exercise (15-minute) or engaged in a seated control task (15-minute), followed by the completion of a word-fragmentation implicit memory task. experiment 2 replicated experiment 1, but instead employed a higher-intensity exercise protocol. for experiment 3, participants were randomly assigned to either a moderate-intensity bout of acute exercise (15-minute) or engaged in a seated control task (15-minute), followed by the completion of a real world, 3-dimensional implicit memory task. for experiment 1, the exercise and control groups, respectively, had an implicit memory score of 7.0 (0.5) and 7.5 (0.6) (t(38) = 0.67, p = .51). for experiment 2, the exercise and control groups, respectively, had an implicit memory score of 6.9 (1.9) and 7.8 (2.4) (t(38) = 1.27, p = .21). these findings suggest that exercise, and the intensity of exercise, does not alter implicit memory from a word fragmentation task. for experiment 3, the exercise and control groups, respectively, had a discrimination implicit memory index score of 0.48 (0.18) and 0.29 (0.32) (t(38) = 2.16, p = .03). in conclusion, acute exercise does not influence a commonly used laboratory-based assessment of implicit memory but may enhance real world-related implicit memory function. keywords: consciousness, declarative memory system, physical activity, procedural memory europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 received: 2018-12-05. accepted: 2019-03-17. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, pontypridd, uk *corresponding author at: exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science, and recreation management, the university of mississippi, 229 turner center, university, ms 38677, usa. tel: +662 915 5521. e-mail: pdloprin@olemiss.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. research demonstrates that health behaviors, such as exercise, may not only have cardiometabolic protective effects, but may also favorably influence neurological function (chang, labban, gapin, & etnier, 2012; crush & loprinzi, 2017; etnier et al., 2016; frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2017; labban & etnier, 2011; loprinzi, frith, edwards, sng, & ashpole, 2018a; loprinzi, herod, cardinal, & noakes, 2013; loprinzi & kane, 2015; mcmorris, 2016; mcmorris, sproule, turner, & hale, 2011; mcmorris, turner, hale, & sproule, 2016; roig, nordbrandt, geertsen, & nielsen, 2013; roig et al., 2016). notably, these findings have been observed even among young adults, which is important as memory function may start to decline in young adulthood (salthouse, 2009). we have previously detailed the dearth of research on this topic among this population (young adults) and have noted that the majority of this research has focused on episodic memory function (loprinzi et al., 2018a). episodic memory is considered the conscious recall of past events or episodes from a spatial-temporal context (loprinzi, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ edwards, & frith, 2017). the mechanisms through which exercise may influence episodic memory function has been extensively detailed (bherer, erickson, & liu-ambrose, 2013; loprinzi et al., 2017; mcmorris, 2016; mcmorris et al., 2016; piepmeier & etnier, 2015). as we have recently discussed (loprinzi & edwards, 2017), a major gap in the literature is whether exercise can influence implicit memory function, which includes the recall of information that was not consciously encoded (slotnick, 2016). as we have previously illustrated in a systematic review (loprinzi & edwards, 2017), only 10 published experiments have examined the effects of exercise on implicit memory, and among these, seven were conducted in animal models. thus, three (eich & metcalfe, 2009; padilla, mayas, ballesteros, & andres, 2016; sherman, buckley, baena, & ryan, 2016) human experimental studies have examined the effects of exercise on implicit memory, with the findings of these studies being mixed (loprinzi & edwards, 2017). previous work (barco, bailey, & kandel, 2006; hawkins, kandel, & bailey, 2006) highlights common underlying mechanisms of explicit and implicit memory function, with both memory outcomes likely influenced, in part, from alterations in long-term potentiation, or the functional connectivity of communicating neurons. we have recently discussed the potential role through which acute exercise may induce long-term potentiation (loprinzi et al., 2017; loprinzi, ponce, & frith, 2018b), likely through exercise-induced muscle spindle and vagus nerve stimulation. thus, mechanistically, it is biologically plausible that acute exercise may influence both explicit and implicit memory. couched within the above, the purpose of this study was to experimentally examine the effects of acute exercise on implicit memory function. we address this question (i.e., does acute exercise influence implicit memory?) from three sequential experimental studies conducted in our laboratory. for these three sequential experimental studies, data was collected over an 18-month period. the first experiment evaluates the effects of acute lower-intensity exercise on implicit memory, whereas the second experiment evaluates the effects of acute higher-intensity exercise on implicit memory. both of these experimental studies employ a commonly-used laboratory assessment of implicit memory (word fragmentation/completion task). in our third experimental study, we evaluate the effects of acute moderate-intensity exercise on implicit memory while employing a more realworld, 3-dimensional assessment of implicit memory. experiment 1 method study design a two-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled experiment was employed. this study was approved by the ethics committee at the university of mississippi and participants provided written informed consent prior to participation. participants were randomized into one of two groups (experimental and control). the experimental group walked briskly for 15 minutes, while the control group engaged in a seated, time-matched computer task (sudoku) for 20-minutes. after the exercise condition, participants sat for 5-minutes (playing sudoku), then completed an affect survey (for “priming” purposes), then watched a video for 5-minutes, and then completed the word completion task (implicit memory assessment). loprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 701 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants each group included 20 participants (n = 40). this is based from a power analysis indicating sample sizes ranging from 15 to 24 (d, 0.84–1.36; two-tailed α error probability, .05; 1-β error probability, .80; allocation ratio, 1). this also aligns with our related experimental work demonstrating adequate statistical power (crush & loprinzi, 2017; frith et al., 2017; loprinzi & kane, 2015; sng, frith, & loprinzi, 2017). participants were recruited via a convenience-based, non-probability sampling approach. participants (students) were eligible if they were between the ages of 18 and 35 years. further, participants were excluded if they: • self-reported as a daily smoker (jubelt et al., 2008; klaming, annese, veltman, & comijs, 2016) • self-reported being pregnant (henry & rendell, 2007) • exercised within 5 hours of testing (labban & etnier, 2011) • consumed caffeine within 3 hours of testing (sherman et al., 2016) • had a concussion or head trauma within the past 30 days (wammes, good, & fernandes, 2017) • took marijuana or other illegal drugs within the past 30 days (hindocha, freeman, xia, shaban, & curran, 2017) • were considered a daily alcohol user (>30 drinks/month for women; >60 drinks/month for men) (le berre, fama, & sullivan, 2017) exercise protocol those randomized to the exercise group walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes at a self-selected “brisk walk.” they were asked to select a pace as if they were late for class or to catch a bus, with a minimum speed set of 3.0 mph. this exercise protocol has been shown to enhance explicit memory function (sng, frith, & loprinzi, 2018). the bout of exercise occurred prior to the memory assessment. immediately after the bout of exercise, participants rested in a seated position for 5 minutes (played on-line sudoku puzzle during this resting period). after this resting period, they completed a brief affective assessment asking them to rate (1, very unpleasant; 5, very pleasant) 25 different words (e.g., kids, outside), with these words employed in previous implicit memory experiments (anderson, carnagey, & eubanks, 2003; carnagey & anderson, 2005). after completing this brief assessment, participants watched a 5-minute video clip (the office bloopers season 4). they were instructed to focus closely on this video, as after the video, they would be asked to write down three funny things from the video. the purpose of this video was to create a delay between the implicit memory prime (indicating how the words made them feel) and the word completion task. after the video, participants completed a 50-item word completion task, of which 25 words (randomly sorted) came from the affective assessment they previously completed. control protocol those randomized to the control group completed the same protocol as those in the exercise group, with the exception of, instead of exercising for 15-minutes followed by resting for 5-minutes, they completed a mediumlevel, on-line administered, sudoku puzzle for 20-minutes. the website for this puzzle is located here: https://www.websudoku.com/ exercise and implicit memory 702 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.websudoku.com/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ memory assessment implicit memory was assessed using a 50-item word completion task, which has demonstrated evidence of both reliability (ojemann et al., 1998) and validity (spaan & raaijmakers, 2011). twenty-five words from the work of anderson et al. (2003; carnagey & anderson, 2005) were used for this study. of these 50 word fragments, 25 of the words were the words from the memory prime (affective assessment). the implicit memory outcome was the number of correctly completed words from the 25 primed words. for each of the 50 word fragments, participants were asked to complete the word with whatever word first came to mind. as an example, one of the “primed” words (from the affective assessment) was “kids,” and the word fragment was “k i _ _.” participants could have, for example, completed the word by writing “kite,” “kiss,” “kilt,” “king,” “kids,” “kind,” “kiwi,” “kink,” or “kilo.” if, however, they wrote “kids,” then they received a point. the maximum number of points for this implicit memory, word completion task was 25, with a higher score indicative of greater implicit memory. additional assessments as a measure of habitual physical activity behavior, participants completed the physical activity vital signs questionnaire, which reported time spent per week in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (mvpa) (ball, joy, gren, & shaw, 2016). height/weight (bmi) were measured to provide anthropometric characteristics of the sample. lastly, before, during and after the exercise and control conditions, heart rate (chest-strapped polar monitor, f1 model) was assessed. statistical analysis all statistical analyses were computed in spss (v. 24). an independent samples t-test was used to compare the implicit memory score across the two groups. statistical significance was set at an alpha of .05. results demographic and behavioral characteristics of the sample are shown in table 1. participants, on average, were 21 years, with the majority of the sample (75.0%) being female. the sample comprised multiple race-ethnicity groups, including 58.0% being non-hispanic white, 30.0% non-hispanic black, and the remaining including a multi-racial or other classification. resting heart rate was similar between the two groups (73–75 bpm), with the heart rate increasing to 130 bpm by the end of the exercise bout. figure 1 displays the results of the implicit memory assessment. the exercise and control groups, respectively, had an implicit memory score of 7.0 (0.5) and 7.5 (0.6) (t(38) = 0.67, p = .51). thus, results from experiment 1 showed that acute lower-intensity exercise did not influence implicit memory function. notably, the control group had slighter higher implicit memory scores. loprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 703 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mean and individual data points for the implicit memory task among the exercise and control groups for experiments 1 and 2. discussion emerging work suggests that humans can form unconscious memories (wuethrich, hannula, mast, & henke, 2018). up until recently, the majority of experimental work in the exercise neurobiology field has examined the effects of exercise on conscious, explicit memories. recent work has emphasized the importance of additional table 1 characteristics of the study variables across the three experiments experiment 1 experiment 2 experiment 3 variable exercise (n = 20) control (n = 20) exercise (n = 20) control (n = 20) exercise (n = 20) control (n = 20) age, mean years 21.2 (2.2) 21.1 (2.1) 21.3 (2.3) 21.0 (1.4) 21.1 (1.5) 20.9 (1.6) % female 66.6 84.2 70.0 70.0 68.4 76.1 race-ethnicity, %  white 57.1 57.9 70.0 60.0 42.1 38.1  black 33.3 26.3 20.0 30.0 57.9 57.1  other 9.5 15.5 10.0 10.0 0.0 4.8 bmi, mean kg/m2 24.9 (5.1) 23.6 (3.5) 25.5 (5.5) 26.4 (6.0) 25.0 (5.5) 26.0 (6.6) mvpa, mean min/week 226.5 (194.5) 138.7 (89.6) 172.8 (114.1) 174.3 (143.0) 128.8 (136.0) 131.8 (130.5) heart rate, mean bpm  resting 73.0 (11.2) 75.2 (12.4) 81.7 (14.1) 77.8 (12.0) 77.6 (9.3)  midpoint 122.5 (19.3) 77.6 (9.4) 150.8 (9.7) 120.9 (14.1)  endpoint 130.5 (17.6) 75.8 (10.1) 150.6 (6.7) 121.6 (13.6)  post 82.2 (12.2) 78.5 (8.9) 93.3 (11.1) 81.1 (10.9) note. bmi = body mass index; mvpa = moderate to vigorous physical activity. values in parentheses are standard deviation (sd) estimates. -, not assessed. exercise and implicit memory 704 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiments evaluating the effects of exercise on unconscious, implicit memory (loprinzi & edwards, 2017). this served as the motivation for experiment 1, which evaluated the effects of acute, lower-intensity exercise on implicit memory function. our findings did not suggest any effect of acute exercise on implicit memory. as noted elsewhere (loprinzi & edwards, 2017), only 10 published experiments have examined the effects of exercise on implicit memory, and among these, seven were conducted in animal models, employing a fear condition paradigm. six of these seven studies employed a chronic training protocol and all six demonstrated an exercise-induced enhancement effect on implicit memory. three (eich & metcalfe, 2009; padilla et al., 2016; sherman et al., 2016) human experimental studies, all employing a word-stem completion task, examined the effects of exercise on implicit memory. eich and metcalfe (2009) demonstrated that an acute marathon bout (26.2 miles) enhanced implicit memory, sherman et al. (2016) did not demonstrate any benefits from short-duration (15-minute) sprinting, and padilla et al. (2016) did not observe any implicit memory benefits from selfreported chronic exercise engagement. taken together, our findings align with the other mixed findings in this emerging line of inquiry. previous experimental work (chang et al., 2012; crush & loprinzi, 2017; etnier et al., 2016; frith et al., 2017; labban & etnier, 2011; loprinzi et al., 2013, 2018; loprinzi & kane, 2015; mcmorris, 2016; mcmorris et al., 2011, 2016; roig et al., 2013, 2016; sng et al., 2017) provides suggestive evidence that acute exercise can subserve explicit memory function, likely as a result of enhanced neuronal excitability, alterations in neurotrophic factors, and augmentation of long-term potentiation, or the functional connectivity across neurons. it is conceivable that acute exercise may also facilitate implicit memory, as there are common molecular mechanisms subserving explicit and implicit memory (barco et al., 2006; hawkins et al., 2006). given the paucity of research examining the effects of exercise on implicit memory, future work on this topic is warranted. in conclusion, our findings do not demonstrate any evidence of implicit memory enhancement or impairment from an acute bout of lower-intensity exercise. given the paucity of research on acute exercise and implicit memory, additional work in this area is needed. one such area of future inquiry is whether the effects of acute exercise and implicit memory are intensity-dependent. this assertion aligns with our recent review demonstrating that high-intensity exercise, when compared to lower intensity acute exercise, may more favorably influence explicit memory function (loprinzi, 2018). the extent to which this may occur for implicit memory is less understood. thus, experiment 2 evaluates the effects of acute higher-intensity exercise on implicit memory function. experiment 2 as we have recently discussed, higher-intensity exercise (vs. lower intensity acute exercise) may more favorably impact explicit memory systems (loprinzi, 2018). for example, high-intensity acute exercise that occurs shortly before memory encoding may increase levels of select neurotransmitters (e.g., norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine). elevation of these neurotransmitters may activate various intracellular neuronal pathways (e.g., activate of kinases, such as protein kinase a), which in turn, may increase the phosphorylation of transcription factors (e.g., creb) that subserves long-term potentiation (loprinzi et al., 2017), a key cellular correlate of memory function (loprinzi, 2018). notably, some of the same underlying mechanisms that influence explicit memory may also influence implicit memory function (barco et al., 2006; hawkins et al., 2006). loprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 705 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as discussed previously, higher-intensity marathon exercise may be a potential stimulus to enhance implicit memory function (eich & metcalfe, 2009). however, among the few studies on this topic, other work does not demonstrate an implicit memory benefit from high-intensity exercise. that is, sherman et al. (2016) did not demonstrate any implicit memory benefits from short-duration sprinting. these mixed findings warrant future research. in particular, a protocol that combines both aspects of these two higher-intensity protocols may be sensible and feasible (i.e., shorter duration, continuous exercise). thus, the purpose of experiment 2 was to evaluate the potential effects of acute higher-intensity continuous exercise on implicit memory function. method this study was approved by the ethics committee at the university of mississippi and participants provided written informed consent prior to participation. the entire protocol for experiment 2 was identical to experiment 1, except for the exercise stimuli. participants jogged on a treadmill for 15 minutes at approximately 80% of their estimated heart rate max (220-age). after this exercise bout, participants sat and played sudoku for 10-minutes. the control group (time-matched) played sudoku for 25-minutes. results demographic and behavioral characteristics of the sample for experiment 2 are also shown in table 1. unlike experiment 1 (lower-intensity exercise) where heart rate increased to 130 bpm by the end of the exercise bout, for experiment 2 (higher-intensity exercise), heart rate increased up to 150 bpm by the end of the exercise bout, which was statistically significantly higher than the exercise heart rate observed in experiment 1 (p < .001). notably, there were no differences in resting heart rate between the two experiments (p > .10). figure 1 displays the results of the implicit memory assessment for both experiment 1 and 2. for experiment 2, the exercise and control groups, respectively, had an implicit memory score of 6.9 (1.9) and 7.8 (2.4) (t(38) = 1.27, p = .21). similar to experiment 1, the control group for experiment 2 had a slightly higher mean implicit memory score than the exercise group. discussion for both experiment 1 (lower-intensity exercise) and experiment 2 (higher-intensity exercise), acute exercise did not enhance implicit memory function. although we cannot fully discount the possibility that these null effects may be a result of the exercise bout duration (15-minutes), our other experimental work demonstrates that this exercise duration (or even less) has been shown to enhance explicit memory function (frith et al., 2017; haynes iv, frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2018; jaffery, edwards, & loprinzi, 2018; sng et al., 2018). of course, however, it is possible that memory type (explicit vs. implicit) may moderate the effects of exercise duration on memory. of interest here is whether the type of implicit memory assessment may be accounting for our observed null findings. thus, the purpose of experiment 3 was to employ a more real-world, 3-dimensional assessment of implicit memory, and evaluate whether acute exercise influences implicit memory when assessed in this manner. exercise and implicit memory 706 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment 3 with a few exceptions (brewer & treyens, 1981; droll & eckstein, 2009; pezdek, whetstone, reynolds, askari, & dougherty, 1989; qin et al., 2014), most recognition memory tasks involve the recollection of items from computerized images (i.e., the encoding and recognition both occurring from computerized images). although this approach may facilitate greater laboratory control, there is a trade-off as it may lack generalizability to realworld situations. thus, it is important that, when feasible, laboratory assessments attempt to maximize this generalizability in a real-world context by including testing formats that include real-world, 3-d objects. experiment 3 aims to accomplish this. that is, the aim of experiment 3 was to examine whether acute exercise can enhance implicit memory of 3-d objects in a real world-type context. method this study was approved by the ethics committee at the university of mississippi and participants provided written informed consent prior to participation. the entire protocol for experiment 3 was identical to experiment 1, with the exception of the memory assessment. a two-arm, parallel-group randomized controlled intervention was employed. participants were randomized into one of two groups. the experimental group walked briskly for 15 minutes on a treadmill (5-minute post-exercise rest), while the control group engaged in a 20-minute seated task. after this, the implicit memory task was commenced. memory assessment and procedures the laboratory set-up included three adjacent 10’ × 10’ rooms, each separated by a wall (6’ in height). see figure 2 for a schematic of the laboratory set-up. participants entered the laboratory through the door entrance, which is near unit 1 (figure 2). they sat in the chair in unit 1 to complete the consent document and demographic survey. at this time, the participant were asked to give the researcher their cellphone, which was returned to the participant after the study was completed. this was performed to ensure that the participant did not distract themselves with their phone during the experimental protocol. figure 2. schematic overview of the laboratory set-up for experiment 3. loprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 707 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ after going over the consent document and demographic survey, participants then exercised for 15-minutes on the treadmill in unit 1 (if in the exercise group). after this bout of exercise, the participant sat back in the chair in unit 1 for 5 minutes. during this 5-minute resting period, they sat quietly and completed a medium-level, on-line administered, sudoku puzzle (same as the control group). after this 5-minute resting period, the participant got up from the chair in unit 1 and walked over to unit 3 and sat in the chair in front of the desk. they were instructed to sit in the chair quietly for 2-minutes. they were not given any tasks during this period and were told to sit quietly for a few minutes. the computer at their desk was turned off, so they were not be able to be distracted by any electronic device (e.g., computer or cell phone). after this 2-minute period, the researcher signaled them to come back to unit 1. when returning to the chair in unit 1, they completed another on-line sudoku puzzle for 5-minutes. after this, they completed the incidental memory task. the incidental memory task was completed on the computer in unit 1. they observed a series of 18 objects on the computer, with one object appearing per slide. they advanced through the 18 slides at a self-directed pace. for each image, they were asked to indicate if they saw the image when they were in unit 3 (completed via paper-and-pencil). they were told to focus their attention on the object, rather than its appearance (e.g., apparent size or distance). the image was a close-up picture of the object, with this picture taken in a different environment. for each image, participants selected one of three options via a paper-pencil document. the possible options include: “remember,” “know,” and “new.” see table 2 for the description of these options. table 2 response options for the implicit recognition memory task (experiment 3) response option description remember “remember” is the ability to become consciously aware again of some aspect or aspects of what happened or what was experienced at the time you were exposed to the object (e.g., aspects of the physical appearance of the image, or something that you were thinking at the time of viewing the image). in other words, the “remember” images should bring back to mind a particular association, image, or something more personal from the time of the study, or something about its appearance or position. know “know” responses should be made when you recognize seeing the image when in the other unit, but you cannot consciously recollect anything about its actual occurrence or what happened or what was experienced at the time of its occurrence. new “new” responses would be if you are certain that you did not previously see the image when in the other unit. nine of the 18 images that they were tested on were objects that were placed in unit 3. these nine objects were placed on the desk they were sitting at (in unit 3), the table near the desk, or on the floor next to the treadmill. of the nine objects placed in unit 3, three were objects that we classified as “contexttypical object,” three were “context-atypical objects,” and three were “context-unfamiliar objects.” see table 3 for a description of these objects. one object from each of these categories was placed on the desk, table, and floor in unit 3. the other nine images that they viewed on the computer screen were objects that were not in unit 3, but fall within these three categories. that is, for each object placed in the experimental room (unit 3), we selected a similar object from the same object-type (i.e., context-typical, context-atypical, or unfamiliar). the 18 images/ slides were randomly ordered. exercise and implicit memory 708 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 description of the objects used in experiment 3 context-typical objects context-atypical objects context-unfamiliar objects binder (3-ring) spatula jawzrsize textbook hanger miniaturized hj scraper stapler sunscreen lotion container (8 oz) wrist attachment device after the completion of the study, participants completed a brief survey confirming the categorization of these objects. these questions are shown in table 4. additionally, after the conclusion of the study, participants completed a brief survey assessing their anticipation of the memory task. see table 5 for the specific questions used to evaluation their anticipation of the memory protocol. table 4 survey questions assessing participant confidence, familiarity, and typicality of each object (experiment 3) naming confidence context-typical objects context-unfamiliar objects “how confident are you that you know the specific name of this object.” “how typical do you consider this object in the context of a university.” “how often do you encounter this object in your daily live?” 1 = not at all confident; 2 = little confidence; 3 = neither; 4 = somewhat confident; 5 = very confident 1 = not typical at all; 2 = somewhat typical; 3 = neither; 4 = typical; 5 = very typical 1 = never; 2 = rarely; 3 = occasionally; 4 = very frequently; 5 = always table 5 questions used to classify anticipation of the memory task (experiment 3) question response options “when i was in unit 3, i suspected that i would be tested on the identities of the objects on the desk, table and/or floor.” 1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; and 5 = strongly agree. “when i was in unit 3, i made an effort to memorize the identities of the objects on the desk, table and/or floor.” 1 = strongly disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = neutral; 4 = agree; and 5 = strongly agree. data reduction for the memory task for the memory recognition assessment, a hit rate score was calculated as a rate of correctly indicating that they previously saw the image when in unit 3 (i.e., that they “remembered” or “knew” they saw the image). a false rate score was calculated as a rate of incorrectly indicating that they previously “remembered” or “knew” seeing an image that was not present in unit 3. lastly, the discrimination index was calculated as “hit rate— false rate.” results table 1 describes the characteristics of the sample. similar to experiment 1, for experiment 3, heart rate increased from the 70’s (bpm) to the 120’s (bpm). loprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 709 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding the categorization of the objects, which, as shown in table 3, were categorized into one of the following three categories: context-typical, context-atypical, and context-unfamiliar. table 4 reports the survey questions that were employed to evaluate how confident they were in naming the object, how typical they consider the object in the laboratory setting, and how often they encountered the object in their daily life. regarding their confidence ratings, the mean (standard deviation, sd) confidence ratings for typical, atypical, and unfamiliar objects, respectively, were 4.45 (0.55), 4.86 (0.44), and 2.20 (0.7). this confirms that our selected objects were categorized appropriately. regarding how typical participants considered the object in the laboratory setting, the mean (sd) typical ratings for typical, atypical, and unfamiliar objects, respectively, were 4.0 (0.51), 2.64 (0.99), and 2.17 (0.83). this confirms that our selected objects were categorized appropriately in the context of how typical they thought the object was for this research setting. lastly, participants indicated how often they encountered the object in their daily lives. the mean (sd) ratings for typical, atypical, and unfamiliar objects, respectively, were 3.18 (0.60), 3.65 (0.53), and 1.49 (0.43). this confirms that our selected objects were categorized appropriately for how often they encounter these objects in their daily life. as shown in table 5, we asked two remaining questions at the end of the visit, including whether the participant anticipated that the objects in the room were related to the memory task and whether they attempted to memorize these objects. for both of these items (table 4), response options ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the mean (sd) score for whether they anticipated that they would be asked to recall the object and whether they tried to memorize the object, respectively, were 1.62 (1.0) and 1.67 (1.0). thus, participants “strongly disagreed” to “disagreed” that they anticipated these object were part of the memory protocol and that they tried to memorize the objects. table 6 displays the hit rate, false rate, and discrimination index across the exercise and control groups for the context-typical, context atypical, and context-unfamiliar items. the discrimination index was statistically significantly higher for the exercise (vs. control) group for context typical objects (0.44 vs. 0.23, p = .03) and for the overall discrimination index (0.48 vs. 0.29, p = .03). figure 3 displays the individual participant discrimination index scores across the two groups. as indicated, for experiment 3, the exercise and control groups, respectively, had a discrimination implicit memory index score of 0.48 (0.18) and 0.29 (0.32) (t(38) = 2.16, p = .03). table 6 mean (sd) hit rate, false rate, and discrimination index (d’) between the exercise and control groups group context-typical context-atypical context-unfamiliar hit-rate d’ hit-rate d’ hit-rate d’ overall hit rate overall false rate overall d’ exercise 0.63 (0.31) 0.44 (0.26) 0.61 (0.22) 0.42 (0.17) 0.75 (0.29) 0.57 (0.31) 0.67 (0.21) 0.18 (0.16) 0.48 (0.18) control 0.57 (0.30) 0.23 (0.32) 0.65 (0.28) 0.31 (0.30) 0.68 (0.37) 0.34 (0.52) 0.63 (0.21) 0.34 (0.29) 0.29 (0.32) p-value .53 .03 .66 .16 .50 .11 .64 .05 .03 exercise and implicit memory 710 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. mean and individual discrimination index scores across the exercise and control groups (experiment 3). discussion the purpose of this experiment was to extend previous work that has mostly focused on: 1) recognition memory tasks using a computerized approach for single dimension objects, and 2) the effects of exercise on explicit memory function. specifically, we evaluated the potential effects of a moderate-intensity bout of aerobic exercise on the implicit memory recognition of 3-dimensional objects that were not explicitly encoded. our experimental results demonstrate that a brief, moderate-intensity bout of aerobic exercise was effective in enhancing implicit memory. notably, however, this overall enhancement effect appears to be driven by differences observed for the context-typical objects. further, the overall differences in the discrimination index also appear to be driven by a lower false rate (vs. higher hit rate) among the exercise group (vs. control group). our findings align with other emerging work in this field showing that acute exercise may subserve explicit and implicit memory function (loprinzi & edwards, 2017; loprinzi et al., 2018a). there are overlapping mechanisms and pathways influencing explicit and implicit memory, which have been described elsewhere (barco et al., 2006). acute exercise may influence both of these memory types by, for example, altering neuronal excitability and activating pathways involved in long-term potentiation and synaptic plasticity (loprinzi & edwards, 2017; loprinzi et al., 2017; loprinzi & frith, 2019; piepmeier & etnier, 2015). these findings also have numerous implications, as much of the information individuals acquire in their daily lives are done incidentally. for example, individuals are not always actively trying to memorize or encode sponloprinzi, gilbert, robinson, & dickerson 711 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ taneous events that occur throughout the day, faces they encounter, or objects exposed to during the day. fortunately, emerging work suggests that conscious perception is not mandatory for memory formation, particularly spatial-based episodic memories (wuethrich et al., 2018). encouragingly, our findings suggest that acute walking, which, in theory, could occur at nearly any point throughout the day, may help to facilitate the retrieval of implicit memories. an interesting follow-up experiment would be to evaluate whether acute walking, to occur during the encoding of the implicit memory (as opposed to priori to encoding, which was the case in the present experiment), may also help to facilitate implicit memory retrieval. if true, this would have greater real-world applications to the potential for exercise to enhance implicit memory, as, in theory, more implicit events are likely to occur during ambulation. general discussion experiment 1 (lower-intensity exercise) and experiment 2 (higher-intensity exercise) did not demonstrate any effect of acute exercise on implicit memory. however, experiment 3 provided suggestive evidence that acute moderate-intensity exercise may improve implicit memory when assessed in a more real-world way. subconscious encoding of material, in theory, may be more enhanced for real-world type objects. if true, this may, in part, explain the notable differences across our experiments. further, research demonstrates that unconscious relational encoding of multiple objects may depend on the hippocampus (duss et al., 2014; hannula & greene, 2012; reber, luechinger, boesiger, & henke, 2012), a critical brain structure that is influenced (increased neuronal activity) by acute exercise (rendeiro & rhodes, 2018). perceptual implicit processing may occur from priming existing memories (kuldas, ismail, hashim, & bakar, 2013). perhaps our real-world implicit memory task was more robust in priming such memories, and thus, facilitated the role of acute exercise in such implicit processes. clearly, additional work in this area is needed. if confirmed by future experimentation, then critical thought will be needed to evaluate the mechanism through which acute exercise may enhance implicit memory. limitations of these experiments is the relatively small, homogenous samples evaluated. thus, larger samples in broader populations may help increase the generalizability of our findings. further, although experiment 2 employed a higher exercise intensity than experiment 1 (20 bpm higher heart rate), this may not have been large enough of a physiological change to elicit improvements in memory function. strengths, however, include the experimental approach of three integrated studies. in conclusion, these novel experiments demonstrate that acute exercise does not influence a commonly used laboratory-based assessment of implicit memory but may enhance real world-related implicit memory function. future confirmatory work on this paradigm is warranted. such work should also evaluate the potential effects of other exercise parameters (e.g., duration, temporality, setting) on implicit memory. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. exercise and implicit memory 712 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references anderson, c. a., carnagey, n. l., & eubanks, j. 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(2018). subliminal encoding and flexible retrieval of objects in scenes. hippocampus, 28, 633-643. https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.22957 about the authors paul loprinzi, phd, is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. he is the director of the exercise & memory laboratory. morgan gilbert is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. gina robinson is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. briahna dickerson is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. exercise and implicit memory 716 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 700–716 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1837 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1523%2fjneurosci.5639-11.2012 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00429-018-1665-6 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.neubiorev.2013.06.012 https://doi.org/10.1249%2fjes.0000000000000078 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.neurobiolaging.2008.09.023 https://doi.org/10.3389%2ffpsyg.2016.01764 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0890117117749476 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13825585.2010.511146 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.bandc.2016.11.004 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fhipo.22957 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ exercise and implicit memory (introduction) experiment 1 method results discussion experiment 2 method results discussion experiment 3 method results discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors heroic death: a melancholic existentialist psychobiography of jacques de molay research reports heroic death: a melancholic existentialist psychobiography of jacques de molay paul j. p. fouché 1 [1] department of psychology, faculty of the humanities, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 received: 2025-04-20 • accepted: 2025-05-19 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: paul j. p. fouché, department of psychology, faculty of the humanities, university of the free state, bloemfontein, po box 339, 9301, south africa. e-mail: fouchejp@ufs.ac.za related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract this psychobiography aimed to reconstruct the life and death of jacques de molay (1243–1314), with particular focus upon his heroism as a mitigating psychological mechanism against the terror of death. jacques de molay was purposively sampled as subject. he was the grand master of the knights templar, an order of knighthood founded during the crusades and dedicated to the mission of protecting christian pilgrims and defending the holy land. he was confronted by betrayal; arrest; torture; confessions of heresy under duress; and public execution. jacques de molay’s life offers an exemplary illustration of the melancholic existentialist theory of ernest becker, who posited that mortality creates profound existential anxiety. this drives individuals to seek meaning in a ‘heroic struggle’, as an anxiety-buffering mechanism, to stifle the terror of death and dying. this psycho-historical analysis was conducted via the methodology of psychobiography. publicly available historical and biographical data sources were utilized, and significant evidence across the lifespan of de molay were extracted using the indicators of biographical salience promulgated by irving alexander. salient themes and events were interpreted via becker’s melancholic existential theory, with particular emphasis upon heroism. jacques de molay’s role as grand master represented his heroic dedication to the knights templar and their mission. the torture he endured and his refusal to betray the templars’ ideals exemplified a heroic struggle against mortality. instead of capitulating to terror and falsehood, de molay faced his death maturely, thereby achieving existential authenticity and symbolic immortality. keywords jacques de molay, heroism, mortality, psychobiography, existentialism heroism.…is a reflex to the terror of death ernest becker (1973, p. 11). dying and death are experiences that evoke arcane psychological, religious and spiritual responses within humans. in psychology, the study of death and dying focuses on how individuals manage their mortality, express grief, and acquire a sense of meaning through loss. religion provides comfort in beliefs of life after death, and in turn, spirituality offers worldviews of mortal transcendence (tomer et al., 2008; upenieks, 2023). from the viewpoint of transpersonal and existential psychology, the study of death and dying addresses the transformative potential of individuals’ everyday awareness of the role of death (tomer et al., 2008; wong, 2017). research on death and dying has steadily increased this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.17755&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ within various scientific fields and undertaken from interdisciplinary approaches (e.g., arrowood et al., 2023; borgstrom & ellis, 2017; canzona et al., 2023; cox & thompson, 2021; mayer, 2021; meagher & balk, 2013; shackelford & zeigler-hill, 2019). the assumptions and beliefs of humans regarding death, impact not merely upon their experience of living, but also upon their transition through dying and death as a possible final developmental life-stage (cox & thompson, 2021; kastenbaum, 2018). psychobiography, as a sub-field of psychohistory (anderson, 2024; anderson & ponterotto, 2025; ponterotto, 2025), is well-suited to provide for an in-depth historical analysis and psychological reconstruction of individuals’ lives across the lifespan (citlak, 2023; mayer & kőváry, 2019). psychobiographers primarily utilize psychological theories and apply these to the biographical and historical data on a significant individual’s life (simonton, 1994). the aim is to explore, analyse and reconstruct various characteristics or attributes of extraordinariness across the lifespan of the subject. psychobiography undertakes this against the background of the sociocultural and historical context of the subject (fouché & van niekerk, 2010; mayer, banai, & stefanidis, 2025, mayer, van niekerk, & banai, 2025). recently, psychobiographers have illustrated the value in the use of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and methodologies in undertaking psychobiography (banai & mayer, 2024; martin, 2024; mayer et al., 2023; mayer & van niekerk, 2024). psychobiographies could provide for rich qualitative descriptions and contextual psychohistorical insights into how individuals deal with death and dying (mayer, 2021; mayer et al., 2021). furthermore, the value of the practical applications of the lessons learned from psychobiographies of extraordinary individuals, to contemporary life, have previously been highlighted (mayer & fouché, 2021; nel et al., 2024). this latter value coincides with the current chief-editor of europe’s journal of psychology, johannes karl’s (2023) editorial, titled: ‘preserving the flame: the past, present, and future of ejop’. in this editorial the editor makes a call for a stronger focus upon contemporary practical applications, within publications, which support readers in the more applied implementation of lessons learned from authors’ research. this psychobiography aimed to uncover, reconstruct and illustrate the life and death of jacques de molay (1243– 1314), with particular focus upon heroism as a mitigating psychological mechanism against the terror of death, from the melancholic existentialist approach of ernest becker (1973, 1975). particular attention was paid to the heroic role of de molay in mitigating his death-anxiety and steadfastly face a heroic death. he remained loyal to his beliefs and the mission of the templars even in the face of his own horrific death (knight & lomas, 1997). jacques de molay was the 23rd grand master of the knights templar, an order of knighthood founded during the 12th century crusades and dedicated to the mission of protecting christian pilgrims and the holy land (barber, 2012; martin, 2004). he is viewed by many to be one of the most famous templars in history (gardner, 1996; grishin, 2013). a brief historical sketch of his life and death is provided after the below discussion on ernest becker’s theory. ernest becker’s melancholic existentialist theory ernest becker (1924–1974) was born in springfield, massachusetts. after completing military service, he attended syracuse university in new york. thereafter, receiving his bachelor’s degree, he worked for the united states embassy in paris. he returned to syracuse university and pursued his post-graduate studies in anthropology and received his phd in 1960. he spent most of his career in academia and found inspiration from interdisciplinary perspectives on humanity. he was influenced by the works of alfred adler, carl jung, søren kierkegaard, charles darwin, sigmund freud, erich fromm, and otto rank (fisher, 2020; munley & johnson, 2003). becker wrote nine books (carveth, 2004), with his most notable works titled the birth and death of meaning (1971); the denial of death (1973), for which he posthumously received the 1974 pulitzer prize; and his final manuscript, escape from evil (1975), that his wife marie published for him after his death (munley & johnson, 2003). as a melancholic existential anthropologist, becker’s core argument entails that humans possess a formidable death-anxiety, and that heroism is a reflex in response to the terror of death. according to becker, heroism can be extrapolated from a variety of cultural systems, that are either primitive, magical, secular, religious or scientific. the only requirement is that the cultural system should allow humans the opportunity to play a heroic-role that provides them with a sense of specialness, self-esteem, and meaning (becker, 1973; mayer et al., 2021). becker posited that the fear of death is not continuously present in human mental awareness, since if it were, individuals would be heroic death 278 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ incapacitated to function ‘normally’. he postulated that culture, worldviews, and heroism aim at providing humans with a sense of value and hope of transcending death (becker, 1973; evans, 1992; vail et al., 2012; vail & routledge, 2020). according to becker (1968, 1969, 1971, 1973) humans employ psychological mechanisms to navigate their struggle against mortality. these include the following: a. cultural mechanisms of death-denial such as political power, a strong national identity, artistic achievements and established social norms. b. religious beliefs, with a promise of an afterlife or spiritual continuation. c. technological advancements in medicine, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology that offer the promise of extending human life or achieving digital immortality (hollanek & nowaczyk-basińska, 2024). d. a sense of heroism through accomplishments, which boosts self-esteem and transcends mortal limitations. becker died from colon cancer during 1974 in british columbia, where he held a professorship at simon fraser university (sfu), (kramer, 2007; martin, 1997; martin, 2014). after becker’s death, the ernest becker foundation was founded (ernest becker foundation, n.d.). the foundation focused on multidisciplinary research, particularly at the interface of the humanities and religion (hayes et al., 2010; martin, 1997). a captivating and illuminating essay on ernest becker during his last years (1969–1974) of academic scholarship and his dying from cancer, was produced by professor jack martin (2014), from sfu, and published in the journal of humanistic psychology. becker’s years at sfu are revealed as a professional career, personal existential struggle, and a period that was both heroic and tragic (martin, 2014). during this period becker’s academic work ironically merged with his impending death, as both came to a finality (kramer, 2007; martin, 2014). becker’s work had inspired the development of terror management theory (tmt), under the auspices of renowned sheldon solomon, jeff greenberg and tom pyszczynski (liechty, 2002). other related research includes the mortality salience hypothesis (arrowood et al., 2023; greenberg et al., 2004; juhl, 2019; koole et al., 2006; rosenblatt et al.,1989), according to which death-anxiety drives individuals to adopt worldviews that endorse their worthiness and buffer their awareness of mortality (mayer et al., 2021; pyszczynski et al., 2010, 2015). according to carveth (2004), the documentary film based on becker’s work, flight from death: the quest for immortality (shen, 2005), also contributed to much interest in melancholic existentialism after its release. a brief historical sketch of the life and death of de molay the early life of de molay jacques de molay was born around 1243 in molay, haute-saône, in the county of burgundy. the exact year of his birth is a matter of debate. according to some sources, he was 21 years old when he was knighted in 1265 and was about 70 years old when he was executed in 1314 (knight & lomas, 2001; singh, 2024). this implies his birth year to be 1243 or 1244. credible scholars indicate his year of birth as 1243 (demurger, 2002, 2009; frale, 2009; martin, 2004; singh, 2024). little is known about his family and early years, but he was likely born into a family of minor nobility (barber, 2012; haag, 2008). jacques de molay joined the knights templar during 1265 and was initiated as a member of the knights templar in a chapel at the beaune house, by humbert de pairaud, the dignitary of the knights templar in france and england. the ceremony was attended by amaury de la roche, who served as the templar master of the province of the france (haag, 2008; knight & lomas, 2001). as the ceremonial ruling required, the novice initiate was received in front of all the members of the order who were present, his duties and vows were read to him, and then the appropriate order mantle was bestowed upon him (gardner, 1996; upton-ward, 1992). the templars were allowed to wear a white mantle with a templar blood cross on it. they were obliged to grow their beards to separate them from other fraternities (gardner, 1996). around 1270, de molay travelled to the middle east (i.e., crusader states), known as outremer. little is known about his activities in the ensuing 20 years. literature indicates that he quickly rose through the ranks due to his dedication to the order’s mission, beliefs and his loyalty to the papacy and european royals (martin, 2004; musarra et al., 2022). fouché 279 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the grand master of the knights templar in 1291, the crusaders lost the city of acre, to the egyptian mamluks. acre, an ancient city also known as akko, was the principal port and stronghold during the late crusader period. it was located on the mediterranean coast in the northern part of today’s israel (france, 2018). the most enduring mamluk grouping was the knightly military class in medieval egypt, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers (musara et al., 2022; singh, 2024). after acre was captured, the catholic europeans (i.e., the franks) retreated to the island of cyprus. it served as their new base due to their declining power within the middle east. cyprus now served as the departure point for military excursions by the crusaders against the egyptian mamluks. the christian west was unable to fully regain the holy land, and the muslim east required more planning and resources to conquer the kingdoms of armenia and cyprus (singh, 2024). during this period, the templars were still led by thibaud gaudin, their 22nd grand master. in 1291, during a meeting in cyprus, de molay revealed the reforms he planned to bring to the order if he were to replace gaudin as the grand master. his initial aim was to fortify the defense of cyprus and reorganize and strengthen the templar forces. during 1292, gaudin passed away, and in the absence of any other strong contenders, de molay was elected as the 23rd grand master (knight & lomas, 1997; singh, 2024; upton-ward, 1992). jacques de molay had to reassure his knights templar of their significance and reignite enthusiasm amongst his order after the loss of acre (singh, 2024). he decided to undertake resolute diplomatic action (josserand, 2020). he and his templars undertook two journeys to the west. the first journey took place in the winter of 1292–1293, and a second one, from spring 1293 to autumn 1296. for approximately three and a half years, de molay became more acquainted and diplomatically linked with powerful leaders such as king charles ii of naples and pope boniface viii, but also edward i of england, and james ii of aragon. by visiting these european kingdoms and the papacy, de molay hoped to harness more political and military support for the templars (haag, 2008; josserand, 2020; nicholson, 2001). he was successful in acquiring the permission from some of the rulers for the transport of supplies to cyprus (gardner, 1996; singh, 2024). between 1299 and 1303, de molay orchestrated a new attack on the mamluks. the plan was a collaboration between the christian military orders, the king and nobility of cyprus, the forces of cilician armenia, and a new possible ally, the mongols. the coalition’s mission was to reclaim the coastal city of tortosa in syria (martin, 2004; musarra et al., 2022). in 1300, de molay and the templars took part in excursions along the egyptian and syrian coasts. the cypriots also amalgamated a larger force to mount an attack on tortosa. they used the island of ruad, close to the city of tortosa, to bridge their attacks on the mainland. however, the crusaders, which included the military orders of the knights templars, hospitallers and their allies, suffered a surprisingly momentous defeat at the siege of ruad in september 1302. they lost the island which served as their crucial last bridgehead close to the mainland (haag, 2008, 2012; singh, 2024). this defeat diminished the crusaders’ ability to protect the holy land (barber, 2012; martin, 2004). dispute with king philip iv of france in 1305, pope clement v, who had newly assumed the papal office, enquired as to the viewpoints of the leaders of the military orders on a planned new crusade, as well as the unification of their orders. jacques de molay submitted memoranda on both issues (gardner, 1996). while he supported the notion of a new crusade, he refused the suggestion of merging the orders between the knights templar with the knights hospitaller (i.e., an order that cared for injured pilgrims). the grand master of the hospitallers, fulk de villaret, likewise resisted the proposal of amalgamation. both these orders had their own unique identity and mission that the two grand masters did not want to see attenuated by a merger (knight & lomas, 1997; singh, 2024). however, philippe had accumulated an enormous debt to the templars. according to gardner (1996), he was practically bankrupt and feared the templars’ political and esoteric might. philippe advocated for the orders to be merged under his leadership, which would have made him rex bellator or the war king. jacques de molay vehemently vetoed this proposal (demurger, 2009; gardner, 1996). to complicate matters, philippe was disputing the papacy at the time. his rupture with pope boniface viii was due to a power-struggle between them. phillipe then briefly imprisoned pope boniface viii, whereafter he died soon after his release. there are also claims that philippe had the papal successor, pope benedict xi, poisoned. however, pope benedict’s successor, pope clement v was french, and philippe commanded considerable political power over pope clement v (gardner, 1996). it was now that accusations were made against the knights templar of deeds of misconduct during the initiation ceremony of new members. these accusations were mainly forthcoming from expelled former heroic death 280 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ members of the order (gardner, 1996; knight & lomas, 1997). jacques de molay requested pope clement v to conduct a formal investigation into the matter, hoping that the order would be quickly exonerated of the charges of misconduct (knight & lomas, 2001; singh, 2024). arrest, torture, confession and execution of de molay initially, the templars were faced with only a few charges including the renunciation of, and spitting on, the cross during the order’s initiation ceremonies. the number of charges increased amidst all the allegations that were spread. philippe ordered his lawyers, soldiers and henchmen to arrange for the arrest of all templars in his kingdom. his agents executed the order at dawn on 13 october 1307 (gardner, 1996; haag, 2012). many templars, including de molay, were apprehended and charges of heresy were levelled against them (barber, 2006; demurger, 2002, 2009; grishin, 2013). after investigations were conducted under the decree of pope clement v, all the arrested templars in france, including de molay, were interrogated by philippe’s agents, who wanted to crush the order’s power and steal the wealth they had amassed from their battles during the crusades. jacques de molay was tortured by philippe’s agents in late october and was forced, under duress, to admit to additional charges of heresy. wiliam imbert, the chief inquisitor of france, was “deeply versed in all inquisitorial arts and practices” (knight & lomas, 1997, p. 166). he was ordered by philippe with the task of extracting an immediate confession from de molay, by whatever means he considered effective (knight & lomas, 1997). the additional charges were claimed to involve the denial of christ and abusing the crucifix in sacrilegious initiation rituals (knight & lomas, 2001). paid witnesses were called to give evidence against the order, and some bizarre statements were obtained, which included practices such as necromancy, abortion, blasphemy, and the black arts (gardner, 1996). on 12 march 1312, a papal decree forcibly suppressed the order of the knights templar (gardner, 1996). knowing that pope clement v was a pawn of philippe, and that both parties would want a share in the templar order’s wealth and treasures, de molay secretly arranged for many templar treasures, which were hidden in vaults in paris, to be removed in a fleet of 18 galleys, from la rochelle. philippe was unaware of this, and most of these treasure ships and accompanying templars sailed to scotland where they found sanctuary under king robert the bruce, and the scottish nation (gardner, 1996; haag, 2008, 2012). of interest to note, is that those responsible for de molay’s torture, were under strict orders not to kill the grand master (gardner, 1996). according to knight and lomas (1997, 2001), de molay had to experience a similar torture to that of jesus christ’s crucifixion. a detailed graphic description of de molay’s interrogation and torture in the paris temple is provided by knight and lomas (1997, pp. 165–169). according to singh (2024) the pope still sought to interrogate de molay himself. jacques de molay subsequently retracted his confession in front of papal agents. however, in another interrogation, conducted in the presence of both papal and philippe’s agents, he reverted to his forced admissions of 1307. according to church law, a relapsed heretic had no prospect of a second opportunity. the punishment for relapsing was that of being burnt to death (gardner, 1996). jacques de molay and his loyal fellow templar, geoffroi de charney, were publicly executed at the stake on a scaffold near the notre dame cathedral on 18 march 1314 (josserand, 2021; martin, 2004). jacques de molay met his death with an apparent calm and serene demeanor (knight & lomas, 2001; singh, 2024). rumours exist that de molay, prior to dying, summoned philippe and pope clement v to meet god within a year, where they would be judged for their crimes (gardner, 1996; knight & lomas, 1997). both philippe and the pope died within a year of de molay’s execution (gardner, 1996). research design and methodology psychobiography can be described as a biography written on a significant individual, or individuals, utilizing mostly a psychological or well-suited and relevant theory (mayer, banai, & stefanidis, 2025, mayer, van niekerk, & banai, 2025; ponterotto, 2017a, 2017b). it represents a longitudinal case-study of an extraordinary individual, over the lifespan (fouché, 2015). psychobiography is a subdivision of psychohistory (ponterotto, 2015), with the psychobiographer utilizing psychological theory and psychohistorical analysis to explore and reconstruct the life of the subject (nel et al., 2024) within the sociocultural context in which they lived (fouché, 2025; mayer & van niekerk, 2024). fouché 281 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the psychobiographical subject: jacques de molay jacques de molay was chosen as the subject, utilising a non-probability, purposive sampling technique. purposive sampling relies on the researcher's judgement in determining the desired characteristics or attributes to be investigated and to ensure the richness of data (creswell, 2013). the life and death of de molay provide for many lessons to be learned for contemporary studies on death and dying, and also for humanity’s contemporary existential angst and fear of geopolitical warfare and the inevitable suffering, dying and death. these lessons learned are discussed further in the “conclusion, recommendations and practical application” section of this article. according to frale (2009) and singh (2024), the significance of de molay could be ascribed to the following historical points, namely: a. de molay was the 23rd and last grand master of the knights templar. b. he was renowned for his commitment to the templar order and its mission, and later in life, also his diplomacy (josserand, 2020). c. despite facing persecution and being burned at the stake, de molay remained loyal to his beliefs and the ideals of the knights templar. d. de molay’s courage in the face of death has inspired countless creative works of literature, art, and film, that also inspire contemporary audiences of the day. in addition, laurence gardner (1996), author of bloodline of the holy grail, highlighted the following significance that the knights templar and de molay held in history, namely: a. knowledge of the placement of the hidden ark of the covenant. b. the templars’ knowledge of the secret geometry of king solomon’s masons, especially that of the architect, hiram abiff, the chief designer of the temple of jehovah. c. their skilled entrepreneurship as bankers, taking deposits from pilgrims, knights and nobles who could then withdraw their money at any templar house from london to jerusalem. this meant that the wealthy could avoid the risk of robbery during their travels. data-source collection an initial literature search, using ebscohost, revealed that publicly accessible data-sources on de molay existed, except for the sparse information on his early and personal life. only publicly available data sources were utilised for data collection, extraction, and analysis. these included credible academic articles, books and biographical, historical and digital online sources. the majority of available data sources were centered around the following: firstly, de molay’s dedication to the knights templar and the crusades. secondly, his planned reforms to the order in the waning days of the crusades. thirdly, the growing reluctance of european royalty to support the crusades. fourthly, de molay’s dispute with king philip iv (i.e., philippe) who insisted the knights templar merge with the knights hospitallers, under philippe’s command (demurger, 2009). lastly, his arrest, inquisition, torture and execution, which appears to have received most historic attention (barber, 2006, 2012; frale, 2004; grishin, 2013; josserand, 2021; knight & lomas, 1997). although the quantity of available sources is deemed of importance, the rigor and trustworthiness of the data-sour­ ces are of more value to enhance methodological integrity (levitt et al., 2017; mayer & kőváry, 2019). credible historians and researchers were identified who were well-versed in templar history and the life of de molay. some of these notable researchers include: (a) alain demurger (2002, 2009); (b) malcolm barber (2006, 2012); (c) helen nicholson (2001); (d) philippe josserand (2020, 2021); and (e) laurence gardner (1996), the chivalric genealogist and royal jacobite historiographer. of special interest is barbara frale (2004, 2009), an italian paleographer at the vatican secret archives. a publication of her work appeared in the journal of medieval history in 2004, titled, ‘the chinon chart: papal absolution to the last templar, master jacques de molay’. frale documented that the discovery of the papal records of the hearings of the templars and de molay, contain proof of de molay’s papal absolution by pope clement v. notwithstanding, philippe enforced the execution of de molay. frale’s interest in the history of the shroud of turin is also of relevance to this study, due to its possible connection to the post-torture, bodily image left on the shroud. knight and lomas (1997, 2001) have speculated that the shroud of turin could be the linen cloth used to enshroud, the still heroic death 282 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ alive de molay’s body, after his medieval torture, (which was a parody of the crucifixion of jesus christ). however, much controversy remains regarding the true image formation on the shroud of turin (e.g., allen et al., 1999). data extraction and analysis a psychobiography has rigor and methodological integrity, if the researcher can identify and extract relevant, and salient evidence on the subject and apply it to the psychological theory utilised in the study, and vice versa. generalising the case findings to the theory, utilized to study the subject, is referred to as analytical generalisation (yin, 2018). the first strategy used by this researcher entailed the systematic extraction of salient thematic evidence for further theoretical interpretation. alexander’s (1988, 1990) biographical indicators of thematic saliency (i.e., uniqueness, nega­ tion, emphasis, primacy, frequency, error or distortion, isolation, incompletion, and omission) were utilised for the identification and extraction of salient themes or units for analysis. as a second strategy, the researcher questioned the extracted themes or evidence for its relevance to the study’s aim. the researcher undertook this by asking the following question: which sections of the collected data-sources and extracted salient themes of evidence, will allow for an in-depth understanding, reconstruction and illustration of de molay’s heroic death, especially his psychological mechanism of heroism, used to mitigate his death-anxiety, from the melancholic existentialist viewpoint of becker? methodological integrity, rigor and trustworthiness psychobiographies are no longer critiqued for their once contested methodological integrity, and are increasingly incorporating anthropological, sociological, spiritual and historical theories and methodologies into their undertaking (citlak, 2023; mayer, 2023). to ensure psychobiographical rigour and trustworthiness, four quality criteria should be considered, namely: confirmability, credibility, transferability, and dependability (fouché & strauss, 2024; yin, 2018). confirmability was ensured by using the constructs and propositions proposed by becker’s (1969, 1973, 1975) theory to explore the psychological mechanisms that humans employ to deny and mitigate the terror of death. these constructs and propositions included: (a) cultural mechanisms of denial; (b) religious beliefs; (c) heroism and self-esteem; and (d) death-transcendence (becker, 1969, 1973, 1975). credibility was ensured through data triangulation (yin, 2018). a range of publicly available data sources were included and analysed according to the inter-connected constructs and proposi­ tions posited within becker’s theory. transferability in psychobiography is ensured when the study’s findings can be analytically generalised by comparing the psychobiographical findings to an established theory that was utilized in the case-analysis (fouché, 2025). significant findings on de molay’s dying and death were compared to the melancholic existential theory of becker. dependability, also referred to as auditability, is ensured when a study can be duplicated and produce similar results. dependability was strengthened through the systematic and consistent implementation of data collection, extraction and thematic analysis procedures. the overall methodological integrity was maintained by following the recommendations of levitt et al. (2017). ethical considerations valuable advice regarding ethical considerations in psychobiography have been provided by ponterotto and reynolds (2019) and ponterotto (2025). only publicly available data sources were used to ensure the privacy rights of possible relatives of de molay and significant others referred to in the psychobiography. no credible evidence could be identified from the data sources to indicate that de molay had children of his own. furthermore, an online genealogical website (geni, 2025) indicates there are no y-dna results for relatives in the paternal line of de molay, and no mitochondrial dna results for the maternal line. autosomal dna results also indicate no known existence of close relatives of de molay. this psychobiography adhered to the recommended best practices in psychobiography proposed by ponterotto (2014), as well as the implementation of legal and ethical guidelines that psychobiography should adhere to (ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). ethical clearance for this study was obtained from the author’s institutional review board. fouché 283 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ findings and discussion jacques de molay is shrouded in history as a famous knights templar who steadfastly and heroically faced his horrific death (gardner, 1996; knight & lomas, 1997). his mission was to protect christian pilgrims and the holy land. the templars undertook crusades, during which the knights and de molay were inevitably confronted with frequent scenes of dying and death (gardner, 1996). the author of this article speculates that the crusades and military excursions most probably could have afflicted the templars with psychological trauma. however, this could not be credibly verified from the sources of data. jacques de molay had for most of his adult life experienced exposure to violence and death, justified by his loyalty to the papacy and the mission, ideals and values of the knights templar (grishin, 2013). becker (1973) referred to this as the human need to play a heroic role and be of value to the cultural system they serve. each culture offers unique customs and beliefs that provide guidelines, that serve as framework for justified heroism (becker, 1975; munley & johnson, 2003). it may be that de molay, in his heroic role as templar, and eventually that of grand master in loyal service of the papacy, provided him with a sense of heroic self-esteem to justify his duties and loyally execute his role as crusader knight. this may also have mitigated the terror of his own impending death, albeit ironically at the hands of those he loyally served. on 13 october 1307, de molay and other accused templars were arrested and subjected to interrogation and torture to forcefully elicit confessions to heresy and crimes against church dogma (gardner, 1996; knight & lomas, 2001). becker's theory provided for an ideal approach to explore, reconstruct and illustrate de molay's life and heroic death. his life and death are emblematic of the existential struggle endured by individuals confronting injustice and existential despair in contemporary society. the dying and death of de molay, seemed to embody three clear melancholic existenti­ alist themes, namely: a. alienation: de molay's betrayal and imprisonment reflect the existentialist notion of alienation from the culturally expected norms of the papacy, church and the european royals he served (demurger, 2002; frale, 2009). b. authenticity: his final refusal to accept false accusations of heresy and his ultimate recantation of confessions he made under duress (knight & lomas, 1997; nicholson, 2001), demonstrated his commitment to truth and authenticity, which involves committing to one’s true inner values and beliefs, rather than merely conforming to expected societal norms (zimmerman, 1983) c. his sense of despair and search for meaning: de molay's suffering and death highlight the existential struggle to find meaning in the face of injustice, during times of non-sensical war, power-politics, religious self-righteousness, and the greed for wealth (gardner, 1996; singh, 2024). jacques de molay’s leadership coincided with a period of much challenge for the templars, as european support for the crusades waned and political tensions increased (gardner, 1996; knight & lomas, 2001). his existential struggle began in earnest when philippe, deeply in debt to the templars, sought to disband the order and seize its wealth (barber, 2006; gardner, 1996). he endured medieval torture, and as a result, he initially confessed to heresy, but later recanted, maintaining his and the order’s innocence. this act of defiance highlighted his commitment to the templar beliefs, ideals and values. jacques de molay’s trial was a parody, marked by political machinations and a predetermined outcome (gardner, 1996; singh, 2024). on 18 march 1314, de molay was burned at the stake in paris as a public display, intended to serve as a warning to others. his final moments were marked by dignity and courage (knight & lomas, 1997; singh, 2024). however, rumors have it that he imprecated philippe and pope clement v, both of whom died within a year of his execution (gardner, 1996; haag, 2008, 2012). his death, ordered by philippe (gardner, 1996), underscores the existentialist notion of absurdity and injustice represented by the conflict between the human desire for meaning and an indifferent universe (munley & johnson, 2003). molay’s execution highlights the existentialist view that individuals must navigate a world where rationality and fairness are not guaranteed, and where one's existence can be abruptly ended without reason or justification (becker, 1973, 1975). his death is a poignant example of existential despair and humanity’s confrontation with death and nihilism (becker, 1973). the findings illustrate the role of heroism as mitigating psychological mechanism in dealing with death-anxiety through creating a sense of purpose and meaning that transcends finite existence (becker, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1967, 1975; holloway, 2017; kenel, 1988; schimel et al., 2007; snyder & bowers, 2015). heroic death 284 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion, recommendations and practical applications the legacy of de molay continues to inspire and evoke reflection on the nature of suffering, death and dying. his life and embracement of death, offers historical lessons to be applied to contemporary society and human dying and death. it provides suggestions for plausible further refinement of becker’s theory of melancholic existentialism. furthermore, it offers practical ways to apply lessons learned from de molay’s heroic death to humanity in contemporary society. his courage in the face of his betrayal, the agonizing torture he endured and his horrific death at the stake, are indicative of a blend of emotions, which calls for the refinement of becker’s melancholic existentialist theory. a first plausible and recommended refinement could be that of a serene-melancholic existentialist framework, within which death and dying could be viewed as a serene practice, that involves a blended emotionality (i.e., the acceptance of mortality within a serene melancholy of existential authenticity). this ability to experience serenity, in conjunction with melancholy, that results from the recognition of life’s impermanence, and biological decay, constitutes a blended emotion. the latter is closely embodiment in the japanese worldview called wabi sabi (juniper, 2003; koren, 1994). wabi sabi (i.e., the simple beauty of serene melancholy) could offer a practical modus operandi for understanding and integrating the seemingly dichotomous forces of living and dying concurrently. from this perspective, death-anxiety is not pathological, but a natural response to the realization of life’s impermanence (juniper, 2003). contemporary existentialists claim that the acceptance of life’s impermanence, provides for a pathway to a more authentic living and death (transpersonal psychology, n.d.). the death of de molay solidified his legacy and remembrance (knight & lomas, 1997), thus achieving a form of symbolic immortality (becker, 1973; holloway, 2017). the importance of giving more attention to the notion of legacy is a second recommendation this author calls for in refining melancholic existentialist theory. this could be represented by a melancholic existentialist approach that more definitively incorporates the notions of legacy and remembrance. the concept of legacy encompasses the ways in which individuals aspire to be remembered after their death, including their values, achievements, and the impact they had upon society. legacy and remembrance play a crucial role in shaping one’s identity and purpose, as individuals reflect on what they want to leave behind for posterity (snyder & bowers, 2015). legacy serves as a vital psychological mechanism that influences how individuals approach their mortality and experience their dying and death (holloway, 2017). leaving a meaningful legacy can provide a sense of purpose, particularly in the later stages of the human lifespan, or when confronted with dying and death. by contemplating their legacy, individuals engage in a process of self-reflection that facilitates a greater acceptance of their mortality (snyder & bowers, 2015). the building of legacy could be practically implemented in daily life by regular self-reflection upon what achieved value we have added to others and our own lives. furthermore, by reflecting upon what remembrance and value can still be created, not just for ourselves, but for others through our altruistic deeds of heroism and an eventual heroic death. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author would like to acknowledge the university of the free state, faculty of the humanities, for the encouragement and support offered to the psychobiography research project, housed in the department of psychology. acknowledgement and recognition are also given to the prolific number of inspirational psychobiographical publications produced by professor claude-mayer over the past decade. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references alexander, i. e. 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(1983). eclipse of the self: the development of heidegger’s concept of authenticity. ohio university press. about the author paul j. p. fouché (dphil) is a full professor in counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state (ufs), in south africa. paul has various psychobiographical publications in national and international journals and has acted as co-guest editor to special editions on psychobiography in international journals and books. he acts as post-graduate research supervisor to honors, master’s and doctoral scholars undertaking life history research. paul serves on the research committee of the faculty of the humanities and is a member of the ufs senate. paul lectures at bpsych honours level, as well as supervises and lectures the master’s students in the applied clinical and counselling psychology programmes. fouché 289 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 277–289 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17755 https://www.transcendentalmedia.com/films/flight-from-death/ https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/jacques-de-molay-38459.php https://transpersonal-psychology.iresearchnet.com/death-and-dying/ https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228211029475 https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868312440046 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2017.1320337 https://www.psychopen.eu/ heroic death (introduction) ernest becker’s melancholic existentialist theory a brief historical sketch of the life and death of de molay research design and methodology the psychobiographical subject: jacques de molay data-source collection data extraction and analysis methodological integrity, rigor and trustworthiness ethical considerations findings and discussion conclusion, recommendations and practical applications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author a network perspective on neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms of the post-covid syndrome editorial a network perspective on neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms of the post-covid syndrome daniel scharfenberg 1, ann-katrin schild 2, clemens warnke 3, franziska maier 2 [1] medical psychology | neuropsychology & gender studies, center for neuropsychological diagnostic and intervention (cendi), faculty of medicine and university hospital cologne, university of cologne, cologne, germany. [2] department of psychiatry, faculty of medicine and university hospital cologne, university of cologne, cologne, germany. [3] department of neurology, faculty of medicine and university hospital cologne, university of cologne, cologne, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 350–356, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10097 received: 2022-08-19 • accepted: 2022-09-25 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: daniel scharfenberg, department of medical psychology | neuropsychology & gender studies, university hospital cologne, kerpener str. 62, 50937 cologne, germany. e-mail: daniel.scharfenberg@uk-koeln.de abstract many patients that were infected with sars-cov-2 experience cognitive and affective symptoms weeks and months after their acute covid-19 disease, even when acute symptoms were mild to moderate. for these patients, purely neurological explanations are struggling to explain the development and maintenance of the great variety of neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms occurring after covid-19. we provide a psychological perspective based on the network theory of mental disorders as an added explanation that does not displace neurological mechanism but rather complements them. we suggest viewing the sars-cov-2 infection as a trigger that first activates nodes in a causally connected network of neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms. in the following, activation will spread throughout the network that will get in a self-sustaining stable and dysfunctional state manifesting in ongoing symptoms known as post-covid-19 syndrome. the network perspective allows to generalize explanations for persistent neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms to patients that experienced mild or moderate acute courses of covid-19, but also to similar phenomena following other viral infections. in addition, it could explain why some symptoms did not occur during acute covid-19, but develop weeks or months after it. this network perspective shifts the focus from viewing persistent symptoms as a continuation of covid-19 to acknowledging it as a complex syndrome that indeed originates from the disease but fully unfolds after it (post-covid). to test the presented network perspective, we will need extensive cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data on cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in post-covid patients. keywords long covid, network model, brain fog, cognitive deficits, sars-cov-2, fatigue, post-vac syndrome many individuals who were infected with sars-cov-2 experience symptoms of illness even weeks and months after their acute covid-19 disease. this phenomenon has been referred to as ongoing symptomatic covid-19, post-acute covid-19, long-covid syndrome or post-covid syndrome, with varying definitions of the latter terms in the current literature. the nice guideline suggests using the term “post-covid-19 syndrome” for “signs and symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with covid-19” and are “present for more than 12 weeks and are not attributable to alternative diagnoses” (national institute for health and care excellence, 2020). the post-covid syndrome does not only affect patients with severe course of the disease, namely those who were hospitalized or ventilated (bellan et al., 2021), but also patients who had mild to moderate symptoms and stayed at home or even this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10097&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ experienced asymptomatic infections (augustin et al., 2021). a recent meta-analysis estimated that up to 43% of people experience persistent symptoms after covid-19 (chen et al., 2022). patients with post-covid syndrome report varying symptoms including pulmonary, hematologic, renal, endocrine, gastrointestinal or dermatologic manifestations (nalbandian et al., 2021). in addition, patients often report neuropsychi­ atric and cognitive symptoms. a recent meta-analysis and systematic review estimated that a substantial proportion of persons experience symptoms like sleep disorders (24%), depression (14%), anxiety (21%) and fatigue (32%) 3 to 6 months after having been infected with sars-cov-2. cognitive symptoms (36%) include difficulties to concentrate, brain fog or confusion (alkodaymi et al., 2022). two recent reviews found cognitive impairments in patients with the post-covid syndrome in all neurocognitive domains, namely memory and learning, attention, executive functioning, language, and visual perceptive functions, with a focus on deficits in memory and learning, attention and executive functioning (bertuccelli et al., 2022; daroische et al., 2021). a study that extensively assessed cognitive function solely in patients that experienced asymptomatic or mild to moderate acute covid-19 symptoms obtained similar results, finding impairments in all assessed cognitive domains that are learning and memory, complex attention, executive function, language and perceptual-motor function (schild et al., 2022). similar neuropsychiatric symptoms were also reported in sars-cov-1 and mers-cov, two other viruses from the corona virus family (rogers et al., 2020). however, it is still unclear how these symptoms develop and persist over time. so far, explanations for these symptoms as part of the post-covid syndrome focused on neurological or neu­ roimmunological causes. potential neurological mechanisms that lead to cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms include viral persistence and infiltration of the central nervous system (mehandru & merad, 2022; troyer et al., 2020). however, analyses of the cerebrospinal fluid that show no viral rna in post-covid patients and no hint for chronic sars-cov2-directed intrathecal igg response with neurological symptoms do not support the hypothesis of persistent infection of the central nervous system as a cause of neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms (schweitzer et al., 2022). other potential neurological mechanisms include cytokine network dysregulation, peripheral immune cell transmigration, post-infectious autoimmunity or immunomodulatory treatments (troyer et al., 2020). to date, these neurological hypotheses could not provide direct evidence to fully explain the development, maintenance and diversity of observed cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in post-covid syndrome. hypothesis we will provide an interdisciplinary network perspective based on the network theory of mental disorders (borsboom, 2017) that could possibly explain persistent psychiatric and cognitive symptoms in patients after mild to moderate course of covid-19. intriguingly, such hypothesis would not be exclusive, and may add to other possible elements that contribute to pathogenesis, such as viral persistency or secondary autoimmunity discussed above. the network theory of mental disorders would provide an (added) explanation for post covid-19, but also for similar observations after other viral infections of the past, such as following the mers-cov and sars-cov pandemics (rogers et al., 2020). during the last years, the network theory of mental disorders gained increasing reputation as an alternative conceptualization of mental disorders opposed to categorical classification systems. it considers mental disorders as syndromes, i.e. constellations of symptoms that occur together. in its core, the theory does not rely on aetiologies but rather states that symptoms are causally connected to other symptoms. these interactions between symptoms can be portrayed in a network, in which nodes depict symptoms while the edges between nodes depict causal relationships. an edge between two symptoms means that a change in the activation of one node leads to a change in the activation of another node. these connections could arise inter alia due to biological or psychological mechanisms. additionally, nodes, or symptoms, can be influenced by factors that stand outside the network system in the so-called “external field”. examples for this kind of network could be critical life events or somatic conditions like inflammation processes or viral infections (borsboom, 2017). although covid-19 has a clear medical aetiology, the sars-cov-2 virus, it is still possible to apply the network theory of mental disorders to neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms of the post-covid syndrome. that is, if we view the viral infection as a factor in the external field that causes initial activation of nodes in the symptom network. scharfenberg, schild, warnke, & maier 351 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 350–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for example, it is possible that the infection could cause initial symptoms like fatigue and tiredness. from these initial symptoms, activation will spread throughout the network. figure 1 displays a possible pathway of activation. in this example, fatigue may lead to disrupted sleep, which in turn could lead to tiredness and finally induces impaired cognitive performance or depressive symptoms that are connected with the anxiety symptom cluster. note that this is one of many possible causal pathways in the network and edges in individual symptom networks may even differ between persons. figure 1 possible pathway of activation in the post-covid network of neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms note. acute covid-19 infection in the external field (black node) initially activates symptoms, e.g., fatigue, that spread the activation to other symptoms in the network (grey nodes). however, the question remains as to why symptoms persist even after the source of initial activation is already gone. to explain this phenomenon, we need to apply the principle of hysteresis that is described in the network theory of mental disorders. it “implies that symptoms continue to activate each other, even after the triggering cause of the disorder has disappeared” (borsboom, 2017, p. 9). to apply this principle, the network needs to be strongly interconnected. then, it results in a self-sustaining network, as feedback interactions between nodes do not lead to a loss in activation. by this, the network remains in a stable but dysfunctional state with activated neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms. relevant nodes of neuropsychiatric symptoms in this network could be fatigue, anxiety and depressive symptoms, disturbed sleep, distress and cognitive impairment but may also be connected to neurological symptoms in the external field, e.g. myalgia or neuroinflammatory processes. discussion the network theory of mental disorders can be a useful approach to explain psychiatric and cognitive symptoms in post-covid syndrome. it has some advantages over other offered explanations. as already mentioned, the principle of hysteresis can explain why neuropsychiatric post-covid symptoms are so stable over the time, even when the virus is no longer apparent in the body (schweitzer et al., 2022). additionally, the network perspective can explain the phenomenon that some post-covid symptoms do not persist following the a network perspective on the post-covid syndrome 352 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 350–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acute infection but rather newly develop afterwards (national institute for health and care excellence, 2020). this explanation could change our view (at least for neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms) on the syndrome not to be the prolongation of the viral disease, as it is reflected by the term “long-covid” which is often used in ongoing science communication, but rather a separate condition that only originates in the acute infection with sars-cov-2, as it is reflected in the term “post-covid”. this especially applies to patients who experienced a mild course of acute covid-19 but developed post-covid symptoms nonetheless. the network perspective is able to explain this phenomenon by arguing that strength and stability of causal relationships between symptoms (i.e., edges) are more important for spreading activation in a network than the severity of the initial symptom (i.e., activation of the node), e.g., the feeling of fatigue and illness experienced during the acute phase of covid-19. another advantage is the generalizability of this approach. this network perspective cannot only explain symptoms of the post-covid syndrome, but also similar phenomena occurring after different viral infections as observed in infections with other corona viruses like mers-cov and sars-cov (rogers et al., 2020). it could possibly even explain cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms similar to those observed in the post-covid syndrome following other viral or bacterial infections, e.g. in infections with influenza, the west-nile virus (damiano et al., 2022), the hepatitis-c virus (monaco et al., 2015) or multi-bacterial infections that cause periodontitis (hashioka et al., 2019). to test applications of the network theory on the post-covid syndrome, future research should collect not only cross-sectional but also longitudinal data on neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms in patients that were infected with sars-cov-2. the method of network analysis will help to identify potential causal associations between symptoms that could contribute to explain persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms of covid-19 and show how post-covid networks evolve and maintain over the course of time (borsboom et al., 2021; borsboom & cramer, 2013). there already are some studies that applied network analyses to covid-19 symptom networks (liu et al., 2021; taquet et al., 2021). therefore, future studies should apply network analysis based on the perspective provided in this article to test the hypothesis that neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms of the post-covid syndrome can be conceptualized within the network theory of mental disorders. confirmatory analyses could build on the extensive body of literature that provides evidence of at least correlational relationships between neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms. it is well known that several neuropsychiatric symptoms are not independent, e.g. that depressive and anxiety disorders have common symptoms connecting their network symptom clusters (beard et al., 2016; kaiser et al., 2021) or that both of them are associated with sleeping disorders (becker et al., 2017; cox & olatunji, 2020). furthermore, neuropsychiatric symptoms often occur together with cognitive disorders (martin & velayudhan, 2020). specifically, there is evidence for associations between cognition and depression (anapa et al., 2021; rock et al., 2014), anxiety (gulpers et al., 2016) or sleeping disorders (fortier-brochu et al., 2012; miyata et al., 2013). to overcome the challenge of only describing bivariate correlations among possibly relevant symptoms in post-covid syndrome, causal relationships from symptom networks have to be identified by collecting longitudinal data on various neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms in post-covid patients. conclusion the provided network perspective on neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms could help to better understand de­ velopment, maintenance and diversity of persistent symptoms observed in patients with the post-covid syndrome. this approach explains the post-covid syndrome equally well for patients who experienced severe courses of acute covid-19 as well as for patients with mild to moderate acute covid-19 symptoms. additionally, it offers the possibility to explain similar symptoms occurring after other types of viral infections, or even reports of post-covid-like symp­ toms following vaccination (post-vac syndrome) that recently arose in present science communication (couzin-frankel & vogel, 2022). being a psychological approach to explain post-covid symptoms, it provides an added interdisciplinary understanding of post-covid syndrome. it complements prevailing neurological theories that were not able to fully ex­ plain the syndrome yet, because the causal relationships between symptoms or the initial activation of symptoms in the network may be best explained by neurological mechanisms, e.g. inflammation processes in the central nervous system scharfenberg, schild, warnke, & maier 353 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 350–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10097 https://www.psychopen.eu/ during acute infection with sars-cov-2 or neurological structural or functional changes that could explain associations between neuropsychiatric symptoms. thus, to fully understand the causes and maintenance of neuropsychiatric and 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(2020). are we facing a crashing wave of neuropsychiatric sequelae of covid-19? neuropsychiatric symptoms and potential immunologic mechanisms. brain, behavior, and immunity, 87, 34–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.027 about the authors daniel scharfenberg is a psychologist and phd student at the department of medical psychology | neuropsychology & gender studies, center for neuropsychological diagnostic and intervention (cendi), at the university hospital and medical faculty of the university of cologne. he is interested in neuropsychological assessments, non-pharmacological interventions of neurocognitive disorders and cognitive symptoms in patients with the post-covid syndrome. dr. ann-katrin schild is a psychologist and head of neuropsychology at the center for memory disorders at the department of psychiatry of the university hospital of cologne. her research addresses cognition in aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia. dr. clemens warnke is a consultant in neurology and head of the office for clinical studies at the department of neurology of the university hospital of cologne. his research focuses on clinical neuroimmunology, including multiple sclerosis and related diseases, as well as neurological aspects of covid-19. dr. franziska maier is a psychologist, psychiatrist and post-doctoral researcher at the department of psychiatry of the university hospital of cologne. her research focuses on neuropsychiatric symptoms and neuroimaging of neurodegenerative diseases. a network perspective on the post-covid syndrome 356 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.26262 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003773 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.027 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ a network perspective on the post-covid syndrome (introduction) hypothesis discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the differential effects of good luck belief on cognitive performance in boys and girls research reports the differential effects of good luck belief on cognitive performance in boys and girls lenka kostovičová* a [a] institute of applied psychology, faculty of social and economic sciences, comenius university, bratislava, slovakia. abstract there is evidence that inducing a luck-related superstition leads to better performance on a variety of motor dexterity and cognitive tasks. however, some replication efforts have failed to succeed. at the same time, our previous findings suggest that the effect of good luck belief on cognitive performance interacts with gender. the present research aimed at replicating the study with a sample of adolescents among whom the superstitious beliefs are particularly prevalent. the participants (n = 99) were allocated to either a control or experimental group, and were asked to solve eight problems focused on cognitive reflection, conjunction fallacy, denominator neglect, and probabilistic reasoning. the experimental manipulation negatively affected boys' performance. yet, it facilitated performance in girls via increase in their self-efficacy, measured as subjective estimate of future success in the tasks. thus, gender seems to moderate the effect of luck-related belief on solutions to cognitive problems, which are an important part of our day-to-day decisions. given initial gender gap in the present tasks, the crucial question to be addressed in future research is possibility of gender being a proxy for prior competence. it would imply that good luck beliefs might help low scorers, for instance in becoming less anxious and more confident, but could be harmful for high scorers. keywords: luck-related superstitions, cognitive performance, gender differences, self-efficacy europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 received: 2018-07-04. accepted: 2018-11-06. published (vor): 2019-02-28. handling editors: ljiljana lazarevic, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia; iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: mlynské luhy 4, 82105 bratislava, slovakia. e-mail: lenka.kostovicova@fses.uniba.sk this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. people tend to believe in things and phenomena despite a lack of empirical support or even when these beliefs are contradicted by evidence (baron, 2008; nyhan & reifler, 2010). typical examples include pseudoscientific, conspiracy and paranormal claims, whereas believers in one category are susceptible to believe in other categories as well (lobato, mendoza, sims, & chin, 2014). beliefs are an important part of human cognition. if one's beliefs are incongruent with aspects of the real world, they are considered a part of the 'contaminated mindware', which leads to maladaptive choices and behaviour (stanovich, 2009). a special category of these unfounded beliefs is that of superstitions. in this study i focused on luck-related superstitions. for example, widespread superstitions assign good luck to a four-leaf clover and bad luck to a black cat. many people have their lucky charms, numbers, rituals or even clothes. serena williams, one of the best tennis players, for instance, is known for bouncing the ball five times before the first serve, tying her shoelaces in a specific way, and not changing her socks until a tournament is over (e.g. bbc, 2017). is she successful despite her epistemically suspect beliefs or thanks to them? europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ several authors have suggested that some luck-related superstitions might be beneficial to people. they have found links between belief in good luck and confidence, control and optimism (darke & freedman, 1997), positive goal-oriented behaviour (day & maltby, 2005), and achievement motivation (young, chen, & morris, 2009). in a baseline study, inducing superstitions associated with luck enhanced performance in motor dexterity, memory and anagram tasks (damisch, stoberock, & mussweiler, 2010). the authors also identified mediators of these effects: increased self-efficacy (measured with a 5-item questionnaire), setting higher goals (numbers of solutions one aspired to provide in the anagram task) and greater task persistence (measured in seconds). their paper became a sensation and was extensively addressed by the media. however, replications of one of the experiments failed to succeed (the golfing task; calin-jageman & caldwell, 2014). a meta-analysis (four original experiments, two experiments by the authors, and five more) showed significant heterogeneity in the impact of the superstition on performance. experimental manipulations in the 11 studies were based on a ball labelled as lucky, a golfer's putter labelled as professional, wishing good luck, bringing one's own lucky charm, subliminal priming, and praying for success (for details on the individual studies, see calin-jageman & caldwell, 2014). the baseline study led us to a speculation, whether we could, paradoxically, enhance rationality via beliefs that are considered irrational or at least epistemically suspect. therefore we conducted a study (kostovičová, dudeková, & konečný, 2017) to test the effect of luck-related superstition on performance in cognitive tasks. the superstition was associated with a widely spread symbol of luck number seven. the cognitive task inventory focused on essential components of informed, rational decisions in everyday functioning, such as probabilistic reasoning and cognitive reflection. in an adult population, we found that fostering luck-related superstition increased self-efficacy (i.e. subjective expected performance) but did not affect the actual performance. however, examining gender differences, we found that our manipulation significantly helped women, yet men's performance remained unaffected. given almost identical levels of prior belief in luck-related symbols among men and women in our sample, we cannot attribute this finding to gender differences in susceptibility to epistemically suspect beliefs. however, the tasks used in our study were mainly logical and numerical. girls and women lack confidence in these types of problems and perceive themselves to be less competent (goetz, bieg, lüdtke, pekrun, & hall, 2013), while boys and men tend to have more positive math attitudes (else-quest, hyde, & linn, 2010) and a lower level of math anxiety (oecd, 2015). indeed, studies consistently show that men outperform women in numeracy and cognitive reflection (e.g. campitelli & gerrans, 2014; frederick, 2005; oecd, 2015). it is possible that engagement in superstitions related to good luck allows women to manage difficult and challenging situations, such as solving cognitive tasks. moreover, given low scores of women in the control group, there was much larger room for improvement in the experimental group compared with male participants. research aim and hypotheses in the present research i decided to replicate the study with three important modifications. first of all, i focused on adolescents. damisch et al. (2010) mentioned a high prevalence of superstitious beliefs among sportsmen and students, since they frequently engage in performance tasks. studying epistemically suspect beliefs among adolescents is particularly important in the context of their scientific literacy as a necessary precondition of a responsible citizenship and informed decisions (holbrook & rannikmae, 2007). indeed, poor results of slovak kostovičová 109 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ high school students in scientific reasoning are a cause for concern (e.g., čavojová, 2016). next, in our previous study members of the experimental group were informed on the nature and hypothetical power of the lucky symbol, and the control group proceeded to the cognitive tasks without any specific information. here i decided for stimuli of an equal length, yet with a different content so the cognitive load is the same in both groups (more details in the method section). i used a neutral symbol to avoid eventual contamination of the experiment as a result of looking into a classmate´s questionnaire. and finally, experimental material concerned the same cognitive abilities as in the previous study but i chose problems of a higher ecological validity given specificities of the current sample. for instance, i replaced the tasks from financial domain with tasks from sport and health domains. the aim of the present study was to test the effect of inducing belief in good luck on self-efficacy and cognitive performance in adolescents. based on previous studies, i anticipated an increase in subjective expected performance after inducing superstition related to a symbol ostensibly bringing luck. the main question was whether this induction would have a different impact on boys versus girls in terms of their anticipated and actual performance. taken together, i was interested in self-efficacy as a mediator of the effect of inducing good luck belief and gender as its moderator. method participants and design i assumed similar effects to that in our previous study (kostovičová et al., 2017; d = 0.57) and α = .05, 1 – β = .80, and two-sided tests. therefore, i planned to recruit 50 participants per experimental conditions. i recruited 110 adolescents from one state secondary school in slovakia. eleven students were excluded due to missing informed consent signed by one of their parents. the final sample consisted of 39 boys and 60 girls, aged 15 to 18 years (m = 16.8, sd = 1.0). data collection in a pen-and-paper form was conducted in four sessions on the same day. there were no financial incentives included. the participants were randomly allocated to one of the two conditions: the control group without induction (n = 49) or the experimental group with induction of the luck-related superstition (n = 50). experimental manipulation was based on the presence of a symbol, which was located at the top of a paper with the tasks. the control group was informed that it is a symbol of life, representing that everything in our lives is ambiguous, interrelated, and that life is a repeating cycle. the experimental group was told that it is a lucky symbol, believed by many to bring luck, happiness and success, and that it might help them, too. this description was the only difference in the materials provided to the two groups. procedure and materials among other instructions, the participants were told that they would solve eight word problems focused on thinking and reasoning, of varying difficulty. the instructions were followed by information on what the symbol in the right corner of the paper stands for, as described in the previous section. a control question was included here as an attention check to ensure that the participants did not skip this crucial part of the experimental material [“have you seen this symbol before?” (no/yes)]. subsequently, the participants were asked to rate their subgood luck belief, cognitive performance and gender 110 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ jective expected performance and, thus, their perceived self-efficacy [“please make an estimate on how many of the eight tasks you will solve correctly:” (0–8)]. afterwards, they solved two verbal cognitive reflection problems (daughters, train), two numerical cognitive reflection problems (pig, barrel), one conjunction fallacy task (volleyball), one denominator neglect task (drug), one conditional probability problem (disease) and one cumulative probability problem (pregnancy). listed below are the problems in original english wording, without introductory sentences, with correct/rational responses (cr) and intuitive responses (ir) in parentheses. accuracy of the slovak wording was ensured with backtranslation. daughters: “mary’s father has 5 daughters but no sons – nana, nene, nini, nono. what is the fifth daughter's name probably?” (sirota, kostovičová, juanchich, dewberry, & marshall, 2018; cr: mary, ir: nunu) train: “the wind blows west. an electric train runs east. in which cardinal direction does the smoke from the locomotive blow?” (sirota et al., 2018; cr: no smoke / no direction, ir: west) pig: “a man buys a pig for $60, sells it for $70, buys it back for $80, and sells it finally for $90. how much has he made?” (toplak et al., 2014, p. 151; cr: $20, ir: $10) barrel: “if john can drink one barrel of water in 6 days, and mary can drink one barrel of water in 12 days, how long would it take them to drink one barrel of water together?” (toplak, west, & stanovich, 2014, p. 151; cr: 4 days, ir: 9 days) volleyball: “…volleyball players have grown younger yet taller. women players are on average taller than 1.80 m, ranging between 1.75 m for some setters to more than 1.90 m for many spikers. suppose we choose at random 100 female volleyball players. which group do you think is the most numerous? a. women who are less than 21 years old, b. women who are less than 21 years old and are taller than 1.77 m, c. women who are less than 21 years old and are not taller than 1.77 m” (tentori, bonini, & osherson, 2004, p. 474; cr: a, ir: b) drug: “… a study with 900 with high cholesterol showed that 80 of the 800 people who have not taken the drug deceased after a heart attack, compared with 16 of the 100 people who have taken the drug. how beneficial was the benofreno? not beneficial 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 very beneficial” (ghazal, cokely, & garcia-retamero, 2014, p. 33; cr: 1, ir: 7) disease: “… a person has a 6 out of 100 chance of having the infection. if a person is infected with disease x, then the chance that he will have a positive result in the test is 4 out of the 6. on the other hand, if a person is not infected with disease, then the chance that his test is also positive is 16 out of the 94. imagine a common european is tested now. his test turns out to be positive. what is the chance that he is really infected with disease x? ____ out of ____” (sirota, kostovičová, & juanchich, 2014, p. 373; cr: 4 out of 20, ir: 6 out of 100) pregnancy: “the probability that a woman using the contraceptive primon will experience no unwanted pregnancies at all during a period of one year is 90%. what is the probability that she will experience no unwanted pregnancies at all in a three-year period? (mccloy, byrne, & johnson-laird, 2010, p. 515; cr: 72.9%, ir: 90%) kostovičová 111 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures and reliability it is important to distinguish between the intuitive and other incorrect responses. a person might overcome initial automatic responses (i.e. error detection), yet might not be able to come up with a correct solution (i.e. error correction). thus, intuitive responses score stands for intuition inhibition failure and correct responses score stands for analytic thinking ability, often used as a synonym for rational thinking. as reported in more detail within the following section, the participants failed to solve the conditional and cumulative probability problems. since reliability of the cognitive performance measure was low (cronbach's α = .52), i conducted a basic exploratory factor analysis which resulted in two principal components: cognitive reflection (crt) and probabilistic reasoning (pr). the components were positively correlated, r = .30, p = .002. therefore i run the analyses with the composite scores and the two separate scores as well. results the effects of experimental manipulation on performance percentages of correct and intuitive answers in the two groups and overall are provided in table 1. success rate in the cognitive reflection tasks varied between 27 and 64 percent. the probabilistic reasoning problems proved to be difficult for the participants. less than a third managed to provide correct responses to the denominator neglect and conjunction fallacy tasks, and none of them were able to solve the conditional and cumulative probability problems. table 1 correct and intuitive responses in the eight tasks (%) task control group experimental group overall correct intuitive correct intuitive correct intuitive daughters 59.2 38.8 66.0 34.0 63.6 36.4 train 42.9 57.1 48.0 50.0 45.5 53.5 pig 32.7 51.0 42.0 42.0 37.4 46.5 barrel 28.6 26.5 26.0 24.0 27.3 25.3 volleyball 24.5 73.5 34.0 60.0 29.3 66.7 drug 18.4 4.1 10.0 2.0 14.1 3.0 disease 0 4.1 0 20.0 0 12.1 pregnancy 0 63.3 0 80.0 0 71.7 moreover, while 92% of the participants expected a score above 3 out of 8 points (m = 4.6, sd = 1.7), their success rate was much lower — only 12% correctly solved more than three tasks (m = 2.2, sd = 1.3). on the other hand, almost all participants (93%) provided at least two intuitive responses (m = 3.1, sd = 1.2). the correlation between the estimate and the performance was weak, r = .28, p = .006, as was the negative link between the estimate and the intuitive responses, r = -.22, p = .032. rational and automatic intuitive responses were strongly negatively related, r = -.70, p < .001. good luck belief, cognitive performance and gender 112 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analyses of individual tasks showed no significant differences between the control and experimental group in the proportion of correct answers. as for the intuitive responses, they were more frequent in the experimental group in the case of the disease problem, χ2(1) = 5.59, p = .018, φ = 0.24. differences between the two groups in self-efficacy (0–8), the correct responses score (0–6) and the intuitive answers score (0–6) are depicted in figure 1. fostering luck-related superstition increased perceived self-efficacy, t(97) = -2.23, p = .028, d = 0.45, but did not affect the performance in terms of either rational responses, t(97) = -0.62, p = .540, d = 0.12, or intuitive answers, t(97) = 0.17, p = .862, d = 0.03. no significant effect of good luck belief was found with respect to the two distinct components (crt & pr). despite the fact that examining mutual patterns in the situation of non-significant total effects may bring interesting insights into underlying mechanisms (e.g., hayes, 2009), i did not proceed with analysing the indirect effects of manipulation on performance via self-efficacy. figure 1. comparisons between the control group and the experimental group. the differential effects of experimental manipulation by gender overall gender comparisons in the control and the experimental group are depicted in table 2. in the control group, boys expressed greater self-efficacy, t(47) = 2.54, p = .015, d = 0.80, and provided more correct answers, t(47) = 3.93, p < .001, d = 1.24, and less intuitive answers, t(47) = -2.77, p = .008, d = 0.87, than did girls. yet, there were no gender differences in the experimental group (p > .05, d < 0.20). table 2 comparisons between boys and girls – composite scores expected and actual performance control group experimental group boys girls boys girls m sd m sd m sd m sd self-efficacy 5.2 2.4 3.9 1.3 5.1 1.4 4.8 1.6 correct answers 3.1 1.3 1.7 1.0 2.2 1.5 2.4 1.1 intuitive answers 2.4 1.2 3.5 1.3 3.1 1.1 3.1 1.1 partial gender comparisons are depicted in table 3. in the control group, boys performed better in cognitive reflection tasks (crt), t(47) = 4.13, p < .001, d = 1.31, and provided less intuitive crt answers, t(47) = -3.68, p kostovičová 113 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = .001, d = 1.16, than did girls. i failed to find any substantial differences with respect to the probabilistic reasoning (pr) accuracy. in the experimental group, there were no gender differences at all (p > .05, d < 0.20). table 3 comparisons between boys and girls – partial scores cognitive performance control group experimental group boys girls boys girls m sd m sd m sd m sd correct responses crt 2.5 0.9 1.3 0.9 1.8 1.2 1.8 1.0 pr 0.6 0.8 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.6 0.6 0.6 intuitive responses crt 0.9 0.9 2.1 1.1 1.5 1.0 1.5 0.9 pr 1.5 0.8 1.4 0.7 1.6 0.7 1.6 0.7 moreover, the manipulation had negative effects on boys: it decreased their performance (mdiff = -0.9), t(37) = 1.90, p = .065, d = 0.63, and amplified the intuitiveness of their answers (mdiff = 0.8), t(37) = -2.05, p = .047, d = 0.68. it did not affect their self-efficacy (mdiff = -0.1), t(37) = 0.16, p = .877, d = 0.05. the partial effects on cognitive reflection were moderate and marginally significant, correct answers (mdiff = -0.7): t(37) = 1.92, p = .063, d = 0.64; intuitive answers (mdiff = 0.6): t(37) = -2.03, p = .050, d = 0.68, and the effect on probabilistic reasoning was small and non-significant (mdiff = -0.3), t(37) = 1.12, p = .272, d = 0.37. in contrast, the manipulation had positive effects on girls: it boosted their self-efficacy (mdiff = 1.0), t(58) = -2.59, p = .012, d = 0.68, and facilitated their performance (mdiff = 0.7), t(58) = -2.37, p = .021, d = 0.62. it slightly, albeit non-significantly, decreased the intuitiveness of their answers (mdiff = -0.4), t(58) = 1.13, p = .265, d = 0.29. the partial effects on cognitive reflection were moderate and significant, correct answers (mdiff = 0.5): t(58) = -2.05, p = .045, d = 0.54; intuitive answers (mdiff = -0.6): t(58) = 2.11, p = .039, d = 0.55, and the effect on probabilistic reasoning was small and non-significant (mdiff = 0.2), t(58) = -1.28, p = .205, d = 0.34. finally, based on the observed patterns, i conducted mediation analyses so as to test the effects of manipulation on performance via self-efficacy separately in girls. the analysis was conducted using the spss macro process (hayes, 2013; 10,000 bootstrap samples). i tested four models as depicted in figure 2, with overall performance correct responses (model a), overall performance intuitive responses (model b), correct crt responses (model c) and intuitive crt responses (model d) as dependent variables. experimental manipulation boosted self-efficacy (a path), and self-efficacy had a substantial effect on crt answers but not on overall responses (b paths). all total effects (c paths) and indirect effects (ab paths) were significant, except for model b with overall intuitive answers. all direct effects (c´ path) were non-significant. in sum, self-efficacy mediated the effect of good luck belief on overall cognitive performance, and particularly on error detection and error correction in the cognitive reflection tasks. good luck belief, cognitive performance and gender 114 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in the present study i addressed a somewhat controversial question regarding the positive effect of luck-related superstitions on thinking and reasoning. in their widely discussed paper entitled “keep your fingers crossed! how superstition improves performance”, damisch et al. (2010) demonstrated performance benefits of this specific category of beliefs in golfing, motor dexterity, memory, and anagram tasks. however, a high-powered follow-up replication with the golfing task (calin-jageman & caldwell, 2014) failed to support the original findings, and the authors speculated about some possible unknown moderator. in line with the previous study (kostovičová et al., 2017), i found that fostering belief in good luck helped girls through encouraging their self-efficacy. surprisingly, this induction was not beneficial to boys — it tended to impair their success in solving cognitive tasks. in the two successful experiments with cognitive tasks by damisch et al. (2010), the vast majority of participants were female (80% and 87%, respectively). mediation analysis showed that the experimental manipulation worked because it helped girls to become more self-efficient. an interesting issue is whether this could be a general pattern or it only works for specific problems and conditions. the cognitive tasks employed in this study were mainly numerical and logical. gender gap in perceived competency, confidence, attitudes, anxiety and actual performance in this domain has been repeatedly documented (e.g., campitelli & gerrans, 2014; else-quest et al., 2010; frederick, 2005; goetz et al., 2013; oecd, 2015). inducing luck-related superstition might mitigate the gap thanks to supporting self-confidence and task persistence in female participants. in addition, problems associated with analytic thinking are likely to be especially difficult due to gender stereotypes and stereotype threat. thus, if negative stereotypes exist regarding a specific group, its members are prone to become anxious about their performance, which may impede the ability to take advantage of one's own potential (steele & aronson, 1995). besides physiological figure 2. mediation models – girls only. kostovičová 115 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stress, stereotype threats also seem to consume executive capacity through actively monitoring own performance, and suppressing negative emotions and thoughts (schmader, johns, & forbes, 2008). encouragement in a form of luck-related superstition might help to counteract these processes. on the other hand, the drop in boys' performance might be caused by unfavourably affecting those attributes that are already close to being optimal (e.g., perceived competence). this might lead to underestimation of task difficulty and less motivation and effort. in order to test this assumption, as well as other possible explanations, further research is necessary. it would be interesting to examine the effect of inducing luck-related superstition in domains wherein women usually exhibit higher performance than men (e.g. recognising emotions: donges, kersting, & suslow, 2012) or in domains without gender differences (e.g. verbal abilities: wallentin, 2009). but most importantly, we need to investigate whether gender is only a proxy for prior competence. this would imply that the effect of good luck belief is beneficial to initial low scorers but harmful to initial high scorers — at least in some specific tasks. the reasons for different findings from those of some studies in the meta-analysis might undoubtedly be the material and the manipulation used. both the cognitive problems and the induction method were novel and their link to the effect of good luck belief has not been tested by other researchers. nevertheless, all of the previous studies, except for the direct replication, are very diverse in terms of the manipulation and the tasks. fostering luck-related superstitions ranged from praying for success (aruguete, goodboy, jenkins, mansson, & mccutcheon, 2012) to a ball labelled as lucky by the experimenter (calin-jageman & caldwell, 2014; damisch et al., 2010). similarly, there was a high level of heterogeneity in the dependent measures, with the golf task being the most common one. cognitive reflection and other competencies that were part of the present research play an important role in everyday problem solving and decision making (e.g. garcia-retamero, galesic, & dhami, 2013; juanchich, dewberry, sirota, & narendran, 2016; toplak, west, & stanovich, 2011). finding ways in which to improve them is, therefore, of high relevance, as is the need for replications in experimental psychology (francis, 2012). another advantage of our approach is methodological rigor so that the results are not affected by the experimenter (who wishes good luck), guessing the purpose of the study (when being told that the ball is lucky) or recruiting believers only (who can bring their own lucky charm). future studies could address some limitations of the present research. first of all, other measures of rationality should be considered, since the present tasks do not cover all its important components, and two tasks proved to be too difficult for the participants. next, i did not include manipulation check because i assumed that it might contaminate the study by, for instance, drawing people’s attention to the purpose of the research. moreover, in contrast with our previous study, i found the effect of luck-related belief on cognitive reflection but not on probabilistic reasoning. for this and other reasons, direct replications as well as conceptual replications with different cognitive tasks are needed. if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, maybe the same applies to rationality. one can say that faith in lucky objects and symbols is epistemically suspect and unjustified. however, if using a pen perceived to be lucky helps people to be more relaxed, optimistic, confident and persistent (and sometimes even more successful), then the dispute surrounding the rationality of this strategy is far from being finished. under certain circumstances, paradoxically, fostering epistemically suspect beliefs may stimulate rationality. good luck belief, cognitive performance and gender 116 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author is indebted to the editors and reviewers for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. references aruguete, m. s., goodboy, a. k., jenkins, w. j., mansson, d. h., & mccutcheon, l. e. 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(2009). belief in stable and fleeting luck and achievement motivation. personality and individual differences, 47(2), 150-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.02.009 about the author lenka kostovičová is a postdoctoral researcher at the comenius university (cu) and at the slovak academy of sciences. in her research efforts she focuses on judgment and decision making, (ir)rationality, cognitive biases and risk perception. her work is applied to context in which irrational decisions, faulty updating of statistical information and biased risk perception have severe consequences such as suboptimal choices related to health, environment or finance. besides her research agenda, she is also a lecturer at the cu, with specialization in quantitative research methodology and applied psychology. kostovičová 119 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 108–119 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-013-0555-4 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.5.797 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2803_8 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0104-1 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2013.844729 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2008.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.02.009 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ good luck belief, cognitive performance and gender (introduction) research aim and hypotheses method participants and design procedure and materials measures and reliability results the effects of experimental manipulation on performance the differential effects of experimental manipulation by gender discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author sexual offending: cognition, emotion, and motivation book reviews gannon, theresa a., & ward, tony (eds.). (2017). sexual offending: cognition, emotion, and motivation. chichester, united kingdom: john wiley and sons. 156 pp. isbn 978-0-470-68351-4. sexual offending: cognition, emotion, and motivation david prescott* a [a] licsw, clinical services development director, becket family of services, orford, nh, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 287–290, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1525 published (vor): 2018-03-12. *corresponding author at: pmb 210, 190 route 1, falmouth, me, 04105, usa. e-mail: vtprescott@earthlink.net this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. many will remember, and many are still living with it: in the 1980s, professionals often assumed that repeat sex offenders followed a “cycle” into re-offense. in an interview with the new york times, barbara schwartz displayed remarkable candor in acknowledging how many of our field’s original approaches were created in response to momentary needs and not based in science. the various proposed cycles, often available in materials designed for a program and then shared with colleagues via workbooks, chapters, and conference presentations, all centered on the idea that a person would experience some life event, often the result of seemingly unimportant decisions, and that they would develop ideas and fantasies about some sort of illegal sexual behavior. this may seem over-simplified, but it is nonetheless the take-home lesson of many professionals at the time (in the author’s experience). although this cycle originally started – and was intended – as a helpful guide for understanding the process by which sex crimes occurred, it became a reified construct in many treatment programs, despite there being no research to support its use in that context. many professionals approached this cycle in the way originally intended; many more did not. unintended consequences of this single-cycle approach included the belief that all sexual offenders would follow the same pathway to re-offense and that to some extent all were specialists in how they abused. for many, a byproduct of assuming that a “cycle” existed was the belief that re-offense was inevitable in most cases withgannon, theresa a., & ward, tony (eds.). (2017). sexual offending: cognition, emotion, and motivation. chichester, united kingdom: john wiley and sons. 156 pp. isbn 978-0-470-68351-4. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ out intervention. of course, many of these unintended consequences were not the fault of the cycle so much as the result of professionals not yet having a rich body of research from which to devise treatment approaches. in the late 1990s, tony ward came onto the scene, observing (along with his colleague, the late stephen hudson) that some people who sexually abused are motivated to do so, while others are not. some people, they found, are very explicit in planning their offenses, while other crimes are more opportunistic. people following each of these pathways to offending typically believe their actions are justified and often recall their crimes as positive experiences. however, others do not intend to sexually abuse anybody, but may find themselves in situations where they lack adequate skills to prevent their crimes. this model of the offense process, known as the self-regulation model, has received considerable empirical study (e.g., kingston, yates, & firestone, 2012; kingston, yates, & olver, 2014). understanding that the roles of cognition and motivation can vary dramatically from one person who sexually abuses to the next, ward went on to develop the good lives model as a rehabilitative framework for people who have abused. in one of the most influential articles on this model, ward teamed up with the lead editor of the current volume, theresa gannon (ward & gannon, 2006). they would go on to write a scathing, yet influential, article on the current state of treatment within the criminal justice system, titled “where has all the psychology gone?” (gannon & ward, 2014). along the way, ward established himself as a brilliant commentator on the theories underlying the assessment and treatment of people who sexually abuse. an implicit message of his work is that professionals must move beyond measures and protocols to a deeper understanding of each client and an empirically informed means of doing so. gannon, meanwhile, has researched fascinating areas on the periphery of our field, from topics related to deception to fire setting. together, they have brought out the best in one another in their published works. this latest volume sees gannon and ward assemble a diverse panel of experts to explore the interaction of cognition, emotion, and motivation in sexual offending. returning the focus to emotional elements after decades of scrutinizing cognitive and behavioral elements is certainly welcome. ward starts the volume with a chapter on the enactment of emotions. he describes the connection between emotions and brain functions, with their subsequent effect on thoughts and behavior. he places this into the context of states (situations in which emotions occur) and traits (e.g., personality disorders), then explores how emotional states are enabled by events. he next describes “affective framing”, the process by which people interpret the events, situations, themselves, and others as “embodied desiderative feelings”. in other words, the enactment of emotional states is a whole-body experience related to a wish to achieve a particular state of being. why is this important? clearly, ward’s contribution matters because most treatment programs in the criminal justice world employ simplified cognitive-behavioral models, methods, and techniques (some would argue overly simplified). although research offers a strong basis for these approaches, many at the front lines of treatment have felt that this is not enough in every case. it is one thing to discuss the thoughts related to emotions, and it is another to address their primacy in the lives of people who have abused. further, in this author’s professional experience, people who have abused very often do everything they can to avoid experiencing their emotions. indeed, it can often seem that they lack the curiosity to observe their experience in general (levenson, willis, & prescott, 2017). in some cases, this estrangement from emotions can appear as a kind of script: “the last time i approached something that i truly desired (a child), i ended up hurting it as well as a lot of other people, including myself. book reviews 288 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 287–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1525 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, i don’t want to feel anything like desire in my life.” in other cases, their own experience of abuse may have left them with the belief that experiencing desire and other emotions could be toxic. often, these people spent so much of their lives scanning their environment for threats that they became unable to experience their feelings and emotions. if programs are to prevent re-offending, directly addressing emotional enactment may be vital to client well-being as well and, by extension, to public safety (levenson et al., 2017). from this point, the book turns to many authors who explore related themes. sarah brown contributes a chapter on bridging the divide between emotions and cognitions by exploring empathy and its place in treatment. she emphasizes the shortcomings to date of interventions that attempt to enhance empathy among people who have abused. jill stinson’s chapter looks into motivation and self-regulation, noting the strength of each in the etiology of offending. geris serran provides a chapter exploring historical approaches to treatment and offering ideas for integrating knowledge of emotions, cognitions, and behavior into a more seamless approach. numerous other chapters provide unique perspectives, all in the direction of making treatment more meaningful and effective for people who have sexually abused others. as always, theresa gannon and tony ward find themselves at the leading edge of theory and practice in the assessment and treatment of those who sexually abuse. not surprisingly, the book is written in dense prose such that readers may need to work to grasp and fully appreciate the concepts presented (one atsa member once described ward’s work as “chewy”). the authors make no apologies for this, and given the objectives of this volume there is no reason they should. this book is for people who want to understand the forefront of theory and practice. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references gannon, t. a., & ward, t. (2014). where has all the psychology gone? a critical review of evidence-based psychological practice in correctional settings. aggression and violent behavior, 19, 435-446. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2014.06.006 kingston, d. a., yates, p. m., & firestone, p. (2012). the self-regulation model of sexual offending: relationship to risk and need. law and human behavior, 36, 215-224. doi:10.1037/h0093960 kingston, d. a., yates, p. m., & olver, m. e. (2014). the self-regulation model of sexual offending: intermediate outcomes and posttreatment recidivism. sexual abuse, 26, 429-449. doi:10.1177/1079063213495896 prescott 289 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 287–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1525 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2014.06.006 http://doi.org/10.1037/h0093960 http://doi.org/10.1177/1079063213495896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ levenson, j. s., willis, g. m., & prescott, d. s. (2017). trauma-informed care: transforming treatment for people who have sexually abused. brandon, vt, usa: safer society press. ward, t., & gannon, t. a. (2006). rehabilitation, etiology, and self-regulation: the comprehensive good lives model of treatment for sexual offenders. aggression and violent behavior, 11, 77-94. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2005.06.001 about the author david prescott has authored and edited 17 books and numerous articles and chapters in the area of assessing and treating people who sexually abuse and who have been sexually abused. he is a past president of the association for the treatment of sexual abusers and the 2014 recipient of that organization’s distinguished contribution award. mr. prescott serves on the editorial boards of two scholarly journals and lectures around the world. he is a senior associate for the international center for clinical excellence. book reviews 290 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 287–290 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1525 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2005.06.001 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ book reviews (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the state-trait model of cheerfulness: tests of measurement invariance and latent mean differences in european and chinese canadian students research reports the state-trait model of cheerfulness: tests of measurement invariance and latent mean differences in european and chinese canadian students chloe lau 1, francesca chiesi 2, donald h. saklofske 1 [1] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, canada. [2] department of neuroscience, psychology, drug, and child's health (neurofarba), section of psychology, university of florence, florence, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 received: 2020-03-28 • accepted: 2021-01-13 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, california university of pennsylvania, california, pa, usa corresponding author: chloe lau, department of psychology, social sciences centre, western university, ontario, london, on, n6a 5c2, canada. e-mail: clau263@uwo.ca abstract the state-trait cheerfulness inventory (stci) assesses latent traits and states of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood to represent the temperamental basis of humor. the present study (1) tested the generalizability of the three-factor model in both state and trait versions of the stci across european canadian (n = 489) and first generation chinese canadian (n = 147) participants completing the english version of the stci and (2) compared latent mean differences. results indicated the confirmatory factor analyses of the three-factor model for european white participants born in canada and chinese participants born in china showed adequate fit for both trait and state measures. furthermore, substantial equivalence of factor model parameters and partial scalar invariance were found for both the state and trait stci measures. in examining latent mean differences, european white canadian participants reported significantly higher trait cheerfulness, z = 3.30, p < .001, d = 0.84, and lower trait bad mood z = 3.25, p < .01, d = 0.80 compared to the chinese canadian groups. european white canadian participants reported significantly lower state bad mood, z = 3.59, p < .001, d = 1.15, compared to the chinese canadian groups. limitations and future directions based on study findings are discussed. keywords cheerfulness, humor, seriousness, bad mood, invariance, asian, temperament the conceptualization of an individual’s sense of humor as personality characteristics has been widely studied in psychological research (martin, 2001; ruch & hofmann, 2012). from a trait-based psychological perspective, humor is described as the cognition, behaviors, and affect that constitute amusement, mirth, and exhilaration experienced by the individual and expressed to the surrounding environment (ruch, 1997, 2008; ruch, köhler, & van thriel, 1996). more specifically, the sense of humor can be represented as an individual’s typical behavior (i.e., trait-like characteristics) or their present state of mind (i.e., state-like characteristics) in responding to, engaging in, or producing humor (ruch et al., 1996). the variability between and within persons for readiness to engage in humor demonstrates specific traits and states boosting or decreasing an individual’s threshold for amusement (ruch & hofmann, 2012). moreover, the multidimensional nature of humor suggests the need for a model that accounts for engagement in humor and humorlessness (ruch & hofmann, 2012). the stci was designed to assess latent variables of cheerfulness and bad mood as cognitive and affective tendencies, and seriousness as an attitudinal and cognitive factor (ruch, 1997; ruch et al., 1996; ruch, köhler, & van thriel, 1997). the state-trait model of cheerfulness postulates that high cheerfulness, low seriousness, and low bad mood would this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3003&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ contribute to exhilaration or the tendency to laugh and respond positively to humor (hofmann, carretero-dios, & carrell, 2018; ruch et al., 1996). ruch and colleagues (1996) defined the construct of cheerfulness as a high prevalence of cheerful mood, the tendency to laugh easily and frequently, a cheerful interaction style, and a composed view of adverse life circumstances. these tendencies allow amusement to be facilitated, but at the same time individuals who are serious and/or in a bad mood will be less inclined to express positive affect or smile at a stimulus that can be perceived as humorous (ruch et al., 1996). the model accounts for general tendencies (i.e., traits) and present state as well, with state cheerfulness presenting positive affectivity related to feeling merry and readiness to engage in humor-related activities at the present moment (ruch et al., 1997). similarly, state seriousness represents a serious frame of mind and the readiness to think and communicate seriously. state bad mood represents sad mood or ill-humored mindsets, which mitigates the preference or ability to engage in humor (ruch et al., 1997). evidence suggests these states show more modest test-retest reliabilities compared to their trait counterparts (ruch et al., 1996, 1997). indeed, state measures from the stci amalgamated showed stronger correlations with the respective traits than single state measures, further validating the importance of measuring distinct traits and states (carretero-dios, eid, & ruch, 2011). the evidence in the literature strongly aligns with this model. trait cheerfulness predicts positive affect and duchenne smiling when interacting with an amusing experimenter, bloopers, and distorted photographs of the self (beermann & ruch, 2011; hofmann, 2018; ruch, 1997; ruch & hofmann, 2012). trait cheerful individuals also endorsed greater resiliency, less fear of being laughed at by others, and greater habitual tendency of laughing at oneself (hofmann, 2018; lau, chiesi, & saklofske, 2019; ruch & proyer, 2008). indeed, these tendencies may allow individuals to cope better under adversity (lópez-benítez, acosta, lupiáñez, & carretero-dios, 2018; papousek & schulter, 2010; zweyer, velker, & ruch, 2004). in its relations to humor, seriousness and bad mood are associated with gelotophobia (ruch, beermann, & proyer, 2009; ruch, proyer, esser, & mitrache, 2011). depressed patients showed lower cheerfulness, higher seriousness, and greater bad mood compared to healthy control counterparts, suggesting the role of these traits in affecting the threshold of experiencing amusement (falkenberg, jarmuzek, bartels, & wild, 2011). the utility of the measure in capturing these important characteristics fundamental to humor has led to translation in over 10 languages utilized across research settings and humor-related interventions (hofmann et al., 2018; lau, chiesi, hofmann, ruch, & saklofske, 2019; ruch & hofmann, 2017; ruch, hofmann, rusch, & stolz, 2018). most recently, numerous studies in chinese cultures attempted to replicate findings in western cultures showing that possessing a benign and positive sense of humor enhances psychological well-being (for a review, see yue, 2017). whereas lau, chiesi, saklofske, and yan (2020) have conducted invariance studies using the stci chinese version, the english version of the scale could be used with chinese participants who reside in western cultures (e.g., asian americans). as such, it is important to provide evidence of the comparability of the three-factor model for european white and asian individuals completing the measures in english. before the stci is shown invariant between these groups, future studies in humor and acculturation may be biased (byrne, 2012; byrne & campbell, 1999). specifically, the state-trait model of cheerfulness cannot be considered a “temperamental basis” reflecting the universality of emotions before it is shown to be invariant across cultures (byrne & campbell, 1999). the chinese version of the stci trait form has been translated and the three-factor structure has been validated with participants residing in mainland china (chen, ruch, & li, 2017). in addition, partial metric invariance for the three-factor model was found between participants residing in canada completing the english version and participants residing in china completing the chinese version (lau et al., 2020). at present, there is no evidence to support the measurement invariance for chinese participants who reside in western cultures (e.g., asian americans) using the english version of the stci. without at minimal partial measurement invariance, any mean differences between culturally different groups may be distinct differences arising from measure­ ment properties, as opposed to meaningful cultural differences (byrne, 2012). the testing of measurement invariance in the stci would allow researchers to identify possible differences arising from measurement non-equivalence and eventually to distinguish them from actual cultural differences (byrne & campbell, 1999). in sum, testing measurement invariance for the state-trait model of cheerfulness will provide a foundational basis for studying the temperamental basis of humor for chinese north americans. lau, chiesi, & saklofske 143 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ objectives the aim of the present study was to test (1) the generalizability of the three-factor model in both state and trait versions of the state-trait model of cheerfulness across european canadian and chinese canadian participants completing the english version of the stci and (2) to compare latent mean differences. measurement invariance analyses of the temperamental basis of humor can provide a solid foundation in ruling out measurement artifacts when interpreting findings for future cross-cultural studies that utilize the stci. method participants and procedure undergraduate students who are enrolled with english as their primary language from a large canadian university were invited to participate in the study. upon signing up for the study, participants were instructed to read the online consent form, complete the questionnaires, and later debriefed upon completion. participation in the study was voluntary and participants received a credit towards their psychology course. previous findings showed first-generation asian americans have views less associated with independent western worldviews and lesser u.s. assimilation compared to second-generation asian groups (benet-martínez & karakitapoglu-aygün, 2003). given the nature of the research question, participants who were born in canada and identified as european white and participants who were born in china who identified as asian were directly compared. the european white sample born in canada consists of 489 participants (ages ranged from 17 to 36 years; m = 18.96, sd = 2.20; 69.9% females) and the chinese sample born in china consists of 147 participants (ages ranged from 17 to 24 years; m = 19.62, sd = 1.73; 70.7% females). the study was approved by the university’s local institutional review board. measures state-trait cheerfulness inventory—trait version the standard version of the state trait cheerfulness inventory—trait version (hofmann et al., 2018; ruch et al., 1996) is comprised of 60 items providing scores on three factors relating to the theoretically-derived temperamental basis of sense of humor (i.e., cheerfulness, seriousness, bad mood). the constructs are measured on a four-point likert-style scale ranging from 1 to 4 (1 = strongly disagree; 4 = strongly agree). state-trait cheerfulness inventory—state version the state trait cheerfulness inventory—state version (stci-s30; ruch et al., 1997) was designed to measure cheerful­ ness, seriousness, and bad mood as current states. the standard version is comprised of 30 items, with 10 items measuring each factor, and respondents utilized a four-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree). each factor has subcategories representative of the global latent states for cheerfulness (i.e., cheerful mood and hilarity), seriousness (i.e., earnest, pensiveness, soberness), and bad mood (i.e., sadness/melancholy, ill-humor). ruch and colleagues (1997) published several versions of the stci state version (e.g., “today,” “the past hour”), but the present study assessed current state (i.e., “right now”). data analysis the 60 items of the stci-t60 and the 30 items of the stci-s30 were subjected to two separate single-group confirma­ tory factor analyses (cfa) with maximum likelihood estimation using item parcels to test the three-factor structure proposed by ruch and colleagues (1996, 1997). the parceling procedure was applied based on the theoretical model by ruch and colleagues (1996, 1997) to lower measurement error and manage any inherent non-normality from single item distributions (gribbons & hocevar, 1998; little, cunningham, shahar, & widaman, 2002). other researchers have provided adequate justification for the use of these parcels (e.g., carretero-dios, benítez, delgado-rico, ruch, & lópez-benítez, 2014; hofmann et al., 2018; ruch et al., 1996, 1997). unidimensionality has been verified based on parallel stci in european and chinese canadians 144 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis prior to item parcelling (ferrando & lorenzo-seva, 2017). detailed descriptions and examples of items for each parcel are provided in the appendix. hu and bentler (1999) suggested that model fit should be evaluated using the root mean square error of approxima­ tion (rmsea), tucker-lewis index (tli) and comparative fit index (cfi). byrne (2001, 2012) indicated a rmsea value of approximately 0.10 and 0.06 would suggest moderate and excellent model fit, respectively. a cfi and tli in the range of 0.90 and 0.95 would suggest moderate and excellent model fit, respectively. multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (mg-cfa) was used to examine invariance allowing sequences of progres­ sively restrictive models (byrne, 2012; hong, malik, & lee, 2003; meredith, 1993; steenkamp & baumgartner, 1998). specifically, configural, metric, scalar, and uniqueness invariance were evaluated in a successive manner. configural invariance involved the establishment of a baseline model that acquires the equivalent pattern of parameters (i.e., same number[s] of factor[s], same items or parcels per factor) across groups. metric invariance (i.e., weak factorial invariance) is established when the factor pattern coefficients are constrained to equality across groups, suggesting observed differences amongst parcels reveal true differences across groups (hong et al., 2003; steenkamp & baumgartner, 1998). uniqueness invariance (i.e., strict factorial invariance) is established when error terms are constrained to equality across groups. finally, since the stci encompasses a multidimensional structure, factor variances and covariances invariance was also tested constraining to equality covariances of the structural part of the model. in the sequential assessment of the models, these models are typically compared using a chi-square-based likelihood ratio test. the χ2 statistic is greatly sensitive to loss of fit with incremental invariance restrictions in large samples and thus, the equality constraints were tested with δcfi value ≤ 0.01 (byrne, 2012; cheung & rensvold, 2002) supplemented by a change ≤ 0.015 in rmsea would indicate invariance (byrne, 2012; cheung & rensvold, 2002). these analyses determined whether the more restrictive model demonstrated worse fit than the previously-examined, less restrictive model (byrne, 2012; milfont & fischer, 2010). when poor fit emerged, partial invariance of the most restrictive model was tested through releasing some parameters according to the model of invariance being examined (i.e., factor loadings, intercept, structural covariances, residuals for evaluating metric, scalar and factor variances and covariances, and uniqueness invariance, respectively). through establishing scalar (i.e., strong) invariance, or at least partial scalar invariance, meaningful comparisons across groups can be conducted. these analyses reflect meaningful cultural differences between culturally different groups rather than measurement biases (byrne, 2012). in other words, this level of invariance allows for latent mean comparison instead of comparing the respective raw means to evaluate meaningful group differences (milfont & fischer, 2010; wu, chen, & tsai, 2009). additionally, uniqueness (i.e. strict) invariance between the two models is desirable even if meaningful group differences are performed at a scalar level (gregorich, 2006). for this study, once the strong and strict invariances were tested, the latent means of the stci factors were compared. since the mean of a latent variable cannot be directly estimated, the european canadian group mean was fixed to zero to estimate the difference between the means (byrne, 2001). all statistical analyses were conducted on spss version 25 and spss amos 5.0 (arbuckle, 2003). results descriptive statistics and reliability means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations of the stci-t60 and stci-s30 for european canadians and chinese canadians are presented (table 1). to examine normality of item parcels, univariate distributions were exam­ ined. for the trait version, skewness indices ranged from −0.98 to 0.42 and –0.45 to 0.37 for european and chinese participants, respectively. kurtosis indices for the trait version ranged from −0.56 to 1.02 and –0.69 to 1.06 for european and chinese participants, respectively. similarly, skewness indices for the state version ranged from −0.16 to 0.57 and –0.30 to 0.43 for european and chinese participants, respectively. kurtosis indices for the state version ranged from −0.65 to 0.04 and −0.35 to 0.31 for european and chinese participants, respectively. these values suggest no significant departures from normality (marcoulides & hershberger, 1997; muthén & kaplan, 1985). lau, chiesi, & saklofske 145 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlates between the state-trait-cheerfulness-inventory—trait version (stci-t60) and the state-traitcheerfulness-inventory—state version (stci-s30) mean (sd) variable ec cc 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. trait cheerfulness 3.16 (0.45) 2.97 (0.43) 0.20 [−0.04, 0.44] −0.48** [−0.63, −0.28] 0.59** [0.43, 0.70] 0.14 [−0.05, 0.32] −0.51** [−0.64, −0.36] 2. trait seriousness 2.64 (0.37) 2.70 (0.31) 0.00 [−0.10, 0.10] 0.34* [0.03, 0.42] −0.04 [−0.22, 0.15] 0.02 [−0.00, 0.08] 0.63 [0.48, 0.74] 3. trait bad mood 2.14 (0.54) 2.30 (0.51) −0.71** [−0.75, −0.66] 0.03 [ −0.07, 0.12] −0.55** [−0.62, −0.48] −0.02 [0.10, 0.07] 0.61** [0.55, 0.67] 4. state cheerfulness 2.68 (0.64) 2.62 (0.51) 0.59** [0.52, 0.65] 0.07 [−0.03, 0.16] −0.55** [−0.62, −0.48] 0.14* [0.04, 0.23] −0.70** [−0.75, −0.65] 5. state seriousness 2.75 (0.45) 2.76 (0.38) 0.10 [0.02, 0.19] 0.39** [0.30, 0.48] −0.02 [−0.10, 0.07] 0.14** [0.04, 0.23] −0.06 [−0.15, 0.03] 6. state bad mood 1.84 (0.68) 2.09 (0.66) −0.45** [−0.53, −0.38] −0.09 [−0.19, 0.01] 0.61** [0.55, 0.67] −0.70**[−0.75, −0.65] −0.06 [−0.15, 0.03] note. brackets represent bias corrected accelerated (bca) 95% confidence interval (ci) low and upper limit (bootstrap number = 1,000). below diagonal = european canadians (ec). above diagonal = chinese canadians (cc). *p < .01 (2-tailed). **p < .001 (2-tailed). internal consistency of the stci-t60 were measured using cronbach’s α coefficients for the european white canadian sample: cheerfulness = .92, seriousness = .78, bad mood = .92. cronbach’s α’s for the chinese canadian sample were as follows: cheerfulness = .89, seriousness = .74, and bad mood = .90. similarly, for the state version of the stci, reliability estimates for the state version for the european white sample were as follows: cheerfulness = .91, seriousness = .73, and bad mood = .93. for the chinese participants born in china, internal consistency values were as follows: cheerfulness = .82, seriousness = .65, and bad mood = .91. state-trait cheerfulness inventory—trait version one-group cfa for model testing first, a preliminary single-group cfa was conducted to examine the factorial structure of the stci-t60 for european white and chinese canadian participants separately. the cfa of the three-factor model for the european white participants born in canada showed an adequate fit, χ2 (74) = 366.62, p < .001, χ2/df = 4.95, cfi = .92, tli = 0.90, rmsea = .09. factor loadings ranged from .74 to .86 for cheerfulness, .54 to .69 for seriousness, and .75 to .90 for bad mood. in terms of the structural model, seriousness was not associated with either cheerfulness or bad mood while cheerfulness and bad mood were strongly negatively associated (r = –.78, p < .001). likewise, the cfa of the three-factor trait model for the chinese participants born in china showed an adequate fit: χ2 (74) = 150.24, p < .001, χ2/df = 2.03, cfi = .92, tli = 0.90, rmsea = .08. factor loadings ranged from .69 to .86 for cheerfulness, .42 to .70 for seriousness, and .73 to .85 for bad mood. in terms of the structural model, seriousness was positively associated with cheerfulness (r = .23, p < .05) and bad mood (r = .32, p < .05), and cheerfulness and bad mood were strongly negatively associated (r = –.57, p < .001). multi-group cfa for measurement invariance testing starting from the single group cfa results, the baseline model for invariance testing was defined and configural invariance was tested. the configural model with the same set of factors fixed and free parameters across groups was well-fitting (see model 0 in table 2) in its representation of the multigroup data (horn, mcardle, & mason, 1983; meredith, 1993). metric invariance was established through constraining the equality of factor loadings. compared with the config­ ural model, invariance restrictions placed on factor loadings did not lead to a significant decrement in model fit (δcfi < 0.01; see model 1 in table 2). these results indicate adding invariance restrictions on factor loadings did not lead to a significant decrement in model fit compared to the configural model. stci in european and chinese canadians 146 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 fit statistics of the state-trait cheerfulness inventory—trait version invariant models model χ2 (df) cfi rmsea [90% ci] model comparison ∆χ2 ∆df p ∆cfi ∆rmsea model 0: configural invariance (unconstrained) 517.01 (148) .919 .063 [0.057, 0.069] model 1: metric invariance (measurement weights) 527.68 (159) .919 .061 [0.055, 0.066] model 1 – model 0 10.68 11 < .001 .000 .002 model 2: scalar invariance (measurement intercepts) 637.18 (173) .898 .065 [0.060, 0.071] model 2 – model 1 109.50 14 < .001 .022 .004 model 2a: partial scalar (τch5 free) 601.00 (172) .906 .063 [0.057, 0.068] model 2a – model 1 8.399 13 < .001 .013 .002 model 2b: partial scalar (τch5 and τse5 free) 586.70 (171) .909 .062 [0.057, 0.068] model 2b – model 1 59.019 12 < .001 .010 .001 model 3: factor variances and covariances invariance (structural covariances) 618.89 (177) .903 .063 [0.057, 0.068] model 3 – model 2b 32.189 6 < .001 .006 .001 model 4: strict invariance (measurement error) 654.77 (191) .898 .062 [0.057, 0.067] model 4 – model 3 35.877 14 < .001 .005 −.001 note. df = degrees of freedom; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; 90% ci = 90% confidence interval around rmsea; ∆χ2 = difference in χ2; ∆df = difference in degrees of freedom; ∆cfi = difference between cfis; ∆rmsea = difference in root mean square error of approximation; τch5 = intercept of parcel ch5; τse5 = intercept of parcel se5; ch = cheerfulness; se = seriousness. compared to the metric invariance model, scalar invariance (see model (2) was not established as a significant change in cfi was detected (δcfi = .02; see model 2 – model 1 in table 2), suggesting at the same level of the latent factor, the threshold of the noninvariant parcels was different across groups. these results suggest that the endorsed levels of the underlying facets differed significantly across european white and chinese participants. two partial scalar models were specified with one freeing the τch5 (i.e., ch5 representing generally cheerful interaction style) intercept of the parcel across groups (model 2a), and the other freeing both τch5 and τse5 (i.e., se5 representing preference for a sober, object-oriented communication style; model 2b). freeing the two specific thresholds in model 2b led to an acceptable change in cfi for the partial scalar model when compared with the weak invariance model (δcfi = .01; see model 2b – model 1). thus, model 2b was selected as the final model for this step. before establishing strict invariance, factor variances and covariances were constrained to be equal across group (model 3) and fit indices with ∆cfi values compared to model 2b indicated invariance. similarly, when error terms were constrained to equality across groups (model 4), fit indices and δcfi values indicated invariance. latent mean differences in order to examine latent factor means between european white and chinese canadian students, the observed variable intercepts were constrained equal across the canadian and chinese groups for model 2b (i.e., τch5 and τse5 free for partial scalar invariance; byrne, 2012). in comparing latent means, constraints for ch5 and se5 were deleted, but the cheerfulness and seriousness factors have four remaining invariant intercepts per factor (i.e., parcels). estimates derived from this solution may be estimated accurately as the structural means model fit the data adequately with the constraints on the intercept, χ2 (171) = 586.70, cfi = .91, rmsea = .06. european canadian participants reported significantly higher cheerfulness, z = 3.30, p < .001, d = 0.84, and lower bad mood z = 3.25, p < .01, d = 0.80 compared to the chinese canadian groups. no significant difference between the groups was observed for seriousness, z = 1.12, p = .27. lau, chiesi, & saklofske 147 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ state-trait cheerfulness inventory—state version one-group cfa for model testing similar to the trait version, a preliminary single-group cfa was conducted to examine the factorial structure of the stci-s30 instrument for european white and chinese canadians separately. the cfa of the three-factor model for european white participants born in canada showed a good fit, χ2 (11) = 24.35, p < .05, χ2/df = 2.21, cfi = .99, tli = 0.99, rmsea = .05. factor loadings ranged from .90 to .95 for state cheerfulness, .52 to .79 for state seriousness, and .88 to .96 for state bad mood. in terms of the structural model, states cheerfulness and seriousness were positively associated (r = .18, p < .01) and states cheerfulness and bad mood were strongly negatively associated (r = –.76, p < .001). the cfa of the three-factor model for chinese participants born in china showed a good fit, χ2 (12) = 25.52, p < .05, χ2/df = 2.126, cfi = .97, tli = 0.94, rmsea = .09. factor loadings ranged from .74 to .97 for state cheerfulness, .56 to .74 for state seriousness, and .87 to .93 for state bad mood. in terms of the structural model, state seriousness was not associated with either states cheerfulness or bad mood while states cheerfulness and bad mood were strongly negatively associated (r = –.66, p < .001). configural invariance was tested to determine whether the number of factors for the state version were invariant across canadian and chinese groups. the configural model was well-fitting (see model 0 in table 3) in its representation of the multigroup data. furthermore, invariance restrictions placed on measurement weights did not lead to a significant decrement in model fit compared with the configural model (δcfi = .009; see model 1 – model 0 in table 3). these results suggest metric invariance can be established as the associations between the state factors and individual parcels were not significantly different across these two groups. table 3 fit statistics of the state-trait cheerfulness inventory—state version invariant models model χ2 (df) cfi rmsea [90% ci] model comparison ∆χ2 ∆df p ∆cfi ∆rmsea model 0: configural invariance (unconstrained) 44.85 (25) .991 .036 [0.018, 0.053] model 1: metric invariance (measurement weights) 68.95 (29) .982 .047 [0.033, 0.062] model 1 – model 0 24.09 4 < .001 .009 .011 model 2: scalar invariance (measurement intercepts) 101.46 (36) .970 .055 [0.042, 0.067] model 2 – model 1 32.52 7 < .001 .012 .008 model 2a: partial scalar (τb1 free) 96.46 (35) .972 .054 [0.041, 0.066] model 2a – model 1 27.52 6 < .001 .010 .007 model 3: factor variances and covariances invariance (structural covariances) 100.83 (38) .971 .052 [0.40, 0.064] model 3 – model 2a 4.37 3 < .001 .001 −.002 model 4: strict invariance 119.51 (45) .965 .052 [0.041, 0.063] model 4 – model 3 18.68 7 < .001 .006 .000 note. df = degrees of freedom; cfi = comparative fit index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation; 90% ci = 90% confidence interval around rmsea;∆χ2 = difference in χ2; ∆df = difference in degrees of freedom; ∆cfi = difference between cfis; ∆rmsea = difference in root mean square error of approximation; b1 = intercept of parcel in the factor bad mood, representing a state of sad mood. compared to the metric invariance model, scalar invariance (model (2) was not established as a significant change in cfi was detected (δcfi = .012; model 2 – model 1), suggesting at the same level of the latent factor, the threshold of the noninvariant parcels was different across groups. these results suggest that the endorsed levels of the underlying facets differed significantly across european white and chinese participants. thus, a modification of freeing one of the parcels (i.e., b1 from the factor state bad mood representing state sadness) was conducted. freeing one specific threshold in model 2a led to an acceptable change in cfi for the partial scalar model when compared with the metric invariance model. thus, model 2a was selected as the final model for this step. stci in european and chinese canadians 148 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ before establishing strict invariance, factor variances and covariances were constrained to be equal across group (model 3) and the δcfi and δrmsea values indicated invariance in comparison with model 2a. when error terms were constrained to equality across groups (model 4), fit indices and δcfi values indicated invariance when compared with model 3. latent mean differences in order to examine latent factor means between european white and chinese canadian students, the observed variable intercepts were constrained equal across the canadian and chinese groups for model 2a (i.e., τ of parcel representing state sadness in the factor state bad mood free for partial scalar invariance; byrne, 2012). the structural means model fit the data adequately with the constraints on the intercept, χ2 (35) = 96.46, cfi = .97, rmsea = .05. given this finding, estimates derived from this solution may be estimated accurately. european white canadian participants reported significantly lower state bad mood compared to the chinese canadian groups, z = 3.59, p < .001, d = 1.15. no significant difference between the groups was observed for state seriousness, z = 0.45, p = .66, or state cheerfulness, z = –0.65, p = 52. discussion the present study contributed to growing literature in cross-cultural studies in humor through providing empirical evidence supporting partial strong measurement invariance of the stci trait and state forms across first generation chinese and european white canadian participants. the results demonstrated that the measurement structures of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood were largely equivalent across european white participants born in canada and first generation chinese canadian participants born in china. metric invariance was found for both the state and trait versions of the stci. upon freeing two intercepts, partial scalar invariance was found for the trait version of the stci, which indicates cross-cultural similarity for the interpretation of the three dimensions. for the state version, upon freeing one intercept, partial scalar invariance was found. the proportion of invariant to non-invariant threshold parameters should allow fair comparisons between groups (byrne, shavelson, & muthén, 1989). these findings provide evidence supporting the generalizability of the three-factor model of the temperamental basis of humor in chinese participants (chen et al., 2017; lau et al., 2020). in a previous study comparing the chinese and english version of the stci, noninvariant latent mean differences could not be compared given that only partial metric invariance was found (lau et al., 2020). in the present study, the corresponding noninvariant latent factor means were examined. european white canadian participants reported higher trait cheerfulness and lower trait bad mood compared to first generation chinese canadians. these results were consistent with previous findings showing americans were more extraverted than asians (mccrae & terracciano, 2005). indeed, trait cheerfulness is a narrow-level personality trait under the broader-level trait extraversion, but cheerfulness as an independent variable generally acts as a better predictor for specific humor-induced positive affect (ruch & hofmann, 2012). moreover, these results align with findings that individualist cultures tend to promote positivity whereas dialectical cultures value balance of emotions (tsai, knutson, & fung, 2006). as well, previous findings showed european americans had better recall of positive affect but not negative affect, whereas asian americans equally recalled positive and negative affect (wirtz, chiu, diener, & oishi, 2009). notably, asian canadians in this sample scored much higher in state bad mood than european white participants, but did not differ in state cheerfulness and state seriousness. perhaps individuals of east asian descent tend to endorse more contradictory elements in opposing emotions compared to european white north americans who have not been exposed to dialecticism (goetz, spencer-rodgers, & peng, 2008; spencer-rodgers, peng, & wang, 2010). the present study is not without its limitations. the sample comprised of well-educated young adults attending university and it is unclear whether these findings would generalize across different populations (i.e., difference in age, education). furthermore, only a small sample of the canadians recruited were second generation chinese canadians and of other asian backgrounds (e.g., korean, japanese). these factors precluded the present study to further investigate similarities and differences between other english-speaking asian canadians. moreover, the nature of humor is a lau, chiesi, & saklofske 149 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ multidimensional phenomenon that encompasses a function (e.g., pro-social or mean-spirited) and fulfills complex needs for the individual (e.g., engage with others, mock others). future studies should test whether the stci in chinese participants predicts similar behavioral outcomes that were found in previous studies (e.g., duchenne displays, positive benign styles of humor, frequency and intensity of laughter). in summary, the present study extends earlier findings for a well-fitting three-factor model in the temperamental basis of humor for first generation chinese canadian participants. findings from the present study provide a founda­ tional basis for the utility of the stci in studying the temperamental basis of humor for first generation chinese north americans. this study addresses concerns of extending western models to individuals born to non-western cultures (gerstein & ægisdóttir, 2012). future studies can utilize this measure to investigate associations between the temperamental basis of humor and acculturation in north america. funding: this research was supported by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada joseph armand bombardier doctoral award held by the first author. the first author would also like to thank the mitacs globalink opportunities award and the mary ann underwood global opportunities award for the opportunity to study with professor dr. chiesi at the university of florence. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank armando morales-pires and taylor swindall for providing edits and feedback on this manuscript to improve the readability of this paper. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references arbuckle, j. l. 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(2004). do cheerfulness, exhilaration, and humor production moderate pain tolerance? a facs study. humor, 17(1–2), 85–119. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2004.009 appendix the original trait version 60-item set with theoretical origins from ruch et al. (1996) facet ni description example item ch1 (cheerful mood) 5 prevalence of cheerful mood i am a merry person. ch2 (laughter threshold) 3 low threshold for smiling and laughter i often smile. ch3 (composed view) 4 composed view of adverse life circumstances many adversities of everyday life actually do have a positive side. ch4 (broad elicitors) 4 broad range of active elicitors of cheerfulness and smiling/ laughter i often find that the small things in everyday life are really funny and amusing. ch5 (cheerful interaction) 4 generally cheerful interaction style i like to kid around with others. stci in european and chinese canadians 152 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040.2.4.328 https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2009.006 https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2017-0099 https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1996.9.3-4.303 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0191-8869(96)00231-0 https://doi.org/10.1024/1421-0185.67.1.19 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022109349508 https://doi.org/10.1086/209528 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.2.288 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00578.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.11.002 https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2004.009 https://www.psychopen.eu/ facet ni description example item se1 (serious states) 5 prevalence of serious states i am a serious person. se2 (serious mindset) 3 perception of even everyday happenings as important and taking it into consideration thoroughly and intensively (rather than treating them superficial) even seemingly trivial things have to be treated seriously and responsibly. se3 (planning ahead and responsibility) 4 tendency to plan ahead and set long-range goals (and attaining the closest possible harmony with these goals in every action and decision) i plan my actions and make my decisions so that they are useful to me in the long run. se4 (concrete activities) 4 tendency to prefer activities for which concrete, rational reasons can be produced (thereby considering activities which don't have a specific goal as a waste of time and nonsense) i try to spend my free time doing things as useful as possible. se5 (sober style) 4 preference for a sober, object-oriented communication style i prefer people who communicate with deliberation and objectivity. bm1 (bad mood states) 5 prevalence of bad mood states i am often in a bad mood. bm2 (sadness prevalence) 6 prevalence of sadness sometimes i am distressed for a very long time. bm3 (bad mood towards cheerfulness) 3 sad and ill-humored behavior in cheerfulness evoking situations, the attitudes toward such situations and the objects, persons, and roles involved when i am distressed, even a very funny thing fails to cheer me up. bm4 (ill-humoredness prevalence) 6 prevalence of ill-humoredness i am often sullen. note. ni = number of items. the original state version 30-item set with theoretical origins from ruch et al. (1997) facet ni description example item c1 (cheerful mood) 5 current state of positive affectivity related to being in good spirits and feeling merry i am cheerful. c2 (hilarity) 5 readiness to engage in humor-related activities for state cheerfulness i feel chipper. s1 (earnest) 3 the readiness to perceive, act, or communicate seriously i am set for serious things. s2 (pensive) 4 the state of attentive, deep thought, or conducting an important task i have important things on my mind s3 (sober) 3 current serious state that applies a sober or objective perspective or style i regard my situation objectively and soberly. b1 (sadness/melancholy) 5 current sad, gloomy, and downhearted state does not enable an individual to engage in humor-related activities. i am sad. b2 (ill-humored) 5 ill-humored state (i.e., sullen, crabby) and may prefer not to engage in humor. i am in a bad mood. note. ni = number of items. about the authors chloe lau is a phd candidate in clinical psychology funded by the social sciences and humanities research council of canada joseph armand bombardier masters and doctoral award. her research was also funded by the ontario graduate scholarships, thinkswiss scholarship, canada graduate scholarship michael smith foreign supplement, mitacs globalink opportunities award, mitacs research training award, and mary ann underwood small global opportunities award. francesca chiesi is an associate professor in psychometrics at the university of florence. her research focuses on the construction and validation of psychological tests and short-form tests. she developed and adapted assessment tools to evaluate cognitive, person­ ality, and health-related attributes in clinical (e.g., patients with cancer, patient with liver diseases) and non-clinical populations (e.g., students, elderly). donald h. saklofske is a professor in the department of psychology at the university of western ontario. his research focuses on personality, intelligence and psychological assessment. he is editor of canadian psychology and journal of psychoeducational assessment. lau, chiesi, & saklofske 153 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 142–153 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stci in european and chinese canadians (introduction) objectives method participants and procedure measures data analysis results descriptive statistics and reliability state-trait cheerfulness inventory—trait version state-trait cheerfulness inventory—state version discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references appendix about the authors self-compassion facets as mediators of the relationship between self-esteem and well-being: a path analysis approach research reports self-compassion facets as mediators of the relationship between selfesteem and well-being: a path analysis approach jaime navarrete 1,2, corel mateo-canedo 3, adrián pérez-aranda 2,4, selena russo 5, stefano ardenghi 5,6, federico zorzi 5,6,7, giulia rampoldi 5, maria grazia strepparava 5,6, jesús montero-marín 1,2,8, marco bani 5 [1] teaching, research & innovation unit, parc sanitari sant joan de déu, sant boi de llobregat, spain. [2] ciber of epidemiology and public health (ciberesp), madrid, spain. [3] department of basic psychology, universitat autònoma de barcelona, cerdanyola del vallès, spain. [4] department of clinical and health psychology, universitat autònoma de barcelona, cerdanyola del vallès, spain. [5] school of medicine and surgery, university of milano-bicocca, monza, italy. [6] fondazione irccs san gerardo dei tintori, monza, italy. [7] department of pedagogy, psychology, and philosophy, university of cagliari, cagliari, italy. [8] department of psychiatry, university of oxford, warneford hospital, oxford, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 received: 2025-03-04 • accepted: 2025-07-04 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: isobel walsh, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: adrián pérez-aranda, universitat autònoma de barcelona, facultat de psicologia, carrer de la fortuna, s/n, 08193 bellaterra, barcelona, catalunya, spain. e-mail: adrian.perez@uab.cat supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract self-esteem and self-compassion are both associated with psychological well-being, but they differ in their underlying mechanisms. some studies have found that self-compassion mediates the relationship between self-esteem and well-being, yet they have overlooked the distinct roles of its cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. this study examined whether specific selfcompassion facets mediate the relationship between self-esteem and well-being, using the italian adaptation of the sussex-oxford compassion scales (socs), whose psychometric properties were also assessed. a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 408 italian high school and undergraduate healthcare students. participants completed the socs, the rosenberg self-esteem scale, and the short warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale. the italian socs was psychometrically evaluated through confirmatory factor analyses and showed good validity and reliability. correlations and path analyses were used to examine the mediating roles of cognitive, affective, and behavioral self-compassion facets. emotional and behavioral components of self-compassion — such as “feeling for one’s suffering”, “tolerating uncomfortable feelings”, and “acting to alleviate suffering” — significantly mediated the link between self-esteem and well-being. these facets accounted for 39% of its variance, while cognitive components did not show significant effects. these findings highlight the importance of affective and behavioral self-compassion in therapeutic interventions, emphasizing their role in enhancing well-being. keywords self-compassion, sussex-oxford compassion scales, self-esteem, well-being, path analysis, psychometric validation self-esteem, as defined by rosenberg (1965), is an overall assessment of one’s worth as a person and plays a vital role in mental health and quality of life. high levels of self-esteem are often associated with numerous positive psychological outcomes, such as increased happiness, resilience, and overall well-being (orth & robins, 2014; sowislo & orth, 2013). this highlights the importance of self-esteem in fostering a healthy self-concept and promoting adaptive behaviors, making it a significant target of psychotherapeutic interventions. however, programs addressed at enhancing self-es­ this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.17201&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ teem have generally produced modest effects (muris & otgaar, 2023), which might be explained by the observation that self-esteem is often highly resistant to change (neff, 2003b) and tends to be experienced more as a result of perceiving oneself as successful in comparison to others rather than a precursor to well-being (neff, 2011). self-compassion, on its part, has been defined in various ways; strauss et al. (2016) conducted an exhaustive work of revising different definitions and concluded that self-compassion is the composite of five facets: a. recognizing suffering. b. understanding that suffering is a part of every human experience. c. feeling empathy and relating to people who are suffering. d. tolerating unpleasant feelings. e. taking action to ease discomfort. self-compassion has received increased attention from researchers in recent decades, as it has been considered a pivotal aspect of the so-called “third wave” of cognitive-behavioral therapy (cbt), alongside mindfulness, acceptance, and spirituality (jahoda et al., 2017). research suggests that self-compassion is associated with lower levels of anxiety and depression, as well as higher levels of life satisfaction, positive affect, and optimism (muris & petrocchi, 2017; zessin et al., 2015). on top of that, self-compassion can be successfully trained through “third wave” cbt programs (ferrari et al., 2019; wilson et al., 2019), which have also shown positive effects on well-being in different populations (millard et al., 2023). it seems clear that, although closely related, self-esteem and self-compassion refer to different aspects. in a recent review on this topic, muris and otgaar (2023) concluded that while the correlation between both constructs is large, some key differences exist: a. self-esteem implies comparison to others, whereas self-compassion does not. b. self-esteem seems to be associated with the activation of the sympathetic threat system, while self-compassion would be linked to the parasympathetic soothing system. c. unlike self-compassion, self-esteem is a cognitive appraisal process that lacks an inherent coping mechanism. this last point is particularly relevant, since it could be a potential reason behind the fact that interventions aimed at promoting self-compassion have shown better outcomes than those aimed at enhancing self-esteem (muris & otgaar, 2023; neff, 2011). cultivating self-compassion implies, to some degree, training particular abilities to deal with suffering — abilities that span cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains (gilbert, 2009; halamová & kanovský, 2021; kanov et al., 2004; tiwari et al., 2020). “recognizing suffering” and “understanding the universality of suffering” (cognitive facets) entail a rational process that encourages balanced judgments and helps individuals perceive their distress as part of a shared human experience rather than as something exceptional. on the other hand, the affective facets — “feeling for the per­ son’s suffering” and “tolerating uncomfortable feelings” — require emotional openness and engagement with distress, rather than avoidance. finally, the behavioral facet, “acting to alleviate suffering”, involves a proactive orientation toward addressing and potentially transforming the situation. thus, self-compassion encompasses not only rational acknowledgment of suffering but also emotional and behavioral responses that may strengthen coping strategies. these latter facets, in particular, could represent valuable therapeutic targets due to their potential to enhance psychological well-being. as mentioned earlier, well-being is closely related to both self-compassion and self-esteem, and previous research has explored the interplay among these three constructs. given that self-esteem precedes self-compassion (donald et al., 2018), some studies have examined the mediating role that this latter plays in the interaction between self-esteem and different aspects related to mental well-being: bugay-sökmez et al. (2023) observed that the relationships between self-esteem, brooding, and co-rumination were mediated by self-compassion; holas et al. (2023) reported a similar finding regarding social anxiety; and self-compassion was found to be a moderator of the influence of self-esteem on mental health (marshall et al., 2015). however, these studies used the self-compassion scale (scs; neff, 2003a) which, although widely used, does not clearly differentiate between the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of selfcompassion. neff’s model (neff, 2003b) does differentiate between positive (“self-kindness”, “common humanity”, and navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 379 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “mindfulness”) and negative (“self-judgement”, “isolation”, and “over-identification”) facets, and two studies included this distinction in mediation analyses observing that positive facets mediated the relationship between self-esteem and well-being (pandey et al., 2021), and that both — positive and negative — mediated the link between self-esteem and selfforgiveness (pandey et al., 2023). although these distinctions between positive and negative facets of self-compassion can be found in various studies, there is no agreement on how the scs should be used in this regard (strauss et al., 2016), and this measure has been charged with unsatisfactory psychometric properties in some cases (pandey et al., 2021; pfattheicher et al., 2017), which suggests that exploring new models of self-compassion might be useful. the present study aims to enhance the understanding of the relationship between self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being by exploring the mediating role of specific self-compassion facets (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) in the relationship between self-esteem and well-being. we utilized the sussex-oxford compassion scales (socs; gu et al., 2020), a validated instrument based on the model proposed by strauss et al. (2016). as a preliminary step to this analysis, we adapted the socs to italian; the psychometric properties of the italian version of the socs are also presented in this work. method design and participants this is a cross-sectional study in which a convenience sample of italian high-school students interested in healthcare programs and undergraduate healthcare students at a north italian university were invited to participate. participation was encouraged with the chance of winning a €50 gift card, randomly awarded to one participant who completed the survey. inclusion criteria were: (a) being 18 or older, (b) being native italian speaker, and (c) signing the informed consent to participate. no exclusion criteria were applied. procedure undergraduate healthcare students received an email invitation from the principal investigator, describing the study and providing the link to the survey, which required approximately 20 minutes. high school students aged ≥ 18 were invited to participate in three open days showcasing healthcare courses, which took place from december 2022 to march 2023. this study was approved by the ethics committee of the university of milano-bicocca (no. 707, protocol 0066628/2022) and complied with the declaration of helsinki. the socs adaptation to the italian context followed standard forward and reverse translation procedures. initially, three italian clinical psychologists with good english proficiency provided a conceptual translation of the questionnaire items, discussing discrepancies and reaching a consensus on the item formulation. then, an independent bilingual translator back-translated the resulting italian version. finally, an english native reviewed the two english versions of the socs to identify eventual incongruency in phrasing. instruments sociodemographic characteristics information about gender, age, studies, employment status, and income was collected. sussex-oxford compassion scales this questionnaire (socs; gu et al., 2020) consists of two scales: one measuring self-compassion (socs-s) and the other measuring compassion for others (socs-o). each includes 20 items that assess compassion through five dimensions: recognizing suffering, understanding the universality of suffering, feeling empathy for the person suffering, tolerating uncomfortable feelings aroused in response to suffering, and being motivated to act to alleviate suffering. respondents rated items on a likert scale (1 = not true at all, 5 = always true), and a total score was obtained by summing the responses, with higher scores indicating higher levels of compassion (range 20–100). authorization from the original authors was obtained for translating/validating the italian version of the socs, and a detailed explanation of its self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being 380 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychometric properties can be found in the results section. the italian version of both scales can be found in the supplementary materials. rosenberg self-esteem scale this 10-item questionnaire (rse; rosenberg, 1965) evaluates perceived self-worth by assessing both positive and negative feelings about the self. respondents rated items on a likert scale (0 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree), and a total score was calculated by summing the responses (range 0–40), with higher scores indicating higher levels of self-esteem. the italian adaptation of the rse (prezza et al., 1997) was used, showing high internal consistency in our sample (ɑ = 0.85). short warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale this 7-item questionnaire (swemwbs; stewart-brown et al., 2009) evaluates well-being through items that capture positive feelings and functioning, such as feeling optimistic, relaxed, and useful. respondents rated items on a likert scale (1 = none of the time, 5 = all of the time), and a total score was obtained by summing the responses. higher scores indicate higher levels of mental well-being (range 7–35). the italian adaptation of the swemwbs (gremigni & stewart-brown, 2011) was employed, demonstrating very good internal consistency in our sample (ɑ = 0.82). measures for convergent validity of the italian version of the socs self-compassion scale-short form — developed as an abbreviated version of the original scale (neff, 2003a), this questionnaire (scs-sf; raes et al., 2011) was designed to measure an individual’s level of self-compassion. it consists of 12 items that reflect the three main components of self-compassion according to neff’s model: self-kindness versus self-judgement, common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus over-identification. respondents rated items on a likert scale (1 = almost never, 5 = almost always), and a total score was obtained by calculating the average of all the items. the italian adaptation of the scs-sf (petrocchi et al., 2014) was used, and it presented very good internal consistency in our sample (ɑ = 0.86). brief interpersonal reactivity index — this 16-item scale (b-iri; ingoglia et al., 2016) is a short version of the original 28-item questionnaire (davis, 1980) and evaluates empathy through four distinct subscales: “perspective taking”, “fantasy”, “empathic concern”, and “personal distress”. in our study, however, the “fantasy” subscale was not included due to its controversial use in literature, resulting in a 12-item questionnaire. this decision was based on ongoing conceptual and empirical concerns regarding the construct validity of the fantasy dimension. as noted by nomura and akai (2012), the fantasy subscale evaluates respondents’ tendency to become imaginatively involved with fictional characters and scenarios, a construct that may not reflect empathy in the same way as the other subscales, which focus on interpersonal contexts involving real people. respondents rated items on a likert scale (1 = does not describe me well, 5 = describes me very well). subscale scores were calculated by averaging the responses for each dimension, with higher scores indicating higher levels of that specific aspect of empathy. the italian version of the b-iri (ingoglia et al., 2016) was utilized, and its internal consistency in our sample was good for the first two subscales (ɑ = .72, .81) and acceptable for “personal distress” (ɑ = .65). fear of compassion scales — this questionnaire (fcs; gilbert et al., 2011) was designed to assess individuals’ apprehension and discomfort about expressing compassion towards others (fcs-o), receiving compassion from others, and expressing compassion towards oneself (fcs-s). in the present study, the subscale assessing fear of receiving compassion from others was excluded, as it was not aligned with either the study’s objectives or the hypotheses concerning construct validity. the adaptation used for this study consisted of 17 items (10 items for fcs-o and 7 for fcs-s) that respondents rated on a likert scale (0 = never, 4 = always). a total score for each scale was derived by calculating the average of the responses, with higher scores indicating greater fear of compassion. the italian adaptation of the fcs (dentale et al., 2017) was employed, demonstrating strong internal consistency in our sample (ɑ = .82 for fcs-o and ɑ = .84 for fcs-s). navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 381 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ burnout clinical subtype questionnaire-12 item — this questionnaire (bcsq-12; montero-marin et al., 2011), a short version of the original 36-item questionnaire (montero-marín & garcía-campayo, 2010), was designed to assess burnout across three dimensions: “overload”, “lack of development”, and “neglect”. participants rated each item on a likert-type scale with seven response options (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). a score for each subscale was calculated by averaging the responses, with higher scores indicating higher levels of burnout. permission from the original authors was obtained for translating/validating the italian version of the bcsq-12. the psychometric properties of the scale were very good, with high internal consistency in its three subscales (ɑ = 0.87, .90, and .86, respectively). data analysis data analysis was performed using spss v29 and mplus v7.4. all variables were descriptively analyzed (mean, standard deviation, range, skewness, kurtosis, frequency, and percentages). as a previous step to conducting the primary analysis of the present study, the factor structures of the italian versions of the socs-o and socs-s were assessed. confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) with a diagonally weighted least squares (wlsmv) estimation method were conducted to assess dimensionality. sample size adequacy for the cfa was evaluated based on a commonly accepted rule of thumb recommending a ratio of 10 participants for each item in the scale (kline, 1994). the models proposed by gu et al. (2020) were tested for both scales: all 20 items forming a single latent factor, five 5-item correlated factors, and five 5-item factors forming one higher-order latent factor. the following four fit indices were used to indicate model-data fit (hu & bentler, 1999): the comparative fit index (cfi ≥ .90 for acceptable fit), the tucker–lewis index (tli ≥ .90 for acceptable fit), the root-mean-square error of approximation (rmsea ≤ .10 for acceptable fit) with a 90% confidence interval, and the weighted root-mean-square residual (wrmr ≤ 1 for acceptable fit). cronbach’s α and mcdonald's ω were used to investigate the internal consistency of the socs-o and the socs-s. moreover, corrected item-total correlations (rtot) were calculated for the socs-o and the socs-s items to examine how each item contributed to the overall scale. a coefficient lower than .30 indicates that an item is measuring something different from the scale as a whole (devellis, 1991). intraclass correlation coefficients (icc) were calculated based on a mean-rating (k = 2), absolute-agreement, 2-way mixed-effects model to evaluate the socs-o and socs-s test-retest reliability. convergent validity was estimated by calculating pearson correlation coefficients between the socs-o, the socs-s, and the remaining measures (scs-sf, rse, b-iri, fcs, swemwbs, and bcsq-12). the strength of the correlations was interpreted following cohen’s guidelines (cohen, 1988): small (r = .10–.29), medium (r = .30–.49), and large (r = .50–1.00). as the primary analysis of the present study, we used path analysis models to explore the mediator role of self-compassion facets. this approach allows for simultaneous estimation of relationships among variables and includes mediation effects. in our investigation, we evaluated a model where self-esteem (rse) served as the independent variable, the five self-compassion facets (socs-s) acted as mediators, and well-being (swemwbs) was the outcome. we calculated standardized regression coefficients (β) for bias-corrected bootstrapped indirect effects using 10,000 bootstrap samples, along with their standard errors and 95% confidence intervals (ci). indirect effects were deemed statistically significant if the 95% ci did not encompass zero (lockhart et al., 2011), and the model included compassion for others (socs-o) as a covariate. the dataset and syntax used for the present study can be found in pérez-aranda et al. (2025). results characteristics of the sample the survey was completed by 438 participants. however, 30 were excluded for two main reasons: failing to answer a control item designed to detect random responding (n = 15) or not being native italian speakers (n = 15). control items were embedded in some questionnaires to identify inattentive responses, while non-native speakers — mainly international students — were excluded to minimize potential cultural and linguistic bias. therefore, 408 participants (84.6% women, with a mage of 21.07) were included in the analyses. all data provided by the participants were complete; no missing responses were recorded. most of them (n = 249, 61%) were university students of healthcare professions self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being 382 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (e.g., medicine, nursing, midwifery), while a notable proportion were in their last year of high school (n = 155, 38%). one-third of the sample (n = 135) were working and, in terms of income, most considered their financial situation to be around average (see table 1). table 1 baseline characteristics of the sample (n = 408) sociodemographic variables gender: n of females (%) 338 (82.8%) age: m(sd) 21.07 (3.54) studies: n (%) high school 155 (38%) medicine 134 (32.8%) nursing 91 (22.3%) midwifery 23 (5.6%) resident 3 (0.7%) other health care studies 2 (0.5%) employment status, n of working (%) 135 (33.1%) income: n (%) very poor 22 (5.4%) below average 134 (32.8%) above average 161 (39.5%) excellent 58 (14.2%) rather not say 33 (8.1%) psychological variable: m(sd) socs: self-compassion [20–100] 69.28 (11.75) recognizing suffering [4–20] 15.57 (3.27) understanding the universality of suffering [4–20] 17.82 (2.65) feeling for the person suffering [4–20] 11.77 (3.18) tolerating uncomfortable feelings [4–20] 11.11 (3.09) acting to alleviate the suffering [4–20] 13.01 (3.24) socs: compassion for others [20–100] 82.08 (9.67) recognizing suffering [4–20] 15.47 (2.87) understanding the universality of suffering [4–20] 18.12 (2.20) feeling for the person suffering [4–20] 16.24 (2.53) tolerating uncomfortable feelings [4–20] 15.64 (2.40) acting to alleviate the suffering [4–20] 16.62 (2.60) rse [0–40] 18.48 (6.52) swemwbs [7–35] 24.39 (4.27) scs-sf [1–5] 2.77 (0.70) b-iri empathetic concern [1–5] 3.99 (0.71) perspective taking [1–5] 3.76 (0.78) personal distress [1–5] 2.26 (0.74) fcs towards others [0–4] 1.46 (0.72) from themselves [0–4] 1.39 (0.84) bcsq-12 overload [1–7] 3.45 (1.56) lack of development [1–7] 3.04 (1.75) neglect [1–7] 2.20 (1.18) note. the square brackets beside each scale contain the range of their scores. sussex-oxford compassion scale; rse = rosenberg self-esteem scale; swemwbs = short warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale; scs-sf = self-compassion scale-short form; b-iri = brief interpersonal reactivity index; fcs = fear of compassion scale; bcsq-12 = burnout clinical subtype questionnaire-12 item. navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 383 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychometric properties of the italian version of the socs based on the fit indices, significance of factor loadings, and previous validation studies, the five-factor hierarchical model was interpreted as best fitting the data both for the socs-o (cfi = .99, tli = .99, rmsea = .04; wrmr = 0.86) and the socs-s (cfi = .97, tli = .96, rmsea = .08; wrmr = 1.50). see the supplementary materials for more details on the descriptive statistics of the socs-o and the socs-s items, the standardized factor loadings for the hierarchical five-factor model, and the fit indices for all the tested cfa models. internal consistency of the socs-o and the socs-s factors was adequate, with cronbach’s α and mcdonald’s ω ranging from .67 to .93 (see supplementary materials). the rtot of the socs-o and the socs-s items was greater than 0.30 in all cases, suggesting adequate homogeneity. finally, test-retest reliability after one month was adequate, with icc coefficients ranging from .73 to .86, which supports the temporal stability of socs scores. table 2 shows the correlation coefficients between scores on the socs-o, socs-s, and other constructs. the socs-o had significant and large positive correlations with the “empathic concern” and “perspective taking” subscales of the b-iri, significant and small positive correlations with the swemwbs and the rse, significant and small negative correlations with the “personal distress” subscale of the b-iri, the fco/s, and the “neglect” subscale of the bcsq12; no significant correlations with the scs-sf and the “lack of development” and “overload” subscales of the bcsq12 were observed. the socs-s had significant and large positive correlations with the scs-sf and swemwbs, significant and moderate negative correlations with the fcs and the “overload” subscale of the bcsq12, significant and small positive correlations with the rse and the “empathic concern” and “perspective taking” subscales of the b-iri, significant and small negative correlations with the “personal distress” subscale of the b-iri, the fco, and the “neglect” subscale of the bcsq12, and no significant correlation with the “lack of development” subscale of the bcsq12. pearson’s correlation coefficients among the socs subscale scores were also computed (supplementary materials). table 2 correlation coefficients between scores on the sussex-oxford compassion scales and other constructs variable scs-sf rse iri-ec iri-pd iri-pt fco fcs swemwbs bcsq12-o bcsq12-ld bcsq12-n socs-o .07 .16** .48*** -.14** .49*** -.14** -.10* .23*** .00 .05 -.12* recognizing suffering -.03 .15** .33*** -.12* .35*** -.04 -.04 .14** .09 .11* -.06 understanding the universality of suffering .11* .05 .21*** -.07 .27*** -.07 -.05 .17*** -.07 -.02 -.14** feeling for the person suffering -.01 .11* .56*** -.02 .45*** -.17*** -.06 .14** .03 -.01 -.07 tolerating uncomfortable feelings .17*** .17*** .31*** -.22*** .42*** -.15** -.13** .26*** -.11* .04 -.10* acting or motivation to act to alleviate suffering .04 .14** .42*** -.09 .39*** -.13** -.10* .16*** .04 .05 -.12* socs-s .58*** .28*** .15** -.25*** .23*** -.21*** -.39*** .58*** -.33*** -.06 -.22*** recognizing suffering .16** .14** .16** -.12** .11* -.12* -.21*** .27*** -.12* .01 -.10* understanding the universality of suffering .20*** .04 .17*** -.08 .27*** -.08 -.10* .24*** -.13* .02 -.13* feeling for the person suffering .60*** .28*** .10 -.20*** .15** -.20*** -.42*** .57*** -.32*** -.04 -.20*** tolerating uncomfortable feelings .64*** .30*** .06 -.35*** .18*** -.21*** -.39*** .56*** -.35*** -.12* -.22*** acting or motivation to act to alleviate suffering .57*** .26*** .08 -.20*** .17*** -.17*** -.35*** .54*** -.31*** -.08 -.20*** note. sussex-oxford compassion scale; rse = rosenberg self-esteem scale; swemwbs = short warwick-edinburgh mental well-being scale; scs-sf = self-compassion scale-short form; b-iri = brief interpersonal reactivity index; fcs = fear of compassion scale; bcsq-12 = burnout clinical subtype questionnaire-12 item. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being 384 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ path analysis: self-compassion facets as mediators of the relationship between selfesteem and well-being the proposed model adequately fitted with the data (χ12 = 32.54, p < .001, cfi = .97, srmr = 0.026). as depicted in figure 1, the path analysis model showed that self-esteem significantly predicted recognizing suffering of oneself (β = 0.088, se = 0.044; p = .048), feeling for the suffering of oneself (β = 0.252, se = 0.050; p < .001), tolerating the uncomfortable feelings aroused in response to the suffering (β = 0.277, se = 0.046; p < .001), and acting or being motivated to act to alleviate suffering (β = 0.231, se = 0.048; p < .001). the associations between self-compassion facets were statistically significant (r ranging from .26 to .75; p < .001 in all cases). conversely, self-esteem was not a significant predictor of understanding the universality of suffering (β = -0.026, se = 0.047; p = .588). figure 1 the final structure model with standardized path coefficients note. n = 408. in the model, compassion for others was included as a covariate (β = .09 .39; p < .05 for all cases), and the self-compassion factors were allowed to correlate (r = .23–.75; p < .001 for all correlations). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. in turn, well-being was significantly predicted by feeling for the suffering of oneself (β = 0.212, se = 0.069; p = .002), tolerating the uncomfortable feelings aroused in response to the suffering (β = 0.273, se = 0.059; p < .001), and acting or being motivated to act to alleviate suffering (β = 0.190, se = 0.069; p = .006). on the contrary, well-being was not significantly explained by recognizing one’s suffering (β = -0.036, se = 0.047; p = .450) or understanding the universality of suffering (β = 0.007, se = 0.049; p = .883). finally, compassion for others (socs-o) was included as a covariate of the model, and its effect was significant in every variable (β ranging from 0.091 to 0.392; p < .05 in all cases). overall, the associations proposed in the model explained 39% of the variance of well-being and between 10 and 15% of the variance of self-compassion facets. see r-square estimates in figure 1. regarding the mediating effect of self-compassion facets, the path analysis model observed three significant indirect effects mediating the relationship between self-esteem (rse) and well-being (swemwbs): the self-compassion facets of “feeling for the person’s suffering” (β = 0.054, 95% ci [0.011, 0.097]; p = .014), “tolerating uncomfortable feelings” (β = 0.075, 95% ci [0.034, 0.116]; p < .001), and “acting to alleviate suffering” (β = 0.044, 95% ci [0.005, 0.083]; p = navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 385 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ .029). the remaining self-compassion facets, i.e., “recognizing suffering” (β = -0.003, 95% ci [-0.011, 0.005]; p = .430) and “understanding its universality” (β = 0.000, 95% ci [-0.002, 0.002]; p = .877), did not show a significant mediating effect. discussion in line with previous research (bugay-sökmez et al., 2023; holas et al., 2023; marshall et al., 2015; pandey et al., 2021, 2023), our study confirms that self-compassion seems to partially mediate the relationship between self-esteem and well-being and our findings suggest that the affective and behavioral facets of self-compassion — which specifically imply emotionally engaging with suffering and making proactive efforts to cope with it — and not the cognitive ones, are responsible of this association. we used the italian version of the socs, which we validated in our sample prior to conducting the mediation analysis. this adaptation demonstrated optimal psychometric properties and maintained the same factorial structure as the original version (gu et al., 2020) and the spanish adaptation (garcía-campayo et al., 2024). the results of our path analysis indicate that the self-compassion facets “feeling for the person’s suffering”, “tolerating uncomfortable feelings”, and “acting to alleviate that suffering” constitute significant mediators of the relationship between self-esteem and well-being. these affective and behavioral self-compassion facets are integral to most definitions of compassion (dalai lama, 1995; gilbert, 2009; neff, 2003a; pommier, 2010) and require the individual to go beyond mere emotional recognition. specifically, “feeling for the person’s suffering” is closely related to emotional empathy, i.e., emotionally reacting to what the person is feeling (shamay-tsoory, 2011). however, they are not equivalent; while some authors suggest that emotional empathy may precede compassion, others emphasize the distinction between the two constructs, highlighting that compassion involves a caring and supportive attitude toward the person who is suffering, without necessarily vicariously experiencing their distress (bloom, 2017). on its part, “tolerating uncomfortable feelings” involves abilities such as acceptance, mindfulness, and non-judgement, which are key in “third wave” cbt interventions and have consistently proved their value for increasing well-being (millard et al., 2023; o’connor et al., 2018; wilson et al., 2019). finally, “acting to alleviate suffering” underscores the necessity of a behavioral response: being self-compassionate implies acting — or, at least, attempting — to alleviate suffering. our findings suggest that a part of the interaction between self-esteem and well-being is due to the individual’s active efforts to adopt a caring attitude, tolerate discomfort, and try to improve the situation. conversely, the cognitive facets of self-compassion did not significantly influence the relationship between selfesteem and well-being. while “recognizing suffering” and “understanding the universality of suffering” have been included — sometimes implicitly — in various definitions of compassion (dalai lama, 1995; feldman & kuyken, 2011; pommier, 2010), our findings suggest that individuals with high self-esteem do not necessarily need to consciously acknowledge their distress or frame it as part of a shared human experience to enhance their well-being. the facet of “recognizing suffering” could be seen as functionally similar to cognitive empathy — that is, the ability to identify and understand another’s emotional state (goetz et al., 2010; keltner & kogan, 2018) — but, in this context, addressed to oneself. although it is an important component of self-compassion and perhaps a necessary first step, “recognizing suffering” may not be sufficient on its own to serve as a mechanism that promotes well-being in individuals with high self-esteem. similarly, “understanding the universality of suffering” can be seen as a rational exercise aimed at combating feelings of isolation. however, although acknowledging the shared nature of suffering might help individuals feel less alone, it does not appear to directly contribute to the enhancement of well-being through the self-esteem pathway. by understanding these processes, psychological interventions can be designed to specifically target the different facets of self-compassion that prove to be more relevant for fostering well-being. for example, to focus on the affective facets of self-compassion, techniques such as mindfulness meditation could help individuals recognize their emotional responses to suffering and develop a nonjudgemental sense of empathy toward themselves (germer & neff, 2013; keng et al., 2011). on the behavioral side, interventions should include strategies that encourage compassionate action, such as guiding patients to engage in acts of self-care when they are feeling down. furthermore, implementing group self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being 386 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ workshops where participants share their experiences and practice self-compassion exercises can foster a supportive community environment that enhances both affective and behavioral facets of self-compassion. despite the non-significant role of the cognitive facets in our model, it is important not to dismiss their potential relevance in other contexts or populations. previous research has shown that rationally acknowledging suffering as a common human experience is significantly associated with better mental health outcomes, even in samples of students and health professionals (hall et al., 2013; shin & lim, 2019). moreover, the contribution of specific self-compassion facets may vary across cultures (montero-marin et al., 2018); it could be hypothesized that in cultural contexts that emphasize introspection, interdependence, or collectivist identity, the cognitive dimension of recognizing suffering as universal may carry greater emotional resonance and psychological benefit. future cross-cultural studies are warranted to examine whether affective and behavioral components of self-compassion consistently exert stronger links to wellbeing, or whether their impact differs depending on sociocultural values surrounding emotional expression, coping styles, and self-perception. the findings of this study should be considered in light of certain limitations. first, the sample for this study primarily consisted of university students, most of whom were female and enrolled in health-related fields. this sample is likely not representative of the general population, as health professionals — and students in health-related fields — are known to exhibit high levels of self-criticism and low self-valuation (bogerd et al., 2023; legassie et al., 2008), as observed in our sample, with participants scoring relatively low in self-compassion and self-esteem. indeed, the sample was collected using a convenience sampling strategy, which also limits the generalizability of the results. moreover, the homogeneity of the sample in terms of age, gender, and cultural context limits the generalizability of our findings — even within the population of health sciences students. as a result, the relationship between self-esteem, the facets of self-compassion, and well-being should be further examined in more diverse populations that include broader sociodemographic and cultural variability. finally, the translation and adaptation of the socs could have been strengthened by incorporating additional methodological procedures, as recommended in specialized guidelines (e.g., sousa & rojjanasrirat, 2011), such as inter-rater agreement or validation steps. conclusion our findings align with previous research that observed a significant mediating or moderating effect of self-compassion on the relationship between self-esteem and well-being. however, by using the socs and the distinction between cogni­ tive, affective, and behavioral facets of self-compassion, we suggest that these effects may be particularly associated with the affective and behavioral components of self-compassion. our results indicate that a significant part of the well-being experienced by individuals with high self-esteem is due to their tendency to emotionally connect with their own suffering, to tolerate the uncomfortable feelings that may arise in response to that connection, and to take action to alleviate that suffering. the implications of these conclusions extend beyond the conceptualization of self-compassion; our findings can be directly applied to the psychotherapeutic context. funding: università degli studi di milano-bicocca (2021-ate-0004). acknowledgments: apa would like to thank the mental health in primary care research group (giis017) of the instituto de investigación sanitaria aragón for financial support to conduct this project. we are grateful to the ciber of epidemiology and public health (ciberesp cb22/02/00052; isciii) for its support. competing interests: the authors declare that they have no competing interests. ethics statement: this study was approved by the ethics committee of the university of milano-bicocca (no. 707 protocol 0066628/2022) and complied with the declaration of helsinki. data availability: the datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available at pérez-aranda et al. (2025). navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 387 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access data socs italy datasets. pérez-aranda et al. (2025) code code is not available. — material italian and original english versions of the socs-o and of the socs-s. pérez-aranda et al. (2025) goodness-of-fit indices for the italian socs (n = 408). pérez-aranda et al. (2025) descriptive statistics of the socs-o items and standardized factor loadings for the hierarchical five-factor model. pérez-aranda et al. (2025) cronbach’s alpha, mcdonald’s omega, and intraclass correlation coefficients for the socs. pérez-aranda et al. (2025) correlation coefficients among scores on the socs. pérez-aranda et al. (2025) study/analysis preregistration the study was not preregistered. — other syntax cfa and path analysis. pérez-aranda et al. 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(2015). the relationship between self-compassion and well-being: a meta-analysis. applied psychology. health and well-being, 7(3), 340–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12051 about the authors jaime navarrete holds a ciber postdoctoral research position at the teaching, research & innovation unit of parc sanitari sant joan de déu in barcelona, spain. his research focuses on the application of third-wave, cbt-based interventions to a wide range of health conditions in both clinical and non-clinical populations, as well as on the development and assessment of psychometric instruments. corel mateo canedo holds a phd in health psychology and is an adjunct professor at the autonomous university of barcelona. her research focuses on prevention, including the promotion of healthy habits and the study of motivation to achieve health-related goals. adrián pérez-aranda holds a phd in clinical and health psychology and is an assistant professor at the autonomous university of barcelona. his research focuses on the application of third-wave psychotherapies to various health conditions, the development of digital tools for mental health promotion, and the exploration of innovative interventions for complex conditions such as fibromyalgia. dr. selena russo is a health psychologist and a research fellow at the school of medicine and surgery, university of milano-bicocca, italy. her research focuses on promoting health communication and patient-doctor relationships, measuring and enhancing individu­ als’ health literacy, and assessing how the presentation of health information influences respondents’ decision-making and health behaviors. stefano ardenghi is an adjunct professor in clinical psychology at the school of medicine of the university of milano-bicocca. his primary research interests include medical education, empathy, and health psychology. federico zorzi is a research fellow in clinical psychology at the university of cagliari. his primary research interests include emotion regulation and outcome evaluation. giulia rampoldi is an adjunct professor in clinical psychology at the school of medicine of the university of milano-bicocca. her research focuses on medical education, empathy, and health psychology. maria grazia strepparava is a full professor of clinical psychology at the university of milano-bicocca. her leading research interests include cognitive counselling interventions and health psychology. jesús montero-marín holds a phd specializing in psychiatry and a ‘miguel servet’ senior researcher grant at the teaching, research & innovation unit of parc sanitari sant joan de déu in barcelona, spain. he is interested in how mindfulness, compassion, religiosity, physical activity and human sociality may improve psychological well-being and quality of life, which new technologies and psychological interventions could be used in primary care to treat fibromyalgia, burnout, mood disorders and distress, and how to improve the early detection of mental health problems and difficulties among children and adolescents. marco bani is an associate professor of clinical psychology at the university of milano-bicocca. his primary research interests include the mental health of students and health psychology. navarrete, mateo-canedo, pérez-aranda et al. 391 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 378–391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.17201 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.05.004 https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2020.1774524 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-1037-6 https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-esteem, self-compassion, and well-being (introduction) method design and participants procedure instruments data analysis results characteristics of the sample psychometric properties of the italian version of the socs path analysis: self-compassion facets as mediators of the relationship between self-esteem and well-being discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors babies in the corporeal turn: the cognitive embodiment of early motor development and exploration in the brazilian context of early childhood education research reports babies in the corporeal turn: the cognitive embodiment of early motor development and exploration in the brazilian context of early childhood education natália meireles santos da costa 1 , joana de jesus de andrade 2 , aline patrícia campos tolentino de lima 3 [1] department of early childhood education, oslo metropolitan university, oslo, norway. [2] department of chemistry and education, university of são paulo, ribeirão preto, brazil. [3] municipal secretary of education, ribeirão preto, brazil. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 received: 2023-06-08 • accepted: 2023-10-30 • published (vor): 2024-05-29 handling editor: juliene madureira ferreira, tampere university, tampere, finland corresponding author: natália meireles santos da costa, pilestredet 42, office q3020, oslo, norway, 0167. e-mail: nataliam@oslomet.no related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 abstract the corporeal turn in developmental psychology has rekindled interest regarding how early motor development contributes to and enhances cognitive development across the first years of life. by highlighting embodied perceptual-motor engagement with the world, embodied cognitive learning emphasizes the importance of experience and perceptual-motor mechanisms in modulating the development of person-environment systems. the field currently calls for research that combines such conceptual frameworks with the complex everyday material and sociocultural landscapes that resource infants' developmental trajectories. we, therefore, aim to connect the conceptual refinement of bodily-anchored exploration to the contextual reality of everyday settings of early childhood education (ece)—here situated in the brazilian context—as relevant social and cultural suppliers and modulators of the developmental trajectories of babies. secondarily, we ponder on the premises of national pedagogical curricula and their role in mediating the quality of experiences and systems of person-environment relations more closely. cultural-historical psychology, in dialogue with the principles of ecological psychology, constitutes the theoretical framework that underpins the microgenetic analyses conducted. by analyzing episodes of exploratory actions of a focal baby situated in the ece context, we seek to apprehend motor-perceptual indicators of embodied cognitive processing by considering the modes of appropriation entailed in episodes of embodied exploration. we reflect on pedagogical implications considering official national documents of early childhood education. this work contributes by providing complementary insights into the nature of infants' everyday sociocultural embodied experiences and their development in pedagogically oriented settings. keywords babies, early childhood education, exploration, embodiment, cultural-historical we turn our attention to an eight-month-old baby playing on the floor of an early childhood education (ece) center. why is she there? what does she do in that space? which objects does she play with? what is expected of this baby in terms of development and learning? analyzing processes of learning and appropriation entailed by educational environments requires problematizing notions that antagonize the (seemingly) private character of individual cognitive processes to (seemingly) collective material conditions of development. the current state of institutional pedagogical services for infants goes beyond providing a place to stay while families work, as it implicates ensuring the right of the this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12143&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8362-4035 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6161-2209 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6834-7209 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ child to be in that space, to be cared for, to be educated, and to develop. the shared responsibility among educators, the school community, families, and the state converges on the need to be aware of the implications of decisions related to policy, practice, and institutional provision that impact the construction of many childhoods. the distinctiveness of early childhood early childhood is characterized as a period of prolonged motor and neurological immaturity and rapid learning (tamis-lemonda & rodriguez, 2008). due to high brain plasticity, the first three years of life account for the most prominent transformations in neurological development. within this period of prolonged immaturity, survival can only be ensured by the solidarity, care, and social complementarity of the other, which the baby activates via a potent expressive and perceptual apparatus that allows intimate connection with the other and multimodal engagement with the world (almeida, 2014; wallon, 1959). all of this takes place in complex cultural and social environments that are the feeding sources of the development of the so-called higher psychological functions, such as thinking, memory, and language (vygotsky, 1995). such functions cater to the semiotic substance of cultural practices that are propagated across generations within the human realm of the world. the combination of the above-mentioned elements accounts for early human learning and development as a highly complex period. the condition of early immaturity is disputed as a legitimate asset in relation to psychological develop­ ment (pino, 2005). as culture influences, enhances, and integrates itself to biological development (bussab & ribeiro, 1998), this allows the flourishment and transformation of a vast, flexible, and sophisticated repertoire of development and learning that is unparalleled to any other period of human life. contributions from cultural-historical psychology to systemic and ecological thinking across various schools of thought, the field of psychology has long grappled with dualistic divisions of human phenom­ ena, such as the separation of nature and culture, the individual and the environment, and the mind and the body (dennett, 1991; gallagher, 2013; maturana & varela, 2001; vygotsky, 2018; wallon, 1959). the advocacy for overcoming such dichotomy is emphasized throughout the works of lev semionovich vygotsky. the concept of “unity” recurs in various texts (vygotsky, 1984, 2004, 2018) as an important basis for understanding the psyche as an integrated system of functions that interrelates the body, emotions, intellect, and cognition (sawaia & silva, 2015). del río and álvarez (2007) underline that: vygotsky’s work could be considered as a bridge that connects the human organism to its medium, the mind to the body. it rests on the ecological, biofunctionalist and sociogenetic theories of his age, seeking within them the means of breaching the frontiers established by cartesian thought. (p. 282) vygotsky’s appeal to a multidisciplinary study of the human condition (biopsychosocial-cultural) encompasses choices of words that are used to demarcate what is not only a linguistic position but also an epistemological one (meshcheryakov, 2010). terms such as “systems,” “unities,” “complex functions,” “experiences,” and “environment” can be understood as resources that the author employed to concretize/condense/exemplify the materiality of overcom­ ing dichotomies and attending to integrity in the study of human development. seeking to overcome reductionist methods, vygotsky paved pioneering paths for the study of human development during his time and asserted the dialectical alliance between the biological, social, cultural, and historical dimensions of development. building up on cultural-historical premises, in this paper we also engage with contemporary frameworks dedicated to the intricate subject-environment relationship, due to their updated conceptual and empirical refinement regarding early bodily development and environmental apprehension, which we now turn to. the corporeal turn and the role of early motor and perceptual development in the paradigm of embodied cognition more recent scholarly development has underscored the nature of one’s awareness of and relation to the environment in the new light of the so-called corporeal turn (español, 2018). such a paradigm poses that engagement with oneself, others, and the environment can only take place through an embodied subject, which is found nested within a partic­ meireles santos da costa, de jesus de andrade, & campos tolentino de lima 105 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ular enabling organism/environment system (adolph & franchak, 2017; amorim, 2011). as scholars have embraced a systemic comprehension of human development according to ecological and bodily constraints, the unity of the person-environment has been enriched by a greater consideration of both the corporeal dimension and the role of movement in advertising the nature of the psychological engagement of infants with the world (español, 2018; overton, 2008). this has led the status of motor development to be renovated in the field of psychology by adding layers of complexity to the study of motor acquisition (thelen, 1995). inspired by the ecological and body/mind alliance under systemic frameworks, research employing the paradigm of embodied cognition have further examined (berger et al., 2021; thelen, 2000) how interdependent mechanisms across locomotor onset and multiple developmental domains (such as the cognitive, social, emotional, and neurological) are related and affect development (campos et al., 2000). empirical findings have suggested that the process of locomotor acquisition entails a family of experiences that demand, enable, and elevate the use of more complex psychological functions, such as gestural communication, perception of self-motion, strategies of spatial coding and search, among others (campos et al., 2000; mulder et al., 2017). such a synergy between contemporary research and further conceptual elaboration has strengthened the argument that cognition is an embodied phenomenon. being deeply grounded on the body, the integration of motor and sensorial systems modulates the awareness, engagement and learning that one can have with the world (adolph & franchak, 2017; mulder et al., 2017; thelen, 2000). as a result, it is argued that the combination of factors that compose complex psychological processes, found both in distant abstraction and here-and-now cognition, is always intricated in a bodily matrix (berger et al., 2021; del río, 2002; español, 2018; thelen, 2000). this means that cognition caters to a larger range of everyday experiences that require and produce cognitive processing as a process distributed across the body (thelen, 2000) and that the role of perception and action throughout motor development are key modulators in the integration of person/environment dynamics (gibson, 1988; thelen, 1995). a pertinent theoretical framework within this paradigm originates from the scholarly contributions of james gibson and eleanor gibson (gibson, 1966, 1979; gibson, 1988). such a framework suggests that infants are deeply attuned and pursuant to environmental information through embodied mobile exploration that nests itself intimately within the dynamics of their sensorial systems. exploration generates perceptual information related both to their own bodies as well as the environment that is codetermined by materialized action through surveillance and detection of environmental information, which has been conceptualized as the action-perception coupling (adolph & franchak, 2017; gibson, 1966, 1988). under such terms, the conceptual complexity of motor exploration is heightened. according to adolph and franchak (2017), the development of action systems related to facial action (head movement and facial expressions), manual action, posture, and locomotion are highly significant to the psychological and bodily supply that infants are equipped with to perceive, plan and control interactions with their surroundings the dynamic interplay among such factors enriches the perception of opportunities for what children come to learn and do. the perception of the relationality between the organism and the environment according to the gathering and actualization of organism-environment information relates to the concept of affordance (gibson, 1979). affordance refers to the recognition of body/environ­ mental information whereby unique environmental arrangements are perceived as inviting and enabling or prohibiting and disabling to a particular combination of bodily actions that might require adjustments between the organism and the environment, which operate in mutual constitution (gibson, 1979). in this sense, exploration is a vital process for the generation of relevant environmental information for action (adolph & franchak, 2017; gibson, 1988). exploration enables perceptual learning by activating perception-action cycles which disclose affordances and allow thereby the antecipation of requirements and assessment of outcomes of specific action. rationale and aim given the centrality of systems of relations between the individual and the environment, advancing the study of processes of exploration and embodied manifestations of cognitive processing requires social, cultural, and temporal delimitation of the everyday contexts in which early development is rooted. in the everyday of ece, objects are intro­ duced, directly or indirectly to children with pedagogical purpose. learning about and with the materiality of objects babies in the corporeal turn 106 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and physical furnishings implies apprehending embodied ways of acting upon them, the cultural meanings attributed by the cultural group, as well as the potential for action constructed in the intricate relationship between the subject and the object. thus, there is the need to address the cultural inscriptions of ecological humanity embedded in the physical and semiotic mediums of pedagogical materiality (costall, 1995; pedersen & bang, 2016; tomasello, 1999). how do they both invite and are met with children’s attention and action? hence, the social genesis of development, the symbolic materiality of technical and semiotic tools, and the inseparability between the subject and the environment serve as paradigms for understanding learning through mastering one's own conduct as a form of subjective constitution (vygotsky, 2018). therefore, by combining and applying both frameworks of cultural-historical psychology and embodied cognition, this paper aims to investigate how processes of exploration entail indicators of motor-perceptual development and how such process integrates itself into how the baby experiences their bodily engagement with the contextual materiality of ece. we recognize children's movement within their environment as the unit of experience of both lived and produced relations with others and objects. the research reported in this paper is situated in the brazilian context. we start by briefly presenting current brazilian educational policies (national curricular guidelines for early childhood education—dcnei and the common national curricular base for early childhood education—bncc-ei). we then proceed to microgenetic analysis of processual change of the motor development and exploration of a baby according to her ways of apprehending and relating to the materiality of the ece environment. we finalize by discussing the role of the pedagogical orientation of conditions for the care and education within ece across the first years of life (amorim & rossetti-ferreira, 1999; gobbato & barbosa, 2017). method the brazilian context of ece acknowledged as a right of the child, an obligation of the state and an option of families, the segment of early childhood education in brazil (brasil, 1996, 1998) covers the age group from 0 to 5 years of age. having interaction and play as its structuring axes, pedagogical practice promotes education and care as inseparable dimensions embedded in the everyday moments of pedagogically oriented environments. among changes in contemporary regulatory documents and policies of ece that have impacted the work with the youngest children, we highlight the homologation of the “national curricular guidelines for early childhood education” (dcnei) (brasil, 2010) and its incorporation into the national common curricular base (bncc) (brasil, 2018). these curricular guidelines entail a pedagogical orientation focused not on learning outcomes but, instead, on the recognition of pertinent enabling competences associated with early development. as a proposal for curricular organization, the advancement of skills and abilities is posited as inherent rights within the realms of learning and development (barbosa & fernandes, 2020). according to these documents (brasil, 2010, 2018) learning rights refer to the possibilities for children and their others to live together, play, participate, explore, express, interact and learn from each other. such rights are made possible through the organization of so-called fields of experience, namely “the i, the other and us”; “body, gestures and movements”; “strokes, sounds, colors, and shapes”; “listening, speaking, thinking and imagining”; and “spaces, times, quantities, relationships and transformations”. the fields of experience resort to the pedagogical responsibility of educators providing and promoting enriched opportunities for babies to engage with multiple languages, ways of knowing and everyday practices. exploration is outlined as a right of learning and development of the baby and “body, gesture and movement” composes one category of the fields of experiences that educators must attend to (brasil, 2018). this perspective opens up interesting possibilities for the interpretation of the daycare experience, prompting us to consider what occurs in babies’ developing bodies and how this affects their engagement with objects, routines and environments within these spaces. therefore, having described underlying premises of the ece context in brazilian, we now turn to our theoreticalmethodological framework. meireles santos da costa, de jesus de andrade, & campos tolentino de lima 107 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ theoretical-methodological framework the theoretical-methodological conception of this investigation is based on historical and dialectical materialism, which also supports cultural-historical psychology. this assumption asserts that the object of study is not predetermined and defined a priori; instead, both the object and the methodology are constructed dynamically throughout the research process (vygotsky, 1995). as vygotsky (1995) states, the study should not “start from the object and move to its parts, but from the process to its isolated moments” (vygotsky, 1995, p. 66). therefore, the conversion should be from the “object to process,” which involves the study of the movement of ideas, the historical and cultural conditions, and the potentialities and limitations of subjective interpretation. in analyzing pedagogical and social stances, the general genetic law of cultural development (vygotsky, 1995) may or may not be realized. this law states that higher psychological functions always emerge twice: first in the collective plane of social relations (called interpsychic) and then in the individual plane (called intrapsychic) (vygotsky, 1995, 2018). in the “unit” of an experience in educational institutions, we can identify how toys/objects, spaces, and social relationships mutually contribute to the possibility or lack thereof of cognitive development, i.e., the development of attention, perception, memory, language, logical reasoning, imagination, and affection. it is considered a premise that the environment influences a child's development in different ways at different stages of life, and at the same time, the child modifies themselves, changing their subjective constitution and, therefore, changing their relationship with the environment (vygotsky, 2018). hence, the research methodology outlined here considers the context formed by policies that ensure the possibility of pedagogical practices. the choice of this methodological approach aligns with what álvarez (1994) previously men­ tioned when stating that historically, research has focused on microanalyses and dyadic interactions while neglecting broader aspects that constitute the entire relationship. as a result, “the relevance both of the global systems and the historical changes in these systems for the study of psychological processes have been neglected, and consequently, a methodology accounting for this relevance has been ignored” (álvarez, 1994, p. 29). therefore, according to del río and colleagues (del río & álvarez, 2007; del río et al., 2022), the analytical proposal considers both micro-events (focused on meaningful gestures in interaction) and macro-events (focused on objects and social practices). empirical material and context we present three episodes of exploration involving a focal case study of an initially 8-month-old baby whom we refer to as sofia. the episodes are part of a doctoral research conducted by the first author of this paper (costa, 2021) which resorts to episodes originated from video recordings of the project's database (costa, 2021). the research was approved by a local research ethics committee in brazil (caae1 68655317.9.0000.5407) and had the parents' authorization for image display for academic purposes. the ece center in question was located in a medium-sized city in brazil. the temporal selection for this paper pertains to changes observed over the course of one month, capturing the transition from assisted sitting to initial autonomous crawling. procedure of analysis the episodes of exploration were analyzed based on the cultural historical principles of microgenesis (lavelli et al., 2005; moreno-núñez et al., 2017; wertsch, 1985), which is an interpretation aimed at understanding the processes of appropriation considering the novelty, and the potential of experience and the dialectics of development (vygotsky, 2018). microgenesis entails a thematic selection of the phenomenon of interest and detailed monitoring of the minutiae of the actions of the focal subjects across the temporal course of transformation and development of the events (góes, 2000; rossetti-ferreira et al., 2008). it recomposes a micro-story of the developmental trajectory by pondering the condi­ tions in which the transformations take place. focus is given to the interdependence and synergy among contextual conditions, interactions, modes of expression, and different actions taking place across the connection of different temporal events as something that relates to wider spheres of semiotic, cultural, and historical dimensions (góes, 1) certificates of ethical appraisal submission babies in the corporeal turn 108 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2000; rossetti-ferreira et al., 2008). taking the individual and the environment as an inseparable unity, the experience apprehended in microgenetic analysis integrates action-cognition-emotion processes and manifests the refraction of the person-environment unity through the particularities of the situation being experienced (del río et al., 2022; vygotsky, 1995, 2018). in terms of refining this interpretation, the challenge of identifying how this process of understanding or learning occurs in infants still requires the study of the biopsychosocial mechanisms involved. the thematic selection of episodes (rossetti-ferreira et al., 2008) has employed the concepts of exploration (gibson, 1988) and affordances (gibson, 1979) viewed in situations of potential motor challenges for the baby. exploration was defined as the motor-perceptual investment, particularly made visible through the use of visual and haptic strategies (adolph et al., 2019), engendered in situations in which the baby displayed a differential investment towards an apparent challenge or focus of interest. affordances were hinted in the analytical work by apparently prominent percep­ tion-action couplings that entailed interrelated adjustment of the action of the baby in face of the motor challenge. the orchestration of both exploration and affordances are here assumed as indicators of manifestations of embodied cognition (thelen, 2000). such concepts help us elucidate how the baby perceives the environment (sounds, textures, weights, contours, etc.) while simultaneously creating meanings about themselves within that environment. hence, the analysis also draws attention to the inevitably implicated process of subjective constitution. we shall now turn to the presentation of the empirical material. the three microgenetic episodes are presented in chronological order and articulated in discussion with pertaining issues of the frameworks of cultural historical psychol­ ogy and embodied cognition. following the episodes, considerations are made regarding implications for pedagogical practice. findings and discussion the microgenetic process of the focal baby starts at the sitting posture. the postural base provides an axial organization for motor action (adolph & franchak, 2017). it is essential for aligning the head and trunk and affects how babies distribute their body weight and liberate their extremities while moving or looking around (adolph et al., 2019). as infants learn to explore upright postures, like sitting and standing, one of their primary challenges is mastering balance over a smaller physical base (adolph & franchak, 2017). in one episode titled “to grab or let go of the ball” (figure 1), we see an eight-month-old baby, sofia, when she was becoming more experienced in sitting without back support. such a posture was found to have been a preferential form of positioning by the different teachers in this center. the stimulation of upright posture can be attributed to cultural and socially negotiated meanings of corporeal practices proposed by traditions of education that strive to legitimize development-promoting practices in ece. in dialectical tension, new cultural propositions confronting usual perceptual-sensory circuits, motor tonicity, and means of mobility previously experienced by the baby here produce the zone of instability and potential of transformation that constitutes the exploratory challenge (amorim, 2011; wallon, 1959). figure 1 illustration of the episode “to grab or let go of the ball” note. source: costa (2021). meireles santos da costa, de jesus de andrade, & campos tolentino de lima 109 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as a “novice seater”, in sofia’s experience, reaching for distal moving objects while seated was significantly challenging. she experienced restricted amplitude of back-and-forth trunk inclination, struggled with reinstating balance when changing her gravitational center. in this episode, her exploration was visible through the sustained gaze focus accom­ panied by slowly raising up both arms, and the stretching out both legs while inclining the trunk forward. such exploration was deeply attuned to incidental movements of the ball. however, despite sofia’s prolonged interest and exploratory investment, the environmental and bodily challenges were too much to overcome as the ball rolled far ahead. the whole situation seemed to enable perceptual assessment that struggles with trunk inclination and unstable balance did not afford sufficient bodily extension for reaching the now distant ball. such a perception of (lack of) affordances seemed to lead to an abandonment of the prior exploratory investment: sofia leaned back in straight sitting, looked around, and went on to manipulating her own pacifier, the only object at immediate reach. the paradigm of embodied cognition proposes that across the development of new motor skills, the baby needs to constantly deal with trade-offs between attention and behavior according to tasks or perceptual information that prevails across the perception-action couplings (adolph & franchak, 2017; berger et al., 2021). high investment in adjusting restrictions to balance and postural control at the cost of the pace of exploration, as described in the episode, is an example of these prepotent trade-offs (berger et al., 2021). such dynamics are suggested to impose an embodied cognitive load that requires the baby to actively canalize more persistent and specialized adjustments of their actions implicated with the exploratory challenge (berger et al., 2021). however, it is not always the case that the baby is successful. in fact, errors, struggles and conflicting situations are productive virtues of the process (adolph & tamislemonda, 2014). as the baby has the opportunity to resort to new attempts across events that reinstate themselves daily, the baby becomes more experienced and skilled by learning to regulate oneself and master the prepotent task. (berger et al., 2021). when this happens, the baby is then able to re-allocate attentional and bodily resources to other sources of learning (berger et al., 2021). we can observe such a description “in action” in a similar experience taking place a month later. in the episode “pull to move” (figure 2), sofia tackled the challenge of reaching yet another distal object, an occupied baby (car) seat. the equipment was stabilized on the ground due to the weight of another baby inside. sofia had now developed more control, strength, and stability over the back-and-forth trunk plunging and initiated transitioning to seated crawling (adolph, 2008). in the scene, the focal baby explored the borders of the seat via focal and distal visual alternation resourced by back-and-forth trunk inclination. when temporarily approaching the seat in deep plunging, sofia was able to visualize a swaddling quilt placed underneath the other baby hanging over the edges of the car seat. such an orchestration of her own bodily capacities in relation to the stable support entailed by this rather unconventional set-up afforded the quilt to function as a sort of “rope”. in the wake of this creative affordance, sofia grabbed the blanket and, by gradual approximation, skillfully pulled herself closer to the car seat until she was close enough to caress the little head of its patient occupant. figure 2 illustration of the episode “pull to move” note. source: costa (2021). this time, sofia employed greater persistence towards reaching a target. she explored more creatively both her own locomotor resources as well as intermediate sources of support. such new forms of motor action can enable features babies in the corporeal turn 110 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceived both in the baby’s bodily matrix and the spatial set-up that come in intricate connection across an exploratory flow that engenders cognitive skills such as active attentional focus, means-end problem solving, spatial locations and tool use (adolph & franchak, 2017; campos et al., 2000). in light of the historical construction of the microgenetic process, picking up on elements of structure, significance and dynamicity of the context helps us understand that such change is meaningful to sofia’s development (amorim, 2011; del río, 2002). the focal baby experiences a differentiated possibility to explore the space. she makes use of her own perceptual-motor capacities and embodies roles and itineraries of action that open up new possibilities of skills and affordances. experiencing one’s own body and physical elements of the space with greater dexterity enhances pervasively the exploratory flow and transforms dialectically the relationship within the body/environment system that social and culturally feed and (re)signifies developmental trajectories. this renders the exploratory process a new lease of life, which we also see in the episode “take and turn the wagon”, taking place on the same day (figure 3). after displaying conspicuous visual focus and bodily projection (pedrosa & carvalho, 2005) towards a wagon toy, sofia approached it via active locomotion (seated crawling). when in possession of the toy, the baby explored multiple affordances in relation to the wagon in skillful and diversified ways. she tumbled the object over, hit the wheels, causing it to spin repeatedly, reached inside, taps the lateral border rhythmically, lifted it up with her feet, and held it up with both arms while rotating her whole body. actions such as object rotation, high variability of hand (and feet) movement and orientation to functional features (e.g., spinning the wheel) and use of whole-body exploration are indicators of a more complex apprehension and engagement with the world. following this prolonged bout of exploration with this single object, she put the wagon down and changed her attentional focus. henceforth, in contrast to what we have observed initially, the exploration came full circle as sofia was able to take initiative regarding the selection, start, development and conclusion of this exploratory episode showing greater appropriation of her actions in relation to her foci of interest. figure 3 illustration of the episode “take and turn the wagon” note. source: costa (2021). as depicted in our findings and posited by cultural-historical psychology, the role, and the meaning of the environment vary according to the nature of the relation established between interacting factors at a given moment of their develop­ ment (pino, 2010; vygotsky, 2018). the constitution of such relative parameters of development regards the historical process through which human semiotic heritage becomes significant to culture, and culture becomes significant to the child by means of the mediation of cultural processes (pino, 2010; rossetti-ferreira et al., 2009; vygotsky, 2018). mediated action entails the introduction of cultural tools that provoke tensions between sociocultural provision and the concreteness of unique events that function in mutual interdependence which dialectically transform apprehension of culturally relevant bodily/environmental information that supply the formation higher psychological functions (del río, 2002; valsiner, 1997; wertsch, 1994). overcoming the immediacy of the senses, mediated action can perpetrate even basic motor-perceptual mechanisms that are gradually complexified. mediational means furnish the semiotic texture of person/environment systems of meireles santos da costa, de jesus de andrade, & campos tolentino de lima 111 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ development conveyed by cultural, interactive, and instrumental resources that substantiate children’s recurrent en­ counters with the world and the ontogeny of higher psychological functions (del río, 2002). as both a functional and phenomenological embodied materialization of such process (amorim, 2011), the subtle transformation of motor action hints at trails of prior itineraries of internalization that have led to the construction of bodily mastery (re)composing what can be metaphorically described as “motor biographies” of cognitive processing. (del río, 2002; wallon, 1968). hence, recapitulating the history of sofia’s developmental trajectory of exploration on account of embodied cogni­ tion, the episodes depict the focal baby developing a different relation with the exploratory phenomenon itself, that is, anchored at a state of body/environment dynamic unity that affords greater mastery in taking the initiative and diver­ sifying actions creatively. throughout this microgenetic process, we see how exploration is processual and gradually integrated to greater body control, sharper perceptiveness, and unconventional action with objects. this dialectically engenders a transformed relation of the baby with the phenomenon of embodied exploration—here exemplified via nuances of trunk inclination, reaching and manual manipulation—as a developmental trajectory that has transitioned from hindered capacity to inaugurated possibilities of expanded motor-perceptual ways of being and acting in/with the world. based on the discussions presented so far, we draw to a close of this paper by suggesting pedagogical implications according to the premise of the fields of experience and the rights of learning and development. final considerations early childhood education has undisputed historical importance in bolstering within the societal realm the notion that children, and even babies, are historical, competent, and active subjects. even seemingly small exploratory episodes of babies in safeguarded educational settings represent the concretization of sociohistorical transformations (campos et al., 2001; kuhlmann, 2015). children are now conceived as persons deserving of rights, care, education and socialization in spaces of pedagogical quality ensured by political commitment (brasil, 2010; rossetti-ferreira et al., 2009). yet, babies are still much less visible in policy, professional development, and practice, thus urging the pedagogical work to meet the need of tailoring spaces, curricula, and educational guidance accordingly (gobbato & barbosa, 2017). to effectively support babies' exploration, intentional pedagogical planning must be considerate of their diverse and complex manifestations of ways of learning and being in the world. these develop through the diversification of afforded actions, materials and physical spaces implicated in the pedagogical provision of time-spaces across the institutional every day that enrich constitutive processes of subjectivity and body awareness of the baby, both of oneself and others. the findings indicate the variability, flexibility and originality of creative solutions and exploratory investment that babies engage themselves so avidly with. according to the processes hereby discussed, voluntary motor-perceptual attention emerges as higher psychological functions through mediational means encapsulated in the dialectics of embodied relations between the person and environment (amorim, 2011; del río, 2002; vygotsky, 2018; wertsch, 1994). therefore, the access to more complex forms of cognitive functioning requires articulation between the values and heritage of culture (brasil, 2018), also carved into the materiality of toys, artifacts, objects that are made available according to the regulating direction derived from official documents and policy. pedagogical intentionality provides thereof attentional direction to the meaning and the functions of objects, things, practices, and interactive arrangements as means of enlarging cultural references of the child. it also affects children’s apprehension of their ways of knowing according to discovered interests, preferences, and curiosity about themselves and others (oliveira et al., 2020). henceforth, the environment of exploration is materialized through the curative work of pedagogical intentionality coupled with how teachers, spaces, objects, and interactive practices allow (or not) certain forms of bodily engagement. such mediational means act as transformative forces in the amplitude of experiences (wertsch, 1994) that later converge to “... the development of thought and generalization” in the child (vygotsky, 2018, p. 83). in this sense, we posit that the curricular matrix of ece operates as an important consolidator of the cultural environment that pertains to the integral development of the child, even pertaining to perceptual-motor exploratory processes of embodied cognitive learning. babies in the corporeal turn 112 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the study reported was funded by the são paulo research foundation (fapesp), grant 2016/24466-7. acknowledgments: we acknowledge and express our sincere appreciation to the participants of the study. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: natália meireles santos da costa—idea, conceptualization | data management (storage, curation, processing, etc.) | data analysis | funding to conduct the work | design planning | writing | feedback, revisions. joana de jesus de andrade—idea, conceptualization | data analysis | writing | feedback, revisions. aline patrícia campos tolentino de lima—idea, conceptualization | data analysis | writing | feedback, revisions. ethics statement: the research reported complies with the due ethical precepts according to brazilian regulations (brasil, 2012, 2016) and was approved by a research ethics committee in brazil (caae 68655317.9.0000.5407). human participants involved with the parental consent for children. participants and/or guardians also authorized the image display for academic presentation and publication. data availability: the original dataset from the study (video recordings, interview transcripts and observation forms) has not received authorization from participants to be publicly shared. a more detailed account of the analytical script of the study is available in portuguese in the doctoral thesis of the corresponding author at https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/59/59141/tde-21022022-115541/publico/tese_natalia_costa_versao_corrigida.pdf references adolph, k. e. 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(1994). the primacy of mediated action in sociocultural studies. mind, culture, and activity, 1(4), 202–208. about the authors natália costa obtained a phd in psychology by the university of são paulo, ribeirão preto campus, brazil. she is a lecturer and researcher at the oslo metropolitan university in the department of early childhood education. joana andrade obtained a phd and a post-doctorate in education from the state university of campinas (unicamp). she is a lecturer at the university of são paulo (usp), ribeirão preto campus, brazil, and the coordinator of the research group in neurosciences and education neuedu. aline tolentino obtained a phd in education by the university of são paulo, ribeirão preto campus, brazil. she is a lecturer at the university college of barão de mauá and a pedagogical coordinator in the early childhood education sector at department of education of the municipality of ribeirão preto, brazil. meireles santos da costa, de jesus de andrade, & campos tolentino de lima 115 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 104–115 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12143 https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354316669021 https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-79722005000300018 https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-65642010000400006 https://doi.org/10.1590/s0103-65642009000300008 https://doi.org/10.1590/s0100-15742008000100007 https://doi.org/10.1590/cc0101-32622015v35especial154115 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.50.2.79 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327078in0101_02 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410604507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ babies in the corporeal turn (introduction) the distinctiveness of early childhood contributions from cultural-historical psychology to systemic and ecological thinking the corporeal turn and the role of early motor and perceptual development in the paradigm of embodied cognition rationale and aim method the brazilian context of ece theoretical-methodological framework empirical material and context procedure of analysis findings and discussion final considerations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability references about the authors a thematic analysis of students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying in uk higher education research reports a thematic analysis of students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying in uk higher education emma d. harrison 1, julie a. hulme 2, claire l. fox 3 [1] psychology department, glyndwr university, wrexham, united kingdom. [2] school of psychology, keele university, staffordshire, united kingdom. [3] school of education, manchester metropolitan university, manchester, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 received: 2020-05-06 • accepted: 2020-11-10 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: emma d. harrison, glyndwr university, plas coch campus, mold road, wrexham, ll11 2aw, united kingdom. e-mail: edharrison0104@gmail.com abstract bullying in higher education (he) has been relatively under-researched; despite its likely prevalence and impact on student wellbeing there is scant understanding of students’ lived experiences of bullying. we conducted online and physical focus groups with uk he students (40 undergraduates from 17 uk universities, mean age: 22), exploring their perceptions and experiences of bullying at university. thematic analysis was used to identify key issues, specifically 1) the importance of a power imbalance and perpetuation of existing systemic inequality in a he context; 2) bullying in he is motivated by attainment of social and personal gains; 3) the tactics used to bully in he resemble those seen in other contexts, but may be more nuanced; 4) bullying can be minimised and justified within he, leading to its continued prevalence. we conclude that he bullying shares features in common with school and workplace bullying, and with sexual harassment. however, further research is needed to accurately define and conceptualise bullying in this unique context. he providers should consider attending to issues of power and inequality within their bullying and harassment policies. they should also ensure there is clear information and guidance to prevent and reduce bullying in universities. keywords bullying, students, higher education, thematic analysis, focus groups, qualitative research into student bullying in higher education (he) has been largely neglected in comparison to bullying in schools, despite growing concerns about student mental health (the insight network, 2019). there have been investiga­ tions and interventions dedicated to gender-based violence on university campuses (e.g., fenton & mott, 2018), but little on bullying behaviour. students at university are known to experience bullying (chapell et al., 2006) and bullying across the lifespan is known to be psychologically damaging (boulton, 2012). however, the lack of research into bullying in he means that it is not well understood, and no clear definition has been proposed for university students. school research has defined bullying as a systematic abuse of power where intentionally aggressive behaviour is repeated against a target who cannot defend themselves (smith, 2004). in the workplace, acas (2014, p. 1) suggests that: “bullying may be characterised as offensive, intimidation, malicious or insulting, behaviour; an abuse or misuse of power through means that undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the recipient.” alternatively, volk, dane, and marini (2014, p. 328) suggest that bullying is “aggressive, goal-directed behaviour that harms another individual within the context of a power imbalance.” their addition of “goal-directed” attends to motives other than solely the intent to harm that may drive the bullying. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3669&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ these definitions differ in terms of whether behaviour should be repeated in order to be defined as bullying (acas, 2014; volk et al., 2014), and whether the ability to self-defend is prescribed (acas, 2014). these differences may reflect different perceptions of children and adults; perhaps adults are appraised as better able to defend themselves than children. however, this developmental interpretation may be inappropriate, as adults may also be unable to do so. for example, individuals bullied in childhood may be bullied into adulthood (adams & laurence, 2011; brendgen & poulin, 2018), and learned thinking patterns may persist (fivush, 2006) leaving an adult victim vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. likewise, an employee may risk losing their job if they complain about bullying from management. as such, a perceived power imbalance may be more appropriate in definitions for adult-context bullying. power differences in adulthood are not always visible and may relate to structural hierarchies as well as personal perceptions and social constructs (prilleltensky, 2008). currently, there is a lack of understanding of power dynamics for students within the organisational context of he. most university students are in emerging adulthood (ea), possessing characteristics of adolescents and adults (arnett, 2015), and so it is not clear whether childhood or adult models of bullying are more appropriate. emerging adult students exist within the organisational structures and social contexts of a university, which offers a different ecological system (bronfenbrenner, 1979) from the school or workplace. they also tend to be clustered around the 18 to 25 age range, and may experience similar levels of bullying to school children, but more bullying than older adults (e.g., ševčíková & šmahel, 2009). this combination of individual and contextual differences between the university student population, children at school, and adults in the workplace may impact the way students and university staff define, classify, and perpetrate bullying. for example, at university there may be more vertical bullying compared to school, where lecturers may abuse their power. it is therefore important to gain a deeper understanding of bullying in he that accurately represents students’ experiences to inform future research and policy development, and to facilitate interventions to prevent and manage bullying behaviour within he. aim the current study aimed to build upon the growing student bullying literature by gathering evidence of students’ under­ standing of bullying at university. students are often asked to report their childhood bullying experiences (espelage, hong, & mebane, 2016; schäfer et al., 2004), but few studies have asked about their current experiences within the university setting. those that have surveyed students about bullying tend to use small samples and are from the us (e.g., young-jones, fursa, byrket, & sly, 2015), turkey (e.g., doğruer & yaratan, 2014), or ask a slightly younger population than university students (byrne, dooley, fitzgerald, & dolphin, 2016). some have adopted a qualitative approach, such as crosslin and golman (2014), and brewer, cave, massey, vurdelja, and freeman (2014), who used focus groups to question us students, but they both limited their interest to cyberbullying only. all studies uncovered conflicting findings in reference to the terms “bullying” and “cyberbullying.” as claimed by myers and cowie (2017), in addition to ambiguity around the term “bullying,” student beliefs about bullying in he need exploring further as many are unaware of the seriousness of it. the study therefore adopted a qualitative approach to explore students’ perceptions of styles, frequencies, and the intensity of bullying in he. examining students’ experiences is critical to understand the nuanced ways in which bullying may differ within he in comparison to schools, workplaces, and other contexts; qualitative methods allowed students to share their own understandings, without influence from the researcher. an inductive approach was necessa­ ry to ensure that the research was genuinely student-led, mindful of student culture (which may differ from that of the researcher; bronfenbrenner, 1979), and inclusive of experiences of bullying that were not predicted within the literature. a better understanding of bullying within this context could inform more valid measures for use within quantitative studies and inform policies and practice to tackle bullying more effectively within he. students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 54 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants after gaining ethical approval from the school of psychology ethics committee, 40 undergraduates from 17 uk univer­ sities (16 publicly funded, one independent) participated in focus groups. thirty-four students comprised four online focus groups from english and scottish universities, and six students attended a physical focus group at a campus-based pre-92 university. they were recruited via posters published on campus and on social media. participants were aged between 18 and 30 years (m = 22, sd = 2.8), and 28 were female, 10 male, and two undisclosed. reported ethnicities were as follows: 14 white, 10 asian, two european, two african, two caribbean, and two mixed ethnicities. they studied a range of disciplines, all students were single, and all but one was full-time. individuals in all groups shared student status but were otherwise of mixed demographic composition (as recommended by hollander, 2004). materials and procedure focus groups are recommended for exploratory research and examining unknown contexts (frey & fontana, 1993), and can generate many ideas with only a small number of groups (morgan, 1997). a semi-structured focus group schedule was created to capture broad views, with open-ended questions such as, “how would you define bullying?.” for the on-campus group, those who emailed their interest were sent an information sheet and they then signed up if they wanted. the group convened in a booked library study room, where a consent and demographic form were completed. after introducing the study and reiterating ethical considerations (including noting the presence of an audio recorder and note taker), we proceeded through the schedule of questions. participants received a gift voucher for their participation. for the online focus groups, students expressed interest by email and were provided with the information sheet, consent form, and demographic form (completed before being linked to the focus group platform). on entering the online group (maximum of 10 participants), participants answered the same interview schedule questions as used with the face-to-face group. they were able to respond to others’ replies and to the moderator, and to add extra comments later. once all the questions had been answered, participants were reminded to complete their responses prior to the imminent closure of the group. following participation, participants were debriefed and invited to claim an electronic gift voucher. this process was repeated for four online groups. analysis thematic analysis was chosen to analyse the data as it is flexible, accessible, and not aligned to one theoretical framework (braun & clarke, 2013). a middle-ground approach was adopted between essentialist theory and a social constructivist analysis; analysis was primarily data-led, but influenced by our knowledge of existing literature, theories, and definitions from other contexts, as well as our experience of he and personal understandings of bullying. recognis­ ing our subjectivity and our generational perspectives (bronfenbrenner, 1979) was important within the analysis, and valid interpretations were managed throughout by checking across members of the research team. the first author familiarised herself with the data through repeated listening to the audio recording and multiple readings of the online group data. she then verbatim transcribed the audio data and copied the online data into document format, annotating the data with reflections in the margins. codes (units of meaning) were then generated line-by-line for all data. following coding, codes were then grouped together under broader umbrella themes. similari­ ties were noted between verbal, physical, psychological, and cyber bullying from the school literature. the codes were checked for credibility by the second and third authors, who also identified some connections between the data and the relationship abuse literature. harrison, hulme, & fox 55 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results the themes and subthemes can be seen in table 1. the first theme identified was that bullying involves a power imbalance between social groups. next, the data were interpreted to suggest that perpetrators bully for either social or personal gain. thirdly, students reported some common bullying tactics. the final theme suggested that bullying is maintained by inaction and the justification of bystanders. note that quotes are verbatim but corrected for spelling to aid clarity. table 1 main themes and subthemes identified from the focus groups main theme subtheme power imbalance social groups status and reputation in the social hierarchy objective of bullying intentional and goal-directed for social gain intentional and goal-directed for personal gain methods of bullying and tactics used sexual harassment active exclusion and isolating online/cyber controlling and mind games verbal and jokes justification and minimisation for involvement in bullying bystander intervention power imbalance social groups students reported that bullying happens between groups or where groups attack an individual: “social groups will pick on an individual who they think is 'less intelligent' than the rest and make that person the butt of most of their jokes” (online focus group 3 participant 4; ofg3.4). individuals within certain demographic groups may also bully, sometimes based on group-level differences like ethnicity and class: “i think bullying comes mainly from majority groups towards minority groups in higher education. for example, from those from private education/more privileged backgrounds towards those from less well educated/less privileged backgrounds” (ofg1.9). likewise: “yeah, have seen students of different races in an argument in the library because of a derogatory term being used from one party to the other” (ofg1.7) and “…but same goes with verbal, which can occur because of someone's ethnicity or race, even sexual orientation” (ofg3.6). those who are in a majority or privileged group seem to have more power than those in minority or less privileged groups, which could be advantageous in many ways: “… and confident people tend to come from good socioeconomic backgrounds and have support” (ofg4.3). the power may be so ingrained that those who are bullying do not realise they are doing it: “i would say verbal bullying mainly includes racism and discrimination in lgbt group. sometimes people probably won’t even notice what they do to others is actually bullying” (ofg3.8). in general, there was agreement that minoritized groups were more likely to be bullied: “…but perhaps those bullied are often minorities or have been unfairly and inappropriately portrayed in a negative light from other sources” (ofg2.5). it may be that those who bully do not recognise their privileged positions or understand the effects of their actions. individual status and reputation in the social hierarchy individual power may also come from position in a social hierarchy. students agreed that teachers and lecturers can bully students, abusing their higher position in the classroom and authority over the students. one person said: “teachers could also be included in the bullying, when they take part in humiliating a person or picking on them constantly in class or talking aloud when making comments about a student's work, conduct, activities or indeed students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 56 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appearance” (ofg3.3). this could bolster a teacher’s existing power whilst lowering the target’s power and reputation publicly. some students claimed an equal relationship with staff at university, although others disagreed, feeling that lecturers had more power than students: so i know a friend, so she feels like she’s been bullied by a lecturer [moderator: ok], so i feel like that’s different than at school when you wouldn’t really consider it to be bullying by a teacher [moderator: no] cause you’re kinda more equal here (physical focus group, participant 5; pfg.5). this implies that students have expectations of lecturer behaviour based on the lecturer’s authoritative role. as well as job role, there are other personal characteristics that perpetrators shared that granted relative power and reputation. for example, attractiveness was mentioned: “they are people who appear outwardly confident and they're usually stylish, attractive and have an entourage” (ofg1.4), and confidence: “often more confident individuals are the perpetrators, especially if they have settled in quite quickly and easily” (ofg4.2). having a sociable personality increased the likelihood of popularity, which in turn linked with confidence: “a person who is a social butterfly will have less chance of getting bullied because they appear more confident” (ofg2.3) and: “it’s always the one doing the bullying who is ‘popular’ and they rally support from unconfident people who they allow into their group” (ofg1.4). these characteristics were thought to be associated with status and perpetration. perpetrators may attempt to damage social status and reputation, which can be important factors in students’ lives: “the bully manipulates the victim’s social status by spreading rumors or ostracizing the victim from his or her peers” (ofg2.1). by lowering another’s social status, their own may increase: “…they want to look the ‘big man’ and show off” (ofg3.3). acquiring more power may be a motive for bullying as the power will increase their social status: “when they have power over someone else it gives them a superficial sense of authority” (ofg1.4). objective of bullying intentional and goal-directed for social gain participant discussion suggested that bullying is intentional and goal-directed, with some occasional conversation about being hurt unintentionally through ignorance. bullying is perceived as social and thus socially motivated: “people like the validation of others and joking around, teasing and singling somebody out is an easy way of bonding with others at the expense of the one they are making fun of” (ofg3.5). students may join in with bullying to bond and fit in or avoid becoming the next target: “wanting to fit in with other students—if the bully knows others feel the same way about the target, it may be a way to bond” (ofg4.2), and: “though if one person starts something, other people may join in” (ofg1.6). intentional and goal-directed for personal gain bullying may also be linked to personal gain, especially in one-to-one situations: “it is a complex issue of which perpetrators bully people for their own gain for different reasons. it could be a number of things—their own weaknesses, attention, jealousy, dislike to the victim” (ofg2.9). if a student feels weak, bullying another may bolster their own self-esteem and feelings of power and self-efficacy. perpetrators may desire agency and control over others: “yes, once you respond it just fuels the bullies’ desire to gain total control over you” (ofg1.7), and: “you have people who get a sense of power from limiting others from joining in” (ofg1.4). instead of, or alongside, a social goal, the purpose may be to control the environment and the people within it to make themselves feel better. perpetrators may attempt to assuage their insecurity by attempting to become superior: “it's intrinsic for humans to want to be superior (especially those people who are actually secretly insecure inside)” (ofg1.7). methods and tactics of bullying the third theme shows how most students had ideas about how bullying is perpetrated at university (even if they claimed not to have witnessed it), which suggests a shared social representation based on beliefs. harrison, hulme, & fox 57 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual harassment in three of the focus groups sexual harassment was commonly discussed as being a problem, with many experiencing it themselves or knowing others who had: “aggression directed at female students / sexual harassment (i.e., groping, making unwanted sexual remarks)” (ofg1.3). many thought this was harmful: “there is sexual harassment, which appears a lot more subtle from outside but i think if you’re a young woman who gets that sort of overt interest it can be quite uncomfortable” (ofg1.4). most thought it regularly happened to women, but one student noted men can experience it too: it does happen the other way round, but i feel that it isn't as prevalent. this isn't a reason to ignore it. i'd say 90% of my female friends have experience of men in clubs groping them, and maybe 40–50% of my male friends. when it gets more sinister like following you home, forcing themselves on you, or pulling your skirt up/top down, i find that men haven't had to deal with this, but a number of women have (ofg4.5). this quote indicates a widespread gendered issue. sexual harassment may not typically be perceived as bullying, but students did categorise it as such in this study: “besides that, i believe that frequent catcalling, sexual abuse, it all counts as bullying” (ofg1.2). active exclusion and isolating the group tactic of excluding or isolating individuals was a commonly discussed method within universities. this could be in the form of an online chat box or in person: “…so the group would make subtle remarks about them or talk about them in a group chat” (ofg3.1); “active exclusion which takes a negative form. often takes place in social groups—excluding one person who you live with from social events, one person in your lectures you actively move away from” (ofg4.2). not only can this be hurtful, it may also affect work: “exclusion from group projects and ignoring peers and people in their groups, leading to unfair exclusion from university work which may lead to lowered grades” (ofg4.3). students also discussed how conscious people were of excluding others and whether an active decision to exclude was needed to classify it as bullying. as one student said: “we don't have to be friends with or include everyone” (ofg4.5), suggesting that they may perceive excluding a stranger as acceptable. however, perhaps persistent exclusion or behaviour that follows exclusion, such as socially encouraged bad behaviour, could re-classify exclusion as bullying: being excluded from groups and purposely ignored could also be thought of as bullying however it is a person's right not to want to speak to someone, but when you then turn others against a person with no due cause, this is bullying (ofg3.3). this student suggested that not all exclusion can be classed as bullying but if the excluder then turns other people against the excluded, it is a bullying act. another student gave anecdotal evidence to support this: “agreed, my flatmates in first year did this. excluded a girl in our flat for no reason along with being nasty and cruel, resulting in her being very upset” (ofg4.3). another person claimed that exclusion was not even an issue because they had not witnessed it: “i believe that there might be more pressing matters than exclusion/bullying (since i haven’t witnessed it yet)” (ofg4.4), whereas another participant suggested that bullying can lead to exclusion: “i think exclusion can happen as a result of bullying, i would not say exclusion is part of bullying” (pfg.1). consequently, the tactic of targeted exclusion may be an initial step in bullying an individual. online/cyber the discussion surrounding cyberbullying addressed different perspectives, suggesting it was a strong but controversial theme. students provided multiple examples of cyberbullying: “…it can either be passed around the group chat for everybody to laugh at, posted publicly on facebook or even used as blackmail” (ofg3.4), which suggested the internet could be a channel for various types of abuse. students were aware that harm can be caused by bullying online: “cyberbullying can involve many different types of bullying such as sexual harassment, racism, sexism and homophobia. students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 58 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ saying something nasty, cruel or offensive online is no different than saying it in person in terms of the victim's suffering” (ofg4.3). cyberbullying allows for simple perpetration: “everyone is connected online pretty much 24/7 these days so cyberbullying can take place anywhere” (ofg3.5), and is easy to hide: “i believe that cyber bullying deserves special attention, since it is much easier to commit due to increased anonymity” (ofg4.4). one person suggested that online bullying could be an extension of traditional forms of bullying: “for example, someone may be excluded from social events at their halls and yet may be involved in cyberbullying at the same time” (ofg4.6). the visual content of social media can be particularly damaging: “online bullying through nasty messages and sharing of private information/photos would be a devastating method becoming more common through the rise of snapchat and other photo-centric social media apps” (ofg4.6). alternatively, some claim cyberbullying does not happen at university: “i’ve not seen much cyber bullying in the university context” (ofg4.5), and: “i have never experienced cyberbullying and have not heard of cases of cyberbullying in university within my group of friends and acquaintances. for many students, i think cyberbullying is not that big of an issue” (ofg3.5). other students approached the subject from a neutral position suggesting they may not have seen it because it is rare or covert, not because it does not happen: “i don’t think cyberbullying is a big problem at university. if it is, students are very secretive about it, and, in my opinion, it cannot be seen online, so it would have to occur through messages” (ofg1.2). another student said: in higher education bullying can be more complex and is rather in the verbal or written form with cyber bullying being more prominent. even though i’m saying that there are forms of bullying in higher education, i have rarely witnessed it at my university, but then again the whole point of cyber bullying is that it’s silent and invisible (ofg3.4). the data suggest that the internet may be a frequently used and damaging tool for bullying and harassment in he, in part because of its invisibility. controlling and mind games those who bully were reported to use intentional tactics to control a person or their environment. control could be exercised through actions: “it's usually verbal abuse, but also actions, such as listening to loud music on purpose when the bullied person has an exam in the morning or throwing away their food” (ofg1.2). the perpetrator controls the environment by creating disturbance or stealing possessions. one student suggested it is like playing mind games: “i think it is a psychological abuse in trying to play mind games with you [moderator: right] rather than getting on with what you’re here to do” (pfg.1). other students said similar, suggesting the control could come in the form of pressurising: “i think bullying could be mentally manipulative, using a dominating nature to force someone to do something in their favour” (ofg3.7). owning or having control of a situation was identified as a motive for bullying (see previous theme) as well as comprising a bullying tactic: “…people just like to have power/control over others and do not care about others’ feelings” (ofg2.7). one student commented: a lot of people can lash out to others because they are in control of their own actions, they can control what they say to people and they can see what reaction they get from it, so, a lot of people will deliberately do things because they feel in control of it (pfg.6). another participant in the physical focus group agreed that control was the motive for bullying as well as being a tactic to control the environment, providing reasoning for how bullying is difficult to address: …it’s difficult to resolve, because there’s things that people put across to try and counter bully­ ing…the irony is, the people that are doing it are often deaf to seeing reason in that sense and seeing that they are causing harm [moderator: hm hm] especially if they mean it, because as we’ve mentioned before, it’s a sign of control, of something they can do that empowers them (pfg.1). it appeared that students were clear that a bullying motive was to gain control, and that controlling a person, or their environment, was a method of bullying. this shows that control is an integral and entrenched aspect of bullying. harrison, hulme, & fox 59 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ verbal and jokes there were many examples of verbal bullying in the form of name calling and making jokes at others’ expense: “some people try to pass it off as a joke to feel clever” (ofg1.6). one student indicated the confusing nature of knowing when to laugh along with harmful jokes: like a racist joke sometimes can be a type of bullying as i found it's not funny at all, but this actually happened a lot in conversations with “friends”, you never know if they are actually being funny or they are just using a funny way to hide their bullying. i personally have some experiences with these racist jokes, the boundary is very vague (ofg3.8). the boundary between joking (i.e., banter) and bullying is vague, with other students suggesting that jokes are harmless but it depends on interpretation: “most bullying i’ve seen if you can call it that has been light teasing and generally harmless but some individuals might find it more harmful than others” (ofg3.1). in one group there was some disagreement about teasing with one person saying: “i think its harm depends on its severity. i would not call teasing bullying” (ofg4.3), and another suggesting that: “…it depends on the context. repeatedly teasing someone for, for example, their appearance can be devastating. a joke among friends is something entirely different” (ofg4.4). it seems that who is doing the teasing is an important factor: “this may be seen as light teasing, but it does obviously have an effect on a person, especially if they thought it was their friend” (ofg3.4). having a friend who harmfully teases may suggest that the boundaries between friends are unclear: “it can happen within a group of friends when some people think they are just joking around but then one person feels ostracized all the time but does not really speak up” (ofg3.5). if the perpetrator is a stranger, it may be easier to infer they intend harm than if the perpetrator is a friend. similarly, a lecturer making a joke at one student’s expense may be seen as bullying if the staff member is not mindful of the student’s boundaries: “whoever is leading the taught session joining in with a joke being shared at the expense of another would be bullying as well” (ofg1.8). justification and minimisations for involvement in bullying the final theme related to the minimisation of bullying and justifications for not getting involved. it seems that students’ beliefs about bullying, identifying it, and not knowing whose responsibility it is to intervene allow it to continue. some students said they would get involved but the majority preferred to avoid it. failure to intervene shows implicit acceptance of bad behaviour by allowing it to continue. some students knew of bullying incidents or had heard about them and so could have chosen to act. their option in that situation would be to help the target, tell someone else, or do nothing. some justified not getting involved due to fear: “i probably wouldn't interfere, especially if it's a heated argument. you'd never know if the parties could get violent. don't want to get involved with that” (ofg1.7). fear could be associated with the people involved in the conflict: if the person that was targeting somebody was a big bulky male that seemed to be very aggressive, most people would be deterred from intervening, whereas if it was, a, if it was a smaller female that’s kind of bitching about something perhaps they’d be more likely to intervene (pfg.1). fear can be an understandable reason for lack of involvement, especially if the onlooker has low self-esteem or feels unable to make change without exacerbating the situation or becoming a target themselves. however, not everyone felt the need to justify bystander behaviour because they thought it was not their responsibility to get involved: “the person being bullied should learn to stand up for themselves” (ogf1.7). another student echoed this: “i don’t think the issue needs intervention because most of the time the victim of bullying has the maturity to walk away, or confront the bully at this stage in life” (ofg3.4). additionally, students first must decide whether the situation warrants intervention before they intervene, if they want to. if the aggression seems ambiguous (e.g., jokes) or covert, it is difficult to know the right course of action: “if i don't know someone or you just see people messaging each other about another person, i don't really know what i would do or how you should react” (ofg4.5). one student reiterates the difficult line between banter and bullying: “sometimes you see things but i don’t know if it’s just classed as like banter between friends” (pfg.5). the onlooker students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 60 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ must first feel confident to decide what is or is not bullying, they then need information about what to do and must believe they have the power to change the situation. with this high cognitive effort, it may feel easier to downgrade the importance of a situation, thus absolving themselves of responsibility: “name calling definitely happens, but nothing major ever happens where someone can intervene” (ofg3.4). this assumptive attitude can also be seen in one student who shows a disinterest in others’ problems: “most people probably ignore it and assume that as adults everyone can handle their own problems” (ofg3.2). bystander intervention a subtheme of bystander intervention was identified after drawing together the issues of onlookers; they may have the power to step in if they avoided minimising or justifying their reasons for not doing so. some students said they felt empowered and able to intervene: “before i probably wouldn't get involved, but today i'm much more mature and confident in myself and would try to stop it” (ofg3.6). in contrast, another student felt that intervening was a moral issue: “it's dependent on how comfortable the person feels about their own role in the group before they intervene. i don't really care about that type of thing, so i tend to just act on what i think is right” (ofg1.4). some students claimed they proactively help others: “i usually go and sit with the excluded person and my own friends join me” (ofg1.4), and “if i see people who i know being bullied verbally i typically say something” (ofg4.5). whether a student intervenes may involve several factors including whether the perpetrator or victim is known: “if the bully is someone i know, i would immediately intervene and make them stop” (ofg1.6). however, it is impossible to tell whether these students are offering socially desirable responses, or whether they genuinely intervene when witnessing bullying. discussion this was one of the first studies to investigate students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying in uk he, and identified some important themes. the strong theme of power resonated with the existing bullying literature; power was described as existing through social group membership or being gained through bullying. increased power was associated with a higher reputation in the social hierarchy. this supports evolutionary theories; those who bully can be intelligent, resourceful, and without emotional deficiencies (volk, camilleri, dane, & marini, 2012). people may bully to gain resources which is a continued incentive for the bullying. this maps onto the second theme—reasons for bullying, which included social or personal gain. this is consistent with volk et al.’s (2014) definition of bullying as “goal-directed.” thirdly, tactics and methods used were evident. some matched school-bullying types, but others were more mature, showing connections to abusive control in romantic relationships. lastly, students attempted to justify why they would rarely intervene in bullying situations involving strangers and minimised the situation to seem less serious. consequently, having or gaining power grants advantages, which are maximised through the tactics employed. those who witness bullying incidents must decide whether to intervene. minimising bullying or justifying non-involve­ ment can inadvertently reinforce bullying and normalise the behaviour. participants described how this can lead to perceptions that victims do not need helping, or they ought to help themselves, which can prevent bullying from being addressed. power students described visible power imbalances within their social environment and reported that some individuals actively pursued goals to gain increased power. these data are consistent with smith’s (2004) and volk et al.’s (2014) conceptu­ alisation of bullying as aggressive goal-directed behaviour harming another and encompassing a power imbalance. our study suggests that power is derived from group membership and possession of externally positively evaluated characteristics (which intertwine, e.g., being a member of the white male group), and roles. these power imbalances within the social hierarchy in he could fuel bullying. according to pratto, sidinius, and levin’s (2006) social dominance theory, power is inherent within certain societal groups, can be granted by maturity (i.e., lecturers and students), male gender, and arbitrary systems such as ethnicity harrison, hulme, & fox 61 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and social class. visible group characteristics such as ethnicity and gender (link & phelan, 2001) create power differ­ entials and thus allow structural and individual discrimination within universities (prilleltensky, 2008). some of the students from the focus groups had direct experience of racist jokes and sexual harassment, highlighting the need to be mindful of the implications of individual and group-based power differences in understanding and researching he bullying. thornberg (2011) suggested that groups label other groups as deviant, leading to stigmatisation of lower status social groups and perceptions of deviance. our data, emphasising social group involvement in bullying, suggest that as well as structural power differences such as ethnicity, gender, and class, other privileged aspects (attractiveness and popularity etc.) are important predictors of bullying behaviours at university too. the findings support results from previous research; for example, lund (2017) describes the social exclusion of a class member described as “weird,” indicating unpopularity. students in our study mentioned attractiveness and being a “social butterfly” as advantageous characteristics that may be associated with power, possibly due to a halo effect (nisbett & wilson, 1977). this is where a blanket positive evaluation is given based on one or more appealing traits. for example, talamas, mavor, and perrett (2016) found that faces rated as more attractive were also rated as more intelligent. such external traits may produce biased perceptions of power. members of socially dominant groups enjoy positive social value (pratto et al., 2006) and are awarded more social resources. therefore, individuals with confidence, extroversion, and attractiveness may be aware of the power they hold (prilleltensky, 2008) or bully unintentionally because of the normalisation of their privilege. alternatively, being black, female, or low socioeconomic status (ses) could disadvantage because of global negative evaluations fuelled by damag­ ing stereotypes (link & phelan, 2001). pre-existing power seems to facilitate bullying. this in turn exacerbates the pow­ er differences, producing a group-based hierarchy on multiple-levels, encompassing discrimination from institutions, individuals, and intergroup processes (pratto et al., 2006). our findings suggest that perpetrators may be unaware of their privilege, and thus fail to recognise their behaviour as bullying. in terms of different roles, not all members of privileged groups are active perpetrators; our participants mentioned “entourages” and “supporters.” however, in assimilating into a group, indirectly involved individuals may adopt the group norm that bullying is acceptable (srivastava, guglielmo, & beer, 2010). these individuals may reinforce their identity at an intermediate level as a member of a social in-group defined against an out-group through supporting bullying behaviour (hornsey, 2008). as well as group-based roles, role-based authority also confers power, and this is true for lecturers in he. this could be due to the age-based aspect of pratto et al.’s (2006) social dominance theory, or due to their apparent “expert” status; they award grades, and exercise power over students’ eventual outcomes (alsobaie, 2015; hulme & winstone, 2017). our participants reported instances of lecturers bullying students and framed this as an abuse of power. although membership of a minoritized group brings disadvantage and identifying with a socially privileged group brings individual and group power (turner, oakes, haslam, & mcgarty, 1994), groups do not always behave homogene­ ously. but like other bullying research, this study confirms that a power imbalance is an important factor in the he context, and that higher status groups may maintain their position of power in the hierarchy through bullying lower status groups. objective for bullying students claimed that bullying in he is goal-directed for personal or social gain, supporting the definition by volk et al. (2014). social goals include group membership and popularity and can be personal or for the benefit of the group. perpetrators may validate each other and bond by targeting the same individuals, potentially increasing feelings of belongingness, perhaps especially for the entourage who may feel insecure. our findings are consistent with salmivalli’s (2010) claims that motivation by social goals would be apparent in situations where peer status is important. reputation is important to university students and social motivations are apparent in our data. one person said that those who bully manipulate the social status of others. perpetrators may attack those with less existing power to maintain their reputation or they may join a powerful group to claim power or reflect their need to belong. students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 62 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bullying may also be motivated by personal goals, possibly to increase the perpetrator’s self-esteem by lowering that of the victim. one student mentioned that this type of “mental manipulation” can occur even between friends. this idea of increasing personal power through belittling others resonates with volk et al.’s (2012) conceptualisation of bullying for advantages or resources. control of others was also noted to be a personal goal of bullying in he, and shares features in common with abusive romantic relationships. having control over a partner can be achieved in many ways, for example, financially exploiting, verbally harassing, or sexually abusing (domestic abuse intervention project, 2011). overlaps between bullying and sexual harassment and violence have been previously noted, with some shared perpetrator characteristics (basile, espelage, rivers, mcmahon, & simon, 2009). given our findings that bullying in he is associated with control, it may be interesting to further explore whether similar objectives may exist within he bullying and relationship abuse. tactics and methods used to bully sexual harassment sexual harassment, mainly from males towards females, was a commonly reported tactic in this study, perhaps unsur­ prisingly, as literature reveals that sexual bullying happens even amongst school children (gruber & fineran, 2016). there has been widespread media coverage and plans for tackling sexual harassment at uk universities; recent articles allege that around half of students face unwanted sexual behaviour (batty, 2019; batty & cherubini, 2018). in relations to basile et al.’s (2009) findings, our findings highlight an overlap between bullying and sexual harass­ ment, supporting the idea that perhaps “neither form of peer violence is simply unilateral” (hertzog, harpel, & rowley, 2015, p. 22). childhood bullying could be a precursor to later sexual or relationship abuse indicating a continuum of aggressive behaviour using power, which is included in bullying definitions and was a theme within this research. thus, those who bully peers in school may transfer aggression throughout education and to other contexts, suggesting a trajectory of perpetration using power (monckton-smith, 2020). active exclusion and isolation power imbalances are also pertinent to bullying through excluding someone from group activities or group work. research shows that indirect or relational bullying increases with age. archer and coyne (2005) suggested that covert relational bullying is an alternative to direct aggression as the legal and social consequences of using direct, physical aggression are too high for adults. there was some ambiguity as to whether unintentional exclusion was bullying. similar themes exist within the childhood literature. for example, killen and rutland (2011) stated that exclusion is not always a moral transgression; someone excluded from a sports team because they are not sporty may not experience bullying. however, the victim may experience harm regardless of the excluder’s intentions (e.g., see experimental research showing the negative effects of ostracism; hartgerink, van beest, wicherts, & williams, 2015). exclusion, discrimination (sinkkonen, puhakka, & meriläinen, 2014), cliques, and ostracism (brock, oikonomidoy, wulfing, pennington, & obenchain, 2014) have been reported elsewhere in the he literature. our data support this literature, with students reporting exclusion in lectures (people move away from certain students), when conducting group work, and in group chats. university provides many opportunities for exclusion and this is especially likely for minoritized and discriminated groups, emphasising a need for inclusion campaigns at university. cyber and online bullying our participants reported witnessing or experiencing cyberbullying at university, although there was some debate about what is acceptable behaviour and what is bullying. this is consistent with walker, sockman, and koehn (2011) who found that a third of their sample had experienced undesirable online behaviours but that participants did not class it as cyberbullying. our participants said it would be easier to perpetrate because of the anonymity and disassociated nature. in common with social exclusion tactics, some ambiguity around cyberbullying may arise from uncertainty regarding intent. students from crosslin and golman’s (2014) sample said that the sender had to intend harm to be cyberbullying, but this may be unclear in online interactions. harrison, hulme, & fox 63 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ those who initially claimed cyberbullying did not happen at university subsequently suggested that its covert nature may make it invisible. this indicates that cyberbullying does happen but may not often be witnessed by outsiders. cyberbullying has been widely reported; wolke, lee, and guy (2017) suggest that most victims of cyberbullying experienced traditional bullying as well, and that cyberbullying extends the bully’s power and control beyond the school yard or university campus to intrude into their free time and personal space. therefore, even though cyberbullying is covert, it may be that those who are victimised traditionally at university are also the cyber victims, and so the students who indicated it does not exist may never have witnessed it. controlling and playing mind games control was a recurring word used by participants to discuss tactics as well as motivations for bullying. they described the tactic of control as an attempt at commanding others’ agency or esteem. coercive control as a construct is a central feature of many conceptualisations of domestic violence, although there are variations in how it is defined and measured. to coerce is to control a person’s feelings and/or behaviour. for example, controlling a person or their environment is a key feature of the duluth model of power and control (domestic abuse intervention project, 2011), developed to educate about the features of relationship abuse. these include coercion, threats, intimidation, pressures, emotional and economic abuse, isolation, minimising, and denying. this model has been adapted to conceptualise work­ place abuse and bullying and matches examples from the current he study. for example, participants discussed cruel looks, disposal of food, name calling, humiliation, mind games, and isolation. alongside this, a review by public health england (fenton, mott, mccarten, & rumney, 2016) on preventing sexual and domestic violence in uk universities featured much evidence of sexual coercion, with predominantly female targets. within the duluth model, minimising and denying reflect victim-blaming tactics by perpetrators linked with control. our participants who witnessed bullying also sometimes justified it or blamed the victim, for example, suggesting that the victim should have the “maturity” to walk away or confront the bully. this shifts the responsibility from the perpetrator, who created the situation, onto the victim, who was unwillingly subjected to abuse. victim-blaming may have become a common discourse, which has normalised the behaviour and lessened the collective perception of the seriousness of bullying, explaining why bystanders may also adopt this approach. both versions of the power and control model (domestic abuse intervention project, 2011; scott, 2018) talk of privilege in the forms of male privilege and employer privilege, respectively. students in this study believed that privilege exists in he in the forms of ethnicity, sex, class, and economic resources. privilege could also be afforded to lecturers who are in a position of authority. verbal and jokes verbal bullying is one of the four types of childhood bullying (björkqvist, 1994; olweus, 1993; wang, iannotti, & nansel, 2009) and has been reported in previous university studies (doğruer & yaratan, 2014). similarly, unwelcome name-calling and joking were witnessed by our participants, who sometimes found it difficult to define the boundary between banter and bullying. perpetrators may defend verbal bullying by re-categorising it in a more socially acceptable way as “only joking” or “teasing.” such teasing was sometimes described as harmless, and sometimes as hurtful, even from friends, especially when hurt cannot be communicated to the joke-teller. perpetrators may deliberately obscure their intentions to maintain their social reputation. the pretext of “only joking” minimises the act, leading the target to question their own reactions to being a target of banter or jokes. verbally ambiguous harassment may deceive onlookers into believing the perpetrator means no harm, thus allowing them to continue the behaviour and own the situational power. this type of minimisation is outlined in the next section. further, if the victim verbalises their concerns, they may experience victim-blaming (as described above), leading to self-blame and shame. justification and minimisation of involvement in bullying our data suggest that students may minimise and justify bullying, often through relabelling it as banter, which allows it to persist without consequence or intervention. some students who were aware of bullying were reluctant to get involved because they were afraid of being similarly victimised. others were adamant that bullying was not an issue, students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying 64 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and if it were, it was not their responsibility to be involved, representing either a moral disengagement or a belief that students (as adults) can tackle things themselves. miller et al. (2019) found evidence for members of staff in he institutions morally disengaging from bullying and violence through using justifications, euphemistic language, and diffusion of responsibly. similarly, thornberg, daremark, gottfridsson, and gini (2020) conducted research with swedish school children; using hypothetical scenarios, they found that moral disengagement was higher if the victim was perceived as mean, and moral justification for bullying was higher if the victim was perceived as mean and was surrounded by a laughing group. it may be that comparable mechanisms apply to students in he. remaining a silent bystander lends implicit approval to the situation (randall, 1997) contributing to the wider societal problem. the victims seem to have been classed as “other” in an out-group who ought to sort their own problems, eliminating personal responsibility from onlookers. stigma theory (goffman, 1963) suggests that once labelled as deviant or different by the beholder, the stigmatised person or group transcends taken for granted norms. if a bullied person becomes stigmatised, the norm of helping those in need is irrelevant. some students wanted to help but there were barriers preventing them. they were unsure whether it was really bullying, feeling they had insufficient information to make a rational decision, and uncertain about what to do. the decision-making process maps onto latané and darley’s (1968) seminal bystander model, which has since been built upon by school bullying researchers who have focused on the role of the group in bullying incidents (salmivalli, lagerspetz, björkqvist, österman, & kaukiainen, 1996). the approach has been influential in recognising the role of social context in promoting and maintaining bullying. in a longitudinal study, van der ploeg, kretschmer, salmivalli, and veenstra (2017) found that a higher level of affective empathy and self-efficacy predicted defending behaviour. children have been found to be quite aware of the benefits and costs of intervening in bullying situations (spadafora, marini, & volk, 2020); costs included getting into trouble, loss of friends, loss of popularity, and becoming a target themselves. our findings indicate that similar costs may be perceived by university students. research on bullying in he would benefit from school bullying insights to identify the factors that influence why students do and do not intervene. additionally, after interviewing 51 university students about bystander interventions, holtzman (2020) concluded that students who had received bystander intervention training deemed bystanders responsible for intervening. howev­ er, on being presented with vignettes where the bystanders did not intervene, students provided excuses for why this might have been the case (e.g., gender, lack of knowledge, and friendships with perpetrators). most workplace and university anti-bullying policies encourage witnesses to intervene, and it seems students are aware of the importance of intervening, but intervention does not always happen. strengths and limitations the current study has provided one of the first in-depth insights into students’ experiences of bullying at university. there may have been some issues with heterogeneity within the physical focus group as it was noted that one minoritized student may have been suppressed by a majority group member. however, this was countered using online groups, which were anonymous, and thus facilitated open expression. structural power differences would have been unknown online and less likely to encroach upon responses, especially for minoritized voices on sensitive topics. online groups were also found to provide an inclusive forum for those unable to physically attend a meeting. additionally, it was unknown whether the reported opinions were personal experiences, experiences of friends, or hypothesised experiences of bullying within he. this study aimed to gather a range of opinions and therefore did not record frequencies of personal bullying. conclusions this study explored students’ perceptions of bullying at he level in the uk. similarities and differences were seen between childhood bullying and bullying at university. the overarching theme of a power imbalance mirrors the school bullying literature, but there were subtle differences in how the power imbalances were perceived. in school, power imbalances often focus on physical factors such as size or age, whereas at university the power imbalances take the form of structural inequalities. in common with school bullying, the bullying could be goal-directed to gain hierarchical power, control, or status. however, due to the age of most students, bullying seems to adopt a more mature appearance harrison, hulme, & fox 65 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and so harassment may be more disguised with hierarchies being more nuanced. there were some additional methods and tactics more commonly used at this level than in childhood, and these tactics aligned with those used within abusive romantic relationships. the study evidenced the advantage of approaching the research using a more inductive approach, thus broadening our understanding of bullying amongst eas in a university context. implications for he institutions an important finding from this study relates to the propagation of systemic inequalities through bullying in he, with minoritized groups being particularly vulnerable to victimisation. he providers are legally obliged to protect these groups, and it is recommended that further consideration be given to these issues within bullying and harassment policies. additionally, we note that students consistently report difficulties in identifying bullying and knowing how to respond. we recommend that he providers offer clear information to students, victims, and bystanders, to incorporate definitions, examples, and guidance on available support that more accurately reflects the experience of bullying within he (see also harrison, fox, & hulme, 2020). the findings that relate to the role of the bystander support growing initiatives within schools and universities to encourage more individuals to become active, as opposed to passive bystanders. however, implementing change is not easy and requires widespread efforts to challenge norms that justify and minimise bullying, as well as helping witnesses overcome some of the barriers to intervening. in conclusion, this study has made preliminary progress in providing a more nuanced understanding of bullying within he that can inform future studies and efforts to tackle bullying within this context. funding: this work was conducted during a phd funded by a studentship at keele university. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references acas. 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(2015). bullying affects more than feelings: the long-term implications of victimization on academic motivation in higher education. social psychology of education, 18(1), 185-200. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-014-9287-1 about the authors dr emma harrison is a research impact manager within the research office, and is a visiting research fellow in the psychology department at glyndwr university. she has wide-ranging interests in psychological theories and applications in the fields of social, developmental, counselling, health, and educational psychology, and is currently working on further bullying in he projects. dr julie hulme is a reader in psychology at keele university. a leading expert on higher education, and an applied psychologist, she utilises psychological theories and research methods to understand and enhance learning, teaching, and inclusion within higher education. dr claire fox is a reader in educational psychology at manchester metropolitan university. she has a background in applied social and developmental psychology with an established national and international reputation in the fields of school bullying, teenage relationship abuse, and children’s humour. claire’s work often involves external community stakeholders and aims to make a difference to society in theoretically evidence-based ways. harrison, hulme, & fox 69 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 53–69 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3669 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0148284 https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/561110743bc7e45e78292140/5c7d4b5d314d163fecdc3706_mental%20health%20report%202018.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2011.00374.x https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01101 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167294205002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2017.06.002 https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21418 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2014.09.001 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-011-0481-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.03.021 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-017-0954-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-014-9287-1 https://www.psychopen.eu/ students’ perceptions and experiences of bullying (introduction) aim method participants materials and procedure analysis results power imbalance objective of bullying methods and tactics of bullying justification and minimisations for involvement in bullying discussion power objective for bullying tactics and methods used to bully justification and minimisation of involvement in bullying strengths and limitations conclusions implications for he institutions (additional information) funding competing interests references about the authors test of the bifactor model of job-related affective well-being research reports test of the bifactor model of job-related affective well-being mariola laguna* a, emilia mielniczuk a, wiktor razmus a [a] institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, lublin, poland. abstract the multidimensional measure of the job-related affective well-being developed by warr (1990) is a frequently used tool estimating affect in the work context. alternative factorial models of this measure were tested in previous studies. recently a bifactor model has been proposed as alternative factorial structure recommended for multifaceted constructs. it allows capturing the global aspect of the construct along with the specificity of its subdimensions. we conducted two studies to test a bifactor model on warr’s measure and to compare it to factor models proposed in earlier studies. this bifactor model identified one general factor in addition to four unique factors. two studies were conducted among employees (study 1; n = 869) and entrepreneurs (study 2; n = 204). results of both studies corroborate a four correlated factors model as superior to the bifactor model. the model with four unique but correlated factors representing anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm is a good representation of job-related affective well-being measured by warr’s instrument, both in a sample of employees and entrepreneurs. keywords: affect, well-being, bifactor model, employees, entrepreneurs europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 received: 2018-04-06. accepted: 2018-05-10. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; tiziana lanciano, university of bari "a. moro", bari, italy *corresponding author at: institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, al. raclawickie 14, 20-950 lublin, poland. e-mail: laguna@kul.pl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. affective dimensions of work have become an important research area in work and organizational psychology (brief & weiss, 2002; mäkikangas, hyvönen, leskinen, kinnunen, & feldt, 2011; seo, barrett, & bartunek, 2004), as well as in the psychology of entrepreneurship (baron, 2008; gorgievski & stephan, 2016; stephan, 2018). studies have shown that people’s affective states play a central role in explaining links between work environments, employees behavioral responses and work performance (parker, 2014). with the increased interest in job-related affective well-being comes a renewed interest in the validity of its measurement instruments. it is vital to accurately measure individuals’ affective experiences, in order to reach valid conclusions for explaining their role in a work environment (mäkikangas, feldt, & kinnunen, 2007). one of the most widely used tools for testing affect in the work context is warr’s (1990) job-related affective well-being measure (laguna, mielniczuk, razmus, moriano, & gorgievski, 2017; mäkikangas et al., 2007; salanova, llorens, & schaufeli, 2011; van horn, taris, schaufeli, & schreurs, 2004). as warr has not proposed a name for this measure, authors customarily refer to it as “warr’s (1990) job-related affective well-being measure,” “the measure developed by warr (1990),” or like phrases. this name may seem similar to the name of the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ job-related affective well-being scale (jaws) developed by van katwyk et al. (2000), however, these are two different instruments. to clarify, jaws is also based on warr’s model of affective well-being at work, which was primarily operationalized by his own measure. previous analyses (daniels, brough, guppy, peters-bean, & weatherstone, 1997; gonçalves & neves, 2011; mäkikangas et al., 2007; sevastos, smith, & cordery, 1992) have confirmed the validity and reliability of the instrument developed by warr (1990). what has not been tested, however, is the validity of a potential bifactor model, which has recently been postulated as a recommended alternative method for testing multifaceted constructs (chen, hayes, carver, laurenceau, & zhang, 2012). research has demonstrated that bifactor models which identify one general factor in addition to multiple unique factors, allow the superior representation of different personality constructs (alessandri, vecchione, eisenberg, & łaguna, 2015; chen, watson, biderman, & ghorbani, 2016), as well as of well-being (chen, jing, hayes, & lee, 2013) and affect (leue & beauducel, 2011). such bifactor representation allows capturing the global aspect of the construct along with the specificity of its subdimensions. this suggests that a bifactor model may be a better representation of job-related affect than previously tested models. moreover, for some research purposes, partialing out the general factor may be a preferred way of analyzing data. in the case of well-being, we can expect that such a general factor may be influenced by stable, internal processes rather than momentary, environmental factors. therefore, the aim of our research was to determine whether a bifactor model may represent properly, and better than alternative models, job-related affective well-being as captured by the measure developed by warr (1990). our research tested the factorial structure of this measure not only on a sample of employees, but also, for the first time, on a sample of entrepreneurs – people who established themselves and manage their own firms (baron, 2007). using relatively large, diverse samples, and a sound analytic framework, we were able to comprehensively test the factorial structure of the widely-used measure proposed by warr (1990) and provide recommendations how the results can be interpreted in future studies and counseling practices. job-related affective well-being measure affect as consciously accessible feelings evident in moods and emotions (fredrickson, 2001; walter & bruch, 2008) is a vital sign of an individual’s subjective well-being (chen, jing, et al., 2013). it also constitutes the most central dimension of occupational subjective well-being (van horn et al., 2004) which has become of interest in work and organizational psychology (mäkikangas et al., 2011; seo et al., 2004), in career counseling (cuyper, philippaers, vanhercke, & witte, 2017; gati et al., 2011; hutchison & gerstein, 2017; konstam, celendemirtas, tomek, & sweeney, 2015), and in entrepreneurship (stephan, 2018). there is growing evidence which shows that employees’ job-related affect is linked to their work engagement (bledow, schmitt, frese, & kühnel, 2011; salanova et al., 2011), direction, intensity, and persistence of actions (seo et al., 2004). affect also impacts performance at work (beal, weiss, barros, & macdermid, 2005), as well as satisfaction from performed tasks and responsibility for those tasks (isen & reeve, 2005). affect is important not only in the activity of employees, but also that of entrepreneurs (baron, 2008; stephan, 2018) and this is related to their work engagement and goal attainment (laguna, alessandri, & caprara, 2016; laguna, razmus, & żaliński, 2017). all these findings show that job related affect should be taken into account when discussing career choices, job satisfaction and performance. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 343 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this broad interest in job-related affective well-being raises the question of how to accurately estimate it to represent the structure of an individual’s emotional experience (mäkikangas et al., 2007). a conceptualization of affective well-being, accompanied by a measurement tool, was proposed by warr (1990). the measure is based on the circumplex model of affect (russell, 1980) and conceptualizes well-being as a job-specific rather than as a context-free phenomenon. according to warr (1990), job-related affective well-being is defined by two principal dimensions: pleasure (negative—positive) and arousal (low—high activation level). the measure is intended to capture the content and intensity of job-related emotional states: comfort (positive affect of low arousal), enthusiasm (positive affect of high arousal), depression (negative affect of low arousal), and anxiety (negative affect of high arousal). the instrument consists of 12 adjectives (e.g., calm, worried) which are answered in relation to the job: “thinking of the past few weeks, how much of the time has your job made you feel each of the following?” it is also possible to measure context-free well-being with different phrasing of the instruction. the factorial structure of the job-related affective well-being measure the factorial structure of the measure proposed by warr (1990) was assessed in a several studies (cifre & salanova, 2002; daniels et al., 1997; gonçalves & neves, 2011; laguna, mielniczuk, et al., 2017; mäkikangas et al., 2007; mielniczuk & laguna, 2018; sevastos et al., 1992; van horn et al., 2004; warr, 1990) in which six alternative models were tested (for details see appendix). model 1 contained four correlated factors that were postulated in warr’s model (1990): anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm. model 2 posited two correlated factors, capturing two dimensions: anxiety–comfort and depression–enthusiasm. model 3 posited two correlated factors: positive affect and negative affect. model 4 represented three dimensions: positive affect, negative affect, and pleasantness–unpleasantness. model 5 was a single factor model capturing affective well-being as a single common factor. the hierarchical model 6 captured the global affective well-being as a second-order factor and four first-order latent factors. investigations of the general factor of job-related affective well-being (gonçalves & neves, 2011; van horn et al., 2004) raise the question of how well-being should be understood: does it primarily refer to specific affective dimensions, or should it be considered as a more global phenomenon that captures the general subjective estimation of whether a person feels well or unwell at work? both conceptualizations are of interest in counselling and in work and organizational psychology research. a potential solution may be the consideration of a bifactor model as an alternative to the single factor or hierarchical models (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). the bifactor model can be considered when (a) there is a general factor accounting for the commonality of the items; (b) there are multiple domain specific factors; and (c) the common factor together with the domain-specific factors can be interesting for researchers (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). this proposition was validated as a valuable and unsurpassed alternative in explaining dimensionality of personality traits (chen et al., 2016), self-esteem (alessandri et al., 2015), context-free well-being (chen, jing, et al., 2013), context-free affect (leue & beauducel, 2011). this would suggest that the bifactor model may be a better estimate of job-related affective well-being than previously tested models. hence, we propose a new model: model 7 as a bifactor representation of job-related affective well-being (figure 1). it captures the global phenomenon of job-related well-being in addition to specific affective dimensions: anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm. model 7 is proposed as an alternative way of representing the bifactor model of job-related affective well-being 344 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ core features of an underlying global latent dimension than a hierarchical model (gonçalves & neves, 2011) or a single factor model (van horn et al., 2004). figure 1. the bifactor model for the warr’s (1990) measure (model 7). an attractive feature of this bifactor interpretation is that it casts the specific factors in a manner consistent with previous empirical research that confirmed four specific affective well-being dimensions from warr’s item pool. however, the simple procedure of summing the items representing each dimension left room for possible contamination of the scale scores, since variance from general job-related affective well-being was not partialledout from the scores. this problem can be avoided by the bifactor approach (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). nevertheless, even if successfully applied towards other measures (alessandri et al., 2015; chen et al., 2016; leue & beauducel, 2011), it is not guaranteed that this approach will be fruitful in estimating emotional experiences at work. therefore, the aim of our research was to validate the bifactor model on warr’s instrument (1990) in comparison to alternative models established in previous studies. the alternative measurement models considered in our research are depicted in appendix. we conducted two studies to investigate the relative fit of seven alternative factor models described above, including newly proposed the bifactor model. in both studies, we relied on relatively large samples which allowed us to use structural equation modeling (sem) in order to address several important psychometric questions pertaining to the assessment of affective well-being. we focused on the dimensionality of the instrument, based on the accepted methodological procedures (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). the relative fit of the hypothesized alternative models was iteratively tested in samples of employees (study 1) and entrepreneurs (study 2). study 1 the aim of this study was to examine the relative fit of seven alternative models, attesting the factorial structure of the job-related affective well-being measure (warr, 1990) on a sample of employees. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 345 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method procedure the data was gathered using the paper-and-pencil questionnaires (62.5% of the sample) and on-line questionnaires (37.5%). in additional analyses, measurement invariance for the sampling method was tested and full scalar invariance was achieved. participants were invited to take part in the study through social and business networks using direct solicitation. paper-and-pencil questionnaires were delivered to participants at their homes or at work and collected from them after completion. participation in the study was voluntary and the participants did not receive any reward. the confidentiality and anonymity of data was ensured. we computed the minimum sample size for the model structure (n = 187) as a function of the required significance level of α = .05, and the desired statistical power of 1-β = .80. participants the sample included 818 employees from poland, of whom 59.5% were women, and it far exceeded the minimum sample size. the participants were 19 to74 years old (m = 33.92, sd = 10.13), and worked full time (61.8%), part time (30.8%), or on other forms of work contracts (7.3%). they worked in services and trade (45%), production (15.1%), construction (1.7%), or in other sectors (38.2%). the sample generally matched the characteristics of the population of employees in poland, except that it included a few more women (54.9% men and 45.1% of woman in the population; gus 2017). measure job-related affective well-being was evaluated using the polish version (mielniczuk & laguna, 2018) of the measure proposed by warr (1990). it consisted of 12 items and answers were given on a 6-point scale (1 = never; 2 = occasionally; 3 = some of the time; 4 = much of the time; 5 = most of the time; 6 = all of the time). data analysis strategy the data were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) using amos (arbuckle, 2005). the parameters were estimated using the maximum likelihood method. missing data, which did not exceed 1.5% in any item, were handled using regression imputation. we examined a series of seven measurement models. to assess model fit, we used the χ2 goodness-of-fit statistic, the comparative fit index (cfi), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), and the akaike information criterion (aic). values below .08 for rmsea and srms indicate an acceptable model fit (kline, 2005), while values below .10 indicate mediocre model fit (hooper, coughlan, & mullen, 2008). for the cfi values greater than .90 indicate a good fit (brown, 2006; hooper et al., 2008). the lower the aic index, the better is the fit of the model to the data (brown, 2006). to test differences between alternative models, we calculated the chi-square difference tests (δχ2) and difference in cfi (δcfi; brown, 2006; kline, 2005). an absolute difference in cfi that is less than .01 (δcfi < .01) would indicate a lack of significant difference in model fit (cheung & rensvold, 2002). results and discussion examination of alternative models showed that only the four correlated factors model (model 1) obtained acceptable fit in all fit indices (table 1). bifactor model of job-related affective well-being 346 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 g oo dn es sof -f it in di ce s of a lte rn at iv e m ea su re m en t m od el s in s am pl e of e m pl oy ee s (n = 8 69 ) m od el χ2 df p r m se a sr m r c fi a ic m od el co m pa ris on δ χ2 δ df p δ c fi m od el 1 . f ou r c or re la te d fa ct or s: a nx ie ty , c om fo rt, d ep re ss io n, e nt hu si as m 28 6. 04 48 < .0 01 .0 76 .0 43 .9 60 37 0. 04 m od el 2 . t w o co rr el at ed fa ct or s: a nx ie ty -c om fo rt, d ep re ss io ne nt hu si as m 15 60 .3 6 53 < .0 01 .1 81 .1 23 .7 48 16 10 .3 6 m 7 vs m 1 12 74 .3 2 5 < .0 01 .2 1 m od el 3 . t w o co rr el at ed fa ct or s: p os iti ve a ffe ct , n eg at iv e a ffe ct 97 9. 14 53 < .0 01 .1 42 .0 83 .8 45 10 29 .1 4 m 2 vs m 1 69 3. 10 5 < .0 01 .1 2 m od el 4 . t hr ee fa ct or s: p os iti ve a ffe ct , n eg at iv e a ffe ct , p le as an tn es su np le as an tn es s 12 70 .9 8 51 < .0 01 .1 66 .1 07 .7 96 13 24 .9 8 m 8 vs m 1 98 4. 94 3 < .0 01 .1 6 m od el 5 . s in gl e fa ct or : w el l-b ei ng 18 55 .5 3 54 < .0 01 .1 96 .1 16 .6 99 19 03 .5 3 m 4 vs m 1 15 69 .4 9 6 < .0 01 .2 6 m od el 6 . h ie ra rc hi ca l: fo ur fa ct or s an d hi gh er o rd er fa ct or w el l-b ei ng 41 7. 98 50 < .0 01 .0 92 .0 73 .9 39 47 3. 98 m 5 vs m 1 13 1. 94 2 < .0 01 .0 2 m od el 7 . b ifa ct or : f ou r f ac to rs a nd w el l-b ei ng 37 2. 89 48 < .0 01 .0 95 .0 69 .9 45 46 8. 89 m 6 vs m 1 86 .8 5 0 < .0 01 .0 2 n ot e. r m s e a = r oo t m ea n s qu ar e e rr or o f a pp ro xi m at io n; s r m r = s ta nd ar di ze d r oo t m ea n s qu ar e r es id ua l; c fi = c om pa ra tiv e fi t; a ic = a ka ik e in fo rm at io n c rit er io n. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 347 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ none of the alternative models reached the criteria of acceptable fit (brown, 2006; kline, 2005), with the exception of srmr for a bifactor model (srmr = .069), which is inconsistent with other fit indices. moreover, tests of differences (δχ2 < .05; δcfi > .01) confirmed that the four correlated factors model fit the data significantly better than any other alternative model, including the bifactor model (lower χ2 value and δcfi > .01). the bifactor solution is therefore not confirmed in this study. in this best fitting four correlated factors model (model 1) regression weights were high, varied between .87 and .69 for each of four latent factors. descriptive statistics, reliability and correlations between scales are presented in table 2. cronbach’s alpha range from .78 to .90 indicated satisfactory to high internal consistency of all scales. table 2 scales reliability, descriptive statistics and correlations between scales in samples of employees (study 1, n = 869) and entrepreneurs (study 2, n = 204) employees α m sd 1 2 3 entrepreneurs α m sd 1 2 3 1. anxiety .84 2.89 1.01 1. anxiety .82 2.71 .79 2. comfort .83 3.53 1.00 -.61 2. comfort .78 3.25 .71 -.54 3. depression .79 2.12 0.92 .55 -.48 3. depression .81 1.60 .59 .67 -.53 4. enthusiasm .89 3.81 1.09 -.39 .69 -.40 4. enthusiasm .90 4.27 .92 -.35 .78 -.40 note. all correlations are statistically significant at the level of at least p < .01 (two-tailed). in conclusion, the results of this study demonstrated that the model representing job-related affective well-being as comprised of four correlated dimensions is better representation of emotional experiences of employees than the bifactor model. study 2 in study 2, the bifactor model was again compared with alternative models of job-related affective well-being (warr, 1990) on a sample of entrepreneurs. this allowed us to check whether the findings from study 1 on employees could be generalized to other samples. as entrepreneurs, we consider people who established and manage their firms themselves (baron, 2007), and were, therefore, not only managers, but also new organization builders. method procedure the snowball sampling method was used where the initially-contacted entrepreneurs from different regions of poland were asked to provide contacts to two other entrepreneurs. the participants were invited to take part in the study if they fulfilled four criteria, being: (1) founders, (2) owners, and (3) managers of their firms, and (4) had firms that survived on the market for at least one year. the respondents were asked to fill in the paper-andpencil questionnaires. participation in the study was voluntary and the participants did not receive any reward. the data were anonymized to ensure confidentiality. the minimum sample size (n = 187) was calculated similarly as in study 1. bifactor model of job-related affective well-being 348 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants a sample of 204 entrepreneurs took part in the study, of whom 123 were male (61.9%). it exceeded the minimum sample size. the participants were 22-71 years old (m = 44.07, sd = 11.53). the firms they managed had existed for between one and 47 years (m = 10.10, sd = 8.36). sectors of operation included services (79.9%), production (11.3%), and construction (8.8%). all of these firms were small and medium-sized enterprises, employing up to 82 employees for full-time contracts (m = 6.29, sd = 13.12), and up to 32 employees for part-time contracts (m = 1.55, sd = 3.43). the sample matched the characteristics of a population of entrepreneurs in poland (tarnawa & zadura-lichota, 2013). measure job-related affective well-being was assessed using the polish version (mielniczuk & laguna, 2018) of the measure proposed by warr (1990). data analysis strategy we used amos (arbuckle, 2005) to perform sem analyses; the maximum likelihood estimation was applied. missing data, not exceeding 1.5% in any item, were handled using the regression imputation method. cfa was applied to examine alternative models. results and discussion to further validate the results of study 1, we examined the seven alternative models again. cfa results (table 3) show that the model with four correlated factors (model 1) obtained an acceptable fit in all fit indices (χ2 (48) = 129.601, p < .001, cfi = .96, aic = 213.60, rmsea = .092, srmr = .059), except for rmsea which exceeded the criterion value of .08. neither the bifactor model nor any of the alternative models reached the acceptable level of model fit. moreover, the comparison of differences (δχ2 < .05; δcfi > .01) between model 1 and all other alternative models show that it fits the data significantly better. therefore, again, the bifactor model was not supported. regression weights for each of the four correlated factors varied between .86 and .62. descriptive statistics and correlations between scales are presented in table 2. cronbach’s alpha for the four scales ranged between .78 and .90, indicating satisfactory to high internal consistency of four scales. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 349 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 g oo dn es sof -f it in di ce s of a lte rn at iv e m ea su re m en t m od el s in s am pl e of e nt re pr en eu rs (n = 2 04 ) m od el χ2 df p r m se a sr m r c fi a ic m od el co m pa ris on δ χ2 δ df p δ c fi m od el 1 . f ou r c or re la te d fa ct or s: a nx ie ty , c om fo rt, d ep re ss io n, e nt hu si as m 12 9. 60 1 48 < .0 01 .0 92 .0 59 .9 56 21 3. 60 1 m od el 2 . t w o co rr el at ed fa ct or s: a nx ie ty -c om fo rt, d ep re ss io ne nt hu si as m 49 2. 62 6 53 < .0 01 .2 02 .1 52 .6 57 54 2. 62 6 m 2 vs m 1 36 3. 02 5 5 < .0 01 .2 79 m od el 3 . t w o co rr el at ed fa ct or s: p os iti ve a ffe ct , n eg at iv e a ffe ct 26 3. 47 3 53 < .0 01 .1 40 .0 88 .8 36 33 7. 47 3 m 3 vs m 1 13 3. 87 2 5 < .0 01 .1 00 m od el 4 . t hr ee fa ct or s: p os iti ve a ffe ct , n eg at iv e a ffe ct , p le as an tn es su np le as an tn es s 43 0. 12 0 51 < .0 01 .1 91 .1 35 .7 04 48 4. 12 0 m 4 vs m 1 30 0. 51 9 3 < .0 01 .2 32 m od el 5 . s in gl e fa ct or : w el l-b ei ng 54 8. 67 2 54 < .0 01 .2 12 .1 41 .6 14 59 6. 67 2 m 5 vs m 1 41 9. 07 1 6 < .0 01 .3 22 m od el 6 . h ie ra rc hi ca l: fo ur fa ct or s an d hi gh er o rd er fa ct or w el l-b ei ng 16 2. 70 4 50 < .0 01 .1 05 .0 99 .9 12 21 8. 70 4 m 6 vs m 1 33 .1 03 2 < .0 01 .0 24 m od el 7 . b ifa ct or : f ou r f ac to rs a nd w el l-b ei ng 13 8. 42 1 42 < .0 01 .1 06 .0 85 .9 25 23 4. 42 1 m 7 vs m 1 8. 82 0 2 .0 12 .0 11 n ot e. r m s e a = r oo t m ea n s qu ar e e rr or o f a pp ro xi m at io n; s r m r = s ta nd ar di ze d r oo t m ea n s qu ar e r es id ua l; c fi = c om pa ra tiv e fi t; a ic = a ka ik e in fo rm at io n c rit er io n. bifactor model of job-related affective well-being 350 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion a bifactor solution to factorial structure of measures was recently postulated for testing multifaceted constructs (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). such bifactor models allow to identify a general factor in addition to multiple unique factors, which are of interest in personality psychology (alessandri et al., 2015; chen et al., 2016), and in wellbeing research (chen, jing, et al., 2013; leue & beauducel, 2011). we expected that such bifactor model may be also a good representation of job-related affective well-being. results of our two studies, however, did not confirm this expectation. our research findings supported the four correlated factors model over the proposed bifactor model. according to our results, neither the bifactor, nor a single factor or hierarchical model fit the data better than the four factor model; this is consistent with the results of other studies (gonçalves & neves, 2011; laguna, mielniczuk, et al., 2017; mäkikangas et al., 2007; mielniczuk & laguna, 2018). all of those findings confirm that job-related affective well-being, as measured by warr’s instrument (1990) capture four specific, interrelated affective dimensions. this altogether supports the job-related affective well-being dimensionality, and subsequently, the circumplex model of affect (russell, 1980). it postulates that each affective experience is the result of a combination of two independent neurophysiological systems of valence and arousal, and is then interpreted as representing rather a particular affects (posner, russell, & peterson, 2005), and not a global affectivity. therefore, even if in case of self-esteem (alessandri et al., 2015), context-free well-being (chen, jing, et al., 2013), context-free affect (leue & beauducel, 2011) the global aspect of the construct along with the specificity of its subdimensions can be distinguished, in case of job-related affective well-being (as measured by the warr instrument) a global affectivity dimension is not confirmed. strengths and limitations one of the strengths of this research lies in the variation of samples included in our two studies. we involved a large sample of employees of different professions and, for the first time, made an evaluation of psychometric properties of the measure on the sample of entrepreneurs. this validates the instrument as useful in research on the role of affect in entrepreneurship – a dynamically evolving field of study (baron, 2008; laguna et al., 2016; stephan, 2018). another strong point of this study is that we tested a broad spectrum of alternative structural models. we checked all potential models tested in previous analyses and added a new, theoretical and psychometric proposition of the bifactor model (chen, hayes, et al., 2012). the studies were, however, not free of some shortcomings. first, our analyses were based on samples coming from one country, poland. even if the factorial structure of the measure was confirmed in other samples of polish employees (different than one presented in this paper, i.e., employees of small and medium size companies laguna, mielniczuk, et al., 2017; mielniczuk & laguna, 2018) and shows cross-culture invariance (laguna, mielniczuk, et al., 2017; mielniczuk & laguna, 2018), the bifactor model should be examined further in other cultural contexts. conclusions in conclusion, our results suggest that in future analyses four job-related affective well-being dimensions of the warr (1990) measure should be applied rather than the bifactor model. the four scales show satisfactory reliability in samples of employees of different profession and of entrepreneurs. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 351 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as work activity constitutes one of the central domains of functioning for most adults, job-related affect is a vital part of the human experience which should be taken into account when dealing with problems of people seeking professional help. this may be essential in career guidance and counseling where there is also an increasing focus on the emotional functioning of clients (gati et al., 2011). knowledge on what kind of emotions a client experiences toward work may help to prepare interventions targeted at specific problems. this can be done through the use of different affect-related interventions (koydemir & sun-selisik, 2016; saedpanah, salehi, & moghaddam, 2016). warr’s (1990) measure can be applied as a useful tool for evaluating affective experiences related to work and distinguishing four affective dimensions differing in valence (i.e., positive and negative affect) and activation level rather than a single global affectivity dimension. funding this research was financed by the national science centre, poland, grant no. dec-2013/10/m/hs6/00475. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the data set described in study 1 was never used in any of published article. the data set described in study 2 was presented in laguna, m., razmus, w., and żaliński, a. 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(1990). the measurement of well-being and other aspects of mental health. journal of occupational psychology, 63(3), 193-210. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.1990.tb00521.x laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 355 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://doi.org/10.7860%2fjcdr%2f2016%2f23693.9042 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1464-0597.2010.00435.x https://doi.org/10.5465%2famr.2004.13670972 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.2044-8325.1992.tb00482.x https://doi.org/10.5465%2famp.2017.0001 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f0963179041752718 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1076-8998.5.2.219 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fjob.505 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.2044-8325.1990.tb00521.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix figure a.1. six alternative measurement models for the warr’s (1990) measure. bifactor model of job-related affective well-being 356 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors mariola laguna, phd, is associate professor at the institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. head of the department of general psychology, editor-in-chief of “roczniki psychologiczne/annals of psychology”. her research interests include social and personality psychology, organizational behavior, psychology of entrepreneurship. emilia mielniczuk, phd, is assistant at the institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. her research interests include work and organizational psychology, psychology of entrepreneurship, health and positive psychology. wiktor razmus, phd, is assistant professor at the institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. his research interests include marketing and economic psychology, consumer behaviour, work and organizational psychology. laguna, mielniczuk, & razmus 357 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 342–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1632 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ bifactor model of job-related affective well-being (introduction) job-related affective well-being measure the factorial structure of the job-related affective well-being measure study 1 method results and discussion study 2 method results and discussion discussion strengths and limitations conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors internet behavior and satisfaction with sleep, health, quality of life and physical activity self-efficacy as components of subjective well-being: findings from an online survey research reports internet behavior and satisfaction with sleep, health, quality of life and physical activity self-efficacy as components of subjective well-being: findings from an online survey endi guza 1, lingling gao 2, sonia lippke 2 [1] faculty of psychology & speech therapy, university of valencia, valencia, spain. [2] department of psychology & methods, focus area diversity, constructor university bremen (previouly known as jacobs university bremen), bremen, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 received: 2020-12-03 • accepted: 2021-05-25 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland corresponding author: endi guza, faculty of psychology & speech therapy, university of valencia, av. de blasco ibáñez, 21, 46010 valencia, spain. e-mail: endiiguza@gmail.com abstract this study aimed to examine the relationship between internet use (constructive and health-related internet behavior, health app usages), physical activity self-efficacy, and subjective well-being (quality of life, health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction). participants (n = 758) were recruited to participate in an online survey. one-way manova and multiple regression analyses were used to examine the hypotheses. results showed that internet use was negatively associated with sleep satisfaction, r(738) = -.127, p < .001. individuals who use health-related apps for movement/fitness, t(689.900) = -3.354, p < .001, nutrition, t(300.075) = -2.434, p = .016, information for self-diagnosis, t(199.768) = -2.321, p = .021, and contact with doctors, t(90.630) = -2.035, p = .045, have higher pa self-efficacy than those who do not. overall, there was a statistically significant difference in subjective well-being based on a participants’ constructive internet use, f(28, 2590) = 1.97, p = .002, with quality of life (p = .006) and sleep satisfaction (p = .025) being statistically significant components of subjective well-being. this paper discusses the important theoretical and practical implications regarding the development of health-related apps and online well-being interventions which are significantly relevant to the well-being literature. keywords subjective well-being, physical activity, internet use, health-related apps, online behavior the search for the secret to a good life has persisted since ancient times, spurred on by greek philosophers and religious doctrines, until it recently became established as a scientific endeavor as the study of well-being. to date, diener’s tripartite model of subjective well-being remains the most relevant and influential self-reported measure of well-being still used in scientific research. his model of subjective well-being consists of three components: positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction (diener, 1994). these components are distinct from, yet interrelated with each other, as people who have higher levels of satisfaction with life tend to experience positive emotions more frequently than negative ones. research has shown that well-being is linked to several factors implemented in health and well-being interventions, including internet-based interventions. this study aims to assess whether internet behavior is related to subjective well-being, while examining its relevant components. in this study, internet behavior refers to constructive internet use and health-related internet use. constructive internet use refers to the frequency of participants using the internet for work or study purposes, while health-related internet use refers specifically to the use of health apps. since this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5343&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ working and studying are usually behaviors repeated on a regular basis, constructive internet use was measured in terms of days per week. subjective well-being and its components the concept of “subjective” well-being implies that people can evaluate their own lives and experiences meaningfully (tov & diener, 2013), an assumption validated by many studies analyzing subjective well-being and its components such as sleep quality (weinberg et al., 2016), social relationships (hitchcott et al., 2017), and personal growth (negovan, 2010). perceived physical health is a particularly important component of subjective well-being (balázs et al., 2018). røysamb et al. (2003) concluded that perceived health is a more significant component of subjective well-being than the current health status. they further concluded that this finding may be explained by genetic and environmental factors, as the genes which affect perceived health are those which affect subjective well-being. steptoe et al. (2015) assessed the relationship between subjective well-being and various health behaviors and indicators and concluded that amid lifestyle factors, physical activity (pa) was the most important mediator of the relationship between subjective well-being (specifically positive affect) and health, and is also linked to developmental, physical, mental, and social well-being (stathi et al., 2002). moreover, pa is found to have a particularly beneficial impact on sleep quality—another influential factor underlying subjective well-being. indeed, sleep quality and its components (such as frequency of awakenings at night and general satisfaction with sleep) have a greater influence on subjective well-being and overall measures of health compared to sleep quantity (pilcher et al., 1997). this can be explained by the fact that brain functions control emotion regulation and restore homeostasis during periods of sleep (weinberg et al., 2016). well-being-related internet behaviors since its emergence, one of the primary aims of research on well-being has been to identify variables and ways to increase general well-being and overall satisfaction with life, with self-reported well-being measures being the most common method of assessment to collect empirical data. consequently, numerous programs and intervention plans have been developed for this purpose. while online health interventions are continuously more popular, research on their effectiveness remains scarce. the internet as a medium carries the advantages of both an interpersonal and mass communication system. as such, it can be a very successful channel for improving well-being and stimulating health-related behavior change (cassell et al., 1998). individuals are generally motivated to engage in behaviors that will provide them with positive outcome experiences or personal gratifications. hobfoll’s conservation of resources theory predicts that people seek to create and maintain resources (e.g., personal characteristics, social circumstances, well-being, etc.) that they value, and avoid situations that risk the loss of such resources (hobfoll, 1989). the more resources one has, the more likely one is to gain further resources. in other words, existing resource gains generate future gains, thus creating a gain spiral (hobfoll, 1989). the conservation of resources theory can be applied to public health promotion strategies to increase their effective­ ness. hobfoll and schumm (2009) conducted several controlled clinical trials where they highlighted the relevance of resource-driven improvement in psychological health promotion for stimulating individuals to engage in healthy sexual behaviors. these interventions provided individuals with the necessary personal, social, and physical resources to engage in safer sexual behaviors. hobfoll and schumm’s results revealed the multifaceted intervention to be highly effective. they further concluded that if health promotion strategies focused on increasing knowledge, motivation, and behavioral resources for enacting and maintaining healthy behaviors, the success rate would be significantly higher (hobfoll & schumm, 2009). kim et al. (2015) also provided an explanation for the effectiveness of wellness programs from conservation of resources perspective. based on their findings, they claim that wellness programs trigger a resource gain spiral by increasing one’s wellness self-efficacy to improve aspects of one’s well-being. well-being in turn leads to increased psychological availability and career satisfaction over time (kim et al., 2015). these findings were supported by larose et al. (2001), who claimed that people tend to seek out media in a goal-directed manner that will provide them with personal gratification and the means to satisfy a wide variety of needs. internet behavior and subjective well-being 358 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 1989) can thus serve as a framework to rationalize the effectiveness of the internet as a platform for well-being interventions. specifically, if online interventions provide individuals with resources to engage in healthy behaviors that increase their well-being, this creates a gain spiral which, in turn, leads people to engage in these behaviors more frequently and consistently. such resources can be information on their health status (e.g., pa and sleep trackers, heart rate and blood pressure measurements, etc.), and guidance for reaching desired health goals, among others. in comparison to offline interventions, digital interventions have greater reach while being time-effective and customizable according to one’s individual needs. empirical data shows that overall well-being interventions can be highly effective at improving subjective well-being and at promoting the achievement and maintenance of personal health goals (e.g., lennefer et al., 2019; mitchell et al., 2009). health-related app usages and subjective well-being for online interventions to be successful, they must identify and implement effective behavior change techniques and strategies, such as behavior monitoring, problem identification and problem-solving, incentives for adopting healthy behaviors, and increasing self-efficacy. according to mitchell et al. (2009), combining techniques from positive psychol­ ogy and well-being research with online intervention research can significantly increase the effectiveness of health promotion. many of the limitations of traditional offline interventions can now be tackled by online interventions, as the internet’s approach to health promotion has higher accessibility, sustainability, and personalization according to one’s needs (mitchell et al., 2009) and provides social support digitally (lippke et al., 2021). scientific evidence shows that internet-delivered programs have a high success rate in many behavior change fields such as weight management, nutrition, smoking cessation, stress reduction, blood glucose control, reducing alcohol consumption, and increasing the level of pa (carr et al., 2013). a technique commonly used by many people to deepen their self-knowledge about health and well-being is tracking their individual behavior. whether written down on paper or mentally memorized, many people keep track of their sleep and eating patterns, weight, diets, and exercise schedules. lennefer et al. (2019) developed an online well-being intervention that combined a behavioral and cognitive approach. the intervention aimed to increase intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in employees through enhancing enjoyment levels, setting personal goals, and receiving personal­ ized advice from online coaches. findings indicated that this design was used by participants one year after the trial intervention and was highly effective at increasing employees’ health perception and reducing their body mass index (bmi) with activity trackers positively impacting subjective well-being. while research on internet-based interventions has persisted for the past two decades, the recent proliferation of smartphone applications (apps) has led to the development of health-related apps which include monitoring of health indicators, personal and public health information, access to clinical health data and medical advice, and allow for communication with health workers. health apps are highly practical to use as they are easily accessible through one’s smartphone or smartwatch and can be synchronized to one’s schedule or other daily activities. yuan et al. (2015) assessed users’ perception of health apps and found that performance expectancy (i.e., the extent to which users will gain benefits from using the app), combined with fun and engaging features, were among the main predictors of users’ continued use of apps. moreover, they found that apps which facilitated habitual use were highly effective, as falling into regular routines led to task completion without little conscious thought (yuan et al., 2015). this finding is particularly relevant for health apps designed to manage habitual health behaviors like pa, dieting, nutrition, and smoking cessation. personalized information, reliable and automatic tracking of healthy behaviors, goal-setting features, and daily reminders were also among the most desirable features for health apps (peng et al., 2016). research question and hypotheses many efforts have been made to explore the association between internet behavior and well-being, however, less is known about whether constructive and health-related internet behavior is related to individual’s subjective well-being. the research question of this study was whether internet behavior is related to subjective well-being, while examining its relevant components. to answer the research question, the following hypotheses were assessed: 1. constructive internet use will be positively correlated with sleep satisfaction and quality of life. guza, gao, & lippke 359 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. people who use health-related apps will have a higher quality of life compared to non-users. 3. people who use health-related apps will have higher pa self-efficacy compared to non-users. 4. constructive internet use will be positively correlated with subjective well-being. 5. constructive internet use and health-related internet use will significantly predict quality of life, health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction, and pa self-efficacy. these hypotheses were examined in an online survey, where participants self-reported their intentions and frequency of constructive internet use, health-related internet use, as well as various aspects of their subjective well-being. method participants the online questionnaire gathered 1,375 respondents in total. after excluding invalid data, 758 participants were included in the current study. among the participants, 60.9% were female and the mean age was 27.6 years old (sd = 13.25). the majority of the participants were either students or employed (93.9%), out of which 44.6% were employees or students at jacobs university bremen (now constructor university bremen). procedure the data was collected from october 2016 to august 2018 through online questionnaires, which consisted of both multi­ ple-choice and open-ended questions. in germany, the questionnaires were distributed to university staff and students, who received both an english and german version of the questionnaire through email, facebook, and face-to-face link distribution. in china, the survey link was sent to students and staff at universities, and was distributed to residents of shijiazhuang, china. participants in china received the chinese version through email and face-to-face link distribution. measurements internet behavior was assessed in terms of constructive internet use and health-related internet use. constructive internet use was measured by the item “how many days did you spend on internet use for work/study purposes per week?” participants could only fill in numbers. to measure health-related internet use participants were asked “for which topics based around health do you use apps?” the participants could select multiple answers among the following options: “movement or fitness (e.g., pedometer)” “relaxation (e.g., yoga)” “nutrition” “weight loss (e.g., counting calories)” “measuring sleeping habits” “smoking cessation” “blood pressure and heart frequency measurement” “information for self-diagnosis” “medication intake” “contact with a doctor” subjective well-being was measured in terms of satisfaction with health and sleep, quality of life, and pa self-effi­ cacy. satisfaction with health and sleep were measured by the items: “how satisfied are you with your health?”, and “how satisfied are you with your sleep?”, where answers were provided on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). quality of life was measured by the item “how would you rate your quality of life?” where answers were provided on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (very good). these three one-item measures were adapted from the short version of the world health organization quality of life questionnaire (who, 1995) and have been examined in previous studies (hsiao et al., 2014; lu et al., 2011). pa self-efficacy was measured by the item “i feel certain that i can be physically active even if it is difficult” where answers were provided on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to internet behavior and subjective well-being 360 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 4 (completely agree). this one-item measure was used previously (lippke et al., 2021). in addition, participants were asked demographic questions including sex, education level, work status, and whether they were employees or students at jacobs university bremen (now constructor university bremen). the questionnaires were translated by researchers in the psychological area. a research assistant proficient in german, english, and chinese back-translated and checked all three language versions. one of the coauthors who is a native german speaker assessed the english and german versions of the questionnaires; another coauthor who is a native chinese speaker assessed the english and chinese versions. data analysis the statistical analyses for this study were completed using ibm spss statistics 24.0. to assess the first hypothesis, we conducted a bivariate pearson correlation for the variables internet use for work/study, quality of life, and satisfaction with sleep. when analyzing health-related internet behavior, we treated participants’ use of each health-based app as a variable. since health app use was assessed as a categorical variable with two levels (0—not using health app; 1—using health app), we conducted an independent samples t-test to assess the second and third hypotheses. to assess the fourth hypothesis, we conducted a one-way manova analysis, with the frequency of internet use for work/study as a fixed factor, and satisfaction with health, satisfaction with sleep, quality of life, and pa self-efficacy as dependent variables and components of subjective well-being. the manova analysis can assess patterns between multiple dependent variables which tests with a single dependent variable can fail to detect. to assess the fifth hypothesis, we conducted four separate multiple-regression analyses. these tested whether internet use for work/study and use of health apps may predict quality of life in the first analysis, health satisfaction in the second analysis, sleep satisfaction in the third analysis, and pa self-efficacy in the fourth analysis. results descriptive analyses among the components of subjective well-being rated by the participants (table 1), quality of life was the highest-rated variable whereas sleep satisfaction was the lowest-rated. table 1 descriptive statistics for components of subjective well-being, and intercorrelations variable n range m sd 1 2 3 4 0. pa self-efficacy 747 1-4 3.33 0.846 .112** 1. quality of life 753 1-5 3.59 0.936 1 2. health satisfaction 752 1-5 3.29 1.053 .549** 1 3. sleep satisfaction 740 1-5 2.99 1.178 .436 .427** 1 4. internet behavior 758 1-7 5.53 1.833 .055 -.025 -.127** 1 note. n = number of valid observations. m = mean. sd = standard deviation. *p ≤ .05. **p ≤ .01. ***p ≤ .001. on average, the internet was used for work/study purposes 5.53 days per week (sd = 1.833). participants’ use of each health-related app is presented in figure 1. apps for movement/fitness were used the most used among participants (29.2%), followed by apps for weight loss (12.9%) and nutrition (12.7%). correlation analyses the bivariate pearson correlation analysis found no significant correlation between the frequency of internet use for work/study, satisfaction with health, and pa self-efficacy. however, the frequency of internet use for work/study was guza, gao, & lippke 361 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ negatively correlated with sleep satisfaction r(738) = -.127, p < .001. this suggests that study participants who use the internet constructively more often reported lower levels of satisfaction with sleep. however, no interrelation between internet use and quality of life was revealed. thus, the first hypothesis was not supported by the data. group differences to test hypothesis 2 which stated that people who use health-related apps will have a higher quality of life compared to non-users, independent samples t-test were performed. no significant differences were found for the reported levels of quality of life (see supplementary materials section for table a1); thus, the second hypothesis was rejected. the independent samples t-test revealed that people who use apps for movement/fitness, nutrition, information for self-diagnosis, and contact with doctors have higher pa self-efficacy than those who do not (table 2). table 2 independent samples t-test results: comparing levels of pa self-efficacy among app users and non-users app users non-users variable m sd m sd t df p cohen’s d apps for movement/fitness 3.43 0.735 3.22 0.937 -3.354 689.900 .001 .249 apps for nutrition 3.46 0.725 3.30 0.873 -2.434 300.075 .016 .199 apps for self-diagnosis 3.47 0.696 3.30 0.869 -2.321 199.768 .021 .216 apps for contact with doctors 3.50 0.717 3.31 0.856 -2.035 90.630 .045 .240 note. m = mean. sd = standard deviation. df = degrees of freedom. among these measures, users of apps for contact with doctors reported the largest mean of pa self-efficacy (m = 3.50, sd = 0.717). however, no significant differences between users and non-users in pa self-efficacy were found for the use of apps for relaxation, weight loss, measuring sleeping habits, blood pressure and heart frequency measurement, smoking cessation, and medication intake (see supplementary materials section for table a2). therefore, the third hypothesis was only partially supported by the data. figure 1 percentage of app users for each health-related app note. multiple answers could be given by each participant for the use of health apps. internet behavior and subjective well-being 362 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to test hypothesis 4, a one-way manova analysis, wilk’s lambda multivariate test was run. the results proved that the effect of constructive internet use was positive at a significance level of p < .05 and accounted for 1.9% of subjective well-being (f(28, 2590) = 1.97, p = .002; partial η2 = .019). the tests of between-subjects effects showed that constructive internet use had a significant positive relationship with quality of life, f(7, 721) = 2.86, p = .006, partial η2 = .027, and sleep satisfaction, f(7, 721) = 2.31, p = .025, partial η2 = .022, while no relationship was found with satisfaction with health and pa self-efficacy. these results suggest that overall constructive internet use has a significant positive relationship with subjective well-being, with the components “quality of life” and “satisfaction with sleep” being statistically significant. the fourth hypothesis was therefore supported by the data. to test hypothesis 5, multiple regression analyses were performed. the results showed no significant association between constructive internet use and health apps use with quality of life and health satisfaction. however, constructive internet use and use of health apps’ significantly predicted satisfaction with sleep f(11, 728) = 2.36, p = .007, r 2 = .034, where the frequency of internet use for work/study (β = -.127, p < .001) and apps for relaxation (β = -.076, p = .05) were significant predictors. the independent variables explained 3.4% of the variability of satisfaction with sleep. the negative β coefficients indicate that satisfaction with sleep is negatively correlated with predictors of internet use for work/study and apps for relaxation. pa self-efficacy was also significantly predicted by constructive internet use and health apps’ use f(11, 735) = 2.46, p = .005, r2 = .035; with apps for movement/fitness (β = .122, p = .002) and apps for relaxation (β = -.085, p = .029) as significant predictors. the independent variables explained 3.5% of the variability in pa self-efficacy, which is positively correlated with app usage for movement/fitness and negatively correlated to the use of apps for relaxation. thus, hypothesis 5 was partially supported by the data. discussion this study investigated the relationship between internet behavior and subjective well-being. taken together, the results revealed that constructive internet use had a significant positive relationship with subjective well-being, with quality of life and sleep satisfaction being statistically significant components. moreover, sleep satisfaction was predicted by both constructive and health-related internet use. the first hypothesis, which examined whether individuals who engaged with more constructive internet use were more likely to have higher levels of satisfaction with sleep and quality of life, was not supported by the data. the results of the correlation analysis showed no significant association between constructive internet use and quality of life. a possible explanation for the lack of correlation in the current study could be that quality of life measure may be mediated by several other factors that were not assessed in this study, such as optimism and perceived support (yalçın, 2011), working and living conditions, self-perceived stress (rusli et al., 2008), as well as personality factors (xie et al., 2016). contrary to the first hypothesis assumption, however, constructive internet use was negatively correlated with satisfaction with sleep. a possible explanation for this finding could be that people who use the internet for work and/or study purposes may engage in more extensive internet use as part of their professional or academic routine, which delays their sleep schedule. this relationship may also be mediated by other factors such as stress levels, health-related problems, and lifestyle approaches. moreover, a recent study from billari et al. (2018) found that increased use of the internet before sleep is strongly correlated to sleep deprivation, and that excessive internet use in general can significantly disturb sleeping habits. the second hypothesis, which explored whether people engaged with increased health-related internet use were more likely to have a higher quality of life, was not supported by the data. the results of the t-test showed no significant differences in quality of life for people who use health apps and those who do not. such results could be explained by the fact that the t-test only focuses on mean differences rather than a correlation itself. moreover, the reason why individuals use health apps could be an influential mediator, as people who have certain health impairments may expect to have more prominent outcomes from using health apps. choi et al. (2015) argues that using health apps has a positive impact on medication adherence and quality of life, which leads to higher effectiveness of medication therapy. those without health impairments, however, might use health apps only for self-monitoring purposes and thus do not expect guza, gao, & lippke 363 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ any outcome related to the quality of life. for example, a study conducted by liang and ploderer (2016) found that using health apps for sleep-tracking had a great impact on one’s self-knowledge about their sleeping patterns. however, it did not improve their sleep quality. overall, the results suggest that using apps for informational and self-monitoring purposes might improve one’s level of self-awareness about health indicators, but there is no clear empirical evidence about their effect on one’s quality of life. the third hypothesis, which examined whether people engaged with higher levels of health-related internet use were more likely to have higher levels of pa self-efficacy, was partially supported by the data. the results showed significant differences in pa self-efficacy in those who used only some of the health apps, especially apps for move­ ment/fitness, nutrition, information for self-diagnosis, and contact with doctors. the relationship between using health apps for movement/fitness and nutrition and pa self-efficacy was expected, as it is implied that individuals who used these apps were more likely to be committed to fitness and pa. these findings can be explained through the conservation of resources theory whereby higher levels of engagement with pa results in higher levels of self-efficacy, which in turn increases engagement with pa. initial efforts put into pa would create again a spiral that is further stimulated by increased pa self-efficacy. research from litman et al (2015) shows that self-efficacy is a crucial factor mediating the relationship between the use of exercise apps and health outcomes. this argument suggests that app usage may increase pa levels, which in turn increases pa self-efficacy; whereas in comparison, app usage may increase pa self-efficacy, subsequently increasing pa levels, resulting in better health outcomes. therefore, pa self-efficacy is both predicted by, and a predictor of pa (litman et al., 2015). the link between pa self-efficacy and apps for information for self-diagnosis and contact with doctors may also be explained by individual health and app use choices. apps for movement/fitness were the most used among participants (29.2%). as such, individuals who use these apps, or simply people who engage in pa, might also use apps for information for self-diagnosis and contact with doctors. similarly, the lack of engagement in pa could explain the lack of significant differences in pa self-efficacy among the use of other health apps. the fourth hypothesis, which examined whether people who engaged with higher levels of constructive internet use were more likely to have higher levels of subjective well-being, was supported by the data. the manova results reported that overall, constructive internet use has a significant effect on subjective well-being, with quality of life and satisfaction with sleep emerging as the only statistically significant components. regarding quality of life, the findings underscore findings by ernsting et al. (2017) who, as mentioned previously, concluded that people with higher education and full employment are more likely to engage in constructive internet use and report having a better quality of life. the positive correlation between constructive internet use and quality of life may also be interpreted from conservation of resources perspective (hobfoll, 1989) as those who engage in constructive internet use for work or study purposes may trigger a gain spiral, where they receive professional or academic gratification for their work, resulting in greater engagement with constructive internet use. this in turn may increase their level of perceived quality of life and lead to higher levels of subjective well-being. oravec (2002) argues that constructive online recreation can have a positive impact on creativity and well-being in the workplace. wang et al. (2012) also found that using the internet for constructive purposes predicts healthy lifestyles among internet users. as the manova analysis detects patterns between multiple dependent variables, which a simple correlational test may fail to detect, this may explain the lack of correlation found when assessing the first hypothesis. the relationship between constructive internet use and subjective well-being, however, has not been explicitly assessed before. thus, these findings provide meaningful insight into the health-related outcomes of constructive internet behavior. finally, the fifth hypothesis, which explored whether constructive internet use and health-related internet use predicted quality of life, health satisfaction, sleep satisfaction, and pa self-efficacy, was partially supported by the data. only sleep satisfaction and pa self-efficacy were predicted by the independent variables, while no relationship was found between quality of life and health satisfaction. both internet use for work/study and apps for relaxation were found to be predictors with a negative effect on satisfaction with sleep. similar to the first hypothesis, the negative effect of internet use for work/study on satisfaction with sleep could be explained by excessive internet use, particularly before sleep, which may disturb sleeping habits and increase the risk of sleep deprivation (billari et al., 2018). using the internet during nighttime may be a significant mediator of this relationship. also, custers and van den bulck (2012) internet behavior and subjective well-being 364 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ concluded that internet availability in one’s bedroom predicts a change in their sleeping schedule, with later bedtime and later rise time on weekdays, and later bedtime on weekends. the negative association of relaxation apps’ use with sleep satisfaction could be mediated by the purpose of using relaxation apps. for instance, if one uses relaxation apps to reduce anxiety or depression, the presence of such disorders may itself be a factor that reduces satisfaction with sleep. although research has shown that relaxation and breathing techniques may promote behavioral change in sleeping habits and improve sleep disturbances (sato, 2020), their full effects may only be achieved after several months of regular practice (tsai, 2004). a study conducted by tsai (2004) found that relaxation techniques had no effect on sleep quality in healthy participants; however, they had a positive effect on anxiety in adults affected by cardiac disease. thus, the presence of health impairments among participants might be a possible explanation for the negative relationship between relaxation apps and sleep satisfaction. the regression analyses revealed the use of apps for relaxation had a negative effect on pa self-efficacy, while using apps for movement/fitness had a positive effect. again, the purpose of using relaxation apps could be a significant mediating factor. if participants use relaxation apps to treat insomnia, anxiety or depression, such disorders would be associated with less pa and thus lower pa self-efficacy. the positive effect of apps for movement/fitness on pa self-efficacy was expected. the reciprocal relationship between pa and pa self-efficacy has been further explained by mcauley and blissmer (2000), who argue that pa self-efficacy is also an important outcome (netz et al., 2005) in acute and regular exercise experiences. limitations and recommendations for future research this study had a relatively large sample size and provided meaningful insight into predictors of subjective well-being that had not been assessed before; however, several limitations should be noted. first, there was a lack of prior research on constructive internet use and how it relates to subjective well-being and its components. the negative correlation between constructive internet use and satisfaction with sleep could be mediated by various variables that were not assessed in this study, such as level of stress, sleep disorders, using the internet for other purposes, daily schedule, etc. similarly, the lack of correlation between constructive internet use and quality of life could be a result of other unassessed mediators (e.g., working conditions, personality traits, etc.) or undetected patterns from the correlational analysis. second, the lack of correlation between the use of health apps and quality of life could be attributed to the t-test as the chosen method of analysis. the independent samples t-test only represents the mean differences between the two groups (users and non-users of health apps). however, it does not represent a correlational or predictive relationship between the two variables. the effect of mediators such as the purpose of using health apps, health history and current health status of participants, and apps’ design and usability, needs to be thoroughly assessed as well. third, the study uses self-reported data with limited reliability as it depends solely on the participants’ interpretation and introspective ability, which is prone to response bias (e.g., agreement bias or exaggeration). future research should focus on the underlying processes that moderate the relationship between constructive internet use and subjective well-being, and particular attention should be brought to the interaction between satisfaction with sleep and quality of life. longitudinal studies should be conducted to examine the effect of using health apps regularly over a specific time period (e.g., 3–6 months). this would provide more accurate results on the impact of health apps on subjective well-being. since the nature of the current study is correlational, further research should implement an experimental design with constructive internet use and regular use of health apps as controlled, inde­ pendent variables. this would help establish a causal relationship between these factors and subjective well-being and its components. conclusion this study filled a gap in both the well-being literature and that of online behavior, as the relationship between constructive internet use and subjective well-being had not been assessed by researchers. this research has introduced a new perspective on constructive and healthy internet use, with the conservation of resources theory explaining guza, gao, & lippke 365 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 357–368 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5343 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gratifying internet behavior as a trigger for a well-being-related outcome gain spiral. these theoretical implications may comprise a relevant framework for the development of online well-being interventions. moreover, this study provides important practical implications for motivating people to engage in healthy behaviors, in particular physical activity, as a way to increase their pa self-efficacy, and their overall level of well-being. funding: the authors were not in receipt of funding. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank prof. yiqun gan and her research group—beijing key laboratory of behavior and mental health, peking university—for their strong support in data collection in china. we thank kureva matuku for language support in editing the manuscript. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the study was approved by the ethics committee of jacobs university bremen (now constructor university bremen). all study participants were fully informed about the study and provided informed consent. the anonymized data is available from the corresponding author. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see the index of supplementary materials below) • two appendices with independent samples t-test results index of supplementary materials guza, e., gao, l., & lippke, s. 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(2015). keep using my health apps: discover users’ perception of health and fitness apps with the utaut2 model. telemedicine journal and e-health, 21(9), 735–741. https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2014.0148 about the authors endi guza received her ba in psychology from jacobs university bremen (now constructor university bremen) (germany) and a joint erasmus mundus msc in work, organizational and personnel psychology from the university of valencia (spain) and the university of bologna (italy). her main research areas of interest are occupational health and well-being, digital well-being interventions and teamwork dynamics. lingling gao received her m.sc. in educational technology at beijing normal university, china, and her ph.d. in health psychology at jacobs university bremen (now constructor university bremen) bremen, germany. her main research interests include addiction and health, internet behaviors, and intercultural differences. sonia lippke, professor of health psychology and behavioral medicine at constructor university bremen (previouly known as jacobs university bremen), is faculty member of the bremen international graduate school of social sciences (bigsss). she received her ph.d. at freie universität berlin, germany. her main areas of teaching and research are health promotion, communication, psychology and multiple behavior change. internet behavior and subjective well-being 368 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1136 https://doi.org/10.24966/acim-7562/100095 https://doi.org/10.1123/japa.10.1.76 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(13)61489-0 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118339893.wbeccp518 https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.20039 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.007 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajpy.12098 https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00112-k https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-015-0271-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10447-011-9113-9 https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2014.0148 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ internet behavior and subjective well-being (introduction) subjective well-being and its components well-being-related internet behaviors health-related app usages and subjective well-being research question and hypotheses method participants procedure measurements data analysis results descriptive analyses correlation analyses group differences discussion limitations and recommendations for future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors omission and compromise: the sacredness of moral foundations in political groups in italy research reports omission and compromise: the sacredness of moral foundations in political groups in italy silvia di battista* a, monica pivetti a, annukka vainio b, chiara berti a [a] department of psychological, health, and territorial sciences, university “g. d’annunzio” of chieti-pescara, chieti, italy. [b] department of forest sciences, faculty of agriculture and forestry, helsinki institute of sustainability science (helsus), university of helsinki, helsinki, finland. abstract sacred values are moral foundations that may make public and political debates among groups hard to resolve. a taboo trade-off framework offers the opportunity of measuring the inviolability and the “sacralization” of moral foundations. in this study, moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework were assessed in a convenience sample of italians (n = 224) using a new measure to assess sacred values, the omission as a compromise on moral foundations scale (oc-mf). the oc-mf measures the willingness of individuals to omit moral foundations in exchange for money. it was predicted that italian center and left-wing participants would be less willing to compromise individualizing moral foundations as opposed to binding ones, and that center and right-wing participants would be less willing to compromise on binding moral foundations than left-wing participants. confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated the two-factor structure of the oc-mf: individualizing and binding. as predicted, repeated measures anova showed that political orientation was related with differential adoptions of moral foundations as sacred values, with center and left-wing participants refusing to compromise more on individualizing than on binding moral foundations. moreover, left-wing participants were more willing to compromise on binding moral foundations than center and right-wing participants. the oc-mf shows the hypothesized differences between italian political groups and offers a new understanding of moral reasoning. these findings provide opportunities for improving ideological debates concerning sacred values. keywords: moral psychology, compromise on moral foundations, omission, sacred values, moral foundations, political orientation europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 received: 2019-01-25. accepted: 2019-07-10. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychological, health, and territorial sciences, university “g. d’annunzio” of chieti-pescara, via dei vestini 31, 66100, chieti (italy). tel./fax: +39.0871.3556595. e-mail: s.dibattista@unich.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the moral compromises of sacred values in many situations, people dislike making a trade-off between different choice alternatives, especially if choice options mirror inviolable sacred values (tetlock, kristel, elson, green, & lerner, 2000). any moral value that people implicitly or explicitly treat as having infinite or transcendental meaning that prohibits comparisons, trade-offs, or other exchanges is referred to as a “sacred value” (bartels, bauman, cushman, pizarro, & mcgraw, 2015; tetlock et al., 2000). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ graham and haidt (2012) argued that sacredness is crucial for understanding morality and it is a universal human propensity to invest people, places, times, and ideas with an importance which goes far beyond the utility they possess. in particular, some goods, such as human life, rights, or health, are treated as having a transcendental or sacred meaning that cannot be exchanged for secular values, especially those goods that can be bought or sold (bartels et al., 2015; carmichael, hubert, reeves, & schanche, 1994). sacred values are not always religious in character, because core secular values can be assumed as sacred and inviolable by a community (graham & haidt, 2012; tetlock et al., 2000). graham and haidt (2012) explained that sacredness does not require a god, because flags, national holidays and many other markers of collective solidarity are sacred in the same way. the opportunity for moral compromise of sacred values occurs whenever an individual confronts a situation where a contemplated choice or action puts at risk those moral principles with which an individual and his group strongly identify (goodstein, 2000). moral compromise involving what is sacralized are often resisted or refused (graham & haidt, 2012). previous research has shown that trading off sacred values is considered a taboo and people express negative feelings even when contemplating this mere opportunity (tetlock, 2003). for instance, hanselmann and tanner (2008) argued that taboo trade-offs are negatively emotion-laden, because the decision-makers realize that something important is at stake and has to be protected. authors have also found that when a decision situation is associated with a sacred value (i.e., taboo trade-off), people perceive the task as easier to solve compared with a situation not involving sacred values (i.e., routine trade-off). performing a functional mri (fmri) with volunteers who were faced with a series of decision tasks, duc, hanselmann, boesiger, and tanner (2013) found that taboo trade-off proposals increased neuronal activations in the left anterior temporal lobe and bilateral amygdalae – areas associated with rule-based processing and emotion as well as significant correlations between activations of the right amygdala and moral disgust ratings. following a social psychological approach, although people wish to protect their moral self-image (monin & jordan, 2009) and want to see themselves as moral actors (mazar, amir, & ariely, 2008; nisan, 1991), studies have also demonstrated that people recognize that moral concepts, like purity, can have different meanings depending on the type of social relationship a given situation involves (rai & fiske, 2011). according to what is known as moral flexibility (bartels, 2008), contextual and societal factors could influence which values are more relevant than others. morgan, skitka, and wisneski (2010) argued that different individuals may see some issues as relevant or irrelevant to morality. for example, people know that tax evasion is wrong, that it represents a risk because there is a certain probability of being discovered and punished, and that it leads to higher taxes for the remaining taxpayers. empirical literature on the ethics of tax evasion reveals that, in general, there is strong moral opposition to it (e.g., bosco & mittone, 1997). however, the opposition to tax evasion could be weaker in a number of circumstances: cases in which the government engages in human rights abuses or cases in which the tax system is perceived as unfair (mcgee, 2012). which moral values become sacred for a group is somewhat arbitrary, a function of cultural context and need (ginges, 2015). mcgraw and tetlock (2005) found that apparently absolute opposition to selling body organs on the marketplace was substantially reduced when, for example, it was emphasized that this trade would save many lives. in other words, what counts as a taboo trade-off varies dramatically across ideological subcultures, group-specific approaches to morality, and historical periods (tetlock, peterson, & lerner, 1996). there are many opportunities for reframing issues that involve sacred values for groups. as in religions, values survive in time and in space because they are readily rewritable in ways that are sensitive to changing contexts (atran & norenzayan, 2004). the way in which moral values are relevant and sacralized could depend on collective reasons and could be based on a di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 129 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ specific ingroup internalized conviction of right and wrong (bartels et al., 2015). however, moral values can be defined as sacred by means of a taboo against material trade-offs, with several implications for intergroup dynamics and conflicts. what gives sacred values their meaning and their moral status is their separation from the profane domain of everyday life (durkheim, 1955; tetlock, 2003). therefore, their defining characteristic is a taboo against valuing moral values along a material or monetary scale (ginges, atran, medin, & shikaki, 2007). moral sacredness and political ideology the political arena is a field where moral convictions are the most debated and relevant for guiding the attitudes and behavior of electors, parties, and candidates. discussions around inviolable values abound in many fundamental political disputes (e.g., the right to life, lgbt+ rights or the death penalty), and they often make disputes much harder to resolve. with regard to political issues, there is considerable variation in the degree to which people’s opinions are vested with moral conviction (e.g., skitka, bauman, & sargis, 2005). increased moral conviction about a given issue predicts increased prejudice toward those who have different views (skitka et al., 2005), as well as distrust of political authorities who have to work on the issue (wisneski, lytle, & skitka, 2009). skitka and colleagues (2005) found that attitudes held with strong moral conviction predicted greater social and physical distance from, and intolerance towards, dissimilar others, lower levels of good will and engagement in attitudinally heterogeneous groups, and inability to generate procedural solutions to resolve disagreements. graham and haidt (2010) argued that the most intractable political debates are likely to involve binding moral foundations, whereas the greatest degree of commonality may be found in issues related to individualizing ones. according to the moral foundations theory (mft; haidt & joseph, 2004; haidt & graham, 2007), individualizing foundations are related to care for and devotion to the discomfort of others (harm / care) and concern for justice and rights (fairness / reciprocity); while binding foundations describe the concern for and interest in social solidarity and responsibilities of group membership (ingroup / loyalty); social order, social role fulfillment and respect for traditions and institutions (authority / respect); and interest in control of impulses and desires (purity / sanctity). individualizing foundations are described as the source of those moral intuitions correlated with the liberal philosophical tradition with its emphasis on the rights and welfare of individuals. individualizing foundations are specific to a secular contractual society prioritizing individual rights and in which binding foundations are less important, or even elicit racism, prejudice or nationalism, authoritarianism, homophobia and disgust-based restrictions on the rights of women (haidt & kesebir, 2010). binding foundations correlate with many conservative and religious moralities with their emphasis on group-binding loyalty (see also graham & haidt, 2012), and tend to be supported by more conservative elements within a society. in general, conservatives prefer a binding approach (i.e., they give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations), whereas liberals show a preference for an individualizing approach (i.e., they give higher evaluations on fairness and harm moral foundations than on other foundations; graham & haidt, 2010; graham, haidt, & nosek, 2009; graham et al., 2011; haidt & graham, 2007; haidt & joseph, 2004). testing the mf hypothesis in different countries, graham and colleagues (2011) found that liberalism / left-wing ideology sustains liberty and equality as fundamental political goods, and so liberal people mainly support individual rights and the use of government programs to extend such rights as widely and as equally as possible. on the other hand, the fundamental values of conservatism / right-wing ideology are found in their propensity to preserve the status quo in human welfare and long-existing institutions, norms, and traditions across generations. conservatives support solid institutions and social control as necessary and they tend to believe that they are hard to replace if delegiomission and compromise 130 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ timized. however, these assumptions have not always been confirmed in all studies. for instance, davis and colleagues (2016) could not generalize the moral foundations hypothesis which predicted that conservatism would positively correlate to binding foundations in black people in the united states. few studies used the moral foundation approach to investigate left-wing and right-wing moral reasoning in the italian context (d’alberti, 2013; di battista, pivetti, & berti, 2018; milesi, 2017). across three studies carried out in italy from 2010 to 2013, milesi (2017) found that the intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals is associated with concerns about sanctity. results also showed that individualizing is weakly related to political orientation, particularly in the dimension of care. di battista, pivetti, and berti (2018) found that both italian left and right-wingers attribute higher scores to individualizing moral foundations than to binding ones. right-wingers give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations, whereas left-wingers give higher evaluations on individualizing foundations than on the other foundations. these studies did not measure moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework. in general, existing research measuring moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework relies primarily on the moral foundations sacredness scale (mfss; see graham et al., 2009). the mfss is designed to measure an individual’s willingness to violate moral norms in exchange for money (e.g., “kick a dog in the head, hard”; graham et al., 2009). as far as we know, only one italian study administered the mfss (d’alberti, 2013) in order to study moral foundations and voting intentions in the italian general election in 2013. the author found that the correlations between the indexes obtained with two methods of measurement (moral foundations questionnaire and mfss) were quite different. according to the mfss measurement, the only relevant result was an unexpectedly high foundation score for the political center. the italian centrist faction seemed particularly sensitive to the notion of asking for money in exchange for violating taboos. d’alberti (2013) highlighted that an explanation might lie in italian political history. a centrist party such as democrazia cristiana (christian democracy) was traditionally the party with the closest ties to catholics for a long period, namely, from the end of the second world war until the 1990s. a strong identification with catholic values for the centrist parties might explain these high scores in the moral trade-off measure, but d’alberti cannot explain why these scores weren’t reflected in the moral foundations questionnaire. other studies, which aimed at measuring purity violations alone, have used scenarios involving incest and sex with a dead chicken (feinberg, willer, antonenko, & john, 2012; pennycook, cheyne, barr, koehler, & fugelsang, 2014), or vignettes involving incest and eating a pet dog (eskine, kacinik, & prinz, 2011; schnall, haidt, clore, & jordan, 2008; wheatley & haidt, 2005). these specific scenarios and scales of moral compromise are difficult to adapt to italian participants, as they are generally against these violations. for instance, in italy incest and sexual relations between people and animals are punishable by law, therefore the moral applicability of these sentences, scenarios, and items is complicated. for this reason, we suspect that items designed to measure an individual’s willingness to violate moral norms in exchange for money as in previous studies will be particularly rejected by participants, obscuring any difference between groups. the current study this study aims to better understand the moral quandaries people face when they debate sacred values and to further the study of moral psychology and its link with political ideology in the italian context, showing 1) how compromise on moral foundations unveils the moral reasoning of the political left, center, and right in italy; 2) di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 131 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ which set of moral factors plays the most important role in these distinctions. the inclusion of the assessment of omission as a compromises on moral foundations is useful for understanding the moral roots of the ideological debates between groups. furthermore, exploring moral psychology and judgments calls for different tools and methods that can cover all moral domains. for these reasons, we aim to use a new tool to measure the sacralization of moral foundations in a taboo trade-off context, drawing inspiration from the mfss. we are interested in showing how a moral dilemma can conflict with the political groups’ internalized convictions of right and wrong in the italian context. moral regret for compromise on moral foundations in some specific dilemmas could explain what kind of morality a group and its members have. in line with the relevant research, mf hypothesis predict that conservatives prefer the binding approach (i.e., they give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations), whereas liberals show a preference for individualizing moral foundations when compared to conservatives (graham et al., 2009; graham et al., 2011). adapting tetlock’s work on sacred values and taboo trade-offs (tetlock et al., 2000) to make moral judgments “personal and visceral” (graham et al., 2009, p. 1036) or personally relevant, graham and colleagues (2009) showed participants’ resistance to contemplate a tradeoff. liberals refused to make trade-offs on individualizing foundations but were more willing to perform actions that violated the binding foundations. they were less likely than conservatives to see trade-offs related to binding foundations as violations of sacred values. the authors commented their results, finding that liberals mainly justify moral rules in terms of their consequences for individuals; they are familiarized with balancing opposing interests with the primary interest of individual care and rights. conservatives, in contrast, are more likely not to break moral rules, even when the consequences would be positive, because they justify these values as handed down from authorities, such as god, or from earlier generations. the authors highlighted that this deontological reluctance to make trade-offs could be well detected by the methods used in the mfss (graham et al., 2009). the opportunity for moral compromise on sacred values, putting at risk those moral principles with which a group and its members strongly identify (goodstein, 2000), could disclose which sets of foundations are truly inviolable for the left and the right. in this study and in line with the literature (graham et al., 2009; graham et al., 2011), it is hypothesized that italian center left morality relies heavily on the individualizing foundations that people would not compromise by accepting money in exchange for violating them. on the other hand, we predict that those on the center right would be less likely to violate binding foundations for money than left-wingers. we also expect to find high scores on either individualizing or binding foundations for the political center, which can represent those italian political parties traditionally linked to religiousness (d’alberti, 2013). specifically, in the assessment of moral foundations via a new moral compromise foundation scale, namely the omission as a compromise on moral foundations scale (oc-mf), it is predicted that: h1: center and left-wing italian participants would consider individualizing moral foundations as more relevant (i.e., lower willing to compromise on them) than binding foundations. h2: center and right-wing italian participants would consider binding moral foundations as more relevant (i.e., lower willing to compromise on them) than left-wing italian participants. confirmation of a two-factor structure of the oc-mf according to one of the principal two-factor models identified by graham and colleagues (2011) is also expected. the research context italy has a multi-party system characterized by rapidly changing governments. it is recognized as a westernized country with a modern liberal tradition with regard to the importance of the protection of each individual omission and compromise 132 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and his / her rights across every level of the political spectrum. between 1996 and 2008, the italian political parties were organized into two large center-left and center-right coalitions. in 2013 the bipolar system was unsettled by several new political actors and widespread political disaffection increased among italian citizens (pasquino & valbruzzi, 2013). however, despite the alleged end of ideologies (bell, 1965) and despite the disaffection for specific parties, in italy the relevance of the left-liberal and right-conservative distinction is still present in the electors’ identification and represents a valuable organizing principle of the political space (baldassarri, 2013; bellucci & maraffi, 2014; corbetta, cavazza, & roccato, 2009; gries, 2017; natale, 2006; vegetti, poletti, & segatti, 2013). furthermore, due to growing political party fragmentation and unstable coalitions between parties, personal reasons (such as moral values or the vision of a “good society”) increase in importance in people’s personal political orientation and identification, more significantly than previous traditional indicators for political decision-making (such as geographical derivation, status, education, and occupation; caprara, schwartz, capanna, vecchione, & barbaranelli, 2006; lakoff, 2004; vecchione, tullio, & caprara, 2011; westen, 2007). italian political leaders often invoke sacred values in their electoral programs and use them to discredit political adversaries. the sacralization of the same moral imperative (i.e., the right to life) makes discussion between political groups particularly unfeasible. indeed, moral issues are often the focus of severe electoral debates on the inviolability of certain issues. method participants the convenience sample included 224 italian participants recruited via snowball sampling with the collaboration of research assistants. the majority (58.6%) were females (males 37.6%; 4% gender information missing). their mean age was 27.93 years (sd = 10.9; range 18-75). about 59.8% of the participants were students. as for political orientation (m = 4.1; sd = 1.5), the sample was fairly balanced between left, right, and center, revealing that 27.7% of the participants positioned themselves on the left of the left-right axis (from 1 to 3 on the scale), whereas 27.7% positioned themselves in the center (point 4 on the scale), and 30.4% positioned themselves on the right (from 5 to 7) (14.3% did not report their political orientation). participants who declared their political party affiliation were a minor part of the total sample (n = 82; 36.6%). procedure the research was carried out by the university g. d’annunzio of chieti-pescara in italy. the questionnaire was implemented using a google drive form and administered in the italian regions of abruzzo and lazio. participants were recruited via snowball sampling with the collaboration of researchers and doctoral students. they posted the questionnaire link on social networks or sent it to the mailing lists of both close (e.g., friends) and more distant acquaintances (e.g., colleagues) who were involved in political groups or who they deemed to be very interested in political debates. the questionnaire took approximately 20 minutes to fill in. the research complied with the code of ethics of the italian psychology association (associazione italiana di psicologia [a.i.p.], 2015). di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 133 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures the omission as a compromise on moral foundations scale (oc-mf) individuals’ willingness to omit/neglect moral norms in exchange for money was measured. following on from studies relating to moral taboo trade-offs (graham et al., 2009; graham & haidt, 2012; tetlock et al., 2000) and inspired by the moral foundations questionnaire (mfq; graham et al., 2009; graham et al., 2011), we generated items to measure compromise on moral foundations. each item measures the violation of moral foundations in exchange for money. in the mfss by graham and colleagues (2009), five potential taboo violations for each moral foundation were administered. for example, the authors asked participants how much money someone would have to pay them to: “kick a dog in the head, hard” (for harm); “renounce their citizenship” (for ingroup); “get a blood transfusion from a child molester” (for purity). in order to test the applicability of the mfss in the italian sample (graham et al., 2009), we ran a pilot study adapting d’alberti’s (2013) italian translation of the mfss. the scale was administered to a sample of 23 italian undergraduate psychology students who filled in the questionnaire during classwork. they were invited to carefully read, fill in and critically evaluate the scale on their own. then, students were invited to discuss their personal evaluation in groups of four/five students each. after that, they were asked to answer to a semi-structured interview concerning the main strong and weak points of the scale. the results suggested that the scale might be inadequate to measure sacred values in the italian context, both in individuals and in groups. in particular, three problems emerged from the students’ answers: 1) social desirability: many items of the scale refer to unacceptable issues for italian culture (e.g., “stick a pin into the palm of a child you don’t know”); 2) mfss items measure some aspects that in italy are considered crimes, antisocial behavior or cruelty rather than moral concerns (e.g., “kick a dog in the head, hard”); 3) some items are not suitable for the morality of italians, as they are not as nationalistic as citizens of other countries (e.g., “curse the founders or early heroes of your country (in private, nobody can hear you)”). similarly, davis and colleagues (2016) found that the specific items on the moral foundations questionnaire assessing loyalty to one’s country and loyalty to one’s family may not be strongly aligned in some subsamples. for example, among black people in the united states, some individuals may feel very loyal to their family and community, but feel less loyalty towards their country. this might be true in italy as well. however, the moral trade-off framework appeared to us very suitable for measuring the moral inviolability that makes moral foundations sacred. graham and colleagues (2009) argued that the mfss is a measure that makes moral judgments more “personal and visceral” (p. 1036) than in other instruments used in mf theory and studies, eliciting personally relevant responses by presenting subjects with moral trade-offs. we generated potential compromises on moral foundations in a moral trade-off framework, partially drawing inspiration for the wording from the moral relevance scale of the mfq (reported in graham et al., 2009, appendix a). this mfq scale offers a decontextualized method that is appropriate for assessing moral values as values that are said to be generalized across contexts (e.g., “when you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking: whether or not someone acted unfairly [for fairness]; whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency [for purity]”; graham et al., 2009). drawing inspiration from this scale, 17 items to measure compromise on moral foundations were generated (6 items for individualizing 2 items for fairness and 4 for harm, and 11 items for binding 3 for ingroup, 3 for authority, 5 for purity). participants first read: “how much money would someone have to pay you not to…”. they then rated items (e.g., “to show compassion towards those who suffer” [for individualizing]; “to be clean and fresh” [for binding, see table 1]) using a specific response scale that measures an omission rather than active behavior. participants were asked to evaluate items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = i would not agree to do it for omission and compromise 134 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ money, to 7 = i would agree to do it even for less than 10 euros (see table 1). we expected people to be more willing to accept a financial offer for a transgression when the sacred values are presented as passive as opposed to active behavior (ayanian & berwick, 1991; baron & ritov, 2004; feinberg, 1984). because of the “omission bias”, transgressions caused by omission or inaction have been found to be less relevant than those that are caused by action (ayanian & berwick, 1991; baron & ritov, 2004; feinberg, 1984). similarly, according to the “action principle” (cushman, young, & hauser, 2006), it is easier for people to abstain from moral behavior than to explicitly refuse to act morally. active and passive transgressions are treated differently by the law (feinberg, 1984) and are judged and weighed differently by spectators (e.g., baron & ritov, 2004; spranca, minsk, & baron, 1991), producing different effects of social desirability. for instance, participants are more likely to serve their self-interest by refraining from telling the truth (lie of omission) than by deliberately lying (lie of commission) when they face the temptation to benefit from dishonesty (pittarello, motro, rubaltelli, & pluchino, 2016). the moral relevance scale twenty-three assessments of the moral relevance scale of the mfq collecting participants’ evaluation of the abstract concepts of moral foundations (see graham et al., 2009) were administered as well. participants first read: “when you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?”. they then rated moral relevance items using a 7-point scale (from 1 = not at all; to 7 = very much). political ideology participants’ political orientation was assessed on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (= left) to 7 (= right). a simple one-dimensional spectrum of left–right or liberal–conservative represented political orientation well (corbetta et al., 2009; jost, 2006; jost, glaser, kruglanski, & sulloway, 2003). haidt and graham (2007) confirmed the fact that political ideology and orientation can be self-assessed and that the unidimensional left-right construct has common meaning across cultures, despite differences in political and historical background. one open-ended question assessed participants’ affiliation with a specific political party within the italian political context (“which political party do you vote for?”). the socio-demographic section probed participants’ age and gender. results confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the adequacy of the oc-mf, we performed a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) on all 17 items, and re-specified the model by looking at the standardized residual covariances between the items (jöreskog & sörbom, 1984): large values (above 2 in absolute value) were used for indicating that the model was not correct. therefore, the items with largest standardized residual covariances were discarded one by one while looking at the improvement in goodness-of-fit indices. the final model included 14 items: three items for each dimension of care, ingroup, authority and purity, and two items for fairness (see items in table 1). di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 135 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 corrected item-total correlations oc-mf subscale individualizing binding harm h1: to show compassion towards those who suffer .52 h2: to care for those who suffer .62 h3: to listen to someone who suffers .63 fairness f1: to be correct and honest .65 f2: to be fair .67 ingroup i1: to be loyal to your family .39 i2: to be loyal to your friends .46 i3: to be loyal to your country .60 authority a1: to respect your cultural traditions .68 a2: to respect social hierarchies .63 a3: to obey your authorities .72 purity p1: to be faithful .42 p2: to be clean and fresh .40 p3: to be pure in your soul .49 note. oc-mf = omission as a compromise on moral foundations scale. the model fit of the hierarchical models containing two superordinate factors (individualizing and binding) was assessed using ibm spss amos 25.0 software. the fit indices showed an acceptable model fit (χ2 = 174.16; df = 72; p < .001; χ2/df = 2.42; cfi = .91; rmsea = .08; bentler, 1995). the correlation between the two superordinate factors was significant and positive (r = .70; p < .001), and the factor loadings were highly significant (p < .001) (see figure 1). to test an alternative model with a single superordinate factor, a second cfa was run. fit indices on an alternative cfa model with a single superordinate factor were not as good (χ2 = 196.54; df = 73, p < .001; χ2/df = 2.69; cfi = .89; rmsea = .09) and therefore, the first model with two superordinate factors was retained. with regard to individualizing, the corrected item-total correlations ranged from .52 to .67; with regard to binding, the corrected item-total correlations ranged from .39 to .72 (see table 1). these coefficients showed that all of the individual items were associated with their respective subscale and were higher than the rule of thumb minimum value of 0.2 (kline, 1986). internal consistency was examined using cronbach’s alpha computed for the two subscales. means, standard deviations, cronbach’s alpha, and inter-correlations between individualizing and binding foundations measured with the oc-mf and the moral relevance scale are reported in table 2. all the items of the scale were reversed. firstly, the items for the 5 subscales of harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and purity were averaged; secondly the average of the subscales harm and fairness built the individual foundation scale, and the average of the ingroup, authority and purity subscales built the binding foundation scale. omission and compromise 136 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. hierarchical model for the oc-mf. ***p < .001. the individualizing and binding foundations, assessed through the oc-mf, were related to the same constructs measured with the moral relevance instrument (individualizing: r = .39; p < .001; binding: r = .54; p < .001), even if the correlation for individualizing was only of medium effect size, and thus of low convergent validity. individualizing and binding measures were related both in the oc-mf (r = .53; p < .001) and in the moral relevance scale (r = .47; p < .001), and the difference between these two correlations was not significant (cohen’s q = .08; see cohen, 1988). political orientation was related to binding foundations, both in the oc-mf (binding: r = .25; p < .001) and in the moral relevance scale (binding: r = .27; p = < .001), and the difference between these two correlations was not significant (cohen’s q = .021); individualizing foundations were not related to political orientation, either in the oc-mf (individualizing: r = -.03), or in the moral relevance scale (individualizing: r = -.04). table 2 means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and inter-correlations between the measures measure m sd α 1 2 3 4 oc-mf 1. individualizing 6.25 0.98 .82 1 .53 .39 .28 2. binding 5.84 1.08 .82 1 .27 .54 moral relevance 3. individualizing 6.10 0.80 .90 1 .47 4. binding 5.28 1.09 .85 1 note. all correlations are significant, p < .001. di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 137 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses testing in order to test hypotheses 1 and 2, a repeated measures analysis of variance (anova), with political orientation (left, center, and right) as a between-subjects factor and moral compromise foundations (individualizing and binding) as a within-subject factor was run. the anova yielded a significant main effect for moral compromise foundations, f(1, 189) = 40.89, p < .001, ηp 2 = .18, showing that all the participants refused to compromise more on individualizing (m = 6.25; sd = 0.97) than on binding moral foundations (m = 5.79; sd = 1.09), and a significant main effect of political orientation, f(2, 189) = 5.71, p = .004, ηp 2 = .06, indicating that center and rightwingers endorsed a greater aversion to compromise on all moral foundations (mcenter = 6.23; sd = 0.91; mright = 6.11; sd = 0.92) than left-wingers (mleft = 5.73; sd = 0.78). moreover, these main effects were qualified by a reliable interaction between moral compromise foundations and political orientation, f(2, 189) = 10.12, p < .001, ηp 2 = .10. a simple effect analysis showed that center and left-wingers refused to compromise more on the individualizing than on binding moral foundations, left: f(1, 189) = 42, p < .001; ηp 2 = .18; center: f(1, 189) = 16.78, p < .001; ηp 2 =.08, whereas a non-significant effect emerged with regard to right-wingers, f(1, 189) = 0.12, p = .73; ηp 2 = .001, supporting h1 (see figure 2). furthermore, in line with h2, a significant effect for moral compromise binding foundations emerged across the levels of political orientation, f(2, 189) = 10.08, p < .001; ηp 2 =.10, whereas the effect for moral compromise individualizing foundations across the levels of political orientation was non-significant, f(2, 189) = 2.86, p = .06; ηp 2 = .03. left-wing participants indicated lower aversion to compromise on binding moral foundations than any other study group (center: p = .001; right: p < .001), whereas center and right wingers showed no difference (p = .51), supporting h2 (see figure 2). figure 2. individualizing and binding moral compromise foundations according to the level of political orientation. note. higher scores indicate greater aversion to compromise on moral foundations. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. omission and compromise 138 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the study explored some types of compromise on sacred or inviolable moral foundations across different political orientations in italy. the oc-mf, a new measure based on omission as a part of compromise on moral foundations, was introduced. the moral foundations perspective (graham et al., 2009; haidt & graham, 2007; haidt & joseph, 2004) guided the development of the instrument, which was designed not only to show the relevance attributed to a particular set of moral foundations in relation to political orientation in italy, but also to identify the “sacralization” of individualizing and binding foundations using an innovative taboo trade-off framework. its factor structure confirmed the presence of two dimensions of moral compromise foundations, namely individualizing and binding. the oc-mf also fairly corresponded to the existing scale of moral relevance found in the mfq. the instrument we put forward has proved to be consistent with the moral foundations hypothesis. the findings showed that italian centerand left-wing participants consider individualizing moral foundations as more relevant and inviolable than binding foundations. italian center and right-wing participants consider binding moral foundations as more relevant and inviolable than italian left-wing participants. italian participants positioned at the center of the political spectrum were found to show a binding approach that was similar to rightwingers, but also high levels of individualizing foundations, comparable to those of left-wingers, in line with the previous italian study by d’alberti (2013). a strong identification with catholic values for center parties might explain the relevance attributed to binding foundations, because these foundations in fact tend to be reinforced by the most conservative and religious elements within a society (see also graham & haidt, 2012). according to bobbio, matteucci, and pasquino (1976), those participants from the center could represent either the moderate area of politics or the undecided voters. in italy, the area of the political center is characterized by dissimilar political affiliations and parties ranging from left to right. furthermore, it was found that everyone’s morality relies heavily on individualizing foundations. in other words, the findings suggested that left, center, and conservatives express particular aversion to compromise on justice issues and care for the discomfort of others. the results challenged previous findings which showed that liberals care more than conservatives about individualizing issues (graham et al., 2009, studies 1 and 2), but were in line with studies which measured “sacredness” reactions to taboo trade-offs (graham et al., 2009, study 3). in line with graham and haidt (2012), concerns about the rights of individuals and their freedom seem so widespread that they might be said to be universal. also in the italian context, individualizing moral foundations could represent a shared point of view between leftand right-wingers. milesi (2017) argued that in systems which are not perfectly bipolar, and in fragmented and unstable electoral contexts, such as italy, voters who have seemingly opposite political positions do share some moral concerns. in general, the oc-mf offers new understanding of moral reasoning with regard to the transgression of sacred values in terms of passive behaviors. choosing to actively act in order to violate a moral norm can elicit a strong negative social and emotional response, inhibiting considerations of a compromise on moral foundations. on the contrary, we assumed it to be easier for people to contemplate the mere opportunity of a compromise on moral foundations when they can choose to omit moral behaviors (baron & ritov, 2004). this is in line with cushman and colleagues’ (2006) finding that participants viewed harm-inflicting acts of omission as more permissible than harm-inflicting acts of commission. furthermore, the oc-mf framework has the potential to bring out the inviolability of some moral values on which it is impossible to compromise, making debates so difficult between different political orientations in italy. di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 139 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ implications disagreements over sacred values, particularly those associated with political ideology, abound in many public debates, making disputes very hard to resolve (bazerman, tenbrunsel, & wade-benzoni, 2008; susskind et al., 2005). in line with argo and ginges (2015), regardless of whether sacred values are openly elicited in a group discussion, they must be acknowledged and considered in political debates. good strategies for negotiations involve understanding how sacred values can affect decision making. understanding moral sacredness associated with a given issue is relevant in order to suggest possible spaces and limits regarding negotiations (atran & axelrod, 2008). liberals and conservatives are divided on many issues, including abortion, lgbt+ rights, women’s rights, gun ownership and more, and such differences help to explain many of the contrasting stances the two sides take (brandt, reyna, chambers, crawford, & wetherell, 2014; caprara et al., 2006; graham et al., 2009). however, our findings suggested that in a taboo trade-off framework, individualizing moral foundations could be equally inviolable for left, center, and right, and in this sense this common point of view could serve as counterweight in political debates. this is partially in line with schein and gray’s (2015) finding that, despite moral diversity regarding specific issues (e.g., patriotism, chastity), moral cognition in both liberals and conservatives is rooted in a harm-based template. moreover, our findings also suggested the consideration that a compromise on binding moral foundations is seen differently by left, center, and right-wing participants, and thus sacred positions relating binding foundations may be representative of the most intractable political debates (in line with graham & haidt, 2010). gibson (2011) found that one of the greatest potential problems causing impasse in decisions involving sacred values is that parties do not consider the extent to which some values are “priceless” for the competing sides, and said sides are not willing to work within those constraints (see also argo & ginges, 2015). however, the literature also suggested that there are ways that people across the ideological spectrum can make their stance understandable to a person from the other side. for instance, voelkel and feinberg (2018) found that a moral reframing technique can be used to overcome the rigid stances partisans often hold and help to develop political acceptance. furthermore, a capacity for contextual understanding of moral concerns is important in order to solve complex social problems when multiple moral reasonings are conflicting, such as in the case of abortion or lgbt+ rights. this capacity is also important for living in groups with different moral values or in groups that prioritize the same moral values differently (atran & axelrod, 2008). skitka, washburn, and carsel (2015) found that people do not accept or expect their moral convictions to be contextually contingent or situationally variable, and tend to be offended by the idea that morality can be relative. for example, people morally convinced that abortion is wrong are likely to believe it is objectively and universally wrong and that it should be universally banned. in the context of international political negotiations, argo and ginges (2015) argued that this rhetoric reinforces absolutism, turning decision making into an irresolvable conflict in which people inflexibly refuse to manage creative solutions. similarly, in the political field, zagrebelsky (2008) described two different or even conflicting moral approaches. the first is a strict approach that leads to a rigid defence of moral values, unlikely to be negotiated or reframed depending on the context. for instance, the “right to life” could be sacralized and abortion would therefore be forbidden in all cases. on the basis of the second perspective, moral issues are rewritable in accordance with each specific and concrete situation. in this case, abortion could be viewed as a restriction of the right to life of the fetus that is opposed to and conflicting with the woman’s right to health care; according to an attentive evaluation of these two conflicting situations, the second perspective generally prevails and states are obliged to respect, protect, and fulfill the woman’s right, as, unlike a fetus, she is already a person. omission and compromise 140 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ drawing inspiration from gibson (2011), argo and ginges (2015) suggested that for a successful political negotiation it is necessary to be aware of when individuals are conflating a sacred position with sacred values. a conceptual clarification could allow for the reframing of sacred values so that they are preserved even in the face of a moral compromise. the authors argued that a good negotiation process emphasizes that sometimes a compromise is the only way one could retain at least some portion of the sacred. a complete discussion of those strategies enabling individuals and groups to negotiate on sacred values is beyond the scope of this paper, however some examples concerning the italian specificities may provide constructive suggestions. over the course of more than thirty years, one of the most violent political quarrels on issues with moral implications was focused on lgbt+ rights. in may 2016, the italian parliament gave its final approval to a law providing same-sex couples with many of the rights arising out of marriage (gazzetta ufficiale della repubblica italiana, 2016). the proposal supported by the prime minister matteo renzi and the left-wing coalition was postponed several times as a result of obstructionist opposition on the part of conservative and catholics forces, who presented a barrage of amendments against the law (tonacci, 2014). italian conservative parties accused left-wing parties of not protecting the interests of the “natural family”, sacred values that are implied in the binding approach. luigi manconi, who was the president of the italian human rights commission, argued that the impasse in the approval of a law was mostly due to a debate between all the opposite parties that do not get in the right common perspective: the equal dignity of persons (tonacci, 2014). a compromise was possible after a long negotiation on the need to distinguish same-sex partnerships, social units compliant with articles 2 and 3 of the italian constitution, from families as natural gatherings as per article 29 of said constitution. this reframing enabled a compromise because both parties could adopt a version of their position which left their sacred values unchanged. for instance, the left-wing coalition emphasized the importance of the new law, stating that it was better than the previous arrangement and reprioritizing the issue of a full regulation of lgbt+ issues for the near future. the right-wing coalition and catholic forces changed their sacred position against same-sex unions, accepting a norm where a compromise over their sacred values of the traditional family would no longer be necessary. a breakthrough was reached by recognizing that the political positions were not merely conflicting, but ultimately complementary when viewed in the broader perspective of long-term societal success. limitations the study had some important limitations that must be kept in mind when interpreting the results. one limit is the correlational nature of the research and the low representativeness of the convenience sample, mainly made up of participants from central and southern italy. future research should explore compromise on moral foundations in a more extensive italian sample. we failed to insert a new measure of political affiliation. the majority of participants refused to report the party they do or would vote for. in view of the rapid evolution of the italian political context, the widespread political dissatisfaction, and the lack of confidence in the party system that was observed in other studies (bellucci & maraffi, 2014; martini & quaranta, 2015), we should add new measures of political ideology and political disaffection. furthermore, in future studies a sixth moral foundation should be explored, namely liberty / oppression (iyer, koleva, graham, ditto, & haidt, 2012), describing the feelings of resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. conclusion in this study, moral foundations were measured in a taboo trade-off framework among italian participants, finding that political orientation correlates with moral foundations as sacred values. the new scale shows the hydi battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 141 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pothesized differences between italian political groups: the left prioritizes individualizing foundations as opposed to binding ones in a context of moral dilemma, whereas conservatives and centrists have a broader idea of sacredness. this deep understanding of the opponents’ sacred values could offer new opportunities to improve ideological debates in the political arena. although there is still much to learn about what leads people to have strong sacred values and about the full range of consequences of these attitudes, these results point towards a deeper understanding of the role that moral concerns may play in different ideological viewpoints in italy. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references argo, n., & ginges, j. 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(2008, january 28). la moratoria sull'aborto ultima violenza alle donne. la repubblica. retrieved from https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/01/28/la-moratoria-sull-aborto-ultima-violenza-alle.html about the authors silvia di battista, phd, is a temporary research fellow in social psychology at the university of chieti-pescara (italy). her most recent research fields include, among others, moral psychology, social psychology of justice, prejudice and cooperation in groups. monica pivetti, phd, is a researcher in social psychology at the university of chieti-pescara (italy), since 2008. her general research interests are in the area of prejudice and intergroup relations, psychology of justice and health psychology. annukka vainio, phd, is associate professor (tenure-track) of behavioral change toward sustainability at helsinki institute of sustainability science (helsus), university of helsinki (finland). the aim of her research is to understand the agency of citizens and other actors in sustainability transformations. she has been especially seeking to understand how sustainable and unsustainable practices are related to individuals’ ethics, beliefs, habits, and time perspectives. chiara berti, m.d., is associate professor of social psychology at the university of chieti-pescara (italy). she is elected member of the italian university council (c.u.n.). her most recent research fields include, among others, social representation, social psychology of justice, juridical psychology and community psychology. di battista, pivetti, vainio, & berti 147 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 128–147 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1887 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1948550617729408 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9280.2005.01614.x https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9280.2009.02406.x https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2008/01/28/la-moratoria-sull-aborto-ultima-violenza-alle.html https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ omission and compromise (introduction) the moral compromises of sacred values moral sacredness and political ideology the current study the research context method participants procedure measures results confirmatory factor analyses hypotheses testing discussion implications limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors teachers’ patterns of management of conflicts with students: a study in five european countries research reports teachers’ patterns of management of conflicts with students: a study in five european countries maria clelia zurlo* a, federica vallone b, elena dell’aquila a, davide marocco b [a] department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. [b] department of humanities, university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. abstract the present study proposed an application of the rahim’ model of conflict management, and aimed to explore the styles of handling interpersonal conflicts with students adopted by teachers from five european countries (italy, spain, germany, belgium, austria), identifying specific patterns and evaluating potential differences according to teachers' gender, age, working seniority and country of belonging. overall, 589 secondary school teachers completed a questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic characteristics and the rahim organizational conflict inventory-ii (roci-ii, form b). non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis was employed to derive patterns of conflict management, identifying four patterns labelled as multi-strategic and engaged, multi-strategic and solution-oriented, controloriented and avoidant, and mediating. significant differences between countries were found in the numbers of teachers grouped across the four patterns. findings identified stable and meaningful patterns for evaluating teachers' styles of management of interpersonal conflicts with students and for promoting teachers’ effectiveness in conflict management in the european school context. keywords: conflict management, teacher’s conflict management styles, school, europe, cluster analysis europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 received: 2019-03-20. accepted: 2019-07-10. published (vor): 2020-03-03. handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of political sciences, university of naples federico ii, via l. rodinò 22, 80138, naples, italy. e-mail: zurlo@unina.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in recent years, the growing changes of the modern educational context induced to emphasise the role of teachers and educators and the competences they are expected to possess in integrating knowledge with relational and technical skills (european commission, 2013, 2017). indeed, teachers are constantly required to adapt their practices and to handle complexity, and classroom management represents one of their major responsibility not only in terms of planning, teaching new programmes, and organising the learning environment, but also in terms of managing relational aspects of the educational duties (garcía-moya, brooks, morgan, & moreno, 2015; hagenauer, hascher, & volet, 2015), dealing with conflicts, and promoting positive relationships and a satisfactory class climate (claessens et al., 2017). in particular, nowadays, conflict resolution management represents one of the main challenges for teachers since conflicts with students from the new generation have become increasingly complex, and deriving not only from misunderstandings and disapproving behaviours during class, but also from perceived differences in europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ worldviews, ideologies, cultures, and objectives (causey, thomas, & armento, 2000; doğan, 2016; vasilescu, popescu, & popescu, 2012). therefore, a growing body of research explored teacher-students conflictual interactions (allen et al., 2013; de jong, van tartwijk, verloop, veldman, & wubbels, 2012), highlighting teachers' difficulties in conflict management and teacher-student negative interactions as playing a key role in determining a large number of outcomes both for teacher, in terms of perceived work-related stress and burnout (evers, tomic, & brouwers, 2004; spilt, koomen, & thijs, 2011; zurlo, iannario, & piccolo, 2017; zurlo, pes, & capasso, 2013, 2016), leaving intention (zurlo & pes, 2012) and attrition (ingersoll & smith, 2003), and for students, in terms of decreased engagement (pianta, hamre, & allen, 2012), motivation, and performance (de boer, bosker, & van der werf, 2010; frymier & houser, 2000). nevertheless, research also highlighted that the conflict has to be considered not only a source of pressure in teaching profession but also a significant opportunity for development and enhancement of skills, critical reflection, and growth at personal, interpersonal and group level (doğan, 2016). consequently, particular attention should be given not only to teachers’ ability to avoid conflict emergency but also to teachers' ability to adequately handle conflicts and to adopt constructive and creative management strategies without disrupting the educational goals and without affecting the relationship with students and the class harmony (balay, 2006; cornille, pestle, & vanwy 1999; doğan, 2016; garcía-moya, brooks, & moreno, 2019; longaretti & wilson 2006; özgan, 2016). therefore, considering the significance of developing and enhancing teachers’ skills and competencies to successfully deal with potential conflictual situations that may emerge with students in the contemporary educational context, a deep and broad investigation of teachers’ way of handling conflicts is needed, also taking into account that there is still a lack of research conducted in the european countries in this direction (european commission, 2013). rahim’ model of conflict management styles and teacher-student interactions in the field of organizational behaviour and management, a large body of research focused on conflict management (thomas & kilmann, 1974, 2008; van de vliert & kabanoff, 1990), and one of the most adopted models of conflict management has been developed and proposed by rahim and bonoma (1979). the rahim’ model of conflict management styles for interpersonal conflicts (rahim, 1983a, 1983b, 2001; rahim & bonoma, 1979) aims at describing conflict and negotiation processes referring to two basic dimensions: concern for self (i.e., the degree to which individuals aim at satisfying their own concern in conflict management processes) and concern for others (i.e., the degree to which individuals attempt to accomplish with the concern of the other party involved in a conflict). on the basis of different combinations of these two dimensions, five styles of handling interpersonal conflict have been distinguished: integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising. integrating style indicates high concern both for self and for others and is characterised by a collaboration between the parties involved into the conflict with the aim to reach a mutual and acceptable solution through openness, exchange of information, examination and exploration of differences for arriving at a constructive zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 113 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ solution that overwhelms personal and limited visions of the problem. this style is considered as a “win-win” strategy of conflict management, due to the emphasis given to the interest in optimizing rather than sacrificing for the other party. obliging style indicates a low concern for self and a high concern for others and is characterised by the recourse to a non-confronting behaviour aiming to minimise differences between the parties involved into the conflict by emphasising commonalities and sacrificing personal concern to safeguard the relationship. dominating style indicates high concern for self and low concern for others and is considered a “win-lose” strategy and a demonstration of authority or expression of a forcing behaviour aiming to win or defend one’s position often ignoring others’ needs and perspective. avoiding style indicates low concern both for self and for others, reflects an attitude to refuse to acknowledge and to openly face conflict and is often characterised by withdrawal, buck-passing, sidestepping situations. finally, compromising style indicates intermediate concern for self and for others. this style involves splitting the difference, exchanging concession, or seeking a quick, middle ground position, whereby both parties involved in the conflict accept to give up something to reach mutually acceptable decisions. in order to assess the amount of perceived organizational conflict at individual, group, and intergroup levels and the strategies adopted for handling conflicts, rahim proposed two measurement tools, the rahim organizational conflict inventory i and ii (rocii & roci-ii; rahim, 1983a, 1983b, 2001), which assessed, respectively, perceived organizational conflict (roci-i) and the styles adopted for managing interpersonal conflict (roci-ii). in particular, the roci-ii measures the styles of handling interpersonal conflict adopted by an organizational member to deal with his/her supervisor(s) (form a), with subordinates (form b), and with peers (form c) (rahim, 1983a, 1983b, 2001). the author made a clear distinction among the parties potentially involved into conflict (i.e., supervisor, subordinates, peers), considering that the adoption of one of the five styles within the negotiation process may significantly depend on the perceived symmetry/asymmetry of power within the relationship. in this direction, the author also highlighted that individuals may use all the suggested five styles of conflict management (hart, 1991; rahim & bonoma, 1979; thomas, 1977), and that the appropriateness of the use of the different styles is strongly influenced not only by the other party involved in the conflict, but also by the individual duties and goals, and by the specific characteristics of the conflictual situation (rahim, 1986). the application of the rahim’ model is of particular relevance within the school context. indeed, teachers are constantly involved into negotiation processes, and their responses to potential conflicts with students are constantly influenced by the specific feature of teachers’ role as accountable for classroom management and by the different declinations of the dimensions of concern for self and concern for others within teacher-student interactions (i.e., superior-subordinates relationships). from this perspective, research highlighted that teachers may use different strategies to efficiently handle conflicts with students (claessens et al., 2017; doğan, 2016; morris-rothschild & brassard, 2006), and they can recur to: integrating strategies (e.g., reasoning with the student inside or outside the classroom setting; involving the student in individual and group settings to discuss the student’s behaviour); compromising strategies (e.g., reasoning and discussing issues and problems with the student and/or with the whole class to explore new possible solutions and ways to deal with the individual and relational difficulties emerged); obliging strategies (e.g., accommodating and/or deliberately ignoring teachers’ patterns of conflict management 114 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ minor disruptions or infringements); avoiding strategies (e.g., delaying discussion and confrontation concerning individual and relational difficulties emerged; sending the student to the deputy principal); and, finally, dominating strategies (e.g., issuing a verbal reprimand; asking student to withdraw from the class; requesting periods of school suspension). the adoption of a specific style may also depend on the perceived role of the teacher as regulator and leader of the classroom environment, which may significantly influence its choices basing on its necessity to simultaneously achieve learning objectives and to assure a satisfactory group climate in the classroom. in this direction, a study conducted by doğan (2016) proposed an application of the rahim’ model (rahim, 1983a, 1983b, 2001; rahim & bonoma, 1979) to explore conflicts occurring in school according to perceptions and views of teachers and the resolution strategies they adopt to deal with them. the study revealed that teachers were more frequently induced to adopt a dominating style to handle conflicts with students, due to their perception of the necessity to express their authority to efficiently managing conflicts with students of the new generation. nonetheless, teachers also revealed to consistently use obliging and integrating styles due to the importance they attribute to find the best way to interact with students and to successfully solve the conflict by trying to understand their feelings, needs, and expectations. moreover, the study revealed that teachers were also induced to adopt avoiding and compromising styles whenever they perceive the emergence of the conflict as harmful for the continuity and the quality of the teacher-student educative relationship. in the same direction, a study conducted by morris-rothschild and brassard (2006) also highlighted the importance of developing concern for student needs and perspectives to successfully manage conflicts and preserve a satisfactory classroom climate by adopting integrating, compromising and obliging strategies. furthermore, the same study also underlined specific correlations between different styles of conflict management adopted by teachers, i.e., significant positive correlations between integrating, compromising, and obliging styles, significant positive correlations of avoiding style with both dominating and obliging styles, and significant negative correlations of dominating style with both integrating and compromising styles. these findings suggested the possibility to investigate a higher-order aspect of the rahim' model management styles to enlighten the presence of teachers’ specific patterns of handling conflicts in teacher-student interactions. from this perspective, indeed, also research on conflict management suggested a broader approach that further insights into the rahim’ model, defining the negotiation process as resulting by the configuration of different styles rather than by the recourse to single and independent styles. in this direction, rahim (rahim, antonioni, & psenicka, 2001; rahim et al., 2002) highlighted the possibility to reorganise and differently classify the styles for handling conflict according to the integrative (party's pursuit of own and others' concerns) and distributive dimensions (party's pursuit of own or others' concerns) which represented, respectively, the problem solving and bargaining strategies. furthermore, with the same objective, a study conducted by munduate, ganaza, peiro, and euwema (1999) in a sample of managers identified five patterns profiles deriving from different combinations of strategies for handling conflicts, considered particularly useful to specifically investigate managers’ ways to successfully deal with conflictual situation that may arise with superiors and subordinates. purpose of the study taking into account the increasing complexity of the negotiation process within teacher-student conflictual interactions, the need for teachers to efficiently managing conflictual situations with students, and the recent rezurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 115 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ search direction on conflict management, the present study aimed to apply the rahim’ model to explore teachers’ styles of handling interpersonal conflicts within teacher-student interactions and to identify specific patterns. moreover, considering that research on conflict management also identified other dimensions that may play a significant role in influencing individuals’ negotiation process, such as gender (blackburn, martin, & hutchinson, 2006; gayle, preiss, & allen, 1994; rahim, 1983a, 1983b, 2001), age, working seniority (claessens et al., 2017; morris-rothschild & brassard, 2006), and country of belonging (european commission, 2013; rahim et al., 2002), the study would also explore the distribution of subjects adopting the emerged conflict management patterns according to all these dimensions. method participants and procedures national online surveys were organized in five european countries (i.e., italy, spain, belgium, germany, and austria) as part of the accord project (attain cultural integration through conflict resolution skill development; www.accord-project.eu) aiming to explore the styles of handling interpersonal conflicts adopted by secondary school teachers within teacher-student interactions. the questionnaire was made available online and widely diffused through partners’ teachers’ and secondary schools’ networks. all procedures performed in the present cross-sectional study were in accordance with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. overall, 589 teachers completed the questionnaire on a voluntary basis. participants were fully informed about the aims of the study and about the confidentiality of the data. every precaution was taken to protect the privacy of research subjects and the confidentiality of their personal information, and the questionnaires were anonymously completed. health, dignity, integrity, and rights of participants were preserved, and data were collected with no physical and psychological hazard for research subjects. measures a questionnaire consisting of open and closed-ended questions to collect socio-demographic characteristics (gender; age; working seniority; country of belonging) and the rahim organizational conflict inventory-ii (roci-ii, form b; rahim 1983a, 1983b, 2001) was submitted online to secondary school teachers. the rahim organizational conflict inventory-ii (roci-ii; rahim 1983a, 1983b, 2001) consists of 28 items on a 5-point likert scale, assessing the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict: integrating (7 items, e.g., “i try to investigate an issue with my subordinates to find a solution acceptable to us”), obliging (6 items, e.g., “i generally try to satisfy the needs of my subordinates”), dominating (5 items, e.g., “i use my influence to get my ideas accepted”), avoiding (6 items; e.g., “i attempt to avoid being “put on the spot” and try to keep my conflict with my subordinates to myself”), and compromising (4 items, i.e., “i try to find a middle course to resolve an impasse”). a higher score represents greater use of a conflict management style. moreover, considering the aim of the study to explore teachers’ styles of handling conflict within their interactions with students, the form b of the questionnaire, assessing the interactions with subordinates (i.e., students) was adopted. teachers’ patterns of conflict management 116 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 http://www.accord-project.eu https://www.psychopen.eu/ data analysis in accordance with the aims of the present study, all the analyses were carried out using the statistical software spss (version 21). preliminarily, a number of descriptive analyses of all study variables were conducted and pearson’s correlations between the five conflict management styles were carried out. therefore, cluster analysis using a non-hierarchical k-means clustering procedure was applied to identify patterns of conflict management styles grouping teachers from the five countries, starting by establishing an initial partition, later calculating the means (centroid) of the clusters and determining the euclidean distances to all the centroids in the clusters. the cases have been assigned to the nearest cluster, reducing the pooled withingroup variance, and this procedure has been repeated until a solution was reached in which the clusters were stable (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984). indeed, the use of this iterative approach reduced the changes of biases entering the designation of initial cluster seeds, assuring stable clusters once the procedure reached the 2% convergent criterion (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984; hair, anderson, tatham, & black, 1998; lee, lee, & wicks, 2004). afterwards, a manova and tukey’s hsd post hoc test were used in order to validate the clusters solution, with the cluster membership as an independent variable and the five styles of handling conflict as dependent variables (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984). finally, frequencies and percentages of subjects distributed across the emerged conflict management patterns were calculated by gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging (crosstabulations, chi-square analyses). results preliminary analyses characteristics of study participants are displayed in table 1. descriptive statistics (mean scores and standard deviations) and pearson’s correlations between the five conflict management styles (integrating, avoiding, obliging, dominating, compromising) are provided in table 2. in particular, integrating style revealed significant positive correlations with compromising (r = .49, p < .01) and obliging (r = .42, p < .01) styles and significant negative correlation with dominating style (r = -.28, p < .01). moreover, compromising style revealed significant positive correlations with integrating (r = .49, p < .01), obliging (r = .38, p < .01) and avoiding (r = .10, p < .05) styles and significant negative correlation with dominating style (r = -.10, p < .05). finally, it emerged that avoiding style had significant positive correlations, on the one hand, with obliging style (r = .12, p < .01), and, on the one other hand, with dominating style (r = .15, p < .01). zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 117 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 characteristics of study participants (n = 589) characteristics n (%) pa gender < .001 male 173 (29.4%) female 416 (70.6%) age in years < .001 under 35 154 (26.1%) 36-45 144 (24.5%) over45 291 (49.4%) working seniority in years < .001 under 5 130 (22.1%) 5-10 121 (20.5%) over 11 338 (57.4%) country < .001 austria 109 (18.5%) belgium 116 (19.7%) germany 42 (7.1%) spain 213 (36.2%) italy 109 (18.5%) adifferences were determined by chi-square test. table 2 descriptive statistics and pearson’s correlations between the conflict management strategies conflict management strategies m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. integrating 4.12 0.56 1 2. obliging 3.38 0.51 .42** 1 3. dominating 2.52 0.71 -.28** -.02 1 4. avoiding 2.80 0.74 -.02 .12** .15** 1 5. compromising 3.66 0.61 .49** .38** -.10* .10* 1 *p < .05. **p < .01. cluster analysis findings from non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis suggested that a four-cluster solution was the most appropriate for the data, revealing four stable and meaningful patterns of conflict management adopted by teachers. in addition, results from manova and tukey’s hsd post hoc test confirmed the cluster solution, revealing that the four subgroups differed significantly on all conflict management styles, wilk’s λ = .13, f(15, 589) = 113.34, p < .001, partial η2 = .49. table 3 shows the patterns identified, together with the values corresponding to the centroids of the styles for conflict management and the frequencies and percentages of the groups. the first pattern (n = 136, 23.1%) represented teachers characterized by the lowest adoption of avoiding style and by a moderate adoption of integrating, compromising, obliging and dominating styles. therefore, the pattern was labelled as multi-strategic and engaged. teachers’ patterns of conflict management 118 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the second pattern (n = 143, 24.2%) consisted of teachers characterized by the highest adoption of obliging, avoiding and compromising styles, but also by a relatively high adoption of integrating and dominating styles (displaying the second largest mean scores on these dimensions). therefore, it was labelled as multi-strategic and solution-oriented. the third pattern (n = 153, 26.0%) included teachers reporting the highest adoption of dominating style, a relative high adoption of avoiding style (displaying the second largest mean score on this dimension), and the lowest adoption of integrating, compromising, and obliging styles. therefore, it was labelled as control-oriented and avoidant. finally, the fourth pattern (n = 157, 26.7%) consisted of teachers characterized by the highest adoption of integrating style and by a relatively high adoption of obliging and compromising styles (displaying the second largest mean scores on these dimensions), but also by a relatively low adoption of avoiding style (displaying the second least mean score on this dimension) and by the lowest adoption of dominating style. therefore, it was labelled as mediating. table 3 conflict management patterns centroids (n = 589) patterns n (%) m (± sd) integrating obliging dominating avoiding compromising 1. multi-strategic and engaged 136 (23.1) 3.98 (± 0.45) 3.16 (± 0.41) 2.65 (± 0.58) 2.08 (± 0.39) 3.35 (± 0.54) 2. multi-strategic and solution-oriented 143 (24.2) 4.38 (± 0.38) 3.73 (± 0.43) 2.78 (± 0.64) 3.49 (± 0.59) 4.05 (± 0.43) 3. control-oriented and avoidant 153 (26.0) 3.61 (± 0.46) 3.06 (± 0.39) 2.85 (± 0.60) 3.15 (± 0.42) 3.26 (± 0.48) 4. mediating 157 (26.7) 4.50 (± 0.42) 3.58 (± 0.47) 1.85 (± 0.48) 2.45 (± 0.55) 3.97 (± 0.54) gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging in cluster composition table 4 displays frequencies and percentages of subjects distributed across the conflict management patterns emerged according to gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging. findings from chi-square analyses revealed no significant differences in the number of subjects across the patterns with respect to gender, age and working seniority, while significant differences emerged with respect to the country of belonging, χ2(12, 589) = 33.476, p < .001. in particular, teachers from austria (n = 109) were mainly represented in the multi-strategic and engaged pattern (n = 37, 33.9%) and in the mediating pattern (n = 32, 29.4%), while they were under-represented in the control-oriented and avoidant pattern (n = 18, 16.5%). moreover, teachers from belgium (n = 116) were overrepresented in the control-oriented and avoidant pattern (n = 39, 33.6%), and they were under-represented in the multi-strategic and solution-oriented pattern (n = 18, 15.5%). conversely, teachers from germany (n = 42) were over-represented in the multi-strategic and solution-oriented pattern (n = 16, 38.1%), and they were under-represented in the mediating pattern (n = 5, 11.9%), while, conversely, teachers from spain (n = 213) were mainly represented in the mediating pattern (n = 61, 28.6%). finally, teachers from italy (n = 109) were mainly represented in the multi-strategic and solution-oriented pattern (n = 34, 31.2%), and they were under-represented in the multi-strategic and engaged pattern (n = 13, 12.0%). zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 119 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 frequencies and percentages of subjects across the four conflict management patterns by gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging individual characteristics multistrategic and engaged multi-strategic and solutionoriented controloriented and avoidant mediating total χ2 df p n (%) 136 (23.1) 143 (24.2) 153 (26.0) 157 (26.7) 589 (100) gender 5.099 3 .165 male 33 (19.1) 46 (26.6) 53 (30.6) 41 (23.7) 173 (29.4) female 103 (24.8) 97 (23.3) 100 (24.0) 116 (27.9) 416 (70.6) age in years 3.806 6 .703 under 35 35 (22.7) 40 (26.0) 40 (26.0) 39 (25.3) 154 (26.1) 36-45 37 (25.7) 33 (22.9) 42 (29.2) 32 (22.2) 144 (24.5) over 45 64 (22.0) 70 (24.0) 71 (24.4) 86 (29.6) 291 (49.4) working seniority in years 4.308 6 .635 under 5 31 (25.6) 25 (20.7) 36 (29.7) 29 (24.0) 121 (20.5) 5-10 72 (21.3) 83 (24.6) 86 (25.4) 97 (28.7) 338 (57.4) over 11 33 (25.4) 35 (27.0) 31 (23.8) 31 (23.8) 130 (22.1) country 33.476 12 < .001 austria 37 (33.9) 22 (20.2) 18 (16.5) 32 (29.4) 109 (18.5) belgium 31 (26.7) 18 (15.5) 39 (33.6) 28 (24.0) 116 (19.7) germany 10 (23.8) 16 (38.1) 11 (26.2) 5 (11.9) 42 (7.1) spain 45 (21.1) 53 (24.9) 54 (25.4) 61 (28.6) 213 (36.2) italy 13 (12.0) 34 (31.2) 31 (28.4) 31 (28.4) 109 (18.5) note. differences were determined by chi-square test. reported values are n (%). discussion the present study aimed to test the hypothesis of the presence of different combinations of styles of handling conflicts adopted by teachers from five european countries within teacher-student interactions and to identify specific patterns of conflict management, also exploring potential differences according to gender, age, working seniority and country of belonging. firstly, the results of correlations and cluster analyses provided empirical evidence to support the proposition of investigating teachers’ behaviours in conflictual situations with students as configurations of different styles (morris-rothschild & brassard, 2006; munduate et al., 1999; rahim et al., 2002). indeed, it emerged significant correlations among several pairs of conflict management styles adopted by teachers. in particular, integrating style revealed significant positive correlations with compromising and obliging styles and significant negative correlations with dominating style, indicating that, during a conflict episode with students, teachers may search integrating solutions and adopt in the same time compromising strategies (i.e., reasoning and discussing issues and problems with the student and/or with the whole class) and/or obliging strategies (i.e., accommodating and/or deliberately ignoring minor disruptions or infringements). conversely, the recourse to dominating strategies (i.e., verbal reprimand; imposition of time-out/time-in; request of school suspension) appeared incompatible with the search of integrating solutions of the conflict. teachers’ patterns of conflict management 120 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the same direction, also the compromising style was significantly positively correlated with integrating and obliging styles and negatively correlated with dominating style. nonetheless, data highlighted that compromising style was also positively correlated with avoiding style (i.e., delaying discussion and confrontation concerning individual and relational difficulties emerged), suggesting that also the recourse to avoiding strategies may help, in some situations, to find a compromise. conversely, the negative correlation between compromising and dominating strategies further indicates the relative incompatibility between these two styles of conflict management. finally, avoiding style revealed significant positive correlations, on the one hand, with obliging style, and, on the one other hand, with dominating style, suggesting the possibility for teachers to recur to disengaged (i.e., avoiding and obliging styles) or authoritarian (i.e., avoiding and dominating) strategies for by-passing conflicts and misbehaviours within student-teacher interactions. hence, these preliminary results supported the possibility to investigate different configurations of styles of conflict management to identify specific teachers’ patterns of handling conflicts with students. furthermore, the consideration that teachers tend to use conflict management patterns rather than using independently different styles allow also to put further emphasis on the idea that successfully handling conflicts is strongly situationspecific (rahim et al., 2002), and, consequently, that teachers may use different configurations of strategies to efficiently deal with and solve a conflictual situation with a student. from this perspective, findings from cluster analyses revealed a four-pattern solution as the most suitable portrait, identifying four stable and meaningful patterns of handling conflicts with students that were substantially shared by teachers from the five different european countries considered. the first pattern was labelled as multi-strategic and engaged and included teachers that, depending on the situation, displayed to be able to adopt different conflict management strategies except for the avoiding. therefore, teachers grouped within the first pattern showed the tendency to be engaged with constancy in regulating and negotiating within the interactions with their students, and to be willing to find an effective way to solve the conflicts by reasoning and discussing with students, and, where it proves necessary, to adopt authoritative or accommodating strategies. nonetheless, teachers characterized by this pattern profile also display difficulties in retreating from conflictual situations, always trying to face and solve them outright. the second pattern was labelled as multi-strategic and solution-oriented. it grouped teachers that showed to adopt all management strategies and that, consequently, were potentially able to efficiently handle a wide range of conflicts by searching for moment-to-moment solutions depending on the situation. the third pattern was labelled as control-oriented and avoidant and included teachers who mainly face the conflict by adopting both dominating and avoiding strategies, i.e., clearly defining and demonstrating their role and their authority, and directing the ways to handle the conflict taking predominantly into account concerns for self. indeed, teachers within this pattern were also found to be less willing to adopt integrating, compromising and obliging strategies, often preferring to avoid the open confrontation with the student to protect themselves from the emergency or the escalation of conflictual situations. finally, the fourth pattern was labelled as mediating, and it grouped teachers that reduced the recourse to dominating and avoiding strategies, and mainly adopted integrating, compromising and obliging strategies, reasoning with students and involving them in discussions aiming to promote negotiation processes. zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 121 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, overall, these findings could be considered as useful to promote and support teachers in effectively and successfully dealing with conflicts by providing them with knowledge on the area of conflict management and by developing targeted feedback on teachers’ configuration of styles they primarily adopt for handling conflicts that may arise with students. in this perspective, it is necessary to further underline that there are no “right” or “correct” ways to manage conflicts and that each pattern may be adequate to efficiently handle conflictual interactions, but it may also hide some weakness that exposes teachers to potential risks (evers, tomic, & brouwers, 2004; rahim, 2001; spilt, koomen, & thijs, 2011; zurlo, iannario, & piccolo, 2017; zurlo, pes, & capasso, 2013, 2016). from this perspective, as regards teachers mainly adopting multi-strategic and engaged pattern of conflict management, on the one hand, they show to be able to recur to a wide range of strategies and to be always engaged, and these strategies should be considered as significant resources for a teacher to possess for achieving relational and educational goals. however, on the one other hand, they may also be at higher risk for work-related stress, due to their tendency to never avoid to openly and directly handle a conflict, spending, in some situations, an excessive amount of personal resources. conversely, as regards teachers adopting control-oriented and avoidant pattern, their tendency to recur to more directing and authoritarian strategies in some cases could help quickly avoiding disruptions and, therefore, maintaining learning objectives. nevertheless, they are also mainly induced to disengagement or imposing behaviours, and, consequently, they are exposed to risks to exacerbate conflicts, to increase students’ dissatisfaction and difficulties, and, potentially, to contribute creating a hostile class climate. furthermore, as regards teachers adopting mediating pattern, the prevalent recourse to integrating, compromising and obliging styles revealed their high concern for the students’ needs and perspective. the recourse to this pattern should be considered as a significant resource for a teacher to achieve a satisfactory and stimulating class climate as they are always engaged in the educational relationship, encouraging challenging students to be involved in negotiation processes. finally, as regards teachers adopting multi-strategic and solution-oriented pattern, their ability to recur to all the strategies depending on the situation can also be considered as a relevant resource to achieve optimal conflict management within the class. nevertheless, the efficacy of this pattern depends on the development among teachers of adequate competencies to assess the situation, to identify the more adequate management style, and to implement the relational abilities for adopting this style. consequently, this pattern induces to emphasise the importance of specific training to enhance teachers’ abilities to perceive and evaluate students’ needs as well as teachers’ relational competences. in this perspective, the main interest of the present study was to identify common patterns of conflict management among different teachers, i.e., varying for gender, age, length of working experience and country of belonging. nonetheless, the study also aimed to explore potential differences across the four emerged patterns according to individual characteristics of teachers (i.e., gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging) in order to gain further indications on teachers’ predominant trends. accordingly, the analysis of frequencies and percentages showed that patterns were adopted independently from gender, age and length of teaching experience, while it emerged specificities related to country of belonging. teachers’ patterns of conflict management 122 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, in line with the rahim’s perspective, the observed differences should be interpreted by considering teachers’ individual differences, the specific conflicting situations, and any potential specificity related to the national and european educational contexts. indeed, these results could favour the reflection upon the possibility to develop more tailored interventions within european school context according to the pattern-specific needs, risks and resources. for example, whilst teachers from spain were significantly represented across the four pattern profiles, teachers from germany and italy seem to display a similar trend, revealing a higher tendency to use multiple strategies and to be solution-oriented; while, as opposed to teachers from belgium, austrian teachers showed to be less willing to adopt control-oriented and avoidant strategies. accordingly, interventions in these contexts should aim to promote greater balance in the ways they may handle conflicts with students by increasing the recourse to a wider set of conflict management strategies (by carefully assessing the specific conflicting situation), as well as the possibilities to also adopt directing/authoritarian strategies (when appropriate) in order to reduce the risk of exhaustion and burnout. furthermore, these results may raise the interest in exploring those individual and situational factors influencing these trends, deepening with teachers the different ways in which conflict management patterns can be concretely applied to the specific situations they may encounter in their work contexts. nevertheless, beyond the observed specificities, the present study provided four meaningful patterns useful to yield insight into the shared configuration of strategies for managing conflicts with students adopted by teachers from the five european countries participating in the study, so maintaining the perspective of a common horizon while also observing potential differences in trends. despite the strengths of the present study, some limitations need to be underlined. firstly, this research used a cross-sectional design, while longitudinal studies should be more adequate to determine the stability of identified patterns over time. secondly, all the measurement tools were self-report, increasing the risk of social desirability bias. thirdly, our findings identified four meaningful patterns of teacher’s conflict management styles, rising the interest to examine both individual and personality factors, as well as situational characteristics, such as types of students’ problematic behaviours and class climate, that may play a role in influencing the patterns of conflict management elicited in teachers. moreover, further studies should be addressed to investigate individual and situational variables influencing the effectiveness of the adoption of each of the four patterns emerged in the resolution of conflictual interactions with students. finally, findings revealing country specificities in conflict management pattern profiles suggested to further explore the role of cultural differences in the negotiation process adopting larger samples from other european countries. indeed, although the interest in providing country specificities in conflict management pattern profiles, that could be useful to rise and enhance awareness on the styles adopted by teachers in the european school context, findings from the present study should be interpreted with caution, considering the necessity to adopt larger samples from different countries to further explore and understand the effects of cultural differences on the model of conflict management strategies (rahim et al., 2002). in conclusion, the study provided empirical evidence for the identification of meaningful patterns of conflict management within teacher-student interactions, yielding useful tools to customise interventions aiming to promote zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 123 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ teachers’ awareness on management strategies they adopt and to enhance their efficacy in regulating challenging interactions with students. funding this research has been supported by eacea, project accord (580362-epp-1-2016-1-it-eppka3-ipi-sco-in) from the erasmus+. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. author note this publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. references aldenderfer, m. s., & blashfield, r. k. 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(2016). personality characteristics, job stressors, and job satisfaction: main and interaction effects on psychological and physical health conditions of italian schoolteachers. psychological reports, 119(1), 27-38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294116656818 about the authors maria clelia zurlo, ph.d., full professor of clinical psychology, psychodiagnosis and psychopathology, university of naples federico ii, italy. her research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology and focuses on models and tools for the evaluation of work-related stress dimensions and psychological and physical health conditions in teachers, immigrant workers and nurses. federica vallone, ph.d., is clinical psychologist and researcher at the university of naples federico ii and received her doctorate in health psychology at university of naples federico ii in collaboration with centre for occupational and health psychology, cardiff university. her research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology. elena dell’aquila, ph.d., clinical psychologist and researcher at the university of naples federico ii. her research focuses on the development, design and adaptation of psychological models supporting educational/learning methodologies within innovative technologies applications, with interests in serious, simulation-based, role-play games for soft skills training and assessment. davide marocco, ph.d., is associate professor in psychometrics at university of naples federico ii. his research expertise is in artificial intelligence, soft computing and machine learning techniques applied to psychological modelling and measurements, with particular focus on technology-enhanced assessment and serious gaming techniques. zurlo, vallone, dell’aquila, & marocco 127 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 112–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1955 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0021-9010.80.2.271 https://doi.org/10.5465%2f256359 https://doi.org/10.3280%2fpds2017-001001 https://doi.org/10.2466%2f03.16.pr0.113x23z9 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0033294116656818 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ teachers’ patterns of conflict management (introduction) rahim’ model of conflict management styles and teacher-student interactions purpose of the study method participants and procedures measures data analysis results preliminary analyses cluster analysis gender, age, working seniority, and country of belonging in cluster composition discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author note references about the authors does perfectionism lead to well-being? the role of flow and personality traits research reports does perfectionism lead to well-being? the role of flow and personality traits tamar kamushadze 1, khatuna martskvishvili 1, maia mestvirishvili 1, mariami odilavadze 1 [1] department of psychology, ivane javakhishvili tbilisi state university, tbilisi, georgia. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 received: 2019-04-25 • accepted: 2020-07-15 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: austin lee nichols, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa corresponding author: tamar kamushadze, 11a, ilia chavchavadze avenue, block 3, tbilisi, ge 0179, georgia. e-mail: tamar.kamushadze840@pes.tsu.edu.ge abstract perfectionism is a personality trait that plays an important role in understanding human behavior and functioning. there has been a focus on the negative aspects and outcomes of perfectionism, and less is known about whether and how perfectionism relates to adaptive characteristics of personality and normal functioning. we investigated associations between different aspects of perfectionism and psychological well-being in two studies by determining the role of dispositional flow and personality traits in this relationship. in study 1, participants completed questionnaires for perfectionism, psychological well-being and flow. in study 2, personality traits from the hexaco model of personality were additionally measured. we found that psychological well-being had a positive correlation with conscientious perfectionism and a negative correlation with self-evaluative perfectionism. flow mediates the relationship between conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being. there was no correlation between self-evaluative perfectionism and dispositional flow. after controlling for relevant personality traits, dispositional flow remains the mediator between conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being, but the relation becomes negative. implications for the understanding of how different components of perfectionism are related to psychological well-being and how flow experience contributes to this relationship are discussed. keywords adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, psychological well-being, flow, hexaco perfectionism has been described as an individual difference variable characterized by striving for excellence and motivation to pursue perfection. it involves setting excessively high standards and critically evaluating one’s behavior (hewitt & flett, 1991; stoeber & otto, 2006). as perfectionism is involved in a wide range of human behaviors and outcomes (shafran & mansell, 2001), the construct has garnered considerable theoretical and research attention over the years and great progress in understanding the nature, correlates, and consequences of perfectionism has been made (bieling, israeli, & antony, 2004; parker, 1997; slade & owens, 1998; suh, gnilka, & rice, 2017). although there is a plethora of studies about positive and negative outcomes of perfectionism (chang, 2000; enns, cox, & clara, 2005; kanten & yesıltas, 2015; rice, ashby, & slaney, 2007; stoeber, hutchfield, & wood, 2008), there are still several important questions that have yet to be adequately addressed. contemporary descriptions of perfectionism draw attention to the multifaceted form of the construct, where pos­ itive, as opposed to negative aspects (slade & owens, 1998) have been distinguished by various authors. the idea that some aspects of perfectionism might be adaptive was discussed by earlier theorists (e.g., hamachek, 1978; parker, 1997; terry-short, owens, slade, & dewey, 1995). hamachek (1978) distinguished normal from neurotic perfectionism, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1987&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ describing normal perfectionism as striving to meet one’s goals and excellence. others have categorized functional as opposed to dysfunctional, healthy as opposed to unhealthy perfectionism (parker, 1997; terry-short et al., 1995). in general, based on the related consequences, two different facets of perfectionism—adaptive and maladaptive—can be distinguished. in order to investigate the conceptual and pragmatic issues dealing with two facets of perfectionism, theorists and researchers (hamachek, 1978; parker, 1997; terry-short et al., 1995) used different measures to assess their unique factors. thus, hill et al. (2004) found a much more efficient way and developed a new model that combined the unique aspects of each model. according to this model the perfectionism facets are merged in two higher-order domains— conscientious perfectionism (cp), including organization, planfulness, striving for excellence, and high standards for others—and self-evaluative perfectionism (sep), which includes rumination, need for approval, concern over mistakes, and parental pressure (hill et al., 2004). authors address conscientious perfectionism as an adaptive and self-evaluative perfectionism as a maladaptive facet of the construct. there has been a focus on the negative correlates and consequences of perfectionism, and much less is known about the relation of perfectionism with indicators of normal functioning. little is known about whether and how perfectionism relates to indices of normal characteristics of personality and psychological well-being (pwb; ryff, 1989). psychological functioning diverges for different classes of perfectionism. for example, various forms of adaptive per­ fectionism have been associated with positive factors and outcomes, such as presence of meaning, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction (suh et al., 2017), self-efficacy and aspiration level (stoeber et al., 2008), challenge appraisals and active coping (stoeber & rennert, 2008), and negatively with psychopathology (bieling et al., 2004). conversely, maladaptive perfectionists exhibit less positive affect (dunkley, zuroff, & blankstein, 2003), higher stress (ashby & gnilka, 2017; chang, watkins, & banks, 2004), low academic self-efficacy, ultimately triggering academic burnout (yu, chae, & chang, 2016), emotion dysregulation (zeifman, antony, & kuo, 2020) and low self-compassion (stoeber, lalova, & lumley, 2019). the review of the differences between the two dimensions shows that adaptive perfectionism, namely, the perfec­ tionistic strivings dimension, relates to positive characteristics. conversely, maladaptive perfectionism, namely the per­ fectionistic concerns dimension, relates to negative psychological functioning, notably depression and anxiety (stoeber & otto, 2006). the names of conscientious and self-evaluative components of perfectionism (hill et al., 2004) were derived from the five-factor model of personality (mccrae & john, 1992), because of their conceptual similarity to conscientiousness and neuroticism. in mccrae and costa’s (1999) five-factor theory of personality, broad traits play a role in the development of lower-level personality characteristics. thus, stoeber, otto, and dalbert (2009) stress the notion that personality traits, in particular conscientiousness and neuroticism, not only act as mere correlates but may also be the fundament in forming the positive and negative types of perfectionism. several studies explored the relationship between personality traits and perfectionism facets. in most studies, the positive relation between conscientiousness and self-oriented perfectionism and neuroticism and socially prescribed perfectionism has been replicated, while other big five personality traits did not show a consistent pattern of correla­ tions (dunkley & kyparissis, 2008; enns et al., 2005; rice et al., 2007; stoeber et al., 2009). perfectionism and psychological well-being measures of psychological dysfunction, at best only moderately overlap with measures of psychological well-being, and the studies of perfectionism usually focus on dysfunction and maladaptive personality (cheng et al., 2015; egan, kane, winton, eliot, & mcevoy, 2017; mathew, dunning, coats, & whelan, 2014); however, studies concerning the perfectionism and psychological well-being relationship are scarce. psychological well-being refers to positive affect states and effective social functioning (chang, 2006; huppert, 2009; winefield, gill, taylor, & pilkington, 2012). ryff and keyes (1995) argued that most conceptualizations of life satisfaction fail to provide a theory-based formulation of well-being. ryff (1989, 1995) developed a multidimensional model of flow, perfectionism, and well-being 44 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological well-being composed of six theoretically distinguishable functions: self–acceptance; positive relations with others; autonomy; environmental mastery; purpose in life; and personal growth. several studies addressing the relationship between different facets of perfectionism and well-being showed related patterns. in a study of college students (chang, 2006) other-oriented perfectionism (adaptive) did not show relations to any of the six dimensions of psychological well-being. in contrast, socially prescribed perfectionism (maladaptive) was found to be significantly and negatively associated with all six dimensions of psychological well-being. other studies revealed considerably similar findings. as reported, positive perfectionism affects psychological well-being posi­ tively, whereas negative perfectionism affects psychological well-being negatively (kanten & yesıltas, 2015). adaptive perfectionists reported higher levels of presence of meaning, subjective happiness, and life satisfaction. conversely, maladaptive perfectionists had higher scores in the search for meaning (suh et al., 2017). perfectionism and flow since perfectionism is a personality style possibly affecting an individual’s strivings in all areas of life (chang, 2006; chang et al., 2015; childs & stoeber, 2010; closson & boutilier, 2017), the two forms of perfectionism also differ in terms of types of behavior. according to the dual process model of perfectionism based on reinforcement theory, adaptive perfectionists exhibit higher achievement motivation and are optimistic about their performance and pursue success. conversely, maladaptive perfectionists are characterized by avoidant behavior due to presumed failure and focus on mistakes rather than pride (slade & owens, 1998). as perfectionism is described as striving to flawlessness and setting excessively high-performance standards (frost, marten, lahart, & rosenblate, 1990), it is considered one of the individual components of an individual’s disposition to engage in overactivity. researchers (childs & stoeber, 2010; tziner & tanami, 2013; zhang, gan, & cham, 2007) argue that positive perfectionism is positively related with work engagement. adaptive perfectionism is related to positive emotions, thus enabling engagement in behavioral self-regulation, whereas maladaptive perfectionism is positively associated with negative emotions, self-handicapping (shih, 2011) and procrastination (closson & boutilier, 2017), and negatively with academic engagement (closson & boutilier, 2017). likewise, perfectionistic strivings show positive relations with behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement (damian, stoeber, negru-subtirica, & băban, 2017). flow is the construct from positive psychology that provides a clear picture of engagement. the term was first coined by csikszentmihalyi (1991). the experience of flow can be defined as the absorption into an activity or task at hand. the flow state derives from engaging in a challenging task and dealing with complex situations (csikszentmihalyi, 1991). adaptive perfectionists regard pressure as a challenge and have a tendency to get pleasure from performance even when the task at hand requires hard work. thus, they develop adaptive coping strategies and perform with gentle focus, without fear of evaluation. compared to them, maladaptive perfectionists are nervous and hesitant about their performance, more prone to self-criticism and therefore tend to avoid work (li, lan, & ju, 2015). moreover, maladaptive perfectionists will exhibit a low self-awareness and immersion in an activity, which are necessary for flow state to occur (ljubin-golub, rijavec, & jurčec, 2018). two studies attempted to understand the relationship between flow and perfectionism from multidimensional aspects. adaptive perfectionism dimensions (e.g., personal standards & organization) were positively associated with spiritual engagement, whereas maladaptive perfectionism dimensions (e.g., concern over mistakes, parental criticism) were negatively associated with spirituality (chang et al., 2015). adaptive perfectionism, namely high standards, was positively related to a higher level of academic flow (ljubin-golub et al., 2018). in general, the volume of research has not been matched by theoretical attempts to understand the nature of the relationship between flow and perfectionism, as most of the studies focus on academic flow. it is still not well known whether the same is true about flow as a dispositional trait, which refers to an individual’s general tendency to respond to a given activity (csikszentmihalyi, 1991). kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 45 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ current study the paper reports two studies aimed at investigating the relationship between two aspects of perfectionism and psycho­ logical well-being, and the role dispositional flow plays in this relationship. thus, in study 1, we propose the following hypotheses: 1) conscientious perfectionism will be positively related to psychological well-being; 2) self-evaluative perfectionism will be negatively related to psychological well-being; 3) the relationship between conscientious perfec­ tionism and well-being will be mediated by dispositional flow; 4) the relationship between self-evaluative perfectionism and well-being will be mediated by dispositional flow. in study 2, we propose that 5) dispositional flow remains the mediator between perfectionism and psychological well-being after controlling for personality traits. study 1 method participants the study recruited a total of 156 (74 men and 82 women) participants. the majority (51%) were undergraduate students from tbilisi state university. participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 56 years, with a mean age of 23.29 (sd = 7.33) years. the participants were recruited through convenience sampling. the participants were volunteers and did not receive any reward or credit for taking part in the study. procedure participants completed a package of questionnaires, including measures of perfectionism, dispositional flow and psycho­ logical well-being. the questionnaires were provided in small groups and informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to completing a series of questionnaires. participants had been assured that all data would be kept confidential. the ethical evaluating committee of the national foundation assessed the ethical aspects of the study. measures perfectionism inventory (pi) — perfectionism was measured via the georgian version of the pi, which was originally developed by hill et al. (2004) and is a self-report measure consisting of 59 items using a 5-point rating scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the items comprise eight subscales, two higher-order components, and an overall pi composite. acceptable reliability estimates for the eight subscales – concern over mistakes (α = .81); high standards for others (α = .63); need for approval (α = .76); organization (α = .85); perceived parental pressure (α = .82); planfulness (α = .85); rumination (α = .71); striving for excellence (α = .82) and two high-order components – conscientious perfectionism (α = .72) and self-evaluative perfectionism (α = .77) – were reported. dispositional flow scale-2 (dfs-2) — the georgian version (abuladze, 2016) of the dfs-2 (jackson, martin, & eklund, 2008) comprises 36 items designed to measure an individual’s flow propensity within a given activity. it was constructed based on csikszentmihalyi’s (1991) nine proposed components of flow, with each component assessed on a four-item scale, each item on a likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. participants answer the questions regarding their “experiences in general.” in the current study, coefficient alpha ranged from .62 for merging of action and awareness to .87 for clear goals (median alpha = .78). ryff’s psychological well-being scale (pwb) — the georgian version (khechuashvili, 2017) of ryff’s pwb (ryff & keyes, 1995) consists of 84 questions. a series of statements reflect the six areas of psychological well-being: autonomy; environmental mastery; personal growth; positive relations with others; purpose in life; and self-acceptance. respondents rate statements on a scale of 1 to 6, with 1 indicating strong disagreement and 6 indicating strong agreement. for each category, a high score indicates that the respondent has a mastery of that area in his or her life. conversely, a low score shows that the respondent struggles to feel comfortable with that particular concept. in our study, the alpha flow, perfectionism, and well-being 46 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ internal consistency of the six scales – autonomy (α = .76); environmental mastery (α = .69); personal growth (α = .75); positive relations with others (α = .80); purpose in life (α = .85); self-acceptance (α = .80) – showed acceptable reliability. data analysis data analysis proceeded in three steps: 1) the initial analysis included zero-order correlations of higher-order domains of the perfectionism inventory with a global score of dispositional flow scale and psychological well-being; 2) multiple regression analysis was conducted to look for prediction value of perfectionism domains for psychological well-being and global flow; and 3) we ran mediation analysis to trace the role of flow in the perfectionism–psychological well-being relationship. results descriptive statistics and intercorrelations all descriptive statistics are presented in table 1. table 1 means, standard deviations and alpha internal consistency coefficients variable m sd α perfectionism cp 14.34 2.21 .72 sep 12.91 2.42 .77 concern over mistakes 2.84 0.77 .81 high standards for others 3.41 0.60 .63 need for approval 3.47 0.69 .76 organization 3.47 0.82 .85 perceived parental pressure 2.91 0.82 .82 planfulness 3.68 0.79 .85 rumination 3.67 0.85 .71 striving for excellence 3.77 0.75 .82 flow 132.99 20.44 .93 challenge-skill balance 14.85 2.74 .71 merging of action and awareness 13.46 2.88 .62 clear goals 15.34 3.52 .87 unambiguous feedback 15.67 3.06 .83 concentrating on the task on hand 14.82 3.38 .82 sense of control 14.80 3.11 .79 loss of self-consciousness 13.19 3.83 .83 transformation of time 14.91 3.21 .74 autotelic experience 15.91 3.11 .82 psychological well-being 350.90 47.21 .93 autonomy 57.57 10.04 .76 environmental mastery 52.69 8.90 .69 personal growth 64.83 8.69 .75 positive relations with others 59.53 10.87 .80 purpose in life 62.13 12.83 .85 self-acceptance 54.12 11.02 .80 note. cp = conscientious perfectionism; sep = self-evaluative perfectionism. kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 47 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data were tested for normality and homogeneity of variance, thereby pearson correlation analysis was conducted. table 2 presents the zero-order correlations for perfectionism high-order domains and scales with flow and psychological well-being. conscientious perfectionism was positively (r = .23, p < .001) associated with psychological well-being, whilst self-evaluative perfectionism showed negative correlation with well-being (r = −.28, p < .001). conscientious perfectionism positively moderately correlated with flow (r = .42, p < .001), whereas there was no correlation between self-evaluative perfectionism and flow. in addition, flow and psychological well-being were positively intercorrelated (r = .35, p < .001). table 2 intercorrelations between perfectionism domains, flow and psychological well-being variable 1 2 3 1. conscientious perfectionism 2. self-evaluative perfectionism .46** 3. flow .42** .07 4. psychological well-being .23** −.28** .35** **p < .01. multiple regression multiple regression was used to see whether perfectionism could reliably predict either psychological well-being or flow or both. two domains of the pi were entered simultaneously in the equation to predict global psychological well-being (pwb) and global dispositional flow (df) total scores. data showed that perfectionism reliably predicted both pwb and df. two facets of perfectionism explained the 25% variability of pwb, with both having significant effects. perfectionism also explained the 19% of variability for df, however, only conscientious perfectionism appeared to be the significant predictor for flow, which in turn explained 12% of well-being (table 3). table 3 summary of multiple regression analysis for perfectionism factors predicting psychological well-being and flow parameter psychological well-beinga flowb β se β β se β conscientious perfectionism 9.89 1.68 0.46*** 4.48 0.75 0.48*** self-evaluative perfectionism −9.69 1.54 −0.49*** −1.30 0.69 −0.15 ar 2 = .25, δr 2 =.24 (p < .05). br 2 = .19, δr 2 =.18 (p < .05). ***p < .001. mediation analysis to test the mediator role of flow in the relation between perfectionism facets and well-being, we conducted mediation analysis using process (hayes, 2017). first, we explored the model of conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being with flow as a mediator. the proposed mediation model was tested as depicted in figure 1a. the total score of cp had a predictive value for the flow score (b = 3.82, p < .001). the total score of flow (b = 0.72, p < .001) and cp (b = 4.96, p < .001) had a predicting value for pwb. finally, cp had an indirect effect on pwb as dispositional flow plays the role of mediator between these two components (b = 2.76, 95% ci [1.09, 4.98]). the full mediating model was confirmed. second, we explored the focal effect of cp on pwb through the mediational effect of flow by controlling sep. as depicted in figure 1b, cp had an indirect effect on pwb with dispositional flow partially mediating the relationship while controlling for sep (b = 2.53, 95% ci [0.80, 4.87]). finally, we tested the focal effect of sep on pwb through the meditational effect of flow by controlling cp. the proposed model is depicted in figure 1c. the total score of sep did flow, perfectionism, and well-being 48 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ not have predictive value for the flow score (b = −1.30, p = .061). the total score of flow (b = 0.56, p = .001) and sep (b = −9.69, p < .001) had predicting value for pwb. finally, sep had an indirect effect on pwb as dispositional flow plays the role of mediator between these two components (b = −0.73, 95% ci [−2.23, −0.00]). figure 1 the standardized regression coefficients between conscientious and self-evaluative perfectionism and psychological well-being as mediated by flow **p < .01. ***p < .001. kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 49 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2 the results of study 1 showed that conscientious perfectionism is positively related to psychological well-being and flow plays a mediator role in between, while self-evaluative perfectionism was negatively related to psychological well-being with no significant relations with dispositional flow. the purpose of study 2 was to replicate and improve on our first conceptual model by means of controlling for personality traits. there are numerous studies that have addressed the issue by using the five-factor model of personality (dunkley & kyparissis, 2008; flett & hewitt, 2006; molnar, sadava, flett, & colautti, 2012; rice et al., 2007; stoeber et al., 2009); however, we aimed to examine this relationship using the hexaco model (ashton & lee, 2007), which comprises six broad personality dimensions: honesty-humility (h), emotionality (e), extraversion (x), agreeableness (a), conscientiousness (c), and openness (o). method participants the study used a convenience sampling technique for recruiting participants. the sample consisted of 169 (42 men and 127 women) university students. ages ranged from 17 to 60 years, with a mean age of 24.7 (sd = 7.3) years. participation was voluntary and students received no compensation for participating in the study. procedure participants completed a package of questionnaires, including measures of perfectionism, dispositional flow, psycholog­ ical well-being and the hexaco model of personality. informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to completing a series of questionnaires, and students were assured of the confidentiality of their self. measures the georgian versions of the perfectionism inventory (pi), dispositional flow scale-2 (dfs-2) and ryff’s psychological well-being scale (pwb) were used, as in study 1. hexaco personality inventory – revised short version (hexaco-pi-r) — the georgian version (martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, gholijashvili, oniani & neubauer, 2021) of the hexaco-pi-r (ashton & lee, 2009) inventory consists of 60 items with 10 items for each scale. individual subscale scores were obtained by averaging the 10 items belonging to the particular subscale. each item was rated using a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). the scale had adequate internal consistency for six scales (see table 4). table 4 means, standard deviations and alpha internal consistency coefficients for higher domains variable m sd α perfectionism cp 14.35 2.24 .73 sep 13.04 2.31 .75 flow 134.28 20.83 .91 pwb 352.55 51.43 .94 flow, perfectionism, and well-being 50 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable m sd α hexaco honesty/humility 34.82 6.56 .71 emotionality 32.93 6.88 .75 extraversion 32.92 7.23 .79 agreeableness 28.46 6.56 .73 consciousness 34.39 6.82 .75 openness 35.61 6.26 .68 note. cp = conscientious perfectionism; sep = self-evaluative perfectionism; pwb = psychological well-being. data analysis data analysis proceeded in three steps: 1) the initial analysis included zero-order correlations of hexaco scales with higher-order domains of the perfectionism inventory, global score of the dispositional flow scale and psychological well-being; 2) multiple regression analysis was conducted to explore the prediction value of hexaco factors for psychological well-being and flow; and 3) we ran a mediation analysis to trace the role of flow in the perfection­ ism–psychological well-being relationship while controlling for relevant personality traits from the hexaco model. results all descriptive statistics are presented in table 4. correlational analysis data were tested for normality and homogeneity of variance and pearson correlation analysis was conducted. as shown in table 5, conscientious perfectionism was positively associated with extraversion and consciousness, whereas self-evaluative perfectionism was positively related to emotionality. flow positively related with most of the hexaco factors with the exception of emotionality and honesty/humility. psychological well-being was positively associated with three of the personality factors – extraversion, consciousness and openness. table 5 intercorrelations between hexaco, perfectionism, flow and well-being scales variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. conscientious perfectionism 2. self-evaluative perfectionism .44** 3. flow .46** .04 4. well-being .25** −.31** .44** 5. honesty/humility −.16* −.16* −.17* .14 6. emotionality .05 .29** −.14 −.11 .13 7. extraversion .34** −.07 .49** .57** −.17* −.11 8. agreeableness −.05 −.02 .15* .02 .14 .13 .05 9. consciousness .60** −.05 .41** .44** .00 −.05 .37** .03 10. openness −.04 −.09 .18* .27** .17* −.21** .17* −.12 .11 *p < .05. **p < .01. regression analysis in order to determine the contributions of the hexaco factors to components of flow and well-being, each of the six subscales of hexaco-pi-r was regressed onto global flow and well-being, with all domains entered simultaneously (see table 6). kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 51 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 summary of multiple regression analysis for perfectionism factors predicting psychological well-being and flow parameter psychological well-beinga flowb β se β β se β honesty/humility 1.76 0.48 0.22*** −0.48 0.21 −0.15* emotionality −0.38 0.45 −0.05 −0.21 0.19 −0.07 extraversion 3.54 0.46 0.49*** 0.94 0.20 0.32*** agreeableness −0.16 0.46 −0.02 0.55 0.20 0.17** consciousness 1.82 0.47 0.24*** 0.81 0.20 0.26*** openness 0.88 0.51 0.10 0.42 0.22 0.12 ar 2 = .46, δr 2 = .44 (p < .05). br 2 = .36, δr 2 = .33 (p < .05). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. four of the hexaco factors, honesty/humility (β = −0.154, p < .05), extraversion (β = 0.32, p < .001), agreeableness (β = 0.17, p < .01) and consciousness (β = 0.26, p < .001) were significant predictors and in total explained 34% of the variance of flow. in addition, the three hexaco factors explained 44% of the variance, r 2 adj = .44, f(6, 162) = 23.11, p < .001, of well-being; namely, extraversion (β = 0.49, p < .001), consciousness (β = 0.24, p < .001) and humility (β = 0.22, p < .001) were significant predictors (see table 6). mediation analysis considering the fact that only the three hexaco domains (extraversion, consciousness and honesty/humility) were significantly related to all study variables, we decided to include only those three in further analysis. we controlled for extraversion, consciousness and honesty/humility in the given relationship in order to exclude their potential effect on it. the proposed mediation model (hayes, 2017) was tested as depicted in figure 2. the relationship between cp and pwb was fully mediated by flow while controlling for relevant hexaco domains. figure 2 the standardized regression coefficients between conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being as mediated by flow controlling for conscientiousness and extraversion **p < .01. ***p < .001. flow, perfectionism, and well-being 52 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion perfectionism is considered as a personality trait with two different facets, distinguishing adaptive versus maladaptive dimensions. therefore, whether it is adaptive or maladaptive may have potential positive and negative effects on various psychological factors. the aim of the study was to examine the effects of conscientious and self-evaluative types of perfectionism on psychological well-being with a specific focus on dispositional flow as a mediator. in study 1, first we examined the relationship between different facets of perfectionism and psychological well-being to test the hypothesis that conscientious perfectionism, as a form of adaptive perfectionism would be positively associated with well-being, whereas self-evaluative perfectionism, as a form of maladaptive perfectionism would be negatively related to pwb. as hypothesized, we found general support for the notion that the adaptive dimension of perfectionism is positively associated with psychological well-being and serves as a significant predictor. while on the contrary, maladaptive perfectionism significantly predicts a lower degree of pwb. these findings are consistent with previous studies (dunkley et al., 2003; stoeber & rambow, 2007; suh et al., 2017; yu et al., 2016). an important strength of the present study was demonstrating this relationship in the perspective of a conceptual model that differentiates conscientious versus self-evaluative perfectionism and, in fact, comprises all existing models of multifaceted perfection­ ism. as the mechanism underlying the adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism and psychological well-being link is largely speculative, we posited that this relationship can be fully mediated by a psychological factor that implies the tendency to be involved in an activity in a highly enjoyable and effortless way – flow. flow is associated with a number of posi­ tive psychological outcomes (asakawa, 2010; jackson, thomas, marsh, & smethurst, 2001). thus, we hypothesized that flow will be the mediator in the relationship between perfectionism facets and psychological well-being. to do so, first we explored the perfectionist’s experiences of flow. although some studies have found a link between different facets of perfectionism and engagement (childs & stoeber, 2010; damian et al., 2017; tziner & tanami, 2013; zhang et al., 2007), little is known about whether and how perfectionism relates to indices of dispositional flow. to support the notion that conscientious perfectionists will more likely involve themselves in activities evoking flow experience because of their cautious attitude towards challenge and without fear of evaluation, whereas self-evaluative perfectionists will be more likely to demonstrate hesitancy facing the challenge and hence the lower degree of flow, we hypothesized that conscientious perfectionism will positively, and self-evaluative perfectionism will negatively relate to flow. we found partial support of our assumption. the positive relationship between conscientious perfectionism and flow was fully supported, with a cp as a significant predictor of dispositional flow. this finding indicates that people with high levels of conscientious perfectionism tend to try harder to achieve the perfection and thus engage in activities entirely with persistent focus and without feeling tension. opposite to our hypothesis, there was no evidence of either positive or negative associations between self-evaluative perfectionism and flow. this suggests that non-adaptive perfectionism may not always have negative concomitants and does not necessarily mean a deadlock for autotelic experience. that is a promising avenue of investigation for the value of the heterogeneity of non-adaptive component of perfectionism. based on previous findings from study 1, we tested the flow mediator role for the relationship between conscien­ tious perfectionism and well-being. we found evidence for our hypothesis that dispositional flow affects the link between cp and pwb by playing a mediator role. to determine the focal effect of perfectionism facets on pwb, we tested the mediation analysis again, controlling for sep. it appeared, that flow remained a mediator in the relationship between cp and pwb and sep and pwb, but this time the mediational effect was partial. in other words, perfectionists who score high on the conscientious dimension can increase their general level of psychological well-being by immers­ ing in activities that help them achieve high standards. our finding is the first to highlight the importance of flow experience in understanding the perfectionism and well-being relationship. further, in study 2, we went on to replicate findings from study 1 to investigate whether these findings remain unaffected while controlling for personality traits. due to the correlational and regression analysis, three out of six personality factors from the hexaco model of personality caught our attention. conscientiousness, extraversion and honesty/humility were then controlled during the mediation analysis, which again incorporated flow as a mediator between conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being. our suggestion that the dispositional flow remains a mediator even after controlling for relevant personality traits was confirmed. this means that flow represents a kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 53 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ powerful contributor to this relationship regardless of the heterogeneity of personality. what was more surprising, the direct relationship between conscientious perfectionism and psychological well-being became negative after controlling for conscientiousness and extraversion. for conscientiousness this can be explained by somehow overlapping the nature of the trait and conscientious dimension of perfectionism, but other studies with different models of perfectionism also show similar findings (e.g., stoeber et al., 2009). the impact of honesty/humility on the perfectionism and well-being relationship may be explained by disinterest in achieving elevated excellence (ashton, lee, & de vries, 2014). as for extraversion, existing empirical findings are uncertain (dunkley & kyparissis, 2008; flett & hewitt, 2006; molnar et al., 2012; rice et al., 2007; stoeber et al., 2009). a possible explanation may be the factors related to extraversion, such as assertiveness and activity (stoeber, corr, smith, & saklofske, 2018). the latter is worth discussing as it challenges the view of a positive association between adaptive perfectionism and well-being. limitations and future directions several potential limitations to the present study must be mentioned. first, due to the limited number of participants, the study did not investigate the complex relationships between construct subscales, which could provide new insights. it would be useful for future research to further examine the flow and perfectionism by employing larger sample size, different sample group and specific aspects of perfectionism. second, our study involved a cross-sectional design, therefore strong inferences about causal and mediational effect from the findings cannot be drawn. third, perfectionism is a gender-specific variable and the effect of gender may have altered the results, however there was no gender difference in our study, thus preventing us from possible effect of it. further studies may focus on gender differences. last, we only examined one aspect of normal functioning. future studies could explore more specific positive outcomes of the flow and perfectionism relationship. nevertheless, the presented work enriches the extant literature in several important ways. first, the study highlights the importance of exploring the distinct aspects of perfectionism separately. second, it represents the first demonstra­ tion of the link between perfectionism and psychological well-being by providing insight into the underlying mecha­ nisms and highlighting the power of personality characteristics that contributes to understanding the relationship. funding: this work was supported by shota rustaveli national science foundation of georgia under grant dp2016_16. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references abuladze, n. 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(2007). perfectionism, academic burnout and engagement among chinese college students: a structural equation modeling analysis. personality and individual differences, 43(6), 1529-1540. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.04.010 about the authors tamar kamushadze is a phd student of studies in positive psychology and a guest lecturer at tbilisi state university. she has a master degree in psychological assessment and counseling. her main research interest centers around personality and individual differences, positive aspects of character and positive lens of psychopathology. tamar holds a grant of shota rustaveli national science foundation for her phd studies. khatuna martskvishvili, phd in psychology, associative professor and vice dean at tbilisi state university, founder and the president of georgia positive psychology association. at different times she received research and academic scholarships at the university college of london (great britain), as well as at the universities of leuven (belgium) and towson (usa). she holds a scholarship from the heinrich boell and shota rustvaeli national science foundation. research areas: psychology of personality and individual differences; positive psychology; strategies to overcome stress; emotional and social intelligence; personal dispositions associated with well-being; optimal human functioning and flow. maia mestvirishvili, phd in psychology, associate professor at ivane javakhishvili tbilisi state university faculty of psychology and educational sciences, founder and co-head of georgia positive psychology association. in 2006–2011 she received research and academic scholarships at the universities of columbia (usa), berkeley (usa) and leuven (belgium). she is a principle investigator of research projects funded by academic swiss caucasus network (ascn) and norwegian institute of international affairs (nupi). dr. mestvirishvili is an author of several international conference papers, book chapters and journal articles. mariami odilavadze, phd student of studies in positive psychology at ivane javakhishvili tbilisi state university. master degree in psychological assessment and counseling. in 2018 she won a grant of shota rustaveli national science foundation of georgia for her phd study. the main field of interest is individual differences in optimal human functioning and well-being; positive psychology. kamushadze, martskvishvili, mestvirishvili, & odilavadze 57 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 43–57 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1987 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.04.004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.10.015 https://doi.org/10.1080/10615800701742461 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.01.041 https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)00192-u https://doi.org/10.5093/tr2013a10 https://doi.org/10.1186/2211-1522-2-3 https://doi.org/10.3946/kjme.2016.9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109612 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2007.04.010 https://www.psychopen.eu/ flow, perfectionism, and well-being (introduction) perfectionism and psychological well-being perfectionism and flow current study study 1 method data analysis results descriptive statistics and intercorrelations multiple regression mediation analysis study 2 method data analysis results correlational analysis regression analysis mediation analysis discussion limitations and future directions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors investigation of the effects of violence experience during political demonstrations research reports investigation of the effects of violence experience during political demonstrations mübeccel yeniada kırseven* a, sedat işıklıa [a] department of psychology, hacettepe university, ankara, turkey. abstract in this study, predictors of post-traumatic stress symptom levels (ptssl) and post-traumatic growth levels (ptgl) resulting from the experience of violence were investigated. the sample of the study consisted of 514 gezi park demonstrators. participants completed measures assessing stress symptoms, post-traumatic growth, social support and beliefs about the world as well as the open-ended event specific questions. results showed that being politically active, psychologically prepared and experiencing mild levels of violence were related with decreased ptssl individually but not in combination as the literature suggested. the two hierarchical regression analyses showed that: (1) ptssl were predicted by violence exposure levels, perceived social support from significant others and “randomness” and “self-worth” beliefs about the world; (2) ptgl were predicted by violence exposure levels, total amount of time spent at the demonstrations and “benevolence” and “justice” beliefs about the world. these findings suggest that psychological preparedness might be an important variable in violence experience regarding human masses. also, violence exposure levels and duration of participation seems to be important eventspecific variables. lastly, political activism needs to be more precisely operationalized and measured in future studies. keywords: posttraumatic stress, posttraumatic growth, political violence europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 received: 2019-04-29. accepted: 2019-11-27. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: district of universities, hacettepe university beytepe campus, no: 11, faculty of letters, department of psychology, 06800, ankara, turkey. e-mail: mubyeniada@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. traumatic events differ from other experiences in regard to their unpredictability, uncontrollability, vulnerability, and potential changes in beliefs on the world and life (saari & silver, 2005). research shows that post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) is more frequent in the case of human-made disasters than natural disasters (kessler, sonnega, bromet, hughes, & nelson, 1995; lee & young, 2001). about 30% to 50% of human rights abuses survivors suffer from ptsd (kaminer, stein, mbanga, & zungu-dirwayi, 2001; pillay, 2000; steel et al., 2009). moreover, ptsd after human-made disasters is emphasized to be more severe and longer lasting than natural disasters (american psychiatric association, 1994), besides the destructive effects of the disaster on survivors as well as their loved ones and witnesses (breslau & davis, 1987). the severity of trauma is related to the existence and severity of physical injury, which are due to the traumatic event (north et al., 1999). for example, torture survivors with persistent physical damage, like burns or injury scars, are likely to have higher psychopathology levels (paker, paker, & yüksel, 1992). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ contrary to expectations, results have shown that although both involve suffering and decline in functionality, symptoms in human rights abuses survivors do not fully coincide with ptsd symptoms (hernández, 2002), which seems to support a previous claim about ptsd not being as prevalent as it was thought to be (yehuda & mcfarlane, 1995). moreover, it has also been suggested that traumatic events are not only sources of distress, but also an opportunity for growth, discussed as post-traumatic growth (ptg; tedeschi, 1999). ptg is identified by major and beneficial changes in the cognitive and emotional worldview of survivors, which could also have behavioral effects (tedeschi, park, & calhoun, 1998). it has been claimed that post-traumatic stress and growth can be present simultaneously (tedeschi & calhoun, 1996). ptg is seen as the result of survivors’ coping, indicating a more positive level of functionality than before the traumatic event (tedeschi & calhoun, 2004). for ptg to arise, distress and suffering are found to be necessary (calhoun, & tedeschi, 1998), alongside a higher threat felt during the traumatic event (calhoun & tedeschi, 2006). studies have reported five domains in which ptg has been observed: (1) changes in interpersonal relations, (2) changes in self-perception, (3) realizing the value of life, (4) realizing new opportunities, and (5) changes in the belief system (tedeschi & calhoun, 1996). studies have also shown ptg to be related with the type of traumatic event experienced (bellizzi, 2004; karanci et al., 2012). compared with individual traumas, collective traumas include higher social support, social sharing, social inclusion, and rituals that enhance social inclusion, all of which strengthen people’s beliefs about their coping abilities (páez, basabe, ubillos, & gonzalez-castro, 2007). collective traumas attract less attention than personal traumas (lifton, 2005); however, wars have been the most frequently studied topic since they are human-made collective disasters (luszczynska, benight, & cieslak, 2009). as a form of collective trauma, political traumas was defined as occurring due to politically motivated human behavior, which might have political consequences and have effects on people’s collectives, destruction, and violence (vertzberger, 1997). political traumas were centered upon events that include human rights violations and violence, such as war (steel et al., 2009), migration (shannon et al., 2015), and torture (kaminer, stein, mbanga, & zungu-dirwayi, 2001). these collectively experienced traumas were referred to as having a potential to not only effect but also create new communities (erikson & yule, 1994). with respect to this collectivism, people are able to cope better with the adverse effects of trauma (vertzberger, 1997). indeed, there are claims that traumatized communities are better able to withstand stress or react positively (suedfeld, 1997). political violence is mentioned to be the core element of political trauma. political violence was found to be related with people’s mental (başoğlu et al., 2005; steel et al., 2009) and physical health (başoğlu et al., 2005). for example, after the political tension and violence in 1980, suicidal behavior rates in sri lanka rose from 6.5% in 1950 to 47.3% in 1995 (marecek, 1998). in turkey, many studies on political violence focused on torture. for instance, exposure to prolonged torture has been related with elevated symptoms of ptsd, depression, and anxiety, but at a moderate level (başoğlu et al., 1994). moreover, researchers proposed that preliminary information and preparedness for torture, commitment to a cause, immunity against traumatic stress, and social support might have a protective role against ptsd among torture survivors (başoğlu et al., 1994, 1997; paker, 2000). political activism was also found to be related with psychological preparedness for torture and decreased ptsd symptoms (başoğlu et al., 1997). political activism provides a subjective meaning to trauma, and psychological preparedness could be related with this meaning (başoğlu et al., 1997; paker, 2000). meanwhile, strong violence during demonstrations 480 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ideological commitment mediates between political violence and psychological wellbeing (muldoon, schmid, & downes, 2009). in terms of psychopathologies, subjective meaning is an important predictor, whereas weakness in that meaning, severe violence, and captivity were related with ptsd symptoms (paker, 2000). after a violent experience, a non-activist group’s political commitment may increase (paker, 2000). world assumptions first systematically studied by janoff-bulman (1989), world assumptions refer to the unquestioned assumptions of people on themselves and the world. traumatic events cause people who assume that the world is predictable and safe to question their beliefs and realize their vulnerability. according to janoff-bulman (1989), people have three fundamental assumptions: (1) the overall benevolence of the world, (2) the meaningfulness of the world, and (3) self-worthiness. the two sub-assumptions of the benevolence of the world refer to the benevolence of the world as an entity, including the benevolence of the people in it. the meaningfulness of the world contains justice, controllability, and randomness as sub-assumptions. lastly, self-worthiness comprises self-worth, self-control, and luck (janoff-bulman, 1989). after a traumatic event, these assumptions are shattered; acknowledging their vulnerability, survivors are believed to question their positive beliefs of their self and the world (janoff-bulman, 1989). in the aftermath of trauma, these assumptions are rebuilt, forming new assumptions that integrate the traumatic experience in lieu of previous assumptions (janoff-bulman, 1989, 1992). janoff-bulman (1992) further reported that after natural disasters, the assumptions benevolence of the world, randomness, and control are affected the most, whereas after human-made disasters, the assumptions benevolence of the world and the people and self-worthiness are affected the most. meanwhile, research conducted with tsunami survivors revealed changes in their justice assumptions to be related to elevated ptsd symptoms and decreased life quality (nygaard & heir, 2012). social support throughout literature, “perceived” social support has gained increased attention (eker, arkar, & yaldız, 2001; lazarus, 1990; yap & devilly, 2004) compared to “received” social support, which are the two types of social support suggested (heller, swindle, & dusenbury, 1986). perceived social support protects trauma survivors against depression, anxiety, and stress; whereas its deficiency has been related to elevated distress and plays an important role in trauma symptomatology (yap & devilly, 2004). moreover, perceived social support has an effect on the relationship between the traumatic event and post-traumatic stress, buffering the effects of the traumatic event, although the contribution of social support and its relation with other variables remain unexplained (haden, scarpa, jones, & ollendick, 2007). in collective traumas, social support is an important buffer at all societal levels (hoffman & kruczek, 2011). a study on political violence revealed that apart from the importance of social support, the individual’s level of satisfaction with the perceived social support buffers the impacts of political violence on mental health (punamäki et al., 2005). moreover, studies suggest that collective traumas facilitate higher social support and broaden coping opportunities (luszczynska, benight, & cieslak, 2009). however, there is still controversy regarding findings on the buffering effects of social support on mental health after collective traumas (grills-taquechel, littleton, & axsom, 2011). for example, a study on the 9/11 attacks found no relationship between social support and physical and mental health (adams, boscarino, & galea, 2006). kırseven & işıklı 481 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gezi park demonstrations as a traumatic experience the gezi park demonstrations began as an ordinary environmental protest and spread all over turkey, becoming a social movement with the active participation of large groups of citizens. security forces’ use of deterrents, such as pepper gas, batons, rubber bullets, and pressurized water, to disperse the crowds shifted the environmental focus of the demonstrations to an anti-government stance. amid the demonstrations, the foundation for political, economic and social research (seta; ete & taştan, 2013) conducted and published research to bring the misinformation to light. in addition, the human rights and equality institution of turkey (ti̇hk) published a report based on data from the ministry of the interior indicating that from may 28 to september 6, 2013, 5,532 demonstrations had been held in 80 cities, attended by approximately 3,611,208 people (2013). most of the demonstrators were aged between 15 and 29 years, and no gender disparity was found (ti̇hk, 2014; ete & taştan, 2013). according to the turkish medical association (ttb, 2013), 6 civilians and 2 security staff were killed, 106 civilians suffered head injuries, and 12 the loss of a limb, while approximately 8,163 reported less severe injuries. throughout the demonstrations, 4,900 protesters were taken into police custody (ete & taştan, 2013). the psychological effects of the physical and psychological violence inflicted, however, have not been explored comprehensively. violent acts throughout the demonstrations have been described as components of a human-made disaster (kaptanoğlu, 2013). the complexity of state violence, which includes human rights violations, is related to its political context and consequences. the body of literature on human rights violations in turkey (e.g., başoğlu et al., 1994, 1997; paker, 2000) has taken the contexts into account, in terms of the visibility of the violence to which protesters were exposed. among the literature, no study has yet looked at the psychological effects of the violence during the gezi park demonstrations. in addition, studies that investigated violence and took both ptsd and ptg into account are very scarce. overall, this study investigates the gezi park demonstrations in terms of psychological trauma. its aim is to gather information on individuals’ psychological conditions in large-scale potentially traumatic events. the current work adopts the following research questions: (1) does political activism and psychological preparedness have effects on violence-induced posttraumatic stress levels (ptsl)? (2) among the demonstrators, after statistically controlling for traumatic experience levels before and after the demonstrations and psychological preparedness for violence, do violence exposure levels, total amount of time spent at the demonstrations, perceived social support, and world assumptions predict ptsl? (3) among the demonstrators, after statistically controlling for traumatic experience levels before and after the demonstrations and psychological preparedness for violence, do violence exposure levels, total amount of time spent at the demonstrations, perceived social support, and world assumptions predict ptg? method participants a total of 516 participants completed the study, but 2 of the participants declared that they had not attended the demonstrations and were excluded from the study. thus, the sample of the study consisted of 514 participants aged between 17 and 60 years (mage = 27.80, sd = 7.50). there were 316 (61.5%) female and 196 (38.1%) male participants. two participants did not respond to the gender item. at the time of the study, 234 (45.5%) of the participants lived in ankara, 166 (32.3%) in istanbul, 25 (4.9%) in izmir, 13 (2.5%) in eskişehir, 5 (1%) in violence during demonstrations 482 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bursa, 14 (2.7%) abroad, and 57 (11.1%) in different parts of turkey. in terms of education levels, 125 (24.3%) of the participants had completed a master’s degree or higher, 281 (54.7%) a bachelor’s degree, 105 (20.4%) high school, 2 (0.4%) middle school, and 1 (0.2%) participant had completed no school but was literate. procedure the ethics board of the hacettepe university senate evaluated and approved the study. data were gathered through an online survey system by snowball sampling. to reach the people who could have possibly participated in the gezi park demonstrations, social media channels, various e-mail groups, political gatherings/groups/ parties/solidarity networks, and post-demonstrations groups were contacted. anonymity was guaranteed for participants in all phases of the study. the participants, who agreed to participate voluntarily and declared this by signing the voluntary participation form, filled out the demographic information form followed by the event information form and the scales. the total amount of time needed to complete the entire study was about 15 minutes; however, no time limit was established. no question could be skipped. the last window included a brief appreciation message for participating in the study. measures demographic information form to obtain a detailed profile of the participants, a comprehensive demographic information form was designed. in this form, participants were asked to state their age, gender, marital status, education level, occupation, residence, people they lived with (household sharing), previous psychiatric diagnoses, physical illness history, and whether they had a paid job. the main aim of asking this information was to see if there was a certain pattern of demographic features belonging to the demonstrators. however, no unique pattern was found and the characteristics was parallel with the commonsense opinion that the demonstrators were young adults with education level above the average, exhibiting no gender difference. event information form the event information form was created to gather event-specific information. the participants were asked about the total amount of time they had spent at the demonstrations and the frequency of their participation in the demonstrations, as well as their behavior after police intervention. only the former was used due to latter two not working properly as if the questions were not operationalized to cover the concepts. throughout the literature, no scale was found to measure political activism and psychological preparedness for violence directly. in studies that dealt with psychological trauma and political activism, political activism was addressed within the demographics form with event-specific questions (başoğlu et al., 1994; kanagaratnam, raundalen, & asbjørnsen, 2005; paker, 2000). in the present work, political activism and psychological preparedness for violence were approached in a similar way but as a distinct section, using an event information form. participants were asked about their experience being in police custody, under arrest, in prison, or tortured for political reasons (1) before the gezi park demonstrations and (2) during the demonstrations. the participants were also asked to evaluate themselves in terms of political activity (1) before the gezi park demonstrations and (2) during the demonstrations. moreover, participants were asked about their preparedness for the violence they faced during the demonstrations. at the end of this form, additionally, the first part of the post-traumatic stress diagnostic scale (ptsds) was added (foa, cashman, jaycox, & perry, 1997). this part identified kırseven & işıklı 483 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ traumatic event types (natural disaster, war, accident, etc.) as well as other possible traumatic events that participants might have gone through after the demonstrations. stress symptoms sub-scale of the ptsds the scale was developed by foa et al. (1997) to identify post-traumatic stress symptom levels in accordance with dsm-iv. the scale consists of 17 likert-type items. total scores range between 0 and 51; with higher scores indicating higher symptom levels. the internal consistency of the original scale was cronbach’s α = .92, and the test-retest validity coefficient for items was .83 (foa et al., 1997). isıklı (2006) completed a turkish adaptation of the scale, and the cronbach’s alpha obtained for the total scale was .93. for this study, cronbach’s alpha for the total scale was .91, and the cronbach’s alpha for the “re-experiencing,” “avoidance,” and “hyperarousal” sub-factors was .83, .79 and .86, respectively. ptg inventory tedeschi and calhoun developed the scale in 1996, with the aim of identifying growth in the aftermath of a traumatic event (tedeschi & calhoun, 1996). the scale consists of 21 items scored between 0 and 6. total scores range between 0 and 105, with higher scores indicating a higher amount of growth. in the original study, internal consistency for the entire scale was α = .90, whereas for the sub-scales, it ranged between α = .67 and α = .85. the test-retest validity correlation coefficient was .71. dürü developed a turkish adaptation of the scale in 2006 (dürü, 2006). the internal consistency coefficient obtained was cronbach’s α = .93. for the present study, the internal consistency coefficient for the total scale was cronbach’s α = .95. the internal consistency coefficients for the sub-factors obtained were cronbach’s α = .87 for “relating to others,” α = .85 for “new possibilities,” α = .83 for “personal strength,” α = .90 for “spiritual change,” and α = .63 for “appreciation of life.” multidimensional scale of perceived social support zimet, dahlem, zimet, and farley (1998) developed the scale in 1998 to measure perceived social support from three different sources: family, friends, and significant others. the likert-type scale consists of 12 items scored between 1 and 7. scores range between 12 and 84, with higher scores representing higher perceived social support. in the original study, the internal consistency coefficient for the “family” subscale was cronbach’s α = .91, for “friends,” α = .87, and for “significant others,” α = .85 (zimet, dahlem, zimet, & farley, 1988). eker and arkar developed a turkish adaptation of the scale in 1995, which they revised in 2001, to address the cultural material of the scale (eker & arkar, 1995; eker, arkar & yaldız, 2001). in different samples, the internal consistency coefficients for the total scale were found to be between cronbach’s α = .80 and α = .95, and for the subscales, between cronbach’s α = .78 and α = .91. for the current study, the internal consistency coefficient for the total scale was cronbach’s α = .93, for the “family” subscale, cronbach’s α = .93, for “friends,” cronbach’s α = .95, and for “significant others,” cronbach’s α = .96. in the current study, dimensions of social support was taken separately with the aim of understanding specific sources of support that might be more salient in collective violence experience. the world assumptions scale the scale was developed by janoff-bulman in 1989 with the purpose of identifying and measuring the effects of traumatic stress on fundamental assumptions. the total scale is composed of 32 items scored between 1 and 6 (janoff-bulman, 1989). the original form consisted of seven sub-scales: benevolence of the world, violence during demonstrations 484 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ randomness, justice, controllability, self-worth, self-control, and luck. yılmaz prepared a turkish adaptation of the test in 2008. the adapted version consists of 31 items under six subscales: benevolence, randomness, justice, control, self-worth, and luck. the internal consistency coefficients for the total scale were found to be cronbach’s α = .70, and for the subscales, .58, .59, .57, .47, .13, and .85, respectively (yılmaz, 2008). for this study, the total scale internal consistency coefficient was cronbach’s α = .84, whereas those for the subscales were .88, .37, .83, .68, .61, and .90, respectively. in the current study, sub-scales of was was taken individually throughout the analysis. the reason behind doing so was that, having assumed the world assumptions as a whole would be shattered, each dimension was thought to be referring to a different concept that might be emphasizing on a different aspect of world assumptions specific to the event. thus, it was done to understand the specific world assumptions that might be shattered with the experience of violence during political demonstrations. data analysis the data were analyzed using spss (version 22.0). the dataset gathered from the forms and the scales was examined in terms of missing values and normality, and the characteristics of the variables met the assumptions of normality. as the first step of analysis, the frequency values of demographics were explored. the traumatic events before and after the demonstrations might have had a confounding effect; thus the aim was to control possible effects statistically by creating two control variables. the first control variable, traumatic experience levels before the demonstrations, constituted having been in police custody, under arrest, in prison, or tortured for political reasons before the demonstrations, with an index range between 0 and 4 in yes/no statement. the second control variable, traumatic experience levels after the demonstrations, consisted of the nine-item from the first part of the ptsds, each item adding 1 point to the total. this index identified any traumas (natural disaster, physical assault, sexual assault, fatal disease, etc.) the participants experienced after the demonstrations to control for the confounding effects. for the political activism variable, participants were asked to mark the best-fitting option (being an activist, being a member of a political group but not being politically active, being politically active but not being member of a political group and being politically inactive). before starting the analysis, the first two answers were merged due to both groups being parts of a political group and ideology. new groups were activists (members of a political group), politically active (not member of a political group) and politically inactive. the open-ended question regarding having experienced violence (16 sub-dimensions), placed in the event information form, and the question on having been in custody, under arrest, in prison, or tortured for political reasons during the demonstrations (4 sub-dimensions) were combined to form the total violence index. the violence index had 20 sub-dimensions, 16 of which were derived from the open-ended question asking to explain the experiences of violence, to form groups of different violence types depending on the frequencies. as the first step, the responses were read by the author and searched for the general violence categories defined by world health organization: physical, psychological, sexual, emotional. regardless of the type, existence of each categories added 1 point. also, research on collective violence emphasized possible existence of economic violence so it was added as a category. rest of the violence types were derived from the participants’ experiences (verbal abuse, assault, pepper gas, pressure water, beaten with police baton, demonstrator violence, etc.) the violence index scores ranged between 0 and 20, with the presence of each kırseven & işıklı 485 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ violence sub-scale valued 1, and the absence, 0. after the standardization of data, the relationship each of the independent variables with the dependent variables (post-traumatic stress symptom levels [ptssl] and ptg) was examined through pearson moment product correlation coefficient analysis. for the preparedness for violence variable, participants were directly asked psychologically how prepared would they define themselves to the violence witnessed. the 5 options were well-prepared, prepared, neither prepared nor unprepared, not prepared and not prepared at all. the total amount of time spent at the demonstrations was asked directly to the participants. they were expected to answer in days and hours; and the maximum hours one can participate in the demonstrations was 6 hours a day where the duration of demonstrations was taken as 20 days (maximum number of days one can participate in the demonstrations). so, the maximum amount of time that could be spent at the demonstrations were 120 hours. in the following step, to examine the effects of political activism and psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl, a 3 (activist / politically active / politically inactive) x 5 (well-prepared / prepared / neither prepared nor unprepared / not prepared / not prepared at all) analysis of variance (anova) was conducted. lastly, hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to identify the predictors of ptssl and ptg. as psychological preparedness was found to have a significant effect on ptssl, it was included as a control variable in the first step of the regression analysis together with the pre-event and post-event indices. results effects of political activism and psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl no significant interaction effect between political activism and psychological preparedness for violence was found, f(8, 514) = 1.06, p = .388, ηp2 = .02; table 1. however, the main interaction effects for political activism, f(2, 514) = 3.31, p = .037, ηp2 = .01, and psychological preparedness for violence, f(4, 514) = 12.47, p < .001, ηp2 = .09, on ptssl were found to be significant. between-group differences were examined through the tukey test, using bonferroni correction (table 3). the ptssl of the activist group (m = 32.8) were found to be significantly higher than that of the politically inactive group (m = 28.7). however, further analysis were carried through splitting the data in terms of political activism levels and on none of the variables did political activism indicate meaningful results. even though the main effect of political activism was significant, with the data in hand, no further inference could be made. thus, political activism variable was not included in the regression models. violence during demonstrations 486 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 anova results of political activism and psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl variable n m se anova df1, df2 f ηp2 political activism 2, 499 3.31* .01 activist 115 32.8a 1.3 politically active 216 30.9ab 0.8 politically inactive 183 28.7b 0.9 psychological preparedness for violence 4, 499 12.47** .09 well-prepared 50 24.1a 1.7 prepared 119 27.9a 0.9 neither prepared nor unprepared 167 29.2a 0.8 not prepared 114 34.0b 1.2 not prepared at all 64 38.7b 1.9 note. different subscripts refer to the significant differences between means. *p < .05. **p < .001. the main interaction effect for psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl was found to be significantly lower for the “well-prepared” (m = 24.1) and prepared groups compared with the “not prepared” (m = 34.0) and “not prepared at all” (m = 38.7) groups, separately. similarly, the ptssl of the “neither prepared nor unprepared” (m = 29.2) group were found to be significantly lower compared with the “not prepared” (m = 34.0) and “not prepared at all” (m = 38.7) groups. analysis of relationship between variables the relationship between independent and dependent variables was examined through pearson moment product correlation coefficient analysis (table 2). ptssl and violence exposure level (r = 18, p < .01) and the randomness sub-scale of was (r = .17, p < .01) were positively correlated; whereas the self-worth sub-scale of was (r = -.22, p < .01) was negatively correlated. ptgl were found to be positively correlated with violence exposure levels (r = .20, p < .01), total amount of time spent at the demonstrations (r = .16, p < .01), and the following was sub-scales: benevolence (r = .21, p < .01), luck (r = .17, p < .01), justice (r = .19, p < .01), randomness (r = .10, p < .05), and control (r = .14, p < .01). table 2 correlation coefficients of relationship between ptssl/ptgl and other variables variable ptssl ptgl violence exposure level .18** .20** total time .08 .16** sub-scales of mspss family -.04 .06 significant others -.07 .02 friends -.06 .03 kırseven & işıklı 487 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable ptssl ptgl sub-scales of was benevolence -.04 .21** justice .04 .19** luck .01 .17** randomness .17** .10* self-worth -.22** -.04 control .09* .14** note. ptssl = predictors of post-traumatic stress symptom levels. ptgl = post-traumatic growth levels. *p < .05. **p < .01. hierarchical regression analysis for the predictors of ptssl in the first step of the regression equation, traumatic experience levels before and after the demonstrations and psychological preparedness for violence were entered as control variables (table 3). in the second step, violence exposure levels and total amount of time spent at the demonstrations were entered. lastly, sub-scales of mspss and was were entered as separate blocks into the regression equation. control variables “traumatic experience levels before the demonstrations”, β = -0.03, t(514) = -0.64, p = .526, “traumatic experience levels after the demonstrations”, β = 0.13, t(514) = 2.99, p = .003, and “psychological preparedness”, β = 0.30, t(514) = 6.87, p < .001 contributed significantly to the regression model and accounted for 11% of the variation, δf(3, 491) = 20.32, p < .001. in the second step, only “violence exposure levels”, β = 0.21, t(514) = 4.72, p < .001, showed a predictor value on ptssl and raised the total variance to 15% with an impact of 5%, δf(1, 490) = 20.61, p < .001. the “significant others” sub-scale had a predictor value; the total variance explained was raised to 16%, δf(1, 489) = 6.94, p < .001. lastly, from the was sub-scales, “randomness”, β = 0.17, t(514) = 3.53, p < .001, and “self-worth”, β = -0.15, t(514) = -3.51, p < .001, raised the variance to 21%, δf(1, 488) = 16.44, p < .001; δf(1, 487) = 12.21, p < .001, respectively. table 3 results of the hierarchical regression analysis on scores from the stress symptoms sub-scale of the posttraumatic stress diagnostic scale variable β t r2 δr2 δf step 1 tel before -0.03 -0.64 tel after 0.13 2.99 psychological preparedness 0.30 6.87 .11 .11 20.32* step 2 violence exposure level 0.21 4.72* .15 .04 20.61* step 3 significant others -0.11 -2.11* .16 .01 6.94* step 4 randomness 0.17 3.53* .19 .03 16.44* self-worth -0.15 -3.51* .21 .02 12.21* note. tel = total exposure level. *p < .001. violence during demonstrations 488 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hierarchical regression analysis for the predictors of ptg the same procedure was followed as in the previous regression analysis. entered as control variables in the first step, “traumatic experience levels before the demonstrations”, β = -0.04, t(514) = -0.79, p = .430, “traumatic experience levels after the demonstrations”, β = 0.08, t(514) = 1.88, p = .061, and “psychological preparedness for violence”, β = 0.02, t(514) = 0.48, p = .632, accounted for 2% of the variation, δf(3, 491) = 3.41, p = .018. “violence exposure levels,” included in the second step, were found to raise the variance to 4%, δf(1, 490) = 14.55, p < .001, whereas “total amount of time spent at the demonstrations”, β = 0.13, t(514) = 2.58, p = .010, was found to have 1% impact, raising total variance explained to 5%, δf(1, 489) = 7.33, p < .001. none of the sub-scales of mspss entered in the following step was found to have predictor power on ptg (table 4). table 4 results of the hierarchical regression analysis on scores from the posttraumatic growth inventory variable β t r2 δr2 δf step 1 tel before -0.04 -0.79 tel after 0.08 1.88 psychological preparedness 0.02 0.48 .02 .02 3.41* step 2 violence exposure level 0.18 3.58** .05 .03 14.55** total time 0.13 2.58** .06 .01 7.33** step 3 benevolence 0.20 4.76** .10 .04 22.46** luck 0.13 2.82** .12 .01 8.13** justice 0.11 2.27* .13 .01 4.72* note. tel = total exposure level. *p < .05. **p < .01. lastly, “benevolence” (β = 0.20, p < .001), “luck” (β = 0.13, p < .001), and “justice” (β = 0.11, p < .001) were found to have predictor value and accounted for 6% of the variance; raising the total variance to 11%, δf(1, 488) = 22.46, p < .001; δf(1, 487) = 8.13, p < .001; δf(1, 486) = 4.72, p < .001, respectively. discussion the study found no significant interaction effect between political activism and psychological preparedness for violence. however, the main effects for political activism and psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl were significant. hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after statistically controlling for traumatic experience levels before and after the demonstrations and psychological preparedness for violence, (1) ptssl were predicted by violence exposure levels, the mspss sub-scale “significant others,” and the was sub-scales “randomness” and “self-worth”; (2) ptgl were predicted by violence exposure levels, time spent at the demonstrations, and the was sub-scales “benevolence”, “luck,” and “justice.” kırseven & işıklı 489 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the current study, results on political activism and psychological preparedness for violence, the two variables frequently studied together were found to have a significant effect on ptssl individually but not together, conflicting with previous studies (başoğlu et al., 1994, 1997; paker, 2000). previous research proposed that possible repetitive traumatic stress throughout political struggles, political activists might acquire immunity to traumatic stress (başoğlu et al., 1994). however, in the present study, the opposite tendency of this immunity against stress was found: higher ptssl were seen in the politically active group than the inactive group. this finding may be the result of the politically active group’s higher exposure to violence before and after demonstrations. prior studies on political activism studied the effects of being in police custody or jail for political reasons (başoğlu et al., 1994, 1997; paker, 2000). however, state violence during the gezi park demonstrations took place at a more public sphere than the violence in prison or under surveillance. we assume that this public nature brought about higher social support, like social sharing and cooperation. in addition, during the demonstrations, deterrents were largely used as tools for violence, whereas more systematic ways of violence are applied in prisons and under surveillance (paker, 2000). thus, event-specific factors seemed to affect the results and explain the failure in covering some concepts. for the political activism variable, it is possible that the operationalization and measuring has failed to grasp the concept. it is highly recommended for future studies to well-operationalize and standardize the concept and measurement of political activism with its all dimensions. this study has mostly focused on the ‘being part of a political group and ideology’ but it is possible to say that there was missing aspects and levels of it. meanwhile, as psychological preparedness for violence tended to increase, ptsd symptoms tended to decrease. previous research proposed that psychological preparedness relates to the severity of distress during torture and other severe psychological issues. thus, psychological preparedness functions like a “vaccination” (başoğlu et al., 1997). the present finding on preparedness might confirm this “vaccination” effect, although the phenomenon needs to be understood more profoundly. findings on the predictors of ptssl showed that as the violence index scores increased, ptssl increased. as the violence index contains many physical violence statements, literature (north et al., 1999; paker, paker, & yüksel, 1992) on violence experiences indicated that physical damage would result in higher ptssl. the mspss sub-scale “significant others” was found to be another predictor of ptssl; higher social support perceived from significant others related with lower ptssl. this result may relate with factors specific to the sample, mainly age. the participants were mostly in their early adulthood (mage = 27.80, sd = 7.50), in which the need for close relationships is significant, as pointed out in studies (erikson & erikson, 1998). the was sub-scales “randomness” and “self-worth” likewise predicted ptssl. this finding may be related with the attributions on the meaningfulness of the world, which is encompassed in people’s beliefs on the distribution of outcomes (janoff-bulman, 1989). a sub-dimension of this belief is randomness, in which people believe that specific events and consequences happen randomly; people with strong randomness beliefs have the belief of having no control over negative events (janoff-bulman, 1989). viewed from this perspective, the gezi park demonstrations were a collective movement against the political authority and action to change the perceived injustice (doğan, 2014); thus, demonstrators with high randomness belief and low ptssl may have less belief in their potential to change the injustice. moreover, the “self-worth” sub-scale indicates people’s beliefs about themselves; namely, to what extent they see themselves as good, moral, and worthy, how properly they behave, and to what extent they are able to protect themselves from bad luck (janoff-bulman, 1989). this study showed that a decrease in demonstrators’ belief of self-worth related with ptssl. violence during demonstrations 490 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ elevated violence exposure indicating ptg was parallel with the literature. ptg and ptssl could be present simultaneously, with some amount of stress necessary for growth (calhoun & tedeschi, 1998). meanwhile, the total amount of time spent at demonstrations predicting growth may be related to the severity of the traumatic event. the total amount of time spent at the demonstrations predicted ptg, but not ptssl, which might be explained by the findings that ptg occurs after a long period (tennen & affleck, 1998). those with present ptg findings might have suffered from elevated ptssl in the past, indicating that ptg is not the result of post-traumatic stress but the process occurring over time. the first sub-scale of the was predicting ptg was benevolence of the world. according to benevolence assumption, people are good, kind, and helpful, and the world is a good and safe place (janoff-bulman, 1989). findings on attenuated benevolence assumption predicting ptg may point to the shattered assumptions owing to trauma being rebuilt. another sub-scale was luck found to predict ptg, in which the world is thought to work according to chance and only the lucky people could get good outcomes (janoff-bulman, 1989). this sub-scale predicting ptg may be related with people’s attributions on physical injury; distribution of the physical violence being attributed to luck. lastly, the justice sub-scale was found to predict ptg. according to this assumption, people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (janoff-bulman, 1989). the justice assumption on the distribution of outcomes includes giving an answer to bad outcomes. thus, the findings may relate with giving meaning to the traumatic event: who experiences violence to what extent. moreover, demonstrators’ that participated in the study had the mean age of 27.8 overlapping the previous research (ti̇hk, 2014; ete & taştan, 2013). as widely discussed in the days of demonstrations, these findings might be indicating to a generation’s political behavior. these young cohorts seemed to express their political demands and attitudes in a more expressive way than the older cohorts. it is a matter of interest to explore this difference through a longitudinal method to see if this is a result of age or generational difference in terms of political attitudes and behaviors. the psychological viewpoint on political traumas is based on contextual assumptions (montiel, 2000). the first assumption is on traumatic events being intense but short. in the present study, when referring to the experience of violence, participants mostly mentioned a short time frame in which the experience was intense. the second assumption is on the effects of the political context on traumatic event survivors; it was assumed that the political context was evil itself according to the survivors (montiel, 2000). during the demonstrations, the political context might have been perceived as so evil that despite the massive violence, it took almost one and a half months for street demonstrations to subside (ete & taştan, 2013). the last assumption is on the relationship between survivors and the political context (montiel, 2000). as mentioned by suedfeld (1997), survivors are not only victims, but also have the potential to be modifiers of the political context. when studying trauma, especially political trauma, the contextual perspective needs to be considered as well. being active subjects in the political context might have recuperative effects and might relate with ptg. humor, a collective way of coping during demonstrations, is thought to have a healing role. in this sense, garrick (2006) mentioned that humor had healing effects in the aftermath of trauma. kırseven & işıklı 491 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations firstly, when the data collection of the present study was completed, almost two years had passed since the gezi park demonstrations. although subjects like war, migration, and torture are frequently examined retrospectively throughout literature, the current results might have been influenced with the elapsed time. meanwhile, as previously mentioned, for ptg to be observed, the passing of time is seen to be necessary, making longitudinal studies or repeated measures studies more reliable when studying ptssl and ptg together. although the study mostly relied on analysis from quantitative data, the qualitative data gathered were rich and contributed significantly to the study. approaching multidimensional subjects both through quantitative and qualitative forms could make the information richer. however, the standardization of the qualitative data is challenging. when working with political activism and psychological preparedness, it is recommended that data be collected in a way that is detailed, systematic, and suitable to the nature of the trauma. during the gezi park demonstrations, many people were exposed to violence through the media or were secondary victims in some other ways. focusing on the secondary traumatization aspect might be enlightening. as becker (1995) mentioned, the notion of ptsd might have deficiencies in grasping traumas within the sociopolitical context. in this sense, taken as “post” traumatic, ptsd assumes trauma occurring at a certain time interval with a beginning and an end; however, in the case of many traumatic events, trauma might be perpetual. moreover, the tendency to diagnose survivors of traumas with a “disorder” has been criticized, as the symptoms of the survivors may be the results of fundamental ethics violations (becker, 1995). thus, studying the effects of the traumatic event solely through ptsd might engender a narrow understanding of the phenomenon. in addition, it has been suggested that reactions to the traumatic event have a culture-specific aspect (shannon et al., 2015). ptsd studies can grasp the symptoms beyond the cultural factors; however, culture-prone dimensions might be left out. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. author note this article was written within the scope of the master's thesis of the first author (yeniada, 2015). references adams, r. e., boscarino, j. a., & galea, s. 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(1988). the multidimensional scale of perceived social support. journal of personality assessment, 52(1), 30-41. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 about the authors mübeccel yeniada kırseven graduated from middle east technical university department of psychology. earned her clinical psychology msc degree from hacettepe university department of psychology. she is still pursuing her phd in clinical psychology at hacettepe university in which she works as a research assistant. she has been working as a volunteering board member at the trauma, disaster and crisis division of turkish psychological association since the mine disaster in 2014 and since then took an important role in the psychosocial operations like bombings and other catastrophes. sedat işıklı graduated from middle east technical university department of psychology. earned his clinical psychology msc degree from the same department. completed his phd in clinical psychology program at hacettepe university in which still works as an associate professor. he has been working as a volunteering board member at the trauma, disaster and crisis division of turkish psychological association since 1999 earthquake and ever since took an important role in the psychosocial operations like mine disasters, bombings and other catastrophes. kırseven & işıklı 497 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 479–497 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1991 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1176%2fajp.152.12.1705 https://tez.yok.gov.tr/ulusaltezmerkezi/giris.jsp https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327752jpa5201_2 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ violence during demonstrations (introduction) world assumptions social support gezi park demonstrations as a traumatic experience method participants procedure measures data analysis results effects of political activism and psychological preparedness for violence on ptssl analysis of relationship between variables hierarchical regression analysis for the predictors of ptssl hierarchical regression analysis for the predictors of ptg discussion limitations (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author note references about the authors “the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning”—psychobiographer dan mcadams on the life and personality of donald trump book reviews mcadams, dan p. (2020). the strange case of donald j. trump: a psychological reckoning. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. 305 pp. isbn 9780197507445 (hardback); isbn 9780197507469 (epub); isbn 9780197507452 (updf); isbn 9780197507476 (online). “the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning”—psychobiographer dan mcadams on the life and personality of donald trump claude-hélène mayer 1,2 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. [2] faculty of cultural studies, european university viadrina frankfurt (oder), frankfurt, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 253–256, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4523 received: 2020-10-06 • accepted: 2021-04-23 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editors: paul j. p. fouché, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa; roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, auckland park campus, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net abstract dan p. mcadams is one of the well-known united states (us) contemporary psychobiographers and personality psychologists. professor in psychology at northwestern university in evanston, illinois and author of the recently published book, the strange case of donald j. trump: a psychological reckoning. mcadams has previously published psychological accounts of the lives of extraordinary political figures such as barack obama and george w. bush. he specializes in life story research. keywords donald j. trump, book review, dan mcadams, psychobiography, superhero, identity episodes the chapters in the book this review provides an overview of the book and an insight into the life and personality of donald j. trump. initially, the title of the book reminds the reader of the famous novel of robert louis stevenson, the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde. this 20th century novel tells the story of dr jekyll who suffers a personality split, induced by drinking a self-invented potion. this potion leads the doctor to split into his socially accepted public side, dr jekyll, and his shadow side, mr hyde, who becomes the protagonist. throughout his book, mcadams relates to stevenson’s novel, rewriting it in the context of today’s america and the presidency of donald trump. the book is 305 pages long and comprises 11 chapters which follow the prologue. in the prologue, mcadams asks himself and the reader how the story of donald j. trump will appear one day and how it will feel to look back in time on the divided us. he captures the current emotional and psychological split within us society about trump and explains the origin of trump’s primal charisma which is anchored in living and acting within the emotional moment, which is therefore experienced as authentic. the first chapter, “story,” begins with the statement that the “strangest thing about the story of donald trump is that there is no story” (mcadams, 2020, p. 8). mcadams explains that there is no coherent story about trump, “who he really is, how he came to be, and what his life means” (mcadams, 2020, p. 8). the author puts the reader into the shoes of young donald and selected episodes of his life and his relationship to his father, siblings and mother connecting to this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4523&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the construction of the myths about life being dangerous. further, donald’s experiences at a military school, his times in the 1970s and 1980s in manhattan, his successes and growing influence and fame in society are described. mcadams explains that neither at age 38 nor age 73, does donald j trump have a story to tell. he has not learned to arrange a coherent pattern and sequences of his life story into a meaningful life development with overall sense-making. with insight, the author of this psychobiography explains the steps of identity development in accessible language for the reader to follow, and continuously draws conclusions about the “unpredictable presidency” (mcadams, 2020, p. 21), which leads trump’s fans into exhilarating adventures and his critics into fear about dangerous instability. the next chapter examines his grandfather’s history of immigration to the us in 1885, and trump’s notion that everything in life is a “deal.” mcadams presents in a complex and well-written way the story of the male idols in the lives of trump, his grandfather and his father, and explores the ups and downs of their business lives. he describes their glamorous deals and abilities to build wealth. the author impressively presents the five principles of deals and applies them to trump’s family of origin, his life and his political practice in filling immediate needs, bending the rules, putting on a show, celebrating greatness and always winning. the anecdotes shared with the reader are interestingly written with detail and contextual explanations. from an evolutionary perspective, mcadams narrates the story of rewards in world history and in trump’s life. in so doing, he takes the reader back to an african campsite scenario 800 000 years ago, placing the reader into the shoes of homo erectus, facing the same challenges in the african savannah almost a million years ago as those in 21st century new york. he thereby establishes an empathy with trump’s behaviour as “one of the most extraverted human being ever to walk the earth” (mcadams, 2020, p. 55). after having set the scene, mcadam’s chapter “venom” lists a few selected victims of donald trump’s venomous attacks on women, “citizens of shithole countries” and selected celebrities, leading to the chapter on “truth.” in this chapter, mcadams, as the psychobiographer, describes his attempt to put himself into the mindset of trump and opens up the researcher–researched relationship. he deals mainly with establishing how much trump lies, why he lies and why the supporters put up with his lies. regarding the last question, mcadams develops five reasons which aim to explain the support trump receives from many us citizens: reason #1: he doesn’t lie reason #2: he lies, but his emotions are true and authentic reason #3: he lies, but what he says “could be” true reason #4: he’s a con man, but he’s our con man reason #5: he is a different kind of being “love” is the focus of the next chapter in which mcadams explores the relationship between trump and his mother, concluding that trump’s “strange case” might not be anchored in a failed parent–son relationship. in his twenties, trump developed a reputation as a playboy; he then married ivana, married marla, married melania. the author covers the aspect of objectivation of women in trump’s life and describes his marital relationships in-depth. this chapter is followed by several others, such as “me” in which mcadams describes the phenomenon of narcissism across trump’s lifespan. this is a chapter in which the author chooses to use a more classical form of psychobiography where he explores a topic across different life sequences, from birth until the present day. further, the “goldwater” chapter presents trump from a clinical perspective and explores him in the context of the narcissistic personality disorder, well aware of and connected to the goldwater story and the goldwater rule (mcadams, 2020, p. 179). the goldwater rule keeps psychiatrists from diagnosing individuals at a distance without a personal evaluation. it was established in 1964 when nominee for president, barry goldwater, was publicly classified as psychologically unfit. the discourse revived in the trump era. the last three chapters deal with “us” and donald trump’s approaches towards minorities, authorities and his aim to build a wall in the southern parts of the us bordering mexico. the chapter “primate” sees trump’s ways of ruling in the context of research on “chimpanzee politics,” the story of king kong and the influence of culture on human behaviour the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning 254 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 253–256 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4523 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (mcadams, 2020, pp. 210–215). here, mcadams presents workplace and leadership theories with regard to dominance and prestige, highlighting trump’s approaches within the context of five points of leadership. in the “redemption” chapter, mcadams (2020, p. 231) concludes the story of trump as the episodic man without “narrative beginnings and endings.” he draws conclusions about the us as a “force in the world, but not a moral force” (mcadams, 2020, p. 246). the aim mcadams anchors his task regarding this book in his profession as a personality psychologist: i see my task as trying to understand the unique psychological makeup of the 45th president of the united states, employing the best analytic tools at my disposal and drawing upon the best research findings and evidence-based theories in psychological science. as i try to wrap my mind around the utter strangeness of donald j. trump my goal is to develop something sensible and psychologically illuminating to say about who he is, and how he came to be who he is. i want to understand the man. i want to explain him to you, and to myself. (mcadams, 2020, p. 184) mcadams’ psychobiographical approach mcadams clearly fulfils his aim and the reader learns about psychological theories, different perspectives in psychology and how trump can be understood by applying theory to his life story. accordingly, the author involves the readership by providing various psychological perspectives, even asking readers for their opinions regarding, for example, selected items on the right wing authoritarian scale. the book is written in an informative, catchy, well-researched and multi-perspective style. it draws on primary and secondary resources on trump from books and articles to tweets, other social media tools, speeches, news and videos. differing from previously scientifically written psychobiographies, this psychobiography does not present the events in the life of donald j. trump in chronological order, but rather builds around central themes in his family of origin, his life and his presidency. it gives insight into selected episodes of his life and his presidency and explains what contributes to trump’s charisma and success, thereby reflecting on the common thread in his life: “without a story, but built upon episodes.” the book does not present the psychological theory in depth, but rather offers practical insights which help to explain trump’s personality and actions. in addition to satisfying a deep interest in understanding the 45th president of the us in more depth, the reader might also be enlightened by a practical introduction to various psychological theories to understand the personality of trump (or others) and to experience how the author effortlessly integrates psychological and leadership theory to provide a holistic understanding of trump as a person. however, this is not all. dan mcadams provides the reader not only with a psychological analysis of trump, but also with a treasure trove when it comes to understanding the presidency within the us socio-cultural context, other historical (political) figures, internal and world politics, comparisons to other political eras and the rise of authoritarian leadership and its explanation. the book provides explanations for the strong support of “trump in contemporary us society” (mcadams, 2020, p. 191) and also examines the effects of dehumanizing language on immigrant minorities in the us. mcadams skilfully introduces various theoretical approaches to provide the reader with tools to interpret the life and work of donald j. trump without clinical classifications. through developmental and personality psychology via art and the social sciences, and relationship theories of authority, leadership, dominance and the human mind, mcadams tries to grasp the personality of trump. he identifies parts of trump’s life story which are built around power, success and life episodes (mcadams, 2020, p. 20) and aims to provide a non-judgmental and objective way of analysing and interpreting trump’s life based on different perspectives. however, how can psychobiography ever provide an “objective” view of a person? mcadams uses an evidence-based approach to analyse trump and declares in one of the later chapters by referring to robert louis stevenson’s story: “i told you trump was strange.” he then comes to the conclusion that mayer 255 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 253–256 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4523 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trump “is not jekyll with an inner hyde. he is, instead, all hyde. and like hyde, trump projects an awesomely primal appeal. we recognize it because we are primates, too” (mcadams, 2020, p. 211). the proposition that a person can only be mr hyde without also being dr jekyll could be counter-argued based on the positive psychology wave ii (pp2.0) movement (wong & mayer, 2021) that a person cannot be the shadow without the light and vice versa. therefore, mcadams’ conclusion that trump is mr hyde only might be viewed as a provocative hypothesis rather than a fact-based psychological conclusion. this could be further explored by drawing on psychological theories such as pp2.0 or deeper personality investigations of “dark” personality traits (aghababaei, blachnio, & lefdahl-davis, 2021). throughout this psychobiography, dan mcadams not only presents a highly intellectual and informed view on episodes in trump’s life, but also inaugurates new ways of writing psychobiography – as an episodic art, using practically applied, multiple theoretical approaches to analyse and interpret the life of an extraordinary person. he thereby presents these theoretical chunks as easily comprehensible and valid arguments and conclusions. this makes the book easy to read and to understand since it does not draw on extensive theoretical explorations, but instead on episodes and stories to present insights into trump’s life in the context of leadership, success, personal development and human behaviour. finally, this book offers a distinguishable approach to psychobiography and expands previous new approaches (mayer & köváry, 2019). it will be of great interest to anyone who wishes to decipher the complex personality of donald j trump in new ways. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references aghababaei, n., blachnio, a., & lefdahl-davis, e. m. (2021). positive and negative psychosocial outcomes of the “dark” personality traits. manuscript in preparation. mayer, c.-h., & köváry, z. (2019). new trends in psychobiography. cham, switzerland: springer. mcadams, d. p. (2020). the strange case of donald j. trump: a psychological reckoning. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. wong, p. t. p. & mayer, c.-h. (2021). covid-19 and existential positive psychology (pp2.0): the new science of self-transcendence. manuscript in preparation. about the author claude-hélène mayer (dr. habil., phd, phd) is a full professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, south africa, an adjunct professor at the european university viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany, and a senior research associate at rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. she holds a ph.d. in psychology (university of pretoria, south africa), a ph.d. in management (rhodes university, south africa), a doctorate in political sciences (georg-august university, germany), and a habilitation in psychology with focus on work, organizational, and cultural psychology (european university viadrina, germany). her research areas are transcultural mental health, salutogenesis and sense of coherence, shame, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, creativity, and psychobiography. the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning 256 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning the chapters in the book the aim mcadams’ psychobiographical approach (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author parents or peers? (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem research reports parents or peers? (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem rotumba a. i. c. karunarathne 1 [1] department of human resource management, faculty of commerce and management studies, university of kelaniya, dalugama, sri lanka. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 received: 2021-08-18 • accepted: 2022-08-24 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: rotumba a. i. c. karunarathne, department of human resource management, faculty of commerce and management studies, university of kelaniya, dalugama, 11600, sri lanka. e-mail: ishankac@kln.ac.lk abstract building on the attachment theory and extending prior research that has hinted strongly at the important influence of social relationships on self-esteem, this study examined the simultaneous effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on selfesteem. to test our hypotheses, we collected data from a sample of 267 adolescents. we used polynomial regression coupled with response surface analysis to assess the (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. the results of polynomial regression analysis show that the congruence effect of attachment to parents and peers did not relate to adolescent self-esteem. however, self-esteem is high when attachment to both parents and peers is at a high level rather than a low level. moreover, results show that attachment to parents is more significant than attachment to peers in developing adolescents' selfesteem. interpretation of findings and theoretical contribution of congruence perspective to attachment theory and self-esteem literature are discussed. keywords adolescents, attachment theory, parental attachment, peer attachment, self-esteem previous research on psychology has demonstrated that social relationships play a vital role in shaping an individual’s self-esteem (e.g., harris & orth, 2020; leary & baumeister, 2000) as interactions with others help individuals to develop their social skills and emotional balance. defined as “an individual’s subjective evaluation of her or his worth as a person” (trzesniewski et al., 2013; p. 60), the concept of self-esteem has been investigated closely to understand the socio-emotional development of an individual (krauss et al., 2020). in a recent meta-analysis, orth et al. (2018) emphasized that self-esteem developed across the lifespan and peaked at the age of 60. in the early stages of their lives, children’s social interactions are mainly limited to those with their parents. a close attachment and secure relationship with the parents are strongly correlated with greater psychological development and more positive attitude of the children (krauss et al., 2020; leary & baumeister, 2000). however, as the children grow up, they develop quality relationships with their peers, which are external to their family connectedness (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). adolescents then begin to receive more feedback and assistance from their peers than from parents. thus, there is no doubt that interactions with peers can affect the development of self-esteem among adolescents. empirical findings suggest that the sense of self-worth of adolescents is significantly influenced by their attachment to parents (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013) and their attachments to peers (for more review, see a meta-analysis by gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). although a substantial volume of literature has shown that attachment to both parents and peers forms the basis of adolescent self-esteem development, these researchers focused on findings of the individual this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7355&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ association between attachment to parents and peers and self-esteem (e.g., the relationship between attachment to parents and self-esteem) and significantly ignored the joint or simultaneous effect (congruence) of parents’ and peers’ influence in shaping the adolescents’ self-esteem. moreover, prior research has shown that adolescents’ attachment to parents is more strongly related to self-esteem development than their attachment to peers (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). however, these studies have not assessed the joint effect due to attachment to parents and peers. hence, the results of these studies do not provide sound statistical evidence to prove that the parents’ attachment is more vital than peer attachment in shaping adolescents’ self-esteem. therefore, the present study aims to address the question of what is the simultaneous effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on the self-esteem. contribution of the present study this study contributes to the past research in three ways. first, although past research has repeatedly examined the role of parents and peers in building adolescents’ self-esteem, those studies examined the effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem separately. analysis of the simultaneous effect of attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem helps us to better understand the role of social interactions (in particular, that of parents and peers) on an adolescent’s psychological development. thus, in this study, we attempt to specify clearly the (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. second, by testing the combined impact of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on their self-esteem, this study contributes towards increasing the current understanding of attachment theory (bowlby, 1969), particularly adult attachment. third, we contribute to the existing literature by examining the association between attachment to parents and peers and the self-esteem of adolescents in non-western countries. as stated by orth et al. (2018), only a limited number of researchers have examined adolescent self-esteem outside of the western countries; thus, knowledge about the social relationships and self-esteem of non-western adolescents is limited. the age at which adolescents start being independent of their parents depends on the culture of a particular geographic region. usually, western adolescents start living away from their parents at the age of 18 (whiteman et al., 2011). however, in south asia, the extended family concept still prevails, and most adolescents live with their parents. thus, the western understanding of parental and peer attachment and self-esteem might be different from that of culturally and economically different countries. therefore, by collecting data from a sample of adolescents in a non-western economy and analyzing it, this study hopes to contribute toward increasing our understanding of social connection and self-esteem, as it prevails in non-western economies. literature review self-esteem self-esteem is considered to be one of the most influential predictors of human behavior (harris & orth, 2020). the earliest conceptualization of self-esteem was developed by james (1890), who considered self-esteem “to be the ratio of successes compared to failures in areas of life that are important to a given individual” (sowislo & orth, 2013; p. 4). james’s conceptualization of self-esteem is mainly considered the individual process of developing self-worth (brown, 1998). later, other researchers, such as leary & baumeister (2000) established another perspective of self-esteem based on the premise that interactions with others in a social network are an important predictor of one's worth as a person. overall, the notion of self-esteem was built on self-judgment and favorable comparison with others, irrespective of how others see the person (orth et al., 2018). based on how individuals respond to the available information, scholars such as baumeister (1993) and greenier et al. (1995) characterized self-esteem into two categories, as high self-esteem and low self-esteem. high self-esteem individuals have positive feelings about self, whereas low self-esteem individuals are uncertain or have negative feelings about self (zeigler-hill et al., 2013). although the current state of knowledge on high and low self-esteem and its outcomes is inconsistent (cameron & granger, 2019), most researchers (e.g., marshall et al., 2015; orth, robbins, & meier., 2009) reported a negative association between low self-esteem and satisfactory outcomes such as mental well-being and connectedness to the social support networks. adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers 208 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scholars examined mainly two trajectories of self-esteem, i.e., self-esteem as an outcome and as a predictor variable of objective outcomes. for instance, social relationships (harris et al., 2017; harris & orth, 2020), work environment, and employee disposition (bowling et al., 2010) were found to be determinants of self-esteem. in a meta-analysis, bowling et al. (2010) found that self-esteem is related to organizational level outcomes, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee health, job performance, and organizational citizenship behavior. in addition, depression and anxiety (orth, robins, & meier, 2009; sowislo & orth, 2013) and life satisfaction (coffey & warren, 2020) were shown to be individual-level outcomes. besides that, prior research also discussed such ideas as global self-esteem and domain-specific self-esteem. global evaluation of self-esteem focuses on outcomes at the global level, and domain-specific self-esteem focuses on specific level outcomes (sowislo & orth, 2013). in this study, we focus on the global level of self-esteem. attachment theory attachment theory was initially developed by bowlby (1969) to explain the different patterns of interpersonal relation­ ships; in particular, this theory formed the foundation of child and development psychology (ainsworth et al., 1978). attachment refers to the emotional bond between two individuals that remain over time (ainsworth et al., 1978). bowlby’s (1969, 1973) conceptualization of attachment is based upon “proximity seeking”, where individuals seek proximity or closeness (like in the case of an infant) to significant others (such as an attachment figure like a mother or caregiver) when they need protection, affection, and security (shaver & mikulincer, 2002). later, some researchers (e.g., ainsworth et al., 1978; hazan & shaver, 1987; shaver et al.,1988) extended the theory to understand the adult's emotional attachment to relationship partners. ainsworth et al.’s (1978) conceptualization of attachment includes two orthogonal dimensions, namely, anxiety and avoidance. the anxiety dimension indicates the degree to which individuals worry about rejection or about not being available to the relationship partner in need. these individuals have a fear of losing their relationship partners. in contrast, the avoidance dimension indicates that individuals feel uncomfortable and have a less emotional engagement with their relationship partners. thus, they are self-reliant and independent (mikulincer & shaver, 2012). in their seminal work, armsden and greenberg (1987) conceptualized attachment to parents and peers in terms of three dimensions, viz. trust (trusting and respecting the needs and desires of parents and peers), communication (quality of involvement and verbal communication with parents and peers), and alienation (feelings of isolation and anger). based on these three dimensions, armsden and greenberg (1987) developed a scale to assess attachment relationships, i.e., inventory of parents and peer attachment (ippa), which is the most widely used scale to assess the adolescent’s perception towards their attachment to parents and peers. based on the attachment theory (ainsworth et al., 1978; bowlby, 1969) and prior literature (e.g., delgado et al., 2022; schneider et al., 2001), we developed a conceptual model. in this model, we proposed that adolescents’ attachment to their parents and peers is jointly influenced the development of self-esteem in adolescents. more specifically, we proposed that the congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to their parents and peers would significantly influence their self-esteem. self-esteem is high when attachment of both parents and peers is at a high level. further, we proposed that the adolescents’ attachment to parents is more significant than their attachment to peers. the conceptual framework for this is shown in figure 1. figure 1 conceptual framework karunarathne 209 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hypotheses development congruence effect of adolescents’ attachments to parents and peers on self-esteem based on the attachment theory (ainsworth et al., 1978; bowlby, 1969; hazan & shaver, 1987), we first posit that congruence of attachment to parents and peers (e.g., when attachment of both parties is at a high level) will result in higher self-esteem. attachment theory states that adults are capable of forming emotional bonds in a variety of relationships, such as with friends and romantic partners (shaver & fraley, 2008). moreover, the theory proposed that people of all ages seek proximity to others who are supportive. young adults especially seek proximity to parents and peers in times of need (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). however, unlike in the western countries, the children in south asian countries typically live with their parents until they marry and thus, they have strong emotional ties with their parents. as such, we believe that even during their adolescent life, they receive emotional, informational, and instrumental support from their parents. this will eventually help them to form a positive internal model and to develop self-worth. in contrast, when the parents are not readily available at a time of need, they tend to feel insecure and may consider themselves unworthy. these ideas are aligned with previous studies that found a significant association between adolescents’ attachment to parents and their self-esteem. for instance, previous researchers (e.g., harris et al., 2017; mattanah et al., 2011; orth et al., 2018) found a significant and positive association between attachment to parents and self-esteem of adolescents. conversely, changes may occur to individual attachment when they turn into adolescents, as individuals look for autonomy when they become older (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013). consequently, adolescents tend to develop a stronger relationship with peers when their family relationships become more tenuous (meeus et al., 2005). this kind of change becomes increasingly important for the adolescents’ psycho-emotional development (thomaes et al., 2010). adolescents’ interaction with peers helps them to get necessary support and interpersonal feedback (mikulincer & shaver, 2005). as such, peer acceptance is an important determinant of authentic self-esteem. this has been reported by scholars (e.g., armsden & greenberg, 1987; gorrese & ruggieri, 2013) who observed that a relationship bond with peers is directly related to self-esteem. however, in real life, people interact with different parties, such as parents and peers, simultaneously. we believe that as with attachment to parents and peers is presumably a significant determinant of an adolescent's self-esteem development. this leads us to the following hypothesis: h1: the congruence between adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers is significantly associ­ ated with self-esteem. effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem the core tenet of attachment theory is that emotional connections with relationship partners are directly related to self-esteem (harris & orth, 2020). attachment theory emphasizes that secure attachment is the most significant determinant of self-esteem (mikulincer & shaver, 2005). securely attached individuals tend to cope positively with distress situations (shaver & mikulincer, 2002) and manifest joy, happiness, intimacy, affection, and sociability with relationship partners (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013; mikulincer & shaver, 2005). in contrast, insecurely attached individuals do not have strong positive relationships with their relationship partners as they have a negatively biased attitude towards relationships as well as partners (shaver & mikulincer, 2002). thus, we believe that adolescents’ self-esteem is high when their attachment to parents and peers is at a high level. this leads us to hypothesis 2: h2: self-esteem of adolescents is high when attachment to parents and peers is at a high-high level than when attachment to parents and peers is at a low-low level. incongruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem although we proposed that the congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers leads to high self-esteem, we postulate that attachment to parents is more significant than attachment to peers in developing one's adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers 210 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-esteem. in fact, enduring emotional ties with parents is the main contribution of developing a positive internal working model, especially for children and adolescents (gorrese & ruggieri, 2013; mattanah et al., 2011; orth, robbins, & meier., 2009; orth, robbins, trzesniewski, et al., 2009). moreover, prior research has consistently reported a significant positive association between attachment bonds with parents and self-esteem (e.g., bowlby, 1982; armsden & greenberg, 1987; krauss et al., 2020; orth et al., 2018). however, the empirical evidence on the connection between attachment to peers and self-esteem is inconsistent. for instance, some scholars (e.g., armsden & greenberg, 1987; gorrese & ruggieri, 2013) found a significant and positive relationship between peer attachment and self-esteem. in contrast to this, other researchers (e.g., marshall et al., 2015; wilkinson, 2004) found no association between peer attachment and self-esteem. when children become adolescents, they begin to seek personal autonomy and value the company of peers. adolescents seek feedback and support from their peers, which will eventually help them to develop self-esteem. adolescents seek support from their peers for day-to-day concerns, such as education and fashion (freeman & brown, 2001). however, the emotional bond with parents plays a more crucial role in an individual’s psychological development. support from the parents is needed when adolescents experience personal issues, fear, loneliness, loss or illness of close others, and for their long-term plans (de jonge et al., 2022; freeman & brown, 2001). especially adolescents’ attachment to parents is more significant in times of distress. thus, we believe that adolescents’ attachment to their parents is prominent in their self-esteem development. in support to this argument, in their study, gorrese and ruggieri (2013) have clearly stated that attachment to parents is more important than peer attachment in shaping adolescents’ self-esteem. thus, we hypothesize that: h3: self-esteem of adolescents is higher when attachment to parents is greater than attachment to peers. method participants and procedure in line with the definition given by sawyer et al. (2018), in this study, we defined adolescents as individuals aged from 10 to 24 years. however, our sample represented adolescents ranging in age from 19 to 24 years (late adolescence). thus, we collected data from 267 bachelor’s students of a management faculty in a state university of sri lanka. these students fell in the age group of 19–24. therefore, we believe that our sample provides an ideal testing ground to test the hypotheses. moreover, before doing the main study, we have done a short pilot study using 40 bachelors’ students. we collected data using an online survey and participation was voluntary. we guaranteed the confidentiality of all information provided by the students. moreover, we sent out a cover letter along with the survey to explain the purpose of this study. in all, we sent 480 survey invitations. however, seven invitations were returned due to incorrect e-mail addresses. we received 268 questionnaires, of which we rejected one questionnaire due to incompleteness. thus, the final sample was comprised of n = 267 students, which corresponds to a response rate of 55.6%. in terms of demographics, the sample was comprised of 78.3% females. among the respondents 90.3% had at least one sibling (m = 1.57, sd = 0.94). measures unless otherwise mentioned, all the variables were measured using a five-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree, and for reverse coded items, 5 = strongly disagree, 1 = strongly agree). self-esteem to measure adolescents’ self-esteem, we used the scale developed by rosenberg (1965), which is the most widely used scale for measuring adolescents’ self-esteem. the scale comprised of 10 items which provided score on a single factor. as an example, one item is “on the whole, i am satisfied with myself”. cronbach’s alpha for the composite was 0.89. karunarathne 211 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment to parents attachment to parents and peers was assessed using the global inventory of parents and peer attachment (ippa) scale, which was developed by greenberg et al. (1983) and revised by armsden and greenberg (1987) to assess the adolescent’s perception of their attachment to parents and peers. although, the original scale comprised 28 items, the revised scale includes just 25 items. the instrument evaluated 3 factors, i.e., trust, communication, and alienation. trust comprised 10 items and an example item is, “my parents respect my feelings”. communication comprised 9 items and an example item is “my parents can tell when i am upset about something”. alienation was measured using 6 items, and an example item is “i feel angry with my parents”. cronbach’s alpha for the composite factors were, trust = 0.87, communication = 0.88, and alienation = 0.86. composite reliability of the overall scale was 0.93. attachment to peers we measured attachment to peers using the revised version of the inventory of parents and peers attachment (ippa) scale (armsden & greenberg, 1987). the instrument comprised 25 items and conceptualized three factors, viz. trust (10 items), communication (8 items), and alienation (7 items). an example item for trust is “my peers understand me”. for communication example item is “my peers can tell when i am upset about something”, and for alienation it is “my peers don’t understand my problems”. cronbach’s alpha for the composite factors were, trust = 0.91, communication = 0.91, and alienation = 0.90. composite reliability for the overall scale was 0.95. control variables in line with prior researchers (e.g., kling et al., 1999; twenge & campbell, 2001), we controlled participants’ gender (coded as male = 1 & female = 2). further, we controlled the number of siblings in the family as it can significantly impact adolescents’ self-esteem. although research has found that self-esteem developed steadily across the life span (for a detailed review, see, meta-analysis by orth et al., 2018), we did not control for the participant’s age, as the survey participants of our study fell within the same age group (between 19–24). analytic procedure to test the congruence/incongruence, we used polynomial regression coupled with response surface methodology (edwards & parry, 1993). we included first-order polynomial terms and higher-order polynomial terms of attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. to reduce multicollinearity and to facilitate the interpretation of results, we scale-centered the variables (matta et al., 2015) and then created the second-order polynomial terms. we tested the hypotheses by estimating the following equation. self-esteem = β0 + β1(attachment_parents) + β2(attachment_peers) + β3(attachment_parents)2 + β4(attachment_parents x attachment_peers) + β5(attachment_peers)2 + e1. to measure the congruence, we followed the steps given by edwards and cable (2009). accordingly, the first feature of congruence is the curvature along the incongruence line [attachment to parents = attachment to peers (a4), which is calculated as b3 – b4 + b5]. the second feature of congruence includes the first principal axis of the response surface or peak of the response surface. to satisfy the congruence effect, the slope of the first principal axis (p11) should be 1, and the intercept (p10) should be 0 (edwards & parry, 1993). in line with matta et al. (2015), we used 10,000 bootstrapped samples to calculate the 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals for p10 and p11. the third feature is that the slope of the congruence line should be flat. in other words, the level of self-esteem is the same irrespective of whether the attachment to parents and attachment to peers is high or low, a1 (b1 + b2). to assess the asymmetrical incongruence effect, we calculate the slope of the incongruence line, a3 (b1 – b2), and the lateral shift quantity, as they help to specify the magnitude and the direction of the incongruence line, [b2-b1]/[2x (b3-b4+b5)] (matta et al., 2015). in line with prior researchers who used polynomial regression (e.g., edwards & cable, 2009; matta et al., 2015), we plotted a three-dimensional response surface where the vertical axis corresponds to the values of self-esteem and the perpendicular axis corresponds to the values of attachment to parents and attachment to peers. adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers 212 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ preliminary analysis before testing our hypotheses, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis (cfa). attachment to parents and peers was conceptualized as a second-order structure, whereas self-esteem was conceptualized as a first-order structure. we had to add one error-term correlation to the self-esteem and two error-terms to the trust sub-dimension of attachment to parents, two error terms to the communication sub-dimension of attachment to parents. further, we had to add two error-terms to trust, one error-term to communication, and one error-term to alienation in attachment to peers. after these modifications, all the items loaded on their respective factor significantly with loadings higher than .50. according to the common threshold proposed by bentler and bonett (1980) a model has an acceptable good fit if, a) the rmsea values are ≤ .06 and, b) the cfi and tli values are ≥ .90, and srmr values are ≤ .08. the results from cfa indicated that the measurement model fit the data well, as follows: (χ2 = 2508.58; df = 1692; p < .001; cmin/df = 1.48; cfi = 0.91; tli = 0.90; rmsea = .04; srmr = .07). we performed harman's single factor test to examine if common method variance (cmv) was distorting our data (podsakoff et al., 2003). the results of harman's single factor test indicated that the first factor accounted for only 27.75% of the variance, which is well below the threshold of 50%. mean, standard deviation, and correlation values are presented in table 1. table 1 mean, standard deviation, and inter-item correlation coefficients variable m sd 1 2 3 4 1 gender 1.78 0.41 2 siblings 1.57 0.94 .09 3 attachment to parents 3.48 0.35 -.03 .27** 4 attachment to peers 3.40 0.40 -.03 .11 .42** 5 self esteem 3.50 0.38 -.04 .35** .61** .32** note. n = 267. **p < .01. results the polynomial regression results are shown in table 2, and the resulting surface plots are shown in figure 2. hypothe­ sis 1 proposed that more congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers will increase self-esteem. the first feature of congruence is the significant curvature (a4 = b3-b4+b5) of the incongruence line. as shown in model 2 of table 2, the curvature of the incongruence line (attachment to parents = -attachment to peers) was not significant (a4 = .45, p = .06). thus, the results of the first feature of the congruence effect do not support it. the second feature of congruence is the slope (p11 = 1.0) and the intercept (p10 = 0) of the first principal axis. the results of bootstrap analysis (10,000) showed that the slope of the principal axis (p11) was not significantly different from 1.0 as the 95% ci included 1.0 [-19.53, 5.32] and an intercept (p10) that was not significantly different from 0 as the 95% ci included 0 [-16.06, 0.15]. thus, the results provide support for the congruence. the third feature includes the surface along the congruence line (a1, attachment to parents = attachment to peers), which is flat or can vary. the results showed that the slope of the congruence line was significant and positive, a1 [b1+b2] = 0.36, p = .004. although the second and third features support the existence of the congruence effect, the first feature of the congruence effect does not support it. thus, we reject h1 proposing that adolescents’ self-esteem does not depend on congruence effect of attachment to parents and peers. karunarathne 213 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 response surface for the relationship between attachment to parents, attachment to peers, and self-esteem hypothesis 2 proposes that self-esteem is higher when attachment to parents and peers are at a higher level than when they are at a low level. as shown in model 2 of table 2, the slope along the congruence line (attachment to parents = table 2 polynomial regression results variable model 1 model 2 constant 3.41** 3.16** control variables gender 0.07 -0.03 siblings 0.14** 0.07 polynomial terms b1 attachment to parents 0.34** b2 attachment to peers 0.02 b3 attachment to parents2 0.22 b4 attachment to parents x attachment to peers -0.08 b5 attachment to peers2 0.15* variance explained r 2 0.13 0.44 δr 2 0.13 0.32 congruence line (attachment to parents = attachment to peers) slope (b1 + b2) 0.04** curvature (b3 + b4 + b5) 0.03** incongruence line (attachment to parents = -attachment to peers) slope (b1 b2) 0.03* curvature (b3 b4 + b5) 0.05 lateral shift quantity -0.36 adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers 214 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment to peers) was positive and significant, a1 [b1+b2] = 0.36, p = .004. moreover, the response surface in figure 2 shows that self-esteem is higher when both attachments to parents and peers are at a high level. thus, h2 is supported. hypothesis 3 proposes that self-esteem will be higher when attachment to parents is higher than attachment to peers. first, we examined the slope along the incongruence line (attachment to parents = -attachment to peers), and the results showed that self-esteem was higher when attachment to parents was higher than attachment to peers (a3, b1–b2 = 0.33, p = .047). to further examine the direction and magnitude of the incongruence effect, we tested for the lateral shift quantity. providing additional evidence to support h3, the results of lateral shift quantity were negative and significant, β = -0.36; 95% [ci = -3.84, -0.02]. our results also consisted of the response surface in figure 2, which shows self-esteem was higher when the attachment to parents was high. thus, h3 is supported. discussion based on attachment theory, this study aimed to examine the effect of (in)congruence of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. in hypothesis 1, we postulated that the congruence of attachment to parents and peers increase adolescents’ self-esteem. however, the results of polynomial regression analysis show that the congruence effect of attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem is not significant. attachment theory highlights that individuals may move from one attachment figure to another if they feel that the current attachment figure is not available or is insecure (ainsworth, 1989; bowlby, 1969, 1982). for example, if a married person feels the partner is not trustworthy, he/ she may get a divorce and seek a new relationship. likewise, individuals often have a strong attachment to one figure while maintaining a loose attachment with others. thus, we believe adolescents form a strong emotional bond with parties who are close to them. therefore, the results of this study contribute to the attachment theory by demonstrating that the simultaneous effect of parental and peer attachment is not important for developing one's feeling of self-worth. in fact, the findings of this study support our argument of self-esteem of adolescents is high when both attachment to parents and attachment to peers is at a high level than at a low level (hypothesis 2). thus, the quality of attachments seems to be vital in strengthening adolescents’ self-esteem. this finding is consistent with previous studies such as gorrese and ruggieri (2013) and wilkinson (2004), which have shown the positive association between high-quality attachment and self-worth. moreover, the results support our hypothesis 3 that adolescents’ manifest high self-esteem when their attachment to parents is higher than their attachment to peers. the relationships that adolescents build with their friends and romantic partners are less stable than the bond they build up with their peers (berndt, 1982). according to the attachment theory (bowlby, 1969), proximity to the attachment figure is one of the main requisites of strong emotional bonds. we believe that adolescents live in close proximity to their parents than their peers. especially in asian countries, the family is the primary unit of society, and adolescents normally live with their parents. thus, close attachment to parents can be the most influential predictor of the likelihood of adolescents developing their self-esteem. further, these findings are consistent with those of prior research (e.g., de jonge et al., 2022; gorrese & ruggieri, 2013; mattanah et al., 2011), suggesting that parents play a more important role than peers in developing adolescents’ self-esteem. this study provides several theoretical implications. first, the findings of this study contribute to the attachment theory by examining the joint effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on their self-esteem. although previous studies have examined the effect of social relationships on self-esteem, most of these studies (e.g., harris & orth, 2020; marshall et al., 2015) generally ignored their simultaneous or joint effect. however, adolescents do interact with their parents and peers simultaneously. therefore, the present study provides a clear picture of social interactions and helps to enrich the current understanding of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. second, this study provides an answer to the question of “what is the impact of peer attachment on self-esteem?” the information found in the literature on the association between peer attachment and self-esteem is inconsistent. in line with previous researchers such as armsden and greenberg (1987), and gorrese and ruggieri (2013), our study shows attachment to peers is important for an adolescent’s self-esteem development; however, attachment to parents is much more important. thus, this study contributes to clarifying the inconsistencies in the literature. third, in our study, we examined the association between attachment to parents and peers and adolescents’ self-esteem based on a sample from karunarathne 215 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sri lanka. as most of the extant studies relied on western countries, there is a knowledge gap about this topic in the non-western countries. therefore, this study contributes to the existing literature by increasing our understanding of adolescents’ self-esteem at a global level. in addition, the results of this study inform the policymakers on how to encourage parents to continue their engagement with children even into their adolescent years as attachment to parents can significantly improve their offspring’s self-esteem. therefore, parents should spend more time with their children and provide them emotional support whenever they are in need. moreover, parents need to instill the need for self-improvement and praise their children’s efforts even when they fall short of their goals. limitations and directions for future researchers however, the study does have its limitations. first, although we controlled the participant’s gender, we did not test how these relationships vary between the genders. prior research has shown gender differences in self-esteem (e.g., gorrese & ruggieri, 2013; twenge & campbell, 2001). thus, we recommend that future researchers test the gender effect on attachment and self-esteem. attachment theory has conceptualized three main dimensions of attachment (attachment styles) as secure, avoidance, and anxiety (ainsworth et al., 1978). an individual’s attachment style influences the nature of the emotional bond with the attachment figure (ainsworth et al., 1978). thus, the results of this study may vary with individuals who have different attachment styles. therefore, we recommend that future researchers test the model by integrating the attachment styles. it must also be mentioned that data collection for this study was limited to one point in time, and data were collected only from adolescents age between 19–24. self-appraisal of emotional connection (attachment to parents and peers) may not present a complete picture of one’s social relationships. therefore, the results of this study might be influenced by common method bias. hence, future researchers are advised to collect data from multiple sources (e.g., parents and peers) and at different time points to improve the robustness of the study design. moreover, as this study’s sample consisted with adolescents aged from 19–24 (who are at the age of end of their adolescence), we recommend further researchers to test over model over other ages too. conclusion the aim of this study was to examine the simultaneous effects of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem. the results of polynomial regression analysis suggest that the relationships that adolescents establish with their parents are more significant than the relationship that they establish with their peers to develop their self-esteem. specifically, the emotional bond that they establish with their parents will foster high self-esteem. thus, the development of strong emotional bonds with parents allows adolescents to build high self-esteem, which will eventually lead to effectively dealing with negative life experiences such as stress and low self-confidence. overall, by elucidating the (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem, the findings of this study help us to gain a better understanding of how the support of parents and peers can improve an adolescent’s self-esteem. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: i thank anonymous referees for constructive comments. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data are freely available, see karunarathne (2023). supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the data sets, data analyses, research instrument, and research results that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers 216 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials karunarathne, r. a. i. c. (2023). supplementary materials to "parents or peers? (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem" [research data]. psychopen gold. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.12875 karunarathne, r. a. i. c. (2023). supplementary materials to "parents or peers? (in)congruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem" [analyses, instruments]. psychopen gold. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.12876 references ainsworth, m. s. (1989). attachments beyond infancy. american psychologist, 44(4), 709–716. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.44.4.709 ainsworth, m. d. s., blehar, m. c., waters, e., & wall, s. (1978). patterns of attachment: assessed in the strange situation and at home. erlbaum. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315802428 armsden, g. c., & greenberg, m. t. 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(2013). development of self-esteem. in v. zeigler-hill (ed.), self-esteem (pp. 60– 79). psychology press. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12518980/ twenge, j. m., & campbell, w. k. (2001). age and birth cohort differences in self-esteem: a cross-temporal meta-analysis. personality and social psychology review, 5(4), 321–344. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0504_3 whiteman, s. d., mchale, s. m., & crouter, a. c. (2011). family relationships from adolescence to early adulthood: changes in the family system following firstborns’ leaving home. journal of research on adolescence, 21(2), 461–474. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00683.x wilkinson, r. b. (2004). the role of parental and peer attachment in the psychological health and self-esteem of adolescents. journal of youth and adolescence, 33(6), 479–493. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:joyo.0000048063.59425.20 zeigler-hill, v., besser, a., myers, e. m., southard, a. c., & malkin, m. l. (2013). the status-signaling property of self-esteem: the role of self-reported self-esteem and perceived self-esteem in personality judgments. journal of personality, 81(2), 209–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00790.x about the author rotumba arachchige ishanka chathurani karunarathne obtained her phd from the university of goettingen, germany in 2018. currently, she is working as a senior lecturer attached to the department of human resource management, faculty of commerce and management studies, university of kelaniya, sri lanka. karunarathne 219 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 207–219 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7355 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1988-97037-003 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616730210154171 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028931 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01435.x https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12518980/ https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0504_3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00683.x https://doi.org/10.1023/b:joyo.0000048063.59425.20 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2012.00790.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers (introduction) contribution of the present study literature review self-esteem attachment theory hypotheses development effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem incongruence effect of adolescents’ attachment to parents and peers on self-esteem method participants and procedure measures analytic procedure preliminary analysis results discussion limitations and directions for future researchers conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the author the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq): the development of a measure to assess different patterns of helping by clicking research reports the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq): the development of a measure to assess different patterns of helping by clicking agata błachnio 1 , aneta przepiórka 1 , paweł kot 1 , andrzej cudo 1 , małgorzata sobol 2 [1] institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, lublin, poland. [2] institute of psychology, university of warsaw, warsaw, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 received: 2022-12-27 • accepted: 2024-04-20 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: pasquale musso, università degli studi di bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: paweł kot, institute of psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, al. racławickie 14, 20-950 lublin, poland. phone: +48 81 445 35 10. e-mail: kotpawel@o2.pl supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract recently, there has been an increase in the number of aid campaigns launched via social media. the paper explores the phenomenon called “helping by clicking,” which consists in clicking “like” to support a charitable campaign or cause. the main aim of the paper is to present a new measure: the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq), assessing the patterns of helping by clicking. in developing the questionnaire, we relied on the theory of reciprocal altruism. the study included two samples of n = 349 and n = 1,006 participants. the htcq consists of 19 items making up three subscales: people, environment, and animals. the present research included two independent studies. study 1 was conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire, while study 2 was conducted to verify the previous results and to test the usefulness of the questionnaire in distinguishing individuals with different patterns of helping by clicking. the measure was designed to assess three aspects of helping: helping people, helping the environment, and helping animals via social media. the study showed that the hctq was suitable for measuring patterns of helping by clicking. all hctq factors had good cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients. the hctq concerns a new and largely unexplored area of helping that involves the use of modern technologies. it reveals people’s motivations for helping. keywords helping by clicking, helping on the internet, behaviors on the internet recently, there has been an increase in the number of aid campaigns launched via social media (demiroz & akbas, 2022; munroe et al., 2023). these campaigns consist, for example, in collecting “likes” for sick children, saving health, helping homeless animals, or supporting some other important cause. the information available often includes an account number where money can be donated. however, such help often comes down to clicking on a “like” button. this may seem to be far from real help, but the phenomenon has become so popular that one can assume it is certainly not without significance for the people involved. this phenomenon is called helping by clicking, which means clicking “like” to support a charitable campaign (see wallace et al., 2017; weiss & cohen, 2019). helping behavior is understood within the framework of prosocial behavior and defined as providing support to others when this is not part of one’s job (hafenbrack et al., 2022) or as doing something beneficial for others rather than for oneself (twenge et al., 2007). it is explained by the theory of reciprocal altruism (liu et al., 2023; trivers, 1971), which accounts for helping behavior among unrelated individuals, and by the idea of a link between helping and emotions, amounting to a “doing good, feeling good” effect (e.g., glomb et al., 2011). according to the theory of this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10917&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2384-2396 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6722-7355 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1471-1228 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7424-8576 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0634-9134 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reciprocal altruism, helping others is beneficial from the evolutionary point of view. when helping others, one expects that they will return the favor, thus facilitating one’s survival. the model of helping behavior that we rely on (see aydinli et al., 2013) postulates the existence of two different mechanisms involved: passive helping is the outcome of a latent process automatically activated by affective compo­ nents, whereas active helping is based to a greater extent on conscious and cognitive determinants and involves conscious and explicit effort. based on this model, we distinguished four types of helping behavior. active helping, engaging the helper to a greater extent and requiring greater effort from the helper in the form of time and expenditure (e.g., money), is subdivided into two types: (1) active charitable helping (aimed at supporting people who need help, for example by donating money) and (2) active irrational helping (helping people merely because they ask for help when pursuing their private goals or whims, such as buying a new brand of phone or traveling). passive helping is understood as helping without making much effort, for example by taking and sharing photos and videos as a form of support or help; it comprises the following types of helping behavior: (3) passive charitable helping (clicking on links, sharing contents with a request for help from a well-known charity) and (4) passive irrational helping (clicking on aid campaign links or sharing contents in situations when private motives are irrelevant, only because someone is asking for help). a phenomenon discussed in the literature similar to the one we have been analyzing is cyber-volunteering (ahmed & radwan, 2022). however, it involves remote performance of activities to the benefit of others via the internet and social media through formal volunteering (raja-yusof et al., 2016). surveys developed to date, such as the international volunteer impacts survey (lough et al., 2009), and studies on the importance of using electronic volunteering (ahmed & radwan, 2022) also refer for the most part to this phenomenon. the main focus of our interest has been the provision of help by common users of social media platforms, not engaged in any formal volunteering. the investigation of this phenomenon required the development of a relevant, valid, and reliable measure. the main aim of this paper is to present a new measure assessing patterns of helping by clicking (hctq). to our knowledge, our questionnaire is the first one to assess this phenomenon. our goal was also to check whether it was possible to identify groups of individuals with different helping patterns using the new tool. in the existing studies, any attempts to structure the population of individuals offering help through social media have involved classification based on specific issues bringing together online volunteer groups in social media platforms (demiroz & akbas, 2022) rather than exploratory research on volunteers. the present research included two independent studies, with two separate samples: study 1 and study 2. the aim of study 1 was to determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire being developed, particularly to test its factor structure. study 2 was conducted to verify the previous results and to test the usefulness of the questionnaire in distinguishing individuals with different patterns of helping by clicking. study 1 method participants and procedure study 1 was conducted online, and the criterion for participation was social media activity. it included 349 participants (255 females; age range: 16–60 years, m = 28.07, sd = 8.51), who completed an online survey. the characteristics of the sample from study 1 are presented in table 1. participation in study 1 was voluntary, and participants were assured that their responses were anonymous. all the procedures applied were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the helsinki declaration. the dataset from study 1 is available from błachnio et al. (2024s-a). błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 235 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 sample 1 characteristics – study 1 (n = 349) variable / category n percentage m sd gender female 255 73.07 male 94 26.93 residence village 77 22.06 small town 53 15.19 medium-sized town 39 11.17 big city 180 51.58 number of hours of internet usage on weekdays 7.04 5.52 number of hours of internet usage on weekends 8.11 6.03 measures before the development of the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq), two researchers searched the internet for charities where people could help by sharing and passing on information via the internet and via social media. in the next step, they made a list of areas that could be supported via the internet and social networking sites. their work resulted in a list of 19 types of aid campaigns that can appear on the internet and in social media (see supplementary materials; table s1). participants rated the hctq items on the following 7-point scale: 1 = never, 2 = very rarely, 3 = rarely, 4 = sometimes, 5 = often, 6 = very often, 7 = always. statistical analysis in study 1, we computed correlation coefficients and descriptive statistics and performed an exploratory factor analysis (efa) for sample 1 (n = 349). the pearson correlation coefficient was used to calculate the interrelations among the items. additionally, we computed descriptive statistics: means (m), standard deviations (sd), skewness, and kurtosis. in order to determine the structure of the questionnaire, we performed an efa using the principal component extraction method with promax rotation. we also implemented the scree plot (cattell, 1966) and the kaiser criterion (kaiser, 1960) to determine the number of factors. multicollinearity and sampling adequacy were verified using the kaiser–meyer–ol­ kin criterion and bartlett’s test of sphericity (hair et al., 2010). the factor loadings were regarded as acceptable if they were above the threshold of .50 (ferguson & cox, 1993). we calculated the cronbach alpha coefficient, mcdonald's omega coefficient, composite reliability (cr), and average variance extracted (ave) for each factor to provide an indication of internal consistency reliability. we used spss 28 (ibm corp., 2021) software with omega macro (hayes & coutts, 2020) to compute descriptive statistics and internal consistency reliability indexes and to perform exploratory factor analysis, variance analysis, and correlation analysis. the scripts of statistical analyses performed in spss are presented in supplementary materials (see table s2). results the analysis of correlation coefficients revealed that all correlations between items were statistically significant (see table 2). descriptive statistics—means (m), standard deviations (sd), skewness, and kurtosis—are presented in table 3. the kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of sampling adequacy (kmo = .962) and bartlett’s test of sphericity, χ2(171) = 8789.88, p  < .001, confirmed the appropriateness of conducting the efa (hair et al., 2010). considered against the scree plot criterion (cattell, 1966) and the kaiser criterion of eigenvalue above  1 (kaiser, 1960), the efa results pointed to a three-factor solution, which explained 83.48% of the total variance. all items had factor loadings above the acceptability threshold of .50 (see table 3). in order to check whether the extracted factors represented one higher order factor, we repeated the efa with factor scores as variables. also in this case, the kaiser–meyer–olkin measure of sampling the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 236 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adequacy (kmo = .735) and bartlett’s test of sphericity, χ2(3) = 496.14, p < .001, confirmed the appropriateness of conducting the efa (hair et al., 2010). considered against the scree plot criterion (cattell, 1966) and the kaiser criterion (eigenvalue = 2.36; kaiser, 1960), the efa yielded a single factor explaining 78.70% of the total variance in the higher order construct (supplementary materials; table s3). it can therefore be assumed that the three extracted factors make up one higher order factor. the values of cronbach’s α and cr for each of the factors were above the desired threshold of .70. ave was above the recommended threshold of .50 for each factor as well (see table 3). additionally, the content analysis of the items indicated that factor 1 concerned helping by clicking in the human context, factor 2 consisted of items whose content related to helping by clicking in matters of the environmental, and the items making up factor 3 referred to helping by clicking in the context of animals. accordingly, factor 1 was named helping people by clicking (abbreviated to people), factor 2 was named helping the environment by clicking (abbreviated to environment), and factor 3 was named helping animals by clicking (abbreviated to animals). study 2 method participants and procedure the online survey in study 2 was completed by 1,054 participants. however, 32 participants were excluded from the analyzed sample due to data gaps in surveys. further 16 participants were excluded because they reported not using the internet. consequently, the final sample consisted of 1,006 participants (676 females; age range: 14–45 years, m = 19.54 years, sd = 2.93). the characteristics of the sample from study 2 are presented in table 4. participation in study 2 was also voluntary, and participants were assured that their responses were anonymous. all the procedures applied were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the helsinki declaration. the dataset from study 2 is available from from błachnio et al. (2024s-b). table 2 pearson correlations between items (n = 349) item 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1. item 1 – 2. item 2 .70 – 3. item 3 .72 .59 – 4. item 4 .55 .75 .50 – 5. item 5 .63 .69 .62 .67 – 6. item 6 .61 .69 .54 .67 .68 – 7. item 7 .85 .60 .71 .55 .60 .62 – 8. item 8 .69 .87 .60 .76 .77 .74 .65 – 9. item 9 .89 .64 .70 .58 .62 .65 .89 .70 – 10. item 10 .67 .53 .89 .50 .62 .52 .72 .59 .70 – 11. item 11 .60 .52 .70 .60 .63 .51 .61 .56 .62 .74 – 12. item 12 .59 .74 .57 .72 .78 .66 .59 .81 .60 .57 .65 – 13. item 13 .68 .55 .83 .54 .66 .53 .70 .60 .68 .87 .81 .66 – 14. item 14 .69 .57 .85 .56 .63 .52 .71 .61 .70 .87 .80 .65 .92 – 15. item 15 .65 .51 .85 .55 .60 .50 .69 .56 .68 .89 .76 .58 .85 .88 – 16. item 16 .87 .61 .70 .56 .63 .59 .87 .66 .90 .70 .64 .61 .71 .74 .72 – 17. item 17 .82 .57 .64 .53 .55 .56 .82 .62 .87 .64 .59 .58 .66 .69 .66 .87 – 18. item 18 .64 .77 .61 .70 .76 .72 .61 .85 .65 .59 .55 .81 .63 .64 .59 .64 .64 – 19. item 19 .58 .68 .50 .64 .69 .68 .58 .76 .59 .48 .52 .72 .55 .53 .49 .57 .56 .78 – note. all correlations are statistically significant (p < .001). błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 237 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 sample 2 characteristics – study 2 (n = 1,006) variable / category n percentage m sd gender female 676 67.20 male 330 32.80 residence village 354 35.19 small town 214 21.27 big city 438 43.54 number of hours of internet usage on weekdays 7.19 5.68 number of hours of internet usage on weekends 8.34 5.73 measures study 2 used the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) developed in study 1. the hctq consisted of 19 items to which participants responded using a 7-point scale: 1 = never, 2 = very rarely, 3 = rarely, 4 = sometimes, 5 = often, 6 = very often, 7 = always. the reliability of the subscales, assessed using cronbach's α, was .96 for the animals subscale, .96 for the people subscale, and .96 for the environment subscale. table 3 descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis results, and internal consistency analysis results (n = 349) descriptive statistics factor loadings item m sd skewness kurtosis factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 item 1 3.38 1.91 0.220 −1.150 .851 item 2 3.47 1.94 0.159 −1.226 .859 item 3 3.45 1.88 0.082 −1.210 .811 item 4 3.00 1.74 0.415 −0.857 .859 item 5 2.95 1.77 0.508 −0.834 .751 item 6 3.41 1.95 0.200 −1.180 .766 item 7 3.66 2.08 0.108 −1.306 .840 item 8 3.48 1.87 0.133 −1.178 .896 item 9 3.40 2.02 0.265 −1.237 .902 item 10 3.38 1.90 0.193 −1.179 .913 item 11 2.70 1.71 0.611 −0.764 .830 item 12 3.11 1.82 0.376 −0.938 .865 item 13 3.17 1.86 0.332 −1.031 .903 item 14 3.13 1.84 0.349 −1.073 .891 item 15 3.18 1.85 0.350 −1.004 .927 item 16 3.36 2.03 0.311 −1.195 .849 item 17 3.27 2.03 0.356 −1.161 .900 item 18 3.44 1.87 0.220 −1.001 .852 item 19 3.38 1.96 0.305 −1.096 .854 eigenvalue 12.99 1.78 1.10 variance explained 68.35 9.36 5.76 cronbach’s α .96 .97 .97 mcdonald's ω .96 .97 .97 cr .95 .95 .93 ave .70 .77 .75 the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 238 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis in study 2 (n = 1,006), we performed a confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), item responses theory analysis (irt), and latent profile analysis (lpa). cfa was performed to test if the structure of the hctq in sample 2 was identical to the structure found in sample 1. we used the maximum likelihood method with satorra–bentler correction (satorra & bentler, 1994). the following statistics were applied as measures of model fit in cfa: χ2, χ2/df, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), standardized root mean square residual (srmr), comparative fit index (cfi), and tucker-lewis index (tli; kline, 2011). srmr values lower than .08 indicate acceptable model fit. rmsea values lower than .05 indicate good fit, and rmsea values between .05 and .08 indicate moderate fit (see maccallum et al., 1996). additionally, χ2/df values below 3 indicate acceptable model fit (kline, 2011). however, marsh and hocevar (1985) pointed out that χ2/df values below 5 indicated a reasonable fit. cfi and tli values higher than .90 allow for concluding that a model acceptably fits a data set (hu & bentler, 1999; kline, 2011). considering that cfa does not constitute an exhaustive analysis at the item level, we performed an item response theory (irt) analysis, reflecting the connection between the underlying psychological construct being measured and the measurement process (hambleton & swaminathan, 2013). consequently, irt was used to explain the connection between the constructs assessed by the hctq and their manifestations in particular items. considering the ordinal responses scale used in the hctq, we carried out a graded response model (grm) analysis (samejima, 1997) separately for each of the hctq subscales. this polytomous irt model yields two types of item parameter estimates: the item discrimination parameter (α) and the item difficulty parameter (β) (see goodman, 1974; hambleton & swaminathan, 2013; samejima, 1997). additionally, to analyze the items in the hctq subscales more accurately, we used the item response category characteristic curve (ccc). the ccc demonstrated the probability of individuals choosing a certain response on the scale at various levels of the latent variable representing different patterns of helping by clicking (see hambleton & swaminathan, 2013). in order to examine if it was possible to distinguish groups with different types of helping by clicking using the hctq, we performed a latent profile analysis (lpa). the identification of individuals’ latent profiles was based on the three hctq subscales (people, environment, and animals). lpa is a statistical method using continuous observed variables to identify individuals’ unmeasured class membership. it should be noted that class membership is unknown but can be deduced from a series of continuous observed variables. this method focuses on relations among individuals to sort them into coherent groups that are different from one another. because the analysis aimed to isolate independent profiles reflecting different types of helping by clicking, the model did not estimate covariances, and the variances were assumed to be the same across the profiles (see rosenberg et al., 2021). the akaike information criterion (aic), consistent aikake information criterion (caic), approximate weight of evidence (awe), bayesian information criterion (bic), sample size-adjusted bayesian information criterion (sabic), classification likelihood criterion (clc), the kullback information criterion (kic), and entropy (see akogul & erisoglu, 2017) were used for model selection decisions. to better describe the profiles, we performed a two-way repeated measures anova with dunnett's t3 and bonferroni post hoc tests. in the anova, class membership was a between-subjects factor and hctq subscale was a within-subjects factor. additionally, we used partial eta squared (ηp2) to assess effect size. scripts of statistical analyses performed in spss are presented in supplementary materials (see table s5). stata 15 software (statacorp., 2017) was used to calculate confirmatory factor analysis, variance analysis, and response item theory (irt) analysis. jamovi 2.3 (jamovi project, 2022) with tidylpa package (rosenberg et al., 2021) was used to perform latent profile analysis (lpa). results cfa results for sample 2 (n = 1,006) showed that the three-factor model with a higher order factor was reasonably fitted to the data: χ2(df = 149) = 855.90, χ2/df = 5.74, p < .001, rmsea = .069, srmr = .033, cfi = .949, tli = .941. all standardized factor loadings were statistically significant (p < .001), and their values ranged from .819 to .953. detailed findings are presented in figure 1. błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 239 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 confirmatory factor analysis results note. hbc = helping by clicking. all paths are statistically significant (p < .001). for irt analysis, the item discrimination parameter (α) was above zero for all items, which may indicate that all items effectively discriminate different levels of the latent constructs associated with the types of helping by clicking (people, environment, animals; see table 5). additionally, the item location threshold values (β) reflected the levels of latent variables (θ) at which the probability of choosing an answer below and above the threshold was equal (see table 6). this may indicate that the response pattern obtained using the response scale for each item corresponds to the distribution of the latent variables that the items assess (yang & kao, 2014). the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 240 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 irt analysis results (n = 1,006) item α β1 β2 β3 β4 β5 β6 people subscale item 2 3.67 −1.41 −1.08 −0.72 −0.23 0.29 0.85 item 4 3.26 −1.20 −0.77 −0.49 0.17 0.72 1.30 item 5 3.64 −1.24 −0.84 −0.48 0.14 0.74 1.36 item 6 3.00 −1.46 −1.03 −0.71 −0.22 0.39 1.01 item 8 4.76 −1.45 −1.05 −0.77 −0.29 0.26 0.87 item 12 3.73 −1.39 −0.94 −0.63 −0.01 0.62 1.25 item 18 4.14 −1.46 −1.02 −0.71 −0.14 0.49 1.10 item 19 3.13 −1.38 −1.03 −0.74 −0.19 0.38 0.96 environment subscale item 3 4.04 −1.39 −1.04 −0.67 −0.16 0.39 0.95 item 10 5.03 −1.38 −1.05 −0.69 −0.21 0.33 0.84 item 11 3.33 −1.17 −0.79 −0.46 0.16 0.71 1.38 item 13 6.84 −1.23 −0.92 −0.59 −0.11 0.44 0.94 item 14 7.05 −1.25 −0.93 −0.57 −0.07 0.48 0.98 item 15 4.89 −1.33 −0.96 −0.59 −0.02 0.50 1.06 animals subscale item 1 4.38 −1.30 −1.00 −0.71 −0.28 0.23 0.66 item 7 5.73 −1.34 −1.08 −0.85 −0.40 0.03 0.49 item 9 8.35 −1.25 −0.98 −0.73 −0.26 0.16 0.62 item 16 6.06 −1.29 −0.97 −0.73 −0.31 0.13 0.66 item 17 3.82 −1.23 −0.95 −0.69 −0.18 0.34 0.87 table 6 results of model selection in latent profile analysis (n = 1,006) number of individuals in each class solution aic awe bic caic clc kic sabic entropy class 1 class 2 class 3 class 4 class 5 class 6 class 7 class 8 class 9 1-class 11666 11753 11696 11702 11656 11675 11677 1 1006 2-class 10062 10209 10111 10121 10044 10075 10080 0.955 832 174 3-class 9522 9728 9591 9605 9496 9539 9546 0.841 531 343 132 4-class 9389 9655 9478 9496 9355 9410 9421 0.770 318 199 366 123 5-class 9280 9605 9388 9410 9238 9305 9318 0.805 233 70 236 104 363 6-class 9117 9500 9244 9270 9066 9146 9162 0.851 250 72 231 102 309 42 7-class 9080 9523 9227 9257 9021 9113 9132 0.871 191 77 166 198 108 223 43 8-class 8961 9463 9128 9162 8895 8998 9020 0.913 191 42 66 196 87 229 38 157 9-class 8957 9519 9144 9182 8883 8998 9023 0.856 181 61 27 10 192 93 228 54 160 for the item response category characteristic curve (ccc), the results in the form of graphs are presented separately for the people subscale (see figure 2), the environment subscale (figure 3), and the animals subscale (see figure 4). each curve in each plot reflects the probability of a given response to a given item as a function of the latent trait (θ). the results showed that the curves relating to the second (very rarely) and third (rarely) responses often overlapped with those relating to the first (never) and fourth (sometimes) responses (see figures 2, 3, and 4). this indicates that the second (very rarely) and third (rarely) responses may be less distinguishable for participants than the remaining ones. regarding the identification of groups of individuals with different helping patterns, as lower values of aic, awe, bic, caic, clc, kic, and sabic and higher values of entropy indicate a better model, the analyses revealed that the 8-class model was the best fitted one. however, it should be noted that class 2 (n = 42, 4.2%) and class 7 (n = 38, 3.8%) accounted for less than 5% of the total sample which means these classes should be interpreted with caution. błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 241 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 item response category characteristic curves (ccc) for the eight items of the people subscale the results of two-way repeated measures anova revealed a main effect of class membership, f(7, 998) = 1548.14, p < .001, ηp2 = .92. dunnett's t3 post hoc test showed that almost all pairwise comparisons between classes were significant (p < .001), except for two pairs: class 7 vs. class 4 (p = .519). the classes scored as follows on helping by clicking: class 1 m = 6.32, se = 0.03; class 2 m = 2.44, se = 0.07; class 3 m = 3.32, se = 0.06; class 4 m = 4.90, se = 0.03; class 5 m = 1.14, se = 0.05; class 6 m = 5.52, se = 0.03; class 7 m = 4.66, se = 0.07; class 8 m = 4.10, se = 0.04. there was also a main effect of hctq subscales, f(2, 997) = 79.70, p < .001, ηp2 = .14. the bonferroni post hoc test showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the animals subscale and the people subscale (p < .001), and between animal subscale and environment subscale (p < .001). the participants were more likely to help by clicking when the post was about animals (m = 4.28, se = 0.01) than when it was about people (m = 3.91, se = 0.03). they reported helping by clicking less often when the post was about the environment (m = 3.96, se = 0.04) than when it was about the animals (m = 4.28, se = 0.01). there was no significant difference between the people and environment subscales (p = .840). there was a first-order class membership × hctq subscales interaction, f(14, 1996) = 51.32, p < .001, ηp2 = .27. the results of pairwise comparisons between hctq subscales within each class are presented in table 7. additionally, the results revealed different patterns of differences between hctq subscales according to class membership. detailed find­ ings from class membership pairwise comparisons for each hctq subscale are presented in supplementary materials (table s5). figure 2 shows the results for each condition; however, for the purpose of clarity, information on statistical significance is not included (see table 7). the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 242 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 7 results of pairwise comparisons between hctq subscales on the class level (n = 1,006) pairwise comparisons class hctq subscales m se hctq subscales m se p class 1 animals 6.83 0.02 people 5.98 0.06 .000 animals 6.83 0.02 environment 6.15 0.07 .000 people 5.98 0.06 environment 6.15 0.07 .133 class 2 animals 1.82 0.04 people 2.80 0.13 .000 animals 1.82 0.04 environment 2.71 0.14 .000 people 2.80 0.13 environment 2.71 0.14 1.000 class 3 animals 2.95 0.03 people 3.81 0.10 .000 animals 2.95 0.03 environment 3.19 0.11 .123 people 3.81 0.10 environment 3.19 0.11 .000 class 4 animals 4.99 0.02 people 4.87 0.06 .184 animals 4.99 0.02 environment 4.85 0.07 .152 people 4.87 0.06 environment 4.85 0.07 1.000 class 5 animals 1.05 0.03 people 1.21 0.09 .273 animals 1.05 0.03 environment 1.17 0.10 .729 people 1.21 0.09 environment 1.17 0.10 1.000 class 6 animals 5.90 0.02 people 5.40 0.06 .000 animals 5.90 0.02 environment 5.27 0.06 .000 people 5.40 0.06 environment 5.27 0.06 .213 class 7 animals 6.65 0.04 people 3.04 0.14 .000 animals 6.65 0.04 environment 4.29 0.15 .000 people 3.04 0.14 environment 4.29 0.15 .000 class 8 animals 4.08 0.02 people 4.17 0.07 .528 animals 4.08 0.02 environment 4.04 0.07 1.000 people 4.17 0.07 environment 4.04 0.07 .448 the classes distinguished based on lpa are differentiated by the type of helping by clicking reported by their members. more specifically, class 5 and class 2 can be described as low helpers in every aspect of helping by clicking (see figure 5). however, individuals in class 2 were more willing to help by clicking when posts were about people than in the case of posts related to animals and the environment (see table 7). class 3, class 4, and class 8 can be designated as medium helpers. individuals in class 3 were more likely to help by clicking when posts were about people rather than animals or the environment. however, individuals in class 4 and class 8 did not exhibit a difference between the areas of helping by clicking (see table 7). finally, class 1, class 6, and class 7 can be described as high helpers. it should be noted that there are large differences among these groups. individuals in class 1 helped by clicking primarily when posts were about animals, but they very rarely helped in response to posts about people or the environment. similarly, subjects in class 6 also preferred helping animals, but contributed to a similar average degree when posts were about people or the environment. individuals in class 7 helped by clicking primarily when posts were about animals or the environment, but they very rarely helped in response to posts about people. these results show that the hctq makes it possible to identify groups with different patterns of helping by clicking in the areas distinguished in this questionnaire (animals, people, and the environment). błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 243 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 item response category characteristic curves (ccc) for the six items of the environment subscale the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 244 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 item response category characteristic curves (ccc) for the five items of the animals subscale błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 245 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5 helping by clicking scores on hctq subscales and class membership levels discussion in accordance with the aim of the present studies, we succeeded in developing an innovative instrument assessing the patterns of helping by clicking. study 1 made it possible to determine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the hctq. the structure was confirmed by a confirmatory factor analysis of the data obtained in study 2. data collected in study 2 also made it possible to identify click-to-donate profiles. the hctq is designed to measure three aspects of helping: helping people, helping the environment, and helping animals via social media. this has been the first research study to develop a measure assessing this kind of helping activity, increasingly present in the social media environment (lucas, 2017). all factors of the new measure have good cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients. the results allow us to conclude that the factor structure of the hctq fits the theoretical model of helping behavior to an acceptable degree (aydinli et al., 2013). additionally, the questionnaire’s items effectively distinguish between different levels of the constructs measured by hctq subscales. the response scale also effectively represents the changes in the levels of these constructs. only the second (very rarely) and third (rarely) responses may not be sharply differentiated by participants. from the moral point of view, as far as helping is concerned, a person is obliged to go beyond the interest of their own society or even species (kopnina et al., 2018). the factors identified in the hctq relate to three most frequent areas of aid campaigns: helping people, activities for the natural environment, and helping animals. however, as shown by other studies (damasio, 2005; dawkins, 2018; glomb et al., 2011) and by analyses performed on the data collected in study 2, people are not always willing to help and not equally willing to help different beneficiaries. the levels of motivation for and engagement in selfless helping may vary across individuals (rożnowski & olczykowska, 2016). using the hctq, it is possible to identify groups of people with different patterns of helping by clicking in the areas distinguished in this questionnaire (animals, people, and the environment). this shows that we succeeded in achieving the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 246 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the second goal of the survey, which was to check whether it was possible to identify groups of individuals with different helping patterns using the new tool. the most radical patterns of helping by clicking are found, on the one hand, in individuals weakly engaged in this form of helping (class 5), and on the other—in those who always help, regardless of which area their help concerns (class 8). in the case of the former, it is impossible to clearly determine whether they engage in no helping behaviors at all or whether they do not engage specifically in the kind of helping that involves new media and the clicking options offered there. despite the high accessibility of social media and the increasing popularity of various kinds of aid campaigns involving these media, justified doubts arise regarding the degree to which this kind of help is effective and the degree to which it actually reaches the needy (sweatman, 2003). some people prefer direct face-to-face contact with those they wish to help, and so they do not use social media for this purpose (jay, 2001). the individuals who engage in helping by clicking regardless of which area it concerns (class 8) undoubtedly show high willingness to help. access to new media enables them to help without putting in much effort, which they frequently do, for example by clicking on a link or sharing contents that include a request (schattke et al., 2018). according to the opponents of this form of assistance, such passive helping, often without knowing the intention of the person asking for help, cannot be effective because one loses control over where one’s support actually gets (aydinli et al., 2013; lucas, 2017). rather than effective and selfless help, this kind of assistance may sometimes be interpreted as provided for show, in order to raise one’s social prestige and self-esteem or to seek public recognition and admiration (damasio, 2005; kopnina et al., 2018). these reflections are part of a larger debate on the issues of helping and altruism and on whether they should bring benefits to the helper, for example in the form of good well-being (damasio, 2005). in most of the identified patterns, individuals decided to help when assistance was for the benefit of people (classes 2 and 3). this seems to be consistent with the sociobiological understanding of altruism, oriented primarily towards helping one’s closest relatives or, in the extended version, towards helping individuals belonging the same species. this ensures that mankind has a greater chance of surviving (dawkins, 2018). in their study, ma and chan (2014) confirmed that, even online, people were more willing to help those from their network of social contacts than complete strangers. on the other hand, helping strangers online on an anonymous basis restricts the possibility of applying the reciprocity principle; as a result, this kind of help seems to be truly selfless (lucas, 2017) and has the hallmarks of pure altruism (damasio, 2005). as mentioned before, the majority of internet users report engagement in helping other people by clicking. only in the case of specific few patterns did internet users help animals (classes 1 and 6) or animals and the environment (class 7) more willingly that they helped people. in the case of supporting aid campaigns for the natural environment, the direct beneficiaries of improvement in the environment will also be people. unfortunately, the social awareness is not particularly high when it comes to engaging in any kind of protective activities for the planet or for other creatures inhabiting it (goecks et al., 2008). helping by clicking allows internet users to provide help even to the most distant corners of the planet or to the animals inhabiting it without leaving their homes. regrettably, as shown by research, despite a temporary improvement in the situation of animals and the environment, campaigns using new media do not lead to a lasting change of the attitudes and, importantly, behaviors for their benefit (tiplady et al., 2013). an unquestionable value of the study reported in this article is the development of the world’s first research measure assessing the patterns of helping by clicking. the measure we have developed has good psychometric properties, enabling its application for research purposes. additionally, based on the hctq, we have developed an eight-class taxonomy of individuals showing various degrees of engagement in helping by clicking, which is an original segmenta­ tion of people who engage in helping by means of new media. this information may be useful for organizations helping people, animals, or the environment in choosing appropriate ways of reaching the category of people who might be most willing to support them. it is also part of the increasingly popular movement called effective altruism, which consists in seeking, popularizing, and using the most effective ways of improving the situation in the world (singer, 2015). it may seem that clicking “like” is not real help to speak of, but accurately reaching an internet user willing to provide help of a particular type and guiding him or her through reliable charity institutions can bring tangible results for one of the categories in need of help (people, animals, or the environment; wallace et al., 2017; warren et al., 2014). the development of new media will undoubtedly continue; as a result, the popularity of this form of assistance will be growing, which in turn will increase the need for regular research into this phenomenon by means of useful błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 247 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures such as the hctq. in the future, the universality of this method should be tested in cross-cultural studies. another interesting direction for research seems to be the search for determinants of belonging to each of the groups distinguished. as suggested by previous studies on altruism, what could be a promising direction for this search is links with variables such as personality traits (visser & roelofs, 2011), empathy (huber & macdonald, 2012), or mood (underwood et al., 1977). research might also test how helping by clicking is influenced by factors such as sex (brañas-garza et al., 2018), age (sparrow et al., 2021), and financial status (visser & roelofs, 2011). the present study has certain limitations. admittedly, the measure and the taxonomy were developed based on a study with a sample recruited in one country. as mentioned before, research should be expanded to include samples from various cultures; a distinction between predominantly collectivistic and predominantly individualistic cultures might be interesting. in our study, we focused on the positive aspect of helping by clicking. what one must not forget, either, is the pathological forms of altruism, when misguided help can harm both the helper and the environment receiving their assistance (oakley, 2013). particularly passive helping, which consists in clicking on a link, very often without checking the real motives behind the aid campaign, may ultimately diverge from the idea of altruistic help (schattke et al., 2018; wallace et al., 2017). it should be remembered, too, that new media can be used also to promote active helping (aydinli et al., 2013; warren et al., 2014), which is not taken into account in the new measure. to sum up, the outcome of the present study is a new measure of helping patterns. we have identified three factors in the structure of this measure: helping people by clicking, helping the environment by clicking, and helping animals by clicking. the hctq concerns a new and largely unexplored area of helping by means of modern technologies. it reveals people’s motivations for helping. research into the psychometric properties of the measure supported its reliability, showing that it could be widely used in the study of online behaviors. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study data availability: the research datasets to replicate the findings of both studies are publicly available (see błachnio et al., 2024s-a, błachnio et al., 2024s-b). supplementary materials the supplementary materials include the following items: • the research data for study 1 (błachnio, 2024s-a) • the research data for study 2 (błachnio, 2024s-b) • additional information: supplementary materials include the contents of items and statistical analysis scripts executed in spss software for studies 1 and 2. additionally, they include the results of pairwise comparisons of class membership on each hctq subscale level (błachnio, 2024s-c). index of supplementary materials błachnio, a., przepiórka, a., kot, p., cudo, a., & sobol, m. (2024s-a). the development of the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) – study 1 [research data]. rekul. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/6427 błachnio, a., przepiórka, a., kot, p., cudo, a., & sobol, m. (2024s-b). the development of the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) – study 2 [research data]. rekul. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/6428 błachnio, a., przepiórka, a., kot, p., cudo, a., & sobol, m. (2024s-c). supplementary materials to "the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq): the development of a measure to assess different patterns of helping by clicking" [materials and code]. psychopen gold. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.15179 the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 248 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/6427 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12153/6428 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.15179 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references ahmed, h., & radwan, a. m. (2022). the role of social media in supporting electronic volunteering between youth. egyptian journal of social work, 13(1), 89–107. https://doi.org/10.21608/ejsw.2021.94825.1142 akogul, s., & erisoglu, m. (2017). an approach for determining the number of clusters in a model-based cluster analysis. entropy, 19(9), article 452. https://doi.org/10.3390/e19090452 aydinli, a., bender, m., & chasiotis, a. 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(2014). item response theory for measurement validity. shanghai archives of psychiatry, 26(3), 171–177. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1002-0829.2014.03.010 the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) 250 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.1576 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.015 https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-989x.1.2.130 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.97.3.562 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302547110 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.029 https://cran.r-project.org/package=tidylpa https://doi.org/10.7366/1896180020163604 https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000085 https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000447 https://doi.org/10.1002/nvsm.218 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-012-9412-0 https://doi.org/10.1086/406755 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.1.56 https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.13.5.541 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9278-4 https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm-03-2017-0210 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.017 https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929x.2019.1578827 https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1002-0829.2014.03.010 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors agata błachnio, ph.d. with habilitation head of the department of emotion and motivation psychology at the catholic university of lublin. the main areas of scientific interests are focused on psychology of internet, psychology of emotions, human behaviors as: dis­ honesty, disloyalty, academic cheating. hobby: photography and travels. member of the international association for cross-cultural psychology (iaccp) and polish society of social psychology (psps). aneta przepiórka, ph.d. with habilitation working at the department of emotion and motivation psychology, the john paul ii catholic university of lublin, poland. her research focuses on emotions (e.g. jealousy, betrayal), temporal perspective, and psycholo­ gy of goals. member of the international association of applied psychology (iaap), international association for cross-cultural psychology (iaccp) and polish society of social psychology (psps). paweł kot, ph.d. working at the department of emotion and motivation psychology of the john paul ii catholic university of lublin. his academic interests include the psychology of work (e.g. technostress, work transition) and counseling psychology. member of the european association of work and organizational psychology (eawop) and polish association for organizational psychology (pspo). his hobbies are sport and ancient history. andrzej cudo, ph.d. in psychology and a b.a. in management. he works as a research assistant in the department of experimental psychology at the catholic university of lublin. in addition, he is a manager and contractor in grants funded by the national science center and the ministry of health. his research interests focus on cognitive control and behavioral addictions. małgorzata sobol, ph.d. with habilitation working at the department of psychometry and psychological diagnosis of the university of warsaw, poland. błachnio, przepiórka, kot et al. 251 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 234–251 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10917 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the helping by clicking types questionnaire (hctq) (introduction) study 1 method results study 2 method results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors creating a meaningful life: psychobiographical investigations editorial creating a meaningful life: psychobiographical investigations claude-hélène mayer 1,2 , paul j. p. fouché 3, roelf van niekerk 4 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. [2] faculty of cultural studies, european university viadrina frankfurt (oder), frankfurt, germany. [3] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. [4] department of industrial and organisational psychology, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 received: 2021-04-28 • accepted: 2021-04-29 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, auckland park campus, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail: claudemayer@gmx.net abstract this article serves as the editorial to the special issue of europe’s journal of psychology that focusses on “creating a meaningful life: psychobiographical investigations.” the introduction provides a brief overview of the articles that offer original and innovative approaches to the growing research area of psychobiography, meaning and identity from different theoretical, methodological, disciplinary and socio-cultural background. keywords psychobiography, meaning, identity, extraordinary individuals it does not have to be pretty. it has to be meaningful. — duane hanson, american sculptor, 1925–1996 psychobiographical research focuses on the lives of extraordinary individuals and employs psychological theory to clarify and illuminate historically significant events, processes and contributions (fouché & van niekerk, 2010). in essence, psychobiographies are psychological biographies that offer explorative psycho-historical descriptions and inter­ pretations of life history data. it is for this reason that the field of psychobiography is often viewed as a sub-division of psycho-history. during the past four decades psychobiographical research has developed into a vibrant and popular area of research and gained considerable international interest (elms, 1988, 1994, 2007; kasser, 2017; mayer & kovary, 2019; mcrunyan, 1997; ponterotto, 2015; schultz & lawrence, 2017; wegner, 2020, in press). the study of individuals is an intriguing and illuminating field in psychology that contributes to the understanding of individual personality development within the socio-cultural and historical context (mayer, fouché, & van niekerk, 2021; mcadams, 1994; ponterotto & moncayo, 2018). some psychobiographies also investigate multiple personalities with a common dimension amongst them. an example is the work by carolina saccaggi (2015), titled “leading the latter-day saints: psychobiographical studies of mormon prophets.” extraordinary individuals (sometimes also referred to as significant individuals) have been studied from multiple perspectives (fouché, 2015; fouché, nortjé, welman, & van niekerk, 2018; fouché & van niekerk, 2010; mayer & kovary, 2019; mayer et al., 2021; ponterotto, 2017; ponterotto, reynolds, morel, & cheung, 2015). a range of methodo­ logical and theoretical approaches have been used to provide alternative interpretations of entire lives or selected life events (mayer, 2017; mcadams, 1999; mcrunyan, 1997). the meaning of life and how it is defined and created this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6653&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ elucidate how actions and experiences are constructed and ultimately, how lives are lived. psychobiographies on meaning-creation have, however, hardly been published to date (mayer, 2021; mayer & kelley, 2021). in the past psycho­ biographical studies have often focused on psychoanalytical interpretations of significant individuals’ and their possible psychopathology. on the other end of the continuum, some historical psychobiographies also tended to use religious explanations of “saintly” persons. this is commonly referred to as hagiographies, whereby undue reverence is given to certain individuals. it appears that there has been a move away from both “pathologising” individuals on the one hand and showing undue and undeserved reverence of individuals on the other hand. the focus has shifted towards valuing their psychological strengths and the meaning they create from past life trauma, their creativity and productivity in their various areas of expertise. this entails a more eugraphic approach to undertaking psychobiography. aim of this special issue this special issue aims to fill the gap on meaning-creation in psychobiographical research. it particularly focuses on the creation of meaning to life and significant events in the lives of extraordinary individuals. the aim is to uncover and reconstruct the characteristics, virtues, events, existential forces, life-themes, narratives and talents that enable significant individuals to create meaning in their lives. contributions in this special issue this special issue includes nine psychobiographical investigations on creating a meaningful life from different discipli­ nary, socio-cultural, historical, political, and economic perspectives. the investigations address and develop previous psychobiographical research by promoting a focus on the question on how to create a meaningful life. the special issue further includes a book review and this editorial. the contributions in this special issue are written by twenty authors from four continents and seven countries, namely south africa, australia, the us, hungary, poland, greece and germany. it thereby contributes to making psychobiographies an impactful global research topic. this section provides a brief overview of the articles published in this special issue. this special issue starts with the article “the meaning of life and death across frankl’s life: archetypal and terror management perspectives” written by claude-hélène mayer, nataliya krasovska, and paul fouché. it aims to uncover the meaning of life and death across the lifespan of the extraordinary person, viktor frankl (1905–1997). the study describes the meaning of life and death through two theoretical approaches: the archetypal analysis based on carl. jung’s and carol pearson’s work as well as a terror management approach based on the melancholic existentialist work of ernest becker. the article evaluates how archetypes and death anxiety interacts and how they built meaning in different stages of frankl’s lifespan. the theories are discussed and illustrated in the light of viktor frankl’s life. in the article written by hanan bushkin, roelf van niekerk, and louise stroud titled “searching for meaning in chaos—viktor frankl's story”, the focus is on the search for meaning within unpredictable, life-threatening, and chaotic contexts viewed through the lens of frankl‘s concept of noö-dynamics. although frankl formulated his existential approach to psychological practice before wwii, his experiences in the concentration camps confirmed the view that it is through a search for meaning and purpose in life that individuals can endure hardship and suffering. in a sense, frankl’s theory was tested in a dramatic way by the tragedies of his life. this article focuses specifically on the period between 1942 and 1945 and explores frankl’s strategies for attaining meaning. in his theory frankl proposed that the creation and discovery of meaning can be achieved through creative pursuits, the experience of love, and through an attitudinal value. this investigation indicated that frankl created meaning by employing at least eight strategies: creative pursuits, serving others, contradicting experiences, committing to decision, establishing spiritual connections, perceiving meaningless tasks through meaning-creation lenses, creating and pursuing goals, and lastly, maintaining an unconditional attitude of strength. the article contributes by shedding light on specific principles and strategies to create meaning in unchangeable circumstances and contexts. carla nel, barbara burnell, paul, fouche, and roelf van niekerk, provide in their article “meaning and wellness: a comparative psychobiography of the lives of helen suzman and beyers naudé” a comparative psychobiographical study mayer, fouché, & van niekerk 147 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pregarding the lives of two extraordinary individuals. a comparison of the construction of meaning, as an important aspect of wellness within the holistic wellness model, is made for these south african anti-apartheid activists. suzman (1917–2009) dedicated her career to opposing apartheid policy as parliamentary politician. naudé (1915–2004) was a renowned public figure dedicated to the pursuit of social justice in his role as theologian. the holistic wellness model views spirituality as crucial to ascribing meaning to life events and underlines the importance of meaningfulness in enhancing wellness. in addition, the model acknowledges multiple potential sources of meaning. the differences and similarities pertaining to the domains of meaning-making of these two subjects are discussed in this article. the article contributes, through the use of a comparative psychobiographical methodology to the eugraphic exploration of the meaning-making processes of these exemplary individuals. “the emperor of fashion’s new starts—karl lagerfeld’s creativity in psychobiographical perspective” is written by claude-hélène mayer and james kelley. it deals with the life of the fashion designer karl lagerfeld and his creative approach to work and life. the authors apply two specific creativity theories to lagerfeld’s life and work, namely the mini-c, little-c, pro-c and big-c creativity theory and sternberg’s wics-model. the article uses a psychobiographical case study design formulated according to a research paradigm of modern hermeneutics. the findings demonstrate the interplay of mini-c, little-c, pro-c and big-c creativity throughout the subject’s lifetime, as well as the subject’s application of wics, both of which led to the subject’s worldwide success. the article titled “the episodic man: how a psychobiography of donald trump casts new light on research into narrative identity,” written by dan mcadams, emphasizes that people create meaning through life narrative. the author presents the life and personality narration of trump throughout his life time and concludes that trump has an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the personal past and imagines the future. trump lived in the emotionally vivid moment (episode), fighting to win each moment. seeing him through the lens of the episodic man helps to explain many puzzling features of donald trump’s personality, from his charismatic effect on millions of americans to his penchant for lying and malice to his very strange brand of narcissism. this article gives insight into an in-depth analysis of trump’s episodic nature, suggesting that people vary not only with respect to the kinds of stories they create for their lives but also with respect to the extent to which they construe life in narrative terms. in their article titled “the work of a revolutionary: a psychobiography and careerography of angela davis” authored by jason reynolds (taewon choi), bridget anton, chiroshri bhattacharjee, and megan ingraham reconstruct davis as a revolutionist, political activist, academic, and writer who has navigated and discussed issues of race, class, gender, and social policies throughout her life. davis’s story provides a unique understanding of how contemporary issues relate to personal goals and meaning-making in the creation of a career and commitment to a legacy of education and social change. this psychobiography extends beyond the usual to understand more deeply the why of a specific person’s behaviors. it explores davis’s personal, professional, and representational life using tow theoretical stances, namely the social cognitive career theory and simon and klanderman’s social psychological model for politicized collective identity (pci). this article thereby expands previously used theoretical models in psychobiography and stimulates new ideas for psychobiography and careerography. “the spiritual wellness of an intellectual, novelist, journalist and politician: the meaningful life of sol plaatje” was written by crystal welman, paul fouché, pravani naidoo and roelf van niekerk. the study illustrates sol plaatje’s (1876–1932) spiritual wellness across his lifespan. as a south african intellectual, novelist, journalist, and politician, plaatje was also a founder member of the south african native national congress, which later became the african national congress (anc). his meaningful life history reflected a significant degree of spiritual wellness. the wheel of wellness model (wow) by sweeney and witmer was applied to interpret the biographical evidence of spirituality and meaning in his life. key findings indicate that spirituality characterized plaatje’s childhood years and continued to play a pervasive role throughout his adult years. his sense of meaning and purpose was personified in the promotion and preservation of human rights and dignity, that embraced inter-racial love, compassion, and service to others. in their article titled “an existential psychobiography of maya angelou”, the authors nadene harisunker and carol du plessis focus on the life of acclaimed author maya angelou (1928–2014) through the lens of frankl’s existential psychology with a specific focus on concepts such as will to meaning and finding meaning in suffering. angelou’s life autobiographies, poetry, and letters were analysed to contribute to this psychobiography. the inherent search for meaning within maya angelou’s life was clearly apparent in the analysis. this study contributes to the development creating a meaningful life 148 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the research method of psychobiography, with a specific focus on meaning making, using an existential theory for meaning making in maya angelou’s life. the aim of the article titled “meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts: a psychobiography of sylvia plath”, written by angela panelatti, joseph ponterotto and paul fouché is to unveil sylvia plath’s (1932–1963) mean­ ing-making narratives, within her life’s puzzle of parts, by utilizing the internal family system (ifs) model of schwartz. the authors use alexander’s psychobiographical indicators of salience to prioritise and extract relevant evidence from path’s life. additionally, a conceptual framework facilitated the longitudinal exploration of plath’s meaning-making narratives within her life’s puzzle of parts. in light of plath’s use of her creative genius to address socio-historical issues and injustices against women, her life lends itself to meaning-making narratives to empower and inspire future generations of previously disempowered groups. the special issue closes with a book review on the book of dan p. mcadams, a well-known psychobiographer from the united states. claude-hélène mayer, an international pioneer in psychobiographical studies and publications, has reviewed the book in her contribution “the episodic superhero and the purpose of winning—psychobiographer dan mcadams on the life and personality of donald trump”. the book review provides a comprehensive overview of the psychobiography of dan mcadams and discusses selected theses provided in the psychobiography on trump. a future vision of psychobiography and meaningful lives this special issue presents the latest studies on psychobiography in the context of creating a meaningful life. the stud­ ies offer particular insights into specific individuals in socio-cultural contexts from different conceptual and theoretical, as well as methodological stances within psycho-history. it is suggested that future studies in psychobiography and about meaningful lives can contribute to creating a world and realities of readers who might be inspired by the creation of meaningfulness of extraordinary individuals. it is further assumed, that for a future healthy, balanced world, a new focus on meaningfulness in life is urgently needed. this special issue contributes to providing insights into new and original ideas of extraordinary individuals to construct a meaningful life and world from various disciplinary, social and cultural perspectives. the editors therefore hope to contribute stimulating discourses which add value to the readership of ejop. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we would like to thank professor vlad glãveanu for the kind support in publishing this special issue with ejop. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references elms, a. c. (1988). freud as leonardo: why the first psychobiography went wrong. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1988.tb00461.x elms, a. c. (1994). uncovering lives: the uneasy alliance of biography and psychology. new york, ny, usa: oxford university press. elms, a. c. (2007). psychobiography and case study methods. in r. w. robins, r. c. fraley, & r. f. krüger (eds.), handbook of research methods in personality psychology (pp. 97–113). new york, ny, usa: guildford press. fouché, j. p. (2015). the coming of age of south african psychobiography: introduction to the special issue. journal of psychology in africa, 25(5), 375-378. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1101261 fouché, j. p., nortjé, n., welman, c., & van niekerk, r. (2018). emily hobhouse’s psychosocial developmental trajectory as anti-war campaigner: a levinsonian psychobiography. indo pacific journal of phenomenology, 18(1), 81-95. https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511308 fouché, j. p., & van niekerk, r. (2010). academic psychobiography in south africa: past, present and future. south african journal of psychology, 40(4), 495-507. https://doi.org/10.1177/008124631004000410 mayer, fouché, & van niekerk 149 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1988.tb00461.x https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1101261 https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511308 https://doi.org/10.1177/008124631004000410 https://www.psychopen.eu/ kasser, t. (2017). integrating psychobiography into psychology’s mainstream: introduction to the special section. american psychologist, 72(5), 430-433. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000157 mayer, c.-h. (2017). the life and creative works of paulo coelho. a psychobiography from a positive psychology perspective. cham, switzerland: springer. mayer, c.-h. (2021). albert camus—a psychobiographical approach in times of covid-19. frontiers in psychology, 12, article 644579. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644579 mayer, c.-h., fouché, j. p., & van niekerk, r. (2021). psychobiographical illustrations on meaning and identity in sociocultural contexts. new york, ny, usa: palgrave. mayer, c.-h., & kelley, j. l. (2021). the emperor of fashion’s new starts—karl lagerfeld’s creativity and meaning in life in psychobiographical perspective. europe’s journal of psychology, 17(3), 152-163. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 mayer, c.-h., & kovary, z. (2019). new trends in psychobiography. cham, switzerland: springer. mcadams, d. p. (1994). the person: an introduction to personality psychology. san diego, ca, usa: harcourt brace college. mcadams, d. p. (1999). personal narratives and the life story. in l. pervin & o. john (eds.), handbook of personality: theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 478–500). new york, ny, usa: guilford press. mcrunyan, w. (1997). studying lives: psychobiography and the conceptual structure of personality psychology. in r. hogan, j. johnson, & s. briggs (eds.), handbook of personality psychology (pp. 41–69). cambridge, ma, usa: academic press. ponterotto, j. g. (2015). psychobiography in psychology: past, present, and future. journal of psychology in africa, 25(5), 379-389. https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1101267 ponterotto, j. g. (2017). integrating psychobiography into professional psychology training: rationale, benefits, and models. training and education in professional psychology, 11(4), 290-296. https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000176 ponterotto, j. g., & moncayo, k. (2018). a cautious alliance: the psychobiographer’s relationship with his/her subject. indo-pacific journal of phenomenology, 18(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511311 ponterotto, j. g., , reynolds, j., , morel, s., & cheung, l. (2015). psychobiography training in psychology in north america: mapping the field and charting a course. european journal of psychology, 11(3), 459-475. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 saccaggi, c. (2015). leading the latter-day saints: psychobiographical studies of mormon prophets (unpublished doctoral thesis). department of psychology, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. schultz, w. t., & lawrence, s. (2017). psychobiography: theory and method. american psychologist, 72(5), 434-445. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000130 wegner, b. (in press). wake up, psychobiography! above and beyond the veil with w. e. b. du bois. in c.-h. mayer, j. p. fouché, & r. van niekerk (eds.), psychobiographical illustrations on meaning and identity in sociocultural contexts. new york, ny, usa: palgrave. wegner, b. r. (2020). psychobiography is trending among psychologists (book review of claude-hélène mayer & zoltan kovary new trends in psychobiography). clio’s psyche, 27(1), 140-143. about the authors claude-hélène mayer (dr. habil., phd, phd) is a professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, an adjunct professor at the european university viadrina in frankfurt (oder), germany and a senior research associate at rhodes university, grahamstown, south africa. she holds a ph.d. in psychology (university of pretoria, south africa), a ph.d. in management (rhodes university, south africa), a doctorate in political sciences (georg-august university, germany), and a habilitation in psychology with focus on work, organizational, and cultural psychology (european university viadrina, germany). her research areas are: transcultural mental health, salutogenesis and sense of coherence, shame, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, creativity, and psychobiography. prof. paul j. p. fouché is a registered counselling psychologist. he obtained a b soc sc, b soc sc honours (psychology), and m soc sc (counselling psychology) at the university of the free state as well as a d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth. for his doctoral research, he completed a psychobiography on field-marshall jan christiaan smuts. paul is currently employed in the department of psychology at the university of the free state. he was previously employed at the vista university (welkom campus) and the university of port elizabeth. creating a meaningful life 150 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000157 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644579 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4521 https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2015.1101267 https://doi.org/10.1037/tep0000176 https://doi.org/10.1080/20797222.2018.1511311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i3.938 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000130 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prof. roelf van niekerk is a registered clinical and industrial psychologist as well as a master human resource practitioner. he obtained a ba theology, ba honours (psychology), and ma (industrial psychology) at the university of stellenbosch; a ma (clinical psychology) and d phil (psychology) at the university of port elizabeth, and a m ed (general education theory and practice) at rhodes university. roelf is currently the director of the school of industrial psychology and human resources at the nelson mandela university. he was previously employed at the universities of port elizabeth, free state, fort hare, and rhodes university. mayer, fouché, & van niekerk 151 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 146–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://www.psychopen.eu/ creating a meaningful life (introduction) aim of this special issue contributions in this special issue a future vision of psychobiography and meaningful lives (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the importance of awareness, acceptance, and alignment with the self: a framework for understanding self-connection theoretical contributions the importance of awareness, acceptance, and alignment with the self: a framework for understanding self-connection kristine klussman 1 , nicola curtin 1 , julia langer 1 , austin lee nichols 1 [1] connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 received: 2020-05-12 • accepted: 2020-11-15 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, treforest, wales, united kingdom corresponding author: kristine klussman, connection lab, san francisco, ca, usa. e-mail: research@connectionlab.com abstract we provide a theoretical framework for what it means to be self-connected and propose that self-connection is an important potential contributor to a person’s well-being. we define self-connection as consisting of three components: 1) an awareness of oneself, 2) an acceptance of oneself based on this awareness, and 3) an alignment of one’s behavior with this awareness. first, we position the concept within the broader self literature and provide the empirical context for our proposed definition of self-connection. we next compare and contrast self-connection to related constructs, including mindfulness and authenticity. following, we discuss some of the potential relationships between self-connection and various aspects of mental health and well-being. finally, we provide initial recommendations for future research, including potential ways to promote self-connection. in all, we present this theory to provide researchers with a framework for understanding self-connection so that they can utilize this concept to better support the efforts of researchers and practitioners alike to increase individuals’ well-being in various contexts. keywords self-connection, connection, theory, well-being, mental health in recent years, there has been growing interest in understanding the factors that contribute to people experiencing meaningful and happy lives (e.g., lyubomirsky, sheldon, & schkade, 2005; seligman, 2002, 2008; veenhoven, 2003). results suggest that a fulfilling life includes a sense of meaning (steger, 2009), strong interpersonal relationships (myers, 2000), and the pursuit and attainment of personal goals (emmons, 2003). in addition, there is a long-standing belief that happiness is the result of identifying one’s strengths and virtues and living a life that cultivates and reflects them (aristotle, 2002). in our research lab, we consider how people build lives characterized by deep connection to self and others and the importance of these efforts for health and well-being. people often understand, and empirical research supports, the importance of establishing close relationships and building social networks (cohen, 2004; helliwell & putnam, 2004; holt-lunstad & smith, 2012; lakey & cronin, 2008; lakey, vander molen, fles, & andrews, 2016). in contrast, although “knowing oneself” has long been of philosophical and psychological interest, sparse research has investigated what self-connection is and what it means to people’s health and well-being. in this paper, we will 1) provide an overview of the definition of self-connection and its three components, 2) discuss the potential well-being increases that result from self-connection, and 3) present some initial thoughts on the fruitful directions that future investigations of self-connection might pursue. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3707&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3842-3768 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2012-3932 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4225-1081 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4580-3301 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ understanding the self in self-connection the first, and possibly most important, aspect of self-connection is that it refers to the self. as such, it is useful to clarify our intended use and context of the term “self.” social psychological theories generally highlight that people form and maintain self-concepts (i.e., ideas about who they are as distinct entities). self-concepts help individuals to organize information extracted from momentary experiences. select information is attended to as self-relevant, often information related to autobiographical memories and motivations, and is mentally processed in ways that can yield a sense of more enduring (though still malleable) personal characteristics and social roles (markus, 1977; oyserman, 2001). for example, if one currently feels compelled to comfort a distressed acquaintance and recalls multiple instances of feeling concerned for friends, the person’s self-concept might include “caring” or “a supportive friend.” of note, one may hold multiple overlapping self-concepts (e.g., public and private selves; see baumeister, 2012) and multi-faceted self-concepts (e.g., situationally contingent or flexible aspects of the self; see paulhus & martin, 1988). within these self-concepts, people often have a sense of what they regard as their true self, in terms of what is most essential about them or most personally endorsed (rogers, 1959; schlegel & hicks, 2011). this perceived true self is important for our definition of self-connection. both the perceived true self and potentially broader self-concepts are formed and maintained by selectively attending to, interpreting, and remembering aspects of momentary experiences (see oyserman, 2001). in turn, maintaining one’s self-concept can sometimes detract from individual and social well-being, such as when individuals become preoccupied in primarily negative self-related thoughts (lyubomirsky & nolen-hoeksema, 1993; nolen-hoeksema, 2000) or react defensively toward others (crocker & park, 2004; greenberg, solomon, & pyszczynski, 1997). to avoid such undesirable efforts of self-concept maintenance, some research has explored meta-cognitively distancing (e.g., “disidentifying”) from self-related thinking during momentary experiences (bernstein et al., 2015; fresco et al., 2007; also see brewer, garrison, & whitfield-gabrieli, 2013). although these approaches may be useful in some instances, they risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, since engaging with the self can be beneficial when it helps people find meaning and purpose in life (schlegel & hicks, 2011; schlegel, hicks, king, & arndt, 2011). this then raises the question of if that upside can be maximized while minimizing potential pitfalls. within that context, this paper presents the concept of self-connection as a way of relating to the self that supports individual and social well-being. defining self-connection in addition to its focus on the self, self-connection inherently involves a sense of connection. in our conceptualization, that sense of connection uniquely relates to the perceived self. more specifically, it refers to the presence of and relation­ ship between three capacities—awareness of, acceptance of, and behavioral alignment with oneself. consequently, we define self-connection as a subjective experience consisting of three components: 1) an awareness of oneself, 2) an acceptance of oneself based on this awareness, and 3) an alignment of one’s behaviors with this awareness. we posit that the three components are interrelated in a non-hierarchical structure and contribute synergistically to experiencing self-connection. as such, an individual who is lacking in any of the three components would experience less overall self-connection. awareness of oneself the first component of self-connection, self-awareness, is defined as knowing one’s internal states, preference, resour­ ces, and intuitions (goleman, 2006). as part of their self-concepts, many people believe that they have an essential, internal, and private self, capable of being truly or fully known only to them (rogers, 1959; schlegel & hicks, 2011). this perceived self may be more endorsed or important than other aspects of one’s self-concept. people may see this self as immutable, but some psychological perspectives, such as self-determination theory (sdt; deci & ryan, 1980, 1985), posit that the self need not be unchangeable but rather be determined and meaningful to the individual (schlegel & hicks, 2011). as such, we are not arguing that there is one, “real” internal self (darley & fazio, 1980; murray, holmes, klussman, curtin, langer, & nichols 121 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & griffen, 1996). instead, we contend it is people’s perceived understanding of aspects of their self-concepts resembling a self (e.g., important values) that is relevant to experiencing self-connection. also informing our conceptualization of the awareness component of self-connection is the construct of mindful­ ness. one central feature of mindfulness is an awareness of and attention to one’s current experiences, from moment to moment (bishop et al., 2004; brown & ryan, 2003; kabat-zinn, 1990). part of mindfulness is observing or noting sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they occur, bringing them into awareness and potentially greater clarity (brown, ryan, & creswell, 2007; mikulas, 2011). similarly, the awareness component of self-connection notices self-relevant aspects of experiences, potentially providing more attention to, and clarity on, those that pertain to oneself. acceptance of oneself the second part of the definition of self-connection is self-acceptance and can be defined as a complete acceptance of one’s internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions. acceptance involves receptivity and openness to oneself, rather than avoidance and denial. we assert that acceptance of the perceived self is a key component of self-connection and can also best be understood within the psychological literature on mindfulness. a second, integral quality of mindfulness, in addition to present-moment awareness, is an accepting stance toward experiences (see kabat-zinn, 1990; lindsay & creswell, 2017). acceptance in mindfulness involves receptively meeting one’s experiences as they are, without trying to alter them. self-connection consists of a similar acceptance, yet this acceptance is oriented more toward the self. when self-relevant experiences and characteristics come into awareness, they are allowed as “this feels like part of me” and not automatically judged as good or bad. in this way, the acceptance component of self-connection is not about liking or esteeming oneself (or how likable the self is to others), as some other conceptualizations of self-acceptance include (e.g., ryff & keyes, 1995). instead, the focus is on a willingness to acknowledge one’s feelings, values, and other aspects of the self and truly accepting oneself. alignment with oneself the third part of our definition involves drawing on one’s awareness and acceptance of the perceived self when making behavioral decisions. this self-alignment can be defined as behaving in ways that are consistent with one’s internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions. specifically, self-connection involves acting in alignment (component three) with one’s awareness of the self (component one) by using one’s acceptance of this awareness (component two) to facilitate behaviors that align with the perceived self. this component of self-connection is similar to conceptualizations of self-determined decisions in self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 1980, 1985) as well as authentic behavior (kernis & goldman, 2006; wood, linley, maltby, baliousis, & joseph, 2008). that is, behavioral alignment involves deciding to act in ways that authentically reflect the perceived self. awareness and acceptance of the perceived self theoretically should facilitate aligned behavioral decisions, and behavioral experiences may also help individuals to become more aware of what they perceive as their self and/or accept that self. developing concordance between behavior, self-awareness, and self-acceptance is critical to a lived experience of self-connection. limitations of similar concepts self-connection versus authenticity in part, the proposed definition of self-connection shares some relation with concepts of authenticity (kernis & goldman, 2006; wood et al., 2008) but can also be distinguished from them. in their development of a measure of dispositional authenticity, wood and colleagues (2008) argued that authenticity primarily includes authentic living—the degree to which a person’s behavior matches their self. this most strongly maps onto the self-alignment component of self-connection, but is only one of three necessary components of self-connection. other conceptualizations or operationalizations of authenticity also may include some form of awareness or acceptance (see kernis & goldman, 2006). these differ from how we conceptualize awareness and acceptance in self-connection. first, self-connection is inherently relational within one’s own experience: it is about experiencing a sense of linkage with oneself. that is, self-connection theory 122 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ awareness and acceptance are essentially a way of relating to one’s self-relevant mental processing and tuning into oneself. in contrast, conceptualizations of awareness and acceptance in authenticity tend to imply that one exists in an experience of the self and are more focused on avoiding self-deception and contending with external influences and judgments, respectively (kernis & goldman, 2006). authenticity may also be affected by judgments of “good” and “bad” whereas these are not relevant to self-connection. likewise, we assert that the nonjudgmental conceptualization of acceptance proposed as part of self-connection may have added value in enhancing one's ability to act in alignment with oneself. self-connection versus mindfulness the proposed definition of self-connection bears resemblance to mindfulness but also contains aspects that distinguish the two concepts. awareness and a lack of judgement are two defining, synergistic components of mindfulness (see lindsay & creswell, 2017). however, most scientific definitions of mindfulness do not include alignment of behavior with the perceived self (the third component of self-connection). when intentional behavior is considered, it is usually as a correlate or consequence of mindfulness (e.g., chatzisarantis & hagger, 2007). moreover, mindfulness itself does not specifically concern or reference the self, as self-connection does. in fact, substantial mindfulness-related theory and research addressing the self treats it as something to distance oneself from or to transcend (see bernstein et al., 2015). a growing literature does address mindful self-compassion, but this concept only concerns handling difficult experiences and includes identifying less with them (neff, 2003). altogether, we propose that mindfulness concerns itself with broader awareness and acceptance of experience and thus may be helpful for, but is not synonymous with, experiencing self-connection. the concept of self-connection goes beyond mindfulness and self-compassion in that it draws on components of mindfulness—awareness and acceptance—along with behavioral alignment to facilitate experiences of connection to the perceived self. is self-connection a state or trait? at a basic level, self-connection could be thought of as both a state and an individual difference characteristic (similar to a trait). that is, it is possible to temporarily experience a state of greater self-connection. additionally, repeatedly experiencing states of increased self-connection may promote its ease and frequency throughout life. likewise, individu­ als may differ in the extent to which they generally tend toward experiencing self-connection. whether this would be considered a trait-level difference might vary with different models of personality. we discuss one such framework next. within the context of mcadams and pals’ (2006) holistic model of personality, self-connection can be understood as a characteristic adaptation—more individualized and, possibly, more malleable across situations and time than a basic trait. in this model, self-connection may be a thirdand/or fourth-level characteristic adaptation. third-level characteristic adaptations are not simply basic traits and instead include “aspects of human individuality that speak to motivational, social-cognitive, and developmental concerns” (p. 208). awareness of the perceived true self can be developed, and one may choose to accept it and act accordingly or not — these are individual motivational, social-cog­ nitive, and developmental concerns akin to third-level characteristic adaptations. for example, as one might develop a commitment to environmental conservation (itself a characteristic adaptation), one might simultaneously develop awareness and acceptance of that value and act in a manner consistent with it. the fourth level of mcadams and pals’ (2006) model refers to the more malleable aspects of characteristic adapta­ tions that are subject to change based on context or experience. characteristic adaptations are more likely to change over time than traits as they are anchored in everyday situational and personality processes and dynamics. awareness of, acceptance of, and alignment with a value may develop nuances as the value is experienced in more contexts—a fourth-level characteristic adaptation. as such, self-connection may contribute in significant ways to an individual's de­ velopment across life domains. to the extent that people experience self-connection across life domains and throughout daily life, it would be more trait-like for an individual, even though any individual could also experience a temporary, heightened state of self-connection. as such, we view self-connection as something that can be treated and examined at both the state and trait level. klussman, curtin, langer, & nichols 123 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the implications of self-connection for well-being we propose that self-connection is a way of relating to the self that supports positive functioning and well-being. specifically, experiencing connection to oneself should promote meaning and purpose in life and greater attainment of related goals. in terms of well-being assessment, this may also be reflected in greater life satisfaction (as in assessments of subjective well-being; diener, 1984) and greater eudaimonic well-being at a personal level (as operationalized as either flourishing as in keyes, 2002, or psychological well-being as in ryff, 1989). self-connection may also conceivably enhance various aspects of social connection and social well-being. for example, one may be able to communicate preferences and values to others more clearly and support others in doing so. more self-connected individuals may also engage in more meaningful social activities due to acting in alignment with their values. for such reasons, connection with self and others may go hand-in-hand. theoretical and empirical literatures on related constructs provide indirect support for these propositions. the mind­ fulness literature suggests that awareness and acceptance are associated with greater well-being (lindsay & creswell, 2017; mcnall, tombari, & brown, 2019). more relevant to self-awareness specifically, schlegel and colleagues assert that discovering and expressing the self is crucial to psychological health (schlegel, hicks, arndt, & king, 2009). their research suggests that the feeling of knowing yourself predicts self-actualization, vitality, self-esteem, active coping, psychological need satisfaction, positive affect, and subjective well-being (schlegel, vess, & arndt, 2012). schlegel and colleagues also assert that understanding the self allows one to interpret actions that are congruent with the self as valuable (schlegel & hicks, 2011) and provide a sense of coherence (hicks, 2013). furthermore, beyond research on mindfulness (which is inherently accepting), some research also suggests that self-acceptance may play a role in well-being. most relevant to self-connection is research that conceptualizes self-ac­ ceptance as unconditional and less evaluative, as compared to positive self-evaluations (e.g., ryff & keyes, 1995). such research has found unique, positive associations between self-acceptance and overall mood as well as eudaimonic well-being (chamberlain & haaga, 2001; macinnes, 2006; ranzijn & luszcz, 1999). several research programs also provide evidence to support the argument that congruence between one’s implicit and/or internal goals and explicit behaviors is an important cornerstone of well-being (schultheiss & brunstein, 1999; schultheiss, jones, davis, & kley, 2008; sheldon, 2004, 2014). for example, people who choose goals based on their own internal interests are more likely to achieve those goals (sheldon & elliot, 1999; sheldon & houser-marko, 2001) and show increased levels of happiness (sheldon & elliot, 1998; sheldon & kasser, 1998). bailis, fleming, and segall (2005) surveyed people when they first joined a gym and found that people who had self-concordant goals were more likely to be members of the gym 2 years later, were less likely to compare themselves to others, and were less negatively influenced by social comparisons. in their experimental study, chatzisarantis, hagger, and wang (2010) found that their manipulation of self-concordant goal motivation and implementation intention resulted in the highest level of short-term adherence to taking daily multivitamins. thus, research suggests pursuing goals that reflect one’s self results in greater long-term commitment to those goals, and possibly even greater satisfaction in the pursuit of them. altogether, such existing literature suggests that constructs related or similar to the three components of self-connection support well-being. therefore, it is reasonable to propose that the combination of the three components of self-connection may synergize to support well-being. there also is some indirect evidence to support the idea that such benefits of self-connection may not carry risks of preoccupation in negative self-related thinking or defensive reactions, both of which may undermine individual and social well-being. for example, research on negative rumination has found that private self-reflection can be distinguished from maladaptive rumination (trapnell & campbell, 1999), indicating that self-awareness is not inherently a rumination risk. self-affirmation theory (aronson, cohen, & nail, 1999; sherman & cohen, 2006; steele, 1988) has produced considerable evidence that reminders of broader valued aspects of the self (e.g., writing briefly about a core value after a threat to some other aspect of the self; reminders of other important goals when frustrated about a particular goal), can reduce both negative rumination (koole, smeets, van knippenberg, & dijksterhuis, 1999) and defensive reactions (sherman & cohen, 2006). these findings are generally consistent with the idea that experiencing a sense of connection to aspects of oneself (e.g., values, important goals) may not carry risks of rumination or defensiveness. further, the mechanisms underlying self-connection theory 124 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ such effects are not clear empirically. self-affirmation theory suggests that, after an aspect of the self has been threat­ ened, reminders of other values restore a positive view of the self, reducing a need for rumination or defensiveness. we posit that it is also possible that reminders of values could operate through connecting to oneself with acceptance (rather than needing esteem or liking). this potential role of acceptance is supported by the empirical literature on mindfulness. mindfulness inherently involves acceptance and is associated with less maladaptive rumination and defensiveness. many studies have found that trait mindfulness and mindfulness training are associated with less negative rumination and stress (gu, strauss, bond, & cavanagh, 2015; paul, stanton, greeson, smoski, & wang, 2012; van der velden et al., 2015). more mindful individuals also may show fewer defensive reactions to self-related threats. for example, in a series of studies on the role of mindfulness in responses to mortality threats (i.e., making thoughts of death salient, thus threatening people’s sense of self), more mindful individuals were less defensive in their responses. in all, evidence suggests that an accepting awareness may attenuate risks of rumination and defensiveness and thus indirectly supports our contention that self-connection may as well. future research on self-connection there are several promising directions that research on self-connection might take. we describe only a few of them below. operationalizing self-connection the first requirement for researching self-connection is the development of a validated tool to measure it. ideally, a measure would be able to assess overall self-connection as well as the individual components of self-connection: self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-alignment. as conceptualized, self-connection should be measured through a composite of items that measures all three components. additionally, we need to ensure that the measure is reliable and valid, such as testing whether it relates to relevant variables as predicted and its incremental value beyond existing measures. development of one such measure is underway in our lab. the ability to experimentally increase self-connection also is needed to help reach causal conclusions about the effects of self-connection. experimental manipulations could attempt to temporarily boost a state of self-connection or increase an individual’s overall tendency toward self-connection in daily life. the former might be accomplished with brief, one-time exercises and could potentially reveal immediate, albeit temporary, effects of heightened self-connection on state-dependent measures, including in certain contexts or domains. the latter, increasing individual differences in self-connection, may require more extended intervention, potentially with multiple exercises and/or covering multiple life domains. we describe some potential intervention ideas below. building the nomological network of self-connection after we understand how to measure self-connection, research into the nomological network of self-connection needs to examine the ways in which self-connection may or may not relate to various aspects of both well-being and health. such research could examine cross-sectional and prospective relationships between measured self-connection and meaning in life, aspects of individual and social well-being, and goal persistence and attainment. intervention studies, especially randomized controlled trials, will provide evidence of directionality and potential causality. individual differences predicting self-connection correlational and prospective studies also should assess individual differences that may predict the self-awareness, selfacceptance, and/or the self-alignment components of self-connection and the overall representation of self-connection. trait mindfulness is one variable noted previously. self-concept clarity also has been associated with mindfulness and may characterize individuals higher in self-connection (hanley & garland, 2017). additionally, consistent with sdt and sheldon’s (2004) argument that self-determination is vital for achieving an integrated self, thrash and elliot (2002) found that people high in self-determination also showed higher levels of congruence between implicitly and explicitly klussman, curtin, langer, & nichols 125 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measured motives. self-determination and implicit-explicit motivational concordance may also relate to self-connection. other individual differences to examine might include basic personality traits, gender, cultural variables, age, ethnicity, and income. self-connection and meaning in life for many people, the search for profound self-understanding and a life built around it is an eternal, imperfect pursuit. as positive psychology has begun to offer many answers to the question of how to best promote and enhance well-be­ ing, research has turned to the concept of meaning in life (martela, ryan, & steger, 2018; schlegel et al., 2011; steger, 2009). we have posited that self-connection increases of a sense of meaning in life. knowing about and accepting who one perceives one truly is should theoretically lead to an increase in a sense of coherence across one’s life and allow for actions that are in support of one’s values and goals or purpose. when people act in a way that is in alignment with their values and goals, their sense of significance may also increase. thus, experimentally increasing self-connection should also increase one's sense of meaning in life, whether at a state or trait-like level. self-connection and broader well-being as detailed above, self-connection may predict individual and social well-being at a dispositional level. greater coher­ ence, meaning, and social connection from self-connection may also contribute to more positive affect in daily life (see fredrickson, 2013). these relations could be examined using longitudinal and brief intervention studies (e.g., goodman, kashdan, mallard, & schumann, 2014). although such positive functioning is the primary hypothesized outcome of self-connection, greater self-connection may also be associated with fewer depression symptoms (given the roles of anhedonia and hopelessness in depression). therefore, initial prospective studies should examine a range of potential mental health outcomes. as part of such research on self-connection and well-being, it also would be useful to examine whether high self-connection carries less risk of negative rumination and defensiveness than low self-connection or self-disconnection. self-connection and goal striving when people’s perceived selves include goals, self-connection may support self-regulation toward those goals. we propose that awareness and acceptance of such goals may foster greater goal clarity and accessibility, while behavioral alignment may promote follow through on intentions and persistence (cf. mann, de ridder, & fujita, 2013). these hypothesized component processes and the role of overall self-connection in goal striving should be examined in future correlational and, ideally, experimental research. one domain in which the relation between self-connection and goal-re­ lated processes could be especially important to examine is health behavior. not only is engaging in health-promoting behavior important for physical health, it could also be another way that self-connection supports overall well-being. promoting self-connection once we can measure self-connection and begin to understand how it relates to other constructs and aspects of life, self-connection has the potential to be an extremely useful tool for promoting positive life outcomes. to realize these benefits and study its effects using experimental designs, it will be important to examine how to promote self-connection. it is possible that several existing practices, either in isolation or in combination, may be useful for promoting self-connection by increasing self-awareness, self-acceptance, and/or self-alignment. for example, we have proposed that mindfulness may facilitate the self-awareness and self-acceptance components of self-connection. future research should examine whether and when mindfulness practices (formal mindfulness meditation or informal mindfulness in various domains of daily life) can lead to greater self-connection. it also would be interesting to consider the role that self-connection may play in the relationship between mindfulness and aspects of well-being. another promising way to promote self-connection may be journaling. daily journals have been widely used across disciplines (hülsheger, alberts, feinholdt, & lang, 2013; hülsheger et al., 2014; pennebaker, mehl, & niederhoffer, 2003; pennebaker & seagal, 2003) and can provide people the opportunity to become more aware of their internal thoughts self-connection theory 126 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and values. this, in turn, should provide a space to accept them and lead to an understanding of themselves to modify actions as needed. repeated journaling could focus on different life domains to develop and apply self-connection across daily life. thus, the act of journaling about self-connection may increase self-connection and the positive outcomes potentially associated with it. physical activity also may be a means for promoting self-connection. for one, it may help people tune into their sensations and feelings. when done repeatedly, it also may enhance self-connection through building confidence, independence, and/or positive body image to accept internal values and goals (kaufman, glass, & arnkoff, 2009; lawlor & hopker, 2001; taylor, sallis, & needle, 1985). additionally, physical activity in a non-competitive environment might be especially useful because it may allow people to practice being more accepting of themselves and acting accordingly. finally, when combined with meditation, the effects of activity could be especially pronounced (edwards & loprinzi, 2019). interventions aimed at increasing self-connection at more of a trait level, throughout daily life, might benefit from incorporating all the above activities with specific guidance aimed at connecting with oneself. additional options for practices to increase self-connection are also possible and might even be useful in the workplace (lomas, medina, ivtzan, rupprecht, & eiroa-orosa, 2018). as part of research on promoting self-connection, it also may be important to identify potential barriers (either internal or external) to self-connection and how certain practices or beliefs may help to overcome them. finally, this all must be done in a way that considers the cultural influences in play (christopher & hickinbottom, 2008). conclusion being self-connected requires one to be aware of the self, accept that self, and act in alignment with it. we argue that self-connection is important to obtaining greater well-being and believe that there currently is significant indirect evidence to support this claim. we detail our conceptualization of self-connection so that future research can test our propositions more directly. we are optimistic about future research to uncover practices, such as mindfulness and journaling, that promote self-connection. by understanding self-connection and 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(2008). the authentic personality: a theoretical and empirical conceptualization and the development of the authenticity scale. journal of counseling psychology, 55(3), 385-399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385 about the authors kristine klussman is the founder of connection lab and its parent purpose project, a nonprofit aimed at helping people live more satisfying, meaningful lives. she received her phd in clinical psychology from palo alto university. in addition to overseeing connection lab research, she is a clinician, graduate university instructor, author, clinical supervisor and speaker. nicola curtin was one of the founding members of connection lab, the research arm of the purpose project. she received her phd in personality and social contexts from the department of psychology at the university of michigan. julia langer is a senior research associate at connection lab. she received her mhs in public mental health from the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health and has focused her career on using mental health interventions to improve well-being. austin lee nichols is the former director of research at connection lab. he received his phd in social psychology from the university of florida. prior to and after working at connection lab, he held various faculty positions around the world in both psychology and business. klussman, curtin, langer, & nichols 131 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 120–131 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3707 https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.76.3.482 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.1.152 https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672982412006 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(06)38004-5 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60229-4 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.05022 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.284 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.02.001 https://doi.org/10.1023/b:johs.0000005773.08898.ae https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-connection theory (introduction) understanding the self in self-connection defining self-connection awareness of oneself acceptance of oneself alignment with oneself limitations of similar concepts self-connection versus authenticity self-connection versus mindfulness is self-connection a state or trait? the implications of self-connection for well-being future research on self-connection operationalizing self-connection building the nomological network of self-connection promoting self-connection conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors adult attachment dimensions: differential effects on physiological and subjective response during the recollection of childhood memories research reports adult attachment dimensions: differential effects on physiological and subjective response during the recollection of childhood memories pierpaolo congia* a [a] cognitive psychotherapy training school (atc), cagliari, italy. abstract the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between adult attachment dimensions and emotional response induced by the recall of potentially painful memories from childhood. a convenience sample of 100 women responded to an interview that focused on experiences with their caregivers during childhood, and a control interview, in counterbalanced order. skin conductance level (scl), heart rate (hr), heart rate variability (hrv), as well as subjective distress measures were collected. results from generalized linear mixed model indicated that individuals high in avoidance showed a pattern of scl increase from baseline that persisted during rest phases regardless of the topic addressed. attachment dimensions did not affect hr, neither alone nor interacting with the interviews content, whereas baseline resting vagal tone was the most important factor. no attachment dimensions effects were observed on subjective measures of emotion; the timevarying vagal tone during rest phases did not moderate their relationships. limited evidence was observed in support of the hypothesis that attachment avoidance and anxiety are associated with distinct physiological regulation profiles during the recall of potentially painful childhood memories. keywords: attachment, parent–child relations, interview, psychophysiology, stress and coping europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 received: 2019-01-27. accepted: 2020-03-01. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology and counselling, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: cognitive psychotherapy training school, (atc), via francesco crispi, 19, 09124 cagliari, italy. e-mail: pierpaolo.congia@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the recollection and elaboration of memories regarding painful episodes occurred during childhood are critical components of the psychotherapeutic process. what personality characteristics determine subjective and physiological responses and how do they interact with the content of the psychotherapy session? the attachment theory states that the way an individual is fostered during infancy and childhood has a profound impact on the way individuals feel and behave when facing stressful situations. according to bowlby (1973, 1980), proximity-seeking behaviors constitute the primary attachment strategy and represent not only a mean to preserve the physical integrity in threatening situations, but also an inborn affect-regulation device (cassidy, 1994; mikulincer, shaver, & pereg, 2003). when attachment figures are sensible and responsive, inborn inner states are adequately regulated and positive expectations and beliefs about the caregiver’s accessibility as a source of protection develop. when, on the contrary, parents are unavailable or unresponsive to baby's needs, proximity seeking fails to relieve distress. as a result, negative representations of self and others are formed. the set of patterns of expectations and beliefs commonly referred to as attachment styles (bowlby, 1973; europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ simpson, rholes, oriña, & grich, 2002) are commonly represented as regions in a two-dimensional space (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998; fraley & waller, 1998; griffin & bartholomew, 1994). the first dimension, labeled anxiety, represents the degree “to which individuals worry about being rejected, abandoned, or unloved by significant others” (collins & feeney, 2004, p. 364). the second, labeled avoidance, “assesses the degree to which individuals limit intimacy and interdependence with others” (collins & feeney, 2004, p. 364). recent studies gave support to the notion that life experiences, other than those related to parenting, might be formative for adult attachment and that styles and orientations, once formed, hardly ever change (fraley & roisman, 2019). however, the notion that the attachment system is active over the entire life span and continues to manifest in thoughts and behaviors related to support seeking, is shared by the majority of researchers in the field. anxiety and avoidance are associated with specific alternative ways of interpersonal behavior, affect regulation and information processing other than proximity seeking, called secondary attachment strategies. individuals high in anxiety are characterized by the use of the so called hyper-activating strategies and display an exaggeration of distress signals with insistent attempts to attain proximity, support and love. individuals high in avoidance employ deactivating strategies, whose primary goal is to keep the attachment system deactivated so as to avoid frustration and further distress caused by caregivers unavailability (cassidy & kobak, 1988; mikulincer, shaver, & pereg, 2003). research on adult attachment has developed two distinct methodological cultures, characterized by specific research instruments and scientific interests. the "developmental" culture, which relies on the use of the adult attachment interview (aai), is interested in describing the individual's state of mind regarding childhood experiences with caregivers (hesse, 2008; roisman et al., 2007). the socio-psychological culture, which relies on self-report instruments, studies mainly attachment-related thoughts and feelings in adult relationships (cassidy & shaver, 2002; simpson & rholes,1998). the last approach, to which the present study was inspired, is guided by an explaining model in which attachment dimensions are assumed to influence attachment-related behaviour primarily under conditions of stress or threat (fraley & shaver, 1997; kim, 2006; maunder, lancee, nolan, hunter, & tannenbaum, 2006; mikulincer, 1998; mikulincer, birnbaum, woddis, & nachmias, 2000). the relationships between self-report measures of adult attachment dimensions and subjective as well as the physiological response to threatening or attachment related stimuli have been extensively investigated in well-controlled experimental settings. most of these studies used presentation of short-lived stimuli (carpenter & kirkpatrick, 1996; dewitte, 2011; mikulincer et al., 2000; pereg & mikulincer, 2004), standard stressor tasks or discussions with romantic partners about topics related to their relationship. an interview about painful childhood experiences may represent a more effective instrument to study reactions to attachment related stressor. the experience of being interviewed about personal topics may be in itself a challenging experience, especially for insecure individuals, and, for this reason, affecting their ability to activate mental representations of attachment figures (mikulincer, gillath, & shaver, 2002). second, unlike in couple interviews, the unavailability of an attachment figure makes the co-regulation processes impracticable, forcing the interviewed to rely on self-regulation abilities. third, as attachment orientations develop from early experiences with caregivers, one would reasonably expect that the recall of painful childhood experiences to trigger more effectively the regulation strategies. diamond, hicks, and otter-henderson (2006), among other stimuli, used a brief interview in which participants were requested to provide descriptive adjectives of their parents. scholars from developmental tradition, used the aai with the aim to explore associations between attachment strategies assessed through this interview and autonomic reactivity in individuals or couples (dozier & kobak, 1992; holland & roisman, 2010; roisman, 2007; roisman, tsai, & chiang, 2004). attachment dimensions and emotional response 640 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, recent findings showed that developmental and socio-psychological measures predict distinct aspects of adult functioning (roisman et al., 2007). unlike self-report attachment instruments, measures from developmental research tradition were not found associated with interpersonal behaviour under conditions of attachment-related threat (fraley & shaver, 1998; simpson et al., 1996). since avoidant individuals have more likely experienced episodes of neglect and lack of parental care during childhood, the recollection of painful experiences triggered by an interview should activate an attempt to suppress feelings and thoughts evoked by these memories. when emotional and cognitive load becomes too high, defense lines based on deactivation and suppression should fail; the suppressed contents should break into consciousness leading to the activation of the attachment system and the re-emergence of associated negative expectations about caregiver accessibility (diamond, hicks, & otter-henderson, 2006). the conflict between these contrasting instances, in turn, should cause sympathetic system activation indexed by skin conductance level (scl) increase. under the same conditions, individuals high in anxiety should not show this response pattern. they, indeed, are less at risk of experiencing conflicts between the drive to approach and expectations of rejection, because they share less negative beliefs about caregiver accessibility as a source of protection and support (bowlby, 1973; simpson et al., 2002). given that childhood memories have negative valence for individuals with insecure attachment, both anxiety and avoidance should be associated with heart rate (hr) increase as a sign that the individual is approaching intense and potentially painful stimuli (andreassi, 2000; hare, 1973). since in everyday situations they tend to avoid the recollection of painful childhood memories, a more pronounced increase is likely to occur among avoidant individuals when they are “forced” by an interview focused on these kinds of critical experiences. several evidences exist suggesting that individuals high in avoidance show scl increase as a sign of emotional conflict when interviewed about attachment related issues (dozier & kobak, 1992). results regarding the role of attachment dimensions effects on cardiac reactivity are contrasting (kim, 2006; feeney & kirkpatrick, 1996; mikulincer, 1998; roisman, 2007). however, individual’s reactions to an interview may depend on aspects unrelated to its specific content. also, stimuli novelty, cognitive effort required to respond to the questions, use of pattern of disengaging attention from emotionally relevant stimuli, or suppressing negative thoughts and feelings may affect emotion response (brosschot & janssen, 1998; dewitte, 2011; gillath, bunge, shaver, wendelken, & mikulincer, 2005; gross & levenson, 1993). because the magnitude of responses depends not only on the salience of topics, but also on the ability to regulate evoked emotions (balzarotti, biassoni, colombo, & ciceri, 2017; diamond & hicks, 2005), we expected that a higher baseline vagal tone would weaken the associations of avoidance with increase in scl and hr during the recall of potentially painful childhood memories. a considerable amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that avoidance is associated with a decrease, or lack of increase, of self-reported negative emotions evoked by attachment-related content (diamond et al., 2006). individuals with high anxiety scores, instead, have shown heightened subjective emotional response and proneness to experience negative emotions (diamond & hicks, 2005; pereg & mikulincer, 2004). thus, anxious individuals should report higher anger, anxiety, and depression after interviews on attachment related-topics. recent findings have suggested that vagal tone can affect not only the physiological component of emotions, but also the ability to regulate self-reported emotions (geisler, kubiak, siewert, & weber, 2013; congia 641 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ miller, kahle, & hastings, 2017; scott & weems, 2014). thus, we expect that consideration of this confounding factor will allow associations between attachment dimensions and subjective ratings to emerge more clearly. among the studies that used interviews as stimuli, few have provided for control task, or controlled for the order in which they were presented. in an attempt to overcome these limitations, i adopted a crossover design that included the administration of two interviews of different content in a counterbalanced order. the interviews comprised of questions that evoked emotionally relevant stimuli and were conceived to intensively engage emotion regulation processes. however, only one of the two interviews required the recall of potentially painful childhood memories. method participants women have more intense reactions than males to stimuli evoking negative emotions, and most notably to the social stimuli (diamond et al., 2006; kim, 2006; kring & gordon, 1998; whittle, yucel, yap, & allen, 2011). for this reason, this study explored the associations between adult attachment dimensions and emotional response patterns by focusing on the female perspective. the sample was recruited through information sheets or direct contact with individuals enrolled in mandatory courses for a degree in psychology at the university of cagliari. individuals who expressed interest in participating were informed that the aim of the research was to ‘assess relations between self-report and physiological measures of emotions’. next, the participants completed a brief interview to collect biographical data and information on medical history. participants who reported taking medication that affected autonomic nervous system (ans) and central nervous system (cns), were smokers (roy, steptoe, & kirschbaum, 1994), or suffered from cardiovascular, neurological, endocrine, or mental disorders were excluded (n = 31). eight participants were excluded at a later stage because of data loss due to software or hardware failure during the recording of physiological parameters. the final sample was n = 100 women, aged between 21 and 34 years (m = 26.22, sd = 2.90). of these women, 43 and 57 possessed a high school diploma and a master's degree, respectively. procedure participants approved their participation by signing an informed consent form that described in detail the phases of the experiment and measures collected. the researcher informed the participants that they had the right to end participation in the research at any time and instructed them to refrain from consuming caffeinated beverages or alcohol within 2 hours before the experiment. the experimental procedure began with the administration of questionnaires that assessed adult attachment orientation and level of psychological symptoms over the past week. before acquiring baseline physiological parameters, a few minutes were dedicated to verify the quality of bio-signal acquisition and allow participants to become familiar with the experimental setup. next, the participants responded to two interviews of approximately 12 minutes, followed by rest phases of approximately 5 minutes. the order of the interviews was counterbalanced between subjects, but the assignation was not random. half of the sample were assigned to the ab (interview about movies [flm] interview addressing attachment related topics [att]) sequence, and the other half of the sample were assigned to the ba sequence (att – flm). during baseline and rest phases, participants assessed the level of subjective emotions alone in the room. cardiac and electro-dermal signals were continuously monitored. respondents had no feedback attachment dimensions and emotional response 642 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on their physiological activity. at the end of the experiment, the interviewer conducted debriefing interviews in which the interviewees had an opportunity to obtain more information on the purpose of the research, and to discuss their reaction to the experimental procedure. before discharge, participants were requested to not disclose details to anyone about the procedure. the study was compliant with the code of ethics of the psychological association of the state in which it was conducted. although the project was not a part of a funded research programme, the scientific committee of the association of psychotherapy of which the author is a member approved the study. content of the interviews to ensure that interviews elicited emotion responses of adequate intensity, both were conceived as tasks that requested participants to respond, for several minutes, to a list of questions and demands at a pressing pace. questions contained in the att were similar to those included in the aai (hesse, 2008) and addressed experiences potentially occurring in the period from early childhood to adolescence. because the aim of the study was to assess specific relations between attachment secondary strategies and emotional responses to attachment-related threats, questions focused on participants’ reactions during experiences of separation, threat, loss, rejection, abuse, or neglect (table 1). when responding to the questions, participants were requested to recount specific episodes that actually occurred to give concrete examples of the reactions and behaviours recalled. in the flm, participants were asked to choose their top five movies among those they had liked more, indicate the reasons for choice, and sort the movies in order of preference. because flm would have probably activated more pleasant experiences than the att interview, the first was proposed as a cognitive task of moderate difficulty to ensure that both evoked a comparable arousal level. the interviewer addressed questions or exposed instructions using exactly the same phrases in predetermined order. the interviewer never asked for clarifications and did not comment on the participant’s experiences and choices. in case of request for further information, the interviewer provided only instructions strictly necessary to complete the tasks. table 1 questions of the interview addressing attachment related topics i’m going to be interviewing you about your experiences with parents. we'll focus mainly on the period from your earliest childhood memories until adolescence. please, when responding to the questions, describe specific episodes that actually happened to provide concrete examples of your reactions to the circumstances recalled. no. question 1. how did you behave when you were upset as a child? for example, what happened if you were sick? 2. how did you behave when you were hurt physically, for example an incident when you were playing? 3. how did you behave when you were upset emotionally? 4. how did you behave when you needed to be comforted? 5. did your parents hold you in their arms when you were upset, or hurt, or ill? 6. how did you react the first time you were separated from your parents? 7. when you were little, did you ever feel rejected, pushed away, or ignored by your parents, even if they didn't have the intention or didn't realize it? 8. recall an episode when your parents got very angry with you 9. recall an episode when you got very angry with your parents 10. did your parents ever threaten you, for discipline, or even jokingly? for example, have they ever threatened to abandon you, or to use methods of punishments that made you feel rejected, hurt or ashamed? 11. did you ever feel scared, unsafe, or not adequately protected in your family? 12. when you were young, did you experience the loss of a loved one? how did you react? congia 643 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological measures the italian version of the experiences in close relationships (ecr) questionnaire comprises 36 items and assesses individual differences in attachment-related anxiety and avoidance (brennan, clark, & shaver, 1998; picardi et al., 2002): cronbach’s alpha coefficients were, respectively, .85 and .88 (bartholomew & horowitz, 1991; griffin & bartholomew, 1994). the symptom checklist-90 (scl-90; derogatis, 1977), is a self-report instrument for assessment of general psychopathology and comprises 90 items rated on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much), and 9 clinical scales. in this study, we used the global symptom index (gsi), as the overall distress indicator (cronbach’s alpha coefficient = .98). the profiles of the mood states (poms) is a tool that measures the effects of the experimental conditions on emotions in healthy subjects (mcnair, lorr, & droppleman, 1981). the italian version comprises 58 adjectives or short phrases that the subject rates on a five-point likert-type scale. only the tension-anxiety (t), anger-aggression (a), and depression (d) scales were used. the cronbach’s alpha coefficients were, respectively, .80, .86, and .81. physiological measures an acquisition device equipped with two channels (h&e, elemaya, milan), performed the amplification, filtering, digitization, signal processing and data storage of physiological response. a dedicated software running on a personal ibm pc allowed visual inspection for artifacts detection. to measure scl two ag/agcl electrodes (20 × 15 mm) were fastened to the second phalanx of the fourth finger and forefinger of the dominant hand (andreassi, 2000; boucsein, 1992; dawson, schell, & filion, 2007). a photoplethysmographic sensor was placed on the tip of the third finger of the same hand. the cardiac and electro-dermal signals were continuously recorded at 35 hz and 10 hz, respectively, during baseline, interviews, and rest phases. in psychophysiological research, abilities to regulate emotions are generally operationalised with heart rate variability (hrv) measures. two measures were determined from the power spectral analysis of heart rate variability acquired during the baseline and rest phases: high frequency (hf) and low frequency (lf). these measures quantify the frequencies between 0.04 0.15 hz and 0.15 0.4 hz, respectively (porges, doussardroosevelt, & maiti, 1994; singh, vinod, & saxena, 2004). frequency bands were calculated in milliseconds squared and converted to a logarithmic scale. lf is an index of sympathetic activity whereas hf reflects the parasympathetic vagal influences on heart activity (appelhans & luecken, 2006; porges, 1991, 2009). higher vagal tone levels are hypothesised to co-vary with self-regulatory capacity, good autonomic balance and flexibility to manage environmental challenges and physiological demands (balzarotti et al., 2017; friedman & thayer, 1998; park & thayer, 2014). a vagal tone increase during task demands is associated with self-regulatory effort (butler, wilhelm, & gross, 2006; geisler et al., 2013; thayer & lane, 2009). studies have found contrasting associations between attachment orientations and autonomic regulation and balance (diamond & hicks, 2005; maunder et al., 2006). two new measures based on the hf values were computed: the between-person (hfbp) and within-person (hfwp) part of the hf person-mean-centering effects, (hoffman, 2015, p. 338). hfbp was computed as hfimean hfiavg, where hfiavg was a centering constant based on the hfimean observed distribution. hfwp was computed as hfti–hfimean, where hfti represents the time-invariant attachment dimensions and emotional response 644 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hf value at time t for person i. hfimean is the person mean of time-varying hf across the three phases of the experiment. positive values for hfwp indicated a higher-than-usual hf level at time t for person i. data analysis results regarding effects of attachment dimensions, content, and sequence of the interviews on physiological and subjective responses were analysed using a hierarchical model. each participant's repeated measures (phase) were nested within the higher level of analysis (individuals), which, in turn, was nested within the sequence level (ab, ba). for calculations regarding scl and hr, dependent variables were the participant responses over the five phases of the experiment. data were analysed using two separate generalized linear mixed models (glmm), because this procedure allows the handling of correlated data and with unequal variances, and overcomes problems related to possible violations of the normality assumption. to take into account the individual differences in intercepts, individuals nested within sequence were entered as random factors. the fixed effects part of the model included the categorical main effects: phase (baseline, flm, flm-rest, att, att-rest) and sequence (ab, ba); the covariates: anxiety, avoidance, baseline hf; and the interactions: phase × sequence, avoidance × phase, anxiety × phase, avoidance × anxiety. all the covariates were mean centred around their sample mean (delaney & maxwell, 1981). the baseline was considered the centring point of the phase predictor. post-hoc analyses were performed using the sidak adjustment for pairwise comparisons. maximum restricted likelihood (reml) was used as an estimation method. the contribution of random effects inclusion was tested using the bayesian information criterion (bic). two separate measures of goodness-of-fit (r2) were computed: one for the conditional model and another one for the fixed part of the model (gelman & hill, 2006, p. 474). models used to test the effects on lf, hf and subjective responses were the same as for scl and hr, except that the repeated measures were three (baseline, flm-rest, att-rest) and baseline hf was not included among predictors. hfbp and hfwp were added to the list of predictors of subjective responses. normality assumption was verified, for each phase, by residuals histogram inspection and kolmogorov-smirnov test use. for diagnostic purposes, calculations were repeated after replacement of outliers with each phase mean value. all the calculations were performed using spss (version 21.0) for windows statistical package. analyses regarding scl were repeated using the option available in the genlinmixed procedure designed to obtain robust fixed effects estimations. results general statistics table 2 reports general statistics of the sample by sequence assignation. according to the classification of bartholomew and horowitz (1991), and griffin and bartholomew (1994), 67 participants were secure regarding adult attachment orientation, 20 were dismissing, 10 preoccupied, and 3 fearful. only 16 participants reported scl-90 scores higher than the cut-off point for caseness identification (.90). as table 3 shows, at the start of the experiment, participants reported low to medium baseline depression, anxiety, and rage t scores. congia 645 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 characteristics of the participants assigned to the normal and inverted sequence of the interviews (n = 100) variable/value sequence ab (n = 50) ba (n = 50) m sd n % m sd n % age 25.58 2.35 26.90 3.07 ecr avoidance 45.88 14.65 48.66 20.42 ecr anxiety 66.22 17.08 67.58 16.82 scl-90 total score 44.62 28.82 47.32 38.73 scl-90 gsi casenessa 8 14 9 18 marital status married/engaged 31 62 28 56 single 13 26 18 36 n.r. 6 12 4 8 education graduate 25 50 18 36 master's degree 25 50 32. 64 attachment styleb secure 35 70 32 64 dismissing 8 16 12 24 preoccupied 5 10 5 10 fearful 2 4 1 2 note. a = interview about movies; b = interview addressing attachment related topics; ecr = experiences in close relationships; scl90 = symptom checklist-90; gsi = global severity index; n.r. = missing or not responding. aclassification based on scl-90 global severity index score > .90. bclassification based on mean +1 sd of anxiety and avoidance scales of the experiences in close relationships. table 3 physiological and subjective measures of emotion during the experiment (n = 100) sequence/measure baseline flm rest att rest m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd ab (n = 50) scl 5.76 2.54 9.98 3.83 6.81 2.73 9.52 4.35 6.51 2.41 hr 84.00 11.01 86.50 10.02 81.50 9.63 84.80 8.30 80.55 9.21 poms-d 48.90 6.48 46.94 5.44 47.18 5.66 poms-t 49.00 9.82 47.04 10.05 44.96 11.46 poms-a 46.22 8.53 44.00 5.91 45.06 8.10 lf 6.64 0.91 7.02 0.89 7.17 0.89 hf 6.08 1.01 6.40 0.96 6.53 0.87 hfbp 1.71 0.12 1.71 0.12 1.71 0.12 hfwp -0.25 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.19 0.06 attachment dimensions and emotional response 646 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sequence/measure baseline flm rest att rest m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd ba (n = 50) scl 5.18 2.53 8.62 4.51 6.81 4.48 9.07 4.44 6.40 3.23 hr 86.00 12.29 84.17 9.32 81.30 29.43 87.18 10.79 82.22 10.26 poms-d 47.46 6.64 46.22 6.08 47.90 6.07 poms-t 44.38 8.16 41.42 11.88 44.24 14.14 poms-a 42.84 4.36 42.20 3.77 43.30 5.22 lf 6.35 0.96 7.08 0.87 7.08 0.87 hf 7.72 1.04 6.44 0.89 6.42 0.90 hfbp 1.56 0.12 1.56 0.12 1.56 0.12 hfwp -0.47 0.06 0.24 0.06 0.22 0.06 note. flm = interview about movies; att = interview addressing attachment related topics; ab = flm-att sequence; ba = att-flm sequence; scl = skin conductance level; hr = heart rate; poms-d, poms-t, poms-a = depression, tension, and anger t scores of the profile of mood states; hfbp = between-person part of the hf person-mean-centring effects; hfwp = within-person part of the hf person-mean-centring effects. participants assigned to the ab sequence were younger than those assigned to the ba, mean difference = -1.32, se = 0.55, p = 0.17; had higher poms-t, mean difference = 2.52, se = 0.93, p = .008, and poms-r baseline scores, mean difference = 2.48, se = 1.0, p = .015. scl was higher during the interviews than the following rest phases of 2.66 μs, se = 2.41, p < .001. hr increased by 4.27 bpm, se = 0.58, p < .001. there was no inequality in the carryover effect on the hr and scl responses by sequence. adult attachment effects on physiological response the best-fit model included a diagonal matrix structure for repeated measures and a random intercept. baseline scl was lower than during the following phases of the experiment. both interviews evoked comparable levels of arousal, higher than those observed in rest phases regardless of sequence. table 4 summarizes the glmm results regarding fixed effects. during flm, scl increased from the baseline by 3.84 μs, se = 0.39, p < .001, whereas during att an increase of 3.37 μs was observed, se = 0.43, p < .001. although there was an avoidance main effect, p = .024, a significant avoidance × phase interaction indicated that avoidance was associated with a scl increase during the att interview of 0.04 μs, se = 0.02, p = .003, and during att-rest phase of 0.05 μs, se = 0.02, p = .003. there was also a marginally significant avoidance × anxiety effect, p = .08. a further glmm using a robust estimate of fixed effects was performed controlling for the participants’ age and removing predictors with non significant effects (anxiety, anxiety × phase, and avoidance × anxiety effect). results revealed significant phase, f(4, 483) = 58.65, p < .001, avoidance, f(1, 483) = 8.491, p = .004, avoidance × phase, f(4, 483) = 2.54, p = .039 and age effects, f(1, 483) = 4.69, p = .031. avoidance was associated with scl increases of 0.041 μs during att, se = 0.015, p = .006; 0.049 μs during att-rest, se = 0.026, p = .061; 0.026 μs during flm, se = 0.014, p = .059, and 0.021 μs, during flm-rest phase, se = 0.011, p = .057. age and hf were associated with lower scl, -0.25, se = 0.11, p = .027 and -0.47, se = 0.26, p = .072, respectively. corrected model f(16, 483) = 19.79, p < .001 (see figure 1). congia 647 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 effects of adult attachment dimensions and content of the interviews on physiological measures of emotion during the experiment (generalized linear mixed model fixed effects) measure/factor and covariate f df1 df2 p -2 ll bic r2tot r2fix scl corrected model 17.05 21 478 < .001 2314.48 2351.49 .76 .26 sequence 2.09 1 478 .149 phase 81.66 4 478 < .001 sequence × phase 1.39 4 478 .238 baseline hf 2.30 1 478 .131 avoidancea 5.10 1 478 .024 anxietya 0.31 1 478 .577 phase × avoidancea 2.57 4 478 .037 phase × anxietya 0.65 4 478 .629 anxietya × avoidancea 3.08 1 478 .080 hr corrected model 8.03 21 478 < .001 3197.10 3234.12 .85 .27 sequence 0.35 1 478 .555 phase 29.45 4 478 < .001 sequence × phase 4.11 4 478 .003 baseline hf 29.96 1 478 < .001 avoidancea 0.70 1 478 .402 anxietya 0.26 1 478 .614 phase × avoidancea 0.52 4 478 .724 phase × anxietya 0.18 4 478 .949 anxietya × avoidancea 0.03 1 478 .865 hf corrected model 6.50 12 287 < .001 727.29 735.43 .81 .08 sequence 1.16 1 287 .283 phase 30.79 2 287 < .001 sequence × phase 3.00 2 287 .052 avoidancea 0.04 1 287 .844 anxietya 0.19 1 287 .666 phase × avoidancea 0.04 2 287 .965 phase × anxietya 2.85 2 287 .060 anxietya × avoidancea 3.11 1 287 .079 lf corrected model 6.22 12 287 < .001 729.95 752.48 .78 .10 sequence 1.06 1 287 .304 phase 31.26 2 287 < .001 sequence × phase 3.03 2 287 .050 avoidancea 0.41 1 287 .521 anxietya 0.20 1 287 .657 phase × avoidancea 0.15 2 287 .864 phase × anxietya 1.54 2 287 .216 anxiety × avoidancea 1.43 1 287 .233 note. scl = skin conductance level; hr = heart rate; hf = high frequency of heart rate variability; lf = low frequency of heart rate variability; bic = bayesian information criterion; r2tot = r2 for conditional model; r2fix = r2 for the fixed part only; -2ll = -2 log likelihood. aavoidance and anxiety scales of the experiences in close relationships. attachment dimensions and emotional response 648 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. mean predicted skin conductance level during the experiment in participants with low, medium and high avoidance level (±1 sd) note. scl = skin conductance level; flm = interview about movies; att = interview addressing attachment related topics. the best-fit model for hr had a diagonal covariance matrix structure for repeated measures and a random intercept. hr during flm-rest phase was lower of -4.71 beat per minute (bpm) than during baseline, se = 0.86, p < .001; during att-rest phase was lower of -3.8 bpm, se = 0.88, p < .001. baseline resting vagal tone was associated with a hr mean decrease of -4.67 bpm, se = 0.82, p < .001. when calculations were performed using a robust effects estimate, direction of effects and their statistical significance did not change. both lf and hf significantly increased from baseline. during flm-rest phase, the hf mean increase of 0.51, se = 0.08, p < .001, during flm-rest phase the increase was 0.57, se = 0.08, p < .001. there was also a sequence × phase effect, but pairwise contrasts were not significant. the lf mean increase during the att-rest phase was = 0.37, se = 0.11, p < .001, during the att-rest phase the increase was 0.53, se = 0.11, p < .001. a sequence × phase effect emerged but coefficients estimates were non significant. analyses repeated with robust estimates yielded similar results. attachment dimensions effects on subjective measures table 5 summarizes the glmm estimates of fixed effects on subjective ratings of anger, depression and tension experienced during baseline and rest phases of the experiment. attachment dimensions, between-person (hfbp), and within-person (hfwp) time-varying hf did not affect subjective measures of emotions. there were sequence and sequence × phase significant effects on the poms anger scores. participants assigned to the ab sequence reported higher scores, mean difference = 1.91, se = 0.80, p = .017. anger was lower after the flm interview than baseline, with mean difference in the ab sequence = -1.01, se = 0.36, p = .009. there was a significant effect of phase on poms depression scores. baseline depression scores were higher than after the flm interview, mean difference = -1.68, se = 0.56, p = .003, and att interviews, mean difference -1.39, se = 0.73, p = .057. there were sequence and sequence x phase effects on poms tension-anxiety congia 649 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scores. participants assigned to the ab sequence reported lower anxiety in the flm-rest phase compared with baseline, mean difference = -1.68, se = 0.73, p = .043. analyses repeated with robust estimates yielded similar results. table 5 effects of adult attachment dimensions and content of the interviews on subjective rating of anger, depression, and tension during the experiment (generalized linear mixed model fixed effects) measure/factor and covariate f df1 df2 p -2 ll bic r2tot r2fix poms-a corrected model 2.50 14 285 .002 1650.99 1673.60 .69 .12 sequence 5.73 1 285 .017 phase 5.85 2 285 .003 sequence × phase 1.96 2 285 .143 avoidancea 0.36 1 285 .549 anxietya 0.97 1 285 .325 phase × avoidancea 0.036 2 285 .965 phase × anxietya 1.80 2 285 .167 anxiety × avoidancea 2.56 1 285 .111 hfbp 0.39 1 285 .535 hfwp 0.19 1 285 .663 poms-d corrected model 2.28 14 285 .006 1739.27 1761.88 .76 .10 sequence 0.41 1 285 .521 phase 5.53 2 285 .004 sequence × phase 1.96 2 285 .143 avoidancea 0.37 1 285 .543 anxietya 1.98 1 285 .160 phase × avoidancea 0.66 2 285 .515 phase × anxietya 0.49 2 285 .611 anxietya × avoidancea 2.15 1 285 .143 hfbp 91.06 1 285 .341 hfwp 0.24 1 285 .622 poms-t corrected model 2.102 14 285 .012 1769.11 1791.25 .73 .10 sequence 4.27 1 285 .040 phase 1.87 2 285 .155 sequence × phase 4.75 2 285 .009 avoidance 2.41 1 285 .122 anxiety 2.03 1 285 .155 phase × avoidance 1.29 2 285 .278 phase × anxiety 0.37 2 285 .688 anxiety × avoidance 0.07 1 285 .796 hfbp 0.44 1 285 .508 hfwp 0.01 1 285 .923 note. poms-d, poms-t, poms-a = depression, tension and anger t scores of the profile of mood states; hf = high frequency of heart rate variability; r2tot = r2 for conditional model; r2fix = r2 for fixed part only; bic = bayesian information criterion; hfbp and hfwp = between and within-person parts of the person-mean-centring effects of time-varying hf; -2ll = -2 log likelihood. aavoidance and anxiety scales of the experiences in close relationships. attachment dimensions and emotional response 650 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the first hypothesis was that avoidance would have been associated with an scl increase during the recall of childhood memories. according to the hypotheses, only avoidance was associated with scl increase during the att, but not during the flm interview, whereas baseline vagal tone did not mediate or moderate participants’ responses. unexpectedly, scl increased during both the att interview and att-rest phase, suggesting that avoidance enhanced reactivity and impaired the ability to recover. however, a close examination of robust estimates of effects, revealed that avoidance effects on scl did not differ much through the experiment. this finding raises the problem of the ability of the experimental conditions to elicit attachment specific responses. there are several explanations for why electrodermal response of avoidant participants during the two interviews differed to a lower extent than expected. first, the att interview may have not sufficiently activated the attachment system. although the interview focused on memories of problematic experiences, the interviewer did not make any attempt to actively direct the participant’s attention on the topics. participants could have omitted painful memories or used narratives that may have helped them to trivialise or minimise relevance of the experienced episodes. second, we cannot rule out that the flm interview also activated the attachment system, even if to a lesser extent, reducing differences in responses. regarding the nature of the association between avoidance and participants’ electrodermal response, the scl increase may be have been a mere physiological correlate of external threats perceived in the experimental procedure, such as imaginings about the interviewer’s opinion, or a reflex of the strive to suppress external manifestations of emotions evoked by the interviews. in summary, many other factors than attachment secondary strategies, difficult to disentangle, have likely been simultaneously activated by both experimental conditions. overall, the results partially agree with those reported by studies that have used attachment-related stimuli (diamond et al., 2006) and suggest that the more avoidant individuals reacted to the recall of memories of personal issues with a pattern of generalised increase of physiological arousal and a reduced recovery. contrary to expectations, no significant adult attachment dimension effect on cardiac response emerged, alone or interacting with the content of the interviews. differences observed in scl and hr and response profiles, may have depended on different mechanisms underlying the activation and regulation of these physiological parameters. the scl is a measure of pure sympathetic activity, whose regulation, mediated by the endocrine system, allows relatively slow adjustments (dawson, schell, & filion, 2007). although both branches of the ans affect heart activity, hr regulation is mediated mainly by the parasympathetic branch of the ans, more specifically via the vagus nerve; a means that allows faster and effective adjustments. therefore, participants’ ability to regulate arousal may have masked the attachment dimensions’ effects on hr reactivity. accordingly, baseline vagal tone provided the most relevant contribution to hr (singh et al., 2004), suggesting that it should be regarded as a critical factor to be controlled in experiments using hr as a dependent measure. however, unlike what diamond and hicks (2005), and maunder and colleagues (2006) observed, attachment dimensions did not significantly affect hrv measures, and vagal tone did not affect relationships between attachment and cardiac response. the results did not provide evidence of significant effects of attachment dimensions on subjective ratings of emotion during the baseline and rest phases. diamond et al. (2006) reported the same findings using a similar stress task. neither the individual’s average level of hf across experimental phases, nor its changes around to the individual’s mean significantly affected subjective ratings. thus, no data emerged in support to the hypothesis that vagal tone moderates attachment effects on subjective response. poms t scores ranged congia 651 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall below the normative value for the italian population. baseline depression ratings were higher than in the flm rest phase, whereas baseline tension and anger scores were higher only in participants assigned to the ab sequence. the results suggest that participants reported to feel relaxed and in good spirits after having familiarized with the experimental procedure. it is worth to note that participants rated their emotions while they were alone in the room; this may have allowed them to distance themselves from the stress evoked by the presence of the interviewer. furthermore, the act of identifying, verbalizing, and rating inner states may have helped them to reduce the intensity of the arousal. nevertheless, the lf and hf levels recorded at the same time did not confirm a coherent pattern of recovery, but showed a contemporary increase in sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, signals of the participants' effort sustained to cope with the stress, and of the parallel activation of regulation processes. the poms scores showed an opposite trend to those of scl, hf and lf but similar to that of hr, suggesting that subjective ratings and hr were more influenced by the conscious attempts to mask or regulate the arousal. the results of this study support the assumption that avoidant individuals are at risk of showing an increase of sympathetic activity when interviewed about personal issues, even if the interview is not addressing attachment-related topics, whereas their subjective ratings are indistinguishable from those of the less avoidant individuals. the results agree with recent evidence showing that avoidant individuals defensively limit the processing of potentially distressing information (edelstein, 2006). at an early stage, when encoding emotional information, they tend to use more cognitive resources, then, at a next stage, employ post-emptive strategies aimed at suppressing the accessibility of previously encoded emotional information (zheng et al., 2015). furthermore, the pattern of physiological response observed suggests that avoidant participants likely experienced sensations of discomfort at a somatic level, even if they did not report them because of their inability to identify or verbalise them and the attempt to suppress them. these sensations of discomfort, the low proximity seeking and the automatic avoidance tendency (dewitte et al., 2008) may contribute to the explanation of why they are less willing to seek psychological help for their problems (dozier, 1990). limitations and future directions not performing random assignment to the sequences is a relevant limitation of the study. however, the sequence effects were weak and limited to self-report measures and to hrv indicators, though non-significant. the hypotheses of the study were based on the assumption that there is a relationship between measures of adult attachment orientations and patterns of response evoked by memories of events far in time, a period in which these orientations are not yet well formed. perhaps, if the study had explored the associations between states of mind related to childhood memories and physiological responses evoked by these memories, different results would have been observed. the sample composition suggests caution in extending results to male individuals or the general population. participants were young women with a high level of education and good general health. in addition, the fact that participants were mostly psychology students, may have had relevant effects in shaping participants’ expectations about the experimental procedure. because of the technical limitation of the equipment used to acquire cardiac signals, the results based on hrv indicators can have only a limited value. first, signals were acquired through plethysmographic sensors. second, no information on respiration frequency was collected during the interviews (schipke, pelzer, & arnold, 1999). third, the sampling frequency for the signal was lower than that suggested by the european cardiology task force to obtain reliable hrv measures (malik et al., 1996). relevance of the results should be evaluated attachment dimensions and emotional response 652 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the context of the mind of the study: to obtain useful suggestions for clinical practice. this study focused on the overall level of response as an expression of the individual’s ability to cope with meaningful social interactions. consistently, the scl and hr responses were computed as values averaged over the whole interview. assessing the effects of each question was not of primary interest and would require a more complex and demanding experimental design. in view of the aforementioned limitations, further research could benefit from more precise measures and rigorous experimental designs. funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to express my very great appreciation to dr. james nyhof for his valuable and constructive suggestions. references andreassi, j. l. 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(2015). the effects of attachment avoidance and the defensive regulation of emotional faces: brain potentials examining the role of preemptive and postemptive strategies. attachment & human development, 17(1), 96-110. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2014.995191 about the author pierpaolo congia is clinical psychologist and psychotherapist at the drug addiction service, cagliari (italy) and independent researcher at the cognitive therapy training school atc, cagliari, italy. his interests relate to addiction, theoretical and clinical aspects of adult attachment. attachment dimensions and emotional response 658 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 639–658 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1892 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.neubiorev.2008.08.004 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.biopsycho.2011.05.003 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f14616734.2014.995191 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment dimensions and emotional response (introduction) method participants procedure content of the interviews psychological measures physiological measures data analysis results general statistics adult attachment effects on physiological response attachment dimensions effects on subjective measures discussion limitations and future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author living in a world with god: an interpretative phenomenological exploration of the religious experiences of five baptists in britain research reports living in a world with god: an interpretative phenomenological exploration of the religious experiences of five baptists in britain james murphy 1, fergal w. jones 1, dennis nigbur 1, kate gee 1 [1] canterbury christ church university, canterbury, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 received: 2020-04-21 • accepted: 2021-02-11 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: sandra obradovic, open university milton keynes, united kingdom corresponding author: james murphy, school of psychology and life sciences, cccu, north holmes road, canterbury, kent, ct1 1qu, united kingdom. e-mail: james.murphy@canterbury.ac.uk supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract religious and spiritual experiences often form significant elements of people’s narratives about their faith and lives, but the impact of these experiences is often neglected in academic studies. this study investigated the connections between perceived experiences of god and beliefs in the lives of five members of a baptist church in britain, using data from semi-structured interviews. interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa) was used to explore the data and develop 11 recurrent sub-themes, organized into two superordinate themes: “knowing god” and “living in the world.” there were idiosyncratic differences between the experiences of the participants, but they all perceived god communicating with them and attributed certain events to god’s influence. these experiences developed real and meaningful relationships with god, and the participants’ faith affected every aspect of their lives, shaping their actions, beliefs and daily lived experiences. the participants’ diverse experiences and beliefs created mutually supporting meaning systems (or worldviews) that were much stronger than the individual elements that contributed to them. god was an intrinsic part of the participants’ social reality, and their lived experiences cannot be adequately understood without appreciating the influence of this central aspect of their lives. these findings show the importance of taking a holistic and idiographic perspective when studying religiosity and spirituality. the study also demonstrates ipa is a useful and effective tool for studying lived experiences of religiosity and spirituality and supports its broader use to investigate such phenomena. keywords christianity, interpretative phenomenological analysis, meaning systems, religion, spirituality, worldviews understanding why people believe the things they do, and how their beliefs shape their actions and experiences, is a central concern for psychologists and other social scientists. the relationship between beliefs and experiences can be complex and, to fully understand either, both must be considered. individuals develop internal understandings of reality from their experiences and these global meaning systems, or worldviews, allow them to function in the world and help them understand subsequent experiences (bruner, 1990; murphy, 2017; park, edmondson, & hale-smith, 2013). approximately 85% of the global population report having some form of religious belief, and many find religious meaning systems (or worldviews) provide effective answers to existential questions (park et al., 2013). however, the way these worldviews are acquired and develop is still only partially understood (barrett & lanman, 2008; park, 2013). understanding how religious traditions transmit, sustain, and transform their beliefs and practices is important not this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3119&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ only for understanding religious traditions but can also help develop broader insights into how people’s beliefs develop through their personal and social experiences. when studying how people experience and understand the world, it is important to recognize the complexity of people’s lived experiences. lived religion (mcguire, 2008) is diverse and, even within a single community, different individuals can have contrasting understandings and expressions of their shared beliefs. it is not uncommon for individuals to have beliefs that are incongruent with each other (chaves, 2010) or “theologically incorrect” according to the traditions with which they identify (slone, 2004). religiosity and spirituality are also far more than just beliefs: relationships, identity, and practices are crucial elements of them (day, 2011; hood, hill, & spilka, 2009; mcguire, 2008). however, distinctions between religious, spiritual, and secular beliefs and groups are primarily emic and reflect political or social factors rather than universal conceptual distinctions (ammerman, 2014; fitzgerald, 2000; murphy, 2017). this means that, rather than focusing on contested categorizations, it is more fruitful to examine why individuals and communities find certain beliefs and practices meaningful and/or useful. the many connections between beliefs, practices, and experiences mean that to understand any of them adequately they must all be considered. a wide range of complementary methodological approaches is also needed to develop a comprehensive understanding of them (emmons & paloutzian, 2003; paloutzian & park, 2013). qualitative method­ ologies can explore important nuances that more nomothetic approaches obscure, investigating the complexity and diversity of lived experiences which cannot be adequately captured using quantitative measures (davis et al., 2016; murphy, 2017). this can help develop better theories and advance the psychological study of religion, spirituality, and worldviews (hood et al., 2009; johnson, hill, & cohen, 2011; paloutzian & park, 2013). we chose to use interpretative phenomenological analysis (ipa; smith, flowers, & larkin, 2009) for this study be­ cause it enabled us to explore both how individuals experienced phenomena they considered significant to their beliefs and how they made sense of those experiences. ipa is adept at investigating topics which are “complex, ambiguous and emotionally laden” (smith & osborn, 2015, p. 41), and religion is all of these. ipa’s idiographic approach allowed us to investigate both the convergences and divergences between the experiences of each participant, developing a deeper understanding of how multiple events shaped each other and the participants’ interpretations of them. numerous previous studies have used ipa to investigate aspects of spirituality and religiosity. these include studies of how religious individuals make sense of certain experiences (e.g., moss & snodgrass, 2017; ward, 2011) and of specific phenomena that are considered spiritual or religious (e.g., lewis, sanderson, gupta, & klein, 2018; wilde & murray, 2010). however, we believe this is the first study to use ipa to explore lived religiosity/spirituality more broadly and from a “meaning systems” perspective (paloutzian & park, 2013), examining how the many elements in religious individuals’ lives interact and mutually interpret each other. this study investigated the experiences of five members of a baptist church in britain. it examined how the participants experienced their faith and made sense of their experiences. this approach follows recent calls to focus on meaning making when studying religiosity (e.g., paloutzian & park, 2013) and adopts a holistic approach to doing so. the relative lack of previous psychological studies of mainstream christian experiences within the united kingdom makes this a valuable case study that can also provide broader insights into how people make sense of their worlds. this study tests, and ultimately demonstrates, the value of idiographic approaches in the psychological study of religion and we hope it encourages others to conduct similar studies in different populations. method ipa is an idiographic approach that can explore the rich, idiosyncratic detail of individuals’ experiences and how they make sense of them (smith et al., 2009). it takes the experiences of individuals as its data but acknowledges that subjective experiences are always interpretations and that the emic interpretations of participants are not the only way to understand the phenomena being studied (pietkiewicz & smith, 2014). murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 155 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants a single church was chosen for the study, to provide a suitably homogenous group (smith et al., 2009). this church represents a “mainstream” and typical example of christianity in contemporary britain. it is situated in a large town in the south east of england, has an ethnically and economically diverse congregation, and is affiliated with the baptist union. five participants were purposively recruited from its congregation via a gatekeeper. participants needed to be active members of the congregation between 18 and 65 years old, who had been christians for at least 2 years. relatively small sample sizes, in comparison to other qualitative approaches, are an important and distinctive element of ipa studies. ipa explicitly rejects the concept of data saturation, and instead idiographically explores the experiences of a purposively chosen sample. using five participants allowed for a good balance between detailed analysis of each individual case and exploration of idiographic differences between cases (smith, 2011; smith et al., 2009). sampling in ipa studies draws from relatively homogenous groups but purposively selects participants from within a group to provide diverse perspectives on the phenomena being studied (smith et al., 2009). this involves an unavoidable trade-off between homogeneity and diversity of experiences when recruiting participants. we believe using a single congregation as the focus for analysis provided sufficient homogeneity, and not excluding any members of the congre­ gation, based on additional demographic restrictions, provided a richer understanding of the community. the participants (three men, two women) reflected the wide range of backgrounds within the church’s membership and had diverse economic circumstances, ranging from employment as a medical doctor to being an unemployed single mother. three participants had attended university. all the participants were british, with two from black, asian and minority ethnic (bame) backgrounds. their ages ranged from their 20s to their 50s. pseudonyms preserve the anonymity of the participants: gareth, havir, ian, jenny and karen. data collection the first author conducted semi-structured interviews with each participant individually, in private locations agreed with each participant. the interview schedule (see appendix in supplementary materials) covered seven broad areas, each introduced with an open question and supplemented by additional prompts. interviews began by asking the participant to speak about who they are and their background. they were then asked about their perspective on life and the world, with prompts eliciting the sources of meaning, purpose and value in their lives. next, participants were asked to tell the interviewer about god and their religious or spiritual activities. participants were then asked to describe specific experiences of god in detail. the interview ended by exploring whether the participant thought their beliefs had changed during their lifetime and by giving them an opportunity to discuss anything they had not yet mentioned but felt was relevant or important. the interviews ranged from 44 to 93 minutes in length, with a mean of 57 minutes. participants were briefed prior to their interviews and debriefed afterwards. analytical process audio recordings of each interview were transcribed and imported into nvivo 11, before being analyzed by the first author, in consultation with the other authors. each transcript was annotated with initial comments and reflections before coding. coding was inductive and iterative, first examining each case individually and then re-examining them in light of each other (smith et al., 2009). emergent themes were consolidated, and those found in at least half the accounts were identified as recurrent sub-themes and grouped conceptually into super-ordinate themes (smith, 2011). this process was extensive and exhaustive, with the themes repeatedly refined as they were rigorously checked against the data and discussed by the research team. writing up qualitative research is an integral part of the analysis (smith et al., 2009), and our understanding of each theme evolved during this period as we reflexively tested our interpretations of the data. memos were used throughout data collection and analysis to document this process. the account presented here is an interpretative account of the participants’ experiences and meaning-making processes, based upon the complete data. the extracts presented within it were chosen to illustrate the themes and show key aspects of convergence and divergence within the participants’ experiences. living in a world with god 156 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ researcher backgrounds the research team consisted of the first author, who conducted the interviews and was the principal analyst, and a diverse supervisory team. the first author was raised as an evangelical christian and has degrees in theology and the psychology of religion, but now identifies as not religious. the supervisory team included a practicing lutheran, a humanist celebrant, and a mindfulness practitioner. we were committed to engaging with the participants’ experiences in their own terms, putting aside assumptions (both from our own experiences and the extant literature) as much as possible (smith et al., 2009). we were constantly alert to the possible influence of our own experiences and beliefs on the analysis, and the diversity of the team was particularly useful in this regard. it also helped deepen the analysis and clarify the findings, as the mixture of insider and outsider perspectives ensured many different possibilities were considered. we are confident the findings are strongly grounded in the data because possible interpretations were always rigorously tested against it and many alternative ways of framing the data were considered before reaching the final analysis presented here. ethics ethical approval for the study was granted by the university’s ethics committee, and informed consent was received from both the church leadership and each participant. we clearly explained to participants that they did not need to discuss anything that made them uncomfortable; however, all the participants chose to share highly personal accounts of their lives. to protect the participants’ anonymity, the account presented here describes only minimal personal information about them, but the wider contexts of each participant’s life were considered in the analysis. debriefing provided the opportunity to address any distress or concerns that might have arisen during the interviews, but the participants primarily showed curiosity about the research and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to take part. results eleven recurrent sub-themes, each found within the accounts of at least half the participants, were developed and organized into two superordinate themes: “knowing god” and “living in the world” (see table 1). “knowing god” explores the intimate relationships the participants experienced with god (knowing as relationship with), the ways they made sense of their experiences (knowing as knowledge about), and the certainty of their convictions (knowing as certainty). “living in the world” explores the tensions of living life “in but not of” a world that is not christian. it examines the multifaceted ways their faith affected, and was affected by, a range of social and cultural influences. each sub-theme occurred in the accounts of all five participants, except “studying scripture to understand god” which was not found in jenny’s interview. these themes were complementary, and sub-themes often had connections to many others. table 1 living in a world with god: summary of themes with example quotes theme: knowing god sub-theme example quote experiencing a loving and nurturing relationship with god “jesus is my homeboy.” (karen) studying scripture to understand god “the bible would be the main way i think i know god, so, as he is revealed in his word.” (ian) talking to god as a daily companion “if i see something, i pray about it. and if i need to do something, just to pray that god will help me…” (jenny) connecting to god through worship “when you worship, god comes to you… you have such a clear connection with god…” (karen) feeling god’s touch and guidance “[god is] like a light. he’s a light and you feel warm in yourself…” (jenny) seeing god’s hand in events “[what] has sustained that belief over the years has been a remarkable coming together of events… some would call them coincidences. i would call them answers to prayer.” (gareth) murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 157 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ theme: living in the world sub-theme example quote being supported by other christians “he made being a christian very fun for a child… he had a lot of influence on me, um, on my christian beliefs…” (karen) interactions with other perspectives influence beliefs and behaviors “i started really kind of searching, comparing, you know, my beliefs, my faith, with that of someone [from a] … polytheistic background and faith.” (havir) responding to challenging situations “some of them were struggling in their failings and their fallen-ness and therefore my preaching became very much about trying to affirm people in who they are.” (gareth) finding meaning and purpose “there is something more than what’s in it for me, in the sense of the bigger picture, which certainly adds purpose.” (ian) faith affects everything “god’s the center… everything flows down from that.” (havir) theme: knowing god all five participants described experiencing a loving and nurturing relationship with god. they considered their relationships with god, and the fact that they knew god personally, a central and defining feature of their christian identities and the most important thing in their lives. being christian, rather than being baptist, was the cornerstone of their personal and communal identities. there were many similarities between the relationships the participants had with god, but also some individual differences in how they experienced and made sense of their lives and faith. ian described how, “there’s a god who i know and have a personal relationship with… he’s probably more ‘daddy’ rather than ‘god’.” karen’s relationship with god shared the intimacy of ian’s and she declared joyously that, “jesus is my home boy.” he was a friend who was always there for her, somebody who she thought was “a lot like us, but, um, just more. he’s just more.” the participants described knowing god in their lives through a range of experiences, and both prayer and worship made them feel close to god. the participants prayed in a variety of different ways, including formal intercessions during religious services and more informal prayers at other times. jenny summed up her attitude to prayer by saying: “if i see something, i pray about it. and if i need to do something… i just… pray… anywhere.” this approach was common to all five participants, and shows the importance they placed upon god’s guidance, their belief that god acts in the world, and the intimacy of their relationship with god. the participants believed god was interested in every aspect of their lives, and they could approach him at any time and without formality. they experienced god as a daily companion whom they could always talk to. despite this intimacy, their “conversations” with god were usually one-sided, and only ian reported an experience of god speaking to him audibly. the participants frequently requested guidance or divine intervention in situations, but they reported the outcomes of such intercessions were mixed. their memories of positive outcomes appeared most salient, and these seemed to mitigate the potential effects of negative outcomes on their faith. gareth summarized this attitude, saying: “although there are many times when prayers don’t get answered as you would wish, and things don’t go according to plan, the fact that there are enough times when things have worked out… [means you can] make sense of the disappointments by recognizing that there have been many times when those things have happened.” musical worship (singing devotional songs) was also an important part of the participants’ lives, and they described how it created a more intimate and emotional connection between them and god than prayer. like prayer, this worship was not limited to church services. the participants regularly played christian music in their cars, homes and other contexts. karen described how “during worship, you’re communicating directly with god… when you pray, you come to god, but when you worship, god comes to you… it does feel like you have such a clear connection with god when you are really enjoying worship.” the participants found joy in their relationship with god, which encouraged them to invest in it, and the experience of clarity made them confident their faith was true. the bible played an important role in the lives of all five participants. they considered it to be god’s revelation to mankind, and they studied scripture to understand what god was like and what god wanted from them. ian summarized this position, saying: “the bible would be the main way i think i know god… he is revealed in his word.” despite the importance of their personal experiences, the bible had central importance in their lives because it helped living in a world with god 158 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ them make sense of their experiences. as karen said, “everything that we need to know, how to live, to become closer to him, i think it’s all in the bible.” only jenny, who was dyslexic and struggled to read and study, did not speak about reading the bible for herself—but she still valued its contents and learned about it through sermons and conversations with other christians. for the participants, the bible was both a source of information about god and a way god communicated with them. the participants described often having tangible feelings of god’s presence and attributed certain thoughts to his inspiration and guidance. these experiences played a crucial role in affirming and reinforcing their beliefs about god and their relationship with him. the participants’ feelings of god’s presence were somewhat ineffable, but tangible, somatic and emotional. ian described them as: “a really, really ecstatic, but in control, happy feeling—almost like the nice warm glow you get if you’ve had one drink too many… it’s warm, fuzzy… hard to describe.” these feelings of joy, affection and gratitude were experienced by all the participants in a wide range of circumstances and they could both affirm and stimulate faith. gareth described how his conversion at a billy graham rally involved such a bodily response. after the sermon, during the altar call, gareth’s “head changed. [i felt] … tingles, all the rest of it… and that was what converted me.” believing he had experienced god’s touch provided a powerful affirmation that god was real, active and cared about him. the participants also spoke about “just knowing” that some of their thoughts were from god. these inspired thoughts could take many forms, including recalling bible verses, but they all involved a conviction they were (or at least might be) from god and should be heeded. ian described this feeling as “a sense of certainty, a sense of intuition, or maybe word of knowledge might be a way to describe it.” despite the conviction they often felt, the participants were frequently hesitant to ascribe these thoughts to divine inspiration and did not do so uncritically. they sought the input of trusted others and compared their thoughts to scripture for confirmation. jenny described this process, saying, “i don’t feel i hear god that much, but i do, because people say to me, yeah, that’s from god… i need a second opinion before, before i realize it’s god.” gareth also acknowledged the potential to be wrong about what god was saying in a situation, attributing such errors to the need for god to speak “through the filters and the impressions of our minds and because of that we sometimes will get it wrong.” this lack of certainty and clarity about particular instances of god speaking helps explain the iterative way that their relationships with god, and beliefs, developed. they all believed they experienced god’s touch and guidance, but this had an inherent ambiguity that required them to integrate many different experiences into a more coherent set of beliefs. the participants also described how they saw god’s activity in the events of their lives. these experiences nurtured and reinforced their beliefs about god, particularly the beliefs that he was real and cared about them. gareth described how, “one of the things that has sustained that belief over the years has been a remarkable coming together of events. some would call them coincidences. i would call them answers to prayer.” all five participants told stories about unlikely but meaningful circumstances that helped shape their lives. these ambiguous events included people finding jobs after long searches and medical issues being less severe than they might have been. for the participants, these experiences demonstrated that god answered their prayers and kept his promises, helping them have faith that they knew god’s character and that they were his people. karen highlighted the importance of these experiences of divine intervention for the participants, reporting she regularly told people the reason she knew god was real because she had “experienced god in my life even before i was a christian.” many of the events that the participants described were relatively mundane, but they also included the apparently miraculous. ian reported the most dramatic of these experiences, saying that, “god’s protected me. supernaturally, a couple of times… there was a sense, you know quite miraculously—god’s protecting us.” the story he told to illustrate this involved an angry confrontation with a soldier wielding a grenade and the unexpected intervention of a bystander who defused the situation. for ian, this was a clear example of divine intervention, although a more mundane interpretation is also possible and the extent to which participants were comfortable acknowledging the ambiguity of the situations varied. these experiences, and retelling them to others, created a sense that the participants lived lives in which god was an active part. the participants’ relationships with god, although loving and nurturing, also included negative emotions and disagreements. the participants described experiencing god asking them to do things they did not want to do as well as times when god did not do what they wanted. for example, karen discussed how she could be “a little hardened, or murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 159 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stubborn… he might be giving me little signals, do this, do this, and i’m like, i don’t want to do that!” these arguments and disagreements with god did not appear to diminish the bond that the participants experience with him, but instead seemed to ultimately strengthen their faith in god when they experienced positive outcomes. for example, when a serious relationship karen was in ended, she was angry and thought god had let her down, but “a couple of years later, i met my husband. and i was, like, oh, i get it now… i’m sorry, lord. you were working it out for me and i got mad at you. i’m really sorry.” the language used to describe these experiences demonstrated both the intimacy and vibrancy of the relationships. the participants believed they knew god intimately and with certainty; they related to him like a close friend whom they trusted. the participants’ diverse experiences of god in their lives affirmed their faith and provided a bulwark against doubts and tribulations. theme: living in the world the personal and dynamic relationships with god that each participant reported experiencing did not occur in isolation. the participants described living lives that were varied and social, involving active engagement with all aspects of modern life. the participants’ interactions with other people, and involvement in a wide range of situations, influenced how they experienced god and life in various ways. other christians appeared to play a crucial role in supporting and developing the participants’ faith and relation­ ships with god. the participants discussed being members of multiple churches at different stages of their lives, and these communities influenced what they believed and did. close friendships and romantic relationships with other christians were particularly important to the participants, providing support and affirming their faith in their daily lives. god had a central role within their family lives and teaching their children about their faith encouraged them to live out their own beliefs. havir summed this up, reflecting that, “it is so important to steer them in the right direction… the way jesus wants us to lead our lives. i think those truths have been drummed home a lot more because we want the kids to be like that.” living with other christians helped the participants keep god at the center of their lives and develop into the people that they wanted to become. they viewed these influences as positive blessings, understanding processes as supportive of their efforts to develop into the people that they wanted to become. gareth’s descriptions of his evolving faith clearly showed the importance of other christians in his life. he described how, before he became a christian, persistent friends at university, “took me to church on sunday nights… i’d never experienced anything like that… to encounter this whole generational thing, that young people could believe this and live this was, was significant.” the passion and commitment of his friends showed gareth a type of christianity he had never encountered before, offering an alternative way of understanding the world that intrigued him. his experiences of them led him to attend the service that changed his life and they helped him make sense of his experiences afterwards. after he graduated, gareth was surrounded by christians with different beliefs, and he attributed his own beliefs becoming more inclusive and liberal to their influence. reflecting on his experiences, he said, “you’re not conscious at times of the subtle changes in your thinking that are taking place… i can look back and think of some… wonderful prayers and preaching… [that] contribute[d] to a re-formation of the theological mindset and approach.” both the explicit teaching and the implicit values of the participants’ communities appeared to influence how they perceived themselves, god, and the wider world. the participants’ closest family and friends shared their beliefs, but they lived in a society that increasingly did not. their experiences and beliefs were clearly also influenced by the wider society around them in various ways. encounters with behaviors and beliefs that conflicted with their own could lead to the participants altering their beliefs or becoming more convinced of them. havir, who went through an extended period of more nominal faith despite being raised in a christian family, described how a relationship with a hindu girlfriend caused him to decide what he believed and what he wanted from life. he “started comparing… really kind of searching, comparing, you know, my beliefs, my faith, with that of someone… [with a] polytheistic background and faith.” his girlfriend presented him with the possibility of an alternative way of life and made havir need to choose how he wanted to raise his future family. this reflection was the catalyst for a profound change in the importance he placed on his religion and how he lived his life. living in a world with god 160 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the participants’ encounters with other perspectives sometimes caused them to change some of their beliefs. for example, ian described how his beliefs about homosexuality had shifted over the previous decade and he identified friendships with gay men as a key catalyst for that change. he suggested that the liberal attitudes of wider british society may have influenced his beliefs on the issue, and this caused tension for him. he reflected that, “there is a worry… about just, you know, the church following society's line.” for the participants, god and the bible were supposed to determine what was right and they were supposed to be different even when it carried a cost. however, their interactions with others sometimes caused them to question aspects of their faith, and this process could lead to them either altering their beliefs or becoming more convinced of them. experiencing challenging situations and events often drew the participants closer to god, who provided security and comfort in times of crisis. jenny had experienced many traumatic experiences, including severe physical illness, poverty, and abuse. she described how god was “a light… and he helps you in difficult times.” she also viewed her suffering as having purpose and value because it helped her get “to the point where i had to rely on god. um, i didn’t do that before. it took two years in this horrible place. i had to learn stuff.” like the other participants, she looked for positives in her experiences of adversity and gave god credit for the situations not being even worse. the process was neither quick nor easy, but she learned to turn to god in her suffering and the comfort she found strengthened her relationship with god. the participants spent considerable amounts of time helping others, and they described how these relationships made their lives more meaningful. jenny described how helping others gave meaning to the many struggles she had been through. she now worked with a church-based charity and said she had “come to the conclusion that… if i wasn’t bullied and i didn’t go through what i did, i wouldn’t have the real experience to tell people… [god] has changed… the challenging bits to, ok, positives.” the participants’ faith helped them find meaning and purpose both in their ongoing lives and in their pasts. they believed they were called by god to do what they were doing, and this enabled them to view their daily activities as sacred and significant. the belief that what they were doing truly mattered helped transform mundane activities into something more and nurtured their sense of living lives that were sacred and meaningful. challenging encounters or events sometimes posed difficult questions for the participants and required them to reconcile their beliefs with the world they experienced. for example, the participants sometimes found suffering and pain theologically challenging to reconcile with their conception of a loving and omnipotent god. gareth described how seeing the pastoral needs of others, as they lived through difficult situations, led to him softening his doctrinal beliefs. compassion led him, “to rethink [his theology], because i need to be able to affirm these people as legitimate, bona fide members of my congregation… they need to be affirmed… therefore, my preaching became very much about trying to affirm people in who they are.” these changes did not stop the participants from being christian, but they altered what they understood “being christian” to mean and they viewed these changes as their faith maturing. challenging circumstances sometimes functioned as catalysts for change in the participants’ lives, leading to significant and lasting changes in their beliefs and behaviors. the participants believed the calling to live their lives for god was an inherent part of being a christian and that their actions and choices had eternal significance. being christian was a central facet of their personal identities and lives. ian described how his faith gave him a sense of “the bigger picture, which certainly adds purpose.” havir went further, saying that he believed that without god, and an eternal afterlife, things would be “futile” and “meaningless.” the participants cared deeply about other people, but their faith altered their perspectives and affected their choices. it framed how they understood themselves and the world. for these five participants, their relationships with god and christian faith affected their entire lives. their faith influenced the activities they did, the choices they made, and the relationships they had. havir summed this up, saying: “god’s the center. that’s it, really… everything flows down from that.” the boundary between the secular and the sacred was at least blurred, if not meaningless, in the participants’ lives because they included god in every situation and interpreted events through their faith. ian described how “worship is all our life, and everything that we do and sacrifice to god,” and gareth noted he could not “separate faith from life, because to me they are entwined.” these participants’ faith influenced everything they did; they experienced god as a supporting presence in every area of their lives. in ian’s words, their faith was not a crutch but was “more like a mountaineer’s pole—it helps you, but because of it you can climb mountains that you wouldn’t otherwise climb.” murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 161 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study used ipa (smith et al., 2009) to explore the lived experiences of five members of a baptist church in britain. the participants described experiencing relationships with god, similar to their relationships with other humans. these relationships between the participants and god were a fundamental part of their lived experiences and affected all aspects of their lives. they believed they knew god intimately and described living in a world of which god was an active and integral part. the participants’ relationships with other people, their life choices, and their overall wellbeing were all connected to, and rooted in, their belief that they knew god as a living presence in their lives. without understanding the participants’ faith and the relationships they experienced with god, any understanding of the participants’ lives and behavior would be incomplete. living in a sacred world the experiences that participants attributed to god were diverse, and there were not clear boundaries between what the participants considered sacred and the rest of their lives. any experience could encourage them to pray, and they could perceive any situation as the work of god. these findings echo ammerman’s (2014) work in the united states, that found religion often permeates social boundaries to both influence and be influenced by interactions in other spheres of individuals’ lives. as taylor (2007) notes, religious beliefs are often not something extra that is “added on” to a secular life. for many people, religious identities and beliefs are an integral part of how they understand themselves and the world, affecting many aspects of their lived experiences. the participants’ faith provided the interpretative framework for their whole lives. the participants’ experiences of such a sacralized world are unlikely to be shared by all christians. more nominal christians, who do not frequently attend church or participate in other religious practices, probably do not have similar relationships with god or the same experience of living in a world where god is active as these participants. havir’s experiences demonstrate how someone can understand being a christian in disparate ways at different points in their lives. in contrast to his more recent experiences, for many years his faith had little influence on his life. this fits with the idea that each individual believer constructs what it means to be a christian out of the many cultural resources they have available, and these personal meaning systems do not always give a prominent place to god or broader existential ideas (lee, 2015; murphy, 2017). how people understand themselves and the world changes during their lives, and significant changes in individuals’ worldviews can occur more than once (fowler, 1981; streib & keller, 2004). the idiosyncratic blending of diverse beliefs and practices by each individual means that care must be taken when using a fractionating approach (white, 2017; whitehouse & lanman, 2014) to study specific religious phenomena. the combined effects of the diverse elements of an individual’s meaning system may be greater than the sum of their individual practices and beliefs. both prayer and worship were important to the participants, but it was the combination of the two practices, with their broader beliefs and social contexts, that sustained the participants’ faith and guided their actions. god was an integrating focus and an intensive concern for participants, with extensive effects throughout their life (bailey, 1999). it is clearly important to study individual “religious” phenomena, but how these phenomena are experienced, the meaning ascribed to them, and the effects they have may both influence and be influenced by a wide range of other beliefs and related experiences. constructing a sacred world the importance of socialization in the formation and development of religious beliefs is well-established (beit-hallahmi & argyle, 1997; hood et al., 2009), and the influence of social and cultural factors was clear in the accounts of all the participants. most people accept the existential interpretations and explanations of those they trust (altemeyer & hunsberger, 1997; granqvist & kirkpatrick, 2004), though as this study shows they do not always do so uncritically, and experiences may cause them to question or reject such explanations. god was a real and important part of the social reality (berger & luckmann, 1967) the participants shared, and their faith in him had wide-reaching consequences. understanding their lives and actions without recognizing the role god played in them is impossible. living in a world with god 162 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the participants, both as individuals and a group, interpreted events in ways consistent with, and reinforcing, their shared worldview (johnson et al., 2011). ambiguous events were often attributed to divine intervention (spilka, shaver, & kirkpatrick, 1985), and the encouragement and support of trusted others helped overcome any doubts they experienced (taves, 2017). their frequent declarations and affirmations of the truth of their relationships with god helped create their social reality (searle, 2010). the cumulative effects of many experiences also made each of them more persuasive than they would have been in isolation, repeatedly reinforcing their trust in god. the participants’ world became sacred through their communal practices and expressions of faith (taves, 2009). the interactions of different influences, both christian and non-christian, contributed to the idiosyncratic beliefs of each participant, which sometimes were incongruent or “theologically incorrect” (chaves, 2010; slone, 2004). as lee (2015) argues, people often draw upon a range of existential resources to help them make sense of their own lives and experiences. the differences between participants’ experiences should not be overlooked, as they are crucial to under­ standing their beliefs and behaviors. the five participants were part of the same church and espoused the same doctrinal beliefs, but they had very different lived experiences that influenced their physical and psychological lives. the accounts of the participants support viewing beliefs about god, the self and the world as part of a cohesive, idiosyncratic, model of the world that each person develops during their life in response to their experiences (murphy, 2017). experiencing a relationship with god the experience of knowing god directly was of central importance to each participant and provided the bedrock for the participants’ faith and beliefs. the relationships between the participants and god developed over time and, like most relationships, had both negative and positive features. the participants described their relationships with god as being like a relationship with a close friend or family member, and it is plausible that this similarity to other relationships reinforced their belief that it was with a real and independent being. god, for these participants, was a non-human supernatural agent whom they seemingly perceived and experienced using very similar cognitive mechanisms to other agents in the participants’ worlds (boyer, 2002). they found his existence not only plausible but actually indisputable, because of the combination of their frequent personal experiences and the supporting experiences of those around them. the findings of this study do not speak to the ultimate truth, or otherwise, of the participants’ interpretations of their experiences, and we wish to note the data are consistent with a range of possibilities. these include both that the participants are genuinely experiencing something beyond themselves and the view that religious experiences are by-products of our evolved cognitive architecture, cultural contexts and ambiguous sensory experiences (kirkpatrick, 2013). the participants described god as a source of personal comfort and security. they experienced god as a reliable, powerful, and loving presence in their lives. their differing childhood experiences and the comfort they derived from their relationships with god are consistent with the theory that god can function as either a surrogate or complementa­ ry attachment figure for different religious individuals (granqvist & kirkpatrick, 2004; kirkpatrick & shaver, 1990). the participants were grateful they experienced god as a supportive presence in their lives, and they shared their faith with others because they wanted them to benefit from the same experiences. the accounts of how the participants learned to experience god’s presence in their lives are also consistent with the process of metakinesis, as conceptualized by luhrmann (2004, 2012). this process involves learning to identify sen­ sations as signs of god’s presence and using these attributions to develop relational practices. the participants described learning to hear and feel god better, engaging in regular spiritual activities and being guided by those around them to interpret certain experiences as god’s presence. the participants’ experiences of god and sense-making processes were embodied, active, and situated in their social context (larkin, eatough, & osborn, 2011). the participants’ experiences shaped their beliefs, but these experiences were themselves shaped by their beliefs and by the beliefs of those around them in an active, iterative and embodied process. this process is ontologically ambiguous, and neither assumes nor denies the validity of individuals’ emic interpretations of their experiences. fowler (1981) noted that people tend to love and value that which loves and values them. these participants came to know god through experiences of love and mercy. they responded with love and service of their own. the bible and the traditions of their church helped shape the participants’ knowledge of god, but their personal experiences of murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 163 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ god through these things was especially influential. emotional, intellectual and social factors supported each other and gave the participants a robust and cohesive experience of living with their god. their experiences of being in a loving relationship with god and feeling his touch in their lives assured the participants of the reality they believed in. the support of other christians helped develop these beliefs and provided encouragement and guidance in times of crisis. the combination of these many different elements of their lives helped them to grow closer to god and sustain their faith, enhancing their subjective wellbeing and lives. limitations and future directions for research this study does not claim to describe the experiences of all baptists in britain, let alone all christians. ipa does not attempt to produce overarching descriptions of the experiences of a broad group. instead, it develops understandings of how individuals experience and make sense of complex phenomena by exploring idiographic details and contextualizing them in ways that refine and illuminate our understanding of phenomena. there were variations between the experien­ ces of different participants, as well as between the experiences of individual participants at different times in their lives, that might have been masked by quantitative or nomothetic approaches. our analysis of the data suggests these nuances are important for understanding not only the current experiences and beliefs of the participants, but also how and why they have changed during their lives. ipa’s strong idiographic commitment is a strength that enhances the analysis, rather than a weakness. future research exploring religiosity, spirituality, and meaning-making should consider the broad range of things that can influence individuals’ beliefs and experiences, examining the different ways these influences and experiences are integrated by individuals. this study demonstrates the importance of the interactions between many different experiences in the development of individuals’ worldviews and shows the role that seemingly mundane experiences can play in shaping and sustaining beliefs. researchers should also be sensitive to both the diversity of experiences between individuals and the different ways that seemingly similar experiences can be made sense of by different individuals, or by the same individual at different times. ipa’s reliance on a double hermeneutic, where interpretations of experiences are unavoidably filtered through both the participants and researchers, means it is inherently subjective. this subjectivity is not unique to qualitative research, but it is important to note the broader beliefs and culture of both the participants and researchers shaped the data and its analysis. the diversity of the research team and its specialist expertise helped enhance the quality of the analysis. the first author’s intimate understanding of the language and theological beliefs of the participants provided a strong starting point for the analysis, but this was supported by careful and iterative probing of the participants’ meaning both during the interviews and the subsequent analysis. the strong rapport that developed in the interviews, shown by the highly personal experiences the participants disclosed, also helped generate rich data and insights. the analysis presented here is, we hope, both convincing and rigorous. we believe that further studies of other religious groups using ipa (and similar methodologies) are the logical next step from this study, to establish the transferability of our findings. a broad range of studies, each exploring a different group and conducted across diverse cultures, could generate valuable insights into how religiosity and spirituality affect people’s lives and worldviews. the conclusions that can be drawn from any single study are limited, but the aggregation of findings from multiple studies can increase the reliability and transferability of research (larkin, shaw, & flowers, 2019). conclusions this study demonstrates both the importance of religiosity and spirituality in some individuals’ lives and the valuable contribution that ipa can make to their study. each participant described a unique relationship with their god that was a central and vivid part of their lived experience. the participants’ relationships with god intertwined with every aspect of their lives, and understanding their experiences requires a holistic perspective that does not view their faith as something that is simply “added onto” an otherwise secular life. the participants’ own experiences, and the supporting experiences of those around them, developed comprehensive worldviews that allowed them to make sense of their lives. living in a world with god 164 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gareth, havir, ian, jenny and karen, not only lived in a world where their god existed, they lived in that world with their god. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see index of supplementary materials below). • appendix: annotated interview schedule (the self and the sacred) index of supplementary materials murphy, j., jones, f. w., nigbur, d., & gee, k. 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(2010). interpreting the anomalous: finding meaning in out-of-body and near-death experiences. qualitative research in psychology, 7(1), 57–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780880903304550 about the authors james murphy is an associate lecturer at the open university and completed this study as part of his phd at canterbury christ church university. his research interests include qualitative research methodologies and the psychology of religion, spirituality, and beliefs. fergal jones is a reader in clinical psychology at canterbury christ church university and the research director of the salomons in­ stitute for applied psychology. his research interests include mindfulness-based approaches, associative learning, and the application of learning theory to clinical problems. dennis nigbur is a senior lecturer at canterbury christ church university. his research interests include the social psychology of culture and sustainability. kate gee is a freelance chartered psychologist, who was previously a research fellow in performance science at the royal college of music and a senior lecturer at canterbury christ church university. her research interests include social identity research and applied approaches to well-being and the arts. murphy, jones, nigbur, & gee 167 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 154–167 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3119 https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2010.536206 https://doi.org/10.1086/678698 https://doi.org/10.1080/14780880903304550 https://www.psychopen.eu/ living in a world with god (introduction) method participants data collection analytical process researcher backgrounds ethics results theme: knowing god theme: living in the world discussion living in a sacred world constructing a sacred world experiencing a relationship with god limitations and future directions for research conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors shared construction of social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten research reports shared construction of social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten valentina fantasia 1, francesca moncalli 2, arianna bello 2 [1] department of philosophy and cognitive science, lund university, lund, sweden. [2] department of education, roma tre university, rome, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 received: 2023-07-21 • accepted: 2023-10-30 • published (vor): 2024-05-29 handling editor: juliene madureira ferreira, tampere university, tampere, finnland corresponding author: valentina fantasia, helgonavägen 3, 223 62, lund university, lund, sweden. e-mail: valentina.fantasia@lucs.lu.se related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 abstract pretend play is usually defined as an activity wherein objects and actions (but also affective expression, at times) are separated from their original meanings. its developmental appearance is set around the second year of life, and increases dramatically in duration, frequency and quality when play episodes start becoming more complex, both linguistically and interactionally reaching its peak in preschool years. to date, however, little attention has been paid to how social pretend play emerges and develops before the age of three. our study aims to investigate early spontaneous pretend play interactions between children aged 19 to 28 months attending the same kindergarten. we used micro-analytical coding of video-recorded interactions to explore sequences of interaction where children coordinated their actions to engage in social pretend play with objects. our analyses showed that co-constructed sequences appeared organised by a turn-alternation structure already at 19 months, and children used embodied and material resources afforded by the sequential organisation of actions to dynamically manage their participation. although explorative, our results seem in line with previous reports suggesting an early onset of social pretend play developing over a continuum from being predominately an individual activity to progressively becoming a co-constructed endeavour. keywords social pretend play, kindergarten children, sequential analyses, peer interactions children’s play has been a flourishing area of interest for developmental psychologists and early childhood educators (garvey, 1990), and despite recent critical discussions (see lillard et al., 2013 for a review), scientists largely agree that play, in almost all its different forms, supports and creates unique developmental opportunities in socio-cognitive, motor, affective and communicative arenas (christie, 2022; sutton-smith, 1981; taylor, 2013). recently, social pretend play has occupied intense research interest. pretend play is usually defined as an activity wherein objects and actions (piaget, 1945) are separated from their original meanings. its developmental appearance is set around the second year of life, and increases dramatically in duration, frequency and quality when play episodes start becoming more complex, both linguistically and interactionally reaching its peak in preschool years (smith & lillard, 2012). studies within this domain have shed light on the early origin and development of children’s participation in social interactions where pretence is a joint endeavour, searching for constitutive aspects such as, among others, children’s interactional and communicative competence type of relationship among co-participants, attentional capacities and familiarity with play practices. however, research investigating the early emergence of social pretend play among pre-school children is not extensive (fantasia & nomikou, 2022) and mostly committed towards identifying the progression of social pretend play forms, and their correlation with children’s developing abilities (lillard et al., 2011; thompson & goldstein, 2022). the this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12443&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ present work is a preliminary exploration of such issues. we endorsed an ethnomethodological approach to look at young children’s (19to 28-months old) spontaneous engagement in social pretend play interactions within different pretence settings at kindergarten. by adapting analytical categories previously used by monaco and pontecorvo (2010), we analysed how interactional sequences of social pretend play are coordinated and co-constructed. pretend play interactions as meaning-making practices social pretend play, also referred to as imaginative, symbolic, or fantasy play, is commonly defined as an activity involving some degree of taking an “as-if” stance between two or more playing partners (bateson, 1955). pretend play is an exquisitely ‘event-generative’ (sacks, 1995, p. 496) phenomenon, wherein children actively and creatively appropriate aspects from the adult world to create new rules for new activities and scenarios (breathnach et al., 2018). social pretend play in school children often takes the form of sharing imaginary scenarios, e.g., through storytelling, or crafting narratives with invented characters and settings (theobald et al., 2022). by doing so, children create new cultural practices embedded into an inter-subjective context (gaskins, 2013), where relational dynamics, conflict resolution and generation of conflicts occur and need to be managed (breathnach et al., 2018). mastering verbal competence plays a key role in the extent to which imaginary scenarios can be rich or complex; solitary or shared with others. the use of symbolic features in storytelling or during a shared construction of playing scripts may be considered an evolved form of communication or meta-communication (giffin, 1984). language competence also influences how young children (before 3 years of age) successfully initiate or sustain social play interactions with peers (luo et al., 2022). nevertheless, some key features of pretence may be visible long before children master communicative skills (göncü & gaskins, 2011). long before they enjoy engaging in complex, narratively articulated imaginary play interactions children engage in imaginary interactions in their family environment, e.g., with siblings (fantasia & nomikou, 2022; howe & leach, 2018), beginning to use objects symbolically or functionally in many ways, which vary in degree of abstraction/iconicity (rubin et al., 1978). from infancy, early social play is grounded in the caregivers’ capacities to re-use infants’ embodied displays to organise shared patterns of play (fantasia et al., 2014). at 10 months infants can predict and anticipate the interactive structure of teasing and pretence-like activities, such as peak-a-boo (bruner & sherwood, 1976) and around 13 months they engage in simple forms of complementary play interactions with peers (howes & matheson, 1992). at 15 months of age, toddlers seem already capable of initiating simple pretend instances by socially coordinating embodied resources, e.g., using toys or objects that are immediately available in the physical space, through the supported actions of the caregiver (filipi, 2022). early instances of pretending may involve reproducing everyday actions at home using objects that afford specific functions or actions (e.g., a salad bowl is used as a cooking pot); or creatively deploying functional objects in arbitrary ways (e.g., when a twig becomes a sword). progressively over development, social pretence becomes a multi-party endeavour, moving from individual functional use of toys to socially richer forms of play with different degrees of coordination and reciprocity among participants (howes & matheson, 1992), where the quality of pretend play seems to evolve as a function of their relationships (luo et al., 2022). the pretend “gradient” increases over developmental time: during preschool years (that is, before 3 years), pretend forms progressively change becoming more abstract, to include “invisible objects” living entirely in the child’s imagination (göncü & gaskins, 2007). objects—real ones or imaginary—shape the quality of what is being played as well as the participatory possibilities among playing partners in shared activities (cobb-moore et al., 2009; houen & danby, 2021). to our knowledge, however, no research has investigated the sequential organisation of early social play, that is, how young children initiate and maintain a reciprocal and shared orientation towards a pretend play activity; and how children’s spatial positioning enables, crafts, affords specific forms of participation in various activities and settings. social interactions at the kindergarten forms and possibilities for participating in co-constructed sequences of shared actions (and goals) are manifold in the ecology of infants’ daily social interactions (lerner et al., 2011). infants are gradually drawn into conventionalised forms of interaction through repetitive daily experiences of play. in social routines, they learn to recognise complex interac­ tional formats, and perform particular actions contingently within an action sequence (fantasia et al., 2014; ratner & bruner, 1978). early playful interactions with meaningful adults are contexts in which infants learn how to participate, fantasia, moncalli, & bello 117 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ before developing an understanding of the real and the imagined, just by learning what to do when and how to respond (nomikou et al., 2017). in the ecology of their daily social encounters, e.g., at kindergarten, or in interaction with adults and siblings, young children make use of environmental resources (e.g., space, objects) to accomplish purposes while adapting to relevant contingencies (kern, 2023; ochs, 1990). early educational settings, such as kindergartens, represent social arenas to experiment rich with opportunities for multifaceted arrangements with others (evaldsson & corsaro, 1998; theobald, 2009). as such, they are privileged contexts to observe the ecological development of children’s social practices and experiences, including play, as they afford the observation of social exchanges and interactions with peers and adults. children’s participation in social activities within those settings is organised and dynamically orchestrated by different interactional strategies (fatigante et al., 2022; monaco & pontecorvo, 2010), locally designed to accomplish and manage a variety of purposes and situations. for instance, young children use aspects of sequential organisation design (e.g., pre-sequences) aimed at recruiting and securing attention and availability of potential co-participants in shared play (burdelski & cekaite, 2022). our study seeks to provide preliminary evidence of the early construction of shared pretend play practices in a group of young children (from 19to 28months old) attending the same kindergarten. we endorsed an ethnomethodo­ logical approach to analyse the temporal unfolding of interactional sequences of interaction where children coordinated their actions to engage in social pretend play with objects, moment-to-moment. method participants fourteen children with typical development, between 19 to 28 months (m = 9.3; sd = 4.4; n = 10, 4 females, table 1) participated in the study. children attended the same kindergarten near parma, italy. in line with the aims of the study, and to facilitate the emergence (and observation) of spontaneous play sequences with as little interference as possible, children were divided into ad-hoc subgroups, as follows: • “small” group, composed of one boy and one girl, mean age 19 months • “young” group a, composed of 2 boys and 2 girls, mean age 24.7 months • “young” group b, composed of 3 boys and 1 girl, mean age 24.7 months table 1 participants demographic information by group group child name age (months) sex small alfie 19 m small emily 19 f young a marco 28 m young a edo 22 m young a lea 23 f young a giovanna 26 f young b tommy 24 m young b lorenzo 24 m young b matilde 28 f young b francesco 23 m children were allocated to subgroups by teachers according to the following criteria 1) their affinity/relationship with each other (preferred); and 2) their ages and sex, in order to have balanced male-female ration and matched ages within the same group. social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten 118 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ setting the study received ethical approval from the ethics committee of roma tre university. data were collected at a small kindergarten near parma, norther italy. observations of play episodes were conducted in three different play settings of the kindergarten, presenting pretend accessories and facilities (see figure 1): two kitchenette areas, one nursery/care area and one area with clothing/dressing up accessories. figure 1 pretend play settings note. a = clothing/dressing up; b = young group kitchenette; c = small group kitchenette; d = nursery/care. children were observed during sessions of spontaneous play in small groups inside the kindergarten. all observation sessions were video recorded by one teacher, with a camera placed on a tripod at a distance of around 2 metres from the space in which the children were playing, covering a 180-degree angle. the teacher was slightly removed from the play space, “focused’ on observing what was happening and filling out an ad hoc observation grid. prior to the beginning of the study, caregivers of all participating children were informed of the study purposes, and consent forms (to take part in the study and to use data for scientific dissemination purposes) were collected. only children whose caregivers gave written consent to participate were included in the study. participants sensitive data, including signed consent forms, were anonymised, encrypted and safely stored. for analytic purposes, each child has been assigned with an id and a fictional name. procedure each group was observed individually once a week, for a total of 4 weeks observation for each group. prior to the beginning of each observation session, children of the same group were picked up from the classroom by one teacher and accompanied to the room/setting selected for the video-observation during that week. groups alternated within weeks and rooms, so that each group was observed in each room/setting at least once. as they were brought into the selected play setting, children were allowed to play freely without any adult intervention, for about 15–20 minutes. then, they were taken back to their classroom. data analyses our data corpus consisted of 12 filmed data sessions, four for each group, for a total of 02:25:49 hrs videos. following a preliminary observation phase, we chose to focus our analyses on how children use local resources (both behavioural as well as materials) to co-construct sequences of pretend play. co-constructed sequences were identified as displays of individual behaviours coordinated into turn-shaped sequen­ ces, where children 1) initiated a new, shared play activity where each child employs an object and/or proposes a new course of action; or 2) complemented or joins in another child’s ongoing action, thereby creating a new interactional event. qualitative analyses were carried out by using elan (version 6.5; the language archive, 2023). individual behaviours, as movements, gazes, postures and actions as they are continuously produced in spontaneous play interac­ tions were treated as visible displays of orientation and participation (goffman, 1988), and coded for each child in each data session. for the purposes of the study, behavioural data on frequency and durations in the “young” groups (a+b; age-matched) were combined into one single age group named “young”. after micro-analysing children’s individual fantasia, moncalli, & bello 119 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviour, we shifted our focus on macro-descriptions of sequences of pretend play, involving the co-presence of two or more children, in regard to specific interactional aspects (defined below as analytical and interpretative categories). macro-descriptions focused on how children co-constructed locally-crafted and situated sequences of play, by incorpo­ rating other’s moves and actions. four analytical and interpretative categories were used to identify and describe children’s behaviours in social play sequences. categories were adapted after the work by monaco and pontecorvo (2010), resulting as it follows: 1. co-construction of the play activity: how behaviours and material resources are coordinated and shared to construct multiparty play sequences. 2. participants’ spatial positioning: toddlers’ spatial and bodily orientation while interacting. 3. participatory role(s): conceiving participation as a dynamical process, we looked at the displays of interactional engagement and changes in children’s participation over time. according to the specific interactional situation, children can flexibly move from one participatory role to another, e.g., from active forms of participation to more peripheral ones within the same play sequence. 4. sequential organisation of co-constructed play episodes: how participants manage turn-taking and alternation. a turn is intended here as a single action displayed towards a clear end-goal. in the next section we present results on macro-descriptions of play sequences according to the categories/interactional aspects outlined above. for each analytical and interpretative category (see above), we also included micro-analytical descriptions of selected play sequences depicting relevant aspects of each category. although our study has no develop­ mental comparative purposes, we report our findings separately for the two age groups observed. results the shape of pretend play episodes at the kindergarten in order to investigate the co-construction of social play sequences, selected episodes of joint play sequences were analysed in their sequential unfolding, from the timeframe marking the end of each child’s individual activity to the moment in which the joint activity was concluded. overall, sequences built over multiple interactional turns allowed for increasingly longer and richer play exchanges, as each new turn created a new interactional affordance and the possibility for a new object to be incorporated in the ongoing play scenario. for example, a sequence that began around a table, with one child putting food on a plate, was shortly followed by the participation of two more children who added further play items. in line with children’s age-matched competences, children’s play was mostly functional in all. that is, available play items and facilities were employed for their pretend function, and no imaginary or creative scenario was verbally created around the toy(s) in use. dolls were used to practice nappy changing, but not for displaying hugging, caressing, or any affective engagement. this was not surprising, especially since children’s communicative capacities were largely limited, and mostly based on non-verbal resources, such as reciprocal bodily orientation while using the same item(s), and gaze alternation between actions, items and co-participant(s). in both age groups children displayed a very limited range of gestures (mostly deictic). along the same line, an additional interesting aspect emerged: children’s play efforts were mostly oriented towards exploiting the functional quality of objects used rather than enacting their symbolic play potential. that is: they engaged attentively and for the longest time on preparing a pretend meal, but they would not go on eating what they had just prepared. preparing meals, choosing among different toy foods to put inside and setting the table constituted the core of the play activity. once these action sequences were concluded, the children did not pretend to eat lunch together, as one might have expected, but moved on to do something else. social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten 120 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ co-construction of the play activity: how behaviours and material resources are coordinated and shared children spent most of their playing time by themselves, occupied with objects available in the play area. they often stood close to each other, playing on their own but sharing their peripheral space and play facilities (e.g., a toy kitchen; a wide round table; a deep and high closet with dressing-up clothes to hide within). very often, sharing spaces accidentally resulted in crossing each other’s ongoing activity, creating opportunities for children to engage in episodes of co-constructed play sequences, wherein they complemented/supported the other’s action in progress. in the small group the co-constructed play sequences observed are less frequent and shorter than those displayed by older children. although individual play was the predominant modality in both groups, older children engaged in negotiations about how and when to use resources (objects, spaces, and different furniture present in each room) through the combination of multimodal resources such as gaze, posture and position. participatory opportunities were afforded by the co-presence of other children standing and playing nearby: by observing and/or imitating others’ play practices; by using objects in new, unexplored ways; by initiating new dyadic play sequences and experiencing new ways of participating in participation frameworks, e.g., by negotiating objects or spaces to play. object use varied and changed as children engaged in different participatory configurations and action initiatives, shaping the interactional unfolding. in the example below, emily (e) and alfie (a; both 19-months old) are engaged in a long, uninterrupted episode of play in the kitchenette (approximate duration 4:45 minutes). each of them is focused on pretend cooking in a different part of the play setting (figure 2a). about halfway through the ongoing play, e gets closer to a to observe his playing activity (figure 2b), but she does not intervene or take any initiative. before returning to play, e fetches a new object from the basket (figure 2c) and then shifts her gaze from a’s action to his face (figure 2d), as to monitor his reaction. a does not reciprocate the gaze, continuing with his own activity. then e sets her pretend cooking next to a, playing in parallel. during the entire play episode there is no display of reciprocal gaze among the two children, as they do not look at each other simultaneously. figure 2 emily and alfie playing at the kitchenette participants’ spatial positioning toddlers’ use of space and bodily orientation while interacting varied across ages. while individual play interactions with objects remained a preferred modality, play spaces became increasingly more shared as children tended to move fluidly across the play settings, often following the other’s movements and positions. in the group of older children, although the most common play mode was solitary play with objects, spatial configurations seemed organised towards seeking co-presence: as a child moved from one play area to another within the room, another child (or more than one) gradually followed him/her. as a result, spatial positioning around the kitchenette, the dining table, or the nursery changing facility was not static but dynamically re-arranged as children moved across the room to engage in new individual and shared play activities. fluid spatial positioning afforded an array of participatory configurations (kendon, 1973) ranging from children engaged in prolonged solitary play in parallel to others’ activities, to standing on the side observing others’ play. fantasia, moncalli, & bello 121 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sharing spaces enabled children’s observation of, or “unplanned” engagement with others’ play activities, which progressively led the way towards play activities involving new participatory frameworks. pretence cooking actions at the kitchenette, for instance, became progressively more coordinated: children did not simply cross over each other’s action around the stove or with the toy food; they progressively placed and merged bits of individual actions into others’ individual action sequences. towards the end of the third session, for example, lea (l) and giovanna (g) engaged in a brief sequence of coordinated actions: as l engaged in a long sequence of putting toy vegetables into a saucepan on the stove, g moved closer to l. she remained still, observing l’s movements, for almost 4s. then, very quickly g fetched a tomato from the shelf and placed it into l’s saucepan. as l continued to add more vegetable and stir the saucepan, g then got hold of a stirring stick and started stirring vegetables in the pan, clashing her stick with that of l. the joint stirring sequence went on for almost one minute. below (figure 3) another example of how children moved across the room(s) changing their spatial positioning (and therefore, activities) with some reference to the others’ position is presented. as they enter the room, all children (young group) start playing in the nursery/care area of the room (figure 3a). after approximately 10 minutes, edo (l, yellow t-shirt) moves towards the opposite side of the room, in the dressing-up area, followed by lea (l, with white trousers; figure 3b). a few minutes later, giovanna (g, black trousers) moves in the area as well to go and hide in the closet (figure 3c), followed by l, who was initially playing trying shoes opposite to g (they were not oriented towards each other). l interrupts her ongoing shoe-trying activity to go and sit next to g in the closet (figure 3d). figure 3 children’s spatial positioning varied according to the others’ position in the room participatory role(s) positions and roles were activity-related. when children stood close to each other to play with the same toy, or when they contributed to the same activity by placing bids of actions in sequence, they flexibly moved from one participatory role to another, e.g., from active forms of participation to more peripheral ones, even within the same play sequence. most of the children engaged in co-constructed sequences by taking different roles, such as “initiators”, or “bystanders”. in the young groups, two children often acted as joint actions-propulsors, as they initiated new action sequences by offering toys to another participant, or by joining in ongoing play interactions. in the episode below, one child offers toy cutlery to another child twice, resulting in an extended sequence of co-constructed pretend cooking (figure 4). in this episode, lorenzo (l, white t-shirt), matilde (m, pink t-shirt) and francesco (f, red t-shirt) are playing at the table in the kitchenette area, each playing on their own. m is playing with cloths and arranging toy cutlery, l holds a few items of toy cutlery and francesco is pretending to cook and eat a tomato in a small plate. at the beginning of the episode l, who was holding some toy cutlery (two forks and a knife), moves forward towards m, outstretching his arms to offer her the toy knife (figure 4a). m, who is sitting next to him playing with kitchen cloths (figure 4a), turns towards lorenzo and grabs the objects. then as l puts two toy forks on the table, he starts pushing them towards m (figure 4b). when she tries to grab the forks, l quickly takes the objects back while monitoring the ongoing activity at the table (figure 4c). a few seconds later, he orients his body towards m and glances shortly at her face– the first time since the beginning of the episode, as to check on her reaction (figure 4d). m does not look at l but continues setting cutlery on the cloth. about ten seconds later all three children leave the table. social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten 122 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 lorenzo intermittently moves in and off the ongoing activity by matilde, including positioning plastic cutleries on cloths as to pretending setting the table as they entered the selected playing areas, some children (particularly in the young groups) raced to get as many objects as they could, while others remained still, waiting until the ground was clearer or taking an observational stance before starting playing. this shaped the type and frequency of opportunities for participating in social activities: having more objects enabled children to construct more varied play activities and invited more opportunities to engage in shared play. older children displayed an early ability to manage participatory frameworks by selecting objects and moving within spaces in a way that facilitated or restricted others’ activity. objects were recurrently moved in positions that only some children had access to but not others: dolls, a particularly popular play object among children, were often hidden behind the baby cot or the table so that no one could play with them except the ‘hider’. children in the young group often recruited co-players to initiate a new play sequence: they offered objects, e.g., by pushing toys towards another child while seated around the table, then waited a few seconds to see how the other responded. or by getting closer and making preliminary attempts to join in the ongoing activity of another child, by, e.g., gently touching the toy in her hands. sequential organisation of co-constructed play episodes we focused on how children managed and supported turn-taking when a new action sequence was established. children’s interactional sequences appeared as organised into several small-steps of actions resulting in longer macrosequences, e.g., playing with putting the doll to sleep in the cot, putting on its pyjamas, laying it down in the cot and pulling the blankets over it. in both age-matched groups, children predominantly employed non-verbal resources for initiating, coordinating or closing an interactional sequence, with greater use of embodied markers of co-orientation towards the ongoing activity, such as seeking spatially orienting of the body in a face-to-face position, or leaning forward on the table as they sought to share objects with a distant partner, sitting at the opposite side of the table. children made a limited use of gaze behaviours to manage the interaction, e.g., as an attention-getting device. gaze patterns, such as alternating gaze from object to person, or modulation of length and frequency of gazes in social exchanges, were mostly deployed by 22–28 months old children when engaged in interactional sequences involving the joint coordination of objects. younger children directed their gaze behaviour mostly towards their co-interactants’ ongoing activity (e.g., their hands or any object therein). when another child joined in with a new action, pauses between each turn became longer, resulting in longer sequences of co-constructed play. for example, once the doll was placed into the cot by one child, another child (who was standing close by, observing) holding a cloth waited for the doll to be positioned and then placed the cloth over fantasia, moncalli, & bello 123 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the doll. this type of sequential co-construction also afforded longer pauses between one turn and the other. pauses and action turns were rarely managed by children through vocal resources (it only occurred once, w), but mostly through gaze patterns to reciprocally monitor the other’s engagement in the ongoing activity and situated actions. when one participant responded with a specific kind of action, “some analysis, understanding or appreciation of the prior turn will be displayed in the recipient’s next turn of talk” (heritage & atkinson, 1984, p. 255). co-interactants often waited for the other's action to be almost completed before placing a new action, resulting in longer play episodes and engagements. on the contrary, in the youngest group children engage in shorter episodes constructed over quick turn alternation and brief pauses. the episodes described below present two extracts from a long nappy-changing sequence shared among three children. in the first extract (figure 5) giovanna, lea and edo are playing at the changing facility in the nursery area. l (face not visible) is engaged in cleaning and changing a doll with a doll at the left side of the table, e is doing the same at the opposite side and g is oriented towards l’s activity. while l is playing with the doll, g begins touching the doll’s feet (figure 5a). a few second later l turns slightly to the right to place the soap bottle on the table (figure 5b), orienting her attention away from the doll. as this happens, g first looks at the doll and then quickly fetches l’s doll (00:12.08). l does not immediately acknowledge this move by g, maintaining her gaze and posture oriented towards positioning the soap on the table (figure 5b). as g holds the doll, her gaze moves first towards l’s ongoing action (00:12.56), and then briefly towards l’s face (figure 5c), as to monitor her reaction. l then looks towards g, and slowly moves away from the table holding the cloth. figure 5 co-construction of the play sequence, part 1: giovanna takes the doll away from lea as she shifts her attention from the doll to the soap bottle in the following sequence (figure 6), l is moving to play with the cloth on the floor, g is playing with the doll on the table while e is preparing to change his doll (figure 6a). as l slowly moves away from the table, e simultaneously also moves away from the table holding a nappy, while oriented towards the camera (figure 6a). l is now standing next to the table, laying the cloth on the floor to rest another doll on it (figure 6b). e moves toward the table and as he directs his head toward g, he places the diaper he was holding on the table, in the position previously occupied by l (figure 6c). g looks at him, and as e quickly moves back to the initial position, on the right side of the table, g takes the nappy to use it on her doll (figure 6d). social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten 124 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 6 co-construction of the play sequence, part 2: when the space in the changing table clears, edo lays down a diaper next to giovanna discussion by looking at spontaneous interactions between children from 19 to 28 months at kindergarten, the current study focused on how participants initiated, constructed and maintained a shared orientation towards play activities with pretend toys. although explorative, our results seem in line with previous reports suggesting an early onset of social pretend play (hutt et al., 2022; luo et al., 2022), developing over a continuum from being predominately an individual activity to progressively becoming a co-constructed endeavour. in particular, play instances similar to what howes and matheson (1992) defined ‘parallel social’ and ‘complementary and reciprocal’ were displayed already at 19 months by children in our data corpus, and emerging ‘cooperative” social pretend play instances appeared around 24 months. however, our micro-analytical observations shed further light on the sequential construction of such play instances, placing particular emphasis on the following aspects: 1. co-constructed sequences appeared organised by a turn-alternation structure. 2. turn-alternation developed through different time spans. for instance, one child’s move promptly followed a move from another child (often including partial overlapping) when inter-actions included toy foods or kitchen facilities/ tools. longer pauses in between one move and the following one appeared in nursery/doll caring interactions, e.g., when two children engaged in a nappy-changing sequence. 3. children used embodied and material resources afforded by the sequential organisation of actions to engage in and manage social play episodes. 4. children’s play possibilities seemed to be shaped by the participatory frameworks dynamically emerging as they moved in the play settings, mostly seeking to be spatially proximal with other children. these findings have two major implications for a developmentallyinformed understanding of how young social actors organise their participation within specifically negotiated and co-constructed frameworks. first, in a developmental phase (before the second year) in which children’s affective, social and cognitive capacities and attitudes are mostly self-oriented, our results show that there is an emerging sense of ‘the other’ as an interactional presence opening up new possibilities for actions. peer play can therefore appear as an early socialisation practice, enabling children with emerging communicative capacities to experience how to manage their own and others’ behaviours, how to negotiate meanings and actions in the locally assembled and occasioned contexts of inter-acting. as such, the motivation and capacity to engage in playful interactions may be stemming out of early intersubjective experiences and embodied experience rather than resting on purely cognitively-driven achievements (fantasia & nomikou, 2022). social play offers complex participatory configurations that young children learn to manage and navigate with increasing expertise as fantasia, moncalli, & bello 125 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 116–128 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ they develop. further investigation into this may support our understanding of how action formation and the specific organisation of sequential environments shape participation capacities in developmentally-sensitive phases. second, in our data even younger participants seemed able to engage in interactive exchanges constructed over turn alternations and coordination. because actions were so tied to the afforded function(s) of objects and room facilities, the complexity of inter-actions was also shaped by the type of different objects available and to the other participants’ actions with them. for example, the toy kitchen and its accessories (small plates, saucepans or pasta box) were used for cooking or storing/serving food; biscuits or a bread loaf were often eaten at the large round table as breakfast or lunch. this seems to suggest that pretend daily-life objects familiar to the majority of western children, e.g., plastic knives, soap bottles or washing cloths may provide a “scaffolding” function for extended object-focused interactions since very early on. and beyond their pretence quality, these interactive sequences may sustain children’s emergent ability to engage in triadic play, socialising them to the dialogic structure of human conversation. to conclude, this study’s contribution to the field lies in reporting spontaneous examples of sequential co-construc­ tion of play actions in a developmental phase that is rarely considered by studies on pretence, bringing further evidence to (the very limited) literature on early social play interactions with pretend objects. on a more general note, while experimental and lab-based studies on play have made significant contributions to the field, studying the development of spontaneous play engagements as they occur in the ecology of children’s life remains a challenging yet crucial task. shifting our scientific focus from lab-based, present-or-absent play skills to process models of interactions may support a dialogical view of joint actions as co-constructed: daily interactions at home or at the kindergarten offer routines organised around formal structures, which help infants learn to become competent participants in social interactions (fantasia & delafield-butt, 2023). funding: vf was supported by the wallenberg ai, autonomous systems and software program – humanity and society (wasp-hs) project “social interactions with autonomous systems”. acknowledgments: the authors are grateful to the families, children, and teachers of the parmainfanzia nursery “aladino’ who participated in the study. they also thank the department of education (dipartimento di scienze della formazione), university of roma tre, for supporting the work by fm (university fund for departmental research, referent arianna bello, academic year 2022-2023). competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references bateson, g. 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(2022). observing the developmental progression of pretend play across the preschool years. journal of cognition and development, 23(4), 482–502. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2058508 about the authors dr. valentina fantasia is a wasp-hs assistant professor at the department of philosophy and cognitive science, lund university. she obtained her ph.d. in developmental psychology at the university of portsmouth (uk). in her research, she applies situated and embodied methods to study the development of human social cognition and the building up of intersubjectivity in infancy. prof. arianna bello is associate professor at the department of education, roma tre university. her research focuses on typical and atypical language development and learning. she is also interested in gesture development in l2 contexts. she collaborates with language development professionals, clinicians and international researchers. francesca moncalli graduated in neuroscience and neuropsychological rehabilitation at the university of bologna. she collaborates as a research assistant at roma tre university and she is currently under training to become a psychologist. social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten 128 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01656 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900002063 https://doi.org/10.2307/1128725 https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2011.608199 https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.24054 https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2058508 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ social pretend play sequences at the kindergarten (introduction) pretend play interactions as meaning-making practices social interactions at the kindergarten method participants setting procedure data analyses results the shape of pretend play episodes at the kindergarten co-construction of the play activity: how behaviours and material resources are coordinated and shared participants’ spatial positioning participatory role(s) sequential organisation of co-constructed play episodes discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors metamemory and memory discrepancies in directed forgetting of emotional information research reports metamemory and memory discrepancies in directed forgetting of emotional information dicle çapan a, simay ikier b [a] department of psychology, koç university, istanbul, turkey. [b] department of psychology, bahçeşehir university, istanbul, turkey. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 44–52, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 received: 2019-12-17 • accepted: 2020-04-23 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, pontypridd, united kingdom corresponding author: dicle çapan, koç university, rumelifeneri mahallesi, sarıyer rumeli feneri yolu, 34450 sarıyer istanbul, turkey. e-mail: dcapan17@ku.edu.tr abstract directed forgetting (df) studies show that it is possible to exert cognitive control to intentionally forget information. the aim of the present study was to investigate how aware individuals are of the control they have over what they remember and forget when the information is emotional. participants were presented with positive, negative and neutral photographs, and each photograph was followed by either a remember or a forget instruction. then, for each photograph, participants provided judgments of learning (jols) by indicating their likelihood of recognizing that item on a subsequent test. in the recognition phase, participants were asked to indicate all old items, irrespective of instruction. remember items had higher jols than forget items for all item types, indicating that participants believe they can intentionally forget even emotional information—which is not the case based on the actual recognition results. df effect, which was calculated by subtracting recognition for forget items from remember ones was only significant for neutral items. emotional information disrupted cognitive control, eliminating the df effect. response times for jols showed that evaluation of emotional information, especially negatively emotional information takes longer, and thus is more difficult. for both remember and forget items, jols reflected sensitivity to emotionality of the items, with emotional items receiving higher jols than the neutral ones. actual recognition confirmed better recognition for only negative items but not for positive ones. jols also reflected underestimation of actual recognition performance. discrepancies in metacognitive judgments due to emotional valence as well as the reasons for underestimation are discussed. keywords memory, directed forgetting, metamemory, judgment of learning, emotion while individuals can form hypotheses and inferences about their outer environment, they can also do these about their own mental processes (koriat, 1997; undorf, söllner, & bröder, 2018). they can monitor, regulate, and control their mental processes, and they can provide predictions about their mental abilities in the form of metacognitive judgments (koriat & helstrup, 2007; undorf et al., 2018). one type of judgment that they can provide is judgment of learning (jol) which is a prediction about the future likelihood of retrieval for recently learned information (hourihan & bursey, 2017; for a review, see rhodes, 2016). recent research showed that emotional valence of the information to be remembered can affect jols, with higher jols given to emotional than to neutral information (undorf et al., 2018). emotional intensity also increases jols (hourihan, fraundorf, & benjamin, 2017). these findings indicate that individuals believe emotional aspects of the information will increase their likelihood of remembering that information. in fact, this judgment is found to be correct in studies using emotional materials. memory is enhanced for both of this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2567&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ positive and negative information (e.g., hess, popham, dennis, & emery, 2013) or at least for negative information (e.g., humphreys, underwood, & chapman, 2010). while metacognitive judgments are sometimes accurate predictions of memory performance (e.g., zimmerman & kelley, 2010), there are also findings showing discrepancies between jols and actual memory (for a review, see bjork, dunlosky, & kornell, 2013). nomi, rhodes, and clearly (2013) found that face photographs with negative and positive emotional expressions received higher jols than the ones with neutral expressions. this was not reflected in actual recognition, in which neutral items were remembered better. while jols may be provided on the basis of cues such as repetitions, instructions, and the context of encoding for the information and reflect conscious, theory-based reasoning (hourihan et al., 2017), they may also be based on other cues such as subjective feelings about how well a stimulus has been learned. these internal cues are less consciously detectible (e.g., serra & metcalfe, 2009). emotionality of the information may become a salient cue and the content may arise a feeling of fluency (koriat, 1997). in the study by hourihan and bursey (2017), jols for positive and neutral photographs were compared and the results showed that while positive photographs were given higher jols than the neutral photographs, there was no benefit of emotional content on actual recognition. they explained this result by arguing that emotional and neutral content arise different physiological responses, and positive feelings experienced due to viewing positive photographs result in misjudgments of higher recognition. thus, especially in the case of emotional items, reliance on feelings rather than conscious reasoning in judgments may decrease accuracy. while previous studies focused on beliefs about how well emotional information can be remembered, to our knowledge, there is no prior study investigating beliefs about how well emotional information can be forgotten. in fact, even studies investigating metacognitive judgments about forgetting neutral information are limited in number (sahakyan & foster, 2016). forgetting is also an integral part of memory and despite its negative connotation; it is functional and desirable to some extent. evidence indicates that individuals can actually forget information intentionally (hauswald & kissler, 2008). intentional forgetting can increase the efficiency of memory, by preventing unnecessary information from interfering with currently relevant information (e.g., hauswald & kissler, 2008; ullsperger, mecklinger, & müller, 2000). the aim of the present stud was to investigate individuals’ ability to predict their own intentional forgetting when the information is emotional. intentional forgetting is commonly studied by using a directed forgetting (df) paradigm. in commonly used df paradigms, participants are asked to remember some items that are presented and to forget the others. memory for all items is tested at retrieval. these paradigms reveal a df effect; with better memory for remember than forget items (e.g., basden, 1996; basden, basden, & gargano, 1993). previous emotional df studies generally showed that negatively emotional information is more difficult to intention­ ally forget. tay and yang (2017) investigated df of emotional faces and found that angry faces were more resistant to forgetting than positive ones. in a study by payne and corrigan (2007), pleasant, unpleasant and neutral pictures were used, and df was observed for neutral pictures but not for emotional ones. otani et al. (2012) showed df of neutral and positive pictures, but not of negative ones. these findings supported the hypothesis that there is stronger memory for negative materials (kensinger & corkin, 2004). while the fact that individuals can intentionally forget indicates that cognitive control can be exerted over the con­ tents of the mind (sahakyan & foster, 2016), the studies outlined above show that the emotionality of the information could disrupt control. one question that remains is whether individuals are aware of their ability to intentionally forget and of the disruptions in this ability due to the emotionality of the items. friedman and castel (2011) investigated jols for df by using emotionally neutral items. they presented participants with words and asked them to provide jols for each word, by indicating the likelihood that they would remember that word in a follow-up test, using a scale from 0 to 100%. the results showed that individuals gave higher recall prediction for remember items than forget ones, indicating a metacognitive awareness of their ability to follow instructions, and to control what they will remember and forget, despite a general overconfidence in their predictions. the present study aimed to investigate jols for emotional information in a df paradigm. questions of interest were whether remember versus forget instructions and emotional valence affect jols. to this end, each photograph in the df paradigm either had a positive, negative or neutral valence, and each item was followed by either a remember or a forget instruction. higher jols were hypothesized for remember than forget items. despite the absence of studies çapan & ikier 45 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 44–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ investigating jols for emotional items to-be-forgotten, based on the literature showing higher jols for emotional items to-be-remembered, it was hypothesized that also for to-be-forgotten information, emotional items would have higher jols than neutral ones. with regards to emotional df, a reduced df effect for emotional items was expected. jols were compared to actual recognition for remember versus forget items of different valence. the pilot study method participants a pilot study was conducted with 20 participants (10 females and 10 males), with an average age of m = 21.92, prior to the present study to select photographs. participants in the pilot study were at least high school graduates. materials and procedure the study was approved by yeditepe university’s humanities and social research ethics review board. informed consent was obtained from all participants. for the pilot study, 237 photographs (87 positive, 77 negative and 73 neutral) were selected from the international affective picture system (iaps; lang, bradley, & cuthbert, 1999) by excluding the ones that are culture-specific (e.g., church) or extremely negatively emotional (e.g., dead bodies). participants provided valence and arousal ratings for all photographs on 7-point scales with higher points corresponding to higher positivity and higher arousal. participants were debriefed. results alpha level was taken as .05. bonferroni corrections were applied in the pairwise comparisons and greenhouse-geisser corrections were applied when mauchly’s test indicated that sphericity was violated. for the present study, 180 target photographs (60 negative, 60 positive and 60 neutral) were selected. two neutral items were also selected to serve as buffers. the selected photographs differed in valence, f(1,71) = 11917.22, p < .001, ηp2 = .995, with higher positivity ratings for positive (m = 5.45, se = 0.05) than negative (m = 2.04, se = 0.95), p < .01, and neutral (m = 3.93, se = 0.03), p < .01, and for neutral than negative (m = 2.04, se = 0.05) photographs, p < .01. photographs also differed in arousal, f(2, 107) = 233.462, p < .01, ηp2 = .80. specifically, negative (m = 5.05, se = 0.04) and neutral photographs (m = 3.72, se = 0.04), p < .01, and positive (m = 4.91, se = 0.06) and neutral photographs, p < .01 had different arousal ratings. negative and positive photographs did not differ in arousal, p = .16. the present study method participants sixty participants (30 females and 30 males, mage = 22.62, se = 0.28) who did not participate in the pilot study participated in the present study. participants were at least high school graduates with an average education of m = 14.85 years, se = 1.36. they reported no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. materials and procedure the study was approved by yeditepe university’s humanities and social research ethics review board. informed consent was obtained from all participants. participants were tested individually in the laboratory. first, they completed the positive negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988, standardized into turkish by gençöz, 2000) as a measure of their positive and negative mood. all visual stimuli (image size 650 × 650 pixels) were displayed using visual studio 2015 (c#) on a macbook pro with a 13-inch monitor that was about 50 cm away from the partici­ pant. in the study phase, participants were presented with 120 of the critical photographs (40 positive, 40 negative, 40 metamemory and memory in emotional directed forgetting 46 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 44–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ neutral). critical photographs were each presented for 2,500 ms, in random order. half of the photographs were followed by a remember instruction, and the other half by a forget instruction, by providing the initial letters of the words remember and forget, four times after each item, similar to other studies (e.g., otani et al., 2012). remember and forget instructions were presented for 2,000 ms, in black arial 48-point font, with uppercase letters on a white background. photographs were counterbalanced across participants such that a photograph with a particular valence occurred as a remember versus a forget item an equal number of times across participants. participants were asked to remember only the remember photographs for a recognition test, and to try to forget the forget photographs. following each remember/forget instruction, participants provided jols for each item. they indicated their like­ lihood of recognizing that photograph on a follow-up memory test as a percentage, on a scale ranging from 0 to 100%. participants were told that 0% indicates that they definitely would not recognize the photograph, whereas 100% indicates that they would definitely recognize it, and that they can provide the values in between to indicate their likelihood of recognition accordingly. each jol rating was followed by a blank screen that appeared for 1,500 ms, and then the next trial followed. trials were divided into three blocks, consisting of 40 trials each. after each block, a seven second break was given in which participants could relax. there was a neutral buffer at the beginning of the first block, and another one at the end of the last block. the study session was followed by a filled interval in which participants were engaged in a non-verbal task for approximately 3 minutes on the computer (i.e., tower of hanoi problem). subsequently, the recognition phase for all items followed. in the recognition phase, all critical photographs from the study phase, plus 60 new photographs were presented for 1,500 ms each, in random order. participants made a forced-choice old-new decision for each photograph, by pressing a button on the screen by using the mouse, as quickly as possible. all participants were debriefed. results for all statistical analyses, alpha level was taken as .05. in all repeated measures analyses of variance, bonferroni cor­ rections were applied in the pairwise comparisons and greenhouse-geisser corrections were applied when mauchly’s test indicated that sphericity was violated. means and response times for jols are presented in table 1, separately for each item type. jols for remember items were higher than forget items, for all item types, for positive items, t(59) = 8.71, p < .001, d = 0.65, for negative items, t(59) = 5.65, p < .001, d = 0.54, and for neutral items, t(59) = 7.00, p < .001, d = 0.55. response times (rts) were longer for forget items than remember items, for negative, t(59) = 2.59, p < .05, d = 0.21, and for positive t(59) = 2.08, p < .05, d = 0.21 items, but not for neutral ones, t(59) = 1.80, p = .08. table 1 mean jol ratings (%) and mean rts (ms) for jols item instruction item valence positive negative neutral m se rts se m se rts se m se rts se remember 56.64 2.51 2.654 139 61.59 2.47 2.776 149 43.68 2.63 2.530 126 forget 44.51 2.34 2.910 170 51.35 2.41 2.945 143 33.27 2.25 2.666 142 note. n = 60. jol = judgments of learning; rts = response times. means for recognition of the old items and false alarms (fas) for new items are presented in table 2, separately for each item type. first, a df effect was calculated by subtracting recognition for forget items from remember items. df effect was 1.17 % for positive (se = 1.11), 0.83% for negative (se = 0.98) and 2.42 % for neutral (se = 1.08) items. single sample t-test showed that the effect was significant for only neutral items, t(59) = 2.24, p < .05, d = 0.29. the other effects were statistically equal to zero, ps > .30. çapan & ikier 47 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 44–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mean recognition for targets and false alarms (fas) for new items (%) item type item valence positive negative neutral m se m se m se remember 88.92 1.15 93.00 1.02 91.50 1.37 forget 87.75 1.38 92.17 1.00 89.08 1.53 fas 2.17 0.54 5.75 0.93 2.58 0.44 note. n = 60. jols for remember items were different for the three item types, f(2, 97) = 49.43, p < .001, ηp2 = .46. pairwise comparisons showed that jols for negative items were higher than positive, p < .01, and neutral p < .001 items. jols for positive items were also higher than neutral ones, p < .001. higher jols for emotional items were not reflected in actual recog­ nition of remember items. although recognition of remember items differed for the three item types, f(2, 110) = 5.39, p < .01, ηp2 = .08, pairwise comparisons showed that the difference was only significant between negative and positive items, with higher recognition of negative ones, p < .01. the other comparisons were non-significant, ps > .22. rts for providing the jols were different for the item types, f(2, 118) = 4.79, p < .05, ηp2 = .08. it took longer for participants to provide jols only for negative items than neutral ones, p < .05. the other comparisons were non-significant, ps > .24. jols for forget items were also different for the three item types, f(2, 101) = 72.08, p < .001, ηp2 = .55. jols for each item type differed from the jols for the other two item types, ps < .001, with highest jols for negative items, followed by positive ones. actual recognition of forget items resembled the remember items: despite the overall difference, f(2, 118) = 6.02, p < .01, ηp2 = .09, pairwise comparisons showed a significant difference between only negative and positive items, p < .01. the other comparisons were non-significant, ps > .08. overall rts for jols for forget items were different for the three item types, f(2, 106) = 7.70, p < .001, ηp2 = .11. pairwise comparisons showed that emotionality of the items made participants respond slower, with significant differences between positive and neutral, p < .05, and negative and neutral, p < .001 items, but not between positive and negative ones, p > .05. overall rts for jols for forget items were different for the three item types, f(2, 58) = 9.82, p < .001. pairwise comparisons showed that emotionality of the items made participants respond slower, with significant differences between positive and neutral, p < .05, and negative and neutral, p < .001 items, but not between positive and negative ones, p > .05. for all item types, jols were significantly lower than actual recognition, all ps < .05. it should be noted that fas differed for item types as well, f(2, 97) = 13.90, p < .001, ηp2 = .19. specifically, fas for new negative items were higher than both new positive, p < .001 and new neutral items, p < .01. fas for positive and neutral items did not differ, p = 1.00. thus, despite a recognition advantage, negative items also lead to higher fas. panas ratings revealed average positive affect m = 35.65, se = 1.12, and rather low negative affect, m = 22.88, se = 1.06. panas positive scores showed significant positive correlations with the recognition of positive remember, r = .37, n = 60, p < .01 and positive forget photographs, r = .29, n = 60, p < .05. jol ratings or jol rts for positive items did not correlate with panas positive scores, all ps > .06. panas negative scores showed significant positive correlations with the recognition of negative remember, r = −.42, n = 60, p < .01 and negative forget photographs, r = −29, n = 60, p < .05. jol ratings or jol rts for negative items did not correlate with panas negative scores, all ps > .18. discussion in the present study, higher jols were hypothesized for remember than forget items. this was confirmed by the results showing higher jols for positive, negative, and neutral remember items than corresponding forget ones. this finding is consistent with findings indicating sensitivity to df instructions in jols (friedman & castel, 2011) and additionally shows that participants believe they can intentionally forget emotional information as well. in contrast to participants’ metamemory and memory in emotional directed forgetting 48 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 44–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ beliefs, df effect was only found for neutral items, showing that the participants’ predictions were actually inaccurate with regards to how well they can forget emotional information. bailey and chapman (2012) showed that emotional information, especially negatively emotional information can disrupt cognitive control, leading to reduced df effects. similarly, in the present study, the df effect was only found for neutral items, and not for emotional ones. df effect in item-method paradigms in which each item is followed by an instruction like in the present study is usually attributed to encoding differences between remember and forget items (anderson & neely, 1996; lehman & bovasso, 1993; macleod, 1999). according to this selective-rehearsal account, remember items are rehearsed more elaborately than forget items since presenting each item with a corresponding instruction creates a set differentiation. the item is kept in working memory until the instruction appears, and while a remember instruction results in further processing, a forget instruction results in the termination of processing for that item (basden, 1996; macleod, 1999). this explanation has been recently challenged by an alternative account that emphasizes the role of inhibitory processes along with selective rehearsal. in this view forget instructions result in active inhibition of the items (hauswald, schulz, iordanov, & kissler, 2010). in the present study, emotionality of the items presumably disrupted their inhibition. there are also findings in the literature that do not support this explanation. taylor, quinlan, and vullings (2018) investigated whether negative emotion prevents intentional forgetting and found equivalent df effects for negative, positive, and neutral photographs and showed that individuals are capable of exerting control to intentionally forget, despite the emotional valence of the information. additionally, yang et al. (2012) found no difference in df effect for neutral and negative photographs. these discrepant results require finer analyses of the types of emotional materials that are used in emotion studies and the emotional states of the participants. in one of the studies that investigated the effects of mood (i.e., positive and negative) on df, bäuml and kuhbandner (2009) found that positive mood eliminated the df effect, whereas df effect was obtained in negative mood induction and neutral control conditions. in the present study, mood measures were collected for exploratory purposes and our results replicated previous studies showing that mood-congruent information is remembered better (eich & metcalfe, 1989; payne & corrigan, 2007) and is more resistant to intentional forgetting (bäuml & kuhbandner, 2009). the findings also tentatively showed that jols do not reflect mood congruency. mood was not manipulated systematically in the present study. thus, in order to reach a more definite conclusion about jols and mood, future studies should involve mood manipulations or systematic recruitment of participants with positive versus negative mood. jols for remember items replicated previous findings showing higher retrieval predictions for emotional than neutral information (hourihan & bursey, 2017; hourihan et al., 2017; undorf et al., 2018). although jols predicted better memory for negative than positive items, and better memory for positive than neutral items, actual recognition only confirmed better memory for negative item. although, to our knowledge, there are no prior studies investigating jols for emotional forget items, it was hypothesized that participants would give higher jols for emotional items despite the forget instructions. this hypothesis was confirmed. actual recognition was similar to remember items, with an advantage for only negative valence. negative items were also more difficult to discriminate from the new items in the recognition test, revealed by the fa rates and recognition bias statistics. the findings of negativity in actual recognition and heightened recognition bias for negative items are in line with studies showing enhancement of memory for negative information at the behavioral and neural level (hauswald et al., 2010; humphreys et al., 2010; yang et al., 2012). emotions influence cognitive processes by directing attention to the most relevant features of the environment (öhman, flykt, & esteves, 2001; for a review, kensinger, 2009) and by increasing arousal (humphreys et al., 2010). some studies found memory enhancement effects for both of positive and negative information than to neutral information (e.g., hess et al., 2013) and others failed to find a memory advantage for positive information (e.g., humphreys et al., 2010). humphreys et al. reported that while no difference was observed in attentional processes for positive and negative photographs, recognition and bias were higher for negative photographs than for positive and neutral ones, possibly due to heightened arousal to negative photographs. one shortcoming of the present study is that the arousal levels for the positive and the negative items were similar, making it impossible to comment on the effects of arousal on the heightened recognition of negative items. in the enriched model of metacognition (efklides, 2014), it is claimed that anything that can interrupt cognitive control, will lead to effortful processing, resulting in increased time to complete a task. in the present study, for exploratory purposes, rts for providing jols were collected. it was found that judgments were slower for forget than çapan & ikier 49 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 44–52 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2567 https://www.psychopen.eu/ remember items, when the information was emotional. participants probably had more difficulty deciding whether they can remember emotional forget items. there may be two reasons for this. first, the participants may be sensitive to the fact that the item is emotional and that the magnitude of cognitive control they have may be different from neutral items. emotionality made participants slower in their judgments for both positive and negative items, supporting this explanation. possible disruptive effects of emotional information on cognitive control can explain longer response times for jols for emotional items. another possibility is that judging how well a forget item will be remembered is somewhat contradictory to judge. judgments of forgetting instead of jols may have been easier to provide for forget items. koriat, sheffer, and ma’ayan (2002) claim that jols are usually based on comparing the characteristics of the items in a list such as the nature of different materials, but not on factors such as performance differences related to memory processes. in the present study, participants underestimated their probability of recognizing items on a subsequent test. it may be the case that they were not aware of the ease of retrieval in recognition tests, in comparison to recall tests. similarly, carroll, nelson, and kirwan (1997) found that participants were underconfident in their jols for related paired-associates due to their lack of awareness of the effects of semantic-relatedness of the items on their memory performance. other possible reasons for underestimation may be factors such as how much individuals trust their memory and their general self-confidence. future studies can systematically investigate these factors. funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank metehan irak for providing the opportunity to collect data in the brain and cognition laboratory at bahçeşehir university. references anderson, m. c., & neely, j. h. 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(2010). “i’ll remember this!” effects of emotionality on memory predictions versus memory performance. journal of memory and language, 62(3), 240-253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2009.11.004 about the authors simay ikier is currently an assistant professor at bahçeşehir university, i̇stanbul, turkey. dicle çapan is a phd student at koç university, i̇stanbul, turkey. metamemory and memory in emotional directed forgetting 52 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2011.10.042 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2009.11.004 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ metamemory and memory in emotional directed forgetting (introduction) the pilot study method results the present study method results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors work addiction among employees and self-employed workers: an investigation based on the italian version of the bergen work addiction scale research reports work addiction among employees and self-employed workers: an investigation based on the italian version of the bergen work addiction scale monica molino 1, liliya scafuri kovalchuk 2, chiara ghislieri 1, paola spagnoli 2 [1] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [2] department of psychology, university of campania “luigi vanvitelli”, caserta, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 received: 2019-12-20 • accepted: 2021-05-04 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: panagiotis gkorezis, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece corresponding author: liliya scafuri kovalchuk, department of psychology, university of campania “luigi vanvitelli”, viale ellittico, 31 – 81100 – caserta, italy. e-mail: scafuri.k.liliya@hotmail.com abstract the increasing interest in work addiction is connected to recent changes in the work culture and work habits. despite this interest, knowledge pertaining to this phenomenon and measures to assess it are still limited. this study aims to contribute by examining the psychometric features of the italian version of the bergen work addiction scale, a unidimensional scale based on the perspective of addiction. the research method consisted in two steps: in the first cross-sectional study, a convenience sample of 1,035 workers filled in a self-report questionnaire; the second step was a two-wave longitudinal study that involved a convenience sample of 292 workers. results confirmed the psychometric properties of the scale across employees and self-employed groups. moreover, results showed a significantly higher level of work addiction among self-employed workers than employees. this study provides support for the evaluation of workaholism in the italian context among different kind of professions. keywords workaholism, bergen work addiction scale, assessment, psychometrics, scale, self-employed over the past two decades, workaholism, or work addiction (the terms refer to the same construct and are used interchangeably in the literature; andreassen et al., 2018b; burke, 2000), has emerged as a prominent topic (andreassen, 2014; griffiths, 2011). technological advances and changes in ways of working allow contemporary workers to stay connected to their work at all times and to work whenever and wherever (salanova et al., 2014). as a consequence, we have observed the sliding increase of work into people’s personal life. moreover, greater industrial competition, work intensification and higher job insecurity have led people to work longer and harder than in the past. in this framework, it is important to identify those individuals who work hard not only for necessity or external requirements, but because motivated by a compulsive drive (taris et al., 2010). workaholism is considered one of the most common addictions in today's society and empirical evidence supports the presence of individuals suffering from compulsive work and its negative consequences. for instance, in norway, a nationwide representative study found that the prevalence of workaholism was 8.3% (andreassen et al., 2014); in hungary, it was estimated to be 20.6% (orosz et al., 2016); in the united states 10% (sussman et al., 2011); and in france 20.8% (ravoux et al., 2018). considering the extended literature on workaholism, its prevalence in the general population ranged between 5% and 10% (sussman et al., 2011). despite its prevalence and relevance, more confusion than consensus this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2607&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ exists about the meaning and measurement of workaholism (clark et al., 2016). thus, the need for reliable instruments capable of detecting it is increasing among researchers, clinicians and managers (quinones & griffiths, 2015). the central aim of this study was to improve our knowledge of workaholism by investigating the psychometric properties of the bergen work addiction scale (bwas; andreassen et al., 2012), which has been described as “a promising tool to advance understanding of workaholism” (quinones & griffiths, 2015, p. 53). the bwas was firstly validated in norway (andreassen et al., 2012), then translated into hungarian (orosz et al., 2016), polish (atroszko et al., 2017), and danish (lichtenstein et al., 2019). a recent review paper on work addiction called for more studies about the psychometric and cross-cultural characteristics of the bwas (andreassen, 2014) in order to facilitate its understanding across countries (orosz et al., 2016). in order to reply to this call and to provide a reliable tool to assess work addiction in the italian context, the present study aimed to validate the italian version of the bwas scale through two different studies (a cross-sectional and a longitudinal one). moreover, according to previous studies that considered the distinction between employees and self-employed workers a meaningful one (gorgievski et al., 2010), we investigated the psychometric properties of the bwas separately in the two groups of workers. among european countries, italy ranks third for the incidence of self-employment (after greece and romania) with 22.9% of the entire working population represented by self-employed workers in 2018 (istituto nazionale di statistica, 2019). thus, taking into consideration both self-employed workers and employees, it is crucial to identify specific patterns and suggest targeted interventions in the field of work addiction. in summary, the main aim of this study was to validate the italian version of the bwas, providing an efficient tool, useful for both research and practice, for the investigation of work addiction also in italy. the investigation considered self-employed people and employees separately in order to confirm that the tool can be considered with specific kind of workers and is able to capture differences among them. theoretical framework definitions of workaholism several conceptualizations of workaholism have been provided in recent years and the lack of consensus about what workaholism actually is has been pointed out as “one of the main issues hindering theoretical and empirical progress regarding the study of workaholism” (clark et al., 2016, p. 1837). recently, the need to go back to its primary definition has been suggested in order to reach a robust conceptualization of workaholism. in 1971, oates introduced the term workaholism for the first time and defined it as a “compulsion or uncontrollable need to work incessantly” (oates, 1971, p. 11). the author described a workaholic as “a person whose need for work has become so excessive that it creates noticeable disturbance or interference with his bodily health, personal happiness, interpersonal relations, and with his smooth social functioning” (p. 4). according to oates’ definition that established the compulsion to work and the conflict between work and personal life as primary components of workaholism, a perspective of pure addiction should be used to explain its nature. starting from the body of knowledge on behavioral addictions (goodman, 1990; griffiths, 2005) andreassen et al. (2012) recently defined workaholism as “being overly concerned about work, being driven by an uncontrollable work motivation, and spending so much energy and effort on work that it impairs private relationships, spare-time activities and/or health” (p. 265). a behavioral addiction is a compulsion to engage in non-drug-related activities, such as eating, gaming, gambling, shopping despite potential negative social, psychological and health related consequences (goodman, 1990). in these terms, workaholism shares some analogies with behavioral addictions, including negative consequences for the personal life (andreassen et al., 2014). previous studies have found a positive relationship between workaholism and psychophysics strain (falco et al., 2013), low sleep quality and daytime sleepiness (spagnoli et al., 2019), anxiety/in­ somnia, somatic symptoms and social dysfunction (andreassen et al., 2018b). in the literature, negative work-related consequences are also reported, such as job stress and burnout (andreassen et al., 2018a; clark et al., 2016), work-family conflict (bakker et al., 2009), counterproductive work behavior (balducci et al., 2012) and reduced job satisfaction (clark et al., 2016). nevertheless, working for many hours is considered socially acceptable and often causes recognition and gratification. thus, it can be difficult to detect and address workaholism. italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 280 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the bergen work addiction scale — despite the need to ground the etiology of workaholism measures in the addiction field, the most widely used measures of workaholism lack in the consideration of addiction’s components (quinones & griffiths, 2015). recently, schaufeli et al. (2006) developed the dutch work addiction scale (duwas; 10 items in its brief common version). in line with the authors’ conceptualization of workaholism, the duwas consisted of two dimensions: working excessively and working compulsively. the duwas shows good psychometric properties and has been largely adopted. however, the use of the ‘working excessively’ dimension has been considered a limitation in the assessment of workaholism since it is not linked to the key components of addiction (quinones & griffiths, 2015). trying to overcome the lack of measures able to detect the addictive nature of workaholism, andreassen et al. (2012) developed the bwas, a new scale based on the component model of addiction (griffiths, 2005), which provides a framework useful to understand and recognize the attributes of addiction. this model listed the following seven core components of an addiction (griffiths, 2005): • cognitive and/or behavioral salience (an individual’s thoughts and/or behaviors are influenced by the activity). • tolerance (achieving the same mental and physiological effect by engaging in the activity requires increasing amount of time). • mood modification (engaging in the activity allows to modify the mood and/or avoid dysphoria). • relapse (falling back into dysfunctional patterns after a period of reinstatement) • withdrawal (not being involved in the activity causes negative emotions and feelings). • conflict (the activity comes into conflict with personal life, needs and relationships). • health and/or other problems caused by being greatly engaged in the activity. the bwas consists of 7 items rated on a 5-point likert scale (from 1 = never to 5 = always), and each item represents one of the seven aforementioned elements of addictions (griffiths, 2005): item 1 represents salience, item 2 tolerance, item 3 mood modification, item 4 relapse, item 5 withdrawal, item 6 conflict and item 7 health problems. authors also provided instructions to classify individuals as workaholics according to their answers to the bwas items. specifically, if an individual selected 4 or 5 on the likert scale as the answer to at least 4 out of the 7 bwas’s items, he/she can be categorized as workaholic. the bwas showed rather high content validity in terms of the addiction field and an adequate factor structure, representing the first unidimensional scale for the assessment of workaholism based on the addiction perspective (andreassen et al., 2012). this has demonstrated adequate validity and reliability in several studies. for instance, the bwas has been used to investigate the association between work addiction and several psychiatric symptoms among a very large sample of more than 16,000 norwegian employees (andreassen et al., 2016b). results showed that worka­ holics reported significantly higher levels than non-workaholics of all considered psychiatric symptoms. moreover, the measure has been applied in longitudinal studies to investigate the relationship between work addiction and personality (andreassen et al., 2016a), working conditions and individual differences in sleep/wake-related variables (andreassen, et al., 2017), and study addiction (atroszko et al., 2016). moreover, in italy the bwas has been used particularly to investigate the antecedents of work addiction and its relation with job performance in the working context (molino et al., 2016; molino et al., 2019; spagnoli et al., 2020). workaholism in employees and self-employed workers many researchers have studied employees and self-employed workers as two different groups, investigating differences in their personality traits and competence (e.g. rauch & frese, 2007) as wells as in their levels of well-being and job satisfaction (prottas & thompson, 2006). so far, few studies have tried to analyze work addiction comparing these two different professional groups (gorgievski et al., 2010), and a lacking number of studies have investigated workaholism and its correlates among self-employed workers (gorgievski et al., 2014; taris et al., 2008). one of the most well-known studies in this field is the one conducted by gorgievski et al. (2010), which compared salaried and self-employed workers considering the relationship between workaholism, work engagement and job performance. authors found higher levels of both work engagement and working excessively for the self-employed compared with salaried employees, while working compulsively did not show any significant difference. moreover, working compulsively was negatively related to self-reported job performance, especially among self-employed work­ molino, kovalchuk, ghislieri, & spagnoli 281 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ers. in a following study among entrepreneurs, gorgievski et al. (2014) showed a connection between workaholism and negative affect, which, in turn, was negatively related to business growth and success. in addition, workaholism, as well as work engagement, were positively related to innovative behavior. considering consequences for individuals’ health and well-being, in a study among self-employed workers, taris et al. (2008) found that the inability to detach from work (typical component of the workaholic syndrome) predicted exhaustion and physical complaints, while working for long hours was not related to well-being. as regards the question of whether self-employed workers and employees have significantly different levels of workaholism, in the literature there is not enough evidence to support a clear answer. several authors argued that self-employed workers and entrepreneurs would report higher levels on personality characteristics predictive of workaholism, particularly achievement-related traits, such as the need for achievement, internal locus of control, perfectionism and type a personality (clark et al., 2016; ng et al., 2007). moreover, some self-employment’s features such as the high levels of workload, the tendency to work for long hours and the presence of blurred boundaries between work and personal life (snir & harpaz, 2004) could create favorable conditions to the onset of workaholism. therefore, self-employed workers and entrepreneurs seem to have a greater likelihood of developing addictive work patterns (snir & harpaz, 2004). however, to the best of our knowledge, this difference has not been investigated to date using a tool able to detach the addictive nature of workaholism. method in the present study we intended to investigate the psychometric characteristics of the italian version of the bwas and confirm its unidimensional factor structure, analyzing its test-retest reliability, concurrent (convergent and discriminant) and predictive validity. convergent validity was assessed by testing the correlation between bwas and duwas measures, in order to confirm that the italian bwas and the italian duwas (balducci et al., 2017) measure the same construct. discriminant validity was assessed through the test of correlation between the composite measures of bwas and a measure of work engagement. in the literature, a wide range of studies highlighted that workaholism and work-engagement are two similar but different constructs. particularly, work-engagement is considered the positive side of heavy work investment, while work addiction is the negative one (andreassen et al., 2018b). thus, we expected that work addiction measured through the italian version of the bwas was negatively correlated to work-engagement measured with one of the most popular instruments available in the literature (namely, the uwes; balducci et al., 2010). finally, the criterion validity was examined through predictive validity. particularly, we assessed the correlation between the composite measures of bwas and work-family conflict measured one month later. the work addiction’s ability to increase work-family conflict has already been demonstrated in the literature (e.g. bakker et al., 2009; molino et al., 2016). thus, we expected that work addiction measured through the bwas was positively related with work-family conflict over the time. the factor structure of the measure has been examined across two samples, namely employees and self-employed workers, in order to test its validity with specific groups of workers and compare their work addiction levels. participants and procedures for the investigation of the study’s aims, two different studies have been conducted. the first one was a cross-sectional study, where a large sample was involved to test the dimensional structure of the italian bwas scale and to compare employees and self-employed workers. in the second longitudinal study, the concurrent and criterion validity of the bwas and its reliability through the test-retest method were evaluated. in the first cross-sectional study, the snow-ball sampling procedure was used to identify participants. we initially involved some preferential contacts in several sectors, asking them to contact and inform other colleagues about the research. all volunteer participants were informed via email about the research purposes and methods, providing clear instructions for the compilation of the anonymous self-report on-line questionnaire. for the second longitudinal study, the convenience sample was selected by researchers on the basis of participants’ profession. data collection took place at two different times through anonymous online self-report questionnaire. firstly, participants agreed to voluntarily italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 282 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ take part in the study. they received an email with complete information about the study aims and methods, and clear instructions about the procedure. they had access to the questionnaire via a link. one month after the first administration, participants received a second email that instructed them to complete the questionnaire for the second time. in both studies, all participants were informed about the study aims, the voluntary nature of participation to the survey and the anonymity and confidential treatment of the data. the procedure was conducted in line with the italian data protection law (legislative decree no. 196/2003). by entering the survey, participants gave their informed consent. in the first study, a total of 1,035 italian workers (first sample) were involved. the sample was split into two professional categories: employees (n = 588) and self-employed (n = 447). the second longitudinal study involved a total of 431 individuals at t1 and 292 participants at t2 one month later (longitudinal response of 68%). table 1 shows the description of all participants. table 1 participants’ characteristics characteristic first study: employees (n = 588) first study: self-employed (n = 447) second study (n = 292) gender women 51.7% 50.3% 52.4% men 48.1% 49.4% 47.6% missing 0.2% 0.3% — age m 41.31 43.18 43.62 sd 11.31 10.04 11.78 (min; max) (20; 66) (20; 70) (21; 65) educational level middle school 4.4% 2.5% 4.1% high school 37.4% 19.7% 39.0% university/post-graduate studies 58.2% 77.8% 56.8% job tenure less than 1 year 0.5% 0.2% — 1–2 years 15.0% 4.4% 13.2% more than 2 years 77.2% 88.7% 72.8% missing 7.3% 6.7% 14.0% professional categories blue-collar 7.5% — — white-collar 41.8% — — middle management 10.1% — — top management 6.1% — — teachers 16.8% — 20.9% doctors 8.5% — 6.5% educators 2.9% — 4.5% police 3.1% — 5.1% researchers 0.5% — 0.7% missing 2.7% — 1.0% managers — — 4.8% clerks — — 38.0% professional sector service sector 68.2% — — industrial and commercial sector 15.1% — — public health 7.5% — — education and research 7.3% — — other 1.5% private sector — 79.0% 46.2% public sector — 9.6% 53.8% missing 0.4% 11.4% — molino, kovalchuk, ghislieri, & spagnoli 283 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures work addiction. the bergen work addiction scale (bwas) was used to measure one dimension of work addiction (7 items) in both the first and the second study. the items were answered using a 5-point scale ranging from “never” (1) to “always” (5). both the english and the italian versions of the scale are presented in table 2. in order to ensure equivalence of meaning for the items between the italian and the english versions of the bwas, a rigorous translation process was used. this included forward and backward translation and pilot testing. table 2 items and factor loadings original/italian version of the bwas item loadings 1. thought of how you could free up more time to work? 1. ha pensato a come avrebbe potuto riservare più tempo per il lavoro? 0.51 2. spent much more time working than initially intended? 2. ha trascorso molto più tempo a lavorare di quanto inizialmente aveva previsto? 0.62 3. worked in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness and depression? 3. ha lavorato per ridurre i sensi di colpa, ansia, impotenza e depressione? 0.68 4. been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them? 4. ha ricevuto il consiglio dalle persone che la circondano di ridurre il proprio carico lavorativo senza prestargli ascolto? 0.71 5. become stressed if you have been prohibited from working? 5. si è sentito stressato se le è stato proibito di lavorare? 0.57 6. deprioritized hobbies, leisure activities, and exercise because of your work? 6. ha dato minore importanza ai suoi hobby, attività del tempo libero ed esercizio fisico a causa del lavoro? 0.59 7. worked so much that it has negatively influenced your health? 7. ha lavorato così tanto che ciò ha influenzato negativamente la sua salute? 0.71 note. 1 = factor loadings of the one-factor model with error correlations. work addiction was also measured in the second study using the 10-item version of the duwas (italian version balducci et al., 2017). example items are the following: “i feel that there is something inside me that drives me to work hard” (working compulsively) and “i stay busy and keep many irons in the fire” (working excessively). responses are given on a five-point scale varying from “never or almost never” (1) to “almost always or always” (5). work engagement. work engagement was measured in the second study with the nine-item of the utrecht work engagement scale (uwes) adapted in italy by balducci et al. (2010). participants were asked to respond on a five-point scale ranging from “never” (1) to “every day” (5) with regard to how frequently they experienced the feeling. item example: “in my work i feel strong and vigorous”. work-family conflict. work-family conflict was assessed in the second study with the five-item scale previously adapted in italy by colombo and ghislieri (2008). participants were asked to respond on a five-point scale ranging from “agree” (1) to “disagree” (5). an item example is the following: “the demands of my work interfere with my home and family life”. data analysis statistical analysis was conducted using spss 20 and amos 22 software. first of all, in the first study, we examined the descriptive statistics and normality of the bwas’ items distributions. then, we tested the one-factor structure of the italian bwas through a confirmatory factorial analysis (cfa) on the first sample (maximum likelihood (ml) was used as an estimation method). according to the literature (bollen & long, 1993), as indices of the model fit we considered: the comparative fit index (cfi), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the chi-square test (χ2), the normed-fit index (nfi) and the standardized root mean square residual (srmr). italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 284 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to assess the group equivalence of the bwas scale across employees and self-employed workers, configural invariance was tested through a series of multiple-group confirmatory factorial analyses (mgcfa) on the two sub-sam­ ples of the first study. after configural invariance was established, measurement invariance was carried out including both metric and scalar invariance analyses. following chen (2007), the cut-off points for rejection of metric and scalar invariance are established as an increase of rmsea by 0.015 and a decrease of cfi by 0.01. after measurement invari­ ance was established, latent mean examination to compare the levels of work addiction of employees and self-employed groups was conducted. moreover, the cut-off criterion provided by the authors of the scale (andreassen et al., 2012) was used to compare the percentage of workaholics in the employee and self-employed groups. in the second study, correlation analysis was used to test the convergent, discriminant and predictive validity of the scale. finally, a reliability analysis was conducted using cronbach’s alpha coefficient and pearson's r to establish evidence of test-retest reliability. results item analysis the first step of the analysis was conducted in the first sample to examine descriptive statistics and normality of the bwas’ items distributions. all skewness and kurtosis values were between −2.0 and +2.0, demonstrating univariate nor­ mality. however, the multivariate value of mardia’s coefficient was 9.56 and its normalized value was 13.70 indicating a moderate multivariate non-normality. thus, mahalanobis values were inspected to check if some outliers could have been identified. mardia’s coefficient after deleting the 29 cases was 4.77 and its normalized value was 6.73. reliability analysis assessed through cronbach’s alpha showed pretty good internal consistency for the bwas (α = 0.82). analysis of scale dimensionality results of the cfa tested in the first sample are shown in table 3 (model 1). the model fit was evaluated and while cfi, nfi and srmr were satisfactory, the rmsea was found to be higher than what is normally considered an acceptable fit. following the indication of the modification indices, and hence correlating the error terms of items 1 and 7, the fit improved (model 2). although the value of rmsea was still not completely satisfactory, the value of srmr indicated a good fit for the present model. factor loadings were all statistically significant ranging from 0.52 to 0.72 (see table 2). thus, according to our results the one factor structure of the italian version of bwas was supported. table 3 fit indices for cfa and mgcfa of the italian version of the bwas model χ2 (df) cfi nfi rmsea srmr model 1: one-factor model without error correlations 169.691 (14) .923 0.917 .105 0.049 model 2: one-factor model with error correlations 127.722 (13) .943 0.938 .094 0.043 model 3: italian-subsample self-employed one factor 42.370 (13) .967 0.954 .072 0.037 model 4: italian-subsample employees one factor 113.855 (13) .911 0.901 .117 0.055 model 5: configural invariance 156.212 (26) .936 0.925 .071 0.055 model 6: full metric invariance 247.974 (38) .896 0.880 .074 0.078 model 7: partial metric invariance 179.112 (34) .928 0.913 .065 0.057 model 8: full scalar invariance 211.171 (39) .915 0.898 .066 0.057 model 9: partial scalar invariance 190.915 (38) .925 0.908 .063 0.057 molino, kovalchuk, ghislieri, & spagnoli 285 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the fit of the one-factor model was also separately tested on the group of employees (n = 567; model 3) and self-em­ ployed (n = 439; model 4). results reported satisfactory fit for the two sub-samples. subsequently, configural invariance was tested through mgcfa including the sub-sample of employees and the sub-sample of self-employed (model 5). results presented in table 3 reported an adequate fit and, thus, configural invariance was established. afterwards, in order to test full metric invariance, the free-to-vary model (model 5) was compared to the constraint model where all the factor loadings were fixed (model 6). the constraint model provided an acceptable fit. the difference of the cfi suggested to reject the full metric invariance (δcfi = 0.04). according to modification indexes, factor loadings related to the items 1 and 5 were released to be freely estimate (model 7), in order to test partial metric invariance. results presented in table 3 show that partial metric invariance could be established (δcfi = 0.008; δrmsea = 0.006). full scalar invariance was assessed through the comparison of the model 7 and the constraint model (model 8) where five factor loadings and all intercepts were fixed. results indicate that, although very close to the threshold of acceptance, the difference of the cfi falls in the threshold for rejecting full scalar invariance (δcfi = 0.013). following modification indexes, the intercept related to the item 5 was relaxed (model 9). results presented in table 3 show that partial scalar invariance could be established (δcfi = 0.003; δrmsea = 0.002). thus, according to our results the equivalence of the bwas scale between the two sub-samples was supported. latent means and cut-off examination according to byrne (2001), the latent means of the sub-sample of the employees were fixed to zero and the latent means of the sub-sample self-employed were estimated. results presented in table 4 indicate significantly higher scores in work addiction for the self-employed sub-sample (employees m = 2.17; self-employed m = 2.31). moreover, following cut-off scores, we found that 6.0% (34) of employees and 10.3% (45) of self-employed workers were workaholics. table 4 latent means comparison factor estimate se c.r. p work addiction 0.187 0.050 3.731 < .001 note. estimates are related to self-employed sub-sample. se = standard error. c.r. = critical ratio. concurrent and predictive validity, test-retest analysis in the second study, concurrent validity of the italian bwas was assessed through the examination of the convergent and discriminant validity. results presented in table 5 showed that bwas was significantly positively correlated with duwas (convergent validity), significantly positively correlated with work engagement (discriminant validity) and significantly positively correlated with work-family conflict at t2 (predictive validity). finally, the one-month test-retest reliability was also good. table 5 descriptives, intercorrelations and reliabilities (in diagonal) of the variables in the second study variables m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. bwas t1 2.33 0.72 (0.78) 2. duwas t1 3.24 0.71 0.38** (0.79) 3. work engagement t1 3.88 0.68 -0.15* 0.18** (0.90) 4. work family-conflict t2 2.30 0.84 0.56** 0.23** -0.33** (0.90) 5. bwas t2 2.37 0.78 0.69** 0.28** -0.14* 0.66** (0.83) *p < .05. **p < .001. italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 286 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the aim of this study was to test the psychometric features of the italian version of the bwas (andreassen et al., 2012), which represents the first unidimensional workaholism scale to take into account the addictive nature of the construct (andreassen et al., 2012; griffiths, 2005). by doing this, we considered employees and self-employed workers as two distinct categories, showing their peculiarities in relation to the work-addiction phenomenon and providing italian researchers and professionals with a tool that can be used in different contexts and with different kinds of workers. results supported the psychometric goodness of the scale. particularly, the bwas presented a clear unifactorial structure with satisfactory test-retest reliability. moreover, analyses confirmed measurement invariance of the scores across employees and self-employed workers. overall, results confirmed the ability of the italian version of the bwas to assess the seven core elements of the addiction throughout an overall measure, useful to detect work addiction in both employees and self-employed workers. analysis conducted on the second sample allowed to investigate convergent, discriminant and predictive validity of the bwas. as expected, we found a strong positive correlation between bwas and duwas, confirming that they can be considered two measures of the same construct, namely work addiction. in order to confirm discriminant validity, we considered the relationship between work addiction measured by bwas and work engagement, two related but also “conceptually and empirically distinct” factors (schaufeli et al., 2008, p. 174). several studies investigated the distinct nature of the two constructs so far, most of them used the duwas to detect work addiction and confirmed that it can be empirically differentiated from work engagement (e.g. bakker et al., 2013). nevertheless, in these previous studies a positive correlation between the two constructs emerged, showing an overlap particularly in terms of preoccupation with work. accordingly, our results showed a positive correlation between duwas and work engagement, while the correlation between bwas and work engagement was weak and negative. this result confirms the discriminant validity of the italian version of the bwas and supports the idea that this tool is more appropriate to diagnose work addiction compared with the duwas, since the latter also captures excessive engagement at work, a component which cannot be considered a crucial indicator of addiction (griffiths, 2011). finally, the predictive validity of the italian version of the bwas has been investigated over time: we found a positive relationship between bwas and work-family conflict measured after one month. as indicated by previous studies (bakker et al., 2009), workaholics invest time and energy on their work at the cost of their private and family life. according to conservation of resources theory (hobfoll, 2002), their tendency to devote resources to work leaves them with less resources for their family, increasing the risk of experiencing work-family conflict. this study also intended to contribute to the literature investigating the differences in employees’ and self-em­ ployed workers’ levels of work addiction. as expected, self-employed workers showed higher levels of work addiction compared to employees; moreover, the percentage of workaholics was higher among the self-employed than among employees. these results supported the idea that professions like self-employment or entrepreneurship are characterized by a higher likelihood of developing addictive work patterns (gorgievski et al., 2010; snir & harpaz, 2004). limitations and future research one of the limitations of this study concerns the samples selection; since we used convenience sampling procedure, the two samples may be not representative of the italian working population at large. moreover, this study considered only single-source self-report data, which means the possibility of common method bias (podsakoff et al., 2003). organ­ izational measures, observation of work behavior, objective indicators and/or other-reported evaluations are needed in future studies to minimize the potential effects of common method variance and understand how well the bwas assesses workaholic behavior. a further limitation is that this study did not take into consideration any personality traits related to workaholism (e.g. need for achievement, internal locus of control, perfectionism and type a personality; clark et al., 2016; ng et al., 2007). considering these in future studies would be useful to better understanding differences between employees and self-employed workers in their experience of workaholism. regarding the conceptualization of workaholism, we should underline that the bwas was developed following the work addiction approach, assessing each of the seven elements of work addiction with a single item. while this approach is useful for detecting the overall phenomenon in the workplace and provides some clues for implementing a molino, kovalchuk, ghislieri, & spagnoli 287 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tailored clinical intervention (clark et al., 2020), it limits our ability to examine dimensions of workaholism separately. given the fact that workaholism is a very complex phenomenon, characterized by motivational, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components (ng et al., 2007; schaufeli et al., 2008; clark et al., 2020), the measure used here might not be suitable for taking into account all the different nuances of workaholism. actually, given the proliferation of workaholism scales, a comparison of the nomological network of the most popular existing workaholism scales, such as bwas, duwas and for example the recent multidimensional workaholism scale (mws by clark et al., 2020) would be very useful for disambiguating the possible different use of those scales for research and practical purposes. moreover, we tested the measurement invariance of the bwas considering two different samples of italian workers, thus the issue of the italian adaptation of the original scale through a cross-cultural approach remains to be addressed. in fact, a cross-cultural comparison through a measurement invariance approach including the bwas in the original language and its italian version would be useful to understand the real adaptability of the original scale in the italian context. finally, by mixing the need for comparison of the nomological networks and the need for a cross-cultural approach, we believe that research in workaholism would benefit in the future from studies that will address these issues simultaneously. conclusion and practical implications this study may represent an advance in the knowledge and understanding of workaholism since it provides more empirical support to researchers and practitioners in assessing it, especially in the italian context where poor attention is given to the phenomenon and a lack of instruments is reported. results of the current study demonstrated that the 7-item bwas can be used in italy among workers from different professions for assessing and monitoring levels of work addiction. the scale, given its small size and good psychometric characteristics, represents a practical instrument for research purposes providing support in both detecting workaholism and assessing its relationship with some antecedents and consequences. moreover, our findings suggest to clinicians, hr practitioners and managers the importance of using this tool to detect the presence of work addiction among different kind of workers. organizations that are able to identify and detect the presence of workaholism can propose specific interventions to their workers. at the organizational level, the identification of the risk of workaholism is a general action which requires the assessment of any possible contributing organizational factors (e.g. molino et al., 2016). it is conceivable to launch prevention campaigns, such as communication and training interventions focused on the importance of recovery, but also on time and stress management (schabracq, 2005). specific interventions must be envisaged in those cases in which organizational cultures are "feeding" workaholism through forms of tele-pressure and career paths that reward the workers’ 24-hour availability more than their efficiency in achieving goals or proposing new solutions. among these interventions, leadership training is fundamental, in order to avoid toxic behaviors. indeed, the literature highlighted the crucial role that destructive leadership can play with regard to workaholism (molino et al., 2019). at the individual level, the use of the bwas may be important to support individual interventions such as employee assistance program or psychological counseling interventions (ishiyama & kitayama, 1994); the assessment of work addiction through the bwas can be important as a tool at the preliminary stage of the intervention and a monitoring instrument. results also indicated a high presence of work addiction among self-employed workers: trade associations can pro­ mote specific programs aimed at improving awareness of the existence of workaholism and propose solutions to address it through both focused training and agreed psychological support services. organizations and trade associations should introduce specific references in their codes of conduct aimed at limiting practices that fuel "excessive work" (even considering it as socially appreciated). moreover, they can be useful to guarantee the right to disconnect from work (via information and communication technologies) and the importance of non-working time for correct recovery. through the recovery process, workers may regenerate resources expended during working hours, and we know that this process may be compromised in the presence of high levels of workaholism (molino et al., 2018). italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 288 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing 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(2010). the push and pull of work: the differences between workaholism and work engagement. in a. b. bakker & m. p. leiter (eds.), work engagement: a handbook of essential theory and research (pp. 39–53). psychology press. about the authors monica molino (ph.d.) is assistant professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research area is work and organizational psychology and her interests particularly include: well-being at work, work-family interface, workaholism, technology use, entrepreneurship. liiliya scafuri kovalchuk is a ph.d. student at the department of psychology, university of campania “luigi vanvitelli”. her re­ search area is work and organizational psychology and her research interests particularly include: workaholism, work-engagement, psychological and physical wellbeing at work. chiara ghislieri (ph.d.) is associate professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research interests particularly include: gender perspective in work and organizational psychology, work-family conflict and enrichment, job insecurity and wellbeing, vocational guidance and adult training. molino, kovalchuk, ghislieri, & spagnoli 291 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 279–292 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2607 https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.11.4.366 https://doi.org/10.3928/02793695-20150923-04 https://doi.org/10.1080/13594320701595438 https://doi.org/10.2196/mental.8215 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2007.00285.x https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810410554524 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193517 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17186536 https://doi.org/10.1177/0163278710380124 https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370701758074 https://www.psychopen.eu/ paola spagnoli is associate professor at the department of psychology, university of campania "luigi vanvitelli". her main research interests are: wellbeing at work at individual, group and organizational level; evaluation and prevention of work-related psychosocial risks; organizational socialization and individual proactivity; entrepreneurship. italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed 292 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ italian version of the bwas for employees and self-employed (introduction) theoretical framework method participants and procedures measures data analysis results item analysis analysis of scale dimensionality latent means and cut-off examination concurrent and predictive validity, test-retest analysis discussion limitations and future research conclusion and practical implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors deliberately retrieved negative memories can improve mood beyond the intention to do so research reports deliberately retrieved negative memories can improve mood beyond the intention to do so veronika v. nourkova 1, alena a. gofman 1 [1] department of general psychology, lomonosov moscow state university, moscow, russian federation. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 received: 2020-11-12 • accepted: 2021-03-12 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari ‘aldo moro’, bari, italy corresponding author: veronika v. nourkova, department of general psychology, lomonosov moscow state university, mokhovaya str, 11-9, room 213, 125009, moscow, russian federation. phone: +7 903 5734533. e-mail: nourkova@mail.ru abstract the role of autobiographical memory in emotion regulation is deemed as limited to the selective retrieval of positive memories intended as a distraction from unpleasant stimuli. the present experimental study is the first to examine whether negative autobiographical memories serve as a way to boost one’s mood by employing the mechanism of retrospective downward autobiographical comparison between now and then. we hypothesised that this mechanism may operate in response to negative memories, leading to positive mood induction. ninety-nine students participated in four memory tasks: autobiographical positive, autobiographical negative, vicarious positive, and vicarious negative. emotional states at preand post-tests were assessed using the implicit test differentiating positive (pa) and negative (na) components of mood. the results replicated previous studies on the mood-repair effect of deliberate positive recall. the most striking finding is that negative autobiographical recall consistently boosted pa and inhibited na. this result supported the idea of retrospective downward autobiographical comparison as a plausible mechanism behind the efficacy of negative memories in emotion regulation. keywords emotion regulation, autobiographical memory function, reappraisal, distraction, downward comparison, vicarious memories folk theory and scientific psychology converge on the idea that healthy, non-depressed individuals can repair their negative moods by retrieving positive personal memories. popular internet resources advise unearthing and browsing sweet memories from childhood, vacations, and family reunions to overcome melancholy. when psychologists in a lab asked naïve participants whether they agree with the statement ‘when a person is feeling bad, it is helpful to recall pleasant memories’, they typically marked 4 or 5 on a 5-point likert scale, endorsing the use of positive memories to regulate emotions (wang, koh, song, & hou, 2015). experimental psychologists and clinicians suggest that difficulties in employing positive memories in mood regulation play an important role in various emotional disorders, such as depression and anxiety (mckay, singer, & conway, 2012; singer, 2006). memory in emotion regulation harris, rasmussen, and berntsen (2014) justified the proposition that emotion regulation is a distinctive function of au­ tobiographical memory in the exhaustive literature review. for instance, several studies have indicated that individuals deliberately recruit positive memories to resist a natural mood-congruent recall, followed by negative mood induction (joormann, siemer, & gotlib, 2007; josephson, singer, & salovey, 1996; mcfarland & buehler, 1997). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4629&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ similarly, öner and gülgöz (2018) asked participants to recall three memories that made them feel sad or angry and then asked them to retrieve another memory with no specific instruction of emotion. their results demonstrated two things. first, participants were able to induce negative affect by retrieving appropriate negative memories. second, they successfully repaired their emotional states through subsequent positive recall. furthermore, if the regulatory goal is to enhance positive affect, people deliberately select happier autobiographical memories in comparison to accomplishing the goals of self-continuity, social bonding, and directing behaviour (wolf & demiray, 2019). the previous literature has consistently shown that the most common outcome of autobiographical memory dynam­ ics over time is a positive bias, which includes the fact that good memories persist longer than bad memories and, in general, makes memories more pleasant than experiences behind those memories. this positive bias is thought to assist in maintaining a hopeful outlook about the future and providing a means for situational emotion regulation in an automatic manner without purposive intention to do so (walker & skowronski, 2009). therefore, reminiscing may be a powerful emotion regulation resource. it raises a question regarding the underlying mechanisms. although several frameworks conceptualising the different ways in which people regulate their emotions have been proposed and empirically tested (see for review, webb, miles, & sheeran, 2012), there are two strategies that incorporate memories. these strategies derived from the process model described by gross (2015) and include attentional deploy­ ment in the form of distraction and cognitive change in the form of reappraisal. regarding the mnemonic impact on emotion regulation, distraction ‘moves attention away from the situation altogether’ and ‘may also involve changing internal focus, such as when individuals invoke thoughts or memories that are inconsistent with the undesirable emotional state’ (gross & thompson, 2007, p. 13). it is a trivial assumption that positive autobiographical memories are very probable candidates for positive distraction, since recall reinstates the emotions associated with the addressed experiences. it was shown that after negative mood induction, non-depressed adults equally benefited from the instructed retrieval of positive memories and attention re-focusing (joormann & siemer, 2004). congruently, kovacs et al. (2015) found similar mood boosts after both distraction (in the form of watching shapes via kaleidoscope) and recall of two consecutive happy memories in never-depressed and remitted adolescents. additionally, it is intuitively obvious that recalling positive memories per se is a fun activity and should improve mood (tamir, 2009). similarly, researchers have focused on retrospective cognitive reappraisal, that is, the case when individuals reframe negative past events as benign, valuable, or even beneficial (garnefski, kraaij, & spinhoven, 2001; rusting & dehart, 2000; wisco & nolen-hoeksema, 2010). for instance, a person who has recovered from covid-19 might retrospectively view the disease as a call to help others make similar recoveries. consequently, the modified memories of painful experiences become suitable for positive retrieval, and hence, may be involved in the mechanism of positive distraction. is mood-repair potency limited to positive memories? however, the literature review revealed an important gap. taken together, both automatic and deliberate accounts for mnemonic promotion of positive affect suggest that when faced with undesirable emotional states, individuals cope by retrieving exclusively pleasant memories. to the best of our knowledge, there is no research in the field that would disprove the assertion that the method of mnemonic mood repair is limited to positive memories. the present study departed from the previous literature in the way we hypothesised that unhappy autobiographical memories serve the goal of emotion regulation without being transformed into a positive mode. for further reasoning, it is important to reckon social comparison as a potential source of emotion regulation (augustine & hemenover, 2009). it is assumed that a person could feel better after performing downward comparisons with those doing worse than themselves (aspinwall & taylor, 1993). however, downward social comparisons with real persons have the potential to evoke guilt in the comparer because they violate personal morality and compete with empathy (white, langer, yariv, & welch, 2006). we speculated that unhappy autobiographical memories could boost the mood, not by positive refocusing from the current concern to some irrelevant pleasant thoughts but by a specific form of cognitive reappraisal, that is, the positive reappraisal of the mismatch between the past and the present. considering the concept of downward social compari­ sons, it is termed here as ‘retrospective downward autobiographical comparison’. while in the literature on emotion spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 236 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regulation, reappraisal is routinely thought as rethinking of an emotional event in the past, the ‘retrospective downward autobiographical comparison’ proposed in the current study involves a reappraisal of one’s current circumstances in the contrast to past emotional events. it may be stated that the former type of reappraisal is a past-targeted process that serves to modify existing memories, whereas the latter type of reappraisal is a present-targeted process that revises the perception of the present by collating with the past. when such comparison reflects favourably on the current circumstances, one might feel that ‘things have changed for the better’ and consequently, experience a hedonic shift in the affect. our method of reasoning partially corresponds with a distinct form of retrospective cognitive change denoted as ‘putting into perspective’ by garnefski et al. (2001). it refers to noticing relativity or even paltriness of current negative experiences when compared to other life events. al­ though the authors emphasised the importance of such a comparison, they interpreted it in terms of general probability, for example, one could think that it all could have been much worse; one could tell oneself that there are worse things in life, etc. we speculated that addressing a concrete moment in the personal past may lead to more pronounced affective consequences. various cases illustrate this point. for instance, imagine a student whose sad mood is induced by a moderate failure in the academic domain. if she retrieves a positive memory from the relevant domain (e.g. passing exams successfully), it may make her feel even worse (here and now loses when compared with there and then). in contrast, if she retrieves an associated negative memory (e.g. threatened to be expelled from the university), her appraisal of the current situation would benefit from this comparison. another example may be taken from the romantic relationship domain. consider a woman experiencing melancholy due to her partner’s inadvertence. if sweet memories about her tender first love will emerge in her mind in this situation, the contrast between the good past and disappointing present may increase her dissatisfaction. conversely, the sad memories of loneliness in the past may help her look at current relationships through rose-tinted glasses. method the present study was designed to empirically examine the influence of deliberately retrieved negative autobiographical memories on the emotional state of non-depressed young adults. the main hypothesis posits that the feeling that things have changed for the better may arise in response to recalling a negative memory employing the mechanism of ‘retrospective downward autobiographical comparison’, that is, a comparison between the worse past and better present. in other words, after a deliberate experience of negative autobiographical memories, we tested the prediction that participants would enjoy the present moment more than before. notably, the present study focused on the uncontemplated effect of intentional negative recall. taking into account, people’s tendency to retrieve positive memories as a controlled mood regulation strategy (ortner, briner, & marjanovic, 2017; rusting & dehart, 2000) and expect negative memories to induce negative mood (hernandez, vander wal, & spring, 2003; öner & gülgöz, 2018; pond & peterson, 2020), we sought to avoid the influence of such bias on the emotional outcomes of the recall. therefore, this study dealt with implicit emotion regulation which has been shown to combine habitual strategies with continual adjustment to the contingencies. we predict that intentional, but purposeless, negative recall may support all three consecutive stages of implicit emotion regulation, as asserted by koole, webb, and sheeran (2015). first, it may activate emotion regulation goals. second, it may serve as a situational affordance for selecting appropriate emotion regulation strategies. third, it may maintain the process of implementing the chosen strategy until the goal is achieved. therefore, participants did not receive explicit incentives to change their existing moods. in the present study, we also examined our speculation on the potential positive affective consequences of negative content, accommodating some insights from the field of media psychology. in an attempt to explore why people enjoy watching sad movies and reading sad fictional literature even if there is no redeeming happy end, the authors proposed that they may tolerate negative affective states temporarily for the sake of better emotional outcomes in the future (mar, oatley, djikic, & mullin, 2011). the mechanism of restoring a negative mood by comparing oneself with a fictional character depicted as more unfortunate following the insight that one’s concerns are not the worst has been identified nourkova & gofman 237 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ among various motivations behind the puzzling popularity of tragic plots (koopman, 2015). consistent with this view and conceptually related to downward social comparisons, previous literature has shown that individuals with specific problems (e.g. loneliness) select and retrospectively highly appreciate films that include a pessimistic portrayal of people with similar problems (mares & cantor, 1992). however, the emotional benefits of a downward comparison are absent when identifying with fictional characters. strong identification leads to a higher probability of experiencing the same emotional state as experienced by the target (mar, oatley, djikic, & mullin, 2011). moreover, taking a first-person (rather than a third-person) perspective enhances identification with a narrative protagonist (samur, tops, slapšinskaitė, & koole, 2021). correspondingly, the phenomena of vicarious memories, that is, memories representing events that happened to others, even fictional protagonists, have recently received substantial interest in the field of autobiographical memory (pillemer, steiner, kuwabara, thomsen, & svob, 2015). it has been reported that the phenomenological and functional qualities of vicarious memories closely resemble those of autobiographical memories. however, vicarious memories are typically rated as less vivid, less personally important, and more negative than autobiographical memories (pond & peterson, 2020). there is a theoretical assumption that negative vicarious memories may serve a self-enhancement function through a downward social comparison and impact emotion regulation (thomsen & pillemer, 2017). considering the probable self-enhancement function of negative vicarious memories, further empirical research is needed to determine whether vicarious memories are identical to autobiographical memories in emotion regulation. therefore, we introduced memories on behalf of a favourite fictional character as the control condition. the following tentative hypotheses represent the expected findings consistent with the study aims: h1: intentional positive autobiographical recall in the absence of an explicit goal of emotion regulation will ameliorate the participants’ mood implicitly through the mechanism of positive distraction from the current concerns. h2: intentional negative autobiographical recall in the absence of an explicit goal of emotion regulation will ameliorate the participants’ mood implicitly through the mechanism of retrospective downward autobiographical comparison, that is, a comparison of the current concerns against their more negative memories. h3: positive recall on behalf of a favourite fictional character will produce a similar but weaker improvement of mood. the expected effect will arise due to the distractive potential of entering a fictional world enhanced by identification with a protagonist. h4: negative recall on behalf of a favourite fictional character will have a reverse effect on implicit emotion regulation in comparison with negative autobiographical recall. this expected result will be due to the use of first-person narration, which evokes identification with the protagonist and, consequently, inhibits the downward social comparison emotion regulation strategy. participants ninety-nine psychology students (mage = 20.31, sd = 2.06; 68 females) participated in the study for partial course credit. the sample size was calculated a priori using the anova: repeated measures, within factors option in g*power 3 (faul, erdfelder, lang, & buchner, 2007) specifying a medium effect size ηp2 = .25) with a power of 1 – β  =  .90. considering that two factors were included into design, the recommended minimum sample of 23 was multiplied by four in accordance with the claim made by brysbaert (2019). consequently, the required sample size was determined to be 92. therefore, the present study was appropriately powered. the participants had no history of treatment for any psychiatric conditions. they signed an informed consent form approved by the ethics committee of the faculty of psychology of lomonosov moscow state university under the declaration of helsinki (project no. 2019/64). measures emotional state several competing approaches exist for assessing mood and emotion (see for review, gray & watson; 2007). in this study, we chose the outcome measures based on watson and tellegen’s hierarchical model of affect structure, which spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 238 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ proposes two high-order largely unipolar dimensions of affective space: positive affect (pa) and negative affect (na). since the self-report methodology is prone to various biases, particularly, to cultural stereotypes about the nature of emotional experience, their self-report positive and negative affect schedule (panas, watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) was not used. similarly, we speculated that the folk belief that negative memories ruin positive mood might disguise their regulative power in the relevant experimental condition if emotions are measured explicitly (ford & gross, 2018). departing from the self-report methodology, we assessed emotional states using the indirect projective method: the implicit positive and negative affect test (ipanat, quirin, kazén, & kuhl, 2009). however, the authors do not equate the term ‘implicit affect’ with the ‘unconscious’. consistent with the proposition that emotions are, per definition, the states of consciousness and not necessarily reflective (lieberman, 2019), they posit that the ipanat allows the assessment of automatic and pre-reflective components of the affective experience. several recent studies have used the ipanat, demonstrating the compatibility of the results of this novel method compared to the traditional self-report methods. for instance, in quirin, bode, and kuhl (2011) study, participants performed the ipanat and self-report mood adjective checklist before and after exposure to a fear-inducing video. as expected, both implicit and explicit pa decreased immediately after viewing a threat-related video and increased after a time delay, detecting the recovery of a neutral emotional state. however, the ipanat is more sensitive to emotion dynamics and the corresponding behavioural variables. concurrently, examining whether a mindfulness exercise improves explicit and implicit negative moods, remmers, topolinski, and koole (2016) revealed the same pattern of results across both measures. the ipanat procedure requires participants to rate the degree to which nonsense words (e.g. safme, vikes, tun­ ba, pevil, belni, and maddo) convey various feelings. to conceal the real target of the ipanat, the participants are encouraged to guess the meaning of the nonsense words to examine their linguistic intuition. since the list of stimuli was proven to be emotionally neutral across 10 countries, including russia (quirin et al., 2018), it is assumed that, in accordance with the affect infusion principle, participants project their current affects on this material. participants rate six nonsense words with respect to three positive and three negative emotional states using a 4-point likert scale ranging from ‘doesn’t fit at all’ to ‘fits very well’. according to the authors, the ipanat reveals two orthogonal dimensions: positive affect (pa) and negative affect (na). averaging adjective scores derived from positively and negatively valenced adjectives present the scores for pa and na, respectively. the russian version of the ipanat is a valid and reliable instrument with satisfactory psychometric properties (mitina, padun, & zelyanina, 2017). it is noteworthy that 64 nonsense words are available to construct non-recurring lists for repeated measures. memory tasks in the autobiographical memory task, participants were asked to give brief but detailed descriptions of the event they experienced more than a year ago that lasted over minutes or hours but no longer than a day. in the ‘happy’ condition, they received the following instructions: ‘this memory should be a highly positive experience that made you feel happy, satisfied, and lucky at the time it occurred’. in the ‘unhappy’ condition, they received the opposite instructions: ‘this memory should be a highly negative experience that made you feel unhappy, disappointed, and helpless at the time it occurred’. in the vicarious memory task, participants were asked to do the same on behalf of their favourite fictional characters. we encouraged participants to put themselves in their favourite character’s shoes and tell the stories as if they were them. the exact instruction was: ‘imagine yourself to be your favourite fictional character and then recollect an event from her/his perspective, as if you were they’. time perspective to control for individual differences in personal attitudes toward their experience, we included the zimbardo time perspective index (ztpi, zimbardo & boyd, 1999) subscales tapping the two dimensions: past positive (pp, 9 items) and past negative (pn, 10 items). nourkova & gofman 239 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ empathy for a fictional character to control for individual differences in becoming absorbed in the feelings and actions of the fictional characters, we included the fantasy subscale from the interpersonal reactivity index (iri, davis, luce, & kraus, 1994) consisting of seven statements. for both scales, participants were asked to indicate the extent to which each of the statements was true for them on a 5-point likert scale. thematic analysis considering the emphasis on the possible contribution of negative memories in mood regulation, the contents of negative memories were analysed according to the themes that emerged from the narratives. three coders independ­ ently read the memory descriptions to develop a list of content categories. then, the coders inspected the memory descriptions again and assigned them to the most relevant categories that emerged from the previous coding procedure. the final attribution was based on the majority’s decision. procedure participants attended four sessions held approximately one week apart. upon their first arrival at the laboratory, participants were informed that the study dealt with various kinds of memories and their linguistic intuition. they then signed a consent form and completed the iri and ztpi subscales. each session started with an indirect assessment of the emotional state by completing the ipanat. then, the participants performed a memory task randomised across sessions and participants. immediately after performing the memory task, the participants completed the ipanat again. eight non-recurring lists of the ipanat stimuli were used; therefore, at each assessment, the participants dealt with a novel set of nonsense words. three research assistants communicated with each participant individually. the questionnaire was presented online on the google platform; however, the participants received the link only in the laboratory. each session, except for the first session, took approximately 20 minutes. the participants were debriefed after the last session, where they learned about the true purpose of the study. none of the participants reported that they realised the true goal of the study before being debriefed. results to exclude the possibility that condition-specific effects on emotion regulation were due to baseline differences in moods prior to manipulation, pre-test ipanat scores were compared between the four conditions. there were no significant differences in pa, f(3, 98) = 0.664, p = .575, nor for na, f(3, 98) = 1.655, p = .177. both the pa and na scales showed adequate internal consistency, with cronbach’s alpha of .83 for each. table 1 presents the means and standard deviations of the ipanat scores at preand post-tests for all memory tasks (autobiographical positive, autobiographical negative, vicarious positive, and vicarious negative). two repeated-measures mixed anovas were conducted with pa and na as dependent variables separately with time (before vs. after the memory task) and two within-subject factors of memory valence (positive vs. negative) and memory attribution (autobiographical vs. vicarious on behalf of one’s favourite fictional character). the anova on pa revealed a main effect of time, f(1, 98) = 25.71, p  < .001, ηp2 = .208. on average, participants scored higher on positive affect after performing the memory tasks. there was a main effect of attribution of the retrieved memory to one’s past or a favourite fictional character, f(1, 98) = 4.66, p = .03, ηp2 = .045. the pa associated with autobiographical memories appeared to be slightly higher than those associated with alter-biographical memories. importantly, the analysis also indicated reliable interactions: time × attribution, f(1, 98) = 25.53, p < .001, ηp2 = .207, valence x attribution, f(1, 98) = 48.24, p < .001, ηp2 = .330, and time × valence × attribution, f(1, 98) = 56.61, p < .001, ηp2 =  .366. follow-up analyses revealed that performing positive memory tasks inflated the pa when the participants retrieved vicarious memories, f(1, 98) = 6.95, p = .01, ηp2 =  .066 but not after autobiographical retrieval, f(1, 98) = 0.548, p = .461. participants’ performance on negative memory tasks led to a mild decrease in pa in the vicarious condition, f(1, 98) = spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 240 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 10.28, p = .002, ηp2 =  .095, whereas pa increased extensively in the autobiographical condition, f(1,98) = 88.91, p < .001, ηp2 = .456. thus, a negative recall produced reverse effects on the pa depending on the examination of one’s experience or the biography of a fictional character. a congruent pattern of data was obtained for na scores. the anova on the na indicated a main effect of time, f(1, 98) = 28.63, p < .001, ηp2 = .226. on average, participants scored lower on negative affect after performing the memory tasks. the analysis detected significant crossover interactions: time × attribution, f(1, 98) = 26.56, p < .001, ηp2 = .213, attribution x valence, f(1, 98) = 37.16, p < .001, ηp2 = .275, and time x valence x attribution, f(1, 98) = 24.78, p < .001, ηp2 = .202. a follow-up inspection demonstrated an identical slight decline in na in both the autobiographical and vicarious conditions after performing positive memory tasks, f(1, 98) = 6.60, p = .01, ηp2 = .059 and, f(1, 98) = 4.28, p = .04, ηp2 = .042, respectively. in contrast, performing negative memory tasks inhibited the na dramatically in the autobiographical condition, f(1, 98) = 52.11, p < .001, ηp2 = .330, whereas the same task in the vicarious condition did not evoke any effect on the na, f(1, 98) = 2.55, p = .113. to identify the role of additional self-reported measures, we calculated correlations between the ztpi and iri scores and the ipanat difference scores (post-test minus pre-test scores) in the four conditions. nevertheless, none of these measures were correlated with one exception: ztpi negative past and the na difference for positive autobiographical recall (r = .344, p < .001). considering that na typically decreases in this condition, it may be assumed that an aversive view of the personal past interferes with the mitigation of negative affect with positive memories. this assumption was supported by the fact that elucidating the anova with the ztpi negative past scores as a covariate substantially boosted the statistical power, f(1, 98) =  8.66, p < .001, ηp2 =  .151. figure 1 displays the mean scores of the positive and negative affect on the ipanat as a function of memory tasks. table 1 descriptive statistics for means and standard deviations of the ipanat score autobiographical memory task vicarious memory task positive memory negative memory positive memory negative memory statistic pa na pa na pa na pa na pre post pre post pre post pre post pre post pre post pre post pre post m 2.06 2.09 2.08 1.98 2.07 2.49 2.09 1.76 2.12 2.22 2.02 1.94 2.11 1.98 2.04 2.1 sd .42 .52 .41 .52 .53 .52 .54 .48 .51 .50 .44 .43 .51 .51 .45 .50 note. n = 99; pa = positive affect; na = negative affect; pre = before performing the memory task; post = after performing the memory task. nourkova & gofman 241 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 mean ipanat scores for positive affect (pa) and negative affect (na) before and after performing memory tasks note. error bars indicate standard errors of the mean. a significant result of the simple effects test, indicating a difference between preand post-test scores, is marked with a star. *p < .05. **p < .01. the content of negative memories to elucidate the results further, we examined whether the contents of negative memories produced by the participants somehow influenced the following emotional states. although the categories were not pre-decided, the analysis resulted in categorizing all the memories into eight corresponding themes. the following categories were identified: 1) death of relative/friend/pet (e.g. ‘the two memories immediately came to my mind. the death of my grandmother and the death of my lovely cat. these events have merged somewhat because i experienced similar emotions. these two creatures, pardon the expression, were the closest to me. in the first case, i could do nothing since i was too young. but for the second case, i still blame myself. she (the cat) was sick and jumped out the window to catch a sparrow.’); 2) separation/end of relationships/loneliness (e.g. ‘the last conversation with my boyfriend, when he was back from the army. i remember us staying near the army barrack. it was windy, cold, and rainy. he told me not to contact him anymore, not to expect anything from our relationships.’); 3) humiliation (e.g. ‘i was catastrophically humiliated by my classmate. she took picture of me at the gym changing room by stealth. and then spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 242 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ she sent the photo to my boyfriend by noticing the imperfections of my figure. i could not stop crying when i found out about it.’); 4) incompetence in the academic domain (e.g. ‘last year i was told that i had to present my project a week earlier than it was scheduled. i tried to cope with the time pressure, but i was very worried, felt overworked, and helpless. i felt that it would be very difficult to handle and that i didn't have the strength to do it.’); 5) own/relative’s disease (e.g. ‘the day dad told me that mom had been diagnosed with cancer.’); 6) conflict/betrayal (e.g. ‘first escape from home after a terrible quarrel with my mother. i spent all night at a staircase asking myself, “why is life being so unfair to me?” i felt everything went wrong. i felt so unlucky, so stupid, so miserable.’); 7) parental conflict/divorce (e.g. ‘i was eight when my parent’s marriage was broken. of course, i could not figure out why my dad was not at home. one day, my grandmother told me that they no longer lived together. i was really shocked. i could not make heads or tails of it.’). since the positive effect of negative recall was possible due to reappraisal in its traditional form, we carefully examined the verbal marks indicating such previous reappraisal and introduced the eighth category ‘reappraised events’. the following record may exemplify this category: ‘there are moments in the past that bring a shadow of regret, but the understanding immediately comes that these situations served as a powerful stimulus for me, they shaped my character and without them, many great events would not have happened in my life.’ the modal category for the participants was ‘incompetence in the academic domain’ (24.2%). the second most frequently observed category was ‘separation/end of relationships/loneliness’ (20.2%). the third and fourth common categories (16.2%) were ‘death of relative/friend/pet’ and ‘conflict/betrayal’. contrary to these concerns, the category ‘reappraised events’ was mentioned among the rarest (6.1%) and, therefore, did not significantly influence the main results. considering the possible correspondence between the susceptibility to the positive effect of negative autobiographi­ cal recall and the content of retrieved memories, we split the sample into two unequal groups. the ‘boosters’ group involved those participants whose pa and na synchronically increased and decreased, respectively, after performing negative autobiographical memory tasks (n = 74). the ‘non-boosters’ group involved those participants whose pa or na did not follow the pattern described above (n = 25) (see table 2). the analysis revealed that both subgroups reported similar frequencies of memories referring to each of the eight categories; χ2 (7, 99) = 1.763, p = .972. table 2 percentages and frequencies of negative memories boosters (n = 74) non-boosters (n = 25) content category frequency percent frequency percent death of relative/friend 12 16.25 4 16.00 separation/end of relationships/loneliness 15 20.30 5 20.00 humiliation 7 9.50 1 4.00 incompetence in the academic domain 17 23.00 7 28.00 own/relative’s disease 5 6.80 1 4.00 conflict/betrayal 11 14.90 5 20.00 parental conflict/ divorce 2 2.70 1 4.00 reappraised events 5 6.80 1 4.00 note. sorted by content category and susceptibility to the positive effect of the negative recall subgroup. the frequencies and percentages of negative autobiographical memories classified into 8 content categories described above for the two subsamples—‘boosters’ and ‘non-boosters’. discussion although remembering may be an effective tool for emotion management for several reasons (pasupathi, 2003; pillemer, 2009), there is a dearth of research on the diversity of mechanisms that engage with the function of remembering to enhance positive and diminish negative moods. nourkova & gofman 243 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ people’s negative personal memories, when functional, have been shown to serve predominantly directive functions by taking lessons and applying those lessons to the current problems (rasmussen & berntsen, 2009). accordingly, some ‘emotional lessons’ may be extracted from negative memories to resolve current concerns. to the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have examined the possibility that memories of negative past events per se could help people to view the current situation in more benign terms and, consequently, regulate one’s mood. the present study focused on the idea that the utility of negative memories for mood enhancement may imply a specific kind of retrospective cognitive reappraisal. in contrast to rethinking past negative events differently (retrospective reappraisal), the retrospective downward autobiographical comparison proposed here induces a positive mismatch between past negative experiences and the current situation, that is, the feeling that ‘since then, things have changed for the better’. the discrepancy between an aversive memory and an acceptable present seems to be a probable mechanism for positive mood induction. the present study avoided directing the participants to goal-driven mood management. the rationale behind this was the assumption that metacognitive beliefs concerning how autobiographical memory works may contribute to individuals’ mnemonic behaviour (wang et al., 2015). since it seems highly likely that people believe in the negative influence of negative memories on their moods, it may oppose expected mood-repair effect after deliberate retrieval. to prevent such a scenario, the positive and negative components of mood were assessed using an indirect test (the ipanat). the results replicated and elucidated previous data on the mood-repair effect by deliberate recall of positive memo­ ries. positive memory tasks significantly decreased the negative component of the mood (na) in both autobiographical and vicarious conditions. notably, an increase in positive affect (pa) was observed in the vicarious condition only, while it remained the same after the autobiographical recall. this asymmetry may be due to the entertaining nature of vicarious memory tasks. putting oneself into one’s favourite fictional character’s shoes at the happiest moments of the story might be, in itself, a powerful mood regulation strategy. the most striking finding from this study is the reverse effect of negative memory tasks in autobiographical and vicarious conditions. a decrease in pa and stasis of na was detected in the vicarious condition. in contrast, negative autobiographical recall, consistent with our predictions, consistently boosted pa and inhibited na. the former result may be attributed to identification with a chosen fictional character, which determines emotional mimicry. from our perspective, the latter result may support the idea that retrospective downward autobiographical comparison serves as a mechanism behind employing negative personal memories for emotion regulation. it is noteworthy that the obtained result could not be attributed to the specific thematic content of memories. in this study, all negative autobiographical memories were grouped into a relatively small number of categories (n = 8). no significant differences were found in the frequency of memories assigned to each of the categories between the participants divided according to their mood shift after performing the memory tasks (boosters vs. non-boosters). in this study, the most widespread negative memories addressed separations and failures in the academic domain. these results are consistent with numerous data on the significance of self-mastery and communion themes in young adults’ autobiographical narratives, which, in turn, mirror the most powerful motives of this age cohort (see for details, mcadams, hoffman, day, & mansfield, 1996). at the outset of the study, it was expected that individuals who view their past through rose-tinted glasses would benefit more from positive autobiographical recall, whereas individuals with a negative bias toward their past would have difficulty resorting to an account of positive memories. alternatively, such rose-tinted glasses could contradict the proposed mood-repair effect of negative memories, whereas a negative bias towards one’s past probably makes the effect more articulated. in fact, only high scores on the ztpi negative past correlated with a decrease in na after the positive memory task, highlighting this kind of negative bias as an obstacle to eliminating mood negativity. conclusions this experimental study is the first to examine whether negative autobiographical memories serve as a counterpart to positive ones in emotion regulation. this possibility was proposed when considering that negative memories may evoke a feeling that things are going better now as compared to the past. consequently, this positive discrepancy may improve one’s affective state. the proposed hypothesis was tested in 99 healthy, young adults. in general, the spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 244 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://www.psychopen.eu/ claim that performing positive memory retrieval is a sufficient strategy for mood management was replicated. more importantly, the current study extended prior research by detecting the moderate but consistent effect for the pa and na after a negative autobiographical memory task, in a way that participants increased their pa and decreased their na at post-test. notably, the effect took place spontaneously without the explicit goal of changing the existing mood and addressed implicit emotion regulation. these results go beyond previous reports, showing that a retrospective downward autobiographical comparison approach may provide useful insights into the functionality of autobiographical memory. limitations and future directions undoubtedly, much remains to be investigated before we have a clear picture of all the conditions under which negative memories may reduce mood negativity and promote mood positivity. further research should examine the nuances of candidate memories with respect to their content, age, emotional intensity, and the level of discrepancy between the recalled event and the current concern. we are also aware that employing negative memories for emotion regulation functions can exhibit cultural differences. for instance, since it has been shown that people with east asian cultural backgrounds are able to tolerate negative memories successfully (nourkova, 2020; spencer-rodgers, peng, & wang, 2010), they could benefit more from negative memories than people with european and north american cultural back­ grounds. however, the current paper contributes to our understanding of emotion regulation and has demonstrated a possible and previously overlooked application of negative autobiographical memories in diminishing negative emotions or distress. funding: the research was funded by rfbr grant number no. 19‐29‐07069. acknowledgments: we would like to express our gratitude to marina lynova and gleb vzorin for their assistance at various stages of the data collection and processing. competing interests: the 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(1999). putting time in perspective: a valid, reliable individual-differences metric. journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1271–1288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271 about the authors veronika v. nourkova is a professor of psychology in the department of psychology at lomonosov moscow state university. she earned her phd in general psychology from the lomonosov moscow state university in 1998 and her doc. of sci. degree in 2010. nourkova & gofman 247 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 235–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4629 https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2020.1812663 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.536418 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016063 https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000315 https://doi.org/10.3758/mc.37.4.477 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-016-0520-1 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.737 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2020.1732876 https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756232.ch10 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022109349508 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01617.x https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12253 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1614 https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2014.930495 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027600 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-006-9005-0 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2009.11.009 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.03.002 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nourkova’s research focuses on autobiographical memory, social determination of cognition, and methodology of cultural-historical psychology. alena a. gofman is a researcher in the department of psychology at lomonosov moscow state university. she specializes in memory research, particularly focusing on intentional forgetting and memory regulation. spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories 248 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ spontaneous mood improvement by negative memories (introduction) memory in emotion regulation is mood-repair potency limited to positive memories? method participants measures procedure results the content of negative memories discussion conclusions limitations and future directions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors memory and false memory for information that is either expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes research reports memory and false memory for information that is either expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes z. asude kaymak gülseren 1 , simay i̇kier 2 [1] department of psychology, bahçeşehir university, i̇stanbul, türkiye. [2] faculty of human and social sciences, department of psychology, marmara university, i̇stanbul, türkiye. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 received: 2024-01-16 • accepted: 2024-11-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom corresponding author: simay i̇kier, marmara üniversitesi, i̇nsan ve toplum bilimleri fakültesi, psikoloji bölümü, fahrettin kerim gökay caddesi, göztepe i̇stanbul, türkiye. tel: +90 216 777 0000. e-mail: simay.ikier@marmara.edu.tr supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract age is a major social categorization information because it is one of the first attributes that is perceived about an individual. the present study used the misinformation paradigm to investigate memory and false memory for information that is either expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes. young adults were presented with a passage depicting a crime. the passage also contained information about the physical performance and social behavior of the main character that was either expected (expected information condition) or unexpected (unexpected information condition) for his age. the main character was a young adult in the expected information condition and an older adult in the unexpected information condition. next, misinformation was provided about a detail related to the crime. after a non-verbal filler task, participants recalled the exact sentences from the passage, and then they completed a forced-choice recognition test for them. measures of attitudes toward older adults did not differ across the groups. the results revealed worse recognition memory for the sentences and higher false recognition of the misinformation in the expected information condition than in the unexpected information condition. the recall test revealed higher commission errors in the expected information condition than in the unexpected information condition. commission errors were in general consistent with the information in the passage. the results imply that stereotypically expected information is automatically processed, making it more vulnerable to memory errors. the study contributes to the understanding of the memory processes underlying stereotyping that can lead to prejudice and discrimination. keywords aging, stereotype, expectation, memory, recall, recognition, false memory one of the main attributes by which society perceives and forms impressions of individuals is their age. in most cases, the perception of the age of the individual activates stereotypes, i.e., beliefs, knowledge, and expectations about that age group (hamilton & sherman, 1994). in turn, stereotypes affect how the individual is categorized and socially judged (montepare & zebrowitz, 1998). unfortunately, negative aging stereotypes are dominant (e.g., kite et al., 2005; kite & johnson, 1988). negative stereotypes of aging can create stereotype threat, hindering older individuals’ physical and cognitive performance (levy & leifheit-limson, 2009), as well as their well-being (chasteen & cary, 2015). as a result, the way that older individuals are perceived in society is a major determinant of their quality of life and performance, as well as their mental health (levy et al., 2021). investigating the memory processes that underlie access this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13729&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9247-8727 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3810-0958 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ to stereotypical information is important to understand its persistence and vulnerability to errors. in the present study, we are specifically interested in memory performance and false memory for information that is either expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes. initial views on memory for stereotypical information state that individuals search for information that fits their schemas, i.e., their generic knowledge about the world, and remember such information better (bartlett, 1932). stereo­ types are instances of schemas in which the generic knowledge is about a social group (e.g., macrae et al., 1994). in turn, based on prior knowledge, individuals create common expectations about that social group. while the information that is expected based on stereotypes can sometimes aid memory by filling in the missing details with the most probable ones, it can also impair memory by leading to inaccurate assumptions. the script pointer plus tag (sp + t) model (woll & graesser, 1982) proposes that information that is expected based on stereotypes is coded as a merely generic example of what is expected, whereas information that is unexpected needs to have a unique tag because it violates expectations. this model is supported by evidence showing more accurate retrieval of information that is schematically expected than unexpected (e.g., neuschatz et al., 2002). research also shows that information that is expected based on schemas and stereotypes can result in false memory (e.g., brewer & treyens, 1981; charlton & leov, 2021). in a milestone study, sulin and dooling (1974) showed that when a protagonist’s name activated prior knowledge that was not present in a passage, then there was false recognition of that knowledge. this reflects the automaticity of information processing when it is expected based on existing knowledge. findings also showed more false memory and source misattributions for information that is expected based on stereotypes (kleider et al., 2008). one reason for higher false memory for information that is expected based on stereotypes may be that it is retrieved as gist, without the specific details. fuzzy-trace theory (brainerd & reyna, 2002) states that verbatim traces are precise representations of memory, while gist traces are meaning-oriented, summarized memory representations. retrieving the gist of the information instead of the verbatim information increases the probability of memory errors. given that information that is unexpected based on stereotypes receives more attention, it is reasonable to expect that such information would be retrieved in a more verbatim manner, resulting in a lower probability of false memories. on the other hand, if we process stereotypically expected information automatically, the reliance on the gist of information can result in memory errors even for stereotypically unrelated information. when negative stereotypes outweigh the positive ones, it can result in ageism (greenberg et al., 2004), and unfortu­ nately, in meta-analyses (e.g., kite et al., 2005; kite & johnson, 1988), it was shown that negative stereotypes of aging are more dominant. indeed, negative aging stereotypes have become especially dominant in the last few years, reinforced by the covid-19 pandemic (monahan et al., 2020, but also see carlson et al., 2020). the present study focused on the question of whether young adults’ memory performance and false memory are affected by whether the information is expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes. to our knowledge, this question has not been investigated in the literature yet. investigation of the cognitive processes related to the automatic processing of information in memory due to the presence of age stereotypes is undeniably important since it can eventually lead to prejudice and discrimination. we investigated this question by using the misinformation paradigm (loftus et al., 1978) in which the misinformation that is provided after the target information can lead to false memory for the target information. we especially focused on physical performance and social behavior that are expected for young adults, but not for older adults due to age ster­ eotypes. we controlled for attitudes toward older adults considering that they might affect stereotypical expectations. based on prior research and theoretical propositions (e.g., woll & graesser, 1982), we hypothesized better recall and recognition, and less vulnerability to false memory (brainerd & reyna, 2002) when the information is unexpected based on age stereotypes. method research design the study has a basic design with a single independent variable with two levels (information type: expected information condition, unexpected information condition). the dependent variables are memory accuracy and false memory in recall and recognition tests. kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 41 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants eight participants were excluded because they stated that they did not hear the first sentence of the passage from the voice recording that contained critical information about the main character’s age. the inclusion criteria were being healthy young adult university students, the exclusion criterion was not being a native speaker of turkish. participants were randomly assigned to the conditions in which the passages included either information that is expected (expected information condition) or unexpected (unexpected information condition) of the main character’s age. a total of 88 participants were recruited for the experiment. an equal number of participants were assigned to each condition, consisting of 33 males and 55 females within the age range of 18 and 28. in the expected information condition, there were 27 females and 17 males. in the unexpected information condition, there were 28 females and 16 males1. table 1 shows the minimum and maximum scores, means and standard deviations for age and the number of years of education. table 1 descriptive statistics for age and years of education expected information condition (n = 44) unexpected information condition (n = 44) variable min max m sd min max m sd age 18 28 23.60 3.14 18 28 23.05 2.92 years of education 12 21 16.30 2.60 12 22 16.27 2.56 materials the experimental procedure involved listening to a passage that either contained expected or unexpected information based on age stereotypes, responding to the misleading question about the passage, completing a non-verbal filler task, completing the recall and the recognition test for the information in the passage, responding to the manipulation check question about the passage, and finally filling in kogan’s attitude toward older people scale (kaop), positive and negative ageism scale (pnas), and the demographic form. the subsequent section provides detailed information about the materials. the voice recordings and the texts for the passages, the misleading question, and the questions for the recognition test are presented in gülseren and i̇kier (2025)2. the passages the passages in the two conditions were the same except that the first sentence stated that the main character is 20 years old in the expected information condition and 80 years old in the unexpected information condition. the passages described an attempted crime in which a snatcher advances a hand into the pocket of the main character’s friend, and the main character notices the incident and runs after the snatcher. the passages also described the habits (e.g., going for a run every morning) and some characteristics (e.g., energetic, sporty) of the main character and his plans for that day (e.g., going to a birthday party of a friend). while these physical and social characteristics were expected for a 20-year-old adult, they were unexpected for an 80-year-old adult based on the age stereotypes in the country in which the data were collected (çayır, 2012; danış & kara, 2017). each passage contained eight sentences. the sentences were voice recorded to prevent reading them multiple times and to control possible differences in reading speed across participants. first, a single recording of the passage that included the first sentence for both conditions was created. then, for the expected information condition, the first sentence for the unexpected information condition was cut out and for the unexpected information condition, the first 1) the sample size was determined based on similar prior research (e.g., araya et al., 2003; kleider et al., 2008). 2) all materials, instructions, and their english versions are presented in the osf repository in gülseren and i̇kier (2025). memory and age stereotypes 42 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sentence for the expected information condition was cut out. as a result, the recording for the rest of the sentences was the same for the two conditions. the speed of the utterance was reduced to an average speed and the sentence breaks were synchronized to eliminate tracking difficulties by using adobe premiere pro (adobe, 2003). in the final recording, each word was clearly heard, and the tone of voice was stable and clear, with no particular emphasis on any of the words. the duration for each recording is 44 seconds. the misleading question the misleading question was constructed by changing the type of hat the snatcher was wearing in the sentence that described the main character noticing the snatcher and by putting the sentence into question form. non-verbal filler task it is a four-minute task to that includes simple mathematical operations. the purpose of the filler task is to create a filled interval to prevent the rehearsal of the passage before the memory tests. recall test the test required verbatim recall in which participants were asked to retrieve the exact sentences from the passage in any order. recognition test it is a forced-choice recognition test for each sentence in the passage. participants were asked to choose the exact sentence that was in the passage out of four choices. the incorrect choices were constructed by changing the details for the correct sentence. for the sentence that was used to provide misinformation, two of the incorrect choices included the misinformation. manipulation check for the passages the question checks whether the information in the passage was expected or unexpected considering the main character’s age for the participants. participants were asked to rate to what extent the characteristics and the behaviors of the main character in the passage were consistent with their expectations of characteristics and behaviors of that age group. the ratings were completed on a 5-point likert scale ranging from “1 = totally inconsistent” to “5 = totally consistent”. kogan’s attitude toward older people scale (kaop) the scale contains 17 positive and 17 negative items measuring attitudes toward older adults (kogan, 1961). while “it is foolish to claim that wisdom comes with age,” is an example of a negative item, “people grow wiser with the coming of old age,” is an example of positive item of the scale. the items are rated on a 6-point likert scale ranging from “1 = totally disagree” to “6 = totally agree”. a total score of 102 is evaluated as a neutral attitude toward older adults and higher scores indicate more positive attitudes. the cronbach’s alpha for the cultural standardization of the scale is .84 for the whole scale, and .77 and .79 respectively for positive and negative subscales (erdemir et al., 2011). positive and negative ageism scale (pnas) the scale is specifically designed to measure university students’ attitudes toward older individuals. the scale has two subscales measuring positively discriminative attitudes and negatively discriminative attitudes, consisting of 13 positive and 10 negative statements respectively. “elderly should withdraw from everyday life,” is an example of a negative item of the scale and “in everyday life, elderly should be given priority,” is an example of a positive item. the statements are rated on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from “1 = totally disagree” to “5 = totally agree”. higher scores indicate more positively discriminative and less negatively discriminative attitudes toward older adults. the cronbach’s alpha for the scale is .80 (yurttaş & sarıkoca, 2018). kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 43 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ demographic form the form includes questions on age, sex, number of years of education, and general health of the participants. procedure the study was approved by bahçeşehir university ethics review board. the study was conducted by having an online face-to-face meeting with each participant on the zoom platform. a flowchart for the procedure is provided in figure 1. figure 1 flowchart for the procedure all participants provided informed consent. first, the voice recording for the passage was sent to the participants and the participants downloaded the recording to their computer to prevent problems related to the internet connection while listening to the passage. the participants were asked not to start the recording themselves. the experimenter started and ended the recording by accessing the participants’ screen for the duration of the recording. all participants used headphones to eliminate external noise. first, participants were asked to put their headphones on. then, the sound quality and level were checked by the experimenter with a short voice control recording that included only two words (i.e., “voice control”). the sound level was optimized to minimize information loss. then the participants were asked to carefully listen to the passage without a break. they were told that once the voice recording starts, it cannot be paused or re-played. they were asked to remember the sentences in the passage for a subsequent test. then, the recording was started and stopped at the end by the experimenter. participants were asked to delete the voice recordings permanently from their computers after the recording was stopped. next, participants were given the misleading question and responded to the question as “yes” or “no”. then, they were engaged in the non-verbal filler task in which they were asked to respond as accurately as possible. then, participants completed the recall test and the recognition test. afterward, participants responded to the manipulation check question. finally, they filled out the kaop, the pnas, and the demographic form. all participants were debriefed. data analysis plan the results section starts with the descriptive statistics for the sample and a check for control variables. first, descriptive statistics for years of education and sex distribution were provided. then, responses for the manipulation check question were compared with an independent measures t-test, to ensure control. thereafter, kaop and pnas were analyzed and compared across conditions with an independent measures t-test. kaop total score and pnas positive and negative memory and age stereotypes 44 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scores were correlated with memory measures (lenient recall, strict recall, verbatim recall, and recognition) by using pearson correlation. then, the section continues with the tests of the main hypotheses of the study. recall and recognition performance was assessed and compared across the conditions with independent measures t-test. a chi-square test was conducted to compare the two conditions for the generation of misinformation in the recall and the recognition tests. errors on the memory tests (omission, commission, and distortion) were assessed and compared across the con­ ditions by using independent measures t-test. lastly, the two conditions were compared in terms of the expected, unexpected, and unrelated commission errors by using independent measures t-test. results the data and the syntax for the analyses are available in gülseren and i̇kier (2025). participants one participant’s datum was removed from the expected information condition because his z-score was above three in the recall test. the final sample that we conducted the analyses on consisted of 87 participants. responses to the manipulation check questions responses to the manipulation check questions showed that the characteristics and behaviors of the main character in the passage were more expected of his age in the expected information condition, m = 3.86, se = 0.12 than in the unexpected information condition, m = 2.20, se = 0.15, t(85) = 8.61, p < .001, d = 1.86. attitudes toward older adults participants in the two conditions did not differ in their attitudes toward older adults. for kaop, m = 130.35, se = 2.51 for the expected information condition, and m = 124.30, se = 2.68 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 1.65, p = .103, d = 0.35. for, pnas positive subscale m = 42.28, se = 0.81 for the expected information condition, m = 42.05, se = 1.19 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 0.16, p = .872, d = 0.03. for pnas negative subscale, m = 41.07, se = 0.84 for the expected information condition, and m = 39.41, se = 0.97 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 1.30, p = .20, d = 0.28. based on the scores for kaop and pnas, our participants in general had relatively positive attitudes toward older adults. exploratory analyses showed that the attitude scores did not correlate with any of the memory measurements, all p’s > .05. scoring for the recall test recall scores were calculated by three different scoring criteria: lenient criterion, strict criterion, and verbatim criterion. two independent raters scored the recalled information based on these criteria. passages were broken down into idea units, which is a widely used procedure in prose memory research (e.g., bransford & johnson, 1972). the resulting 58 idea units were designated based on semantic units such as subjects, adjectives, propositions, and verbs which corresponded to either single words or phrases (bransford & johnson, 1972). the idea units are presented in gülseren and i̇kier (2025). for the lenient criterion scoring, a flexible approach was taken in which synonyms and analogies of the idea units that conveyed the same meaning, different conjugations of the correct verbs, and changes in the location of the idea units were counted as correct. for the strict criterion scoring, only the exact same idea units were counted as correct, but different conjugations of the correct verbs and changes in the location of the idea units were also accepted. for the verbatim criterion scoring, the idea units were not used, and only the exact same sentences were counted as correct. the interrater reliability for the independent raters was calculated for the lenient and strict criterion recall scores by using pearson correlation. results showed a strong significant positive correlation between the scores of the raters kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 45 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for the lenient criterion, r(86) = .99, p < .001, and for the strict criterion, r(86) = .99, p < .001. minor differences in scoring were discussed among the raters and a compromise was reached for the final scoring. for the verbatim criterion, the scoring was first completed by the first rater and then checked by the second rater to ensure that only the same sentences were counted as correct. analyses for the recall and recognition tests percentages for the recall and the recognition test scores are presented in figure 2. figure 2 mean percent recall and recognition scores note. error bars represent standard errors. recall scores for the lenient criterion did not reveal a difference between the expected information (m = 33.71, se = 1.52) and the unexpected information (m = 35.58, se = 1.76) conditions, t(85) = 0.80, p = .43, d = 0.17. similarly, there was no difference between the conditions for the strict scoring criterion, m = 14.91, se = 0.99 for the expected information, and m = 16.06, se = 1.21 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 0.73, p = .47, d = 0.16. the verbatim criterion for recall also revealed no difference between the conditions, m = 3.78, se = 0.98 for the expected information and m = 5.68, se = 1.03 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 1.34, p = .19, d = 0.29. recognition scores for the unexpected information condition (m = 63.35, se = 2.65) were significantly higher than the expected information condition (m = 55.81, se = 2.54), t(85) = 2.05, p = .04, d = 0.44. in summary, the memory performance differences across the expected and unexpected information conditions were solely revealed in the recognition test. analysis for the recall and recognition of the misinformation pearson chi-square analysis was conducted to determine whether there were differences in the false recall and recogni­ tion of the misinformation. for the recall test, intrusions with the misinformation were minimal and similar in the two conditions: three participants in the expected information condition (n = 43) and two participants in the unexpected information condition (n = 44) generated the misinformation in the recall test, χ2(1, n = 87) = 0.19, p = .66, cramer’s v = 0.05. for the recognition test, however, 24 participants in the expected information condition and 14 participants in the unexpected information condition falsely recognized the misinformation as accurate.3 these frequencies were found 3) there were two options that included the misinformation. option a had an incorrect detail in the sentence along with the misinformation, whereas option b was the correct sentence except for the misinformation. we report the percentage of participants who chose each of these options. option d was the correct memory and age stereotypes 46 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to be distributed differently across the two conditions, χ2(1, n = 87) = 5.09, p = .03, cramer’s v = 0.24. thus, as hypothesized, participants in the unexpected information condition were less likely to recognize the misinformation as correct than the ones in the expected information condition. exploratory analyses for the errors in the recall test further exploratory analyses were carried out to explore the type of errors in the recall test. out of the 58 idea units in the passage, 10 critical idea units were selected that contained information about the characteristics (e.g., energetic, sporty), habits (e.g., going for a run every morning), actions (e.g., running after and catching the snatcher), and social life (e.g., having a crowded group of friends) of the main character. depending on the condition, the idea units constituted either expected or unexpected information based on the age of the main character. the number of omission, distortion, and commission errors were explored. an omission error refers to the absence of a critical idea unit. an omission error was recorded if the idea unit was absent in the scoring with the lenient criterion. a distortion error refers to a change in the content of the idea unit. a distortion error was recorded if the change in the idea unit was accepted as correct with the lenient criterion, but not with the strict criterion. finally, a commission error refers to the addition of a new item to the passage. a commission error was recorded if an added item within the whole passage was not counted as correct even with the lenient scoring criterion. the commission errors were further divided and analyzed into three categories: 1) expected commission errors, 2) unexpected commission errors, and 3) unrelated commission errors. an expected commission error was recorded if the committed information was expected of the main character’s age based on stereotypes. an unexpected commission error was recorded if the committed information was unexpected of the main character’s age based on stereotypes. unrelated commission errors were unrelated to the age of the main character. two independent raters scored errors. pearson correlations showed strong correlations between the scores of the raters for the omission, r(85) = .96, p < .001, distortion, r(85) = .95, p < .001, and commission, r(85) = .91, p < .001 errors. specifically, interrater reliability for the expected, r(85) = .89, p < .001, the unexpected, r(85) = .86, p < .001, and the unrelated, r(85) = .95, p < .001 commission errors was high. minor differences in scoring were discussed among the raters and a compromise was reached for the final scoring. analysis for the omission errors did not reveal any difference between expected information (m = 5.00, se = 0.25) and unexpected information (m = 4.77, se = 0.28) conditions, t(85) = 0.60, p = .55, d = 0.13. there was also no difference across the conditions for the distortion errors. specifically, m = 2.02, se = 0.13 for the expected information, and m = 2.18, se = 0.15 for the unexpected information condition, t(85) = 0.81, p = .42, d = 0.17. there was a significant difference across the conditions for the overall commission errors. there were more commission errors in the expected information condition (m = 3.40, se = 0.25) than in the unexpected information condition (m = 2.55, se = 0.25), t(85) = 2.41, p = .02, d = 0.52. the results of the error analyses are presented in figure 3. option. expected information condition: option a, 18.6%; option b, 37.2%; option c, 20.9%; option d, 23.3%. unexpected information condition: option a, 11.4%; option b, 20.5%; option c, 13.6%; option d, 54.5%. kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 47 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 mean number of memory errors note. error bars represent standard errors. a more detailed analysis of the commission errors showed that expected commission errors were more frequent in the expected information condition (m = 1.30, se = 0.14) than in the unexpected information condition (m = 0.11, se = 0.05) condition, t(85) = 7.93, p < .001, d = 1.70. on the other hand, unexpected commission errors were non-existent in the expected information condition and more frequent in the unexpected information condition (m = 0.82, se = 0.15), t(85) = 5.52, p < .001, d = 0.17. the frequency of the unrelated commission errors did not differ across the expected information (m = 2.09, se = 0.22) and unexpected information (m = 1.61, se = 0.19) conditions, t(85) = 1.67, p = .10, d = 0.36. thus, the commission errors were likely to be consistent with the information that was presented in the passage. the results of the analyses for the types of commission errors are presented in figure 4. figure 4 mean number of commission errors note. error bars represent standard errors. discussion in the present study, we aimed to investigate the effects of the expectedness of age-related information on memory performance, including false memories. we hypothesized better memory and less vulnerability to false memory when the information is stereotypically unexpected. the results partly confirmed our hypotheses by showing that the recognition of unexpected information was higher and that there was also lower false recognition of the misinformation memory and age stereotypes 48 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ when the information was unexpected based on age stereotypes. these results are consistent with the sp + t model (woll & graesser, 1982), which predicts better memory for information that is unexpected, due to the more attentive processing it receives. based on this view, we had predicted that prior knowledge can affect the extent of our attention to the information which, in turn, can affect memory accuracy and false memory formation. when there is expected information in a passage, it is likely that there will not be much processing for any of the information, possibly due to a sense of familiarity. on the other hand, if there is unexpected information in a passage, attention is likely to be necessary to process all information. the recall of information and the false recall of the misinformation were not affected by whether the information was expected. the commission errors with stereotypically expected information in the recall test were higher when the information in the passage was stereotypically expected of the main character’s age. more specifically, as a novel finding of our research, commission errors were more likely to be expected commissions that are consistent with the age of the main character in the expected information condition and they were more likely to be unexpected commission errors in the unexpected information condition. recall tests versus recognition tests our findings imply that the type of memory test (i.e., recall versus recognition) may be a critical factor related to how expected and unexpected information is processed. our recognition memory results are consistent with the notion that information that is expected is more likely to be retrieved as a gist (araya et al., 2003; brainerd & reyna, 2010). recognition relies on familiarity more than recall (kintsch, 1970), and this may be a reason that the differences across conditions were only revealed in the recognition test. given that only the minor details of the correct sentences were changed in the incorrect choices of the recognition test, a sense of familiarity was probably preserved, increasing memory errors. considering that the misinformation in the study was not stereotypical, yet that it was more likely to be falsely recognized in the expected information condition, the misinformation was possibly represented as a gist in memory that is open to distortion in the context of stereotypically expected information. a useful measure to support this explanation could have been collecting “remember”/“know” judgments. while a remember judgment indicates conscious recollection of information, a “know” judgment indicates just a sense of famili­ arity in the absence of conscious recollection (tulving, 1985). previous investigations showed more know judgments for schematic information than for non-schematic information (e.g., neuschatz et al., 2002). if these measurements were collected, they could be useful in explaining the underlying process for the recognition results and in explaining the discrepant results for the recall test. presumably, there would be more know judgments in the expected information condition than in the unexpected information condition. know judgments would also be presumably higher for the recognition test than for the recall test (wixted & squire, 2010). this limitation of the present study can be overcome in future studies, by including these measurements. the absence of differences across conditions in the recall test can also be explained by considering the nature of the two memory tests. recall tests are usually more difficult than recognition tests. recall tests involve two stages, but recognition tests involve only a single stage (anderson & bower, 1972; kintsch, 1970). in recognition tests, the old information needs to be identified as being presented. on the other hand, in recall tests, the information needs to be retrieved first and then selected as the correct information among the retrieved items. failure of either of these stages may result in reduced recall. in the present study, the difficulty of the recall test may have also limited the amount of information that is retrieved, making the scores in the two conditions more similar to each other. the performance of the participants on the recall test was 34% and 36% for the expected and unexpected information conditions respectively, even when the scoring criterion was lenient. in the recognition test, the retrieval performance was higher. specifically, it was 63% in the unexpected information and 56% in the expected information conditions. thus, both familiarity-based retrieval and retrieval difficulties may have contributed to the observation of the current findings. due to the null results that we obtained in the recall test, we further analyzed the types of errors that were made in the recall of the passages. the results showed that commission errors were higher in the expected information condition than in the unexpected information condition. further analyses showed that commission errors were likely to kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 49 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ be consistent with the information in the passage. thus, stereotypically expected information may have been likely to receive attentive processing. in general, our results indicate that an event description that involves stereotypical information may generally result in worse recognition and more false retrieval. implications of these findings can be considered in eyewitness testimony research as well because they indicate that an eyewitness may be less accurate about the details of an event when the event details involve stereotypically expected information. suggestions for future research we also would like to consider some procedural details that can affect memory performance for stereotypically expected or unexpected information and make some suggestions for future research. kleider and colleagues (2008) showed that information that is unexpected based on stereotypes was retrieved better in an immediate test, whereas expected information was retrieved better in the delayed test. their immediate test was right after a 20-minute distractor task, while the delayed test was two days later. in our study, testing was done immediately after a 4-minute filler task, and our results were similar to kleider et al. (2008) results for the immediate test. in future research, the time course of the retrieved information that is expected or unexpected based on age stereotypes can be investigated to gain insight into its persistence and recovery. in the present study, we focused on age-related physical performance and social behavior stereotypes. prior research shows that older adults internalize both physical and cognitive aging stereotypes. future research can investigate the processing of age-related expected and unexpected information about cognitive performance by younger adults. exten­ sion to aging stereotypes of cognition would provide information about the generalizability of the current findings. there can also be some individual difference variables that can affect memory processes for stereotypically expected or unexpected information. one individual difference variable may be the prejudiced attitudes toward older adults. swift et al. (2018) claimed that aging stereotypes can be both positive and negative. negative stereotypes of aging are more dominant than positive ones (e.g., kite et al., 2005; kite & johnson, 1988) and this escalates ageism (greenberg et al., 2004). the two groups that were tested in the present study did not differ in their attitudes toward older individuals. exploratory analyses also showed that the attitude measures did not correlate with memory measurements. thus, individual differences in attitudes cannot be an explanation for the group differences that we found in recognition. attitudes of our participants toward older adults were also quite positive. it should be noted though our attitude measures were taken explicitly. nosek and colleagues (2007) collected online data about implicit stereotyping over six years. this large-scale data revealed a striking finding: the strongest implicit prejudice effect was observed for aging attitudes, where 80% of participants had difficulty in pairing old people with good items and young people with bad items. moreover, these implicit aging attitudes were found to be cross-culturally consistent. other studies also confirmed the automaticity of implicit negative age stereotypes (e.g., krings, 2004). our results also imply more automatic, i.e., less effortful and more error-prone processing of information that is expected based on age stereotypes. however, a systematic investigation of the relationship between implicit aging attitudes and memory measures can provide more direct evidence of the effects of individual differences in attitudes toward older adults. individuals may differ in the way that they handle stereotypical information as well. need for cognition is defined as an individual’s tendency to engage in effortful cognitive activity and individuals who are high in need for cognition semantically process information in a deep and elaborative manner (cacioppo et al., 1996). according to the fuzzy-trace theory, semantic processing leads to meaning-based gist traces, and the activation of semantic connections can lead to false memory (brainerd & reyna, 2002). previous studies showed increased false memory among individuals who have high needs for cognition both in recognition (e.g., graham, 2007) and in recall (e.g., leding, 2011). future research can investigate whether the findings can be generalized to both stereotypically expected and unexpected information. additionally, the need for cognitive closure as a motivational desire to resolve ambiguous, uncertain information that causes discomfort (kruglanski & webster, 1996) may also be an individual difference variable that might affect how an individual deals with unexpected information. the need for cognitive closure results in a search for stereotypically consistent information and the avoidance of inconsistent information in order to prevent any conflict with pre-existing memory and age stereotypes 50 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://www.psychopen.eu/ schemas (e.g., dijksterhuis et al., 1996). further research can be carried out to determine the systematic effects of the need for cognitive closure in the retrieval and false retrieval of stereotypical information. conclusion the present study contributed to the literature on how aging stereotypes affect memory processes. the results show that stereotypically expected information is retrieved less accurately. perpetuation of stereotypical ageist expectations hinders older adults’ performance and well-being (for a review see chasteen & cary, 2015). therefore, the ultimate aim of research should be to reduce stereotypical processing. there are some promising studies pointing to factors that can decrease stereotyping such as motivation to generate accurate social impressions, taking the perspective of an out-group member, and being exposed to counter-stereotypical information (for a review, see plous, 2003). it is important to understand the cognitive processes for the information that is expected based on stereotypes so that the findings in this line of research can eventually be useful in reducing prejudice and discrimination. funding: this study was funded by the scientific research projects commission of bahçeşehir university. project number: bap.2021-01.22. the authors would like to thank bahçeşehir university for the financial support. acknowledgments: we would like to thank irem sakarya for collecting data and for scoring the idea units of and the errors for the passages. we also would like to thank zeynep sude çiçek and kaan yılmaz for their help in data entry and document translation. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: all procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the bahçeşehir university ethics review board and with the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. the study complies with the ethical standards of research involving human participants and informed consent was obtained from all participants. data availability: for this article, data, codebook and materials are available at gülseren and i̇kier (2025). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. 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(2018). pozitif ve negatif yaşlı ayrımcılığı ölçeği (pnyaö) geçerlilik ve güvenirlik çalışması [positive and negative ageism scale (pnas) a validity and reliability study]. atatürk üniversitesi sosyal bilimler enstitüsü dergisi, 22(2), 1977– 1991. about the authors z. asude kaymak gülseren received her ba degree in psychology from istanbul şehir university and her ma degree in cognitive neuropsychology from bahçeşehir university. she is interested in cognitive and neuroscientific aspects of social stereotyping. she currently resides in copenhagen. she can be reached via e-mail at asudekaymakk@gmail.com. simay i̇kier received her ba and ma degrees from boğaziçi university and her phd degree from the university of toronto. she currently works as an associate professor at marmara university, department of psychology. her specialization is in cognitive psychology and her research interests include memory and attention processes, interaction of these processes with social and emotional factors, and their change with normative aging. she can be reached at simay.ikier@marmara.edu.tr. kaymak gülseren & i̇kier 53 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 40–53 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13729 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014563 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.4.1.19 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.66.1.37 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000699 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.824 https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280701489053 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036846 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0080017 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2010.04.020 https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1982.1.4.287 https://www.psychopen.eu/ memory and age stereotypes (introduction) method research design participants materials procedure data analysis plan results participants responses to the manipulation check questions attitudes toward older adults scoring for the recall test analyses for the recall and recognition tests analysis for the recall and recognition of the misinformation exploratory analyses for the errors in the recall test discussion recall tests versus recognition tests suggestions for future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors to seek or not to seek advice: talking about romantic issues during emerging adulthood research reports to seek or not to seek advice: talking about romantic issues during emerging adulthood semira tagliabue* a, maria giulia olivari b, cristina giuliani c, emanuela confalonieri b [a] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, brescia, italy. [b] department of psychology, cridee, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. [c] department of psychology, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milano, italy. abstract the aim of the study was to explore whether and how emerging adults talk about their romantic relationships with their close others, especially their parents and friends, also considering gender differences. data were collected via eight single-sex focus groups conducted with 50 italian emerging adults (aged 18–25), and were analyzed using thematic analysis. two main themes emerged. the first was labeled “to seek advice”, which was divided into three subthemes: “i look for different points of view,” “i treasure other people’s words,” and “i listen and then do it my own way.” the second theme was “to not seek advice,” which was divided into two subthemes: “i do not need comparison” and “i need to choose on my own.” the findings revealed that close friends, more than parents, are important interlocutors for discussions on romantic relationships, and few gender differences were found. furthermore, we can speculate that emerging adults’ reasons for seeking advice or not could relate to their autonomy and relatedness needs. keywords: seeking advice, romantic relationships, parents, close friends, emerging adulthood, sexuality europe's journal of psychology, 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142, doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 received: 2017-05-09. accepted: 2017-07-25. published (vor): 2018-03-12. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; flavia cangia, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, università cattolica of brescia, via trieste, 17, 25121, brescia, italy. e-mail: semira.tagliabue@unicatt.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. romantic relationships are a central issue in one’s transition to adulthood (fincham & cui, 2011), and the presence of a stable romantic relationship is linked with plans about leaving the parental home and marriage (lanz & tagliabue, 2007; shulman & connolly, 2013). however, in this period, romantic relationships are often unstable and fluid, characterized by break-ups and reconciliations, so that emerging adults experience difficulties in taking long-term decisions and commitment in the relationship itself (dailey, hampel, & roberts, 2010). communication and self-disclosure about romantic relationships have been found to be typical in adolescence, especially with friends and less with parents (fry et al., 2014; tishby et al., 2001), but very little research has been conducted on this topic during the transition to adulthood. research on emerging adults seeking advice revealed that they look for parental support when they experience difficulties in different areas of their lives, but less with regard to how to manage their romantic relationships (carlson, 2014). it could be that they prefer to turn to their friends to have support and to self-disclose about their romantic issues. research europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ also revealed gender differences in talking about romantic issues, with females communicating more frequently than males (lefkowitz, boone, & shearer, 2004). few studies have been conducted on whether and how emerging adults talk about their romantic relationships with their parents and friends, especially in italy. in order to fill this gap, the present qualitative study aimed to explore whether and how emerging adults talk about their romantic relationships with their parents and friends, also considering possible gender differences that have been found in adolescence. romantic relationships in emerging adulthood: talking with parents and friends according to erikson (1950, 1963), the transition to adulthood is characterized by the dialectic of intimacy versus isolation: “intimacy is the capacity to commit (one) self to concrete affiliations and partnerships and to develop the ethical strength to abide by such commitments, even though they may call for significant sacrifices and compromises” (erikson, 1963, p. 263). research confirms that intimacy is higher in emerging adulthood than in adolescence (montgomery, 2005), so that developing a satisfactory relationship with a romantic partner constitutes an important developmental task of this period (roisman, masten, coatsworth, & tellegen, 2004; schulenberg, bryant, & o’malley, 2004) and it could have long-term consequences regarding future choices (e.g., cohabitation, marriage, family planning, and parenthood) (lanz & tagliabue, 2007). furman and winkles (2012) underlined that there is a developmental change in romantic relationships from adolescence to emerging adulthood, although these changes are fluid. the number of individuals involved in a romantic relationship increases during the transition to adulthood and the duration of these relationships also raises (giordano, flanigan, manning, & longmore, 2009; seiffge-krenke, 2003). romantic relationships become the context where emerging adults develop their intimacy processes and attitudes towards lifelong commitment (collins & van dulmen, 2006; seiffge-krenke, 2003). transitional choices such as cohabiting with a partner, being involved in a stable relationship, getting married, and choosing to have a baby represent central aspects in the transition to adulthood (seiffge-krenke, luyckx, & salmela-aro, 2014). moreover, sexual behaviors also increase during the transition to adulthood (mosher, chandra, & jones, 2005) and become more linked to positive outcomes (welsh, haugen, widman, darling, & grello, 2005). indeed, although sexuality is still studied as a risk behavior in emerging adulthood (vasilenko, lefkowitz, & maggs, 2012), it is also investigated concerning experimentation, including different ways of being involved in casual relationships (i.e., “hookups,” “one-night stands,” “friends with benefits,” and “booty calls”) (claxton & van dulmen, 2013) and it has been found that the frequency of sexual intercourse is associated to a higher relational commitment (welsh et al., 2005). some gender differences have also been found in the level of intimacy during the transition to adulthood: females present higher intimacy than males (montgomery, 2005). given the centrality and importance of romantic relationships during emerging adulthood, romantic issues should be an important topic of communication, seeking advice and self-disclosure for emerging adults. however, few studies investigate whether and how emerging adults talk about romantic relationships with parents and friends. during emerging adulthood, parents are still a major source of support in order to face uncertainties or difficulties (oliveira, mendonça, coimbra, & fontaine, 2014; swartz, kim, uno, mortimer, & o’brien, 2011). indeed, emerging adults often directly solicit parental support and advice in managing daily issues (carlson, 2014). however, the advice mainly concerns working life balance and academic issues, and less social and communication of romantic relationships 126 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relational issues regarding friendships, family life, and romantic relationships. moreover, among relational issues, emerging adults solicit less advice about romantic relationships as compared to the advice requested for issues related to family or friend relationships. carlson (2014) concluded that parental advice about romantic relationships, especially sexuality issues, is not often solicited, and even when it is, emerging adults do not follow it. some studies investigated possible differences in the way adolescents and emerging adults talk with parents or with friends regarding their romantic relationships and sexuality. findings revealed that late adolescents and emerging adults disclose more with friends than with parents (christopher, 2001; diiorio, kelley, & hockenberry-eaton, 1999; lefkowitz & espinosa-hernandez, 2007). often, adolescents feel embarrassed speaking with parents about their romantic relationships; therefore, they turn to their peers (fry et al., 2014; tishby et al., 2001), especially when they are experiencing negative events. indeed, seeking advice and support from others when experiencing negative relational events with a romantic partner is a common way to reduce uncertainty (planalp, rutherford, & honeycutt, 1988). focus-group research conducted with emerging adults confirmed that emerging adults seek advice and communication about negative relational events in their romantic relationships in order to receive social support and reduce uncertainty (vallade, dillow, & myers, 2016). regarding communication about sex, adolescents feel more comfortable to discuss sex topics with mothers than with fathers (diiorio et al., 1999; feldman & rosenthal, 2000). communication with friends about sex is characterized by a variety of topics (dating, feelings, abstinence, fertility issues, contraception, etc.); moreover, topics discussed and frequency of communication is linked with being sexual active and having liberal sexual attitudes (lefkowitz et al., 2004). gender differences have been found in the way people talk with parents and friends about romantic issues. for instance, adolescent females feel more comfortable than males in talking with parents (lefkowitz, boone, sigman, & au, 2002; raffaelli, bogenschneider, & flood, 1998) and with friends (diiorio et al., 1999) about sexrelated topics, although males face fewer difficulties in talking with fathers about sex-related topics than females (diiorio et al., 1999). lefkowitz and colleagues (2004) found similar findings in emerging adults: females feel more comfortable to speak with best friends about sex-related topics than males. when the topic of the research is the conversation about intimacy, some qualitative studies revealed that adolescent males are open to talk about their romantic desires with their male and female friends (tolman, spencer, harmon, rosenreynoso, & striepe, 2004; way, 2004), but another study conducted on male emerging adults underlined their difficulties in managing intimate topics in their conversation with friends (korobov & thorne, 2006). most of the cited research focused on adolescence. however, romantic partner in emerging adults’ social network acquires a central position, and also parental and friend relationships are changing. parent-child relationship becomes more horizontal and friendly, and although it continues to have a central role (parks, 2007), it is also characterized by a decrease in its quality (flynn, felmlee, & conger, 2017). thus, more research is needed in order to understand whether the patterns of communication about romantic issues are similar or different during the transition to adulthood compared with adolescence. moreover, although in adolescence gender differences have been found (lefkowitz et al., 2004), few studies explore possible gender differences during emerging adulthood considering both romantic and sex-related topics. tagliabue, olivari, giuliani, & confalonieri 127 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ literature about romantic issues’ self-disclosure during adolescence provides some insights, however the transition to adulthood is a different developmental phase (arnett, 2000; furman & winkles, 2012) with specific features. for instance, emerging adulthood is characterized by a focus on intimacy (erikson, 1963; furman & winkles, 2012), but also on the individuation process, in which emerging adults achieve autonomy and independence from close others, especially parents, still conserving a sense of connection with them (blos, 1979; mattanah, hancock, & brand, 2004). thus, the way in which emerging adults talk with parents and friends about their romantic issues could also be influenced by the developmental processes characterizing this transition. despite the importance of romantic relationships in emerging adulthood, little research, especially in italy, has been conducted on emerging adults’ communication about romantic relationships with close others. emerging adulthood in italy presents some unique properties such as the delay in leaving parental home, or the importance of romantic relationships for this role transition (carrà, lanz, & tagliabue, 2014; crocetti & tagliabue 2016; lanz & tagliabue, 2007, 2014; regalia, lanz, tagliabue, & manzi, 2011). research conducted in italy revealed that being involved in a romantic relationship is specifically linked with future plans (e.g., leaving the parental home and having a baby; lanz & tagliabue, 2007) and with the emerging adults’ perception of what adulthood means; in particular people involved in a romantic relationship, more than single ones, think that adulthood is related to interdependence (an adult is characterized by being committed to longterm love relationships and making life-long commitments to others), role transitions (people married, with at least one child, settled into long-term career and owing a house are defined as adult people), respect of norms (adults avoid becoming drunk and do not have more than one sexual partner), and family capacities (adults are capable of caring for their family and children; crocetti & tagliabue, 2016). support from one’s family, both emotional and material, has been found to be relevant for emerging adults’ adjustment and identity (crocetti & meeus, 2014), although some findings revealed that romantic relationships are more important and affect the perception of the parent-child relationship’s quality, whereas the opposite is not true (regalia et al., 2011). friends’ support has also been found to be significantly linked with italian emerging adults’ self-image (tagliabue, lanz, & pozzi, 2006) and identity (crocetti & meeus, 2014); however, less research has addressed friendship during emerging adulthood in italy. aim of current research consequently, we qualitatively explored whether and how emerging adults talk with their close others about their romantic relationships, especially their parents and friends, also considering possible gender differences. we decided to include both emerging adults who are currently involved in romantic relationships and those who have been involved, but are now single. the reason for that choice is linked to the fact that people who are single today but have been involved in a romantic relationship in the past, have been forced to manage a break up. the experience of breaking up is, indeed, quite common during emerging adulthood, and it could have been an important reason for communication and self-disclosure with close others (norona, olmstead, & welsh, 2017). we also decided to use single-sex focus groups in order to explore gender differences. in focus group sessions, a small number of people is invited to discuss regarding specific topics, and group social interaction is employed to enhance feedback on beliefs, experiences, and reactions of respondents (gibbs, 1997), and to facilitate their self-disclosure through mutual support (krueger & casey, 2000). moreover, focus groups often facilitate conversation on sensitive or high-involvement topics that people are usually reluctant to communication of romantic relationships 128 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ talk about (zeller, 1993). indeed, focus groups have been used previously in the investigation of dating and sexuality among adolescents and emerging adult groups (noel, ogle, maisto, & jackson, 2016; olivari, confalonieri, & ionio, 2011; olivari, cuccì & confalonieri, 2017; regmi, van teijlingen, simkhada, & acharya, 2011). our main research questions are: 1. do emerging adults communicate and self-disclose about their romantic relationships (regarding both intimacy and sex-related topics) with parents and friends? 2. how do they do it? 3. are there gender differences? methods participants during 2014-15, participants were recruited for focus group participation using volunteer sampling. they comprised 50 university students (25 men and 25 women) aged 18–25 (mage = 22.88, sd = 1.61) recruited from urban areas in northern italy. to collect data, we organized 8 single-sex focus groups (women: one group of 8, two groups of 6, one group of 5; men: one group of 7 and three groups of 6). the groups comprised a mix of ages. fifty-two percent of participants reported being in a romantic relationship at the time of the study. the average length of these relationships was 38.15 months (sd = 30.42). in 92% of the cases, participants were sexually active. the mean age of first sexual intercourse was 17.63 years (sd = 1.98). materials the focus group schedule was developed by the researchers for a larger study which aimed to explore how emerging adults manage and live their romantic and sexual relationships. we focused our attention on four questions soliciting participants’ views on seeking advice and sharing information regarding such relationships: 1) “with whom do you talk about issues concerning the person you have feelings for?” 2) “do your friends’ opinions about the person who you have feelings for matter?” 3) “do your parents’ opinions regarding the person who you have feelings for matter?” 4) “how do you feel when you talk about sexuality? with whom do you speak about it?” we only analyzed the narratives stimulated by these questions. after the focus-group section, a questionnaire was individually administered to participants in order to collect participants’ socio-demographic information (e.g., sex, age) and romantic and sexual experience (e.g., presence of a romantic relationship, length, and sexual activity). procedure all participants provided their written consent to participate and for the tape-recording of the focus-group session. the participants were free to withdraw at any time and they were not compensated for participation. tagliabue, olivari, giuliani, & confalonieri 129 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ focus groups were conducted in a university suite by researchers with experience in the conduction of focus group, and they lasted for approximately 45 minutes each. participants were first briefed about the aim of the research. the maintenance of confidentiality was assured by researchers and participants were asked to maintain the confidentiality of others in the group as well. the four questions on the schedule were asked; however, participants were also allowed to discuss the topic area more widely. researchers emphasized that all responses were welcomed and that no response was considered right or wrong. the sessions were taperecorded and later transcribed verbatim in italian. the recruitment of participants continued until theoretical saturation was achieved and no other topics emerged during the focus groups. specifically, we relied on the general notion of data saturation “as the point in data collection and analysis when new information produces little or no change to the codebook” (guest, bunce, & johnson, 2006, pp. 65). data analysis the transcripts from the focus groups were analyzed using thematic analysis, which is a method for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (i.e., themes) within the data (braun & clarke, 2006). the thematic analysis was completed in four steps. first, the researchers familiarized themselves with the text by transcribing the recordings, reading these transcripts thoroughly, highlighting keywords and phrases, and then noting initial ideas. second, they began the coding process, which involved organizing the data into themes and subthemes. the three authors first reviewed the transcripts separately and independently to determine the initial themes and subthemes. subsequently, they met several times to review and reach agreement regarding the themes and subthemes. third, the researchers reviewed and discussed the themes by reading them again and checking their coherency and consistency with each other and the entire dataset. finally, the research team met again to define and label the themes and their underlying subthemes and to identify key participant quotations. results thematic analysis showed that participants, regardless of their sex, had two main interlocutors for issues concerning romantic relationships and sexuality: close friends and parents. some participants also reported that, for most romantic and sexual issues, dialogue was sought with their romantic partner. women identified close female friends as their privileged interlocutors. they actively sought out these friends both if they wanted to share information or tell experiences and if they wanted to compare their experiences with others or solicit advice and obtain a different perspective. in contrast, men tended to rely on both male and female friends. in fact, the possibility of speaking with the latter resulted in their actively seeking these individuals out, reporting that they appreciated a female perspective on matters regarding romantic relationships. both men and women shared information with friends about sexuality as a general topic. in their experience, sexuality was a theme that could be freely discussed with friends. speaking about it made participants feel good because they perceived sexuality as a positive experience and a pleasant aspect of their lives. they specified that they never experienced feelings of anxiety or shame during dialogues with friends on this theme. however, almost all the participants considered their own sexuality and sex life with their partner as part of the private sphere. they reported respecting and paying attention to the privacy of their relationship, rarely telling communication of romantic relationships 130 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ friends any personal details. participants said that they kept clear boundaries between socialand relationallevel topics, with the latter being protected and kept private, or shared only with their partner. in contrast, in matters concerning their romantic relationships, parents, along with friends, played an important role. participants underlined that mothers were sought for advice on this theme. for both men and women, speaking with their mothers appeared to be easier than speaking with their fathers, because the dialogue was perceived as more fluent and less embarrassing. participants emphasized that while fathers were sought for other matters, they were generally not sought for matters concerning romantic relationships. indeed, fathers were frequently updated about participants’ romantic experiences by mothers. participants reported not engaging in any form of dialogue or advice on sexuality with their parents. in their experience, speaking with parents about this theme was either unnecessary or it made them feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. therefore, a variability emerged in the narratives regarding participants’ dialogue concerning romantic issues, whereas a unique and coherent picture characterized the narratives regarding sexuality; only the latter topic was considered entirely private at the relational level. “generally, i don’t get easily embarrassed; if a friend tells me about it, i’m not uneasy. on the other hand, i am discreet about my own experience. i live it as an intimate moment between two people and i don’t like to blurt out to someone else what we have or haven’t done. i’m not judging those who do want to talk about it; but, if there’s no way around it, i stay as vague as possible.” (female) “it very much depends who you’re talking to; but, i wouldn’t say that i’d get embarrassed. i don’t feel like saying everything... not about certain things… it’s also a matter of rightly respecting my girlfriend’s privacy.” (male) it appears to be a difference in the narratives about sexuality and romantic issues: emerging adults’ narratives about sexuality are all saying that they do not have problems in speaking with their friends about sexuality as a general theme, but they do not share private information about their sexuality with their partner. no variability in the quotations has been found so that thematic analysis was not able to identify specific themes. on the opposite, a larger variability was found among the narratives about romantic issues. the thematic analysis conducted on romantic issues yielded two main themes: “to seek advice” and “to not seek advice.” each theme comprised several subthemes that corresponded to participants’ perception of how they seek or not advice. during focus group, it is possible that, due to social interactions, an emerging adult changes his/her opinion or adds some details. for these reasons, it is not possible to say that there are two independent categories of people (those who seek and those who do not seek advice). it is better to consider these two main themes as emerging from the social interactions among narratives of the group, in which both are present and characterize the discussion. in what follows, we provide accurate descriptions of each theme and subtheme by using direct quotations from the focus group participants to better explain emerging adults’ perceptions. an interpreter translated the reported quotations from italian into english, respecting the original verbal expressions related to the discursive context that they were elicited. tagliabue, olivari, giuliani, & confalonieri 131 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to seek advice some quotations revealed that emerging adults, both males and females, share information and seek advice from parents, friends or both. the reasons to do it can be grouped in three different sub-themes. “i look for different points of view.” some emerging adults’ quotations reported that, in their experience, engaging in a dialogue with close friends and parents was important because it helped them gaining a more complete vision of the romantic experience. through sharing information and seeking advice, they become aware of different perspectives, thus helping their reflection process: “i listen to other people’s opinions mostly to see things from another point of view, because i can’t see clearly into a situation.” (female) “sometimes, i realize that i need them to clarify my own ideas. i listen to them because they allow me to see the situation from other points of view or to have a comparison. i do not listen to everybody’s opinion; but, i value the opinions of two or three of my friends and these do have an influence on my perspective.” (female) according to their narratives, through these dialogues, participants could clarify their ideas, especially when the situations they were experiencing were emotionally charged: “i think comparison is necessary because in some situations there’s the risk of being too deep into the problem so that one is not lucid about it anymore. i think that one has to choose the people to talk to, otherwise there’s the risk of being an open book. i seek comparison from my mother, as i do like to have a female opinion.” (male) participants also viewed disclosing issues to parents as an opportunity for self-improvement and personal growth: “it is true that, given how i am, i very much need the comparison especially from three friends of mine. to me, it is essential to hear how things are seen from the outside, to have their opinion, because i appreciate them and i also need their help to better myself. this is because i think that, on our own, it’s difficult to meet all the needs of a person or a relationship. on the other hand, more often lately, i need the comparison with my mother and father. […] i talk with friends and with my parents; they’re my family, and i cannot ignore them in what i do.” (male) for these participants, parents seemed to play an important role, because of the guidance they can provide. parents were often viewed as models, because of their age and the experience they have accumulated over the course of their lives: “i try to see my parents as role-models… not that i try to imitate them; but, i think they’re two wonderful people… so, i do ask them for advice and opinions.” (male) “i treasure other people’s words.” participants, in some quotations, reported adopting an attitude of thoughtful reflection on close friends and parents’ opinions concerning their romantic relationships. these participants listened to these interlocutors’ advice carefully, and remembered it when necessary. at the same time, they stressed how it is extremely important that they have the final decision on romantic issues. in their experience, the advice could become useful in the future; therefore, they should remember it: communication of romantic relationships 132 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “in my opinion, it [the advice] comes on time when maybe you’re about to give up; when you’re unsure, it comes to you when you listen to a friend’s advice. it is not true at all that you forget it immediately. in my opinion, advice remains in some sort of stand-by [state] and we pretend we do not know it. when the situation gets tricky, we pull it out and use it!” (female) “same for me. personally, based on my character, i do not immediately forget advice i receive – it sticks. it is not like i find myself doing exactly what they advise me to; but, if i turn to a friend it’s supposedly because i trust her; therefore, i trust the advice she gives too. i’m less categorical when it comes to advice, i listen to them and treasure them; they’re a lot on my mind; they haunt me!” (female) “i blindly trust my parents’ advice. it’s the one coming from the people who raised me; so, i listen to it. without taking it as a dogma, i would think about what they told me anyway.” (male) “i listen and then do it my own way.” finally, some participants’ quotations reported that they actively seek dialogue and advice both with friends and parents, but also that it is important that they decide on their own by following their intuition. they recognized that, often, these decisions could bring them to commit mistakes; however, they believed they should experience it independently: “i listen to everything, as well, because if i ask for an opinion from certain people it’s because i’m keen on hearing what they think and believe they can point me in the right direction; but, it’s also true that until i myself do not know which way to turn, as long as i have a certain idea i keep going on that route even if everybody tells me they’re doing something wrong.” (female) “i listen to what my friends say up to a point. i mean, it’s me living my relationship after all; therefore, it’s me doing a bit of soul searching; so, i can take what other people say as an advice, as warnings; but, in the end i will have to try them out. it’s me losing out if i choose the right or wrong thing; so, i listen up to a point. (male) participants felt a need to listen to advice and opinions when they came from mothers. often, their mothers would ask questions regarding participants’ romantic relationships, which signaled their desire to be involved in their sons’ and daughters’ lives. it emerged from participants’ narratives that mothers’ solicitation often began during adolescence. notably, if it was absent during that phase, it did not often begin in adulthood. for participants, without such maternal solicitation in adolescence, it was difficult to self-disclose to mothers during adulthood: “in my opinion, parents become important interlocutors when they want to; but, they do it right from the start because now i’m 23-years-old and i would not walk up to my parents and tell them about myself. the fact that she asks questions makes it easier, because i would never talk spontaneously.” (female) to not seek advice some quotations revealed that emerging adults do not share information and do not seek advice from parents and friends. the reasons to do it can be grouped in two different sub-themes. “i do not need comparison.” some of the emerging adults’ quotations stated that, in this specific phase of life, they did not need to begin a dialogue regarding romantic relationships. they reported not feeling the need or the desire to obtain others’ advice, which made them not seek it out. they emphasized that decisions and issues related to romantic relationships should be dealt with the partner and not by listening to others’ opinions. tagliabue, olivari, giuliani, & confalonieri 133 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in their experience, each romantic relationship was unique; therefore, only the partners involved could optimally handle those issues: “based on my personal experience, i’m not asking for opinions anymore. i’ve often noticed that when somebody gives you advice, it’s like they’re projecting what you’re living onto their own lives. they give you advice about what they would do, and everybody just brings up experiences they’ve lived. i don’t find the latter useful, because even if something similar has happened to you and it went in a certain way, it doesn’t mean that things must go in that certain way. every story is different.” (female) “you always have to filter out what people tell you about a person you’re in a relationship with, and that filter is the very relationship you have with them, that the others do not know. other people can only try and explain it from the outside.” (male) because friends and parents were not perceived as being able to really understand the nature of the romantic relationship and its issues, their advice would not be useful. the sole interlocutor they were interested in was the partner, the only other person who could understand what they were experiencing: “after thinking it through on my own a lot, maybe i’ll listen to what they tell me. however, i would still regard it as an external opinion, because it’s never completely consistent with what i think. the opinion that matters most is the one of the person you’re involved with, or in a relationship with. their opinion is what makes me see if the issue is a real problem or a less important thing. your friend, your mom, or your dad are external people who may have valuable insights; but, they’re not all-knowing!” (female) therefore, the need for advice was replaced by a desire to be accepted and supported in a non-judgmental way: “i appreciate silent support best. i’m here; if you want we can talk about it; you say what you have to. on its own, advice takes me nowhere. also, until you face the problem, there’s nothing to do. if you’re involved in a situation, little can be done, because you’d feel like you hadn’t tried hard enough.” (female) men reported adopting this attitude when they were living a relationship that they defined as stable and serious. most of them referred being led by the desire to keep reflections and feelings regarding the romantic relationship to themselves in order to protect their partner’s intimacy: “if it’s a not-so-serious relationship, i laugh it away with my friends. if the relationship is serious, i do not talk about it with my friends because then everybody knows everything and everybody criticizes you. i don’t think that’s ideal, especially if you care about the girl.” (male) “i need to choose on my own.” the need of some participants for personal reflection seemed to be based on the desire to avoid being overly influenced by others’ opinions and ideas. in this case, quotations revealed that participants did not engage in a dialogue with or seek advice from friends and parents, as they thought it was necessary to act autonomously: “even if it means keeping everything to myself and suffer, i prefer to keep everything in because i don’t want that hearing another person’s opinion to influence me or make me understand i was wrong.” (male) communication of romantic relationships 134 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in some cases, the need to be autonomous made participants assume a rather extreme position that left no space for compromise. in some cases, previous experiences made them believe that paying too much attention to others’ advice could be risky for their romantic relationships: “it’s on them to accept her, if they want to.” (male) “back then, i used to give it too much importance. i mean, if i were to go back, it’s possible that i would say goodbye to my friends.” (male) it emerged from participants’ narratives that, sometimes, it is so difficult to listen to others’ opinions and suggestions that they acted in the opposite way, only to demonstrate their decisional autonomy: “i think that other people’s opinions go in one ear and come out the other. plus, it’s not like you do what they recommend, but the total opposite of that.” (female). this attitude emerged in males’ narratives concerning their parents. opinions that were provided voluntarily provided by the parents, and not solicited by emerging adults, seemed to be a source of negative emotion: “surely, it is the most honest advice; but, it’s the one that gets on my nerves. i cannot point at any one person in the whole world that could give me more heartfelt advice than my mother or father; but, on this topic, i find it very annoying.” (male) when parents tried to make suggestions, or share their opinions, men perceived them as interfering in their private sphere: “my parents’ intrusions annoy me a lot. if, on other issues, their advice is more than welcome, i actually may ask for it. on this topic, it annoys me, and if they just have to talk, it goes in one ear and comes out the other.” (male) discussion this study aimed to explore to whom emerging adults talk about their romantic issues, how they do it and whether there are gender differences. findings revealed that friends are the main interlocutors of emerging adults (diiorio et al., 1999; lefkowitz & espinosa-hernandez, 2007) and, for someone, the romantic partner him/herself is the main interlocutor, although also parents, in some circumstances, are perceived as important, especially the mothers (carlson, 2014; diiorio et al., 1999; feldman & rosenthal, 2000). this finding highlights how the network of close relationships in emerging adulthood is greater than one’s family (amati, rivellini, & zaccarin, 2015), and that peers who are living in the same transitional period and probably experiencing the same transitional patterns in romantic relationships function as relevant interlocutors (collins & madsen, 2006; collins & van dulmen, 2006). a second important finding was whether and how emerging adults talked about their romantic relationships. the thematic analyses revealed two general positions: seeking advice or not seeking advice. previous research similarly found that, although emerging adults talk about different topics with their parents and friends, the frequency of talking about romantic topics is lower and increases in the case of difficulties in the relationship (carlson, 2014; vallade et al., 2016). the analysis of the participants’ reasons for seeking advice or not, however, provides a more complex picture: some reasons, both within the seeking advice position and the not tagliabue, olivari, giuliani, & confalonieri 135 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ seeking advice one, are linked to a desire for independence and autonomy, other reasons are linked to the desire to accept the presence of others and to value their contribution. the desire for independence and autonomy is expressed in the subthemes “i listen and then do it my own way” and “i need to choose on my own”, whereas the desire to value others’ contribution is expressed in the subthemes “i do not need comparison”, “i look for different points of view” and “i treasure other people’s words”. specifically, the desire for independence is expressed in the quotations in which emerging adults underlined the necessity of making their own decisions about romantic relationships. some of them (“i listen and then do it my own way”) express the idea that close others were important potential interlocutors; however, it is better to make decisions on their own, regardless of whether they were mistaken, in order to strengthen emerging adults’ own capacity for autonomous decision making. in contrast, other quotations (“i need to choose on my own”) express the worry about the possibility of being influenced by close others; therefore, emerging adults actively avoided seeking advice. in other words, their preoccupation concerned the possibility of not being able to express their own opinion or make their own decisions, which made them actively avoid comparison with close others whose advice they saw as intrusive, annoying, and out of place. on the contrary, quotations in which appears a lack of worry about others intrusiveness (“i do not need comparison”) or, in which others’ contribution is valued because emerging adults are looking for an enriching exchange that could be useful for their autonomous decision-making process (“i look for different points of view” and “i treasure other people’s words”), could revealed that emerging adults feel enough independent to be open to others and their contribution. in these cases, emerging adults are not preoccupied to be excessively influenced by others’ opinion, and they are able to listen to different points of view and still taking autonomous decisions. those two different reasons to seek or not advice can be linked to individuals’ autonomy and relatedness needs (deci & ryan, 2000), and the developmental process that many emerging adults are facing between individuation and intimacy. emerging adults who do not want to be influenced by close others, value the importance of their own volition, opinion, and agency in their romantic relationships. they feel the need to stress the importance of their own autonomy, especially regarding their romantic relationships, probably because they are more focused on the transition from the heteronomy of their young life to the autonomy of adult life (butzel & ryan, 1997; kins, beyers, soenens, & vansteenkiste, 2009; lanz, tagliabue, giuliani, oliveira, & walper, submitted; vansteenkiste, zhou, lens, & soenens, 2005). in contrast, emerging adults who value others’ contribution, seem not to be worried about their independence, it could be that they already feel autonomous, and so they also feel to be able to embrace different points of view: they are probably building an “autonomous-related” self (kagitcibasi, 2005) whereby talking to others about their romantic relationships was not a threat to their volition, but rather an opportunity for enrichment. a final interesting aspect emerging from narratives regards how and to what extent emerging adults spoke about sexuality. participants strongly agreed that sexuality is a topic that could be freely discussed, especially among friends, at least speaking about it in a general sense and not referring to their own relationships or romantic partners. thus, sexuality is not perceived as a taboo topic, supporting previous findings about the fact that people, during the college years, are more open-minded regarding sexuality (lefkowitz, 2005). however, all participants maintained that the privacy of their own relationship had to be upheld by others, and they preferred not talking about their own sexual experiences, even with close friends. it is possible that emerging communication of romantic relationships 136 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 https://www.psychopen.eu/ adults did not need to discuss or seek advice on this topic, having already completed the process of sexual socialization (i.e., the phase of acquiring sexual knowledge and values) in adolescence (bleakley, hennessy, fishbein, & jordan, 2009; ward, 2003). adolescents, in fact, are committed to acquire their own perspective and attitudes regarding sexual matters and fulfill this task by communicating about sex mainly with their peers (bleakley et al., 2009; prinstein & dodge, 2008). few gender differences were found. women prefer to talk with female friends, whereas males are interested in talking with both male and female friends. a possible explanation could be that female friends are more able to speak about intimate issues, and this would help males, who previous research found to be more in difficulty in talking about these topics (korobov & thorne, 2006; lefkowitz et al., 2004). another little specificity was found within the subtheme “i do not need comparison”: males’ quotations revealed that when they are experiencing a stable and serious relationship, they prefer not to talk with friends about the relationship in order to protect their partner’s intimacy. despite our interesting findings, there were some limitations or specificities to note. first, the small sample limits the level to which the findings can be generalized. second, the themes emerged from focus-groups, a research method that allowed us to explore a sensitive topic, however individual interviews or quantitative studies could provide a different picture of the findings. third, we were interested in the italian situation because of the lack of studies within this country; therefore, the findings may not be generalizable to other socio-cultural contexts. moreover, no formal cross-cultural research has been conducted on seeking advice on romantic relationships. future research should investigate possible cultural differences with regard to these themes. furthermore, future quantitative studies could investigate whether the reasons for seeking advice are linked with autonomous and relatedness needs in order to confirm or reject our interpretation regarding the reasons expressed in the quotations of the present study. overall, our findings indicate that the way that emerging adults seek advice about their romantic and sexual relationships is linked with the transitional phase they are experiencing. in other words, it connects with their developmental changes toward the acquisition of adulthood and psychosocial maturity. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors thanks giulia carones for providing linguistic assistance. references amati, v., rivellini, g., & zaccarin, s. 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(1993). focus group research on sensitive topics· setting the agenda without setting the agenda. in d. l. morgan (ed.), successful focus groups: advancing the state of the art (pp. 167-183) newbury park, ca, usa: sage. about the authors semira tagliabue, phd, is an assistant professor in psychometric at università cattolica del sacro cuore. her specific research interests are: methodology of research, dyadic and family data analyses, interpersonal relationships of adolescents and young adults. maria giulia olivari, phd, is a research fellow at università cattolica del sacro cuore. her research focuses on adolescent romantic and sexual development, sexual risk taking and parenting styles and practices. cristina giuliani, phd, is an assistant professor of social psychology at università cattolica del sacro cuore. her current research interests include post-migration family dynamics, family resiliency, and acculturation experience in muslim families. emanuela confalonieri, phd, is an associate professor at università cattolica del sacro cuore and she coordinates the research unit on school psychology of università cattolica del sacro cuore. her research focuses on body image in adolescence, adolescent romantic and sexual development, parenting styles and school education. communication of romantic relationships 142 europe's journal of psychology 2018, vol. 14(1), 125–142 doi:10.5964/ejop.v14i1.1454 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.97.3.468 http://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2011.589101 http://doi.org/10.1525/srsp.2005.2.4.32 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ communication of romantic relationships (introduction) romantic relationships in emerging adulthood: talking with parents and friends aim of current research methods participants materials procedure data analysis results to seek advice to not seek advice discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors more similarity if different, more difference if similar: assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, polyculturalism, and generalized and specific negative intergroup bias research reports more similarity if different, more difference if similar: assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, polyculturalism, and generalized and specific negative intergroup bias anastasia batkhina 1, john w. berry 2, tomas jurcik 3, dmitrii dubrov 1, dmitry grigoryev 1 [1] center for sociocultural research, hse university, moscow, russian federation. [2] department of psychology, queen's university, kingston, canada. [3] department of psychology, hse university, moscow, russian federation. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 received: 2020-05-14 • accepted: 2021-07-13 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: mioara cristea, heriot-watt university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: dmitrii dubrov, center for sociocultural research, hse university, 20 myasnitskaya str., office 602, 101000, moscow, russian federation. e-mail: ddubrov@hse.ru abstract the creation of a social climate where all ethnic groups can harmoniously coexist is a central challenge for many countries today. should we emphasize similarities and common ground or, conversely, recognize that there are important differences between groups? the current study examined relations between diversity ideologies (assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, polyculturalism) and generalized and specific intergroup bias (against chechens, belarusians, uzbeks, chinese, and jews and muslims) among ethnic russians (n = 701). in study 1, colorblindness (ignoring differences) and polyculturalism (emphasizing interconnectivity) were associated with lower generalized intergroup bias and lower bias against chechens, uzbeks, and chinese, but not belarusians. bias against belarusians was lower among those who endorsed multiculturalism (emphasizing differences). in study 2, multiculturalism was associated with higher implicit bias when the target was a chechen but in general more proximal variables (positive or negative contact experience and perceived group similarity) were more robust predictors of intergroup bias than diversity ideologies. in study 3, colorblindness and polyculturalism were related to lower levels of fearful attitudes against muslims. colorblindness was also associated with lower levels of antisemitism in contrast to multiculturalism that had an opposite association. we place these results in the context of cultural distance and existing cultural stereotypes about different groups among the majority of russians. the strengths and weaknesses of each diversity ideology for the mainstream cultural group are discussed. the results of the current study suggest that the most fruitful strategy for mainstream cultural groups for maintaining harmonious intergroup relations in diverse societies might be that of optimal distinctiveness. keywords diversity ideologies, assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, polyculturalism, intergroup bias in recent years, the study of intergroup relations has become paramount given the urgent need to manage the growing cultural and ethnic diversity of societies. the creation of a social climate where all ethnic groups can coexist harmoniously is one of the main challenges for many countries today (berry, 2017). multicultural policy is one of the ways to cope with this challenge in pluralistic societies (berry & ward, 2016). however, in the current political discourse, multiculturalism is associated with globalization and is strongly criticized by populist movements around the world (see e.g., berlet, 2011). multicultural policy was developed in the 1970s in certain western societies (e.g., canada and australia) as a means to cope with the growing cultural and ethnic diversity, and the participation and inclusion of this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3715&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ such groups in the larger society1. it was seen as an alternative to the previously widespread policies of assimilation and segregation (guimond et al., 2014). an extensive socio-psychological analysis of the canadian policy of multiculturalism was proposed in a multi-com­ ponent model covering cultural, social, and communication levels of intercultural relations (berry, 1984, 2006). this model postulates three hypotheses based on the policy: the multiculturalism hypothesis (having cultural, economic and personal security serves as a basis for the acceptance of ‘others’ in a plural society); the integration hypothesis (having multiple cultural identities promotes personal wellbeing and tolerance of others); and the contact hypothesis (engagement with others promotes acceptance of others). recently, berry et al. (2022) carried out an evaluation of these hypotheses in 21 societies and found supporting results (see also berry, 2017; inguglia et al., 2020). this line of thinking and research considers both cultural maintenance and social participation to be of equal importance in achieving intercultural harmony. at much the same time, there has been a parallel stream of research that focuses on issues of maintenance of cultural diversity, but omits considering issues of the participation and inclusion of these diverse groups in the life of the larger national society (grigoryev & berry, 2021). the main issue addressed in these studies is: should we emphasize similarities and common ground or, conversely, recognize that there are important differences between groups? this question implicitly recognizes various diversity ideologies, which include both a socially constructed superstructure (which creates and transmits social ideas about the organization of a particular plural society) and a motivational substructure. these ideologies generally constitute a common belief system about how a plural society should function; in short, they provide a cognitive-motivational framework for the interpretation and expected accommodation to the social environment (badea, 2017). such recognition can be achieved in several ways, if supported by relevant social norms (guimond et al., 2013). the existing evidence for the degree of benefit for these differing views is mixed and inconsistent (see e.g., whitley & webster, 2019, and brief review below). the current study aims to examine whether these inconsistencies could be explained by taking into account the specific outgroup being studied, and whether explicit or implicit bias is used as an outcome measure. in a series of studies, we examine how the most commonly studied views on diversity associate with both explicit and implicit bias against various outgroups, chosen to represent different degrees of cultural similarity to the majority group. this paper contributes to the literature by comparing various diversity strategies that can foster the maintenance of harmonious intergroup relations in diverse societies from the perspective of a mainstream cultural group (russians). we explore the role of cultural similarity between groups, and the role of optimal distinctiveness. individuals follow two fundamental and competing human needs: the need for inclusion and the need for differentiation, which can be met by membership in moderately inclusive (optimally distinct) groups (see leonardelli et al., 2010). thus, in line with previous research, we address the relevance of a group-specific approach to intergroup attitudes, by taking into account the specific cultural context. review of diversity ideologies since many countries have set out to cope with their growing cultural and ethnic diversity, the advantages and disad­ vantages of specific interethnic policies and diversity ideologies are actively discussed in the social science literature (e.g., correll et al., 2008; gagnon & iacovino, 2016; guimond et al., 2014; levin et al., 2012; moghaddam, 2012; ng tseung-wong & verkuyten, 2018; pedersen et al., 2015; rattan & ambady, 2013; rosenthal & levy, 2012; scott & safdar, 2017). the four most frequently considered ideologies of intergroup relations in the aspect of view on diversity are: (1) assimilation promotes the existence of one common cultural group in society, where ethnic minorities and migrants are expected to adopt the mainstream culture while completely rejecting their own; (2) colorblindness assumes that relations 1) the first public policy to explicitly seek to manage interethnic relations in a plural society was proposed in 1971 by the federal government of canada. this policy of multiculturalism was intended to achieve interethnic harmony by adopting two principles and programmes: to promote the extant cultural diversity as a way of providing everyone a secure sense of place in the society; and to promote social contact and interaction among groups. it is clear that this policy is not just about diversity, but also about participation; together these two components of the policy sought to achieve mutual interethnic acceptance. conceptual analyses of the policy by berry (1984) and kymlicka (2016) confirmed that these two emphases formed the core of the policy. however, in the present paper, we adopt (but do not accept as correct) the common usage of the concept of multiculturalism as emphasizing only the first aspect (diversity). diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 370 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ between groups can be improved by ignoring intergroup differences: there are no groups, there are only different personalities; (3) multiculturalism recognizes the differences between ethnic groups and promotes the maintenance of this diversity, recognizing the importance of group membership;2 (4) polyculturalism implies a close relationship between all ethnic groups living in the same society, and pays less importance to the boundaries between them; in other words, all cultures are not isolated systems but are the product of intergroup interaction; recognition of group membership is necessary, but the emphasis is shifted to the interconnections between groups (for review, see guimond et al., 2014; pedersen et al., 2015; rattan & ambady, 2013; rosenthal & levy, 2012). we summarize these different diversity ideologies in table 1. table 1 taxonomy of diversity ideologies diversity ideologies rejection/ignoring of cultural diversity acceptance of cultural diversity assimilation colorblindness multiculturalism polyculturalism one group with a common mainstream culture; eliminating minority group memberships no groups, only unique individuals; ignoring group memberships plurality of different groups; acknowledging and valuing group memberships and differences between groups plurality of interconnected groups; acknowledging group memberships by valuing interconnection between groups the concept of polyculturalism is the only one of the four that is not based on assumptions underlying the intergroup contact model (i.e., polyculturalism is not considered as a condition for obtaining a beneficial effect from subsequent intergroup contact). it assumes that ethnocultural groups around the world have always influenced and continue to influence each other, rather than forming a common identity and common goals with other groups (rosenthal & levy, 2012). in the social psychology literature assimilation is based on the principle of recategorization within a common ingroup identity model and the similarity-attraction paradigm; colorblindness is based on the principle of decategori­ zation and the model of personalization; multiculturalism is based on principles of categorization and the mutual intergroup differentiation model; together, they form three different paths to positive intergroup contact (guimond et al., 2014). there are studies that show that learning multiculturalism (multicultural priming) can enhance intergroup differentiation and reinforce stereotypes (hodson & dhont, 2015; morrison et al., 2010). also, a few empirical studies have shown, for example, that polyculturalism, unlike multiculturalism, is not associated with essentialism (bernardo et al., 2016; wilton et al., 2019), but at the same time is associated with a greater interest in diversity and comfort of living in a diverse ethnic and cultural environment (rosenthal & levy, 2012). we recognize, however, that intergroup contact may not necessarily be associated with beneficial adaptation out­ comes at the community level, given that numerous studies have shown poor or mixed outcomes with respect to cohesion and well-being in areas associated with greater ethnocultural diversity (e.g., putnam, 2007; van der meer & tolsma, 2014; see also paluck et al., 2019). however, in the national surveys in canada, in analyses at the level of neighborhoods was found that with the proportion of a particular group being greater, the attitudes toward that group by non-members were more positive (berry, 2006). also, some negative effects, according to the latest findings, are typical for the short term and may be mitigated with time (see ramos et al., 2019). an 18-year longitudinal study in 2) for example, a framework to define four ways of interacting was proposed by berry (1974). the concept of integration combined both maintenance of culture, and of participation. assimilation was defined as not maintaining culture while seeking to fully participate. separation was the concept used to represent cultural maintenance without seeking participation. marginalization was the concept used to refer to neither maintenance nor participation. the first scale to assess these two elements was by berry et al. (1977), called multicultural ideology. this scale had items that placed the acceptance of integration (i.e., both cultural maintenance and equitable participation), at one end, and items that valued assimilation, segregation and marginalization at the other end. empirical examinations of this scale support that it is a unidimensional concept and scale (berry et al., 1977; berry & kalin, 1995). batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 371 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the uk suggests that negative effects for cohesion may depend on whether people choose to stay or move from their diversifying neighborhoods, with 'stayers' showing negative effects while 'movers' to more homogeneous neighborhoods reporting improved attitudes (laurence & bentley, 2016). it is possible that cultural distance between the mainstream and ethnocultural groups may moderate some of these links between diversity and outcomes, as greater cultural distance has been associated with problems in adjustment and social adaptation (see galchenko & van de vijver, 2007). clearly, the topic of diversity remains controversial. however, the purpose of this study is on ideologies and intergroup bias in the majority group rather than community level outcomes associated with diversity itself. we thus turn to some of the conceptual, empirical, methodological and contextual variability associated with diversity ideologies. as grigoryev et al. (2020) mentioned, it is important to understand what is meant by multiculturalism (conceptuali­ zation) in the literature and how it is measured (operationalization). for instance, some measures were shown to have only about 27% common variance (see rosenthal & levy, 2012). different conceptualizations, operationalizations, and levels of analysis can complicate the interpretation of findings. thus, in the literature there are contradictory results about the role of each of the diversity ideologies in pathways to positive intergroup relations (pedersen et al., 2015; rattan & ambady, 2013). for example, a recent meta-analysis (whitley & webster, 2019) found that explicit prejudice was positively related to assimilation but negatively to multiculturalism and colorblindness. compared to colorblindness, this association was stronger for multiculturalism, which was also found to be associated with less implicit prejudice. these contrasting findings may also be due to different contexts since the historically established forms of interethnic interactions vary between each setting (ng tseung-wong & verkuyten, 2018). further, the findings varied with methodology and country. in this regard, pedersen et al. (2015) argued that more research is needed to understand and recognize the mechanisms and consequences of diversity ideologies. our research follows this admonition, and extends the examination of these ideologies to a unique population, and employs new object groups. in the present study, we use the conceptualizations and operationalizations of diversity ideologies proposed by rosenthal and levy (2012) that only concern with views on diversity, excluding issues of the participation and inclusion of diverse groups (e.g., in contrast berry, 2017). the context of the study: russia we turned to the russian population to study diversity ideologies, given that this population is highly diverse and has been understudied (e.g., bessudnov, 2016; jurcik et al., 2013). the study of diversity ideologies is especially important in this context, since the russian population comprises more than 190 ethnic groups and the united nations estimated the russian federation as the world's second-leading country in the number of immigrants for 2013. there are several groups of immigrants in russia (e.g., ukrainians, uzbeks, tajiks, azerbaijanis, moldovans, kazakhs, armenians, belaru­ sians, chinese, and others) which have various cultural distances from russians, and have a different tendency to communicate with the host population. for example, russians tend to categorize immigrants from transcaucasia and central asia into a common outgroup with internal migrants from russian regions of the north caucasus, in contrast to immigrants from ukraine or belarus (grigoryev et al., 2018b, 2019). historically established ethnic hierarchies remain typical for post-soviet russia (hagendoorn et al.,1998). attitudes towards immigrant groups are likely to differ depending on the specific group, and thus studying broad attitudes towards immigrants in general will obfuscate such variance (satherley & sibley, 2016). we addressed bias against four ethnic groups which have different cultural distances from the russian mainstream population and vary on the ethnic hierarchy and in stereotypes: chechens, belarusians, uzbeks, and chinese. chechens are a caucasian ethnic minority living in north caucasus region of russia, predominantly muslims, a largely stigma­ tized group, and often represent the image of a typical internal migrant. belarusians are an east slavic ethnic group living in the former-soviet republic of belarus, are predominantly orthodox christian, have a large diaspora in russia, are typically very fluent in russian and have a culture that is very close to european russians. uzbeks are a turkic ethnic group living in the former-soviet republic uzbekistan, predominantly muslims, have a large diaspora in russia, and often represent the image of a typical immigrant worker from a post-soviet republic in russia. of the four groups, the chinese are the only group that never lived with russians within the framework of one state, and have the largest cultural distance from russians, and often represent the image of a typical immigrant worker from far abroad in diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 372 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ russia (grigoryev et al., 2019). thus, including bias against these very different ethnic groups in our study, we ensured overlapping common variation of generalized intergroup bias against ethnic groups while providing richer information that would allow us to compare the diversity ideologies towards these disparate groups. additionally, we considered special forms of intergroup bias: anti-semitism and negative attitudes towards muslims and islam. hence, our research covered both explicit and implicit intergroup bias and different levels of generalization. overview in study 1, we examined the model of relationships between assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, polycultural­ ism and generalized and specific intergroup bias. in order to take into account the influence of the specific context of intergroup relations, we added to our model a latent factor that reflected contact experience potentially associated with intergroup bias and tension according to the literature, including frequency and positivity of interethnic contacts (e.g., pettigrew & tropp, 2006; visintin et al., 2017a), positive interethnic emotions (e.g., seger et al., 2017; visintin et al., 2017b), and perceived neighbourhood ethnic density (e.g., jurcik et al., 2015). we composed latent factors to reflect intergroup bias against each of the considered groups using measures of willingness for intergroup contact and endorsement of discrimination of immigrants in the socioeconomic domain as manifest variables; the willingness for intergroup contact and endorsement of discrimination of immigrants in the socioeconomic domain are both informative aspects of intergroup bias since these variables greatly reflect common dealings with ethnic outgroups (grigoryev et al., 2018a). also, based on the assumption that the bias against one specific outgroup is, for the most part, associated with bias against other outgroups (hodson et al., 2017; zick et al., 2008), we added a common second-order latent factor to generalize the variation of intergroup bias against specific groups. moreover, the outgroup homogeneity effect can also be tested by including the generalized intergroup bias as a target outcome (see musso et al., 2017). for example, montreuil and bourhis (2001) argued that it is possible that majority group members may not endorse distinctive acculturation orientations toward different immigrant target groups but instead construct ‘generic’ acculturation orien­ tations, viewing all immigrants as members of one homogeneous outgroup. they noted that studies documenting the outgroup homogeneity effect have shown that majority group members have a tendency to perceive less variability in the traits describing minority outgroup members than those describing ingroup members. further, in two subsequent studies, we attempted to conceptually reproduce and expand the findings of study 1. in study 2, we added implicit bias as the main outcome variable. some have argued that implicit bias (i.e., bias based on associations without our conscious knowledge) is essential for taking into account individual differences in expressing intergroup attitudes and predicting other outcomes; for instance, the implicit associative test (iat) beyond self-report methods can be useful in assessing implicit bias (greenwald et al., 2003; hewstone et al., 2002). we excluded uzbeks from this part of the research to reduce the cognitive burden on participants when responding to the iat as uzbeks and chechens are from the same quadrant of stereotypes (see grigoryev et al., 2019) and in study 1 (see results below) the association between diversity ideologies and bias against these groups was similar. moreover, we included additional covariates (perceived similarity and contact experience). finally, in study 3, we examined the association between diversity ideologies and two forms of intergroup bias: anti-semitism and fear of muslims. the decision to focus on fear of muslims was motivated by the findings of study 1, where we observed a similar pattern in the associations between diversity ideologies and bias against chechens and uzbeks who are predominantly muslims. here we examined whether this pattern would hold with the general attitude towards muslims. to add a comparative perspective, we additionally measured anti-semitism, to contrast the visible cultural minority of muslims with a less visible, more integrated group of jews. we also included ethnic and national identification as additional covariates (e.g., levin et al., 2012; morrison et al., 2010; ng tseung-wong & verkuyten, 2018). hypotheses although there is little research in the russian context, we expected the results would be consistent with the following patterns: 1. based on the evidence (e.g., guimond et al., 2013; pedersen et al., 2015; perry et al., 2015), we expected that assimilation would be positively associated with biases against all groups. batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 373 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. in view of previous studies (e.g., levin et al., 2012), and post-soviet attempts to construct a common civic identity in russia focused on identification with society, state, and country (codagnone & filippov, 2000), we expected that colorblindness would be negatively associated with all group bias. 3. taking into account the benefits of multiculturalism for intergroup attitudes (whitley & webster, 2019), we posited that multiculturalism would be negatively associated with generalized bias. however, since multiculturalism is sensitive to threat from external sources, and perceiving greater threat from immigrant groups was associated with lower endorsement of multiculturalism (rattan & ambady, 2013), we expected it to be more likely that multiculturalism would be negatively associated with bias against belarusians than bias against other (more culturally distant) groups. alternatively, there are differences in findings between groups more traditionally associated with diversity in the country compared to those that are not (e.g., in the us multiculturalism is associated with positive attitudes towards african americans, latino americans, and asian americans, but not towards arab americans; rattan & ambady, 2013). hence, multiculturalism may also be negatively associated with intergroup bias against all groups except the chinese in our russian sample. 4. polyculturalism relates to various positive intergroup attitudes more consistently than multiculturalism (pedersen et al., 2015; rosenthal & levy, 2012); it is thus more likely that polyculturalism is negatively associated with all group bias. study 1 in our first study we examined generalized and specific intergroup bias in relation to assimilation, colorblindness, multiculturalism, and polyculturalism. method participants the total sample of 359 russians from the central federal district of russia included 167 women (46.5%) and 192 men (53.5%), aged from 16 to 68 years (m = 33.9, sd = 11.9); 22% participants were students; 43% were russian orthodox christians; almost half of the participants had an income of about 16,250 rubles (≈ $220) per person. procedure the data were collected online in 2017 via social media. we recruited participants using targeted, paid targeted adver­ tisements in the most popular social network in russia, named vk (a platform similar to facebook). participants were given a questionnaire and asked to read the instructions, which included information about the main topics discussed in the study, the confidentiality policy, and how to contact the researchers supervising the project. the informed consent of the participants was implied through survey completion. this procedure was in line with university and national russian regulations, and thus no ethics clearance was required for this type of survey research (i.e., as it does not include medical data). measures all measures used a 9-point likert scale. measures were scored such that higher scores indicated stronger endorsement of the concept. — antecedent variables — diversity ideologies: three diversity ideologies, colorblindness, multiculturalism, and polyculturalism were assessed with 5 items (rosenthal & levy, 2012)3; in addition, we developed 5 new items anchored to assess assimilation. sample 3) all measures in this research which did not have a russian translation were adapted by back-translation and cognitive interviews with the think-aloud technique (willis, 2004) or took from grigoryev and van de vijver (2018) and grigoryev et al. (2018b). diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 374 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ items included, "there should be no cultural differences between ethnic groups; there should be a single group and people should maintain the culture of the majority of the country's population," (assimilation, α = .75), "all human beings are individuals, and therefore race and ethnicity are not important," (colorblindness, α = .83), "there are differences between racial and ethnic groups, which are important to recognize," (multiculturalism, α = .63), and "there are many connections between different cultures" (polyculturalism, α = .78). we also included the measure of multicultural ideology by berry and kalin (1995) comprising 6 items to check convergent validity of these diversity ideologies measures, with sample items such as "a society that has a variety of ethnic and cultural groups is more able to tackle new problems as they occur," and "we should recognize that cultural and racial diversity is a fundamental characteristic of russian society" (α = .88). — covariate variables — positive interethnic emotions. four items assessed the frequency of emotions (interest, pride, sympathy, compassion) in relation to each ethnic group (boyle et al., 2014). a sample item was "how often were you proud of chechens living in russia?" (α = .90). frequency of interethnic contacts. we used three items to measure interethnic contact frequency (visintin et al., 2017b). a sample item included "how many people from another ethnic group in russia do you know personally?" (α = .85). positive interethnic contacts. we used five items assessing the nature of interethnic contacts for each considered group (reimer et al., 2017). a sample item was "how often did chinese living in russia help you?" (α = .90). ethnic density. we adapted a four-item measure assessing perceived neighborhood ethnic density (jurcik et al., 2015). ethnic density scales typically assess own ethnic group density, but in this case we measured the perceived density of other (i.e., non-russian) groups (grigoryev et al., 2018a). for example, participants were asked to think of their local area (15–20 minutes walking distance from their home) and to estimate "what proportion of all the people in this local area is of other ethnic groups?" (α = .76). — outcome variables — willingness for intergroup contact. we used five items to assess participant openness to interact with members of each considered group: four items were included from halperin et al. (2007) and one additional item was added about friendly relations. sample items included, "i would agree to live in the same neighborhood with an uzbek," and "i am willing to invite an uzbek to a social event at my home" (for chechens α = .92; for belarusians α = .94; for uzbeks α = .93; for chinese α = .90). endorsement of discrimination of immigrants in the socioeconomic domain. we used 6 items for each considered ethnic group asking about endorsement of behaviors that reflect discrimination in the workspace, labor market, rental housing sectors, and other relevant socioeconomic domains (see grigoryev et al., 2020; mallender et al., 2014). sample items included "paying belarusians lower wages than natives, provided equal qualifications and level of education," and "the lack of career prospects for belarusians" (for chechens α = .80; for belarusians α = .62; for uzbeks α = .86; for chinese α = .83). — additional variables — marker variable. in order to account for method bias, we used four items measuring spiritualism from tobacyk's revised paranormal belief scale (lange et al., 2000). sample items included "your mind or soul can leave your body and travel (astral projection)," and "reincarnation does occur" (α = .92). data analysis using spss v.24, we conducted data screening including checking for outliers and missing data. we applied partial cor­ relation analysis with 2000 bootstrapping samples adding sociodemographic covariates (gender, age, education, income, russian ethnicity (no/yes), affiliation to religion (no/yes), student status (no/yes), work status (unemployed/employed) as control variables to eliminate the common variation due to these differences; also, the marker (i.e., theoretically batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 375 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ unrelated) variable was used to control for possible common method bias (e.g., response style) (see podsakoff et al., 2003). paired samples t-tests with 2000 bootstrapping samples were applied to estimate differences between the considered groups by outcome variables. finally, we converted the partial correlation matrix to a covariance matrix and used it with the lavaan r package (rosseel, 2012) to test the models applying structural equation modeling (sem; model 1 explained generalized intergroup bias and model 2 explained specific intergroup bias, see figure 1 below). we employed commonly recommended global fit measures: cfi > .90, rmsea < .08, and srmr < .08 (kline, 2011; van de schoot et al. 2012). figure 1 the resulting sem model in study 1 *p < .001. results preliminary analysis the data had no outliers or missing values. all measures had acceptable internal consistencies, with cronbach's alpha (α) ranging from .62 to .94; the average value was .83. the measure of multicultural ideology by berry and kalin (1995) was positively correlated with colorblindness, r = .24, se = .05, 95% ci [.13, .33], p < .001, multiculturalism, r = .18, se = .06, 95% ci [.07, .28], p = .001, and polyculturalism, r = .39, se = .06, 95% ci [.27, .50], p < .001, and negatively correlated with assimilation, r = -.46, se = .04, 95% ci [-.54, -.37], p < .0014. descriptive statistics including means, 4) these results are similar to those reported by rosenthal and levy (2012). diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 376 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ standard deviations, and partial correlations are presented in appendix a available in the supplementary materials section. all of the outcome variables were highly correlated. the results of paired samples t-test are shown in table 2. table 2 paired samples t-tests in study 1 (n = 359) paired differences 95% ci pair m sd se lower upper t(358) p r d willingness for intergroup contact pair 1 chechens belarusians -1.67 2.14 0.11 -1.89 -1.45 -14.79 < .001 .32 0.91 pair 2 chechens uzbeks 0.19 1.19 0.06 0.06 0.31 2.95 .003 .87 0.08 pair 3 chechens chinese -0.07 1.52 0.08 -0.23 0.09 -0.86 .389 .76 0.03 pair 4 belarusians uzbeks 1.85 2.25 0.12 1.62 2.09 15.61 < .001 .33 0.96 pair 5 belarusians chinese 1.60 2.04 0.11 1.39 1.81 14.89 < .001 .35 0.90 pair 6 uzbeks chinese -0.25 1.34 0.07 -0.39 -0.12 -3.59 < .001 .83 0.11 endorsement of discrimination pair 1 chechens belarusians 1.21 1.69 0.09 1.04 1.39 13.57 < .001 .45 0.75 pair 2 chechens uzbeks -0.35 1.21 0.06 -0.47 -0.22 -5.43 < .001 .83 0.17 pair 3 chechens chinese -0.35 1.50 0.08 -0.51 -0.19 -4.42 < .001 .72 0.18 pair 4 belarusians uzbeks -1.56 1.97 0.10 -1.77 -1.36 -15.04 < .001 .43 0.85 pair 5 belarusians chinese -1.56 1.99 0.11 -1.77 -1.36 -14.88 < .001 .36 0.89 pair 6 uzbeks chinese 0.01 1.32 0.07 -0.14 0.13 -0.04 .968 .81 0.01 we found a significant difference with a large effect size for belarusians, indicating the smallest endorsement of discrimination and the largest willingness for intergroup contact with them, relative to the other groups. structural model the estimated path coefficients of the sem models are shown in table 3. the initial structural model (explaining generalized intergroup bias) had a poor fit: χ2(89, n = 359) = 527.82, p < .001; cfi = .860; rmsea [90% ci] = .117 [.108, .127]; srmr = .056. we turned to the modification indices adding residual correlations between the variables assessing endorsement of discrimination given the high correlations between them (ranging from .34 to .72, the average value was .50); after these modifications, structural model 1 had an acceptable global fit: χ2(83, n = 359) = 175.82, p < .001; cfi = .970; rmsea [90% ci] = .056 [.044, .067]; srmr = .053. the explained variation of generalized intergroup bias was 35%. the relation between multiculturalism and generalized intergroup bias was non-significant; generalized intergroup bias was negatively correlated with positive interethnic contact experience, colorblindness, and polyculturalism, and positively correlated with assimilation; all other relationships in the model were also significant. the explained variation of intergroup bias against belarusians by generalized prejudice as the second-order latent factor was only 22%; in contrast, it ranged from 82% to 95% for other groups. the second structural model (explaining specific intergroup bias) had an acceptable global fit: χ2(66, n = 359) = 148.03, p < .001; cfi = .974; rmsea [90% ci] = .059 [.046, .072]; srmr = .047. the explained variation of specific intergroup bias ranged from 12% to 35%. a common pattern for intergroup bias against chechens, uzbeks, and chinese was observed; namely there were negative associations with positive interethnic contact experience, colorblindness, and polyculturalism and positive associations with assimilation. however, intergroup bias against belarusians was negatively associated only with positive interethnic contact experience and multiculturalism. taking into account the positive correlation between multiculturalism and polyculturalism (r = .32, p < .001), if we constrained the path from multiculturalism to bias against belarusians to be zero in model 2, then the path from polyculturalism to bias against batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 377 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ belarusians becomes significant (β = -.13, p = .036). the resulting sem model 1 (explaining generalized intergroup bias) is shown in figure 1. discussion in this first study, we tested the structural model of the relationships between assimilation, colorblindness, multicultur­ alism, polyculturalism and generalized and specific intergroup bias, where generalized bias was considered a common second-order latent factor composing intergroup bias against chechens, belarusians, uzbeks, and chinese. the results showed that only colorblind and polycultural diversity ideologies, taking into account the positive interethnic contact table 3 model results for structural equation model: unstandardized coefficient (est.), standard error (se), 95% confidence interval (ci), standardized coefficient (std.), z-value (z) and significance in study 1 (n = 359) 95% ci predictor est. se lower upper z p std. model 1a generalized prejudice (r2 = .35) assimilation 0.203 0.040 0.125 0.281 5.112 < .001 .24 colorblindness -0.218 0.034 -0.284 -0.153 -6.511 < .001 -.31 multiculturalism -0.032 0.064 -0.159 0.094 -0.504 .615 -.02 polyculturalism -0.320 0.059 -0.436 -0.204 -5.418 < .001 -.27 positive interethnic contact experience -0.416 0.103 -0.618 -0.213 -4.026 < .001 -.24 model 2b bias against chechens (r2 = .35) assimilation 0.204 0.042 0.121 0.287 4.802 < .001 .23 colorblindness -0.231 0.036 -0.301 -0.161 -6.464 < .001 -.31 multiculturalism -0.046 0.070 -0.182 0.090 -0.663 .507 -.03 polyculturalism -0.352 0.063 -0.476 -0.228 -5.557 < .001 -.28 positive interethnic contact experience -0.434 0.110 -0.650 -0.218 -3.941 < .001 -.24 bias against belarusians (r2 = .12) assimilation 0.036 0.029 -0.022 0.093 1.212 .226 .07 colorblindness -0.005 0.024 -0.053 0.043 -0.197 .844 -.01 multiculturalism -0.136 0.049 -0.231 -0.040 -2.778 .005 -.18 polyculturalism -0.046 0.044 -0.132 0.039 -1.064 .287 -.07 positive interethnic contact experience -0.235 0.075 -0.383 -0.087 -3.109 .002 -.24 bias against uzbeks (r2 = .33) assimilation 0.240 0.047 0.148 0.333 5.098 < .001 .24 colorblindness -0.244 0.040 -0.322 -0.166 -6.155 < .001 -.30 multiculturalism -0.024 0.077 -0.174 0.126 -0.312 .755 -.02 polyculturalism -0.370 0.070 -0.507 -0.232 -5.271 < .001 -.27 positive interethnic contact experience -0.461 0.121 -0.699 -0.224 -3.808 < .001 -.22 bias against chinese (r2 = .29) assimilation 0.187 0.046 0.096 0.278 4.023 < .001 .20 colorblindness -0.241 0.039 -0.318 -0.164 -6.102 < .001 -.31 multiculturalism -0.042 0.076 -0.191 0.106 -0.556 .578 -.03 polyculturalism -0.283 0.069 -0.419 -0.148 -4.099 < .001 -.22 positive interethnic contact experience -0.441 0.120 -0.675 -0.206 -3.683 < .001 -.23 aglobal model fit: χ2 (83, n = 359) = 175.82, p < .001; cfi = .970; rmsea [90% ci] = .056 [.044, .067]; srmr = .053. bglobal model fit: χ2(66, n = 359) = 148.03, p < .001; cfi = .974; rmsea [90% ci] = .059 [.046, .072]; srmr = .047. diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 378 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experience, demonstrated negative associations with generalized and specific intergroup bias against chechens, uzbeks, and chinese but not with intergroup bias against belarusians, which was negatively associated with only multicultur­ alism (see table 3). the differences might indicate the lack of an outgroup homogeneity effect and accentuation of various attitudes towards ‘valued’ ethnic groups whose language and culture is similar to russians and ‘devalued’ ethnic groups against whom russians already have negative cultural stereotypes or whose culture and religion may be felt to differ considerably from their own (montreuil & bourhis, 2001). this potential preference for belarusians is also clearly illustrated by comparisons in the levels of endorsement of discrimination and willingness for intergroup contact (table 2), and the difference in factor loadings by the common outcome variables in our results (figure 1). a similar pattern was observed by bessudnov (2016): ukrainians and moldovans were more acceptable to russians than immigrants from the caucasus and central asia due to perceived cultural differences and ethnic hierarchy based on stereotypes. immigrants from central asia and the caucasus are perceived as unskilled manual laborers and perceived as a low-status group (grigoryev et al., 2019; see also lee & fiske, 2006; linssen & hagendoorn, 1994). moreover, according to the ingroup projection model, the status of particular ethnic groups depends on the degree of similarity with prototypical acceptable groups and is usually based on cultural and religious similarity (minescu & poppe, 2011; see also grigoryan, 2020; grigoryev et al., 2019). assimilation showed a clearer negative pattern, being associated with poor relations and negative attitudes, which was consistent with the results obtained from recent research (e.g., whitley & webster, 2019). finally, we discovered that our social ecological/contextual variables corroborated the well-established finding by pettigrew and tropp (2006) that, in general, positive contact experience can reduce intergroup bias as it moderates cultural differences and the ethnic hierarchy. study 2 in our second study we attempted to reproduce and extend on the findings of study 1 by adding implicit bias as the main outcome variable, as explicit measures may not adequately capture bias. method participants the total sample comprised 117 ethnic russian students of hse university in moscow. it included women (61.5%) and men (38.5%), aged from 17 to 43 years (m = 22.1, sd = 6.7). procedure the data were collected online in 2018 via email invitations of students. otherwise, the procedure was the same as in study 1. iat was applied to measure implicit bias against target ethnic groups. participants were presented with a set of visual stimuli (pictures associated with particular ethnic group) to sort quickly to one of two categories associated with pleasant (e.g., “joy”) or unpleasant feelings (e.g., “disgust”). there were seven stimuli for each of the three ethnic groups (chechens, belarusians, and chinese) in 21 sessions. measures — antecedent variables — diversity ideologies. the measures were the same as in study 1: assimilation, α = .81; colorblindness, α = .75; multiculturalism, α = .73; polyculturalism, α = .82. — covariate variables — behavioral experience. we assessed behavioral experience with chechens, belarusians and chinese with four items (boyle et al., 2014). positive behavior (two items): “how often did you help chechens?”. negative behavior (two items): batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 379 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “how often did you come into conflict with chechens?”. we used 5-point likert scale (from 1 = never to 5 = very often), α > .42 for all considered groups. perceived similarity. we used 100-degree thermometer scale (from 0 to 50 = not similar; 50 = do not know; from 60 to 100 = very similar) to assess the perceived degree of similarity with target ethnic groups (boyle et al., 2014): “how similar are these ethnic groups to your own ethnic group?” — outcome variables — explicit bias. we used 100-degree thermometer scale (from 0 to 50 = not warm; 50 = do not know; from 60 to 100 = very warm) to assess perceived degree of warmth of target ethnic groups (boyle et al., 2014): “how do you feel about these ethnic groups?” lower thermometer values represent higher levels of explicit bias. implicit bias. we used the implicit association test (iat) with computing d-scores (according to greenwald et al., 2003). greater d-scores represent higher levels of implicit bias. data analysis we followed the main steps by study 1 and used bivariate and partial correlation analysis and regression analysis. we abandoned the sem approach because the model would have a large number of parameters with a modest sample size, which would not provide convergence and stable estimates. in addition, we believed that we had fully addressed our research questions using these methods. hence, sem models would be redundant. results the results of correlation analysis are shown in table 4. the results of the regression analysis are available in appendix b available in the supplementary materials section. these results indicated that assimilation was positively related to explicit bias against chechens and chinese and negatively with explicit bias against belarusians. the results of partial correlations showed that assimilation was also negatively associated and colorblindness was positively associated with explicit bias against belarusians, whereas multiculturalism was positively associated with implicit bias against chechens. in general, more proximal variables (positive or negative contact experience and perceived group similarity) were more robust predictors of intergroup bias than diversity ideologies. discussion the results indicated that negative implicit bias towards chechens was associated with emphasizing cultural differences with this group (multiculturalism). in contrast, ignoring such differences (colorblindness) was associated with explicit bias against belarusians but reducing such differences (assimilation) was associated with positive attitudes towards them. however, in one case reducing differences were also associated with explicit bias against chinese. these patterns echo brewer's optimal distinctiveness (brewer, 2003): (1) if the groups are similar, focusing on differences will lead to positive attitudes, because it reduces the distinctiveness threat; (2) if the groups are very different, emphasizing differences makes them seem even more different and the optimal distinctiveness is not achieved. study 3 in study 3, we examined relations between diversity ideologies and specific forms of intergroup bias. our rationale was to examine if the pattern of associations was similar to more generic biases. method participants the total sample of 225 participants included 41.8% women and 58.2% men, aged 16 to 82 (m = 31.2, sd = 12.7); 57.8% reported a university education, 40.0% identified as russian orthodox christians, and 28.0% as students. diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 380 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure the same as study 1. the data were collected in 2018. measures all measures used a 7-point likert scale. measures were scored such that higher scores indicated stronger endorsement of the concept. — antecedent variables — diversity ideologies. the measures were the same as in study 1: assimilation, α = .78; colorblindness, α = .89; multiculturalism, α = .77; polyculturalism, α = .83. — covariate variables — ethnic identification. we used two items to assess ethnic identification of our participants (verkuyten & yildiz, 2007, translated by grigoryev & berry, 2017), e.g., “i consider myself a russian” (α = .89). national identification. we used two items to assess national identification of our participants (verkuyten & yildiz, 2007, translated by grigoryev & berry, 2017), e.g., “i consider myself as a citizen of russia” (α = .85). — outcome variables — table 4 bivariate and partial correlations between diversity ideologies and intergroup bias in study 2 (n = 117) variable assimilation colorblindness multiculturalism polyculturalism chechens covariate positive behavior .16/.24** .13/.25** -.04/.07 -.04/-.08 negative behavior .12/.03 -.27**/-.29*** .01/-.15 .04/.08 similarity -.15/-.06 .21*/.03 -.10/-.11 .05/.14 outcome thermometer -.17/-.11 .16/-.10 -.09/-.07 -.04/-.03 d-score -.08/-.03 -.08/.04 .09/.20* -.06/-.14 belarusians covariate positive behavior .06/-.29*** -.12/.05 .10/.09 .08/-.03 negative behavior .08/.17 -.09/-.09 -.17/-.16 -.11/-.05 similarity .06/-.04 -.05/.09 .16/.10 .14/-.03 outcome thermometer .20*/.33*** -.13/-.20* .17/-.06 .17/.07 d-score -.03/.01 -.04/-.14 .05/.02 .01/.02 chinese covariate positive behavior -.18*/-.14 -.21*/-.30*** .11/-.02 .16/.14 negative behavior .13/.02 -.01/.22* .05/.14 .01/-.07 similarity -.08/.04 .28**/.22* -.04/.04 .05/-.05 outcome thermometer -.18/-.18 .03/.17 .03/.04 .13/.06 d-score -.03/-.08 -.05/-.14 -.13/-.14 -.19*/-.05 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 381 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ antisemitism. we used five items to assess bias against jews (padovan & alietti, 2012), e.g.: “jews have too much power in the business world and in international financial markets” (α = .91). fear of muslims. we used sixteen items to assess bias against muslims (lee et al., 2009), e.g.: “if possible, i would avoid going to places where muslims would be” (α = .97). data analysis we followed the main steps by study 1 and used bivariate and partial correlation analysis and regression analysis. results the correlation matrix is shown in table 5, while the regression analysis is available in appendix c available in the supplementary materials section. table 5 bivariate and partial correlations between diversity ideologies and intergroup bias in study 3 (n = 225) variable assimilation colorblindness multiculturalism polyculturalism covariate ethnic identification .04/.08 -.21**/-.25*** .22**/.11 .05/-.05 national identification -.08/-.05 .07/.17** .13*/.05 .09/.01 outcome antisemitism .13*/.02 -.38**/-.26*** .24**/.15* .04/.05 fear of muslims .32**/.31*** -.28**/-.13* .02/.08 -.25**/-.28*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the results indicated that assimilation and multiculturalism had positive associations with specific bias while color­ blindness and polyculturalism had negative associations with it. discussion largely replicating the findings of study 1, we found the four ideologies to be a stronger predictor of intergroup attitudes when the target group is more culturally distinct. together, the four ideologies explained 23% of variance in fear of muslims, but only 18% of the variance in antisemitism. as before, the positive link of assimilation with intergroup bias was significant for the culturally distinct group of muslims, but not significant for the relatively nonvisible and more assimilated group of jews. however, jews are not as culturally close to and accepted by the russian majority as belarusians in study 1. whereas in the case of belarusians only multiculturalism was associated with more positive attitudes towards them, in the case of jews the results showed that multiculturalism was associated with more negative attitudes. the positive role of colorblindness in intergroup attitudes was replicated both for attitudes towards muslims and towards jews. we found a negative link between polyculturalism (thinking about interconnectivity) and for fear of muslims, but not for antisemitism (note that we also did not find this relationship for the culturally similar belarusians in study 1). also, in parallel with study 1, multiculturalism was associated with intergroup attitudes only in the case of antisemitism, but not fear of muslims. however, the direction of this association was reversed: the more participants endorsed multiculturalism, the more antisemitism they expressed. this surprising finding might reflect some unique position that the jewish minority holds in russian society. overall, these findings once again suggest that the relationships of diversity ideologies and intergroup attitudes strongly depend on the specific outgroup under consideration. the positive role of colorblindness and polyculturalism and the negative role of assimilation in intergroup attitudes of russians seem to be robust, although the effects are often weaker for culturally similar groups. however, we found no relationship between the ideology of multiculturalism diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 382 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (emphasizing differences) and outgroup attitudes for the majority of target groups, and the two target groups that are exceptions to this rule (i.e., jews and belarusians), show different directions of the effect. general discussion in the current series of studies we examined diversity ideologies and noted differences between measures of explicit versus implicit bias: only colorblindness and polyculturalism had negative associations with explicit bias against all groups except against belarusians, which was only negatively associated with multiculturalism, possibly because of the salient categorization activates positive cultural stereotypes. emphasizing differences (multiculturalism) with chechens was associated with implicit bias. encouraging an emphasis on differences in some contexts may not always lead to the intended effects such as intergroup harmony or positive interethnic attitudes, and in some cases, may possibly even backfire. relatedly, other research has shown that priming multiculturalism can be associated with greater prejudice in those who identify with their ethnicity (morrison et al., 2010). stereotypes can trigger a categorization process (or vice versa) and generate an ethnic hierarchy on the basis of the number and intensity of negatively evaluated differences (hagendoorn, 1993). multiculturalism is characterized by more pronounced positive and negative stereotypes towards outgroups (wolsko et al., 2000). thus, we supposed that the cultural closeness and positive cultural stereotypes towards belarusians, which are prevalent among russians (see grigoryev et al., 2019), results in less intergroup bias against them. additionally, emphasizing the differences is not a threat to the mainstream cultural group in this case, since the differences are superficial and do not impact on norms, values, and beliefs. it is far easier to support cultural pluralism when it comes to close groups (i.e., belarusians), in contrast to culturally more distant groups (i.e., chechens, uzbeks, and chinese). disparities in norms, values, and beliefs which may threaten the cultural security of the mainstream group may lead to a preference for other ideological approaches towards dealing with immigrants than multiculturalism (grigoryev & van de vijver, 2018)5. hence, assimila­ tion may be the reactionary response to perceived threats from culturally distant groups (grigoryev et al., 2018b, 2020), a strategy which restores the cultural security and preservation of the historically dominant group by imposing the mainstream culture on immigrants (guimond et al., 2013). moreover, in the case of belarusians (study 1), multiculturalism (emphasizing differences) completely shared the variation of polyculturalism (thinking about interconnectivity) and additionally explained the unique variation of the outcome variables; this finding is similar to the results for endorsement of the celebration of harmony day in australia obtained by pedersen et al. (2015). that is, polyculturalism had the beneficial effect for all considered outcomes. apparently, it is indeed possible to improve intergroup relations by recognizing the connections among groups through their shared past and current interactions and exchanges (rosenthal & levy, 2012) that really took place for the considered groups. yet again, the lack of significant relationships between colorblindness and intergroup bias against belarusians, is in line with the reasoning of the previous paragraph, due to the features of the intergroup relations with this ethnic group in russia and intergroup differentiation. instead, for other groups, colorblindness may be a reflection of the famous cliché ‘no bad nations, but bad people’, which is quite common in public discourse in russia. thus, colorblindness may help to partially reduce judging individuals based on ethnic categories, which are vulnerable to outgroup-based prejudice. colorblindness looks like a form of french republicanism (secularism, universalism) and european model of the national state on a civic basis (guimond et al., 2014). however, colorblindness also has some limitations. for example, cognitive studies of the automatism of the categorization process cast doubt on the possibility of avoiding categorization: after some time, a person automatically places an object in a certain category (see correll et al., 2008). others maintain that ignoring race may ignore the existence of racial discrimination, i.e., it is not difficult to move from an egalitarian to an anti-egalitarian understanding of colorblindness depending on political motives and current events (apfelbaum et al., 2012; guimond et al., 2013). a recent study in new zealand demonstrated the 5) cultural policy is facing similar difficulties in europe (i.e., very distant cultural groups having difficulty with integration). western europeans had relatively positive/neutral experiences with eastern europeans (culturally close), but this over generalization of policy to other groups is arguably creating a great deal of tension between segments of the native born european population and immigrants from the middle east and africa (murray, 2017). batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 383 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mechanism of the functioning of such an anti-egalitarian understanding of colorblindness (yogeeswaran et al., 2018). however, diversity ideologies can be very sensitive to the country context (guimond et al., 2014); therefore, the results obtained in other countries should be compared with great caution. limitations our study considered ideologies that included only the maintenance of cultural diversity aspect, and not the partici­ pation and inclusion aspect. three other ideologies of multicultural ideology (berry & kalin, 1995); interculturalism (gagnon & iacovino, 2016; scott & safdar, 2017; verkuyten et al., 2020); and omniculturalism (moghaddam, 2012) include not only cultural diversity but also the social participation and inclusion of diverse groups in the life of the larger national society (grigoryev & berry, 2021). future research should examine in a comparative perspective the role of these three ideologies in interethnic bias. the concept of mutuality is essential for understanding intercultural relations (e.g., berry, 2017; berry et al., 2022). does bias appear in the views of the dominant and non-dominant groups towards each other? however, in the present studies, we examined diversity ideologies only from the point of view of the majority cultural group, even though there are differences for majority and minority groups (e.g., ryan et al., 2007). finally, while we addressed some social contextual variables, including ethnic density, their moderating and media­ ting effects need to be further investigated (jurcik et al., 2015; visintin et al., 2017b). variables such as intergroup threat (e.g., morrison et al., 2010; scott & safdar, 2017) and authoritarianism (e.g., levin et al., 2012; perry et al., 2015; yogeeswaran et al., 2017) may also more finely tune the obtained relationships. although a low internal consistency of multiculturalism (in study 1) relative to other measures of diversity ideologies did not pose serious threats to our results, further research using a more reliable measure is necessary because a high error variance attenuates effects. further research further research is needed in different contexts from a comparative perspective, which will help to establish under what conditions these principles of diversity ideologies (or their combination) are most effective in achieving mutual accept­ ance. in other words, the following questions are still open: (1) in which cases is it better for people to perceive each other as separate individuals, and not as members of groups? (2) under what circumstances would social categorization play a role in attitude formation (since a positive/negative attitude towards one group member can be transferred to other members of this group)? (3) in which situations is it better to attach importance to how cultural groups have interacted, influenced and mutually enriched each other throughout history (and continue to do so today), viewing members of all racial and ethnic groups as deeply interconnected? (4) what is the optimal distinctiveness for specific groups within their respective contexts? other research may also explore the evolutionary nature of cognitive biases, which some have argued, may have been ancestrally adaptive from a fitness perspective, even if they may not appear logical (see haselton et al., 2015). thus, it is possible that under certain conditions of threat or biological state, certain diversity ideologies may be favored over others, indicative of dynamic processes. conclusion our findings from the russian context help shed light on the functioning of diversity ideologies in the aspects of maintenance of cultural diversity, and in the difference in the cultural similarity of the dominant group towards ethnic minority outgroups. assimilation primarily involves the motivation to unite society into one single united group and the rejection of non-mainstream cultures, and represents only one approach to adapting to a society especially for culturally distant groups. seemingly, multiculturalism, which emphasizes differences, is useful only if there are positive intergroup stereotypes; in the case of negative cultural stereotypes, however, this may invoke a negative bias. although replication and further experimental research is needed, our study serves as a reminder of how emphasizing differences may inadvertently be associated with more negative attitudes (see morrison et al., 2010), especially towards more culturally distant groups. it also highlights how implicit and explicit bias may manifest slightly differently. diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 384 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://www.psychopen.eu/ instead, both colorblindness and polyculturalism were generally associated with less negative bias in russia. color­ blindness appeals to a common citizen identity by eliminating ethnic differences and complicating ethnic categorization and judgments. polyculturalism emphasizes positive historical experiences of intercultural relations and probably corre­ sponds to available rooted views, such as soviet internationalism and the hope for solidarity between ethnic groups in russia. whether this hope was ever achieved historically is debatable, but our study highlights how context and local worldviews need to be carefully considered when studying diversity ideologies. our findings indicate a great need to take into account the principles of brewer’s optimal distinctiveness theory (brewer, 2003) for intercultural relations. thus, our findings may be suggestive of a compromise strategy needed to maintain some 'optimal' level of perceived cultural difference in intercultural relations—favoring more similarity if different, and more difference if similar. funding: the article was prepared within the framework of the basic research program at hse university, russian federation. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank dr. lusine grigoryan (ruhr-universität bochum) for her helpful advice on an earlier draft of this paper. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see the index of supplementary materials below) • three appendices with the descriptive statistics of each study, including means, standard deviations, partial correlations, and regression analyses index of supplementary materials batkhina, a., berry, j. w., jurcik, t., dubrov, d., & grigoryev, d. 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(2008). the syndrome of group-focused enmity: the interrelation of prejudices tested with multiple cross-sectional and panel data. journal of social issues, 64(2), 363–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00566.x about the authors anastasia batkhina (ph.d.) has a ph.d. in social psychology. she is a research fellow at center for sociocultural research, hse university, moscow, russian federation. her scientific interests focus on intercultural conflicts and intergroup relations. john w. berry (ph.d.) is a professor emeritus of psychology at queen's university. he can be seen as one of the main establishers of the field of cross-cultural psychology and acculturation. his current interests are focused on the psychology of intercultural relations (including acculturation, immigration, and multiculturalism). he also continues to carry out research on two longstanding interests: ecological factors in human development; and cross-cultural theory and methodology. tomas jurcik (ph.d.) has a ph.d. in clinical psychology. he is an assistant professor at department of psychology, hse university, moscow, russian federation. his scientific interests focus on clinical psychology and acculturation. dmitrii dubrov (ph.d.) has a ph.d. in social psychology. he is a research fellow at center for sociocultural research, national research university higher school of economics, moscow, russian federation. his scientific interests focus on individual values and intergroup relations. batkhina, berry, jurcik et al. 389 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 369–390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3715 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043309 https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2012.686740 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167207304276 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2628 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2017.04.010 https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12423 https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868318761423 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618780728 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.635 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2225 https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12269 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00566.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ dmitry grigoryev (ph.d.) has a ph.d. in social psychology. he is a research fellow at center for sociocultural research, hse university, moscow, russian federation. his scientific interests focus on acculturation and intergroup relations. diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias 390 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ diversity ideologies and negative intergroup bias (introduction) review of diversity ideologies the context of the study: russia overview hypotheses study 1 method results discussion study 2 method results discussion study 3 method results discussion general discussion limitations further research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the co-mask approach: tips for fostering mask use among older adults during the covid-19 pandemic editorial the co-mask approach: tips for fostering mask use among older adults during the covid-19 pandemic marina maffoni 1, valeria torlaschi 1, paola gabanelli 2, paola abelli 3, antonia pierobon 1 [1] istituti clinici scientifici maugeri irccs, psychology unit of montescano institute, montescano (pv), italy. [2] istituti clinici scientifici maugeri irccs, psychology unit of pavia institute, pavia (pv), italy. [3] istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, health administration of montescano institute, montescano (pv), italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 published (vor): 2021-11-30 corresponding author: marina maffoni, istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, irccs, via s. maugeri, 4 27100 pavia. tel. +39 385 247212, e-mail: marina.maffoni@icsmaugeri.it supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract face masks are effective at limiting contagion of the coronavirus. however, adherence to face mask use among the older adult population is often unsatisfactory due to cognitive impairment, misconceptions, and difficulty in retrieving face masks. this brief note provides healthcare professionals with simple suggestions about how to improve face mask adoption in the older adults, in particular if they suffer from mild cognitive impairment. thus, clinical reflections and psychoeducational suggestions are summarized into a simple mental roadmap. specifically, the co-mask approach underlines the necessity to consider the following factors: cognition (possible cognitive impairment), occasions (real chances to access correct information and proper protection equipment), motivation (individual motivation towards sanitary prescriptions) and assumptions (personal beliefs and understandings). possible obstacles and practical suggestions for are also discussed. it is of paramount importance that healthcare professionals pay attention to emotional, cognitive and psychological aspects to effectively improve the face masks adherence among older adults, specifically when cognitive decline is present. keywords covid-19, older adults, face mask, adherence, psychoeducational “woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask”. — pirandello (1952) this statement, written by luigi pirandello, one of the biggest italian dramatists, has never been more relevant and up-to-date than during the current coronavirus disease (covid-19) pandemic. indeed, the use of this personal protective equipment impacts not only on patients’ health, but also on the entire healthcare systems with relevant consequences on both political and social levels. the face mask underwent various transformations during the history of humankind and, nowadays, its adoption has become one of the main topics in the ongoing crisis (goh et al., 2020). this personal protection equipment is extremely relevant for frontline healthcare professionals who are more exposed to the risk of contracting the covid-19 infection. the massive use of face masks among the population has been the subject of debate mainly due to the shortage of this equipment at the beginning of the pandemic outbreak (goh et al., 2020; world health organization, 2020). nevertheless, the scientific community is increasingly encouraging the universal donning of the face mask as it is considered a cheap and feasible measure to limit the infections of covid-19, as well as a way to discourage possible discrimination of this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6815&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ individuals obliged to wear this protection because they are more exposed to contagion than others (goh et al., 2020; li et al., 2020). indeed, being that the new coronavirus is a respiratory infection, facemask use may be a satisfactory non-pharma­ ceutical intervention to prevent the spread of the virus, thereby lower the risk of infection while reducing healthcare costs. in this regard, the recent history provided relevant examples. during the last severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) virus epidemic, it has been demonstrated that the human-to-human transmission could be reduced of 68% by wearing a face mask alone (jefferson et al., 2020). moreover, a recent modelling simulation indicated that wearing a face mask may effectively contribute to flatten the epidemic curve of the covid-19 pandemic (li et al., 2020). considering the increasing healthcare costs and the life-threatening risks of the ongoing pandemic for a certain part of the population, the use of face masks turns to be not only an ethical and moral imperative, but also a social and policy urgency which cannot be neglected. these considerations should promote the adoption of a novel mindset describing this personal protection equipment not only as a mere medical prescription, rather as the “new normal” and a shared social practice (van der westhuizen et al., 2020). this sounds particularly relevant for older adults who are more at risk of undergoing threatening consequences from a possible covid-19 disease or other infections. on this matter, the clinical experience and the most recent literature demonstrated that the new coronavirus may be particularly deadly to those who are in advanced age (liu et al., 2020). however, the use of this personal protection equipment cannot be taken for granted in the older adult population, in particular when mild cognitive decline is ongoing. indeed, if wearing a mask is uncomfortable for the general population, it turns to be even more challenging for people who are not able to fully understand what is happening and what is the reason for donning face masks. this individual protection equipment also hides most of the face, posing difficulties in the recognition of people and in the transmission of emotions. furthermore, it has to be noted that, in general, the older adult population’s adherence to medication and behavioral prescriptions is still a challenging and thorny issue regardless of the specific medical condition considered (costa et al., 2017). in this vein, this paper aims to provide simple formal and informal caregivers with suggestions about how to improve face mask adoption in the older population, in particular when mild cognitive impairment is present. co-mask approach: a theoretical model to overcome the problem manifold factors may prevent the effective and proper use of face masks among older adults. healthcare professionals, healthcare administration and informal caregivers are therefore requested to develop strategies and approaches to foster the use of this personal protection equipment in this part of population. for this reason, we propose the co-mask approach to highlight all the sensitive issues to consider when dealing with older adults, specifically if they are affected by mild cognitive impairment (see table 1). an educational poster, which summarizes this approach, has been developed too (figure 1). the term co-mask is the acronym of the following pivotal aspects: cognition, occasions, motivation and assumptions. firstly, cognition refers to the presence of possible cognitive impairment which, even not being so severe, may prevent the individual from being fully aware of the actual sanitary condition and of the necessity to wear personal protection equipment. literature has already underlined that cognitive impairment may be a strong hindrance to the correct adherence to medication and behavioral prescriptions as the individuals become unable to remember and manage drugs and medical devices by themselves (maffoni & giardini, 2017; giardini et al., 2018; maffoni et al., 2020; maffoni et al., 2021). thus, ignoring the reason of donning such an uncomfortable device, the person may instinctively throw away the face mask or being unable to correctly follow safeguarding procedures (porcari et al., 2020). thereby, it is suggested to not provide the mask as something imposed and mandatory, rather to try to explain with simple words the reasons under the necessity to wear a mask in accordance with the limits imposed by the presence of mild cognitive impairment. moreover, showing how to wear the face mask may be also useful as it provides people to adequate strategies and example to manage this personal protective equipment. overall, it is still an open question how to effectively address neurocognitive disorders which pose more vulnerable people to higher risk of contagion (devita et al., 2021). perhaps, in the daily clinical practice, it is necessary to give more importance to the context, creating safe the co-mask approach for face mask use 258 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and more protected environments. likewise, reassuring and calming down the older person is essential to cope with the individual’s fears despite her/his understanding. secondly, it should be considered the actual occasions a person may have. this aspect is particularly crucial to assure older adult’s adherence to face mask in phase of discharge. the term “occasion” means that it is important to pay attention to the real chances of accessing correct information and proper protection equipment (porcari et al., 2020). for instance, older people may be affected by cognitive and/or physical impairments and not being able to go out from their home in order to reach pharmacies and other shops for buying face masks. these facilities may be also very distant, in particular in rural areas. in this regard, literature reported that older adults cope with manifold hindrances preventing their ability to access to health services (horton & johnson, 2010), and this issue is even more relevant with the increasing of age (iecovich & carmel, 2009). for instance, obstacles may include lack of transportation, lack of family and social support, complex health care procedures and poor communication with healthcare professionals regarding available options (horton & johnson, 2010). the financial aspect should be also considered as a possible hindrance, especially where the healthcare system is based on health assurances which are not always affordable to everyone (horton & johnson, 2010). all these aspects are more and more crucial in the time of the current pandemic (mesa vieira et al., 2020), but also in possible future sanitary challanges. therefore, it is pivotal to ask about possible impediments in the provision of personal protection equipment and to activate all available support measures (e.g., social and sanitary assistance services). this is crucial for not letting the person be alone when at home. thirdly, another aspect to consider is motivation which is a crucial element for fostering adherence as it positively predisposes the individual towards prescriptions (martin & dimatteo, 2013). the huge amount of information may overwhelm and create confusion to the person who, in turn, may be not so motivated in wearing the face mask. this is even more critical for people suffering from cognitive disorders (devita et al., 2021; porcari et al., 2020). if people do not fully understand the reasons to wear a face mask, they do not have any motivation to use it as this personal protection equipment may be considered only an unusual and uncomfortable device or even a danger for their health. thus, it is pivotal to provide simple and clear information and effective strategies for wearing a mask in order to intrinsic motivate table 1 the co-mask approach for fostering mask use among older adults co-mask approach possible hindrance suggestion cognition • is she/he aware of the current sanitary condition? • does she/he understand why to wear a face mask? • does she/he understand how correctly wear a face mask? • does she/he remember to wear a face mask? • explain in a clear and simple language as far as possible considering the severity of the cognitive impairment. • to show how to wear a face mask • to reassure and calm the individual • to consider other forms of protection in case of cognitive impairment (safer environments) occasions • does she/he have access to correct information? • does she/he have access to face masks? (physical and cognitive impairment, distance of shops and pharmacies, financial issues) • to ask for possible difficulties in buying face mask • to activate all available support measures on the territory to help the individual motivation • is she/he motivated to wear a face mask? • does she/he know the reasons for wearing a face mask? • to provide simple and clear information • to provide strategies for wearing a mask assumptions • has she/he false misconceptions regarding the face mask? • is she/he scared by face mask? • to assess the individual beliefs and concerns • to provide simple and clear information in response to false beliefs • to recognize and normalize emotional reactions responses and to reassure maffoni, torlaschi, gabanelli et al. 259 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 co-mask – approach: foster adherence to the use of face masks among older adults note. the educational poster in english language (see the italian version in supplementary materials). created by istituti clinici scientifici maugeri irccs, psychology unit of montescano institute (pv), italy. free icons by www.flaticon.com. the co-mask approach for face mask use 260 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 http://www.flaticon.com https://www.psychopen.eu/ the older adult population and counter any misinformation. indeed, providing effective health communication is a key factor in the current pandemic (finset et al., 2020). similarly, information, motivation and strategies are the fundaments of each kind of adherent behavior, according the well-known three-factor model (martin & dimatteo, 2013). thus, it is essential to provide older adults with proper and understandable knowledge, suggesting easy strategies to manage face masks and triggering their inner motivation. lastly, motivating a person is not possible if not considering her/his assumptions. according to leventhal’s common sense model of self-regulation (leventhal et al., 1980), people actively partake in the management of their health, putting into action different coping modalities according to their own beliefs and understandings. these cognitive and emotional representations, derived from internal (e.g., past experiences) and external inputs (e.g., others’ opinions), guide behavioral responses. thus, an older adult may misunderstand the importance of the face mask due to cognitive impairment or false beliefs and subjective concerns. for instance, an individual may consider deleterious to breath in the face mask for a long period of time because of carbon dioxide toxicity. these mental representations and expectations may decrease motivation and may nourish a dangerous vicious cycle of oppositional behaviors regarding the donning of the face mask. therefore, it is important to assess the individual concerns and beliefs regarding the adoption of this personal protective equipment and to address possible wrong expectations by providing simple and clear information, as well as proper reassurances. doing so, it is possible to emotionally support the individual, addressing misconceptions and fears which prevent the use of face masks. conclusion paying attention to the aforementioned aspects may help healthcare professionals, caregivers and policymakers to detect different kinds of hindrances to the adoption of face masks by older adult population, in particular when a slight cognitive impairment is present. in this regard, the adoption of feasible approaches and effective strategies has relevant social and political implications as the correct protection behavior may drastically reduce contagion and healthcare costs. in this vein, the co-mask acronym suggests a simple mental roadmap to promote the adequate use of personal protective equipment and to emotionally support the older population along those hard times of sanitary crisis. the educational poster may be used in the healthcare context to effectively promote their adherence to this personal protection equipment. this aspect is indeed pivotal in present time and in the near future as further waves of covid-19 or other pandemics cannot be excluded and these unwelcome scenarios would threaten the sustainability of the healthcare and socio-political system. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. supplementary materials for this article figure 1 in italian language is available via psycharhives (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials maffoni, m., torlaschi, v., gabanelli, p., abelli, p., & pierobon, a. (2021). supplementary materials to: the co-mask approach: tips for fostering mask use among older adults during the covid-19 pandemic [image]. psychopen gold. http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.5238 maffoni, torlaschi, gabanelli et al. 261 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.5238 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references costa, e., giardini, a., & monaco, a. (eds.). (2017). adherence to medical plans for active and healthy ageing. nova science publishers. devita, m., bordignon, a., sergi, g., & coin, a. (2021). the psychological and cognitive impact of covid-19 on individuals with neurocognitive impairments: research topics and remote intervention proposals. aging clinical and experimental research, 33, 733-736. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-020-01637-6 finset, a., bosworth, h., butow, p., gulbrandsen, p., hulsman, r. l., pieterse, a. h., street, r., tschoetschel, r., & van weert, j. 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(2020). advice on the use of masks in the community, during home care and in health care settings in the context of the novel coronavirus (2019-ncov) outbreak: interim guidance, 29 january 2020. retreived september 15, 2020, from https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330987 the co-mask approach for face mask use 262 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-020-01637-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.03.027 https://doi.org/10.2147/ppa.s164686 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.060 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1446.2010.00866.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0898264309333322 https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd006207.pub5 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237691 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2020.03.005 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-020-00313-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41999-020-00313-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.04.004 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.599851 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3021 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330987 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors marina maffoni, phd, is a psychologist who is currently employed in the psychological and neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation of patients affected by different pneumological, cardiac or neurological diseases. she also conducts research in health psychology, mainly focusing on patient’s adherence to treatments, risk and protective factors for healthcare professionals. valeria torlaschi is a psychologist and psychotherapist who is currently employed in the psychological and neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation of patients affected by different pneumological, cardiac or neurological diseases. she also conducts research in health psychology, mainly focusing on neuropsychological aspects. paola gabanelli is a psychologist, psychotherapist and chief of the psychological unit of ics maugeri, institutes of pavia and montescano (pv), italy. she is mainly involved in clinical and research activity with oncological patients. paola abelli is a physician and chief medical officer of the ics maugeri institute of montescano (pv), italy. she is mainly involved in clinical and research activity concerning physical rehabilitation. antonia pierobon is a psychologist and psychotherapist who is currently employed in the psychological and neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation of patients affected by different pneumological, cardiac or neurological diseases. she also conducts research in health psychology, mainly focusing on psycho-cardiological and neuropsychological aspects. maffoni, torlaschi, gabanelli et al. 263 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 257–263 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6815 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the co-mask approach for face mask use (introduction) co-mask approach: a theoretical model to overcome the problem conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors quality of life and body dissatisfaction in cisgender men reporting sexual attraction toward men or women research reports quality of life and body dissatisfaction in cisgender men reporting sexual attraction toward men or women liam cahill 1, joost m. leunissen 2, mike marriott 1, andrew k. dunn 1 [1] department of psychology, school of social sciences, nottingham trent university, nottingham, united kingdom. [2] department of psychology, university of winchester, winchester, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 received: 2023-02-22 • accepted: 2023-11-03 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: liam cahill, department of psychology, school of social sciences, nottingham trent university, nottingham, ng1 4fq, united kingdom. e-mail: liam.cahill@ntu.ac.uk abstract gay men report poorer body image than straight men, but no research has examined other dimensions of sexual identity (e.g., sexual attraction). most research also focused on clinical outcomes of body dissatisfaction rather than subclinical influences on quality of life. we examined the association between sexual attraction (i.e., attraction to men or women), body dissatisfaction and quality of life in cisgender men. we hypothesised that: 1) men attracted to men would report higher body dissatisfaction, 2) men attracted to men would report lower quality of life (i.e., psychological, physiological, social, and environmental), 3) body dissatisfaction would be negatively associated with quality of life, and finally 4) body dissatisfaction mediates the association between sexual attraction and quality of life. a cross-sectional study (86 men attracted to men and 87 men attracted to women) supported these hypotheses but showed that sexual attraction was only associated with psychological quality of life. while sexual attraction was only associated with psychological quality of life, there were indirect associations with all quality of life domains acting through body dissatisfaction. our findings emphasise that men attracted to men are at greater risk of poor body image and that body dissatisfaction is a pervasive health problem, negatively influencing subclinical health and well-being in cisgender men. we also highlight how body dissatisfaction may be one psychological process negatively influencing the psychological quality of life in men attracted to men. more resources should be directed toward preventing body dissatisfaction, particularly in sexual minoritised men. keywords body dissatisfaction, quality of life, sexual attraction, sexual identity body dissatisfaction (a dislike for one’s bodily appearance; heider et al., 2018) is an important research area because increased body dissatisfaction is associated with detrimental physical (e.g., restrictive eating) and psychological (e.g., depression) outcomes (barnes et al., 2020; blashill, 2011). research indicates that body dissatisfaction has subclinical adverse effects by impairing an individual’s quality of life (duarte et al., 2015; santhira shagar et al., 2021). in western societies, body dissatisfaction is normative and widespread (tantleff-dunn et al., 2011) and is argued to be a pervasive public health problem (griffiths et al., 2017; rodgers et al., 2023). research addressing the influences of body dissatisfac­ tion on quality of life has mainly focused on women or on examining a narrow definition of quality of life in men (e.g., psychological quality of life only; austen et al., 2020; griffiths et al., 2016; santhira shagar et al., 2021). limited research has explored a broad conceptualisation of quality of life in cisgender men1. additionally, while research has illustrated that gay men systematically experience greater body dissatisfaction relative to straight (i.e., heterosexual) men (dahlenburg et al., 2020), no research to date has explored other aspects this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11423&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of sexual identity. sexual identity is multidimensional (kaestle, 2019; savin-williams, 2016), comprising a self-defined identity (i.e., gay or straight), sexual attraction (i.e., attraction to the same or different gender2) and sexual behaviour (i.e., with whom they have has sexual contact). people vary along each of these dimensions. for instance, a man may identify as straight but report attraction towards and engage in sexual behaviours with men. despite this, no research has examined whether dimensions of sexual identity other than self-reported identity, such as self-reported sexual attraction, are associated with men’s body dissatisfaction or quality of life. nor has anyone examined whether body dissatisfaction might mediate any association between sexual attraction and quality of life in a sample of cisgender men (henceforth referred to as men for simplicity). sexual identity and body dissatisfaction research indicates that self-identifying gay men generally have greater body dissatisfaction than straight men (dahlenburg et al., 2020). gay men are more likely to endorse societal body ideals and emphasise having an ideal body type, exacerbating body dissatisfaction (brewster et al., 2017). moreover, gay men experience increased pressures from within gay communities to have an ideal body in which a lean and muscular body type is endorsed and idealised (tylka & andorka, 2012). while previous research has established that gay men experience greater body dissatisfaction, no previous research has explored the associations between other elements of sexual identity and body dissatisfaction, such as self-reported sexual attraction (he et al., 2020). to fully understand the unique experiences that sexual minoritised populations may experience concerning their body image and how they navigate this, it is important to examine other aspects of sexual identity (e.g., sexual attraction). men attracted to men likely experience poorer body image than men attracted to women for several reasons. men who report non-heterosexual (i.e., straight) attraction are a minoritised group, according to minority stress theory (meyer, 2003). people in a minoritised population experience a range of adverse psychological outcomes, including greater body dissatisfaction (rodgers et al., 2023). men deviating from heteronormative ideals may fear appearancebased discrimination. they often attempt to conceal their minoritised status by adhering to traditional masculine ideals by changing their bodies (brewster et al., 2017). this may cause greater body dissatisfaction, mainly as those masculine ideals are challenging to attain. for example, developing muscles is incompatible with pursuing a lean physique, making the community’s ideal body type challenging to attain (tiggemann et al., 2007). further, men attracted to men are also likely to experience greater objectification. objectification theory (fredrickson & roberts, 1997) posits that societal members who are frequently sexualised and evaluated based on their physical appearance may internalise those evaluations and objectify themselves (i.e., self-objectification), increasing body dissatisfaction (brewster et al., 2017). for example, within gay communities, physical attractiveness is crucial in consolidating romantic and sexual interest (frederick & essayli, 2016; tylka & andorka, 2012). gay men are subjected to evaluations from other men, termed the male gaze (wood, 2004). as men who report attraction to other men experience similar pressures, we expect a similar increase in self-objectification and body dissatisfaction. body dissatisfaction and quality of life previous investigations assessing the consequences of body dissatisfaction have primarily focused on mood disorders (paxton et al., 2006) or eating and exercise psychopathologies, such as disordered eating (kaminski et al., 2005). although it is crucial to establish associations between body dissatisfaction and psychopathology, this focus is too narrow. body dissatisfaction may not always result in clinically diagnosable symptoms, and the absence of a clinical diagnosis does not negate the negative influence of body dissatisfaction on well-being and psychological functioning. to get a comprehensive understanding of the association between body dissatisfaction and well-being, we focused on quality of life, which is a subclinical indicator of well-being. 1) we define cisgender as “people who do not identify as trans or who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth” (mcdermott et al., 2018, p. 69). 2) we deemed it appropriate to define cisgender men who self-reported sexual attraction to other men as expressing same-gender attraction and men who reported attraction to women as expressing different-gender attraction. we used different gender attraction to be inclusive and not to endorse a binary view of gender (i.e., same vs opposite). cahill, leunissen, marriott, & dunn 179 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ quality of life encompasses a person’s psychological (e.g., their mental health), physiological (e.g., health com­ plaints), social (e.g., the quality of their social relationships), and environmental (e.g., the general safety and volatility of a person’s immediate environment) well-being (skevington et al., 2004). increased body dissatisfaction is associated with decreased psychological, social, and physiological quality of life in women (mond et al., 2013) and adolescent boys and girls (griffiths et al., 2017). research has also demonstrated that increased body dissatisfaction in women is associated with each domain of quality of life (santhira shagar et al., 2021). while a similar pattern has emerged in men in some specific domains, such as psychological and physiological quality of life (griffiths et al., 2016, 2018, 2019), no research has comprehensively examined how body dissatisfaction is associated with quality of life across each domain in men. this is important as incidence rates of body dissatisfaction in men remain high, and elucidating potential subclinical consequences is paramount. body dissatisfaction is a global public health concern due to poor body image’s wide-reaching individual and societal impacts (rodgers et al., 2023). it is likely that body dissatisfaction negatively influences a person’s quality of life in sev­ eral ways. greater dissatisfaction with one’s body causes psychological distress, which may reduce psychological quality of life by lowering self-esteem and promoting negative affect (barnes et al., 2020; blashill, 2011). body dissatisfaction also stimulates behaviour that changes one’s appearance, such as unhealthy dieting and excessive exercise, impairing physical health and lowering a person’s physiological quality of life (kaminski et al., 2005). equally, these behaviours may also influence psychological quality of life. heightened body dissatisfaction can negatively impact relationships. under the tripartite influence model (or quadripartite influence model for men), the media, friends, family, and partners can be substantial sources of pressure to be attractive and to adopt an ideal body type (tylka, 2011). these pressures may increase body dissatisfaction and cause men to view their close relationships (i.e., family, friends, and partners) as sources of pressure and judgment. further, poor body image may lead to heightened competition and appearance-related comparisons among peers and friendship groups (lawler & nixon, 2011). environmental quality of life may equally be impaired, as body dissatisfaction may create a hostile and confronta­ tional environment, marked by the belief that one’s body is being observed, objectified, and judged (brewster et al., 2017; santhira shagar et al., 2021). further, according to sociocultural theories of body dissatisfaction, appearance-rela­ ted messages (e.g., unrealistically muscular ideals) from society contribute to poor body image (tylka, 2011). navigating the messages around body image in media (e.g., social media) and the discourse surrounding appearance-related messages may cause people to view their broader environmental quality of life poorly. these findings emphasise how body dissatisfaction may reduce a person’s quality of life across each domain. sexual identity and quality of life to summarise, there are several reasons why body dissatisfaction would reduce quality of life across each domain in men. similarly, men attracted to men likely experience a range of unique experiences and stressors that directly negatively influence each quality of life domain. for example, previous research demonstrates that sexual minoritised men experience a lower quality of life in specific domains, such as health and sexual quality of life (grabski et al., 2019; wen & zheng, 2019). however, limited research explores the relationship between self-reported sexual attraction and quality of life across psychological, physiological, social, and environmental domains. nevertheless, there is reason to posit that members of society occupying a minoritised status would generally experience lower quality of life. minority stress theory (meyer, 2003) suggests that those who occupy a minoritised status (e.g., sexual minoritised men) are at risk of poorer mental health, including depression and suicidality (e.g., marshal et al., 2011). similarly, sexual minoritised men experience increased stigmatisation and marginalisation within society (grabski et al., 2019), experience greater physiological complications such as hiv and sexually transmitted infections (cochran & mays, 2007; remor, 2002), and are at higher risk of violent assault, victimisation, and even death (chen et al., 2020; ilga, 2020). these factors illustrate potential avenues for reduced quality of life across each domain in minoritised men, including men who report attraction to men. sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life 180 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ body dissatisfaction as a mediator men attracted to men may experience reduced quality of life for several reasons. however, to our knowledge, no previous research has addressed whether body dissatisfaction may be a psychological process that mediates the associ­ ation between self-reported attraction and quality of life. given that men attracted to men may experience uniquely heightened body dissatisfaction and the potentially detrimental effects of body dissatisfaction on quality of life across each domain, it is prudent to address whether body dissatisfaction mediates the association between sexual identity (specifically sexual attraction) and quality of life. the current research previous research has shown that gay, relative to straight men, experience greater body dissatisfaction (dahlenburg et al., 2020). whilst this research is valuable, it is necessary to explore other aspects of sexual identity. most research has also focused on clinical outcomes of body dissatisfaction, but body dissatisfaction also decreases subclinical health and well-being (griffiths et al., 2016). research across each domain of quality of life (i.e., psychological, physiological, social and environmental) has focused on women and only a restricted number of domains have been explored in men (griffiths et al., 2016; santhira shagar et al., 2021). moreover, while research has illustrated that sexual minoritised men are at greater risk of poorer quality of life, no research has explored the association between the sexual attraction component of sexual identity and quality of life across each domain. finally, while previous research has established a range of potential reasons why men attracted to men may experience poorer quality of life, no research to date has explored whether body dissatisfaction is one such psychological process. given the health concerns surrounding body dissatisfaction, understanding what predicts poorer body image is important (rodgers et al., 2023). more targeted interventions can be developed by identifying groups most at risk of body dissatisfaction. identifying the potential quality of life repercussions linked to body dissatisfaction in men is also crucial. these insights will contribute to the ongoing discourse concerning the potential health concerns associated with greater body dissatisfaction. our findings will also have theoretical implications, furthering our understanding of what aspects of sexual identity are associated with body dissatisfaction and quality of life and whether body dissatisfaction is one psychological process that might explain the potentially lower quality of life in men attracted to men. in summary, this research focuses on men’s self-reported sexual attraction toward men and women. we also explore whether sexual attraction and body dissatisfaction are associated with quality of life across each domain (i.e., psychological, physiological, social and environmental) and whether body dissatisfaction is one process that might mediate the association between sexual attraction and quality of life. figure 1 illustrates our model. we hypothesised that: hypothesis 1: men attracted to men report greater body dissatisfaction than men attracted to women. hypothesis 2: men attracted to men report lower quality of life across each domain (i.e., psycho­ logical, physiological, social, and environmental) than men attracted to women. hypothesis 3: higher body dissatisfaction is negatively associated with quality of life (i.e., psycho­ logical, physiological, social, and environmental). hypothesis 4: body dissatisfaction mediates the association between sexual attraction and quality of life. cahill, leunissen, marriott, & dunn 181 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 the mediation model method participants and design this study adopted an online correlational design. we recruited 173 participants who identified as cisgender men through the crowdsourcing platform prolific (n = 154) and our psychology department’s participant recruitment scheme, which rewards students for participating in departmental research by allowing them to use the scheme to recruit participants for their projects (n = 19). as culture influences body ideals (paxton et al., 2006), we restricted participation to uk and ireland residents. we removed nine participants who indicated they did not reside in the uk or ireland. the sample was majority white (n = 168; 97.1%) and aged between 18 and 60 (m = 33.6, sd = 12.0). we categorised our sample (see below) into 86 men who reported attraction predominantly to men (mage = 31.2, sdage = 11.3) and 87 men who reported attraction predominantly to women (mage = 36.0, sdage = 12.2). ethical approval for this study was provided by the ethics board at nottingham trent university. a sensitivity power analysis indicated that our study was powered to detect associations of r = .21 (or cohen’s d = 0.43) and higher (power = .80, alpha = .05). materials and procedure our participants read an information sheet and provided informed consent. next, the participants completed the following measures in this order (see table 1 for descriptive statistics). table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations measure m sd range α 1 2 3 4 5 1. mbas 101.65 28.63 24–161 .93 — -.41 -.32 -.32 -.32 2. psychological qol 26.87 7.30 7–42 .85 -.53, -.28 — .61 .72 .75 3. physiological qol 38.46 7.77 14–49 .83 -.44, -.17 .51, .70 — .45 .58 4. social qol 13.21 4.55 3–21 .78 -.45, -.18 .64, .78 .32, .56 — .62 5. environmental qol 40.60 8.83 10–56 .87 -.45, -.18 .67, .81 .47, .58 .52, .70 — note. qol: quality of life. range is the observed range in the data. pearson’s r above the diagonal, 95% confidence intervals below the diagonal. all correlations were significant at p < .05. sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life 182 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual attraction we captured sexual attraction as an indicator of sexual identity (kaestle, 2019). consistent with previous approaches (e.g., morgenroth et al., 2022), our participants reported their sexual attraction toward (1) women and (2) men on two continuous scales: 1–not at all attracted to, to 100–highly attracted to. we reverse-coded responses to the second item (attraction to men) and summed both responses, with total scores ranging from 0–200. higher scores on the scale reflect exclusive attraction towards different-gender partners (i.e., women), and lower scores reflect exclusive attraction toward same-gender partners (i.e., men). an inspection of the distribution of sexual attraction scores showed a clear bimodal distribution (figure 2). a further examination revealed that 80% of participants fell below 10 or above 190 on our scale, indicating our sample was mainly exclusively attracted to either women or men. we, therefore, categorised our participants into same-gender (n = 86) and different-gender attraction (n = 87) by splitting along the scale midpoint (i.e., 100)3. figure 2 histogram of attraction measure scores body dissatisfaction we measured body dissatisfaction using the 24-item male body attitudes scale (mbas; tylka et al., 2005). the scale comprised three 8-item subscales: weight (e.g., “i think my body should be leaner”), muscularity (e.g., “i have too little muscle on my body”), and height (e.g., “i wish i were taller”). participants responded on a 1–never to 7–always scale. we summed participant’s responses to the 24 items to form a scale score where higher scores reflected greater body dissatisfaction. 3) we acknowledge the limitations of dichotomising a continuous measure. however, the clear bimodal distribution made this necessary. for prudence, we ran our models, including sexual attraction as a continuous measure and found little difference from those using the categorised data below. we present these findings in cahill et al. (2023, 2024). cahill, leunissen, marriott, & dunn 183 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ quality of life we measured quality of life with the 26-item world health organisation quality of life scale–abbreviated (whoqolbref; skevington et al., 2004). we used 24 items4 to assess quality of life across four domains: physiological (7–items; e.g., “to what extent do you feel that physical pain prevents you from doing what you need to do?”), psychological (6–items; e.g., “how much do you enjoy life?”), social (3–items, e.g., “how satisfied are you with your personal relationships?”), and environmental (8–items; e.g., “how safe do you feel in your daily life?”). participants responded on 1–not at all/very poor to 7–completely/very good scales. we summed the relevant items to create scale scores for the four domains of quality of life. higher scores reflected greater self-reported quality of life (i.e., more positive). data analysis the data and r scripts are at cahill et al. (2023). before completing our primary analyses, we investigated whether there was a correlation between age and body dissatisfaction and age and quality of life in our sample. this check was necessary as we identified a significant age difference between men reporting the same gender and different gender attraction, t(171) = 2.65, p = .009, cohen’s d = 0.41, 95% ci [0.10, 0.71]. however, age did not correlate with either body dissatisfaction or any domain of quality of life. we, therefore, decided not to control for age within our subsequent analyses. we used ols regression to test our first three hypotheses, using standardised predictor and outcome variables. we tested hypothesis 4 by testing the indirect effect of sexual attraction via body dissatisfaction on the four quality of life domains. sexual attraction was a dummy coded variable (0, 1; same, different). we tested these indirect effects using a product-of-coefficients approach (yzerbyt et al., 2018). we quantified the uncertainty around the indirect effects using 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals using 10,000 bootstrap samples. results first, we tested whether self-reported sexual attraction influences quality of life. sexual attraction predicted psychologi­ cal quality of life, β = .48, 95% ci [.18, .77], t(171) = 3.21, p = .002, cohen’s d = 0.49, 95% ci [0.19, 0.79]. as expected, men who reported attraction to men reported lower psychological quality of life (m = 25.13, sd = 7.48) than men who reported attraction to women (m = 28.60, sd = 6.73). sexual attraction was not associated with physiological quality of life, β = .13, 95% ci [-0.17, 0.43], t(171) = 0.86, p = .393, cohen’s d = 0.13, 95% ci [-0.17, 0.43], same gender attraction: m = 37.95, sd = 8.39; different gender attraction: m = 38.97, sd = 7.11), social quality of life, β = .22, 95% ci [-0.08, 0.52], t(171) = 1.44, p = .153, cohen’s d = 0.22, 95% ci [-0.08, 0.52], same gender attraction: m = 12.71, sd = 4.66; different gender attraction: m = 13.70, sd = 4.42, or environmental quality of life, β = .11, 95% ci [-0.19, 0.41], t(171) = 0.70, p = .485, cohen’s d = 0.11, 95% ci [-0.19, 0.41], same gender attraction: m = 40.13, sd = 9.08; different gender attraction: m = 41.07, sd = 8.61). in summary, we found that sexual attraction (i.e., being attracted to men) was only associated with psychological quality of life but not physiological, social, or environmental quality of life. second, we regressed mbas scores (i.e., body dissatisfaction) on sexual attraction. sexual attraction was a significant predictor for mbas scores, β = -.37, 95% ci [-0.67, -0.08], t(171) = -2.49, p = .014, cohen’s d = 0.38, 95% ci [0.08, 0.68]. indeed, men who reported attraction to men displayed greater body dissatisfaction (m = 107.01, sd = 29.82) than men who reported attraction to women (m = 96.35, sd = 26.52). third, we regressed each quality of life domain on mbas scores while controlling for sexual attraction (table 2). results showed negative associations between body dissatisfaction and each quality of life domain while controlling for sexual attraction. 4) we excluded two single item measures asking about overall perceptions of quality of life as were interested in the association between sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction and each domain of quality in life. sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life 184 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mbas scores predicting each quality of life domain while controlling for sexual attraction predictor β se t p psychological qol mbas -.38 [-.50, -.25] .07 -5.38 < .001 sexual attraction(same/different) .34 [.08, .61] .14 2.40 .018 physiological qol mbas -.32 [-.45, -.18] .07 -4.25 < .001 sexual attraction(same/different) .01 [-.27, .30] .01 0.09 .926 social qol mbas -.31 [-.44, -.17] .07 -4.23 < .001 sexual attraction(same/different) .10 [-.18, .40] .15 0.69 .491 environmental qol mbas -.32 [-.45, -.19] .07 -4.31 < .001 sexual attraction(same/different) -.01 [-.30, .27] .15 -0.08 .933 note. outcome in italics. qol = quality of life. numbers in brackets represent 95% confidence intervals. the df for each test was 170. finally, we explored each indirect effect. we found significant indirect effects (i.e., the confidence interval excluded 0) of sexual attraction via body dissatisfaction on psychological quality of life, β = .14, se = .06, 95% ci [0.04, 0.29], physiological quality of life, β = .12, se = .06, 95% ci [0.03, 0.25], social quality of life, β = .12, se = .06, 95% ci [0.03, 0.25], and environmental quality of life, β = .12, se = .06, 95% ci [0.03, 0.26]. discussion using a cross-sectional design, cisgender men reported their body dissatisfaction, quality of life (psychological, phys­ iological, social, and environmental), and sexual attraction toward men and women. contrasting previous work, we measured men’s self-reported sexual attraction, a dimension of sexual identity that is frequently understudied. our research investigated the association between sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction and quality of life in men across their psychological, physiological, social, and environmental quality of life domains. we also explored whether men attracted to men would report lower quality of life and whether body dissatisfaction mediates the association between sexual attraction and quality of life. our findings indicate that men attracted to men report higher body dissatisfaction and lower psychological quality of life than men attracted to women. additionally, body dissatisfaction in men was associated with lower quality of life across all domains. these findings support our first two hypotheses. we found partial support for hypothesis 3: men attracted to men showed significantly lower psychological quality of life but not lower quality of life in the other domains. finally, supporting hypothesis 3, we found significant indirect effects of sexual attraction through body dissatisfaction on all quality of life domains. previous research has shown that sexual identity, when measured using categorical identifiers (e.g., selecting gay or straight), is associated with body dissatisfaction. men who report being gay displayed greater body dissatisfaction than straight men (dahlenburg et al., 2020). however, sexuality is multidimensional, and other dimensions (e.g., sexual attraction) have not been explored within the literature (he et al., 2020). our findings are novel and show that these associations generalise to other dimensions of sexual identity, specifically sexual attraction toward men and women. future research could expand our findings by exploring each dimension simultaneously to test for unique associations between sexual identity dimensions and body dissatisfaction. our findings support the position that body dissatisfaction may increase when a person is attracted to and aims to attract men (ehlinger & blashill, 2016). this trend is because physical attractiveness among men is central to acquiring sexual partners (frederick & essayli, 2016). this may explain why straight women also report higher body cahill, leunissen, marriott, & dunn 185 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dissatisfaction, whereas lesbians do not (alvy, 2013). by internalising the strict appearance standards that men perpetu­ ate, men attracted to men may experience self-objectification, leading to increased body surveillance and dissatisfaction (brewster et al., 2017; wood, 2004). furthermore, as men attracted to men occupy a minoritised status, they likely expe­ rience similar pressures surrounding their body image to self-identifying gay men (frederick & essayli, 2016; rodgers et al., 2023). specifically, they likely experience appearance discrimination and societal pressures to adopt a traditionally masculine body type (brewster et al., 2017). these factors may explain the commonality in findings between previous research categorising identity using self-identifiers and our findings using self-reported sexual attraction. interventions directed toward improving body dissatisfaction should account for individuals most at risk. here, we show that men attracted to men are one such population. we also found that body dissatisfaction was associated with lower psychological, physiological, social, and environ­ mental quality of life in men. this supports the notion that body dissatisfaction is associated with quality of life in men (griffiths et al., 2016, 2019). however, we also expand this by showing that, like women, men also experience consequences of body dissatisfaction and reduced quality of life across each domain (santhira shagar et al., 2021). our findings support that body dissatisfaction is associated with a range of negative behaviours, which can impair quality of life across each domain (mond et al., 2013). for example, body dissatisfaction can negatively impact self-worth and mood, cause unhealthy and obsessive physical activities to improve their physique (e.g., excessive dieting or exercise), and negatively impact social relationships by causing appearance competitions (lawler & nixon, 2011; tylka, 2011). given that having an ideal body is perpetuated within various forms of media and men are often pressured to conform to this ideal, this may cause men to view their immediate environment as hostile and confrontational (tylka, 2011). our findings emphasise the potential subclinical negative influence of body dissatisfaction in men. it extends the current evidence base, primarily focusing on body dissatisfaction’s adverse clinical and pathological outcomes. we add to the growing body of literature emphasising that body dissatisfaction is a global public health concern by illustrating the potential subclinical outcomes for men (griffiths et al., 2017; rodgers et al., 2023). our findings also support the practical notion that interventions should counter body dissatisfaction before a person’s symptoms reach clinical significance and not after due to the ongoing adverse effects on health and well-being (diedrichs et al., 2021). as noted above, we found only partial support for the prediction that men attracted to men would report reduced quality of life across each domain relative to men attracted to women. specifically, we found that men attracted to men experienced poorer psychological quality of life than men who reported sexual attraction to women. minority stress theory may help explain these findings; minoritised groups (e.g., sexual minoritised men) experience increased pressures to conform to societal norms, resulting in impaired psychological well-being (grabski et al., 2019; meyer, 2003). however, we did not find differences in physiological, social, or environmental quality of life between either reported sexual attraction pattern. this finding suggests that the additional pressures men attracted to men face (e.g., ostracisation; morgenroth et al., 2022) may not negatively influence all aspects of their daily well-being and may specifically influence psychological processes. although our results indicated no direct association between sexual attraction and physiological, social, or environ­ mental quality of life, there were significant indirect effects between sexual identity as defined by sexual attraction quality of life across each domain, which acted through body dissatisfaction. as only psychological quality of life was directly associated with sexual attraction, we are reluctant to interpret the indirect effects for the remaining domains. men attracted to men experienced lower psychological quality through body dissatisfaction, which is plausible given that body dissatisfaction is associated with poor self-esteem and low mood (barnes et al., 2020; blashill, 2011). men who are attracted to men also experience unique negative experiences concerning their body image, such as greater pressure from society and potential partners to be attractive and to have a body ideal that is difficult to attain and more frequent instances of objectification from others (brewster et al., 2017; tiggemann et al., 2007). in turn, these experiences and the negative emotional and cognitive processes associated with body dissatisfaction in men attracted to men facilitate reductions in psychological quality of life. this finding emphasises that specific groups in society may be more at risk of poorer health and well-being because of their body dissatisfaction, and policies designed to tackle body dissatisfaction should be conscious of these populations. potentially, one psychological process that may negatively influence psychological well-being can be mitigated by reducing body dissatisfaction in these at-risk groups. interventions to improve quality of life men attracted sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life 186 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 178–190 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11423 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to men could focus on improving body satisfaction. effective interventions are especially important considering the wide range of stressors that men not adhering to traditional heteronormative ideals experience (e.g., discrimination), and the high rates of psychological distress and suicidality in sexual minoritised men generally (chen et al., 2020; ilga, 2020; marshal et al., 2011). limitations and suggestions for future research our research has several limitations. first, we focused on exploring men’s sexual identity as defined by self-reported attraction patterns. while this was a strength and deviated from using categories (i.e., straight or gay), we did not account for the intersectional nature of sexual identity. namely, sexual identity consists of identity, attraction and behavioural components, and future research may wish to account for the intersection between these components (e.g., men who identify as straight but report attraction to other men; he et al., 2020; kaestle, 2019). second, we restricted our sample to primarily white participants from the uk and ireland. while this was necessary to avoid potential cultural confounds, given that body ideals vary based on ethnicity and cultural identity (paxton et al., 2006), this limits our findings’ generalisability to white, western populations only. third, our coefficient for the association between sexual attraction and body dissatisfaction was slightly below the minimum effect size that our study could reliably detect (cohen’s d = 0.38 vs. a minimum detectable effect size of .43). future research should replicate our finding using the effect we report in an a priori power analysis. all other effects we interpreted exceeded our study’s minimum detectable effect size. finally, though compelling, our data are correlational, so we cannot make conclusive claims about causality between the identified associations. we showed that men attracted to men experience lower quality of life, potentially due to body dissatisfaction. thus, identifying effective interventions is paramount. as we outlined, men attracted to men, like self-identifying gay men, are more likely to endorse societal body ideals and experience pressure to be attractive from partners (brewster et al., 2017; frederick & essayli, 2016). future research could determine if the internalisation of societal ideals and appearance pressures from partners mediates the association between sexual attraction and body dissatisfaction, as argued here. if so, potential interventions could target these processes by increasing resilience to external appearance pressures. conclusion our study demonstrated that men who report attraction to men show greater body dissatisfaction and reduced psy­ chological quality of life than those who report attraction to women. we also found that men’s body dissatisfaction was not only associated with reduced quality of life across each domain but also mediated the relationship between sexual attraction and quality of life. our findings emphasise the global public health problem associated with body dissatisfaction and that specific groups may be more at risk of poorer health and well-being due to body dissatisfaction. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we would like to thank the helpful comments from members of the international partnership for queer youth resilience (inqyr). in particular, we thank professor daragh mcdermott and dr. jason schaub for facilitating these discussions. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: the data and r script that support the findings of this study are openly available at cahill et al. 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(2004). the gay male gaze. journal of gay & lesbian social services, 17(2), 43–62. https://doi.org/10.1300/j041v17n02_03 yzerbyt, v., muller, d., batailler, c., & judd, c. m. (2018). new recommendations for testing indirect effects in mediational models: the need to report and test component paths. journal of personality and social psychology, 115(6), 929–943. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000132 about the authors dr liam cahill is a lecturer in lgbtq+ psychology at nottingham trent university, uk. he is interested in research on body image, perception, and lgbtq+ psychology. his work involves exploring the intricacies of body image concerns in the lgbtq+ community, especially trans and gender-diverse communities. dr joost m. leunissen is a senior lecturer at the university of winchester, uk. he is a social psychologist interested is personality processes and emotions. his recent research focuses on nostalgia, with a particular focus on nostalgia in an organisational setting. his research on narcissism focuses on the personality traits in interpersonal settings, such as persuasion and authenticity. dr mike marriott is a principal lecturer at nottingham trent university, uk. he is a clinical psychologist interested is eating disorders and body image. his academic work is focused on the improvement of translation between academia and practice settings, and his recent research has focussed on the development of clinically appropriate tools for body image and the social constructions of recovery amongst people with eating disorders and their clinicians. dr andrew dunn is a senior lecturer in psychology. his primary research interests are in person perception and perceptual cognition. his work has largely focused on face, voice, and body shape/size perception, memory, and attention capture concerning identity, attractiveness, health, dominance and criminality. he has also worked and published on issues relating to location memory, visual motor action, visual illusions, and developmental cognition (maths anxiety, attentional processing in dyslexia, and sen). sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life 190 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1300/j041v17n02_03 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000132 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual attraction, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life (introduction) sexual identity and body dissatisfaction body dissatisfaction and quality of life sexual identity and quality of life body dissatisfaction as a mediator the current research method participants and design materials and procedure data analysis results discussion limitations and suggestions for future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references about the authors making psychology “count”: on the mathematization of psychology theoretical contribution making psychology “count”: on the mathematization of psychology simon nuttgens 1 [1] faculty of behavioural sciences, yorkville university, fredericton, nb, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 received: 2020-07-17 • accepted: 2021-10-01 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: simon nuttgens, faculty of behavioural sciences, yorkville university, 100 woodside ln, fredericton, nb, canada. e-mail: snuttgens@yorkvilleu.ca abstract beginning in the late 18th century and continuing through to the mid-20th century, a movement was undertaken by psychology’s pioneers to establish a mathematical basis for research modeled after the physical sciences. it is argued that this movement arose through sociopolitical pressures to legitimize psychology as an independent discipline; demarcate its disciplinary boundaries within academia; and distinguish psychology from philosophy and spiritualism. it is argued that an ahistorical view of how the quantitative paradigm gained ascendancy leaves it largely unquestioned and unchallenged within mainstream psychology. because of this, qualitative research has endured a long and continuing struggle to gain disciplinary recognition and epistemological parity. it is proposed that despite being sidelined by decades of quantitative hegemony, qualitative research has a long history in psychology and in the last 40 years has continued to prove itself as a necessary and valuable contributor to research in psychology. keywords qualitative research, quantitative research, history of psychology, research methods, epistemology “behind psychological research lies an ideological support structure. by this i mean a disciplinewide, shared system of beliefs which, while it may not be universal, maintains both the dominant methodological practices and the content of the dominant methodological educational programs.” (michell, 1997) back in the 1850s at a time when psychology was still in its infancy, gustav fechner (1801–1887) lay in bed puzzling over how he might scientifically establish a relationship between mind and body. the answer that came to him involved two components. first, he would need to assign values to differential magnitudes of mental sensations. once achieved, he would then relate values to a systematically varied physical stimulus. this psychophysical solution to the mind-body problem is recognized as the first psychological theory capable of being experimentally tested that took mathematical form (hearst, 1979). fechner’s theory, which came to be known as the fechner-weber function, addresses the relationship between the physical magnitudes of a stimulus and the perceived intensity of a stimulus. the legacy of fechner's pursuit to quantitatively answer the mind-body question set in motion what became the dominant and near-exclusive research paradigm within psychology: quantitative experimental research. in this paper i contend that the hegemonic ascendency of quantitative research within psychology was largely conceived through the zeitgeist of the late 19th –to mid–20th century at which time the fledgling discipline sought to legitimize itself as a science (brinkmann et al., 2014; eisner, 2003). although such legitimatization was realized, it came at the expense of qualitive research, which despite its suitability to redress some quantitative shortcomings, has been significantly overshadowed by its methodological this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4065&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ counterpart. the growth of qualitative research in recent years suggests that a broader, more inclusive approach to psychological research is gaining momentum. calculated beginnings of quantitative psychology the great dream of the “new psychology” was fueled by the promise of the scientific method to illuminate all fixtures of human life (leshan, 1990). indeed, evidence of scientific progress during the nineteenth century confronted both layperson and academic at virtually every turn: “new wonders were appearing every day and what was considered sorcery one day was common­ place and understood by school children thirty years later. the culture looked to the men in white coats, to the laboratories, to solve all of the ills of the human condition and to save us from poverty, hunger, backbreaking toil, cold and darkness.” (leshan, 1990, p. 13). given the many visible triumphs of the physical sciences, it is not surprising that members of the nascent discipline of psychology would embrace as its method one closely modeled after the physical sciences. to do so would be both prudent and timely considering less credible alternatives available at the time (bakan, 1996; leshan, 1990). it was in the universities that science established its epistemological stronghold. since the time of newton, universities turned sharply in support of the natural sciences whose contributions to human betterment were highly valued. accordingly, within the university setting these disciplines enjoyed privileged status and ample resources to conduct their activities. in contrast, within the late nineteenth century university, psychology was a junior member, most always placed as a subordinate within the department of philosophy (bakan, 1996; leshan, 1990). to elevate its status, psychology required a method that would simultaneously elevate its standing and legitimize its worth. use of a scientific method modeled after the physical sciences would serve this purpose. the impetus to secure psychology within the domain of a legitimate science was also related to a thriving interest in spiritualism present in the mid–to–late 1800s. coon (1992) proposed that psychologists at that time feared that the investigation of supernatural phenomena might jeopardize the already tenuous designation of psychology as a science. interest in the in the occult, telepathy, and related phenomena at the turn of the century was viewed by many psychologists as a threat to their discipline’s status as a science on par with the physical sciences. however, it was not easy to displace the interest in spiritualism, as both the public and some eminent psychologists, notably william james, considered the investigation of supernatural phenomena to be equally important to the study of more objective areas of research. eventually, investigations into the paranormal were taken up by experimental psychologists if for no other reason to prove their fraudulence or offer naturalistic explanations (coon, 1992). the turn toward scientific explanation can also be understood within the tide of secularization present at the turn of the century. with the encroachment of secularism on the religious worldview, science was increasingly used to explain what in the past would have been understood through church doctrine and scripture (coon, 1992; danziger, 2000). the german origins of quantitative psychology eighteenth century germany may be considered, perhaps ironically, as the birthplace of quantitative psychology. ironically because it was immanuel kant's admonition that psychology could never truly be a scientific discipline that led his adversaries to want to prove him wrong, thus initiating a pull toward mathematization (leary, 1978). kant believed that to be scientific a field of inquiry had to be amenable to mathematical investigation. in kant's view, science required both rational and empirical components, with experience providing the empirical component and mathematics, when applied to the empirical data, providing the rational. however, kant believed that mathematics could never be applied to psychological phenomena, and thus argued that psychology must necessarily remain non-ex­ perimental. in light of his position, kant suggested that psychology make use of a different methodology, one that was anthropologic in nature. such a methodology “could become more useful to mankind [sic] if it would forsake its traditional introspective method and begin to make systematic observations of men and ‘women in the world’ as they nuttgens 101 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behave and interrelate with their fellow citizens” (leary, 1978, p. 115). leary’s kantian-informed alternative is, of course, notably consistent with the qualitative paradigm; however, the resolve to make psychology an experimental science quashed kant’s admonition until qualitative research began to build stature in the latter part of the twentieth century. johann friedrich herbart (1776–1841) moved first to prove kant wrong by proposing that psychological phenomena of differing intensities over time could be assigned numerical value, and then, based upon an equilibrium model, be described in terms of precise mathematical equations. the problem with herbart's method was that he assigned arbitrary numerical values to his intensity data and, hence, such values were not measured according to any objective standard (leary, 1978). where herbart left off, gustav theodore fechner continued. fechner retained herbart's empirical methodology, though abandoned his questionable mathematics for a quantitative approach that he viewed as mathematically rigorous. fechner, a physicist, directed his early experimentation toward verifying the mathematical theory of galvanic electricity. this work by fechner necessarily involved the application of precise measurement and experimental control consistent with the requirements of the natural sciences. it was through such undertakings that fechner thoroughly familiarized himself with a powerful quantitative “literacy” which he then applied to his research on the mind-body problem: “he brought to psychology in its prenatal state a contagious devotion to quantitative experimental rigor and to the hypothetico-deductive approach” (marshall, 1990, p. 47). fechner believed that true mathematical descriptions are always approximations, yet he also believed that these approximations could become increasingly accurate and sophisticated. thus, fechner's goal was to render mathematics an accessible tool for scientists to use in all their inquiries, regardless of whether the subject matter was organic or inorganic (marshall, 1990). in his paper, outline of a new principal of mathematical psychology, fechner (1851/1987) dismissed the herbartian method of measuring mental phenomena, which, as noted earlier, relied on the application of arbitrary values to mental events, arguing instead for a mathematical psychology that could rely on the observation of physical phenomena. here fechner (1851/1987) devised a logarithm based on various observations that show: “how it comes about that mental phenomena, though on the whole always proceeding in parallel to physical phenomena and displaying corresponding modifications and turning points, are not proportional to the absolute magnitude of physical activities.” (p. 207) in his paper, my own viewpoint on mental measurement, fechner (1887/1987) argued for a general principle of mental measurement in which n magnitudes judged to be equal may be added and judged equal to the sum of a magnitude n times as large as the individual magnitudes. this, fechner claimed, was the principle for all physical measurement and as such should be the basis for all mental measurement. it is evident that fechner recognized the limitations of his own perspective when he writes “whether or not it has wider application need not concern us here, as long as we are merely interested in the possibility and justification of mental measurement as such” (original italics; p. 213). fechner further acknowledged that in keeping with the field of physics, the use of his general principle of mental measurement was problematic because the equality of two or more magnitudes could never be known with absolute precision. fechner resolved this difficulty through his use of averages established through repeated measures. at the time, fechner's attempt to transform human mental activity into measurable form gathered considerable praise, notably from wilhelm wundt. whereas fechner was primarily interested in elucidating the laws of association, wundt's desire was to examine more completely the aspects of consciousness including feelings, images, dreams memories, attention, and movement (robinson, 1976). according to wundt, this could only be achieved through the experimental study of the contents of consciousness as reported observations of internal events. although he is routinely referred to as the father of experimental psychology (boring, 1950), wundt held a narrow view of what could be meaningfully subjected to experimental investigation; hence, even though he strongly promoted experimental psychology, he also declared that much of human experience lay outside of its purview (blumenthal, 2002). accordingly, wundt’s research approach also included a decidedly qualitative approach, which he referred to as völkerpsychologie. for wundt, human experience was inextricably entwined with language and history and thus could only be fully understood through cultural products such as customs, myth, and religion (brinkmann et al., 2014). given the amount of writing that wundt’s committed to his völkerpsychologie (10 volumes), he clearly viewed this arm of his research as an integral component of psychological investigation (brinkmann et al., 2014; wertz, 2014). making psychology count 102 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fechner's theories had a significant influence on experimental psychology in general, and quantitative psychology in particular (hearst, 1979). though it is difficult to identify any single intellectual disciple of fechner's (i.e., someone who was directly taught by him and later gained prominence), through rising to kant's challenge to mathematize psychology, fechner enabled the fledgling discipline to distance itself from its philosophical leanings, and instead pivot its methodological paradigm toward the revered natural sciences. galton in england: a new “breed” of quantification sir francis galton (1822–1911) is consistently noted as a central figure in the founding of modern psychology. at age twenty-two galton inherited a substantial sum of money from his father who had gained wealth in the banking industry. this afforded galton the luxury to devote his entire life to personal interests, of which he had many. despite not possessing an aptitude toward mathematics, one of galton's most enduring traits was a fascination with measurement (cowan, 1972). most of galton's published papers had some concern with counting and measurement, whether this was determining the accuracy of geographical instruments or precisely recording weather conditions. however, galton’s general interest in measurement shifted upon reading on the origin of species, published by his cousin, charles darwin. galton was fascinated by this work, taking from it the notion that hereditary could form a basis for improving humankind, believing that “over a period of time men could be bred for intelligence and character in precisely the same way that animals are bred for strength or agility” (cowan, 1972). galton's interests in measurement thus turned toward individual differences in psychological attributes and its companion territory of eugenics. to better understand the direction and tenor of galton's psychological pursuits, it is necessary to consider the political and economic forces present in 19th century england (van strien, 2005). as will be shown, such forces led to a social climate favourable to the quantitative study of individual differences and inherited ability. galton lived and conducted his affairs in england at a time when the expansive undertakings of the colonial empire were at its peak, a time when even amid oppressive social concerns, optimism for the perfectibility of society thrived. buss (1976) contends that the growing division of labour in 19th century england was a social phenomenon that invited use of a scientific explanation for individual differences. this, along with galton's familiarization with darwin's theories of natural selection and evolution, set the stage for an approach to understanding human difference that would “explain and justify the hierarchically structured occupational groups and attendant social inequalities” found in victorian england (buss, 1976, p. 52). this undertaking was necessary because the prevailing democratic liberalism, with its stress on individual freedom and development, was inconsistent with the existing social structure and division of labour that prevailed in england at the time. reconciliation of this discrepancy was sought through recourse to “scientifically” derived findings of inheritable differences in individual ability. the view that individual differences could be shored up and enumerated through quantitative methodology, was entirely amenable to a historical epoch enamored with capitalist values where quantification already played a central role in determining and understanding economic vicissitudes: “just as it is possible to measure and quantify man's products, it is possible to quantify man [sic] himself” (buss, 1976, p. 53). in his first book, hereditary genius, galton attempted to demonstrate that greatness tended to run in families and that this ability would produce a normal curve within the population of all british men. to accomplish this, galton drew upon quetelet's notion of the error curve, though without utilizing its probabilistic qualities (cowan, 1972). this next step was to formulate a mathematical law of hereditary based upon statistical units of deviation. galton achieved this through the study of sweet-pea data. galton noticed that there was an imperfect relationship between inter-generational transference of pea size, especially in extreme cases where the filial pea might be of significantly different proportion than its parent. one might presume that this finding would have been taken as evidence that hereditary was not the stable law galton believed it to be. not so. in response to this contrary finding galton proposed that the tendency for exceptional cases to regress toward the population mean did not suggest that traits were not inherited, but rather that trait-based anomalies should be interpreted as statistical artifacts explainable by error law. thus, galton proposed that ability was inherited, that in general the ability of one's parents is associated with the ability of one's child, with the caveat that extreme examples would likely regress toward the mean according to mathematical laws (cowan, 1972). the need to confirm his ideas beyond evidence afforded by his sweet-pea data lead galton to set up “anthropomorphic nuttgens 103 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ laboratories” in 1884 at the international health exhibition and in 1904 at the university of london. these laboratories measured physical characteristics such as height, weight, span, breathing power, strength of grip. this data provided galton with the raw material needed to establish his statistical discoveries (cowan, 1972). in 1888 galton extended his theory of regression through the realization that a regression coefficient could determine the relationship between any two variables regardless of whether they were concerned with the hereditary process or whether they were measured by the same unit. this became the basis for modern day correlation studies (cowan, 1972). according to cowan (1972), regression and correlation were galton’s two most important contributions, not only to psychology, but to the history of science. as such, both were firmly rooted in the social context of victorian england, a period when science was used to legitimize social hierarchy. galton’s contribution to statistical method is an apt example of how methodological innovation is subservient to social expedience. another example that follows both in time and character is that of one of galton's most ardent admirers, charles spearman. lovie (1991) extends the thesis that spearman's invention of factor analysis from its inception was not the neutral technique that its early proponents made it out to be, but rather: “had been developed to prove the existence of a previously postulated psycho-social reality. for spearman and his numerous followers factor analysis was there to give the scientific and statistical cachet to the idea that intelligence was hierarchical in nature. it was not, therefore a device for uncovering any old structure, but a means of demonstrating a particular one.” (p. 243). the wedding of mathematics and scientific method in the development of a quantitative methodology for psychology is inextricably woven into the social and political context in england. in north america a similar process was taking place, however, in this case it had to do with upstart universities rather than intelligence and eugenics. mathematizing psychology in america in turn of the century north america the statistical movement in psychology was gaining momentum through the efforts of james mckeen cattell (1860–1944). in 1886 cattell became the first american to graduate with a doctoral de­ gree in psychology from wundt's leipzig laboratory, and thus not surprisingly firmly believed that mental phenomena were amenable to scientific investigation. following his stay at leipzig, cattell made brief stops at the university of pennsylvania and galton's laboratory in england before settling for good at columbia university. cattell spent little time as a laboratory scientist. instead, he served fifty years as editor and publisher of the prestigious journal, science, a position of authority that undoubtedly gave increased visibility to psychology within the broader scientific community (benjamin, 1997). though he had studied primarily under wundt, it was galton who had the greatest influence on cattell. sokal (1982) suggested that it was cattell's visit to galton's laboratory that gave him his scientific goal to measure individual differences in psychological functioning. in cattell’s words: “psychology cannot attain the certainty and exactness of the physical sciences, unless it rests on a foundation of experiment and measurement. a step in this direction could be made by applying a series of mental tests to a large number of individuals. the results would be of considerable scientific value in discovering the constancy of mental processes, their interdependence, and their variation under different circumstances.” (cattell, 1890, as cited in benjamin, 1997, p. 142). cattell’s visit with galton supplied him with a goal for psychology but not the methodology. unlike galton, cattell showed little interest in analyzing variation itself; rather, cattell preferred to follow the tradition set forth by fechner of interpreting error as deviations from a true value. perhaps more important than adherence to any specific approach to measurement was the overall role cattell played in establishing statistics in psychology within north america. camic and xie (1994) propose that cattell's influence, strong as it was, served part of a larger movement within the social sciences (anthropology, psychology, economics, and sociology) to secure themselves a spot in the new and expanding universities of late nineteenth century america. the need for a discipline to find its own scientific niche within an insti­ tutional setting is referred by camic and xie as boundary work, which they define as: “activities aimed at demarcating a given scientific field from both nonscientific fields and neighbouring scientific fields in order to separate it from its making psychology count 104 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competitors and enhance its legitimacy” (p. 776). prior to the late 19th century and early 20th century, statistics-based scientific methodologies were largely absent from american universities. adherence to statistical methods by cattell and his contemporaries at columbia university allowed for simultaneous differentiation and conformity to the more general scientific attitude prevalent at the time, thus enabling the boundary work necessary to galvanize psychology’s disciplinary status within american universities (camic & xie, 1994). statistics eventually became an identifying mark for columbia university, a mark that gave it a distinct edge in the highly competitive world of turn-of-the-century universities. cattell’s legacy to establish statistics as a fixture of american psychology was further advanced by his students edward thorndike and robert woodworth, both of whom advocated a quantitative-statistical psychology, and both of whom joined columbia's faculty after graduating. the inferential turn as early as 1904, psychologists in the united states were conducting research that employed relatively sophisticated statistical analysis. for example, in a 1904 study robert yerkes discussed the use of various statistical measures such as standard deviation, mean, median, and mode (lovie, 1991). there is also evidence that decision rules were being used around this time to judge whether comparisons between mathematical means were significant, the general rule being that the ratio of the difference between two means should exceed some predetermined critical value. as is still the case with modern critical values based on probability distributions, there was at the time considerable debate over what ought to be considered an acceptable critical ratio value (lovie, 1991). it was not until the 1940s, however, that inferential statistics firmly took hold within academic psychology in north america. before this, inferential statistics were known about, though seldom used. it was ronald fisher who changed this. fisher first published anova studies of agricultural topics in the 1920s. fisher's book design of experiments was especially influential because, according to gigerenzer (1989), it provided a “general methodological doctrine that could unify psychologist in all fields” (p. 207). this is what fisher's statistical methodology achieved. research psychologists seized upon fisher's program of statistics and readily applied it to their own field as a means for testing and choosing among competing theories. this, conversely, was not what fisher himself had intended: “fisher, however, interpreted his procedure of null hypothesis testing, not as a means for practical decision making, but as a solution to the problem of induction and a rigorous method of scientific inference” (john, 1992, p. 145). in its modern usage, fisherian statistics has become synonymous with the task of null hypothesis decision-making, again, contrary to fisher's original intentions. fisher's method of statistical research was further misappropriated due to efforts of statistical psychologists who wrote textbooks during the 1950s. the form in which statistics in psychology takes today is derived from the shotgun marriage between fisher's ideas and the competing ideas of neyman and pearson (gigerenzer, 1989). this marriage was advanced by psychologists eager to incorporate techniques associated with perceived methodological rigor into their field to bolster its credibility within academia. as it happened, fisher and his chief academic rivals, neyman and pearson, were in the late 1940s engaged in considerable debate over the practice of disproving null hypotheses as a method of inductive inference. this, of course, was the position advanced by fisher. alternatively, neyman and pearson argued that statistical power should be the governing rule when choosing between two hypotheses. though both positions were offered by their respective proponents as distinct and competing statistical methods, textbook writers at the time chose to meld the two divergent approaches into a unified hybrid. to both parties—fisher, and neyman and pearson—this would have been an irreconcilable union, yet join they did, forging a look for psychological statistics that continues today: “it was not a time for alternatives: statisticians were eager to sell and psychologists were eager to buy the method of inductive inference. the statistical texts now taught hybrid statistics that neither fisher nor, to be sure, neyman and pearson, would have approved.” (gigerenzer, 1989, p. 208). the hybrid statistics came to be viewed as a singular entity devoid of any recognition of the contributions of its original creators. the inconspicuous manner in which fisher and neyman’s and pearson's statistical ideas were joined together is somewhat surprising considering a tradition set forth in which “controversies and alternative theories had nuttgens 105 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ always been the rule rather than the exception, and where the citation of authors, and more authors, had been common practice” (gigerenzer, 1989, p. 209). ultimately, fisher's most enduring contribution to psychology was the coupling of statistical methods with experi­ mental research to an extent that today the two are treated as a single, inseparable, enterprise: “fisher has linked significance testing to experimental design, and the “inference revolution” was consequently a revolution in experimental design. this revolution has been so successful that it is often difficult for today's experimenters to imagine that “experiment” could mean something different from what fisher taught.” (gigerenzer, 1989, p. 208). how did it happen that fisher’s approach became so thoroughly enmeshed with experimental design? one answer has it that there was little alternative: “although fisher's design could have been used without his statistics, his statistics did not mesh well with other designs. thus, many alternative ideas of experiment did not survive the inference revolution, and fisher's model won a monopoly.” (gigerenzer, 1989, p. 209). tidying the loose bits of inferential statistics helped steer psychology away from its perceived subjectivity while also serving to cloak the theoretical discord that had been dogging psychology: “broad theoretical commitments were dangerously divisive, and shared statistical methods did much to hold the field together”. (porter & porter, 1995, p. 211). standard errors the quantitative imperative in psychology (michell, 2003) has undoubtedly helped bring legitimacy, status, utility, and a form of methodological unity to the discipline (danziger, 1985), and given how engrained a mathematically derived methodological base is within the discipline, it is difficult to imagine psychology without it. the problem, however, is that unlike british and european psychology, much of mainstream north american psychology continues to shield its methodological “self-consciousness” (yurevich, 2009, p. 89) through a general (though certainly not exclusive) reluctance to recognize the merits of qualitative research. this cuts a sharp and decisive line through psychology’s epistemological core: on one side phenomena that are amenable to measurement, the other side phenomena that are not (valsiner, 2000). many epistemological concerns have been levied against the quantitative paradigm (e.g., those associated with positivist philosophy, laboratory experimentation, theory of measurement and error, objectivity, and reductionism), all of which culminate in the view that this paradigm leads to a “limited and distorted picture of phenomena involving human behavior” (mcgrath & johnson, 2003, p. 31). that qualitative research might enliven and enlarge an understanding of human behaviour is viewed by many (e.g., harré, 2004; leshan, 1990; michell, 1999) as critical to psychology’s progress as a discipline. in what follows i highlight a few of the central criticisms that have arisen in response to the sweeping application of quantitative and statistical methods in psychology. to begin, michell (1997) has argued that the practice of measuring inner mental processes is inherently flawed, and that such an endeavour has mistakenly been construed as immune to the need for theoretical justification: “it would seem that measurement has been mistakenly thought of by some philosophers as being an atheoretical, purely observational base upon which science's more theoretical structures stand. it is not. measurement always presupposes theory: the claim that an attribute is quantitative is, itself, always a theory and that claim is generally embedded within a much wider quantitative theory involving the hypothesis that specific quantitative relationships between attributes obtain.” (michell, 1997, pp. 358–359). it is perhaps ironic that measurement in psychology is inconsistent with the original natural science definitions from which it is purportedly derived. scientific measurement is defined as “the estimation or discovery of some magnitude of a quantitative attribute to a unit of the same attribute” (michell, 1997). key to this definition is the additive structure of the attribute that allows for meaningful ratios between magnitudes to be estimated or discovered. this can be contrasted with the definition of measurement in psychology offered by stevens in the mid-1940s, which is still widely endorsed making psychology count 106 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ today: “measurement is the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to rule” (stevens, 1946, as cited in michell, 1997, p. 360). the error of research psychologists who follow stevens' definition is that they ignore that “the measurability of an attribute presumes the contingent (and therefore, in principle, falsifiable) hypothesis that the relevant attribute possesses an additive structure” (michell, 1997, p. 361). by presuming that an attribute has a true additive structure in the absence of empirical evidence, one is drawn to the subsequent erroneous belief that “the invention of appropriate numerical assignment procedures alone produces scientific measurement” (michell, 1997, p. 361). that the above-stated discrepancy between the original definition of scientific measurement and psychology's own widely used definition remains virtually uncontested to this day, suggests that as a discipline we sometimes lack the degree of critical reflection necessary to progressively evolve as a discipline. michell (1997) points to how this state may have arisen: “from its inception, modern quantitative psychology was more concerned with the implementation of a quantitative program than with the pursuit of answers to fundamental scientific questions about its hypothesized quantities.” (p. 362). many branches of natural science are buttressed by the belief in empirical realism, which states that an independent natural world exists that is knowable through objective observational methods (michell, 1997). in psychology we have come to view all human experience as amenable to empirical investigation. “modern empirical methods in the social and educational sciences are largely predicated on the eye as giving truth. the problem of modern science was to make observable that which was previously hidden. the survey instrument and the use of statistics, important inventions in the conduct of social sciences, reiterated the importance of the eye. feelings, attitudes and perceptions were made public (observable) and comparable through the survey. personal attributes became observable (or, in this case, countable) phenomena.” (popkewitz, 1997, p. 20). here it is shown that the self must first be quantifiably objectified before the inner characteristic of the person can be treated as data (popkewitz, 1997). a theoretical leap is taken in this instance whose assumptive status is rarely acknowledged or accounted for. in addition to the difficulties that follow when attempting to fit human traits and experience into pseudo-quan­ titative categories, areas of concern also abound in the use of statistics. in his review of literature that addresses misunderstanding and misuse of statistics in psychology, john (1992) provides many examples of over-estimation and exaggeration of the “evidentiary value of statistic within psychology” (p. 144). john cites studies that show how academic psychologists mistake, misuse, or otherwise misinterpret the statistics used in their research. one telling example is a study by cochran and duffy (1974) in which 85% of 276 studies chosen for examination used inadequate sampling procedures. john also cites the well-known study by peters and ceci (1982) who resubmitted published articles to psychological journals that were subsequently rejected due to serious errors in statistical analysis. the identification of these concerns a few decades back were a harbinger of the current replication crisis in psychology (wiggins & chrisopherson, 2019). as is the case with practices of measurement in psychology, statistical practices, though ready targets for critique, have largely gone unquestioned. john (1992) writes: “in being naturalised within psychology, inferential statistics have become taken for granted as uni­ versal, coherent, noncontroversial collection of rule governed algorithms for the mechanisation of the production of conclusive knowledge, despite a history of continuous unresolved controversies over contradictory and irreconcilable philosophical and theoretical positions.” (p. 145). today, the use of inferential statistics has been likened to a rhetorical device that serves to establish epistemic authority within psychology (danziger, 1985; john, 1992). this would be less problematic if it were not for the limitations that follow when a methodological bias restricts the scope of theories amenable to testing. in such instances the theory or elements thereof must either be transmuted to fit with the theoretical requirements associated with inferential statistics nuttgens 107 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ or be excluded from scholarly investigation. in this respect, methodological theory assumes the position of a “hidden hand that steers the research process as a whole in a certain direction” (danziger, 1985, p. 3). central to the promotion of disciplinary competence in any field of practice is the role of education (walsh-bowers, 2002). john (1992) criticizes the teaching of statistics in its usual form because of it fails to acknowledge controversies and disputes, instead instructing students in the “cookbook application of various statistical techniques, so that students come unthinkingly to apply tests of statistical inference routinely as a kind of knowledge increase ritual” (p. 146). proceeding in this manner can indoctrinate students into the quantitative imperative to a degree that even in the rare instances when they are introduced to qualitative methods, they remain skeptical of its import and place in psychology (roberts & castell, 2016). in psychology, statistics are almost exclusively associated with credible research (danziger, 1985), to a degree that any research that does not use statistics is deemed unscientific and hence unacceptable to many journals: “psychological discourse strongly implies some inescapable connection between inferential statis­ tics and scientific method and exploits the common belief in a status hierarchy of the sciences in which scientificity is equated with quantification and the use of mathematics.” (john, 1992, p. 147). research by marchel and owens (2007) is telling in this regard. when they examined the mission statements of fifty-seven american psychological association journals, only six were inclusive of qualitative research. it is unfortu­ nate that presently the domination of the quantitative paradigm goes largely unquestioned and, hence, uncontested. one might legitimately wonder if the discipline’s insecurity at being scientific at the turn of the century has not followed psychology into the present. outside of a few notable exceptions (e.g., educational psychology, cultural psy­ chology psycholinguistics), the quantitative/statistical research paradigm continues to serve as psychology's dominant methodology, irrespective of limitations and criticism. rennie et al. (2000) caution that defining knowledge by method recursively sustains the hegemony of the quantitative research paradigm within psychology departments. efforts to sway this situation are held in check by institutional powers subservient to curricula oversight, hiring practices, and the requirements of granting agencies and editorial policies (walsh-bowers, 2002). numbered days in much of psychology, quantitative research stands giant next to its qualitative counterpart (jovanović, 2011). dwarfed in stature, the prevailing assumption within many psychology departments is that qualitative research must, therefore, be inherently inferior in the domain of producing useful and credible knowledge (danziger, 1985). a diminished view of qualitative research is aptly illustrated in the current empirically supported treatment (est) initiative developed and promoted by division 12 of the american psychological association (society of clinical psychology). this initiative, which began in 1995, sought to strengthen the relationship between research and clinical practice through creating a list of ests that would indicate specific treatments for specific problems. eighteen such treatments were identified, though not without considerable outcry from those who questioned the conceptual, political, and empirical platform that served to support the initiative. regarding the latter, evidence for the purpose of this endeavour was based on a hierarchy of methods, with random clinical trials sitting sovereign on top, and case studies sitting proletarian on bottom. accordingly, research of an idiographic nature was viewed as having marginal utility in the pursuit of clinical praxis. although the “which is best?” pursuit of the methodology wars has to a degree been supplanted by those who advo­ cate a “different, yet both of value” position (salvatore & valsiner, 2010; valsiner, 2000), there remains considerable room for qualitative research to catch up to quantitative research and flourish within traditional psychology departments (rennie et al., 2000, 2002; wertz, 2014). it important to remember that the early days of psychology were much more methodologically diverse, with key figures such as wundt and james arguing for a broad conceptualization of method and the likes of freud and piaget embossing their theories with observations and interview data. such beginnings, however, appear to have been overlooked “by the official journals and handbooks of psychology (brinkmann et al., 2014, p. 32). even later into the twentieth century there were notable (and lasting) examples of qualitative research that stood apart from the emerging quantitative paradigm of the time. for example, in the 1930s john dollard conducted field-based qualitative work on making psychology count 108 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ race and class relations by immersing himself as a participant-observer in the social life of small-town southern usa. similarly, in the 1940s muzafer shirif and his research team engaged in observational research at a boys’ summer camp to learn about conflict and cooperation. indeed, qualitative might have survived amidst the quantitative offensive if it were not for word war ii’s indelible influence upon german intellectual life. as discussed earlier, contributions by ger­ man intellectuals, such as fechner and kant, contributed greatly to the insurgent use of mathematical psychology. yet, overall the german psychological scene coveted a diverse and inclusive epistemological, much more so than american psychology. toomela (2007) writes of there being two psychologies in the pre-world war ii era, a german-austrian psy­ chology characterized by insight (rather than prediction), holism, idiographic understanding, and qualitative description, and an american psychology characterized by experimental control, prediction, and atomism. while admittedly these differences are painted in broad strokes (individual exceptions could inevitably be found on both sides of the atlantic), there were notable differences. parity across these differences was disrupted by the nazi rise and resulting german intellectual diaspora. attempts to transplant the german methodological perspectives on foreign soils fell short, opening a wide door for the american approach to assume ascendancy (toomela, 2007; valsiner, 2006). whereas pre-world war ii american psychology proceeded without impediment, the german-austrian tradition floundered. the value of the hard sciences, relative to the soft sciences, was further bolstered by the many stunning technological feats achieved during wartime (e.g., radar, the proximity fuse, computers, and atomic bombs (solovey, 2004). as alluded to earlier, qualitative research continues to slowly gain a foothold within academic psychology. while its presence dates to mid-18th century germany, its current revival can be tracked to the 1960s (brinkmann et al., 2014) at a time when humanistic and feminist movements began to puncture the fabric of social institutions, heralding an emancipatory counterculture that fostered “a more diversified, more differentiated, more open, flexible and inquisitive society” (jovanović, 2011). prior to the 1970s, the term “qualitative” was rarely used in academic research contexts (kar­ patschof, as cited in brinkmann et al., 2014). the number of qualitative research texts published by a major publisher (sage) beginning in the 1980s is indicative of its rising strength at this time. between 1980 and 1987 only ten books were published by this publisher; this number rose dramatically to 133 between 1995 and 2002 (gobo, 2005). research by rennie et al. (2002) noted a similar finding in their research examining the incidence of psychology database entries for terms related to qualitative research. prior to the 1980s such entries were very rare, but then increased sharply in the 1990s. recent initiatives also point to qualitative research’s strengthened position within academic psychology. for example, in great britain qualitative research has ostensibly attained a measure of equality with quantitative, as evidenced by the british psychological society requiring clinical psychology programs to offer training in both paradigms if they are to become accredited. the arrival of the journal “qualitative research in psychology” in 2004 also did much to increase qualitative research’s visibility within mainstream psychology. conclusion this paper offers an overview of the contribution of pioneering psychologists who through conducting their affairs during a particular socio-historical context were able to establish within psychology a mathematical foundation for most of its research activities. the disciplinary dominance of the quantitative paradigm continues today despite qualitative research standing ready as a beneficial and complementary alternative. psychology continues to align itself with a methodology long since removed from the important historical conditions that gave birth to it. many within traditional psychology departments look upon qualitative research with either opposition or indifference (camic et al., 2003; stoppard, 2002). few, according to michell (1999) question the theoretical edifice upon which the quantitative paradigm has been built. using measurability to define what “counts” as legitimate research needlessly excludes the investigation of certain types of psychological phenomena, namely, those that involve description, meaning, and story. nuttgens 109 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 100–112 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4065 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references bakan, d. 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(2019). the replication crisis in psychology: an overview for theoretical and philosophical psychology. journal of theoretical and philosophical psychology, 39(4), 202–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/teo0000137 yurevich, a. v. (2009). cognitive frames in psychology: demarcations and ruptures. integrative psychological & behavioral science, 43(2), 89–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9082-7 about the author simon nuttgens is the associate dean of the faculty of behavioural sciences, yorkville university, in canada. his interests include professional ethics, research ethics, qualitative research, and distance education. making psychology count 112 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354306067439 https://0-doi-org.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/10.1007/0-306-48031-x_5 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086913 https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000007 https://doi.org/10.1037/teo0000137 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9082-7 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ making psychology count (introduction) calculated beginnings of quantitative psychology the german origins of quantitative psychology galton in england: a new “breed” of quantification mathematizing psychology in america the inferential turn standard errors numbered days conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author mother to mother: mothers’ social comparison-based emotions on social networking sites research reports mother to mother: mothers’ social comparison-based emotions on social networking sites leman pinar tosun* a, ahu öztürka, gamze özdemir b [a] psychology department, bursa uludag university, bursa, turkey. [b] psychology department, çanakkale 18 mart university, çanakkale, turkey. abstract social networking sites (snss) are platforms where people make social comparisons very frequently, and because of those comparisons, they have the potential for evoking a wide range of emotions. according to typology of social comparison-based emotions, the emotions felt after social comparisons may vary according to the direction of comparison (upward vs. downward) as well as the internal process that triggered by those comparisons (assimilation vs. contrast). the current study aims to examine the mothers' emotions they felt after social comparisons they make with other mothers on the snss, and search out the usefulness of using the typology of social comparison-based emotions in examining those emotions. for this purpose, an online survey was conducted on 42 mothers between the ages of 20 and 48, who have been a member of snss for at least six months. mothers responses to two open-ended questions; one is about the emotions they feel after upward comparisons, and the other is about the ones that they felt after downward comparison they made with other mothers on snss, were examined through thematic analyses. the results pointed out that the emotion classification offered in smith’s theory might be useful in examining the social comparisons on snss made by mothers, with the addition of some new categories. specifically, it was found that some mothers feel doubts about the credibility of information in other mothers’ posts, and some others denied they are emotionally influenced by social comparisons. another interesting finding was that mothers reported to feel assimilative and contrastive emotions simultaneously. keywords: motherhood, social network sites, social comparison theory, social comparison-based emotions, assimilation vs. contrast europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 received: 2019-09-16. accepted: 2020-02-08. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom *corresponding author at: bursa uludag university, fen-edebiyat fakültesi, psikoloji bölümü, görükle kampüsü 16059, nilüfer/bursa, turkey. e-mail: pinart@uludag.edu.tr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. social networking sites (snss) are worldwide platforms that allow mothers to make social comparisons as well as to get social support and information about motherhood (bartholomew, schoppe-sullivan, glassman, kamp dush, & sullivan, 2012). as social comparisons have a potential to evoke a wide range of positive and negative emotions that may produce some significant consequences for individuals’ psychological well-being and depression (appel, crusius, & gerlach, 2015; feinstein et al., 2013; park & baek, 2018), the emotions mothers feel after making social comparisons with other mothers on their snss is worthy of being studied. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ theoretical background snss facilitate social comparisons among people (haferkamp & krämer, 2011). the direction of social comparisons on the internet is usually upward since people often tend to present their idealized self, rather than their true self, during their communication through the internet channels (walther, 1996). supportively, it has been observed that people tend to post the pictures and videos in which they are the most beautiful/most successful/the happiest in their digital profiles (chou & edge, 2012). therefore, it came as no surprise that in most of the studies about social comparisons on snss, the main focus has been upward comparison and its negative consequences, such as depression (feinstein et al., 2013; lee, 2014; locatelli, kluwe, & bryant, 2012). in various studies, women reported more adverse outcomes than men when evaluated after social comparisons (chua & chang, 2016; fox & vendemina, 2016; nesi & prinstein, 2015). there are several domains that women may compare themselves with other women on their snss: their careers, domestic skills, and femininity, etc. along with these ongoing social analyses, when a woman gives birth to a child, motherhood becomes a new domain for social comparison. during their pregnancy, women share the narratives of various physiological and psychological changes that they experience with others, thus the progress in motherhood role adaption may be a topic of social comparison for those to be expected mothers (phillips & broderick, 2014). after giving birth, mothers may compare their maternal competence (coyne, mcdaniel, & stockdale, 2017). mothers make social comparisons with non-mothers as well. being a mother may lead mothers to feel superior to non-mothers because of a widespread cultural belief that motherhood is essential for women’s psychological fulfillment, and a good marriage and family are considered strongly desirable for all women (hoffnung, 2004). however, being a mother may likewise lead mothers to feel inferior to non-mothers in some comparison domains. some consequences of pregnancy, such as weight gain, bodily deformations, postpartum depression, and maternity leave may lead new moms to perceive themselves as inferior to non-mothers in terms of comparison areas like beauty, career achievements, and happiness. given that people tend to make social comparisons with similar others, mothers may prefer not to use non-mothers as targets in their social comparisons regarding career and beauty. instead, they may make comparisons with the other mothers in terms of their competence in coping with the potential threats to their beauty and career achievements that emerge after being a mom. there are emotional consequences of all those social comparisons that mothers may make with other moms. those emotions are worth to be studied in detail because they may have implications for their wellbeing. for detailed analyses of mothers’ social comparison experiences, the theory on social comparison-based emotions may be considered as a useful framework. theory on social comparison-based emotions the earliest theory for explaining the social comparison process in interpersonal relationships is festinger's (1954) social comparison theory. according to festinger (1954), people frequently compare themselves with others in their everyday lives in various ways. those comparisons might be either upward or downward. one of two alternative internal processes can be triggered as a result of those comparisons: assimilation vs. contrast (tesser, 1991). when the assimilation process follows upward comparisons (ucs), the comparers consider the comparison targets as models for themselves. they become hopeful that in the future, they might be like those target people. on the contrary, when a contrast process follows ucs, the comparers focus on the differences tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 603 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ between them and the target people. as a result, they feel negative emotions (e.g., jealousy, helplessness). downward comparisons (dcs) may also lead to processes of assimilation or contrast. assimilation with the dc targets can lead to negative thoughts and feelings (e.g., “will i be sharing a similar bad destiny with them?!”). however, the contrast process may lead to positive thoughts and emotions (“thankfully, i am not like them”). whether a social comparison evokes assimilation or contrast process may depend on how close the comparer feels towards to the comparison target: if the comparison target is a close person, social comparisons are more likely to end up with assimilation, but if the comparer is not psychologically close to the target, then, a contrast process is more likely. based on all this information, smith (2000) mapped out many possible emotions that might arise from social comparisons. in his typology, he differentiated four emotion categories based on the direction of the social comparison (up or down) and the process triggered (assimilation or contrast). he claimed that predicting which emotions may come down after social comparisons may depend on various factors, such as how likable or dislikable the comparison target, how significant the self-other discrepancies, and to what extent those discrepancies are changeable, or to what extent they are a result of relatively even actions, etc. the emotions that fall into each of the four categories in his typology was given below: 1. upward contrastive emotions (uces): depressive feelings and shame, resentment, and envy. 2. upward assimilative emotions (uaes): inspiration, optimism, and admiration. 3. downward contrastive emotions (dces): contempt/scorn, schadenfreude, and pride. 4. downward assimilative emotions (daes): fear, pity, and sympathy. in the current study, those emotions of smith’s (2000) typology are accepted to be universal, but we also acknowledge that there can be some variations in emotions within each category depending on culture or language. for example, although smith defined jealousy as an uce, it should be noted that there are two different forms of jealousy benign and malignantin some languages such as german, dutch, and russian (van de ven, zeelenberg, & pieters, 2009). the former one seems to better suit into the category of uae while the latter one is a uce. another example is the feeling of fear-of-evil-eye. in smith's (2000) system, fear is categorized as a dae. smith has not defined fear-of-evil-eye as a distinct emotion. however, in cultures where evil-eye belief is powerful, social comparisons also may produce this belief-specific emotion (sabuncuoğlu-i̇nanç & saatçioğlu, 2017). fear-of receiving the evil-eye is very common in asian, african and mediterranean regions of the world. the evil-eye known as “nazar” is also a popular folk belief in turkey. it is a belief that when one envies others, a failure is likely to be experienced by the envied (e.g., if one grudges another person’s possessions like wealth or beauty, something terrible might happen to that envied person which cause harm). the fear-of-evil-eye is an emotional consequence of this superstition (shoeck, 1981). this fear leads people to take some preventive measures: well-to-do people try not to show off, not to talk loudly about their possessing to others to protect themselves from possible damages or bad luck that may stem from being envied. the fear-of-evil-eye does not fit well into any of the categories within the smith’s (2000) system, because it is not an emotion that people feel by focusing directly on superiority/inferiority of either oneself or the other. instead, fear-of-evil-eye emerges from a metacognitive focus (e.g., “what would she feel if she judged that i am superior to her? would she envy me?”). in sum, we argue that utilizing smith's four emotional categories could be mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 604 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ very helpful to understand emotional variation in different social comparison contexts, if researchers pay also attention to language and context-specific selection of emotions. in the current study, we aimed to explore what kind of inner processes and emotions that mothers experience following their social comparisons with the other mothers on their snss. we aimed to examine the emotional consequences of mothers’ social comparisons with other mothers not only in terms of motherhood but in any areas that they consider to be relevant. we asked the mother to tell us their emotions after upward and downward social comparisons with other mothers on snss, and we examined the emergent themes in their responses. we tested the usefulness of smith’s (2000) social-comparison-based emotion categories in this examination. to the knowledge of the authors, there is only one study that tests smith’s social comparison-based emotions in the online context of snss (park & baek, 2018). this study is one of a kind that social comparison-based emotions are examined in the motherhood context. our main aim was to evaluate whether the emergent themes in the current study would map with the four categories in smith’s (2000) classification. we also aimed to observe whether any additional and culture-specific themes or/and emotions would emerge. a culture-specific hypothesis also asserted that the fear-of-evil-eye would also emerge as one of the constructs under the downward contrastive emotional theme for turkish mothers. method participants data were collected from 42 turkish respondents. the age range was from 20 to 48 years. the mage = 36.36 (sd = 6.91). respondents reported that they have either one or two children. birth dates of children varied between 1992 and 2017. most respondents reported having higher education (54.8%), having a job (69%), living in a metropolis (50%), placing themselves on the 4th step (42.9%) of a 7-step ladder representing socioeconomic status (ses) from 1 (the lowest ses) to 7 (the highest ses). about the usage of social networking sites (snss) since the last six months, most respondents (over 50%) reported being members of at least two sites. the majority were members of facebook (95.2%) and/or instagram (71.4%). most of the users (37.5%) stated that the number of their sns friends were between the range of 201-400. respondents were asked the duration of daily time they spent in each of their various snss in the last week. the favorite response was 10-30 minutes for both facebook use (32.5%) and instagram use (26.7%). finally, most respondents reported that the last time since that they shared a message or post something on snss was a few days ago (28.6%); the last time since that they followed others’ posts on snss was that day (71.4%). more detailed information about the responses to the demographic questions and the questions about sns use was given in table 1. tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 605 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic characteristics of the sample and the information about participants’ usage of social network sites (n = 42) variable percentage place of residence 9.5% live in a rural area; 40.5% live in a city; 50% live in a metropolis socio-economic level (the 1st step reflects the lowest socio-economic level and the 7th step is the highest) 2.4% are on the second step; 9.5% are on the third step; 42.9% are on the fourth step; 33.3% are on the fifth step; 9.5% are on the sixth step; 2.4% are on the seventh step education 16.6% have secondary education degree; 54.8% have higher education; 28.6% have graduate degree employment 79% have a job; 12% are unemployed but looking for a job; 19% are unemployed and not looking for a job profession 23.8% are teachers; 16.8% are health-care professionals; 9.6% are academics; 4.8% are accountants; 30.7% are other professions (e.g. banker, computer operator, child development specialist, economist, housewife, chemical technician, market owner or employee, student, procurement manager, self-employed, insurance agent, political scientist, chairman of the board); 14.3% do not have any profession the usage of snss in the last six months 23.8% have one sns; 50% have two snss; 21.4% have three snss; 4.8% have four snss; 95.2% use facebook; 71.4% use instagram; 7% use other snss (e.g. twitter, whatsapp, snapchat, pinterest, and swarm) number of friends on facebook 30% have less than 200 friends; 37.5% have a range between 201-400 friends; 32.5% have 401 or more friends duration of daily time spent on facebook 15% spend less than 10 minutes; 32.5% spend 10-30 minutes; 17.5% spend between 31-60 minutes; 20% spend between 1-2 hours; 5% spend 2-3 hours; 10% spend more than 3 hours duration of daily time spent on instagram 10% spend less than 10 minutes; 26.7% spend 10-30 minutes; 16.7% spend 31-60 minutes; 16.7% spend 1-2 hours; 10% spend 2-3 hours; 20% spend more than 3 hours time of the last post on snss %26.2 shared in that day; 28.6% shared a few days ago; 19% shared a few weeks ago; 11.9% shared a month ago; 14.3% shared more than a month ago the last time others’ posts have been watched/read on snss 71.4% watched/read in that day; 26.2% watched/read a few days ago, and 2.4% watched/read a few weeks ago note. snss = social network sites. procedure we posted an open call to our snss and gave a link to an electronic survey, using the service provided by “surveey.com”. volunteers, who provided the preconditions, filled out the questionnaire. there were two preconditions: 1) to be a user of at least one sns (facebook, instagram and so on) for at least the last six months, and 2) to be married and have at least one child. we also requested the mothers to post the call to participate to our study on their snss to reach some other mothers who would like to volunteer in our research. respondents were first presented informed consent, and then, they filled a three-part questionnaire, involving mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 606 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the demographic information form, the sns usage information form, and finally, questions about emotions felt after social comparisons in snss. at the end of the data collection process, respondents have been thanked and debriefed. measures and instruments demographic information the form included questions about mother’s age, education level, occupation, household income, place of living, number of children, and age/s of their children. sns usage information respondents were asked about having memberships of which snss (facebook, instagram, etc.), the size of their network (number of friends for each snss) and how often they use these networks (frequency of viewing and sharing). questions about the emotions felt after social comparisons in snss two open-ended questions were asked about the emotions. one question was about the emotions respondents feel after ucs; and the other one was about the emotions after dcs. the question for the ucs is given below: “sometimes, mothers follow what other mothers share in the snss and make social comparisons with those mothers. in the current study, we would like you to imagine yourself while browsing one of your snss (facebook, instagram, etc.) and following the posts of other mothers. imagine that at the end of your browsing, you come up with a judgment that those mothers are healthier and more beautiful than you are, that they have more money and time to do what they want, that they have better parenthood skills than you do. some emotions might accompany those thoughts. imagining that the browsing mother was you, which emotions do you think you would feel? please write freely about the emotions you would feel, how intense they would be, and which situations would lead you to feel each of those emotions.” the question for the dcs was similarly worded: first, respondents were asked to imagine themselves while making a downward comparison on the snss, then, they were asked to report us about what would they feel, how intense those emotions would be, and which situations would lead them to have those emotions. data analysis a multi-stage thematic analysis process suggested by braun and clarke (2006) was conducted. the analyses were performed separately on the responses to the questions about emotions feel after ucs, and dcs. the first step for the analysis was to read the text to gain familiarity. next, codes were generated, and then, they were combined into themes, next, those themes were reviewed, defined and named. finally, all the themes were summarized and interpreted. two judges coded the data independently and then a meeting was conducted to overcome any inconsistencies in their coding. during the coding, a balance of deduction (deriving themes from the theoretical framework) and induction (emerging of themes from respondents' responses) was sought. more specifically, whether smith’s (2000) concepts of assimilative and contrastive emotions were mapped effectively to the current data set was examined first, and then, codes that did not fit into assimilation-contrast framework were reviewed to see if they would form new themes. tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 607 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results thematic analyses on the responses to the question about emotions felt after ucs showed that, a priori themes – uaes and uceswere related to the data. some new themes for ucs also emerged, and named as “uc denial and doubt”, “and “uc emotions felt in the name of others”. the results of thematic analyses on the responses to the question about emotions felt after dcs also showed that a priori themes – daes and dcesfit into the data as well. again, some additional themes for dcs came up. these were named as “dc denial and doubt” and “dc emotions felt in the name of others.” each of a total of nine themes is summarized and interpreted below. emotions felt after upward comparisons uc contrastive emotions theme some respondents reported feeling negative emotions (envy, resentment, sadness, etc.) after ucs. however, mothers appeared cautious while disclosing experiencing negative emotions: they have specified negative emotions only on some certain comparison topics or only towards limited comparison targets and to small extent. examples of utterances about negative emotions after upward contrasts; “i would envy the trips that others did”, “i would feel a little envious only when the others are someone whom i don’t like”, “i would not feel emotions of sadness and anger very intensely”. on the other end of the pendulum, some respondents have stated that they would not experience these emotions in the utterances like “i guess i wouldn’t feel envy”, “this situation wouldn't make me feel sad or bothered”. others stated that they would substitute them with some other emotions, thoughts or even actions such as “rather than feeling envy, i would think that everyone has different standards, and i mind my own business”, “of course i would feel sorry, but i would also do something about it”. the fact that respondents mentioned the emotions of envy and resentment, even if it is for indicating that they would not experience these emotions or they would substitute them with other emotions, actually signals that these two are among the basic social comparison emotions. among the uces, sadness and dissatisfaction came up as the two emotions that respondents seem more at ease to disclose that they experienced (e.g., “i would be sad in such a situation”, “i would feel very dissatisfied”, “i would feel unhappy”, “i would feel that i was inadequate, -especially as a motherand i would feel pity for myself”). some respondents also mentioned the feeling of anger. rather than as an emotion triggered by social comparisons, anger appeared as an emotion directed to the blogger mothers that blog with commercial purposes. –mothers’ don’t seem to exert anger as a result of asking oneself “why is she better than me” or “why am i not like her?”, instead anger as an emotion seems to be triggered by thinking that the blogger mothers lie to their followers. for instance, respondent #42: “comparing one’s own family with such people –especially in terms of financial meanshas become one of the reasons for conflict in the family. some mothers ridiculously become bloggers, and they take their kids to certain places for eating and drinking or for playing. it is weary. they try to maintain their social media image as good mothers in this way. they sometimes make a contract with business owners to advertise their places for receiving free eating, drinking, and shopping. what they do may cause financial conflicts between the spouses. what people understand from “socializing” is that going somewhere, and enabling notifications of these places and making an instagram story. they put background music, and tell at which cafe that they have been and what they have eaten. they pretend that they have been in that cafe for their kids. they label the shopping mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 608 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ website they bought their clothes and sunglasses -they make sure to post at least two photos with sunglasses. they end their story with a quote like “it was a tiring but nice day.” one of the respondents mentioned that she would blame herself after ucs on snss. although the feeling of inadequacy is not one of the uces defined by smith, it is reasonable to consider it as applying to that category. respondent #17: “perhaps i would blame myself for anything that i did not and could not have. i might continue reflecting on this negative energy to my significant others.” uc assimilative emotions theme ucs may lead to feelings of optimism, admiration, and inspiration if they trigger the assimilation process (smith, 2000). however, none of the respondents in this study mentioned these three emotions. nevertheless, there were some expressions in the respondents’ statements indicating that they have experienced an assimilation process after ucs. some respondents have reported that they would take the comparison target as a model. the research question was just about their emotions, and it was not our scope to cover their behavioral intentions. however, respondents preferred to declare what they would do (taking the target person as a model) rather than what they would feel in the assimilation process. another emotion that can be acknowledged as the uae was the feeling of appreciation. however, respondents clearly stated that they would appreciate a comparison target only if the positive features that she informs on snss were honest. from the expressions of those respondents, it was clear that they were doubtful about the reliability of personal information entered into snss. respondent #20: “as much as i can, i try to follow the mothers whose kids are the same age as mine. if they inform that they accomplished some progress in experiences with their kids, then i try to do whatever they did. in other words, i take them as a model.” respondent #21: “i would take them as a model and bring something new into my life accordingly.” respondent #36: “i would feel a little bit inadequate, and i would wish to behave like them.” respondent #29: “i model their positive aspects of their life experiences if they are people whom i love and value, and i try to take them as models. if the people whom i do not like are outstripping me, then i feel envy.” respondent #34: “i feel sorry, especially if they are superior in maternal aspects. but if those people are my friends and if i believe that they are genuinely sincere and realistic, then i take them as models, or begin to search to become a better mother.” respondent #4: “believe me, i congratulate a successful person by the heart. if she deserves what she gained, may god clear her path.” respondent #41: “it would be nice if she has managed her life well. but is it really so? i would appreciate her if she is honest about performing well.” interestingly, following the expressions above, a conceptual controversy seemed to emerge. some of the respondents referred “taking as a model” and the uces in the same phrase: for instance, the respondent #36 used the expressions of “feeling inadequate” and “doing something as they (the uc targets) do” together; respondent #29 used the utterances of “feelings of envy” and “taking as model” together; and respondent #34 tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 609 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ used the expressions “sad and inadequate” and “taking as models” together. from these expressions, it is evident that after making a social comparison, both assimilation and contrast processes may simultaneously evoke within the same person. uc denial and doubt theme this category mainly covers responses reflecting either of the reactions below: 1. denial of that one does social comparisons in snss or denial of that one is emotionally affected by social comparisons: respondent #37: “i do not feel anything. i think they are luckier than just talented. but it does not disturb me.” respondent #13: “i do not care about what others have or how they look. every human being is different in his or her living conditions and life philosophy! i am me, and they are them! i do not feel anything when i read the profiles of other people!” 2. disbelieving that the social comparison target is superior to oneself: respondent #2: “i would not be very impressed because, in social media, everyone is in a position to show himself as perfect, but it is fake.” respondent #30: “i would not care much about what i see in social networks. i do not think they are sincere and realistic. i think it carries the character of showing off." 3. self-affirmation efforts to buffer against social comparison threats: respondent #3: “other’s thoughts and feelings about me are unimportant for me. i always act with my own free will.” respondent #4: “... i do not weigh my worth according to someone else’s opinions. i know that i'm valuable.” respondent #27: “i have what my god predestinated. i wish allah will bless me with a better life than what i have now, but even if i don't have a better life than now, it is not a big deal. i am a decent and nice mother. when i see a smile on my child's face, this makes me feel good enough. a better financial situation might make us live a more luxurious life, but if we cannot afford that, it is not a problem. having my husband and my daughter with me is enough alhamdulillah.” uc emotions felt in the name of others theme some respondents have expressed what they would feel on behalf of the target of comparison, not on behalf of themselves, after upward comparisons. the emotions in this category were all positive emotions. however, one of the respondents (respondent #5) stated that feeling either positive or negative on behalf of another mother could also be related to her own mood at the moment. respondent #8: “their happiness makes me happy too.” respondent #5: “if i were happy, the good things about others would make me happier, while the very same things would be meaningless for me if i were sad. i feel positive feelings very intensely. i try to suppress negative emotions.” mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 610 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ respondent #14: “... i welcome other people’s good news; i am pleased that i hear them. i “like” them.” emotions felt after dcs dc contrastive emotions theme emotions reported by the majority of the mothers in the downward contrastive category are on behalf of themselves and positive. respondent #1: “how lucky i am.” respondent #5: “a feeling of strong gratitude. a mildly strong feeling of fear from the evil-eye" (this expression has been expressed together with the statement of "a strong desire to help”). respondent #36: “i would feel pleased, and i would be proud to be such a mother.” respondent #35: “in such a case, i would be happy on behalf of myself, but at the same time i would feel sorry for behalf of others. i wish everyone to be able to raise their children in the best possible conditions.” among the above examples, the emotions specified by respondent #5 were particularly striking. she expressed that she would feel all the 1) gratitude, 2) fear-of-evil-eye, and 3) a desire to help another person. to us, it was interesting that respondent #5 was the only respondent that mentioned fear-of-evil-eye. among her phrases, the feeling of gratitude was classified as a contrastive emotion, while the desire to help others was classified as an assimilative emotion. gratitude was regarded as contrastive emotion because of its being associated with the thought of “i am happy that i am not like her.” however, to feel gratitude, it is also necessary for one to think as “i might be in her shoes.” in this sense, gratitude can also be regarded as an assimilative emotion. it should also be noted that the expression of gratitude is an indicator that the respondent makes an external attribution for the discrepancy between the self and the inferior other. it should also be noted that by reporting experiencing both (gratitude and desire to help), she provided us with an example of how assimilative and contrastive emotions can be experienced simultaneously. although the desire to help is not a pure feeling but rather “a behavioral intent”, it is on the midpoint of being an emotion and being a behavior. in this sense, it is similar to the intent of "taking someone as a model" which is expressed after the upward-contrast process. dc assimilative emotions theme this category involves other-focused emotions such as anger for the injustice that others experience, and a desire to help others. it is noteworthy that “a desire to help others” appeared as a part of both downward-contrastive and downward assimilative emotions themes. respondent #8: “their good news makes me happy. i feel so sorry when i see people post about their sorrows.” respondent #12: “i would feel sorry when i see some situations which i consider as unfair. i would think about how i can help mothers or how i can make a difference for them. i would do anything for that aim.” respondent #21: “i am sorry for the people who do not have the same opportunities as mine, and i try to support those people if i have any means to do it.” tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 611 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ respondent #37: “i would think that i'm luckier than others. i would not be happy to be in a better position than them. i think that is a shame that not everyone has adequate standard of living.” respondent #41: “i feel sorry for the unluckiness and passivism. i feel anger at the injustices that our education system has done to the woman.” dc denial and doubts theme some of the respondents have denied that they were doing dcs, or they have denied that the emotions that they experienced after dcs. some said that they do not trust the accuracy of the information that people reveal about themselves in snss. one of the respondents (respondent #34) has labeled "playing house on social media" to other mothers' postings of unrealistic messages in snss. respondent #7: “i do not compare myself to anyone.” respondent #13: “i would not feel anything different because i do not care about social media so much to let it capture my soul!” respondent #30: “in general, i would not feel that i was luckier. again, i think people do not tell the truth in social media. i do not overreact to such mothers in social media. i do not believe that social media reflects reality with one hundred percent truth.” respondent #34: “... i do not believe in mothers’ playing house on social media.” dc emotions felt on the name of others theme some respondents have pointed out not only the emotions they would feel for their behalf but also the ones they would feel for someone else's behalf after a downward comparison. one of the respondents (respondent #34) stated that she would be sorry for both the target person and her children. another participant reported that she would feel happy on behalf of her own children (respondent #16). another unique answer was respondent #35’s. in the first part of her response, she stated that she would feel a uce (“in such a case i would be happy on behalf of myself” …), but in the second half of her response, she stated that she would feel a dce (“…but at the same time i would feel sorry for behalf of others.”). with this answer, the respondent #35 provides an example of that a uae, and a dce may be felt simultaneously or, at least consecutively. it seems that the respondent first does a uc. next, she takes the perspective of the other mother and relives the situation as she does. therefore, the comparison might have changed the direction -uc has turned into a dc, and it created sadness. in other words, a single comparison led to the feelings of happiness and sadness in succession. respondent #16: “happiness is the happiness of my children.” respondent #34: “i feel sorry for these people. i am sorry for the child.” respondent #35: “in such a case, i would be happy on behalf of myself, but at the same time i would feel sorry for behalf of others. i wish everyone to be able to raise their children in the best possible conditions.” mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 612 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion in the current study, the aim was examining mothers’ emotions which they feel after making social comparisons on snss with other mothers, and searching out to what extent smith’s (2000) social-comparison-based emotion categories were useful for exploring those emotions. it was seen that a wide range of emotions were elicited after mothers’ social comparisons on snss with other mothers, and many of those emotions fitted well under the themes of assimilative and contrastive emotions, as proposed by smith (2000). the current study also has provided some examples of that the assimilation and contrast processes might be both triggered -either simultaneously or successivelyafter a particular social comparison. this result showed a deviation from smith’s (2000) conceptualization of social comparison-based emotions: according to him, assimilation and contrast were two alternative processes, and he has never mentioned that a social comparison may evoke both. another interesting finding was that social comparisons of mothers, trigger not only some emotions, but also some behavioral intentions. more specifically, ucs seem to be triggered the behavioral intention of taking the superior other as a model; and dcs triggered willingness to help others. these findings provided a support to the idea that behavioral intentions and emotions are tightly coupled domains, and should be evaluated together in social comparison literature. the findings also revealed supportive evidence for the existence of four categories (uces, uaes, dces, and daes) described by smith's (2000) emotion-based social comparison typology. however, emotions included in each category in the current study have not strictly matched with the ones offered by smith (2000). some of the emotions listed under those four categories in smith’s typology have never come up in the current study. for instance, optimism, admiration, and inspiration were suggested as upward assimilative emotions in theory, which our respondents have never mentioned. instead of reporting what they would feel, respondents in general preferred to write what they would do after ucs, and stated that they would take the superior comparison target as a model to themselves. it may because that our question format was inclusive, and probably, mislead that the question was about actions rather than about emotions. also, no respondents have mentioned that they would experience two of basic theory driven dces (contempt and schadenfreude), and one of the basic daes (pity). respondents may have opted not to report negative emotions because they are undesirable emotions. contempt and schadenfreude are socially undesirable emotions as they indicate devaluing of others and produce antisocial behaviors (weiner, 2005). however, it is debatable whether pity is a desirable or undesirable emotion. at one hand, pity can be considered as a positive and prosocial emotion that is shown under the condition that the others are incompetent and their incompetence is attributed to uncontrollable deficits (weiner, 2005). on the other hand, it can be considered as an ambivalent emotion from the point of view of the target person: this emotion may be pleasant for the target person because it shows that the others do not treat them with indifference, but it may also hurtful because it reminds them their own weaknesses and incompetency (ben-ze'ev, 1993). because of this ambivalent characteristic of pitying, respondents might prefer not to declare that they would feel pity for the inferior others. instead of pitying, “a desire to help others” has emerged as mothers’ outstanding motivation in the current study. “a desire to help others” may be considered as a concept broader than feeling pity, and also it is more polite and less heartbreaking. it is no surprise that our respondents refrain from being rude and heartbreaking: according to gender stereotypes women are kind, and sensitive to others’ needs; and according to motherhood myths, mothers are “more women” than non-mothers (sever, 2015). as our questions made their maternal identity salient, respondents probably refrained from expressing heart-breaking negative emotions which would not tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 613 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fit into motherhood identity, and they tried to show the positive emotions and socially desirable behavioral intentions that suits well with a divine mother image. another interesting finding is that anger appeared as a dae in the current study, although it has been described as a uce in smith’s (2000) theory. in our study, mothers’ anger seemed to be targeted the injustices suffered by others, rather than the superior others. it appears that some mothers who are exposed to dc targets on the snss look at the world from the eyes of those dc targets, and focus on the external conditions that make them suffer. the emotional and motivational predictors and consequences of mothers' sensitivity evoked by others’ vulnerabilities on snss need a further interest in future studies. the reply by the respondent #5 to the uc question is worth to be discussed by its own. this response includes an explanation about the mood depending nature of positive or negative emotions after ucs. by this reply, the respondent brought up the issue of the moderating role of mood in the links of social media information with elicited emotions. according to her, after expressing an uc, assimilative emotions might be evoked if the person is in a good mood. however, contrastive emotions might evoke if the person is in a negative mood. previously, it was shown that when people are given a chance to select which social comparison target to be exposed to (uc vs. dc) in a sns browsing task, their decisions is affected by their mood. when they are in an aversive mood, they are less likely to select uc targets, and more likely to select dc targets (johnson & knobloch-westerwick, 2014). experimental design studies might help to elaborate on the question of whether the individuals’ assimilative vs. contrastive type of emotional reaction depends on their comparison specific mood. our results also showed that some respondents chose not to believe in the accuracy of information provided by others in snss, and they claim that it might be fake or exaggerated (denial strategy). this strategy has been used both in the ucs and dcs. in the literature, there are predictions and some supportive research findings regarding how individuals' self-descriptions on snss reflect the ideals, not the facts (walther, 1996). because of the abundance of false information and fraud on snss, deciding whether information on snss is true or false is a legitimate issue for the users of those platforms (walther & parks, 2002). the respondent mothers’ reported doubts and denials in the current study might be reflecting their awareness of misleading behaviors on snss. according to the literature, individuals may use self-affirmation as an alternative strategy when they face with self-threatening information (sherman & cohen, 2006). in the current study, we see the example of that some respondents use the self-affirmation strategy after making upward comparisons. more specifically, some mothers who make social comparisons on snss reported that they were able to move negative feelings and behaviors triggered by such comparisons away through reflecting on their prominent values in their lives unconnected to the domain of comparison. while the current study provided some examples of how snss create a need for self-affirmation; in the literature, there is supportive evidence showing that users also use those sites to gratify their need for self-affirmation. previously, toma and hancock (2013) demonstrated that individuals use their social media profiles to self-affirm when they need to repair their self-worth. after both ucs and dcs, some respondents have expressed their emotions not only on their behalf but also on behalf of the comparison targets. happiness reported as the most frequent emotion to be felt in the name of others, after the upward comparisons. the sadness appeared as the most often cited emotion to be felt in the name of others after downward comparisons. in smith’s (2000) theory, social comparison emotions are mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 614 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ assessed in two dimensions: valence (positive vs. negative) and focus of comparison (self-vs. other). "emotions felt on behalf of others" is not a category defined in smith’s theory. to avoid any confusion, there must be an explanation about how “emotions felt on behalf of others” is conceptually different than “other-focused emotions." the former one involves the probable replies to the question of “what do i feel when i put myself into her place?” whereas the latter one involves response to the question of “what do i feel for her?”. in the current study, the fact that respondents frequently mentioned which emotions they would feel on behalf of others may be considered as an indicator of the relational self. it should be noted that data were collected from turkish mothers, and turkish culture is a culture of relatedness that emphasizes emotional interdependency for its people (kagitcibasi, 1996). thus, in the current study, it is no surprise that many respondents have inclined to evaluate a situation not only from their own perspective but also from the viewpoint of target person. although they were specifically asked to report their own emotions after social comparisons, they have reported more on what they would feel on behalf of target person. in the current study, the fear-of-evil-eye emerges as one of the constructs under the downward contrastive emotions theme, as hypothesized. this result supports the findings of an earlier study conducted in turkey demonstrating how people’s fear-of-evil-eye and their efforts for getting protection against the evil-eye are transmitted from offline to online life through the examination of instagram hashtags (sabuncuoğlu-i̇nanç & saatçioğlu, 2017). limitations there are several methodological limitations of the current study. first, participants were asked a very general question about what they feel after social comparisons with other mothers on snss. if separate questions for each comparison domain, such as health, wealth, and attractiveness, had been asked, participants might give different responses to each. in the current study, it was assumed that participants would consider the question by depending on how important each social comparison domain for them and answering for the “one” that is most important to them. in further studies, we recommend researchers asking separate questions for each of several comparison domains, and compare the emotional consequences of comparisons in each domain with each other. the second limitation is that every participant was given the question about uc and dc in the same order (uc first, and dc later). as some literature suggested that making ucs increases negative mood, we tried to protect participants from leaving the session with a negative mood by refraining from asking the uc-question at the end of the session. however, this could have resulted in order effects. in further studies, researchers may consider doing counterbalancing. lastly, the broad age range of children of the sampled mothers in the current study might be a point of criticism. in the future, it might be a better idea to do studies in which the focus was mothers with infants and young children because those mothers are more likely to be vulnerable to social comparison. conclusions many of today's mothers integrate themselves into digital life and use snss for making social comparisons. those emotions have a potential to evoke various emotions. the current study has shown that smith’s (2000) typology for social comparison-based emotions -with the addition of some other emotion categoriesprovides a well-depicted framework for studying mothers’ emotional reactions that are evoked by others in digital networks. as offline contexts seem to give more space to express feelings of all kind, future research utilizing tosun, öztürk, & özdemir 615 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 https://www.psychopen.eu/ different methodologies should continue to examine and compare social comparison-based emotions in both online and offline contexts. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references appel, h., crusius, j., & gerlach, a. l. 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(2005). motivation from an attribution perspective and the social psychology of perceived competence in a. j. elliot & c. s. dweck (eds.), handbook of competence and motivation (pp. 73-84). new york, ny, usa: guilford. about the authors leman pınar tosun is an associate professor of social psychology in the psychology department at bursa uludag university, turkey. her research interests include interpersonal relationships and social behaviors in various context, such as social networking sites. ahu öztürk is an assistant professor of developmental psychology in the psychology department at bursa uludag university, turkey. her research interests include parenting and self-development. gamze özdemir is a research assistant of social psychology in the psychology department at canakkale 18 mart university, turkey. her research interests include social representations and psychology of women. mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions 618 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 602–618 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2159 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146167212474694 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0015669 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f009365096023001001 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mothers’ social comparisons-based emotions (introduction) theoretical background theory on social comparison-based emotions method participants procedure measures and instruments data analysis results emotions felt after upward comparisons emotions felt after dcs discussion limitations conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors academic achievement in university students: the role of perfectionism and academic hardiness research reports academic achievement in university students: the role of perfectionism and academic hardiness iwanna sepiadou 1 [1] department of psychology, aristotle university of thessaloniki, thessaloniki, greece. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 received: 2023-09-05 • accepted: 2024-01-15 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: johannes karl, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: iwanna sepiadou, department of psychology, aristotle university of thessaloniki, nevrokopiou, thessaloniki, 54638, greece. email: iwanna.sepiadou@gmail.com supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between two personality factors, namely perfectionism and academic hardiness, and academic achievement. nine hundred sixty-six undergraduate students from diverse disciplines in greece made up the entire sample. in addition to two self-reported questionnaires about their achievements, perfectionism, and academic toughness, they were asked to complete one demographic questionnaire. the study revealed statistically significant positive correlations between the adaptive form of perfectionism and academic achievement and negative primarily correlation between the maladaptive form of perfectionism and academic achievement. the dimensions of academic hardiness (challenge, commitment, control) were also found to be positively correlated with the students’ performance. regarding the predictive role of these two factors for academic achievement, the results indicated that the adaptive form of perfectionism (high standards) and two dimensions of academic hardiness (challenge and commitment) are positive predictors, while the maladaptive form of perfectionism (discrepancy) is a negative predictor. implications of the above results are discussed. keywords adaptive perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism, academic hardiness, academic achievement, research article the present study attempts to provide empirical evidence for the factors that may influence academic achievement. according to the existing literature, the predictors of academic achievement seem to be complex. academic achievement is considered one of the most important targets of education in the current cultural and socio-economic context (bansal & pahwa, 2015; madigan, 2019). thus, it constitutes a crucial point of the educational research. uncovering the components that may affect academic achievement would help psychologists and educators to design and implement effective interventions for enhancing students’ performance. academic achievement refers to what a student has accomplished during the passage of the academic years regard­ ing different subjects of studies (ahmadi et al., 2013; bansal & pahwa, 2015). academic achievement can be measured in various ways, such as accomplishing a specific goal within school or university, individual test performance, and performance across classes (grade point average, gpa). gpa is the most widely used indicator of academic success and is determined by averaging a student’s grades from all their classes over the academic year (endleman et al., 2022), which is also used in the present study. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12755&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ review of the literature in this field suggested that there are several factors which have an impact on students’ aca­ demic performance. some of the most important antecedents in this context are the factors relevant to the educational environment and circumstances, the factors relevant to the teachers or professors, and the factors that are related to the students (ahmadi et al., 2013). therefore, a wide range of variables have the potential to influence achievement. knowledge of the impact of different factors on academic achievement is necessary for the teachers to maximize the students’ performance in a worthwhile manner (bansal & pahwa, 2015). investigators in educational psychology suggest that personality factors may be crucial. personality traits can improve the likelihood of aptitudes, attitudes, and behaviors that are contributing to better or worse achievement. although considerable evidence has confirmed that personality traits, such as conscientiousness and the other traits of the five-factor model, predict academic achievement (see poropat, 2009; richardson et al., 2012; vedel, 2014), other personality variables have attracted limited research. the present study will provide evidence for the predictive value of two personality factors for academic achievement in higher education, namely perfectionism and academic hardiness, as the relevant research results so far remain largely inconsistent and/or scant. perfectionism perfectionism is one personality trait that has been linked to academic success (park et al., 2020; stoeber, 2012; stoeber et al., 2018). perfectionism is the drive to strive for excellence and have high standards for oneself when working on a task; yet it is frequently associated with negative self-criticism (see hill, 2016; xie et al., 2018). perfectionism has an impact on many facets of life. being flawless is now viewed by society as a key sign of success, particularly in academic contexts. as a result, a lot of young people tend to think that to succeed well academically, they must be flawless (curran & hill, 2018; stoeber, 2017). perfectionism is a multifaceted notion, thus the relationship between it and academic achievement appears to be complicated. factor analytic studies have provided support for two higher-order dimensions, namely adaptive and maladaptive. adaptive perfectionists are people who have high expectations, work hard to meet them, and can still feel content when they are fulfilled. high standards, little room for error, and a persistent fear of making mistakes and disappointing people are characteristics of maladaptive perfectionists (rice et al., 2014; stoeber, 2017; stoeber, 2018; stoeber & otto, 2006). many motivational, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes have been linked to perfectionism (see stoeber, 2018). this is why it is critical to distinguish between perfectionistic dimensions since they demonstrate different and at times opposite patterns of relationships with several outcomes. academic achievement has been found to be connected with and/or predicted by perfectionism as a personality characteristic, based on relevant research data (see akar et al., 2018; hill, 2016; park et al., 2020; stoeber, 2012). however, the relationship between the two variables seems to vary based on the dimension of perfectionism examined. for instance, in a study contacted on 350 university students (see akar et al., 2018), both dimensions of perfectionism were found to have an impact on students’ performance. academic achievement was found to be positively predicted by adaptive perfectionism and negatively predicted by maladaptive perfectionism. perfectionism is characterized by high standards, which are embodied in perfectionistic aspirations. these incredibly high expectations have to do with the motivating elements that govern and guide actions that lead to improved performance. those who are adaptive perfectionists are more inclined to participate, endure, and dedicate more time to pertinent tasks. thus, among the two main characteristics of perfectionism, adaptive perfectionism is more likely to be positively correlated with academic achievement, particularly when the relationship with the perfectionistic worries is controlled. contrariwise, maladaptive perfectionism comprises critical evaluations and constant concerns about making mistakes. people with high levels of maladaptive perfectionism may worry more about making mistakes than about picking up new skills. furthermore, they can put off engaging in pertinent educational activities in favor of putting off doing them in order to avoid failing. hence, maladaptive perfectionism is more likely to negatively affect academic achievement (hewitt & flett, 1991; stoeber, 2018; stoeber et al., 2018). the picture, although, seems to be far more complex, since park et al. (2020) found out that the two dimensions of perfectionism did not directly affect academic achievement, but only their indirect effects through accurate self-assessment were statistically significant. thus, the present study aims to contribute to sepiadou 253 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the existing literature by further investigating the aforementioned direct relationship and to promote a practical and balanced understanding of perfectionism in academic settings. academic hardiness benishek and lopez (2001) used the phrase “academic hardiness” to investigate the reasons behind the inclination of certain students to embrace academic difficulties, such as challenging courses, while others choose to steer clear of them. hardiness is conceptualized as a combination of three constructs, namely commitment, control, and challenge. the concept of commitment refers to someone’s belief that it is important to remain involved with the events and actively participate in certain activities or tasks, no matter how stressful the things are. the idea of control pertains to an individual’s perception of their ability to efficiently manage their time, exercise control over their education, and prioritize tasks that they deem significant. in conclusion, the idea of challenge pertains to the extent to which a person views demanding circumstances and challenging assignments as a chance for continued education rather than as a danger (benishek et al., 2005; benishek & lopez, 2001; cheng et al., 2019; kobasa, 1979; maddi, 2006). it has been shown that academic hardiness and its components correlate with academic achievement (see ahmadi et al., 2013; kamtsios & karagiannopoulou, 2013a, 2015; sheard, 2009). more specifically, kamtsios and karagiannopoulou (2013b) conducted research on 478 greek undergraduate students and found that there is a positive correlation between academic hardiness and students’ performance. in their study the concept of commitment was most highly positively correlated with academic achievement. their findings are in agreement with those of ahmadi et al. (2013) and sheard (2009). performance of hardy individuals is enhanced by their active or decisive coping efforts in stressful and difficult situations. strong hardy attitudes in students are desirable, as hardiness facilitates turning difficulties to advantage, growing in such enhanced performance criteria as creativity and maintaining physical and mental health (maddi, 2006). nevertheless, there is currently little proof that intellectual toughness is a reliable indicator of academic success in university. to our knowledge, only one study has found that commitment constitutes a positive predictor of academic achievement (see sheard, 2009). to date, there is no evidence to show the predictive role of control and challenge on academic achievement. this is somewhat surprising, given the overwhelming evidence of the beneficial effects of hardiness across a variety of occupations. the current research attempts to fill this gap and contribute to the existing literature regarding the relationship between academic hardiness and university students’ performance. the present study this study is an extension of a previous study on the same population (see sepiadou & metallidou, 2023). the previous analysis examined the phenomenon of academic procrastination in university students and the factors that could predict it, while the present research examines whether the same factors could predict academic achievement, contributing to the existing literature and filling research gaps. more specifically, taking into consideration the importance of academic achievement in the present socio-economic and cultural context, the current study aimed at providing not only empirical evidence for the correlation between two personality factors (perfectionism and academic hardiness) and academic achievement, but also for the possible predictive role of these factors for the students’ academic performance. numerous studies have investigated the relation­ ships personality factors show with academic achievement, the existing data regarding the impact of components of perfectionism and academic hardiness are limited or non-existent though. the present study could contribute to the existing literature by filling the gaps, and it would help us to better understand why certain students select hard assignments, engage in strategies to get through challenging coursework, control their emotions when they fail to meet their objectives, and generally have higher gpas. according to the existing literature (e.g., akar et al., 2018; hill, 2016; park et al., 2020; stoeber, 2012), it is expected that the adaptive dimensions of perfectionism (high standards and order) are positively correlated with the students’ academic achievement (hypothesis 1a), while the maladaptive dimension of perfectionism (self-criticism/evaluative concerns) is negatively correlated with academic achievement (hypothesis 1b). in addition, it is expected that the three dimensions of academic hardiness (commitment, control, and challenge) are positively associated with the students’ performance (hypothesis 2). as regards the predictive role of perfectionism for academic achievement, adaptive perfectionism, hardiness, and academic achievement 254 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dimensions of perfectionism are expected to be significant positive predictors (hypothesis 3a), while the maladaptive dimension to be a significant negative predictor (hypothesis 3b). finally, based on research conducted by sheard (2009), the dimension of academic hardiness, namely commitment, is expected to positively predict academic achieve­ ment (hypothesis 4). last but not least, we need to find out if the other two aspects of academic toughness—control and challenge—significantly predict students' success because there is a dearth of pertinent research data. method participants the study included a sample of 966 undergraduate students, 242 of whom were men and 724 of whom were women. first-year students were excluded from this study since they had not yet completed a variety of academic activities and had an unclear grade point average (2nd year: n = 161, 3rd year: n = 198, 4th year: n = 234, and > 5th year: n = 373). the participants attended a variety of greek higher education institutions, with the majority coming from the theoretical and technological departments of the national and kapodistrian university of athens (n = 205) and the aristotle university of thessaloniki (n = 315). the participants' average age was 23 years old (m = 23.07, sd = 4.7). procedure the questionnaires were distributed to different groups of university students via google forms and social media. two online self-reported questionnaires and a demographic questionnaire were given to the participants to complete. they were all made aware of the study's objectives, the sample's characteristics, and its confidentiality protocols. there were no rewards for participating; it was entirely voluntary. they were also told that they could stop participating in the survey whenever they wanted. lastly, they were told how to get in touch with them regarding any queries they might have or the findings once the study was completed. the research complied fully with the american psychological association's code of ethics and the european union regulation on sensitive personal data (gdpr; https://gdpr.eu/tag/gdpr/), which went into effect on may 25, 2018, and which is applicable in greece under law 4624/2019 (issue a´ 137/29.08.2019). every participant in the data coding process was assigned a digit as a name between 1 and 966. materials demographics participants were asked to respond to several demographic questions (gender, age, year of study, higher education institution) prior to filling out the basic questionnaires. measure of academic achievement academic achievement was assessed with one question embedded in the demographics questionnaire regarding the students’ grade point average (gpa), which is considered the most common measure of academic performance. measure of perfectionism an adaptation of the almost perfect scale revised (slaney et al., 2001) into greek by diamantopoulou and platsidou (2014) was used to measure perfectionism. the twenty-three items on this self-reported questionnaire examine perfec­ tionism as a multidimensional construct using three subscales. the first sub-scale (questions, such as “i have high expectations for myself”) asks about the respondent’s high standards of excellence and aspirations. one of the four items on the second sub-scale, “i like to always be organized and disciplined,” gauges the person's need for order. the third sub-scale counts the difference, or “gap,” that could exist between the individual’s initial standards of perfection and the outcome (12 items, such as “my best just never seems good enough for me”). respondents rate themselves on a 5-point likert scale, with the options “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” the tool’s three factors and acceptable psychometric qualities were well-supported by factor analysis in the current sample. a disparity with an eigenvalue of sepiadou 255 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://gdpr.eu/tag/gdpr/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 7.41 explained 32.23% of the variation. order, with an eigenvalue of 1.88, accounted for 8.17% of the variation, while high standards, with an eigenvalue of 4.33, explained 18.82% of the variance. for discrepancy the alpha coefficient was α = .94, for order α = .83, and for high standards α = .82. measure of academic hardiness academic hardiness was measured in the current study using a translated version of the revised academic hardiness scale, which was created by benishek et al. (2005) and translated into greek by kamtsios & karagiannopoulou (2013b). the forty items on the self-reported questionnaire evaluate students’ behavioral, cognitive, affective, and motivational views in relation to general and difficult academic situations. these elements approximately correspond to three categories: commitment, challenge, and control. the 13 items in the commitment scale, such as “i will not go out with my friends if i have to study for an exam,” gauge an individual’s propensity to stick with the tasks at hand, regardless of how demanding and stressful they may be. challenge assesses a person’s propensity to view challenging assignments as a chance for more learning rather than as a danger (11 items, such as “i take difficult classes because i know they will benefit me in the future”). control pertains to the capacity of the learner to manage feelings that may surface during assignments and impact the process of learning (16 items, for example, “i am good at calming myself down when i feel anxious about my ability to do well on a test or a class project”). respondents rate items on a 4-point likert scale, with “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree” being the possibilities. the current sample’s factor analysis produced the same three factors. a challenge whose eigenvalue was 8.65 explained 21.62% of the variation. with an eigenvalue of 5.21, commitment accounted for 13.02% of the variation, whereas an eigenvalue of 4.62 explained 11.56% of the variance for control. the alpha coefficients for commitment (α = .86), challenge (α = .82), and control (α = .87) were obtained. results preliminary analyses, descriptive statistics, and intercorrelations first, complex variables were constructed, based on the factors highlighted by the factor analyses. means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis values are presented in table 1. measures of skewness and kurtosis were applied to verify whether parametric analyses could be applied on the data (see sepiadou, 2023). since all of the skewness and kurtosis values were less than 2, they were all regarded as normally distributed (see kline, 2011). table 1 means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis of the variables variable m sd skewness kurtosis academic achievement gpa 7.28 0.81 0.19 -0.03 perfectionism discrepancy 3.05 0.98 0.11 -0.86 standards 3.86 0.73 -0.41 -0.33 order 3.78 0.89 -0.54 -0.25 academic hardiness challenge 2.33 0.59 0.19 -0.61 commitment 2.62 0.53 -0.21 -0.55 control 2.49 0.64 -0.04 -0.66 a series of correlation analyses using the pearson correlation coefficient was initially performed to investigate the bilateral relationships between the variables under consideration. the relationships between academic accomplishment, perfectionist traits, and academic toughness traits are shown in table 2. the association between perfectionism's dimensions and academic achievement varies depending on which dimension is studied. to be more precise, academic perfectionism, hardiness, and academic achievement 256 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ success is inversely connected with the maladaptive form of perfectionism (discrepancy) and positively correlated with the adaptive form (high standards and order). in other words, their gpa rises in proportion to the degree to which they describe having high standards and enjoying order in their academic lives. contrariwise, the more they report having a discrepancy between their goals and their accomplishments, the lower is their gpa. furthermore, a positive correlation was observed between academic accomplishment and each of the three aspects of academic hardiness, with the characteristic of commitment having the strongest correlation. their gpa thus increases with the degree to which students report being academically resilient. additionally, table 2 demonstrates that in the majority of instances, there are statistically significant relationships between various perfectionism aspects and academic toughness. order positive­ ly connected with commitment and control, high standards positively correlated with challenge and commitment, and discrepancy negatively correlated with the commitment and control elements of academic hardiness. only high standards were shown to be connected with the challenge dimension, suggesting a strong relationship between high personal standards and finding academic work to be interesting, demanding, and nonthreatening. table 2 correlations between academic achievement, dimensions of perfectionism, and dimensions of academic hardiness variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1.academic achievement – 2. discrepancy -.119** – 3. standards .312** .164** – 4. order .151** -.105** .369** – 5. challenge .311** -.035 .277** .034 – 6. commitment .377** -.205** .490** .430** .284** – 7. control .125** -.624** -.012 .087** .137** .201** – **p < .01 regression analyses using the enter technique, linear regression analyses were carried out to investigate the potential predictive value of perfectionism and academic hardiness characteristics for academic attainment. first, the relationship between academ­ ic accomplishment and the three perfectionism dimensions—discrepancy, high standards, and order—is investigated. discrepancy and high standards, two aspects of perfectionism, were found to be significant predictors of students’ achievement, f(3,961) = 46.931, p < .001, r 2 = .128. to be more precise, it was discovered that high standards dimension (adaptive form of perfectionism) was a positive predictor (β = 0.338, p < .001), whereas discrepancy (maladaptive form of perfectionism) was, as predicted, a negative predictor of academic achievement (β = -0.175, p < .001). regarding the predictive value of the dimensions of academic hardiness for academic achievement, two of the three dimensions were found to be significant predictors, f(3,961) = 74.458, p < .001, r 2 = .189. specifically, challenge and commitment were both positive predictors with commitment being a stronger predictor (β = 0.220, p < .001 and β = .308, p < .001 respectively). the control dimension was not a significant predictor (β = 0.034, p = .255). discussion this study's primary goal was to learn more about university students’ academic success by analyzing the impact of two personality traits, perfectionism and academic hardiness. initially, it was examined the possible correlational rela­ tionship between the dimensions of perfectionism and students’ achievement. according to our findings, the adaptive form of perfectionism (high standards and order) is positively correlated with the students’ performance assessed by gpa, confirming our hypothesis 1a. on the other hand, as it was expected, the maladaptive form of perfectionism (discrepancy) is negatively correlated with academic achievement (confirmation of hypothesis 1b). high standards and order enclose perfectionistic strivings. these dimensions of perfectionism relate to motivational factors that will sepiadou 257 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regulate behaviors which are conducive to better performance. in addition, high standards may mean that more time is spent on academic tasks, providing extra means for higher achievement (stoeber et al., 2018). contrariwise, discrepancy is a defining feature of perfectionism that is encapsulated by perfectionistic concerns. students with high levels of perfectionistic concerns may spend less time in academic activities to avoid mistakes, failure, and criticism. thus, it is maladaptive perfectionism that is likely to be negatively associated with students’ performance (hewitt & flett, 1991; stoeber, 2018). in the next step, we investigated the possible correlation between the dimensions of academic hardiness and academic achievement. all dimensions of academic hardiness (challenge, commitment, control) were positively associ­ ated with students’ achievement with the concept of commitment being most highly positively correlated with gpa. these findings are in total agreement with those of kamtsios and karagiannopoulou (2013b), confirming our second hypothesis. from a theoretical perspective, these results are expected, as hardy individuals tend to turn difficulties to advantage and cope with stressful situations. therefore, hardy attitudes grow students’ creativity and enhance their performance (maddi, 2006). moreover, in an attempt to understand the factors that may affect academic achievement, we investigated whether the dimensions of perfectionism and academic hardiness are predictors of students’ achievement. based on the find­ ings of previous research (see akar et al., 2018; hill, 2016; stoeber, 2012), we postulated that the adaptive form of perfectionism—high standards and order—is a positive predictor of academic achievement (hypothesis 3a), whereas its maladaptive form—discrepancy—is a negative predictor (hypothesis 3b). our hypothesis 3a was partially confirmed, as only the dimension of high standards was found to predict positively the students’ achievement. setting high standards means that students may be more engaged and more likely to persevere in dealing with difficult tasks, having consequently better performance (stoeber et al., 2018). the results of the present study did not indicate a direct effect of order dimension on academic achievement. this finding is in accordance with that of park et al. (2020), who found that perfectionistic strivings did not directly predict academic achievement, but only through inaccurate self-assessment. in addition, the findings of the current research confirmed our hypothesis 3b. it appears that the maladaptive form of perfectionism may account for the lower students’ gpa. this finding is not surprising given that discrepancy between goals and accomplishments encloses perfectionistic concerns, which are likely to be detrimental for university students (madigan, 2019). further, the results of the present study revealed that two dimensions of academic hardiness, namely challenge and commitment, constitute positive predictors of academic achievement, confirming the fourth hypothesis (i.e., com­ mitment dimension predicts positively students’ achievement). this finding is in agreement with that of sheard (2009), whose study seems to be the only one which has indicated that one dimension of academic hardiness, commitment, pre­ dicts positively the students’ academic performance. academic hardy students consider difficult tasks as an opportunity for further learning and not as a threat. it is important for them to participate and remain involved in academic activities and tasks, no matter how stressful they are (benishek & lopez, 2001; benishek et al., 2005; cheng et al., 2019; kobasa, 1979; maddi, 2006). τhis attitude seems to lead to better academic performance. limitations and further directions despite the aforementioned promising findings, only self-report questionnaires were used in the present study for the measurement of the variables. although self-reports have the advantage of giving personal information inaccessible otherwise, they pose a limitation due to their subjectivity. moreover, the study’s sample is mainly composed of women and previous researchers have found that female students have better academic performance than male students (see fortin et al., 2015; marcenaro–gutierrez et al., 2018). while our sample did not reveal statistically significant differences between genders in academic accomplishment, the limited number of male students in comparison to female students may restrict the generalizability of the findings across genders. furthermore, the only “student-related” personality characteristics of academic achievement are examined in this quantitative study. as a matter of fact, several elements, including those pertinent to professors and the educational environment and conditions, influence students’ academic success. all the aforementioned elements should be included in future research, along with more general contextual elements pertaining to the degree of education (undergraduate or graduate), the study program’s profile, and the area of perfectionism, hardiness, and academic achievement 258 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ competence. qualitative studies using in-depth interviews with university students could uncover part of the interaction among the aforementioned factors. more longitudinal studies could be conducted to capture any potential dynamic interactions between situational and personal factors from the time students enter the program until they graduate. finally, future studies could look into the combined consequences of the two perfectionism qualities. the proposed 2 x 2 model of perfectionism is one method that enables researchers to do this (see gaudreau & thompson, 2010). this concept adds to the discussion about whether perfectionism is maladaptive or adaptive. there is proof that this model is useful when considering academic accomplishment (kljajic et al., 2017). conclusion and implications given the above limitations, the results of the present study contribute to a deeper insight into the possible factors that influence academic achievement. this paper suggests that two personality factors, perfectionism and academic hardiness, constitute helpful constructs to seize the individual differences in academic performance. it is our expectation that this study will help to fill the existing gap regarding the relationship between the dimensions of academic hardiness and academic achievement. in addition, the current research will contribute to the existing literature where the relevant data so far are inconsistent. the findings of this study could be considered as a resourceful guideline for professional counselors and teachers or professors. we consider that future intervention programs for the enhancement of students’ academic performance should take into consideration the dimensions of perfectionism and academic hardiness. for instance, boosting partic­ ipants’ academic hardiness could lead them to a better performance by being highly committed to difficult tasks and seeing them as an opportunity for further learning and not as a threat. moreover, professional counselors and teachers should contribute and help students to set high but at the same time realistic standards. these exceptionally high standards relate to motivational factors that will target and control behaviors that are beneficial for a better performance. students with high standards are considered as adaptive perfectionists and are more likely to engage and persist in circumstances, and to spend more time on relevant tasks with better outcomes. however, considering the wide range of demands and activities in the setting of higher education, it is crucial that any attempt to intervene and improve accomplishment begin with understanding the students' individual needs in the learning environment. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article data is available at sepiadou (2023). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • study datasets. 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(2018). procrastination and multidimensional perfectionism: a meta-analysis of main, mediating, and moderating effects. social behavior and personality, 46(3), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.6680 about the author iwanna sepiadou is a psychologist from greece, specialized in cognitive psychology. iwanna has been additionally trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, and actively participates in scientific research and publications. sepiadou 261 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 252–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12755 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026838 https://osf.io/kdvy2/ https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-022-00648-3 https://doi.org/10.1348/000709908x304406 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2002.12069030 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536255-22 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315536255-4 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.07.011 https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.6680 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perfectionism, hardiness, and academic achievement (introduction) perfectionism academic hardiness the present study method participants procedure materials results preliminary analyses, descriptive statistics, and intercorrelations regression analyses discussion limitations and further directions conclusion and implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the author gestures, objects, and spaces: exploring teachers’ multimodal communication in nursery schools research reports gestures, objects, and spaces: exploring teachers’ multimodal communication in nursery schools ana moreno-núñez 1, marta casla 1 [1] departamento interfacultativo de psicología evolutiva y de la educación, universidad autónoma de madrid, madrid, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 received: 2023-06-30 • accepted: 2023-12-03 • published (vor): 2024-05-29 handling editor: nicolas alessandroni, concordia university, montreal, canada corresponding author: ana moreno-núñez, facultad de psicología, calle ivan pavlov 6, 28049 madrid, spain. e-mail: ana.moreno@uam.es related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 abstract this study builds on the increasing evidence that the multimodal nature of adult-child interactions and the use of objects play an important role in early linguistic development. most of these studies analyzed dyadic interactions at home, whereas few research has been conducted in early childhood education and care settings. in this paper, we characterized the multimodal nature of teachers’ communicative bids during classroom-based group interactions in nursery schools. observational data of circle-time activities was collected from 16 spanish nursery school classrooms, comprising 16 teachers and 161 children between two and three years of age. we analyzed teachers’ communicative bids (i.e., verbal utterances and verbal-gestural bids) considering the frequency of use of different types of gestures, to whom are they addressed (i.e., the whole group or a single child), the extent to which they involve the use of objects, the classroom layout, and the relationship between the communicative bids and the number of children that participated in each classroom. teachers’ communication with toddlers is highly multimodal and rely on different types of gestures, although the use of objects in our sample was scarce. descriptive analysis suggest that certain classroom layouts may favor teachers’ use of some types of gestures over others. in this article, we discuss the implications of both the use of objects and space for understanding how adults shape the linguistic contexts of young children, and the potential opportunities and limitations they pose for classroom interactions. keywords multimodality, circle time, early childhood education, gestures, materiality, space adults frequently interact with children according to organized and predictable instances that are built around materi­ ality (alessandroni, 2023), thus promoting relevant experiences and forms of behavior that are consistent with their cultural rules of use (kärtner, 2018). during the first years of life, children’s early experiences with the material world are co-constructed through joint actions with others, in which they acquire an increasingly active role (moreno-núñez et al., 2017). these material encounters are not limited, though, to the manipulative exploration of objects, but must be considered from a broader perspective that also accounts for the features of the context in which the interaction takes place, including the space and its organization. while both space and materiality refer to complex concepts that even partially overlap, in early childhood education studies space typically refers to the physical environment of nursery schools, while materiality is understood as the physical qualities of objects and elements of nature (løkken & moser, 2012). therefore, space, materiality and social interaction are entwined, as they all contribute to providing opportunities and limits for human interaction. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12291&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ while educational contexts, such as nursery schools, have proven to be an important niche for the development of basic communication and social interaction skills, their operationalization as part of the children’s early linguistic context is still limited. there is ample evidence of how early communicative interactions between mothers and infants shape their linguistic developmental trajectories. however, only a few studies describe the interactions that take place outside the home context. additionally, there is a clear imbalance in basic and applied research in favor of the 3to 6-year-old period, while studies on early childhood education (i.e., under three years of age) are significantly scarce. considering that early schooling is a reality for most western children, it is worth exploring its role in ensuring opportunities for infants’ participation with other adults and peers (pianta, 2016). depicting the educational reality of children should acknowledge how everyday communicative instances in the classroom unfold, for which ecological research may be particularly appropriate. to this goal, exploring how teachers’ pedagogical and communicative practices are geared through materiality would allow us to identify not only the resources they use and how they are structured, but also what kind of opportunities for participation they promote and what the factors that may influence them are (bautista et al., 2020). the interrelationships between the adult's action and the children's responses could contribute to our understanding of how these inhibit or promote children’s participation, meaning-making and learning experiences. hence, the overall purpose of our research is to investigate the relationship between materiality and teacher use of communicative behaviors (e.g., gestures) during group interactions in nursery school classrooms. language developmental contexts and early childhood education despite its voluntary nature, early access to schooling has increased in recent years due to new social and family realities. this has also been associated with a positive impact on children's development (garcía et al., 2020), e.g., in their social competence and engagement (degotardi, 2021), especially when the education they receive is of high quality. educational quality in early childhood education is usually assessed in terms of criteria such as a high level of teacher education and adequate resourcing for centers, that includes low adult-child ratios and small group sizes (vermeer et al., 2016). low-ratio settings have been typically associated with better opportunities for children to interact with adults, though a recent meta-analysis suggests that their effects on children’s developmental outcomes are the result of complex interactions between several variables, and that they might be compensated for larger ratio situations through, for instance, the teacher’s professional competence (dalgaard et al., 2022). in early childhood education, children's participation in their daily classroom routines has proven to be an educa­ tional tool with extraordinary potential for the acquisition of communicative competencies, as they get involved in their own educational process and the generation and development of interactive spaces (justice et al., 2018). over the last few decades, there has been a growth in research demonstrating the strong relationship between child-directed speech (cds) and early language development (rowe & snow, 2020). in a similar way to mothers, teachers adjust the amount and complexity of their cds according to the age and diverse linguistic abilities of a varied group children (cárdenas et al., 2020; degotardi, 2021; justice et al., 2018). indeed, recent research has stressed that each child’s particular linguistic experience at school may also quantitatively and qualitatively differ from that of their peers (perry et al., 2018), even within the same group (chaparro-moreno et al., 2019). this dynamic nature of teachers’ speech also accounts for the distribution of their talk according to structural factors such as the classroom ratio (degotardi et al., 2018) or whether the interactions take place during structured activities (soderstrom & wittebolle, 2013) such as circle time or shared reading. in fact, while children’s linguistic participation during these group activities does not exceed 16% of the time (torr, 2019), they seem to contain higher concentrations of adults’ talk, as compared to other everyday school routines. thus, interactive activities could lead to a more homogeneous experience for each child (chaparro-moreno et al., 2019), although the child’s linguistic growth could also be influenced by the group size and the language skills of his or her peers (degotardi, 2021). in addition to interactive group activities, the use of objects and spaces to convey communicative behaviors in early childhood is a powerful and effective pedagogical strategy, with the potential to help children to engage in collective communicative interactions with peers and adults. regardless of who initiates the interactions, the way in which teachers guide the course of the dialogues provides of structure to everyday conversations and encourage teacher multimodal communication in nursery school 130 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ children to make relationships with other ideas. however, the scarce knowledge about how children's linguistic context is shaped outside home settings (degotardi, 2021) requires further exploration and should focus on how and under what circumstances the exchanges with other people and the material world unfold. materiality and multimodality in the promotion of interaction the term materiality has been increasingly used when explaining the impact of things on human experience, actions, and communication. however, its complex nature brings the study of material and organizational structures of the early childhood classroom at the center of a multidisciplinary juncture that includes areas such as architecture, geography, and social and educational sciences (løkken & moser, 2012). this has broadened the focus on materiality by not only examining the use of objects and artifacts or their physical qualities, but also other elements such as the physical characteristics of the school context (for example, how the classrooms look, or the furniture and outdoor spaces available) and their spatial organization. accordingly, ideas on materiality and spaces can therefore be seen as being constituted through the interaction between educators and children, situated within the educational and organizational framework of the activities in which they all participate. importantly, material characteristics determine, to a greater or lesser extent, the possibilities of experimentation and participation of children and adults on the sensorimotor experience and the process of co-construction of meanings. given the importance of the material environment, it seems relevant to explore the role that materiality and spaces play in the educational practice of early childhood teachers, as this allows for a deeper knowledge about daily experien­ ces in the classroom. although even widespread pedagogical models, such as those based on the montessori philosophy, emphasize the importance of the material and structural context in children’s development, there are relatively few studies that empirically explore its educational relevance and how it is articulated in the child's everyday classroom routines. we believe that studying the impact of these factors requires adopting a complex exploratory approach based on participation as a tool for social construction (berge, 2019). in this sense, the different practices that take place in the school could help us to understand the foundations, materials and strategies on which educators rely to enhance interaction and communication in the school. we should also note that increasing evidence supports multimodality as a key feature of the early communication system (perniss, 2018). the coordination of multimodal actions has been shown to be an important interaction tool for both adults (rowe & goldin-meadow, 2009) and children (wu & gros-louis, 2014). in particular, mother-child inter­ actions have largely informed the literature on communicative multimodality (suanda et al., 2016), showing how verbal and gestural-coordinated utterances occupy an important place in facilitating and shaping children's communicative developmental trajectories (rodrigo et al., 2006; rowe & goldin-meadow, 2009; tamis-lemonda et al., 2012). moreover, adults’ gestures directed to children are usually accompanied by verbal utterances and rarely occur alone (iverson et al., 1999). their frequent use of verbal-gestural bids also seems to drive children's multimodal behaviors (rodrigo et al., 2006), as well as having a predictive value in their subsequent language skills (rowe & goldin-meadow, 2009; tamis-lemonda et al., 2012). even though this is a widely observed trend, some studies highlight certain differences in adults' use of gestures that, consequently, indicate the diversity of linguistic contexts to which children are exposed. on the one hand, cultural factors underlying parenting practices could explain some of these differences since, for instance, latino mothers tend to use more gestures when interacting with their children than mothers from african-american backgrounds (tamis-lemonda et al., 2012). on the other hand, the use of gestures may vary according to their type and whether or not they involve the use of objects. more specifically, deictic gestures, especially pointing, tend to be the most frequent gestures in mothers (tamis-lemonda et al., 2012) and, together with instrumental gestures, are significantly more frequently used to interact with their children at 12, 24 and 36 months than symbolic and social gestures (rodrigo et al., 2006). however, since most of these studies have focused on mother-child interactions, their potential similarities and differences with children's linguistic experiences in school settings remains underexplored. one exception is the study conducted by white et al. (2015), showing that teachers’ use of gestures elicited more children’s responses than solely verbal utterances. although this study did not distinguish among the types of gestures, teachers may use gestures moreno-núñez & casla 131 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ differently to accompany their verbal utterances in order to convey diverse meanings adjusted to the characteristics of materiality. although variables such as classroom ratios, child age, and teacher professional development have been identified as some of those that might correlate with teacher language (degotardi et al., 2018), there are still many unanswered questions about the language environment to which young children are exposed. for instance, it is important to analyze the extent to which objects are part of those interchanges, as well as within-group (chaparro-moreno et al., 2019) and between-group variations (hindman et al., 2021) in the linguistic experiences of the children. the role of space in the use of different communicative behaviors is especially interesting in nursery schools, where teachers simultaneously interact with children whose linguistic abilities usually differ. for example, structured activities such as circle time might bring good examples of how teachers shape a meaningful learning space for every child, ensuring the provision of opportunities for communicative and social participation. to the best of our knowledge, research with observational studies focused on the school linguistic environment of non-english-speaking countries is very scarce (degotardi, 2021). the potential variations in the interactions analyzed here could cast light on the role of teachers’ speech in early linguistic development. aims the overall purpose of our research was to explore the characteristics of teachers’ communicative bids during class­ room-based group interactions in nursery schools. to this goal, we explored the quantitative and qualitative variations of teachers’ multimodal coordination based on (1) the frequency of use of gestures and their different types, (2) the extent to which they involve the use of objects and are related to the classroom layout, (3) to whom each communicative bid was addressed (i.e., the whole group or a single child) and, (4) its relations with the teacher-student ratio. we expected the number of children in the classroom could be related to the multimodal nature of teachers’ communicative bids, the use of objects and the frequency of group-directed utterances. we also expected specific configurations of gestures, the use of objects and the classroom layout to be coordinated with the verbal utterances directed to the children. in particular, we considered that some classroom layouts might favor greater opportunities for group-directed communicative bids, while other layouts might be more inviting to address children in one-to-one interactions. method participants this study involved 16 female teachers in charge of 16 classrooms across six public nursery schools in middle-income urban areas of the madrid region (spain) and 161 children attending the 2–3 years classrooms. nursery schools were selected from an intentional sampling based on previous contacts of the research team. children’s mean age was 29.33 months (sd = 3.9 months). the number of children per classroom ranged from six to 15 (m = 10.06). procedure prior to data collection, two researchers conducted a participatory observation in each classroom to familiarize the children with them and the recording equipment. they took field notes on the way teachers conducted circle time activities that, in spanish nursery schools, are considered as a daily opportunity for promoting communication and group bonding. they are similarly structured in different nursery schools, typically including rounds of presentations, singing, storytelling and/or book-reading, which ensured that all sessions were comparable. circle time activities were selected because, as structured routines, they account for higher proportions of cds and could promote more homogeneous and frequent interactions between children and teachers than other school activities (chaparro-moreno et al., 2019; soderstrom et al., 2018). after the initial observation, the researchers filmed activities by placing two video cameras attached to a tripod, one oriented towards the group of children and the other to the teacher, who also wore a wireless microphone. this ensured that the recording angle and sound allowed for the subsequent identification of their actions. teachers did not receive teacher multimodal communication in nursery school 132 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ any instructions on how to act so as to preserve the ecological conditions of interaction. overall, we collected over 4 hours of footage in videos with a mean duration of 18.13 min (sd = 6.62 min). data coding video files were imported into elan, an annotation tool for audio and video recordings (lausberg & sloetjes, 2009), where we coded teachers’ communicative bids (i.e. each verbal or gestural attempt to communicate with the children). teachers’ verbal speech was transcribed according to the chat program of the childes project (macwhinney, 2000), and divided into utterances. following bernstein ratner and brundage (2015), an utterance or conversational unit is a string of words that ends with a terminal intonation contour, has a complete grammatical structure, or is followed by a pause longer than 2 seconds. we also coded teachers’ communicative bids using predefined categories devised from previous studies (murillo et al., 2018; rodrigo et al., 2006). a detailed list of the categories, subcategories, and related examples can be found in table 1. this included the type of communicative bids, the uses of object and the types of gestures. additionally, we coded interactive instances according to whether the utterances were addressed to a single child (dyadic) or to the group (polyadic), and also accounted for structural variables such as the classroom layout and the number of children in the classroom. a second researcher independently coded 15% of the recordings (3 out of 16 sessions). inter-observer agreement ranged from 89% to 99%, indicating a substantial or almost perfect degree of agreement between coders for the use of gestures (89%), the orientation of the communicative bid (89%), and the use of objects (99%). disagreements between the researchers were discussed to refine the categories for future studies. data analysis data wrangling and the calculation of descriptive statistics were performed using spss. we analyzed each type of teachers’ utterances by calculating (1) the mean proportion of each type of communicative bid over the total number of communicative bids, and (2) the mean rate per minute (rate/min) of each type of communicative bid. while proportions allow for a general picture of the distribution of each type of bid, their rate/min was considered a better measure due to the different length of the video files. furthermore, since this dependent variable ensures the independence principle, it was used for comparing the three types of communicative bid (verbal, gestural or a combination of both) through a repeated-measures anova where each type was considered as an intrasubject factor. the same procedure was utilized to explore the distribution of uses of object, of each type of gesture, and whether the utterances were directed to the group or to a single child. in addition, we used pearson correlations for exploring the relationship between teachers’ uses of object and the different types of gestures, as well as with the number of children that were present in each classroom. moreno-núñez & casla 133 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 teachers’ behavioral categories used in this study category / subcategory example type of communicative bid verbal: verbal utterances of the teacher. posing a question to the group such as “what is the weather like today?” gestural: gestures performed by the teacher. putting her hand on her head in a gesture of surprise, in response to a child that told her about something that happened to him the day before. verbal-gestural: combined bids of speech and gesture. greeting each child by saying “hello!” while waving her hand. uses of object with object: utterances performed while holding an object and in reference to it. showing an object to present it to the group or pointing to a character in a book while shared-reading. without object: unrelated utterances to an object. during shared-reading, posing verbal utterances referring to tangentially related topics that were not explicitly pictured in the book. type of gestures: any meaning-loaded motor actions used to communicate with others about a referent or event. pointing: gestures that indicate a distal referent. we considered as pointing all gestures performed either with an index finger extension, the whole arm, a head movement or pointing with the chin. pointing to her ear and saying to the group "let's listen to her, please", referring to a girl who is intervening at that moment. instrumental: gestures performed either to show the object to the interlocutor, to request an object that is out of reach or to transfer the object to someone else. following rodrigo et al., (2006) this includes showing, reaching, and giving gestures. showing to the children a picture book she chose and seeking their approval before starting to read it. rhythmic: speech-accompanying gestures that emphasize the rate of language. they generally are harmonic repetitions of the speech utterance. clapping to the beat of a song while the children dance around. conventional: gestures and social routines that are culturally defined. nodding to express agreement or waving to say goodbye. symbolic: gestures that represent absent referents or actions. they have a motivate relationship with what they represent. with the arms extended, clapping the hands in front of the body in representation of a crocodile’s jaws. orientation of the communicative bid dyadic: utterances directed to a single child. asking a specific child “who woke you up today?”. polyadic: utterances directed to the group. they were defined as polyadic if: a) the content of the speech was clearly directed to the group, b) there were vocatives or second person forms in plural, c) teachers’ gaze was directed to the group, and/or d) teachers’ actions referred to the group. while looking for a book that she wanted to use, the teacher asked the children “where's the one about walking down the road, kids?”. classroom layout circle: all children and the teacher were sitting in circle. line: the teacher sat in front of the children, who were sitting in line. l-shape: the teacher was sitting in front of the children, who sat forming an l. undefined: all children and the teacher sat anywhere in the space, not following a specific order. note. for classroom layout examples, we used a dark dot to represent the teacher spatial disposition, while the children are represented in grey color dots. teacher multimodal communication in nursery school 134 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results across all 16 classrooms, teachers performed 6,575 communicative bids. the most frequent were verbal utterances (n = 3,486, 53.0%), followed by verbal-gestural bids (n = 2,911, 44.3%) and gestures (n = 178, 2.7%). this same distribution applies to their rate/min proportion (table 2). we found a significant effect of the type of communicative bid, f(2,14) = 344.388, p < .001, ƞ2 = .980. pairwise comparisons based on the bonferroni procedure show that there are no significant differences between verbal and verbal-gestural utterances, and that the rate of gestural communicative bids is significantly lower than verbal-gestural (p < .001) and verbal productions (p < .001). it is worth noting that most teachers’ gesture production did not involve the use of objects, which was only observed in a small portion of the behaviors (n = 756, 11.5%). table 2 descriptive statistics for teachers’ behaviors behavior frequency rate/min (m) rate/min (sd) type of bid verbal 3486 12.20 2.95 gestural 178 0.62 0.33 verbal-gestural 2911 10.62 1.98 uses of object with object 756 2.14 2.57 without object 5819 9.88 5.14 gestures pointing 637 2.27 0.69 instrumental 340 1.73 1.67 rhythmic 262 1.03 0.67 conventional 1190 4.58 2.23 symbolic 660 2.39 1.41 orientation dyadic 1148 4.02 1.75 polyadic 1941 0.63 0.18 classroom layout circle 10 n/a n/a line 1 n/a n/a l-shape 4 n/a n/a undefined 1 n/a n/a teachers performed unequal numbers of each type of gesture. of the 3,089 total gestures observed (which include both solely produced gestures and verbal-gestural bids), 1,190 were conventional gestures (38.5%), 660 symbolic gestures (21.4%), 637 pointing gestures (20.6%), 340 instrumental gestures (11.0%) and 262 were rhythmic gestures (8.5%). we found a significant effect of the type of gesture, f(4,12) = 14.959, p < .001, ƞ2 = .833. conventional gestures were more frequent than all other types of gestures, with significant differences with pointing (p = .014) and rhythmic gestures (p < .001). we also found that the differences between conventional and instrumental gestures were marginally significant (p = .053), while there was no significance between conventional gestures and the production of symbolic gestures (p = .065). teachers’ use of rhythmic gestures was the least frequent, showing significant differences with pointing (p < .001) and symbolic gestures (p = .033). interestingly, our data showed that, overall, most bids including gestures were directed to the group (n = 1,941, 62.8%), while only around a third of the total gesture production were addressed to a single child (n = 1,148, 37.2%). moreover, the rate/min of dyadic and polyadic gestures significantly differ, f(1,15) = 49.733, p < .001, ƞ2 = .768. regarding moreno-núñez & casla 135 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the distribution of each type of gesture, we found a similar trend in gestures addressed to the group and to single children (figure 1), as evidenced by the effect of the type of gestures with both dyadic, f(4,12) = 18.268, p < .001, ƞ2 = .859, and polyadic instances, f(4,12) = 5.061, p = .013, ƞ2 = .628. this probably results from the higher frequency observed in the production of conventional gestures. however, certain types of gestures were more frequent in polyadic than in dyadic interchanges, as observed for rhythmic, f(1,15) = 26.437, p < .001, ƞ2 = .638, and symbolic gestures, f(1,15) = 33.284, p < .001, ƞ2 = .689. figure 1 distribution of each type of gesture according to the orientation of the communicative bids (dyadic vs. polyadic) in order to analyze the relationship between classroom ratios, the type of gesture and the use of objects while gesturing, we ran a series of pearson bivariate correlations based on the rate/min of each type of gesture and the number of children that were enrolled in each classroom. we found negative and significant correlations between conventional gesture rate/min and the number of children in the classroom, r(16) = -.547, p = .028. also, similar results arise from the relationship between gestures and the use of objects, r(16) = -.551, p = .027. finally, in order to explore the relationship between the classroom layout and the type of interaction strategies that teachers promote, we classified each participating classroom according to the participants’ layout (circle, n = 10; lines, n = 1; l-shape, n = 4; undefined, n = 1). our results showed that the use of verbal-gestural communicative bids is similar across all classrooms, except for the classroom with an undefined layout, where the teacher used more verbal utterances (figure 2). furthermore, teachers posed unequal uses of gestures with objects, which were very rare when children were sitting in a circle or an l-shape distribution. the distribution of gestures directed to the group and to a single child also differed. dyadic gestures were more frequent in classrooms where children were arranged in lines or in an l-shape. note that the classrooms in which children were interacting in a circle or in an undefined layout were the ones that showed the most similar pattern of those observed in the full sample. however, distribution patterns of each type of gesture varied across classroom layouts. while, as shown before, the full sample showed a greater proportion of conventional gestures, we found that this was only observed in those classrooms where children were sitting in a circle or l-shape. in turn, instrumental gestures were more frequent in lineal and undefined layouts where, in fact, this comprised more than 60% of the teachers’ gesture production. teacher multimodal communication in nursery school 136 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 proportion of each type of gesture according to the classroom layout we observed very low frequencies of some types of gestures in some classrooms, that might be related to the spatial organization of the children. for instance, instrumental gestures were the least frequent in l-shaped classrooms, and there was a small representation of pointing gestures in classrooms that were organized in a line or according to an undefined layout (less than 8%). the use of rhythmic gestures was typically low in all classrooms. discussion and conclusions the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between materiality and teachers’ communicative strategies during group interactions in nursery schools with twoto three-year-old children. our findings show that half of the teachers’ communicative bids during group interactions include the use of gestures, so combined verbal-gestural utterances are more frequent than solely verbal utterances. this is interesting since previous research based on dyadic interactions in home settings showed that only 20% of mothers’ communicative bids include gestures (casla et al., 2022; iverson et al., 1999). while adults’ combination of gestures and verbal utterances has been typically seen as an attention getter tool or to direct the child’s action (iverson et al., 1999; schaffer et al., 1983; tamis-lemonda et al., 2012), it seems that teachers use of these strategies during group interactions ensures an equal distribution of their messages among all children. additionally, how adults arrange the space and materiality for one-to-one interactions considerably differs from those situations in which a single adult must address her speech to a group of children. therefore, the specific nature of the relationship between materiality and group interactions in early childhood education contexts needs to be explored. moreno-núñez & casla 137 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, we found dissimilar distributions in teacher gesture types, with conventional gestures being more frequent than other types of gestures, such as pointing or instrumental gestures. previous studies examining mother-child interactions found that pointing gestures were, by far, the most frequent gestures used by mothers (tamis-lemonda et al., 2012). in a similar way, mothers use pointing to regulate the child’s attention at 18 months and they are associated with the regulation of the child’s action at 21 months of age (schmidt, 1996). moreover, instrumental gestures are also highly frequent in children aged 24 and 36 months (rodrigo et al., 2006). surprisingly, neither pointing nor instrumental gestures were the most frequently observed in our data, which could partially explain why the proportion of gestures with objects was significantly lower than those of gestures without objects. while instrumental gestures usually involve transferring an object from the hands of one communicative partner to another, circle time activities in our sample were not typically object-centered. instead, these activities are usually devoted to conversational group interchanges or to the participation of all children and teachers in rhymes, routines and songs. this may need more attention-getting strategies, such as conventional gestures, than action regulation. in this sense, conducting longitudinal studies and ensuring a diverse sample in terms of type of providers, ses background and children ages could shed light on whether the use of objects is typically scarce in this type of group interactions, or whether it varies according to different contexts and/or moments over the early years’ education (hansen, 2018). as normalized forms of conveying information, conventional gestures are more easily addressed to the whole group. indeed, the negative correlation between both the use of conventional and instrumental gestures and the number of children suggests that gestures with objects might be more frequent in smaller group interactions, as they allow for greater individual participation (degotardi, 2021). also, the fact that the use of objects was very infrequent in approximately 40% of the classrooms in our study does not necessarily mean that educators in these classrooms neglect the importance of materiality. perhaps they simply did not use objects during circle time on that particular day, which could be due to a variety of reasons (e.g., because the children’s conversation was fluent enough not to require extra material support, or because they tend to use objects in different routines/moments). follow-up studies should investigate the reasons behind limited use of objects in certain classrooms and if it could be associated with structural factors. moreover, we found dissimilar distributions in teacher gesture type used for addressing the group or a single child during circle time interactions. although, as mentioned before, conventional gestures were the most frequent in both ca­ ses, it is interesting that symbolic and rhythmic gestures, specific to songs and rhymes, were more frequently addressed to the group than to individual children. the differences between dyadic and polyadic gestures highlight the importance of considering the specific classroom layout during interactions, as they may promote diverse communicative behaviors from children (løkken & moser, 2012). thus, it could be interesting to investigate if, while engaging many children in the interactions, teachers are aligned with specific features of quality teacher-child interactions (pianta, 2016), such as encouraging children to brainstorm their own ideas, acknowledging their interventions by repeating or rephrasing their responses (casla et al., 2022), and providing positive and encouraging feedback. even when the overall proportion of conventional gestures was very high, we observed how the specific proportion of each type of gesture differed across the various classroom layouts. particularly, when children were sitting in lines or moving around the classroom (i.e., in an undefined layout), teachers seem to promote more one-to-one exchanges than in other spatial distributions. considering that, in essence, these two layouts are quite different from each other, we should delve deeper into the reasons that could underlie these similarities. first, lineal layouts do not facilitate peer interaction as children cannot see most of their classmates, and thus interaction and attention became teacher-centered. conversely, in undefined layouts children often stood up to get close to the teacher, showing her objects or trying to get her attention (e.g., poking her shoulder), which resulted in increased child-teacher direct interactions. also, the use of instrumental gestures reached 60% in both lineal and undefined layouts, thus reaching a similar proportion to that observed in dyadic interactions at home (rodrigo et al., 2006). while classroom group interactions are evidently not fully comparable with mother-child dyadic interaction because, for instance, in the classroom children also share interactions with their peers, our results indicate that circle time could be a rich interactive environment if it also includes one-to-one interchanges of objects and speech (zahavi, 2021, 2022). though our goal was not to make generalizable claims about the educators’ speech in the early years, this study is the first step to depict the specific relationships between materiality and multimodal communication beyond motherteacher multimodal communication in nursery school 138 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://www.psychopen.eu/ child dyadic interaction. further research should increase the sample size and its diversity to yield more representative results. in particular, while most classrooms conduct circle time activities and have a reasonable variety of materials available, we need to know whether they are also accessible for children, i.e., if they are given opportunities for explo­ ration and free-choice (bautista et al., 2020). limited accessibility to certain spaces and/or certain resources/materials without the supervision of the educator could lead to substantial differences in the type of interaction that is promoted in the classroom. moreover, future studies should analyze children’s responses to the communicative bids that teachers use (cremin et al., 2017) and explore similarities and differences across the various classroom layouts. this could potentially raise awareness for early childhood practitioners about the importance of enacting more constructive forms of interactions with a group of young children. likewise, the scientific research on early childhood education could be enriched by adopting a longitudinal perspective that, in turn, would inform the analysis of adult mediation in early child development and its role in fostering opportunities for children’s participation. this would allow for a comprehensive analysis of the origin and changing nature of the communicative exchanges between educators, toddlers and materiality, as well as the importance of spaces in promoting or restricting certain classroom interactions. while circle time may include various types of activities (e.g. presentations, book reading, storytelling, singing), its relationship with the nature of communicative behaviors is still underexplored. as such, mapping the frequency and proportion of time dedicated to each of those activities may contribute to better depicting how circle time interactions unfold. all in all, our results show that teachers’ communication with toddlers is highly multimodal and could be shaped according to the interactive opportunities and limitations that the classroom layout offers. even when circle time is defined as a group activity that promotes linguistic socialization (poveda, 2003) and that fosters opportunities for conversational interchanges and the production of linguistic utterances (chaparro-moreno et al., 2019), we need to know better how they are mediated by the material and spatial organization. despite the limitations of this study, results suggest that there is a manifest distinction between dyadic interactions at home and group (polyadic) interactions in the nursery school context, including differences in the use of objects and space. these differences should be further explored to understand the role of other factors (such as the school context, the children ages, or the nature of the observed activities) in the opportunities and limitations that teachers may foster through their interactive proposals. it is worth noting that most research on circle time interactions has been conducted in kindergartens with children over three years of age. therefore, this study is significant because it also enriches the limited classroom-based research literature with younger children by providing new data on classroom interactions from a non-english-speaking country. our study proposes exploring a topic with educational and psychological interest for early infancy, given that group classroom activities have demonstrated a wide potential to actively involve children and encourage their participation in social interactions. funding: this research was supported by project pid2019-108845ga-i00/aei/10.13039/501100011033 and project pid2021-123907nb-i00, both co-funded by the state 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(2022). individuality and community: the limits of social constructivism. ethos: journal of the society for psychological anthropology, 50(4), 392–409. https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12364 about the authors ana moreno-núñez is associate professor in the department of developmental and educational psychology, uam. she leads the research group “musical dynamics and early triadic interactions” (musicaleti), where she investigates early cognitive and communicative development and, in particular, infants' engagement in interactions around materiality under the mediation of adults. moreno-núñez & casla 141 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 129–142 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12291 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01109 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199893 https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732215622457 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0898-5898(03)00007-x https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.412 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00764.x https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000919000655 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900007807 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900008801 https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723718785013 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0080646 https://doi.org/10.1080/87565641.2016.1256403 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01136.x https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00948-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-015-0154-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.10.008 https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723714521925 https://doi.org/10.1515/jso-2020-0076 https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12364 https://www.psychopen.eu/ marta casla is professor in the department of developmental and educational psychology, uam. she is interested in early linguistic development from a multimodal point of view, also considering the role of adults and group interactions in educational contexts. she has participated in different studies using both experimental and qualitative methods, and naturalistic data. teacher multimodal communication in nursery school 142 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ teacher multimodal communication in nursery school (introduction) language developmental contexts and early childhood education materiality and multimodality in the promotion of interaction aims method participants procedure data coding data analysis results discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors authentic leadership and its relationship with job satisfaction: the mediator role of organizational dehumanization research reports authentic leadership and its relationship with job satisfaction: the mediator role of organizational dehumanization matías arriagada-venegas 1, eva ariño-mateo 2, raúl ramírez-vielma 1, gabriela nazar-carter 1, david pérez-jorge 3 [1] universidad de concepción, concepción, chile. [2] universidad europea de valencia, valència, spain. [3] universidad de la laguna, san cristóbal de la laguna, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 received: 2021-02-10 • accepted: 2021-09-21 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia corresponding author: eva ariño-mateo, universidad europea de valencia, passeig de l'albereda, 7, 46010 valència, spain. abstract the objective of this research was to examine the mediating role that organizational dehumanization plays between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. the study was carried out with a sample of 422 participants, 50.7% were men and 49.3% women, with an average age of 38.96 years. the workers belong to different public and private organizations in chile, and they responded to instruments of sociodemographic characterization, employment history and the scales of organizational dehumanization, authentic leadership, and job satisfaction. data analysis included descriptive, correlational, and mediation analyses. the results allow us to maintain the hypothesis that organizational dehumanization plays a mediator role in the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. implications of these findings are discussed. keywords authentic leadership, job satisfaction, organizational dehumanization, emotions, mechanistic dehumanization in the 1936 film starring charles chaplin, modern times, the conditions of workers in the industry were satirically described. the worker has no name, is known as "the factory worker" and tightens bolts on an assembly line in a highly automatized factory. like his co-workers, all his actions are repetitive and mechanical. every human movement depends on the machine and the slightest distraction interrupts the entire production cycle. in one of the movie's most famous scenes, the worker moves slowly on the assembly line and is sucked under the gears of the machine, metaphorically becoming another part of the machine. similarly, various economists and philosophers have reflected on this phenomenon. fromm (1974) states that workers become "specialized tools", which are judged based on their efficiency and productivity, while their human qualities are devalued. this perspective is called organizational dehumanization, and it is understood as the experience that employees have when they are objectified, their personal subjectivity is denied, and it is perceived as a tool or instrument for the purposes of the organization (bell & khoury, 2011). the most common form of dehumanization within an organization refers to both intentional mistreatment and abuse of workers, and involuntary disregard for their well-being (bell & khoury, 2016). over the last decades, the interest in studying the way in which workers perceive the relationship with their organization has grown, and one of the resulting lines of research has been dehumanization field applied to work environments (bell & khoury, 2011, 2016; caesens et al., 2017; christoff, 2014). dehumanization has been described as this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6125&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ a frequent experience (for workers) in modern organizational contexts (christoff, 2014), but more research is needed on this phenomenon and its consequences at workers and the organizational level. this research adds to the study of this phenomenon and seeks to increase the scarce knowledge of organizational de­ humanization at the workplace and its relationship with other organizational variables, specifically authentic leadership and job satisfaction. authentic leadership is a type of worker-focused leadership (walumbwa et al., 2008) that defends the ethical base of both leaders and organizations and there is evidence about its positive effects for workers and organizations (gardner et al., 2005). therefore, it is interesting to study how the lack of authentic leadership can generate higher levels of organ­ izational dehumanization. in general, authentic leadership has been studied with positive variables in organizational environments (valsania et al., 2012; wang et al., 2021). likewise, the variable job satisfaction was analysed, because occupies a central place in the experience of people at work and is related to performance and organizational strategies (böckerman & ilmakunnas, 2012). theoretical background and hypotheses dehumanization the beginnings of the theory of dehumanization start with kelman (1973) and staub (1989) who examined this phenomenon from the context of mass violence. likewise, opotow (1990) analysed dehumanization as one of the several forms of moral exclusion in which people were placed out from where moral values, rules and considerations of justice are applied. from these authors, dehumanization has been analysed, from the infrahumanization theory, proposed by leyens et al. (2001) and the dual model of dehumanization of haslam (2006). the infrahumanization theory was born from a team of psychologists in belgium and spain who started the study of processes related to dehumanization from the anthropological assumptions that ethnic groups often reserve the "human essence" for themselves. leyens et al. (2001) theorized that this form of ethnocentrism could be a generalized phenomenon and created the theory of infrahumanization stating that people tend to perceive the outgroup as less human than the ingroup or, which means, to attribute fewer secondary emotions to members of the outgroup compared to the ingroup. the different attributions of emotions distinguish between humans and animals, as animals can just perceive primary emotion as joy, but no secondary, as happiness, because it requires more cognitive development, characteristic of humans. furthermore, haslam (2006), took a step forward and proposed that human singularity, as the distinction between humans and animals is just one more way to dehumanize. the author adds that people can also dehumanize others by perceiving them as inanimate objects, such as robots or objects. haslam has remarked two central aspects that define the human condition: exclusively human traits (human uniqueness; hu), which differentiate the exclusively human characteristics from animal´s (cognitive ability, civility and refinement), and human nature (human nature; hn), which integrates typical characteristics of human beings’ behaviour such as emotionality, vitality and warmth. exclusively human traits require greater cognitive maturity, appear later in time, and differ across cultures, while those that embody human nature are essential, universal, and emotionally related. these two sets of characteristics differentiate humans from animals and robots, respectively, and have been investigated in various contexts and cultures (haslam et al., 2005; haslam et al., 2008; haslam & loughnan, 2014). from a labour point of view, dehumanization in organizations refers to the denial or diminished attribution of humanity to workers or leaders, who can be considered or metaphorized as objects. there are several studies that have analysed the consequences of dehumanization, to highlight bell and khoury (2011), who affirm that dehumanization is a negative experience that affects the individual and can cause dissociation from the organization. likewise, christoff (2014), states that dehumanization can harm the well-being of the workers since it increases the level of anxiety or de­ pression and reduces the need for competition and interaction among the workers. additionally, baldissarri et al. (2014), found that workers who felt being perceived as an instrument by their supervisor reported higher levels of burnout. organizational justice and intrinsic characteristics of work design such as repetition of movements, fragmentation of activities and dependency also promote the perception of organizational dehumanization in workers (andrighetto et al., 2017; bell & khoury, 2016). arriagada-venegas, ariño-mateo, ramírez-vielma et al. 451 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dehumanization not only has negative consequences, but it can also have certain benefits. in the workplace, some subtle forms of dehumanization have been perceived positively, for example, managers and coordinators who act empathetically and coldly toward workers have been shown to make better decisions from the organization's point of view (christoff, 2014). furthermore, dehumanizing is considered beneficial for effective performance in the health sector. specifically, it has been shown that when doctors need to inflict pain on their patients derived from some treatments or diagnostic tests, it is useful to dehumanize them, and in this way, a psychological distance is maintained (haque & waytz, 2012; lammers & stapel, 2011). beyond the medical context, dehumanization has been shown to help people in positions of power to establish a personal distance from others and make rational decisions, even if they cause harm to other people (christoff, 2014). dehumanization also has consequences for people who suffer from it. people who are mechanically dehumanized are considered objects, that is, beings lacking the ability to have emotions. these people tend to enter "cognitive deconstructive" states that are characterized by less clarity of thought, emotional numbness, and cognitive inflexibility. being dehumanized leads to widespread emotions of sadness, anger, guilt, and shame (bastian & haslam, 2011). it has been shown that when a person is dehumanized, the status of this person is reduced and attitudes of condescension and degradation towards this person are maintained, as this person is perceived as incompetent and unsophisticated (vohs et al., 2007). in this regard, bastian and haslam (2011) demonstrated that social ostracism increases the perception of mechanistic dehumanization, mainly because having no emotions leads to seeing oneself as an object, emotionally inert, cold and rigid, and to entering cognitive deconstructive states (haslam et al., 2005; twenge et al., 2003). another study indicates that there is a relationship between dehumanization and the organization's ethical climate. within organizations, a certain ethical climate is generated, especially driven by management and leader styles, either by action or omission, and from this fact, workers can perceive types of abuse or dehumanizing behaviours (wiener et al., 2014). väyrynen and laari-salmela (2018), point out the importance of the ethical climate in the organization and affirm that when the organization does not show respect and dignity to its workers, they perceive that they cannot trust the organization. in this way, the perception of respect for humanity and dignity creates the necessary environment for trust to exist and for an ethical organizational climate to be produced, and all of this has consequences on the results of work, in terms of performance and quality of work, as well as the reduction of confidence (väyrynen & laari-salmela, 2018) and the commitment of workers towards their leader or organization (martin & cullen, 2006). recently, caesens et al. (2017), demonstrated that dehumanization plays a mediating role between the organization's perception of support and worker satisfaction. authentic leadership and organizational dehumanization authentic leadership dates back to the early 2000s along with luthans and avolio (2003) but took precedence in academ­ ia in the 2008 subprime crisis, which caused economic and social instability around the world. this scenario raised a question mark for the so-called “transformational” leaders, who, while showing positive results through behaviors based on charisma, inspiration and individual stimulation, act to achieve their personal interests. instead, authentic leadership, apart from these characteristics, focuses on how ethics should shape the behaviour of leaders (gil et al., 2011; simola et al., 2010). authentic leadership is a multidimensional model (walumbwa et al., 2008) that includes; (a) the leader's self-aware­ ness (strengths, ways of improvement and own motivations of the leader; kernis, 2003), (b) relational transparency (leaders openly share information and encourage their collaborators to do the same; avolio & gardner, 2005; gardner et al., 2005), (c) internalized moral perspective (capacity regulation; ryan & deci, 2003) and (4) balanced processing (ability to objectively analyze information; gardner et al., 2005). these dimensions were measured by the authentic leadership questionnaire (alq; walumbwa et al., 2008). there is evidence of the positive influence of authentic leadership in the organization. research has shown the bene­ fits of authentic leadership in the processes of social identification of workers, specifically with their organization and with their workgroup (gardner et al., 2005; ilies et al., 2005; wong et al., 2010). this is due to relational transparency, since relations with workers are based on sincerity and honesty and involves an active process of opening and develop­ ing intimacy and trust with followers (goldman & kernis, 2002). in this sense, caesens et al. (2017) demonstrate that there is a relationship between the perception of support by the organization and the perception of dehumanization, and authentic leadership and job satisfaction 452 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the fact that the worker does not perceive supported by his company is the preamble to organizational dehumanization. in the same way, eisenberger et al. (2002) state that immediate supervisors influence the organization's perception of support in general, thus, leadership, and specifically authentic leadership, could explain the employee's perception of being excluded/included by the organization. furthermore, the experience or position of power has been shown to influence dehumanization, since powerful people tend to be psychologically more closed than others and maintain a greater interpersonal distance from others (anderson et al., 2003; lee & tiedens, 2001). instead, the authentic leader is committed to a closer and more trustworthy relationship with followers, which is why a decrease in the perceptions of being seen as an object by the worker could be expected (lammers & stapel, 2011; walumbwa et al., 2008). on the other hand, renger et al. (2016) have stated that organizational justice, understood as those perceptions that workers have about what is fair in the organizational environment, can help employees to protect themselves from dehumanization. these authors demonstrated that a high (dis)respect towards the worker, understood as the (in) equality received towards the members of the group, enhances the perception of being treated as a (non) human being. this is because organizational justice is related to the need to be recognized as an individual who adds value to the organization or the work team. recent studies have shown the positive relationship between the perception of organizational justice and authentic leadership, showing that organizational justice works as a mediating variable when analysed with group identification and commitment to the supervisor (emuwa, 2013; garcía-guiu et al., 2015). a good leadership style and a pleasant work environment have been shown to help employees meet their funda­ mental needs, such as the need for belonging, relationship or respect (bell & khoury, 2016). thus, given the above arguments, it is stated: h1: authentic leadership is negatively related to the perception of organizational dehumanization. organizational dehumanization and job satisfaction building on haslam's (2006) mechanistic dehumanization, several researchers have suggested that the experience of perceiving dehumanized is detrimental to the psychological well-being of individuals (bastian & haslam, 2011; christoff, 2014). along the same lines, shore and coyle-shapiro (2012), indicated that working in an organization that is destructive and degrading for workers increases their perception of relational devaluation, injustice, and frustration because of the impossibility of meeting their basic needs (self-esteem or belonging). in addition, it negatively influences the perception that the worker has of his work. several investigations have shown that violation of basic needs has a detrimental effect on workers' health and subjective well-being (gillet et al., 2012; shore & coyle-shapiro, 2012). on the contrary, the fulfilment of basic needs is consistently associated with subjective well-being (tay & diener, 2011). according to the theory of self-determination (ryan & deci, 2000), psychological well-being requires to meet psychological needs as autonomy and competence. however, dehumanization decreases the ability to meet these needs, therefore it can directly contribute to workers’ dissatisfaction. job satisfaction is part of the dignity of people at work, so violating this dignity would also imply violating the perception of job satisfaction (bolton, 2010). in this regard, dehumanization would be a form of violation of the dignity of employees since these are treated to fulfil the achievements of the organization (kaufmann et al., 2011). furthermore, it has recently been found that there is a significant and negative effect between dehumanization and employee satisfaction (caesens et al., 2017). based on this rationale we stated the following hypothesis: h2: the perception of organizational dehumanization is negatively related to the job satisfaction of workers. organizational dehumanization as a mediating variable between authentic leadership and job satisfaction as mentioned, authentic leadership helps workers perceive satisfaction in their workplace (baek et al., 2019; wong et al., 2020), increases their self-determination, fosters intrinsic motivation and a culture of openness at the organization, which allows creating a learning context and promotes conditions for the positive development of the followers (gardner et al., 2005). therefore, it is expected that the job satisfaction of workers is influenced by their perception of organizational dehumanization since dehumanizing experiences cause a decrease in job satisfaction of workers as it violates their basic needs (gillet et al., 2012; shore & coyle-shapiro, 2012). similarly, studies of organizational arriagada-venegas, ariño-mateo, ramírez-vielma et al. 453 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dehumanization have found that mechanically dehumanizing experiences can have effects on the well-being of workers (bastian & haslam, 2011; christoff, 2014). in this sense, christoff (2014), in his study affirms that dehumanization in the organization can harm the well-being of workers since it increases the level of anxiety or depression of these and decreases the need for competence and interaction between workers. according to this point of view, baldissarri et al. (2014), found that workers who felt perceived as an instrument by their supervisor reported higher levels of burnout. as has been detailed bibliographically, the level of job satisfaction that workers perceive depends on the type of leadership experienced and the humanization or dehumanization that they perceive from their organization. so, the influence of leadership style on job satisfaction can be mitigated through the effect of organizational dehumanization. the proposed model is shown in figure 1. thus, it is proposed that: h3: organizational dehumanization mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. figure 1 proposed model method the study had a non-experimental quantitative cross-sectional approach (kerlinger & lee, 2002). the sample was comprised by 422 workers from for-profit or non-profit organizations, from different sectors, since there was a need to understand the subject in a wide variety of roles. the sample was chosen non-probabilistically, for convenience. in order to allow participants to be familiar with their organization, we use as an inclusion criterion to have a minimum stay of 6 months working for the organization. from participants, 50.7% (214) were men and 49.3% (208) women, with an average age of 38.96 years. they worked mainly for the social services, health and education sector with 25.1%, followed by the commerce, hotels and restaurants sector with 17.8% of the total sample. regarding the educational level, 41.3% had a university degree and 9.7% had postgraduate studies. 62% of the sample reported a full-time job, working 45 hours per week. the average time of tenure was 6.95 years (sd = 7.86). the goal of this study is to analyze the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction and the mediator role of organizational dehumanization. instruments organizational dehumanization it was measured by the organizational dehumanization scale of caesens et al. 2017 adapted to the spanish from ariño-mateo et al. (2021). it has one and 10 items answered on a likert scale from 1 ("total disagreement") to 7 ("total agreement"), item example is "my organization would not hesitate to replace me if that allowed the company to obtain greater benefits." cronbach's alpha in the current study was .923 and mcdonald's omega was .924. authentic leadership and job satisfaction 454 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ authentic leadership it was measured by the scale of authentic leadership created by walumbwa et al. (2008) and validated by moriano et al. (2011) the questionnaire is made up of four factors: transparency in relationships (3 items, item example: "encourages each person to express their opinion"), internalized morality (3 items, item example: "asks you to assume positions that are in accordance with the values that are important to you”), balanced processing (3 items, item example: “seeks the opinion of others to improve relationships with them”) and self-awareness (4 items, item example: “knows when it is time to re-examine your position on important issues”), which in total add up to 13 items. the responses were on a likert scale ranging from 0 ("never") to 5 ("always"). in the current study, cronbach's alpha = .975 and mcdonald's omega = .975. job satisfaction meliá and peiró s20/23 job satisfaction test was used to assess job satisfaction (meliá and peiró, 1989). it has five dimensions: (1) satisfaction with supervision (item example, “the way their supervisors judge their task”); (2) satisfaction with the physical environment, (item example, “the physical environment and the space available to you in your work­ place”); (3) satisfaction with the benefits received (item example, “the promotion opportunities you have”); (4) intrinsic job satisfaction (item example, "the satisfaction that your job produces for itself"); and (5) satisfaction with participation (item example, “your participation in the decisions of your department or section”). the instrument has a total of 23 items to be answered by a seven-point likert response format (from very satisfied = 7 to very dissatisfied = 1). for the study sample, cronbach's alpha = .962, and mcdonald's omega = .963. procedure participants were accessed by social networks sampling and snowball data collection methodology. they were invited either to answer an online questionnaire on the survey monkey platform or answer a paper-based survey questionnaire (where workers have the chance to give them back a week later). all the respondents were explained about the objectives of the study, the confidentiality of their answers and the voluntary nature of their participation. data were collected from march to june 2018. in total, more than 800 surveys were delivered in both formats, and 422 surveys were completed, with a response rate of 52.8%. the questionnaire consisted of two sections. the first requested sociodemographic data and characteristics of the participants' workplace and the second one focused on questions from the three research constructs, organizational dehumanization, job satisfaction, and authentic leadership. the average time to answer was 25 minutes. the sample was obtained in four months. analysis descriptive, correlational and mediation analyses were carried out. the elements described by baron and kenny (1986) were tested to evaluate the mediating effect of dehumanization between the other two variables: (1) a significant relationship between the independent variable and the mediator; (2) significance between the independent and the dependent variable; (3) importance between the mediator and the dependent variable; and (4) controlling the influence of the mediator, determining if the original relationship between the independent and dependent variables is reduced to non-importance or becomes smaller, which provides evidence of total or partial mediation. for this, the macro created by hayes (2013) was used. ibm statistical package for the social sciences (spss 24.0) was used, and confirmatory factor analysis was performed using mplus v.7 software. results a confirmatory factor analysis with the maximum likelihood method with oblique rotation was run for each instrument, maximum likelihood was used because the study variables have more than 5 categories, therefore they can be called continuous (rhemtulla et al., 2012), in the case of oblique rotation, it is common for social sciences to use this form, due to that it is common for there to be a correlation between variables, instead varimax assumes that there is arriagada-venegas, ariño-mateo, ramírez-vielma et al. 455 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ no correlation, using the mplus v.7 software. table 1 shows the results, indicating that each instrument is properly adjusted. in the case of the organization dehumanization scale, the indicators show: χ2 = 82.12, df = 32, χ2 / df = 2.57 (<3), srmr = .06 (<.08), rmsea = .09 (<.08), cfi = .93 (> .90) and tli = .90; the authentic leadership adjusted: χ2 = 218.48; df = 98 and χ2 / df = 2.23; srmr = .02; rmsea = .05; cfi = .96; tli = .96 and job satisfaction: χ2 = 610.38; df = 220 and χ2 / df = 2.77; srmr = .05; rmsea = .06; cfi = .92; tli = .91. values less than or equal to 0.09 are acceptable as long as rmsea or cfi corroborates the model’s goodness of fit (hu & bentler, 1999); finally, values of cfi equal to 0.95 would indicate that a model shows good fit to the data (hair et al., 2010; hu & bentler, 1999), though some authors maintain that values of .90 or even .80 are acceptable (hair et al., 2010). table 1 cfa results of the scales used in the study variable χ2 df χ2/df srmr rmsea cfi tli organizational dehumanization 82.12 32 2.57 0.06 0.09 0.93 0.90 authentic leadership 218.48 98 2.23 0.02 0.05 0.96 0.96 job satisfaction 610.38 220 2.77 0.05 0.06 0.92 0.91 note. n = 422. srmr = standardized root-mean-square residual; rmsea = root-mean-square error of approximation; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index. results indicated a mean of 4.21 (sd = 1.49) on authentic leadership, as observed in table 2. this scale has values with a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 6. an average of 4.41 (sd = 1.39) on organizational dehumanization and 5.21 (sd = 1.18) on the job satisfaction scale was obtained, both scales having the same range of 1 as minimum and 7 as maximum. table 2 descriptive statistics of the authentic leadership, organizational dehumanization and job satisfaction variables of the total sample variable minimum maximum mean sd authentic leadership 0 6 4.21 1.49 organizational dehumanization 1 7 4.41 1.39 job satisfaction 1.13 7 5.21 1.18 note. n = 422. authentic leadership is negatively correlated with organizational dehumanization (r = -0.284, p < 0.01) and positively with job satisfaction (r = 0.616, p < 0.01). regarding the relationship of organizational dehumanization with the dependent variable, job satisfaction, it was found to have a negative and significant correlation with (r = -0.300, p < 0.01), (observed in table 3). thus, empirical support was obtained for hypotheses 1 and 2, that is, authentic leadership is negatively related to the perception of organizational dehumanization (-0.295, p < 0.01) and perception of organizational dehumanization are negatively related to job satisfaction of workers (-0.104, p < 0.01) (see table 4). table 3 correlation matrix between the study variables variable 1 2 3 1. authentic leadership (.975; .975) -0.284** 0.616** 2. organizational dehumanization (.923; .924) -0.300** 3. job satisfaction (.962; .963) note. n = 422. values in parentheses represent cronbach’s alpha and mcdonald's omega. *p < .05. **p < .01. authentic leadership and job satisfaction 456 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 results of organizational dehumanization as a mediating variable between authentic leadership and job satisfaction non-standardized coefficients 95% bootstrapping ci relation coefficient standard error t p ll ul al → odh (a) -0.295 0.051 -5.770 <.001 -0.396 -0.195 odh → js (b) -0.104 0.032 -3.218 <.001 -0.167 -0.040 al → odh -> js (c´) 0.458 0.035 13.280 <.001 0.391 0.526 al → js (c) 0.489 0.032 15.100 <.001 0.425 0.553 indirect effect 0.031 0.011 0.013 0.055 note. al = authentic leadership; odh = organizational dehumanization; js = job satisfaction; ci = confidence interval; ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. a, b, c, c' = direct effects of the mediation analysis (see figure 2). regarding criteria (1), (2) and (3) of mediation (baron and kenny, 1986), table 4 shows that for all criteria there is a significant relationship between the variables. furthermore, table 4 shows a significant relationship between the study variables and a significant indirect effect of 0.031 given that 0 is not found in the 95% confidence intervals. therefore, the organizational dehumanization variable works as a mediating variable in the relation previously exposed. the indirect effect is 0.031, which means that two workers who differ in one point in the perception of authentic leadership, differ in their perception of job satisfaction by 0.031 units. this occurs because of the authentic leadership effect on organizational dehumanization, which in turn affects job satisfaction. this indirect effect is statistically different from zero, as revealed by a 95% boot confidence interval (0.013 to 0.055 as shown in table 4 under the heading "95% bootstrapping ci". figure 2 shows that there is a significant relationship between the study variables. furthermore, the total effect of authentic leadership on job satisfaction (0.489, p < 0.05) is greater than the direct effect (0.458, p < 0.05), therefore it is possible to indicate that organizational dehumanization mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and satisfaction labour. figure 2 mediation model in other words, organizational dehumanization is explaining the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. this allows us to maintain hypothesis 3, organizational dehumanization mediates the relationship between the independent and dependent variable (see figure 2). arriagada-venegas, ariño-mateo, ramírez-vielma et al. 457 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the study allows identifying the relationships between authentic leadership, organizational dehumanization, and job satisfaction. first, leadership style influences both dehumanization and job satisfaction, and the research allowed obtain­ ing empirical support for hypotheses about the mediating role of organizational dehumanization between the other two variables. consequently, the effect of authentic leadership on job satisfaction is partially explained by organizational dehumanization. furthermore, workers may perceive dehumanization by their organization depending on their leader, and this fact will have an impact in their job satisfaction. authentic leadership was found to be positively related to the job satisfaction of workers, as several studies have already stated (giallonardo et al., 2010; khan et al., 2017; walumbwa et al., 2008). according to ilies et al. (2005), authen­ tic leaders positively influence the behaviour of workers as they provide support for the self-determination of followers. gardner et al. (2005) indicate that internal regulation, characteristic of authentic leaders, contributes to higher levels of well-being, commitment and performance of employees. in conclusion, authentic leaders, (that is a self-conscious leader, which means that processes the information and handles it in a balanced way), presents an internalized moral perspective, they are transparent in their relationships, which is positively related to workers’ satisfaction. results allow confirming the second hypothesis, that is perception of organizational dehumanization is negatively related to job satisfaction. this is consistent with the study by caesens et al. (2017), that state that an organization that does not meet the psychological needs of autonomy and competence, as the case of workers that perceive dehumanization, will show lower satisfaction. on the other hand, as various studies indicate, it is not possible to ignore the context in leadership studies (avolio et al., 2004; day & o’connor, 2003), in our study organizational dehumanization was identified as a mediating variable, that is, provides background on how authentic leadership affects job satisfaction. in general, these findings are consistent with the proposal of väyrynen and laari-salmela (2018) that organizational benevolence, or diminished dignity, should be related to the worker's perception of organizational dehumanization. dehumanizing experiences promote a decrease in job satisfaction because they violate the basic needs of workers (gillet et al., 2012; shore & coyle-shapiro, 2012). this fact is important because the effect of authentic leadership on job satisfaction is partially explained through dehumanization. these results allow us to better understand the role that organizational dehumanization plays with different variables of work and organizational psychology, in this case, authentic leadership and job satisfaction. the most important implications of this research are that it demonstrates the importance of organizational dehumanization over other processes and especially its mediating power. results show the negative consequences of dehumanization despite having leaders who are authentic, and how job satisfaction can be overshadowed by the presence of organizational dehumanization. therefore, although the worker is influenced by the positive attributes of an authentic leader, these can be minimized by negative perceptions that come from the organization, it is necessary not only to worry about the attributes of the leaders and how to find those that have characteristics of authentic but also, promote organizations where the worker perceives treated as a person with their attributes and capabilities and not as an object or number for the results of the company. finally, this study provides a unique perspective when analyzing authentic leadership and the perception of workers in their organization, and how these variables can increase the perception of organizational dehumanization in public and private organizations in chile. despite the study's contributions, there are limitations that need to be noted. firstly, this research was cross-section­ al, therefore, to avoid the uncertainty of a causal relationship, future research may apply a longitudinal study design to this studied model. therefore, it is recommended to use experimental (randomizing participants to analysis groups) or longitudinal (berlinger et al., 1988; parker & turner, 2002) research designs. second, even though worker participation was ensured to be confidential and anonymous, the data may be biased by social desirability. on the other hand, it would be interesting to delve into finding the factors that trigger the perception of organizational dehumanization in workers, either in the type of leadership in the design of the job or in the organizational goals. the type of organizational dehumanization seen in the study corresponds to the mechanistic dehumanization nature, but it is possible that in organizational contexts there is also animalistic dehumanization. authentic leadership and job satisfaction 458 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, future researchers are left to carry out studies aimed at understanding the relationship between organiza­ tional dehumanization and mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. in addition, it is necessary to analyze which of the four dimensions of authentic leadership has a greater preponderance when we talk about its relationship with authentic leadership. regarding the practical implications, the evidence provided by this research confirms that those workers who have an authentic leader will present greater job satisfaction, and furthermore, that this relationship may be affected by organizational dehumanization. therefore, it is important that when selecting the formal leaders of an organization, they have attitudes such as an internalized moral perspective, the ability to process information objectively and make decisions according to the well-being of the workers and organization. this fact is of great relevance since when workers show high levels of job satisfaction, their absenteeism is reduced, staff retention increases, improving the organization´s productivity due to the related costs lost (mendoza-llanos, 2015). for this reason, it is necessary for managers to pay attention to the personnel selection processes of the company's management team. (furthermore, investigating the characteristics of authentic leadership mentioned previously, and on reducing or eliminating the perception of dehumanization in the work environment). in addition, organizations have a tool with which they can examine the level of dehumanization of workers and invest in resources that can attenuate or diminish the perception of dehumanization. likewise, this study presents the possible negative implications that dehumanization can generate. at the individual level, dehumanization increases “cognitive deconstructive” states characterized by decreased clarity of thought, emo­ tional exhaustion, lack of cognitive flexibility, and an absence of meaningful thinking (bastian & haslam, 2011; twenge et al., 2003). conclusions this study investigates organizational dehumanization in latin american contexts. organizational dehumanization was found to have a negative relationship with job satisfaction and authentic leadership. furthermore, this research shows the mediating role of organizational dehumanization in the relationship between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. consequently, employees who have a genuine leader but who work in an environment that they perceive as dehumanizing will have less job satisfaction, and this will consequently affect the overall organization performance. these findings, further highlight the role that organizational dehumanization can play, should alert organizations to understand, analyze and, if necessary, improve the perception of organizational dehumanization to help mitigate the effects that organizational dehumanization can have at the level of people's well-being and their working environment. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. references anderson, c., keltner, d., & john, o. p. 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(2020). authentic leadership and job satisfaction among longterm care nurses. leadership in health services, 33(3), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhs-09-2019-0056 authentic leadership and job satisfaction 462 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/pst/article/view/9043 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1990.tb00268.x https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2015.1135865 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029315 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.1.68 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.10.013 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023779 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.409 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2947-z https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.11.2.127 https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913 https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2973 https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000013 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2834.2010.01113.x https://doi.org/10.1108/lhs-09-2019-0056 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors matías arriagada-venegas, master's degree in organizational psychology from the university of concepción. his lines of research are focused on organizational dehumanization, job satisfaction, leadership, and digitization. eva ariño-mateo, phd in psychology and professor and researcher at the universidad europea de valencia (spain). her research line is focused on social, organizational and health psychology. raúl ramírez vielma, phd in psychology affiliated to la universidad de concepción (chile). his research line is focused on design, redesign of work and job performance in organizations and reduction of mental health stigma in organizations. ip of a fondecyt project. david pérez-jorge, phd in education science. professor in university of la laguna. currently, he is leading the official master’s degree of educational psychology intervention in contexts of formal and non-formal education. gabriela nazar-carter, phd in psychology affiliated to la universidad de concepción (chile). her research line is focused on aging, work and identity, health promotion, lifestyles, and lifestyle behavior. ip of a project physical exercise via mobile-health: an innovative development (fndr). arriagada-venegas, ariño-mateo, ramírez-vielma et al. 463 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 450–463 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6125 https://www.psychopen.eu/ authentic leadership and job satisfaction (introduction) theoretical background and hypotheses method instruments procedure analysis results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references about the authors material engagement shaping participation of children on the autism spectrum: embodiment and subjectivity in small-group learning research reports material engagement shaping participation of children on the autism spectrum: embodiment and subjectivity in small-group learning juliene madureira ferreira 1 , luciana soares muniz 2 [1] faculty of education and culture, tampere university, tampere, finland. [2] teacher education and training school, university of uberlândia, uberlândia, brazil. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 received: 2023-11-23 • accepted: 2024-01-23 • published (vor): 2024-05-29 handling editor: nicolas alessandroni, concordia university, montreal, canada corresponding author: juliene madureira ferreira, åkerlundinkatu 5 office 509, tampere, 33100 finland. phone: (+358)505099007. e-mail: juliene.madureiraferreira@tuni.fi related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 abstract this study investigated the material engagement and their affordances for participation of children on the autism spectrum (as) in small-group learning. framed by a methodology called idea diary that fosters social interactions in classroom environments, our focus was on understanding how and when the construction and manipulation of the diary supported children’s participation and knowledge construction in small groups. this investigation was guided by the intersection of the theory of subjectivity developed by fernando gonzález rey and enactive accounts of cognition. this framework provided the view of the singularity in the communicative process of children on the as and the necessary support for examining the mechanisms of engagement that led to children’s participation. we present two case studies of 9–10-year-old boys. data consists of the diaries produced and used by children and video recordings of children’s interactions during small-group discussions. our analytical approach included a qualitative semiotic analysis of the materials and a micro-analysis of the social interactions. the results showed, first, that children on the as continuously engaged in the construction of the diary, expressing elements of their subjectivity—experiences, ideas and the system through which they interact with the world. repetition framed children’s productions and signalled engagement. second, material engagement enabled participatory sense-making, which in this study appeared in creating new communicative resources between the child on the as and their peers and in adapting the narratives, approximating children’s perspectives in conversations. although contextualised within a specific pedagogical practice, the study contributes to advancing our understanding of the role of material engagement in social participation in learning situations involving children on the as, particularly relevant in educational psychology and education. keywords materiality, embodiment, participatory sense-making, autism research, basic education, participation in the past decade, autism research has significantly advanced to explore and better understand sociality among people on the autism spectrum (hereafter as1) (ochs & solomon, 2010; sterponi, 2017; sterponi & shankey, 2014). moving away from comparing communicative performances against ‘standard’ neurotypical interactions, the contemporary research 1) the language used to refer to people who experience living on the autism spectrum can vary according to norms in different socio-cultural contexts and personal preferences. in this study, we follow the “person first” language recommended by the autism spectrum finland (suomen autismikirjon yhdistys this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13307&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8977-5982 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2759-3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in the field has aimed to characterise the unique linguistic resources people on the as bring to interactions and see how they are deployed in service of interactional aims (bottema-beutel, 2017; sterponi et al., 2015). by employing methods that focus on the structure of communication dynamics such as conversation analysis (sidnell & stivers, 2012) and supported by embodied theories that explain the mechanisms underlining social interactions by the enactments within the interaction (de jaegher, 2021; fantasia et al., 2014), studies have given visibility to the communication competencies of people on the as, unravelling the different engagement patterns that may be dismissed as pathologies (ferreira & bottema-beutel, 2023; yu & sterponi, 2023). understanding the sociality of people on the as is the most respectable and efficient way to guarantee their participation in social contexts (de jaegher, 2021). however, communication (verbal and non-verbal) is only one element constituting participation in social interactions. our bodies are grounded in a specific time, space, and materiality that shapes our cognition and affords our actions in the world (gallagher, 2004, 2005). furthermore, the mere way we engage with objects (things around us) can change our experience in action and the meaning we create of such experiences (malafouris, 2018a). therefore, participation is a complex process of enacting and co-constructing meaning, fundamentally dependent on the material world around us. despite the current advances, research investigating how people on the as use and co-construct material culture within social interactions is scarce. recognising the role that material culture plays in shaping human development and its potential to foster new opportunities for interaction across multiple timescales and social contexts, the present study explores how material engagements can shape the participation of children on the as in small group learning situations. this investigation is framed by a specific pedagogical methodology designed to support small-group learning called idea diary (muniz, 2015). this method uses a material resource—a diary—as a tool to support children in experiencing, recording, and sharing their ideas, interests, and learning processes through multiple languages of expression. our theoretical standpoint intersects a cultural-historical perspective on subjectivity that emphasises its role in the schooling process (gonzález-rey & mitjánsmartínez, 2017) and an enactive account of cognition (de jaegher & di paolo, 2007), which guides our investigation and understanding of interactive and material engagement processes that will set participation and learning in small groups. together, these theoretical frameworks support the exploration of how elaborating on the diary allowed children to express elements of their subjectivity, participate, and learn in small-group interactions. social participation and material engagement in autism the autism spectrum is a lifelong developmental condition related to persistent difficulties initiating and sustaining communication and social interaction and a range of restricted, repetitive, and inflexible behaviours, interests or activities (dsm-5: american psychiatric association, 2013). children on the as experience the social and sensory world around them differently than their neurotypical classmates (de jaegher, 2021), encountering multiple barriers to participation in learning situations, especially when expected social acts to be like those in neurotypical children. participation is a complex phenomenon, often identified by the physical presence, social interactions with others and the environment, and active engagement in learning activities (ferreira, 2017). it is key to ensuring inclusive schooling for all children, including those with significantly different developmental paths (black-hawkins et al., 2007). many educational programs target social skills development in children on the as to enhance their participation in school activities and, thus, in learning (e.g., anderson & meints, 2016; mpella et al., 2019). nevertheless, although such pro­ grammes suggest a positive effect on social responsiveness (dubreucq et al., 2022), they rarely focus on understanding children’s subjectivity and how they express themselves in the school context. rather, typical behaviours determine social skills, lacking a focus on actual social participation (płatos & wojaczek, 2018). furthermore, current research evidences significant architectural and brain-functional differences between people on the as and neurotypical people (o’reilly et al., 2017), supporting the argument that their engagement with the world is affected by their condition (wright et al., 2022). this is consequential in understanding affordances for material engagement and its role in shaping cognition. for example, studies have found a broad attentional spotlight and asy) and the association of friends of autism (associação dos amigos dos autistas ama), although recognising that some adults in these countries prefer “identity first” language (autistic person). embodiment and material engagement in autism 144 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ enhanced perceptual function in individuals on the as compared to typically developing adolescents (smith & milne, 2009). this could explain the feelings of sensory overload often described by people on the as and the expression of adverse behaviours when having to deal with overstimulated environments. studies have also investigated visual attention patterns and identified a preference for non-social over social stimuli in preschoolers on the as (sasson & touchstone, 2014) and an ability to understand complex patterns (baron-cohen, 2009), which can both impact various situations relevant to children’s development, especially at school (e.g., in collaborative play, preference for specific topics or learning settings). following these insights, individuals with as may engage in material culture uniquely. differences in material engagement can be as significant as differences in social engagement. however, what we see across most research in psychology and education is an overwhelming confirmation of the limitations of people on the spectrum in engaging with the world—socially and materially. the efforts to investigate the processes circumscribing these diverse and distinct engagement experiences are scarce, especially in the school environment where, although the diversity of children’s developmental paths co-exists, material practices are standardised. the reason behind this situation is twofold. first, traditional cognitivist theories explain the ability to understand others and participate in social interactions through the ability to infer intentions and predict others’ actions, creating a representational action understanding system (cannon & woodward, 2012). this ability is assumed to be limited among children on the as, hindering their participation in social encounters (fantasia et al., 2014). mainstream theories also dismiss the implications of even less radical notions of material engagement (actions guided by our perception of objects) in cognition, considering the relation mind-body-environment a trivial one (malafouris, 2018b). second, most research in psychology and education examining interactions and learning among people on the as is conducted in artificial settings, usually focusing on methods to identify characteristics and compare social behaviours, learning difficulties, and cognitive development in autism spectrum conditions. this approach often reproduces, even uninten­ tionally, an emphasis on the limitations of children on the as (fantasia et al., 2014). less research explores the strengths and capabilities of children on the as (e.g., dindar et al., 2016) and how to apply this knowledge in educational settings (white et al., 2023). therefore, by assuming that children on the as will, from the get-go, ‘fail’ in social cognition, research and educational programs are discouraged from developing methods and practices addressing this process. consequently, there are fewer opportunities for people on the as to express themselves and be understood by their ways of communicating their lived experiences in and with the world—to be validated in their subjectivity. to remedy this situation, the present study focused on understanding how children on the as engage with materials and use them to communicate elements of their subjectivity, participating in small-group interactions at school. subjectivity and its role in learning processes while learning is a social act, it also depends on individual subjectivity (oliveira & gonzález rey, 2018). we adopt the concept of subjectivity developed by gonzález rey (2016), which sees it as a complex way of understanding human psychological functioning within the concrete/material conditions of culture. subjectivity is the configuration of symbolic-emotional units comprising the feelings and senses we make of our experiences in the world—subjective senses (gonzález rey, 2003). thus, it is inseparable from human actions and is constructed (like a kaleidoscope) in the continuum of our social interactions in different spaces and social spheres. these subjective senses are created in the moment of action—engagement, in the material world and the social systems (e.g., family and school) embedded in it. subjectivity is then understood as the assembly of these subjective senses forming a psychological system that determines the individual’s future engagements in the world in a dynamic and continuous process. this notion of sub­ jectivity, different from other approaches, highlights the emotional and generating character of individuals concerning what they experience. humans are not passive or merely assimilating what is happening to them. emotion becomes sensitive to symbolic records, allowing the individual to generate an understanding of the world that enables them to transcend the immediate context of actions through their subjective productions (gonzález rey & mitjáns-martínez, 2017). subjectivity will then guide and participate in children’s learning experiences. the child arrives at school with specific subjective configurations from previous experiences in multiple social contexts. for example, when children learn about the solar system, they bring subjective senses (symbolic and emotional units) to the classroom about it ferreira & muniz 145 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ constructed in their previous encounters with this topic (e.g., from youtube videos or from observing the sky with their parents). these historical configurations of subjective senses will be part of the learning experience of knowledge construction about the solar system in the school context. in describing the solar system in a learning activity, subjective senses related to, for example, the fascination for planets, fears of the notions of the infinite, or admiration for the beauty of space can emerge. thus, each learning process is individual, and there are no patterns of relationships that will define the quality of learning; it is how the learner configures subjective senses of the learning situation that defines the learning action (gonzález rey & mitjáns martínez, 2017; muniz & mitjáns martínez, 2019). this notion of subjectivity considers the permanent interrelationship between the individual and the social, as well as between the historical and the present moment. thus, it encourages the investigation of the elements of children’s subjectivity configuring learning situations, emphasising the expressions of emotionality permeating the learning process (medeiros & goulart, 2022). embodiment and materiality shaping participation and learning in the school context embodied cognition (ec) theories challenge (to different degrees) the idea that our mind is in our brain and clearly separated from our body and the environment. it suggests that cognitive processes, such as memory, perception, action planning, and understanding others’ actions (among others), involve sensory-motor systems, bodily movements, and actions with the world. therefore, our experiences and perceptions are partly enabled by our bodies and their specific physiological structures (functioning) (uithol & gallese, 2015) and shaped by the material affordances available in the environment. embodied approaches (including embodied, enactive, extended, embedded, and current developments in ecological-enactive frameworks) explain the mechanisms underlining social interactions by the enactments within the interaction man-world instead of solely by mentalistic and representational theories (e.g., theory of mind) that confine the ability to co-construct meaning with others and experience shared intentionality to sophisticated mind representation of other’s states of mind (de jaegher, 2021; fantasia et al., 2014). under this theoretical framework, specifically grounded in enactive approaches to cognition, we reflect on participa­ tion and group learning processes through the lenses of participatory sense-making (de jaegher & di paolo, 2007). in brief, sense-making is a unique capacity of human beings through which we signify or establish a perspective on the world. it is a process led and regulated by our need to preserve our autonomy and self-organisation as living systems (di paolo et al., 2018). participatory sense-making is the interaction in which establishing perspectives of the world is constructed with others. it is both the definition and the operationalisation of the role of the interaction in the cognitive process and what gives humans an agentic nature (de jaegher & di paolo, 2007). the relationship between the individual and the world is enacted (brought forth) through actual engagement (de jaegher & di paolo, 2007; kyselo, 2016). through this perspective, understanding how participation in small-group interactions is constructed and leads to learning situations demands that we look towards (1) what is being created within (“in between of”) the interactive processes rather than the individuals’ behaviours during the interaction, and (2) how the material environment affords such engagement and how this engagement builds on meaning-making. the things we make and how we use them not only reflect our beliefs about the world but also affect how we understand the world (malafouris, 2018a, 2018b). the constitutive role of objects in cognitive development is already identified in early childhood. for example, recent devel­ opmental psychology studies have shown the fundamental role of the canonical use of objects in concept development and in intention understanding in early childhood (alessandroni, 2021; vietri et al., 2022). therefore, we understand that materiality shapes our engagement with the world, affording (or not) participatory sense-making. furthermore, enactive approaches account for social cognition as processes sustained by embodied coordination, which do not necessarily require cognitively complicated skills (e.g., mind reading). instead, sense-making is constructed through the engagement—enactment—within the interaction (de jaegher & di paolo, 2007). this premise is particularly important in autism research as it enables the starting point of an analysis of social interactions among people on the as to be the unique ways of that person to relate instead of their possible limitation in social cognition. thus, the enactive framework is a potent approach for investigating social interaction as it brings insights into the dynamic between peers that establish coordinated efforts to learn together (de jaegher, 2013; fantasia et al., 2014). in this study, enactive embodiment and material engagement in autism 146 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ theories complement the theory of subjectivity by providing further insight into the mechanism of cognitive processes, such as how material engagement through action builds a specific cognitive repertoire. the present study in the present study2, we examined the material engagement of children on the as in small-group learning in two different socio-cultural and educational contexts—in brazil, within a regular classroom and in finland, within a special classroom. the study was framed by implementing a specific pedagogical method, idea diary3, during the 2021–22 academic year in both countries. the idea diary is grounded on the theory of subjectivity proposed by fernando gonzález rey (gonzález rey & mitjáns-martínez, 2017). it is designed specifically to facilitate children on the as to ex­ press themselves, their ideas, interests and how they make sense of the world—a pedagogical approach constructed for studying subjectivity. within this context, we particularly explored the material affordances for participation, aiming to understand if and how materiality supports children’s participation and how children on the as construct, manipulate, and use the diary to communicate their ideas, experiences, and interests with other children. to guide the study, we asked: how do children on the as construct and use the diary to express their ideas, interests, and experiences? how do children on the as position themselves and invite others to participate in small-group discussions? the methodology of the idea diary the idea diary, developed by muniz (2015, 2020, 2022), supports creative literacy learning in classroom interactions. it is a pedagogical tool that provides a clear structure for children to reflect on their learning interests, experiences, and knowledge, encouraging them to associate learning in different social contexts outside the school. it also supports teachers in systematically accessing and understanding elements of children’s subjectivity emerging from students’ reflections (muniz & mitjáns martínez, 2019). the idea aligns with the overall understanding that creativity is the product of children’s actions in the face of what is experienced and an expression of human subjectivity (mitjáns martínez, 2012). creativity is understood as a process of human subjectivity that can be expressed in learning through the person's actions concerning what they learn. it is a singular expression, a subjective production of the person in the context of action. thus, there is no linear relationship between how pedagogical work is carried out and the expression of creativity. however, creativity can be enhanced by school actions that value students' authorial and protagonist expression and by personalising teaching and learning (muniz & mitjáns martínez, 2019). children express creativity when they confront their reality, raising doubts and questions about what they learn; when they understand the impacts of what they have learned on a person’s life; when they generate new ideas beyond what is experienced, and fourth, when incorporating a playful relationship with learning—a spontaneous and free commitment to learning (muniz & mitjáns martínez, 2019). the idea diary connects three fundamental actions: experiencing, recording and sharing. it brings forth children’s sensorial learning (e.g., through touching and feeling) and enactments in the world, and by providing a material space for children to note their experiences, it creates the necessary support for reflection during the learning process. the method entails using a notebook—the diary, as a “place” for children to collect their ideas about what they are learning or experiencing that is significant to them. children record ideas they would like to develop further or topics they became interested in as they experienced something new. they can express themselves and their worldviews through writing, collages, drawings, attaching photographs, pictures, or any other material they believe is important for expressing the idea and composing the action of sharing. supported by the diary, children share their memories of the experience in the group, bridging their inner world to the worlds of others. 2) this study is part of a larger research project exploring the participation and agency of students in special education, targeting the development of embod­ ied and inclusive pedagogical practices. for more information on the project, access: https://research.tuni.fi/ecepp/research/child-development-and-diverse-needs-in-early-years/embodiment-intersubjectivity-and-the-construction-of-childrensagency-in-learning/ 3) idea diary in italic referes to the methodology. idea diary in normal text refers to the notebook–the diary, constructed by children during the learning process promoted within the methodology. ferreira & muniz 147 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://research.tuni.fi/ecepp/research/child-development-and-diverse-needs-in-early-years/embodiment-intersubjectivity-and-the-construction-of-childrens-agency-in-learning/ https://research.tuni.fi/ecepp/research/child-development-and-diverse-needs-in-early-years/embodiment-intersubjectivity-and-the-construction-of-childrens-agency-in-learning/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the diary also becomes material for teachers to investigate children’s learning and expressive processes and repre­ sents the multiple possibilities of implementing the principles for achieving learning as a subjective process (for a complete view of pedagogical applications of the idea diary see muniz, 2022). for this method, ideas are not external to people, but processes loaded with emotionality and express the person's generating character in the face of what they experience. in this way, all children may feel that they belong to the group, recognising the life story of each learner participating in learning. the teaching and learning process is carefully personalised and built with the teachers' and students’ active participation in aligning the learning objectives and pedagogical actions. the practice begins with the teacher introducing the idea of the diary, usually using storytelling to engage children’s attention. the story is about a pirate sailing across different lands, collecting interesting experiences. he collects and saves these experiences, represented by words kept in a chest. once the diary is introduced in the class, children are instructed to take the diary periodically (e.g., once or twice a week, depending on the group), and the group gathers in morning circles to discuss each child’s experiences and ideas. the teacher invites the children to share what they have produced in their diaries (see figure 1). the discussions in the morning circle are transformed into learning topics, allowing the teacher to use this knowledge in preparing the school curriculum and potentialising creative learning in the classroom4. figure 1 illustration of a sharing circle teachers organise and conduct sharing circles. the dynamic in the idea diary privileges space-time for inquiries, exchange of ideas, valuing children’s experiences and knowledge in a dialogical approach (freire, 2011; gonzález rey & mitjáns martínez, 2017), and keeping children’s epistemic authority of the knowledge (heritage, 2012). the discussions supported by the materiality of the diary (i.e., pictures, drawings, writings, or collages) allow children to elaborate on their learning experiences and interests, knowing they will be shared, which we believe can progressively structure the interaction toward constructing participation. 4) detailed methodology of the idea diary is available on the website http://www.lucianamuniz.com.br/metodologia/ embodiment and material engagement in autism 148 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 http://www.lucianamuniz.com.br/metodologia/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ method and materials this qualitative case study (yin, 2018) brings forth two expressions of the material-cultural affordances for participation and learning among children on the as available during the implementation of the idea diary. the first case is of a finnish 10-year-old boy, alan, who regularly attended school under full-time special education support in a special classroom. alan’s school is a regular public school in the pirkanmaa area, south finland, that receives around 770 stu­ dents from pre-school (6 years old) to 9th grade (15 years old) yearly. it has a team of four special education teachers and four professionals responsible for students' well-being and development, including a psychologist and a social worker. this is one of the few schools in the area that still maintain special education classrooms. in finland, special classrooms are the less common resource of special support. special support is the third and final level of the three-tier educational support service offered to students in the finnish inclusive education system (see edufi – finnish national board of education, 2016; ferreira et al., 2022). it often involves material adjustments, part-time small-group or individualised lessons with special education teachers, or a flexible curriculum aiming to secure children’s learning and academic achievement in the schooling process (osf – official statistics of finland, 2020). the second case is of a 9-year-old boy, henrique, from brazil. henrique attends school part-time (four and a half hours) in a regular class at a public school in uberlândia, minas gerais, brazil, and receives two hours per week of special education support in the afternoon shift. the school receives 800 students from early childhood education (4 years old) to 9th grade (15 years old). the school employs a team of four special education teachers, four educational psychologists and one social worker, all responsible for the development and wellbeing of the students. in brazil, specialised educational support [atendimento educational especializado] consists of individual or small group classes with a special education teacher, organised mainly in the after-school period. during school hours, the child participates in regular classes, monitored by a class aid under the supervision of the special education teacher. curricular flexibility can be applied as a final resource and only with the family's consent (for more information, see dias et al., 2019; lustosa, 2018). the description of the developmental specificities and pedagogical notes are available in table 1. table 1 configuration of the case studies case age developmental specificities according to school records summary of pedagogical notes provided by the teacher case 1. alan 10 was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at an early age. presents repetitive behaviours, considerable difficulties in establishing social interactions and sensorial sensitivity. in the classroom, he engages mainly in individual activities and often stays in his space in the classroom. he verbalises his wishes when he wants and answers direct questions but does not initiate social exchange. he remembers many things that he has read and repeats verbally the contents he has learned. he expresses repetitive body movements for self-regulation and cacophonies in different moments of the classroom routine. he is learning and interested in school. interested in trains and calendars. case 2. henrique 9 was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at an early age. he is a non-verbal child with difficulties expressing his emotions, showing hypersensitivity to changes and reacting negatively (signs of stress) to overstimulating environments and/or when others do not understand his needs. in the classroom, he has difficulties engaging in school activities and often walks around the class between other students’ chairs. he is learning to interact with others through gestures and movements engaging other’s bodies. he likes bright objects, music and children's videos but has significant language limitations, challenging his full participation in the classroom. note. information on each case was provided by the class teacher based on school records. the researchers did not administrate any standardised testing for this study. ferreira & muniz 149 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the purpose of bringing cases from these two different socio-cultural contexts is to give visibility to different appropri­ ations of the diary as a material-cultural instrument for participation rather than comparing practices and cultural specificities, which will be addressed in another opportunity. data collection in finland, the data was collected by the first author during 22 consecutive weeks of the academic year 2021. the idea diary was implemented by the class teacher, assisted by a class aid, who was trained to implement the idea diary method before the beginning of the study. during the first two weeks, the first author immersed herself in the research site, allowing familiarisation with the students as recommended in previous studies (heath et al., 2010). the idea diary practice continued for 20 weeks with at least one morning circle and one collective activity per week, totalising 11 hours of material, from which 240 min were specifically about the sharing circles. in brazil, data was collected by the second author, assisted by two research assistants. in this context, the second author was also the class teacher implementing the idea diary, thus with complete familiarity with the method and the functioning of the class. the idea diary was carried out biweekly during the entire academic year 2022, also resulting in 20 weeks of practice and generating 10 hours of video, of which 190 min were specifically on the sharing circle. in both cases, children were instructed to take the diary home for two days before each morning circle and freely produce entries in the diary. children’s parents were instructed to support children, if needed, to engage with the diary at home, for example, following children’s instructions and helping get materials. children could build on the entries using diverse materials and methods, such as drawing, written texts, collages, photographs, or even videos. nevertheless, they could not interfere with the production of the diary (i.e., drawing or writing on behalf of the child). all morning circles were video recorded following recommendations on using mobile cameras operated by the researchers (ukkonen-mikkola & ferreira, 2019). parallelly, both researchers kept ethnographic field notes (emerson et al., 2011) entailing details about the spaces, timings, daily routines, and reports of feelings, ideas, impressions, and hypotheses for explaining the observed dynamics that could support understanding children’s meaning-making process. after each morning circle, researchers photographed children’s idea diaries and catalogued all entries, generating a pictorial dataset comprising 47 and 20 entries in alan and henrique’s diaries, respectively. analysis to understand how materiality supports children’s participation and subjective expressions, we developed an analytical approach that allowed us to focus on analysing the materials produced by the children and how children used these materials in social interactions. we combined semiotic analysis of children’s material production (deguara, 2019) and microanalysis of video recordings (heath, 2004; heath et al., 2010) of interactional meaningful events. this approach differed from the constructive-interpretative method usually applied in subjectivity studies (gonzález rey & mitjánsmartínez, 2017) to allow for a closer look at the material affordances of the idea diary and a more fitting approach to studying the unfolding of non-verbal behaviours. also, while constructive-interpretative analysis is better applied in parallel to data construction, in this study, we approached the analysis after completing the idea diary implementation in both countries. the investigation started with the semiotic analysis of children’s entries in the idea diaries, which entailed examin­ ing the type and quantity of the modes of expression used by the children (i.e., the form of the drawing, collage, or written expression) and the variety and quantity of the themes (i.e., content) expressed by them (deguara, 2019). both perspectives are then juxtaposed, creating a grid that reflects children's preferred semiotic (modes) and configuration (themes) styles (see figure 2). this analysis allows for observing how children choose to express themselves and provides an overview of children’s interests, experiences, and ideas. embodiment and material engagement in autism 150 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 an example of how the grid from the semiotic analysis is constructed after mapping the semiotics, we focused on identifying the patterns and the transitions in the modes of expression and types of themes. the first provided an overview of children’s general interests, affinities, knowledge, or experiences. the latter indicated the potential emergence of divergent ideas, sharing significant events, introducing new expressive repertoire, or prompting specific actions. thus, it should also be further explored through the microanalysis of child­ ren’s interactions in small-group discussions. the subsequent step was the microanalysis of the videos (heath, 2004). following a preliminary scanning of the video materials, we catalogued 24 candidate fragments as meaningful events for further analysis, 11 from henrique and 13 from alan. these meaningful events consisted of moments when henrique and alan, within interactions with their respective peers, participated in the dynamic of the morning circle (e.g., creating resources for communication, jointly changing the representation of the ideas, experiences, or information in the diary, or initiating a specific group action). the microanalysis was supported by elan software (brugman & russel, 2004, version 6.5, 2023), through which we carefully coded each child’s behaviours, including gaze, body posture, movements, and actions, creating a timestamp of unfolding events during small-group interactions. we particularly looked for moments of embodied coordination generating specific meanings in the moment of the interaction. ethical considerations this study received ethical approval from the tampere municipality’s institutional review board before the commence­ ment of the study (protocol under the name of the first author) and the approval of the ethical committee of the federal university of uberlândia (protocol caae: 91490518.7.0000.5152). the study followed all recommendations for researching children from both countries and in consideration to what is internationally expected, according to bertram et al. (2016) and the finnish national board on research integrity. anonymity in this report is ensured by the use of pseudonames and imaging filters of children’s faces. parents’ consent was acquired before the study, and children’s consent was gathered throughout the process. the researchers were sensitive to signs of children’s distress or unwillingness to participate according to ethical recommendations when using video recordings (ukkonen-mikkola & ferreira, 2019). two children from finland whose parents did not consent were not recorded. respecting the parents’ decision, we scheduled the video recording of small-group discussions to coincide with these students' extra-class activities. children not engaged in the study were, however, participating in the other activities of the idea diary and were included in all learning opportunities that derived from the shared discussions. during small group discussions, researchers showed the children how the camera worked, briefed them about the ferreira & muniz 151 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ duration of the videos, and allowed them to manipulate the instruments and ask questions. parents did not consent to the reuse of data or the publication of images identifying their children. the data management plan and metadata of all video recordings are available upon request from the first author. results meaningful events appeared throughout all small-group interactions recorded during the idea diary’s implementation. children engaged physically or verbally in all morning circles, making their presence noticed and valuable contributions to the group’s dynamic. we summarise our results in two important observations that answer the study’s research questions: (1) the patterns and transformations in children’s expression and communication and (2) the material engagement supporting self-perception, shaping participation, and enabling participatory sense-making. to support the presentation of results, we chose examples that illustrate how children on the as construct and use the diary to express their ideas, interests, and experiences and how they position themselves and invite others to participate in small-group discussions. the patterns and transformations in children’s expression and communication in alan’s diary, the use of words starting with the letter p and the same mode of expression—through black and white drawings, marked the repetitive pattern in children’s expression of their experiences and ideas (figure 3). although the drawings varied significantly, bringing together representations of objects, places, characters, and food, the presentation of the illustrations kept a certain order and aesthetics: a black and white free-hand drawing, a word tag (not necessarily representative of the drawing) and a sticker of the child’s favourite theme—vehicles and trains. much like the story introducing the idea diary in the classroom, alan’s diary reassembled a collection. instead of letters, he collected drawings, words, and stickers that were kept together by the constraints of the notebook, showing his commitment to the activity consisting of experiencing, recording, and sharing with the group. figure 3 engagement through repetition when the teacher inquires about the student’s reasoning behind the drawings and the use of the letter p, alan reveals that he makes notes of things that come to his mind: “they (drawings) are inside my head”, and that the letter p is a reference to one passage of the pirate’s story used to introduce the idea diary: “i write a different word below each picture (...) because you have said (referring to the story) ‘what will happen if all names start with the letter p?’”. in this meaningful event, we see that engaging with the diary allows alan to (re)live the experience of the story, and every time he makes an entry in the diary, he brings forth a way of structuring his ideas and the elements of subjectivity that he wants to share with others guided by that experience. embodiment and material engagement in autism 152 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parallel to the repetition, we also observed transformations related to the application of the words and linearity between the themes of alan’s drawings and the content brought by other children during the morning circle. looking at the diary longitudinally, we notice that further in practice, the use of words became more intentional, and combinations of related words appeared together. for example, “pähkinä and pähkinäkana/ nut and chickennut or paju and pajunkos­ kyosi/willow and willow tree”. the drawings also occupied an entire page, referencing narratives involving people (see figure 4a), which created more engagement from classmates during alan’s presentation. children move towards him in the circle and request more time and a better angle to look at the drawings. figure 4 transformations in alan’s diary additionally, we identified similarities between the child’s entries and the themes discussed by peers in morning circles. alan started incorporating into his diary elements of topics brought by his peers, showing that he had been attentive to group discussions even if not verbally engaged in initiating inquiries and discussion. alan is participating the construction of group knowledge and the group interest is shaping his (see figure 4b). by sharing his diary in morning circles, alan communicates engagement, creating common grounds, shared inter­ ests, and material participation in the group—they are learning about the solar system together. all these transforma­ tions within the repetitive patterns in the diary’s construction emerge from the need to keep his identity as a member of the group, and the recordings in the diary support (shape) ways to interact with others in this group process. in henrique’s diary, the patterns appear from a different perspective. first, it is important to understand the uniqueness of his diary. during data collection, henrique did not engage with pencils, papers, or notebooks for the conventional purpose of communicating. therefore, his diary was constructed with assistance from a family member and contained mainly objects, photographs, and video recordings of diverse moments of his day (see figure 5). it is important to highlight that the child always initiated the engagement with the diary. henrique chose the pictures by looking at them on the computer and by expressing different emotional reactions, which indicated to his mother (or to ferreira & muniz 153 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the teacher during school time) the pictures that should be printed. he was also the one who actively glued the pictures into the diary. the same process was applied in choosing videos and music, which then, instead of being included in the diary, was sent to the teacher via henrique’s cellphone. figure 5 henrique’s adapted diary in the morning circle, henrique would give the cell phone to one of the teachers to be accessed during the discussion (see figure 6). the repetition also appeared in the choice of expression for diary entries. pictures and videos of henrique listening to music, dancing, and eating were frequent and followed a similar sequence of appearance—first the music, then the dance, then eating-related events (i.e., pictures of him eating or pictures of food itself). figure 6 building communication through image we observed, however, that during the use of the diary, through interactions with colleagues, changes occurred in henrique's behaviours, particularly the gestures and movements he used to signal his wish to participate in the morning circle. at the beginning of the practice with the idea diary, henrique mainly walked around the classroom and physically jumped into the middle of the morning circle when he wanted to participate (present his diary or look at someone’s diary) (see figure 7a) and then left the teacher to present his diary. as the practice continued along the year, embodiment and material engagement in autism 154 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ henrique created other behavioural codes for signalling his readiness to share; for example, he clapped the hands of one of the class aids or the teacher (depending on who was holding his diary), creating an engagement that no longer breakdown the flow of the morning circle, but yet defined his time to act. he also changed how he positioned himself during the presentation of his diary. instead of leaving the scene, he more often positioned himself side-by-side with his pictures or videos or even re-enacted in the scene (see figure 7b). figure 7 example of transformation in the engagement henrique’s case evidences the construction of meaning-making through subtle processes of embodied coordination guided by the willingness, desire, need, or interest in being together. material engagement supporting self-perception, shaping participation, and enabling participatory sense-making the engagement with the diary also afforded processes of self-perception and reflection, supporting children to com­ municate their experiences, ideas, and interests, sharing their subjective productions with the group. in turn, these processes shaped participation and enabled participatory sense-making in small-group interactions. in our analysis, we identified 11 moments when alan (7) and henrique (4) spent time looking at their diaries (henrique supported by the teacher) during the morning circle, and it called to our attention the role of this exploration immediately before they presented their recordings in the morning circle (see figure 8a–b). children explored their diaries and re-enacted specific emotional expressions. alan often laughed and repeated specific words written in the diary; henrique re-lived his dance movements from the videos or clapped his hands and vocalised expressions when seeing a picture of his family eating. the material engagement with the diary brought to the present moment elements of children’s experiences significant to them, transforming the perceptual and semiotic dimensions of subjective experi­ ence through novel multi-modal and recursive dynamics of participatory sense-making. they perceived and recognised themselves in the diary. these moments were, on many occasions, followed by a very clear communication (verbal and non-verbal) of children’s desire to share the diary in the morning circle. alan and henrique expressed specific behaviours (e.g., seeking the teacher and clapping her hands—henrique, and expressing repetitive behaviours—alan), which influenced the dynamic of the small group discussion, provoking the group to listen to their ideas. we chose two situations to illustrate the implications of this dynamic. ferreira & muniz 155 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 8 children observe their diaries alan actively participated with new diary entries in all morning circles and always positioned himself sitting together with his peers. alan sometimes expressed repetitive behaviours (e.g., bouncing back and forth, rolling back on the floor, clapping his hands, and vocalising loudly incomprehensible sounds) that became part of the circle’s dynamic. in one particular meaningful event during the morning circle number 7 (see figure 9a–c), alan held his diary and navigated through the group dynamic, alternating between looking at others’ diaries and looking at his own. the teacher invites alan to present his diary immediately after he starts expressing repetitive behaviours—bouncing back and forth and clapping his hands. alan then opens his diary and starts presenting it to his peers: “this is the sun, and this is the moon” (showing the image across the group). a classmate raises his hands and says: “well, the sun is a little bit more… well, a bit yellow, orange and red”, referring to the inadequacy of alan’s black and white drawings. alan looks at his diary quietly, looks back to his classmate, and continues: “and then… here, this is a star. a red star!”, showed the diary to his friends and pointed to another black and white drawing. figure 9 co-constructing new representations in this very brief interaction, we notice that alan modifies a characteristic of his drawing of a star, co-creating a new perspective of it based on the classmate’s comments about the lack of colour. alan understood the social dynamic in place and the role of the classmate’s comment and identified a social demand for compromise—for bridging his and others’ ideas. simultaneously, we also note that the mere indication of the colour in the black and white drawing was enough for classmates to ‘believe’ in what alan was sharing, and no comments in that regard were made. there can be several reasons why he includes colour in his drawing to meet the classmate’s needs for other forms of visual expression (colours). it can be to ensure group engagement or to keep aligned with the peer's observation, for example. however, this episode shows that alan is co-creating, giving new meaning to his ideas—a participatory sense-making particular to this moment of interaction. embodiment and material engagement in autism 156 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ henrique was present in all morning circles. when the practice of the idea diary started, henrique established few communication processes with classmates, resorting to repetitive movements of picking up school objects and putting them in their mouths. in most situations, henrique walked around the classroom during the morning circle, giving attention to the narratives only when specific themes of his interest were mentioned. with time, henrique approached the circle and kneeled beside his classmates to listen to the stories. when it was time for henrique’s participation, the teacher called him, and together they went through his materials. for henrique, seeing himself in the pictures and videos was part of engaging with the morning circle activity. henrique skimmed through his diary with the support of the teacher or class aids, expressed smiles and pointed with his finger at the photo he would like to show to others. while the teacher showed the photo to henrique’s classmates, he observed children’s faces. analysing this dynamic through microanalysis, we identified meaningful events where henrique and his peers, together, extend a behavioural reference from henrique’s diary to the classroom context, co-creating within the interac­ tion a new communication sign for henrique and the class. for example, in one of the morning circles, when the teacher shared a video of henrique singing with his mother, children observed that henrique clapped his mother's hands often, using the behaviour to communicate with her while dancing to the song. when the video finished, one of the classmates stood up and walked towards henrique, reaching out her hands in a similar gesture as in the video. henrique smiled and then lightly clapped his hands on his classmate’s and looked at her. he then started to re-enact the movements in the video euphorically (i.e., large movements and loud sounds), and his peer copied his movements. in this brief event, children used an element of henrique’s emotional expression represented in his diary to create an embodied language of engagement that could be used to facilitate their communication. this vulnerable dynamic emerged in the living moment of the interaction between henrique and his peer, enabling them to participate in sense-making of the clapping behaviour and set out a communication channel further used by the entire classroom, including the teacher (see figure 10). walking towards the teacher to clap on both her hands, establishing a sign of interaction, and demonstrating being present and willing to participate became an embodied communication process in all future morning circles. figure 10 the creation and use of a co-constructed embodied communication in another moment, further on the diary practice, we identified a second meaningful event showing an interesting emotional expression triangulation. the event starts with henrique soliciting participation in the circle (he walks towards the teacher and claps his hands on hers). the teacher shows the cell phone to henrique and asks if he wants to choose what they will show to the class. together, they scan through the pictures. henrique looks attentively and smiles, indicating the picture he wants to show. aware of his emotional experience represented by the picture, henrique anticipates the engagement of his peers, who are now used to seeing his diary through the phone's lenses. henrique pushes the teacher’s hands towards the group of children and looks at them. the teacher verbally checks the meaning of henrique’s movements. “do you want to show this picture? i will show this photo to the class (shows the picture).” children smile, laugh, and comment on the picture, narrating what they see and think about henrique’s experiences. for example, children stated their perception of what henrique was doing: “he is dancing very well,” or reflected on his ferreira & muniz 157 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ feelings, “do you think he is happy when he dances?” and the overall impression of the situation, “that is so funny”. when looking at henrique’s pictures, children's expressions of emotionality engage henrique, who then expresses similar signs of emotionality as his peers (smiles and laughter). together, they re-enact the experience in the picture, creating a shared emotionality unique to the lived experience in this small group. in both cases, the material engagement with the diary enabled children to express themselves and join the group’s dynamic without verbalisation, connecting them with the classroom context and the sharing dynamic supported by the diary practice. engaging with the diary shaped alan’s and henrique's interaction with his classmates, teachers and class aids, creating an entire set of communicative resources. discussion the present study explored material engagements and their role in supporting the participation of children on the as in small-group learning situations. by looking at elements of children’s subjectivity expressed through their recordings in the diary and by adopting an enactive view in the analysis of the social interactions in which the diary is presented and discussed, we examined how children on the as engaged in the activity and, in doing so, materialised participation in small-group discussions. to discuss our findings, we highlight three aspects of this process relevant to understanding further the role of material engagement in the sociality of people on the as and the practical applications of enactive approaches in educational psychology research and educational practices. the first aspect relates to comprehending repetition as an element of children’s subjectivity and, within this perspec­ tive, understanding engagement through repetition. repetitive behaviours and interests are commonly associated with autism (american psychiatric association, 2013; bottema-beutel et al., 2015) and can appear both through linguistic echolalic utterances (de jaegher, 2013) and in the repetition of a specific structure or a particular topic in the interaction (dobbinson et al., 1998). previous studies with children on the as have called attention to possible repetitions of themes in children’s drawings (ferreira & bottema-beutel, 2023), and they have accounted for it as the elements that create regularity, consistency, and familiarity that children on the as seek in routines. it can be interpreted as fulfilling the same role as the repetitions in their communications (e.g., the palilalia identified in dialogues among people on the as, stribling et al., 2007). our study, however, revealed interesting insights into how repetition in children’s expressions can be recognised as a sign of engagement. for alan, repetition appeared through the structured sequence of characters and events representing a collection of meaningful elements, words, and interests. he kept the initial idea of the idea diary presented through a story to guide his engagement with the diary. for henrique, it was the recordings of specific experiences which marked how he communicated with others in the world via movements, gestures, and actions. repetition was not only in using similar materials (black and white drawings on paper) to convey ideas, experiences, or interests, but it is also an element of children’s subjectivity—the way they make sense of the world. participatory sense-making was possible when classmates engaged with the repetitive characteristics of alan’s and henrique’s diaries. this interaction co-created participatory meaning-making unique to this child-material-child engagement. repetition as an element of the subjectivity of people on the as and a potential context for participatory sense-making in interactions with people on the as is not frequently explored. still connected to a sense of repetition, our findings suggest that children’s participation became more significant with time. previous studies have indicated that individuals on the as derive comfort from the consistency and predicta­ bility of situations, particular objects and object types (forrester-jones & broadhurst, 2007). as the experiences with the morning circles repeated and children created a culture around sharing the diary, the predictability of what would happen increased. with it, lesser expectations for unforeseen events in the interactions, which we understand, allowed alan and henrique to experience being in the group. the second aspect we want to discuss relates to the complexity of participation and how material engagement can guide this process, breaking it down. participation, as previously stated, is a complex phenomenon associated with physical presence and active engagement in a specific situation (ferreira, 2017). although several studies have reported how children on the as can express many complex conversation patterns, indicating the capacity for social reflection (bottema-beutel & kim, 2021; ferreira & bottema-beutel, 2023; hermans, 2019), most research emphasises the challeng­ embodiment and material engagement in autism 158 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ es and limitations of this process (kasari et al., 2011; ghanouni et al., 2019). the overall idea of participation can often still be associated with a specific situation or environment (e.g., they participate when there is a special pedagogical approach, common interest groups, support services and inclusive environments) (chan et al., 2023). nonetheless, by taking an enactive view on participation, this study offers a different perspective on its construction in small groups. our findings suggest that participatory sense-making happened mainly in situations where children were aware of and allowed to express themselves. to better understand the implications of this insight, we call attention to two factors. one is the affordances for action in constructing the diary. another is the affordances for participatory sense-making in engaging with the diary during morning circle discussions. engaging in the elaboration of the diary guided a series of actions—perceiving a significant experience, reflecting on it, and recording it in the diary, bearing in mind the sharing process with classmates. it is important to highlight that this series of actions only existed because, or in the context of, the material engagement with the diary. the object and the actions it afforded created the intelligibility of children’s world. it is a complex process of systematising elements of children’s subjectivity—“constitutes a way of understanding reality in which the disordered, contradictory, plural, recursive, singular, indivisible and historical character that characterises this individual can be recognised” (mitjáns-martínez, 2005). within this context of actions, children became more aware of their experiences and had a material platform for expressing the ownership of their ideas and interests. simultaneously, engaging with the diary during morning circles afforded the expression of children’s subjectivity. the diary not only stored children's experiences, ideas, and interests but became a prompt for accessing children's affective memories, bridging past and present emotionality. the diary brought forth children’s continuous efforts, making explicit the constellation of subjective senses that inform how they engage and make sense within the world. by engaging with this tool during the morning circle, children re-enacted the experiences and the emotional content connected to them, now in the group context. this complex self-perception, reflection, and communication process is enabled because of the diary and the possibility to manipulate it (look at, scan through, and show to others) during the small-group discussion. it provided the child on the as the space and voice to externalise their subjective process, to be known by what they can do and who they are and, together with the others, co-construct new experiences and ideas as equals. previous research with children on the as has pointed out the relevance of materials in instructional practices and children’s preferences (carnahan et al., 2009). however, the focus has been primarily on identifying how children learn better or demonstrate more engagement in the learning process. the present study goes beyond and provides a glimpse into the processes of meaning-making with the group supported through the material engagement with the diary and its structure—experience, record, and share, that values children’s subjectivity and allows for gradual transformations in meaning-making processes. the construction of the diary meant something to children; it was led and regulated by their need to self-maintain their identity as a member of that group. thus providing a new light on the role of material engagement in small group interactions. overall, even considering a less radical perspective on material engagement, the insights on how it shaped participa­ tion and enabled participatory sense-making reveal the communicative competence of children on the as and how they can be supported in the moment of the interaction. other empirical studies investigating children’s group learning through the method of the idea diary have identified the facilitator character of the diary (guimarães et al. (2022) and have stressed the challenges of school inclusion considering the constraints related to the organisational, political, pedagogical, cultural and subjective nature of the students (anache & martins, 2019; guimarães et al., 2022). to our knowledge, this is the first study that explored material engagement and participation, emphasising the need to integrate multiple subjective aspects of children’s development and learning, especially those with significantly different developmental paths (gonzález rey, 2011). conclusion this study joins the current discussion advancing the theoretical embodied frameworks, particularly those guiding a broader understanding of social cognition. it contributes to educational psychology by providing insights into the empirical observations of participatory sense-making in educational practices with children on the as. at the same ferreira & muniz 159 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ time, the findings suggest pedagogical implications related to the potential of the actions developed within the scope of the idea diary methodology, particularly through the systematised actions of experiencing, recording, and sharing. children become aware of their lived experiences, perceive themselves in the process, recorded their experiences in different social contexts, and then interact to share freely their ideas in morning circles. all of which is done by using different languages, such as videos, drawings, writing and others, enlarging social repertoires. understanding the role material culture plays in sociality and development is relevant not only in early childhood, where the foundations for many cognitive processes are laid, but in special education, where children with significantly different developmental paths demand alternative ways to communicate, participate, and build knowledge of the world with others. although the study targeted only students on the as, the pedagogical practice used—the idea diary, and the methods applied for its analysis can be transported to any educational context. thus, one of the main contributions of this work for the education audience lies in showing the potential in the analysis of children’s interests, ideas, and productions within the relationship with other students. this perspective offers valuable insights and benefits in multiple ways. it promotes children's well-being by showcasing their abilities, not just their challenges, leading to a more positive self-image. additionally, it empowers teachers to build on pedagogical approaches centred on the interests of the child on the as, without the pressure of the standardised approaches that, in different ways, drive comparison. overall, we corroborate with the argument raised by de jaegher (2021) that if we impose a certain understanding of autism and how people on the as should behave, collaborate, learn, or relate, they cannot in any way be themselves. the challenge placed for teachers, special educators, therapists, and researchers working with people on the as is to find ways for their subjectivity to be expressed and valued. limitations although multiple case studies shed light on the diverse ways a phenomenon can appear, there are limitations concerning the generalisation of our findings. the expressions of children’s subjectivity described in this study are contextualised by the educational practices applied during the study—the idea diary and the socio-cultural context of a brazilian and a finnish elementary school. the scope of this study was limited to investigating the material engagements from children’s perspectives, excluding the analysis of the teacher’s strategies for conducting the morning circle and overall thoughts on the idea diary as a pedagogical method. also, the study reported solely the analysis of a specific set of data—the materials produced by children and the video recordings of the morning circles. the study did not explore the cognitive implications of the material engagement, which could inform further the learning processes. therefore, future studies should consider a broader analysis of social interactions among these students out of the context of the idea diary, such as in implementing the classroom activities that can derive from the diary as part of this method. this would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the role of material engagements in learning processes in the school context. further research could also take a developmental approach and analyse the cognitive role of everyday material engagements with the diary. lastly, future studies should consider the interposition between children’s and teachers’ viewpoints, as well as a variety of small-group practices that also focus on supporting the participation of children in the as. funding: this study received funding from the liberta minas parliamentary amendment 2021 (id:1.1006), targeting innovation in education through the federal university of uberlândia foundation. acknowledgments: we thank juulia koskela for assisting with data collection in finland. competing interests: although the first author was also an editor of the special issue, she did not have access to or influence in the review process, which was led by co-editor nicolás alessandroni. the review process respected the journal's blind peer review policies and guidelines. therefore, the author declare no conflict of interest. author contributions: the first author is responsible for collecting data in finland, conducting the analysis of both cases, and leading the entire elaboration of the manuscript. the second author collected the data in brazil and contributed to writing the introduction and discussion. embodiment and material engagement in autism 160 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 143–164 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13307 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references alessandroni, n. 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(2022). autism and engagement with material culture. interdisciplinary science reviews, 47(1), 18–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2021.1951062 about the authors juliene madureira ferreira: adopting theoretical frameworks of embodied cognition, she investigates sociability in challenging social interactions/contexts such as in special education and virtual learning environments, analysing how material and social affordances in such contexts support diverse ways to establish intersubjectivity and influence/impact learning and development. luciana soares muniz: from a historical-cultural perspective, she investigates the children’s expression of creativity and sub­ jectivity in learning in elementary education. her work focuses on investigating and further improving innovative pedagogical methodologies for basic education, which benefit the learning processes of students and teachers. embodiment and material engagement in autism 164 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_lshss-22-00041 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070709 https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2021.1951062 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ embodiment and material engagement in autism (introduction) social participation and material engagement in autism subjectivity and its role in learning processes embodiment and materiality shaping participation and learning in the school context the present study method and materials data collection analysis ethical considerations results the patterns and transformations in children’s expression and communication material engagement supporting self-perception, shaping participation, and enabling participatory sense-making discussion conclusion limitations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions references about the authors self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors: a cross-cultural study in four european countries and iran research reports self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors: a cross-cultural study in four european countries and iran silvia gattino 1, kamila czepczor-bernat 2, angela fedi 1, anna brytek-matera 2, mihaela boza 3, jérémy e. lemoine 4,5, reza n. sahlan 6, emma wilson 7,8, norma de piccoli 1, chiara rollero 1 [1] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [2] institute of psychology, university of wrocław, wroclaw, poland. [3] department of psychology, alexandru ioan cuza university of iaşi, iasi, romania. [4] school of psychology, university of east london, london, united kingdom. [5] escp business school, london, united kingdom. [6] department of clinical psychology, iran university of medical sciences, tehran, iran. [7] esrc centre for society and mental health, king’s college london, london, united kingdom. [8] health service and population research, institute of psychiatry, psychology and neuroscience, king's college london, london, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 received: 2021-02-03 • accepted: 2021-12-08 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: kevin r. carriere, washington & jefferson college, washington, pa, usa corresponding author: angela fedi, department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi 10—10124 turin, italy. e-mail: angela.fedi@unito.it abstract although scholars started investigating self-objectification more than twenty years ago, only a few studies focused on men and even fewer have taken into account the cross-cultural dimension. our study focused on the antecedents of self-objectification paying attention to the role of biological and sociodemographic variables (gender, bmi), psychological characteristics (self-esteem, perfectionism) together with social and cultural factors (internalization of media standards, influence of family and friends). selfobjectification was operationalized as body shame and body surveillance. a self-reported questionnaire was administered to 2165 adults living in four european countries (uk, italy, poland and romania) and iran. ten regression models were performed (2 per country) to analyse the correlates of self-objectification. overall, self-objectification emerged as a process affected by factors entrenched in psychological, biological, social and cultural domains, partially different for body shame and body surveillance. findings showed the key role of self-esteem as a protective factor against body shame across countries. on the other hand, the internalization of media standards emerged as risk factor for both body shame and body surveillance in the five countries. taken together, these results underline the complexity of self-objectification and the need to deepen research on this topic among nonwestern countries. keywords self-objectification, body shame, body surveillance, cultural diversity feminist analyses have provided a social constructionist account of the female body, arguing that in western societies and mass media the female body is socially constructed as an object to be looked at and evaluated (karsay et al., 2018; mckinley, 2011). objectification theory (fredrickson & roberts, 1997) states that women are often regarded as sexual objects by society, with the focus being placed on all or part of their bodies in a sexual context rather than on their abilities. when objectified, women are reduced to the status of “mere instruments” available for visual inspection, evalu­ ation, and the pleasure of others (bartky, 1990, p. 26). through the pervasiveness of sexual objectification experiences, women are socialized to internalize an observers’ perspective upon their body. this process is called self-objectification and happens when women view and treat themselves as sexual objects to be considered and evaluated based on their this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6075&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ appearance (fredrickson & roberts, 1997). much of the literature considers self-objectification as being operationalized by two specific dimensions: body surveillance, the habitual monitoring of one’s appearance, and body shame, the result of falling short of internalized cultural standards of beauty (e.g., grower & ward, 2021; karsay et al., 2018; moradi & varnes, 2017; moya-garófano et al., 2017; zurbriggen et al., 2011). one of the phenomena that plays an important role in contributing to this tendency is the internalization of women’s ideals of the body conveyed by the media (vandenbosch & eggermont, 2012; vandenbosch & eggermont, 2014) and the perception of the importance assigned by parents, friends and romantic partners to a woman’s physical appearance (gattino et al., 2018; midlarsky & nitzburg, 2008; ricciardelli & mellor, 2012). the message that physical appearance constitutes the basis of identity, self-esteem, social and economic success and self-concept has been mainly directed at women (unger, 1979). this external pressure strengthens women’s preoccupation with their bodies and causes body-related negative emotions, in particular shame and anxiety (peat & muehlenkamp, 2011; rollero, 2013). as calogero and jost (2011) argue, the experience of self-objectification among women is also driven by broader ideological factors. in line with system justification theory (jost & banaji, 1994; jost et al., 2004), these scholars emphasized that self-objectification can be seen as a consequence of the dominant sexist ideologies; justifying the gender status quo by directing women’s attention to managing appearance at the expense of other areas of life. this occurs even though gender disparity imposes significant costs on girls and women both as individuals and as a group. although self-objectification has been widely studied among women, recent research suggests that men’s bodies are also becoming objectified within western cultures (daniel et al., 2014; davids et al., 2019; moradi & huang, 2008). men seem to show lower levels of self-objectification than women (calogero, 2009; rollero & tartaglia, 2016), however, compared to their older counterparts, young men pay more and more attention to their physical appearance (rollero, 2013). this concern for one’s own image and attractiveness may reflect the intensification, in men, of a process of objectification that takes on characteristics different to female objectification, such as the tendency to consider muscularity more than thinness among socially shared standards of beauty (rollero & tartaglia, 2016). other biological characteristics relevant to self-objectification include age and body mass index (bmi). despite the growing demand for plastic surgery and “youth-restoring” cosmetics among older women, something which might sug­ gest high feelings of self-objectification (ring, 2000), some researchers in the field of objectification theory have found that as women get older, they feel less appearance-related social pressure and report lower levels of self-objectification (greenleaf, 2005; tiggemann & lynch, 2001). in a study of european and american women aged 40–87 years old, grippo and hill (2008) found that although age did not moderate the association between self-objectification and body dissatisfaction, it moderated the association between habitual body monitoring and body dissatisfaction, so that this association was weaker for older women than for middle-aged women. bmi may also play a role in self-objectification by influencing one of its dimensions, body shame (cella et al., 2020; gattino et al., 2018). several studies (hunger et al., 2020; meadows & higgs, 2019; pearl & puhl, 2018) have found that internalized weight stigma and fat phobia resulting from experienced weight stigma play an important role in the relation between bmi and body shame. research has also suggested that bmi itself can be considered a risk factor for body dissatisfaction and self-objectification in women (fallon et al., 2014; schaefer & thompson, 2018). indeed, previous research has shown that as bmi increases in women, feelings of body shame and self-objectification become stronger (slevec & tiggemann, 2011; tiggemann & lynch, 2001). the relation between bmi and body shame among women may be rooted in the negative association between bmi and thinness (world health organization, 2000). in contrast, the influence of bmi in men is not as linear, likely due to some men desiring a muscular body and other men desiring a lean body: as a result, both a low and high bmi may increase the risk of body dissatisfaction in men (fallon et al., 2014; gattino et al., 2018; rollero & de piccoli, 2015). research has also explored the relations between self-objectification and psychological variables, including self-es­ teem and perfectionism. there is strong support for the negative relation between self-objectification and self-esteem (adams et al., 2017; rollero et al., 2018; tylka & sabik, 2010). perfectionism can be distinguished by two different dimensions: (1) self-perfectionism, an intra-personal dimension, is related to requiring perfection of oneself; it is demonstrated by strict standards of self-evaluation and a strong desire for success and the avoidance of failure; (2) social perfectionism, an interpersonal dimension, is associated with the belief that other people are critical of us and demand that we be perfect; it is manifested through the experience of external pressure to meet certain ideals and standards (hewitt & flett, 1991). in general, perfectionism can be adaptive when it serves to reach high personal standards, self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 28 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ but it can also be maladaptive when it claims an excessive focus on the judgement of others and leads to excessive self-criticism (frederick et al., 2016). in relation to self-objectification, midlarsky and nitzburg (2008) highlighted a role of perfectionism in predicting body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. furthermore, perfectionism may promote the internalization of discontent with one’s body image in a more complex way, interacting with body shape and size, the effects of aging on appearance, and the influence of sociocultural pressures. indeed, previous studies have found self-objectification to be associated with self-perfectionism and social perfectionism, both in women across cultures (frederick et al., 2016; gattino et al., 2018) and in men (for a review, carrotte & anderson, 2018). in sum, self-esteem and perfectionism can be explored alongside the psychological factors of self-objectification, as these relations are well established (e.g., cella et al., 2020). self-objectification has been shown to be associated with social variables including the influence of parents, friends, romantic partners and the media (e.g., television, newspapers and magazines, social networking sites, websites). studies carried out within the theoretical framework of the tripartite influence model have demonstrated the role that peers, parents and media play on body image (keery et al., 2004). both individual factors (emotional, cognitive, behavioural) and cultural factors (stereotypes, ideal body, body control, body importance) contribute to the development of body image (sepúlveda & calado, 2012). based on these considerations, the importance that the immediate environment (parents, friends, romantic partners) assigns to physical appearance and the internalization of the ideals of beauty conveyed by the media affects how we perceive our own body, our emotions towards it and how we then behave (myers & crowther, 2007). a growing body of evidence has shown that the internalization of appearance ideals transmitted to us by our environment contributes towards self-objectification (gattino et al., 2018; vandenbosch & eggermont, 2014). through modelling behaviors and social pressure towards ideal body shape (thin for women, muscular and strong for men), family, friends, romantic partners and the media may affect body satisfaction, hence the degree of body surveillance and body shame (katz-wise et al., 2013; kroon van diest & perez, 2013). regarding the role of the media, one cannot fail to notice that in recent years, access to mass media has been increasing. whereas only tv and magazines once played a significant role, now the internet and social media are also of great importance in the globalization of beauty ideals (feltman & szymanski, 2018). evaluating whether the media in culturally different countries plays a similarly important role in predicting self-objectification deserves further investigation. although the body of studies on self-objectification is now very large, most previous studies on this topic inves­ tigated a narrow sample of participants often from individualistic western cultures or white college women from anglophone nations, e.g., australia, uk, and/or western european countries, e.g., belgium, italy (bernard et al., 2012; loughnan et al., 2013; vaes et al., 2011). acknowledging this research may have captured only those forms of self-objec­ tification specific to a given country, there was a need for research to include other nations. therefore, research has recently been carried out in asian (e.g., japan, india and pakistan; loughnan et al., 2015) and eastern european (e.g., romania; gattino et al., 2018) settings. nonetheless, comparative studies are still scarce (gattino et al., 2018; gervais et al., 2015; loughnan et al., 2015), particularly those involving both central european countries and countries in the middle east region. referring to the statement that the body is a sociocultural construct, it should be remembered that culture may alter the intensity of self-objectification (calogero, 2014; fredrickson & roberts, 1997). therefore, in our study, we chose to examine factors organized into three blocks of content (biological characteristics, psychological variables, social variables) to detect risk and protective factors of self-objectification in culturally different countries, such as the uk, italy, poland, romania, and iran. the cultural context comparative cultural studies on self-objectification are strongly established in particular countries (e.g., italy; gattino et al., 2018), while others have not published any results yet (e.g., poland). cross-sectional studies in these countries might be of interest because of the historical, cultural, social and political differences between them. besides the obvious differences between western and non-western countries, where the cultural, religious, and social norms governing the daily lives of men and women are very different, the european countries considered here also have some points of contact and customs that make it interesting to analyze and compare the risk and protective factors of self-objectifica­ tion in these contexts. both romania and poland were part of the former soviet bloc and have undergone different gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 29 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ processes of economic, political, and cultural development on their path of “westernization”. the effects of this process include increased exposure to western views of body image, which is associated with increased dissatisfaction with one’s physique and an increase in eating disorders (gattino et al., 2018; rathner, 2001). unlike romania, however, poland is a country in which the catholic religion has always played a very important role. even today, the church represents not only a religious but also a cultural point of reference and plays an active role in the political life of the country, which it also strongly influences in social terms. italy and the united kingdom, on the other hand, are two western european nations where body ideals—thinness for women and muscularity for men—are socially shared and ubiquitous. nevertheless, there are some customs that differ between the countries (e.g., the role of religion, different family values, food as a cultural element and form of socialization) that make them socially and culturally not completely overlapping, and thus worth comparing. some specific contextual data for the five countries involved in the study are presented below. the united kingdom (uk) the uk is one of the most gender-egalitarian countries in the world and data from 2020 indicates that the uk ranks 21st out of the 153 countries (world economic forum, 2020). there is a certain amount of research on self-objectification conducted in the uk with results which are consistent with findings from other westernized societies (e.g., calogero, 2009; fardouly et al., 2015; ma & loughnan, 2019). both self-surveillance and body shame have been found to be positively associated with body guilt, media internalization, disordered eating and consideration for cosmetic surgery (calogero & pina, 2011; calogero & thompson, 2009a) and negatively associated with sexual self-esteem and sexual satisfaction (calogero & thompson, 2009b). italy according to the global gender gap report from the world economic forum (2020) italy is one of the least egalitarian countries in europe, ranking 76th out of 153 countries worldwide. research on self-objectification is firmly established in italy. it generally shares the findings from other western countries and particularly emphasizes the role of the italian mass media on objectification processes (dakanalis et al., 2012; rollero et al., 2018; tartaglia & rollero, 2015). several studies conducted with italian participants have shown that internalization of standards of beauty displayed in the media increases body surveillance and body shame, strongly predicts disordered eating behaviors, and reduces psychological well-being in women and men (loughnan et al., 2015; rollero, 2015; rollero & de piccoli, 2015). poland poland is a country that is doing particularly well in terms of gender equality (it ranks 40th out of 153 countries; world economic forum, 2020) despite its recent history. until 1989, poland was part of the communist bloc and access to global media was significantly limited (filas, 2009). however, since 1989, access to western culture through the media has contributed to its westernization (filas, 2009), a pattern which has also been observed in other cultures (becker et al., 2002). although the reported prevalence of eating disorders and body dissatisfaction was previously very rare, exposure to western standards of appearance and pressure from the mass media may lead to a change in ideals of beauty and body. traditional values and beauty ideals are beginning to be less important than the ideals of attractiveness presented in the media (becker et al., 2002). similar changes began in poland after 1989 (filas, 2009; pilecki et al., 2016), with research finding that polish women now internalize those body ideals conveyed by the media almost as much as american women (czepczor-bernat et al., 2017). romania romania ranks 55th in the eu in the global gender gap report (world economic forum, 2020). this situation may be partly explained by residual attitudes from its communist past (e.g., reproductive role of women, andrei & branda, 2015) but also the adoption of newer westernized ways regarding gender relationships and consideration of women’s bodies (e.g., femininity is an ideal and a necessity; svendsen, 1996). self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 30 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ these attitudes are still prevalent today due to the message shared by the media that individuals can control their appearance and should do whatever it takes to achieve perfection (nanu et al., 2013, 2014). studies conducted among different age groups in romania found that body self-esteem is positively correlated with overall self-esteem and body appreciation and negatively correlated with eating attitudes (ivan & daba-buzoianu, 2016; maguran, 2019). additionally, the relation between body self-esteem and overall self-esteem was stronger for women, who were found to be more critical with their own body. iran iran is considered as one of the least gender-egalitarian countries (world economic forum, 2020), ranking 148th out of 153 countries. this may be partly explained by the political situation in iran in which the modest dress (i.e., hijab) has been legally mandated for women since the iranian revolution in 1979. the adoption of a traditional islamic dress style that minimizes public exposure may affect the degree to which iranian women perceive pressure and internalization of a thin-ideal despite the increasing exposure to western culture and media. in countries where the hijab is voluntary (e.g. us, france, uk, serbia), women who did not wear the hijab showed lower thin-ideal internalization, lower pressures for thinness and slightly lower disordered eating symptoms than muslim women who did (dunkel et al., 2010; đurović et al., 2016; kertechian & swami, 2016; swami et al., 2014). in iran, where the hijab is compulsory, iranian women endorsed a lower thin-ideal internalization, and lower pressures for thinness, than western women (schaefer et al., 2018). at first glance, these findings suggest that modest dress (e.g. wearing the hijab) may be protective against sociocultural influences; however, despite lower thin-ideal internalization and lower pressure for thinness, there is still an association with body dissatisfaction in women (schaefer et al., 2018). additionally, pahlevan sharif and colleagues (2019) found that the hijab does not decrease body image concerns in another community sample of women from iran. moreover, body image symptoms are prevalent in men, with few differences in body dissatisfaction across genders: specifically, iranian men reported thin-ideal internalization, and pressures for thinness, which in turn, were associated with body dissatisfaction as well (sahlan et al., 2020). thus, western-based sociocultural theories of eating pathology development, such as the tripartite model (e.g., thompson et al., 1999) are likely salient to iranian women and men (sahlan et al., 2021). aims and hypothesis this exploratory study builds on a previous research study that had investigated the antecedents of two dimensions of self-objectification among men and women in an italian and romanian sample (gattino et al., 2018). compared to that study, we added new cultural settings i.e., another western country (united kingdom), another eastern european country (i.e. poland) and a middle eastern country (i.e. iran); the latter two very rarely considered in research on these topics. secondly, we addressed the role played by additional psychological and social factors by including variables such as self-perfectionism and social perfectionism (among the psychological antecedents) and the specific influence of parents, friends and partners (among the psychosocial antecedents): this allowed us to unravel issues that had not been clarified in the previous work. this research, in particular, aims to identify risk and protective factors of self-objectification in five countries, which have historical, cultural, social and political differences. existing literature operationalizes self-objectification through the construct of objectified body consciousness, which refers to the degree to which people think about and treat their body as an object (mckinley, 2011). there are two main components of this construct that are usually measured (calogero, 2009; parent & moradi, 2011; tylka & sabik, 2010): (a) body shame (bsh)—feeling shame when the body does not conform to cultural standards; (b) body surveillance (bs)—viewing the body as an outside observer. based on previous research, our hypotheses were as follows: h1: the two dimensions of self-objectification are positively associated with sex and bmi—h1a and h1c—and negatively with age—h1b (midlarsky & nitzburg, 2008; oksuz, 2008; slevec & tiggemann, 2011; tiggemann & lynch, 2001). h2: bsh and bs are associated with psychological variables: (h2a) negatively with self-esteem (tylka & sabik, 2010) and (h2b) positively with personal and (h2c) social perfectionism (midlarsky & nitzburg, 2008). gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 31 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h3: bsh and bs are positively associated with social variables, both those from the personal sphere (influence of parents—h3a; friends—h3b; partner—h3c) and those from the broader socio-cultural context (influence of media—h3d) (green & pritchard, 2003; thompson & stice, 2001; vandenbosch & eggermont, 2012). to our knowledge, no study to date has examined these two dimensions of self-objectification by comparing coun­ tries in western and eastern europe, and the middle east, each with different socio-political and religious backgrounds. however, drawing on the literature (adams et al., 2017; karsay et al., 2018; myers & crowther, 2007; tylka & sabik, 2010), we expected that in all five countries both bsh and bs would be negatively associated with self-esteem and positively associated with media influence. examining relations between the other variables across the countries was one of the aims of this study. method participants and procedure of the 2566 heterosexual adults enrolled in the study, 2165 were valid cases (53.4% women) between 18 and 50 years of age (m = 33.5, sd = 9.0), residing in the uk, italy, poland, romania and iran (for more details, see table a in the supplementary materials). table 1 shows the demographic and physical characteristics of participants. table 1 demographic and physical characteristics of participants participant characteristics marital status single married separated/widowed 49.2% 44.9% 5.9% educational level college graduate high school lower level 28.1% 14.3% 57.6% occupational status employed student retired homemaker unemployed 72% 15.9% 0.3% 7.4% 4.3% physical characteristicsa normal weight overweight underweight 63.4% 34.5% 2.0% abmi ranged from 18.03 to 30.00 (m = 23.77; sd = 2.93). the study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the university of turin. when available, we used validated scales in the language of each country. the scales which were not available in the target language were translated using the back-translation technique (brislin, 1970). we recruited participants through snowball sampling and asked them to participate in a survey about personal and social issues. every attempt was made to obtain a representative sample in terms of sex and age in each country. no identification data was collected to guarantee anonymity of the participants. the participants completed the questionnaire in approximately 20 minutes and received no compensation for their participation. the questionnaire was in paper format or online (qualtrics platform) according to the site. to evaluate the factorial structure of the scales and to check for measurement invariance, we performed confirmatory factor analyses (cfas) on the five samples and multi-group cfa. the analyses were carried out using the software amos 27. the results of these analyses are included as supplementary material. self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 32 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures self-objectification was measured through two sub-scales of the objectified body consciousness scale (obcs; mckinley & hyde, 1996): body shame (bsh; 8 items) and body surveillance (bs; 8 items). the body shame subscale evaluates the emotion individuals experience towards the perception that their physical appearance does not conform to the sociocultural standards of beauty (e.g., “when i can’t control my weight, i feel like something must be wrong with me”). the second detects the frequency with which respondents monitor their physical appearance (e.g., “during the day, i think about how i look many times”). participants rate items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). items have been reverse scored as needed, so that higher scores indicate higher levels of self-objectification. based on the results of the cfas and multi-group cfas, we deleted one item from each subscale due to low factor loadings: “i never worry that something is wrong with me when i am not exercising as much as i should” from the body shame subscale, and “i often worry about whether the clothes i am wearing make me look good” from the body surveillance subscale. body shame showed satisfactory internal reliability in all samples (cronbach’s α: uk = .85; italy = .77; poland = .81; romania = .71; iran = .83). the reliability of the body surveillance subscale was acceptable in the five countries (cronbach’s α: uk = .83; italy = .61; poland = .77; romania = .62; iran = .82). perfectionism was assessed with two subscales of the multidimensional perfectionism scale (mps; hewitt & flett, 1991): self-oriented prescribed perfectionism (5 items; e.g., “one of my goals is to be perfect in everything i do”) and socially prescribed perfectionism (5 items; e.g., “the people around me expect me to succeed at everything i do”). both were rated on 7-point likert-type scales, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). higher scores indicate higher levels of perfectionism. following the results of the cfas and multi-group cfas, we eliminated one item for each subscale due to low factor loadings: “i never aim for perfection in my work” from self-oriented prescribed perfectionism and “those around me readily accept that i can make mistakes too” from socially prescribed perfectionism. as found in other studies, (bieling, israeli, & antony, 2004; hewitt & flett, 1991), reliability was acceptable for both subscales. specifically, the internal reliability of the self-oriented prescribed perfectionism was acceptable in italy (cronbach’s α = .67) and satisfactory in the other countries (uk =.76; poland = .75; romania = .72; iran = .80). the internal reliability of socially prescribed perfectionism was acceptable in romania (α = .63) and satisfactory in the other countries (uk = .77; italy = .75; poland = .71; iran = .78). self-esteem was assessed with rosenberg’s self-esteem scale (rses; rosenberg, 1965). it includes 10 items (e.g., “i feel that i am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others”) rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). items were reversed when needed so that higher scores indicated higher levels of personal self-esteem. the scale showed good internal reliability in all samples (cronbach’s α: uk = .92; italy = .78; poland = .81; romania = .80; iran = .81). the family and friends scale (20 items) was used to assess participants’ perceptions of the importance that their mother, father, friends and partner assign to physical appearance (myers & crowther, 2007; e.g. “my mother/ father/ friends/ partner encourage(s) me to care about my appearance in general”). response options ranged from 1 (completely untrue) to 4 (completely true), with higher scores indicating greater levels of influence from parents, friends and partners. given that in the five samples the two sub-scales concerning the influence of one’s mother and father showed a good internal coherence and a high correlation (.50 ≤ r ≤ .62), a single index related to the influence of both parents was calculated. as found in other studies (myers & crowther, 2007), the internal reliability (cronbach’s α) of the scales was good: influence of parents (uk = .85; italy = .85; poland = .84; romania = .87; iran = .87); influence of friends (uk = 83; italy = .81; poland = .74; romania = .81; iran = .81); influence of partners (uk = .87; italy = .86; poland = .79; romania = .81; iran = .82). the internalization of the ideals of beauty conveyed by the media has been assessed through the internalizationgeneral subscale of the sociocultural attitudes towards appearance questionnaire-3 (sataq-3; thompson et al., 2004) —10 items; e.g., “i compare my body to the bodies of tv personalities and movie stars”). each of the 10 items was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (completely untrue) to 5 (completely true). higher scores indicate higher levels of internalization of the beauty standards proposed by the media. in line with previous studies (fitzsimmons-craft et al., gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 33 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2012; myers & crowther, 2007; thompson et al., 2004), the internal reliability of the scale was very good in all groups (cronbach’s α: uk = .96; italy = .94; poland = .96; romania = .96; iran = .96). data on sex, age, marital status, level of education and occupation were collected. to calculate bmi (garrow & webster, 1985) the participants had to indicate their weight and height. data analyses first, we performed descriptive statistics, comparison of males and females and correlations between all the variables. second, 10 hierarchical regressions were performed (2 per country using either bsh or bs as the outcome). the models included ten predictors organized into three blocks: biological characteristics (i.e., sex, age and bmi); psychological variables (i.e., self-esteem, self-perfectionism and social perfectionism); and social variables (i.e., influence of parents, friends, partners and the media). the three sets of variables were entered into the models following the above-men­ tioned order. these statistical analyses were carried out using ibm spss statistics version 22.0 software. results preliminary analyses analyses based on the overall sample indicated that males had lower levels of bsh and bs (bsh: m = 2.9, sd = 1.1; bs: m = 3.7; sd = 1.1) than females (bsh: m = 3.2, sd = 1.3; bs: m = 4.0; sd = 1.1). these differences are significant for both bsh, t(2153) = -5.82, p < .001, d = 0.25, and bs, t(2148) = -6.89, p < .001, d = 0.30, with small effect sizes (cohen, 1992). at the country level, women had greater levels of bsh in the uk, poland and romania and they had greater levels of bs in all countries except italy (see table 2). table 2 mean, standard deviation and sex comparison for bsh and bs per country five countries' bsh and bs men m (sd) women m (sd) t(df) d uk bsh 2.8 (1.1) 3.7 (1.1) -2.44 (249)* 0.31 bs 3.1 (1.2) 4.2 (1.1) -3.41 (249)*** 0.43 italy bsh 2.8 (1.1) 2.9 (1.2) -1.09 (326) 0.12 bs 3.9 (1.0) 4.0 (1.1) -0.57 (319) 0.06 poland bsh 3.0 (1.3) 3.5 (1.4) -4.75 (703)*** 0.36 bs 3.8 (1.1) 4.4 (1.2) -6.47 (703)*** 0.49 romania bsh 2.7 (1.1) 3.0 (1.1) -2.87 (405)** 0.28 bs 3.6 (1.0) 3.9 (1.0) -3.03 (407)** 0.30 iran bsh 3.1 (1.0) 3.2 (1.2) -0.88 (462) 0.08 bs 3.5 (1.1) 3.7 (1.1) -2.14 (462)* 0.20 note. m = mean; sd = standard deviation; t = t-test; df = degrees of freedom; d = cohen’s d; bsh = body shame; bs = body surveillance. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. bivariate correlations among the five countries (for more details, see table b in the supplementary materials) indicate that body shame and body surveillance were positively correlated in all groups. self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 34 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regression models for all regression analyses, the assumptions of linearity, independence of errors, homoscedasticity and normality of residuals were examined and found to be satisfactory. we calculated the variance inflation factors (vif). the values excluded multicollinearity among independent variables. outliers were excluded and missing data were handled with listwise deletion. we performed the bonferroni adjustment procedure leading to an alpha level of 0.01. table 3 and table 4 display the results of the hierarchical regressions using, (a) biological (i.e., sex, age and bmi) and, (b) psychological variables (i.e., self-esteem, self-perfectionism and social perfectionism) and social variables (influence of parents, part­ ners, friends and the media) as predictors, and bsh and bs as dependent variables in the five countries. the biological characteristics were entered in step 1, while the psychological variables and the social variables were entered in step 2 and step 3 respectively. table 3 hierarchical multiple linear regression models predicting body shame step 1 step 2 step 3 predictors beta se vif beta se vif beta se vif uk female .22** .14 1.06 .19* .12 1.07 .15* .11 1.13 age -.24** .01 1.03 -.16** .01 1.09 -.08 .01 1.18 bmi .36** .02 1.08 .28* .02 1.13 .24** .02 1.15 self-esteem -.39** .01 1.04 -.36** .01 1.11 self-perfectionism .02 .07 1.19 .04 .06 1.22 social perfectionism .18* .06 1.25 .10 .06 1.36 influence of parents .14* .10 1.34 influence of friends .11 .11 1.85 influence of partner .12 .09 1.69 mass media .21** .01 1.16 adjusted r2 .17 .35 .49 f(3,243) = 17.51, p < .001 f(6,240) = 23.03, p < .001 f(10,236) = 24.19, p < .001 italy female .11 .15 1.24 .08 .13 1.25 .05 .12 1.29 age -.10 .01 1.14 -.08 .01 1.14 -.02 .01 1.21 bmi .13 .03 1.33 .13 .03 1.37 .03 .02 1.46 self-esteem -.36** .01 1.09 -.29** .01 1.12 self-perfectionism .01 .06 1.41 -.01 .05 1.43 social perfectionism .25** .06 1.43 .13* .05 1.53 influence of parents .16* .09 1.41 influence of friends .05 .10 1.75 influence of partner .21** .08 1.61 mass media .28** .06 1.21 adjusted r2 .01 .22 .43 f(3,298) = 1.76, p = .16 f(6,295) = 14.75, p < .001 f(10,291) = 23.84, p < .001 poland female .24** .11 1.16 .24** .09 1.17 .17** .08 1.22 age -.04 .01 1.06 -.05 .01 1.06 -.06 .00 1.07 bmi .17** .02 1.21 .16** .02 1.22 .16** .01 1.26 self-esteem -.30** .01 1.11 -.22** .01 1.18 self-perfectionism .13** .04 1.28 .12** .03 1.29 social perfectionism .26** .04 1.37 .13** .03 1.47 influence of parents .17** .06 1.23 influence of friends .19** .07 1.62 influence of partner .03 .06 1.53 mass media .30** .03 1.33 adjusted r2 .05 .28 .51 f(3,701) = 13.44, p < .001 f(6,698) = 47.53, p < .001 f(10,694) = 74.47, p < .001 gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 35 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ step 1 step 2 step 3 predictors beta se vif beta se vif beta se vif romania female .23** .11 1.15 .20** .11 1.16 .14* .10 1.30 age -.04 .01 1.08 -.03 .01 1.09 .05 .01 1.14 bmi .17* .02 1.24 .16** .02 1.24 .10 .02 1.28 self-esteem -.32** .01 1.02 -.35** .01 1.06 self-perfectionism -.04 .06 1.43 -.04 .05 1.45 social perfectionism .14 .06 1.45 .07 .05 1.48 influence of parents .17* .08 1.35 influence of friends .14 .09 2.04 influence of partner .05 .08 1.85 mass media .20** .05 1.14 adjusted r2 .05 .16 .30 f(3,377) = 6.98, p < .001 f(6,374) = 13.17, p < .001 f(10,370) = 17.60, p < .001 iran female .06 .11 1.00 .06 .11 1.05 .11 .02 1.21 age -.09 .01 1.16 -.06 .01 1.20 .02 .01 1.34 bmi .16* .02 1.16 .14* .02 1.19 .10 .02 1.31 self-esteem -.28** .01 1.07 -.20** .01 1.13 self-perfectionism .01 .05 1.13 -.01 .05 1.16 social perfectionism .14 .04 1.26 .11 .04 1.30 influence of parents -.06 .10 1.41 influence of friends .17* .09 1.80 influence of partner .02 .08 1.63 mass media .29** .05 1.25 adjusted r2 .02 .12 .22 f(3,382) = 3.55, p = .002 f(6,379) = 10.06, p < .001 f(10,375) = 12.15, p < .001 note. beta = standardized coefficient; se = standard error; vif = variance inflation factors; *p < .01. **p < .001 the increase in adjusted r2 indicated that the psychological variables contribute to the explanation of variation in terms of bsh above and beyond the biological characteristics: the adjusted r2 increased between step 1 and step 2 in the five countries. the adjusted r2 values showed a medium effect size in the polish group and a small effect size in the other groups (cohen, 1992). additionally, the increase in adjusted r2 showed that the social variables contribute to the explanation of variation in terms of bsh above and beyond the biological characteristics and the psychological variables: the adjusted r2 increased between step 2 and step 3 in the five countries. moreover, results showed that sex and bmi were, among the biological variables, those most closely related to bsh at step 3, although with some differences in the five groups. specifically, a positive relation between being a female and high bsh (h1a) were found among british, polish and romanian participants, whereas a high bmi and higher levels of bsh (h1c) were only found among british and polish participants, thus these hypotheses were partially supported. being of older age was negatively associated with bsh in the uk, italy and in poland, but the effects were slightly weak and not significant in every country, therefore hypothesis 1b was not supported. consistent with our hypothesis (h2a), self-esteem was negatively related to bsh across the five countries at step 2 and 3. among the psychological variables, it was the main predictor of bsh and, except the polish and iranian samples, for the other groups it was the variable most strongly associated with bsh. there was partial confirmation of the hypotheses for a positive association between the two forms of perfectionism and bsh. while self-perfectionism was positively associated with bsh (h2b) only in poland, social perfectionism (h2c) showed a relation with bsh in italy and in poland. the influence of parents (h3a) was positively associated with bsh in all countries except in iran, whereas the influence of friends (h3b) was positively related with the bsh only in polish and iranian groups where, among the social variables regarding the personal sphere, it was the one most strongly associated with bsh. finally, the influence of a partner (h3c) was positively and significantly related to bsh only in the italian group. in this sample, among the social variables related to the personal sphere, it was the most strongly associated with bsh. thus, h3a, h3b and h3c were only partially self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 36 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supported. as expected (h3d), across the five countries, the influence of the media was positively related to bsh and in both the polish and iranian groups was the variable most strongly associated with bsh. the increase in adjusted r2 indicated that the psychological variables contribute to the explanation of variation in terms of bs above and beyond the biological characteristics: except for the italian group, adjusted r2 increased between step 1 and step 2. additionally, results showed that the social variables contribute to the explanation of variation in terms of bs above and beyond the biological characteristics and psychological variables: the adjusted r2 increased between step 2 and step 3 in the five countries. however, the effect size is small in all samples (.08 ≤ adj r2 ≤ .29). table 4 hierarchical multiple linear regression models predicting body surveillance step 1 step 2 step 3 predictors beta se vif beta se vif beta se vif uk female .24** .14 1.06 .24** .14 1.07 .18* .13 1.13 age -.17* .01 1.03 -.15 .01 1.09 -.05 .01 1.18 bmi .14 .02 1.08 .13 .02 1.13 .08 .02 1.15 self-esteem -.19* .01 1.04 -.13 .01 1.11 self-perfectionism -.04 .07 1.19 -.04 .07 1.22 social perfectionism -.04 .07 1.25 -.04 -.07 1.36 influence of parents .01 .12 1.34 influence of friends .13 .13 1.85 influence of partner -.01 .11 1.70 mass media .35** .06 1.16 adjusted r2 .08 .10 .24 f(3,243) = 7.63, p < .001 f(6,240) = 5.77, p < .001 f(10,236) = 8.61, p < .001 italy female .01 .13 1.24 .01 .13 1.25 -.03 .12 1.29 age -.15 .01 1.15 -.15* .01 1.15 -.08 .01 1.21 bmi -.06 .03 1.33 -.05 .03 1.36 -.08 .02 1.43 self-esteem -.08 .01 1.08 -.04 .01 1.11 self-perfectionism .06 .06 1.39 .06 .06 1.42 social perfectionism -.01 .05 1.40 -.08 .05 1.50 influence of parents .08 .10 1.41 influence of friends .02 .11 1.73 influence of partner .00 .09 1.60 mass media .35** .06 1.20 adjusted r2 .02 .02 .14 f(3,293) = 3.15, p =.03 f(6,290) = 2.01, p = .06 f(10,286) = 5.73, p <.001 poland female .22** .09 1.16 .23** .08 1.17 .17** .08 1.22 age -.18** .06 1.06 -.18** .00 1.06 -.19* .00 1.07 bmi -.06 .02 1.21 -.07 .02 1.22 -.05 .01 1.26 self-esteem -.12* .01 1.11 -.04 .01 1.18 self-perfectionism .13* .04 1.28 .12* .04 1.29 social perfectionism .14* .04 1.37 .05 .04 1.47 influence of parents .03 .06 1.23 influence of friends .07 .08 1.62 influence of partner .02 .06 1.53 mass media .35** .04 1.33 adjusted r2 .09 .16 .29 f(3,701) = 24.50, p < .001 f(6,698) = 23.20, p < .001 f(10,694) = 29.91, p < .001 gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 37 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ step 1 step 2 step 3 predictors beta se vif beta se vif beta se vif romania female .13 .11 1.15 .13 .11 1.15 .10 .11 1.29 age -.11 .01 1.08 -.09 .01 1.09 -.05 .01 1.14 bmi -.05 .02 1.23 -.05 .02 1.23 -.06 .02 1.27 self-esteem -.09 .01 1.02 -.08 .01 1.06 self-perfectionism -.01 .06 1.44 -.02 .06 1.46 social perfectionism -.10 .06 1.46 -.12 .06 1.48 influence of parents -.04 .09 1.35 influence of friends .03 .10 2.03 influence of partner -.00 .08 1.85 mass media .23** .05 1.14 adjusted r2 .03 .04 .08 f(3,377) = 4.92, p = .02 f(6,374) = 3.62, p = .02 f(10,370) = 4.30, p < .001 iran female .06 .11 1.00 .06 .11 1.05 .04 .12 1.21 age -.30** .01 1.16 -.28*** .01 1.20 -.20** .01 1.34 bmi -.02 -.01 1.16 -.04 .02 1.19 -.05 .02 1.31 self-esteem -.19*** .01 1.07 -.15* .01 1.13 self-perfectionism -.11* .05 1.13 -.11 .05 1.16 social perfectionism .09 .04 1.26 .07 .04 1.30 influence of parents .11 .10 1.41 influence of friends -.03 .10 1.76 influence of partner -.02 .08 1.63 mass media .23** .05 1.25 adjusted r2 .10 .15 .20 f(3,382) = 14.65, p < .001 f(6,379) = 12.21, p < .001 f(10,375) = 10.80, p < .001 note. beta = standardized coefficient; se = standard error; vif = variance inflation factors; *p < .01. **p < .001 the association of biological variables with bs differed between countries. at step 3, sex was significantly related to bs in the uk and poland (females had higher levels of bs), age showed a significant negative relation with bs in poland and iran. in iran, moreover, age was the biological variable most strongly associated with bs. in contrast, no association between bs and bmi emerged in any country. thus, hypotheses h1a and h1b were partially supported, while hypothesis h1c was not. similarly, there were cross-cultural differences in terms of psychological variables associated with bs. at step 3, self-esteem (h2a) was negatively related to bs only in iran, self-perfectionism (h2b) was significantly associated to bs only in poland, while the association between social perfectionism and bs (h2c) was not significant in every country. therefore, hypothesis 2a and 2b were partially supported and hypothesis 2c was not supported. contrary to our hypotheses, the influence of parents (h3a), of friends (h3b) and of partners (h3c) were not associated with bs in any of the five countries. consistent with our hypotheses (h3d), across the five countries, the variable most strongly associated with bs was the influence of the media (i.e., participants who internalized the ideals of beauty conveyed by the media). discussion this study aimed to investigate the antecedents of self-objectification, measured as body shame and body surveillance, in men and women aged 18 to 50 years, living in five culturally different countries (uk, italy, poland, romania and iran). although scholars started investigating self-objectification more than twenty years ago, there are only a few studies among men and even fewer which have considered the cross-cultural dimension (gattino et al., 2018; loughnan et al., 2015; trekels et al., 2018). we found that both bsh and bs were higher for women than for men in the uk, polish and romanian samples, while iranian women only had higher levels of bs but not bsh and there was no difference between men and women in self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 38 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the italian sample. these findings are partly consistent with previous data indicating a greater vulnerability in women to self-objectification (calogero, 2009; grabe & jackson, 2009). the absence of differences between women and men in our italian sample is in line with a study indicating that the phenomenon of self-objectification is now transversal to both genders in italy (rollero & tartaglia, 2016), as there is accumulating evidence that men and women are similarly overwhelmed by unrealistic body shape ideals and objectified in italian media (see dakanalis & riva, 2013). this finding highlights how self-objectification is a socially constructed concept shaped by the social environment. thus, cultural context and cultural differences should be considered when comparing and interpreting levels of self-objectification between men and women (moradi, 2010; trekels et al., 2018). regarding biological characteristics, we found that bmi was positively associated with bsh in the uk, poland and romania. however, bmi was not associated with bs in any of the five countries. this was only partially consistent with previous studies which found a positive relation between bmi and both bs and bsh (ålgars et al., 2009; slevec & tiggemann, 2011). the lack of a relation between bmi and self-objectification is not new in the literature (byely et al., 2000; stice & bearman, 2001). however, another possible explanation for these findings could be that we did not account for other variables that mediate the relations between bmi and bsh/bs, such as weight stigma and fat phobia (hunger et al., 2020; meadows & higgs, 2019; pearl & puhl, 2018). further studies would be needed to clarify this point. although we did not find a significant effect of age in the five countries, our results suggest that age may be a protective factor against bs. indeed, older participants from iran had lower levels of bs. no other significant effect was found in the other countries. this finding may be related to the different perception of ageing in this country, where— as in asian cultures—old age is revered (löckenhoff et al., 2009). further investigations are necessary to understand whether the protective effect of age on self-objectification, found in some cultures but not others, is mediated by perceived ageism. finally, being a woman was found to be a risk factor with respect to bs in the uk and poland, and for bsh in the uk, poland and romania. there was no significant effect of sex in italy and iran. this latter result could be explained by different reasons. in italy it could be interpreted as evidence of the pervasiveness of the phenomenon, which has become transversal to both females and males (rollero & tartaglia, 2016). in iran it could instead be linked to the tendency of women to hide their bodies, an element that could reduce their sensitivity to self-objectification, at least in reference to their physical appearance (dunkel et al., 2010; kertechian & swami, 2016). some interesting cross-cultural similarities have also emerged about the hypothesized relations between the psycho­ logical and social dimensions and self-objectification. on the one hand, self-esteem was negatively associated with bsh in the five countries and with bs only in iran. this shows that self-esteem could be considered as a relevant protective factor against self-objectification. on the other hand, the internalization of media standards was positively associated with both bsh and bs in the five countries. this shows that the internalization of media standards could be considered as a powerful risk factor of self-objectification, irrespective of culture. these two variables play an important role on self-objectification in the five groups involved in the study and are more important than other variables traditionally considered, such as sex, age and bmi. the connection between self-esteem and body shame is a matter of debate (choma et al., 2010; mercurio & landry, 2008). tylka and sabik (2010) suggest that individuals with low self-esteem may turn to the societal standards for guidance in determining their self-esteem. in addition, people with high self-esteem may be more inclined to accept their appearance as they, generally, feel satisfied with their other qualities. our results seem to go in this direction and the different cultural contexts of participants underlines the importance of this psychological dimension. cross-cultural similarities regarding the media’s role as a risk factor for both bsh and bs are in line with previous literature, which suggests that people from different cultures may be exposed to the same content (karsay et al., 2018; tan et al., 2013; trekels et al., 2018), including media, and probably share a set of common values because of global television and the internet (craig & douglas, 2006). conversely, findings about social and personal perfectionism were not always in the expected direction and showed a more nuanced picture in which differences among countries emerged. first, in line with previous research (gattino et al., 2018; slevec & tiggemann, 2011), socially prescribed perfectionism was a risk factor for bsh in italy and in poland. however, this dimension did not play any role in fostering or protecting against bs. second, high self-oriented perfectionism was linked to higher levels of both bsh and bs only in the polish sample. our data show that the association between “being perfect/successful” and physical appearance varies between countries. previous studies gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 39 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ linked perfectionism to body dissatisfaction, arguing that the greater need for others’ approval that perfectionism entails may be a risk factor, particularly in those cultures where the construction of the self is more interdependent (boone et al., 2014; bulik et al., 2003). however, the non-uniqueness of these results deserves further attention to investigate the role that both socially prescribed perfectionism and self-perfectionism can have in shaping self-objectification, especially in non-western cultures that are still understudied. additionally, we investigated the effect of other sources of social influence—i.e., family, friends and one’s partner—on self-objectification. our findings highlighted a complex pattern, which differs between countries, and not always in line with our hypotheses. in line with the literature (arroyo & andersen, 2016; katz-wise et al., 2013), the influence exerted by the family emerged as a significant predictor of body shame in all countries except iran. however, this same variable was not associated with bs in any of the five countries. the peculiarity of the results in our iranian sample may be due to cultural reasons. in this social context, where the hijab, which minimizes exposure in public, has a religious meaning, it is possible that parents exert less influence on the dimension of bsh than parents acting in different social contexts. friends emerged as significant risk factors for bsh in poland and iran, whereas a romantic partner acted as a risk factor for bsh in italy. neither peer groups nor partners were found to be a significant factor for bs. it can be concluded that the role that the significant others (family, partners, friends) play in different countries is not consistent and has to be explored in more depth. limitations our findings contribute to advancing our understanding of factors related to self-objectification examined using a research design involving people living in social contexts with social, cultural, and religious backgrounds different from those in western or westernized countries, usually scarcely, or not at all, included in studies of self-objectification. another strength of this work is that the samples are men and women of different age cohorts. notwithstanding these strengths, our study has several limitations that may be addressed in future research. first, the cross-sectional design constrains the interpretation of causal effects. second, the generalizability of the present research is limited because we used non-random sampling procedures. longitudinal research with more representative groups of participants would make it possible to better understand the effects of the different variables considered and to verify any changes over time of the phenomenon under investigation. third, the five countries included in this study were not homogeneous as there were some variations in percentage of women and mean age and this could have affected the results. an additional limitation is the inclusion of bmi in the analysis, which, being a self-reported measure, is not a fully accurate metric. moreover, given that we included only one middle eastern country (i.e., iran), the present findings would not be generalizable to other asian countries as the hijab is legally mandated for women in iran but not in most other asian countries—including other asian cultures where wearing the hijab is common but voluntary. finally, although obcs is one of the most widely used scales in self-objectification research, its use is problematic and other measures have recently been developed (e.g., daniel et al., 2014; lindner & tantleff-dunn, 2017; talmon & ginzburg, 2016) that may shed light on slightly different theoretical issues. furthermore, in line with most cross-cultural research, the meaning of each measure used may be slightly different depending on the translation and cultural context. practical implications the results from the current study highlight the complexity of self-objectification, where psychological and social variables play a role. there is a need to address both these dimensions, and contrast this phenomenon in a world that, because of globalization, is now increasingly small. our findings showed the need to consider a wide range of variables related to self-objectification, within a multilevel perspective that ranges from personal to relational and cultural-contextual variables. moreover, these findings point to the need to implement interventions that take into account political, religious, and social dimensions, going beyond just individual target dimensions such as gender and age. the sociocultural dimension must be considered both by those who set research goals and by those who intend to develop interventions aimed at preventing self-objectification and its harmful effects. our results may guide prevention and intervention efforts in social, educational, and clinical settings from a culturally situated perspective. self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 40 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion taken together, the present findings suggest that self-objectification is a complex, life-long, socially constructed phe­ nomenon. they also show that bsh and bs are two non-overlapping dimensions of self-objectification and that the antecedents underlying them differ. because environmental antecedents play an important role in conveying ideologies that favor or protect against the experience of self-objectification (calogero & jost, 2011), we call for future research to examine the role of social norms and values in self-objectification, such as analyzing exposure to types of sexist ideologies in different cultural contexts. furthermore, we hope this study will prompt practitioners, educators, and policymakers to work to make people aware of the potential risk and protective factors of self-objectification, and take action to avoid the former and to foster the latter. funding: the authors have no funding to report acknowledgments: we would like to express our warm thanks to our colleague giorgia molinengo for her valuable advice. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials. supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are two additional statistical analyses used in the research and can be accessed in the index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials gattino, s., czepczor-bernat, k., fedi, a., brytek-matera, a., boza, m., lemoine, j. e., sahlan, r. n., wilson, e., de piccoli, n., & rollero, c. 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(2000). obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic. http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42330/1/who_trs_894.pdf?ua=1&ua=1 zurbriggen, e. l., ramsey, l. r., & jaworski, b. k. (2011). self-and partner-objectification in romantic relationships: associations with media consumption and relationship satisfaction. sex roles, 64(7–8), 449–462. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9933-4 about the authors silvia gattino, phd, is an associate professor of social psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin, italy, where she teaches community psychology. her interests range over social and community psychology. her main works concern ethnic prejudice, cross-cultural studies, mass media, and well-being, with a focus on the gender perspective. kamila czepczor-bernat is an assistant professor at the university of wrocław (phd). her research and publications involve eating behaviours, body image, obesity and e-mental health. she is a member of the editorial board of the eating and weight disorders –studies on anorexia, bulimia and obesity and reviewer board member of the international journal of environmental research and public health. self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors 46 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12045 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.09.007 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-013-0300-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022115597068 https://doi.org/10.1037/10312-000 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00144 https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.10257 https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.37.2.243 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0844-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9785-3 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.824 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01667.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.10.005 http://www3.weforum.org/docs/wef_gggr_2020.pdf http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/42330/1/who_trs_894.pdf?ua=1&ua=1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-011-9933-4 https://www.psychopen.eu/ angela fedi is an associate professor in social and community psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). she is the author of national and international texts and articles. she is particularly interested in groups, social inequalities, including gender inequalities, and participation. anna brytek-matera is head of the nutritional psychology unit and leads eat lab (eating behavior laboratory) at the university of wrocław. throughout her career, she has been involved with research around eating disorders, maladaptive eating behaviour and weight-related behaviour. her research has been supported by grants and awards. she has lead several international studies in the field of eating disorders, eating behaviour and orthorexia. she has also been invited to deliver guest lectures at foreign universities as well. she is author of over 130 peer reviewed publications on nutritional psychology, including several books. mihaela boza is an associate professor in the department of psychology at alexandru ioan cuza university of iasi, romania. her research interests include cross-cultural and social psychology, in particular social identity, acculturation and intergroup relations, as well as developmental social psychology. jérémy e. lemoine is a lecturer with a focus on social and organisational psychology at the university of east london and a visiting lecturer at escp business school (uk). his research interests include social, organisational, economic and cross-cultural psychology. more specifically, his main research is in the areas of leadership and well-being in the workplace. jérémy has published articles in top-tier psychology journals including journal of occupational and organizational psychology, journal of business research, international journal of environmental research and public health and body image. reza n. sahlan has a master of science in clinical psychology from iran university of medical sciences. his research interests focus on eating disorders, body image, and cross-cultural studies. emma wilson is a full-time esrc-funded liss dtp phd student at the centre for society and mental health & ioppn, king's college london. her ph.d. looks at the association between bullying victimisation, coping and self-harm among adolescents, using data from an accelerated cohort study. her research interests include youth mental health, social psychology and psychiatric epidemiology. norma de piccoli, phd, is a full professor in social and community psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). she leads cirsde—interdisciplinary centre for research and studies on women and gender university of turin and coordinates the group on gender diversity and disparity (gdg) within the italian association of psychology (aip). her main topics of interest are wellbeing and health in an ecological perspective; participation processes; empowerment; sense of community and gender stereotypes. she collaborates with various public institutions, in particular on issues concerning gender stereotypes, sexual violence and health in a gender perspective. chiara rollero, phd, is an associate professor in social psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research focuses on gender issues, objectification processes, gender violence, and social influence. she is member of the bioethical committee of the university of turin and of the scientific committee of the research centre for women's and gender studies, an international network of professionals working on gender issues. gattino, czepczor-bernat, fedi et al. 47 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 27–47 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-objectification and its biological, psychological and social predictors (introduction) the cultural context method participants and procedure measures data analyses results preliminary analyses regression models discussion limitations practical implications conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors “what was his name, again?”: a new method for reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task research reports “what was his name, again?”: a new method for reducing memorybased errors in an adult false-belief task marea s. colombo* a, charlotte bremer a, julien gross a, jamin halberstadt a, harlene hayne a [a] department of psychology, university of otago, dunedin, new zealand. abstract despite considerable interest in the development of theory of mind (tom) during early childhood, until recently, there has been little consideration about whether and how tom skills continue to change into adulthood. furthermore, the false-belief task, which is believed to capture the underlying mechanisms of tom, is rarely used in studies of tom with adults; those tasks that do assess false-belief understanding may be confounded by incidental task demands, such as complex narratives and excessive memory requirements, making it difficult to isolate adults’ true tom skills, much less to compare them with the skills of children. here, we adapted a task developed by valle, massaro, castelli, and marchetti (2015, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i1.829) to assess false-belief understanding in adults. participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. in the reading condition, participants read a story about the unexpected transfer of a ball between three brothers. in the video condition, participants watched a video version of the same story. finally, in the training condition, participants were first trained on the names of the characters, before watching the video. although condition did not affect participants’ ability to correctly answer a standard false belief question (“where does x think y thinks the ball is?”), participants in the training condition used more mental state language to justify their responses (“why does x think y thinks the ball is here?”), and this improved performance was mediated by improved memory for the story details. we conclude that at least some “failures” of tom use may be due to an inability to understand, recall, or communicate complex information in a tom task, raising important questions about how best to measure tom in adults (and children) in the future. keywords: theory of mind, false belief, adults, training europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 received: 2019-05-08. accepted: 2019-09-17. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: frederic vallee-tourangeau, kingston university, london, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of otago, po box 56, dunedin, new zealand 9054. e-mail: mareacolombo@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. theory of mind (tom) refers to our ability to predict, explain, and interpret others’ beliefs, desires, intentions, and behavior (wellman, 1990; wellman, cross, & watson, 2001). researchers have now shown that tom is related to a number of individual differences in the way we interact with others, including both psychological skills like social understanding, language interpretation, and empathy, as well as social outcomes like number of close friends (astington & jenkins, 1999; ibanez et al., 2013; peterson, slaughter, moore, & wellman, 2016; stiller & dunbar, 2007). to date, most research on tom has focused on preschooland early-school-age children, assessing their abilities via some version of a “false-belief” task (for reviews, see wellman et al., 2001; wellman & liu, 2004). for example, in the classic task developed by wimmer and perner (1983), children listen to a story in which europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ “maxi” puts some chocolate in cupboard x. maxi then leaves the room and while he is gone, his mother moves the chocolate from cupboard x to cupboard y. after hearing the story, participants are asked where maxi will look for the chocolate (a so-called “first-order” false-belief question). to answer correctly (i.e., that maxi will look in cupboard x), participants must differentiate between what they know to be the true location of the chocolate, and maxi’s knowledge of where he left the chocolate. in the conceptually-similar “unexpected contents” task (perner, leekam, & wimmer, 1987), participants are presented with a crayon box and asked what they believe is inside the box. unsurprisingly, children typically say ‘crayons,’ but the experimenter reveals the contents of the box to actually be candy. participants are then asked about what mary, someone who has never seen the true contents of the container, will think is in the box: crayons or candy. once again, to answer correctly, children must differentiate between what they know to be true and what mary believes. a meta-analysis of data collected using first-order false-belief tasks has shown that between the ages of 3 and 6 years, children make substantial progress in their understanding of false belief (wellman et al., 2001). wimmer and perner (1983) found that although the majority of 4to 5-year-olds could not answer first-order false-belief questions, 91% of 6to 7-year-olds and 100% of 8to 9-year-olds answered at least one correctly, independent of question framing (e.g., whether the experimenter asks where the protagonist will look, or what the protagonist believes or knows; wellman et al., 2001). over this same period, children develop some understanding that people can have desires (repacholi & gopnik, 1997; wellman & woolley, 1990) and knowledge (pratt & bryant, 1990) that differ from their own; they also begin to understand that sometimes people show one emotion, but feel another (harris, donnelly, guz, & pitt-watson, 1986). while there has been considerable research on the emergence of tom in young children, far less research has focused on the subsequent development of tom in older children and adults. clearly, the simple false belief tasks that are commonly used with young children are developmentally inappropriate for use with older participants and researchers have now turned to new tasks to help them understand age-related changes in tom beyond early childhood. in this line of work, researchers have focused on a range of components of tom including cognitive, visual, and affective tom (understanding what people think, see and feel respectively; imuta, henry, slaughter, selcuk, & ruffman, 2016). for example, symeonidou, dumontheil, chow, and breheny (2016) used a “director task” to assess the development of visual tom in children (aged 9-13-years old), adolescents (aged 14-18-years old), and adults (aged 19-29-years old). participants were asked to follow the instructions of a director, who had a limited view of a set of objects arrayed on shelves, all of which were in full view of the participant. participants were explicitly told to only move objects that the director would be able to see. in the control condition, there was no director and the participants were told to ignore the objects in slots with a gray background. children and adolescents made more errors than did adults in the director condition, but not in the control condition, providing evidence that the use of tom continues to improve with age beyond early childhood (see also, dumontheil, apperly, & blakemore, 2010; keysar, lin, & barr, 2003). the strange stories task is another task that has been specifically designed for use with adults. in this task, participants are asked to explain deceptive behaviours (white lies, jokes, sarcasm, etc.), which requires taking a character’s cognitive and affective perspective into account. maylor, moulson, muncer, and taylor (2002) used an adapted version of the strange stories task (happé, 1994) to assess the developmental decline of tom in the course of normal aging. they tested young, young-old, and old-old participants (mean ages: 19, 67 and 81 years respectively) and found that participants’ performance on this task declined as a function of age; 81-year-olds performed worse than 67-year-olds who performed worse that 19-year-olds. furthermore, colombo, bremer, gross et al. 301 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in their second experiment, maylor et al. also assessed whether participants’ tom performance relied on their need to remember specific information in the task. despite eliminating the need to recall the details of the story, older adults performed worse on the tom task. these results are consistent with those obtained using emotion recognition tasks and suggest that tom may peak in early adulthood, and decline with age independent of decline in other cognitive functions like memory (sullivan & ruffman, 2004). although research conducted with the strange stories task suggests that tom ability might peak during early adulthood, research using other measures suggests that young-adult tom is potentially less reliable than it appears. for example, in another task, “reading the mind in the eyes,” participants are asked to select the label that best describes the emotional or mental state of a character (e.g., angry, reflective) based on their eyes alone (baron-cohen, wheelwright, hill, raste, & plumb, 2001). rutherford, baron-cohen, and wheelwright (2002) subsequently developed an auditory version of baron-cohen et al.’s (2001) task in which participants are asked to identify a speaker’s state based on his or her brief statements. in both versions, normal adults between the ages of 20 and 48 years performed below ceiling, failing to consistently identify another’s emotional or mental state. subsequent researchers have identified a number of individual difference factors that are related to performance on the eyes task including sex (carroll & chiew, 2006), interest in fiction novels (mar, oatley, & peterson, 2009), and level of prosocial orientation (declerck & bogaert, 2008). although research with adults has now enhanced our understanding of tom (apperly, back, samson, & france, 2008; carroll & chiew, 2006), this work has rarely used the false-belief task that is typically used with children, an omission that not only prevents our ability to chart tom from early childhood across the lifespan, but also risks missing the essence of the construct: the distinction between the contents of one’s own and others’ minds (bradford, jentzsch, & gomez, 2015). of the few exceptions, duval, piolino, bejanin, eustache, and desgranges (2011) assessed young (mage = 23.80 years), middle-aged (mage = 52.55 years), and older adults (mage = 70.14 years) on a battery of tom tasks. as part of this tom battery, participants completed a standard false belief task in which participants read a series of 3-panel comic strips that depicted characters who had different knowledge about a given event. for example, one story charted an interaction between friends, marie and francois. in the first panel, marie tells francois that she wants to get her hair cut and then they can meet at a café for lunch. in the second panel, marie changes her mind and curls her hair instead. in the final panel, francois arrives and sees two females facing the bar, one with long curly hair and one with short hair. participants are asked to decide whether francois will approach the female on the left (with long curly hair) or on the right (with short hair). given that francois does not know that marie has changed her mind, participants would be credited with using tom if they said that francois would approach the female on the right. consistent with other research, results from this study indicated that older participants showed deficits on a false-belief task, compared to young and middle-aged adults. in another study of this kind, valle, massaro, castelli, and marchetti (2015) used a false-belief task modeled on the classic tasks that have been used with preschooland early school-age children (wimmer & perner, 1983). valle et al. asked participants to read a story about the unexpected transfer of a ball between three brothers. after reading the story, participants answered a series of false belief questions. although first-order false-belief questions (where will x look for the ball?) are typically used with children, valle et al. assessed both second-order (where does x think y will look for the ball?) and third-order (where does x think y thinks z will look for the ball?) false-belief questions. valle et al. found that participants correctly answered more second-order false-belief questions than third-order false belief questions. on the third-order false belief reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 302 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questions, in particular, adolescents performed significantly worse than did young adults, but even young adults performed well below ceiling, suggesting that higher-order false-belief understanding might have a long developmental trajectory. a potential limitation of valle et al.’s (2015) study, however, is the semantic complexity of the materials, an issue endemic to the false-belief task, even those used with children. in valle et al., the story was presented to participants in writing, only once, and involved multiple transitions between multiple characters (e.g., “while mark is in the kitchen, james takes the ball to play, puts it in the closet, and leaves the room to go to the bathroom. at this point, luke takes the ball and plays with it. luke hits the ball with his foot awkwardly, and the ball drops behind a large wardrobe.”). these procedural details raise the possibility that some participants may have failed the task not because they lacked tom, but because they could not remember specific details of the story. another important issue in valle et al.’s (2015) study is that, consistent with prior research on the false-belief task used with children, the researchers defined tom in terms of participants’ answers to the false-belief questions alone (e.g., “where does x think y will look for the ball?”). although tom is defined as the ability to attribute mental states to other people (premack & woodruff, 1978), the procedure typically used in false-belief tasks does not require the participant to articulate the reason for their choice. although it might be the case that a correct answer is based on the participant’s understanding of another person’s thoughts, it might also be based on another form of reasoning. additionally, an incorrect answer does not necessarily preclude tom reasoning, but rather may reflect confusion, forgetting, or a whole host of other non-measured factors. in the present study, we continued to explore tom in adults using the task originally developed by valle et al. (2015), but we made two important changes to the task. first, to overcome some of the memory demands of the task, we developed a video version of the materials that was closely based on valle et al.’s written version. the video version provided a more realistic and dynamic stimulus. manipulations similar to those used in the current experiment have been shown to improve performance on other tom tasks such as the eyes task (back, jordan, & thomas, 2009). we predicted that this stimulus, particularly when it was paired with additional training on the characters’ names would lead to greater memory, enhancing tom performance (see also back et al., 2009). second, to gain a better understanding of adults’ tom reasoning, we not only asked them to answer standard tom questions, but we also asked them to justify their answers. method participants ninety-three 18to 34-year-old undergraduate university students (42 female, mage = 20.20 years, sd = 2.37) were recruited through a university participant database and satisfied a small portion of course assessment by completing a worksheet based on the experiment. (three participants were excluded from the final sample, one because he had dyslexia, and two due to experimenter error and additional participants were recruited to ensure each group had 30 participants.) the research was reviewed and approved by the university of otago human ethics committee, which is accredited by the national health research council and whose guidelines are consistent with those of the american psychological association. colombo, bremer, gross et al. 303 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials the false-belief task was modelled on the task used previously by valle et al. (2015) in their study with adolescents and adults. participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (reading, video, or training; n = 30 participants in each condition). participants in the reading condition were given the following story to read at their own pace: mark, james and luke are three brothers. mark, james and luke are in their bedroom. mark is playing with a ball, james is playing on the computer and luke is reading a book on the bed. after the game, mark decides to go to the kitchen to eat a snack and puts the ball in a closed box. james and luke see mark put the ball in the box. while mark is in the kitchen, james takes the ball to play, puts it in the closet, and leaves the room to go to the bathroom. at this point, luke takes the ball and plays with it. luke hits the ball with his foot awkwardly, and the ball drops behind a large wardrobe. luke is unable to recover the ball, so he climbs onto the bed and continues reading. james meets mark in the hallway and tells him that he put the ball in the closet. after several minutes, the two brothers enter in the bedroom. james goes to the computer, and luke makes a very clear gesture to tell mark that the ball is behind the wardrobe. james does not see this gesture. mark wants to play again with the ball. for participants in the video condition, instead of reading the story, they watched a videotaped dramatization of the story twice. professional actors performed the role of each character; participants were introduced to each character at the beginning of the video and each character wore a different coloured t-shirt to make them easier to differentiate. the procedure for the training condition was identical to the video condition, except that, prior to watching the video, the experimenter showed the participant a picture of each character, said the character’s name, and tested participants’ memory for the names by covering the names, pointing to the characters in turn and asking “what is his name?” once participants could correctly identify all of the characters’ names without any errors, they watched the video twice. in summary, our reading condition is a replication of valle et al. and our experimental conditions include both a video and a training condition. based on our estimates of how long it took to read the story, participants in the video and training conditions watched the video twice. primary dependent measures immediately after they finished reading or viewing the story, participants were asked to respond and justify their answersi to one second-order false-belief question and two third-order false-belief questions: (1) where does luke think that james will look for the ball? why? (2) where does luke think that james thinks that mark will look for the ball? why? (3) where does james think that luke thinks that mark will look for the ball? why? participants verbally responded to the questions and their responses were recorded on a digital voice recorder. questions were repeated and clarified if requested, but the experimenter did not remind the participant of the story content. next, participants’ memory for the scene was assessed with nine questions, always in the same order, in which they were asked to identify the characters (e.g., “who was playing with the ball first?”), where each character put the ball, and who saw him place the ball there (see appendix). reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 304 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ additional measures participants’ expressive language and word retrieval ability were tested using the expressive vocabulary test (evt; williams, 2007) and receptive language ability was tested using the peabody picture vocabulary test (ppvt; dunn & dunn, 2007). to control for variations in age between participants, all raw scores on the evt and ppvt were converted to age-standardized scores. procedure participants were tested individually in the laboratory. on arrival, they were seated at a table opposite a female experimenter who outlined the purpose and procedure of the study, and obtained written informed consent. participants completed the language assessments first, followed by the false-belief task. one female experimenter conducted all of the false-belief tasks, and for some participants, a second female experimenter administered the language tests. at the end of the experimental session, participants were debriefed. results demographic and language variables as shown in table 1. there were no significant differences between the experimental conditions in terms of participants’ age, f(2, 87) < 1, p = .461, η2 = .018; sex, χ2(2) = 3.03, p = .220; ppvt score, f(2, 87) < 1, p = .610, η2 = .011; or evt score, f(2, 87) = < 1, p = .458, η2 = .018. scores on the evt ranged from 73 to 133, and on the ppvt from 76 to 126. there were 2 participants who scored more than 1 standard deviation below the standardized mean (100) on both the ppvt and the evt. three additional participants scored more than 1 standard deviation below the standardized mean (100) on the evt. the results did not differ when these outliers were excluded; thus all participants were included in the analyses. as expected, scores on the evt and ppvt were positively correlated, r(88) = .77, p < .010. table 1 means and standard deviations for age and language test scores as a function of condition variable condition reading (n = 30, 18 female) video (n = 30, 24 female) training (n = 30, 22 female) m sd m sd m sd age 20.47 2.86 19.93 1.76 20.63 2.03 ppvta 107.23 10.39 105.07 10.79 104.87 9.35 evta 106.20 12.99 102.57 13.20 102.73 11.93 note. pptv = peabody picture vocabulary test; evt = expressive vocabulary test. astandardized score. memory two research assistants, unaware of participants’ condition assignment, coded participants’ responses to the nine memory questions. participants were assigned a score of 1 if they correctly answered a memory question and 0 if they provided an incorrect response to a memory question. coders showed perfect (100%) agreement. colombo, bremer, gross et al. 305 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the memory scores are shown in figure 1. these scores were analyzed using a univariate anova, which revealed a significant main effect of condition, f(2, 87) = 15.59, p < .001, η2 = .26. independent sample t-tests revealed that participants in the training condition exhibited significantly better memory for the story than those in the video condition, t(58) = 3.62, p < .010, or the reading condition, t(58) = 5.61, p < .001, which were also significantly different from each other, t(58) = 2.26, p = .028. memory scores did not correlate with scores on the ppvt or the evt either within each condition (ppvt; reading: r(28) = .250, p = .183, video: r(30) = .10, p = .605, training: r(28) = -.21, p = .260; evt reading: r(28) = .29, p = .120, video: r(28) = -.06, p = .756, training: r(28) = -.04, p = .823) or across the entire sample (ppvt: r(88) = .04, p = .687; evt: r(88) = .03, p = .806). figure 1. the mean proportion of memory questions answered correctly as a function of experimental condition. error bars reflect standard errors of the means. false-belief task accuracy two research assistants, unaware of participants’ experimental condition, coded participants’ responses to the false-belief questions (e.g., “where does luke think james will look for the ball?”). participants were assigned a score of 1 if they identified the correct location of the ball, and a score of 0 if they identified the incorrect location of the ball. coders again showed perfect agreement. recall that participants were asked one second-order false-belief question and two third-order false-belief questions. according to a mcnemar’s exact test, there was no difference in participants’ accuracy on the two level-3 questions, p = 1.000. given this result, and to provide a more conservative test of our hypothesesii, participants were coded as correct for level-3 tom if they correctly answered either of the level-3 questions. reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 306 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants’ performance on the false-belief test is shown in figure 2. their performance was analyzed as a function of condition and question level, using a generalized estimating equations (gee) model commonly used to analyze repeated-measures binary data (liang & zeger, 1986). the analysis revealed a significant main effect of question level, such that more participants correctly answered the level-2 question, m = 0.67, 95% ci [0.56, 0.76], than the level-3 questions, m = 0.36, 95% ci [0.27, 0.47], χ2(1) = 17.11, p < .001. there was neither an effect of condition, nor an interaction. figure 2. the proportion of participants who correctly answered the false-belief questions as a function of experimental condition and question level. error bars reflect standard errors of the means. false belief task justifications two research assistants, unaware of participants’ condition assignment, coded participants’ justifications for their use of mental-state reasoning, independent of the accuracy of their response. participants were assigned a score of 1 if the justification included a description of the characters’ mental states (e.g., “he did not know that the ball had moved”), and 0 otherwise (e.g., “he put the ball there”). coders showed acceptable interrater reliability (kappa = .81), and all disagreements were resolved through discussion. as with the accuracy data, justifications were analyzed with a 3 (condition) x 2 (question level) gee model, treating the level-3 tom measure as binary (i.e., participants were credited with tom use if they used mental state language in response to either level-3 question) and the data are shown in figure 3. there was a significant main effect of question level; more participants used mental-state justification on the level-3 questions, m = 0.53, 95% ci [0.43, 0.63], than on the level-2 question, m = 0.19, 95% ci [0.11, 0.30], χ2(1) = 28.16, p < .001. there was also a significant effect of condition; compared to participants in the reading condition, m = 0.22, 95% ci [0.11, 0.41], more participants in the training condition, m = 0.50, 95% ci [0.35, 0.65], used colombo, bremer, gross et al. 307 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental-state justification in their responses, χ2(2) = 7.40, p = .007. additionally, more participants in the video condition used mental-state justification than in the reading condition, however this difference did not reach significance, χ2(2) = 2.11, p = .15. the condition x question level interaction was also marginally significant, χ2(2) = 5.78, p = .056. as shown in figure 3 there were no differences between participants’ performance on the level-3 questions as a function of condition, χ2(1) = 1.07, p = .590. for level-2 questions, however, participants in the training condition, m = 0.40, 95% ci [0.24, 0.58], were increasingly more likely to reference character’s mental states to justify their responses than were participants in the video condition, m = 0.20, 95% ci [0.09, 0.38] se = 0.073, and in the reading condition, m = 0.07, 95% ci [0.02, 0.23], χ2(1) = 9.77, p = .008. figure 3. the proportion of participants who used mental-state reasoning in their justification as a function of experimental condition and question level. error bars reflect standard errors of the means. given that participants in the training condition performed better on both the memory task and the justification task, we examined whether the improved justification scores were mediated by improved memory in the training condition. a test of mediation using hayes’ (2012) process procedure (model 4, 10,000 bootstrap resamples) revealed that the bias-corrected confidence interval for the indirect effect (0.360) did not include zero (0.088 to 0.643)iii. our findings support a mediation hypothesis as the training condition did not affect mental-state use independent of memory (c’ = 0.206, p = .50), suggesting that our new method reduced unnecessary task demands that may have previously masked tom ability. the model is illustrated in figure 4 and table 2. reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 308 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4. model of the effects of the training condition mediated by memory. table 2 model coefficients for the mediating effects of memory on theory of mind use antecedent consequent 2. ma 3. yb coefficient se p coefficient se p 1. x 3.267c 0.586 < .01 0.206e 0.302 .497 2. m 0.110d 0.048 .023 3. y 4. constant 5.133 0.414 < .01 0.134 0.305 .662 note. x = training condition; m = memory; y = mental-state reasoning. ar2 = .26; f(2, 87) = 15.585; p < .01. br2 = .11; f(2, 87) = 3.532; p < .018. csee effect a in figure 4. dsee effect b in figure 4. esee effect c’ in figure 4. other analyses although scores on the evt did not correlate with the total number of correct answers, or scores on the memory task, they did correlate with the number of mental-state justifications used, r(90) = .24, p = .023. given that the evt was associated with number of mental-state justifications, this variable could have accounted for some of the variance in performance. a test of mediation using hayes’ (2012) process procedure (model 4, 10,000 bootstrap resamples) revealed that the bias-corrected confidence interval for the indirect effect (-0.038) included zero (-0.150 to 0.024), suggesting that evt score cannot account for the variance in performance. the length of time that participants took to read the story was not correlated with their false-belief accuracy or their justification responses. there was also no correlation between accuracy on the false-belief task and use of mental-state reasoning in the justification questions, r(90) = .16, p = .123. colombo, bremer, gross et al. 309 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion despite considerable interest in the development of tom during early childhood, until recently, there has been little consideration about whether and how tom skills might continue to change into adulthood. although the false-belief task is believed to capture the underlying mechanisms of tom, most tests of tom in adults have focused on other aspects of this skill such as emotion recognition (baron-cohen et al., 2001) and visual perspective taking (keysar et al., 2003). those tasks that do assess false-belief understanding (e.g., valle et al., 2015) may be compromised or confounded by incidental task demands, such as complex narratives and memory requirements, making it difficult to isolate adults’ true tom skills, much less to compare them with the skills of children. in addition, when testing children or adults, relying solely on answers to the false-belief questions alone may obscure critical differences in tom understanding. one goal of the current experiment was to assess whether a visual false-belief task, combined with initial training on the identities of the characters in the false-belief task, would improve adults’ tom performance. a second goal was to examine adults’ rationale for the answers they provided. to achieve these goals, we evaluated three modes of presentation on adults’ memory for story details, the accuracy of their false-belief understanding, and their use of mental-state reasoning to justify their answers. participants had better memory for the story when they saw a video presentation and were trained on the characters’ names than did participants who saw the same video but without training, or simply read the story, suggesting that cognitive load may be a critical limitation in the standard administration of the false-belief task for adults, and presumably children as well. indeed, participants in the reading condition recalled scarcely more than half of the information about who did what and what they were supposed to be reasoning. conversely, participants in the video condition showed better memory, and in the training condition, almost perfect memory, for the characters and their behavior, suggesting that the use of these enhanced formats could improve performance on the false-belief task and, more importantly, provide a more accurate estimate of adults’ tom abilities. surprisingly, although participants in the training condition did show improved accuracy on memory questions, they were no more accurate on the false-belief questions than were participants in the reading group. conversely, participants in the training condition were more likely to use mental-state reasoning to explain their answer, independent of accuracy. furthermore, memory scores mediated the improved performance on reasoning, suggesting that at least some “failures” of tom use can be explained by an inability to understand, recall, or communicate the complex information in a tom task. another, perhaps more important implication of our results relates to the disjunction between responses to tom questions and use of tom reasoning. tom tasks in the literature vary in terms of whether they assess tom use directly, or infer tom use from “correct” answers to test questions. in the current experiment, we assessed both—participants’ tom use was inferred from correct answers about the presumed location of the ball, but was also assessed directly via participants’ justifications for their answers (irrespective of whether the answers were correct or not)—and illustrates how an exclusive focus on accuracy in a false-belief paradigm (or any other measure of tom) could miss important variability in actual competence. our results show that accuracy is neither necessary nor sufficient for tom reasoning: participants can employ tom concepts even without answering the questions correctly, or answer correctly via means other than tom reasoning; reliance on accuracy alone can therefore produce underand over-estimation of individuals’ tom reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 310 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ skills, respectively (see also robinson & mitchell, 1995). almost two thirds of our participants (65%) failed to provide mental-state justification for their answers; similarly, children may answer tom questions correctly with no understanding of why their choice is correct, or arguably answer questions correctly without invoking tom at all (cf. robinson & mitchell, 1995; wimmer, mayringer, & landerl, 1998). even if participants fail to reveal tom reasoning to experimenters for other reasons (e.g., self-presentation, lack of motivation), the gap between their self-reported solutions to tom questions, and the process by which they arrived at them, shows that the two questions should be treated as independent sources of insight into what other people are thinking. the present findings raise important questions regarding the presumed “gold standard” of the false belief task. in the present experiment, participants’ ability to answer the false-belief questions was not correlated with their use of tom to justify their response. that is, participants sometimes provided the correct answer without an adequate justification and sometimes they provided the incorrect answer but used mental-state language to support their choice. other researchers have also assessed the relationship between answers and explanations in the false-belief task and have found mixed results. for example, wimmer, mayringer, and landerl (1998) presented children with two false-belief stories, one in a prediction condition and one in an explanation condition. in the explanation condition, participants were specifically asked, “why would sally look in y.” in the prediction condition, on the other hand, participants were first asked the standard false-belief question, “where will sally look for her ball?” in this latter condition, participants were corrected if they provided an erroneous response, and then were asked to explain why the protagonist would look in that given location. although wimmer and mayringer found that children performed equally well on both versions of the task, others have reported differences when children are asked to explain a false-belief task as opposed to predicting a protagonist’s actions (e.g., robinson & mitchell, 1995). taken together, these studies, and our own study, raise important questions about the best method of assessment in a standard false-belief task. consistent with valle et al. (2015), the adults in the current experiment were nowhere near ceiling in terms of either accuracy or reasoning, even with the benefit of training. it is possible that participants could and would have performed even better given additional training or motivation (ickes, 2011), but it is clear that, for whatever reason, they did not exhibit the kind of tom ability one would expect if tom were more or less fully developed by age 9 (e.g., wimmer & perner, 1983). the importance of motivation becomes even more evident because at least some of the skills associated with tom, such as suppression, cognitive adjustment, and attribution, theoretically require cognitive effort; they are “controlled” rather than “automatic” processes (schneider & shiffrin, 1977). according to bargh (1994), while automatic processing is unintentional, unconscious, uncontrollable and efficient (frankish & evans, 2009), controlled processing is characterized by relatively slow, effortful, and often conscious decision making. although early theorists argued that a mental process was either automatic or controlled (e.g., johnson & hasher, 1987), there is now consensus that most mental processes lie on a continuum and involve elements of both (bargh, 1989, 1994). importantly, if tom does require controlled processes, then it follows that its use requires not only the access to sufficient cognitive resources, but also the motivation to use tom skills in any given situation. an interesting avenue for future research would be to identify the cognitive and motivational factors that moderate performance in adults, and to get an accurate estimate of individuals’ true abilities across the lifespan. it will also be important to replicate these findings with a range of different stimulus materials and test procedures. the present data have both theoretical and practical implications. from a theoretical perspective, our results, and those of others, suggest that false-belief understanding continues to develop until at least early adulthood, colombo, bremer, gross et al. 311 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and even then, there are large individual differences in skill. we contend that one reason that adults (and children) may “fail” false-belief tasks is that the tasks themselves include incidental demands on memory and cognitive processing. indeed, we found that participants remembered more details of a tom interaction when some of those incidental demands were removed (i.e., when participants first learned the characters’ names), and that this improved memory mediated the use of mental-state justification (but not accuracy) in the false-belief task. the video and training methods we developed here open new opportunities for ongoing research on tom in both children and adults that may provide a more complete understanding of how tom is acquired and used across the life-span. from a practical perspective, much of the previous research on tom has focussed on when individuals acquire the use of tom. on the basis of previous research, adults appear to have a fully mature grasp of tom and thus they should be able to easily employ their skills. the present research questions the presumed competence of adult tom and also provides opportunities to understand when, and under what conditions adults will employ their tom abilities. research investigating children’s tom, however, has found that tom ability is associated with a host of positive social outcomes. it is entirely likely that individual differences in tom in adults may predict other success factors in a wide range of professions and social situations. notes i) consistent with previous research assessing justification of false-belief questions (wimmer, mayringer, & landerl 1998), the experimenter did not indicate to participants that the researchers were interested in mental-state information in regards to the justification question. ii) given that our hypothesis is that participants will perform better on level-2 than level-3 questions, this method is a more conservative test of our hypothesis; participants have two chances to perform well on the level-3 questions. iii) hayes’ process procedure automatically creates a dummy variable. funding the research was funded by a marsden grant (15-uoo-061) from the royal society of new zealand. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references apperly, i. a., back, e., samson, d., & france, l. 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(1983). beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children’s understanding of deception. cognition, 13, 103-128. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(83)90004-5 appendix memory questions 1. who was playing with the ball first? 2. who was playing on the computer? 3. who was reading a book on the bed? 4. where did mark put the ball? 5. who saw him put it there? 6. where did james put the ball? 7. who saw him put it there? 8. where did luke kick the ball 9. who saw him kick it there? colombo, bremer, gross et al. 315 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00207450490270901 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2015.11.007 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v11i1.829 https://doi.org/10.1111%2f1467-8624.00304 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-8624.2004.00691.x https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0010-0277%2890%2990024-e https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs1532799xssr0204_2 https://doi.org/10.1016%2f0010-0277%2883%2990004-5 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors marea s. colombo holds a phd in social psychology from the university of otago, dunedin, new zealand. her primary focus during her phd was assessing the role motivation plays in theory of mind use in adults, specifically whether males and females are more likely to use theory of mind with their ingroup or outgroup members. marea’s research interest also include developing new ways to assess adult theory of mind and the role religiosity plays in taking another person’s perspective. charlotte bremer completed a b.s. with first class honours in 2016 from the university of otago, majoring in psychology. her graduate thesis focused on theory of mind in young adults and involved using a false belief task to test and compare participants’ ability to use theory of mind when reading a story or watching a video of the same situation. julien gross holds a phd in developmental psychology from the university of otago, dunedin, new zealand. she is currently employed as a senior research fellow in the department of psychology at otago, supervising graduate students on a range of research topics including juror decision-making, mood and false memory, the use of pūrākau (indigenous myths, legends, stories) in therapeutic settings with children, avatars as interview aids, and interventions to reduce smartphone use. she also conducts evaluations of drug and alcohol addiction treatment programmes for programme providers. professor jamin halberstadt received a b.a. with honours in philosophy from swarthmore college in 1989, and a phd in social psychology from indiana university in 1996. his eclectic research interests include a variety of topics in decision making, emotion, facial attractiveness, social categorization, and religious belief. jamin heads the social cognition laboratory at otago university and is a fellow of the association for psychological science and the society for experimental social psychology. his work has been reported in over 100 publications and conference presentations, and features regularly in the national and international press. he is currently a senior editor at psychological science. harlene hayne holds a phd in behavioural neuroscience from rutgers university. she joined the university of otago in 1992 following three years at princeton university as a postdoctoral fellow. she was awarded a personal chair in psychology at the university of otago in 2002 and she was head of the psychology department for three years before being appointed as the deputy vice-chancellor (research & enterprise). she is the co-director of the new zealand innocence project and she is now vice-chancellor of the university of otago. reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task 316 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 300–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1998 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ reducing memory-based errors in an adult false-belief task (introduction) method participants materials primary dependent measures additional measures procedure results demographic and language variables memory false-belief task accuracy false belief task justifications other analyses discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix memory questions about the authors does existential flexibility associate with individuals’ acceptance of inequality? a study relating existential questing to values and to prejudice research reports does existential flexibility associate with individuals’ acceptance of inequality? a study relating existential questing to values and to prejudice anna miglietta 1, marco rizzo 1, silvia testa 2, silvia gattino 1 [1] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. [2] department of humanities and social sciences, university of aosta valley, aosta, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 received: 2022-07-29 • accepted: 2023-05-05 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: marco rizzo, department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi 10, 10124 torino, italy. e-mail: marco.rizzo@unito.it abstract this study investigated whether existential quest, a relatively new construct defining individual willingness to reflect on existential issues such as the meaning of life and death, was negatively associated with generalized prejudice through the mediation with personal values of universalism and conservation (conformity, security, and tradition). a structural equation model was performed on a convenience sample of 1136 italian adults. results confirmed a negative indirect relationship with generalized prejudice mediated by universalism. findings support the argument that engagement with existential issues is associated with the value of universalism, which in turn is associated with lower levels of generalized prejudice. the present study contributes to the scholarly literature to explain the concept of existential quest. keywords existential quest, values, universalism, conservation, generalized prejudice contemporary times are characterized by increasing negative attitudes in western societies towards diversity and disadvantaged social groups such as migrants (esses, 2021; servidio et al., 2021), the lgbtqi+ community (earle et al., 2021; morrison & morrison, 2011; worthen et al., 2017), or muslim people (adelman & verkuyten, 2020; strabac & listhaug, 2008). the rise of prejudice, racism, and discrimination is a clear indicator of the difficulties that western societies face in integrating diverse individuals and groups, as shown by the latest report of the european union agency for fundamental rights (fra, 2022). derogatory attitudes are not only an obstacle to integration and social cohesion, but also easily create a context of hatred and mistrust that, under certain social conditions, can lead to harmful behaviors such as discrimination, exclusion, or, even worse, brutality and violence. decades of research in social psychology have consistently shown that prejudice against minorities is related to various aspects. two primary and complementary research traditions can be identified in these issues. one important tradition sees the basis of prejudice in structural and contextual factors that interact with intergroup dynamics. sherif and colleagues’ (1961) realistic conflict theory, tajfel’s cic approach (social categorization, social identity, social com­ parison; tajfel 1982), and relative deprivation theory (runciman, 1966) itself underscore the importance of considering aspects related to intergroup functional interdependence as possible explanations for intergroup prejudice and hostility. in addition, other research focuses more on psychological elements that explain why people think in terms of prejudice, as in the case of studies on intergroup threat theory (aberson et al., 2021; stephan et al., 2016). the present study follows this tradition, as it focuses on the role of the individual value system (schwartz, 1992) in orienting attitudes toward other groups. as abstract and trans-situational goals, values drive people to interpret the social world and orient this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9999&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ to different behaviors depending on what they consider “good” or “bad” (piurko et al., 2011; schwartz, 1992; vecchione et al., 2012). the importance of values in advocating derogatory attitudes toward minorities is a consistent research finding (feather & mckee, 2008; sagiv & schwartz, 2022). a large body of research suggests a link between endorsing conserva­ tive values and holding negative intergroup attitudes such as stereotyping, prejudice, and intolerance, if not hostility, toward a variety of minority groups (e.g., barni et al., 2020; leong & ward, 2006; ponizovskiy, 2016). interestingly, research has also found that conservatives who hold negative attitudes toward diversity are strongly motivated to perform psychological processes to reduce cognitive uncertainty, such as cognitive closure (jost, blount, et al., 2003; jost, glaser, et al., 2003). indeed, studies have consistently shown that people with a high need for cognitive closure, a construct that implies individual close-mindedness (webster & kruglanski, 1994), are more likely to engage in readily available knowledge that helps them have a point of reference in uncertain situations (or a top-down tendency; golec de zavala et al., 2008). moreover, empirical research confirmed the link between the need for cognitive closure and ethnic prejudice or negative outgroup attitudes (baldner et al., 2019; sibley & duckitt, 2008). finally, jost, blount, et al. (2003) and jost, glaser, et al. (2003) have shown that the higher the cognitive closure, the greater the possibility of supporting conservative values that tend to seek order and exclude diversity. in the same studies, jost, blount, et al. (2003) and jost, glaser, et al. (2003) found evidence of a positive relationship between the need for cognition, the preference for values of universalism and the acceptance of diversity. the need for cognition is an epistemic need (cacioppo & petty, 1982) that refers to the individual's search for an answer to a cognitive effort and can be understood as the opposite of the need for cognitive closure. the relationship between universalism and acceptance of diversity is consistent with other research highlighting the positive relationship between values of self-transcendence and positive attitudes toward minorities (davidov et al., 2020; feather & mckee, 2008; saroglou et al., 2009). within this framework, understanding the relationships among epistemic needs, values, and intergroup attitudes can shed light on the psychological characteristics of those who express exclusive versus inclusive attitudes toward minorities. the current research aims to understand whether epistemic needs other than the need for cognitive closure and the need for cognition may orient the individual relationship between values and prejudice toward minority groups. in this context, we investigate whether existential quest (eq; van pachterbeke et al, 2012) represents a further psychological variable that can be included into the relationship between values and derogatory attitudes. eq refers to an individual difference in the flexibility of one’s belief system regarding existential issues, i.e., the willingness to examine and change one’s beliefs regarding central and universal issues. we expected that a high quest orientation would drive people toward values of universalism which in turn would lead to more positive attitudes toward minority outgroups consistent with its defining goal: “understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature” (schwartz, 2012, p. 7). this expectation was supported by recent findings (arrowood et al., 2022) showing that individuals high in quest orientation show, among others, a more significant emphatic concern, perspective-taking, and openness (ghorbani et al., 2007; henningsgaard & arnau, 2008), as well as increased tolerance and acceptance of those with culturally different ways of life (van tongeren et al., 2016). because of its relative novelty, the literature on the eq construct is still sparse, and our secondary aim in the present study is to add empirical evidence to this concept. nevertheless, some empirical studies have shown that eq is negatively associated with the need for cognitive closure (rizzo et al., 2019; van pachterbeke et al., 2012). this is consistent with eq's focus on people's tendency to think about existential issues through an openness to change. a positive evaluation of doubt (van pachterbeke et al., 2012) corresponds to a quest attitude (arrowood et al., 2022) that contrasts with the rigidity of thinking emphasized by the need for cognitive closure. in addition, recent research has shown that people who score low on eq are likely to have negative attitudes toward religious people, suggesting an overall close-mindedness (uzarevic et al., 2021). given the negative associations between eq and the need for cognitive closure, e.g., with derogatory attitudes toward minorities, we hypothesize that questioning existential issues may be related to a greater individual acceptance of diversity in society. existential flexibility and prejudice 322 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ personal values and generalized prejudice prejudice may be directed toward a wide range of disadvantaged groups. nevertheless, as allport (1954, p. 68) noted, “people who reject one out-group will tend to reject other out-groups. if a person is anti-jewish, he is likely to be anti-catholic, anti-negro, anti any out-group”. the affective proximity of the different types of prejudice suggests that derogative attitudes toward outgroups are interrelated, beyond each group’s specific history and connotations (see everett et al., 2019). a decade ago, zick and colleagues (2008) proposed that different kinds of prejudice can be conceptually grouped under a syndrome labeled group-focused enmity (gfe). gfe “encompasses prejudices toward different groups that are, within a stable structure, substantially interrelated over a period of time even though the level of approval can vary across time, cultures, and individuals” (zick et al., 2008, p. 364). gfe is powered by a core consisting of devaluing attitudes that are predicted in turn by support for an ideology of inequality (küpper & zick, 2014; zick et al., 2008). as research has shown, ideologies of inequality serve the majority group interested in maintaining or enhancing its own status and, at the same time, serve to keep members of lower-status groups in their place (sidanius & pratto, 2004). validation studies proved the existence of gfe syndrome using cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data from germany (davidov et al., 2011; zick et al., 2008) and a large cross-national study involving eight european countries (zick et al., 2011). the results consistently showed the existence of a devaluing and inequality-supporting common core strictly related to social dominance orientation (sidanius & pratto, 2004) and right-wing authoritarianism (altemeyer & hunsberger, 1992). the predictive role of gfe for prejudicial attitudes toward a wide range of social targets, e.g., sexism, anti-semitism, and ethnic prejudice, was confirmed by a recent study that also highlighted the relationships between gfe and individuals’ value priorities (beierlein et al., 2016). this is in line with previous findings on the relationship between prejudicial attitudes and personal values, (e.g., becker et al., 2012; davidov & meuleman, 2012; kuntz et al., 2015; miglietta et al., 2018). specifically, beierlein and colleagues (2016) found a positive contribution of the values of conservation (security, tradition, and conformity) to gfe and a negative contribution of the value of universalism. similarly, davidov and colleagues (2020) showed across western and eastern european countries that universalism was associated with a greater support of immigration than conformity and tradition, which revealed strong association with the rejection of immigration. interesting as it is, this relationship is not surprising. in fact, on the one hand, evidence from studies in political psychology highlights that the endorsement of values of conservation enhances a right-wing political orientation, supporting ideologies of inequality (jost, blount, et al., 2003; jost, glaser, et al., 2003), which are also at the core of gfe (vecchione et al., 2012; cf. datler et al., 2013). on the other hand, research shows that self-transcendence values positively relate to support for human and minority rights (kuşdil & şimşek, 2008), willingness to engage in contact with outgroup members (sagiv & schwartz, 2022) and support for immigration and immigration policies (davidov et al., 2020; davidov & meuleman, 2012; miglietta et al., 2018). the present study drawing on the above cited literature, we hypothesized the relationship patterns shown in figure 1. specifically, we analyzed whether eq would be positively associated with the value of universalism (h1) and negatively associated with conservative values (tradition, conformity, and security) (h2); we also expected a negative association between universalism and gfe (h3) and, on the contrary, a positive association between conservative values and gfe (h4). moreover, we expected a complete mediated relationship between eq and gfe, that is, the direct association should no longer be significant when controlling for the mediator-outcome pathway (h5). miglietta, rizzo, testa, & gattino 323 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 hypothesized model note. eq = existential quest; gfe = group focused enmity. continuous lines indicate expected association. dashed line indicates unexpected association. method participants and procedure the participants were 1136 italian adults (69.6% female) with ages ranging from 18 to 83 (mage = 30.4; sdage. = 11.8). nearly half of the respondents had a bachelor’s degree or higher (47.7%), while 46.8% had a high school diploma. the remaining participants (5.5%) had lower levels of education. respondents completed an online questionnaire in 2018 (january–june). the researchers used a snowball sampling by first contacting personal contacts via e-mail and asking them to forward the research opportunity, including the informed consent form and link to the online questionnaire, to their personal contacts. participants filled in a set of self-report measures that on average required 20 minutes to complete through a university survey platform. participants volunteered after giving their consent to participate; minors could not participate in the study. the dataset did not contain any missing data; the ethics committee of the local university approved the study protocol. measures existential quest (eq) the eq scale (van pachterbeke et al., 2012) consists of 9 items assessing individual flexibility toward existential issues (sample items are “today, i still wonder about the meaning and goal of my life”; “my way of seeing the world is certainly going to change again”). participants gave their responses on a seven-point scale ranging from 1 = completely disagree to 7 = completely agree. in line with the italian validation study (rizzo et al., 2019), one reverse item, “i know perfectly well what the goal of my life is”, was excluded from the analyses. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the 8 items was .73 in the current study, in line with the coefficient of the italian validation (.70; rizzo et al., 2019). personal values (portrait values questionnaire-short) the 21-item portrait values questionnaire (schwartz, 2003) measures the ten personal values as a verbal portrait representing the motivations, goals, and aspirations of a respondent. for each item, respondents answer the question ‘‘how much like you is this person?” by using a six-point scale ranging from 1 = not like me at all to 6 = very much like me. this study considered only the 9 items referred to the values of universalism (three items, e.g., “it is important to her to listen to people who are different from her. even when she disagrees with them, she still wants to understand existential flexibility and prejudice 324 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ them”), security (two items, e.g., “it is important to her to live in secure surroundings. she avoids anything that might endanger her safety”), conformity (two items, e.g., “it is important to her always to behave properly. she wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong”) and tradition (two items, e.g., “it is important to her to be humble and modest. she tries not to draw attention to herself”). cronbach’s alpha for the universalism was .61. cronbach’s alpha for the conformity and security were .61 and .70, respectively; the cronbach’s alpha for the tradition was .34. overall, these results were in line with previous cross-country studies, including the low value of alpha coefficient relative to the tradition value items (universalism: .45; conformity: .37; security: .51; tradition: .37; schwartz et al., 2015). group-focused enmity (gfe) the gfe (zick et al., 2008) scale measures several targets of prejudice to form an indicator of a general syndrome. according to the authors, each target of prejudice is measured by two items representing a negative attitude toward a specific outgroup. in this study, we considered targets of prejudice consistent with the italian context. specifically, we adapted the items from the original gfe scale (zick et al., 2008) to cover the following six specific types of prejudice: sexism, devaluation of homosexual persons, racism, islamophobia, devaluation of newcomers, and xenophobia. for example, sexism asks for the agreement with the following two statements: “women should think stronger on the role as wives and mothers” and “it is more important for a wife to help her husband’s career than to have one herself”. respondents gave their responses on a five-point scale ranging from 1 = completely disagree to 5 = completely agree. the overall cronbach’s alpha coefficient for these six target groups was .91, higher than the coefficient of the italian validation study (.74; zick et al., 2011). sociodemographic data a list of sociodemographic items, including respondents’ gender, age, and education, was included. data analysis statistical analysis was conducted using mplus 8 (muthén & muthén, 2017) and spss 27.0 (ibm spss statistics, ibm corporation). first, we ran confirmatory factor analyses (cfa) to examine the measurement properties of the scales in the current study. then, a structural equation model (sem) was estimated to test our hypotheses. items with 6 or more response categories (universalism, tradition, conformity, security, existential quest items) were treated as continuous variables, while items with 5 response categories were treated as ordinal variables (gfe). as pointed out by rhemtulla and colleagues (2012) treating items with few categories as continuous variables may be a weak strategy. since the data did not meet the assumption of multivariate normality—as resulted from mardia’s multivariate skewness (168.6, p < .001) and kurtosis (1312.0, p < .001) measures (wang & wang, 2019)—we used the asparouhov and muthén (2010) meanand variance-adjusted ml method of estimation (mlmv) for continuous variables, and the mean and variance-adjusted weighted least squares (wlsmv) for ordinal variables. to assess the model’s goodness of fit, we applied the following criteria: root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) ≤ .080; comparative fit index (cfi) ≥ .900; only for continuous variables standardized root mean square residual (srmr) ≤ .080 (browne & cudeck, 1993; hu & bentler, 1999). we used bootstrap estimation for the mediation tests (hayes, 2018) with 5,000 samples, and we computed the bias-corrected 95% ci by determining the effects at the 2.5th and the 97.5th percentile; the indirect effects are significant when 0 was not included in the ci. results descriptive statistics and correlations means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations for the variables in the study are presented in table 1. eq was slightly positively correlated with universalism and slightly negatively correlated with gfe. all the values included miglietta, rizzo, testa, & gattino 325 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the present study (universalism, tradition, conformity, security) were significantly correlated with gfe. in detail, universalism showed a moderate and negative correlation with gfe, while tradition, and security showed low and positive correlations with gfe. table 1 means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. eq 5.12 0.89 – 2. universalism 5.10 0.76 .18*** – 3. security 4.29 1.17 .03 .08*** – 4. tradition 3.55 1.04 .03 .13*** .26*** – 5. conformity 4.17 1.09 -.01 .16*** .33*** .38*** – 6. gfe 1.41 0.60 -.13*** -.40*** .16*** .18*** .02 – note. n = 1136. eq = existential quest. gfe = group focused enmity. ***p < .001. measurement model testing confirmatory factor analyses (cfa) were conducted to test the structures of each scale. factor loadings were freely estimated, and the latent variance was fixed at 1.0. the standardized factor loadings for the cfas are reported in appendix a. the results of the eq scale confirmed the same structure emerged in the italian adaptation (rizzo et al., 2019). thus, the one-factor model fit the data satisfactorily after estimating the residual correlation of two pairs of items: χ2(18) = 144.0, p < 0.01, rmsea = .079, 90% ci [0.67, 0.91], cfi = .926, and srmr = .045. in line with the italian validation study (rizzo et al., 2019) all the factor loadings (standardized values) were acceptable except the lower factor loadings concerning the item “i often reappraise my opinion on religious/spiritual beliefs” (.27). regarding the factor structure of the gfe scale, the 6-factor model (zick et al., 2008), in which each factor corresponds to one of the 6 targets of prejudice, showed extremely high correlations (from 0.95 to 1.06) between the factors concerning the following targets: xenophobia, racism, devaluation of newcomers, and islamophobia. by examining the content of the items, all of them seem to share a common reference to the devaluation of strangers, and a new model in which all these items loaded onto a single latent factor named “devaluation of foreigners” was tested, obtaining satisfactory results. then, following zick and colleagues (2008), we performed a second-order cfa in which the devaluation of foreigners, devaluation of homosexuals, and sexism loaded onto a second-order factor named gfe. the second-order model fit the data very well: χ2(51) = 288.2, p < .01, rmsea = .064, 90% ci [0.57, 0.71], cfi = .985, and the factor loadings of the three first-order factors onto the second-order factor were high, ranging from .84 to .88. finally, we tested the factor structure of the 9 items measuring the values of universalism, security, tradition, and conformity. we estimated a model with two correlated first-order factors concerning universalism (3 items) and conservation (6 items belonging to the conformity, tradition, and security subscales) (see cieciuch & davidov, 2012). the results showed a satisfactory model fit after estimating the residual correlation of two pairs of items of the conservation factor: χ2(24) = 159.7, p < .01, rmsea = .071, 90% ci [0.60, 0.81], cfi = .900, and srmr = .054. the loading size (standardized) was acceptable, ranging from .33 to .67. structural model testing the standardized coefficients of the structural part of the model are depicted in figure 2. regarding the measurement part of the model eq, universalism, conservation, sexism, devaluation of homosexual persons, and devaluation of foreigners were measured by their corresponding items. existential flexibility and prejudice 326 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 results of the structural equation model note. eq = existential quest. gfe = group-focused enmity. it = item. standardized values are presented. standardized values of indicators of latent variables are omitted for the sake of clarity. indirect effects in brackets. ***p < .001. the model fit the data quite well: χ2(366) = 1769.6, p < .001, rmsea = .058, 90% ci [0.55, 0.61], cfi = .916, and explained approximately 50.5% of the variance for gfe. table 2 shows standardized coefficients (β) and unstandardized coefficients (b) with their standard errors (se) and bias-corrected 95% ci for direct, indirect, and total effects. table 2 summary of direct, indirect, and total effects paths β b se 95% ci [ll, ul] direct effects eq → universalism .35*** 0.37*** 0.07 [0.27, 0.49] eq → conservation .02 0.02 0.06 [-0.07, 0.12] eq → gfe -.06 -0.09 0.06 [-0.19, 0.02] universalism → gfe -.57*** -0.76*** 0.09 [-0.93, -0.63] conservation → gfe .39*** 0.56*** 0.11 [0.39, 0.76] indirect effects eq → universalism → gfe -.20*** -0.28*** 0.06 [-0.39, -0.20] eq → conservation → gfe .01 0.01 0.03 [-0.04, 0.06] total effects eq → gfe -.25*** -0.36*** 0.08 [-0.49, -0.24] note. n = 1136. eq = existential quest. gfe = group focused enmity. ll = lower limit. ul = upper limit. ***p < .001. results confirmed h1 because eq was positively associated with the value of universalism. however, h2 was not confirmed due to an absence of relationship between eq and conservation. we found a negative association between universalism and gfe syndrome, as expected in h3. furthermore, h4 was also confirmed because conservation was positively related to gfe syndrome. miglietta, rizzo, testa, & gattino 327 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we confirmed h5 regarding the mediation of values between eq and gfe. in detail, we found a negative indirect effect of universalism, but not of conservation, in the relationship between eq and gfe. as a control analysis, we retested the same model as in figure 2 with the inclusion of the sociodemographic variables of gender, age, and education level. the model fit was good, χ2(441) = 2194.6, p < .001, rmsea = .059, 90% ci [0.57, 0.62], cfi = .902, and the explained variance of the outcome variable was 56.2%. the addition of these variables did not substantially change the coefficients shown in figure 2 (see appendix b). discussion and conclusion the aim of the present study was to investigate the role of flexibility on existential issues in individual acceptance of social inequalities. in doing so, we have conceptualized the acceptance of inequalities as encompassing generalized prejudices and advocacy of conservation values that are at the core of ideologies of inequality. the study draws on jost’s model of the relationship between epistemic needs and intergroup attitudes (jost et al., 2009; jost, blount, et al., 2003; jost, glaser, et al., 2003). specifically, we hypothesized that the propensity for existential questions influences individuals' value priorities and leads people to place more importance to the values of universalism at the expense of conservation values which are at the core of the ideology of inequality. in turn, universalism reduces generalized the prejudice against minorities, expressed in the gfe syndrome. although studies on eq are still limited, the available literature suggests a promising relationship between this concept and derogatory attitudes (see uzarevic et al, 2021). moreover, a significant relationship has been found between eq and the need for cognitive closure (rizzo et al., 2019), which led us to consider eq as a psychological variable belonging to epistemic needs (jost, blount, et al., 2003; jost, glaser, et al., 2003). based on these assumptions, we tested direct associations of eq with values of conservation and universalism, such as a relationship between eq and the gfe syndrome mediated by values of conservation and universalism. in the present work, we found a partial confirmation of our hypotheses. since eq was positively related to the value of universalism, we confirmed h1. this result seems to be consistent with the idea that an individual tendency to grapple with existential questions, and the related willingness to question one's belief system, may favor the endorsement of values related to the moral domain such as universalism. indeed, the quest orientation drives people to develop empathic concern and perspective-taking, and it increases tolerance and acceptance of diversity (arrowood et al., 2022). as defined by schwartz (2012), universalism represents a value that emphasizes the idea of support, protection, and acceptance of all people. the ability to tolerate others even if they are not part of one's own group, as supported by the adjacency of values of universalism and benevolence in schwartz’s (1992) circumplex model seems to be consistent with the individual tendency to be open to other people and possibilities as conceptualized by eq. as for h2, we found a lack of significant relationship between eq and conservative values (security, tradition, and conformity) in place of the expected negative one. this result suggests that individual efforts to ask existential questions do not challenge values outside the moral domain, as individual striving for security and the subordination of the self to the socially imposed expectations (schwartz, 2012). moreover, as noted earlier, previous studies have confirmed a conceptual difference between a general cognitive style and eq (rizzo et al., 2019) that may partially explain the lack of a specific link between eq and conservation. the relationships between values and prejudicial attitudes were confirmed (h3 and h4) in accordance with the vast literature (beierlein et al., 2016; davidov et al., 2020; miglietta et al., 2018; souchon et al., 2017). according to h5, we found mediation of values in the relationship between eq and gfe syndrome. specifically, the total effect of eq on gfe syndrome was due to mediation of universalism (but not conservation), whereas no direct relationship emerged between eq and gfe syndrome. in other words, our results suggest on the one hand that eq promotes values of open-mindedness, social justice, and equality. this contributes to the reduction of generalized prejudice against minorities likely reducing individuals’ acceptance of social inequalities. on the other hand, however, eq does not help reduce the acceptance of conservation values that are at the core of the ideology of inequality. this finding represents the most important contribution of the current work to the literature, as it clarifies the role of eq in avoiding prejudicial attitudes. existential flexibility and prejudice 328 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in summary, this study offers insights into explaining eq as one of the drivers that lead people to support certain values by tending to accept other perspectives. in particular, the study highlights the importance of the moral dimension in forming attitudes toward devalued minorities. this is consistent with previous studies that emphasise the particular nature of eq in relation to a general need for cognition (rizzo et al., 2019; van pachterbeke et al., 2012), as well as the role that eq can play in addressing moral dilemmas and cultural/religious issues. for example, eq has been shown to play an important role in the acceptance of moral dilemmas such as abortion, child euthanasia, homosexual adoption, and suicide (deak & saroglou, 2015). in addition, eq has been found to be important in the successful acculturation process of second-generation immigrants who belong to a religion other than the majority religion in european countries (rizzo et al., 2022). more broadly, the present study helps to clarify that the relationship found between eq and gfe is not just a special case of the general relationship between the need for closure and tolerance or prejudice. to the best of our knowledge, no other study has examined the relationship between willingness to think about existential issues and personal values (schwartz, 2012). moreover, this finding indicates that consideration should be given to including eq as a psychological variable in epistemic needs, as is the case with similar constructs related to general close-mindedness (jost et al., 2009; jost, blount, et al., 2003; jost, glaser, et al., 2003). future studies are needed to better explain the role of eq in value endorsement and its role within epistemic needs. following jost and colleagues (2009), it might be interesting, for example, to understand the role of eq as an epistemic need in advocating a political ideology. furthermore, experimental designs can help to understand whether levels of eq vary with respect to the importance of existential concerns and how the variations affect the moral dimension that defines orientation to the existential quest (arrowood et al., 2022). moreover, future research should take into account the role of different cultures and religions across countries in the study of eq, values, and prejudice. indeed, in western societies characterized by the presence of different cultures, religions, and/or sexual orientations, a willingness to reflect on the meaning of life and to accept doubt and/or different perspectives may help people understand the various facets of our contemporary society (see rizzo et al., 2022). the current study is not exempt from limitations. although this study represents a first attempt to examine the influence of eq on prejudice, a limitation is its cross-sectional nature which makes it impossible to establish causal relationships among the variables in the study. future longitudinal studies could confirm the effective influence of eq on prejudicial attitudes and its relationship with personal values (schwartz, 2012). another limitation concerns the generalizability of our results. our participants were recruited in only one european country and only in one part of the country (northwestern italy). in addition, the snowball sampling method, which began with university students, resulted in a partially unbalanced sample in terms of gender (most participants were women), educational level (the majority had at least a secondary school certificate), and age (mainly young adults). concerning the limitations on the measures used in the present study, we found low reliability for the items related to tradition value. as has been noted in other work (e.g., schwartz et al., 2015), the tradition value tends to show low reliability. however, for the main results of the study, we used a latent variable of conservation that included all items related to tradition, conformity, and security values, all of which showed acceptable loading on the measure of the construct of interest (see appendix a). nevertheless, this study suggests some important practical implications. indeed, being flexible on existential issues may help people develop greater acceptance of minorities by reducing generalized prejudice. interventions aimed at promoting social inclusion could work at the cognitive level and improve individuals' ability to think critically about existential issues. the role of individual reflection on existential issues in activating universalism suggests further implications, particularly for educational programs aimed at preventing the stigmatization of minority groups in the future. in this respect, galamba and matthews (2021) emphasized that to combat racism, sexism, and other prejudice against minority groups, it is important to strengthen mutual respect and the idea of the common good among students, pointing to educational settings as the primary place where social values and shared norms are learned. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. miglietta, rizzo, testa, & gattino 329 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 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(2008). the syndrome of group‐focused enmity: the interrelation of prejudices tested with multiple cross‐sectional and panel data. journal of social issues, 64(2), 363–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00566.x appendices appendix a: standardized loadings for cfas eq item loading 1. today, i still wonder about the meaning and goal of my life. .31 2. my attitude toward religion/spirituality is likely to change according to my life experiences. .33 3. being able to doubt about one’s convictions and to reappraise them is a good quality. .52 4. in my opinion, doubt is important in existential questions. .48 5. my way of seeing the world is certainly going to change again. .82 6. my opinion varies on a lot of subjects. .71 7. years go by, but my way of seeing the world doesn’t change. .50 8. i often reappraise my opinion on religious/spiritual beliefs. .27 pvq-short item loading universalism 1. he/ she thinks it is important that every person in the world should be treated equally. he/ she believes everyone should have equal opportunities in life. .67 2. it is important to him/ her to listen to people who are different from him/ her. even when he/ she disagrees with them, he/ she still wants to understand them. .59 3. he/ she strongly believes that people should care for nature. looking after the environment is important to him/her. .53 conservation 4. he/ she believes that people should do what they’re told. he/ she thinks people should follow rules at all times, even when no one is watching. .64 5. it is important to him always to behave properly. he/ she wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong. .67 6. it is important to him/ her to be humble and modest. he/ she tries not to draw attention to himself/ herself. .45 7. tradition is important to him/ her. he/ she tries to follow the customs handed down by his/ her religion or his/ her family. .42 8. it is important to him/ her to live in secure surroundings. he/ she avoids anything that might endanger his/ her safety. .43 9. it is important to him/ her that the government ensures his/ her safety against all threats. he/ she wants the state to be strong so it can defend its citizens. .33 gfe item loading sexism 1. women should think stronger on the role as wives and mothers. .79 2. it is more important for a wife to help her husband’s career than to have one herself .89 devaluation homosexuals 3. it is disgusting when homosexuals kiss in public. .88 4. marriages between two women or between two men should be permitted. .89 devaluation foreigners 5. there are too many foreigners living in italy. .89 6. when jobs get scarce, the foreigners living in italy should be sent (back) home. .89 7. those who are new somewhere should be content with less. .81 miglietta, rizzo, testa, & gattino 333 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 321–334 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9999 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-016-0244-y https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00566.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ eq item loading 8. those who have always been living here should have more rights than those who came later. .88 9. italian re-settlers should be better off than foreigners because they are of italian origin. .91 10. it is right that whites are leading in the world. .77 11. immigration to italy should be forbidden for muslims. .83 12. with so many muslims in italy, one feels increasingly like a stranger in one’s own country. .88 note. n = 1136. eq = existential quest. pvq-short = portrait values questionnaire-short. gfe = group focused enmity. appendix b standardized results for the structural model with age, education, and gender as control variables note. eq = existential quest. gfe = group-focused enmity. standardized values are presented. indicators of latent variables are omitted for the sake of clarity. only significant standardized values and arrows are reported for the sake of clarity. indirect effects are in brackets (bootstrap 5000). gender: 0 = male; education was recoded as a dummy variable: 0 = low-middle education. about the authors anna miglietta is an associate professor of social psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin, italy, where she teaches social psychology. her interest range over social and community psychology. her main works concern ethnic prejudice, social inclusion, migrant acculturation. marco rizzo is a post-doctoral research fellow in the department of psychology at the university of turin, italy. his interest range over social, community psychology and validation of psychological tests. his main works are acculturation, islamic religion, existential flexibility, and prejudice. silvia testa is an associate professor in psychometrics at the department of human and social sciences, university of valle d'aosta, italy, where she teaches psychometrics and quantitative methods. her interest range over development and validation of psychological tests, latent variable modeling, quality of life and well-being assessment in clinical and general populations. silvia gattino is an associate professor of social psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin, italy, where she teaches community psychology. her interest range over social and community psychology. her main works concern ethnic prejudice, cross-cultural studies, mass media, and well-being, with a focus on the gender perspective. existential flexibility and prejudice 334 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ existential flexibility and prejudice (introduction) personal values and generalized prejudice the present study method participants and procedure measures data analysis results descriptive statistics and correlations measurement model testing structural model testing discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references appendices about the authors the effects of social comparison and subjective financial well-being on subjective well-being research reports the effects of social comparison and subjective financial well-being on subjective well-being theda renanita 1, cicilia larasati rembulan 2 [1] faculty of psychology, universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia. [2] faculty of psychology, universitas ciputra, surabaya, indonesia. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 received: 2024-06-07 • accepted: 2025-04-15 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: cicilia larasati rembulan, faculty of psychology, universitas ciputra, jl. cbd boulevard citraland, surabaya, indonesia, 60219. email: crembulan@ciputra.ac.id supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract existing research on the antecedents of subjective well-being (swb), which comprises life satisfaction and happiness, remains inconclusive. some studies suggest that increasing income enhances swb, while others emphasize the role of income comparison within reference groups in influencing swb. the role of subjective financial well-being in enhancing subjective well-being is also inconclusive. on the one hand, financial well-being may contribute to increasing swb; on the other, subjective financial well-being is a characteristic compared to reference groups, and this comparison is what influences swb. this study, therefore, sets out to answer the question: how does social comparison and subjective financial well-being influence swb? we predict that social comparison influences swb (life satisfaction and happiness) through the mediation of subjective financial well-being. data from 3,591 respondents (1,750 females, 1,841 males, aged 21 – 60 years; m = 30.81, sd = 7.51) in the indonesian family life survey (ifls 5) were analyzed using path analysis. the measures in this study include financial well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, and social comparison taken from ifls-5 book iii a. the research findings indicate that social comparison does not directly influence life satisfaction and happiness. however, the influence of social comparison on both is mediated by subjective financial well-being. the practical implications of this research suggest that individuals who are happy and satisfied with their lives need to have at least one satisfying life domain, such as financial well-being, and focus on subjective self-evaluation rather than constantly comparing themselves with reference groups. keywords social comparison, subjective financial well-being, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, indonesia, ifls social comparison and well-being both life satisfaction and happiness are fundamental components of subjective well-being. happiness refers to a positive emotional state that typically arises when an individual’s social needs are met, such as feeling respected. happiness encompasses both positive momentary positive affect and sustained emotional states such as contentment (diener, heintzelman et al., 2017). in addition, life satisfaction is more associated with holistic evaluations of life, including the fulfillment of basic needs such as food and shelter (diener, oishi & tay, 2018). diener and seligman (2018) emphasize the intrinsic aspects of subjective well-being, focusing on internal evaluations of life satisfaction and happiness. studies supporting the intrinsic nature of well-being include diener and seligman (2018), who explain minimal differences in subjective well-being between affluent and developing countries. this this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14791&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ suggests that wealth or money does not necessarily engender happiness and contentment. in accordance with this, yates’ (2020) research supports the view that external factors, such as money, do not inherently enhance happiness. nevertheless, financial management, philanthropy, and social connections can contribute to an individual’s happiness. biswas-diener (2008) further corroborates these findings concluding that external material luxuries do not significantly contribute to happiness or life satisfaction. as long as individuals can meet their basic needs, they do not require external, material luxuries. well-being has been extensively researched across various interdisciplinary fields, including psychology, economics, sociology, physiology, gerontology, and health sciences. therefore, numerous definitions and terms are used to eluci­ date well-being, such as psychological well-being, quality of life, life satisfaction, domain satisfaction, and hedonic well-being. this research adopts diener’s theory of subjective well-being due to its comprehensive and well-tested nature. subjective well-being differs from eudaimonic well-being, which emphasizes psychological characteristics such as meaning in life, life purpose, positive social relationships, and autonomy (diener, lucas & oishi, 2018). diener’s perspective on subjective well-being, comprising cognitive and affective facets, aligns with studies by frey (2017), mureșan et al. (2021), and staubli et al. (2014), which prioritize an individual's personal evaluation of their life over objective measures. studying subjective well-being is crucial, as scholars have found it enhances health and longevity, fosters positive social relationships, improves job performance, and stimulates creativity (diener, lucas & oishi, 2018; diener, pressman et al., 2017). subjective well-being does not solely center on internal facets. some findings emphasize self-evaluation based on external conditions. research indicates that individuals perceive happiness when their income surpasses that of others. malka and chatman (2003) illustrate that intrinsically driven individuals tend to report lower levels of happiness in their lives and have lower incomes. hurka (2016) explains this phenomenon, suggesting that society promotes objectives considered ‘worth pursuing’, such as wealth, knowledge, achievement, and education. individuals who lack these attributes may struggle to validate their relevance and functionality within society. the presence of others for comparison is crucial for individuals to feel happy and satisfied with their lives. wang et al. (2023) explain that an individual’s subjective well-being (swb) is influenced by their perceived standing relative to others. consistent with this notion, ma and piao (2019) indicates that social comparison among married japanese career women can diminish their happiness. carrieri (2012) discovered a similar phenomenon, indicating that social comparison significantly impacts subjective well-being, particularly when a gap exists between oneself and others. the contrast between inward-oriented and outward-oriented evaluations of well-being remains a subject of debate. further research is needed to determine whether individuals experience greater happiness and life satisfaction by evaluating themselves or by comparing themselves to a reference group in their surroundings. individuals tend to strive for a deeper understanding of themselves, particularly within the context of social compar­ ison. in seeking self-understanding, individuals often compare themselves with reference groups (buunk & gibbons, 2000; chatterjee et al., 2019), particularly relying on external standards during uncertain situations (forsyth, 2000). the tendency for social comparison is pronounced in younger individuals but declines as they approach the age of 60 (buunk et al., 2020). reference groups are individuals or groups whose attributes serve as benchmarks for comparison (van praag, 2010). common examples of reference groups include coworkers, close friends, and neighbors. williams (1970) and zell and alicke (2020) highlight family as a significant reference group for most individuals. social comparison occurs in two directions: upward and downward. upward comparison occurs when individuals compare their abilities, resources, or skills to a superior reference group. in contrast, downward comparison occurs when individuals compare themselves to those with inferior skills, resources, or abilities. individuals generally prefer upward comparison when the opportunity arises, particularly in aspirational contexts. however in threatened situa­ tions, individuals may evaluate themselves differently, focusing on their standing relative to the reference group. when individuals perceive themselves as superior, they feel a sense of superiority; conversely, perceiving inferiority leads to feelings of inadequacy (wheeler & suls, 2020). upward comparison is often associated with negative emotions such as envy, guilt, regret, defensiveness, decreased subjective well-being (buunk & gibbons, 2000; white et al., 2006). these feelings arise when individuals perceive them­ selves as failing to achieve at the level of their reference group. carraturo et al. (2023) elucidate that upward comparison can serve as an antecedent to depression. on the other hand, upward comparison can also have beneficial effects by financial well-being impacts subjective well-being 180 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ motivating individuals to strive for greater achievements (olivos et al., 2021). downward comparison can provide a sense of relative prosperity, particularly for individuals experiencing psychological distress. downward comparisons can also bring relief when individuals observe others in worse circumstances (olivos et al., 2021). however, downward com­ parison is not recommended for long-term use as individuals may lose focus on effective problem-solving (vanderzee et al., 1996). cheung and lucas (2020) challenge the dichotomy, offering a balanced view of the effects of upward and downward comparisons. they argue that both upward and downward comparisons can positively and negatively impact well-being. social comparison is frequently examined through the social status of respondent’s family members, such as parents and parent-in-law (alderson & katz-gerro, 2016; mcfarland et al., 2001). family social standing serves as a critical reference point in many cultures (goldstein, 2015), particularly in collectivist societies like indonesia (setyaningrum et al., 2022). parents and parents-in-law serve as primary social benchmarks, providing a framework for evaluating one's own achievements, financial stability, and social success. in marital contexts, comparisons with parents-in-law gain significance as individuals often feel compelled to meet or surpass their standards to attain acceptance and respect. this comparison can influence self-esteem, life satisfaction, and relationship dynamics within the family, as individuals evaluate their social position relative to the standards set by the older generation. existing studies demonstrate that social comparison arises from the desire to evaluate oneself against objective external standards. this aspiration for self-improvement often leads individuals to engage in upward comparisons. research indicates that social comparison contrasts with theories of subjective well-being, which emphasize personal and internal evaluations over external standards. while social comparison seeks objective external validation, subjective well-being relies on personal and subjective self-evaluations. subjective well-being is measured by an individual’s self-assessment of life satisfaction and happiness rather than external factors. thus, frequent social comparison may negatively impact subjective well-being, as it shifts focus from internal self-assessment to external standards. converse­ ly, subjective well-being improves when individuals focus inwardly and reflect on their life satisfaction and happiness. subjective financial well-being and subjective well-being in recent decades, financial well-being has garnered significant attention across research disciplines including econom­ ics and psychology (sorgente & lanz, 2017). broadly, the literature identifies three conceptual approaches to under­ standing financial well-being: the objective, the subjective, and a combined approach. the objective approach assesses financial well-being based on measurable economic indicators such as income and consumption levels (sabelhaus & manchester, 1995). in contrast, the subjective approach focuses on individual’s perceptions and evaluations of their financial status (brüggen et al., 2017; sabri et al., 2012; zyphur et al., 2015). within this framework, two key compo­ nents are typically highlighted: experiential aspects-pertaining to perceived financial conditions and evaluative aspects relating to cognitive and emotional appraisals of one’s financial experiences (sorgente & lanz, 2017). for instance, sabri et al. (2012) conceptualize financial well-being as a state of financial soundness, contentment, and freedom from worry. similarly, zyphur et al. (2015) describe it as a general attitude toward one’s financial situation, encompassing satisfaction, perceived financial challenges, confidence in financial management and future financial expectations. the combined approach, which integrates both objective and subjective dimensions, has been proposed to capture a more comprehensive understanding of financial well-being (fergusson et al., 1981; fletcher & lorenz, 1985; henager & wilmarth, 2018; joo, 1998). brüggen et al. (2017) conceptualize financial well-being as the perceived capacity to sustain one’s preferred standard of living and financial independence, both in the present and the future. achieving financial well-being requires not only technical skills in managing financial activities but also the capacity to anticipate financial disruptions and to strategically pursue long-term financial objectives. accordingly, personal financial behavior plays a pivotal role in shaping financial well-being at the individual level (singh & malik, 2022). these insights underscore the significance of the subjective approach in capturing the psychological and behavioral dimensions of financial well-being, which may not be fully addressed through objective financial indicators alone. while individual-level factors play a key role, recent academic studies have expanded the discussion to include broader socioeconomic influences on subjective well-being. a literature review conducted by das et al. (2020) identifies renanita & rembulan 181 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ socioeconomic status particularly household income as a significant determinant of subjective well-being. in line with this, brown and gray (2016) highlight the household’s financial status as a key determinant of overall well-being. they further suggest that interhousehold financial comparisons can produce both detrimental comparative effects, potentially lowering satisfaction, and beneficial informational effects that may encourage constructive financial behavior. further­ more, financial well-being is recognized as a core contributor to subjective well-being (brüggen et al., 2017). variations or disruptions in financial well-being have been linked to negative psychological and behavioral consequences, such as increased anxiety and declines in health conditions. social comparison, subjective financial well-being, and subjective well-being in economic studies, subjective well-being is associated with higher consumption levels and is related to personal utility (stutzer & frey, 2004). meanwhile, easterlin’s (1995) research shows that increased income does not increase welfare. however, income comparison between individuals influences well-being. when an individual perceives their income as lower than that of their reference groups, their subjective well-being tends to decline. easterlin posits that an individual’s subjective well-being is positively related with personal income but negatively influenced by the average income of others. accordingly, well-being is considered as a function of both absolute income and relative income in comparison to a reference group. extending this understanding, the present study examines the role of social comparison in shaping subjective well-being, operationalized as life satisfaction and happiness. psychological literature increasingly acknowledges social comparison as a key mechanism influencing financial and emotional well-being. for example, ferrer-i-carbonell (2005) found that individuals’ happiness is significantly influenced by how their income compares to that of a reference group. similarly, alderson and katz-gerro (2016) observed that individuals who place greater emphasis on their relative income often report higher happiness levels although, paradoxically, those who view income comparison as essential may also experience lower well-being. these findings suggest that the psychological impact of social comparison is nuanced, shaped not only by relative income itself but also by the importance individuals assign to such comparisons. a growing body of research has demonstrated the significant impact of social comparison on subjective well-being. for instance, peck and merighi (2007) found that comparisons related to health status significantly influence life satisfaction. similarly, bárcena-martín et al. (2017) reported that upward comparisons where individuals compare themselves to those perceived as better off are generally associated with reduced subjective well-being, whereas downward comparisons tend to enhance it. these findings are supported by olivos et al. (2021), who found that social comparison influences life satisfaction, with downward comparison positively affecting life satisfaction and upward comparison negatively affecting it. dumludag et al. (2016) further emphasize that unmet expectations, often shaped by social comparisons, have a stronger negative influence on life satisfaction than expectations that are fulfilled. underpinning these findings, corcoran et al. (2011) explain that social comparison serves as a key mechanism through which individuals evaluate themselves relative to others. financial well-being represents another crucial determinant of subjective well-being. it encompasses individual’s evaluations of their current financial situation and their expectations regarding future financial stability (riitsalu & van raaij, 2022). positive financial conditions have been linked to enhancements in various domains of well-being, in­ cluding quality of life, happiness, mental health, quality of interpersonal relationships, and subjective and psychological well-being (iannello et al., 2021; nanda & banerjee, 2021; sorgente & lanz, 2017; spuhlera & dew, 2019). conversely, imbalances in financial well-being may contribute to diminished subjective well-being. for example, downing (2016) found that financial difficulties are associated with negative psychological and behavioral outcomes, such as heightened anxiety, aggressive behavior, and deteriorating health. similarly, ryu and fan (2023) identified that financial concerns ranging from worries about standard of living, medical expenses, and housing payments to health insurance, pensions, and monthly bills substantially increase psychological distress. a systematic literature review by bashir and qureshi (2023) identifies several relative income attributes including relative income size, reference group income, relative income position, and income inequality as key antecedents of financial well-being. palomäki (2017) supports this by demonstrating that retirees living in countries with higher average retirement incomes often perceive their own income adequacy more negatively than those in countries with financial well-being impacts subjective well-being 182 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lower average retiree incomes. these findings underscore the importance of relative evaluations, rather than absolute income, in shaping individuals’ financial satisfaction. expanding on this perspective, neman (2020) suggests that income inequality affects financial well-being through its influence on financial behavior. as income inequality increases, individuals are more likely to allocate a larger portion of their income toward conspicuous consumption, often to purchase goods associated with social status. this pattern of expenditure, driven by social comparison, may ultimately undermine financial well-being. supporting this view, kim et al. (2017) report that individuals who perceive themselves as relatively deprived tend to prioritize materialistic values, which can exacerbate dissatisfaction with personal financial circumstances. aim and hypothesis of the study numerous studies have examined the association between income and well-being (diener & seligman, 2018), as well as the effect of satiation on subjective well-being (jebb et al., 2018; stevenson & wolfers, 2013). however, the mechanisms through which social comparison factors affect well-being particularly in the indonesian context remain underexplored and conceptually underdeveloped. while prior research has addressed the role of social comparison in various popula­ tions, such as employees (ferrer-i carbonell, 2005), urban communities (chatterjee et al., 2019), patients (vanderzee et al., 1996), and national contexts (cheung & lucas, 2020), the findings remain mixed. for example, social comparison did not significantly influence well-being in employee or urban settings, but it did in patient populations. in macro contexts such as countries, the financial position of a nation can influence well-being with outcomes potentially being either positive or negative. social comparisons with countries with lower financial positions can result in feelings of hopeless­ ness, relief, or pride. on the one hand, social comparison with countries with lower financial positions (downward comparison) may foster hope for greater prosperity. however, it can also diminish well-being by engendering a sense of being in a similar situation (cheung & lucas, 2020). these inconsistencies highlight a critical gap in the literature. to address this, the present study investigates the role of social comparison in shaping subjective well-being within the context of the indonesian household. unlike prior research focused on specific demographic or occupational groups, this study adopts a broader household-based approach, encompassing individuals of couples with or without children, in accordance with the united nations’ (2020) definition of a household. the primary objective is to clarify the role of social comparison in well-being outcomes and to address these limitations and contradictions observed in existing literature. the model is illustrated in figure 1. figure 1 model of the influence of social comparison on life satisfaction and happiness renanita & rembulan 183 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ although previous research has examined the influence of social comparison and financial well-being on subjective well-being, the interrelationship among these three constructs remains insufficiently defined. this study aims to bridge that gap by examining whether subjective financial well-being serves as a mediating mechanism between social comparison and subjective well-being. specifically, this study investigates the impact of social comparison on subjective well-being, specifically examining its influence on two key dimensions: life satisfaction and happiness. additionally, this study explores the mediating role of subjective financial well-being in these relationships. research hypotheses h1: subjective financial well-being mediates the relationship between social comparison and life satisfaction. h2: subjective financial well-being mediates the relationship between social comparison and happiness. method participants the data used in this study were retrieved from the indonesian family life survey (ifls-5), conducted by the rand corporation. ifls is a collaboration between rand corp and survey meter. ifls is a longitudinal survey focuses on the health and socioeconomics of approximately 80,000 individuals and 10,000 households across 13 provinces in indonesia. the ifls surveys and procedures received thorough review and approval from institutional review boards (irbs) in both the united states at rand, and in indonesia at gadjah mada university (ugm). the data were collected from 2014 to 2015 (strauss et al., 2016). this study uses data on financial well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, and social comparison among the available variables. the ifls comprises multiple books; however, the variables relevant to this study are located specifically in book iiia. the data analyzed is data from 2014 – 2015, where the information related to subjective well-being was available. the variables studied are not affected by time, therefore this data still provides information on the influence between variables. participants were selected based on several inclusion criteria. the criteria encompassed being aged between 21 and 60, married marital status, and completion of the financial well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, and social comparison scales. exclusion criteria involved responses indicating uncertainty or non-responsiveness in the financial well-being scale, including responses such as “dead”, “didn't want to answer”, and “don't know”. based on these criteria, 3,591 participants were eligible for this study. the participants consisted of 1,750 (48.7%) women and 1,841 (51.3%) men, with a mage of 30.81 (sd = 7.51). measurement financial well-being in this study, financial well-being is measured by a three-factor model encompassing three aspects, which are subjective wealth (sw01–sw02), the perceived future standard of living (sw03 – sw03a), and current standard of living (sw03b– sw04) (ghina & sukarno, 2021). the model comprises six items, all sourced from ifls-5 book iiia. the author first checked the fit model using several fit indices. the model fit indices used are chi-square, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker lewis index (tli), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr). ideally, chi-square is not significant (p > .05), rmsea < .08, cfi/tli > .95, and srmr < .08 (wang & wang, 2020). this model fits the data, which is supported by the results of confirmatory factor analysis (χ2 (6) = 150.470, p < .001, rmsea = .082 [.071, .093], srmr = .040, cfi = .962, tli = .906), with factor loadings ranging from .337 to .937. life satisfaction life satisfaction is assessed using a single question (sw00) sourced from ifls-5 book iiia, which prompts participation to evaluate their overall life satisfaction. the question reads: “please think about your life as a whole. how satisfied are you with it?” respondents provide their level of satisfaction using a five-point scale, namely (1) completely satisfied, (2) financial well-being impacts subjective well-being 184 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ very satisfied, (3) somewhat satisfied, (4) not very satisfied, and (5) not at all satisfied. then, researchers reversed the scores so that a larger scale indicated higher life satisfaction. happiness happiness is measured by a single question (sw12) in ifls-5 book iiia, which prompts, “taken all things together, how would you say things are these days? would you say you were very happy, happy, unhappy or very unhappy?” these items were taken from the united states general social survey (strauss et al., 2016). social comparison social comparison was assessed using questions that compared the social status of the participant's parents with that of their in-laws. the questions were sourced from ifls-5 book iiia and used by ghina and sukarno (2021). the main question is, “at the time that you were married/first cohabitant, how did the status of your parents compare to the status of your parents-in-law?” (pk21a – pk21h). the status in question is educational and employment status and financial status. the educational and employment status compared were the father's occupation, father's education, and mother's education. financial status includes position in society, housing quality, income, land ownership, and non-land assets. there are five response options ranging from (1) “high” to (5) “low”. the author reverses the scores so that a larger scale indicates the status of the mother/father (parents) is higher than that of the parents-in-law. the author first checked the fit model using several fit indices. the model fit indices used are chi-square, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker lewis index (tli), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr). ideally, chi-square is not significant (p > .05), rmsea < .08, cfi/tli > .95, and srmr < .08 (wang & wang, 2020). confirmatory factor analysis results supported the validity of this model (χ2 (17) = 88.246, p < .001, rmsea = .034 [.027, .041], srmr = .024, cfi = .983, tli = .971). data analysis descriptive analysis the results of the descriptive analyses are presented in table 1. the participants consisted of 1,750 (48.7%) women and 1,841 (51.3%) men. the age range of the participants was 21 – 60 years with a mage of 30.81 (sd = 7.51). table 1 descriptive statistics variable n % gender male 1,750 48.7 female 1,841 51.3 education elementary school 679 18.9 junior high school 783 21.8 senior high school 1371 38.2 university 687 19.1 postgraduate 28 0.8 missing 43 1.2 path analysis the model tested involved the variables life satisfaction and happiness as dependent variables, financial wellbeing as a mediator and social comparison as an independent variable. the author conducted model testing using path analysis to predict happiness and life satisfaction by testing theoretical and logical relationships based on correlations between renanita & rembulan 185 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variables (joo & grable, 2004; wang & wang, 2020). the analyzed data consists of factor scores, which are claimed to be more accurate than other scores (grice, 2001). the estimator used is maximum likelihood and 10,000 bootstrap samples. the alpha level (p) for determining statistical significance was set at .05. all analyses were conducted using mplus 8.3 (muthén & muthén, 2017). results the results of the intercorrelation analysis between variables show that most variables show significant correlations. however, the social comparison variable does not correlate significantly with subjective well-being indicators such as life satisfaction and happiness. table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations between the variables. the analysis indicates that the direct effect of social comparison on life satisfaction is insignificant (β = -.002, se = .016, p = .886). however, subjective financial well-being significantly influences life satisfaction (β = .353, se = .016, p < .001). the analysis results indicate a significant effect of social comparison on subjective financial well-being (β = -.078, se = .017, p < .001). furthermore, the analysis found that subjective financial well-being mediates the influence of social comparison on satisfaction (β = -.027, 95% ci [-.040, -.016]). these results supported the proposed hypothesis 1. (see figure 2). figure 2 path analysis results (standardized coefficients) note. bold text indicates significant relationships the direct effect of social comparison on happiness was not significant (β = .011, se = .017, p = .538). additionally, the analysis revealed that subjective financial well-being significantly impacts happiness (β = .299, se = .017, p < .001). table 2 mean, standard deviation, and intercorrelation between variables variable m d 1 2 3 4 1. financial well-being -.002 .850 1 2. life satisfaction 3.380 .785 .353** 1 3. happiness 3.143 .469 .298** .324** 1 4. social comparison -.001 .887 -.078** -.030 -.013 1 *p < .05. **p < .01. financial well-being impacts subjective well-being 186 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ additionally, subjective financial well-being mediates the influence of social comparison on happiness (β = -.023, 95% ci [-.034, -.013]). these results supported the proposed hypothesis 2. the unstandardized path analysis can be found in table 3. discussion and conclusion this study examines how social comparison and financial well-being impact happiness and life satisfaction, which are key components of subjective well-being. the findings reveal that social comparison does not exert a significant direct effect on life satisfaction and happiness. this suggests that individuals do not achieve subjective well-being by comparing themselves with their reference group. these results diverge from those of dumludag et al. (2016) and olivos et al. (2021), who found that social comparison reduces life satisfaction, one of the components of subjective well-being. olivos explains that social comparison can reduce life satisfaction as it often leads to feelings of envy rather than eliciting emotions of gratitude. in contrast, life satisfaction is more likely to arise when individuals experience feelings of gratitude towards their lives. our research findings indicate that social comparison does not negatively affect life satisfaction and happiness may be due to the different measurement tools used. dumludag et al. (2016) and olivos et al. (2021) distinguish between upward and downward comparisons in their studies, whereas this research does not differentiate between upward and downward comparisons. this measurement tool used in this study focused on comparing the status between participants and their reference group. it would be beneficial for future researchers to use a more detailed measurement tool that distinguishes between upward and downward comparisons. the use of a generic social comparison measure in this study may be one of its limitations. the relatively low r 2 value of 0.005 for the effect of social comparison on financial well-being indicates that, although the effect is significant, social comparison explains only a small portion of the variance in financial well-being. first, the reference group used in this study is family. in indonesia, it is quite common for family members to lend money to one another, particularly in urgent situations such as covering educational expenses for children or during times of illness. it is likely that family does not serve solely as a reference group that only evokes envy but may instead function as a source of social support. for future researchers using social comparison variables, a more nuanced consideration of participant-relevant reference groups is recommended. second, other factors, such as decision-making, table 3 unstandardized path analysis for each variable 95% ci effect β b se z-value p ll ul indirect sc → fwb → ls -.027 -.024 .005 -4.539 < .001 -.035 -.014 sc → fwb → h -.023 -.012 .003 -4.393 < .001 -.018 -.007 direct sc → fwb -.078 -.074 .016 -4.658 < .001 -.106 -.043 fwb → ls .353 .326 .015 21.567 < .001 .296 .356 fwb → h .299 .165 .011 15.516 < .001 .144 .186 sc → ls -.002 -.002 .014 -0.144 .886 -.028 .026 sc → h .011 .006 .009 0.616 .538 -.013 .024 note. ci = confidence interval, ll = low limit, ul = upper limit, se = standard error, sc = social comparison, fwb = financial well-being, ls = life satisfaction, h = happiness. **p < .01. renanita & rembulan 187 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ financial literacy, personality, and lifestyle, may also play a role. future researchers could consider these additional variables, as their exclusion represents a limitation of this study. the analysis highlights that financial well-being significantly impacts happiness and life satisfaction, with its influ­ ence on life satisfaction being greater than on happiness. these findings corroborate previous research indicating that financial well-being positively affects overall well-being (brüggen et al., 2017; riitsalu & van raaij, 2022). conversely, financial problems are associated with decreases in both happiness and life satisfaction. an intriguing aspect of this study is the mediating role of financial well-being in the relationship between social comparison and subjective well-being. while social comparison alone does not directly affect subjective well-being, it can influence it through individuals’ evaluations of their financial conditions. subjective financial well-being focuses on an individual’s perception of their financial status, independent of social comparison with reference groups. subjective financial well-being centers on evaluating an individual’s financial condition in the present and future. this highlights the importance of the subjective-personal aspect oriented inwardly in evaluating specific life domains, such as finances, as well as overall life domains, such as happiness and life satisfaction. one can attain happiness and life satisfaction by integrating outward-oriented (social comparison) and inward-oriented (subjective financial well-being) orientations. solely outward orientation cannot engender happiness and life satisfaction in a person's life. this study indicates that life satisfaction and happiness are primarily inward, personal, and subjective. to achieve these states, individuals should engage in introspective assessment based on personal standards rather than reference group standards. discrepancies between one's condition and that of a superior reference group can lead to life dissatis­ faction and unhappiness. this aligns with biswas-diener (2008), diener, heintzelman et al. (2017), ma and piao (2019), and yates (2020), who assert that happiness and life satisfaction are viewed from a personal perspective, contrary to hurka’s (2016) emphasis on an individual’s functionality within society. this study also differs from easterlin (1995), who emphasizes happiness measured through comparisons with others, as well as from wang et al. (2023) and malka and chatman (2003), who focus more on happiness and life satisfaction from extrinsic measures. in the indonesian context, nugroho et al. (2022) examined the influence of social capital on subjective well-being across rural and urban settings, without including financial well-being or social comparison as explanatory variables. moreover, their emphasis on urban-rural differences contrasts with the present study’s focus on the household units as the level of analysis. this distinction highlights our study’s contribution in integrating social comparison and finan­ cial well-being as psychological mechanisms underlying subjective well-being, beyond structural context such as the urban-rural setting. similarly, sujarwoto (2021), using ifls panel data, demonstrates that happiness positively predicts economic and social outcomes such as income, employment, health, and marriage. his study positions happiness as an antecedent of future financial conditions. however, neither social comparison nor subjective financial appraisals are considered in that model. ghina and sukarno (2021) focused on objective financial indicators and found that relative income negatively affects financial well-being, yet they did not examine its psychological consequences. in contrast, this study offers a psychological perspective by positioning subjective financial well-being as a mediator between social comparison and subjective well-being, thereby bridging external comparisons and internal evaluations to explain life satisfaction and happiness more comprehensively. this study supports a conceptualization on financial well-being that is grounded in psychological appraisal rather than solely in economic indicators. we acknowledge the broad age range of 21 – 60 years used in this study may encompass significant personal, social, and professional developmental differences that can influence subjective well-being. this range was selected to capture the general adult population. however, we recognize that developmental differences within this range could impact subjective well-being. therefore, we have included this as a limitation and suggest future research could explore narrower age ranges to capture these nuances more accurately. these findings imply that while objective awareness through social comparison can be useful, individuals need at least one positive evaluation in a life domain, such as finances, to achieve subjective well-being (satisfaction and happiness). over-reliance on social comparison cannot directly enhance life satisfaction and happiness. financial well-being impacts subjective well-being 188 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://www.psychopen.eu/ future research implication this research focused on subjective variables. social comparison is a subjective variable oriented toward external conditions, namely the reference group. in a similar vein, subjective financial well-being reflects individuals’ internal assessments of their financial situation. the dependent variable, subjective well-being, consisting of happiness and life satisfaction is likewise based on self-evaluative judgements. to enhance the comprehensiveness of future research, combining objective indicators of well-being is recommended. although these findings highlight the importance of subjective financial well-being, societal reality demands individuals to be relevant and contribute to their surroundings, often requiring more than internal financial evaluation alone. individuals need to contribute to society, making the objective aspect of asset ownership and wealth increase essential and warrants further review. objective well-being aspects, such as material possessions and quality of life (alatartseva & barysheva, 2015), can be further explored in future studies. this research utilized big data from the ifls. the measurement tool used to examine social comparison did not distinguish between upward and downward comparisons. future research should distinguish between these two aspects of social comparison to provide a more nuanced understanding. additionally, conducting qualitative research or developing relevant measurement tools for specific communities would be beneficial, as social comparison behavior, evaluations of financial well-being, and personal well-being are closely related to local culture (muresan et al., 2020). practical implication based on the research findings, the following recommendations are proposed: a) reduce engagement in social compar­ ison, b) enhance personal economic or financial capabilities, c) increase satisfaction with one’s financial abilities, d) establish personal standards for the well-being goals one aims to achieve. funding: the authors thank the faculty of psychology, universitas ciputra surabaya, for supporting the proofreading of this manuscript. acknowledgments: the authors express gratitude for the constructive feedback provided by the editor and reviewers of europe’s journal of psychology, to ersa lanang sanjaya and diah fakhrunnisak for their insightful discussions. 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(2020). effects of local and general comparisons on self-assessment. in j. suls, r. l. collins & l. wheeler (eds.), social comparison, judgment, and behavior (pp. 143–177). oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190629113.003.0006 zyphur, m. j., li, w. d., zhang, z., arvey, r. d., & barsky, a. p. (2015). income, personality, and subjective financial well-being: the role of gender in their genetic and environmental relationships. frontiers in psychology, 6, article 1493. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01493 about the authors theda renanita is a faculty member at the faculty of psychology, universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia. her primary research interests are in the field of economic psychology, with a particular emphasis on the antecedents and consequences of financial behavior, the cognitive processes underlying financial decision-making, financial well-being, and the development and validation of measures related to financial behavior constructs. cicilia larasati rembulan is an associate professor at the faculty of psychology universitas ciputra, surabaya. her research interests are social exchange, value creation, power relationship, entrepreneurship in the context of interorganizational context, traditional market, and community-based tourism. she is the co-editor of the psychopreneur journal and serves as a reviewer for national and international journals. renanita & rembulan 193 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 179–193 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14791 https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190629113.003.0006 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01493 https://www.psychopen.eu/ financial well-being impacts subjective well-being (introduction) social comparison and well-being subjective financial well-being and subjective well-being social comparison, subjective financial well-being, and subjective well-being aim and hypothesis of the study method participants measurement data analysis results discussion and conclusion future research implication practical implication (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors global citizenship: buzzword or new instrument for educational change? editorial global citizenship: buzzword or new instrument for educational change? abdeljalil akkari* a, kathrine maleq a [a] university of geneva, geneva, switzerland. europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 published (vor): 2019-06-07. *corresponding author at: boulevard du pont d’arve 20a, 1205 genève, switzerland. e-mail: abdeljalil.akkari@unige.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. worldwide, deep societal changes brought by globalization, the expansion of ict (information and communication technology) and increased cultural and ethnic diversity have entailed an unprecedented rise in interest for post-national and global citizenship models. this has resulted in a growing body of literature from various fields such as education, psychology and philosophy. however, global citizenship seems to be both an attractive and contested concept. attractive because we all seek to find answers as to how to better live together in a globalized world. contested because it appears conceptually fragile and difficult to implement in national contexts (dower & williams, 2016; pashby, 2015). in the first part of this editorial, we analyze how it has become a strong focus in educational, political and intellectual discourse. the second part addresses the lack of conceptual clarity as well as the conceptual divides associated with it. the third part describes the possibilities and opportunities of implementing global citizenship in educational landscapes. international organizations: initiatives and deadlocks the concept of “citizen of the world” is not a new idea and can be traced back to cosmopolitan cities that have produced philosophers, writers, artists, and thinkers able to see their identity across national, cultural and linguistic boundaries. two decades ago, international organizations gave a new impulse to the utopian concept of global citizenship by making it a crucial line of action, aimed at addressing the challenges of the 21th century linked to globalization, crisis of traditional conceptions of civic and citizenship education and global environmental issues. firstly, globalization is mostly driven by economics, business and technology, creating a continuous flow of products, capital, people and information across the world. although linked to globalization, the concept of global citizenship refers to a shared sense of identity and human values. while globalization is under political debate, we need, more than ever, to form global citizens. indeed, even if globalization has opened for some reeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gions in the world access to a global market and technological advances (guibernau, 2010), it has resulted in major environmental and social challenges. secondly, traditional conceptions of civic and citizenship education in many nations-states have failed to meet the challenges of multiculturalism. in many countries encountering immigration, the political climate is marked by a binary divide between “those who assert that in a globalized world and nation-states characterized by diversity, one requires a primary commitment to the nation-state” (osler, 2011, p. 1) and those who emphasize diversity and inclusion. in this respect, banks et al. (2005, p. 25) calls appropriately to “find ways to delicately balance unity and diversity”. cultural diversity is equally a current issue in contexts where “globalization is contributing to the expansion of certain values, ideologies and products resulting in a pervasive, if uneven, cultural and linguistic homogenization characterized by us and western influence” (guibernau, 2007, p. 140). this has resulted in a genuine concern from a number of nations and ethnic groups about cultural and linguistic preservation (guibernau, 2010). thirdly, environmental issues and climate change transcends national borders and have global consequences. these issues clearly underline our interconnectedness and the need for collective and political action on a global level. environmental awareness is therefore an essential attribute of global citizens. in response to these challenges and following the secretary‐general ban ki‐moon un global education first initiative in 2002 which placed the promotion of global citizenship as one of its top three priorities, international organizations have brought the concept of global citizenship under the spotlight. the education 2030 framework for action, within the un 2030 agenda for sustainable development adopted in september 2015, stresses the crucial role of education in promoting democracy and human rights and enhancing global citizenship, tolerance and civic engagement as well as sustainable development (robiolle moul, 2017). since then, the idea has attracted more attention from the international community and an unprecedented rise in interest from scholars (robiolle moul, 2017). from then on, global citizenship has become the new buzzword in educational landscapes around the world. however, this increased focus on global citizenship is hampered by anti-globalization rhetoric, growing skepticism towards multiculturalism, a rise of nationalism and anti-refugee discourse. moreover, the ineffectiveness and the relative failure of international organizations in global governance raise doubts about the concept of global citizenship. the united nations system was created to peacefully resolve conflicts between states and to ensure stability and world peace. reality demonstrates that the persistence of armed conflicts and the withdrawal of some powerful states from international organizations and international covenants diminishes international governance. even global economic governance is currently under threat due to trade wars between different countries and economic spaces. the need for learners to build an understanding of global issues and become responsible and active global citizens is therefore stronger than ever. efforts to achieve sustainable development will require finding a delicate balance between economic, environmental and social goals. in this respect, davies et al. (2018, p. xxv) suggest that “global citizenship education is critical for achieving sustainable development, especially as both areas struggle to find a place in the school curriculum”. akkari & maleq 177 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ neoliberal, radical, and critical approaches to global citizenship differing conceptions of global citizenship have resulted in ongoing disagreements about its definition. aktas, pitts, richards, and silova (2017) distinguish three main approaches to global citizenship: neoliberal, radical, and critical. in the neoliberal approach, the focus is on developing “global competencies” that would enable students to become internationally mobile and readily employable in a variety of cultural and national contexts. the goal of global citizenship within the neoliberal framework is to facilitate the integration of individuals and nations in the global marketplace (aktas et al., 2017; rizvi, 2007). the key idea being that individuals should be able to move freely throughout the global world regardless of national borders in order “to increase transnational mobility of knowledge and skills with the goal of linking global citizenship directly to global economic participation“ (shultz, 2007, p. 252). the radical approach differs from the mainstream, normative and “civilizing” neoliberal approach of global citizenship, recognizing the existence of global power dynamics and inequalities (andreotti, 2006). the radical perspective of global citizenship adopts a critical stance on global structures that serve to perpetuate global inequalities and deepen the north-south divide (shultz, 2007). within this approach, the role of the global citizen is to challenge the hegemony of economic globalization and build solidarity across marginalized groups to fight oppression rather than focusing on building economic relationships across the globe (aktas et al., 2017). the critical approach to global citizenship calls for a transformation of not only institutions and systems but also personal and cultural mind-sets. furthermore, this approach stresses the need to provide opportunities for reflexive learning and critical thinking, allowing students to become active and responsible citizens. through exposure to situations with different cultures and groups, the critical approach focuses on individual responsibility for social change (aktas et al., 2017; boni & calabuig, 2015). this approach is in line with torres’s (2009) work that advocates for critical social and political perspectives in citizenship. in the educational context, critical approaches to global citizenship aim to shift the focus of democratic citizenship discourse away from the symbolic (legal and political rights taught through civic education) to emphasize active participation and action towards social equality, justice and freedom (isaacs, 2018). furthermore, it is important to highlight the main conceptual weakness. global citizenship is often regarded as merely a theoretical concept compared to national citizenship, since the global society still lacks key aspects of polity such as rule of law, democracy, representativeness, and accountability (chung & park, 2016). moreover, davies et al. (2018) suggest that global citizenship could be considered an ‘empty signifier’ that different concepts, perspectives and ideologies attempt to ‘fill’ with meaning. in the context of education, the ‘emptiness’ of the concept offers multiple possibilities for democratic practices mainly in informal settings and extracurricular and community projects. however, it may in turn represent a challenge to educators and policy-makers attempting to grapple with how to bring global citizenship education into pedagogical practice. finally, to observe globalization as a self-evident good is to avoid confronting the fact that globalization affects differently individuals, groups and nations. thus, contexts such as geographical positioning (the global north versus the global south) and, historical legacy (slavery, colonialism) situate people and nations contextually in editorial 178 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ terms of national culture, political organization and economic activity. consequently, from an education policy perspective, it would seem that particular (national) citizenship education policies must assign priority to their local needs and aspirations before any thought is given to global citizenship education (isaacs, 2018; mannion et al., 2011). rethinking education by implementing global citizenship worldwide, we are witnessing an historic shift in identity models and sense of belonging. increasingly, students are less tied to specific location, social structure, or nation-state. social networks are borderless and globalization has gone digital. smartphones and other mobile devices give us an unprecedented level of global interconnectedness which we are broadly speaking not prepared for in society and educational institutions. reimers (2006, p. 277) rightly stated that “globalization is one of the most important changes taking place in societies around the world today and yet it is unclear that schools have realigned their purposes to prepare their students to be competent citizens in an age of globalization“. individual do not have an innate understanding of our shared humanity but learn this over time through socialization, education and schooling. global citizenship is therefore fostered through education. thus, the production of a global citizen is a shared responsibility between society and educational systems. it is, however, important to distinguish between what the educational system can do in primary, secondary and tertiary educational sectors. at primary and secondary levels, it appears challenging to integrate education for global citizenship. on the one hand, nation-states are anxious to control and standardize school curricula. on the other hand, the timetable of schooling is under pressure from all sides with many requests for the introduction of new content: ict, entrepreneurship education, health education, civic education, etc. a recent comparative unesco’s study suggested conceptualizing the many differences and similarities regarding global citizenship in official curricular prescriptions within three categories. the first category affirms and develops the concept of global citizenship education and associated ideas or topics as constituent components of citizenship education. the second category recognizes the concept and associated ideas or topics and their relevance to citizenship education, without consistently integrating them into the curriculum. the third category ignores the concept and associated ideas or topics, not mentioning them as part of the citizenship education area in the curriculum. the countries of the study distribute themselves more or less evenly among these three positions. the south korean and the indonesian curricula fall clearly within the first category, affirming and consistently developing the concept in their prescriptions. the curricula in costa rica, colombia and iraq fall under the second category: all three of them recognized the concept and included it in their definitions, but not consistently. finally, the curricula in england, france and kenya are in the third category, ignoring the concept of gce defined by unesco (cox, 2017). however, this does not mean that global dimensions are not addressed in the curricula. universities have however been, up until how, preserved from the hyper-standardization of curricula since they still have academic freedom and room to design interesting and innovative programs. nevertheless, today we need to rethink higher education in a global age. new technologies offer new possibilities for learning and student cognitive development. akkari & maleq 179 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 https://www.psychopen.eu/ since today’s students tend to see the world and themselves as more global, borderless and fluid, and a high percentage of students in the world’s biggest cities are from immigrant backgrounds, global citizenship could provide an opportunity to innovate our teaching, pedagogies, methodologies and instruments in higher education. conclusion this article draws attention to the concept of global citizenship as, potentially, an instrument of educational change in increasingly diverse societies. however, in order to go beyond a simplistic approach which limits itself to adding international content or token global education type activities to citizenship education programs, global citizenship education ought to emphasize active participation and action towards social justice and sustainability (akkari & maleq, 2019). learning global citizenship may only be accomplished through solving complex problems that require interdisciplinary collaboration, great creativity and close collaboration among students, teachers, and other stakeholders. in this respect, informal education offers some potential for global citizenship projects. indeed, the flexibility within informal education allows learners to engage with communities on a local and global scale. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references akkari, a., & maleq, k. (2019). global citizenship education: critical and international perspectives. manuscript in preparation. aktas, f., pitts, k., richards, j. c., & silova, i. (2017). institutionalizing global citizenship: a critical analysis of higher education programs and curricula. journal of studies in international education, 21(1), 65-80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315316669815 andreotti, v. (2006). soft versus critical global citizenship education. policy & practice: a development education review, 3, 40-51. banks, j., mcghee, c., cortes, c., hahn, c., & merryfield, m. (2005). democracy and diversity: principles and concepts for educating citizens in a global age. seattle, wa, usa: center for multicultural education, university of washington. editorial 180 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1028315316669815 https://www.psychopen.eu/ boni, a., & calabuig, c. (2015). education for global citizenship at universities: potentialities of formal and informal learning spaces to foster cosmopolitanism. journal of studies in international education. advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315315602926 chung, b. g., & park, i. (2016). a review of the differences between esd and gced in sdgs: focusing on the concepts of global citizenship education. kokusai kyoiku kyoryoku ronshu, 18(2), 17-35. cox, c. (2017). global citizenship concepts in curriculum guidelines of 10 countries: comparative analysis. geneva, switzerland: bie-unesco. davies, i., ho, l. c., kiwan, d., peck, c. l., peterson, a., sant, e., & waghid, y. (eds.). (2018). the palgrave handbook of global citizenship and education. london, united kingdom: palgrave macmillan. dower, n., & williams, j. (2016). global citizenship: a critical introduction. new york, ny, usa: routledge. guibernau, m. (2007). the identity of nations. cambridge, united kingdom: polity press. guibernau, m. (2010). migration and the rise of the radical right. retrieved from https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/migration-rise-of-radical-right isaacs, t. i. (2018). internationalism in global citizenship and education. in i. davies, l.-c. ho, d. kiwan, c. l. peck, a. peterson, e. sant, & y. waghid (eds.), the palgrave handbook of global citizenship and education (pp. 149-163). london, united kingdom: palgrave macmillan. mannion, g., biesta, g., priestley, m., & ross, h. (2011). the global dimension in education and education for global citizenship: genealogy and critique. globalisation, societies and education, 9(3–4), 443-456. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2011.605327 osler, a. (2011). teacher interpretations of citizenship education: national identity, cosmopolitan ideals, and political realities. journal of curriculum studies, 43(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2010.503245 pashby, k. (2015). conflations, possibilities, and foreclosures: global citizenship education in a multicultural context. curriculum inquiry, 45(4), 345-366. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2015.1064304 reimers, f. (2006). citizenship, identity and education: examining the public purposes of schools in an age of globalization. prospects, 36(3), 275-294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-006-0009-0 rizvi, f. (2007). internationalization of curriculum: a critical perspective. in m. hayden, j. levy, & j. thompson (eds.), research in international education (pp. 391-403). london, united kingdom: sage. robiolle moul, t. (2017). promotion and implementation of global: citizenship education in crisis situations. paris, france: unesco. shultz, l. (2007). educating for global citizenship: conflicting agendas and understandings. the alberta journal of educational research, 53, 248-258. torres, c. a. (2009). globalization, education, and citizenship: solidarity vs markets? in globalizations and education: collected essays on class, race, gender, and the state (pp. 114-130). new york, ny, usa: teachers college press. akkari & maleq 181 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1028315315602926 https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/migration-rise-of-radical-right https://doi.org/10.1080%2f14767724.2011.605327 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00220272.2010.503245 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f03626784.2015.1064304 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs11125-006-0009-0 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors abdeljalil akkari, phd, is professor and director of a research group on international education at the university of geneva. he is also a regular consultant for unesco and other international organizations. he was the dean for research at the higher pedagogical institute hep-bejune (bienne, switzerland) and assistant professor at the university of maryland baltimore county (baltimore, united states). his main experience and major publications include studies on international cooperation, educational planning, multicultural education, teacher training and educational inequalities. his principal research interests are centered currently on teacher education and reforms of educational systems in a comparative and international perspective. kathrine maleq is currently working at the university of geneva. her research focuses on global citizenship education, multicultural education, preschool-family collaboration in a cross-cultural perspective and early childhood education in the global south. previously, she was reasonable for the design, coordination, implementation and evaluation of nationwide and regional education for peace programs for an ngo. contact: kathrine.maleq@unige.ch editorial 182 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 176–182 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1999 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ editorial (introduction) international organizations: initiatives and deadlocks neoliberal, radical, and critical approaches to global citizenship rethinking education by implementing global citizenship conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors understanding the relationship between the multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion in adults: the effect of age research reports understanding the relationship between the multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion in adults: the effect of age athena daniilidou 1 [1] department of educational and social policy, university of macedonia, thessaloniki, greece. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 received: 2023-05-16 • accepted: 2023-09-13 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: elisabetta lombardi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: athena daniilidou, department of educational and social policy, university of macedonia, thessaloniki, greece, egnatia 156, 54636, thessaloniki, greece. e-mail: adaniilidou@uom.edu.gr abstract literature suggests that perfectionism is associated to self-compassion. however, the multiple relationships between the types of perfectionism (adaptive, maladaptive and non-perfectionists) and the multidimensional construct of self-compassion have not been thoroughly examined. to this end, the present study aimed (a) to examine the relationships between the types of perfectionism and the self-compassion components in an adult sample and (b) to check the effect of age on the relationship between the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components. participants were 509 adults aged 18 to 65 years. self-report questionnaires were used to collect the data. results indicated that high standards positively predicted all self-compassion components while discrepancy positively predicted self-judgment and isolation and overidentification and negatively predicted self-kindness and mindfulness and common humanity. in addition, it was found that adaptive perfectionists and non-perfectionists reported higher levels on the positive components of self-compassion and lower levels on its negative components, compared to maladaptive perfectionists. with respect to age, participants in established (30–45 years) and middle (46–65 years) adulthood reported higher levels on the positive selfcompassion components and lower levels on its negative components compared to young adults (18–29 years), while participants in emerging adulthood scored higher on both the dimensions of perfectionism (adaptive and maladaptive) compared to participants in established and middle adulthood. finally, age moderated only the relationship between adaptive perfectionism and isolation and overidentification. future directions and implications are being discussed. keywords adulthood, age, perfectionism, self-compassion research so far suggests that perfectionism is often associated with maladaptive behaviors and negative outcomes (limburg et al., 2017; smith et al., 2018) and interferes and/or possibly disrupts the development of self-compassion (linnett & kibowski, 2020), while self-compassion has been linked to several positive behaviors and well-being (biber & ellis, 2019; braun et al., 2016). however, it still remains unclear how perfectionism and self-compassion are interrelated, when the types of perfectionism (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionism) are involved. more specifically, although studies have found that maladaptive perfectionism is negatively associated to overall self-compassion and/or its positive components (e.g., linnett & kibowski, 2020; yeshua et al., 2019), the multiple relationships between the types of perfec­ tionism and the positive and negative self-compassion components have not been thoroughly examined. according to linnett and kibowski (2020), self-compassion is a multidimensional construct, a fact overlooked by some studies that examine the relationships between the two constructs by assessing self-compassion as a unidimensional construct (e.g., this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11981&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ferrari et al., 2018; mehr & adams, 2016). thus, so far, the different associations between the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components have not been sufficiently conceptualized in the literature. to this end, the present study was designed to explore the relationships between multidimensional perfectionism and the components of self-compassion in adults, and to determine if the relation between the types of perfectionism and the self-compassion components could be moderated by participants’ age. defining self-compassion although self-compassion is a relatively new concept in the international literature, since neff (2003a, 2003b) published the first studies on the topic, researchers’ interest on the concept has been increased. the construct of self-compassion has been conceptualized by neff (2003b) as a way of relating to ourselves during hardships, predicaments, and difficult thoughts and/or feelings. in other words, self-compassion requires from the individuals to be open on their suffering, not avoiding it, offering a nonjudgmental understanding to their pain (neff, 2011). however, having self-compassion does not mean that one cannot identify their failures and/or inadequacies. rather, a compassionate attitude towards one­ self involves being patient and kind towards negative feelings and requires a balanced perspective (bennett-goleman, 2001). according to neff's (2003b) definition, self-compassion entails six interconnected components that represent positive and negative poles of three dimensions: self-kindness versus self-judgment, feelings of common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus over-identification. the first dimension is both a trait and a psychological process and refers to the tendency of being gentle and comforting ourselves rather than criticizing and judging our mistakes, failures, or personal inadequacies. feelings of common humanity involve the acknowledgment of the vulnerable human nature. there are certain emotions that all people experience during challenging circumstances and this inclusive perspective helps connect with each other. finally, mindfulness refers to being aware of the momentary experience in an equilibrated way that involves taking a meta-perspective on how one feels with equanimity rather than exaggeration. studies on the relationship between self-compassion and age suggest that there is a small but significant associa­ tion between them, with self-compassion increasing as the individual gets older (homan, 2016; neff, 2023; neff & pommier, 2013). lee et al. (2021) examined self-compassion in a large community sample and the results showed that self-compassion levels peaked around the age of 77 years. murn and steele (2020) studied the age-related changes in self-compassion and its components (mindfulness, sense of isolation or connectedness with others, self-kindness to­ wards oneself, common humanity) and noticeable shifts that occur over time were highlighted. specifically, an increase in mindfulness among older adults compared to younger ones was found, while younger individuals scored lower on common humanity and mindfulness compared to older participants. similarly, bratt and fagerström (2020) found that increased age was associated with lower scores on the self-criticism component of self-compassion and higher scores on the common humanity component. studies in greece showed that older adults (50–72 years) demonstrated higher levels of the positive and lower levels of the negative self-compassion components compared to younger age groups (18–30 and 31–49 years) (karakasidou et al., 2020). it may be that the accumulated knowledge that comes with maturity and life experiences allows for a kinder and more compassionate attitude towards oneself (neff, 2023). however, there is also evidence suggesting that there is no relationship between self-compassion and age (benzo et al., 2017; neff & mcgehee, 2010; phillips & ferguson, 2013). defining perfectionism perfectionism is a personality disposition that has been described as the need of the individuals “to be perfect in all aspects of their lives” (flett & hewitt, 2002, p. 5). perfectionists strive for success, have high standards and experience the internal urge to display perfection and be flawless (flett & hewitt, 2002). in the relevant literature, there are two different perspectives in defining perfectionism. some researchers consider perfectionism as a negative trait, while oth­ ers suggest that the construct is multidimensional and they have established a distinction between the positive/adaptive and the negative/maladaptive dimension of perfectionism (e.g., burns, 1980; hewitt et al., 2003; stoeber & otto, 2006). according to stoeber & otto (2006), adaptive and maladaptive perfectionists can be distinguished by their perfectionistic strivings and their perfectionistic concerns, two dimensions which correspond to the positive and negative aspect of multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 372 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perfectionism respectively. individuals with high levels of perfectionistic strivings and low levels of perfectionistic concerns can be conceived as healthy perfectionists, individuals with high levels of perfectionistic strivings and high levels of perfectionistic concerns as unhealthy perfectionists, and individuals with low levels of perfectionistic strivings as non-perfectionists (stoeber & otto, 2006). in the same direction, slaney and his colleagues (2002) argued that perfectionism has both adaptive and maladaptive aspects. in their approach, adaptive and maladaptive perfectionists can be distinguished by taking into consideration two dimensions: high standards and discrepancy. high standards refer to the high personal standards one sets for oneself and discrepancy describes the difference between the standards one has for oneself and the evaluation of their actual performance (slaney et al., 2001). researchers suggest that discrepancy is an indicator of perfectionistic concerns and, thus, it describes maladaptive perfectionism (suddarth & slaney, 2001). on the other hand, the high standards dimension is an indicator of adaptive perfectionism, but it can appear as maladaptive when discrepancy is high (rice & slaney, 2002). thus, individuals with low high standards represent the type of non-perfectionists, individuals with high discrepancy and high standards are described as maladaptive perfectionists and those who have high standards but low discrepancy represent the adaptive type of perfectionists. studies examining the relationship between perfectionism and age present inconsistent findings (robinson et al., 2021). some studies have concluded that there is a decrease in perfectionism with age (e.g., landa & bybee, 2007; sastreriba et al., 2016), while others have not found evidence of association between perfectionism and age (diamantopoulou & platsidou, 2014; schweitzer & hamilton, 2002). however, it must be noted that most studies in the relevant literature mainly refer to young adults while middle-aged and older adults (especially over 60) have been overlooked (robinson et al., 2021). in addition, the vast majority of the studies tend to examine age differences in terms of overall perfection­ ism (e.g., sand et al., 2021; schweitzer & hamilton, 2002) or perfectionism dimensions (perfectionistic strivings and concerns) (e.g., sastre-riba et al., 2016) rather than the individual perfectionistic types such as adaptive, maladaptive and non-perfectionists. the relationship between self-compassion and perfectionism literature suggests that maladaptive perfectionism dimensions, such as concern over mistakes and discrepancy, are negatively related to and predict overall self-compassion and/or its positive components (i.e., mindfulness, self-kindness, common humanity) and positively related to and predict its negative components (i.e., isolation and over-identification, self-judgment) (e.g., linnett & kibowski, 2020; stoeber, madigan, & gonidis, 2020; yeshua et al., 2019). these findings are not surprising given that maladaptive perfectionistic attitudes are characterized by excessive self-criticism and struggle to maintain a positive and non-judgmental self-attitude compared to self-compassionate attitudes which are characterized by being tolerant over flaws and inadequacies (linnett & kibowski, 2020). on the other hand, findings on the association between the adaptive perfectionism dimensions and self-compassion are mixed. some studies found that the adaptive perfectionism dimensions such as perfectionistic strivings have been associated with and predict lower overall self-compassion (e.g., hiçdurmaz & aydin, 2017; mosewich et al., 2011). other researchers found that the adaptive perfectionism dimensions such us striving for excellence are not associated with overall self-compassion and only weakly positively associated with and predict the negative self-compassion component namely self-judgment (linnett & kibowski, 2020). finally, there is also evidence that perfectionistic strivings are not associated with or predict a change in self-compassion levels (e.g., neff, 2003a). to summarize, both perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings have been found to predict lower levels of overall self-compassion although the predictive effect of perfectionistic strivings was found smaller compared to the effect of perfectionistic concerns (e.g., hiçdurmaz & aydin, 2017; mosewich et al., 2011). however, although research findings consistently suggest that the maladaptive dimension of perfectionism negatively predicts overall self-compas­ sion and/or its positive components, further research on the predictive role of the adaptive perfectionism dimension on the self-compassion components is required along with the fact that findings concerning the association between the perfectionistic types (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists) and the positive and negative self-compassion components are even more limited. daniilidou 373 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aims and hypotheses of the study taking the above into consideration, the present study was designed to fill this gap and to broaden our understanding on how the different perfectionistic types (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists) are associated with the positive and negative self-compassion components. in addition, findings concerning the effect of age on the relationship between the aforementioned constructs are rather limited, especially for adults and older adults. to this end, this study aims (a) to examine the relationships between the types of perfectionism and the self-compassion components in an adult sample and (b) to check the effect of age on the relationship between the perfectionistic types (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists) and the positive and negative self-compassion components. based on the literature summarized above, it was first hypothesized that the maladaptive perfectionism dimension (discrepancy) will negatively predict the positive self-compassion components and positively predict the negative self-compassion components (hypothesis 1a) and the adaptive perfectionism dimension (high standards) will probably not predict any of the self-compassion components (hypothesis 1b). in addition, based on the relevant research findings it was expected that the perfectionistic types would present differences on self-compassion components. more specifi­ cally, it was hypothesized that non-perfectionists and adaptive perfectionists will report higher levels on the positive components of self-compassion and lower levels on the negative components of self-compassion (hypothesis 2a), while maladaptive perfectionists will report higher levels on the negative components of self-compassion and lower levels on the positive components of self-compassion (hypothesis 2b). finally, based on the prior research findings indicating that both perfectionism and self-compassion vary with proceeding age, it was hypothesized that participants will present differences in the perfectionism dimensions and self-compassion components in relation to their age (hypothesis 3a) and that age will moderate the relationship between the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components (hypothesis 3b). method participants data were collected from 509 adults from urban and suburban areas in greece. the sample consisted of 317 women (62.3%) and 192 men (37.7%). their age ranged from 18 to 65 years, with an average age of 44.42 years (sd = 15.55). the majority (71.3%) were married (n = 301) or in a stable relationship (n = 62). with regards to their educational status, 62 participants had completed high school (12.2%), 26 were college students (5.1%), 277 held a bachelor’s degree (54.4%), 126 held a master’s degree (24.8%) and 18 (3.5%) a doctoral degree. materials self-compassion scale (scs) the self-compassion scale (scs)—designed by neff (2003a) and translated into greek by mantzios and his colleagues (mantzios et al., 2015)—was used to assess self-compassion. it consists of 26 items which assess six components of self-compassion: self-kindness (5 items, e.g., i try to be loving towards myself when i’m feeling emotional pain), self-judgement (5 items, e.g., i’m intolerant and impatient towards those aspects of my personality i don't like), common humanity (4 items, e.g., i try to see my failings as part of the human condition), isolation (4 items, e.g., when i’m feeling down, i tend to feel like most other people are probably happier than i am), mindfulness (4 items, e.g., when something upsets me i try to keep my emotions in balance) and overidentification (4 items, e.g., when i’m feeling down i tend to obsess and fixate on everything that’s wrong). respondents answer each item on a 5-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (almost always). subscale scores are computed by calculating the mean of subscale item responses. a total score indicating the total self-compassion of the individual can also be extracted, after reversing the values in the items with the negative meaning (self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification) (neff, 2003a). in the present study, an exploratory factor analysis of the scs proceeded which revealed a four-factor solution that partially matched the inner structure of the original scale. seven items were removed from the scale since they did not load on the factors proposed by the constructors and the analysis was repeated in the 19 remaining variables. in the final multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 374 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ model, four factors were abstracted explaining the 53.76% of the total variance: self-kindness and mindfulness (items 5, 9, 12, 17, 19, 22, 26, eigenvalue = 4.66, % of variance = 17.63%), isolation and overidentification (items 13, 18, 20, 24, 25, eigenvalue = 3.03, % of variance = 14.77%), self-judgement (items 1, 8, 11, 21, eigenvalue = 1.33, % of variance = 11.40%), and common humanity (items 3, 7, 10, eigenvalue = 1.20, % of variance = 9.96%). the model structure was tested with confirmatory factor analysis and the fit to the data was found to be good, χ2/139 = 2.141, p < .005, cfi = .931, gfi = .956, srmr = .057, ci 90% [0.044, 0.061], rmsea = .053. the reliability of the subscales ranged from α = .70 to α = .81. almost perfect scale revised (aps-r) to measure perfectionism, the almost perfect scale (aps-r, slaney et al., 2001) translated and adapted in greek by diamantopoulou and platsidou (2014) was used. it comprises 23 items, of which 7 items refer to high standards (e.g., i expect the best from myself), 12 items assess the discrepancy (e.g., doing my best never seems to be enough), and 4 items refer to order (e.g., neatness is important to me). participants are asked to evaluate their agreement with each item using a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (i strongly disagree) to 5 (i strongly agree). the scale classifies participants into different types of perfectionists (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists) by taking into consideration their scores on high standards and discrepancy subscales. the order subscale is not included in the classification as it is considered a neutral and not a core dimension of perfectionism (stoeber & otto, 2006). in the present study, an exploratory factor analysis of the aps-r proceeded which revealed a three-factor solution that perfectly matched the inner structure of the original scale and explained the 59.35% of the total variance (high standards explained the 32.11% of the total variance with eigenvalue 7.14, discrepancy explained the 15.16% of the total variance with eigenvalue 4.4, and order explained the 12.08% of the total variance with eigenvalue 1.53). the model structure was tested with confirmatory factor analysis and the fit to the data was found to be good, χ2/200 = 2.705, p < .005, cfi = .930, gfi = .928, srmr = .062, ci 90% [0.058, 0.071], rmsea = .064. the reliability of the subscales ranged from α = .79 to α = .93. procedure participants were recruited for the study via e-mail, using the google forms web application and via social media applications. the participants were asked to answer demographic questions before completing the basic self-reported questionnaires. the study was in line with rules of ethics of the american psychological association and with the european union regulation on sensitive personal data. as far as procedure is concerned, during the data collection the anonymity of the respondents was ensured. participants were adults and consented to voluntarily participate in the study as well as to the publication of the results. the data were collected within one month of data collection during january 2023. data analysis initially, a hierarchical method of clustering was performed to help identify groups of participants with similar charac­ teristics of perfectionism. the cluster centroids using the ward density method based on the euclidean distance between cases, followed by a non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis yielded three clusters. taking into consideration that there is not an unanimously accepted statistical method to determine the clusters, their number was defined by a) the distance between cluster steroids, b) the number of participants in each of them, and c) the statically significant differences indicated by one-way analysis of variance (sugar & james, 2003). three clusters were identified which corresponded to the three different perfectionistic types (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists) presented in the results. before checking for the hypotheses, preliminary descriptive and intercorrelation analyses (means, standard devia­ tions, skewness, and kurtosis values, and correlations) using the statistical package spss (version 26) were performed to determine the bilateral relationships between perfectionism and self-compassion and to ascertain whether the parametric analyses could be applied on the data. to test hypothesis 1a and 1b, correlation and regression analyses were performed to examine the association between the two constructs and the predictive strength of the perfectionism dimensions (high standards, discrepancy) on the positive and negative self-compassion components. to test hypothesis daniilidou 375 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2a and 2b, a series of univariate analyses of variance (anova) were applied to check if the three types of perfectionists emerged demonstrate differences related to the self-compassion components. prior to checking the last hypothesis regarding the moderating effect of age in the relation between the types of perfectionism and the self-compassion components, univariate analyses of variance (anova) were applied to check for age differences in the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components. finally, the moderating effect of age in the relationship of perfectionistic types to self-compassion components was checked, using spss process (version 3.5, model 1, 95% confidence interval, 5.000 bootstrap samples). results types of perfectionists initially, a hierarchical method of clustering was performed to help identify groups of participants with similar charac­ teristics of perfectionism. the cluster centroids using the ward density method based on the euclidean distance between cases, followed by a non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis yielded that three or four cluster solutions were more suitable. the preferred solution was that of three clusters, which also complies with the relevant literature. table 1 presents the final cluster centroids. cluster 1 (n = 197) includes those participants who reported the lowest levels of high standards and, thus, it represents the type of non-perfectionists. cluster 2 (n = 135) involves the participants who scored high in both high standards and discrepancy describing the maladaptive type of perfectionists. finally, cluster 3 (ν = 177) incorporates those who scored high on high standards but low on discrepancy representing the adaptive type of perfectionists. table 1 final cluster centers (means) cluster 1 (n = 197) cluster 2 (n = 135) cluster 3 (n = 177) variable non-perfectionists maladaptive perfectionists adaptive perfectionists f (2,506) high standards 3.28 4.26 4.40 419.09** discrepancy 2.45 3.70 2.17 465.46** **p < .001. the predictive role of perfectionistic dimensions to self-compassion components before checking for the hypotheses, means, standard deviations, and skewness and kurtosis values were estimated (see table 2). results indicated that participants reported higher levels in the positive self-compassion components and the positive perfectionism dimension compared to the negative self-compassion components and the maladaptive perfec­ tionism dimension. in addition, it was found that skewness values ranged from -0.84 to 0.56 and kurtosis values ranged from -0.78 to 0.22. at the next step, the correlations between the self-compassion components and the perfectionism dimensions were estimated. the results showed that the high standards dimension was positively correlated with both the positive and negative components of self-compassion, while the discrepancy dimension was found to negatively correlate with the positive components of self-compassion and positively correlate with the negative components of self-compassion. multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 376 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 means (and standard deviations) and correlations between self-compassion and perfectionism scs aps variable m (sd) skewness kurtosis 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. scs self-kindness and mindfulness 3.22 (0.74) -0.12 -0.09 2. scs isolation and overidentification 2.77 (0.89) 0.17 -0.66 -.29** 3. scs self-judgment 2.92 (0.84) 0.08 -0.49 -.15** .49** 4. scs common humanity 2.90 (0.92) 0.06 -0.78 .49** -.09* .03 5. aps high standards 3.39 (0.66) -0.29 -0.55 .14** .20** .25** .01 6. aps discrepancy 2.68 (0.77) 0.56 -0.09 -.32** .51** .46** -.12** .16** 7. aps order 4.15 (0.72) -0.84 0.22 .22** -.03 .08 .12** .45** .01 *p < .05. **p < .001. for testing hypotheses 1a (discrepancy will negatively predict the positive self-compassion components and positively predict the negative self-compassion components) and 1b (high standards will not predict any of the self-compassion components), a series of regression analyses were performed. the results, presented in table 3 confirmed hypothesis 1a, since discrepancy was found to positively predict self-judgment and isolation and overidentification and negatively predict self-kindness and mindfulness and common humanity. however, hypothesis 1b was not confirmed. the results showed that high standards positively predicted self-judgment, self-kindness and mindfulness, and isolation and overidentification. it should be noted that the predictive effect of discrepancy on self-compassion components was greater compared to the effect of high standards. the order dimension of perfectionism was not found to predict any of the self-compassion components. table 3 regression analyses of perfectionism predicting self-compassion predictor f(4, 504) r r2 p β se t model 1: self-kindness and mindfulness 22.282 .387 .150 < .001 high standards < .001 .24 .05 5.03 discrepancy < .001 -.32 .04 -8.05 model 2: self-judgment 40.095 .491 .241 < .001 high standards < .001 .23 .05 4.41 discrepancy < .001 .47 .04 10.94 model 3: isolation and overidentification 61.728 .573 .323 < .001 high standards .005 .14 .05 2.80 discrepancy < .001 .56 .04 13.02 model 4: common humanity 5.613 .169 .207 < .001 high standards .187 .08 .06 1.32 discrepancy .011 -.14 .05 -2.55 differences of self-compassion components in relation to perfectionistic types at the next step, a series of univariate analyses of variance (anova) were applied to check hypotheses 2a and 2b and to examine whether there were differences on the self-compassion components between the perfectionistic types (adaptive, maladaptive, non-perfectionists). the findings presented in table 4 indicated that adaptive perfectionists and non-perfectionists reported higher levels on the positive components of self-compassion and lower levels on the negative components of self-compassion compared to maladaptive perfectionists, while maladaptive perfectionists daniilidou 377 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ reported higher levels on the negative components of self-compassion and lower levels on the positive components of self-compassion compared to adaptive and non-perfectionists, and, thus, hypotheses 2a and 2b were partially confirmed, since no statistically significant differences were found concerning the common humanity component of self-compassion. differences in self-compassion and perfectionism in relation to age at the next step, participants were divided into age groups that covered emerging adulthood (18–29 years, n = 178, m = 24.65, sd = 3.53), established adulthood (30–45 years, n = 167, m = 37.99, sd = 4.23), and middle adulthood (46–65 years, n = 164, m = 57.06, sd = 7.05), following the proposed age taxonomy suggested by many researchers (e.g., mehta et al., 2020; reifman & niehuis, 2023). since the relevant literature has identified age as a demographic variable associated with both perfectionism and self-compassion, along with the fact that studies addressing to middle-aged and older adults are so far rather limited, splitting the sample into groups could help identify differences over time on the dimensions of perfectionism and/or the self-compassion components. as table 5 shows, in general, participants covering established and middle adulthood reported higher levels on the positive self-compassion components and lower levels on the negative self-compassion components compared to participants covering emerging adulthood. contrariwise, emerging adults scored higher in perfectionism dimensions compared to established and middle adults. thus, hypothesis 3a was confirmed. table 4 differences in self-compassion components in relation to perfectionistic types self-compassion components/types of perfectionists μ sd significant differences between groups f(2, 506) p scs—self-kindness and mindfulness 19.39 < .001 adaptive perfectionists (ap) 3.47 0.75 ap-np < .001 maladaptive perfectionists (mp) 2.97 0.74 ap-mp < .001 non-perfectionists (np) 3.16 0.66 mp-np .049 scs—isolation and overidentification 56.88 < .001 adaptive perfectionists (ap) 2.55 0.82 ap-mp < .001 maladaptive perfectionists (mp) 3.41 0.77 mp-np < .001 non-perfectionists (np) 2.53 0.83 scs—self-judgement 47.59 < .001 adaptive perfectionists (ap) 2.80 0.86 ap-mp < .001 maladaptive perfectionists (mp) 3.47 0.73 mp-np < .001 non-perfectionists (np) 2.65 0.72 scs—common humanity 2.57 .078 multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 378 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the moderating role of age on the relation between perfectionism and self-compassion to check hypothesis 3b, a series of moderation analyses where the independent variables were the types of perfec­ tionism, the dependent variables were the self-compassion components and the moderator was the age-groups was performed, in order to check if the effect of the different perfectionistic types on self-compassion components varies as a result of proceeding age. four models were checked it total in which the age groups moderated the relationship between the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components: self-kindness and mindfulness (model 1), isolation and overidentification (model 2), self-judgement (model 3), and common humanity (model 4). results partially confirmed hypothesis 3b, since only one statistically significant model was found. more specifically, results indicated a statistically significant model (r = .48, r2 = .23, p < .001) in which a significant moderation effect for the interaction of perfectionistic types and age on isolation and overidentification, β = -.64, se = .24, t = -2.63, p = .008, 95% ci [-1.12, -0.16], was observed. analysis of the moderation effect indicated that the interaction effect was significant only for adaptive perfectionists, β = -.38, se = .15, t = -2.54, p = .002, 95% ci [-0.68, -0.09], (see figure 1). table 5 differences in self-compassion and perfectionism in relation to age variable/age groups μ sd significant differences between groups f(2, 506) p scs—self-kindness and mindfulness 3.79 .023 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 3.05 0.75 1–2 .050 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 3.27 0.78 1–3 .030 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 3.28 0.71 scs—isolation and overidentification 13.43 < .001 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 3.12 0.88 1–2 .002 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 2.75 0.97 1–3 < .001 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 2.61 0.82 scs—self-judgment 7.61 < .001 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 3.21 0.85 1–2 < .001 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 2.89 0.84 1–3 .003 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 2.72 0.90 scs—common humanity 5.47 .002 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 2.63 0.94 1–2 .050 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 2.91 0.92 1–3 .001 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 3.01 0.89 aps—high standards 11.59 < .001 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 4.16 0.62 1–2 .049 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 3.96 0.68 1–3 < .001 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 2.81 0.63 aps—discrepancy 4.59 .011 emerged adulthood (18–29 years) (1) 2.87 0.83 1–2 .021 established adulthood (30–45 years) (2) 2.63 0.80 1–3 .019 middle adulthood (46–65 years) (3) 2.61 0.71 daniilidou 379 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study sought to broaden our understanding on the relationships between two multidimensional constructs, selfcompassion and perfectionism, and to highlight their associations with age. some interesting findings were obtained. to begin with, hypothesis 1a of the study aimed at checking if the maladaptive dimension of perfectionism negative­ ly predicts the positive self-compassion components and positively predicts the negative self-compassion components. the present study replicates the findings of previous studies (e.g., linnett & kibowski, 2020) in finding that discrep­ ancy positively predicted self-judgment and isolation and overidentification and negatively predicted self-kindness and mindfulness and common humanity. the distress resulting from not being able to respond to unrealistic high self-imposed standards entails to harsh self-criticism and self-judgement (linnett & kibowski, 2017). it seems that there is a strong link between how people judge themselves based on their ability versus their actual performance; those who experience high discrepancies may be less compassionate towards themselves than those whose expectations align better with what they actually achieve. this presence of difference between expected and actual performance could lead to lower self-compassion levels, as people may find it challenging to extend kindness towards themselves and/or may internalize negative self-judgments and perceive compassion towards oneself as undeserved or ineffective (robinson et al., 2016). in addition, it was hypothesized that the adaptive perfectionism dimension (high standards) will not predict any of the self-compassion components (hypothesis 1b), since studies on the relation between the two constructs highlight the complexity of the relationship between the adaptive perfectionism dimensions and the self-compassion components suggesting that there is either a weak negative association between the adaptive perfectionism dimensions (e.g., striving for excellence, perfectionistic strivings) and the negative self-compassion components namely self-judgement (e.g., hiçdurmaz & aydin, 2017; linnett & kibowski, 2020), or that there is no association between them (e.g., neff, 2003a). however, in the present study, it was found that the high standards dimension positively predicted the negative self-compassion components (self-judgment and isolation and overidentification). this empirical observation may find its underpinning in a theoretical framework suggesting that individuals with high standards tend to engage in self-judgment when facing setbacks, possibly due to their perception of these failures as deviations from their exacting criteria. high standards can also lead to social isolation, as individuals fear not meeting their lofty expectations, making them hesitant to seek external support. in addition, those with high standards may excessively identify with their failures, driven by their significant investment of self-worth in achieving success, which can result in a profound immersion in negative thoughts and emotions known as overidentification. figure 1 moderating effect of age on the relation between adaptive perfectionistic type and isolation and overidentification multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 380 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interestingly, it was also found that high standards positively predicted mindfulness and self-kindness, a finding that is unique in the already existing literature. while many may view high standards as a stressful burden on mental health, recent studies indicate the opposite; that having high standards may actually be beneficial for well-being and personal growth since, instead of being discouraged by failure, those with perfectionistic tendencies view their shortcomings as an opportunity for improvement (dunkley et al., 2003; suh & shiqin chong, 2022). individuals who set high standards for themselves are more likely to engage in mindfulness and self-kindness practices that lead toward an improved sense of well-being and personal growth (suh & shiqin chong, 2022). finally, it should be noted that the predictive effect of discrepancy on self-compassion components was stronger compared to the effect of high standards, a finding that is consistent in previous studies (e.g., hiçdurmaz & aydin, 2017; mosewich et al., 2011). the negative impact of perceived failure may be a potential explanation for this finding. this implies that individuals are less likely to experience feelings of self-compassion towards themselves when they perceive a discrepancy between their current state and their desired state, as opposed to simply holding high standards for themselves, since they may experience guilt or shame—emotions that have been linked with lower levels of self-compassion (sirois et al., 2019; woods & proeve, 2014). this finding can have several implications. firstly, it suggests that interventions aimed at increasing self-compassion may be more effective if they focus on helping individuals recognize discrepancies between their current selves and ideal selves, rather than solely promoting the adoption of high standards. additionally, it highlights the importance of addressing negative emotions surrounding perceived failures or shortcomings in order to cultivate greater levels of self-acceptance. with regards to hypotheses 2a and 2b, it was expected that the perfectionistic types would present differences on the self-compassion components. the findings of the study indicated that adaptive perfectionists and non-perfectionists reported higher levels on the positive and lower levels on the negative components of self-compassion, while malad­ aptive perfectionists reported higher levels on the negative components of self-compassion and lower levels on the positive components of self-compassion. the multidimensional approach of self-compassion in this study contributes to a more detailed understanding of their relationships, instead of simply approaching self-compassion as a positive attitude and perfectionism as a negative trait. to begin with, as it has already been suggested by the literature, maladaptive perfectionism is negatively associated to self-compassion (ferrari et al., 2018; stoeber, madigan, & gonidis, 2020; yeshua et al., 2019). findings reporting low levels of positive self-compassion components and high levels of negative self-compassion components in maladaptive perfectionists may be related to and explained by the irrational cognitions associated with the constant desire of being perfect and the intolerance towards flaws and imperfections (abdollahi et al., 2020; ferrari et al., 2018). according to kawamoto and his colleagues (2023), individuals dealing with maladaptive perfectionism hold unattainable desires for flawlessness and exceptionally lofty standards that make them hypercritical about themselves. this conduct could be due to their inclination towards self-validation instead of internalizing self-compassion (tobin & dunkley, 2021). on the other hand, research suggests that adaptive perfectionists tend to be more self-compassionate and have better mental health outcomes compared to maladaptive perfectionists (sirois & molnar, 2016; stoeber & otto, 2006). studies have found that adaptive perfectionists tend to report higher levels on positive self-compassion components than maladaptive perfectionists, because they are able to acknowledge their imperfections without harsh self-criticism and are more likely to practice self-care (stoeber & damian, 2014; stoeber & otto, 2006). in addition, they demonstrate mindfulness and kindness towards themselves to manage the stress associated with striving for excellence (kawamoto et al., 2023). it seems that, by cultivating a sense of self-compassion and accepting one's own imperfections alongside striving for excellence, individuals can achieve higher levels of well-being while avoiding the negative effects often seen in non-adaptive forms of perfectionism, since the challenges are faced as an opportunity for growth and improvement (dunkley et al., 2003). finally, studies consistently show that non-perfectionists have an easier time accepting their imperfections than those who strive for perfectionism. non-perfectionists tend to have a more accepting and forgiving attitude towards their performance and may not place as much emphasis on achieving high standards or avoiding shortcomings. stoeber, lalova, and lumley (2020), found that non-perfectionists exhibit more self-kindness when confronted with personal failure or perceived inadequacy. thus, they may be more likely to recognize that imperfection is a normal part of the human experience and that mistakes do not define their self-worth (neff & mcgehee, 2010). by acknowledging their daniilidou 381 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations without judgement or blame, non-perfectionists develop a stronger sense of worthiness which is translated into greater psychological well-being (stoeber, lalova, & lumley, 2020). it is important to note that self-compassion and perfectionism are dynamic and multidimensional constructs that can vary across situations and contexts and can be influenced by various factors such as personality, culture, and life-ex­ periences. therefore, their levels may vary depending on individual differences and situational factors. for this reason, differences between the participants in self-compassion components and types of perfectionism in relation to their age were examined (hypothesis 3a). the findings showed that, overall, participants in established and middle adulthood reported higher levels on the positive self-compassion components and lower levels on the negative self-compassion components compared to the participants covering emerging adulthood. on the opposite direction, emerging adults scored higher in both the adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism dimensions (discrepancy and high standards). the differentiating role of age in self-compassion levels is often reported in the greek and international literature (e.g., homan, 2016; karakasidou et al., 2020; neff & pommier, 2013). neff (2011) suggests that it may be possible that individuals adopt more self-compassionate responses towards their failures and/or imperfections as they grow older. from a developmental point of view, self-compassion is expected to increase across lifespan, taking into consideration the physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that occur over time. behavioral and psychophysiological studies suggest that adolescence is a challenging developmental period characterized by insecurity about self-image, struggling with managing emotions and/or manifestation of risky behaviors (pfeifer et al., 2011). in contrast, people over 65 years are positioned on the last stage in erikson’s theory (1968) which involves the accomplishment of integrity. integrity refers to one’s ability to reflect back in their life with a sense of fulfillment and involves, inter alia, a sense of wholeness, acceptance and lack of regret (erikson, 1968). the exposure to stressful life events enhances resilience, which in turn allows for a gentler attitude towards oneself. the maturity that comes with age favors a cognitive and empathetic understanding, that may increase the sense of interconnectedness when dealing with difficulties (karakasidou et al., 2020; neff, 2011). the exact relationship between age and perfectionism remains unclear and studies have reported mixed findings. however, there are studies suggesting that younger individuals display higher levels of maladaptive perfectionism, while older individuals exhibit more adaptive forms of perfectionism (curran & hill, 2019; sand et al., 2021). this could be attributed to the fact that younger adults are still navigating their way through the challenges associated with emerging adulthood, such as transitioning from school to work or developing new relationships. during this period, they may feel increased pressure to succeed in all aspects of life, leading them to set unrealistic standards for themselves which can contribute to maladaptive perfectionist tendencies. curran and hill (2019), in a meta-analysis of 164 different samples, found that the perfectionistic concerns of emerging adults have been increased compared to those of previous generations, a fact attributed to cultural changes. in established adulthood, individuals still have high standards since most of them are preoccupied with advancing their careers while also taking on the duties of an intimate partner and raising children (mehta et al., 2020). these findings explain why emerging and established adulthood are more often associated with higher levels of maladaptive perfectionism compared to middle adulthood. robinson and his colleagues (2021) suggested that middle-aged adults still have goals to strive for, but this does not necessarily coincide with perfectionism. however, further research is required to clarify whether the age differences reporting in studies emerge as a consequence of generational dissimilarities or by perfectionism being a trait characteristic that can be modified through lifespan. the last hypothesis of the study (hypothesis 3b; age would moderate the relationship between the perfectionistic types and the self-compassion components) concerned the examination of the effect of age on the relationship between the types of perfectionism and the self-compassion components. interestingly, results did not confirm our hypothesis, since all the moderating effects were found non-significant. the only statistically significant moderating effect of age found was on the relationship between adaptive perfectionism and isolation and overidentification. it is possible that younger adaptive perfectionists are more likely to experience isolation and overidentification than older individuals due to differences in life experiences and coping mechanisms. this finding is supported by curran and hill (2019), who found that older individuals with high levels of adaptive perfectionism were less likely to feel isolated than their younger counterparts. overall, the results of the present study suggest that the relation between the two constructs is relatively constant and does not depend on the effect of age. this finding could be taken into consideration when multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 382 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 371–386 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11981 https://www.psychopen.eu/ designing interventions including perfectionism to enhance self-compassion. it is possible, however, that there are other demographic factors (e.g., gender, ethnicity) and/or other variables (e.g., resilience) that may moderate this relationship. limitations, future directions, and contribution with regard to limitations on sampling method, self-report measures were used to collect the data. the weaknesses of such tools (e.g., subjectivity, social desirability bias) are often discussed in behavioral research (brutus et al., 2013). in addition, the questionnaires were distributed electronically. thus, a convenience sample was recruited and, given the educational level of the participants, it is possible that only highly educated and/or motivated adults participated in the study. finally, the results of the study were emerged from cross-sectional data and, thus, associations between self-com­ passion and perfectionism were reported, but no causative relationships. future longitudinal studies can overcome these limitations with repeated observations on the examined variables. as the discussion on self-compassion and perfectionism continues, future research should aim to provide explanations on the developmental trajectory of the two constructs and it is important to continue examining whether demographical and cultural factors generate differences between samples and/or moderate the relationship between the two constructs. to sum up, the present study contributes to the fast-growing body of literature that examines the association between multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion. it is important to understand that there are different types of perfectionism, namely adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism, each with distinct outcomes, especially on the self-compassion components—it is reminded that high standards dimension positively predicted mindfulness and self-kindness. in addition, results suggest that the different types of perfectionism differ in relation to self-compassion components, a finding that could have practical implications. specifically, cultivating self-compassion may be an effective strategy for individuals who struggle with maladaptive perfectionism and its associated negative outcomes. incorporating self-compassionate practices into daily life could help individuals develop a more balanced perspective on success and failure. overall, embracing self-compassion as a complementary approach to addressing perfectionistic tendencies may prove beneficial for those seeking greater resilience and overall well-being. funding: the author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. acknowledgments: i would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor, professor maria platsidou, for her guidance, support, and encouragement throughout the entirety of this endeavor. her mentorship and expertise were invaluable in helping me to shape the direction of the present study and to bring my ideas to fruition. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references abdollahi, a., allen, k. a., & taheri, a. 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(2019). “silence! the body is speaking”: a correlational study of personality, perfectionism, and self-compassion as risk and protective factors for psychosomatic symptoms distress. psychology, health & medicine, 24(2), 229–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2018.1546016 about the author athena daniilidou is a postdoctoral researcher at the university of macedonia in thessaloniki, greece (department of educational and social policy). her primary research interests lie in psychological approaches to improve the well-being of adults throughout their lifelong development. her research employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion 386 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109846 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr1004_2 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481756.2002.12069032 https://doi.org/10.1198/016214503000000666 https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2020.1865854 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2020.103780 https://doi.org/10.1891/0889-8391.28.1.20 https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2018.1546016 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ multidimensional perfectionism and self-compassion (introduction) defining self-compassion defining perfectionism the relationship between self-compassion and perfectionism aims and hypotheses of the study method participants materials procedure data analysis results types of perfectionists the predictive role of perfectionistic dimensions to self-compassion components differences of self-compassion components in relation to perfectionistic types differences in self-compassion and perfectionism in relation to age the moderating role of age on the relation between perfectionism and self-compassion discussion limitations, future directions, and contribution (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory: considerations for the timing of exercise and phases of memory research reports the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory: considerations for the timing of exercise and phases of memory paul d. loprinzi a, sierra day a, rebecca hendry a, sara hoffman a, alexis love a, sarah marable a, elizabeth mckee a, sydney stec a, hanna watson a, brittney gilliland a [a] exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, oxford, ms, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 85–103, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 received: 2020-03-16 • accepted: 2020-05-17 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, pontypridd, united kingdom corresponding author: paul d. loprinzi, exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science, and recreation management, the university of mississippi, 229 turner center, oxford, ms, usa. tel: 662 915 5561, fax: 662 915 5525, e-mail: pdloprin@olemiss.edu abstract the specific questions addressed from this research include: (1) does high-intensity acute exercise improve memory?, (2) if so, do the mechanisms occur via encoding, consolidation, or retrieval? and (3) if acute exercise occurs in multiple phases of memory (e.g., before encoding and during consolidation), does this have an additive effect on memory? three experimental, within-subject, counterbalanced studies were conducted among young adults. high-intensity exercise involved a 20-minutes bout of exercise at 75% of heart rate reserve. memory was evaluated from a word-list task, including multiple evaluations out to 24-hours post-encoding. the timing of the exercise and memory assessments were carefully positioned to evaluate whether any improvements in memory were driven by mechanisms related to encoding, consolidation, and/or retrieval. we demonstrated that high-intensity acute exercise enhanced memory. this effect was robust (repeatable) and occurred through encoding, consolidation and retrieval-based mechanisms. further, incorporating acute exercise into multiple phases of memory additively enhanced memory function. keywords cognition, cognitive function, exercise, long-term potentiation, physiscal activity previous experimental work has demonstrated that the acute exercise, including moderateand vigorous-intensity exercise, may enhance episodic memory function (brisswalter, collardeau, & rene, 2002; chang, labban, gapin, & etnier, 2012; loprinzi, et al., 2019; roig, nordbrandt, geertsen, & nielsen, 2013; tomporowski, 2003; winter et al., 2007). however, as recently demonstrated via a systemic review (loprinzi, 2018), higher-intensity acute exercise may be more beneficial in enhancing episodic memory. further, as demonstrated elsewhere (loprinzi et al., 2019; roig et al., 2016), the timing of exercise plays a critical role in this acute exercise-memory relationship. that is, acute exercise occurring before memory encoding (labban & etnier, 2011, 2018) and during memory consolidation (van dongen, kersten, wagner, morris, & fernandez, 2016) may enhance episodic memory,1 whereas acute exercise during memory encoding may impair episodic memory function (loprinzi, day, & deming, 2019).2 despite this evidence suggesting a temporal effect of acute exercise on episodic memory function, at this point, we need additional work evaluating 1) episodic memory herein is referred to as a retrospective memory involving spatial-temporal aspects of the memory. 2) the three phases of memory referred herein include encoding, consolidation and retrieval. encoding refers to the acquisition of the memory trace; consolidation refers to the stabilization of the memory trace; and retrieval refers to the reactivation of the memory trace to facilitate memory recall. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2955&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ whether the primary memory enhancement effects of acute exercise occurs through enhancing encoding, consolidation, or memory retrieval. for example, from previous work on this topic, it is not certain as to whether the exercise bout occurring prior to memory encoding was effective in improving memory via encoding-based mechanisms, as this bout of exercise could have also induced residual (e.g., sustained physiological arousal) effects on consolidation. similarly, previous work that has included the acute bout of exercise during the consolidation period often included this exercise bout close to when memory retrieval occurred; thus, this makes it difficult to determine whether the beneficial effects of acute exercise occurred through either consolidation or retrieval-based mechanisms (these underlying mechanisms have been discussed elsewhere; el-sayes, harasym, turco, locke, & nelson, 2019; loprinzi, edwards, & frith, 2017). as such, the present set of experiments aims to help disentangle these issues. that is, we designed several conditions that integrated the acute bout of exercise either before encoding (with an extended delay period to minimize any potential effects on retrieval), during the early phase of consolidation (with an extended delay period to minimize any potential effects on retrieval), or during the later consolidation period shortly before memory retrieval (to potentially enhance retrieval-based mechanisms, such as inducing the allocation of mental resources to facilitate cue-based retriev­ al; loprinzi et al., 2017). further, we also aimed to evaluate whether there may be an additive effect in enhancing memory if exercise occurs during multiple phases of memory. this has been speculated elsewhere (roig et al., 2016) and tested in prior work (loprinzi, chism, & marable, 2019; slutsky-ganesh, etnier, & labban, 2020). such an additive effect is plausible given that, for example, acute exercise prior to encoding may enhance encoding-based mechanisms (e.g., enhanced psycholog­ ical attention; discussed in detail elsewhere; loprinzi, ponce, & frith, 2018), and acute exercise during consolidation may enhance consolidation-based mechanisms (e.g., creb phosphorylation and long-term potentiation; discussed in detail elsewhere: el-sayes, harasym, turco, locke, & nelson, 2019; loprinzi et al., 2017, 2018), and together, they may act synergistically to enhance memory performance. specifically, experiment 1 addresses these gaps in the literature by employing a 6-condition, within-subject design. a potential concern with experiment 1 is that the consolidation period (i.e., 35-minutes)3 may have been too short to conclude whether any effects of acute exercise on enhancing memory occurs via consolidation-based processes. as such, experiment 2 extends this consolidation period out to 4-hours. additionally, the optimal timing of exercise during the consolidation period is unknown, as previous work demonstrates that an acute bout of exercise occurring during the start of the consolidation period may enhance memory (loprinzi et al., 2019), and similarly, other work also demonstrates that exercising during the later stages (i.e., 4 hours into consolidation) of consolidation may also enhance episodic memory (delancey, frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2018; van dongen, kersten, wagner, morris, & fernandez, 2016). experiment 3 evaluates whether an acute bout exercise during the middle periods of consolidation (e.g., 2-hours into consolidation) may enhance episodic memory function. across these three experiments, our working hypotheses were that acute exercise would enhance memory, even when occurring in distinct memory phases; we also hypothesized that when acute exercise occurred in multiple phases, this would have an additive effect on memory. method study design all three experiments were approved by the authors’ institutional review board. participant consent was obtained by all participants prior to any data collection. all three experiments employed within-subject, counterbalanced, experimental designs. experiment 1 involved six visits to our laboratory, with each visit occurring 48–72 hours apart. experiments 2 and 3 involved two visits to our laboratory, with each visit occurring 48–72 hours apart. for each of the experiments, the participants subsequent condition did not start until finishing the prior condition (e.g., the subsequent condition did not 3) we initially selected a 35-minute consolidation period as past research has shown that exercise can improve long-term memory that involves a 20– 30-minute consolidation period (frith et al., 2017). the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 86 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ occur until after they completed the 24-hour memory follow-up assessment of the previous condition). the protocol for each of the experiments is noted below. experiment 1 see table 1 (below) for the schematic of the study protocol for experiment 1. table 1 study protocol for experiment 1 c 1 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 55-minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 55-minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 3 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 20-minute exercise 35 minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 4 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 30 minute restc 20-minute exercise 5-minute rest memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 5 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 20-minute exercise 35 minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 6 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 30 minute restc 20-minute exercise 5-minute rest memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory for this period and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). research question: does acute exercise enhance memory function via its effects on memory encoding, consolidation or retrieval? • if the effect is through “encoding,” then condition 1 > condition 2 • if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 3 > condition 2 • if the effect is through “retrieval,” then condition 4 > condition 2 research question: is there an additive effect in enhancing memory if exercise occurs during multiple phases of memory? • if exercise can enhance both encoding and consolidation additively, more so than encoding alone, then condition 5 > condition 1 • if exercise can enhance both encoding and consolidation additively, more so than consolidation alone, then condition 5 > condition 3 • if exercise can enhance both encoding and retrieval additively, more so than encoding alone, then condition 6 > condition 1 • if exercise can enhance both encoding and retrieval additively, more so than retrieval alone, then condition 6 > condition 4 experiment 2 see table 2 (below) for the schematic of the study protocol for experiment 2. loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 87 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 study protocol for experiment 2 c 1 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 4-hour 20-minute resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 20-minute exercise 4-hour resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory for this period and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). research question: when acute exercise occurs during the early consolidation period, does acute exercise enhance memory function via its effects on memory consolidation? • if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 2 > condition 1 experiment 3 see table 3 (below) for the schematic of the study protocol for experiment 3. table 3 study protocol for experiment 3 c 1 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 4-hour resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 2-hour resta 20-minute exercise 1-hour 40-minute resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). research question: when acute exercise occurs during the late(r) consolidation period, does acute exercise enhance memory function via its effects on memory consolidation? • if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 2 > condition 1 participants participants were excluded (not allowed to participate) if they: (1) were outside the age range of 18–26 y, (2) exercised within 5 hours of their visit, (3) consumed caffeine within 3 hours of their visit, (4) were a daily smoker, (5) self-reported being pregnant, (6) took marijuana in the past 30 days, (7) consumed more than 1 alcoholic drink/day (female) or more than 2 alcoholic drinks/day (male), or (8) had a concussion in the past 30 days. memory function for each of the three experiments, participants completed a word-list memory task, involving viewing 15 words on a computer screen, one word at a time, with each word presented, in a set random order, for 1.5 seconds. participants completed 5 consecutive trials of this (same words per trial), with no recall immediately after encoding. verbal recall the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 88 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ only occurred during memory retrieval 1 and memory retrieval 2 (see tables 1–3 for these time-period assessments). after memory encoding, participants were asked to not rehearse the words. this design (no retrieval immediately after encoding) was intentionally implemented, to isolate encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. that is, if participants recalled the words after each of the 5 consecutive trials, then it would be challenging to isolate any potential effects of acute exercise on encoding-related mechanisms (labban & etnier, 2018). a separate word list was used for each visit (condition), with no repeating words for any of the experiments (or conditions). the word lists were composed of 15 words, selected from the mrc psycholinguistic database (wilson, 1988). each list was matched by concreteness, familiarity and imageability. all words were nouns, had concreteness, imageability, and familiarity ratings between 530 and 700, included 5–10 letters, and 1–2 syllables. exercise protocol participants exercised (vigorous-intensity) for 20-minutes on a treadmill at 75% of heart rate reserve (hrr). this duration and intensity were selected as they are similar to other exercise protocols that have demonstrated a memory enhancement effect (frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2017). after the acute bout of exercise, participants rested (sat) for 5-minutes before starting the memory task. this rest period was selected based on previous work (frith et al., 2017). further, this 5-minute rest period was chosen as, when compared to longer recovery periods, levels of key arousal-based memory-related markers (e.g., norepinephrine) are elevated (skriver et al., 2014; weiss, venezia, & smith, 2019). thus, we wanted to ensure that the post-exercise memory task occurred prior to these biomarkers returning back to baseline levels. the hrr equation is: hrr = [(hrmax hrrest) * % intensity] + hrrest to calculate hrrest, participants sat quietly for three minutes and hr was recorded from a polar hr monitor at minute three. to estimate hrmax, we calculated the participants estimated hrmax from 5 commonly used equations to estimate hrmax. we took the average of these 5 estimates and used this average in the above hrr equation. the 5 hrmax equations that were used include: fox: 220-age astrand: 216.6 – (0.84*age) tanaka: 208 – (0.7*age) gellish: 207 – (0.7*age) gulati: 206 – (0.88*age) throughout the treadmill exercise, hr was continuously monitored using a polar hr monitor, and hrs were recorded at baseline, midpoint, endpoint, and 5-minutes post-exercise. statistical analyses jasp statistical software was utilized to analyze the data. for experiment 1, a 2 (time: memory retrieval 1 and 2) by 6 (condition) anova (analysis of variance) was employed to evaluate memory performances across the six conditions. for experiments 2 and 3, a 2 (time: memory retrieval 1 and 2) by 2 (condition) anova was employed to evaluate memory performances across the two conditions. main effects (time and condition) and interactions are reported, with effect size estimates reported as eta-squared values (η2). statistical significance was set at an alpha of .05. we intentionally did not correct for multiple comparisons, as the number of type i errors cannot decrease without increasing the risk of making a type ii error. further, the theoretical assumption behind correction for multiple testing is that all null hypotheses are true simultaneously, which was not of interest in our study (perneger, 1998; rothman, 1990). loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 89 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results participant characteristics demographic and behavioral results of the participants in the three experiments are shown below (table 4). the sample sizes for experiments 1–3, respectively, were 47, 42, and 31. this was based on prior work demonstrating that a sample size of at least 30 would be needed to elicit a power (1—β error probability) of .80 for an expected η2 of .08 (loprinzi et al., 2019). table 4 participant characteristics across the three experiments variable experiment 1 experiment 2 experiment 3 age, mean years 21.1 (1.7) 20.6 (1.1) 20.5 (1.0) gender, % female 57.4 53.7 87.1 race-ethnicity, % white 76.6 90.2 70.9 bmi, mean kg/m2 25.1 (4.5) 24.0 (4.3) 24.2 (4.3) mvpa, mean minutes/week 228.2 (260.9) 176.7 (151.4) 157.7 (137.4) note. bmi = body mass index; mvpa = moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (self-reported from the physical activity vital signs questionnaire). variance estimates are standard deviations. physiological responses to exercise/rest conditions table 5 displays the heart rate responses to the exercise and control conditions. all exercise bouts resulted in a similar physiological response. table 5 physiological (heart rate) responses to the exercise and rest conditions across the three experiments experiment rest midpoint endpoint post m sd m sd m sd m sd experiment 1 condition 1 (exercise) 80.4 11.4 155.3 16.8 164.2 7.2 97.8 10.1 condition 2 (rest) 75.4 10.3 71.6 10.0 71.8 11.6 72.8 8.2 condition 3 (exercise) 74.8 10.2 153.4 17.0 164.0 7.0 93.4 11.7 condition 4 (exercise) 74.6 11.8 154.0 18.4 164.3 7.4 97.4 11.9 condition 5—bout 1 (exercise) 79.5 11.5 153.5 17.3 164.3 10.2 99.1 12.7 condition 5—bout 2 (exercise) 89.2 11.3 157.4 14.8 164.1 8.5 96.8 12.9 condition 6—bout 1 (exercise) 79.1 11.4 153.3 17.7 163.8 9.6 97.6 9.6 condition 6—bout 2 (exercise) 80.1 9.9 154.7 16.7 164.6 7.3 99.2 10.4 experiment 2a condition 2 78.6 10.3 160.1 8.1 172.2 5.0 experiment 3a condition 2 78.2 10.2 161.3 12.4 166.5 8.3 92.3 10.3 note. “-“ means not assessed. aheart rate only assessed in the exercise condition (i.e., condition 2) for experiments 2 and 3 (i.e., not assessed during the resting condition). the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 90 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ memory outcomes experiment 1 c 1 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 55-minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 55-minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 3 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 20-minute exercise 35 minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 4 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 30 minute restc 20-minute exercise 5-minute rest memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 5 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 20-minute exercise 35 minute restc memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 6 exercise—20 minutes + 5 minute rest memory encoding 30 minute restc 20-minute exercise 5-minute rest memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory for this period and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). table 6 and figure 1 display the memory results for experiment 1. table 6 memory results (words recalled) for experiment 1 condition memory retrieval 1 memory retrieval 2 m sd m sd 1 8.85 3.81 7.66 3.82 2 7.78 4.09 6.42 3.95 3 8.70 3.70 7.34 3.74 4 8.89 4.06 7.48 4.54 5 9.72 3.80 8.83 4.14 6 8.74 3.71 7.66 4.09 loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 91 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 experiment 1 memory performance (mean words recalled) across time for the six experimental conditions note. error bars are standard errors. in a 2 (time) × 6 (condition) rm-anova, there was a significant main effect for time, f(1, 46) = 149.18, p < .001, η2 = .02, main effect for condition, f(5, 230) = 5.32, p < .001, η2 = .02, but no time by condition interaction, f(5, 230) = 0.78, p = .56, η2 = .001. since there was no time by condition interaction, memory scores were collapsed across the two time points for each condition, with post-hoc testing comparing these time collapsed condition effects (see table 7). table 7 post-hoc results comparing the memory results (collaposed across the two memory time periods) across the six experimental conditions condition comparison mdiff se t p c1 c2 1.15 0.38 3.01 .004 c3 0.23 0.45 0.51 .60 c4 0.06 0.37 0.17 .86 c5 −1.02 0.33 3.02 .004 c6 0.05 0.41 0.12 .89 c2 c3 −0.91 0.48 1.90 .06 c4 −1.08 0.46 2.32 .02 c5 −2.17 0.35 6.15 < .001 c6 −1.09 0.38 2.88 .006 c3 c4 −0.17 0.46 0.36 .71 c5 −1.25 0.48 2.58 .01 c6 −0.18 0.43 0.41 .67 c4 c5 −1.08 0.39 2.78 .007 c6 −0.01 0.48 0.02 .98 c5 c6 1.07 0.40 2.65 .01 note. c = condition. the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 92 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 8 indicates the results for each specific research question. table 8 summary of results for experiment 1 research question yes no maybe notes did acute exercise enhance memory? x condition 2 (resting) had the lowest memory performance if the effect is through “encoding,” then condition 1 > condition 2 x condition 1 was > condition 2 (p = .004) if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 3 > condition 2 x condition 3 was not quite statistically significantly different than condition 2 (p = .06) if the effect is through “retrieval,” then condition 4 > condition 2 x condition 4 was > condition 2 (p = .02) is there an additive effect in enhancing memory if exercise occurs during multiple phases of memory? x when acute exercise occurred in multiple phases of memory, memory performance was enhanced. if exercise can enhance both encoding and consolidation additively, more so than encoding alone, then condition 5 > condition 1 x condition 5 was > condition 1 (p = .004) if exercise can enhance both encoding and consolidation additively, more so than consolidation alone, then condition 5 > condition 3 x condition 5 was > condition 3 (p = .01) if exercise can enhance both encoding and retrieval additively, more so than encoding alone, then condition 6 > condition 1 x condition 6 was not > condition 1 (p = .89) if exercise can enhance both encoding and retrieval additively, more so than retrieval alone, then condition 6 > condition 4 x condition 6 was not > condition 4 (p = .98) as shown in table 8 above, acute exercise was effective in enhancing memory function. there was evidence that this effect may have occurred through mechanisms related to encoding and retrieval. there was also some suggestive evidence (p = .06) that exercise may enhance memory via consolidation-based mechanisms. experiments 2 and 3 further evaluates this potential effect and how the timing of exercise during the consolidation period may influence whether exercise enhances memory via consolidation-based mechanisms. first, experiment 2 extends experiment 1 by extending the consolidation period. in experiment 1, for condition 3, there was only a 35-minute consolidation period after the acute bout of exercise. this may have been too short to observe any beneficial effects of acute exercise during the early consolidation period. as such, in experment 2, we extended the post-exercise consolidation period from 35-minutes to 4-hours. loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 93 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment 2 c 1 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 4-hour 20-minute resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 20-minute exercise 4-hour resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory for this period and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). table 9 and figure 2 display the memory results for experiment 2. table 9 memory results (words recalled) for experiment 2 condition memory retrieval 1 memory retrieval 2 m sd m sd 1 7.09 3.77 6.66 3.84 2 8.20 3.72 8.41 3.67 figure 2 experiment 2 memory performance (mean words recalled) across time for the two experimental conditions note. error bars are standard errors. in a 2 (time) × 2 (condition) rm-anova, there was not a significant main effect for time, f(1, 41) = 0.42, p = .52, η2 = .001, but there was a significant main effect for condition, f(1, 41) = 4.58, p = .04, η2 = .09, and a significant time by condition interaction, f(1, 41) = 5.34, p = .03, η2 = .005. post-hoc tests are shown in table 10. the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 94 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 10 post-hoc results comparing the memory results across the experimental conditions (results evaluated across condition and time period) condition comparison mdiff se t p c1, r1 c1, r2 0.43 0.18 2.37 .02 c2, r1 −1.09 0.69 1.57 .12 c2, r2 −1.33 0.67 1.96 .06 c1, r2 c2, r1 −1.52 0.68 2.22 .03 c2, r2 −1.76 0.67 2.62 .01 c2, r1 c2, r2 −0.20 0.22 0.93 .35 note. c = condition; r = retrieval. table 11 indicates the results for the specific research question for experiment 2. table 11 summary of results for experiment 2 research question yes no maybe notes when acute exercise occurs during the early consolidation period, does acute exercise enhance memory function via its effects on memory consolidation? x if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 2 > condition 1 x condition 2 was > condition 1 (p = .04) (main effect for condition)a ahowever, this effect was only significant at memory retrieval 2 (p = .01) and not memory retrieval 1 (p = .12). thus, for acute exercise during the immediate consolidation period to have any effect on enhancing memory, a long follow-up period (over 4-hours) may be needed. as shown in table 11 above, acute exercise was effective in enhancing memory function. this is in contrast to the results (condition 3 vs. condition 2) in experiment 1. for condition 3 in experiment 1, there was only a 35-minute consolidation period after the acute bout of exercise. this may have been too short to observe any benefiical effects of acute exercise during the early consolidation period. as such, in experment 2, we extended the post-exercise consolidation period from 35-minutes to 4-hours. our results from experiment 2 suggest that for acute exercise during the immediate consolidation period to have any effect on enhancing memory, a long follow-up period (over 4-hours) may be needed. experiment 3 builds off of experiment 2 by evaluating whether altering the timing of the acute bout of exercise during the consolidation period has an effect on long-term memory function. that is, instead of exercising immediately after encoding, in experiment 3, the acute bout of exercise occurs 2-hours after memory encoding. loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 95 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiment 3 c 1 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 4-hour resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b 2 rest—25 minutesc memory encoding 2-hour resta 20-minute exercise 1-hour 40-minute resta memory retrieval 1 24-hour resta memory retrieval 2b note. c = condition. athis did not occur in the laboratory—the participant left the laboratory and then returned to the lab. no vigorous exercise during this rest period. bthis assessment did not occur in the laboratory—participants were called on their phone and asked to verbally complete the memory task. cparticipants self-selected a video (dvd of either the big bang theory or the office) to watch during this resting period. there is experimental evidence that this control/resting period does not alter memory performance (blough & loprinzi, 2019). table 12 and figure 3 display the memory results for experiment 3. table 12 memory results (words recalled) for experiment 3 condition memory retrieval 1 memory retrieval 2 m sd m sd 1 5.71 2.86 5.25 2.72 2 5.87 3.24 5.80 3.35 figure 3 experiment 3 memory performance (mean words recalled) across time for the two experimental conditions note. error bars are standard errors. in a 2 (time) × 2 (condition) rm-anova, there was not a significant main effect for condition, f(1, 30) = 0.52, p = .47, η2 = .003, but there was a significant main effect for time, f(1, 30) = 5.18, p = .03, η2 = .002, and a marginally significant time by condition interaction, f(1, 30) = 2.94, p = .10, η2 = .001. post-hoc tests are shown in table 13. the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 96 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 13 post-hoc results comparing the memory results across the experimental conditions (results evaluated across condition and time period) condition comparison mdiff se t p c1, r1 c1, r2 0.45 0.15 2.95 .006 c2, r1 −0.16 0.52 0.30 .75 c2, r2 −0.09 0.50 0.19 .84 c1, r2 c2, r1 −0.61 0.50 1.20 .23 c2, r2 −0.54 0.48 1.12 .26 c2, r1 c2, r2 0.06 0.16 0.38 .70 note. c = condition; r = retrieval. table 14 indicates the results for the specific research question for experiment 3. table 14 summary of results for experiment 3 research question yes no maybe notes when acute exercise occurs during the late(r) consolidation period, does acute exercise enhance memory function via its effects on memory consolidation? x if the effect is through “consolidation,” then condition 2 > condition 1 x condition 2 was not > condition 1 (p = .47) (main effect for condition)a athus, when the acute bout of exercise occurs 2 hours after memory encoding, long-term memory is not enhanced from exercise. this is in contrast to the results from experiment 2, which showed that when acute exercise occurred immediately after encoding, long-term memory was enhanced. thus, the timing of acute exercise during the consolidation period may play an important role. as shown above in table 14, when the acute bout of exercise occurred 2-hours after memory encoding, long-term memory function was not enhanced. discussion study objectives the present set of experiments were conducted to answer a series of important questions. first, we set out to evaluate whether acute exercise can enhance shortand long-term memory. previous work has already attempted to answer this question, but the findings in the literature are considerably mixed, with about half of the previous studies demonstrating an acute exercise-induced enhancement effect of memory (loprinzi et al., 2019; roig et al., 2013). given these mixed findings, re-addressing this potential relationship is a worthwhile endeavor. second, a novel aspect of our experiments was the systematic investigation of whether acute exercise enhanced memory through encoding, consolidation or retrieval-based mechanisms. third, we evaluated whether exercise, occurring across multiple phases of memory (before encoding and during consolidation), can additively influence memory function. loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 97 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ main findings the main findings of our experiments are as follows. first, we demonstrated the ability for high-intensity acute exercise to enhance memory function. second, the exercise-induced improvement in memory may have occurred through mechanisms related to encoding and retrieval. as shown in our experiment 1 results, when exercise occured both before encoding and during consolidation, memory was enhanced to a greater extent than when exercise occured in just one of these temporal periods. in experiment 1, we also demonstrated some suggestive evidence (p = .06) that exercise may enhance memory via consolidation-based mechanisms. experiment 2 demonstrated that acute exercise during early consolidation likely has a greater effect when there has been at least 4 hours for the memory to consolidate (i.e., there was no effect at 4-hours, but there was an effect at 24-hours). experiment 3 demonstrated that any effect of acute exercise during consolidation is likely to occur if the acute bout of exercise occurs during the early consolidation period as opposed to the acute bout of exercise occurring during the late consolidation period. notably, however, experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that when acute exercise occurs during the consolidation period, it may attenuate forgetting (see figures 2 and 3 for an attenuated decay in memory for the exercise condition). we further discuss each of these main findings in the narrative that follows. acute exercise on memory as indicated in the first paragraph of this discussion section, only about half of the prior studies on this topic have demonstrated that acute exercise can enhance memory function. this inconsistent relationship is not surprising, as the acute exercise-memory interaction is a complex relationship, likely influenced by a multitude of factors. for example, it is plausible that the physiological response to the acute exercise may moderate this relationship. such a physiological response may vary as a function of the duration and/or intensity of the exercise stimulus, the age of the participant, and/or the fitness level of the individual (pontifex et al., 2019). other potential factors may include, for example, the timing of the exercise bout to the memory stimulus and the memory type evaluated (e.g., emotional episodic memory, non-emotional episodic memory, semantic memory, implicit memory, procedural memory). several researchers (loprinzi et al., 2019; roig et al., 2013) have attempted to answer how some of these factors may influence the acute exercise-memory relationship. however, at this point, it is still unclear as to the extent to which these factors may truly moderate the effects of acute exercise on memory performance. as such, a lot of additional research on this topic is needed. our experimental results herein demonstrate that high-intensity acute exercise was effective in enhancing memory function among this relatively active, young-adult population. this was a robust effect, occurring across multiple experimental conditions for experiments 1 and 2. this aligns with a past review suggesting greater beneficial effects of acute exercise on memory in young (vs. old) populations (loprinzi et al., 2019). previous research has speculated, in detail, on the mechanisms of this potential relationship (el-sayes et al., 2019; loprinzi et al., 2017, 2018; pontifex et al., 2019). in brief, acute exercise may influence memory as a result of exercise-induced alterations in various neurotransmitters and growth factors that influence long-term potentiation (loprinzi, 2019). of course, and as discussed in the following section, the mechanisms of this potential relationship are likely to be very complex and comprehensive, and may vary based on the memory phase (encoding, consolidation, and retrieval). does acute exercise enhance memory via encoding, consolidation, or retrieval-based mechanisms? the answer to this research question is addressed from all three of our experiments. as shown in table 8, condition 1 was > condition 2, suggesting that exercise may influence memory via encoding-related mechanisms. reasons for this effect has been speculated elsewhere (loprinzi et al., 2018). for example, acute exercise may enhance attention, and as such, may facilitate the allocation of resources to encoding the memory stimuli, and ultimately, the acquisition of the memory trace (engram). relatedly, and from a neurophysiological perspective, acute exercise may increase neuronal camp response element-binding protein (creb) phosphorylation, and as a result, prime specific neural networks to be allocated to the memory engram (i.e., the population of neurons that represents the memory). future experimental the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 98 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work is needed to specifically evaluate these speculated mechanisms. such work, when feasible, should be carried out in human populations. as shown in table 8, condition 4 was > condition 2, suggesting that exercise may influence memory via retriev­ al-based mechanisms. the specific retrieval-based mechanisms of this potential effect are more difficult to explain. elsewhere (loprinzi et al., 2017), researchers have speculated that this may occur via facilitating the item-invariant com­ ponent of memory retrieval. that is, acute exercise may facilitate mental resources that may be needed for searching, monitoring and controlling the processes involved in locating and retrieving a memory. however, it is unclear, to us, as to how exercise would, indeed, accomplish this. exercise may, potentially, accomplish this by facilitating executive function. if our observed effect is replicated in future research, then critical evaluation will be needed to understand how acute exercise may enhance memory via retrieval-based mechanisms. we leave this speculation and critical reflection to future papers isolated on this specific effect. as shown in table 8, our results from experiment 1 provide suggestive evidence (p = .06) that acute exercise may enhance memory via consolidation-based mechanisms. in experiment 1, condition 3 was almost (p = .06) > than condition 2, suggesting that acute exercise immediately after encoding may enhance memory when memory is assessed 35-minutes post-exercise. experiment 2 also demonstrated that memory may be enhanced when acute exercise occurs immediately after encoding. importantly, however, this effect was only observed for the 24-hour follow-up assessment. thus, when acute exercise occurs immediately after encoding, it may influence memory function, but likely will not influence memory if the subsequent memory assessment occurs somewhere between 35-minutes (experiment 1) and 4-hours (experiment 2). it seems that the beneficial effects of acute exercise immediately after encoding may require a lengthy consolidation period. of course, at this point, the reason for this potential effect is not known. our results from both experiment 2 and experiment 3 suggest that acute exercise during the early consolidation period may, potentially, attenuate memory decay. that is, the slope between retrieval 1 and retrieval 2 had a visually steeper decline in the control condition when compared to the exercise condition. this finding, however, is in contrast to a recent meta-anal­ ysis showing that when exercise occurs prior to memory encoding, exercise, compared to control, does not attenuate forgetting (moore, ryu, & loprinzi, 2020). importantly, however, unlike experiment 2, this prior meta-analysis evaluated studies that implemented the exercise bout before encoding, as opposed to during consolidation. perhaps the lengthier consolidation period that is needed to observe a beneficial effect of acute exercise during the early consolidation is due to this potential exercise-induced attenuation of memory decay. this also could be related to our memory task, which involved a 15-word stimulus. perhaps a more difficult memory stimulus would have resulted in greater variability at retrieval 1. thus, at this point, we cannot confidently conclude that a 4+ hour consolidation period is needed to observe exercise-induced memory enhancement effects when the bout of exercise occurs immediately after encoding. perhaps, based on the employed memory task, beneficial effects may occur within a shorter consolidation window. of course, in order to gain a better understanding of this time frame in which exercise may benefit memory, it would first be important to identify how long it would take for the memory to be consolidated. this, however, is a challenging task, as, at this point, it is unclear, within the human population, as to how long it takes for memories to consolidate. this may vary as a function of several factors, such as the extent of encoding or the degree of interfering stimuli during the consolidation window. we also need a better understanding of the underlying exercise-induced mechanisms that would help facilitate memory consolidation. as discussed elsewhere (loprinzi et al., 2018), various neurotransmitters, such as norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and dopamine may be implicated in exercise-induced memory consoli­ dation. importantly, however, any exercise-induced increases in these neurotransmitters would return to baseline long before the entire consolidation window. thus, it is unclear, from a mechanistic perspective, as to how a very short (e.g., 20-minutes) bout of exercise during the early consolidation period would have a sustained effect on memory consolidation. this line of thinking may benefit from previous thoughts on how long-term memories may outlast the life of proteins that play a critical role in the consolidation and maintenance of the memory. that is, after the acquisition of the engram, the engram, and its related proteins and enzymes (e.g., kinases), may, theoretically, enter a stable state (via positive feedback loops) by regeneration occurring repeatedly. perhaps acute exercise, in some way, facilitates this effect. critically, however, perhaps there is a necessary window for this to occur. it is likely that the optimal window is shortly after the acquisition of the memory trace (after encoding), prior to any substantial decay in the engram. our loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 99 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results align with these speculations, as we did not observe any beneficial effects on memory when the acute bout of exercise occurred 2-hours after memory encoding. if acute exercise occurs during multiple memory phases, does it additively influence memory? another noteworthy and interesting observation of our results was that acute exercise additively influenced memory when multiple bouts of exercise occurred across multiple phases of memory. to our knowledge, this concept was first introduced by roig and colleagues (roig et al., 2016) and subsequently tested in a recent publication (loprinzi, chism, & marable, 2019). loprinzi et al. integrated an acute bout of exercise both before encoding and during early consolidation when compared to a condition of exercise only prior to encoding. in this prior experiment (loprinzi, chism, & marable, 2019), however, there were no differential effects on memory between these two aforementioned conditions. however, in this prior experiment, a moderate-intensity bout of acute exercise was used, which may have been too low of a physiological stimulus to enhance memory (loprinzi, 2018). in the present experiment, we implemented a high-intensity bout of exercise and demonstrated that exercise may additively influence memory if it occurs during multiple phases of memory. this also aligns with a recent experiment showing that stationary cycling (55-65% of heart rate reserve) for 10 minutes both before and after memory encoding was more effective, relative to control, in enhancing long-term memory when compared to cycling for 20 minutes before or after memory encoding (slutsky-ganesh et al., 2020). a potential mechanistic explanation for this observation is that, perhaps, exercise activates the unique mechanisms for the respective memory phases (discussed in the above sections as well as in prior reviews; loprinzi et al., 2017, 2018). a notable observation of our results (experiment 1; see table 8) was that exercise presumably enhanced both encoding and consolidation additively, more so than encoding alone (condition 5 > condition 1) or consolidation alone (condition 5 > condition 3). however, exercise did not presumably enhance encoding and retrieval additively, more so than encoding alone (condition 6 was not > condition 1) or retrieval alone (condition 6 was not > condition 4). collectively, these results suggest that, if an additive effect is a true causal phenomenon, then perhaps the optimal time to exercise would be shortly before memory encoding and during the early consolidation period, as opposed to exercising before memory retrieval. this, of course, is regarding multiple bouts of exercise, as opposed to a single bout of exercise, which we demonstrated in experiment 1 that exercising shortly before memory retrieval may enhance memory (condition 4 > condition 2). limitations it is important to interpret the present set of findings within the context of the limitations of these experiments. we employed a homogenous sample of young adults. thus, our findings cannot be extrapolated to other populations. even within this young adult population, it may be inappropriate to generalize our findings to individuals with other behavioral characteristics, such as a less physically active group. second, as demonstrated by the eta-squared estimates, the observed effect sizes were relatively small, and thus, the meaningfulness of our observed differences should be interpreted accordingly. although word-list tasks are commonly employed laboratory measures of memory function, perhaps larger effect sizes would be observable with a more comprehensive, integrated assessment of episodic memory. however, other work has previously integrated such comprehensive memory tasks (e.g., that integrate aspects of “what,” “where” and “when” components of episodic memory; blough & loprinzi, 2019), and, from these studies, there is considerable participant variability in such tasks, ultimately requiring very large samples to detect relatively small effects. we do feel that future work should carefully reflect on the trade-off between task simplicity and real-life utility. another limitation is that we did not measure heart rate during the resting conditions for experiments 2 and 3. although we recognize this as a limitation, participants were sitting during the entire resting period, and thus, their physiological arousal was substantively lower than the exercise conditions. further, during the exercise bouts, heart rate was only recorded at the midpoint and endpoint. to provide a greater overall estimate of the physiological response to exercise, a better approach would be to average the heart rates across the entire bout of exercise. three additional issues are worth considering when interpreting our data. for logistical reasons, our retrieval 2 assessments took place over the phone, as opposed to in the laboratory. however, we asked participants to be in a quiet room with no distractions, the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory 100 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to ensure the participants were able to effectively focus on retrieving as many words as possible. as fully discussed in our statistical analysis section, we intentionally chose not to correct for multiple comparisons. all our results report the exact p-value, and as such, the cautious reader can interpret our findings in light of our observed p-values. lastly, our imposed acute exercise intensity (75% of hrr) was from an estimate. that is, due to logistical reasons (e.g., those in experiment 1 already completed 6 laboratory visits), we did not have the participants complete an initial maximal treadmill test to determine their maximal heart rate. however, we did utilize 5 separate equations to best estimate their maximal heart rate. strengths notable strengths of this paper are multifold. first, we employed a within-subject, counterbalanced design for all three experiments. this helps overcome the biggest source of memory variance in between-subject designs, which is individ­ ual differences in memory function. secondly, we conducted three integrated experiments to answer several novel research questions. third, we included long-term (24-hour) follow-up memory assessments, which are infrequently evaluated in exercise-memory experiments. recommendations for future research the primary recommendations we have for future research are two-fold. first, additional replicative work is needed. second, if our findings ultimately demonstrate to be causal, repeatable effects, then future work should carefully reflect on potential causal mechanisms and appropriately design experiments to evaluate the mediators (e.g., long-term potentiation) of the exercise-memory relationship. conclusion in conclusion, we demonstrate several notable results from our experiments. first, we demonstrated the ability for high­ intensity acute exercise to enhance memory function, and possibly, attenuate forgetting. second, the exercise-induced improvement in memory may have occurred through mechanisms related to encoding, consolidation and retrieval. third, incorporating acute exercise into multiple phases of memory may additively enhance memory function. funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: we have no conflicts of interest and no funding was used for these experiments. references blough, j., & loprinzi, p. d. 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(2007). high impact running improves learning. neurobiology of learning memory, 87(4), 597-609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2006.11.003 about the authors paul d. loprinzi, ph.d., is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. dr. loprinzi is the director of the exercise & memory laboratory. sierra day is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. rebecca hendry is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. sara hoffman is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. alexis love is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. sarah marable is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. elizabeth mckee is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. sydney stec is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. hanna watson is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. brittney gilliland is an undergraduate researcher in the exercise & memory laboratory at the university of mississippi. loprinzi, day, hendry et al. 103 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 85–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2955 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2006.11.003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the effects of acute exercise on shortand long-term memory (introduction) method study design participants memory function exercise protocol statistical analyses results participant characteristics physiological responses to exercise/rest conditions memory outcomes discussion study objectives main findings acute exercise on memory does acute exercise enhance memory via encoding, consolidation, or retrieval-based mechanisms? if acute exercise occurs during multiple memory phases, does it additively influence memory? limitations strengths recommendations for future research conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the associations between workplace bullying and physical or psychological negative symptoms: anxiety and depression as mediators literature reviews the associations between workplace bullying and physical or psychological negative symptoms: anxiety and depression as mediators alessandro lo presti* a, paolo pappone b, alfonso landolfi a [a] dipartimento di psicologia, università degli studi della campania “luigi vanvitelli”, viale ellittico, caserta, italy. [b] asl napoli 1 centro, ambulatorio sovradistrettuale mobbing e disadattamento lavorativo, napoli, italy. abstract workplace bullying is a critical issue for its negative consequences on victims’ health and well-being. this study aimed at examining the intermediate roles of anxiety and depression, in the relations between workplace bullying as a predictor, and physical and psychological negative symptoms as outcomes. in particular, it was hypothesized that workplace bullying would be associated with higher anxiety and depression and, through them, with higher physical and psychological negative symptoms. we sampled 151 italian employees, who called on a workplace bullying public clinical center as victims and filled a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. results of bootstrapped regressions showed that only anxiety mediated the association of workplace bullying with negative physical symptoms while both anxiety and depression mediated its association with negative psychological symptoms. the results have implications for the development of appropriate intervention strategies for both prevention and clinical treatment. in particular, timely diagnosing and treating anxiety and depression could prevent subsequent problems related to psychological and physical symptoms such as colitis, headache, tiredness, nervousness, etc. organizational interventions in terms of primary prevention are also discussed. from an empirical standpoint, the study contributed to disentangling the differential roles of anxiety and depression with respect to physical and psychological symptoms; moreover, overcoming a common limit of workplace bullying research, the current study was carried out on actual victims. keywords: workplace bullying, depression, anxiety, health, well-being, physical symptoms, psychological symptoms europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 received: 2018-08-03. accepted: 2019-01-07. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: dipartimento di psicologia, università degli studi della campania “luigi vanvitelli”, viale ellittico, 31 – 81100 – caserta, italy. tel: +390823275331. e-mail: alessandro.lopresti@unicampania.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. workplace bullying is a compelling psychosocial issue for its individual, organizational, and social negative effects, representing a complex multicausal psychosocial phenomenon that involves a series of factors found at many explanatory levels (burke, mathiesen, einarsen, & fiksenbaum, 2008; einarsen, 1999; einarsen, hoel, zapf, & cooper, 2011a; hoel & cooper, 2001; zapf, 1999). workplace bullyling stands for the severe form of harassing people in organizations and, theoretically, it is an extreme form of social stressor at work. apart from individual and organizational effects, workplace bullying involves significant financial costs that can impair organizational functioning and impact on social welfare sustainability; in fact, it has been calculated that for every single victim there are historical costs for sickness absence of 125,000 british pounds (kivimaki, elovainio, & vahteera, 2000) while it was extimated a total expenditure of 3.7 billion pounds only in the united kingdom (beswick, gore, & palerman, 2006). generally speaking, the prevalence of workplace bullying shows a large europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ variation depending on how it is measured, in fact nielsen, matthiesen, and einarsen (2010) found a general estimated prevalence rate for workplace bullying ranging from 11 to 18%, this variation due to the measurement method used. moreover, with the use of meta-analytical evidence, the same authors estimated that at least 15% of the global working population was exposed to negative workplace behaviors that can be experienced as bullying. exposure to workplace bullying and its associations with health and well-being have been largely examined; among the others: psychological disorders, depression, burnout, anxiety and aggression, as well as psychosomatic and musculoskeletal disorders (björkqvist, österman, & hjeltbäck, 1994; einarsen & raknes, 1997; niedl, 1996; zapf, knorz, & kulla, 1996). however, studies examining the reciprocal relations between clusters of variables consequent to workplace bullying have been largely overlooked. building on this, this paper aims at examining the associations between workplace bullying as a predictor, anxiety and depression as intermediate variables, and psychological and physical negative symptoms as final outcomes. disentangling the potential mediated effects from direct effects could be useful in targeting anxiety and/or depression through appropriate treatment among workplace bullying victims in case mediated effects were proved or else focusing on alternative treatments directly focused on physical and/or psychological negative symptoms if mediation was not proved. additionally, while most studies had been usually carried out within organizational contexts with heterogeneous samples, data for this study have been collected in an italian clinical center dedicated to workplace bullying victims, attesting over 20 years of clinical practice in terms of prevention and treatment, thus providing evidence on actual victims of workplace bullying as well as on an under-represented country in workplace bullying research as italy. theoretical foundation “bullying at work means harassing, offending, or socially excluding someone or negatively affecting someone’s work” (einarsen, hoel, zapf, & cooper, 2011b, p.39). a single conflict can not be called workplace bullying if the incident is an isolated event or if two parties of approximately equal strength are in conflict (einarsen, hoel, zapf, & cooper, 2003). leymann (1990, 1996) suggested, as a time criterion to characterize bullying as a severe form of social stress, that such events should occur at least once a week for more than 6 months. others have used repeated exposure to negative behaviours within a 6-month period as the proposed timeframe (einarsen & skogstad, 1996). hence it is clear that while many examples of interpersonal aggression take the form of single episodes, bullying in the workplace is characterized by a systematic and prolonged exposure to repeated negative and aggressive behavior also and more of a psychological nature, including non-behavior and acts of social exclusion (einarsen et al., 2011b; leymann, 1996). several theoretical models explaining the relations between workplace bullying and different clusters of antecedents and consequences are available. among others, nielsen and einarsen (2012) advanced a theoretical model integrating insights from transactional stress theory (lazarus & folkman, 1984), affective events theory (aet; weiss & cropanzano, 1996) and cognitive activation theory of stress (cats; ursin & eriksen, 2004). according to their model, exposure to systematic and prolonged aggressive behaviors negatively affects the targeted individual and the effects of exposure to workplace bullying can initially be explained by cognitive mechanisms: in particular, individuals recur to evaluation processes which allow to interpret external and/or internal triggers in terms of more or less threat to the individual, based on the current evaluation of available resources; these appraisal processes can lead to cognitive discrepancy when triggers are perceived as unmanlo presti, pappone, & landolfi 809 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ageable, thus leading to the feeling of being unable to face the current situation (i.e., self helplessness). therefore, the negative effects are triggered by repeated and chronic cognitive activation of a prolonged bullying process. cognitive activation would also lead to a prolonged physiological activation which will subsequently manifest itself through the impairment of health and well-being (ursin & eriksen, 2004), decreased sleep quality, increased levels of cortisol, increased heart rate and increased mortality (meurs & perrewe, 2011; ursin & eriksen, 2004). more in detail, nielsen and einarsen (2012) differentiated between job-related outcome variables (attitudes and behaviour) and outcome variables related to health and well-being. with regard to this latter cluster, they identified several distinct variables: mental health problems (thus differentiating between anxiety and depression), physical health problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, burnout, sleep problems, strain, etc. mikkelsen and einarsen (2002) argued that “exposure to bullying behaviors at work may alter the victims’ emotional state and their views of themselves and others, this in turn causing higher levels of reported psychological health complaints and psychosomatic complaints” (p. 398). from the point of view of psychological symptomatology, brodsky (1976) identified, in addition to the physical symptoms, both depressive reactions and symptoms related to depression (e.g., impotence, lack of self-esteem, insomnia), and reactions related to psychological symptoms (e.g., hostility, hypersensitivity, loss of memory, feelings of victimization, nervousness, avoidance of social contact). based on this, in the present paper anxiety and depression were differentiated with respect to physical negative symptoms (e.g., high blood pressure, colitis, back pain, headache) and psychological negative symptoms (e.g., sleep problems, disinterestedness, loss of concentration, tension). as anticipated before, our aim was to differentiate between these outcomes, furthermore examining if anxiety and depression may act as intermediate variables thus mediating the effects of workplace bullying on psychological and physical negative symptoms. available evidence and theoretical underpinning supporting our study hypotheses will be detailed in the next section. study hypotheses available evidence suggests that bullying at work is a powerful stressor that affects, among other things, the health and well-being of individuals. according to nielsen and einarsen (2012), exposure to systematic and prolonged aggressive behaviors negatively impacts on the individual causing a cognitive activation and a subsequent physiological activation that, if prolonged, will lead to the impairment of health and well-being. in particular, given that each subject can have different consequences and react differently, leading to alterations in cognitive-emotional balance (e.g., depression, anxiety, obsessions, panic attacks, emotional anesthesia) as well as in the psychosomatic balance (e.g., gastrointestinal disorders, headache, dizziness, arterial hypertension, disorders of sexuality and sleep, etc.), it appears compelling to examine the differential effects on the above mentioned outcomes. as for the cognitive-emotional effects, being a victim of systematic and intentional psychological harm by other individuals seems to produce severe reactions such as depression and anxiety, negative effects triggered, according to nielsen and einarsen's model (2012), by repeated and chronic cognitive activation of a prolonged bullying process. in fact, among the different consequences of workplace bullying, higher levels of psychological disorders, not only anxiety and depression, but also burnout and aggression, have been found (björkqvist et al., 1994; einarsen & raknes, 1997; niedl, 1996; zapf et al., 1996). brousse et al. (2008) have found higher levels of stress and anxiety–depression disorder developed by targets of workplace bullying at 12-month postconsultation. bilgel, aytaç and bayram (2006) found that workers who had reported bullying showed lower levworkplace bullying and well-being 810 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ els of job satisfaction and higher levels of work-related stress, as well as higher scores of anxiety and depression than those who had not reported bullying. according to these authors, the significant association between bullying and subsequent depression suggests that bullying is an etiological factor for subsequent mental health problems. therefore, it appears that being a victim of repeated adverse behaviors can lead to increased anxiety and depressive symptoms, given that the working environment, and in particular social relationships within it, may be perceived as threatening and unpredictable. based on available evidence, we expect that: h1: exposure to workplace bullying is positively associated with an increased presence of anxiety (a) and depression (b); as mentioned above, workplace bullying at work has been linked to impaired health and well-being. with regard to the latter, that is the abovementioned psychosomatic balance, previous research has focused not only on the increase in anxiety or depressive symptoms but has also on psychological and physical negative symptoms. according to djurkovic, mccormack, and casimir (2003), workplace bullying was positively associated with physical symptoms, negative affect, and with intention to leave the job. their results showed that bullying led to negative affect which in turn led to physical health problems. as already mentioned, according to the nielsen and einarsen's model (2012), exposure to systematic and prolonged aggressive behavior causes a physiological activation that if prolonged triggers a series of physical and psychological negative symptoms. more than 40 years ago, brodsky (1976) identified three patterns of effects on the victims. some subjects developed vague physical symptoms, such as pains, loss of strength, chronic fatigue, weakness and various aches. some other subjects reacted with depression and depression-related symptoms (e.g., impotence, lack of self-esteem, and sleeplessness), while others subjects, instead, reacted with psychological symptoms, such as hostility, hypersensitivity, loss of memory, feelings of victimization, nervousness, and avoidance of social contact. as mentioned above, experiencing an unmanageable cognitive dissonance between what is expected and what actually happens is associated with persistent levels of stress and disease, such as decreased sleep quality, increased levels of cortisol, increased heart rate and increased mortality (meurs & perrewe, 2011; ursin & eriksen, 2004). thus, it is likely that individuals, apart from more specific anxiety and depressive symptoms, will develop other more general negative symptoms related both to the physical and psychological domain. therefore, it is expected that: h2: exposure to workplace bullying is positively associated with an increased presence of physical (a) and psychological (b) negative symptoms; this paper aimed not only at testing direct associations between workplace bullying and the abovementioned outcome variables (i.e., depression, anxiety, physical and psychological negative symptoms), but it is proposed that anxiety and depression may act as intermediate variables between workplace bullying and physical and psychological negative symptoms. besides anxiety and depression, other common symptoms such as musculoskeletal disorders have been reported by victims in several european countries as a result of bullying at work (einarsen & raknes, 1997; niedl, 1996; o'moore, seigne, mcguire, & smith, 1998; zapf et al., 1996). brousse et al. (2008) have found that many patients, at 12-month post-consultation, reported various persistent somatic symptoms or disorders including: appetite and digestive disorders, weight gain, palpitations, migraines, giddiness and poorly systematized arthralgia or muscular pain. trivedi (2004) found that a high proportion of patients with depression seeking treatment in a primary care setting had only physical symptoms, in fact physical pain and depression would seem to have a biological connection deeper than the simple cause and effect (see lo presti, pappone, & landolfi 811 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ also o’neil, 2013). kivimäki et al. (2003) found a higher risk of cardiovascular disease due to prolonged bullying targets and a higher risk of developing depressive symptoms. moreover, henningsen, zimmermann, and sattel (2003) found, through a meta-analytical method, a moderate and significant association between unexplained physical symptoms, anxiety and depression. other scholars have also pointed out that experience of depression (beekman et al., 2002) and anxiety (de beurs, beekman, van balkom, & deeg, 1999) can lead to subsequent somatic and psychological complaints. from the abovementioned evidence, it appears that depression and anxiety on one side, and physical and psychological negative symptoms on the other are related, with the former preceding and activating the latter (nielsen & einarsen, 2012). thus, it is expected that: h3: anxiety will mediate the association between workplace bullying and negative physical (a) and psychological (b) negative symptoms; h4: depression will mediate the association between workplace bullying and negative physical (a) and psychological (b) negative symptoms; method procedure and study context data have been collected at the the a.s.m.d.l. (clinic center for victims of bullying and maladjustment in the workplace of asl napoli 1 centro (naples), founded in 2000. to date, this public clinical center has treated about 1,700 cases. in the last 10 years, 905 cases have been treated: 54% men, age range 20–70 years, mean age 54 years; 46% women, age range 19–71, mean age 50 years. this center offers several specialized services, both at the individual and organizational level, in order to prevent individual work difficulties and promote organizational wellbeing. specifically, this center has several institutional tasks, including: taking charge of workplace bullying victims; cooperating with other institutions in regards to psychosocial risks prevention and intervention; workplace bullying research and prevention; assessment of psychiatric disorders and conditions of psychological distress related to work activity; suggestion of individualized therapeutic pathways and rehabilitation programs for work reintegration of workplace bullying victims; clinical-diagnostic evaluation valid for legal purposes; identification of possible protective measures by employers in the case of reported cases of workplace problems. participants 67 (44.4%) men and 84 women (55.6%) participated to our study. 27 (17.9%) were blue-collars, 91 (60.3%) had lower management roles, 22 (14.6%) middle management roles, and 11 (7.3%) top management roles. mean age was 50.1 years (sd 8.44). average tenure was 14.68 years (sd 10.93). average years of education was 15.07 years (sd 3.4). participants filled a paper-and-pencil copy of the questionnaire at a public clinical center when they, being a victim of mobbing, requested their first consultation. participants were included in the study sample only afterwards when, after subsequent consultations, their workplace bullying status had been ascertained. workplace bullying and well-being 812 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures predictors workplace bullying — workplace bullying (citro & pappone, 2009; ufficio attività istituzionali della sovrintendenza medica regionale della campania, 2012) refers to the frequency the respondent suffered a series of negative behaviors at the workplace. it was assessed through 21 items (e.g., “feeling isolated by his/her co-workers”) with a 5-point frequency scale (0 = never, 4 = very often). cronbach’s alpha was .83. control variables — age, gender (1 = male, 2 = female), and occupational status (1 = blue collar, 2 = lower management role, 3 = middle management role, 4 = top management role) were inserted as control variables. this is consistent with previous evidence showing that older employees (einarsen & skogstad, 1996), women (campanini, punzi, carissimi & gilioli, 2006), and employees in non-managerial positions (lange, burr, conway & rose, 2019) are more frequently subject to workplace bullying. mediators anxiety — anxiety (conti, 1999; zung, 1971) refers to how often the respondent felt anxious during the past several days. it was assessed through 20 items (e.g., “i feel afraid for no reason at all”) with a 4-point frequency scale (1 = never, 4 = very often). cronbach’s alpha was .86. depression — depression (innamorati et al., 2006; zung, 1971) refers to how often the respondent felt depressed during the past several days. it was assessed through 20 items (e.g., “i feel hopeful about the future”) with a 4-point frequency scale (1 = never, 4 = very often). cronbach’s alpha was .87. outcomes physical negative symptoms — physical negative symptoms (citro & pappone, 2009; ufficio attività istituzionali della sovrintendenza medica regionale della campania, 2012) refer to how often the respondent suffered in the last 6 months of a series of somatic complaints. it was assessed through 16 items (e.g., “high blood pressure,” “headache,” “colitis,” “back pain”) with a 5-point frequency scale (0 = never, 4 = very often). cronbach’s alpha was .83. psychological negative symptoms — psychological negative symptoms (citro & pappone, 2009; ufficio attività istituzionali della sovrintendenza medica regionale della campania, 2012) refer to how often the respondent suffered in the last 6 months of a series of psychological complaints. it was assessed through 14 items (e.g., “unpleasant dreams,” “concentration problems,” “tension,” “disinterestedness”) with a 5-point frequency scale (0 = never, 4 = very often). cronbach’s alpha was .87. data analysis missing values (2.98% of all expected cells) for continuous variables were replaced through the expectation maximization method (spss 21). preliminary analyses, as mean, standard deviation and pearson correlations were performed in order to explore the relationships between predictor, mediators and outcomes. lo presti, pappone, & landolfi 813 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to evaluate the significance of direct and indirect effects, bootstrapping procedure with 5,000 samples with replacement from the full sample to construct bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals (hereafter 95% ci; ll = lower level of confidence interval, ul = upper level of confidence interval) was used (preacher & hayes, 2008). any effect is statistically significant when zero is not included in the ci. continuous variables were standardized before calculating regression models. results asymmetry values ranged between −.19 (workplace bullying) and −.86 (depression). kurtosis values ranged between .66 (depression) and −.94 (workplace bullying). means, standard deviations and correlations between study variables are depicted in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1) sexa 2) age −.10 3) occupational levelb .06 .21** 4) workplace bullying 2.19 0.73 −.06 −.03 −.09 5) anxiety 2.9 0.48 .25** .05 −.05 .31*** 6) depression 3.01 0.5 .24** −.01 −.01 .40*** .73*** 7) physical negative symptoms 2.21 0.72 .27** .10 −.16 .37*** .63*** .56*** 8) psychological negative symptoms 2.51 0.75 .11 .05 .02 .51*** .68*** .73*** 63*** a1 = male, 2 = female; b1 = blue collar, 2 = lower management role, 3 = middle management role, 4 = top management role. **p < .01. ***p < .001. workplace bullying positively correlated with anxiety (r = .31, p < .001), depression (r = .40, p < .001), physical negative symptoms (r = .37, p < .001), and psychological negative symptoms (r = .51, p < .001). anxiety positively correlated with depression (r = .73, p < .001), physical negative symptoms (r = .63, p < .001), and psychological negative symptoms (r = .68, p < .001). depression positively correlated with physical negative symptoms (r = .56, p < .001), and psychological negative symptoms (r = .73, p < .001). finally, negative physical symptoms positively correlated with negative psychological symptoms (r = .63, p < .001). two regressions with boostrapping replacement were carried. in the first one, physical negative symptoms was regressed on control variables, predictor and mediators. in the second one, the outcome variable was psychological negative symptoms (table 2). workplace bullying and well-being 814 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 regression models of negative physical symptoms and negative psychological symptoms physical negative symptoms psychological negative symptoms b 95% ci [ll, ul] b 95% ci [ll, ul] control variables sexa .24** [0.06, 0.42] −.08 [−0.24, 0.08] age .01* [0.01, 0.02] .00 [−0.01, 0.01] occupational levelb −.14* [−0.26, −0.03] .05 [−0.04, 0.15] predictor workplace bullying .14** [0.04, 0.23] .19** [0.10, 0.27] mediators anxiety .30*** [0.18, 0.43] .24*** [0.12, 0.35] depression .10 [−0.03, 0.23] .31*** [0.19, 0.42] indirect effects workplace bullying -> anxiety .10* [0.04, 0.17] .08* [0.03, 0.14] workplace bullying -> depression .04 [−0.01, 0.09] .13** [0.07, 0.20] r2 0.49*** 0.63*** note. ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit. a 1 = male, 2 = female; b 1 = blue collar, 2 = lower management role, 3 = middle management role, 4 = top management role. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as for negative physical symptoms, it was positively predicted by sex (b = .24, 95% ci [0.06, 0.42]), workplace bullying (b = .14, 95% ci [0.04, 0.23]), and anxiety (b = .30, 95% ci [0.18, 0.43]), and negatively predicted by occupational level (b = −.14, 95% ci [−0.26, −0.03]). the effect of workplace bullying was only mediated by anxiety (b = .10, 95% ci [0.04, 0.17]). explained variance by predictor and mediators was equal to 49%. as for negative psychological symptoms, it was positively predicted by workplace bullying (b = .19, 95% ci [0.10, 0.27]), anxiety (b = .24, 95% ci [0.12, 0.35]), and depression (b = .31, 95% ci [0.19, 0.42]). the effect of workplace bullying was both mediated by anxiety (b = .08, 95% ci [0.03, 0.14]), and depression (b = .13, 95% ci [0.07, 0.20]). explained variance by predictor and mediators was equal to 63%. discussion the present paper, consistently with nielsen and einarsen's model (2012), examined the intermediate role of anxiety and depression, in the relations between workplace bullying as a predictor, and physical and psychological negative symptoms as outcomes. in particular, we examined whether workplace bullying was associated with higher anxiety and depression and, through them, with higher physical and psychological negative symptoms. results showed the severity of the effects of bullying on mental health, which lead to more or less serious conditions of psychological/psychiatric impairment even in subjects without a significant psychiatric history. first, we hypothesized (h1) that exposure to workplace bullying was positively associated with an increased presence of anxiety and depression. results fully supported this hypothesis: workplace bullying was positively associated with anxiety and depression. similar findings have been reported by nielsen and einarsen (2012), lo presti, pappone, & landolfi 815 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ brousse at al. (2008), bilgel et al. (2006). so, exposure to systematic and prolonged aggressive behaviors could be an etiological factor for subsequent mental health problems, as anxiety and depression. second, given that many scholars have stressed the importance of bullying in the workplace as a predictor of physical and psychological negative symptoms, we hypothesized (h2) that exposure to workplace bullying was positively associated with an increased presence of physical and psychological negative symptoms. this hypothesis was fully supported showing that physical and psychological negative symptoms were positively predicted by workplace bullying, confirming the critical role of bullying in the onset of somatic/physical and psychological symptomatology. there results are in line with available evidence, therefore, exposure to systematic and prolonged aggressive behavior may lead to a physiological activation that triggers a series of physical and psychological negative symptoms, as confirmed by nielsen and einarsen's model (2012). it derives that beyond the anxious and/or depressive symptomatology, other negative effects of workplace bullying may be found: vague physical symptoms (such as pain, loss of strength, chronic fatigue, weakness and various pains), impotence, lack of self-esteem, insomnia, hypersensitivity, loss of memory, feelings of victimization, nervousness and avoidance of social contact, decreased quality of sleep, increased heart rate. finally, we hypothesized (h3) that anxiety may mediate the association between bullying at work and physical (a) and psychological (b) negative symptoms and (h4) that depression will mediate the association between workplace bullying and physical symptoms (a) and negative psychological negative (b) symptoms. results showed that only anxiety mediated the effects of workplace bullying on physical negative symptoms while, both anxiety and depression were mediators with respect to psychological negative symptoms. so, hypothesis h3 was fully confirmed: anxiety mediated the effect of bullying on both physical (h3a) and psychological (h3b) negative symptoms. hypothesis h4 was partially confirmed given that depression mediated only the effect of bullying on psychological negative symptoms (h4b), while it did not mediate the effect of bullying on physical negative symptoms (h4a). it derives that apart from being directly associated with psychological and physical negative symptoms—at least partially—anxiety and, partly, depression represent intermediate variables through which workplace bullying potentially lead to impaired physical and psychological well-being. conclusions workplace bullying is a psychosocial risk that can significantly impair individual well-being (eurofound, 2017), but can also negatively impact on the organization through increased absenteeism (o’ connell, calvert, & watson, 2007) and turnover (hoel & cooper, 2000), as well as decreased productivity (hoel, sparks, & cooper, 2001). additionally, it has been proven that it has significant financial costs for the welfare system (beswick et al., 2006; kivimaki et al., 2000). it derives that acquiring a better knowledge of this phenomen, its antecedents as well its consequences (at different levels), may be useful in order to prevent it and/or effectively target victimization processes and their effects. this paper contributed to the literature providing additional evidence about the negative effects of workplace bullying on depression and anxiety (bilgel et al., 2006; brousse et al., 2008), as well as on physical and psychological negative symptoms (djurkovic et al., 2003). moreover, it was proved that the effects of workplace bullying on physical and psychological negative symptoms were mediated by anxiety and, partly, by depression. the high percentage of variance of both outcomes explained by predictors supports the salience of these workplace bullying and well-being 816 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factors in explaining variability in physical and psychological negative symptomatology. from a practical standpoint, it derives that timely diagnosing and treating anxiety and depression could prevent subsequent problems related for instance to increased blood pressure, pain, colitis, headache, tiredness, decreased quality of sleep, hypersensitivity, loss of memory, etc. additionally, overcoming a common limit of workplace bullying research— that is participants not being victims of actual bullying—the participants of this study were all recruited within a public clinical center for bullying treatment and prevention, being actual victims of workplace bullying. our results may be useful in disentangling the intertwinement between physical and somatic symptoms, and depression and anxiety. first of all, these results may contribute to overcoming the prejudice related to the exclusivity of the "non organic" treatment; in clinical terms, it means stressing the importance of avoiding concentration, both in terms of prevention and treatment, exclusively on the organic/medical dimension but to highlight both the somatic and psychological dimension in the assessment and treatment of such disorders. therefore, differentiating the effects on anxiety and depression from the effects on negative physical and psychological symptoms respectively, could be useful for addressing victims’ anxiety and/or depression, as well as more specific physical and/or psychological symptomatology, through appropriate and specific treatments. from a clinical point of view, having detailed information regarding the symptomatology could allow differentiating or not a possible pharmacological intervention in the treatment phase. although it was not the focus of the present study, significant organizational implications can be drawn from our results. in particular, consistently with available literature (salin, 2003), the association between workplace bullying and anxiety/depression and psychological/physical negative symptoms should represent a further warning to employers to promote adequate organizational conditions that could reduce the likelihood that adverse behaviors and conflict could give rise to workplace bullying. primary preventive interventions should target organizational culture and climate, work organization and job design, workgroups’ functioning and leadership effectiveness, reward systems and competition, just to mention a few among the main ones (salin & hoel, 2010). this study suffers from a series of limitations that need to be acknowledged. a critical aspect concerns the use of a cross-sectional research design that does not allow for causal inferences; future longitudinal studies, for instance diary studies, may better examine the evolution of the phenomenon over time and, for instance, disentangle the direction of causality between anxiety/depression and physical/psychological negative symptoms. furthermore, we only used self-report measures, therefore the relationship between the variables could be influenced by common method variance. although the present study provides a significant and innovative contribution to the relationship between bullying and its different negative health consequences, future research should also explore other variables related to the workplace bullying, as well as dispositional variables that could potentially moderate bullying. for instance, it could be examined how workplace bullying could impact on the family domain and if the latter (e.g., family support; lo presti, d’aloisio, & pluviano, 2016) could act as a buffer with respect to negative consequences. although supported by available evidence (mikkelsen & einarsen, 2002; nielsen & einarsen, 2012), the potential overlap between anxiety/depression and psychological negative symptoms could not be properly examined, for instance by means of confirmatory factor analysis, cause of limited sample size. finally, data were collected when victims contacted the clinic center for their first consultations. future research could examine if receiving subsequent therapy for the treatment of anxiety and/or depression could alter their subsequent association with physical/psychological negative symptoms. lo presti, pappone, & landolfi 817 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references beekman, a. t., penninx, b. w., deeg, d. j., beurs, e. d., geerlings, s. w., & tilburg, w. v. 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(2004). the cognitive activation theory of stress. psychoneuroendocrinology, 29(5), 567-592. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0306-4530(03)00091-x weiss, h. m., & cropanzano, r. (1996). affective events theory: a theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. in b. m. staw & l. l. cummings (eds.), research in organizational behavior: an annual series of analytical essays and critical reviews (vol. 18, pp. 1–74). greenwich, ct, usa: elsevier science/jai press. zapf, d. (1999). organizational, work group related and personal causes of mobbing/bullying at work. international journal of manpower, 20, 70-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437729910268669 zapf, d., knorz, c., & kulla, m. (1996). on the relationship between mobbing factors, and job content, the social work environment and health outcomes. european journal of work and organizational psychology, 5, 215-237. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594329608414856 zung, w. w. (1971). the differentiation of anxiety and depressive disorders: a biometric approach. psychosomatics: journal of consultation and liaison psychiatry, 12(6), 380-384. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3182(71)71480-7 about the authors alessandro lo presti is associate professor of work and organizational psychology at the university of campania “luigi vanvitelli” (italy). he has been visiting scholar at the queen’s university of belfast (uk; 2006), visiting lecturer at the mikkeli university of applied sciences (fi; 2011), at the university of jyvaskyla (fi; 2014) and at the university of rouen-normandie (fr; 2018), visiting researcher at the northern illinois university (usa; 2015, 2016). his research interests include: employability, career attitudes, work-family conciliation, well-being at work. paolo pappone is medical doctor, specialized in psychiatry and psychotherapist trained in cognitive psychotherapy, in systemic-relational psychotherapy and in hypnosis. since 2000 at the asl napoli 1, he is responsible for an outpatient service (stress regional reference center) focused on the diseases related to mobbing and occupational stress. from 2005 to 2014 he has been lecturer in the school of higher education in job safety—s.u.n. for the subject “psychosocial risks.” he has published for inail the book “psychological stress pathology, bullying, organizational constraints, the inail protection,” 2005. he conducted three large national surveys on stress in bank workers, on the base of an evaluation questionnaire (s.o.s.). he has coordinated the activation of the “laboratorio del disagio lavorativo” by the institute of occupational medicine at the second university of naples. lo presti, pappone, & landolfi 821 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f00187267035610003 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs0306-4530%2803%2900091-x https://doi.org/10.1108%2f01437729910268669 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13594329608414856 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs0033-3182%2871%2971480-7 https://www.psychopen.eu/ alfonso landolfi, chartered psychologist and psychotherapist, is ph.d. student at the university of campania “luigi vanvitelli” (italy) where he studies work-family conciliation. workplace bullying and well-being 822 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 808–822 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1733 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ workplace bullying and well-being (introduction) theoretical foundation study hypotheses method procedure and study context participants measures data analysis results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors predictive attentional bias modification induces stimulus-evoked attentional bias for threat research reports predictive attentional bias modification induces stimulus-evoked attentional bias for threat thomas e. gladwin* a, martin möbius b, eni s. becker b [a] institute of education, health and social sciences, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [b] behavioural science institute, radboud university nijmegen, nijmegen, the netherlands. abstract attentional bias modification (abm) aims to modulate attentional biases, but questions remain about its efficacy and there may be new variants yet to explore. the current study tested effects of a novel version of abm, predictive abm (predabm), using visually neutral cues predicting the locations of future threatening and neutral stimuli that had a chance of appearing after a delay. such effects could also help understand anticipatory attentional biases measured using cued visual probe tasks. one hundred and two participants completed the experiment online. we tested whether training towards threat versus away from threat contingencies on the predabm would cause subsequent attentional biases towards versus away from threat versus neutral stimuli, respectively. participants were randomly assigned and compared on attentional bias measured via a post-training dot-probe task. a significant difference was found between the attentional bias in the towards threat versus away from threat group. the training contingencies induced effects on bias in the expected direction, although the bias in each group separately did not reach significance. stronger effects may require multiple training sessions. nevertheless, the primary test confirmed the hypothesis, showing that the predabm is a potentially interesting variant of abm. theoretically, the results show that automatization may involve the process of selecting the outcome of a cognitive response, rather than a simple stimulus-response association. training based on contingencies involving predicted stimuli affect subsequent attentional measures and could be of interest in future clinical studies. keywords: attentional bias modification, attention, threat, predictive cues, attention bias europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 received: 2018-04-06. accepted: 2019-01-08. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: institute of education, health and social sciences, university of chichester, college lane, po19 6pe chichester, united kingdom. tel: +44 (0)1243 816222. fax: +44 (0)1243 816080. e-mail: thomas.gladwin@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. attentional biases are automatic processes that influence the selection of information for further processing (cisler & koster, 2010; kane & engle, 2003). spatial attentional biases, involving the direction of attention to the location of salient cues, can be measured via dot-probe or visual probe tasks (vpts) (macleod, mathews, & tata, 1986). faster responses to probe stimuli appearing at the location of certain cue categories provides an implicit measure of bias (cisler & koster, 2010; mogg & bradley, 2016; notebaert, crombez, van damme, de houwer, & theeuwes, 2011). an interesting application of research into attentional biases is their use in training paradigms, termed attentional bias modification, abm (macleod & mathews, 2012). abm aims to reverse a putatively harmful attentional bias in order to change associated behavior or symptoms, such as spider phobia (luo et al., 2015), depression (ferrari, möbius, van opdorp, becker, & rinck, 2016; wells & beevers, 2010), addiction (schoenmakers et al., 2010) and ptsd (kuckertz et al., 2014). opinions are strongly divided, howeveurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ er, on the efficacy of abm, and it appears that, at the least, its efficacy is conditional on moderating factors (clarke, notebaert, & macleod, 2014; cristea, kok, & cuijpers, 2015; gladwin, wiers, & wiers, 2016). some recent studies have raised interesting possibilities potentially relevant to abm. first, cued visual probe tasks (cvpts) have been developed to the aim of studying outcome-related attentional biases (gladwin, 2016). in the cvpt, instead of presenting salient cues and determining how they affect attention, visually neutral predictive cues are used. the predictive value is caused by picture trials, in which the predictive cues are replaced by an actual exemplar from the category associated with them, for example, threat versus neutral. assessment of the bias is based on probe trials, on which instead of the exemplar a probe stimulus requiring a response is presented. thus, performance is not dependent on a given trial’s specific exemplars, but on the predicted categories of stimuli that could have been presented. possibly partly due to this removal of a source of variability, the cvpt has been found to have relatively good reliability (gladwin, 2018; gladwin, möbius, mcloughlin, & tyndall, 2018). a theoretical question is what is causing the bias. the task design implies that the cues serve as predictive stimuli for possible outcomes, or as a kind of prime (kristjánsson & ásgeirsson, 2019), due to some form of learning process (failing & theeuwes, 2018). however, it is conceivable that the visual features of the cues themselves acquire salience, as opposed to the theoretically motivating idea that predictive mechanisms determining the outcome of attentional shifting would result in the bias (gladwin & figner, 2014; gladwin, figner, crone, & wiers, 2011). using a cvpt as an abm task could provide evidence to help address this issue: if using a cvpt to train participants’ attention towards or away from an outcome indeed results in a bias involving the stimulus categories, rather than the specific cues used during training, this would suggest that the cvpt involves outcome-related processes rather than cue-specific learning. second, positive effects have been reported of what would usually be considered control conditions of abm, in which no specific bias was induced but probes had a random relationship with emotional cues (badura-brack et al., 2015; gladwin, 2017; khanna et al., 2015). it has been suggested that whether a training variant makes emotional cues relevant or irrelevant to the training task may be an important factor in abm (gladwin, 2017). in usual sham conditions, emotional cues are irrelevant to the task and thus participants could be learning to ignore such stimuli when confronted by them. for instance, in a control condition of a training based on the dotprobe task, the location of emotional cues is non-predictive of the location of probe stimuli. in active training conditions, while the aim is to affect the direction of attentional biases, it is also usually the case that emotional information is relevant. in the dot-probe example, if probe locations are contingent on the location of emotional cues, then that makes those cues relevant. this could induce a “salience side-effect” in some designs: participants may be learning to pay attention to the location of task-relevant emotional stimuli, even if the direction of attentional shifting is away from them. this could add noise and complexity to results, with different processes being affected in uncontrolled ways during training. in line with the idea that salience is an important factor in training, approach-avoidance retraining for alcohol addiction reduced amygdala reactivity to alcohol stimuli (wiers et al., 2015), which was interpreted as a neural signature of salience reduction. the goal of the current study was to explore a novel form of abm hypothesized to avoid this salience sideeffect, which simultaneously may help understand the nature of the anticipatory spatial attentional bias. a training version of the cued visual probe task was used, in which the probability of the location of probes relative to the outcome of cues is manipulated. this was termed predictive attentional bias modification (predabm). to test whether this kind of predictive-cue training would affect attentional bias towards or away from actually presented emotional stimuli, a towards threat training condition and an away from threat training condition were predictive abm 480 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ compared using a normal dot-probe task post-training. as the delay between emotional cues and probe stimuli in dot-probe tasks is known to be potentially time-dependent (mogg & bradley, 2006; noël et al., 2006), multiple cue-stimulus intervals were used. note that due to the experimentally controlled random allocation of participants to groups, this post-only design allows valid statistical inference to be done: statistically significant differences between groups on the post-test measures can be interpreted as an effect of training, with only the usual possibility of a false positive (which would also be present when analyzing difference scores). beyond this basic point on the validity of randomized post-only designs, there are advantages and disadvantages to using a postonly versus pre-post design discussed further in the discussion section. we hypothesized that training to shift attention towards versus away from the location of predicted upcoming threatening facial stimuli would affect attentional bias towards or away from such stimuli on the post-test stimulus-evoked attentional bias. method participants participants were recruited from a student population and received study credits for completing the study. participants gave informed consent and the study was approved by the local ethics review board. the study was performed online. one hundred and two participants completed the experiment (88% female, 22 % male; mean age 20, sd = 0.29). the study was performed fully online. materials questionnaires the following questionnaires were used as the set of covariates to reduce training-unrelated variance on the post-test dot-probe task. the aim was to use a range of questionnaires concerning individual differences, which could affect attentional biases involving threat: anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and aggression. the questionnaire on depression was unfortunately lost due to a technical error. note that because the between-subject factor of training was randomly assigned it was stochastically independent from the covariates, providing an appropriate situation for the use of analysis of covariance. the tsq (brewin et al., 2002) was used to estimate the presence of post-traumatic stress symptoms. participants were asked to indicate for each of the 10 items, whether they experienced the described symptom (at least twice) in the past week or not. the total score ranges between 0 and 10, while higher scores represent the presence of more ptsd symptoms. to assess an individual’s disposition to aggressive behavior we used the buss-perry aggression questionnaire (buss & perry, 1992). this questionnaire consists of four subscales; i) physical aggression, ii) verbal aggression, iii) anger, iv) hostility. on 29 items, participants had to indicate how characteristic each of the described behaviors was in describing them (1 = totally uncharacteristic, 5 = totally characteristic), with higher scores reflecting greater disposition for aggressive behavior. the short version of the stai, stai-6 (marteau & bekker, 1992) was used to measure changes in individual state anxiety. this scale comprises six statements to be rated on a 4-point likert scale (1 = not at all, 4 = very gladwin, möbius, & becker 481 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ much). we calculated a weighted sum score in which responses on the three items involving positive feelings were multiplied by -1. higher sum scores represent higher state anxiety levels. the predabm training task the predabm task was administered to modify attentional processing to threatening stimuli. the faces of 16 characters, each with an angry and a neutral expression, from the besst (thoma, soria bauser, & suchan, 2013) were used. the task consisted of 24 blocks of 24 trials each. all trials started with a fixation cross (300, 400, or 500 ms) followed by the appearance of two initially neutral cues one above the other, each of which consisted of a horizontal row of five differently colored typographical symbols (e.g., five blue crosses). after every eight blocks, a different pair of cues was used. the aim of this was to reduce the chance that participants would only learn a contingency involving a particular pair of cue-stimuli, rather than the outcome-contingency which was consistent over the varying cue pairs. the cues were presented for a csi of 200 or 1,200 ms, with equal probability, so as not to induce csi-related differences with the dot-probe assessment. the essential feature of the task is that there were two trial-types, which were presented with equal probability; on half of the trials (“picture trials”), one of the cues (randomized per subject) was replaced by a picture of an angry face, and the other by a picture of a neutral face. on the other half of the trials (“probe trials”), the trial continued as in a normal dot-probe task, with the probe-distractor pair replacing the cues. the probe stimulus was an arrow-like symbol pointing to the left < or right >. the distractor stimulus was a /\ or \/. the distractors were used to make it more difficult to respond without focusing attention on the correct location, since they were visually similar to the probe stimuli. participants were instructed to press the corresponding left or right key (f or j on the keyboard) within 800 ms. correct answers were followed by the word “good” (“goed,” in dutch) in green, while incorrect answers were followed by the word “wrong” (“fout,” in dutch) in red. when no response was registered the term “too late” (“te laat,” in dutch) was presented in red. this feedback remained on the screen for 500 ms. essentially, the picture trials were designed to train an association between cues and the possible appearance of angry versus neutral pictures at their location, and the probe trials provided an assessment of effects of that association. in both groups, cues consistently predicted the locations of threat and neutral stimuli. they only differed in their relationship to where probe stimuli would appear. in the towards threat group, 90% of probes appeared at the location where an angry face was predicted to appear. in the away from threat group, 90% of probes appeared at the location where a neutral face was predicted to appear. dot-probe task for the dot-probe task a subset of 16 faces from the besst was used, different from the subset used during training. the task consisted of four blocks of 24 trials. each trial started with a fixation cross (300, 400, or 500 ms) followed by the presentation of an angry and a neutral face, one above the other, for 200 or 1,200 ms, with equal probability. trials then continued precisely as in the probe trials in the predabm task described above: a probe-distractor pair replaced the cues, to which participants had 800 ms to respond, followed by feedback. procedure individuals who chose to participate were guided to the web page for the experiment via a sona systems participant pool. they viewed a page with participant information and gave informed consent via a button to continue. the next page briefly repeated the most essential information and gave tips for correct performance of the predictive abm 482 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tasks, for example, turning off phones, maximizing the browser window, and closing other programs and browser tabs. participants filled in questionnaires and then performed the predabm and dot-probe task. participants were assigned to a training condition at random. in the same session, participants also completed questionnaires and tasks unrelated to the current study. statistical analyses first, within-subject repeated measures anovas were performed per training group to determine whether each training condition had the expected effects on behavior during training. for each training condition (towards threat condition and away from threat) it was tested whether the respective bias was induced during the training (within-subject factors probe location and csi), although of course these tests do not indicate whether such biases involved the predicted outcome as opposed to the initially visually neutral cues. probe location refers to whether the probe appeared at the location of the threat or neutral cue. dependent variables were median rt (the median was used to reduce the impact of outliers, without needing to specify an arbitrary cut-off for outliers as would be necessary with the mean) and mean accuracy, calculated for all probe trials. the questionnaire data (i.e., age, sex, buss-perry subscale scores, tsq, and stai-6) were included as covariates. second, and most essentially, effects of the attentional manipulation on the dot-probe task were tested using mixed design ancovas, with within-subject factors probe location (neutral, threat) and csi (200 ms, 1,200 ms) and between-subject factor training condition. the questionnaire scores were included as covariates. it was tested whether the training conditions (toward threat vs. away from threat) induced reversed attentional biases on the dot-probe task. dependent variables were median reaction time and mean accuracy. results table 1 shows descriptive statistics for the questionnaire data. fifty-four participants were assigned to the away from threat group and 48 to the towards threat group. table 1 demographics and questionnaire data score away from threat towards threat sex 78% 92% age 19.8 (2.06) 19.5 (1.44) bp—physical aggression 19.6 (5.66) 16.6 (4.99) bp—verbal aggression 17.4 (3.76) 15.6 (2.82) bp—anger 16.9 (5.45) 16.9 (6.38) bp—hostility 20.1 (8.15) 17.9 (8.1) trauma screening questionnaire 3.02 (2.94) 3.04 (2.8) stai, pre-training -4.11 (2.93) -3.83 (3.3) stai, post-training -3.15 (3.11) -3.21 (3.05) note. the values are percentages (for sex, percentage female) and mean values, with standard deviations in parentheses. bp represents the buss-perry questionnaire. the stai scores were calculated as the sum of negative minus the sum of positive items. gladwin, möbius, & becker 483 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performance data on the predabm during training conditions table 2 shows descriptive statistics for the predabm. in the away from threat group, responses to probes on threat locations were slower than responses to probes on neutral locations, f(1, 53) = 5.67, p = .021, ηp 2 = .097. an effect of csi was found, f(1, 53) = 66.53, p < .001, ηp 2 = .56, due to slower responses at the long (1,200 ms) versus short (200 ms) csi. in the towards threat group, responses to probes on threat locations were faster than responses to probes on neutral locations, f(1, 47) = 4.55, p = .038, ηp 2 = .09. an effect of csi was found, f(1, 47) = 24.68, p < .001, ηp 2 = .34, due to slower responses at the long versus short csi. table 2 performance data on the predabm probe location csi away from threat towards threat reaction time [ms] neutral 200 ms 528 (51) 536 (77) neutral 1,200 ms 558 (62) 553 (58) angry 200 ms 537 (69) 521 (52) angry 1,200 ms 573 (75) 551 (58) accuracy neutral 200 ms 0.97 (0.059) 0.96 (0.066) neutral 1,200 ms 0.96 (0.078) 0.97 (0.045) angry 200 ms 0.97 (0.042) 0.98 (0.017) angry 1,200 ms 0.97 (0.049) 0.98 (0.016) note. means and standard deviations for reaction time and accuracy on the predabm task. measure refers to performance measure, that is, reaction time and accuracy. probe location refers to the location where the probe stimulus appeared: the location of the cue where neutral faces versus the cue where angry faces would appear on non-probe trials. csi refers to cue-stimulus interval, the delay between cue presentation and probe presentation. training effects on the dot-probe task descriptive statistics for the dot-probe task are shown in table 3. on rt, the hypothesized effect was found of group × probe location, f(1, 91) = 4.75, p = .033, ηp 2 = .05, shown in figure 1. figure 1. post-training rt bias per training group. note. the figure shows the attentional bias, rt for angry minus rt for neutral, following the towards threat and away from threat training. the groups showed a relative shift in bias as expected. predictive abm 484 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the towards threat group had a bias towards threat relative to the away from threat group. the direction of the effect of probe location was reversed as expected between the groups, with shorter rts on the neutral than on the threat location in the away from threat group, and shorter rts on the threat than on the neutral location in the towards threat group. we do note that the magnitudes of the biases were small however, and the main effect of probe location did not reach significance in either group separately, despite the significant group × probe location interaction. further, an effect of csi was found, f(1, 91) = 7.95, p = .0060, ηp 2 = .08, due to slower responses at the long versus short csi. no effects on accuracy were found. discussion the aim of the current study was to provide a first test of the effects of predabm, a novel version of abm using predictive cues. rather than being trained to direct attention towards or away from threatening stimuli, participants were trained to direct attention towards or away from locations based on cues predicting where a threatening stimulus could appear. thus, the training did not involve a direct stimulus-response association between stimuli in the threat category and attentional shifting, a feature of usual training tasks that could result in unexpected effects involving salience. the question was whether training using predictive cues would be able to affect stimulus-evoked attentional bias. performance data during training blocks showed that participants responded to the outcome-based task contingencies as expected. responses were faster to probes appearing at the trained location. note that this could reflect either an association involving the specific predictive cues or an association involving the stimulus category predicted by the cues—initial cvpt studies (gladwin, 2016; gladwin et al., 2018; gladwin & vink, 2018) were not able to distinguish between such possibilities concerning underlying mechanisms. whether the latter, outcome-focused kind of association occurred was tested by the post-training generalization to the dot-probe task described below. training effects were in fact found on the dot-probe task presented after the training. the towards threat group and away from threat group showed the expected relative decrease and increase, retable 3 performance data on the dot-probe task probe location csi away from threat towards threat reaction time [ms] neutral 200 ms 505 (56) 502 (55) neutral 1,200 ms 516 (53) 511 (50) angry 200 ms 504 (58) 497 (53) angry 1,200 ms 523 (56) 511 (52) accuracy neutral 200 ms 0.96 (0.051) 0.95 (0.047) neutral 1,200 ms 0.97 (0.052) 0.96 (0.042) angry 200 ms 0.96 (0.048) 0.97 (0.045) angry 1,200 ms 0.97 (0.046) 0.97 (0.04) note. means and standard deviations for reaction time and accuracy on the dot-probe task. measure refers to the performance measures reaction time and accuracy. probe location refers to the location where the probe stimulus appeared: the location of the cue where neutral faces versus the cue where angry faces would appear on non-probe trials. csi refers to cue-stimulus interval, the delay between cue presentation and probe presentation. away from threat and toward threat refer to the training conditions. gladwin, möbius, & becker 485 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ spectively, in reaction time for probes on angry versus neutral locations. thus, the attentional response to emotional stimuli was changed via the stimulus categories of the outcomes of the predictive cues during training. essentially, therefore, it was not the case that participants only learned to shift attention towards or away from the specific predictive cues. the results show that training involved the stimulus categories that were predicted by the initially visually neutral cues, even though the emotional stimuli never appeared on the same trial as the probe stimuli. the results thus provide first support for the potential use of predabm. although concern for salience side-effects in abm, due to the informativeness of emotional cues, is as yet a recent development, the predabm provides a method that appears to be able to address this potential problem. however, we note that the potential training value of using an anticipatory attentional bias based on upcoming emotional stimuli, rather than responses to already-presented emotional stimuli, does not only depend on the salience side-effect. anticipatory or preparatory processes related to emotional stimuli could be an interesting target for training in themselves, as this may have different effects from abm involving stimulus-evoked processes. further, a feature of predictive cues is that a wide range of possible stimuli can be associated with single conditioned cue. an interesting direction for future research is whether this may improve generalization to other stimuli, since attention is directed towards an abstract category rather than a specific set of stimuli. a limitation of the current study is that only a single session was used, while effects of multiple sessions are likely most relevant for potential clinical applications and could provide larger effect sizes. however, the current results provide a proof-of-principle that the outcome-focused cued training task was able to change attentional processes related to the predicted stimulus category. a further limitation is that the population involved a sample of students. patient groups are clearly an important target population, and it remains to be determined whether non-student samples respond to the training contingencies in the same way. a concern with training methods, especially for future use in clinical populations, is their impact on patients. the current study was also limited in its use of computer-generated angry faces as emotional stimuli: it cannot be assumed that the effects will generalize to other stimulus categories. different results might be obtained in future research with, for example, stimuli representing physical threat, or verbal stimuli designed to evoke shame or guilt. concerning the design, only a post-training assessment task for attentional bias was used, similarly to analyses involving posttraining effects in previous studies (e.g., gladwin et al., 2015). we note that, while pre-post designs have the advantage of providing a pre-training measurement, the logic of a post-training experimental design, with random assignment, is equally valid statistically: the chance of the groups having training-independent differences in attentional bias at post-test at random is the same as the chance of groups having training-independent changes in attentional bias from preto post-test at random. further, a post-test design avoids test-retest effects, which could be a source of noise. there may also be theoretical reasons to expect effects to be caused on post-test states, rather than on pre-post shifts. thus, while arguments can be made for either design, there is no reason to consider the lack of a pre-test a particular threat to the validity of conclusions drawn from the results. finally, more work is needed to further explore the nature of training effects. psychophysiology or neuroimaging methods could help test hypotheses on which underlying processes are affected, such as cue reactivity measures indicating changes in salience (wiers et al., 2015) or attentional control (eldar & bar-haim, 2010). in conclusion, training to shift attention based on the expected stimulus-locations induces changes in attentional biases. the use of predictive cues in training may open interesting directions for further study. predictive abm 486 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references badura-brack, a. s., naim, r., ryan, t. j., levy, o., abend, r., & khanna, m. m. 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(2013). besst (bochum emotional stimulus set)—a pilot validation study of a stimulus set containing emotional bodies and faces from frontal and averted views. psychiatry research, 209(1), 98-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2012.11.012 wells, t. t., & beevers, c. g. (2010). biased attention and dysphoria: manipulating selective attention reduces subsequent depressive symptoms. cognition & emotion, 24(4), 719-728. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930802652388 wiers, c. e., stelzel, c., gladwin, t. e., park, s. q., pawelczack, s., gawron, c. k, & bermpohl, f. (2015). effects of cognitive bias modification training on neural alcohol cue reactivity in alcohol dependence. american journal of psychiatry, 172(4), 335-343. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13111495 about the authors dr. thomas e. gladwin is an experimental psychologist who studies the cognitive and neural processes underlying motivation, emotion, and self-regulation. he works from (and on) the broad theoretical perspective of dual-process models and uses a variety of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience methods. this research is ultimately aimed at clinical applications using computerized cognitive bias modification training methods. dr. martin möbius researches the application of cognitive neuroscience methods to experimental forms of mental health therapy, for instance using eye tracking or transcranial magnetic stimulation to affect attentional biases. he also has an interest in implicit measures and their conversion to intervention variants, such as interpretation bias modification. prof. eni becker investigates the development and treatment of anxiety disorders, such as specific phobias, social phobia, panicand obsessive-compulsive disorder. she mainly focuses on cognitive processes (memory, attention, interpretation), considering these appear to play an important role in the development of anxiety disorders. she is very much interested in approach and avoidance tendencies, studying them in different disorders and contexts. one of her recent research interest gladwin, möbius, & becker 489 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1393159 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.brat.2006.05.003 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.brat.2016.08.001 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1530-0277.2006.00224.x https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0021286 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.drugalcdep.2009.11.022 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.psychres.2012.11.012 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f02699930802652388 https://doi.org/10.1176%2fappi.ajp.2014.13111495 https://www.psychopen.eu/ is the change of cognitive biases, the training of automatic tendencies. she is doing research on approach-avoidance trainings (for anxiety but also depression and substance abuse) as well as attention trainings. predictive abm 490 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 479–490 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1633 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictive abm (introduction) method participants materials procedure statistical analyses results performance data on the predabm during training conditions training effects on the dot-probe task discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors bridging the gap between believing and memory functions theoretical contribution bridging the gap between believing and memory functions rüdiger j. seitz 1, hans-ferdinand angel 2, raymond f. paloutzian 3 [1] medical faculty, heinrich-heine-university düsseldorf, düsseldorf, germany. [2] karl franzens university graz, graz, austria. [3] westmont college, santa barbara, ca, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 received: 2021-09-03 • accepted: 2022-01-11 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, cardiff, united kingdom corresponding author: rüdiger j. seitz, department of neurology, centre of neurology and neuropsychiatry, lvr-klinikum düsseldorf, bergische landstrasse 2, 40629 düsseldorf, germany. e-mail: seitz@neurologie.uni-duesseldorf.de abstract believing has recently been recognized as a fundamental brain function linking a person’s experience with his or her attitude, actions and predictions. in general, believing results from the integration of ambient information with emotions and can be reinforced or modulated in a probabilistic fashion by new experiences. although these processes occur in the subliminal realm, humans can become aware of what they believe and express it verbally. we explain how believing is interwoven with memory functions in a multifaceted fashion. linking the typically rapid and adequate reactions of a subject to what he/she believes is enabled by working memory. perceptions are stored in episodic memory as beneficial or aversive events, while the corresponding verbal descriptions of what somebody believes are stored in semantic memory. after recall from memory of what someone believes, personally relevant information can be communicated to other people. thus, memory is essential for maintaining what people believe. keywords believing, brain, meaning, neural processes, memory, credition, beliefs living beings are constantly exposed to ambient information in their environment. while objects appear stable, events are perceived as a change in the environment with a beginning and an end (zacks & tversky, 2001). since the often rapidly changing information in the environment has effects on the physical integrity, prosperity, and ultimately on the survival, living beings have to classify the information with respect to its most likely subjective relevance. in systems neuroscience terms, the information perceived from the external world is integrated with an internal emotional state into personally meaningful probabilistic representations that determine a person’s attitude, actions and predictions (seitz et al., 2018). accordingly, perception and valuation are the fundamental neural processes mediating what someone believes at a given point in time. importantly, by the inherent capability to provide predictions about future events, believing can constrain behavior in a phylogenetically advantageous fashion (connors & halligan, 2020; seitz et al., 2018). accordingly, believing can be assumed to exert a tremendous influence on a person’s behavior, since it links his/her prior experience with his/her prospective acts. recently, the concept of credition (a neologism derived from latin credere, to believe) has been presented (angel et al., 2017). the concept posits that believing constitutes an assembly of brain functions similarly to cognition and emotion (angel & seitz, 2016). the focus of credition on brain functions provides an innovative perspective on debates which are concerned with the long-standing arguments about beliefs as entities separate from knowledge but highly related to the notion of truth (leitgeb, 2017). considering the formation of what one believes and its updating in this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7461&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ response to new experiences avoids these theory-based issues but rather opens the perspective to empirical studies on the neural processes underlying believing and the resulting behavior. as described earlier, most of what people believe manifests spontaneously on a pre-linguistic level (seitz et al., 2018). due to the rapidly changing percepts a subject typically is not aware of such beliefs that, therefore, have been labeled primal beliefs or belief precursors (oakley & halligan, 2017). however, after shorter or longer periods of time a person can become aware of what he/she is believing. then, he/she recalls from memory his/her prior perception together with its associated personal meaning. also, the person will compare his/her past predictions of future events with the actual event. thus, the person will recall when and where the perception happened before and what it meant to him/her. these processes render the person consciously aware of the content of a given belief that thereby can be stated verbally and also communicated to other people (oakley & halligan, 2017; seitz & angel, 2020). consequently, one can hypothesize that there may be an important interaction of believing and memory functions. notably, this relation has not been addressed so far and, therefore, deserves further exploration. here, we will outline how memory functions support the processes of believing. we will demonstrate two novel aspects, namely: (a) that the processes of believing are tightly linked to encoding of subjectively relevant ambient information in memory. (b) that the retrieval of this information encoded in memory plays an important role in how a person becomes aware of and semantically codes what he/she is believing. thus, we will show that there is no gap between memory and believing functions but that they are tightly interrelated. neural processes of believing let us begin by explaining the relation between believing and beliefs. information from the environment undergoes re-iterative bottom-up and top-down processing in dedicated sensory brain systems resulting in a supraordinate mean­ ing of the perceived items, including their attributed emotional value (connors & halligan, 2015; seitz et al., 2018), as illustrated in figure 1. objects and events are evaluated and processed in a multisensory manner with the ability to discriminate object representations as early as 100 ms. after the onset of stimulation (matusz et al., 2017). this underscores that processing in the nervous system occurs rapidly such that most information processed by the brain will not reach conscious awareness and initially is not coded verbally (baumgartner et al., 2018). but signals of specific emotions or emotional strength may enhance neural processing efficiency and competitive strength of significant events (pourtois et al., 2013). moreover, the rapid and efficient selection of emotionally salient or goal-relevant stimuli in the environment is crucial for flexible and adaptive behavior (peil, 2014). accordingly, information processing in the brain is held to result in probabilistic accounts of more or less ambiguous information that have been called “priors” or “sensory precursors” (connors & halligan, 2020). these accounts are stored as imaginations with strong personal meaning in the medial parietal cortex (precuneus) that has been labeled metaphorically as the mind’s eye (fletcher et al., 1995). this corresponds to the concept of unconscious knowledge, which is fundamental for an understanding of human thought and mentation (augusto, 2010). similarly, taves and asprem (2017) speak of a subject’s event knowledge. importantly, however, these accounts or neural representations are not neutral but, in addition, also convey personal meaning that renders them behaviorally relevant and allows the person to act instantaneously and adequately. however, the number of processing repetitions required for meaning making may be modulated dynamically for different items and occasions. believing and memory 114 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 schematic model of the neural processes affording formation and updating of beliefs note. shown are the different types of ingoing information leading to corresponding categories of beliefs. the bi-directional arrows indicate bottom-up and top-down processing. prediction errors of actions are fed backwards allowing for belief updating. three different categories of information in the human environment have been differentiated (seitz & angel, 2020). the first category concerns concrete, physical objects. they are valuated in terms of emotional loading including aesthetic value, desirability or averseness, and threat (ishizu & zeki, 2013; rolls, 2006; thiruchselvam et al., 2016). the second category concerns the relations of a person to objects or to other people in the constantly changing environment. processing of these two categories of ambient information results in the formation of so-called primal beliefs. they reflect the perceptive capabilities of humans, do not depend on language and manifest below the level of conscious awareness. they are of great evolutionary importance because they allow humans to react appropriately to challenging organisms, objects, and events as well as to interact socially with other individuals. information of the third category refers to narratives that emerge from higher order conceptual processing requiring the use of a symbolic language. during evolution humans have been used to telling stories about their own and other people’s past, their origins, and their goals, and their future after physical death (belzen, 2010). the resulting abstract, so-called conceptual beliefs pertain to ecological, social, cultural, religious, and political contents—all of which provide differentiated sources of identity, normative rules, and affective attachments (brandt et al., 2019). they provide the contextual information for ritual acts that are strong affective enhancers of prosocial behavior (hobson et al., 2018). accordingly, beliefs which are labels for the result of the neural processes affording believing. these processes render them omnipresent and indispensable in human life. they are suited to afford decision making concerning selection of actions and prediction of future events by optimization (friston, 2010). the information held online as beliefs allows us to select actions with respect to active inference and predictive coding. active inference rests upon the idea that the brain uses an internal generative model to predict sensory data (parr & friston, 2019a). these authors have argued that the brain could optimize probabilistic beliefs about external variables in a generative model such that when acting on the world, actual sensory data are consistent with the predictions inferred from the model. inference concerning events leads to identification of putative functions of items (tool use) or of persons (interaction). just as these processes evolve extremely rapidly, decision making also can evolve rapidly and below the level of conscious awareness (figure 1). for example, during a go/no-go task, neural activity and behavioral measures were evident at intervals of 100 to 200 ms. and 350 to 500 ms. after stimulus presentation, corresponding to the time points of sensory evidence accumulation and decision making (tovar et al., 2020). errors in prediction are the prerequisite for feedback modification of held beliefs by new information, according to the dopamine-mediated integrative action of the basal ganglia allowing for reinforcement learning (seitz et al., 2019). thus, beliefs can be re-enforced by the pleasure that the predicted and actual information match, whereas they may become modified when divergent information indicates a mismatch (kraus, 2020). moreover, these subconsciously evolving processes lead to probabilistic neural representations that allow individuals to develop preferences, maintain positions, and to tailor behavior. these processes involve integration of cognitive and emotional processes for which the anterior cingulate has been shown to be a critical hub in prefrontal circuits (joyce et al., 2020). furthermore, the limbic seitz, angel, & paloutzian 115 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ system was shown to play a differential role in this context with experienced value being encoded in the amygdala, while merit was related to anterior insula activity (vestergaard & schultz, 2020). whereas most information processing in the brain occurs outside of conscious awareness, people can recall per­ ceived events and the predictions provided by their primal and conceptual beliefs (scoboria et al., 2004). the conscious access to internally available information has been shown to rely on long-distance cerebral connectivity (berkovitch et al., 2021). their contents can be expressed verbally. people can phrase the content of what they believe in semantic terms, covertly in their mind, and overtly for communication with other people (oakley & halligan, 2017; seitz & angel, 2020). moreover, the proposition associated with such an account can be evaluated in terms of trustworthiness, plausibility and personal relevance, which are prerequisites for belief acceptance (connors & halligan, 2020; scoboria et al., 2004; sugiura et al., 2015). thereafter, the verbal expression of such a belief may also be stated aloud, so that others can hear it in the sense of external broadcasting (oakley & halligan, 2017). this flow of information, however, is not unidirectional; it is reciprocal. for instance, verbal expression of one’s thoughts may help someone elaborate his or her propositions and clarify what he or she has in mind. in fact, there is evidence that semantic processing in the left-hemispheric speech-related cortical areas can generate a linguistic content that goes beyond the original exogenous information (kaufeld et al., 2020; lange et al., 2013). thus, so-called language areas are part of more extensive cortical networks that have been described to be related to believing and beliefs (han et al., 2017; howlett & paulus, 2015). for that reason, many people possibly talk to themselves, assuming that a putative counterpart becomes aware of their possibly varied thoughts and beliefs. likewise, awareness of a belief-based behavior in addition to a corresponding prediction may influence the person’s choice, e.g., that it is behaviorally relevant. for example, a person may decide to withhold a certain action or narrative, and instead replace it with another action upon contradictory social feedback (scoboria et al., 2018). it should be emphasized that neither the processes of believing nor beliefs are directly accessible. rather, they are post-hoc explanatory attributions that are inferred by an observer (oneself as well as others) from what an individual states and from his/her behavior. this notion accords with the dual faced attribution theory (malle & korman, 2022) but applies also to many other terms that cannot be translated into a field of empirical research unless they have been operationalized sufficiently. for example, the naturalistic approach here described does not relate a person’s belief to the notion of propositional knowledge, which in philosophy has been defined as justified true belief (lemos, 2007). according to such a definition, a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts (bondy, 2015). this certainly pertains to objects as they are identified with high probability by other people in an identical or closely corresponding way. in fact, the corresponding statements reside on the criteria of objectivity and the perceptions may be taken as accurate and true (leitgeb, 2017). but events and narratives change by definition, rendering their descriptions subjective and/or elusive. characteristics of memories memory is a single term, but it refers to a multitude of human capacities and cognitive sub-functions (bernecker, 2009; markowitsch, 2013). foremost, it enables our capacity to encode information, store it, and at a later point in time to retrieve the information that was acquired previously. moreover, it comprises different functions that are mediated by different brain structures. most basically, memory has been dichotomized into short-term and long-term memory. short-term memory involves the retention of pieces of information (memory chunks) for a relatively short period of time (usually up to 30 s.), whereas long-term memory can hold an indefinite amount of information for an indefinite time (jawabri & cascella, 2022). long-term memory consists of declarative or procedural or memory (squire, 1986). declarative memory is explicit and accessible to conscious awareness concerning facts, episodes, lists, and routes of everyday life. by contrast, procedural memory is implicit and accessible only through performance by engaging skills or operations in which the knowledge (learned rules) of the performance instructions are embedded (willingham, 1998; willingham et al. 2002). believing and memory 116 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ short-term and working memory in short-term memory, information can be maintained via short-term synaptic plasticity (masse et al., 2020). short-term memory exhibits a temporal decay of the memory content and a limited chunk capacity. a special case of short-term memory is working memory. it refers to the temporary storage of information in connection with the performance of other cognitive tasks such as reading, problem-solving, or learning (baddeley, 1983). thus, working memory involves manipulation of information by use of other cognitive systems including perception and action as well as attention, speech perception, and speech production (cowan, 2008). working memory has the ability to probabilistically associate converging information of objects and to represent an item in multiple codes (postle, 2006). however, despite the unimodal channel by which the object may have been perceived, working memory facilitates one’s ability to manipulate or transform the representation of this information. also, it affords the retention of information in conscious awareness when this information is not present in the environment, to its manipulation, and to its use in prospective motor coding (postle, 2006). because the central executive is assumed to function like a limited-capacity attentional system capable of selecting and operating control processes and strategies, reasoning and action generation have been found to take longer as the memory load increases (baddeley, 1983). for example, a brief story, a chapter in a book, or an entire book scale the demand on working memory differently. concerning the neural structures that are involved, there is a broad engagement of a large array of brain areas that participate in working memory tasks as summarized recently (christophel et al., 2017). thus, storage of working memory contents for the transformation of sensory information into a delayed behavioral response takes place in multiple regions—from sensory cortices to parietal and prefrontal areas involving distributed representations with different levels of abstractness and generalizability (christophel et al., 2017). long-term memory declarative memory comprises the so-called episodic memory of what one has personally experienced involving the conscious recollection of an episode or of the sequence of events (bernecker, 2009). thus, episodic memory has an autobiographical reference and, thereby, a first-person perspective. a second type of declarative memory is called propositional memory, which is largely synonymous to “semantic memory”. it represents the conscious and intentional memory of concepts and meanings (jawabri & cascella, 2022). experiential and propositional memory have in common that they seek to represent the world and that their contents can in principle be articulated (bernecker, 2009). however, the information is said to be stored in different systems, with the episodic and spatial memory encoded via the right mediotemporal formation, whereas semantic memory involves the left mediotemporal formation. encoding of information in long-term memory depends critically on medial temporal lobe structures (squire & zola-morgan, 1988) but cortical structures are involved as well. for example, the middle frontal gyrus was shown by functional imaging to be more active at encoding for imagined words, whereas the inferior frontal gyrus was more active at encoding heard words (sugimori et al., 2014). moreover, a limited detectability of objects and events in the environment has been shown to impair reality filtering by the orbitofrontal cortex, which affects memory consolidation in the hippocampus (liverani et al., 2015). interestingly, declarative memory was shown to benefit from slow wave sleep–associated system consolidation (diekelmann & born, 2010). retrieving information from memory or remembering means to call back into conscious awareness what was experienced previously. in terms of cerebral structures involved in memory retrieval, there is the notion that the left prefrontal cortical areas were more involved in retrieving information from semantic memory, whereas right prefrontal cortex was more involved in episodic memory retrieval (tulving et al., 1994). within left prefrontal cortex episodic success activity was greater in ventrolateral parts, and retrieval success activity was greater in dorsolateral and anterior prefrontal cortex (prince et al., 2005). success of episodic memory retrieval involved particularly the posterior parahippocampal cortex and hippocampus (prince et al., 2005), indicating an interaction of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus formation for memory retrieval. conversely, lesions in the anterior medial orbitofrontal cortex, basal forebrain, amygdala, and perirhinal cortex result in the temporal confusion of events (schnider & ptak, 1999). furthermore, there are capacity limits in cognition which require that valuable information is prioritized for memory encoding and later retrieval (elliott et al., 2020). in a large sample of 205 healthy subjects, multiple cognitive ability measures showed that episodic memory ability but not working memory capacity was predictive of value-directed seitz, angel, & paloutzian 117 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ remembering. thus, motivational forces such as those noted above are able to influence what we remember and what we believe out of our varied life experiences. memory functions in believing in as much as believing results from sensory perception, what is believed concerns objects and events that a person has dealt with at previous points in time (seitz & angel, 2020). we show here that working memory allowing us to keep the sequence of events in conscious awareness accommodates inferential reasoning about the putative cause and impact of the event (figure 2). moreover, the entire event including its associated emotional value is encoded in so-called episodic and autobiographic memory (donato et al., 2021). in addition, it has been shown that emotional cues enhance memory performance such that emotional events are also more vividly remembered than neutral events (hostler et al., 2018; kensinger & ford, 2020). this phenomenon is exaggerated in posttraumatic distress disorder where the frightening or aversive emotional loading of memories shakes the afflicted individual upon symptom provocation (sartory et al., 2013). but, the inherently incomplete perception of objects and events due to a poor signal-to-noise ratio or a short observation period and the positive or negative emotional loadings of such objects and events can result in distorted beliefs and memories. moreover, brain diseases can induce distorted beliefs of various types (seitz, 2022). nonetheless, a person’s beliefs of highly emotional perceptions may be modified at a later point in time by plausibility considerations that are imposed typically by other people (mazzoni et al., 2010). we suggest that in such situations a primal belief is evaluated in terms of conceptual plausibility on the basis of comments provided by other people (coltheart et al., 2011; sugiura et al., 2015). figure 2 schematic model of the evolution of processes of believing and the interrelations with memory functions note. flow of information concerning awareness and semantic coding is bi-directional. in narratives, the demands on verbal working memory may be higher or lower depending on the complexity of the transmitted information. we propose here that the emotional component influences how deeply perceived narratives are encoded in semantic long-term memory (figure 2). most likely, the situational circumstances are relevant when, for example, the narratives are heard and the contents of the narratives are encoded in parallel in the episodic and semantic channels. because both aspects may be encoded with different weights, they later may be recalled differently. nevertheless, the recall or retrieval of such encoded information is typically incomplete and, thus, probabilistic (figure 2). it is well known that the longer the interval between the encoding and retrieval, the lesser the correspondence of the encoded and retrieved information. likewise, a greater complexity of the information impairs the success of retrieval. these limitations of memory encoding and retrieval determine the trust of an individual into the beliefs he or she holds. in consequence, prior beliefs may faint and be replaced by new more vivid beliefs. notably, owing to the many repetitions, narratives about one’s origin, the society and religion build up the compo­ sition of conceptual beliefs provided by the individuals’ autobiographical memory (fivush et al., 2011). furthermore, owing to their memory contents they also gain normative values to the individuals (bordalo et al., 2021). thus, episodic believing and memory 118 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ autobiographical memory is considered as a pure human form of memory that is dependent on a proper ontogenetic development and shaped continuously by the social environment including culture (markowitsch, 2013). discussion believing and memory are fundamental and complex brain functions mediated by dedicated neural systems. we have shown here that they are interrelated in a multiple fashion. owing to the encoding function of memory believing would stabilize a given perception in the light of its adaptive value to a given subject (connors & halligan, 2015). this will result in an increased effectiveness and efficiency of brain mechanisms involved in problem solving, decision making, goal setting, and in maneuvering in the environment (connors & halligan, 2020; garcés & finkel, 2019). however, owing to reinforcement learning the resulting beliefs are up-dated by new information. moreover, believing involves working memory for inferential abstraction concerning the multimodal properties of objects, the relation of changes constituting events, and the conceptual impact of narratives. the inferential abstract information, which is loaded with subjective relevance, becomes encoded in long-term memory. this automatic encoding process is probably enhanced by repetitive encounters of the given subject with the environmental items. the memory contents can be retrieved at a later point in time from memory in a probabilistic fashion. the link between perception and semantic memory has been proposed to represent embodied cognition (reilly et al., 2016). we have outlined here that the neural representations resulting from the processes of believing are stored in the human brain in a multiple fashion. this accords well with the notion that neural representations are memories that are localized in neural networks that encode information and, when activated, enable access to this stored information (wood & grafman, 2003). as humans are in constant motion and the environment is constantly changing as was highlighted recently by haye and torres-sahli (2017), we suggest that humans are in need of stable representations of their environment on which they can rely. for example, narratives help to structure time into units such as a minute, hour, week, month, and year, although we remain unable to define time (oestreicher, 2012). thereby, events can be defined with a beginning and an end (zacks & tversky, 2001), which can be determined objectively. the duration of such an event determines the amount of information characterizing the event with longer events having a higher demand on working memory. this pertains to primal beliefs that concern concrete objects and events whose perception does not involve language functions. the so-called primal world beliefs correspond, however in essence, to language-based conceptual beliefs that can be assessed with an inventory based on tweets and historical texts (clifton et al., 2019). while primal beliefs refer to experiences that one has made previously and not to something to happen in the future, the christian belief that the last judgment is going to take place in the future is a conceptual belief, namely the conceptual belief of the last judgment to come. people can express their belief-based propositions, act upon them, discuss them, and evaluate them (figure 2). humans stand alone in their ability to understand others’ attitudes and behavioral expressions—a capacity that allows us to put ourselves in others’ shoes (hall & brosnan, 2017). nevertheless, a proposition as stated may not reflect the someone’s belief or intention. this may occur because the person may refuse telling what she or he is actually believing but instead may intend to deceive the listener. moreover, the person may have realized that the previously held belief is not plausible in view of the verbal feedback from other people (mazzoni et al., 2010; scoboria et al., 2004). even self-deception that results in a false belief that is then communicated to others may occur. none the least, deficits of multiple memory-related processes lead to confabulation, which has to be differentiated from delusions that are associated with aberrant cognitive schema structure and distorted belief monitoring (gilboa, 2010). the cultural brain hypothesis posits that humans have the ability to store and manage information acquired through social rewards and punishment as well as through asocial or social learning (muthukrishna et al., 2018; williams, 2021). recent evidence from findings in systems neuroscience and neuroimaging showed that emotion and cognition are deeply interwoven in the brain. putatively emotional and cognitive regions dynamically influence one another via a complex web of recurrent, often indirect anatomical connections in ways that jointly contribute to adaptive behavior (okon-singer et al., 2015). for example, cognitive perspective taking is the ability to infer an agent’s thoughts or beliefs, while affective perspective-taking is the ability to infer an agent’s feelings and emotions (healey & grossman, 2018). seitz, angel, & paloutzian 119 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 113–124 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7461 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in accordance with the claim of social neuroscience neurophysiological studies of individuals can open a platform to understand larger groups of subjects and even societies (vogeley & roepstorff, 2009). in particular, cultural information can provide an important influence of emotions in the mutual constitution of social reality and shared reality (kashima et al., 2018). accordingly, validation of religious beliefs has been reported to occur by ritually addressing the emotions of the participants (atran & norenzayan, 2004). here, we may touch upon related topics which have recently attracted scientific interest such as the notion of extended cognition (sprevak, 2019) or collective intentionality. while intentionality refers to the capacity of mental states to be about or directed towards an object or state, collective intentionality refers to the possibility that groups themselves are the bearers of mental states (tollefsen & friedlaender, 2017). in anthropological studies the role of cultur­ al memory and its impact on societies has been advanced since the milestone work on collective memory (halbwachs, 1992). this notion sheds specific light on the history of culture since antiquity (j. assmann, 2012). it highlights the role of cultural memory for modern western societies (a. assmann, 2012) and their formation and maintenance of identity (j. assmann & czaplicka, 1995). it even appears to provide a link to the topic of religions and their evolution(s) that can be understood in relation to the evolution of religiosity and the capacity of believing (angel, 2020). we suggest that semantic memory is a most important determinant of the multifaceted memory representations of beliefs for the evolution of individuals in society. finally, we emphasize that in contrast to the believing and the memory functions dealt with here, beliefs and memories are post-hoc attributions inferred from a third person perspective concerning behavior observed in individuals (parr & friston, 2019b). consequently, memories and beliefs are comparable to other attributions such as knowledge, justification, motives, goals, and the social content (johnson et al., 2012). also, in this perspective the propositions starting with “i believe …” imply meta-cognition, which is based on an individual’s inferential memory recall. conclusion believing is a fundamental brain function resulting in probabilistic, personally meaningful representations of external information about objects, events and narratives that can be termed beliefs. owing to the intricate relation of believing to memory functions, beliefs can be maintained in the brain and determine a person’s behavior over extended periods of time. thus, believing and beliefs that are the essentials of 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(2001). event structure in perception and cognition. psychological bulletin, 127(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.3 about the authors hans-ferdinand angel, trained in theology, ancient latin philology, and history. professor at the technical university dresden, germany (1996–1997), since 1997 full professor of catechetics and religious education at the karl-franzens university graz, austria. scientific director of the credition research project at the karl-franzens university of graz, austria. editor-in-chief of the book “processes of believing: the acquisition, maintenance, and change in creditions” (springer 2017). raymond f. paloutzian (phd, claremont graduate school, united states). professor emeritus of experimental and social psychol­ ogy, westmont college, santa barbara, ca, usa. former visiting professor at stanford university, ca, usa, and katholieke universiteit leuven, belgium. author of invitation to the psychology of religion (1st ed., 1983; 3rd ed., 2017, guilford). editor of the international journal for the psychology of religion (1998-2016). co-editor of forgiveness and reconciliation: psychological pathways to conflict/ transformation and peace building (springer, 2010), handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality 2nd.ed. (guilford, 2013), process of believing: the acquisition, maintenance, and change in creditions (springer, 2017), assessing spirituality in a diverse world (springer, 2021). rüdiger j. seitz is a professor of neurology at the heinrich-heine-university düsseldorf, germany, and former honorary profes­ sorial fellow at the florey neuroscience institutes, melbourne, australia. his scientific interests are in clinical neurophysiology, neuroimaging, and cognitive neuroscience including brain plasticity and control of human behavior. believing and memory 124 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.4236/jbbs.2015.51002 https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2016.1150327 https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw115 https://doi.org/10.4324/0123456789-w056-1 https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2139-19.2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.91.6.2016 https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.2130-19.2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.09.006 https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12294 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.105.3.558 https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.2002.88.3.1451 https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1033 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.3 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ believing and memory (introduction) neural processes of believing characteristics of memories short-term and working memory long-term memory memory functions in believing discussion conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors a pilot study of younger sibling adaptation: contributions of individual variables, daily stress, interparental conflict and older sibling’s variables research reports a pilot study of younger sibling adaptation: contributions of individual variables, daily stress, interparental conflict and older sibling’s variables laura merino 1, ana martínez-pampliega 1, david herrero-fernández 2 [1] social and developmental psychology department, psychology and education faculty, university of deusto, bilbao, spain. [2] health sciences faculty, european university of the atlantic, santander, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 received: 2019-08-30 • accepted: 2020-06-26 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: michelle e. roley-roberts, the ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, oh, usa corresponding author: laura merino, departamento de psicología social y del desarrollo, facultad de psicología y educación, universidad de deusto. avda. de las universidades, 24 48007 bilbao, spain. tel.: +34 2756 944139000, e-mail: laura.merino@deusto.es abstract older siblings are powerful socialization agents, playing a significant role in the sociocognitive, social, and emotional development of their younger siblings. however, there are few clues about the variables that explain younger sibling’s adaptation. the objective of this pilot study was to identify the determinants of younger siblings' adaptation and to analyze the role played by personal, sibling, family and older siblings’ variables using 50 dyads of siblings aged between 7 and 18 years. the variables considered were the sibling relationships and the maladaptation of older siblings, and individual (sex, number of siblings, extroversion, and agreeableness) and contextual variables (interparental conflict, daily stress) were controlled. hierarchical multiple regressions provided evidence in favor of the model that analyzed the younger siblings' maladaptation to school, showing positive associations both with the older siblings' level of school maladaptation and with sibling conflict. in addition, the study highlighted the relevance of the trait of agreeableness and of family stress in the adaptation of younger siblings. keywords sibling relations, interparental conflict, temperament, sibling dyads, child siblings siblings spend a lot of time together every day and this shared time has become an important scenario of socialization (kumar, thomas, & deb, 2015; updegraff, mchale, whiteman, thayer, & delgado, 2005) in different cultures (buist et al., 2014). in the 1980s, numerous works began to describe the influence of sibling relations on the social and emotional development of children and adolescents (menesini, camodeca, & nocentini, 2010). since then, the literature has highlighted that relationships among siblings are relevant for the comprehension of children’s sociocognitive (dunn, brown, slomkowski, tesla, & youngblade, 1991), social (kramer & bank, 2005; mcelwain & volling, 2005) and emotional development (brown & dunn, 1996), and therefore, siblings can be considered powerful socialization agents. this is reflected when the children highlight their sense of collectivity and of feeling part of a group, as well as protection and emotional security as the greatest contributions of their siblings in their lives (edwards, mauthner, & hadfield, 2005). therefore, developmental psychologists have analyzed the contributions of sibling relations to the process of sociali­ zation of children and adolescents (brody, 1998; dunn, slomkowski, & beardsall, 1994; kramer & conger, 2009; kumar et al., 2015). in addition, these sibling relations have an important impact on children’s psychological well-being (mchale, updegraff, & whiteman, 2012; ponappa, bartle-haring, holowacz, & ferriby, 2017) and increasingly more results appear that underscore this (conger & kramer, 2010; kennedy & kramer, 2008). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2139&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ concerning ways for the older siblings' socialization of the younger one, an extensive literature has shown that social learning and modeling are key processes through which older siblings influence the behavior and adaptation of their younger siblings (bandura, 2001; whiteman, becerra bernard, & mchale, 2010). one of the most supported perspectives to explain the mechanisms associated with some behavioral problems and the relationship between siblings is bandura’s (1973) social learning theory, applied specifically to this field through the work carried out by patterson (1984), and dunn and munn (1986). following this line, various studies have examined the role of big brother/sister as a significant model in the socialization of the other siblings in different areas, both positive and negative: alcohol and drug use (fagan & najman, 2005; slomkowski, rende, novak, lloyd-richardson, & niaura, 2005; trim, leuthe, & chassin, 2006; tsamparli & frrokaj, 2016); gambling (canale et al., 2017); sexual behavior and teen pregnancies (east & jacobson, 2001; mchale, bissell, & kim, 2009; patterson, 1984; rodgers, rowe, & harris, 1992; slomkowski et al., 2005; wheeler et al., 2016); risky health behavior (d’amico & fromme, 1997); externalizing and internalizing behaviors (branje, van lieshout, van aken, & haselager, 2004); criminal offences (slomkowski, rende, conger, simons, & conger, 2001); attitudes and activities according to gender role (crouter, whiteman, mchale, & osgood, 2007; mchale, updegraff, helms-erikson, & crouter, 2001); intimacy and control in friendship relations (updegraff, mchale, & crouter, 2002); academic and leisure interests (jensen & mchale, 2015; whiteman, mchale, & crouter, 2007), and development of empathy (tucker, updegraff, mchale, & crouter, 1999) and social skills (stormshak et al., 1996). specifically, older siblings can be a significant authority to learn how to succeed in the area of friends, particularly in environments outside the home, such as school or neighborhood (zukow-goldring, 2002). although there are few works that analyze the function of siblings in academic performance, there is evidence that highlights the role of the siblings as possible significant models for academic success (bouchey, shoulberg, jodl, & eccles, 2010; jensen, pond, & padilla-walker, 2015). transfer to other socialization contexts finally, some researchers postulate that sibling relations are a training stage for social skills where children and adolescents acquire interpersonal strategies that they also transfer to adaptive behaviors in other contexts, such as their friendship relations (buhrmester, 1992; menesini et al., 2010). regardless of the quality of the sibling relations, the stage shared by the siblings is a privileged social context where they receive and give affection, establish interactions of play, and put into practice negotiation and conflict-resolution skills (dunn et al., 1994), as well as prosocial behaviors (pike & oliver, 2017) that will serve them in their peer relations outside of the family. some studies reaffirm the idea that there is a strong association between sibling relations and friendship relations in young adults (mackinnon-lewis, starnes, volling, & johnson, 1997; stormshak et al., 1996). other relevant variables in adaptation: family socialization context and individual variables regarding family variables that affect individual adaptation, numerous investigations have revealed a significant rela­ tionship between interparental conflict and child adaptation difficulties (buchanan & heiges, 2001; davies, martin, & cicchetti, 2012; morgado camacho & gonzález rodríguez, 2001; dillman taylor, purswell, lindo, jayne, & fernando, 2011), highlighting internalizing (hornor, 2005) and externalizing symptoms (formoso, gonzales, & aiken, 2000) and problems with children’s social relations (e.g., sibling and peer relationships; martínez-pampliega et al., 2015). everyday family stressors can also lead to children's poorer adaptation (crnic & greenberg, 1990). for example, it has been shown that the daily problems derived from child-raising, difficulties to combine work and family life, and marital conflicts have a negative impact on families and children (crnic, gaze, & hoffman, 2005; crnic & greenberg, 1990; crouter, bumpus, head, & mchale, 2001; lee, vernon‐feagans, vazquez, & kolak, 2003). in this sense, there is much evidence of the influence of family stressors on children's concern about their family relationships and, therefore, their involvement in them (cf. for a review, see cummings, davies, & simpson, 1994). children whose family must deal with stressors that are maintained over time show greater sensitization to stress, which increases their reaction, concern, and efforts to exert some control and power in the situation of family distress (nixon & cummings, 1999). younger sibling adaptation 2 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding individual variables that affect individual adaptation, many personality traits predict the individual's social competences. for instance, more extroverted and agreeable children are socially more competent over time, whereas children with high levels of negative emotionality and low levels of frustration have more social problems such as aggressive behaviors, anger, anxiety, and avoidance (asendorpf & van aken, 2003). aim of the study therefore, the objective of this pilot study is to identify the determinants of younger siblings' adaptation and to analyze the role played by personal, sibling, family and older sibling’s variables. for this purpose, we intended to differentiate the contributions of sex, personality, age, number of siblings, experienced daily stress, perceived interparental conflict, sibling relationships, and the older sibling’s individual variables (personal, social, school, and family maladaptation) to explain the younger sibling’s adaptation. method participants the sample was made up of 50 pairs of siblings relatively close in age within dyads, with age ranging between 7 and 18 years across dyads, mean age 11.9 years (sd = 2.81). the mean age of the older siblings was 13.3 years (sd = 2.30) and the mean age of the younger siblings was 10.5 years (sd = 2.30). on the one hand, 28 older siblings were boy, whereas other 22 older siblings were girls. on the other hand, 22 younger siblings were boys, whereas 28 younger siblings were girls. the families of these pairs of siblings had an average of 2.3 children (sd = 0.58). the sample had the same number of boys and girls, 50, respectively. we used a sample that was restricted to the population of students of the historical territory of bizkaia (autonomous community of the basque country). the sample of participants was made up of pairs of siblings from different public and private schools. the inclusion criteria for participation in this study were: being a student of between 3rd grade of primary school and 2nd grade of high school of the spanish educational system; the participants should be biological or adoptive siblings (despite the fact that there were no adoptive siblings). the exclusion criterion was having a lot of difficulty to understand the questionnaires. the inclusion and exclusion criteria were formulated a priori. regarding the parents' marital status, most were married in first nuptials (67%), followed by divorced couples (27%), and the remaining couples were either married in second nuptials (4%) or living with a partner (2%). about 60% of the fathers and mothers were middle or highly qualified professionals (fathers = 59.6%, mothers = 58%), whereas the greatest differences between fathers and mothers were found in the number of unskilled workers (fathers = 14.9%, mothers = 36%), executives (fathers = 8.5%, mothers = 0%), workers in small businesses (fathers = 12.8%, mothers = 6%), and unemployed workers (fathers = 4.3%, mothers = 2%). nevertheless, there was no significant differences on the working situation between fathers and mothers (χ2 = 20.418, p = .432). procedure to implement the assessment protocol, we contacted the school principals and counselors of various schools of bizkaia, according to the researcher's convenience, but attempting to achieve representativeness in terms of source of financing (public and concerted schools) and location (different neighborhoods and cities). we attended to all the families from all these schools that were interested in participating in the study and that met the inclusion criteria. when contacting the schools, we explained the general goal of the study, emphasizing that the school's collaboration only consisted of passing on the information about the study to the families. the participation of the families in the study required that two of their children complete questionnaires. the parents who were interested in the participation of two of their children subsequently contacted the researcher via email or phone. in this first contact with the families, we explained the main purpose of the study, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity of the data, and that we would give 5 euros to each sibling for their cooperation. each family chose the most convenient date and time for them to participate in the study. they could participate in a classroom of their children's school or on the premises of merino, martínez-pampliega, & herrero-fernández 3 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ deustopsych (psychological laboratory of the university of deusto). the parents of the participants signed an informed consent. both siblings answered all the questionnaires in a room where a research assistant was available to solve any doubts and support the youngest participants with the questionnaire fulfillment. instruments sibling relationship sibling relationships questionnaire (srq) — this child self-report, srq (furman & buhrmester, 1985), assesses the quality of sibling relationship through 48 items (e.g., “how often do you and your sibling go places or do things together?"), of which the first 42 items are rated on a 5-point likert type scale ranging from 1 (hardly at all) to 5 (very much). the exception are 6 items about maternal and paternal partiality, which assess favoritism, attention, and differential treatment of siblings by the mother and the father on a 5-point likert scale ranging from -2 (almost always favors/pays attention to/treats my sib better than me) to 2 (almost always favors/pays attention to/treats me better). the srq has 16 scales (prosocial, similarity, intimacy, companionship, admiration by sibling, admiration of sibling, affection, nurturance by sibling, nurturance of sibling, dominance by sibling, dominance of sibling, antagonism, competition, quarreling, maternal and paternal partiality) whose score is calculated by summing the mean score of the 3 items of each scale. in turn, the scales are grouped into four main dimensions of sibling relationships (warmth/close­ ness, sibling power/status, conflict and maternal/paternal partiality) that are the ones used in this study. each main dimension is calculated by adding its scales, except for the dimension of sibling power/status which, by recommendation of the original authors of the srq (furman & buhrmester, 1985), is calculated by subtracting passive from active scores: (nurturance by sibling + dominance by sibling) (nurturance of sibling + dominance of sibling). there were no validated questionnaires in spanish to assess sibling relationships, so the english version of srq was translated, adapted and validated to spanish in another study (author, unpublished manuscript), and it replicates the original structure. validity information for the sibling relationships questionnaire can be obtained from the main author of this manuscript. in this study, the reliabilities of the four main factors were: warmth/closeness α = .88, sibling power/status α = .83, conflict α = .76, and partiality α = .56. family variables children's perception of interparental conflict scale (cpic-y) — we used the spanish version adapted from the original scale (mcdonald & grych, 2006), which replicates the structure of the three main scales although the items are grouped in different subscales (author, unpublished manuscript). this self-report for children and adolescents contains 22 dichotomous items (1 = yes, 0 = no) grouped into three scales: (1) conflict properties: this includes 11 items distributed in three subscales, with 6 items about children's perception of negative interparental conflict, 3 items about their perception of constructive interparental conflict and 2 items about their perception of aggression in interparental conflict (e.g., “ i've seen or heard my father and my mother arguing”); (2) threat scale: the second scale has 6 items referring to the children's feelings of threat and fear in the face of interparental conflict (e.g., “ i get scared when my father and my mother argue”); (3) and self-blame: the third scale includes 4 items related to the children's feelings of self-blame for interparental conflict (e.g., “ when my father and my mother argue, it is usually my fault”). the reliability indices (mcdonald´s ω, as the items were dichotomous) in this study were: conflict properties ω = .82, threat ω = .81, self-blame ω = .48. inventario infantil de estresores cotidianos [child inventory of everyday stressors] (iiec) — this 41-item inventory (school and peer and family dimensions), which presents everyday stressors selected by experts as represen­ tative of the construct of daily stress (trianes torres et al., 2009), is rated by the children (1 = yes, 0 =no). the cronbach alpha internal consistency of the test is .70 and the test-retest reliability reaches a score of .78 (trianes torres et al., 2009). only the items relating to the area of school and peers (school and social stress: 12 items) and family (family stress: 17 items) were used in this study. the reliability index (mcdonald´s omega, as the items were dichotomous) in this study for the dimension of school and social stress was ω = .49 and for family stress, it was ω = .61. younger sibling adaptation 4 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ personality traits big five questionnaire-children and adolescents (dimensions of extroversion and agreeableness) — for this study, we only evaluated two dimensions that are most closely linked to interpersonal relationships: extroversion and agreeableness (barbaranelli, caprara, rabasca, & pastorelli, 2003). these dimensions contain 13 and 12 items, respectively, which describe the frequency of occurrence of certain extroversion and agreeableness traits. items are rated on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (hardly ever) to 5 (almost always). this instrument has solid international psychometric support (barbaranelli, caprara, & rabasca, 2006), where extraversion reached a cronbach alpha of .71 and agreeableness reached a cronbach alpha of .80. however, we used the spanish version adapted by ortiz, tello, and del barrio gándara (2005) and, in this study, cronbach's alpha was .66 for extroversion and .84 for agreeableness. child adaptation test autoevaluativo multifactorial de adaptación infantil [multifactorial child adaptation self-assessment test] (tamai) — this questionnaire (hernández, 1983) evaluates children's general, personal, school, and social maladaptation, and dissatisfaction with family and siblings through 175 dichotomous items (1 = yes, 0 = no) answered directly by the children. children’s maladaptation is described as the appearance of difficulties and problems in the contexts where children participate (persona, social, school and family). in this study, we used the scales of general, personal, school, and social maladaptation and family dissatisfaction: (1) the personal maladaptation scale has 39 items and encompasses both self-maladaptation and maladaptation to manage daily issues or a personal difficulty to accept reality; it had a mcdonald´s omega reliability of .84; (2) the school maladaptation scale includes 31 items assessing poor learning performance and disruptive behavior in the classroom; it obtained a mcdonald´s omega of .81; (3) the social maladaptation scale describes the degree of difficulty in social relationships through 35 items; it had a mcdonald´s omega of .78. these three scales are grouped into a single dimension called general maladaptation; (4) the family dissatisfaction scale includes 5 items that indicate the degree of dissatisfaction with the climate of the home and the interparental relationship; its mcdonald´s omega reliability was .60. in this study, the internal reliabilities of the dimensions were adequate (general maladaptation ω = .91, personal maladaptation ω = .84, school maladaptation ω = .81, social maladaptation ω = .78, family dissatisfaction ω = .60). analysis strategy first, descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, and range) of all the variables were calculated. after verifying the normality of variables, we calculated the bivariate correlation matrix (pearson's r) among the main variables of the study. only young siblings’ data were included to calculate the descriptive statistics and the correlations. lastly, we conducted a hierarchical multiple regression to analyze the variables that explain a greater percentage of the variance of the younger siblings' adaptive behavior. demographics (sex, age, number of siblings in the family) and temperament variables (extraversion and agreeableness) were introduced in the first block; in the second step, we included family variables (threat, self-blame, and properties of interparental conflict; school and social stress and family stress); the third step included sibling relations (warmth, conflict, power, and partiality); and the last step included the variable of the older sibling's maladjustment corresponding to the dependent variable in each model (e.g., if the dependent variable is the younger sibling's school maladjustment, in this fourth step, we included the variable of the older sibling's school maladjustment). statistical power was calculated for each one of the five regression models with g*power (version 3.1.9.4) software (faul, erdfelder, lang, & buchner, 2007). results descriptive analysis table 1 provides means, standard deviations, and correlations for key study variables based on the data of younger siblings. regarding the individual variables, significant associations emerged, especially between the trait of agreeable­ ness and the level of individual maladjustment in the total score, and in social, family, and school maladaptation, with merino, martínez-pampliega, & herrero-fernández 5 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significant, negative and small or moderate correlations. with regard to family variables, the data showed that both the properties of interparental conflict and the feeling of self-blame for it and daily social and school stress were significantly and positively associated with different levels of maladaptation. finally, regarding the sibling variables, sibling warmth was significantly and negatively associated with all levels of maladaptation, except for the level of personal maladaptation. however, sibling conflict was significantly and positively associated with the younger sibling's total and school maladaptation scores. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations between variables of the data from younger siblings variable m sd range 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 1. age 10.40 2.33 7 16 .16 .16 −.08 −.55** −.08 .13 −.07 .10 .22 −.13 .35* .05 −.03 .06 −.18 −.17 .08 2. number of siblings 2.32 0.59 2 4 −.17 −.12 −.03 −.06 .20 .22 .53** −.02 −.12 −.16 .32* .04 .22 −.26 −.04 .22 3. extroversion 44.64 6.07 27 57 .63** .04 .20 .02 −.09 −.05 .61** .08 .26 .18 −.23 −.26 .04 −.13 −.29* 4. agreeableness 52.33 7.97 32 68 .07 −.01 −.20 −.21 .05 .54** .23 −.14 .15 −.40** −.38** −.08 −.25 −.43** 5. threat 3.48 2.09 0 6 .12 .16 −.05 .15 −.23 .18 −.13 .23 .17 .06 .26 .22 .11 6. self-blame 0.48 0.91 0 4 .07 .07 −.07 −.02 .18 .11 .20 .27 .10 .48** .23 .05 7. conflict properties 2.86 2.53 0 11 .32* .19 −.29 .22 .11 .21 .34* .23 .20 .55** .36* 8. school and social stress 1.58 1.30 0 5 .05 −.34* .07 .03 −.03 .31* .44** .05 .08 .28 9. family stress 1.31 1.42 0 6 −.07 −.16 −.08 .10 −.05 .08 −.12 .11 −.02 10. sibling warmth 76.72 11.38 52 105 −.19 .07 .05 −.41** −.42** −.20 −.33* −.34* 11. sibling conflict 26.08 6.71 10 40 .02 .16 .35* .11 .37* .27 .32* 12. sibling power −5.92 5.57 −16 5 .09 .09 .01 .11 −.04 .07 13. parental partiality 0.46 2.31 −8 8 .14 .16 .09 −.15 .16 14. general maladaptation of younger sibling 27.02 12.02 5 60 .83** .80** .45** .79** 15. social maladaptation of younger sibling 7.96 4.38 0 23 .51** .28 .55** 16. personal maladaptation of younger sibling 9.39 5.50 0 22 .41** .36* 17. family dissatisfaction of younger sibling 0.56 0.93 0 3 .38** 18. school maladaptation of younger sibling 9.18 5.03 1 19 *p < .05. **p < .001. associations between maladaptation and dissatisfaction of younger and older siblings table 2 shows the correlations between general, social, personal and school maladaptation and family dissatisfaction of younger and older siblings. only two correlations are significant: family dissatisfaction of younger sibling has a significant and positive association with the family dissatisfaction of older sibling; and younger sibling’s school maladaptation has a significant and positive association with the older sibling’s school maladaptation. table 2 correlations between maladaptation variables of younger and older siblings variable general maladaptation of older sibling social maladaptation of older sibling personal maladaptation of older sibling family dissatisfaction of older sibling school maladaptation of older sibling general maladaptation of younger sibling .19 .19 .15 .11 .18 social maladaptation of younger sibling .24 .26 .26 .21 .10 younger sibling adaptation 6 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable general maladaptation of older sibling social maladaptation of older sibling personal maladaptation of older sibling family dissatisfaction of older sibling school maladaptation of older sibling personal maladaptation of younger sibling −.01 .04 .11 .19 −.08 family dissatisfaction of younger sibling .07 −.01 −.08 .37* .23 school maladaptation of younger sibling .24 .18 .04 .12 .37* *p < .05. predicting young siblings’ adaptation table 3 reports results from five hierarchical multiple regression models that predicted younger siblings’ maladaptation from individual, family, and sibling variables. as it can be observed, all of the models attained high statistical power (1-β), with values ranging from 87.4% to 99.4%. only the model that explains the younger sibling's school maladjustment was significant, accounting for 68% of the variance. specifically, this model had four variables that yielded a significant association with the younger sibling's school maladjustment: sex was negatively associated, and family stress, sibling conflict, and the older sibling's level of school maladjustment were positively associated. the other models were not significant to explain the younger sibling's maladaptation but two variables—younger sibling's sex (negative correlation) and family stress (positive correlations)—were significantly associated with the younger sibling's maladaptation. lastly, the younger sibling's family maladjustment was also significantly and negatively associated with the number of siblings in the family and with sibling partiality. table 3 hierarchical multiple regression analysis to predict younger sibling adaptation (n = 50) variable general maladaptation of younger sibling (1-β = 99.4%) social maladaptation of younger sibling (1-β = 87.4%) personal maladaptation of younger sibling (1-β = 98.8%) family dissatisfaction of younger sibling (1-β = 99.4%) school maladaptation of younger sibling (1-β = 98.5%) ba se ba βa bb se bb βb bc se bc βc bd se bd βd be se be βe age 1.47 1.43 .28 0.01 0.50 .01 0.38 0.66 .16 −0.09 0.07 −.22 0.81 0.46 .38† gender (1 = boy, 2 = girl) −8.88 4.38 −.37† −1.18 1.64 −.13 −1.43 2.01 −.13 −0.48 0.25 −.27† −4.58 1.61 −.45* number of siblings 0.03 4.06 .01 1.36 1.61 .15 −2.833 2.06 −.27 −0.71 0.29 −.38* 1.49 1.56 .15 extroversion −0.10 0.59 −.06 −0.05 0.23 −.07 0.10 0.27 .13 −0.02 0.04 −.12 −0.26 0.23 −.34 agreeableness −0.52 0.43 −.37 −0.15 0.17 −.28 −0.14 0.21 −.22 −0.03 0.03 −.28 −0.21 0.16 −.35 threat 0.80 1.58 .13 −0.45 0.57 −.21 0.58 0.68 .21 −0.01 0.09 −.03 0.54 0.52 .22 self-blame 0.34 2.98 .03 −0.68 0.83 −.15 1.98 1.24 .35 0.16 0.13 .18 −0.25 0.82 −.05 conflict properties 0.40 1.81 .06 0.28 0.56 .11 −0.61 0.80 −.20 0.10 0.11 .19 0.40 0.55 .14 school and social stress 0.75 1.85 .09 0.39 0.69 .11 0.07 0.88 .02 0.01 0.11 .01 0.30 0.62 .08 family stress 3.43 1.61 .43* 1.33 0.63 .42* 1.60 0.76 .44* 0.27 0.10 .42* 0.86 0.60 .25 sibling warmth −0.02 0.27 −.02 −0.09 0.11 −.24 −0.05 0.12 −.12 0.02 0.02 .24 0.14 0.10 .32 sibling conflict 0.69 0.33 .41 0.08 0.12 .13 0.16 0.15 .21 0.01 0.02 .02 0.32 0.12 .45* sibling power −0.05 0.38 −.02 0.04 0.15 .05 −0.08 0.18 −.08 −0.01 0.03 −.08 0.17 0.15 .18 maternal/paternal partiality 0.48 1.04 .08 0.43 0.42 .18 0.24 0.51 .09 −0.15 0.07 −.30* 0.09 0.41 .03 general maladaptation of older sibling 0.08 0.21 .08 social maladaptation of older sibling 0.07 0.19 .07 personal maladaptation of older sibling −0.03 0.25 −.03 family dissatisfaction of older sibling 0.26 0.15 .30 school maladaptation of older sibling 0.38 0.17 .37* ar 2 = .71, p > .05. br 2 = .58. p > .05. cr 2 = .69. p > .05. dr 2 = .71. p > .05. er 2 = .68. p = .034. *p < .05. †.10 > p > .05. merino, martínez-pampliega, & herrero-fernández 7 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this study drew on two perspectives: a perspective based on the findings that confirm that sibling relations have an important impact on children's psychological well-being (mchale et al., 2012); the other perspective focused on the theory of social learning, which emphasizes modeling as a key process whereby older siblings influence the behavior and adaptation of their younger siblings (bandura, 2001; whiteman et al., 2010). therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze the variables that explain younger siblings' adaptive behavior, differentiating the contributions of variables of the sibling relationship and variables of the older siblings, as well as taking into account other family and individual variables. on the one hand, the correlational analyses of this study reveal the protector role of the trait of agreeableness against the younger siblings' level of maladaptation, confirming that certain temperament traits like this are associated with children's higher levels of social adaptation (asendorpf & van aken, 2003). following with the possible protective factors against child maladjustment, the negative correlation between sibling warmth and various levels of maladapta­ tion in this study supports the positive and close relations between siblings as a facilitator of children's adaptation, as already indicated in other studies (conger & kramer, 2010; kennedy & kramer, 2008). this result supports continuing to analyze the processes described in the buffering hypothesis that posits that positive sibling relationships are associated with children’s lower levels of internalizing symptoms (pike, coldwell, & dunn, 2005; richmond, stocker, & rienks, 2005). finally, the associations between different aspects of interparental conflict and everyday stress and the level of child maladjustment are not surprising, given the extensive literature that identifies both variables as clearly harmful for children and adolescents' health and adaptation (crnic & greenberg, 1990; crnic et al., 2005; crouter et al., 2001). notwithstanding the foregoing, the model that analyzed the younger siblings' maladaptation to school was signifi­ cant, showing positive associations both with the older siblings' level of school maladaptation and with sibling conflict. according to these results, there is also a significant and positive association between the school maladaptation of both siblings. therefore, these results could be interpreted from the classical theory of social learning (bandura, 2001) of siblings’ mutual influence, because the association of both siblings' level of school maladaptation can be considered as an evidence of the correlation between siblings’ academic outcomes. in line with this, future studies with causal design could study the role of older siblings as models in the academic area for their younger siblings, supporting the scarce literature on the subject (bouchey et al., 2010). the sibling relations are an important scenario of socialization due to the great amount of time they spend together through the whole lifespan and because siblings are usual the first same-age individual that a person interact with. from this perspective, the association between sibling conflict and the younger siblings' school maladjustment can be considered evidence of the association of sibling relations, in this case negative, on the children's health and well-being (conger & kramer, 2010; mchale et al., 2012). in addition, this model emphasizes other variables that explain younger siblings' school adaptation: sex, in particular being female, protects against school maladjustment (kaur & chawla, 2016). some authors have explained results like this because girls have better social and emotional adjustment, which is associated with better academic adjustment (kasinath, 2003). moreover, in this study family stress appears to be a factor that favors younger siblings' school maladjustment (crnic & greenberg, 1990). finally, we note several limitations of this study. the sample size is not negligible, given that we used sibling dyads of children and adolescents. therefore, the sample size does not allow obtaining definitive conclusions based just on these results and this research line needs to enlarge the sample to attain more demonstrative results. increasing the sample size of future studies would allow the separate analysis of sibling relations and socialization processes in childhood and adolescence, as well as improve the statistical power of the analyses. moreover, the age range of the sample is too broad (from 7 to 18 years-old participants) and that could affect the results because there are differences in the sibling relationships, individual adaptation and family processes depending on the developmental stage of the sons and daughters. also, some of the subscales of the instruments do not reach adequate validity values, which hinders the interpretation of the results of this study. an additional limitation is that this study used an unpublished spanish translated assessment of sibling quality. future studies would benefit from longitudinal designs that would allow making causal inferences to explain younger siblings' adaptation. finally, the results of this study are limited to basque families due to the places where the sample was obtained, so there is a need to replicate studies in this area with younger sibling adaptation 8 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 1–12 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2139 https://www.psychopen.eu/ different samples, especially with participants from non-western cultures to analyze the impact of cultural differences in the adaptation of younger siblings. therefore, taking into account all the mentioned limitations, this research line would need future studies with a longitudinal methodology compared to this pilot study, in order to produce causal conclusions. funding: this research was funded by the basque government, predoctoral grant bfi-2010-78. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references asendorpf, j. b., & van aken, m. a. 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(2002). sibling caregiving. in m. h. bornstein (ed.), handbook of parenting: being and becoming a parent (pp. 253-286). mahwah, nj, usa: erlbaum. about the authors laura merino is phd and lecturer in the department of social and developmental psychology at universidad de deusto in bilbao (spain). research topics about siblings, divorce, family functioning and parent-child relationships. ana martínez-pampliega is professor of psychology in the department of social and developmental psychology, universiy of deusto in bilbao (spain). director of the ma in systemic-relational psychotherapy and the deusto familypsych research group. david herrero-fernández is phd and lecturer in the department of psychology at universidad europea del atlántico in santander (spain). research topics about driving anger, risk perception, risky behaviour, psychophysiological assessment, and road safety. younger sibling adaptation 12 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1360-0443.2004.00965.x https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.32.1.79 https://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.2006.67.391 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejcop.v4i1.78 https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431699019002003 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00194 https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.19.4.512 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0392-z https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00698.x https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-006-9135-5 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ younger sibling adaptation (introduction) transfer to other socialization contexts other relevant variables in adaptation: family socialization context and individual variables aim of the study method participants procedure instruments analysis strategy results descriptive analysis associations between maladaptation and dissatisfaction of younger and older siblings predicting young siblings’ adaptation discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the episodic man: how a psychological biography of donald j. trump casts new light on empirical research into narrative identity research reports the episodic man: how a psychological biography of donald j. trump casts new light on empirical research into narrative identity dan p. mcadams 1 [1] department of psychology, northwestern university, evanston, il, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 received: 2020-11-20 • accepted: 2021-02-07 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: dan p. mcadams, department of psychology, northwestern university, 2120 campus drive, evanston, il 60208, usa. e-mail: dmca@northwestern.edu abstract people make meaning through life narrative. the central thesis of my book-length psychological biography of donald trump is that the 45th president of the united states defied this general meaning-making tendency and epitomized instead the episodic man. like no other president in modern history, trump seems to be nearly devoid of a narrative identity, which is an internalized and evolving story of the self that reconstructs the personal past and imagines the future in order to provide life with temporal continuity and meaning. instead, trump has always lived in the emotionally vivid moment (episode), fighting to win each moment, moment by discrete moment. seeing him through the lens of the episodic man helps to explain many puzzling features of donald trump’s personality, from his charismatic effect on millions of americans to his penchant for lying and malice. importantly, the analysis of trump’s episodic nature informs the scientific study of narrative identity and meaning making more generally, suggesting that people vary not only with respect to the kinds of stories they create for their lives but also with respect to the extent to which they construe life in narrative terms. therefore, the analysis of trump illustrates the potentially reciprocal relationship between the idiographic case and the nomothetic effort to develop and evaluate more general scientific hypotheses. keywords psychological biography, narrative identity, donald trump, autobiographical memory, autobiographical reasoning, personality psychology going back to sigmund freud’s famous case of anna o. (breuer & freud, 1895/1955), empirical psychologists have mined biographical case studies for insights into general psychological processes. allport (1937) argued that the science of personality psychology should ideally blend idiographic studies of particular individual lives with nomothetic surveys and experiments aimed at examining broad propositions as they apply to many, if not all, lives. in that they focus intensively on the individual life of a noteworthy person, psychological biographies are idiographic investigations par excellence (mayer & kovary, 2019; schultz, 2005). in most instances, the primary aim of a psychological biography is to explain the life of the particular person chosen for scrutiny, in all its specificity and uniqueness. at the same time, specific interpretations of a single life may sometimes suggest new ideas for understanding other lives, as well. idiographic psychological biographies may generate insights that can be pursued in nomothetic, hypothesis-testing research (mcadams & west, 1997). the insights may help to build psychological theory more generally, and to advance psychological science. in what follows, i briefly describe how writing a psychological biography of donald j. trump produced insights that may generalize well beyond his unique individual case. in the strange case of donald j. trump: a psychological reckoning (mcadams, 2020), i analyzed trump’s dispositional personality traits, his values and goals, his narcissistic this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4719&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ personal agenda, his relationships with significant people in his life, his authoritarian sentiments, and the emotional grip he exerted on millions of americans during the 4 years of his presidency (2017–2021). in so doing, i drew liberally from theory and research in personality, developmental, social, and political psychology, as well as cognitive science and evolutionary biology (see also mcadams, 2016, 2017). what gradually emerged, however, as the central thesis of the book seemed to defy at least one basic assumption in the psychological research literature. the assumption is that people create narrative identities for their lives during their adult years—internalized and evolving stories that explain who they are and how they have come to be the unique persons they are becoming (mcadams, 1985; mcadams & mclean, 2013). the research assumes that people make meaning in their lives through constructing integrative stories of the self. but not donald trump. what eventually emerged as the central thesis of my 300-page psychological biography is that donald trump simply has no narrative identity. he lives outside of time and narrative, like no other person i have ever encountered. he is the episodic man—living forever in the combative moment, striving to win each moment, moment by moment, episode by discrete episode. as documented exhaustively in mcadams (2020), the episodes do not add up; they do not form a narrative arc in his mind, even if other people can see a story there. the strange case of donald trump calls into question a fundamental idea that has guided the research literature on narrative identity ever since the topic surfaced in personality and developmental psychology in the 1980s (mcadams, 1985). as such, this particular idiographic case study suggests new ways to think about narrative identity and new empirical leads to pursue in nomothetic research on the stories people create to make meaning in their lives. the primary intent of the current paper, then, is to show how a psychological biography of one prominent man has had some impact on how psychological scientists think about people more generally. the qualitative case study of a single life can suggest new ideas for quantitative research examining many different lives. meaning and narrative how do people find meaning in life? how do people create lives deemed to be meaningful? philosophers, psychologists, and laypeople offer many different answers to these questions (e.g., markman, proulx, & lindberg, 2013). nonetheless, a common theme in contemporary writing, both in the humanities and the social sciences, is that human beings make meaning through stories (altmaeir, 2017; bruner, 1990; ricouer, 1984). according to schechtman’s (1996) philosophical perspective, people apprehend their lives as ongoing narratives, situating themselves as protagonists in the middle of an unfolding plot. lives have meaning to the extent that protagonists can step back from the fray to operate as authors of their lives, construing pattern and coherence in the narrative flow and communicating what they construe to other people, who aim to connect their own stories to what they hear. as people share with each other narrative accounts of their own lived experience, they implicitly evaluate what they hear and observe. is the story understandable? does it make sense? is it a good story? is it significant? does it convey lived experience in a way that connects to my own life? does it hold meaning for me? storytelling is a human universal. whether conveyed in novels, movies, mime, or dance, people tell stories the world over. humans tell stories for many different purposes—to entertain each other, to convey important social information, to offer instruction, to simulate experience, to gossip, to worship, and sometimes simply to fill the time, to alleviate the boredom or spice up the daily routine. one highly influential line of thinking in linguistic anthropology suggests that human language itself evolved primarily for the purpose of telling stories (dor, 2015). in all human cultures, children begin to tell stories about their own experience almost as soon as they begin to speak (fivush, 2011). these stories ultimately shape the development of their own autobiographical memory and their sense of self. in childhood, narrative accounts of lived experience become attached to the self-concept, as little stories about things that happened to me—my stories. in adolescence and early adulthood, the little stories begin to amalgamate and rearrange themselves into a larger narrative about who i am, how i came to be, and where my life may be going (habermas & bluck, 2000). the larger narrative—evolving over time as it assimilates new experiences and reinterprets the remembered past in light of future goals—is a person’s narrative identity. adults move through life, therefore, with a storied understanding of the reconstructed past and the imagined future. they feel that they are living within the story mcadams 177 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (as a protagonist) and constructing the story as they live in it (as a narrator, or author). the life story they construct, encompassing many different scenes and plotlines, is part and parcel of who they are (mcadams, 1985), fundamentally so. as such, it is central to what erik erikson (1963) described in more general terms as the “identity” (sometimes called “ego identity”) that people begin to apprehend and construct in their adolescent years. a person’s narrative identity, then, provides life with the very same attributes that erikson (1963) originally ascribed to identity itself. those include a sense of knowing who i am and how i came to be, feeling sameness and continuity over time, situating the self within a recognizable niche in the adult world, and experiencing life as more-or-less unified (across different roles), purposeful (goal-directed, self-determined), and meaningful (coherent, significant). over the past two decades, researchers have conducted hundreds of empirical studies on narrative identity, refining and articulating this influential psychological construct as it has evolved in the fields of personality, developmental, social, and cultural psychology, and in cognitive science (for reviews, see adler, lodi-smith, philippe, & houle, 2016; mcadams, 2021; mcadams & mclean, 2013). among the most important findings in the empirical literature on narrative identity are these: • the emergence of narrative identity in the adolescent and early adult years coincides with and depends upon the development of autobiographical reasoning skills. through autobiographical reasoning, people inductively derive semantic meanings regarding the self from the memories of episodic events (habermas & bluck, 2000). autobiographical reasoning becomes more sophisticated and integrative as people move into the midlife years (pasupathi & mansour, 2006). in later life, autobiographical reasoning skills may become less differentiated and analytical, and they may rely more on the tendency to simplify and soften lived experience, often resulting in the accentuation of positive emotional themes (baddeley & singer, 2007). the developmental trend reflects what memory researchers describe as the positivity effect of aging (carstensen & mikels, 2005). • narrative identity develops gradually over time through a transactional and recursive interpersonal process. people create stories about events in their lives, tell those stories to others, monitor the reactions to their narrative performances, change their stories in response to those reactions, interpret new events in terms of past stories, draw on new events to change their stories of the self, tell those new stories to others, monitor feedback, and on and on. selves create stories, which in turn create new selves, as narrative identity evolves over time (mclean, pasupathi, & pals, 2007). • narrative identities that prioritize themes of agency, belongingness, and personal redemption tend be strongly associated with psychological well-being, mental health, and a generative engagement with society in the adult years (adler et al., 2015; mcadams & guo, 2015). individual differences in the salience of certain content themes in narrative identity predict well-being above and beyond the statistical effects shown for positive and negative personality traits, such as extraversion and neuroticism (adler et al., 2016). by contrast, narrative identities that depict vicious cycles and contaminated plots tend to be associated with depression, anxiety, and other negative life outcomes (adler, kissel, & mcadams, 2006). • master cultural narratives shape the development of narrative identity (mclean & syed, 2015). people draw from a culture’s storehouse of favored images, plotlines, characters, and narrative themes in constructing their own life stories. whereas these cultural resources provide invaluable models for narrating life, they can also exert hegemonic effects that constrain human potential. as such, master cultural narratives reflect gender norms, class bias, and power inequities in society (hammack, 2008). a broad assumption in this research literature is that articulating a narrative identity is a normative developmental process in nearly all human lives. with the exception of people suffering from serious mental illnesses (e.g., schizophre­ nia, autism) or cognitive disabilities (e.g., dementia) that create profound disturbances in selfhood, nearly all human beings are expected to situate their lives within a temporal framework. in so doing, they are expected to create, and to communicate to others, internal life stories that make sense of the personal past and the anticipated future. in short, people are expected to “have” a narrative identity, even if each particular narrative identity is unique, differing from others in terms of structure, content, and other psychologically important features—and even if every culture provides its own specific rules and norms for how to make narrative sense of a life. the episodic man 178 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the strange case of donald j. trump in the spring of 2016, an editor from the atlantic magazine asked me to write an extended essay on the personality of donald j. trump, who was seeking the republican nomination for president of the united states. he suggested i follow the model for an evidence-based, scientifically grounded psychological biography that i used in a previous study of george w. bush, the 43rd president of the united states (mcadams, 2011). in that book, i examined bush’s life and personality from the psychological standpoints of 1) the social actor (the dispositional personality traits and salient roles that characterized bush’s emotional trends and daily behavior—his socio-emotional style), 2) the motivated agent (the goals, values, and infrastructure of belief that shaped bush’s motivational agenda in life—what he wanted and valued), and 3) the autobiographical author (bush’s narrative identity, as it developed from young adulthood through midlife—how he made meaning in his life). the tripartite model of actor/agent/author is today a highly influential framework for organizing theory and research in the field of personality psychology and in the study of life-span personality development (mcadams, 2015; mcadams & olson, 2010). the resultant essay on trump (mcadams, 2016) focused on 1) the dispositional traits of (high) extraversion and (low) agreeableness that mainly characterize his daily behavior and 2) the supremely narcissistic motivational agenda trump pursues, along with the authoritarian values that support his narcissism. but i struggled to find evidence for the third layer of personality development. an initial perusal of the biographical record on trump provided few insights on narrative identity. in sum, i found it to be relatively easy to characterize trump’s personality from the standpoints of the social actor and the motivated agent in mcadams (2016), but difficult to discern an integrative life story beneath it all. over the next 3 years, as i further researched trump, i gradually came to realize that my inability to find evidence for a narrative identity in trump’s life was less about the inadequacy of biographical sources, of which there are legion, and more about a bald psychological reality in trump’s life. i became convinced that trump has no narrative identity at all, or at best, he has a starkly depleted one. trump does not see himself as a developing person who moves through time. the past has no purchase on him, and the future has no pull. instead, he lives in the exuberantly combative moment, fighting like a boxer to win the round, fighting furiously as if it were the last round he will ever fight. the moments—the rounds, the episodes, the discrete scenes that would comprise a story if he had a life story—do not add up. they do not build in his mind to form a plot. the protagonist of this non-story never changes, never learns anything, never carries anything forward from one scene to the next. he is instead a “stable genius,” to quote one of trump’s favorite self-attributions (fritze & collins, 2019). like the main character in the movie memento, trump wakes up each morning with something akin to a blank slate. but unlike the movie, trump does not suffer from retrograde amnesia or any other kind of purely cognitive deficit. this is not about dementia, for trump has always lived his life this way, chosen to do so, it seems. he is capable of remembering yesterday, but yesterday is irrelevant except insofar that it can help him win today. let me be clear: i am not suggesting that donald trump has no sense of time’s passing. he grasps the temporality of life. he even understands the value of stories in general, as mechanisms for conveying meaning in time. his popular political slogan—“make america great again”—suggests a culturally compelling story about the united states: once upon a time, america was great; then it lost its greatness; and now it will recover the greatness it has lost. moreover, trump is perfectly capable of ascribing to himself a trait that might be central to the description of a character in a story. for example, he describes himself as a “fighter,” a “hero,” and so on. he has some degree of psychological insight, and he understands how others see him. but these self-attributions are always static rather than dynamic, as if he exists in the eternal present rather than in an unfolding narrative through which a protagonist changes or develops over time. instead, his focus is mainly on the present episode within which he finds himself immersed, striving to triumph within that episode so that he can then move on to the next discrete episode. trump’s episodic approach to life frees him from the moral and normative conventions that constrain other human beings. it does not matter to trump if what he says today blatantly contradicts what he said yesterday, or what he will say tomorrow. critics can claim that trump lies constantly (which is true), but “truth” for trump is purely transactional, just like his relationships with people. what is true (or good) for trump is what works to win the current episode. if saying “a” helps him win on monday, then “a” is true. if saying “nona” helps him win on tuesday, then “nona” is true. mcadams 179 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ both cannot be true, you say. but trump does not consider the contradiction to be important; indeed, he may not even see the contradiction because for trump, truth is episodic, as is life more generally. trump’s total embrace of the moment has always worked to his advantage, both in business and politics. for instance, his episodic nature gives him tremendous authenticity in the eyes of his millions of devoted fans. when they encounter trump at a rally or watch him at a news conference, they know that he is all here now. he is not hiding anything. he is not planning the future or trying to stay consistent with the past. even if every sentence that comes out of his mouth is a falsehood, he is telling it the way it is right now, in the moment, what he believes he needs to say in order to win the moment. it is shameless. it is primal. unexpurgated, unmediated, completely divorced from doubt or reason or the need to be consistent and truthful in the long run, trump erupts with what currently captures his consciousness, the unfiltered expression of his wholehearted embrace of the moment. like an impulsive, angry child. or a wild beast. the argument i make in mcadams (2020) for the absence of a narrative identity in trump’s personality makeup draws from many different incidents in his life and many different sources. going back decades, journalists and biographers have expressed repeated frustration in their inability to elicit from trump any kind of introspection or psychological commentary on his own life (e.g., d’antonio, 2015; o’brien, 2005). trump talks about himself constantly, but never in narrative terms. instead, he brags about achievements or proclaims his greatness. he attributes wonderful traits to himself—strength, courage, intelligence, power. he is a winner. he has never lost. he has never made a mistake. but for all his talk, trump never delves beneath the surface; he rarely goes back in time; and he rarely projects very far into the future. he is not introspective; he is not retrospective; and he is not prospective. unlike any president in modern times, he has virtually no sense of history, and he absolutely never talks about things like “posterity” or “legacy” or how “future generations” will look back upon the america of today. donald trump is no more able to speak in this exalted register—a favorite form of discourse for presidents like ronald reagan and barack obama—than he is to express empathy for the suffering of other people. writing for the new yorker in the 1990s, mark singer spent a great deal of time with trump urging him to reveal his inner self. what are you thinking about when you shave in the morning? singer asked. what are the private feelings you keep to yourself? the questions made no sense to trump. he could not answer them. singer was forced to conclude that mr. trump has achieved something remarkable and utterly strange in human life: “an existence unmolested by the rumblings of a soul” (singer, 2011). tony schwartz, who was trump’s ghostwriter for his first book, the art of the deal, remarked that “trump didn’t fit any model of human being i’d ever met.” he remembers almost nothing from his childhood, schwartz said. “there is no private trump” (mayer, 2016). reporting on trump’s acceptance speech at the 2016 republican national convention, a new york times journalist wrote: “after 40 years in the public eye, mr. trump decided on thursday night that he was not interested in revealing himself to america with disarming tales of his upbringing, hard-earned lessons from his tumultuous career or the inner struggles masked by his outward pomposity.” in what was, at that point in his life, the most important speech he had ever given, trump passed up the chance to “plumb his personal life and career for the kind of anecdotes that would turn him, in the eyes of his doubters, from a cartoon into a flesh-and-blood human being” (barbaro, 2016). trump is not interested in casting himself as a flesh-and-blood human being. in his mind, he is more like a superhero. shortly before he assumed the presidency, trump told a group of advisors to think of everyday in the white house as a television show in which he vanquishes his rivals (meacham, 2017). the sentiment is consistent with what trump once described, in an interview for people magazine, as his philosophy of life: “man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat” (d’antonio, 2015, p. 154). for trump, each day is a singular battle. but the successive battles do not build to form a readily defined war, the kind of war that has its own narrative arc, with clearly defined foes, stable alliances, clear issues of contention that drive antagonists apart, and the prospect that someday it will end—the war will be over, and we will look back on it and understand it as a story, as part of history. instead, life is endless warfare, with no progression or direction. you fight furiously to win the day. you go to bed. and then you wake up to start it all over again. this is how donald trump has always lived—fully immersed in the combative here-and-now, living and fighting outside the flow of narrative time and history, the omnipotent i am who never changes, never develops, but who simply is. the episodic man 180 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from many lives to one life, and back again i conceive of psychological biography as an effort to make psychological sense of an individual life through an artful application of sound scientific theories and validated empirical findings (mcadams, 2005). in the case of donald trump (mcadams, 2020), i drew heavily upon what psychological scientists have learned over the past few decades regarding the concepts of extraversion, agreeableness, narcissism, authoritarianism, cognitive styles, attachment patterns, leader­ ship, and (especially) narrative identity, among other things. my reading of his life and his presidency led me to conclude that trump lacks an inner story to provide his life with temporal continuity, purpose, and meaning. he is the episodic man, living (and fighting) in the moment. more than his socially dominant persona and more even than his raging narcissism, the strangest psychological feature of donald trump is his episodic manner of living and thinking outside the flow of narrative time. does trump’s unique case suggest anything more general about human life? ideally, science should progress through an ongoing dialectic between specific, concrete observations on the one hand and the generation and evalua­ tion of more general, abstract conceptions on the other. in what reichenbach (1938) called the context of discovery, scientists gather together observations in an effort to build a more general conception of how the world works. in psychology, case studies of individual lives hold great value for the generation of theory. they may yield new ideas whose applicability transcend the individual case itself. when it comes to psychological biography, the main purpose is nearly always to illuminate the single case at hand. but sometimes insights emerge that may hold broader significance or generalizability. findings from the idiographic case study of a single life may prove to be useful for generating new hypotheses and ideas for nomothetic studies of many lives. these new ideas may transport themselves into reichenbach’s (1938) context of justification, wherein they may be subjected to hypothesis-testing procedures and other scientific operations designed to articulate a more general understanding of the phenomena at hand. the results from hypothesis-testing studies may further modify and refine psychological theory, which eventually may be applied to new case studies which, in turn, may yield new and potentially generalizable insights. and the process continues. over the past two decades, empirical personality and developmental psychologists have built up and refined a broad set of theoretical formulations for understanding the structure, function, development, and psychological significance of narrative identity. with a few notable exceptions, however, they have tended to ignore the possibility that some people may have no narrative identity at all. the strange case of donald trump highlights the need to broaden theory in this domain and to launch new nomothetic studies, as well as further idiographic investigations, to examine what may be an important psychological difference between people. empirical researchers have amply documented variations in the kinds of narrative identities people construct. now they may wish to turn some attention to variability in the extent to which people construe their lives as narratives in the first place, and the psychological significance of this variability. initial forays into this new arena appeared even before the publication of mcadams (2020), suggesting that the idea may already be “in the air.” for example, one measurement-oriented research team has recently developed the awareness of narrative identity questionnaire (aniq: hallford & mellor, 2017). in this self-report instrument, research participants are asked to rate themselves on items like these: “when i think over my life, i can observe how there is a story that tells me who i am.” “things that have happened over the course of my life are meaningfully tied together.” and, “there are clear themes relating to who i am that can be found in my personal memories.” the authors are approximating a dimension upon which “the episodic man” might characterize one manifestation of the low end, with the other extreme represented by a person who is acutely aware of and strongly involved in conceiving of life as a self-defining story with clear plot lines and integrative themes. in support of the validity of their measure, hallford and mellor (2017) report that participants who scored high on the aniq tended to describe “turning point” events in their lives that were judged by outside raters to be especially coherent, compared to individuals scoring lower on the aniq. it should be noted that other studies have shown that individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (adler, chin, kolisetty, & oltmanns, 2012) tend to construct stories of personal experiences that are rated as lower on coherence, compared to matched controls. other studies have shown a positive association between ratings of narrative coherence on the one hand and independent measures of mental health and well-being on the other (baerger & mcadams, 1999; waters & fivush, 2015). mcadams 181 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while low levels of narrative coherence may be part of the psychological picture for people who tend not to see their own lives in life-narrative terms, another component may be the relative absence of autobiographical reasoning. a distinguishing psychological feature of donald trump is his repeated refusal to derive broad conclusions about himself and his development from specific autobiographical memories. in the art of the deal, trump (1987) does relate some memories from his early life. for example, he recalls punching his second-grade music teacher. trump writes that the incident shows that he has always been a “fighter.” he remembers accompanying his father on trips through tough neighborhoods to collect rents from tenants. in one of these scenes, the young donald asks fred trump why he stands to the side when he knocks on the door. because sometimes they shoot right through the door, fred trump responds. the take-home message here is that you need to be careful because the world is a dangerous place. for the most part, the general conclusions drawn by trump from his own memories reinforce his stated philosophy of life: “man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” to the extent, then, that he engages in something like autobiographical reasoning, he does so either 1) to illustrate a trait (i am powerful, i am a fighter, i am smart) or 2) to illustrate a perceived truth about the world (danger, human viciousness). a recent study in my lab illustrates a similar trend for a small minority of research participants who took part in life-story interviews (turner, cowan, logan, & mcadams, in press). one of the main methods for collecting empirical data on narrative identity is a 2-hour life story interview, wherein research participants provide narrative accounts of important events in their lives as well as expected scenarios for the future (mcadams & guo, 2015). in turner et al. (in press), researchers administered self-report mood measures immediately before the interview began and at the end of the interview. for the sample of over 150 midlife adults who were interviewed, a strong positive emotional effect for the interview was observed. for the group as a whole, ratings on positive emotion increased significantly from before the interview to after. the finding confirms years of anecdotal data suggesting that most people very much enjoy telling their life stories. they find these interviews to be emotionally satisfying and psychologically fulfilling. but a small group of participants (less than 10%) do not show the normative increase in positive emotion. either their mood remains the same from before to after the interview, or else they decline somewhat in positive emotion. turner and colleagues (in press) examined the interview transcripts for the 10 participants who most exemplified this trend, based on their self-reported emotion, and compared them to the 10 participants who showed the greatest increases in positive emotion. the biggest difference between the two groups concerned autobiographical reasoning. the 10 participants who did not find the life-story interview to be especially enjoyable rarely employed autobiographical reasoning in their interviews, even when asked to do so. for example, when the interviewer would ask them to spell out what they think a particular event in their lives “means” for their life story as a whole, or how the event “changed” them in any way, these participants tended to express frustration with the question, often saying that the event meant nothing at all, or that they did not know what the meaning was. when they did derive conclusions from the narrated events, they tended, like trump, to say that the event illustrated an obvious trait in their lives (“it shows that i am a good person;” “it means that i enjoy parties”) or some perceived characteristic of life in general rather than their particular life (“it shows that life isn’t fair”). the results from turner et al. (in press) suggest that a relatively small minority of people do not resonate with the idea that life may be viewed as a story that provides a person with some degree of meaning and purpose. instead, they may conceive of their lives in a more episodic manner, as a series of scenes that do not necessarily connect up with each other and that do not necessarily yield personal meaning. future research needs to examine in more detail the episodic nature of some people’s self-conceptions. what does it feel like to experience life in an episodic manner? are there psychological costs and benefits to construing life in this way? what are the developmental and cultural sources for the variation that people may show in the extent to which they operate as autobiographical authors? conclusion the prime goal in psychological biography is to make psychological sense of a particular person’s life. employing various tools provided by the discipline of psychology, the biographer aims to enhance readers’ understanding of a specific human being. therefore, a psychological biography of donald trump is successful, or not, mainly with respect the episodic man 182 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to its effectiveness in promoting a better, deeper, or more adequate understanding of donald trump himself. in some cases, however, a psychological biography may offer the added value of suggesting an insight, idea, or hypothesis that may have more general significance, even to the point of informing subsequent empirical research and the further elaboration of psychological theory. by bringing to the fore trump’s status as the episodic man, i believe that my psychological biography of the 45th president of the united states (mcadams, 2020) suggests new paths for empirical research in personality and developmental psychology, and perhaps other disciplines as well. the psychology of one particular human being—even a person as psychologically singular as donald j. trump—may sometimes hold implications for understanding the psychology of many. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references adler, j. m., brookshier, k., monahan, c., walder-biesanz, i., harmeling, l. h., albaugh, m., . . . , oltmanns, t. f. 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(in press). the power of narrative: the emotional significance of the life story interview. narrative inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19109.tur the episodic man 184 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://eu.usatoday.com https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.126.5.748 https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191115607046 https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308316892 https://www.newyorker.com/ https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000236 https://doi.org/10.26613/esic.1.2.45 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614568318 https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413475622 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1997.tb00533.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868307301034 https://doi.org/10.1159/000445817 https://www.nytimes.com/ https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.5.798 https://www.newyorker.com/ https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19109.tur https://www.psychopen.eu/ waters, t. e. a., & fivush, r. (2015). relations between narrative coherence, identity, and psychological well-being in emerging adulthood. journal of personality, 83(4), 441-451. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12120 about the author dan p. mcadams is the henry wade rogers professor of psychology and professor of human development and social policy at northwestern university. a personality psychologist and life-span developmental researcher, mcadams is the author of over 300 articles and eight books on the topics of personality development, life narrative, generativity and adult development, and psychological biography. he is the former president of the association for research in personality. mcadams is the winner of the jack block award for career contributions to personality psychology, the william james award for his 2006 book, the redemptive self, and the henry a. murray award for excellence in the study of lives. mcadams 185 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 176–185 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4719 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12120 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the episodic man (introduction) meaning and narrative the strange case of donald j. trump from many lives to one life, and back again conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author workplace attachment style as moderator of the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors research reports workplace attachment style as moderator of the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors jean-frantz bruny 1, boris vallée 1, fabio bernardi 2, liliane rioux 3, fabrizio scrima 1 [1] university of rouen normandy, mont-saint-aignan, france. [2] independent researcher. [3] paris nanterre university, nanterre, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 received: 2021-04-14 • accepted: 2022-04-04 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: iris žeželj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia corresponding author: jean-frantz bruny, université de rouen normandie, rue thomas becket, 76130 mont-saint-aignan, france. e-mail: fabrizio.scrima@univ-rouen.fr abstract a number of studies have demonstrated the role played by political skills on organizational citizenship behaviors (ocbs). other research has also shown how the work environment can affect ocbs. however, no research has yet addressed the role that workplace attachment style plays in influencing employee ocbs. the present study aims to investigate the moderating role of workplace attachment style on the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors (ocbs) using a cross-sectional design. the research was carried out with the participation of 185 french office workers. research hypotheses were tested by means of three moderation models. the results show that political skills are positively related to ocb, and that secure and preoccupied workplace attachment styles moderate the relationship between political skills and ocb. these results therefore underline the importance of appropriate organizational environmental management in promoting ocbs. keywords place attachment, workplace attachment style, political skills, organizational citizenship behaviors industrialized countries as a whole have been undergoing major changes from an economic point of view in recent years. competition is fierce, employees are under great pressure to improve profitability and must be flexible and adapt rapidly to these new working conditions. understanding employee behavior is therefore of paramount importance to companies, as it has a direct and long-term impact on the performance and health of their employees, as well as on the performance of the company. in this article, we focus on prosocial behaviors in organizational or work environments, that is, discretionary behaviors, “which are not directly or explicitly recognized by a formal reward system and which, on the whole, promote the effective functioning of the organization” (organ, 1988, p. 4). numerous studies have highlighted the impact of ocbs on organizational performance (park, 2018; podsakoff & mackenzie, 1997). organizations are made up of individuals and groups with different values, goals and interests, resulting in potential conflicts over resources (pfeffer, 1981). individual characteristics of employees may impact their propensity to activate ocbs (harper, 2015), including political skills (ferris et al., 1999a). here, political skill refers to the social perception and ability to adapt one’s behavior to different and changing situational needs in order to influence others. political skill is a concept of interpersonal effectiveness that combines social understanding with the ability to adapt behavior to the demands of the situation in a way that appears sincere, and inspires trust and support (ferris et al., 2005). this study comes within the theoretical framework of the job demands-resources (jd-r) model (demerouti et al., 2001). in this model, work resources are the characteristics of work that impact the well-being of employees, allow them to achieve goals and develop personal skills (e.g., autonomy) (bakker & demerouti, 2007). studies have already shown that this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6559&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ employees manifest more ocb when they receive more job resources (halbesleben & wheeler, 2015). shin and hur (2019) found that increasing job resources improves daily ocb performance. we suggest that workplace attachment style is a function of the ability of the workplace (job resource) to satisfy the employee’s needs. within the framework of environmental psychology, the environment is considered to have an effect on employees’ attitudes, behaviors, perceptions and emotions. for example, turnipseed and murkison (2000) have shown that physical characteristics of the environment are linked to ocbs, while le roy and rioux (2012) argued that employees who are strongly attached to their workplace are more likely to activate ocbs. researchers have pointed out that political skills are linked to organizational citizenship behaviors. while the role of political competencies in determining ocbs is clear, the scientific literature has not yet shown how the work environment can positively or negatively influence this relationship. the growing interest of researchers in place attachment has led to an increase in studies related to attachment theory (bowlby, 1969) in the field of work and organizational psychology, with the emergence of research highlighting the role that attachment styles can play in the interpretation of phenomena and behaviors at work (richards & schat, 2011; scrima et al., 2015). by analogy with altman and low’s (1992) definition, workplace attachment can be defined as the emotional bond resulting from the dynamic interaction between individuals and their organizational environment (rioux, 2006) and is considered an important aspect of quality of work life. in the present research, we were interested in the role played by workplace attachment style in the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors (see figure 1). this study attempts to fill a gap in understanding the changing relational needs of employees and how the satisfaction of these needs can create the potential for organizations to cope with poor ocbs and support employee health, well-being, motivation and satisfaction. it provides much-needed insight into the relationship between workplace attachment styles, political skills, and organizational citizenship behaviors. figure 1 theoretical model theoretical framework organizational citizenship behaviors (ocb) the first observations about citizenship performance were by barnard (1938), who conceptualized the organization as an association of cooperative efforts. according to this author, employees’ willingness to cooperate is a fundamental aspect of organizational activity, and it is therefore important to reinforce the spontaneous contribution of employees beyond contractual obligations or obedience to legitimate authority. a few years later, katz (1964) as well as katz and kahn (1978) reaffirmed the importance of spontaneity and cooperation for organizational success. katz (1964) also observed that “an organization that depends solely on prescribed behavior constitutes a very fragile social system” (p. 132). sever­ al researchers have pursued this promising path, giving rise to a plethora of publications on citizenship performance and related constructs, such as organizational citizenship behavior (bateman & organ, 1983; organ, 1988), organizational engagement (organ & konovsky, 1989), contextual performance (borman & motowidlo, 1997), prosocial organizational behavior (brief & motowidlo, 1986), organizational spontaneity (george & brief, 1992), extra-role behavior (van dyne et al., 1995), and mobilization (tremblay & wils, 2005). this proliferation of studies is not without consequences and has led to real confusion about the notion of citizenship in organizational settings (podsakoff et al., 2000). according to podsakoff et al. (2009), ocb has a positive impact, whether it is directed towards an individual or the organization. bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 159 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ similarly, lefkowitz (2000) noted that employers like employees who show ocb because they are a model of goodwill in the organization. for this reason, appraising and rewarding employee performance is increasingly based on ocb. however, dagot and vonthron (2003) suggested that the effect of ocb goes beyond the framework of in-company appraisal and that it could be a more general indicator of a certain potential to integrate and participate harmoniously in professional teams. citizen behavior does not lead only to an increase in purely subjective and individual performance but also to an increase in measures of organizational effectiveness, such as productivity, efficiency, profitability and customer satisfaction. it has also been observed to result in reduced intention to leave, lower staff turnover (and therefore fewer related costs) and less absenteeism in companies with a high level of ocb. the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors (ocbs) although organizational policy has interested researchers for some time, little was known about the skills that individu­ als use to navigate policy in their workplace until a few decades ago. the term “political competence” was introduced in the scientific literature by pfeffer (1981) and mintzberg (1983), who advocated a political perspective of organizations and identified political competence as a requisite for effectiveness in political environments. no further research on political competence was conducted until ferris and colleagues initiated a research program to understand and measure political competence as a social construct (ferris et al., 1999a, 2005). individuals with political competence possess a unique social perception and are able to modify their behaviors in response to different and changing situational needs (ferris et al., 1999a, 2005). because people with political skills are able to better understand their colleagues, they can influence others to behave in ways that achieve their own personal or organizational goals. by influencing the behavior of others, politically competent people may feel that they control their colleagues. for people with high levels of political competence, these feelings of self-confidence and control over others reduce feelings of anxiety and work-related stress. previous research (perrewé et al., 2000) has shown that highly politically skilled individuals view interpersonal interactions as opportunities, while those with low political skills view them as threats. individuals with high political skills also interpret environmental stimuli differently than their peers (ferris et al., 1999a; perrewé et al., 2000). munyon and colleagues (2015) extended the meta-theoretical framework established by ferris et al. (1999a) and discovered, through a meta-analysis, that political skills are positively related to effectiveness, personal satisfaction, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work productivity, organizational citizenship behavior, professional success and personal reputation, and negatively related to physiological stress. ferris et al. (1999a) reported that politically competent individuals enjoy personal security and self-confidence in their work environment, resulting in reduced stress and tension at work. perrewé et al., 2005 found that political skills moderate the relationship between role overload and job strain, job dissatisfaction and general anxiety. h1: political skills are positively associated with ocb the moderating role of workplace attachment style attachment theory is an established theory of human relationships and is one of the most influential theories in psychology (cassidy & shaver, 2002). it has been applied to occupational psychology by many researchers who have highlighted the role that attachment can play in the description and interpretation of phenomena in the work environment (harms, 2011; paetzold, 2015; scrima et al., 2015). moreover, as environmental psychologists and others have shown, people also develop place attachments (giuliani, 2003). in general, place attachment is seen as a bond or emotional relationship between people and certain places. place is a unifying concept because all behavior is associated with a specific place and exists only because that place exists (rioux, 2006), as defined by many authors. in the most succinct definition, place is a space that has been imbued with meaning through personal, group and cultural processes (low & altman, 1992). according to low and altman (1992), places thus provide the context in which relationships occur, and people are attached to these social relationships. attachment to place is a positive and emotional bond that people form with particular places where they feel comfortable and secure and with which they wish to maintain a connection (hidalgo & hernandez, 2001; low, 1992). recently, some authors (scannell & gifford, 2014, 2017) have workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs 160 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ compared place attachment with the classic theory of attachment (bowlby, 1969), highlighting many points in common. for example, place attachment provides a sense of security and stimulation because it is based on predictability, routine, and a sense of mastery or control. although to date there has been no empirical research on the impact of place attachment styles on various outcomes, the theoretical analysis of the role of place on the attachment process of individuals is recurrent. according to scrima et al. (2017), the only difference between the process of attachment described by bowlby and an individual’s attachment to a place is the object of attachment. in bowlby’s theory, the object of attachment is the caregiver. in the theory of place attachment styles, the object of attachment is the place. caregivers and specific places share the concept of a safe haven (bowlby, 1988). according to bowlby, a caregiver who is able to respond adequately to the child’s requests takes on the function of safe haven. this function, confirmed by the experimental protocol of the strange situation (ainsworth et al., 1978), enables the child to develop autonomy and self-confidence. according to scannell and gifford (2013) and little and derr (2020), the same function can be ascribed to a specific place such as the home. during childhood, the home ensures the safe haven function, enabling children to develop self-confidence and autonomy (howe et al., 1999). autonomy and trust will allow the adult to explore and relate to other places (morgan, 2010) in a “secure” way. moreover, cross (2015) showed that individuals feel place attachment that reflects unique combinations of processes in different places. these findings imply that attachment may survive our current experience, extending into time long after we have left the place. they indicate that attachment to place develops through multiple processes, in multiple places and over time. thus, home would also play a role in creating internal working models (iwms) that influence how adults relate to other specific places such as the workplace. scrima et al. (2017) suggested that individuals develop different workplace attachment styles depending on their representation of self (positive or negative) and of the place (positive or negative). scrima (2020) developed a scale to measure workplace attachment style. this scale measures a three-dimensional construct and each of the dimensions is used as a separate variable suggesting that it is possible to identify very different behavioral patterns among employees with secure, avoidant or preoccupied attachment styles. le roy and rioux (2012) found a positive relation between workplace attachment and ocbs. they suggested that workplace attachment is a predictor of supportive behaviors. this relationship was later confirmed in studies by rioux and pavalache-ilie (2013) and pradhan and mishra (2020). we postulate that employees who perceive that they do not have good political skills but whose needs are satisfactorily met by the workplace environment will develop a secure attachment to the workplace that will foster the probability of activating ocbs. this is in line with other research demonstrating that individuals who feel safe in their workplace show more ocb (testa et al., 2020); for example, the perception of low levels of polluted air in the workplace could be an indicator of environmental satisfaction in the workplace and lead to the activation of ocbs. perrewé et al. (2000) observed that employees with high levels of political skills are able to make use of their relational skills. we believe that these employees can use their skills to relate positively to the work environment by developing secure attachment to the workplace. moreover, ferris et al. (1999a) found differences in the way that employees with high and low political skills interpret environmental stimuli. in the light of the cited literature, we postulate that a secure workplace attachment style enhances the relationship between political skills and ocbs. h2: secure workplace attachment positively moderates the relationship between political skills and ocb. by contrast, if the workplace does not satisfy the needs of employees, they may develop an insecure workplace attachment style. employees with a preoccupied workplace attachment style have a negative representation of self and a positive representation of place (scrima et al., 2017). they will therefore feel they are not good enough for the place, which could lead them to activate a series of behaviors to try to reduce proximity (scannell & gifford, 2013). the behavioral patterns of individuals with a preoccupied attachment style are determined by the fear of being rejected (scrima, 2015). the constant search for proximity, the fear of being rejected and feeling of not being up to par could create a constant state of stress. to reduce this state of stress, they may show a high level of commitment to work activities. in order to reduce their stress, employees with a low level of political skills and a preoccupied workplace attachment style may activate ocb. we therefore believe that a preoccupied workplace attachment style reduces the relationship between political skills and ocbs. bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 161 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h3: preoccupied workplace attachment negatively moderates the relationship between political skills and ocb. finally, the avoidant workplace attachment style is characterized by a positive representation of self but a negative representation of the place (scrima et al., 2017). this relational style could arise when the object of attachment, which should have been a secure base, does not meet the needs of the individual (ainsworth et al., 1978), who therefore thinks that he/she does not need the place. morgan (2010) reported that some participants stated that they had not developed strong attachments to specific places. according to scannell and gifford (2013), this could be an indicator of an avoidant place attachment style. the behavioral patterns of the avoidant individual will therefore include poor involvement in activities and a desire for distancing (martin et al., 2010). this suggests that despite good political skills, a high level of workplace avoidant attachment may reduce the relationship between political skills and ocbs. h4: avoidant workplace attachment negatively moderates the relationship between political skills and ocb. method sample and procedure the sample size for this study was determined using a-priori statistical power analysis (faul et al., 2007) via g-power 3.1 software. conservatively assuming a medium effect size f 2 of .15, with power of .95, alpha of .05, and seven predictors, we calculated a minimum sample size of n = 153. the research was carried out with the participation of 185 people working in various organizations in the île-de-france region. potential participants were recruited by direct contact on professional websites. to participate in our study, they had to be office workers, to have worked full-time for at least a year in the same organization and to have a permanent contract. this inclusion criterion ensured that the participants had been employed in the same workplace for at least one year, thereby ensuring that they had developed attachment to the workplace (scrima, 2020). out of a total of 200 potential participants, 185 completed the questionnaire sent by e-mail (i.e., a response rate of 93%). the study was conducted in line with the american psychological association's ethical principles and code of conduct for research with human participants (apa, 2017). participants were informed about the purpose of the study (i.e., to investigate the relationship between personal characteristics, perception of the workplace and ocbs). no compensation was provided and total anonymity was guaranteed. the questionnaire was divided into three sections: the first contained information about the study’s objectives (i.e., the impact of the workplace on organizational behavior), information about anonymity and a consent form for signature. the second part comprised the scales used in this study. the third part consisted of a series of socio-demographic questions. the sample comprised 65% women and 35% men aged between 21 and 58 years (m = 35.07, sd = 9.34); 59.5% were office workers, 34.6% were middle managers, and the remaining 5.9% senior managers, with length of service between 1 and 30 years (m = 5.43, sd = 4.94). measures the socio-demographic section had questions on sex, age, professional level (1 = office employee, 2 = executive employee, 3 = manager), and length of service in years. political skills were measured through the french version (dagot et al., 2014) of the political skills inventory (psi—ferris et al., 2005). this scale has 18 items investigating four dimensions of political skills: social intuition, apparent sincerity, interpersonal influence and networking ability (e.g., “i am able to make most people feel comfortable and at ease around me”). it is possible to calculate a score for each dimension and a global score. participants respond on a 7-point likert scale (from 1 = totally disagree, to 7 = totally agree). in the present study, we obtained a satisfactory internal consistency index for the overall scale (alpha = .89). workplace attachment style was measured using the workplace attachment style questionnaire (wasq—scrima, 2020) (see appendix). unlike the dimensional tools more commonly used to measure adult attachment style (fraley et al., 2000), the wasq measures three separate dimensions of workplace attachment: five items for a secure style (e.g., “my workplace is like me”), five items for an avoidant style (e.g., “in my organization, i prefer to avoid certain workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs 162 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ places, even if that interferes with my work”), and five items for a preoccupied style (e.g., “just thinking about my workplace makes me feel anxious”). participants responded on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). cronbach’s alpha indices for the three dimensions were .84, .71 and .86 respectively. organizational citizenship behaviors were measured using the french version (paillé, 2009) of podsakoff et al.’s (1990) scale, which has 13 items measuring the following dimensions: helping behavior, altruism, civic virtue, and sportsmanship (e.g., “acts as a peacemaker when others in the company have disagreements”). items are rated on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). in the present study, internal consistency was α = .67. results preliminary analysis before testing the hypotheses, given the cross-sectional nature of the study design, we checked whether the data were influenced by common-method bias (mackenzie & podsakoff, 2012) by comparing three alternative models. the first was a correlated three-factor model (ocb, political skills, and workplace attachment style) in which each item loaded on its latent factor. the second was composed of the set of items on the ocb scales and political skills inventory that loaded on the same latent factor, and the items of the workplace attachment style questionnaire that loaded on another latent factor. the third was a unifactorial model in which all the items of the three scales loaded on a single latent factor. the analyses were conducted with amos 20, using the maximum likelihood estimation method. the following fit indices were calculated to test the fit of the models: carmines-mciver index, the ratio between χ2 and degrees of freedom, which must be between 2 and 3 to indicate a good fit of the model (mciver & carmines, 1981); the comparative fit index (cfi) and non-normed fit index (nnfi), with indices above .90 considered satisfactory (hoyle, 1995); the standardized root mean square residual (srmr), with a value lower than .09 indicating satisfactory fit of the model to the data (hu & bentler, 1998). the models were compared using δχ2. table 1 shows the results of the analyses. the only model that shows all the satisfactory fit indices is the one with three related latent factors, and the delta χ2 test indicates that this is the best model. this result suggests that our data are not subject to common-method bias. table 1 measurement model model χ2 df p χ2/df cfi nnfi srmr δχ2 δdf p m1 one-factor 197 39 <.001 5.05 .73 .62 .11 m2 correlated 2-factor 85 36 <.001 2.40 .91 .87 .09 112 3 <.001 m3 correlated 3-factor 67 33 <.001 2.05 .94 .90 .08 18 3 <.001 descriptive statistics table 2 shows means, sds and the bivariate correlations of the variables under study. in line with the literature, political skills were positively correlated with secure workplace attachment (r = .40, p < .01), and with ocb (r = .48, p < .01). secure workplace attachment was positively correlated with ocb (r = .24, p < .01), whereas avoidant attachment was negatively correlated with ocb (r = -.16, p < .01). finally, preoccupied workplace attachment was negatively correlated with ocb (r = -.41, p < .01). hypothesis testing to test the hypotheses, we analyzed three moderation models (one for each attachment style) using the process macro for spss (hayes, 2013). the contribution of moderation effects was tested using the f test on rchange, and we used simple slope analysis to interpret these effects. several studies (boswell et al., 2009; moynihan & pandey, 2007; ng & feldman, 2010) have shown the impact of organizational tenure on ocbs. for example, moynihan and pandey (2007) found that newly hired employees tend to immediately activate ocbs. however, these behaviors tend to decrease over time (boswell et al., 2009; ng & feldman, 2010). indeed, kim (2018) demonstrated a negative relationship between bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 163 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ organizational tenure and ocb. for these reasons, in our models we included organizational tenure as a covariate with the aim of neutralizing its effect. our first model tested the relationship between political skills and ocbs (h1) and the moderation effect of secure workplace attachment (h2). table 3 shows the results of moderation analysis. concerning our first hypothesis, political skills were positively associated with ocbs (b = .46, p < .001, 95% ci [.32, .61]). table 3 moderation analysis of secure workplace attachment on the relation between political skills and ocb variable b se 95% ci constant -.08 .07 [-.21, .06] political skills (ps) .46*** .07 [.32, .61] secure workplace attachment (swa) .03 .07 [-.11, .17] ps x swa .20** .07 [.05, .35] covariates age .14 .08 [-.01, .29] gender .06 .07 [-.08, .19] professional level .08 .07 [-.05, .21] organizational tenure .00 .08 [-.16, .16] r 2 .29 f 10.54** note. n = 185. ci = bootstrapping confidence interval. r 2 change = .03. fchange = 7.23. p < .01. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. our second hypothesis that secure workplace attachment would moderate the relationship between political skills and ocbs was confirmed (b = .20, p < .01, 95% ci [.05, .35]). table 4 shows the conditional effects of the focal predictor at three moderator levels (-1sd, mean, 1sd). secure workplace attachment moderates the relationship between political skills and ocbs at all three levels. as shown in figure 2, the interaction between secure attachment style and political skills significantly increased ocb levels. our second model tested the moderating effect of avoidant workplace attachment on the relationship between political skills and ocbs (h3). our third hypothesis is not confirmed. table 5 shows a significant effect of political skills, b = .53, p < .001, 95% ci [.40, .66] and avoidant workplace attachment, b = -.24, p < .001, 95% ci [-.37, -.10] on ocbs, but the interaction effect was not significant, b = .00, p = n.s., 95% ci [-.15, .15]. table 2 means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations (alpha on the diagonal) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 gender (1 = f, 2 = m) 1 2 age 35.07 9.34 -.05 1 3 professional level -.03 .12 1 4 organizational tenure 5.46 4.94 -.15* .54** .09 1 5 political skills 5.35 0.91 -.03 -.07 .08 -.23** (.89) 6 secure workplace attachment 4.41 1.42 .15* -.04 -.11 -.08 .40** (.84) 7 avoidant workplace attachment 3.47 1.33 .05 -.01 -.27** .01 .11 -.06 (.71) 8 preoccupied workplace attachment 2.59 1.42 .00 -.03 -.26** .09 -.14 -.18* .57** (.86) 9 organizational citizenship behaviors 5.04 0.79 .00 .12 .09 -.05 .48** .24** -.16* -.41** (.67) note. n = 185. *p < .05. **p < .01. workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs 164 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our final hypothesis that preoccupied workplace attachment would moderate the relationship between political skills and ocbs was confirmed. table 6 shows a significant effect of political skills (b = .45, p < .001, 95% ci [.33, .57]) and preoccupied workplace attachment (b = -.38, p < .001, 95% ci [-.49, -.26]) on ocbs. the interaction variable is also significant (b = -.18, p < .01, 95% ci [-.30, -.06]). the conditional effect of the focal predictor (table 7) indicates that the moderation effect of preoccupied workplace attachment is significant at all three moderator levels, and simple slope analysis (figure 3) shows that the interaction between low levels of preoccupied workplace attachment style and high level of political skills significantly increased the level of ocbs. discussion this study is part of a research field investigating how the way individuals relate to a specific environment impacts their behavior; for example, pro-environmental behavior (song & soopramanien, 2019), behavioral loyalty (plunkett et al., 2019), and coping behavior (ariccio et al., 2020). in this study, we tested whether workplace attachment style moderates the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behavior. in sum, political skills have an impact on organizational citizenship behaviors (ocb), and workplace attachment style moderates the relationship between political skills and ocb. more specifically, our first hypothesis that political skills are positively associated with ocbs was validated. politically skilled individuals develop a sense of control over both others and their working environment (ferris et al., 2007). this result is in line with the findings of munyon and colleagues (2015) in a meta-analysis of 17 studies involving more than 3,500 participants. it confirms the role of political skills in the implementation of organizational citizenship behaviors (perrewé et al., 2000), highlighting in particular their importance in people-oriented behaviors. our second hypothesis that a secure attachment style to the workplace moderates the relationship between political skills and ocb was also confirmed. according to bakker et al. (2005), the physical aspects of the workplace can table 4 conditional effect of focal predictor swa effect se t p ll 95% ci ul 95% ci -1 sd .26 .10 2.52 <.05 .06 .47 0 .46 .07 6.37 <.001 .32 .61 + 1 sd .66 .10 6.41 <.001 .46 .87 note. ci = confidence interval. ll = lower limit, ul = upper limit. figure 2 simple slope analysis of the moderation effect of secure workplace attachment on the relation between political skills and ocb bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 165 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ be considered as job resources that stimulate personal growth. employees develop a secure attachment style when the workplace is able to meet their needs. this job resource can therefore interact with political skills, seen as a personal resource that activates ocb. while secure attachment to the workplace does not in itself impact ocb, its interaction with political skills increases prosocial behavior at work. the third hypothesis postulated that avoidant workplace attachment would moderate the relationship between political skills and ocb. this hypothesis was not confirmed. however, we can see that an avoidant attachment style is characterized by a positive view of self and a negative view of place (scannell, 2013; scrima et al. 2017). avoidant employees therefore think they are completely autonomous and that the place does not deserve them. this will make them less inclined to help a colleague. the ability to create social relations at work does not interact with this dimension of attachment. regarding our fourth hypothesis that preoccupied workplace attachment would moderate the relationship between political skills and ocbs, our results reveal that individuals with a preoccupied attachment style and high levels of anxiety, even if they report strong political skills, table 5 moderation analysis of avoidant workplace attachment on the relation between political skills and ocb variable b se 95% ci constant .00 .06 [-.12, .13] political skills (ps) .53*** .07 [.40, .66] avoidant workplace attachment (awa) -.24*** .07 [-.37, -.10] ps x awa .00 .07 [-.15, .15] covariates age .15* .07 [.00, .30] gender .03 .06 [-.09, .15] professional level -.04 .07 [-.17, .09] organizational tenure .00 .08 [-.15, .16] r 2 .31 f 11.43*** note. n = 185. ci = bootstrapping confidence interval. r 2 change = .00, fchange = .00, p = n.s. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 6 moderation analysis of preoccupied workplace attachment on the relation between political skills and ocb variable b se 95% ci constant -.01 .06 [-.13, .10] political skills (ps) .45*** .06 [.33, .57] preoccupied workplace attachment (pwa) -.38*** .06 [-.49, -.26] ps x pwa -.18** .06 [.30, -.06] covariates age .14* .07 [.00, .28] gender .03 .06 [-.08, .14] professional level -.06 .06 [-.18, .06] organizational tenure .02 .07 [-.12, .17 r 2 .41 f 17.69*** note. n = 185. ci = bootstrapping confidence interval. r 2 change = .03. fchange = 8.83. p < .01. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs 166 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ do not show ocb. here, the fear of rejection (scrima, 2015) transcends the ability to understand relationships at work. it should be noted that the scores on this dimension are particularly low compared to the other two sub-constructs of place attachment. finally, it is noteworthy that we found a negative and significant correlation between organizational tenure and political skills in our sample. however, this relationship disappeared in our tested models, demonstrating a spurious relationship between organizational tenure and political skills. this result is in line with those of crawford et al. (2019) and blickle et al. (2020) who found negative and non-significant relationships between these variables. theoretical and practical implications our results open up new perspectives and avenues for future research. from a theoretical standpoint, they show how the impact of political skills (here on ocbs) cannot be understood without dissociating them from the physical characteristics of the workplace in which relationships are formed, and especially from the individuals’ relationship with the workplace. many authors have advanced the hypothesis that any organization is a political arena (crozier & friedberg, 1977; mintzberg, 1985). it is thus also important to understand the nature of the individuals’ relationship with this “political arena”. the workplace is seen here as a cognitive framework for relationships between individuals. studies on workplace attachment style have shed light on the dynamics of multiple organizational behaviors (ferris et al., 2007) that enable individuals to cope with stress (burnout, professional exhaustion). within the theoretical framework of the jd-r model, our results indicate that workplace attachment styles may be the result of the ability of the physical characteristics of the workplace to meet employees’ needs. they also provide a further demonstration that the interaction between personal characteristics and work resources can impact the behavior of workers. this study also has practical implications. by providing a clearer understanding of the interplay between political skills and different forms of attachment to the workplace, it highlights the importance for organizations to identify and develop the political skills of their employees through training programs and tutoring (ferris et al., 2008). at the same time, managers should table 7 conditional effect of focal predictor pwa effect se t p ll 95% ci ul 95% ci -1 sd .63 .08 7.57 <.001 .47 .80 0 .45 .06 7.45 <.001 .33 .57 +1 sd .28 .09 3.00 <.01 .00 .44 note. ci = confidence interval. ll = lower limit, ul = upper limit. figure 3 simple slope analysis of the moderation effect of preoccupied workplace attachment on the relation between political skills and ocb bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 167 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ take a holistic and systemic approach to their employees’ workplace attachment style. furthermore, human resource management should consider the impact of the physical characteristics of the workplace on the behavior of individuals; good human resource management also involves ensuring that the workplace is able to meet the needs of employees. the strength and type of attachment to the workplace could provide useful information for human resource (hr) managers (scrima et al., 2017), in order to set up programs to enable employees to develop more secure workplace attachment styles. this could be achieved through small group activities to raise employees’ awareness of their internal working models (iwm). limitations this research has several limitations. first, the sample size. the study was carried out with a single and relatively small sample (185 employees). it therefore seems essential to replicate it to confirm or qualify the results. furthermore, it only involved organizations operating in france, and the possible impact of national employment policies on behaviors and attitudes towards work, in particular on ocbs, cannot be overlooked. it would also have been preferable to control further the type of workplace; while the participants had to be employed, have worked full-time for at least a year in the same organization and have a permanent contract, it is possible that they had more than one workplace with different characteristics. another limitation concerns the cross-sectional design of the study, preventing the attribution of a cause and effect relationship between variables. the study was based on self-report questionnaires, which carries the risk of common-method bias (mackenzie & podsakoff, 2012). although we took measures to reduce the impact of this bias on the data, the results should be interpreted with caution. another limitation concerns the use of a global measure of political skills and ocbs. studies (ferris et al., 2005) have identified four dimensions of political skills: social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability, and apparent sincerity. for ocbs, the literature describes five dimensions divided into two categories: behavior directed towards the individual (ocb-i), and behavior directed towards the organization (ocb-o) (williams & anderson, 1991). ocb-i includes altruism, courtesy, peacekeeping, and cheerleading, while ocb-o includes conscientiousness, civic virtue, and sportsmanship. the exploratory nature of our research did not allow us to develop more precise hypotheses of interactions between the sub-dimensions of political skills, the different workplace attachment styles and the different dimensions and categories of ocb. finally, in this study, as suggested by scrima (2020), the three attachment styles were used as separate dimensions. however, to align with the more recent literature on the dimensional measure of adult attachment style (fraley et al., 2000), future research will be oriented to demonstrate whether the two dimensions of the wasq, measuring the two styles of insecure attachment (preoccupied and avoidant) are able to combine to identify the four classic types of attachment (secure, worried, avoidant and disorganized). conclusion the aim of this research was to examine the moderating role of workplace attachment style on the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors. its results are consistent with the literature (ferris et al., 2007; scrima et al., 2017) while enriching and opening up new avenues for research. as the use of political skills and the adoption of ocbs depend on the extent to which the organization promotes this type of behavior, it would be interesting to analyze in more detail the moderating role of attachment styles in the workplace by varying the types of work environments and / or types of management. from a practical point of view, the results suggest that the quality of attachment to the workplace should be taken into account in order to develop the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors and thus stimulate the behaviors that are important for the organization. although these results need to be compared with those of other studies, we believe that they can be used by managers to improve the capacity of the work environment to meet the needs of their employees and hence their relationship with their work environment by promoting ocb. workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs 168 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: this research received no external funding. acknowledgments: we thank the participants, without whom this study would never have been possible. competing interests: the authors declare no conflict of interest. ethics statement: informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study. references ainsworth, m. d. s., blehar, m. c., waters, e., & wall, s. n. 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https://doi.org/10.3917/riges.302.0037 https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639101700305 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix workplace attachment style questionnaire the following 15 sentences describe the mood that you might experience in your workplace. please think about your workplace, its rooms and corridors, the color of its walls, its sounds, noises and smells and the people with whom you usually share these places. for each statement, place a cross on the scale to indicate your degree of agreement. avoidant workplace attachment 01_in my organization, i prefer to avoid certain places, even if that interferes with my work. 02_nothing would make me stay at my workplace longer than necessary. 03_i dread going back to my workplace after a holiday. 04_i prefer not to go to certain places in my organization. 05_i tend to put off going to my workplace. secure workplace attachment 06_i’m attached to my workplace. 07_i would find it very difficult to leave my workplace for good. 08_my workplace is like me. 09_i enjoy the time that i spend in my workplace. 10_i wouldn’t enjoy working in another place as much. preoccupied workplace attachment 11_i often feel anxious in my workplace. 12_just thinking about my workplace makes me feel anxious. 13_i find it difficult to feel at ease at my workplace. 14_some places in my organization bring back bad memories. 15_i sometimes feel oppressed by my workplace. response type: 7-point likert scale from “totally disagree” to “totally agree” about the authors jean-frantz bruny is a phd student in work and organizational psychology at the university of rouen normandy (france). his research interests are multidisciplinary, such as organizational citizenship behaviors, leader member exchange, organizational commitment and workplace attachment. boris vallée is an associate professor in social psychology at the university of rouen normandy (france). the majority of his research is carried out from an applied perspective and concerns the question of behavioral change and the processes of social transformation in educational et professional settings. fabio bernardi is a psychologist, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist and hr manager of an important italian company. his research interests are work engagement, affective commitment, mobbing and workplace bullying. liliane rioux is a full professor in work, organizational and social psychology at the university of paris nanterre (france). her research interests are work-place environmental psychology. her current research addresses comfort at work, space appropriation and place attachment in relation to satisfaction with the environment. fabrizio scrima is a full professor in work, organizational and social psychology at the university of rouen normandy (france). his research interests are: place attachment, workplace attachment style, organizational commitment, work engagement and workplace comfort. bruny, vallée, bernardi et al. 173 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 158–173 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6559 https://www.psychopen.eu/ workplace attachment, political skills and ocbs (introduction) theoretical framework organizational citizenship behaviors (ocb) the relationship between political skills and organizational citizenship behaviors (ocbs) the moderating role of workplace attachment style method sample and procedure measures results descriptive statistics hypothesis testing discussion theoretical and practical implications limitations conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references appendix about the authors self-esteem and adolescent bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours: a person-oriented approach research reports self-esteem and adolescent bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/ cybervictimization behaviours: a person-oriented approach anna l. palermiti 1, maria g. bartolo 1, pasquale musso 2, rocco servidio 1, angela costabile 1 [1] department of cultures, education and society, university of calabria, rende, italy. [2] department of educational sciences, psychology, communication, university of studies of bari “aldo moro”, bari, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 received: 2020-12-05 • accepted: 2021-03-30 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: rhian worth, bangor university, bangor, united kingdom corresponding author: anna l. palermiti, department of cultures, education and society, university of calabria, via pietro bucci, cubo 18b – 4 piano, 87036 arcavacata di rende, cosenza, italy. phone: +39 0984 494441. e-mail: annalisa.palermiti@unical.it abstract although previous studies seemed to recognize negative associations between self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours, the findings are controversial. the current study tried to shed light on this issue by using a person-oriented approach among italian adolescents. participants included 936 students aged 13-16 years. different domains of self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour during the previous 2-3 months were assessed through a self-administered questionnaire. the results suggested four self-esteem profiles, i.e., school/family-oriented, consistently high, self-derogation, and body/peer-oriented. students in the consistently high self-esteem profile seemed to be more protected against bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the self-derogation profile. the findings showed that among adolescents there is a degree of heterogeneity in the self-esteem domain associated with different levels of bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour. this suggests that different domains of selfesteem and their interdependencies play a crucial role during adolescence, with consequences also in terms of diverse patterns of active and passive aggressive behaviour. keywords self-esteem, bullying, cyberbullying, victimization, cybervictimization, adolescents, person-oriented approach bullying and cyberbullying are two social phenomena that involve many children and youth. both refer to repeatedly intentional, systematic, and aggressive behaviours manifested by an individual or a group of peers against a victim in a context of power imbalance (smith, 2014). however, bullying concerns a vis-a-vis relationship, while cyberbullying pertains to the use of digital devices. bullying occurs in two different forms: direct (e.g., physical attacks or verbal offences) and/or indirect (e.g., social exclusion or the spreading of malicious rumours). it revolves around persons who play a specific role in a group, such as bully, victim, reinforcer of the bully, assistant of the bully, defender of the victim, and outsider (salmivalli, lagerspetz, björkqvist, österman, & kaukiainen, 1996). cyberbullying maintains some of the main characteristics of traditional bullying such as the intentionality and the imbalance of power, but it occurs in cyberspace or digital environments (e.g., social networks, chats, blogs), thus swiftly reaching a far wider audience. like bullying, cyberbullying can manifest itself in different forms such as online harassment, denigration, happy slapping, trickery, and impersonation, and it is characterized by anonymity, stimulating more disinhibited behaviours and concealing cyberbullies’ identity from their victims (kokkinos & antoniadou, 2019; lei et al., 2020). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5379&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ most researchers use the terms bullying and cyberbullying to denote both the active and passive sides of this aggressive/violent behaviour, but some prefer to adopt a clearer distinction by using bullying/cyberbullying to identify the active side of the phenomenon and victimization/cybervictimization to identify the passive one (e.g., chen & wei, 2011; rodríguez-enríquez, bennasar-veny, leiva, garaigordobil, & yañez, 2019). this conceptual distinction is also adopted in the present study. a growing number of studies on aggressive behaviours have investigated risk and protective factors related to bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization and have identified self-esteem as one of the most central of these factors (see, for example, beltrán-catalán, zych, ortega-ruiz, & llorent, 2018; palermiti, servidio, bartolo, & costabile, 2017; tsaousis, 2016). self-esteem is the product of a lifelong developmental process (see mroczek & little, 2014). it determines the overall assessment of a person’s value and can be considered an essential component of well-being. from this perspective, self-esteem may acquire a fundamental motivational function that can either activate or inhibit certain aspects of a person’s developmental trajectories (harter & whitesell, 2003), with high levels of self-esteem operating as protective factors and low levels increasing vulnerability to peer aggression and mental health problems (ybrandt & armelius, 2010). however, the nature of the relation between self-esteem, on the one hand, and bullying/cyberbullying and victimiza­ tion/cybervictimization, on the other, is still controversial (lei et al., 2020, for a meta-analysis). in most cases, findings have highlighted a negative relation between self-esteem and victimization experiences, with high levels of self-esteem serving as protective factors (for the latest meta-analysis, see tsaousis, 2016). other studies have shown that both victims (kowalski & limber, 2013) and bullies (e.g., jankauskiene, kardelis, sukys, & kardeliene, 2008) have low levels of self-esteem. other studies still have found bullies to have high levels of self-esteem (e.g., salmivalli, kaukiainen, kaistaniemi, & lagerspetz, 1999) or have found no association between self-esteem and bullying (olweus, 1993; pearce &thompson, 1998). research focusing on cyberbullying and cybervictimization has yielded similar controversial results (cénat et al., 2014; kowalski & limber, 2013; palermiti et al., 2017; patchin & hinduja, 2010). different explanations have been adduced to account for these results. two of the main explanatory hypotheses are the low self-esteem hypothesis (donnellan, trzesniewski, robins, moffitt, & caspi, 2005), suggesting that aggressive behaviours are an expression of youths’ low self-esteem, and the disputed self-esteem hypothesis (baumeister, bushman, & campbell, 2000), arguing that children and youths adopt bullying behaviour because others threaten their self-esteem. however, these hypotheses do not account for the controversial nature of the results provided by the literature. an alternative explanation is related to the approach that most studies have used to date. most researchers have investigated the relation between self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization by using a variable-oriented approach with the self-esteem variable as the basic conceptual and analytic unit. as a consequence, they have considered the properties of the samples to be internally homogeneous. in practice, the variable-oriented approach, which analyses associations between variables based on aggregate data and average series across individuals, can misrepresent both the heterogeneity of the groups and individual patterns of development (von eye & bergman, 2003; von eye & bogat, 2006) and it is likely that it does not adequately reflect reality (morin, bujacz, & gagné, 2018). thus, the variable-centred approach can provide important information on the average differences between people, but it is often inaccurate and ignores variations in individuals’ experiences (moses & williford, 2017). on the other hand, a person-oriented approach (bergman & trost, 2006) has the advantage of allowing individuals to be classified into meaningful distinct groups based on their response patterns, whereby individuals within a group will be more similar than individuals across different groups (moreira, inman, cloninger, & cloninger, 2021). this makes it possible to address the multifaceted, varied nature of individual experiences. despite these advantages, few studies so far have used a person-oriented approach to investigate how bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours are related to different self-esteem profile groups. as mentioned, this perspective may explain the current controversial findings in the field and require more investigation. one reason for the underuse of the person-oriented approach may be the extensive use of global measures of self-es­ teem according to an exclusive low ↔ high unidimensional model. however, the literature shows how it is possible to conceptualize self-esteem not as a global concept but as a multidimensional construct including different domains. dubois, felner, brand and george (1999) stated that self-evaluations find correspondence with the major settings or contexts of life, such as family, school, peer relations, physical appearance, and sports/athletics. this conceptualization self-esteem and adolescent bullying 250 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was also supported by other studies (e.g., brighi, guarini, melotti, galli, & genta, 2012; harter, 2012) that similarly considered different domains of self-esteem, such as the educational, socio-relational, physical, and athletic. all these domains are particularly important during adolescent development. indeed, adolescence is one of the most sensitive periods of life in terms of self-esteem processes, owing to the rapid physical, psychological, and social changes that are normally involved in this developmental phase. new relationships with family, school, and peers, and new issues related to peer acceptance and physical appearance make adolescents more susceptible to experiences and views that can largely influence their self-image (see twenge & campbell, 2001) and, consequently, their personal and social assets (e.g., skills and competencies). in view of this, since bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization phenomena may originate from diverse ecological conditions in different contexts (bartolo, palermiti, servidio, musso, & costabile, 2019), it may be critical to investigate how different domains of self-esteem (e.g., family, school, peer relations) can be specifically linked with diverse forms of active and passive aggressive behaviour. starting from such premises, this study utilized a person-oriented approach to examine how bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization levels differed across different self-esteem profiles. to obtain such profiles we analysed similarities and differences among adolescent students with respect to the connections between self-esteem domain-related variables (dubois et al, 1999). this enabled us, for example, to assign certain individuals a positive self-image in one domain but a negative self-image in another, without necessarily damaging their overall self-esteem level (von soest, wichstrøm, & kvalem, 2016; wichstrøm, & von soest, 2016), thereby improving our understanding of adolescent aggressive behaviour development. method as already mentioned, the present study aimed to examine how self-esteem is associated with bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours in italian adolescent students. to better account for the heterogeneity of individual developments, we adopted a person-oriented perspective (bergman & trost, 2006; moreira et al., 2021) that focused on the identification of self-esteem profiles based on scores obtained by using a multi-domain (peer relations, school, family, physical appearance, sports/athletics) self-esteem measure (dubois et al., 1999). then, we assessed how self-esteem profiles were associated with bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. we were generally guided by the hypothesis that self-esteem profiles characterized by high levels of self-esteem in diverse domains may mitigate involvement in bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. in exploring this hypothesis, gender and age were taken into account. these demographic variables have been shown to be differently associated with both bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. in terms of gender differences, several studies have shown that males are usually more involved in bullying than females, especially when considering physical forms of bullying as opposed to the relational or verbal ones (besag, 2006; crick & grotpeter, 1995). no major differences have been found with reference to victimization. regarding cyberbullying/cyber­ victimization, studies have shown controversial findings: some studies have reported no differences (hinduja & patchin, 2007; williams & guerra, 2007), while others have found that males are more involved as cyberbullies (li, 2006) and females as cybervictims (guo, 2016; calvete, orue, estévez, villardón, & padilla, 2010). in terms of age differences, a recent study (tsaousis, 2016) reported that bullying tends to increase during childhood and early adolescence and to decline slightly only during the late adolescent years, while victimization decreases in the passage from childhood to adolescence. cyberbullying and cybervictimization seem to follow different developmental patterns, with an increase over the years of secondary school (smith & slonje, 2010), probably due to easier access to digital communication tools and the internet among older students. participants participants included 980 ninthand tenth-grade students recruited from 5 state high schools in southern italy. only a small and acceptable proportion of them (n = 44; 4.5%) had missing information pertaining to one or more of the study variables. these participants were excluded from the analyses. our final sample thus consisted of 936 adolescents (males = 48.6% and females = 51.4%) aged 13 to 16 years (m = 14.49, sd = 0.50). the majority of participants were italian (93.0%), palermiti, bartolo, musso et al. 251 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ had cohabiting parents (87.8%), and came from middle-class backgrounds (76.4%) – less than 2% of the adolescents’ parents had an elementary school education and less than 22% had a university or postgraduate education. procedure the whole procedure was performed in accordance with the italian psychological association’s ethical principles (http://www.aipass.org/node/11560). participants’ parents were informed – via a letter from the principal of each school – about the purpose of the research, the voluntary nature of participation, and the anonymity of the responses. parents provided written informed consent to their son’s or daughter’s participation. furthermore, adolescent participants were required to submit a signed assent form in order to take part in the study. participants had about 30 mins to complete an anonymous online survey during class time and could withdraw at any time. measures socio-demographics participants were asked to indicate their gender, age, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (ses), as well as their parents’ marital status and education. self-esteem questionnaire the 31-item self-report italian version of the self-esteem questionnaire (seq; dubois et al., 1999; melotti & passini, 2002) was used to assess different domains of self-esteem: peer relations (seven items; e.g., “i am as good as i want to be at making new friends”), school (seven items; e.g., “i feel ok about how good of a student i am”), family (eight items; e.g., “i get along with my family as well as i would like to”), physical appearance (four items; e.g., “i like my body just the way it is”), sports/athletics (five items; e.g., “i am as good at sports/physical activities as i want to be”). items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 4 (totally agree). for each subscale, a mean score was computed. cronbach’s alpha values for peer relations (α = .88), school (α = .87), family (α = .77), physical appearance (α = .87), and sports/athletics (α = .87) were consistent with prior research. florence bullying/victimization scales the florence bullying and victimization scales (fbvss; palladino, nocentini & menesini, 2016) were used to assess traditional bullying and victimization behaviours during the previous 2–3 months. each scale contains 10 items (e.g., “i called someone names” for bullying and “i have been called names” for victimization). both scales consist of three subscales: physical behaviours, verbal behaviours, and indirect-relational behaviours. previous research supported the use of the fbvss as second order measures to obtain global scores for bullying and victimization. items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (several times a week). for each scale, a mean score was computed. cronbach’s alpha values for physical (α = .82), verbal (α = .77), indirect-relational (α = .68), and global bullying (α = .85) scores as well as physical (α = .62), verbal (α = .69), indirect-relational (α = .65) and global victimization (α = .78) scores were consistent with prior research. florence cyberbullying/cybervictimization scales the florence cyberbullying/cybervictimization scales (fcbvss; palladino et al., 2016) were used to assess cyberbully­ ing and cybervictimization behaviours during the previous 2–3 months. each scale contains 14 items (e.g., “i have stolen personal data, such as images and photos, in order to reuse them” for cyberbullying and “personal data, such as images and photos, have been stolen from me in order to reuse them” for cybervictimization). both scales consist of four subscales: written-verbal, visual, impersonation, and exclusion. previous research also supported the use of the fcbvss as second order measures to obtain global scores for cyberbullying and cybervictimization. items were scored on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (several times a week). for each scale, a mean score was computed. cronbach’s alpha values for written-verbal (α = .88), visual (α = .86), impersonation (α = .91), exclusion (α = .83), self-esteem and adolescent bullying 252 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 http://www.aipass.org/node/11560 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and global cyberbullying (α = .95) scores as well as written-verbal (α = .79), visual (α = .72), impersonation (α = .80), exclusion (α = .75), and global cybervictimization (α = .90) scores were consistent with prior research. data analysis we followed three main steps to carry out the data analysis. first, we computed descriptive statistics for the key study variables including means and standard deviations, skewness and kurtosis indices, the minimum and maximum values of standardized scores, and pearson’s bivariate correlations. this allowed verification of the univariate normality of the distributions. whenever required, non-normally distributed variables were transformed to improve normality and extreme outliers. furthermore, the mahalanobis distance and mardia’s multivariate kurtosis coefficient were used to test multivariate normality and identify other potential multivariate outliers. then, the final descriptive statistics for the study variables were computed. second, to identify self-esteem profiles of adolescent students, we conducted a cluster analysis based on the standar­ dized scores of seq subscales (peer relations, school, family, physical appearance, and sports/athletics). specifically, at an initial step, we carried out agglomerative hierarchical cluster analyses, using ward’s method based on the squared euclidean distance (aldenderfer & blashfield, 1984) and examining solutions from two to six clusters, to determine the most appropriate number of clusters. the criteria used to choose this number included the theoretical meaningfulness of each cluster, parsimony, and explanatory power. with regard to explanatory power, the cluster solution had to explain at least 26% of the variance in each of the seq dimensions (see cohen, 1988). then, the study participants were grouped by k-means cluster analysis procedures and the standardized mean values of the seq grouping variables describing the characteristics of each identified cluster were calculated. to check the validity and stability of the solution, a multivariate analysis of variance (manova) on the five seq dimensions (the dependent variables) by the cluster groups (the independent variable) was performed and the replicability of the solution was tested. as indicated by breckenridge (2000), data were randomly divided into two subsets (a and b) and cluster analyses were newly conducted for each of them. then, subset b was classified into clusters according to the cluster centres derived from subset a and the agreement between the two subset b solutions was computed using cohen’s kappa, with higher agreement indicative of a more stable cluster solution. third, to compare the bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization variables in relation to the selfesteem profile groups, we carried out a manova with self-esteem profiles, gender, and age (dummy coded: 0 = 13–14 years; 1 = 15–16 years) as independent variables and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours as dependent variables. results descriptive statistics we initially computed descriptive statistics. as is commonly the case in the investigated field of study (palladino et al., 2016), bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization variables were strongly non-normal (see tabachnick & fidell, 2013), with skewness values ranging from 3.49 to 8.99, kurtosis values ranging from 19.98 to 98.53, and the maximum values of standardized scores ranging from 9.46 to 14.26. for these reasons, a transformation was applied for all these variables using the two-step approach to transform the non-normally distributed variables suggested by templeton (2011), as the best choice. after re-calculating descriptive statistics for the transformed variables, the new distributions showed acceptable values (see table 1). furthermore, the multivariate inspection of the data revealed twenty-six (2.8%) potential multivariate outliers. however, after performing analyses with or without these cases, we found no substantial effect on the pattern of results. thus, we retained these cases in the final sample. palermiti, bartolo, musso et al. 253 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cluster analysis identification of the optimal number of clusters based on the initial agglomerative hierarchical cluster analyses and the a priori criteria, a four-cluster solution was found to be the most acceptable. on the one hand, the solution with two or three clusters explained less than 26% of the variability in at least one of the seq specific dimensions. on the other hand, solutions with five or six clusters violated the principle of parsimony, because they included clusters that represented slight variations compared to the four most interpretable clusters and did not have a clear theoretical meaning. k-means cluster analysis and description of self-esteem profiles after establishing the most appropriate number of clusters, the participants were clustered into four groups by k-means cluster analysis. figure 1 shows the self-esteem profiles obtained. the first cluster (n = 223, 23.83% of the sample) was composed of students who scored moderately high on the self-esteem domains of school and family, moderately low on the self-esteem domain of peer relations, and low on the self-esteem domains of physical appearance and sports/athletics. the second cluster (n = 199, 21.26% of the sample) consisted of students scoring high on all self-esteem domains of peer relations, school, family, physical appearance, and sports/athletics. the third cluster (n = 217, 23.18% of the sample) comprised primarily students with low scores on all five self-esteem domains. the fourth cluster (n = 297, 31.73% of the sample) consisted of students scoring moderately high on the self-esteem domains of physical appearance, sports/athletics, and peer relations, and moderately low on the self-esteem domain of family and school. thus, we found, in sequence, clusters representing school/family-oriented, consistently high, self-derogation, and body/peer-oriented self-esteem profiles (dubois et al., 1999). table 1 means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, minimum/maximum values variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 self-esteem (domains) 1. peer relations — .28*** .41*** .41*** .47*** .00 -.33*** -.01 -.16*** 2. school — .37*** .24*** .21*** -.14*** -.13*** -.13*** -.14*** 3. family — .37*** .32*** -.19*** -.26*** -.19*** -.30*** 4. physical appearance — .53*** -.01 -.21*** -.07* -.17*** 5. sports/athletics — -.01 -.19*** -.02 -.10** 6. bullying — .41*** .50*** .33*** 7. victimization — .23*** .47*** 8. cyberbullying — .48*** 9. cybervictimization — transformation no no no no no yes yes yes yes m 3.00 2.68 3.33 2.74 2.77 1.24 1.24 1.10 1.12 sd 0.50 0.63 0.54 0.79 0.67 0.35 0.32 0.22 0.22 skewness -0.03 -0.02 -0.20 -0.03 -0.06 0.73 0.68 1.80 1.18 kurtosis -0.19 -0.21 -0.42 -0.56 -0.30 -0.24 -0.41 2.18 0.45 minimum standardized score -3.12 -2.71 -3.19 -2.00 -2.65 -0.95 -0.96 -0.50 -0.69 maximum standardized score 2.30 2.28 1.62 1.85 2.04 3.69 3.48 4.50 4.02 note. values are of standardized scores and bivariate correlations for the key study variables in their original or final transformed version (n = 936). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. self-esteem and adolescent bullying 254 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ validity and stability of the cluster solution the manova computed on the five self-esteem domain variables revealed a significant multivariate effect of the cluster solution, wilks’ lambda = .12, f(15, 2562) = 197.19, p < .001, η2 = .51, indicating that about 51% of the variability was accounted for by group differences among the four clusters. also, follow-up anovas indicated that the four-cluster solution explained good percentages of variance for each variable related to the diverse self-esteem domains (41% of variability in peer relations, 46% in school, 49% in family, 50% in physical appearance, and 44% in sports/athletics). the replicability procedure indicated that the four-cluster solution was the best for both random subsets, a and b, and that the agreement between the two solutions of subset b was .73, indicating a substantial level of reliability. manova on bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization variables multivariate test statistic the manova on the bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization variables resulted in a significant multivariate effect of the self-esteem profiles, wilks’ lambda = .90, f(12, 2424) = 8.48, p < .001, η2 = .04, and gender, wilks’ lambda = .96, f(4, 916) = 10.54, p < .001, η2 = .04. none of the other main effects and twoor three-way interactions were statistically significant. follow-up univariate analyses follow-up univariate analyses indicated that (a) levels of bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour differed significantly across self-esteem profiles, and (b) bullying/cyberbullying (but not victimization/cyber­ victimization) differed significantly across gender. specifically, group comparisons based on tukey’s honestly signifi­ cant difference (hsd) post hoc analyses for the four self-esteem profiles (see table 2) and on bonferroni adjustments for gender (see table 3) revealed that: figure 1 mean z-scores note. for the self-esteem domains of peer relations, school, family, physical appearance, and sports/athletics across the four self-esteem profiles. palermiti, bartolo, musso et al. 255 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a. students in the self-derogation profile scored significantly higher on all bullying/cyberbullying (mean scores 1.31 and 1.15, respectively) and victimization/cybervictimization (1.38 and 1.19) behaviours than those in the other profiles (≤ 1.20 for bullying, ≤ 1.10 for cyberbullying, ≤ 1.28 for victimization, and ≤ 1.12 for cybervictimization), except for the comparison with the students in the body/peer-oriented profile in relation to bullying (1.31 vs. 1.25); b. students in the consistently high self-esteem profile scored significantly lower on victimization/cybervictimization behaviours (1.12 and 1.04) than those in the other profiles (≥ 1.20 for victimization, and ≥ 1.11 for cybervictimization), while they scored similarly on bullying/cyberbullying behaviours compared to those in the school/family-oriented (1.20 vs. 1.19 for bullying and 1.06 vs. 1.08 for cyberbullying) and body/peer-oriented profiles (1.20 vs. 1.15 for bullying and 1.06 vs. 1.10 for cyberbullying); c. students in the body/peer-oriented profile scored significantly lower on victimization than those in the school/ family-oriented profile (1.20 vs. 1.28), while both groups scored similarly on bullying/cyberbullying (1.25 vs. 1.19 for bullying and 1.10 vs. 1.08 for cyberbullying) and cybervictimization (1.11 vs. 1.12) behaviours; d. male students scored significantly higher on bullying/cyberbullying behaviours than female students (1.31 vs. 1.17 for bullying and 1.11 vs. 1.08 for cyberbullying), while both groups scored similarly on victimization/ cybervictimization behaviours (1.25 vs. 1.24 for victimization and 1.11 vs. 1.12 for cybervictimization). table 2 univariate analyses of variance and post hoc group manova-adjusted means by self-esteem profile variable school/familyoriented n = 223 consistently high n = 199 self-derogation n = 217 body/peeroriented n = 297 f(3, 920) η2 bullying 1.19a 1.20a 1.31b 1.25ab 7.36*** 0.02 victimization 1.28a 1.12b 1.38c 1.20d 27.87*** 0.08 cyberbullying 1.08a 1.06a 1.15b 1.10a 8.35*** 0.03 cybervictimization 1.12a 1.04b 1.19c 1.11a 13.70*** 0.04 note. comparisons based on tukey’s tests for the four self-esteem profiles on bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. different subscripts (a, b, c, or d) within a row indicate significant differences (p < .05) between profile group means. ***p < .001. table 3 univariate analyses of variance and pairwise manova-adjusted means by gender variable male n = 455 female n = 481 f(1, 920) η2 bullying 1.31a 1.17b 32.54*** 0.03 victimization 1.25 1.24 0.00 0.00 cyberbullying 1.11a 1.08b 4.03* 0.01 cybervictimization 1.11 1.12 0.63 0.00 note. comparisons based on bonferroni’s adjustments for gender on bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. differ­ ent subscripts (a and b) within a row indicate significant differences (p < .05) between profile group means. *p < .05. ***p < .001. self-esteem and adolescent bullying 256 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the main purpose of the current study was to examine the association of self-esteem profiles with bullying/cyber­ bullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours in adolescence. differently from most previous studies, the added value was to apply a person-oriented approach to characterize our participants based on different domains of self-esteem (dubois et al., 1999). this enabled us to better consider their heterogeneity, by identifying different subgroups of participants with specific configurations of self-esteem. results indicated that four different self-esteem profiles (i.e., school/family-oriented, consistently high, self-derogation, and body/peer-oriented) could be extracted and highlighted substantial differences between these profiles in terms of behavioural levels for bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization. findings on self-esteem profiles were largely consistent with those of previous studies (e.g., dubois et al., 1999; salmivalli et al., 1999), reporting both consistently high and self-derogation self-esteem profiles. the school/familyoriented and the body/peer-oriented profiles were theoretically meaningful and interpretable. from a developmentalecological perspective, school, family, body-image, and peer relations are highly significant domains in adolescents’ lives (e.g., ricciardelli & mccabe, 2001). moreover, these domains may be considered interdependent across settings (dubois et al., 1999), with specific experiences and views in one domain (e.g., family or peer relations) tending to have corresponding impacts on those associated with related domains (e.g., school or body-image). furthermore, such experiences and views may be more prevalent in one area of life (e.g., relations with adults in the family and at school) than another depending on the personal and environmental context in which adolescents are developing. with regard to the associations between self-esteem profiles and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervic­ timization behaviours, the results showed that students classified in the self-derogation profile seemed to be more at risk of being involved in both bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the other profiles. this may complement findings in recent previous studies showing that lower levels of self-esteem are associated with higher risks of bullying and victimization (tsaousis, 2016). one exception is the non-significant dif­ ference between students in the self-derogation and body/peer-oriented profiles with respect to bullying. the emphasis on bodyand peer-oriented self-evaluation domains may significantly increase students’ concerns about their concrete adaptive social experiences (dubois et al., 1999), thereby increasing the risk of involvement in problematic behaviours, like bullying. students in the consistently high self-esteem profile seemed to be more protected against bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the self-derogation profile. this seems like the other side of the coin with respect to what was already mentioned above. also, adolescents in the consistently high self-esteem profile seemed to be more protected against victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the school/familyand body/peer-oriented profiles, while there were no significant differences in terms of bullying/cyberbullying behaviours. the synergistic interactions between the self-esteem domains in the consistently high profile (dubois et al., 1999) may have the potential of considerably enriching personal and social skills and strategies that safeguard against situations of victimization. however, this could be only partially true and associated with specific skills and strategies with regard to school/familyor body/peer-oriented profiles. thus, it appears that, in terms of reducing bullying/cyberbullying behaviours, it is important to establish uniform patterns of self-evaluation in at least one specific area (i.e., school and family or body-image and peer relations), if not all of them, as this would help prevent the expression of greater levels of aggression and antisocial behaviour as in the self-derogation profile. generally, students in the school/family-oriented profile presented the same levels of bullying/cyberbullying and cybervictimization behaviour as students in the body/peer-oriented profile, but the latter adolescents seemed to be more protected against victimization behaviours than the former. the emphasis on bodyand peer-oriented domains of self-evaluation may increase—as already specified above—the risk of involvement in bullying behaviours but, at the same time, it may also facilitate the development of strategies to reduce victimization behaviours and events. the findings were also examined in the light of demographic variables such as gender and age as well as their interactions with the self-esteem profiles. only gender showed any significant direct influence. specifically, boys reported higher levels of bullying/cyberbullying than girls. this is consistent with several studies (e.g., li, 2006; olweus, 1993). however, no differences emerged with regard to victimization/cybervictimization. this result is also in line palermiti, bartolo, musso et al. 257 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with previous studies (e.g., williams & guerra, 2007), although other researchers found that girls are more involved in victimization/cybervictimization behaviours than boys (smith et al., 2008). the results illustrating that levels of bully­ ing/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour were similar in our two age subgroups of adolescents seem to support studies that explain how bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours tends to change during childhood, but stabilize during early and middle adolescence (tsaousis, 2016). taken together, these findings are important because they provide new evidence for an issue that previous literature has demonstrated to be either inconclusive or controversial. although some previous studies agreed that there is a po­ tential negative association between self-esteem and peer bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours, most of them were based on a variable-oriented approach. the results from the current study, however, show that among adolescents there is a self-esteem-domain heterogeneity associated with different levels of bullying/cy­ berbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours. this suggests that different domains of self-esteem and their interdependencies play a crucial role during adolescence. indeed, during that period the increased importance of peer relations and physical appearance may make adolescents more inclined to focus on their self-image (twenge & campbell, 2001), with consequences also in terms of diverse patterns of aggressive behaviour. the weaknesses of the present study should also be taken into account. first, we were not able to analyse our data according to a multilevel approach owing to the completely anonymous online administration of the questionnaire. future research should be conducted to examine this issue. second, we did not analyse the data in terms of the different forms of bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization owing to space limitations. it would be important to understand how diverse self-esteem profiles are associated with specific forms of active-passive aggressive behaviour. finally, we only considered gender and age as variables related to bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictim­ ization behaviours in addition to self-esteem profiles. nevertheless, the literature suggests the need to consider other factors as well (bartolo et al., 2019; cook, williams, & guerra, 2010). despite these limitations, our study presents important implications for current policies and practices, suggesting guidelines for designing educational programs aimed at preventing bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervic­ timization phenomena. generally, anti-bullying agencies should develop more effective individual-centred prevention programs (tsaousis, 2016). with regard to victimization/cybervictimization, it would be important to design intervention programs that help adolescents to build their own self-confidence in all important domains of their life. this implies interventions at different levels: individual, family, and school (tenuta, bartolo, diano, & costabile, 2020). with regard to bullying/cyberbullying, such intervention programs should guarantee the improvement of adolescent’s self-images in at least one of the relevant areas of life, with slightly greater attention to the areas of the family and school. as a conclusive recommendation, in the case of more targeted interventions in a specific sphere, it is advisable, and even simpler, to directly involve significant people who fit within that living space, such as parents, teachers or peers (for example, in the role of mentors). funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references aldenderfer, m. s., & blashfield, r. k. 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(2010). peer aggression and mental health problems: self-esteem as a mediator. school psychology international, 31(2), 146–163. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034309352267 about the authors anna lisa palermiti is assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are positive and negative behaviours among peers, like bullying, cyberbullying, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. maria giuseppina bartolo is postdoctoral research fellow in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are positive and negative behaviours among peers, like bullying, cyberbullying, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. pasquale musso is assistant professor in developmental and educational psychology. his research areas focus on social develop­ ment of adolescents and emerging adults, especially as related to their positive development, acculturation processes, socio-psycho­ logical adaptation, and mutual intercultural relations. rocco servidio is assistant professor in social psychology. his main research fields are cyberpsychology with a special focus on social media and internet addiction, prejudice and intercultural relations, and risk of radicalization in adolescents. angela costabile is full professor in developmental and educational psychology. her main research fields are primary relation­ ships, aggressive behaviour among peers, risk of radicalization in youth. she was team leader of several national and international projects. palermiti, bartolo, musso et al. 261 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 249–261 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5379 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000060 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2015.12.003 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2007.08.018 https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034309352267 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-esteem and adolescent bullying (introduction) method participants procedure measures data analysis results descriptive statistics cluster analysis manova on bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization variables discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors emotional labour and work-family conflict in voice-to-voice and face-to-face customer relations: a multi-group study in service workers research reports emotional labour and work-family conflict in voice-to-voice and faceto-face customer relations: a multi-group study in service workers federica emanuel a, lara colombo* b, stefania santoro b, claudio g. cortese b, chiara ghislieri b [a] department of philosophy and education sciences, university of turin, turin, italy. [b] department of psychology, university of turin, turin, italy. abstract professions that involve interaction with customers entail great emotional effort: workers are required to show emotions different from their true feeling and they experienced emotional dissonance and verbal aggression from customers. these job demands can generate discomfort and the effects of emotional labour can “expand” in other life domains. the study investigated the relationship among emotional dissonance, customer verbal aggression, affective discomfort at work and work-family conflict, considering differences between two groups of service workers: call centre agents (ca; n = 507, voice-to-voice relation with customers) and supermarket cashiers (sc; n = 444, faceto-face relation with customers). results showed that emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression had a positive relationship with work-family conflict, the mediational role of affective discomfort emerged in both groups; different effects of job demands in subsamples appeared. suggestions for organisations and work processes emerged in order to identify practical implications useful to support employees in coping with emotional labour and to promote well-being and work-family balance. keywords: emotional dissonance, customer verbal aggression, service work, work-family conflict europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 received: 2018-12-06. accepted: 2019-10-07. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: department of psychology, university of turin, via verdi 10, 10124 turin, italy. e-mail: lara.colombo@unito.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. recent changes in the labour market and the rapid development of service companies have shown how the emotional aspect of work is significant not only as an outcome but also as a job demand (hülsheger & schewe, 2011; schaufeli & taris, 2014). the professions that involved interaction and/or direct contact with customers demanded working on tasks and spending mental and physical effort, also required emotional labour and managing emotions and relations with customers (zapf, 2002). these characteristics of person-oriented professions can generate feelings of discomfort and the effects of emotional labour can “expand” negatively in other life domains (zapf, 2002). the relationship between emotional labour and work-family conflict (wfc) is still little investigated (cheung & tang, 2009; kinman, 2009; montgomery, panagopolou, & benos, 2005; montgomery, panagopolou, de wildt, & meenks, 2006; yanchus, eby, lance, & drollinger, 2010) and in italy studies on this topic are scant (emanuel, molino, & ghislieri, 2014b; ghislieri, ricotta, & colombo, 2012). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ among the theoretical models able to understand several aspects affecting well-being at work, the job demands-resources theory (jd-r theory; bakker & demerouti, 2017) has received much consideration by scholars. the theory assumes that well-being is affected by two categories of aspects, job demands and job resources: job demands are mainly responsible for health degradation processes, job resources are mainly responsible for motivational processes. this theory is flexible and adaptable to different work environments and jobs, identifying specific job demands and job resources. job demands are “physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological (cognitive and emotional) effort or skills and are therefore associated with certain physiological and/or psychological costs” (bakker & demerouti, 2007, p. 312). job demands are not negative by definition; they become stressors when meeting those demands requires a high effort that the person cannot adequately cope with. job resources represent the second set of job characteristics and “refer to those physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that are either/or: functional in achieving work goals; reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs; stimulate personal growth, learning, and development” (bakker & demerouti, 2007, p. 312). high levels of job-related stressors and a lack of job resources may negatively affect employees’ well-being (bakker & demerouti, 2007, 2017). starting to these considerations, this study aims to investigate the relationship among job demands typical for service work, affective discomfort at work and wfc in two different jobs: call centre agents, characterised by a voice-to-voice relation with customers, and supermarket cashiers, characterised by a face-to-face relation with customers. the labour market for call centre agents and supermarket cashiers is characteristic of a “secondary labour market” of insecure, poorly paid jobs without any career opportunities. traditionally, these service work occupations were once considered “transitory” and appropriate for low skills. currently in italy, a country characterised by a weak labour market, high job insecurity and unemployment, call centre and supermarket jobs have become occupations in which personnel stop working for long periods of time. these occupations are no longer characterised by high turnover because people cannot change: intense changes in the labour market have made it more complex for individuals to adapt to work and make occupational choices (savickas et al., 2009). emotional labour in service work in customer service settings, providing “service with a smile” (grandey, fisk, mattila, jansen, & sideman, 2005) is a job requirement used to promote the customer’s intention to return and their satisfaction. organisations have clear expectations about the interaction between their employees and customers. for example, a frequent organisational goal is customer satisfaction, which is reached through employees’ customer orientation that can be displayed by employees being very polite, friendly or asking about the customer’s needs (diefendorff, richard, & croyle, 2006; grandey, 2000; zapf, 2002). specifically, employees are required to display emotions that are in line with organisational expectations of what emotional displays are appropriate or expected in certain situations (grandey, 2000; hochschild, 1983). emotional display rules have been explored in a wide array of occupational contexts (hülsheger & schewe, 2011; kenworthy, fay, frame, & petree, 2014): the typical model is that positive emotions should be expressed and negative emotions suppressed. emotional labour is a fundamental component of service work (kinman, 2009). in service work interactions with clients are usually repetitive and scripted and an excessive level of emotional control may be required to preserve positive interactions (kinman, 2009; zapf, 2002; zapf, vogt, seifert, mertini, & isic, 1999). moreover, is important that workers maintain a warm and friendly interaction with customers even when they undergo abuse or verbal aggression (grandey et al., 2004; zapf, isic, bechtoldt, & blau, 2003). emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 543 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hochschild (1983) affirms that jobs involving extensive interpersonal contact with customers or clients necessarily entail emotional labour. moreover, jobs that require emotional labour have three characteristics (hochschild, 1983): (1) they require face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact with the public; (2) they require worker to produce an emotional state in the customer or client; and (3) they allow the employer, through training and supervision, to exert some control over the emotional activities of employees. emotional labour can be defined as the process of regulating feelings and expressions as part of the work role (grandey, 2000; hülsheger & schewe, 2011; zapf et al., 1999). in fact, emotions play an important role in employee/customer relations. companies and managers highlight the importance of this relationship and employees are encouraged formally (or informally) by their organisations to display emotions during face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions that conform to specific display rules defined by the specific organisation (grandey, 2000; grandey & gabriel, 2015; hülsheger & schewe, 2011; zapf et al., 1999). the present study involves employees of two different service contexts: call centre agents and supermarket cashiers. some scholars have defined call centre jobs as an advanced form of taylorism (molino et al., 2016; zapf et al., 2003) mainly for the labour division, simplification of tasks, standardisation and time pressure (bélanger & edwards, 2013). moreover, call centre jobs involve the voice-to-voice interaction with customers and high emotional effort is required for customer relations and for the suppression of negative emotions caused by unfriendly or angry customers (dormann & zapf, 2004; grandey et al., 2004; zapf et al., 2003). literature highlight that emotional dissonance is the principal strain phenomenon in call centre work (emanuel et al., 2014a; ghislieri et al., 2012; molino et al., 2016; zapf et al., 2003). studies concerning supermarket cashiers are few; the majority of studies analyse physical distress and illness since supermarket workers are known to be an at-risk population for musculoskeletal disorders (forcier et al., 2008; sansone, bonora, boria, & meroni, 2014). rafaeli (1989), in his pioneering study of supermarket workers in israel, identified that the work organisation is characterised by rigid discipline and control, which can be seen in the special distribution of cashiers and the control of their body and their emotions. moreover, the cashier’s job involves more face-to-face interaction and physical proximity to the customer than any other employment. supermarket cashiers are still expected to suppress their feelings in front of offensive customers and display emotions desirable for the organisation, such as friendliness. the cashier/customer experience can range from pleasant to threatening: customers are not only a source of satisfaction, incentive and social interaction, but also a source of violence and suffering for supermarket cashiers (rafaeli, 1989). this study considers emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression as job demands (grandey, 2000; schaufeli & taris, 2014), typical of service employment. emotional dissonance arises when employees’ expressed emotions, that are considered acceptable by the organisation, do not represent their true feelings (grandey & gabriel, 2015; hülsheger & schewe, 2011; rafaeli & sutton, 1987; zapf, 2002). service occupations are considered emotionally demanding for workers because they have to express certain emotions that may not be felt or even be opposed to those internally perceived in the situation. during interactions in person (face-to-face) or mediated by telephone (voice-to-voice), workers express emotions required by the organisation and meet customer expectations, although relations are not always easy to manage (kinman, 2009). however, several scholars underline that emotional dissonance may be stressful and detrimental to health: a positive association emerged with psychological strain, emotional exhaustion, psychosomatic complaints, wfc emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 544 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and lower job satisfaction (e.g., emanuel, colombo, & ghislieri, 2014a; grandey & gabriel, 2015; hülsheger & schewe, 2011; kenworthy et al., 2014; molino et al., 2016; zapf et al., 1999). another job demand considered in this study, typical of service work, is customer verbal aggression that refers to aggression from unfriendly, rude and/or unsatisfied customers, shown through shouting at service workers and using negative verbal expressions (e.g., yelling, insulting, and cursing; dormann & zapf, 2004; grandey et al., 2004; grandey et al., 2005). in the european representative sample (eurofound, 2012), 11% of workers reported that they experienced verbal abuse in the previous month and 2% say they were exposed to physical violence in the last year: exposure to aggression from leaders, co-workers, subordinates or customers was assumed to have profound negative consequences for the health and well-being of the target employed. thus, customer verbal aggression might be particularly stressful for the employee and problematic for the organisation (dormann & zapf, 2004; grandey et al., 2004). moreover, aggressive customers express and, in turn, foster emotions in employees that they could not show according to emotional rules in service organisations (grandey et al., 2004; molino et al., 2016). considering these characteristics of service work, we hypothesize that: hypothesis 1: (a) emotional dissonance is positively associated with affective discomfort at work; and (b) customer verbal aggression is positively associated with affective discomfort at work. work-family conflict, strain, and emotional labour traditionally, the work-family literature grounded in role theory (kahn, wolfe, quinn, snoek, & rosenthal, 1964), which assumes that multiple roles lead to role stress that, in turn, results in strain. wfc has been defined as “a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect. that is, participation in the work (family) role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in the family (work) role” (greenhaus & beutell, 1985, p. 77). researchers have considered a number of different variables as possible antecedents of wfc (amstad, meier, fasel, elfering, & semmer, 2011; ghislieri & colombo, 2014; nohe, meier, sonntag, & michel, 2015): role and job demands are the main determinants of wfc. given the growing concern about wfc, much attention has been directed toward the potential outcomes of such conflict; for example, low levels of job satisfaction, lack of organisational commitment, absenteeism and turnover (amstad et al., 2011; ford, heinen, & langkamer, 2007; ghislieri & colombo, 2014; nohe et al., 2015). moreover, studies report a significant relation with burnout and physical and psychological stress-related outcomes (frone, russell, & cooper, 1997; kinnunen, geurts, & mauno, 2004). some researchers suggest that strain is likely to affect the perception and experience of wfc. if an individual suffers from psychological job-related strain, he or she will consequently have fewer resources to cope with work and family responsibilities and demands, as highlighted in the job demands–resources theory (bakker & demerouti, 2017). the jd–r theory draws on conservation of resource theory and particularly personal resource theory (hobfoll, 2001, 2002) to explain an erosion process through which job demands deplete personal energy resources, leading to emotional exhaustion (bakker, demerouti, & dollard, 2008). this consideration is consistent with the view that resources are limited and may eventually diminish because of changes in well-being and health (edwards & rothbard, 2000). in fact, several studies indicate the possibility of wfc as an emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 545 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome of the negative effects of emotional exhaustion or strain. for example, kelloway, gottlieb, and barham (1999) proposed that distress is likely to affect the perceived frequency and intensity of difficulties of combining work and family roles. similarly, stressful work conditions may lead to more wfc (ford et al., 2007) as well as burnout (westman, etzion, & gortler, 2004), job dissatisfaction (britt & dawson, 2005), psychological and physical stress symptoms (kinnunen et al., 2004; steinmetz, frese, & schmidt, 2008). this study examines the relationship between emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression with affective discomfort at work. affective discomfort is an indicator of strain, which referred to the intensity of emotions experienced at work: specifically, high levels of negative emotions are associated with low levels of well-being (biggio & cortese, 2013; emanuel et al., 2014a; molino et al., 2016; van katwyk, fox, spector, & kelloway, 2000; warr, 1990). according to several studies (grandey, tam, & brauburger, 2002; weiss & cropanzano, 1996), events that occur at work, depending on the work environment and the disposition of the individual, may result in emotional reactions; moreover, when these responses are aggregated over time, they can influence the overall feelings about the job experiences (weiss & cropanzano, 1996; grandey, tam, & brauburger, 2002). though studies are scant, several have established a relationship between emotion labour and wfc (carlson, ferguson, hunter, & whitten, 2012; cheung & tang, 2009; lawson, davis, crouter, & o’neill, 2013; montgomery et al., 2005; sanz-vergel, rodríguez-muñoz, bakker, & demerouti, 2012; seery, corrigall, & harpel, 2008; wagner, barnes, & scott, 2014; yanchus et al., 2010). the emotion regulation performed in one role depletes energy and resources (edwards & rothbard, 2000), which motivates the person to conserve resources in the other role (grandey & krannitz, 2016; hobfoll, 2001, 2002). emotional labour in the workplace will produce negative emotions such as anxiety, anger or guilt (judge, ilies, & scott, 2006) and emotion suppression elicits negative emotions that are carried to the other domain (grandey & krannitz, 2016; wagner et al., 2014). thus, we assume that: hypothesis 2: (a) emotional dissonance is positively associated with wfc; and (b) customer verbal aggression is positively associated with wfc. hypothesis 3: affective discomfort at work is positively related to wfc, thus playing a mediating role between emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression on the one hand, and wfc on the other. figure 1 summarizes the hypothesized model in which two job demands, typical of service work (emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression), are directly and indirectly, through the mediation of affective discomfort at work, related to wfc in service employees. emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 546 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the theoretical model. since different job tasks and organisational contexts can generate different emotional and psychological dynamics (kinman, 2009; molino et al., 2016), the hypotheses are tested across the two types of service employees: the first group is call centre agents (ca), characterised by a voice-to-voice relation with customers; the second is supermarket cashiers (sc), characterised by a face-to-face relation with customers. the perspective from which we studied these possible differences is explorative; therefore, we do not define specific hypotheses with regard to this. method procedure and participants the research involved workers belonging to two organisational contexts of the north-west of italy: a group of supermarket cashiers (71.96% of employees, n = 444) and a group of call centre agents (42.07% of employees, n = 507) fill out the self-report questionnaire. in both job environments, the aim of the study was explained to employees by sending an e-mail from management; moreover, a specific communication was published in the intranet. the first page of questionnaire showed the introduction and information about the study including the aim of the research and the informed consent. moreover, anonymity, confidentiality of the data and the voluntary nature of participation in the study were emphasised and guaranteed. the ca sample included 62.1% females and 37.9% males; their average age was 41.17 years (sd = 7.49; min = 21; max = 59). among them, 24.9% were unmarried, 67.9% married or cohabiting, 7.3% separated, divorced or widowed and 59.8% had children. most of the ca participants had finished high school (82.4%); 12.1% had a bachelor’s or master’s degree; and 5.3% had finished middle school. most of the participants had emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 547 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a permanent contract (98.0%) and a full-time job (70.8%); mean organisational tenure was 16.74 years (sd = 7.88; min = 0; max = 37). the sc sample included 100% females: this was representative of the gender distribution in organisation and of the occupation that, also in italy, was predominantly performed by women. the sc average age was 34 (sd = 8.14; min = 19; max = 57). among them, 33.7% were unmarried, 58.1% married or cohabiting, 8.2% separated, divorced or widowed; and 51.0% had children. half of the sc participants had finished high school (58.2%), 9.2% had a bachelor’s or master’s degree; and 32.6% had finished middle school. half of the participants had a permanent contract (56.7%) and a part-time job (84.4%); mean organisational tenure was 5.28 years (sd = 3.74; min = 0; max = 18). measures wfc was assessed with 5 items developed by colombo and ghislieri (2008). all items were scored on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 = never to 7 = all of the time. an example item is “the amount of time my job takes up makes it difficult to fulfil family responsibilities”. cronbach’s alpha for this study was .88 (.89 for ca, .87 for sc). affective discomfort at work was assessed with 6 items on warr’s (1990) scale. all items were scored on a 6-point scale, ranging from 1 = never to 6 = all of the time. respondents are asked, thinking of the past few weeks, how much of the time their job had made them feel, for example, “depressed” or “gloomy”. cronbach’s alpha was .85 (.86 for ca, .84 for sc). emotional dissonance was assessed with 4 items developed by zapf et al. (1999). all items were scored on a 6-point scale, ranging from 1 = never to 6 = always. respondents are asked, for example, how often during their work, they have to “display emotions which do not correspond to inner feelings”. cronbach’s alpha was .84 (.93 for ca, .77 for sc). customer verbal aggression was assessed with 4 items by dormann and zapf (2004). all items were scored on a 6-point scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. an example item is “customers personally attack us verbally”. cronbach’s alpha was .81 (.87 for ca, .79 for sc). data analysis data analyses were performed using ibm spss statistics (version 24): descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and α reliabilities (cronbach’s α) were carried out for each scale in both groups separately (ca and sc). pearson bivariate correlations (r) were used to examine the interrelationships between variables, the differences in the means of variables between ca and sc were examined by using the analysis of variance (t-test for independent samples). multi-group structural equation model (sem) was performed using mplus (version 7) in order to assess differences across groups in the hypothesised model. the method of estimation was maximum likelihood (ml) and hypotheses are specified a priori leading to the choice of a partial mediation model. according to literature (bentler, 1990; bollen & long, 1993), the model was evaluated by several goodness-of-fit criteria: the χ2 goodness-of-fit statistic; the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea); the comparative fit index (cfi); the tucker lewis index (tli); and the standardised root mean square residual (srmr). to construct latent emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 548 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variables, a parcelling method was used: the indicators of the latent variables are parcelled (aggregate-level indicators comprising an average of two or more items) for each latent variable. studies report that using parcels as indicators of a construct is better than using more items since it reduces type i errors in the item correlations and lessens the likelihood of a priori model misspecification (bandalos, 2002; little, cunningham, shahar, & widman, 2002; yang, nay, & hoyle, 2010). all parcels presented significant loadings in the structural equation model calculated. to address the common method variance issue, we performed the harman’s single-factor test (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003) using confirmatory factor analysis. results indicated that one single factor could not account for the variance in the data, since all measures of goodness-of-fit indicated that the model did not fit the data, χ2(20) = 1473.34, p < .01, rmsea = .28, 90% ci [.26, .29], cfi = .53, tli = .34, srmr = .12; therefore, the threat of common method bias was unlikely. results table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, bivariate correlations among the study variables and internal consistency of each scale, separately for the ca and sc samples. all α values met the criterion of .70 (nunnally & bernstein, 1994) as they ranged between .77 and .93. table 1 item means, item standard deviation, cronbach’s alphas and correlations among the study variables for ca (n = 507) and sc (n = 444) study variable ca sc 1 2 3 4m sd m sd 1. wfc 3.25 1.28 2.80 1.12 .89/.87 .43** .39** .21** 2. affective discomfort at work 3.08 1.13 2.88 1.03 .41** .86/.84 .43** .27** 3. emotional dissonance 3.97 1.28 3.71 1.11 .20** .20** .93/.77 .29** 4. customer verbal aggression 4.44 1.12 3.85 1.15 .33** .21** .28** .87/.79 note. correlations for the ca above the diagonal; correlations for the sc below the diagonal. cronbach’s α for ca/sc sample on the diagonal. ca = call centre agents; sc = supermarket cashiers; wfc = work-family conflict. *p < .05. **p < .01. all the significant correlations between the variables were in the expected directions. wfc and affective discomfort were positively correlated with job demands across samples. for the ca group, wfc was positively associated with affective discomfort (r = .43), emotional dissonance (r = .39) and customer verbal aggression (r = .20). affective discomfort was positively related to emotional dissonance (r = .43) and customer verbal aggression (r = .21). however, for the sc group, wfc was positively associated with affective discomfort (r = .41), customer verbal aggression (r = .33) and emotional dissonance (r = .20). affective discomfort was positively related to customer verbal aggression (r = .21) and emotional dissonance (r = .20). analysis of variance between the two samples showed some differences. the ca group perceived more wfc, t(949) = 5.50, p < .01, affective discomfort, t(947,104) = 2.74, p < .01, emotional dissonance, t(948,931) = 3.39, p < .01, and customer verbal aggression, t(949) = 7.93, p < .01, than the sc group. emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 549 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the multi-group sem of the hypothesized model (figure 1) was first evaluated by constraining all the path coefficients to be equal across the two groups. subsequently, the model was re-tested relaxing the constraints that significantly increased the fit if they were estimated freely across the two groups, consistent with the theory (bollen, 1989). the final model fitted to the data well: χ2 (37, nca = 507, nsc = 444) = 136.26, p < .001, cfi = .97, tli = .95, rmsea = .07, 90% ci [.06, .09], srmr = .04. a significant chi-square difference between the two models suggested this final model fitted the data better than the fully constrained model, δχ2(4) = 21.80; p < .001 (satorra & bentler, 1999). figure 2 shows the standardised parameters for both groups. by examining the estimated model, the variables showed good item loadings in both groups. figure 2. the model (standardised path coefficients, p < .01). note. results of the multi-group analysis: ca (sc). ns = non-significant relationship. emotional dissonance showed a positive direct relationship with wfc only in the ca group (ca: β = 0.23); customer verbal aggression was positively related to wfc only in the sc group (sc: β = 0.28). emotional dissonance showed a significantly stronger positive relationship with affective discomfort in the ca sample than the sc sample (ca: β = 0.48; sc: β = 0.18). customer verbal aggression was positively related to affective discomfort, across the two groups, stronger in the sc group (ca: β = 0.14; sc: β = 0.21). finally, affective discomfort showed a significant positive relationship with wfc in both groups (ca: β = 0.39; sc: β = 0.41). variance of dependent variables explained by the models was 29% for wfc and 29% for affective discomfort in the ca sample; 35% for wfc; and 10% for affective discomfort in the sc sample. the estimated indirect effects are shown in table 2 for the ca group and table 3 for the sc group. in both groups, emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression increased wfc through affective discomfort. more specifically, the model showed that in the ca sample the effect between customer verbal aggression and wfc was only indirect, mediated by affective discomfort; also affective discomfort mediated the relationship between emotional dissonance and wfc. in the sc group, the effect between emotional dissonance and wfc emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 550 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was only indirect, mediated by affective discomfort; also affective discomfort mediated the relationship between customer verbal aggression and wfc. table 2 indirect effects (nca = 507) indirect effect standardized indirect effect estimate se p emo. diss. → aff. disc. → wfc .19 .03 .000 cust. verbal aggr. → aff. disc. → wfc .05 .02 .008 note. emo. diss. = emotional dissonance; aff. disc. = affective discomfort at work; cust. verbal aggr. = customer verbal aggression; wfc = work-family conflict. table 3 indirect effects (nsc = 444) indirect effect standardized indirect effect estimate se p emo. diss. → aff. disc. → wfc .07 .03 .007 cust. verbal aggr. → aff. disc. → wfc .09 .03 .001 note. emo. diss. = emotional dissonance; aff. disc. = affective discomfort at work; cust. verbal aggr. = customer verbal aggression; wfc = work-family conflict. discussion this study aimed to examine the relationship between job demands typical of service work (emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression) and wfc, considering the mediational role of affective discomfort at work. moreover, the study explored potential differences in these relationships between two professional groups, call centre agents and supermarket cashiers, characterised by service work, emotional labour and relation to customers. the hypotheses 1a and 1b stated that emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression are positively associated with affective discomfort at work. bivariate correlations and the estimated model showed a positive relation in both groups; emotional dissonance had a stronger relation with affective discomfort in the ca group whereas customer verbal aggression had a stronger relation in sc. thus, h1 is confirmed. the findings suggested that emotional labour undertaken by service sector employees might have negative implications for their well-being and underlined the demanding role of these aspects (schaufeli & taris, 2014; zapf, 2002). in fact, emotional dissonance was confirmed as a job demand associated with discomfort and detrimental consequences to employees’ health (emanuel et al., 2014a; hülsheger & schewe, 2011; kenworthy et al., 2014; molino et al., 2016; zapf et al., 1999). during voice-to-voice or face-to-face interactions, workers expressed emotions required by the organisations and met customer expectations and the relation is not always easy to manage (kinman, 2009; molino et al., 2016). customer verbal aggression also confirmed its demanding and stressful role; aggression in working life might cause significant problems for an individual’s health and safety (grandey et al., 2004; judge et al., 2006). customer-related stressor might be particularly taxing for frontline emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 551 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ service workers who have frequent interactions with customers, but this relation could be problematic also for the organisation (dormann & zapf, 2004; grandey et al., 2004). frontline service providers are engaged in high levels of emotional labour and social interaction with customers and tended to experience more psychological strain as a consequence of workplace stress. although employees in every sector are at risk of being exposed to aggressive behaviour, the risk is much greater for employees in the service sector, especially workers with a face-to-face relation and a physical proximity with customers, such as supermarket cashiers. the hypotheses 2a and 2b stated that emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression are positively associated with wfc. bivariate correlations showed a positive relation in both groups. the estimated model reported a positive association, with differences across groups: emotional dissonance had a direct effect on wfc only in the ca group while customer verbal aggression had a direct effect only in the sc group. h2 is therefore supported, with differences across groups. these results showed additional evidence that emotional dissonance is a work stressor is not merely related to negative consequences for psychological health and job outcomes, but is also a job demand that might affect the work-family interface (cheung & tang, 2009; montgomery et al., 2005). according to previous studies, results confirmed the relationship between emotional labour and wfc (carlson et al., 2012; lawson et al., 2013; montgomery et al., 2005; sanz-vergel et al., 2012; seery et al., 2008; wagner et al., 2014; yanchus et al., 2010) and reported a difference between the two groups. this difference might be linked to the different relation with customers, voice-to-voice in ca and face-to-face with sc, and suggested that emotional labour executed by service sector employees was not a homogeneous experience (kinman, 2009) but might be affected by demands, resources and organisational culture. thus, it appears essentials conducting systematic investigations with different occupational groups, in order to investigate how different aspects of emotional labour might manifest themselves in the non-working domain. finally, the hypothesis 3 stated that affective discomfort at work is positively related to wfc, thus playing a mediating role between emotional dissonance and customer verbal aggression on the one hand, and wfc on the other. bivariate correlations and the estimated model confirmed a positive relation between affective discomfort and wfc in both groups, according to several studies reporting that emotions and affect from the workplace would transfer to the home and family domain (grandey & krannitz, 2016; judge et al., 2006). the mediational role of affective discomfort at work among job demands and wfc presented differences among groups. in the ca sample, the indirect effect between customer verbal aggression and wfc mediated by affective discomfort was significant, whereas the direct effect was not significant. in the sc group, the indirect effect between emotional dissonance and wfc mediated by affective discomfort was significant, whereas the direct effect was not significant. these results suggested again that emotional labour executed by service sector employees is not a homogeneous experience (kinman, 2009) and firstly supported the assumption that strain is likely to affect the perception and experience of wfc. results underlined that high levels of job-related stressors and a lack of job resources might negatively affect employees’ well-being (bakker & demerouti, 2017) and wfc perception (britt & dawson, 2005; ford et al., 2007; kelloway et al., 1999; kinnunen et al., 2004; steinmetz et al., 2008; westman et al., 2004). limitations and future studies the present study has several limitations that might have restricted the generalisability of our findings. emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 552 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ first, our study used a cross-sectional design that did not permit establishing causality relations among variables (podsakoff, mackenzie, & podsakoff, 2012). longitudinal studies are needed to determine the temporal relationship among these variables; in addition, future research could use other alternative methods, such as diary study, to collect information from participants. a second limitation was the use of single-source self-report data, which raised questions about common method bias (podsakoff et al., 2003). future studies will use other data sources, including supervisors or colleagues’ data, observational data as well as objective measures, such as frequency, type and duration of customer interaction or physiological measures of occupational stress and well-being. third, the sample of service sector employees involved in this study is obtained from two different organisational contexts. the findings might not be representative of the wider population, as employees’ experiences might differ from other services organisations. moreover, the employees delivered a service via the two different modalities (face-to-face and voice-to-voice) but do not perform identical tasks. future research would benefit from examining the differences between two groups that perform identical job activities and differ only in the mode of customer contact. furthermore, additional studies could also explore the relationship between variables and work perception, for example, in terms of perceived job insecurity, typical for customer service jobs in italy, as done in other professional groups (e.g., giunchi, emanuel, chambel, & ghislieri, 2016). finally, this study considers only job demands, so in future research would be important to analyse the role of job resources and personal resources in the well-being and work-family interface dynamics, according to the jd-r theory (bakker & demerouti, 2017; emanuel, colombo, gatti, ghislieri, & ricotta, 2011; goussinsky, 2011; schaufeli & taris, 2014). this study provided some initial evidence that the impact of the type of delivery in emotion work is deserving of further investigation. future research might adopt a qualitative approach to examine and better understand the differences in emotion work performed in face-to-face and voice-to-voice customer relations. conclusion and practical implications the results of the study contributed to the existing literature on wfc, affective discomfort at work and emotional labour in service occupations. important implications for both researchers and practitioners emerged, in order to comprehend better which job demands, typical for customer service work, are more related to wfc and discomfort at work. moreover, the study offered some initial suggestion to the possible impact of the type of delivery in emotion work and customer relations. furthermore, the results emphasised the importance of considering the characteristics of interaction with customers, recommending to differentiate organisational practices on the basis of relation to customers (faceto-face or voice-to-voice). in addition, it appeared fundamental to promote practices and interventions in order to support the management of emotions and the detrimental relationship with the customer in a targeted manner, for different occupations. several studies have shown that interventions to reduce wfc are relevant to promoting individual and organisational well-being (amstad et al., 2011; ghislieri & colombo, 2014; nohe et al., 2015). organisations may offer formal work-family benefits; it is important that employees are aware of these benefits and the solutions should be addressed to workers’ expressed needs (amstad et al., 2011). moreover, organisations could foster emanuel, colombo, santoro et al. 553 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ work-family support from supervisors and co-workers, managers and supervisors should be sensitive and attentive to employees’ needs and provide necessary support to sustain a family-friendly climate at work (ghislieri & colombo, 2014). the findings supported and extended previous research indicating that emotion labour is central to the role of front-line customer service employees and is related to a variety of strain outcomes. moreover, stressors involving customers are an inevitable part of a frontline service job and could not be eliminated (dormann & zapf, 2004). in order to enhance employee well-being, it is necessary for organisations to recognise these risks, propose and implement interventions to help workers manage their emotions more effectively. firstly, organisations could explain clearly to personnel the characteristics of emotional labour and the relationship with customers through a formal or written policy or procedure on how frontline employees could manage customer demands; these would convey a clear sense of the company’s expectations of its employees and customers. organisations and management could design and develop training programmes to enhance employees’ emotion regulation skills in order to cope with customer mistreatment (grandey et al., 2004), reduce stress and sustain well-being and quality of life (gabriel, cheshin, moran, & van kleef, 2016; grandey & krannitz, 2016). training could help workers to comprehend better the detrimental consequences of emotional labour and identify appropriate strategies to cope job with demands. training programmes might also help workers to manage customer interactions effectively, identify the most difficult situations, respond to customer requests and, at the same time, increase customer orientation and loyalty. referring to recruitment, it appeared important to make emotional requirements explicit during recruitment thus individuals could have a well-defined idea of what is expected and create expectations about emotional performance (rafaeli & sutton, 1987). several scholars (gabriel et al., 2016; grandey & gabriel, 2015) highlighted that competencies rooted in personality (positive attitude, sense of humour, enthusiasm, extraversion), technical skills (typing, navigation) and communication (energy, fluency, warmth, tone), should be used for selection in service jobs. finally, findings suggested the importance of monitoring the experiences of emotional dissonance and emotional labour and the negative consequences for employees, in order to sustain workers and promote well-being and a positive work-family balance in service jobs. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. ethical approval since there was no medical treatment or other procedures that could cause psychological or social discomfort to participants, additional ethical approval was not required. the research was conducted in line with the helsinki declaration emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 554 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (world medical association, 2001), as well as the data protection regulation of italy (legislative decree no. 196/2003). participation in the research was voluntary, without receiving any reward; data collection and analysis were anonymous. previously presented some preliminary findings of this study were presented at the 19th eawop (european association of work and organizational psychology) congress in turin, italy, june 2019. references amstad, f. t., meier, l. l., fasel, u., elfering, a., & semmer, n. k. 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(1999). emotion work as a source of stress: the concept and the development of an instrument. european journal of work and organizational psychology, 8(3), 371-400. https://doi.org/10.1080/135943299398230 about the authors federica emanuel (ph.d.) is research fellow at the department of philosophy and education sciences, university of turin (italy). her research interests particularly include well-being at work, work-family interface, soft skills for employability, instructional and faculty development. lara colombo (ph.d.) is associate professor of work and organizational psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her main area of study is focused on well-being in work, work-related stress, work-family balance, positive psychology, flow at work, and passion for work. stefania santoro (ph.d.) is psychologist and hr manager at deltatre. her current research interests include performance management, organizational development practices, recruitment and training. claudio g. cortese (ph.d.) is full professor of work and organizational psychology at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). his research is focused on organizational well-being, job satisfaction, work motivation, psychosocial risks and work-related stress, teamwork, leader-follower relationships, and adult learning. chiara ghislieri (ph.d.) is associate professor at the department of psychology, university of turin (italy). her research interests particularly include gender perspective in work and organizational psychology, work-family conflict and enrichment, job insecurity and wellbeing, vocational guidance and adult training. emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers 560 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 542–560 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.1838 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2566407/pdf/11357217.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jvb.2009.05.001 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0146621609338592 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs1053-4822%2802%2900048-7 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13594320344000183 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f135943299398230 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotional labour and work-family conflict in service workers (introduction) emotional labour in service work work-family conflict, strain, and emotional labour method procedure and participants measures data analysis results discussion limitations and future studies conclusion and practical implications (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethical approval previously presented references about the authors does patient care depend on patients’ health behaviors? a study investigating the impact of empathy among future healthcare professionals on their willingness to help research reports does patient care depend on patients’ health behaviors? a study investigating the impact of empathy among future healthcare professionals on their willingness to help julian a. nasello 1 , jean-marc triffaux 2,3 [1] department of clinical psychology, university of liège, liège, belgium. [2] psychiatric day hospital “la clé”, liège, belgium. [3] department of psychiatry, medicine, university of liège, liège, belgium. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 received: 2024-08-14 • accepted: 2025-07-15 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: johannes karl, stanford university, stanford, usa corresponding author: julian a. nasello, department of clinical psychology, university of liège, liège, belgium. e-mail: julian.nasello@gmail.com supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract objectives: this study examines the impact of patients’ healthy and unhealthy behaviors on future healthcare professionals’ willingness to help. additionally, it also investigates how empathy among future healthcare professionals shapes their willingness to help. methods: three hundred future healthcare professionals completed sociodemographic and empathy questionnaires and evaluated 12 clinical vignettes assessing their willingness to help. the vignettes depicted patients engaging in either healthy or unhealthy behaviors. results: participants reported a greater willingness to help patients displaying healthy behaviors compared to those exhibiting unhealthy behaviors (small effect). a moderate positive association was also observed between empathy and willingness to help. notably, while affective empathy remained a significant correlate, cognitive empathy showed a stronger association with willingness to help in scenarios involving unhealthy behaviors. although both gender and grade significantly predicted empathy (with moderate and small effects, respectively), neither variable significantly predicted willingness to help. conclusions: the findings demonstrate that patients’ health behaviors influence willingness to help and highlight the role of empathy in shaping these intentions. the study therefore supports integrating targeted empathy-focused training into academic curricula to strengthen empathic and related interpersonal skills among future healthcare professionals. keywords empathy, willingness to help, future healthcare professionals, education, health behaviors the willingness to help (wth) is considered a prerequisite of helping behaviors (zeng et al., 2022). it is defined as the intention one person has to help someone or others under certain circumstances, which represents an internal precursor to actual helping behavior. wth is frequently used to assess individuals’ propensity to assist a particular target in ethically sensitive experimental contexts. accordingly, wth is a preliminary factor positively correlated with helping behaviors (yan et al., 2012). in a clinical context, helping behaviors — understood as a crucial form of prosocial behavior involving actions intended to assist another person with a problem or to alleviate their distress (stukas & clary, 2012) — are central to professional care, as patients seek healthcare providers to receive appropriate care. such behaviors are inherently other-oriented and beneficial to the recipient (mason, 2021). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15323&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0188-1025 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0058-6190 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wth aligns conceptually with the intentions described in the theory of planned behavior and reasoned action (ajzen, 1985; ajzen, 1991; fishbein & ajzen, 1975), which posit that behaviors are driven by intentions, attitudes (i.e., beliefs about a behavior), and subjective norms (i.e., beliefs about others’ attitudes toward a behavior). intentions are seen as immediate precursors of behavior and are shaped by two main factors: an individual’s beliefs about the behavior itself and their beliefs about others’ expectations (madden et al., 1992). the theory of planned behavior extends this framework by incorporating perceived behavioral control, reflecting individuals’ sense of control over the performance of a behavior. this addition not only impacts intentions but also influences the implementation of those intentions. therefore, as shown by wurthmann (2014), attitudes toward behavior predict intentions to engage in that behavior. in the present study, we targeted wth (similar to intentions from theory of planned behavior and reasoned action) not behaviors (actual helping behaviors) because they were difficult to apprehend for ethical reasons. our aim was to determine how external factors and individual characteristics shape these intentions (i.e., wth). as with helping behavior and altruism, wth varies substantially across contexts (berkowitz, 1987). currently, there is limited evidence that healthcare professionals influence patients’ health behaviors (e.g., heszen-klemens & lapińska, 1984), or that patients’ behaviors affect their treatment outcomes (e.g., jeon et al., 2020; pinto & trunzo, 2005). however, to our best knowledge, there is no data showing how patients’ health behaviors affect healthcare professionals’ wth, and which characteristics can promote the wth of healthcare professionals. a salient example occurred during the covid-19 pandemic. due to a reduced workforce and the increased number of hospitalized covid-19 patients, questions were raised by various stakeholders (e.g., journalists, politicians, or physicians) regarding whether healthcare professionals should treat non-vaccinated and vaccinated patients equally (e.g., hadrich, 2021; khullar, 2021; lacombe, 2021; marcus, 2021; rogers, 2021). these debates highlight the need to understand what factors shape healthcare professionals’ intentions to help, and what factors may counteract potential biases. empathy: a factor influencing wth? the scientific literature generally divides empathy into two main domains, affective and cognitive empathy. the former refers to the ability to feel what others feel (bryant, 1982), and the latter the capacity to comprehend others’ feelings (hogan, 1969). empathy, as a core skill in clinical settings (nasello & triffaux, 2023), is likely a significant factor that influences helping behaviors and the wth among (future) healthcare professionals, as supported by the empathy-altru­ ism hypothesis (batson, 1987; batson, 2011; batson et al., 2014) and a recent meta-analysis (yin & wang, 2023). baston’s hypothesis (batson, 1987; batson, 2011; batson et al., 2014) states that empathic concern produces altruistic motivation that leads to prosocial behaviors (batson, 2011, p.1). in clinical settings, empathy in healthcare professionals is linked to increased patient satisfaction (derksen et al., 2013; hojat et al., 2011; pollak et al., 2011), better treatment adherence (attar & chandramani, 2012; zolnierek & dimatteo, 2009), and improved clinical outcomes (hojat et al., 2011). thus, fostering empathy among healthcare providers is a major objective for improving quality of care. however, it remains unclear how patients’ own behaviors — especially those perceived as unhealthy or responsibili­ ty-laden — affect professionals’ wth, and whether empathy modulates this relationship. the present study’s objectives as demonstrated by the theory of planned behavior and reasoned action (ajzen, 1985; ajzen, 1991; fishbein & ajzen, 1975), attitudes influence intentions that, in turn, impact behaviors. in the present study, we shift the paradigm by seeking to determine whether specific features from others predict wth (which is compared to intentions). in the present study, we focused on prior behaviors adopted by patients (i.e., healthy or unhealthy behaviors) and on future healthcare professionals’ wth. therefore, we aim to answer the following question: are future healthcare professionals’ wth significantly affected when patients exhibit healthy and unhealthy behaviors? furthermore, given the clinical importance of empathy and results from a meta-analysis showing that empathy is positively associated with wth (yin & wang, 2023), we expected some positive associations between these factors. nasello & triffaux 393 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ however, we sought to clarify which domain of empathy is specifically associated with wth and whether healthy and unhealthy wth scenarios affect the associations between empathy domains and wth. as peripheral objectives, we will determine whether grade (bachelor versus master students) impacts empathy and wth and whether age similarly affects these two components. finally, several studies showed that empathy levels significantly differed between men and women (baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004; jolliffe & farrington, 2006; nasello & triffaux, 2020; triffaux et al., 2019; triffaux et al., 2023). thus, we expect to find a significant association between gender and empathy. regarding the association between gender, age, and wth, we expect to find insignificant associations between these variables, as found by hajdu et al. (2022). however, the literature on gender differences in actual prosocial behavior remains mixed, with studies reporting both higher prosociality in women (carlo et al., 2016; perenc & pezczkowski, 2018) and greater helping behavior in men (eagly & crowley, 1986). method and material participants a total of 301 respondents voluntarily completed the online survey, and one participant was excluded because s/he was not enrolled in a healthcare curriculum. therefore, the final sample comprised 300 participants (82% women; mage = 23.5; sd = 5.97). most were bachelor’s students (n = 215), with master’s students representing 85 participants, and mainly came from nursing (35%), physiotherapy (26%), psychology (9%), and medicine (8%) departments (see table a in nasello, 2025 for descriptive results). most participants identified as caucasians (n = 265) and reported an average parental socioeconomic status (64%). the financially independent students (n = 51, 39%) reported a low socioeconomic status (income < €1200/month). inclusion criteria required enrollment in a healthcare program, completion of at least one clinical internship, and age ≥ 18 years. ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the department of psychology at the university of liège (belgium), reference n°: 2122-040. informed consent was obtained online. a power analysis conducted with g*power 3.1.9.7 (faul et al., 2007) determined that we would require at least 167 participants for our main analysis to achieve a power of 0.80 with an α-error settled at 0.05, 8 degrees of freedom, and to detect moderate effect sizes (settled at 0.3). the online data file is available at nasello (2025). instruments demographic information the student participants were asked to provide for their age, gender, ethnicity, year of study, department, the perceived economic status of their parents (when they were not financially independent), and their personal economic status when they were financially independent. the willingness to help inspired by koster (2007) and koehler and weber (2018), we designed 12 small scenarios describing clinical situations. there were six healthy and six unhealthy scenarios randomly distributed. the scenarios were structurally equivalent (see tables b and c in nasello, 2025). in the healthy scenarios, the protagonist (a patient) exhibited healthy behaviors but still got sick (e.g., a patient who does not smoke is diagnosed with lung cancer and is admitted to your department.). in contrast, in the unhealthy scenarios, the protagonist exhibited unhealthy behaviors and still got sick (e.g., a patient who smokes is diagnosed with lung cancer and continues smoking while being admitted to your department.). each scenario included the following statement: “in each of the situations, the target person is aware of their diagnosis or condition.” participants rated six items after each vignette using a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree): 1. “i would provide optimal care to this person.” patients’ health behaviors, wth, and empathy 394 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. “i would do my best to improve this person’s pathology.” 3. “i would visit this person several times (even more than recommended) to see if everything is going well.” 4. “i would come more quickly when this person calls for help.” 5. “i would persuade my colleagues that this person needs specific attention.” 6. “i would ask very specific questions to this person to better understand their suffering.” participants answered these questions using a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (“totally disagree”) to 5 (“totally agree”). a global wth score and two sub-scores (healthy vs. unhealthy scenarios) were computed. internal consistency was excellent (α = .95 for both scenario types). empathy the basic empathy scale (bes, jolliffe & farrington, 2006; french version, d’ambrosio et al., 2009) assesses two domains of empathy (affective and cognitive empathy) and four emotions (i.e., anger, fear, happiness, and sadness). we selected the bes over the interpersonal reactivity index (davis, 1983) and the jefferson scale of physician empathy (hojat et al., 2002) because it uniquely focuses on emotional states rather than encompassing all mental states like its counterparts (see jolliffe & farrington, 2006 for more details). this allows for a more accurate targeting of the empathic processes involved in assessing their potential impact on wth. the scale includes twenty self-report items and uses a 5-point likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” the affective empathy domain consists of eleven questions, while the cognitive component has nine items. in this study, the internal consistency of the bes domains was found to be good (affective empathy: α = .83; cognitive empathy: α = .74). data analyses and experimental design structural equation modeling (sem) was used to examine the relationships between empathy, wth, and sociodemo­ graphic variables (gender, age, and grade). the model’s goodness of fit was assessed using five statistical indices: the chi-square goodness-of-fit (χ2), the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), the comparative fit index (cfi), the tucker-lewis index (tli), and the standardized root mean square residual (srmr). a non-significant chi-square value indicates a satisfactory fit of the model. however, since the chi-square test is influenced by sample size and can yield significant results with larger samples, a χ2/df ratio is used. the χ2/df ratio should not exceed 5 to display good goodness of fit. rmsea, cfi, tli, and srmr were used to confirm the model’s fit (schumacker & lomax, 2010). cfi and tli values greater than .9 indicate an adequate fit, while a value greater than .95 suggests a good fit. for the rmsea and srmr, a value below .08 indicates an adequate fit, while a value below .05 represents a good fit (hu & bentler, 1999). a t-paired test and a correlation matrix accompanied the main analysis (sem). the analyses were conducted using jamovi computer software, version 1.6.23 (jamovi project, 2019) and r, version 4.2.2 (r core team, 2021), lavaan package 0.6.15 (rosseel, 2012). results descriptive analyses and correlation matrix table 1 displays the descriptive statistics for all variables. a paired-samples t-test showed that wth differed significant­ ly across conditions, t(299) = -5.62, p < .001, d = -.32: future healthcare professionals reported higher wth toward patients who had engaged in healthy behaviors compared to those with unhealthy behaviors (small effect size). nasello & triffaux 395 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics variable m mdn sd min max age 23.5 22.0 5.97 18 53 ae 41.1 41.5 6.80 14 54 ce 37.4 38.0 4.21 23 45 wthuh 137.9 139.0 18.07 76 180 wthh 140.7 141.0 18.17 89 180 wthtot. 278.6 280.5 35.23 179 360 note. ae = affective empathy; ce = cognitive empathy; wthh = willingness to help, healthy scenarios; wthuh = willingness to help, unhealthy scenarios; wthtot. = willingness to help, all scenarios. the correlation matrix (see table 2) revealed that affective empathy was significantly correlated to wthh, r = .17; p < .01, wthuh, r = .18; p < .01, and wthtot., r = .18; p < .01. cognitive empathy was also significantly correlated to wthh, r = .16; p < .01, but the correlation was stronger for wthuh, r = .23; p < .001, and wthtot., r = .20; p < .01. overall, the correlations between empathy and wth domains were small. table 2 correlation matrix gender age grade ae ce wthuh wthh wthtot. gender — age -0.08 — grade 0.065 -0.10 — ae 0.336*** -0.04 -0.07 — ce 0.099 0.054 -0.17** 0.385*** — wthuh 0.141* 0.020 0.070 0.181** 0.225*** — wthh 0.116* 0.012 0.119* 0.172** 0.161** 0.890*** — wthtot. 0.132* 0.016 0.097 0.181** 0.198*** 0.972*** 0.972*** — note. ae = affective empathy; ce = cognitive empathy; wthh = willingness to help, healthy scenarios; wthuh = willingness to help, unhealthy scenarios; wthtot. = willingness to help, all scenarios. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regarding the sociodemographic variables, gender (women were coded as 1) was significantly correlated to affective empathy, r = .34; p < .001, wthuh, r = .14; p < .05, wthh, r = .14; p < .05, and wthtot., r = .13; p < .05. grade (bachelors were coded as 1) was also significantly correlated to cognitive empathy, r = -.17; p < .01, and wthh, r = .12; p < .05. finally, age was not significantly associated with empathy or wth domains, ps > .05. all these correlations were small, except for the relationship between gender and affective empathy that is moderate. structural equation modeling the final model showed adequate goodness of fit indices, χ2/df = 2.71, cfi = .97, tli = .95, rmsea = .075, srmr = .038. in this final model, we set the variance of wthuh at 1. as shown in figure 1, empathy had a (moderate) significant direct link with wth, β = .29; p < .005 (see table d; nasello, 2025), confirming the main hypothesis of this study. gender, age, and grade did not significantly impact wth, ps > .05. patients’ health behaviors, wth, and empathy 396 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 the structural model note. women and bachelors were coded “1”. ae = affective empathy; ce = cognitive empathy; wthh = willingness to help, healthy scenarios; wthuh = willingness to help, unhealthy scenarios. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. regarding empathy, we found that gender and grade had a significant direct link with empathy (gender: β = .40, p < .001; grade: β = -.17, p < .05; see table d; nasello, 2025). in other words, women presented higher levels of empathy than men (the effect size of this association is moderate) and master’s students had higher empathy levels than bachelor’s students (the effect size is small). refer to tables d–g in nasello (2025) for complementary descriptive statistics in the supplementary materials. discussion consistent with our expectations, the present study demonstrated a positive effect of empathy on wth, which aligns with the findings of yin and wang (2023). upon further analysis of this association, the correlation matrix revealed that future healthcare professionals with higher levels of affective and cognitive empathy were more inclined to assist patients exhibiting both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. in addition, when it came to patients with unhealthy behaviors, cognitive empathy was the strongest predictor of wth. in other words, higher levels of cognitive empathy, and to a lesser extent affective empathy, are associated with a higher propensity to assist patients with damaging health behaviors. however, a methodological point deserves emphasis. in this study, we utilized the basic empathy scale (jolliffe & farrington, 2006), which focuses exclusively on the emotional dimension of empathy. unlike the interpersonal reactivity index (davis, 1983), this scale does not assess broader mental states. thus, the observed relationship between wth and empathy indicates that it is primarily the ability to feel and understand others’ emotional states that matters. these findings are crucial, as we observed a significant decrease in wth of future healthcare professionals when patients exhibited unhealthy behaviors compared to scenarios where patients displayed healthy behaviors. batson and colleagues (2014) explained that learning whether one’s help effectively alleviated the needs of a target is one of several circumstances that can impact altruistic behaviors. in light of our results, future healthcare professionals may anticipate a lower probability of achieving their desired goal (optimal patient recovery) when performing medical procedures. consequently, they may exhibit less readiness to assist patients with unhealthy behaviors. furthermore, with regards to the impact of empathy on wth, batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis (batson, 1987, 2011; batson et al., 2014) posits that individuals with higher levels of empathic concern experience an increase in altruistic motivation and are more inclined to provide targeted assistance to someone. however, it was unclear whether this prosocial behavior persisted regardless of the target’s personality traits or behaviors. nasello & triffaux 397 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the current study shed light on the fact that patients’ unhealthy or healthy behaviors do influence the willingness of future healthcare professionals to help but their empathy levels are also a significant (moderate) predictor. as mentioned, (1) both affective and cognitive empathy contribute to wth, regardless of the patient’s behavior, and (2) cognitive empathy becomes especially influential when patients engage in unhealthy behaviors. these results highlight the protective value of cognitive empathy in maintaining professional engagement even when patients’ behaviors evoke negative judgments. the role of sociodemographic variables regarding sociodemographic variables such as age, gender, or grade, none of these variables had a significant influence on wth. this suggests that, across different levels of training, ages, and genders, future healthcare professionals express a similar baseline willingness to help. these results replicate the nonsignificant associations reported by hajdu et al. (2022). regarding the effects of these sociodemographic variables on empathy, we found a significant and positive effect of gender: women exhibit higher levels of affective empathy. additionally, we observed a significant negative effect of the grade variable: master’s students have higher levels of empathy. the former result is a well-established empirical finding (baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004; jolliffe & farrington, 2006; nasello et al., 2018; nasello & triffaux, 2020; triffaux et al., 2019; triffaux et al., 2023). sex role stereotypes have been suggested as a potential explanation for the gender effect on empathy (hoffman, 1977), but other authors argue that these gender differences are also present in elementary forms of empathy, such as mimicry, indicating a deeper-rooted effect (goldman & sripada, 2005; hermans et al., 2006; lakin et al., 2008; schulte-rüther et al., 2008). the latter result may seem surprising because several studies have demonstrated a significant decline in empathy scores during education, particularly in the field of medicine (hojat et al., 2004; triffaux et al., 2019; ward et al., 2012), as well as in various healthcare fields, including medicine (nunes et al., 2011). however, the grade effect on empathy aligns with a recent study that revealed higher empathy scores among healthcare students (specifically, medical students) during the covid-19 pandemic (triffaux et al., 2023). the authors observed significantly higher scores in affective and cognitive empathy in the pandemic cohort compared to two pre-pandemic cohorts, using two different empathy measurement tools. the authors proposed that these higher scores observed in the pandemic cohort could be either transient or permanent. in either case, these higher scores could potentially have a detrimental effect (refer to triffaux et al., 2023 for more details), sustaining the need to intervene at the medical curriculum level by proposing targeted courses on empathic skills. how to implement the present findings in education? the study’s findings echo existing calls for structured training interventions into the education of future healthcare professionals to cultivate appropriate empathy skills (hojat, 2016; kilic et al., 2021; nasello & triffaux, 2020; nasello & triffaux, 2023; riess & kraft-todd, 2014; triffaux et al., 2019; triffaux et al., 2023; zhu et al., 2021). such tailored interventions should prioritize the development of effective emotion regulation skills and the promotion of specific facets of empathy, such as empathic concern and perspective-taking (nasello & triffaux, 2023; triffaux et al., 2023). there are several ways to improve empathic skills. one model, proposed by riess and kraft-todd (2014), is called e.m.p.a.t.h.y. it focuses on nonverbal empathic skills and includes the following components: e: eye contact. m: muscles of facial expression. p: posture. a: affect. t: tone of voice. h: hearing the whole patient. y: your response. patients’ health behaviors, wth, and empathy 398 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ another approach is balint’s groups, where students participate as either a patient, a clinician, or an observer. this method helps develop facets such as empathic concern and perspective-taking (zhu et al., 2021). additionally, a new model has been proposed to understand the empathic process from the empathizer’s perspective. this model can shed light on how both maladaptive and adaptive responses occur, as well as how empathy can be associated with psychopathological symptoms (nasello & triffaux, 2023). alongside proposals aimed at developing relational skills centered on empathy, other approaches could be suggested and adapted for (future) healthcare professionals. for instance, authors such as bianco and castelli (2023), as well as bateman and fonagy (2019), have put forward various models intended to foster theory of mind and mentalizing capacities. although these models have not yet been applied with the explicit goal of enhancing the interpersonal abilities of (future) healthcare professionals, they show considerable promise, particularly due to their clear proximity to cognitive empathy. bianco and castelli (2023), for example, have identified three key components for cultivating theory of mind skills (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to ourselves and others in order to make sense of people’s social behavior). these components include: 1. training second-order recursive thinking, that is, the capacity to mentally revisit an event with the aim of recognizing that one might hold a false belief about what others think. 2. practicing the application of theory of mind principles, which involves accurately identifying others’ mental states by formulating the most plausible interpretations in a given situation. 3. mentalizing thoughts and emotions, referring to the ability to reason about both one’s own and others’ mental states while simultaneously taking into account both cognitive and affective aspects — understanding that these internal contents shape behaviors and subjective experiences. these three components can be meaningfully linked to the framework proposed by bateman and fonagy (2019), who highlight how neural dynamics jointly enable the mind to: 1. distinguish external reality from internal psychological experience and fantasy. 2. support the development of an embodied sense of self, capable of acting as an intentional agent. 3. perceive social interactions as meaningful. 4. adopt others’ perspectives and, more broadly, engage in imaginative reasoning. conclusion the present study demonstrates that future healthcare professionals’ willingness to help varies depending on patients’ prior health behaviors, with lower wth observed toward patients who engaged in unhealthy behaviors. additionally, the findings provided strong evidence of empathy playing an increasing role, with a moderate effect size, in shaping the wth among future healthcare professionals. hence, our findings suggest that the theory of planned behavior and reasoned action may require refinement. indeed, attitudes and subjective norms will have a significant impact on the intention of future caregivers to help and care for a patient, as will perceived behavioral control and conscious decision-making. however, on the one hand, we see that certain individual characteristics of these future caregivers (their empathy) also play a significant role in their intentions to help, and on the other hand, patients’ prior health behaviors may influence how they receive care. overall, our results advocate for the promotion of empathic skills and related aspects within the academic curric­ ulum of future healthcare professionals (e.g., incorporating targeted courses on empathic or mentalization skills). addressing this challenge in education is crucial and ranks among the most fundamental tasks for the forthcoming decades. the study’s main limitation lies in the fact that we measure wth but not the actual helping behavior itself. although it is likely that wth translates into helping behaviors, this point remains hypothetical. nasello & triffaux 399 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors report there are no competing interests to declare. data availability: the online data file is available on the open science foundation at nasello (2025). supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access data wth and emp data. nasello (2025) code code r structure wth. nasello (2025) material basic empathy scale. nasello (2025) basic empathy scale english. nasello (2025) information data and coding text document. nasello (2025) supp. mats word document. nasello (2025) study/analysis preregistration the study was not preregistered. — other no other material to report. — references ajzen, i. 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(2009). physician communication and patient adherence to treatment: a meta-analysis. medical care, 47(8), 826–834. https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0b013e31819a5acc about the authors julian a. nasello (ph.d.) is a clinician psychologist and researcher. his research interests mainly focus on borderline personality disorders and the role of empathy in moral decision-making and medical education. jean-marc triffaux (pr., m.d., ph.d.) is a professor at the university of liège in the department of medicine. he is a clinician psychiatrist and the medical director of the psychiatric day hospital “la clé.” his research interests mainly focus on the role of empathy in medical care and education. nasello & triffaux 403 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 392–403 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15323 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.04.180 https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-375000-6.00019-7 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.encep.2018.05.003 https://doi.org/10.56300/leeg4898 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2011.10.007 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12537 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106493 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2020.102922 https://doi.org/10.1097/mlr.0b013e31819a5acc https://www.psychopen.eu/ patients’ health behaviors, wth, and empathy (introduction) empathy: a factor influencing wth? the present study’s objectives method and material participants instruments data analyses and experimental design results descriptive analyses and correlation matrix structural equation modeling discussion the role of sociodemographic variables how to implement the present findings in education? conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship: a taxonomy of the reasons research reports what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship: a taxonomy of the reasons menelaos apostolou 1 [1] department of social sciences, university of nicosia, nicosia, cyprus. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 received: 2018-12-13 • accepted: 2020-02-26 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: mioara cristea, department of psychology, school of social sciences, heriot watt university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: menelaos apostolou, university of nicosia, 46 makedonitissas ave., 1700 nicosia, cyprus. e-mail: m.apostolou@gmail.com abstract within the context of an evolutionary theoretical framework, the current research attempted to study the reasons that cause difficulties in starting an intimate relationship in the greek cultural context. in particular, using qualitative research methods (interviews and open-ended questionnaires), study 1 (n = 205) identified 58 reasons that make it difficult for people to start an intimate relationship. using an online sample of 1,095 greek-speaking participants (n = 1,095), study 2 classified these reasons in 12 factors. more than 80% of the participants indicated that they faced above moderate or severe difficulties in at least one factor, while about 40% faced difficulties in three or more factors. significant gender and age effects were found across the different factors. using second order principal components analysis, the 12 factors were classified in three broader domains of difficulties in starting a relationship. keywords intimate relationships, flirting, mismatch problem, mating, mate choice many people are single, and the prevalence of singlehood in western societies appears to be on the rise (eurostat, 2015; gallup, 2015; jones, 2012). recent research has indicated that one reason for this phenomenon is that people face difficulties in attracting a partner and initiating an intimate relationship (apostolou, 2015; apostolou, shialos, kyrou, demetriou, & papamichael, 2018). in the same vein, in the greek-cultural context, it has been found that about one in two singles wanted to be in a relationship but they faced difficulties in doing so (apostolou, papadopoulou, & georgiadou, 2018). the purpose of the current research is to identify the reasons that make it difficult for people to start a relationship. these reasons can be understood in an evolutionary theoretical framework that will be discussed first. the evolutionary roots of poor mating performance humans are a sexually reproducing species, which means that, in order to reproduce, people need to gain access to the reproductive capacity of the opposite sex. in turn, this fact translates into strong evolutionary pressures being exercised on individuals to evolve mechanisms or adaptations that would enable them to gain such access (buss, 2017). to put it differently, those who are not able to gain such access do not have any offspring and thus, their genetic material is less likely to be represented in future generations. accordingly, we have inherited from our ancestors mechanisms that serve this purpose. for instance, emotions, such as romantic love and sexual desire, are adaptations that motivate people to divert their energy in obtaining mates (apostolou, 2016b). similarly, mate preferences are adaptations that this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1852&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ enable individuals to divert their attention to prospective mates with good reproductive potential (buss, 1989; iwasa & pomiankowski, 1994). selection forces adjust the frequency of the genes in the gene pool, so that individuals that compose a given population are endowed with mechanisms that make them well-adapted to the environment they occupy. when a certain aspect of the environment changes, selection forces operate on the genes that code for traits interacting with this aspect of the environment, so as to adjust their frequencies to the demands of the new environment (irons, 1998). this process takes time, and usually, several generations are required before the population adapts to these new conditions (irons, 1998; weiner, 1995). during this time, several individuals will have mechanisms (e.g., adaptations involved in flirting) that are not well adapted to the prevailing conditions, and as a consequence, they will suffer fitness penalties. this is known as the mismatch problem: mechanisms do not work well, not because they are broken but because they have evolved to function in an environment which is different from the environment they currently have to function in (crawford, 1998; li, van vugt, & colarelli, 2017; maner & kenrick, 2010). the number of individuals that would be affected by the mismatch problem and the severity of the fitness penalties they would suffer depend on the recency and the extent of the environmental change. in particular, the more distant in the past the change has been, the more time selection forces would have had to adjust the frequencies of the alleles in the gene pool to these conditions, and the less likely it would be for contemporary people to carry alleles that are not optimal for these conditions. moreover, if the environmental change has not been extensive, the mechanisms people are endowed with may still be able to function reasonably well. however, if the change has been considerable, these mechanisms may not be able to function at all. therefore, the bigger the change, the more fitness penalties individuals who carry non-optimal alleles would suffer. overall, a considerable and recent change in a specific aspect of the environment is likely to have a substantial negative impact on many individuals. we will argue below that such a change has occurred in the domain of mating (apostolou, 2019; crawford, 1998; li et al., 2017). mismatch in the mating domain men form male coalitions in order to fight other men and monopolize their resources, including women, by force (ghiglieri, 1999; tooby & cosmides, 1988; trivers, 1985). these conflicts take the form of small-scale raids, but they can also escalate to full scale wars. anthropological, historical and archeological evidence indicates that such conflicts were frequent in ancestral societies (bowles, 2009; keegan, 2004; keeley, 1996). furthermore, anthropological evidence from pre-industrial societies, along with evidence from historical records, indicates that in ancestral human societies mating was regulated (apostolou, 2007, 2010, 2012; broude & green, 1983; coontz, 2006). in particularly, young individuals were controlled by their parents, especially their fathers, who would choose spouses for them (apostolou, 2007, 2010). anthropological and historical evidence indicates further that individuals had also a space to exercise mate choice, even where arranged marriage was prevalent (apostolou, 2017a; coontz, 2006). on the basis of the available evidence, we can argue that in ancestral human societies, and during most of the human evolutionary time, mating took place in a context where marriages were arranged, fights with reproductive purposes were common, and individuals had a limited but significant space to attract mates on their own. to put it differently, ancestral individuals could get mates from their parents or through force or through being able to persuade opposite-sex individuals to mate with them. following the industrial revolution in the 18th century, and the subsequent transition to post-industrialism in the 20th century, this aspect of the environment changed drastically; fights and wars became much less frequent, while people were constrained by law and other social institutions from forcing sex from desirable others (pinker, 2011). parents in western societies lost most of their power to control mate choice directly, and they could only do so indirectly through manipulation (apostolou & papageorgi, 2014). as a consequence, individuals became free to choose their own mates. but, although more freedom is desirable, many people were confronted with the mismatch problem: they had to find mates on their own, and to do so they had to rely on mechanisms which have not been calibrated by selection forces for accomplishing this task (apostolou, 2015). in particular, our ancestors would predominantly secure mates from their parents or through force; thus, their adap­ tations have been optimized for this purpose and not for attracting mates on their own. people living in post-industrial what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 104 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ societies have inherited these mechanisms, but these mechanisms cannot help them, as mating in the contemporary environment is not regulated by parents and it is not forced by means of male coalitions. actually, some of these mechanisms that would result in high reproductive success in the ancestral context, may have the opposite effect in the contemporary one. for instance, high aggression in an ancestral environment may have turned a man to be a successful warrior who managed to monopolize access to many women, but in the modern environment such high aggression would most likely turn a man to an undesirable mate (apostolou, 2016a). overall, the drastic change in the environment would lead to many individuals having mechanisms which are inadequate for attracting mates in the contemporary context. the number of these individuals is expected to be high, because this change occurred very recently in evolutionary terms. for example, many western societies completed the transition to post-industrialism only a few generations ago (simms, 2014). difficulties in starting an intimate relationship the theoretical framework developed above leads to the prediction that a considerable proportion of individuals living in post-industrial societies would face difficulties in intimate relationships. some older studies found that people remain single for different reasons, including personal deficits and self-blame (austrom & hanel, 1985). frazier arikian, benson, losoff, and maurer (1996) asked 251 men and women in the usa why they were not married. they found that one of the most common reasons was “difficulty in establishing a relationship,” although they did not investigate what caused this difficulty. furthermore, in a study performed using a sample of 160 women in india, prabhakar (2011) found that one reason for being single was poor health or disability. more recently, one study based on a sample of 1,894 participants (1,114 women, 780 men) found that, about one in two individuals experienced difficulties in either starting or keeping a relationship (apostolou, shialos et al., 2018). it was also found that poor performance in mating was predicted by sexual functioning, self-esteem, self-perceived mate value, choosiness, personality, attention to looks, and mating effort, which were attributed to the mismatch problem. however, the predictors of mating performance were chosen on theoretical grounds, rather than on what people have indicated to prevent them from doing well in mating. a different study employed qualitative research methods in order to identify the reasons that drive individuals to be single, and subsequently, it employed quantitative research methods in order to classify these reasons to broader categories (apostolou, 2017b). nevertheless, this research focused on singlehood in general rather than on the reasons that make it difficult for an individual to start a relationship. thus, although some of the reasons for the latter are included in the former, this study did not provide a comprehensive account of these reasons. finally, a recent qualitative study analyzed 13,429 responses from a reddit thread asking the question why men were single (apostolou, 2019). the responses were classified in 43 broader categories, with the most frequent ones being poor flirting skills, low self-confidence, poor looks, shyness, low effort, and bad experience from previous relationships. this research was limited however to men, while it did not examine specifically the factors that prevented people from initiating an intimate relationship. in sum, to our knowledge, there is no study that has attempted to examine the reasons that cause difficulties in initiating an intimate relationship. the current study attempts to fill in this gap in the literature by identifying the difficulties that make it hard for individuals to attract mates. please note that the current study employed a mixed research design used in previous studies (e.g., apostolou, 2017b). study 1 the purpose of this study was to identify the difficulties that people face in attracting mates. we employed a combina­ tion of qualitative research methods, namely, in-depth interviews and open-ended questionnaires. more specifically, although the in-depth interview method can provide rich information about the reasons which cause difficulties in starting a relationship, participants may not be willing to entrust the interviewer with all reasons, especially if these are of sensitive nature, such as sexual problems (liamputtong, 2009). therefore, we have also employed the open-ended questionnaire method, where participants could respond to questions while maintaining their anonymity. apostolou 105 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants participation was on a voluntary basis, and no compensation was given. the main requirement for taking part was to be an adult (18 years old or older). participants were recruited through an advertisement that was placed on social media and through word of mouth. there were two groups of participants, a group responding to interviews and a group responding to open-ended questionnaires. starting with the in-depth interviews, 61 greeks and greek-cypriots took part (32 women, 29 men). the mean age of women was 25.2 (sd = 6.9), and the mean age of men was 26.6 (sd = 7.4). moreover, 40.5% of the participants were single, 25.4% were in a relationship, 25.1% were married and 9% were divorced. with respect to the open-ended questionnaires, 144 greeks and greek-cypriots took part (71 women, 73 men). the mean age of women was 23.7 (sd = 8.3), and the mean age of men was 25.5 (sd = 8.1). furthermore, 42.0% of the participants were single, 32.6% were in a relationship, 20.0% were married and 5.4% were divorced. materials in-depth interviews — the research took place in a medium-sized private university in the republic of cyprus. in order to identify the different reasons that caused difficulties to individuals in starting a relationship, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted. all interviews took place in a psychology lab located at the university premises. the interviews were in greek and each interview lasted about 35 minutes. the interviews were conducted by one of the authors and one independent graduate student. at the beginning of the interview, participants were asked to sign a consent form, and subsequently, they were subsequently asked to fill in their demographic details (i.e., gender, age, marital status). participants were asked to discuss the different reasons that led them to face currently or in the past difficulties in starting a relationship. participants were also asked to discuss difficulties that their friends and relatives were having in starting a relationship. follow-up and probing questions were used in order to get more detailed information on specific difficulties. the participants’ answers were recorded on paper. at the end of the interview, participants were debriefed and thanked. open-ended questionnaires — the survey had two parts. in the first part, participants were asked to indicate different factors that caused them difficulties in starting an intimate relationship now or in the past. in the second part, demographic information was collected (i.e., gender, age, marital status). results two independent graduate students, a man and a woman, processed participants’ answers for the in-depth interviews and the open-ended questionnaires. each assessed the answers independently, and they generated a list of the reasons reported by the participants. for this purpose, redundant reasons with identical or very similar wording were elimina­ ted. we followed this procedure in order to produce an instrument of a reasonable length which would not include redundancies. answers that contained multiple reasons were eliminated, as they were difficult to interpret. in addition, difficulties with unclear or vague wording were also eliminated. if there was disagreement about retaining a given item, this was resolved by consulting one of the authors. in total, 58 reasons that caused difficulties in starting an intimate relationship were identified and are presented in table 1. what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 106 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 the extracted factors and the respective factor loadings for study 2 factor factor loading poor courtship skills flirting causes me stress .798 i do not know what to say when i want to approach someone .778 i find it difficult to approach someone .773 i am not good at flirting .769 i do not take the initiative to approach someone i like .754 i find it difficult to put myself in the process of flirting .739 i do not know how to show to someone that i am interested .738 i am shy .668 i find it difficult to figure out if someone is interested in me .536 the fear of rejection .395 i do not know how to start a relationship .350 i am socially awkward .280 i am introverted .278 fear of commitment fear of commitment .840 i do not like commitment .815 i fear that i will lose my freedom .801 i am not sure whether i want to be in a relationship .735 i do not feel ready to be in a relationship .692 i do not want trouble .541 the effort and the time it takes for a relationship discourages me .474 fear of getting hurt i fear that i will get hurt .810 i fear that i will be disappointed .768 the fear of breaking up .703 i have bad experiences from previous relationships .579 health/handicap issues i have a health problem .825 i have a handicap .808 i have a sexual issue .368 i have a psychological issue .312 difficult to meet available mates it is not easy for me to meet people who are available as mates .586 my way turns away potential mates .580 i am clingy .511 i do not have a social circle with potential mates .468 people do not show an interest in me .398 lack of time lack of time −.804 i do not have any free time to look for a relationship −.775 too conservative my religious beliefs .644 my family is restricting me to make a relationship .634 i am very conservative .612 i fear that i will be socially stigmatized .539 apostolou 107 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor factor loading lack of money i do not have enough money to support a relationship −.903 i am in a poor financial condition −.899 poor looks and low self-confidence my appearance −.765 my body weight −.726 i do not consider myself desirable −.556 i feel insecure about whether others will like me −.448 i am insecure −.426 i have low self-confidence −.423 i have not achieved much in my life and i think i am not a desirable mate −.350 my character −.325 sexual orientation my sexual orientation (i am homosexual) −.640 too picky i am not easily interested in someone .764 i am too picky .747 it is hard to find mates that make a good match with me .619 i always find faults in potential partners .505 i am not easily giving opportunities to people who approach me .444 i do not trust easily .381 i am easily disappointed .372 not get over previous relationship i have not got over my previous partner −.674 study 2 the purpose of this study was to classify the difficulties identified in study 1 to broader difficulties in starting an intimate relationship. method participants the research was designed and ran in a private university in the republic of cyprus. the study was performed online. we chose this method because of the sensitive nature of the research, since we could get more honest answers this way (kreuter, presser, & tourangeau, 2008). the link of the study was forwarded as a facebook add. the target group was set to men and women who were 18 years old or older. in this study, 1,095 greek-speaking individuals took part (590 women, 505 men). the mean age of women was 26.68 (sd = 9.07) and the mean age of men was 29.73 (sd = 10.01). moreover, 67.4% of the participants were single, 19.9% were in a relationship, 9.0% were divorced, and 3.7% were married. please note that the demographic information of the current study has been also used by apostolou et al. (2018), in estimating the occurrence of singlehood in the greek cultural context. materials the survey was constructed using google forms, and consisted of two parts. in the first part, participants were given the 58 reasons identified in study 1, and were asked to rate how each one is currently causing or has caused them in the past difficulties in starting an intimate relationship, using a five-points likert scale (1strongly disagree, 5strongly what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 108 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ agree). the order of presentation of the difficulties was randomized across participants. finally, in the second part demographic information was collected (gender, age, marital status). results in order to classify the different reasons that caused difficulties in starting a relationship into broader categories, principal components analysis was performed, with direct oblimin as a rotation method. the results suggested a 12 factor solution (eigenvalue > 1). the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) statistic was .92, indicating a very good sample adequacy. the scales produced were checked by means of reliability analysis (cronbach’s α). internal consistency (α) ranged from .63 to .88 with a mean of .76. the factor structure is presented in table 1. the first factor that emerged was the “poor courtship skills,” which related to the difficulties that individuals had in approaching a partner and initiating courtship. participants indicated that they were not good at flirting, that they were shy and that they experienced fear of rejection. participants indicated also that they would not take the initiative approaching prospective mates even if they liked them. another facet of this factor was that participants indicated a difficulty in understanding whether someone was interested in them. we can also see that being socially awkward and introverted loaded to this factor albeit weakly. the next factor was the “fear of commitment,” where participants indicated that having a fear of or that not liking commitment, made it difficult for them to start a relationship. here, participants indicated that they feared that they would lose their freedom, and that the time and effort that a relationship involved discouraged them from being in one. in the “fear of getting hurt,” participants indicated fear of getting hurt and of being disappointed as reasons that kept them back from starting a relationship. having bad experiences from previous relationships loaded also in this factor, suggesting that participants had been hurt in the past, and feared that it can happen again in the future. in the “health/handicap issues,” participants indicated that a health problem or a handicap prevented them from being in a relationship. having a sexual or a psychological problem loaded also in this factor, albeit more weakly. in the “difficult to meet available mates,” participants indicated that they faced difficulties in meeting available mates. one facet of this factor was that participants’ manner turned away potential mates. in the “lack of time,” people indicated that they did not have sufficient time to allocate in finding mates and in keeping a relationship. in the “too conservative,” participants indicated that their conservatism, their religious beliefs and their family prevented them from starting a relationship. moreover, in the “lack of money,” people indicated that they did not have enough money to support a relationship. in the “poor looks and low self-confidence,” participants indicated that their looks and body weight prevented them from being in a relationship. self-confidence and being insecure, loaded also high in this factor, suggesting that poor looks had a negative effect on self-confidence which in turn, affected people’s capacity to initiate an intimate relationship. in the “sexual orientation,” participants indicated that being homosexual prevented them from being in a relation­ ship. furthermore, in the “too picky,” reasons such as being very choosy, not being easily interested in a mate, not giving opportunities to prospective mates, finding faults and not trusting others, constrained people from starting a relationship. finally, in the “not get over previous relationship,” participants indicated that not getting over a past relationship constrained them from starting a new one. in order to obtain an estimate of importance in causing difficulties to individuals, we calculated means and standard deviations for each factor. the results are presented in table 2, where we can see that “the fear of getting hurt,” “too picky,” “difficult to meet available mates” and “poor courtship skills” topped the hierarchy. in the middle of the hierarchy, were factors such as “poor looks and low self-confidence” and “lack of time,” while at the bottom of the hierarchy were the “health/handicap issues” and the “sexual orientation.” apostolou 109 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 significant gender and age effects for the 12 extracted factors in study 2 factor rank overall women men p ηp2 agea m sd m sd m sd p ηp2 fear of getting hurt 1 3.16 1.08 3.36 1.03 2.93 1.10 < .001 .033 (−) .001 .019 too picky 2 3.15 0.81 3.27 0.78 3.01 0.82 < .001 .060 n.s. n.s. difficult to meet available mates 3 2.96 0.86 2.87 0.88 3.06 0.84 < .001 .046 (+) < .001 .043 poor courtship skills 4 2.78 0.94 2.65 0.91 2.93 0.95 < .001 .102 (−) .003 .032 poor looks and low self-confidence 5 2.52 0.88 2.48 0.88 2.57 0.87 < .001 .066 (−) < .001 .050 lack of time 6 2.13 1.18 2.28 1.22 2.28 1.15 n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. lack of money 7 2.30 1.19 2.12 1.13 2.51 1.23 < .001 .022 (+) < .001 .023 fear of commitment 8 2.24 0.94 2.29 0.96 2.18 0.92 .001 .024 (−) < .001 .037 not get over previous relationship 9 2.17 1.41 2.19 1.41 2.18 1.40 n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. too conservative 10 1.70 0.72 1.70 0.73 1.70 0.71 < .001 .026 (+) < .001 .038 health/handicap issues 11 1.39 0.55 1.35 0.51 1.43 0.61 n.s. n.s. (+) < .001 .021 sexual orientation 12 1.22 0.78 1.20 0.70 1.29 1.16 n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. athe sign of the coefficient of age was placed in parenthesis. we would also like to know how many participants faced above average or severe difficulties in each domain. for this purpose we calculated the percentages of individuals who had a mean score of 3.5 or more (as the middle of the scale was the “3,” it is reasonable to assume that scores above this number would indicate above average agreement that this is a problem they face difficulty) in each factor. the results are presented in table 3, where we have also estimated the percentages of men and women separately. we can see, for instance, that about one in three men and one in five women experienced the difficulty of poor courtship skills. we estimated further that 17.2% did not face any above average or severe difficulty, which means that 82.8% faced at least one. more specifically, 23.4% faced one, 20.2% two, 15.9% three, 9.4% four, 7.5% five and 3.8% six, while the remaining 2.6% faced seven or more difficulties. finally, we estimated that those who were single faced on average 2.48 (sd = 1.95) difficulties, those in a relationship 1.97 (sd = 1.76), those married 1.88 (sd = 1.45) and those divorced 1.82 (sd = 1.48). table 3 the percentage of participants facing above average or severe difficulties in each factor factor % p orabtotal women men fear of getting hurt 45.9 54.1 36.3 < .001 0.51 (1.96) too picky 33.7 39.9 26.6 < .001 0.51 (1.96) difficult to meet available mates 27.4 23.9 31.5 n.s. n.s. poor courtship skills 25.3 19.8 31.8 < .001 2.08 (0.48) poor looks and low self-confidence 17.2 15.8 18.9 n.s. n.s. lack of time 22.0 21.4 22.7 n.s. n.s. lack of money 20.9 15.8 26.9 < .001 1.91 (0.52) fear of commitment 10.95 12.1 9.6 n.s. n.s. not get over previous relationship 20.0 20.2 19.6 n.s. n.s. too conservative 3.1 3.2 2.8 n.s. n.s. health/handicap issues 1.5 1.2 1.8 n.s. n.s. sexual orientation 3.9 2.7 5.2 .004 2.48 (0.40) note. or = odds ratio. what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 110 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ amen in relation to women, the reference category is the “below 3.5 mean score.” we have estimated in parenthesis the odds ratio for the reference category being “3.5 mean score or more.” bthe reference category is the “i am between relationships—i prefer it this way.” contingencies in order to estimate significant effects, we ran a series of multivariate analysis of covariance (mancova) tests, where the reasons composing each factor were entered as the dependent variables and the participants’ gender and age were entered as the independent variables. for the “sexual orientation” and the “not get over previous relationships,” which involved only one reason, we ran analysis of covariance (ancova) tests instead. overall, we ran 12 tests, one for each factor. to avoid the problem of alpha inflation arising from multiple comparisons, we employed bonferroni correction, and we set the alpha to .004 (.05/12). the results are presented in table 2, where we can see that for most of the factors significant gender and age effects emerged. as indicated by the effect sizes, the largest gender difference was found for the “poor courtship skills,” where men gave higher scores than women, followed by the “poor looks and low self-confidence,” where men also gave higher scores than women. in the latter factor, for the “my body weight” reason, women gave higher score than men but the difference did not pass the significance level. third in the hierarchy was the “too picky,” where women gave higher scores than men. moreover, for the too conservative, the means overlapped, but the result came significant predominantly due to the significant difference for the “my family is restricting me to make a relationship,” where women gave significantly higher scores (m = 1.69, sd = 1.16) than men (m = 1.46, sd = 0.97). with respect to age, the strongest effect was on the “poor looks and low self-confidence,” where younger participants gave higher scores than older ones. it was followed by the “the difficult to meet available mates” and the “too conservative,” where older participants gave higher scores than younger ones. furthermore, we attempted to estimate significant differences in the frequencies of above average difficulties calculated above. for this purpose, we ran a series of binomial logistic regressions, where participants’ classification (3.5 mean score or more, below 3.5 mean score) was entered as the dependent variable, and participants’ gender and age were entered as the independent variables. this analysis was performed for each factor. bonferroni correction for alpha inflation was applied as above. the results are presented in table 3, where we can see that men were more likely to classify as “3.5 mean score or more” for “the poor courtship skills,” “lack of money” and “sexual orientation” than women. on the other hand, women were more likely to classify as “3.5 mean score or more” for the “fear of getting hurt” and the “too picky.” second order factor structure we would like to investigate whether the 12 factors identified above could be classified in broader domains. for this purpose, we applied principal components analysis, with direct oblimin as a rotation method, on the 12 factors. the results suggested a three factor solution (eigenvalue > 1). the kmo statistic was .79, indicating a good sample adequacy. the scales produced were checked by means of reliability analysis (cronbach’s α). internal consistency (α) ranged from .61 to .75 with a mean of .67. the factor structure is presented in table 4. table 4 the domains derived from applying second order principal components analysis in study 2 domain factor loading low capacity for courtship poor courtship skills .872 poor looks and low self-confidence .853 difficult to meet available mates .747 too conservative .378 fear of getting hurt .337 apostolou 111 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ domain factor loading unwillingness to compromise too picky .776 fear of commitment .726 lack of time .702 lack of money .232 constraints sexual orientation .805 health/handicap issues .624 not get over previous relationship .381 the first domain that emerged was named “capacity for courtship,” since the factors that loaded to it were associated with courtship including flirting skills, capacity to approach a partner and being desirable to prospective partners. we interpreted the second domain to reflect unwillingness to make compromises in order to be in a relationship. from the factors that loaded in this domain, we can see for instance that, participants were very picky and unwilling to lower their standards in order to get a mate. also, the lack of money and time could be interpreted to indicate that participants were unwilling to commit these resources in the mating effort. for example, individuals would allocate their limited time in endeavors, such as working, and would be unwilling to compromise their career in order to make time for a relationship. similarly, in the “fear of commitment,” participants may not want to compromise their freedom for the shake of a relationship. finally, we interpreted the third domain to reflect “constraints,” as participants having health problems or handicaps, being homosexual and not having got over a past relationship, constrained them from starting a relationship. in order to assess importance, we estimated the means and the standard deviations for each domain, and we placed them in a hierarchical order. as we can see from table 5, at the top of the hierarchy was the “capacity for courtship,” followed by the “unwillingness to make compromises” and the “constraints.” table 5 significant gender and age effects for the three extracted domains domain rank overall women men p ηp2 age m sd m sd m sd p ηp2 low capacity for courtship 1 2.62 0.63 2.61 0.62 2.63 0.65 < .001 .089 < .001 .079 unwillingness to compromise 2 2.50 0.74 2.49 0.70 2.52 0.70 < .001 .068 < .001 .028 constraints 3 1.60 0.64 1.58 0.61 1.62 0.67 n.s. n.s. n.s. n.s. gender and age effects in order to investigate gender and age effects, we ran a series of mancovas, where the factors composing each domain were entered as the dependent variables and the gender and the age were entered as the independent variables. the analysis was performed separately for each domain, and the results are presented in table 5. we can see that significant gender and age effects were found for the “capacity for courtship” and for the “unwillingness to make compromises.” discussion in the current research, we identified 58 reasons, which clustered in 12 factors that caused difficulties to individuals in starting an intimate relationship. more than 80% of participants indicated that they faced above moderate or severe difficulties in at least one factor, while about 40% faced difficulties in three or more factors. significant gender and age effects were also found across the different factors. using second order principal components analysis, the 12 factors what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 112 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were classified in three broader domains of difficulties in starting a relationship. the low capacity for flirting was the domain in which participants exhibited the most difficulties. starting from the latter finding, it appears that the primary difficulty that prevented people in our sample to initiate a relationship, was a limited capacity to approach prospective mates and initiate flirting. this capacity was compromised by poor flirting skills, shyness, low confidence coming from worries about looks, not meeting available mates, but also by being too conservative and worrying that they would get hurt. we argue that the high prevalence of this difficulty is predominantly due to the mismatch problem: until very recently, in ancestral pre-industrial societies, individuals would get access to mates through force or through arranged marriage, and they would not have to gain such access through initiating flirting. as a consequence, many people did not inherit from their ancestors a good flirting capacity, which is required for getting access to mates in a contemporary context, where mating is not regulated or forced. with respect to poor flirting skills, a gender difference was found, which was the largest one across the 12 factors, with men indicating more severe difficulty than women. one possible reason is that due to the asymmetry in parental investment, it is usually men who take the initiative to approach women (buss, 1989, 2017; trivers, 1972). thus, flirting skills are more important to men, and so lacking such skills may cause them more severe difficulties. another reason can be that, in ancestral societies men gained access to women through force (ghiglieri, 1999; tooby & cosmides, 1988), and they have evolved to be aggressive and rough, which would facilitate them to do so. yet, such traits are impairing when a man tries to initiate flirting. moving on, finding an intimate partner involves adjusting mating standards to realistic levels and use resources such as time and effort effectively. in the ancestral pre-industrial context, a great part of the choosing was made by parents, so mechanisms involved in mating effort and selection of mates may not have been properly adjusted to work well in a context where individuals have to find mates on their own. as a consequence, several people today may have unreasonably high standards, which drive them toward mates they can never get, rejecting mates that they could get. in addition, they may devote their energy in endeavors, such as making money, leaving little time for seeking mates. this domain does not reflect only the mismatch problem, but also the optimal functioning of mechanisms that have evolved to facilitate mate choice. to begin with, being choosy may lead to people rejecting several mates before settling with one, having to stay single for some time. nevertheless, because settling with the first mate that comes in someone’s way, is unlikely to be optimal—such a mate may lack desirable traits—being choosy constitutes an effective mechanism that can lead to better and more long-lasting intimate relationships. thus, many people may tend to interpret being picky as a constraint from starting a relationship, which actually constrains them from starting a relationship with no prospects, giving them time to look for one which has prospects. similarly, because people are choosy, it would pay for mate-seekers to develop the qualities which are considered desirable before entering in the mating market. for instance, being educated, having a good job, and being financially independent, are highly desirable in the mating market (buss, 2017; buss et al., 1990), but require considerable resources, such as money and time, in order to be developed. accordingly, one possible beneficial strategy would be to allocate these resources in developing these qualities instead of seeking mates, and to enter in the mating market at a later time, having better chances of success. in the meantime, people may not have sufficient time, money or willingness to start a relationship, which albeit constraining in starting a relationship now, may be enabling in starting one at a future time. this argument can be seen also in the significant gender difference in the “too picky” factor which loads in this domain. women gave significantly higher scores than men, suggesting that pickiness made it more difficult for them to start a relationship. yet, due to the risk of pregnancy, a sexual encounter can commit a woman’s parental investment to a man who is unwilling to invest to her and to her children, a risk that men do not face. women have evolved to be choosier than men as a way to protect them from such a risk (buss, 2017). consequently, women are likely to reject more potential mates than men before settling with one, resulting in more time being single, and so to be more likely to report pickiness as a reason that keeps them back from starting a relationship. the “constraints” domain appeared to be the least important one, preventing individuals from starting a relation­ ship. this is expected, as severe health problems and handicaps are rare. in addition, health problems in particular arise usually at an older age, where individuals are not active mate-seekers. moreover, being homosexual was another constraining factor. in study 1, individuals indicated that being homosexual prevented them from starting a relationship apostolou 113 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 103–116 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1852 https://www.psychopen.eu/ because they were in the closet, or had difficulties in meeting other homosexual individuals. yet, the prevalence of homosexuality is the population is about 5% (levay, 2010), which can explain why this was not a frequent reason in our sample. the current research is not without limitations. to begin with, our sample is not representative of the population; for instance, single individuals are overrepresented. one possible reason is that those who were single would be more interested in participating in our study. in addition, our research was based on self-report data, and participants may not have had an adequate understanding of the reasons that caused them difficulties in starting a relationship. furthermore, to our knowledge, this is the first study that has attempted to study the reasons that cause difficulties in starting a relationship. from the results of a single study, we cannot be certain neither that the factor structure we have derived here is the true one nor that we have identified all the reasons that cause difficulties in starting a relationship. considerable replication and extension of the current work is required, in order to understand the reasons which prevent people from staring a relationship. replication in different cultural contexts is also necessary, because our findings are based on the greek culture, and may not readily apply to other cultures. in particular, the factor structure and the importance assigned to each factor may differ across cultural settings. for instance, in cultural settings where marriages are arranged, the flirting capacity is unlikely to be the most important factor preventing people from starting an intimate relationship. on the other hand, in cultural settings where people find their own partners, the flirting capacity would an important factor preventing people from staring an intimate relationship. in sum, the current study identified several reasons which constrained people from starting an intimate relationship. these reasons were classified in broader factors and domains, and sex and age effects were also found. considerable more work is necessary however, in order to fully understand this complex phenomenon. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references apostolou, m. 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(1995). the beak of the finch: a story of evolution in our time. new york, ny, usa: vintage books. about the author professor menelaos apostolou is currently working at the university of nicosia, cyprus. he was born in athens, greece, and he completed his post-graduate and graduate studies in the united kingdom. he has published several peer-reviewed papers, books and chapters in books in the area of evolutionary psychology. what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship 116 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ what makes it difficult to start an intimate relationship (introduction) the evolutionary roots of poor mating performance mismatch in the mating domain difficulties in starting an intimate relationship study 1 method results study 2 method results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author predictors of positive and negative risk-taking in adolescents and young adults: similarities and differences research reports predictors of positive and negative risk-taking in adolescents and young adults: similarities and differences joanna fryt a, monika szczygiel a [a] institute of psychology, pedagogical university of krakow, krakow, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 17–30, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 received: 2019-09-20 • accepted: 2020-04-08 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: joanna fryt, podchorazych 2, 30-084 krakow, poland. e-mail: joanna.fryt@up.krakow.pl abstract although the risk-taking can potentially result in positive and negative outcomes, most of the researchers focused on its negative, not positive manifestations. recently, duell and steinberg proposed a framework that clarifies the features of positive risk-taking. research comparing positive and negative risk-taking increased and new measures have been developed. the presented study was designed to examine how the construct of positive risk-taking differs or overlaps with its opposite, negative risk-taking, and whether both are predicted by the same or different factors. two hundred fifty eight (258) adolescents and young adults (aged 16-29) participated in the study. we tested self-reported sensitivity to reward and punishment, self-control, tolerance to ambiguity, trait anxiety, and gender as possible predictors of positive and negative risk-taking. we also referred both types of risk-taking to domainspecific risk-taking. we found that positive risk-taking is driven by sensitivity to reward and tolerance to ambiguity, and occurs especially in the social domain. negative risk-taking is driven by gender, sensitivity to reward and (low) sensitivity to punishment, and occurs in all domains except social. results indicate that positive risk-taking is chosen for exploration and personal growth by people who look for rewards in the social world and is done in a socially accepted way. negative risk-taking is chosen by people who are not discouraged by severe negative effects and look for rewards outside existing norms. keywords positive risk-taking, negative risk-taking, sensitivity to reward and punishment, tolerance to ambiguity, adolescence and young adulthood risk-taking is considered not only as dangerous or illegal behavior like fast driving, binge drinking, or stealing but also self-challenging, socially accepted behavior like trying a new sport, standing by what you think is right, or performing in front of an unknown audience (duell & steinberg, 2019). according to the definition formulated in economics and decision science (figner & weber, 2011), all risk-taking can potentially result in positive and negative outcomes, and the greater the variability of what may happen, the greater the risk. positive risk-taking is therefore not a behavior with only positive outcomes but a desirable risky behavior. it has been studied in various contexts under different, more or less overlapping terms: for example, positive risk-taking which is legal and not dangerous (hansen & breivik, 2001); prosocial risk-taking which is taking risk for others (do, guassi moreira, & telzer, 2017; wood, dawe, & gullo, 2013); adaptive risk-taking which means a more advantageous choice (blair, moyett, bato, derosse, & karlsgodt, 2018; humphreys, lee, & tottenham, 2013); reasoned risk-taking which is planned, not reactive (maslowsky, owotomo, huntley, & keating, 2019). recently duell and steinberg (2019) proposed a framework that clarifies the features of positive risk-taking: it benefits the individual's well-being (a person may gain something), its potential costs are mild in severity (there is no threat to health or safety) and it is socially acceptable. conversely, negative risk-taking is considered as dangerous this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2169&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (with severe negative outcomes) or illegal. probably due to the fact that risk-taking is a frequent cause of accidents which peaks during adolescence and emerging adulthood (defoe, dubas, figner, & van aken, 2015; duell, steinberg, icenogle, chein, & chaudhary, 2018; willoughby, good, adachi, & tavernier, 2013), most of the researchers focused on its negative, not positive manifestations (van duijvenvoorde, blankenstein, crone, & figner, 2016). research on positive risk-taking is, however, of great practical importance, given that there may be individual or contextual differences between young people taking positive and negative risk. in our study we examined how the construct of positive risk-taking proposed by duell and steinberg (2019) differs or overlaps with its opposite, negative risk-taking, and whether both are explained by the same or different factors. the first question regarding positive versus negative risk-taking is whether they mainly differ in the severity of the outcomes or in the context (domain) in which the risk is taken. one way to answer this question is to refer positive and negative risk-taking to domain-specific risk-taking (blais & weber, 2006; van duijvenvoorde et al., 2016), which means that if a person takes risk in one domain (e.g., drinking heavily at the party), he/she does not necessarily take it in another (e.g., sky diving). although there is no research on this topic, it is possible that negative risk-taking, restricted to dangerous and illegal behavior, overlaps with risk-taking in the health/safety and ethical domains. positive risk-taking may, in turn, overlap with risk-taking in social and recreational domains, in which a person may benefit his/her well-being (e.g., challenge herself, gain approval) in a socially acceptable way. what drives positive and negative risk-taking is a more comprehensive question. first of all, there are strong indications that among factors predicting both types of risk-taking is sensation seeking or sensitivity to reward (sr). sensation seeking was found to be a predictor of the taking of both legal and illegal risks (hansen & breivik, 2001), as well as those with and without negative health outcomes (fischer & smith, 2004). reward drive (a part of gray's behavioral activation system, associated with sr and approach motivation) predicted substance use, physical risk (sports), performance risk (singing, dancing) and prosocial behavior (wood et al., 2013). in neuroscientific studies the activity of reward system is a well-known predictor of risk-taking (shulman et al., 2016) and prosocial behavior (do et al., 2017). as it was found that the activity of reward system benefits experience-based learning in adolescents (peters & crone, 2017), some authors consider it crucial for adaptive, exploratory risk-taking which usually peaks in this period of life (romer, reyna, & satterthwaite, 2017). factors that predict only positive or negative risk-taking, or have contrary associations with them, are less recog­ nized. as it was found that low sensitivity to punishment (sp) predicts more alcohol and marijuana use in people with poor inhibitory control (kahn et al., 2018), it is possible that sp is a greater regulator of risk-taking with severe negative outcomes. a similar association may exist between such risk-taking and low trait anxiety (when a person is not afraid of severe outcomes). however, when we think of adolescents and young adults as sensitive to peers and oriented towards the social world (van hoorn, fuligni, crone, & galvan, 2016), we may not be sure whether they consider health or social outcomes as severe. compared to adults, adolescents are more reactive to social threats like failure or rejection. it is interesting whether sp (or anxiety) prevents them from negative risk-taking (which threatens health and safety) or from positive risk-taking (which threatens status and well-being in a peer group). self-control (and related constructs) may have contrary associations with positive and negative risk-taking. it was found that deliberation (a part of consciousness construct) predicted risk-taking with but not without negative health outcomes (fischer & smith, 2004). rash impulsiveness positively predicted substance use but negatively predicted performance risk and prosocial behavior (wood et al., 2013). while there are strong indications that negative risk-taking is driven by impulsivity (bjork & pardini, 2015; shulman et al., 2016), it is unclear whether positive risk-taking is accompanied by self-control or it requires it (duell & steinberg, 2019; romer et al., 2017). tolerance to ambiguity was found to drive reckless and rebellious risk-taking (blankenstein, crone, van den bos, & van duijvenvoorde, 2016; van den bos & hertwig, 2017). whether it drives positive risk-taking remains thus far unexplored. authors interpreting the fact that adolescents are more tolerant to ambiguity than adults (tymula et al., 2012) emphasize that it may be adaptive to enhance exploration and learning in an unfamiliar world (and the world for a teenager is more unfamiliar than for an adult). it is worth noting that tolerance to ambiguity is a construct related to openness to experience that was found to predict risk-taking in the social and recreational domains (weller & tikir, 2011). authors of this study examined associations between all hexaco personality traits and domain specific predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 18 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ risk-taking. they found that while taking risk in social and recreational domains is associated with high openness to experience, taking risk in ethical and health/safety domains is associated with low honesty/humility. finally, women are seen less as risk takers than men (duell et al., 2018; harris & jenkins, 2006). in decision science such difference is explained in terms of risk perception, as women, compared to men, perceive risk as higher in all domains except the social one (figner & weber, 2011; harris & jenkins, 2006). this suggests that gender may predict negative but not positive risk-taking, the potential costs and benefits of which are often of a social nature. in our study we evaluated positive and negative risk-taking accordingly to the definition proposed by duell and steinberg (2019), in a group of adolescents and young adults (aged 16-29). we evaluated sr and sp, self-control, toler­ ance to ambiguity, and trait anxiety in order to examine which of them drive positive or negative risk-taking. in older participants we were able to refer positive and negative risk-taking to domain-specific risk-taking. we hypothesized that: 1) positive risk-taking is positively predicted by sr, self-control and tolerance to ambiguity; 2) negative risk-taking is positively predicted by sr and negatively predicted by sp, self-control and trait anxiety; also, that women take less negative risk than men; 3) positive risk-taking is predicted by risk-taking in the social and recreational domains; 4) negative risk-taking is predicted by risk-taking in the health/safety and ethical domains. method participants two hundred fifty eight (258) participants (123 women, 128 men, 7 no data) at the mean age of 20.55 (sd = 2.29, 16-29 range, mainly 18-22 years) took part in the study. the result of the kolmogorov-smirnov test (k-s = 0.13, p < .001) indicates that the age distribution slightly deviates from normal and is right-skewed. the sample contained both high school and university students with different academic profiles (e.g., mathematics, computer science, cognitive science, history, law, management), recruited during school meetings. all participants provided written informed consent; in the case of underage students parental consent was also obtained. measures positive risk-taking scale (prts) we used a new scale of duell and steinberg (2020) to assess positive risk-taking. this contains 14 items describing behaviors that are examples of positive risk-taking (according to the authors' definition) and can be performed by a young person in social, academic or extracurricular contexts. in order to emphasize the riskiness of the described behaviors, items are constructed in a way that indicates the uncertainty of possible outcomes (e.g., “tried a new sport where you may have embarrassed yourself” instead of “played a sport”). participants are asked whether and how many times during the last 6 months they have done the things described. originally, the answers were assessed on a 4-point scale from 1 (none) to 4 (more than five times) but to be able to compare the measures of positive and negative risk-taking we changed the response format to a 5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). two indicators of positive risk-taking are proposed by the authors: frequency score (prts-f) – the arithmetic mean of response to all items, and variety score (prts-v) – the proportion of behaviors that have been performed at least once to all measured behaviors. in our study the cronbach's α of a frequency score was .80, and for a variety score it was .71. risk behavior questionnaire (rbq) to assess negative risk-taking we used a questionnaire developed for the purpose of our previous studies. the measure is based on the adolescent risk-taking questionnaire (gullone, moore, moss, & boyd, 2000), but its items were modified to make it applicable to both adolescents and young adults. it contains 29 behaviors that meet the criteria of negative risk-taking (they may have severe negative outcomes or are illegal). participants assess how often they perform the described actions using a 5-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). analogically to the prts, we calculated two indicators of negative risk-taking: the mean response to all items is a frequency score (rbq-f); the proportion of fryt & szczygiel 19 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ behaviors that have been performed at least once to all behaviors is a variety score (rbq-v). the cronbach's α of the former was .88, for the latter it was .87. domain-specific risk-taking scale (dospert) to assess specific risk-taking domains we used the scale of blais and weber (2006) in university students only as it is designed for adult populations.1 the scale contains 30 risky behaviors originating from five life domains: ethical (d-e), financial (d-f), health/safety (d-h/s), social (d-s) and recreational (d-r). participants are asked how likely it is that they would do the things described if they were to find themselves in those situations. the answers are assessed on a 7-point scale from 1 (extremely unlikely) to 7 (extremely likely). the mean response to all items in a given subscale is the measure of risk-taking in a given domain. the cronbach's α of the general score was .84, for the ethical domain it was .65, for the financial domain .77, for the health/safety domain .63, for the social domain .62, and for the recreational domain .79. short version of the sensitivity to punishment and sensitivity to reward questionnaire (spsrq-sf) we used the cooper and gomez (2008) questionnaire adapted by wytykowska, bialaszek, and ostaszewski (2014) that measures sensitivity to gray's bis system and the bas system with separate subscales. it contains 24 yes/no statements. the mean response to all items in the subscale was the measure of sp and, respectively, sr. the cronbach's α of sp subscale was .82 and for the sr subscale it was .64. self-knowledge new sheet (nas-50) a self-control questionnaire created by necka et al. (2016) was administered. it contains 50 items divided into five subscales: goal maintenance (gm), proactive control (pc), initiative and persistence (ip), switching and flexibility (sf), inhibition and adjournment (ia). participants assess to what extent the statements described characterize them using a 5-point scale from 1 (definitely not) to 5 (definitely yes). the higher mean response to all items, the higher the self-control. the cronbach's α of the general score was .86. tolerance to ambiguity scale (tas) a self-report scale of mcquarrie and mick (1992) adapted by czajeczny (2016) was used to assess tolerance to ambiguity. it contains 12 statements with which participants can agree to varying degrees. the answers are assessed on a 7-point scale from 1 (definitely not agree) to 7 (definitely agree). the mean response to all items was the measure of tolerance to ambiguity. the cronbach's α of the scale was .64. state-trait anxiety inventory (stai) to measure trait anxiety, we used the adaptation of spielberger, strelau, tysarczyk, and wrzesniewski (2011). it contains 20 statements about how participants usually feel. the answers are assessed on a 4-point scale from 1 (definitely no) to 4 (definitely yes). the mean response to all items was the measure of trait anxiety. the reliability of the scale calculated by cronbach's α was .88. procedure participants completed a set of self-report questionnaires in groups. this took place during one meeting in their schools, lasting about 45 minutes. participants were assured anonymity and the possibility of receiving feedback about their results. they were not rewarded for participation. as the measure of domain-specific risk-taking is designed for adult populations (blais & weber, 2006), it was not included in the test battery for high school students. 1) the tentative version of adolescent dospert scale has been developed by figner and weber and its brief description can be found in van duijvenvoorde et al. (2016). the scale consists of risky behaviors typical for adolescents 13-17 years old, originated from five life domains (same as in the adult version). predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 20 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results the analyses of the data were conducted using the ibm spss statistics (version 24). at first, we present descriptive statistics and results of pearson's correlation coefficient which was the basis for selecting predictors to the linear regression models. we were interested in the predictions of positive and negative risk-taking and we measured these variables using two indicators: frequency and variety. because the results for both indicators are quite consistent, we decided to include in the description only the frequency results (prts-f, brq-f) and show the variety results in the appendix (prts-v, brq-v). descriptive statistics and matrix correlation in table 1 we present descriptive statistics and the results of pearson's correlation coefficient for all variables that we used in the study. table 1 descriptive statistics and matrix correlation variable m sd rbq-f sr sp nas-50 tas stai d-e d-f d-r d-h/s d-s prts-f 2.81 0.57 0.31*** 0.31*** 0.20* 0.07 0.31*** -0.12 0.24* 0.26** 0.18* 0.15 0.35*** rbq-f 1.68 0.46 0.43*** -0.29*** -0.22* 0.14 -0.14 0.49*** 0.41*** 0.38*** 0.55*** 0.23** sr 5.65 2.15 -0.26** -0.06 0.05 -0.16* 0.28*** 0.31*** 0.12 0.23** 0.22** sp 6.41 3.70 -0.35*** -0.24** 0.60*** 0.03 -0.08 -0.29*** -0.11 -0.36*** nas-50 3.28 0.40 0.08 -0.34*** -0.42*** -0.06 0.02 -0.32*** -0.03 tas 3.57 0.68 -0.14 0.01 0.16* 0.24* -0.06 0.44*** stai 2.28 0.44 0.09 -0.15 -0.12 0.09 -0.19* d-e 2.26 1.03 0.25** 0.11 0.46*** 0.15* d-f 2.73 1.15 0.26** 0.27** 0.08 d-r 3.91 1.42 0.43*** 0.40*** d-h/s 3.72 1.17 0.23** d-s 5.12 0.95 note. n = 165. prts-f = positive risk-taking; rbq-f = negative risk-taking; sr = sensitivity to reward; sp = sensitivity to punishment; nas-50 = self-control; tas = tolerance to ambiguity; stai = trait anxiety; d-e = risk taking in ethical domain; d-f = financial domain; d-h/s = health/safety domain; d-r = recreational domain; d-s = social domain. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. positive risk-taking moderately and positively correlates with sr (r = .31, p < .001) and tolerance to ambiguity (r = .31, p < .001) and weakly and negatively with sp (r = -.20, p < .05). there is no relationship between positive risk-taking, self-control and trait anxiety. of the risk-taking domains, positive risk-taking correlates positively, weakly, or moderately, with ethical (r = .24, p < .05), financial (r = .26, p < .01), recreational (r = .18, p < .05), and social domains (r = .35, p < .001) but not with the health/safety domain. negative risk-taking, similar to positive risk-taking but more strongly, positively correlates with sr (r = .43, p < .001) and negatively with sp (r = .29, p < .001). in contrast to positive risk-taking, negative risk-taking correlates significantly with self-control (r = -.22, p < .05) and is not related to tolerance to ambiguity. the absence of a relationship between negative risk-taking and trait anxiety is observed. negative risk-taking correlates positively, from weak to strong, with all risk domains (ethical r = .49, p < .001; financial r = .41, p < .001; recreational r = .38, p < .001; health/safety r = .55, p < .001; and social r = .23, p < .001). in the next step, the gender differences were tested by an independent sample t-test (see table 2). the assumption of group equivalence was violated in risk-taking domains, however, normality of distribution in subgroups and homoge­ neity of variance were good. additionally, the effect size was calculated (lenhard & lenhard, 2016), which takes into account group size. fryt & szczygiel 21 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 gender differences variable women men group comparison m (sd) n m (sd) n independent sample t-test prts-f 2.81 (0.62) 123 2.77 (0.58) 128 t(249) = 0.47, p = .63, d = 0.07 rbq-f 1.58 (0.38) 123 1.81 (0.49) 119 t(240) = -4.02, p < .001, d = 0.52 sr 5.31 (2.14) 123 6.49 (2.08) 128 t(249) = -4.44, p < .001, d = 0.56 sp 6.89 (3.47) 123 5.93 (3.72) 128 t(249) = 2.11, p = .04, d = 0.27 nas-50 3.26 (0.41) 123 3.34 (0.39) 128 t(249) = -1.60, p = .11, d = 0.20 tas 3.55 (0.74) 121 3.68 (0.75) 115 t(234) = -1.28, p = .20, d = 0.17 stai 2.39 (0.42) 123 2.19 (0.45) 116 t(237) = 3.62, p < .001, d = 0.46 d-e 2.10 (0.94) 107 2.60 (1.09) 65 t(170) = -3.20, p < .01, d = 0.49 d-f 2.49 (1.05) 107 3.12 (1.37) 65 t(170) = -3.56, p < .001, d = 0.52 d-r 3.81 (1.36) 107 4.03 (1.49) 65 t(170) = -1.00, p = .32, d = 0.15 d-h/s 3.57 (1.15) 107 3.97 (1.16) 65 t(170) = -2.21, p < .05, d = 0.35 d-s 5.06 (1.00) 107 5.18 (0.94) 65 t(170) = -0.85, p = .40, d = 0.12 note. prts-f = positive risk-taking; rbq-f = negative risk-taking; sr = sensitivity to reward; sp = sensitivity to punishment; nas-50 = self-control; tas = tolerance to ambiguity; stai = trait anxiety; d-e = risk taking in ethical domain; d-f = financial domain; d-h/s = health/safety domain; d-r = recreational domain; d-s = social domain. the results indicate that men exceed women in negative risk-taking, sr, ethical, financial, and health/safety risk domains and the differences are small/medium. women in comparison to men have higher level of sp (small difference) and trait anxiety (medium difference). no gender differences were observed in positive risk-taking, self-control, toler­ ance to ambiguity, recreational and social risk domains. predictors of positive and negative risk-taking to find out and compare predictors of positive and negative risk-taking, two models were tested including the same independent variables (gender, sr, sp, nas-50, tas, stai) and one of the dependent variables (prts-f or rbq-f). of all the independent variables that were included in the study as potential predictors of risk-taking (positive or negative), only those that significantly correlated with the dependent variable were included in the linear regression models. each time, those independent variables that turned out to be insignificant in the first step of analysis were removed (model 1) and a new linear regression model with significant predictors was tested to better fit the model to the data (model 2). to answer the questions about predictions of positive risk-taking, the regression linear model including sr and sp and tolerance to ambiguity was tested (see table 3). table 3 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 1.51 0.24 6.21 < .001 sp -0.07 0.06 -0.01 0.01 -0.09 .28 sr 0.27 0.06 0.08 0.02 4.41 < .001 tas 0.30 0.06 0.25 0.05 4.99 < .001 predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 22 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 2b intercept 1.51 0.24 6.21 < .001 sr 0.29 0.06 0.08 0.02 4.91 < .001 tas 0.32 0.06 0.26 0.05 5.45 < .001 note. the dependent variable is positive risk-taking (prts-f). tested predictors are sensitivity to punishment (sp), sensitivity to reward (sr), and tolerance to ambiguity (tas). ar 2 = .19, f(3, 238) = 19.32, p < .001. br 2 = .19, f(2, 239) = 28.36, p < .001. the results indicate that the first hypothesis was confirmed partially. as expected, sr and tolerance to ambiguity predict positive risk-taking, although self-control does not explain it. two predictors in a similar way predict positive risk-taking (sr β = 0.29; tas β = 0.32) but they explain only 19% of its variation. to determine the answer to the question about predictors of negative risk-taking, an analogical model with an additional gender and anxiety trait variable was tested (see table 4). table 4 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 1.17 0.22 5.32 < .001 gender -0.12 0.06 -0.11 0.06 -1.95 .05 sp -0.20 0.08 -0.02 0.01 -2.55 .01 sr 0.34 0.06 0.07 0.01 5.36 < .001 tas 0.09 0.06 0.05 0.04 1.48 .14 stai 0.05 0.07 0.05 0.07 0.71 .48 model 2b intercept 1.49 0.11 13.78 < .001 gender -0.14 0.06 -0.13 0.05 -2.37 .02 sr 0.33 0.06 0.07 0.01 5.31 < .001 sp -0.17 0.06 -0.02 0.01 -2.88 < .01 note. the dependent variable is negative risk-taking (rbq-f). tested predictors are gender, sensitivity to punishment (sp), sensitivity to reward (sr), tolerance to ambiguity (tas), and trait anxiety (stai). ar 2 = .21, f(5, 227) = 13.58, p < .001. br 2 = .21, f(3, 238) = 22.11, p < .001. the hypothesis about predictions of negative risk-taking was partially confirmed. in line with our expectations, gender, sr and sp are important when predicting negative risk-taking, but self-control and trait anxiety proved to be insignifi­ cant. sr positively and moderately (β = 0.35), sp weakly and negatively (β = -0.17), gender weakly and negatively (β = -0.14), predict negative risk-taking. the tested model explains, similarly to positive risk-taking, the 21% variation of the dependent variable. in the next step of testing predictions of positive and negative risk-taking we checked its relation to domain-specific risk-taking. firstly, we tested a model that consists of ethical, financial, recreational, and social domains as predictors of positive risk-taking (see table 5), and then the model that included all domains as predictors of negative risk-taking (see table 6). fryt & szczygiel 23 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 1.45 0.23 6.32 < .001 d-e 0.16 0.07 0.08 0.04 2.04 < .05 d-f 0.18 0.07 0.08 0.04 2.39 < .05 d-r -0.02 0.08 -0.01 0.03 -0.30 .77 d-s 0.34 0.08 0.20 0.04 4.44 < .001 model 2b intercept 1.43 0.22 6.41 < .001 d-e 0.15 0.07 0.08 0.04 2.06 < .05 d-f 0.17 0.07 0.08 0.03 2.41 < .05 d-s 0.33 0.07 0.19 0.04 4.72 < .001 note. the dependent variable is positive risk-taking (prts-f). tested predictors are risk-taking in ethical (d-e), financial (d-f), recreational (d-r), and social (d-s) domains. ar 2 = .18, f(4, 172) = 10.45, p < .001. br 2 = .18, f(3, 173) = 13.98, p < .001. table 6 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 0.42 0.16 2.68 < .01 d-e 0.29 0.07 0.13 0.03 4.28 < .001 d-f 0.22 0.06 0.09 0.02 3.60 < .001 d-s 0.06 0.06 0.03 0.03 0.86 .39 d-h/s 0.28 0.07 0.11 0.03 3.97 < .001 d-r 0.14 0.07 0.05 0.02 2.05 < .05 model 2b intercept 0.52 0.11 4.99 < .001 d-e 0.29 0.07 0.13 0.03 4.43 < .001 d-f 0.22 0.06 0.09 0.02 3.56 < .001 d-h/s 0.29 0.07 0.11 0.03 3.99 < .001 d-r 0.17 0.07 0.05 0.02 2.53 < .05 note. the dependent variable is negative risk-taking (rbq-f). tested predictors are risk-taking in ethical (d-e), financial (d-f), social (d-s), health/ safety (d-h/s), and recreational (d-r) domains. ar 2 = .44, f(5, 163) = 27.66, p < .001. br 2 = .44, f(4, 164) = 34.44, p < .001. three predictors: ethical, financial, and social risk-taking explain the variation in positive risk-taking of 18%. the results are partially in accordance with our assumptions. social risk-taking is the strongest predictor of positive risk-taking (β = 0.33), while ethical (β = 0.15) and financial (β = 0.17) predictors are significant but definitely less important. in accordance with our expectations, negative risk-taking is moderately predicted by risk-taking in health/safety (β = 0.29) and ethical (β = 0.29) domains. we did not assume that financial (β = 0.22) and recreational domains (β = 0.17) predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 24 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ may be important, though, they are slightly weaker predictors. compared to positive risk-taking, the magnitude of the explained variance of the dependent variable by these three variables is relatively large and amounts to 44%. summarizing the predictions of positive and negative risk-taking, it should be noted that both are predicted by sr (although slightly stronger in the latter) and that positive risk-taking is predicted by tolerance to ambiguity whereas negative risk-taking is predicted by gender and sp. the similarity between these two kinds of risk-taking is visible when referring them to domain-specific risk-taking: ethical and financial, but the differences are revealed in the social domain – characteristic for positive risk-taking, and the health/safety and recreational domains – specific for negative risk-taking. discussion the results of our study indicate that positive and negative risk-taking share some common background and differ in certain behavioral patterns. positive risk-taking, driven by sr and tolerance to ambiguity, occurs mainly in the social domain. such a finding suggests that it is chosen for exploration and personal growth, and that people who take positive risks look for rewards in the social world, in a socially accepted way. on the other hand, negative risk-taking, driven by sr, (low) sp, and gender takes place in ethical and health/safety, and, to a lesser extent, in financial and recreational domains. this suggest that it is chosen by people who look for rewards outside the existing norms and are not discouraged by severe negative outcomes. the finding that women compared to men take less negative (but not positive) risk is compatible with the explanation that they perceive risk as higher in all domains except the social one (harris & jenkins, 2006). our findings may be firstly considered in the light of associations between domain-specific risk-taking and hexa­ co personality traits (weller & tikir, 2011). people high in openness to experience take risk in the social and recreation­ al domains, and they highly value the benefits of risk-taking in these domains. in turn, people low in honesty/humility, associated with reluctance towards norms and cooperation, take risk in the ethical and health/safety domains. these findings support the interpretation that exploration and running contrary to norms are important drivers for positive and negative risk-taking. while linking negative risk-taking with reluctance towards norms and low fear of danger does not raise doubts, one may ask why exploration would drive only positive risk-taking. when we look at the examples of negative risk-taking, we note that some of them lack of the element of discovery (e.g., bullying, damaging property). however, many dangerous or illegal behaviors offer space for exploration (e.g., using drugs), especially if people experiment with them. one possibility why people tolerant to ambiguity do not score high on negative risk-taking (but see blankenstein et al., 2016; van den bos & hertwig, 2017; who assessed tolerance to ambiguity by task) is that they explore both positive and negative risk-taking but they do not repeat the negative one. this interpretation finds support in neuroscientific research that distinguishes between exploratory and impulsive risk-taking (bjork & pardini, 2015; romer et al., 2017). exploratory risk-taking increases in adolescence with sensation seeking, self-control and experience-based learning; impulsive risk-taking results from poor self-control. consequently, any risk-taking can be exploratory if only a person learns from the outcomes experienced (e.g., an adolescent experiments with drugs but does not become a habitual user). we can also consider the possibility that it is social or academic aspirations that incline people who are tolerant to ambiguity to positive risk-taking. first, when we look at the examples of positive risk-taking, we note that many of them are associated with social or academic success (e.g., standing for a leadership position, taking a challenging course). second, aspirations and cognitive capacity are known to increase exploration as opposed to exploitation (mehlhorn et al., 2015). the essence of exploration, defined as constant switching between options, is to experiment with new alternatives; the essence of exploitation is to remain at one option. those who choose to explore, gain information about their environment (“maximizers”); those who choose to exploit gain tangible rewards (“satisficers”) (parker, bruine de bruin, & fischhoff, 2007). to examine possible associations between academic or social aspirations and positive risk-taking, research cannot be limited to groups with specific aspirations (e.g., university students). finally, it is worth considering our results regarding self-control. despite the supposition that it may have contrary associations to positive and negative risk-taking, we did not find it among the predictors. interestingly, it was tolerance fryt & szczygiel 25 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to ambiguity, not self-control that drives positive risk-taking. such a result suggests that the behaviors proposed by duell and steinberg (2018) involve motivation for exploration and personal growth more than self-control. the lack of association between negative risk-taking and self-control may, in turn, indicate that it only occurs in a subgroup of people with poor control abilities (bjork & pardini, 2015). in the study we tested predictions of positive and negative risk-taking focusing on their similarities and differences. although we identified several factors that drive both or only positive or negative risk-taking in adolescents and young adults, the results are preliminary and conclusions should be drawn with caution. future research should expand on younger adolescents and young adults who are not university students, firstly, considering that social or academic aspirations can increase positive risk-taking. also, it is worth examining more thoroughly what behaviors are part of positive risk-taking for people from different age groups and backgrounds. this may include examining narratives of positive and negative risk-taking. it is possible that examples of positive risk-taking change from adolescence to adulthood and not considering what is typical and available at certain age may obscure potential age differences. also, if social and academic domains predominate among examples of positive risk-taking, we can overestimate the role of social or academic competence in choosing positive risks. certainly, the knowledge about what determines the choice of specific types of risk-taking is of great importance because it allows us to design environments that protect young people from severe negative effects. funding: this work was funded by national science centre, poland (grant 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[psychometric parameters of the polish short version of sensitivity to punishment and reward scale.]. studia psychologiczne, 52(2), 28-39. appendix the results of correlation and linear regression analysis including variety indicator of positive (prts-v) and negative risk taking (rbq-v). table a1 prts-v and rbq-v and their correlates variable m sd rbq-v sr sp nas-50 tas stai d-e d-f d-r d-h/s d-s prts-v 0.77 0.16 0.23** 0.22* -0.09 0.10 0.23** -0.08 0.17* 0.25** 0.09 0.05 0.17* rbq-v 0.36 0.21 0.44*** -0.23** -0.18* 0.14 -0.13 0.46*** 0.42*** 0.35*** 0.48*** 0.18* note. n = 165. prts-v = positive risk-taking; rbq-v = negative risk-taking; sr = sensitivity to reward; sp = sensitivity to punishment; nas-50 = self-control; tas = tolerance to ambiguity; stai = trait anxiety; d-e = risk taking ethical domain; d-f = financial domain; d-h/s = health/safety domain; d-r = recreational domain; d-s = social domain. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table a2 gender differences in prts-v and rbq-v variable women men group comparison m (sd) n m (sd) n independent sample t-test prts-v 0.75 (0.16) 123 0.76 (0.16) 128 t(249) = -0.15, p = .88, d = 0.06 rbq-v 0.31 (0.18) 123 0.43 (0.22) 119 t(240) = -4.61, p < .001, d = 0.60 note. prts-v = positive risk taking; rbq-v = negative risk-taking. table a3 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 0.44 0.06 7.54 < .001 sr 0.22 0.06 0.02 0.01 3.66 < .001 tas 0.24 0.06 0.06 0.01 3.98 < .001 note. the dependent variable prts-v = positive risk taking; sr = sensitivity to reward; tas = tolerance to ambiguity. ar 2 = .11, f(2, 239) = 15.40, p < .001. predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 28 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.677 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2013.09.008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2013.07.003 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table a4 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 0.15 0.10 1.48 .14 gender -0.17 0.06 -0.07 0.03 -2.73 < .01 sp -0.14 0.08 -0.01 0.01 -1.80 .07 sr 0.33 0.06 0.03 0.01 5.29 < .001 tas 0.10 0.06 0.03 0.02 1.58 .12 stai 0.02 0.07 0.01 0.03 0.32 .75 model 2b intercept 0.28 0.05 5.64 < .001 gender -0.18 0.06 -0.07 0.02 -3.00 < .01 sr 0.33 0.06 0.03 0.01 5.39 < .001 sp -0.14 0.06 -0.01 0.01 -2.42 < .05 note. the dependent variable rbq-v = negative risk-taking; sp = sensitivity to punishment; sr = sensitivity to reward; tas = tolerance to ambiguity; stai = trait anxiety. ar 2 = .21, f(5, 227) = 13.61, p < .001. br 2 = .22, f(3, 238) = 23.09, p < .001. table a5 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept 0.54 0.07 8.07 < .001 d-e 0.10 0.08 0.02 0.01 1.35 .18 d-f 0.21 0.07 0.03 0.01 2.79 < .05 d-s 0.14 0.07 0.02 0.01 1.92 .06 model 2b intercept 0.55 0.07 8.33 < .001 d-f 0.23 0.07 0.03 0.01 3.23 < .05 d-s 0.16 0.07 0.03 0.01 2.16 < .05 note. the dependent variable prts-v = positive risk-taking; d-e = risk-taking in ethical domain; d-f = financial domain; d-s = social domain. ar 2 = .08, f(3, 173) = 6.03, p < .001. br 2 = .07, f(2, 174) = 8.09, p < .01. fryt & szczygiel 29 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 17–30 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2169 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table a6 estimation of parameters of the linear model parameter β se statistic estimate se t p model 1a intercept -0.14 0.08 -1.79 .08 d-e 0.29 0.07 0.06 0.01 4.07 < .001 d-f 0.23 0.06 0.04 0.01 3.60 < .001 d-s 0.01 0.07 0.01 0.01 0.15 .88 d-h/s 0.22 0.08 0.04 0.01 2.93 < .05 d-r 0.16 0.07 0.02 0.01 2.12 < .05 model 2b intercept -0.13 0.06 -2.52 < .05 d-e 0.29 0.07 0.06 0.01 4.14 < .001 d-f 0.23 0.07 0.04 0.01 3.60 < .01 d-h/s 0.22 0.07 0.04 0.01 2.95 < .01 d-r 0.16 0.07 0.02 0.01 2.34 < .05 note. the dependent variable rbq-v = negative risk-taking; d-e = risk-taking in ethical domain; d-f = financial domain; d-s = social domain; d-h/s = health/safety domain; d-r = recreational domain. ar 2 = .38, f(5, 163) = 21.34, p < .001. br 2 = .38, f(4, 164) = 26.83, p < .001. about the authors joanna fryt is assistant professor at the institute of psychology at the pedagogical university of krakow. her research interests focus on cognitive, motivational and personality determinants of risk-taking in adolescents and young adults. monika szczygiel is assistant professor at the institute of psychology at the pedagogical university of krakow. her research interests focus on cognitive and emotional predictors of decision-making and achievements in science subjects during the lifespan. predictors of positive and negative risk-taking 30 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of positive and negative risk-taking (introduction) method participants measures procedure results descriptive statistics and matrix correlation predictors of positive and negative risk-taking discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendix about the authors new mobilities and psychology: why are we still not on the move? editorial new mobilities and psychology: why are we still not on the move? vlad p. glăveanu* ab [a] webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland. [b] bergen university, bergen, norway. abstract the new mobilities paradigm has been influential within the social sciences for the past two decades. and yet, psychology is undoubtably slow to incorporate mobility as a key lens through which to consider its subject area. in this editorial, i will make the case that we would benefit greatly from focusing more on personal, collective and psychological mobilities and the kinds of conceptual, methodological and practical challenges they raise. to illustrate this, i briefly discuss the notions of self and identity, learning, and imagination and creativity. final conclusions are offered regarding a late but welcomed ‘mobilities turn’ in psychological science. keywords: mobility, mobilities, psychology, self, identity, learning, imagination, creativity europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 186–192, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.3117 published (vor): 2020-05-29. *corresponding author at: webster university geneva, 15 route de collex, 1293 bellevue, switzerland. e-mail: glaveanu@webster.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns imposed, at the moment of writing, on half the world population, raise important questions for psychologists. these range from knowing the factors that facilitate and hinder social distancing to the mental health and well-being implications of home confinement and social isolation (lima et al., 2020; sritharan & sritharan, 2020; swami & barron, 2020). how do people cope with this new and unexpected situation and with the fear of getting infected or spreading the virus? how do we deal, more generally, with the massive transformation of our private and professional lives? what is immobility doing to us, as individuals and as societies? the question mobility has never been more pressing. as our physical mobility is seriously restricted, other forms of ‘movement’ flourish. people find ways to move within the house in unexpected ways, including running marathons on balconiesi or climbing the everest on staircasesii. more importantly, we keep in touch with others through a variety of communication, virtual and digital technologies and enjoy the experience of being in other places and situations through movies, games, and online discussions. above all, we engage in psychological forms of mobility, helped by our memory, imagination and creativity, and participate in a series of activities and scenarios we are being denied access to at the moment. are all of these forms of mobility? if we start from the basic assumption that movement describes a change of position from a to b, or a trajectory, then we should unpack the notion of position first (see also martin, 2006). typically, we imagine these as physical, represented by where our bodies are. but, as social and cultural beings, we also occupy, at once, other europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ types of positions in the world. we adopt different social roles and move between them in any given situation, and we also hold symbolic positions, enabled by our imagination, in the here-and-now, the not-yet-here, the elsewhere and even the nowhere (jovchelovitch, priego-hernandez, & glăveanu, 2013). each one of these facilitate specific relations to oneself, others, and the world, often conceptualised as perspectives. most of all, we are never fixed within a certain position but, in the course of action and interaction, exchange and move between them, sometimes occupying more than one position and holding more than one perspective at a time (see, e.g., position exchange theory; gillespie & martin, 2014). mobilities, then, need to be much more widely defined than physical movement and the paradigmatic case of migration. in psychology, we certainly have a well development literature focused on the situation of migrants and refugees (ryan, dooley, & benson, 2008; zittoun, levitan, & cangiá, 2018) and a branch concerned more widely with transport and transportation (gärling, gärling, & loukopoulos, 2002; van acker, van wee, & witlox, 2010). but we are lacking an understanding of how mobility cuts across all our areas of concern as researchers of inherently mobile minds, individual, groups, and societiesiii. in other words, psychologists by and large are late to engage with what became known in the social sciences as the ‘new mobilities’ paradigm. spearheaded by sociologist and geographers, this approach “examines the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, these diverse mobilities” (urry, 2000, p. 1). from the broad definition before we can conclude that at least the mobility of people, images and information should directly interest psychologists. yet, in fact, the scope for cross-fertilisation is much wider, considering a more detailed description of new mobilities themes: • “the corporeal travel of people for work, leisure, family life, pleasure, migration and escape, organised in terms of contrasting time-space patterns ranging from daily commuting to once-in-a-lifetime exile; • the physical movement of objects include food and water to producers, consumers and retailers; as well as the sending and receiving of presents and souvenirs; • the imaginative travel effected through the images of places and peoples appearing on and moving across multiple print and visual media and which then construct and reconstruct visions of place, travel and consumption; • virtual travel often in real time transcending geographical and social distance and forming and reforming multiple communities at-a-distance; • communicative travel through person-to-person messages via personal messages, postcards, texts, letters, telegraph, telephone, fax and mobile” (urry, 2011, pp. 4-5). all of the above are potential themes of research for psychologists, from migration and different forms of communication to the use of virtual spaces, the exchange of objects and the processes of imagination. what a mobilities focus would require of the discipline, though, is not only to see its themes of research in movement, but as constituted by movement. and this is where psychology in particular, with its largely static, abstract and universalistic focusiv, has difficulties adopting ontologies based on states of flux, transformation, and the role of context. sociologists used this opportunity to rethink society from a static, bounded entity to a dynamic network of flows (see sheller & urry, 2006). geographers saw a chance to update their already existing geographies of movement and transport geographies (cresswell, 2011). anthropologists started seriously investigating the glăveanu 187 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 186–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.3117 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between imagination and migration (salazar, 2010) and archaeologists the one between migration and cultural change (heitz & stapfer, 2017). in psychology it is primarily sociocultural researchers who began, in recent years, to discuss the importance of movement and mobility (e.g., see wagoner, chaudhary, & hviid, 2015). this is not surprising given that cultural or sociocultural psychology starts from the interdependence between mind and culture and considers this interdependence in a developmental manner (valsiner, 2007). in other words, the focus falls on the temporal trajectory of people’s interactions with others and their construction and use of material and symbolic tools (this is why, e.g., a life-course approach is preferred; see zittoun, valsiner, gonçalves, salgado, vedeler, & ferring, 2013). recently, gillespie and zittoun (2013) offered a mobility-based approach to how we integrate and diversity experiences. they start from the pragmatist premise that, as we physically move through our environment, we accumulate experiences that we can later on use as resources for our imagination. as such, physical and psychological mobilities are intrinsically linked. however, in their framework, the two can also be relatively independent from each other given that, for instance, we often ‘travel’ mentally to other people, places and events while remaining relatively immobile in the here and now. their sharp separation between proximal and distal experiences is questionable though, especially if we consider the fact that our experience integrates both and imagination remains, at all times, an embodied process (see also glăveanu, karwowski, jankowska, & de saint-laurent, 2017). in building a mobilities-based psychology, it is important to take into account the temporality of human action and its different ‘levels’. in a very recent book (see glăveanu, 2020), i propose a study of mobility and possibility focused on four inter-related temporal dimensions: the phylogenetic roots of migrating people, the sociogenetic dynamic of ideas and innovations on the move, the ontogenetic aspect of personal mobilities, and the microgenetic processes of psychological movement. in each instance, i considered how mobility begets possibility or, to put it differently, how movement opens up new horizons for our thinking of and action in the world. this is not to say, of course, that there is a linear, unidirectional causality between mobility and explorations of the possible (through imagination, creativity, and innovation); also, that there are no instances in which acts of mobility constrict our sense of possibility. but the ontological premise remains – without moving between or exchanging positions, no new perspectives can come about. whether we are talking about human experience or possibility, working within the new mobilities paradigm doesn’t mean just adding a new point of focus – on movement – to a long list of existing psychological research topics. an integration of mobility into our theories and methods transforms how we define, study, and cultivate each and every one of them. i will briefly illustrate this with the help of three themes – self and identity, learning, creativity and imagination – as an invitation to reflect on the constitutive role of movement for our social and psychological life. the self has long been an area of research for psychologists, typically conceived as a distinguishing feature of human beings due to its reflective nature. the self emerges, according to mead (1934), when we become able to see ourselves as another person would; in other words, when we can adopt the perspective of others upon the self (see also gillespie, 2006a). what we are presented with here is a basic case of social and psychological mobility: repositioning ourselves or relocating to the position of the other. this movement seems abstract and psychological, but it is, in fact, rooted in highly embodied forms of activity, for example in the play and games we engage in during early childhood (gillespie, 2006b). equally, identities are often conceived new mobilities and psychology 188 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 186–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.3117 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of as relatively stable and dependent on categorization and group membership. what research over the past decades consistently shows is that identities are much more mobile, flexible and contextual than we initially thought (see reicher, 2004). and the latter can be accounted for in terms of movements, social, psychological and oftentimes physical, between groups and categories. learning and education more broadly would also benefit immensely from the mobilities approach. while theories of learning have recognised for a long time their contextual or situated nature (e.g., arnseth, 2008), further steps can be taken towards understanding the learner, his or her context, and the processes of learning in ‘movement’. some useful insights have been developed over the past years in the direction of theorising and empirically studying learning trajectories and learning networks (see leander, phillips, & taylor, 2010). these encourage us to consider not only what and how students learn, but how their learning and interests have their own history and movement across time and space. they also come to challenge old ideas in education that view the classroom as a container and as the privileged place of learning. finally, i made reference several times before to imagination and creativity. these possibility expanding phenomena don’t take place, as many wrongly assume, ‘inside the head’ of the person who imagines or goes through moments of creative insight. they are, in fact, premised on all sorts of embodied, social, psychological and cultural mobilities. zittoun and gillespie (2015) captured this through the loop model of the imagination that basically conceives it as an act of looping in and out of immediate experience and towards the past, the future, and alternative worlds. these can be interpreted as different positions and the loop as a fundamental unit of psychological movement. in creativity research, i theorised the creative process as a dialogue of perspectives (see glăveanu, 2015) premised on re-positioning. these ‘micro-mobilities’ of creators, often invisible to outside observers, build on, continue and contribute to personal ‘mezzo-mobilities’ (e.g., travel, visits) and societal ‘macro-mobilities’ (e.g., social change). in the end, why should psychologists pay more attention to new mobilities research and try to develop mobility-based accounts of their own topics? as i tried to argue here, the latter would radically transform the way we consider minds, bodies, and societies and how we recognise their richness, complexity, and ontological basis in movement. this would challenge static, universalistic theories on the one hand, and open up a new vocabulary for thinking about the psychic on the other, including trajectories and transitions, re-positioning and position exchange, flows, scapes, and networks. most of all, it would inspire a methodological renaissance that has been highly influential in the social sciences and led, until now, to the development of a range of new methods such as mobile ethnographies, time–space diaries and the investigation of virtual spaces (see sheller & urry, 2006). mobilities scholars can also benefit from engaging more with psychological theories and methods, especially when it comes to building a deeper understanding of personal and psychological forms of mobility. in the end, even if the time to start moving, in psychology, was decades ago, it’s never too late to join fellow sociologists, geographers and anthropologists in their journey through a young paradigm and contribute fully to its growth and future trajectory. notes i) ‘man runs marathon on 7-metre balcony during french lockdown’, the guardian, 21 march 2020. ii) ‘trekking to everest base camp – by climbing the stairs at home’, the guardian, 3 april 2020. iii) this is not to say, of course, that we shouldn’t focus also on the ‘other side’ of mobility represented, for example, by situations of forced immobility (lubkemann, 2008) and settled lives (fischer & malmberg, 2001). iv) for a critique of this focus see valsiner, 2007. glăveanu 189 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 186–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.3117 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author 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(2013). human development in the life course: melodies of living. cambridge, united kingdom: cambridge university press. about the author vlad petre glăveanu, phd, is associate professor and head of the department of psychology and counselling at webster university geneva, associate professor ii at bergen university, norway, and director of the webster center for creativity and innovation (wcci). his work focuses on creativity, imagination, culture, collaboration, and societal challenges. he edited the palgrave handbook of creativity and culture (2016) and the oxford creativity reader (2018), and co-edited the cambridge handbook of creativity across domains (2017) and the oxford handbook of imagination and culture (2017). he is editor of europe’s journal of psychology (ejop), an open-access peer-reviewed journal published by psychopen (germany). vlad received in 2018 the berlyne award from the american psychological association for outstanding early career contributions to the field of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts. new mobilities and psychology 192 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 186–192 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.3117 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fpac0000313 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ new mobilities and psychology (article body) notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author interethnic workplace conflict: reciprocal perception of italian and immigrant blue-collar coworkers research reports interethnic workplace conflict: reciprocal perception of italian and immigrant blue-collar coworkers maria grazia monaci 1 [1] department of human and social sciences, university of valle d’aosta, aosta, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 received: 2019-12-06 • accepted: 2021-03-16 • published (vor): 2022-05-31 handling editor: sandra obradovic, open university, milton keynes, united kingdom corresponding author: maria grazia monaci, strada cappuccini 2a, 11100 aosta, italy. e-mail: m.monaci@univda.it supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract past research has examined the beneficial effects of contact focusing mainly on the affective dimension of intergroup relationships. limited research has examined cognitive dimensions, in particular considering at the same time minority and majority group perspectives. this study tested whether contact in a work context relates differentially to the perception of interethnic conflict in italian (n = 67) and immigrant (n = 40, all male) blue-collar coworkers with the potential mediation of reciprocal stereotypical content (competence and warmth dimensions), interethnic attitudes, perceived discrimination, and whether organizational identification amplifies the effect of contact. multigroup path analysis revealed that the two stereotype dimensions, warmth and competence, mediate the relationship between interethnic contact and perceived discrimination for italians, and between organizational identification and perceived conflict for immigrants. results highlighted an asymmetrical effect of contact on perceived conflict, detrimental and direct for immigrant workers, beneficial and mediate via the outgroup cognitive image for the italian workers. findings suggest that a superordinate identity, in terms of organizational identification, may be effective in reducing conflict at the workplace for majority members, whilst a personalized strategy seems to be more suitable for minority members. the theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed along with the acculturation perspective. keywords perceived conflict, interethnic contact, organizational identification, stereotype content migratory flows from the most underprivileged to the wealthiest countries leads to increased diversity in host societies and constitutes a challenge for our new plural societies. italy, compared to other european countries, is a country of recent immigration but, from 2006 onwards, the annual quota of workers coming from abroad has regularly increased. factories of north east italy have recorded a widespread workforce of regular and irregular immigrants at a low qualified professional level. currently employed in the industry are 18.1% foreign workers and 20.2% italian workers (caritas-migrantes, 2019). this situation has prompted growing interest in finding useful strategies for reducing intergroup conflicts among different ethnic groups. by examining social psychological theories, such strategies mainly rely on intergroup contact and on the creation of a superordinate common membership. allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis suggests that, under certain conditions, significant contacts between members of different groups would reduce prejudice towards the outgroup and its behav­ ioral consequences (hayward, tropp, hornsey, & barlow, 2017; tropp & pettigrew, 2005b). on the other hand, the simultaneous salience of multiple dimensions of categorization, and particularly a vertical co-salience of a subordinate this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2395&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and a superordinate group membership (crisp, ensari, hewstone, & miller, 2002; dietz, kleinlogel, & chui, 2012; fiol, pratt, & o'connor, 2009; hornsey & hogg, 2000b), may lead to a restructuring of information processing and ingroup/outgroup evaluations, and play a role in the improvement of intergroup relations. however, past research has examined the beneficial effect of intergroup contact mainly in majority group members, with a specific focus on the affective dimension of prejudice. limited research has at the same time considered the effect of intergroup contact in minority and majority group members whilst highlighting cognitive dimensions. to contribute to filling this gap, this study tested whether intergroup contact and organizational identification in a real-world context differentially relates to the perception of interethnic conflict in italian and non-european union (n-eu) immigrant blue-collar coworkers. the two ethnic groups, employees of the same factory, are in daily contact and we conjectured that in a workplace context, the cognitive, more than the affective, dimension of prejudice will be the most relevant (aberson, 2015; gaunt, 2011). we thus integrated the intergroup contact hypothesis with the stereotype content model (fiske, cuddy, glick, & xu, 2002), hypothesizing that reciprocal cognitive stereotypes and attitudes operate as potential mediators between intergroup contact, organizational identification and perceived conflict. contact effects in minority and majority groups in psychosocial research, decades of studies have suggested that intergroup contact exerts a beneficial effect on intergroup relationships. however, most studies have focused on the majorities or members of the host societies. less attention has focused on minority status groups, although recent contributions have suggested that in disadvantaged groups the contact effects are weaker (tropp, 2007; tropp & pettigrew, 2005b), nonexistent (binder et al., 2009) or even detrimental (hayward et al., 2017; stephan et al., 2002; vedder, wenink, & van geel, 2017). ethnic minority group members are generally aware of the negative stereotypes that dominant majority members have of them (shelton, 2003) and concerned of being discriminated against (tropp & pettigrew, 2005b). the expectations of becoming possible targets of prejudice and discrimination may induce negative propensity towards intergroup interactions in minority group members and may reduce the contact effect (tropp, 2007). also when exploring at the same time majority and minority group members (al ramiah & hewstone, 2012; árnadóttir, lolliot, brown, & hewstone, 2018; binder et al., 2009; lutterbach & beelmann, 2020; tropp, 2007; yucel & psaltis, 2020), research has mainly focused on the mediational role of the affective component of prejudice (islam & hewstone, 1993; stephan & stephan, 2000; tropp & pettigrew, 2005a). in a work context, the cognitive dimensions of prejudice, which fewer empirical studies have examined (brambilla, hewstone, & colucci, 2013; gaunt, 2011; kotzur, schäfer, & wagner, 2019), are probably more relevant than affective mediators. a great deal of time is spent at the workplace, often engaging with people and establishing instrumental rather than close relationships. these relationships are subject to cogent norms, such as productivity targets, the risk of being made redundant, management demands, competition, cooperation, productivity pressure. recent demographic factors have, in the meantime, changed the composition of workforce organization, and the study of group-based conflict within ethnically diverse work teams has become an increasingly important focus for contemporary research (christian, porter, & moffitt, 2006; ensari, 2002; luijters, van der zee, & otten, 2006). coworkers of different ethnic groups are often in forced daily contact at the workplace, although they can freely choose to engage in other kinds of interpersonal contact. voluntary or involuntary involvement in contact has also quite a different impact on intergroup relationships (allport, 1954). hence, it is relevant to examine also the impact of voluntary or outside-of-work contact, which can take place in cafés, pubs, restaurants, at the gym, etc. organizational identification the relationship between an individual and an organization has generally been conceptualized in terms of the individu­ al’s commitment to the organization; however, drawing on the social identity theory (tajfel & turner, 1979), a concep­ tualization in terms of organization identification has also been proposed (ashforth & mael, 1989; hogg & abrams, 1988). these two conceptualizations are partly overlapping, but organizational identification is more closely linked to individual self-definition (van knippenberg & sleebos, 2006) and therefore may have more relevant consequences on intergroup biases. interethnic conflict at the workplace 194 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in a factory environment, it is particularly evident that group relations take place within the context of a relevant superordinate identity (hornsey & hogg, 2000a). identification with the organization may operate by generating positive views of the outgroup members, underlining their status of coworkers. however, while such a superordinate identity may coincide with subgroup identity for the members of the dominant majority (kessler & mummendey, 2001), its excessive underscoring may represent a threat for low-status subgroup members because the superordinate identity is likely to be dominated by the high-status subgroup (hornsey & hogg, 2000b). in minorities, protecting their identity distinctiveness may prevail over their need for a superordinate identity as a strategy for identity enhancement (hornsey & hogg, 2000a). theoretical models on diversity management at work identify as key antecedents of intergroup conflict factors such as social identity and categorization, intergroup contact, realistic group conflict and social dominance orientation, with the mediation of stereotype and prejudice (dietz et al., 2012). the groups’ different status can lead to stereotype differences connected to a sense of threat/hostility towards the outgroup (stephan et al., 2002). the perception of unequal distribution of resources, and therefore of perceived discrimination towards the ingroup, may rely on very different aspects and may have different effects in groups with different status, just as their discriminatory behaviors are different (amiot & bourhis, 2005). discrimination refers to an unequal behavior or treatment toward persons or groups due to their affiliation to social groups. however, perceived and experienced discrimination are quite different from the perspective of low-status minority or high-status majority groups (tajfel & turner, 1979). for low-status minority members, who feel that they have limited access to the resources society has to offer, the perception of an unfair resource distribution between groups may be particularly salient and therefore may be a relevant factor influencing the perception of conflict, while a wish for an unequal distribution of resources may be particularly relevant for high-status majority members (amiot & bourhis, 2005; esses, jackson, & armstrong, 1998) and not a source of conflict. in a work context, a focus on common identity represented by identification with the factory can however reduce the perception of differences in power between groups, and particularly in a disadvantaged group may undermine members’ tendency to make attribution to discrimination (saguy & chernyak-hai, 2012). the stereotype content model and cognitive mediation among the strategies that may be undertaken in an attempt to remove the sources of intergroup conflict, esses et al. (1998) suggest that one group may try to decrease other groups’ competitiveness. this may take the form of expressing negative evaluations and attributions towards members of other groups, including negative traits. the dimensions on which group members try to differentiate in a positive way may change according to contexts (levine & campbell, 1972) and, in a work setting, judgements of reciprocal competence and warmth may be particularly relevant. for instance, ensari and miller (2005) found that both attribution of ability and friendliness to outgroup members are significant mediators of prejudice reductions after an intergroup performance. the model of stereotype content (fiske et al., 2002) predicts that assessment of other groups’ warmth and competence will emerge from the perception of each group’s level of competition and status, respectively. specifically, perceived competence is primarily determined by perceived social status and power, whereas perceived warmth is determined by perceived intergroup competition. thus, people attribute competence to those perceived as high status, and they attribute warmth to those who are not competitive with the ingroup for resources. the first kind of stereotype—competent and cold—proposed by fiske and colleagues (2002) is defined as envious prejudice, while the second kind—incompetent and warm—is defined as paternalistic prejudice. despite the relevance of social structural variables such as competition and status as predictors of warmth and competence outgroup attribution, and ultimately behavioral reactions in intergroup relationships, few studies have linked the intergroup contact hypothesis to the stereotype content models, mainly finding that contact enhances the stereotype content dimension on which a specific outgroup is derogated (al ramiah & hewstone, 2012; brambilla et al., 2013; kotzur et al., 2019). according to the logic of the model, we expected that contact affects both warmth and competence perceptions of the two groups involved in our study. however, because of the different status of the two ethnic groups, we expected to find asymmetries in their reciprocal stereotypical content: the italian workers, the high-status group, would hold a paternalistic stereotype with the attribution of low competence and high warmth to monaci 195 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the low-status outgroup, the n-eu immigrants; while the n-eu workers would hold an envious stereotype, with the attribution of high competence but low warmth to the italian workers (following fiske et al., 2002). based on evidence, we first predicted that both intergroup contact and organizational identifications would increase the knowledge of the outgroup and enhance the perception of competence and warmth of outgroups and improve the attitude towards the outgroup. we further hypothesized that this enhancement would mediate the relationships between contact and organizational identification and perceived discrimination and conflict, albeit differentially in italian and immigrant worker groups. hypotheses this study focuses on the perception of interethnic conflict at the workplace both in n-eu immigrant minority and italian majority members. all participants are blue-collar workers, not often considered in psychosocial studies, despite most ethnic minority members ending up as unskilled factory workers. the amount of voluntary contact, in several situations where the coworkers may meet, and identification with the superordinate identity group, represented here by the firm they all worked for, are expected to be differentially related to perceived conflict in ethnic majority and minority group members, both directly and indirectly, via the cognitive dimension of intergroup relationships (brambilla et al., 2013; gaunt, 2011; kotzur et al., 2019). in line with the classical psychosocial models of attitudes (esses, haddock, & zanna, 1993), we expected to find a strong relationship between stereotypical content, attitude towards the outgroup, and its behavioral consequences in both ethnic groups, namely perceived discrimination at the workplace, which may in turn increase perceived overt interethnic conflicts at the workplace. specifically, our hypotheses are as follows, differentially for the italian majority and immigrant minority workers: h1: as empirical evidence supports that contact has stronger positive consequences on intergroup biases for majority than for minority groups, its effect on perceived conflict was hypothesized to be weaker among the immigrant compared to italian workers. h2: on the basis of previous research regarding the different consequences of superordinate identity on majority and minority groups, italian workers were expected to have a higher organizational identification, which would be neg­ atively and directly related to perceived discrimination and conflict; whilst immigrant workers were expected to have a lower level of organizational identification, with a weaker and mediated relationship between their organizational identification and perceived discrimination and conflict. h3: following fiske et al. (2002), considering the different status of the two ethnic groups, we expected to find asym­ metries in their reciprocal stereotypical content: the high status group, the italians, would attribute low competence and high warmth to the low-status immigrant outgroup (paternalistic stereotype), whilst we anticipated that immigrant workers would attribute high competence and low warmth to italian workers (envious stereotype). h4: the stereotype content and the cognitive dimension of the interethnic attitudes drive the indirect effect on the contact/organizational identification and discrimination-conflict relationship. all hypotheses were tested simultaneously with path analysis models. method participants and procedure one hundred and seven blue-collar workers were involved in the study: 67 italians and 40 n-eu immigrants, all males. the immigrants, working in the same factory and carrying out similar duties, were mostly from central (17) and north africa (18), the remainder from eastern european countries. the age of the respondents varied from 19 to 63 (age: m = 34.9 years, sd = 8.6), with no significant differences between the two groups. on average, the italians had been working for the firm 3.9 years (sd = 0.9) and the n-eu immigrants 3.3 years (sd = 0.8; difference not significant at the t-test). participants were individually approached at the workplace and asked to complete a short questionnaire (approx. 15 minutes), approved by the management. participants volunteered to complete the survey and signed informed consent. interethnic conflict at the workplace 196 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all factory workers present on the day of the test were contacted and all but a couple of them agreed to participate. the workers did shift work, and 70% of the total 153 workers were on the day shift. night shifts and day shifts are assigned on a rota system and so the sample was expected to be representative of the whole workforce. two versions of the questionnaire, for the two groups, were devised in italian (the immigrants were fluent enough to answer in that language). the measures for both groups were identical except that italian participants answered questions about immigrant coworkers and vice versa. with adult participants and anonymous questionnaires, ethical approval was not required, in line with national guidelines of the italian association of psychology (aip). measures outside-of-work contact. to measure the quantity of contact, respondents were asked the following questions adapted from islam and hewstone (1993) to the specific context. five items asked respondents to indicate the frequency with which participants report on their encounters with outgroup members in various non workplace contexts, for example, going to the cinema, or to the pub with italian/immigrants coworkers, doing sporting activities together, having dinner, being invited to others’ homes (response options were never, sometimes, often). these five items were added up (α = 0.76). organizational identification. we adapted two items: “i feel i am part of the factory,” and “i don’t feel particularly respected by the organization” (reversed) (from 1 = not at all to 5 = very much) from the organizational identification questionnaire (downs, 1994) responses were averaged (r = .74). stereotypical content. following fiske et al. (2002), a selection of five traits regarding competence (able, intelligent, reliable, responsible, independent; it α = 0.81; imm α = 0.80) and warmth (friendly, generous, pleasant, modest, patient; it α = 0.87; imm α = 0.78) were considered. participants were asked to rate on 5-point scales the extent to which they personally associated the traits to outgroup coworkers (from 1 = not at all associated to 5 = very much associated). two indices were computed from the average. attitude towards the outgroup was measured on a 10-point feeling thermometer (where 1 = completely against and 10 = completely in favor of italian/immigrant coworkers). perception of discrimination at the workplace was measured with a single item: “the italian workers/the n-eu immigrant workers get more than they deserve” (on 5-point likert scales from 1 = do not agree at all to 5 = strongly; following tropp & pettigrew, 2005a). perception of interethnic conflict at the workplace was measured with three items: “is there conflict between italian and n-eu immigrant workers in the factory?” “on the whole, relationships between italian and immigrant workers are good” (reversed) (from 1 = totally false to 5 = totally true); “how often does it occur?” (from 1 = never to 5 = very often). responses were averaged to obtain a global index (it α = 0.75; imm α = 0.71). data analysis firstly, a manova with ethnicity as the between factor was conducted on all study variables. secondly, we explored the antecedent of the perceived conflict in italians and immigrants with multigroup path analyses (lisrel 10.2). typically, multiple items or measures are used to assess latent variables (i.e., measurement model). in the present study such an approach would have produced an unacceptably high ratio of estimated parameters compared to sample size; therefore, the tested models used composite variables of the constructs as observed variables. hypothesized predictors were: organizational identification and interethnic contact as exogenous variables; reciprocal stereotypical content, attitude towards the outgroup, and perceived discrimination as mediator variables; finally, perception of conflict as outcome variable. monaci 197 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analyses the mean, standard deviations, and correlations for italian and n-eu immigrant workers are presented in table 1. the manova on the study variables revealed a main effect of ethnicity, λ = 0.55, f (7, 99) = 11.9, p < .001, ηp 2 = 0.46. significant multivariate effects were followed up using appropriate univariate tests (t-test). the immigrant workers attributed significantly more competence to the italian coworkers than their italian counterparts, t (105) = 5.9, p < .001, while no differences emerged for warmth that the two groups attributed to each other. however, a pairwise comparison of intragroup attribution showed that the immigrant workers judged italian coworkers more competent than warm, t (39) = 5.44, p < .001, while the difference of the warmth and competence attributed to the immigrants group by their italian coworkers, albeit congruent with expectations, was not significant, t (66) = 2.03, ns. as predicted, italian workers identified significantly more with the firm they work for, t (105) = 2.73, p = .007, whereas immigrant co-workers reported significantly more frequent contacts with outgroup members, t (105) = 3.8, p < .05. no significant differences emerged regarding attitude towards the outgroup, perceived discrimination and interethnic conflict at the workplace. table 1 means, standard deviations, and intercorrelation for italian and n-eu immigrant workers measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. organizational identification .02 .47** .42** .50*** −.34* −.34** 2. interethnic contact .10 .10 .09 .09 .09 .20 3. competence of the outgroup .29** .31* .63*** .43** −.37* −.39** 4. warmth of the outgroup .26* .24* .77*** .54*** −.40** −.10 5. attitude towards the outgroup .22 .14 .31* .38** −.48** −.37** 6. discrimination at the workplace −.12 −.05 −.46*** −.45*** −.49*** .51*** 7. conflict at the workplace −.27* −.03 −.09 −.17 −.07 .20 italian workers mean (sd) 4.03 (1.2)*** 6.37 (1.9)* 2.84 (0.6)*** 3.07 (0.7) 6.06 (2.4) 2.97 (2.4) 2.82 (1.1) immigrant worker mean (sd) 3.38 (1.4) 7.33 (1.8) 3.53 (0.6) 3.01 (1.3) 6.31 (2.9) 2.98 (0.9) 3.10 (1.0) note. correlations above the diagonal are for the ne-immigrants; correlations below the diagonal are for the italians. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the asterisks for the means refer to the results of the t-test, comparing italian workers with immigrant workers. antecedents of interethnic conflict we analyzed the input data in two steps. first, we tested the hypothesized mediation separately in the two groups because antecedents were expected to differentially influence perceived conflict in the italian and n-eu immigrant workers. second, multigroup path analyses were employed to examine equality/differences of the paths in the two ethnic groups; details are presented in a supplementary file. we first tested a model where organizational identification and contact were allowed to predict the component of the outgroup cognitive image (warmth, competence, attitude towards the outgroup), each image variable was allowed to predict discrimination and conflict, and discrimination was allowed to predict conflict. subsequently, we compared the described full mediated model, which included only indirect paths from antecedents to perceived conflict through outgroup image, with a partial mediated model, which also included the direct paths connecting organizational identifi­ cation and interethnic contact with perceived conflict, each added separately. the models were refined by removing non-significant paths (conventionally t < 1.96), as suggested by the wald test. on the basis of the modification indices, the errors of competence and warmth were allowed to correlate (the correlated measurement errors were assumed to be due to the shared method variance as these constructs were measured on the same scale). the partial mediated model, which adds one direct significant path in each sample, running respectively from organizational identification to conflict for the italians and from contact to conflict for the immigrants, fitted the data better (immigrants: χ2 = 10.74, df = 12, p = ns, cfi = 1, rmsea = 0, aic = 56.7, caic = 118.5; italians: χ2 = 7.37, df = 10, interethnic conflict at the workplace 198 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ p = ns, cfi = 1, rmsea = 0, aic = 59.2, caic = 142.5) than the fully mediated model (immigrants: χ2 = 14.96, df = 11, p = ns, cfi = 0.92, rmsea = 0.09, aic = 61.2, caic = 120.4; italians: χ2 = 10.65, df = 11, p = ns, cfi = 0.90, rmsea = 0.03, aic = 60.7, caic = 150.2). the partial mediation models had the lowest χ2/df ratio (0.89 and 0.73 respectively vs. 1.36 and 0.97), as well as the lowest rmsea, aic and caic. we also ran a chi-square difference test, frequently used to test differences between nested models, that is, two identical models one of which could be obtained simply by fixing/eliminating parameters in the other model. if the χ2 diff-value is significant, the “larger” model with more freely estimated parameters fits the data better than the “smaller” model in which the parameters are fixed. results confirmed that the partial mediated models, with additional direct paths between the predictors and the dependent variables, fit the data better of the full mediated model (immigrants: chi-square difference 4.22(1), p < .05; italians: chi-square difference 3.28(1), p = .07). these partial mediated models were used as a starting point for multigroup path analyses. the final best fitting model emerged by imposing cross-group equality constraints on four parameters in which the partial models of the two ethnic groups have significant similar path (four paths: from organizational identification to warmth and to competence; from warmth to attitude towards the outgroup; from attitude to discrimination), while the other path coefficients were allowed to vary freely across the two samples (χ2 = 19.63, df = 27, p = ns, cfi = 1, rmsea = 0, aic = 107.63, caic = 269.24). the estimated path coefficients are presented graphically in figure 1 for italian workers and in figure 2 for immi­ grant workers. the four causal paths equivalent across both samples (represented by the thicker lines) were significant and as expected: organizational identification showed a positive relationship with a better stereotypical content in terms of warmth and competence attributed to outgroup members; the attribution of warmth had a positive direct association with a favorable attitude towards the outgroup, which in turn was directly significantly and negatively related to discrimination at the workplace, in line with the classical psychosocial model of attitude. figure 1 italians: multigroup partially mediated path model note. with the two predictors, indirect effect and perceived conflict, as outcome variable. only significant paths are reported (t > 1.96, p < .05; parenthesized values marginally significant). coefficients are standardized betas. curved lines indicate error covariances. paths constrained to be equal in the two samples are shown as thicker lines. monaci 199 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 non-eu immigrants: multigroup partially mediated path model however, some notable differences emerged between the two samples. in the italian group, contact was related to an improved outgroup image, particularly in terms of the competence attributed to the ethnic coworkers. in turn, competence had a negative direct association with perception of discrimination at the workplace. discrimination was positively related to perceived conflict for both samples, albeit somewhat weaker for the italians, where it did not reach significance. the only significant direct association with perceived conflict is identification with the superordinate ingroup. the amount of variance explained (squared multiple correlation r 2) was 15% for ethnic attitude, 39% for perceived discrimination, 10% for perceived conflict. the model for the n-eu immigrants no longer showed any direct association between organizational identification and perceived conflict. moreover, the attribution of competence to the italian coworkers had a direct negative associa­ tion with perceived conflict, and the relation between discrimination and perceived conflict was significant. therefore, in the case of immigrant workers, the image of the outgroup coworkers significantly mediated the relationship between organizational identification and perception of discrimination and conflict at the workplace. interethnic contact is directly and negatively associated with perceived conflict. the amount of variance explained was 23% for ethnic attitude, 27% for perceived discrimination, and 44% for perceived conflict. discussion the study focused on perceived interethnic conflict at the workplace in italian and n-eu immigrant blue-collar cowork­ ers. findings support our general hypothesis that interethnic contact and organizational identification differentially influence perceived interethnic conflict in the two ethnic groups with the mediation of the cognitive dimension of interethnic relations. supporting and extending prior research on its lesser impact among disadvantaged groups (hayward et al., 2017; stephan et al., 2002; tropp, 2007; tropp & pettigrew, 2005b; vedder et al., 2017), among the immigrant workers the effect of interethnic contact was not only weaker, as expected (h1), but rather detrimental as it is directly and positively associated to the perception of conflict. on the contrary, among italians, it has a beneficial albeit indirect effect, improving the outgroup’s stereotypical image. a possible explanation may be that negative interethnic contact is more prominent in the minority than in the majority workers (barlow et al., 2012; vedder et al., 2017). negative contact has been found to be directly related to negative attitude (pettigrew & tropp, 2006; tropp & pettigrew, 2005b), and positive-negative asymmetry was observed (barlow et al., 2012), with negative interactions which may be more interethnic conflict at the workplace 200 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ influential than positive ones on intergroup biases, thus neutralizing the effects of many positive contacts (árnadóttir et al., 2018; hayward et al., 2017; meleady & forder, 2019; stephan et al., 2002; vedder et al., 2017). also, aberson (2015) found that negative contact more strongly predicted cognitive dimension of prejudice, probably increasing the salience of group membership, while positive contact predicts affective dimensions but does not consistently relate to the cognitive dimension (paolini, harwood, & rubin, 2010). in a work context, interactions may often be negative (ensari & miller, 2006) because of competition within the setting, pressure to produce, supervisors’ controls, work stress in general. additionally, when competition over resources arises, proximity and contact may increase rather than decrease intergroup hostility (levine & campbell, 1972). our expectations that among the italian workers, identification with the superordinate ingroup is higher and directly and negatively associated with the perception of interethnic conflict (h2) were also confirmed. asymmetries in the stereotype content only partially confirm our hypothesis (h3): the low-status n-eu immigrant workers recognize greater competence to the high-status italian workers, although the latter do not attribute higher warmth to the low-status immigrant workers. therefore, the n-eu immigrant workers hold an envious prejudice but the italian workers do not adhere totally to a paternalistic prejudice (fiske et al., 2002). on the whole, the classical relationships between stereotype, attitude, and its behavioral consequences, that is discrimination, have been confirmed in both groups. specifically, the attribution of greater warmth is positively related to the attitude towards the outgroup colleagues and indirectly to perceived discrimination; the attribution of higher competence to the outgroup may reduce perceived discrimination in the italian workers and perceived conflict in the immigrant workers. the two dimensions of the stereotype, warmth and competence, mediate the relationship between interethnic con­ tact and perceived discrimination for the italians, and between organizational identification and perceived conflict for the immigrants (confirming h4). cognitive prejudice measures, like those used in the current study, reflect participants’ beliefs about the outgroup and may exert a relevant role in specific circumstances and specific behavioral consequences such as perceived discrimination and conflict at the workplace, due to the establishment of instrumental more than close relationships. no significant difference in the amount of perceived discrimination and conflict in the two groups emerged, in line with past evidence supporting the absence of systematic relationships between group status and intergroup biases in real-world groups (mullen, brown, & smith., 1992). an important condition in intergroup relationships is whether social groups find themselves (or believe they find themselves) in competition because of scarce resources. according to the realistic conflict theory, it is the perception of competition and threat, more than actual competition over resources, that leads to prejudice and intergroup conflict (esses et al., 1998; stephan & stephan, 2000). the perception of unequal distribution of resources, and therefore of perceived discrimination towards the ingroup, may rely on very different aspects in groups with different social status (amiot & bourhis, 2005; esses et al., 1998). our findings support this view: when the italian workers recognize greater competence in their immigrant colleagues, there is less discrimination, but this does not reduce perceived conflict; in the n-eu immigrant workers, recognizing competence of their italian colleagues directly decreases perceived conflict. perceiving substantial discrimination contributes to the prediction of interethnic conflict in minority group members, while such perceptions are almost unrelated among majority members; similarly, perceived discrimination has been found to moderate the relationship between interethnic contact and improved intergroup closeness particularly for members of disadvantaged groups (tropp, 2007). in both ethnic groups, organizational identification may reduce conflict, directly for the italian workers and with the mediation of outgroup stereotypical image for the n-eu immigrant workers. a crucial variable for increasing intergroup harmony is therefore the extent to which specific context facilitates the development of a superordinate identification. emphasis on a single, inclusive group may alter the conceptual representation of group members, and employees might focus on their shared organizational identities (dietz, et al., 2012). but, as hornsey and hogg (2000a) remark, minority-group individuals in a majority-dominated organization may feel their identity threatened in a context which stresses exclusively organizational identification, provoking behavior aimed at protecting subgroup social identity. this defensive reaction, besides having other effects on ingroup biases and conflict, may reduce superor­ dinate group identification in low-status group members (dovidio, gaertner, & validzic, 1998). indeed, our immigrant workers reported lower levels of organizational identification. as underlined in literature, increasing the salience of a monaci 201 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pre-existing superordinate identity should be achieved in a context where group members retain a distinct identity. the “simultaneous categorization” (hornsey & hogg, 2000b) approach can yield more positive effects on interethnic conflict reductions than the complete abandonment of subgroup identities. approaches within the acculturation framework propose similar explanations of bias reduction (berry, 1997). our findings suggest that the italian workers perceived less conflict to the extent that they were identified with the organization, whereas indicators of cultural respect and acceptance (e.g., attitude, perceived discrimination, contact) predicted perceived conflict for the immigrants. this may reflect assimilationist expectations in the majority group but integration/multiculturalist expectations in the minority group. in the immigrant worker group, contact may encourage expectations of integration and acceptance that do not materialize as quality of interactions both in and out of the work setting. generally, ethnic minorities favor integration over assimilation, whilst the dominant majority tends to favor assimilation (verkuyten, 2005). research has consistently shown that ethnic minorities respond most positively to the integration strategy (preserving original cultures and habits while acquiring some characteristics of the host culture, in contrast to assimilation), and that this strategy predicts greater psychological and sociocultural adaptation and overall well-being of minority-group members (berry, 1997; berry, phinney, sam, & vedder, 2006; lafromboise, coleman, & gerton, 1993). luijters and colleagues (2006) tested preferred acculturation strategy at the workplace and concluded that dual identity is the most positively evaluated strategy among ethnic minority workers. within the framework of the mirips (mutual intercultural relations in plural societies), an italian study (inguglia et al., 2020) compared immigrant and italian adolescents and showed that in the non-dominant group, contact with italian peers was associated with integration while, in line with our results, perceived discrimination with separation and lower psychological well-being. however, as berry (1997) affirms, multiculturalism is a strategy that can also yield stress when the majority group is not open and inclusive. lack of fit between majority and minority acculturation expectations generally leads to worsening intergroup relations (zagefka & brown, 2002). if this is true and hardly modifiable in a wider social context, in a more limited and easily controlled working set a feasible objective could be that of making the acculturation orientation of workers of diverse ethnic groups coincide within a framework of integration support on the part of management. the study has limitations. firstly, it relies on a limited sample size, mainly due to the circumscribed population of the specific real-world context involved. secondly, in a correlational study it is impossible to determine the direction of causality. in stephan and stephan’s (2000) integrated threat model, perceived conflict is conceptualized as an antecedent of ethnic attitude, while here it is argued to be a consequence of it, and our findings support this view, especially as far as the minority group is concerned. the most accurate description may not be a linear process, but rather a circular trend in which some conditions produce conflicts, thus affecting attitude. finally, we did not measure the positive or negative quality of contact, which may be usefully addressed in future studies, both for involuntary contact at work and voluntary outside-of-work contact. despite these limitations, our conclusions are based on a field study with real-group interactions, with the concur­ rent use of coworkers of both majority and minority groups. reducing interethnic conflict at the workplace is an extremely relevant task for the management (ensari, 2002), and our findings show that the factors underlying perception of conflict in minority and majority workers are different and call for different strategies. stressing identification with the factory they all work for may be effective for majority members, given that they are not likely to feel their subgroup identity threatened as are members of the majority group (kessler & mummendey, 2001), whereas it may be less effective for minority members (hornesy & hogg, 2000a). it would probably be better to start with personalization (ensari, 2002): management should create more occasions for initiating and developing personalized contact, trying to improve both the amount and quality of interethnic interactions in and out of the factory. the aim is acting on minority-group workers’ perception of being discriminated, strongly associated with perceived conflict, by reinforcing the salience of common goals, recognizing reciprocal competence, fostering cooperation between heterogeneous workgroups (chrobot-mason & ruderman, 2004). this bottom-up process, where the information enco­ ded about the outgroup member during social interaction is dominated not by the relevant social category, but by the unique qualities of that individual (ensari, christian, kuriyama, & miller, 2012; ensari & miller, 2006), can make cognitive representations of the outgroup more complex. our findings highlight that for ethnic minority workers the beneficial effect of the organizational identification is mediated by an improved image of the italian co-workers. a interethnic conflict at the workplace 202 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(2), 193–206 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2395 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gradual combination of decategorization/personalization strategies and recategorization may therefore be beneficial for minority members (ensari & miller, 2006), additionally so if this is matched with a reduction of potential negative consequences of contact at intergroup level. finally, keeping distinct group identities and contemporarily reinforcing the salience of common membership, are psychosocial models proposed for prejudice reduction compatible with multicul­ turalism. intergroup research and acculturation perspectives may be usefully combined in order to better comprehend conflict reduction in work contexts. in conclusion, as observed by shelton (2000), research should try to understand how ethnic minorities’ attitudes and behaviors affect quality of interactions with the majority group. our findings emphasize that what is known about majority groups is in no way automatically applicable to a minority group, and the importance of comparing minority and majority group members in real world situations. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: the raw data will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher upon request. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • appendix: antecedents of interethnic conflict – alternative path models. index of supplementary materials monaci, m. g. 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(2020). intergroup contact and willingness for renewed cohabitation in cyprus: exploring the mediating and moderating mechanisms. group processes & intergroup relations, 23(4), 578–597. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430219845053 zagefka, h., & brown, r. j. (2002). the relationship between acculturation strategies, relative fit and intergroup relations: immigrantmajority relations in germany. european journal of social psychology, 32(2), 171–188. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.73 about the author maria grazia monaci is full professor at the university of valle d’aosta (italy) where she teaches social psychology. she obtained her phd in social and personality psychology at the university of padova her current research interests focus on prejudice and emotions in intergroup relationships; regulation of emotions, health promotion. interethnic conflict at the workplace 206 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01643.x https://doi.org/10.1002/job.359 https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000150 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.88.1.121 https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430219845053 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.73 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ interethnic conflict at the workplace (introduction) contact effects in minority and majority groups organizational identification the stereotype content model and cognitive mediation hypotheses method participants and procedure measures data analysis results preliminary analyses antecedents of interethnic conflict discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the author “it all comes down to the teens”: an actor-partner-interdependence model of trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads research reports “it all comes down to the teens”: an actor-partner-interdependence model of trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads petru lucian curșeu 1,2, arcadius florin muntean 1, mihai tucaliuc 1 [1] department of psychology, babeş – bolyai university cluj-napoca, romania. [2] department of organization, open universiteit, heerlen, the netherlands. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 received: 2024-08-15 • accepted: 2025-06-11 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: alice cancer, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: petru lucian curșeu, department of psychology, babeş – bolyai university, 37 republicii street, 400015, cluj-napoca, romania. email: petrucurseu@psychology.ro abstract objectives: our study underscores the relevance of focusing on parent-adolescent dyads in order to understand the interplay between school trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school by testing a model in which school engagement mediates the association between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school. methods: we use an actor-partner-interdependence-model to test the mediating role of school engagement between trust and satisfaction with the school in 506 parent-adolescent dyads in romania. results: the results show that when these variables are jointly evaluated in parent-adolescent dyads, only student engagement is a significant dyadic (couple) mediator, such that it is positively predicted both by student and parental trust in the school and predicts both student and parental satisfaction with the school. our results also reveal a partner only effect on parental school engagement that is positively predicted by student trust in the school. moreover, our results also reveal that parental trust in the school has a positive association with parental as well as student satisfaction with the school. an emergent result is that female students report a higher engagement and satisfaction with the school than male students do. conclusions: in line with our results, we urge school administrators to provide resources and create platforms for a joint involvement of parents and adolescents in relevant school-related activities. keywords trust, parental school engagement, satisfaction with the school, adolescents, parent adolescent dyads, student school engagement both parental and adolescent engagement with the school are essential drivers of academic performance and wellbeing at school (goodall & montgomery, 2014; lei et al., 2018; mielityinen et al., 2023) and literature to date has extensively explored factors that drive school engagement. student school engagement reflects the effort and energy invested by students in school-related activities and factors like student self-efficacy, motivation, personality as well as classroom climate and the quality of relationships with the teachers have been studied as key antecedents (fredricks et al., 2004; lai et al., 2021; mielityinen et al., 2023). parental school engagement refers to parents’ involvement in school-related activities in order to build a sense of joint ownership and support (together with the school) children’s learning journeys. among the antecedents of parental school engagement, trust in the school and the quality of the relationship with the school and teachers were the key antecedents explored so far (adams et al., 2022; goodall & montgomery, 2014; romero, 2015). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15335&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ as parental and student school engagement reflect behavioral intentions, factors that pertain to the children-parent relation are likely to impact on school engagement as well as on its antecedents and consequences. to date however, studies mostly focused on personal and classroom related antecedents and did not extensively explore the way in which the dyadic relations between adolescents and their parents impact on student and parental school engagement and on the interplay of engagement with other school attitudes. we use the actor-partner-interdependence-model (apim see cook & kenny, 2005; kenny, 1996, 2018) to explore the interplay between trust in the school, engagement and satisfaction with the school in parent–adolescent dyads. apim is a suitable modeling approach that captures the interdependence between attitudes and behavioral intentions in interacting dyads and as such it was extensively used in studying close relationships, including family dynamics (cook & kenny, 2005; michael & hasida, 2024; ledermann et al., 2011). in our study, the apim analytic approach allowed us to simultaneously test the relationships between trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school evaluated by adolescents and their parents, therefore it captures these associations as shaped by the relationship dynamics in adolescent–parent dyads. to summarize, our study extends the literature on school engagement that chiefly focused on student, school and classroom level antecedents of student and parental engagement and we build on the apim to test, in parent–adolescent dyads, the mediating role of student and parent school engagement in the relation between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school. in doing so, our paper presents one of the first empirical attempts to jointly explore the interdependence of school attitudes in parent–adolescent dyads. theoretical background and hypotheses school engagement reflects the extent to which parents and the students are involved in school-related activities and practices such that a sense of commitment and ownership develops in relation to schools and the educational activities unfolding within (goodall & montgomery, 2014). school engagement has therefore a clear behavioral and action oriented focus. given such clear behavioral elements specific to school engagement, we set out to test a model in which trust in the school (as a general positive evaluative orientation towards the school) predicts school engagement. a core tenet of the social quality theory (sqt–ward & meyer, 2009) is that trust is at the very core of the social fabric of society as it fosters social inclusion, the development of social empowerment, socio-economic security as well as social cohesion. we elaborate on the sqt to argue that trust in the school reflects a set of generic positive evaluations, shared in parent–adolescent dyads, related to school’s mastery to convey and effectively transfer knowledge to students, legitimizing their educational authority to support students’ personal development and growth (bormann et al., 2021; niedlich et al., 2021). trust in the school, as a general positive evaluation, fosters the legitimacy ascribed to the educational context represented by the school and is one of the key predictors of how students and parents interact and engage with the school. trust in education is a multifaceted construct that includes generalized trust in social institutions (education, political parties, public institutions) as well as emergent social trust that captures the relational dynamics among social actors (individuals, groups, organizations) (bormann et al., 2021; niedlich et al., 2021). generalized trust reflects a generalized credibility of social institutions and organizations derived from a set of socio-cultural factors and individual evaluative tendencies (niedlich et al., 2021), while in social relationships terms, trust refers to the willingness to accept vulnerability in relation to another social actor (group or individual) (ward & meyer, 2009), and it is typically the result of high quality communication among the partners. we build on the sqt notion that trust is a key antecedent of social engagement and social cohesion (ward & meyer, 2009) to explore the extent to which parents and students with a high trust in the school, are more likely to engage in school-related activities as compared to parents and students with a low level of trust in the school. we argue that evaluative tendencies concerning schools and the educational system in general are shared in adolescent–parent dyads, therefore evaluations of trust in the school tend to be interdependent in such dyads. whether trust refers to generic evaluative tendencies that refer to educational institutions in general, or trust in the school that emerges from good bidirectional communication between the school and the parents/students, we argue that trust reflects an effective and harmonious partnership in the educational process (adams et al., 2022; bormann et al., 2021; houri et al., 2019; romero, 2015). partners engaged in harmonious social exchanges based on trust tend to display curșeu, muntean, & tucaliuc 367 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ higher levels of engagement in the relationship. in support of these arguments, meta-analytic evidence shows that interventions aimed at increasing social support and effective feedback in communication have a significant positive effect on engagement (knight et al., 2017). for the higher education context, studies have shown that students’ trust is an important predictor for their engagement with the school (jones & nangah, 2021), arguments fully supported by meta-analytic results (roorda et al., 2017; tao et al., 2022). to summarize, in line with the sqt (ward & meyer, 2009), the social exchange perspective on social relations (blau, 1964) and the cyclical model of trust in education (niedlich et al., 2021), we argue that trust in the school reflects a set of positive generic evaluative tendencies shared in parent–adolescent dyads and is an antecedent for parental as well as adolescent school engagement. most of the empirical evidence, however, is non-experimental, therefore the causal link between trust and engagement did not receive substantial evidence. an exception is a randomized control trial experiment reported in houri et al. (2019) in which the authors have manipulated parental trust in school by involving the experimental parent group in an intense (daily exchanges), two way communication with the teachers, which ultimately increased their trust in the school. this trust manipulation eventually increased parental behavioral as well as relational school engagement (houri et al., 2019). in line with these arguments, related to the causal association between trust in the school and engagement with the school, therefore we hypothesize that: hypothesis 1: trust in the school has a positive association with school engagement. meta-analytic evidence supports a positive and significant association between employee engagement and satisfaction (harter et al., 2002) as well as a positive association between student school engagement and academic performance and wellbeing in educational settings (lei et al., 2018). moreover, parental school engagement is an essential component of parental engagement with the overall education of their children (goodall & montgomery, 2014) with important consequences for student academic performance and wellbeing. parental school engagement is expected to foster their own as well as their children’s satisfaction with the school. similarly, previous studies showed that student school engagement predicts academic outcomes (lei et al., 2018) and as such we expect that student engagement ultimately increases satisfaction with the school for the adolescents as well as their parents. we therefore hypothesized that: hypothesis 2: school engagement mediates the association between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school. taken separately the two core hypotheses are not surprising and were explored separately in previous studies. our study aims to extend the insights on how trust, school engagement and satisfaction with the school are related in parent–adolescent dyads. we expect such an interplay to be relevant as close interpersonal interactions between parents and adolescents generate interdependence (kenny, 1996, 2018) in the way they relate, in terms of attitudes and behavioral intentions, to the same target (school). we use the apim approach (kenny, 1996; cook & kenny, 2005) for testing mediation in dyadic data and add to the literature on school engagement by pointing to the relational dynamics that shape the interplay of trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school. apim was recommended for studying close interpersonal relations such as family relations (cook & kenny, 2005) as it captures the interdependence in constructs evaluated in dyads engaged in close interpersonal interactions (kenny, 2018). method sample and procedure our study used a cross-sectional multi-source approach to collect data on trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school from parent-adolescent dyads. the study was part of a larger research project focused on attitudes toward schools in romania and included high school participants in various regions of the country. participants were invited to take part in the study via the school management team and were ensured of the voluntary nature of their participation as well as of the anonymity of their contributions. in order to match the parents with their respective child in this survey we have used anonymized codes that were generated using the same rules for the parent as well as for the child. we have matched the parent–adolescent pairs based on these anonymized codes. the final sample consisted of satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads 368 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 506 parent–adolescent dyads for which we could accurately match the parents with their respective child. in the student sample 68.6% were females and the average age of the sample was 17.15 years old (ranging between 14 and 19), while in the parent sample 82.8% were female and the average age of the sample was 44.5 years old (ranging from 32 to 65). age and gender of both adolescents and their parents were used as control variables. scales trust in the school for students, this was evaluated using three items by asking them to rate on a five-point scale (ranging from 1 not at all to 5 very much) their trust in colleagues, teachers and school in general. our trust in the school scale for students evaluates trust in key interaction partners (colleagues and teachers) as well as trust in school in general, therefore it is aligned with the key tenet of sqt (ward & meyer, 2009) that trust emerges at the relational interfaces between the students and the school as the social system in which they are embedded. cronbach’s alpha for this three-items scale was .86 showing a good internal reliability of the scale. parental trust in the school was evaluated with a single item adapted from an overall indicator of trust as a generic evaluative tendency (larson et al., 2018) “overall to what extent do you trust your children’s school?” and recorded the answers on a five points scale ranging from 1 no trust at all to 5 i trust it fully. engagement with the school school engagement was evaluated with different scales for the students and for parents. typically, in the apim models the same scales are used for both partners in a dyad, yet the engagement with the school differs significantly in terms of behaviors between parents and students, therefore we decided to use dedicated scales to measure parental and student engagement. parental engagement was evaluated with five items presented in schueler et al. (2017), example of items are, “how often do you meet in person with teachers at your child’s school?” and “in the past year, how often have you helped out at your child’s school?” (as in the original survey, answers were recorded on a 5-points scale ranging from 1almost never to 5 weekly or more). the scale is extensively used to assess parental school engagement (margaritopoulou et al., 2024; tucaliuc et al., 2024) and cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .80 reflecting a good reliability of the scale. student engagement was evaluated with five items adapted from demerouti et al. (2010). the student engagement scale is in line with the study demands-resources theory (bakker & mostert, 2024) and evaluates students’ positive psychological states in relation to their activities at school, namely study dedication, absorption and vigor. examples of items include “i always find new and interesting aspects in my study at school” (dedication), “at school i am bored during classes” (item reversed coded for vigor) and “i feel i am very absorbed in my school activities” (absorption). answers were recorded on a 5-points scale ranging from 1 fully disagree to 5 fully agree and cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .78 reflecting a good reliability of the scale. satisfaction with the school for students, this was evaluated by asking them to rate on a five point scale (1 not satisfied at all to 5 very satisfied) their satisfaction with the school, with the teachers and with the classes they attend. the satisfaction with the school builds on a bottom-up perspective on satisfaction (ilies et al., 2019), and evaluates students’ satisfaction with the school as composite of satisfaction in relation to relevant activities and relational interfaces at school. as such, the scale includes the relational interfaces with teachers, as well as satisfaction with educational activities at school and with the school in general. cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .86 reflecting a good reliability of the scale. parental satisfaction with the school was evaluated with a single item adapted from a single item measure of job satisfaction presented in wanous et al. (1997) phrased as “all things included how satisfied are you about your child’s school?”, answers were recorded on a five points scale ranging from 1 not at all satisfied to 5 very satisfied. although single item measures are criticized for their psychometric properties, items that capture generic evaluative tendencies like satisfaction and trust provide good estimates of the overall underlying constructs (allen et al., 2022; nagy, 2002; wanous et al., 1997). curșeu, muntean, & tucaliuc 369 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results we present the means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables in table 1: table 1 means, standard deviations and correlations variable mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. gender parent .17 .377 1 2. age parent 44.50 5.59 .155** 1 3. gender student .31 .47 .171** .006 1 4. age student 17.15 .70 -.008 .021 .047 1 5. trust parent 4.21 .86 -.002 -.036 .029 -.015 1 6. trust student 3.44 .85 .055 -.030 .063 .025 .329** 1 7. engagement parent 2.45 .85 -.036 -.074 .070 .024 .113* .149** 1 8. engagement student 2.61 .68 .056 -.008 -.042 -.012 .281** .630** .196** 1 9. satisfaction parent 3.88 .98 .035 -.043 -.088* -.012 .349** .655** .145** .597** 1 10. satisfaction student 4.15 .87 -.043 -.058 -.035 -.037 .616** .316** .148** .294** .388** note. gender is dummy coded: female = 0, male = 1; dyadic correlations among variables are presented in bold. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. for the multi-item scales used for students, we carried out a confirmatory factor analysis and the measurement model with four distinct factors had a good fit with the data χ2 = 233.73, df = 41, p < .001, cfi = .93, tli = .91, nfi = .91, rmsea = .09, while the fit indices for the single factor model reflect a poor fit with the data χ2 = 449.74, df = 44, p < .001, cfi = .85, tli = .82, nfi = .82, rmsea = .13. in order to test our hypotheses, we first used ols regression analyses with robust standard errors for the mediators and for the dependent variables. in the ols analyses we have used the hc3 heteroskedasticity-consistent standard error estimator as recommended in hayes and cai (2007). the results of the ols regression analyses are presented in table 2: table 2 regression results for mediators and dependent variables variable parental school engagement student school engagement parental school satisfaction student school satisfaction constant 1.76† (.98) 1.03† (.60) 1.94* (.78) .89 (.76) gender parent -.08 (.10) .08 (.07) -.08 (.078) .03 (.07) age parent -.01 (.01) .002 (.004) -.003 (.006) -.003 (.005) gender student .12 (.08) -.13* (.05) -.08 (.07) -.14*(.06) age student .02 (.05) -.02(.03) -.03 (.04) -.01 (.04) parental school trust .07 (.05) .07* (.03) .58***(.05) .12**(.04) student school trust .12*(.05) .46***(.03) .01 (.05) .35*** (.04) parental school engagement .06† (.05) .01 (.04) student school engagement .14**(.05) .56***(.05) n 506 506 506 506 r 2 .04 .38 .39 .53 f statistic 3.04** 54.17*** 29.41*** 68.57*** note. unstandardized regression coefficients shown with robust standard errors between parentheses. gender is dummy coded male = 1, female = 0. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads 370 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as indicated in table 2, parental trust has a positive and significant association with student engagement (β = .27, p = .01), while with parent engagement the association is positive as hypothesized in h1 yet it is not significant (β = .11, p = .18). moreover, student trust in the school predicts significantly and positively both student engagement (β = .46, p < .001) as well as parent engagement (β = .14, p = .02). based on these results we can conclude that hypothesis 1 was only partially supported. an emergent result reported in table 2 concerns the negative and significant association between student gender and student engagement with the school (β = -.09, p = .01) as well as a negative association between student gender and their satisfaction with the school (β = -.07, p = .03) showing that female students tend to report higher levels of engagement (m = 2.65, sd = .68) and satisfaction with the school (m = 3.79, sd = .83) than male students (for engagement m = 2.52, sd = .69 and for satisfaction with the school m = 3.60, sd = 1.00). our study collected data on trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school from dyads of parents and adoles­ cents in line with the apim methodology. one of the assumptions of the apim analytic approach is that scores for the same variables are correlated within dyads, therefore in apim, the level of analysis is the dyad and not the individual respondent (cook & kenny, 2005; ledermann et al., 2011). as such our analyses are conducted on 506 parent-adolescent dyads with complete data on all variables included in the model and it estimates the mediating role of engagement with the school in the relation between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school (accounting for the covariance of student and parental evaluations in each of the dyadic measures). in line with these expectations, our results show that parental trust was positively correlated with the adolescent trust in the school (r = .33, p < .001) parental school engagement was positively correlated with adolescent’s engagement with the school (r = .20, p < .001) and finally parental school satisfaction was positively correlated with the adolescent’s satisfaction with the school (r = .39, p < .001). the mediating role of engagement in the relation between trust and satisfaction was tested using the medyad procedure (coutts et al., 2019). the medyad procedure estimates the indirect effects of trust on satisfaction via engagement by taking account the correlations between the variables within dyads. we summarize the results of the medyad analyses in figure 1. figure 1 the overall results of the apim analyses note. unstandardized path coefficients are shown with robust standard errors between parentheses; gender and age of parents and students were included as covariates in the model. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as illustrated in figure 1 and summarized in table 2 the mediation analyses reveal that the only significant mediator is student engagement with the school. the indirect effects are presented in table 3 and all mediation paths via student curșeu, muntean, & tucaliuc 371 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ engagement are significant, while the mediation paths via parent engagement are not significant as the confidence interval includes zero. based on this pattern of results, we can conclude that student engagement is the only significant mediator in the relation between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school. this pattern of results puts the students at the center of the interplay between parental and student attitudes towards the school. table 3 indirect effects for all paths estimated in the apim mediation path indirect effect (se) 95%ci parent trust-->parent engagement--> parent satisfaction .004 (.005) [-.002;.01] parent trust-->student engagement --> parent satisfaction .01 (.01) [.001;.02] parent trust --> parent engagement --> student satisfaction .001 (.003) [-.006;.01] parent trust --> student engagement --> student satisfaction .04 (.02) [.01;.07] student trust-->parent engagement--> parent satisfaction .01 (.01) [-.002;.02] student trust-->student engagement --> parent satisfaction .06 (.03) [.01;.11] student trust --> parent engagement --> student satisfaction .001 (.005) [-.008;.01] student trust --> student engagement --> student satisfaction .26 (.03) [.20;.32] note. significant indirect associations are marked in bold given the fact that for students, trust in the school and satisfaction with the school were evaluated with multi-item scales, while for parents we have used single items to evaluate trust and satisfaction with the school, we have run the medyad analyses using a corresponding single item for students as well (for students, we selected the items that matched the content of the items used in the parent surveys). as a robustness check we decided to run the apim analyses using single item measures for trust in the school and satisfaction with the school for students in order to match the way these variables were assessed for parents. from the trust scale filled out by students, we have selected the question specifically referring to their trust in the school while from the student satisfaction scale we selected satisfaction with the school (the phrasing of these items were the same as the phrasing used for the parents to assess trust in school and satisfaction with the school). the apim results using single item evaluations for students as well as parents (thus fully matched in terms of measurement approach) revealed the same pattern of significant indirect effects in which student engagement is the only significant mediator. the significant couple (dyadic) mediation via student engagement was fully supported in these additional medyad analyses. discussion our paper reports one of the first attempts to explore, using an apim approach the interplay of trust, engagement and satisfaction with the school in parent–adolescent dyads. the most important aspect revealed by our analyses is that stu­ dent engagement is the key mediator that explains the association between parental and adolescent trust in the school and parental and student satisfaction with the school. in the apim terminology (kenny, 2018) student engagement results from positive and significant actor and partner effects (a couple or dyadic effect), such that both parental trust as well as the students’ trust in the school significantly predict student engagement with the school, which in turn impacts on student and parental satisfaction with the school. in short, adolescent engagement in the school is a mediator in the couple (or dyadic) effect of trust on satisfaction with the school. future studies on parental school related attitudes will benefit from including the dyadic interdependence of parent–children attitudes and behavioral intentions. moreover, students’ trust in the school is the only significant predictor of parental engagement with the school (in apim terminology a partner only effect — kenny, 2018), an important finding showing that future studies on antecedents of parental engagement with the school should extend their focus in order to include aspects related to children’s attitudes and behavioral intentions towards the school. we extend previous research on the role of student–teacher interactions as key antecedents of parental engagement with the school (goodall & montgomery, 2014) satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads 372 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to show that parent–adolescent interactions are also relevant drivers of parental engagement with the school. these insights are also supported by the fact that when accounting for student trust, parental trust does not significantly impact on parental engagement with the school, therefore the relational dimensions rather than parental attitudes seem to be the key antecedents of parental engagement with the school. previous empirical and conceptual analyses of parental school engagement chiefly focused on the relationship itself and considered classroom context, communication with the teachers and school management as key antecedents of parental engagement with the school (fredricks et al., 2004; goodall & montgomery, 2014). in apim terms, student engagement is dominating the mediation chain considered in our analyses, as parent engagement is explained by a partner only effect, while the student engagement is explained by a partner as well as by an actor effect (kenny, 2018). according to our results, adolescents are really at the core of the relationship between their parents and the school, therefore future studies should build on the apim approach to further explore parents’ relation with the school. our study also reveals a direct positive association between parental trust in the school and parental satisfaction with the school as well as the positive association between students’ trust in the school and their satisfaction with the school. these results are in line with the sqt (ward & meyer, 2009) that presents trust as a key antecedent of satisfaction with life in various social contexts. one of the tenets of the sqt is that trust is one of the key variables that connects the divide between individual and social systems as well as between individuals and institutional frameworks (ward & meyer, 2009). our results support this view by pointing to school engagement as a mechanism that further explains how trust bridges this divide between parents and schools. an additional result reported in our regression analyses as well as the apim approach is the direct association between parental trust in the school and adolescent satisfaction with the school. in other words, student engagement is only one of the possible mediators of the relation between parental trust in the school and student satisfaction with the school. this particular result shows the importance of using the apim approach to test the interplay of attitudes towards the school in parent–adolescent dyads. we therefore call for more research that explores the way in which the parent–adolescent relations impact on the emergent school attitudes as well as other antecedents of engagement with the school. a surprising aspect revealed by our apim mediation analyses is the fact that when controlling for the covariance between student and parental trust in the school, the parental trust in the school did not significantly predict parental engagement with the school. in line with previous analyses that only looked at parental trust to engagement relation­ ship (houri et al., 2019), our bivariate analyses revealed a significant positive correlation between parental trust in the school and parental engagement with the school (r = .113, p = .01). nevertheless, when taking into account students’ trust in the school (the only significant predictor of parental engagement, see table 2), this positive relation between parental trust and engagement with the school becomes not-significant. this result once more, calls for more apim studies on parent–adolescent dyads to explore parental engagement and satisfaction with the school. a particular area for future research concerns the role of dysfunctional cognition, in particular the role of distrust cognitive schema (muntean et al., 2025; tucaliuc et al., 2023; tucaliuc et al., 2025), as antecedents of engagement and satisfaction with the school. our paper addressed trust as a relational construct, yet personal dispositions as the tendency to engage in suspicious ruminative tendencies in relation to the school for example, can also be interdependent in parent-adolescent dyads. future research could explore the joint influence of trust, as relational construct as well as personal disposition, on engagement and satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads. our results also revealed that male students tend to report lower levels of engagement and satisfaction with the school than female students. such a result is in line with previous empirical results showing a higher engagement with school of female compared to male students (mielityinen et al., 2023). moreover, although in adolescence female students tend to report lower life satisfaction than male students (marquez, 2024), our results show that female students report higher levels of satisfaction with the school, probably reflecting their engagement with the school and the fact that they tend to be less subjected to bullying and marginalization than male students are (hosozawa et al., 2021; muntean et al., 2024). curșeu, muntean, & tucaliuc 373 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations next to its contributions, our study has several limitations as well. first, we have used single item measures for parental trust and satisfaction with the school. this raises two concerns, first the reliability concerns associated with the use of single item measures (boyd et al., 2005) and second the difference in the way in which student and parental trust and satisfaction with the school were measured raises concerns for the apim modeling. previous studies have shown that single item measures capturing generic evaluative tendencies such as satisfaction and trust can be used when survey brevity is necessary to secure substantial participant response (allen et al., 20222; nagy, 2002; tucaliuc et al., 2025; wanous et al., 1997), as it was the case in our study. second, in order to alleviate the concerns of different measures used in the apim modeling, we have performed additional analyses with the corresponding items scales from the student survey that perfectly matched the single item measures used for the students and the results remained unchanged. a second limitation of our study was its cross-sectional nature. although we have used multi-source data, we cannot draw definite causal claims concerning the associations between the variables included in the apim mediation analyses. we did build the model based on the causal relations established in previous experimental research between parental trust and parental engagement (houri et al., 2019) yet based on our apim mediation analyses, we cannot draw definite causal claims (michael & hasida, 2024). finally, the majority of our respondents, both for adolescents and parents were females and this can limit the generalization of our results. women in general are more willing to participate in surveys (curtin et al., 2000) and in the romanian social context, in terms of parental engagement, they are more involved in children upbringing and education (brumariu et al., 2020). future research could attempt to replicate these results in different cultural contexts as gender differences and some additional cultural features could impact the results. in order to account for gender and other cultural differences in parental involvement, future studies could use samples from various cultures in which the parent-child dyads are balanced, so both parents fill in the survey. practical implications next to its academic contributions through the apim approach, our results have also important implications for educational administrators. first, we build on the literature on trust as a key antecedent for engagement (goodall & montgomery, 2014; houri et al., 2019) and we call for school administrators and managers to engage more in communicating with parents, create opportunities for feedback such that parental and student trust in the school is fostered. trust is chiefly a relational construct and needs to be nourished in school–parent as well as school–student interactions in order to increase the level of engagement in school related activities. second, in light of the dyadic effect reported in our study, we recommend focusing on parent–adolescent dyads in order to foster engagement with the school. possible interventions could be centered around building learning communities in which students as well as parents are involved, therefore educational managers and school administrators could provide resources and platforms that make such learning communities possible. previous research on fostering parental engagement already emphasized the need for a dual-navigation-approach that should focus on school as well as home parental involvement (jeynes, 2018) in order to increase the quality and effectiveness of adolescent education. finally, an emergent result of our study is that male students report less engagement and satisfaction with the school, therefore teachers, parents and school administrators should make sure that they facilitate and actively stimulate the engagement of male students, in order to also increase their satisfaction with the school. conclusions our study uses an apim approach to test the mediating role of engagement with the school in the relation between trust in the school and satisfaction with the school in parent–adolescent dyads. the results reveal a couple or dyadic (parent and child) significant mediation relations through student engagement in the school, such that students’ engagement in the school is positively and significantly predicted by both students and parental trust in the school and it positively and significantly predicts both student and parent satisfaction with the school. moreover, our results reveal a partner only effect of student trust in the school on parental engagement with the school, opening fruitful venues for future research on parent–adolescent dyads. when student engagement was accounted for, parental engagement did not significantly satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads 374 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://www.psychopen.eu/ play a mediating role in the relationship between trust and satisfaction with the school in the apim mediation analyses, placing therefore student engagement as a core predictor of parental as well as student satisfaction with the school. funding: this work was financially supported by „asociația școala încrederii”, cluj-napoca romania. acknowledgments: authors would like to thank „asociația școala încrederii”, cluj-napoca romania for the financial and logistical support in collecting the 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(2009). trust, social quality and wellbeing: a sociological exegesis. development and society, 38(2), 339–363. about the authors petru lucian curșeu is professor at babes-bolyai university, cluj-napoca romania and the open universiteit, heerlen, the netherlands and his research interests include team dynamics, social cognition (in particular the study of stereotypes and prejudice in organizational settings), multiparty collaboration as well as decision-making in organizations. arcadius florin muntean is a phd student at babes-bolyai university, cluj-napoca romania researcher at the work and organ­ izational psychology research center and wellbeing institute cluj-napoca romania and his research is focused on wellbeing in educational contexts. mihai tucaliuc is a phd student at babes-bolyai university, cluj-napoca romania researcher at the work and organizational psychology research center and wellbeing institute cluj-napoca romania and his research is focused on wellbeing in educational contexts as well as organizational development and change. curșeu, muntean, & tucaliuc 377 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 366–377 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15335 https://doi.org/10.1108/jea-07-2013-0079 https://doi.org/10.17105/spr-2017-0035.v46-3 https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2022.2033168 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13101058 https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432241300277 https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15040481 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.247 https://www.psychopen.eu/ satisfaction with the school in parent-adolescent dyads (introduction) theoretical background and hypotheses method sample and procedure scales results discussion limitations practical implications conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the authors the contribution of attachment styles and reassurance seeking to trust in romantic couples research reports the contribution of attachment styles and reassurance seeking to trust in romantic couples lyndsay elizabeth evraire 1, david john andrew dozois 1, jesse lee wilde 1 [1] department of psychology, university of western ontario, london, on, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 received: 2020-04-06 • accepted: 2020-09-30 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: michelle e. roley-roberts, ohio state university wexner medical center, columbus, oh, usa corresponding author: david john andrew dozois, clinical psychology graduate program, department of psychology, university of western ontario, westminster hall, rm. 313e, london, on n6a 3k7, canada. tel: +519 661 2111 ext. 84678. e-mail: ddozois@uwo.ca abstract the current daily diary study examined the moderating impact of attachment style on the association between excessive reassurance seeking (ers) behavior and trust in romantic dyads. a sample of 110 heterosexual couples completed measures of attachment, ers, and relationship trust. in line with prior research, an anxious attachment style was associated with higher daily ers, and an avoidant attachment style with lower daily ers. lower levels of trust were also associated with greater daily ers. moreover, analyses remained significant while controlling for symptoms of depression. this study extended the literature by demonstrating that for women with an anxious attachment style, and men with an avoidant attachment style, ers was related to lower next day trust. in contrast, the partners of men with an avoidant attachment style, who also engaged in ers, reported higher levels of next day trust. this study was also the first to examine how individual attachment styles influenced the perception of, and reactions to, ers. women with an anxious attachment style liked when their male partners engaged in ers, as illustrated by higher levels of reported trust. these results support the idea that attachment styles play an important role in determining whether or not ers leads to negative interpersonal consequences. they also suggest that it is the combination of relationship insecurities and ers that leads to negative interpersonal consequences. keywords reassurance seeking, attachment styles, trust, daily diary excessive reassurance seeking (ers) is defined as “the relatively stable tendency to excessively and persistently seek assurances from others that one is lovable and worthy, regardless of whether such assurance has already been provided” (joiner, metalsky, katz, & beach, 1999, p. 270). in recent years, studies examining the causes and consequences of ers in interpersonal relationships have proliferated. research has repeatedly shown associations between ers and a variety of personal and interpersonal negative outcomes, including reduced self-worth, interpersonal rejection, deteriorating relationship quality, increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, and deteriorating mental health more broadly (e.g., cougle et al., 2012; evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; lemay & cannon, 2012; lord, harkness, suvak, & stewart, 2020; starr, 2015; starr & davila, 2008; stewart & harkness, 2017). as coyne’s original model of ers was developed as a theory of depression, most of the extant literature has examined ers and depression as a primary outcome of interest. however, more research is needed to understand the interpersonal consequences of ers on romantic relationship functioning. additionally, while coyne’s interpersonal model has greatly advanced our understanding of ers behavior in depression, the original theory needs to be further refined to incorporate recent research that has examined various causes and this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3059&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ consequences of ers (i.e., evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; lord et al., 2020; shaver, schachner, & mikulincer, 2005; stewart & harkness, 2017). in his interpersonal theory of depression, coyne (1976) asserted that, in response to their symptoms of guilt and low self-worth, individuals with mild depression seek reassurance from close others to test the security of their relationships. although these bids for reassurance are initially met with the requested support from others, continued reassurance-seeking behavior causes close others to become frustrated and ultimately reject the individual with depres­ sion (joiner, alfano, & metalsky, 1992). recent research suggests that individuals may engage in ers not because of depression per se, but as a function of important individual differences (such as attachment styles or core beliefs) that reflect high levels of concern surrounding relationships (e.g., evraire & dozois, 2014). moreover, research in the ers literature has begun to examine how individual difference variables may moderate the association between ers and negative personal and interpersonal outcomes. that is, it may not be the behavior of ers per se, but rather characteris­ tics of the individual or the relationship in combination with ers that are associated with negative consequences (e.g., evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; lord et al., 2020; stewart & harkness, 2017). indeed, recent studies suggest that ers is not always deterimental and may have positive effects for individuals and relationships under certain circumstances (e.g., abe & nakashima, 2020; fowler & gasiorek, 2017; girme, molloy, & overall, 2016). clearly, a more nuanced understanding of factors contributing to an individual’s engagement in, and negative responses to, ers is needed. attachment style as a predictor of engaging in excessive reassurance seeking behavior a growing body of research has implicated the role of attachment style in ers behavior (evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; evraire, ludmer, & dozois, 2014; shaver et al., 2005). according to attachment theory, infants learn to self-soothe and self-reassure through the development of a secure attachment to caregivers early in life. conversely, when an infant’s caregiver is inconsistent in responding to the child’s needs, an insecure attachment is said to develop, and the child learns to seek assurances externally rather than developing the ability to self-soothe (bowlby, 1980). these early interactions between an infant and their caregiver lead to the development of internal working models (iwms) about the self, others, and their interrelationships. iwms of attachment influence not only the way individuals relate to others, but also their attributions, perceptions, and emotional understanding of these relationships (moran, bailey, & deoliveira, 2008). positive models of self (as worthy of love and nurturance) and others (as responsive and trustworthy) reflect attachment security, whereas negative models of self (as unworthy of love and nurturance) and/or others (as unresponsive and untrustworthy) reflect insecurity (bretherton & munholland, 2008). in adults, attachment style is conceptualized along two dimensions: avoidance, which involves feeling discomfort in close relationships, and anxiety, which involves worrying about the availability of others to meet attachment needs and one’s self-worth in relation to others (fraley, 2019). attachment avoidance is thought to be associated with positive iwms of self and negative iwms of other. conversely, attachment anxiety is thought to be associated with negative iwms of self and positive iwms of others (holmes & johnson, 2009). research supports the notion that adults with an avoidant attachment style minimize the expression of negative emotions and use deactivating strategies (such as avoiding proximity to attachment figures) to manage distress, whereas anxiously attached individuals tend to maximize the expression of negative emotions and use hyperactivating strategies (such as seeking proximity to attachment figures) to regulate distress (malik, wells, & wittkowski, 2015; mikulincer & shaver, 2016). from an attachment framework, then, ers behaviour can be conceptualized as a strategy that individuals may use to manage distress and assuage any doubts about their lovability, worthiness (i.e., self-esteem), future prospects, and safety (i.e., anxiety). indeed, research supports the notion of ers as a coping strategy in response to interpersonal threats, stress, or anxiety (evraire et al., 2014; cougle et al., 2012; joiner, katz, & lew, 1999; parrish & radomsky, 2011). given the different strategies for managing distress that are characteristic of anxious and avoidant individuals, it would follow that individuals with anxiety are more inclined to engage in ers (a hyperactivating strategy) than individuals engage in avoidance (who favour deactivating strategies). in line with this, research has repeatedly shown an association between attachment anxiety and higher levels of overall and daily ers (abela et al., 2005; davila, 2001; evraire & dozois, 2014; evraire et al., 2014; katz, petracca, & rabinowitz, 2009; shaver et al., 2005). as individuals with anxious attachment hold positive iwms of others in addition to low self-esteem and a fear of abandonment, they attachment, ers, and trust 20 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ are more likely to rely on reassurance from others to confirm their self-worth and relationship security (mikulincer & shaver, 2016). but, these anxious individuals may continue to engage in ers as a result of inconsistent caregiving that taught them to distrust cognitive information when trying to predict an attachment figure’s behavior (mikulincer & shaver, 2016). conversely, avoidant individuals may be less inclined to seek reassurance from others during times of distress as a result of their negative iwms of others. attachment style as a predictor of the negative consequences of excessive reassurance seeking behavior not only is attachment style an important contributor to an individual’s tendency to engage in ers behaviour, it may also influence the degree to which ers behaviour has negative implications for the individual engaging in ers. for example, shaver and colleagues (2005) found that for women high in attachment anxiety, reassurance-seeking on a given day was associated with greater self-reported negative mood the next day. for non-anxious women, however, reassurance-seeking on a given day led to greater reported positive mood the next day. similarly, evraire and dozois (2014) found that for individuals with greater fears of abandonment and relational insecurity, ers was associated with higher levels of depressive symptomatology over a 6-week period. however, for individuals high in avoidant attachment, there was no association between ers and subsequent symptoms of depression. these findings suggest that, in response to their perception of close others as unreliable and their fear of abandonment, individuals with doubts about relationship security seek reassurance in a way that is likely aversive to others and detrimental to their own psychological well-being. however, for avoidant individuals who typically distance themselves from the support of close others, ers does not significantly impact their own levels of depressive symptoms. in this way, ers behaviour may be more or less detrimental to an individual’s well-being depending on their attachment style. more research is needed to understand whether attachment style also moderates the effecs of an individual’s ers on relationship outcomes. an individual’s attachment style may also have important implications for how they react to a romantic partner’s ers behavior. that is, partner a’s attachment style may influence how they outwardly respond to partner b’s ers. for example, simpson, rholes, and nelligan (1992) found that avoidant men offered less reassurance, supportive comments, and emotional support to their female partners following a stressor than did secure men. additionally, partner a’s own attachment style may also moderate the effects of partner b’s ers on partner a’s feelings about the relationship. for instance, shaver and colleagues (2005) found that avoidant women experience a partner’s ers behaviors as particularly aversive and as having a negative influence on self-reported relationship quality. knowing that individuals with an avoidant attachment style down-regulate attachment feelings and behaviors by distancing themselves from their partners, it makes intuitive sense that having a partner constantly asking for reassurance would be aversive to avoidant individuals, given that seeking reassurance is incongruent with their own strategy of coping with distress. further, the attachment style of an individual engaging in ers may influence their partner’s response to ers. that is, partner a’s attachment style may infuence partner b’s reactions to partner a’s ers behaviour. in particular, past research suggests that ers behaviour may be particularly aversive if is it coming from an individual who is higher in attachment anxiety (evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; lord et al., 2020). for example, stewart and harkness (2017) found that in women with higher reported fear of abandonment and relationship insecurity, ers behaviour predicted reduced relationship quality reported by their partner. it is possible that these individuals convey a greater sense of urgency and desperation that is particularly offputting to partners on the receiving end of this behaviour. girme et al. (2016) reported a similar pattern of findings for attachment anxiety, and also found that ers from an avoidant partner appeared to “repair the lack of closeness” that individuals with avoidant partners may often feel. in other words, ers may actually have positive effects for the romantic partners of avoidant individuals. taken together, the findings suggest that attachment style may moderate the impact of ers on personal and interpersonal well-being. moreover, there appears to be both within-partner and cross-partner effects of attachment, suggesting that the use of sophisticated dyadic analyses is key to elucidating these complex interpersonal phenomena. evraire, dozois, & wilde 21 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trust, attachment, and excessive reassurance seeking evraire and dozois’ (2011) integrated model of reassurance-seeking implicates trust as an important construct to consider when conceptualizing potential origins and consequences of ers. within the context of romantic relationships, trust has been conceptualized in the literature as the confidence that an individual’s partner will be concerned about and responsive to their needs, desires, and goals, along with faith in the future of the relationship (mikulincer, 1998). difficulty trusting others may be associated with attachment insecurity (campbell & stanton, 2019; fitzpatrick & lafontaine, 2017). for instance, despite their solicitation of and openness to feedback, individuals with an anxious attachment style often do not believe the reassurance they receive from close others and thus continue to engage in ers (evraire & dozois, 2014). in this way, low levels of trust may represent an important contributor to ers in that it drives individuals to doubt a partner’s regard for them, and thereby continue to seek reassurance. mistrust may also represent an important consequence or byproduct of ers, as repeated attempts to obtain reassurance that are met with frustration and rejection from a partner may begin to erode trust over time. surprisingly, no research to date has examined the association between relationship trust and reassurance-seeking behaviour. given that trust is a critical component of dyadic adjustment and relationship well being (campbell & stanton, 2019), a more thorough understanding of the dynamic interplay among trust, attachment, and ers is needed in the literature. as such, the current study aims to provide the first empirical examination of these associations as they unfold overtime between romantic partners. limitations of the ers literature and need for the current study interpersonal schemas reflecting insecurity in relationships, particularly a fear of rejection or abandonment, have demonstrated incremental predictive power for ers over and above the influence of depression (evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; evraire et al., 2014). as reviewed previously, recent research suggests that individuals may engage in ers, not because of depression per se, but as a function of certain individual difference variables (such as attachment styles or high levels of concern surrounding relationships; evraire & dozois, 2014). as such, the details of coyne’s model may need to be refined to incorporate these findings. in the current study, symptoms of depression were included as a control variable throughout analyses to determine whether attachment anxiety predicts aspects of the ers model above and beyond depression. should the proposed study replicate the findings of evraire and dozois (2014), they would have serious implications for the revision of the ers model as originally proposed by coyne. in addition to the abovementioned conceptual limitations in the ers literature, several methodological limitations must be addressed. one aspect of the ers literature that is frequently criticized involves the almost complete lack of methodological diversity across studies. the most recent meta-analysis found that over two-thirds of ers studies used college-aged samples (between the ages of 18 and 22 years), with only seven examining ers in children, and five testing ers in post-college aged adults (starr & davila, 2008). the failure to examine ers across the lifespan is an important shortcoming given that the nature of interpersonal relationships and the social acceptability of ers fluctuate substantially with age (starr & davila, 2008). moreover, an additional limitation concerns the lack of prospective studies that examine the contribution of ers to relationship outcomes. furthermore, some aspects of the ers model are predicated on the notion that these processes unfold over days rather than months (e.g., that reassurance seeking on 1 day leads to negative consequences the next); yet, to our knowledge, only two studies have examined reassurance seeking behaviours at the daily level of analysis (shaver et al., 2005; starr, 2015). moreover, all of the prospective studies conducted to date have used an undergraduate sample. finally, given that examinations of cross-partner effects of ers are critical to understanding the interpersonal consequences of this behaviour, dyadic analyses are of the utmost importance. dyadic approaches afford the opportunity to understand complex and dynamic interpersonal processes as they unfold within a romantic relationship context. as such, the current study provides an important contribution to the literature through the use of a longitudinal, daily diary design and a non-undergraduate sample of romantic dyads recruited from the community. objectives and hypotheses the current study aims to address several limitations of the ers literature to replicate previous findings and provide an original contribution to the literature by elucidating a more comprehensive understanding of the daily dynamics attachment, ers, and trust 22 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and ramifications of ers in romantic relationships. the research objectives and hypotheses for the current study are outlined below. objective 1: to examine the contribution of attachment style and trust to daily ers the first objective of this study was to replicate the cross-sectional association among attachment styles and ers over a 14-day period in a community sample of romantic couples, and to provide the first examination of the association between ers and trust. h1: higher attachment anxiety was expected to be associated with greater daily ers. h2: higher attachment avoidance was expected to be associated with lower daily ers. h3: lower levels of reported relationship trust was expected to be associated with increased ers. objective 2: to examine the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and next day trust h4: in line with previous research, individuals high in attachment anxiety, who also engaged in ers, were expected to experience lower next day relationship trust. similarly, individuals higher in attachment avoidance were expected to experience lower next day trust as well. objective 3: to examine the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between actor daily ers and partner next day trust the third objective was to examine how an individual’s attachment style moderated the impact of their own ers behavior on a partner’s next day trust. h5: given that past research suggests anxiously attached individuals may seek reassurance in a way that is likely aversive to others and detrimental to their psychological well-being, it was predicted that individuals with an anxious attachment style would negatively impact their partner’s reported level of trust when they engage in ers. objective 4: to examine the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between partner daily ers and actor next day trust the final objective was to examine how an individual’s attachment style influenced how they reacted to receiving ers from their partner in terms of trust. h6: a partner’s ers was hypothesized to lead to low trust in individuals higher in attachment avoidance. method participants one-hundred and ten heterosexual couples were recruited from london, ontario, canada. the age of participants ranged from 161 to 68, with a mean age of 32.45 years (sd = 10.32). couples had been together for periods ranging from 2 months to 46 years (m = 7.95 years, sd = 7.86). of the 220 participants, reported race was 82.9% caucasian, 3.6% asian, 1.4% african canadian, 3.6% first nations or native canadian, 1.8% hispanic, and 6.7% other. the majority of participants were employed outside of the home (82.9%) and, overall, the sample was highly educated (highest level of education: 6.8% completed some highschool; 11.3% completed highschool or general education development (ged) 1) the sample included only one adolescent couple under the age of 18 years. all analyses reported below were re-run with and without the adolescent couple, and results did not differ significantly. evraire, dozois, & wilde 23 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ testing; 55.8% completing/completed college or university; 26.1% either completing/completed graduate or profesional school). couples were required to be living together at the time of participation and had been cohabitating anywhere from 1 month to 45 years (m = 6.44 years, sd = 7.71). although not necessary for participation, roughly half (55%) of the couples were married. overall, individuals in this sample reported relatively high levels of perceived relationship quality (m = 109.1, sd = 14.7, possible scores ranging from 1 to 126). laboratory measures beck depression inventory, second edition the beck depression inventory, second edition (bdi-ii; beck, steer, & brown, 1996) is a 21-item questionnaire that assesses the presence and severity of unipolar depressive symptomatology. each item is rated on a 4-point scale from 0 (indicating a lack of depressive symptomatology) to 3 (indicating high depressive symptomatology) with summary scores ranging from 0 to 63. considerable psychometric evidence supports the internal reliability, concurrent, and discriminant validity of this questionnaire as a measure of depression in both clinical and undergraduate samples (beck & steer, 1987; dozois, dobson, & ahnberg, 1998). the internal consistency (cronbach’s alpha) of the bdi-ii in this sample was 0.91 in women and 0.89 in men. depressive interpersonal relationships inventory-reassurance seeking subscale the depressive interpersonal relationships inventory-reassurance seeking subscale (diri-rs; joiner, et al., 1992) is a 4-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure an individual’s tendency to engage in reassurance seeking (e.g., “do you find yourself often asking the people you feel close to how they truly feel about you?”), and their partner’s reactions to such reassurance seeking (e.g., “do the people you feel close to sometimes get fed up with you seeking reassurance from them about whether they really care about you?”). participants answer the questions based on their current relationships on a 7-point scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). an average score was calculated with scores ranging from 1 to 7. joiner and metalsky (2001) supported the construct and criterion validity of the diri-rs along with its use as a cohesive and replicable measure of reassurance-seeking distinct from general dependency, doubt in others’ sincerity, and dependence on close others. the diri-rs demonstrates high internal consistency (joiner et al., 1992). coefficient alpha in the present sample was 0.90 for women and 0.83 for men. experiences in close relationships-revised the experiences in close relationships-revised (ecr-r; fraley, waller, & brennan, 2000) is a revised version of brennan, clark, and shaver’s (1998) experiences in close relationships (ecr) questionnaire. this 36-item questionnaire is designed to assess individual differences with respect to attachment anxiety (the extent to which people are insecure about their partner’s availability and responsiveness) and attachment-related avoidance (the extent to which individuals are uncomfortable being close to others). participants rate each item on a 7-point scale from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly) based on experiences in their current relationship. attachment anxiety scores were created by averaging responses across the anxiety dimension items and ranged from 1 to 7. attachment avoidance scores were created by averaging responses across the avoidance dimension items and ranged from 1 to 7. the internal consistency reliability of the ecr-r is excellent (e.g., α ≥ 0.90). coefficient alpha for the current sample on attachment anxiety was 0.93 for women and 0.91 for men, and for attachment avoidance 0.91 for women, and 0.92 for men. perceived relationship quality component inventory—trust scale the perceived relationship quality component inventory trust scale (prqc; fletcher, simpson, & thomas, 2000) is a 3-item subscale of the prqc designed to asses an individual’s perceived level of trust in a current romantic relationship. each item is rated on a 7-point scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). responses were averaged across each component with scores ranging from 1 to 7 and summed to form a global index of relationship quality ranging from 1 to 126, with higher scores indicating greater perceived relationship quality. the trust scale composite from the prqc was used as the measure of trust in this study. the psychometric properties of this measure are strong, demonstrating good reliability attachment, ers, and trust 24 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and high face validity as a measure of specific domains of relationship quality (fletcher et al., 2000). for the current sample, coefficient alpha for trust was 0.88 for women and 0.87 for men. diary measures daily reassurance seeking as the diri-rs is the most widely used index of ers in the literature, an abbreviated version of this measure was used to assess daily reassurance-seeking behavior. two items were taken directly from the diri-rs and used for the daily diary measure: (a) how much did you seek reassurance from your partner today about whether he or she really cares about you? and (b) did your partner become irritated or get fed up with you today for seeking reassurance about whether he or she really cares about you? participants answered the questions based on their current relationship on a 7-point scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much). an individual’s ers was calculated by averaging items (a) and (b) with scores ranging from 1 to 7. it is important to note that, although the psychometric properties of this modified version of the diri-rs remain unclear, abbreviated versions or single-item measures are standard practice in daily diary studies, largely due to the need to minimize participant burden and retain participation. in line with this, the two other daily diary studies examining ers used similarly abbreviated versions of the diri-rs (shaver et al., 2005; starr, 2015). furthermore, in the current study, there was a significant association between global reports of ers as measured by the diri-rs, and averaged scores of daily reassurance seeking (r = .19, p < .01). in the present sample, coefficient alpha was 0.79 for women and 0.87 for men. daily trust a single item from the prqc—trust scale (fletcher et al., 2000) was used to assess daily relationship trust. on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely) participants were asked to rate how much they trusted their partner that day. there was a significant association between global reports of trust (as measured by the prqc subscale), and averaged scores of daily trust (as measured by this single item; r = .72, p < .01). daily negative mood the negative affect scale from the positive and negative affect scale (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) was used. the negative affect scale is a 10-item questionnaire that assesses both negative affect (10 items each). each item is rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely) and inquires about the extent to which the individual currently feels the emotion (e.g., “indicate the extent to which you currently feel distressed”). a total negative/dysphoric mood score was computed by summing the 10 negative adjectives with scores ranging from 1 to 50. initial studies in development of the panas showed that the mood scales are stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period, highly internally consistent, and largely uncorrelated (crawford & henry, 2004; watson et al., 1988). coefficient alpha for negative mood in the present sample was 0.86 for women and 0.90 for men. procedure a convenience sample of romantic dyads was recruited from the general community. participants were recruited through the use of fliers posted in local businesses in london, ontario, canada area (e.g., grocery stores) and through online advertisements on kijiji and in local hospitals. interested participants contacted the lab, and individuals who met criteria for participation in the study (i.e., they were living with a romantic heterosexual partner), were scheduled for a lab visit with their partners. all interested participants who contacted the lab were eligible for participation; as such, no couples were excluded based on eligibilty criteria. all study procedures, and relevant ethical considerations, were approved by the university’s research ethics board. phase 1 this study had two phases: an in-lab phase (phase 1) and a daily diary phase (phase 2). upon entry into the study, informed consent was obtained from all individuals before beginning any study measures. couples were run one at evraire, dozois, & wilde 25 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a time for phase 1. in phase 1, each member of the couple completed a package of questionnaires (including the bdi-ii, diri-rs, ecr-r, and prqci-trust). upon completion of the in-lab study, couples were asked to participate in an additional 14-day diary study in which they were asked to fill out daily questionnaires online. participants were compensated monetarily ($50/couple) for their participation in the study regardless of whether or not they participated in phase 2. phase 2 all couples agreed to participate in phase 2 and so were given instructions on how to complete the questionnaire online at the end of each day for 14 days (separate from their partner) to assess their mood, trust, and ers. each couple watched a demonstration by the research assistant on how to open the link to the online questionnaire from an email which would be sent to them daily. throughout the study, daily participation was monitored and participants who failed to complete a day of the diary were contacted (by phone or email) to ensure they were not having difficulties with the online questionnaire and to encourage active participation. participants were also encouraged to contact the lab at any time with questions they had. for each day that participants completed the daily measures, their name was entered into a draw that would be completed at the end of the study for a chance to win one of 4 ipads. furthermore, upon completion of the 14-day daily diary phase, couples were compensated monetarily for each day they completed the online diary ($3/day per individual). on average, participants completed 12.78 diary entries. data analytic approach diary data were hierarchically nested in a two-level crossed design. participants completed questionnaires each day for 14 consecutive days. the data have three levels of analysis: the dyad, the partners within the dyad, and the observations within the persons. however, the within-person observations are crossed rather than nested, so that the first day of the diary study for the actor is the same day as the first day for their spouse (laurenceau & bolger, 2011). this distinction allows for the examination of day-specific sources of dependency. to test the associations between actor and partner variables, and to account for the statistical dependence in the data across dyad members, all analyses followed the mixed procedure in spss 20 for repeated measures dyadic data (kenny, kashy, & cook, 2006). this approach analyzes the three levels of data described above as two levels of data, with the lowest level representing multivariate repeated measures (for more information, see laurenceau & bolder, 2011). analyses were run using syntax that combined level 1 and level 2 variables into one equation per model. in order to keep the analyses theoretically focused and in line with the hypotheses, next day trust was entered as the outcome variable of interest. for each daily diary model predicting trust on day j, the predictor variables consisted of the following: the outcome variable on day j – 1; actor and partner daily ers on day j – 1; actor and partner attachment anxiety; actor and partner attachment avoidance; and actor and partner symptoms of depression. main effects for partner variables were included to control for the interdependent nature of dyadic data. the two-way interactions between actor ers and actor attachment anxiety, actor ers and actor attachment avoidance, and actor attachment anxiety and avoidance were also included. when examining the influence of partner ers on trust, the same two-way interactions were included replacing actor ers with partner ers (e.g., partner ers*actor attachment anxiety). in order to examine the influence of gender, a main effect of gender was included, along with the two-way interactions between gender and actor ers, actor attachment anxiety, and actor attachment avoidance, along with the three-way interactions of gender, actor ers, and actor attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance. again, when partner ers was of interest to the outcome variable (trust), the main and interaction effects of gender included partner ers rather than actor ers (e.g., gender*partner ers*actor attachment anxiety). the unstandardized regression coefficients for each model are presented below. each model was re-run controlling for relationship length, time cohabitating, and age, separately. importantly, when controlling for these variables, all significant main and interaction effects remained robust. attachment, ers, and trust 26 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results descriptive statistics by gender for the variables of interest, including the grand mean and standard deviations, are summarized in table 1. correlations among key outcome and predictor variables across all individuals are displayed in table 2. table 1 descriptive statistics for key variables by gender variable women men tm sd m sd ers 2.50 1.55 1.86 1.02 −13.53** attachment anxiety 2.99 1.17 2.65 1.00 1–8.54** attachment avoidance 3.05 0.93 3.49 1.07 −12.00** depression 9.24 7.84 8.62 7.14 1–2.28** daily ers 1.40 0.89 1.42 0.85 −10.62 daily negative mood 13.10 4.58 12.99 4.77 1–0.63 daily trust 6.48 0.97 6.48 1.06 1–0.08 note. ers = excessive reassurance seeking; sd = standard deviation. **p < .01. table 2 correlation among key predictor and outcome variables by gender variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. ers .10** .59** .13** .40** .31** .43** −.36** 2. attachment anxiety −.66** .20** .43** .59** .27** .29** −.31** 3. attachment avoidance −.09** −.25** .08** .35** .07** .19** −.22** 4. depression −.33** −.50** .28** .29** .21** .36** −.23** 5. daily ers −.16** −.12** −.01 −.18** .19** .36** −.22** 6. daily negative mood −.18** −.26** −.09** −.32** −.23** .36** −.45** 7. daily trust −.12** −.23** −.13** −.38** −.22** −.22** .39** note. correlations below the diagonal are for women, while correlations above the diagonal are for men. correlations between spouses appear along the diagonal. ers = excessive reassurance seeking. **p < .01. objective 1: the contribution of attachment style and trust to daily ers the association between attachment styles and daily ers, controlling for symptoms of depression, was examined by modeling daily ers as a function of 1) actor and partner symptoms of depression, 2) actor and partner attachment anxiety and 3) actor and partner attachment avoidance. to examine the influence of gender, a main effect of gender was included along with the two-way interactions between gender and actor symptoms of depression, actor attachment anxiety, and actor attachment avoidance. analyses were conducted in a hierarchical fashion. in support of the first hypothesis, individuals high in attachment anxiety engaged in greater daily ers (b = 0.11, t = 6.04, p < .01). the two-way interaction between gender and actor attachment anxiety was also significant (b = −0.08, t = −4.69, p < .01) such that the association between actor attachment anxiety and daily ers was stronger for men (b = 0.21, t = 9.78, p < .001) than women (b = 0.09, t = 4.43, p < .001). consistent with the second hypothesis, individuals high in avoidant attachment reported lower levels of ers across the 14-day diary period (b = −0.05, t = −2.82, p < .01), with no significant differences between genders (b = −0.01, t = −0.64, ns). an unexpected partner effect also emerged such that individuals with a partner high in attachment anxiety reported higher levels of daily ers (b = 0.07, t = 4.12, p < .01) evraire, dozois, & wilde 27 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ whereas individuals with a partner high in attachment avoidance reported engaging in lower levels of daily ers (b = −0.04, t = −2.14, p < .05). the association between trust and daily ers was examined by modeling daily ers as a function of 1) actor and partner overall trust and 2) relationship length. a main effect of gender was included along with the two-way interactions between gender and overall actor trust and relationship length. congruent with the third hypothesis, both actor (b = −0.06, t = −6.69, p < .01) and partner trust (b = −0.04, t = −4.98, p < .01) were negatively associated with daily ers, such that lower levels of trust were associated with more ers over the 14-day diary period. the two-way interaction between gender and actor trust was also significant (b = 0.03, t = 3.94, p < .01), with the association between actor trust and daily ers being stronger for men (b = −0.09, t = −7.19, p < .001) than women (b = −0.02, t = −2.17, p < .05). relationship length was negatively associated with daily ers (b = −0.00, t = −2.57, p < .05) such that individuals in a longer relationship tended to engage in less daily ers with no differences between genders. objective 2: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and next day trust attachment style, daily ers, and next day trust to test the prediction that attachment anxiety, in combination with ers, would lead to negative interpersonal conse­ quences, the degree to which an individual’s attachment style moderated the relationship between their daily ers and next day trust was examined. in partial support of the fourth hypothesis attachment anxiety moderated the association between daily ers and next day trust, but only in women. that is, the three-way interaction between gender, ers, and actor attachment anxiety was significant (b = −0.05, t = −2.13, p < .05; see figure 1). figure 1 the moderating effects of attachment anxiety by gender on the relationship between daily ers and next day trust to determine the meaning of the interaction, the simple slopes were examined for both men and women. regression slopes were computed separately for two values of actors’ attachment anxiety: one standard deviation above the mean and one standard deviation below the mean. for women, there was a negative association between ers on day j − 1 and next day trust, when actors’ attachment anxiety was one standard deviation above the mean (b = −0.08, t = −2.26, p < .05), but not when it was one standard deviation below the mean (b = 0.03, t = 0.55, ns). that is, for women high in attachment anxiety, engaging in ers was associated with lower levels of next day trust. for men, there was no attachment, ers, and trust 28 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ association between ers on day j − 1 and next day trust at either high (b = 0.04, t = 0.86, ns) or low levels (b = −0.06, t = −1.06, ns) of attachment anxiety. an unexpected finding was the significant three-way interaction between gender, ers, and actor attachment avoidance (b = 0.07, t = 2.90, p < .01; see figure 2). figure 2 the moderating effects of attachment avoidance by gender, on the relationship between daily ers and next day trust for women, there was no association between ers on day j − 1 and next day trust at high (b = 0.00, t = 0.06, ns) or low levels (b = −0.04, t = −1.49, ns) of attachment avoidance. for men, there was a negative association between ers on day j − 1 and next day trust, when actors’ attachment avoidance was one standard deviation above the mean (b = −0.12, t = −3.40, p < .01), but not one standard deviation below the mean (b = 0.08, t = 1.90, ns). for men high in attachment avoidance, engaging in ers was associated with lower levels of trust the following day. objective 3: the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between actor daily ers and partner next day trust attachment style, daily ers, and partner next day trust to test the hypothesis that individuals who are high in attachment anxiety, and engage in ers, negatively influence their relationship, the degree to which an individual’s attachment style moderated the relationship between their daily ers and partner next day trust was examined. support was not found for the fifth hypothesis as the two-way interaction between ers and attachment anxiety was not significant (b = −0.01, t = −0.38, ns); this finding suggests that for individuals high in attachment anxiety, there was no association between ers and partner next day trust. an unexpected finding was the significant three-way interaction between gender, ers, and actor attachment avoidance (b = −0.05, t = −2.70, p < .01; see figure 3). evraire, dozois, & wilde 29 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 the moderating effects of attachment avoidance by gender, on the relationship between daily ers and next day partner trust for women, there was no significant association between actor ers on day j − 1 and partner next day trust at either high (b = −0.07, t = −1.74, ns) or low levels (b = 0.04, t = 1.35, ns) of attachment avoidance. for men, there was a positive association between actor ers on day j − 1 and partner next day trust, when actors’ attachment avoidance was one standard deviation above the mean (b = 0.10, t = 2.56, p < .05), but not when it was one standard deviation below the mean (b = −0.00, t = − 0.03, ns). that is, for men high in attachment avoidance, engaging in ers was associated with higher levels of partner reported trust. objective 4: the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between partner daily ers and actor next day trust attachment style, partner daily ers, and next day trust to test the prediction that individuals with an avoidant attachment style experience negative relational outcomes in response to partner ers, the degree to which an actor’s attachment style moderated the relationship between their partner’s daily ers and actor next day trust was examined. the results did not support hypothesis 6, since the two-way interaction between partner ers and attachment avoidance was not significant (b = −0.03, t = −1.55, ns). this finding suggests that for individuals with an avoidant attachment style, there was no association between partner ers and next day trust. an unexpected finding was the three-way interaction between gender, partner ers, and actor attachment anxiety was significant (b = 0.05, t = 3.22, p < .01; see figure 4). attachment, ers, and trust 30 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 the moderating effects of attachment anxiety by gender, on the relationship between daily partner ers and next day trust for women, there was a positive association between partner ers on day j − 1 and actor next day trust when attachment anxiety was one standard deviation above the mean (b = 0.11, t = 3.51, p < .01), but not when attachment anxiety was one standard deviation below the mean (b = −0.03, t = −0.69, ns). women high in attachment anxiety with a partner who engaged in greater ers reported higher levels of next day trust. for men, there was no significant association between partner ers on day j − 1 and actor next day trust at high (b = −0.05, t = −1.24, ns) or low levels (b = 0.05, t = 1.48, ns) of attachment anxiety. discussion this study provides an original contribution to the literature by affording a comprehensive understanding of how attachment styles influence ers as it unfolds in real time. in line with prior research, in both men and women, an anxious attachment style was associated with higher levels of daily ers, and an avoidant attachment style with lower daily ers. lower levels of trust were also associated with greater daily ers. the current study extended the literature by demonstrating that for women high in anxious attachment, engaging in ers leads to lower levels of trust, rather than decreasing relationship insecurities. men with an avoidant attachment style also reported lower levels of trust following ers; in contrast, their partners reported higher levels of trust. this study was also the first to examine how an individual’s attachment style influenced how they perceived ers from their partner. women with an anxious attachment style, for example, seemed to appreciate it when their male partners engaged in ers, as illustrated by higher levels of reported trust following partner ers. these results support the idea that attachment styles play an important role in determining whether or not ers will lead to negative interpersonal consequences. objective 1: the contribution of attachment style and trust to daily ers part of the first objective was to replicate the positive association found in the literature between attachment anxiety and overall and daily ers (abela et al., 2005; davila, 2001; evraire & dozois, 2014; evraire et al., 2014; katz et al., 2009; shaver et al., 2005). in support of prior research and the first hypothesis, higher attachment anxiety was associated with greater levels of daily ers in both men and women. this finding is the first direct replication of shaver et al. (2005), who also found that higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with greater daily ers from a romantic partner. the current replication offers an important contribution to the literature as it provides the first examination evraire, dozois, & wilde 31 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of these associations using a daily diary design with a sample of individuals recruited from the community. individuals with an anxious attachment style have low self-worth, a fear of abandonment, and use hyperactivating strategies (e.g., proximity seeking) to manage distress (bartholomew, 1990; cobb & davila, 2009; moran et al., 2008). as such, they likely engage in reassurance seeking with close others, as a means of determining their self-worth and security in their relationships (brennan & carnelley, 1999). this finding augments the literature by offering additional support regarding the relationship between an iwm reflecting a high level of concern surrounding relationships, in particular a fear of abandonment or rejection, and ers. the second aspect of objective one involved an examination of the association between attachment avoidance and daily ers. in line with the second hypothesis, higher attachment avoidance was associated with lower levels of daily ers in both men and women. the association between attachment avoidance and ers in the literature is mixed, with some studies finding no association between the two variables (davila, 2001; shaver et al., 2005) and others finding a negative association (davila, 2001; evraire & dozois, 2014; evraire et al., 2014). conceptually, however, it makes sense that individuals with an avoidant attachment style, who tend to minimize the expression of negative emotions and use deactivating strategies to deal with distress, would engage in lower levels of ers. this study examined the influence of partner attachment style on an individual’s daily ers. individuals with a partner high in attachment anxiety reported greater daily ers, whereas individuals with a partner high in attachment avoidance reported lower levels of daily ers. these findings are the first to suggest that individuals may tailor their reassurance seeking behavior as a reflection of their partner’s attachment style. this study was also the first to examine how relationship trust is associated with daily ers. consistent with the third hypothesis, lower levels of actor and partner trust were associated with greater daily ers in both men and women. trust is defined on the basis of dependability, or the confidence that an individual’s partner will be concerned about and responsive to their needs, desires, and goals, along with faith in the future of the relationship (mikulincer, 1998). an important component of both anxious attachment and trust concerns relationship security and the ability to rely on one’s partner. individuals high in attachment anxiety hold a negative sense of trust, attach high importance to negative trust related events, and cope with such events by engaging in security seeking behaviors such as ers (mikulincer, 1998; shaver & hazan, 1993). as such, it would seem that individuals who reported low levels of trust in their relationships, and those who had partners reporting lower levels of trust, may have engaged in ers as a means of checking on their status in the relationship and abating their insecurities. finally, relationship length was also associated with daily ers such that individuals who had been together longer reported engaging in less ers. again, having been together for a longer period of time could signal to couples that they are secure in their relationship, thus decreasing the need to seek reassurance to assess one’s status in the relationship. objective 2: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and relationship trust women high in attachment anxiety who engaged in ers experienced decreases in levels of trust, supporting hypothesis 4. this finding provides the first direct evidence for a potential explanation as to why individuals high in attachment anxiety do not seem to benefit from the reassuring feedback provided by their partners and, as a result, seek more reassurance. individuals with an anxious attachment style rely on feedback from others to determine their self-worth and security in their relationships (mikulincer & shaver, 2016). however, if after seeking reassurance they feel even more insecure about their relationships, as evidenced by lower levels of trust, their iwm would remain activated, and their fears of rejection and abandonment would fail to be assuaged leading to further engagement in ers. it is important to note that this finding only captures one side of the relationship. perhaps a partner’s reactions to such ers could influence whether or not individuals high in attachment anxiety experience this decrease in trust following ers. future studies need to expand this dynamic examination of the ers model using other diary studies, or by coding live couple interactions to capture moment to moment delivery of, and reactions to, ers. although it was unexpected to find this effect in women but not men, the result makes sense given that the men in this sample had lower levels of attachment anxiety than women, and higher levels of attachment avoidance. future studies should recruit a sample of men high in attachment anxiety to examine whether or not the effect observed in women could be replicated. additionally, men attachment, ers, and trust 32 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ higher in attachment avoidance who engaged in ers experienced decreases in levels of trust. engaging in ers may have led to decreased trust since individuals with an avoidant attachment style are uncomfortable being vulnerable in relationships, hold negative models of others (as unresponsive and untrustworthy), and typically use deactivating strategies to deal with distress. however, it is difficult to understand this finding given that it only captures one side of the relationship. it may be the case that how the female partner reacts to ers coming from a typically avoidant male may influence whether or not he experiences a decrease in trust following ers. it was expected that attachment anxiety would predict aspects of the ers model above and beyond depression. in support of this prediction and previous literature (evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; evraire et al., 2014), both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance demonstrated incremental predictive power for ers over and above the influence of depression. given these results, the details of coyne’s model may need to be refined to incorporate these findings. objective 3: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and partner next day relationship trust it was predicted that the way in which individuals high in attachment anxiety engaged in ers would negatively impact their partner’s degree of trust; however, this was not supported. it could be the case that partners only react negatively to ers from their anxiously attached partner after several days of constant reassurance seeking; or significant changes in a partner’s mood, relationship quality, or trust in response to ers may take a few days to surface. growth curve analyses would be able to account for such delays. furthermore, for these analyses, the attachment style of the partner was not accounted for and could influence how they react to receiving ers from an anxiously attached individual. a finding that was not predicted was that when men high in attachment avoidance engaged in daily ers, their partners experienced positive relationship benefits as reflected in increases in next day trust. this finding is in line with reis and shaver’s (1988) model which suggests that behavioral support-seeking exchanges between two partners serve as an important foundation for the creation of close bonds. naturally, individuals with an avoidant attachment style have a tendency to conceal their negative emotions and downplay the importance of receiving support from their partner when coping with distress (cobb & davila, 2009; moran et al., 2008). these dismissive tendencies may lead romantic partners to perceive that their potential contributions to their partner’s coping process are not acknowledged or appreciated (chow, buhrmester, & tan, 2014). as a result, individuals who exhibit an avoidant attachment style tend to perceive their romantic relationships as less intimate, and their partners do the same (chow et al., 2014). by engaging in ers, individuals high in attachment avoidance would likely signal to their partners that they are interested in receiving support, which could reflect to their partners a greater sense of closeness. an increase in closeness may also contribute to increases in trust, or the dependability of one’s partner, overall faith in the relationship, and confidence that one’s partner will be an active participant in the relationship (campbell & stanton, 2019). these findings augment the literature and suggest that there may be both secure and insecure forms of reassurance seeking (evraire & dozois, 2011, 2014; girme et al., 2016; shaver et al., 2005). it may not be the behavior or frequency of ers per se, but rather characteristics of the individual in combination with reassurance seeking that are associated with negative psychological and/or interpersonal consequences. for example, for individuals high in attachment avoidance, who typically distance themselves from the support of close others, engaging in ers actually has positive benefits on their relationship. consistent with this idea, evraire and dozois (2014) found that for individuals high in avoidant attachment, there was no association between ers and symptoms of depression 6 weeks later. shaver et al. (2005) also found that for highly anxious women, reassurance seeking on a given day was associated with more negative mood the next day; however, for non-anxious women, reassurance seeking on a given day led to positive mood the next day. furthermore, in previous research examining ers, including the current study, mean ers levels are actually quite low (e.g., 1.86 to 3.04 out of 7), further suggesting that reassurance seeking may not be excessive in terms of frequency, but rather how it is delivered as a result of an individual’s iwm of core-beliefs, or symptoms of depression (evraire & dozois, 2011). evraire, dozois, & wilde 33 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ objective 4: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between partner daily ers and actor next day relationship trust attachment anxiety influenced how women reacted to receiving ers from their male partners in terms of trust. more specifically, women high in attachment anxiety, who tend to engage in ers themselves, reacted positively to receiving ers from their partners by reporting higher levels of trust. although a novel finding, this result may be explained in part by the similarity hypothesis in partner preference and selection based on attachment styles (for a review, see holmes & johnson, 2009; strauss, morry, & kito, 2012). the similarity hypothesis proposes that individuals choose romantic partners who have a similar attachment style as the self, and are more satisfied in their relationships with such partners. higher levels of attitude similarity between individuals are also related to increased fondness (miller, perlman, & brehm, 2007). alternative hypotheses to consider with respect to partner selection include the complementarity hypothesis (a preference for partners who fall in the opposite regions of anxiety and avoidance to the self) and the security hypothesis (security is preferred over insecure types of attachment). in a recent test of all three hypotheses, strauss et al. (2012) examined the relationships between self-attachment style, perceptions of partner attachment style, attachment style of an ideal partner, and relationship variables (satisfaction, trust, supportiveness and feeling validated). overall, when describing their ideal partner, individuals had a preference for similar but more secure partners (lower anxiety and lower avoidance). individuals who perceived their current partners as being similar to the self, and greater similarity on attachment anxiety, in particular, predicted positive relationship outcomes including relationship satisfaction and trust. congruent with the similarity hypothesis, and given that ers seems to reflect the iwm of an individual with an anxious attachment style (fear of abandonment or rejection), individuals high in attachment anxiety likely interpret partner ers as an indication of similarity and thus experience increases in trust as a result. in terms of gender differences, again it may be the case that this effect was not observed in men given that they reported lower levels of attachment anxiety and higher levels of attachment avoidance than the women in this sample. in contrast to our predictions, attachment avoidance did not seem to negatively influence how men or women reacted to partner ers in terms of trust. this result supports the complementary hypothesis of partner selection, which suggests that individuals prefer partners who fall in the opposite region as them on the dimensions of attachment anxiety and avoidance. although strauss et al. (2012) found support for the similarity and security hypotheses with respect to attachment anxiety, higher avoidance predicted ideals and perceptions of the partner that were higher in anxiety (complementary). the complementarity hypothesis predicts that individuals high in attachment avoidance would prefer anxiously attached partners because they confirm their attachment-related expectations that others are dependent and clingy (holmes & johnson, 2009). this idea also fits with self-verification theory which proposes that individuals have a strong desire to maintain a predictable social environment by interacting with others who confirm their expectations, allowing for the maintenance of consistent self-image (swann, 1983; swann, stein-seroussie, & giesler, 1992). although supportive of the complementary hypothesis, the current results are not consistent with shaver et al. (2005), who found that avoidant women experienced ers by their male partners as aversive, having a negative influence on relationship quality. one potential explanation for this discrepancy has to do with the difference in relationship characteristics across studies. shaver et al.’s study included a younger undergraduate sample, none of whom were married, with a median relationship length of 1 year. the current sample consisted of older couples from the community who were all living together, half of whom were married, and had been together for an average length of 8 years. these differences may have been influential given that the literature has found support for the complementarity hypothesis in more long-term relationships, whereas the similarity hypothesis tends to be more characteristic of relationships in the earlier stages (for a review see, holmes & johnson, 2009). limitations and implications although the current study contributes to the ers literature in a number of important ways, its limitations should be noted. the first potential limitation has to do with the fact that attachment anxiety and avoidance were conceptualized as dispositional determinants of ers and relationship variables. however, some could argue that ers or relationship qualities could influence the development of an individual’s attachment style. in support of the conceptualization of attachment, ers, and trust 34 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment styles as dispositions, the attachment literature has demonstrated temporal stability in attachment scores over months and even years (sroufe, 2005; sroufe, egeland, carlson, & collins, 2005). that being said, if attachment was measured when participants were younger, and reassurance seeking was assessed at the current time point, the idea that insecure attachment can cause certain maladaptive feedback-seeking behaviors may have been supported. as such, future studies should consider replicating the current study using a longitudinal design. second, all of the analyses were based on self-report measures of depression, ers, and trust, rather than interview or behavioral observations. in future research, it would be interesting to study the dynamics of the ers model explored in the current study as they unfold in real time during couple interactions. observational methods of ers, such as those used by joiner and metalsky (2001), knobloch, knobloch-fedders, and durbin (2011), and stewart and harkness (2017) could be implemented in such a study it is important to note that one possible criticism of the current study surrounds the possible conceptual overlap between the constructs of attachment anxiety is trust. that is, it could be argued that a key component of attachment anxiety is doubt or mistrust in a partner’s positive regard and reliable provision of support during times of need, therefore the use of attachment as a predictor and trust as an outcome is redundant. while the two constructs are related, it is worth noting that trust is only one component of attachment, and these two variables are only moderately correlated at best (r = −.23 for women and r = −.31 for men; as in table 2). a final limitation to note concerns the generalizability of the current findings. the demographics of the current sample were relatively homogenous, as the majority of couples were white, highly educated, employed outside of the home, and relatively satisfied with their relationship. as such, the applicability of these findings to different populations of individuals (e.g., couples with poor relationship quality, different ethnicities, unemployed) remains uncertain. in addition, because random sampling was not used in this study, the extent to which the findings from our sample of dyads is fully generalizable to couples in the community is not known. the findings of the current study have a number of important theoretical and clinical implications. both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance showed incremental predictive power for aspects of the ers model over and above the influence of depression. thus, the current findings suggest that individuals may not engage in ers solely because of symptoms of depression, but also as a function of iwm’s reflecting insecurity in relationships. as such, the details of coyne’s (1976) interpersonal theory of depression may need to be refined to incorporate these findings. the ers model may also need to be re-conceptualized to account for the notion that there may be both secure and insecure forms of reassurance-seeking, with the insecure form being excessive in that it leads to negative psychological or interpersonal consequences. for example, the results of the current study suggest that it is not the behavior or frequency of ers per se that is associated with negative relational outcomes; rather, it is the combination of an iwm reflecting insecurity in relationships, and ers, that leads to negative social consequences. seeking reassurance actually seems to have beneficial relational effects for secure individuals or those high in the avoidant attachment. the current study was also the first to suggest that ers may be received differently depending on partner attachment styles, which could in turn moderate the psychological or relational consequences of the reassurance seeking. notably, the majority of research in the ers literature to date has been conducted using undergraduate samples with restricted age ranges and relationship durations. thus, the current study offers an important contribution to the literature, as the results are based on a sample of community couples reporting a wide range of ages and relationship lengths. this provides support for the generalizability of the extant research demonstrating an association between attachment style, ers behaviour, and relationship outcomes. moreover, the current study suggests that the moderating effects of attachment occur regardless of relationship length, suggesting that these observed effects may persist across different stages of romantic relationship development. it is important to note that, although the overall frequency of ers behaviour appears to decrease across the duration of relationships, to the extent that individuals do continue to engage in ers, the current pattern of findings related to attachment and relationship quality remain the same. this is in line with previous findings in the literature reporting no moderating effects of relationship duration on ers processes and its negative relational consequences (shaver et al., 2005). a number of clinical implications are also evident from these results. it is clear from the findings, as well as previous research, that individuals who engage in ers do so because of an iwm reflecting a fear of abandonment/rejection or insecurity in relationships. furthermore, it is clear that although individuals likely engage in ers to assuage relationship evraire, dozois, & wilde 35 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ insecurities, ers seems to decrease levels of trust and likely increase fears about the relationship. as such, clinical interventions targeted towards ers can focus on this theme with the hopes of helping individuals develop more effective strategies for decreasing their relationship insecurities. given the dyadic nature of the ers model, including partners in therapy sessions for individuals who engage in ers would likely enhance change in the individual as well as improve their social environment. while the reasons behind an individual’s ers are important targets for treatment, the current study demonstrated that how close others perceive and react to ers is equally important. finally, this study emphasized the importance of considering both individuals in a dyad as agents of change and applying this notion to therapy. conclusion the current study accounted for a number of limitations in the ers literature and improved upon the lack of methodo­ logical diversity in this area of research. it was the first longitudinal daily diary study to account for the dyadic nature of the ers model, by accounting for the statistical dependence of couples across analyses. given that the vast majority of past research has examined ers in undergraduate samples, the current study was the first to investigate this model in a community sample of romantic couples, while also examining how individual and relationship characteristics influenced this process. in line with the ers literature, an anxious attachment style was associated with higher levels of daily ers, and an avoidant attachment style with lower ers. this study was also the first to provide evidence that ers does not actually work to assuage the relationship insecurities of women high in attachment anxiety. this study contributed novel findings to the literature by demonstrating that attachment styles not only influence the effects of ers on individual outcome variables, but also influence how an individual perceives and reacts to their partner’s ers. the results support the idea that there are both insecure and secure forms of reassurance seeking and demonstrated that attachment styles play an important role in determining whether or not ers will lead to negative interpersonal consequences. ideally this research highlights the importance of considering both dyads when examining the dynamics of the ers model and as agents of change in terms of relationship functioning. funding: this research was supported by an insight grant from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada to the second author. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references abe, k., & nakashima, k. i. 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(2005). the development of the person: the minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. new york, ny, usa: guilford. swann, w. b. (1983). self-verification: bringing social reality into harmony with the self. in j. suls & a. g. greenwald (eds.), social psychological perspectives on the self (vol. 2, pp. 33–66). hillsdale, nj, usa: erlbaum. swann, w. b., stein-seroussi, a., & giesler, r. b. (1992). why people self-verify. journal of personality and social psychology, 62, 392-401. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.3.392 watson, d., clark, l. a., & tellegen, a. (1988). development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the panas scales. journal of personality and social psychology, 54, 1063-1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 about the authors dr. lyndsay evraire graduated from western university and the dozois mood research lab in 2015. she is currently working as a clinical psychologist in ottawa, ontario, in private practice. she provides therapy and assessment services to children, adolescents, parents, and young adults. throughout her graduate training the theme of her program of research was to examine how attachment styles, early maladaptive schemas (emss), and symptoms of depression influenced the provision of support through reassurance seeking, along with the individual and relational outcomes associated with excessive reassurance seeking (ers). david j. a. dozois is a professor of psychology and director of the clinical psychology graduate program at the western university. he is a fellow of the canadian psychological association (cpa), the cpa section on clinical psychology, the association for behavioral and cognitive therapies, the canadian association of cognitive and behavioural therapies (cacbt), and the academy of cognitive therapy. he is also a former beck institute scholar at the beck institute for cognitive therapy and research. dr. dozois’ research focuses on cognitive vulnerability to depression and cognitive-behavioral theory/therapy. he was twice president of the cpa (2011–12; 2016–17) and president of cacbt (2020–2021). jesse lee wilde is a doctoral candidate at western university’s clinical psychology program. she received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the university of toronto, and her master’s in clinical psychology from western university. her current research examines cognitive and interpersonal contributors to depression and romantic relationship distress. evraire, dozois, & wilde 39 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 19–39 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3059 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.3.392 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://www.psychopen.eu/ attachment, ers, and trust (introduction) attachment style as a predictor of engaging in excessive reassurance seeking behavior attachment style as a predictor of the negative consequences of excessive reassurance seeking behavior trust, attachment, and excessive reassurance seeking limitations of the ers literature and need for the current study objectives and hypotheses method participants laboratory measures diary measures procedure data analytic approach results objective 1: the contribution of attachment style and trust to daily ers objective 2: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and next day trust objective 3: the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between actor daily ers and partner next day trust objective 4: the moderating properties of actor attachment style on the relationship between partner daily ers and actor next day trust discussion objective 1: the contribution of attachment style and trust to daily ers objective 2: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and relationship trust objective 3: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between daily ers and partner next day relationship trust objective 4: the moderating properties of attachment style on the relationship between partner daily ers and actor next day relationship trust limitations and implications conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests references about the authors body appreciation in light of psychological, healthand weight-related variables among female adolescents research reports body appreciation in light of psychological, healthand weight-related variables among female adolescents bettina f. piko*a, annabella obál a, david mellor b [a] department of behavioral sciences, university of szeged, szeged, hungary. [b] school of psychology, deakin university, burwood, victoria, australia. abstract recent research has begun to focus on positive body image and how this can be supported in adolescence. body appreciation is a key element of positive body image, and has been associated with self-reported health status, weight-related concern, family factors and psychological variables such as self-esteem. in this study we explored these associations among hungarian adolescent females. female high school students from two major towns in csongrád county, hungary (n = 454; age range from 14 to 20; m = 16.3 years, sd = 1.2) completed questionnaires assessing body appreciation, self-esteem, optimism, life satisfaction and healthand weight-related variables. analyses revealed that body appreciation was most strongly related to self-esteem, as well as being positively associated with life satisfaction, self-perceived health, being in control of diet, and engagement in sport. conversely, binge drinking, engaging in slimming behaviors and having eating disorders in the family were negatively associated with body appreciation. these findings provide some indications of factors that might be targetted in health education programs aiming to promote positive body image and to develop resilience against body dissatisfaction in this demographic group. such programs should also include information of nutrition and media literacy. keywords: body image, body appreciation, body weight concerns, self-perceived health, female adolescents europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 received: 2019-09-19. accepted: 2020-03-26. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom *corresponding author at: department of behavioral sciences, university of szeged, 6722 szeged, 5 szentharomsag str., hungary. tel./fax: +36 62 420-530, e-mail: fuzne.piko.bettina@med.u-szeged.hu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in the context of the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children and adolescents having increased over recent decades (ncd risk factor collaboration, 2017), whitehead et al. (2018) have reported that the fear of weight gain is most prevalent among women aged between 16 and 25. such weight concerns are associated within a complex web of factors such as body mass index (bmi), negative body image, body dissatisfaction, negative self-concept, and potentially, the development of eating disorders (o’dea & dibley, 2014; whitehead et al., 2018). therefore, it is important for researchers to focus on developing an understanding of factors relevant to these constructs, particularly among adolescent girls and emerging adult females. to do this, many studies have focused on the risk factors, correlates and possible consequences of body dissatisfaction and negative body image. for example, body weight perception and lower body satisfaction have been found to predict dieting, unhealthy weight control behaviors and binge eating, and lower levels of physical activity among girls (kennedy, schneiderman, & ramseyer winter, 2019; neumark-sztainer et al., europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2006). negative body image and body dissatisfaction may also play a role in binge drinking and smoking among adolescent girls (jones, ramseyer winter, pekarek, & walters, 2018). further, body image may also contribute to adolescents’ own health, with body dissatisfaction being associated with a higher risk of developing undesirable health-related outcomes (meland, haugland, & breidablik, 2006), including poorer physical competence and increased anxiety level (dolenc, 2019). while numerous studies have investigated body dissatisfaction and negative body image, recently, researchers have begun to focus on positive body image. an important element of positive body image is body appreciation, that is, favorable opinions of the body regardless of its actual weight or size, or real or perceived imperfections. positive body image is more than simply the absence of the elements of negative body image (dignard & jarry, 2019) in that it also encompasses a willingness to actively take care of the body’s needs (tylka & wood-barcalow, 2015). consistent with the proposition that it is not enough to simply remove negative attitudes toward the body, there is also a need to replace them with positive attitudes that may lead to healthy body image (smolak & cash, 2011). thus, some current studies have focused on protective or resilience factors that might assist individuals to resist the strong sociocultural pressures that negatively influence body image and instead, help develop positive body identity (snapp, hensley-choate, & ryu, 2012). therefore, in health promotion strategies to facilitate this process we need to strengthen certain skills and attitudes, such as self-esteem, optimism and a positive approach to life (choate, 2007). in qualitative studies, body appreciation has been found to be closely related to self-esteem, optimism and life satisfaction (frisén & holmqvist, 2010; wood-barcalow, tylka, & augustus-horvath, 2010). in quantitative studies with adults, body appreciation has also been found to be positively correlated with self-esteem and positive affect and negatively correlated with negative psychological indicators, such as guilt or shame (razmus & razmus, 2017). several quantitative studies have also found body appreciation to be positively associated with satisfaction with life among youth (alcaraz-ibáñez, cren chiminazzo, sicilia, & teixeira fernandez, 2017). not surprisingly, many of these studies have focused on female populations. in a study of female university students, body appreciation was positively associated with appearance satisfaction, self-esteem and optimism, and negatively associated with bmi (alleva, martijn, veldhuis, & tylka, 2016). among college women, it was positively correlated with enjoyment-based physical activity (homan & tylka, 2014), health consciousness and health behavior, such as not smoking in a sample of medical students (dumitrescu, zetu, teslaru, dogaru, & dogaru, 2008). in a longitudinal study, body appreciation predicted a decrease in dieting, alcohol, and cigarette use, and an increase in physical activity 1 year later (andrew, tiggemann, & clark, 2016). in addition to psychological and behavioral correlates of youth’s body appreciation and body image, webb, rogers, etzel, and padro (2018) have found family eating habits and attitudes towards overweight to be important correlates for females. in their study with undergraduate females, family fat talk (e.g., a self-critical talk about being fat) predicted mindful eating via body appreciation. indeed, disordered eating is often based on intergeneration transmission of attitudes and habits, for example, through learning about appearance standards. in reporting their study of 242 daughter–mother–grandmother triads, arroyo, segrin, and anderson (2017) suggested that direct and indirect maternal communication might facilitate disordered eating, such as dieting or bulimia. another study found that overweight mothers’ daughters are also more likely to be overweight (sonneville et al., 2012). however, we know little about how obesity or eating disorders may be associated with adolescents’ body appreciation. piko, obál, & mellor 677 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ present study in summary, there is a growing focus on positive body image and constructs such as body appreciation. the current study was conducted in hungary where the prevalence of obesity and overweight has increased significantly in the past decades, with the nation now occupying a top position not only in european but also in organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) health rankings (oecd, 2017). further, despite the serious health statistics for conditions in which nutrition and obesity might play a decisive role (rurik et al., 2016), body image and body appreciation are under-investigated and no effective preventive programs are available for the general population, let alone for adolescents who are in a pivotal life stage for the development of positive body image (voelker, reel, & greenleaf, 2015). our study focuses on hungarian female adolescents who form a vulnerable group of the population not only since they tend to be especially critical about their weight, but also they are receptive to health messages as well. thus our findings will be useful in informing the development of a health education program. in light of the literature reviewed above, we anticipated that self-esteem, optimism, life satisfaction, good/excellent self-perceived health, diet control and engagement in sport would be positively associated with body appreciation, while bmi, engagement in slimming behaviors, substance use and the presence of overweight or eating disorders in the family would be negatively related to female adolescents’ body appreciation. method participants and procedure data were collected in szeged and hódmezővásárhely, two major towns in csongrád county, hungary between march and june 2018. the sample consisted of 454 female adolescents (age range from 14 to 20 years; m = 16.3, sd = 1.2) who studied in different high schools (with a majority of girls, such as specialization of health care or arts) of these two towns. just over one third (34.4%) of the participants were from grade 9, 33% were from grade 10, 21.4% were from grade 11, and 11.4% were from grade 12. some classes were unisex and in mixed gender classes only females were asked to participate. of the 500 students invited to participate, 30 declined. sixteen others were absent on the day the surveys were administered, giving a response rate of 92%. approval to conduct the study was obtained from the institutional review board (irb) at the university of szeged, doctoral school of education (ref. no.: 6/2017). after gaining the approval, parents were informed about the study and their written consent for their child’s participation was obtained. in addition, students’ informed consent was also obtained. student participation was voluntary, anonymous, and confidential. a standardized procedure of administration was used in each class: a trained graduate student distributed the questionnaires (paper-and-pencil type) to youth, after briefly explaining the study objectives and giving the necessary instructions. measures body appreciation the hungarian validated version (béres, czeglédi, & babusa, 2013) of the body appreciation scale 2 (bas 2) comprises 10 items rated on a 5-point likert-type scale (from 1 = never… 5 = always; tylka & body appreciation among female adolescents 678 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wood-barcalow, 2015). using principal component analysis only one component was extracted with a relatively high variance (68.1%) explained. items measure resondents’ acceptance and favourable opinions of, and respect for their bodies (e.g., “despite its imperfections, i still like my body”). summed scores were used in the analyses where higher scores reflect higher levels of body appreciation. the cronbach alpha coefficient of reliability in our sample was excellent (α = .93), similar to the level reported for the original version. satisfaction with life life satisfaction was measured using the hungarian validated and adapted version (martos, sallay, désfalvy, szabó, & ittzés, 2014) of the satisfaction with life scale (diener, emmons, larsen, & griffin, 1985). participants indicated how strongly they agreed with each of the five items using a response format ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). higher scores reflect higher levels of life satisfaction. the scale was reliable with a cronbach’s alpha of .83 with the current sample. optimism dispositional optimism was measured using the hungarian validated version (béri & köteles, 2010) of the life orientation test (lot-r; scheier & carver, 1985). the lot-r consists of ten items (three inverse, plus four filler items that are not scored as part of the scale) assessing generalized expectancies for positive versus negative outcomes. participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement using a five-point response scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly disagree). this scale was reliable with a cronbach’s alpha of .74. self-esteem self-esteem was measured by the hungarian validated and adapted version (sallay, martos, földvári, szabó, & ittzés, 2014) of rosenberg’s 10-item self-esteem scale (rosenberg, 1979). respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each item (five of which are reverse scored) using a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). after reverse scoring the five negatively worded items, responses were summed. higher scores indicate higher self-esteem. the scale was reliable with a cronbach’s alpha of .88. weight-related questions besides calculating bmi based on the students’ self-reported height and weight, we also asked them about the presence of overweight and eating disorders in the family and whether they are currently on a slimming diet and, whether they take care of their own diet (no/yes). health behavior in terms of other health-related variables, we asked about sporting (no/yes), frequency of smoking, drinking and binge drinking over the last three months (on 6-point scales) as well how they evaluate their own health (self-perceived health in dichotomized form: fair/poor or good/excellent). statistical analysis spss program (version 22.0.) was used for the analyses. a significance level of .05 was set. descriptive statistics were calculated and a correlation matrix for the study variables was produced. the contribution of psychological, and weightand health-related variables in body appreciation was assessed by multiple linear piko, obál, & mellor 679 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regression models separately, then in combination. collinearity diagnostics of the multiple linear regression models were also conducted to examine the reliability of the models. results descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for the study variables table 1 shows the mean scores and standard deviations for the continuous variables and the percentage of participants who responded positively to the categorical variables. the table also summarizes the correlations between variables. table 1 descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for the study variables (n = 454) variable m (sd) % 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. body appreciation (range: 10—58) 32.69 (9.55) .74*** .54*** .52*** -.13** -.13** -.24*** -.19*** .35*** .18*** -.03 -.11* .16*** 2. self-esteem (range: 10—40) 25.63 (5.91) .50*** .57*** .01 -.10* -.19*** -.14** .19*** .14** -.03 -.09* .12* 3. satisfaction with life (range: 6—35) 22.86 (6.34) .50** -.06 -.10* -.11* -.02 .26*** .20*** -.12* -.08 .15** 4. optimism (range: 6—30) 19.90 (4.57) .01 -.09 -.16** -.14** .15** .18*** -.08 -.09* .11* 5. body mass index (range: 14.7—43.5) 21.36 (3.93) .23*** -.01 .21*** -.24*** -.06 .05 -.02 .03 6. overweight in the family (no/yes) 61.1/38.9 .19*** .04 -.11* -.04 .03 .01 -.04 7. eating disorder in the family (no/yes) 93.3/6.7 .14** -.14** -.03 -.07 -.08 -.07 8. slimming behavior (no/yes) 80.8/19.2 -.16*** -.16*** -04 -.06 .17*** 9. self-perceived health (fair or poor/good or excellent) 21.1/78.9 .15*** -.08 -.05 .14** 10. sporting (no/yes) 39.4/60.6 .06 -.04 .22*** 11. smoking frequency (range: 1—6) 1.54 (1.14) .37*** .02 12. binge drinking frequency (range:1—6) 1.87 (1.19) .01 13. diet control (no/yes) 28.2/71.8 note. r = correlation coefficients. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. first, correlations between body appreciation with psychological and healthand weight-related variables were evaluated. as can be seen in table 1, there was a close positive association between body appreciation and self-esteem (r = .74, p < .001). there were also significant positive correlations between body appreciation and life satisfaction (r = .54, p < .001), dispositional optimism (r = .52, p < .001), self-perceived health (r = .35, p < .001), sporting engagement (r = .18, p < .001), and diet control (r = .16, p < .001). conversely, body body appreciation among female adolescents 680 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appreciation was negatively associated with bmi (r = -.13, p < .01), the presence of overweight (r = -.13, p < .01), eating disorders in the family (r = -.19, p < .001), and binge drinking (r = -.11, p < .05). in terms of the connections between the psychological and healthand weight-related variables, some significant correlations need also be highlighted. although bmi did not correlate with any of the other psychological variables, it was associated with the presence of overweight in the family (r = .23, p < .001) and the tendency to engage in slimming behaviors (r = .21, p < .001). those reporting higher bmi rated their own health worse (r = -.24, p < .001). diet control showed positive correlations with the psychological variables, sporting engagement, and self-perceived health, but also with dieting to lose weight. sporting engagement, besides being positively correlated with the psychological variables, was negatively related to slimming behavior. there were negative correlations between slimming behaviors and two psychological variables other than body appreciation, optimism and self-esteem (r = -.14, p < .01 in each case). finally, both overweight and eating disorders in the family were negatively correlated with the psychological variables; the correlations were stronger in the latter case (see table 1). multiple regression analysis table 2 displays the multiple regression models exploring the contribution of psychological and healthand weight-related variables in female adolescents’ body appreciation, including the collinearity statistics. in the first model, the roles of psychological variables were explored. self-esteem proved to be the strongest predictor (β = 0.59, p < .001). satisfaction with life played a less role (β = 0.19, p < .001) and optimism the least (β = 0.09, p < .05). altogether, these variables accounted for 58 percent of the total variance in body appreciation scores. however, self-esteem accounted for the majority of this (54%). table 2 multiple regression analysis assessing the role of psychological and healthand weight-related variables in female adolescents’ body appreciations with the collinearity statistics independent variable model 1 (b/β/se) model 2 (b/β/se) model 3 (b/β/se) tolerance (vif) psychological factor self-esteem 0.96/0.59/0.07*** 0.92/0.57/0.07*** .58 (1.72) satisfaction with life 0.28/0.19/0.06*** 0.23/0.15/0.06** .60 (1.66) optimism 0.18/0.09/0.08* 0.12/0.06/0.08 .06 (1.67) healthand weight-related variable overweight in the family (no/yes) -0.88/-0.04/0.88 -0.01/-0.01/0.63 .89 (1.12) eating disorder in the family (no/yes) -6.70/-0.18/1.67*** -2.88/-0.08/1.24* .89 (1.13) body mass index (bmi) -0.06/-0.02/0.11 -0.17/-0.08/0.08* .85 (1.80) slimming behavior (no/yes) -3.91/-0.16/1.11** -1.21/-0.05/0.80 .84 (1.19) self-perceived health (poor or fair/good or excellent) 5.65/0.24/1.08*** 2.99/0.13/0.78*** .82 (1.21) smoking frequency 0.59/0.07/0.40 0.47/0.06/0.29 .81 (1.23) binge drinking frequency -0.92/-0.12/0.37* -0.31/-0.04/0.27 .83 (1.20) sporting (no/yes) 2.79/0.14/0.88** 0.26/0.01/0.64 .88 (1.34) diet control (no/yes) 1.82/0.09/0.96* 1.10/0.05/0.70 .91 (1.10) constant -1.92 9.94* -6.36 r2 .58*** .22*** .62*** note: b = unstandardized regression coefficient; β = standardized regression coefficient; se = standard error; vif = variance inflation factor. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. piko, obál, & mellor 681 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the second model, the contributions of healthand weight-related variables were tested. in this model, only 22% of the variance in body appreciation was accounted for. self-perceived health (β = 0.24, p < .001) played the greatest role, but eating disorders in the family (β = -0.18, p < .001), dieting to lose weight (β = -0.16, p < .001) and binge drinking (β = -0.12, p < .05) were also all negatively related to body appreciation, while sporting was weakly but positively associated (β = 0.09, p < .05). in the final model, we entered all predictor variables simultaneously. in this model, self-esteem (β = 0.57, p < .001) and life satisfaction (β = 0.15, p < .01), self-perceived health (β = 0.13, p < .001) and eating disorders in the family (β = -0.08, p < .05) remained significant predictors. in addition, bmi became slightly and negatively significant (β = -0.08, p < .05). together, all these variables explained 62% of the total variation in body appreciation scores for this sample of adolescent girls. the reliability of the models was further examined with variance inflation factor (vif) indices and tolerance values. the vif values were within the acceptable vif range (below 2). discussion although body image receives considerable attention in literature, to date more studies have focused on negative body image than on positive aspects, such as body appreciation (voelker et al., 2015). this is particularly critical in female adolescents for whom developing positive attitudes towards their body can prevent eating disorders and distorted body image later. in health promotion programs, developing and supporting a positive body image can be a key focus. therefore, in this paper we concentrated on psychological, weightand health-related contributors to body appreciation in a sample of hungarian female adolescents. some of these variables may serve as protective factors, while others may elevate the risk of lower levels of body appreciation. our findings support previous suggestions that body appreciation is closely connected to self-esteem: having a higher level of self-esteem may contribute to a positive approach to our body and vice versa (alleva et al., 2016; frisén & holmqvist, 2010; wood-barcalow, tylka, & augustus-horvath, 2010). previous studies also reported a close association between these two variables (alleva et al., 2016; razmus & razmus, 2017). the other two psychological variables played lesser roles in body appreciation than we had expected: satisfaction with life was positively but relatively weakly related, and optimism even less so. previous studies reported stronger connections with these variables (alcaraz-ibáñez et al., 2017; frisén & holmqvist, 2010; wood-barcalow et al., 2010). while bidirectional associations between body appreciation and these two variables were relatively stronger, in multiple regression analyses their role became weaker. this is likely because self-esteem, as the dominant variable supressed their role in body appreciation. future research is needed to further clarify these associations and to identify other psychological variables that may contribute to body appreciation among adolescent girls. our results also confirmed that body appreciation is closely related to subjective evaluations of health (meland, haugland, & breidablik, 2006). those participants who perceived their own health to be good or excellent also displayed higher level of body appreciation. health behavior also played a role, particularly sporting engagement: those who were engaged in sports reported better body appreciation. this is in concordance with previous research findings (e.g., homan & tylka, 2014). however, while previous studies also found a body appreciation among female adolescents 682 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship between smoking, drinking and body appreciation (dumitrescu et al., 2008; jones et al., 2018; kennedy et al., 2019; neumark-sztainer et al., 2006), we found only a slight negative association with binge drinking, with those who engaged in binge drinking tending to be less appreciative of their own body. although cause-and-effect relationships cannot be identified here, we may hypothesize that those who do not appreciate their own body do not take care of it in an appropriate way. the difference between smoking and binge drinking may be both practical and cultural: while negative impacts of binge drinking can be directly experienced by adolescents, smoking can contribute to longer term health consequences. in addition, female smoking is much more accepted in hungary than female binge drinking. another finding also supports interpretation of self care in relation to body image: those who reported higher levels of body appreciation also tended to take care of their diet. this is consonant with other findings (neumark-sztainer et al., 2006). finally, the role of family has also been implicated in the development of either positive or negative attitudes towards our body (arroyo et al., 2017; sonneville et al., 2012; webb et al., 2018). our results emphasized the role of eating disorders in the family; the presence of such problems may lead to lower body appreciation among female adolescents. the bivariate relationships suggest that those who reported eating disorders in the family also scored lower on the life satisfaction, self-esteem and optimism scales, and also tended to slim themselves. more research is necessary to gain deeper insight into these associations. in addition, there was a slight but negative correlation between body appreciation and overweight in the family; however, in multivariate analyses it became nonsignificant. as mentioned above, due to the cross-sectional nature of our research, cause-and-effect relationships cannot be determined from our data. a second limitation is that we relied on self-report for our data. while this is not necessarily a significant issue for the psychological variables, it may have impacted on the reliabilty of our measurement of variables such as bmi, family history of eating problems and engagement in health behaviors. further, some of the values of correlation and regression coefficients are rather weak. finally, due to specific cultural context, generalizability of our study may be limited. there are several contributions of our study to the current literature. most importantly, confirming the strong association between self-esteem and female adolescents’ body appreciation, our study indicates a need for future research to explore other psychological variables that might also be related to positive body image. in addition, our results also draw the attention to the potential role of family factors (e.g., overweight and eating disorder in the family) in the development of adolescents’ body image. although qualitative studies can more deeply explore the mechanisms underpinning these associations, our data provide evidence of them. third, our results also emphasize that sporting and binge drinking may play opposite roles in forming body appreciation among girls. furthermore, an important strength of our paper is that our findings highlight the difference in associations of various types of substance use with body image, in that while binge drinking is associated, smoking is not, perhaps due to its social acceptance and its delayed health consequences. finally, we believe that using a sample of hungarian adolescents is also a strength since to our best knowledge, body appreciation has not yet been explored in this culture. piko, obál, & mellor 683 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusions adolescence is an important life stage when both body image and self-esteem are very vulnerable, particularly among female adolescents. it is important to detect both risk and protective factors that are related to girls’ body appreciation and to help them to develop a healthy attitude towards their body. our study indicates that 1) there is a close association between female adolescents’ body appreciation and their self-esteem; 2) the association between body appreciation and life statisfaction is also positive, but much weaker; 3) self-perceived health, diet control and engagement in sport are positively related to body appreciation, while binge drinking, dieting to lose weight, and eating disorders in the family may be negative contributors; 4) bmi plays a very limited role in teenager girls’ body appreciation. more research is needed to further clarify the role of the family, and other psychological variables should be included in the studies of this nature. while body image concerns, eating problems and obesity among adolescents have became targets of health education programs over the last decades in western europe, united states, canada and australia (yager & o’dea, 2010), no similar program has been developed in hungary. therefore, research of body image among adolescents – particularly female adolescents in hungary– should be prioritized in order to inform the development of effective health education programs that focus on positive body image. such programs should also include information of nutrition and media literacy, strengthening self-esteem and resilience. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references alcaraz-ibáñez, m., cren chiminazzo, 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(2010). a controlled intervention to promote a healthy body image, reduce eating disorder risk and prevent excessive exercise among trainee health education and physical education teachers. health education research, 25(5), 841-852. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyq036 about the authors annabella obál, m.a., ph.d. student and health psychologist at the department of behavioral sciences, university of szeged, hungary. her current research interests include sporting behavior, body image and body appreciation, particularly in adolescent girls. bettina f. piko, m.d., ph.d., d.sc., is a behavioral scientist and full professor at the department of behavioral sciences, university of szeged, hungary. she is a specialist in health psychology and community health. her current research interests include addictions, stress, eating behaviors, coping and anxiety among youth. david mellor, ph.d., is an emeritus professor in the school of psychology at deakin university in australia, and a retired clinical psychologist. his current research areas include body image in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, as well as the management of mental health issues amongst the elderly. piko, obál, & mellor 687 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 676–687 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2183 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00038-017-0997-y https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.bodyim.2010.01.001 https://doi.org/10.1093%2fher%2fcyq036 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ body appreciation among female adolescents (introduction) present study method participants and procedure measures statistical analysis results descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for the study variables multiple regression analysis discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour research reports energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour luigina canova* a, anna maria manganelli a [a] department of philosophy, sociology, education and applied psychology, university of padua, padua, italy. abstract individual energy-saving behaviours are crucial for reducing energy consumption, and research on the determinants of these behaviours has been increasing over the last decade. the aim of this study is to explore the determinants of two specific behaviours: ‘switching off non-essential lights’ and ‘completely switching off electronic devices’. an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour (tpb) has been used as the theoretical research framework. the extension was implemented by considering two components (affective and cognitive) of the attitude towards these behaviours and then adding habit as a new variable. a two-waves study was conducted in which a convenience sample of italian workers completed a questionnaire measuring the tpb constructs in relation to the two energy-saving behaviours (time 1). the participants then completed another questionnaire a month later to assess self-reports of these behaviours (time 2). the inclusion of habit improved the predictive power of the tpb, and the extended model was found to explain 65.5% and 76.1% of the variance in intentions and 16.2% and 22.9% of the variance in behaviours. cognitive attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and habit were significantly related to intentions, and perceived behavioural control was the strongest predictor. habit moderated some relationships between the tpb constructs and intentions. behaviours were associated directly only with intentions. the results of this study support the efficacy of the tpb model in predicting target behaviours; they also suggest some strategies that can be followed to promote these energy-saving behaviours. keywords: theory of planned behaviour, energy-saving behaviours in workplaces, cognitive attitude, affective attitude, habit europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 received: 2019-01-28. accepted: 2020-07-15. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: michael bosnjak, zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, trier, germany *corresponding author at: fisppa department, section of applied psychology, university of padua, via venezia 14, 35131, padua, italy. e-mail: luigina.canova@unipd.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the proliferation of energy-consuming technologies (e.g., climate-control systems, personal computers) has resulted in an escalation in the use of energy, which has had a negative effect on the environment. this is reflected in the increased interest in environmental protection that can be achieved not only by using technologies that can improve energy efficiency but also by stopping the excessive consumption of natural resources and by practicing voluntarily individual behaviours that preserve the environment for future generations. to save energy, structural changes such as retrofitting buildings with energy-efficient characteristics are important starting points; however, they may not be enough to reduce energy consumption due to the ‘rebound effect’, i.e., they can even actually induce an increase in energy consumption. therefore, motivating individuals to save energy may make an important contribution to reducing energy use. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ individual energy-saving behaviour has become an important research topic, but most studies have focused primarily on household energy-saving measures, and, to the best of our knowledge, little research has addressed the issue of individual energy-saving behaviour in workplaces (see the meta-analysis by yuriev, dahmen, paillé, boiral, & guillaumie, 2020). the differences between domestic and organisational settings yield results at the residential level that are not immediately applicable to workplaces. in fact, these settings can make it easier or harder to perform pro-environmental behaviours (maki & rothman, 2017). for example, in a household setting, individual control is likely to be much higher than in an organisational setting such as an office, where behaviours may be shaped by the physical context (e.g., access to equipment control), by the social context (e.g., expectations and norms of other people), and by the organisational context (e.g., organisational culture and structure). moreover, in the case of energy-saving behaviours, the costs are experienced more directly in the private sphere, while employees benefit only indirectly from the financial advantages of energy saving in workplaces (littleford, ryley, & firth, 2014; lülfs & hahn, 2014). for example, a recent study by littleford et al. (2014) found that people perform some, but not all, energy-saving behaviours consistently at home and work, but the study did not obtain any evidence to support the 'spillover' effect across workplace and household settings. thus, to improve the efficacy of technical measures and organisational energy-saving policies, it is necessary to better understand employees’ opinions and behaviours. in fact, the impact of one individual’s energy-use decisions might seem small, but in the aggregate this impact will be significant. the present study aimed to explore the socio-psychological factors influencing two specific energy-saving behaviours in the workplace. the reference theoretical model was the theory of planned behaviour (tpb; ajzen, 1991). the tpb model was extended by considering an additional variable, habit, which is not included in the original theory. the tpb is a social-psychological model of behavioural decision-making (ajzen, 1991). briefly, this model predicts that the stronger the intention to engage in a behaviour, the more likely the behaviour will be performed. three constructs determine behavioural intention: attitude towards the behaviour (i.e., the favourability a specific action has for an individual); subjective norm (i.e., the perception of expectations of relevant people that a specific action should be performed); and the perception of how easy or difficult it would be to perform the behaviour in a particular context (perceived behavioural control [pbc]). pbc is a construct that captures to what degree individuals believe they have control over their behaviours, including ability, time, skills, and opportunities to perform the behaviours. it is held to predict behaviour directly, along with intention, especially when the behaviour is not under complete volitional control. the tpb has been applied successfully in a wide range of fields, including pro-environmental behaviours (klöckner, 2013). the original tpb model has been extended in two main ways: a) the constructs (i.e., attitude towards the behaviour) have been decomposed in two or more dimensions and b) several factors have been explored as additional predictors or moderators of relationships in the tpb. regarding attitude, two components have been distinguished: cognitive or instrumental and affective or experiential. the cognitive component reflects the act’s perceived instrumentality (i.e., its anticipated positive or negative consequences, perceived benefits and costs of the behaviour), whereas the affective component reflects the positive or negative experiences with the behaviour, as well as any emotion-based judgements about the behaviour (fishbein & ajzen, 2010). there is strong evidence that affective attitudes are more powerful predictors of a variety of health behaviours, especially those related to food choice (blanchard et al., 2009; canova, bobbio, & manganelli, 2020). as far as we know, the two components of attitude have received very little attention in research regarding environmental behaviours (e.g., rhodes et al., 2015). canova & manganelli 385 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding the second area of tpb expansion, i.e., integrating additional psychological factors and variables into the model to improve its predictive power, the most used variables have been past behaviour, personal or moral norms, self-identity, habit, and anticipated emotions. the tpb has been used to examine pro-environmental behaviours and energy saving in household contexts, and it has been shown to be more successful in predicting behaviours, compared to other variables such as demographic (abrahamse & steg, 2009). in his meta-analysis, klöckner (2013) noted that roughly 40% of all papers published in the environmental-psychological field had used the tpb as their basic theoretical framework, and analysing 56 different data sets with a variety of environmental behaviours showed that intentions, pbc, and habits were identified as direct predictors of behaviour. the strongest predictor was intentions followed by habit, while pbc had a weaker effect on behaviour. attitudes, pbc, and personal and social norms (in descending order of their impact size) predicted intention. in recent years, there has been an increasing interest in pro-environmental behaviours in workplaces, and some studies have applied the original or extended tpb models to predict energy-saving behaviours in this setting. some research have considered, as target behaviours, specific pro-environmental behaviours, such as ‘switching off computer whenever leaving desk’, ‘using video-conferencing for any meeting’, ‘recycling as much waste produced at work as possible’ (greaves, zibarras, & stride, 2013), and ‘printing smaller’, ‘not printing e-mails’, ‘switching off lights’, and ‘switching off monitors’ (lo, peters, van breukelen, & kok, 2014). in other research, composite indexes derived from several different pro-environmental behaviours were used (blok, wesselink, studynka, & kemp, 2015; dixon, deline, mccomas, chambliss, & hoffman, 2015; wesselink, blok, & ringersma, 2017), while other studies used a generic target behaviour: ‘energy saving in my company’ (gao, wang, li, & li, 2017; zhang, wang, & zhou, 2014). in all the studies mentioned above, the theoretical model was the tpb, extended with additional predictors: personal or moral norms and descriptive norms (gao et al., 2017; lo et al., 2014); habit (lo et al., 2014); organisational electricity-saving climate (zhang et al., 2014); and perceived leadership support and exemplary behaviours (blok et al., 2015; wesselink et al., 2017). only greaves et al. (2013) explored further the specific antecedent beliefs of attitude (behavioural beliefs), subjective norms (normative beliefs), and pbc (control beliefs), with their results showing that most antecedent beliefs were significant in influencing behavioural intentions mediated via the tpb constructs. the quotas of explained variance in intentions ranged between 74% for the behaviour of ‘switching off monitors’ (lo et al., 2014) and 22% for a composite index of several pro-environmental behaviours (wesselink et al., 2017). generally, attitude was associated with intentions, but regarding subjective norms and pbc, the results were less consistent, and the associations with intentions could range from very weak to strong. some limitations of tpb-based research described above have been highlighted (yuriev et al., 2020). firstly, most studies focused only on intention (e.g., gao et al., 2017; greaves et al, 2013; zhang et al., 2014); further, those that focused on behaviour considered past behaviour as a proxy for future behaviour (e.g., lo et al., 2014). however, when intention and behaviour are measured contemporaneously, a consistency bias is likely to inflate the correspondence between them (hausenblas, downs, giacobbi, tuccitto, & cook, 2008). furthermore, while some studies explored specific behaviours (e.g., ‘switching off lights’ or ‘not printing e-mails’), others considered composite indexes derived from many different pro-environmental behaviours, and yet others focused on a generic target behaviour such as ‘energy saving’. this imprecision in the definition of behaviours studied is problematic as the tpb seems unsuitable for exploring non-specific actions (ajzen, 1991; energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 386 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ yuriev et al. 2020). finally, the measures of tpb constructs did not follow the guidelines indicated by fishbein and ajzen (2010). all these discrepancies making it very difficult to compare results. in our study, we considered habit as an additional predictor in the tpb model. habits are viewed as playing a fundamental role in generating behaviour, and the term ‘habit’ is used widely in ordinary parlance to refer to frequent and persistent behaviour. recently, gardner (2015) defined habit as "a process by which a stimulus automatically generates an impulse towards action, based on learned stimulus-response associations" (p. 280). this definition includes cue-dependence, automaticity, and conditioned stimulus-response associations that depict habitual behaviour which, in turn, may be defined as "any action, or sequence of actions, that is controlled by habit" (gardner, 2015, p. 282). similarly, hagger (2019) defined habit "as a specific action or behavioural tendency that is enacted with little conscious awareness or reflection, in response to a specific set of associated conditions or contextual cues" (p. 119). sometimes, habit has been equated with the frequency of past behaviour, but there are good reasons for not accepting such analogy (klöckner & matthies, 2004). past behaviour is the pattern of behaviour shown prior to the actual behaviour. it includes habitual components as well as intentional behaviour; it also includes repeated actions in addition to actions shown only once or occasionally. in contrast, a habit is the result of association between cues and behavioural patterns; this association is learnt by repeating the same behaviour under the same circumstances over and over again. most scholars in defining habit added references to automaticity and to reduced deliberate thinking. verplanken and aarts (1999) argue that habit should be introduced in the tpb as a further predictor and/or moderator of the intention-behaviour relationship. most studies that have examined additive and interactive effects of habit are related to the domains of nutrition and physical activity (e.g., gardner, de bruijn, & lally, 2011; menozzi, sogari, & mora, 2017). in many cases, the results showed that habit explained additional quotas of behaviour variance and it moderated the relationship between intention and behaviour, so that intention had a reduced impact on behaviour when habit was strong. however, some studies failed to find evidence for the effect of ‘habit × intention’ interaction, in relation to physical activity (e.g., murtagh, rowe, elliott, mcminn, & nelson, 2012; rhodes, de bruijn, & matheson, 2010). few studies have examined the effect of habit on relationships between the other constructs of the tpb (attitude, subjective norm, and pbc) and intention. in the study of de bruijn et al. (2007), a multigroup analysis revealed that the impact of affective and cognitive attitudes and of subjective norm on intention increased when habit was low, while the impact of pbc increased when habit was high. finally, menozzi et al. (2017), in a study about healthy-eating behaviour, found that attitude and subjective norm had stronger impact on intention when habit was low. in the ecological field, klöckner and matthies (2004) found that habit increased the amount of explained variance in behaviour and also weakened the association between personal norms and behaviour. interestingly, despite also being recognised as an important determinant of pro-environmental behaviour, habit so far had mostly been neglected in research on energy-saving behaviours. a recent study by wang, lin, and li (2018) analysed a tpb model extended with non-cognitive (personal moral norm and habit) and emotional factors (positive anticipated emotions). the target behaviour was ‘to save electricity in my home’. the model explained 26% of the variance in intention to save electricity and 30% of the variance in electricity-saving behaviour. personal moral norm, attitude, pbc, habit, and positive anticipated emotion were positively and significantly associated with residents' intention to save electricity; habit also was associated with electricity-saving behaviour. canova & manganelli 387 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to the best of our knowledge, habit has not received extensive attention in the literature on pro-environmental behaviour in workplaces (for notable exceptions, see lo et al., 2014). in fact, lo et al. (2014) introduced habit in their study on organisational contexts. the examined behaviours were: ‘printing smaller’ and ‘not printing e-mails’ (printing behaviours), ‘switching off lights’ and ‘switching off monitors’ (switching behaviours). the habit was measured with two items selected from verplanken's index (self-report habit index; verplanken & orbell, 2003). the hypothesised model was a tpb model extended with habit and personal norm. the explained variance of intention ranged from 50% for ‘not printing e-mails’ to 69% for ‘printing smaller’. with respect to behaviour, the quotas of explained variance ranged from 53% for ‘switching off lights’ to 74% for ‘printing smaller’ and ‘switching off monitors’. the examination of path coefficients showed that habit was a significant predictor of intention for all behaviours and that intention was the strongest direct predictor of printing behaviours, while habit was the strongest direct predictor of switching behaviours. attitude had the strongest effect on intention for all behaviours, while the effects of subjective norm, personal norm, and perceived control were less consistent across behaviours. a limitation of this study was represented by the use of self-reported behaviour with reference to the past month as a proxy for future behaviour. the present study the present study tested a tpb extended model aimed at improving our understanding of the factors affecting energy-saving behaviours in workplaces. following the suggestions of steg and vlek (2009), we selected two target behaviours with the potential to provide significant environmental benefits that would ask individuals to change their behaviours in some way. the selected behaviours were: a) ‘switch off non-essential lights in the workplace (e.g., when you and your colleagues are leaving or when natural light is sufficient)’ and b) ‘completely switch off electronic devices (e.g., computer, computer screen, photocopier, and printer) without leaving them on stand-by at the end of a working day’. these behaviours also were the target behaviours in other studies: lo et al. (2014) used ‘switch off non-essential lights in the workplace’ as a target behaviour in their study and greaves et al. (2013) used ‘completely switch off electronic devices’. our hypothesised tpb model considered two attitude components: cognitive (or instrumental) and affective (or experiential; fishbein & ajzen, 2010). some authors (carrus, passafaro, & bonnes, 2008) emphasised that generally, the attitude-intention and attitude-behaviour relationships are complex, especially in the ecological domain. to address this problem, more attention should be paid to the different roles of affective and cognitive or instrumental attitudes in eliciting behaviour. rhodes et al. (2015) showed that the effect of instrumental attitude on intention to recycle was greater compared with the impact of affective attitude. these authors argued that the instrumental attitude construct held some similarity to moral norms, which are used quite often in models of pro-environmental behaviours. thus, considering the two components of attitude in extended tpb models would represent an interesting test of the importance of this distinction because pro-environmental behaviours may be motivated more by cognitive than affective evaluations compared with health behaviour. our first hypothesis was the following: h1. cognitive attitude towards the behaviours would have stronger associations with intentions than affective attitude. on the basis of the tpb, we proposed the subsequent hypotheses: h2. subjective norm will be positively associated with individuals' intentions to execute the two behaviours in workplaces during the next month. energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 388 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h3. pbc will be positively associated to intentions and to future behaviours measured one month later. h4. intentions would predict self-reported future behaviours. furthermore, the model was augmented with an additional predictor: habit. the two behaviours considered in this study are likely under habitual control, at least to some extent, because they are characterised by both repetition (i.e., they are typically made every day even more than once) and situational stability (i.e., they can take place at the same time of day and in the same places). thus, the aim of the study was to reveal whether the habit predicted, over and above the tpb constructs, behavioural intentions and behaviours and whether it acted as a moderator of the tpb relationships. therefore, we offered the following hypotheses: h5. habit will significantly increase the proportion of explained variance in both intentions and behaviours and will be positively associated with intentions and behaviours. h6. habit would moderate the relationships between intentions and behaviours: the relationships are expected to be stronger when the habit is low. given the rare and mixed evidence for moderating the effects of habit on the relationships between habit itself and other tpb constructs, we did not specify any related hypotheses for these relations. the present study has several contributions to make to the current literature. firstly, it enriches and expands the research on energy-saving behaviours in workplaces considering an additional variable (habit), which is not included in the tpb theory and used very rarely in research on these specific behaviours. further, this is the first study in the environmental field that investigated the moderating effects of habit with regard to all the relationships foreseen by the tpb. secondly, although fishbein and ajzen (2010) acknowledge that the attitude construct is comprised of two components that represent affective and cognitive (or instrumental) evaluations of a behaviour, to our knowledge, these two components of attitude has not been considered in the case of energy-saving behaviours. finally, as far as we know, this is the first study that has been conducted in the italian context, which can contribute to the increase in geographical dispersion of research on pro-environmental behaviours in workplaces. method procedure and participants two waves of data collection were organised. at time 1, participants completed a structured questionnaire, including constructs measures of the hypothesised tpb model and socio-demographic variables. one month later, at time 2, the same participants completed a second questionnaire, which included self-reported behaviour measures. one hundred university students from two introductory courses in social psychology at padua university collected data as part of a research experience assignment. each student was asked to recruit four participants (adult workers at different organisations, companies, and industries) with whom they were acquainted and who lived in the same community or neighbourhood. the students distributed the instructions and the questionnaires for completion. they received no financial or other type of compensation. participants took part on a voluntary basis and were informed that they could refuse to answer any questions and were also assured canova & manganelli 389 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that all their responses would remain confidential. they completed the first questionnaire autonomously and returned it immediately. one month later, during scheduled appointments, they completed the second questionnaire and received a quick debriefing concerning the study’s aim. the completed questionnaires were carefully reviewed, and all questionnaires with missing values for the main variables were excluded. of the 400 potential participants asked to complete the first questionnaire, usable data were received from 337 individuals, for a response rate of 84.3%. of these, 295 participants (87.5%) also completed the second questionnaire. the final sample comprised 295 participants: 166 were females (56.3%), 126 were males (42.7%), and 3 were participants who did not indicate their gender (1%). the mean age was 40.27 years, sd = 12.40, and range 20–64. of the final respondents, 242 (82%) were office workers or technicians and 53 (18%) were self-employed workers, teachers, or blue-collar workers. as for job sectors, 206 (69.8%) were employed in the private sector and 86 (29.2%) in the public sector, with three (1%) not indicating their occupational sectors. concerning education, 5.8% (n = 17) had only completed compulsory schooling, 61% (n = 180) had high-school-level education, and 32.5% (n = 96) had university degrees. two (0.7%) participants did not indicate their education level. most live in northeastern italy (90.2%). measures at time 1, participants completed a structured anonymous questionnaire including the measures of tpb constructs, habit, and socio-demographic variables. at time 2, one month later, participants’ self-reported behavior measures were collected. the tpb constructs were assessed based on fishbein and ajzen’s (2010) guidelines, adapting items previously used in the italian context (canova & manganelli, 2016; canova et al., 2020). for both behaviours, the time reference was ‘the next month’. in the questionnaire, the two behaviours were presented in two different orders (see supplementary materials for items used to measure tpb constructs and habit). data analysis statistical analyses were performed using lisrel (version 8.8) and spss (version 22). lisrel was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis to check the measurement model and whether all measures detected distinct constructs. the analyses were performed using the maximum likelihood method applied to covariance matrices for both behaviours separately. goodness-of-fit was evaluated by means of the conventional indices that can be summarized as follows: χ2, χ2/df, cfi, rmsea, and srmr. usually, a satisfactory model is denoted by χ2 not being significant, χ2/df ≤ 3, cfi ≥ .95, rmsea ≤ .06, and srmr ≤ .08 (hu & bentler, 1999). spss was used for descriptive analyses, pearson’s correlation coefficients, reliability estimates through cronbach’s alpha, and testing the hypothesised tpb extended models by moderated hierarchical regression analyses with bias-corrected bootstrap 95% confidence intervals (with 1000 resampling; see supplementary materials for research data and code). energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 390 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results measurement model the measurement models used included seven latent factors (cognitive and affective attitudes, subjective norm, pbc, habit, intention, and behaviour) and twenty-six indicators. the goodness-of-fit indices were satisfactory: ‘switching off lights’, χ2(278) = 723.04, p < .001, rmsea = .07, 95% ci [.06, .08], cfi = .96, srmr = .06; ‘switching electronic devices’, χ2(278) = 749.99, p < .001, rmsea = .08, 95% ci [.07, .08], cfi = .97, srmr = .06. all standardised factor loadings presented significant values (‘switching off lights’: from .55 to .95; ‘switching off devices’: from .55 to .94), showing that each latent factor was defined by its own indicators. the correlations among the latent factors were all significant (except for the correlation between affective attitude and behaviour in the case of ‘switching off devices’, where ϕ = .09); for both behaviours, the most correlated constructs were intention and pbc (‘switching off lights’: ϕ = .82; ‘switching off devices’: ϕ =. 87). in every case, the 95% confidence intervals, obtained by considering two standard errors above and below the coefficients, did not include the perfect correlation (i.e., 1.00), thus supporting the fact that all measures captured distinct constructs (bagozzi, 1994). descriptive statistics cronbach’s alpha, means and standard deviations of tpb constructs, and habit and self-reported behaviours have been shown in table 1. cronbach’s coefficients were satisfactory for all measures, and composite scores for each construct were computed. respondents intended to carry out the two energy-saving behaviours over the next month. the evaluation of the acts (cognitive attitude) was positive and affective reactions (affective attitude) were favourable. participants stated that they perceived good control (pbc) over the two energy-saving behaviours and that they felt quite strong social pressure from significant important others. they also declared a good level of habit for both behaviours. finally, at time 2, behaviours were carried out quite often during the last month. table 1 reliability coefficients, descriptive statistics, and correlations between the tpb constructs (n = 295) construct switching off lights switching off electronic devices 1 2 3 4 5 6 7α m sd α m sd 1. cognitive attitudea .79 6.52 0.69 .79 6.41 0.84 .51 .35 .35 .52 .42 .25 2. affective attitudea .78 5.64 1.05 .78 5.60 1.03 .46 .30 .25 .35 .31 .10c 3. subjective norma .83 5.68 1.36 .87 5.56 1.46 .22 .18 .46 .51 .49 .29 4. pbca .82 5.77 1.23 .87 5.72 1.43 .48 .31 .25 .74 .57 .36 5. intentiona .87 6.02 1.00 .91 5.92 1.24 .58 .41 .31 .68 .74 .45 6. habita .96 5.70 1.43 .96 5.62 1.59 .36 .32 .26 .51 .61 .34 7. behaviourb .90 3.81 0.75 .92 3.67 0.93 .21 .14 .18 .24 .36 .31 note. lower diagonal: switching off lights; upper diagonal: switching off electronic devices. pbc = perceived behavioural control. ameasured on a 7-point scale. bmeasured on a 5-point scale. cnot significant, other correlations are significant p < .01. zero-order correlations between all variables included in the regression analyses are reported in table 1. for both behaviours, the highest correlations (large effect sizes) were those between pbc and intention, canova & manganelli 391 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and between habit and intention. moreover, the correlations between cognitive attitudes and intention showed similar effect sizes. the other correlations among the tpb constructs are regarded as medium or small effect sizes. behavioural intentions to test our hypotheses, we conducted two moderated hierarchical regression analyses, with intention as the dependent variable. the tpb constructs (cognitive and affective attitude, subjective norm, and pbc) were entered in the first step, and habit was entered in the second step. in the third step, the two-way interaction terms between habit and tpb variables were entered. all the variables were standardized (see supplementary materials for tables and figures showing the results of regression analyses). regarding the behaviour of ‘switching off non-essential lights’, in step 1, cognitive attitude (b = 0.28, p < .001), affective attitude (b = 0.11, p < .05), subjective norm (b = 0.11, p < .05), and pbc (b = 0.49, p < .001) accounted for 56.4% of the variance in intention and were associated significantly with this outcome variable, with pbc emerging as the strongest predictor. in step 2, the inclusion of habit contributed a further 5.7% to the variance explained in intention. cognitive attitude (b = 0.25, p < .001), subjective norm (b = 0.08, p < .05), pbc (b = 0.37, p < .001), and habit (b = 0.29, p < .001) were significant predictors in this step. in the last step, the interaction terms between habit and the tpb constructs were introduced, accounting for significant incremental variance in intention (3.4%). the overall model explained 65.5% of the variance in intention. in this model, cognitive attitude (b = 0.28, p < .001), subjective norm (b = 0.10, p < .01), pbc (b = 0.31, p < .001), habit (b = 0.20, p < .001), and one interaction term, given by pbc × habit, were significantly associated with intention (b = -0.16, p < .001); pbc and cognitive attitude were the strongest predictors. significant interaction was examined more closely by calculating the regression slopes from the full equation at the high and low (+1 sd and -1 sd) levels of habit (dawson, 2014). the relationship between pbc and intention was stronger for individuals with low habit (b = 0.47, t (285) = 8.64, p < .0001) than for those with high habit (b = 0.15, t (285) = 2.76, p < .007). regarding the behaviour of ‘switching off electronic devices’, the core variables of the tpb explained 64.6% of the intention variance. cognitive attitude (b = 0.25, p < .001), subjective norm (b = 0.15, p < .01), and pbc (b = 0.58, p < .001) were associated significantly with intention. pbc was the strongest predictor. habit, introduced in step 2, contributed a further 8.4% to the explained intention variance and was associated significantly with intention (b = 0.38, p < .001). the interaction terms in step 3 made a significant contribution (3.1%) to explaining the variance, and the overall model explained 76.1% of the intention variance. cognitive attitude (b = 0.09, p < .05), pbc (b = 0.42, p < .001), habit (b = 0.39, p < .001), and two interaction terms − cognitive attitude × habit (b = -0.11, p < .05) and subjective norm × habit (b = 0.14, p < .05) − were associated significantly with intention; pbc and habit were the strongest predictors. the relationship between cognitive attitude and intention was significant for individuals with low habit (-1 sd; b = 0.20, t (285) = 3.62, p < .0001) and it was not significant for those with high habit (+1 sd; b = -0.01, t (285) = -.26, ns). the relationship between subjective norm and intention was significant for individuals with high habit (b = 0.19, t (285) = 3.45, p < .002) and it was not significant for those with low habit (b = -0.09, t (285) = -1.63, ns). energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 392 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-reported behaviours in steps 1 and 2 of hierarchical regression analyses, direct effects of the tpb core constructs and habit were considered. intention was introduced in step 3. finally, interaction terms among the tpb constructs, intention, and habit were introduced in the equations in step 4. regarding the behaviour ‘switching off lights’, only habit had a significant direct effect (b = 0.22, p < .05) on self-reported behaviour (step 2), which did not appear to be significant when controlling for intention (b = 0.29, p < .01; step 3). thus, intention mediated the relationship between habit and self-reported behaviour. the indirect effect is significant (b = 0.08, z = 2.96, p < .004; 95% ci [.02, .17]). the interaction terms did not contribute to incremental variance in behaviour. the tpb constructs and habit explained 15.1% of the variance in behaviour. regarding the behaviour ‘switching off electronic devices’, direct effects of pbc emerged at step 1 (b = 0.26, p < .01) and at step 2 (b = 0.20, p < .05), which did not appear to be significant when controlling for intention (b = 0.38, p < .01; step 3). thus, intention mediated the relationship between pbc and self-reported behaviour. the indirect effect was significant (b = 0.17, z = 3.59, p < .0004; 95% ci [.06, .28]). the introduction of interaction terms did not increase the quota of explained variance in behaviour significantly, and none of the interaction terms was significant. in this case, the tpb constructs and habit explained 21.5% of the variance in behaviour. discussion the findings of this study sustained the validity of the tpb in predicting energy-saving behaviours in workplaces, providing further evidence of the efficacy of this model. the results showed that intention was the only direct predictor of the two behaviours. in turn, intention was associated with cognitive attitude, subjective norm and pbc. hence, the three hypotheses h1, h2, and h4 were supported. intention performs as an integrative variable gathering the impact of cognitive attitude, subjective norm, and pbc. hypothesis h3 was partially supported. in fact, pbc was the strongest predictor of intention to switch off both lights and electronic devices, but it is was not directly associated with behaviours. in the literature, the overall evidence concerning the efficacy of pbc in directly predicting behaviour is not consistent. additionally, it has been suggested that pbc represents not only perceived physical control but also perceived difficulty or even social appropriateness, which might clarify why pbc is an important construct to consider when predicting people's intentions to conserve energy in public settings. some studies suggest that perceived control is more important in office settings (e.g., littleford et al., 2014) or in other contexts outside of the home (e.g., maki & rothman, 2017) and is perhaps less relevant in one's own home. however, the finding that intention predicted behaviour but pbc did not suggests that, for the energy-saving behaviours considered in this study, while pbc serves to shape intention—even after controlling for the effects of habit—it does not predict behaviours that seem to be under individual volitional control. the core variables of tpb explained high quotas of variance intention (56.4% and 64.6%). these percentages of accounted variance, similar to those reported by greaves et al. (2013) and lo et al. (2014), might be because in our research, we focused on highly specific behaviours that may not be open to alternative interpretations. therefore, the possibility of incompatibility between the person's representation of the attitude target and the actual target, towards which the attitude and intention are directed, was very low. affective canova & manganelli 393 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and cognitive attitudes towards the behaviours were favourable, but only the cognitive component of attitude was associated with intention. cognitive attitude reflects the anticipated positive or negative consequences and perceived benefits and costs of the behaviour. it is interesting to note the differences in effects that the two components of attitude have, compared with the behaviours of food choice and consumption. for these behaviours, affective attitude, i.e., the pleasantness of foods, emerged usually as a predictor of intention to consume a certain type of food, as consumption of most liked food usually leads to enjoyment (canova et al., 2020). the two components have not been studied specifically in the energy-saving domain, but the cognitive component has considerable similarity with moral norm, given the environmental impact of energy-saving behaviours. moreover, our results, in line with those of rhodes et al. (2015), support the position that the two components of attitude have different relationships with intention, even in the context of pro-environmental behaviours. adding habit increased the portion of variance explained in intentions and behaviours. in the case of behaviours, the increase, although significant, was lower. the quotas of additional variance explained in intentions were similar to those reported in the literature. however, the relatively low explained variance of behaviours, when habit was also considered, indicated that other motivational, volitional, and/or environmental factors need to be considered for predicting energy-saving behaviours. the intention-behaviour gap, that is, the difference between a participant’s intention to act in a certain way and the actual behaviour, is very common in tpb-based studies (yuriev et al., 2020). some reasons for this gap have been highlighted: a) events that occurred between assessment of intentions and assessment of behaviours may have produced changes in intention, b) unanticipated obstacles may have prevented the individuals from carrying out their intentions, and c) measures of actual behaviour can be fallible both with respect to reliability and with respect to construct validity. hence, validate measures of pro-environmental behaviours would allow researchers to identify and evaluate actual behaviours with more precision (de leeuw, valois, ajzen, & schmidt, 2015). habit was a strong predictor of intention, but it was not directly associated with behaviours, and its effect was mediated by intention in the case of switching off lights. thus, the hypothesis h5 was partially supported. our results on the relationship between habit and behaviour are different from those of other studies (e.g., lo et al., 2014); however, we must bear in mind that in our research, the behaviours were surveyed at a later stage than the one in which habit and intentions were detected. finally, habit did not moderate the intention-behaviour relationship. therefore our hypothesis h6 was not supported. our findings—in line with murtagh et al. (2012), do not support the behaviourist view that habit diminishes the effects of rational decision-making (e.g., intention) on behaviour— suggest that motivational and habitual processes have complementary but independent effects on the two switching behaviours. nevertheless, habit intervened to modify the strength of some relationships between predictors and intentions: a) if individuals had low habit in switching off lights, the intention to do it was more likely if they perceived the behaviour under their control; b) still, if individuals had low habit of completely switching off their electronic devices, the intention to do it was more likely if they developed a strong cognitive attitude, i.e., if they positively evaluated the consequences of their behaviour; c) finally, if individuals had a poor habit of switching off electronic devices, social pressure had no effect on the formation of intention. this study has a few limitations that should be considered in generalising its results and in choosing directions for future research and interventions. first, we interviewed a convenience sample of workers from different organisations; therefore, the results may not be generalisable. moreover, we have used single-source selfreported data, which can overestimate energy-saving behaviours. although this is a widespread approach, some scholars have criticised it. indeed, self-reported data, especially for behaviours, are vulnerable to social energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 394 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ desirability, social approval biases, and retrieval inaccuracy. future research should include more objective measures, such as tracking of energy use, e.g., via smart plugs (ruepert et al., 2016). moreover, although our study considers a prospective measure of behaviour, it is correlational in design and does not allow the inference of causal relations. in this study, organizational factors or context characteristics were not considered. future studies could examine which contextual factors affected the likelihood that the tpb constructs or other variables predicted different types of pro-environmental behaviours in workplaces. for example, lo et al. (2014) found that the number of office co-workers had a negative effect on the behaviour of switching off lights, over and above the tpb constructs. the number of co-workers also had negative effects on attitude and on perceived control over switching off lights. future research should examine other contextual factors more deeply, e.g., the green-work climate, i.e., employees’ perceptions regarding organisational characteristics and behavioural norms within a company that pertain to environmental sustainability (norton, zacher, & ashkanasy, 2014); perceived organisational support for the environment (lamm, tosti-kharas, & king, 2015); and workplace leaders’ own habits/behaviours and support for green initiatives (dumitru et al., 2016; wesselink et al., 2017). finally, beliefs associated with attitude towards the behaviours (behavioural beliefs), subjective norms (normative beliefs), and pbc (control beliefs; ajzen, 1991) were not included. thus, future studies could examine these beliefs to fully understand behavioural decisions and develop interventions to promote energy-saving behaviours in workplaces. nevertheless, our results have certain implications for companies on how they can encourage their employees to adopt energy-saving practices in workplaces. company management should recognise the role of employees in energy saving and improve their perception of organisational benefits (e.g., showing how much energy and money employees can save for the company if they engage in energy saving). pbc significantly promotes the intention to save energy. creating a feeling of self-efficacy, i.e., the ability to perform the act, is important in developing energy saving intentions. thus, interventions to increase pbc are very important. individuals should be supported to overcome obstacles and barriers by creating favourable circumstances (e.g., providing an energy-saving manual, providing easy access to equipment controls for turning off lights and devices), which should be introduced to develop the intention to perform energy-saving behaviours. moreover, low habit to perform energy-saving behaviours in workplaces and low pbc can obstacle the formation of intention and, consequently, the performance of the behaviour. to reduce energy consumption in workplaces, energy-saving behaviours should become habitual in everyday life, which may require the deactivation old habits, particularly for frequent behaviours in relatively stable contexts (lülfs & hahn, 2014). in fact, successful habit modification interventions involve breaking up the contextual factors that automatically cue habit execution and introducing changes in the context. conclusion this study expands the literature on energy-saving behavioural intentions and self-reported behaviours. overall, we found that the tpb could be useful in understanding energy-saving intentions and behaviours in workplaces. intentions were the only direct predictor of behaviours. furthermore, the results indicated that cognitive attitude (perceived instrumentality of the act), subjective norm, pbc, and habit were associated significantly with intentions, while affective attitude was not associated with them. this result is interesting canova & manganelli 395 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and new in literature on energy conservation in workplaces, supporting the idea that the two components of attitude have different relationships with intentions in different behavioural contexts. habit increased the portion of variance explained in intentions, but was not directly associated with behaviours and did not moderate the intention-behaviour relationships. the study has several practical implications; nevertheless, it suggests that companies and management, to improve these pro-environmental behaviours among their workforces, should remove obstacles and barriers to their execution. funding the research project was supported by funds from the university of padua: ‘dor scientific research funds – 2016’ – dor1635727/16. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. data availability a dataset for this study is freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available: • research data: spss dataset (canova & manganelli, 2020a). • code: spss data analysis script (canova & manganelli, 2020b). • measures of research constructs, tables 2 and 3, and figures 1, 2 and 3 showing the results of regression analyses (canova & manganelli, 2020c). index of supplementary materials canova, l., & manganelli, a. m. (2020a). supplementary materials to "energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour" [research data]. psychopen. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2798 canova, l., & manganelli, a. m. (2020b). supplementary materials to "energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour" [code]. psychopen. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2799 canova, l., & manganelli, a. m. (2020c). supplementary materials to "energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour" [measures, figures, tables]. psychopen. https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.3121 energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 396 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2798 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2799 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.3121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references abrahamse, w., & steg, l. (2009). how do socio-demographic and psychological factors relate to household’s direct and indirect energy use and savings? journal of economic psychology, 30, 711-720. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2009.05.006 ajzen, i. (1991). the theory of planned behavior. organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50, 179-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-t bagozzi, r. p. 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(2014). determinants of employee electricity saving: the role of social benefits, personal benefits and organizational electricity saving climate. journal of cleaner production, 66, 280-287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.10.021 about the authors luigina canova hold a ph.d. in personality and social psychology. she is assistant professor of social psychology at university of padova, italy. the research interests focused on the following fields: a) construction of measurement instruments and the techniques to evaluate the psychometric properties of such instruments, b) the ambivalent sexism and its relationships with conservative ideology and the attitude toward women manager, c) the reasoned action approach applied to economic, pro-environmental and healthy behaviours. anna maria manganelli is full professor of social psychology at university of padova, italy. she has carried out studies and researches in the following field: a) the study of "modern" forms of prejudice and their relationships with political orientation and authoritarianism; b) the ambivalent sexism and its relationships with conservative ideology and gender issues; c) psychosocial models about the relationship between attitude and behavior, applied to economic, pro-environmental and healthy behaviors. energy-saving behaviours in workplaces 400 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 384–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jclepro.2013.10.021 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ energy-saving behaviours in workplaces (introduction) the present study method procedure and participants measures data analysis results measurement model descriptive statistics behavioural intentions self-reported behaviours discussion conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors personal growth and motto goals: strengthening emotion regulation ability via affirmatory metaphors coaching research reports personal growth and motto goals: strengthening emotion regulation ability via affirmatory metaphors coaching elena fischer 1,2 , christina mühlberger 1, julia weber 3, eva jonas 1, julius kuhl 4, markus quirin 2,5 [1] department of psychology, paris lodron university of salzburg, salzburg, austria. [2] department of psychology, private university of applied sciences goettingen, goettingen, germany. [3] ismz zürich, zurich, switzerland. [4] institute of psychology, university of osnabrueck, osnabrueck, germany. [5] sport psychology unit, technical university of munich, munich, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 received: 2023-05-25 • accepted: 2023-11-09 • published (vor): 2024-02-29 handling editor: sandra obradovic, london school of economics, london, united kingdom corresponding author: elena fischer, hellbrunnerstraße 34, 5020 salzburg, austria. e-mail: elena.fischer@stud.plus.ac.at abstract interventions can foster personal growth. however, our understanding of the specific mechanisms for change and the types of interventions driving this growth process remains limited. in this study, we focused on emotion regulation ability as a potential mechanism. we examined the effects of an affirmation coaching intervention on changes in emotion regulation ability, an important facet of personality. in this coaching intervention, participants created a personal mantra/goal derived from a selected image and positive associations linked to this image (motto goals). this is considered to enhance emotion regulation abilities by internalizing self-stabilizing value. we assigned sixty-six participants to either this affirmation coaching intervention or one of two control coaching interventions: specific-goal versus indulgence coaching. before and after each intervention, participants completed questionnaires. only the affirmation coaching intervention significantly increased in adaptive aspects of personality. notably, the affirmation coaching intervention increased emotion regulation ability, and this effect persisted even when controlling for extraversion and neuroticism. furthermore, exploratory analysis showed that extraversion increased following the affirmation coaching, while neuroticism remained unchanged. our results suggest that emotion regulation ability might be the key factor in personality growth. it could be more malleable and/or respond more strongly to short-term coaching, compared to neuroticism. thus, the malleability of personality traits may not be an all-or-nothing phenomenon; rather, it could depend on the facet of emotion regulation ability. we discuss potential mechanisms of personality growth, distinguishing between emotion regulation and emotion sensitivity. keywords personality growth, coaching intervention, emotion regulation ability, neuroticism, extraversion contrary to a decades-long opinion on the relative stability of personality traits within personality psychology (strelau, 1983), a broad meta-analysis demonstrated that personality, especially neuroticism and extraversion, can be changed through interventions (roberts et al., 2017). neuroticism is a major personality trait that reflects the experience of negative states relating to anxiety, depression, or vulnerability (mccrae & costa, 2013). individuals with high levels of neuroticism inhibit arousal more slowly and are aroused more quickly following aversive stimuli (rusting & larsen, 1997). extraversion, in contrast, has been associated with a sensitivity to positive experiences and happiness (rusting & larsen, 1997), and individuals high in extraversion may thus regulate negative emotions by approaching positive experiences (ng & diener, 2009). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12031&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9580-6661 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ personality growth interventions therapeutic and non-therapeutic interventions show personality changes with similar effect size (roberts et al., 2017). this is interesting because any change demonstrated by non-clinical interventions is a stronger indication of real improvement beyond a return to baseline of a healthy psyche. within interventions, discrepancy awareness, resource activation, awareness of beliefs/motives, and practicing new behaviours are relevant factors for personality growth1 (stieger et al., 2021). also, specific goals and plans appear to be important for personality growth (hudson & fraley, 2015). however, it is unclear which underlying mechanisms drive this effect and which types of interventions are especially effective—questions that have not sufficiently been answered by previous studies (roberts et al., 2017). still, such research is highly interesting because of the high prevalence of mental illness and the alignment and optimization of treatments. as we will argue, the ability to regulate negative emotions may constitute such a mechanism, and that an intervention that uses affirmations may have the potential to increase an individual’s emotion regulation ability (era). thus, theoretical implications from the current study encompass an enhanced comprehension of the mechanisms underlying personal growth, while practical implications pertain to recommendations for coaches. self-affirmation is a basic motivator that promotes self-worth and psychological well-being (pandey et al., 2023). it involves striving for self-integrity by being reminded of one's own self-esteem and other self-resources (pandey et al., 2021). consequently, self-affirmation entails the act of reflecting on cherished values or one's own positive attributes, resulting in adaptive cognitive and behavioral outcomes. the applied affirmation coaching (see motto goals, storch et al., 2011) addresses relevant components of interventions for personality growth: personal resources and positive emotions are focused on in addition to conscious motives. since a large part of emotion regulation processes operate unconsciously (koole & rothermund, 2011), unconscious needs are also addressed in this coaching. moreover, affirmations have already been found to influence emotion-regulation ability (storch et al., 2011) and the self-system is involved in the formation of affirmations by activating self and emotion regulation (quirin, bode, & kuhl, 2011). the term ‘self-system’ pertains to an individual's own convictions derived e.g., from personal values, as opposed to being biased by external forces such as other people. we anticipate that the affirmation coaching will yield personality growth due to an alignment of the mentioned components with change factors for personality growth interventions (allemand & flückiger, 2017). here we follow a functional, process-oriented approach according to which traits are considered relatively stable tendencies to adopt cognitive or affective processes (quirin et al., 2020). such an approach is oriented towards distin­ guishing between process-related tendencies such as emotion sensitivity versus emotion regulation (quirin et al., 2023). previous research used extraversion and neuroticism as proxies for emotional sensitivity (rusting & larsen, 1997). in contrast to the process-oriented approach, factor-analytical models (e.g., the five-factor model) do not include personality components (domains or facets) explicitly expressing era, which does not contradict the possibility that era is a distinct trait as items submitted to factor analysis may not have been designed to express regulation (quirin et al., 2020). in fact, previous studies demonstrated that the interaction between high emotional sensitivity and high era, which are typically negatively correlated, predicts well-being, over and above low levels of emotional sensitivity (baumann et al., 2007). accordingly, emotional sensitivity (as for example approximated by extraversion or neuroticism scales) and era are distinct traits. emotion regulation ability era, the self-regulation of emotions, is considered the potential to autonomously modify the affective response to salient (unpleasant) stimuli and is a central and distinct personality trait (koole, 2009). era has been related to extraversion and neuroticism. extraversion has strongly been associated with a sensitivity to positive affective states and neuroticism more readily trigger negative affective states (rusting & larsen, 1997). neuroticism was related to reduced usage of reappraisal across different study designs (hughes et al., 2020). moreover, 1) we refer to ‘personality growth’ as adaptive changes in personality traits. ‘these adaptations might encompass the integration of negative experiences as well as improvements in needs and goal attainment, which are typically considered as a basis for enhancements in happiness’ (quirin et al., 2023). emotion regulation ability 26 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ high neuroticism was associated with low adaptability and reduced persistence and with more emotion regulation strat­ egies that are typically considered maladaptive (barańczuk, 2019). extroverts are more likely to use emotion regulation strategies that involve situation modification or cognitive reappraisal (barańczuk, 2019). ng and diener (2009) found that dysfunctional era, i.e., suppression and repression, mediate the link between neuroticism and negative emotions. functional era, i.e., reappraisal and acceptance, mediate the association between extraversion and positive emotions. additionally, self-regulatory and self-focused personality constructs, such as self-esteem, as well as factors like social desirability, job attitudes, and performance, are positively correlated with era (diefendorff et al., 2000). there are also findings on hormones that show that era predicts the oxytocin-cortisol interaction (quirin, kuhl, & düsing, 2011) and the interaction of left-frontal activation shift (eeg) with cortisol response to a social-evaluative threat (düsing et al., 2016). furthermore, era was found to be related to the functional network of the amygdala (schlüter, fraenz, pinnow, friedrich, et al., 2018) and to increased left hemispheric prefrontal asymmetry under the control of behavioral activation or inhibition (haehl et al., 2021). furthermore, the following differentiation can be made. era refers to individual differences in regulating emotions once emotions are aroused (koole, 2009). by contrast, neuroticism and extraversion may refer to individual differences in both emotion generation (emotional sensitivity) and emotion regulation (emotion regulation emerge after emotion generation). however, era has not yet been studied as the malleable component in personality growth. evidence show that era may be more malleable than emotional sensitivity. for example, neuroticism is moderately inheritable, whereas era appears to be more socialized (mcrae et al., 2017; suri et al., 2018). in general, the body of studies also indicates that era is learnable (morris et al., 2007). because of this relative malleability, it is likely to assume that it is era that ultimately drives personality growth. consequently, potential intervention effects may specifically affect era changes. present research and hypotheses we investigate era as a potential underlying variable influencing personality growth and applied an affirmation coaching (see motto goals, storch et al., 2011). a third of the participants were assigned to this affirmation coaching, and the other participants received one of the two control interventions (one-third received a specific-goal coaching and the remaining one-third received an indulgence coaching). our hypothesis are as follows: first, we predicted that an affirmation coaching significantly increases participants' era compared with the control interventions (hypothesis 1). next, and most importantly, we predicted that this era improvement results from changes in the regulation of emotions once they are aroused rather than emotion generation or sensitivity (hypothesis 2). we therefore expect that if we account for extraversion and/or neuroticism as covariates, the improvement in era remains significant. method we used a 3 (affirmation coaching (experimental), specific-goal coaching (control), indulgence coaching (control)) × 2 (pre-, and post-conditions) research design. consequently, participants in the experimental and control conditions were tested for era, neuroticism, and extraversion before and after receiving coaching. participants we conducted a power analysis using g*power 3.1. (faul et al., 2007). the required sample size is 66 persons (assuming medium effect size f = 0.25, 1-β = 0.80, and α = 0.05). a total of 66 participants (50 female, 42 students; mage = 32.9 years, sd = 13.7) from osnabrueck, germany and the surrounding area participated in this study. they were recruited via notices at the university of osnabrueck and via advertisements in a local newspaper. participants were randomly assigned to six groups (two coaching groups for each condition). of the 70 participants initial registered, four did not show up for the coaching and four changed coaching groups due to time constraints before the coaching started. the affirmation coaching had 24 participants (17 female; mage = 33.7 years, sd = 14.0), fischer, mühlberger, weber et al. 27 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the specific-goal coaching 23 (18 female; mage = 32.4 years, sd = 13.6), and the indulgence coaching 19 (15 female; mage = 32.4 years, sd = 14.1). the ethics committee of the university of osnabrueck approved the study. inclusion and exclusion criteria inclusion criteria was a motivation to participate in coaching that reflected a genuine interest in personal change. a glucose measurement, which, though not pertinent to the current paper, resulted in the following exclusion criteria: diabetes, pregnancy, and the use of permanent medication. procedure and coachings a battery of questionnaires including those on era, neuroticism and extraversion, were completed twice before the coaching to determine a baseline score of the participants (see figure 1). before the start of the intervention, participants reported a personal unpleasant duty to the study administration, i.e., a regular or even daily activity that is performed reluctantly. we worked on unpleasant duties for reasons of uniformity or standardization and because of the given discrepancy between the actual self and the ideal/ought self. further, in performing an unpleasant duty, it is important to be able to regulate one’s emotions. figure 1 procedure of the study note. eg = experimental group; cg = control group. emotion regulation ability 28 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the coachings, individuals learned how to formulate either an affirmation, a specific goal or they indulged in positive future-state fantasies related to their unpleasant duty. the three group coachings, i.e., groups of people who acquire or improve personal skills through exchange on the principle of self-help, were conducted in a 4-hour face-to-face coaching of 9 to 13 participants. affirmation coaching in the affirmation coaching (storch et al., 2011), participants selected an image that serves as a resource for their unpleasant duty. afterwards, positive associations to the pictures of each participant were formed in small groups. working individually in a stepwise process, an affirmation was then formulated on these positive associations. for example, one participant selected a photo of an orange and created the affirmation ‘by virtue of the spring sun i mature to a firm and sweet fruit’ (unpleasant duty: ‘prepare and rework courses’). specific-goal coaching formulating specific goals has been widely studied and proven to be effective regarding goal attainment (locke & latham, 1990). however, in comparison to affirmations, specific goals lead to low goal achievement and lower intrinsic motivation (bruggmann, 2003). in the specific-goal coaching, a high specific goal was formed (locke & latham, 1990). the participants initially divided their unpleasant duty into five subgoals. then they rated these subgoals by difficulty (0 = not difficult, 100 = extremely difficult) and selected one subgoal from the range between 70 and 90. this goal was specified using questions (e.g., ‘when will you implement your goal?’). subsequently, the participants summarized what they had identified into a clearly formulated goal. an example of a specific goal is ‘sunday and thursday i will go jogging in the park for 1h right after work, even if the weather is bad, because i will feel better afterwards’ (unpleasant duty: ‘exercise regularly’). indulgence coaching since the literature shows that goal setting is particularly relevant for personality growth (hudson & fraley, 2015), and goals are formulated in both affirmation coaching (affirmations) and specific-goal coaching (action goals), we implemented a further control intervention. in this indulgence coaching, positive affect and personal resources are triggered through positive future-state fantasies. this provides a precipitate emotional reward for achieving goals, which does not lead to direct behavioural activation (oettingen, 2012). in the indulgence coaching, future-related, spontaneous, and positive simulations were formed for the unpleasant duty, ignoring negative aspects of reality (oettingen, 2012). in group discussions, positive future fantasies were ex­ changed. this was followed by a half-hour imagination of the future in which participants were guided into personal positive future fantasies. the future fantasies were then recounted in the plenary. next, in a written reflection exercise, the participants wrote down their positive future fantasies. the participants then drew a picture of their most beautiful future fantasy with coloured crayons. an example of a positive future fantasy is ‘after writing the thesis, i feel at peace with myself, which leads me to be calm in my studies and life, and which makes me successful’ (unpleasant duty: ‘write bachelor thesis’). the coachings were conducted by two coaches, in which each coach conducted each coaching once. the coaches were blinded to the theoretical concepts and the hypotheses of the study. the post data collection took place one week after the coachings. measures neuroticism and extraversion the two subscales ‘extraversion’ and ‘neuroticism’ of the german version of the neo-ffi (borkenau & ostendorf, 1993) were used for the present study. the scale measures the extent which statements apply to one in general using a 5-point likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (4). in the current study, the subscale ‘extraversion’ and ‘neuroticism’ had an internal consistency of .84 (12 items, e.g., ‘i enjoy having a lot of people around me’) and .89 (12 items, e.g., ‘i often feel inferior to others’), respectively. the test-retest reliability of the two scales, measured at the fischer, mühlberger, weber et al. 29 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ first survey and after the intervention, show for ‘extraversion’ an rrt = .88, p < .001 and for ‘neuroticism’ an rrt = .88, p < .001. emotion-regulation ability the german hakemp measures action control in three scales (kuhl, 1994; for english version see acs). we used the 12-item subscale measuring action orientation after failure vs. preoccupation. this subscale measures the degree to which individuals disengage from negative experiences and concomitant emotions. each item contains a description of a situation, followed by two alternative answers (e.g., ‘when i’ve worked for weeks on one project and then everything goes completely wrong …’; (a) ‘… it takes me a long time to get over it’ [state-oriented approach]; (b) ‘… it bothers me for a while but then i don’t think about it anymore’ [action-oriented approach]). in the present study, the internal consistency is α = .86. the test-retest reliability, measured at the first survey and after the intervention, shows an rrt = .76, p < .001. statistical analysis the statistical analysis was performed using rstudio (2022) version 4.0.5 and ibm spss statistics (2019) version 25. the alpha error level was set at 5%. after excluding one outlier and checking for normal distribution (shapiro-wilk test), differences in the two baseline measurements and between the coachings in the baseline measurements were examined using anova. then, we calculated the mean of the two pre-measurements, which we used as the baseline value for all further calculations. to investigate associations between variables, pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated. using the package lme4 in rstudio, mixed-effects models were performed to calculate differences between the coachings and to explore associations between variables. for this purpose, we set crossed random effects for participants and coded the fixed effects of condition (affirmation, specific-goal, indulgence coaching) and the time of measurement (before, after coaching) as factors. due to repeated measurements, we included random intercepts to account for the by-participant dependencies. to account for prior differences between participants, we controlled for the baseline scores (dv). we compared the models using the aic and determined normal distribution and homoscedasticity using residual plots (sjplot package). to fit the models, we used restricted maximum likelihood estimation. p-values were determined using likelihood ratio tests of the model with the interaction effect (group × time) or the covariate(s) against the model without this interaction effect or without the covariate(s) (see appendix a and appendix b). the corresponding effect sizes (ηp2) were interpreted according to cohen (1988), with ηp2 = 0.01 as a small effect, ηp2 = 0.06 as a medium effect, and ηp2 = 0.14 as a large effect. results table 1 shows the descriptive findings. non-significant results were found in the shapiro-wilk test, thereby affirming the assumption of a normal distribution, except for the post-measurement of neuroticism in the specific-goal coaching. table 1 means and standard deviations for each variable and each coaching intervention variable affirmation coaching specific-goal coaching indulgence coaching t1 t2 t3 t1 t2 t3 t1 t2 t3 era 4.75 (3.33) 5.33 (3.61) 6.42 (3.45) 6.05 (3.44) 6.18 (4.01) 6.09 (3.71) 5.11 (3.38) 4.74 (3.51) 4.74 (3.74) extraversion 28.54 (6.14) 28.25 (7.24) 29.67 (5.80) 28.68 (7.75) 28.55 (6.69) 28.73 (7.13) 27.53 (6.49) 27.37 (8.15) 26.84 (8.19) neuroticism 21.04 (8.01) 19.83 (8.44) 19.83 (8.75) 21.45 (9.63) 21.14 (9.73) 22.14 (8.52) 23.37 (8.06) 24.58 (8.59) 23.21 (8.82) note. t1 = pre-coaching (8 weeks before coaching); t2 = pre-coaching (4 weeks before coaching); t3 = post-coaching (1 week after coaching); era = emotion regulation ability. emotion regulation ability 30 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we found no significant differences in the pre-measurements among the three coaching conditions. residual errors and random effects showed normal distributions for all variables. era and extraversion correlate significantly positively (r = .29, p = .02), whereas era and neuroticism do not correlate significantly (r = -.18, p = .16). mixed models analyse showed group × time interactions for era. specifically, era increased following affirmation coaching but remained unchanged after both specific-goal coaching and indulgence coaching (see table 2). consistent with our second hypothesis, these significant interactions persisted when we controlled for changes in extraversion (i.e., difference score t2-t1). furthermore, we controlled for change in neuroticism (i.e., difference score t2-t1). the group × time interactions for era once again remained statistically significant. furthermore, these interactions persisted even after controlling for both extraversion and neuroticism. table 2 group×time interactions of the mixed models interaction est/beta se 95% ci t p ηp2 era as dv coaching 1 × time -1.40 0.53 [-2.41, -0.38] -2.64 0.011 0.05 coaching 2 × time -1.56 0.55 [-2.62, -0.50] -2.84 0.005 0.06 era as dv + extraversion as cv coaching 1 × time -1.40 0.53 [-2.40, -0.39] -2.66 0.009 0.10 coaching 2 × time -1.56 0.55 [-2.60, -0.51] -2.83 0.005 0.11 era as dv + neuroticism as cv coaching 1 × time -1.40 0.53 [-2.41, -0.39] -2.65 0.009 0.05 coaching 2 × time -1.56 0.55 [-2.61, -0.51] -2.84 0.005 0.07 era as dv + neuroticism and extraversion as cv coaching 1 × time -1.40 0.53 [-2.43, -0.37] -2.66 0.009 0.05 coaching 2 × time -1.56 0.55 [-2.63, -0.49] -2.85 0.005 0.07 extraversion as dv coaching 1 × time -1.16 0.84 [-2.77, 0.46] -1.37 0.172 0.03 coaching 2 × time -1.88 0.88 [-3.56, -0.19] -2.14 0.034 0.07 extraversion as dv + era as cv coaching 1 × time -1.16 0.84 [-2.80, 0.48] -1.38 0.169 0.02 coaching 2 × time -1.88 0.87 [-3.58, -0.17] -2.15 0.033 0.04 neuroticism as dv coaching 1 × time 1.45 1.02 [-0.55, 3.44] 1.41 0.160 0.02 coaching 2 × time -0.16 1.06 [-2.23, 1.91] -0.15 0.880 0.00 note. coaching 1 = affiliation vs. specific-goal coaching; coaching 2 = affiliation vs. indulgence coaching; time = prevs. postcoaching; era = emotion regulation ability; dv = dependent variable; cv = control variable; df = 62. exploratory analysis we identified one significant group × time interaction for extraversion, indicating that extraversion increased follow­ ing the affirmation coaching compared to the indulgence coaching. we then controlled for change in era (difference score t2-t1) and found that this interaction remained significant. conversely, for neuroticism, we did not observe any significant interactions. discussion this study contributes to the discussion on the malleability of personality by examining the association between era and extraversion and neuroticism within this context. we predicted and found that an affirmation coaching significantly fischer, mühlberger, weber et al. 31 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ increases participants' era. moreover, we hypothesized that after controlling for extraversion and/or neuroticism, the significant change in era persist. our data also confirmed this hypothesis, indicating that the improvement in era is not attributable to changes in emotion generation but to changes in emotion regulation. the present experiment is promising, because it highlights that it is plausible that era could be the key factor in personality growth. considering this, our results suggest that there is no either-or in terms of the malleability of personality, but it depends on the component of era. this assumption could explain contradictory evidence on the changeability of personality (roberts et al., 2017; strelau, 1983). for instance, it is possible to change how well one copes with a particular stressful situation (era), but not how strongly one reacts to it. in line with this, era overlaps with but also differs from extraversion. both are associated with high positive mood (larsen & ketelaar, 1989), which may have had an impact on the increase in these (positive affect is a central feature of the affirmation coaching). for example, it has been found that era leads to a shift in attention away from negative stimuli in major depression (düsing et al., 2021). extraversion, in contrast, relates to sensitivity to incentives (rusting & larsen, 1997). additionally, era correlates low to moderately positively with extraversion (kuhl, 1984). the effects we found align with existing findings. evidence show that era may be more malleable than emotional sensitivity (mcrae et al., 2017; suri et al., 2018). other studies demonstrate that interventions can increase era (gross, 2015). treatments that do not directly target era, as well as those specifically designed to increase era, have positive effects on era (sloan et al., 2017). despite controlling for era, the significant increase in extraversion was still observed after the affirmation coach­ ing. the group setting and the interaction with other people (cf. sociability, activity) may have had a particularly positive effect on the increase of extraversion. positive affect could also be responsible: on the one hand, extraversion may increase because more positive affect is present, and on the other hand, increased positive affect may be due to an increase in extraversion. in general, the increase in extraversion suggests personality growth, as extroverted behaviour leads to a significantly higher well-being compared to introverted behaviour (margolis & lyubomirsky, 2020). it must be mentioned, however, that greater extraversion is not always better, especially when it comes to very high levels, which was not the case in the present study. several studies have reported the beneficial effects associated with the practice of self-affirmations. consistent with our findings, prior research has shown the efficacy of self-affirmation interventions, specifically in increasing positive emotional states while mitigating negative ones (pandey et al., 2021, 2023). as expected, individuals who received indulgence or specific-goal coaching did not change in era, extraversion, and neuroticism. this can be ascribed to the intervention's failure to target crucial change factors that influence personality growth. regarding allemand and flückiger's (2017) change factors, the affirmation coaching directly addresses the mechanisms of resource activation and motivation clarification, in contrast to the control conditions. it could therefore be assumed that these two factors apply to the mechanism of emotion regulation. the results are particularly surprising considering the brevity of the intervention (four hours) as intervention intensity plays a role in how effective an intervention is (van agteren et al., 2021). interventions that lasted less than a month showed less personality growth than those that lasted longer (roberts et al., 2017). as such, future studies using a longer affirmation intervention could find changes in neuroticism. this would be desirable because neuroticism is strongly positively correlated with depression and anxiety (jylhä & isometsä, 2006). another explanation for no improvement in neuroticism could be that the affirmation coaching did not target negative emotions. instead, it focused on personal values, resources, and positive emotions. if it had focused on changing negative emotions, the results on neuroticism might have been different. in addition, the sample might have been a contributing factor, as the mean score of neuroticism was already low before the intervention (m = 21.86, sd = 8.48; in a validation study by körner et al., 2008, m = 19.47, sd = 1.62). higher neuroticism scores before the intervention might have resulted in a significant reduction in neuroticism. limitations and future direction research has shown that self-selection makes a difference in intervention studies (lyubomirsky et al., 2011). our study was advertised as a self-management coaching program, but not as an intervention for personality growth. in other emotion regulation ability 32 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ words, participants in the present study where motivated to increase their era. recruiting participants who wanted personality growth might have yielded different results. we focused on the immediate effects. this limits the ability to infer actual personality change from this study. in terms of practice, it is certainly also of interest to examine the long-term stability of change. studies have already shown that personality growth by therapy remain stable for a period of more than one year (roberts et al., 2017). this would be particularly interesting regarding future studies using the affirmation coaching, as there is already evidence that affirmations show longer-term effects on era (fröhlich et al., 2012). despite the advantages of a high era, it should not be forgotten that there are also advantages of low era. for example, low era prevents premature actions and is associated with an increased risk perception (koole et al., 2005). next, other mechanisms could also be responsible for the effects found. a warm appreciation of the client in the affirmation coaching could impact the outcomes. desirability for future research would be an idiographic approach to achieve valid conclusions at the individual level (as within-person personality does not need to match between-person personality, renner et al., 2020). this approach opens an opportunity to better examine the effects of context and time. findings could subsequently be used to target personality growth through personalized interventions. furthermore, future studies should investigate further interindividual differences, such as gender differences (schlüter, fraenz, pinnow, voelkle, et al., 2018). conclusion the present study provides empirical evidence of changes in personality scale scores that might indicate personality growth. affirmation coaching increased era, and this effect persisted even when controlling for extraversion and neu­ roticism. additionally, extraversion increased after the affirmation coaching, while neuroticism remained unchanged. our results point to era being an important mechanism in the context of personality and coaching. examining the functional mechanisms underlying personality, as we have explored by examining sensitive and regulatory aspects, has the potential to reconnect personality psychology with neighbouring disciplines, such as clinical psychology. funding: this work was partially made possible through a funding from john templeton foundation (jtf 62700) granted to markus quirin. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references allemand, m., & flückiger, c. 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(2021). a systematic review and metaanalysis of psychological interventions to improve mental wellbeing. nature human behaviour, 5(5), 631–652. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01093-w appendices appendix a table a1 model building processes for the linear mixed models sampling units n total observations = 130 n subjects = 65 random effect subjects model fit lrt test against nested model specification model name nested / simpler model fixed effects added aic bic ll df df x2 emotion regulation random effects only null — — intercepts 620 629 -307 3 fixed effects two-way interactions + main effect group x time of measurement + era_baseline null group x time of measurement + era_baseline intercepts 441 467 -212 9 6 191.00*** fixed effects two-way interactions + main effects group x time of measurement + era_baseline + e fixed effects two-way interactions + e intercepts 400 469 -210 10 1 2.68 fixed effects two-way interactions + main effects group x time of measurement + era_baseline + n fixed effects two-way interactions + n intercepts 441 470 -211 10 1 1.69 fixed effects two-way interactions + main effects group x time of measurement + era_baseline + e + n fixed effects two-way interactions + e + n intercepts 441 473 -210 11 2 3.78 extraversion random effects only null — — intercepts 761 769 -377 3 fixed effects two-way interactions + main effect group x time of measurement + e_baseline null group x time of measurement + e_baseline intercepts 562 588 -272 9 6 210.00*** fixed effects two-way interactions + main effects group x time of measurement + e_baseline + era fixed effects two-way interactions + era intercepts 562 590 -271 10 1 2.63 neuroticism random effects only null — — intercepts 813 821 -403 3 fixed effects two-way inter-actions + main effect group x time of measurement + n_baseline null group x time of measurement + n_baseline intercepts 618 639 -297 9 6 212*** note. aic = aikake information criterion; bic = bayesian information criterion; ll = loglikelihood; df = degrees of freedom; lrt = likeilhood ratio test; x2 = chi-square; era = emotion regulation ability; e = extraversion; n = neuroticism; model specification = the current model and what it includes or what was added to the previous model; nested / simpler model = the model against which the current one is being tested, using the model name as a label; fixed effects added = the fixed effects which have been added. ***p < .001. emotion regulation ability 36 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01093-w https://www.psychopen.eu/ appendix b final models of the linear mixed models2 table b1 emotion regulation variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.22 0.31 [0.37, 0.81] 0.71 .480 group 2 0.05 0.38 [-0.67, 0.76] 0.12 .902 group 3 -0.01 0.39 [-0.75, 0.74] -0.01 .989 time 1.38 0.37 [0.67, 2.08] 3.76 < .001 emotion regulation baseline 0.96 0.03 [0.89, 1.02] 29.14 < .001 group 2 x time -1.40 0.53 [-2.41, -0.38] -2.64 .009 group 3 x time -1.56 0.55 [-2.62, -0.50] -2.84 .005 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 1.60 1.27 note. model equation: era ~ group * time + era_baseline + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.87, r2 conditional = 0.87. table b2 emotion regulation (including extraversion as covariate) variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.12 0.31 [-0.48, 0.71] 0.37 .712 group 2 0.11 0.38 [-0.60, 0.83] 0.31 .760 group 3 0.11 0.39 [-0.64, 0.87] 0.29 .772 time 1.38 0.36 [0.66, 2.09] 3.79 < .001 emotion regulation baseline 0.96 0.03 [0.68, 1.02] 29.36 < .001 extraversion 0.06 0.04 [-0.01, 0.14] 1.60 .113 group 2 x time -1.40 0.53 [-2.40, -0.39] -2.66 .009 group 3 x time -1.56 0.55 [-2.60, -0.51] -2.85 .005 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 1.58 1.26 note. model equation: era ~ group * time + era_baseline + e + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.87, r2 conditional = 0.87. 2) p-values for fixed effects have been calculated using satterthwaites approximations. confidence intervals have been calculated using the wald method. in all models era = emotion regulation abilities, e = extraversion, n = neuroticism, group 2 = affiliation vs. specific goal coaching, and group 3 = affiliation vs. indulgence coaching. fischer, mühlberger, weber et al. 37 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table b3 emotion regulation (including neuroticism as covariate) variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.19 0.31 [3.40, 0.78] 0.62 .538 group 2 1.11 0.38 [-0.62, 0.83] 0.28 .781 group 3 -0.01 0.39 [-0.75, 0.73] -0.03 .976 time 1.38 0.36 [0.68, 2.07] 3.77 < .001 emotion regulation baseline 0.96 0.33 [0.89, 1.02] 29.23 < .001 neuroticism -0.04 0.33 [-0.10, 0.02] -1.26 .208 group 2 x time -1.40 0.53 [-2.41, -0.39] -2.65 .009 group 3 x time -1.56 0.55 [-2.61, -0.51] -2.84 .005 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 1.60 1.26 note. model equation: era ~ group * time + era_baseline + n + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.87, r2 conditional = 0.87. table b4 emotion regulation (including extraversion and neuroticism as covariate) variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.10 0.31 [-0.49, 0.70] 0.33 .739 group 2 0.16 0.38 [-0.56, 0.87] 0.41 .682 group 3 0.10 0.39 [-0.65, 0.85] 0.24 .809 time 1.38 0.36 [0.68, 2.07] 3.79 < .001 emotion regulation baseline 0.96 0.03 [0.90, 1.02] 29.36 < .001 extraversion -0.06 0.04 [-0.02, 0.13] 1.40 .164 neuroticism -0.03 0.03 [-0.10, 0.03] -1.01 .314 group 2 x time -1.40 0.53 [-2.40, -0.40] -2.66 .009 group 3 x time -1.56 0.55 [-2.60, -0.52] -2.85 .005 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 1.58 1.26 note. model equation: era ~ group * time + era_baseline + e+ n + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.87, r2 conditional = 0.87. table b5 extraversion variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.87 0.86 [25.65, 31.14] 1.01 .313 group 2 0.01 0.60 [-3.75, 4.18] 0.01 .991 group 3 -0.03 0.62 [-5.07, 3.18] -0.05 .963 time 1.27 0.58 [0.14, 2.40] 2.18 .031 extraversion baseline 0.97 0.03 36.56 < .001 group 2 x time -1.16 0.84 [-2.80, 0.48] -1.37 .172 group 3 x time -1.88 0.88 [-3.58, -0.17] -2.14 .034 emotion regulation ability 38 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 4.07 2.02 note. model equation: e ~ group * time + e_baseline + (1 | vpncodescreening); group 2 – affiliation vs. specific goal coaching. model fit: r2 marginal = 0.91, r2 conditional = 0.91. table b6 extraversion (including emotion regulation as covariate) variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.52 0.88 [24.05, 30.85] 0.59 .554 group 2 0.23 0.61 [-3.70, 5.79] 0.38 .708 group 3 0.22 0.64 [-4.40, 5.52] 0.35 .726 time 1.27 0.58 [0.14, 2.40] 2.19 .030 extraversion baseline 0.97 0.03 36.75 < .001 emotion regulation 0.16 0.10 [-1.17, 0.69] 1.58 .117 group 2 x time -1.16 0.84 [-2.80, 0.48] -1.38 .169 group 3 x time -1.88 0.87 [-3.58, 0.17] -2.15 .033 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 4.02 2.01 note. model equation: e ~ group * time + e_baseline + era + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.91, r2 conditional = 0.91. table b7 neuroticism variable est/beta se 95% ci t p variance sd fixed effects intercept 0.63 0.73 [17.14, 24.95] 0.86 .390 group 2 0.03 0.72 [-6.23, 5.06] 0.04 .970 group 3 0.11 0.76 [-2.18, 9.57] 0.14 .890 time -0.60 0.71 [-1.98, 0.77] -0.85 .390 neuroticism baseline 0.97 0.03 37.45 < .001 group 2 x time 1.45 1.02 [-0.55, 3.44] 1.41 .160 group 3 x time -0.16 1.06 [-2.23, 1.91] -0.15 .880 random effects participant (intercept) 0.00 0.00 residual 6.01 2.45 note. model equation: n ~ group * time + n_baseline + (1 | vpncodescreening). model fit: r2 marginal = 0.92, r2 conditional = 0.92. about the authors elena fischer is a research assistant and ph.d. student at the university of salzburg and at the pfh göttingen. she received a mas­ ter´s degree in psychology from university of salzburg, austria. her interests and research focus on health coaching interventions, personality development, and prospection. fischer, mühlberger, weber et al. 39 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(1), 25–40 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12031 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dr. christina mühlberger is a postdoc researcher in the department of social psychology at university of salzburg. her current focus lies on examining consultations such as coaching or training that are used when people face discrepancies between a current and a future goal state and to help them meet important psychological needs. considering self-regulatory and motivational processes, she aims to gain insights into how counseling sessions should be designed to be effective in different situations. dr. julia weber is the managing director of the ismz (institut für selbstmanagement und motivation zürich) and works with the zurich resource model, among other things as a trainer and educational coach. in her work she builds bridges between science and practice in everyday life. her focus lies on motivation and willpower, personality development, emotion perception, and emotion regulation. prof. dr. eva jonas is head of social psychology at the university of salzburg. her work focuses on motivated social cognition, i.e., on information processing which is influenced by motivational aspects and shapes human behaviour in social interactions. thereby, she tries for example to explain processes of the initiation of change. applied perspectives of this research can be derived from the analysis of different consulting approaches. prof. dr. julius kuhl (born in 1947) was the head of the personality psychology unit within the department of psychology at the university of osnabrueck (1986-2016). his research focuses on self-control, affect regulation, and the exploration of the functional basis of personality development. he created the world-wide acknowledged personality systems interaction theory (psi) integrating basic ideas from diverse theories of personality with scientific advances from motivational, developmental, cognitive, and neuropsychological research. prof. dr. markus quirin is a professor of personality and motivation at pfh göttingen and at technical university of munich. his research focuses on personality, motivation and emotion, as well as their neuronal correlates and effects on mental health. current research areas relate to the abilities to regulate emotions and stress, implicit affect, and the advancement of an integrative model of personality dynamics. emotion regulation ability 40 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotion regulation ability (introduction) personality growth interventions emotion regulation ability present research and hypotheses method participants inclusion and exclusion criteria procedure and coachings measures statistical analysis results exploratory analysis discussion limitations and future direction conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references appendices appendix a appendix b about the authors meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts: a psychobiographical sketch of sylvia plath theoretical contributions meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts: a psychobiographical sketch of sylvia plath angela f. panelatti 1, joseph g. ponterotto 2, paul j. p. fouché 3 [1] department of education, eunice high school, bloemfontein, south africa. [2] graduate school of education, fordham university, new york, ny, usa. [3] department of psychology, free state university, bloemfontein, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 received: 2020-12-01 • accepted: 2021-04-22 • published (vor): 2021-08-31 handling editor: roelf van niekerk, nelson mandela university, port elizabeth, south africa corresponding author: angela f. panelatti, p.o box 12500, brandhof, bloemfontein, 9324, south africa. e-mail: angela@ehs.co.za abstract this study aimed to unveil sylvia plath’s (1932–1963) meaning-making narratives, within her life’s puzzle of parts, by utilising the internal family system (ifs) model of schwartz. plath was purposively selected as subject since she has been proclaimed as one of the most renowned and influential voices in 20th century anglo-american culture and literature. although she only published one collection of poems, “the collosus”, and one novel, “the bell jar”, in her lifetime, the plethora of short stories, poems, journal entries and letters which were published after her suicide secured her status as a powerful and creative voice. methodological strategies utilised to sort and integrate the wealth of publically-available socio-historical data on plath included the analysis of psychobiographical indicators of salience according to the model of irving alexander and the data analysis matrix procedure of robert yin. findings suggest that each stage of plath’s life was characterised by “parts-led” functioning as a result of transferred burdens, imperfect care-taking, existential anxiety and traumatic emotional experiences. this resulted in polarisation of her different parts, which blocked the healing energy of her self and aggravated feelings of worthlessness, in spite of her creative meaning-making narratives. since sylvia used her creative genius to address socio-historical issues and injustices, her life lends itself to meaningmaking narratives, especially those that empower and inspire future generations of previously disempowered groups. keywords sylvia plath, psychobiography, internal family system model, polarisation of parts, creative meaning-making narratives over the years the picture that i have built up of my mother is of a woman with good and bad parts; huge talent and emotional difficulties, huge love and an aptitude for jealousy—just like many of us. we are all a balance of the parts that make us, and it is up to us which of those parts we allow most emphasis. my mother fought with the negative parts of her makeup, and, even though she lost her battle in the end, she used the material of it in her poetry. (sylvia plath’s daughter, frieda hughes, in her postscript to the restored ariel edition by sylvia plath, 2004, pp. 6–7) sylvia plath (1932–1963) has been proclaimed as one of the most renowned and influential voices in 20th century anglo-american culture and literature (gill, 2008; perloff, 1979). although she only published one collection of poems (the colossus) and one novel (the bell jar) in her lifetime, the plethora of short stories, poems, journal entries and letters which were published after her suicide not only secured her status as a powerful feminist voice, but also added to the haunting allure of her life, which was shrouded in a web of controversies (gill, 2008; kumlu, 2011; perloff, 1979; rose, 2013). these controversies were compounded by the fact that sylvia was still married to ted hughes when she died, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.5321&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-08-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ resulting in the plath estate falling into the hands of ted and his sister, olwyn. they not only discouraged any form of research and interpretation, but apparently even threatened to take legal action against biographers who were unwilling to subordinate themselves to the demands and prerequisites of the plath estate (alexander, 1999; butscher, 2003; gill, 2008; rollyson, 2013). despite the plethora of literary critiques, memoirs and biographical interpretations, sylvia plath’s life had never been the subject of any previously-conducted psychologically-informed biography—a fact which provided the motivation behind this study since it hoped to illuminate the psychological aspects hidden behind the mystery of this literary genius. the myths that have been created concerning sylvia plath, especially those starting from her death, are not only the false assumptions of literary critics, but also of the cold war american ideology, which tried to turn plath into a problematic woman (gill, 2008; kumlu, 2011; perloff, 1979). despite the claims of sylvia plath’s critics, that her works were built mainly upon a life story characterised by despair, kumlu (2011) argued that the real plath succeeded in crystallising not only the traumas of her generation, but also various literary works as a response to the ideology of her age. this view corresponds with that of gloria steinem, one of sylvia plath’s classmates (alexander, 1999), and a leading spokeswoman for the american feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. steinem described plath as being an early prophet who used her suffering to describe societal problems (alexander, 1999). in terms of this description, plath’s works not only encompass pessimism, but also happiness, achievement and power—a view seldom taken of plath’s life and works. the internal family system (ifs) model of schwartz (1995) assumes a non-pathologising approach and offers a more hopeful and positive framework compared to the psychopathological and psychoanalytical stances often taken in psychobiographical studies. it was chosen as a psychological framework to investigate and delineate sylvia plath’s personality development precisely because the authors wanted to focus on the positive, more hopeful aspects of her creative genius, rather than on the pathologising approaches which have typically been elicited from her life and works. one recent observation of the psychobiographical field, is that the body of historical subjects studied has been primarily male, and modern psychobiography advocates for increased attention to female personalities (young & collins, 2018). apart from contributing to the body of knowledge on sylvia plath and to the framework of the ifss model, this study affirmed that an examination of the lives of extraordinary women who used their creative genius to address socio-historical issues, could be a significant endeavour for future psychobiographical researchers. whilst it is true that plath suffered from depression, and that many of her works encompass pessimism, to label someone of plath’s calibre as schizophrenic or mad not only undermines the value of her contribution to literature and to the feminist movement, it also disregards the complexity of her nature and the impact of her socio-historical context on her development. method the psychobiographical subject sylvia plath was selected as a psychobiographical subject by means of purposive sampling. her life, which spanned 30 years from the time of her birth on 27 october 1932, till the time of her death on 11 february 1963, was explored and described against the backdrop of the socio-historical contexts in which her writing was produced. information on the life of plath was gathered by means of collecting publically-available biographical, autobiographical and literary material on plath, as well as material related to the historical period in which she lived. the information gathered on plath was organised into three major phases of development: infancy and childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. theory selection the literature review indicated that plath’s life and personality development appeared to have theoretical value and applicability to the psychological framework which was chosen for this study. schwartz’s ifs model evolved out of the recognition of the multiplicity of the mind and an attempt to understand it using systems thinking (schwartz, 1995, 2001). the ifs model emphasises the importance of viewing the individual as a system composed of various subpersonalities or parts (schwartz, 2003; refer to table 1). meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts 244 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 components of the internal family structure the self the compassionate, inner leader containing the confidence and vision to lead an individual’s internal and external lives harmoniously. exiles young parts that have experienced trauma and become isolated from the rest of the system in an effort to protect the individual from feeling the pain of these parts. protectors managers parts that run the day-to-day life of the individual. attempt to keep the individual in control in every situation and relationship in an effort to protect parts from feeling any hurt or rejection. firefighters parts that react when exiles are activated in an effort to control and extinguish their feelings. they can do this in a number of ways, including: drug or alcohol-use, selfmutilation, excessive behaviour. striver (excessively taskorientated, controlling and critical) evaluator (perfectionistic, wants social approval) passive pessimist (apathetic, avoids personal risk) caretaker (selfless and caring) entitled one (selfish and selfserving) worrier or sentry (anxious, alert for danger) at the core of all these parts is the self, which can be defined as an active, compassionate inner leader (haddock, weiler, trump, & henry, 2017; schwartz, 1987, 2001, 2013a). in line with the approaches advocated by family therapy, the ifs model proposes that individual improvement is attained not through the removal of a dysfunctional part, but rather through the acceptance that each part is significant and valuable (green, 2008). the internal parts assume characteristics which maintain functionality (managers), harbour pain (exiles), or react to impending threats (firefighters) (twombly & schwartz, 2008). the optimistic philosophy inherent in the ifs model allows for people to be seen as having all the resources that they need for healing to take place (schwartz, 1995). rather than seeing people as having pathological deficits, the ifs model sees people as being restricted from using internal strengths as a result of polarised relationships both within themselves and in relation to people around them (earley, 2012; schwartz, 1995, 2013b; sweezy & ziskind, 2013). according to schwartz (1995), polarization occurs when a system is imbalanced. when polarization occurs, parts become antagonistic as each member of the polarization clings rigidly to his or her position, fearing that the system will be damaged if that rigidly held position is relinquished (watzlawick, weakland, & fisch, 1974). data extraction and analysis alexander’s (1990) indicators of salience were used as a guide in the identification of psychologically significant inci­ dents, experiences or themes pertaining to the life of plath. a data analysis matrix (yin, 2009) facilitated the analysis of psychobiographical data as modelled in fouché (1999). during the collection, examination, condensation, extraction and analysis of salient biographical material pertaining to plath’s ifs, particular attention was given to the sub-personalities which emerged as distinct parts (goulding & schwartz, 1995) as plath passed through significant periods in her life. the impact of life-changing forces and historical events on the expression of the sub-personalities throughout plath’s life was also taken into consideration. (additional information on alexander’s indicators of salience and the data analysis matrix are available upon request from the senior author.) trustworthiness and ethical considerations with regard to trustworthiness, methodological triangulation included both data source triangulation and researcher triangulation (team of three researchers). data on sylvia plath was sourced solely from publicly-available material, thereby minimising the possibility that any of plath’s surviving family members, friends or colleagues could be harmed panelatti, ponterotto, & fouché 245 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ or embarrassed by revelations which unpublished controversial information could cause (ponterotto & reynolds, 2017). furthermore, plath’s functioning and development were examined both from a longitudinal and eugraphic perspective, allowing for her life story to be viewed not only in terms of suffering, despair and trauma, but also in terms of happiness, achievement and power (a view seldom taken of plath’s life). the research was approved by the institutional review board of the faculty and the committee for title registrations of the university of the free state (ufs). findings and discussion the activation of the protectors during infancy and the childhood years (1932–1944) sylvia plath was the first-born child of otto emile plath and aurelia schober and her first year of life coincided with the great depression, which followed the stock market crash of 1929 (alexander, 1999; butscher, 2003; wilson, 2013). after otto’s death, the plath family found itself in serious financial difficulties, due to the fact that otto had lost a substantial amount of money on the stock market (alexander, 1999; butscher, 2003; plath, 2000). the family’s financially precarious position had a profound impact on sylvia and contributed significantly to her life-long sense of inferiority from the perspective of schwartz’s (1995, 2001) model. furthermore, otto’s tyrannical disposition and authoritarian demand for order and aurelia’s submissive obeisance to his autocratic method of ruling his household, are speculated to have created an imbalanced system, resulting in polarisations of sylvia’s internal and external family system, and the activation of what schwartz (1995, 2001) referred to as protectors (managers and firefighters). sylvia’s lifespan between 1 and 4 years coincided with the birth of her brother, warren, and the family’s move to winthrop, a city in massachusetts, in the united states. both these events constituted significant occurrences which impacted profoundly on sylvia’s development and functioning according to schwartz’s (1995, 2001) model. warren’s birth resulted in sylvia’s internal family parts acquiring burdens as a result of attachment disruptions, which she experienced as traumatic and which made her feel unloved and worthless. the trauma aggravated sylvia’s polarised system, resulting in a fragmented system of antagonistic parts and a life-long rivalry with warren. this rivalry extended into sylvia’s adulthood and came to symbolise the larger battle that she had to fight with men throughout her life in order to gain recognition as an independent, successful woman (panelatti, 2018). sylvia’s increasing sense of insecurity prompted her to establish a stronger attachment to her father, whom she sought to please and impress by means of her intellectual abilities. in their desperation to be saved, her exiles idealised her father, whom she described as “a giant of a man” who “feared nothing” (plath, 2008, p. 320). sylvia’s tenacious persistence to learn the alphabet and her subsequent attachment to words as a substitute for love, attest to the powerful influence of her critical, controlling striver. in fact, sylvia identified with the physicality of words to such an extent that she often wished, as she expressed in the bell jar, that she could return to the “womblike space of the printed page” (plath, 1966, p. 57). her striver pushed her to strive for literary excellence so that she could be distracted from exiled feelings of worthlessness that might cause pain. the powerful influence of sylvia’s striver manifested in her life-long, obsessive pursuit of literary achievement, and although this obsession haunted her, it also spurred her on in her search for meaning. her attachment to words was reinforced by her belief that perfecting her linguistic capabilities would guarantee her parents’ love and ensure that they never abandoned her (panelatti, 2018). sylvia’s tendency of escaping to an exotic, fantasy world attests to the emergence of her dissociating parts. her firefighters prompted her to escape to a fantastical “never-never land of magic” (plath, 2000, p. 35) to protect her from the painful reality of her exiled parts. sylvia’s childhood tendency of escaping to the magical, fantasy-world which she created for herself through her literature, continued into adulthood and served as a powerful tool in her search for meaning. although an illusion, that fantasy world held the promise of a meaningful literary legacy—one that would inspire the meaning-making process for future generations (panelatti, 2018). in 1936, during middle childhood and a year after warren’s birth, sylvia’s father otto began to suffer from ill health (wilson, 2013). although he was an irritable, short-tempered man who was often consumed by “explosive outbursts of anger” (plath, 1992, p. 18), sylvia’s vivid artistic imagination ensured what she described as “an idyllic childhood” (wilson, 2013, p. 31). unfortunately, the ever-worsening progression of otto’s ill health exacerbated his already volatile temperament, and constituted a significant occurrence which had a profound impact on sylvia’s development. otto’s meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts 246 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ temper worsened to the point that aurelia took sylvia and warren to live with her parents. some months later, they moved to a more spacious house at the coast in winthrop. the move constituted a major event in sylvia’s life, since it was in winthrop that she acquired a powerful, almost obsessive love of the ocean, one which fuelled her poetic imagination. world war ιι occurred during sylvia's pre-adolescent years, and she was particularly susceptible to the negative repercussions of anti-german sentiment at this time. not only did the war affect sylvia’s development and shape her views of herself and the world, it also promoted her artistic imagination and intensified her academic zealousness (alexander, 1999; butscher, 2003; kirk, 2009). she maintained an outstanding academic profile, exhibiting superior intelligence and extreme dedication throughout her schooling years. despite remarkable accomplishments, however, her journal entries indicate that she was eternally dissatisfied with herself. sylvia’s critical striver impelled her to strive for outstanding achievement to distract her both from her own personal feelings of unworthiness, and from the legacy burdens transferred to her by her own rigid and controlling parents (panelatti, 2018). events leading up to and including the death of her father in 1940, constituted a major traumatic event in sylvia’s life. this trauma was intensified because she experienced his departure as a deliberate act of betrayal (butscher, 2003). sylvia had come to depend upon her father’s praise (wilson, 2013). consequently, she fell back upon the only defenses available to her, one of these being to seek compensation in other realms as public approval became a substitute for lost parental love (butscher, 2003). her drive for success was an emulation of her deceased father’s own discipline and ambition, and this drive fuelled sylvia’s poetic talent (butscher, 2003; rose, 2013). according to schwartz’s model, her search for meaning through her poetry served as the vehicle through which her firefighters could dissociate from the pain of her exiled, wounded child parts (panelatti, 2018). sylvia’s first published poem appeared in the boston sunday herald only 6 months after her father’s death (butscher, 2003; wilson, 2013). her drive for success and fame thus emerged in her childhood and, although she never specifically mentioned otto’s death, she was quite aware of the link between her childhood artistic efforts and that traumatic event (butscher, 2003; rose, 2013). even her intense fascination with the ocean extended to her father, whom she described as a neptune-like character serving as a “father-sea-god muse” (plath, 2000, p. 399). according to rollyson (2013), poetry proved to be a mediating point between sylvia and the world, a conjoining like that of land and sea. to sylvia, words in poetry gave meaning to her world. they made her want to cry, but they also made her very happy. “poetry had that power over her. she would live and die by it” (rollyson, 2013, p. 15). sylvia’s poetry emanated from her storytelling parts and these parts titrated the influence of her vulnerable, exiled parts, thereby allowing the managerial parts of her system to cope with the overwhelming grief of her father’s tragedy. the trauma of his loss added even more injury to sylvia’s already injured inner-child parts and reinforced the imprisonment of her exiled parts. although the unrelentless imprisonment of sylvia’s exiles trapped her in a world of darkness, this darkness also catalysed her efforts to escape the prison of her emotional suffering. her emotional suffering fuelled her search for meaning and words and poetry proved to be her most potent weapons in her quest to create a meaningful life (panelatti, 2018). the anguish of the exiles during adolescence (1945–1952) although the end of world war ii heralded a period of extreme optimism for society, for sylvia it marked the commencement of an adolescent period characterised by self-consciousness, inner turmoil, harmful behaviour and identity confusion. at the age of 13, sylvia began to keep a dream book in which she recorded her monstrous nightmares. she used the recorded nightmares as inspiration to write gothic mystery stories (wilson, 2013). these stories provided an outlet through which she could express some of the darkness and morbidity that she hid behind her outer mask of normality and perfect amiability. it is speculated that sylvia’s monstrous nightmares were manifestations of the desperation of her exiles and the severity of pain with which they were burdened. sylvia’s journal entries also bore testimony to the severity of pain with which her exiles were burdened, as manifested in her imagery of herself drowning in a sea of negative emotions, including fear, envy, doubt, self-hate and madness. the extent to which sylvia’s exiles were burdened could be associated with her dependency on her mother at this stage of her development. not only panelatti, ponterotto, & fouché 247 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ was sylvia financially dependent on her mother, she also had to share a room with her and she became so emotionally dependent on her, that she came to regard her mother as an extension of herself, rather than as a separate person. middle adolescence marked the period around plath’s entry into senior high school. at the time, the united states of america was characterised by its complacent attitude of conformity and consumerism. nonetheless, there was a pervasive feeling of uncertainty due to the unsettling effects of mccarthyism (gill, 2008) on the country’s politics, and sylvia was profoundly affected by the country’s seeming indifference to the cold war and the korean war. sylvia’s tendency to write cruel comments about those close to her, and projecting onto others, fantasies, wishes and motivations which seldom had bearing on reality, could have been the result of a highly polarised ifs. the polarised position of sylvia’s protective parts could have contributed to the discrepancy between reality and sylvia’s imaginary world, as well as to her obscured insight into her own reality. although aurelia was a very encouraging and self-sacrificing parent, she raised her children with the knowledge that there was a correlation between good behaviour and love, and she enforced a strict moral regime through martyrdom to principles and values. in terms of the ifs model, aurelia’s parts-led parenting style created burdens for sylvia, which polarised both the external family system and sylvia’s ifs. the polarisation obstructed the emergence of sylvia’s self, thereby preventing the clarity of insight required for the establishment of a clear identity. sylvia’s experience of herself as being fragmented into many different and often conflicting identities emanated from a severely polarised ifs which prevented the sense of continuity and integration required for effective self-leadership. the intensity of behaviour of sylvia’s protectors is attributed to the extent of pain experienced by her exiles, and would explain why her only recourse to some semblance of self-led leadership was through her imagination, where the self had “supernatural powers” (butscher, 2003, p. 14). sylvia’s later adolescence was marked by her entry into junior college. although the cold war period following world war ii was a time of peace and relative abundance, it was also a time of extreme anxiety and uncertainty, which greatly influenced sylvia’s cultural and literary milieu. aurelia’s staunch calvinistic principles of religious and social propriety, and the stifling, hypocritical standards of sylvia’s socio-cultural milieu, could have aggravated the polarisation of her ifs. sylvia’s adolescent compulsions, especially for food and sexual activity, could be attributed to the polarised struggle between her managers and firefighters as they sought to control the emotional pain of her exiles. the physical manifestation of sylvia’s depressive episodes whenever she was plagued by sinusitis and menstrual cramps, could also have emanated from the conflict between her polarised parts. sylvia’s writing served as a meaning-making tool through which she could dissociate from the painful emotions that burdened her exiles (panelatti, 2018). the self’s search for meaning during adulthood (1953–1963) this historical period, which marked plath’s lifespan between 21 and 23 years, commenced with sylvia’s editorial internship in new york and coincided with her senior college years at smith college. although the outside world may have perceived her internship as the pinnacle of her literary achievement, and the epitome of the american dream, to sylvia the month in new york represented a traumatic time of progressive deterioration and ever-increasing despair. sylvia’s escalating feelings of failure and inferiority, despite all her accomplishments, were the result of her over-bur­ dened system which prevented access to the healing benefits of self-leadership. sylvia’s sense of purposelessness when she returned from her guest-editorship in new york could have emanated from her lack of self-leadership. sylvia’s anguish of keeping the inner turmoil of her exiles securely locked away, whilst trying to meet her managers’ demands of efficiency, put so much pressure on her ifs, that her firefighters saw suicide as the only solution to saving her. the electroconvulsive therapy (ect) to which sylvia was subjected after she was diagnosed with depression, only served to increase the desperation of her exiled suicide parts, thereby intensifying her depression. the poorly administered electroshock treatments fractured and deleted sylvia’s already splintered sense of identity and impaired her memory to such an extent that even joyful past experiences were replaced by cynicism and doubt. added to this was the fact that the electroshock treatments aggravated sylvia’s inability to sleep to the point that she developed chronic insomnia. consequently her mental functions also began to deteriorate, and she felt incapable of the very activity which gave meaning to her life, namely writing (wilson, 2013). in a letter she confessed her fear at the prospect of not being able to write again, believing that no-one would find her interesting if she lost this ability (plath, 1992). in this state of despair, meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts 248 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sylvia began associating her depression with her deceased father. overwhelmed by disturbing thoughts and emotions related to her father, suicide became not just a possibility, but a desired goal in sylvia’s mind. sylvia’s suicide attempt of 1953 provides the most pertinent manifestation of the role of her firefighters during her senior college years. her emotional pain induced an array of firefighting responses, including self-inflicted cuts, a drowning attempt, the abuse of sleeping pills and excessive sexual activity. sylvia’s inability to establish a secure interpersonal relationship was aggravated by her experience of her father’s death as an abandonment. her use of poetry as a vehicle to reify the lost father figure, could be attributed to the dissociative techniques of her firefighting protectors. otto remained a constant force in sylvia’s imagination and although she acknowledged, in her poem the colossus, that she would never be able to get her father “put together entirely/pierced, glued, and properly jointed” (plath, 2008, p. 12), she continued to recreate him in her works, using words as a substitute for his absence and the love she craved from him. in her diary, she admitted to being in search of “the gigantic paternal embrace of a mental colossus” (plath, 2000, p. 163), believing that there was a strong link between the loss of her father and her compulsive desire to find a replacement for him in the men she dated (plath, 2000). sylvia’s inability to establish secure interpersonal relationships characterised by genuine intimacy, spontaneity and warmth, emanated from a highly polarised ifs, which blocked her capacity to establish a heartfelt connection with her intimate partners. although she harboured the dream of marrying a “demigod of a man,” she acknowledged the impossibility of that desire when she wrote: “i want a romantic non-existent hero” (plath, 2000, p. 182). this realisation prompted her to retreat even further into her poetry and literature, where she often manufactured her own personal absolute of male perfection (plath, 2000; wilson, 2013). in september 1955, sylvia set sail for europe where she would start a new life as a fulbright scholar at cambridge university in england. sylvia’s dependency on her mother and her veneration of her lost father, could have prevented her from being self-led and would have contributed to the overwhelming insecurity which she felt when she left north america to start a new life in england. sylvia’s volatile relationship with ted hughes, whom she later married, provides the most pertinent manifestation of the desperation of her exiles during this historical period. since sylvia experienced her father’s death as a deliberate act of betrayal, her attraction to ted could have been prompted by her exiles’ desperate search for a “redeemer” (schwartz, 1995, p. 47). sylvia’s failure to attain complete independence from her parents, could have prevented the unburdening of her ifs, resulting in emotional over-dependency on ted and her impulsive decision to marry him. her over-dependency on ted, who served as a replacement for the lost father whom she still grieved, could have aggravated her exiles’ extreme experience of hopelessness and catalysed thoughts of suicide (panelatti, 2018). sylvia’s contradictory and fluctuating emotions during this historical period, could be indicative of the polarised nature of her ifs. her habit of escaping the pain that accompanied tragedy or loss by hiding in a fantasy world created by words, could be attributed to her firefighters and the measures taken by them to shield her from pain through the technique of dissociation. her affinity for harrowing, adrenalin-filled incidents could also have been prompted by her firefighters in their quest to distract her system from the pain of exiled parts (panelatti, 2018). plath’s lifespan between 25 and 27 years coincided with sylvia and ted’s return to the united states of america. the threat of nuclear war during the years of the space race fuelled the political tension at the time and greatly influenced sylvia’s poetic voice and her confessional style of writing. confessionalism proved to be a writing breakthrough for sylvia since it allowed a deeper and more psychologically meaningful take on subject matter previously considered taboo. for someone like sylvia, who was as attuned to the meaning of her inner reality as she was to the meaning of the socio-historical context in which she found herself, confessional writing proved to be the ideal vehicle to articulate personally-meaningful concerns, as well as concerns about the meaning of bigger political issues such as hiroshima and the advent of the cold war. in terms of schwartz’s ifs model, sylvia’s exiles were frozen in circumstances of abuse and betrayal relating to her father. her volatile, erratic and contradictory reactions to ted’s infidelity and to his sadistic tendencies could thus be attributed to the inner battle between polarised perpetrator parts as they struggled to contain her exiled, wounded and traumatised parts. sylvia’s atheism could have been transferred to her by her father, and this could have contributed to her involvement in occultish practices during this historical period (panelatti, 2018). these practices could have formed part of the dissociative techniques implemented by her firefighters in their quest to douse the emotional flare-ups of her exiled parts. panelatti, ponterotto, & fouché 249 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ plath’s lifespan between 28 and 30 years coincided with sylvia and ted’s return to england. although sylvia’s surge of creativity after the births of her children could be attributed to the creative benefits of self-leadership, it is more plausible to attribute it to the workings of her self-like parts. self-like parts do not have the self’s ability to heal and could thus account for sylvia’s incessant inner emotional turmoil, despite her efforts to maintain her mask of stability and perfect amiability. the death of a neighbouring friend affected sylvia profoundly, not only because it activated exiled feelings related to her own father’s death, but also because ted’s infidelity had intensified her exiled feelings of worthlessness and unlovability (panelatti, 2018). the most blatant manifestation of sylvia’s highly polarised system and her protectors’ inability to keep her exiles contained, can be found in the final months of her life. in terms of schwartz’s ifs model, the extreme measures implemented by sylvia’s firefighters in these final months, attest to the severity of her internal crisis and the inability of her system to manage it. sylvia’s preoccupation with black magic intensified after the break-up of her marriage, and could be indicative of the desperation of her firefighters. her firefighters also prompted her to escape to the imaginary world of her literary works through dissociation. the extent of sylvia’s inner turmoil and the desperation of her firefighters to keep her pain contained, also manifested in her decision to start smoking; her addiction to sleeping pills and in the somatic expression of her suicide parts in the form of influenza and high fever. sylvia’s fluctuating emotions, her intermittent high fever, her exhaustion from waking at four in the morning to write poetry, and the unrelenting cold weather, could have contributed to sylvia’s despair, and made her feel lonelier and more isolated than she had ever felt before. in this state of physical and mental depletion, sylvia’s firefighters had little energy to protect her system from the danger posed by her volatile exiles. the feeling of hopelessness experienced by sylvia’s exiles was so extreme, that it catalysed her suicide (panelatti, 2018). the energy that sylvia put into her writing in the final months of her life supports the view that it was through words that sylvia sought to unravel the meaning of her inner anguish, and it was through words that she sought to give meaning to her existence. words were sylvia’s most powerful tool, and charged words, in particular, were her tonic (rollyson, 2013). in the same way that she had wielded words to win parental affection in childhood, identifying with the physicality of words to such an extent that they were her only comfort, so too she created her life and gave meaning to her existence through her words. in her poem kindness, written days before her suicide, she declared her dependency on words when she said “the blood jet is poetry, / there is no stopping it” (plath, 2008, p. 270). one could say that the inscription on sylvia’s tombstone—a quote from the bhagavad gita, which read: “even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted” (alexander, 1999, p. 332), was prophetic. although sylvia plath fought with the negative parts of her makeup and lost the battle in the end, because the fierce flames of her exiled parts could not be extinguished, she used the passionate heat of those flames to breathe timeless meaning into her poetry, and for that, the legacy of her life and works blooms eternally. conclusions and recommendations this article aimed to elucidate plath’s meaning-making narratives, within her life’s puzzle of parts, by utilising the ifs model of schwartz. biographical material on plath’s life, interpreted according to schwartz’s (2001) model, indicated that each stage of her life was characterised by parts-led functioning as a result of transferred burdens, imperfect care-taking, anxiety and traumatic emotional experiences. this resulted in polarisation of her different parts, which blocked the healing energy of her self and aggravated feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt. the application of schwartz’s (2001) model to sylvia plath’s life, highlighted the important role played by plath’s socio-historical context and its impact on her development and her intrapsychic processes. the ifs model recognised that the conflict generated by a hypocritical society that supported male supremacy, challenged sylvia’s optimal development and complicated the fulfilment of her roles as wife, mother and poetess. despite these challenges, however, “plath spread her wings, over and over, at a time when women were not supposed to fly” (clark, 2020, p. xvii). the study of an imminent figure of literary acclaim in feminist history could be of great value in our current society, which seeks to empower women, but simultaneously expects them to occupy multiple roles. although plath’s life was short-lived, the plethora of poems, short stories, letters and journal entries which were published after her death, attest to the fact that she succeeded in leaving a meaningful legacy, despite the despair and trauma which characterised her meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts 250 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(3), 243–252 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.5321 https://www.psychopen.eu/ life. although plath’s life stages were characterised by unsuccessful integration of opposing parts and an ever-increasing sense of fragmentation, the success which she garnered as a writer and the wealth of meaningful narratives which she produced in such a short period of time, attest to the benefit which schwartz’s theory holds for ingenious and creative artists who manage to achieve greatness despite their inability to achieve the self-differentiation required for self-leadership. this article thus contributes to the current body of knowledge on imminent individuals who achieve greatness despite personal and contextual setbacks. sylvia resented that a woman’s intellectual, emotional and physical ambitions were at odds with societal expecta­ tions (alexander, 1999; kirk, 2009; plath, 2000). this article validates the important role played by one’s socio-historical context in shaping human development. future research may benefit from explaining and describing sylvia plath’s lifespan development from feminist perspectives which address gender-related criticisms. this will provide an important foundation for a constructive feminist stance from which research can be expanded, so that the experiences of women can be better understood (horst, 1995). this article affirms the researchers’ conviction that an examination of the lives of extraordinary women who used their creative genius to extract meaning and create meaningful narratives from socio-historical issues, continues to be a significant endeavour for future psychobiographical researchers. not only did plath make sense of her own suffering through her works, she also created a platform through which future generations could create meaning from suffering and be empowered by it. although her ifs was fragmented, her art and the meaning which she breathed into it, “was not to fall” (hughes, 2004, p. xx), and continues to fuel a fire that lights the way forward. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references alexander, i. e. 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(2018). for whose benefit? comment on the psychobiography special section (2017). american psychologist journal, 73(3), 286-287. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000234 about the authors angela f. panelatti is head of english at a south african all-girls high school and is registered with the health professions council of south africa (hpcsa) as a counselling psychologist. in her roles as senior english lecturer and counselling psychologist, she has a keen interest in the study of feminist literature and the psychological development of young women. she maintains a small private practice in bloemfontein. joseph g. ponterotto is a professor of counselling psychology at fordham university, new york city. he teaches in the areas of multicultural counselling, career development, clinical assessment, and research methods. an active psychobiographer, he is the author of a psychobiography of bobby fischer (2012) and a psychobiography of john f. kennedy, jr. (2019), both published by charles c thomas, publisher. he has strong interest in methodology and ethics as applied to psychobiography. he maintains a small psychotherapy practice in new york city. paul j. p. fouché (dphil) is a full-professor of counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state, bloemfontein, in south africa. paul has published psychobiographical and psychohistorical articles in various journals. his interest is in the field of psychobiography and psychohistory and he acts as research supervisor to post-graduate scholars undertaking life history research. meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts 252 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000047 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_927-1 https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22016 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000234 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ meaning-making narratives within a puzzle of parts (introduction) method the psychobiographical subject theory selection data extraction and analysis trustworthiness and ethical considerations findings and discussion the activation of the protectors during infancy and the childhood years (1932–1944) the anguish of the exiles during adolescence (1945–1952) the self’s search for meaning during adulthood (1953–1963) conclusions and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors alexithymia and internet addiction: mediating role of social connectedness, impulsivity, and moderation by depression research reports alexithymia and internet addiction: mediating role of social connectedness, impulsivity, and moderation by depression utkarsh utkarsh 1 , palak kanwar 1 [1] department of psychology, christ university, bangalore, karnataka, india. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 received: 2024-08-18 • accepted: 2025-04-02 • published (vor): 2025-05-28 handling editor: sahir hussain, lancaster university, lancaster, united kingdom corresponding author: palak kanwar, bannerghatta main road, hulimavu, bangalore, 560076, india. e-mail: palakkanwar7@gmail.com supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract internet addiction is a mounting concern in current times. recent studies indicate a link between alexithymia and internet addiction, but the underlying mechanisms of this association require more investigation. the present study explores the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction, with the mediating effect of impulsivity and social connectedness, and the moderating effect of depression. a convenience sample of 362 participants between the ages of 18 and 25 years participated in this study and completed the young’s internet addiction test, toronto-alexithymia scale, the social connectedness scale, barratt impulsiveness scale 15, and the centre for epidemiological studies depression scale revised. the results indicate that the direct effect of alexithymia on internet addiction is partially mediated through impulsivity and social connectedness. further, the moderating effect of depression is found to be non-significant. the results revealed two possible pathways through which alexithymia influences internet addiction. future research and interventions on internet addiction can use these findings to mitigate the adverse outcomes of internet addiction. keywords internet addiction, alexithymia, impulsivity, social connectedness, depression the internet has become integral to modern life. active internet use is positively associated with subjective well-being (verduyn et al., 2017), but its excessive and inappropriate use has adverse psychological and social effects (diomidous et al., 2016; kumar & mondal, 2018). internet addiction affects approximately 7.02% of the global population (pan et al., 2020), with higher rates among some groups, such as college students in india, where 19.9–40.7% are at risk for internet addiction (joseph et al., 2021). growing up in the digital age, emerging adults are especially prone to internet addiction due to unregulated access, boredom, and poor time management (wang, 2018), harming their physical health, academics, and emotional well-being (elhai et al., 2021). given the high prevalence of internet addiction among emerging adults, it is essential to investigate the factors that contribute to its development. the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm) does not formally recognise internet addiction but includes internet gaming disorder in section 3 of its latest edition (dsm-5; american psychiatric association, 2013). although researchers have proposed various definitions for internet addiction, there is no consensus on its diag­ nostic criteria, and its theoretical foundation remains unclear, making the inclusion of internet addiction in diagnostic frameworks controversial and highlighting the need for further research (király et al., 2015; ryding & kaye, 2018). young and rogers (1998) defined internet addiction as prolonged internet usage with difficulty in its regulation, leading to psychological, social, and academic challenges. for bleakley et al. (2017), internet addiction refers to compulsive this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.15353&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-05-28 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1298-1903 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9624-5851 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ internet usage similar to clinically diagnosable behavioural and substance use addictions. internet addiction is often associated with excessive preoccupation with the internet, poor time management, irritability when interrupted online, and reduced real-world social interaction (tikhonov & bogoslovskii, 2015). various factors contribute to internet addiction, including age, gender, impulsivity, loneliness, alexithymia, and neu­ roticism (kuss et al., 2014; luo et al., 2022). additionally, it is often associated with depression, anxiety, and personality disorders (ostovar et al., 2016; zadra et al., 2016). recent studies explore the role of alexithymia, a multidimensional personality trait, in the etiopathogenesis of addictive disorders (luo et al., 2022). alexithymia is characterised by impair­ ment in cognitive-emotional processing, defined as an inability to identify and describe emotions, difficulty fantasising, and an externally oriented thinking pattern (taylor et al., 1997). it is a stable personality trait in the general population, with around 10% of people having problematically high levels of alexithymia (parker et al., 2008). poor emotional insight, like in alexithymia, is associated with increased psychological distress and unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as emotion-focused and avoidance-based coping (saikkonen et al., 2018; yurtdaş depboylu & fındık, 2024). it may lead to negative physical and mental health outcomes, including poor sleep, eating issues, cognitive difficulties, depression, distress, and reduced sexual activity (mattila et al., 2010). the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction can be understood through the self-medication hypoth­ esis, which states that addictive behaviours serve as maladaptive coping mechanisms to alleviate distressing emotions or experiences (baker et al., 2004). individuals with alexithymia, due to poor emotional awareness and regulation, are more vulnerable to developing compulsive and addictive behaviours (matias et al., 2023). several studies find a significant association between internet addiction and alexithymia in various populations (li et al., 2023; luo et al., 2022). comparative research also indicates that individuals with alexithymia score significantly higher on internet addiction than those without alexithymia (taylor et al., 2014), highlighting alexithymia as a key risk factor for internet addiction (mahapatra & sharma, 2018). the compulsive and addictive internet use in individuals with alexithymia is viewed as an attempt to self-regulate emotion regulation deficits (gioia et al., 2021; preece et al., 2023). it can contribute to emotional stability in individuals with alexithymia traits (ko et al., 2012). while the link between alexithymia and internet addiction is established, its underlying mechanisms require further investigation. mahapatra and sharma (2018) reviewed multiple studies investigating the relationship between alexithy­ mia and internet addiction, along with potential underlying pathways. they examined factors such as childhood maltreatment, attachment disorders, temperament, personality, and self-concept and found that the causal direction of the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction remains unclear, as the impact of several other influencing variables has yet to be fully explored. the mediating role of impulsivity impulsivity is defined as “a predisposition for a fast, unplanned reaction to internal or external stimuli without concern for the negative repercussions of these behaviours to oneself or others” (moeller et al., 2001, p. 1784). individuals with alexithymia tend to display more impulsive behaviours (lyvers et al., 2014), which may be a key factor in the development of internet addiction (zhang et al., 2015). for instance, cao et al. (2007) found that adolescents with internet addiction exhibit increased impulsivity. for individuals with impulsivity, the internet provides short-term rewards through gaming, surfing, or social networking, reinforcing immediate gratification (diotaiuti et al., 2022). this impulsivity may be rooted in dysregulated emotional and behavioural responses that are characteristic of alexithymia (herman et al., 2020; schreiber et al., 2012). individuals with alexithymia often struggle with emotional regulation, which can lead to impulsive behaviours, making them more vulnerable to the compulsive use of the internet (mahapatra & sharma, 2018; taylor et al., 1991). additionally, internet use is associated with sensation-seeking behaviour (shaffer, 1996), suggesting that impulsive individuals may use the internet as a tool for sensation-seeking. a recent study by lyvers et al. (2021) aimed to study alexithymia, impulsivity, negative affect, and internet addiction symptoms in internet-using female university students and found that impulsivity mediates the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. therefore, a thorough exploration of the role of impulsivity in this relationship can reveal a pathway through which alexithymia increases the risk of internet addiction. alexithymia and internet addiction 126 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the mediating role of social connectedness social connectedness is an individual’s subjective awareness of having close relationships with the social surroundings (lee & robbins, 1995), which might be another factor in the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. people with alexithymia have difficulty interacting and dealing with social environments and experience low social support (karukivi et al., 2014; vanheule et al., 2007). it can make them feel less connected to their social surroundings. poor social connectedness is associated with compulsive internet use, particularly when providing individuals with a more appealing alternative to offline social interactions (mcintyre et al., 2015). compensatory internet use theory suggests that individuals turn to the internet to relieve stress from adverse life events (kardefelt-winther, 2014). individuals with alexithymia often experience psychological distress (yurtdaş depboylu & fındık, 2024), making the internet a potential outlet for them to relieve stress, regulate emotions, and fulfil social needs (matias et al., 2023). social connectedness, hence, can play a possible role in the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. the moderating role of depression alexithymia is linked with deficits in emotional regulation, which can increase susceptibility to depression (foran & o’leary, 2013). there is high comorbidity between the two, with depression significantly explaining variance in alexithymia, as alexithymia scores change proportionally with depression severity, making depression an important variable to consider while studying alexithymia (honkalampi et al., 2000). similarly, internet addiction and depression have a bidirectional relationship (ye et al., 2023), with numerous studies suggesting a significant association between internet addiction and depression (bahrainian et al., 2014; kumar & mondal, 2018). depression severity can interact with study variables and influence the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. the present study the present study investigates the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction in a sample of emerging adults, exploring the mediating roles of impulsivity and social connectedness and the moderating role of depression. previous literature suggests that age and gender are related to internet addiction (ainin et al., 2017; ostovar et al., 2016) and can influence the model through varied interactions. similarly, the variance of age and gender is also observed in the levels of alexithymia symptoms (mattila et al., 2006). to account for their potential influence on alexithymia and internet addiction, age and gender were included as covariates in the model, ensuring that the primary focus remains on the effects of impulsivity, social connectedness, and depression. accordingly, it is hypothesised that impulsivity and social connectedness would mediate the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction after controlling for age and gender. the model is illustrated in figure 1. depression would moderate this relationship such that higher depression would strengthen the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction after controlling for age and gender. utkarsh & kanwar 127 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 the hypothesised model method design this study adopts a quantitative method of inquiry and follows a cross-sectional design to examine the relationships between alexithymia, impulsivity, social connectedness, depression, and internet addiction. participants and procedure a total of 362 college students from india participated in this study, aged 18–25 years (m = 19.36; sd = 1.773). the sample consisted of 72.37% women (n = 262), 26.51% men (n = 96), and 1.10% non-binary individuals (n = 4). as part of the inclusion criteria, these students were required to be between 18 and 25 years old and residents of india, while individuals with psychological disorders were excluded from the study. convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants, and the data was collected using an online survey with measures of alexithymia, internet addiction, impulsivity, depression, and social connectedness after obtaining their informed consent. participants also provided their socio-demographic details, and care was taken to maintain their anonymity to ensure confidentiality. the study followed ethical guidelines, ensuring compliance with the world medical association’s declaration of helsinki, and received approval from the institutional review board at christ (deemed to be) university, bangalore. a total response rate of 95% was obtained. measures internet addiction this study measured participants’ internet addiction levels by young’s internet addiction test (iat; young, 1998). it is a 20-item scale that measures internet usage in terms of the extent of preoccupation, inability to control internet use, hiding or lying about internet use, and continued use despite negative consequences of internet use. items include questions such as “how often do you find that you stay online longer than you intended?” and “how often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend online?” items were rated on a 6-point likert scale (0 = not applicable to 5 = always). the possible score ranges from 0–100, with higher scores indicating greater addiction. for the present sample, cronbach’s alpha of the scale was found to be substantial (α = .904). alexithymia toronto-alexithymia scale (tas-20; bagby et al., 1994) was used to measure alexithymia. tas-20 is a 20-item scale consisting of three subscales: seven items on difficulty describing feelings, five assessing difficulties describing feelings, alexithymia and internet addiction 128 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and eight for externally oriented thinking. items include questions such as “i am often confused about what emotion i am feeling” and “i am able to describe my feelings easily”. the items were rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree), with higher scores indicating higher levels of alexithymia. the scores range from 20–100. the internal consistency of the scale of the current sample was acceptable (α = .799). social connectedness the social connectedness scale (scs; lee & robbins, 1995) measured social connectedness. it assesses the perceived sense of belonging, connection with the external social world, and interpersonal closeness with others. the scs is an 8-item scale with a 6-point rating scale (1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree). items include questions such as “i feel disconnected from the world around me” and “i feel so distant from people”. higher scores indicate a higher sense of connectedness. the scores range from 8–48. cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency (α = .914) indicates good scale reliability in the current sample. impulsivity barratt impulsiveness scale 15 (bis-15; spinella, 2007) was used to measure the impulsiveness of the participants. it is a shorter version of an earlier, extensively used 30-item version (patton et al., 1995). it comprises 15 items rated on a 4-point likert scale (1 = rarely to 4 = always). bis-15 maintains the earlier measure’s three-factor structure (five items each): non-planning, motor impulsivity, and attention impulsivity (spinella, 2007). items include questions such as “i act on the spur of the moment” and “i say things without thinking”. the scores range from 15–60. the scale has adequate internal reliability for the current sample with adequate cronbach’s alpha (α = .807). depression the centre for epidemiological studies depression scale revised (cesd-r 10; andresen et al., 1994) was used to assess symptoms of depression. it is a 10-item self-reported scale with a 4-point likert scale (0 = rarely to 3 = all the time). items include questions such as “i was bothered by things that usually don’t bother me” and “i had trouble keeping my mind on what i was doing”. the total score is calculated by adding the scores of the ten items. a higher score means more depression symptoms. the scores range from 0–30. for the present sample, cronbach’s alpha was adequate (α = .801). data analysis the data was analysed using ibm spss (version 28) for descriptive statistics and reliability. pearson correlation assessed relationships between the study variables. after the preliminary analysis, hayes process macro (version 4.2; hayes, 2013), the spss software application, was employed for moderation and mediation analysis using 95% confidence intervals from 5,000 bias-corrected bootstrapping resamples. results the intercorrelations were tested for the study variables, and significant correlations were observed. table 1 presents an overview of the findings. alexithymia showed a significant positive correlation with internet addiction (r = .383, p < 0.01), impulsivity (r = .426, p < 0.01), and depression (r = .512, p < 0.01). however, social connectedness was found to have a significant negative correlation with alexithymia (r = -.476, p < 0.01) and internet addiction (r = -.395, p < 0.01). utkarsh & kanwar 129 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations for study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 1. alexithymia 52.40 11.43 – – – – – 2. internet addiction 40.50 17.16 .383** – – – – 3. impulsivity 33.02 7.47 .426** .426** – – – 4. social connectedness 30.79 10.02 -.476** -.395** -.253** – – 5. depression 14.19 5.81 .512** .358** .318** -.596** – note. n = 362. **p < .01 (two-tailed). to test the mediating role of impulsivity and social connectedness and the moderating role of depression between alexithymia and internet addiction, process macro (model 5) was used with age and gender as the controls in the model. the results indicated a significant direct effect of alexithymia on internet addiction in the presence of impulsivity and social connectedness (β = 0.177, p < .05, 95% cl = 0.010/0.345). the effect of alexithymia on impulsivity was significant (β = 0.279, p < .05, 95% cl = 0.218/0.341), and impulsivity on internet addiction was significant (β = 0.677, p < .05, 95% cl = 0.451/0.903), suggesting a significant indirect effect via impulsivity. similarly, the effect of alexithymia on social connectedness was significant (β = 0.416, p < .05, 95% cl = -0.498/-0.337), and social connectedness on internet addiction was significant (β = -0.378, p < .05, 95% cl = -0.575/-0.182), suggesting a significant indirect effect via social connectedness. hence, both impulsivity and social connectedness partially mediated the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. depression did not significantly moderate the relationship (β = -0.010, p = .363, 95% cl = -0.032/0.012) (see figure 2). figure 2 standardised estimates of the model note. n = 362. **p < .05. ***p < .001. moreover, the covariates age and gender had no significant effect on any predictor or outcome variable, indicating that they did not influence the model (see table 2). specifically, age did not significantly predict impulsivity (β = 0.129, p = .522, 95% cl = -0.267/0.529), social connectedness (β = 0.010, p = .968, 95% cl = -0.508/0.529), or internet addiction (β = -0.613, p = .162, 95% cl = -0.248/1.475). similarly, gender was not a significant predictor of impulsivity (β = -0.243, p = .753, 95% cl = -1.766/1.279), social connectedness (β = 0.642, p = .526, 95% cl = -1.347/2.631), or internet addiction (β = -1.413, p = .405, 95% cl = -4.749/1.921). alexithymia and internet addiction 130 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 the mediation and moderation with 95% confidence interval predictor variable outcome variable β se t p 95% ci [ul, ll] (mediation and moderation effect) alexithymia impulsivity 0.279 0.031 8.931 .000 0.218 0.341 alexithymia social connectedness -0.418 0.040 -10.228 .000 -0.498 -0.337 impulsivity internet addiction 0.677 0.114 5.894 .000 0.451 0.903 social connectedness internet addiction -0.378 0.099 -3.795 .000 -0.575 -0.182 alexithymia internet addiction 0.177 0.085 2.086 .037 0.010 0.345 depression internet addiction 0.243 0.178 1.363 .173 -0.107 0.593 depression*alexithymia internet addiction -0.010 0.011 -0.909 .363 -0.032 0.012 (control variable effect) gender impulsivity -0.243 0.774 -0.314 .753 -1.766 1.279 age impulsivity 0.129 0.202 0.640 .522 -0.267 0.526 gender social connectedness 0.642 1.011 0.634 .526 -1.347 2.631 age social connectedness 0.010 0.263 0.039 .968 -0.508 0.529 gender internet addiction -1.413 1.696 -0.833 .405 -4.749 1.921 age internet addiction 0.613 0.438 1.400 .162 -0.248 1.475 note. se = standard error; ci = confidence interval. ll = lower limit. ul = upper limit. 95% bootstrap ci with 5000 samples was used to estimate the direct, indirect, and interaction effects. discussion this study investigates the connection between alexithymia and internet addiction, taking into account the roles of impulsivity, social connectedness, and depression. the findings indicate that alexithymia significantly influences internet addiction, both directly and indirectly through impulsivity and social connectedness. however, depression does not moderate the association between alexithymia and internet addiction. first, the results showed a significant association between alexithymia and internet addiction, supporting previous research with similar findings (hao et al., 2019; luo et al., 2022). a possible reason for this relationship could be that individuals with alexithymia exhibit deficits in emotional processing, contributing to psychological discomfort (barbosa et al., 2011), impulsiveness (herman et al., 2020), and low social connectedness, as evident in the present sample. drawing from the compensatory internet use theory, these adverse emotional experiences and psychological distress faced by individuals with alexithymia may motivate them to turn to the internet as a means of coping and relief (kardefelt-winther, 2014). the internet offers instant gratification and emotional relief, making it a maladaptive coping mechanism for those with alexithymia, which can lead to addictive patterns of internet use. age and gender were included as control variables in the hypothesised model to account for their potential influence on the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. however, neither age nor gender showed a significant effect, suggesting that the association between alexithymia and internet addiction operates independently of these demographic factors. this finding aligns with previous research showing that alexithymia predicts internet addiction independent of age and gender (scimeca et al., 2014). however, other studies (gori & topino, 2023) suggest that demographic factors may influence this relationship, highlighting the need for further research. impulsivity was found to partially mediate the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction, which is consistent with the findings of lyvers et al. (2021). impulsivity’s mediating role can be explained as a pattern that stems from the emotional awareness and regulation difficulties in individuals with alexithymia, leading to ineffective emotional management strategies (swart et al., 2009). emotions guide behaviour by providing feedback and prompting reflection (baumeister et al., 2007). however, individuals with alexithymia struggle to access their emotions, leading to dysregulated emotional and behavioural responses that can develop into impulsive traits (herman et al., 2020). notably, impulsivity strongly predicts internet addiction (tsai et al., 2020). the present study finds that impulsivity may be a utkarsh & kanwar 131 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factor explaining the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. addiction is a complex psychological and behavioural condition with many possible underlying processes (simon & west, 2015). the self-medication hypothesis (khantzian, 1997) suggests that addictive behaviour serves as a response to self-regulation difficulties, where individuals attempt to manage and control negative emotions through self-medication. from this perspective, internet addiction may be seen in individuals with alexithymia as a form of self-medication for dysregulated emotional and impulsive responses. the findings further reveal that social connectedness partially mediates the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. individuals with alexithymia often struggle with social interactions (vanheule et al., 2007) and experience a perceived lack of social support (karukivi et al., 2014). this leads to feelings of disconnection from their social environment, causing interpersonal difficulties, including low-quality romantic relationships (holder et al., 2015). congruent with the compensatory internet use theory (kardefelt-winther, 2014), negative social experiences and low social connectedness may motivate individuals with alexithymia to engage in problematic internet usage to fulfil unmet social needs and support (zhang et al., 2018). thus, the current findings validate the hypothesis that alexithymia can lead to internet addiction via low social connectedness. contrary to the hypothesis, the study found that depression did not moderate the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction. while alexithymia is linked to a higher risk of depression (bamonti et al., 2010; sagar et al., 2021), not everyone with alexithymia and addiction shows signs of affective disorders (morie et al., 2015). this suggests that there is variability in the role of depression between alexithymia and internet addiction. recent research supports that alexithymia predicts internet gaming disorder and internet addiction independently of depression (pape et al., 2022). hence, further research is needed to understand this relationship better. limitations, implications, and future directions the present study provides insights into the alexithymia–internet addiction relationship, but several limitations must be considered. firstly, this study focused on a general measure of internet addiction; however, future research should examine specific online activities such as social media use, online shopping, gaming, etc, to gain deeper insights into different patterns of addictive behaviour. incorporating socio-economic and psychological factors into the model could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving internet addiction. the cross-sectional design of this study prevents causal inferences, so future research should use longitudinal or experimen­ tal designs. the small, non-representative, and disproportionate sample, as well as the use of convenience sampling, limit the generalizability, so replicating the study with diverse populations is recommended. internet-based, self-report questionnaires may introduce self-report bias; it is suggested that future research uses other forms of assessments to minimise this bias. internet use is a heterogeneous behaviour encompassing a wide range of activities. nevertheless, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature. the findings enhance our understanding of how alexithymia relates to internet addiction, highlighting the complex interplay of emotional, behavioural, and social factors. these insights can inform tailored interventions that address emotional awareness, impulse regulation, and social connectedness. overall, this study enriches the literature and guides future research on the psycho-social factors in internet addiction. conclusion this study explored the relationship between alexithymia, internet addiction, impulsivity, social connectedness, and depression. alexithymia had a significant effect on internet addiction. impulsivity and social connectedness partially mediated the relationship between alexithymia and internet addiction, while depression did not moderate this relation­ ship, and the effect of age and gender was not significant. these findings suggest a potential pathway through which individuals with alexithymia may develop internet addiction, offering valuable insights for researchers and clinicians into the mechanisms underlying this relationship. alexithymia and internet addiction 132 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the participants who generously contributed their time for this study. we are also deeply grateful to our friends and family for their unwavering support and encouragement throughout this journey. finally, we sincerely thank christ university, bangalore, for providing the resources and academic environment that facilitated this research. the institution’s support has been invaluable in the successful execution of this study. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: utkarsh utkarsh: conceptualisation, methodology, project administration, data collection, formal analysis, methodology, writing— original draft preparation, writing—review & editing. palak kanwar: methodology, project administration, data collection, formal analysis, methodology, supervision, writing—review & editing ethics statement: approval was obtained from the ethics committee of christ university, bangalore. the procedures used in this study adhere to the tenets of the declaration of helsinki. informed consent for data collection via questionnaires was obtained from all participants included in the study. data availability: the datasets collected and analysed during the current study, including codebook and materials, are available in the open science framework repository (utkarsh & kanwar, 2025). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. 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(2018). relationships between social support, loneliness, and internet addiction in chinese postsecondary students: a longitudinal cross-lagged analysis. frontiers in psychology, 9, article 1707. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01707 alexithymia and internet addiction 136 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12478 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.02.005 https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/504376 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01539189 https://doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.198 https://doi.org/10.1080/00207450600588881 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005751 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0033-3182(91)72086-0 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511526831 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.203 https://doi.org/10.3103/s0005105515030073 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17134766 https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/nvuba https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20324 https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12033 https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294118789034 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115311 https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237 https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.1998.1.25 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107536 https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.5.2016.086 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01707 https://www.psychopen.eu/ zhang, y., mei, s., li, l., chai, j., li, j., & du, h. (2015). the relationship between impulsivity and internet addiction in chinese college students: a moderated mediation analysis of meaning in life and self-esteem. plos one, 10(7), article e0131597. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131597 about the authors utkarsh utkarsh is currently pursuing his postgraduate studies in psychology at christ university, bangalore, india. he has a keen interest in understanding the underlying mechanisms of human behavior, with a focus on maladaptive behaviors, decision-making processes, and behavioral change. his research explores the psychological and contextual factors that contribute to risky and maladaptive patterns, with the aim of informing interventions that promote healthier decision-making and long-term well-being. palak kanwar is an assistant professor at christ university, bangalore, india, specialising in the area of developmental psychology. her research interests primarily revolve around recognising protective and risk factors associated with problem behaviours in adolescents. dr. kanwar earned her doctorate from guru nanak dev university in india, showcasing her commitment to academic excellence. her contribution to the field includes several published papers, with her work recognised in reputable databases such as scopus and web of science. utkarsh & kanwar 137 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 125–137 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.15353 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131597 https://www.psychopen.eu/ alexithymia and internet addiction (introduction) the mediating role of impulsivity the mediating role of social connectedness the moderating role of depression the present study method design participants and procedure measures data analysis results discussion limitations, implications, and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors in search of the lost interaction: a theoretical and methodological framework for researching interactions theoretical contributions in search of the lost interaction: a theoretical and methodological framework for researching interactions geoffrey schweizer 1, maximilian köppel 2 [1] department of sport and exercise psychology, university of heidelberg, heidelberg, germany. [2] department of medical oncology, national center for tumor diseases, heidelberg university hospital, heidelberg, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 received: 2024-07-02 • accepted: 2025-06-18 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: matt williams, massey university, auckland, new zealand corresponding author: geoffrey schweizer, im neuenheimer feld 720, 69120 heidelberg, germany. tel.: +49 6221 546033. e-mail: geoffrey.schweizer@issw.uni-heidelberg.de supplementary materials: code, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract we suggest that psychological research into interaction effects might benefit from analyzing potential interactions from the perspective of the positive predictive value (ppv). the ppv denotes the post-study probability that a claimed effect is true, based on the pre-study probability that said effect exists, the power of the respective test and the significance level used for testing. we use the ppv in order to propose a framework structuring potential interaction effects based on their (theoretical) plausibility and their shape. specifically, the position of a hypothesized interaction in the proposed framework may inform sample-size planning and the choice of alpha levels prior to a study; and it may inform confidence into results after a study. finally, we present a heuristic approach for planning research on interactions based on r (the pre-study probability that an effect exists), the ppv (the post-study probability that a claimed effect is true) and α (the significance level used for significance testing). in doing so, we aim to provide a nuanced view on the feasibility of investigating into interactional hypotheses, a view that is critical where needed but that at the same time does not discourage research on interactions. keywords replicability, positive predictive value, power, prior probability, pattern of means recent replication studies suggest that interactions may have poorer replicability than main effects (altmejd et al., 2019; osc, 2015). this difference is so large that it emerges as one of the most important predictors of replicability (altmejd et al., 2019). at the same time, several authors caution that testing at least certain kinds of interaction effects may be more difficult than researchers often assume, due to a need for large sample sizes (gelman et al., 2021; lakens, 2020; simonsohn, 2014; sommet et al., 2023). given that interactions can be considered central for psychological research, these warnings appear to be worrisome for at least two reasons: first, because they suggest that effects that are central to psychological theorizing may be harder to find and less robust than was previously thought. second, because they might lead to the unintended consequence that researchers avoid examining interaction effects, because they consider it to be infeasible from an economical perspective. the goal of the present paper is to investigate potential reasons for interactions’ low replicability, both reasons already presented in the existing literature and potentially novel ones. we propose that the positive predictive value (ppv) constitutes a useful framework for assessing and integrating different factors contributing to interactions’ poten­ this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14957&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tially low replicability, including, but not limited to statistical power when testing for interactions. the ppv denotes the post-study probability that a claimed effect is true, based on the pre-study probability that said effect exists, the power of the respective test and the significance level used for testing (button et al., 2013; ioannidis, 2005; wilson & wixted, 2018). furthermore, we aim to present a framework structuring potential interactions based on their (theoretical) plausibility and their shape, both of which may not only affect interactions’ replicability, but also be relevant when planning original studies and when interpreting their results. finally, we present a heuristic approach that supports researchers in planning research on interactions based on r (the pre-study probability that an effect exists), the ppv (the post-study probability that a claimed effect is true) and α (the significance level used for significance testing). with this endeavor, we hope to provide a nuanced view on the feasibility of investigating interactional hypotheses, a view that is critical where needed but that at the same time does not discourage all research on interactions.1 the replicability of interaction effects in 2019, altmejd and colleagues investigated the question which study characteristics can be used in order to predict replication success via black-box statistical models. they employed data from four replication projects, namely the re­ producibility project in psychology (rpp; osc, 2015), the experimental economics replication project (eerp; camerer et al., 2016), many labs 1 (ml 1; klein et al., 2014) and many labs 3 (ml 3; ebersole et al., 2016), totaling 131 attempts at replicating empirical effects (for more details on the data used by altmejd et al., 2019 see appendix a in schweizer & köppel, 2025a). after training several models via machine-learning algorithms, altmejd and colleagues identified variables predicting replication success. one of the variables most strongly predicting replication success (after p-values and effect sizes) is “whether central tests describe interactions between variables or (single-variable) main effects” (altmejd et al., 2019, p. 11). in their data, “eight of 41 interaction effect studies replicated, while 48 of the 90 other studies did” (altmejd et al., 2019, p. 11).2 in other words, whereas roughly half of the investigated main effects replicated, only about one fifth of interactions did. altmejd and colleagues (2019) provide three tentative explanations for the lower replication success of interactions. first, they point out that interactions may be “slippery statistically” (altmejd et al., 2019, p. 11), as they are subject to measurement error in more than one variable. second, they speculate that interactions are particularly likely to be the result of p-hacking. for example, when researchers do not find a hypothesized main effect in the whole sample, they may look for the respective finding in different subsamples (e.g., based on gender or personality) until they find it in one. third, they point out that underpowered research is less likely to replicate (e.g., fraley & vazire, 2014) and that there is reason to believe that studies testing interactions may have on average lower power than studies testing main effects. we are convinced that the third explanation in particular offered by altmejd and colleagues (namely that some interactions did not replicate because the original research was underpowered and thus claimed effects were false) holds potential to explain why interactions are substantially less likely to replicate than main effects. this is because in the meantime, several authors have shown that research on interaction effects may require larger sample sizes in order to achieve sufficient power than researchers might have been aware of (blake & gangestad, 2020; lakens, 2020; sommet et al., 2023). still, we agree with altmejd and colleagues (2019, p. 11) when they conclude that “the replicability difference is striking and merits further study”. it is in this vein that we propose looking at the replicability of interactions from the perspective of the positive predictive value (ppv). we consider the ppv to be helpful for this end as, a) it offers a perspective that unifies several influential concepts in one equation, b) can be linked to both planning studies and interpreting study results, and c) can be utilized to predict and understand the replicability of study results. furthermore, 1) in a highly insightful paper, rohrer and arslan (2021) discuss several theoretical and methodological issues with interactions. however, they focus on “reliably mistaken conclusions” (rohrer & arslan, 2021, p. 1). that is, in contrast to the issues discussed in the present paper, the issues discussed by rohrer and arslan are associated with effects that can be replicated, but that lead to the wrong conclusions regarding the research question. 2) of these 41 interaction effects, 37 come from the rpp, 3 from ml 3, and 1 one from the ssrp (social sciences replication project; camerer et al., 2018). data from the ssrp were not used for setting up the model, however they were used for validating the model via out-of-sample prediction. interactions and ppv 250 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the ppv combines theoretical and methodological considerations, thus bridging a gap between theory of science and methodology. the positive predictive value (ppv) the ppv is defined as the post-study probability that a claimed effect is true (button et al., 2013; ioannidis, 2005; wilson & wixted, 2018). in the context of nhst this usually means the probability that a significant effect is true. the ppv is defined according to equation 1 (see below) and is a simple application of bayes’ theorem: ppv = ([1 – β] x r) / ([1 – β] x r + α), (1) r is the pre-study probability that an effect exists. (1 – β) is the studies’ power and α is the significance level used for significance testing. from a bayesian perspective, the ppv equals the probability that a particular hypothesis h is true given the statistical test reaches statistical significance (i.e., p < alpha) p(h = true | p < alpha); the power (1 – β) of the study equals the likelihood p(d|h = true); which is the probability to observe the data given the hypothesis is true; r resembles the prior probability that the hypothesis is true p(h = true); and finally α can be described as p(d|h0 = true), i.e. the probability of the data given the effect is not existent. therefore, the denominator, [1 – β] x r + α, is the marginal probability of observing any positive test result regardless of whether it is a true or a false positive p(d), which is necessary in order to normalize the ppv within a range between 0 and 1. another way to illustrate the ppv is to consider statistical tests analogous to diagnostic tests, where the existence of an effect would resemble the existence of a disease. in this case, the ppv is the probability that a person is actually sick when they received a positive test result. statistical power (1 – β) would be the sensitivity of the test, i.e., the probability the diagnostic identifies the disease if the tested person is indeed sick. the prior probability would equal the prevalence of the disease in the population, i.e., the unconditional probability that a random person has this particular disease; and finally, α is the probability for a false-positive, i.e., that the diagnostic identifies an apparently healthy patient as sick (in diagnostic terms 1 minus the specificity of the diagnostic). therefore, the denominator would be the totality of positive rest results. r is defined as the base rate of true effects among the population of investigated effects in a given field (wilson & wixted, 2018). this parameter is also called “the unconditional probability of a true effect” (miller & ulrich, 2016, p. 666). that is, when categorizing study outcomes as true positives, false positives, true negatives and false negatives, r equals the sum of the probabilities of true positives and false negatives (miller & ulrich, 2016). power is defined as the probability of finding an effect of a certain size or larger given that it exists, or as correctly rejecting a null hypothesis (button et al., 2013). power depends on effect sizes (the larger the effect size, the higher the power), sample sizes (the larger the sample, the higher the power), α (the lower alpha, the lower the power) and research designs (some research designs provide more power than others). from the formula presented above, it follows that for a given r and given α the lower the power the lower the ppv (button et al., 2013; wilson & wixted, 2018). likewise, it follows that for a given power and given α the lower r the lower the ppv. thus, two studies claiming an effect with the same power and the same level of significance may have different probabilities of said effects being true, given they had different rs. in appendix b (see schweizer & köppel, 2025a) we present the results of some simulations showing how the ppv changes depending on different values of r for given levels of (1 – β) and α: please see schweizer and köppel (2025b) for the code used for the simulations. these simulations demonstrate a well-known yet consequential effect, namely that the effect of r on the ppv is higher when power is lower (and vice versa). from the ppv it follows that fields with higher power and higher rs have more true findings than fields with lower power and lower rs (wilson & wixted, 2018). as true effects are more likely to replicate than false effects (assuming that researchers employ dependable methodology), the former fields should have higher replicability than the latter ones (wilson & wixted, 2018). in the next chapter we show how the ppv can be used in order to gain an improved understanding of interaction effects and their respective replicabilities. we will do so by focusing on the ppv’s different components as they relate to interaction effects. first, we will discuss power considerations and sample size schweizer & köppel 251 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ requirements regarding interaction effects. second, we will discuss considerations regarding interaction effects’ prior probabilities of being true (i.e., their rs). in a third step, we will combine both considerations in a single framework. next, we will offer some suggestions for researchers planning studies involving interactional hypotheses. interaction effects from the perspective of the ppv power and sample size requirements for testing interaction effects from the perspective of the ppv, power is not only defined as the probability of finding an effect of a certain size given that it exists, but it also influences a finding’s post-study probability of being true. however, what is known about power when testing for interaction effects? recently, several authors have argued that depending on the nature of an interaction, large sample sizes may be required in order to achieve sufficient power (blake & gangestad, 2020; lakens, 2020; simonsohn, 2014; sommet et al., 2023). furthermore, these authors have argued that many psychologists may not be aware of the real sample-size requirements when testing for interaction effects. generally, as with all kinds of effects, power, and thus sample size depends on the size of an interaction’s effect.3 in order to understand sample-size requirements for testing for an interaction, it is necessary to distinguish between different kinds of interaction effects based on their shape, but also on their ‘function’ (blake & gangestad, 2020; lakens, 2020; simonsohn, 2014; sommet et al., 2023) (figure 1). regarding their shape, one can distinguish between disordinal and ordinal interactions. a disordinal interaction (also called cross-over interaction) “occurs when the group with the larger mean switches over” (lakens, 2020, p. 3; see also sommet et al., 2023). in ordinal interactions, “the mean of one group is always higher than the mean of the other group” (lakens, 2020, p. 3; see also sommet et al., 2023). a special kind of ordinal interactions are called attenuated interactions, which by definition serve a certain function. “attenuated interactions [….] characterize situations where the effect of a moderator is to reduce or eliminate, but not reverse, the main effect” (blake & gangestad, 2020). although attenuated interactions are ordinal interactions when looking at their shape, there is an additional element in their definition: they are defined in relation to a main effect, that they are supposed to reduce (partially attenuated interaction) or eliminate (fully attenuated interaction). figure 1 an example of a disordinal and an example of a partially attenuated interaction in a 2 x 2 design different authors have approached interaction effects’ power requirements from different perspectives. sommet et al. (2023) try to arrive at the most general recommendations based on generic assumptions regarding the plausibility of different effect sizes for interactions. sommet et al. (2023) assume that disordinal interactions typically have the same 3) generally, the considerations presented in this manuscript apply to both categorical variables (e.g., an independent variable in an experimental design) and continuous variables (e.g., age as a moderator). for sake of simplification, many authors refer to categorical variables in a 2 x 2 design (e.g., lakens, 2020; sommet et al., 2023). particularly when referring to their work, we adopted this practice. interactions and ppv 252 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effect size as a median-sized main effect, that fully attenuated interactions typically have half the size of a median-sized main effect (and thus of a typical disordinal interaction), and that partially attenuated interactions typically have between one fourth and one fifth the size of a median-sized main effect (and thus of a typical disordinal interaction). based on these assumptions they calculate the sample sizes required for finding interaction effects of the respective sizes.4 they show that (when accepting the assumptions regarding typical sizes), in order to obtain a power of .80, researchers need 256 participants for finding a typical disordinal interaction, 1024 participants for finding a typical fully attenuated interaction and 5575 participants for finding a typical partially attenuated interaction. they go on to conduct a metastudy suggesting that most psychological studies fall short of these sample sizes. one potential limitation of these conclusions is that sommet et al. might underestimate the size of typical interactions (sommet et al., 2023). the following two approaches circumvent this limitation by not making recommendations based on general assumptions regarding effect sizes, but by basing their recommendations on more specific comparisons. both simonsohn (2014) and blake and gangestad (2020) avoid general assumptions regarding interactions’ effect sizes and instead compare interaction effects to main effects in the particular case of attenuated interactions. as attenuated interactions are defined in relation to a main effect, we can determine the sample size that is needed in order to find the attenuated interaction effect with the same power as the respective main effect, without making any assumptions about effect sizes of (ordinal) interactions in general. based on both mathematical derivations and simulations, simonsohn (2014) and sommet et al. (2023) show that when researchers need a specific sample size for finding a certain main effect with a certain power, then they need four times that sample size for finding the respective fully attenuated interaction with the same power. when they are looking for a partially attenuated interaction, then the sample size needs to be even larger as compared to the sample size needed for finding the main effect (simonsohn, 2014; sommet et al., 2023). to the extent that published original effects did not follow these rather challenging sample size requirements, they were not adequately powered and are thus less likely to replicate. blake and gangestad (2020) provide further illustrations of attenuated interactions’ need for large sample sizes using real-world examples from published studies. lakens (2020) compares ordinal and disordinal interactions “where the largest simple comparison has the same effect size”. simple comparisons refer to the effects of one independent variable separately for the levels of the second independent variable. regarding the shape of interaction effects (or their “pattern of means”, lakens, 2020), lakens shows that “in two studies where the largest simple comparison has the same effect size, a study with a disordinal interaction has much higher power than a study with an ordinal interaction”. in a specific example, lakens (2020) compares two hypothetical studies with the same sample sizes, however one with an ordinal and one with a disordinal interaction. in both studies, the largest simple comparison has the same size. in this example, the power for finding the disordinal interaction is nearly three times as high as the power for finding the ordinal interaction. it follows that when planning sample sizes for finding interaction effects, researchers are well advised to take into account the shape of the respective interaction. however, it would be wrong to conclude that interactions always require large sample sizes in order to be detected with sufficient power. first, as noted above, power, and thus sample size depends on the size of the respective effect. thus, if researchers can reasonably assume a large effect size, a correspondingly small sample size will be required. second, as shown by lakens (2020), effect sizes for disordinal interactions are larger than effect sizes for ordinal interactions, given a largest simple comparison of the same size. thus, when a theory allows researchers to hypothesize a disordinal interaction, they need a smaller sample size in order to obtain a certain power than when the theory allows hypothesizing an ordinal interaction, again given a largest simple comparison of the same size. in past publications, thinking about these issues has sometimes been obfuscated, because, a) researchers referred to interactions without specifying their size or their type, or b) because researchers explicitly or implicitly assumed that interaction effects can never be larger than main effects, or c) because researchers only referred to ordinal interactions in their considerations or examples (lakens, 2020). for example, gelman and colleagues (2021, p. 301) use an ordinal interaction of either the same size or half the size of a main effect when discussing why “[i]interactions are harder to 4) for details on these calculations and the underlying formulas please see sommet et al. (2023). schweizer & köppel 253 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ find than main effects”. likewise, maxwell and colleagues assume that interactions are often small and ordinal (maxwell et al., 2018). thus, it is sometimes assumed that researchers always need large samples in order to detect interaction effects, because interaction effects must be smaller than main effects, either per se or because they are attenuating interactions. having looked at interactions from the perspective of power and sample size planning, we will now turn to the next element of the ppv, namely their pre-study probabilities of being true. interactions’ pre-study probabilities of being true (r) hypothesized interaction effects, like all other hypothesized effects, have different pre-study probabilities of being true (e.g., button et al., 2013; wilson & wixted, 2018). in other words, they vary continuously on a dimension from zero (low r) to one (high r). whereas r as a theoretical parameter has a clear definition (i.e., the base rate of true effects among all effects tested in a field), it is somewhat less clear which factors affect r and how researchers are supposed to estimate r. in a very general way, r depends on “established knowledge” (wilson & wixted, 2018, p. 191): the more prior knowledge we have in a specific field, the less false effects get subjected to empirical tests, and thus, the base rate of true effects among all effects tested in this field increases. in a more specific way, r is supposed to be higher to the extent that a hypothesis, a) “is guided by detailed, quantitative and well-supported theories” (miller & ulrich, 2016, p. 685), b) is more strongly supported by previous evidence, and c) is based on common experience (miller & ulrich, 2016; wilson & wixted, 2018). thus, interactions can be considered to be towards the low-r end of the dimension when they are, a) based on weaker theorizing, b) less strongly supported by previous research, and c) less in line with common experience. interactions can be considered to be towards the high-r end of the dimension when they are, a) based on stronger theorizing, b) more strongly supported by previous research, and c) more in line with common experience. for example, when researchers find a main effect and then test for an interaction of their main effect with gender, without there being a theoretical reason to do so or prior research reporting such an interaction, their hypothesized effect would have a low prior probability of being true (i.e., it constitutes a low-r interaction). however, when researchers have a theoretical reason to expect an interaction effect, or when substantial prior research has reported similar effects, then their hypothesized effect would have a higher prior probability of being true (i.e., it constitutes a high-r interaction). to the extent that low-r interactions make up a sizeable proportion of all interactions tested in a field, interaction effects in this field will on average have low ppvs and thus poor replicability. thus, one reason for interactions’ poorer replicability may be that interactions tested in recent psychological research on average had lower rs than main effects. more precisely, we will argue that some interactions are particularly prone to having low rs (whereas others may have high rs). the replicability of interaction effects: the current perspective from the current perspective, interaction effects should have a lower replicability than main effects when, a) reported interaction effects in a field have on average lower rs than main effects in this field, when b) reported interaction effects in a field are on average based on studies with lower power than main effects in this field, and when c) there is a combination of the previous factors. we are convinced that there is reason to believe that all of these factors came true in past research on interaction effects: as described above, sample size requirements based on interactions’ shape have only been described recently (lakens, 2020; simonsohn, 2014; sommet et al., 2023). thus, many studies were probably strongly underpowered, even more so than they were for finding main effects (fraley & vazire, 2014). furthermore, we assume that more interactions than main effects had a low pre-study probability of being true (in other words, that interaction effects on average had a lower r than main effects) due to common research strategies outlined below. first, so-called ‘control variables’ (e.g., gender, age) may be included as moderators into research designs based on sparse theoretical foundations and few previous findings, making them low r by default. second, researchers may first establish a main effect based on theoretical or empirical grounds and then start looking for an interaction qualifying (or moderating) that main effect. in this case, the resulting effect will be low r and have an attenuating shape. this tendency may have been enhanced by the ‘hype’ around moderation and mediation in at least some subfields of psychological research, where finding evidence for mediation greatly increased a paper’s chances to be published in top interactions and ppv 254 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ journals (fiedler et al., 2018). although mediational analysis itself does not involve testing for interactions, interactions still play a role in mediational analysis (mackinnon et al., 2007): first, because an assumption for tests of pure mediation is that the independent variable and the mediator variable do not interact. thus, any test for mediation should include a test for an interaction between the mediator and the independent variable (mackinnon et al., 2007). second, researchers may test for moderated mediation or mediated moderation, both of which again require testing for interactions (as moderation is statistically modelled as an interaction in moderator analysis) (mackinnon et al., 2007). furthermore, it seems safe to say that many researchers regarded interactions as more interesting and more newsworthy than main effects, again increasing the incentive for researchers to search for these interactions (see rohrer & arslan, 2021, for a similar point). third, another common research strategy may have been to try and combine two (more or less established) theories in a novel way. the resulting hypotheses were often interactional in nature, and, due to their novelty, low r. we would like to strongly emphasize that we do not object towards any of the above-described research strategies per se. quite the contrary, some of them may be essential for progress in psychology; however, only if performed correctly. thus, both when planning studies and when interpreting them, researchers should be aware of the role of interactions’ shape and interactions’ r and they should proceed accordingly. to the extent that this was not the case in past studies, interactions may have had both lower power and lower rs than main effects and thus should be less likely to replicate. for future research, we hope that researchers take the respective factors into account, starting from the choice of research strategy, continuing when planning studies and finally when interpreting their results. the following framework might be helpful for this end. combining power and r for interaction effects it seems possible to combine the shape of hypothesized interaction effects (with its implications for sample size planning) with their prior probability of being true, leading to a two-dimensional grid (figure2). the y-axis represents the shape of interaction effects and depicts a continuum from ordinal to disordinal (or crossover). the x-axis represents the prior probability of being true of interaction effects and depicts a continuum from low-r to high-r. figure 2 combination of interaction effects’ shape with their r in a two-dimensional grid note. the y-axis represents the shape of interaction effects from ordinal to disordinal. the x-axis represents their prior probability of being true from low to high. schweizer & köppel 255 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sector a appears to combine the best of both worlds: a high prior probability of being true with a shape that requires comparably small sample sizes in order to achieve sufficient power. researchers who can predict a disordinal interaction on theoretical grounds can thus hope to find an interaction effect that has a high likelihood of being true and thus a high likelihood of being replicable based on comparably small sample sizes. consequentially, it is precisely these kinds of interactions that readers should place most trust into. sector b contains potential interaction effects that appear to be important for theoretical and practical reasons, however that are hard to detect statistically: both from a theoretical and an applied perspective it might be important to know whether a main effect is attenuated (e.g., when an intervention works better for women than for men). thus, research on these effects seems worthwhile to conduct. however, researchers are well advised to utilize appropriate sample sizes and appropriate sample size planning. sample size planning should be based on expected patterns of means (lakens, 2020) and the exact nature of the expected attenuation (simonsohn, 2014; see also blake & gangestad, 2020, for research on attenuated interactions). for this end, it might be helpful to use a software that allows entering hypothesized effects directly via their means (e.g., superpower; lakens & caldwell, 2021; see lakens & caldwell, 2021, for more suggestions) or that allows drawing the shape of the expected interaction (intxpower; sommet et al., 2023). depending on underlying effect sizes and the exact nature of the assumed attenuation, sample sizes may need to be very large in order to achieve appropriate power. attenuated interaction effects found in small sample studies should be treated with care. sector c can be considered the ‘danger zone’ of research on interaction effects, as it combines the worst of both worlds: a low prior probability of being true with a shape that requires large sample sizes in order to achieve sufficient power. in fact, depending on underlying effect sizes and the exact nature of the assumed attenuation, these requirements may not only be challenging but sometimes hard to meet (gelman et al., 2021; simonsohn, 2014). interaction effects fall in this sector when researchers test for attenuated moderation without having strong theoretical reason to do so. an example for this might be ordinal interactions with gender, that arise as the result of including gender as a control variable. if researchers insist on testing for such interactions, they are well advised to base their conclusions on sufficiently large sample sizes, taking both low r and the interaction’s shape into account. again, it might be helpful to use a software that allows entering hypothesized effects directly via their means (lakens & caldwell, 2021; sommet et al., 2023). furthermore, when interpreting such interactions both authors and readers of the literature are well advised to consider that these interactions have a higher likelihood of being false positive and a lower likelihood of replicating, particularly when they are based on small sample sizes. thus, neither theoretical conclusions, nor consequential real-world decisions nor the allocation of future research resources should easily be based on them. sector d contains potential interaction effects that seem to be less problematic than the ones in sector c, however more problematic than the ones in sector a. although these effects also have a comparably low prior probability of being true, they are less challenging from a statistical perspective as they require smaller sample sizes due to their disordinal shape. still, researchers might be well advised to treat them with care after they have been reported. as sample sizes in order to investigate predictions from sectors c and d can quickly need to be very large, researchers might want to ask themselves whether the potential benefits are worth the costs (e.g., miller & ulrich, 2016). for example, if investigating one potential interaction effect from sector c requires a number of participants that would suffice for investigating several hypotheses from sectors a or b, researchers need to decide whether the potential increase in knowledge regarding the effect is worth the effort. general recommendations for risky predictions lakens (2020) cautions researchers not to shy away from “risky predictions”, just because these seem effortful to investigate. we fully agree. in the present framework, risky predictions can be found in sectors c and d (i.e., risky predictions are predictions with a low prior probability of being true). the present framework allows deriving some recommendations on how to investigate risky predictions (see also wilson & wixted, 2018, for recommendations on low-r research; and blake & gangestad, 2020, for research on attenuated interactions). generally, for given rs, ppvs can be improved by increasing power and by lowering alpha. thus, when investigating low-r hypotheses, researchers can, a) increase power by increasing sample sizes (while holding alpha constant), b) increase power by utilizing interactions and ppv 256 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ suitable experimental designs (e.g., within-participants designs have higher power than between-participants designs), if possible, c) increase power by increasing the reliability of the dependent variable5 (sommet et al., 2023), and d) use lower alpha levels (while holding power constant) (see also benjamin et al., 2018, for the benefits of lowering alpha levels). these recommendations beg the question: increase as compared to what, or lower to what extent? unfortunately, no accepted guidelines exist as of yet. however, one possibility would be to define a desired ppv for an assumed r and then to solve equation 1 for power and alpha. this, of course, requires a precise assumption regarding r. miller and ulrich (2016, p. 685) discuss different methods of estimating r. these methods range from “researchers’ guesses” over “record keeping, and discussion with colleagues” to analyzing available evidence with specific statistical techniques (e.g., p-curves, simonsohn et al., 2014). in addition to these general considerations, in the next paragraph we offer a heuristic approach for approximating the strength of r if direct evidence is unavailable, i.e., when studies have not yet tested the hypothesis in question. a heuristic approach for planning interaction research based on r and power researchers interested in planning their research project based on the ppv, r, power and α can use the algorithm depicted in figure 3 as an orientation. the left-hand side of figure 3 presents a heuristic approach for approximating the strength of r. the right-hand side of the figure shows what levels of power and α are needed in order to obtain a specific ppv, based on the approximations of r made on the left-hand side. thus, instead of solving equation 1 for individual values of r and power, figure 3 presents a simplification for selected levels of r and power. figure 3 shows the ppv for different combinations of r, power (1 – β) and α. we combine three values of r (.5, .25, and .1) with three values of power (.1, .5, and .8) and two values of α (.05 and .01). the impact of these estimates on the ppv is shown on the right-hand side of the flow chart. for example, for hypotheses with low r, a statistically significant result — even from high-powered studies — still leaves considerable uncertainty about the truth of the result. when α is lowered to .01, the ppv increases substantially, and particularly so for either low-power or low-r research, or for combinations thereof. figure 3 a heuristic approach for planning research based on r, the ppv and α however, low levels of power mean that researchers only have a small chance of finding an effect given that it exists, even when the corresponding ppvs can become large. for example, even when the combination of r = .25, power = .5 5) whereas most of the literature on improving power in psychological research focusses on sample sizes, improving reliability seems to be a bit overlooked, potentially because researchers assume that their variables are reliable anyway. however, if there is room for improving reliability, the effects on power are substantial (see sommet et al., 2023, for an illustration). schweizer & köppel 257 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and α = .01 means that a significant result represents a true effect in 93% of cases, still only 50% of true effects become significant in the first place. in this approach, r is influenced by two key factors (left-hand side of figure 3): (1) the plausibility of the hypothesis, and (2) indirect supporting evidence. plausibility can be further divided into mechanistic plausibility and theoretical plausibility. mechanistic plausibility assesses whether we know of a mechanism supporting the hypothesis. for example, in medical research, a physiological mechanism may be established in mice, before respective hypotheses are tested in humans. likewise, in psychological research, a hypothesis that is based on an established process may seem more plausible than a hypothesis which is not based on an established process. theoretical plausibility assesses whether a hypothesis is aligned with a well-established theoretical framework. for example, in line with the theory of planned behavior, it seems more plausible that subjective norms have a positive association with intentions than that they have a negative association with intentions (ajzen, 1991). plausibility is related to the definition of r as the base rate of true effects tested in a field, because a field that tests more plausible effects will on average have a higher proportion of true effects than a field that tests less plausible effects. besides the plausibility of the hypothesis, assessing the extent of indirect evidence in support of the hypothesis can serve to inform estimates of r. indirectness is a well-established concept in evidence-based medicine (ebm) (guyatt et al., 2011). indirectness can refer to indirectness of population (e.g., when gender moderates the effectiveness of a psychological intervention in a specific population, it is plausible to expect a respective interaction in a related population), indirectness of intervention (e.g., when gender moderates the effectiveness of a specific intervention, it is plausible to expect a respective interaction for a related intervention), and indirectness of outcome (e.g., when gender moderates the effectiveness of a specific intervention with regard to a specific dependent variable, it is plausible to expect a respective interaction with regard to a related dependent variable).6 again, the relation to the definition of r is that a field that tests effects that are more strongly supported by indirect evidence will on average have a higher proportion of true effects than a field that tests effects that are less supported by indirect evidence. researchers interested in planning their research project based on the ppv, r, power and α can use the algorithm in figure 3 as follows: first, they need to arrive at an estimate of r based on the mechanistic and theoretical plausibility of their hypothesis and indirect evidence in support of their hypothesis. we suggest adopting some generic levels of r depending on the plausibility and the availability of indirect evidence: when a hypothesis seems implausible and there is no indirect evidence, we suggest adopting a generic r of .10. when a hypothesis is either plausible, or there is indirect evidence, we suggest adopting a generic r of .25. when there is both plausibility and indirect evidence, we suggest adopting a generic r of .5 of course, these values do not represent the “real rs” of the respective hypothesis, but they offer some orientation. second, researchers need to decide what level of power they want to achieve, both for optimizing power itself and with regard to the ppv. for this decision, it is helpful to consider what kind of interaction they expect (disordinal, ordi­ nal, fully attenuated or partially attenuated), what kind of design they aim to realize (withinor between-participants), and the reliability of the dependent variable. then, they can calculate an according sample size. when the necessary sample size seems too large, researchers can try to switch from a between-persons to a within-persons design or they can try to improve the dependent variable’s reliability. third, they need to decide for an a priori α level in order to arrive at a ppv that they consider appropriate. the algorithm can also be used in reverse: when researchers read a paper reporting a significant result, they can try to estimate the relevant parameters and then they can decide how much trust to put into the result. finally, researchers might take into account the recommendations made by rohrer and arslan (2021), who show that researching interactions may often require more specific research questions than researchers may be aware of. 6) in ebm, also the indirectness of comparator can be assessed. however, it seems difficult to find a psychological equivalent. interactions and ppv 258 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ potential objections, potential misunderstandings, limitations and unintended consequences as we have tried to make clear throughout the manuscript, we do not intend to discourage researchers from researching into interactions, from investigating risky predictions and from testing novel hypotheses. quite the contrary, we hope to contribute a framework that is able to support and structure researchers’ work in these areas; and we hope to correct an overly pessimistic and somewhat diffuse assessment of research into interaction effects (e.g., gelman et al., 2021). interactions are at the heart of psychological theorizing, research and application, not the least because behavior has been fundamentally understood as being an interaction between person and situation (furr & funder, 2021; lewin, 1951). consequentially, the very idea that psychologists should refrain from research on interactions seems nonsensical and potentially disastrous to us. thus, we agree with rohrer and arslan when they write “instead of putting interaction research on hiatus, we should strive for improved interaction research” (rohrer & arslan, 2021, p. 14). in the remainder of the manuscript, we aim to anticipate potential objections towards the current approach and to discuss some limitations. some authors have criticized the discussion on methodological practices in psychology in general, and the discussion on psychology’s replication rates in particular, for overly focusing on false-positive findings, while neglecting the costs of false-negative ones (fiedler et al., 2012). we would like to point out that the present considerations address both concerns. first, high power is a remedy against both false negatives and false positives. that is, fields with higher power have on average less false-positive and less false-negative effects than fields with lower power (button et al., 2013; wilson & wixted, 2018). furthermore, considering assumed effects’ r can be helpful for avoiding false negatives and false positives (button et al., 2013; wilson & wixted, 2018). even more generally, some authors have criticized the discussion on methodological practices in psychology for neglecting theoretical aspects (e.g., fiedler, 2018). in this context, we would like to emphasize that we do not perceive the present article to be primarily or even purely methodological in nature. instead, with this article we attempt to demonstrate how theory and methodology are inextricably linked when researching into interactions. for example, it is impossible to plan a sample size based on a hypothesized interaction’s shape, when there is no theory suitable for predicting said shape. likewise, only properly formulated theories allow for considering an effect’s r. in both these examples, theoretical considerations are actually superordinate to methodological ones (fiedler et al., 2018): first researchers need to think about their theory, then they can plan their study. however, only high-quality theories can be useful for making reliable predictions and deriving diagnostic hypotheses about an interaction’s shape or for informing rs (fiedler, 2017). thus, theory construction and formulation are of utmost importance in the present context (again, see rohrer & arslan, 2021, for a similar point). indeed, we agree with fiedler (2017, p. 1) that only a “theory-driven cumulative science” can hope to successfully solve the apparent dilemma of how to deal with potentially important, but low-r research. with the present paper, we aim to contribute to this endeavor. furthermore, although the present paper mostly refers to confirmatory research, we do not aim to devalue explora­ tory research. instead, we believe that exploratory research is highly relevant for progress in psychological research, and that it should play a more prominent role (fiedler, 2017). indeed, it seems possible to argue that the alleged crisis in psychological research is partly due to a disregard for exploratory research in psychology, forcing researchers who engaged in valuable exploratory research to disguise it as being confirmatory. thus, clearly separating exploratory and confirmatory research while appreciating both seems to be crucial. in the present paper, we sometimes oversimplify matters in order to facilitate the presentation of our arguments and thus make the manuscript more accessible. for example, in some instances, we employ a binary reasoning instead of the proper continuous one. thus, we refer to r and power as being low or high, although both r and power vary continuously from 0 to 1. consequentially, of course, the proposed grid does not represent four kinds of qualitatively different effects. instead, it represents a simplification of the underlying continuous reasoning. the same applies to the nature of interactions. in order to simplify matters, recent papers on interactions often refer to categorical predictors in a 2 x 2 design (e.g., lakens, 2020; sommet et al., 2023). accordingly, software for calculating sample sizes for interaction research may also be limited to categorical predictors in a 2 x 2 design. future work might try to address these limitations by addressing more complex designs and continuous moderators. schweizer & köppel 259 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 249–262 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14957 https://www.psychopen.eu/ throughout the present paper, we refer to effects as either existing or not, and to findings being false-positive or false-negative. we are aware that some authors reject the concepts of false-positive and false-negative findings or type-1 and type-2 errors because they invite researchers to think about theories, hypotheses and effects in a binary manner (e.g., an effect is true or a hypothesis is rejected), although effects vary and the evidence for effects is continuous (e.g., gelman, 2013). from this perspective, instead of determining whether an effect exists or not, it makes more sense to try and estimate the probabilities of varying sizes of an effect depending on different values of additional parameters (gelman, 2013; gelman et al., 2012). this does not render reflections about sample sizes and prior probabilities (in this case of different sizes of effects) obsolete, quite the contrary. for example, in the context of bayesian modelling, choosing and justifying prior distributions of potential effect sizes are crucial steps (van de schoot et al., 2021). indeed, this might be a substantial objection towards the present manuscript: why retain the paradigm of nhst instead of abandoning it and turning to bayesian modelling entirely? while some may consider this to be the most fruitful option for psychological research (e.g., wagenmakers et al., 2018), we do not consider it likely that psychologists will abandon nhst entirely any time soon. thus, just like other authors (e.g., benjamin et al., 2018; lakens, 2021), we consider it worthwhile to try and contribute to the methodological approach that will probably be around for quite some time in the future. however, thinking about the pre-study probabilities of their effects being true might gently introduce psychologists to a more bayesian way of thinking without them having to make a ‘hard transition’ from frequentist to bayesian statistics in the first place. we hope that in the future, researchers in psychology will use the presented framework in order to combine theoretical and statistical considerations when conducting or interpreting research on interactions. this will hopefully contribute to high-quality research on interactions, a line of research that we consider to be essential in order to develop robust knowledge in both basic and applied psychology. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author contributions: geoffrey schweizer: conceptualisation, writing original draft, supervision. maximilian köppel: conceptualisation, writing original draft, software. supplementary materials type of supplementary materials availability/access code annotated r code for all simulations. schweizer & köppel (2025b) material a. appendix a: replication projects’ inclusion of interactional hypotheses. schweizer & köppel (2025a) b. appendix b: simulations. schweizer & köppel (2025a) references ajzen, i. 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(2018). the prior odds of testing a true effect in cognitive and social psychology. advances in methods and practices in psychological science, 1(2), 186–197. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918767122 about the authors geoffrey schweizer holds a phd in psychology and is currently an associate professor at heidelberg university’s department of sport psychology in heidelberg, germany. his research focusses on judgment and decision making in sports and on nonverbal behavior. furthermore, he is interested in methodological and meta-scientific questions. maximilian köppel is a phd candidate in exercise physiology/sport science, investigating the implementation of exercise in cancer patients at the national center for tumor diseases heidelberg. besides examining the beneficial effects of exercise on health, he is interested in statistical methods and methodological questions which can further improve the scientific discourse of his research area. interactions and ppv 262 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920951503 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085542 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616649170 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716 https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459211007368 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.21159 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.16486 http://datacolada.org/17 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033242 https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459231178728 https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-020-00001-2 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1343-3 https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245918767122 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ interactions and ppv (introduction) the replicability of interaction effects the positive predictive value (ppv) interaction effects from the perspective of the ppv power and sample size requirements for testing interaction effects interactions’ pre-study probabilities of being true (r) the replicability of interaction effects: the current perspective combining power and r for interaction effects general recommendations for risky predictions a heuristic approach for planning interaction research based on r and power potential objections, potential misunderstandings, limitations and unintended consequences (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author contributions supplementary materials references about the authors who were we? exploring french past group prototypes research reports who were we? exploring french past group prototypes haifat maoulida 1,2,3,4 , isabel urdapilleta 4 , julie collange 2 , jean louis tavani 3 [1] laboratoire de psychologie et d’ergonomie appliquées (umr_t 7708), université de paris, paris, france. [2] laboratoire de psychologie et d’ergonomie appliquées (umr_t 7708), université gustave eiffel, paris, france. [3] laboratoire parisien de psychologie sociale (ea 4368), université paris 8 – vincennes-saintdenis, paris, france. [4] laboratoire cognitions humaine et artificielle (chart ea 4004), université paris 8 vincennes-saint-denis, paris, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 received: 2021-09-16 • accepted: 2023-01-19 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: mioara cristea, heriot-watt university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: haifat maoulida, laboratoire de psychologie et d’ergonomie appliquées (lapea, umr_t 7708), université de paris (université paris descartes), 71 avenue edouard vaillant, 92100 boulogne-billancourt, paris, france. e-mail: haifat.maoulida@gmail.com supplementary materials: data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract groups have cognitive existence through the prototype of the group (haslam et al., 1995; https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420250504). past group prototypes then refer to the most representative characteristics that define the group in these previous states. we suppose, as collective events might have different versions associated with different valences (zaromb et al., 2014; https://doi.org/10.3758/ s13421-013-0369-7), this might also be the case for prototypes also held in the collective memory (halbwachs, 1950; http://dx.doi.org/ doi:10.1522/cla.ham.mem1). after highlighting different facets of the past (study 1) or not (study 2), we used the “free association method” (lo monaco et al., 2017; https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12124; vergès, [1992], l’évocation de l’argent. bulletin de psychologie, 45(4–7), 203–209). yet, this research explored the content of past prototypes associated with different elements of french collective memory: the french during the second world war (study 1, n = 301), and french people in 18th century (study 2, n = 354). results suggest the existence for each of these periods of a “two-sided” prototype, i.e., a positive vs. negative-valence prototype. the implications of the existence of these “two-sided” prototypes, the implication of collective continuity perceived for each of them and avenues for future research will be discussed. keywords prototype, collective memory, group dynamics, social identity, collective continuity in many societies, we can observe that individuals and the groups to which they belong refer in their speech to the past to explain or justify the facts observed in their social world. thus, we observe a form of universal naive thought according to which, individuals and groups, but also the relationships that they maintain, are shaped by their past. while this legitimacy of the link between past and present facts can be questioned, the use of past facts to justify the present, in the form of everyday and naive thought, never seems to be called into question. so, we construct ourselves as individuals from what we have been, and the same would be true for groups (gkinopoulos, 2017; licata & klein, 2005). therefore, we must consider that a group has a set of representations of the different objects of the past, relevant to the said group (e.g., events, characters), but also a set of representations of what it was previously (condor, 2006; liu et al., 2005). the representations of these past members are contained within the collective memory. the principal aim of this study is therefore to explore the content of this unexplored specific part of collective memory. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7507&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7335-1253 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4239-1455 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0048-0385 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2736-4595 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ collective memory the french sociologist maurice halbwachs (1947, 1950, 2015), continuing the work of durkheim (1912), was the first to conceptualize the term, 'collective memory' (misztal, 2003). most definitions of it refer to the idea that collective memory is a set of representations and beliefs relating to the past (jedlowski, 2001; licata et al., 2007). this memory would be then shared and emerge from social interaction (jedlowski, 2001). collective memory can therefore be thought of as a social representation of a group’s past. through the stories shared by individuals, groups develop a common and shared representation of their past. thus, through these memories, groups forge and define themselves and when they call on them, they redefine and update themselves in relation to present interests. it is therefore at the heart of the construction of its identity, of its standards and of its values, of the relationships maintained internally or externally (liu & hilton, 2005). this is one of the reasons why the group's past will play a crucial role by sometimes creating in the present a break with the unrewarding episodes of the past, and sometimes identifying it as in continuity with prestigious events from the past of this same group (licata & klein, 2005). while research has focused on the work of reconstructing collective memory in the present, the influence of the past on the present seems to have aroused less interest. one of the explanations lies in the difficulty of studying a past which each time it is recalled undergoes changes. nevertheless, the theoretical approach to social representations provides us with tools that allow us to study this past, which weighs so heavily on the present. social representations of the past social representations are more generally considered as forms of knowledge about the world, emerging from social interactions (jodelet, 2002; rouquette, 2003). among other things, they allow individuals to understand and give meaning to social objects and phenomena, including their own history (lo monaco et al., 2016). the body of knowledge about the past, when linked to a social group, is another way of defining collective memory (tavani, 2012). these social representations of the past, or more broadly, these collective memories, are necessary to preserve a sense of group continuity and to cultivate values and norms that prescribe behaviors within a group and between a given group and external groups (bobowik et al., 2018). among the social representations that forge groups are those of its history. these social representations of history are multiple (i.e., coexistence in a given society of different versions of memories of its history which come into interaction). they can just as well be hegemonic—i.e., consensual throughout society—as controversial—i.e., contradictory between different groups (liu et al., 2005). social representations of history include elements shared within a group (moscovici, 1988) which allow people to think and act as a whole, through institutionalized normative imperatives, requiring a hegemonic social representation. achieving such hegemony can be difficult, given the multiplicity of historical representations (possessed by the sub-groups that make up the largest social group) or even testimonies (environmental or verbal) of the past, of the mass media or of political interests (liu et al., 2005). indeed, collective memory seems to carry multiple and contradictory visions of the past which might interact and influence each other in the present (liu et al., 2005). an example is the representations of colonialism carried which can be mapped through two main dimensions: the exploitation (of the resources of the country and of the indigenous peoples) and the development (of infrastructures and health systems (figueiredo et al., 2018). the question then arises of knowing how these different representations are distributed in our society. are they the marker of representations of two distinct social groups or can they coexist within the same whole? content of the collective memory: the notion of a past prototype collective memory therefore includes both the events of the past, the members of the groups that made it up, and the social representations of the history of a group containing descriptive elements (moscovici, 1988). these past members are embodied both by the historical figures who have marked its history and by a form of prototype of the members who have made up the group over time. the prototype is defined as the representation of the average individual displaying all the representative characteristics of the members of a group at a given time (hogg & hardie, 1992). even though some authors theorize prototypicality as a set of characteristics, fixed, shared by all (hogg & hardie, 1992; hogg & reid, 2006), this point of view is not unanimous. thus, the extent to which a stimulus will be representative past french coexisting prototypes 260 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of a category—i.e., prototypical—is considered in the theory of self-categorization (turner et al., 1987) as dependent on the characteristics of the social context in which the categorization is made (haslam et al., 1995). thus, haslam et al. (1995) showed that a target is perceived as being more prototypical of a group when intergroup differences have been highlighted, i.e., when it is extreme in its group. this view allowed haslam et al. (1995) to conclude that prototypicality is a property of the individual as a representative of a group in its context rather than as an isolated individual. but an alternative to consider would be that a prototype is associated with an event, a past culture or episode, and depends not only on the present context in which it is invoked, but also on the past context in which it emerged. in short, the identity characteristics of a group would come together in the form of prototypes (“who we are”) and function as tools of action (“what we have to do”). so just as different situations call for different actions, they call for different stereotypes or prototypes (klein & licata, 2003; rabinovich & morton, 2012). this hypothesis that we formulate allows, among other things, two approaches, i.e., fixed and situational, which seem to be opposed, to be reconciled. it legitimizes the exit from a synchronic perspective which does not allow us theoretically to consider the past anchoring of prototypes and their study, in favor of a diachronic perspective, which considers, among other things, the possibility of a link and permanence over time. we should add that in order to understand prototypes and possibly study their impact, it is necessary to consider that, like other elements of collective memory, past prototypes are valence-carriers (topcu & hirst, 2020). emotional valence of collective memory collective memories form a network of feelings and thoughts (halbwachs, 1950); they have an emotional resonance in today's societies with the development of technologies and the existence of a larger social network (gong, 2001) which leads to increased sharing and intensification of group emotions. indeed, memories in collective memory are not neutral and generally carry a positive or negative valence (cyr & hirst, 2019). this valence is linked to the experience of the members of the group during the event (halbwachs, 1950). events in collective memory can thus be classified according to their valence with, on the one hand the episodes related to a positive emotion, such as pride, love or joy, and on the other hand, the episodes related to a negative emotion, like shame, guilt or anger (topcu & hirst, 2020). note that the same event can be represented both negatively and positively (cyr & hirst, 2019). this is the case with colonization: the positive representation highlights the civilizing benefits of colonization, while the negative representation emphasizes the dehumanizing aspect (cabecinhas & feijó, 2010; figueiredo et al., 2018). likewise, two nations can remember world war ii differently: americans remember the d-day landings as the most important battle of the war, while for the russians, the most important one is the battle of leningrad. (brown et al., 2012; wertsch, 2002). this dual viewpoint is also found in the role played (i.e., winner, loser, neutral) by a nation during this same period (giner-sorolla et al., 2021). then, we assume that the past relationships of groups or past social status (i.e., place occupied by a group in the hierarchy of groups existing within their society (dover et al., 2016; sachdev & bourhis, 1987), can make it possible to activate, from one group to another or within the same nation, several prototypes for the same event or period, prototypes which will be present to a greater or lesser extent from one member to another of the group. the perception according to which the ancestors of the group were advantaged/disadvantaged or had a low or high status in this past society (past social status) would be a determining variable, in addition to that of the valence of the memory, for identifying the type and the content related to the past prototype. presentation of the research this research aims to determine from memories in the french1 collective memory what are the characteristics of the members of the “french” group associated with each of them. more precisely, it will be a question of determining for each of the memories studied what the prototypes of the members of the in-group are. using the free association method (abric, 1994; deschamps, 2003, 2005; vergès, 1992) and from factorial analyses of multiple correspondences (lo monaco et al., 2017), we are working on studying these past prototypes. indeed, within the framework of the study of 1) two preliminary studies were carried out to determine the memories most present in the french collective memory. the results are available in the supplementary materials. maoulida, urdapilleta, collange, & tavani 261 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social representations, associative tests aim to reveal traces of collective memory and to reason about the structure of the latter (flament & rouquette, 2003), as cited in (dany et al., 2015). as a reminder, although the theory of social identity has highlighted the existence of prototypes (e.g., bartel & wiesenfeld, 2013; hogg et al., 2017; hogg & hardie, 1992), the study of these prototypes in the context of collective memory has not been studied. it seems important to us to identify the prototypes to which individuals refer when they remember, for example, the french during the world war ii (study 1), or even the french during the 18th century (study 2). it is therefore a question here of studying the various past prototypes coexisting according to the valence of the memory. so, we assume that there is a positively and a negatively valenced prototype for each of these memories. regarding memories associated with world war ii (study 1), a prototype of french-resistance (positive valence) would coexist with that of french-collaborator (negative valence). concerning memories linked to the french 18th century (study 2), a prototype of the french revolutionary (positive valence), would coexist with a prototype of the french colonizer/slaver (negative valence). we hypothesize that respondents’ past social status has an impact on the salience of one or other of these prototypes. thus, the descendants of members of the “colonized past” group such as participants of caribbean origin would activate the french colonizer/slaver prototype while descendants of settlers (in mainland france) would activate the prototype of “french revolutionary”. we present two studies that aim to study these different memories and the prototypes associated with them. study 1: past prototypes of the french during world war ii the objective of this first study was to explore the content of the past prototype associated with the world war ii (wwii), by differentiating the two mnemonic facets of this event which are distinguished by the emotions they arouse (i.e., pride vs shame). to highlight the content of these prototypes, we wanted to question participants on the characteristics associated with french people who lived during this period. method participants three hundred and sixty-four participants from the general population, all of french nationality (21.43% men and 78.57% women), voluntarily participated in this study (m = 26.03 years, sd = 10.58 years). the study took the form of a questionnaire, available online and distributed on social networks. the participants were assigned randomly to one of the three experimental conditions2 procedure after filling in the socio-demographic information, the participants were invited to read a short (fictitious) text from the popular journal “history”. this short text, operationalizing the experimental conditions (cf. appendices a to c in the supplementary materials), described the fictitious results of recent historical studies which highlight the different facets of the french during the world war ii, namely resistance, collaboration, or a neutral. then, using the free association method (vergès, 1992), the participants indicated four words or expressions that spontaneously came to their mind when they thought of the french of that time. then, they assessed the perceived continuity between their productions (i.e., characteristics associated with the french during wwii) and the french today. they then indicated the emotions felt towards the french of the same period. finally, the participants completed a measure of identification with the french ingroup, a measure of temporal orientation, and a measure of perception of collective continuity. 2) all the psychometric analyses and the material used are available in the supplementary materials. past french coexisting prototypes 262 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures for each study, after running general and item measures of sample adequacy and bartlett’s sphericity test, a separate principal component analysis (with parallel analysis as a criterion; horn, 1965) was performed. each measure used a 7-point likert-type scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). perceived continuity with the french during world war ii — to assess the perceived continuity between the prototype of the past group and the present prototype, the participants had, for each of the words they had produced, to say to what extent the 4 terms associated with the french of the past still characterized the french of today (α = .840). emotions felt towards the french of the past — the participants indicated the intensity of their feelings towards france and its inhabitants during the world war ii relating to 12 emotional states, taken from the work of (smits et al., 2002). the first component brought together six positive emotional states: pride, nostalgia, tenderness, joy, gratitude, melancholy (α = .790). the second grouped together negative emotional states: shame, regret, disgust, fear and ingratitude (α = .740). the mixed item (nostalgia) was deleted because it did not saturate sufficiently on any of the components. identification with the french ingroup — we measured, using five items, adapted from doosje et al. (1998), the participants’ attachment to france and their identity as french. the identification score had a good internal consistency (α = .830). temporal orientation of individuals — we translated and used the scale of (sharma, 2010) which makes it possible to assess individuals’ disposition to orient themselves more towards the past (dimension entitled “tradition” by the author, α = .69) or the present and the future (dimension entitled “prudence”, α = .82). perception of collective continuity — by adapting items from previous studies, cf. (sani et al., 2007), we established a measure of dispositional temporal continuity. the latter refers to the general tendency of the individual to feel themselves to be in continuity with the history (narrativist continuity, α = .79), values and traditions of the group (essentialist continuity, α = .80). results corpus description in total, 1784 terms for the three conditions combined were used to describe the french of the past (collaboration: n = 584, resistance: n = 605, neutral: n = 589). we then proceeded to a descriptive analysis of certain aspects of the corpus, namely the number of responses produced, the number of response types, the number of hapaxes and the diversity and scarcity indices. diversity is the ratio of different types of responses to the number of types of responses potentially produced (that is, the number of associative responses produced by the number of subjects per group). rarity refers to the proportion of hapax in the corpus (element that has only been cited once). the index is calculated as follows: ratio between the number of hapax over the number of types, e.g., flament & rouquette, 2003; tavani, 2012. these indices are presented in table 1. the diversity and rarity indices were relatively similar from one condition to another, so we can conclude that the representational sharing between individuals is the same, for each type of prototype. we have identified, for each condition, the ten words most used by participants. in general, the words “resistance” and “collaborators” appear most often in each of their respective conditions. to better understand the differences between collaboration, resistance, and neutral conditions, we performed a multiple correspondence factor analysis on the corpus. factorial analyses of correspondences. we kept the types of responses with a frequency equal to or greater than 10. this threshold is determined arbitrarily as indicating a high frequency of occurrence which refers to central representational elements (flament & rouquette, 2003). all conditions combined, 24 types of responses were retained. we then produced a factorial analysis of multiple maoulida, urdapilleta, collange, & tavani 263 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ correspondences from a contingency table representing in rows the types of responses and in columns the different modalities of our independent variables. the analysis highlights two factors that explain 67.51% of the inertia in the table (factor 1 = 40.26%; factor 2 = 27.25%, see figure 1). only the modalities of the variables and the types of responses contributing to the construction of the factors have been retained (deschamps, 2003). the modalities of the variables contributing to the construction of factor 1 are the conditions “collaboration” (cpf = 45.89%) and “neutral” (cpf = 12.99%), weak positive emotions (cpf = 6.73%), high positive emotional states (cpf = 9.21%), and weak negative emotional states (cpf = 8.37%). these modalities contribute 83.19% to the formation of factor 1. factor 2 is constructed by the conditions “resistance” (cpf = 50.60%) and again “neutral” (cpf = 23.40), the modality “tradition” of the variable temporal orientation at low level (cpf = 6.84%) and by strong negative emotions (cpf = 5.50%). in total, these modalities refer to a total contribution of 95.3%. the terms contributing to factor 1 are in bold on the graph, those contributing to factor 2 are in italics. the modalities of ivs are boxed in gray. figure 1 representational map of the past prototype wwii the first factor opposes the collaboration condition to neutral. the terms most closely related to the collaboration variable are cowardly, selfish, informer/denouncer, while the term neutral is not strongly attached to any term. the second factor opposes the resistance to neutral condition. as before, the neutral condition is isolated from all the terms, while the resistance condition is associated with the terms: combative, resistant, supportive. the results of this factor analysis confirm those obtained from the frequency analysis, while bringing to light a set of differentiated characteristics associated with past prototypes that are positive and negative. note that we do not observe characteristics associated with a prototype of the past that is not associated with a given valence, in other words we do not observe a neutral prototype. table 1 description of the past prototype corpus associated with wwii answers general neutral resistance collaboration number 1784 589 605 585 type 558 250 265 259 hapax 336 170 180 173 diversity 31.28% 42.44% 43.80% 44.27% rarity 60.22% 68.00% 67.92% 66.80% past french coexisting prototypes 264 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study 2: past prototypes of 18th century french people, influence of past social status the aim of this study is to explore the content of the past prototype associated with the french 18th century by differentiating two subgroups with different past social status: the french-caribbean (descendants of slaves/colonized) and the french-metropolitan (descendants of slavers/settlers). we hypothesize that this century represents a double memory from an emotional point of view (of the emotions aroused by the recall of the past collective memory) which would be manifested by the presence in the french collective memory of two separate prototypes. thus, the french-caribbean (past minority status) would perceive this period of history mainly through the prism of colonization and slavery, relating this period to negative emotions. for the french-metropolitan (past majority status), this period would be linked to rather positive emotions, linking this century to the revolutionary period and to the enlightenment. method participants three hundred and fifty-four participants from the general population (with 26.84% men) voluntarily completed this study; 236 participants identified themselves as french-metropolitan (m = 26.41 years, sd = 10.13 years) and 118 participants identified themselves as french-caribbean (m = 31.89 years, sd = 11.95 years). the study took the form of an online questionnaire, distributed on social networks, mainly targeting groups identifying themselves as caribbean. procedure the participants, after filling in the socio-demographic information, were invited to state the terms they associated with 18th century france (cf. appendix d in the supplementary materials). then, we presented them with a short version of the perception of collective continuity scale and a measure of the emotions felt towards the french during this past period. then, they had to indicate whether they saw themselves more as french-metropolitan, french-caribbean or other. finally, they completed a measure of identification with the subgroup they had indicated. measures perception of collective continuity — the scale was the same as that used in study 1. the first component referred to essentialist continuity (α = .818) and the second to narrative continuity (α = .797). emotions felt towards the french of the past — the participants indicated the intensity of their feelings towards france and the inhabitants of the 18th century by measuring the emotional states used previously (positive α = .807 and negative emotional states, α = .853). identification with the ingroup — this was measured based on the same items used previously, items that we adapted for the french-caribbean group to measure their attachment to their caribbean identity (α = .897). results corpus description a total of 1,424 terms for both conditions were produced to describe the 18th century french (french-metropolitan: n = 951, french-caribbean: n = 473). the description of the corpus is presented in table 2. the diversity and rarity indices are quite different from one condition to another, which gives us the first indications of a representational divergence between individuals of different social status. to analyze the differences between the two past social statuses, we carried out a factorial correspondence analysis on the corpus. maoulida, urdapilleta, collange, & tavani 265 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ factorial analyses of correspondences this was carried out on a contingency table representing in rows the types of responses and in columns the different modalities of our independent variables: social status (french-metropolitan, french-caribbean), sex (man, woman), perception of collective continuity. (essentialist narrative), and emotion (positive, negative) towards the french of the past, identification with the ingroup (high, low) for each of the corpus. the analysis highlights two factors that explain 61.71% of the inertia in the table (factor 1 = 61.71%; factor 2 = 16.82%, see figure 2). the modalities of the variables contributing to the construction of factor 1 are the status “french-caribbean” (cpf = 38.72%) and “french-metropolitan” (cpf = 16.96%). these modalities contribute 55.68% to the formation of factor 1. factor 2 is constructed by the “male” sex (cpf = 9.29%); narrative continuity at a low (cpf = 8.74%) and high (cpf = 13.65%) level, weak (cpf = 9.17%) and strong (cpf = 7.76%) negative emotions and strong in-group identification (cpf = 5.80%). in total, these modalities refer to a total contribution of 54.41%. figure 2 representational map of the french prototype of the 18th century the first factor mainly opposes past social statuses by comparing the french-metropolitan prototype to that of the french-caribbean. the terms most closely linked to the french-metropolitan variable are those of war/warrior, while for the french-caribbean they are the terms colonization/colonialist. the second factor contrasts, on the one hand, a strong negative emotion coupled with a weak narrative continuity (see figure 2, and on the other, a weak negative emotion associated with a strong narrative continuity, a strong identification with the in-group and the male sex. the first association is linked to the terms poverty/poor, war/warrior, kings, while the second association of variables is linked to the enlightenment (philosopher), napoleon, louis xiv. table 2 description of the past prototype corpus associated with the 18th century answers french metropolitan caribbean number 1424 951 473 type 388 293 183 hapax 263 207 127 diversity 27.25% 30.81% 38.69% rarity 18.47% 21.77% 26.84% past french coexisting prototypes 266 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ general discussion appraisal in the present research, we proposed reconciling the fixed (hogg & reid, 2006) and situational (haslam et al., 1995) approaches of the study of the prototype by considering that a prototype would be fixed during its construction, but that depending on the context, the members of a given group could use one prototype rather than another. thus, the group would establish a set of characteristics determining this prototype at a given time, without this excluding the possibility of creating several. so, we hypothesized that there would be one positive valence and one negative valence prototype for each of these memories. the objective of this study was to respond to this hypothesis based on the study of two french collective memories: world war ii (study 1) and france of the 18th century (study 2). indeed, world war ii was a “two-sided” memory, one positive (resistance), one negative (collaborator), and each of these facets has unique, specific characteristics associated with it. in study 2, analyses confirmed that french-caribbeans (past minority status) mostly adhere to a rather negative french past prototype such as “slaver” or “colonizer”, whereas french-metropolitans (past majority status) adhere to a positive french past prototype such as “fighter” or “believer”. the results of these two studies confirm the idea that in the collective memory the prototypes would be associated with an emotional valence (positive vs. negative) and that these related past prototypes would be linked to past social status. however, in contrast to what previous studies have suggested (e.g., sani et al., 2007; smeekes & verkuyten, 2015), in our studies ingroup identification did not impact prototype content. one explanation can be borrowed from the literature on collective guilt. indeed, feelings of collective guilt for past ingroups’ transgressions depend on the type of ingroup identification, namely glorification or attachment (bonnot et al., 2016). when national identification comes in the form of glorification, people are motivated to perceive their group as better and more worthy than other groups in order to maintain a positive image of their ingroup. consequently, they would be more incline to minimize, or even deny the responsibility of their group, in their past harmful actions (bonnot et al., 2016). in the attachment form, people feel connected and loyal to the group but may look critically at the group, and by extension at their involvement in past events (bonnot et al., 2016). they would thus be more inclined to acknowledge the responsibility of the ingroup’s past transgression. thus, future studies should examine how the type of identification might influence the construction of the ingroup prototype. overall, these results encourage a more systematic study of past group members’ representations. future work should focus more on the exploration of prototypes, such as historical events and figures which have received the main attention in studies of collective memory (coman et al., 2009). limitations and future research the arbitrary choice of the frequency threshold to be reached to be representative of the past group, as well as the limit given for the number of terms are all limitations to the choice of a measure based on the free association method. however, these limitations are not, in our opinion, enough to reject this method, but enough for us to consider how to improve it. we could take into account the hierarchy or rank of the elements reported by the participants (dany et al., 2015; lo monaco et al., 2017). the results of the studies presented here lead us to think that it would be necessary to devise experimental studies that would make it possible to further highlight these initial results. for example, using the characteristics of the various prototypes identified to build portraits of these french of the past. then, we might study the effect of the perception of continuity with any of these past two-sided prototypes on different variables of interest in social identity. indeed, in the introduction we mentioned the defining role that collective memory plays in group and social identity (licata & klein, 2005). the activation of these prototypes and the perception of continuity with them should have consequences for present attitudes, opinions and behaviors, related to intragroup (e.g., social judgment, perceived similarity, etc.) or intergroup relations (e.g., collective actions, rejection of outgroup, etc.). some results of our current work point in this direction. maoulida, urdapilleta, collange, & tavani 267 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, in study 1, we chose to highlight different aspects of wwii in france—i.e., resistance, collaboration or neutral—to examine how the prototype content of the french in would differ according those aspects of world war ii. this experimental manipulation allowed us to ensure that each aspect or side of wwii would be salient for an equivalent number of participants—and consequently an equivalent number of verbal productions in each condition (positive vs. negative prototype). however, this procedure does not allow us to examine which aspects of wwii is the most salient in our sample, and therefore which prototype is more accessible. thus, although the neutral condition could be considered as a control condition, future studies should investigate which prototype is more present within the french population and which factors could influence the presence of one prototype rather than another (e.g., family history, region in which they live, identification with the french group, etc.). indeed, one could think that, in order to maintain a positive ingroup image, individuals would spontaneously produce a positive past prototype of the french (i.e., as resistant, especially those who are highly identified to france; sahdra & ross, 2007). furthermore, the predominance of one prototype over another among our participants could be one of the likely explanations for the lack of effect of collective continuity. we could hypothesize that the imposed recall prototype is not the predominant prototype of the participants interviewed. thus, from one participant to another, the perception of continuity between this past and current prototype would vary and this effect of continuity on the content of the prototype could not be observed. finally, these works highlight the existence of a new form of collective continuity, the perception of continuity with past prototypes, i.e., the perception of a link between the members of a past, present, or future group; efforts to explore it should be continued. indeed, this form of continuity might go beyond or even transcend any belonging to narrative or essentialist continuity theorized by sani and collaborators (2007) and could perhaps be considered as a third form of collective continuity. conclusion the aim of this research was to introduce the notion of past prototype. we have explored the characteristics associated with the french of the past, (1) of the world war ii and (2) of the 18th century and assumed a “two facets” prototype: one with a positive and one with a negative valence. so, the french of wwii could be “the french-collaborator” or the “french-resistant”); depending on past social status, the french of the 18th century could be “the revolutionary” or “the slaver/colonizer”. past prototypes and their content have been the subject of too few studies in the field of collective memory. the present research proposes a methodology, the free associations method, as an effective way to examine these prototypes. moreover, the results of this research could have strong implications for intra-group and even inter-group relations. indeed, collective memories define group identities and are a relevant criterion for social categorization (tavani et al., 2017). thus, if past prototypes constitute norm of remembering, deviance to the most dominant prototype (positive vs. negative valence) might constitute a criterion for excluding someone from the ingroup. additionally, as shown by maoulida et al. (2021), perceived continuity to a positive versus a negative past influence attitudes towards outgroups. future studies should thus further examine the influence of perceived collective continuity regarding past prototypes, i.e., continuity between the group past and present identity, on intragroup variables, e.g., collective self-esteem, social categorization, and intergroup ones. funding: the authors have no funding to report acknowledgments: the authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: the data and material, including appendices, used for this study as well as additional analyses are freely available and can be found in the supplementary materials. past french coexisting prototypes 268 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are data, material, appendices, and analyses that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials maoulida, h., urdapilleta, i., & tavani, j. l. 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(2014). collective memories of three wars in united states history in younger and older adults. memory and cognition, 42(3), 383–399. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0369-7 about the authors haïfat maoulida is a doctor in social psychology and a researcher and teacher associate to the university of paris. her work focuses on the impact of individuals' collective memories on their perceptions, attitudes and behaviors towards members of their own group (e.g., perception of the skills or warmth of one’s group) and members of other groups (e.g., prejudice, discrimination, exclusion, etc.). more broadly, her work aims at better living together and extends to the fields of work, health and education (e.g., through works on 21st century competencies development). maoulida, urdapilleta, collange, & tavani 271 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 259–272 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7507 https://doi.org/10.1177/18344909211005474 https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x030032002 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420180303 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211427307 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420170304 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167206296103 https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.430 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-009-0184-7 https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2015.1112653 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.436 https://theses.hal.science/tel-00771414 https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430215596076 https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000746 https://doi.org/10.2307/3220266 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0369-7 https://www.psychopen.eu/ isabel urdapilleta is professor at the university of paris 8 | vincennes saint-denis. she is interested in the articulation between the interactions between individuals and their social environment, considering certain psycho-social dimensions that mediate them. her research focuses on the effects of stigmatization, stereotypes, depersonalization and, more broadly, changes in personal or social identity on cognitions and interactions with the environment. julie collange is an assistant professor at the university of paris. her work aims at investigating how people—as individuals or citizens—react to situations that are potentially threatening or beneficial. thus, her goal is to examine how threats or opportunities hinder or promote integration of individuals by studying intra-individual cues, such as their well-being, and interpersonal or intergroup cues, such as prejudice and inclusive behaviors. the examination of this problematic is divided into two lines of research that are invested either in the social field or in the field of work and organizations. jean louis tavani has a doctorate in social psychology. he is interested in the articulation between the theory of social identity and the theory of social representations. more specifically, his work focuses on the impact of collective memory and social belonging on intraand inter-group relations. he is also interested in the temporal aspects of identity (self and social identity) and their impact not only on intraand inter-group relations, but also on health and well-being. past french coexisting prototypes 272 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ past french coexisting prototypes (introduction) collective memory social representations of the past content of the collective memory: the notion of a past prototype emotional valence of collective memory presentation of the research study 1: past prototypes of the french during world war ii method results study 2: past prototypes of 18th century french people, influence of past social status method results general discussion appraisal limitations and future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors refugee mothers mental health and social support needs: a systematic review of interventions for refugee mothers literature reviews refugee mothers mental health and social support needs: a systematic review of interventions for refugee mothers kim roger abi zeid daou 1 [1] mcgill university, montréal, québec, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 received: 2020-11-13 • accepted: 2021-04-22 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: flavia cangià, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland corresponding author: kim roger abi zeid daou, mcgill university, montréal, québec, canada. e-mail: kim.abizeiddaou@mail.mcgill.ca abstract refugee mothers endure and are at risk for depression, post-traumatic stress, suicidality, and anxiety. there is a gap in the literature regarding interventions for refugee mothers’ mental health and well-being. interventions involving refugee mothers rarely provide adequate support for refugee mothers’ specific mental health needs and challenges. this paper presents empirical evidence to contextualize the risks refugee mothers face, such as gender-based violence, mental health challenges, and language barriers. then, the paper provides a critical systematic review of interventions conducted with refugee mothers. the critical systematic review suggests that creating and providing a safe space, being a linguistic liaison, community-building, and advocating for refugee mothers’ needs are emergent protective factors for refugee mothers. finally, based on the review, recommendations for future interventions followed. keywords refugee women, at-risk populations, mental health, humanitarian crisis, motherhood, community interventions although there is evidence that refugee mothers experience mental health issues, there is a gap in the literature on interventions supporting mental health and adjustment for refugee mothers. indeed, refugee mothers experience depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, and suicidality (rahman & hafeez, 2003; schweitzer et al., 2018). intervention programs and services for refugee populations seldom provide adequate support to the mental health needs and challenges of refugee mothers (dybdahl, 2001; jesuthasan et al., 2019; milkie et al., 2020). however, the united nations high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) identifies the urgent need for specialized support for refugee mothers (united nations high commissioner for refugees, 2014a). thus, this paper will begin by presenting a review of studies that have explored the mental health issues, experiences, or risks refugee mothers face. this will be followed by a critical systematic review of interventions conducted with refugee mothers to determine the match and/or discrepancy between needs and interventions. finally, based on this review, recommendations for future interventions will follow. vulnerabilities of refugee women and mothers gender-based violence refugees are exposed to difficult and traumatizing experiences, which affect their psychological and emotional well-be­ ing, making them highly vulnerable to mental health problems and emotional distress (agic et al., 2016; crowley, 2009). moreover, the unhcr states that refugee women and girls are extremely vulnerable (united nations high commissioner for refugees et al., 2016). the experiences of refugee women and girls throughout the resettlement proc­ this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4665&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ess are different from men’s experiences since many of them are subjected to gender-based violence and persecution (pittaway & bartolomei, 2001; pulvirenti & mason, 2011; united nations high commissioner for refugees et al., 2016). women and girls who are normally protected because of their gender now lack that protection and are at risk for gender-specific human rights violations (united nations high commissioner for refugees, 2014b; united nations high commissioner for refugees et al., 2016). refugee women and girls are especially vulnerable to sexual gender-based violence in refugee camps, where they are often required to walk long distances to get important resources such as firewood. moreover, they are still at dramatically elevated risk for gender-based violence through migration routes in europe and even after resettlement (robbers et al., 2016). the lifetime prevalence of sexual violence against girls and women over 15 in the general population was 11%, while it reached 69.3% of migrants and refugees (keygnaert et al., 2012). additionally, gender-based and sexual violence has long-term impacts on refugee women and girls’ mental health and well-being including post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), depression, anxiety, and suicidality (robbers et al., 2016). gender-specific human rights violations have harmful impacts on refugee women’s physical and psychological states, which are further exacerbated by the challenges of resettlement (deacon & sullivan, 2009; hynes & cardozo, 2000; miller et al., 2002). mental health challenges refugee women have been found to have especially high rates of psychiatric symptoms. indeed, the traumatic experi­ ences and post-migration challenges refugee women endure have the potential to reinforce increased vulnerability to psychiatric symptoms and distress including symptoms of trauma, anxiety, depression, somatization, and ptsd (schweitzer et al., 2018). given the higher risk of experiencing mental health issues as a refugee during childbearing age (korukcu et al., 2018), refugee mothers are especially vulnerable to developing mental health issues due to their rapidly changing living situation and circumstances (degni et al., 2014). for instance, refugee mothers in camps face a high risk of developing a mental disorder, such as depression, and to experience suicidal ideation. indeed, a study revealed that 36% of the mothers in camps, were diagnosed with a mental disorder, 91% percent of which reported having had suicidal thoughts in the past month (rahman & hafeez, 2003). furthermore, schweitzer and colleagues (2018) found that the responsibilities of caring for a child as a refugee represent a risk factor for refugee mothers experiencing higher levels of trauma symptoms and contribute to the development of psychiatric problems such as anxiety and somatic symptoms (schweitzer et al., 2018). newly resettled mothers are less likely to seek out professional services due to various barriers including stigma, language, poor knowledge of community services, and prioritizing their children’s needs to the detriment of their own well-being (nicholson et al., 1998); refugee mothers’ focus on supporting their children and coping with these barriers leave them at an elevated risk for mental health problems (betancourt et al., 2015). thus, refugee mothers face a unique set of challenges that require specialized evidence-based interventions. language barriers moreover, the language barrier through the resettlement process is an impediment to refugee women’s access to serv­ ices which in turn can negatively affect their psychological well-being (hou & beiser, 2006). this barrier is especially salient in the post-resettlement context where refugee women seldom have enough time and resources to address their educational needs and learn the language of the host country (watkins et al., 2012). furthermore, the language barrier disproportionately affects women, as immigrant men have been shown to achieve better proficiency of the host country’s language than women due to inequalities in social and educational opportunities (hou & beiser, 2006). a canadian study found that refugee women’s english fluency was longitudinally associated with higher rates of employment and lower rates of depression (beiser, 2009). in a study conducted in germany, difficulties related to the language barrier were found to be a widespread concern for syrian refugees which impeded their integration, their ability to socialize, and their access to proper healthcare (green, 2017). similarly, an australian study found that having limited english proficiency increased refugee mothers’ risk for marginalization, isolation, and family dysfunction, while a stronger proficiency made them more comfortable accessing mainstream services (riggs et refugee mothers mental health and social support needs 338 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ al., 2012). therefore, it is critical that language education services consider the needs of refugee mothers to support their host-country language fluency. the mental health difficulties of refugee mothers such as depression, anxiety, trauma, suicidality (rahman & hafeez, 2003; schweitzer et al., 2018), require specialized services because more general mental health services do not simultaneously address their cultural and linguistic backgrounds, their need for community, their mistrust and difficulties navigating healthcare systems in host countries, and the unique adverse experiences brought about by being a mother through the process of forced displacement (mcleish, 2005; schweitzer et al., 2018; tsai et al., 2017). thus, the present paper will consist of a systematic review of interventions for refugee mothers while using specific inclusion and exclusion criteria, identify gaps in the literature, and provide research contributions and practical implications and recommendations for future evidence-based interventions and research. method search strategy an electronic search was performed on psycinfo (the year of 1806 to march 16, 2020), medline (the year of 1946 to march 16, 2020), and web of science core collection (accessed march 16, 2020). the search was limited to articles in the english language. the time periods were selected to encompass the year the database was founded to the present date. the following search was performed on all three databases: refugee* and mother* and interven*. the asterisk was used in order to truncate search words and include articles that use similar words such as mothers or motherhood, refugees, and intervention or intervening. a second researcher simultaneously conducted the search. the screening process, choice of articles, inclusion and exclusion criteria involved both researchers to ensure inter-rater reliability. studies were included based on the following inclusion and exclusion criteria: (a) presents an original intervention, (b) focuses on refugee populations, (c) includes or targets mothers, (d) differentiates between data gathered with mother and father refugees, and (e) is not solely medical in scope, (see figure 1). results the study selection process comprised three databases and incorporated specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. this search resulted in 132 studies. 112 studies were excluded because they did not present an original intervention, with many being qualitative in-depth interviews, research on refugee mothers’ reproductive health, vaccine research, and post-partum depression data research. two studies were excluded because they did not focus on refugee populations, nine were excluded because they did not target or include refugee mothers, five were excluded because they did not differentiate between the needs of refugee mothers and fathers, and one study was excluded because its scope was solely medical. three studies were included from this search, and three additional studies were found through a subsequent snowball search, which entails consulting the bibliography for relevant papers. six relevant studies that involved a total of approximately 350 participants were included in the review. interventions for refugee mothers children and mothers in war: an outcome study of a psychosocial intervention program the aim of the psychosocial mother-child intervention was mainly to improve child development and well-being through better mother and child interactions, support and education (dybdahl, 2001). the participants were 87 bosniandisplaced mother-child dyads. they were divided into an intervention group (psychological intervention and medical care) and a non-intervention group (medical care only). the intervention was based on therapeutic discussion groups for traumatized women in the context of war and the international child development program. the group discussions also involved topics related to mothers’ mental health such as symptoms of ptsd, traumatic experiences, exposure to violence, and other adverse experiences lived in refugee camps. abi zeid daou 339 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ before the start of the intervention, both the mothers and children’s psychological, cognitive and physical health were monitored. the study was culturally specific, and bosnian mental health specialists reassessed and reviewed the instruments used in the study and intervention for cultural specificity and appropriateness. mothers’ trauma and wellbeing were measured using the impact of event scale (ies) and the mothers’ interviews pre-intervention and post-intervention provided demographics, perceived social support, and living conditions informa­ tion. mothers who were in the intervention group perceived more social support after the intervention and felt they had people to go to for support and advice. indeed, there was a significant increase in perceived social support between pre-test and post-test in the intervention group, while there was a slight decrease in the non-intervention group (dybdahl, 2001). there was a non-significant increase in total social support scores; pretest (m = 4.4) smaller than post-test; (m = 5.0), p > .05. there was a significant increase in social support for “advice” scores; pretest (m = 4.7) smaller than post-test; (m = 5.4), p < .05. there was a non-significant increase in mother’s well-being for “today”, pretest (m = 4.1) smaller than post-test, (m = 4.4), p > .05, and there was a significant increase in mother’s well-being for “usually”, pretest (m = 3.5) smaller than post-test, (m = 4.6), p < .05. there was a non-significant decrease in mother’s well-being for “prefer”, pretest (m = 6.2) bigger than post-test, (m = 5.8), p > .05. there was a significant decrease, pretest (m = 71.2) bigger than post-test, (m = 56.1), p < .05 in total ies scores and on the hyperarousal symptoms, pretest (m = 22.7) bigger than post-test, (m = 16.7), p < .05 subscale for mothers in the intervention group, which was significantly larger than the decrease observed in the control group. however, there was no significant difference between the decrease observed in the intervention group and the non-intervention group on the avoidance and intrusion symptoms subscales. dybdahl (2001)’s study is a good example of an intervention program that addressed the needs and prognosis of refugee mothers. however, the data gathered focuses heavily on the children and provides limited insight into the figure 1 search strategy flowchart refugee mothers mental health and social support needs 340 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ impact of the intervention on mothers. while mothers’ mental health problems are taken into consideration in the conception of the intervention, it is unclear whether it is efficient in promoting their well-being. mothers’ wellbeing was only lightly discussed in relation to children’s wellbeing (dybdahl, 2001). it is important to note that though the study demonstrated a decrease in mothers’ ies scores, those outcomes were not discussed sufficiently. indeed, the researcher acknowledged that discussing mothers’ mental health in detail goes beyond the scope of the paper, but that the ies measures revealed a high level of distress both before and following the intervention, and that the ies scores were related to trauma exposure. it is worthwhile to highlight that the study aimed to be culturally specific and consulted numerous bosnian mental health workers as it has been shown that culturally specific approaches are beneficial for refugee populations (tsai et al., 2017; williams & thompson, 2011) collaborative health education for somali bantu refugee women in kansas city the goal of this study was improving the health literacy of somali bantu refugee mothers. eleven somali bantu refugee mothers resettled in kansas city were recruited through a resettlement agency to participate in a health education program held weekly over 12 months consisting of a total of 42 sessions of 90-minutes each (mulcahy et al., 2019). rooted in community-based collaborative action research (cbcar), the small-group sessions took into account the needs and interests of mothers, and consequently included various topics such as family health, nutrition, sexuality, prenatal health, child safety, and mental health. to gain an understanding of the health narratives of refugee mothers through the resettlement process, each mother also participated in an individual interview. additionally, they completed questionnaires pertaining to their health behaviors, the content of the testing sessions and whether they recalled the information presented. nutrition was the most requested and discussed topic. pearson co-efficient analyses revealed a positive correlation between the number of times a topic was presented and the number of women who retained the topic (r  = .852, p  < .01). nutrition was the topic with the highest retention, as it was the topic that was presented the highest number of times. the women were interested in discussing nutrition in relation to their own health and that of their child, and nutrition in relation to prenatal health. ptsd symptoms were discussed in terms of the women’s exposure to potentially traumatizing experiences, hardship, and violence, but were not endorsed by participants during individual interviews. finally, the women expressed being generally satisfied with their healthcare access, interactions with doctors, and access to interpreters. mulcahy and colleagues (2019) conducted the study to improve the health literacy of somali bantu refugee mothers. however, the mothers were asked about ptsd symptoms as “feeling sad” by culturally representative professionals with experience working with refugees. moreover, recommendations in the literature highlight the importance of providing refugees with opportunities to cope with distress and negative affect without forcing them to relive their traumatic experiences (hansen & houston, 2016). in addition, women did not endorse ptsd symptoms when individually inter­ viewed, and the results of the study do not provide information regarding their mental health through the course of the intervention. no other symptoms of mental illness or psychological distress were discussed. furthermore, despite holding a full session on the topic of mental health, the impact of the session on participants was not discussed in the paper. despite claiming that some sessions focused on mental health, mental health was not discussed in the article beyond symptoms of ptsd. additionally, it is stated that retention of the material on mental health was null, and that they found an “inconsistency between personal narrative and recognition of symptoms” (mulcahy et al., 2019, p. 5). unfortunately, mental health remains one of the biggest outcomes of concern for refugee mothers and this study did not properly assess nor intervene on refugee mothers’ mental health symptoms. a home-based intervention for immigrant and refugee trauma survivors visiting moms is a program for high-risk refugee and immigrant mothers and their infants based at the massachusetts general hospital chelsea health care centre (paris & bronson, 2006). the intervention program focused on the needs of both mothers and infants and their functioning as a dyad and adopted a community-based approach in which paraprofessionals (obstetricians, midwives, pediatricians, and psychotherapists) provided at-home visits to participating new mothers. to be eligible, due to limited resources, immigrant and refugee mothers underwent a screening process to establish existing risk factors including severe depression, isolation, trauma, risk of child abuse, health needs, and safety abi zeid daou 341 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the family environment. 105 mothers participated in the study. the intervention comprised multiple aspects such as education on child development, family advocacy, and social support. in its conception, the intervention program was claimed to be highly individualized, provided holistic support for mother-child dyads, and was rooted in evidence-based practice as well as local realities. however, no details were provided in the article to supplement those claims. parent-child interactions, and additional stressors, such as poverty and language barriers, were assessed and taken into consideration. the home visitors intervened by using relationship-based model (lieberman, 2004; paris & bronson, 2006). the first step of the intervention was for the home visitor to listen to the mother, which made home visitors realize that the families needed basic supplies. the paper does not specify how information was elicited from mothers. the second step was developing a working alliance. the alliance was developed as the mother and the home visitor got to know each other every visit. the home visitor engaged in modeling and self-disclosure as communicational tools to develop an alliance, to teach the mother certain practices, and to make the mothers more comfortable opening up to the home visitor about their troubles. the last step was expanding the relationship to community supports, such as giving the mothers access to english classes or helping them get a library card. no data was collected to assess outcome measures, as the paper consists of a description of the program. one positive facet of the intervention was advocacy: the home visitors advocated for the mothers and connected them to resources and to the community. the home visitors developed a working alliance with the mothers by supporting their autonomy and fostering their competence. autonomy was fostered by the home visitor teaching the mother skills that could be useful in the host country. this is important to highlight, as the literature review previously mentioned that newly resettled refugee mothers are less likely to seek professional services because of various challenges, such as stigma and poor knowledge of community services (nicholson et al., 1998). thus, the visiting moms intervention attempted to tackle important issues refugee mothers face, such as loneliness and lack of knowledge and access to resources. however, the outcomes of visiting moms were not formally studied. therefore, there is no empirical evidence of the efficacy of the program and its impact on participating refugee mothers. finally, the paper implied different cultural practices may be dangerous for the children, and that they taught mothers to practice those safely. however, the paper did not present an empirical method to define what is safe and unsafe for the children and operated under the assumption that western child-rearing practices are superior to other cultures. the moving forward project: working with refugee children, youth, and their families the moving forward project was an intervention program for refugee families based in saskatchewan, canada (white et al., 2009). the objective of the intervention was to provide knowledge and skills to refugee parents and youth to support them in efficiently addressing issues pertaining to trauma in the context of resettlement. the second goal was to bring awareness and knowledge of the resources and programs available to refugees and immigrants. the third goal was to improve service providers’ capacities, so they can respond better to refugee families’ needs. the goals were to be achieved through education, group discussions, resource development and dissemination. the first intake group included seven to ten families from sudan and afghanistan, and the second in-take session included eighteen families from colombia, afghanistan, sudan, burma, rwanda, congo, egypt, mongolia, bosnia, and burundi. there were six-week sessions held with the participants. the intervention’s group sessions focused on topics such as the impact of trauma on the family, positive coping skills, and problem-solving skills. it should be noted that the authors did not disclose their data collection process or method. nevertheless, the study highlighted the importance of relationship-building and support between women. indeed, they stated that according to theories on group principles, participants would learn they are not alone in their experiences, and they could consequently learn from each other and support each other. they found that the language barriers limited the efficacy of the intervention and that the mothers preferred to talk about sociocultural integration and making canadian friends instead of talking about past experiences. finally, they found that the session ended up being gatherings, a construction of a safe space for sharing, and that making the groups open to newcomers contributed to the construction of a safe space where mothers cried, talked, bonded, and laughed together. a safe space in this context refers to any physical space where refugees can feel refugee mothers mental health and social support needs 342 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ physically and emotionally safe to express themselves and build social networks (united nations high commissioner for refugees, 2014b). a problematic aspect of the study was how the researchers stated that the language barrier and the refugees’ tendency to speak to each other in their mother tongue was a difficulty during the sessions. as the literature has shown, refugees have language difficulties when they arrive to their host country (green, 2017; watkins et al., 2012). conducting an intervention with refugees in the host country language, in a language they either do not know or are struggling with, is a methodological problem. the authors sought to teach the refugee mothers skills (e.g., problem-solving and coping skills to deal with trauma) but claim the refugee mothers discussed their future in canada instead. however, it is possible that the inability to communicate comfortably in their mother tongue contributed to a general discomfort resulting in hesitancy to share more personal information, although this would need to be evaluated. certainly, evidence stresses the importance of using a professional interpreter with refugees when professionals do not speak the language, as the language barrier is a major challenge in providing accurate and adequate healthcare (kavukcu & altıntaş, 2019; williams & thompson, 2011). finally, though the intervention claimed to delve into trauma, the researchers failed to consider the more specific mental health challenges of refugee mothers and their willingness and psychological readiness to discuss those issues in a language they are not comfortable in. sweet mother: evaluation of a pilot mental health service for asylum-seeking mothers and babies o’shaughnessy and colleagues (2012) evaluated a novel pilot intervention for refugee mothers and their infants called sweet mother. the objective of sweet mother was to promote participants’ mental health who have been exposed to adverse circumstances through the resettlement process during the perinatal period. a total of 13 mother-child dyads participated in the study. however, only seven dyads attended many or all of the 21 group sessions, while six dyads only attended between one and four sessions. the intervention was rooted in attachment theory and focuses on building on the mothers’ strengths to foster the development of a positive mother-child relationship. moreover, it adopted a community-building approach to mitigate the negative impact of being separated from their home communities and adopted a participatory approach where children’s needs helped shape the group sessions. the intervention consisted of therapeutic infant-mother group sessions lead by specialists. mothers also participated in individual interviews, in reflective group discussions, and completed questionnaires pertaining to their relationship with their babies at each session. thematic analysis of the reflective exercises revealed the mothers had an overall positive experience with the intervention. they expressed appreciating a new sense of togetherness, highlighted the importance of their babies socializing with other babies, expressed feeling safe in this group, learned about motherhood and parenting, and valued discussing and strengthening their relationship with their babies. finally, the care-index, an observation measure for adult-child dyads, revealed that two participants improved the quality of their mother-infant interactions from “seriously compromised” to “of concern”, while two mothers remained at the cusp of “of concern” and one mother’s scores increased within the “good enough” range (o’shaughnessy et al., 2012). it is important to note that the results of the sweet mother intervention provided an encouraging insight into an intervention model for at-risk refugee mothers with young children. however, as this was pilot study, the scope of the results was quite limited. only five mothers were evaluated using the care-index, limiting our understanding of the impact of the intervention on mother-child dyads. additionally, one of the main objectives of the study was to “support maternal mental health by reducing isolation and increasing access to community resources” (o’shaughnessy et al., 2012, p. 217). yet, no screening for exposure to traumatic experiences or psychiatric symptoms was performed. likewise, no identified outcomes were examined vis-a-vis the mothers’ psychological well-being. the methodology of the study lacked a direct measure of participating mothers’ mental health and general well-being and thus did not properly align with its outlined objectives. nonetheless, the results of this pilot study and the positive response from participants provide important information on the needs of refugee mothers and the feasibility of such interventions. i think someone is walking with me: the use of mobile phone for social capital development among women in four refugee communities the goal of the intervention was the development of social capital by providing refugee mothers and women a phone. the main component of the intervention was examining the effects of acquiring and utilizing social capita. the abi zeid daou 343 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intervention encompassed face-to-face peer support training sessions and mobile phones for the timespan of one year. 111 afghan, burmese, and sudanese refugee women and mothers residing in melbourne participated in the study, and a subset of 29 refugees was interviewed after the one-year period. the phone number provided had many call categories, such as translating and interpreting service (tis), participants from the same community, and the training facilitator researchers (koh et al., 2018). because many refugees struggle with the host language, groups were divided to share a same-language proficiency for oral communication and by culture of origin. the first six weeks, weekly training sessions were conducted, and the consequent five weeks, five bi-monthly training sessions were conducted. the goal of the training sessions was to improve communication skills with community interpreters. the study utilized mixed methods and interviewed a subset of the refugees regarding their perception of the intervention. intra-community calls were calls made to people who belong to the same community, extra-community calls were calls made to people who do not belong to the same community but live in australia, and overseas calls were calls made to people in other countries. analysis of how the phone was used portrayed that intra-community calls represented social capital bonding. indeed, in each community, the category of the intra-community had a higher number of calls and call durations, compared to the other call categories. the thematic analysis of the interviews found that the perceived effects of the phone were social capital on an extra-community level; the intervention was shown to be beneficial in increasing refugees’ interactions with the australian wider society. according to the refugees, skills taught in the intervention, such as confidence and communications skills, facilitated their interactions with the general host country society (koh et al., 2018). an interesting effect of the intervention was the strengthening of the community relationships of the mothers. refugee mothers helped each other through childcare services and driving each other when needed. furthermore, those with better english language skills would help the ones struggling with the language. the phone improved their social network, which became a source for emotional support and information access. the training sessions happened with community interpreters, and groups were divided as a function of shared mother tongue. this is beneficial as language is an important barrier for refugees (green, 2017; watkins et al., 2012). the study being conducted in the refugees' mother tongue, and community interpreters being present increases the validity of the findings. secondly, the intervention focused on community building, which seems to be a protective factor in the interventions reviewed thus far. finally, the intervention created a network where the refugees helped and supported each other and were each other’s language liaison. the creation of a bond of trust when it comes to information access is important. for example, persian and syrian refugees in germany trust information provided by people in their own social network, who have successfully resettled, the most (borkert et al., 2018). discussion refugees are at a highly elevated risk of developing mental illness due to the adverse experiences and instability brought about by the resettlement process (agic et al., 2016; crowley, 2009). moreover, refugee women, and especially refugee mothers, find themselves at a greater risk than their male counterparts to develop psychiatric symptoms and mental health problems (e.g. rahman & hafeez, 2003; schweitzer et al., 2018; united nations high commissioner for refugees et al., 2016). thus, the current review sought to evaluate existing interventions aimed at supporting the specific needs and well-being of refugee mothers. despite considerable evidence in the literature demonstrating the need for such interventions, only a limited number of interventions were found. many interventions involving refugee mothers focus on children and youth or on the family unit as a whole, seldom assess and address the mothers’ needs appropriately, and include little consideration for the mother’s psychological needs and well-being. the present review suggests that across different populations and methodologies a pattern emerged whereby contact with others with similar experience and culture was essential (koh et al., 2018; o’shaughnessy et al., 2012; white et al., 2009). the moving forward project, sweet mother and the use of mobile phone for social capital development interventions portray that community building and safe community spaces are protective factors for refugee mothers (koh et al., 2018; o’shaughnessy et al., 2012; white et al., 2009). the moving forward project sessions provided refugee mothers mental health and social support needs 344 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the mothers with a safe space and what was described as a gathering (white et al., 2009), to connect with fellow refugees and simply talk, laugh, and bond. similarly, the mothers experienced a new sense of togetherness in the sweet mothers intervention (o’shaughnessy et al., 2012). furthermore, refugee mothers felt that the use of mobile phone for social capital development intervention enhanced their relationship with their fellow community members, which provided them a space for emotional support and information access, and a network for exchanged childcare help, and consequently made their life “easier and better” (koh et al., 2018). this is consistent with previous literature which has demonstrated that connection with those with similar experiences, values, and cultures is an essential aspect of social support (chester, 1992; kim et al., 2008; stewart et al., 2008), which in turn is known to be a protective factor when struggling with mental health issues (e.g., hefner & eisenberg, 2009; kawachi & berkman, 2001; watkins & hill, 2018). social support from refugees of similar backgrounds and experiences is a critical part of positive integration for refugee women, as it helps them build social capital in the post-resettlement country, allows them to socialize and express themselves, and thus relieve stress. moreover, group learning in interventions focusing on social support and community building provides refugee women with otherwise scarce opportunities to build new relationships and better integrate in the host society (saksena & mcmorrow, 2020). furthermore, the refugee mothers benefited from having a safe space to discuss their shared experiences and challenges (o’shaughnessy et al., 2012; paris & bronson, 2006). having the chance to speak on the phone with members of their own community, in the use of mobile phone for social capital development intervention, or meeting with their community weekly, in the moving forward project, was a positive experience for them (koh et al., 2018; white et al., 2009). this safe space is especially valuable for refugees as they often struggle to discuss their difficulties in the host country because of various challenges including language barriers, complex intergroup relations, and the lack of access to a platform (hansen & houston, 2016). moreover, creating safe spaces where refugee women can communicate while being physically and emotionally safe is central in helping them build a social network, receive social support, and learn important skills and information from women with similar experiences (united nations high commissioner for refugees, 2014c). similarly, the united nation’s international organization for migration (iom) has organized safe spaces for women and girls to come together, express themselves safely and openly, and develop positive coping strategies (international organization for migration, 2018). the use of such women-centered safe spaces for refugee women and girls has been shown to have positive impacts on participants’ mental health and well-being (jahan seema & rahman, 2020). thus, creating safe spaces for refugee women and girls is an effective way of supporting their post-resettlement needs and improving their mental health, well-being, and resilience through community-building. the review also suggests that having allies increased refugees’ willingness to connect more to the host country society (koh et al., 2018; o’shaughnessy et al., 2012; paris & bronson, 2006). mothers expressed feeling safer to honestly discuss their situation and experiences relating to resettlement within the context of the sweet mother intervention than with other professionals in different settings (o’shaughnessy et al., 2012). this is worthwhile because newly resettled mothers do not tend to seek professional services because of barriers such as stigma, and lack of knowledge of community services and resources (nicholson et al., 1998). in addition, having an ally to advocate for them, such as the visiting moms intervention working alliance, or the strengthened relationships that were formed because of the use of mobile phone for social capital development intervention helped improve the refugee mothers’ daily life and increased their interactions with the extra-community or host country wider society (koh et al., 2018; paris & bronson, 2006). indeed, community-building in the post-resettlement context leads to better access to health services, and increased access to adequate professional response in cases of gender-based violence (jahan seema & rahman, 2020). moreover, community programs and safe spaces can be used as an entry point by healthcare professionals to reach refugee women, mothers, and girls, build trust and rapport with the community, educate them on available services and health literacy, and better understand their needs (abbasova, 2017; shrivastava et al., 2017). limitations and future directions the review only includes scientific articles, published articles, and articles written in english. plus, the review includes very few studies with great variability which makes generalization across studies difficult. in the future, there needs to be a careful consideration of the creation of safe spaces, advocacy, and community building in the conception of future abi zeid daou 345 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interventions that aim to improve the well-being of refugee mothers. future studies evaluating interventions for refugee mothers need to also be evaluated in more systematic ways. conclusions and practical implications while refugee mothers are at risk because of various factors, there are not many interventions that aim to meet their specific needs and improve their prognosis and well-being. even though there are some interventions that incorporate refugee mothers’ needs and have positive impacts, they either do not calculate and assess outcomes, or the interventions’ methodology does not properly align with their outlined objectives. there is a concern for validity in interventions with refugees that conduct face-to-face training or interviewing in english when refugees have language barriers. this systematic review suggests that emergent protective factors for refugee mothers are creating and providing a safe space, being a linguistic liaison, advocating for refugee mothers’ needs, and community-building. thus, it would be helpful if practitioners and professionals working with refugee mothers educated them and informed them of accessible resources through pamphlets written in their native language, especially those that could enhance community-building and provide safe spaces. indeed, providing refugee mothers with resources that can connect them to refugees from their own community or culture, rather than general refugee populations, is more helpful for them as they can use their own language or practice their own culture. furthermore, whatever the institution, having professionals and front-line workers who can speak refugees’ native language seems to be imperative for the refugees’ knowledge of their rights, the resources they have access to, and the ways in which they can start connecting with the host country’s general community. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references abbasova, g. 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(2011). the use of community-based interventions in reducing morbidity from the psychological impact of conflict-related trauma among refugee populations: a systematic review of the literature. journal of immigrant and minority health, 13(4), 780–794. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-010-9417-6 about the author kim roger abi zeid daou is a doctoral student at mcgill university. her research focuses on emotional regulation and develop­ mental psychopathology. abi zeid daou 349 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 337–349 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4665 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-010-9417-6 https://www.psychopen.eu/ refugee mothers mental health and social support needs (introduction) vulnerabilities of refugee women and mothers method search strategy results interventions for refugee mothers discussion limitations and future directions conclusions and practical implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis literature reviews shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis yohanes budiarto 1,2 , avin fadilla helmi 1 [1] faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada, yogyakarta, indonesia. [2] faculty of psychology, universitas tarumanagara, jakarta, indonesia. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 received: 2019-08-18 • accepted: 2020-07-20 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland corresponding author: yohanes budiarto, faculty of psychology, universitas tarumanagara, building k lt. 2, jl. s. parman no 1 jakarta, indonesia. e-mail: yohanesb@fpsi.untar.ac.id abstract scholars agree that shame has many effects related to psychological functioning declines, and one among others is the fluctuation of self-esteem. however, the association between shame and self-esteem requires further studies. heterogeneity studies due to different measurements, various sample characteristics, and potential missing research findings may result in uncertain conclusions. this study aimed to explore the relationship between shame and self-esteem by meta-analysis to come up with evidence of heterogeneity and publication bias of the study. eighteen studies from the initial 235 articles involving the term shame and self-esteem were studied using the random-effects model. a total of 578 samples were included in the study. the overall effect size estimate between shame and self-esteem (r = −.64) indicates that shame correlates negatively with self-esteem and is large effect size. the result showed that heterogeneity study was found (i² = 95.093%). the meta-regression showed that age moderated the relationship between shame and self-esteem (p = .002), while clinical sample characteristics (p = .232) and study quality (p = .184) did not affect the overall effect size. keywords shame, self-esteem, meta-analysis, meta-regression, publication bias self-esteem is a psychological trait that is very well known and very well studied and explained by branden (1994) as a person's belief in their worthiness to be rejoicing and able to cope with and handle everyday life issues. self-esteem can be determined by positive or negative self-assessment by comparing one with others (reilly, rochlen, & awad, 2014). according to branden (1994), self-esteem is a basic human need that is important for the continuation of positive, productive functions of life, such as interpersonal relationships, workplaces, and education. high self-esteem correlates with various positive effects such as altruism, compassion, the ability to deal with change and resilience (branden, 1994). on the opposite, low self-esteem correlated with depression (steiger, allemand, robins, & fend, 2014), addiction, and low levels of resilience and competence to overcome life difficulties (branden, 1994). rosenberg, 1965, describes self-esteem as a self-related concept that refers to self-worth, feasibility, and adequacy (as cited in gilbert & procter, 2006). gilbert and procter (2006) find that low self-esteem increases an individual's vulnerability to negative mood conditions such as shame. likewise, wells, glickauf-hughes, and jones (1999) postulate that high levels of shame are correlated with low self-esteem due to flaws and defects arising from experiences of shame that reflect low self-esteem. this correlation is very important because low self-esteem has been associated with negative mental conditions, such as depression (johnson & o'brien, 2013). within a life-span, self-esteem increases during young and middle adulthood, reaching the highest point at about age 60 to 65, and declining in old age (orth, trzesniewski, & robins, 2010). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2115&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2716-9378 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1785-0565 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ shame is generally defined as strong negative emotions characterized by perceptions of the global devaluation of oneself. tangney and dearing (2002) define shame as strong negative emotions in which the feeling of global self-evisceration is experienced. shame is often generated by social events in which a personal status or feeling of rejection is sensed. shame can refer to various aspects of the self, such as behavior or characteristics of the body, and broader identities (hejdenberg & andrews, 2011). in particular, the multidimensional conceptualization of shame has been posited (andrews, qian, & valentine, 2002) to distinguish: 1) characteristic experiences of shyness (i.e., regarding personal habits, various styles with others, and personal skills); 2) experience shameful behavior (doing something wrong, saying something stupid, and failing in competition); and 3) bodily shame (i.e., called shame about one's physical appearance). shame can cause severance of body image, low self-esteem, and feelings of guilt (franzoni et al., 2013). shame and self-esteem shame is a self-evaluative emotion that involves concern and attention about oneself. when shame is perceived as an emotionally painful emotion, it may have the power for self-break (fortes & ferreira, 2015). when individuals experience shame, the devaluation of self is perceived, and it may lower self-esteem. the frequent feeling of shame can eventually form into a trait of shame. trait shame, in turn, involves negative feelings that are very painful and often crippling, which involve feelings of inferiority, despair, helplessness, and the eagerness to hide personal flaws (andrews et al., 2002). thus, it can be assumed that shame experience is closely related to fluctuations in self-esteem (elison, garofalo, & velotti, 2014). furthermore, low self-esteem can increase an individual's vulnerability to experience negative emotional states, including shame. thus, although the direction of their association is unclear, several studies have reported a substantial relationship between low self-esteem and negative emotions, such as guilt and shame (garofalo, holden, zeigler-hill, & vellotti, 2016). demographic dynamics in the relationship between shame and self-esteem as the self-concept develops, children begin to sense of self-appears at age two until they get a more stable self-concept (lewis, 2000). during this development, at about age 3, children start to develop the capacity of self-evaluation related to differences between them and other children and understand morality and social norm (muris & meesters, 2014). children and adolescents seem to have the same differences as adults in determinant factors of guilt and shame. children, when asked about their understanding of situational determinants of guilt and shame, they state that feelings of guilt are related to violations of moral norms such as property damage or personal reproach (ferguson, stegge, & damhuis, 1991). the emotion decreases with age (williams & bybee, 1994). children are believed to start experience shame only when they have reached the cognitive capacity to understand themselves as objects for reflection and have social maturity to understand and apply social scripts and rules of behavior (emde, johnson, & easterbrooks, 1987; lewis, sullivan, stanger, & weiss, 1989). a cohort-sequential longitudinal study by orth, robins, and soto (2010) found that shame declined from adolescence into middle adulthood, arriving at the lowest point around age 50 years, and then grew old. this variation brings impact to the self-esteem dynamics as shame requires self-evaluation, which in turn, the evaluation impacts self-esteem. the dynamic relationship between shame and self-esteem may also be moderated by population trait: clinical and nonclinical populations. dyer et al. (2017) conducted research comparing clinical samples (dissociative identity disorder [did], complex trauma and general mental health) with a healthy volunteer control group and found that the clinical groups exhibited significantly greater shame than those of nonclinical samples. these clinical traits populations are used as a moderating factor in the relationship between shame and self-esteem. another assumed moderating effect might derive from the various quality of the studies in meta-analysis. quality of studies provides researchers a valid estimate of the truth of the studies (moher et al., 1993). a standardized tool to assess the quality study classifies the study based on the characteristics of published articles. such features are intended to estimate the precision of the findings and data in the study, where the precision is a function of systematic error and random error. it functions to classify possible causes of bias in meta-analysis outcomes as well as to describe the strengths and shortcomings of analysis in the topic of the study. shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis 132 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from the description above, the research questions are as follows: 1) "does shame correlate with self-esteem?," 2) “do age differences moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem?" 3) “do clinical characteristics moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem?" and 4) "do quality studies affect the effect size of the study?" method statistical analysis comprehensive meta-analysis (version 3.0) software (cma; borenstein, hedges, higgins, & rothstein, 2013) is used to perform statistical analyses of publication bias, study heterogeneity, and meta-regression. the random-effects model is used to estimate the variance distribution of observed effects sizes given in participants, regions, and methods throughout the study studied (borenstein, hedges, higgins, & rothstein, 2010). when researchers decide to include a group of studies in a meta-analysis, researchers assume that research has sufficient common sense to synthesize information, but generally, there is no reason that they are “identical” in the sense that the actual effect size is the same in all studies (konstantopoulos, 2006). the results of each study included in this meta-analysis were quantified in the same metric, by calculating the effect size index, and then estimating effects were statistically analyzed to 1) obtain estimates of the average magnitude of the effect, 2) assess heterogeneity in-between effect estimates, and 3) looking for characteristics of research that can explain heterogeneity (cooper, 2010). to measure heterogeneity in all studies, indicators of heterogeneity, such as q and i-squared statistics, were calculated in this study. the funnel plot and fail-safe n statistics were adopted to estimate publication bias (egger et al., 1997). meta-regression was used to detect the moderating effects of age, population dichotomy: clinical and nonclinical, and the quality of every study as possible sources of heterogeneity throughout this study. study search after the research questions were formulated, the next step is to define the eligibility criteria of the study, namely the characteristics that had to be met to be included in the meta-analysis. this study follows the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (prisma) guidelines (liberati et al., 2009). inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria we applied the following standards to screen the data found in databases: 1. english language papers: we limit studies in english, so that understanding of the content of studies is adequate. 2. samples involving clinical or nonclinical characteristics, as well as the means of age, were retained so that it could be used as a moderator variable when heterogeneity of studies was found. 3. measurement of shame: shame was measured with a standard scale. studies of shame psychometric were also coded. we ensured that the variable shame did not overlap with the concepts of shyness, embarrassment, vicarious shame, body shame, humiliation, and guilt. when found, those terms were excluded from the study. 4. measurement of self-esteem: self-esteem was measured using a standardized questionnaire. any concepts related to self-esteem, such as self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-worth, were excluded from the study. 5. study design: selected studies are limited to quantitative studies; however, the design of the studies could vary as prospective studies, cross-sectional experiments and correlations, and psychometrics. we excluded publications that reported only qualitative data, reviews, or theoretical works. 6. statistical information: only studies showing correlation coefficients between shame and self-esteem, whether found in pilot studies or primary studies, were selected in the analysis. other information, such as betta weights in the regression study, was converted to the correlation coefficient. literature searches were conducted on the psycinfo database, sage journals, scopus, and proquest. the keywords used in the research were: "shame," "self-esteem," "self-worth," "shame scale." the first step was to screen all 578 potential budiarto & helmi 133 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ articles, as displayed in psycinfo. three hundred forty-three articles were excluded because quantitative data were not stated. we continued to explore the remaining 235 full articles that explicitly mentioned quantitative information in abstracts and found 217 studies that mention correlation coefficients in the results. we continued to screen for the full article and strictly selected the construct of shame and self-esteem. we excluded 193 studies that did not measure shame referred to in our study. from the selection results, we found 24 study articles that measured both shame and self-esteem and also found the effect size needed. after digging up information that could be the causes of heterogeneity in studies such as population characteristics and means of age, six studies were found that lacked both demographic information. finally, we had 18 studies from 2002 to 2018, analyzed in the meta-analysis. (see figure 1 for the flowchart of study selection). figure 1 the study selection process for meta-analysis based on prisma flow diagram shame and esteem-related keywords such as body-shame, body esteem, collective esteem, and social esteem were excluded in the analysis. for descriptive purposes, the researcher noted the years of study, researchers, the source of the article, sample size, characteristics of the sample divided into clinical and nonclinical, and the mean age of the sample. the mean age of participants in the form of continuous data and the distribution of sample characteristics as clinical and nonclinical were used as moderators in the meta-regression analysis. quality assessments quality assessment of the studies in this study was adapted from the quality assessment and validity tool for correlational studies (cicolini, simonetti, & comparcini, 2014). we employed four criteria, which are described in 13 questions to assess the design, sampling techniques, measurements, and statistical analysis of each study we study. the shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis 134 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ availability of information in the study following the question was given a score of 1 (yes/reported), and a score of 0 (no/not measured) was given when the information needed in the study was not found. from these 13 questions, the range was 0–14 because there was one question that had a score of 2 (yes), namely questions related to the reliability of the instruments in the study. studies were then categorized into three groups based on total scores: low (0–4), medium (5–9), and high (10–14). table 1 below shows the template of the quality assessment of each study. table 1 the quality assessment template of chosen studies study: first author: date: journal: study design no yes 1. was the study prospective? 0 1 sample 1. was probability sampling used? 0 1 2. was the sample size justified? 0 1 3. was the sample drawn for more than one site? 0 1 4. was anonymity protected? 0 1 5. the response rate was more than 60%? 0 1 measurement shame [assess for shame correlated with selfesteem only] 1. was the outcome measured reliably 0 1 2. was the outcome measured using a valid instrument? 0 1 influence on the measure of self-esteem? 1. was the dependent variable measured using a valid instrument? 0 1 2. if a scale was used for measuring the dependent variable, was the internal consistency ≥ .70? 0 2 3. was a theoretical framework used for guidance? 0 1 statistical analysis 1. if multiple outcomes were studied, are correlation analyzed? 0 1 2. were outliers managed? 0 1 overall study validity rating total note. 0–4 = lo; 5–9 = med; 10–14 = hi. a summary of quality assessments of 18 studies that had been screened showed that 14 studies have high quality and four studies of medium quality. four studies of medium quality were two studies of gao, qin, qian, and liu (2013), wood, byrne, burke, enache, and morrison (2017), and yelsma, brown, and ellison (2002). the quality of the study medium is due to not fulfilling random sampling criteria, participant anonymity, non-prospective study designs, and sampling from various sites. fourteen studies reviewed were of high quality (feiring, taska, & chen, 2002; goss, 2013; greene & britton, 2013; legate, weinstein, ryan, dehaan, & ryan, 2019; passanisi, gervasi, madonia, guzzo, & greco, 2015; pilarska, 2018; reilly et al., 2014; simonds et al., 2016; velotti, garofalo, bottazzi, & caretti, 2017; ward, 2014; woodward, mcilwain, & mond, 2019; zhou, wang, & yi, 2018). of all studies, only a study by feiring et al. (2002) conducted a retrospective study even though the selection of samples was not random. the majority of studies in this meta-analysis did not conduct random sampling and outlier handling in the analysis. a moderation analysis of the study quality classification was carried out to see its effect on the overall effect size. the moderation analysis was carried out together with age, characteristics of the samples, and quality study by meta-regression. table 2 summarizes the quality assessment of 18 studies included. budiarto & helmi 135 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 summary of quality assessment of each study standard number of studies yes no design prospective study 1 17 sample probability sampling 0 18 proper sample size 18 0 sample drawn for more than one site 13 5 anonymity assurance 11 7 response rate > 60% 18 0 measurement reliable measures of outcomes 18 0 valid measure of self-esteem 18 0 valid measure of shame 18 0 statistical analysis correlation analysis when multiple effect studied 17 1 management of outliers addressed 0 18 results in this study, the effects size index used is the correlation coefficient. when the correlation coefficient is used as a measurable effect, both hedges and olkin and rosenthal and rubin recommend the transformation of this effect size to a standard normal metric (using the r-to-fisher z transformation). the following table 3 shows the distribution of research data studied, supplemented by information on the correlation coefficients that have been transformed into fisher's z along with their standard errors, variances, z values, and p-values. table 3 summary of studies in the meta-analysis study no. study name n effect direction r se variance fisher's z 95% ci se variance mage population characteristic 1 feiring et al. (2002) 137 negative −.17 .08 0.007 −0.17 [−0.495,−0.258] 0.09 0.007 11.50 clinical 2 gao et al. (2013) 277 negative −.36 .05 0.003 −0.38 [−0.582,−0.103] 0.06 0.004 22.57 nonclinical 3 gao et al. (2013) 70 negative −.33 .11 0.012 −0.34 [−0.495,−0.258] 0.12 0.015 20.54 nonclinical 4 goss (2013) 179 negative −.56 .05 0.003 −0.63 [−0.620,−0.325] 0.07 0.006 27.20 clinical 5 goss (2013) 180 negative −.43 .06 0.004 −0.47 [−0.754,−0.601] 0.07 0.006 27.20 clinical 6 greene and britton (2013) 657 negative −.59 .02 0.001 −0.68 [−0.835,−0.402] 0.04 0.002 34.89 nonclinical 7 legate et al. (2019) 484 negative −.63 .03 0.000 −0.74 [−0.784,−0.503] 0.05 0.002 28.40 clinical 8 passanisi et al. (2015) 209 negative −.57 .05 0.002 −0.65 [−0.784,−0.511] 0.07 0.005 21.66 nonclinical 9 pilarska (2018) 357 negative −.33 .05 0.002 −0.34 [−0.341,−0.002] 0.05 0.003 21.19 nonclinical 10 reilly et al. (2014) 145 negative −.55 .06 0.003 −0.62 [−0.783,−0.454] 0.08 0.007 26.01 nonclinical 11 simonds et al. (2016) 85 negative −.55 .08 0.006 −0.62 [−0.630,−0.339] 0.11 0.012 13.55 nonclinical 12 velotti et al. (2017)a 251 negative −.51 .05 0.002 −0.56 [−0.687,−0.438] 0.06 0.004 28.50 nonclinical 13 velotti et al. (2017)b 129 negative −.42 .07 0.005 −0.45 [−0.622,−0.273] 0.09 0.008 31.00 nonclinical 14 ward (2014) 115 negative −.68 .05 0.003 −0.83 [−1.014,−0.644] 0.09 0.009 24.13 nonclinical shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis 136 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study no. study name n effect direction r se variance fisher's z 95% ci se variance mage population characteristic 15 wood et al. (2017) 79 negative −.98 .05 0.000 −0.30 [−2.522,−2.073] 0.11 0.013 36.49 clinical 16 woodward et al. (2019) 403 negative −.83 .01 0.000 −0.19 [−0.985,−0.789] 0.05 0.003 23.90 nonclinical 17 yelsma et al. (2002) 185 negative −.45 .06 0.003 −0.48 [−0.447,−0.239] 0.07 0.005 21.00 nonclinical 18 zhou et al. (2018) 263 negative −.48 .05 0.002 −0.52 [−0.645,−0.401] 0.06 0.004 34.60 nonclinical afemale participants. bmale participants. heterogeneity study heterogeneity testing of all studies is summarized in table 4. i 2 statistics for heterogeneity was 95.09 (95.09%), p < .001, which resulted in the acceptance of alternative hypotheses and showed significant heterogeneity in the studies taken. i 2 shows the amount of variability that cannot be explained by chance. in other words, i 2 index explains the percentage of variability estimate (95.09%) in results across studies that is due to real differences and not due to chance. also, q values higher than df indicates heterogeneity. table 4 heterogeneity test across studies i 2 q df p 95.09 346.44 17 .000 figure 2 below summarizes the results of the meta-analysis with 95% confidence interval (ci). the analysis carried out in this study was based on the random-effects model due to the non-homogeneous characteristics of the population. in feiring's study, the horizontal line/ci almost touched the value of 0 so that the p-value (.047) was close to .05. the forest plot shows that study 2 by gao et al. (2013) and simonds et al. (2016) have wide plot lines. the plotline indicates a wider ci, which means that the study has low precision. the overall summary information at the 95% confidence interval shows that in the correlation study between shame and self-esteem, the random effect size is −.643 (moderate effect), with z-value = −8.981 and p < .001. based on the effect size value with p < .001, the alternative hypothesis cannot be rejected so that there is a negative correlational relationship between shame and self-esteem. figure 2 the summary of studies in the meta-analysis budiarto & helmi 137 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funnel plots one other mechanism for displaying the relationship between study size and effect size is funnel plots. in this study, the use of standard errors (rather than sample size or variance) on the y-axis has the advantage of spreading points at the bottom of the scale, where smaller studies are plotted. this can make it easier to identify patterns of asymmetry (borenstein, hedges, higgins, & rothstein, 2009). funnel plots is a spread of effect size on a measure of study accuracy. this description provides information support in the meta-analysis, mainly related to the heterogeneity of studies (stuck et al., 1998). based on funnel plots in figure 3, it appears that the distribution of effects on the standard error forms a "funnel," giving the impression that there are no biases in the analyzed studies, no asymmetrical plot. figure 3 funnel plots of the observed and imputed studies the majority of studies with large effects appear towards the top of the graph and tend to cluster near the mean effect size. more small-effect research appears to the bottom of the graph, and because there are more sampling variations in the estimation of effect sizes in studies with small effects, this study will be spread over a range of values. with no publication bias in these studies, the lower part of the plot does not show a higher concentration of studies on one side of the mean than the other. this graph reflects the fact that studies that have smaller effects (which appear downward) are more likely to be published if they have a greater effect than the mean effect, which makes them more likely to meet the criteria for significant statistics (hunter et al., 2014). fail-safe n the fail-safe n related to publication bias in this study uses orwin, 1983, approach (as cited in borenstein et al., 2009) as summarized in table 5. the orwin approach allows researchers to determine how many studies are missing, which will bring the overall effect to a specified level other than zero. therefore, researchers can choose a value that will represent shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis 138 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the smallest influence that is considered important and substantive, and ask how many missing studies are needed to bring the summary effect below this point. table 5 the orwin's fail-safe n test orwin's fail-safe n criterion fisher's z in observed studies −0.621 the criterion for a trivial fisher's z −0.600 mean fisher's z in missing studies 0.000 number of missing studies to bring fisher's z over −0.650 1.000 the mean fisher's z in the new study (which is missing) can be a value other than zero, which in this study, was set at 0.00001. also, the value of the criteria used is the effect size z instead of the p-value. this means that the orwin fail-safe n is the number of missing studies, which when added to the analysis, will bring the combined z value above the specified threshold (currently the upper limit is set at, 0.600). the fail-safe n orwin numbers obtained is 1. this result means that we need to find 1 study with the mean fisher's z value of 0.648 to bring the combined z value above the value 0.650. bagg and mazumdar's rank correlation the rank correlation test uses the begg and mazumdar tests (begg & mazumdar, 1994), which involve correlations between effect sizes rank and variances rank, respectively. the result of the analysis shows a value of p = .879, indicating the acceptance of the null hypothesis and showing no publication bias. in this case, kendall's value b is −0.026, with p-value 1-tailed (recommended) of .439 or p two-tailed value of .444 based on normal estimated continuity correction, as shown in table 6. the estimated value of kendall's tau rank correlation coefficient shows that the observed outcomes and the corresponding sampling variances are not highly correlated. this finding means that a very low correlation would indicate that the funnel plot is symmetric, which may not show a result of publication bias. table 6 rank correlation test for funnel plot asymmetry kendall's tau z for tau p −.03 0.15 .439 (one-tailed) .879 (two-tailed) egger's regression intercept egger shows that the bias assessment is based on precision (the opposite of the standard error) to predict standardized effects (effect size divided by standard error). in this equation, the measure of the effect is captured by the slope of the regression line (b1), while it can be captured by the intercept (b0). in this study, the intercept (b0) was −0.946, 95% ci[−8.581, 6.688], with t = 0.263, df = 16. the p 1-tailed value (recommended) was .398, and the p 2-tailed value is .796 indicating no evidence of publication bias. duval and tweedie's trim and fill based on funnel plots analysis, the observed and imputed plots were detected that more studies were on the right side than those on the left side. therefore, the assumption that arises is that missing studies have occurred on the left side of budiarto & helmi 139 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ axis x. in figure 3, observed studies are described as open (colorless) circles, while six imputed studies are represented by black circles. if the meta-analysis has captured all relevant studies, it is expected that the funnel plots will be symmetrical. that is, we would expect research to be spread evenly on both sides of the overall effect. duval and tweedie went more advanced by a method that allowed us to link these missing studies. that is, the researcher determines where the missing study tends to "disappear," then adds it to the analysis, and then recalculates the combined effect. this method is known as trim and fill (duval & tweedie, 2000). if we refer to figure 3, an asymmetrical study of the right side is trimmed to find an unbiased effect (in an iterative procedure) and then fill the plot by re-entering the study trimmed on the left side of the mean effect. this program looks for missing studies based on the random-effects model and looking for studies that are lost only to the left side of the mean effect. this method shows that there are seven missing studies. based on the random effect model, the estimated points at the 95% confidence interval for the combined study are −0.643 (−0.784, −0.502). using trim and fill, the estimated imputed points are −0.812 (−0.962, −0.663). see table 7 for duval and tweedie's trim and fill output. table 7 duval and tweedie's trim and fill value studies trimmed point estimate ll ul q observed values −0.643 −0.784 −0.502 346.444 adjusted values 7 −0.812 −0.962 −0.663 741.736 age, characteristics of samples, and quality of studies as moderators after heterogeneity of the studies is detected, the next step is to identify the variables and characteristics which cause heterogeneity. meta-regression analysis is used to estimate the parameter effects with minimum variance. in this study, the age, population characteristics, and study quality are considered as covariates between shame and self-esteem. the age, clinical/nonclinical characteristics, and high and low study qualities moderating effect tests are based on the random-effects model with the restricted maximum likelihood model (reml) estimation method. based on the analysis using a meta-regression test, it can be explained that the regression coefficient for age is equal to −0.03, which means that every one degree of age equals a decrease in the effect size of 0.03. the p = .02 shows the variable age functions as a moderator in the relationship between shame and self-esteem. thus, it can be concluded that age moderates the relationship between shame and self-esteem because age is significantly related to effect size. differences in sample characteristics based on clinical and nonclinical groups do not have a moderating effect on the relationship between shame and self-esteem (p = .232). the quality of studies that are categorized into high and moderate-quality does not moderate the relationship between shame and self-esteem (p = .184). study quality, age, and sample characteristics simultaneously affect the effect size (p = .03). the summary of the meta-regression is shown in table 8. table 8 moderating testing (random effects, reml method) covariate coefficient se 95% ci z p (2-sided)ll ul intercept −0.007 0.38 −0.75 0.73 −0.02 .985 clinical characteristics −0.229 0.19 −0.61 0.15 −1.20 .232 study quality 0.276 0.21 −0.13 0.68 1.33 .184 age −0.031 0.01 −0.06 −0.01 −2.42 .015 note. simultaneous test: q = 9.32, df = 3, p = .03. shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis 140 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ apart from the above calculations, a scatter plot can also explain the pattern of the relationship between age as a moderator and the observed effect size. the scatter diagram below illustrates that there is a clear relationship between age as a moderator and the observed effect size. it can be concluded that as age increases, the effect size moves away from 0. this means that the relationship between shame and self-esteem (when other covariates are controlled) gets stronger as we age. figure 4 shows the regression plot of age as a moderator. figure 4 regression plot of age as a moderator discussion the meta-analysis results displayed a negative correlation between shame and self-esteem with effect size is different from zero (r = −.643, p < .001). the random-effects model analysis shows the mean of the distribution of the true effects is 0.643. according to cohen's classification, it is classified as a large effect size. this finding supports the research hypothesis that there is a relationship between shame and self-esteem. shame, as self-conscious emotion, deals with negative, global, and stable evaluations of the self (tangney & dearing, 2002), and it brings impact to the fluctuation of self-esteem. when a person perceives himself as "a bad person," their self-esteem decreases. usually, feelings of shame happen due to a condition where the personal self is devalued, such as a bad performance socially assessed. poor performance leads to greater reactions of psychological states indicating a danger to the social self, namely a decline in social self-esteem and an increase in shame (gruenewald, kemeny, aziz, & fahey, 2004). many shameful experiences can eventually crystallize into a trait-like proneness of shame. trait shame, in turn, includes an especially painful and often disabling, adverse sensation involving a sense of inferiority, hopelessness, and helplessness, as well as a willingness to conceal private failure (andrews et al., 2002). also, shame experiences have been budiarto & helmi 141 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ suggested to be closely linked to fluctuations in self-esteem, and many shame experiences might be conceptually linked to chronically low self-esteem rates (elison et al., 2014). this study shows that based on publication bias testing with information from funnel plots, fail-safe n, bagg and mazumdar rank correlations, egger's regression intercept, and duval and tweedie's trim and fill no publication bias was found. to explain what factors causing heterogeneity of the study, the thing that researchers can do is simply enter the mean age of the samples to be analyzed as moderators in the relationship between shame and self-esteem. analysis with meta-regression showed that the age of various participants moderated the effect size of the relationship of shame and self-esteem. this result shows that the selection of random effect models as the basis of the meta-analysis in this study is appropriate. however, the study qualities and clinical characteristics of the sample did not moderate the effect size. in a prospective study, de rubeis and hollenstein (2009) found that, during early adolescence, shame slightly decreased over a period of 1 year. similarly, self-esteem follows a quadratic life-span trajectory, increasing during young and middle adulthood, peaking at about 60 to 65 years of age, and declining in old age (orth, trzesniewski, et al., 2010). this age dynamics influence the quality of shame and self-esteem relationship. in the context of the study sample with clinical and nonclinical characteristics, no moderating effect was found. this finding indicates that the dynamics of shame and self-esteem in both characteristics of the research sample are similar. the clinical samples in this study were various, involving those with an eating disorder (goss, 2013), schizoaffective disorder (wood et al., 2017), sexual abuse (feiring et al., 2002), and lesbian, gay, or bisexual (lgb; legate et al., 2019). these different clinical characteristics may interfere with the moderation effect when comparing to nonclinical samples. in the process of selecting a study, the initial screening has been done so that the variables of shame that are analyzed only involve shame based on self-evaluation in an embarrassing event. thus, the various measures of shame that are not included in this study include body-shame and trait shame. however, this study still finds heterogeneity in the studies studied. when sensitivity analysis is carried out by looking at relative weight images, there are no different relative weights from the studies analyzed, so that study ejection is not carried out from the analysis. from this, it can be concluded that the occurrence of heterogeneity is not caused by sampling error. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we thank megawati oktorina for being helpful in screening and selecting studies and their details. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references andrews, b., qian, m., & valentine, j. d. 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https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2017.1403373 https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2002.90.3c.1179 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2018.03.071 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors yohanes budiarto is a third-year psychology ph.d. student at the universitas gadjah mada, yogyakarta, indonesia. he is currently a lecturer at faculty of psychology, universitas tarumanagara, jakarta, indonesia. he is specialized in social psychology, experimental psychology as well as in the indigenous and cultural psychology areas. his research areas are within the social-emotion of shame/ embarrassment, psychometrics, psychology of religions as well as family studies. dr. avin fadilla helmi is a senior lecturer and researcher at faculty of psychology, universitas gadjah mada (ugm), yogyakarta, indonesia. she is interested in researching cyberpsychology, human relations, leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation, and interper­ sonal issues. budiarto & helmi 145 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 131–145 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2115 https://www.psychopen.eu/ shame and self-esteem: a meta-analysis (introduction) shame and self-esteem demographic dynamics in the relationship between shame and self-esteem method statistical analysis study search inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria quality assessments results heterogeneity study funnel plots fail-safe n bagg and mazumdar's rank correlation egger's regression intercept duval and tweedie's trim and fill age, characteristics of samples, and quality of studies as moderators discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the effect of anticipated regret on flu vaccination campaigns research reports the effect of anticipated regret on flu vaccination campaigns francesco marcatto 1, elisa detela 1, donatella ferrante 1 [1] department of life sciences, university of trieste, trieste, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 174–179, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7749 received: 2021-10-29 • accepted: 2022-06-14 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, cardiff, united kingdom corresponding author: francesco marcatto, department of life sciences, university of trieste, via weiss 21, 34127 trieste, italy. e-mail: fmarcatto@units.it abstract the anticipation of regret is known to be a primary motivator of receiving a vaccination. aim of this study is to evaluate whether the use of messages that leverage the anticipated emotion of regret can increase the intention to get the flu vaccination. the participants (n = 110) randomly received a leaflet containing a standard prevention message (control condition) or message modified to induce the anticipation of regret over not being vaccinated (experimental condition), along with a questionnaire. the experimental condition’s participants reported significantly higher levels of regret and higher intention to vaccinate than the participants in the control condition. anticipated regret resulted to be a significant mediator of the intention to get vaccinated. manipulating the salience of regret appears to be a simple and inexpensive way of effectively promoting preventive behaviour. the implications of this result for reducing covid-19 vaccine hesitation are discussed. keywords anticipated regret, flu vaccination, health prevention campaigns, vaccine hesitation research into persuasive health communication repeatedly demonstrates that even small changes in the presentation format of information can have a substantial influence on how people perceive it and, therefore, affect their health-re­ lated decisions and behaviours (waters et al., 2006). for example, people react differently when the consequences of prevention and diagnosis are framed as gains or losses (gallagher & updegraff, 2012), when numerical information is presented as natural frequencies or as percentages (girotto & gonzalez, 2001), and when the treatment benefits are presented in terms of absolute or relative risk reduction (marcatto et al., 2013). as a consequence, this knowledge can be greatly useful for designing effective health communication campaigns (visschers et al., 2009). the main objective of this study is to evaluate whether health communication messages based on the anticipated emotion of regret can favour the adoption of preventative behaviours, specifically with regards to undergoing influenza vaccination. regret is a counterfactual emotion that derives from the comparison between what happened and what could have happened. since people are regret-averse, this emotion has been found to play an important role in decision-making processes (marcatto et al., 2015). indeed, we tend to anticipate how we will feel following a decision and behave in ways that reduce the possibility of experiencing the unpleasant emotion of regret (mellers et al., 1999). in particular, anticipated emotions such as regret have been found to be immediate precursors of health-related decisions, more so than other relevant factors such as a calculation of the risk probabilities or severity (chapman & coups, 2006). for example, in a study on the promotion of safe sex, people who were asked to visualize the negative emotions that they would have felt after engaging in unprotected sex (thus, anticipating regret), tended to subsequently implement greater preventive behaviours than participants in a control group (richard et al., 1998). similar effects where preventive this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7749&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ behaviours are promoted have been found in different contexts, such as physical activity (abraham & sheeran, 2003), the adoption of it security measures (wright & ayton, 2005), and safe driving (parker et al., 1996). the anticipation of regret seems to be also a primary motivator of receiving a vaccination (brewer et al., 2016). in fact, several studies have demonstrated that one of the main factors behind people’s choices on whether or not to have a vaccination is precisely the unpleasant feeling they think they would experience if they did not vaccinate and then were to contract the disease (chapman & coups, 2006; liao et al., 2011; ziarnowski et al., 2009). for example, in previous research on the factors that predict the outcome of the decision on whether or not to get the flu vaccination, when the researcher interviewed university students before and after having the vaccine, the anticipation of regret was found to be the best predictor among the variables investigated (including concern, the vaccination’s perceived efficacy, gender, the perceived severity of the flu, and the likelihood of getting flu from the vaccine; weinstein et al., 2007). however, the studies currently available in the literature have employed correlational or retrospective methodologies alone and, to our knowledge, no intervention studies isolating the effect of changes in anticipated regret on vaccination have yet been published (brewer et al., 2017). on this premise, the present randomized study was conducted to investigate the effects of inducing the anticipation of regret on the uptake of the influenza vaccination, not by evaluating its effects retrospectively but by experimentally testing the effects of manipulating the salience of regret on the intention to get the flu shot. specifically, it was hypothesized that a message based on the anticipation of regret over not being vaccinated is more effective in increasing the intention to vaccinate than a standard message. method procedure the study was conducted in autumn 2013, at the beginning of the flu vaccination campaign. each participant was approached by a research assistant who informed them of the aim of the research, asked if they had already had the flu vaccination, and only in the event of a negative response and consent to participate in the study were they randomized to one of the two experimental conditions (control vs. anticipated regret) and did they receive the corresponding booklet. this was handed over with an explicit request to pause and look carefully at the leaflet on the second page before answering the questions. the study followed the ethical standards laid down in the declaration of helsinki and the apa ethical guidelines, all measurement instruments were anonymous and participants gave verbal consent to take part in the research. the local public health authority, “triestina 1”, has given written consent for the use and manipulation of the information material created by them for the purposes of this study. participants a convenience sample of 110 adults (57 females and 53 males, mage = 44.53, sd = 14.23) was recruited on public places (public libraries, shopping malls, university campus, etc.). instruments participants were presented with one of two versions of a booklet containing a leaflet advertising the flu vaccination along with a questionnaire aimed at evaluating different measures of interest, including the intention to undergo the flu vaccination. the first page of the booklet presented the study and provided a privacy notice explaining the guaranteed anonym­ ity of the answers provided. the second page contained the leaflet developed by the local public health authority, “triestina 1”, for the 2013 flu campaign, which depicted a thermometer indicating the temperature of 38°c and a slogan that varied in the two experimental conditions. in the control condition, the slogan was the standard one, “flu? this year you can avoid it. get vaccinated!” (“l’influenza? anche quest’anno puoi evitarla. vaccinati!”, in the original italian version). in the regret condition, the slogan read, "flu? a week off of fever. if only you had been vaccinated..." marcatto, detela, & ferrante 175 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 174–179 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7749 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (“l’influenza? una settimana di ferie febbre. se solo ti fossi vaccinato...”, in the original italian version), with “off” crossed out in red and replaced with “fever”. the leaflets varied only in terms of their message, while the graphics and font used for the slogan were identical. the third page contained the questionnaire, consisting of six items with answers on a seven-point likert scale (1 = not at all, 7 = very much). the main outcome measures were the intention to vaccinate (operationalized with the item “are you going to have the flu vaccination?”) and the anticipation of regret (item “if you did not vaccinate and caught the flu, how much would you regret not being vaccinated?”). further measures collected were the attitude towards vaccines in general (item “how useful do you think vaccines are in general?”), the perception of the effectiveness of the flu vaccine (item “how effective do you think the flu vaccination is in preventing flu?”), the fear of getting sick with the flu (item “how much are you afraid of getting the flu?”), and the perceived likelihood of getting sick (item “how likely do you think you are to get the flu this year?”). the questionnaire ended with two closed questions in which the participants were asked if, in the previous year, they had fallen ill with the flu, and whether or not they had been vaccinated (yes/no answers). data analysis a power analysis was conducted using g*power version 3.1.9.7 to determine the minimum sample size required to test the study hypothesis. results indicated the required sample size to achieve 80% power for detecting a medium effect, at a significance level of .05, was n = 102. thus, the obtained sample size of n = 110 is adequate to test the study hypothesis. a preliminary analysis, using student’s t-test and chi-square test, was conducted to detect significant differences in the demographic composition of the two conditions (control vs. anticipated regret). the main analyses of the study consisted in a series of planned student’s t-tests that were run to test the effect of the assigned condition on the main outcome variables. afterwards, a series of linear regressions were conducted to test whether the anticipation of regret could mediate the effect of the experimental condition on the intention to vaccinate. bootstrapping procedures with 5,000 samples were used to estimate the indirect effect of the anticipation of regret on the intention to vaccinate and its 95% confidence interval. finally, a multiple linear regression was conducted with the intent to vaccinate as the dependent variable and demographic variables (age and gender) and all the measures assessed by the questionnaire as possible predictors. the bilateral level of significance established prior to all the tests was .05. g*power version 3.1.9.7 was used to run the power analysis, amos 23 to test the mediation model, and the other statistical analyses were conducted using ibm spss statistics 23. results the participants of the anticipated regret condition (n = 55) did not significantly differ from the participants assigned to the control condition (n = 55) in age (mage = 43.00 and sd = 13.12 in the control condition vs. mage = 46.05 and sd = 15.23 in the anticipated regret condition, t(108) = 1.13, p = 0.26), gender (28 females in the control condition vs. 29 in the anticipated regret condition, χ2(1, n = 110) = 0.04, p = .85), and in the frequencies of having fallen ill with the flu (11 in the control condition vs. 18 in the anticipated regret condition, χ2(1, n = 110) = 2.29, p = .13) and having been vaccinated in the previous year (5 in the control condition vs. 12 in the anticipated regret condition, χ2(1, n = 110) = 3.41, p = .07). as shown in table 1, the participants of the anticipated regret condition reported a significantly greater intention to vaccinate than the participants of the control condition. similarly, they also reported significantly higher levels of anticipated regret than the participants in the control condition. however, no significant differences emerged in regards to the other measures. to check whether the effect of the leaflet type on the intention to vaccinate was actually due to a greater salience of the anticipation of regret, a model of mediation of anticipation of regret was tested, between the condition and the intention to vaccinate. the assigned condition (control condition was coded 0 and anticipated regret condition coded 1) was found to significantly influence both the anticipation of regret (β = 0.20, p < .05) and the intention to vaccinate (β = 0.22, p < .05). anticipated regret and flu vaccination 176 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 174–179 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7749 https://www.psychopen.eu/ when both the experimental condition and the anticipation of regret were applied as predictors of intent to vaccinate, the latter variable remained significantly associated (β = 0.67, p < .001), while the experimental condition did not (β = 0.09, p = .21). the indirect effect of the anticipation of regret on the intention to vaccinate was significant (β = 0.13, p < .05) and the 95% confidence interval ranged from 0.02 to 0.26, thus suggesting a complete mediation. finally, data from the two conditions were aggregated and a multiple linear regression was conducted to assess whether and to what extent it is possible to predict the intent to vaccinate using the following predictors: age, gender (m = 0, f =1), whether in the previous year the participant had fallen ill with the flu (no = 0, yes =1), and whether in the previous year they had been vaccinated (no = 0, yes =1). the overall regression model explained 64% of the variance in intent to vaccinate and, as reported in table 2, the only significant predictors were the anticipation of regret, having been vaccinated in the previous year, and the perceived efficacy of the influenza vaccine (f(9,109) = 19.77, p < .001). table 2 multiple linear regression (dependent variable = intention to vaccinate) predictors β t p age -0.03 -0.54 0.59 gender 0.01 -0.01 0.99 anticipated regret 0.46 5.38 < .001 attitude towards vaccines 0.02 0.27 0.79 perception of effectiveness 0.19 2.06 0.04 fear of getting sick -0.03 -0.29 0.78 likelihood of getting sick -0.11 -1.43 0.16 flu in the previous year 0.11 1.59 0.12 vaccinated in the previous year 0.38 5.53 < .001 discussion the field of health promotion is constantly struggling with new challenges, from the increase of lifestyle-related diseases to ‘vaccine hesitation’, the reluctance of people to receive safe and recommended available vaccines, including covid-19 vaccines (machingaidze & wiysonge, 2021). communication is at the forefront of the achievement of health promotion objectives, and campaigns represent a primary strategy for public health interventions, acting as a vehicle for health care, public health, and the way society views health. to maximize their potential, campaigns should be developed according to the principles of effective campaign design. reviews, however, pointed out that most health communication campaigns fail to adhere to these principles (noar, 2012). table 1 comparison of the main outcome variables in the two experimental conditions (t-test) m (sd) t-test item control condition anticipated regret condition t (df) p cohen’s d intention to vaccinate 1.96 (1.66) 2.91 (2.46) -2.37 (108) .02 0.45 anticipated regret 2.45 (1.51) 3.22 (2.21) -2.11 (108) .04 0.40 perception of effectiveness 4.22 (1.85) 4.80 (1.77) -1.68 (108) .10 0.32 attitude towards vaccines 4.75 (1.82) 5.31 (1.41) -1.82 (108) .07 0.34 fear of getting sick 2.73 (1.91) 3.07 (2.03) -0.92 (108) .36 0.17 likelihood of getting sick 3.84 (1.95) 3.62 (1.57) 0.65 (108) .52 0.12 marcatto, detela, & ferrante 177 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 174–179 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7749 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the present study, we demonstrated that a messages that leverages the anticipated emotion of regret can favour the adoption of a preventive behaviour, such as getting the flu vaccination. specifically, a leaflet designed to prompt participants to anticipate regret, by making them think at the negative consequences of not getting the flu shot, increased their intention to get vaccinated by about 50% (from 1.96 to 2.91) compared to a leaflet containing a traditional message. moreover, a mediation analysis showed that this effect is completely mediated by anticipated regret. it was already known that, retrospectively, anticipated regret can explain past decisions, but we showed that it could also be used proactively for designing an effective health communication campaign. a limitation of this study is that it involved a sample of convenience that was not representative of the older adult population, who are the traditional target of campaigns for the promotion of the flu vaccination. furthermore, the data was collected before the covid-19 pandemic so it is possible that people's attitudes towards and interest in the flu vaccination, along with their prevention behaviours, in general, have changed in the meantime. nevertheless, these limits do not affect the main contribution of this experimental study, namely, that the manipulation of the salience of regret seems to be an effective way to increase the impact of communication in the context of preventative behaviour. health prevention campaigns could, therefore, adopt this simple and inexpensive mechanism to nudge people towards choices that would allow them to improve their quality of life in terms of their health, including promoting the covid-19 vaccination. indeed, although covid-19 and the seasonal flu differ in many ways, recent research proposed that simple, low cost nudges for boosting the flu vaccination could work for moving the needle on vaccination against covid-19 too (milkman et al., 2021). further studies are, in any case, necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach for preventive behaviours other than those relating to the flu vaccination and to verify the actual implementation of the intentions of the participants. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors thank dr. fulvio zorzut of the “triestina 1” local public health authority for letting us use and manipulate the original information material. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references abraham, c., & sheeran, p. 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(2009). present choices, future outcomes: anticipated regret and hpv vaccination. preventive medicine, 48(5), 411–414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2008.10.006 about the authors francesco marcatto, phd, is a researcher at the university of trieste, italy (department of life sciences). his research interests include the effects of regret on decision-making. elisa detela has a master’s degree in communication sciences from the university of trieste, italy. her research interests are mainly focused on health communication. donatella ferrante, phd, is an associate professor in psychology at the university of trieste, italy (department of life sciences). her areas of expertise include counterfactual thinking and risk communication. marcatto, detela, & ferrante 179 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 174–179 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7749 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1930297500004472 https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.128.3.332 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101165118 https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839910386901 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01835.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01684.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01137.x https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730500526695 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.26.2.146 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2005.03.001 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2008.10.006 https://www.psychopen.eu/ anticipated regret and flu vaccination (introduction) method procedure participants instruments data analysis results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors correction of alberto dionigi, mirko duradoni, & laura vagnoli (2023). understanding the association between humor and emotional distress: the role of light and dark humor in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress correction correction of alberto dionigi, mirko duradoni, & laura vagnoli (2023). understanding the association between humor and emotional distress: the role of light and dark humor in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(1), 78, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14059 published (vor): 2024-02-29 the initial published version of the article dionigi, a., duradoni, m., & vagnoli, l. (2023). understanding the association between humor and emotional distress: the role of light and dark humor in predicting depression, anxiety, and stress. europe's journal of psychology, 19(4), 358–370. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 was produced with an incorrect issue number. the corrected citation, which changes the issue number from 3 to 4, is shown above. the publisher apologizes for the error and any inconvenience caused. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14059&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-02-29 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ when dark humor and moral judgment meet in sacrificial dilemmas: preliminary evidence with females research reports when dark humor and moral judgment meet in sacrificial dilemmas: preliminary evidence with females emmanuelle brigaud 1 , nathalie blanc 1 [1] department of psychology, university of paul valéry montpellier 3, montpellier, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 received: 2019-12-09 • accepted: 2020-09-26 • published (vor): 2021-11-30 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, liverpool, united kingdom corresponding author: emmanuelle brigaud, department of psychology, epsylon ea 4556, university of paul valéry montpellier 3, montpellier, france. email: emmanuelle.brigaud@univ-montp3.fr abstract the influence of dark humor on moral judgment has never been explored, even though this form of humor is well-known to push the boundaries of social norms. in the present study, we examined whether the presence of dark humor leads female participants to approve a utilitarian response (i.e., to kill one to save many) in sacrificial dilemmas. the effects of two types of humorous contexts were compared (i.e., dark vs. nondark) on dilemmas, which differed according to whom benefits from the crime (i.e., oneself and others vs. others only). in addition to collecting moral responses, individuals’ emotional states were assessed at three critical steps: before and after reading the jokes and also after performing the moral judgment task. our results revealed that dark and nondark humor similarly elicited a positive emotional state. however, dark humor increased the permissiveness of the moral violation when this violation created benefits for oneself. in self and other beneficial dilemmas, female participants in the dark humorous condition judged the utilitarian response more appropriate than those in the nondark condition. this study represents a first attempt in deepening our understanding of the context-dependent nature of moral judgment usually assessed in sacrificial dilemmas. keywords moral judgment, sacrificial dilemmas, dark and nondark humor suppose a runaway trolley is about to run over and kill five people. suppose further that a large stranger is standing on a bridge over the tracks and that the only way to stop the trolley is to push that person in front of the trolley, killing him for sure but saving the others. would it be okay to sacrifice one life to save several others? most people answer “no” to this “high conflict” personal moral dilemma (greene et al., 2001, 2004). this phenomenon has been widely studied by psychologists to understand the cognitive and affective processes underlying moral judgments (see waldmann et al., 2012 for a review; see also bartels et al., 2015). the dual-process theory provides a relevant framework to explain people’s responses to sacrificial dilemmas (greene, 2007; greene et al., 2001, 2004, 2008). according to this well-known theory, two separate systems are involved in moral judgment: the controlled cognitive process, which corresponds to conscious reasoning (slow and effortful), and the automatic emotional one based on intuition and affects (fast and largely unconscious). in response to “high conflict” personal dilemmas, like the footbridge scenario described above (thomson, 1985), people are typically driven by automatic emotional responses and judge that it is morally unacceptable to push someone off a footbridge even though not pushing him would result in a greater number of deaths. the perspective entailing a moral violation, such as killing an innocent person triggers a strong emotional aversion that inhibits an amoral solution (greene, 2008). however, with sufficient time, motivation or resource conditions, people may engage in controlled cognitive processes regarding this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2417&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3476-3239 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1327-0280 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ the costs and the benefits of killing another person. such mechanisms result in a utilitarian judgment: approving the sacrifice of one life in order to save the lives of five is morally acceptable with respect to the number of victims. in a footbridge-type dilemma, the rational choice (i.e., sacrifice the life of one person in order to save the lives of a greater number of people) is directly in conflict with deontological rules or intuition. consequently, the utilitari­ an response requires one to control or overcome the initial aversive reaction against harming an innocent person (greene, 2008). two sets of studies have provided converging evidence in line with this idea. first, both empirical and neuropsychological studies have shown that utilitarian judgments are due to an absent or a reduced affective response. participants with emotion-related neurological deficits (e.g., ciaramelli et al., 2007; koenigs et al., 2007; moretto et al., 2009), with decreased empathic concern or with antisocial personality traits (bartels & pizarro, 2011; conway & gawronski, 2013; gleichgerrcht & young, 2013; kahane et al., 2015) reach more utilitarian conclusions in sacrificial dilemmas. secondly, other researchers have shown a link between the utilitarian response and working memory capacity (moore et al., 2008) and also between this type of response and an individuals’ need for cognition (bartels, 2008; conway & gawronski, 2013). precisely, participants are more likely to approve a utilitarian response when they scored high in working memory capacity or in need for cognition (a motivational tendency to seek and enjoy effortful cognitive activity). concomitantly, environment-induced positive mood at the time of judgment increases a utilitarian response. for instance, simple exposure to humorous material before the presentation of the footbridge scenario increases permissive­ ness for moral violations (i.e., pushing the stranger over the bridge; strohminger et al., 2011; valdesolo & desteno, 2006). such effect arises, because humor is usually associated with the experience of a positive emotion (i.e., mirth, laughter, pleasure). therefore, if humor induces positive emotion at the time of judgment, the perceived negativity linked to any potential moral violation is attenuated and, thus, utilitarian response increases. this explanation is consistent with fredrickson’s (2001) hypothesis that positive emotions can act as an antidote to negative emotions correcting or diminishing their influence. humor, used as a communicative activity, elicits positive emotional reactions in perceivers and tendency to laugh (gervais & wilson, 2005; martin & ford, 2018; veatch, 1998). it also indicates to the target or audience that what happening, or is going to happen, should be taken as a joke (gervais & wilson, 2005; ramachandran, 1998). in ford's et al. (2008) words: “humor invokes a conversational rule of levity, that is, humor communicates an implicit message to the receiver that the usual rules of logic and expectations of common sense did not apply” (p. 160). in the context of social judgment, this central property of humor might allow us to treat the violation of moral rules (e.g., “it’s forbidden to kill”) as a matter of play and, therefore, favor the utilitarian judgment. consistent with this hypothesis, strohminger et al. (2011) found that mirth (i.e., the positive emotion associated with humor) increases permissiveness for deontological violation in moral dilemmas, whereas elevation (i.e., a positive emotion experienced upon witnessing another person perform a virtuous act; algoe & haidt, 2009; haidt, 2003) has the opposite effect. this result highlighted that the influence of humor on people’s moral judgment cannot be explained simply in terms of experiencing positive emotions. they suggest that humor influences moral judgment by removing the gravitas of the moral violation (i.e., making immoral behavior funny). this interpretation is consistent with the benign violation theory of humor (mcgraw & warren, 2010; mcgraw et al., 2012; veatch, 1998), which suggests that humor occurs when people simultaneously appraise a violation as being normal, acceptable, or okay. the aim of the present study was to investigate more thoroughly to what extent a humorous context can influence the response of participants in personal moral dilemmas. the only two studies (valdesolo & desteno, 2006; strohminger et al., 2011) that focused on the role of humor on moral judgment used non-transgressive humor (i.e., inoffensive comedy). thus, it would be interesting to see if the observed humor effect on moral judgment could be stronger when one uses humor with a transgressive content. as this form of humor is closely linked to the transgression of social norms and moral systems, it creates a context that could lead individuals to consider the utilitarian response in sacrificial dilemmas as harmless or okay. mcgraw and warren (2010) showed that moral violation is benign when another norm suggests that the behavior is acceptable or correct. in this sense, expression of transgression delivered in a humorous form could suggest that, in this context, the moral violation is okay (i.e., it’s acceptable to kill someone). this is closely linked with recent research that has shown that exposure to humorous forms of disparagement (i.e., sexist, racist or anti-gay jokes) lead to an increase in expression of prejudice toward target groups (e.g., o’connor et al., 2017; brigaud & blanc 277 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ saucier et al., 2016; woodzicka & ford, 2010). according to the benign-violation theory hypothesis, such effects may occur because in the humorous context, the moral violation (i.e., denigrate a social group) is perceived as benign (see gutiérrez et al., 2018; thai et al., 2019, for a similar interpretation). a particularly interesting form of humor to study in sacrificial dilemmas is dark humor because it treats sinister and tragic subjects, like death, with amusement and trivializes the victim’s suffering (aillaud & piolat, 2012). dark humor (death-related humor) is described as cynical, gallows, morbid. playing with serious or sad real life events, dark humor is generally considered as transgressive since it crosses the red line of social norms and moral systems. this form of humor takes its name from jokes about condemned men or hopeless victims to relieve tension before being executed (freud, 1905). thus, the condemned to death may well declare when led to the scaffold on a beautiful monday morning, “this is a week that is starting well!” the juxtaposition of morbid and farcical elements in dark humor elicits two simultaneous perceptions: one, that the dark content constitutes a moral violation in which negative serious topics are mocked and, the other, an interpretation that the dark content is benign. since dark humor treats negative serious ideas (like death, suffering of the victims or body integrity) in a light-hearted, playful manner (charaudeau, 2006), it is not surprising that people use it as a coping strategy in stressful life-and-death situations (christopher, 2015; rowe & regehr, 2010; van wormer & boes, 1997; young, 1995). in the context of social judgment, dark humor might signal that the violation of moral rule (i.e., to kill someone) is fine and, therefore favor the utilitarian response. thus, we predicted that participants exposed to dark humor before performing a moral judgment task would answer in a more utilitarian fashion (i.e., approving killing one) compared to participants exposed to nondark humor. to deepen our understanding of moral judgment in a humorous context, we questioned whether the humor effect depends on who benefits from the crime. our research considered cases where crime benefits oneself and others versus others only. we predicted that dark humor reinforces the tendency to morally approve the act of killing someone in particular when such action benefits the self in addition to others. this prediction is consistent with two results in psychology of morality (for a review see ellemers et al., 2019). the first one showed that the tendency to produce utilitarian responses is strongly tied to consideration of self-interest (christensen et al., 2014; kahane et al., 2015). indeed, people are more inclined to approve harm if their own life is at stake than if the moral transgression is merely to save others. the second one suggested that people feel less negative emotions (e.g., guilt and shame) about their dishonest actions and perceived them to be morally acceptable when there are other beneficiaries for these actions in addition to themselves (gino et al., 2013). in this case, people use the potential benefits for others as a way to justify their self-interested and unethical actions (self-serving altruism). after being exposed to dark humor, committing harm could be considered less socially inappropriate when participants are faced with self and other beneficial dilemmas, because the crime relies on their own utility since this “selfish” consideration enables them to save others too. the objective of the present research was to investigate more specifically the impact of two humorous contexts (i.e., dark and nondark jokes) on people’s responses to sacrificial dilemmas) as a function of whom benefits from the crime (other vs. self and other). method participants one hundred and thirty-six female undergraduate students1 from the university of montpellier 3 (france) took part in this experiment. the average age of the sample was 20.75 years (sd = 3.40). informed consent was obtained from all students prior to participating in any of the tasks. they were informed that their responses remained anonymous in respect of the data protection law. all students received course credit as compensation. 1) the original sample was composed of 136 female and 19 male participants (which is a classical sample of students enrolled in psychology courses). because there are gender differences in the perception and the attitude toward dark and nondark humor (e.g., aillaud & piolat, 2012, 2014), we selected female participants only for this study. dark humor and moral judgment 278 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materials humorous materials to assess the effects of humor on moral judgment, we used 12 jokes: six jokes were not transgressive (i.e., nonsense or clownish humor) and six dark jokes with a transgressive content (i.e., dealing with sinister topics with amusement like death, suffering of the victims and body integrity). for example, one of the dark jokes used: a lawyer goes to the coroner about an autopsy: – before signing the death certificate, did you take this man’s pulse? – no. – did you check to see if his heart was still beating? – no. – did you check whether he was still breathing? – no. – so you signed this death certificate without performing any of the recommended tests for establishing whether a person is really and truly dead? – yes. why? did you find his head? these jokes were selected on the basis of pretest ratings given by a total of 180 undergraduate students from the university of montpellier 3, france (mage = 19.84 years, sd = 2.63; the majority were female, 86%). they were all volunteers and were compensated with course credit for their participation. a first group of 90 participants were asked to rate 30 jokes regarding their darkness. they rated “how dark is the joke?” using a scale from 1 (not at all dark) to 5 (very dark). because participants were tested collectively, jokes were presented in a counterbalanced order across participants. based on the results of this pilot study, we selected 12 jokes from the pool of the 30 rated jokes (i.e., those that lead to the most consistent appraisal among the sample): six jokes were attributed the lowest score (i.e., 1 = not at all dark) by at least 78% of the sample and six jokes were attributed the highest score (i.e., 5 = very dark) by at least 72% of the sample. all other jokes were excluded from the experimental material. to ensure that this set of jokes (i.e., dark and nondark jokes) was similar in terms of funniness ratings, but distinct in terms of transgressive content, we recruited a second group of 90 participants. after reading each joke, they answered the two following questions: “how funny is the situation described in this joke?” and “how unbecoming and unseemly2 is the situation described in this joke?.” using the same procedure as aillaud and piolat (2012, 2014), responses were made on a 4-point scale (1 = definitely not, 2 = not, 3 = slightly yes, and 4 = definitely yes). note that this 4-point scale enabled us to avoid a midpoint evaluation. a two-way analysis of variance (anova; type of humor: dark vs. nondark) was made for each rating. these analyses revealed a main effect of transgressive content ratings only, f(1, 88) = 77.45, p < .001, ηp2 = .47, dark jokes being judged as more unbecoming and unseemly (m = 2.64, sd = 0.69) than nondark ones (m = 1.23, sd = 0.32). there were no significant differences between dark and nondark jokes regarding funniness (m = 2.57, sd = 0.48 and m = 2.69, sd = 0.63, respectively), f(1, 88) = 0.93, p = .34. these results confirm that participants perceived a difference between dark and nondark humor solely on the transgressive dimension. moral dilemmas we selected four high conflict personal dilemmas from a previously used set (see greene et al., 2001, 2004) in which the participant was always presented as the main protagonist of the situation (i.e., the one who was supposed to carry out the moral violation). the dilemmas were similar regarding at least two dimensions: all dilemmas involved killing one person in order to save several others; the number of people saved was comparable (n = 10). in addition, all these dilemmas were known to elicit mainly the same negative emotion (i.e., guilt) during judgment (choe & min, 2011). the dilemmas were only distinguished according to whom benefits (other vs. self and other) from the crime. the footbridge 2) indecent, inappropriate. brigaud & blanc 279 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and the vitamins were the two other-beneficial dilemmas, while the lifeboat and safari were self and other beneficial ones. in the latter, the crime enabled one to save others as well as the protagonist herself. for example, in the lifeboat dilemma, the protagonist must choose whether to throw a person overboard to save the life of remaining passengers and her life too. emotional scales participant’s emotional state was assessed on two dimensions: valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (level of activation) using the valence and the arousal scales of the self-assessment manikin (sam; lang, 1980). according to bynion and feldner (2017), the sam is a brief and nonverbal measure of emotional state which reliability has been confirmed by numerous studies conducted in various domains (e.g., psychology, communication, advertising; morris, 1995) and populations (e.g., gender, age, race; backs et al., 2005; nabizadeh chianeh et al., 2012). the sam scales consist of two sets of five figures depicting different levels of affective valence and arousal (see figure 1). for each dimension, participants were instructed to place an “x” on or between the figures that best described their emotional state. the valence scale (a) ranged from unhappy (1) to happy (9) and the arousal scale (b) from calm (1) to excited (9). figure 1 the sam scales for valence (a) and arousal (b) with the five figures and the spaces between them corresponding to one point of the 9-point scale (lang, 1980; see also lang et al., 1997) procedure after giving their informed consent, participants were randomly assigned either to the dark humor condition (n = 68) or to the nondark humor condition (n = 68). all participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire composed of two parts: first, they were exposed to six jokes and then they had to complete a moral judgment task. immediately after reading the humorous material, all participants responded to four high-conflict personal dilemmas. the order of presentation of the dilemmas was counterbalanced within and between the dark and nondark humor conditions. for each dilemma, participants had to decide whether the utilitarian option (i.e., to kill someone) was appropriate or not (yes/no question). the answer “yes” always represented the utilitarian response. the scenarios were briefly introduced by stating that they refer to serious situations that could be seen as unpleasant but require making a difficult choice. dark humor and moral judgment 280 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to put the participants “in context” for the task that awaited them, and to ensure that they were engaged in the moral issues at stake, they were instructed to imagine themselves in each situation so that their answer could mirror their action in real life (e.g., see tassy et al., 2013). they were asked to be as honest as possible in their responses, knowing that there is no good or wrong answer. in addition to recording responses to the dilemmas, we also assessed the participant’s emotional state in three steps: before reading the jokes (time 1), after reading the jokes (time 2) and after the moral judgment task (time 3). participants rated their emotional state using the valence and arousal scales of the sam (lang, 1980). results emotional states to examine whether participants’ emotional states fluctuated throughout the experiment, a repeated anova was conducted, first on the valence ratings and, second on arousal ratings. the type of humor (i.e., nondark humor vs. dark humor) was the between-participant factor, and the mood assessment time (time 1 vs. time 2 vs. time 3) was the within-participant factor. mean ratings (and standard deviation) of valence and arousal are reported in table 1. table 1 mean ratings (and standard deviations) of valence and arousal for the dark humor and the nondark humor conditions at each of the three assessment times type of humor valence ratings arousal ratings time 1 time 2 time 3 time 1 time 2 time 3 m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd nondark humor 5.37 1.88 6.13 1.65 4.06 2.04 4.75 1.82 5.19 1.85 5.51 2.09 dark humor 5.50 1.76 5.97 1.71 4.28 1.80 5.06 1.91 5.19 1.97 5.47 2.06 note. before (time 1) and after (time 2) reading the jokes; after the moral judgment task (time 3). regarding valence ratings, a significant effect of time assessment was observed, f(2, 268) = 59.34, p < .001, ηp2 = .31. post hoc analysis (scheffé test) revealed that participants reported feeling happier after reading the jokes than before reading the jokes (time 2, m = 6.05, sd = 1.68; time 1, m = 5.43, sd = 1.82), but their induced happiness decreased after the moral judgment task (time 3, m = 4.17, sd =1.92) (ps < .001). regarding arousal ratings, anova revealed a significant effect of time assessment, f(2, 268) = 5.51, p < .01, ηp2 = .04. participants reported feeling more excited after (time 3, m = 5.49, sd = 2.07) than before the experiment (time 1, m = 4.90, sd = 1.86), (p < .01). no other effects were significant. moral judgment the mean proportion of utilitarian responses (i.e., killing is judged morally appropriate) was analyzed (anova) to explore the effect of both the type of humor (i.e., nondark humor vs. dark humor) and the type of dilemma (i.e., self and other-beneficial vs. otherbeneficial). this 2 × 2 analysis showed a main effect of the type of dilemma indicating that killing to save oneself and others was judged to be more appropriate (m = 0.55, sd = 0.38) than killing to save only others (m = 0.19, sd = 0.30), f(1, 134) = 94.99, p < .001, ηp2 = .41. a significant type of humor × type of dilemma interaction showed that this tendency to accept moral violation in their own self-interest increased when participants were exposed to dark jokes, f(1, 134) = 7.75, p = .006, ηp2 = .05 (see figure 2). post hoc analysis (scheffé test) revealed that, in self and other beneficial dilemmas, the mean proportion of utilitarian responses was significantly higher in the dark humor condition than in the nondark ones (p < .001). no significant difference between these two conditions was found for other-beneficial dilemmas (p = .60). no other effects were significant. brigaud & blanc 281 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 mean proportion of utilitarian responses as a function of type of humor (dark vs. nondark) and type of dilemma (self and other beneficial vs. other beneficial) note. error bars depict standard errors. discussion compared to the existing literature dealing with humor and moral judgment (strohminger et al., 2011; valdesolo & desteno, 2006), the present study highlights the relevance of distinguishing different types of humorous inducing materials. contrary to previous studies that only considered nondark humor, our comparison between dark and nondark humor revealed that variability in moral judgment could not simply be explained in terms of experiencing positive emotions or in terms of the levity property of humor. the content of humorous jokes deserves to be considered especially when this content relies on the transgression of social norms. under the veil of amusement, moral violation in self and other beneficial scenarios increased in a more important way when participants were exposed to dark humor. to deepen our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the permissiveness within different humorous contexts, four main lines of research must be considered. first, it’s noteworthy that people are motivated by their self-interest and prone to behave for their own benefit in moral dilemmas (christensen et al., 2014; moore et al., 2008, 2011). in our study, individuals tended to exhibit a utilitari­ an response style when the transgressive act was described as self and other beneficial as compared to other-beneficial. this effect is coherent with greene’s dual-process model (greene et al., 2001, 2004, 2008), which suggests that utilitarian judgments result from a deliberate analysis of costs and benefits. in this cost-benefit perspective of moral judgment, saving oneself (in addition to others) could be considered as an additional benefit: the gains represented by saving oneself and others outweigh the gains of saving others only. hence, people probably experience less conflict in the analysis of cost-benefit ratio when action is for their own benefit too. this interpretation is compatible with moore et al. (2008, 2011) who showed that individuals were faster to approve the “utilitarian” response when those who benefited from the crime included themselves. this interpretation is also consistent with shalvi et al. (2015; see also gino et al., 2013) who underlined that people experience less internal conflicts when the temptation to profit from unethical behavior can be justified by saving others. this self-serving altruism could explain our results. in the present study, the self and other beneficial scenario enabled people to violate moral rules (e.g., approve a behavior that cause harm to a victim) while maintaining their positive self-image, because the moral violation also benefitted others. dark humor and moral judgment 282 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ secondly, our results showed that the tendency to accept moral violation in both their self and other interest increased when participants were exposed to dark jokes. according to the benign violations theory literature (mcgraw & warren, 2010; warren & mcgraw, 2015, 2016), this result suggests that humorous contexts affect moral judgment via appraisal processes. indeed, the fact that the permissiveness of the moral violation increases in self and other beneficial dilemmas under dark humorous context suggests that this informational context promotes the appraisal of utilitarian response as a benign violation. in other words, when negative serious ideas (like death or suffering of the victims) are associated to farcical elements through dark jokes, the utilitarian response probably becomes more benign, especially when it benefits oneself in addition to others. however, such explanation should be considered with caution since we did not directly emphasize the moral component of the utilitarian response. in the present study, the harmful actions described in sacrificial dilemmas were judged appropriate or inappropriate only. future studies should directly investigate if utilitarian judgment is perceived as more or less immoral according to the type of humor (dark vs. nondark) and the type of dilemma (self and other-beneficial vs. otherbeneficial). another limitation, inherent to almost all moral dilemma research is about the nature of the task and the corresponding measure. as highlighted by crone and laham (2017), sacrificial dilemma responses have to be considered with caution since they have been proved to be a poor indicator of moral values. obviously, there is a huge difference between what one judges as morally acceptable and what one actually does (see also tassy et al., 2013). a profitable line of research would consist of distinguishing between evaluative judgments and choices of action. thirdly, the way the scenarios are perceived is another line of research that deserves to be considered. bauman et al. (2014) strongly recommend that researchers be cautious when using sacrificial dilemmas to studying moral judgment: the ecological validity of sacrificial dilemmas needs to be carefully considered (see körner et al., 2019) because the lack of realism may threaten the validity of moral decision processes under interest. also, because the scenarios are hypothetical, a utilitarian response (i.e., kill someone) could be seen as both a violation and benign. in this circumstance, the benign-violation predicts that people will be amused. in accordance with this hypothesis, bauman et al. (2014) showed that, in the footbridge scenario, people considered pushing the man to be wrong, but also reported laughing. if sacrificial dilemmas have the power to elicit humor, we can hypothesize that exposure to dark jokes promotes the violation and benign appraisals of the situation described in the scenario, and thus, generates laughter. the question is can dark humor transform a serious scenario into a humorous one, because its transgressive content leads to perceive that moral violation is actually okay. rather than abandoning sacrificial dilemmas entirely, using a virtual reality paradigm may offer a more vivid experience of the scenarios, making their realism more salient (e.g., mcdonald et al., 2017; slater & sanchez-vives, 2016), and elicit more serious moral deliberation. a last but not least contribution of the present study concerns individuals’ emotional state when faced with moral dilemma. contrary to previous studies that only considered nondark humor, our comparison between dark and nondark humor revealed that variability in moral judgment could not simply be explained in terms of experiencing positive emotions. interestingly, the benign-violation theory (mcgraw & warren, 2010) suggests that humor does not systematically involve positive emotions (e.g., amusement, mirth). because humor results from violations that are simultaneously seen as benign, it may elicit mixed emotions. this idea is in line with theorists (e.g., larsen & mcgraw, 2014; larsen et al., 2001; schimmack, 2001) who argue that positive and negative emotions do not mutually inhibit each other, and may at times even co-occur (i.e., mix). clearly, humor elicits mixed feelings such disgust and amusement. for instance, people are both amused and disgusted when exposed to a disgusting humorous clip (hemenover & schimmack, 2007). aillaud and piolat (2014) provided additional evidence when underlying that participants used both positive and negative emotional lexicon to describe the emotional experience associated with dark and nondark humorous cartoons. these authors reported that dark humor is particularly conducive to provoking mixed emotions. not only does its transgressive content elicit amusement, but also triggers negative emotions such as shame or disgust. since the present study operationalized dark humor, participants may have felt amusement and shame (or/and disgust), two emotions of opposite valence. this hypothesis cannot be tested in our study since we measured emotional valence only. our results revealed that participants reported feeling happier after reading the jokes than before reading the jokes, but their induced happiness decreased after the moral judgment task. further research should consider the panel of discrete emotions to understand how individuals manage mixed feelings when asked to judge whether the acts are morally appropriate or not. it would be interesting to examine what they feel in the different steps: before the moral brigaud & blanc 283 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://www.psychopen.eu/ judgment task, during the reading of the scenario and after the moral judgment. because the dilemmas have proven to elicit different negative emotions (i.e., guilt, disgust, sadness, empathy, anger; see choe & min, 2011), the question remains on how different types of humor can counterbalance such negative feelings. overall, there is no doubt that the next step to overcome in deepening our understanding of moral judgments is to focus on its context-dependent nature. this line of research allows us to get a better understanding of the mechanisms in which humor influences moral judgment. some additional factors may contribute to this line of research like an individuals’ need for humor (cline et al., 2003; see also picard & blanc, 2013) and also gender (e.g., herzog & anderson, 2000). interestingly, in the present research, dark humor effects are observed on a sample composed exclusively of females. it is noteworthy that females are known to usually find less humor in dark events than males (aillaud & piolat, 2012). the tendency to produce a utilitarian response could be strongly reinforced under dark humor with males who are predisposed to generate and seek out humor (i.e., who scored high in need for humor). future research is needed to test this hypothesis. finally, this study sheds light on the necessity to not neglect the fact that moral judgments take place in a specific sociocultural environment more or less prompt to accept dark humor. the exposure to dark humor in an individualist culture is of great importance since moral decision experienced in everyday life is often driven by selfish attitudes. the presence of dark humor can promote moral transgression that favors the tolerance of utilitarian response. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. we also thank rachel michel for her careful reading of our manuscript. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references aillaud, m., & piolat, a. 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(1995). black humor: making light of death. policing and society, 5(2), 151-167. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.1995.9964719 about the authors emmanuelle brigaud is an associate professor at the university of montpellier 3. her main works concern applied social psycholo­ gy, mainly through the domain of communication, with a special interest for studying humor effects. nathalie blanc is a professor at the university of montpellier 3. the scope of her interests covers the field of cognitive and developmental psychology, mainly in regard to higher cognition and its interaction with emotions involved in educational and communication domains. brigaud & blanc 287 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 276–287 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2417 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.103838 https://doi.org/10.2307/796133 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01731.x https://doi.org/10.1093/hsw/22.2.87 https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1998.11.2.161 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1503836112 https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000041 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v6i3.217 https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.1995.9964719 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dark humor and moral judgment (introduction) method participants materials procedure results emotional states moral judgment discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the associations of peer-rated popularity and likeability with dark triad personality traits in adolescent groups research reports the associations of peer-rated popularity and likeability with dark triad personality traits in adolescent groups zsolt péter szabó 1,2 §, natália zsuzsanna orosz 2 §, réka gulyás 2, andrás láng 3 [1] institute of strategy and management, corvinus university of budapest, budapest, hungary. [2] department of social psychology, faculty of education and psychology, elte eötvös loránd university, budapest, hungary. [3] institute of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of pécs, pécs, hungary. §these authors contributed equally to this work. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 received: 2023-03-29 • accepted: 2023-11-26 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: zsolt péter szabó, fővám tér 8., 1093 budapest, hungary. e-mail: zsoltpeter.szabo@uni-corvinus.hu supplementary materials: code, data, materials abstract one of the most significant challenges in adolescence is the pursuit of social acceptance, which can manifest in various forms, including likeability and popularity. achieving social acceptance is associated with positive outcomes, while its absence is linked to adverse consequences. existing research into the personality determinants impacting the ability to elicit likeability or gain popularity remains limited, primarily focusing on the influence of big five traits. this study aimed to explore the relationships between selfreported dark triad traits -encompassing machiavellianism, subclinical psychopathy, and subclinical narcissismand peer-rated likeability and popularity in a naturalistic high school classroom setting. the sample comprised 184 secondary students (98 females, 86 males) with an average age of 16.29 (sd = 1.36). participants self-reported their dark triad traits and provided peer ratings through sociometric questions related to likeability and popularity. our findings indicated that narcissism was significantly and positively associated with both likeability and popularity. in contrast, psychopathy and machiavellianism exhibited minimal associations with measures of social acceptance. we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. keywords dark triad personality traits, machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, social acceptance, likeability, popularity one of the prominent challenges during adolescence is the pursuit of social acceptance, which can take on different forms, including likeability and popularity. achieving social acceptance is linked to positive outcomes, such as improved mental health, happiness, and self-esteem (e.g., de bruyn & van den boom, 2005; harris & vazire, 2016). conversely, its absence is associated with negative outcomes like loneliness (zhang et al., 2014) and may even impact academic performance (guinouard & rychlak, 1962). understanding the determinants of social acceptance, especially during adolescence, is essential for promoting overall well-being and psychological development. the significance of personality traits was recognized early within the literature (guinouard & rychlak, 1962). the notion that dispositions such as selfishness, low empathy, limited agreeableness, and reduced honesty-humility, which are associated with dark triad personality traits (henceforth dt), this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11667&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ might hold predictive power seems intuitively plausible. however, the existing body of literature addressing this issue is notably constrained in scope. the investigation into the relationship between dt and social acceptance primarily focuses on their correlation with mate choice and romantic relationships (jonason & schmitt, 2012). this study aims to determine whether an association exists between elevated levels of dt among secondary school students and the likelihood of gaining popularity and/or likeability within the classroom. literature background: likeability and popularity in adolescent groups: relationships with personality traits de vries et al. (2020) argue that fulfilling the need to belong (i.e., social acceptance) presents a significant adaptive developmental challenge, which is tackled through two pathways: likeability and popularity. likeability is defined as the extent to which peers like and accept an individual (hubers et al., 2016), and it correlates with prosocial behavior and low aggression (van der linden et al., 2010). popularity refers to the extent to which an individual is viewed as socially dominant and visible within a group (hubers et al., 2016). popularity signifies the level of prestige and influence an individual holds within the group. van der linden et al. (2010) assert that popularity is a multifaceted construct, encompassing favorable attributes such as intelligence, friendliness, and attractiveness, as well as less favorable traits like aggression, arrogance, and manipulativeness. the concept of social acceptance as a finite resource, wherein likeability and popularity are viewed as scarce commodities (de vries et al., 2020), has evolutionary roots. acquiring peer relationships through likeability or popularity served as a valuable asset in evolutionary contexts (de vries et al., 2020). it enabled individuals to establish bonds with peers to build a support network against threats. furthermore, it facilitated the formation of relationships with the opposite sex for procreation. the adaptive challenges rooted in evolutionary history no longer exert the same influence within the contemporary milieu as in their original context. however, the increased need for peer belongingness remains evident during adoles­ cence (de vries et al., 2020). in late adolescence, the potential pathways for satisfying these needs diverge: individuals who are popular begin to exhibit different behavior from those who are liked (cillessen & borch, 2006). while a strong correlation exists between likeability and popularity during early adolescence, this lessens in late adolescence. being liked becomes less crucial for attaining popularity, which becomes more closely associated with the ability to ‘get ahead’ (de vries et al., 2020). the prevailing consensus in the literature is that, despite their commonalities, likeability and popularity are distinct concepts (wolters et al., 2014). existing research, relatively limited in scope, primarily focuses on the impact of the big five personality traits in exploring the personality determinants influence individuals’ ability to elicit likeability or gain popularity (harris & vazire, 2016). regarding likeability, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability have emerged as dispositional determi­ nants (de vries et al., 2020; harris & vazire, 2016; hubers et al., 2016; van der linden et al., 2010). however, the role of extraversion remains somewhat ambiguous. while communal aspects of extraversion, like sociability, display a clear link with likeability, the relationship is less evident for agentic aspects of extraversion, such as dominance (harris & vazire, 2016). the most consistent predictor of popularity is extraversion, while agreeableness does not significantly predict it, further hinting at the conceptual differences between popularity and likeability (anderson et al., 2001; de vries et al., 2020; hubers et al., 2016; van der linden et al., 2010). de vries et al. (2020) examined the relationships of the hexaco personality model with likeability and popularity. in contrast to the big five, hexaco incorporates a sixth dimension, honesty-humility, characterized by traits such as sincerity, fairness, and modesty. their study revealed a notable correlation in early adolescence—an inverse link between honesty-humility and popularity. this suggests that individuals with higher levels of honesty-humility are less likely to achieve popularity, reinforcing the notion that popularity has a dark, antisocial aspect (lafontana & cillessen, 2002; sandstrom & cillessen, 2006; wolters et al., 2014). these findings, along with similar observations (cheng et al., 2010; dark triad’s likeability popularity 166 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rauthmann & kolar, 2013; zeigler-hill et al., 2014) emphasize the value of comprehensively exploring the interplay between popularity, likeability, and dt to enhance our understanding of social acceptance in adolescent groups. the dark triad and social acceptance the dt comprises three socially undesirable personality traits: machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy (paulhus & williams, 2002). these traits share a common core characterized by malevolent and exploitative behavior, low willingness to cooperate, low honesty-humility, and a propensity towards callousness and aggression (kowalski et al., 2021). despite these commonalities, significant differences exist among the three traits. these differen­ ces may be closely linked to variations in how individuals high in each trait are perceived by their peers. subclinical narcissism, particularly the agentic and grandiose types measured by the short dark triad (jones & paulhus, 2014), is defined by grandiosity, entitlement, superiority, and dominance (paulhus & williams, 2002). individuals high in grandiose subclinical narcissism typically display reactive aggression in response to ego-threatening situations. subclinical psychopathy is marked by indifference toward social norms, impulsivity, hostile and instrumental aggressive behaviors, risk-taking tendencies, and low empathy (truhan et al., 2021). unlike the other two traits, machia­ vellianism is characterized by its long-term, strategic, and flexible adaptation to changes in the social environment, as well as low levels of aggression (bereczkei, 2018). a notable research gap exists in understanding how individuals with dt are perceived and accepted in close-knit groups. moreover, even the limited existing studies typically rely on self-report data in non-naturalistic settings, potentially leading to invalid conclusions (muris et al., 2017). while the negative aspects of grandiose subclinical narcissism undoubtedly present challenges within most longterm social groups (prusik & szulawski, 2019), some argue that its positive traits, coupled with its associations with extraversion (szabó, czibor et al., 2023; szabó, diller et al., 2023), can make individuals with high grandiose narcis­ sism likable and popular. recent research establishes connections between narcissism and attributes such as mental toughness and resilience (papageorgiou et al., 2019; szabó et al., 2022), enhancing their potential for advancement and visibility. studies demonstrate that narcissistic traits often contribute to success (rauthmann & kolar, 2013) and leadership roles (paunonen et al., 2006). research focusing on narcissism’s impact on forming and maintaining friendships, an aspect tightly linked to likeability (laursen et al., 2023), reveals that individuals with elevated narcissism levels establish friendships for various reasons, including factors that establish the foundation for enduring relationships, like shared interests (jonason & schmitt, 2012). however, those with narcissistic traits exhibit reduced friendship commitment (sauls & zeigler-hill, 2020), and narcissism is also linked to challenges in forging and maintaining relationships (wehner & ziegler, 2023). in naturalistic settings, their evaluations by others tend to be neutral (rauthmann, 2012). reactive aggression, also tied to narcissism, negatively predicts popularity (stoltz et al., 2016). high psychopathy scores are associated with confrontational behavior, hostile and instrumental aggression, and bullying (boddy, 2010). the ability of individuals with high psychopathy scores to attain high status and popularity in adult groups remains a subject of considerable debate. while a substantial body of research suggests that they can advance through aggressive, risk-taking, and manipulative behaviors (e.g., babiak et al., 2010), recent findings challenge this view. a meta-analysis discovered no discernible link between psychopathy scores and leadership emergence and effectiveness (landay et al., 2019). the intricacy intensifies within adolescent groups, where the factors that typically hinder individuals with high psychopathy scores in work settings, such as impulsivity, deviant behavior, and resistance to authority, might paradoxically construct an appealing antihero image (jonason et al., 2012). supporting this notion, davis et al. (2022) identified a positive association between psychopathy and dating success among adolescents. it is unlikely that individuals with psychopathic traits are particularly liked by their peers as they are probably not seen as friendly and cooperative (van der linden et al., 2010). self-reports indicate they form friendships with volatile others (jonason & schmitt, 2012), and employ distant or indirect communication when ending a friendship (brewer et al., 2023). in the perceptions of others, they are predominantly viewed negatively (rauthmann, 2012). forecasting the popularity and likeability of individuals possessing high levels of machiavellianism presents a challenge due to the flexible and adaptable nature of their behavior. previous research reveals a connection between szabó, orosz, gulyás, & láng 167 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ machiavellianism and a spectrum of both antiand prosocial behaviors (e.g., szabó et al., 2018). anchored in the pursuit of personal success through diverse means, their behavior remains shaped by strategic objectives. for instance, becker and o’hair (2007) suggest that individuals with high levels of machiavellianism exhibit altruistic behaviors when such actions aid in manipulating others’ perceptions of them. however, they tend to choose friends who are more vulnerable to exploitation (jonason & schmitt, 2012). in their friendships, they exhibit insincerity, demonstrate restricted self-disclosure, and may even display happiness in response to their friends’ misfortunes (abell & brewer, 2018; brewer et al., 2014). they are largely seen negatively by others (rauthmann, 2012). rogoza et al. (2021) investigated the simultaneous impact of the dark triad traits on relationship formation within a longitudinal and naturalistic setting. they collected self-report data on dt and obtained peer ratings from high-school classmates. peers were asked to identify the individuals they liked the most in the classroom and those they perceived as leaders. the first question directly measured likeability, while the second question indirectly assessed popularity, or as argued by the authors, peer-rated agency. the study yielded complex relationships among the variables. in the short term, psychopathy was negatively related to likeability, while machiavellianism showed a positive relationship, and narcissism exhibited no significant association. conversely, in the long term, only narcissism displayed a connection with likeability, acting as a negative predictor. this indicates that individuals with narcissistic traits were less favored by their peers over an extended time, in line with similar findings by paulhus (1998). in the short term, psychopathy was negatively related to leadership selection, while machiavellianism showed a positive relationship, and narcissism exhibited no significant association. however, in the long term, narcissism emerged as the sole significant predictor of leadership selections. specifically, individuals with narcissistic traits displayed a high­ er likelihood of being chosen as leaders, highlighting a peer-reported agency associated with narcissism. closing this section, we would like to discuss the evolutionary psychological approach to dt. as mentioned earlier, some literature (de vries et al., 2020) views the achievement of likeability and popularity as a solution to the evolutionary problem of belongingness. the evolutionary approach to dt has conceptualized these traits as condition-dependent adaptations to address life’s challenges within an unpredictable environment (jonason et al., 2016). while directly testing this idea is almost impossible, it theoretically makes sense to consider dt as solutions for fulfilling belongingness needs through the attainment of social dominance, i.e., popularity. specifically, according to life history theory, individuals develop a life history shaped by their early experiences, which can be positioned along the slow-fast continuum (belsky et al., 1991; del giudice et al., 2015). a fast life history can be characterized by an untrustful internal working model, utilitarian interpersonal relationships, early puberty, and sexual activity, among others. there is a close link between dt and a fast life history (birkás et al., 2020; however, for an in-depth discussion about the complex relationships between dt and life history see manson, 2020; mcdonald et al., 2012). many attributes of dt, such as impulsivity and entitlement, can be perceived as adaptive strategies developed in response to harsh and unpredictable environments (jonason et al., 2016; mcdonald et al., 2012). living a fast life is probably associated with the tendency to seek popularity—that is, dominance, visibility, and prestige. essentially, a fast life history aligns with a ‘getting ahead’ motivation rather than a ‘getting along’ motivation. adolescents in their turbulent and stressful development stage might take advantage of dt related to fast life history to achieve, often short-lived, popularity in peer groups which would be reflected in their higher popularity scores. however, we do not posit a complete correspondence between dt and popularity. specific dt attributes, such as aggression, can simultaneously promote and hinder popularity attainment, contingent on the type of aggression— proactive or reactive (stoltz et al., 2016) the present study the present study surveyed secondary school classes to explore the associations of self-reported dt with peer-rated likeability and popularity. the latter was measured through both direct and indirect means (peer-rated agency). considering the conflicting possibilities and inconsistent findings in the limited existing research that has examined these matters, we are posing research questions. nevertheless, some expectations can still be articulated, such as the anticipation that dt will exhibit a closer connection to popularity than to likeability. dark triad’s likeability popularity 168 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questions related to likeability (rq1): what is the correlation between students’ self-reported dt and their peer-rated likeability? do students with high self-reported dark triad traits receive favorable opinions and acceptance, and are they perceived as friendly and cooperative? questions related to popularity (rq2): what is the correlation between students’ self-reported dt and their peer-rated popularity? are students with high self-reported dt traits seen as popular among their peers and teachers? additionally, are students with high-self reported dt seen as potential leaders among their peers and perceived to have successfully adapted to school life and possess great potential for success in life? importantly, the present study observed the associations between dt, likeability, and popularity in a highly naturalistic setting and with the employment of peer ratings. the literature reviewed above reveals that most of the relevant studies were conducted in less naturalistic settings and/or were based on self-report data. the data, materials, and analysis syntax of the study are openly available at szabó (2024). method sample the study involved 184 secondary students (98 females and 86 males; mage = 16.29, sd = 1.36) from nine classes enrolled in four-year secondary programs. class size varied between 15 and 35 students. a post-hoc power analysis using g*power (faul et al., 2009) yielded acceptable power numbers (ranging between 0.52 and 0.99). design and procedure data were collected between september 2020 and january 2021 during the covid-19 pandemic. copies of the test battery were distributed among the students by their respective class teachers, as researchers were not authorized to enter the school site due to epidemiological reasons. to minimize the occurrence of missing cases, participants who were absent from school during their respective survey sessions were granted online access to the survey. survey completion took approximately 45 minutes. before participating, each participant was informed about the study’s purpose and the relevant data protection pro­ visions, particularly concerning the confidential handling of their data. data collectors also ensured that all participants were at least 14 years of age. following the provision of informed consent and demographic data, participants completed a self-report measure of the dark triad traits, followed by a sociometric inventory. each participant submitted their response in a sealed envelope. although collected data included participants’ names, we assured participants that their personal information would not be shared with third parties, including teachers, classmates, and parents. additionally, parental consent and institutional approval from the heads of the participating high schools were obtained before data collection. the study was conducted with ethical approval from eötvös loránd university. measures dark triad personality traits we assessed dt using the 27-item short dark triad (sd3; jones & paulhus, 2014), which was adapted to hungarian by szabó, czibor et al. (2023). each trait was measured by nine items: machiavellianism (e.g., “it’s not wise to tell your secrets”; cronbach’s α = 0.65), subclinical narcissism (e.g., “people see me as a natural leader”; cronbach’s α = 0.76), and subclinical psychopathy (e.g., “people who mess with me always regret it”; cronbach’s α = 0.71). participants rated items on a 5-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” composite scores were computed by calculating the mean of the corresponding items. szabó, orosz, gulyás, & láng 169 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ likeability likeability was measured with six items focusing on intimate interpersonal relationships within the class: ‘who is your best friend in the class?’; ‘who would you first ask for help if you were in trouble?’; ‘with whom would you first share some interesting news?’; ‘whom do you intend to stay in touch with after graduation?’; ‘whom do you like the most in your class?’; ‘with whom would you first share a personal secret?’. responses to these items were combined into a single composite variable labeled likeability, which represented the sum of votes received by each participant across the six items. popularity the measurement of popularity utilized two distinct methods. for the direct measure of popularity, participants were asked to identify the most popular members within their groups. we used two items to assess perceived popularity among peers (‘who are the most popular among students in your class?’) and teachers (‘who are the most popular students among teachers?’). this distinction enabled an exploration of potential variations in factors influencing popularity among students, as opposed to perceived popularity among authority figures. importantly, it is crucial to clarify that both the perceived popularity among peers and teachers were evaluated through responses from peers. teachers were not surveyed in this study. indirect measures of popularity assessed different aspects of agency, each captured by a single item: leadership ability (‘which of your classmates would be the best leader?’), organizing skills (‘if your class teacher was unable to manage the class for an extended period, which of your classmates do you believe would be the most suitable replacement?’), future success (‘among your classmates, who do you believe will achieve the most success in life?’), and adjustment to school life (‘among your classmates, who appears most comfortable with school life?’). participants could select as many classmates as they wished for each question. to ensure data consistency across classes of varying sizes for each sociometric measure, the total number of votes received by each participant on each measure was divided by the total number of students in the participant’s class. additional sociometric data on attractiveness and giftedness were collected but were not analyzed in the present data. results first, we investigated the correlations between dt and the sociometric variables (see table 1). table 1 spearman correlations and descriptive statistics for dt traits variable machiavellianism narcissism psychopathy likeability .17* .17* .12† perceived popularity among peers .17* .33** .16* perceived popularity among teachers -.01 -.05 -.16* leadership ability .12 .31** .13† organizing skills .06 .13 .03 future success .13† .28** .08 adjustment to school life -.07 .08 -.01 m 3.61 2.71 2.31 sd 0.60 0.71 0.68 note. correlation coefficients are spearman’s rho. †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. the dark triad traits exhibited weak, but statistically significant positive correlations with likeability. narcissism dis­ played positive correlations with the number of votes related to perceived popularity among peers, perceived popularity dark triad’s likeability popularity 170 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ among teachers, leadership, and potential for success in life. machiavellianism was positively linked with perceived popularity among peers and exhibited a marginally significant correlation with perceived potential for success in life. psychopathy displayed a positive correlation with perceived popularity among classmates while showing a negative correlation with perceived popularity among teachers. due to the relatively high frequency of zero values in each sociometric measure (ranging from 41.3% to 69%), a two-step analysis procedure, as proposed by boulton and williford (2018), was employed. for each sociometric measure, except likeability which possessed a continuous nature, a two-variable approach was adopted. this approach involved creating a binary variable (0 = no vote, 1 = one or more votes) and a continuous variable. in the continuous variable, zero values were excluded from subsequent analysis as missing data. the binary variables were entered as outcome variables in uniform binary logistic regression models, using the dt as predictors and gender as a control variable. the continuous variables were included in linear regression models using the same predictor and control variables as the binary logistic models. we applied a bonferroni-corrected p-value of .008 to determine the significance in the binary logistic regressions and .007 in the linear regressions. this correction involved dividing the threshold of .05 by the number of multiple comparisons. in the binary logistic regressions, we report standardized beta weights (β), wald statistics, cox and snell r 2, and nagelkerke r 2. the results, presented in table 2, indicated that narcissism was a significant predictor of perceived popu­ larity among peers, perceived leadership ability, and perceived likelihood of future success. however, machiavellianism and psychopathy did not emerge as significant predictors of the outcome variables. table 2 results of binary logistic regression on popularity dv1: perceived popularity among peers dv2: perceived popularity among teachers dv3: leadership ability variable β se wald p β se wald p β se wald p mach .39 .29 1.80 .18 .02 .27 .01 .94 .17 .30 .32 .58 narc .97 .27 13.26 <.001 -.03 .23 .01 .91 .80 .26 9.13 .003 psych .07 .27 .06 .80 -.20 .25 .61 .44 .24 .27 .77 .38 gender -.72 .33 4.70 .03 -.51 .31 2.71 .10 -.02 .34 .01 .94 cox and snell r 2 .12 .02 .08 nagelkerke r 2 .16 .03 .12 dv4: organizing skills dv5: future success dv6: adjustment to school life variable β se wald p β se wald p β se wald p mach .23 .28 .64 .43 .16 .28 .34 .56 -.52 .29 3.10 .08 narc .19 .24 .64 .43 .64 .25 6.55 .01 .23 .25 .85 .36 psych .07 .26 .08 .77 -.02 .26 .00 .95 .13 .27 .23 .63 gender -.28 .32 .77 .38 -.25 .32 .62 .43 .52 .33 2.52 .11 cox and snell r 2 .01 .05 .04 nagelkerke r 2 .02 .07 .05 note. mach = machiavellianism. narc = subclinical narcissism. psych = subclinical psychopathy. table 3 presents the results of the linear regression analyses. narcissism emerged as a significant positive predictor of perceived leadership ability and perceived organizational skills. individuals exhibiting narcissistic traits were also more likely to be perceived as destined for future success. additionally, several other associations reached the conventional significance threshold (p < .05) but did not achieve bonferroni-corrected significance (p < .07). for instance, narcissism was a positive predictor of perceived popularity among peers (p = .05) and perceived popularity among teachers (p = .01), while psychopathy was a negative predictor of perceived popularity among teachers (p = .02). psychopathy was also a negative predictor of perceived leadership abilities (p = .02) and the perceived ability to adapt to school life (p = .04). machiavellianism was a positive predictor of the perceived ability to fit into school life (p = .02). szabó, orosz, gulyás, & láng 171 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 regression analyses on likeability and popularity dv1: perceived popularity among peers dv2: perceived popularity among teachers variable β se β 95% ci p β se β 95% ci p mach .00 .02 -.04, .05 .91 .04 .03 -.01, .09 .12 narc .04 .02 .00, .08 .05 .06 .02 .02, .10 .01 psych .01 .02 -.04, .05 .76 -.06 .02 -.10, -.01 .02 gender -.04 .03 -.02, .09 .19 -.03 .03 -.03, .09 .29 model summary: r 2 = .06, f(4, 95) = 1.48, p = .22 model summary r 2 = .13, f(4, 81) = 3.11, p = .02 dv3: leadership abilities dv4: organizing skills variable β se β 95% ci p β se β 95% ci p mach .03 .03 -.03, .09 .38 -.02 .03 -.08, .04 .42 narc .09 .03 .04, .14 .001 .10 .03 .05, .15 <.001 psych -.06 .02 -.11, -.01 .02 -.05 .03 -.10, .01 .10 gender -.09 .03 .03, .15 .01 -.06 .03 .00, .13 .05 model summary: r 2 = .30, f(4, 52) = 5.43, p = .001 model summary r 2 = .24, f(4, 59) = 4.61, p = .003 dv5: future success dv6: adjustment to school life variable β se β 95% ci p β se β 95% ci p mach .00 .02 -.04, .03 .90 .05 .02 .01, .09 .02 narc .05 .02 .02, .08 .001 .01 .02 -.03, .04 .69 psych -.01 .02 -.04, .02 .53 -.04 .02 -.07, .00 .04 gender -.06 .02 .02, .10 .01 -.03 .02 -.01, .07 .15 model summary: r 2 = .13, f(4, 103) = 3.94, p = .005 model summary r 2 = .13, f(4, 56) = 2.05, p = .10 dv7: likeability variable β se β 95% ci p mach .01 .01 .00, .03 .10 narc .01 .01 .00, .03 .05 psych .01 .01 .00, .03 .14 gender -.03 .01 .02, .05 < .001 model summary: r 2 = .12, f(4, 179) = 6.29, p < .001 note. mach = machiavellianism. narc = subclinical narcissism. psych = subclinical psychopathy. discussion the present study investigated the associations between dt, likeability, and popularity in a naturalistic setting, employ­ ing both self-rated and other-rated data. the most consistent results were obtained for narcissism. specifically, individuals with higher self-reported narcis­ sism were perceived by their classmates as popular and likable. they were also seen as possessing strong leadership and organizational abilities. furthermore, they were more frequently identified as having substantial potential for postsecondary school success compared to individuals with lower narcissistic traits. the predictive impact of psychopathy and machiavellianism in terms of likeability and popularity was found to be minimal. some indications emerged that individuals with high psychopathy and machiavellianism scores are marginally more liked by their peers and slightly more popular compared to other students. furthermore, individuals with elevated machiavellianism scores exhibit adeptness at effectively adapting to their current social environment. however, when considering the broader context, our findings surprisingly suggest that neither machiavellianism nor psychopathy is correlated with social acceptance within adolescent groups. due to the limitations of our study design, our results are primarily observational, and the explanations we provide are inherently speculative. nevertheless, we consider these observations valuable as they contribute to our understanding of two important questions in the literature: (1) the factors that account for the likeability and popularity dark triad’s likeability popularity 172 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of members within adolescent groups, and (2) the perception of individuals with dark triad traits by their closely associated peers. the likeability and popularity associated with narcissism could potentially demonstrate the accuracy of self-percep­ tions among individuals with elevated narcissism. future studies should investigate in greater detail whether individuals with high narcissism levels are indeed more likable and popular compared to those with lower narcissistic tendencies. alternatively, these results are only illustrations of the transient effectiveness of narcissistic individuals’ self-perception strategies, rather than unequivocally indicating their genuine acceptance among peers. rogoza et al. (2021) have demonstrated dynamic shifts in the likeability and perceived leadership abilities of individuals with elevated narcissism over the long term. nevertheless, it is intriguing to compare our findings with those of rogoza et al. (2021). in their study, they initially found no significant relationship between narcissism and likeability or perceived leadership ability. however, in the long term, narcissism exhibited a negative correlation with likeability and a positive correlation with perceived leadership ability. this suggests that individuals with higher narcissism scores were seemingly regarded by their peers as more capable leaders in both studies. their ‘born leader’ attitude could either be grounded in realistic self-assessments or function as a self-fulfilling prophecy. however, the extent to which peers can form positive likeability perceptions of individuals with elevated narcissism scores remains an open question. rogoza et al. (2021), akin to our study, employed the sd3 to assess dark triad traits. this assessment predominantly captures the agentic aspects of narcissism. future studies might consider utilizing measures that encompass additional aspects of narcissism such as vulnerability and antagonism (crowe et al., 2019). the null effects associated with machiavellianism and psychopathy may be attributed to the simultaneous influence of machiavellianism and narcissism characteristics, which contribute to both promoting popularity and eliciting rejec­ tion. the inclination of individuals with high psychopathy scores to rebel against authority, take risks, and engage in instrumental aggression may facilitate their attainment of social dominance. however, simultaneously, their harassment of peers, hostile aggression, and self-centered, exploitative behaviors may easily overshadow any popularity they may have gained. likewise, the adaptive behavioral strategies characteristic of machiavellians could function both in favor of and against the attainment of popularity. individuals with high machiavellianism scores tend to favor partners they can exploit (jonason & schmitt, 2012) and they display self-serving behaviors even within collaborative groups (bereczkei et al., 2015). this may lead to greater success in short-term relationships, yet it can also lead to conflicting evaluations within communities where members interact daily over an extended period, such as a high school classroom. while speculative, our analysis leads us to conclude that the advantageous and disadvantageous facets of psychopathy and machiavellianism, in terms of fostering popularity, may counterbalance each other, resulting in null effects. based on these findings, it would certainly be a far-fetched conclusion to suggest that machiavellianism and psychopathy are evolutionary solutions for the adaptive developmental problem of peer belongingness needs (de vries et al., 2020). on the other hand, narcissism was positively associated with both likeability and popularity. it seems that narcissistic traits such as self-confidence, grandiosity, exhibitionism, and a ‘born leader’ attitude may appeal to members of an adolescent peer group (jonason et al., 2012). thus, the obtained findings for narcissism are consistent with previously proposed evolutionary conceptualizations (e.g., jonason et al., 2016). limitations and future studies several limitations should be acknowledged. the cross-sectional, non-longitudinal design of the study precludes analyz­ ing the dt’s associations with long-term social success. future research could adopt a longitudinal design to explore temporal changes in the relationship between dt and the attainment of likeability and popularity. another limitation is the relatively small sample size due to the then-active coronavirus pandemic. this implies that any observed effects should be interpreted with caution. however, we believe that the richness of our data compensates for this limitation. for instance, we utilized 12 sociometric items to access likeability and popularity, while rogoza et al. (2021), in a comparable sociometric investigation, only employed two items. our sample size is comparable to those used szabó, orosz, gulyás, & láng 173 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in previous studies investigating the likeability and popularity of individuals with high dt (see e.g., jauk et al., 2016; rauthmann, 2012; rogoza et al., 2021). additional limitations pertain to the instruments employed in this study. the sd3, though practical, primarily focuses on the agentic aspect of narcissism, neglecting facets like antagonism and vulnerability that could impact social acceptance. also, the machiavellianism subscale’s cronbach’s alpha fell below the traditional cutoff (nunnally, 1978). future studies should employ more reliable, age-specific measures and expand assessment scope by evaluating each dt trait separately using comprehensive measures. future research could also explore additional dark traits, such as everyday sadism (buckels et al., 2013). conclusion the primary outcome of our research indicates a clear correlation between narcissism and both likeability and populari­ ty. psychopathy and machiavellianism, on the other hand, exhibit minimal associations with factors measuring social acceptance. understanding the determinants of peer acceptance during adolescence holds both academic intrigue and practical significance. the existing literature suggests that individuals who do not achieve either pathway of peer acceptance -meaning they are neither popular nor likedexperience negative consequences in the short and long term, impacting their well-being and potentially their academic performance. consequently, any insights that deepen our understanding of peer acceptance during adolescence can equip educators with valuable tools to support a broader range of students in gaining peer acceptance. our findings could also foster the development of empathy and perspective-taking among professionals working with young individuals. these findings show that personality traits conventionally labeled as dark, such as narcissism, can also be seen as solutions to adaptive developmental challenges. despite the evident drawbacks of inflated self-es­ teem, entitlement, and exploitation of others, these behaviors can also be interpreted as adolescents’ attempts to establish dominance, prestige, visibility, and, consequently, a sense of belongingness. funding: zsolt péter szabó declares that project no. tkp2021-nkta-19 has been implemented with the support provided from the national research, development, innovation fund of hungary, and financed under the tkp2021-nkta funding scheme. andrás láng was funded by the national research, development and innovation office (grant no. nrdi-138040). acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank the schools, the teachers, and all student participants for their collaboration with the research on which this paper is based. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: all procedures in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the code of ethics of the world medical association, the 1964 helsinki declaration, and its later amendments. informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. additionally, parental consent and institutional approval from the heads of the participating high schools were obtained before data collection. data availability: the data, materials, and analysis syntax of the study are openly available at szabó (2024). references abell, l., & brewer, g. 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(2014). friendship quality, social preference, proximity prestige, and self-perceived social competence: interactive influences on children’s loneliness. journal of school psychology, 52(5), 511–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2014.06.001 about the authors zsolt péter szabó is an associate professor of social psychology at both corvinus university budapest and elte eötvös loránd university. his research primarily investigates the influence of dark personality traits on workplace dynamics and relational out­ comes. additionally, he has conducted extensive research on collective victimization and system justification within the context of hungary. natália zsuzsanna orosz, a psychologist, graduated from elte eötvös loránd university. her research primarily focuses on the relationships between personality traits and social acceptance. réka gulyás, a psychologist, graduated from elte eötvös loránd university. her research is related to workplace behavior of individuals with dark personality traits. her studies primarily focus on exploring the relationships between dark personality traits and perfectionism. andrás láng is currently an associate professor of clinical and developmental psychology at university of pécs. his primary research interest lies in attachment theory. he is actively conducting research investigating the developmental and clinical aspects of machiavellianism and the dark triad. szabó, orosz, gulyás, & láng 177 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 165–177 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11667 https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21603 https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/7p3ya https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02470-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.04.026 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2023.112098 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111339 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110502 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.08.007 https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221122023 https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431613510403 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.03.037 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2014.06.001 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dark triad’s likeability popularity (introduction) literature background: likeability and popularity in adolescent groups: relationships with personality traits the dark triad and social acceptance the present study method sample design and procedure measures results discussion limitations and future studies conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the authors othering and deprioritizing older adults’ lives: ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic editorial othering and deprioritizing older adults’ lives: ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic roger andre søraa* ab , federico manzi cd, mark w. kharasa, antonella marchetti cd, davide massaro cd, giuseppe riva de, j. artur serrano a [a] department of neuromedicine and movement science, faculty of medicine and health sciences, ntnu norwegian university of science and technology, trondheim, norway. [b] department of interdisciplinary studies of culture, faculty of humanities, ntnu norwegian university of science and technology, trondheim, norway. [c] research unit on theory of mind, department of psychology, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. [d] humane technology laboratory, catholic university of the sacred heart, milan, italy. [e] applied technology for neuropsychology laboratory, italian institute for auxology, milan, italy. abstract the covid-19 pandemic is showing troubling othering demographic discourses. for older adults in particular, there are concerning thematics that should be shined light on. in this editorial, we provide perspectives from three countries: norway, italy and the united states. we provide four topics of discussion that can be utilized to further understand othering discoures of the covid-19 pandemic, as well as potential future disasters. keywords: coronavirus, covid-19, pandemic, older adults, ageism, othering, deprioritizing europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 received: 2020-07-29. accepted: 2020-09-07. published (vor): 2020-11-27. *corresponding author at: department of interdisciplinary studies of culture, faculty of humanities, ntnu norwegian university of science and technology, dragvoll, edvard bulls veg 1, 7491 trondheim, norway. e-mail: roger.soraa@ntnu.no this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. older adults and the covid-19 pandemic times of crises show what and who are prioritized and deprioritized. refugee-crises are colored by racism, and homophobia hindered initial responses to hiv/aids. similarly, fraser et al. (2020), ask what society’s ageist response to the covid-19 pandemic says about us, and we argue that the initial response paints a grim picture of how we value the lives of older adults. in this editorial, we explore a discourse on the topic of “covid-19 as an elderly disease”—which was quite prominent in the beginning of the pandemic in multiple countries (fraser et al., 2020). the deprioritized rhetoric of “only old people die” resulted from a “public discourse [that] presented [covid-19] as only dangerous to older adults” (fraser et al., 2020, p. 693), which we explore as an othering of older adults’ lives. since its modest beginning on december 31, 2019, covid-19 has killed more than a million, infected millions, and upended the lives of billions of people in almost every country on the planet. it has also caused the europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6800-0558 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ greatest economic collapse since the great depression in the 1930s. several studies found that the effects of covid-19 symptomatology among older adults are more severe, with increased mortality (armitage & nellums, 2020; fraser et al., 2020). lockdown policies have increased the morbidity of covid-19 associated with affective disorders effects due to the isolation of older adults (armitage & nellums, 2020; cavalera et al., 2017). residents of long-term care facilities are also especially vulnerable (comas-herrera et al., 2020). this considerable difference in the mortality rate would create an expectation that special attention and care should be focused on this age group (comas-herrera et al., 2020). however, this did not seem to be the case, and public mentions were made in the opposite direction of deprioritizing care for older adults as described in this article. this can be understood as an implicit geronticide of the world’s older adults population. brogden (2001, p. 12) describes how geronticide—“the killing of the elderly”—can be understood not in the sensational evil act of slaughtering, but in the silent societal infrastructures that “determine that older people should lose their fundamental right to life” by rationing health resources in favor of other age cohorts. there are troubling cases—most notably in italy (vergano et al., 2020) and spain (de frutos & moynihan, 2020; sills & lombrana, 2020)—of doctors having to choose who lives and who dies based on the availability of ventilators and other medical equipment. the effect of covid-19 on psychological well-being of older adults the psychological effects of covid-19 on the elderly population have been widely recognized in recent months (armitage & nellums, 2020; nobles et al., 2020; troutman-jordan & kazemi, 2020), as well as the importance of analyzing how different countries managed the first months of the pandemic to avoid even worse consequences for older adults (chaurasia et al., 2020; monahan et al., 2020). as matter of fact, covid-19 mainly affects the most physically frail people and those with previous diseases, so older adults are the demographic most at risk (liu et al., 2020; shahid et al., 2020). furthermore, in the early stages of the pandemic, both official communications from several countries first affected by the infection and the media repeatedly stressed that the virus was primarily dangerous for the older adults (ayalon et al., 2020; jimenez-sotomayor et al., 2020; monahan et al., 2020; rahman & jahan, 2020). in the light of this global situation, several studies have addressed the psychological well-being of older adults. in a study conducted in china, data were collected on 1,556 subjects aged between 60 and 80 years (meng et al., 2020). the results showed that older people displayed symptoms of depression and anxiety during the pandemic. these data are supported by another study by qiu and colleagues (2020), also carried out in china on 52,730 subjects, which showed that individuals over 60 were more inclined to symptoms including anxiety, depression, specific phobia and compulsive behaviour. more specifically, the high levels of stress experienced by the older adults in this study could be due to evidence that the highest mortality of the virus occurred among older adults (qiu et al., 2020). these two studies highlight how older people are susceptible to greater psychological stress, although the study by qiu and colleagues (2020) also showed that other groups, such as young people and migrant workers, are also particularly vulnerable to psychological stress. a study by lópez and colleagues (2020) on a spanish søraa, manzi, kharas et al. 533 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sample of 878 subjects showed that people between 60–70 and 71–80 did not significant differ with respect to the negative effects of covid-19 on psychological well-being. although no significant age differences were found, other variables, such as the loss of a loved one during the pandemic, had negative consequences on the psychological well-being of older adults. finally, another study by kivi and colleagues (2020) on 1,071 swedish older adults between 65 and 71 years highlighted how subjective experiences had a significant impact on the psychological well-being of older adults during the pandemic. more specifically, those who worried more about the health status and financial consequences of the pandemic reported lower psychological well-being. however, it is important to point out that these data relate to the first weeks of the pandemic, so further studies need to be conducted to confirm the findings. these early studies, on the one hand, showed that the psychological well-being of older adults was generally under considerable stress and, on the other, highlighted the importance of considering individual differences to understand the negative psychological effects of the pandemic (inghilleri et al, 2015; marchetti et al., 2020). the “othering” of older adults the othering process represents a strongly interdisciplinary concept that intersects different disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy to name but a few. in this paragraph, despite the complex articulation of this concept, two fundamental perspectives will be presented that highlight two aspects of this process: psychoanalysis, which states that the process of the othering is fundamental for the constitution of the self, and sociology, where this process is susceptible to historical-cultural changes and often leads to increased inequalities towards different members of society. from a psychoanalytic perspective, one of the fundamental processes for the construction of the self is the gradual recognition of the external object, the other, as an independent subject (kohut, 1971). moreover, psychoanalytic theories have shown that we project the undesirable or repressed contents of our unconscious onto the other (freud, 1922). this process of creating the other is, therefore, constitutive of our development (stern, 1983) and constantly active throughout our lives. this individual process is also found in the social dynamics of the other (de beauvoir, 2011) which are subject to historical-cultural changes. sociology refers to the othering as a negative process that leads to discrimination and exclusion of individuals on the basis of their belonging to marginalized groups of society (boréus, 2006; riggins, 1997). this process is even more evident when society is facing moments of severe structural crisis, as is happening during the covid-19 pandemic. therefore, while for psychoanalysis the othering is conceptualized as a fundamental process for the creation of the self and, consequently, for the individual to be in tune with society, for sociology it represents a process of separation and exclusion of the other from the society (hall, 1997). more specifically, the other "means transforming the other into another, thus creating a boundary between different and similar, insider and outsider. the emotional and cognitive mechanisms leading to the other are articulated linguistically and co-constructed interactively but also on a social and supranational level" (dervin, 2015, p. 2) since the 1970s, the process of othering has also been recognized and studied with respect to age, particularly towards the elderly: this process has been defined as ageism (butler, 1969; nelson, 2002). the world health organization (who) has defined ageism as "the stereotype, prejudice and discrimination against people based on their age" (who, n.d.). generally, othering—including ageism—has negative effects on both individuals ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic 534 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and groups, e.g. through social exclusion and stigmatization. however, in a psychoanalytic discourse, normal development involves construction of the other, therefore the othering process is common, especially when the self’s equilibrium is jeopardized. a pandemic certainly jeopardizes society’s equilibrium; therefore, preventing othering on a societal level requires intentional societal action. the ease with which othering occurs is demonstrated by initial public communications regarding the mortality of covid-19 and, consequently, the rhetoric adopted by the media: a strong tendency to separate us, the younger and less at-risk people, and the other, the older people in risk groups. this process seems to have exacerbated stereotypes towards older people, increasing their exclusion from public discourse early on and leading to negative consequences in protecting their physical and mental health (cesari & proietti, 2020). “othering” discourse in norway, italy and the usa for the present analysis of the process of social othering to which older adults have been subjected, three countries were considered: italy, norway and the usa. the reason for the inclusion of these countries is a common aspect of the first covid-19 emergency management: the first official communications were oriented to support the process of othering towards older adults and the more fragile segments of the population, promoting the idea that the virus would only affect older adults and people with previous pathologies—however, as the pandemic progressed, the countries chose widely different approaches to deal with the resulting situations. as will be shown below, the analysis of the official documents and the first news provided by the mass media will show that the process of social othering of older adults is independent from the specific demographic composition of the population in terms of aging. the following examples were chosen based on searches and media examples that emerged during the first couple months after the pandemic outbreak. in the united states, the federal government has issued reminders of the illegality of explicit age-based discrimination in treatment (fink, 2020). ethicists have argued for (emanuel et al., 2020) and against (bagenstos, 2020) using age as a factor in rationing care. news articles stress the horror of explicitly using age, while recognizing that rationing plans will, implicitly, often result in treatment disparities based on age; there seems to be acceptance if unease (fink, 2020). however, substantial media coverage of a potentially covid-related inflammatory condition among young children is noticeable, given that the number of cases—several hundred—is small in the context of the pandemic as a whole (belluck, 2020). therefore, while explicit ageism is shunned, implicit bias is alive and well. italy's early official communications, as late as february 20, implicitly highlighted the occurrence of covid-19 only in vulnerable populations (older adults and sick; italian ministry of health, 2020), leading to the italian media propagating the misleading rhetoric that "only older adults, not the young" are affected and contributing to young people rejecting social distancing restrictions. furthermore, the spread of the virus among older adults has worsened due to a poor application of preventive measures in nursing homes, also associated with an initial shortage in these contexts of masks and gloves, which has also led to an increase in the infected among employees. because of this, the media has written about the "massacre of the elderly" in nursing homes (di fio et al., 2020). this shows some outrage over the de-prioritization of older adults, but an early lack of urgency likely contributed to these situations. norway’s border closed down on march 16, when the most restrictive societal regulations since wwii were put in place. but the public discourse was largely around protecting older adults. the prime minister specifically søraa, manzi, kharas et al. 535 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ recommended that grandparents not undertake childcare while schools were closed (ripegutu, 2020). there was also a temporary ban on going to cabins, which are often owned by young, healthy people but are located in rural, poorer, and older communities with fewer healthcare resources. this was only put in place to respond to widespread behavior that put older adults at risk, showing that even when government policy tries to foreground older adults’ concerns, societal practice often works against it. four points of discussion for ageism and othering in pandemics based on these observations we offer the following four provocative questions for stimulating a discussion on what we see as othering of older adults during pandemics—which can be used to further implement more inclusive and just strategies for dealing with pandemics. being aware of ageist bias in times of crisis can help prepare, mitigate and take action to make societies more inclusive, responsible and just. what is risked by portraying covid-19 as an “elderly-disease”? fraser et al. (2020) have pointed out how this is not a disease of older adults, and that “the effects will be felt by everyone. we all must do our part to curtail its spread” (p. 3). younger people may chafe at the loss of autonomy or economic pain caused by social distancing, even using #boomerremover on social media, while older adults feel forgotten and devalued. how will this affect generational divides, going in both directions? what can intersections of social groups and empathy teach us? social determinants of health, especially smoking, homelessness, race, ethnicity, and poverty, play a large role in the morbidity of covid-19 (abrams & szefler, 2020). addressing these is politically fraught even outside of covid-19. this time the pandemic especially hit older adults, but would societies have reacted differently if children were the main victims? articles like belluck’s (2020) suggest very differently. as fraser et al. (2020) paradoxically point out: “the death of a young adult merits a life story, while the death of an older adult is too often merely a statistic” (p. 693). the next pandemic might hit different societal groups, which is why it is crucial to learn from othering and ageism, to avoid other future discriminatory discourses. who decides, legislates and governs who should have access to healthcare and resources? “more than 140 world leaders, experts and elders have made an unprecedented call for guarantees that covid-19 vaccines, diagnostics, tests and treatments will be provided free of charge to everyone, everywhere” (unaids, 2020). the implementation of such laudable aspirations depends on the actions of the businesses, governments, and hospitals relating to the overall infrastructure of care. it is possible, perhaps probable, that both macro and micro socioeconomic conditions that are emblematic of othering will determine access to care. widespread recognition and intentional political action will be needed to counteract such disparities. ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic 536 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ how is governance, personal freedom, and health balanced in times of crises? one common, if anecdotal, theme is that government communications can contribute to othering discourses and that such discourses exist even when the government works to combat it. these discourses can make it politically or socially difficult to undertake mitigation efforts that curtail personal freedoms and can, when they are implemented, lead to societal backlash against the populations protected by these efforts. given these realities, how can the government work with other societal influencers to both encourage behavior necessary for public health while not contributing to ageism or other othering? summary the covid-19 public discourse, particularly in early stages, led to an othering and deprioritizing of older adults, whose lives were portrayed as less worthy than “the rest” of the population. we problematize this discourse by looking at experiences from the united states, italy, and norway. better inclusion of older adults into the fabrics of societies can make for a more just, caring, and robust world—pre, during and post pandemics. we thus provided four inquiries of ageism and othering that societal stakeholders should consider to avoid othering vulnerable societal groups in future pandemics and disasters. references abrams, e. m., & szefler, s. j. 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(n.d.). ageism. retrieved august 31, 2020, from https://www.who.int/ageing/ageism/en/ about the authors dr. roger andre søraa is a researcher at the department of interdisciplinary studies of culture (kult) and department for neuromedicine and movement science at ntnu norwegian university of science and technology. his main research interests are the digitalization and robotization of society, and the ethical, gendered and epistemological consequences of this. dr. søraa is the deputy leader of the immersive technology and social robotics laboratory (imro-lab) at ntnu, which does research on welfare technology/gerontechnology. he also leads a research group on the digitalization and robotization of society at ntnu kult. federico manzi, phd, is post-doctoral research fellow at università cattolica sacro cuore (ucsc) in milan, department of psychology. he obtained a double phd: in sciences of the person and education from università cattolica sacro cuore in milan, italy, and in psychology from university of neuchâtel, switzerland. he is a member of the research unit on theory of mind and of the human-robot laboratory at ucsc. he is member of the emerging career scholar committee and early career scholar member of the publications committee of the international society for the study of behavioural development (issbd). his main research interest is in developmental psychology, particularly focusing on social cognition and decision-making processes in the human-human and human-robot interaction in a life-span perspective. ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic 540 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/erna-solberg-kommer-med-viktig-advarsel-om-barnepass/3423936153.html?fbclid=iwar0ogceq74czyyhywknqajiglnm4tkrlq-vvpgogitlzfo2csmd2a8uh2po https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/erna-solberg-kommer-med-viktig-advarsel-om-barnepass/3423936153.html?fbclid=iwar0ogceq74czyyhywknqajiglnm4tkrlq-vvpgogitlzfo2csmd2a8uh2po https://doi.org/10.1111%2fjgs.16472 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-25/spanish-doctors-forced-to-choose-who-to-let-die-from-coronavirus https://doi.org/10.1111%2fphn.12774 https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2020/may/20200514_covid19-vaccine https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/pressreleaseandstatementarchive/2020/may/20200514_covid19-vaccine http://www.siaarti.it/siteassets/news/covid19%20-%20documenti%20siaarti/siaarti%20-%20covid-19%20-%20clinical%20ethics%20reccomendations.pdf http://www.siaarti.it/siteassets/news/covid19%20-%20documenti%20siaarti/siaarti%20-%20covid-19%20-%20clinical%20ethics%20reccomendations.pdf https://www.who.int/ageing/ageism/en/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mark w. kharas is the administrative coordinator of the immersive technology and social robotics laboratory (imro-lab) at ntnu and of the lifebots exchange and autowork research projects. he graduated in religious studies from swarthmore college (united states) and obtained a masters in theological study from harvard divinity school. his research interests are ethics, religion and spirituality of robotics and new technology. antonella marchetti is full professor of developmental psychology and educational psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan (italy), head of the department of psychology, director of the research unit on theory of mind, coordinator of the phd programme in sciences of the person and education, vice-president of the italian association of psychology, issbd executive committee member and issbd regional coordinator for italy, member of the scientific committee of feduf (foundation for the financial education and saving). her research interests are in: theory of mind development from infancy to older adults, decision-making, theory of mind in hri. marchetti graduated in philosophy at the university of genoa and took her specialization in psychology at ucm, she also obtained her phd in psychology from the university of pavia. marchetti published more than 270 scientific contributes, consisting in papers, book chapters, books and edited books. she took part to numerous international and national conferences. davide massaro is full professor of developmental psychology and educational psychology at the università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan (italy), senior member of the research unit on theory of mind and didactic coordinator of the phd programme in sciences of the person and education. massaro graduated in psychology and obtained his phd in developmental and social psychology at università cattolica del sacro cuore in milan; he was a visiting researcher for one year at the university of virginia during his phd course. his main research areas include theory of mind development, decision-making, cognitive biases, theory of mind in hri. giuseppe riva is currently a full professor of general psychology with the universita cattolica del sacre cuore and also the director of the applied technology for neuro-psychology laboratory, istituto auxologico italiano. he is a member of the american psychological association. he is actually an editor in chief for the emerging communication book series and european editor of the cyberpsychology, behavior & social networking scientific journal. j. artur serrano, phd, is a professor in care and assistive technologies at the faculty of medicine and health sciences, norwegian university of science and technology (ntnu) in trondheim. his main research interests are on new approaches to dementia treatment based on immersive technologies, social robots for care, emotional computing and the general area of user experience. has been the principal investigator for more than ten research projects including seven eu-funded projects. he is the leader of the immersive technology and social robotics laboratory (imro-lab) at ntnu. søraa, manzi, kharas et al. 541 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 532–541 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.4127 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ ageist discourses during the covid-19 pandemic older adults and the covid-19 pandemic the effect of covid-19 on psychological well-being of older adults the “othering” of older adults “othering” discourse in norway, italy and the usa four points of discussion for ageism and othering in pandemics what is risked by portraying covid-19 as an “elderly-disease”? what can intersections of social groups and empathy teach us? who decides, legislates and governs who should have access to healthcare and resources? how is governance, personal freedom, and health balanced in times of crises? summary references about the authors influence of vigilance performance on lifeguard gaze behaviour research reports influence of vigilance performance on lifeguard gaze behaviour benjamin t. sharpe 1, jenny smith 2 [1] institute of psychology, business, and human sciences, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [2] institute of applied sciences, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 received: 2023-06-05 • accepted: 2024-02-21 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: pasquale musso, università degli studi di bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: benjamin t. sharpe, institute of psychology, business, and human sciences, university of chichester, chichester, po19 6pe, united kingdom. e-mail: b.sharpe@chi.ac.uk supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract the present study sought to examine the gaze behaviours exhibited by lifeguards with different levels of experience while performing a task focused on detecting drowning incidents across extended periods. the results indicated a gradual decline in detection performance over time, regardless of the lifeguards' levels of experience. analysis of the participants' gaze behaviours unveiled that this decline was associated with alterations in both the number and duration of fixations. the results indicated that lifeguards with greater experience maintained higher levels of detection performance and fixation numbers for extended durations, while exhibiting consistent fixation durations throughout the task, in contrast to their less experienced counterparts. these findings offer initial indications that lifeguards with more experience may possess an attentional advantage during tasks requiring sustained vigilance. keywords lifeguard, expertise, drowning detection, vigilance, gaze behaviour a lifeguard's proficiency in processing visual information is crucial for ensuring bather safety, encompassing tasks like monitoring swimmer behaviors, anticipating potential hazards, and responding promptly to drowning scenarios (hunsucker & davison, 2008; lanagan-leitzel, 2012; petrass & blitvich, 2014), over prolonged time frames (schwebel et al., 2011). the extended nature of a lifeguard task, and the ability of a lifeguard to process such multitude of information over time (i.e., bathers of different swim capacity), is referred to as a vigilance task. vigilance is defined as the ability to sustain attention and remain alert to a specific stimulus over an extended period (davies & parasuraman, 1982; hirter & van nest, 1995; parasuraman & davies, 1977; warm & parasuraman, 1987), and is a relatively unexplored facet of lifeguarding research despite lifeguards potentially spending up to sixty minutes continuously observing an aquatic scene (rlss, 2017). this knowledge gap raises concerns for bathers and lifeguard organizations, especially considering evidence indicating increased attentional lapses during prolonged monitoring (e.g., killingsworth & gilbert, 2010; sharpe & hale, 2023). the decline in ability associated with extended monitoring, termed vigilance decrement (warm & parasuraman, 1987), is identified as a leading cause of occupational incidents (edkins & pollock, 1997). consequently, this study aims to address this gap by examining the gaze behaviors of lifeguards with varying experience levels during a specific vigilance task focused on detecting drownings. early studies (e.g., nuechterlein et al., 1983; parasuraman & davies, 1977; teichner, 1974; warm et al., 2008) and more recent literature (jackson & balota, 2012; molloy & parasuraman, 1996; sharpe & hale, 2023; unsworth et al., 2010, 2020) show that target detection performance decreases during a monotonous task. such investigation into lifeguard this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12121&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ vigilance, from a theoretical perspective, may provide insight into our human capacity to maintain attention and the systems responsible for the failure of such attention. particularly when a lifeguard’s role is to maintain optimal efficiency over the duration of their shift. the role has similarities with other occupation (e.g., vehicle operation, air traffic control, military surveillance, etc.) where a vigilance decrement has been observed after only eight to thirty minutes (molloy & parasuraman, 1996; verster & roth, 2013). it may be suggested that these decrements are due to task underload (e.g., monotony) or the nature of continuously processing of stimuli resulting in task overload (e.g., cognitive resource depletion). specifically, the underload account proposes lapses in attention are caused from tasks being under-stimulating (helton & russell, 2015; manly et al., 1999), whilst the overload account suggests attentional lapses likely increase when the task at hand is objectively more challenging (grier et al., 2003; helton et al., 2005). a state of cognitive underload is common during continuous, monotonous, and low demand scenarios. according to the theory of attentional resource shrinkage (young & stanton, 2007), a cognitively underloading task may reduce attention and, subsequently, lead to a vigilance decrement in detection performance. ma et al. (2018) found that drivers who experienced low variability of vehicle speed reported less vigilance than drivers in a large variability group. when lifeguarding, variability of drowning duration, bather number, and task length also varies substantially. however, in scenarios where bather numbers are constant (e.g., swimming lessons), underload could lead to a reduction in vigilance and drowning detection performance. in the field of lifeguarding research, the question remains unresolved as to whether continuous, monotonous, and low-demand scenarios yield results that align consistently or show a tendency in line with prior eye tracking focused studies in the literature. it would be anticipated, however, that under such condition novice lifeguard would remain less likely to detect a drowning victim compared to their more experienced counterparts (page et al., 2011), have slower response times to scenarios (laxton, crundall, et al., 2021; laxton, guest, et al., 2021), and distracted by irrelevant aspects of a display (vansteenkiste et al., 2021). contrary to the notion that the lifeguard role is inherently monotonous, it is plausible that lifeguards perceive their responsibilities as increasingly challenging, contingent upon contextual factors such as rising bather numbers or the inherent anxiety associated with preventing drowning incidents. drawing from hockey's compensatory control model (hockey, 1997), which posits that individuals adjust their effort in response to the perceived importance of goals, varia­ tions in mental effort are likely to correspond to task difficulty. as such, a high stakes and busy aquatic environment may result in increased mental effort. in scenarios characterized by increased task difficulty, particularly in stressful multitasking situations, there is a risk of excessive utilization of cognitive resources, potentially diminishing overall cognitive ability (esterman et al., 2014; head & helton, 2015). lifeguards may encounter cognitive overload when confronted with busy scenes containing numerous potential hazards (i.e., high task demand), a situation exacerbated by the engagement of endogenous top-down control. however, resource control theory posits that our ability to regulate cognitive resources over time reflects the extent of vigilance decrement experienced (thomson et al., 2015). while the current study does not aim to test these theoretical predictions directly, gaining insights into lifeguard responses across varying display complexities over extended durations may aid researchers in interpreting findings related to cognitive resource allocation and vigilance decrement. eye movements have been employed to assess vigilance, as prior research suggests a potential correlation between sustained attention and eye movements (bodala et al., 2017). naeeri et al. (2019) observed pilots exhibiting fewer fixations of longer duration in the final hour of a four-hour task, while bodala et al. (2017) noted a substantial decrease in saccade amplitude and velocity with vigilance decrement. conversely, saito (1992) found no significant quantitative changes in saccadic eye movement during a five-hour eye-tracking task. some studies indicate that blink frequency (mcintire et al., 2014) and blink duration increase with vigilance decrement (häkkänen et al., 1999). in the context of lifeguarding, vansteenkiste et al. (2021) employed a vigilance-based 45-minute task but did not examine changes in eye movements over the duration. notably, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no other studies have analysed time-based differences in eye movements in lifeguarding beyond a 20-minute timeframe. irrespective, prior research on lifeguard experience has revealed consistent differences in gaze behaviour among lifeguards of different experience levels in short duration tasks (lanagan-leitzel & moore, 2010; vansteenkiste et al., 2021). for example, experienced lifeguards demonstrate more fixations than novices (lanagan-leitzel & moore, 2010), and beach lifeguards with experience maintain longer fixations on task-relevant stimuli than their novice counterparts (vansteenkiste et al., 2021). however, some studies suggest that eye movements may not consistently distinguish lifeguard performance sharpe & smith 221 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ differences associated with experience (laxton, crundall, et al., 2021; laxton et al., 2022; laxton, guest, et al., 2021; page et al., 2011; smith et al., 2020). task variations in representativeness, complexity, and duration have been proposed as potential contributors to these contradictory findings (sharpe et al., 2023; smith, 2016). as such, the following study will adopt a simulated task that has been demonstrated to elicit expertise effects in a controllable scenario, with the hopes that future researchers will extend our work into in-situ environments. aims the present study aims to investigate the gaze behaviours of lifeguards with varying levels of experience during a specific vigilance task focused on detecting drownings. based on previous literature (laxton, crundall, et al., 2021; laxton, guest, et al., 2021; page et al., 2011), we hypothesize that experienced lifeguards would outperform those with less experience. additionally, we predict that participants would experience a decline in vigilance during the task, as supported by previous studies (sharpe et al., 2023, 2024; verster & roth, 2013). we further anticipate that differences in detection performance would be related to changes in gaze behaviour. specifically, we expect that experienced life­ guards would exhibit fewer fixations of longer duration and shorter blink durations compared to their less experienced counterparts (mcintire et al., 2014; vansteenkiste et al., 2021). method participants a total of 108 participants aged 18 to 36 years (m age = 24.5, sd = 5.7 years), consisting of 36 females and 72 males, took part in the study. originally, there were 111 participants but three were removed due to corrupt eye tracking data. the criteria for grouping were established using a methodology consistent with previous authors (page et al., 2011; sharpe et al., 2023). those with greater than 100 months of lifeguarding experience were considered experienced and those with 12 months or less were considered novice, lifeguards between this criterion were considered intermediate. 20 were considered experienced (m lifeguard employment = 182.45, sd = 40.46 months), 47 were considered intermediate (m lifeguard employment = 42.38, sd = 29.02 months), and 41 were considered novice (m lifeguard employment = 5.22, sd = 3.49 months). at the time of the study, all lifeguards were actively employed across a range of lifeguarding roles. the sample included beach (private = 20, public = 22, surf = 12) and poolside (recreational = 44, private = 6, competitive = 4) lifeguards. an a priori power analysis was conducted using g*power (faul et al., 2007). due to our interest in the interaction between expertise and vigilance performance, we targeted the within-between interaction in a repeated-measures anova and based our calculations on the experience by vigilance interaction effect size (ηp2 = 0.235) reported by sharpe et al. (2023) who measured performance by experienced and less-experienced lifeguards in a drowning detection vigilance task. as such, for a power (1-β) of .95 and a two-tailed α of .05, the minimum sample size across the three groups was n = 57. ethical approval for the study protocol was awarded by the lead institution. all participants provided informed consent prior to the onset of the data collection. instruments bobbing along performance task the study utilized a drowning detection tool called "bobbing along" initially presented by sharpe et al. (sharpe et al., 2023; sharpe et al., 2024; see supplementary materials for task preview). this toosl specifically targets a lifeguard’s responsibility to detect drowning scenarios and simulates the maximum recommended duration that a certified lifeguard may encounter during their duty, adhering to the guidelines set by the royal life saving society (rlss uk) which sug­ gests a task duration of up to sixty minutes (rlss, 2017). the environment was divided into 16 navigation meshes, with two ai-controlled actors ("bathers") assigned to each mesh. these actors moved in a randomized manner within their respective meshes, simulating swimming behaviour. in the event of a "drown" occurrence (see figure 1), a designated bather would gradually submerge over a span of 30 seconds while treading water. importantly, the sixty-minute task did not restart, pause, or reset the positions of the bathers. once a bather fully submerged, they resurfaced and resumed lifeguard gaze behaviour 222 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ their randomized swimming pattern. this continuous nature of the task aimed to replicate the real-world context of a lifeguard's responsibility, which involves monitoring all individuals within an aquatic space. figure 1 bobbing along performance task note. on-set demonstrates the moment prior to the initiation of the task. black circle indicates an example of a drowning event. gaze behaviour the relative position of the pupil and corneal reflection (i.e., gaze behaviour) was measured by a head-mounted 50 hz four-sensor tobii pro 2.0 mobile eye tracker. operated via tobii pro glasses controller software, the system recorded the point-of-gaze based on binocular corneal reflection with respect to an integrated camera. the integrated view camera recorded 1920 x 1080 at 25fps with a 90˚ field of view. horizontal and vertical system accuracy was considered appropriately calibrated when system accuracy reached 0.5º precision. the head-mounted eye tracker held an 82˚ horizontal and 52˚ vertical field of view. eye data (i.e., fixations and blink rate) was analysed using the tobii pro lab analyzer. a fixation was defined as a gaze that was maintained on a location within 1° of visual angle for a minimum of 120ms (vickers, 1996; vickers & williams, 2007). blink duration (i.e., occlusion of the pupil by the eyelid) was recorded automatically when the pupil was 80% occluded or greater for more than 120ms (see cori et al., 2019 for review). procedure all testing procedures were conducted during regular working hours, specifically from 7 am to 3 pm. prior to the commencement of the tasks, participants were requested to complete a consent form and a demographic questionnaire, which collected information such as age, gender, and lifeguarding experience. to ensure participants' understanding of the target stimuli, specifically the occurrence of a drowning event, they were provided with a practice trial. this trial sharpe & smith 223 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aimed to ensure participants could clearly perceive the display and comprehend the nature of the stimuli. adequate time was allocated for participants to ask any questions they had and find a comfortable seating position. participants were instructed to indicate their detection of a drowning event by responding promptly. this response was recorded using a clicker device, allowing the researcher to accurately capture the timing of each event detection. participants were encouraged to make multiple responses and verbally express their decisions. a researcher was present throughout the testing sessions to ensure the validity of the detections, ensuring that participants did not mistakenly respond to false alarms during actual drowning events (i.e., false positives). due to researcher constraints (i.e., cognitively demanding data recording process during the on-going task), false alarm data was not collected and stored. each task consisted of eleven drowning events and based on the number of successful detections (hits = 1, misses = 0), the researchers calculated a performance score ranging from zero to eleven. the task was presented 2m away from the participant on a 16ft x 9ft high definition (4k) samsung widescreen 16:9 projector via an asus gaming computer (geforce gtx 980). unbeknownst to the participants, a series of drowning events occurred at exact five-minute intervals within a predetermined location, encompassing a total of 11 incidents (see supplemental figures). the drowning locations were selected randomly, adopting a non-linear sequence (e.g., back middle, front left, middle right, etc.), and did not adhere to a straightforward progression (e.g., front, middle, and then back). each participant observed an identical iteration of the task, and they remained unaware of the total number of drowning events taking place during the experiment. although the durations of the drowning events potentially followed a discernible pattern, none of the participants reported recognizing such a pattern, nor did the collected data indicate any noticeable trends in this regard. each participant participated in the task alone, in a quiet, and artificially lit room. the room remained darkened from natural light so that illumination could be controlled (m horizontal = 11.34, sd = 3.69 lx; m vertical = 42.09, sd = 6.11 lx) across all testing (recorded through the lux light app). statistical analysis prior to conducting the analyses, the data for each observed variable were subjected to screening procedures to assess univariate normality. skewness and kurtosis ratios, as recommended by fallowfield et al. (2005), were used as indicators. results indicated that skewness and kurtosis values for all measures satisfied the normality criteria outlined by kline (1998). outliers in the data were examined using boxplots, and no univariate or multivariate outliers were identified in the dataset. following these preliminary steps, two-way mixed design anovas were employed to examine the effects of lifeguard experience (expert, intermediate, novice) and time (11 drowning scenarios) on various variables, including drowning detection performance (i.e., the number of correct hits), number of fixations, fixation duration (i.e., fixations lasting over 100 ms), and blink duration (i.e., occlusion of the pupil). to account for multiple comparisons and minimize the risk of type i errors (mclaughlin & sainani, 2014), a bonferroni adjustment was applied, which reduced the significance threshold. additionally, violations of sphericity were addressed by adjusting the degrees of freedom using the greenhouse-geisser correction when epsilon was below 0.75 and the huynh-feldt correction when epsilon exceeded 0.75 (girden, 1992). for all statistical analyses, the alpha level (p) for determining statistical significance was set at 0.05. effect sizes were measured using partial eta squared (ηp2) for all anova analyses, and pairwise comparisons were assessed using cohen's d as the effect size metric (cohen, 1988). results drowning detection performance main effects there was a significant main effect of lifeguard experience on total drowning detection performance, f(2, 105) = 222.078, p < .001, ηp2 = .809. the experienced group performed 26.6%, 95% ci [21.6%, 31.6%] greater than intermediate, t(66) = 13.028, p < .001, d = 1.254, and 43.8%, 95% ci [38.7%, 48.8%] greater than the novice group, t(60) = 20.989, p < .001, d = 2.020. further, intermediate lifeguards also demonstrated an overall 17%, 95% ci [13.2%, 21.1%] advantage over the novice group, t(87) = 10.513, p < .001, d = 1.012. there was a significant main effect of performance across time points, lifeguard gaze behaviour 224 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ f(6.817, 715.753) = 28.266, p < .001, ηp2 = .212. on average drowning detection performance began to deteriorate as time progressed (see figure 2). figure 2 the influence of experience and time on drowning detection performance (with se bars) note. drown events occurred every five minutes (e.g., 1 = 5 minutes, 2 = 10 minutes…). interaction effects time had a 2-way significant interaction effect with lifeguard experience, f(13.633, 715.753) = 4.635, p < .001, ηp2 = .081. three separate post hoc one-way anovas demonstrated significant differences in drowning detection performance across time points for experienced, f(10, 190) = 4.957, p < .001, ηp2 = .207, intermediate, f(10, 460) = 24.982, p < .001, ηp2 = .352, and novice groups, f(10, 400) = 6.991, p < .001, ηp2 = .149. from time point 1, experienced lifeguards demonstrated a significant decline in performance at time point 7, t(19) = 5.756, p < .001, whilst the intermediate group demonstrated an immediate significant decline in performance at time point 2, t(46) = 5.632, p < .001. despite the significant interaction for novices, follow up t-tests showed no significant differences in drowning detection performance when comparing the timepoints in order of time. novices reached a floor effect at time point 6, where no drowning scenarios were detected, which extended for the remainder of the task. at time point 1, novices significantly underperformed compared to the experienced, t(60) = 6.593, p < .001, and intermediate groups, t(87) = 7.199, p < .001. number of fixations main effects there was a significant main effect of lifeguard experience on total number of fixations, f(2, 105) = 7863.457, p < .001, ηp2 = .124. the experienced group had fewer fixations, m = 1196.85, sd = 94.28, than the novice group, m = 1300.07, sd = 99.98, t(60) = -3.506, p < .001, d = 0.337. likewise, the intermediate group, m = 1232.75, sd = 119.33, demonstrated significantly fewer fixations compared to the novice group, t(87) = -2.918, p < .05, d = 0.281. the experienced group did not demonstrate a significant difference compared to the intermediate group, t(66) = -1.245, p > .05. there was a sharpe & smith 225 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significant main effect of number of fixations across time points, f(5.920, 621.623) = 119.725, p < .001, ηp2 = .533. on average the total number of fixations between drowning events decreased as time progressed (see figure 3). figure 3 the influence of experience and time on number of fixations (with se bars) note. drown events occurred every five minutes (e.g., 1 = 5 minutes, 2 = 10 minutes…). interaction effects time had a 2-way significant interaction effect with group, f(11.840, 621.623) = 18.190, p < .001, ηp2 = .257. three separate post hoc one-way anovas demonstrated significant differences in number of fixations across time points for experienced, f(10, 190) = 8.199, p < .001, ηp2 = .301, intermediate, f(10, 460) = 42.045, p < .001, ηp2 = .478, and novice groups, f(10, 400) = 158.263, p < .001, ηp2 = .798. from time point 1, experienced lifeguards demonstrated a significant decline in number of fixations at time point 5, t(19) = 4.066, p < .05. for intermediate and novice groups, there was an immediate significant decline in number of fixations at time point 2, t(46) = 4.507, p < .01, and t(40) = 4.856, p < .001, respectively. fixation duration main effects there was a significant main effect of lifeguard experience on average fixation duration, f(2, 105) = 38.305, p < .001, ηp2 = .422. the experienced group, m ms = 2458.74, sd = 530.83, had longer fixation durations on average compared to the novice group, m ms = 3243.71, sd = 327.35, t(60) = 7.775, p < .001, d = 0.748, but not the intermediate group, m ms = 2501.32, sd = 692.60, t(66) = 2.416, p > .05. further, intermediate lifeguards demonstrated longer average fixation durations compared to the novice group, t(87) = 6.905, p < .001, d = 0.664. there was a significant main effect of average fixation durations across time points, f(5.103, 535.793) = 284.152, p < .001, ηp2 = .730). on average the mean duration of fixations between drowning events increased as time progressed (see figure 4). lifeguard gaze behaviour 226 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 the influence of experience and time on the average duration of fixations (in milliseconds) (with se bars) note. drown events occurred every five minutes (e.g., 1 = 5 minutes, 2 = 10 minutes…). interaction effects time had a 2-way significant interaction effect with experience, f(10, 1050) = 13.381, p < .001, ηp2 = .203. three separate post hoc one-way anovas demonstrated significant differences in fixation duration across time points for experienced, f(10, 190) = 95.600, p < .001, ηp2 = .834, intermediate, f(10, 460) = 111.683, p < .001, ηp2 = .708, and novice groups, f(10, 400) = 140.457, p < .001, ηp2 = .778. for the experienced lifeguards there was no statistically significant differences in the mean duration of fixations at time between time point 1 and 11, t(19) = 11.898, p > .05. from time point 1, the intermediate group had a significant increase in the mean duration of fixations at time point 7, t(46) = 6.332, p < .001. likewise, the novice group saw a significant increase in mean duration of fixations at time point 5, t(40) = 6.574, p < .001. blink duration main effects there was a significant main effect of lifeguard experience on average blink duration, f(2, 105) = 3.875, p < .05, ηp2 = .069. the experience group had a shorter average blink duration over the task, mms = 33.88, sd = 2.28, than the novice group, mms = 35.57, sd = 2.40, t(60) = -2.730, p < .05, d = 0.022, but not the intermediate group, mms = 34.78, sd = 2.14, t(66) = 1.480, p > .05. likewise, the intermediate group did not demonstrate a significant difference to the novice group, t(87) = -1.636, p > .05. there was no significant main effect of average blink duration across time points, f(10, 1050) = 1.029, p > .05. interaction effects no 2-way interaction effects were observed between time and experience group, f(20, 1050) = 0.828, p > .001. sharpe & smith 227 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the study aimed to explore the gaze patterns exhibited by lifeguards with varying levels of experience while performing a drowning detection task specific in duration to their profession. we postulated that performance would decline with time due to factors such as fatigue and reduced vigilance. our results supported this, as we observed a decrease in detection rates over time for the experienced and intermediate groups. furthermore, building on earlier studies, we hypothesized that experienced lifeguards would outperform those with less experience, and this was borne out by the data. specifically, the experienced group detected significantly more drowning events than their intermediate and novice counterparts. we posited that changes in detection over time and group differences would be reflected in the lifeguards' gaze behaviours. our findings revealed alterations in fixation number for all groups as time elapsed, although fixation duration only varied over time for the intermediate and novice groups. interestingly, blink duration was shorter for experienced lifeguards than novices, but this did not differ between experienced and intermediate, or intermediate and novice lifeguards, and there was no change in blink duration over time. in the context of lifeguard vigilance, our study showed that drowning detection rates decreased over time for the experienced and intermediate groups, but not for the novice group. however, the experienced group did not exhibit a significant decline in detection performance until time point 7 (35 minutes into the task), whereas the intermediate group showed a decline at time point 2 (five minutes into the task). it is possible that the novice group did not experience a decline over time due to their low initial hit rate (0.27 hit rate), which may have limited their opportunity to deteriorate further. these findings suggest that experienced lifeguards possess superior attentional control, enabling them to maintain an attentional advantage for a longer period than their less experienced counterparts. this may be indicative of executive function skills that enable prolonged endogenous control mechanisms, thereby enhancing goal-directed behaviour and reducing vigilance decrement. this may enable experienced lifeguards to resist mind-wan­ dering (killingsworth & gilbert, 2010) or ignore irrelevant aspects of the display (vansteenkiste et al., 2021) for longer periods. the findings have practical implications for lifeguard training and practice, including regular breaks during pool observation and pairing experienced lifeguards with less experienced ones to counter the accelerated decline in performance. furthermore, such findings suggest that lifeguards would benefit from training their executive function skills to enhance their resilience to fatigue and boredom. our study demonstrated that experienced lifeguards had a higher drowning detection rate than intermediate and novice lifeguards over the course of the 60-minute task. this finding is consistent with previous research on lifeguarding (sharpe et al., 2023) and supports the recommendation to train lifeguards to enhance their hazard detection skills and accelerate their expertise in this area. our investigation revealed that changes in detection performance over time were associated with changes in gaze behaviour. notably, experienced lifeguards maintained their number of fixations and mean fixation duration throughout the task until time point 5 (25 minutes), suggesting that their attention became less exhaustive after approximately 20–25 minutes. in contrast, intermediate and novice lifeguards showed significant decreases in the number of fixations at time point 2, and significant increases in fixation duration at time points 7 and 5, respectively. these findings suggest that intermediate and novice lifeguards have a less robust gaze process than experienced lifeguards. in the context of lifeguard expertise, our research has uncovered noteworthy distinctions among groups in terms of eye movement variables. specifically, our findings indicate that seasoned lifeguards demonstrate a more sophisticated search pattern compared to novices, characterized by fewer fixations of extended duration. this observation aligns with prior research suggesting that prolonged fixation duration enhances information extraction capabilities (mann et al., 2007). given the intricacy of the visual display employed in our study, consisting of 32 items, as opposed to the parameters explored in existing literature, it is plausible that there exists a set size beyond which a serial search pattern may no longer be optimal. this scenario could prompt lifeguards to employ alternative mechanisms, such as more foveal spots (i.e., visual processing utilizing the fovea), gaze anchors (i.e., peripheral vision-based information processing), or visual pivots (i.e., distance-optimized points between relevant cues facilitating saccade initiation; refer to vater et al., 2020 for detailed discussion). these mechanisms may contribute to longer fixation durations, potentially enhancing lifeguards' hazard perception abilities. furthermore, our data indicates no discernible differences in the number of fixations or fixation duration between experienced and intermediate lifeguard groups. however, both experienced and lifeguard gaze behaviour 228 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intermediate groups exhibited fewer fixations of longer duration than the novice group, suggesting that accumulated experience may influence lifeguards' inclination to concentrate their attention in a specific area, possibly as a foveal spot, anchor, or pivot. subsequent research is warranted to ascertain the optimal set size at which a more refined search pattern becomes imperative. in our investigation of blink duration, a notable contrast emerged between experienced and novice lifeguards, with the former displaying shorter blink durations. this observation holds significance, given that blink duration has been previously associated with fatigue (maffei & angrilli, 2018; paprocki & lenskiy, 2017). the implication is that experi­ enced lifeguards may be less susceptible to fatigue while engaged in the surveillance of a water-related environment. this finding aligns cohesively with our earlier discovery that experienced lifeguards exhibit longer fixation durations than their novice counterparts, a characteristic that may contribute to heightened hazard detection by mitigating the impact of fatigue on attentional processes. the observed declines in detection performance over time appear to be related to changes in gaze behaviour. specifi­ cally, lifeguards tend to refine their gaze strategy by using fewer fixations of equal duration (in experienced lifeguards) or longer duration (in intermediate and novice lifeguards) as time passes. while such changes may reflect the vigilance decrement, they may also represent a direct strategy employed by lifeguards when engaging in long-duration hazard detection tasks. notably, detection performance among experienced lifeguards did not decline until time point 7 (35 minutes) despite changes in fixation behaviour occurring earlier, at time point 4 (20 minutes) for number of fixations and time point 5 (25 minutes) for fixation duration. this suggests that gaze behaviour and detection performance are not tightly linked. the implications of these findings suggest that vigilance impacts performance, possibly through direct changes in gaze strategy. to further understand the impact of gaze behaviour on detection performance, future research should employ long-duration tasks (exceeding 35 minutes). implications and future directions upon closer scrutiny of the data, it becomes apparent that both experienced and intermediate lifeguards may undergo a vigilance decrement, albeit occurring later in the task for more seasoned lifeguards. to our knowledge, this study is the first to illuminate the extent of lifeguard performance decline in tasks extending beyond 35 minutes. this finding holds significant implications, suggesting that lifeguards should incorporate regular breaks or rotate job responsibilities to forestall detection performance from falling below acceptable levels (helton & russell, 2015). such findings may provide tentative support for the recommendations suggested by lifeguard qualifications (i.e., rotating lifeguard positions every 15, 20, or 30 minutes), and justifications for lifeguards not spending more than 30 minutes in one static position. fur­ thermore, our findings suggest that experience may enable lifeguards to preserve executive function skills, enhancing endogenous control mechanisms and improving goal-directed behavior for detecting hazards over prolonged periods. given that the turnover rate of lifeguards is typically shorter than in most professions, investigating efficient means to upskill individuals quickly, rather than relying on extended periods of active exposure, could be a valuable avenue for further exploration (see sharpe et al., 2023 for discussion). irrespective, lifeguard organisations may wish to invest further resources in exploring the negative outcomes associated with task duration on lifeguard performance, domain specific training (e.g., virtual reality; see lim et al., 2023), or methods for mediating the such consequence (e.g., detection systems; see jalalifar et al., 2024). the present study has demonstrated that the implementation of a more comprehensive gaze strategy resulted in the highest levels of success. however, maintaining such a strategy over time presents a key challenge. to address this challenge, future research may explore the trainability of functions, such as working memory capacity (e.g., sharpe et al., 2024), to enable novice and intermediate lifeguards to produce exhaustive gaze behaviour, while supporting experienced lifeguards in maintaining their gaze strategy over time. interestingly, our findings have also revealed differences between groups in terms of gaze strategy. while previous studies in the lifeguard literature have produced mixed results regarding differences between expert and novice lifeguards, the task adopted from sharpe et al. (2023), which lasted 60 minutes, suggests that differences in search rate may only become apparent when tasks are of longer duration. for instance, in a 45-minute in situ surveillance task, vansteenkiste et al. (2021) found that fixation duration of experienced lifeguards was longer and more variable than that of novice lifeguards. in contrast, studies using tasks sharpe & smith 229 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ranging from 29 seconds (laxton & crundall, 2018; laxton, crundall, et al., 2021; laxton, guest, et al., 2021) to 12 minutes (page et al., 2011) to 20 minutes (smith et al., 2020) found no differences between expert and novice lifeguards. this suggests that task duration should be taken into consideration when examining gaze behaviour. conclusion this study aimed to explore variations in gaze behaviour among individuals with different levels of lifeguarding experience during a drowning detection vigilance task. our preliminary findings suggest that both experienced and intermediate lifeguards exhibit a decline in drowning detection rates as the task progresses. notably, disparities in gaze behaviour seemed to mirror this performance deterioration, evident in the reduction of fixations across the task for all lifeguards. individuals with more extensive lifeguarding experience demonstrated a sustained higher average performance and maintained a greater number of fixations for an extended period. additionally, these experienced lifeguards sustained a consistent fixation duration throughout the entire task, distinguishing them from their less experienced counterparts. these preliminary observations tentatively imply that experienced lifeguards may possess an attentional advantage during vigilance tasks. these findings suggest promising avenues for future research, empha­ sizing the importance of lifeguard literature in focusing on tasks that accurately simulate the lifeguarding environment, such as vigilance tasks. further exploration in this direction could enhance our understanding of the factors influencing lifeguard performance and inform training protocols accordingly. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank the participants for their trust, time, and commitment to the research. thank you to the reviewers for their helpful feedback and time. competing interests: the authors hold no conflicts of interest associated with the publication of the following manuscript. ethics statement: ethical approval for the study protocol was awarded by the lead institution. data availability: all research data and materials to replicate the findings of this study are publicly available (see sharpe & smith, 2024s) supplementary materials the supplementary materials contain the raw data, analysis code, and additional materials for this study (see sharpe & smith, 2024s). index of supplementary materials sharpe, b. t. 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(2007). what’s skill got to do with it? vehicle automation and driver mental workload. human factors, 50(8), 1324–1339. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140130701318855 about the authors dr benjamin t. sharpe. lecturer in cognitive psychology and a researcher at the institute of psychology, business, and human sciences of the university of chichester. dr jenny smith. reader in performance psychology in in the institute of applied sciences, university of chichester, and a hcpc registered sport and exercise psychologist. sharpe & smith 233 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 220–233 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12121 https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000734 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2009.08.002 https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3760 https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984x.2019.1582082 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2012.10.005 https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.22.2.342 https://doi.org/10.3200/jmbr.39.5.381-394 https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008x312152 https://doi.org/10.1080/00140130701318855 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lifeguard gaze behaviour (introduction) aims method participants instruments procedure statistical analysis results drowning detection performance number of fixations fixation duration blink duration discussion implications and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors extreme desire for motherhood: analysis of narratives from women undergoing assisted reproductive technology (art) research reports extreme desire for motherhood: analysis of narratives from women undergoing assisted reproductive technology (art) viviana langher a, fabiola fedele* a, andrea caputo a, francesco marchini a, cesare aragona bc [a] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, “sapienza” university, rome, italy. [b] department of gynecologic-obstetrical and urologic sciences, “sapienza” university hospital umberto i, rome, italy. [c] sterility and assisted reproduction unit, “sapienza” university hospital umberto i, rome, italy. abstract the problem of infertility and its consequent treatment (denoted as assisted reproductive technology or art) represent an increasing phenomenon, especially in industrialized countries. confronting with one’s own procreative limitations can generate strong negative emotional reactions. this study aims at understanding how the desire for motherhood manifests itself in infertile women undergoing art, studying their emotional and subjective perspective. an in-depth explorative research study was conducted on 17 infertile women attending an italian hospital clinic for fertility treatment. emotional text analysis was conducted to analyze the corpus of their interviews, allowing the identification of four thematic domains (clusters) which refer, respectively, to the following emotional dimensions: an inclination to selfsacrifice, seen as the price to be paid for the desired success of the treatment (cluster 1), pursuit of inclusion in the world of procreative mothers (cluster 2), precarious equilibrium between the deep desire for a baby and the withdrawal from the treatment (cluster 3), surrender to any possible consequence in order to obtain the desired mother-child relationship (cluster 4). the witness of the couples’ suffering for their condition of infertility and their strong desire for parenting can represent a source of high pressure for the fertility care staff, as they are the only ones responsible for the fulfillment of the great dream of biological parenthood. for these reasons, a multidisciplinary approach, which involves psychological as well as medical experts all working together, could benefit both the patients and the healthcare professionals and improve the quality of the reproductive healthcare services. keywords: infertility, assisted reproductive technology, emotions, text analysis, women’s narratives europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 received: 2018-08-04. accepted: 2018-11-07. published (vor): 2019-06-07. handling editors: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland; flavia cangia, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland *corresponding author at: department of dynamic and clinical psychology, “sapienza” university of rome, via degli apuli 1, 00185, rome, italy. email: fabiola.fedele@uniroma1.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. infertility is a problem afflicting about 186 million people worldwide. on average, 9% of all couples in the reproductive age suffer from this condition. in some regions of the world, specifically where reproductive medicine comes in, infertility rates affect as much as 30% of couples (stevenson & hershberger, 2016). the term “assisted reproductive technology” (art) refers to medical treatments used to achieve a pregnancy when it does not occur spontaneously, such as intrauterine insemination (iui), in vitro fertilization (ivf), and third party-assisted art (with gamete donors). specifically, in vitro fertilization is the most common and effective type of art used in absence of sperm/egg donation from people outside the couple. it consists in reeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ moving the eggs from the woman’s body and then mixing them with the sperm to create the embryos that are then put back into the woman’s uterus. since the first in vitro baby in 1978, the number of people conceived by reproductive technology has grown much faster than expected, reaching several million today and rapidly approaching 0.1% of the total world population (faddy, gosden, & gosden, 2018). in 2014 alone, the number of children born in italy through the application of assisted reproduction techniques constituted 2.5% of the total newborns that year. data from the national registry of medically assisted reproduction from 2005 to 2014 confirm the presence of a growing trend, with percentages of births with art techniques constantly increasing (scaravelli, vigiliano, de luca, fiaccavento, & speziale, 2014). the spread of the problem of infertility suggests the need to promote the widespread knowledge and improve the public awareness of this health issue (place, litwack, & vann, 2018). the subjective experience of infertility as various research shows, coming to terms with one’s own procreative limitations could generate strong negative reactions such as anger, pain, dejection and frustration (fassino, pierò, boggio, piccioni, & garzaro, 2002; galhardo, cunha, & pinto-gouveia, 2011; vitale, la rosa, rapisarda, & laganà, 2017). the condition of infertility could also be associated with a deep sense of guilt, shame, and decreasing self-esteem (yao, chan, & chan, 2018). diagnosis of infertility could produce, indeed, a self-deprecating sense of feminine or masculine insufficiency. the concerns of people with the problem of infertility seem to relate to a sense of personal disappointment and guilt due to failing “essentially to do what you’re put on earth to do” (schofield, 2014). other studies show that discovering one’s infertility could generate feelings of impotence and loss of control over one’s life (benyamini, gozlan, & kokia, 2005; cousineau & domar, 2007) and one’s own body (clarke, martinmatthews, & matthews, 2006). people with infertility problems also often manifest feelings of self-criticism and social isolation (batista, bretonesa, & de almeida, 2016; cunha, galhardo, & pinto-gouveia, 2016). as far as the perception of isolation is concerned, some researchers have focused on the feelings of envy and jealousy towards relatives or friends who, on the contrary, do have children. these reactions could possibly cause the couple to interrupt these relationships, thus increasing their feeling of isolation (mann, 2014). failing to procreate also means having to face the mourning of the desired imaginary child and having to confront oneself with the loss of one’s own procreative function. infertility could generate a deep narcissistic wound in the individual, which could in turn compromise self-image with respect to one’s own gender and generative identity (galasso, langher, & ricci, 2017). infertility could also have a considerable impact on the marital life of the couple, triggering some psychological difficulties, including: lack of marital satisfaction, impairment of relationships, lack of sexual satisfaction, forced timing of intercourse, loss of confidence in relation to sex, decreased libido and negative emotional effects (ashraf, ali, & azadeh, 2015; cousineau & domar, 2007). especially in certain societies, becoming a mother is almost a cultural mandate, according to which society and families naturally expect a young woman to eventually give birth to a child. the scientific literature on infertility is increasingly emphasising the importance of the sociocultural context in shaping the lived experience of infertility. therefore in cultural contexts in which voluntary childfree status is acknowledged, many women experience infertility as a “secret stigma” (greil, 1991); in cultural contexts in which there is no concept of voluntary childfree status, it is impossible to hide infertility. the stigma and distress of infertility, therefore, is likely to be langher, fedele, caputo et al. 293 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ greater (dyer, abrahams, mokoena, lombard, & van der spuzy, 2005). moreover, as several studies have shown, infertile women who experience rejection or pressure from husbands and family experience higher levels of distress and suffering (gulseren et al., 2006; guz, ozkan, sarisov, yanik, & yanik, 2003) still today, therefore, motherhood is often considered to be a primary role for women; as well, women who do not mother either biologically or socially are often stereotyped as either desperate or selfish (letherby & williams, 1999). the stereotypes of non-motherhood are still present: the “infertile” and “involuntarily” childless women are desperate and unfulfilled (franklin, 1997; letherby & williams, 1999) and the “voluntarily” childless ones are viewed as selfish and deviant and portrayed in ways that emphasize them as aberrant, immature, and unfeminine (gillespie, 2000). for these reasons, women can feel a huge amount of emotional pressure to procreate (holmes, 2014). the experience of undergoing assisted reproduction technology people who come to terms with one’s own infertility could decide to resort to assisted reproduction techniques. the experience of infertility treatment has been described as a situation that engulfs patients and dominates their daily routine (daniluk, 2001; redshaw, hockley, & davidson, 2007). furthermore, people who resort to art often are not aware of the fertility decline related to the maternal age (especially after 35 years old), overestimating success rates of these techniques with unrealistic expectations (hayward, 2016). in fact, many therapeutic attempts are often necessary before a child can be conceived, and, despite all the efforts, sometimes this does not even happen. it should be acknowledged that even if the art path is successful and leads to the birth of a healthy child, the representation of one’s own fecundity could remain equally compromised. the pain caused by the infertility could remain, in fact, even after the success of the reproductive techniques. the narcissistic wound of “not having done it alone” may never be completely healed, thus undermining the image of oneself and one’s ego ideal (agostini et al., 2009). conceiving a baby through art, in brief, does not cancel the presence of the sterile sexuality, but it becomes the proof of such a sterile sexuality. furthermore, during the course of art treatment, the sense of dependence on the doctor, both in a physical and psychological sense, may become prominent. the patients’ feeling of helplessness may in fact resemble the feeling of impotence of a child towards his/her own parents, promoting an intense emotional bond of the patient with the doctor (cudmore, 2005). this could represent a critical moment for the couple, due to the intrusion of the medical team and its procedures in the intimate life of the couple. undergoing an art procedure is also associated with the presence of significantly higher depression and sense of shame levels than those obtained by fertile or infertile couples not going through art (galhardo, pinto-gouveia, cunha, & matos, 2011). in fact, art patients may experience the procedure as a source of deep stress, anxiety and concern (brandes et al., 2009). levels of anxiety and depression increase, moreover, with the progression of therapeutic failures, generating a real “failure syndrome” (verhaak et al., 2005). greil (2002) summarizes the experience of treatment of patients with infertility problems in terms of three paradoxes: 1) their sense of loss of control leads them to treatment where they lose even more control; 2) their feelings of loss of bodily integrity leads them to treatment where the body is invaded; and 3) their sense of loss of identity leads to treatment where they feel they are not treated as whole people. although it is difficult to stop treatment, verhaak et al. (2007) say that stopping treatment leads to reduced depression and anxiety among ivf women, even if they do not conceive. unsuccessful ivf couples do not regret analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 294 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the ivf experience; instead, they view it as their best chance to have conceived (daniluk, 2001; johansson & berg, 2005; throsby & gill, 2004). the results of the aforementioned research studies describe strong negative emotions associated with the condition of infertility and the appeal to art treatment. based on these considerations, we have decided to deeply explore the unconscious emotional dynamics occurring in infertile women. getting in contact with these emotional dynamics allowed us to make some hypotheses about the possible practical and behavioral implications concerning women with infertility problems, especially those undergoing assisted reproductive technology. we have chosen, therefore, not to refer to well-defined and a priori emotional indicators, that is, depressive symptoms or trait or state anxiety, as in the case of the aforementioned research studies, but rather to formulate data-driven hypotheses by using the patients’ narratives. in fact, narrative methods have some advantages over self-report methods, including: reducing social desirability bias, identifying a series of nuances of a given behavior or event that could not be differently understood, and extracting more accurate interpretations based on data (data-driven hypothesis). method participants and recruitment the recruitment of participants took place at the fertility clinic of the public healthcare institution “sapienza” university-hospital umberto i, rome (italy). eighteen women accessed the clinic during the recruitment phase, matching the following criteria: 1) actively attempting to have a child for at least 1 year; 2) being treated in the hospital clinic for an in vitro fertility procedure; 3) not being at the fertility clinic to seek a pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; and 4) not being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. seventeen women who were undergoing in vitro fertilization (ivf) gave their informed consent, and only one refused to participate. nine women were between 28 and 39 years old, the other eight were between 40 and 44. almost all of them were italian nationals (n = 15), 13 women had low education levels (not achieving beyond upper secondary education) while only 11 were employed. about half of the patients were at their first therapeutic attempt (n = 9) while the other half had already made failed attempts and was trying for the second or third time (n = 8). only two patients already had children. the causes of infertility were male factors in six cases, female factors in eight cases, and unexplained (i.e., ascribable to either anatomic or functional issues of either partner) in three cases. all these different (anamnestic and sociodemographic) variables (called “illustrative variables”) that characterize the participants were analysed in the subsequent phases of textual analysis in order to explore the relationship between these subject-defining characteristics and the emerging thematic domains. the different interview questions were also included as illustrative variables. the interviews were conducted during patients’ waiting times, avoiding interference to clinical practice. instruments a structured interview—created ad hoc for this study—was administered to infertile patients. the purpose of the interview was to explore the patients’ deep feelings about this particular period of their lives through 12 questions, based on the following three broad categories: 1) the decision to seek treatment and the perceived social support; 2) the emotional perception of the treatment and its effects; and 3) the expectations about the future langher, fedele, caputo et al. 295 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and the possible pregnancy. the questions asked to the patients were designed ad hoc and were formulated after conducting a comprehensive search of the academic literature on the psychinfo database on the topics of infertility and reproductive techniques, and after a detailed examination of the most frequently mentioned topics in several online forums of art patients. all interviews were conducted in person and anonymously (the patients’ names were removed from the transcripts of the texts) as well as audio recorded with permission. the patients have always been encouraged to talk freely about the way they felt and to say everything that came to their mind so to facilitate associative processes. the interviews lasted from a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 40 minutes, with an average time of about 25 minutes. the interviews were conducted from april to july 2017. textual data analysis research framework emotional text analysis (eta) (carli & paniccia, 2002; carli, paniccia, giovagnoli, carbone, & bucci, 2016) is a psychological tool that aims at exploring people’s affective symbolizations about a shared context, theme or experience, already used in previous research (caputo, 2014, 2018; caputo, giacchetta, & langher, 2016). this methodology relies on a psychoanalytic theory of language (fornari, 1976) assuming a “double reference” principle, according to which the written or spoken language has two functions: lexical-cognitive (conscious) and symbolic-affective (unconscious). the first is responsible for the logical-rational-syntactic structure of language and refers to the sharing of meanings conveyed by the source culture; the second one refers to the figurative meaning based on more symbolic and subjective processes. it controls the expressive components of the lexicon, the juxtaposition of words, the redundancy of terms, and the co-occurrence of terms within discursive units. the “double reference” principle is consistent with matte blanco’s bi-logic theory of mind (1981). according to matte blanco, in fact, the human mind is able to work in parallel to two different mental processes through which it categorizes the reality: symmetric and homogenizing (or “unconscious”) logic and asymmetric and dividing (or “conscious”) logic. usually these two ways of being of the mind operate in a parallel, concomitant and intertwined way. according to matte blanco, therefore, language can be conceived as a rational instrument addressed to organize reality (as asymmetrical function) but also the gateway to grasp the rules of the mind’s unconscious mode of being (revealing the symmetrical logic). along with explicit meanings consistent with intentional structuring or ordered constituent parts of language, implicit and symbolic meanings may be inferred from the syntagmatic relations between parts of language. in this regard, the psychoanalytic technique of free association (freud, 1900), according to which spontaneously associated words and expressions give information on unconscious emotional processes, is an example of how affective sense-making processes can emerge through the logic of association as a form of unconscious thinking. with the same logic with which the analyst interprets the emotional meaning of the patient’s language in his free flow through the analysis of the association of his words, so the researcher can identify the emotional meaning of the associative chains in the speeches of the interviewed subjects. moreover, eta hypothesizes an isomorphism between the co-occurrences statistical calculation and the associative processes characterizing the unconscious mode of thought (carli & paniccia, 2002). this method deconstructs the typical linguistic links of the dividing and asymmetrical way of the mind (operational function of language) in order to detect the spontaneous chains of associations between words. indeed, meaning may be analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 296 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conceived as a property of word combinations rather than as resulting from words by themselves. besides, to grasp unconscious meanings the concept of polysemy is relevant in terms of emotional meanings attributable to a word, when it is extracted from the linguistic context. according to their polysemic value, the words organizing the language can be divided into two broad categories: dense words, with the maximum of polysemy and the minimum of ambiguity with respect to a contradictory emotional configuration, capable of conveying a high emotional value independently of the linguistic context within which they are located (i.e., words like “bomb” or “good”); and non-dense words, with the maximum of ambiguity and the minimum of polysemy which give meaning to the text only on the basis of their organizing function (for example, articles, adverbs, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs) or ambiguous words that find meaning only through their relationship with other words within the sentence (i.e., words like “to presume” or “however”). when dense words with a high emotional meaning are identified in a text, they can be grouped based on their statistic co-occurrence, thus allowing getting different symbolic repertoires (caputo, 2013a). analysis procedures consistently with eta framework, computer-aided content analysis was used to detect the main symbolic domains emerging from the narratives of the patients with infertility problems. to this purpose, all the interviews were transcribed verbatim and combined in a single text corpus so to detect shared emotional processes. then, two statistical multidimensional techniques were performed through the t-lab software, by using the tool “thematic analysis of elementary contexts” (lancia, 2004): cluster analysis and multiple correspondence analysis. such analyses elaborate the textual corpus according to a digital “presence-absence” matrix, where rows and columns indicate the parts of discourse to be grouped (i.e., text segments as elementary context units) and the partitioning variables (i.e., words as lexical units) used, respectively. the cluster analysis allows the detection of groupings of words co-occurring in the same text segments with the highest probability (i.e., elementary context units), as indicated by the chi-square test (χ²). such groupings thus represent different semantic classes that can describe the chains of symbolic associations running through language, which progressively contribute to identify cores of meaning across collected interviews with specific regard to the experience of being a patient with infertility problems at an art centre. each cluster can be described through the lexical units (dense words) and the most characteristic context units (text segments) from which it is composed of. then, multiple correspondence analysis enables the exploration of the relationship between different clusters in a multi-dimensional space. it allows the analysis of the latent factors that organize the main semantic oppositions in the text corpus (regarded as axes in a cartesian plane representation of this multi-dimensional space) and synthesize the semantic relationships between these groupings (greenacre, 1984). the relationship between the detected factors and clusters is evaluated through the test value, a statistical measure with a threshold value (2), corresponding to the statistical significance more commonly used (p = .05) and a sign (-/+) which helps in the understanding of the poles of factors detected through correspondence analysis (bolasco, 1999). the interpretative process of each cluster and factor (labeled by the researcher) is aimed at giving meaning to the co-occurrence of words of each semantic class and to the contraposition between such semantic classes, based on the use of models of affective symbolization (carli & paniccia, 2002). for example, we can identify inclusion/exclusion, power/dependence, trust/mistrust as symbolic dichotomies that have a clear reference to the body and refer to the primitive emotions that people use to bring reality back to something familiar. such dichotomies seem to reveal different motivational dynamics of social relationships—affiliation, power and achievement—as general affective drives connoting one’s emotional experience and orienting the relations with langher, fedele, caputo et al. 297 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ others consistently with mcclelland’s theory of needs (1985). these dynamics were indeed revisited by carli and paniccia (2002) and further developed in psychosocial research (caputo, 2013b, 2019; langher, brancadoro, d’angeli, & caputo, 2014), within a perspective stemming from constructivism and object relations theory as theoretical foundations. in more detail, the inside/outside dichotomy describes an emotional inclusion/ exclusion dynamic. what is “inside” in fact is experienced as something good and friendly, while what is “outside” is perceived as dangerous and rejected. the underlying motivation refer to affiliation as the tendency to establish, maintain, or restore a positive affective relationship with others, accompanied by the fear of rejection. the high/low dichotomy instead describes the symbols of dominating or subjugating in terms of what is perceived as “high” and powerful and what is perceived as “low” and weak. the underlying motivation refer to power, intended as the concern about having status and controlling the means of influencing others’ attitudes, emotions or behaviors, triggered by the fear of losing control and prestige. then, the in front/behind dichotomy represents the emotional dynamics of the true and the false in terms of showing and concealing. what is “in front” can be seen, reached and verified, differently from what is hidden “behind.” the underlying motivation is achievement, which deals with the disposition to strive for success in accordance with a standard of excellence and to derive satisfaction from the mastery of challenging tasks in order to avoid failure. such dichotomies represent only some examples of interpretative categories that can be used to grasp the unconscious processes running through discourses. indeed, the entire interpretative process relies on a psychoanalytic method following an evidential and conjectural paradigm, according to a clinical case study perspective (langher, caputo, & martino, 2017). the interpretative process is integrated with an in-depth qualitative analysis of the text segments of the interviews (the elementary context units) grouped in each cluster. this allows a process of triangulation and semantic validity of data through cross verification from different sources and procedures, so to get an overall comprehension of the narratives produced by the participants. some of these text segments have been translated into english and added to the description of each cluster. results the whole text corpus is of small-medium size (bolasco, 1999): the total number of linguistic units is between 15,000 and 45,000 occurrences (n = 31,758). the indices of lexical richness show a relationship between distinct graphic forms (v = 3.323) and total number of occurrences (type / token ratio) equal to 10%. the share of hapaxes (i.e., terms that appear only once in the total amount of distinct graphic forms) is 48% (n = 1.628). the admissibility criteria provided by the literature (percentage of hapax <50% and type/token ratio <20%; bolasco, 1999) are therefore satisfied, allowing us to proceed with a statistical analysis of the text corpus. cluster analysis has detected four thematic domains, as shown in table 1. it should be acknowledged that the detected clusters represent different semantic classes as symbolic meanings emerging across the collected interviews and do not refer to groupings of participants. therefore, even if such clusters may characterize each interview to a different extent, their related emotional symbolizations are simultaneously present as interacting dynamics in all the produced discourses. analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 298 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 clusters, percentage of the text corpus each cluster is composed of, and a list of the most characteristic lemmas (keywords) cluster 1: feeling of self-sacrifice (21.95%) cluster 2: pursuit of inclusion (26.72%) cluster 3: between desire and withdrawal (20.61%) cluster 4: acceptance of any consequence (30.73%) lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 lemma χ2 goal 20.38 close 20.50 to leave 63.57 to catch 16.16 pleasure 20.05 couple 15.56 to stretch 35.27 to born 15.99 to answer 17.39 family 13.40 psychology 33.93 to decide 15.44 different 13.84 world 12.14 sister 29.99 follicle 13.78 to imagine 11.40 person 11.56 physical 29.83 ovary 11.31 patience 11.33 colleague 11.05 woman 29.97 first time 11.31 health 10.69 technique 9.67 brother 22.21 institute 11.21 to face 9.40 to approach 7.32 to lose 20.78 normality 11.21 to hope 9.19 friendship 6.80 emotion 20.01 me 11.04 to believe 8.88 honesty 6.80 reality 13.64 husband 8.03 stress 7.43 to support 4.94 to comprehend 12.71 loneliness 6.83 future 6.97 sorrow 4.94 to move on 11.19 doctor 5.55 to struggle 4.68 intimacy 4.79 to desire 6.30 guilt 5.52 god 4.68 to sustain 4.44 to need 5.78 son 5.26 to overcome 4.68 truth 3.98 pain 4.78 mother 4.71 step 4.26 longing 4.28 tube 4.39 thematic domains cluster 1: self-sacrifice seen as the price to be paid for the desired success of the art treatment this cluster includes 21.95% of elementary context units. this thematic domain describes the willingness of patients to endure all the efforts and fatigues that the art treatment requires in order to achieve the desired purpose: motherhood. the suffering caused by undergoing the treatment is felt by these women with great dedication and patience (“patience,” “to overcome”). the sense of self-sacrifice seems to be prevalent in this theme as it leads to the hoped maternity, hence making it possible to achieve social and personal approval. the art treatment is evoked as consisting of steps to be passed (“step”), symbolized by the patients as huge obstacles to be overcome (“stress,” “to struggle,” “to overcome,” “to face”). the confident expectation that these obstacles will be overcome and will lead to the desired goal sustains these women in their efforts (“to hope,” “to believe”) and comfort them as if it were a sort of prayer (“god”). it's a stressful situation; however, you have to hold on because you have to reach a goal. as well, you have to be very strong and totally comply whit what they [doctors] tell you. i feel stressed, i cannot hide it. (patient 16) the illustrative variables that characterize this cluster are: “presence of an employment,” “first therapeutic cycle,” “high educational level,” and “perspectives about the future.” having a job and a high level of education may represent significant personal resources, increasing patients’ confidence in the ability to succeed in their actions. this in turn makes them more confident in the treatment success. the association with the questions about the future and the condition of being on their first art cycle also explains for the women’s perspective of a future filled with hope, since they have not yet experienced the fallibility of reproductive techniques on their own body. langher, fedele, caputo et al. 299 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cluster 2: pursuit of inclusion this cluster includes 26.72% of elementary context units and is not associated with any illustrative variable. this thematic domain describes the ambition of art patients to belong to the world of fertile and generative mothers, from which they feel excluded due to their infertility condition. this cluster seems to describe the pursuit for closeness and identification with the symbolic community of procreative mothers (“close,” “couple,” "family"), that they aim to join with by removing the sterility, which makes them different from the procreative mothers. to be honest it is a bad situation because i am now at an age where i meet a lot of people who begin having babies. in fact, right now i have four pregnant colleagues at work, and that it's ugly. for so long i have been trying, taking medicines, following treatments. sometimes it’s heavy, difficult, very difficult. and then one tries to go on, not to think of that, and fell jealousy, but sometimes one is jealous, and you say but why them and not me? (patient 12) the feelings of uncertainty and anguish associated with the sense of exclusion from the generative mothers (“sorrow”) seem emotionally mitigated thanks to the support and closeness of their loved ones (“friendship,” “to support,” “to sustain,” “intimacy,” “family”). certainly my husband gives me a lot of support and understanding. we support each other. (patient 6) cluster 3: precarious equilibrium between desire and withdrawal this cluster includes 20.61% of elementary context units. this theme describes the maximum level of uncertainty in women who are faced with the key dilemma of either continuing to hope for success or completely withdrawing from the treatment. in brief, they seem to be suspended at the apex of their desire for motherhood. the intense drive to achieve the goal of motherhood (“to stretch,” “to desire,” “to need,” “longing”) emerges in this cluster. patients are completely focused on what attracts them (the expected baby), sustained by the strong will and determination to obtain it. i have dedicated all myself to this [motherhood] and i hope that this beautiful thing happens. at the moment, inside me i feel like it has already happened […]. oh god, of course, i imagine it will be so beautiful. (patient 1) at the same time, they seem to show also feelings of loss and contemplation about the possibility of having to give up the dream of biological motherhood (“to lose,” “to move on,” “to leave”). well, i’ll assume that at forty someone doesn’t want me to have another baby. maybe i'm not ready, maybe now i should start enjoying life more, because i've sacrificed all myself for my [first] daughter, so now that she is eleven years old, i could start my life again. so, maybe, i’m destined not to have this baby. (patient 13) in this condition of uncertainty between desire and renunciation, the reference to strong and indissoluble fraternal bonds (“sister,” “brother”), seems to evoke the feeling of belonging: even if they do not have children, they will be always members of their family of origin. the illustrative variables that characterize this cluster are: “more than one therapeutic attempt,” “unexplained causes of infertility” and “age over 40 years.” these conditions diminish the success rate of the techniques, filling these women with uncertainty and anguish. at the same time, the unexplained causes of infertility would analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 300 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ favor the stalled condition in which patients are found. unexplained infertility may represent, in fact, an incentive to keep desiring biological motherhood, since no concrete obstacles to procreation are found in one’s own or in the partner’s body. cluster 4: surrender to any possible consequence this cluster includes 30.73% of elementary context units. it describes the patients’ acceptance of endangering themselves and their romantic relationship to achieve the desired mother-child relationship, which they do not intend to give up, whatever the price they have to pay. in other words, the mother-child relationship absorbs and replaces the relationship with the partners. these women also seem to experience a feeling of body fragmentation, listing single parts of their reproductive organs (“follicle,” “tuba,” “ovary”). furthermore, the intimate nature of the procedures and the medical attention that these women receive on their bodies can lead them to experience unconscious feelings towards the physicians, as happens in psychotherapy. specifically, by “transfer” we mean the unconscious displacement of feelings, whether negative or positive, related to significant people of one’s life towards the figure of the health professional (etchegoyen, 1990). these intense feelings towards the physician could make them put aside the husband emotionally. feelings of guilt could thus emerge from these women, as they symbolically betray the husband and replace him with a specialist who can inseminate them and who is allowed to "fragment" their body, in exchange for the desired baby (“loneliness,” “guilt”). guilt and loneliness are therefore two feelings that these women seem to endure in order to obtain that muchdesired mother-child relationship. i suffered a lot in my life, so i think a child can change me a lot, give me so much and grow up as a person also through the mother-child relationship. i didn’t have a relationship with my mother, and i hope to establish a relationship with my child, to be able to give him/her what is needed, the things i didn’t have in my childhood. (patient 2) the illustrative variables that characterize the cluster are: “absence of an employment” and “female causes of infertility.” the absence of an employment could explain the high emotional investment of the women in the outcome of the procedure, as a possible source of self-realization. therefore, we understand the patients’ predisposition towards this path despite the physical, emotional and relational costs. furthermore, the infertility in women could increase their feeling of guilt, for being the reason the couple has to undergo treatment and its negative interferences with the couple relationship. latent factors correspondence analysis has detected three latent factors, which organize the main semantic oppositions in the text corpus from the different positions of the detected clusters in the factorial space. table 2 shows the proportional variance of each factor, explained by each of the four clusters. these three latent factors explain all the data variance (r² = 100%). the sign reported in brackets (-/+) indicates the specific factorial pole (negative/positive) associated with each cluster. langher, fedele, caputo et al. 301 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 proportional variance of each factor cluster factor f1: motherhood desire f2: controversial sense of belonging f3: meanings of relationships cl1: feeling of self-sacrifice 0.0042 (-) 0.9317 (+) 0.0642 (+) cl2: pursuit of inclusion 0.0101 (+) 0.4505 (-) 0.5930 (+) cl3: precarious balance 0.8706 (-) 0.0296 (-) 0.0998 (-) cl4: surrender to any possible consequence 0.7239 (+) 0.0131 (-) 0.2630 (-) note. the sign reported in brackets (-/+) indicates the specific factorial pole (negative/positive) associated with each cluster. the highest associations between clusters and each factor are indicated in bold. figure 1 represents a spatial organization of the clusters within a factorial space and their relationships with the factorial axes. it provides a map of the emotional symbolizations shared by the women interviewed. figure 1. factorial space. motherhood desire (f1) the first factor (45.67% of total variance) mainly differentiates cluster 4 from cluster 3. it seems to refer to the presence of an intense desire for maternity. on the one hand, it represents the potential withdrawal of desire in terms of giving up the dream of biological motherhood (cluster 3); on the other hand, the most violent and strong-willed aspects of maternal desire, which could lead the woman to endanger her health and her relationship with the partner in order to reach the desired child (cluster 4). controversial sense of belonging (f2) the second factor (33.04% of total variance) differentiates cluster 1 from cluster 2. this factor seems to describe the patients’ aspiration to enter into the parental world, from which they feel excluded. cluster 1 refers to analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 302 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the aspiration to motherhood accompanied by a feeling of confident expectation. for this reason, all the efforts and difficulties of the art treatments are tolerated. on the opposite pole, in cluster 2, instead, the feelings of uncertainty and anxiety due to the sense of exclusion from the generative mothers prevail. meanings of relationships (f3) the third factor (21.24% of total variance) differentiates cluster 2 from cluster 4. it seems to deal with two different ways in which women live their relationships with others during the art treatment. on the one hand, their relationships are perceived as a source of support and comfort relatively to their distressing condition of infertility (cluster 2); whereas, on the other hand, their relationships seem to represent a mere means to achieve their personal goal of motherhood (cluster 4). discussion the results of this research study allowed the identification of the main emotional dimensions shaping the experiences of women who undergo an art treatment. briefly, the analysis identified four thematic domains (clusters) that describe the intense, profound, painful, and also extreme and radical desire for maternity in these patients with infertility problems. indeed, this study has revealed the women’s predisposition to bear all the efforts and sufferings that the medical protocol entails in order to achieve motherhood dream. at the same time, these patients have showed a confident perspective, sometimes a real leap of faith, that the motherhood, after so much pain, would come (cluster 1). in agreement with castellano et al. (2011), our study have showed that these patients tend to emotionally attribute to the physician and to the art technique the symbolic meaning of omnipotent restorers of their biological integrity. indeed, they seem to hopefully expect to be finally saved from their excruciating condition of infertility. with the modern technological innovations people expect to no longer have to suffer the uncertainties of nature but to be able to control them. the shared public perception is, therefore, that doctors can cure infertility, although this is often not possible (pfeffer, 1993). along with patients’ confident desire to belong to the community of procreative women, they have also expressed the fear and anxiety of being excluded from it, failing to fulfill one’s womanliness through motherhood. as we already know, the sense of exclusion and isolation often afflicts the patients with infertility problems (cunha et al., 2016; mann, 2014). moreover, we think that the ambivalence about motherhood was more socially acceptable before the advent of assisted reproductive technologies. ironically though, the increased availability of reproductive techniques to assist childless people has likely added pressure on infertile women (and men), becoming more reticent to give up on the procreation dream (letherby, 2002). to deal with the painful sense of exclusion, the women seem to seek emotional support and comfort in their loved ones in order to make their dramatic condition more tolerable (cluster 2). because of this, the possibility of telling and sharing the one’s own condition with someone seems to be beneficial for patients, reducing their sense of isolation. therefore, the patients show an intense drive to achieve the goal of motherhood, attempting to get what they do not possess but strongly desire (cluster 3). accordingly, the third thematic domain suggests that the women tend to experience a constant state of uncertainty about the future. their desire for motherhood seems to reach langher, fedele, caputo et al. 303 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ its apex, a point where the women find themselves almost on the verge of renouncing to the great dream of biological motherhood. consequently, feelings of dejection and loss seem to emerge in this cluster. furthermore, in order to reach the desired child, the patients are willing to accept any cost, unconcerned about their health and the balance of their romantic relationship (cluster 4). their desire seems to be strongly “feminine,” extremely focused on the mother-child relationship, leaving in the background the male desire and the couple’s goal. starting an art procedure means that the physician, with his/her reproductive techniques, is symbolically placed in the middle of the couple’s relationship. this could create a triangular relationship where the husband may acquire a marginal role, excluded from the strong bond that can arise between the professional and the woman, who is the main subject of infertility treatments (mann, 2014). paradoxically, this could enhance women’s sense of loneliness. this study, indeed, shed light on feelings of loneliness and guilt experienced by these women, which totally devote themselves to the use of impersonal reproductive techniques and leave their couple relations in the background in order to reach the purpose of getting pregnant. these results suggest the usefulness of deepening the controversies concerning the marital relationship. in some cases, the cohesion of the couple favors the bond with the future child since the prenatal period (busonera, cataudella, lampis, tommasi, & zavattini, 2017; cataudella, lampis, busonera, & marino, 2016); in other cases, childbirth is reported as a stressful event, producing a significant decline in marital quality (castellano, velotti, crowell, & zavattini, 2014). the three identified factors seem to give a synthetic idea of the emotional functioning of the women involved in this study. art treatment represents an emotional climax where passion and desire, on the one hand, and fear and uncertainty, on the other hand, are confronted (factor 1). women emotionally point to the relational context as their main resource to find support, both affective and technical/professional (factor 3). art treatment will decide their destiny: to belong to the world of the mothers, or to be unfortunate outcasts (factor 2). overall, some limitations need to be accounted. the generalizability of the study is limited because these findings are related to a small sample (n = 17), comparable to a case study (langher et al., 2017) and all subjects came from the same art clinic. another limitation of this study is that it is focused on the women’s perspective of the problem, and did not consider the men’s point of view, nor the couples’ perspective. further studies should take into consideration men’s perspective in order to better understand the marital relationship dynamics as well as the influence of men’s desires and emotions about the choice of undergoing an art procedure. despite these limitations, this research study allows us to deeply investigate the emotions of the patients interviewed, namely the feelings they associated with their condition of infertility, the therapeutic procedures, and the awaited maternity. our study may have an added value for its in-depth view of the emotional dynamics that characterize patients with infertility problems. in addition to the sense of sacrifice, the pursuit for social inclusion and the feeling of uncertainty about the future (benyamini et al., 2005; castellano et al., 2011; lavender, logan, cooke, lavender, & mills, 2015; verhaak et al., 2005), a lesser-known side of the desire for motherhood emerges in our research. patients with infertility problems do not just seem to suffer from the great wound of infertility, but they are also strongly determined and resolute to reach their personal goal (the child), for which every relationship, including that with one's own body, is endangered. therefore, this research study also contributes to highlighting the strong-willed and assertive features of these infertile women, which are not considered in many studies that describe them predominantly as suffering and distressed victims of infertility. analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 304 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion the present research study shows the strong emotional investment on motherhood by women undergoing art treatment. this makes them particularly demanding towards the fertility care staff, given their very high expectations. analyzing their emotions could help better understanding the therapeutic relationship between infertile patients and reproductive healthcare professionals. consequently, this could help to prevent burnout in staff members constantly confronted with highly emotionally demanding patients. the burden of witnessing the patients’ suffering due to their condition of infertility, their strong desire for parenting and determination can represent a source of high emotional pressure for the staff members, deemed as the only ones responsible for the fulfillment of the great dream of biological parenthood. for these reasons, a multidisciplinary approach, involving a psychological/medical staff to treating infertility, could benefit both patients and reproductive healthcare professionals. the participation of a psychologist in the clinical team would allow patients to be globally accompanied in their therapeutic experience and reproductive healthcare professionals to be relieved of the high emotional overload in their therapeutic relationship with patients with infertility problems, thus facilitating their clinical practice. therefore, a multidisciplinary team approach that includes gynecologists, nurses, midwives, embryologists, psychologists as well as other professionals could improve the quality of the reproductive healthcare services offered to the patients suffering from infertility. this study also have revealed a desire for parenthood strongly “feminine,” extremely focused on the motherchild relationship, leaving in the background the male desire and the couple’s goal. some pieces of research in taiwan examined the relationships of mothers who had naturally conceived and mothers who had artificially conceived with their newborn infants (chen, chen, sung, kuo, & wang, 2011). this study found that mothers who had received infertility treatments in order to get pregnant had stronger bonds with their infants than mothers who had naturally conceived. thus, it is possible that the partner feels emotionally excluded from the mother-child relationship, with consequent negative impact on the marital satisfaction of the couple. traditionally, we know that the birth of the child (especially the first one) may represent a particularly critical moment for the couple: the sudden transition from a “dyad” to a “triad,” the so-called “birth of a family,” could indeed endanger the romantic balance between the partners (cowan et al., 1985). particularly, women’s high emotional investment on the pregnancy and on the newborn could represent a risk factor for the emotional stability of the couple. some studies furthermore suggest that there is a significant association between parents’ dyadic relationship quality and the level of children’s behavioural problems. a more supportive relationship between the partners seems to be associated with fewer potential behavioural problems in children (goldberg & carlson, 2014; harold & lieve, 2012). consequently, a low quality of romantic dyadic relationship may negatively impact on the children’s well-being and development. moreover, the literature already affirms that fathers play a particularly important role in the child’s development, especially in terms of children’s openness to the world (cabrera, volling, & barr, 2018; paquette, 2004). a “closed” mother-child relationship can therefore circumscribe the role of the father in the development of the child, making it as secondary and marginal. considering the strong emotional investment on motherhood, women who conceive with art might also feel more constrained about actually expressing ambivalence or regrets than those conceiving naturally. they might also not feel entitled to complain or seek additional affective and social support. in conclusion, we claim the importance of introducing early individual and couple psychological intervention into the centers of assisted reproductive technology. we believe, in fact, that analyzing and addressing these langher, fedele, caputo et al. 305 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://www.psychopen.eu/ complex emotional dynamics may have positive short-term/long-term effects on women, on the couple and on the relationship with the future newborn. competing interests the authors have declared that not competing interests exist. funding the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments we thank all the participants in the study for their contribution. the authors are grateful to the women who have agreed to tell their experiences, showing willingness and interest in knowing the future results of the research. we would like to extend our thanks to the staff of the infertility clinic that have made the research possible. references agostini, f., monti, f., fagandini, p., de pascalis, l. d., la sala, g. b., & blickstein, i. 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(2018). childbearing importance: a qualitative study of women with infertility in china. research in nursing & health, 41, 69-77. https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.21846 analysis of narratives from women undergoing art 310 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 https://doi.org/10.1159%2f000078723 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.srhc.2018.02.009 https://doi.org/10.1093%2fhumrep%2fdel344 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f1097184x03260958 https://doi.org/10.1093%2fhumupd%2fdml040 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f0167482x.2016.1244184 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fnur.21846 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors viviana langher, associate professor of clinical psychology at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza”; psyd in health psychology and professor of the school of specialization in health psychology. her research interests have mainly been focusing on clinical, social and organizational psychology. fabiola fedele, clinical psychology graduate major at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza”; student of the school of specialization in health psychology. her current research interests lie in the field of clinical and health psychology. andrea caputo, psyd in health psychology, phd in dynamic and clinical psychology, is currently an adjunct professor in clinical psychology at the faculty of pharmacy and medicine at sapienza university of rome, italy. his research interests have mainly been focusing on clinical and health psychology. francesco marchini, clinical psychology graduate major at the department of dynamic and clinical psychology of the university of rome “la sapienza.” his primary research interests focus on social and health psychology. cesare aragona, associate professor at the department of gynecologic-obstetrical and urologic sciences of the university of rome “la sapienza”; director of the sterility and assisted reproduction unit at sapienza university hospital umberto i; professor of the school of specialization in obstetrics and gynecology at university of rome “la sapienza.” langher, fedele, caputo et al. 311 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(2), 292–311 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i2.1736 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ analysis of narratives from women undergoing art (introduction) the subjective experience of infertility the experience of undergoing assisted reproduction technology method participants and recruitment instruments textual data analysis results thematic domains latent factors discussion conclusion (additional information) competing interests funding acknowledgments references about the authors the role of social appearance comparison in body dissatisfaction of adolescent boys and girls research reports the role of social appearance comparison in body dissatisfaction of adolescent boys and girls lucia barbierik 1, maria bacikova-sleskova 1, veronika petrovova 1 [1] department of educational psychology and health psychology, pavol jozef šafárik university in košice, košice, slovak republic. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 received: 2021-03-29 • accepted: 2023-01-09 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: barbara caci, university of palermo (unipa), palermo, italy corresponding author: lucia barbierik, department of educational psychology and health psychology, pavol jozef šafárik university in košice, faculty of arts, moyzesova 9, 04001 košice, slovak republic. e-mail: lucia.barbierik@upjs.sk abstract the main aim of the present study is to investigate the indirect effect of the association between thin-ideal internalisation (1), muscular-ideal internalization (2) and body dissatisfaction (bd) through the general social appearance comparison separately among boys and girls. 154 adolescents (mean age 18.2 years, sd = 0.73; 56.5% girls) provided information on the explored variables. two hierarchical regression models were carried out for boys and girls separately. the general appearance comparison works as an important explanatory mechanism in the relationship between thin-ideal internalization and bd among girls as well as between muscular-ideal internalization and bd among both boys and girls. the more individuals internalize the societal ideals of appearance, the more they compare their physical appearance to others and thus the greater bd they perceive. the current results contribute to previous research findings by indicating the social appearance comparison as a risk factor which enhances bd among both boys and girls in late adolescence. the findings may facilitate identifying individuals who are vulnerable to body dissatisfaction earlier, before more serious eating problems occur. keywords internalization of societal ideals of appearance, social appearance comparison, body dissatisfaction, adolescents young people are at particular risk of social comparisons of appearance in both the real and online world (ho et al., 2016; ricciardelli & yager, 2016). individuals tend to compare themselves with others in order to gain information of “how they fit into the world” when objective standards are missing or when they are unsure of their own self-evaluation (fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2016). a negative perception of self when comparing to others can have an adverse effect on mental health, well-being and physical self-esteem. furthermore, this can lead to growing body dissatisfaction and the consequences of “too healthy" a lifestyle (restrictive eating, excessive exercising or other rigid ways of weight control) (rancourt et al., 2016; thompson & stice, 2001; vartanian & dey, 2013). the media is another negative influence with the presentation of unattainable and perfect male or female figures (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). those figures are typically viewed as the representation of health, success and social desirability (thompson et al., 2004; van vonderen & kinnally, 2012). however, it is not the awareness of standards of appearance but its internalization which has been found to be responsible for increased body dissatisfaction (cafri et al., 2005; vartanian & dey, 2013). the current study discusses the role of both social appearance comparisons and internalization of societal ideals of appearance in the body dissatisfaction of boys and girls in late adolescence. furthermore, it looks at gender differences in these concepts as well as the role of gender in the examined associations. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6443&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ body dissatisfaction body dissatisfaction is usually understood as the negative thoughts and feelings towards one´s own body or the negative evaluation of body shape, weight, body parts or global appearance (grogan, 2016). it is a complex phenom­ enon explained by various socio-demographic, biological or psychological factors. the strongest predictor of body dissatisfaction is being a women and body weight or body mass index (esnaola et al., 2010; ricciardelli & yager, 2016) besides other physical and biological factors such as early maturation in puberty or genetic influences (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). from individual psychological factors, personality traits were found to be associated with higher body dissatisfaction (allen & walter, 2016) as well as depressive symptoms, lower self-esteem (wang et al., 2019) and greater internalization of societal ideals (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). moreover, environmental factors such as social appearance comparison (carlson jones, 2004), lower parent-child connectedness, more frequent weight teasing and peer dieting predicted increased body dissatisfaction (wang et al., 2019). previous research has provided substantial evidence of the relationship between attitudes to one’s own body, psychosocial functioning and well-being (carraça et al., 2011). body dissatisfaction has been found to be associated with poor quality of life (horacek, 2013). moreover, it is considered to be an important predictor of psychopathologies in adolescence such as unhealthy weight control strategies (keery et al., 2004), mood disorders (barnes et al., 2020; sharpe et al., 2018) and abnormal eating behaviour (allen et al., 2008) and even eating disorders (shagar et al., 2017; tod & edwards, 2015). dissatisfaction with physical appearance can occur among both men and women at different ages (quittkat et al., 2019). while early adolescence is a critical period (wang et al., 2019), it is most prevalent during adolescence and adulthood (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). adolescents are used to assessing their bodies with respect to sociocultural attractivity norms (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). in adolescence, a girl's identity is influenced by societal demands for thinness and physical beauty while physical height, strength, muscularity, attractiveness as well as the functional aspect of body are very important factors of social competence for boys (giles, 2003; ricciardelli & yager, 2016; vágnerová, 2000). adolescents often use comparing appearances with their peers or internalizing an ideal body appearance to attain social acceptance and prestige (vágnerová, 2000). the social appearance comparison process and internalization of societal ideals of appearance have been considered key psychological factors in explaining body dissatisfaction of adolescents (carlson jones, 2004; paterna et al., 2021; ricciardelli & yager, 2016). social appearance comparison and internalization of societal ideals of appearance the tripartite influence model of body image and eating disturbance (thompson et al., 1999) explains body dissatisfac­ tion and eating disorders through the mechanism of social pressures (peers, family and media). these lead individuals to internalize socially and culturally appreciated appearance ideals. the internalization of sociocultural ideals is usually defined as the “adoption of societal appearance ideals as a personal goal and standard” (carlson jones, 2004, p. 823). in other words, it refers to the incorporation of specific external values in guiding one’s own principles (thompson & stice, 2001). the extent of it can vary from beliefs in a set of ideas about societal norms of size and appearance to behavioural changes in an attempt to approximate these sociocultural standards of appearance (thompson & stice, 2001). societal ideals of appearance are often operationalized as those which are conveyed by the media (thompson et al., 2004). these take the form of usually unattainable, perfect figures of male or female bodies in television programmes, magazines, commercials and these days, social networks. these perfect figures, their body weight, shape and beauty are typically viewed as the representation of health, success and social desirability. in contrast, overweight figures are frequently ridiculed in the media (van vonderen & kinnally, 2012). an awareness of standards of appearance itself at a conscious level cannot lead to body dissatisfaction. however, its internalization as a more latent self-schema explains how sociocultural pressures affect one’s body image (cafri et al., 2005). consequently, those who fail to achieve these societal ideals will experience negative feelings about their bodies (vartanian & dey, 2013). the tripartite influence model (thompson et al., 1999) also suggests a role for social appearance comparison in body image disturbance. it refers to an evaluative process involving both seeking information and making judgments about one’s own physical attributes compared with those of others. according to festinger’s social comparison theory (1954, as cited in fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2016), individuals compare themselves with others in order to understand how they fit into the world when objective standards are not available. such comparisons are more frequent among individuals barbierik, bacikova-sleskova, & petrovova 245 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with lower self-esteem and those more uncertain of their own self-evaluations (carlson jones, 2004). they can either do it passively (somewhat automatically and subconsciously) or actively (goal-directed behaviour) by selecting a suitable comparison ‘target’ (blowers et al., 2003). individuals tend to either compare themselves to superior individuals (upward comparisons) or to less attractive ones (downward comparisons), resulting in a different effect regarding self-evaluation, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders (rancourt et al., 2016). more often than not however, appearance comparisons tend to be of upward nature (ko et al., 2019). in addition, the general chronic tendency to make appearance-based comparisons (a trait level approach), regardless of the direction, is associated with negative outcomes (vartanian & dey, 2013). thus, this internalization and comparison lead to body dissatisfaction, commonly defined as a risk factor for unhealthy weight control strategies and disordered eating (thompson & stice, 2001). gender specificity the gender specific approach to the topic of body dissatisfaction has been criticized by some authors. indeed, they have argued that this is no longer women’s gender issue and that body image concerns have changed in recent decades (carlson jones, 2004; tantleff-dunn et al., 2011). the large number of men undergoing cosmetic surgery over the past few years points to the importance of exploring the body dissatisfaction of men as well as women (matera et al., 2018). attitudes and behaviours related to body image and appearance improvement are common for men too, even though the idealized physical appearance may differ across gender (murray et al., 2017). with regards to the internalisation of societal ideals of appearance, current research differentiates the slim or thin body ideal, when explaining women’s body dissatisfaction and the muscular or mesomorphic body ideal, typical for men’s body dissatisfaction (karazsia et al., 2017). even though the main research interest is devoted to the appearance ideals and body dissatisfaction of women, there is also evidence that internalized appearance ideals significantly contribute to the body dissatisfaction of men (carlson jones, 2004). while the thinness-oriented body dissatisfaction has declined over the years among women, muscularity-oriented dissatisfaction has remained stable in men (karazsia et al., 2017). in men, there are two dimensions of body ideal internalization, thinness and muscularity, which are associated with body dissatisfaction and eating concerns. it seems that the thin-ideal internalization is more strongly associated with body dissatisfaction and eating disturbances, when compared to muscular ideal internalization, also among men (paterna et al., 2021; schaefer et al., 2021). it could be explained by the fact that muscular-body ideal is easier to attain in comparison to the thin-body ideal or general attractiveness (paterna et al., 2021). regarding the thin-ideal internalization among men, disordered eating behaviours may include dieting to lose weight as well as making muscularity more visible (klimek et al., 2018). moreover, some authors emphasize that the ideal body conveyed by the media focuses on exercise, muscularity and athleticism for both men and women (tylka, 2011). in addition, it seems that muscularity and thinness or leanness are both desired characteristics for men and women (paterna et al., 2021; watson & murnen, 2019). that is why the current study includes both the muscularity and thinness internalization components. independently of the targets of comparison (upward or downward comparisons), social appearance comparison has previously been found to be positively associated with body dissatisfaction among early and middle adolescent boys and girls (carlson jones, 2004) as well as undergraduate men and women (ko et al., 2019). the associations were stronger for women and inversely related to age (carlson jones, 2004; myers, & crowther, 2009). however, it has also been found that the peer appearance context did not play a significant role in the more complex mediational models explaining body dissatisfaction among early and middle adolescent boys (carlson jones, 2004). women are embedded in the appearance culture from an early age (thompson et al., 1999) whereas men move into the cultural glorification of muscularity associated with manhood during the secondary school and university years (carlson jones, 2004). thus, the empirical part of the current study addresses boys and girls in late adolescence. links between internalization, social comparison and body dissatisfaction the role of internalization of appearance ideals and social comparison in explaining body dissatisfaction is still being debated with research bringing mixed results (vartanian & dey, 2013). social appearance comparison among adolescents 246 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social comparison could work as a moderator of the relationship between internalisation and body dissatisfaction. it has been found that superior or upward comparisons interacting with a high level of internalization of the thin ideal lead to higher body dissatisfaction among women, while non-superior or downward comparisons lead to lower body dissatisfaction in women, independent of the level of internalization (cattarin et al., 2000). however, general social comparison did not moderate the association between internalisation of the thin ideal and body dissatisfaction among primary school aged girls (blowers et al., 2003). another possible explanatory mechanism of body dissatisfaction proposes internalisation as a mediator. individuals who are highly attentive to social comparison may come to see the advantages associated with certain appearance features and adopt the ideal images as their own personal goal (carlson jones, 2004). thin-ideal internalisation was found to mediate the relationship between upward comparisons and body dissatisfaction among undergraduate women (vartanian & dey, 2013). those findings suggest that repeatedly comparing one’s appearance to superior ones may facilitate thin-ideal internalization, which in turn increases body dissatisfaction. however, in this alternative, other factors such as lower self-concept clarity played a significant role as well. a different view suggests social comparison as a mediator in the relationship between internalization of appearance ideals and body dissatisfaction. the internalization of the appearance ideal may stimulate physical appearance compari­ sons to let individuals see how close they are to their ideal by comparing themselves to others. adverse findings can in turn increase body dissatisfaction. body comparison at the trait level was found to be a mediator between thin ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among undergraduate women (fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2016), pre-adolescent (blowers et al., 2003) and middle adolescent girls (durkin et al., 2007). the current study follows the last paradigm, explaining the mechanism as to how the internalization of appearance ideals leads to body dissatisfaction through the social appearance comparison. in other words, social comparison facilitated by internalization of appearance ideals enables individuals to come to know how good/bad they are at approximating such an ideal in comparison to others. to the best of our knowledge, this has only been supported with respect to women (blowers et al., 2003; durkin et al., 2007; fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2016). in addition, previous research has also demonstrated the importance of general social appearance comparison at the trait level in the context of body dissatisfaction (tiggemann & mcgill, 2004) and the general appearance comparison tendency and its negative impact on eating disturbance (vartanian & dey, 2013). therefore, this study is focused on general appearance comparisons as well. the aim of the current study despite clear evidence of the adverse effects of thin-ideal internalization and appearance-related social comparison on body dissatisfaction (fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2012), there is a need to examine the connection between these two risk factors and further explain the role that they have in explaining body dissatisfaction. even though studies regarding body dissatisfaction, appearance comparison and ideal body internalization are more frequent among women and associations tend to be stronger among women in comparison to men (carlson jones, 2004; lawler & nixon, 2011), it is important to focus on men as well (matera et al., 2018; tylka, 2011). the ideal body internalization and social comparison of physical appearance may represent key psychological factors that facilitate body dissatisfaction among both adolescent boys and girls (lawler & nixon, 2011) as well as young adult men and women (ko et al., 2019; matera et al., 2018; strubel & petrie, 2017). the current study expands previous findings by focusing on boys in late adolescence in order to determine whether social comparison arises as a significant factor in the development of body dissatisfaction at this age. the psychological as well as physical development of boys tends to be slower and the importance of body appearance may arise later than it does among girls (carlson jones, 2004; ricciardelli & yager, 2016). when exploring both genders, it is important to address both thin-ideal and muscular/athletic-ideal internalisation (tylka, 2011). thus, the aim of present study is to investigate the indirect effect of the association between thin-ideal internalisation, muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the general appearance comparison for late adolescent boys and girls separately. the findings of the present study may facilitate identifying individuals who are vulnerable to body dissatisfaction earlier, before more serious eating problems occur. the following hypotheses were formulated: barbierik, bacikova-sleskova, & petrovova 247 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. gender differences in thin-ideal internalisation, muscular-ideal internalization, general appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction exist with higher levels among adolescent girls with the exception of muscular-ideal internalization. 2. there is an indirect association between thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction through the general appearance comparison among late adolescent girls and boys. 3. there is an indirect association between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the general appearance comparison among late adolescent girls and boys. method sample and procedure a convenience sampling method was used for data collection. data were collected by a team of trained researchers and their assistants at four grammar schools in the east of slovakia in february 2020. the respondents filled in questionnaires during regular school lessons on a voluntary and confidential basis without the presence of a teacher. the study obtained local university ethic committee approval. the sample consisted of 154 adolescents aged between 17 and 20 years (mean age 18.2 years, sd = 0.73; 56.5% girls). most of them (77.9%) were in the fourth grade, 13% in the third grade and 9.1% in the second. most of the respondents (92.9%) lived with their parents during the school year, others lived in a dormitory (3.9%), with their grandparents (2.6%) or other places (0.6%). most of their parents worked full time or part time (both parents working – 82.5%, only mother working – 6.5%, only father working – 9.7%). regarding their financial situation, 46.1% evaluated their financial situation the same, 40.9% a bit better, 6.5% a bit worse, 5.8% much better and 0.6% much worse in comparison to other families. measures all the measures used in the study were back translated to slovak by a native speaker. any inconsistencies in any particular items were then discussed by two experts in health psychology and the items were subsequently adjusted. a mean score of each measure was calculated and included in the analyses. table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and gender differences of all the explored variables while table 2 presents the internal consistencies of all the subscales which were found to be acceptable. table 1 descriptive statistics and gender differences in the explored variables n m sd min – max variable boys girls boys girls boys girls boys girls t df p η2 body dissatisfaction 67 87 2.12 2.11 0.73 0.71 1–4.2 1–4.76 0.094 152 .93 < .01 body comparison 67 87 2.31 2.08 0.74 0.69 1–4.04 1–4.48 1.992 152 .048* .03 thin-ideal internalization 67 87 2.57 2.76 0.93 0.84 1–4.4 1–5 -1.366 152 .17 .01 muscular-ideal internalization 67 87 3.34 2.63 0.96 0.97 1.4–5 1–5 4.517 152 < .001**a .12 athe results are significant even after the bonferroni adjustment (after the application of the bonferroni adjustment, the threshold for testing the individual hypotheses was set to .013). *p < .05. **p < .001. one-tailed p values are reported. social appearance comparison among adolescents 248 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 correlations and cronbach’s alpha values variable 1 2 3 4 αboys 1. body dissatisfaction — .49**a .18 -.08 .93 2. appearance comparison .65**a — .14 .29* .93 3. thin-ideal internalization .30**a .36**a — .15 .80 4. muscular-ideal internalization .18 .24* .45**a — .87 αgirls .93 .93 .93 .93 — note. correlations for girls (n = 87) are presented below the diagonal; correlations for boys (n = 67) are presented above the diagonal. athe results are significant even after the bonferroni adjustment (after the application of the bonferroni adjustment, the threshold for testing the individual hypotheses was set to .013). *p < .05. **p < .001. the body comparison scale (thompson et al., 1999) is a 25-item measure which assesses a respondent's tendency to compare specific body parts and body attributes (e.g., height, weight, body shape, waist, hips, thighs, stomach, face, body build, shoulders) to those of others of the same sex. respondents indicate how often they engage in each comparison using a 5-point likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always). higher scores reflect more frequent engagement in general social appearance comparisons. this cognitive comparison process has been examined by the same scale in a later publication which supported its acceptability and usefulness (fisher et al., 2002). to measure body dissatisfaction, items of the previous scale (body comparison scale, thompson’s et al., 1999) were adapted to indicate participant’s degree of satisfaction with 25 body parts and body attributes (e.g., height, weight, body shape, waist, hips, thighs, stomach, face, body build, shoulders) on a 5-point response scale ranging from 1 (very satisfied) to 5 (very dissatisfied). higher scores indicate greater body dissatisfaction. thin-ideal internalization and muscular-ideal internalization were measured by two subscales in the sociocultural attitudes towards appearance questionnaire-4 (sataq-4) (schaefer et al., 2015): internalization: thin/low body fat (sample item: “i think a lot about looking thin.”) and internalization: muscularity/athletic (sample item: “it is important for me to look athletic.”). these subscales assess the endorsement and acceptance of media messages which promote unrealistic ideals of thinness and muscularity (muscular or toned physique) and striving towards these ideals. each scale consists of 5 items, rated from 1 (definitely disagree) to 5 (definitely agree). the total score is created by summing all items. higher scores reflect greater internalization of the ideals conveyed by the media. the scale has also been used multiculturally and publications yielded acceptable psychometric characteristics (e.g., cihan et al., 2016; neves et al., 2020; zevallos-delzo et al., 2020). analyses in order to describe the sample and examine the gender differences, a descriptive analysis, pearson correlations and t-tests were performed in spss 20. a bonferroni adjustment was applied to the individual alpha levels to deal with multiple hypotheses testing (4 one-tailed tests addressing gender differences). since the overall alpha level was set to .05, the individual relationships were considered statistically significant if the corresponding one-tailed p-values were lower than .05/4 = .013. the strength of gender differences was also interpreted according to the effect size guidelines proposed by cohen (1988, as cited in pallant, 2007). two hierarchical regression models were conducted to analyse the indirect effect of body ideal internalization: thin-ideal (model 1), muscular-ideal (model 2), on body dissatisfaction through the general comparison of appearance (figure 1) for boys and girls separately. the analyses were conducted using process macro in spss which is a conditional process modelling program that utilizes an ordinary least squares regression-based path analysis to test for direct and indirect effects (hayes, 2013). barbierik, bacikova-sleskova, & petrovova 249 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results preliminary analysis table 1 shows the descriptive statistics and gender differences of all the explored variables. the boys scored higher on the body comparison (p = .048, η2 = .03) and muscular-ideal internalization (p < .001, η2 = .12; significant even after the bonferroni adjustment). however, the magnitude of differences in the means was small to moderate according to the effect size. other gender differences were not significant. table 2 presents the correlations between the variables as well as the internal consistencies of all the subscales which were found to be acceptable. the appearance comparison was found to be significantly strongly positively associated with body dissatisfaction (even after the bonferroni adjustment, r = .49, p < .001) and weakly positively associated with muscular-ideal internalization (r = .29, p < .05) among boys. body dissatisfaction was significantly strongly positively correlated with the appearance comparison (r = .65, p < .001) and moderately with thin-ideal internalization (r = .3, p < .001) among girls. thin-ideal internalization was also moderately positively associated with the appearance comparison (r = .36, p < .001) among girls. muscular-ideal internalisation was moderately positively associated with thin ideal internalization (r = .45; p < .001) as well as with the appearance comparison (r = .24, p = .05, small correlation, not significant after bonferroni adjustment) among girls. exploration of the complex relationships in the models the partial correlations among the girls were significant with a moderate to large effect regarding thin-ideal internal­ ization and other variables. on the contrary, moderate to strong correlations were found regarding muscular-ideal internalization among boys. although the correlations between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction were not significant for either boys or girls, the correlation between muscular-ideal internalization and appearance comparison was small but significant (table 2). this creates a basis for testing the mediation effect of appearance comparison in the relationships between both thin and muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among girls and muscular-ideal internalization among boys. figure 1 hypothetical model of the effect of ideal body internalisation [thin-ideal (model 1), muscular-ideal (model 2)] on body dissatisfaction through the general appearance comparison social appearance comparison among adolescents 250 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the first regression model tested whether social comparison acted as a mediator between thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction separately for boys and girls. among the girls, both the total effect model, r 2 = .09, f(1, 85) = 8.48, p = .01, and the direct effect model with appearance comparison as the mediator, r2 = .43, f(2, 84) = 31.22, p < .001, were significant. greater thin-ideal internalization predicted a greater level of social comparison (path a) and greater social comparison predicted greater body dissatisfaction (path b). in terms of testing the indirect effect, thin-ideal internalization was predictive of greater body dissatisfaction indirectly through social comparison, indirect effect = .19; se = .10; 95% ci [.05, .37]. among the boys, the total effect model was not significant, r 2 = .03, f(1, 65) = 2.23, p = .14, while the direct effect model with the appearance comparison as the mediator was significant, r2 = .25, f(2, 64) = 10.81, p < .001. there was no significant association found between thin-ideal internalization and social comparison (path a) among the boys, nor was there a significant indirect effect between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through social comparison, indirect effect = .05; se = .06; 95% ci [-.04, .19]. however, greater social comparison was associated with greater body dissatisfaction (path b). the second regression model tested whether social comparison acted as a mediator between muscular-ideal internal­ isation and body dissatisfaction for boys and girls separately. among the girls, the total effect model was not significant, r2 = .03, f(1, 85) = 8.48, p = .09, although the direct effect model with the appearance comparison as the mediator was significant, r2 = .42, f(2, 84) = 30.67, p < .001. greater muscular-ideal internalization predicted a greater level of social comparison (path a) and greater social comparison predicted greater body dissatisfaction (path b). in terms of testing the indirect effect, muscular-ideal internalization was predictive of greater body dissatisfaction indirectly through social comparison, indirect effect = .11; se = .07; 95% ci [.007, .26]. among the boys, the total effect model was not found to be significant, r2 = .007, f(1, 65) = .45, p = .5, although the direct effect model with the appearance comparison as the mediator was significant, r2 = .29, f(2, 64) = 13.34, p < .001. greater muscular-ideal internalization predicted a greater level of social comparison (path a) and greater social comparison predicted greater body dissatisfaction (path b). in terms of testing the indirect effect, muscular-ideal internalization was predictive of greater body dissatisfaction indirectly through social comparison, indirect effect = .12; se = .05; 95% ci [.03, .24]. on the contrary, the direct effect between body dissatisfaction and muscular-ideal internalization was significant and negative (path c´) after the mediator was included in the model. regression weights for paths a, b, c, and c´ are presented in table 3 for each of the regression models. table 3 regression results for the indirect effects model path b se t p 95% ci model 1 (girls) a .3 .08 3.58 <.001 [.13, .47] b .64 .09 7.01 <.001 [.46, .82] c .26 .09 2.91 .01 [.08, .43] c´ .06 .08 .86 .39 [-.09, .21] model 1 (boys) a .12 .1 1.17 .24 [-.08, .31] b .47 0.11 4.33 <.001 [.25, .68] c .14 .1 1.49 .14 [-.05, .34] c´ .09 .09 1.04 .3 [-.08, .26] model 2 (girls) a .17 .08 2.3 <.02 [.02, .32] b .66 .09 7.52 <.001 [.49, .83] c .13 .08 1.7 .09 [-.02, 29] c´ .02 .06 .31 .76 [-.11, .15] model 2 (boys) a .22 .09 2.42 .02 [.04, .40] b .55 .11 5.10 <.001 [.34, .77] c -.06 .09 -.67 .5 [-.25, .13] c´ -.19 .08 -2.22 .03 [-.35, -.02] barbierik, bacikova-sleskova, & petrovova 251 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ note. model 1—the indirect effect of thin-ideal internalization on body dissatisfaction through the general comparison of appearance. model 2. the indirect effect of muscular-ideal internalization on the body dissatisfaction through the general comparison of appearance. discussion the main aim of the current study was to explain the association between thin-ideal internalisation, muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the general appearance comparison separately for adolescent boys and girls. moreover, gender differences in these concepts were examined as well. the presented findings partially supported the first hypothesis, with regards to muscular-ideal internalization. other gender differences were not found. while the second hypothesis considering the indirect association between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction was partially supported (only among girls) the third hypothesis regarding muscular-ideal internalization was fully supported by the results. the current findings support and contribute to previous research findings, particularly with regard to focusing on both genders and late adolescence and are discussed in detail in the following text. the boys in the current study reported higher levels of appearance comparison than the girls. even though the difference was small, this result is uncommon as it tends to be women who score higher on body comparison scales (e.g., ko et al., 2019; schaefer & blodgett salafia, 2014; watson & murnen, 2019). it seems that social context and cultural glorification play a distinct role for men and women at different ages. while girls overestimate the importance of social appearance from an early age, boys start to find it relevant in late adolescence (carlson jones, 2004). indeed, the current study has indicated that they find it even more relevant than girls at this age. appearance comparison could be more an intense process for boys at this age, while girls have already managed this issue or have dealt with it longer. the boys in the current study also scored slightly higher on muscular-ideal internalization which is in line with expectations as well as with previous research findings (schaefer & blodgett salafia, 2014). this also reflects the typical body ideal for men in western culture (tylka, 2011). however, it was surprising to find that there were no significant gender differences in body dissatisfaction and thin-ideal internalization (in contrast with knauss et al., 2007; paulisova et al., 2021; schaefer & blodgett salafia, 2014). these inconsistent findings regarding body dissatisfaction could reflect the nature of the scale used for body dissatisfaction in the current research. while specific body parts and body attributes were assessed here, other scales usually tend to evaluate global body dissatisfaction. nevertheless, the current findings emphasize the need for men to be included more in these types of studies (ko et al., 2019). the indirect effect between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the appearance comparison among boys has not been supported by the current results. there was no significant association found between thin-ideal internalization and social comparison among boys, nor was there a total effect of thin-ideal internalization on body dissatisfaction. the thin-body ideal seems to be irrelevant in the body dissatisfaction of boys which corresponds with their muscular-body ideal found in recent research (flament et al., 2012; knauss et al., 2007). general appearance internalization has previously been found to be insignificant in explaining body dissatisfaction among undergraduate men (hricová & orosová, 2017). however, greater social comparison was found to be associated with greater body dissatisfaction among boys in the current study. similarly, the appearance comparison has previously been positively correlated with body dissatisfaction among early and middle adolescent boys (carlson jones, 2004; ho et al., 2016), young adult men (modica, 2020) and negatively with body esteem tested on a mixed gender sample of young adults (ko et al., 2019). social comparison online has been found to be significantly associated with body image dissatisfaction of middle adolescents for both genders (ho et al., 2016). on the other hand, the indirect effect of muscular-ideal internalization on the body dissatisfaction of boys through the appearance comparison has been found to be significant in the current study. moreover, the direct effect between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction after the mediator was included in the model was significant among boys as well, although the direct effect was negative. this means that the more boys internalize the muscular body ideal, the less they feel dissatisfied with their body. on the contrary, previous findings have shown that adolescent boys with greater muscular-body ideal internalization were more likely to express greater body dissatisfaction (carlson jones, 2004; knauss et al., 2007) and lower body esteem (flament et al., 2012). tylka (2011) found that internalization of the mesomorphic ideal was positively associated with muscularity dissatisfaction and body fat dissatisfaction among undergraduate men. besides the study design, it is possible to explain this inconsistency by the muscular-ideal internal­ social appearance comparison among adolescents 252 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ization subscale used in the current study; it includes cognitive-internalization aspects as well as items that describe behavioural aspects—an effort to gain a muscular and athletic figure. the more boys think about being muscular and the more effort they make to look muscular, the less dissatisfied they are with their body. regarding the indirect effect, a greater acceptance of media messages about muscular figures and a greater effort to fulfil them might lead to more appearance comparison with their peers to see how successful they are at this. according to the current results, general comparison seemed to enhance body dissatisfaction. these results suggesting a negative impact of the general appearance comparison are consistent with the previously found association between general appearance comparison and body dissatisfaction (tiggemann & mcgill, 2004). however, the peer appearance context was not found to be relevant in a more complex model explaining body dissatisfaction among early and middle adolescent boys, explained by the increasing amounts of time boys spend alone during adolescence (carlson jones, 2004). contrary to this, the current research addressing late adolescent boys brings findings which support the importance of the social environment in body dissatisfaction development. the current results thus reflect the developmental delay among boys regarding appearance comparison. these tend to arise later in comparison to girls who are involved in the appearance culture from an early age (carlson jones, 2004). in the context of the tripartite influence model of body image and eating disturbance (thompson et al., 1999), the current results support the significant role of social appearance comparison and muscular-ideal internalization in the development of body dissatisfaction among adolescent boys, consistent with previous testing of the model on undergraduate men (carvalho & ferreira, 2020; tylka, 2011). moreover, the current findings also indicate that social comparison could mediate the association between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among boys. this has also been outlined in the latest refinement of the tripartite influence model among undergraduate men (schaefer et al., 2021). among the girls, the appearance comparison was associated with body dissatisfaction and both muscular-ideal and thin-ideal internalization. body dissatisfaction was correlated with thin-ideal internalization among the girls but not with muscular-ideal internalization. an exploration of the more complex associations has shown an indirect effect between thin-ideal internalization as well as muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the appearance comparison among girls. greater ideal internalization predicted a greater level of social comparison and greater social comparison predicted greater body dissatisfaction. the general body comparison has been found to play a role of the strongest mediator between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among undergraduate women, pre-adolescent and middle adolescent girls (blowers et al., 2003; fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2016), consistent with the current findings. however, testing university-aged women failed to produce that same effect (fitzsimmons-craft et al., 2012). for adolescent girls, thinness and physical beauty are socially desirable attributes (giles, 2003). on the other hand, the ideal women’s body conveyed by the media also focuses on muscularity, athleticism and exercise (tylka, 2011). however, the relationship between the thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction seem to be stronger than the association between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction, which could be explained by the easier attainability of the muscular body-ideal (paterna et al., 2021). this could also explain the absence of the significant association between the muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction among girls in the current study. while athletic-ideal internalization has not been directly associated with body dissatisfaction or the association was of a small effect in previous studies, it has been found to predict unhealthy weight control behaviour among young adult women (bell et al., 2016). similarly, the current results have also not found direct associations although they have revealed an indirect relationship between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction. consistently with the current findings, positive associations between upward and downward appearance comparison, body dissatisfaction and general ideal internalization among undergraduate women has previously been found (vartanian & dey, 2013). social compar­ ison and generally internalized appearance ideals have predicted prospective changes in body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls in longitudinal study designs as well (carlson jones, 2004; rodgers et al., 2015). furthermore, physical appearance comparison has been shown to be strongly associated with disordered eating symptoms (alcaraz-ibáñez et al., 2020). the current results support the importance of appearance comparison and both types of appearance ideals internalization among adolescent girls in the development of body dissatisfaction. to sum up, the general appearance comparison works as an important explanatory mechanism of the relationship between both thin-ideal internalization and muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction. the extent to which individuals compared their physical appearance to others mediated the relationship between their thin/muscular-ideal barbierik, bacikova-sleskova, & petrovova 253 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ internalization and body dissatisfaction. the appearance comparison seems to be the risk factor which enhances body dissatisfaction among both boys and girls in late adolescence. limitations it is also important to acknowledge the limitations of the current study. one limitation is the cross-sectional design used to test the mediation model. longitudinal research would be of value in order to test the obtained results and address the causality of the relationships. however, the rationale of temporal ordering of the examined variables is clearly stated in the hypothetical model. thus, examining the mediation hypotheses with cross-sectional data is reasonable (fairchild & mcdaniel, 2017). other inaccuracies could have been caused by the self-reporting nature of the data which can be biased by social desirability, especially in the topic of “social ideals”. another limitation is using the general appearance comparison scale, even though there is a tendency of upward comparisons regarding physical appearance and there is evidence of a negative impact of the general appearance comparison on body satisfaction. in future research, distinguishing between the upward and downward comparison scales could be used to bring more specific findings. finally, while the methods of the body comparison scale and sataq-4 are standardized and widely used abroad, the scale used to measure body dissatisfaction needs further exploration of the internal structure, validity and reliability. however, scales using the assessment of one’s own body parts in order to catch the extent and focus of body dissatisfaction are often used (ricciardelli & yager, 2016). further validation of all used measures in the population of slovak adolescents might improve their psychometric qualities. implications and conclusions a direct effect between thin-ideal internalisation and body dissatisfaction was not significant among either the girls or the boys. an indirect effect through the general appearance comparison was found among the girls where greater thin-ideal internalization predicted a greater level of social comparison and greater social comparison predicted greater body dissatisfaction. among the boys, greater social comparison was only associated with greater body dissatisfaction. an indirect association between muscular-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction through the general appear­ ance comparison was found among both the boys and the girls. the direct effect was not significant for the girls but was significant and negative for the boys. according to the current results however, the general comparison seemed to enhance body dissatisfaction for both genders. this study has provided new findings regarding the functionality of a more complex model of body dissatisfaction among late adolescent boys. the cultural context seems to be important at this age. the results have contributed to the current state of research on this issue regarding the developmental period of late adolescence. the appearance com­ parison seems to be the risk factor which enhances body dissatisfaction among both boys and girls in late adolescence. finally, the current results have supported the relevance of both types of societal ideal internalization (thin-ideal and muscular-ideal) in the body dissatisfaction of girls. the internalization of body ideals among men and women contributes to body dissatisfaction, unhealthy weight control strategies and disordered eating (bell et al., 2016; brown et al., 2017). as is already known, men are less likely to admit a problem and seek treatment (brown et al., 2017), partially due to social stigma. the current findings may facilitate identifying individuals who are vulnerable to body dissatisfaction earlier, before more serious eating problems occur. body dissatisfaction prevention programs might benefit from the findings by focusing on more realistic perceptions of physical appearance in comparison to those conveyed by the media. it has been found that critical processing of unrealistic perfect body ideals helps both genders (watson & murnen, 2019). similarly, such programs might emphasize individual norms of performance and appearance evaluation in order to prevent or interrupt the negative effects of social comparison. future research could take advantage of a longitudinal study design to verify the mediational effect of the appearance comparison. in addition, the differentiation of the appearance comparisons into upward and downward comparisons might reveal more specific processes. the current findings in addition to the previous ones highlight the importance of exploring both genders in such a topic including both the thin and muscular body ideals. social appearance comparison among adolescents 254 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 244–258 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6443 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: this study was supported by scientific grant agency of the ministry of education, science, research and sport of the slovak republic and the slovak academy of sciences under contract no. vega 1/0523/20 and by the slovak research and development agency under contract no. apvv-15-0662. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. ethics statement: all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the code of ethics of the world medical association, the 1964 helsinki declaration and its later amendments. informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. references alcaraz-ibáñez, m., sicilia, á., díez-fernández, d. m., & paterna, a. 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(2020). adaptación cultural y validación del sataq-4 “sociocultural attitudes towards appearance questionnaire-4” para población peruana [cultural adaptation and validation of the sataq-4 “sociocultural attitudes towards appearance questionnaire-4” for the peruvian population]. revista chilena de neuropsiquiatria, 58(1), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.4067/s0717-92272020000100016 about the authors lucia barbierik, phd, in her research focuses on health related behaviours of adolescents and young adults especially with regard to body dissatisfaction, eating behaviours and disorders. she is a team member of national projects and regular active participant of international research conferences. maria bacikova-sleskova, phd, in her research focuses particularly on the role of family processes and their effect on the level of health and well-being of adolescents and young adults. her findings have been presented in international current content journals. veronika petrovova is a graduate of the study programme teaching of psychology in combination with biology in master´s degree. she focused on the topic of body dissatisfaction already in her bachelor thesis and she expanded her knowledge in this area in her thesis. social appearance comparison among adolescents 258 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00144 https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.10257 https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.23.1.23.26991 https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984x.2015.1052089 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2011.04.008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.05.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702619859331 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.03.010 https://doi.org/10.4067/s0717-92272020000100016 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ social appearance comparison among adolescents (introduction) body dissatisfaction social appearance comparison and internalization of societal ideals of appearance gender specificity links between internalization, social comparison and body dissatisfaction the aim of the current study method sample and procedure measures analyses results preliminary analysis exploration of the complex relationships in the models discussion limitations implications and conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors work motivation and reactions to injustice of temporary workers: roles of social identities, autonomy, and compensations research reports work motivation and reactions to injustice of temporary workers: roles of social identities, autonomy, and compensations florent lheureux 1 , clément parmentier 1 [1] laboratoire de psychologie (ur 3188), université bourgogne franche-comté, besançon, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 received: 2020-05-25 • accepted: 2021-02-22 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: lee nichols austin, central european university, vienna, austria corresponding author: florent lheureux, université de franche-comté, ufr slhs, 30-32 rue mégevand, f-25030 besançon cedex, france. e-mail: florent.lheureux@univ-fcomte.fr abstract this article addresses the impact of temporary employment on workers’ social identification, work motivation, and reactions to injustice at the workplace. more precisely, we examined whether organisational identification mediates the effect temporary work (compared to permanent employment) on work motivation, and reactions to injustice. we also examined whether autonomy in contract-choice and compensating features of job contracts (employment duration, qualification matching, and negotiated wages) have positive effects on the organisational and ingroup identifications of temporary workers. finally, we examined whether ingroup identification of temporary workers act as a mediator and moderates the effect of organisational identification. results from a survey comparing agency workers with fixed-term and permanent employees mainly from the industry sector first reveal that organisational identification mediates the negative effect of temporary work on work motivation and its positive association with self-centred reactions to injustice. nevertheless, cluster analysis revealed the existence of three subgroups of agency workers, a minority of them— autonomous and compensated—having similarly high levels of identification and motivation than permanent employees. additionally, autonomous and compensated workers identify more with their ingroup than low-autonomy and low-compensations workers, ingroup identification explaining their difference in terms of work motivation. furthermore, ingroup identification of agency workers interact with organisational identification to determine their reactions to injustice. implications, limitations, and research perspectives deriving from this study are discussed. keywords dual social identification, work motivation, organisational injustice, contingent work, autonomy and compensations “temporary employment” (or “contingent employment”) is an umbrella expression which refers mainly to four types of job contracts: fixed-term, casual, seasonal, and arranged through temporary employment agencies (some other contracts exist depending on countries’ legislations). all can be defined as “dependent employment of limited duration” (de cuyper et al., 2008, p. 2). although there were many changes during the last two decades in terms of acceptance of temporary work and more protective regulations (guest, isaksson, & de witte, 2010; schiek, 2004), temporary workers benefit on average of fewer rights and of lower wages in comparison to permanent employees (dekker & wilthagen, 2014; eurofound, 2015; pavlopoulos, 2013). there are also differences between temporary workers, with casual and agency workers having less guarantee of employment duration and /or no guarantee of indemnity when dismissed in comparison to fixed-term employees. compared to the traditional employment relationship (i.e., full-time and permanent) temporary work can be viewed as more flexible and cost-effective, because it makes organisations abler to adapt their productivity to contingent market this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3755&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1740-0356 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0642-968x https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ fluctuations (e.g., bosch, 2004). in consequence, it has strongly increased in most industrialized countries over the last four decades (eurofound, 2015; golden & appelbaum, 1992). however, several studies have challenged this view, assuming that temporary work presents “hidden costs” in comparison to permanent employment: lower health status, higher risk of work-related injuries, and reduced levels of attachment to the organisation and effort expended (allan, 2000; damiani et al., 2016; virtanen et al., 2005). thus, understanding “why” and “when” temporary employment can be associated with negative or positive outcomes is a critical issue that have stimulated abundant studies with many conceptual and theoretical approaches (cheng, & chan, 2008; de cuyper et al., 2008; wilkin, 2013). in spite of the vitality of this research domain, the study of the social identity processes associated with temporary work in comparison to permanent work remain in its infancy. in this respect, this article offers new insights on that topic. it examines: 1) whether temporary employment can have a detrimental effect on workers’ identification, work motivation, and reactions to organisational injustice (identification playing a mediating role); 2) whether autonomy in contract-choice and compensating features of job contracts foster organisational identification and; 3) it addresses the role of the dual identification of temporary workers (i.e., with the organisation and with their ingroup of temporary workers). social identity processes and the effects of temporary versus permanent job contracts since two decades, scarce but insightful studies have investigated the interplay between social identity processes and differences in job contracts (buonocore, 2010; chattopadhyay & george, 2001; de gilder, 2014; george & chattopadhyay, 2005; jiang, 2015; riketta et al., 2006; rousseau, 1998; veenstra et al., 2004; von hippel, 2006). they referred to the social identity approach (sia, hogg et al., 2017; reicher et al., 2010), which considers that individuals are motivated to have a positive, non-ambiguous, and stable personal identity in response to basic self-enhancement and uncertainty reduction needs. one common and effective way to fulfil these needs is to belong to social groups that have a clear, secure, and positive identity in comparison to other groups. accordingly, studies referring to this approach in occupational /organisational contexts consider that the profession, the organisation, and the work-team individuals belong are major sources of social identities. for the sia, social identification is the key process that links together the self and the target social category (e.g., an organisation), the self being defined (self-concept) and valued (self-esteem) in reference to the stereotype of that group (self-stereotyping). when the ingroup is perceived as having a high status in comparison to an outgroup (i.e., a higher prestige, more positive attributes etc.), individuals identify strongly to their group and adopt attitudes and behaviours favouring its members, while derogating outgroup members. this identification to the ingroup is strengthened when the individual feels explicitly valued for his/her contributions to the group and thinks he/she was granted a full /typical membership status (bartel & dutton, 2001; meeussen, & van dijk, 2016). in contrast, when the ingroup is perceived as having a low status, individuals may be motivated to leave it to enter a more valued outgroup (i.e., a social mobility strategy, jackson et al., 1996; tajfel et al., 1979). in this case, identification with the outgroup can be a strong motivator of behaviour (lheureux & auzoult, 2017; munniksma et al., 2015). thus, referring to the sia and in line with the “hidden costs” perspective, veenstra et al. (2004) and buonocore (2010) argued that temporary employment hinders these social identification processes. veenstra et al. (2004) has put forward that temporary workers, (1) cannot anticipate ongoing contact with their colleagues and thus cannot develop a secure sense of inclusion or belonging (low perceived employment security) and, (2) cannot perceive themselves as full /typical members of their work team /organisation (low in-group membership status). in addition, buonocore (2010)—in line with the theoretical analysis of rousseau (1998)—considered that organisational identification depends on the “particularistic rewards” the employee received from the organisation (e.g., status, reputation, work arrangements, sharing of important /confidential information). however, because these particularistic rewards are provided to trusted employees and because trust takes time to develop, temporary workers are less likely than permanent employees to receive such type of rewards. consequently, temporary workers generally identify less with the organisation than permanent employees and, as a result, generally display lower levels of affective commitment and work motivation (i.e., low organisational identification mediates the negative effects of temporary work on these outcomes, buonocore, 2010; veenstra et al., 2004). this mediation effect of organisational identification, can be explained by the fact that temporary work and social identity processes 404 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the higher the social identification is, the more people are inclined to adopt group-serving attitudes and behaviours, because of the tight association of the self with the target social category (lee et al., 2015; reicher et al., 2010). in this respect, permanent employees are likely to have a higher work motivation than temporary workers, because their stronger organisational identification increase their willingness to contribute to the effectiveness of the organisation. nonetheless, this mediation effect is probably partial, because other mediating mechanisms have been evidenced (e.g., social exchange processes, differences in working conditions, de cuyper et al., 2008; hünefeld et al., 2020). thus, in line with these elements, we put forward the following hypotheses: • temporary workers present lower levels of organisational identification (hypothesis 1a) and work motivation (hypothesis 1b) than permanent employees, the negative effect of temporary employment on work motivation (in comparison to permanent employment) being partially mediated by a decrease in organisational identification (hypothesis 1c). in addition, the veenstra et al. (2004) study has investigated the impact of temporary work on how employees react to organisational injustice. more precisely, they asked a sample of permanent employees to rate their willingness to adopt four reactions if unfairly treated by a manager, after being experimentally assigned to different scenarios (with a casual, fixed-term or permanent role in a team that had, or did not have, a future). two reactions were more active /problem-solving oriented (i.e., the collective response “getting together with other members of their team and bringing the issue to the attention of another manager” and the individual response “raising the issue individually with another manager”). the other two reactions were more passive /problem-avoidance oriented (i.e., the ignore reaction “ignoring the problem and getting on with the job” and the resign reaction “contemplating resigning from their job”). moreover, two of these reactions were more self-centred (i.e., trying to solve individually the problem or leaving the organisation), while the other two were more organisation-centred (i.e., trying to collectively solve the problem or compliantly accepting how the organisation function by ignoring it). the implicit rationale of veenstra et al. (2004) was that because temporary workers identify less with the organisation than permanent employees, they are less willing to invest in a collective response and thus are more likely to react otherwise. however, their results were generally non-significant. the only significant main effect that emerged was that workers assigned to the casual role scenario were more willing to resign than those assigned to a fixed-term or to a permanent role. the pattern of results for the collective response reaction was more complex and did not allow any straightforward conclusion. in our view, this is because they did not survey actual temporary workers but permanent employees experimentally assigned to hy­ pothetical scenarios. in fact, we can consider that comparing real temporary workers to permanent employees currently working into the same organisation is more likely to reveal the effect of temporary work on reactions to injustice, as well as the mediating role of organisational identification at this level. more precisely, because high social identification is known to favour collective action and protest, whereas low identification increases an individualistic /self-centred and/or passive approach (kelloway et al., 2010; klandermans et al., 2002), we propose the following hypotheses: • when facing an organisational injustice, temporary workers are less likely to engage in a collective response (hypothesis 2a) and more likely to engage in avoidant and/or self-centred reactions (hypothesis 2b) than permanent employees. • the negative effect of temporary employment (in comparison to permanent employment) on the collective response and its positive effect on self-centred and /or avoidant reactions are partially mediated by a decrease in organisational identification (hypothesis 2c). examining the roles of autonomy, compensations, and ingroup identification of temporary workers in contrast with findings showing that temporary work has a detrimental effect on workers’ organisational identifica­ tion and related-outcomes, several studies have highlighted that some features of the employing organisation can counterbalance this impact (buonocore, 2010; george & chattopadhyay, 2005; jiang, 2015). more precisely, temporary employment is less likely to have negative effects on identification when workers perceive the organisation as presti­ lheureux & parmentier 405 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ gious and distinctive, when they perceive few discriminations from colleagues and supervisors, as well as when they positively perceive the social climate and interpersonal relationships within the organisation. in the same vein, the study reported below addresses additional factors that may have an impact on temporary workers’ organisational identification. in particular, empirical studies referring to the social identity approach generally ignore the well-established fact that subgroups of temporary workers exist. therefore, our study aims at improving knowledge at this level, by identifying subgroups of temporary workers for which the detrimental effects of their job contract on organisational identification and its related outcomes would be not observed in comparison to permanent contracts. these factors, as much detailed below, are autonomy in contract-choice and compensations for having a temporary contract. in fact, the hidden costs perspective has received mixed evidence mainly because temporary workers are far from being a homogeneous group (gracia et al., 2011). globally, more positive outcomes were observed for fixed-term, longer duration, qualification-matching, high wage, and voluntarily chosen temporary contracts (i.e., for compensated and autonomous temporary workers), whereas negative outcomes were more prevalent for agency and casual work contracts, chosen under constraint, with shorter duration, low paid, and matching little the qualifications (i.e., for low-compensated /low-autonomy temporary workers) (busk et al., 2017; campbell, 2004; chambel & castanheira, 2007; dawson et al., 2017; de cuyper & de witte, 2007; feldman et al., 1995; krausz, 2000). acknowledging this heterogeneity, some studies provided typologies of temporary workers on the basis of their level of autonomy/volition in contract choice and on the presence or absence of compensations for a less secure job (de jong et al., 2009; engellandt & riphahn, 2005; feldman, 2006; glaymann, 2010; marler et al., 2002). when combined together, these typologies allow the differentiation of three sub-types of temporary workers: • involuntary workers (involuntary with no perceived opportunity for change and with no compensations). • transitory workers (preferring permanent work but accepting a temporary job with low compensations as a useful short-term option for dealing with a life-change situation, such as a career break, a home move, etc.). • voluntary workers (choosing temporary work because they consider it as enriching their resume, as well as providing them more freedom and higher wages than permanent employment, because of their distinctive marketable skills and qualifications). involuntary and transitory temporary workers represent the majority of this population, while voluntary temporary workers constitute a minority (glaymann & grima, 2008; guest, 2004; mattijssen & pavlopoulos, 2019). in line with past research (bartel & dutton, 2001; chattopadhyay et al., 2004; de gilder, 2014; riketta et al., 2006) we can consider that compensating features increase the identity-related value of temporary work in the employment marketplace. longer contract duration can be viewed as a “sign” that social mobility to the desired group (permanent employees) is feasible (intergroup permeability) in exchange of effort and loyalty to the organisation. higher wages and being hired for a job that match the qualifications can be viewed as particularistic rewards that recognise the specific skills and contributions of the employee to the organisation and as a symbol of membership granting. likewise, higher wages can be viewed as a source of positive distinctiveness with other employees (i.e., favourable social comparison). moreover, organisations giving to individuals the possibility to choose an employment contract that match their preferences (i.e., autonomy in contract-choice) are more likely to generate positive feelings and judgments (e.g., chambel & castanheira, 2007; krausz, 2000). conversely, we can consider that in absence of autonomy and compensations, nothing can counterpoise the inherent low job security and peripheral membership status associated with temporary employment in comparison to permanent employment (as stated by veenstra et al., 2004). following this rationale, we postulate that: • temporary workers having low-autonomy and low-compensations (i.e., involuntary and transitory) present lower levels of organisational identification (hypothesis 3a) and work motivation (hypothesis 3b) than permanent employees, whereas voluntary temporary workers (i.e., autonomous and compensated) are similar to permanent employees concerning these outcomes. • the decrease in organisational identification mediates the strength of their differences with permanent employees in terms of work motivation, such that the lower identification of low-autonomy /low-compensated workers in comparison to voluntary workers explain their stronger differences with permanent employees (hypothesis 3c). temporary work and social identity processes 406 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this study also addresses another theoretical issue concerning the social identity processes of temporary workers: the neglected role of their ingroup identification. as research on dual identification suggests (e.g., george & chattopadhyay, 2005; sluss & ashforth, 2008; vora & kostova, 2007), the client organisation is not the unique focus of identification for temporary workers. for instance, they can also identify with the temporary work agency, the two foci of identification (i.e., the agency and the client organisation) being potentially salient at the same time, associated and might interact to determine outcomes (george & chattopadhyay, 2005). however, in spite of its potential effects on attitudinal and behavioural outcomes, past research have not considered the role of the ingroup identification of temporary workers, in addition to other foci of identification. accordingly, our study aims at providing preliminary information regarding its determinants and consequences, alongside organisational identification. the aforementioned rationale suggests that autonomy and compensations can also have a positive impact on temporary workers’ ingroup identification. in cases of low-autonomy and low-compensations, temporary workers are likely to have a low ingroup identification because they perceived their group as having a lower status than permanent employees, this situation generating outgroup favouritism and “social mobility” strategies toward the group of permanent employees (von hippel, 2006). conversely, temporary jobs with compensating features and matching the preferences of workers are likely to increase the perceived status of temporary workers. thus, in this case, the more they perceive their ingroup as a source of positive identity—alternative to the organisation—the less they are likely to adopt an organisation-centred approach to injustice (i.e., less trying to collectively solve the problem or compliantly accepting how the organisation function), while the more they probably adopt an avoidant self-centred approach (i.e., leaving the organisation). in other words, in cases of organisational injustice, temporary workers’ ingroup identification is likely to have effects opposite to that of organisational identification. besides, temporary workers’ ingroup identification probably moderates the effects of organisational identification on their reactions to injustice. for workers that strongly identify with the organisation, injustice is likely to be experienced as a major threat to personal identity, because of the strong association of the self with the unjust organisation (kelloway et al., 2010). in this case, the degree with which temporary workers valued their ingroup and identify with it probably act as a buffer against threat, because in this case their ingroup offers a positive substitute identity. this probably facilitates their psychological detachment from the organisation in cases of injustice. accordingly, dual identifiers (i.e., those having jointly high levels of ingroup and organisational identifications) are more likely to leave the unjust organisation (i.e., to resign), because for them it is not perceived as the sole available basis for building a positive identity. conversely, if temporary workers are dependent of the organisation to satisfy their needs of belonging and of collective self-esteem (i.e., if they do not value their ingroup of temporary workers), they are less likely to resign because of a lack of a positive substitute identity. in addition, for them, the only way to protect and to restore their social identity is to engage in a collective response to injustice (a perspective consistent with the identity threat theory of petriglieri, 2011; see also holmes iv et al., 2016). by contrast, dual identifiers are less likely to collectively respond to injustice, because this strategy is not their unique possibility to preserve their positive identity. this view is consistent with research illustrating the advantages of having multiple identities: it makes people “able to switch among different social identities according to one’s current context, needs, or goals” (kang & bodenhausen, 2015, p.561). this is for instance the case of studies showing that identity switching efficiently helps to deal with stereotype threat, as identifying oneself to an alternative ingroup not targeted by the negative stereotype eliminate the threat to personal identity (rydell, mcconnell, & beilock, 2009). all these elements converge to delineate the following hypotheses: • autonomous and compensated temporary workers (i.e., voluntary) identify more with their ingroup than those low in autonomy and compensations (transitory and involuntary) (hypothesis 4a). • the more temporary workers identify with their ingroup the less they adopt problem-solving organisation-centred reactions to injustice (e.g., a collective response), whereas the more they adopt avoidant self-centred reactions (e.g., resigning) (hypothesis 4b). • the increase in ingroup identification mediates the differences of voluntary workers with low-autonomy /lowcompensated workers in terms of collective response (negative indirect effect) and of avoidant /or self-centred reactions (resign, ignore, individual response) (positive indirect effect) (hypothesis 4c). lheureux & parmentier 407 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • the higher the temporary workers’ ingroup identification is, the less organisational identification favours a collective response and the more it favours a resign reaction (hypothesis 4d). all the above-mentioned hypotheses are summarized in figure 1. in order to empirically test these ones, we conducted a survey comparing samples of actual agency workers, fixed-term, and permanent employees with regards to the target variables. we have especially investigated the heterogeneity of agency workers in terms of autonomy in contract-choice and in terms of the presence/absence of compensations, in order to assess whether these factors have an impact on their organisational and ingroup identifications and, consequently, on work motivation and reactions to injustice. figure 1 graphical representation of the hypotheses under study note. (+) is for “positive effect” and (-) is for “negative effect”. method participants and procedure we include samples of agency workers, fixed-term and permanent employees. because agency work is by far the least secure type of job contract in france (glaymann, 2010), we had a specific focus on the autonomy-related motives and compensating features of job contracts of agency workers. because we expected to compare fixed-term and permanent employees with up to three subgroups of agency workers, power analysis for a one-way anova with five groups was conducted to determine a sufficient sample size using an alpha of 0.05, a power of 0.80, and a medium effect size (f 2 = 0.25) (following the procedure of faul et al., 2009). according to these assumptions, the required minimum sample size was 200. participants were recruited via two procedures. first, several directors of temporary work agencies of the district of our university were contacted. they allowed us to distribute a questionnaire to the workers coming to the agency over a one-and-a-half-month period. they were invited to complete it at home and to deposit it in a locker reserved for this purpose during their next visit. in addition, to ensure that agency workers would be compared to permanent and fixed-term employees that worked in the same client organisations, managers from firms that employ most of our agency worker participants allowed us to distribute the survey, using the same completion and retrieval procedure. in all, 617 questionnaires were distributed and 232 (37.60%) were completed. three participants were excluded due to too many missing values (> 10%). as a result, a total of 229 participants, mainly from the industry sector (n = 201) and secondarily from the construc­ tion, retailing, and socio-cultural activity sectors constitute the final sample. sixty-nine were permanent employees, 52 were fixed-term employees and 108 were agency workers. no differences between the three groups were observed with regards to occupational and demographic variables, excepting for age, for permanent employees m = 33.87; for temporary work and social identity processes 408 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ fixed-term employees m = 26.85; for agency workers m = 27.91, f(2) = 15.49, p < .0001, (for more details regarding the sample composition see the supplementary materials). material measures common to all participants all participants first completed the items below. these items were rated on a 7-point agree-disagree likert scale. work motivation — we used 6 items from veenstra et al. (2004), which cover typical /traditional measures (i.e., commitment, effort, unpaid overtime) and non-typical measures (i.e., error identification, creativity, compliance to managers’ instructions) to broaden the range of behaviours that are susceptible to be performed by highly motivated employees. only five items were combined to obtain a reliable overall measure of work motivation (α = .72), given that the “creativity” item did not load with other items on the expected “work motivation” factor in a principal component analysis (see supplementary materials section). organisational identification — we used six items (α = .90), including three items about the work team and three items that relate to the company. we used the four items of veenstra et al. (2004) plus two other items to increase the number of items per identification foci (i.e., when i talk about my current work group, i use “us” rather than the “them”; when i talk about my current company, i use “us” rather than the “them”). reactions to organisational injustice — in line with veenstra et al. (2004), participants indicated their willingness to adopt four types of reactions if treated unfairly by a manager: (a) getting together with other members of their team and bringing the issue to the attention of another manager (collective response, which is a problem-solving organisation-centred reaction); (b) raising the issue individually with another manager (individual response, which is a problem-solving self-centred reaction); (c) trying to ignore the problem and get on with the job (ignore reaction, which is an avoidant organisation-centred reaction) and; (d) contemplating resigning from their job (resign reaction, which is an avoidant self-centred reaction). measures specific to agency workers to account for the heterogeneity of agency workers in terms of autonomy in contract-choice and compensating features, as well as to investigate their differences in terms of ingroup identification, they replied to the additional specific measures below. autonomy-related motives for being agency workers — agency workers also had to choose from a list of motives for being agency workers, those which best described their situation (max. 4 answers). these items were inductively derived from the sociological work of glaymann (2010) who has investigated the diversity of french agency workers’ autonomy-related motives. three measured a constrained choice /involuntary situation (e.g., i didn’t choose agency work; α = .77), three other items measured a transitory /contingent choice (e.g., i have chosen agency work because i’m pending for another job or for a home move; α = .81), and the remaining items measured a voluntary choice (e.g., i have chosen agency work because i like change and to be independent; α = .67). this scale obtained for each motives type a score ranging from 0 (no selected item) to 3 (all selected). compensating features and ingroup identification — finally, they also rated their average employment duration (1 = one week or less; 2 = between 1 week and 1 month; 3 = between 1 month and 6 months; 4 = more than 6 months), the average frequency with which their employment matched their qualifications (1 = rarely; 2 = often; 3 = always), the frequency of wages negotiation when hired (0 = never; 1 = infrequently; 2 = sometimes; 3 = frequently) and their identification with the agency workers group (using items similar to those used to measure organisational identification, α = .86). lheureux & parmentier 409 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data analyses more details regarding data analyses are available in the supplementary materials. we first performed a principal component analysis with promax rotation to ensure that the organisational identification and work motivation scales constituted homogeneous and distinct—though correlated—measures. then, we examined the descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations between variables. hence, we used a hierarchical ascending cluster analysis to differentiate agency workers on the basis of their autonomy-related motives for being agency worker and on the presence or absence of compensating features (contract duration, qualification matching and salary negotiation) (murtagh & contreras, 2012). we next used anovas to compare the different groups of participants regarding social identification and outcome variables. finally, to examine the different mediation and moderation hypotheses we used conditional process analyses (hayes, 2017). at this level, we not only consider the exclusion of zero to interpret the presence of an indirect effect, but we also consider the relative proximity (rp) index, which is “the distance to zero of an indirect effect’s ci as a function of its range” (götz et al., 2021, p.97). this standardised statistic allows for direct comparisons of several ci regarding their proximity or distance to zero: the higher the value, the stronger the indirect effect is across bootstrapped samples, whereas a positive value close to zero (< .10 in this article) suggests a very low and/or very unstable indirect effect. in addition, we estimate the observed statistical power for each reported indirect effect, using the procedure of schoemann et al. (2017), with a value of at least .80 considered as satisfactory. results table 1 displays descriptive statistics and main bivariate correlations between variables. consistent with the typology described in the introduction, the cluster analysis revealed three main clusters of agency workers (see figure 2). the larger cluster is that of involuntary agency workers (n = 42): they reported low levels of employment duration, qualifi­ cation matching, and wages negotiation and felt constrained, agency work being for them a default-option. the next group is that of transitory agency workers (n = 26): they also reported low levels of employment duration, qualification matching, and wages negotiation but accept agency work to accommodate a life-change period. together, these two groups constitute the majority of agency workers (n = 69, 64%) and can be considered as low-compensated /low-autono­ my. finally, voluntary agency workers (n = 40) reported higher levels of compensations and had chosen agency work mainly because they consider it as a lifestyle with its own advantages (for details see the supplementary materials). concerning anovas (table 2), when agency workers are considered together (model 1) they had on average lower levels of organisational identification (m = 4.00) and work motivation (m = 4.16) than permanent (m = 5.53 and m = 4.88 respectively) and fixed-term employees (m = 5.30 and m = 4.75 respectively) (p < .05 for all comparisons according to tamhane’s t2 test; all omnibus effects were significant, welch’s corrected f(2) ≥ 16.99, p ≤ .0001, with adjusted r2 values ranging from .13 to .43). this is consistent with the “hidden costs” perspective of the effects of temporary employment (h1a and h1b). however, these mean differences were largely due to the fact that the majority of agency workers (about 64%) reported low levels of autonomy and compensations. in fact, when the three types of agency workers were distinguished (model 2) the r 2 values significantly increased for four variables in comparison to model 1 (i.e., δr2 ranging from .04 to .27; all omnibus effects were significant, with welch’s corrected f(4) ≥ 17.43, p < .0001). consistent with hypotheses 3a and 3b, voluntary workers obtained higher scores (p < .05) than low-autonomy/low-compensated workers (i.e., transitory and involuntary) for organisational identification (m = 4.68, m = 3.64 and m = 3.56 respectively) and for work motivation (m = 5.00, m = 3.98 and m = 3.47 respectively). thus, as expected, autonomy and compensations globally reduced the differences of agency workers with fixed-term and permanent employees for these variables. however, concerning organisational identification, the differences of permanent (m = 5.53, p < .0001) and fixed-term employees (m = 5.30, p < .001) with voluntary workers remained significant. temporary work and social identity processes 410 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 1 d es cr ip tiv e st at is tic s, r el ia bi lit y c oe ff ic ie nt s w he n r el ev an t ( c ro nb ac h’ s a lp ha in p ar en th es es ), an d m ai n b iv ar ia te c or re la tio ns n ° va ri ab le n mv m or % sd 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 1 a ge 22 9 0 29 .4 6 8. 44 .1 1 .1 5* .1 1 .0 2 -.2 8* * .0 0 -.1 6 .1 8 .1 9* * .2 3* 2 g en de r a (w om en ) 22 8 1 22 % 0. 42 -.0 7 -.0 9 .0 2 .0 3 .0 5 .1 3 -.0 3 .0 4 -.0 6 -.1 3 3 po si tio n b (m an ag er ) 19 8 21 1. 19 0. 42 .0 8 .0 1 .1 7* * -.0 6 -.0 6 .0 4 .0 4 -.1 2 .0 3 -.2 1* 4 ed uc at io n le ve l 20 6 23 3. 83 0. 67 .1 7* .0 4 .0 1 .0 4 -.0 7 -.2 4* .1 7 .0 4 .1 1 .0 8 5 fu lltim e jo b? c 22 9 0 93 % 0. 26 .0 6 .0 3 .2 7* * -.1 2 -.0 1 -.0 8 -.0 5 .0 2 -.0 0 -.1 5 6 a ve ra ge e m pl oy m en t d ur at io n 10 8 0 2. 55 0. 77 .3 9* * .1 8 -.2 1* .1 4 -.3 8* * -.4 3* * .0 9 .2 3* .3 9* * .3 3* * 7 a ve ra ge fr eq ue nc y of q ua lif ic at io n m at ch in g 10 8 0 1. 94 0. 89 .4 2* * .0 4 .0 2 -.1 6 -.1 5 -.0 9 -.1 9 .1 7 .3 8* * .2 8* * 8 a ve ra ge fr eq ue nc y of s al ar y ne go tia tio n 10 8 0 0. 32 0. 58 .3 9* * .0 3 -.2 0* .3 8* * -.2 6* * -.3 5* * -.1 1 .5 0* * .5 2* * .5 4* * 9 w or k m ot iv at io n 22 9 0 4. 51 0. 89 (.7 2) .0 8 .1 5* -.2 3* * -.2 3* * -.4 3* * -.0 9 .2 7* * .5 9* * .4 6* * 10 in di vi du al r es po ns e 22 8 1 4. 31 1. 48 -.0 1 -.0 5 -.3 0* * -.2 2* .4 0* * -.2 0* .1 0 .2 1* 11 c ol le ct iv e re sp on se 22 7 2 3. 91 1. 20 -.3 2* * -.1 3* .1 6 -.1 1 -.0 2 .2 9* * -.3 0* * 12 re si gn r ea ct io n 22 6 3 2. 08 1. 55 .0 5 .0 3 -.1 3 .3 7* * -.2 5* * .4 0* * 13 ig no re in ju st ic e re ac tio n 22 9 0 4. 84 1. 38 .3 2* * -.1 8 -.2 5* * -.2 6* * -.3 1* * 14 in vo lu nt ar y m ot iv es 10 8 0 1. 06 1. 08 (.7 1) -.4 6* * -.3 3* * -.2 3* -.2 7* * 15 tr an si to ry m ot iv es 10 8 0 0. 80 1. 19 (.8 8) -.2 1* -.1 7 -.1 8 16 vo lu nt ar y m ot iv es 10 8 0 0. 55 0. 80 (.6 7) .3 2* * .4 4* * 17 o rg an is at io na l i de nt if ic at io n 22 6 3 4. 76 1. 10 (.9 0) .5 7* * 18 a ge nc y w or ke rs in gr ou p id en tif ic at io n 10 8 0 4. 18 1. 33 (.8 6) n ot e. m v = m is si ng v al ue s; a m al e = 1, f em al e = 2; b s ub or di na te = 1 , m an ag er = 2 ; c n o = 1, y es = 2 . *p < .0 5. * *p < .0 1. lheureux & parmentier 411 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 dendrogram from a hierarchical ascending cluster analysis of agency workers on the basis of their autonomy-related motives and on the presence/ absence of compensating features (ward’s aggregation method) concerning reactions to organisational injustice, a repeated measures anova showed a significant interaction between the reaction type variable (within-subject) and the type of job contract variable (between-subject), f(5.72) = 42.07, p < .0001 (using the greenhouse-geisser correction because of a violation of the sphericity assumption; mauchly’s test = 0.93, p = .004). more precisely—and partially consistent with h2a—we observed that permanent employees were more likely to collectively respond to injustice (m = 4.72) than fixed-term (m = 4.12, p = .007) and agency workers (m = 3.29, p < .0001), but were also strongly inclined to respond individually (m = 4.99). in line with the sub-hypothesis h2b, agency workers considered together and fixed-term employees were more willing to resign (m = 3.01 and m = 1.48 respectively) and to ignore injustice (m = 5.04 and m = 5.58 respectively) than permanent employees (m = 1.06 and 3.99 respectively, all p < .0001). conditional process analyses provided results globally consistent with mediation and moderation hypotheses, with some noteworthy exceptions (more details are available on request). first, consistent with the hypothesis 1c, the negative association of agency work with work motivation was significantly mediated by a reduced organisational identification, b = -0.75, se = 0.13, 95% ci [-1.01, -0.52], rp = 1.06, 1−β = 1.00. a significant but lower negative mediated effect of the fixed-term job contract was also observed, b = -0.11, se = 0.05, 95% ci [-0.21, -0.01], 1−β = .99, but a low rp value of 0.05. when the three subgroups of agency workers having different levels of autonomy and compensations were differentiated (hypothesis 3c), mediated effects of organisational identification on work motivation were significant for all these groups, but were of greater magnitude for involuntary workers, b = -0.61, se = 0.14, 95% ci [-0.92, -0.35], rp = 0.61, 1−β = 1.00, and transitory workers, b = -0.59, se = 0.14, 95% ci [-0.87, -0.33], rp = 0.83, 1−β = .1.00, than for voluntary workers, b = -0.26, se = 0.07, 95% ci [-0.41, -0.14], rp = 0.52, but a very low power 1−β of .08. thus, the greater decrease in organisational identification for low-autonomy and low-compensations workers than for voluntary workers explained their greater differences with permanent employees in terms work motivation. temporary work and social identity processes 412 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 r es ul ts (e st im at ed m ea ns , s ta nd ar d d ev ia tio ns , a dj us te d r 2 va lu es , a nd p os tho c te st s) f ro m a na ly se s of v ar ia nc e c om pa ri ng p er m an en t e m pl oy ee s an d fi xe dte rm e m pl oy ee s w ith a ll a ge nc y w or ke rs c on si de re d to ge th er (m od el 1 ) o r w ith th e th re e ty pe s of a ge nc y w or ke rs id en tif ie d in c lu st er a na ly si s (m od el 2 ) es ti m at ed m ea n (sd ) a ge nc y w or ke rs o th er e m pl oy ee s ad j. r2 va ri ab le a ll aw s in vo lu nt ar y lo w c om p. tr an si to ry lo w c om p. vo lu nt ar y co m pe ns at ed fi xe dte rm pe rm an en t m od el 1 m od el 2 δ a dj .r 2 o rg an is at io na l i de nt if ic at io n b 4. 00 (1 .0 5) 3. 56 c ( 1. 09 ) 3. 64 c ( 0. 85 ) 4. 68 b (0 .7 4) a 5 .3 0# a ( 0. 63 ) a 5 .5 3# a ( 0. 49 ) .4 3 .5 4 .1 1 w or k m ot iv at io n b 4 .1 6 (1 .0 7) 3. 47 b (0 .9 1) 3. 98 b (0 .5 9) 5. 00 # a (0 .9 1) a 4 .7 5# a (0 .3 5) a 4 .8 8# a (0 .6 2) .1 3 .4 0 .2 7 ig no re in ju st ic e b 5 .0 4 (1 .2 1) 5. 57 # a (1 .1 5) 4. 73 b 0 .8 3) 4. 68 b c ( 1. 29 ) b 5 .5 8# a (0 .7 8) c 3 .9 9 c ( 1. 57 ) .1 8 .2 2 .0 4 re si gn r ea ct io n a 3 .0 1# (1 .7 9) 3. 15 # a (1 .4 0) 2. 50 # a (1 .4 2) 3. 20 # a (2 .2 7) b 1 .4 8 b (0 .5 4) c 1 .0 6 c 0 .2 4) .3 3 .3 4 .0 1 in di vi du al r es po ns e b 4 .2 9 (1 .4 1) 3. 81 b (1 .3 3) 5. 27 # a (0 .9 2) 4. 15 b (1 .4 6) c 3 .4 6 b (1 .2 4) a 4 .9 9# a (1 .4 2) .1 3 .2 0 .0 7 c ol le ct iv e re sp on se c 3 .2 9 (1 .0 6) 3. 48 b cd (1 .1 7) 3. 00 cd (1 .0 6) 3. 28 cd (0 .9 1) b 4 .1 2 b (1 .2 0) a 4 .7 2# a (0 .8 3) .2 6 .2 7 .0 1 a ge nc y w or ke rs in gr ou p id en tif ic at io n 4. 18 (1 .3 3) 3. 64 b (1 .3 3) 3. 74 b (0 .9 7) 5. 03 # a (1 .3 3) / / / .2 3 / n ot e. a w = a ge nc y w or ke r m ea ns s ha ri ng a c om m on s up er sc ri pt (m od el 1 ) o r su bs cr ip t ( m od el 2 ) w er e no t s ta tis tic al ly d iff er en t a t α = .0 5 ac co rd in g to t am ha ne ’s t 2 te st . h ig he st v al ue s ar e m ar ke d w ith a s up er sc ri pt h as h si gn (w ith “ a” s up er sc ri pt s or s ub sc ri pt s) . δ r2 = m od el 2 r 2 m od el 1 r 2 . a ll w el ch ’s c or re ct ed f v al ue s (n ot r ep or te d he re ) a nd a ll δ ad j.r 2 v al ue s ≥ .0 4 w er e si gn if ic an t a t p < .0 5. lheureux & parmentier 413 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ partially contradicting hypothesis 2c, there were no significant indirect effects for the individual and collective respon­ ses to injustice. for the two avoidant reactions indirect effects were significant, but it was positive for the ignore reaction, agency workers: b = 0.48, se = 0.17, 95% ci [0.17, 0.83], rp = 0.26, 1−β = .95; fixed-term employees: b = 0.07, se = 0.04, 95% ci [0.01, 0.17], 1−β = .99, but a low rp value of 0.06, and negative for the resign reaction, agency workers: b = -0.52, se = 0.21, 95% ci [-0.91, -0.10], rp = 0.12, 1−β = .89; fixed-term employees: b = -0.08, se = 0.05, 95% ci [-0.19, -0.002], 1−β = .87, but a low rp value of 0.01. thus, these results revealed that for temporary workers (especially agency workers) organisational identification motivates a higher tendency to ignore the injustice and a lower tendency to resign in comparison to permanent employees. interestingly, for the resign reaction the direct effect was opposite (i.e., positive), when controlling for the negative indirect effect. this suggests that another variable intervene in explaining the difference between temporary workers and permanent employees at this level. this variable is probably the ingroup identification of temporary workers. table 3 status of each hypothesis according to empirical results hypotheses status h1a negative effect of temporary work on organisational identification. partially corroborated (for agency workers) h1b negative effect of temporary work on work motivation. partially corroborated (for agency workers) h1c the decrease in organisational identification partially mediates the negative effect of temporary work on work motivation. corroborated (but low rp for fixed-term employees) h2a negative effect of temporary work on the collective response to injustice. corroborated h2b positive effect of temporary work on avoidant and/or self-centred reactions to injustice. partially corroborated (for avoidant reactions) h2c the decrease in organisational identification partially mediates the effect of temporary work on reactions to injustice (negative effect on the collective response, positive effect on avoidant and /or self-centred reactions). partially corroborated (for avoidant reactions, but negative effect for resigning and low rp values for fixed-term) h3a low-autonomy and low-compensations temporary workers identify less to the organisation than permanent employees, while voluntary temporary workers identify similarly to them. partially corroborated (reduced but still sig. differences with permanent employees for voluntary workers) h3b low-autonomy and low-compensations temporary workers have a lower work motivation than permanent employees, while voluntary temporary workers are similarly motivated. corroborated h3c the decrease in organisational identification mediates the strength of their differences with permanent employees in terms of work motivation, the lower identification of low-autonomy / low-compensated workers than voluntary workers explaining their higher differences with permanent employees. corroborated (but very low statistical power for voluntary workers) h4a voluntary temporary workers identify more with their ingroup than those low in autonomy and compensations. corroborated h4b negative effect of ingroup identification of temporary workers on problem-solving organisationcentred reactions to injustice (collective response) and positive effects on avoidant /or selfcentred reactions (resign, ignore, individual response). partially corroborated (non-significant for ignore) h4c the higher voluntary workers’ ingroup identification mediates their differences with lowautonomy /low-compensated workers in terms of collective response (negative indirect effect) and avoidant or self-centred reactions (positive effects). corroborated (but low statistical power for the individual response) h4d the higher the temporary workers’ ingroup identification is, the less organisational identification favours a collective response and the more its favours a resign reaction. corroborated (but low rp for the collective response) in fact, as expected by the hypothesis 4a, voluntary workers (i.e., autonomous and compensated) have a significantly higher ingroup identification (m = 5.03), than transitory workers (m = 3.84, p < .0001) and involuntary workers (m = 3.74, p < .0001) (see table 3). additionally, in line with hypothesis 4b, ingroup identification was positively associated with self-centred reactions to injustice, resign: b = 0.75, se = 0.16, 95% ci [0.43, 1.06]; individual response: b = 0.31, temporary work and social identity processes 414 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ se = 0.13, 95% ci [0.06, 0.56], while negatively associated with the collective response, b = -0.38, se = 0.10, 95% ci [-0.58, -0.19]. however, it was not significantly associated with the ignore reaction, b = -0.13, se = 0.11, 95% ci [-0.36, 0.08]. moreover, in line with hypothesis 4c, ingroup identification significantly mediated the positive association of the voluntary workers’ group with the individual response, b = 0.43, se = 0.19, 95% ci [0.03, 0.82], but a low rp value of 0.04 and a low power 1−β of .63, and the resign reaction, b = 1.04, se = 0.29, 95% ci [0.54, 1.69], rp = 1.15, 1−β = .95, as well as its negative association with the collective response, b = -0.53, se = 0.15, 95% ci [-0.82, -0.24], rp = 0.41, 1−β = .89. finally, as expected by hypothesis 4d, there were two significant interaction effects of organisational identification and ingroup identification, on the resign reaction, b = 0.27, se = 0.11, 95% ci [0.05, 0.48], rp = 0.12, and on the collective response, b = -0.15, se = 0.07, 95% ci [-0.29, -0.01], but a low rp value of 0.04. as illustrated by figures 3a and 3b, a high identification with the ingroup of agency workers completely reversed the effect of organisational identification (i.e., decreasing the collective response and increasing the resign reaction). thus, dual identifiers were less willing to collectively solve the problem and more willing to leave the organisation, while agency workers that identified with the client organisation only were more willing to engage in collective action and less willing to resign. figure 3a agency workers’ (aws) ingroup identification moderates the relationships of organisational identification with the collective response to organisational injustice (simple slopes) lheureux & parmentier 415 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3b agency workers’ (aws) ingroup identification moderates the relationships of organisational identification with the resign reaction to organisational injustice (simple slopes) discussion summary of findings and study contributions to knowledge most hypotheses received full or partial support from the results (see table 3), although with some statistical limitations for few of them (low rp or power values, see the “limitations” subsection). first, in line with the hidden cost perspective (e.g., veenstra et al., 2004), the results illustrated that agency work is on average associated with lower organisational identification and lower work motivation than permanent work (as expected by hypotheses 1a and 1b) (table 2). however, agency workers with autonomy and compensations (i.e., voluntary) had a higher organisational identification and a higher work motivation than low-autonomy and low-compensations workers (i.e., involuntary and transitory), in line with hypotheses 3a and 3b. thus, for a minority of agency workers (autonomous and compensated) the hidden costs are reduced, as their differences with permanent employees were lowered. thus, in addition to features of the employing organisation (i.e., high prestige, low perceived discrimination, positive social climate, buonocore, 2010; george & chattopadhyay, 2005; jiang, 2015), factors that differentiate subgroups of workers also have an impact on organisational identification. additionally, the positive association of organisational identification with work motivation was consistent with past research (meyer et al., 2006; riketta, 2005). these results are consistent with the idea that compensating features can be viewed as particularistic rewards and symbols of membership granting (bartel & dutton, 2001; buonocore, 2010) that value the social identity of temporary workers. the significant positive correlations between compensating features and agency workers’ ingroup identification corroborate this perspective (table 1). besides, as expected by hypothesis 4a, we observed that voluntary workers strongly identified with the agency workers’ group because this type of job contracts matched more their career preferences (high autonomy in contract choice) and offered them more advantageous compensations (e.g., higher wages) than permanent employment, whereas other subgroups of agency workers identified less with their ingroup because they perceived it as having a lower status than permanent employees (von hippel, 2006) (table 2). this study also contributes to research on how employees react to organisational injustice (table 3, figures 3a, and 3b). first, it is the first study that illustrates the mediating role of organisational identification regarding the impact of temporary employment on avoidant reactions to workplace injustice (i.e., ignore and resign reactions). the more they identify with the organisation the less they resign (in line with h2c), but the more they ignore injustice (contrary to temporary work and social identity processes 416 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h2c); perhaps because this injustice was not described as directed to the participant and perhaps because organisational identification may maintain a trusting and loyal attitude to the organisation (al-shalabi, 2019). furthermore, permanent employment fosters problem-solving reactions more than temporary work, especially the collective response (in line with h2a), but this effect was not mediated by organisational identification (which contradicts h2c). at this level, our results revealed for the first time the role of the ingroup identification of temporary workers (expected by h4b, h4c, and h4d): the more they identify with their ingroup the more they adopt self-centred reactions and the less they collectively respond to injustice, ingroup identification mediating the effect of temporary work on these reactions. furthermore, ingroup identification mediated the association of the voluntary workers’ subgroup with a more self-centred and avoidant approach to injustice (i.e., resign). in addition, agency workers’ ingroup identification moderated the effect of organisational identification on the collective response and resign reaction (as expected by h4d, see figures 3a, and 3b). accordingly, organisational identification increased the willingness to collectively respond to injustice and decreased the willingness to leave the organisation, excepting when agency workers strongly identified with their ingroup. in this case, the opposite pattern was observed: agency workers that strongly identified with the client organisation were more willing to resign and less willing to engage in a collective action. thus, our results suggest the existence of a “double-edged sword effect” of the dual identification of agency workers: on the one hand they've got the same motivation at work than permanent employees, but on the other hand they are strongly inclined to leave the organisation if they feel treated unfairly. this is probably because organisational injustice is more likely to be experienced as a threat to personal identity when workers identify strongly with the organisation (kelloway et al., 2010). in this case, the choice between the “fight” (collective response) or the “flight” (resign) reactions depends on the degree with which agency workers perceive their ingroup as an alternative source of positive identity (a result consistent with identity threat theory, holmes iv et al., 2016; petriglieri, 2011). study limitations and conclusion despite its merits, this study suffers from some limitations. first of all, inferences regarding causal relationships between variables were limited because of the use of a cross-sectional design. nevertheless, this design was suited to examine for the first time the roles of ingroup identification, autonomy, and compensations regarding the effect of temporary work on organisational identification, work motivation, and reactions to injustice. additionally, the sample was relatively small and mainly came from the industry sector. these elements limit the generalizability of our results, which require to be replicated on larger and more diverse samples. however, these results are relatively free of confounding effects, as the sampling procedure allowed us to compare agency workers, fixed-term, and permanent employees from the same organisations. additionally, as summarized by table 3, some results require to be examined in larger sample to increase statistical power. this would also help to determine whether the low rp values observed for some results were really due to this sample size (which may have limited the precise estimation of low magnitude indirect effects) or if any ignored important moderator variable must be identified to explain the range of ci. anyway, until such studies are conducted, these results must be cautiously considered as relevant but pending further evidence. finally, although this has favoured the comparability of our study with veenstra et al. (2004), the use of their work motivation scale has limited the integration of our results in the mainstream research on work motivation. thus, any subsequent research should use another work motivation scale (e.g., that of wright, 2004) to ensure the robustness of our findings across different measures. keeping these limitations in mind, this study contributed to knowledge in several ways concerning, 1) the impact of temporary work on work motivation and reactions to organisational injustice (in comparison to permanent employ­ ment), 2) the differentiation of subtypes of temporary workers according to their perceived autonomy and compensa­ tions for a less secure job contract and, 3) the role of social identification processes in this context. as a result, it suggests several avenues for future research and important practical implications can derive from it (see supplementary materials for more details). lheureux & parmentier 417 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: we thank all managers and employees who took part in this study. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data is freely available at supplementary materials supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharchives (for access see the index of supplementary materials below) • additional statistical tables for the various studies, definitions and explanation of study concepts and results index of supplementary materials lheureux, f., & parmentier, c. 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(2004). the role of work context in work motivation: a public sector application of goal and social cognitive theories. journal of public administration: research and theory, 14(1), 59–78. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muh004 about the authors florent lheureux is phd and full professor in social psychology at the university of bourgogne franche-comté. he is currently the head of his research department (laboratory of psychology) and his work is dedicated to the study of social psychological processes underlying workand health-related behaviours. clément parmentier is a doctoral researcher in social and work psychology at laboratory of psychology of the university of bourgogne franche-comté. his work addresses the social identity processes associated with temporary employment, as well as whether temporary work have an impact on workers’ person-environment fit. lheureux & parmentier 421 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 403–421 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3755 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014846 https://doi.org/10.1017/s2071832200013195 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617715068 https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0349 https://doi.org/10.1348/0144666042565380 https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyi024 https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430206067556 https://doi.org/10.1002/job.422 https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1790 https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muh004 https://www.psychopen.eu/ temporary work and social identity processes (introduction) social identity processes and the effects of temporary versus permanent job contracts examining the roles of autonomy, compensations, and ingroup identification of temporary workers method participants and procedure material data analyses results discussion summary of findings and study contributions to knowledge study limitations and conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors preserving the flame: the past, present, and future of ejop editorial preserving the flame: the past, present, and future of ejop johannes karl 1 [1] dublin city university, dublin, ireland. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 125–127, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11945 published (vor): 2023-05-31 corresponding author: johannes karl, school of psychology, dublin city university, room h254, collins avenue ext, dublin, 9, ireland e-mail: johannes.karl@dcu.ie europe’s journal of psychology has a long history of pushing boundaries in psychological publishing, being an early journal adopting a diamond open access model, allowing for the sharing of information to a wide range of audiences by a wide range of authors. as i am taking over the editorship of this journal, i want to continue this legacy and continue to push boundaries with this journal. with this will come a number of changes that aim to stimulate new ways of how we do research. these changes can be summarized under three key points: exploration, replication, and reflection. since the inception of ejop it has published more than 800 articles from 1458 unique authors across 70 countries. this represents a substantial level of diversity, which is made even more compelling by the fact that nearly one fifth of all articles in ejop have been authored by cross-national author teams. in the future we want to carry forward this diversity, specifically encouraging submissions from areas historically underrepresented in psychological journals (henrich, 2020). raising the unexpected, curious, and thought provoking to the eye of the scientific community is in my opinion one of the cornerstones of the advancement of science. by being presented with empirical observations that make us question our held beliefs we can grow simultaneously as individual researchers and as scientific community. while a large focus since the replications crisis in psychology has been ensuring the robustness of the cumulative psychological corpus (lilienfeld, 2017; shrout & rodgers, 2018), many researchers have highlighted that attempts at replication need to go hand in hand with an open curious exploration of novel phenomena (fife & rodgers, 2022). in line with this come the first two concrete changes for ejop that will be relevant for all authors going forward. first, we now require all articles to fulfill level 3 of our open science practices as outlined on the ejop website. in practices this means that all studies submitted for review in ejop require their data, code, and materials to be made available in a form which allows other researchers the ability for unrestricted access and reuse with proper attribution. this means we will no longer publish quantitative studies which do not allow for computational replication of a study without input from the original authors. to support authors and reviewers in ensuring the highest quality of their data, data-dictionary, and code as well as the plain language statements, we will create additional junior editor positions in ejop who will oversee the application of these processes, for which we encourage applications to the editor. we are cognizant of the heterogeneity of research approaches and fields, especially in qualitative research (prosser et al., 2022). we therefore encourage authors who aim to submit an article which contains data that for legal, ethical, or other reasons cannot be made public at the moment of submission to contact the editor in advance of submission to negotiate alternative solutions (such as time-delayed release or alternative approaches to anonymization). second, notwithstanding the previous point about the value of curious exploration as basis of scientific progress, to build psychology as a discipline we require a modicum of understanding how robust our findings are and what are the boundary conditions of our observed effects. while much has been written in the main-stream psychological literature about the failures to replicate highly visible studies these approaches only cover a small sub-section of our total field. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11945&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5166-0728 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ even more, it is often unclear why an effect was not replicated; was there genuinely no effect, was the observed effect in the original study time-bound or culture bound? without systematic investigation of the limits of our own effects and systematic study what determines these limits it is highly likely that psychology will continue to deliver unreliable findings or will be forced to substantively reduce its scope of investigation. with this in mind come the second set of concrete changes to ejop. we now invite registered replications of published psychological research. authors can either pre-register at any reputable repository of choice or authors can submit a registered report to ejop which will be reviewed and can be accepted in principle prior to the commencement of the study. to support coherent coverage of the psychological literature (for a review see makel et al., 2012) we will place primacy on manuscripts reporting replication efforts of studies which have not received replication efforts prior. further, we are explicitly inviting papers that systematically examine the replicability of established psychological constructs or effects across both time and cultural boundaries. third, while we believe that these aforementioned changes are necessary to allow psychology to grow as discipline, we are aware of the existing global and institutional inequity in access to high quality information on theory and application of existing and novel methods. we want to support efforts in narrowing this gap allowing for equal partici­ pation of all researchers in the advancement of psychology. therefore, we invite tutorials, practical guides, and detailed reflections aimed at methodology in psychological research, both about research procedures (such as experimental procedures and psychometric measures) as well as about statistical techniques and advances. we will place an especially strong focus on publications which support readers in the practical implementation, beyond theoretical considerations, with code, protocols, and other concrete implementations. we believe that ejop as a diamond open-access journal is uniquely placed to allow both authors and readers to disseminate and access this crucial information without the barriers often faced by many researchers aiming to access information in the literature. finally, in line with our mission to make psychological science accessible to all researchers, either as readers or as authors, we also want to ensure that research in ejop is accessible to the public. while our diamond open access model allows interested general public readers access without traditional barriers, this does not mitigate the barriers often experienced through lacking accessibility of the scientific content. this lack of accessibility can lead to the spread of misinformation based on published articles which are mischaracterized or reduce the informational impact science can have on the general public. to address this, we will we now require all published studies to prepare a plain language statement in addition to an abstract which summarizes the research in a form accessible to the general public. we hope that by providing research in both a way that is without monetary barriers and accessible to a broader public we can support a more evidence based public discourse. to support authors in the creation of these plain language statements we will create junior editor positions who will support and oversee this process. for these positions we explicitly encourage applications especially from researchers and practitioners with a background in communicating science effectively. overall, our hope is that these changes will help ejop to continue to grow, fulfilling its legacy of a journal open to all, while also addressing the new challenges psychology and the wider society haven been facing since the near 20 year of its inception. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references fife, d. a., & rodgers, j. l. (2022). understanding the exploratory/confirmatory data analysis continuum: moving beyond the “replication crisis.” american psychologist, 77, 453–466. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000886 preserving the flame 126 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 125–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11945 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000886 https://www.psychopen.eu/ henrich, j. (2020). the weirdest people in the world: how the west became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. farrar, straus and giroux. lilienfeld, s. o. (2017). psychology’s replication crisis and the grant culture: righting the ship. perspectives on psychological science, 12(4), 660–664. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616687745 makel, m. c., plucker, j. a., & hegarty, b. (2012). replications in psychology research: how often do they really occur? perspectives on psychological science, 7(6), 537–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460688 prosser, a. m. b., hamshaw, r. j. t., meyer, j., bagnall, r., blackwood, l., huysamen, m., jordan, a., vasileiou, k., & walter, z. (2022). when open data closes the door: a critical examination of the past, present and the potential future for open data guidelines in journals. british journal of social psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12576 shrout, p. e., & rodgers, j. l. (2018). psychology, science, and knowledge construction: broadening perspectives from the replication crisis. annual review of psychology, 69(1), 487–510. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011845 about the author johannes karl is an assistant professor at the dublin city university. his current work broadly focuses on the origin and expression of individual differences in personality, values, and mindfulness. he has published on cross-cultural approaches to mindfulness, cross-temporal investigations of personality in literature using text mining, and network-perspectives on individual differences. ongoing research projects include quantitative approaches to philosophy as way of life, the use of network statistics in cross-cultural psychology, and state-trait interactions of mindfulness. karl 127 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 125–127 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11945 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616687745 https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612460688 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12576 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122216-011845 https://www.psychopen.eu/ anchoring effect of performance feedback on accuracy of metacognitive monitoring in preschool children research reports anchoring effect of performance feedback on accuracy of metacognitive monitoring in preschool children kamila urban ab , marek urban c [a] institute for research in social communication, slovak academy of sciences, bratislava, slovakia. [b] department of psychology, faculty of arts, charles university, prague, czech republic. [c] department of history and theory of art, faculty of art and design, jan evangelista purkyne university, usti nad labem, czech republic. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 104–118, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 received: 2019-12-06 • accepted: 2020-06-15 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: frederic vallee-tourangeau, kingston university, kingston, united kingdom corresponding author: kamila urban, dubravska cesta 9, 845 11 bratislava, slovakia. e-mail: kamila.p.urban@gmail.com supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract preschool children are generally inaccurate at evaluating past and predicting future performance. the present study examines the effect of performance feedback on the accuracy of preschoolers’ predictive judgments and tests whether performance feedback acts as an anchor for postdictive judgments. in experiment 1, preschool children (n = 40) solved number patterns, and in experiment 2 they solved object patterns (n = 59). the results in both experiments revealed, firstly, that children receiving performance feedback made more accurate predictive judgments and lowered their certainty after their incorrect answer. secondly, the children relied on performance feedback more than on actual task experience when making postdictive judgments, indicating that performance feedback was used as an anchor for subsequent postdictive judgments. keywords preschool children, metacognitive monitoring, performance feedback, anchoring effect, predictive and postdictive judgments metacognitive monitoring plays an important role in human learning in areas ranging from memory and perception to reading and problem solving (flavell, 1979; kuhn, 2000) and it is essential in planning and evaluation of our actions (panadero, 2017). when planning future steps, we have to predict whether we will be able to solve problems; when evaluating, we have to ask ourselves whether the steps we chose enabled us to achieve our goals (winne & hadwin, 1998; zimmerman & schunk, 2011). in other words, before we start performing a task we make predictive judgments about our future performance; and during or after the task, we make postdictive judgments about the outcomes (schraw, 2009; winne, 2011). when we monitor our actions accurately, our predictions and postdictions match the actual performance and we can regulate our activities effectively (dunlosky & rawson, 2012; roebers & spiess, 2017). the ability to monitor performance in a task (nelson & narens, 1994) improves from preschool age (bernard, proust, & clément, 2015; destan, hembacher, ghetti, & roebers, 2014; lyons & ghetti, 2011, 2013; roebers, 2014; schneider & lockl, 2008). preschool children already understand that their past performance should predict their future performance, but they are still overconfident in predicting performance on the new set of items (lipko-speed, 2013). preschoolers are generally more accurate when making postdictions than when making predictions (pieschl, 2009). in order to improve the accuracy of predictive and postdictive judgments in preschool age, researchers examined the effect of performance feedback (destan, spiess, de bruin, van loon, & roebers, 2017; lipowski, merriman, & dunlosky, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2397&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4547-9804 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2772-1388 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 2013; urban & urban, 2018, 2020; van loon, destan, spiess, de bruin, & roebers, 2017). receiving performance feed­ back can improve metacognitive accuracy in preschoolers’ postdictions (urban & urban, 2018, 2020) and predictions (lipowski et al., 2013) from the age of 4 (geurten & meulemans, 2017). to answer the question of why feedback has an effect on preschool children, geurten and meulemans (2017) decided to test the anchoring effect of feedback on the predictive judgments of children aged 4, 6 and 8 years old in memory tasks. the anchoring effect is the adjustment of estimation based on previously presented external information, i.e., the anchor (bahník, englich, & strack, 2017; epley & gilovich, 2006; simmons, leboeuf, & nelson, 2010; tversky & kahneman, 1974). they found that children adjusted their judgments in relation to feedback regardless of other accessible information related to the task. moreover, they found a positive correlation between predisposition to adjust judgments on the basis of an anchor and inclination to rely on feedback when making memory predictions. children who were more sensitive to the anchoring effect were also more sensitive to the feedback effect. according to the conversational inferences theory of anchoring (grice, 1975), the important role of social actors in the anchoring effect is emphasized; people apply implicit rules of natural conversations (such as trust related to the role of expert) in testing situation, using the anchor value to anticipate the range of possible answers. klein et al. (2014) concluded that the anchoring effect was stronger when presented as a statement rather than a question, in participants believing the anchor had been created by a person and not a computer (zhang & schwarz, 2013) or when the anchor had been created by an authority rather than the participants themselves (frederick, mochon, & savary, 2014). these findings can be related to stipek and tannatt’s (1984) assumption that children learn to accurately evaluate their performance by introjecting external feedback from important social actors. the selective accessibility theory of anchoring on the other hand explains anchoring as a combination of hypothesis-consistent testing and semantic priming (mussweiler & strack, 1999). in this theory, the anchor increases the accessibility of specific knowledge related to the target in the memory and the individual then tests whether the value of the knowledge in their memory matches the value of the anchor (higgins, 1996). the anchoring effect is stronger the less knowledge people have about the target and more uncertain about the situation they are (mussweiler & strack, 2000; see also bahník, englich, & strack, 2017). the goal of the present study is to explore the effect of performance feedback on the accuracy of predictive judgments in preschool children and to test whether performance feedback acts as an anchor in postdictive judgments. in order to prevent possible bias occurring because of the domain specificity of metacognitive monitoring at preschool age, we designed two experiments with different kinds of tasks (number patterns in experiment 1 and object patterns in experiment 2). overconfidence at the preschool age from the developmental perspective, preschoolers are overconfident when predict their future performance (lipko et al., 2009) and also when they judge their past performance (destan et al., 2014; urban & urban, 2020). however, the overall overconfidence decreases with increasing age (o’leary & sloutsky, 2017; roebers, 2002). preschoolers, unlike older children and adults, do not become underconfident with practice and remain overconfi­ dent over several exam sessions (lipko et al., 2009, 2012). underconfidence with practice is a phenomenon in which people modify previously overconfident judgments so they become underconfident after a first study-test trial (koriat, sheffer, & ma’ayan, 2002). there are, however, several factors affecting overconfidence rates even at preschool age. uncertainty monitoring the accuracy of overall monitoring depends on the ability to differentiate between correctly and incorrectly solved items (roebers, 2014). children can discriminate explicitly between correct and incorrect responses in perceptual tasks from the age of 3 (lyons & ghetti, 2011, 2013), but cannot do so in memory tasks until the age of 4 or 5 (destan et al., 2014; hembacher & ghetti, 2014). that means that metacognitive monitoring in preschool age is domain specific and as such depends on the nature of the tasks. however, there is also a developmental shift. metacognitive monitoring shifts from being domain specific to being domain general between the age of 8 to 15 years old (geurten, meulemans, & lemaire, 2018; veenman & spaans, 2005; vo, li, kornell, pouget, & cantlon, 2014). urban & urban 105 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ preschool children can already differentiate between correct and incorrect answers (coughlin, hembacher, lyons, & ghetti, 2015; destan et al., 2014; destan et al., 2017; roebers, 2014; van loon et al., 2017), but when they monitor incor­ rect answers they are still overconfident when making predictive as well as postdictive judgments (lipko, dunlosky, & merriman, 2009; van loon et al., 2017; schneider, visé, lockl, & nelson, 2000). therefore, inaccuracy at the preschool age is most evident when children monitor incorrect answers, but at the same time, preschoolers are becoming more uncertain about their incorrect answers. hembacher and ghetti (2014) tested the accuracy of postdictive judgments in 3, 4 and 5 year old children. they found that 4 and 5 year old children are more certain about their correct memory answers than about their incorrect ones. moreover, in the subsequent regulation of the next steps, children more often selected their correctly solved items to be evaluated and their incorrectly solved to be ignored. even 3 year old children were able to select their less certain answers not to be evaluated. when children had the possibility to skip or withhold the task if they thought they do not remember the item, 3 year old children were more likely to skip a task which was not remembered (balcomb & gerken, 2008; lyons & ghetti, 2013). to summarize, children’s ability to monitor their own uncertainty develops slowly from the age of 3 (lyons & ghetti, 2011) and affects the regulation of next steps (coughlin et al., 2015; efklides, 2006; ghetti, hembacher, & coughlin, 2013). to explain the phenomenon, pillow (2002, 2008) proposed that children could monitor uncertainty if they understood analogies (gentner & smith, 2012). children are able to perform analogies if they can represent the relevant relations. children from the age of 2 can represent binary relations and from the age of 5 to 6 they can process ternary relations (halford & andrews, 2014). if there is a causal relation between analogical reasoning and uncertainty monitoring, preschoolers should be able to adjust their uncertainty monitoring in relation to feedback. previous research has supported the theory: 6 year old children still falsely believed that their incorrect answers were correct, but after receiving performance feedback their confidence in their incorrect answers fell (destan et al., 2017; van loon et al., 2017). roebers, mayer, steiner, bayard, and van loon (2019) found that 8 year old children showed an uncertainty and hesitation when monitoring incorrect answers, but they improved the detection of correctly and incorrectly solved items by gaining repeated experience with testing. urban and urban (2020) came to the same conclusion with high-performing preschool children. however, only high-performing preschoolers were able to foster the accuracy of their monitoring with repeated experience, low-performing preschoolers required external cues, such as performance feedback, to be able to monitor their performance more accurately. moreover, performance feedback has been proved to be effective in improving overall monitoring accuracy in preschool children (urban & urban, 2018). task difficulty as a predictor of monitoring accuracy preschoolers are more accurate when monitoring performance in easier tasks than they are in more difficult tasks (geurten & meulemans, 2017; lipko et al., 2009; roebers, 2014). children begin to recognize task difficulty at preschool age (van loon et al., 2017), but cannot sufficiently utilize this information when making predictions and postdictions in more cognitively demanding tasks because of working memory overload (destan et al., 2017; kvavilashvili & ford, 2014; van loon et al., 2017). finally, finn and metcalfe (2007, 2008) suggested that people are underconfident with practice because they use their initial performance in the first session as anchor for future judgments (i.e., the memory for past test heuristic). despite their performance improving in subsequent sessions they do not calibrate their judgments in relation to new information that their performance has improved, but rely instead on their initial judgment. to explain persistent overconfidence in children, finn and metcalfe (2014) conducted a series of experiments with children aged from 8 to 10 years old and concluded that overconfidence in children is a result of faulty memory, rather than a failure to use the anchoring effect of prior performance (see also yang, sun, & shanks, 2018). this means that children are unable to remember their initial performance properly and therefore cannot calibrate their judgments more accurately. roebers (2014) therefore suggested that preschoolers’ monitoring judgments are linked to their ability to access a source of information or knowledge. this idea finds support in the selective accessibility theory of anchoring (mussweiler & strack, 1999). in other words, if children cannot access information about past performance in their memory, they cannot use that information as an anchor for future postdictive or predictive judgments; however, they could utilize an additional source of information, such as performance feedback. anchoring effect of performance feedback 106 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ present study because of the domain specificity of metacognitive monitoring at preschool age, we still know little about children’s predictions and postdictions on solving different kind of tasks. most research on preschoolers’ monitoring ability has used memory tasks, such as images (destan et al., 2017; van loon et al., 2017) or vocabulary learning (geurten & meulemans, 2017; lipowski et al., 2013). in the present research, we aim to explore the effect of performance feedback using two analogical reasoning tasks. experiment 1 focuses on numerical orders (number patterns), the symbolic arithmetic task, where children make number sequences by arranging numbers in a specific order following an example. experiment 2 concerns patterns of objects, the non-symbolic task. the objects are arranged in a particular order and the child has to identify the pattern and then predict what follows. numerical orders and object patterns belong to basic mathematical skills on which other mathematical concepts are based and are therefore important in later education (see anderson & cordes, 2013; hawes, nosworthy, archibald, & ansari, 2019; mundy & gilmore, 2009; seo & ginsburg, 2004; xenidou-dervou, molenaar, ansari, van der schoot, & van lieshout, 2017). the present study has three main objectives. the first is to investigate whether preschoolers’ predictive judgments become more accurate following performance feedback and having solved several items in subsequent learning trials (finn & metcalfe, 2008). the second objective concerns the effect of performance feedback on monitoring of incorrect answers. preschool children who do not receive feedback tend not to remember incorrectly solved items (finn & metcalfe, 2014) and are unable to utilize their recent experience to produce more adequate judgments on subsequent performance (lipko et al., 2009). the aim is to examine whether preschool children are able to reduce certainty about future performance (predictive judgments) after incorrectly solved items and receiving negative performance feedback. the third objective concerns the anchoring effect of performance feedback. in research by destan and colleagues (2017), the postdictive judgment was made following performance feedback with performance feedback having an immediate effect on the judgment. children did not rely on their own task experience, but followed the externally administered feedback. furthermore, van loon et al. (2017) found that 5-year-old children did not rely on item difficul­ ty when making judgments after receiving performance feedback. this finding was further tested by geurten and meulemans (2017) with similar results. our aim is to test whether performance feedback has a stronger effect on the accuracy of postdictive judgments than task experience does. if the link between performance feedback and postdictive judgment is stronger than the link between judgment and task experience that would support the hypothesis that performance feedback acts as an anchor. experiment 1 method participants the sample consisted of 40 children (24 boys) aged m = 66.81 months (sd = 3.416) from 61.83 to 73.90 months. children were recruited from state preschools in the vicinity of a university town and were native speakers. testing was performed by a trained experimenter. written consent was obtained from the children’s parents and verbal assent from the children. materials the numerical order task was adapted from the mini lük children’s game (see supplementary materials, appendix a) and served as stimuli. the children were presented with twelve items one-by-one; the answer sheet was the same for all 12 items. the predictive and postdictive judgments were indicated on a 5-point scale. the children used a colour thermometer (destan et al., 2017) ranging from dark blue to dark red, indicating very unsure to very sure. urban & urban 107 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ procedure the trained experimenter tested the children individually in a quiet room in their preschool. children were randomly assigned to two groups: performance feedback (pf); and no feedback (nf). the detailed description of procedure can be found in supplementary materials (appendix b). the children indicated their answers by pointing to the answer sheet. after each item had been completed, the experimenter asked the child to make a postdictive judgment about his or her performance on a 5-point scale from “i am very unsure that i solved the item correctly” to “i am very sure that i solved the item correctly”. if the child had been assigned to the pf group then after making postdictive judgment, a child received feedback about whether the answer was correct. the experimenter then asked the child to make a predictive judgment about how he or she would perform on the next item from “i am very unsure i will solve the next item correctly” to “i am very sure i will solve the next item correctly” (see figure 1). if the child had been assigned to the nf group, once the child had made postdictive judgment the experimenter immediately asked on the predictive judgment. figure 1 research procedure for nf and pf groups note. the arrows indicate the hypothesized effect of the performance feedback investigated in the research. analytical approach in the results section, three main objectives were analysed. firstly, the general effect of performance feedback on the absolute accuracy of predictive judgments was examined. secondly, the effect of performance feedback on the accuracy of uncertainty monitoring using predictive judgments (model 1) was examined. finally, analyses to explore the anchoring effect of performance feedback were conducted. to examine the anchoring effect, the postdictive judgment given directly after the item and before the performance feedback was used. multilevel analysis in model 2 was used to examine the effect of the performance feedback on the postdictive judgments given immediately after an incorrect answer. another multilevel analysis in model 3 examined the effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments following an incorrect answer and subsequent negative performance feedback. for detailed description of analytical approach, see supplementary materials (appendix c). all the analyses were conducted in ibm spss (version 25). results descriptive statistics for the mean values of performance, predictive judgments and postdictive judgments can be found in table 1. anchoring effect of performance feedback 108 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 mean and standard deviation of performance, predictive judgments and postdictive judgments in experiment 1 measure no feedback performance feedback m sd m sd performance 0.31 0.47 0.35 0.48 predictive judgments 3.69 0.99 2.98 1.23 bias index for predictive judgments 0.63 0.23 0.40 0.34 postdictive judgments 3.77 0.80 3.32 1.17 bias index for postdictive judgments 0.64 0.24 0.48 0.31 note. bias index represents underestimation (values below zero) or overestimation (values over zero) of performance. closer to zero represents more accurate estimation. effect of performance feedback on monitoring accuracy of predictive judgments to explore the effect of performance feedback on the absolute accuracy (bias index) of predictive judgments, a one-way anova with the feedback group (nf, pf) as a between-subject factor was conducted. the analysis revealed a signifi­ cant effect of performance feedback, f(1, 38) = 6.163, p = .018, with a large effect size ηp2 = .14 (cohen, 1988). the children in the pf group (m = 0.40, sd = 0.34) made more accurate predictive judgments than the children in the nf group (m = 0.63, sd = 0.23). to examine the effect of performance feedback on predictive judgments following an incorrect answer, a multilevel analysis was conducted and model 1 was created. overall, the feedback group had a significant effect, f(1, 30.483) = 14.031, p < .001, while item number was non-significant, f(10, 42.403) = 0.968, p = .485, as was interaction term, f(10, 42.403) = 1.364, p = .230. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = -0.227, se = 0.223, p = .318) and a significant effect for performance feedback (b = 0.839, se = 0.277, p = .006). children in the pf group (m = -0.372, se = 0.162) lowered their future expectations after incorrectly solved item in comparison to children in the nf group (m = 0.344, se = 0.101). anchoring effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments in model 2 the effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments following an incorrect answer was examined. the postdictive judgment directly followed an incorrect answer, but the performance feedback was given afterwards, so any feedback effect would be indirect only. as expected, the feedback group effect was non-significant, f(1, 150342.906) = 2.655, p = .103, item number effect was also non-significant, f(11, 911.089) = 1.475, p = .135, while the effect of interac­ tion term was significant, f(11, 911.089) = 3.000, p = .001. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = -0.140, se = 0.251, p = .579) and a non-significant effect for performance feedback (b = 0.664, se = 0.345, p = .054). children in the pf group (m = -0.170, se = 0.191) did not monitor their incorrect answers significantly more accurate than children in the nf group (m = 0.260, se = 0.182). the aim of model 3 was to assess the effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments made following an incorrect answer and negative performance feedback. previous model 2 showed that performance feedback had a non-significant effect on uncertainty monitoring when the judgment did not immediately follow the performance feedback. on the contrary, in model 3, performance feedback had a significant effect, f(1, 25.473) = 8.894, p = .006, item number did not, f(10, 177.857) = 0.615, p = .800, nor did the interaction term, f(10, 177.857) = 1.590, p = .113. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = -0.406, se = 0.313, p = .197) and a significant effect for performance feedback (b = 0.883, se = 0.400, p = .028). children in the pf group (m = -0.262, se = 0.166) made significantly lower postdictive judgments following an incorrect answer and negative feedback in comparison to children in the nf group (m = 0.287, se = 0.080). moreover, a comparison of the parameters for the feedback group in model 2 (b = 0.664, se = 0.345, p = .054) and in model 3 (b = 0.883, se = 0.400, p = .028) indicated that performance feedback had a stronger influence on subsequent urban & urban 109 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ postdictive judgments regardless of actual task experience. this supported the hypothesis that performance feedback acts as an anchor. discussion on experiment 1 preschool age children are often inaccurate when judging their learning performance. when making predictions about future performance, preschoolers do not become underconfident with practice and are overconfident across several trials (lipko et al., 2009). the current study supports these findings: the preschoolers who received no feedback did not become more accurate in their predictions across items. however, children who received performance feedback became more accurate in their subsequent predictions (lipowski et al., 2013). moreover, children in the feedback group lowered their future expectations after they had received performance feedback and were less sure in their subsequent judgment. our research supports the previous conclusion that children usually predict they will get the answer right, but if they receive negative information about their performance (negative performance feedback following an incorrect answer), they are less certain than children who do not receive feedback (kvavilashvili & ford, 2014). moreover, preschool age children can use the external information about their performance as an anchor not just for the next prediction but also for subsequent postdictive judgments. they utilized the performance feedback from the previous item more than they utilized their own task experience in the subsequent item. this finding is in line with finn and metcalfe (2007, 2008) who showed that children rely on the explicit information given by the experimenter and not on their previous performance. in addition to geurten and meulemans (2017) who studied the anchoring effect of feedback on predictive judgments, results of the current study support the anchoring effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments of preschool children. task difficulty could affect the accuracy of metacognitive monitoring at this age. preschool children seem to find it difficult to monitor more cognitively demanding tasks (destan et al., 2017; kvavilashvili & ford, 2014). in the case of difficult tasks children from the age of 4 use a perceived task difficulty as a guide in their judgments instead of actual task experience (geurten, willems, germain, & meulemans, 2015). we therefore conducted experiment 2 based on object pattern tasks. object patterns are also part of basic math skills but different to the number patterns in nature (resnik, 2000; see also dehaene et al., 1998). ability to solve a nonsymbolic task (experiment 2) does not depend on the ability required to perform the symbolic arithmetic task (experiment 1). solving the arithmetic task depends on understanding of abstract representations of numbers, which tends to develop from school age, whereas nonsymbolic knowledge develops earlier, at preschool age, influencing the ability of preschoolers to accurately monitor performance in these tasks (barth, la mont, lipton, & spelke, 2005; rubinsten, henik, berger, & shahar-shalev, 2002). experiment 2 method participants the sample consisted of 59 children (31 boys) aged m = 68.86 months (sd = 6.011) from 41.80 to 79.80 months. all the children were recruited from state preschools in the vicinity of a university town and were native speakers. a trained experimenter performed the testing. written consent was obtained from the children’s parents and verbal assent from the children. materials the children completed 12 analogical reasoning items, adapted from the children's mini-luk game, in the same order. the children had to identify the pattern of objects and then predict what followed (see supplementary materials, appendix d). procedure see supplementary materials (appendix b). anchoring effect of performance feedback 110 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ analytical approach see supplementary materials (appendix c). results descriptive statistics for the mean values of performance, predictive judgments and postdictive judgments can be found in table 2. table 2 mean and standard deviation of performance, predictive judgments and postdictive judgments in experiment 2 measure no feedback performance feedback m sd m sd performance 0.34 0.48 0.47 0.50 predictive judgments 3.23 1.00 3.09 1.07 bias index for predictive judgments 0.47 0.23 0.30 0.20 postdictive judgments 3.45 0.89 3.34 0.90 bias index for postdictive judgments 0.53 0.17 0.36 0.19 note. bias index represents underestimation (values below zero) or overestimation (values over zero) of performance. closer to zero represents more accurate estimation. effect of performance feedback on monitoring accuracy of predictive judgments to explore the effect of performance feedback on the absolute accuracy (bias index) of predictive judgments, a one-way anova with the feedback group (nf, pf) as a between-subject factor was conducted. the analysis revealed a signifi­ cant effect of performance feedback, f(1, 57) = 9.176, p = .004, with a large effect size ηp2 = .139. the children in the pf group (m = 0.30, sd = 0.20) made more accurate predictive judgments than the children in the nf group (m = 0.47, sd = 0.23). to examine the effect of performance feedback on predictive judgments following an incorrect answer, a multilevel analysis was conducted and model 1 was created. overall, performance feedback had a significant effect, f(1, 58.811) = 6.348, p = .014, while item number was non-significant, f(10, 280.114) = 1.062, p = .392, as was the interaction term, f(10, 280.114) = 1.762, p = .067. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = -0.265, se = 0.246, p = .282) and a significant effect for performance feedback (b = 1.031, se = 0.319, p = .001). children in the pf group (m = -0.213, se = 0.130) lowered their future expectations after incorrectly solved item in comparison to the children in the nf group (m = 0.227, se = 0.117). anchoring effect of performance feedback using postdictive judgments model 2 examined the effect of performance feedback on postdictive judgments made immediately after an incorrect answer. as we expected, the effect of the feedback group was non-significant, f(1, 68.059) = 0.144, p = .706. the effects of item number, f(11, 51.007) = 2.410, p = .017, as well as interaction term, f(11, 51.007) = 3.151, p = .003, were significant. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = 0.171, se = 0.196, p = .388) and a non-significant effect for performance feedback (b = 0.190, se = 0.255, p = .461). children in the pf group (m = -0.018, se = 0.093) did not monitor their incorrect answers significantly more accurate in comparison to children in the nf group (m = 0.032, se = 0.091). model 3 concerned the effect of performance feedback on the second postdictive judgment given after an incorrect answer. the analysis revealed that the feedback group had a significant effect, f(1, 54.430) = 6.821, p = .012, item number did not, f(10, 57.042) = 1.275, p = .266, nor did interaction term, f(10, 57.042) = 1.614, p = .126. the estimates of b-coefficients reported a non-significant effect for intercept (b = -0.165, se = 0.195, p = .402) and a significant effect for performance feedback (b = 0.729, se = 0.242, p = .005). children in the pf group (m = -0.227, se = 0.128) showed urban & urban 111 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ significantly lower postdictive judgments following an incorrect answer and negative feedback in comparison to the children in the nf group (m = 0.184, se = 0.092). the results indicate that preschool children ameliorated their postdictive judgments in line with the performance feedback regardless of an actual task experience. comparing parameters of model 2 (b = 0.171, se = 0.196, p = .388) and model 3 (b = 0.729, se = 0.242, p = .005), this supported the hypothesis that performance feedback has an anchoring effect. discussion on experiment 2 in experiment 2 the children solved reasoning task involving patterns of objects. similarly as in experiment 1 the preschool children made significantly more accurate predictions about their future performance after receiving perform­ ance feedback (geurten & meulemans, 2017). performance feedback also had an effect on uncertainty monitoring, with children who received feedback after an incorrect answer lowering their future expectations. overall improvement in monitoring accuracy following feedback provides further evidence of the importance of external cues in monitoring development at preschool age (urban & urban, 2018, 2020). similarly as in experiment 1, the examination of the postdictive judgments in experiment 2 provided further support that performance feedback acts as an anchor. the performance feedback effect was transferred to the judgment regardless of task experience. in other words, children relied on the external information rather than internal cues (van loon et al., 2017). moreover, the children that received no feedback in experiment 2 were able to utilize the internal cues from task experience; however, once they had received performance feedback, they relied on an external cue. this result can be related to the nature of the task since object pattern task employed in experiment 2 is developmentally more appropriate than the number pattern task used in experiment 1 (barth et al., 2005). this result can also provide further support for the conclusion that preschool children find highly cognitively demanding tasks more difficult to monitor (destan et al., 2017; kvavilashvili & ford, 2014) and that it is important to maintain a level of task difficulty that is developmentally adequate so the children remain motivated to proceed (geurten et al., 2015; schneider, 1998; shin, bjorklund, & beck, 2007). general discussion the first aim of this study was to examine monitoring accuracy of predictive judgments in preschool children. in the two experiments preschool children solved analogical reasoning tasks based on patterns. experiment 1 contained number pattern task and experiment 2 contained object pattern task. in the pattern based task the children had to systematically explore how the various elements were repeated and find the number or object that followed. patterning is an important part of basic mathematical skills that is important in the early years of school age (anderson & cordes, 2013; hawes et al., 2019; seo & ginsburg, 2004). the object patterns are nonsymbolic in nature, while the number patterns are symbolic and the ability to solve them depends on the child understanding abstract representations of numbers, which develops from school age (barth et al., 2005; mundy & gilmore, 2009). effect of performance feedback on monitoring accuracy of predictive judgments from the age of 4, children understand that their past performance predicts their future performance and therefore children's second predictions for the same set of tasks are more accurate than the firsts. moreover, children use their past performance as a cue for subsequent predictions. however, they have no valid cues for making predictions for new set of tasks (lipko-speed, 2013). for this reason, in order to foster the accuracy of predictive judgments, geurten and meulemans (2017) decided to provide an external cue to the preschoolers. they adapted calibration feedback consisting of information about performance as well as about the monitoring accuracy. however, young children that are not yet able to process ternary relations (halford & andrews, 2014) or the low-performers (urban & urban, 2018, 2020) may have difficulties to take into account this rather complex external cue, but they are able to improve their monitoring accuracy when performance feedback is provided. anchoring effect of performance feedback 112 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in both experiments conducted in this study, the effect of performance feedback on the overall accuracy of predictive judgments was large (ηp2 = .140 and ηp2 = .139). the finding that preschool children ameliorated their predictions in line with feedback is consistent with previous research findings (lipowski et al., 2013). more importantly, in both experiments the preschoolers were able to utilize performance feedback to reduce certainty about future performance after incorrectly solving an item. the ability to monitor uncertainty is important for subsequent regulation of actions, for example modifying learning strategy, like skipping an item or seeking help and plays an important role in self-regu­ lation of learning in primary education (coughlin et al., 2015; destan et al., 2017; van loon et al., 2017). anchoring effect of performance feedback using postdictive judgments the second aim of the study was to test whether performance feedback acts as an anchor on postdictive judgments. the anchoring effect is the adjustment of estimation based on previously presented external information, an anchor (bahník, englich, & strack, 2017). geurten and meulemans (2017) conducted a series of experiments and found that children who were more sensitive to feedback effect were also more sensitive to the anchoring effect. more importantly, they concluded that feedback acts as an anchor on predictive judgments regarding memory tasks, because the children in their research relied on performance feedback rather than on task difficulty. this result is in line with research by van loon and colleagues (2017) who studied the utilization of internal and external cues in making postdictive judgments in memory tasks. they found preschoolers who received no feedback used task difficulty as an internal cue when making postdictive judgments; however, when feedback was received, the external information became more important than task experience. both the experiments conducted in this study support these conclusions: the preschool children making postdictive judgments relied more on performance feedback than on task experience and thus, by definition (tversky & kahneman, 1974), performance feedback acted as an external cue serving as an anchor for the children’s judgments. the cue utilization hypothesis (koriat, 1997) assumes that there is always an interplay between several internal, external or mnemonic cues which accounts for the accuracy of judgments. roebers et al. (2019) stated that cue utilization is a factor driving recognition improvements over time. however, this theory cannot explain why an individual making judgments decides to rely on one particular cue and not another (koriat, 2016; winne, 2011). therefore to understand why the preschoolers chose to use the externally administered performance feedback instead of task experience we can turn to theories related to the anchoring effect, such as conversational inferences theory (grice, 1975). this theory states that people making judgments transfer social rules from everyday life (e.g., trust in the expertise of scientists or superior knowledge of teachers) to the test situation, and so they tend to believe that the feedback (anchor) administered by the experimenter is informed and close to the actual result (jacowitz & kahneman, 1995). this theory has been criticised because anchoring effect also occurs in situations where feedback is extremely unlikely (e.g., when using number 212 as an anchor for the age of mahatma gandhi; see bahník, englich, & strack, 2017). however, this is not the case with performance feedback in our designs because participants could trust that the experimenter’s feedback was correct and could be relied upon when making subsequent judgments. raaijmakers, baars, schaap, paas, and van gog (2017) in a similar setting manipulated performance feedback in order to test the effect of dominantly positive or dominantly negative feedback and none of the participants noticed them doing so. future research should address whether the perceived validity of judgments relies on social rules by explicitly questioning the validity of the experimenter or feedback. this could examine whether participants rely on feedback even when compromised, administered by an “uninformed” experimenter lacking credibility or that is inconsistent with the participants’ internal cues (see also baadte & kurenbach, 2017; brunot, huguet, & monteil, 1999). furthermore, the selective accessibility theory of anchoring (mussweiler & strack, 1999) states that anchor improves accessibility of topic related knowledge in the memory. individuals then test whether knowledge in their memory matches the value of the anchor. this is resulting in stronger anchoring effect in unfamiliar situations, where the individual lacks expertise or feels uncertain (mussweiler & strack, 2000). research by schneider (1998) shows that children’s judgments have higher metacognitive accuracy when they are doing familiar tasks, because they can relate to their previous experience. however, in the research on feedback effect there are often used unfamiliar tasks to ensure the results are unbiased (geurten & meulemans, 2017; urban & urban, 2019; van loon et al., 2017). as winne (2011) urban & urban 113 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 104–118 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2397 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pointed out students perform better on unfamiliar tasks when the overall evaluation standards are set externally by the teachers (hamilton, 1985; kiewra, benton, kim, risch, & christensen, 1995), but once students gain experience of the subject they can begin to use task familiarity as an internal cue on their own (begg, anas, & farinacci, 1992). however, the high degree of familiarity with the ideas prevents the feedback from having an effect, which is especially alarming when related to prejudice or stereotype reduction (swire, ecker, & lewandowsky, 2017). applying this theory to preschoolers, future research should address differences in the effect size of performance feedback in familiar and unfamiliar tasks to see whether as preschoolers gain more experience of the task, the performance feedback loses its’ potential to improve accuracy in metacognitive monitoring. both conversational inferences theory and selective accessibility theory of anchoring have therefore practical im­ plications in administration of feedback in educational process. stipek and tannatt (1984) found that children from preschool age, perceiving their teachers as authorities, introject teachers’ feedback and use it as the general assessment criteria for their own success. the repetition of information without any feedback can, on the other side, results in the reverse situation when children introject the information itself. plichtová (2013) described the situation in which students were unable to accept feedback on the familiar concepts and an attempt to administer feedback was perceived as a personal threat. moreover, urban (2017) in research with art students described that individuals become reluctant to pursue personal goals when receiving negative feedback from peers or teachers. these results are in line with research on performance feedback in which venables and fairclough (2009) concluded that feedback following failure led to adverse changes in mood and motivation and participants were on the verge of abandoning the task. winne (1996) therefore proposed that it is necessary to create learning environment allowing individuals to decide when to adjust knowledge in line with external feedback and when to rely on their own internal cues, such as personal experience or problem familiarity. in this context, the conceptual connection between anchoring effect theory and feedback administration may bring us closer to understanding the cue selection process that begins at preschool age. funding: this research project was supported by the scientific grant agency of the ministry of education of the slovak republic, grant vega 2/0134/18. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: we would like to thank the student research assistants who helped with the data collection. ethical approval: the research was approved by the ethical committee of institute for research in social communication sas. supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available (urban & urban, 2021): • figures showing tasks used in experiments 1 and 2. • detailed description of procedure. • analytical approach. index of supplementary materials urban, k., & urban, m. 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(2011). handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance. london, united kingdom: routledge. about the authors kamila urban is a postdoctoral researcher at the institute for research in social communication at slovak academy of sciences and an assistant professor at department of psychology, charles university in prague. her main research interests are fostering of metacognition from preschool age and effects of self-regulated learning. marek urban is an assistant professor at the faculty of art and design, j. e. purkyne university in czech republic. his research interests include enhancing creativity, performance and intrinsic motivation in different learning environments using feedback and more complex autonomy-supporting and goal-oriented strategies (such as self-regulated learning or academic coaching). anchoring effect of performance feedback 118 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000422 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 https://doi.org/10.21909/sp.2018.02.757 https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2019.2239 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-019-00460-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.11.011 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2004.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-008-9116-y https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614538458 https://doi.org/10.1016/s1041-6080(96)90022-9 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.11.001 https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-017-0772-6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.04.002 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ anchoring effect of performance feedback (introduction) overconfidence at the preschool age present study experiment 1 method results discussion on experiment 1 experiment 2 method results discussion on experiment 2 general discussion effect of performance feedback on monitoring accuracy of predictive judgments anchoring effect of performance feedback using postdictive judgments (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethical approval supplementary materials references about the authors sociodemographic variables and psychological distress of moroccan college students research reports sociodemographic variables and psychological distress of moroccan college students hatim ben ayad 1 , adil najdi 2 , meftaha senhaji 1 [1] uae/u08fs, fs, abdelmalek essaâdi university, tetouan, morocco. [2] faculty of medicine and pharmacy, abdelmalek essaâdi university, tetouan, morocco. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 received: 2023-04-03 • accepted: 2023-12-23 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: alice cancer, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: hatim ben ayad, department of biology, faculty of sciences, bp 2121, abdelmalek essaâdi university, tetouan, morocco. e-mail: hatim.benayad@etu.uae.ac.ma abstract because college students are an important category of the population highly vulnerable to mental health problems, this study aims to investigate the sociodemographic variables associated with the increase in psychological distress levels among moroccan college students. participants (n = 1147; mean age 20.00, sd = 2.6; 703 females and 444 males) completed a survey, which included a sociodemographic questionnaire and the arabic version of the brief symptoms inventory (bsi). non-parametric tests were conducted to explore the data. non-parametric tests revealed that being female, having a physical illness, experiencing depression and anxiety, having sleep problems, and living with only their mother or with a family member other than their parents are associated with a significant increase in the level of psychological distress. in summary, specific sociodemographic factors exert a notable influence on the psychological distress levels experienced by college students. consequently, it is imperative to intensify research endeavors aimed at delving into the intricacies of college students’ mental health and its correlated ramifications. keywords mental health, psychological distress, sociodemographic variables, moroccan students, college students college student populations are particularly vulnerable to the development of mental health problems (liu et al., 2019; mortier et al., 2018). their experiences in college are marked by heightened stress due to the burden of responsibility, independence, and academic demands, making them more susceptible to psychological distress and the onset of mental disorders (liu et al., 2019; pedrelli et al., 2015). despite being recognized as a pivotal contributor to the country’s future wealth and economy (knapp & wong, 2020), there is a notable dearth of research on the mental health of moroccan college students and its associated factors. the concept of psychological distress is known to be vague and hard to define. however, it is clear that it serves as a significant indicator of psychological suffering, often presenting as symptoms of depression and anxiety, accompanied by specific personality traits and behavioral issues (drapeau et al., 2012; staneva et al., 2015). consequently, symptoms of anxiety and depression are frequently assessed through the framework of psychological distress (chiu et al., 2018; copeland et al., 2014; gore et al., 2011), alongside of other somatic symptoms and behavioral problems (drapeau et al., 2012). one of the significant reasons to draw attention to college students is the alarming prevalence of mental health problems within this demographic worldwide (auerbach et al., 2016; auerbach et al., 2018). existing studies on moroc­ can college students underscore the substantial prevalence of mental distress, particularly among medical students. a study involving 358 medical students, predominantly females (238 individuals), at the faculty of medicine in marrakech, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11689&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0881-6488 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3646-6908 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1604-4038 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ employing the general health questionnaire (ghq) (goldberg, 1972), revealed that over 66% of participants exhibited psychological distress, scoring above 4 points on the ghq (benali & chichou, 2020). moreover, another study conducted on 637 medical students, with a majority being females (66%), at the faculty of medicine and pharmacy in rabat, utilizing the french version of the ghq (salama-younes et al., 2009), demonstrated that 298 participants (46.9%) experienced psychological distress, surpassing the four-point threshold (lemtiri chelieh et al., 2019). notably, among the critical factors interlinked with psychological distress, stressful life events assume prominence, particularly within the college environment (liu et al., 2019). likewise, psychological distress is associated with various sociodemographic factors. gender, for instance, has been identified as a significant contributor to psychological distress (drapeau et al., 2012). mental distress levels differ based on gender, with females generally reporting higher levels of psychological distress than males (boyd et al., 2015; van droogenbroeck et al., 2018). in response to stress, traumatic events, or other risk factors, gender differences in mental health problems are reflected in different types of mental disorders experienced; males are more likely to suffer from substance use disorders and antisocial behavior, while females are more prone to depression and anxiety (rosenfield & mouzon, 2013). therefore, females are expected to show higher levels of psychological distress since they are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression symptoms than males. moreover, living in a college environment may require changes in living arrangements, potentially leading to increased psychological distress levels (agerup et al., 2015). for example, living with roommates and reduced parental control may result in unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol consumption and smoking, both negatively associated with psychological distress levels (deasy et al., 2015; lorant et al., 2013). additionally, separation from parents may result in the absence of parental support to cope with college stress, leading to increased psychological distress (reeve et al., 2013). moreover, moroccan college students who are not living with their parents report more self-efficacy (otmane et al., 2020), and self-efficacy is negatively associated with the psychological distress (grøtan et al., 2019; saleh et al., 2017). therefore, investigating living arrangements effect on the psychological distress levels of moroccan college students is very important. in addition, college students are typically responsible for their well-being, for the first time for freshmen, including their physical health (ridner et al., 2016). therefore, their physical health may be vulnerable to unhealthy behaviors or a lack of healthcare-seeking behavior. additionally, the stressful college environment can lead to fatigue (kizhakkeveettil et al., 2017), and both fatigue and stress are linked to the physical well-being of college students (jacob et al., 2013). thus, college students suffering from physical illnesses are more likely to report more psychological distress than healthy individuals (de rooij et al., 2021; saifullah et al., 2020) lastly, poor sleep quality has been found to be associated with an increased risk of developing mental health problems (chu & richdale, 2009). in fact, sleep problems are associated with increased psychological distress as they contribute to elevated depression and anxiety symptoms (ghrouz et al., 2019). furthermore, college students often report significantly low sleep quality compared to other demographics (carter et al., 2017; dinis & bragança, 2018), with stress considered one of the main factors responsible for low sleep quality (almojali et al., 2017). study aims given the heightened susceptibility of college students to psychological distress and the lack of research on moroccan college students’ mental health, this study aims to investigate the sociodemographic factors associated with psychologi­ cal distress among moroccan college students. method participants and procedure the sample strategy used for this study was stratified cluster sampling. at first, the sampling was based on three levels: 1) the city, 2) the type of establishment (open access, i.e., institutions with unlimited number of seats vs. regulated access, i.e., institutions with limited number of seats), and 3) study level (i.e., undergraduate students of the first year, undergraduate students of the second year, and undergraduate of the last year and graduate students). for each ben ayad, najdi, & senhaji 263 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ institution, we defined a two-stage cluster in which the precise sample size was randomly selected as a function of the institution’s number of students. the numbers of the total samples and the subsamples from each institution were calculated using epi-info 7 software’s stat calc application, with the following parameters: • source population size: 100, 828 subjects (students of abdelmalek essaâdi university). • maximum tolerated error margin: fixed at 3%. • sampling method: stratified cluster sampling with three layers. • number of layers: 9 layers. • expected frequency of the parameter to be estimated: 50% by caution (max size with 50%). this study aimed for a medium effect size, denoted by cohen’s d = 0.5, indicating a moderate difference between groups. setting the significance level (α) at .05, the study aimed for a power of .80, signifying an 80% chance of detecting the hypothesized effect if it genuinely exists. with these parameters in mind, the power analysis was conducted using a two-sample t-test. the goal was to achieve a power of .80, which is widely considered acceptable in psychological research. considering these criteria and the complex nature of the study, including stratified cluster sampling with nine layers and a maximum tolerated error margin of 3%, the power analysis revealed that a total sample size of 1060 participants would be necessary to achieve the desired power level. to account for potential refusals and non-responses, the sample size was increased by 10%, resulting in a final sample size of 1200 students. of 1200 graduate and undergraduate students asked to participate in the study, only 1147 questionnaires were retained after excluding uncompleted questionnaires. the sample was composed of students of abdelmalek essaâdi university that includes eight establishments; five faculties and three institutions. most of the participants were females (n = 703, 61.1%), and 444 of the participants (38.6%) were males. the mean age of the participants was 20.00 (sd = 2.6) years (range: 17 to 49 years). most of the participants were single (n = 1021, 88.8%), 94 (8.2%) were in relationships, 13 (1.1%) were no longer in a relationship, and 22 (1.9%) participants did not answer the question about their marital status. finally, 407 (35.7%) of the participants were undergraduate students in the third year and graduate students, 369 (32.1%) of the participants were undergraduate students of the second year, and 371 (32.3%) were undergraduate students of the first year. instruments the brief symptom inventory is a self-reported instrument that assesses psychological symptoms across nine dimensions: somatization, obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. it comprises 53 items rated on a 5-point likert scale, with responses ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely) (derogatis & melisaratos, 1983). the cronbach’s alpha coefficient results for the nine dimensions ranged from .70 to .89, indicating adequate internal consistency (broday & mason, 1991; pereda et al., 2007). the arabic version of the bsi used in this study has demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, with values ranging from .70 to .83 across the nine dimensions (abdallah, 1998). furthermore, in zouini et al.’s (2019) study involving a sample of moroccan high school students, the internal consistency of the nine dimensions of the bsi ranged from 0.71 to 0.85. in this study, cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranged from .69 to .81. the positive symptom total (pst), which counts the number of symptoms that the respondent has experienced, was selected to assess participants’ current level of psychological distress and showed excellent internal consistency (α = .94). statistical analysis since the data did not follow normal distribution (skewness = .074 and kurtosis = -.089), non-parametric tests were performed to compare different groups scoring on bsi. all statistical analyses were performed using the statistical package for the social sciences (spss) 21.0 (ibm) software for windows. psychological distress associated factors 264 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results sociodemographic characteristics of the study sample the study sample was composed of 61.1% females (n = 703) and 38.6% males (n = 444). the living arrangements of the participants were as follows: 70.2% (n = 807) were living with their parents, 7.8% (n = 90) were living with their mother, 1.5% (n = 17) were living with their father, 11.7% (n = 134) were living alone, and 6.4% (n = 74) were living with another family member. additionally, 16.6% (n = 191) reported consulting the hospital due to a physical illness, 3.7% (n = 42) reported taking medication for depression, 7.6% (n = 87) reported taking medication for anxiety, and 4.6% (n = 53) reported taking medication for sleep (table 1). table 1 sociodemographic characteristics of the study sample sociodemographic characteristic n (%) gender male 444 (38.6%) female 703 (61.1%) living arrangements with parents 807 (70.2%) with mother only 90 (7.8%) with father only 17 (1.5%) alone 134 (11.7%) other family member 74 (6.4%) consulting hospital for physical problem in the past month yes 191 (16.6%) no 912 (79.3%) taking medication for anxiety in the past month yes 87 (7.6%) no 1004 (87.3%) taking medication for sleep problems in the past month yes 53 (4.6%) no 1064 (92.5%) taking medication for depression problems in the past month yes 42 (3.7%) no 1042 (90.6%) sociodemographic variables association with scoring on bsi the comparison of positive symptom total (pst) scores on the bsi among different groups revealed significant differences: between male participants and female participants (z = -5.77, p < .001), between participants who reported consulting a hospital for a physical problem during the past month and those who did not (z = -5.946, p < .001), between participants who reported taking medication for depression in the past month and those who did not (z = -3.776, p < .001), between participants who reported taking medication for anxiety in the past month and those who did not (z = -5.246, p < .001), and between participants who reported taking medication for sleep troubles in the past month and those who did not (z = -3.992, p < .001). additionally, a significant difference was found when comparing bsi-pst scores of participants who reported different living arrangements χ2(4) = 13.47, p = .008 (table 2). ben ayad, najdi, & senhaji 265 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 pst scores of different groups sociodemographic variable mean (n) sd z p gender male 64.12 (370) 31.33 -5.77 .000 female 76.03 (603) 31.10 consulting hospital for a physical problem yes 85.45 (171) 33.38 -5.946 .000 no 68.52 (802) 30.54 taking medication of depression in the past month yes 87.67 (30) 26.09 -3.776 .000 no 70.99 (943) 31.74 taking medication of anxiety in the past month yes 93.20 (67) 30.41 -5.246 .000 no 69.90 (906) 31.22 taking medication of sleep in the past month yes 93.06 (46) 32.88 -3.992 .000 no 70.43 (927) 31.28 living arrangements with parents 70.50 (690) 32.02 χ2 = 13.467 .008 with mother alone 76.83 (81) 30.9 with father alone 69.35 (14) 32.7 alone 71.16 (128) 30.21 with another family member 80.5 (60) 29.83 note. p is significant at the 5% level. discussion in this study, female participants scored significantly higher than their male counterparts. in fact, females exhibit heightened sensitivity to stress, potentially elevating the susceptibility to anxiety symptoms (parker & brotchie, 2010), leading to an increased psychological distress than males. additionally, disparities in social activities and character traits exist between genders (rosenfield & mouzon, 2013). for instance, a study involving 2,588 individuals from the spanish general population unveiled that the elevated psychological distress levels observed in females compared to males can be attributed to the prevalent use of emotion-focused coping mechanisms among females, a strategy associated with heightened psychological distress (matud et al., 2015). moreover, gender-based differences in social status, equity, and opportunities correlate with adverse mental health outcomes for females (van droogenbroeck et al., 2018; who, 2000). in terms of physical illness, the results of this study revealed that participants who reported consulting a hospital due to a physical illness in the month before participating in this study had significantly higher pst scores than participants who did not report a physical problem. this association can be explained by the fact that physical illness has been associated with an increase in feelings of stigma and loneliness (arslan, 2021; gamwell et al., 2018), and stigma and loneliness have been found to be associated with an increase in psychological distress symptoms (mcintyre et al., 2018; menec et al., 2020). moreover, participants who reported taking medication for anxiety and depression scored significantly higher than participants who did not. participants who reported taking medication for depression and anxiety during the previous month of data collection suffer from depression and anxiety symptoms, and these later are highly linked to the psychological distress (copeland et al., 2014; gore et al., 2011), which supports the results of this study. additionally, participants who reported taking medication for sleep disturbances during the past month scored significantly higher than participants who did not. taking medication for sleep problems means that the concerned participants are actually suffering from sleep disturbance. one of the possible explanations of the association between sleep problems and increased psychological distress is stress. this latter was found to increase significantly among college students who reported poor sleep quality (almojali et al., 2017). also, sleep problems were found directly associated with an increase in anxiety and depression symptoms which lead to an increased psychological distress (chiu et al., 2018; ghrouz et al., 2019). psychological distress associated factors 266 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lastly, this study’s findings indicate that participants who reported living solely with their mothers and those residing with a family member other than their parents scored significantly higher in pst compared to participants with different living arrangements. this result suggests that separation from parents or the absence of a father is linked to increased psychological distress. the heightened psychological distress in cases of parental separation can be elucidated by the lack of parental support to cope with stress (reeve et al., 2013). another possible explanation lies in participants’ potential discomfort when living with a family member other than their parents, fostering dissatisfaction with the living arrangement and, consequently, elevated psychological distress (kumaraswamy, 2013). regarding the increased psychological distress among students living solely with their mothers, this result might be attributed to the absence of a father, whether due to death or family breakdown, a factor associated with mental health problems (amato, 2001; patton et al., 2014). conclusion college students undergo a critical phase marked by an increased susceptibility to developing mental health concerns. this study’s findings indicate noteworthy trends: females tend to report significantly higher levels of psychological distress compared to males. additionally, a correlation exists between physical illness and heightened psychological distress symptoms, as well as a link between sleep disturbances and increased psychological distress levels among college students. these revelations align consistently with findings from various studies (boyd et al., 2015; chu & richdale, 2009; de rooij et al., 2021; dwyer-lindgren et al., 2017; kawada et al., 2011; redeker et al., 2010; saifullah et al., 2020; wiklund et al., 2012). furthermore, the study indicates that living arrangements and experiences of anxiety and depression can act as pivotal risk factors contributing to the exacerbation of psychological distress levels among college students. consequently, further efforts are needed among this demographic to deeply investigate mental health of college students and its outcomes on their academic performance and social life. one potential avenue of the efforts involves conducting further research to develop requisite tools for assessing mental health among college students. additionally, intervention initiatives can be crafted around awareness campaigns concerning mental health and disorders. these efforts could also include coaching sessions designed to equip students with effective stress-coping mechanisms. moreover, integrating mental health services within college faculties and institutions could provide essential support to students in need. strengths and limitations the large sample size representing the college students of abdelmalek essaâdi university that has faculties and institutions in five different cities, along with the sociodemographic variables found associated with increased levels of psychological distress, make this study a considerable step forward in mental health-related research among college students in morocco. the first limitation of this study is its cross-sectional nature, which prevents the investigation of changes in partici­ pants’ answers over a specific period. secondly, the absence of a mental disorders screening tool limits the in-depth exploration of the study’s results. thirdly, the study is limited by participants who reported taking medication, which could potentially influence their scores on the bsi. lastly, the study did not collect information on the participants’ socio-economic situations and their families, restricting the exploration of the study’s results. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the present study was conducted in agreement with the declaration of helsinki (world medical association, 2001). participants were invited to participate voluntarily; they received an oral presentation of the study and its aims and had the right to withdraw from the study at any time without giving a reason. those who agreed to participate in the study signed a written informed consent form that was given with the questionnaires. ben ayad, najdi, & senhaji 267 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 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(2019). mental health profile and its relation with parental alcohol use problems and/or the experience of abuse in a sample of moroccan high school students: an explorative study. annals of general psychiatry, 18(1), article 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-019-0251-5 about the authors hatim ben ayad holds a ph.d. in biology, specializing in the impact of positive psychology on mental health. meftaha senhaji is a professor of biology at the faculty of sciences of the abdelmalek essaâdi university in tetouan (morocco). her current main research interests are in the areas of mental health and nutrition. psychological distress associated factors 270 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://doi.org/10.3109/09540261.2010.492391 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(13)62116-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-014-0205-9 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16208049.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2015.1085057 https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/33.9.1210 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2012.11.009 https://doi.org/10.1007/97894-007-4276-5_14 https://doi.org/10.14710/nmjn.v10i1.23244 https://doi.org/10.1186/1477-7525-7-22 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00019 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2015.03.015 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-018-1591-4 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-993 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/66539 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/268312 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-019-0251-5 https://www.psychopen.eu/ najdi adil, m.d., is professor of public health, head of the epidemiology, public health and social sciences department at the faculty of medicine and pharmacy of tangier, abdelmalek essaadi university. he works mainly on topics of the ncds and mental health. ben ayad, najdi, & senhaji 271 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 262–271 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11689 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological distress associated factors (introduction) study aims method participants and procedure instruments statistical analysis results sociodemographic characteristics of the study sample sociodemographic variables association with scoring on bsi discussion conclusion strengths and limitations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors “we grind each other as stones and get rid of sharp edges”: young people’s reported positive change, learnings, and growth through romantic relationships research reports “we grind each other as stones and get rid of sharp edges”: young people’s reported positive change, learnings, and growth through romantic relationships nikola kallová 1 [1] institute for research in social communication, slovak academy of sciences, bratislava, slovakia. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 received: 2023-09-03 • accepted: 2025-03-26 • published (vor): 2025-05-28 handling editor: barbara caci, university of palermo (unipa), palermo, italy corresponding author: nikola kallová, slovak academy of sciences, institute for research in social communication, dubravska cesta 9, bratislava, 84104, slovakia. e-mail: nikola.kallova@savba.sk supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract romantic and intimate experiences serve as a crucial learning ground for individual and relational development, yet many aspects of this learning process remain underexplored. the present qualitative study explores romantic relationship-induced learning among 104 participants between 18 and 35, which may foster better navigation of their future relational interactions. data, i.e., 37 in-depth and 67 written interviews, were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, applying an inductive, semantic, and experiential approach. the report of themes created in the analysis describes how romantic experience positively affected the participants in: (i) identity (self-knowledge, personal growth, and self-evaluation), (ii) relational competence (communication, socio-emotional skills, and problem-solving), and (iii) partner decisions (relationship expectations, relationship boundaries). keywords romantic relationships, young people, learning, positive self-change, personal growth previous or ongoing romantic and intimate relationships may contribute to the increased quality of subsequent close interactions (tashiro & frazier, 2003). previous experience in a relationship can positively influence, for example, an individual’s communication skills, emotional management in passionate situations, the type of relationship they establish, and how they perceive and resolve conflicts (shulman, 2003). recognising the vital role of relationships in personal growth, development, and lifelong learning, there is a need for more robust scholarly debate—spanning transdisciplinary integrative qualitative research that expands, rather than further fractures, the existing theories and a comprehensive conceptual model to capture this phenomenon. research implications arising from existing studies on positive self-change from intimate relationships call for such an intertheoretical model that covers not only the results of relationship termination (e.g., blackie & mclean, 2022; tashiro & frazier, 2003) but also the results of relationship types and changes. to address the criticism, we contribute to the developing discourse with a study based on the participants’ subjectivity, considering it a reliable and credible source of information (gough & madill, 2012) and a comprehensive, holistic, and in-depth investigation encouraged by jamison and sanner (2021). in doing so, we anticipate the unification of partial findings and pave the way for a further this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12735&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-05-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2868-0840 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ quantitative inquiry into learning from romantic relationships based on a conceptual model of this specific phenomenon instead of co-created measurement tools. relationship-induced learning: theoretical perspectives the assumption of the influence of romantic and intimate relationships on individuals’ quality of life and relationships began to be postulated and empirically tested in the 1980s and 1990s (furman & simon, 1999; furman & wehner, 1997; johnson & bradbury, 2015; sroufe & fleeson, 1986). the research literature generally conceptualises this phenomenon as: (i) learning or lesson-learning, (ii) self-development and personal development, or (iii) personal growth. this research article uses ‘romantic relationship-induced learning’ (rril) as a topic-driven umbrella term to encompass distinct con­ cepts studied independently across psychological subdisciplines, aiming to facilitate cumulative research and integrative analysis without reinforcing existing theoretical fragmentation. rril refers to any relationship-induced improvement in personal skills, perspectives, experiences, or the acquisition of positive attributes, including building competence, pursuing and achieving specific goals, or developing new aspects of self-concept (jakubiak & tomlinson, 2020). although research on the positive consequences of romantic and intimate relationships is at the peak of a second wave of scholarly interest, partly due to the discourse on personal growth, the results are partial and mixed (see jiang et al., 2022). research on personal growth as a result of intimate relationships has been limited mainly to posttraumatic, ambivalent, or challenging events associated with breakups (e.g., blackie & mclean, 2022; tashiro & frazier, 2003). the social/cognitive learning theories (bandura, 1977, 1978) that have dominated this issue, particularly in the past decade, do not distinguish the full range of acquired knowledge or skills. furthermore, they are currently limited primarily to explaining negative partner phenomena such as violence and aggression (dim & elabor-idemudia, 2021), online abuse (van ouytsel et al., 2020), or criminal behaviour in intimate and romantic relationships (giordano, 2020). the developmental literature, in turn, is limited to development related to personal identity (aron et al., 1995; furman & shaffer, 2003) and selected personality changes (neyer & lehnart, 2007; szwedo et al., 2022). among the scholarship on the topic so far, a particular concept worthy of mention is the so-called michelangelo phenomenon (bühler et al., 2020; rusbult et al., 2009). closely related to both social learning and personal growth, it seeks to explain the process of how people in romantic relations adapt to one another and promote or inhibit each person’s pursuit of an ideal self; during the course of interaction, changing their behaviour as to coordinate with one another and respond to each person’s needs and expectations (rusbult et al., 2009). from a developmental perspective, the experience of romantic and intimate relationships is thought to influence personal identity, self-concept, self-esteem, self-image, or self-confidence (erikson, 1968; furman & shaffer, 2003). aron et al. (1995), in their prospective longitudinal study of self-concept change, found that falling in love is followed by an expanded self-concept and a change in self-concept evaluation that includes greater perceived self-efficacy and self-esteem. other sources suggest that the identity development process due to intimate relationships may involve adopting moral and religious values, political ideology, career orientation, or changes in sexuality (furman & shaffer, 2003). the impact of relationships on personality development has also been addressed by neyer and lehnart (2007). they found that the transition into a first serious relationship moderates personality maturation, such as a decrease in neuroticism and shyness or an increase in extraversion and self-esteem. relationship events have also been found to influence big 5 personality traits (asselmann & specht, 2020). rril also involves the development of relational competence and relational decision-making. for example, dating and relationship experiences in adolescence predict the quality of partner interactions in young adulthood (szwedo et al., 2022), such as negotiating conflicts to mutual satisfaction or effective and timely caregiving (madsen & collins, 2011). other qualitative research on personal growth has found that positive post-breakup changes, that may improve future relationships include changes in the individual (i.e., self-confidence or independence) in addition to relational changes (i.e., relational wisdom and skills, or communication skills), and changes in partner criteria, expectations, or caution in choosing a partner (tashiro & frazier, 2003). kallová 139 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method study design the study intends to qualitatively document romantic relationship-induced learning in individuals that may improve fu­ ture romantic encounters. of interest are changes in individuals’ attitudes and behaviours that may cause higher-quality subsequent romantic experiences with the same or the next partner. romantic experience is broadly understood as any subjectively reflected significant experience with a person of romantic interest or involvement. it can be a pleasurable experience with a long-term partner, a romantic break-up or rejection, or challenging events in a short-term affair. recruitment process and data collection procedures we targeted individuals with high priority for romantic relationships in key developmental periods for relational devel­ opment. to be included in the sample, participants had to meet two criteria—being between eighteen and thirty-five years of age (i.e., the age group of emerging adulthood and/or early adulthood) and having an experience of a romantic relationship maintained for at least half a year. this specific age range aligns with the developmental stage, where individuals experience significant changes and transitions in various life domains, characterised by exploration, identity development, and establishing intimate relationships (arnett, 2014; erikson, 1963, 1968; konstam, 2007; shulman, 2017). by including participants who have had a romantic relationship lasting at least six months, we aimed to capture individuals with substantial experience in committed romantic partnerships, assuming differential self-change following varying relationship experiences (from less to more committed). two independent recruiters were contracted to recruit participants, and, following the given instructions, 30 indi­ viduals who met the age requirement, had been in a romantic relationship for at least six months, and had equal representation from eastern, central, and western slovakia were selected. the remaining 74 participants were recruited through a snowball method, where participants were asked to target a diverse range of acquaintances who fit the study criteria. this approach targeted a varied sample regarding gender, student status, and geographic location within slovakia. data collection involved personal interviews with 37 respondents and self-moderated written interviews with 67 respondents. the decision to collect written data was motivated by participants’ preferences for privacy, reflection time, and the covid-19 pandemic restrictions that prevented further face-to-face interviews (as the data collection took place in late 2019/early 2020). by offering multiple data collection methods, we allowed participants to choose the format that best suited their comfort and availability. a co-created relationship history timeline was employed to guide the interviews and document relationship histor­ ies, similar to the approach used by jamison and sanner (2021). this graphical representation aided the reporting by providing a visual aid for participants to recall and detail the timing and duration of their romantic and sexual involvements. the interviews consisted of an introductory narrative and a semi-structured section with open-ended questions. the introductory narrative part encouraged participants to reflect on the most significant turning points and the role of intimate or close relationships in their personal stories. the semi-structured section covered various aspects of relationship history, such as understanding intimacy and relationships, important milestones, and experiences in current relationships and future planning. several questions were designed to directly ask about romantic relationship-induced learning, i.e., 1. what did you take away from your significant relationships? / 2. do you have any regrets about your past relationships, or is there anything you wish you had done differently? (for the full version of the interview scenario, see kallová, 2023). the interview duration ranged from 60 to 150 minutes. the questions of the self-moderated written interview mirrored the topics in the face-to-face interview. the face-to-face interviews were recorded and then transcribed. data were then coded and analysed using atlas-ti software. participants the final number of 104 slovak-speaking participants comprised sixty-three women (making up 60.4% of the total) and forty-one men (39.6%) with an average age of 25.24 years. for more demographic sample characteristics, see table 1. romantic relationship-induced learning 140 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 demographic sample characteristics and percentages characteristic percentage religion religious (78.4%) non-religious (21.6%) occupation/status students (41.7%) working (49.52%) students also working (3.9%) unemployed (4.9%) residence rural areas (49.5%) urban areas (40.8%) large cities (9.6%) education primary education (5%) secondary education (45%) university education (50%) relationship status unmarried relationship (63.5%) single (23%) married (13.5%) sexual orientation heterosexual (96.2%) same-sex orientation (3.8%) when attempting to understand the experiences of romantic relationships in slovakia, a brief mention of the sample’s cultural, religious, and sociopolitical context is in place. conservative values, the influence of catholicism, and chal­ lenges faced by lgbtq+ individuals may shape relationship expectations and the ability to express one’s identity in romantic relationships openly. the traditionally inclined context and the current political climate favour beliefs about prescribed and predefined gender roles. rril builds on the widespread cultural models and promotes normative structures embedded in the “right” partner behaviours. data analysis data were analysed following a six-step reflexive thematic analysis (rta) procedure (braun & clarke, 2006, 2019, 2022). reflexive ta is a flexible method for identifying, analysing, and creating patterns (themes) within data (braun & clarke, 2006) and is widely credited for allowing reflexivity, subjectivity, and in-depth study. reflexive ta is often used in qualitative research in psychology, health, and other disciplines (braun & clarke, 2014). we viewed the data through the prism of essentialist ontology and critical-realist epistemology. as for the analysis pattern for the essentialist approach, majumdar (2022) summarises that it should be more subjective in nature as its focus is more straightforwardly placed on individuals’ interests, motivation, meaning, and experiences. in the dataset’s analysis, credibility and validity were thus attributed to participants’ subjective reports of their account of reality and how they made sense of it. experiential orientations to data have been adopted; therefore, we rely on participants’ subjective statements to indicate romantic relationship-induced learning. as a result, primarily inductive and semantic coding has been employed to study the phenomena. individual analytic steps are described in table 2. ethics the ethics committee of the institute for research in social communication approved our study. all participants provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study. participation in the research was voluntary and confidential. before the start of the research, all participants were acquainted with the purpose of the study and how the data would be handled. all procedures carried out in the research involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 declaration of helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. kallová 141 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results based on qualitative data analysis, the study documents romantic relationship-induced learning reported by participants that may enhance future romantic encounters. based on their evaluations of their romantic experiences, the participants perceived these changes as formative, beneficial, and enlightening. “i am grateful that i learned from her how the relationship should look, what the person should feel, how he should behave, how not to behave. i’m grateful for that. i’m probably the most grateful for what i’ve been through with a girl. i know what i felt, and i know i don’t want to feel anything less. it may be naive, but that’s how i’m set up.” (d15 m27) consistent with the literature on adversarial growth (blackie & mclean, 2022; tashiro & frazier, 2003), however, the vast majority of instructive situations for the participants occurred in unpleasant relational events such as infidelity, break-up, or conflict. a number of participant quotes very aptly capture and summarise the saying retold by the author of the following one: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, which implies, among others, increased resilience as a resulting change. “... when they cheated on me, i was suffering ... how good, isn’t it? what doesn’t kill you will definitely make you stronger. (d6 m32) / i don’t know, there's nothing to regret. probably not. we table 2 phases of the reflexive thematic analysis phase interview analysis procedure examples 1. familiarising with the data the team of 8 researchers familiarised themselves with the data set through re-readings, note-taking, and collective discussions to better understand the data, its patterns and meanings, and how others view them. a phenomenon identified at this stage as worthy of further attention was the educational potential of relationships. 2. data coding the research team collectively created a preliminary code book that mapped, organised, and grouped different areas of interest in the texts. the coding process was conducted inductively using open and in vivo coding techniques, labelling relevant and distinct text passages. the research pairs reviewed and discussed their assigned codes following the general coding. over 200 preliminary codes were created for the study (e.g., “intimate partner relationship transition”), reduced with each step by merging and discarding, and renamed with evolving conceptual clarity (e.g., “identity changes,” “partner skills enhancement,” “relationship decisions,” etc.). 3. theme creation the grouping of codes that shared common patterns and meanings led to the creation of the first themes. revisiting and revising codes allowed some to be grouped into sub-themes, others to form separate themes and others to be merged into a single sub-theme or removed from further consideration. themes like „wanted and unwanted partner behaviours” or “identity or who am i” were created. 4. theme revision the draft themes were further revised by the research pair, with some being transformed into subthemes, others into separate themes, and some merged or removed to ensure internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity. themes were revised, regrouping codes and preliminary themes based on the type of romantic relationship-induced learning. 5. defining and naming themes the manuscript author defined and named the themes after carefully considering each theme's content and characteristics to capture the essence of the data accurately. descriptive working theme titles (e.g., “desired and undesired partner characteristics/behaviours”) were changed into interpretive titles (e.g., “what i want and don't want in a partner”). 6. writing of the report the manuscript author was involved in writing the report, which focused on presenting arguments and findings related to the research questions. answering the question “what types of lessonlearning and gaining insight following a relationship encounter have the participants reported?” was the purpose of the final analysis stage. romantic relationship-induced learning 142 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ learned something. it was a long, winding road. such a detour, but we learned something. (d20 f29) / and basically, i have a positive view, or rather a learning-positive view, of virtually all of them and basically of all of those women and relationships. i just wouldn’t say these were happy relationships.” (d4 m27) in the analysis, three themes were developed to denote romantic relationship-induced learnings described by the research participants that may benefit them in future relationships. these are: a) “who i am and where i’m headed” (including sub-themes: self-knowledge; personal growth; and self-evaluation). b) “the kind of partner i want to be” (including sub-themes: communication; socio-emotional skills; and problem-solving). c) “what i want and don’t want in a partner” (including sub-themes: relationship expectations and relationship boundaries). who i am and where i'm headed “so it gave me that. knowing what i don’t want to be and what i want to be. i realised that pretty late. those relationships hadn’t been very serious before, so i hadn’t even had time to study myself in depth.” (d8 f26) the opening participant’s quote is noteworthy in the suggestion that an in-depth “study” of the self is tied to serious romantic relationships as a fruitful backdrop for framing self-understanding. according to the participants, their roman­ tic relationships had a significant impact on them in terms of their identity. chryssochoou (2003) defines identity as a relationship between the individual and the world, which has three components: “it includes an element of cognition (self-knowledge), answering the question ‘what do i know about me?’, an element of self-action pertaining to the claims i want to / can make about myself and an element of other(s) actions that recognize me and allow me to make the claims i wish to make about myself and to be who i want / think myself to be” (p. 228). statements reflecting all three elements of identity—ranging from introspective to socially oriented—were present in the sample. through their experiences in romantic relationships, participants developed ideas about who they are, what they aspire to or wish to avoid becoming, and how they perceive themselves in light of how others relate to them. “it was a nice time during which i somehow formed out.” (d55 f24) self-knowledge as for the element of cognition, many participants report that they got to know themselves better through romantic relationships. “who am i? what am i like and what not? what do i want, like, or do not like?” they express that their answers to these questions and this type of self-knowledge are influenced by and/or originate in current and past partnerships or the separation process. “it simply came to my notice then what i am like. most of all, i recognised my shortcomings, so we can consider it self-knowledge, but i also recognised my strengths, not just the bad things. my first self-knowledge began mostly in the fifteenth year of my life when i had a relationship that might have had some perspective, but since that didn't happen, i at least got to know my weaknesses in my social side, which i should work on.” (d86 f21) personal growth the statement belongs to a participant who bridges from the cognitive element of identity to the element of the act (self-action). specifically, it is an act of desired change, which aligns with the definition of personal growth in several areas. growth within the self that participants describe ranges from changes related to the intellectual faculty, mental state, or sexuality to other types of abilities and skills in the social or artistic sphere to character strengths. kallová 143 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “a very crucial step in shaping my personality was also my love, thanks to which i got rid of certain addictions and changed the bad habits and inappropriate ways i had, and made me a better person.” (d110 m20) relationships have also helped several individuals to grow in autonomy, facilitating such shifts as they transition to adulthood or independence from their parents. “thanks to my partner relationship … i started to follow my own reason, my own intuition, to rely more on myself. be more responsible. i disengaged under the influence of my parents. now they respect my decisions.” (d85 f22) / “i feel that perhaps through this relationship and by spending a lot of time together, i matured much earlier than some of my classmates.” (d55 f24) there are participants' statements in which the growth they describe took place spontaneously without reflecting on the need that would precede it or a deliberate effort for a change. others, however, mention the need to change or improve themselves. self-reflection and an awareness of the changes one wants or plans to make or should undergo occurred across the sample. one of the participants says this is given by what he calls ‘feedback on life’ that stems from the relationship experience. another one elaborates on the same phenomenon as follows. “in this relationship, lasting five years, i was told everything by my ex-boyfriend. that was how i functioned, what i was like ... and he told me terribly the things i realised in retrospect that it was true, that's all wrong. that’s exactly who i am. and it's all me saying, ‘yes, i’m such that i can change something and something not.’ and in intimate things, he also told me that you are so and this and that .... and then i started to realise it ... that it is such that, jesus, that it is right ... and always i think to myself, ‘[name], change, you can’t be like that, because it's probably bad.” (d12 f28) self-evaluation identity influenced by partnerships also includes the third of the aforementioned elements of identity, namely attitudes toward oneself and self-evaluation based on other people’s approaches. participants talk at length about the actions of their partners that contributed to the construction of self-confidence, self-esteem, self-respect, and self-value. in our sample, the impact of romantic relationships on self-perception was characteristic of women. the reevaluation of their self has, in turn, led to a change in how they would want to be treated and their assertiveness. “... maybe out of self-esteem. i already know that i can say something. that i’m not 20 anymore, and i won’t be quiet. ok, so you like it, so i’ll be quiet? that i’ll say something. that is the change. that i already know what i like. i didn’t know that before.” (d20 f29) the kind of partner i want to be unlike the first theme, the second theme refers to knowledge and skills acquired during romantic encounters that are applicable directly and solely in subsequent relationship events. the first broad and vital area of relational competence gained from the romantic experience is communication with a partner. communication through a relationship experience, participants can improve their communication skills or develop new ideas about communicating with their partner, which they can later apply to their relationship to improve its quality. the present research identified a large number of statements on such self-change and rril. participants became particularly aware of the need to listen to their partner, improved their ability to listen to their counterpart, re-evaluated the importance of communication, openness, and verbalising disagreement for the relationship, and practised self-expression. “it wasn't until we broke up that i realised that it was necessary to talk to each other well enough. this relationship has taught me to express my feelings, to express when i don't like or mind romantic relationship-induced learning 144 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ something, to deal with it together and not to put it off, not to bother with things only in my head.” (d89 f22) socio-emotional skills and problem solving based on participants’ reports, in relationships and breakups, young people may become aware of / instructed and/or trained in: (a) their emotional regulation or (b) prosocial orientation and behaviour. these socio-emotional abilities include but are not limited to honesty, problem-solving, and striving for both a moderate level of adaptability as well as continuous maintenance of the quality of their partnerships. the following participant's quote demonstrates his awareness of the need to work on the relationship but also includes a description of the stages of emotional regulation, a problem-solving orientation, and a mention of effective coping strategies, all of which he learned from his relationship experience. “not to give up, like if it's very bad now, but try to handle it internally, or bridging it into some kind of opportunity in that relationship, or especially elevating those of your mental dogmas, like ... ah, so this is a situation where i am angry, and now i'm going to try to do it differently. i'll try to take it, um, not how i would take it at first, but rather think about taking a break from that discussion, going back to it, thinking about it from a different perspective.” (d16 m31) in contrast, another participant indicated that the relationship made her realise how she does not want to behave in a partnership. the relationship proved to be a fruitful venue for her to gain different attitudes towards the abusive partner behaviours she manifested. she became keen to correct her behaviours, such as manipulating others to attract their attention by lying, authoritarian behaviours, or exploitation. “i took a lot of things from it as far as my behaviour towards people is concerned. i never want to behave the way i did to him again. i admit that i am not proud of myself for some things. i have even been making something up, for example, to get his attention. i don't want to do that in my life anymore. i try to work on a lot of things, such as how i treat people or how i use the goodness of my partners over time … sometimes i try to get the most out of it, and it’s disgusting, terribly disgusting. then as if i expect them to always be good to me and to benefit from it.” (d8 f26) the same participant goes on to express that the problems in her relationships were due to her behaviour and that if her future relationships are to improve, changes must occur in herself first and foremost. “i really have so many things in mind now when i meet someone new ... i have to change so that it doesn’t turn out the same way ... it gave me a lot of self-reflection, such as to think, to realise things i have to change when i want to have a normal partner in life. for life. who would stand it with me without any harm to the psyche. so it gave me various things that bother me, but i take it positively. so what, i made mistakes, and i’m glad i’m not in that relationship anymore and that i’m not going to make them in the next one.” (d8 f26) what i want and don't want in a partner participants’ accounts helped to understand the range and role of decisions and choices one makes about choosing a partner and maintaining a relationship. firstly, an entry into new partnerships can be (consciously) influenced by previous relationship encounters. after a previous experience, most frequently an unpleasant one, many participants promise prudence, patience, and vigilance when choosing another partner. the data show that the personal decision whether or not to remain single depends, among other things, on previous relationships. the same applies to how the participants evaluate romantic relationships’ importance for flourishing. “after this last relationship, i changed my whole view, i realised that the relationship is not so important for me because i’m mostly unhappy in them, so if i really go into a relationship, i want to be absolutely sure that it has perspective and it’s really serious.” (d73 f22) kallová 145 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relationship expectations in addition to whether and under what circumstances it is adequate to enter into a relationship, previous relational experiences bring about a new set of partner expectations, serving as a guide for new and future relationships. “each new relationship began with a new experience, and i could be alert to the experiences i had already had.” (d46 f21) in both the relationships that are primarily constructive and healthy for the partners, and in those holding pathological features, individuals form a picture of what their (next) partner should and should not be like and how they should or should not resemble a previous or current partner. this includes the partner behaviour they exhibit and the personality of a partner suitable for the courtship. some essential criteria are partner character traits, age, place of residence, or the nature of the emotion and bond they provide. among the valued requirements are partners’ unconditional love towards them or partners’ willingness to be helpful, and among the characteristics they plan to avoid in the future are remote partners providing long-distance relationships and partners who tend to humiliate or manipulate the other in a pair. “and once i had one tinder date ... and i don’t even know how to describe it, but it was like, wow, it might look like this, as if my expectations of how nice it can be are growing because then one no longer wants to go under those expectations.” (d20 f29) relationship boundaries as in the previous participant’s case, a romantic experience affects the construction of expectations or the formation of partner ideals. the same goes for setting rules and limits, or ‘what belongs to a relationship and what does not,’ as the author of the following statement puts it. “i take a lot from the first relationship, i think, because that was the moment when i learned how to ‘live’ in a couple, what belongs to a relationship and what doesn’t, and i entered the second relationship with the fact that i already knew what and how. what can hinder the other in the pair, and what can be expected from a man. my boyfriend calls it very well that we grind each other as stones and get rid of those sharp edges of habits, things that may bother the other.” (d55 f24) this phenomenon appears in the data either as a constant ‘calibration’ of partners’ behaviour in the relationship, which was the case in the quote above or as a setting the boundaries in the individual that guide them in deciding which partner attributes and behaviours they accept and which they no longer accept. “every relationship has taught me something, pushed me further, taught me what can be taken more seriously and what can be ignored in a light-hearted way.” (d49 m31) discussion this qualitative study aimed to document participants’ romantic relationship-induced learning—positive self-changes resulting from their romantic experiences—which may serve as antecedents to enhanced quality in future relationship encounters. we found that a romantic experience was formative for almost all participants. the report of themes created in the analysis describes how romantic experience affected the participants in the following. 1. identity, such as self-knowledge, personal growth, and self-evaluation (theme a: who i am and where i'm headed) which has been scientifically proven to be beneficial for the quality of romantic relationships (farooqi, 2014; furman & shaffer, 2003). 2. relational competence, such as communication, socio-emotional skills, and problem-solving (theme b: the kind of partner i want to be) which, according to previous research, significantly affects the relational quality (batool & khalid, 2012; farooqi, 2014; frei & shaver, 2002). romantic relationship-induced learning 146 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 3. partner decisions (partner expectations and partner boundaries) (theme c: what i want and don't want in a partner), previously found to be determinants of the quality of a romantic rela­ tionship either in the form of potential partners’ psychological conditions, character strengths, childhood, and family background, or their attachment style (boiman-meshita & littman-ovadia, 2022; egeci & gencoz, 2011; feeney & noller, 1990; fitzpatrick & sollie, 1999; xia et al., 2018). regarding the first theme, findings support and complement previous studies on relationship experience affecting an individual’s identity, personal growth, and different self-concept areas (such as self-esteem, self-confidence, self-respect, and self-value) (aron et al., 1995; furman & shaffer, 2003; slotter et al., 2010; tashiro & frazier, 2003). our findings also support other researchers’ views on independence as a possible consequence of romantic relationships (tashiro & frazier, 2003). unlike most previous studies, however, our findings were not limited to adversarial growth and self-changes from the negative partner experience. we found that self-knowledge, independence, maturation, and personal growth generally can be fostered in well-functioning relationships as well as in problematic ones (lee et al., 2018). jamison and sanner (2021) state that nowhere is identity development and self-understanding more salient than in the context of romantic relationships, which require that individuals identify what kind of partners they want, what kind of partners they want to be, and how to maintain individuality in the context of a relationship. on a related note, norona et al. (2017) state that past romantic experiences can teach individuals about what they do and do not want in the future. similarly to these claims, we titled the second theme “the kind of partner i want to be”. relational competence, a subject of the second theme, has been previously studied as an outcome of romantic encounters (madsen & collins, 2011; shulman, 2003; szwedo et al., 2022; tashiro & frazier, 2003). our findings align with norona et al. (2017) study that describes relational competencies such as compromising, give and take, working on the relationship, and awareness of each couple member’s needs as practical relational lessons for romantic relationships as they require active work from both partners to fulfil each other’s needs. norona et al. (2017) further mention communication in its nuanced forms, such as openness to self-disclosure or allowing romantic partners to share their opinions, and also the dual importance of being honest with romantic partners and trusting that they will still be accepting, as well as reciprocating that trust and acceptance. our study mirrors these findings and found communication, which includes verbalising disagreement, listening ability, and honesty, as a vital relational competence learned by our participants in their relationships. furthermore, we found other socio-emotional skills such as emotional regulation, prosocial orientation and behaviour, and problem-solving mentioned by the participants as other types of relational competence and interaction that are subject to change due to rril. the third and last theme also deepens and widens previous findings in that our results not only support the thesis on relationship break-up affecting future partner criteria, expectations, or cautiousness in choosing a partner (tashiro & frazier, 2003) but also the experience of a well-functioning relationship may contribute to forming a picture of what the desired relationship or a partner should be like. in their analysis, norona et al. (2017) found that individuals’ break-up experiences resulted in their decision to trust with caution, in a balanced manner, at an appropriate time in the relationship, and remain vigilant early on in relationships. their interpretation is that this lesson reflects regulatory processes that one might take to pursue relationships more slowly. we found that similar regulatory processes occur due to positive relational experiences in our participants’ cases. not only break-ups and arguments but also other types of romantic experiences shaped their relationship expectations and helped them define their boundaries in future partnerships. they gained clarity about their desires and deal-breakers, enabling them to make more informed decisions when choosing a partner. these findings touch on how previous relationships may influence opinions and decisions on singlehood and the role of romantic relationships in their flourishing. partner decision-making and the changes in identity and partner competence induced by relational experiences have their place in professional and practitioner discourse. our approach unified distinct concepts—typically studied independently and partially across psychological subdisciplines—under the umbrella term of romantic relationship-in­ duced learning, grounding it in participants’ natural language and perceptions. such an approach is advantageous for understanding how the different concepts and components of romantic and intimate relationships interact and perform related functions (jamison & sanner, 2021). kallová 147 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations self-reported data and the retrospective design allowed for the holistic identification of perceived romantic relationshipinduced learning. on the other hand, as a limitation of the study, this type of exploratory research does not allow for the observation of actual relational learnings, which are subject to academic critique (owenz & fowers, 2019). additionally, smaller sample sizes, characteristic of in-depth qualitative studies, limit the ability to draw conclusions based on quantity-driven data, such as comparisons across demographic characteristics. further research with a larger, representative sample would be necessary to fully explore potential demographic and cultural differences related to the phenomenon. a significant group of participants engaging in a written rather than a face-to-face interview can be seen as a further limitation. whilst this approach facilitated a sense of privacy and a safe space for participants to share intimate details about their lives without being confronted by the presence of an interviewer, participants might have been consequently motivated to be less emotionally engaged and dense in terms of the breadth of their accounts. moreover, no probing questions could be asked by the interviewer. conclusions the present study’s findings complement previous research on the influence of relationship experiences on individu­ als’ identity, relational competence and relationship decisions and expand upon existing knowledge in several areas. unlike previous studies that primarily focused on adversarial growth and rril from negative partner experiences, we found that positive changes and growth can occur in both well-functioning relationships and problematic ones. this suggests that individuals can experience changes in identity (self-knowledge, independence, personal growth, expended self-concept or self-evaluation), relational competence (communication skills, such as verbalising disagreement, active listening, and honesty, socio-emotional skills like emotional regulation, prosocial orientation, and behaviour, as well as problem-solving abilities) and form their partner expectations and boundaries in a variety of relationship contexts. the findings of this study have several implications for future research on romantic relationships. by bringing together concepts that have been studied separately across psychological subdisciplines, the study promotes a more integrated understanding of relationship-induced learning. it also highlights the importance of considering both positive and negative experiences in relationships when examining their impact on individuals. ultimately, the study provides a clear conceptual foundation for future endeavours to define and measure the dimensions of constructs falling under the umbrella term ‘romantic relationship-induced learning’. research implications call for testing relationship-induced learning due to different relationship types and changes. the rate and learning from intimate relationships could underlie different types of ongoing relationships besides romantic breakups, such as noncommittal dating or casual sex versus long-term relationships, the impact of which has not yet been confirmed (beckmeyer & jamison, 2021; jamison & sanner, 2021). the authors bring awareness to sexual identity, development, and exploration, as an integral part of relationship development. that leads them to the idea that casual relationships and hookups may be particularly important in helping individuals develop a rubric for selecting compatible partners and understanding what individuals need and want from relationships. criticisms of existing research on this topic also focus on the almost exclusively retrospective design of the studies conducted, and there is a need for a longitudinal research approach to this topic (owenz & fowers, 2019). individuals’ success in rectifying problems from one relationship to another may depend on their attributions regarding why the previous relationship ended (tashiro & frazier, 2003). this lends credence to perceived and reported changes and their narrative production as an area for more future studies on this phenomenon. romantic relationship-induced learning 148 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: this work was supported by the slovak research and development agency under contract no. apvv-18-0303 and by the grant vega 2/0173/24 awarded by the scientific grant agency of the ministry of education of the slovak republic and the slovak academy of sciences. acknowledgments: our thanks go especially to the participants who gave hours of their time and a large portion of their privacy to the research, enabling us to understand previously unexplored types of learning from relationships. thanks are also due to the apvv research team for articulating the basic premises of the project and the first wave of coding. lucia hargasova will be thanked for the second coding and code review round. special thanks are due to angelina wilson fadiji (university of pretoria & north-west university, south africa) for the expert reading and feedback during the research mobility in south africa. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: the ethics committee of the institute for research in social communication approved our study. all participants provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study. participation in the research was voluntary and confidential. before the start of the research, all participants were acquainted with the purpose of the study and how the data would be handled. all procedures carried out in the research involving human participants were in accordance with the 1964 declaration of helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. data availability: the source data is stored with the project leader. only members of the research team have access to a copy of the full interviews for the purpose of analysis, subject to written consent from the participants. the participants have not provided consent to publicise their interviews in their entirety. participants gave consent to use anonymised data excerpts for the purpose of publication. material containing information on data collection are stored at: (kallová, 2023). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • study materials. 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(2022). parent and romantic partner behaviors during adolescence as predictors of young adult positive personality, relational competence, and functional independence. journal of youth and adolescence, 51(10), 1926–1943. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01641-1 tashiro, t. y., & frazier, p. (2003). “i’ll never be in a relationship like that again”: personal growth following romantic relationship breakups. personal relationships, 10(1), 113–128. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00039 van ouytsel, j., ponnet, k., & walrave, m. (2020). cyber dating abuse: investigating digital monitoring behaviors among adolescents from a social learning perspective. journal of interpersonal violence, 35(23–24), 5157–5178. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260517719538 xia, m., fosco, g. m., lippold, m. a. (2018). a developmental perspective on young adult romantic relationships: examining family and individual factors in adolescence. journal of youth and adolescence, 47, 1499–1516. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0815-8 about the author nikola kallova’s research aims to deepen the interdisciplinary discussion of well-being topics, particularly the philosophical-educa­ tional topics of well-being in relation to education, and the practical social-psychological topics of relational well-being. after her undergraduate training in philosophy, she continued her doctoral studies with an interdisciplinary focus on pedagogy and philosophy of education. currently, she focuses on qualitative empirical research at the institute for research in social communication of the slovak academy of sciences. during her academic tenure, she completed a three-month fellowship in the department of philosophy in new haven (connecticut, usa) and the department of educational psychology in pretoria (south africa). she is also the managing editor for the transdisciplinary scholarly journal human affairs. kallová 151 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 138–151 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12735 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217730371 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2011.00737.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00448.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558415605166 https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518811662 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01657.x https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410607782 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410607782 https://doi.org/10.1080/00797308.2016.1277123 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209352250 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01641-1 https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6811.00039 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260517719538 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0815-8 https://www.psychopen.eu/ romantic relationship-induced learning (introduction) relationship-induced learning: theoretical perspectives method study design recruitment process and data collection procedures participants data analysis ethics results who i am and where i'm headed the kind of partner i want to be what i want and don't want in a partner discussion limitations conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the author unveiling the dark: exploring the nomological consistency of the short dark triad and dirty dozen scales research reports unveiling the dark: exploring the nomological consistency of the short dark triad and dirty dozen scales marco tommasi 1, marco lauriola 2, aristide saggino 1 [1] department of psychology, università degli studi “gabriele d'annunzio” chieti-pescara, chieti-pescara, italy. [2] department of social and developmental psychology, “la sapienza” university of rome, rome, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 received: 2023-08-12 • accepted: 2025-04-09 • published (vor): 2025-05-28 handling editor: sahir hussain, lancaster university, lancaster, united kingdom corresponding author: marco tommasi, via dei vestini 31, 66100, chieti, italy. e-mail: marco.tommasi@unich.it supplementary materials: code, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract we examined the consistency of the short dark triad (sd3) and the dirty dozen (dd) scales, which are widely used for assessing dark triad traits (machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), in a community italian sample of 504 individuals aged 18 to 89 years. the findings revealed strong convergence for machiavellianism and psychopathy across the two scales. in contrast, narcissism demonstrated weaker convergence, with moderate correlations between the sd3 and dd scales. nomological consistency, the degree to which different indicators of a construct share similar associations with external criteria, was assessed using four sets of criteria: psychopathy or empathy, the five-factor model of personality, mental health (psychological well-being, anxiety, and depression), and social disinhibition. both scales showed moderate consistency with empathy, the big five, and social disinhibition criteria but displayed inconsistency concerning mental health criteria. psychopathy and machiavellianism exhibited distinct patterns in relation to social disinhibition. narcissism demonstrated the most divergence from other traits and the highest inconsistency between sd3 and dd. the sd3 appeared to focus predominantly on grandiose narcissism, whereas the dd scale likely encompasses both grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism. consequently, sd3 and dd cannot be considered fully equivalent measures of dark triad traits. keywords dark triad, nomological pattern, narcissism, personality, social disinhibition the term “dark triad” refers to a personality structure comprising machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (paulhus & williams, 2002). machiavellianism entails manipulativeness, cynicism, and a strategic interpersonal orienta­ tion (christie & geis, 1970). narcissism involves grandiosity and dysfunctional self-esteem strategies (jones & paulhus, 2014), while psychopathy is characterized by lack of empathy, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior (jones & paulhus, 2014). the three components of the dark triad are subclinical traits, and research suggests that machiavellianism and psychopathy can be considered interchangeable (o’boyle et al., 2015; vize et al., 2018; watts et al., 2017). however, narcissism measured with different scales does not consistently converge within the same trait (o’boyle et al., 2015; watts et al., 2017). this lack of consistency may be attributed to the different scales used to measure these personality traits (watts et al., 2017). the short dark triad (sd3; jones & paulhus, 2014) and the dirty dozen (dd; jonason & webster, 2010) are commonly used self-report scales to measure dark triad traits (maples et al., 2014). studies comparing the psychometric this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12591&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-05-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ properties of these scales suggest that sd3 has higher validity than dd (gamache et al., 2018; geng et al., 2015; maples et al., 2014). notably, the narcissism scales of sd3 and dd show a weak correlation, possibly due to sd3 measuring grandiose narcissism while dd assesses both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (maples et al., 2014). narcissism can manifest as grandiose or vulnerable forms, characterized by different traits (gore & widiger, 2016). one of the major problems in psychological research is the jingle-jangle fallacy. this fallacy consists of conceptual mistakes that happen when psychological constructs are confused in relation to their labels or names. in particular, jingle fallacy happens when two psychological scales use the same name for indicating psychological constructs that are different (e.g., two scales that measure motivation, but one measure intrinsic motivation while the other measures extrinsic motivation); jangle fallacy happens when two scale have different names, but they are measuring the same construct (e.g., a scale of “self-efficacy” and a scale of “self-confidence” that are measuring the same construct). the neg­ ative consequences of the presence of jingle-jangle fallacy are theoretical confusion, difficulty to discriminate between constructs and, therefore, to create predictive models and the risk to make wrong generalizations or conclusions from empirical data. in literature, for example, some authors (marsh et al., 2019) found that the constructs “self-efficacy” and “self-concept” are confused and overlapped. therefore, a nomological analysis, through multi-trait multi-method analyses can help researchers to improve the discrimination between constructs and to increase their theoretical and empirical utility (marsh et al., 2019). scales with the same name but with different degrees of convergence and divergence with other measures probably assess different constructs. in the case of dark triad traits, one could argue that both sd3 and dd might use the same labels for machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy scores, yet they could be assessing different constructs. apart from convergent and discriminant analyses, additional criteria such as prediction consistency and nomological consistency are essential for assessing the consistency of dark triad traits (thielmann & hilbig, 2019). prediction consistency evaluates whether sd3 and dd scales predict the same outcomes or behavioral criteria, highlighting their substantial interchangeability in research or applied contexts. on the other hand, nomological consistency examines the overall pattern of correlations between the scales and other relevant constructs, ensuring that these correlations are consistent with theoretical expectations (thalmayer et al., 2011). therefore, prediction and nomological consistency offer a comprehensive framework for assessing whether sd3 and dd accurately measure the same underlying traits or represent distinct conceptualizations. to assess prediction and nomological consistency of sd3 and dd, we collected data from a community sample of individuals without psychological syndromes, as dark triad traits should manifest consistently even among the general population (fleeson & noftle, 2009). in this study, we aimed to test the prediction consistency of sd3 and dd by comparing their prediction consistency with four sets of psychological variables. previous research has linked dark triad traits to maladaptive behavior, substance abuse, and mental health variables (azizli et al., 2016; egan et al., 2014; muris et al., 2017; stenason & vernon, 2016). additionally, dark triad traits have been connected to the five-factor model (ffm) of personality, with conscientiousness and agreeableness negatively associated with psychopathy and machiavellianism, and openness and extraversion positively associated with narcissism (o’boyle et al., 2015). considering the potential overlap between machiavellianism and psychopathy, their connection with disinhibition was explored, as psychopathy shows a positive relation with disinhibition while machiavellianism exhibits a moderate association with self-control (jones & paulhus, 2014; miller & lynam, 2015). to evaluate the nomological consistency of sd3 and dd, we examined their relationships with four sets of variables: psychopathy and empathy, ffm personality traits, mental health indicators, and disinhibition versus constraint meas­ ures. by investigating these variables, we aimed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the consistency of dark triad traits and their associations across different constructs. method participants and procedure a total of 504 italian participants (58% females) with ages ranging from 19 to 89 years (m = 40.79; sd = 20.62) took part in the study. most participants were either full-time or part-time students (37.6%), who were recruited for the nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 94 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ study by the first author of his paper while they were attending university courses. the remaining participants were non-students employed in various occupations such as dependent workers (13.5%), housewives (12.7%), retired individu­ als (12.1%), employees (4.2%), freelance professionals (4%), trade officers (3.8%), teachers and professors (2%), soldiers and military personnel (1.6%), farmers (0.6%), seasonal or unskilled workers (1.4%), managers or business owners (0.8%), and drivers (0.4%). these participants were contacted through announcements or by word of mouth. using gpower, we estimated the minimum required sample size for linear regression models with 3 predictors, setting α = 0.05, 1 – β = .80 and medium effect size f = .15. the calculation indicated that the sample should consist of at least 43 participants. the participants completed pencil-and-paper questionnaires administered by the same expert examiner. informed consent was obtained from all participants, and their participation was voluntary. the study followed the ethical principles outlined in the declaration of helsinki and was approved by the regional ethical committee for biomedical research (ref: rich99n3w). material used for this study and r script codes for the analyses are available at tommasi (2025). measures dark triad traits the short dark triad (sd3) scale, consisting of 27 items measured on a five-point likert scale, assessed the components of dark triad: machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. the dirty dozen (dd) scale, consisting of 12 items measured on a seven-point likert scale, also assessed the same dark triad facets. the italian adaptations of the dd (schimmenti et al., 2019) and the sd3 (somma et al., 2019) were used in this study. psychopathy and empathy the levenson self-report psychopathy scale (lsrp; italian adaptation: somma et al., 2014) comprised 26 items meas­ ured on a four-point likert scale. it yielded subscales for primary psychopathy and secondary psychopathy. the balanced emotional empathy scale (bees; italian adaptation: meneghini et al., 2006) included 30 items measured on a seven-point likert scale to assess empathy. the interpersonal reactivity index (iri; italian adaptation: ingoglia et al., 2016) measured the cognitive (fantasy-f, perspective taking-pt) and affective (empathic concern-ec, personal distress-pd) components of empathy using 28 items on a seven-point likert scale. ffm personality traits the big five questionnaire-short form (bfq-sf) developed by caprara et al. (1993) assessed the five factors of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and openness. the bfq-sf consisted of 60 items scored on a five-point likert scale. psychological well-being and mental health the subjective happiness scale (shs; italian adaptation: iani et al., 2014) comprised four items measured on a seven-point likert scale, assessing the level of life satisfaction. the basic psychological needs scale (bpns; italian adaptation: szadejko, 2003) included 21 items measured on a five-point likert scale, measuring autonomy, competence, and relatedness. the state-trait inventory of cognitive and somatic anxiety (sticsa; italian adaptation: carlucci et al., 2018) consisted of 21 items measured on a four-point likert scale, assessing anxiety characteristics. the teate depression inventory (tdi; balsamo & saggino, 2013) comprised 21 items measured on a five-point likert scale, evaluating depressive symptoms. disinhibition vs. constraint the disinhibition vs. constraint inventory (dvc; dindo et al., 2009) consisted of 65 items measured on a five-point likert scale. the items were grouped into five subscales: prosociality, manipulativeness, distractibility, risk-taking, and orderliness. tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 95 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social desirability social desirability was assessed using the marlowe-crowne (mc) scale-short form (italian adaptation: manganelli rattazzi et al., 2000), which included nine items measured on a five-point likert scale. positive correlations of psychological variables with mc scores indicated an inclination to overestimate psychological traits, while negative correlations indicated a tendency to underestimate them. the assessment of social desirability aimed to evaluate the validity of individual responses on the sd3, dd, and other psychological scales, as previous research has shown that subjective ratings, particularly those related to the dark triad traits, could be influenced by this response set (kowalski et al., 2016). statistical analyses descriptive analysis — descriptive statistics, including the number of valid cases, means, standard deviations, skew­ ness, and kurtosis, were calculated for each psychological scale. skewness and kurtosis values within the range of ±2 were considered acceptable (gravetter & wallnau, 2014). correlations between each psychological measure and the mc scale were examined to assess the impact of social desirability on subjective responses. frequencies were calculated for sociodemographic variables. multi-trait multi-method analyses — to evaluate convergent and discriminant validity of dt traits measured by the sd3 and dd methods, we fit a six-factor confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) model in which latent factors represented machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy measured by both the sd3 and dd. each latent factor was defined by its respective items. because these items were ordinal variables, diagonally weighted least squares (dwls) was used for estimation. dwls has no distributional assumptions and mitigates biases associated with likert response scales (rhemtulla et al., 2012). model fit was examined using the comparative fit index (cfi), tucker–lewis index (tli), root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), and standardized root mean square residual (srmr). fit is considered excellent if cfi and tli exceed .95 (acceptable if > .90), and good if rmsea < .06 and srmr < .08 (schermelleh-engel et al., 2003). the six-factor model assumed free covariances among latent variables. this allowed us to assess convergent and discriminant validity properties using the heterotrait–monotrait (htmt) ratio and the fornell–larcker criterion, respectively. the htmt ratio is computed as the average of heterotrait–heteromethod correlations (e.g., machiavellianism items from the sd3 with psychopathy and narcissism items from the dd), divided by the average of monotrait–heteromethod correlations (e.g., machiavellianism items measured by both sd3 and dd). ideally, if two sets of measures are entirely independent, heterotrait–heteromethod correlations should be zero, while monotrait–heteromethod correlations should be one. conversely, if the item sets measure the same construct, both types of correlations should be 1.00, resulting in an htmt ratio of 1.00. in practical applications, an htmt ratio threshold of .85 is recommended to determine whether two constructs are empirically distinct (htmt < .85) or overlapping (htmt ≥ .85) (henseler et al., 2015). according to the fronell-larcker criterion (voorhees et al., 2016) for assessing discriminant validity, each factor’s average variance extracted (ave)—a measure of how much variance in a set of observed indicators is explained by the latent construct—must exceed its shared variance with other factors, calculated as the square of their correlation. specifically, if the square root of a factor’s ave is greater than its correlation with any other factor, that factor is considered to have discriminant validity. based on these analyses, we formally tested the convergent and discriminant validity of corresponding factors across the two methods by comparing modified models—where we constrained the correlations between identically labeled latent factors to 1.00—with the unconstrained model in which those correlations were freely estimated. these analyses were conducted using r software (https://cran.r-project.org) with the lavaan package (rossel, 2012). nomological analysis — to test the nomological consistency of sd3 and dd, a multifaceted analytic approach was followed, consisting of three steps (thielmann & hilbig, 2019). the thielmann and hilbig’s multifaceted method of nomological analysis follows a holistic approach by considering all relevant indicators that showed to be connected to the principal components of dark triad. this method refrains from pre-selecting criteria, through correlation matrices, and assures generalizability of outcomes in different contexts, reducing potential biases tied to a narrow selection of outcomes. the use of bayesian regression models allows a more reliable selection of outcomes than null hypothesis nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 96 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://cran.r-project.org https://www.psychopen.eu/ significance test approach. this method is not exempt from limitations. in particular, because it is based on prior research, it is subjected to potential selection bias and to differences in inventory properties. in the first step, the difference between the mean absolute fisher’s z values (δr ) of zero-order correlations for each correlation matrix was calculated to identify significant convergences or divergences between dark triad traits measured by sd3 and dd and the target variables. a mean absolute difference in zero-order correlations greater than .10 may suggest the potential influence of additional factors, beyond those considered, in shaping the relationships between variables. additionally, the absolute difference between the mean r 2 value (δr2) of regression models for prediction consistency of sd3 and dd and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ricc) was computed to analyze the correlation profiles for each equivalent trait indicator. in the second step, fisher’s z-tests were conducted to compare correlation matrices pairwise and determine the number of comparisons resulting in significant differences between the correlation coefficients. in the third step, regression coefficients resulting from multiple regression analyses were estimated to predict each criterion using all dark triad trait indicators from the scales. bayes factors (bf01) were calculated for each regression model across sets of criteria. bf01 values were classified into three groups: bf01 ≥ 3 indicated strong evidence in favor of the alternative hypothesis (h1), bf01 ≤ 1/3 indicated strong evidence in favor of the null hypothesis (h0), and 1/3 < bf01 < 3 indicated inconclusive evidence for h0 or h1. the interpretation of bayesian regression analysis involved assessing the prediction validity of the regression model when a specific dark triad trait was omitted. low bf01 values indicated the high importance of dark triad traits. nomological consistency of inventories did not have defined cutoffs. however, some criteria proposed by thielmann and hilbig (2019) were considered to indicate satisfactory nomological consistency: small differences in absolute correlation coefficients (δr ≤ .10), small differences in the amount of explained variance (δr2 ≤ 5%), strong correlations between correlation matrices (ricc ≥ .80), non-significant differences between correlation matrices (pairwise z-tests with p ≥ .05), and a substantial percentage of similar conclusions about null and alternative hypotheses in multiple regressions based on bayes factor analysis (≥ 80%). these analyses were conducted using r software (https://cran.r-project.org) with the bayesfactor (morey et al., 2015) and cocor (diedenhofen & diedenhofen, 2016) packages. results descriptive analysis descriptive statistics for each psychological scale, including means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, cronbach’s alpha values, and 95% confidence intervals for alphas, are provided in (supplementary table s1). the skewness and kurtosis values were acceptable for all variables. cronbach’s alpha values were generally acceptable or good, except for the autonomy subscale of the bpns scale and the secondary psychopathy subscale of the lsrp, which had alpha values slightly below .60 but still close to acceptable standards. significant correlations with the mc scale indicated that subjective responses on the sd3 and dd subscales were influenced by social desirability, with correlations ranging from -.55 to -.19. multi-trait multi-method analyses despite significant, χ2(687, n = 504) = 1801.18, p < .001, the unconstrained model, in which latent-factor correlations were freely estimated, had a good fit (cfi = .967; tli = .965; rmsea = .060, srmr = .069). across both methods (sd3 and dd), each trait—machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—was measured by items with statistically significant loadings (all p < .001), demonstrating that the items generally captured their intended constructs (details in supplementary table s2). in the sd3, machiavellianism showed predominantly moderate to high factor loadings. apart from item i1 (λ = .067), all items loaded on between .433 and .810, with item i4 displaying the strongest coefficient. for narcissism, most sd3 items loaded in the low-to-moderate range (.217–.642), with item i14 as the highest. similarly, psychopathy items ranged from .238 to .731, with item i15 presenting the strongest loading. in the dd instrument, machiavellianism was character­ ized by consistently strong loadings (λ = .778–.850), while narcissism (λ = .502–.819) and psychopathy (λ = .373–.786) tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 97 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://cran.r-project.org https://www.psychopen.eu/ also showed moderate to strong loadings. these results suggested some variation in how each method effectively meas­ ured the respective dark triad trait. internal consistency indexes highlighted this variation (details in supplementary table s2). the ordinal alpha (α) values for the sd3 subscales ranged from .684 (narcissism) to .760 (machiavellianism), whereas average variance extracted (ave) values ranged from .207 (narcissism) to .302 (machiavellianism). by contrast, the dd subscales showed higher ordinal alpha values, from .702 (psychopathy) to .892 (machiavellianism), and higher ave, ranging from .420 (psychopathy) to .676 (machiavellianism). these findings indicated that while the sd3 subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, the dd subscales generally yield stronger reliability and extracted a greater proportion of shared variance in measuring each dark triad trait. next, we examined the latent variable correlations. each dark triad trait—machiavellianism, narcissism, and psy­ chopathy—correlated strongly across the two methods (sd3 and dd), in some cases showing an ostensible overlap. for machiavellianism (r = .927) and psychopathy (r = .876), both methods showed strong convergence. in contrast, narcissism demonstrated weaker convergence, with a moderate correlation between sd3 and dd methods (r = .718). the fronell–larcker analysis revealed some differences in convergence and discriminant validity (details in supplementary table s3). while both methods showed strong convergence for machiavellianism and psychopathy, the sd3 method struggled with discriminant validity, as its ave square roots were consistently lower than correlations with other latent variables. for narcissism, the weaker convergence between sd3 and dd, coupled with the sd3 scale’s poor discriminant validity, highlighted the need for refinement in its measurement. overall, the dd scale appeared to better differentiate the dark triad traits. this conclusion was further supported by the analysis of the htmt ratios (details in supplementary table s3). the htmt ratios for the same trait were understandably high for machiavellianism and psychopathy (i.e., .888 and .877, respectively) indicating good convergent validity between methods. however, the htmt ratio for narcissism equal to .722 was comparatively lower, raising some concerns about the convergent validity of narcissism across instruments. we formally tested the overlap of dt traits by comparing the fit of the unconstrained model to constrained models where correlations between identically labeled latent factors were fixed at 1.00, indicating perfect similarity. for machiavellianism, δχ2(1, n = 504) = 13.42, p < .001, and psychopathy, δχ2(1, n = 504) = 14.44, p < .001, there was a significant loss of fit compared to the unconstrained model; however, differences in rmsea, srmr, and cfi were null, and δtli was negligible (.001 for both). for narcissism, the constrained model showed not only a significant loss of fit, δχ2(1, n = 504) = 73.23, p < .001, but also appreciable declines in other fit indices, with increases in rmsea (+.002) and srmr (+.001) and decreases in cfi (-.002) and tli (-.003). these findings, and those previously reported, aligned with the conclusion that while machiavellianism and psychopathy showed strong similarity across sd3 and dd methods, narcissism exhibited notable differences between the two methods. while these conclusions capitalize on findings within the sem framework, further evidence is needed, such as examining the nomological network of each trait to assess their relationships with external variables and clarify the distinctiveness of the constructs across measurement methods. nomological analysis in the first step of the analysis, mean absolute differences in zero-order correlations (δr ) were calculated for each set of criteria. the mean absolute difference in zero-order correlations for the psychopathy and empathy set was .080, for the ffm personality traits set was .074, for the mental health set was .315, and for the disinhibition vs. constraint set was .078. table 1 presents the standardized coefficients and r 2 values from linear regression models used to assess the prediction consistency of sd3 and dd scales. nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 98 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 regression analysis for prediction consistency between the sd3 and dd subscales and the four sets of criteria dark triad scales set of criteria sd3 mach sd3 nar sd3 psych sd3 r2 dd mach dd nar dd psych dd r2 psychopathy and empathy bees -0.189*** -0.070 -0.202*** 0.143 -0.064 0.052 -0.452*** 0.222 iri f 0.026 -0.071 -0.023 0.006 0.219*** 0.077 -0.361*** 0.091 iri ec -0.155** -0.045 -0.230*** 0.131 -0.165** 0.118* -0.383*** 0.203 iri pt -0.087 -0.006 -0.154** 0.047 -0.137* 0.068 -0.189*** 0.068 iri pd 0.114* -0.283*** -0.045 0.076 0.155** -0.076 -0.247*** 0.048 lsrp pp 0.331*** 0.135*** 0.371*** 0.467 0.382*** 0.066 0.331*** 0.451 lsrp sp 0.121* -0.260*** 0.401*** 0.194 0.277*** -0.104* 0.092 0.086 ffm personality traits bfq-sf e -0.068 0.513*** 0.086 0.277 0.001 0.322*** 0.064 0.124 bfq-sf a -0.330*** 0.096* -0.238*** 0.219 -0.148** 0.031 -0.324*** 0.170 bfq-sf c 0.003 0.226*** -0.228*** 0.064 -0.184** 0.261*** -0.114* 0.062 bfq-sf em-st -0.071 0.204*** -0.212*** 0.065 -0.065 -0.111* 0.039 0.020 bfq-sf o -0.027 0.144** -0.046 0.017 -0.046 0.166** -0.099 0.023 mental health shs -0.123* 0.375*** -0.020 0.120 -0.031 0.057 0.082 0.010 bpns aut -0.167** 0.286*** -0.008 0.075 -0.226*** 0.090 0.205*** 0.040 bpns com -0.128* 0.431*** -0.169*** 0.159 -0.188** 0.247*** 0.012 0.044 bpns rel -0.186*** 0.389*** -0.185*** 0.151 -0.237*** 0.169** -0.018 0.042 sticsa 0.096 -0.241*** 0.180*** 0.069 0.115 0.021 -0.060 0.011 tdi 0.085 -0.333*** 0.186*** 0.102 0.105 -0.069 -0.032 0.006 disinhibition vs. constraint dvc pros-total 0.064 0.198*** -0.320*** 0.085 -0.280*** 0.309*** -0.128* 0.104 dvc distr 0.146** -0.305*** 0.277*** 0.138 0.237*** -0.142** 0.055 0.050 dvc manip 0.337*** 0.128*** 0.361*** 0.458 0.497*** 0.089* 0.233*** 0.506 dvc order -0.029 0.083 -0.245*** 0.058 -0.097 0.001 -0.141** 0.044 dvc risk -0.100* 0.148** 0.347*** 0.143 0.021 0.048 0.245*** 0.079 note. standardized coefficients and r2 values for each model are reported. sd3 = short dark triad; dd = dirty dozen; mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psych = psychopathy; bees = balanced emotional empathy scale; iri = interpersonal reactivity index (subscale: f = fantasy; pt = perspective taking; ec = empathic concern; pd = personal distress); lsrp = levenson self-report psychopathy scale (subscales: pp = primary psychopathy; sp = secondary psychopathy); bfq-sf = big five questionnaire short form (e = extraversion, a = agreeableness, c = conscientiousness, em-st = emotional stability, o = openness); shs = subjective happiness scale; bpns = basic psychological needs scale (subscales: aut = autonomy; com = competence; rel = relatedness); sticsa = state-trait inventory of cognitive and somatic anxiety; tdi = teate depression inventory; dvc = disinhibition vs. constraint inventory (subscales: pros-total = prosociality total score, distr = distractibility, manip = manipulativeness, order = orderliness, risk = risk taking. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. the absolute difference in r 2 values (δr2) between sd3 and dd regression models for the psychopathy and empathy set of criteria was .015 (1.5%). for the ffm personality traits set, δr2as .049 (4.9%). the mental health set showed a δr2 value of .087 (8.7%), and the disinhibition vs. constraint set had a δr2 value of .020 (2.0%). regarding the intraclass correlation coefficient (ricc), for the psychopathy and empathy set, ricc values were .993 for machiavellianism, .854 for narcissism, and .943 for psychopathy. for the ffm personality traits set, ricc values were .944 for machiavellianism, .786 for narcissism, and .937 for psychopathy. the mental health set showed ricc values of .960 for machiavellianism, .208 for narcissism, and .444 for psychopathy. finally, for the disinhibition vs. constraint set, ricc values were .959 for machiavellianism, .872 for narcissism, and 0.976 for psychopathy. the first step analysis revealed moderate prediction consistency between sd3 and dd in the sets of criteria related to psychopathy and empathy, ffm personality traits, and disinhibition vs. constraint. however, prediction consistency was not achieved for the mental health set, with the narcissism and psychopathy scales showing the most divergent predictions. specifically, sd3 narcissism was a valid predictor for all psychological well-being variables, and sd3 psychopathy yielded valid predictions for almost all well-being variables, except for shs and bpns autonomy. on the tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 99 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ other hand, dd narcissism was only a valid predictor for bpns competence and relatedness, while dd psychopathy was only a valid predictor for bpns autonomy. in the second step of the analysis, fisher's z-tests were conducted to compare pairwise correlations. the p values of these tests for each set of criteria are presented in table 2. results indicated that narcissism showed the largest number of significant pairwise differences, particularly in the mental health criteria. this suggests a notable disparity between the correlation matrices of sd3 and dd narcissism. table 2 p values of fisher’s z-tests for pairwise comparison of independent correlation coefficients for the four sets of criteria sd3 and dd traits set of criteria mach nar psych psychopathy and empathy bees 0.596 0.349 0.009b iri f 0.277 0.035a 0.006b iri ec 0.701 0.292 0.062 iri pt 0.577 0.825 0.534 iri pd 0.782 0.004b 0.116 lsrp pp 0.455 0.768 0.557 lsrp sp 0.642 0.016a 0.007b ffm personality traits bfq-sf e 0.361 0.001b 0.358 bfq-sf a 0.049b 0.293 0.742 bfq-sf c 0.311 0.656 0.724 bfq-sf em-st 0.921 < 0.001b 0.035b bfq-sf o 0.889 0.813 0.378 mental health shs 0.453 < 0.001b 0.624 bpns aut 0.879 0.003b 0.114 bpns com 0.715 0.003b 0.234 bpns rel 0.917 < 0.001b 0.428 sticsa 0.822 0.001b 0.044b tdi 0.782 0.001b 0.098 disinhibition vs. constraint dvc pros-total 0.035b 0.928 0.365 dvc distr 0.981 0.012b 0.090 dvc manip 0.008b 0.168 0.365 dvc order 0.495 0.172 0.522 dvc risk 0.408 0.148 0.237 note. sd3 = short dark triad; dd = dirty dozen; mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psych = psychopathy; bees = balanced emotional empathy scale; iri = interpersonal reactivity index (subscale: f = fantasy; pt = perspective taking; ec = empathic concern; pd = personal distress); lsrp = levenson self-report psychopathy scale (subscales: pp = primary psychopathy; sp = secondary psychopathy); bfq-sf = big five questionnaire short form (e = extraversion, a = agreeableness, c = conscientiousness, em-st = emotional stability, o = openness); shs = subjective happiness scale; bpns = basic psychological needs scale (subscales: aut = autonomy; com = competence; rel = relatedness); sticsa = state-trait inventory of cognitive and somatic anxiety; tdi = teate depression inventory; dvc = disinhibition vs. constraint inventory (subscales: pros-total = prosociality total score, distr = distractibility, manip = manipulativeness, order = orderliness, risk = risk taking. a coefficient significant at < .05. b coefficient significant at < .01. c coefficient significant at < .001. the third step analysis involved estimating bayesian factors (bf01) for regression models when a particular dark triad trait was omitted. the results are presented in table 3. nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 100 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 bayesian factor values (bf01) of the regression models in relation to omitted dark triad traits omitted trait set of criteria sd3 mach sd3 nar sd3 psych dd mach dd nar dd psych psychopathy and empathy bees 0.008 2.387 0.003 4.511 4.999 < 0.001 iri f 4.743 1.916 4.843 0.007 2.283 < 0.001 iri ec 0.074 4.673 < 0.001 0.101 0.487 < 0.001 iri pt 1.594 5.941 0.107 0.471 2.832 0.014 iri pd 0.630 < 0.001 4.554 0.230 2.204 < 0.001 lsrp pp < 0.001 0.015 < 0.001 < 0.001 3.538 < 0.001 lsrp sp 0.402 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.956 1.464 ffm personality traits bfq-sf e 3.401 < 0.001 1.826 7.283 < 0.001 3.359 bfq-sf a < 0.001 0.810 < 0.001 0.254 6.646 < 0.001 bfq-sf c 6.268 < 0.001 0.001 0.059 < 0.001 0.654 bfq-sf em-st 2.571 0.001 0.003 3.129 0.701 4.278 bfq-sf o 4.845 0.087 3.873 4.241 0.058 1.097 mental health shs 0.407 < 0.001 6.702 4.719 3.147 1.794 bpns aut 0.046 < 0.001 6.398 0.006 1.494 0.005 bpns com 0.304 < 0.001 0.030 0.052 < 0.001 5.794 bpns rel 0.009 < 0.001 0.011 0.003 0.047 5.594 sticsa 1.240 < 0.001 0.023 0.970 5.018 3.012 tdi 1.842 < 0.001 0.013 1.277 2.438 4.515 disinhibition vs. constraint dvc pros-total 3.153 0.002 < 0.001 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.364 dvc distr 0.132 < 0.001 < 0.001 0.003 0.197 3.607 dvc manip < 0.001 0.032 < 0.001 < 0.001 1.056 < 0.001 dvc order 5.291 1.473 < 0.001 1.679 5.915 0.212 dvc risk 1.116 0.048 < 0.001 6.111 4.289 < 0.001 note. sd3 = short dark triad; dd = dirty dozen; mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psych = psychopathy; bees = balanced emotional empathy scale; iri = interpersonal reactivity index (subscale: f = fantasy; pt = perspective taking; ec = empathic concern; pd = personal distress); lsrp = levenson self-report psychopathy scale (subscales: pp = primary psychopathy; sp = secondary psychopathy); bfq-sf = big five questionnaire short form (e = extraversion, a = agreeableness, c = conscientiousness, em-st = emotional stability, o = openness); shs = subjective happiness scale; bpns = basic psychological needs scale (subscales: aut = autonomy; com = competence; rel = relatedness); sticsa = state-trait inventory of cognitive and somatic anxiety; tdi = teate depression inventory; dvc = disinhibition vs. constraint inventory (subscales: pros-total = prosociality total score, distr = distractibility, manip = manipulativeness, order = orderliness, risk = risk taking. the findings clearly demonstrate that sd3 narcissism is a crucial trait for the prediction validity of regression models for the mental health criteria, while the same trait is less critical in the dd scale. the percentage of similar conclusions between sd3 and dd scales regarding the alternative hypothesis, based on bf01 values, was 38.1% for psychopathy and empathy criteria, 46.67% for ffm personality traits criteria, 38.89% for mental health criteria, and 46.67% for disinhibition vs. constraint criteria. these percentages are below the 80% threshold, indicating a substantial discrepancy between sd3 and dd scales in terms of consistency across all sets of criteria. discussion and conclusion the present study examined the convergence and discriminant validity of two widely used measures of the dark triad (dt) traits—the short dark triad (sd3) and the dirty dozen (dd)—using a structural equation modeling (sem) framework. both the sd3 and dd scales demonstrate acceptable internal consistency in assessing dark triad traits and strong factor intercorrelations, consistent with previous research (gamache et al., 2018; geng et al., 2015; maples et al., 2014; schimmenti et al., 2019). contrary to previous studies, which identified the sd3 scale as demonstrating greater tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 101 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ validity (gamache et al., 2018; geng et al., 2015; maples et al., 2014), our findings highlight the dd scale as the more robust instrument due to its superior item loadings, higher reliability indices, and greater average variance extracted (ave). the findings revealed strong convergence for machiavellianism and psychopathy across the two scales, as evidenced by high correlations between identically labeled factors. in contrast, narcissism demonstrated weaker convergence, with moderate correlations between the sd3 and dd scales. these results highlight important differences in the measure­ ment focus of the two instruments, particularly for narcissism. the fronell–larcker analysis provided further evidence for the discriminant validity of the dt traits. while the dd scale consistently demonstrated acceptable discriminant validity, the sd3 scale exhibited significant overlap between machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, suggesting challenges in distinguishing these constructs. similarly, the heterotrait-monotrait (htmt) ratios supported strong discriminant validity for dd but raised concerns about the sd3, particularly for narcissism. nomological network analyses further confirmed these findings by examining the relationships of dt traits with external constructs, including the big five, empathy, and mental health outcomes. there is convergence between sd3 and dd scales in relation to psychopathy and machiavellianism, as they are negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness (maples et al., 2014; o’boyle et al., 2015; vize et al., 2018). notably, narcissism measured by sd3 and dd showed distinct patterns of association: sd3-narcissism was more strongly linked to extraversion and open­ ness, while dd-narcissism showed stronger associations with neuroticism and lower empathy. these differences—yet observed in previous literature (maples et al., 2014)—further underscore the divergent operationalizations of narcissism across scales. literature reported that narcissism is not a single, cohesive trait but it presents multiple and variable aspects (crowe et al., 2019). the sd3 appeared to focus predominantly on grandiose narcissism, emphasizing traits such as assertiveness and dominance, whereas the dd scale likely encompassed both grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism. the distinct nomological profiles of these measures supported this interpretation. in terms of mental health, our study replicated and extended previous research (aghababaei & błachnio, 2015), indicating that both machiavellianism and psychopathy were negatively associated with positive functioning and well-being (i.e., subjective happiness, basic psychological needs satisfaction) and positively associated with negative outcomes (i.e., anxiety, depression). sd3 narcissism demonstrated significant positive associations with measures of well-being and extraversion, consistent with previous research (egan et al., 2014). in contrast, dd narcissism did not show significant correlations with most measures of well-being, except for the bpns competence and relatedness scale. these divergences further supported previous findings that sd3 and dd measure different forms of narcissism (maples et al., 2014). regarding disinhibition and constraint, both sd3 and dd psychopathy significantly predicted various aspects of disinhibition and prosocial attitudes. machiavellianism and psychopathy positively predicted distractibility and manipulativeness, and negatively predicted prosociality. narcissism showed positive correlations with prosociality and manipulativeness, and negative correlations with distractibility. these associations are consistent with the notion that individuals with negative personality traits are more prone to misconduct and substance abuse (azizli et al., 2016; stenason & vernon, 2016). collectively, the findings of the present study highlighted a potential ‘jingle-jangle’ fallacy in measuring dt traits, which posits that similar labels (e.g., narcissism) may not represent identical constructs across different measures, and different labels (e.g., machiavellianism and psychopathy) may sometimes overlap significantly. furthermore, our findings underscore the need for researchers to carefully select dt scales based on their specific objectives and the construct clarity provided by each measure. this study contributed methodologically by integrating a robust sem framework with fronell–larcker and htmt analyses to assess the validity of dt measures. these approaches provided a comprehensive evaluation of both convergence and discriminant validity, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in existing measures. additionally, the inclusion of a nomological network analysis added depth to our understanding of how these traits were related to broader personality constructs and mental health outcomes. by comparing two prominent dt measures, this study offered valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners. future research should focus on revising the sd3 items, particularly in italian, as the observed lack of discriminant validity may arise from item heterogeneity. nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 102 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ several limitations should be acknowledged. first, the reliance on self-report measures might have introduced some bias due to social desirability or response tendencies. future research could complement self-reports with behavioral or observational methods to enhance validity. second, the study was conducted on an italian sample, which may limit generalizability to other cultural contexts. given potential cultural variations in the expression of dt traits, replication in diverse populations is necessary. third, the study’s design did not account for the measurement of vulnerable narcissism explicitly, which may partly explain the weaker convergence observed for this trait. notwithstanding limitations, overall, this study demonstrated that while the sd3 and dd scales are consistent in measuring machiavellianism and psychopathy, their operationalizations of narcissism diverged significantly. the sd3’s challenges with discriminant validity highlight the need for careful scale selection depending on research objectives. by leveraging advanced psychometric methods and nomological network analyses, this study contributes to the ongoing refinement of dt measurement and emphasizes the importance of aligning measurement tools with theoretical clarity. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article, codes and materials are available at tommasi (2025). supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • code. 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(2017). the nature and correlates of the dark triad: the answers depend on the questions. journal of abnormal psychology, 126(7), 951–968. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000296 appendix table s1 descriptive statistics of psychological scales used in the present research psychological scale subscale # valid cases m sd skewness kurtosis cronbach's α 90% ci [ll,ul] correlation with mc prob. of corr. bees 503 24.03 21.82 -.15 .10 .88 .87, .88 .32 < .001 iri f 503 14.68 4.04 -.01 -.27 .79 .78, .80 .00 .94 pt 504 22.63 3.59 .01 -.66 .68 .66, .70 .36 < .001 ep 502 23.56 4.52 -.20 -.04 .75 .74, .76 .29 < .001 pd 503 19.03 4.97 .06 -.06 .80 .79, .81 -.01 .87 shs 497 18.56 4.57 -.34 -.22 .71 .69, .73 .08 .09 sticsa 504 39.80 9.17 .41 -.32 .87 .86, .87 -.16 < .001 tdi 503 28.18 12.24 .35 -.01 .91 .90, .91 -.19 < .001 bpns aut 504 24.93 3.56 -.46 .19 .54 .51, .56 .09 .06 com 504 20.78 3.71 -.10 -.34 .63 .61, .65 .14 < .01 rel 504 31.28 4.54 -.51 .32 .74 .72, .75 .28 < .001 lsrp pp 501 30.99 6.64 .11 -.35 .82 .81, .83 -.42 < .001 sp 502 21.58 3.66 -.01 .71 .56 .54, .58 -.32 < .001 tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 105 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02 https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.12784 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9588-6 https://doi.org/10.1002/pmh.1267 https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000499 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.01.010 https://rivistedigitali.erickson.it/orientamenti-pedagogici/archivio/vol-50-n-5 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024165 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12428 https://osf.io/rbhyt https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000222 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0455-4 https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000296 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychological scale subscale # valid cases m sd skewness kurtosis cronbach's α 90% ci [ll,ul] correlation with mc prob. of corr. sd3 mach 504 24.16 5.79 .23 -.19 .72 .70, .73 -.44 < .001 nar 504 25.93 4.94 .24 .31 .64 .63, .66 -.19 < .001 psy 504 19.10 5.14 .36 -.27 .68 .66, .69 -.46 < .001 dd mach 504 8.86 4.92 1.09 .42 .83 .82, .84 -.55 < .001 nar 504 14.37 5.21 -.14 -.79 .74 .72, .75 -.37 < .001 psy 504 10.33 4.52 .71 .31 .62 .59, .65 -.41 < .001 bfq-sf e 503 37.83 5.81 .32 .38 .69 .68, .70 -.06 .15 a 503 39.75 5.38 -.02 .11 .66 .65, .67 .44 < .001 c 503 43.18 6.22 .05 -.08 .77 .76, .78 .17 < .001 em-st 503 34.54 7.67 .13 -.36 .84 .83, .84 .23 < .001 o 503 40.79 6.76 -.09 -.18 .77 .76, .78 .09 < .05 dis-i pros-cons 502 3.74 .40 -.27 1.53 .71 .70, .72 .23 < .001 pros-goal 504 3.80 .50 -.41 .64 .69 .68, .71 .34 < .001 pros 502 3.69 .50 -.22 .42 .66 .64, .68 .03 .57 distr 503 2.79 .64 .27 .09 .87 .87, .88 -.31 < .001 manip 503 2.27 .58 .33 .08 .83 .82, .83 -.52 < .001 order 502 3.42 .73 -.31 -.11 .84 .83, .85 .17 < .001 risk 504 2.85 .59 .37 .34 .69 .68, .71 -.10 < .05 total 503 2.59 .29 .10 -.12 .81 .81, .82 -.46 < .001 mc 503 31.75 5.53 -.26 -.08 .68 .66, .69 note. correlations with the marlowe-crowne scale with corresponding probabilities are also shown. ci = confidence interval; bees = balanced emotional empathy scale; iri = interpersonal reactivity index (subscale: f = fantasy; pt = perspective taking; ep = empathic concern; pd = personal distress); shs = subjective happiness scale; sticsa = state-trait inventory of cognitive and somatic anxiety;tdi = teate depression inventory; bpns = basic psychological needs scale (subscales: aut = autonomy; com = competence; rel = relatedness); lsrp = levenson self-report psychopathy scale (subscales: pp = primary psychopathy; sp = secondary psychopathy); sd3 = short dark triad (subscales: mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psy = psychopathy); dd = dirty dozen (mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psych = psychopathy); bfq-sf = big five questionnaire-short form (e = extraversion;a = agreeableness;c = conscientiousness; em-st = emotional stability; o = openness); dis-i = disinhibition inventory (subscales: pros-cons = prosociality-considerateness; pros-goal = prosociality-orientation goal;pros = prosociality; distr = distractibility; manip = manipulativeness; order = orderliness; risk = risk taking; total = dis-i total score); mc = marlowe-crowne scale. table s2 coefficients (β) and relative standard errors (se) for baseline model scale factor item β se z value p(z) residual sd3 mach i4 0.810 0.015 52.605 <.001 0.344 i1 0.067 0.017 3.963 <.001 0.996 i7 0.433 0.015 28.746 <.001 0.812 i10 0.473 0.015 30.759 <.001 0.776 i13 0.725 0.015 49.810 <.001 0.475 i16 0.614 0.015 40.667 <.001 0.623 i19 0.447 0.015 29.257 <.001 0.800 i22 0.476 0.015 31.258 <.001 0.773 i25 0.565 0.015 37.483 <.001 0.680 nar i2 0.496 0.021 24.093 <.001 0.754 i5 0.569 0.021 27.289 <.001 0.676 i8 0.510 0.021 24.647 <.001 0.740 i11 0.418 0.020 21.200 <.001 0.825 i14 0.642 0.021 29.922 <.001 0.588 i17 0.370 0.020 18.516 <.001 0.863 i20 0.441 0.020 21.947 <.001 0.806 i23 0.265 0.020 13.299 <.001 0.930 i26 0.217 0.021 10.477 <.001 0.953 psy i3 0.477 0.017 28.788 <.001 0.773 i6 0.336 0.016 21.094 <.001 0.887 i9 0.554 0.017 33.415 <.001 0.693 i12 0.378 0.016 23.173 <.001 0.857 i15 0.731 0.017 41.954 <.001 0.466 i18 0.238 0.017 13.828 <.001 0.943 i21 0.300 0.019 15.483 <.001 0.910 i24 0.584 0.018 32.604 <.001 0.659 nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 106 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scale factor item β se z value p(z) residual i27 0.678 0.017 39.830 <.001 0.541 dd mach i1 0.841 0.013 66.159 <.001 0.294 i4 0.817 0.013 62.285 <.001 0.332 i7 0.778 0.013 60.424 <.001 0.394 i10 0.850 0.013 67.393 <.001 0.277 nar i3 0.644 0.017 37.712 <.001 0.586 i6 0.502 0.016 30.544 <.001 0.748 i9 0.729 0.018 41.367 <.001 0.468 i12 0.819 0.019 43.697 <.001 0.329 psy i2 0.373 0.017 21.844 <.001 0.861 i5 0.613 0.018 34.997 <.001 0.624 i8 0.740 0.018 41.769 <.001 0.452 i11 0.786 0.018 43.208 <.001 0.383 note. z values, p(z) values and residuals are also reported. mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psy = psychopathy. table s3 factors reliabilities (coefficient alpha, coefficients omega, average variance extracted or ave), interand intracorrelations between the sd3 and the dd factors (n = 504) and heterotrait-monotrait (htmt) matrix factors reliabilities subscale α α. ordinal ω1 ω2 ω3 ave sd3-mach 0.724 0.760 0.743 0.743 0.737 0.302 sd3-nar 0.651 0.684 0.655 0.655 0.642 0.207 sd3-psy 0.686 0.751 0.699 0.699 0.664 0.252 dd-mach 0.845 0.892 0.853 0.853 0.854 0.676 dd-nar 0.735 0.760 0.740 0.740 0.740 0.467 dd-psy 0.617 0.702 0.691 0.691 0.705 0.420 factor correlations and ave square root values subscale sd3-mach sd3-nar sd3-psy dd-mach dd-nar dd-psy sd3-mach 0.507a sd3-nar 0.572 0.455a sd3-psy 0.877 0.605 0.502a dd-mach 0.927 0.500b 0.863 0.822a dd-nar 0.696 0.718 0.628b 0.807 0.684a dd-psy 0.744 0.505b 0.876 0.833 0.658 0.648a htmt matrix sd3-mach sd3-nar 0.566 sd3-psy 0.751 0.543 dd-mach 0.888* 0.390 0.694 dd-nar 0.678 0.722 0.377 0.737 dd-psy 0.731 0.562 0.877* 0.792 0.518 note. sd3 = short dark triad; dd = dirty dozen; mach = machiavellianism; nar = narcissism; psy = psychopathy. all correlations are significant for p < .001. in factor correlations matrix, the square roots of ave values are indicated by a , and are reported on the principal diagonal. correlations lower than ave square root values are indicated by b. in htmt matrix values > 0.85 are indicated by *. about the authors marco tommasi is assistant professor at the university of chieti-pescara, italy. he took his ph.d. in scientific psychology at the university of padua, italy. his actual area of interests are psychophysics, psychometrics and individual differences, in particular, intelligence, personality, emotions, psychological well-being, psychological testing and data analysis. he is currently teaching “theo­ ry and techniques of psychological assessment” and “methodology of research and multivariate data analysis in psychology” in courses for undergraduate students. his scientific production includes more than 60 papers published on indexed journals, books and handbooks of psychological tests. tommasi, lauriola, & saggino 107 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(2), 93–108 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ marco lauriola is full professor of psychology at the university of rome la sapienza. his research primarily focuses on psychomet­ rics and measurement theories in psychology, particularly emphasizing individual differences in decision-making under uncertainty and risk. his work explores the role of personality factors in risky choices, the psychometric assessment of intolerance to ambiguity and uncertainty, and the development and adaptation of psychological measurement scales. additionally, he applies psychometric methods in health and well-being research, utilizing advanced statistical techniques such as structural equation modeling and meta-analysis to enhance psychological assessment and theory development. aristide saggino is full professor of psychometrics at the department of psychology, university of chieti – pescara, italy. his research primarily focuses on psychological assessment, individual differences and evidence based psychotherapy. nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales 108 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ nomological and validity examination in dark traits scales (introduction) method participants and procedure measures results descriptive analysis multi-trait multi-method analyses nomological analysis discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references appendix about the authors twins assessing their own and parental intelligence: examining the raters’ agreement and the effect of raters’ and targets’ gender research reports twins assessing their own and parental intelligence: examining the raters’ agreement and the effect of raters’ and targets’ gender denis bratko* a, martina pocrnić a, ana butković a [a] department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb, zagreb, croatia. abstract the goal of this study was to explore the raters’ agreement and the effect of raters’ and targets’ gender on selfand parental intelligence assessments in the sample of croatian twins. twins were asked to assess their own and their parents’ overall intelligence, as well as specific abilities from the gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. data was analysed to explore: i) twins’ agreement in parental assessments and behavioural genetic analysis of the overall intelligence estimates; ii) gender differences in selfassessments; and iii) raters’ and targets’ gender effects on parental assessments. the twins’ mean correlation in their assessments of overall parental intelligence was .60. the differences between monozygotic and dizygotic twin correlations were nonsignificant for all of the estimated abilities, and model fitting analysis indicates that hypothesis about genetic effect on parental assessment of intelligence should be rejected. the hypotheses about males’ higher self-assessments for overall intelligence and for the masculine types of abilities logical-mathematical, body-kinesthetic and spatial abilities were confirmed. for the feminine types of abilities verbal/linguistic, interand intrapersonal intelligences there were no significant gender effects. both target and rater effect were found for the parental estimates of intelligence. fathers were estimated higher on overall intelligence, logical-mathematical, body-kinesthetic and spatial abilities, while mothers were estimated higher on interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. the effect of the raters’ gender was found for overall intelligence as well as for interand intrapersonal intelligences, where males gave higher estimates of parental intelligences than females. keywords: self-assessed intelligence, other-assessed intelligence, gardner’s multiple intelligences, twin study, gender europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 received: 2018-12-13. accepted: 2019-03-21. published (vor): 2020-05-29. handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb ivana lučića 3, 10000 zagreb, croatia. e-mail: dbratko@ffzg.hr this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. intelligence is one of the central concepts in differential psychology. numerous psychometrically validated tests were developed for assessing one's intelligence score. however, in daily life lay people often evaluate their own abilities, as well as abilities of others without using standardized measures. these selfand otherassessments of intelligence (sai and oai) can be detected by asking individuals to estimate their own intelligence quotient (iq) or iq of others on a bell curve of intelligence with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, using a deviation iq scale as a model. obviously, impressions about selfand otherintelligence are not only based on the actual abilities. recent meta-analysis indicates that constructs which correlate with sai can be categorized into four groups: i) constructs associated with intelligence; ii) tendencies and opportunities to develop intelligence; iii) constructs associated with biased selfassessments; and iv) positive states and life achievements (howard & cogswell, 2018). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ association between subjectively assessed and measured intelligence although one can assume that people are able to assess their own and others’ intelligence quite precisely, studies have shown that the correlation between sai and psychometric intelligence is usually around .30, with range between .20 and .50 (ackerman & wolman, 2007; furnham, 2001). bratko, butkovic, vukasovic, chamorro-premuzic, and von stumm (2012) have found correlation of .33 between measured iq and sai in the sample of croatian twins. borkenau and liebler (1993) investigated the convergence between measured and subjectively assessed iq. they found that measured intelligence correlates .32 and .29 with selfand acquaintance ratings of intelligence, respectively. these findings indicate that sai and oai are not very precise and that they certainly cannot replace the validated measures of intelligence. in order to explain inaccuracy of sai, researchers hypothesized that they may occur due to the lack of metacognitive insight or due to the broadness and the ambiguousness of the overall intelligence as a trait being evaluated (freund & kasten, 2012). the similar reasoning regarding broadness and ambiguousness of the intelligence concept might be extrapolated to oai as well. the realistic accuracy model borrowed from personality judgments (funder, 1995; see also connelly & ones, 2010) describes accuracy as a function of the availability, detection, and utilization of relevant behavioral cues, and recognition of these cues might be relevant for the accurracy in assessing abilities of other people as well. the twin studies of subjectively assessed intelligence classical twin study compares phenotypic resemblances of monozygotic (mz) twins who are genetically identical and dyzgotic (dz) twins who share half of their genes on average in order to estimate the extent to which genetic variation contributes to the phenotypic variation of the trait. meta-analysis of twin correlations and reported variance components for 17,804 traits showed that the heritability estimate across all traits is 49% (polderman et al., 2015). there are only a few twin studies of sai and they have shown that heritability of self-assessed abilities is as high as for measured intelligence. spinath, spinath, and plomin (2008) reported genetic influences of 40%, greven, harlaar, kovas, chamorro-premuzic, and plomin (2009) reported heritability of 51%, while bratko et al. (2012) reported heritability of 57%. on the other hand, as far as we know, there are no prior twin studies, which include oai. twin design in estimating parental intelligence can also allow, besides testing the hypothesis about genetic and environmental influence, the investigation of rater agreement in oai. we know little about the agreement of family members in their estimation of abilities of other family member. for example, in a broad personality domain, the meta-analysis (connelly & ones, 2010) yielded raterrater correlations of two family members estimating other family member traits of .37, .45, .38, .25, and .36 for neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, respectively. although we are not aware of such family rater-rater agreement studies of oai, borkenau and liebler (1993) reported average correlation of .52 between selfand close acquientance intelligence estimate. the hubris-humility effect even though sai and oai are not fully correspondent with psychometrically measured intelligence, these estimates are interesting research topic because they can provide important information about the lay views of intelligence. in general, studies have shown that people are likely to overestimate their intelligence score and see themselves as above the average. however, there is a difference between men and women in that trend. namely, men usually provide statistically higher estimations than women do. that was firstly stated in twins' assessing their own and parental iq 230 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hogan's (1978) pioneer study of intelligence estimation where he reported that in half of his 11 studies the difference between male and female intelligence self-estimations was statistically significant. since then, there have been a number of studies worldwide confirming that trend (e.g. beloff, 1992; bennett, 1996, 1997, 2000; furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005; furnham, kosari, & swami, 2012; furnham & storek, 2017; neto, furnham, & da conceição pinto, 2009; kang & furnham, 2016; rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000; von stumm, chamorro-premuzic, & furnham, 2009). this gender difference in intelligence self-estimation is considered consistent and culturally invariant and is known as hubris-humility effect (furnham, hosoe, & tang, 2001). besides self-estimations of overall intelligence, many studies investigated gender differences in specific domains, mostly using gardner's (1983, 1999) theory of multiple intelligences. gardner (1983) initially suggested that every individual should develop to some extent seven different types of intelligence. he defined ''object-related'' forms that include logical-mathematical, spatial and body-kinesthetic intelligence. the ''object-free'' forms consist of verbal/linguistic and musical intelligence. finally, there are two types of personal intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal domains. lately, gardner (1999) defined three new possible types – naturalistic, spiritual, and existential intelligence, but concluding that only naturalistic intelligence merits addition to seven original types. although gardner’s theory is not a psychometrically validated theory of the intelligence structure, and gardner has not designed instrument for measuring his different types of intelligence, it has been extensively used in the study of sai. the reason for this was that this theory offered a more fine-grained analysis of the differences in lay self-estimates, and not because the idea was to validate or support the theory itself (furnham, 2001). in addition, gardner’s view of intelligence is very appealing to lay people due to its view that everyone can be high in some type of intelligence. studies that investigated self-estimations of these multiple intelligences showed that the biggest and most consistent differences between men's and women's self-estimates were found in mathematical/logical and spatial intelligence, with men providing higher scores. similar pattern was also found in the studies that used psychometric cattell-horn-carroll theory of intelligence (ortiz, 2015) with men giving higher scores than women in estimating their overall intelligence and the most of broad abilities (furnham & mansi, 2014; kang & furnham, 2016). a meta-analytic study by syzmanowicz and furnham (2011) found the highest effect-size, with males assessing themselves higher than females, for mathematical/logical (d = .44), followed by spatial (d = .43) and overall (d = .37) intelligence, while the smallest effect size was in verbal/linguistic (d = .07) sai where females provided higher estimates. gender effect in intelligence assessment of others although most of the studies focused on the people's belief about their own intelligence, some of them also showed that these gender differences were not limited to sai. studies of oai indicate that there is a noticeable trend where people see their fathers, grandparents or sons as more intelligent than their mothers, sisters and daughters (furnham, 2000; furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005; furnham & gasson, 1998; furnham et al., 2001; neto & furnham, 2011). given that the focus of this study, besides gender differences in sai, are gender differences in oai or, more specifically, the parental estimates, we will also review the findings in that field. in his pioneer study, hogan (1978) also reported that both male and female students attributed higher iq scores to their fathers than to their mothers. that was followed by beloff's (1992) finding that women believe they are intellectually equal to their mothers, but inferior to their fathers, while men saw themselves as equal to their fathers and superior to their mothers. since then, there have been several studies in different cultures showing that people tend to give higher overall intelligence scores to their fathers than to their mothers (e.g. furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005; furnham & wu, 2008; furnham et al., 2012; petrides, furnham, & martin, bratko, pocrnić, & butković 231 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2004; swami, furnham, & zilkha, 2009). along with overall intelligence, studies also focused on perceived differences in parents' multiple intelligences. as well as with self-estimations, the most consistent finding is that fathers are believed to be more intelligent in mathematical/logical and spatial domains (furnham & wu, 2008; ortner, müller, & garcia-retamero, 2011; swami et al., 2009). on the other hand, mothers are often given higher scores on interpersonal, intrapersonal and musical intelligence (bennett, 1996; ortner et al., 2011; rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000). these findings indicate division of masculine and feminine types of abilities. bennett (2000) reported that people perceive mathematical, spatial and body-kinesthetic intelligences as more masculine, while personal, musical, and verbal/linguistic intelligences are perceived as abilities that are more feminine. interestingly, in some studies fathers were given higher estimates in verbal factor (furnham et al., 2012; rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000; swami et al., 2009), although it is usually considered as type of ability where women excel. in addition, furnham (2000) suggests that people primarily relate iq to mathematical and spatial domains and see them as essence of intelligence. therefore, it can be said that people see intelligence as male-normative. indeed, studies have shown that the best predictors of estimated overall intelligence are numerical and spatial domains (furnham, 2001; furnham et al., 2012; neto & furnham, 2011; swami et al., 2009). this illustrates that people do not have a broad view on intelligence that includes all domains suggested by gardner, but that they are mostly focused on masculine types of abilities when considering overall intelligence. sources of gender differences there are two different hypotheses that have been discussed in order to explain gender differences in estimated intelligence. first one argues that gender differences in estimations reflect small but real differences in intelligence between men and women which people tend to overestimate. thus, people estimate men as more intelligent because they observe that pattern in daily lives (furnham & rawles, 1995). however, results are inconclusive because gender differences in overall intelligence have been found in both the direction of higher men’s and higher women’s scores (e.g. daseking, petermann, & waldmann, 2017; irwing, 2012; keith, reynolds, patel, & ridley, 2008; reynolds, keith, ridley, & patel, 2008; van der linden, dunkel, & madison, 2017), while some research shows that there are negligible gender differences in overall intelligence (e.g. camarata & woodcock, 2006; flynn & rossi-casé, 2011; halpern, 2012; savage-mcglynn, 2012; sternberg, 2014). psychometric differences are usually found in the mathematical/logical and spatial domain where men have higher results (hyde, fennema, & lamon, 1990; voyer, voyer, & bryden, 1995), which is in line with gender differences in multiple intelligence estimations. the second hypothesis states that gender differences can primarily be attributed to gender stereotypes (rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000). when it comes to parental estimations, judgments about their iq score could also be associated with mothers' and fathers' family roles, work status or other additional cues which raters might use. ortner et al. (2011) showed that estimation of parents' overall intelligence can be predicted by their education and current employment status and argue that being unemployed or working part-time is more related to feminine gender role, while full-time employment is mostly perceived in relation to the male gender role and thus the higher estimations of intelligence. twins' assessing their own and parental iq 232 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rater effect another phenomenon in oai are possible differences in estimates between male and female raters. thus, the question is does hubris-humility effect extend to estimates of the others – both male and female targets? if males tend to give themselves higher estimations than females do, does that mean they are also more prone to give higher estimates to all others? certain studies have confirmed that assumption. for example, in swami et al. (2009) study males rated both of their parents as having higher intelligence for most intelligence types than did females, and furnham et al. (2001) reported that male participants rated fathers as overall more intelligent than did female participants. in furnham, arteche, chamorro-premuzic, keser, and swami (2009) study, males also rated their fathers, but not their mothers as having higher scores for most intelligence types than did females. yuen and furnham (2006) reported higher male's estimates than those given by females, for several fathers' intelligence types and for mothers' spiritual intelligence. however, furnham, rakow, sarmany-schuller, and de fruyt (1999) found out that belgian males rated their fathers' overall iq higher than belgium females, but the opposite pattern appeared in a sample of slovakian students. in addition, in furnham and wu (2008) study, gender differences occured for fathers' spatial and intrapersonal intelligence where females ascribed higher estimates than did male students. these findings indicate that raters’ gender may influence estimates of others, but its role and direction must be further explored and clarified. the present study the goal of this study was to examine: i) twins’ agreement in their assessments of parental intelligence and behavioural genetic analysis of those ability estimates; ii) gender differences in sai; and iii) raters’ and targets’ gender effects on parental assessments of intelligence. as far as we know, none of the previous studies of parental intelligence estimates have included two raters from the same family and this is the first study of parents' intelligence estimation where sample consists of twin pairs. due to this specific sample, we could investigate the rater-rater agreement of parental intelligence estimations by examining twins’ correlations in judgement of their parents' iq scores. since rater-rater agreement in judging the target traits depends on the level of knowing the targets and on the availability of the relevant cues which might be used for the accurate estimate of the trait (funder, 1995), we expect substantial correlations between twins. additionaly, by comparing mz and dz similarity and testing the behavioural genetic models, we could explore the aethiology of individual differences in impressions about the targets’ intelligence. estimates of the genetic and environmental contribution to the individual differences in sai based on this sample is published elsewhere (bratko et al., 2012) and the result of that study suggests a substantial genetic effect. however, individual differences in twin assessments of parental traits reflect their impressions and, since both raters are rating the same target, the differences in similarity between mz and dz twins are not expected. therefore, we expect that behavioural genetic model fitting of parental intelligence estimates would, in addition to always present non-shared environmental influence (e), reflect shared environmental influence (c) which primarily comes from the exposure to the target’s behaviour and from the availability of the relevant cues which are used to estimate parental intelligence. the second goal of this study was to extend previous findings on gender differences in self-assessed overall and domain specific intelligences to a new culture. to date, there have been numerous studies in countries all over the world, e.g. in argentina (furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005), south korea (kang & furnham, bratko, pocrnić, & butković 233 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2016), egypt (furnham & mottabu, 2004), iran (furnham et al., 2012), russia (furnham & shagabutdinova, 2012), britain and turkey (furnham et al., 2009), etc. most of these studies confirmed hubris-humility effect in sai and showed that men perceive themselves higher on overall intelligence than women. gender differences were also found in specific abilities, mostly on spatial and logical-mathematical where men provided higher estimates, while there was a tendency for women to have higher estimates on verbal/linguistic and personal intelligences, perceived as abilities that are more feminine. although several studies included participants from european countries, none of them investigated gender differences in intelligence estimation on the croatian sample. thus, our next hypothesis is that man will have higher estimates than women on overall intelligence, as well as on more masculine abilities (spatial, logical-mathematical and body-kinesthetic intelligence), while women will have higher self-estimated scores on more feminine abilities (interand intrapersonal, verbal/linguistic and musical intelligence). in addition, using available data on twins’ measured intelligence and personality, we expect that gender effect in sai would not change when these variables are controlled for. along with gender differences in sai, we were further interested in testing gender effect in twin estimations of parental intelligence, that is whether our participants would give higher intelligence scores to their mothers or to their fathers. previous studies mostly showed that fathers are perceived as more overall intelligent than mothers. as with self-estimations, there is also an evident distinction between more masculine and feminine abilities in parental estimations. fathers are perceived as more intelligent in the spatial and logical-mathematical domain, while mothers are seen more intelligent in the personal and musical domain. this pattern of result was confirmed in various countries, such as argentina (furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005), iran (furnham et al., 2012), britain and france (swami, furnham, & zilkha, 2009), etc. in accordance with those findings, we hypothesize that croatian participants will give higher overall intelligence scores to their fathers than to their mothers and that fathers will be given higher scores on masculine types of abilities (spatial, logical-mathematical and body-kinesthetic intelligence), while mothers will be given higher scores on feminine types of abilities (personal, verbal/linguistic and musical intelligence). finally, we are aiming to investigate the effect of raters’ gender on parental estimates of intelligence by examining whether male and female participants differ in size of iq scores given to their parents. as stated earlier, although the results from previous studies were inconsistent, some of them showed that men tend to give higher scores than women on overall and some specific intelligence types when estimating others (e.g. swami et al., 2009, furnham et al., 2001). along with those findings, our final hypothesis was that there will be an effect of rater’s gender in a way that male participants will tend to give higher intelligence scores to their parents than female participants. for the interaction effect we did not have any specific expectations. due to the multiple testing, we set the risk level for the acceptance of all hypotheses to one percent. method participants participants in the study were twins from the zagreb area. the initial sample was formed in 2007 based on the register of citizens from which twin pairs born between 1985 and 1992 were identified. in total 2005 individuals were contacted and 732 (36.5%) returned filled in questionnaires via mail. from those individuals, 518 had data on self-assessed intelligence (79 mz twin pairs, 83 dzs twin pairs, 82 dzo twin pairs and 30 twins without twins' assessing their own and parental iq 234 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ co-twin participating) and 483 participants had valid data of parents’ intelligence estimations. there were 220 male and 298 female participants, and their age varied between 15 and 22 years (m = 18.77, sd = 2.28). measures and procedure zygosity zygosity was determined with an 11-items questionnaire evaluating physical similarities (e.g. facial appearance, hair colour) and twin confusion by parents, other family members, teachers, casual friends and strangers. the use of questionnaires for zygosity determination has been shown to be accurate around 95% in different populations and cohorts (e.g. torgersen, 1979; reed et al., 2005; song et al., 2010). self-assessed intelligence we used a standard procedure to measure self-assessed intelligence. on one page a normal distribution was shown with a mean of 100 and distribution of six standard deviations (–3 to +3) together with brief descriptions of the anchor scores (e.g., 55 “mild retardation,” 100 “average,” 145 “gifted”). below the distribution a grid with 11 rows and four columns was shown. in rows short descriptions were provided for overall intelligence and 10 multiple intelligences (verbal/linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, body-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, spiritual, and existential) taken from gardner (1999). after reading these descriptions, participants were asked to write in columns estimates of their own, their mothers’ and their fathers’ intelligence. selfand parental estimates for overall intelligence and eight multiple intelligences (verbal/linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, body-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic intelligences) according to the gardner’s (2006) theory were used in this study. measured intelligence and personality since sai may partly reflect individual differences in real (measured) psychometric intelligence and personality, we have used these measures as control variables when testing the gender effect on overall sai. intelligence was assessed by the 20itmes croatian adaptation of a synononyms/antonyms subtest of general aptitude test battery (tarbuk, 1977) which is, according to the test manual, highly saturated with g factor. personality traits were measured with croatian adaptation of neo-five factor inventory (costa & mccrae, 1992). the cronbach's α coefficients were .81, .72, .57, .66, and .81 for neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, respectively. results rater agreement and behavioural genetic analysis of parental estimates of intelligence due to the specific composition of our sample, we were able to examine if there is rater agreement for parental estimates of intelligence. we calculated twin intraclass correlations for intelligence estimates of mothers and fathers. as can be seen from table 1, there is a significant agreement between twins in their ratings of both their fathers’ and mothers’ intelligences. correlations range from .30 to .64 for fathers’ estimates, and .29 to .59 for mothers’ ability estimates. rater agreement for both fathers’ and mothers’ estimates of intelligence is highest (all rs > .50) for overall intelligence, verbal/linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence and bratko, pocrnić, & butković 235 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interpersonal intelligence. the correlations of parental intelligence estimates were similar for mz and dz twins. the average correlations of mz and dz twins for estimation of overall parental intelligence was .63 and .56, respectively. 99% confidence interval around mz and dz twin correlations overlap indicating that there are no statistical differences between them. the twin agreement for fathers and mothers overall iq estimate was .63 and .54, respectively, while the median estimate for eight gardner’s specific abilities was .49, confirming the second set of hypotheses regarding substatial rater-rater agreement of parental estimates of intelligence. the average overall correlation of parental intelligence estimates across all twin pairs and both parents was .60i. in addition, we ran genetic analyses on parental overall intelligence estimates in the statistical program mx (neale, boker, xie, & maes, 2006; neale & maes, 2004). after assumption testing, univariate models were fitted in order to estimate a (additive genetic), c (common environmental) and e (unique environmental) influences, and then nested reduced univariate models (ae, ce and e) were compared to the full models in order to test which parameters were significant. for both fathers and mothers, confidence interval for the genetic influences (a) in the full model included zero and therefore a parameter could be dropped from the model. the best fitting model for both fathers’ and mothers’ intelligence estimates was a ce model with common environment (c) accounting for 63% and 51% of the variance, respectively. table 1 twin intraclass correlations ability fathers as target mothers as target fathers as target mothers as target all twins raters all twins raters mz twins raters dz twins raters mz twins raters dz twins raters overall iq .64 (.53-.73) .54 (.42-.65) .65 (.43-.79) .64 (.50-.75) .61 (.39-.76) .51 (.35-.64) verbal/linguistic .57 (.44-.67) .59 (.47-.69) .69 (.49-.82) .52 (.36-.66) .57 (.34-.74) .60 (.45-.71) logical-mathematical .62 (.51-.72) .56 (.44-.66) .53 (.28-.72) .65 (.51-.75) .72 (.55-.84) .48 (.31-.62) musical .42 (.27-.55) .50 (.37-.61) .41 (.13-.63) .43 (.24-.58) .60 (.37-.75) .46 (.28-.60) body-kinesthetic .31 (.15-.46) .30 (.15-.45) .37 (.09-.60) .29 (.09-.47) .50 (.25-.69) .22 (.02-.40) spatial .45 (.31-.58) .42 (.27-.55) .49 (.23-.69) .44 (.25-.59) .49 (.23-.68) .38 (.20-.54) interpersonal .62 (.49-.71) .53 (.39-.64) .69 (.48-.82) .60 (.45-.72) .53 (.28-.71) .52 (.36-.66) intrapersonal .49 (.35-.61) .42 (.27-.54) .51 (.26-.70) .48 (.30-.62) .54 (.30-.72) .37 (.18-.53) naturalistic .30 (.13-.45) .29 (.14-.44) .41 (.13-.63) .24 (.04-.43) .49 (.23-.68) .21 (.01-.39) n of pairs 228 242 73 155 78 164 note. with 99% confidence intervals in parentheses. gender differences in self-assessed intelligence in order to examine if men and women differ in their self-assessed intelligence, we calculated a series of t-tests for independent samples. since our sample consisted of twin pairs, we corrected the degrees of freedom associated with t-test values to half, so that the degrees of freedom associated with the calculated t-test values were 258 instead of 516, reflecting the number of pairs rather than number of individual participants (see mcgue, bacon, & lykken, 1993 for detail explanation of that procedure). also, levene’s test for equality of variances was found to be violated for overall intelligence, f(1, 516) = 21.92, p < .001, logical-mathematical intelligence, f(1, 516) = 10.81, p = .001, and spatial intelligence, f(1, 516) = 8.34, p = .004). owing to these violated assumptions, the t-statistic not assuming homogeneity of variance was computed for those intelligences. results are presented in table 2. twins' assessing their own and parental iq 236 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 descriptive statistics and mean differences in self-assessed intelligence between males (n = 220) and females (n = 298) intelligence males females t df dm sd m sd overall iq 108.99 12.72 105.17 9.54 3.74* 194.59 .34 verbal/linguistic 103.23 12.72 104.40 10.97 -1.12 258 -.10 logical-mathematical 105.26 14.69 100.93 13.04 3.48* 219.22 .31 musical 102.20 16.82 102.43 15.64 -0.16 258 -.01 body-kinesthetic 114.54 16.29 108.41 14.85 4.46* 258 .39 spatial 111.47 15.18 104.62 12.87 5.41* 212.40 .49 interpersonal 110.51 13.53 111.77 12.86 -1.08 258 -.10 intrapersonal 109.33 13.55 108.11 13.71 1.00 258 .09 naturalistic 102.83 11.72 102.25 11.31 0.57 258 .05 *p < .01. the results of statistical testing confirmed the hypothesis that male participants would have higher means on selfassessed overall intelligence and masculine abilities, namely logical-mathematical, body-kinesthetic, and spatial abilities. however, the hypothesis that females would have higher means on feminine abilities, namely interand intrapersonal, verbal/linguistic, and musical intelligence was not confirmed. point-biserial correlation of the gender (male coded as 1) with the measured intelligence, neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were, respectively, .11, .29, .00, .07, .05, and .07. (p < .001 for neuroticism, all other rs non significant). we calculated the correlation between gender and sai before and after controlling for measured iq and personality traits. these correlations were the same. to be more specific correlation between gender and self-estimated intelligence was r(518) = -.17, p < .001, while the partial correlation after controlling for measured iq and personality traits was r(492) = -.17, p < .001. effect of raters’ and targets’ gender in parental estimates of intelligence in order to examine if people give higher estimates of intelligence to their fathers than to their mothers and if there are effects of raters’ gender on parental estimates of intelligence, we ran a series of analysis of variance. we tested the main effects of parents’ gender and raters’ gender on parental estimates of intelligence, as well as the interaction between parents’ and raters’ gender. descriptive statistics for estimations of fathers’ and mothers’ intelligences, as well as for male and female raters separately, are presented in table 3, and the results of the analyses of variance are presented in table 4. none of the interactions was statistically significant. for the offspring estimates of parental overall intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, body-kinesthetic intelligence and spatial intelligence we found main effects of parents’ gender fathers were given higher intelligence scores than mothers – mirroring the findings on self-estimates and supporting the gender effects on overall and masculine types of intelligence. mothers were given the higher estimates for interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence, so the set of hypotheses regarding feminine types of intelligence was partially confirmed. significant effect of the raters’ gender was found for the estimates of parental overall intelligence, f(1, 481) = 10.31, p = .001, ηp2 = .02, interpersonal intelligence, f(1, 481) = 7.10, p = .008, ηp2 = .02, and intrapersonal intelligence, f(1, 481) = 8.11, p = .005, ηp2 = .02, with females bratko, pocrnić, & butković 237 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ giving lower parental estimates than males. these findings partially confirmed the hypotheses about raters’ effects. table 3 descriptive statistics in parental estimates of intelligence intelligence male raters female raters total fathers as target mothers as target fathers as target mothers as target fathers as target mothers as target m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd overall iq 111.58 13.25 108.69 11.17 108.19 11.93 105.87 10.81 109.62 12.60 107.05 11.04 verbal/linguistic 108.64 14.18 108.78 13.60 105.79 14.02 108.82 12.61 106.99 14.14 108.81 13.02 logical-mathematical 110.39 15.83 102.88 12.75 109.74 14.50 102.72 12.36 110.01 15.06 102.79 12.51 musical 100.03 13.86 101.18 11.89 99.72 13.61 99.02 13.22 99.85 13.70 99.93 12.71 body-kinesthetic 106.45 14.65 100.15 12.81 105.69 12.57 100.36 11.64 106.01 13.47 100.27 12.13 spatial 113.15 14.27 105.07 13.39 110.84 13.95 103.48 12.57 111.81 14.11 104.15 12.93 interpersonal 105.82 15.25 112.26 13.51 103.35 14.13 108.98 14.01 104.39 14.65 110.36 13.88 intrapersonal 108.87 13.35 109.44 13.12 104.59 13.39 107.45 13.01 106.39 13.52 108.29 13.08 naturalistic 105.09 11.87 104.59 11.07 104.28 12.51 104.51 10.94 104.62 12.24 104.54 10.98 n of pairs 203 203 203 203 280 280 280 280 483 483 483 483 table 4 results of analysis of variance for gender and rater effect in parental estimates of intelligence (n = 483) intelligence targets’ gender (f) effect size (ηp2) raters’ gender (f) effect size (ηp2) targets x raters (f) effect size (ηp2) overall iq 28.17* .06 10.31* .02 0.33 .00 verbal/linguistic 5.68 .01 1.77 .00 4.71 .01 logical-mathematical 92.09* .16 0.16 .00 0.10 .00 musical 0.11 .00 1.51 .00 1.83 .00 body-kinesthetic 87.95* .16 0.08 .00 0.61 .00 spatial 109.52* .19 3.78 .01 0.25 .00 interpersonal 65.37* .12 7.10* .02 0.30 .00 intrapersonal 10.84* .02 8.11* .02 4.82 .01 naturalistic 0.07 .00 0.22 .00 0.51 .00 note. f = f test for the effect of gender of a parents (targets), twins (raters) or targets x raters interaction; ηp2 = partial eta squared for the effect size. *p < .01. discussion the goal of this study was to explore the raters’ agreement and the effect of raters’ and targets’ gender on selfand parental intelligence assessments in the sample of croatian twins. this is the first twin study of parental intelligence assessment, and additionally, to our knowledge, the first study that uses more than one rater from the same family assessing intelligence of the other family member. twins' assessing their own and parental iq 238 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ twin agreement and behavioural genetic analysis of parental estimates of intelligence first aim of this study refers to participants’ estimations of their parents' score on overall and eight gardner’s intelligences. due to our specific sample that consists of twin pairs, we had two raters from the same family, i.e. two independent intelligence estimates for mothers and fathers. therefore, we were interested in investigating consensus between raters in estimation of their mothers’ and fathers’ intelligence scores. results showed that all twin intraclass correlations were substantial. the twin correlation was .60 for the overall iq estimate, and for the eight multiple intelligence estimates the median correlation was .49. the twin agreement for the parental overall intelligence estimate was higher than meta-analyzed mean correlation of two raters from the same family who judged five-facor personality traits which ranged from .25 to .45 (connelly & ones, 2010), and higher than typical correlations between selfand otherintelligence assessments with measured intelligence (ackerman & wolman, 2007; borkenau & liebler, 1993; bratko et al., 2012; furnham, 2001), which are in the neigborhood of .30. however, obtained twin agreement was only slightly higher than correlation between selfand close acquaintance intelligence assessment (borkenau & liebler, 1993). higher correlations between two impressions (selfrater or rater-rater assessments) than selfor ratercorrelations with measured intelligence sugest that both sai and oai are, besides measured intelligence, based on the additional cues beyond pure behavioural expression of the ability. similar twin correlations were found for both mothers’ and fathers’ intelligence estimates. however, the lowest agreement between raters was found for naturalistic (rs = .30 for fathers; rs = .29 for mothers) and body kinesthetic (rs = 31. for fathers; rs = .30 for mothers) intelligences, which may reflect the lower validity of these concepts from the gardner multiple intelligence theory. on the other hand, the highest agreement was found for overall, logical-mathematical, interpersonal and verbal/linguistic intelligences. it can be assumed that the descriptions of those intelligence types were easier to understand and that raters had similar idea about their meaning. furthermore, since the highest consensus was found for overall intelligence, it seems that raters were having a similar definition and view of what general intelligence is. since to our knowledge there are no twin studies of oai, we also used the specific compostion of our sample to examine genetic and environmental influences to individual differences in oai. mz and dz correlations for both mothers’ and fathers’ overall intelligence scores were similar and model fitting has indicated that individual differences in oai can be contributed to common and unique environmental influences. this is different from the usual pattern where genetic factors play an important role in explaining individual differences in a trait. however, substantial effect of the common environment indicates that twin judgments of parental intelligence are not genetically mediated and are guided by the cues, which come from the exposure to the same environment. gender differences in self-assessed intelligence the second goal of this study was to extend the existing findings on gender differences in assessing own intelligence to a new culture and with a specific twin sample. most of the obtained results confirmed our hypotheses showing that the universal pattern of gender differences in sai can also be found in a croatian sample. we wanted to investigate if male and female participants differ in self-assessed overall iq and eight domains of intelligence defined by gardner (2006). in accordance with the most of previous studies in the area, gender differences in sai were found for overall intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, body-kinesthetic intelligence and spatial intelligence, with males reporting higher sai scores on these domains compared to febratko, pocrnić, & butković 239 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ males. this is completely in line with our hypothesis that men will have higher estimates than women on overall intelligence, as well as on those abilities that are usually perceived as more masculine. the biggest effect was found for spatial intelligence (d = .49), very similar to the effect size (d = .43) reported in a meta-analytic study of gender differences in sai by syzmanowicz and furnham (2011). since findings support that there are real differences between men and women in spatial ability (e.g. voyer et al., 1995), we can assume that gender difference in sai on spatial domain reflects this difference that really exists between genders. on the other hand, females have not perceived themselves significantly higher than males in any intelligence domain. we have not found gender differences in either personal, musical or verbal ability, as hypothesized since those domains are stereotypical perceived as more feminine. however, in some of the studies female participants also did not provide significantly higher results in any intelligence domain (e.g. furnham & chamorro-premuzic, 2005; furnham & wu, 2008; kang & furnham, 2016), including the study in poland (furnham, wytykowska, & petrides, 2005). therefore, we can say our results indicate existence of hubris-humility effect in a croatian sample, where male participants are prone to give themselves higher iq scores than females on overall and few specific abilities, while female participants do not have that pattern in any intelligence domain. in addition, our results are in line with the hypothesis that culture plays a role in hubris-humility effect. storek (2011) found that the effect size (η2 = .08) for mathematical and spatial intelligence or domain-masculine iq was in czech republic smaller than in 6 uk samples (η2 range = .17-.32). in our study effect size for mathematical intelligence was η2 = .05, and for spatial intelligence η2 = .13. however, it is important to point out that both males’ and females’ average scores on overall as well as on each of eight types of intelligence is above the population theoretical mean score of 100. that is in line with findings that people generally have a tendency to overestimate their abilities, known as ''lake wobegon'' effect (kruger, 1999). in our study, males gave themselves the highest estimates on body-kinesthetic intelligence (m = 114.54, sd = 16.29), while females scores were highest on interpersonal intelligence (m = 111.77, sd = 12.86). effect of raters’ and targets’ gender in parental estimates of intelligence besides participants’ agreement in their judgment of parents’ intelligence, we wanted to investigate the effect of both raters’ and targets’ gender in the assessment on parental intelligence estimation. we have found main effects for parents’ gender and raters’ gender in parental estimation but no interaction effects. results of the main effects of parental gender were in line with our hypothesis. fathers were estimated as more intelligent than mothers on same domains where male participants provided higher sai scores on overall intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, body-kinesthetic intelligence and spatial intelligence. on the other hand, on interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence participants gave higher intelligence scores to mothers than to fathers. the biggest effect was found for spatial intelligence (ηp2 = .19) followed by logical-mathematical and body-kinesthetic intelligence (ηp2 = .16). these results are correspondent with bennett's (2000) idea that different intelligence types can be divided into two factors – masculine and feminine abilities, and it seems that those stereotypic views are present among croatian participants. however, our hypothesis was not fully confirmed because mothers were not perceived as more intelligent in verbal/linguistic or in musical domain. despite the fact that verbal intelligence is traditionally seen as a female type of ability, it is interesting that gender difference in parental estimation of that domain was not found in some of the other studies as well, and in some of them fathers were given even higher scores (furnham et al., 2012; rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000; swami et al., 2009). the crucial question is why gender differenes in estimates of parental intelligence twins' assessing their own and parental iq 240 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exist? if the assumption that oai depends on additional cues, besides real gender differences in ability, is correct, then we can ask ourselves which cues judges use when they assess parental intelligence. one possible cue to higher intelligence of fathers than mothers could be the divison of housework and family decision making. research has shown that women are still responsible for about two thirds of routine housework (bartley, blanton, & gilliard, 2005; bartolac & kamenov, 2013; lachance-grzela & bouchard, 2010). davis (2010) points that one of the main reasons why women do more housework than men is that they have less power. furthermore, individual with more power in the relationship makes more decisions in that relationship (fox & murry, 2000). an interesting study by zipp, prohaska, and bemiller (2004) tested if the asymmetry between husbands and wives on decision making, the division of household labor, child care, and so forth can be explained, in part, by taking into account the invisible power of men. results showed that wives were much more likely than husbands to agree with their spouses’ known answers, and that tendency was virtually unaffected by women’s financial, cultural, and political capital. the other possible cue to higher intelligence of fathers than mothers could be related to working positions and earnings. recent gender gap report (world economic forum, 2018) has shown that there are more women than men in education and health industry, while the largest industry gender gaps were found for manufacturing, energy and mining, and software and it services industry with more men than women. in addition, it was found that male professionals are found in positions that are generally more lucrative and of a more senior level. in line with that, income gaps are particularly persistent, not only in pay, but also in division of economic power. longitudinal data from men and women who were top 1% in mathematical reasoning ability at age 13, showed that even in women and men of similar abilities, men earned more than women later in life, and were more likely to be chief executives and employed in information technology and stem positions (lubinski, benbow, & kell, 2014). finally, our analysis showed that there were also effects of raters' gender on some parental estimates. male participants gave higher estimates than females to their parents on overall intelligence, interpersonal intelligence and intrapersonal intelligence. females did not give significantly higher scores in any domain. although the results of raters' gender effect were not always consistent through studies, those that reported differences in how genders estimated others usually showed that men were more prone to give higher iq scores than women (furnham et al., 2001; swami et al., 2009). however, it is important to note that in our study differences were found in only three estimated domains and all of those effect sizes were relatively small (ηp2 = .02). limitations and conclusion the conducted study of twins’ selfand parental intelligence estimates yielded several relevant findings, but also has some limitations which can be taken into account when planning future research. firstly, the twins’ mean correlation in their assessments of overall parental intelligence was substantial and we can rarely see rater-rater correlations, which are so high when judging the target traits. that correlation is higher than correlations of sai and oai with psychometrically tested intelligence. thus, it may indicate the possibility that people use additional cues beyond intelligence in their subjective estimation of that trait. the future research migh be directed toward the identification of these cues. behavioural genetic analysis of the assessed parental intelligence yielded substantial shared environmental effect indicating that these cues obviously lie in the same environment to which the twins are exposed. bratko, pocrnić, & butković 241 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://www.psychopen.eu/ secondly, it is obvious that twin agreement is substantially higher for overall intelligence than for the gardner’s multiple intelligences. that is especially visible for the naturalistic and body kinaesthetic intelligence, which are probably difficult to judge for the raters. however, this may also indicate the lower validity of these gardner’s theoretical concepts. thus, future research on sources of the individual differences in sai and oai may benefit from other theoretical frameworks. for example, some of the studies in the field used sternberg’s three types of intelligence (furnham et al., 2009; kang & furnham, 2016; von stumm et al., 2009), thurstone's seven primary mental abilities (ortner et al., 2011; rammstedt & rammsayer, 2000), 10 broad abilities from cattell-horn-carroll theory of intelligence (furnham & mansi, 2014; kang & furnham, 2016) or concept of emotional intelligence (petrides et al., 2004; von stumm et al., 2009). regarding gender effects, the expectations about males’ higher self-assessments for overall intelligence and for the masculine types of abilities were confirmed, while for the feminine types of abilities there were no significant gender effects. both target and rater effects were found for the parental estimates of intelligence. one of the limitations of this research certainly lies in the fact that we only reported results on parental assessments of intelligence without parents’ scores on objective psychometric intelligence test. thus, it is difficult to estimate to which extent obtained gender differences in other-assessments reflect the real individual differences in intelligence within the particular sample or the non-cognitive individual differences which might account for the observed parental differences. for sai, the gender effect for the overall intelligence was controlled for the measured intelligence and personality. however, it should be noted that substantial (measured) gender differences are more probable for the specific abilities, and for those we do not have the control either for sai or for the parental intelligence estimates. future studies should therefore include both evaluations of the overall intelligence and specific abilities, as well as objectively measured general intelligence and specific abilities together with personality traits in order to test these different hypotheses. notes i) all average correlations were calculated using the transformation from the original correlations to the fisher's z-values, calculating the averages, and then using the back-transformation from the z-values to correlations funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ackerman, p. l., & wolman, s. d. 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(2004). wives, husbands, and hidden power in marriage. journal of family issues, 25(7), 923-948. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x04267151 about the authors denis bratko is a distinguished professor at the department of psychology at the faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb, where he leads the chair for general psychology. his research interests are individual differences, primarily in personality and ability domains. besides that, he is interested in behavioural genetics, cross-cultural psychology, and interrelations between dispositions and socially relevant life outcomes. he published his work in many distinguished scientific journals and regularly serves as a reviewer and/or member of the editorial board in some of the leading journals in his field. bratko, pocrnić, & butković 247 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs1138741600001906 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.lindif.2011.07.001 https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs0001566000009077 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.intell.2017.04.007 https://doi.org/10.1348%2f000712608x357876 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0033-2909.117.2.250 https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2018 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13598130600618009 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0192513x04267151 https://www.psychopen.eu/ martina pocrnić is a research assistant at the chair for general psychology at the department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb. she is interested in personality psychology, behavioural genetics, and relations between dispositions and socially relevant behaviours. ana butković is an assistant professor at the chair for general psychology at the department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of zagreb. her research interests are personality, intelligence, behavioural genetics and psychology of music. she published articles in many highly ranked journals and often serves as a reviewer for them. twins' assessing their own and parental iq 248 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(2), 229–248 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i2.1853 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ twins' assessing their own and parental iq (introduction) association between subjectively assessed and measured intelligence the twin studies of subjectively assessed intelligence the hubris-humility effect gender effect in intelligence assessment of others sources of gender differences rater effect the present study method participants measures and procedure results rater agreement and behavioural genetic analysis of parental estimates of intelligence gender differences in self-assessed intelligence effect of raters’ and targets’ gender in parental estimates of intelligence discussion twin agreement and behavioural genetic analysis of parental estimates of intelligence gender differences in self-assessed intelligence effect of raters’ and targets’ gender in parental estimates of intelligence limitations and conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai (purpose in life) in the workplace theoretical contributions an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai (purpose in life) in the workplace mégane sartore 1,2, stéphanie buisine 2, ioana ocnarescu 3, louis-romain joly 1 [1] sncf, research direction, paris, france. [2] cesi-lineact, cesi, paris, france. [3] strate research, strate school of design, paris, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 received: 2022-07-19 • accepted: 2023-06-13 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: sahir hussain, victoria university of wellington, wellington, new zealand corresponding author: mégane sartore, direction technologies, innovation et projets groupe sncf, immeuble jade, 1 avenue françois mitterrand, 93210 la plaine saint-denis, paris, france. e-mail: megane.sartore@gmail.com abstract in the japanese philosophy of life, ‘ikigai’ broadly refers to having a ‘reason for living’, or a purpose in life. from a phenomenological and empirical viewpoint, ikigai is reported to increase human well-being and even life expectancy. however, it remains difficult to translate, define and formalize with regard to contemporary psychological theories. in this respect, the aim of this paper is twofold: to capture as accurately as possible what ikigai is, and to examine whether the concept applies to a professional context. we first offer a comprehensive overview of ikigai, bridge the gap between this specific body of literature and related psychological theoretical frameworks, such as those addressing motivation, well-being, and attention. on this basis, we conceptualize an integrated cognitivemotivational model of ikigai using an ipo (input-process-output) framework: we organize dispositional or situational factors supposedly supporting ikigai as inputs, fueling the core process of ikigai (mainly built from motivational and attentional mechanisms), which produce outcomes (including well-being). a feedback loop completes the model and allows the process to maintain over time. this conceptual proposal is a first step towards applying and testing the model in professional contexts, in order to renew our approach of engagement, well-being, and performance at work as well as inspire workplace evolution. keywords ikigai, work motivation, well-being, mindfulness ikigai was introduced in japanese literature by kamiya (1966) and, although it has no exact translation, it refers to a sense of “life worth living” (kotera et al., 2021; weiss et al., 2005), encompassing well-being (shirai et al., 2006), “purpose in life” or “reason for living” (mathews, 1996; mori et al., 2017; sone et al., 2008). it can be defined as “a feeling obtained by a person who is doing something useful for someone else or society and, consequently, feels that life is worth living” (fukuzawa et al., 2019, p. 1). however, to date, there is no consensual academic definition of ikigai (kumano, 2003). two decades of essentially japanese empirical research on ikigai have been conducted in medicine (ishida, 2012; nakanishi, 1999; shirai et al., 2006; sone et al., 2008), psychology (fukuzawa et al., 2019; kamiya, 1966; kumano, 2012, 2018), education (hikmawan et al., 2019), anthropology (mathews, 1996; murray, 1993), and social sciences (kono et al., 2019). ikigai is said to improve health (nakanishi, 1999) and longevity (sone et al., 2008; tanno et al., 2009) by reducing risks of all-cause mortality. as such, it appears as an inspiring concept intrinsically linked to japanese unique culture. our aim is first to understand whether ikigai can be fully modelled based on existing psychological theories, or whether it brings a new approach to scholarly view on well-being, motivation and related concepts. after presenting literature dedicated to ikigai in the first place, we will link it to current psychological theories, including self-determi­ nation theory (deci & ryan, 2000), the perma theory of building blocks of well-being (positive emotions, engagement, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9943&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ positive relationships, meaningfulness and accomplishment; seligman, 2011), and mindfulness (ryan et al., 2008). secondly, we also wish to bridge the gap between ikigai as a philosophy of life and self-fulfillment at work, which can be approached for example through the theory of purposeful work behavior (barrick et al., 2013), or the job characteristics model (hackman & oldham, 1976). we present these insights organized as a process that we call the integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai. ikigai as a unique japanese concept beyond linguistic specificities, ikigai may be difficult to translate and define because of cultural specificities. anthropo­ logical studies have emphasized differences between japanese and north american self (kotera et al., 2021; mathews, 1996; smith, 1991). japanese self may be more contextual and socio-centric (mathews, 1996), with japan’s cultural profile lying in the middle (46/100) of the individualism/collectivism dimension (hofstede et al., 2010). in contrast, north american conception of the self seems particularly individualistic (spiro, 1993), specifically in the usa (which scores 91/100 on individualism; hofstede et al., 2010). in individualistic cultures “societies exist to promote the well-being of individuals” (oyserman & lee, 2008, p. 311); individuals are encouraged to define themselves as autonomous and distinct from others. conversely, collectivism is group-centered: “societies exist, and individuals must fit into them” (oyserman & lee, 2008, p. 311), which means that individuals are encouraged to define themselves in terms of relationships with others. consistently, east asian people value interdependence (to friends and family), whereas north americans value independence (fukuzawa et al., 2019; markus & kitayama, 1991). individualistic cultures are also more horizontal (equality of relationships with others), while collectivist cultures are more vertical (hierarchy; singelis et al., 1995). finally, people from individualistic and collectivistic cultures have different cognitive patterns and values which affect the way they interpret information and make decisions (oyserman & lee, 2008): cultures may value intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, and influence how universal needs are expected to be met. for example, cultures have different definitions of achievement: collectivist cultures value contribution to the group while individualist cultures value individual accom­ plishment (ryan & deci, 2000). similarly, individualistic cultures focus on personal needs and desires, while collectivistic cultures consider the needs and desires of others (markus & kitayama, 1991). in this context, how would people from individualistic cultures capture the concept of ikigai? in japan, the desire for ikigai is considered universal (kamiya, 1966; nakanishi, 1999) and may contribute to meet seven needs: (1) survival, (2) growth and change, (3) future such as life goals and dreams, (4) influence (being necessa­ ry to others), (5) freedom of choice, (6) self-fulfilment or personal development through one's potential (autonomous growth), and (7) meaning of life (a sense of value and worth of one's own life). in an attempt to formalize ikigai (kumano, 2006, 2012), four factors described as psychological states were identified (life-affirmation, meaning of life, life fulfilment, and existential value), as well as five cognitive value-laden mechanisms through which people perceive life worthiness: (1) making sense of the past, (2) setting future goals, (3) being absorbed in the positive present, (4) accepting negative situations, and (5) coping with negative situations. kumano (2013) further emphasizes the link between the four-factor model and the five value-laden mechanisms. this conceptualization gave rise to a hierarchical model highlighting central and peripheral elements of ikigai (figure 1, kumano, 2006, 2012). key components of ikigai would be life-affirmation, goals and dreams, meaning of life, existential value, a sense of fulfilment, and commitment. subjective well-being, psychological well-being, and quality of life would not be central to ikigai (kumano, 2012). a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai 388 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 the structure of ikigai and similar concepts note. adapted from kumano, 2006, our translation. this model provides a better understanding of the japanese view of ikigai. it also highlights a few inconsistencies between kumano's and kamiya's views regarding the core concepts of ikigai (as pointed out in figure 1). finally, although this model has been used in many japanese ikigai studies, it lacks parsimony. in ohsaki's study (sone et al., 2008), which is a longitudinal study with 43,391 participants over seven years, ikigai was measured through simple questions like “do you have ikigai in your life?” (sone et al., 2008; tanno et al., 2009). the results suggested that subjects who did not find their ikigai exhibited higher risks of all-cause mortality. ikigai was mainly investigated with elderly people to study longevity in blue zones1 (fukuzawa et al., 2019; nakanishi, 1999; shirai et al., 2006; tanno et al., 2009), and with students (hikmawan et al., 2019; kono et al., 2019; kumano, 2003). these studies highlight, for example, the role of social network for elderly people (fukuzawa et al., 2019), and ikigai decline with age (fukuzawa et al., 2019; nakanishi, 1999). a large part of these studies was conducted in japan (fukuzawa et al., 2019; iida & oguma, 2013; kono et al., 2019; shirai et al., 2006; sone et al., 2008; tanno et al., 2009), others in indonesia (hikmawan et al., 2019). in europe, ikigai-9 scale (imai, 2012) was translated into english and french (fido et al., 2020; vandroux & auzoult-chagnault, in press) but did not give rise to intercultural studies to date. some studies published only in japanese (kumano, 2003, 2006) support the cultural specificity of the concept (nakanishi, 1999), which may question the portability of this life philosophy to other cultures. in the usa, ikigai is represented by winn's diagram (figure 2), which builds on four areas: “what you love”, “what the world needs”, “what you are good at”, and “what you are paid for”, the intersection of which being named ikigai. this diagram does not come from the scientific literature and its origins are uncertain. initially, it was meant to represent purpose (zuzunaga, 2012): the “purpose venn diagram” ultimate intersection was named “purpose” (i.e., 1) the five blue zones are regions of the world where a significant number of people live much longer and better. they are ikaria in greece, okinawa in japan, sardinia in italia, loma linda in usa and nicoya peninsula in costa rica. sartore, buisine, ocnarescu, & joly 389 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “propósito” in spanish) instead of ikigai. besides, a tedtalk conference titled “how to live 100+” (buettner, 2009) revealed to a predominantly north american audience that ikigai was a reason for long-living in okinawa. these two sources may have inspired the publication of a blog post (winn, 2014) presenting an adaptation of the purpose venn diagram renaming the intersection “ikigai”. winn (2014) also renamed the field “what you are paid for” by “that which you can be paid for” without elaborating on his choice, while the other three areas are formulated as achievements, not potentials. intermediary intersections also show discrepancies between “profession” and “mission”. we present below an iteration on winn's (2014) diagram with simplified labels for the areas (figure 2) and use of the first person for appropriation purposes. we also swapped “mission” and “vocation”, as a “mission” refers to an important assignment and may be more likely associated to an external reward while “vocation” refers to a strong sense of fit for a career and may be more likely associated to personal liking. figure 2 diagram of ikigai (left) and our adaptation (right) note. diagram of ikigai from winn (2014). the viral nature of winn's (2014) diagram could be due to its simplicity and accessibility to represent a profound japanese concept. it is also inspiring as it prompts anyone to question life meaningfulness. another strength of this representation is to articulate personal factors (“what i love” and “what i am qualified for”), external rewards (“what i am paid for”) and altruistic purposes (“what the world needs”). indeed, ikigai is positively correlated to a cooperative view of life and negatively correlated to contemplative life (kumano, 2003). these features emphasize the significance of interpersonal or outward achievement in building a sense of self. this diagram nonetheless shows some limitations. for example, the economic dimension (“what you are paid for”) is subject to debate as ikigai can be reached independently from any financial reward (nakanishi, 1999). ikigai can be both the source of value in one's life or what makes life worth living and the mental and spiritual circumstances under which individuals feel that their lives are valuable. beyond work, ikigai can be reached in one's family life or leisure time. economic rewards are usually not referred to in japanese literature except for one research including financial status as social capital (fukuzawa et al., 2019). given these issues, a theoretical and testable model of ikigai is needed for improving our understanding of this concept and inspire new ways of viewing life and work. to our best knowledge, no attempt to provide a cognitive conceptualization of ikigai was made before. a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai 390 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai the lack of formal model of ikigai makes it difficult to use it as an intervention framework in the field. this is consistent with the view that ikigai is a complex process and its role in mental and physical conditions difficult to measure" (nakanishi, 1999, p. 323). our model highlights both preconditions and benefits in terms of well-being (shirai et al., 2006), health (nakanishi, 1999; sone et al., 2008), and performance (our hypothesis). a cognitive process can be described through a causality chain linking inputs, core processes, and outputs (i-p-o model, šimleša et al., 2018). such a model may provide a logical and straightforward vision of a complex process. inputs are the conditions for the processes to start, what we can act upon. core processes transform inputs into outputs. in a cognitive model, they correspond to individual intrapersonal unobservable mechanisms. an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai refers to motivational and attentional functions as core processes. finally, outputs are the observable and/or objective consequences we expect to achieve (e.g., behavior, psychological states), which also contribute to maintaining the system through a feedback loop. this model of ikigai is based on core processes composed of self-determination, fundamental needs, and mindfulness. we assume that these processes are triggered by two types of inputs: dispositional factors (causality orientation), and situational factors (social and physical work environment). finally, outputs include well-being, physical health, and performance (see figure 3). ikigai process is self-nourished by a commitment feedback loop. figure 3 an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai core processes: basic needs, self-determination and mindfulness in japanese literature, self-determination has already been included as a component of ikigai (kumano, 2006), which directly refers to self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 2000). self-determination theory links human motivation to needs satisfaction, and includes three fundamental needs—need for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. compe­ tence refers to the need to feel efficient and able to perform tasks at diverse levels of difficulty; autonomy corresponds to being at the root or source of one's activities; and relatedness refers to the need to feel associated to and supported by others. these higher-level goals refer to purposeful motivational strivings (barrick et al., 2013) and meeting these needs results in psychological growth and well-being. self-determination theory mainly contrasts intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (deci & ryan, 1985, 2000, 2002), notably in a work context (deci et al., 2017; gagné & deci, 2005). intrinsic motivation refers to activities conducted for themselves, for pleasure, without external constraint (deci & ryan, 2000). an intrinsically motivated individual will perform activities for their own sake, without the need for reinforcement. extrinsic motivation is characterized by reinforcements that are external to the individual (e.g., rewards). sartore, buisine, ocnarescu, & joly 391 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-determination theory introduces variations of extrinsic motivation along a regulation continuum (table 1) ranging from the least self-determined motivation (extrinsic) to the most self-determined one (intrinsic). in between, motivation is more or less internalized and characterized by five types of regulations (deci & ryan, 2000). table 1 the self-determination continuum behavior non-determined self-determined type of motivation amotivation extrinsic motivation intrinsic motivation type of regulation nonregulation external regulation introjected regulation identified regulation integrated regulation intrinsic regulation locus of causality impersonal external somewhat external somewhat internal internal internal note. taken from deci & ryan, 2000, p. 237. individuals expressing external regulation seek to achieve positive consequences which do not depend on themselves, such as obtaining rewards and avoiding negative consequences (e.g., punishment; deci & ryan, 2000). in introjected regulation, individuals seek to achieve internal positive consequences (e.g., self-esteem) and avoid negative consequen­ ces (e.g., feelings of guilt or shame). identified regulation introduces the notion of values: individuals identify with the perceived value of a behavior. identification contributes to the internalization of values, which generates commitment and performance (deci & ryan, 2000). finally, integrated regulation “involves identifying with the importance of behaviors but also integrating those identifications with other aspects of the self” (deci & ryan, 2000, p. 236). self-determination theory seems to overlap in many ways with ikigai: japanese literature mainly refers to intrinsic factors, but extrinsic factors are not excluded (fukuzawa et al., 2019) and introjected motivation is mentioned through self-esteem (kumano, 2006; shirai et al., 2006). identified and integrated regulation processes are also identifiable through the role of existential values for ikigai (kamiya, 1966; kumano, 2006). regarding fundamental needs, ikigai may be predominantly linked to the need for relatedness, which should generally be more salient in collectivist cultures. the social dimension of ikigai was also observed in empirical research (fukuzawa et al., 2019). furthermore, ikigai contributes to meeting needs for autonomy and competence through, for example, self-fulfillment, freedom of choice, and autonomous growth (kamiya, 1966; kumano, 2006). self-determination theory also fits to winn's diagram of ikigai. intrinsic regulation corresponds to “what i love”, extrinsic regulation to “what i am paid for”, introjected regulation to “what i am qualified for” and identified as well as integrated regulation to “what the world needs”. however, there may be variations in the relative importance of identified vs. intrinsic motivation between self-determination theory and ikigai. as self-determination theory is focused on personal growth, intrinsic motivation is considered as the ultimate achievement, whereas in ikigai philosophy, and consistent to its definition, meaningfulness, usefulness, or altruistic goals should be considered above intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction. the “what the world needs” area may bring most of the inspirational power of winn's diagram, because this idea of achieving something greater than one’s own pleasure (self-transcendence) leads one to question the meaning of life in a deeper way. more recent developments of self-determination theory account for this issue. for example, it was stressed that competitive individualism and capitalistic societies may hinder altruism and prosocial purposes, as well as lead to unsustainable attitudes and behaviors (ryan et al., 2008). self-determination alone cannot balance such sociocultural bias: the awareness of what is worth doing, the desire to make meaningful choices and the realignment to one’s values a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai 392 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ require the mindfulness process. mindfulness is defined as “awareness of what is occurring in the present moment, and is characterized by an open and receptive processing of events, both internal and external” (ryan et al., 2008, p. 158). mindfulness is also central to eudaimonia or psychological well-being. hence, we decided to include mindfulness as a core process of ikigai. mindfulness is defined as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (kabat-zinn, 2003, p. 145). it is a state of open and receptive awareness and processing of events. contrary to flow, which is a narrow and internally-oriented at­ tentional focus (šimleša et al., 2018), mindfulness would rather correspond to a large and externally oriented attentional focus. mindfulness emerges through intention, attention, and attitude (ruedy & schweitzer, 2010; shapiro et al., 2006, 2008) and its benefits on mental and physical health are well documented (hölzel et al., 2011; kabat-zinn, 1982): it promotes well-being (birtwell et al., 2019; walsh & shapiro, 2006), improves performance and relationships (schultz et al., 2015) including in professional contexts (chiesa & serretti, 2009; lau et al., 2006). it also increases leadership skills (brewer et al., 2011). inputs as the japanese model of ikigai does little to integrate dispositional and situational factors, we investigated precondi­ tions to self-determination and integrated them as ikigai potential drivers. we distinguish between situational and dispositional inputs to self-determination in the workplace (barrick et al., 2013; gagné & deci, 2005): situational inputs can be found in physical and social environment (e.g., job content, job context, and work climate), and dispositional input correspond to individual differences (e.g., causality orientation, personality). situational factors: social and physical work environment according to the cognitive evaluation theory, situational variables may impact motivation by affecting the feeling of autonomy and/or competence (deci & ryan, 1985; gagné & deci, 2005; vallerand et al., 1987). the so-called “perceived locus of causality” ranges from internal (feeling of autonomy) to external (feeling controlled). external events can move the locus of causality: for example, a tangible reward can decrease the sense of freedom and intrinsic motivation while a merit reward can increase one’s feeling of competence and intrinsic motivation. situational factors include psychological and environmental working conditions, which impact job satisfaction (pujol-cols & dabos, 2019). for example, job characteristics (skill variety, task identity and significance, autonomy, feedback) can foster intrinsic motivation (hackman & oldham, 1976; piccolo & colquitt, 2006). physical work environment is also considered as an input or a moderator to self-determination (bamberger, 2008), as it impacts work satisfaction, performance (bechtel, 2010; chandrasekar, 2011), communication, collaboration (brill & weidemann, 2001), engagement, and employee morale (chandrasekar, 2011). in line with the theory of purposeful work behavior, discordant work situations, inconsistencies or lack of compatibility with basic needs should be removed from work environment (barrick et al., 2013) to prevent any detrimental effect on ikigai. dispositional factors: causality orientation dispositional factors are relatively stable variables (caspi et al., 2005; dormann et al., 2006) that affect attitudes and behaviors at work (judge et al., 2008; ones et al., 2007; pujol-cols & dabos, 2019) as well as work motivation (austin & klein, 1996). consistently to the three-level hierarchical model of motivation (personality, life domain, and state moti­ vation; vallerand, 1997), amabile et al. (1994) show that intrinsic-extrinsic motivational orientation is relatively stable across time and situations. the causality orientation theory (deci & ryan, 1985) even considers this motivational orientation as a trait. finally, dispositional and situational factors interact: autonomous causality orientation leads to intrinsic motivation disregarding situational factors (gagné & deci, 2005) and controlled orientation promoting extrinsic motivation is more strongly influenced by job characteristics. sartore, buisine, ocnarescu, & joly 393 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outputs the japanese model of ikigai is more accurate on outputs, which is consistent to seeing ikigai as a state. on the basis of both ikigai and self-determination literature, we integrated three outputs: well-being, physical health, and performance. well-being as a psychological state as ikigai can be viewed as a process and well-being is a state (imai et al., 2009), the question of the relationship between ikigai and well-being is central to the japanese literature (fukuzawa et al., 2019; iida & oguma, 2013; kumano, 2006; shirai et al., 2006). subjective or hedonic well-being relates to how people feel and think about their lives (diener, 1984). it combines an affective dimension (high levels of positive affect and low levels of negative affect) and a cognitive dimension relying on global life satisfaction and on evaluation of specific life domains (e.g., job satisfaction or marital satisfaction). psychological well-being, also called eudemonic well-being (ryan & deci, 2001), is another construct based on cognitive evaluations of long-term life experience such as autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, posi­ tive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. the distinction between all these constructs (subjective, affective, cognitive and psychological well-being) is theoretical and conceptual, but empirical studies tend to show that all well-being dimensions are positively inter-correlated (anglim et al., 2020). furthermore, although life events impact subjective well-being, in particular in its cognitive dimension (luhmann et al., 2012), well-being in general appears to be rather stable over time and related to personality profile for about half of its variance (anglim et al., 2020). it is also interesting to note that the causal relation from subjective well-being to job satisfaction seems to be stronger than the causal relation from job satisfaction to subjective well-being (bowling et al., 2010). from a linguistic viewpoint, ikigai is closer to eudemonic well-being and “shiawase” better corresponds to hedonic well-being. although ikigai literature mentions all kinds of well-being (fukuzawa et al., 2019; shirai et al., 2006; tanno et al., 2009), the japanese ikigai model (kumano, 2006) also emphasizes eudemonic well-being as more central than hedonic well-being. in our aim to formalize a testable model of ikigai in a professional context, we chose to include well-being through the perma framework, as it is a theory of the building blocks of well-being (seligman, 2018) and may contribute thereby to understand ikigai dynamics more accurately. those building blocks are: positive emotions (feeling joyful), engagement (interest and absorption in the task), positive relationships (satisfaction with one's social relationships), meaning (the belief that one’s life is valuable and connected to something greater), and accomplishment (making progress, experiencing self-esteem and sense of achievement). perma components have been independently validated as contributing to overall well-being (kern et al., 2015; seligman, 2011). the japanese model of ikigai (kumano, 2006) includes at least four perma components: positive affects (p), positive relations (r), meaning of life (m) and sense of fulfillment (a). they are all positioned from the second to the third peripheral level of ikigai, which is consistent with their output status in our model. perma appears as a consistent output to our core processes, as self-determined, intrinsic levels of motivation direct­ ly generate pleasure (p), engagement (e) and accomplishment (a). besides, positive relations (r) and accomplishment (a) correspond to fundamental needs (relatedness and competence) motivating self-determination process and meaning (m) may result from the mindfulness process. physical health consistent to the japanese model which integrates it peripherally, we consider physical health as an output. finding and experiencing ikigai is frequently associated to better physical health (kotera et al., 2021), and a weak ikigai is associated to “poor general health” (nakanishi, 1999). in particular, ikigai reduces risks of diseases (sone et al., 2008; tanno et al., 2009). furthermore, research also addresses the link between well-being and physical health—in particular subjective well-being (diener & chan, 2011). engagement (e) and meaning (m) could play an important role in this link (roepke et al., 2014). performance although ikigai literature does not explicitly refer to performance, we added this output for two main reasons. firstly, our aim to model ikigai in the workplace calls for further examination of the effects of ikigai on performance. secondly, a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai 394 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performance is considered as a direct output of intrinsic motivation (vroom, 1994), whereas extrinsic motivation can degrade performance (gagné & deci, 2005). feedback loop: commitment process commitment is the process linking behaviors (i.e., observable outputs) to the individual's attitudes and cognitive processes (kiesler & sakumura, 1966). commitment contributes to determining people's behaviors through the actions they have previously taken and not only through their opinions and values. from the japanese model of ikigai, we introduced commitment as a feedback loop to nurture a lifelong, self-maintained ikigai process. conclusion and future orientations this integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai may bring several contributions. the first one is to gather japanese literature and contemporary psychological literature to build a unified consistent model. in this respect, we found self-determination combined with mindfulness as the most likely core process of ikigai. this enabled us to identify plausible dispositional and situational factors likely to enhance ikigai or explain individual differences in ikigai. considering ikigai in the workplace, we also introduced performance as an output variable resulting from ikigai and consistent with known outcomes of self-determination and mindfulness. with regard to current approach of well-being and performance at work, the effort to conceptualize ikigai led us to introduce mindfulness in the core processes as a way to highlight the importance of meaningfulness at work and eudemonic well-being, beyond individual pleasure and hedonic well-being. our model may nonetheless hold several limitations. the first one is its potential cultural bias challenging the possibility to adopt a japanese way of living in a european or north american work context. ikigai questions our self-perception (mathews, 1996). however, because we managed to account for most of ikigai features through existing psychological theories, we still feel confident in the relevance of our model to inspire new ways of shaping the workplace. secondly, using ikigai in the workplace can be viewed as a misappropriation of the concept. the attempt to translate winn's diagram in theoretical terms led us to introduce extrinsic rewards into the ikigai process. research repeatedly highlighted the detrimental effects of extrinsic motivation on performance (amabile, 1983). in this respect, we believe that the success of ikigai process to generate eudemonic well-being, physical health and performance will depend on the respective salience of internal and extrinsic motivators for each individual and each situation—which further emphasizes the importance of dispositional and situational factors. the integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai remains to be empirically tested. as research on ikigai has been conducted mainly with students and elderly people (kumano, 2018), this would require to study ikigai within working population. furthermore, we can study the extent to which variations in inputs (dispositional and situational factors) impact ikigai core processes and outputs. we can also conduct field interventions to influence situational factors and monitor their effects on ikigai. we can imagine introducing new managerial practices and new working conditions likely to foster intrinsic regulation, mindfulness, self-determination, and subsequently ikigai. we also intend to 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(2012). propósito. cosmograma. https://www.cosmograma.com/proposito.php about the authors mégane sartore is a phd student in conception. her thesis is the result of cooperation between sncf research direction, cesi-lineact and strate. this multidisciplinary research in engineering, psychology and design is part of robotics by design lab. trained in occupational psychology, well-being at work is one of the strong values of mégane sartore, more specifically the question of the meaning of work in the context of human-robot interaction. her thesis is centered on robotics and ikigai, covering: well-being, engagement, self-determination and fundamental needs, mindfulness, causality orientation, locus of control, performance, leadership, social identification, work environment and user experience, robotics in the industry 4.0 and 5.0. her research aims to develop original robotic solutions for railway maintenance tools that have the potential to increase user ikigai. stéphanie buisine is research director at cesi graduate school of engineering. in her research lab lineact, she co-leads the team dedicated to learning and innovation processes. with a background in psychology, ergonomics, human-computer interaction and design sciences, her research focuses on non-technological approaches of innovation: prospective and creativity methods, innovation process and management, leadership and organizational culture. the purpose of her research is to foster needs-centered and motivation-centered innovation, in particular in industry 4.0. ioana ocnarescu is the director of research at strate school of design, where she is in charge of a multidisciplinary team of five researchers (phds in design, neuroscience and humanities). ioana encourages design research for design students and instructs courses in experience design and robotics. her research focuses on the following areas: experience design, low-tech prototyping, in-vivo and in-situ experimentation, living labs, transdisciplinary research, simulation by design, and research management. she sartore, buisine, ocnarescu, & joly 399 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 387–400 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9943 https://doi.org/10.1177/106939719502900302 https://doi.org/10.1097/psy.0b013e31817e7e64 https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1993.21.2.02a00010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychores.2008.10.018 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60019-2 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0079872 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psfr.2022.12.001 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.61.3.227 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10823-005-3797-4 https://theviewinside.me/what-is-your-ikigai/ https://www.cosmograma.com/proposito.php https://www.psychopen.eu/ is in charge of "robotics by design lab ai, robots & humans ecologies of living together" and co-directs 4 phd projects. prior to joining strate, ioana completed a phd in design at alcatel-lucent bell labs france's user experience division, working alongside strate and the lcpi laboratory from arts et métiers france. before design, ioana studied applied mathematics at école polytechnique, france. louis-romain joly is program manager in sncf research direction. sncf group is preparing new solutions that will enable everyone to travel more easily while preserving the planet. regarding this goal, sncf research direction offers new technologies to reinvent the rail system. he graduated from the ecole nationale supérieure des arts et métiers (ensam) and from the universitaet karslruhe. he started his career in 2001 in a big french automotive company (psa peugeot citroën) as a computing engineer (crankshaft dynamical behaviour and diesel combustion noise quality). thanks to his expertise, he joined sncf in 2007 as a diesel engine maintenance engineer. with his team (20 technicians and engineers), he was in charge of maintaining train engines in optimal operational conditions through the definition of maintenance rules and through the technical definition of spare parts. he moved to sncf research direction in 2015. his activities are now focused on additive manufacturing and maintenance robotics. his main target is to create an ecosystem that will boost robotics in the whole railway sector at least in europe. a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai 400 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ a cognitive-motivational model of ikigai (introduction) ikigai as a unique japanese concept an integrated cognitive-motivational model of ikigai core processes: basic needs, self-determination and mindfulness inputs outputs feedback loop: commitment process conclusion and future orientations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors two sides of workplace interactions: how appreciation and social stressors shape the relationship between job insecurity and well-being research reports two sides of workplace interactions: how appreciation and social stressors shape the relationship between job insecurity and well-being mauricio e. garrido vásquez* ab, patricia garrido-vásquez a, kathleen ottob [a] department of psychology, university of concepción, concepción, chile. [b] department of work and organizational psychology, philipps university of marburg, marburg, germany. abstract job insecurity has frequently been shown to have a dysfunctional impact on well-being. based on the conservation of resources (cor) theory, the aim of this study was to investigate how the experience of appreciation at the workplace and the occurrence of social stressors shape the relationship between job insecurity and three indicators of well-being: (a) job satisfaction, (b) (emotional) irritation, and (c) engagement (dedication to the job). in an online study with 117 psychologists, we found that appreciation buffered the relationship between job insecurity and irritation. social stressors further qualified the moderating effect of appreciation on job satisfaction and dedication, but not fully in the proposed direction. theoretical implications about the role of more or less social contacts at work (reflected in the experience of appreciation as well as social stressors) when dealing with job insecurity will be discussed. keywords: job insecurity, appreciation, social stressors, resources, professionals, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 received: 2019-06-18. accepted: 2019-12-02. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: john mccormick, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia *corresponding author at: university of concepción, department of psychology, faculty of social sciences, barrio universitario s/n, concepción, 4030000, chile. phone: +56 41 220-3950, e-mail: mauriciogarrido@udec.cl this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. today’s professionals face many challenges: information technology and increasing global competition have brought permanent changes for organizations and individual careers (e.g., brown, 1995; de vries & balazs, 1997; sverke, hellgren, & näswall, 2002), often resulting in uncertainty about the continuity of a (current) job situation. such uncertainty is known as job insecurity. research to date has either explored job insecurity across organizations in homogeneous sectors (e.g., piccoli & de witte, 2015) or used convenient samples with heterogeneous sectors and professions (e.g., garrido vásquez, truyen, & otto, 2017; vander elst, de cuyper, baillien, niesen, & de witte, 2016). here, we address job insecurity perceptions in one specific group of professionals: psychologists. thereby, we ensure a comparable educational and professional background. although various specializations exist (e.g., psychotherapy in a hospital or practice, academic research, consultants in companies), prior research has found roles, functions, and purposes of the work of psychologists to be comparable (bartram & roe, 2005). regarding job insecurity, psychologists’ career development is characterized as being intermittent or inconsistent, because career interruptions or varying professional activities are quite usual (hoff, grote, & wahl, 2002). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ research on job insecurity has provided comprehensive evidence about its negative consequences (e.g. de witte, 2005), but also searched for variables that could increase or decrease the effects of job insecurity. intervening variables that have been proposed so far are demographic variables (e.g., age or gender; cheng & chan, 2008; de witte, 1999; näswall, sverke, & hellgren, 2005), personality indicators (e.g., locus of control or flexibility; könig, debus, häusler, lendenmann, & kleinmann, 2010; otto, hoffmann-biencourt, & mohr, 2011), and type of formal contract or organizational change (ashford, lee, & bobko, 1989; keim, landis, pierce, & earnest, 2014). moreover, on a theoretical level sverke and hellgren (2002) proposed in their integrated model of job insecurity that social support buffers the relationship between job insecurity and its negative consequences. empirical evidence has indicated that social factors at work, in particular social support, might work as a moderator: for instance, lim (1996) found that non-work based social support moderated the relationship between job insecurity and job dissatisfaction. however, there is still very little evidence on the role of social factors besides social support for dealing with job insecurity (lim, 1996; sverke et al., 2002). daily social contacts can bring both positive and negative experiences. the former may help deal with challenging working conditions such as the perception of job insecurity (lim, 1996), whereas the latter could probably further aggravate these bad conditions. to the best of our knowledge, research so far has explored the role of the social surrounding for job insecurity either from the perspective of a potential buffer (i.e., social support; lim, 1996) or stressor (e.g., garrido vásquez, kälin, otto, sadlowski, & kottwitz, 2019). our study is the first to simultaneously take into account the role of both sides of social interactions, thereby generating a more complex picture of the effects of the social surrounding on coping with job insecurity. a first aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of appreciation (for one’s job) as a hitherto neglected social resource. because providing appreciation can be seen as a core aspect of the psychological profession itself, it is reasonable to assume that perceiving appreciation also works as a resource for psychologists themselves. hence, we investigated whether appreciation could buffer the negative effects of job insecurity for psychologists. social stressors are located on the negative side of the social surrounding at work. the literature on social stressors, defined as “social animosities, conflict with coworkers and supervisors, unfair behavior, and a negative climate” (dormann & zapf, 2002, p. 35), has shown that conflicts with coworkers, supervisors, or customers have negative consequences on workers’ health (e.g., dormann & zapf, 2002; otto & mamatoglu, 2015). thus, a second aim of this study was to investigate whether the proposed buffering effect of appreciation on job insecurity remains robust when psychologists experience social stressors at work. conservation of resources theory, job insecurity, and well-being according to the conservation of resources (cor) theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001), individuals strive to obtain, retain, foster, and protect those things in life they centrally value. these valuable things are called resources. within this framework, stress appears as a reaction to an environment in which individuals (a) are threatened by a loss of resources, (b) actually lost resources or (c) did not obtain the resource they were striving for. resources are either valued in their own right (so-called primary resources such as positive social relationships or self-esteem), or they are necessary in order to achieve or protect valued resources (secondary resources). one’s job could be seen as an important secondary resource (c.f., semmer, grebner, & elfering, 2010) that has to be protected: beyond earning money, it provides significant positive garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 459 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychosocial functions, such as maintaining and advancing our skills, giving us structure, facilitating social contacts, and appreciation. moreover, it often is an important part of our identity (jahoda, 1983). resources are used to prevent resource loss. gaining resources is particularly important after the failure of an investment or as compensation in the context of losses (hobfoll, 1989, 2001). due to resource losses, loss spirals can develop which aggravate the situation. more importantly, the model discusses the consequences of resource losses in general; thus an event at work can be interpreted as stressful because it represents a threat to the continuity of one’s resources. within the scope of job insecurity, there might be resources, the loss of which increases the perception of the likelihood of losing one’s job. applying the cor theory to our study, we argue that one’s job is an important resource that has to be protected, and job insecurity has negative consequences on employees’ well-being because it constitutes a threat to the continuity of this important resource. lazarus and folkman (1984) proposed that the effects of anticipating a negative event could be equal or even worse than the effects of the event itself. in other words, the effects of job insecurity could be comparable or even worse than those of actual unemployment (otto & dalbert, 2013). several studies have shown that job insecurity has negative consequences on workers’ health (burgard, brand, & house, 2009; çetin & turan, 2013; dekker & schaufeli, 1995; hellgren & sverke, 2003; hellgren et al., 1999): it impairs well-being (hellgren, sverke, & isaksson, 1999) and leads to mental health complaints (hellgren & sverke, 2003), as well as irritation (de cuyper & de witte, 2005). in the present study, as indicators of well-being we included job satisfaction, emotional irritation, and engagement, assuming that job insecurity is negatively related to job satisfaction (sverke et al., 2002) and positively related to irritation (büssing, 1999; de cuyper & de witte, 2005; otto et al., 2011). the positive psychology literature has furthermore classified engagement as an important indicator of well-being (bakker, schaufeli, leiter, & taris, 2008; ouweneel, le blanc, & schaufeli, 2013). engagement is understood as the antithesis of burnout and is defined as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (schaufeli, bakker, & salanova, 2006). in this article we focused on one dimension of engagement: dedication. schaufeli and salanova (2008) argued that dedication refers to “being strongly involved in one’s work, and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge” (p. 381-382). moreover, dedication is described as an emotional component of engagement. when thinking about the job description of psychologists, “helping people” might be one of the first associations which comes to mind. dedication therefore seems to be part of the psychological profession. job insecurity is negatively related to engagement (bosman, rothmann, & buitendach, 2005; de cuyper & de witte, 2005; stander & rothmann, 2010). in a longitudinal study mauno, kinnunen, and ruokolainen (2007) found that job insecurity decreased dedication at work after controlling for the baseline level of dedication. accordingly, we expected that job insecurity would not only have an impact on job satisfaction and emotional irritation, but also on dedication to the job. positive social interactions: appreciation as a job resource psychologists work in different fields. bartram and roe (2005) found that these different fields, however, have something in common, namely that psychologists work with people, either with individuals (e.g., conducting a therapy), with loose groups (e.g., teaching classes to students), or with fixed teams (e.g., doing trainings in organizations). thus, social interactions are part of the job of psychologists (otto et al., 2019). sobiraj, appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 460 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ schladitz, and otto (2016) suggested that psychologists put a high value on receiving appreciation, which could be considered one of the most striking aspects of human nature. indeed, some evidence indicates that appreciation can be classified as the most essential of all accessible rewards for workers (van vegchel, de jonge, bakker, & schaufeli, 2002). essentially, cor theory has proposed that gaining new resources becomes increasingly important when other resources (here: a secure job) have been lost in stress situations (hobfoll, 2002). hence, receiving appreciation might counteract the imminent resource loss. appreciation is considered an important resource at work which shows, for example, positive correlations with job satisfaction (jacobshagen & semmer, 2009; semmer, jacobshagen, meier, & elfering, 2007; stocker, jacobshagen, semmer, & annen, 2010). a longitudinal study with young workers found that participants who reported high appreciation were more satisfied, and that the most important source of appreciation was their supervisors, followed by clients (semmer, tschan, elfering, kälin, & grebner, 2005). the literature has reported that job resources buffer the impact of job demands (bakker, demerouti, & euwema, 2005; bakker et al., 2007; stocker et al., 2019). stocker et al. (2019) found that appreciation, as a job resource, buffered the negative impact of work interruptions on employees´ well-being. in a sample of teachers, bakker, hakanen, demerouti, and xanthopoulou (2007) found that appreciation was positively related to work engagement, and that appreciation moderated the relationship between pupil misbehavior and work engagement. these studies highlight the potential of appreciation for reducing the impact of job demands at work. in our study, if through job insecurity a resource loss is at stake, we argue that appreciation might shield against its negative consequences on well-being (job satisfaction and emotional irritation) and also play a role for dedication to one’s job. therefore, we expected appreciation, which is an important job resource for psychologists (sobiraj et al., 2016), to moderate the relationship between job insecurity and its consequences. h1a: appreciation weakens the negative relationship between psychologists’ job insecurity and their job satisfaction. h1b: appreciation weakens the positive relationship between psychologists’ job insecurity and their (emotional) irritation. h1c: appreciation weakens the negative relationship between psychologists’ job insecurity and their dedication towards the job. negative social interactions: social stressors and (further) resource loss as outlined before, the psychological profession involves contact with other people, either supervisors, coworkers, or, depending on the field (i.e., therapist or consultant), with clients or patients. thus, social interactions are part of everyday life for many psychologists (otto et al., 2019). when these social interactions are affected by conflicts or a negative climate, they might be perceived as social stressors. social stressors are a common situation in the work environment (e. g., eurofound, 2017; schwartz & stone, 1993). findings have indicated that the most common daily problems reported by participants were conflicts with supervisors, colleagues, and/or customers (schwartz & stone, 1993). social stressors have negative effects not only on workers` health (dormann & zapf, 2002; otto & mamatoglu, 2015), but also on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes (bruk-lee & spector, 2006; grebner et al., 2003; hershcovis & barling, 2010; kessler, spector, chang, & parr, 2008). according to hobfoll (2011; hobfoll, halbesleben, neveu, & westman, 2018) an important principle of the cor theory is the primacy of resource garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 461 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ loss. it means that resource loss is more salient than resource gain. if we consider the detrimental effects of job insecurity and social stressors, it would be expected that both stressors together have a negative impact on individuals, because they might threaten the continuity of an important resource, namely a secure job. a second principle of the theory is resource investment (hobfoll, 2011; hobfoll et al., 2018). this principle emphasizes the importance of resource investment in order to protect against resource loss. both hobfoll (2011) and hobfoll et al. (2018) have argued that people with greater resources are less vulnerable to resource loss and more capable to gain resources than people with fewer resources, but this requires that they either build new resources or have resources at their disposal. taking into account the negative effects of social stressors, the positive effects of appreciation, and the principles mentioned above, we expected that social stressors would aggravate the negative impact of job insecurity (job insecurity and social stressors as two work stressors, causing additional resource loss) on outcomes only when psychologists perceive low appreciation, but not when they perceive high appreciation at work. h2a: the buffering effect of high appreciation on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction remains robust when social stressors occur. h2b: the buffering effect of high appreciation on the relationship between job insecurity and (emotional) irritation remains robust when social stressors occur. h2c: the buffering effect of high appreciation on the relationship between job insecurity and dedication remains robust when social stressors occur. method procedure and participants we conducted a study with psychology graduates from a german university, who were requested via e-mail to answer an online questionnaire. the link to the online questionnaire was sent to all individuals who had left their email address when they graduated from university. overall 133 psychologists answered the questionnaire. they had finished their studies between 2001 and 2006. considering that, on average, 60 psychologists graduated each year from this university, the return rate is around 35% or higher, because not all psychology graduates still use their old student e-mail accounts. from the 133 graduates who answered the questionnaire, 16 (12%) reported that they were currently unemployed, and therefore they were excluded from further analysis. thus, our sample size comprised 117 psychology graduates, whose ages ranged from 24 to 49 years (m = 31.21, sd = 4.88). overall, 82% of the participants were female. most of the participants worked in the field of clinical psychology (42.7%), followed by research (17.9%), work and organizational psychology (12%), educational psychology (6%), criminal psychology (3.4%), and 17.9% were working in other fields inand outside the psychological profession. measures job insecurity we assessed job insecurity with a single item taken from the job descriptive questionnaire by neuberger and allerbeck (1978; "the risk of losing my job is high"). the item was answered on a 6-point likert-scale ranging appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 462 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). this item measures the cognitive dimension of job insecurity, as opposed to its affective dimension, which assesses worries about the future of one’s job (borg & elizur, 1992). it has to be noted that garrido vásquez et al. (2019) provided evidence of a substantial correlation between a single-item job insecurity measure and a well-established multiple-item measure. appreciation we assessed appreciation with four items based on the effort-reward imbalance (eri) questionnaire (siegrist et al., 2004); e.g., “i receive from my colleagues the appreciation that i deserve”, “i receive from my supervisors the appreciation that i deserve”. the items require a response on a 6-point scale that ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). cronbach's alpha of .66 indicated quite low internal consistency. it has to be taken into account, however, that various sources of appreciation (i.e., coworkers, supervisors, clients/customers, family/friends) were explored, and it seems to be questionable that all sources equally provide appreciation. moreover, since the measure is quite short, also inter-item correlations should be considered (streiner, 2003). as a rule of thumb, clark and watson (1995) argued that mean inter-item correlations with values of .40 to .50 should be yielded for measures depicting very narrow and of .15 to .20 for measures depicting broad characteristics. with a mean inter-item correlation of .33 our value falls in between these boarders, indicating that the measure is reliable. social stressors social stressors were explored with eight items of the respective scale developed by frese and zapf (1987), which measures conflicts with supervisors and colleagues: e.g., "with some colleagues there is often conflict". the items were answered on a 4-point likert-scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 4 (agree); cronbach's alpha of .76 indicated satisfactory internal consistency. job satisfaction we measured job satisfaction with the seven global items taken from the job descriptive questionnaire by neuberger and allerbeck (1978): e.g., "all in all, i am satisfied with my co-workers", "all in all, i am satisfied with my supervisor", “all in all, i am satisfied with my pay”. the items were answered on a 6-point likert-scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). cronbach's alpha of .78 indicated a satisfactory internal consistency. emotional irritation we assessed emotional irritation with a five-item subscale from the irritation scale developed by mohr, rigotti, and müller (2005), e.g., "from time to time i feel like a bundle of nerves", “i get irritated easily, although i don’t want this to happen”. these items require a response on a 7-point scale that ranges from 1 (does not apply at all) to 7 (applies nearly completely). cronbach's alpha of .90 indicated a high internal consistency. dedication we measured dedication to one’s job as an indicator of engagement with the respective three items taken from the short form of the utrecht work engagement scale by schaufeli and bakker (2003), e.g., "i am enthusiastic about my job". the items were answered on a 6-point likert-scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). cronbach's alpha of .88 indicated a good internal consistency. garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 463 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ statistical analysis to analyze our assumption of a moderated moderation by appreciation and social stressors on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction, emotional irritation, and dedication, we tested our hypotheses using regression analyses. we centered the predictor and the two proposed moderators before the analyses were conducted (aiken, west, & reno, 1991) and tested our hypotheses using the spss (version 24) macro “process” by hayes (2013). we included all our variables in a whole model in order to calculate the three-way interactions. the three-way interaction included the interaction between our independent variable and the moderators (job insecurity x appreciation x social stressors). this analysis includes a first interaction between the independent variable and the first proposed moderator (job insecurity x appreciation). a second interaction was tested between the independent variable and the second proposed moderator (job insecurity x social stressors). the third interaction included the two moderators (appreciation x social stressors). finally, we assessed the three-way interaction with the independent variable and the two moderators (job insecurity x appreciation x social stressors) in order to investigate the intervening effect of appreciation depending on social stressors. according to baron and kenny (1986), the interaction must be significant in order to support the moderation hypothesis. if the independent variable or the moderator is not related to the outcome, this result is not relevant for testing the hypothesis. moreover, we conducted a simple slopes analysis (± 1 sd from the average) using process when the interaction terms were significant (hayes, 2013). results table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables. both appreciation and social stressors were significantly correlated with job satisfaction, emotional irritation, and dedication, but not with job insecurity. surprisingly, job insecurity did not show any significant correlations with the dependent variables on a bivariate level. table 1 means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations of the study variables variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. job insecurity 2.54 1.45 2. appreciation 4.53 0.76 -.02 3. social stressors 1.58 0.47 .05 -.35** 4. job satisfaction 4.59 0.81 -.04 .59** -.41** 5. emotional irritation 2.72 1.25 .05 -.24* .38** -.25** 6. dedication 4.63 1.00 -.04 .49** -.19 .57** -.11 *p < .05. **p < .01. regression analyses the results of the regression analyses are displayed in table 2. we examined the moderated effects of appreciation, as well as social stressors, on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction, emotional irritation and dedication. appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 464 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 predicting job satisfaction, emotional irritation and dedication by job insecurity, appreciation and social stressors variable job satisfaction emotional irritation dedication b seb t b seb t b seb t constant 4.59*** 2.57*** 4.67*** job insecurity -0.07† .05 -1.34 0.02 .09 0.22 -0.13* .07 -1.91 appreciation 0.54*** .10 5.58 -0.23† .17 -1.37 0.67*** .13 5.01 job insecurity x appreciation 0.06† .04 1.57 -0.19** .09 -2.17 -0.09* .06 -1.68 social stressors -0.40** .14 -2.78 0.93*** .23 4.06 0.05 .19 0.27 job insecurity x social stressors 0.07 .10 0.46 -0.01 .20 -0.07 -0.13 .16 -0.80 appreciation x social stressors -0.23 .31 -0.73 0.54 .52 1.03 0.22 .36 0.62 job insecurity x appreciation x social stressors -0.34* .18 -1.90 0.22 .42 0.53 -0.55* .30 -1.80 †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. job insecurity was negatively related to job satisfaction at trend level (b = -0.07, p < .10). appreciation was positively (b = 0.54, p < .001), and social stressors were negatively related to job satisfaction (b = -0.40, p < .01). the interaction between job insecurity and appreciation for predicting job satisfaction was marginally significant (b = 0.06, p < .10). simple slopes analyses showed that neither the line representing high appreciation (b = -0.002, ns) nor the line representing low appreciation (b = -0.05, ns) were significant, therefore hypothesis 1a had to be rejected. the three-way interaction was significant and negatively related to job satisfaction (b = -0.34, p < .05). nevertheless, our results indicated that the line representing low appreciation was significant (b = -0.27, p < .05), and the line representing average appreciation was marginally significant (b = -0.11, p < .10) when social stressors were low. when social stressors were average, the line representing low appreciation was significant (b = -0.11, p < .05), and the line representing average appreciation was marginally significant (b = -0.07, p < .10). there were no significant results when social stressors were high, providing partial support for hypothesis 2a only, see figure 1 and figure 2. figure 1. appreciation and low social stressors as moderators on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction. garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 465 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. appreciation and (average) social stressors as moderators on the relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction. next, we examined the effects of appreciation and social stressors on the relationship between job insecurity and emotional irritation. job insecurity was unrelated to irritation (b = 0.02, ns). appreciation (b = -0.23, p < .10) was marginally negatively related, and social stressors were positively related to irritation (b = 0.93, p < .001). the interaction between job insecurity and appreciation was significant, and it was negatively related to emotional irritation (b = -0.19, p < .05). simple slopes analyses, illustrated in figure 3, showed that both the line representing high appreciation (b = -0.13, p < .10) and the line representing low appreciation (b = 0.12, p < .10) were marginally significant. for high appreciation, as proposed, a negative relation was found. thus, our results provided some support for hypothesis 1b. the three-way interaction was not significant (b = 0.22, ns), and therefore hypothesis 2b had to be rejected. figure 3. appreciation as a moderator on the relationship between job insecurity and emotional irritation. appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 466 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, we also analyzed the effects of appreciation and social stressors on the relationship between job insecurity and dedication towards one’s job. our results indicated that job insecurity (b = -0.13, p < .05) and appreciation (b = 0.67, p < .001) were negatively and positively related to dedication, respectively, while social stressors were not (b = 0.05, ns). the interaction between job insecurity and appreciation on predicting dedication was significant (b = -0.09, p < .05). however, simple slopes analyses showed that neither the line representing high appreciation (b = -0.10, ns) nor the line representing low appreciation (b = 0.01, ns) was significant, therefore hypothesis 1c had to be rejected. the three-way interaction was significant and negatively related to dedication (b = -0.55, p < .05). nevertheless, our results showed that the lines representing average appreciation (b = -0.12, p < .05) and high appreciation (b = -0.20, p < .01) were significant when social stressors were reported to be on average. when social stressors were high, the lines representing average (b = -0.19, p < .05) and high appreciation (b = -0.46, p < .05) were also significant. however, there were no significant results when social stressors were low, providing at least some support for hypothesis 2c, see figure 4 and figure 5. figure 4. appreciation and average social stressors as moderators on the relationship between job insecurity and dedication. figure 5. appreciation and high social stressors as moderators on the relationship between job insecurity and dedication. garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 467 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion building on the cor theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001), the aim of the present study was to investigate the buffering role of appreciation as a potential resource in the relationship between job insecurity and three indicators of well-being: job satisfaction, emotional irritation, and dedication. because in social professions positive social interactions might co-occur with negative social interactions, a second aim of our study was to explore whether the positive effects of appreciation remain robust when psychologists experience social stressors at work. our results confirmed appreciation as a significant moderator in the relationship between job insecurity and its outcomes (counteracting the resource loss brought by job insecurity), while social stressors further impacted on the moderated effects of appreciation—though not always in the way we expected. the interplay of appreciation and social stressors for job satisfaction and dedication in this study we simultaneously investigated the role of appreciation and social stressors on the relationship between job insecurity and well-being. in our first set of hypotheses we proposed that appreciation would buffer the negative relationship between job insecurity and job satisfaction and between job insecurity and dedication. however, this simple buffering effect of appreciation was not confirmed. according to the cor theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001), social relations are a resource, which can provide or facilitate the preservation of valued resources. these effects might be positive when they are provided/facilitated for situational needs, but negative when they are not (hobfoll, 1989). as already mentioned, resources are important because they can protect other valued resources or lead to the gain of new ones. studies based on the cor theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001) have suggested that resources might buffer negative effects on well-being (e.g. sources of social support; halbesleben, 2006). in the present study, the role of appreciation turned out to be relevant for both job satisfaction and dedication when simultaneously considered with social stressors. based on cor theory, we originally assumed that high appreciation (resource gain) could buffer the negative effects of job insecurity (resource loss) on job satisfaction and dedication even when psychologists have conflicts at work (social stressors, i.e. resource loss). our findings revealed that the three-way interaction for explaining job satisfaction was significant, but only the slope representing low and average appreciation was substantial when the levels of social stressors were also low or average. those psychologists who received low appreciation by their clients or patients, colleagues or supervisors, and at the same time were confronted with low social stressors were less satisfied when they were experiencing high job insecurity. as situations of low appreciation and low social stressors might reflect overall low social contacts at work, this could be an additional stressor for people who chose to work in a social profession. hobfoll (1989, 2001) argued that not only the actual loss of resources is sufficient for producing stress, but also a lack of them. taking into account the cor theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001), lack of social contacts (low appreciation, low social stressors) might reduce job satisfaction, because people might feel that they cannot do anything against an eventual further loss of resources, which job insecurity represents. this could lead to a “loss spiral”. loss spirals follow initial loss, with each loss leading to a further depletion of resources for confronting the next threat or loss (hobfoll & shirom, 2001). notably, not only when resources are available could they have positive effects, but also the lack of resources (here: being isolated with few appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 468 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social contacts) could have opposite effects by increasing the negative consequences of job insecurity as an additional stressor. regarding dedication, we had proposed that high appreciation buffers the negative effects of job insecurity on dedication, even when individuals are experiencing social stressors at work. our results revealed that the proposed three-way interaction was significant, but the simple slope analyses showed that the lines representing average and high appreciation were significant only when the level of social stressors was average or high. these results indicate that appreciation cannot buffer the effects of job insecurity when social stressors are high. we found that the effect of the two-way interaction (job insecurity x appreciation) on dedication was weaker than the effect of job insecurity on the same outcome, suggesting a buffer effect of appreciation. however, when social stressors emerged, job insecurity exerted a stronger negative effect on psychologists’ dedication, even when they felt highly appreciated for their work by their social surrounding. according to cor theory (e.g., hobfoll, 1989, 2001; hobfoll & shirom, 2001), the common occurrence of high job insecurity and high social stressors are linked in a kind of loss spiral. in case of job insecurity, a loss spiral would develop because the affected person, who feels strained because of the perception to lose the job, lacks the resources to offset this loss. thus, the confrontation with conflicts at work (social stressors) further aggravates this situation. in a recent study garrido vásquez et al. (2019) found, for example, that social stressors lead to higher job insecurity perceptions. as a consequence, stress reactions could be evoked, reducing dedication towards one’s job because these stressors overwhelm personal limits and abilities, and people might feel that they are unable to protect themselves from a further loss of resources. in this case, the presence of high appreciation (resource) seems to be insufficient for psychologists to counteract the negative effects of high job insecurity and high social stressors on dedication. overall, our results for the three-way interactions for the outcomes job satisfaction and dedication, showed some unexpected and equivocal results. job insecurity predicted job satisfaction only when appreciation and social stressors were low or average, and it predicted dedication only when appreciation and social stressors were average or high. thus, it seems that the less social contact (reflected here via appreciation and social stressors) psychologists have, the stronger is the negative association of job insecurity and job satisfaction. on the other hand, for the relationship between job insecurity and dedication, the more social contact psychologists have, the worse appears to be the perception of job insecurity for this relationship. it seems that for psychologists, whose jobs are classified as working in a social sector with people (bartram & roe, 2005), the experience of job insecurity strongly affects their job satisfaction when the frequency of social contacts – i.e., experiencing appreciation but also conflicts – decreases. this might indicate that the lack of social contacts in this social profession causes an additional stressor besides job insecurity, and that both stressors (lack of social contact, job insecurity) simultaneously (loss spiral) have the strongest consequences for job satisfaction. on the other hand, being confronted with conflicts and receiving appreciation at the same time – both being indicative of many social contacts – job insecurity negatively affects a psychologist’s engagement (i.e., dedication). future research should consider these results in order to better understand the mechanism behind these results, for instance differentiating between professional groups in order to investigate whether these results could be generalized to different professions, or if they could only be expected for employees working in social professions. finally, another point for future research is the role of frequency or intensity of social contacts. our study revealed that the frequency of social contacts of psychologists (operationalized via appreciation and social garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 469 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stressors) affected the level of job satisfaction and dedication they reported. therefore, future research should investigate whether the frequency or intensity of social contacts is essential in the relationship between job insecurity and its consequences. this would go beyond appreciation and social stressors at work. the interplay of appreciation and social stressors for emotional irritation in this study we explored appreciation as a moderator in the relationship between job insecurity and emotional irritation. we proposed that when individuals receive appreciation at work (resource gain), it could decrease the negative consequences of job insecurity (resource loss). our results indicated that when individuals receive high appreciation, the negative consequences of job insecurity could be decreased. this result shows that job resources (appreciation) could buffer the effects of job insecurity on irritation, providing support for the idea that resources are necessary in order to achieve or protect valued secondary resources, such as one’s job. above all, we aimed to investigate whether the buffering effects of high appreciation on emotional irritation caused by job insecurity remain robust when negative social interactions, i.e., social stressors occur. although we found that appreciation moderated the relationship between job insecurity and irritation when we included social stressors in the model, job insecurity no longer predicted irritation. in our study, social stressors refer to conflicts with supervisors and colleagues. on the other hand, appreciation includes, besides appreciation from supervisors, customers/clients and colleagues, also appreciation from family and friends. it seems that nonwork-based sources of appreciation such as family and friends might be more important in order to reduce the negative consequences of job insecurity on irritation, but this effect disappears when psychologists are experiencing conflicts in the working context. future research could investigate the interaction between different sources of appreciation and social stressors in order to understand whether a distinction between work-based vs. nonwork-based appreciation or between work-based sources of appreciation within the organization (colleagues, supervisors) vs. work-based sources of appreciation outside the organization (customers, clients) can better explain the effects of job insecurity. limitations in our study, we measured job insecurity using one item only, as has been successfully done in former investigations (e.g., de witte, 1999; otto & dalbert, 2013). however, sverke et al. (2002) found that multiple-item scales show stronger relationships with outcomes than single-item scales, which might explain why, on a bivariate level, job insecurity was not significantly related to the outcomes (see table 1). it is also important to note that some of our results were marginally significant. pritschet, powell, and horne (2016) found that in the last decades, psychologists from different subfields have increased the use of this concept, although there are no explicit rules about what exactly is a marginally significant result and what is not. therefore, some of our results should be interpreted with caution, and more research is needed in order to investigate whether our pattern of results can be replicated in future studies. furthermore, the present study was based on a self-report survey. while some authors suggest that self-report surveys could be appropriate depending on the research question (spector, 2006), we should also consider that results could increase the likelihood of erroneous results due to common method variance (podsakoff, mackenzie, lee, & podsakoff, 2003). specifically, when it comes to our main concept of (subjective) job insecurity, our findings could be consolidated by objective data (as provided by companies, for example). it has to be noted, though, that our study aimed at exploring the effects of subjective (i.e. cognitive) job insecurity appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 470 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ perceptions, and that first empirical evidence has indicated that subjective unemployment perceptions and objective economic figures are not linked to selected outcomes in the same way (otto, mohr, kottwitz, & korek, 2016). while some findings have suggested that objective figures (e.g., unemployment rates) are reflected in job insecurity ratings (e.g., kinnunen & nätti, 1994; schwarz, 2012) the findings are inconsistent, and rather indicate that the interplay of objective and subjective parameters seems to be crucial (otto et al., 2016). this, however, calls for a simultaneous consideration of both data sources. another potential limitation is the fact that this study was an online study. this was necessary because after graduation the psychologists left not only “their” university but also their places of residence – some going abroad – making it impossible to invite them to the laboratory to fill in a questionnaire under controlled conditions. moreover, by only knowing the email addresses of the graduates and not any further personal data, we were able to guarantee them anonymity and confidentiality. nevertheless, wright (2005) described in his study that in addition to the positive aspects of online surveys (e.g., access to groups, saving time and costs), problematic effects such as sampling issues may arise. in our case, not all graduates had allowed email addresses to be listed or used for research projects. another issue described by wright (2005) is the willingness to answer an online questionnaire. he pointed out that some people are more likely to complete an online survey than others. such selection effects may become relevant in case that particularly those psychologists who had been in (un)satisfactory working conditions answered our questionnaire, thereby inducing an underestimation of the true relationships. we also do not know under which conditions the questionnaire was answered: it may play a role for our findings if the psychologists filled in the questionnaire after a long working day with difficult social contacts or during vacation. hence, our results should be taken with some caution and therefore, as suggested by wright (2005), replications with similar groups are necessary in order to gain a reliable picture. another point is that all results we reported in our study were based on a cross-sectional design. this constitutes a limitation to our study, because with our data we cannot make inferences about long-term effects or about causalities. finally, we have a relatively small sample, which could reduce the predictive power of our model. furthermore, our sample is very specific (psychologists only), and we cannot generalize our results to other professional groups. however, the use of this very specific group provides us with more information about the effects of job insecurity and the roles of appreciation and social stressors in a single and social profession. it therefore offers an ideal opportunity for studying the impact of the social context. theoretical and practical implications we contribute to the literature on how job insecurity could affect well-being by pointing at the complex – but often neglected – role of the social context. from a theoretical point of view, we provide knowledge that looking at the social surrounding only from one perspective might indeed lead to wrong predictions. social professions contain regular interpersonal contacts, and it seems to be essential to consider the whole spectrum of positive and negative experiences. from the view of practitioners, we do see several key factors to focus on when trying to prevent a drop in well-being. psychologists in companies, as consultants, or in the academic context are normally professionals who plan interventions, for instance for improving the work climate, in order to increase the well-being of employees. our study shows that variables of the social environment at the workplace (appreciation and social garrido vásquez, garrido-vásquez, & otto 471 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 https://www.psychopen.eu/ stressors) have an effect on job satisfaction or dedication to the job of psychologists themselves. sobiraj et al. (2016) found that appreciation was important for psychologists. thus, independent of the field where a psychologist is working, it is important to provide appreciation in order to reduce the negative consequences of job insecurity on well-being. to build an organizational culture that provides appreciation and minimizes conflicts, mobbing or any kind of social undermining (as reflected in social stressors) is an important goal to sustain well-being. since conflicts cannot always be avoided, it would be important to learn strategies for how to better cope with such kinds of social stressors at work, how to deal with conflicts, and how to provide constructive feedback. hence, both kinds of interventions, i.e., structuraland behaviour-oriented interventions should be combined. in behaviour-oriented trainings, psychologists or other people in social professions could learn how to balance out the positive and negative sides of social contacts. when it comes to structural interventions, a positive social work environment should be established that should also be open to provide realistic information about the security of one’s job. conclusions to sum up, this study extends the knowledge about the negative consequences of job insecurity considering the social context – in particular exploring its role in people working in a social profession. as the social context can provide both resources and stressors, we explored how job insecurity affects three indicators of well-being: satisfaction, irritation, and dedication, considering their dependence on the complex interplay of appreciation for one’s work and conflicts (social stressors). in doing so, we provide more information on variables of the social framework which could shape the effects of job insecurity on professionals’ well-being. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references aiken, l. s., west, s. g., & reno, r. r. 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(2005). researching internet-based populations: advantages and disadvantages of online survey research, online questionnaire authoring software packages, and web survey services. journal of computer-mediated communication, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2005.tb00259.x about the authors mauricio e. garrido vásquez is an assistant professor in the department of psychology, university of concepción with interests in topics such as job insecurity and social interactions at work. patricia garrido-vásquez is an assistant professor in the department of psychology, university of concepción with interests in experimental psychology. kathleen otto is a full professor and head of the work and organizational psychology department, philipps university of marburg. she is interested in topics such as job insecurity, unemployment, and organizational justice. appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity 478 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 458–478 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2023 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2fstr0000111 https://doi.org/10.1207%2fs15327752jpa8001_18 https://doi.org/10.1111%2f1464-0597.0077z https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1076-8998.7.3.242 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fsmi.2584 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f13594320244000265 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1083-6101.2005.tb00259.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ appreciation, social stressors and job insecurity (introduction) conservation of resources theory, job insecurity, and well-being positive social interactions: appreciation as a job resource negative social interactions: social stressors and (further) resource loss method procedure and participants measures statistical analysis results regression analyses discussion the interplay of appreciation and social stressors for job satisfaction and dedication the interplay of appreciation and social stressors for emotional irritation limitations theoretical and practical implications conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors “it’s still an animal that died for me.” responsibility and meat consumption research reports “it’s still an animal that died for me.” responsibility and meat consumption fabienne gfeller* a [a] institute of psychology and education, university of neuchâtel, neuchâtel, switzerland. abstract the aim of this paper is to explore the way people engaging in a more or less strict reduction of their consumption of food of animal origin (de)construct their responsibility regarding the food production and distribution system. starting from a description of the crisis in meat production, it contributes to the understanding of the way people who are sensitive to these issues position themselves by focusing on the notion of responsibility. ciarán benson’s work on positioning serves as theoretical background. through the analysis of interviews and a qualitative experiment with people who changed their consumption of food of animal origin recently, several dimensions along which responsibility is constructed are identified. those are 1) who bears responsibility, 2) towards whom or what, 3) the action that is considered, 4) the knowledge implicated and 5) the power to act in that situation. the main proposition of the paper is to enhance benson’s approach through the inclusion of a collective “we.” the study took place in switzerland, where meat consumption is the norm. this context also implies a certain room for maneuver in the choice of products, as well as the presence of debates around the ecological and ethical implications of meat production. keywords: responsibility, positioning, vegetarianism, meat consumption europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 received: 2018-12-14. accepted: 2019-04-02. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: institute of psychology and education, faculty of humanities and human sciences, university of neuchatel, espace tilofrey 1, 2000 neuchâtel, switzerland. e-mail: fabienne.gfeller@unine.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. how do we navigate the complex worlds we live in and take position towards complicated and sometimes unclear issues? more particularly, how do we construct and negotiate responsibilities in relation to these issues? benson’s work (2001) provides an interesting theoretical approach to these questions, and my proposition in this paper is to draw on it in order to analyze positioning dynamics towards meat consumption. while benson is particularly interested in rather exceptional experiences such as torture and concentration camps on one side, and artistic experience on the other side, i will use his approach to consider more daily activities, namely those related to eating (choosing products, buying, and so on). currently, meat consumption is undergoing a crisis. this notion comes from the greek krisis, which can be translated by “judgement, ripping, choice, decision” (ernst-vintila, delouvée, & rouquette, 2010, p. 517, my translation). nowadays, the crisis can be understood in its objective aspects [as] a rupture of balance, a crucial state where a decisive change is imminent, whose outcome can clearly be highly undesirable. it can take the form of an event, eventually social or europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ with social consequences, characterized by contradictions or uncertainty1 (ernst-vintila et al., 2010, p. 518, my translation). in addition to that, and in order to have a complete understanding of the crisis, it is essential to also take in account its subjective dimensions, namely how people think about it (as in ernst-vintila et al., 2010). in the next section, i clarify why i use this notion in the case of meat production by presenting the objective dimensions of the crisis. then, i propose a short review of the ways psychologists addressed these issues. after what, my contribution focuses on the subjective dimensions. for this purpose, i draw on benson’s work on positioning and responsibility. after summarizing benson’s theory, i present some data and results from a research project on change in foodways, and discuss their meaning in relation to the theorization of responsibility. the aim of this paper is twofold. firstly, it contributes to the theorization of positioning, in particular through the deepening of the understanding of responsibility. secondly, it provides preliminary empirical evidence that supports the theoretical discussion. i propose 1) that benson’s approach is a relevant theoretical tool in order to address psychological activity in times of crisis and 2) that the understanding of responsibility can be enhanced by examining the dimensions along which it is constructed. crisis in the meat production system three main components participate to the crisis in meat consumption. firstly, agriculture, and particularly livestock farming play an important role in climate change (mcintyre, herren, wakhungu, & watson, 2009; wynes & nicholas, 2017). the problem does not lie only in the carbon emission by the cattle, but also in the transport of animals and in the production and transport of fodder (steinfeld et al., 2006). meat production also raises environmental issues less directly linked with climate change, and the food and agriculture organization points to the “very substantial contribution of animal agriculture to climate change and air pollution, to land, soil and water degradation and to the reduction of biodiversity” (steinfeld et al., 2006, p. iii). the title of the international assessment initiated by the world bank and the food and agriculture organization, “agriculture at a crossroad,” clearly falls into the definition of crisis as a moment of imminent decisive change (“crossroad”). moreover, the report indicates “highly undesirable outcomes” (to use again ernst-vintila et al.’s words) such as hunger, climate change, environmental degradation and social inequalities. a second debated aspect of meat production are the animals’ living and dying conditions. these issues are at the heart of animal ethics, a field of philosophy that “tries to justify the belonging of animals to the moral sphere and to establish the norms of behaviour that we should respect towards them” (le goff, 2012, p. 33, my translation). although a multiplicity of actors defend different perspectives as for instance the “welfare” position (animal faming is morally acceptable if the conditions are good enough) or the abolitionist position (against any kind of animal exploitation), there is a general agreement around the denunciation of the current industrial food production system (josse, 2013; kymlicka & donaldson, 2011; manceron, 2012), which is also reflected by the consumers’ preoccupations (kjaernes & lavik, 2007). these issues are increasingly present in western european countries (kymlicka & donaldson, 2011; larue, 2015), and different historical changes played a role in their construction. first of all, at least since the 17th century, farming and slaughtering moved to the margins of society. everything that reminds of the link between meat, the animal and its death tended historically to be more and more hidden and unacceptable (kjaernes & lavik, 2007; larue, 2015), which contributed to a growing tension between the knowledge that meat implies death and the unacceptance of this death. secondly, the massive industrialization of farming is linked with a deterioration of the animals’ living conditions (porcher, responsibility and meat consumption 734 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2011). thirdly, the relations between humans and animals are currently changing, a modification that originates in paleontology, primatology, animal protection and liberation, as well as cinema (celka, 2009) these three changes echo the “rupture of balance” mentioned in the definition of crisis, while the lack of agreement beyond the general denunciation of industrial production shows the uncertainty of the outcome. a third dimension of the crisis is the health aspect. in this case, the rupture of balance and the undesirable outcome are very visible when a sanitary crisis such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy breaks out. however, a more general overconsumption of meat (office fédéral de la sécurité alimentaire et des affaires vétérinaires, 2017) also equates to a rupture of balance and undesirable outcomes. health questions become a collective issue when it comes to the discussion of hygienic norms and regulations in food production (levenstein, 2012; masson, 2011). moreover, [although] individuals may see these concerns as distinct, in reality they are closely related—largely stemming from the mass production of animals as food that have characterized meat production in the us and to a lesser extent, around the world, for several decades (grauerholz & owens, 2015, p. 568). this quotation also highlights that these issues are not ahistorical. animal ethics, as a moral reflection on relations between humans and animals, can be traced back to antiquity (larue, 2015). their entry into the legal sphere is nevertheless a contemporary topic (kymlicka & donaldson, 2011). the discussion on the environmental issues is currently particularly vivid in relation to climate change, and the bestseller diet for a small planet (lappé & hahn, 1971) is a forerunner of these debates. nevertheless, this issue has a much longer history, and belasco (2006, see chapter one) traces it back to socrates. in other words, the debates are not new, but the huge changes that the agricultural system undergoes since the second part of the 20th century (porcher, 2011) produce a specific situation that presents its own challenges. in switzerland for example (where this study took place), the number of farms get down from 79,000 in 1996 to 52,300 in 2016, a decrease of 34%, while the surface dedicated to agriculture increased. the number of pigs stayed stable over this period, while 60% of the farms active in this sector disappeared (meyre, 2017). these few numbers show the radical changes the sector is undergoing. farming becomes more and more industrial, while small and middle size farms tend to disappear (mcintyre et al., 2009). this is without mentioning other issues such as working conditions (droz & forney, 2007; garrouste & mitralias, 2013), conflicts around patents on life (then, tippe, batur, lapprand, & meienberg, 2016) or lack of trust in the production system (larue, 2015; levenstein, 2012). contributions from psychology eating is not optional (or not for long time) for human beings and we are dependent on the state of our planet in order to live—these are just biological conditions to which we cannot escape, although we can modify the shape these conditions take, and our possibilities in it. without denying that the food production system is technically, biologically and chemically complex and needs to be studied by researchers in these areas, it is also a matter of human activity and to that extent, social sciences are indispensable to face the challenges in this area (forney, 2013; porcher, 2011; ziegler, 2011). how does psychology contribute to this area? the study of the relation to environment was present in psychology from the beginning, but what was meant by this notion evolved depending on the main paradigms and the dominant social concerns (morval, 2007). starting during the 60’s, green environmental psychology is a reaction to issues such as “conservation of nature, of energy, of resources, pollution, industrial and technological risks, ecological ‘responsible’ behavior and everygfeller 735 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thing that has been called a ‘green’ movement” (pol, 1993, p. 165). nowadays, there is a focus on attitudes and behaviours (fielding, hornsey, & swim, 2014; swim et al., 2011), and many studies aim to establish correlations between some “values” and a pro-environmental behaviour (see for instance gatersleben, murtagh, & abrahamse, 2014). there is nevertheless a lack of understanding of how these values and attitudes are constructed and navigated. many studies presuppose a clear distinction and a simple causal link between values/ attitudes and actions/behaviour. these presuppositions might be criticized as reductive conceptualizations (see branco & valsiner, 2012). it seems that more systemic considerations of the relations between representations, values or consciousness and the current ecological crisis rather take place in other domains than psychology (see for instance bourg, roch, & bastaire, 2010; latour, schwartz, & charvolin, 1991; orr, 1994). psychologists who studied ethics, values or morality usually focus on humans (see for instance branco & valsiner, 2012; gibbs, 2014; kohlberg, 1981). relations to animals are rather rare as an object of study, although this topic seems to emerge recently. kasperbauer (2017) provides an overview from which he concludes the existence of a link between attribution of phenomenal experience and moral consideration, while the correlation between attribution of agency and moral consideration is rejected.2 relations between humans and animals have also been studied under the angle of disgust, and researchers highlight the central place of animals in what provokes disgust. a first interpretation suggests that disgust towards animals has the function of protecting us from diseases; a second one is that humans are disgusted by anything that reminds them of their animal condition and therefore of their mortality (kasperbauer, 2015; rozin, haidt, & mccauley, 2008). nevertheless, this would explain avoiding meat rather than its consumption, especially in contexts where it is not essential for survival. moreover, although raising animals and eating their meat are certainly deeply enrooted in primal survival mechanisms, these are also highly complex cultural and social activities that cannot be reduced to survival issues (anderson, 2005). therefore it becomes important to study the meanings involved in these relational activities (porcher, 2011), which, as any relation, imply ethical dimensions (marková, 2003). in this paper, i explore meat consumption and vegetarianism through the theoretical perspective of positioning dynamics. although the first part of this text largely highlighted the problematic aspects of meat production, the situation is not completely black and white and the arguments raised above do not clearly imply a strict vegetarian diet (see also bruckner, 2016). environmental and ethical reasons might as well lead to a reduction of meat consumption, or to the exclusion only of certain types of meat, for example stopping to eat beef, considered as the most environmental harmful meat. some even use the environmental argument against vegetarianism, claiming that in permaculture animals can be an important part of a global system. on the ethical aspect, if it is the treatment of animals in industrial farming that is considered as problematic, then eating animals raised in proper conditions might be acceptable or even encouraged (porcher, 2016). moreover, there are plenty of other aspects that enter into people’s decisions, such as the wish not to offend a host who prepared some ragout, the pleasure of eating a steak, the availability of meatless products or the reactions of family members. in other words, although the current meat production system is clearly problematic and even dangerous, the action to take with regards to this situation is not evident, and people who face these issues need to navigate a complex landscape. dafermos, triliva, and varvantakis (2017) highlight the risk that situations of crisis hinder or distort psychological development. however, through the use of cultural signs allowing to understand and transform the situation, individuals can also become “masters of their own behavior” (for which they borrow vygotsky’s words, see vygotsky, 1978b). in a similar way, my hope is to contribute to a better understanding of possibilities of complex psychological processes in crisis situation, and more precisely to what extent people can become reflective actors in that particular situation. as i argued elsewhere, this situation calls for creativity (gfeller, responsibility and meat consumption 736 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2019) which can be conceptualize as a (re)positioning. i will not expand on the creative dimension here, but i will continue on the notion of repositioning, with a focus on responsibility. in order to do so, i will draw on benson’s work, which will be the object of the next section. it is however beyond the scope of this article to provide a review of different ways to conceptualize positioning, to discuss further the choice of this notion in relation to alternative ones or the focus on benson in particular. the range of this article is more modest and consists into the proposition of one theoretically grounded way to address the above-mentioned issues. positioning: navigation and responsibility according to benson (2001), one of the main functions of human mind is to navigate the worlds we live in. “a fundamental problem confronting every one of us, and indeed every sentient creature, is how to position ourselves in the worlds we inhabit and how to find our way around them” (benson, 2001, p. 3). in that sense, the self is conceptualised as a locative system allowing humans to orient themselves in complex landscapes and to actively navigate them. this includes both a physical level, in which we perceive and act on the material world, and a semiotic and symbolical level in which we dialogue with multiple discourses, we make the world and our experience meaningful and construct continuity in our lives through narrative activities. both levels are always present and are tidily interrelated. for instance, the discourses we encounter are conveyed through physical means, be it written signs or sound waves, and psychological processes could not unfold without the brain (see benson, 2001, chap. 2; toomela, 2009). this conceptualization of human self as a locative system in both physical and symbolic worlds makes benson’s approach relevant to address such a complex issue as food choices and habits. indeed, these activities are at the same time strongly embodied (eating is—together with breathing—one of the human activities in which the physical exchange between the outer material world and the human body is the most salient) and highly cultural (anderson, 2005), social (fischler, 2013) and symbolic (douglas, 1966). the possibility to navigate and to position oneself in a landscape is tidily related to the notions of choice and of responsibility, which are constitutive of self-creation, the possibility to create one’s own path in the landscape. “one system of belief that enables the idea of self-creation is that which includes central beliefs about personal responsibility and personal powers to choose one’s own moral and intellectual path, subject of course to certain constrains” (benson, 2001, p. 122). every person develops a sense of him or herself as being a certain kind of person, which entails both ideas about what one possesses, but also of what one can or cannot do. this does not only involve the technical possibility, but concerns also the idea of moral boundaries. there are some actions that are so fundamentally in conflict with one’s self-meaning, with this idea of the kind of person i think i am, that they are unthinkable. there evocation is strongly linked with such emotions as disgust, shame/ contempt and anger/anxiety, depending on the type of moral system we rely on (benson, 2003; shweder, much, mahapatra, & park, 1997). these emotions function as attractors and as “moral compass” (benson, 2001, p. 131) in the navigation process. on the semiotic, discursive level, morality is omnipresent. for benson (2001), “morality is an inescapable condition of selfhood, […] just as it is for peaceful, tolerant, pluralistic society” (p. 126). children learn about morality as they learn from their community what matters or not, what it is worth to care about or not. responsibility can be distinguished between other-responsibility and self-responsibility, the later being defined by benson as “acknowledging and holding my-self accountable for the consequences of actions initiated by mygfeller 737 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self” (benson, 2001, p. 132). both are negotiated in interactions in which duties and rights are attributed. moreover, our disposition to assume responsibility for our actions and their consequences, to be self-responsible, develops from our own positioning as children. this in turn depends upon how our community constructs its version of ‘childhood’ and therefore on its own particular ‘make-a-person’ practices (benson, 2001, p. 136). responsibility is attributed in relation with agency, in other words it is related with a certain power over the situation, with possibilities to act in another way (see also driver, 2016). this raises quite complicated issues of relations between actual and perceived possibilities that imply also a temporal dimension. benson (2001, see chapter 10) provides extensive examples from cases of extreme suffering. he shows that victims often consider themselves as responsible for what happened and think they should have acted otherwise or should have known, although this was obviously not possible at the time they refer to, while oppressors consider that they cannot be hold for responsible for their actions. in relation to food consumption, austgulen (2014) highlights that individual responsibility is considered as central when it comes to the environmental impact of meat consumption and underlines the neoliberal assumption behind this conception of the consumer, implying that the state does not play a regulating role. however, in the consumer—industry relation, a single individual cannot make any difference through just buying meat or not (driver, 2016). in that sense, individual responsibility needs to be conceptualized in a way that does not isolate the individual from a larger group, or this is at least what the work of a political scientist (austgulen) and a philosopher (driver) imply. in order to deepen the understanding of responsibility in meat consumption from a psychological point of view, i will now turn to the empirical part of this paper. method the data presented here was collected during a research project on changes in foodways around products of animal origin. participants are 10 adults who changed their habits of consumption during the previous 2 years (except one participant who changed from a meatless diet towards a diet including meat approximately 5 years ago, but who was included as a contrasting case). this selection is based on the hypothesis that positioning dynamics become particularly visible in periods of transitions, as these involve a transformation of identity (perret-clermont & zittoun, 2002; zittoun, 2009). most of the participants reduced their meat, fish and/or dairy products consumption in a radical way, either stopping consuming completely some of these products, or considering their consumption as an exception to their normal diet. participants are aged between 20 and 70, and their change in food habits relied on different motivations, mainly health, environmental and ethical reasons. all participants took part in a narrative interview and in a qualitative experiment. the interview focused on the reasons and unfolding of the change. i followed the structure of a classic narrative interview (schütze, 1983), nevertheless i asked participants to focus on their foodway and especially on the consumption of products of animal origin. another point on which i distance myself from schütze is that i consider the interview situation as co-constructed and the narration as addressed to me and sometimes to a larger audience (see jovchelovitch & bauer, 2000). the qualitative experiment aimed at provoking positioning “on the spot,” with a more microgenetic focus. it is inspired by de saint-laurent (2018) who used a similar method in order to study historical repreresponsibility and meat consumption 738 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sentations. it has the advantage of prompting positioning on issues that can be emotional in a relatively safe and playful frame. this frame is important as a certain feeling of safety is necessary for people to engage in thinking processes in which they also partially risk their identity (perret-clermont, 2004), and the identity certainly is put at stake when the positioning is changing or uncertain. therefore, this frame was set up in order to increase the chances that these kinds of movement would emerges. concretely, a small table in cartoon was presented to the participants (see figure 1). in the chairs, they would find papers with different perspectives on the topic (see appendix c for the content of these papers), and they were asked to imagine and say aloud what they would answer to someone stating this during a dinner party and what they think about it. the content of the papers was elaborated by myself, drawing on different debates i identified previously. their aim was to bring in the experimental setting a multiplicity of voices, against which the participant can position her or himself. both the interview and the qualitative experiment were audiotaped and transcribed (see appendix b for the transcription conventions). figure 1. cartoon table for qualitative experiment. results before moving to the analysis per se, i will briefly present the participants’ profiles. one third of the participants contacted me after seeing my call for participants. this means that they give enough importance to that subject to notice the flyer, take the initiative to contact me and be willing to speak about it. this degree of engagement is certainly not representative of everyone’s. the other participants are people who i asked to participate, or who volunteered after discussing with me about my work. most of them clarified that they are not strict vegetarians, or that they do avoid classifying themselves as vegetarians. moreover, the participants have very diverse profiles in terms of strictness of habits, type of products of animal origin that are avoided, reasons for change and length of their story in relation to vegetarianism. nevertheless, all of them are engaged in a form of reflection and concrete change in their food habits, which is not representative of the majority of the population, but which makes them interesting participants. indeed, in order to study the “how” of the positioning process, there must be a form of navigation of these issues. although it is not impossible that other people are reflective about these issues and that i could provoke this navigation through the research design, i chose to work with people who have a certain history of engagement with these questions. the study took place in switzerland, where vegetarian diets are rather exceptional. depending on the source, they represent 1 to 5% of the population.3 gfeller 739 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this context also implies a certain room for maneuver in the choice of products and the presence of debates around the ecological and ethical implications of meat production. for the analysis, both parts of the data set (interviews and experiments) were considered as a whole and treated in a similar way, drawing on the assumption that, although elicited through different ways, both parts provide substantial information about movements of positioning related to issues of responsibility. a more differentiated analysis would probably lead to the identification of variations between the kind of positioning in the interview and in the experiment, however this lies beyond the scope of this article. rather, here the fact to combine both methods is a way to provide more (quantitatively) and diverse (qualitatively) data on positioning. after an initial global reading, the whole data set was coded looking for elements related to responsibility, and in particular for movements of (de)construction of responsibility. this coding led to the identification of several dimensions that play a fundamental role in the construction and negotiation of responsibility. this part of the analysis was conducted drawing on thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2006) with the aim of identifying recurrent patterns in the data set, with an initial focus on responsibility in order to “provide a detailed account of one particular aspect” (braun & clarke, 2006, p. 11) of the data set. in addition to this, the selection of a few extracts in which the (de)construction of responsibility is particularly visible allows a more detailed analysis of the articulation of those dimensions in the process of positioning. with this procedure, i come closer to case studies that allow the understanding of dynamic process such as positioning (see benson, 2010 for an example of analysis). in the following, i present four extracts that were selected because this process of construction is particularly visible and because they illustrate the diverse dimensions identified as relevant during the thematic coding. in the discussion, i elaborate on these dimensions. the original data is in french (except the interview with lisa, held in english), and the extracts were translated by myself (see appendix a for the original extracts in french). aurelia: we cannot kill animals because it is tasty this first extract comes from aurelia’s reaction to a text in the qualitative experiment stating that the fact that the majority of people does not like the taste of raw meat proves that eating meat is not natural. aurelia has a strictly vegetarian diet, tends towards veganism and identifies herself as a vegetarian. extract 1: aurelia (experiment) [she just told me that she likes the taste of raw meat] interviewer: and if somebody tells you that he does not want to be vegetarian because he likes it too much, (.) do you think it’s a good reason? aurelia: no,: but i know i said it myself so uh: but: i have difficulties to be tolerant with that because i think uh (.) i try to: (.) to make this person understand that it is terrible, we can not: (.) we cannot kill animals because it is tasty, (.) but. it is not even to kill, it is: what we make them endure, uh: (.) in big farming uh it’s mainly that while she first invalidates the argument she read, after my question, she takes position against the argument that liking meat justifies its consumption by referring to the implications of meat consumption, that is, killing the animal. she further redefines her position by adding that the problem is not that much killing than “what we make them endure” in big exploitations. the condemnation of the argument of pleasure relies on the construction of a relation between the consumption of meat and animals’ suffering. doing this, she takes position against meat consumption. if according to benson, self-responsibility means “acknowledging and holding myresponsibility and meat consumption 740 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self accountable for the consequences of actions initiated by myself” (benson, 2001, p. 132), aurelia’s positioning relies on this link between the action initiated by a person (eating meat) and its implications (animal suffering). should we speak about consequences, as benson does? we might hypothesize that aurelia implicitly supposes that eating meat is bad because when buying it, people give money to this industry and this sustains animal suffering and killing. in that sense, the notion of consequence would be appropriate. nevertheless, nothing indicates such a detailed representation, and the link might very well be conceived in a more general way, such as “eating meat is bad because it logically implies (in the current context) animal suffering that is not acceptable.” one particularly interesting aspect in this extract is the use of the “we,”4 as it might include both aurelia herself and her virtual interlocutor among the perpetrators who kill and make endure. moreover, with this use of the “we,” responsibility has a wider scope than strictly personal, nevertheless who exactly is implicated is not further defined. the rest of the data concerning aurelia makes it clear that she includes herself, positioning herself as responsible and trying to act accordingly. this points towards a first dimension that the thematic analysis allowed to highlight, namely the question of who bears responsibility. lisa: still an animal that has died for me lisa became vegetarian 5 years ago, and after being strictly vegetarian during a few years, she started to eat meat again occasionally when she got pregnant, and continued after giving birth. she defines herself as a vegetarian but eats meat from time to time. she perceives this as a contradiction and feels unsatisfied. extract 2 : lisa (interview) lisa: i have some some meat (from time to time) because when we buy [her husband and her] or my parents come and bring salami, (2) ii said ok some is fine,: from time to time, it’s not a big deal, although i: i think it’s not a big deal in terms of you know: the planet, uh and ecological reasons, but uhm ethically speaking i don’t feel good, cause i think (.) ok. still an animal that has died for me,: for just my pleasure to have a small piece of salami it doesn’t change my life this small piece of salami, in this extract, lisa establishes links between the consumption of meat, the death of an animal and the environmental impact. she starts by framing meat consumption to specific social situations with her husband and her parents. this is already a way to position herself, saying that although she eats meat, this is limited to a few situations, which implicitly distinguishes her from an average meat eater. she brings in the question of the ecological impact of meat production in order to sustain this position. this dimension is used to diminish personal responsibility, as the main point is that the impact of one piece of salami is negligible. in this way she presents the positioning of being an occasional meat-eater as defendable. in contrast to that, she expresses guiltiness in relation to the death of the animal, which fundamentally questions the previous position. indeed, the positioning implied here would be that of a strict vegetarian. this extract illustrates well two other dimensions highlighted through the thematic analysis: what is the action that is considered (is buying important or is eating important?) and towards what is the responsibility constructed (here: environment and the killed animal). guilt can be interpreted here as the emotional reaction to the discrepancy between a position logically considered as good and action. as mentioned by benson (2001), one important aspect of responsibility is the possibility to act differently, and indeed lisa had a strict vegetarian diet during a certain time and knows people who still have one. gfeller 741 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ laura: to raise awareness among people the next extract is related to an already mentioned dimension, namely who bears responsibility. laura has a long history with vegetarianism, which started during her adolescence when her whole family became pescatarian (avoiding meat but eating fish). she then alternated between pescatarism, strict vegetarianism and veganism. recently, she started to eat chicken a few times a year. extract 3 : laura (interview) laura: whereas now, we see it more and more, there starts to be mass products, for vegans, for vegetarians, and then, for me it has the opposite effect, i told myself (.) ok now, (.) because me for instance i love meat. (.) in terms of taste, i love it. it is really an ideological question. i told myself, uh now that i am uh: i am not the only one anymore there is really, this mass of of the new generation that is vegetarian or vegan, i can allow myself to: to make a step: to withdraw a little bit because it’s clear that in the beginning, i was saying i’m vegetarian,: it was also a bit something political, (.) some advertisement, to explain why, to raise awareness among people (.) and that, i don’t feel anymore, the duty to do it. because i saw that there is a strong new generation there is a strong participation in vegetarianism and veganism. in this extract, there is a shift from personal responsibility to more shared responsibility, expressed through the use of terms like the vegans, the vegetarians, the mass of the new generation, but a collective responsibility in which laura doesn’t include herself anymore. this extract illustrates how the interplay between individual and collective responsibility can go with a decrease of strictness in personal engagement. her positioning shifts from a strict personal engagement as vegetarian towards a less clearly delimited position in which she still argues these questions are important, but feels less compelled to act as a strict vegetarian and to promote it. it is indeed the case that issues related to meat consumption are more discussed in the public sphere where she lives nowadays and that many vegetarian options appeared during the last years. her positioning is implicitly linked to the possibility of change and to an understanding of what are the impacts of different ways to act. in other words, this extract exemplifies the importance of the person’s possibilities of action and how these allow her to affect the world, which constitutes another dimension underlined in the thematic analysis. léa: well i don’t know vietnamese the answer to the question of who carries the responsibility might also exclude the person’s responsibility, as in the following extract. while léa was a person eating meat regularly, 6 months before the interview, she saw a documentary on meat production that deeply shocked her. at the time of the interview, she is still very uncertain about what to do. the following extract is part of a section of the interview in which she speaks about her occasional consumption of meat, and follows a reflection about her eating meat at her parents’ place and the feeling of guiltiness that this implies. extract 4, léa (interview) léa: we went on holidays this summer with my boyfriend, (.) to vietnam, and they ate a lot of, (.) pork meat. (.) uh there is pork meat everywhere in the well (.) pork but also others but mainly pork and (3) and it is impossible in fact sometimes it is very very hard to::: to say, uh::: well to find something a vegetarian meal, (.) and uh: (.) and also we don’t want to make any trouble:, and uh when we eat in a little uh well often these are family restaurants, where there is only one or two dishes and: and you discover the soup because well i don’t know vietnamese, i see my soup and i see things looking like meat i won’t start to ask,: uh if i can change and everything then i try to sort but (.) well pork meat then you smell it in the broth, (.) so it is true that (2) i didn’t feel so guilty, responsibility and meat consumption 742 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the fact that she expresses feeling no guiltiness (in contrast with situations where she eats meat prepared by her parents) indicates that the feeling of responsibility is not engaged in the same manner than in her everyday context. interestingly, she insists on the difficulty to find something vegetarian, which reminds us that alternative possibilities are necessary for the emergence of responsibility. another aspect she mentions is that she does not want to make trouble. this could be interpreted as the interference with another responsibility, that of respect towards people encountered in a different cultural context. in that sense she positions herself as a tourist respectful of the local conditions, a position that prevails over her vegetarian positioning. moreover, she adds that she does not understand vietnamese, meaning that the knowledge that would possibly allow her to avoid meat is not available. in short, léa provides us here with several reasons for which she can not be blamed for her meat consumption in this case, one of them being (lack of) knowledge, which is still another dimension highlighted in the thematic analysis. who is responsible then? nothing indicates that the question crossed her mind, but we might hypothesis that the restaurateurs (specific other) or the cultural context (generalized other) could play that role. discussion the extracts presented above illustrate movements of (de)construction of responsibility. i will now come back on the dimensions that are central to these movements. firstly, we might ask who bears responsibility, which leads to identify three categories. these are “i,” “we” and “other(s).” rather than classifying extracts in these categories, it seems more interesting to pay attention to their articulations. aurelia’s discourse for instance is addressed to a virtual other who does not share her positioning. her (“i”) responsibility becomes to argue and to convince this other. in order to do this, she refers to a common “we,” including her personal responsibility and the other’s in a shared responsibility. lisa in contrast focuses solely on her own responsibility, neither her husbands or her parents responsibility (to eat meat themselves or to offer salami to her) are questioned, nor is there any broader we or they (vegetarians, food industry…). laura articulates the “i” and the “we,” also including her positioning in that of a group. nevertheless, rather than sustaining her engagement, this inclusion is linked with a reduction of her responsibility. blaming that movement would nevertheless be too reductive. there are many examples in the data where participants express the feeling of never doing well enough, of being powerless, and one person even refers to psychological troubles linked to the fact that he would always try to take too much on his own shoulders. this brings us back to the issue of the responsibility of the consumer in a complex system where personal responsibility is at the same time highly valued, but means of action at the individual level are small or uncertain, such as underlined by austgulen (2014) and driver (2016). in accordance with what benson (2001) highlights there can be a discrepancy between the felt responsibility, and what would be the field of responsibility based on what lies into the person’s possibilities of action. what emerges from this analysis but does not appear much in benson’s work is that participants actively try to understand the distribution of responsibilities between themselves as individuals, themselves as members of groups, and others. this distribution appears as fundamental in the construction of responsibility. a second dimension concerns the entity towards which the responsibility emerges, and this is mainly visible in lisa’s extract. we saw that both the planet and the animal that died call her to act, nevertheless in slightly different ways. the animal is also an important entity in aurelia’s example, nevertheless this time it is not that much because he dies, but because of his suffering. in both aurelia and laura’s case, we might also say that the other (human being) calls for some action. as she or he is mistaking or ignorant about the implications of gfeller 743 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ meat consumption, there is a need to inform or to convince her or him. finally, in léa’s case, we might also suspect that the restaurateur appeals a certain kind of behavior, which is the consumption of what she or he proposes. in this case, this behavior is in contradiction with the one that the suffering animal calls to (léa became vegetarian for reasons related to animal ethics). although benson (2001) does not particularly mention the fact that responsibility is fundamentally addressed, oriented towards something or someone, his understanding of positioning is inherently social. therefore, this aspect does not contradict benson’s approach, but constitutes a proposition of deepening of the theorization of responsibility. the fact that participants evoke the environment, animals and humans as entities towards which one is responsible confirms that vegetarianism is an issue anchored in our relations to the planet, to non-human animals and to others (as underlined in the section about crisis), and that it is subjectively perceived as such. thirdly, the action that is considered also varies. in léa’s case, it is unclear if the central problem relies in the act of ordering or of eating the meat. when lisa specifies that her parents bring salami, this precision seems to act as a reduction of responsibility. in both laura and aurelia’s cases, the act to inform seems more important at this point of the interview than what they are buying or eating. am i first of all a living being eating another (former) living being? a consumer who invests money in certain kinds of networks? a person who can affect other people? benson (2001) presents the landscape as complex, and so are the social positions and relations that are part of it. nevertheless, he does not insist much on the possible diversity of positions that a single individual can combine and the potential tensions that these combinations might involve. informing others as a possible way to enact one’s responsibility leads us to the fourth dimension, namely knowledge. the example of léa illustrates that the person considers that if she has no access to the relevant information or if simply she did not know, it diminishes the responsibility. other participants (not presented here) also discuss their responsibility to search for further information, in terms of “one should know” or “i should look for more information.” lisa also takes the responsibility to inform others, whereas laura even presents this aspect as one central component of her labelling herself vegetarian. nevertheless, knowing alone might leave the participants with a feeling of guilt or of disgust. this aspect could be considered as one that falls under the activity of meaningmaking (benson, 2001) which reminds us that it is not simply about getting information, processing and communicating it. more globally, individuals try to make sense of the world they live in and their position in it (benson, 2001). however, benson only skims over the responsibility of (not) knowing and the power relations entailed in knowledge. this could be pushed much further (see for instance gilson, 2011), especially in the case of meat consumption where so many parts of the process are happening far from the consumers’ eyes and other senses. finally, a fifth dimension are the possibilities of action. this becomes notably clear in léa’s example, where the fact that they are almost no vegetarian options available makes meat consumption more acceptable to her. similarly, many participants referred to other places, times or fictional situations in which meat consumption would be acceptable because it is a matter of survival. nevertheless, it is not only a question of the possibility to act in another way, but also of power to act, which includes the possibility to affect the world through one’s actions. when lisa says that it is not a big deal for the planet, the central point is that her behavior will not affect the environment in a noteworthy way. similarly, when laura speaks about her engagement as political, she points to the possibility to affect other people as an intermediary step to affect the production system more efficiently. this aspect is tidily linked to the relation between responsibility and power over the situation (benson, 2001). however, while benson mainly examines this point under the angle of the possibility to act in other ways, in the data examined here, the possible impact of the considered act also plays a fundamental role. responsibility and meat consumption 744 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this last example brings us back to the first dimension mentioned in this discussion. this is not a simple coincidence, but is due to the systemic interrelations between all those dimensions. indeed, the way i understand my own and other’s responsibility as well as what i or we can or should do are tidily linked to the understanding i have of the global situation, the entities that compose it and the way they are related. in bensons’ (2001) words, we could say that the construction of responsibility can be understood only in relation to the landscape it is part of. although it is not really the case for the extracts presented above, a few participants presented their positioning by framing it with terms referring to a certain theorization of societal dynamics or ideologies, such as capitalism or antispeciesism. these seem to act as tools allowing a certain understanding of the relations between the entities. conclusion starting from the assessment that meat production is currently undergoing a crisis, i presented contributions from psychology in relation to these issues. i proposed benson’s approach as a relevant theoretical tool allowing to understand how individuals navigate the complex and uncertain landscape that characterizes the crisis around meat, and focused in particular on the notion of responsibility. in the empirical part, i analyze the way responsibility is (de)constructed by more or less strict vegetarians and identified several dimensions along which this (de)construction proceeds, namely 1) who is responsible, 2) towards what/whom, 3) for what action, 4) what do (i) know and 5) what is the power to act in that situation (what can be done and what impact does it have)? i underlined that these dimensions are interdependent, and therefore we might add as a sixth dimension the global understanding of the situation that includes all the other dimensions as well as statements and interrogations about their relations. as a conclusion, i propose to discuss a few points of benson’s theory, based on the work presented here. first of all, benson distinguishes between self and other-responsibility, a pertinent distinction, as the distribution of responsibility between the individual and potential others plays a fundamental role in the person’s positioning towards meat consumption. however, this distinction does not justice to the role of the collective (we) that appears to be central in the data analyzed here. the inclusion in a collective “we” might act as a support for engagement. in such cases, as the example of lisa illustrates, individual behaviors make sense because they are part of a broader movement. on the other hand, as for instance in laura’s case, the collective “we” might be related to diminution of individual engagement. this implies that as a researcher one should not only take into account the way the collective is (or not) present, but also how it articulates with the other entities and how the whole system of interrelations is understood. secondly, benson combines semiotic dimensions (acknowledging, holding one-self accountable) with the notions of action and agency. the analysis presented above shows that these two dimensions are indeed central, also when it comes to food choices. in order to navigate the world, the world must be made understandable, and for this it is necessary to have information and to be able to articulate it in a meaningful way. seeing violent images of slaughterhouses might indeed play a role as a trigger in a repositioning process, as in léa’s case, and it certainly provides some information about the system, nevertheless this is problematic when it leaves the person with a strong feeling of disgust and/or guiltiness. disgust in particular often appears in relation to the issues raised by animal ethics, and this raises the issue of the way of communicating about this topic. in order to continue to navigate the food landscape, it seems necessary both to have the tools that allow understanding gfeller 745 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the interrelations and to envisage possibilities to affect the system. the value of benson’s conceptualization is also not to fall into a linear understanding, in which first comes the feeling of responsibility, then the more or less appropriate action. on the contrary, benson includes the issue of possible actions from the beginning, and from our data analysis we suspect a dialectical dynamic between meaning-making processes in mind and action in external world (in vygotskian words, between internal and external processes, see vygotsky, 1978a). however, this point needs further investigation. finally, the notion of consequences of actions used by benson also warrants some attention. i suggest this notion is perhaps not completely appropriate here as in some cases the problem seems to lie before the action or to be related to it more on the level of logical implication than of real consequence (as for instance when it is considered as ethically problematic to eat a dead animal). one possible explanation would be that sometimes participants reflect in reference to a consequentialist moral approach (in which consequences are indeed central), and sometimes their reflection is nearer to a deontological approach. it seems that benson’s theorization of responsibility does not include this kind of moral reasoning. notes 1) “dans ses aspects objectifs [as] une rupture d’équilibre, un état crucial où un changement décisif est imminent, dont le résultat peut clairement être hautement indésirable. elle peut prendre la forme d’un événement, éventuellement social ou à conséquences sociales, caractérisé par des contradictions ou des incertitudes” 2) kasperbauer also published a book that is obviously more complete on that topic: kasperbauer (2018). but at the time of writing this article, i didn’t have access to it yet. 3) based on statistiques from: statsanté 2005—office federal de la statistique ; menuch 2014-15—office fédéral de la sécurité alimentaire et des affaires vétérinaires ; rapport annuel 2016—société coopérative proviande. 4) actually, the word used by aurelia in french is “on”, a pronoun that can both be used as impersonal pronoun (in that sense it is close to the english “it”) or as a substitute for “we” in informal language, and that has no real equivalent in english. funding the author has no support to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank my phd supervisors prof. vlad glăveanu and prof. antonio iannaccone for the helpful discussions during the elaboration of the paper, gail womersley for her help in language editing and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. references anderson, e. n. 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(2017). the climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. environmental research letters, 12(7), article 074024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 ziegler, j. (2011). destruction massive: géopolitique de la faim. paris, france: seuil. zittoun, t. (2009). dynamics of life-course transitions: a methodological reflection. in j. valsiner, p. molenaar, m. lyra, & n. chaudhary (éds.), dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences (pp. 405–430). new york, ny, usa: springer. appendices appendix a: original extracts of data in french extrait 1: aurélia intervieweuse: ouais. (.) et pis si quelqu’un te: te dit qu’il veut pas être végétarien parce qu’il aime trop ça, (.) tu penses que c’est une bonne raison? aurélia: non,: mais moi je sais qu’j’l’ai eu dit donc euh: mais: j’ai du j’ai du mal à être tolérante avec ça parce que j’me dit euh (.) j’essaie de: (.) de faire comprendre à la personne que c’est terrible, on peut pas: (.) on peut pas tuer des animaux parce que c’est bon, (.) après. c’est même pas tuer, c’est: c’qu’on leur fait subir, euh (.) dans dans dans l’exploitation grand élevage euh surtout ça (extract 2 is originally in english) extrait 3: laura laura: tandis que maintenant, on le voit de plus en plus, on commence à avoir des produits de masse, pour les véganes, pour les végétariens, et là, pour moi ça fait lal’effet inverse, je me suis dit (.) bon maintenant, (.) parce responsibility and meat consumption 750 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0023220 https://doi.org/10.1088%2f1748-9326%2faa7541 https://www.psychopen.eu/ que moi par exemple j’adore la viande. (.) au niveau goût, j’adore. c’est vraiment une question idéologique. je me suis dit, euhm maintenant que je suis euh: que je suis pas la seule qui qu’il y a vraiment, cette masse de la nouvelle génération qui est végétarienne ou végane, je peux me permettre de: de faire un pas: de me retirer un petit peu parce que c’est clair que au début, je disais je suis végétarienne,: c’était aussi un peu quelque chose de politique, (.) de de publicité, de expliquer le pourquoi, de sensibiliser les gens (.) et ça, j’ai je me sens plus, en devoir de le faire. parce que j’ai vu que y a une forte euh la nouvelle génération y a une forte participation au végétarianisme et au véganisme. extrait 4: léa léa: on est parti en vacances en cet été avec mon copain, (.) au vietnam, et ils mangent énormément, (.) de viande de porc. (.) euh: y a d’la viande de porc partout hein dans les dans les enfin (.) de porc mais aussi d’autres mais surtout de porc et, (3) et c’est impossible en fait enfin des fois c’est très très dur de::: de dire euh:: enfin de trouver quelque chose déjà enfin un plat végétarien, (.) et euh: (.) et aussi on a pas envie d’faire toutes des histoires:, et euh un peu quand onquand on mange dans une ptite euh enfin souvent c’est des familles hein c’est des restaurants familiaux, ou y a qu’un y a qu’un ou deux repas et pis: et pis on découvre notre soupe parce que enfin moi j’sais pas l’vietnamien, j’vois ma soupe, pis j’vois des trucs qui ressemblent à d’la viande j’vais pas commencer à demander,: euh si j’peux changer et tout bon après j’essaie de trier hein mais (.) après la viande de porc ben on sent la viande dans l’bouillon, (.) donc c’est vrai que (2) ça m’a pas tellement culpabilisé, (.) appendix b : transcription conventions table a1 transcription conventions symbol description , raising intonation . fall in the intonation ? interrogative intonation (.) small break (1 second or less) (2) or (3) break (number indicates how many seconds) : prolongation of the sound underlined word accentuated word interrupted word appendix c: material used in the qualitative experiment the texts used in the qualitative experiment are presented here. the order of presentation is random. they were not numbered when used in the experience. i translated them into english for this article; originals are in french. the details of the construction of these texts and their sources will be available in the doctoral dissertation that will be submitted in 2020. health, nutrition [text 1] i learnt that eating too much meat and dairy products increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer. eating red meat and animal fats is particularly unhealthy. before, we thought that being vegetarian was risky for health, but now even doctors recommend this diet. [text 2] i became vegetarian because of the ecological consequences of livestock farming. but this conversion was poorly prepared and after a few years i started to suffer from deficiencies: tiredness, hair loss, irritability… during long time, i ignored these signals, thinking that this was the right price to pay for my light conscience and a finally definitive slimness. it took me a long time to understand where this was coming from. after what, i went back to meat consumption. i am now flexitarian, to me it is the right middle between principles of reason and pleasure. gfeller 751 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ environmental impact [text 3] animal farming industry largely contributes to deforestation. livestock raised in europe is essentially nourished with feed—mainly gm soya—produced on what once was the amazon rainforest. production of feed generates a diminution of available water resources and seriously damages the grounds because of the spreading of insecticides, fungicides and liquid manure. moreover, animal farming is responsible for 18% of the greenhouse effect gas emissions. livestock and the production of feed occupy two thirds of the entire agricultural terrain and one third of the surface of the earth, while 925 millions of people in the world suffer of hunger and could be nourished with these proteins intended for cattle. [text 4] if you do not eat meat anymore, in order to get enough calories you consume more other products, which also have an impact on environment. you will for instance eat more fruits and vegetables, or more soya-based products. for the same number of calories, those products need more energy, more water and entail to produce more greenhouse effect gas. unlike what we usually think, being vegetarian is not necessarily good for the environment. you also have to consider the context; vegetarianism is not necessarily appropriate in certain regions because of the climate and the relief. in europe, there are regions where the grounds are not appropriate for culture, and these terrains are well suited for cattle. animal ethics [text 5] i eat meat only when i know where it comes from. fortunately, there are still noble and respectful farmers who put their entire heart in the fact to produce meat, eggs, milk, respecting the animals, the environment and the consumers. near to them, animals live a life that is preferable to that of wild animals, that are exposed to predators and endure difficult climate conditions. of course, we kill these animals, but this death is painless and almost instantaneous, while wild animals often die after a long death throes. additionally, milk, wool or honey are the price for the care that humans provide to cows, sheep and bees. [text 6] most of the people wish animals’ well-being and refuse a priori to inflict them pain. but i think that, in order to be coherent, we have to renounce to all activities that implicate to make animals suffer, because none of them is obligatory. thinking that we can conciliate animal farming and animal well-being is unrealistic. animals are subjects-of-a-life, they possess an inherent value. this implies to stop immediately all activities in which animals are used as a mean and to completely refuse animal industry. one day will come when the idea that, in order to feed themselves, humans raised and massacred living beings and exposed their tattered flesh in shop windows, will inspire the same repugnance than cannibal meals of the savages inspired to the travelers of the xvith or xviith century. pleasure, taste [text 7] i adapt my diet following my principles and my desires. from time to time, i like to savor a rare prime rib of beef or roasted chicken, especially if my boyfriend prepared it. given that i rarely eat meat, it is especially important to give myself a treat, while also choosing pieces of good quality and of ethically responsible provenance. [text 8] the repugnance that we spontaneously experience in front of the carcass of an animal signals that our taste for meat is not a natural tendency. as a human being, our appetite is only excited by meat, which is a transformed product, an artifice. the function of sauces, spices, perfumes is to make us forget that we consume a disgusting product. since i thought about that, even the idea of eating meat repulses me. economic aspect [text 9] meat and fish are often the most expensive foods in a meal, in particular if you want products of good quality and which respect a few minimal environmental and ethical norms. since i am vegetarian, i can reinvest everything i save on meat elsewhere, be it in buying foods of good quality or in other domains. [text 10] if i would stop eating meat, i would have to consume more other products in order to compensate, and this would weight upon my budget, especially because these products have to be of good quality in order to avoid any risk of deficiency. more people from comfortable background become vegetarian, and it is not by chance. you need time to reflect on what responsibility and meat consumption 752 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 https://www.psychopen.eu/ you will eat and plan balanced meals, take time to cook and have the means to buy substitutes to meat; not everyone can afford this. nature, culture and humanization [text 11] exploitation of animals for their wool, their traction force and their meat allowed men to accede to civilization. domestication and meat consumption are inseparable in human development and played an important role in the development of the brain. meat consumption is a cultural practice that favored the mastering of fire, the production of weapons and tools and participated to the development of communication and social organization. the use of meat constitutes a symbol of the benefits of civilization. [text 12] it is obvious that humans are not made for meat consumption, our physiology is rather near to the one of herbivores. our dentition is not the one of a carnivore, we do not have sharp teeth adapted to tear meat up, we have flat teeth of ruminants who chew leaves. we do not have claws to lacerate our prey. our intestine is very long in order to allow the digestion of grass, leaves and fruits. and we do not have enough gastric juice to digest animals’ bones. about the author fabienne gfeller is a phd student at the institute of psychology and education, university of neuchâtel. in her dissertation, she studies how people navigate the complex debates around products of animal origin. she draws on socio-cultural and dialogical approaches, aiming at a better understanding of how people can creatively explore possibilities in a complex and challenging context. this interest was already underlying her master thesis, a study about the practice of aikido, a japanese martial art. gfeller 753 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 733–753 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1854 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ responsibility and meat consumption (introduction) crisis in the meat production system contributions from psychology positioning: navigation and responsibility method results aurelia: we cannot kill animals because it is tasty lisa: still an animal that has died for me laura: to raise awareness among people léa: well i don’t know vietnamese discussion conclusion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references appendices appendix a: original extracts of data in french appendix b : transcription conventions appendix c: material used in the qualitative experiment about the author personand situation-specific factors in discounting science via scientific impotence excuses research reports personand situation-specific factors in discounting science via scientific impotence excuses tom rosman 1, martin kerwer 1, anita chasiotis 1, oliver wedderhoff 1 [1] leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 received: 2020-05-19 • accepted: 2020-09-22 • published (vor): 2021-11-30 handling editor: frederic vallee-tourangeau, kingston university, kingston upon thames, united kingdom corresponding author: tom rosman, leibniz-institute for psychology (zpid), universitätsring 15, 54296, trier, germany. e-mail: tr@leibnizpsychology.org supplementary materials: data, materials, preregistration [see index of supplementary materials] abstract munro (2010, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00588.x) found that individuals, when confronted with belief-disconfirming scientific evidence, resist this information by concluding that the topic at hand is not amenable to scientific investigation—a scientific impotence excuse. we strived to replicate this finding and to extend this work by analyzing other factors that might lead to scientific impotence excuses. as a person-specific factor, we analyzed the role of epistemic beliefs, and as a situational factor, we focused on the contradictoriness of the evidence at hand. three sets of hypotheses were preregistered. in an experimental 2 × 3 online study drawing on a general population sample of n = 901 participants, we first assessed our participants’ prior beliefs on the effects of acupuncture versus massaging (pro acupuncture vs. no opinion). one experimental group then read fictitious empirical evidence claiming superiority of acupuncture, another group read evidence speaking against acupuncture, and a third group read conflicting evidence (i.e., a mix of proand contra-findings). scientific impotence excuses were measured by a newly developed questionnaire. our first hypothesis, which suggested that participants believing in the superiority of acupuncture would make stronger scientific impotence excuses when confronted with belief-disconfirming findings, was confirmed. a second hypothesis suggested that scientific impotence excuses would be stronger when individuals were confronted with evidence exhibiting a “nature” that contradicts their topic-specific epistemic beliefs. this hypothesis was partially supported. a third hypothesis suggested that individuals confronted with conflicting evidence would make stronger scientific impotence excuses, and this was again confirmed. implications for theory and practice are discussed. keywords scientific impotence excuse, prior beliefs, epistemic beliefs, conflicting evidence, discounting science, trust in science “in the current political climate […] the credibility of scientific evidence is questioned and science is threatened by defunding” (wingen et al., 2020, p. 8). with these words, wingen and colleagues (2020) refer to the issue of right-wing populists discounting science via crude, simple, and yet persuasive messages. while focusing on a multitude of topics (climate change probably being the most prominent example), such messages often have one key element in common: science is portrayed as unable to investigate the issue at hand, which is why the corresponding scientific findings are deemed meaningless. interestingly, this relates to a psychological concept from 2010, the so-called scientific impotence excuse (sie; munro, 2010) hypothesis, which suggests “that people resist belief disconfirming scientific evidence by concluding that the topic of study is not amenable to scientific investigation” (p. 579). munro (2010) demonstrated that sies can be evoked in experimental settings: if individuals were confronted with scientific evidence that disconfirmed this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3735&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ their existing beliefs about a homosexuality stereotype (i.e., on whether homosexuality is associated with mental illness; munro, 2010), they were more likely to indicate that this topic cannot be studied scientifically (compared to participants receiving belief-confirming evidence; munro, 2010). recently, a majority of munro’s (2010) predictions were conceptually replicated with regard to a topic from educa­ tional research (the effects of grade retention on academic achievement; thomm et al., 2018; thomm et al., 2019). however, while the incongruity between scientific claims on a specific topic and individual beliefs on that same topic may indeed be a central factor in discounting science, research has, up to now, neglected other factors that might lead to sies. therefore, the present work aims to extend munro’s (2010) sie hypothesis by investigating factors other than belief-disconfirming evidence that may contribute to the devaluation of science. as a situational factor, it will focus on the contradictoriness of the evidence presented, and, as person-specific factor, it will investigate the incongruity between individual epistemic beliefs (i.e., individual beliefs about the nature of knowledge; hofer & pintrich, 1997; stahl & bromme, 2007) and the (epistemic) nature of the scientific evidence at hand. background and hypotheses in the following, we first describe the theoretical background of the sie effect. subsequently, we develop three sets of pre-registered hypotheses aiming at 1) conceptually replicating munro’s (2010) predictions in the context of a health-related topic, 2) extending it with regard to epistemic beliefs as a person-specific factor, and 3) broadening its scope by also including a situation-specific factor, the amount of contradictoriness of the evidence presented. the scientific impotence excuse according to munro (2010) according to munro (2010), festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957) is at the heart of the sie proposition. cognitive dissonance theory suggests that feelings of psychological discomfort (i.e., cognitive dissonance) arise when individuals are subject to two or more contradictory cognitions (festinger, 1957). imagine john, who strongly believes in the power of acupuncture. john will likely experience cognitive dissonance when discovering a study report which suggests that acupuncture has no positive effects. since no one wants to remain in a state of psychological discomfort for long, he will strive to quickly overcome this cognitive dissonance. research has shown that individuals refer to a multitude of means to do so. changing prior beliefs is but one (for an overview, see chinn & brewer, 1993). other means, which are sometimes termed as “resistance processes” (munro, 2010), target the devaluation and denigration of the evidence at hand. hence, with regard to our example above, john may decide to search for flaws in the acupuncture study. we however concede that this approach is time-consuming and probably contradicts john’s motive of quickly overcoming cognitive dissonance. furthermore, munro (2010) suggests that “in the real world […] people are rarely provided details regarding the methodology of the research” (p. 581), and we would add that many people lack the skills (e.g., research literacy) to evaluate an empirical study’s quality. munro (2010) therefore further argues that individuals will likely refer to other resistance processes when confronted with belief-contradicting scientific evidence, and suggests that the strategy of “coming to believe that scientific methods are impotent to address the topic of study” (p. 582) might be particularly promising in this regard—the scientific impotence hypothesis1 is born. as outlined above, a number of studies have confirmed the basic assumption of munro’s (2010) sie hypothesis, but, to date, only a limited number of topics have been investigated. in fact, munro (2010) only tested his predictions with regard to beliefs about a homosexuality stereotype, and thomm and colleagues’ (2018, 2019) study aimed at the topic of grade retention. to our knowledge, no corresponding studies have been conducted in the health domain, which is striking since sies regarding medical knowledge might have very disastrous consequences (imagine, for example, the consequences of sie in the corona pandemic). we expect that sies are particularly widespread concerning topics from complementary and alternative medicine. in fact, people who refer to alternative medicine are likely to adapt a more 1) it should be noted that munro (2010) further differentiates between the scientific impotence discounting hypothesis and the scientific impotence generaliza­ tion hypothesis. according to the latter, scientific impotence excuses regarding one topic would generalize to other topics or to the scientific method as a whole (an expectation that was however not empirically supported in thomm and colleagues’ [2019] study). for reasons of parsimony, the present article only focuses on the scientific impotence discounting hypothesis and ignores this generalization aspect. rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 289 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “esoteric” and less scientific way of thinking—believing, for example, in paranormal phenomena and in magical effects of food on health (furnham, 2007; saher & lindeman, 2005). furthermore, proponents and advocates of alternative medicine often argue that their drugs or treatment approaches are not scientifically investigable (e.g., oberbaum et al., 2003; power & hopayian, 2011). they state, for example, that the effect mechanisms are too complex to analyze, or that a scientific investigation would obstruct the proposed healing mechanisms as it “chase[s] the healing process away” (baum & ernst, 2009, p. 973). in the present paper, we therefore test the scientific impotence hypothesis in the context of a topic from alternative medicine (acupuncture vs. massaging in the treatment of back pain). choosing this topic also has the advantage that it currently is not a hot topic in germany, meaning that most study participants do not have much prior topic knowledge—which is important for the success of corresponding experimental manipulations. in fact, investigating the sie almost always implies delivering some kind of unbalanced evidence (e.g., only studies speaking in favor of acupuncture). however, if participants doubt that this evidence correctly represents the available evidence because of high prior knowledge, they may rather become suspicious of the experiment instead of referring to sies. for these reasons, we chose to investigate sie regarding the topic of acupuncture versus massaging in the treatment of back pain, and suggest the following confirmatory hypothesis: hypothesis 1: sies will be stronger when individuals are confronted with scientific evidence that contradicts their prior topic-specific beliefs—compared to belief-consistent evidence. scientific impotence excuses and individual epistemic beliefs epistemic beliefs are individual beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing (hofer & pintrich, 1997; stahl & bromme, 2007), and are often operationalized with regard to a specific academic domain (e.g., psychology-specific epistemic beliefs; rosman et al., 2017) or topic (e.g., epistemic beliefs on the big-fish-little-pond effect; merk et al., 2018). researchers from this field address a multitude of questions relating to individual epistemic beliefs: how do individuals think about knowledge stemming from (e.g., psychological) research? do they think that it is possible to find out the “truth” about (psychological) phenomena or do they interpret (psychological) “knowledge” as an accumulation of interpretations and opinions? do they perceive scientific knowledge on the worked-example effect as objective and fixed, or do they see it as tentative and preliminary?2 in earlier publications (cf. buehl et al., 2002; hofer & pintrich, 1997; schommer, 1993; stahl & bromme, 2007), there was a more or less general consensus that beliefs about knowledge as certain and fixed (absolute epistemic beliefs) are not very beneficial for learning and information processing. such publications therefore often suggested that educators should strive to promote views of scientific knowledge as tentative and relative. however, this assumption is not unchallenged. for example, elby and hammer (2001) as well as elby et al. (2016) argue that it strongly depends on the issue in question whether a certain belief may be seen as “correct” (i.e., according to an expert consensus) and “productive” (i.e., beneficial for learning). in line with such arguments, muis and colleagues (e.g., muis & franco, 2010; muis et al., 2011) suggested what they termed the consistency hypothesis: they argued that a congruence between an individual’s epistemic beliefs and the epistemic nature of learning materials fosters metacognitive self-regulation and learning—hence an individual believing in knowledge as tentative and preliminary would learn better with contradicto­ ry learning materials (e.g., a text containing conflicting opinions or evidence) than an individual viewing knowledge as an accumulation of absolute “truths.” transferring the general idea of the consistency hypothesis (muis & franco, 2010; muis et al., 2011) to the sie hypothesis, we suggest that inconsistencies between epistemic beliefs and the nature of learning materials may not only lead to poorer self-regulation and learning, but also to dysfunctional attitudes towards science—sies. in this context, two extreme cases are possible: individuals who believe that knowledge is fixed and certain will, when confronted with conflicting evidence, more strongly refer to sies compared to individuals who believe that knowledge is tentative and preliminary. moreover, individuals who believe that knowledge is tentative and preliminary will, if confronted with 2) of note is that there is a certain amount of conceptual overlap between the sie construct and topic-specific epistemic beliefs. a key difference between both constructs, however, is that sie arise in reaction to a specific stimulus (e.g., scientific evidence that disconfirms one’s existing beliefs), whereas this is not the case with regard to epistemic beliefs. furthermore, sie focuses on the potential of scientific methods in generating knowledge, whereas epistemic beliefs more strongly relate to the nature of scientific knowledge itself. discounting science 290 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ non-conflicting evidence, report more sies compared to individuals who believe that knowledge is fixed and certain. since epistemic beliefs (e.g., beliefs on the nature of knowledge in acupuncture research) and topic-specific beliefs (e.g., beliefs on the efficacy of acupuncture) are conceptually distinct (kardash & howell, 2000; kienhues et al., 2008), we expect that their effects on sies are also, at least to a certain extent, independent. in sum, we therefore suggest that inconsistencies between epistemic beliefs and the nature of presented scientific evidence will lead to sies—and further expect that these effects are incremental over the “traditional” sie effects specified by munro (2010): hypothesis 2: sies will be stronger when individuals are confronted with scientific evidence that exhibits a “nature” contradicting their prior topic-specific epistemic beliefs—compared to belief-consistent evidence (h2a). these effects persist when controlling for “traditional” sie effects (i.e., the effects of prior topic-specific beliefs; h2b). scientific impotence excuses and the epistemic nature of evidence so far, we have focused on individual factors (e.g., topic-specific beliefs and epistemic beliefs) and on their interaction with situational factors in sies. to our knowledge, the effects of situational factors alone, however, have not yet been investigated in the sie context. this is striking since sies exhibit a strong epistemological component. in fact, sies can be seen as a lack of beliefs in the epistemology of a domain (munro, 2010), and, vice-versa, the epistemology of the domain (or topic) itself may also affect sies. this is in line with a recent argument by rosman et al. (2020). in their study, they suggest that students’ epistemic beliefs reflect, to a certain extent, the epistemology of the domain in question, which is why domain-specific epistemic beliefs are usually more absolute with regard to “hard” compared to “soft” (biglan, 1973) sciences (hofer, 2000; muis et al., 2006; muis et al., 2016; rosman et al., 2017). sies should thus vary depending on the nature of evidence regarding a specific domain or topic. furthermore, research has shown that confronting individuals with conflicting scientific evidence (often labelled as “diverging information”) leads to views of scientific evidence as tentative and preliminary (ferguson et al., 2013; kienhues et al., 2008; kienhues et al., 2016). for example, ferguson et al. (2013) found that their participants tended to express more views of a scientific issue as tentative and complex after being confronted with conflicting information on this same topic (the effects of sun exposure and health, in this case). such belief changes may be related to sies since views of science as strongly tentative imply that any findings are subject to a large level of uncertainty—scientific impotence. in line with these two arguments, we expect that the strength of sies depends, to a large extent, on the contradictoriness of the evidence at hand. we further expect that this effect is independent of individual topic-specific beliefs, that only come into play when the evidence supports or contradicts them. hypothesis 3: sies will be stronger when individuals are confronted with contradictory scientific evidence—compared to non-contradictory evidence3 (h3a). these effects persist when controlling for “traditional” sie effects (i.e., the effects of prior topic-specific beliefs; h3b). method hypotheses were tested in a preregistered experimental study drawing on a german general population sample. the preregistration, which includes all study materials and which was registered on october 15, 2019, can be found in supplementary materials. procedure, design and materials the study employed an experimental 3 × 2 between-person design (type of evidence presented × prior beliefs) and was realized in an online format using the survey software efs surveytm (“unipark”). at the very beginning of the 3) it should be noted that hypotheses 2 and 3 seem to offer opposing predictions at first sight: according to hypothesis 2, conflicting evidence will lead to less sie in individuals who believe in knowledge as tentative, whereas hypothesis 3 predicts that conflicting evidence will lead to more sie in all participants. however, it may well be that conflicting evidence generally leads to higher sie compared to non-conflicting evidence (significant main effect of the experimental factor), whereas this difference is somewhat lower in individuals with high relativist beliefs (significant interaction between the experimental factor and the caeb variable). rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 291 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire, participants’ prior topic-specific beliefs (i.e., beliefs on the effectiveness of acupuncture vs. massaging) were assessed using a screening question in a forced-choice format (see preregistration in supplementary materials). this allowed us to specify explicit quotas in the survey software, which ensured that we would not run into issues such as having too many participants with no clear opinion on the topic at hand (who can obviously not be confronted with evidence contradicting their prior beliefs). based on this screening, two equally-sized quasiexperimental groups were formed: 1) participants believing in the superiority of acupuncture over massaging (“pro acupuncture beliefs” group; qeg1), and 2) participants having no clear opinion on the superiority or inferiority of acupuncture (“no opinion” group; qeg2). to control for gender differences in the perception of acupuncture/massaging, we further specified the quotas so that the gender distribution was identical across the “pro acupuncture” and “no opinion” groups. this is because studies have consistently shown that women more frequently refer to complementary and alternative medicine (e.g., kristoffersen et al., 2014; rhee & harris, 2017; zhang et al., 2015). furthermore, participants believing in the superiority of massaging were screened out at the beginning of the data collection since this additional quasiexperimental group was not necessary to test our hypotheses. after collecting demographics and questionnaire data (e.g., on epistemic beliefs; see measures section below), we presented our participants with 12 fictitious texts on the treatment of back pain. eight of these texts described empirical studies on the efficacy of acupuncture versus massaging in back pain treatment, and four additional filler texts described studies irrelevant for the comparison between acupuncture and massaging. all 12 texts were presented on separate pages in the online questionnaire, and their order was randomized. the subset of texts that was presented varied depending on three experimental conditions that the participants were randomly assigned to: • eg1 (“pro acupuncture”). participants were presented with four filler texts and eight texts suggesting that acupuncture is better suited for the treatment of back pain than massaging • eg2 (“against acupuncture”). participants were presented with four filler texts and eight texts suggesting that massaging is better suited for the treatment of back pain than acupuncture. • eg3 (“conflicting evidence”). participants were presented with four filler texts, four “pro acupuncture,” and four “against acupuncture” texts. the experimental manipulation of the texts was realized by interchanging the words “acupuncture” and “massaging.” this means, for example, that the studies described in eg1 (“pro acupuncture”) and eg2 (“against acupuncture”) were identical except for the fact that the texts in eg2 suggested that massaging was better than acupuncture. the four filler texts were identical across all three conditions. text length was around 100 words for each of the 12 texts and all texts were presented in german language (see preregistration in supplementary materials). after each text, participants responded to a short comprehension question, in which they were asked to indicate, using a forced-choice format, whether the study suggested that 1) acupuncture is better suited for the treatment of back pain than massaging, 2) massaging is better suited than acupuncture, or that 3) the study is irrelevant for the comparison between acupuncture and massaging (see preregistration in supplementary materials). after this reading task, participants responded to the manipulation checks (see measures section below) and to a newly developed questionnaire on sies (see below), followed by some additional covariates not relevant for the current article (see below). finally, a debriefing took place. data collection took around 25 minutes per participant. participants data collection procedures participants were recruited using two commercial panel service providers (cinttm and responditm). participants completed the data collection using their own device, and were paid for their participation by the respective panel provider. prior to data collection, we pre-specified the following sample properties: • german speaking participants aged 18–65 • gender distribution: 50% male, 50% female • education: at least middle maturity (“mittlere reife”4) discounting science 292 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • no acupuncture treatments in the last 10 years • no prior beliefs “against acupuncture” (only “pro acupuncture” and “no opinion”; see procedure, design and materials section) • quotas: gender distribution (50/50, see above) identical across the “pro acupuncture” and “no opinion” groups (see procedure, design and materials section) sample size calculation sample size calculation was performed using gpower (version 3.1; faul et al., 2009). since the effects regarding hypothesis 2 might be smaller than “traditional” sie effects, especially in an online setting, sample size calculation was performed with a rather small expected effect size of f = 0.10. this resulted in a total required sample size of n = 967 (f = 0.10, α = .05, 1-β = .80, 6 conditions). to reach an optimal distribution of participants across conditions, we aimed to recruit n = 972 participants (the next largest number divisible by 4 and 6). data screening and cleaning in total, n = 985 participants completed the online questionnaire. as specified in the preregistration, the raw data were screened, prior to hypothesis testing, for major protocol deviations such as selecting the same response category implausibly often. in a first step, we analyzed our participants’ responses to the 12 comprehension questions on the texts. this revealed rather encouraging results, with 85.8% of participants having at least 10 correct answers, and 70.5% of participants correctly responding to all 12 comprehension questions. nevertheless, a descriptive glance at the raw data revealed some highly suspicious response patterns in a few participants (such as choosing the exactly same response category across all texts). to address such protocol deviations, we employed the following criterion: participants were only included in the data analysis if they had responded correctly to at least half of the (fairly easy) comprehension questions on the eight acupuncture-related texts and if they had correctly identified at least one distractor. using this criterion, n = 84 participants were excluded from the analyses. this resulted in a final sample size of n = 901 participants, with 50.7% women, 49.3% men, and a mean age of m = 42.47 (sd = 13.52). as specified in our preregistration, we used z-scores to screen these data for outliers (criterion: p(z) < .001), and found no outliers on any (metric) variable relevant for our hypotheses. the actual distribution of participants across experimental and quasiexperimental groups can be found in table 1. the slight deviation from the pre-specified criterion of n = 162 participants per cell was due to simultaneous participation, chance, and, for ncleaned, the data cleaning procedure. table 1 distribution of participants among experimental and quasiexperimental groups quasiexperimental factor experimental factor eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) eg3 (texts “conflicting evidence”) qeg1 (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”) nraw = 167 nraw = 159 nraw = 165 ncleaned = 153 ncleaned = 147 ncleaned = 151 qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”) nraw = 160 nraw = 167 nraw = 167 ncleaned = 145 ncleaned = 150 ncleaned = 155 note. nraw = original sample size per group; ncleaned = sample size per group after cleaning. 4) this means that participants needed to have successfully completed at least 10 years of school education. we specified this criterion to ensure that all participants would possess sufficient reading skills to participate in the study. rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 293 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures scientific impotence excuses sies, our main dependent variable, were measured using six newly developed items (see table 2). to make the instrument as specific as possible, it starts with a short introduction relating all items to the question on whether acupuncture would be better suited for the treatment of back pain than massages. when developing the six items, we focused on covering a broad spectrum of aspects of sies, such as problems with the scientific method itself (sie_01, sie_04), the general belief that science will not be able to find answers anytime soon (sie_02), the idea that knowledge has to be constructed by personal experience (sie_03, sie_05), or the intricacy of the research questions (sie_06). as a response format, we opted for a 6-point likert scale response format as this forces participants to choose whether they agree with the presented sie statements or not (compared to, for example, a seven-point scale with a middle category). this is because, conceptually, one may either make sies or not, and since most of our hypotheses made clear predictions on whether a specific group refers to sie or not. as expected, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a clear one-dimensional solution (both on scree plots and on the kaiser-guttman eigenvalue criterion). scale reliability (cronbach’s alpha: α = .89) and item-total correlations (rit between .591 and .767) were very good. as specified in our preregistration, scores on individual items were aggregated to mean scores. higher scores indicate stronger sie. table 2 items and corrected item-total correlations of the sie scale label item rit (introduction) whether acupuncture is better for the treatment of back pain than massages … sie_01 … cannot be investigated by scientific methods. .748 sie_02 … will remain hidden from science in the future. .735 sie_03 … everyone has to find out for themselves—science cannot provide answers. .667 sie_04 … is not amenable to scientific analysis. .724 sie_05 … can only be judged by practicing doctors through their experience—not by science. .591 sie_06 … depends on so many different influence factors that science cannot find an answer. .767 note. response format: 6-point likert scale ranging from 1 (do not agree at all) to 6 (fully agree). all items were translated from german language by the authors of the present paper. the english items are not empirically validated. rit = corrected item-total correlations for the german items. epistemic beliefs epistemic beliefs were measured by a slightly adapted version of the connotative aspects of epistemological beliefs questionnaire (caeb; stahl & bromme, 2007), a well-known inventory that has been used, among others, in studies on the development of epistemic beliefs (e.g., kienhues et al., 2008; rosman et al., 2017) as well as in research on the effects of epistemic beliefs on learning (e.g., bromme et al., 2010). the questionnaire uses 17 adjective pairs and a five-point semantic differential to assess epistemic beliefs on two subscales: texture and variability. for both subscales, higher scores indicate views on knowledge as more tentative and evolving—variability emphasizes the temporal dimen­ sion, whereas texture focuses more on the structure of knowledge. to measure epistemic beliefs on a topic-specific level (“acupuncture-specific” epistemic beliefs, so to speak), the instruction of the questionnaire was slightly adapted. after data collection was finished, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis. contrary to our expectations, scree plot investigations thereby indicated a one-dimensional (instead of two-dimensional) structure. moreover, reliability analyses yielded unacceptable results regarding the variability subscale (α = .38, rit between −.003 and .309), whereas the texture scale seemed to have worked as expected (α = .86). the item-total correlations of this scale were fine, too (rit between .486 and .759), except for one item (“ausgehandelt”—“entdeckt”: rit = −.038). consequently, we removed the variability scale from all analyses because of its unacceptable reliability, and proceeded with the original 10-item texture scale (of which a mean score was calculated). discounting science 294 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ manipulation checks two scales were used to test whether our experimental manipulation had worked as expected. first, a semantic differential single item was administered to assess which general “message” the administered texts had conveyed (7-point likert-scale with the end points “pro massaging” and “pro acupuncture”; see preregistration in supplementary materials). as specified in our preregistration, we expected eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) to score higher on this scale compared to eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) and eg3 (i.e., that they correctly identified their texts as more “pro acupuncture”). moreover, we expected eg2 to score lower than eg1 (“pro acupuncture”) and eg3 (i.e., that they correctly identified their texts as more “pro massaging / against acupuncture”). finally, we also expected eg3 scores to be lower than eg1 scores (“pro acupuncture”) but higher than eg2 scores (i.e., that they correctly identified “pro acupuncture” and “pro massaging” texts as more balanced out). descriptively, these expectations were fully supported (eg1: m = 6.55, sd = 1.06; eg2: m = 1.36, sd = 0.70; eg3: m = 4.03, sd = 1.42), and the corresponding one-factorial analysis of variance confirmed the expected pattern, f(2, 898) = 1645.20, p < .001, ηp2 = .79, all tukey hsd post-hoc tests p < .001. furthermore, we had expected that participants in eg3 (“conflicting evidence”) perceived the presented findings as more inconsistent than the participants in eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts). to test this, a slightly adapted scale from rosman, mayer, merk, and kerwer (2019) was employed (see preregistration in supplementary materials). the scale consisted of three items relating to the perceived contradictoriness of the administered text materials (α = .82; rit between .511 and .756; clear one-dimensional solution in an exploratory factor analysis). high scores indicate stronger perceived contradictoriness—which is why we expected eg3 to score higher on this scale than eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts). this expectation was again supported—descriptively (eg1: m = 2.28, sd = 1.00; eg2: m = 2.48, sd = 1.08; eg3: m = 3.67, sd = 1.07) and in a one-factorial analysis of variance, f(2, 898) = 155.75, p < .001, ηp2 = .26, all relevant tukey hsd post-hoc tests p < .001. covariates several covariates (e.g., demographics), which were not relevant for our preregistered hypotheses, were additionally measured (see preregistration in supplementary materials). these include trust in science (measured at the very beginning of the questionnaire), strength of prior beliefs on acupuncture (measured directly before reading), epistemic emotions while reading (measured directly after the manipulation checks), and beliefs in conspiracy theories (measured at the very end of the questionnaire). operational hypotheses since it is difficult to specify precise hypotheses without explaining a study’s design, the following operational hypothe­ ses were preregistered to complement the general hypotheses suggested in the introduction section: hypothesis 1: in the quasiexperimental group qeg1 (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”), sie will be stronger when participants are confronted with “against acupuncture” texts (eg2) compared to “pro acupuncture” texts (eg1). we thereby chose to only investigate this hypothesis in the qeg1 group (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”) since a confrontation with belief-disconfirming evidence is not possible in individuals having no clear opinion on the topic at hand (qeg2 group). hypothesis 2a: in the quasiexperimental group qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”), there is an interaction between the experimental factor and the caeb: with increasing scores on the caeb (both texture [h2a1] and variability5 [h2a2]), sie will be stronger in eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) compared to eg3. hypothesis 2b: the effects specified in h2a1 and h2a2 persist when including all participants and specifying the quasiexperimental factor as a control variable in the respective analyses (h2b1 and h2b2). in these hypotheses, we focused on participants with no clear opinion on the topic at hand (qeg2 group) to rule out that our results become biased by prior beliefs on the topic of acupuncture. 5) as outlined above, we did not test h2a2 and h2b2 due to the corresponding scale’s insufficient reliability. rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 295 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ hypothesis 3a: in the quasiexperimental group qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”), sie will be stronger in eg3 compared to eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts; h3a1) and in eg3 compared to eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts; h3a2). hypothesis 3b: the effects specified in h3a1 and h3a2 persist when including all participants and specifying the quasiexperimental factor as a control variable in the respective analyses (h3b1 and h3b2). just as in hypothesis 2, we focused on participants with no clear opinion on the topic at hand (qeg2 group) to rule out possible confounding effects of prior beliefs on acupuncture. results table 3 contains descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study variables. no gender differences were found on any variable relevant for the present analyses (all p > .10). as specified in our preregistration, we used the standard p < .05 inference criterion for all analyses, and referred to one-sided tests where appropriate. all analyses were conducted in spss (version 26). a dataset which allows to replicate all the present findings as well as the corresponding syntax and output files can be found in supplementary materials. table 3 descriptives and intercorrelations of the study variables experimental factor quasiexperimental factor scale n m sd rsie-caebt eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) qeg1 (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”) sie 153 2.68 1.05 .20* caebtexture 153 2.47 0.56 qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”) sie 145 2.95 0.92 .46** caebtexture 145 2.84 0.54 eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) qeg1 (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”) sie 147 3.08 0.99 .10 caebtexture 147 2.45 0.63 qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”) sie 150 2.90 1.06 .00 caebtexture 149 2.92 0.64 eg3 (texts “conflicting evidence”) qeg1 (prior beliefs “pro acupuncture”) sie 151 3.57 0.94 .02 caebtexture 151 2.40 0.60 qeg2 (prior beliefs “no opinion”) sie 155 3.76 0.77 .06 caebtexture 155 2.86 0.54 note. n = sample size per group (after cleaning); m = mean; sd = standard deviation; sie = scientific impotence excuse; caebtexture = epistemic beliefs on the texture of knowledge; rsie-caebt = correlation between caebtexture and sie. *p < .05. **p < .01. hypothesis 1 hypothesis 1 was tested using a t-test for independent samples in the qeg1 (“pro acupuncture beliefs” group) data subset (dependent variable: sie; independent variable: experimental factor [eg1, eg2]). the test revealed a significant difference between eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) regarding sie, t(298) = 3.39, p < .001, which was in the expected direction (eg1: m = 2.68, sd = 1.05; eg2: m = 3.08, sd = 0.99) and of small to medium effect size (cohen’s d = 0.39; 90% ci [0.20, 0.58]). in other words, participants who read belief-disconfirming information reported higher sies compared to participants who read belief-confirming information. consequently, hypothesis 1 is fully supported. hypothesis 2 hypothesis 2a1 was tested using regression-based interaction testing (aiken & west, 1991) by means of the process 3.4 spss macro (hayes, 2018) in the qeg2 (subjects who reported “no opinion” in their prior beliefs) data subset (process configuration: model 1; dependent variable: sie; independent variable: caebtexture; moderator: experimental discounting science 296 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ condition [eg1, eg2, eg3]). in these analyses, the experimental factor was dummy coded with eg3 (conflicting evidence) as reference category, and caebtexture was standardized to enhance the interpretability of the results. as can be seen in table 4, a significant and positive interaction between caebtexture and the dummy variable for eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) was found, which indicates that the slopes of eg1 and eg3 significantly differ (i.e., that effects of epistemic beliefs on sie differed between individuals who read “pro acupuncture” texts and conflicting evidence), thus supporting h2a1. however, contrary to our expectations, no significant (p > .64) interaction was found between caebtexture and the dummy variable for eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts). moreover, we only found significant effects of caebtexture on sie in the eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) group (b = 0.45, p < .001), but no significant (p > .55) effect in eg3 (where we would, according to the consistency hypothesis, have expected a negative effect; see figure 1 for an illustration of these results). in other words, participants who viewed knowledge as more tentative reported higher sies when presented with “pro acupuncture” texts, but not when presented with “against acupuncture” texts. the amount of incremental variance explained by including the interaction between caebtexture and the experimental condition into the model was δr 2 = .039. finally, we were not able to test h2a2 due to the variability scale’s very low reliability (see above). hence, while these results provide limited support for h2a1, hypothesis 2a can only be seen as “partially confirmed.” table 4 results of the multiple regression analysis to test the interaction between experimental condition and epistemic beliefs on scientific impotence excuses for subjects in qeg 2 (no prior opinion) variable scientific impotence excuses coefficient p 90% ci ll ul caebtexture 0.04 .56 −0.08 0.17 against acupuncture (dummy) −0.86 < .001 −1.03 −0.69 pro acupuncture (dummy) −0.79 < .001 −0.96 −0.62 caebtexture x against acupuncture (interaction) −0.05 .65 −0.21 0.12 caebtexture x pro acupuncture (interaction) 0.41 < .001 0.23 0.59 note. n = 449, r 2 = .22, f = 24.40, ∆r 2 when including the interactions = .04. p-values are two-tailed. ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; ci = confidence interval; caebtexture = epistemic beliefs on the texture of knowledge (standardized); dependent variable = scientific impotence excuses. hypothesis 2b1 was tested using the same regression-based approach as in h2a. this time, all participants (except those meeting the exclusion criteria) were included in the analysis, and the quasiexperimental factor was included as an additional moderator (process configuration: model 2; dependent variable: sie; independent variable: caebtexture; moderator 1: experimental condition [eg1, eg2, eg3]; moderator 2: quasiexperimental factor [qeg1, qeg2]). the experimental factor was, once more, dummy coded with eg3 (conflicting evidence) as reference category and the quasiexperimental factor was dummy-coded with qeg1 (“pro acupuncture beliefs” group) as reference category (hence coded as 0). as in h2a, caebtexture was standardized before the analysis. the result pattern of this analysis (see table 5) was practically identical to the results of h2a1: the interaction between caebtexture and eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) was again significant (b = 0.30, p < .001) whereas no significant interaction between caebtexture and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) was found (p > .45). moreover, no significant interaction between caebtexture and the quasiexperimental factor was found (p > .50). the significant effects of caebtexture on sie in the eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) group remained significant across the two levels of the quasiexperimental factor (qeg1: b = 0.34, p < .001; qeg2: b = 0.39, p < .001), while caebtexture had no significant effect in the other experimental groups (against acupuncture and conflicting evidence). in other words, increasing views on acupuncture knowledge as tentative seems to lead to a higher amount of sies when individuals are presented with “pro acupuncture” texts—regardless of their prior opinion on acupuncture. the amount of incremental variance explained by including the interaction between caebtexture and the experimental condition was δr 2 = .022. h2b2 was not tested because of the above-mentioned reliability issues of the rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 297 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ variable scale. the general interpretation of hypothesis 2b is thus identical to hypothesis 2a (“partially confirmed,” but only for texture and only for the difference between eg1 and eg3). table 5 results of the multiple regression analysis to test the interaction between experimental condition, epistemic beliefs, and the quasiexperimental factor on scientific impotence excuses variable scientific impotence excuses coefficient p 90% ci ll ul caebtexture 0.04 .50 −0.06 0.15 against acupuncture (dummy) −0.68 < .001 −0.81 −0.55 pro acupuncture (dummy) −0.85 < .001 −0.98 −0.73 qeg2 (dummy) 0.01 .92 −0.10 0.12 caebtexture x against acupuncture (interaction) −0.06 .45 −0.18 0.07 caebtexture x pro acupuncture (interaction) 0.30 < .001 0.17 0.43 caebtexture x qeg (interaction) 0.05 .50 −0.07 0.16 note. n = 900, r 2 = .17, f = 25.57, ∆r 2 when including all interactions = .02. dependent variable = scientific impotence excuses; caebtexture = epistemic beliefs on the texture of knowledge (standardized); ll = lower limit; ul = upper limit; ci = confidence interval. hypothesis 3 hypothesis 3a was tested using a one-factorial univariate analysis of variance in the qeg2 (“no opinion” group) data subset (dependent variable: sie; independent variable: experimental factor [eg1, eg2, eg3]). results revealed highly significant differences in sie between the experimental groups, f(2, 447) = 41.88, p < .001, a large effect size (ηp2 = .16, 90% ci [0.11, 0.21]), and all relevant tukey hsd post-hoc tests were significant (p < .001). descriptively, these differences were in line with our expectations (eg1, “pro acupuncture” texts: m = 2.95, sd = 0.92; eg2, “against figure 1 interaction between experimental conditions (eg1, eg2, eg3) and epistemic beliefs (caebtexture) on scientific impotence excuses for qeg2 (subjects who reported “no opinion” in their prior beliefs on acupuncture) discounting science 298 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acupuncture” texts: m = 2.90, sd = 1.06; eg3, conflicting evidence: m = 3.76, sd = 0.77); sies were stronger when participants received conflicting evidence compared to consistent evidence pro or against acupuncture (for participants who had no prior opinion on this topic). hypothesis 3a is therefore fully supported. hypothesis 3b was tested by means of a two-factorial univariate analysis of variance. this time, all participants (except those meeting the exclusion criteria) were included in the analysis, and the quasiexperimental factor was additionally included (dependent variable: sie; independent variables: experimental factor [eg1, eg2, eg3], quasiexperi­ mental factor [qeg1, qeg2]). the analysis revealed a result pattern largely similar to h3a, with the main effect of the experimental condition remaining significant, f(2, 895) = 66.55, p < .001, and the effect size remained large (ηp2 = .13, 90% ci [0.10, 0.16]) when including the interaction between the experimental and the quasiexperimental factor into the model (see figure 2 for confidence intervals of mean scores in the respective groups). hypothesis 3b is thus fully supported—sies were stronger when participants received conflicting evidence compared to consistent evidence for or against acupuncture regardless of their prior opinion on this topic. figure 2 interaction between experimental conditions (eg1, eg2, eg3) and quasiexperimental groups (qeg1, qeg2) on scientific impotence excuses, including error bars with 95% confidence intervals exploratory analyses an additional look at the results regarding hypothesis 3 revealed that the interaction between the experimental and the quasiexperimental factor was significant, too, f(2, 895) = 4.72, p < .01, ηp2 = .01. as can be seen in figure 2, this interaction seems to be caused by the difference in sie between eg1 (“pro acupuncture” texts) and eg2 (“against acupuncture” texts) being somewhat stronger in participants believing in acupuncture (qeg1) compared to participants having no clear opinion (qeg2). participants who had no prior opinion made comparable use of sies irrespectively of whether pro or contra acupuncture evidence was presented, whereas participants who believed in acupuncture made more use of sies when evidence conflicting with their prior beliefs was presented (but interestingly not for conflicting evidence). while we had not preregistered a corresponding hypothesis, this provides some further support for the “traditional” sie effect specified in hypothesis 1. we will come back to this additional exploratory finding in the discussion section. discussion it is an old saying that some humans only see what they want to see. this surely does not stop at scientific knowledge, especially in times where established research findings (e.g., on climate change) are questioned by populist political agendas. in the present study, we investigated whether a confrontation with belief-disconfirming scientific evidence leads to beliefs that the topic in question is not amenable to scientific investigation—in short: sies. besides our intention rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 299 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to replicate this “traditional” sie effect, which was first discovered by munro (2010), we strived to investigate other factors that might mitigate or amplify sies. as a situational factor, we focused on the contradictoriness of the evidence in question, and, as a person-specific factor, we tested the role of epistemic beliefs in sies. main findings in a first step, we aimed to replicate the “traditional” sie effect in the context of a health-related topic. for this reason, we initially assessed our participants’ prior beliefs on the effects of acupuncture versus massaging in the treatment of back pain. subsequently, we presented some of our participants with fictitious evidence on the superiority of acupuncture over massaging, whereas others received evidence speaking against acupuncture (i.e., suggesting that massaging was more effective in treating back pain). in our first hypothesis, we had expected that participants believing in the superiority of acupuncture would make stronger sies when confronted with belief-disconfirming findings (i.e., evidence against acupuncture) compared to belief-confirming evidence. this expectation was fully supported. in an additional exploratory analysis, we investigated whether this pattern of results differed between participants believing in the superiority of acupuncture and participants having no clear opinion on the topic at hand. the corresponding interaction was significant, revealing some interesting results (see figure 2): when presented with belief-disconfirming evidence, participants believing in the superiority of acupuncture reported more sies compared to participants having no clear opinion, and when presented with belief-confirming evidence, these participants reported even less sies than the “no opinion” group. especially the latter finding is noteworthy—not only do individuals tend to discount science when presented with belief-disconfirming evidence, their beliefs in the potency of science also seem to increase when reading belief-confirming evidence. this is in line with earlier research by lord et al. (1979), who found that individuals perceived “results and procedures that confirmed their own beliefs to be the more convincing and probative ones” (p. 2098). thus, additional confirmatory studies are necessary to determine if munro’s (2010) proposition of an effect which results in (merely) discounting science might be a bit short-sighted. with regard to our second hypothesis, we strived to extend the general sie proposition to the level of epistemic beliefs—hence we were no longer interested in the effects of content-related beliefs on a certain topic, but in the effects of beliefs regarding the nature of knowledge on the respective topic. we expected that sies would be stronger when individuals were confronted with scientific evidence exhibiting a “nature” contradicting their (topic-specific) epistemic beliefs, and that these effects would persist when controlling for “traditional” sie effects. however, our results, especially regarding the former proposition, were somewhat mixed. first, we could not conduct any analyses on the variability subscale of our epistemic beliefs instrument due to reliability issues. moreover, the hypothesis was only supported with regard to differences between participants presented with conflicting evidence and participants reading evidence favoring acupuncture, whereas no significant differences in the effects of epistemic beliefs were found between participants reading conflicting evidence and participants reading evidence against acupuncture (see figure 1). this might be caused by the design of our reading task—the information that acupuncture is explicitly better than massaging might be perceived as a stronger message compared to the information that acupuncture is (just) inferior to massaging (but may be effective nonetheless). furthermore, an analysis of the slopes in the respective groups revealed a somewhat unexpected result: according to the consistency hypothesis (on which hypothesis 2 is based; muis & franco, 2010; muis et al., 2011), we would have expected decreasing sie scores with increasing scores on the caeb when presenting participants with conflicting evidence. this was, however, clearly not supported by our data (see also figure 1). considering these findings, we see the evidence for hypothesis 2 as somewhat limited. the consistency hypothesis might thus not be as easily adaptable with regard to sies as we had initially expected—which is, in hindsight, not so much surprising when taking a closer look at its suspected psychological mechanisms. in fact, to explain the positive effects of consistency on learning, muis et al. (2011) argue that “during learning, an individual will focus more on aspects of the content that are consonant with that individual’s epistemic profile” (p. 50). trevors et al. (2017) further elaborate on this by stating that “given a context with an abundance of epistemically consistent information (e.g., more rational information available when solving a math problem), individuals will have more opportunity to reflect on and regulate their unfolding comprehension of this information” (p. 109). while this suspected working mechanism has not yet been tested empirically, we concede discounting science 300 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that it is hard to argue how an increased or reduced focus on the information at hand would lead to sies. therefore, we might have been overly optimistic regarding the generalizability of the consistency hypothesis when specifying our preregistered hypotheses. nonetheless, the finding that stronger epistemic beliefs in the subjectivity of knowledge might hinder individuals in dealing with scientific information is not unprecedented. prior research showed that this type of beliefs might be negatively related to multiple document comprehension (bråten et al., 2013) or viewpoint integration (barzilai & eshet­ alkalai, 2015). that well-supported knowledge claims (consistent information in favor of acupuncture) in our study resulted in a higher amount of scientific impotency excuses for participants who viewed knowledge on acupuncture as evolving and tentative, should therefore by no means disregarded but might prove to be a fruitful starting point for future research in this area. in our third hypothesis, we predicted that sies would be stronger when individuals are confronted with contradicto­ ry scientific evidence compared to non-contradictory evidence. in line with the idea that sies relate to the epistemology of a domain, we analyzed this hypothesis by experimentally manipulating the epistemology of the findings presented to our participants—by portraying scientific knowledge on acupuncture versus massaging as inconsistent and conflict­ ing. this hypothesis was fully supported: individuals presented with conflicting evidence reported much stronger sies compared to individuals reading non-conflicting findings. furthermore, from an exploratory point of view, the descriptive differences in effect sizes between hypothesis 3 (large effect) and hypothesis 1 (small to medium effect) are noteworthy. in fact, these differences suggest that the underlying epistemology of the domain in question may more strongly affect sies compared to interactions between prior beliefs and the evidence at hand. related to this, one may question whether sie-items such as “this topic is not amenable to scientific investigation” (see preregistration in supplementary materials) imply sies per se, or whether speaking of such an excuse aspect is only justified when there is an explicit connection to belief-disconfirming evidence. this, of course, relates to how broadly or narrowly one conceptualizes the construct in question. broader conceptualizations are probably more generalizable, whereas narrower conceptualizations are more precise, which is why choosing between the one or the other is challenging. a way out of this dilemma would be a change in terminology from “scientific impotence excuses” to “scientific impotence beliefs,” but for the present article, we decided to stick to the established terminology. nevertheless, we think that the rather low correlations between epistemic beliefs and our sie scale (see table 3) warrant further research on the “broader” construct as they suggest that scientific impotence beliefs are sufficiently different from other epistemology-related beliefs. strengths, limitations, and future directions a clear strength of our study is its large and heterogeneous sample, which includes participants from a broad range of age and educational settings. moreover, due to an elaborate quota configuration, we ensured that gender distributions were very similar across the experimental groups, hence making gender bias very unlikely. nevertheless, it should be mentioned that our study was limited to one single topic from alternative medicine, namely the treatment of back pain via acupuncture versus massaging, and that participants believing in the superiority of massaging over acupuncture were excluded from the study. as outlined above, individuals who refer to alternative medicine (e.g., acupuncture) are more likely to exhibit a less scientific way of thinking (e.g., furnham, 2007; saher & lindeman, 2005). since we elimina­ ted those participants who believed that conventional therapies (i.e., massaging) are superior to acupuncture, it might thus well be that “unscientific” thinkers were over-represented in our sample. as this may impair the generalizability of our findings, future studies should strive to replicate our findings with regard to different topics and in different samples. furthermore, it should be noted that all data were collected using self-reports. as evidenced by our reliability problems regarding the variability scale of the caeb, there are numerous challenges associated with assessing a complex construct such as epistemic beliefs by this means (debacker et al., 2008; greene & yu, 2014; mason, 2016), which is why future research should investigate whether the partially unexpected results regarding hypothesis 2 may have been caused by measurement issues. rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 301 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a final limitation constitutes the fact that our analyses do not allow any inferences regarding the psychological mechanisms behind scientific excuses. in other words, our study shows how to trigger sies, but does not allow to straighten out which psychological processes are responsible for this triggering. cognitive dissonance (festinger, 1957) might be one such mechanism. as outlined above, individuals who experience a conflict between their prior beliefs and the evidence at hand experience feelings of psychological discomfort and strive to reduce these using various strategies—and sie may be one such strategy (munro, 2010). furthermore, directional goals (i.e., the desire to arrive at a particular conclusion) may play a role as it leads to biases in research evaluation (kunda, 1990). future research might further investigate this by referring to a process-oriented approach (e.g., mediation analysis), which would require the explicit measurement of, for example, cognitive dissonance. conclusion research on sies is still very young. nevertheless, the general sie proposition has now been conceptually replicated several times, and, importantly, this was done by independent researchers, in varying samples, regarding different topics, and using various designs and measurement instruments. our study advances this research by replicating the sie proposition in a large general population sample and by identifying factors that may additionally contribute to sies, such as epistemic beliefs or the epistemic nature of the evidence. considering the accumulating evidence on individuals making sies when confronted with belief-disconfirming evidence, it should however also be noted that such excuses are only one example for a devaluation and denigration of science. therefore, future research should investigate interactions between sies and other defense mechanisms (or resistance processes; munro, 2010), such as simply ignoring belief-dis­ confirming information (chinn & brewer, 1993) or selectively exposing oneself to belief-confirming information (e.g., hart et al., 2009; meppelink et al., 2019). especially the latter two mechanisms may, in times of filter bubbles and echo chambers (flaxman et al., 2016), be particularly problematic since they are actively supported by technology. as for practical implications, university students—as future scientists—should be prepared to face sies from the public and media, especially when dealing with a rather controversial topic. we therefore recommend teaching them early on how to meet this challenge, and to be clear and reasonable about what kind of knowledge a specific research method can generate and where it reaches its limits. we furthermore think that scientists should make it as hard as possible for the public to come to sies—by doing their absolute best in conducting robust, reproducible research, but also by being open and transparent about their work (munafò et al., 2017; nosek et al., 2015). especially the latter aspect is doubtlessly suited to convey a realistic image of science—and we all hope that that is an image of potency. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data for this article is freely available (see the supplementary materials section). supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via psycharhives (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • preregistration documentation. • a dataset which allows to replicate all the present findings. • corresponding syntax and output files. discounting science 302 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://www.psychopen.eu/ index of supplementary materials rosman, t., kerwer, m., chasiotis, a., & wedderhoff, o. (2019). supplementary materials to: personand situation-specific factors in discounting science via scientific impotence excuses [preregistration documentation]. psychopen gold. http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2662 rosman, t., kerwer, m., chasiotis, a., & wedderhoff, o. (2020). supplementary materials to: personand situation-specific factors in discounting science via scientific impotence excuses [dataset]. psychopen gold. http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.2906 rosman, t., kerwer, m., chasiotis, a., & wedderhoff, o. (2020). supplementary materials to: personand situation-specific factors in discounting science via scientific impotence excuses [code]. psychopen gold. http://dx.doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.3004 references aiken, l. s., & west, s. g. (1991). multiple regression: testing and interpreting interactions. sage publications. barzilai, s., & eshet-alkalai, y. 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(2015). differences between male and female consumers of complementary and alternative medicine in a national us population: a secondary analysis of 2012 nihs data. evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine, 2015(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/413173 about the authors tom rosman is head of the research literacy department at leibniz institute for psychology (zpid). his phd project dealt with the measurement of information literacy through standardized tests. his current research focuses on epistemic beliefs and on psychological processes involved when individuals deal with conflicting information. moreover, he is involved in several projects on the effects of open science practices (e.g., on trust in science). martin kerwer is researcher at leibniz institute for psychology (zpid). his phd project dealt with the mechanisms of epistemic change (processes underlying the development of beliefs about knowledge and knowing) and how to promote changes in these beliefs. more specifically, he examines connections between epistemic beliefs, multiple source use and dealing with controversial scientific information. besides, he also has a strong interest in how to support researchers in their research data management. anita chasiotis is researcher at leibniz institute for psychology (zpid). she completed her phd in june 2020. in her phd thesis, she investigated motivational and self-regulatory determinants of health information seeking. she takes a great interest in publicly available, understandable as well as evidence-based information on health and psychology. in addition to her research, her work at zpid encompasses the selection and content-related indexing of psychology journal articles. oliver wedderhoff is researcher at leibniz institute for psychology (zpid) and doctoral student at trier university. in his phd thesis, he investigates when, how, where and why the individual is seeking health information to obtain a better understanding of the information-seeking process and its determinants. rosman, kerwer, chasiotis, & wedderhoff 305 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 288–305 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3735 https://doi.org/10.1111/head.12986 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2017.01.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.02.007 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00570 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2005.04.008 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.85.3.406 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2007.09.016 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2017.01.005 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619877412 https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/413173 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discounting science (introduction) background and hypotheses method procedure, design and materials participants measures operational hypotheses results hypothesis 1 hypothesis 2 hypothesis 3 exploratory analyses discussion main findings strengths, limitations, and future directions conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors parenting styles and child’s well-being: the mediating role of the perceived parental stress research reports parenting styles and child’s well-being: the mediating role of the perceived parental stress elisa delvecchio* a, alessandro germani a, veronica raspa a, adriana lis b, claudia mazzeschi a [a] department of philosophy, social sciences and education, university of perugia, perugia, italy. [b] department of developmental psychology and socialization, university of padova, padova, italy. abstract in the last decades, consensus from laymen, scholars, and policy-makers has emphasized the role of child-parent relationships to promote child’s development and positive well-being. parenting style was claimed as one of the crucial factors for the child’s positive adjustment. the main aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles and child’s difficulties. the mediational role of parent’s perception of a difficult child on the above mentioned relation was taken into account. the study was carried out on a sample of 459 couples including mothers (n = 459) and fathers (n = 459) of children aged 2 to 10 years old who filled in the parenting styles & dimensions questionnaire short version, the strengths and difficulties questionnaire, and the parenting stress index-short form. main findings indicated that authoritative style was associated with less child’s maladjustment, while the authoritarian one showed the opposite association. these relationships were partially mediated by the perception of a difficult child, which partially explained the link between parenting style and child’s problems. above and beyond the role of parent’s perception as a difficult child, parenting styles had an important effect on child’s difficulties. future studies should replicate these results with other samples, use the spouse version of the parenting styles, control the effect of socio-economic status and other variables related to family functioning, as well as to consider the child’s perception regarding parents’ parenting style. keywords: authoritarian parenting style, authoritative parenting style, parenting styles, parenting stress, well-being europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 received: 2019-06-02. accepted: 2020-01-03. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: iris zezelj, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia *corresponding author at: department of philosophy, social sciences and education, university of perugia, piazza ermini 1, perugia, italy. phone: +390755854943, fax: +390755854918, e-mail: elisa.delvecchio@unipg.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. parenting is a complex construct that involves several and multifaceted variables (bornstein, 2002). it was defined as a normal variation in the parents' attempts of controlling their children and making them socialize (baumrind, 1967). parenting includes many specific attitudes which work individually and cumulatively to influence the child's behavior. schaefer (1959, 1965) proposed a circumplex parenting model using three dimensions of acceptance versus rejection, psychological autonomy versus psychological control, and firm behavioral control versus lax behavioral control. on these dimensions baumrind (baumrind 1966, 1968; baumrind & thompson, 2002) proposed three parental prototypes: authoritative, authoritarian and permissive, to describe models of parental control and child socialization. for the purposes of the current paper, authoritative and authoritarian styles were taken into account. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ authoritative parents tend to show high acceptance and behavioral control, low psychological control, high responsiveness and warmth to their children. they are conceptualized as affectionate, encouraging, and controlling in a way that promotes child autonomy (baumrind, 1966, 2013a; baumrind, larzelere, & owens, 2010). they direct the child in a rational situation-based way in which both autonomy and conformity are important, they clearly set rules and use reasoning to enforce them for encouraging open communication, supporting children’s independence, and expressing love and affection (maccoby & martin, 1983). authoritative style was related to positive child outcomes such as self-reliance (baumrind, 1968), social responsibility (baumrind, 1971), and adjustment (baumrind et al., 2010; braza et al., 2015; garcía & gracia, 2009; luyckx et al., 2011). a large number of studies indicated that children of authoritative parents are shown as being cooperative, friendly, emotionally stable, and with good academic performance (garcía & gracia, 2009; maccoby, 1992; steinberg, elmen, & mounts, 1989). authoritarian parents combine high control with low levels of warmth involvement, support, and emotional commitment to their child; they are rejecting, highly demanding, strongly commanding, psychologically and domineeringly controlling (baumrind, 2013b; baumrind et al., 2010). they are often punitive and forceful in order to adhere to an absolute standard of behavior (baumrind, 2012), leaving very little space to the child’s decision making or rationales (baumrind, 1991). parents believe that the child should do what they say, as a consequence child’s behaviors and attitudes are guided, formed and based on a certain standard of conduct. this parenting style was related to less optimal child outcomes, including lower self-efficacy (baumrind et al., 2010), more externalizing and internalizing problems (braza et al., 2015; maccoby & martin, 1983; rinaldi & howe, 2012), and rebellion (baumrind, 1968). authoritative parenting style was defined as the optimal parenting style (e.g., baumrind, 1966, 2013a; garcía & gracia, 2009; luyckx et al., 2011; maccoby & martin, 1983) whereas the authoritarian style was proved to be the most negative form of parenting (baumrind & black, 1967; luyckx et al., 2011; olivari, tagliabue, & confalonieri, 2013). research in the last decades supported baumrind’s prediction about authoritative parents (bornstein & lamb, 2015; larzelere, morris, & harrist, 2013) and the adverse effects of authoritarian parenting. in order to assess parenting styles, researchers mainly used questionnaires (e.g., steinberg, mounts, lamborn, & dornbusch, 1991). one of the most known tools is the parenting practices questionnaire (ppq; robinson, mandleco, olsen, & hart, 1995). this 62-item self-report measure aimed at identifying continuous scales of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive parenting styles (robinson et al., 1995), although greater importance was given to authoritative and authoritarian styles. several variations of this measure have been developed in recent years (e.g., coolahan, mcwayne, fantuzzo, & grim, 2002; robinson, mandleco, olsen, & hart, 2001; robinson et al., 1995; russell, londhe, & britner, 2013; wu et al., 2002). among them, the most used version is the parenting styles and dimensions questionnaire short form (psdq; robinson et al., 2001), an abbreviated self-report measure of the ppq in which each parent independently reports his/her own parenting style and his/her spouse’s parenting style. the psdq measures continuous scales of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, although only some of the original items and dimensions from the ppq were retained. psdq was widely used in large samples (padilla-walker & coyne, 2011; topham et al., 2011; williams et al., 2009) and in different cultures (kern & jonyniene, 2012; önder & gülay, 2009; porter at al., 2005). psdq psychometric characteristics were reviewed by olivari et al. (2013). they showed that psdq was most frequently delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 515 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ used (83.02%) among school-age or pre-school children (olivari et al., 2013). little attention was given to the comparison of psdq among different ages. a need for further studies was claimed after having found mixed results in the conduction of three studies which included parents of children from nursery to primary school (olivari et al., 2013). moreover, none of them were carried out in italy. notwithstanding the increasing interest on parenting styles (olivari et al., 2013), there are still many issues that need to be addressed. the present study had two main goals. the first aim was to contribute to the investigation of the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles by using the psdq in a large sample of italian parents of children aged 2-11 years old. the second purpose was to focus and expand the investigation on the relationship between the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles and child's adaptation. the possible mediator role of parents’ perception about having a difficult child was also examined. mother and father’s contributions were taken into account separately. issues about the psdq previous research comparing parenting styles in different cultures showed that the original assumption that authoritative style would be the “best protective” style of parenting, is not always true. for instance, in african american families, authoritarian parenting, if associated with physical punishment, did not increase the level of behavior problems, suggesting that the pattern of findings reported by baumrind is culture-specific (baumrind, 1972). a large body of evidence supports the importance of extending investigation on parenting and its related contribution to child development, as well as to collect data in countries that can be culturally different concerning parenting practices (bornstein et al., 1998; russell, hart, robinson, & olsen, 2003). in italy, the parent-child relationship is characterized by basic emotional bonding and support from parents. moreover, although parents encourage their children to be autonomous and independent (casiglia, lo coco, & zappulla, 1998; confalonieri, 2010; laudani, guzzo, cascio, pace, & cacioppo, 2014; scabini & cigoli, 2000), attention is also paid to the rights of children in a two-way parent-child relationship (scabini, marta, & lanz, 2006; yeh & bedford, 2004). however, a parental change involving fathers (bacchini, galiani, guerriera, & sbandi, 2003) was observed to occur among italian culture in the last 20 years (confalonieri, 2010). from a family where the parents’ roles were differentiated, with the mother being in charge of caring for the child whereas the father providing rules and transmitting values (confalonieri et al., 2010), there was a shift toward a family where both mother and father identify their main function as to ensuring care to their children. however, just one italian study (confalonieri, giuliani, & tagliabue, 2009) was run on parenting styles of parents with children aged 3 to 10. attempts to compare mothers’ and fathers’ approach to parenting styles yielded inconclusive findings. baumrind (1991, 2013a) focused on both parents rather than on single mothers or fathers, but she didn’t explore why parents adopted these strategies. studying parents of australian and us pre-schoolers, russell and colleagues (2003) found that mothers were more likely to identify with the authoritative style of parenting, whereas fathers were more likely to describe themselves as either authoritarian or permissive. based on these results, we expected the highest average score for authoritative style in mothers and on the contrary the highest average score for authoritarian style for fathers (hypothesis 2). however, because of the shift occurred in italy where both parents identify their main function as to ensuring warm care to their child, both mothers and fathers were expected to report higher scores in authoritative than authoritarian style (hypothesis 1). parenting style in mothers and fathers 516 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ another limitation in the existing literature is the investigation of possible differences in parenting styles related to the child’s gender. few papers were devoted to this issue. russell et al. (2003) found that more authoritative parenting was reported by parents of girls rather than by parents of boys, while more authoritarian parenting was found in parents of boys rather than of girls. the same results were hypothesized for the present study (hypothesis 3). finally, although many papers were focused on children of different ages, few studies compared possible variation of parental styles with the child’s developmental changes with regard to age. bornstein and lamb (2015) reviewed and stressed the importance of different roles played by parents in their involvement with children in pre-school and school years, respectively taking into account the different goals of development the child needs to reach in these two important age groups. thus, the comparison of parenting styles in these two periods needs more investigation and no specific hypothesis was given (hypothesis 4). psdq and related variables a considerable research body examined how variations in parental styles are related to a wide range of child outcomes (baumrind et al., 2010; braza et al., 2015; garcía & gracia, 2009; luyckx et al., 2011). relationship between parenting styles and child’s behavioral problems were examined. for example, as said before, authoritative style was related to psychological adjustment (baumrind et al., 2010), whereas the authoritarian one was positively related to externalizing problems (braza et al., 2015; maccoby & martin, 1983; rinaldi & howe, 2012). researchers described the relationship between parenting styles and some negative outcomes concerning academic adjustment, success, moral development, emotion regulation and social competence (davidov & grusec, 2006; denham et al., 2000; laible, 2004; spera, 2005). however, darling and steinberg (1993), bornstein and lamb (2015), and russell et al. (2003) pointed out that the influence of parenting style on behavioral outcomes across ethnic groups and cultures was not adequately studied, despite research findings had suggested that differences exist. previous research reported greater parenting stress regarding parents with an authoritarian parenting style (deater-deckard & scarr, 1996; mcbride & mills, 1993), whereas other studies showed no differences in parenting distress among authoritarian and authoritative styles (woolfson & grant, 2006). parenting stress is a universal experience for parents in all sociodemographic groups and contexts (crnic & low, 2002). parents who experience moderate amounts of parenting stress may engage in lesser optimal parenting (bonds, gondoli, sturge-apple, & salem, 2002; seginer, vermulst, & gerris, 2002) and the children of stressed parents may be adversely affected, though indirectly, through parenting behaviors (magill-evans & harrison, 2001; putnick et al., 2008, 2010; seginer et al., 2002). within parenting stress, abidin (1995) and deater‐deckard (1998) identified a specific dimension: stress that can be attributed to the parent’s perception of the child as being difficult. more specifically, it deals with the child’s behavioral characteristics that make him or her easy or difficult to manage, due to either temperament and/or noncompliant, defiant, or demanding behavior. however, no previous studies on the link between parenting styles and parent’s perception of a difficult child were found. based on the above-mentioned findings, we hypothesized that the authoritative style was negatively related to behavioral problems in children, whereas the authoritarian one was positively related to them (hypothesis 5). moreover, in this study, we explored how a perception of the child as being difficult would mediate the relationship between authoritative and authoritarian parenting style and the child’s behavior difficulties. since a negative relation between authoritative style and the perception of a difficult child, as well as a positive relation between the authoritarian style and the perception of a difficult child were expected (hypothesis 6), negative delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 517 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and positive indirect effects of parenting styles on child’s behavioral difficulties were hypothesized respectively (hypothesis 7). thus, to summarize, the current study is aimed to investigate in mothers and fathers respectively (a) levels of authoritative versus authoritarian parenting style and the role of parent’s gender; (b) the role of child’s gender and age on parenting styles and (c) the relation between parenting styles and child’s psychological well-being mediated by parents’ perception of having a difficult child. method participants participants were 459 caucasian parent couples (n = 459 fathers, mage = 37.13, sd = 5.39; and n = 459 mothers, mage = 35.08, sd = 4.95) living in urban and suburban areas of central italy. they were married or living together heterosexual parents of children from infancy to childhood (2-11 years old). considering the large life-span included, parents were assessed considering child’s developmental stage: (a) pre-school children (from 2 to 5 years old) and (b) school aged children (from 6 to 11 years old). 239 (n = 129 boys (54.0%), mage = 3.21, sd = 1.39) were parents of pre-school age children; 220 (n = 108 boys (49.1%); mage = 7.91, sd = 1.33) were parents of school age children. more than half (58.5%) were parents at their first parenthood experience. parents’ socio-economic level measured by ses (hollingshead, 1975), was primarily middle to upper for 90% of families. only 7% had a low socio-economic status and only 3% reported a very high level. procedure all procedures were conducted in compliance with the ethical standards for research outlined in the 1964 helsinki declaration. both parents gave written informed consent to participate in the study. confidentiality was assured in all phases of the study using a numerical code instead of participants’ names. families were recruited through day-cares, nurseries and schools. parents who participated in the study were given at their children’s school with the teachers’ help a booklet containing the tools that they needed to fill in at home and bring back to school. no incentives were awarded and voluntary participation was encouraged. families of the final sample met the following criteria: (a) both mothers and fathers agreed to participate, (b) all participants completed the entire assessment phase (c) parents and children did not meet criteria for psychiatric diagnosis and were not under psychological treatment. 5% of the initial participants did not meet all the criteria. measures parenting styles & dimensions questionnaireshort version (psdq) the psdq-short version (robinson et al., 2001) is a 32 self-report questionnaire measuring continuous dimensions of parenting styles using authoritative (15 items), authoritarian (12 items) and permissive (5 items) scales (russell et al., 2013). it comprehends a self and spouse version (i.e., self-evaluation of her/his-own parenting style and evaluation of his/her spouse’s parenting style). with regard to the current study, the authoritarian and authoritative scales of the self-version were considered. mothers and fathers independently rated themselves by assessing how often they exhibited parenting behaviors as described in each item by using a five-point parenting style in mothers and fathers 518 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ scale from “never” to “always” (coded 1 to 5). higher mean scores indicated a prevalence on that style. confalonieri, giuliani, and tagliabue (2009) adapted the measure with italian parents. the alpha value related to the authoritarian scale was .70 (.65-.74) for fathers, and .72 (.69-.76) for mothers, whereas referring to the authoritative scale it was .78 (.75-.81) for fathers and .75 (.72-.78) for mothers. strengths and difficulties questionnaire (sdq) the sdq (goodman, 1999, 2001) is a brief questionnaire of 25 attributes, some positive and some negative, for assessing strengths and difficulties in the psychological adjustment of children and adolescents. each item uses a 3-point ordinal likert scale (0 “not true”; 1 “somewhat true”; 2 “certainly true”). in the present paper, the total difficulties score (tds; 20 items, range 0-40) was used. higher scores indicated more difficultiesi. cronbach’s coefficients for sdq tds were .79 (.76-.81) for fathers and .78 (.74-.80) for mothers. the difficult child subscale (psi_dc) of the parenting stress index-short form (psi-sf) the psi-sf (abidin, 1995) is a 36-item measure of overall levels of stress experienced by parents. the current study is focused on the difficult child scale which includes 12 items scored on a 5-point likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). it measures the parent’s perception of his/her child’s self-regulatory abilities. the higher the score is, the higher the perceived difficulties will be. the measure was validated in several countries, among which italy (guarino, di blasio, d’alessio, camisasca, & serantoni, 2008). cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the present study were .88 (.86-.89) for fathers and .86 (.84-.88) for mothers. data analysis firstly, in order to test hypotheses 1-4, descriptive statistics and a manova were performed with parental role, child’s gender, and age-group as factors, and the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles as dependent variables. effect size was measured by using partial eta-squared, in which small, medium, and large effects were .0099, .0588, and .1379, respectively (cohen, 1988, p. 283). second, before testing the mediational model, pearson’s correlations were run to explore the associations between the selected variables. effect sizes were interpreted according to cohen (1992), with correlation coefficient of .10, .30, and .50 representing low, medium and high effect sizes, respectively. third, the mediational models split for mothers and fathers were carried out. specifically, in order to test the total effects of parenting styles on children’s maladjustment (hypothesis 5), simple regression analyses were used. then, to test their effects on difficult child variable (i.e., the mediator; hypothesis 6), simple regressions were analyzed. finally, in order to assess direct and indirect effects of parental styles on child’s behavior problems mediated by the perception of a difficult child, spss process macro (model 4) developed by preacher and hayes (2008) was used (hypothesis 7). this allowed the authors to observe the change of the total effects and the influence of the mediator (i.e., the mediated effect). bootstrapping method (preacher & hayes, 2008) was applied to all the mediation models. specifically, 5000 bootstrap samples were used from the full data and 95% confidence interval was utilized to determine the significance of the mediating effect. significant mediating effect was identified if the confidence interval excluded 0. in order to calculate the ratio of the indirect effect to the total effect, proportion mediated (pm = indirect effect/total effect) was calculated. regression and moderation analysis were carried out separately for mothers and fathers. analyses were carried out using spss (version 18.0) and process macro for spss. delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 519 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results the effect of parental role, child’s age, and age-group on authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles means and standard deviations of psdq subscales for mothers and fathers, and according to child’s gender and age-group are shown in table 1. table 1 descriptive statistics of psdq variables psdq mothers fathers preschool school boys girls n = 459 n = 459 n = 239 n = 220 n = 237 n = 222 m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd m sd authoritative 3.88 0.51 4.11 0.39 3.98 0.46 4.01 0.47 4.02 0.46 3.97 0.47 authoritarian 2.04 0.45 2.15 0.45 2.07 0.46 2.12 0.44 2.11 0.47 2.09 0.43 results of manova indicated that there was a significant main effect of parental role (wilks’ lambda = .914, f(2, 909) = 43.00, p < .001, η2 = .086) on dependent variables (parenting styles), but there were not significant main effects of child’s gender (wilks’ lambda = .996, f(2, 909) = 2.04, p = .131, η2 = .004) and age-group (wilks’ lambda = .994, f(2, 909) = 2.62, p = .074, η2 = .006) on parenting styles. anova indicated that there was a significant effect of parental role both for authoritative (f = 57.96, p < .001, η2 = .060) and authoritarian (f = 2.83, p < .001, η2 = .015) styles. as shown in table 1, fathers referred both a higher authoritative and authoritarian style than mothers, with a medium and small effect size, respectively. correlations between selected variables by parental role pearsons’ correlations are reported in table 2. authoritative and authoritarian styles were significantly and negatively correlated to each other with small effect size, independently of parental role. moreover, on one hand, authoritative style was significantly and negatively correlated to the perception of a difficult child and child’s total difficulties with small effect sizes, irrespective of parental role. on the other hand, authoritarian style was significantly and positively associated to parents’ perception of a difficult child and child’s total difficulties, with small effect size, both in mothers and fathers. finally, the perception of having a difficult child and child’s total difficulties were significantly and positively associated both in fathers and mothers, with medium and nearly large effect size, respectively. parenting style in mothers and fathers 520 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 pearson’s correlations between the selected variables, split for parental role variable 1 2 3 4 1. authoritative style -.19* -.18* -.13* 2. authoritarian style -.19* .29* .22* 3. difficult child -.13* .18* .49* 4. child’s total difficulties -.15* .22* .35* note. coefficients above the diagonal referred to mothers, coefficients under the diagonal referred to fathers. *p < .01. parenting styles, parenting stress and child’s psychological well-being since results for mothers and fathers showed similar paths, they are described together, although the statistics are illustrated separately in figure 1 and figure 2 respectively. figure 1. regression and mediational model for mothers. total effects and mediational models examining the direct and indirect effects of authoritative (a) and authoritarian (b) parenting styles of mothers on child’s tds, mediated by the perception of having a difficult child. note. slope coefficients are standardized; numbers in parenthesis represent significant indirect effects mediated by difficult child (5.000 bootstrap samples, 95% confidence interval). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 521 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ referring to authoritative style (figure 1a and 2a): i. total effect. the increase in authoritative style significantly predicted a decrease in tds; ii. variation in mediator. the rise in authoritative style predicted a decrease in the score of the perception of a difficult child; iii. mediation model. the increase in the difficult child variable predicted a rise in the child’s tds. moreover, authoritative style showed both negative direct (except for mothers) and indirect effect on the child’s total difficulties as mediated through the perception of a difficult child variable. more specifically, the proportion mediated by the difficult child variable was .65 (65%) for mothers and .31 (31%) for fathers. regarding the authoritarian style (figure 1b and 2b): i. total effect. there was a positive relation between authoritarian style and tds score; ii. variation in mediator. moreover, the rise in authoritarian style predicted an increase of the difficult child variable; iii. mediation model. the perception of a difficult child had a positive relation with the child’s tds. moreover, the authoritarian style showed both positive direct and indirect effects figure 2. regression and mediational model for fathers. total effects and mediational models examining the direct and indirect effects of authoritative (a) and authoritarian (b) parenting styles of fathers on child’s tds, mediated by difficult child variable. note. slope coefficients are standardized; numbers in parenthesis represent significant indirect effects mediated by difficult child (5.000 bootstrap samples, 95% confidence interval). *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. parenting style in mothers and fathers 522 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on the child’s tds. the proportion mediated by difficult child variable was .61 (61%) for mothers and .26 (26%) for fathers. discussion the first aim of this paper was to investigate the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles using the psdq in a large sample of italian parents of children aged 2-11 years old. bornstein and lamb (2015) stressed how greatly research enriched understanding of socialization processes with family system scholars, documenting the processes by which parents and children shape one another’s behavior. the authors highlighted the developmental processes by which authoritative parents facilitate their children’s socialization (bornstein & lamb, 2015). jacobson and crockett (2000) and smetana (2008) reported that parental involvement plays an important role in the development of both social and cognitive competences in children, whereas a lack of it is associated with the risk of delinquent behavior. bornstein and lamb (2015) according to these results, suggested to consider both the children’s impact on the parents’ child rearing beliefs and the parental role in giving care to the child. they stressed that this assertion needs to be explored empirically in a wide variety of cultural and subcultural settings. the interest in italian parents originated from many different issues. first of all, the importance to extend investigation of parenting styles in order to advance the understanding of factors shaping parenting as well as processes that influence child development (russell, 2003; wu et al., 2002). italy is a country where parenting is characterized by intertwining emotional bonding and supportive parent-child relationship with encouragement for the child’s autonomy. moreover, both mothers and fathers are called to ensure the care for the child. the complexity of the present parenting “environment” confirmed the hypothesis that both mothers and fathers reported higher score on authoritative than on authoritarian parenting style. however, for both styles, fathers scored higher than mothers. following the general agreement in literature as to the positive effect of authoritative versus authoritarian styles, italian parents seem to offer their children a healthy environment characterized by warmth, affection, open communication and supportive proximity (maccoby & martin, 1983). although gender and age-group differences were expected, mothers and fathers appeared to be homogenous in their score of authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles. a further aim of this study was to focus and expand the investigation of the relationship regarding the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles with the child's adaptation. more specifically, to investigate the possible relationship between these two parenting styles in mothers and fathers and their perception of the child’s well-being. stressful perception of a difficult child was also examined as a mediator. the significant total effects of parenting styles on the child’s behavioral problems confirmed this well-established relation. more precisely, the authoritative parenting style had a positive influence in diminishing the parent’s perception on the child’s maladjustment, and the reverse for the authoritarian style. these results were regardless of parent’s gender. in line with literature, these results confirmed that the authoritative style is the optimal parenting style while the authoritarian style is a less desirable form of parenting (baumrind, 1966, 2013a; bornstein & lamb, 2015; larzelere et al., 2013). the current study allowed confirming this trend also for italian mothers and fathers. moreover, being the fathers more authoritative than authoritarian, just like mothers, they appeared to contribute in their protecting role against child’s maladjustment. delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 523 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the potential role of parents’ perception of a difficult child in mediating the aforementioned relation was investigated. as expected, the higher the authoritative style was, the lower the parents’ perception of a difficult child and referred problems. on the contrary, parents who reported higher score in the authoritarian style, referred that their children were particularly difficult, and they reported higher difficulties in their children. both mothers and fathers showed the same pattern. in other words, both parents were significantly less stressed by their perception of the child as difficult when their style was authoritative and the reverse when their style was authoritarian. moreover, the higher the parental distress related to their perception of a difficult child, the more problems in children arose. therefore, being authoritative has indirect protective effect on child’s behavioral problems, because it is related to less perception of a difficult child. on the contrary, being authoritarian increases the child’s problems, also because parents consider more difficult their children. this is true for mothers and fathers, although, mothers were significantly more influenced by the perception of their child as difficult. in other words, this component of parenting stress seemed to explain more variance in child’s total difficulties in mothers than in fathers. a possible explanation may be that mothers, as primary caretakers, have to deal more closely with everyday life and routine with the child than fathers, even if the latter in the last few years have been more involved in family life. this makes mothers more sensitive to stress linked with child care. finally, it is important to highlight that the present study allowed to measure the relation between parental styles and child’s behavioral problems taking into account and controlling for the role of a relevant aspect of parenting stress (i.e., parents’ perception of a difficult child). in other words, the current work emphasized the link between parenting styles and child’s behavioral problems above and beyond the parents’ evaluation of the child as difficult. this study has some limitations. firstly, this study used a specific measure of parenting with respect to other versions quoted in literature. moreover, although in the current study the self-report version of the psdq was administered to mother and father of each child, the spouse version of the psdq was not considered. since the self-report and the spouse version could offer different results, future studies are encouraged to use both versions to delve into these issues. furthermore, the categories selected (i.e., pre-school versus school age children) may be too ample to make the differences of parenting styles linked to child’s age emerge. greater and more detailed samples need to be taken into consideration in order to make more generalizable and conclusive results. hoff, laursen, and tardif (2002) described the strong association between parenting and socioeconomic status. although the current paper assessed parents’ ses, it did not consider such variable for data analysis. neither the role of parental burden was taken into account, although it may play a role on the selected variables (e.g., oyserman, bybee, mowbray, & kahng, 2004). future studies should deepen into those topics, due to their meaningful potential role in explaining such complex relationships. furthermore, the current study used only parents’ perceptions. further studies could be carried out to analyze child’s perception regarding parents’ parenting style (according to child’s developmental stage). notwithstanding, the present study contributes to the cross-cultural literature on parenting styles in pre-school and school children, as well as to the association with the child’s difficulties. the results of the mediational models highlight that stress connected to the perception of the child as difficult, is one of the mechanisms explaining how parenting styles are related to psychological difficulties in italian pre-school and school age children. notes i) the italian version was retrieved from https://sdqinfo.org. parenting style in mothers and fathers 524 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://sdqinfo.org https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. ethical approval all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the 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(2004). filial belief and parent-child conflict. international journal of psychology, 39(2), 132-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207590344000312 about the authors elisa delvecchio, ph.d., is assistant professor in dynamic psychology. she is the representative of the international relationships for the psychological field at the university of perugia. she is the coordinator of the “psychology and cultures lab” at the international human-being research centre (ihrc). her main research interests focus on the role of personal and interpersonal variables for the prevention and treatment of anxiety and depressive disorders in adolescence adopting a cross-cultural perspective. she is currently running a project aimed to assess the link between psychological well-being and cultural beliefs in adolescents and emerging adults across the world. she has authored or coauthored more than 30 articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals. alessandro germani is a ph.d candidate in human sciences. his research interests concern clinical and dynamic psychology, cross-cultural psychology, as well as cognitive neuroscience. veronica raspa, ph.d., is an expert in the subject of dynamic psychology. she is a contract professor of theory and techniques of interview (university of perugia), and general psychology (university of siena). she collaborates with the parenting style in mothers and fathers 530 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1750-8606.2008.00036.x https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10648-005-3950-1 https://doi.org/10.2307%2f1130932 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.appet.2011.01.007 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10802-009-9331-3 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1365-2214.2006.00603.x https://doi.org/10.1080%2f01650250143000436 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00207590344000312 https://www.psychopen.eu/ center for documentation, update and experimentation on childhood in the region of umbria. she participates in research projects related to early childhood, specific educational services, parenting and the reflective function. adriana lis, senior prof. at the university of padova from 1/10/2014. she was full professor at the same university and she taught psychology of family relation in 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017. moreover, she was professor of psychology of family relation, psychodynamic diagnosis, intervention models for family relationships, evaluation of psychotherapeutic interventions. she published over 50 national and international papers as well as several national and international books. claudia mazzeschi, ph.d, is full professor in dynamic psychology and head of the department of philosophy, social sciences and education (university of perugia). she is the coordinator of the clinical service at the university of perugia and the scientific coordinator for the psychological area of curiamo, a clinical and research centre for obesity and diabetes affiliated to the university of perugia. her main research interests focus on psychological assessment and intervention throughout the life span. she has authored or coauthored more than 50 articles in international peer reviewed scientific journals. delvecchio, germani, raspa et al. 531 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 514–531 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2013 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ parenting style in mothers and fathers (introduction) issues about the psdq psdq and related variables method participants procedure measures data analysis results the effect of parental role, child’s age, and age-group on authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles correlations between selected variables by parental role parenting styles, parenting stress and child’s psychological well-being discussion notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments ethical approval references about the authors memory-related encoding-specificity paradigm: experimental application to the exercise domain research reports memory-related encoding-specificity paradigm: experimental application to the exercise domain danielle yanes a, emily frith a, paul d. loprinzi* a [a] exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, university, ms, usa. abstract the encoding-specificity paradigm indicates that memory recall will be superior when contextual factors are congruent between memory encoding and memory retrieval. however, unlike other contextual conditions (e.g., verbal context, mental operations, global feature context, mood dependency, and physical operations), this paradigm has nearly been ignored in the exercise domain. thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the encoding-specificity paradigm in the context of exercise and rest conditions. 24 young adults (age: m = 21 years) completed a within-subject, counterbalanced experiment involving four laboratory visits, including 1) r-r (rest-rest) condition, 2) r-e (restexercise) condition, 3) e-r (exercise-rest) condition, or 4) e-e (exercise-exercise) condition. the exercise bout included a 15-minute moderate-intensity walk on a treadmill. memory recall was assessed via a 15 word-list task. memory recall was greater for r-r (8.71 ± 3.1) versus r-e (7.46 ± 2.8), and similarly, for e-e (8.63 ± 2.7) versus e-r (8.21 ± 2.7). the mean word recall for the congruent and incongruent conditions, respectively, was 8.67 (2.4) and 7.83 (2.4). there was a statistically significant condition effect (f = 5.02; p = .03; partial η² = .18). this experiment provides direct support for the encoding-specificity paradigm in the exercise domain. keywords: acquisition, cognition, consolidation, encoding, episodic, physical activity europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 received: 2018-08-30. accepted: 2018-12-03. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, united kingdom *corresponding author at: exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science, and recreation management, the university of mississippi, 229 turner center, university, ms 38677, usa. tel: 662-915-5521. e-mail: pdloprin@olemiss.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the encoding-specificity paradigm (tulving & thomson, 1973) indicates that memory recall will be enhanced when contextual factors are congruent between memory encoding and memory retrieval (e.g., studying and taking an exam in the same room). although not conclusive across all studies (fernandez & glenberg, 1985), there is support for this paradigm across a multitude of domains. these domains, which will be discussed in the narrative that follows, includes mental operations, verbal context, global environmental context, global feature context, mood dependency, and physical operations. this has been thoroughly addressed elsewhere (roediger iii et al., 2017) and is further highlighted in the narrative that follows. the transfer-appropriate processing model is an extension of the encoding-specificity paradigm as it relates to broader mental operations. that is, if the cognitive processing at encoding matches that during retrieval, then memory retrieval will be enhanced. types of processing can range from shallow levels-of-processing to more deeper levels (craik & lockhart, 1972). for example, and broadly speaking, techniques may include orthoeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ graphic characteristics (e.g., focusing on the case of the letters in the word, such as upper or lower cases), phonemic characteristics (e.g., focusing on words it rhymes with), and semantic characteristics (e.g., meaning of the words). moreover, challis, velichkovsky, and craik (1996) have evaluated five related techniques, including 1) intentional learning (i.e., have participants learn as they see fit with no provision of instructions), 2) counting and reporting the number of letters while studying words (letter counting), 3) counting the number of syllables in the word (syllable counting), 4) making judgements about whether the word is living or non-living (living/ non-living judgement; e.g., wooden board is non-living, tree is living), and 5) judging how relevant the words are to themselves (self-reference judgement). the latter and more deep-processing techniques are generally more superior in enhancing memory recall. regarding the verbal context, among russian-english bilingual students, when prompt words were in russian, participants recalled more russian autobiographical memories, but when prompt words were in english, they recalled more autobiographical memories from their time in america (marian & neisser, 2000). similarly, in mandarin-english bilingual students, when questions were asked in mandarin, participants responded more with answers coming from general knowledge acquired in mandarin, and when the questions were asked in english, they responded more with answers from general knowledge that was acquired in english, suggesting that, perhaps, cognitive-search strategies at recall are dependent upon the language utilized at initial encoding (marian & kaushanskaya, 2007). these studies demonstrate support for the encoding-specificity paradigm to autobiographical memory and semantic memory. for the global environmental context, if environmental characteristics are similar for encoding and retrieval, then this may help to enhance memory retrieval. godden and baddeley (1975) instructed scuba divers to learn a list of unrelated words either underwater or on dry land and then recalled them later either in a matching or mismatching context. notably, the number of words recalled was higher in the matching contexts (e.g., learning under water and retrieval under water) than in the mismatching contexts (e.g., learning under water and retrieval on dry land). smith, glenberg, and bjork (1978) also showed similar results, but instead, had participants encode and retrieve in the same or different rooms. interestingly, smith (1979) also showed that being physically present in the previous environment was not a necessity for enhanced retention. imagining the previous environment in which the material was studied was enough to enhance recall. the global feature context is related to the global environmental context, however the former focuses on environmental features (e.g., the background screen color on the computer) while holding the physical context (e.g., the room the computer is in) constant. grant et al. (1998) manipulated background noise of the room while keeping the room constant, and showed that the matching conditions enhanced memory recall more than a mismatching condition. similarly, geiselman and glenny (1977) familiarized participants with male and female voices before the study session and told the participants to rehearse each visually presented word either in the male voice, female voice, or in their own voice for 10-seconds during the study session. participants subsequently completed an auditorily recognition test, with words presented in either the male or female voice. when the voice of the word during the test matched the rehearsed voice (male-male or female-female), participants recognized the words better when compared to the mismatched condition. clearly, the feature and environmental context plays an important role. interestingly, research demonstrates that the context may not have to be exactly the same. for example, it may not be necessary to view the exact same baseball game on the television during encoding and retrieval. it is possible any baseball game could suffice. several experiments demonexercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm 448 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strate that when the reinstated context is similar, but not identical to the original context, then enhanced memory is still observed, but to a lesser degree (smith, handy, angello, & manzano, 2014). specifically, smith et al., utilized a videotape exposure protocol, which had been employed in previous related research (smith et al., 2014; smith & manzano, 2010). as noted previously, when participants viewed videos that were exactly congruent at both encoding and retrieval, memory recall was superior. however, as even similar contexts were evidenced to stimulate recall to a greater extent than dissimilar video scenes, the authors suggest that conceptual similarity between encoding and recall stimuli may offer robust support for a tendency to process similar environments by employing global methods (smith et al., 2014). for example, even if the original environmental context featured a baseball game, a depiction of a softball or kickball game in a similar outdoor stadium or field may be coded via identical cognitive strategies. although, importantly, the efficacy of global feature contexts in facilitating memory within this paradigm is governed by the “fit” between mental representations at encoding and retrieval. if a volleyball game and basketball game were represented similarly, as they both occur on indoor courts, a free throw would not match any aspect of the volleyball game itself. thus, general cue representation at encoding may activate general environmental contexts at retrieval (e.g., encoding-court and retrieval-court); however, general and specific cues are not likely to confer benefits proposed by the encoding-specificity paradigm (e.g., encoding-court and retrieval-three-point shot; smith et al., 2014). regarding mood dependency (or state dependency), memory retrieval appears to be enhanced when mood is congruent during encoding and retrieval. eich, weingartner, stillman, and gillin (1975) had participants smoke a cigarette containing marijuana or a placebo cigarette before learning a list of words, with matching and mismatching occurring at retrieval 4-hours later. a mood dependency effect was observed. this effect has also been observed in other work using alcohol (petersen, 1977) and caffeine (kelemen & creeley, 2003) to manipulate the participant’s pharmacological state. other work also demonstrates this dependency effect (for multi-list learning) when manipulating mood via hypnosis (bower, monteiro, & gilligan, 1978). relatedly, and rather than inducing a particular mood via hypnosis, eich, macaulay, and lam (1997) evaluated participants with bipolar disorder, and during the naturally occurring mood changes, they superimposed the experimental manipulations and confirmed this mood dependency effect among those who frequently experience mood shifts. of particular interest to our experiment (i.e., examining the encoding-specificity paradigm in the exercise/physical domain), research demonstrates that integrating movement (physical operations) can help facilitate memory retrieval. engelkamp, zimmer, mohr, and sellen (1994) made participants either read phrases verbally (e.g., “close the book”) or read them and subsequently performed them (i.e., the participant closes a book in front of the researcher while reading the phrase “close the book”). when participants performed the action (“enactment effect”) at both the study session and the testing session, they recognized the phrases better than if they only performed them at the study session and read them at the testing session. similarly, dijkstra, kaschak, and zwaan (2007) observed that recollection of memories was enhanced when participants adopted body postures that were congruent with the autobiographical memories they were trying to retrieve. related to physical operations, but with more extensive physical movement, thompson, williams, l'esperance, and cornelius (2001) had participants learn 20 unrelated words either on land or in the air in parachutes and recalled them 8-minutes later in one of the two environments. when learning occurred on land, context dependency was observed. however, when learning occurred in the air, recall was poor for both the same and different context conditions. researchers suggested that parachuting-induced stress may have impaired attention during yanes, frith, & loprinzi 449 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ encoding. in their next experiment, thompson et al. (2001) used a video of skydiving instead of asking participants to skydive. participants studied words through audiotape while watching a skydiving video or not, and from this experiment, context dependency was achieved. in alignment with recent recommendations to evaluate memory retrieval within exercise contexts, specifically examining whether congruence of exercise during learning and recall influences accuracy of memory performances (e.g., rest-rest or exercise-exercise), and whether the specific environment (e.g., outdoor vs. indoor) may play an additional role (loprinzi, frith, edwards, sng, & ashpole, 2017), the present study aims to extend our understanding of the encoding-specificity paradigm by specifically evaluating its utility in the exercise domain. unlike the other domains addressed above (mental operations, verbal context, global environmental context, global feature context, mood dependency, and physical operations), the application of this paradigm under ambulatory exercise conditions is relatively unknown. this is worthy of investigation, as not only will it provide further domain-specific context knowledge of the encoding-specificity paradigm, but emerging work has started to examine the effects of acute exercise on memory retrieval (crush & loprinzi, 2017; frith et al., 2017; loprinzi, edwards, & frith, 2017; loprinzi & kane, 2015; sng, frith, & loprinzi, 2018). this research demonstrates that acute exercise shortly before memory encoding can help to enhance memory retrieval during a rested (seated) state. we extend this emerging body of work by examining whether congruent exercise and resting conditions during encoding and retrieval is more advantageous in memory recall than mismatched conditions. despite considerable extant work demonstrating the effects of verbal context, global environmental context, global feature context, mood dependency, and physical operations couched within the encoding specificity paradigm, a comprehensive exploration of encoding processes specifically within the context of verbal memory, and congruent versus incongruent physical exercise has yet to be conducted. further, a wealth of research suggests physical movement is capable of effecting favorable outcomes across a variety of mental assessments, including creativity, executive functioning, and learning and memory. assessing the effects of exercise versus rest at both encoding and retrieval, as well as mismatching these physical operations at encoding and retrieval, will facilitate a deeper understanding of the efficacy of the encoding specificity paradigm. as episodic memories are, among other structures, often encoded via involvement of the left prefrontal cortex and later retrieved via involvement from the right prefrontal cortex and cerebellum, activation of the prefrontal and cerebellar structures with exercise may be a strategy for impacting both encoding and retrieval of episodic information. thus, it is critical to differentially investigate whether exercise itself is capable of substantively influencing the quality of episodic memory performance, or whether merely maintaining a congruent bodily state at the time of encoding and retrieval is sufficient to elicit performance effects in line with the encoding specificity paradigm. thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the encoding specificity paradigm in the context of exercise. we hypothesize that memory performance would be enhanced during congruent (vs. incongruent) states. method study design and participants this study was approved by the authors’ institutional review board and all participants provided written consent prior to participation. the present experiment is a within-subject, counterbalanced (via latin-squares) study design. participants completed four separate visits, each occurring approximately 48–72 hours apart. further deexercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm 450 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ tails on these visits is described below. in brief, 24 participants (college students) were recruited via a non-probability sampling approach (classroom announcements and word-of-mouth). this sample size is consistent with our other related experimental work (crush & loprinzi, 2017; frith et al., 2017; loprinzi & kane, 2015; sng et al., 2018). participants were ineligible for this study if they self-reported being a current smoker, had a concussion in the past 30 days, were pregnant, currently taking medication to regulate mood, took marijuana or other illicit substances in the past 2 days, or had a diagnosis of add/adhd or a learning disability. further, for any of the visits, if they exercised 5 hours prior to the visit or consumed caffeine 3 hours prior, the visit was rescheduled. measures surveys on the first visit, participants self-reported their moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (mvpa) (mvpa min/ week) using the two-item physical activity vitals sign (pavs) survey (greenwood, joy, & stanford, 2010). at the beginning of each visit, to assess mood status, participants completed the state trait anxiety inventory (stai) (metzger, 1976). for this mood survey, participants rated 20 items (e.g., i feel calm; i feel nervous) on a likert scale (1, not at all; to 4, very much so). notably, for all four visits, internal consistency, as measured by cronbach’s alpha, was >.8. retrospective memory for each visit, participants listened to a recording of 15 non-semantically related words (from the toronto word poll) via sound-reducing headphones, with the words delivered every 1.5 seconds. the list was played twice, with a 10-second break in between. each word list was unique for the different visits. exercise researchers instructed participants to walk on a treadmill (woodway treadmill) for 15 minutes and select an appropriate pace by saying “please select a pace similar to one you would choose if you were late to class. thus, it will not be a leisurely walk. nor will it be a run.” the self-selected pace was maintained during the exercise bout (i.e., the speed did not vary). the same speed was used for each of the subsequent visits. exercise and memory procedures depending on the visit (counterbalanced), participants either performed the 1) r-r (rest-rest) condition, 2) r-e (rest-exercise) condition, 3) e-r (exercise-rest) condition, or 4) e-e (exercise-exercise) condition. • the r-r condition involved resting for 2-minutes; listening to the word list; resting (sitting) for 20-minutes (“white noise” playing through headphones; no access to cell phone); and then memory recall of the words. • the r-e condition involved resting for 2-minutes; listening to the word list; resting for 17-minutes (“white noise”); walking on treadmill for 3-minutes; and then memory recall during the last 30-seconds of the walk. • the e-r condition involved resting for 2-minutes; walking on treadmill for 3-minutes; listening to the word list during the last 30-seconds of the walk; resting (sitting; “white noise”) for 20-minutes; and then memory recall of the words. yanes, frith, & loprinzi 451 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ • the e-e condition involved resting for 2-minutes; commencement of treadmill walking; after 3-minutes of walking, listened to the word list (while continuing to walk); then continued walking for the next 17-minutes; and during the last 30-seconds of this 20-minute walk, memory recall of the words occurred. statistical analysis statistical analyses were computed in spss (v. 24). a repeated measures anova was employed, evaluating differences in memory recall across the congruent (r-r, e-e) and incongruent (r-e, e-r) conditions. partial eta-squared (ηp 2) effect size estimates were calculated. statistical significance was established as the arbitrary alpha level of 0.05. results table 1 displays the characteristics of the analyzed sample. table 1 characteristics of the sample (n = 24) variable point estimate sd age, mean years 20.9 1.8 gender, % female 50 race, % non-hispanic white 70.8 waist circumference, mean cm 91.7 11.0 mvpa, mean min/week 214.7 194.6 note. mvpa = moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. the mean age was approximately 21 years, with the sample equally distributed across gender. table 2 displays the mood state and physiological (i.e., heart rate) scores across the four experimental conditions. there were no differences in mood state, resting heart rate, heart during encoding for e-r and e-e conditions, or treadmill speed across the four visits. as expected, heart rate during memory retrieval was higher for the r-e and e-e conditions compared to r-r and e-r. table 2 exercise indices across the experimental visits (n = 24) variable r-r r-e e-r e-e test-statistic m sd m sd m sd m sd f df p ηp 2 stai, mean 28.1 6.6 28.0 7.1 30.2 7.6 28.9 7.7 1.34 .29 .16 hr at baseline, mean bpm 76.8 10.4 76.6 9.1 75.2 8.8 75.6 8.5 0.25 .85 .03 hr at encoding, mean bpm 114.3 15.3 112.8 13.9 0.75 .39 .03 hr at retrieval, mean bpm 79.5 9.9 107.1 12.2 78.3 9.8 115.1 11.2 65.4 .001 .92 speed, mean mph 3.48 0.5 3.38 0.1 3.37 0.1 1.0 .38 .08 note. hr = heart rate; stai = state trait anxiety inventory; r-r = rest-rest; r-e = rest-exercise; e-r = exercise-rest; e-e = exercise-exercise. exercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm 452 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in direct support of the encoding-specific paradigm, memory recall was greater when there was congruence across the two conditions. that is, memory recall was greater for r-r (8.71 ± 3.1) versus r-e (7.46 ± 2.8), and similarly, for e-e (8.63 ± 2.7) versus e-r (8.21 ± 2.7). the mean word recall for the congruent and incongruent conditions, respectively, was 8.67 (2.4) and 7.83 (2.4). indeed, there was a statistically significant condition effect (f = 5.02; p = .03; ηp 2 = .18). these results are displayed in figure 1. figure 1. mean number of words recalled across the 4-group encoding-specific paradigm. discussion unlike other domains (e.g., mental operations, verbal context, global environmental context, global feature context, mood dependency, and physical operations), the application of the encoding-specificity paradigm in the exercise domain is much less investigated. the present experiment provides evidence that this paradigm also extends to ambulatory exercise. that is, matched conditions of rest-rest and exercise-exercise, were superior in enhancing memory recall when compared to mismatched conditions (rest-exercise and exercise-rest). the present findings are in alignment with the few related studies on this topic. miles and hardman (1998) had participants (young adults) learn a list of 36 words during higher-intensity cycling exercise (heart rate > 130 bpm) or at rest. identical to our findings (but our study employed a moderate-intensity exercise bout vs. highintensity), they showed that recall did not differ for different encoding or retrieval conditions, but the interaction between them revealed a context-dependent effect. the only other related study on this topic was conducted by schramke and bauer (1997). in both younger and older adults, participants exercised (i.e., walked in a corridor) or rested for 5–7 minute before learning a word list. after a brief delay, participants engaged in the memory retrieval task, with context-dependency observed among both younger and older adults for free recall. yanes, frith, & loprinzi 453 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the present findings, coupled with those of miles and hardman (1998) and schramke and bauer (1997), suggest that the encoding-specificity paradigm extends to the exercise domain. importantly, to obtain a contextdependent effect, the context must be encoded during learning (i.e., part of the engram or memory trace) to be used during the retrieval phase. thus, the retrieval cue must reactive a neural network pattern that is similar to the previously encoded pattern. exercising or resting during encoding may create a unique engram pathway, and this unique neural network may be more likely to be reactivated if a similar context (e.g., exercise or rest) is present near/during the memory retrieval phase. as such, memories are not replicas of the actual event that took place, but rather, is a record of how we experienced the event. our findings are not surprising as exercise versus rest conditions produce a much different experience during the development of the engram (memory encoding). in theory, the more contrasting the condition, the greater the likelihood that a context-dependent effect will be observed. this is supported by the seminal work of godden and baddeley (1975) who had participants learn a word list under water or on dry land (distinct conditions). critically, though, the more events that are subsumed under the context, in theory, the context cue will be less effective in provoking the recall of the event/ memory (cued overload principle) (nairne, 2002; tulving & pearlstone, 1966). applying this, it is uncertain if context-dependency will occur with all types and intensities of exercise. however, unlike the study by miles and hardman (1998) that employed a higher-intensity cycling protocol, we used a treadmill protocol of moderate intensity, with these differing contextual stimuli likely producing a differential magnitude of stimuli, yet both studies demonstrated a context-dependent effect. although, at the same given intensity, and compared to cycling, treadmill exercise may induce a different neuroelectrical pattern given that treadmill exercise may require more attention and energetic constraint to maintain balance and control whole body coordination. it would be interesting to see if, at the same given intensity, whether open-skilled (i.e., activities that require the individual to react to unpredictable external stimuli) versus closed-skill exercises (walking/running) have a differential effect on the encoding-specificity paradigm. an interesting observation of our study was that the e-r condition had a higher memory performance than the r-e condition. although additional work in this area is needed, this suggests that the timing of exercise may play a critical role in memory performance. in alignment with this observation, our other work has shown that when there is a close temporal coupling of exercise with memory encoding, memory performance is enhanced, when compared to other temporal periods (haynes iv, frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2018). another interesting observation of our study was that the r-r condition resulted in slightly higher (but not statistically significantly different) memory performance than the e-e condition. such a pronounced effect is more likely to occur for a highintensity bout of exercise, but this observation may, in part, be attributed to the transient hypofrontality effect (dietrich, 2006; dietrich & sparling, 2004). that is, when encoding occurs during exercise, at higher intensities, encoding may be slightly compromised given that more metabolic and cognitive resources may be allocated to sustaining the movement. strengths of this study include the experimental design and examining the encoding-specificity paradigm in the exercise domain, an under-investigated domain of this paradigm. it would have been interesting if we examined affective state (e.g., mood) not only prior to memory encoding (as we did), but also at memory retrieval, as this would have provided a clue as to whether our observed context-dependency was influenced by condition-related affective state. previous research suggests that recall may be bolstered by congruence between encoding and retrieval relative to musically-induced mood (e.g., happy music-happy music; sad music-sad music) (mead & ball, 2007). as mood and arousal are suggested to play a potentially meaningful role in influencing the exercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm 454 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strength and durability of learning and memory processes (bower et al., 1978), future work may wish to consider this possibility. in conclusion, the present study provides direct support for the encoding-specificity paradigm in the exercise domain. the main implications of this finding are the further support of this paradigm within a behavioral domain, as opposed to a health promotion implication of recommending exercise during memory retrieval (e.g., during a classroom exam), as the latter may be challenging and not practical from a logistical perspective. nevertheless, non-exercise activity thermogenesis (neat) encompass locomotor and repetitive movement activities (novak & levine, 2007), such as fidgeting or squeezing a stress ball, that could plausibly be observed during test-taking, but the magnitude of effects may be largely dependent on individual-level factors. however, it would be worth evaluating whether this encoding-specificity paradigm continues to apply to this behavioral domain with a slight modification to the temporal effects of bouted-exercise. that is, exercise immediately prior to (or even during) memory encoding, and rather than exercising during memory retrieval, have the exercise bout occur shortly before memory retrieval. if such a context-dependency effect is still observed, then this would have implications for promoting exercise immediately prior to taking an academic exam (while also exercising right before studying), for example. research in this domain would also benefit by assessing other populations, such as older adults. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bower, g. h., monteiro, k. p., & gilligan, s. g. 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(1973). encoding specificity and retrieval processes in episodic memory. psychological review, 80, 352-373. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020071 about the authors danielle yanes, b.s., earned her undergraduate degree in exercise science at the university of mississippi. emily frith, phd, earned her doctoral degree in health and kinesiology at the university of mississippi. paul loprinzi, phd, is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. exercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm 458 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 447–458 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1767 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1518%2f001872001775870377 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs0022-5371%2866%2980048-8 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fh0020071 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ exercise and the encoding-specificity paradigm (introduction) method study design and participants measures results discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship: a task experiment research reports causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship: a task experiment ludmila dudasova 1, martin vaculik 1, jakub prochazka 1,2, petra svitavska 1, gregory patton 3 [1] department of psychology, faculty of social studies, masaryk university, brno, czech republic. [2] department of corporate economy, faculty of economics and administration, masaryk university, brno, czech republic. [3] department of economics, accounting, and management, luther college, decorah, iowa, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 received: 2020-07-21 • accepted: 2021-12-15 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: ludmila dudasova, department of psychology, faculty of social studies, masaryk university, joštova 10, 602 00 brno, czech republic. e-mail: lud.dudasova@mail.muni.cz abstract despite the common belief among practitioners that a happy worker is a productive worker, researchers have been struggling to understand the causality between satisfaction and performance for decades. this study attempts to bring clarity to current understanding through an experiment with repeated measures of satisfaction and performance. a total of 143 participants repeatedly performed a task based on the stroop test, with their objective performance and task satisfaction measured each time. two different types of feedback (high/low performance) were randomly assigned to participants in order to manipulate perceived performance. the data were analyzed using a path analysis. the results support the hypothesized influence of task satisfaction on task performance and of perceived task performance on task satisfaction. keywords satisfaction, performance, autonomy, need for autonomy, feedback the job satisfaction–job performance relationship has attracted researchers’ attention for over 80 years, as the “holy grail” for industrial psychologists (landy, 1989). nevertheless, evidence for the happy–productive worker thesis is incomplete, with study results differing in both the strength and directionality of this relationship (see meta-analysis by judge et al., 2001). while researchers have suggested various possible models for the relationship, their designs rarely evidence causality, as satisfaction and performance are measured concurrently, not longitudinally. therefore, this study aims to investigate the causal relationship between satisfaction and performance, and to provide evidence for one previously proposed model of this relationship. for this purpose, an experiment was designed to objectively measure task performance and manipulate task satisfaction. employees’ satisfaction is essential for organizations to function. research has shown that satisfied workers experi­ ence higher well-being (judge & hulin, 1993), build and maintain better relationships with colleagues (swider et al., 2011), have greater commitment to their organization (yoon & thye, 2002), have lower absenteeism (steel et al., 2002), and are less likely to leave their job (swider et al., 2011). ensuring conditions for high employee satisfaction is, thus, beneficial for both workers and organizations. the importance of performance is obvious: efficient workers are a source of competitive advantage for organizations (wright et al., 1994). hence, the satisfaction–performance relationship is not only of academic interest but also key to creating strategic and efficient hr practices. causality in the relationship dictates whether practitioners should seek to provide conditions for satisfaction to induce high performance, or vice versa. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4075&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship job satisfaction represents a general attitude toward the job and the organization, with affective, cognitive, and (poten­ tially also) behavioral components (wright et al., 2007). general, or overall, job satisfaction is viewed as the aggregate of the satisfaction with multiple work dimensions (e.g., pay, promotion opportunities, co-workers, supervision, tasks, and the work itself) by some authors (kinicki et al., 2002). performance within a job represents a broad spectrum of work-related behaviors, typically measured by their contributions toward achieving organizational goals (campbell, 1990; koopmans et al., 2011; motowidlo, 2003). the individual work performance domain consists of task performance, contextual performance, and counterproductive work behavior (koopmans et al., 2011). traditionally, studies on performance focused mostly on task performance, which can be defined as the proficiency with which individuals perform the core substantive or technical tasks central to his or her job (campbell, 1990). several meta-analyses have been conducted, yielding evidence of a significant relationship between satisfaction and performance. judge et al. (2001) conducted a qualitative and quantitative analysis of 254 studies published during 1967–1999. the total sample included 54,471 surveyed individuals in different occupations (e.g., salesperson, scientist, teacher, manager, accountant, and nurse). the correlation between satisfaction and performance varied from -.18 to .86 across the studies, with an average corrected correlation coefficient of .30. in the most recent meta-analysis, davar and bala (2012) examined 48 studies published during 1971–2008. the total sample included 2,787 workers in different professions (e.g., manager, telephone operator, teacher, and scientist). the correlation coefficient between satisfaction and performance ranged from .01 to .71, with an average corrected correlation coefficient of .30 (as in judge et al., 2001). however, these meta-analyses described only the relationship between satisfaction and performance, but did not provide evidence about the causality of this relationship. regarding causality, several theoretical models for the satisfaction–performance relationship have emerged (for a review, see judge et al., 2001) and there are also several studies that have provided limited empirical support for some of these models (see below). model 1: satisfaction influences performance one of the first models to examine the satisfaction–performance relationship was based on the theory of attitudes, which assumes that an attitude towards an object is reflected in the behavior towards it (ajzen, 1991). performance can, thus, be perceived as a behavioral component of job satisfaction (judge et al., 2001). moreover, according to the broadenand-build theory, positive emotions broaden one’s awareness and encourage novel, varied, and exploratory thoughts and actions. in turn, these broadened thought-action repertoires build intellectual, physical, social, and psychological resources for the future (fredrickson, 2001). this theory, therefore, associates satisfaction with increased potential for high performance, as people experiencing positive emotions have better resources for performance. nevertheless, increased satisfaction does not always lead to higher performance. the theory of planned behavior (ajzen & klobas, 2013) suggests that behavior is influenced by not only the attitude itself but also one’s ability to behave accordingly and the views of significant others about the object (ajzen & klobas, 2013). as the influence of the aptitude and significant others´ opinions may be stronger than the attitude itself, change in the attitude (satisfaction) does not necessarily cause change in the behaviour (performance). the positive influence of satisfaction on performance has been supported by only a few studies. riketta (2008)’s meta-analysis of 11 research papers from 1974–2006 generated a sample of 3,077 workers. all 11 studies used a panel (i.e., longitudinal) design with repeated measurements of job attitudes and performance, with first and second measure­ ments separated by between one month and 18 months. the correlation between satisfaction and performance varied from -.03 to .66 across the studies, and the general effect of satisfaction on subsequent performance was very weak but statistically significant (β = .03, p < .05). this effect is significantly weaker than the usually reported correlation between satisfaction and performance, therefore the unexplained part of the correlation can be potentially explained by the opposite causal relationship. moreover, as the author himself stated, panel design does not have potential to provide irrefutable evidence for causality. dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 49 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ model 2: performance influences satisfaction according to expectancy theory (isaac et al., 2001), performance leads to internal and external rewards (salary, joy of doing well, etc.) that are satisfactory (lawler & porter, 1967). in addition, self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 2008) posits that satisfaction follows from the rewards resulting from behavior, though behavioral motivations also influence this process. however, satisfaction is affected by not only procured rewards but also important job characteristics (hackman & oldham, 1976), significant others’ opinions about the job (o’reilly & caldwell, 1985), and the worker’s affectivity (dormann & zapf, 2001). consequently, how performance influences satisfaction may be difficult to detect due to other intervening variables. the influence of performance on satisfaction was mainly investigated in early studies and lacks convincing empirical support. for example, brown and peterson (1994) found a significant correlation between the two constructs, but the effect was reduced by the relative influence of other variables or mediated through other constructs; an r = .31 (p < .01) correlation became an r = .04 (p > .05) performance → satisfaction path coefficient when effort and role conflict were also modeled to influence job satisfaction. christen et al. (2006) analyzed data collected by lusch and serpkenci (1990) from 177 us grocery store retailers and highlighted the importance of the measures used. with an aggregate measure of performance (including effort and ability), they identified an insignificant effect of job performance on satisfaction (β = .02, p > .1), whereas with a narrow measure of performance (without effort), they identified a slightly higher positive effect (β = .14, p = .06), though still much smaller than the effect reported by lusch and serpkenci (β = .29, p < .01). in riketta’s (2008) meta-analysis, the effect of job performance on satisfaction was negative (β = -.08, p < .001) and only significant in studies with a moderate time lag between measurement waves (7–12 months). the ambiguity of these prior findings may result from the different influences of various external variables in longitudinal surveys (taris & kompier, 2003). model 3: satisfaction and performance are reciprocally related the model for the reciprocal relationship between satisfaction and performance has no distinct theoretical foundation, but rather synthesizes the two preceding models (judge et al., 2001). evidence for a mutual causal relationship was offered by downey et al. (1975)’s longitudinal study of 94 managers and manual workers. in another longitudinal study of 80 telephone-company employees, wanous (1974) found that satisfaction and performance influenced each other. evidence for validity of this model was provided also by recent research (e.g. alessandri et al., 2017; bakotić, 2016; yang & hwang, 2014). the results from riketta (2008)’s meta-analysis suggest that satisfaction is more likely to influence performance than vice versa: the weak but significant effect of satisfaction on performance (β = 0.03) was accompanied by almost no statistically significant evidence for the reverse causal direction. limitations of the current evidence on causality the main limitation of current evidence on causality in the satisfaction–performance relationship is most studies’ research design. satisfaction and performance are often measured concurrently and rarely longitudinally, thus limit­ ing the possibility of determining causality (judge et al., 2001). although several longitudinal studies were included in riketta (2008)’s meta-analysis, their non-experimental design cannot provide clear evidence of causality in this relationship. riketta (2008) inferred the causal influence of job attitudes on performance from the significance of correlations between job attitudes at the first measurement and performance at the second. however, we consider this approach suboptimal for inferring causal relationships without raising serious doubts about the interpretation of results. there are at least two alternative explanations for the correlation between job attitudes and performance measured in two separate measurement waves. the first explanation is that a relatively stable third variable might influence both constructs in both measurements. for example, personality trait conscientiousness predicts both job satisfaction (judge et al., 2002) and performance (e.g., prochazka et al., 2018) the second explanation is linked to the selection criteria for studies included in riketta (2008)’s meta-analysis: “no major changes in the work environment, such as an organizational merger or a change in the task of the participants, occurred between the measurement waves” (p. 473). with no major changes in the work environment, there was also no reason for satisfaction to vary except to the extent causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 50 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ caused by change in performance. if context remained the same, then satisfaction also remained similar, and so the influence of change in satisfaction on performance could not be found. we are, consequently, convinced that experiments are needed to provide compelling evidence of causal relationships. satisfaction and performance in experiment to test the reciprocal causal relationship between job satisfaction and job performance, both constructs need to be manipulated. however, the complexities of these constructs make this virtually impossible in an experimental study. therefore, we focused on the key dimensions of satisfaction and performance—task satisfaction and task performance. task satisfaction job satisfaction is typically measured with self-report questionnaires addressing overall satisfaction or satisfaction with individual job aspects (e.g., task satisfaction, satisfaction with supervision). the correlations between global and facet job satisfaction scales suggest that task satisfaction may be the most important contributor to general job satisfaction (ironson et al., 1989; skalli et al., 2008; taber & alliger, 1995). additionally, satisfaction with work content has previously been found better correlated with task performance than other job satisfaction components (edwards et al., 2008). therefore, our experiment focuses on influencing and measuring task satisfaction as the most important dimension of job satisfaction. we are aware that a job comprises of several different tasks. our focus on satisfaction with a single task is a simplification typical of laboratory experiments. objective task performance the studies focused on job performance usually differentiate between task performance, contextual performance and counterproductive work behavior and measure one or more of these dimensions (e.g., koopmans et al., 2011). all dimensions of job performance are mostly evaluated by subjective subordinate, supervisor, peer, or self-ratings using a questionnaire (conway & huffcutt, 1997; heidemeier & moser, 2009). there are various sources of error in subjective performance ratings: cognitive heuristics, social desirability, personal incentives, the evaluator’s personality, etc. (for more details, see adler et al., 2016; bol & smith, 2011; grund & przemeck, 2012; landy & farr, 1980; prendergast & topel, 1993). consequently, many evaluators are needed to ensure sufficiently reliable subjective performance measures. this is difficult to achieve in research studies, and although combining different evaluators increases the value of the intrinsic consistency coefficient, it also decreases the construct validity of performance measurement (mount et al., 1998). some researchers attempt to avoid subjective biases by employing objective criteria (e.g., work results) to measure performance (e.g., crant, 1995). although not itself a result (koopmans et al., 2011), the performance influences how the work is done and if the goals are achieved. therefore, work result or the level of goal accomplishment can be used as an estimate of job performance, specifically task performance. despite the use of objective indicators, the results of the work may result in a biased evaluation of work performance in some situation, similar to the subjective evaluation by a questionnaire. the objectively measured results reflect the workers’ behavior but might be also influenced by various external factors (steel & mento, 1986). in field research, it is difficult to identify a sufficiently large sample of people performing the same tasks under the same conditions (e.g., with same support from co-workers, same leadership style of supervisors, in same region, with same internal or external clients). consequently, the conditions and the context might strongly influence the measured job outcomes. highly reliable performance measurement requires the same working conditions for all participants. such conditions can be created in laboratory experiments. however, measuring performance in an experiment introduces its own constraints (dipboye & flanagan, 1979), such as limited ecological validity, the impossibility of capturing contextual performance and counterproductive behavior, and the inability to investigate whether performance can be maintained long term. nevertheless, these limits connected to the ecological validity are counterbalanced by high internal validity of such experiments. that is why experiments are sometimes used to explore and understand the influence of various variables on performance (e.g., cadsby et al., 2007; fatseas & hirst, 1992; hu & kaplan, 2015; landers et al., 2017; vancouver et al., 2001) and to complement field studies which have higher ecological but lower internal validity. dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 51 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the satisfaction–performance relationship has been extensively studied in real conditions (e.g., mackenzie et al., 1998; wright & cropanzano, 2000), but experiments and the use of objective performance indicators are rare. we, therefore, decided to investigate the satisfaction–performance relationship in laboratory conditions with objective performance indicators, making a critical and controllable first step toward understanding these constructs’ causal relationship. our study focuses on task performance, because of three reasons. it is the most often investigated component of performance, especially in experimental studies (e. g., johnson et al., 1993; simon, 2006), previous studies showed that it explains the largest portion of variance in overall performance (conway, 1999; motowidlo & van scotter, 1994; rotundo & sackett, 2002), and it is possible to measure it using objective criteria. in this study, we use an experimental design with objective performance measurement to test both possible direc­ tions of the satisfaction–performance relationship, hypothesized as follows: hypothesis 1: task satisfaction positively affects objective task performance. hypothesis 2: perceived task performance positively affects task satisfaction. method procedure we conducted our experiment in a university computer lab. table 1 presents the experiment design. table 1 design of the experiment step description 1 informed consent, need for autonomy assessment, instructions 2 autonomy manipulation (a+/a-) 3 training 4 task satisfaction measurement (related to training) 0 5 task performance measurement 1 6 perceived performance manipulation (i.e. feedback; f+/f-) 1 7 task satisfaction measurement 1 8 task performance measurement 2 9 perceived performance manipulation (f+/f-) 2 10 task satisfaction measurement 2 11 task performance measurement 3 12 perceived performance manipulation (f+/f-) 3 13 task satisfaction measurement 3 14 demographic variables 15 autonomy manipulation check 16 debriefing note. a+ = autonomous conditions, a= non-autonomous conditions, f+ = positive feedback, f= negative feedback. participants were invited to complete three iterations of a task inspired by the stroop test (stroop, 1935). with a total duration of approximately 20 minutes, the experiment involved initial training followed by three tasks each comprising three parts. in each part, participants were asked to determine as quickly as possible the color (red or blue, red or green, and blue or green) of 30 words randomly displayed on a computer screen. their speed and error rate were both measured. participants repeated this task three times because we wanted to determine whether the satisfaction–performance relationship would vary across measurement waves. we also assumed that positive perception of a new task, considered causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 52 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interesting and satisfying regardless of the experimental conditions, could bias the results; repetition served to avoid this. we considered the experiment’s duration to be sufficient since attitudes can change relatively quickly (rydell & mcconnell, 2006). to achieve sufficient variability in participants’ initial task satisfaction, we manipulated it via autonomy, as a significant antecedent of satisfaction (see, e.g., hackman & oldham, 1975). such manipulation also allowed us to observe the causal influence of satisfaction as a mediator between a satisfaction antecedent and performance. job autonomy is “the degree to which a job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the employee in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out” (hackman & oldham, 1975, p. 162). previous research supports the impact of job autonomy on satisfaction (e.g., fahr, 2011; schjoedt, 2009; skaalvik & skaalvik, 2014). accordingly, participants were randomly assigned to groups with and without autonomous working conditions. be­ cause some participants may prefer non-autonomous conditions, we asked all participants if they preferred autonomous or non-autonomous conditions (reflecting their actual need for autonomy) immediately after describing the experiment to them. we tested the effect of need for autonomy in later statistical analyses. after manipulating autonomy and training, initial task satisfaction was assessed using a questionnaire. participants then completed the first task, in which their performance was measured. on completion, they received randomly assigned positive or negative feedback on their task performance (manipulation of perceived performance). we used written computer-mediated feedback to ensure feedback consistency across treatments. participants’ task satisfaction was then assessed. this process of measured task completion and subsequent random performance feedback was repeated twice by each participant. participants were then asked to provide their demograph­ ic information and their perceived task autonomy was assessed (i.e., the task autonomy manipulation check). after all the data were collected, a debriefing was held at which participants were told the study’s true purpose. the laboratory environment ensured a constant value for potentially intervening variables. the task was adminis­ tered in the presence of a trained administrator, who could provide answers to participants’ questions or offer technical support if needed. the study was conducted in accordance with the ethics code of the american psychological association (2017) including informed consent, respect for anonymity and final debriefing. manipulation of autonomy half the participants were randomly assigned to the autonomous condition: they could choose the order of the tasks (which two colors they wanted to distinguish first and then second) and decide when the task started. the other half of participants were assigned to the non-autonomous condition, whose color combinations in the tasks were randomly sequenced by the computer and who had to wait for each task to run automatically. both groups had the same set of tasks, which tested the same competencies. manipulation of perceived performance since participants could not estimate how well they performed in the stroop test, it was possible to manipulate perceived performance through random feedback. half the participants were informed after each of the first and second tasks that they had performed above the group average; the other half were informed at the same time points that their performance on each task was below the group average. as we wanted to observe also an effect of perceived performance change, all participants received opposite performance feedback to that given following the first and second tasks on completing the third task (i.e., below average for the first group; above average for the second group). participants the sample comprised 143 czech adults—52 (36.36%) men and 91 (63.64%) women—recruited via an invitation on the university’s information system, its official facebook page, and in leaflets distributed on campus. consequently, most participants were students. participants studied or worked in the following fields: social sciences (62, 44.4%), law (8, 5.6%), education (7, 4.9%), economics (17, 11.9%), philology (10, 7.0%), technical sciences (4, 2.8%), informatics (8, 5.6%), medicine (5, 3.5%), and another area or multiple areas (20, 14.0%). two participants (1.4%) did not report their field of study or work. participants ranged in age from 18 to 30 years (m = 22.83, sd = 2.11). dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 53 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to avoid revealing the study’s true purpose, participants were initially told that its goal was to compare the ability of men and women in distinguishing colors. we considered students’ results to be fairly generalizable to the general population, but excluded psychology students and graduates (who were distrustful of the stated research purpose in prior pilot study) to ensure the experiment’s true purpose remained unknown (until the debrief). no participant reported having any form of diagnosed color blindness, so all were able to distinguish colors in the tasks. measures performance performance was measured as the time taken to complete the stroop test task. we calculated the total time for completing the three parts to determine performance in each of the three measurement waves. the error rate was also measured to statistically control for the effect of fast but low-quality performance. participants could not judge how well they were performing because they received no objective feedback on the time and quality of their own or peers’ performance. satisfaction the widely recognized short version of the job diagnostic survey’s general satisfaction scale (hackman & oldham, 1974) was used to assess task satisfaction. it comprises three self-evaluating statements, rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = do not agree, 5 = agree). the items were adjusted to measure task satisfaction: e.g., the original statement “i frequently think of quitting this job” was changed to “i often considered abandoning the task.” the inventory’s clarity was verified in a pilot study comprising ten participants with different socio-demographic characteristics. prior analysis of the adjusted czech version of this measure (vaculik et al., 2016) found high internal consistency (α = 0.95) and strong factor loadings (0.81; -0.74; 0.84). satisfaction was measured a total of four times (i.e., after the initial training and after each of the three tasks). need for autonomy we measured participants’ need for autonomy through a single question on whether they preferred to work in autonomous conditions only 33 (23.08%) participants preferred autonomous task conditions; the majority (110, 76.92%) preferred non-autonomous conditions. participants were randomly assigned to experimental groups regardless of their autonomy preference, with those not assigned to their preferred conditions informed that their preference was oversub­ scribed. we monitored the interaction of autonomy and need for autonomy, expecting autonomy to only increase satisfaction in participants with high need for autonomy. the uneven distribution of participants with high or low need for autonomy was unproblematic in the experiment as autonomy was mainly included to achieve variability in task satisfaction. variation in need for autonomy and the autonomy of tasks also helped to simulate a real working environment where people work under different conditions. perceived autonomy (manipulation check) perceived task autonomy was assessed at the end of the experiment by three items from hackman and oldham’s (1974) job diagnostic survey, adjusted to the following: “the task did not provide an opportunity to use my own initiative and judgment”; “the task provided an opportunity to work freely without important restrictions”; and “the task allowed me to decide how and when to do it.” participants rated each item on a 5-point likert scale (1 = do not agree, 5 = agree). results we tested the hypotheses using single composite indicators for satisfaction and performance in each measurement wave. the hypotheses could not be tested within a full structural model due to the high number of parameters and relatively small sample size determined by the experimental design. the model contained four dichotomous predictors: perceived performance, as manipulated by feedback following each of the three tasks (0 = negative/negative/positive; 1 causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 54 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ = positive/positive/negative); need for autonomy (0 = no; 1 = yes); autonomy (0 = no; 1 = yes); and whether autonomy corresponded with need for autonomy (0 = no; 1 = yes). verifying the success of our attempt to manipulate task autonomy, participants in autonomous conditions reported perceiving greater task autonomy at the end of the experiment compared to participants in non-autonomous conditions (mna = 9.56, sdna = 3.35, ma = 11.03, sda = 2.79, t = -2.68, p < .01, cohen’s d = .48). performance was operationalized as the completion time for each of the three tasks. the error rate (i.e., number of mistakes in a task) was only checked to control for participants who worked quickly but inaccurately. in the first task, participants who worked slowly also made more errors (spearman's rho = .46, p < .01). further, performance measured through completion time did not correlate with the number of errors in the second (spearman's rho = .03, p = 70) and third tasks (spearman's rho = -.03, p = 77). since the number of errors did not distort performance operationalized as task completion time, it was not included in subsequent analyses, thereby also avoiding the problems of a variable with low variability and very skewed distribution. table 2 presents the descriptive statistics and pearson correlations for all the variables. autonomy conditions were negatively related to the total completion time for each task (i.e., participants were faster in autonomy conditions), although this relationship weakened in each measurement wave. neither need for autonomy nor the interaction of autonomy and need for autonomy were found to be related to any of the four measurements of satisfaction. strong interrelationships were found between the four measurements of satisfaction and between performance in all three tasks. the relationship between satisfaction and the time needed to complete the following task (i.e., performance) was negative (i.e., more satisfied participants worked faster), but weakened in each measurement wave. the cronbach’s alpha values showed good internal consistency of performance measures for the three sub-tasks administrated in each measurement wave (see values on the diagonal of table 2). table 2 descriptive statistics and correlations variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. autonomy 0.50 0.50 2. need for autonomy 0.26 0.44 -.03 3. feedback 0.52 0.50 -.01 .01 4. satisfaction0 23.74 4.23 .00 .08 .01 (.73) 5. satisfaction1 25.21 4.21 .12 -.02 .32** .55** (.71) 6. satisfaction2 24.90 4.05 -.07 -.03 .19* .57** .70** (.64) 7. satisfaction3 24.20 4.28 -.11 .03 -.09 .64** .46** .67** (.63) 8. performance1 73.99 21.89 -.35** .01 .03 -.32** -.19* -.07 -0.16 (.84) 9. performance2 58.50 12.64 -.30** -.07 .11 -.33** -.18* -.11 -.27** .86** (.90) 10. performance3 56.69 12.28 -.22* -.04 .13 -.27** -.12 -.06 -.24** .75** .92** (.85) note. cronbach alphas are in parentheses; the measure of performance was time, lower value means faster performance. *p < .05. **p < .01. the internal consistency of the task satisfaction measure was above .70 for the first and second measurement waves. however, in the third and fourth measurement waves, cronbach’s alpha values were between .60 and .70., presumably due to the reverse-coded item 2 (i.e., “i often considered abandoning the task). we assume that responses to this item reflected satisfaction with not only the task itself but also the length of the experiment and the repeated administration of the same task and questions. though cronbach's alpha values nonetheless remained satisfactory for all the analyses, lower internal consistency in the third and fourth measurement waves should be considered when interpreting the results. the path model the hypotheses were tested within a complex model using the path analysis method in mplus 6.0 (muthén & muthén, 2011), employing maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (mlr). the path analysis allowed dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 55 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ simultaneous testing of all the hypothesized relationships. this approach was chosen to reduce the number of analyses, and thus decrease the risk of false positive results. we also wanted to control for the possible influence of variables that might affect the tested relationships. our model was inspired by the three-wave model proposed by cole and maxwell (2003) for studies using longitudi­ nal data from large surveys, with all the variables measured concurrently in repeated measurement waves. however, our study was an experiment in which different variables were measured successively and not all within one questionnaire. our model reflects that satisfaction was measured both before and after performance. our sample was smaller than that typical of longitudinal surveys, which prevented use of a full structural model. we modeled post-task satisfaction as predicted by pre-task satisfaction (s0 → s1 → s2 → s3). similarly, we modeled performance (i.e., completion time) in each task as predicted by performance in the previous task (p1 → p2 → p3). performance in each task was regressed on pre-task satisfaction (s0 → p1; s1 → p2; s2 → p3). the path between performance and subsequent satisfaction remained closed because participants did not receive information about their real performance. information about performance in each task was manipulated through randomly assigned feedback. consequently, we regressed satisfaction on the type of feedback participants received before their satisfaction was measured. since there were only two variations in the type of feedback for participants after all three sets of tasks, all three measurements of satisfaction (s1, s2, s3) were regressed on the same dichotomous predictor. autonomy, need for autonomy, and their interaction were included in the model to control for their effect. all four satisfaction measure­ ments and all three performance variables were regressed on autonomy, need for autonomy, and their interaction. figure 1 depicts the full model. besides the direct paths between variables, indirect paths to assess mediation effects were also tested. figure 1 tested model of influence of satisfaction on performance and perceived performance (fb) on satisfaction note. autonomy (aut.), need for autonomy (need a.) and their interaction are modeled as three independent variables. a direct path from each of them leads to each measurement wave of satisfaction (s0, s1, s2, s3) and performance (p1, p2, p3). one grey arrow from a pack of variables represents three paths (one from each of the variables) in order to enhance the figure’s clarity. we first assessed how the model fitted the data (χ2(15) = 55.06, p < .01; rmsea = .15; 90% cirmsea = .11, .19; cfi = .95). the cfi showed a very good fit according to the cut-off criterion of hu and bentler (1999). conversely, rmsea—one of the most commonly used model fit indicators—suggested a poor fit. however, rmsea is not a reliable indicator for models with a small number of degrees of freedom because it often falsely indicates a poor fit (kenny et al., 2015). according to modification indexes, the model would be improved by opening direct paths between the first and last satisfaction measurements. however, this step lacked a theoretical basis and the model fit was sufficient to test the hypotheses. causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 56 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for performance, the model explained 23% of the variability in the first task (p < .01), 76% in the second task (p < .01), and 85% in the third task (p < .01). for satisfaction, it explained only .01% of the variability before the first task (p = .64), 41% after the first task (p < .01), 52% after the second task (p < .01), and 51% after the third task (p < .01). table 3 provides a decomposition of effects from the path analysis. for each variable, direct effects are listed in the first row, with the sum of the indirect effects resulting from mediation analyses in the second row. autonomy did not influence satisfaction, but it had a direct negative effect on the completion time of the first task (i.e., a positive influence on performance) and an indirect effect on performance in the second task (see the second row in the last but one column in table 3 for the total indirect effect). this indirect effect consisted of three parts, the only significant mediation was through performance in the first task (partial indirect effect: a → p1 → p2: est. = -9.00, se = 2.56, p < .01, st. est. = -.36). the mediations through satisfaction were negligible. autonomy had also an indirect effect on performance in the third task (see the second row, the seventh column in table 3 for the total indirect effect). this indirect effect consisted of five parts, but the only relevant was the one through performance in the first and second task (partial indirect effect: a → p1 → p2 → p3: est. = -8.19, se = 2.97, p < .01, st. est. = -.34). neither need for autonomy nor its interaction with autonomy significantly affected satisfaction or performance in any measurement wave (either directly or indirectly, see the third to sixth rows in table 3). hypotheses testing the influence of satisfaction on performance as table 1 reports, initial satisfaction (s0) correlated negatively with all three performance measurements. because performance was measured as a time, a negative correlation means that initial satisfaction positively influenced later performance measurements. however, the influence of satisfaction on performance became weaker for the second and third measurements of satisfaction: satisfaction after the first task (s1) correlated only weakly with performance in the second task (p2), and satisfaction after the second task (s2) did not correlate significantly with performance in the third task (p3). the significant influence of initial satisfaction (s0) on performance in all three tasks can also be seen in the path model. participants who were more satisfied before the first task completed it faster than their less-satisfied peers (see the negative path in the nineth row, the fifth column in table 3). initial satisfaction (s0) was also indirectly linked to better performance in subsequent tasks (i.e., p2 and p3). the influence of s0 on p2 and p3 was mediated mainly by performance in the first task (p1). therefore, more satisfied participants who completed the first task faster than less satisfied participants were also quicker to complete the second task (partial indirect effect: s0 → p1 → p2: est. = -.82, se = .30, p < .01, st. est. = -.27) and third task (partial indirect effect: s0 → p1 → p2 → p3: est. = -.74, se = .34, p = .03, st. est. = -.26). initial satisfaction had a weak-to-moderate effect on performance in all subsequent tasks, thus supporting hypothesis 1’s prediction that task satisfaction positively influences objective task performance. however, fluctuation in satisfaction between measurement waves did not significantly influence performance in the following tasks (i.e., the direct effects of s1 and s2 on p2 and p3 were small and insignificant; see table 3). contrary to our expectation, autonomy did not influence satisfaction, so there was no observable influence of autonomy on performance through satisfaction. with reference to baron and kenny (1986), the condition for mediation analysis that the predictor (i.e., autonomy) should influence the mediator (i.e., satisfaction) was not met. we could, however, test the indirect effect of another predictor of satisfaction on performance. perceived perform­ ance (manipulated by feedback, fb) positively influenced task satisfaction after the first task (s1), which, in turn, influenced performance in the second task (p2). however, the indirect effect of perceived performance on later task performance through satisfaction was not significant. the increase in satisfaction caused by perceived performance did not cause a further increase in objective performance (the eighth row, the sixth column in table 3). finally, perceived performance (i.e., manipulated by feedback) in the first task influenced objective performance in the second task only directly (the seventh row, the sixth column in table 3). dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 57 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 d ec om po si tio n of e ff ec ts f ro m p at h a na ly si s → sa ti sf ac ti on 0 → sa ti sf ac ti on 1 → sa ti sf ac ti on 2 → sa ti sf ac ti on 3 → pe rf or m an ce 1 → pe rf or m an ce 2 → pe rf or m an ce 3 va ri ab le es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . es t. se p st . e st . a ut on om y .0 1 .9 0 .9 9 .0 0 1. 19 .7 4 .1 1 .1 4 -1 .4 5 .6 0 .0 2 -.1 8 -.5 2 .6 7 .4 4 -.0 6 -1 8. 2 4. 01 <. 01 -.4 2 .7 7 1. 27 .5 4 .0 3 1. 04 .8 9 .2 4 .0 4 in di re ct .0 1 .4 9 .9 9 .0 0 .8 4 .6 3 .1 8 .1 1 -.4 5 .6 3 .4 7 -.0 5 -.0 2 1. 49 .9 9 -.0 0 -9 .1 9 2. 57 <. 01 -.3 7 -7 .5 6 2. 77 <. 01 -.3 1 n ee d fo r au to no m y .6 9 1. 12 .5 4 .0 7 -.1 4 .7 0 .8 5 -.0 1 -.6 0 .7 2 .4 1 -.0 7 .5 6 .7 2 .4 4 .0 6 -4 .7 1 4. 80 .3 3 -.0 9 -.8 8 1. 59 .5 8 -.0 3 -.2 3 1. 14 .8 4 -.0 1 in di re ct .3 8 .6 2 .5 4 .0 4 .1 7 .7 2 .8 1 .0 2 -.3 2 .8 2 .7 0 -.0 3 -1 .1 4 1. 90 .5 5 -.0 2 -2 .3 7 2. 45 .3 3 -.0 8 -2 .9 7 2. 51 .2 4 -.1 1 a ut on om y* n ee d .0 9 1. 60 .9 6 .0 1 -.8 8 1. 00 .3 8 -.0 7 .9 0 .9 6 .3 5 .0 7 -.1 1 1. 07 .9 2 -.0 1 12 .3 5 7. 83 .1 2 .1 8 -2 .7 6 2. 24 .2 2 -.0 7 1. 73 1. 76 .3 3 .3 4 in di re ct .0 5 .8 7 .9 6 .0 0 -.5 9 .9 7 .5 4 -.0 5 .2 3 1. 14 .8 4 .0 2 -.1 5 2. 63 .9 6 -.0 0 6. 26 4. 00 .1 2 .1 6 3. 10 3. 70 .4 0 .0 8 fe ed ba ck 2. 63 .5 8 <. 01 .3 1 -.3 5 .6 1 .5 7 .0 4 -1 .9 5 .5 4 <. 01 -.2 3 2. 60 1. 11 .0 2 .1 0 .5 8 .8 4 .4 9 .0 2 in di re ct 1. 86 .5 3 <. 01 .2 3 1. 14 .4 5 .0 1 .1 3 -.4 1 .3 5 .2 4 -.0 2 2. 55 1. 14 .0 3 .1 0 sa tis fa ct io n0 .5 4 .0 8 <. 01 .5 5 -1 .6 5 .4 6 <. 01 -.3 2 in di re ct .4 0 .0 6 <. 01 .4 0 .2 9 .0 5 <. 01 .2 9 -.0 6 .0 6 .1 7 -.0 3 .0 5 .0 4 .2 5 .0 2 sa tis fa ct io n1 .7 1 .1 0 <. 01 .7 4 -.1 6 .1 2 .2 0 -.0 5 in di re ct .5 3 .0 9 <. 01 .5 2 .0 8 .0 7 .2 4 .0 3 sa tis fa ct io n2 .4 2 .0 6 <. 01 .7 1 .1 2 .1 0 .2 2 .0 4 in di re ct pe rf or m an ce 1 .5 0 .0 6 <. 01 .8 6 in di re ct .4 5 .1 0 <. 01 .8 0 pe rf or m an ce 2 .9 1 .1 1 <. 01 .9 4 n ot e. ro w s w ith th e va ri ab le n am e co nt ai n on ly d ir ec t e ff ec ts ; f in d su m o f i nd ir ec t e ff ec ts th ro ug h va ri ou s m ed ia to rs in th e ro w s “in di re ct ”. t he m ea su re o f p er fo rm an ce w as ti m e, n eg at iv e co ef fi ci en t m ea ns p os iti ve in flu en ce o n pe rf or m an ce . causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 58 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the influence of perceived performance on satisfaction as table 4 reports, initial satisfaction (s0) was similar in both performance feedback groups. after the first manipulation of perceived performance, the group with positive feedback became more satisfied with the task than the group with negative feedback (s1). participants in the group with positive feedback also remained more satisfied after receiving positive feedback after the second task (s2). with each group receiving opposite feedback after the third task compared to their feedback following the first and second tasks, final satisfaction after the third manipulation of perceived performance was similar in both groups (s3). table 4 differences in satisfaction in groups divided according to the perceived performance manipulation group feedback m sd t(123) p satisfaction0 negative/negative/positive 23.68 4.25 -.13 .89 positive/positive/negative 23.78 4.25 satisfaction1 negative/negative/positive 23.83 4.33 -3.68 < .001 positive/positive/negative 26.48 3.70 satisfaction2 negative/negative/positive 24.08 4.47 -2.19 .03 positive/positive/negative 25.65 3.50 satisfaction3 negative/negative/positive 24.60 4.37 1.01 .32 positive/positive/negative 23.83 4.19 the influence of perceived performance can also be seen in the path model. high perceived performance (manipulated by random performance feedback) was a weak-to-moderate positive predictor of satisfaction. positive feedback led to higher satisfaction after both the first and second tasks; since the same participants received positive feedback after both tasks, the effect of p1 on s2 was mediated by s1 (the eighth row, the third column in table 3). this positive influence of the first two sets of positive feedback remained even after receiving negative feedback following the third task (the eighth row, the last column in table 3). however, the negative direct effect of the negative feedback and the positive indirect effects of the previous two sets of positive feedback were similarly large, leaving the total effect of perceived performance manipulation on satisfaction at the end of the experiment (s3) close to zero. compared to the negative/negative/positive feedback group, the group with positive/positive/negative feedback had higher task satisfaction after the first two tasks, but similar task satisfaction after the third task. perceived performance manipulated by feedback influenced satisfaction after each task. these results support hypothesis 2’s prediction that high perceived performance in a task positively influences task satisfaction. discussion our laboratory experiment provides new evidence of reciprocal causality in the task satisfaction–task performance relationship. specifically, the influence of perceived performance on subsequent satisfaction was more strongly suppor­ ted than the influence of satisfaction on objective performance. participants in the positive/positive/negative feedback group had higher task satisfaction after the first and second tasks compared to the negative/negative/positive feedback group. this difference was found despite participants being asked to rate satisfaction with the task, rather than with their performance. after each group received opposite feedback following the third task (compared to their feedback following the first and second tasks), there were no significant differences between the groups in subsequent assessment of task satisfaction. according to the mediation analysis, the positive effect of the first two sets of feedback persisted dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 59 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and increased the first group’s task satisfaction. additionally, a new effect of the third (opposite) set of feedback appeared, which reduced satisfaction in the first group and increased it in the second group. therefore, the results indicate that a person who thinks they are performing well is inclined to be more satisfied with the task than a person who thinks they are not performing well. we also found support for the influence of satisfaction on performance. participants with higher task satisfaction at the beginning of the experiment performed better in all three tasks compared to participants who expressed lower initial task satisfaction. nevertheless, only initial satisfaction influenced subsequent performance, and this impact gradually declined with each further task. later changes in satisfaction did not lead to a change in performance, either directly or indirectly. this could be due to the small variability in satisfaction between individual measurement waves, which gave limited room for finding a statistically significant relationship. the importance of personal or dispositional determinants of job attitudes, and therefore their consistency over time and across situations is supported by longitudinal evidence and discussed by staw and ross (1985). nevertheless, some variability in satisfaction was achieved by manipulating perceived performance. although this manipulation affected satisfaction, it did not thereby influence objective performance in subsequent tasks. therefore, participants persuaded they had performed well were more satisfied, but this did not raise their subsequent performance. one plausible explanation is that participants who thought they were performing well perceived no need to change their work approach and increase their efforts, perhaps believing that their current approach would also be sufficient for good performance in the future. this result suggests that the reciprocal influence of satisfaction on performance may not be an endless cycle. we assume that another part of satisfaction unrelated to performance (e.g., influenced by task characteristics or mood) affected work approach and, therefore, also task performance. our experiment also manipulated task autonomy to ensure greater variability in satisfaction and to observe the possible impact of satisfaction in mediating the autonomy–performance relationship. however, the conditions for mediation analysis were not met (baron & kenny, 1986), as the independent variable (autonomy) did not relate to the mediator (satisfaction). participants with autonomous task conditions did not have higher task satisfaction compared to peers without autonomous task conditions, despite successfully manipulating autonomy (according to the manipulation check) and despite controlling for participants’ need for autonomy. we can explain this result by referring to dodd and ganster (1996), who reported that autonomy increases job satisfaction in high skill-variety conditions, but only has a negligible influence thereon in low skill-variety conditions. we can, therefore, expect the link between autonomy and satisfaction to be stronger if participants are assigned another task requiring them to use different skills. however, autonomous conditions had a relatively strong influence on performance in all three tasks, even though the option to choose when to start and in which order to perform the (identical) tasks did not make them easier to complete, and so could not directly influence the outcome. therefore, autonomous conditions indirectly led participants to achieve higher performance. the mediator could have been another attitude or feeling not measured in this experiment (e.g., engagement or involvement). our inability to monitor the possible impact of autonomy on performance through satisfaction somewhat weakens our evidence of the influence of satisfaction on performance. the relationship between initial satisfaction and later performance might be influenced by participants’ beliefs about their abilities to succeed in the task. participants could anticipate their likely performance in the task according to the task description and training, in turn affecting their satisfaction. for example, participants who knew they could concentrate well and were generally successful in speed tasks might have had higher task satisfaction than participants who were less confident in speed tasks. if so, then the higher performance of more satisfied participants would be also an outcome of their anticipated performance. however, anticipated performance is only another predictor of satisfaction besides autonomy and this interpretation does not question the very effect of satisfaction on performance. moreover, we measured task satisfaction before participants undertook the task in our experiment. as the chosen task was very atypical, it is unlikely that participants were able to accurately predict their future performance. therefore, this study provides stronger evidence of the influence of satisfaction on performance than do prior longitudinal studies that focused on overall job satisfaction and job performance, where satisfaction in the first measurement might be influenced by previous job performance. nevertheless, we recommend conducting another experiment to manipulate a different antecedent of satisfaction and causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 60 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ examine the causal effect of this predictor on task performance through satisfaction. such an experiment would provide even clearer evidence of the impact of satisfaction on performance. interestingly, the described effects of performance on satisfaction are inconsistent with the findings of riketta (2008), who found no significant effect of performance on satisfaction in his meta-analysis of 16 longitudinal studies from which 11 focused on task performance. this could be because none of the 11 meta-analyzed studies considered how the workers perceived their task performance: four studies measured task performance with objective indicators, while the other seven used subjective task performance evaluations by superiors. incomplete feedback or self-evaluation bias could lead participants to perceive their task performance differently from their superiors or inconsistently with objective criteria. good performance cannot enhance satisfaction if the worker is unaware they are performing well. the link between workers’ perception of their performance and their satisfaction (as measured in our experiment) should be different to the link between supervisors’ perception of workers’ performance and workers’ satisfaction (as measured in the meta-analysis). our experiment uniquely manipulated perceived task performance and, unlike previous studies, captured the real impact of perceived performance on subsequent satisfaction. although we measured task satisfaction and task performance, our results can also help to understand the causality between overall job satisfaction and job performance as task satisfaction and task performance are very important dimensions of overall satisfaction and overall performance. although our approach has limited environmental and construct validity and does not consider all dimensions of satisfaction and performance, the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance practically cannot be studied without shortcomings. we hope this experimental study with accurately measured important facets of satisfaction and performance may well complement other studies with higher construct environmental validity but lower measurement reliability, internal validity and with limited possibility to observe the causal effects. strengths and limitations the laboratory conditions introduce some non-negligible limitations into our research. participants did not complete the experimental tasks as part of their work responsibilities and were not rewarded for their performance. therefore, the experimental context did not correspond to the context of usual work tasks, which reduces our results’ ecological validity. participants’ careers were not dependent on their performance in the task; they participated voluntarily; and their motivation was not influenced by external stimuli (such as rewards or promotion). this created more space for the influence of inner motives than would likely be found within an organization. consequently, the detected reciprocal impact of satisfaction on performance could be stronger in a laboratory experiment than under the conditions of a paid job. this might explain why we observed a somewhat stronger relationship between performance and satisfaction than those found in longitudinal (riketta, 2008) and cross-sectional studies (judge et al., 2001). nevertheless, we think that the mechanism behind the satisfaction–performance relationship is the same under laboratory conditions and in an organization, although its effect might be suppressed or influenced by other variables in a non-laboratory context. moreover, laboratory conditions provided some advantages over cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. we were able to hold constant or even eliminate any possible intervening variables (e.g., organizational changes, relationship between employees, supervisor), which would be practically impossible in a real work environment. we were also able to measure participants’ performance through objective indicators providing greater accuracy than measurements in real organizations, with differences between task experiences, teams, regions, or customers. even for employees in the same position, tasks are never exactly the same and performance ratings are always at least slightly biased. some notable limitations are also connected to the experimental design. a laboratory experiment can only focus on task performance in several tasks and does not consider contextual and long-term performance. measuring task performance is much less complex than long-term measurement of job performance. similarly, we only measured satisfaction with the task itself and neglected other components of job satisfaction, such as satisfaction with superiors. therefore, our examination of the satisfaction–performance relationship focused only on the relationship between task performance and task satisfaction. although these are important components of job performance and job satisfaction, the relationship between more complex job variables can differ. therefore, our study’s results must be interpreted cautiously as evidence of causality among “task variables” that might explain causality among the “job variables” dudasova, vaculik, prochazka et al. 61 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ examined in dozens of cross-sectional (e. g. heidemeier & moser, 2019). and longitudinal studies (e. g., eberegbe & giovanis, 2020). however, the experimental design is also a strength of our research. riketta (2008) recommended experimental studies of the satisfaction–performance relationship, as such designs can provide clearer evidence on causality. by manipulating perceived performance and measuring satisfaction, we were able to clearly identify that people with higher perceived performance had higher task satisfaction than people with low perceived performance. as satisfaction with the new and unknown task was measured before participants first performed it, our study provides stronger support for the influence of performance on satisfaction than do previous longitudinal studies, where satisfaction in the first wave of measurement could have been affected by participants’ consistently good or bad performance. another limitation of our research is associated with the sample composition. participants were mainly young, and the majority were university students. since kollmann et al. (2020) found that satisfaction-rewards relationship differs according to age recently, it seems possible that satisfaction-performance relationship can also be affected by age or work experience. therefore, we recommend conducting another experiment with a different sample to strengthen our findings’ external validity. testing our hypotheses within one complex model can be considered a strength of our study. the repeated meas­ urement of satisfaction and performance could easily produce a false positive result if a large number of partial analyses were performed. in addition, the complex model made it possible to monitor the indirect effects through multiple mediation analyses and accurately describe the nature of the relation between the monitored variables (e.g., the influence of perceived performance on objective performance in the third task through perceived performance in the second task, and not through satisfaction). conclusion and implications the aim of this study was to explore causality of the satisfaction-performance relationship and to develop current understanding through an experiment with repeated measures of satisfaction and performance. overall, it brings a new element to the mosaic of research into the satisfaction–performance relationship by reporting support for reciprocal causality between them. specifically, the influence of perceived performance on subsequent satisfaction was more strongly supported than the influence of satisfaction on objective performance. since both worker satisfaction and performance are important for organizations, we recommended that they pay attention to worker satisfaction to boost their performance, making workers aware of their high performance in order to raise satisfaction. we encourage organizations to increase employee satisfaction through means besides positive performance feedback, as increasing satisfaction does not necessarily lead to performance growth. employees satisfied with their job because they are performing well might become satisfied with their current efforts and approach, and so not pursue further improvement. we also recommend that researchers conduct longitudinal studies to monitor employees’ perceived task performance. it is unsurprising that the influence of performance on satisfaction has not been proven if the performance measurement differs from the worker’s own perception of their performance. for deeper understanding of the relationship, we recommend more experimental studies involving varying samples, different tasks, and the manipulation of various antecedents of satisfaction. funding: this study was supported by the masaryk university project of the factors influencing work performance 2022 (muni/a/1168/2021). acknowledgments: we would like to take this opportunity to thank our already deceased colleague michael riketta, whose meta-analysis inspired us to focus on exploring the js-jp relationship a long time ago. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 62 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 48–66 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4075 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references adler, s., campion, m., colquitt, a., grubb, a., murphy, k., ollander-krane, r., & pulakos, e. d. 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(2002). a dual process model of organizational commitment: job satisfaction and organizational support. work and occupations, 29(1), 97–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888402029001005 about the authors ludmila dudasova is a former ph.d. student of organisational psychology at department of psychology, masaryk university in brno (czech republic). her research interests include positive psychological capital in the work context and beyond. martin vaculik is a research fellow and lecturer in social and organisational psychology at department of psychology, masaryk university in brno (czech republic). his research interests focus on the relationship between work attitudes and job performance. jakub prochazka is a head of department of corporate economy at masaryk university in brno (czech republic). he teaches courses focused on work psychology and human resource management. his research interests include leadership and various antecedents of job attitudes and work performance. petra svitavska is a former student of psychology at department of psychology, masaryk university in brno (czech republic). she currently works as an organisational psychologist. gregory patton is an associate professor and head of the department of economics, accounting, and management at luther college, in decorah, iowa (usa). his research interests are in personality, motivation, and employee turnover. causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship 66 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054651 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021676 https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030160202 https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.697 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.4.605 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0036532 https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.84 https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.2.93 https://doi.org/10.1080/09585199400000020 https://doi.org/10.1108/cms-09-2011-0079 https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888402029001005 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship (introduction) causality of the satisfaction–performance relationship limitations of the current evidence on causality satisfaction and performance in experiment method procedure participants measures results the path model hypotheses testing discussion strengths and limitations conclusion and implications (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work: a psychobiography research reports death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work: a psychobiography claude-hélène mayer 1 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa.. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 received: 2025-08-12 • accepted: 2025-09-19 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: paul j. p. fouché, department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, corner kingsway and university road, auckland park, johannesburg. 2006; university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. e-mail: cmayer@uj.ac.za related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract this article examines the topic of death and dying in the life and creative work of the french sculptress camille rosalie claudel who lived from 8 december 1864 to 19 october 1943. claudel was a talented artist and sculptress who learned from and worked with alfred boucher and auguste rodin. rodin became her professional and intimate partner for more than 10 years. claudel was one of the few women sculptresses of the 19th century to gain a reputation for the originality and quality of her work. the aim of the article is to explore death and dying in the life of claudel. this psychobiography uses four theoretical approaches, namely existential psychology theories on death and dying, symbolic death theory, lacanian death theory and jung's perspectives on death, dying and ars moriendi. the research methodology applied is psychobiography within a hermeneutic–interpretivist research paradigm. the subject of research, camille rosalie claudel, was purposefully chosen. findings show that claudel expressed her inner life and journey, her search for meaning, her artistic talent and in-depth philosophical interest, but also her views on life and death, through her art. as a person, she experienced different forms of death and dying throughout her life which are outlined in this psychobiography based on the four introduced theories. conclusions are drawn and recommendations are given. keywords women in arts, sculptress, france, 19th and 20th century, psychobiography, death studies, dying, meaningful life, symbolic death, physical death, spiritual death, psychological death to die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable. – erich fromm women artists in historic france the perception of the artist as a talented, gifted and unique individual developed in the renaissance in europe during the 15th to 17th centuries (hauser, 1951; vale, 2020; vohra, 2025). from this time onwards, artists were influenced by the rise of the merchant classes in france and italy and by humanist philosophies and ideas (shiner, 2001; zhang, 2024). during this period, france became the centre of the cultural and artistic movement. it was associated with the this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.19297&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ pan-european renaissance and the cultural and artistic “rebirth” of europe (michelet, 2010). new artistic developments in printing, painting, sculpturing and architecture occurred at that time, together with the elaboration of new codes of etiquette, sociability and original humanist discourses (vale, 2020). however, the arts were dominated by men and women artists were hardly accepted by society (wilson, 2010). this resulted in the situation that only very few arts institution provided entry for women artists. in the 19th century, france was influenced by the antagonism of republicans and anti-republicans, the fight of the republic against the catholic church, by the divisions of the urban working class, bourgeoisie and peasantry, and by gender inequalities and ethnic conflicts (delamaire & slauter, 2021; fox, 2012; strikwerda, 2024). in the first half of the 20th century, the period of occupation during world war i, the great depression of the 1920s and the defeat of 1940 during world war ii all strongly affected france (golan, 1995; hewitt, 2003). the country became a very powerful european nation in which arts and politics were often intertwined (fox, 2012; gerson, 2003; smith, 1998). women artists have often been underrepresented and neglected in european art history, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries (wolff, 1981). only recently have they been given the space they deserve in the arts (grindley, 2024; hemmer, 2024; mahon, 2011). thousands of women were “committed to french psychiatric hospitals between 1854 and 1943” and very few experiences have been documented (wilson, 2010, p. 2). this happened based on the integration of “alienist medicine” and new approaches to psychiatry (around 1842) in the country (wilson, 2010, p. 18). women were committed in accordance with a new law. either a relative could commit them based on declared mental illness which had to be supported by the diagnoses of two medical doctors — which was called “voluntary confinement” (riefe, 2024), or, in the case of a public authoritarian announcement, mainly through the police, doctors had to establish sanity or insanity within 14 days (wilson, 2010). in both cases, the person committed could only leave when family members agreed that they had been cured, or when doctors had declared them cured and sane. there was a strong debate regarding false commitment of patients in asylums, and concern about psychiatrist practices and power (rigoli, 2001), however, the number of women incarcerated in psychiatric asylums increased dramatically towards the end of the 19th century (ripa, 1986). camille rosalie claudel camille rosalie claudel was born in 1864 in fère-en-tardenois, aisne in northern france (phaidon editors & morrill, 2019). her parents were louis-prosper claudel and louise-athanaïse cécile cerveaux and she was the second-born child in the family. her older brother died soon after his birth. camille, who was born only a year after her brother's death, received the name camille which is a male and female at the same time (chapman, 2012). claudel (1864–1943) was followed by a younger sister, loise jeanne elizabeth (1866–1935), and a brother, paul (1868–1955). claudel´s mother detested her for not being a boy, did not approve of her artistic involvement and expelled her from the home already early in her career as a sculptress (runco & pritzker, 2011). claudel had a close relationship with her siblings, especially during her childhood years. however, the only family member supporting her throughout her life was her father (ayral-clause, 2002). claudel was educated by the “sisters of christian doctrine” from the age of 5 to 12 years and later studied at the académie colarossi, one of the very few french arts school that took on women artists (heller, 2000). she became a student of french sculptor alfred boucher from 1876, until he left for italy in 1882. she then was introduced to auguste rodin, another french sculptor, who became her mentor, lover and colleague in 1883 (volpi, 2025). she ended the relationship in 1892 after an abortion in connection with the fact that rodin did not want to end his long-term relationship with rose beuret (attewell, 2022; callahan, 2015). claudel then mainly worked for herself for the next 20 years from 1893–1913 (theartstory, 2025). however, after the end of her relationship with rodin, claudel’s mental and physical health declined until she was “voluntarily confined” in 1913 by her mother and brother, shortly after the death of her father (lhermitte & allilaire, 1984; musée rodin, 2025). she stayed for the rest of her life incarcerated and died in 1943. the letters and communication between claudel, her family and friends during her long years of incarceration offer one of the few voices of women artists in france at that time (caranfa, 1999; rivière & gaudichon, 2003; wilson, 2010). they were only published in the 1980s (rivière & gaudichon, 2003) and provide an insight into the “artistic stasis of her mayer 291 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mental illness and the restrictions of the asylum regime” (wilson, 2010, p. 1). they demonstrate how claudel resisted the “reductive process of contemporary psychiatric diagnosis” (wilson, 2010, p.2) and show unique ways of interpreting her life. aims and research question this article explores the life and death of the french artist and sculptress, camille claudel, and focuses particularly on the themes of death and dying in her life and work, in accordance with this special issue which pays tribute to the study of “death and dying in psychobiography”. it is hypothesised that claudel experienced many forms of death and dying throughout her life and used her art to overcome them. some of her art pieces even reflect the theme of death, too (caranfa, 1999; claudel, 1905; paris, 1988; paris & de la chapelle, 1990). she physically died in relative obscurity and only later gained recognition for her figurative bronze and marble works and her innovative and emotionally expressive style (claudel, 1951; krause, 2014), making her life and work infinite. this psychobiography contributes to previous psychobiographies on artists, exploration of the life and works of extraordinary french individuals, psychobiographies of french women artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, and finally, to death research through psychobiography. the main aim of this article is to explore death and dying in the life of claudel through the lens of selected theoretical approaches. in so doing, the researcher responds to the overall research question: how are death and dying represented in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work? psychobiographical studies psychobiography has a very vivid and significant history in the european context (mayer et al., 2021a; ponterotto, 2015a). the european psychoanalytical foundation was founded in 1966 and endorsed by the psychoanalytical associa­ tion in 1969, contributing to psychoanalysis including psychobiography. developments on the european continent in the 20th century contributed to establishing psychobiography as a method which included multi-theoretical models, psychoanalysis, psychodynamics and personology (ponterotto, 2015a). citlak (2021) notes that psychobiography has been published not only in the western european tradition, but also in the eastern european tradition of the sciences, particularly in the lvov-warsaw school and in the psychological tradition of twardowski’s school. early psychobiographical works on artists include vasari’s (1998) study of the life of artists published in 1550 and freud’s (1957) study of leonardo da vinci. previous psychobiographies on french historical and contemporary individuals exist (orr, 1996), including, for example, the french-peruvian feminist flora tristan (lodi-smith et al., 2023), existential philosophers such as albert camus (mayer, 2021) and jean-paul sartre (mayer & bahrs, 2025), gustave flaubert (titiriga, 2024) and psychobiographies on the modern french court (marvick, 1996) and cardinal richelieu (marvick, 1983). this study builds on expanding previous studies focusing on artists by contributing to: 1. psychobio­ graphical french women artist studies, 2. psychobiographies in french historical contexts, and 3. psychobiographical research that focuses on death and dying. selected theoretical approaches to death and dying in the following, selected theoretical approaches are presented which build the foundation of exploring and understand­ ing death and dying in claudel’s life in depth. existential psychology on death in existential psychology, death is an important part of life which helps individuals to self-actualise and develop consciousness (adams, 2010; existential therapy, 2004; kokosalakis, 2020; sartre, 1956). it is assumed that humans can only live fully when they face their own mortality, and that understanding death anxiety can provide the opportunity for a meaningful authentic existence (heidegger, 1962, 2008). kierkegaard (2009) points out that the potential of life’s enjoyment lies in the realisation that everything must come to an end and an authentic life can only be lived through death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 292 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the realisation of embracing life and death at the same time. this realisation of death has two layers: there is a subconscious level of death awareness where an individual feels the anxiety of death, but chooses to rather avoid it, and there is the more conscious level of death anxiety where an individual chooses to address it and consequently becomes more aware (hoelterhoff, 2015). the existentialist psychologist yalom (1980) observes that individuals who deny death often try to either become the “ultimate rescuer” or they try to “become special”. both attempts are heroic in the sense that individuals become heroes and thereby overcome death. however, tillich (1952) contends that to be fully alive, the reality of non-being needs to be faced. individuals often deny death by avoiding the topic or by not living their life to the fullest (wong & mayer, 2023). also, the experience of anxiety of rejection in love relationships might be a sign of death avoidance. death can only be accepted peacefully when death is being faced (menzies & menzies, 2024). however, facing death also means losing control and accepting our limited knowledge. it is responded to differently across cultures (gire, 2014). in existential thought, the symbolic side of death is highly important, and the idea of what death means for life and for humankind is consciously affected by death and destruction (heidegger, 2014). death, for heidegger, occurs as a phenomenon at the end of life, but it is also part of existence; therefore, it is “at work” throughout human life and is an active part of life (heidegger, 2014). shariatinia (2015, p. 96) points out that death, in heidegger’s view, is not the end of life, but “rather ontology that can be dead” and that throughout their existence, individuals communicate with death. death becomes a “special feature” during life and is experienced in terms of the death of the “i” rather than as an end-of-life event. if an individual does not lead a fulfilled life, death occurs through the impossibility of leading a genuine life while being a “place of certainty” (shariatinia, 2015, p. 96). according to heidegger (2014), death allows existence to achieve integrity as well as an awareness that everything in the world is possible. thereby, death provides freedom since the individual owns the possibility of dying at any moment. as soon as humans project their lives “onto the horizon of death” and are in the “being” (german: dasein) — in particular in “being-towards-death” (german: dasein im tod) — humans can live their lives authentically and be liberated (critchley, 2009; peach, 2000). the concept of “being-towards-death” includes four basic principles: 1. death is non-relational (everyone has to go through death alone and cut off from relationships when dying). 2. humans certainly die and death cannot be avoided. 3. death is indefinite in the sense that humans do not know when it comes. 4. death cannot be outstripped, meaning that death is the “possibility of impossibility” and represents the limit of potentiality-for-being, in which death is the condition for free action during life. critchley (2009) concludes: “it is only in relation to being-towards-death that i become passionately aware of my freedom”. heidegger offers a phenomenology of a relationship with death that may positively influence conducting an authentic life (peach, 2000). according to marseille (2021, pp. 4–5), authenticity is connected to life and creation within a finite life: “authenticity relates to two important concepts, freedom and facticity. freedom, from the existentialist view, is the reality that one’s life is boundless with possibilities to create and recreate themselves into whatever they see fit. in relation to authenticity, it is the idea that one has to “create oneself” and live in accordance with this self”. symbolic death when individuals live genuinely and authentically, they need to accept the limitation of life, which may also represent death symbolically (bowker, 1991; byock, 2002; kearl, 1989; marseille, 2021). the knowledge of the limitedness of life is powerful; it makes individuals treasure their loved ones and provides them with an engagement with life and living on a more profound level. death can be both a distraction from truly living and a treasure to value life more. schreiner (2015) differentiates between physical death that cannot be avoided and symbolic death: “symbolic death is the death of who they really are and who they are capable of becoming. it’s a death that can be avoided by making the correct choices”. dying is in this sense a social symbolic process (vernon, 1974), whereby life and death are viewed as less “linear than we might like it to be”, and where time, past, present, reality and imagination blur (robb, 2025). in mayer 293 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ symbolic interactionism, the interpretation of dying is constructed between the individual and the society (forte, 2007) and is not only a physical reality. the symbolic death can be viewed as a period of decline or growth, depending on the choices of the individual (schreiner, 2015). the ideal is that a symbolic death situation may be used to live life to the fullest and in harmony with authenticity, becoming a true self. however, individuals may remain in situations that are dysfunctional or they choose stagnation over growth due to existential anxiety. this existential anxiety controls the boundaries of the comfort zone (temple & gall, 2018). symbolic death is experienced when individuals stay within their comfort zone and when they do not extend themselves to be who they are or want to be. however, life transitions and crises can also be experienced as death when certain relationships, situations or events come to an end (brammer, 1992). symbolic death marks a radical change in one’s life, and happens when individuals exit from one’s life, or when one experiences endings of any kind (seale, 1998). dying is viewed as a process which often goes along with the outburst of emotions, gradual maturation, family processes, a decrease in independence and an inner experience and transformation of perception (renz et al., 2013). lacanian death jacques lacan (1901–1981), a french psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, suggests that human experiences are structured at three levels: the symbolic, the imaginary, and the real (chiesa, 2007). the individual is first defined through language and the individual’s development depends on a network of symbolic law and language (kim, 2015). the individual is defined by the symbolic, which represents the unconscious. the unconscious is assumed to be structured in the way that language is structured. it provides insight into beliefs, feelings and knowledge (flusberg et al., 2024). according to lacan (2006), there is a gap between the word and the symbolic, which needs to be understood to recognise the underlying meaning of language which is also always connected to unconscious content. even when an individual dies, the individual stays in the other’s fantasy as a symbolic object (chiesa, 2007). symbolic death marks a transition period in a lifetime and is understood in the lacanian sense to include the individual who is born, develops and dies. diserholt (2014, p. iii) points out that death plays an underlying role in lacan's theory and life: “firstly, as meaning and language are introduced in life, life and death become inextricably bound to each other. secondly, as long as a symbol acts as a mediator between a subject and death, making sense of death becomes an impossibility; any attempt to put death into reason, finite knowledge or generalisations fails. finally, death as standing both inside and outside our constructed reality sheds light on a necessary relationship to death that moulds an impossible, interdependent subject”. jung on death and ars moriendi throughout his entire life, jung was fascinated by reflections on death and the ars moriendi (art of dying), explored the topic from multiple perspectives and defined death as psychologically as important as birth (jung, 1957). he viewed death as integral to life (jung, 1959) and highlighted that through individuation, individuals come closer to death and might develop a clearer understanding of it (jung, 1957, 1959, 1960; jungian center, 2025). jung suggests that individuals die in the way they should have lived (jungian center, 2025). he further argues that individuals should encounter life by living as if they were dying. individuals need to be able to face death with equanimity, as the goal the psyche is aiming for, as an integral part of one's existence (cajs, 2024). he believed that the psyche might exist beyond death since he assumed that it is not confined to space and time and that death is a bridge between the earthly life and the spiritual world (jung, 1959; jung society of utah, 2025). at the same time, death is part of the individuation process, and part of constructing meaning in life. however, jung (2009, p. 267) speaks not only of outer death, but also of an inner death that might be more challenging than the outer death: “the moon is dead. your soul went to the moon, to the preserver of souls. thus the soul moved toward death. i went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. and i decided to die outside and to live within. for that reason i turned away and sought the place of the inner life”. death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 294 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ jung (1989) declares death as an archetype that is part of life and thereby makes it a whole. based on that assumption, he aimed to accept life and death and to make death a “goal of the second half of life” (heyning, 2021). according to samuels et al. (2005), jungian analysts emphasise the importance of symbols and images of death and their significance and meaning for life. at the same time, they emphasise that experiences and intimations of life need to be construed as leading towards death. life and death are then viewed as companions, and they become equal parts of a complete human existence. death awareness is part of individuation and helps individuals to become increasingly aware and conscious. therefore, death needs to be viewed as a goal and the destination of an individual journey that begins long before death arrives (purrington, 2020). the four eclectically presented theoretical approaches on death and dying will be used to interpret claudel’s life and parts of her work. research methodology psychobiography, as a subdivision of psychohistory, has a long-standing research tradition and aims at integrating biographical life narrations of a selected subject (ponterotto, 2017a, 2017b, 2025; schultz, 2005; van niekerk et al., 2019), here camille rosalie claudel, with psychological theory and the socio-historical context (mayer, 2017). in the case of this psychobiography, the author focuses on theoretical aspects of death and dying from the perspectives of existential psychology, symbolic death, lacanian and jungian theoretical approaches. furthermore, the subject, being a woman artist, is understood through the embedding interpretation of the subject’s life in 19th and 20th century france (hemmer, 2024; wilson, 2010; wolff, 1981). research design this psychobiographical account draws on a qualitative single case study design (alexander, 1988; carlson, 1988; elms, 1994; mcadams, 2006; nel et al., 2024; yin, 2018), is highly qualitative in nature and uses a life history approach (fouché, 2015; fouché & van niekerk, 2005, 2010). as a psychobiography, it uses psychological concepts to increase the understanding of the life and the concept of death of the selected individual during her lifetime (schultz, 2014). sample and sampling the researcher selected the psychobiographical subject purposefully (burnell et al., 2019; mayer, 2017). a non-probabili­ ty, purposeful and theoretical sampling method was used (kőváry, 2011), based on the judgement of the researcher to study the desired topic of a subject throughout her lifetime in a specific context, approaching the aspect of death and dying. the researcher chose claudel based on a number of considerations. first, claudel was one of the most significant extraordinary female artists of 19th and 20th century france (hemmer, 2024) and to date, no psychobiography had been done on her. second, she was affected by different deaths in her life and she lost her career and life of freedom, facing a symbolic and social death in the france of her time since she was an extraordinary woman artist who did not conform to societal norms. finally, she spent several decades in an asylum (krause, 2014), facing an isolated life and the death of her artistic identity. the researcher identified claudel as a significant individual in the context of death studies, and in relation to the researcher’s own interests (gardner, 1999; howe, 1997). the researcher was particularly interested in france, french historical and contemporary philosophy and arts (mayer, 2021; mayer & bahrs, 2025), in exploring the lives of extraordinary women (mayer et al., 2021b), and in analysing the life and work of the subject regarding death and dying. the researcher first came across claudel’s life in the 1990s when visiting paris on a regular basis. one day, while exploring the work of august rodin in the rodin museum in paris, the researcher was drawn to the life of claudel and started to buy and read books on her life and art. claudel’s extraordinary passion, suffering, her approach to emotions, and her resistance to french society’s norms stood out significantly. when thinking of a subject who was affected by death and dying, the first who came to the researcher’s mind was claudel. according to the researcher’s understanding, mayer 295 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ claudel died many times throughout her life, painful and infinite deaths. the idea underlying this psychobiography was to analyse death and dying in the subject’s life and to explore the deaths she had to face during her lifetime. data collection and analysis data on claudel were collected over a period of many years since the author has a vivid interest in philosophers, writers and artists of the 20th century in france (mayer, 2021; mayer & bahrs, 2025; mayer & gonot-schoupinsky, 2024). literature research was conducted, including google scholar, nexus, psychlit, and ebscohost, to find existing psychobiographies, biographies, articles, videos, books and book chapters on claudel’s life. primary and secondary sources based on the subject’s life were used (yin, 2018) to explore the topic of death and dying in the context of her life. the sources chosen to understand the life of claudel in depth were informed by a quantity of information on her life, her artistic work and by the quality of information regarding the subject of death and dying (mayer & kőváry, 2019). primary information (yin, 2018) included personal documents, diary entries, letters (claudel, 1891) and secondary sources such as articles, books and book chapters, biographies and biographical notes (attewell, 2022; ayral-clause, 2002; bougault, 2020; bouté, 1995; burgon, 2012; callahan, 2015; caranfa, 1999; cassar, 1987; claudel, 1905, 1951; delbée, 1982; fabre-pellerin, 1988, 2005; garman, 2017; krause, 2014; laurent & gaudichon, 1984; paris, 1988), art catalogues (paris, 1984; bowyer & desmas, 2025), artist websites (hemmer, 2024) and recordings, podcasts (e.g., france culture, 2021), a musical theatre piece (heggie & scheer, 2012) and videos of the subject (arte, 2024; dumon, 2013; nuytten, 1988) as described by fouché and van niekerk (2005). some of claudel’s sculptures and art pieces have been taken into consideration in this article (bowyer & desmas, 2025; elsen & jamison, 2003), since several of them were described as autobiographical and deal with meaning in life, philosophical content, relationships, and death and dying. no previous psychobiographies on claudel were found during the literature review. data about claudel’s life and work are extensive. the researcher therefore demarcated significant findings regarding her life and death (alexander, 1990), guided by the study’s aim and the defined theoretical approaches. alexander’s (1988, 1990) indicators of salience were used to question the dataset and to identify extraordinary themes. thematic indicators include: 1. primacy, 2. frequency, 3. uniqueness, 4. negation, 5. emphasis, 6. omission, 7. error or distortion, 8. isolation, and 9. incompletion. these indicators are not explained further here, but can be explored in alexander (1988, 1990). quality criteria, ethics and limitations rigor and trustworthiness were established as quality criteria in this study (krefting, 1991; lincoln & guba, 1985) through the in-depth investigation of claudel’s biographical, sociocultural and historical data. the researcher further used reflexivity, to understand and interpret the findings based on well-defined theory and methodology (ponterotto, 2014). theory and data triangulation were applied (yin, 2018). in terms of the ethical considerations, this psychobiography follows the principles discussed in recent psychobio­ graphical discourses (mayer & kőváry, 2019; ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). ethics are a central part of the psycho­ biographical research study and ethical considerations are outlined throughout the research process (ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). only publicly available sources were used to reduce ethical risks and “postmortem privacy rights” and next-of-kin-rights were maintained (ponterotto, 2015b; ponterotto & reynolds, 2019). by choosing a deceased subject, the ethical issues regarding the choice of the living subject were overcome (apa, 2025). ethical approval was provided by the university of johannesburg. this study is limited by the selected theoretical and methodological approaches applied. furthermore, the research­ er’s personal background as a european woman interested in french culture and history who was born several decades after claudel’s death in a neighbouring country might bias her own understanding of existential psychology and psychiatry, life and death and the life and challenges of women artists in 19th and 20th century france. although quality criteria were applied in this study, the study might be limited by the researcher’s biases, affecting the possibility of self-reflection and of organising and analysing the data. death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 296 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ death and dying in the life of camille rosalie claudel in this psychobiographical study, the researcher first focuses on understanding death and dying through an existential perspective, seeing death and dying as a meaningful part of camille claudel’s work and life. next, she analyses death and dying from a lacanian viewpoint, thereafter describing death and dying from a symbolic perspective and finally, understanding death and dying in the subject’s life from a jungian theoretical approach. the researcher thereby responds to the overall research question: how are death and dying represented in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work? existential perspectives on death in camille claudel’s life camille claudel’s life and its meaning were very much affected by her huge talent and by being a woman artist who was one of the most “daring and visionary sculptors of the late nineteenth century” (bowyer & desmas, 2025). during her childhood and teenage years, she loved being in nature, working with clay and sculpturing, expressing her creativity and representing a deeper connection to life and meaning (kellert, 2005). this existential connection to life and meaning also connected claudel with bochner and later with rodin, expressing her urge for life and to experience life in an intense and in-depth way. on the other hand, claudel’s powerful connection to life may also have had a passionate correspondence with death. claudel was strongly influenced by being born shortly after the death of her older brother, since her mother was upset that she was born as a girl and had expected claudel to fill the void left by the death of her first child. however, claudel was born a girl which evoked disappointment and rejection of her mother (ayral-clause, 2002). it might be even argued that this very early rejection by her mother represented claudel’s first existential death (weir, 2012). later, the rejection of her mother even grew, since claudel followed an artistic lifestyle against the societal norms for women (ayral-clause, 2002). this might be an outcome of the mother’s projection of her wish that claude had been a boy since she lived her life, not fitting in the women’s roles in this french historic period. claudel’s life struggles became visible especially after the end of her relationship with rodin (bougault, 2020; burgon, 2012; obsolete oddity, 2019) who experienced her as his greatest love, but also as his greatest competition (ayral-clause, 2002). the relationship’s end led her into a financial death and to despondency and despair (de bayser, 2008), a form of psycho-spiritual crisis and death. de bayser (2008) emphasises that claudel knew both extremes: the pleasures and the pains of life. her love and her despair are both evident in her artworks. clotho (1883) represents a drive away from rodin and his sculpturing style (elsen & jamison, 2003; peterson, 2023). it constitutes human destiny, expressed as an image of an elderly woman who is the antithesis of young and beautiful women, representing old age and death and the opposite of what is attractive from the male perspective (peterson, 2023). clotho is a symbol for a hopeless life and infinite death and could represent claudel’s inner death. besides clotho indicating a break of style and era in claudel’s life, the artwork the wave (1897–1903) also expresses a conscious style change which seems to be connected to the end of the romantic relationship with rodin, indicating the death of their creative, meaningful relationship and their soul connection. the wave is an emotional expression of transformation, power and existential being in the world. the work the mature age (1899) shows the end of the relationship with rodin. the sculpture consists of an old man who is taken away by an old woman representing rose beuret, symbolising old age, maturity and death. when rodin saw the work, realising that it depicted their relationship’s story, he ended his financial support of claudel and convinced the french government to do the same. the youth in this sculpture, representing claudel, aims to rescue the man from old age and from the old woman who is trying to save him (ayral-clause, 2002; souter, 2011) while realising that the end and symbolically the finitude of the relationship cannot be stopped. the work epitomises suffering regarding the relationship’s transformation and death, representing the end of their lives together, while at the same time symbolising despair and loneliness. symbolically, several of claudel’s artworks represent change, transformation of emotional states and life phases, mortality, endings and death. expressing these symbols contributed to her authentic existence, integrating in-depth life and living with its closeness to death and dying (heidegger, 1962). kierkegaard (2009) argued that the potential enjoyment of life lies in realising the potential end of everything. in a way, this is evident in claudel’s life. it appears that she lived her life of art and the relationship with rodin intensively in mayer 297 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all its depth and emotional power, always facing potential endings and death. since rodin lived a “double life” with rose beuret, claudel must have been aware of the potential finitude of the relationship at any point in time. her anger and rage might have been an expression of despair and refusal to accept the approaching death of the relationship, which then led her into an extreme paranoia from 1905 onwards (obsolete oddity, 2019). the despair in her relationships and symbolically her life’s end is expressed in, for example, her work fortune (1900), which represents “her innovative spirit and her mastery of capturing the fleeting essence of life within the permanence of sculpture” (artchive, 2025). the transitions and fleeting essences of life represent the loss of control (gire, 2014) which claudel faced through her art and which manifested later in her emotional outbursts and paranoia. it could be argued here that the end of the relationship was unbearable for claudel and caused intense suffering and therefore led her into a paranoid state, internally fleeing from dealing with the relationship’s death consciously and constructively. how conscious she was of the topic of death, however, is difficult to determine. during some phases of her life, death appears to be experienced unconsciously, while at the same time being part of her constant questioning of human destiny, as expressed in sakuntala (1886–1889) and in her portraits of children — representing reflections of life, human destiny, eternity and death (musée rodin, 2025). she seemed to be dealing with life and death and existential topics between the extremes of living and dying and intense emotions, phases of creativity and expression, as described by kierkegaard (2009). regarding the two layers of death discussed by hoelterhoff (2015), claudel seems to deal with death and death anxiety on both a subconscious and an avoidant level through her work and sculptures (e.g., the wave). she also consciously expressed her despair at the finality of life’s phases and her relationship with rodin through the destruction of her own work in 1912, and in 1913 when her father died (theartstory, 2025). the death of her father brought about a conscious death experience (hoelterhoff, 2015) and led to high levels of suffering, despair, loneliness, anxiety and isolation (theartstory, 2025). the conscious level of death was also expressed in the work the abandonment (1905). existentialist psychologist yalom (1980) highlights that individuals who deny death often try to become either the “ultimate rescuer” or "special”. both attempts are heroic in the sense that individuals become heroes and thereby overcome death. claudel was not an ultimate rescuer but rather became special and extraordinary through her immense work. in this way, she overcame death and is alive in her artworks and in her extraordinary life story, representing her infinity as the sculptress of all times. she lived her life fully when facing death (as in tillich, 1952) on ending the relationship with rodin, and in extreme suffering on the death of her father, the death of her career as an artist, and the end of her life in freedom through “voluntary placement” (musée camille claudel, 2025). claudel experienced and expressed strong emotions while encountering these deaths in her life. according to menzies and menzies (2024), death can only be accepted peacefully when faced. while in the first years of her “voluntary confinement” in the asylum, claudel aimed despairingly to be released (theartstory, 2025). theartstory (2025) however describes her — when being visited by her old friend, jessie lipscomb, in 1929 in the asylum — as the “interesting shell of a once magnificent creature”, implicitly referring to her inner death in the asylum (jung, 1957, 1959). the longer she remained there, the more she seemed to accept her imprisonment and the death of her life, relationships and art career (burgon, 2012). ayral-clause (2002, p. 157) emphasises that through her work she transformed “because it welcomes light and radiates the inner dream that inspired it”. with the end of her work, she died an inner death. in existential thought, the symbolic aspect of death and the idea of what death means for life and for humankind is particularly important (heidegger, 2014). symbolic meaning in the life and works of claudel is also significant (burgon, 2012) and is consciously affected by death and destruction (heidegger, 2014). death in claudel’s life is, as described by heidegger (2014), not only a phenomenon at the end of life, but also part of existence; therefore, it is actively “at work” throughout human life. in claudel’s life, death can symbolically be viewed on different layers, as shown in figure 1. through her life, claudel communicated with death, as described in shariatinia (2015). it is hypothesised that claudel communicated with the extremes of life (passion, love, emotional intensity) and death (destruction, paranoia, end of relationship) through her artwork, bridging the gap between the conscious and the unconscious, and beyond language in a lacanian sense. death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 298 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 symbolic death in the life of camille claudel especially after the end of the relationship with rodin, death became a “special feature” for claudel, experienced as the death of the two lovers, a death of their soul connection, a death of their common creativity and their common creative inspiration. in the end, the death of the soul connection between rodin and claudel led to what is described in shariatinia (2015, p. 96) as the death of the “i”. following a new creative wave in claudel’s art from 1893 to 1905, her “i” became increasingly obsessed with paranoid ideas and the destruction of her own creative expression. claudel appeared to have left the “place of certainty”, exiting her genuine, authentic and fulfilled life and experiencing psychological death (shariatinia, 2015, p. 96). she no longer felt integrated and had clearly lost awareness of the idea that everything in the world is possible (heidegger, 2014), retracting into a state of paranoia. while claudel had behaved during the ten-year relationship with rodin as if projecting life “onto the horizon of death” and as if they were “in the being” (german: dasein), they seemed to live authentically and in a liberated way (critchley, 2009; peach, 2000). it appears that they had lived their shared life “in the moment” and by “being towards death”. claudel and rodin might have aimed to overcome death (principle 1, everyone has to go through death alone) through their love and intimate relationship. they lived their relationship to the fullest since life is finite and cannot be avoided (principle 2) and since one never knows when it comes (principle 3). finally, it can be assumed that claudel lived an existential life in which death is consciously and unconsciously may present the condition for free action during life (principle 4). the four principles of “being-towards-death” (heidegger, 2014) were vivid especially in claudel’s life with rodin. after that, life seemed to be less existential for claudel and it seemed as if a part of her had died. the end of the relationship with rodin spoke to claudel in the form of the four principles (critchley, 2009): through their deep love relationship, they were aware of the certainty of death and dying, the insecurity of when their end would come and their potentiality-for-being, whereby death represents the condition for free action during life. in their love relationship, they acted as if they were free of societal and other relationship bonds, acting against the societal norms (such as their age gap and rodin’s polygamy). they lived a life of freedom and authenticity (peach, 2000) which died after the end of their relationship. while together, it seemed as if their lives were boundless, with possibilities to create and recreate (marseille, 2021, pp. 4–5), which was expressed in the artworks of that time. mayer 299 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ symbolic forms of death in camille claudel’s life while overcoming death through their love relationship with rodin (volpi, 2025), claudel had to accept the limitation of life through death (bowker, 1991; byock, 2002; fabre-pellerin, 1988, 2005; kearl, 1989; marseille, 2021), especially in accepting that rodin would not leave his partner rose beuret for her. this made claudel powerful on the one hand, treasuring rodin’s love and their time together. however, on the other hand, it finally brought the end of their relationship, because rodin would not decide to live a life with her exclusively. claudel’s physical death (schreiner, 2015) only arrived in 1946; however, her symbolic death happened before through social-symbolic processes (vernon, 1974) between the individual and the society (forte, 2007). claudel died several deaths, as shown in figure 1. first of all, claudel’s death as a child and her birth into the life of becoming a talented sculptress working with alfred boucher, as well as her move with her family to the new town, indicated her choice of growth and development (schreiner, 2015), as did the choice to become rodin’s assistant and work with him for 10 years. her move away from rodin after this period was also a death connected to growth and development, in that claudel entered a new phase of creativity and innovation which brought growth and development through individuation (jung, 1959). however, it also brought death in terms of decline of her balanced life, her mental health and well-being. in this respect, she chose stagnation over growth (temple & gall, 2018) by choosing mental decline, paranoia and destruction over her own personal evolution and becoming an authentic person within herself without her lover and soulmate, rodin. it might be assumed that she chose stagnation over growth due to her existential anxiety after the death of her love relationship; her stagnation kept her in the comfort zone of her own artistic life (temple & gall, 2018), locked up at home, without many external contacts and without going beyond her own boundaries. the end of the relationship with rodin was a particularly impactful death experience for claudel, as described by brammer (1992), which brought a transition into loneliness, mental decline, and paranoia. she experienced a process of psychological dying, showing the symptoms highlighted by renz et al. (2013): outbursts of emotion, gradual maturation, family processes, a decrease in independence, and an inner experience and transformation of perception. the period from 1893 to 1913 symbolised the death of a certain time in her life, of the relationship that had come to an end, and of a situation that marked a radical change in her life. symbolic death happened to claudel when rodin exited her life, and when she experienced the ending of a phase of her creative work, as described in seale (1998). she finally experienced another death when her father died. this death ended her relationship with her family, the family’s support, her acceptance by her family, and it led to her final social death when she was admitted to the asylum. this confinement brought the death of her artworks, her connection to the outside world, her family connections, and the freedom in her life. lacanian death: claudel’s interdependent relationship with death claudel’s life was structured as described by lacan through the symbolic, the imaginary and the real (chiesa, 2007). claudel developed a network of symbolic law and language (kim, 2015) and symbolically expressed her unconscious through her artworks. it might be argued here that life and death in claudel are “inextricably bound to each other” through her conscious life and death as an artist on the one hand and the somewhat more unconscious expression of life and death in her artwork on the other hand (diserholt, 2014). in her life, death has an immanent position and her artworks can be viewed as a mediator between her and her experiences of life and death. it might further be argued that claudel had so closely bonded with death after the end of the relationship with rodin, that her life became an “interdependent part” (diserholt, 2014) of death, and she chose destruction and the emotional expression of existential anxiety in the form of anger and uncontrollable emotions. it could be assumed that her relationship to death became stronger than her relationship to life and therefore directed her towards loneliness, destruction and the repetitions of previous artworks rather than to creating new original work and finding new solutions to her seemingly unsolvable problems with her family, her finances, the contracts with the french government and her loneliness and despair. death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 300 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ jung on death, ars moriendi and camille claudel’s life as described by jung (1957), death became a key element in the life of claudel and it was integral in her life and artwork. symbols of death — as in crouching woman, the mature age or clotho, for example — show the significance of age and death in her life, as described in samuels et al. (2005). death appeared to be something she feared already at an early age and an early career stage, dealing with it consciously. in other artworks, such as the waltz, life and death are both represented, while the death of her career and of her emotional relationship with rodin are represented in artworks such as the abandonment (1905) which shows the fractured intimacy of a man and a woman. according to jung (1959), individuals come closer to death through individuation, which might also have been true for claudel. after she spent years in the asylum and had time to reflect upon her life and work, she seemed to be increasingly balanced and calm. it might be assumed that she had accepted the death of her relationship with rodin, the death of her career and of her life as an artist. this could be interpreted — according to jung (1957, 1959, 1960) and the jungian center (2025) — as her development of a clearer understanding of life and death and what it meant to her. she appears to have accepted her inner death. claudel viewed the deaths of her relationships, her arts, her mental health and her life in freedom with equanimity. she had stopped fighting for her freedom and for a way to leave the asylum. it might be presumed that at least twice she managed to see her life as aiming for death (as suggested in cajs, 2024), namely at the end of the relationship with rodin and after she had understood that she would never again leave the asylum. it could further be assumed that death, in the end, was a meaningful part of her life (jung, 1959; jung society of utah, 2025) and a goal (heyning, 2021), since in life she was cut off from her deepest love, rodin, from her family, her art and society. her inner (spiritual, mental, psychological and social) death may have been much more challenging to claudel than her physical death, as described by jung (2009). claudel’s soul may have moved towards death already in 1893 and she might have decided to live within herself while dying externally, wearing dirty clothes, not maintaining any contact other than with her cats, only leaving her house at night, having emotional outbursts and being placed in “voluntary confinement” (riefe, 2024). through all her experienced forms of death, claudel’s life became whole, in the sense that these extremes of living and dying led her towards great posthumous fame, not only as a woman artist, but also as a female sufferer in the male-dominated european world of 19th and 20th century history. she became a symbol of a heroine and female warrior of her times. conclusion and recommendations the principal aim of this article was to explore death and dying in the life of claudel through the lens of selected theoretical approaches. to do so, the researcher responded to the overall research question: how are death and dying represented in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work? death and dying have many components in claudel’s life and are strongly connected to her intense way of living and expressing herself in the arts, thereby creating extraordinary meaning in her life and beyond. on the one hand, physical death affected her life: the death of her oldest brother before her birth, the death of her cousin (1905) and her father (1913), the death of her sister (1935) and her own death in 1943. on the other hand, claudel experienced a financial death after the split from rodin (1892/1893) and later on her father’s death (1913). she also underwent what might have been the most destructive death for herself — a psychological/mental death after the end of the relationship with rodin (1893) and the death of her father (1913), as well as the death of her career as a woman artist with her confinement in the asylum in 1913. while experiencing deteriorating mental health, claudel also went through a social death since her family excluded and isolated her and she withdrew from societal life, retracting into psychological illness and paranoia. in her artwork, the intensity of claudel’s life is vivid. she lived her passion and meaning in life as an artist and rodin’s lover intensely and experienced the identity death of her “i” and expressed her life and deaths in many ways. with the death of her relationship with rodin and finally the death of her father as her only supporter in the family, claudel’s soul connections in the world died and she experienced a spiritual death, which is expressed in addition to the other forms of death in various artworks. the admission to the asylum integrated all of the deaths she had died mayer 301 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ before and it can be assumed that her inner deaths were much more challenging than physical death at the end of her life (figure 2). figure 2 forms of death in camille claudel’s life this psychobiography contributes to previous psychobiographies on artists by presenting an in-depth insight into claudel’s life with special regard to death and dying in her life and work. the study contributes further to the exploration of the life and works of extraordinary french women artists, presenting claudel as a sculptress who became a symbol of women the many women who had been committed to asylums during the 19th and 20th centuries. this psychobiography also stands as an example of psychobiographies of french women artists of this period in history. finally, the study contributes to the advancement of psychobiographical research on death and dying and to different manifestations of death from birth to physical death, drawing attention to the different ways of dying throughout life. it is recommended that future research explores the life of camille claudel with regard to her relationship with auguste rodin, the expression of love and the consequences of unfulfilled love in her life and on her mental health and well-being. furthermore, future psychobiographies need to take death and dying into consideration to contribute to contemporary theories of death and dying and their meaning in life and across the lifespan. psychobiographies can be death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 302 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 290–308 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19297 https://www.psychopen.eu/ used to make death and dying a more conscious topic not only in the life of extraordinary individuals, but also in the context of contemporary societies and individuals who aim at creating meaning and impact during their lives. on a practical note, discourses on death and dying in extraordinary individuals can inform counselling, consulting and therapy, especially those based on existential meaning therapy and perspectives using carl gustav jung’s therapeu­ tic approach. psychobiographies could provide examples of positive and constructive ways of dealing with death and dying, to create awareness and lessons learned of meaningful ways of dealing with these existential topics. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: thanks to my language editor mrs ruth coetzee. further thanks to dr johannes a. karl, editor-in-chief of ejop, for supporting our special issue and to dr glenn leihner-guarin for the great work as production manager. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references adams, w. 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(2024). the renaissance and influence of renaissance art from the perspective of humanism. journal of education. humanities and social sciences, 42, 513–520. https://doi.org/10.54097/tb1f3s33 about the author claude-hélène mayer is a professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, south africa. she holds doctoral degrees in psychology, management and cultural anthropology. her venia legendi is in psychology with focus on work, organisational and cultural psychology (europa universität viadrina, frankfurt/oder), germany). claude`s research areas include transcultural mental health, salutogenesis, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, emotions across cultures, the fourth industrial revolution (4ir), and psychobiography. claude won several book, article and research prices and is ranked a top 2% researcher in 2025. she is a trained psychologist, systemic family therapist, hypnotherapist, trauma therapist, constellation facilitator and intercultural mediator. since 2005, she works as an international leadership consultant and conflict mediator. death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work 308 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.18772/22019032750.16 https://digitalcommons.sia.edu/stu_proj/222 https://medium.com/@stillmind2/the-passion-of-camille-claudel-and-auguste-rodin-ef297a5fb12d https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16517-9_3 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2023.2173001 https://doi.org/10.54097/tb1f3s33 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ death and dying in camille rosalie claudel’s life and work (introduction) women artists in historic france camille rosalie claudel aims and research question psychobiographical studies selected theoretical approaches to death and dying research methodology research design sample and sampling data collection and analysis quality criteria, ethics and limitations death and dying in the life of camille rosalie claudel existential perspectives on death in camille claudel’s life symbolic forms of death in camille claudel’s life lacanian death: claudel’s interdependent relationship with death jung on death, ars moriendi and camille claudel’s life conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the author testing the reliability of anchoring susceptibility scores research reports testing the reliability of anchoring susceptibility scores lucia weber 1,2, lukas röseler 1,2 [1] department of personality psychology and psychological assessment, university of bamberg, bamberg, germany. [2] münster center for open science, university of münster, münster, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 received: 2022-07-11 • accepted: 2024-11-14 • published (vor): 2025-02-28 handling editor: johannes karl, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: lucia weber, gutenbergstrasse 26, 3011 bern, switzerland. tel. +41(0)783359128. e-mail: lucia.weber1@gmx.de supplementary materials: code, data, materials, preregistration [see index of supplementary materials] abstract whereas anchoring is a very robust and well-known effect that refers to the assimilation of numeric estimates toward previously considered numbers, the psychological mechanisms behind it have yet to be fully clarified. research on theories on how susceptibility to anchoring is related to other personality parameters has not been able to provide sufficient empirical evidence of such relationships. a probable explanation is that anchoring scores lack reliability in most anchoring experiments. the present research examined whether reliability depends on the type of score used to capture anchoring susceptibility. in a classical anchoring experiment, men and women aged between 14 and 67 years (n = 78) were asked to estimate the true values of certain numbers (e.g., height of the zugspitze mountain) after being confronted with either a high or a low anchor number. four different anchoring scores that are commonly used to measure susceptibility to anchoring in anchoring research were computed for every person, as well as the scores’ reliabilities. the number and types of items were chosen to allow for reliable and valid measurement. anchoring effects were present, but the reliabilities of all four scores were either very low or zero. these results reinforce the reliability problem that was also described by previous research. so far, there are no conditions under which anchoring susceptibility can be measured reliably, suggesting the development of new measures or even questioning the existence of individual differences in susceptibility to anchoring. in further research, other person-independent factors that may influence anchoring strength should be investigated to develop theories that can explain the psychological mechanisms behind anchoring. keywords anchoring, anchoring effect, anchoring scores, anchoring strength, reliability anchoring describes the phenomenon that people are influenced by a previously considered number when making a numerical estimate. in studies on the anchoring effect, people are initially confronted with an anchor number—often by having to respond to a comparative question, such as “is the height of mount everest larger or smaller than 5,000 meters?” after answering this first question, when asked to give an actual estimate, people tend to assimilate their answer toward the anchor. it has been proposed that people differ in the extent to which they are susceptible to this effect, depending on certain individual differences, such as general knowledge, cognitive abilities (e.g., bergman et al., 2010), or the big five (e.g., mcelroy & dowd, 2007). the implicit assumption that susceptibility to anchoring is a person parameter can be found at the core of anchoring models, which aim to clarify which psychological mechanisms underlie anchoring effects, for example, in the insufficient adjustment model (epley & gilovich, 2001). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9891&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ in order to confirm and expand on these theories, considerable research effort has been put toward finding evidence for the moderating effects of personality traits on anchoring susceptibility—resulting in very mixed findings. although significant effects have been found in many cases (bergman et al., 2010; cheek & norem, 2022; epley & gilovich, 2006; eroglu & croxton, 2010; mcelroy & dowd, 2007; teovanović, 2019), replication attempts have often failed (cheek & norem, 2019; furnham et al., 2012; stanovich & west, 2008) and meta-analyses have shown that for numerous moderators of personality, the average effect sizes are indistinguishable from zero (röseler, 2021). a probable reason for this pattern of results is that anchoring susceptibility has not been measured reliably in these studies, making it impossible to find significant correlations with other constructs. this reliability problem as an explanation for unclear findings was first described by röseler et al. (2019) and was then further explained and backed up by an extensive amount of evidence, showing very low reliabilities for measures of anchoring susceptibility in a large proportion of personality moderator research on anchoring (röseler, 2021; schindler et al., 2021). these findings raise questions about the conditions under which anchoring susceptibility can be measured reliably or whether it cannot be measured reliably at all. to answer these questions, the open anchoring quest (röseler et al., 2022; röseler et al., 2023) was created. in this project, data from as many existing anchoring experiments as possible are being meta-analytically aggregated into one large data set. the methodology in the included studies varies to a great extent, such as in how the anchoring task is implemented, or in other parameters, such as sample size. the opaq data set makes it possible to systematically investigate the influence of a range of these factors on the reliability of anchoring susceptibility measurements. one factor that has varied across studies is how the score depicting susceptibility to anchoring was calculated. whereas the basis for this score is the difference between the true value of the item and the anchor value in all cases, there are various ways in which this difference has been converted into a score. these differences could be crucial for explaining different outcomes in the reliability. as the structure of the opaq data set is trial-based, it provides the opportunity to calculate the different anchoring susceptibility scores by using data from all the studies included in the data set. so far, evaluations have indicated that different ways of computing anchoring susceptibility actually lead to scores with different reliabilities. in the present research, we examined this assumption in a classical anchoring experiment where people make estimates about certain measurements (e.g., the height of a mountain) after being confronted with either a high or a low anchor. most studies in the opaq data set have used a small number of items, which makes it difficult to have reliable anchoring scores. these items are also oftentimes very homogeneous (e.g., only estimates of the lengths of rivers), so the validity of anchoring susceptibility is also questionable, as it can be confounded with a person’s ability to give correct estimates in a certain area of knowledge. to allow for reliable and valid measurements of anchoring susceptibility in the present research, we used a large number of heterogeneous items, which varied in the size of their true values, the unit of measurement, and area of knowledge. to examine susceptibility to anchoring, it is also necessary for the anchors to have an actual effect on the estimates, that is, low anchors must lead to lower estimates, and vice versa. therefore, our first hypothesis was that there would be an anchoring effect for at least two thirds of the items (anchoring hypothesis). furthermore, for every participant, we computed four different anchoring susceptibility scores in order to compare their reliabilities afterwards. based on the previous explanations, the second hypothesis was that at least one of these scores would have a different reliability than the others (reliability hypothesis). this study furthermore contributes to the opaq data set by providing data from a study that was specifically designed to test for reliability. method power analysis a power analysis was computed to determine the required sample size (the code is available at weber & röseler, 2022). given α = β = 5%, average correlations between the scores as computed on the basis of the opaq data set (röseler et al., 2022; version from august 27, 2021), and all cronbach’s alphas = 0 except for one, which is at least .5, at least 79 participants were required. susceptibility to anchoring effects 2 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ planned sample participants were recruited via surveycircle and surveyswap, which are platforms that were specifically created for finding survey participants. they include a reward system in which a person can obtain points by participating in other researchers’ surveys. the more points one collects, the more participants one gains for one’s own study. aside from gaining points, participants were given feedback on the extent of their susceptibility to anchoring effects as well as on the correctness of their answers to the survey, which was promoted as a general knowledge quiz. before participating, they were also informed that the study is conducted for research about anchoring effects. there were no preselection rules; only access to the online survey was required for participation. sample after data curation, 78 out of the original 96 participants remained. the planned sample size of n = 79 was not achieved because one of the participants later turned out to have completed the questionnaire two times without having admitted to doing so in the control question; therefore, the second trial had to be excluded manually after the initial data curation. achieving a sample size of n = 78 instead of the planned n = 79 led to a minor decrease in power from t = .95 to t = .94. the sample was predominantly female (67.9%), and participants’ ages ranged from 14 to 67 years (m = 28.05, sd = 9.01). underaged participants were not excluded from our research to improve representativeness and because the contents of the study can be rated ethically safe as it was also approved by the ethics committee of the university of bamberg. overall, 76 participants came from surveycircle and two participants came from surveyswap. materials and procedure construction of anchoring items the main components of the study were 18 anchoring items, for which estimates had to be made about the true values of certain measurements (e.g., the length of a river; see table 1). the items were created with a focus on heterogeneity in the area of knowledge, the unit of measurement, and the magnitude of the true value. for each item, a low and a high anchor were constructed by multiplying and dividing the true value by a factor of 1.8, respectively. structure of the questionnaire the anchor study was carried out as an online questionnaire on soscisurvey (leiner, 2019). the components of the questionnaire were as follows: on a start page, the participants were informed about the content of the quiz and the structure of the questions. also, anchoring effects were explained. the participants were asked to answer the questions to the best of their ability and not to be influenced by the anchors presented to them. on the next page, demographic information regarding age and gender were requested. afterwards, an individual code that was required for the person to receive individual feedback was created. then, the actual “quiz” began, containing 18 anchoring items with either high or low anchors. each item required a response to a comparative question (e.g., “is the shortest distance between russia and the us shorter or longer than 2 km?”) before the estimate was given to guarantee that the participants consciously perceived the anchor. after participants gave their answer and continued, their answer was presented to them again, and they had to give an estimate of the true value (e.g., “you have answered that the shortest distance between russia and the us is longer than 2 km. how long do you think it actually is?”). the estimates were entered into an open textbox, with the unit already given. at the end of the questionnaire, a few follow-up questions were presented. for every anchoring item, the participants had to specify their prior knowledge about the true value of each item on a closed scale: “did you (a) know, (b) estimate, or (c) guess the true value?” two questions recorded the extent of the participants’ motivation to (a) give the best estimate they could give and (b) avoid being influenced by the anchors. finally, two more questions were used to check whether the participants used external sources to answer the questions or took the quiz more than once. on the final page, the participants were thanked for completing the questionnaire and were provided with a link to the feedback page where they could see the correct answers to the anchoring items next to their own answers as well as their anchor susceptibility score compared with the other participants. weber & röseler 3 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ there were two parallel forms of the questionnaire with different anchor values. each form had nine low and nine high anchors. the means of the anchors and the true values were approximately equal for the two forms. the form was randomly assigned when participants clicked on the link to the online study. analysis plan and details about the preregistration to examine whether there was an anchoring effect for at least two thirds of the items (anchoring hypothesis), a between-subjects analysis was applied. for every anchoring item, a one-tailed t test of the difference between the estimates with low versus high anchors was computed (direction: larger estimates for high anchors than for low anchors). to check for whether at least one of the anchoring susceptibility scores had a different reliability than the others (reliability hypothesis), a within-subjects analysis was applied. four different anchoring susceptibility scores were computed for every participant and item. the scores were as follows: 1. adjustment: difference between estimate and anchor. 2. absolute adjustment: absolute difference between estimate and anchor. 3. 0–1 score: difference between estimate and anchor divided by difference between true value and anchor. 4. restricted 0–1 score: the above score but with cut-offs at 0 and 1. we tested whether the reliabilities of the four scores differed from each other by computing a chi-square test that compared the z-standardized cronbach’s alphas. the significance criterion was set to .05 for both the t test and the chi-square test. the study had been preregistered before the data were collected (weber et al., 2021). statistical analyses were computed with r version 4.0.2 (r core team, 2020) with the packages cocron (diedenhofen & musch, 2016) and ggplot2 (wickham, 2016) and microsoft excel version 2203 (microsoft corporation, 2022). table 1 anchoring items with true values, anchors, and effect sizes anchor item unit true value form a form b cohen’s d 95% confidence interval length of the danube km 2,857 1,587 5,143 -0.32 [-0.79, 0.14] elon musk's income per hour mil. $ 15 8 27 0.60 [0.09, 1.10]a average weight of a male polar bear kg 450 810 250 0.92 [0.42, 1.42]a average temperature in june in germany °c 15.5 9 28 1.45 [0.86, 2.02]a size of a standard football field sq km 7,140 3,967 12,852 0.07 [-0.38, 0.53] percentage of smokers in germany % 28 50 16 1.67 [1.06, 2.27]a birth year of alexander the greatb bc 336 187 605 0.46 [-0.06, 0.97] circumference of the earth km 40,075 72,135 22,264 0.63 [0.10, 1.15] a average height of a woman in germany cm 163.5 91 294 0.62 [0.06, 1.17]a top speed of an ice 4c km/h 330 594 183 0.97 [0.43, 1.49]a height of the zugspitze m 2,962 5,332 1,646 0.64 [0.16, 1.11]a duration of the moon’s orbit around the earth days 27 49 15 1.22 [0.66, 1.77]a average price of a new car in germany € 34,000 18,889 61,200 -0.26 [-0.73, 0.21] number of sugar cubes in one bottle of coca cola (0.33 l) — 12 22 7 1.12 [0.60, 1.64]a number of manned moon landings so far — 6 3 11 1.39 [0.79, 1.98]a shortest distance between russia and the us km 4 2 7 1.24 [0.70, 1.78]a age of the oldest human on earth years 122 220 68 1.38 [0.75, 1.99]a chance of getting four correct numbers in the lottery 1 to … 1,147 2,065 637 0.89 [0.39, 1.37]a note. larger values of cohen’s d represent stronger anchoring effects (high anchor – low anchor). aeffect size is significantly larger than 0 (i.e., p < .050, items where anchoring effects were present). bthe item birth year of alexander the great was excluded before the statistical analysis. cice stands for intercity express which is a system of high-speed trains in germany. susceptibility to anchoring effects 4 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data processing one of the 18 anchoring items (birth year of alexander the great) had to be omitted due to an error in the specification of the unit in the questionnaire. estimates within anchoring items were excluded if, (a) participants stated that they had already known the correct answers, or (b) the estimates were more than three standard deviations away from the mean value. after applying the item-based exclusion criteria, participants who used external sources when answering the anchoring items along with participants who had nine or fewer valid items were excluded from the data set. if participants completed the survey more than once, we included only their first one. results hypothesis tests there were significant anchoring effects for 14 of the remaining 17 items, meaning that high anchors resulted in higher estimates than low anchors. among the items with significant anchoring effects, cohen’s d ranged from 0.46 to 1.67 (see table 1). therefore, the data were consistent with the anchoring hypothesis, indicating that the anchors generally did influence the estimates in the expected way. the reliabilities of the four anchoring susceptibility scores did not differ significantly from one another, χ2(3, n = 78) = 0.91, p = .824. therefore, the data were not consistent with the reliability hypothesis. the cronbach’s alpha values were set to zero for three of the scores because they had negative values. only the restricted 0–1 score showed a small positive reliability (α = .15). figure 1 illustrates these results. figure 1 reliabilities of the anchoring susceptibility scores note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. weber & röseler 5 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ exploratory tests additional exploratory analyses were computed to investigate the influence of prior knowledge and motivation on the anchoring scores. prior knowledge to determine whether anchoring strength depends on the extent of prior knowledge, for every item, participants were grouped according to whether they guessed or estimated the true value. mean absolute adjustment scores and effect sizes were then computed for the two groups. table 2 presents the results. table 2 mean absolute adjustment score depending on prior knowledge for every item guessed estimated item n mean (sd) n mean (sd) cohen’s d [95% ci] length of the danube 42 1,498.88 (1,531.25) 34 1,436.41 (1,171.20) 0.05 [-0.41. 0.50] elon musk's income per hour 27 7.48 (4.94) 44 7.82 (6.22) -0.06 [-0.54. 0.42] average weight of a male polar bear 24 243.96 (165.14) 46 201.41 (161.93) 0.26 [-0.24. 0.76] average temperature in june in germany 48 14.06 (8.99) 27 13.22 (26.79) 0.05 [-0.42. 0.52] size of a standard football field 35 3,358.91 (3,257.33) 39 4,416.90 (3,107.05) -0.33 [-0.79. 0.13] percentage of smokers in germany 27 17.44 (10.52) 35 17.11 (7.36) 0.04 [-0.47. 0.54] birth year of alexander the great 52 370.08 (330.79) 23 327.30 (285.71) 0.14 [-0.36. 0.63] circumference of the earth 30 18,535.53 (15,124.52) 48 17,478.69 (14,131.27) 0.07 [-0.38. 0.53] average height of a woman in germany 3 93.33 (30.92) 53 97.70 (32.67) -0.13 [-1.30. 1.03] top speed of an ice 4 15 119.80 (120.06) 53 183.34 (118.67) -0.53 [-1.11. 0.05] height of the zugspitze 35 873.17 (826.10) 32 1,619.13 (982.35) -0.83 [-1.32. -0.33]a duration of the moon’s orbit around the earth 11 7.09 (5.47) 62 6.58 (3.66) 0.13 [-0.51. 0.77] average price of a new car in germany 27 20,316.52 (21,531.29) 35 18,705.20 (12963.34) 0.09 [-0.41. 0.60] number of sugar cubes in one bottle of coca cola (0.33 l) 27 10.04 (7.74) 49 16.78 (11.10) -0.67 [-1.15. -0.19]a number of manned moon landings so far 39 4.59 (3.35) 28 5.04 (3.97) -0.12 [-0.61. 0.36] shortest distance between russia and the us 39 2,076.92 (3,639.81) 35 2,193.31 (3922.04) -0.03 [-0.49. 0.43] age of the oldest human on earth 8 60.25 (36.47) 56 74.54 (25.62) -0.53 [-1.27. 0.22] probability of getting four correct numbers in the lottery 38 294,200,127.42 (1,783,835,846.48) 34 28,723,127.32 (112,022,198.82) 0.20 [-0.26. 0.67] note.aeffect size is significantly larger than 0 (i.e., p < .050, items where estimates between the two groups differed). motivation to get an overview of participants’ general level of motivation while completing the anchoring task, we analyzed the answers to the two items on motivation. the frequencies are depicted in figure 2. as we were interested in whether higher motivation would lead to a higher reliability for anchoring scores, the spearman correlation between the reliabilities of two anchoring scores (the absolute adjustment score and 0–1 score) and the answers to the motivation items were computed (table 3). susceptibility to anchoring effects 6 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 descriptive analysis of participants’ motivation when completing the anchoring task table 3 reliabilities of anchoring measurements in relation to participants’ motivation reliability motivation item absolute adjustment 0–1 score motivation to give correct estimates .07 -.15 motivation to avoid being influenced by the anchor .29 -.24 discussion the present study was designed to investigate the reliabilities of different anchoring scores in order to clarify whether and under which conditions susceptibility to anchoring can be measured reliably. anchoring effect anchoring effects were found in 14 out of 18 items as shown by the fact that lower estimates were given when a low anchor was presented and vice versa. therefore, the data were consistent with the anchoring hypothesis, meaning that the intended manipulation worked and thus laid the foundation for further examination of the anchoring measurements. what is also worth noting is that participants were informed about anchoring effects before performing the task. not only was the effect explained to them, but they were also asked to avoid being influenced by the anchor when giving their estimates. the anchoring manipulation worked well anyway, which again underscores the robustness of anchoring effects. anchoring susceptibility because there were no significant differences in the reliabilities of the four anchoring susceptibility scores, the reliability hypothesis was rejected. in fact, the most reliable score, which was the restricted 0–1 score, still showed very low reliability, whereas the reliabilities of the other three scores (adjustment, absolute adjustment, 0–1 score) were even negative. this result means that none of the four scores can be seen as a more reliable measurement of anchoring susceptibility than the others because none of them were actually reliable. there are several possible explanations for these results. certain characteristics of the present study could have led to these particularly low reliabilities. in particular, the high heterogeneity of the anchoring items is a likely reason for an inconsistently strong anchoring effect across the various items for one person. because the items came from different weber & röseler 7 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ domains (e.g., geography, history), prior knowledge could have impacted the anchoring effect sizes. when people have absolutely no idea about the true value of an item, they might just stick close to the anchor number, resulting in a seemingly stronger anchoring effect. when people know the exact value of an item, anchoring appears to vanish for this item. the most interesting case of anchoring is when people have to estimate the correct value on the basis of a vague idea of the possible scope. in the present study, after completing the anchoring task, participants had to indicate for every item whether they guessed the true value (i.e., they had no idea what the true value was), estimated it (they had a vague idea about what the true value was), or knew it. in the last case, the item was excluded from further analyses. as table 2 shows only small to medium effect sizes for prior knowledge, adjustment strength does not seem to depend on previous knowledge about different items, meaning that the low reliabilities cannot be explained by prior knowledge. however, the role that prior knowledge about the items plays in an anchoring task should be further clarified in future research. the range of plausible values is another factor that varied across items and could have led to different anchoring effect sizes and therefore to the low reliability of the susceptibility to anchoring scores. as an example: relying on common sense, the average height of a woman in germany can lie only within a relatively small range, that is, between about 160 cm to 170 cm. the smallest distance between russia and the us—without previously knowing that the u.s. state of alaska is so close to russia—could also be estimated to be around several thousand kilometres, even though the true value is only 4 km, so even the high anchor was “only” 7 km. differences between the estimate and the anchor can therefore be comparatively high in certain items, resulting in varying anchoring scores for one person and therefore in the low reliabilities of the anchoring susceptibility scores. in this respect, item heterogeneity can be seen as a limitation of this research. overall, for the present study, we chose to present a variety of anchoring items as part of our aim to obtain a valid measurement of anchoring. by not measuring estimation tendencies, which are based on the type of item, we limited the extent to which we artificially boosted the reliabilities of the anchoring scores. the low reliabilities in this study indicate that in studies in which the reliabilities of the anchoring susceptibility measurements are acceptable, the validities deserve particular scrutiny. in fact, recent examinations from the opaq data set, which already contains more than 50,000 anchoring trials, have shown that reliability was either low as it is in most tasks, or if not, the anchoring scores most likely lacked validity (röseler et al., 2024). explanation for the reliability problem the most plausible reason for the low reliabilities of the anchoring scores found in the present research as well as in more comprehensive meta-analyses is that there are no conditions under which anchoring susceptibility can be measured reliably. this can be explained either by the methodology employed in anchoring experiments or by the idea that anchoring susceptibility is not a stable personality trait. in this latter case, anchoring can be seen as an effect that underlies a range of situational factors but not as a general person-dependent susceptibility. limitations participants in this study were recruited via platforms that are especially likely to recruit other researchers as par­ ticipants (occupation was not recorded in the demographic questions). a more diverse sample would improve the representativeness and generalizability of the results. in these platforms, because participation in surveys is rewarded with points needed to gather participants for one’s own research, the motivation of the participants can also be questioned. the motivation to give correct answers and the motivation to avoid being influenced by the anchor were recorded. figure 2 illustrates that participants generally indicated rather high motivation, and the motivation to give correct estimates was slightly higher than the motivation to avoid being influenced by the anchor. exploratory analyses showed no systematic influence of motivation on the reliabilities of the anchoring measurements, as shown in table 3. however, it should be considered that the results on the motivation scales could be influenced by social desirability. this is also the case for the replies to the control question about whether participants used external sources. susceptibility to anchoring effects 8 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(1), 1–10 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as already described, the choice of items and their heterogeneity can be seen as a strength of this study but also as a weakness in some ways. some items are probably more suited than others for measuring anchoring and susceptibility to it. later exclusions of one of the original 18 items as well as of one of the original 79 survey trials are further limitations of the present research, as these are deviations from the preregistration and led to a minor decrease in power. statistical analyses including all the original items and participants did not show any differences in the significance of the hypothesis tests. conclusion and further research the present study indicates that anchoring susceptibility cannot be measured reliably, independent of the type of the currently existing anchoring scores. the results suggest that the methodology of measuring anchoring susceptibility should be further examined and improved. if it turns out that this is not possible, existing theories that are based on the assumption that anchoring susceptibility is a stable individual parameter should be called into question. in future research, the psychological mechanisms underlying anchoring and its strength should be investigated by taking a closer look at person-independent factors rather than individual parameters. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: this research was officially approved by the ethics council of the university of bamberg. data availability: for this article, data, code and study materials are available at röseler et al. (2022). the preregistration is available at weber et al. (2021) supplementary materials for this article, the following supplementary materials are available: • data. (röseler et al., 2022) • code. (röseler et al., 2022) • study materials. (röseler et al., 2022) • preregistration. (weber et al., 2021) references bergman, o., ellingsen, t., johannesson, m., & svensson, c. (2010). anchoring and cognitive ability. economics letters, 107(1), 66–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2009.12.028 cheek, n. n., & norem, j. k. (2019). are big five traits and facets associated with anchoring susceptibility? social psychological & personality science, 11(1), 26–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619837001 cheek, n. n., & norem, j. k. (2022). individual differences in anchoring susceptibility: verbal reasoning, autistic tendencies, and narcissism. personality and individual differences, 184, article 111212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111212 diedenhofen, b., & musch, j. 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(2022). microsoft excel (version 2203) [computer software]. microsoft. r core team. (2020). r (version 4.0.2) [computer software]. r foundation for statistical computing. https://www.r-project.org/ röseler, l. (2021). anchoring effects: resolving the contradictions of personality moderator research [doctoral dissertation, ottofriedrich-universität bamberg]. university of bamberg fis. https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-49951 röseler, l., schütz, a., & starker, u. (2019). cognitive ability does not and cannot correlate with susceptibility to anchoring effects. psyarxiv. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bnsx2_v1 röseler, l., weber, l., helgerth, k. a. c., stich, e., günther, m., tegethoff, p., wagner, f. s., ambrus, e., antunovic, m., barrera, f., halali, e., ioannidis, k., mckay, r., milstein, n., molden, d. c., papenmeier, f., rinn, r., schreiter, m. l., zimdahl, m., . . . schütz, a. 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(2021). bayes factors show evidence against systematic relationships between the anchoring effect and the big five personality traits. scientific reports, 11, article 7021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86429-2 stanovich, k. e., & west, r. f. (2008). on the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. journal of personality and social psychology, 94(4), 672–695. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.672 teovanović, p. (2019). individual differences in anchoring effect: evidence for the role of insufficient adjustment. europe’s journal of psychology, 15(1), 8–24. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 weber, l., & röseler, l. (2022). poweranalysis.r [code]. osf. https://osf.io/bjtk5 weber, l., röseler, l., & schütz, a. (2021). opaq study [preregistration]. osf. https://osf.io/4aev5 wickham, h. (2016). ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis (use r! 2nd ed.). springer. about the authors lucia weber is a graduate student at the university of zurich. this research is part of her research internship at the university of bamberg. lukas röseler is the managing director of the münster center for open science at the university of münster. his research focuses on anchoring effects and meta-science, specifically replication research. susceptibility to anchoring effects 10 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01704.x https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2009.02.005 https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000076 https://www.soscisurvey.de https://www.r-project.org/ https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-49951 https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/bnsx2_v1 https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/ygnvb https://metaanalyses.shinyapps.io/opaq/ https://doi.org/10.15626/mp.2022.3236 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86429-2 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.672 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://osf.io/bjtk5 https://osf.io/4aev5 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ susceptibility to anchoring effects (introduction) method power analysis planned sample sample materials and procedure analysis plan and details about the preregistration data processing results hypothesis tests exploratory tests discussion anchoring effect anchoring susceptibility explanation for the reliability problem limitations conclusion and further research (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability supplementary materials references about the authors supports and interventions for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology: a systematic review literature review supports and interventions for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology: a systematic review elloyse fitzgeraldson 1,2, frances kay-lambkin 1,3,4,5,6,7, natasha harding 1,2, kimie m. mcnaughton 1,4,5, zoi triandafilidis 1,5, jacinta heath 8, bronte lyford 1,2, janine charnley 1,4,5,6, sally fitzpatrick 1,2,9 [1] university of newcastle, newcastle, australia. [2] everymind, newcastle, australia. [3] nhmrc centre for research excellence in mental health & substance abuse, macquarie university, sydney, australia. [4] hunter medical research institute, newcastle, australia. [5] centre for brain and mental health priority research centre, university of newcastle, newcastle, australia. [6] society for mental health research, victoria, australia. [7] international society for research on internet interventions, sanford, nc, usa. [8] child and adolescent mental health service, hunter new england health, sydney, australia. [9] centre for emotional health, macquarie university, sydney, australia. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 received: 2021-03-24 • accepted: 2021-09-03 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: michelle e. roley-roberts, creighton university, omaha, ne, usa corresponding author: elloyse fitzgeraldson, university of newcastle, 72 watt st., newcastle, nsw, 2300, australia. e-mail: elloyse.saw@health.nsw.gov.au abstract an increasing body of research attests to the capacity of evidence-based interventions to improve outcomes for informal carers. a review of suitable supports and interventions for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology is timely. this systematic review explores intervention suitability evidence for this carer group. searches for relevant primary studies were conducted in six databases across a 15-year timeframe (october 2004–october 2019). studies were assessed and compared narratively and thematically. qualitative themes were synthesised with quantitative studies to explore the extent to which carer preferences were embedded in interventions. the initial literature search produced 13,183 studies. six studies—three randomised controlled trials (rcts) and three mixed-method studies—were included following a double-blinded screening process, a review of reference lists and risk of bias assessment. included studies contributed either intervention efficacy or acceptability evidence. the synthesis of qualitative themes with quantitative studies found that carer-specific needs and targeted psychoeducation were featured in interventions from all six quantitative studies. current evidence for appropriate supports and interventions for this carer group is limited. the review uncovers a lack of interventions for carers of a person with anxiety symptomology and limited intervention suitability evidence for carers of a person with depressive symptomology. more research is needed to explore the needs and preferences of this carer group, and how best to support them. keywords carers, caregivers, family, anxiety, depression, mental health carers have become a strong focus in the literature and service delivery in recent years. a carer, also referred to as an informal carer, is a person, such as a partner, family member, friend, or significant other, who provides unpaid support to someone with ‘a diminishing physical ability, a debilitating cognitive condition or a chronic life-limiting illness’ (international alliance of carer organizations, 2021). there are millions of carers globally, with an estimated 43.5 million carers in the united states (nac & aarp public policy institute, 2015), 7.8 million in canada (statistics canada, 2018), 6.5 million in the united kingdom (new policy institute, 2016) and 2.8 million in australia (carers australia & deloitte access economics, 2020). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6407&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ carers make a significant contribution to economies and service sectors worldwide by providing support to families and friends who would otherwise rely on formal services. countries save between $20bn and $470bn usd per year through unpaid carer contribution (carers australia & deloitte access economics, 2020; carers uk & university of leeds, 2011; hollander et al., 2009; nac & aarp public policy institute, 2015). carers also contribute to the community by providing practical and emotional support to their partners, family members, and friends. though there are positive aspects to this role, caring can be detrimental to a person’s health and wellbeing. it is well documented in the extant literature that many carers will experience financial, career, family, and social strains due to their caring role (harris et al., 2015; poon et al., 2017). while services and supplements exist for carers, such as psychology services and financial aid, research shows that carers of a person with a mental health condition rarely access available supports (yesufu-udechuku et al., 2015). in australia, for instance, there are approximately 329,000 carers of a person with a mental illness. yet, only a portion (34.4 percent) of these individuals access professional services, with more than a third unaware that relevant services exist (diminic et al., 2019). this finding suggests that current interventions and supports are not sufficiently targeting mental health carers' diverse needs. the research literature rarely refers to mental health carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology, despite evidence of high prevalence rates for depression and anxiety. data suggests that one million australians will experience depression and two million will experience anxiety in any one year (australian bureau of statistics, 2008). it is also common for individuals to present with co-occurring symptoms of depression and anxiety (cairney et al., 2008; rivas-vazquez et al., 2004), or symptoms occurring alongside other physical health conditions, chronic illnesses or disabilities, such as a cancer diagnosis, diabetes and traumatic brain injury (chireh et al., 2019; nefs et al., 2019; osborn et al., 2017; williams & dale, 2006). due to the highly variable and comorbid nature of depressive and anxiety symptomology, service professionals overlook many individuals experiencing symptoms of these conditions (rivas-vazquez et al., 2004). the fact that many people with depressive and anxiety symptoms will not meet the formal diagnosis threshold (rivas-vazquez et al., 2004) partly explains this finding. yet evidence suggests that even sub-threshold depressive and anxiety symptomology can cause significant psychological impairment (haller et al., 2014; rodríguez et al., 2012). without professional support, it is often the spouses, families and friends of these individuals who become the ‘carers’. research suggests that carers of a person with depression experience common lifestyle challenges, such as finan­ cial difficulties, feelings of distress, sleeplessness, relationship ambivalence and less engagement in social activities (skundberg-kletthagen et al., 2014). expressing worry about the future, stigma and accessibility to treatment are also frequently cited challenges for carers (highet et al., 2004; jeglic et al., 2005; lemmens et al., 2009). however, less is known about the specific needs of carers of a person with anxiety. the experiences of those supporting someone with symptoms of these conditions without a formal diagnosis are also rarely considered in current policy and service delivery. by systematically identifying and comparing studies on supports and interventions for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology, the following review identifies current evidence for intervention suitability for this carer group. the review undertakes three methods of analysis. first, a synthesis of available efficacy and feasibility studies seeks to identify existing quantitative evidence for intervention suitability. next, a thematic analysis of included qualitative studies seeks to summarise existing qualitative evidence for intervention suitability. finally, a synthesis of qualitative themes with quantitative studies explores whether current evidence-based interventions reflect carers' needs and preferences expressed in the thematic analysis. method inclusion and exclusion criteria studies were eligible for inclusion if they described supports and interventions targeting carers aged 16 years and over; included carers supporting a person with depression and/or anxiety symptomology; reported their results for carer participants separate to any other participants (such as care recipients); had a publication in a peer-reviewed journal and reported their study in english. studies that did not provide strategies for carers exclusively or that included carers fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 477 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ under 16 years of age were excluded. studies that referred to some recipients of care with symptoms of depression or anxiety, but not all participants in the sample, were also excluded. table 1 search strategy using medline 2004–present (october 30, 2019) number searches results 1 carer.mp. 4889 2 caregiver.mp. 27645 3 informal caregiver.mp. 598 4 primary caregiver.mp. 1267 5 family/ 75388 6 mother.mp. 120169 7 father.mp. 25949 8 parent.mp. 157432 9 friend.mp. 14940 10 peer.mp. 84696 11 significant other.mp. 1271 12 partner.mp. 73967 13 sibling.mp. 23107 14 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 553220 15 intervention.mp. 611135 16 support program.mp. 1561 17 education/ 20745 18 psychoeducation.mp. 2940 19 psychological.mp. 562707 20 behaviour management.mp. 255 21 behavior management.mp. 808 22 behaviour modification.mp. 574 23 behavior modification.mp. 2250 24 skills training.mp. 6465 25 skills building.mp. 315 26 cognitive behaviour therapy.mp. 1688 27 cognitive behavior therapy.mp. 2466 28 cbt.mp. 10868 29 motivational interviewing.mp. 4452 30 social support/ 69981 31 15 or 16 or 17 or 18 or 19 or 20 or 21 or 22 or 23 or 24 or 25 or 26 or 27 or 28 or 29 or 30 1206650 32 depression/ 117414 33 depressive disorder/ 72542 34 symptoms of depression.mp. 11836 35 anxiety/ 79956 36 anxiety disorder.mp. 15312 37 symptoms of anxiety.mp. 6341 38 32 or 33 or 34 or 35 or 36 or 37 251338 39 14 and 31 and 38 10678 40 limit 39 to (english language and yr="2004 2019") 7528 data sources and search strategies a systematic search of six databases was conducted: psycinfo, medline, embase, psychology and behavioural scien­ ces, psychology database and scopus. the search was limited to human studies only, written in english and spanned a a systematic review of carer-focused supports 478 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 15-year time limit, from october 30, 2019 (search commencement date) to october 30, 2004). broad and general search terms were used to capture all potentially eligible studies including the heterogeneous nature of carers, such as family, mother, father, parent, peer, friend, significant other, partner and sibling. a search strategy example for medline is displayed in table 1. quality assessment reviewers (ef and nh) used tools from the critical appraisal skills programme (2018) to assess the quality of included studies. a numerical score was awarded to each study for each question on the tool, depending on how well the study responded to the screening questions (0 = no, 1 = partly, 2 = yes; see farrance et al., 2016). using the casp randomised controlled trials checklist, rcts could score a maximum of 22 points. non-randomised studies could score 24 on the casp cohort study checklist and qualitative studies could score a maximum of 20 points on the casp qualitative studies checklist. the reviewers removed two non-randomised studies from the review, based on low scores of 8/24 (katsuki et al., 2011) and 12/24 (bernhard et al., 2006). the studies aimed to assess intervention efficacy but did not include a control group. if the studies reported on the interventions’ feasibility and acceptability, then the study designs may have been sufficiently robust to answer these questions and pass the quality assessment. data extraction the lead reviewer (ef) extracted data from studies using data extraction forms. studies reporting more than one method contributed information to all applicable data extraction forms. the extracted data included the study type, study design, study population and participant demographics, type of intervention, details of reported study outcomes, details of study efficacy or acceptability to participants, risk of bias score and study limitations. two reviewers (ef and nh) identified and resolved any discrepancies resulting from the data extraction process. data analysis the review methodology was adapted from the evidence for policy and practice information and co-ordinating centre (eppi-centre; farrance, et al., 2016; thomas et al., 2004). this method addresses broad research questions where relevant qualitative and quantitative evidence exists (clement et al., 2015). following this approach, qualitative and quantitative studies were synthesised separately. for the qualitative studies, thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2012) was used to combine carers’ responses. the lead reviewer (ef) copied the results section of qualitative studies verbatim in qualitative data analysis software (nvivo; qsr international, 2020). to analyse the data, the reviewer systematically assigned labels or 'codes' to text (thomas & harden, 2008). the analysis aimed to summarise carers’ experiences engaging with interventions. for the quantitative studies, data relating to intervention efficacy and feasibility was analysed descriptively. this approach was used in place of a meta-analysis to address the expected methodological and clinical heterogeneity across studies (popay et al., 2006). this analysis aimed to identify the suitability of interventions for the carer group, based on quantitative data. data was included from randomised and non-randomised studies. following the separate quantitative and qualitative data syntheses, the reviewer created a table to compare the qualitative themes with the quantitative studies. the table enabled the primary reviewer to assess the extent to which the intervention designs and measures used in the quantitative studies reflected the concepts identified in the qualitative analysis (thomas & harden, 2008). fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 479 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results the initial literature search produced 13,183 studies. following abstract screening against inclusion and exclusion criteria, 172 articles progressed to the full-text review and seven studies were included (11 articles). one additional study was retrieved through a review of the reference lists of all included papers. after the exclusion of two studies as part of the risk of bias assessment, a total of six studies were included in the synthesis (three rcts and three mixed-method studies). the mixed method studies had relevant qualitative and quantitative data. this process is outlined in figure 1. figure 1 flow chart of included studies quality of included studies the three rcts scored at least 15 out of a possible 22 points for the quality assessment. the main limitations for this study type were small sample size, lack of blinding and specific samples that do not represent the carer group more broadly (e.g., carers of a person with bipolar disorder). the highest scoring mixed-method study was 16 out of a possible 24 points. these studies were low scoring due to the one arm study designs and small sample sizes. the qualitative studies scored well comparatively, receiving at least 17 out of a possible 20 points. common limitations for this study type were no mention of the researcher critically examining their role and a lack of diversity within the sample. quantitative synthesis the quantitative synthesis included data from three rcts and three mixed-method studies. sample sizes ranged from 16–121 carer participants (n = 298) and all participants were ≥ 18 years of age. five studies reported on the mean age of participants (berk et al., 2013; hubbard et al., 2016; mccann et al., 2015; perlick et al., 2018; racey et al., 2018), with an average age of 49.6 years. three studies reported age as a range, with participants falling between 20 and 68 years a systematic review of carer-focused supports 480 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (mccann et al., 2015; stjernswärd & östman, 2011). participants were parents (28 percent), unspecified relatives (18 percent), partners (eight percent), adult children (three percent) and friends/neighbours (one percent) of care recipients. the relation to care recipients was unknown for 42 percent of participants. four of the six studies included male and female participants (hubbard et al., 2016; mccann et al., 2015; racey et al., 2018; stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and two studies included female participants only (berk et al., 2013; perlick et al., 2018). overall, 78 percent of participants were female, 15 percent were male, and seven percent did not provide data for this question. studies were in australia, sweden, uk, thailand, and the united states. berk and colleagues (2013) recruited carers online from several english speaking developed countries, such as australia, uk, usa, canada, and others. study periods ranged from six weeks to 15 months. summaries and outcomes of studies are included in table 2. participants engaged with three face-to-face interventions (hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018; racey et al., 2018), one take home manual (mccann et al., 2015) and one online platform (berk et al., 2013; stjernswärd & östman, 2011). intervention efficacy was a primary outcome for all included rcts. the studies measured carers’ mental health (hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018), resilience (mccann et al., 2015), self-efficacy and psychoeducation (hubbard et al., 2016) across time points. the three rcts demonstrated significant results (p < .05). the interventions used in the rcts had some differences and similarities. for example, only one of the interventions targeted carers of a person with depression (mccann et al., 2015). the other two targeted carers of a person with bipolar (hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018). while only two interventions used cbt strategies (mccann et al., 2015; perlick et al., 2018), all three included psychoeducation and health-promoting strategies. some examples include mental health promotion (perlick et al., 2018), coping strategies (hubbard et al., 2016) and social, and physical health promotion (hubbard et al., 2016; mccann et al., 2015). each intervention also had unique features. for instance, the brief group psychoeducation included an action plan activity to complete and review with the person with bipolar (hubbard et al., 2016). conversely, the family focused treatment (fft) used feedback from interviews with carers to inform module content on barriers to implementing self-care (perlick et al., 2018). furthermore, the guided self-help (gsh) manual was the only resource accessible from participants’ homes (mccann et al., 2015). all three mixed-method studies were primarily concerned with carer acceptability of the intervention. however, one study was also concerned with care recipients (young people) and clinicians’ acceptability (racey et al., 2018). the studies assessed acceptability through intervention usefulness (berk et al., 2013), usability (stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and participant attendance (racey et al., 2018). participants from all three studies met acceptability criteria. fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 481 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 st ud y c ha ra ct er is tic s of in cl ud ed q ua nt ita tiv e st ud ie s st ud y a im s st ud y ty pe st ud y qu al it y po pu la ti on in te rv en ti on c om pa ra ti ve in te rv en ti on m ea su re s r es ul ts li m it at io ns h ub ba rd e t a l. (2 01 6) t he s tu dy a im ed to ev al ua te th e ef fe ct iv en es s of a br ie f g ro up ps yc ho ed uc at io na l in te rv en tio n fo r ca re rs o f in di vi du al s w ith b ip ol ar di so rd er . rc t. 17 /2 2 pa rt ic ip an ts (n =3 2) w er e (a ) ag ed ≥ 1 8 ye ar s an d ca ri ng fo r so m eo ne w ith a d ia gn os ed bi po la r di so rd er . r ec ru itm en t: ra di o ad ve rt is em en ts , l oc al su pp or t/ m en ta l h ea lth s er vi ce s an d un iv er si ty e m ai ls , i n pe rt h, a us tr al ia . tw o 15 0 m in ut e gr ou p se ss io ns s pa ce d on e w ee k ap ar t. w ai tli st c on tr ol . bu rd en a ss es sm en t s ca le (b a s; r ei nh ar d et a l., 1 99 4) , k no w le dg e of b ip ol ar d is or de r sc al e (h ub ba rd e t al ., 20 16 ), bi po la r d is or de r se lfef fi ca cy s ca le (a da pt ed fr om s m ith e t a l). tr ea tm en t g ro up h ad s ig ni fi ca nt re du ct io ns in c ar eg iv er b ur de n (p < .0 01 ) a nd in cr ea se s in b ip ol ar di so rd er k no w le dg e (p < .0 01 ) a nd bi po la r di so rd er s el fef fi ca cy . im pr ov em en ts m ai nt ai ne d or in cr ea se d to fo llo w -u p. sm al l s am pl e si ze , sp ec if ic to b ip ol ar ca re rs . m cc an n et a l. (2 01 5) ef fe ct iv en es s of a c og ni tiv e be ha vi ou r th er ap y (c bt ) ba se d gu id ed s el fhe lp (g sh ) m an ua l i n de cr ea si ng ex pr es se d em ot io n (e e) in ca re rs o f a p er so n w ith de pr es si on . rc t 19 /2 2 pr im ar y fa m ily c ar er s (n =5 4) o f ou tp at ie nt s w ith a d ia gn os is o f de pr es si on . r ec ru itm en t: fa m ily ca re rs o f p at ie nt s fr om th e ou tp at ie nt u ni t a t s ua n pr un g ps yc hi at ri c h os pi ta l, in c hi an g m ai , t ha ila nd . ei gh t m od ul e c bt b as ed g sh m an ua l. st an da rd ou tp at ie nt de pa rt m en t su pp or t. t he r es ili en ce s ca le (r s) (w ag ni ld & y ou ng , 1 99 3) . si gn if ic an t d iff er en ce in r es ili en ce sc or es b et w ee n tim e po in ts (f (2 , 10 2) = 1 5. 1, p < 0. 00 1) , w ith a pa rt ia l η 2 st at is tic o f 0 .2 28 in di ca tin g a la rg e ef fe ct . sm al l s am pl e si ze , sa m pl e is la ck in g di ve rs ity . pe rl ic k et a l. (2 01 8) su st ai ne d ef fe ct s of ca re gi ve r‐ on ly a da pt at io n of fa m ily ‐f oc us ed tr ea tm en t (f ft ). pi lo t rc t. 18 /2 2 pr im ar y fa m ily c ar eg iv er s (n = 36 ) o f p at ie nt s w ith a c lin ic al di ag no si s of b ip ol ar i or b ip ol ar ii d is or de r. re cr ui tm en t: fa m ily m em be rs o f p at ie nt s re fe rr ed fr om th re e m en ta l h ea lth fa ci lit ie s, in n ew y or k, u ni te d st at es o f a m er ic a. 12 –1 5 se ss io n ff t s es si on s w ith p sy ch o­ ed uc at io n an d c bt . 8– 12 -s es si on he al th e du ca tio n (h e) in te rv en tio n de liv er ed v ia d v d s. c en te r fo r ep id em io lo gi ca l st ud ie s of d ep re ss io n sc al e (c es -d ; r ad lo ff , 1 97 7) , m en ta l o ut co m es s tu di es sh or tfo rm h ea lth s ur ve y (s f36 ; w ar e et a l., 1 99 5) . si gn if ic an t i m pr ov em en ts w er e ob se rv ed fo r m en ta l h ea lth ou tc om es (s f36 ) f ro m p re -p os t an d m ai nt ai ne d at 6 -m on th s fo llo w -u p (p = .0 2) a nd s ig ni fi ca nt de cr ea se in d ep re ss io n sc or es (c es -d ) f ro m p re -t o po st tr ea tm en t w hi ch w as m ai nt ai ne d ov er th e 6m on th p er io d (p = .0 03 ). sm al l s am pl e si ze , bi po la r ca re r sp ec if ic , f ft h ad ro ug hl y tw ic e th e nu m be r of s es si on s as h e co nd iti on . ef fe ct c ou ld b e du e to tr ea tm en t d os e. ra ce y et a l. (2 01 8) fe as ib ili ty a nd a cc ep ta bi lit y of m in df ul ne ss –b as ed co gn iti ve b eh av io ur th er ap y (m bc t ) f or y ou ng pe op le , t he ir p ar en ts , a nd cl in ic ia ns . m ix ed m et ho d fe as ib ili ty st ud y. 14 /2 4 pa re nt s (n = 2 9) o f y ou ng p eo pl e (a ge d 14 –1 8 ye ar s) w ith de pr es si on w er e re cr ui te d w ith in a s in gl e c hi ld a nd a do le sc en t m en ta l h ea lth se rv ic e (c a m h s) in d ev on , en gl an d. 8 se ss io n m an ua lis ed gr ou p in te rv en tio n. n /a (o ne a rm st ud y) . be ck d ep re ss io n in ve nt or yii (b ec k et a l., 19 96 ), ru m in at io n re sp on se s ca le (t re yn or e t a l. 20 03 ), se lfc om pa ss io n sc al e (n ef f 20 16 ), m in df ul a tt en tio n a w ar en es s sc al e (b ro w n & ry an , 2 00 3) , t he ex pe ri en ce s q ue st io nn ai re d ec en tr in g su bs ca le (f re sc o et a l., 2 00 7) . 21 o f t he 2 5 yo un g pe op le /p ar en ts dy ad s w ho s ta rt ed th e m bc t co ur se a tt en de d at le as t s ix o r m or e se ss io ns , s ug ge st in g ad he re nc e. o ne a rm tr ia l, sm al l sa m pl e si ze . a systematic review of carer-focused supports 482 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y a im s st ud y ty pe st ud y qu al it y po pu la ti on in te rv en ti on c om pa ra ti ve in te rv en ti on m ea su re s r es ul ts li m it at io ns be rk e t a l. (2 01 3) a cc ep ta bi lit y an d us ef ul ne ss o f o nl in e gu id el in es fo r ca re gi ve rs o f ad ul ts w ith b ip ol ar . m ix ed m et ho d fe as ib ili ty st ud y. 16 /2 4 pa rt ic ip an ts (n = 1 21 ) w er e ad ul t ca re rs o f a du lts w ith b ip ol ar . re cr ui tm en t: st ud y w as ad ve rt is ed a t m en ta l h ea lth a nd ca re r or ga ni sa tio ns in v ar io us en gl is hsp ea ki ng c ou nt ri es , ad ve rt is em en ts p os te d in do ct or s’ w ai tin g ro om s pl us g oo gl e ad ve rt is em en ts . a n in fo rm at io n w eb si te fo r ca re rs o f a pe rs on w ith bi po la r di so rd er . n /a (o ne a rm st ud y) . it em s fo r w eb si te u se fu ln es s on a fo ur -p oi nt s ca le (‘ ve ry us ef ul ’ t o ‘n ot u se fu l a t a ll) , de m og ra ph ic q ue st io ns a nd qu es tio n ar ou nd e st im at ed tim e sp en t v ie w in g th e w eb si te . 97 .4 p er ce nt o f u se rs fo un d th e in te rv en tio n us ef ul . o ne a rm s tu dy , sp ec if ic to c ar er s of pe op le w ith b ip ol ar . st je rn sw är d & ö st m an . (2 01 1) fe as ib ili ty o f c on st ru ct in g a di gi ta lly b as ed to ol th ro ug h an it er at iv e de si gn p ro ce ss in c oo pe ra tio n w ith po te nt ia l u se rs . m ix ed m et ho ds fe as ib ili ty st ud y. 14 /2 4 pa rt ic ip an ts (n = 1 6) w er e re la tiv es o f a p er so n w ith de pr es si on . r ec ru itm en t: ad ve rt is em en t o n in r eg io na l ne w sp ap er , w eb si te fo ru m a nd ca re rs o f p at ie nt s in p sy ch ia tr ic w ar ds in s ou th s w ed en . o nl in e pl at fo rm , in cl ud in g di ar y ac tiv ity , s oc ia l fo ru m , a nd sc al es , a s a ba si s fo r gr ou p di sc us si on s. n /a (o ne a rm st ud y) . su s (s ys te m u sa bi lit y sc al e) . t he r es ul ts s ho w th e pr os a nd co ns o f u si ng th e on lin e to ol s w ith in a g ro up . sm al l s am pl e si ze , on e ar m d es ig n an d ba se d on p ot en tia l us er s’ r ef le ct io ns ab ou t t he d ig ita l to ol , n ot o n ac tu al us er e xp er ie nc es . fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 483 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ qualitative synthesis a variety of data collection methods were used for studies with relevant qualitative data, including surveys (berk et al., 2013), semi-structured interviews (racey et al., 2018), online forum posts, a usability scale, and focus groups (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). authors used content analysis (berk et al., 2013; stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and thematic analysis (racey et al., 2018) to assess carer responses. study details are summarised in table 3. both positive and negative appraisals of the interventions were identified in carer feedback. the lead reviewer (ef) sorted these data extracts into possible themes regarding intervention suitability. themes and associated extracts were checked and discussed by other authors until thematic consensus was reached. carer feedback comprised of three central themes: carer-specific needs, targeted psychoeducation, and appropriate intervention design. carer-specific needs carers approved of interventions that targeted their specific needs. for example, carers in all three studies appreciated information that considered their lived experience and promoted their health and wellbeing. carers were optimistic about content that referenced their lived experience. for example, a carer who engaged with the online guidelines said they valued information that considered their perspective (e.g., ‘information given specifically for caregivers, from our point of view’; berk et al., 2013 p. 7). similarly, carers who used the guidelines and social forum commented that stories of other carers helped them feel less alone in their experience (berk et al., 2013; stjernswärd & östman, 2011). carers were also positive about interventions that promoted their health and wellbeing. for example, a carer who engaged with the mbct resonated with the message to take care of oneself, stating, ‘[i]f you can manage yourself; you are in a better place to help them (the care-recipient)’ (racey et al., 2018, p. 1070). similarly, carers found that the online diary was a helpful tool that for prioritising their needs. one carer described the diary as a ‘think tank’ that supported them to take time and make ‘room for reflection’ (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). targeted psychoeducation carers positively appraised targeted psychoeducation in all three studies. they were receptive towards interventions with information about mental illness, the needs of care recipients, and stigma. participants who used the online guidelines for carers of a person with bipolar disorder were hopeful about learning more about this condition. for example, one carer stated that bipolar disorder is ‘not a death sentence’, with another reflecting that ‘information boosted (their) optimism’ (berk et al., 2013, p. 7). similarly, carers found that information on the website and social forum ignited a ‘curiosity and wish for more knowledge’ (stjernswärd & östman, 2011, p. 381). having a better understanding of the processes that maintain depression enabled carers to develop more empathy for the care recipient and a better understanding of the illness (racey et al., 2018). a participant from the mbct intervention reflected on the role of the course in supporting them to better understand their child. the carer stated that ‘it’s helped me understand my daughter as well and what she must be going through’ (racey et al., 2018, p. 1070). carers also positively appraised information that addressed stigma. in one study, carers of a person with bipolar appreciated the discussion of stigmatised topics (e.g., ‘has the answers to the questions i was too afraid to ask’; berk et al., 2013, p. 7). in the mbct one carer became aware of their own stigmatising beliefs toward the person they support, stating: ‘although i wanted to be understanding and supportive before... sometimes i would think oh, come on, surely you can find something that’s good in your life, it’s not really that bad.’ (racey et al., 2018, p. 1070). a systematic review of carer-focused supports 484 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 3 st ud y c ha ra ct er is tic s of in cl ud ed q ua lit at iv e st ud ie s st ud y a im s st ud y qu al it y d es ig n po pu la ti on in te rv en ti on o ut co m es li m it at io ns be rk e t a l. (2 01 3) to e va lu at e th e ac ce pt ab ili ty an d us ef ul ne ss o f o nl in e gu id el in es fo r ca re gi ve rs o f ad ul ts w ith b ip ol ar . 17 /2 0 o nl in e fe ed ba ck s ur ve y w as em ai le d to w eb u se rs . re se ar ch er s us ed c on te nt an al ys is to a ss es s re sp on se s to op en -e nd ed q ue st io ns . pa rt ic ip an ts w er e ad ul t c ar er s of a du lts w ith b ip ol ar . a n in fo rm at io n w eb si te fo r ca re rs o f a p er so n w ith b ipo la r di so rd er . m os t c ar eg iv er s po si tiv el y ap pr ai se d th e gu id el in es , be lie vi ng th e in fo rm at io n w as su pp or tiv e. a fe w r es po nd en ts w ho w er e fa ci ng c om pl ex fa m ily pr ob le m s, o r w ho s up po rt ed so m eo ne w ith s ev er e, c hr on ic bi po la r w er e no t a s po si tiv e in th ei r ap pr ai sa ls . sp ec if ic to c ar er s of a p er so n w ith b ip ol ar . n ot e no ug h in fo rm at io n on e th ic s e. g. , co ns en t a nd c on fi de nt ia lit y. a ut ho r di dn ’t cr iti ca lly e xa m in e ro le . st je rn sw är d & ö st m an . (2 01 1) to il lu m in at e us er ’s e xp er ie nc es of a w eb si te a im ed a t h el pi ng re la tiv es o f p er so ns w ith de pr es si on . 18 /2 0 d at a w as c ol le ct ed th ro ug h fo ru m p os ts , a u sa bi lit y sc al e an d fo cu s gr ou ps . a na ly se d us in g co nt en t a na ly si s. re la tiv es o f a p er so n w ith d ep re ss io n. w eb si te a cc es s ov er 1 0 w ee ks an d as ke d to c on tr ib ut e to on lin e di ar y on ce p er w ee k. re su lts r ev ea le d pa rt ic ip an ts ’ ex pe ri en ce s of th e di ar y an d fo ru m , a dv an ta ge s an d ob st ac le s to th e on lin e fo rm at a nd fe ed ba ck o n th e w eb si te ’s co nt en ts a nd u se . sm al l s am pl e si ze . r es ea rc he r di d no t c ri tic al ly e xa m in e ro le . ra ce y et a l. (2 01 8) to a ss es s if a pa ra lle l c ou rs e fo r ca re rs (p ar en ts ) w as a u se fu l ad di tio n to th e m bc t. 17 /2 0 se m ist ru ct ur ed in te rv ie w s an d th em at ic a na ly si s. yo un g pe op le (a ge d 14 –1 8 ye ar s) w ith de pr es si on a nd th ei r pa re nt s w er e re cr ui te d w ith in a si ng le c hi ld a nd a do le sc en t m en ta l h ea lth s er vi ce (c a m h s) in d ev on . 8 se ss io n m an ua lis ed g ro up in te rv en tio n. pa rt ic ip an ts w er e po si tiv e ab ou t th e pa ra lle l c ou rs e, w ith co m m en ts a bo ut h ow it h as im pr ov ed th ei r ca pa ci ty a s pa re nt s, b en ef itt ed th e w id er fa m ily , h el pe d w ith un de rs ta nd in g de pr es si on , a nd pr ov id ed a n op po rt un ity to sh ar e w ith o th er s ab ou t ch al le ng es a nd c op in g st ra te gi es . t he p os iti ve re sp on se s fr om p ar en ts s ug ge st th e co ur se is a n ac ce pt ab le in te rv en tio n. sa m pl e la ck s di ve rs ity . re se ar ch er d id n ot c ri tic al ly ex am in e ro le . fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 485 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ appropriate intervention design carers identified appropriate intervention design as a marker of intervention usefulness in all three studies. carers made positive and negative comments about accessibility, privacy, navigation, and processes. participants in the two online interventions appreciated the ease of accessing information online, both within the website (e.g., ‘easy to find what i was looking for’; berk et al., 2013, p. 7) and as an alternative to face-to-face methods (e.g., ‘convenient to use from different locations (home and work), making it easy to exploit free time’; stjernswärd & östman, 2011, p. 378). some carers regarded the online format as a more accessible option (e.g., ‘information… can be easily accessed if someone is stressed or has little time’; berk et al., 2013). however, for others, the online format was less accessible (e.g., ‘too complex’ and ‘i felt i was being attacked by the pop-up’ and ‘too many fonts and colours on pages’; berk et al., 2013, p. 8). there were similar positive and negative appraisals for the online social forum. carers regarded the forum as a cheaper and more subtle therapeutic option as opposed to a psychologist and were grateful that it could be accessed at any time of day compared to in-person group meetings (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). knowing that the online forum was always available when needed also gave them a feeling of security. however, despite having constant access to the website, some carers didn’t know when they would have their questions answered. other carers felt that reading forum posts can be an unwanted reminder of difficult times, particularly during good moments when participants preferred to focus on the positives. participants also reflected on privacy concerns and an uncomfortable feeling that they were exposing themselves and their loved ones (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). for the mbct intervention, carers were unsure about the mindfulness process. during the initial sessions, two participants described the therapy as ‘a bit odd… a bit strange’, and ‘too alternative for some’ (racey et al. (2018), p. 1069). however, one of these participants said they were eventually able to ‘understand the process’ (racey et al., 2018, p. 1069). synthesis of quantitative and qualitative studies the synthesis of qualitative and quantitative studies revealed the extent to which qualitative themes were present in quantitative studies. all six quantitative studies referred to the theme of carer-specific needs in intervention designs through mental health promotion, social support, and relationship support. two studies aimed to strengthen well-being skills and capacity through family-focused therapy and a self-help manual (mccann et al., 2015; perlick et al., 2018) and interven­ tions in four studies promoted social support through information about the benefits of connecting socially (hubbard et al., 2016; mccann et al., 2015), stories of other carers facing similar challenges (berk et al., 2013), and access to a private social forum (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). finally, two interventions provided tangible strategies for carers to strengthen relationships with care recipients. carers and care recipients worked together to improve cbt skills (racey et al., 2018) and develop an action plan for managing symptoms (hubbard et al., 2016). targeted psychoeducation was also mentioned in all six studies, through information about mental illness (berk et al., 2013; hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018) and supports focused on building carers’ capacity for coping (mccann et al., 2015; racey et al., 2018; stjernswärd & östman, 2011). the theme of appropriate intervention design was present in four of the six studies, through targeted content (e.g., content based on carer lived experience; see berk et al., 2013; hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018; stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and a consideration for accessibility limitations. three interventions addressed accessibility in terms of physical accessibility, i.e., resources that carers could access online (berk et al., 2013; stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and digestible content, i.e., the use of 'non-technical' language (berk et al., 2013, p.3). a systematic review of carer-focused supports 486 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion this is the first systematic review that identifies the types of supports and interventions that exist for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology and compares their suitability for this carer group. the results from this review demonstrate that while carers of a person with depressive symptomology can benefit from a variety of interventions such as, psychoeducation (berk et al., 2013; hubbard et al., 2016; mccann et al., 2015), family support (perlick et al., 2018), social support (stjernswärd & östman, 2011) and mbct (racey et al., 2018), these interventions have not been systematically evaluated. the results also demonstrate a lack of suitability evidence for interventions targeting carers of a person with anxiety symptomology, indicating an important gap in the current evidence base. findings the review contributed four main findings to the area of scoping evidence-based supports for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology. the first is a summary of existing quantitative studies, with similar efficacy measures that have shown positive results for supporting this carer group. the similarities across the interventions used in the rcts, such as psychoeducation and health-promoting strategies, may partly explain their shared success. however, the success of unique intervention features (e.g., a take-home manual; see mccann et al., 2015) could also be due to their compatibility with distinct target groups. for instance, study participants were from different parts of the world, i.e., perth, australia (perlick et al., 2018), new york, united states (hubbard et al., 2016), and chiang mai, thailand (mccann et al., 2015). furthermore, carers in one study supported a person with a depression diagnosis (mccann et al., 2015), compared to a bipolar diagnosis in the other two studies (hubbard et al., 2016; perlick et al., 2018). these distinctions suggest that carers living in different geographical and social contexts or supporting someone with undiagnosed or comorbid depressive symptoms may not experience the same benefits from particular intervention features. the research findings from the rcts are consistent with other literature advocating for the role of psychoeducation and cbt in reducing carer strain and improving health and wellbeing for carers (grenyer et al., 2019; krawitz et al., 2016; lucksted et al., 2012; pearce et al., 2017; takizawa et al., 2006). the mixed-methods studies included in this summary also indicated evidence for intervention feasibility, acceptability, and usefulness. these findings reflect a wider body of literature regarding the benefits of online support and face-to-face mbct sessions for carers (gleeson et al., 2017; osborn et al., 2018; spencer et al., 2019). the second contribution was a thematic analysis of intervention suitability evidence from existing qualitative studies. carers' positive appraisals in this analysis are consistent with other studies on interventions targeting the needs of specific carer groups (greenwood et al., 2013; sin et al., 2017; sin et al 2019; whitney et al., 2012). however, the analysis also identified drawbacks of included intervention approaches. for example, carers said they were concerned about privacy with the online social forum (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). carers in other studies have made similar comments around this format (blom et al., 2015; dam et al., 2017). community hesitancy around privacy online is present in other peer support research, where users discuss the importance of maintaining their anonymity (caton et al., 2019; chan et al., 2016; hanna & gough, 2018). in addition to privacy concerns, carers in the literature perceive online designs as lacking trust, quality control, and targeted information (gibson et al., 2017). however, carers did not identify these drawbacks in this review. by contrast, the current study was in line with other evidence suggesting that the benefits of online support interventions exceed the drawbacks (naslund et al., 2016). furthermore, carers’ negative appraisals about the mindfulness-based therapy correspond with other evidence where carers have expressed doubts about novel or uncommon intervention designs (e.g., group singing; see camic et al., 2013). however, like in the study by camic et al. (2013), carers who engaged with the mindfulness techniques eventually understood and accepted the process (racey et al., 2018). the third finding, which compared quantitative results to qualitative themes, indicated that most quantitative studies incorporated all three qualitative themes. however, two studies (mccann et al., 2015; racey et al., 2018) did not embed the theme of appropriate intervention design. one reason for this may be that the gsh manual and the mbct initially aimed to support care recipients with depression rather than their carers. nonetheless, carers' positive comments (racey fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 487 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2018) and improved resilience (mccann et al., 2015) from these interventions suggest that supports designed to improve care recipients' outcomes may also benefit carers. finally, this paper fills a gap in the evidence base for systematically scoping interventions that exist for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptoms. it also identified the interventions that exist and some current gaps in the evidence base, namely, suitability evidence for supports targeting carers of a person with anxiety symptomology. it is also noteworthy that included studies typically required carer participants to be supporting someone with diagnosed depression or bipolar disorder. this finding indicates a current gap in the evidence base for supports for carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology, where a formal diagnosis is not present. limitations some limitations of the review should be taken into consideration. the studies explored within the study scope are not comprehensive in their representation of the heterogeneous needs and preferences of the carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology. the included studies can only speak for small samples of carers of a person with depression or bipolar disorder exclusively. the lack of representation of carers of people with anxiety in the review suggests a need for more investigation into this subject area. it is also worth acknowledging that the results are not relevant to individuals under 16 years of age who support someone with these symptoms. furthermore, as the search strategy did not include grey literature, the review may have excluded unpublished evidence of suitable interventions for this carer group. thus, there is the possibility of bias toward positive outcomes of interventions, as many researchers will not publish negative findings in peer-reviewed journals. due to the few studies with robust evidence for intervention efficacy (three rcts), the capacity to draw conclusions on suitable interventions for the carer group is limited. even within these studies, sample sizes were small. there are similar limitations in using results from the qualitative studies to represent carer perspectives more broadly. sample sizes were also small for these studies and were lacking sufficient diversity (e.g., one sample was recruited from a single child and adolescent mental health service in devon, england; see racey et al., 2018). furthermore, while illuminating, participant feedback was limited to specific intervention types, such as an online diary (stjernswärd & östman, 2011). more research is needed to explore carer experiences with engaging in more diverse interventions, such as those available to other carer groups. conclusion and recommendations this review aimed to identify and assess suitability evidence for interventions targeting carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptomology. while there was some suitability evidence for interventions targeting carers of a person with depressive symptoms, none of the included studies targeted carers of a person with anxiety symptomology specifically. further, small sample sizes in studies meant results were not sufficiently representative of carers of a person with depressive symptomology. the qualitative analysis found that carers of a person with depressive symptoms accepted interventions that addressed their specific needs, included targeted psychoeducation, and had an appropriate intervention design. in addition, the synthesis of quantitative and qualitative studies suggested that interventions focused on improving outcomes for care recipients can also benefit carers. despite these findings, the review indicates some gaps in suitability evidence for interventions targeting this carer group. more research is needed to understand the needs and suitable supports for these carers. funding: while funding was not allocated to this study specifically, the lead reviewer (fitzgeraldson) conducted this research as part of her phd. the phd scholarship is funded through the university of newcastle and everymind. acknowledgments: the authors would like to thank professor vlad glăveanu for all their support in publishing this article in ejop. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. a systematic review of carer-focused supports 488 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ supplementary materials this systematic review is registered with the international prospective register of systematic reviews (prospero, http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, registration number = crd42020147742) (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials saw, e., kay-lambkin, f., fitzpatrick, s., triandafilidis, z., mcnaughton, k., lyford, b., heath, j., & harding, n. 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(2012). family work in anorexia nervosa: a qualitative study of carers’ experiences of two methods of family intervention. european eating disorders review, 20(2), 132–141. https://doi.org/10.1002/erv.1077 williams, s., & dale, j. (2006). the effectiveness of treatment for depression/depressive symptoms in adults with cancer: a systematic review. british journal of cancer, 94, 372–390. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6602949 yesufu-udechuku, a., harrison, b., mayo-wilson, e., young, n., woodhams, p., shiers, d., kuipers, e., & kendall, t. (2015). interventions to improve the experience of caring for people with severe mental illness: systematic review and meta-analysis. british journal of psychiatry, 206(4), 268–274. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25833867https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.114.147561 about the authors elloyse fitzgeraldson is a phd candidate at the university of newcastle, australia. elloyse’s phd is focused on supporting carers of a person with depressive or anxiety symptoms. elloyse has a research background in the social sciences (sociology and anthropology, hons) and industry experience in family and community service and policy, mental health promotion and suicide prevention. a systematic review of carer-focused supports 492 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.35.1.74 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244x-12-181 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.05.002 https://doi.org/10.2196/14374 https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.12082 https://doi.org/10.2196/10876 https://bit.ly/2tnql8c https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764009358388 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2006.01579.x https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-8-45 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.328.7446.1010 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1023910315561 https://pubmed-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.ezproxy.newcastle.edu.au/7850498/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7723455/ https://doi.org/10.1002/erv.1077 https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6602949 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25833867 https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.114.147561 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frances kay-lambkin (professor. kay-lambkin., phd) is a registered psychologist and mental health researcher in australia. she holds several concurrent leadership roles including interim pro vice-chancellor research and innovation at the university of newcastle and director for the nhmrc centre for research excellence (premise). for the past 15 years, frances has worked in a clinical research capacity with people experiencing a range of mental health and alcohol and other drug use problems. frances also supervises several postgraduate students, including the lead author of this review. natasha harding is a senior project officer at everymind and has been working in the community mental health sector for 12 years. she has led evaluations of community mental health services across nsw and qld and has developed policy for the mental health branch of the nsw ministry of health. she has a bachelor of behavioural studies (psychology), a graduate certificate in health promotion and is undertaking a phd through the university of newcastle. her research explores societal attitudes towards refugees and their impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people with a refugee background. in addition, natasha has a lived experience of caring for someone with an anxiety disorder. kimie m mcnaughton has a b. soc. sci. (psychology), a grad. dip. psychology and a masters of studies specialising in transdiscipli­ nary research. kim has more than 8 years' experience working in a research and project capacity in mental health promotion and the prevention of mental ill-health and suicide. kim’s current role concerns providing support, education and training for enhancing social and emotional wellbeing and connection. zoi triandafilidis (dr. triandafilidis., phd) is a research project manager based at the central coast research institute for integrated care. she is also a conjoint fellow with the school of medicine and public health, faculty of health and medicine, at the university of newcastle. in 2018 she completed a phd at western sydney university’s translational health research institute, exploring young women’s cigarette smoking experiences. she has conducted mixed-methods health research in several areas and has a particular interest in family and friend carers. jacinta heath is a clinical lead at the child and adolescent mental health service in hunter new england health. jacinta holds a bachelor of arts (english), a bachelor of social work and a master of international public health from the university of sydney. jacinta has been working in both clinical and project based mental health and suicide prevention settings for the past 12 years, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between research and evidence-based practice. bronte lyford is a senior project officer at everymind and a conjoint fellow with the school of medicine and public health, faculty of health and medicine at the university of newcastle. bronte holds a bachelor of social science (hons), majoring in sociology and anthropology. bronte has interests and experience in improving media portrayals of mental health and suicide. janine charnley is a senior project officer at everymind. janine is involved in the delivery of everymind’s media project – mindframe. she is a regular guest speaker at universities and conferences on the safe and responsible communications of suicide, mental health, and alcohol and other drugs in communications. janine holds a degree in science, an honour’s degree in biomedical science (1st class) and a graduate certificate in business administration from the university of newcastle. sally fitzpatrick (dr. fitzpatrick., phd) is a program manager at everymind, newcastle, australia. sally is a developmental and clinical psychologist who holds a ba (welfare), ba psychology (hons), master of clinical psychology, and a phd. she is also an honorary postdoctoral fellow with macquarie university. sally also supervises postgraduate students, including the lead author for this review. fitzgeraldson, kay-lambkin, harding et al. 493 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 476–493 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a systematic review of carer-focused supports (introduction) method inclusion and exclusion criteria data sources and search strategies quality assessment data extraction data analysis results quality of included studies quantitative synthesis qualitative synthesis synthesis of quantitative and qualitative studies discussion findings limitations conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests supplementary materials references about the authors a review of agustín fuentes’s "why we believe: evolution and the human way of being" book reviews fuentes, a. (2019). why we believe: evolution and the human way of being. yale university press. 266 pp. isbn 9780300243994 (hardback electronic). a review of agustín fuentes’s "why we believe: evolution and the human way of being" farid pazhoohi 1 [1] department of psychology, university of british columbia, vancouver, bc, canada. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 494–495, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10453 received: 2022-10-11 • accepted: 2022-10-11 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: farid pazhoohi, department of psychology, university of british columbia, 2136 west mall, v6t 1z4, vancouver, british columbia, canada. e-mail: pazhoohi@gmail.com abstract this is a review of agustín fuentes's book "why we believe: evolution and the human way of being" (yale university press, 2019). it outlines fuentes's idea that the human capacity to believe has roots in our evolutionary history, sociality, and niche, and offers a critique of various aspects of this book. "much of the reason we can believe the ways we do today rests in changes in the ways societies were structured, interpreted, remembered, and lived over the last 14,000 years." agustín fuentes agustín fuentes, a professor of anthropology at the princeton university, in his latest book, why we believe: evolution and the human way of being (fuentes, 2019) puts forward the idea that the human cognitive capacity to believe has its roots in our past evolutionary history, ancestors’ sociality, and the niche in which humans have evolved. according to fuentes, the cognitive capacity to believe that evolved as the requirement for sociality in our ancestors is also a pre­ requisite of our cognitive and social resources needed for emergence of belief capacities. such abilities for cooperation and collaboration, along with the dealing with the diverse challenges in new environments and development of novel approaches to these challenges, resulted in the emergence of the ability for imagination and mental representation of the world beyond the immediate present. fuentes argues that a reciprocal and mutual influence of human niche and cognitive capacity has reshaped human experience and belief. as we approach the current era, the human niche becomes more complex. for example, as a result of domestication, a greater intimacy and interaction with animals and plants ensued, and consequently, the likelihood of attributing agency and awareness to other species, and thereby the humans’ capacity for anthropomorphism, sentience, and attribution of other kinds of awareness, developed even more. fuentes similarly explains how the human niche during the anthropocene has created social, political, and economic relationships—the latter have generated the cognitive and social resources for enhancing mental representations and imaginations necessary for beliefs in property and ownership, inequality and justice, gender roles, religion and belief systems, coordination and cooperation, political structures, and economic systems. fuentes allocates three separate chapters to three patterns of belief, namely religion, economies, and love. by arguing that the ability to believe is central and material to the human system, as fingers are part of our arms and hands, he strives to distinguish his proposal for the emergence of the capacity for religious belief from those who advocate for the by-product theory of religion (i.e., the supernatural agency detection hypothesis). however, it appears that these this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10453&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ two arguments are not mutually exclusive and overlap. nonetheless, he rejects the “big god” hypothesis of religion emergence as failing to provide an explanation of religious experience. next, he argues while economic systems are human-made, by-products of society and like religion have been nonexistent until very recently in our evolutionary history, people believe competition for limited resources in the world is a natural law. while one might find the first half of the book more compelling and interesting, it is an engaging book, written beautifully. fuentes is a great storyteller, and it is as if you are watching a documentary about human evolution as you read—easy, entertaining, and sometimes mesmerizing! why we believe is easy to read and suitable for the general reader, however, particularly students of evolutionary sciences, psychology, anthropology and religious studies might find it very interesting. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. references fuentes, a. (2019). why we believe: evolution and the human way of being. yale university press. about the author dr. farid pazhoohi is a postdoctoral fellow at the university of british columbia (ubc) in the department of psychology. his research integrates the fields of cognitive, neuro, and social psychology, relying on several experimental paradigms including eye-tracking and virtual reality. pazhoohi 495 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 494–495 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10453 https://www.psychopen.eu/ irrational beliefs editorial irrational beliefs iris žeželj* a, ljiljana b. lazarević b [a] department of psychology, laboratory for social psychology, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. [b] institute of psychology and laboratory for the study of individual differences, faculty of philosophy, university of belgrade, belgrade, serbia. abstract irrational beliefs are often used as an umbrella term that comprises a variety of psychological constructs: from specific cognitive biases to a wider class of epistemologically suspect beliefs (superstitions, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs, conspiracy theories etc.) or cognitive styles (analytical versus intuitive thinking), but also unsubstantiated self-related beliefs. this collection of papers illustrates this diversity well. apart from the descriptive portion of the data, which has merit on its own, the authors provide important methodological innovations in the way these beliefs are measured, but also look deeper in their functionality and consequences. keywords: irrational beliefs, cognitive biases, intuitive thinking, epistemologically suspect beliefs, paranormal beliefs, conspiracy theories europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 published (vor): 2019-02-28. *corresponding author at: čika ljubina 18-20, 11000 belgrade, serbia. e-mail: izezelj@f.bg.ac.rs this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. no one familiar with modern empirical psychology will contest the assertion that reasoning and behavior do not always comply with rationality norms. if we label that deviations as irrational, we end up with an umbrella term that comprises a variety of psychological constructs: from an ever-growing list of specific cognitive biases to a wider class of epistemologically suspect beliefs (superstitions, paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs, conspiracy theories etc.) or cognitive styles (analytical versus intuitive thinking), but also unsubstantiated self-related beliefs (the ones contested in varieties of cognitive-behavioral therapies). such irrational beliefs are definitely not rare, pathological or culturally specific phenomena. on the contrary, they are widespread and cannot be tied to any specific social environment. a non-exhaustive search using google scholar search engine revealed that since 2008, the term irrational beliefs has been mentioned in 15500 scientific papers. irrational beliefs are explored in a range of domains and contexts, like psychotherapy (especially rebt), openand closed-mindedness, cognitive dissonance, pseudoscience, paranormal beliefs, conspiratorial thinking, gambling, health beliefs, etc. in this special issue, we were interested in the distribution of irrational beliefs in general and specific populations, but also in their perceptive, cognitive and motivational determinants and their individual and group-related outcomes (e.g. performance on different tasks, health behavior, civic activism, intergroup relations). following europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the call, several groups of authors have contributed their most recent research on the related phenomena (table 1). table 1 overview of research studies in the special issue irrational beliefs authors type of irrational belief main issues examined teovanović cognitive biases individual differences in susceptibility to the anchoring effect damnjanović, novković, pavlović, ilić, & pantelić cognitive reflection task a reference point as a cue for rational reasoning in crt damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković cognitive biases the impact of involvement on parental outcome bias petrović, međedović, radović, & radetić lovrić conspiracy mentality conspiracy mentality and its relevance for readiness for reconciliation bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi, gkinopoulos, & klein conspiracy theories the role of conspiracy beliefs in breaking social cohesion lukić, žeželj, & stanković conspiracy theories proneness to endorse contradictory conspiracy beliefs kostovičová epistemically suspect beliefs fostering luck-related superstition to stimulate rationality branković extrasensory perception (esp) study 1 measurement of esp and cognitive styles as predictors of esp study 2 motivational foundations of esp (fear of death, the locus of control) jokić & purić cognitive styles – rational and experiential thinking the role of trait emotional intelligence in predicting rational and experiential thinking erceg, galić, & bubić epistemically suspect beliefs the role of individual differences in prediction of epistemically suspect beliefs in three papers cognitive biases are treated as a form of irrational thinking, in line with the framework in which biases are defined as a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment (haselton, nettle, & andrews, 2005). teovanović (2019, this issue) was interested in individual differences in anchoring effect (tversky & kahneman, 1974), one of the most reliable and robust cognitive biases. he focused on the extent to which cognitive abilities, cognitive reflection, and basic personality traits defined by the big five model (costa & mccrae, 1992), contribute to susceptibility to the anchoring effect. in addition, the author introduced a novel within-subject procedure allowing for simultaneous manipulation of experimental factors of anchor’s distance and direction, and assessment of individual differences in susceptibility to anchoring effect. overall, anchoring bias shared a small amount of variance with cognitive abilities, cognitive reflection and personality traits. however, editorial 2 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognitive reflection moderated the relationship between intellectual abilities and proneness to anchoring, suggesting that engaging in the cognitive process of adjustment leads to a lower anchoring bias. a study by damnjanović, novković, pavlović, ilić, and pantelić (2019, this issue) investigated how introducing a reference point in cognitive reflection task (crt; frederick, 2005) influences the switch between the fast, heuristic system, and the deliberate system. in a counterbalanced repeated design, the authors used two versions of a crt, i.e. with and without a reference point. the findings of this study supported the hypothesis that introducing reference point increases performance on the crt and lowers cognitive bias. in the third study in this group, the authors (damnjanović, ilić, pavlović, & novković, 2019, this issue) explored how sensitive parents are to outcome bias depending on their involvement in the decision and the domain of decision. they presented the parents with different scenarios varying by involvement (high vs. low), and domain (health vs. non-health related). the scenarios were followed by a positive, a negative outcome or no outcome at all (control situation). highly involving decisions yielded weaker outcome bias than low-involvement decisions in both health and non-health domain. introducing a neutral, control group enabled them to further interpret the outcome effects a highly-involving dilemma followed by negative outcome did not produce significantly different evaluation compared to the evaluation of a decision without an outcome. although the results confirm the robustness of the outcome bias as a phenomenon, at the same time they illustrate the conditions that could diminish or eliminate it. three papers dealt with conspiratorial beliefs. specifically, two papers explored the consequences of conspiracy beliefs on important societal outcomes, while one paper investigated the inherent structure of conspiratorial beliefs. a study by petrović, međedović, radović, and radetić lovrić (2019, this issue) shed new light on the psychological roots of unwillingness to reconcile. in addition to ethos of conflict (bar-tal, 2007) and basic social attitudes (saucier, 2013), which are already found to be important ingredients in unwillingness to reconcile, the authors introduce the conspiracy mentality, i.e. the proneness to conspiracy beliefs (bruder et al., 2013), as an important factor hindering reconciliation and facilitating prolongation of intergroup conflict. their findings suggest that conspiracy mentality mediates the relationship between basic social attitudes and ethos of conflict, which impose the necessity of taking it into consideration when developing policies and programs aimed to facilitate reconciliation in conflict zones. following a similar line of thought, bilewicz, witkowska, pantazi, gkinopoulos, and klein (2019, this issue) looked into how conspiratorial thinking in response to collective traumas can lead to societal divides and the breakdown of social cohesion. drawing from a nationally representative sample of polish citizens, they compared the ones who endorsed a conspiracy theory about the smoleńsk airplane crash to the ones who did not. they found that people endorsing a conspiratorial interpretation of the catastrophe preferred to distance themselves from skeptics, while skeptics preferred greater distance to conspiracy believers. this effect, however, was stronger in the group of skeptics than in the group of believers, probably because conspiracy beliefs are socially stigmatized. in addition, more global interpretation of national history played a role in this specific conspiratorial belief people who believed that their group is unique in terms of historical suffering were more prone to interpret the event in a conspiratorial way. taken together, findings from these two studies illustrate how the spread of conspiratorial thinking following a collective trauma in certain society can be detrimental to intergroup relations, but also how it contributes to intragroup divides as well. žeželj & lazarević 3 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research conducted by lukić, žeželj, and stanković (2019, this issue) explored a curious phenomenon of believing in mutually exclusive conspiracy theories. the authors replicated previous findings indicating the complexity of the conspiratorial pattern of thinking, i.e., the possibility to believe completely contradictory conspiracy beliefs at the same time. additionally, their fine-grained analyses revealed mechanisms of the reasoning behind the endorsement of contradictory conspiracy theories. namely, in overcoming contradictory beliefs people tend to use two strategies: first, the crucial content of the conspiracy theory is extracted while the other information is devalued; second, contradictory scenarios of the same event are treated as possible versions. in other words, these findings demonstrated that conspiracy theories believers are not as irrational as typically portrayed in contemporary literature. the irrationality of irrational beliefs is further contested in the following two papers in which the authors examine the consequences of superstitious beliefs and beliefs in paranormal phenomena. as opposed to the accumulated evidence that irrational beliefs lead to negative personal and societal outcomes, kostovičová (2019, this issue) experimentally investigated a controversial claim that inducing a luckrelated superstition, paradoxically, leads to more rational thinking, i.e. better performance on a list of cognitive tasks (crt, conjunction fallacy, probabilistic reasoning). she found a negative effect of “lucky charm” on boys', but a positive effect on girls' performance; the effect in girls was mediated by increased self-efficacy. it implies that induction can be beneficial to certain groups, by lowering anxiety and increasing confidence, but detrimental to others. inspired by the persistence and widespreadness of so-called extra-sensory perception (esp) beliefs, such as belief in the ability to communicate via thoughts, or in the ability to predict future events, branković (2019, this issue) explored which basic motivations and cognitive styles are related to it. she found that more proneness to experiential thinking predicts more endorsement of esp beliefs; as for motivational part, esp beliefs were positively related to fear of death, and this relation was mediated by the belief that chance controls a person's life. these findings open door for future research about the protective function of such beliefs. these two studies provide some evidence of potentially positive effects of endorsing irrational beliefs through alleviating performance anxiety or even existential anxiety. the evidence should, however, be treated as preliminary, as the effects are small and context-dependent therefore future direct and conceptual replications are warranted. while branković viewed experiential/rational cognitive styles as antecedents of esp beliefs, jokić and purić (2019, this issue) investigated personality determinants of the two cognitive styles (epstein, 1991; epstein, pacini, denes-raj, & heier, 1996). the authors focused on a broader personality space, defined by the hexaco model (ashton & lee, 2007) and trait emotional intelligence (tei petrides & furnham, 2001). the results of this study revealed that four thinking styles can be defined by combining rational and experiential dimensions. although experiential thinking leads to irrational and superstitious beliefs, when combined with high rationality, irrational beliefs can be replaced by rational and logical thinking. out of the personality traits, tei was the crucial predictor of experiential thinking and the second best predictor of rational thinking, after openness to experiences. finally, erceg, galić, and bubić (2019, this issue) did not focus on personality traits or motivations, but rather on cognitive and rational thinking abilities as determinants of a broader category of so-called “epistemically suseditorial 4 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pect beliefs”, that incorporate superstitious beliefs, belief in luck, paranormal and esp beliefs. the authors argue that all these beliefs share one common feature, and that is ontological confusion for example, blurring the ontological distinction between categories of phenomena, and quote empirical evidence of these beliefs form one higher-order factor (lindeman & aarnio, 2006; lindeman & svedholm, 2012). they found that rational thinking abilities, cognitive styles, and self-control, but not intelligence, significantly predicted the endorsement of epistemically suspect beliefs. their results point to the fact that intelligence and rational thinking should not be equated, and that one can deviate from norms for rational reasoning independent of their intelligence. taken together, this collection of papers illustrates the diversity of contemporary research on irrational beliefs. apart from the descriptive portion of the data, which has merit on its own, the authors provide important methodological innovations in the way these beliefs are measured, but also look deeper in their functionality and consequences. the reader should keep in mind that this special issue was meant not to provide an exhaustive overview of such a wide topic, but to familiarize them with a variety of methods, topics, and approaches. we hope that it would be thought-provoking, especially due to the fact that the authors restrain from value-judgments when it comes to people who endorse them and even explore the potential positive consequences of certain irrational beliefs. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ashton, m. c., & lee, k. 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(2019). conspiracy mentality in post-conflict societies: relations with the ethos of conflict and readiness for reconciliation. europe’s journal of psychology, 15, 59-81. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 editorial 6 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(92)90236-i https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1698 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1701 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.390 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://doi.org/10.1257/089533005775196732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1692 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1697 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.608 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027158 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1690 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.416 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1695 https://www.psychopen.eu/ saucier, g. (2013). isms dimensions: toward a more comprehensive and integrative model of belief-system components. journal of personality and social psychology, 104, 921-939. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031968 teovanović, p. (2019). individual differences in anchoring effect: evidence for the role of insufficient adjustment. europe’s journal of psychology, 15, 8-24. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 tversky, a., & kahneman, d. (1974). judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. science, 185(4157), 1124-1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 about the authors iris žeželj is an assistant professor of social psychology at the university of belgrade, serbia. her main areas of interest are intergroup relations and motivated cognition, specifically biases in memory, self-knowledge, and group-perception. her research has addressed a list of real-world issues, such as ethnic discrimination, prejudice against lgbt population, use of historical representations and collective memory in intergroup relations, the building of anti-scientific attitudes, the role of conspiracy theories in political and health-related behaviors. she uses a wide variety of research methods, from lab and field experiments to cross-cultural surveys. ljiljana b. lazarevic is a senior researcher at the institute of psychology, university of belgrade, serbia. her research focuses on individual differences in basic personality traits, with a special focus on the everyday manifestations of psychosis proneness. additionally, she investigates the relevance of basic personality traits for the emergence of prejudice against minority groups, ethnic discrimination. she is interested in the development and validation of assessment tools. žeželj & lazarević 7 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(1), 1–7 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1903 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031968 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1691 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ editorial (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors increasing smoking cessation adherence: do we need to consider the role of executive function and rumination? editorial increasing smoking cessation adherence: do we need to consider the role of executive function and rumination? marianna masiero* ab, mark cropley c, gabriella pravettoni ad [a] applied research division for cognitive and psychological science, european institute of oncology irccs, milan, italy. [b] department of biomedical and clinical sciences, university of milan, milan, italy. [c] school of psychology, faculty of health and medical sciences, university of surrey, surrey, united kingdom. [d] department of oncology and hemato-oncology, university of milan, milan, italy. abstract despite the cost and health consequences, a large number of people continue to smoke cigarettes worldwide every day. notwithstanding, there have been a number of interventions to help people stop smoking but, in general, these have produced only limited success, and better interventions are needed. accruing evidence affirmed that rumination and executive function play a pivotal role in cigarette smoking behavior, and in this editorial, we describe and discuss the key findings between these constructs and smoking, and argue that an impairment in executive functions does not act alone, but interacts with rumination by directing attention to depressive thoughts, thereby reducing the ability of smokers to engage in constructive behaviors, such as quitting smoking. finally, we offer a new theory-driven model based on a deep understanding of the interactions between executive functions and rumination and potential moderator effects. keywords: rumination, smoking, executive functions, decision-making, personality europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 published (vor): 2020-03-03. *corresponding author at: department of biomedical and clinical sciences, university of milan, milan, via festa del perdono 7, italy. tel. +39294372099, e-mail: marianna.masiero@unimi.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. tobacco cigarette smoking is a grave epidemic that will cause more than 6-8 million deaths before 2030 (who, 2018). notwithstanding, a large number of people continue to smoke and worldwide, every day, and approximately 2000 young people will smoke their first cigarette, with many of these becoming habitual smokers (lewis et al., 2019). there have been many treatments to help people quit smoking, yet these have not, on the whole proved effective. generally, smoking cessation interventions (referring to intervention based on pharmacotherapy, both bupropion and/or varenicline, combined with cognitive-behavioral support) produce moderate success rates and these fall substantially at one year, as the majority of individuals will relapse (hayes, jackson, dickinson, & miller, 2018; lucchiari, masiero, botturi, & pravettoni, 2016; masiero, riva, fioretti, & pravettoni, 2016; oliveri, renzi, masiero, & pravettoni, 2015). the low effectiveness of these treatments is probably due to the low motivation to maintain abstinence after the interruption (perski, herd, brown, & west, 2018; piñeiro et al., 2016). it is therefore of importance to develop new theory-driven models in order to explain the psychological mechanisms acting as roadblocks to motivation to quit or relapse. two psychological constructs that may potentially be informative are executive function (ef) and rumination. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ accruing evidence has supported the role of rumination (riley, park, & laurenceau, 2019) and ef (allan, mcminn, & daly, 2016) as potential factors able to explain the complexity of the adoption of health risk behaviors such as cigarette smoking. nevertheless, it is not clear how rumination and ef affect the adoption of the smoking behavior and/or the motivation to quit, as research conducted until now tends to be limited by methodological and theoretical shortcomings. particularly, fox and colleagues (2017) stressed the tendency to use different types of methodologies to assess ef, and for each of them to assess a specific component of ef for example, wisconsin card sorting test (set-shifting), stroop test (response inhibition), go/no-go task (attention and set-shifting), trail making test (visual attention), etc. with research often providing mixed results. for example, ernst and colleagues did not find differences between smokers, former smokers and never smokers in ef (ernst, heishman, spurgeon, & london, 2001), but others have founded significant differences (campos, serebrisky, & castaldelli-maia, 2016; glass et al., 2009) . furthermore, rumination and ef are typically studied separately (glass et al., 2009; stautz, pechey, couturier, deary, & marteau, 2016) and/or in association with other psychological factors, for example, anxiety, depression, emotion perception (referring to the capacity to correctly recognize facial expressions associated to the emotions etc.) (fox et al., 2017; meyers et al., 2015; o’loughlin et al., 2017). moreover, research that has examined the role of rumination in smokers has mainly focused on people having depressive disorders (herrera & mcchargue, 2011). finally, there are only a limited number of studies that have investigated a possible interaction between rumination and cognitive function, reporting that ruminative thoughts interfere with the ef (watkins & brown, 2002) by reducing the ability to inhibit stimuli (lyubomirsky, tucker, caldwell, & berg, 1999) or task switching (gustavson et al., 2019; whitmer & banich, 2007). all of these studies are based on general ruminative negative thoughts relating to cravings, urgency for cigarettes and perception of negative emotional arousal; none of them reported a specific focus on aptitude to ruminate on previous failed attempts to quit. ruminative and non-ruminative cigarette smokers perseverative cognition, worry, and rumination, are strongly associated with the adoption of health-risk behaviours but in different directions (clancy, prestwich, caperon, & o’connor, 2016). worry being characterized by negative and uncontrollable thoughts and images; while rumination is defined as experiencing repetitive, intrusive and negative thoughts (querstret & cropley, 2013). whereas worry supports the adoption of healthy behaviors, rumination impedes them. mccaul and colleagues (2007) pointed out that smokers exposed to negative stimuli of cigarette-related material (e.g. pictures and statements), reported a higher worry, related to effects of smoking on their health, driving them to made factual plans to quit (mccaul, mullens, romanek, erickson, & gatheridge, 2007). in opposition, increased ruminative thought is associated with the adoption or engagement of unhealthy behaviors, such as unhealthy diet, smoking, alcohol consumption and a broad substance abuse (allan et al., 2016; cropley et al., 2012; nosen & woody, 2014; sperlich & maina, 2014). nosen and woody observed that motivated smokers who ruminate in response to negative affect, craving, and withdrawal, are at a greater risk to be continuous smokers and to make a briefer duration of cessation attempts (nosen & woody, 2014). in addition, a cross-sectional study with 3129 single smoking mothers reported that the tendency to ruminate increased the number of daily cigarettes smoked (sperlich & maina, 2014). it has been argued that rumination fosters attention on depressive thoughts, distracting smokers to (querstret & cropley, 2012) engage in other constructive behaviors such as quitting smoking (lyubomirsky, kasri, chang, & chung, 2006). for example, in lung cancer patients who smoke, rumination concerning past decisions (“why rumination and executive functions 2 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ have i smoked?” “ it was the worst decision of my life” “if i could come back and change my actions” etc.) increases depressive symptomatology (criswell, owen, thornton, & stanton, 2016), and consequently reduces motivation and impedes the quitting attempts (lucchiari et al., 2016; masiero, renzi, mazzocco, & pravettoni, 2019; masiero, lucchiari, et al., 2019). further, rumination has adverse effects on thinking and concentration, causing motivational deficits, which may inhibit the ability to take appropriate actions to resolve problems (lyubomirsky et al., 1999). individual psychological patterns in ruminative cigarette smokers the impairment in inhibition responses is partially moderated by personality traits such as impulsiveness. indeed, impulsive and ruminating smokers find it more difficult to stop smoking and their smoking trajectory is characterized by several failed quit attempts (dvorak, simons, & wray, 2011). in particular, impulsiveness works through two channels: emotional-oriented (i) and attentive-oriented (ii): (i) negative emotions increase more quickly during a quit attempt in smokers, and in particular those with a higher level of non-planning impulsivity (vanderveen, cohen, trotter, & collins, 2008), thereby increasing the risk of relapse at three and six months (lópez-torrecillas, perales, nieto-ruiz, & verdejo-garcía, 2014); (ii) high level of impulsiveness renders smokers more susceptible to smoking-related stimuli and to depressive rumination, increasing the risk to consume more daily cigarettes and relapse after a quit attempt (clancy et al., 2016; herrera & mcchargue, 2011). in this way, rumination and smoking reinforce each other, creating a “vicious circle” thereby reducing the motivation to quit (richmond, spring, sommerfeld, & mcchargue, 2001). it is likely that ruminating about unpleasant thoughts connected with failed attempts to quit, increases emotional distress in smokers, and reinforces a loss of control and a reduction in self-efficacy needed to successfully quit (etter, mohr, garin, & etter, 2004). strong self-control and a high self-efficacy are key predictors for resisting cravings and for avoiding potential smoking-related stimuli during withdrawal (daly, egan, quigley, delaney, & baumeister, 2016). evidence reported above is consistent with the self-regulatory executive function (s-ref) theory (wells, 2000, 2008) and perseverative cognition hypothesis (pch) (brosschot, gerin, & thayer, 2006; spada, nikčević, moneta, & wells, 2007) in that cigarette smoking is used as a maladaptive coping strategy to reduce rumination and to regulate their negative emotions (riley et al., 2019; sperlich & maina, 2014). impairment in executive functions along smoking trajectory efs is an “umbrella term” used to refer to a set of psychological processes supporting goal-directed behaviors but there is a lack of an accepted definition within the literature. wilens and colleagues (2011) suggested to split efs in three main mechanisms: (i) intention to inhibit a response or to defer it over time; (ii) action planning; and (iii) mental representation of each task (wilens et al., 2011). preserved efs permit individuals to plan and filter competing information for achieving a specific goal, avoiding distraction and inhibiting goal-inconsistent responses (hollen et al., 2013). otherwise, an impairment in efs seems to be associated with unhealthy behaviours such as drinking alcohol, cigarette smoking, and eating high-fat foods (stautz et al., 2016). particularly, efs are key factors in the modulation of smoking behaviour (almeida et al., 2011; campos et al., 2016; jacobsen et al., 2005; lyvers, maltzman, & miyata, 1994; mons, schöttker, müller, kliegel, & brenner, 2013; ott masiero, cropley, & pravettoni 3 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ et al., 2004; sabia et al., 2012). campos and colleagues observed that abstinence smokers had a low performance on psychomotor, memory and attentional tasks during nicotine withdrawal, and the impairment persisted after quitting for a few months (campos et al., 2016). normally, an impairment in efs in smokers arises only in adulthood, between 43 and 53 years, after a prolonged exposure to nicotine properties’. it is suggested that there is a “temporal window”, in which the deficit progressively arises (campos et al., 2016). smokers with preserved ef are more likely to remain abstinent 24 months following a quit attempt, compared to smokers with an impairment in ef (almeida et al., 2011) and the worsening of ef were more important in habitual smokers (mons et al., 2013; ott et al., 2004; sabia et al., 2012). furthermore, glass and colleagues (glass et al., 2009) reported that chronic consumption of cigarettes is correlated with lower neurocognitive performance in different cognitive functions, such as working memory (jacobsen et al., 2005), psychomotor speed, verbal memory and visual search (glass et al., 2009) cognitive flexibility (kalmijn, van boxtel, verschuren, jolles, & launer, 2002). these data were supported experimentally by means of the wisconsin card sorting test (wcts), where heavy smokers reported more errors and perseverative responses in wcts compared to never smokers and former smokers (lyvers et al., 1994). moreover, the abstinence period might modulate the impairment in efs. for example, recent former smokers showed greater cognitive impairment in efs compared with long-term former smoker (lyvers et al., 1994; sabia et al., 2012). however, long-term former smoker’s cognitive ability was similar to individuals who never smoked (sabia et al., 2012). this suggests that the age and exposure period to nicotine’s properties have an influence on impairment in efs. in particular, it has been observed that during adolescence an early exposure to nicotine leads to higher levels of dependency by exerting neurotoxic effects in the prefrontal cortex (pfc) interfering with cognitive development, executive functioning, and inhibitory control (goriounova & mansvelder, 2012). in general, smokers who begin to smoke at an older age are less impaired than smokers who begin to smoke at younger ages (allan et al., 2016; jacobsen et al., 2005; mons et al., 2013). besides, the age of smoking onset is associated with a weakened working memory and reduced information processing ability (ernst et al., 2001). furthermore, adult smokers who started smoking at a young age (roughly 13 years old) performed worse compared with adult smokers who started smoking at a later age. this higher vulnerability to impairment in efs in smokers that start earlier may be due to early stages of brain maturation, having a more strong effect on executive functions such as inhibitory control and sustained attention (mashhoon, betts, farmer, & lukas, 2018). considering the detrimental effects smoking has on cognition, particularly in those who are exposed to nicotine at an early age, and the moderate success rates of current smoking cessation programmes, it is imperative to develop and examine innovative ways to tackle this problem. assessing the combined effect of rumination and ef impairment on motivation to interrupt efs have a key role in planning, sequencing and monitoring goal-directed thoughts, behaviours and emotions (allan et al., 2016; hofmann, schmeichel, & baddeley, 2012; razani, boone, lesser, & weiss, 2004), and alteration of higher cognitive processes, for example, self-regulation and planning (fox et al., 2017), reduce the probability to achieve personal goals. in line with meyers and colleagues (2015), emotion processing and executive function decrements may interfere with an individual's ability to quit smoking (meyers et al., 2015). currently, a number of studies (glass et al., 2009; mons et al., 2013; sabia et al., 2012; wilens et al., 2011) suprumination and executive functions 4 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ports the view that smoking has detrimental effects on efs in habitual smokers, modulating the motivation to interrupt. similarly, ruminating smokers have a greater risk to be continuous smokers and/or to make several failed quit attempts (dvorak et al., 2011; lyubomirsky et al., 2006; nosen & woody, 2014). notwithstanding, we argue that a real comprehensive theory-driven model able to explain psychological mechanisms underlying motivation to quit, should be based on a deep understanding of interaction between efs and rumination, and potential moderator effects (figure 1). figure 1. theory driven model able to explain interaction between ef and rumination. note. an impairment in ef causes an alteration in psychomotor speed, working memory and sustained attention that provokes an imbalance in capacity of inhibit irrelevant response, reduces action planning and mental representation of the task. this affects negatively motivation to quit, reducing in smokers the capacity to plan goal direct behaviors. this impairment may interact with the rumination that reduces thinking, concentration and increases emotion distress causing in the individual a loss of control, a reduction in his/her self-efficacy, and an important deficit in problem-solving strategies related to the interruption. in particular, we reason that an impairment in efs does not act alone, but interacts with rumination by directing attention to depressive thoughts, thereby reducing the ability of smokers to engage in other constructive behaviors such as quitting smoking (lyubomirsky et al., 2006). in addition, the quit process may be affected by the propensity of smokers to ruminate on depressive thoughts, and past history of failed attempts to quit. such rumasiero, cropley, & pravettoni 5 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ minative thoughts increase the perception of loss of control, thereby reducing self-efficacy, which is considered pivotal in the motivation to quit (schwarzer, 2008; strecher, mcevoy devellis, becker, & rosenstock, 1986). indeed, in line with prochaska and diclemente’s model (prochaska & diclemente, 1983), high self-efficacy and motivation to quit favour the transition from pre-contemplation (when smoker consider the possibility to quit) to preparation (when smoker did a real attempt to quit). in addition, prolonged exposure to nicotine causes significant impairments in efs, in particular, on the capacity to maintain an adequate mental set able to achieve future goals and inhibiting goal-inconsistent responses. this impairment in efs may cause a significant reduction in the motivation to quit and reduce the likelihood of sustained abstinence. future studies should investigate how deficits in efs and rumination interact, and how they reduce the motivation to quit cigarette smoking. overall, we have identified three issues, that could/should be addressed by future research. firstly, how an impairment in ef in chronic cigarette smokers may reduce their action planning and mental representation of the tasks needed to quit smoking; and in which way are these processes associated with perseverative rumination about unpleasant thoughts related to an individual’s inability to quit. secondly, individual psycho-cognitive and behavioral patterns should be identified; as previously reported, the interaction between ef, rumination and motivation might be modulated by personality traits, such as impulsivity and physiological aspects related to the nicotine dependence, as well, the level of dependence, the past history of smoking and the number of daily cigarette. thirdly, the new line of research should be directed to enhance knowledge and our understanding of the psychological mechanisms affecting motivation and intention to quit, particularly in high risk populations such as patients with smoking related disease and/or heavy smokers enrolled in screening programs for early detection on lung cancer (masiero, renzi, mazzocco, & pravettoni, 2019). in particular in cancer population, where the neurotoxic effects of chemotherapy may cause a deficit in ef (dietrich, prust, & kaiser, 2015), that might be associated with chronic cigarette smoking, and drastically reducing the attempts to quit. a more detailed understanding could be the key to developing advanced smoking cessation programmes. we think that more research is needed to increase our understanding of these areas (i.e. rumination and executive function), and with “greater knowledge” we would be better placed to train health professionals who work within smoking cessation. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. rumination and executive functions 6 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references allan, j. l., mcminn, d., & daly, m. 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(2008). impulsivity and the role of smoking-related outcome expectancies among dependent college-aged cigarette smokers. addictive behaviors, 33(8), 1006-1011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2008.03.007 watkins, e., & brown, r. g. (2002). rumination and executive function in depression: an experimental study. journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry, 72, 400-402. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.72.3.400 wells, a. (2000). emotional disorders and metacognition: innovative cognitive therapy. new jersey, nj, usa: john wiley & sons. wells, a. (2008). emotional disorders and metacognition: innovative cognitive therapy. new jersey, nj, usa: john wiley & sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470713662 whitmer, a. j., & banich, m. t. (2007). inhibition versus switching deficits in different forms of rumination. psychological science, 18(6), 546-553. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01936.x who. (2018). who global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco smoking 2000-2025 (2nd ed.). geneva, switzerland: author. isbn: 978-92-4-151417-0. wilens, t. e., martelon, m., fried, r., petty, c., bateman, c., & biederman, j. (2011). do executive function deficits predict later substance use disorders among adolescents and young adults? journal of the american academy of child and adolescent psychiatry, 50(2), 141-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2010.11.010 about the authors dr. marianna masiero (ph.d.) has a degree in clinical psychology and a ph.d. in human interaction: consumer psychology, behaviour and communication. she is an assistant professor at the university of milan and performs research at the applied research division for cognitive and psychological sciences at the european institute of oncology (ieo), where she coordinates the smoking cessation center for in and out-patients and for employers. her scientific interests focus on medical decision-making, cognitive biases, and psycho-cognitive aspects involved in decision-making and addictive behaviors. prof. mark cropley (ph.d.) is a chartered psychologist, and professor of health psychology at the university of surrey, uk. he conducts research in the area of health psychology, and he is particularly interested in how people unwind and recover from the effects of work during their leisure time. current research projects focus on cognitive aspects of unwinding from work, strategies to reduce work-related rumination and fatigue; the effects of rumination and heart rate variability, and how the recovery process changes with age. prof. gabriella pravettoni (ph.d.) has a degree in psychology and a ph.d. in cognitive psychology. she is director of the applied research division in cognitive and psychological science at the european institute of oncology (ieo) of milan. she is deputy director of the department of oncology and hemato-oncology, and full professor of psychology of decisions at the university of milan. her main research interests deal with decision-making processes involved in disease management, personalized medicine and patient empowerment in doctor-patient communication. masiero, cropley, & pravettoni 11 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(1), 1–11 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i1.2279 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.addbeh.2008.03.007 https://doi.org/10.1136%2fjnnp.72.3.400 https://doi.org/10.1002%2f9780470713662 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9280.2007.01936.x https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jaac.2010.11.010 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ rumination and executive functions (introduction) ruminative and non-ruminative cigarette smokers individual psychological patterns in ruminative cigarette smokers impairment in executive functions along smoking trajectory assessing the combined effect of rumination and ef impairment on motivation to interrupt (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the future of cultural psychology: an interview with jaan valsiner interview the future of cultural psychology: an interview with jaan valsiner jaan valsiner 1, carolin demuth 1, brady wagoner 1, bo allesøe christensen 1 [1] department of communication and psychology, aalborg university, aalborg, denmark. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 published (vor): 2021-11-30 corresponding author: jaan valsiner, rendsburggade 14, 9000 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: jvalsiner@gmail.com abstract jaan valsiner (jv) has been the foremost cultural psychologist in the world for the last 30 years. in 2021 professor valsiner turned seventy, and he agreed to do an interview with colleagues and students on his understanding of cultural psychology, its potential for innovation and its connection to his many interesting experiences from around the world. the interview was conducted by the three directors of the center for cultural psychology in aalborg denmark: carolin demuth (cd), brady wagoner (bw), and bo allesøe christensen (ba). for an extensive discussion of the different sides of valsiner work, readers can consult the recently published festschrift (wagoner, b., christensen, b., & demuth, c. [eds.]. [2021]. culture as process: a tribute to jaan valsiner. springer.). bw: to begin could you describe your own development in terms of cultural psychology? what was the situation when you were a student and started out as teacher/researcher and what has changed since then? jv: well, i was very lucky because i lived in the soviet union and not only the soviet union but the peripheral area of the soviet union in estonia. the soviet union was a deeply totalitarian country, as you know, but the periphery was ethnically different. regarding estonia versus russia, estonia was still under the political pressures but teaching was now done with estonian language, and estonians or soviet estonians were leaders in the estonia. so, the education there was also limited on the one hand by a very strict curriculum coming from moscow, somewhat modified locally. but at the same time carried out with people who are not very competent – or didn’t feel very competent in psychology. so, we as young students– i was the third wave of psychology students taken in felt we were building something new in estonia under the soviet rule that was still highly influential. the curriculum superimposed russian psychology on us, and so we went to american psychology. the “we” here means more or less five or six people of the 25 taken in. the initial thing we started doing in the first year of the psychology study, was to do the impossible, namely translating the american personality research method (mmpi) into estonian. the effort was very good for group formation and maintenance; we spent hours and hours discussing translations in a cellar of some dormitory. in the end we were broken apart, of course, and nothing came out of it but the important thing of this unity. we were doing something unified together and we were doing something new in this particular place. then after that i was lucky, indeed, to get some special program for studies which made it not mandatory for me to go to lectures – which i used completely. the last three years of my studies i never went to a single lecture. the professors were not happy and they punished me during the exams which i did have to take. so, i sometimes started to fail, sometimes quasi-failed and had to retake them, and then got poorly through. so it was clear that i was not a good student. but in these three years i was doing my own research step by step. that’s why you see me telling you that you do your own research and that’s the most important thing, because that is how you learn. not by listening to lectures like mine and so on. just do your research. you find out what you want to do, you find out what you don’t want to this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7575&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-11-30 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ do, which is equally important, and do something else. this kind of direct experience with research was very valuable at that time, and it got me a job at the university, first as a research assistant, then as an assistant professor. as assistant professor, i also came into conflict with the university leader­ ship: we were invited to send a review article to america to be published and suddenly the publisher required permission from the soviet authorities, namely the university had to provide one little letter, saying that they have nothing against us sending this abroad. and i go to the vice rector and he says, “how old are you?”, “27”, “do you think you’re competent to write an ar­ ticle?” i say “yes”. “we at the university don’t trust you. the other vice rector, who is a chemist, is 52 and has never published internationally. how can you dare say that you are competent?” so out i go, no letter. two weeks later the kgb interviews me in the secrecy of a personnel office. they have nothing to ask me, other than: “you are connected with the worst, do you know any anti-soviet propaganda?” “no, no, no.” they even don’t want to recruit me but they have this meeting with me. two years later i leave the country by coincidence. so that is in a way the starting point of my education. so you get education by doing, you resist the social system, even if it’s dangerous, because it was quite dangerous to insist on the request to publish something in the west, not physically dangerous but kind of professionally dangerous. and then i actually became cultural psychologist 20 years later by coinci­ dence. at first i considered it irrelevant but then gradually started to read more and more and think more and more of anthropological evidence and anthropological questions, and then sometime in the 1990’s the transition happened from development to cultural. so it’s a jump to 20 years later. am i a cultural psychologist? i don’t know. when somebody asks me “are you a cultural psychologist?” i will answer with hesitancy, i don’t know. but also i don’t know if i’m a psychologist. i am a psychologist officially, but when i’m asked my identity i do not have it. why don’t i have it? because the responsibility of being a psychologist is probably too high, which i cannot take and carry. bw: even though you may not identify as a psychologist, you defi­ nitely made important contributions to psychology. where do you see your most important efforts? jv: yeah, that’s a good question. i think i am unique in this cultural psychology theme by naively and adamantly insisting on the irreversibility of time. naively in the sense of constantly emphasizing it. my friends are making fun of me “oh again he uses the word ‘irreversible time’”. using it consistently it becomes almost trivial, almost common sense, that time is irreversible. so why do you need to emphasize it? because it is not trivial. i have two predecessors in doing that. henri bergson introduced focus on irreversibility of time in the 1890’s, in his philosophical take which i borrowed from, but i borrow it in the wrong way, not his way. secondly ilya prigogine got the nobel prize in 1977, i believe, for bringing the notion of irreversibility of time into physical chemistry. so these are the two people who have used irreversible time very importantly and i think that their uses of them are only the beginning of the relevance of it in psychology. the implications of that notion are enormous: for example, it makes the notion of single case and single event central for our understanding of psychological jaan valsiner is a cultural psychologist with a consistently developmental axio­ matic base that is brought to analyses of any psychological or social phenomena. he is the founding editor (1995) of the sage journal, culture & psychology. from 2013 to 2018 he was the niels bohr professor of cultural psychology at aalborg univer­ sity, denmark where he continues his re­ search on cultural psychology, in combina­ tion with collaboration with university of luxembourg and sigmund freud privatu­ niversität wien in austria and in berlin. he has published and edited more than 40 books, the most pertinent of which are the guided mind (harvard universi­ ty press, 1998), culture in minds and so­ cieties (sage, 2007), invitation to cultural psychology (sage, 2014) and ornamented lives (information age publishers, 2018). he has been awarded the alexander von humboldt prize of 1995 in germany, and the hans-kilian-preis of 2017, for his inter­ disciplinary work on human development. previously while working in the united states he was a recipient of a senior ful­ bright lecturing award in brazil 1995-1997 and in 2020 the apa division 52 award for outstanding psychologist outside of usa. he has been a visiting professor in brazil, japan, australia, estonia. germany, italy, luxembourg, united kingdom, and the netherlands. since 2017 he is a foreign member of the estonian academy of sci­ ences. correspondence: jaan valsiner, rendsburg­ gade 14, 9000 aalborg, denmark. e-mail: jvalsiner@gmail.com valsiner, demuth, wagoner, & christensen 323 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ phenomena. there is no repetition; there’s innovation over time but that is not the same. something happens that is similar to the past but not the same, and it cannot be the same. the second notion is my focus on generalization, and in recent years, the notion of what i call hypergeneralization, which is generalization beyond gen­ eralization. this is a difficult concept. i have difficulty explaining it myself at times but i think this is very central to understanding how human rationality is deeply affective. affective worlds lead to new worlds of rationality, new versions of concepts exactly because there is this hypergeneralized feeling in­ to the world. usually you can talk about it in terms of values for instance. as an example, the whole mind becomes totally overwhelmed by some particu­ lar affective moment that is not reducible to a particular label. and i think that has interesting implications: one of them is that it actually allows us to transcend irreversible time, to encode particular values into the form of this nebulous hypergeneralized fields of meaning. when it feeds forward into the future it becomes kind of a catalyst in future relation to the concrete world. take, for example, the notion of danger and the notion of safety. what we call ‘safety’ is a label but behind that is a huge hypergeneralized field. now, we are taught safety by using our face masks, which is a beautiful example of a socially instilled illusion that cannot guarantee us anything. but we develop with this concrete task of wearing a mask; we develop this hypergeneralized feeling of being safe. and then it becomes translated into totally new con­ texts when safety becomes an issue which you cannot predict. similarly, you can never know at what moment the child will get into po­ tential danger in a particular environment. the child has to act on the mo­ ment, and that moment of action, of avoiding the dangers, is exactly this hy­ pergeneralized, internalized feeling of safety that suddenly becomes domi­ nant. it is socialized but at the same time personalized. “i cannot do that; it’s a little dangerous. i don’t do that. i tell mother i didn’t do that because it felt dangerous” says the child. the mother says “fine, wonderful”. in contrast, those not having this kind of a background of nebulous orientation simply do anything and they end up in danger and in actual accidents. that’s the sec­ ond contribution, i don’t think there are any others. all of this comes from the focus on semiotic dynamics where my unique perspective involves signs, operating upon signs, operating upon signs, etc. so this is a semiotic dynamic notion but this is secondary to the two very general issues. cd: that leads me to another question: how does the irreversibility of time lead into methodology? you already mentioned there is a danger of putting things into method boxes. recently, you argued that if cul­ tural psychology will have any future it is determined by whether we will have innovative methodologies. this related to irreversibility of time and to the nature of open systems. can you elaborate a bit on what would be the methodological approaches here? jv: most of our methods in psychology are flat. flat means what? i as an interviewer ask you a question. you as our interviewee, you give me an an­ swer. i as the researcher go and interpret your answer at the manifest level. i collect the answers and i now have the data. this is flat. it can be an inter­ view, it can be a questionnaire, or it can be anything really. all the testing is carolin demuth is associate professor of cultural and developmental psychology at aalborg university (denmark) where she also is co-director of the centre for cul­ tural psycology and of the ma program in cultural psychology. she is visiting pro­ fessor at sigmund freud university berlin, and co-founder and president of the asso­ ciation for european qualitative research­ ers in psychology (equip). her research interest lies in the dialogical interplay of self, culture and discourse with a focus on narrative identity as well as language socialization and human development. correspondence: department of commu­ nication and psychology, aalborg univer­ sity, aalborg, denmark brady wagoner is professor of psycholo­ gy and co-director of the centre for cul­ tural psychology at aalborg university, denmark, as well as professor at oslo new university college, norway. his research focuses on how people construct meaning in their lives within cultural frameworks, particularly in relation to memory, social change and science communication. correspondence: department of commu­ nication and psychology, aalborg univer­ sity, aalborg, denmark bo allesøe christensen is associate pro­ fessor in the department of communica­ tion and psychology at aalborg university (denmark), and co-director of the centre for cultural psychology. his research in­ terests and publications lies in the intersec­ tion of topics like computing, recognition, cultural psychology and philosophy. correspondence: department of commu­ nication and psychology, aalborg univer­ sity, aalborg, denmark interview with jaan valsiner 324 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ flat because it creates basically commonsense answers to commonsense questions. sometimes these are very complica­ ted questions if you look at personality questions and items. now escalating questions are the ones that explicitly trigger something in the person. in the experimental context, you will do something nice or nasty to people. americans in the 1920’s in order to elicit emotions would show their subjects dead rats in the laboratory to elicit emotion. it would be crazy but nevertheless very american. now, what is “deep”? the idea comes to me from listening to the music of arvo pärt. have you listened to music of this estonian compatriot of mine? try, for example, to listen to the small piece for alina. it’s a very slow music, where the focus explicitly is on the sounds that are disappearing. that’s why it has to be very slow. instead of dun-dun-dun-dun it’s like duuun… duuuuun. and this is exactly where the issue is, when you think of human beings, not as immediate reactors but co-constructors of particular meaning. you want not to have the first answer that the person gives you, give a question today, answer today. you want to find out a week later, if the person has thought about that question. you do an interview today, a week later you call the person and say “do you remember what happened in our interview? have you been thinking of any of it?” and out of the ten topics maybe about two of them the person will say, “every day i think about it”. this is the deep method, because you now know from the memory trace or the memory confession that the particular item you brought into the person’s domain, has been reverberating, so to say. it’s very similar actually to bartlett’s (1932; see also wagoner, 2017) repeated reproduction method that brady has been using (e.g., wagoner et al., 2019; wagoner & gillespie, 2014), only it’s a little bit different, because the process of actually remembering of the next retelling or their process of not losing or confabulating something is actually part of the continuity, so to say. so that would be an example of the deep method, because the only thing you add is a kind of follow up using memory trace to look at their construction of the actual answers, the meaning-construction in the personal world. very simple: it can be done with interview, it can be done with specific questionnaires even, and it can be done online. cd: and you said you got the idea about the deep methodologies from listening to music and i know you also have a general interest in art. at one point recently you also said that analyzing verbal data is not able to capture affective-field-like signs. so i’m wondering to what extent do you think art can help us, to study art or to use art in our cultural psychology research? jv: that’s what i’m now doing since i’m very lazy: all my subjects are 400 years old! they do not need permission from the human ethics committee to be studied. they do not need to fill out signed consent forms. that’s why the study is very free, but that is only a joke, not more than that. more importantly, what art would tell us is not just art itself, but the whole specific art emergence in a particular societal world. that’s why, for example, at this moment, one of the new projects i am involved with is i am looking at the emergence of a psychological understanding in rudolph ii’s time, the holy roman empire. that is exactly 1572 to 1612, a very strange time for a psychologist to look at. however, as it is exactly at that time that psychology starts as a new discipline—not 1879, not 1806, but around 1580’s, 1590’s. in the baroque atmosphere of the rudolph times, there’s a very interesting confluence between astronomy, johannes kepler, alchemy, astrology of whom johannes kepler was one actually, for the parallel between astronomy and astrology for rudolph ii, and art. so the interesting issue is to see how the specific art was utilized or produced in that specific time in prague, which was an open time for arts and sciences and also relatively free from political pressures which came later with the thirty years’ war. so how does all of this lead to specific ideas? i don’t know what comes out of it, but it is one of the ways of trying to look at allegories. the notion of allegories, all over the place in art, is one the challenging topics for me right here: what made something into an allegory? how can we understand an allegory? all of the 16th century discourse was basically allegorical. they were verbally or nonverbally allegorical about something else, and this something else is a very general, hypergeneralized kind of knowledge which is difficult to trace. so i’m getting myself into very difficult domains in this case. of course, more ordinary ways of looking at art are very simple. we use art all the time, producing it, asking our subjects to draw and paint, presenting it, asking ourselves, interpreting it. this is all known in psychology; nothing new here. but in terms of contrast with the verbal channel, it allows us some access—but it is difficult to interpret this access—to what i call ‘up-conscious’ and also freud’s unconscious, maybe. these are temporarily separated from the valsiner, demuth, wagoner, & christensen 325 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ verbal domain. the same with music: when you look at musicians they will be very explicit that you cannot put into word what is in music. and music was, after all, historically a very central phenomenological starting point for most of the turn of 20th century psychology, and late 19th century psychology. this leads us to a question of the role of history, and interesting enough the role of art, art history and psychology, so to say. what people do before they become psychologists, of course, has big relevance to how they think as psychologists. so if you are a 19th century young person coming out of very often theologically minded households, classical music is something that you learn to play, listen to, and sometimes compose. therefore, music is everywhere in their efforts to understand psychological phenomena. sometime in the early 20th century, this musical focus disappears from psychology and is replaced by a focus on visual perception as the primary field. so, the psychologist’s history in music, history in phenomena (i.e. societally relevant ones), came from a particular impetus and then started to disappear. ba: i would like to ask something about your experiences in estonia, because i was thinking about the critical role of the psychologist or cultural psychology today. it seems to me like what you’re describing is, on the one hand, two parts of the notion of critique: in one sense it’s pointed towards opening up the boxes, thinking about the conditions of possibility. and in the other sense, it’s kind of like a practical role of the cultural psychologists as well. you sometimes describe it as “going against the inertia of the systems”, or the “catch 22s of the systems” as well. so i was thinking about whether you could say a little bit more about whether there is a need for a more theoretical and practical role for cultural psychology as a critique today? jv: well, the practical role is absolutely essential for each and every one of you, especially in your studies of the cultural psychology because you keep asking the question “what can we do with it?” and we are not very good at answering that question. we are trying our best to do it, and the usual answer is that it gives a perspective that allows for translation into very concrete social life contexts. but what they are is almost the same as telling the child “be careful in the future”. but now, to be more concrete, this links back to the need for sociology and psychology, basically. in order to understand why a cultural psychology can do something, it’s probably important to start from finding out what it cannot do. in another sense, the first diagnosis of the social role of a psychologist, and this may mean decision, which job you want to take as a psychologist looking for a job after your candidate. looking for one month, two months, five months, ten months and so on, and rejecting the first five because they do not fit you. it is exactly here this diagnosis becomes very important “can i do the work this job insists on?” “am i happy with it?” “is it exactly what i want to do after my cultural psychology build up in these two years?” and if the answer is no, you just don’t take the job. if the answer is “i can do it”, you try, how long you last is another question. in another sense, your own build-up of the specific understanding of being a person in a given society, e.g. the danish society, would lead you to see where your expertise in cultural psychology is applicable. what kind of expertise is this? quite obviously it’s an expertise in meaning construction. not only by you but by another person. as specific adjustment, as help in the meaning construction to the person if the person is ready for it, if the person is not resisting, neutralizing and so on. this is another aspect of your preparation as cultural psychologists: are we good at preparing you, i don’t know, i think not. you will know it better than i can say but, at least this is something to be discussed, something to be very explicitly put on the table so to say in the masters program, saying “we want that as cultural psychologists after our masters”. we can do it, but it depends on individual interest, individual orientation, where you want to go after your masters, what kind of positions you are looking for, and this is all individually specific. no doubt it’s necessary because that depends basically on the longevity of this program and any other cultural psychology program. whenever i hear that a new cultural psychology masters program has opened, i always ask “what else what else is linked with it? clinical, organizational, something else? so perhaps we should start to specify what kind of cultural psychology that could be, because it’s not something ready for practical use in society, and fortunately so because that means you’re less boxed in. you mention critique. what i would emphasize very strongly and also you see me dismissing some areas of psychology through analysis of their basic assumptions. this is actually a very constructive critique; you dismiss many areas exactly because you concentrate on a clearer view of others. this may actually apply also to something you need to go beyond boxes in the reading of literature. nowadays, with the enormous proliferation of published work in psychology, to which we ourselves contribute, what becomes necessary is not so much what to read but how to read. interview with jaan valsiner 326 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ you need to learn to scan existing literature very quickly and very quickly decide “i don’t need it”, to concentrate on those very few pieces that you actually need. ba: i wanted to ask about the notion of facts and more broadly facticity. you sometimes use the word “ge­ genstand,” implying resistance from the world. so, do we need some notion of fact beyond a behavioristic, positivistic way of thinking about it? jv: yeah, that is why i’m starting to operate with the notion of gegenstand. and you’re right, it’s probably in my terms it would be the equivalent of facts getting away from behavioral fact, because behavior is not a fact. behavior is something observable okay. the gegenstand notion gives us a minimalistic structure of a movement tendency towards an obstacle and the resistance to it. so the notions of movement towards, resistance to and the barrier or border is quite important. this brings me to another question you have listed here which is a question of ethnomethodology. because ethnomethodology, if my understanding is correct, is a very clever method of crossing the border, the gegenstand border, or testing the gegenstand border. garfinkel (1967) sent his students back home for holidays and told them to operate as if they are lodgers in their own homes. so they will have to ask the mother for permission to open the refrigerator “may i take some drink from the refrigerator?” driving the parents crazy: “for 16 years you never ask for my permission, why are you doing it now?” but notice what is happening, it’s exactly that the manipulation is the moving of the border, suddenly introducing a border; i cannot open the refrigerator any more, i have to ask permission and the particular resistance to it from the parents is basically a specific aspect of dealing with it, so on that point of view the ethnomethodology of some sort would theoretically fit very interestingly into the whole scheme. the natural nature of this experiment-the mother doesn’t know what the professor has asked the son or daughter to do-is in a way cheating, but on the other hand it’s a very informative cheat. bw: i’d like to ask more about experiments. they’re often considered the royal road to knowledge in psychology. where do you see their possibilities and limitations? jv: well, an experiment is a structure or a modification of a whole structure of the field, in a gestalt sense. and this whole structure of the field in terms of cultural psychology, of course, is a structure of the meaning of the field. the meaning of the field is set up by the person on the basis of some experimenter marking the particular field in particular ways. so we are now involved in a remarkable experiment of this kind, which is that of interpersonal distancing. our social orders give us a demand to be distant until the virus carries over, at least. but the interesting aspect is how that starts to change all of our particular ways of feeling, not just acting, but feeling. and with that, we are basically looking at specific outcomes of this. so we have the modification of the total field structure together with a modification of the feeling into the particular. now at least a very interesting resistance, which you already see happening in the gegenstand structure. new barriers are introduced: from thursday we will all be in masks here, and the resistance to that is going. the resistance is not to the virus, the resistance is the social politics involved, now over the virus, we are even almost over the fear of economic collapse, now we are entering the phase of political, socio-political conflict. we can present it as a drama of the social power of the institutions and the personal feelings of freedom. this is a very interesting period, because you see already in different countries, direct protests about all kinds of restrictions, you see those kidnapped by different political forces for that purpose, so this is an opportune moment to look at the emergence of societal discontent, at the societal level, which is parallel to the emergence of personal will to act against the system of rules. this need not happen in the domain of rules introduced by the virus or for the virus. it can happen with something else; it can be displaced from this domain of knowledge to another domain. it can be an elaboration of racial discourse; it can be an elaboration of refugee crisis in some different forms, new forms. i don’t know. but the idea is that the specific resistances to societal interventions are likely to lead to some new forms of action. but it’s not an answer to your question, it’s kind of an elaboration of it, i probably cannot answer your question. ba: these kind of actions can be both positive and negative? jv: sure, absolutely ba: so wouldn’t the cultural psychological critique have some sort of obligations to watch society at large, to have an agenda regarding stuff like this? jv: yes, of course, absolutely valsiner, demuth, wagoner, & christensen 327 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ba: you said before that the thing about diagnosis was it’s kind of like a tool. so i want to ask you about technology. i think that’s a key cultural psychological factor because technology is never neutral, it’s always mediating people’s relationships, it could be interesting for us to hear a bit about what you think about technology, how one could use that in a cultural context? jv: well, first of all, it is, of course, a perfect example of cultural construction. it’s a very objective outcome of cultural construction; nobody can invent the cellular phone without having very specific meaning systems already encoded into the making of it. once the cellular phone is invented and once it proliferates everywhere in the world, it radically changes all of our ways of handling memory. for example, memory will die out as a result of cellular phones, as long as there’s electricity, of course, if we lose the battery, suddenly we are in deep trouble very soon because there is no alternative anymore. so, in this sense technology is very central. both how new technology produces and new conditional meaning construction introduces new meanings and leads to more meanings, and the dynamics of the particular transformation is describable in a relatively short time, which is a value. it would also be interesting to link it with history: we are now talking about cellphones and their specific roles in our self-construction, but what about previous technology, what about the luddite movement in the 19th century, of violating or breaking machinery in factories, basically an act of preventing technology from developing. what about our present day paranoid discussions about china trying to interpenetrate by huawei all of your personal secrets. the very idea of these kinds of discourses is a conspiracy about china that every cellphone will be immediately connectable with the chinese government. so all of this is very interesting additional cultural psychological phenomena not yet studied, and they will have enormous societal benefits too, if you prove conclusively that most of the fears of the espionage with cellphones are either simply impossible or possible but at the same time unrealistic. for example, back in the soviet union, we always felt that every letter we sent abroad would be read by the kgb. this was not possible; they didn’t have enough labor force to do it, so they were selective, of course. now we are not worried at all about google registering each and every move we make almost anywhere. we are not paranoid about google’s interference, why? why do we trust google and their helpful suggestions that you must buy this and this and this, in contrast to huawei. this occurs not only at a societal level but also at a personal level; we are worried about the virus but we are not worried about our own cellphones, which is interesting. in fact, google gets everything from us. ba: do you think there’s a difference between the “it generation” which are “born” into an online context and us who are a little bit older who are familiar with an offline/online distinction? jv: oh of course, there has to be, because meaning construction in the new generation starts from a different baseline already. that’s what the child already gets very early, what we could only wish to have in our adolescence. every next generation will innovate. the question is what are the specific meanings, in which direction does innovation go? and again let me come back to the consumer notion that i mentioned before. every generation has new technology which makes it remarkably easy to make choices in that dating app: you’ll make lifelong choices dating, left, right, left, right, left, right. versus developing a particular elaborated construction of something. you build your home on your computer first and then you build the real home, for example. the constructivity versus choice distinction becomes very central. it can go both ways. you can build new technologies that demand a high construction orientation, or you can build new technologies that demand just a consumer orientation. this distinction also goes beyond technology; this is a societal agenda beyond technology. you use technology to study the societal agenda, in some sense. ba: some people have been talking about “web 3.0” where we see a change. where we usually try to make technology adjust to us. a lot of practices actually aim at adjusting us to this technology, and with these practices created by big tech companies. jv: well, you see, there is exactly the research project; “how do people make sense of this kind of loss of freedom?” basically it’s a loss of freedom, but it need not be presented as a loss of freedom. it can also be presented as opportunity. ba: some of them are not aware that they are not free, but after they have been told that they are not free, and they don’t mind. they want to be kept in capture. jv: well, that may be a societal principle we know from very ancient times, maybe. there was some other interesting question here… “learning from and not just of the world”. i think this is also the fact one. i will say that we learn not only from, but with others, not about the world. interview with jaan valsiner 328 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cd: maybe we can take a final webinar question? imagination also plays a big role in your work, and you said you have looked through the last 25 years of cultural psychology to see where we have been going. now if you try to imagine the next 25 years of cultural psychology, where do you see current developments that you find are very fruitful and promising to follow? jv: i see, actually, quite a few, very young, very often student level psychologists developing very sophisticated new ideas and that give very much promise for the future. the irony is that it’s exactly not only the young who make innovations, but they are also the ones who have the opportunity to do it, because at a certain moment, the opportunity becomes less. so i’m actually quite positive about the future, despite of my concerns, but i am not positive on the institutional sense but on the human sense. people taking active interest, discussing their ideas, especially worldwide. you see very strong development in south america, you see it in asia, it’s a very strong worldwide movement this moment, and something of there will develop something new. bw: any final questions, or would you like to say a concluding word? jv: thank you for all the questions, thank you for the discussion, i’ve learned quite a bit from you today. so thank you. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references bartlett, f. c. (1932). remembering: a study in experimental and social psychology. cambridge university press. garfinkel, h. (1967). studies in ethnomethodology. polity. wagoner, b. (2017). the constructive mind: bartlett’s psychology in reconstruction. cambridge university press. wagoner, b., brescó, i., & awad, s. h. (2019). remembering as a cultural process. springer. wagoner, b., christensen, b., & demuth, c. (eds.). (2021). culture as process: a tribute to jaan valsiner. springer. wagoner, b., & gillespie, a. (2014). sociocultural mediators of remembering: an extension of bartlett’s method of repeated reproduction. british journal of social psychology, 53(4), 622-639. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12059 valsiner, demuth, wagoner, & christensen 329 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(4), 322–329 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7575 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12059 https://www.psychopen.eu/ psychobiographical reflections on marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying research reports psychobiographical reflections on marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying carla nel 1 [1] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 received: 2025-07-29 • accepted: 2025-09-24 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: carla nel, p.o. box 339 (g66), department of psychology, faculty of the humanities, university of the free state, bloemfontein, 9301, south africa. tel: +27 514013681. e-mail: nelc@ufs.ac.za related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract the universal awareness of death is central to the framework of existential psychology. however, its subjective confrontation remains deeply personal. marilyn yalom (1938–2019), distinguished feminist scholar and cultural historian, documented her intimate reflections on dying in a book co-authored with her husband, irvin yalom, renowned existential psychotherapist and author. this single-case psychobiography sought to examine her experience, focusing on her diarised reflections on living with and dying from a terminal illness in this book as the primary data source. data analysis examined marilyn’s reflections through the lens of irving yalom’s existential psychotherapy propositions to construct a theoretically informed overview of her experiences. given her observation of feeling prepared to face death as a concept, as opposed to dying as a process, thematic analysis uncovered additional insights regarding this transition. traditionally, psychobiographies explore the lives of significant figures in their entirety, and few have focused specifically on an individual’s confrontation with death. the findings are presented within the framework of the four existential concerns, and additional experiential themes are conceptualised as end-of-life variations of lifelong existential concerns. these illuminated underexplored concerns, such as the process of detaching from loved ones, physician-assisted suicide as an expression of autonomy, and the potential for pain and impairment to re-awaken the crises of isolation and meaninglessness. practice recommendations are made from the findings, in line with marilyn and irving yalom’s goal of contributing to a broader discourse on end-of-life concerns, as marilyn endeavoured to fight against despair and live meaningfully until the very end. keywords marilyn yalom, irvin yalom, existential concerns, mortality, dying, end-of-life, terminal illness an awareness of death as a universal human experience was central to developing existential approaches to psychology (feifel, 1969; may, 1969; yalom, 1980). emerging from the thinking of a diverse range of european philosophers and writers, existentialism was incorporated into psychotherapy frameworks throughout the 20th century (frank, 2022; kőváry, 2024; lindström et al., 2025). existential analysts, such as binswanger and frankl, as well as existential human­ istic psychologists, such as murray, maslow and rogers, developed existential thought within different psychological paradigms, all with the central emphasis on the profound anxieties that emerge when individuals confront the finitude and freedom of existence, resulting in a universal quest for meaning (berman, 2019; frank, 2022; kőváry, 2024). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.19089&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0503-4268 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ irvin yalom, whose work was deeply influenced by rollo may and american psychoanalysis, became a popular existential-humanistic figure outside the boundaries of formal existentialist schools or movements (kőváry, 2024). he widely popularised the proposition that humans are inevitably confronted with four existential concerns with which they must actively engage (binder, 2022; kőváry, 2024). in yalom’s existential psychotherapy (yalom, 1980), death, as the first concern, represents an awareness of the inevitability of the end of life, which evokes anxiety that can either paralyse or drive individuation and authenticity. the second concern, freedom, refers to the responsibility of authorship over one’s life in the face of seemingly limitless possibilities through ownership of one’s choices and embracing one’s capacity for self-determination. the third concern, isolation, refers to the fundamental unbridgeable gap between individuals, even within the most intimate relationships, resulting in the need to build meaningful connections within the limits of existential isolation. lastly, meaninglessness refers to the absence of an inherent purpose in life, compelling individuals to construct a sense of significance, lest they experience an existential vacuum (yalom, 1980). despite the universality of death on an abstract, philosophical level, the subjective confrontation with one’s own death remains deeply personal. as a biological process and a personal event, dying did not receive much attention with­ in existentialist writings (peach, 2000). the medicalisation of human distress (binder, 2022), as well as the biomedical lens through which the over-85 age group is often viewed (van rhyn et al., 2022), has resulted in a distinct dearth of research among those who grapple most intimately with their mortality. however, the exploration of patients’ existential reflections has received renewed interest within broader health research (lindström et al., 2025). professor marilyn yalom (1938–2019), a distinguished feminist scholar and cultural historian (berman, 2019; reisz, 2020), documented her intimate reflections on dying in a matter of death and life: love, loss and what matters in the end, co-authored with her husband, irvin yalom (yalom & yalom, 2021). in the preface, marilyn highlighted specific questions she faced after her multiple myeloma diagnosis, namely, how to fight against despair and how to live meaningfully until the very end (yalom & yalom, 2021). traditionally, psychobiographical studies explore the lives of significant figures in their entirety (mayer et al., 2021; ponterotto, 2025). a specific focus on an individual’s confrontation with death and the navigation of these end-of-life questions presents a significant gap in current psy­ chobiographical research, prompting this study to undertake an existentially informed analysis of marilyn yalom’s end-of-life reflections. research aim and methodology the primary aim of this study is to examine and explore the subject’s narrative of her personal experience of dying within the framework of yalom’s four existential concerns. as a secondary aim, this study undertook to explore any additional narrative themes related to her confrontation with her own imminent death. to meet these aims, this qualitative single case study followed a psychobiographical design. psychobiography, as a subdivision of psychohistory, allows for a deeper understanding of a public figure’s inner world within their socio-historical context by reconstructing a subject's inner experiences within the framework of a psychological theory or model (anderson, 2024; ponterotto, 2025) and their socio-cultural context (mayer & van niekerk, 2024) within the constructivist-interpretivist paradigm (fouché et al., 2014; fouché et al., 2018). psychobiographical inquiries into meaning-making have recently surfaced, drawing on diverse frameworks, including existential theory (mayer et al., 2021). the continued use of existential theory in psychobiography, such as by harry and van niekerk (2023), has supported the applicability of the psychobiographical approach to the exploration of existential themes. participants and sampling purposive sampling allows psychobiographers to select a subject to best meet their objectives (van niekerk et al., 2019). marilyn yalom (1938–2019) was accordingly selected because of her production and publication of a detailed narrative account of her last few months of life. she described her experiences openly, clearly, and with insight into existential themes, rendering her an ideal subject to meet the research aim. marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying 310 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data collection, extraction and analysis data collection focused primarily on her reflections published in a matter of death and life: love, loss and what matters in the end (yalom & yalom, 2021), as a data source, as it contains her narrative accounts on being terminally ill, in the form of monthly diary entries. additional publicly available information on marilyn’s life and work was consulted to contextualise and interpret her reflections. data was extracted using alexander’s (1988, 1990) two proposed methods for psychobiographical data extraction, namely, (a) questioning the data by searching for instances of how the propositions of the theoretical framework present themselves in the narrative; and (b) extracting additional psychologically salient data for further analysis. first, marilyn’s reflections were extensively reviewed, and excerpts from the text were coded based on the four existential concerns highlighted by irvin yalom (1980). this aligns with alexander’s (1988, 1990) first strategy of “asking the data questions”. these questions are aimed at finding revelatory statements about the subject’s acceptance of, (a) her own mortality, (b) her responsibility and agency in the face of freedom, (c) her existential isolation in the context of meaningful connection, and (d) her role in creating meaning in her life. second, alexander’s (1988, 1990) proposed saliency indicators were used to identify additional psychologically relevant information from biographical data. these indicators (frequency, emphasis, uniqueness, primacy, repetition, interruption, isolation, incompletion and distortion) help researchers organise and prioritise information, highlighting elements of unusual prominence and psychological importance (alexander, 1988, 1990). the psychobiographical approach entails the application of the propositions of the selected theoretical framework to the biographical data (ponterotto, 2014, 2025). data analysis, therefore, examined marilyn’s reflections through an existential psychology lens to construct a theoretically informed overview of her experiences. given the subject’s narrative reflection of how she felt prepared to face death as a concept, as opposed to dying as a process, thematic analysis (braun & clarke, 2012) was also used to examine the additional psychologically salient data from marilyn’s narrative accounts, to uncover any additional themes that might fall outside the propositions of the existential concerns. these psychologically salient statements were coded and subsequently clustered into themes. therefore, deductive and inductive processes of inquiry were utilised to fully explore one individual’s experience of facing death. ethical considerations the proposal was submitted for ethical review to the general/human research ethics committee of the university of the free state (reference number: ufs-hsd2025/0548). ethical principles for psychobiographical research proposed by ponterotto (2014, 2025) informed the design of this study. therefore, the sampled subject is deceased, and only publicly available information was included in the collection and analysis of data to protect living relatives from previously unknown information on the subject’s life. findings and discussion marilyn koenick was born in chicago in 1932 and raised in washington (parker, 2019; reisz, 2020). her relationship with irvin yalom started when she was fourteen, as they bonded over their love of books (berman, 2019). after she obtained a diploma from the sorbonne and graduated from wellesley college with a ba degree in french, the couple married in 1954 (berman, 2019). marilyn obtained her master’s degree from harvard university in 1956 and completed her phd in comparative literature at johns hopkins university in 1963, in which she focused on the writings of kafka and camus. she joined stanford university in 1976, serving as senior scholar at the michelle clayman institute for gender research, where she played a pivotal role in establishing the feminist studies programme (berman, 2019; parker, 2019). marilyn, an admirer of 18th-century french salon culture, took the lead in organising events of intellectual discourse and hosted regular literary salons for fellow women scholars (clayton, 2020; parker, 2019). she authored numerous influential books, including blood sisters (1993), a history of the breast (1997), a history of the wife (2001), birth of the chess queen (2004), how the french invented love (2012), the social sex: a history of female friendship (2015), compelled to witness: women's memoirs of the french revolution (2015) and the amorous heart: an unconventional history of love (2018). she collaborated with her son, reid, on the american resting place: four hundred years of history nel 311 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ through our cemeteries and burial grounds (2008). her work used a transnational and historical lens to explore themes such as the representations of women in history, marriage, love, and friendship (clayton, 2020; parker, 2019; reisz, 2020). throughout their six decades of marriage, marilyn was also closely involved with her husband’s writings, and they acted as each other’s first reader and editor (yalom & yalom, 2021). the couple travelled extensively and enjoyed regular contact with their four children and eight grandchildren (berman, 2019; kenrick, 2021; yalom & yalom, 2021). marilyn received multiple honours, such as being named officier des palmes académiques by the french government in 1992 and receiving wellesley college’s alumnae achievement award (parker, 2019; reisz, 2020). a gifted communicator, she was lauded for fostering intellectual community, especially among women scholars, and she remained an influential voice in feminist cultural history until her death (clayton, 2020; parker, 2019). when chemotherapy and immunoglobulin therapy proved unsuccessful in treating her multiple myeloma, marilyn opted for physician-assisted suicide on 20 november 2019 in the presence of irving, their children, her physician and her nurse (kenrick, 2021; yalom & yalom, 2021). that year, she was one of 405 people who accessed this option under californian legislation (kenrick, 2021). her son, ben, said: “we were lucky to be loved and mentored by our mother, and to share her with so many wonderful people... she had a wonderful life, lived without regrets. dying well, she continued to teach us.” (parker, 2019, par. 23). the results from the data analysis on the presence of the four existential concerns in her published reflections are presented and discussed in the following sections. marilyn’s reflections offer a deeply personal account of coming to terms with the inevitability of death, richly coloured by her experiences of advanced age and terminal illness. salient statements also revealed additional end-of-life variations to these lifelong existential concerns. these represent experiences in which the four existential crises are renewed and embodied anew in the context of dying. therefore, these themes will be presented and discussed within the framework of existential concerns below. existential concern 1: death throughout the text, marilyn wrote of death with a tone of rational acceptance, as she acknowledged, “i am 87 years old... a ripe time to die” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 13) and noted that she has already enjoyed “a very satisfying long life” (p. 13), surpassing the average life expectancy. with this pragmatic acknowledgement, she also doubted the value of prolonging her life in the face of “daily misery and despair” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 13). early in the text, her acceptance of the timing of her death was tempered by a subtle undercurrent of disappointment in not matching her mother’s longevity, who “died peacefully at the age of 92 ½. i always assumed that i would die at her age...” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 18). she also reflected on gendered expectations of mortality, noting, “how odd that i should be the one who will probably die first, when statistically it is more frequently the husband who dies first” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 63). her linguistic analysis of the term “widower” as a derivative of “widow” underscored this expectation's cultural and grammatical encoding. marilyn did not shy away from expressing the emotional complexity of her experience, articulating feelings of sadness and dread in the face of uncertainty, particularly regarding the potentially painful physical experiences of dying. drawing on a friend’s distinction between la mort (death as a state) and mourir (the act of dying), she revealed a fear not of death itself, but of the suffering that may precede it. she noted: “i, too, am not afraid of death itself, but the process of dying in daily doses is often intolerable… i have been accustoming myself to the idea of my upcoming death. since irv and i have contempla­ ted the subject of death for decades, … i seem able to confront the idea with a degree of calm that surprises my friends. sometimes i wonder if the calm is only a veneer and that underneath, i, too, am terrified.” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 65) she proceeded to provide an example of how her “well of hidden anguish” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 66) in response to her own decline found expression in a vivid dream. marylin described that in the dream, she was talking to a friend on the phone, who informed her that her adult son had died. she recalled: “i start to scream and awake convulsing with tears. in real life, that friend does not even have a son. so, whose death am i crying about? probably my own” (p. 66). she also reflected on moments that provide comfort and promote an acceptance of death, reached mainly through active connection and contemplation. for example, she noted finding solace in the care and concern received from marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying 312 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ friends and loved ones, including the prayers of friends from diverse religious backgrounds, even though she does not believe in consciousness after death. she noted that religious and literary references now resonated with new significance for her: “familiar poetic phrases take on new meaning in my present situation, as i lie on the sofa and reflect” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 16). for example, when uncertainties arose about whether she would still be alive for a specific future event, she noted: “i fall back on the words from ecclesiastes: ‘there is a time for every season... a time to be born and a time to die’” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 49). she began to describe death not only as inevitable, but as merciful: “…palliative care and assisted suicide would be a relief if my present treatment is not effective” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 64). later in the text, her reflections reveal a more resolute acceptance of death’s imminence as she recounts a dream that signals a definitive shift from philosophical acceptance to readiness. this dream, she noted, “… doesn’t take my psychiatrist husband long to analyze… and see in it my desire to end an agonizing life” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 75). this shift seems to be supported by the regaining of some autonomy over her final moments once she and her hospice care team had discussed the option of physician-assisted suicide: “in the end, however that comes, i should have some measure of control” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 123). however, against the backdrop of increased calm in her acceptance of death, she described how her emotional experience remains coloured by “continued sadness” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 123), stemming from the anticipation of separating from loved ones: “for all the philosophical treatises and for all the assurances of the medical profession, there is no cure for the simple fact that we must leave each other” (p. 123). this sadness emerged from marilyn’s reflections as a prominent end-of-life theme related to the existential concern of mortality, namely, the relational considerations in the process of accepting death. this theme highlights how the mourning of one’s own demise is often tied to the anticipated disconnection from loved ones, further complicated by concerns over their grief. this idea echoed throughout her entries, as she noted in a later chapter (wittingly titled whose death is this anyway?): “it occurs to me… that my death is not mine alone. i shall have to share it with those who love me” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 64). marilyn admitted “…it is difficult to accept that i will not be around to watch my three youngest grandchildren grow,” and added “they will not know me, except in flitting memories” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 43). she later added that she “cannot think ahead to irv’s widowerhood. it saddens me greatly to imagine him alone” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 63) and described being “moved and unsettled” (p. 63) by her husband’s anticipatory grief. death, therefore, is seen as particularly difficult to accept when it implies non-existence in the lives and memories of loved ones, and when it results in their pain. existential concern 2: freedom marilyn’s reflections throughout the text reveal a lifelong recognition of personal agency and indicate that she valued self-determination. she recounted achievements, milestones and examples of living according to her valued principles (yalom & yalom, 2021). she also reflected on how her husband’s writing about the unlived life has been influential in helping her accept death, stating: “i am one of the lucky ones who will die with no regrets” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 77). marilyn also set clear intentions for her remaining time, stating her desire to “rise to my best self and express my love… and, with grace, accept my fate” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 121). she later revisited the idea of how acceptance of one’s degree of satisfaction with the choices throughout one’s life also affects one’s acceptance of death: “…i do believe that dying persons – when they have time to reflect – tend to evaluate the lives they have lived. certainly, that is my case. and without being self-satisfied in a negative sense, i feel that i have caused no harm and can come to my end with few regrets and little guilt. the many emails, cards and letters i have received keep telling me that i was helpful in significant ways to a number of people. that is certainly one of the reasons that i feel calm most of the time and can anticipate the possibility of a ‘good death’.” (p. 122) her reflections illuminate the many limitations imposed by ageing, illness, and imminent death as she described the remaining options in her final months of life. for example, she reflected on the choice between assisted living and remaining in her home. while she acknowledged the conveniences and benefits of institutional “round-the-clock care” with “meals prepared and served” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 29), she also appreciated the impact of her attachment to her home: “it is comforting to move among familiar objects for the last period of our life” (p. 34). she reflected on the nel 313 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ privileges that enable her choice, such as the financial means to make modifications to their home for her decreased mobility and to maintain the employment of their long-term housekeeper (yalom & yalom, 2021). her reflections also reveal the difficulty of such decisions: “we sometimes ask ourselves: are we making a mistake…? but the thought of leaving our home of forty-plus years … deters us. we are simply not willing to give up this house and setting…” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 29). this also suggests that personal agency may not, in the context of such a lifelong marriage, be easily unravelled from shared decision-making. in the face of the illness-related limitations towards the end of her life, she noted her commitment to her remaining choices, which revolve around how to continue living according to her lifelong values of kindness. she reflected on the intentional selection of examples worthy of emulation, referring to a friend as “my role model of how i would like to behave in the months to come” as she recalled her grace and loving kindness, adding: “i noticed how respectfully she addressed the nurses as they came in and out of the room” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 18). she wrote: “i carry within me the memory of parents and teachers and colleagues, who were generous and loving,” and concluded that “now, as my time on earth draws to a close, i am trying to live out my remaining days in accordance with those principles” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 47). this includes choices about taking leave of friends: “i do not want to disappear from their lives without letting them know how much they have meant to me” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 103). marilyn’s refusal to pursue more aggressive medical interventions, such as stem cell or bone marrow transplants, further illustrates her concern with freedom of choice: “though i admired the courage of the younger patients… i am not willing to go that route” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 41). she questioned the medicalisation of ageing and dying with a “one-size fits all” (p. 41) treatment approach, suggesting a critical awareness of how care systems can obscure individual agency. perhaps most striking is marilyn’s openness to reflect on her decisions regarding assisted suicide. in existential terms, this would represent the ultimate assertion of freedom: the right to shape not only one’s life but also one’s death. she wrote that she finds herself “grappling” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 77) with nietzsche’s proposition that one should ‘die at the right time’, as it presents her with the basic choice about whether to preserve her life in the context of physical decline and suffering. anticipating that her treatment options were becoming more limited, marilyn asserted: “it seems to me that the decision to live or die should be primarily mine” (p. 77). marilyn’s reflections also reveal another end-of-life offshoot of the lifelong existential concern of freedom. this relates to the decreasing options available for self-description and how the imminence of their death may influence individuals’ view of themselves. in her opening chapter, she hinted at the significance of descriptive labels in this process: “i am trying to resign myself to the life of an invalid, or at least the life of a convalescent, as one referred politely to people like me in the past” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 20). a visit from friends who attended her literary salons and the outpouring of praise she received from these salonnières triggered careful introspection: “could i really have been as kind and generous as my friends say i was?” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 90). she also described instances of emerging dissonance between her sense of self and her environment, such as standing in front of the newly emptied bookshelves in her study, despite her and irving always having been “book people” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 127), and the changes imposed by her physical deterioration: “i can’t remember a time when i did not enjoy talking… but today, i am exhausted by lengthy conversation” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 20). a particularly powerful shift in the experience of the self is seen in her recollection of receiving treatment in the same hospital where one of her sons was born 50 years prior. she sharply contrasted the memory of his birth with her undertaking to, during his upcoming birthday celebrations, “do all i can not to look like a dying old lady…” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 74). existential concern 3: isolation in exploring marilyn’s experience of existential isolation, it is important to appreciate the depths of her sense of connection. she often emphasised interconnectedness and her deep appreciation of meaningful relationships (yalom & yalom, 2021). as she contrasted her own experience with that of a fellow patient who faced treatment alone, she noted gratitude for not facing her suffering in complete isolation. she wrote: “i have become more aware of the extent to which my life is connected with the lives of others…” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 13), and added: “ultimately, i have come to the understanding that one stays alive not only for oneself, but also for others. though this insight may be self-evident, only now do i realize it fully” (p. 14). this suggests that proximity to death had deepened her sense of a marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying 314 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relational ethic even further. marilyn referred to numerous instances of close relationships being a source of comfort, as her loved ones often became loving caretakers (yalom & yalom, 2021). her mention of gratitude for her continued ability to communicate after suffering a stroke further reveals the relational quality of what has provided comfort to her — visits with friends, shared laughter, the support of her children and her husband’s consistent caregiving. her relationship with her husband, specifically, emerges as an emotional anchor: “but, most of all, it is irv who sustains me…” (15). she described his caregiving and presence at all her treatment appointments (yalom & yalom, 2021) as not merely functionally supportive, but as an expression of enduring attachment and a testament to their shared life. however, marilyn also demonstrated insight into the unbridgeable gap between people that characterises the acceptance of existential isolation. in addition to the lingering sadness associated with this awareness (described under the first existential concern above), she wrote: “i hope i can at least live up to my expectations of dying in such a way as to cause as little pain to others… and to myself” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 103). marylin also noted her gradual withdrawal of concerns over the well-being of her loved ones: “i have begun to detach myself from objects and people…i am trying to detach myself a little from the people i love most” (p. 78). as she carefully considered bequeathments of her most cherished possessions, she confronted the fundamental aloneness of experience: “…the stories attached to each one of our possessions will ultimately disappear” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 32). she also critically reflected on social expectations of generational custodianship over personally significant items: “who will want all these objects? just because they appeal to us and hold our memories does not mean that our children will desire them” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 30). she revisited this idea again, closer to her death: “it is so hard to realize that all the books and papers and objects that have accompanied my life will have little meaning for my children and grandchildren. in fact, they will probably be a burden for them. i know i shall be doing them a service by getting rid of as much “stuff” as possible.” (p. 104) a theme related to the end-of-life embodiment of this existential concern emerged, based on physical changes and the experience of pain, which seems to renew the focus on existential isolation. marilyn wrote, “i am exhausted most of the time — as if…a foggy veil exists between me and the rest of the world” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 12). the differences between her and her husband’s readiness for her death also seem connected to physical changes. on one occasion, she disclosed that the toll of the treatments has become “too great a cost to stay alive” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 76) and asked: “how much longer must i live before i am allowed to die?” (p. 76). she then refuted his interjecting claim that she still enjoys herself sometimes by stating: “if i could place you inside my body for just a few minutes, you would understand” (p. 76). confronted with the isolated experience of dying, marilyn seemed to particularly appreciate the hospice care staff’s capacity to understand and support her physical needs (yalom & yalom, 2021). existential concern 4: meaninglessness marilyn’s reflections on some of her most cherished memories and her proudest achievements highlight her lifelong striving towards a meaningful life. she noted having lived a “very satisfying long life” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 30), and reminisced often about her marriage, her family and her work. for example, when explaining her emotional ties to their home and its “liveable, lovable space” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 30), she stated: “how many birthday parties, book parties… and wedding receptions have we celebrated in the living room or outside on the back patio or on the front lawn?” (p. 30). she seemed to find continued meaning in her work. when referring to the manuscript on survivors of world war ii, she noted: “i feel a special obligation to communicate these stories” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 130). reflecting on the broad impact of her life’s work, she wrote: “it gives me a sense of pride to think that i, too, was part of the feminist movement that advanced women’s rights during the last two generations” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 101). rich with literary, spiritual, and philosophical allusions, she expressed a deeply human desire to have lived a life of value, noting the significance of the idea that one’s memory will endure (yalom & yalom, 2021). the theme of kindness that featured so prominently in her concern with personal autonomy also echoed throughout marilyn’s reflections on her legacy and having lived a ‘good’ life, indicating this was also central to her meaning-making process. she recalled the inscription on a tombstone she encountered when writing about american burial traditions: nel 315 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ “‘to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.’ to live in hearts…or, as irv so often puts it, to ‘ripple’ into the lives of those who have known us personally or through our writing, or to follow the counsel of saint paul when he wrote: ‘though i have faith…, and have not charity, i am nothing’.” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 17) marilyn’s invocation of the dictum ‘the first is to be kind. the second is to be kind. and the third is to be kind’ was followed by her hope “to adhere to this dictum even as i anguish over my personal situation” (yalom & yalom, 202, p. 17). this reveals a renewed end-of-life tension between personal suffering and the enduring commitment to meaningful living. therefore, pain represents a new theme of embodied experience of the existential crisis of meaninglessness. in her earliest reflections in the book, marilyn asked, “…why should i want to live now with daily misery and despair?” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p.13). on the one hand, this suggests that having had the opportunity to create meaning in one’s life positively influences one’s acceptance of the imminence of death. on the other hand, it also suggests that prolonged physical suffering during the process of decline renews the crisis of meaninglessness. throughout her reflections, the meaninglessness of her suffering underpinned her choices regarding a physician-assisted death. in the month before her death, marilyn shared a form of meaning she created from her physical suffering by stating: “…in an odd way, i feel that i have ‘paid’ for any sins or wrongdoings i have committed during my lifetime” (yalom & yalom, 2021, p. 105). conclusion and recommendations this single case application of yalom’s existential psychology propositions demonstrated that all four existential concerns were present in marilyn yalom’s experiences of death and dying. furthermore, the analysis has highlighted specific end-of-life concerns, which were interpreted as variations of the four existential themes specific to the context of imminent death. however, further research can explore whether they could alternatively support binder’s (2022) proposition of a fifth existential concern, namely, embodiment and emotional being. drawing from the work of merleauponty, gendlin and winnicott, binder (2022) asserts that we are grounded by our awareness of our bodies, which allows us to experience feelings both about ourselves and outside events. embodiment, which has not explicitly been included in yalom’s framework, motivates the individual to balance feelings of vulnerability and receptivity with a sense of strength and agency (binder, 2022). research on the experience of embodiment, especially during the later phases of life, remains underexplored within research (van rhyn et al., 2022). marilyn’s specific end-of-life themes related to physical pain and suffering lend support to the need for further research to better understand embodiment as a potential existential concern in the context of failing health and advanced age. irvin yalom’s synthesis of existential philosophy and psychotherapy has influenced contemporary therapeutic inter­ ventions and has resulted in these concerns becoming deeply embedded in clinical practice, as patients often grapple with questions of legacy, autonomy, connection, and purpose (berman, 2019; binder, 2022; cunha et al., 2024). as such, the findings of this study readily result in potential practice recommendations to those who provide care for the terminally ill. firstly, marilyn’s gradual shift from an abstract acceptance of mortality to a personal confrontation with death’s imminence reveals a complex interplay of factors and demonstrates that the acceptance of death and dying is not a singular event, but a process influenced by emotional complexity, cultural expectations, philosophical and spiritual contemplation, and, significantly, attachment and separation. clinicians are urged to be mindful of the distinction between acceptance of death and readiness to die. more specifically, support for the terminally ill should include the acknowledgement of continued fears about the physical process of dying, the desire for end-of-life reminiscence, as well as the lingering sadness over death as an impending final separation, even when someone has intellectually accepted the reality of their own decline. secondly, marilyn’s confrontation of existential freedom in her last months involved candid reflections on personal agency, autonomy and responsibility and the drive to empower oneself to shape not only one’s life, but also one’s death. care providers should be sensitive towards the significant agency that comes from choices about living and care arrangements and the bequeathment and management of cherished personal possessions. furthermore, clinicians should demonstrate sensitivity to the impact of changing self-descriptors towards the end of life. to help protect the dying person’s sense of self, personal agency to live according to lifelong values should be supported. in this process, marilyn’s reflections suggest that the identification of role models for “dying well” might be particularly impactful. marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying 316 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 309–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19089 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ultimately, these findings strongly support individualised medical care and continued advocacy for the autonomy provided by physician-assisted suicide, which remains an inaccessible care option to many. thirdly, marilyn’s reflections also illuminate the importance of the relational core of human existence. within the security of meaningful connections, the existential crisis of isolation may be reframed in the context of the solitary experiences of suffering and dying. similarly, marilyn’s reflections demonstrate how the experience of pain carries the potential to renew a confrontation with meaninglessness, even among those who are satisfied with the meaning they have created throughout their lives. in practice, mindfulness of the dying patient’s growing sense of isolation should also include acknowledgement of a gradual, intentional disconnection from loved ones as the fundamental isolation of the human experience moves to the foreground. additionally, empathic and knowledgeable medical staff have the potential to provide a useful tether against overwhelming isolation and growing meaninglessness in a manner that loved ones cannot by openly discussing and actively managing the physical concerns and experiences during terminal illness. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. ethics statement: ethical review was conducted by the general/human research ethics committee of the university of the free state (rec-112922-058), which granted a waiver based on the use of publicly available information (authorisation number: ufs-hsd2025/0548). data availability: data exclusively sampled from the public domain. references alexander, i. e. 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(2021). a matter of death and life: love, loss and what matters in the end. piatkus. about the author dr carla nel qualified as a clinical psychologist in 2008. while working as a clinician and supervisor in a public healthcare setting, she earned her phd from the university of the free state in south africa in 2013. she moved to full-time academic work in 2021 and has since completed and supervised several psychobiographical studies. she currently coordinates the professional programme in clinical psychology at the university of the free state, and lectures on psychopathology, psychological assessment and psychotherapeutic interventions in postgraduate courses. marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying 318 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2021/06/09/what-matters-in-the-end-couple-chronicle-lifes-final-chapter-in-new-book/ https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.70047 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6653 https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2024.2299163 https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/11/marilyn-yalom-groundbreaking-gender-studies-scholar-dies-87 https://doi.org/10.1037/qup0000005 https://www.timeshighereducation.com/people/marilyn-yalom-1932-2019 https://doi.org/10.18772/22019032750.16 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2022.101028 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying (introduction) research aim and methodology participants and sampling data collection, extraction and analysis ethical considerations findings and discussion existential concern 1: death existential concern 2: freedom existential concern 3: isolation existential concern 4: meaninglessness conclusion and recommendations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement data availability references about the author anticipated attack slows responses in a cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task research reports anticipated attack slows responses in a cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task thomas e. gladwin abc, matthijs vink de [a] department of psychology and counselling, university of chichester, chichester, united kingdom. [b] behavioural science institute, radboud university nijmegen, nijmegen, the netherlands. [c] centre for mental health, institute for lifecourse development, the university of greenwich, london, united kingdom. [d] umc utrecht brain center, utrecht university medical center, utrecht, the netherlands. [e] developmental psychology and experimental psychology, utrecht university, utrecht, the netherlands. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 31–43, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 received: 2019-01-28 • accepted: 2020-04-13 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, pontypridd, united kingdom corresponding author: thomas e. gladwin, radboud university nijmegen, montessorilaan 3, 6525 hr nijmegen, the netherlands. tel.: +447895625183, email: thomas.gladwin@gmail.com supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract threatening stimuli have varying effects, including reaction time (rt) increase in working memory tasks. this could reflect disruption of working memory or, alternatively, a reversible state of freezing. in the current series of experiments, reversible slowing due to anticipated threat was studied using the cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task (cvaest). in this task visually neutral cues indicate whether a future virtual attack could or could not occur during the maintenance period of a sternberg task. three studies (n = 47, 40, and 40, respectively) were performed by healthy adult participants online. the primary hypothesis was that the cvaest would evoke anticipatory slowing. further, the studies aimed to explore details of this novel task, in particular the interval between the cue and probe stimuli and the memory set size. in all studies it was found that threat anticipation slowed rts on the working memory task. further, study 1 (memory set size 3) showed a decrease in rt when the attack occurred over all cue stimulus intervals (csis). in study 2 a minimal memory set of one item was used, under which circumstances rts following attacks were only faster shortly after cue presentation (csi 200 and 500 ms), when rts were high for both threat and safe cues. study 3 replicated results of study 2 with more fine-grained time intervals. the results confirm that anticipation of attack stimuli can reversibly slow responses on an independent working memory task. the cvaest may provide a useful method to study such threat-induced response slowing. keywords emotional sternberg, threat, inhibition, freezing, cued, attack, anticipation emotional reactions may interfere with reflective cognition that depends on undisrupted underlying working memory processes (hofmann, friese, & strack, 2009). variants of the emotional sternberg task provide an opportunity to study interactions between emotional distractors and working memory (unsworth & engle, 2007; wickens, hyman, dellinger, taylor, & meador, 1986). trials in the classic sternberg task (sternberg, 1966) consist of an encoding phase, a maintenance phase, and a probe phase, requiring the use of working memory (baddeley, 1992; kane & engle, 2003; petrides, 1996). in the emotional sternberg task, emotional distractors can be presented during the maintenance period, which tends to negatively affect performance (dolcos & mccarthy, 2006; oei, tollenaar, elzinga, & spinhoven, 2010; oei, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.1896&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tollenaar, spinhoven, & elzinga, 2009; unsworth & engle, 2007); emotional items can also be included in the memory set (garrison & schmeichel, 2018). effects of emotional distractors could reflect the disruption of working memory processes, but there is an alternative explanation of effects of emotional distractors on reaction time (rt) in particular that draws on the possible role of freezing. this is an evolutionarily preserved defensive response (blanchard, blanchard, & griebel, 2005; bracha, 2004; fanselow, 1986) that consists of the simultaneous suppression of movement and strong response preparation for if a fight or flight response needs to be executed (gladwin, hashemi, van ast, & roelofs, 2016; roelofs, 2017; roseberry & kreitzer, 2017). if a freeze state is induced by an emotional distractor, this could cause inhibition of movement, and hence response slowing. in that case, the slowing effects of a threatening distractor should be reversed by ending the freeze state by presenting a “virtual attack” simulating a stimulus that would require the transition from freezing to fast, energetic responses allowing effective fight or flight behaviour (bastos et al., 2016; gladwin et al., 2016; hashemi et al., 2019; mobbs et al., 2007; montoya, van honk, bos, & terburg, 2015; nieuwenhuys, savelsbergh, & oudejans, 2012). this possibility was tested in a previous study (gladwin & vink, 2018b) using the virtual attack emotional sternberg task (vaest). on some trials neutral faces were presented during the maintenance period of a sternberg task. a virtual attack occurred on half such trials, when the neutral face turned angry and appeared to “jump out” at the participant via an increase in size. the question was whether the attack, as a salient emotional distractor, would disrupt working memory and negatively affect performance or, alternatively, act to end a threat-induced inhibitory state. it was found that rts were slowed when the neutral face was presented but no attack occurred, and this slowing effect was removed by an actual attack. this supported the freeze-release hypothesis: the additional, salient distractor of the attack did not slow rts further, but ended the slowed state. this reversibility of the slowing effect was the primary interest of the previous study. however, the ability to cleanly interpret the slowing effect of the neutral face was limited as neutral faces slowed rts even in the absence of attack expectations. thus, the slowing could not be explained purely in terms of the probability of an attack occurring. the primary overall aim of the current series of studies was to test the hypothesis that rt slowing would occur after a cue predicting a possible attack and further that this slowing could be removed by an actual attack occurring. if so, this would support the previous results and thereby point to a potentially important alternative explanation for rt slowing due to emotional distractors. three studies were performed using cued versions of the vaest (cvaest) with visually neutral predictive cues to further explore reversible slowing related to threat anticipation. one of the cues was associated with a chance of an attack occurring via a learning procedure. this avoided the above problem with using neutral faces as cues. however, to our knowledge this is a novel variation of the emotional sternberg task and first steps must be taken in determining whether the expected effects occur but also under which conditions. therefore, three studies using variations of the task were performed. in study 1, the cvaest was used to determine whether anticipatory slowing and attack-related “release” would occur with a predictive, visually neutral cue rather than the neutral face. in the previous vaest study as well as in spatial attentional bias tasks using similar anticipatory cues (gladwin, möbius, mcloughlin, & tyndall, 2019; gladwin & vink, 2018a), the interval between the cue and subsequent probe stimulus, the cue stimulus interval (csi), has a strong impact on effects. therefore, a range of csis was used; these were the same as in the vaest study. in study 2 a memory set of only one item was used, to determine whether effects would be found even with such a minimal working memory load. further, based on the results of study 1, the csi around 600 ms was sampled with higher time resolution. finally, study 3 added more time intervals to provide a finer-grained view of temporal dynamics. the results of the variations used in the studies are thus of interest for designing future studies; for revealing the time course of effects of anticipated threat; for adding to the knowledge of attentional biases due to anticipatory processing; and for evaluating whether freeze-release effects are robust and replicable. study 1 in the previous vaest study, slowing due to the presentation of the neutral face (without an attack) was found at all time points, and attacks brought the rt down to a similar level as “safe” trials when no face was presented. study 1 threat-induced response slowing 32 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aimed to determine whether anticipatory slowing would occur with two visually neutral cues, as opposed to the neutral face versus no distractor. further, the time course of effects may well be different when using predictive cues: it may take more time for a visually neutral threat cue to be identified and for consequent anticipatory responses to occur. method participants participants were recruited online and received either study credits or a small monetary reward (7 dollars) for complet­ ing the study, which was performed fully online. participants were over 18; there were no further inclusion or exclusion criteria for this convenience sample. participants gave informed consent and the study was performed in line with local ethical guidelines. the total sample consisted of 55 participants who completed the experiment. data quality checks were performed as explained below to exclude participants with inadequate performance that suggested they were not engaged with the task. this led to the rejection of eight participants. this left 47 participants for analysis (28 males, 19 females) with a mean age of 41 (sd = 11.3). materials the cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task (cvaest) is illustrated in figure 1. trials began with a fixation cross for 250, 300 or 350 ms (all equally likely, as with all further varying duration values). the encoding phase lasted 1,200 ms during which a memory set was presented of three different numbers from 1 to 9, positioned in a vertical column. the maintenance phase had a duration of 200, 600 or 1,200 ms, during which a simple cue was presented in the center of the screen: a blue or yellow square (although this could not be precisely controlled, the square covered around 1 degree visual angle). the attack stimulus never followed one of the cues (the safe cue) and followed the other cue with 50% probability (the threat cue; which color cue was mapped to threat versus safe was randomized per subject). in this task version, an equal number of trials were presented with safe cues, threat cues without an attack, and threat cues with an attack. if a virtual attack occurred, this was added at the end of the maintenance phase. the attack consisted of a 200 ms presentation of a smaller image of an angry face (around 3 degrees visual angle), followed by a 600 ms presentation of a larger image of the face (around 6 degrees visual angle). this created a “jumping-out” effect expected to induce mild threat. faces were taken from the bochum emotional stimulus set (besst; thoma, soria bauser, & suchan, 2013). following the maintenance phase or attack, the probe stimulus appeared. this consisted of two different numbers, each from 1 to 9, positioned next to each other. one of the two numbers had been presented in the encoding phase. participants had to choose which of the numbers that was by press the corresponding left (“f”) or right (“j”) key. the task only continued after a response. the task was programmed in javascript, based on the onlinecbm framework (gladwin, 2017b). there were three versions or phases of the cvaest, two of which were used as a learning phase. in all versions, blocks consisted of 32 trials. the first, “100% attack” version consisted of two blocks. in this version, differently from the other two versions, threat cues were always followed by the attack in order to enhance participants' ability to recognize the cue-threat contingencies. in the second and third version, threat cues were only followed by the attack in 50% of the trials, as described above. the second and third version consisted of two and nine blocks, respectively. gladwin & vink 33 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 illustration of the cvaest note. trials consisted of encoding, maintenance and probe phases. during the maintenance phase, one of two cues was presented, one of which was never followed by an attack, the other of which was followed by an attack with 50% probability. if an attack occurred, it was inserted between the end of the maintenance phase and the probe. the maintenance phase had a duration (the csi) of 200, 600 or 1,200 ms before the attack or (on non-attack trials) probe occurred. the attack consisted of an angry face, first presented at a small size for 200 ms, and then at a larger size for 600 ms, creating the effect of a sudden approach. cvaest = cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task; csi = cue stimulus interval. procedure participants first performed the 100% attack task version. they were then asked to specify which of the two cues was never followed by an attack, and which was sometimes followed by an attack. they then performed the second task, followed by the same test on cue-threat contingencies. finally, they performed the assessment version, followed by the same test. this learning procedure was implemented to increase the number of participants being aware of the cue contingencies, which was used as an inclusion criterion leading to a more consistent sample for analysis (although a proportion of participants are likely to have guessed correctly). data analysis only the assessment task was analyzed. in preprocessing, the first four trials of the task, the first trial per block, and trials with rts below 100 ms or above 2,500 ms were removed. further, for calculation of the rt per condition, trials with rt values that were outliers over the trials within the same condition (absolute z-score > 3) were removed. these steps were used to attenuate concerns with noisy data due to online performance, although this does not appear to be consistently worse than in the laboratory (chetverikov & upravitelev, 2016). within-subject repeated measures analyses of variance (anovas) with greenhouse-geisser correction were used to analyze effects of csi (200, 600 or 1,200 ms) and distractor type (safe, threat, attack). effects were tested on median threat-induced response slowing 34 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ rt over accurate trials only, and for mean accuracy over all trials per condition. median rts were used to reduce any remaining influence of outliers. significant effects and interactions were explored using tests performed per level of one of the involved factors and pairwise t-tests between levels. individuals were excluded from analysis who had an rt that was an outlier over participants (absolute z-score > 3), an overall accuracy below .9, or an incorrect answer to which cue was associated with threat. the raw data and analysis scripts are available in supplementary materials. results and discussion performance data are shown in figure 2. there was an effect of distractor type, f(2, 92) = 45.64, p < .001, ηp2 = .50. tests between levels of this factor showed, first, the expected increase in rts for threat versus safe cues, t(46) = 2.96, p = .0048, d = 0.43 and, second, the expected decrease in rts for attacks versus threat trials, t(46) = -8.83, p < .001, d = -1.28. however, there was also a strong decrease in rts for attack versus safe trials, t(46) = -6.029, p < .001, d = -0.88. figure 2 performance data on the cvaest note. figures 2a and 2b show rt and accuracy data, respectively. the csis are plotted on the horizontal axis and the lines show the three trial types: safe cues, threat cues when no attack occurred, and threat cues followed by an actual attack. the figure shows the expected slowing for threat versus safe cues, at the 600 ms csi especially, and a reduction in rts when an attack occurs. no significant effects were found for accuracy. cvaest = cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task; csi = cue stimulus interval; rt = reaction time. there was also an effect of csi, f(2, 92) = 10.61, p < .001, ηp2 = .19, reflecting a decrease in rts from 200 to 600 ms, t(46) = -2.78, p = .0079, d = -0.40; and a trend for a further decrease from 600 to 1,200 ms, t(46) = -1.71, p = .095, d = -0.25. the interaction between distractor type and csi was not significant, f(4, 184) = 2.23, p = .082, ηp2 = .046. it was nevertheless further analyzed due to the potential usefulness for further research of information on distractor type effects at varying csis, and the closeness to significance of the test. the attack trials had significantly faster rts than safe and threat trials at all csis (all ps < .033). the slowing effect of threat cues was only significant at the 600 ms csi, t(46) = 2.22, p = .031, d = 0.32. overall accuracy was .96. there were no significant effects on accuracy. thus, the main hypothesis was confirmed: a threat cue predicting a possible attack slowed responses. further, this slowing was lost if an attack actually occurred. unlike the previous vaest study, however, the rts following an attack were faster than both threat and safe cues, rather than rts on attack trials becoming similar to rts found when there was no threat of attack. it may be that even the safe cue evoked some anticipatory slowing, although less so than the threat cue. the slowing effect was strong as a main effect over all time points, but when analyzing the effect per csi it was only significant at 600 ms; although it should be noted that analyses that are split per csi involve fewer trials gladwin & vink 35 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ per participant and are therefore expected to be noisier. nevertheless, the results were taken to suggest focusing on the interval around 600 ms post-cue. study 2 in study 2, a variation of the task was used to further explore threat-induced slowing. first, the working memory task was simplified: the memory set consisted of only a single element, rather than three. this was expected to reduce the variation in rts when evaluating the probe stimuli. a further advantage was that less time was needed to present this simplified encoding phase, leading to shorter overall experiment duration. finally, results of this task design would seem to be of interest theoretically. if clear effects are found even with such a minimal working memory load, this would appear to further support the interpretation of effects in terms of reversible response slowing rather than emotional disruption of working memory processes. second, a wider range of attack stimuli was used. individuals could well differ in what kind of stimuli evoke threat-related processes (elgersma et al., 2018; goldin, manber, hakimi, canli, & gross, 2009; schulz, mothes-lasch, & straube, 2013). it may therefore be useful to know whether a more varied set of different types of stimuli, versus only variations of faces, can be used as the predicted category. a broader range of stimuli could also decrease habituation, relative to experiencing only variations of the angry faces. finally, the time period around 600 ms was sampled in more detail by using additional csis of 500 and 700 ms. due to the results of analyses of effects per csi in study 1 (only finding a significant slowing at 600 ms), it was predicted that the threat-induced slowing effect would be replicated in the 500, 600, and 700 ms csi range. method participants as in study 1, a convenience sample of participants was used. adult participants were recruited online and received ei­ ther study credits or a small monetary reward for completing the study, which was performed fully online. participants were over 18; there were no further inclusion or exclusion criteria. participants gave informed consent and the study was performed in line with local ethical guidelines. fifty-five participants completed the experiment, of which 15 were rejected in quality checks. this left 40 participants for analysis (28 males, 12 females) with a mean age of 38 (sd = 12). materials a lower-load version of the cvaest was used. this was the same as the task in study 1, with the following changes. there were 25 trials per block in all tasks, and 12 blocks in the assessment task. the memory set consisted of a single number. safe and threat cues were increased in size to around 3 degrees visual angle. the cue-stimulus intervals were 200, 500, 600, 700 and 1,200 ms. attack stimuli could now involve not only angry faces, but also barking dogs, snakes poised to strike, spiders, and gunand knife-wielding men. an 800 ms response window was included. finally, threat and safe cues were now equally likely, with one-third of threat cues being followed by an actual attack. procedure the same procedure was used as in study 1, with two learning phases and awareness checks prior to the assessment task. data analyses the same preprocessing steps, quality checks, and statistical analyses were performed as in study 1. the levels of the csi factor were now 200, 500, 600, 700 and 1,200 ms. the same three distractor type (safe, threat, attack) were used. further, a paired t-test was performed comparing rts on threat versus safe cues averaged over the 500, 600 and 700 ms csis. threat-induced response slowing 36 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results and discussion performance data are shown in figure 3. the main result was that the expected slowing following threat versus safe cues over the 500, 600 and 700 ms csis was found, t(40) = 8.97, p < .001, d = 1.42. figure 3 performance data on the low-load cvaest (study 2) note. figures 3a and 3b show rt and accuracy data, respectively. the csis are plotted on the horizontal axis and the lines show the three trial types: safe cues, threat cues when no attack occurred, and threat cues followed by an actual attack. the figure shows the expected slowing for threat versus safe cues and a reduction in rt when an attack occurs following a threat cue. no significant effects were found for accuracy. cvaest = cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task; csi = cue stimulus interval; rt = reaction time. further, for rts, there was an effect of distractor type, f(2, 78) = 9.5, p = .00078, ηp2 = .20, due to the overall threat versus safe slowing, t(39) = 3.10, p = .0035, d = 0.49, and faster responses following an attack versus threat, t(39) = -3.86, p = .00042, d = -0.61. a trend for faster responses following an attack versus safe was found, t(39) = -2.02, p = .050, d = -0.32. distractor type and csi showed an interaction, f(8, 312) = 15, p < .001, ηp2 = .28, in line with visual inspection of the time courses of rt. the effects of attack versus threat and attack versus safe were significant at csi 200 ms (p < .001) only. the threat versus safe slowing effect was only significant at csi 700 ms (p = .0070) but was near significance at all csis above 200 ms (ps < .063). there was a main effect of csi, f(4, 156) = 46.19, p < .001, ηp2 = .54. this was due to the significant decreases in rt from 200 to 500 ms (p < .001). overall accuracy was .97. there were an interaction between distractor type and csi, f(8, 312) = 2.6, p = .012, ηp2 = .063. this was due to a decrease in accuracy for attack versus threat trials at csi 500 and 700 ms (ps < .003). thus, as expected, the threat-induced slowing found in study 1 was replicated in the 500 – 700 ms csi range of interest. the occurrence of an attack decreased rts but only early in the csi; rts following both cue types subsequently decayed over time even without an attack, while rts on attack trials remained around the same level. the time course of rts suggested that overall cue-related slowing decreased to a baseline level, reached around 600 ms. study 3 in study 3, the same task as in study 2 was used with additional csis to better observe the rt time course. the csi range of 500 – 700 ms appeared to be of particular interest, but the edges of this period were not sampled in study 2. this csi range sampled with a 100 ms time steps was therefore extended from 400 to 800 ms. knowledge of the time course is of methodological importance for future studies aiming to target the most relevant csis. more detailed information on the time course of effects, focusing on relevant time ranges, could also be of interest to gladwin & vink 37 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ models of cognitive and emotional processes focusing on temporal dynamics, such as the iterative reprocessing model (cunningham, zelazo, packer, & van bavel, 2007) and the r3-reflectivity model (gladwin & figner, 2014; gladwin, figner, crone, & wiers, 2011). from the perspective of such models, it is essential to build up knowledge of how different cognitive processes or representations are more strongly activated at different points in time. the current more detailed exploration of the time course of response slowing provides a foundation for further work in, for example, clinical populations with possibly abnormal temporal dynamics. method participants participants were recruited online and received either study credits or a small monetary reward for completing the study, which was performed fully online. participants were over 18; there were no further inclusion or exclusion criteria. participants gave informed consent and the study was performed in line with local ethical guidelines. fifty-four participants completed the experiment, of which 14 were rejected in quality checks. this left 40 participants for analysis (24 males, 16 females) with a mean age of 40 (sd = 10.0). materials the cvaest variant was the same as the task in study 2, with cue-stimulus intervals of 200, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 1,200 ms. procedure the same procedure was used as in study 1 and 2, with two learning phases and awareness checks prior to the assessment task. data analyses the same preprocessing steps, quality checks, and statistical analyses were performed as in study 2. the levels of the csi factor were now 200, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800 and 1,200 ms. the same three distractor type (safe, threat, attack) were used. further, a paired t-test was performed comparing rts on threat versus safe cues averaged over the 600, 700, 800 and 1,200 ms csis, to represent the time points at which threat-induced slowing was expected based on study 2. results and discussion performance data are shown in figure 4. the expected slowing following threat versus safe cues was found, t(39) = 2.45, p = .019, d = 0.39. threat-induced response slowing 38 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 performance data on the low-load cvaest (study 3) note. figures 4a and 4b show rt and accuracy data, respectively. the csis are plotted on the horizontal axis and the lines show the three trial types: safe cues, threat cues when no attack occurred, and threat cues followed by an actual attack. the figure shows the expected slowing for threat versus safe cues and a reduction in rt when an attack occurs following a threat cue. no significant effects were found for accuracy. cvaest = cued virtual attack emotional sternberg task; csi = cue stimulus interval; rt = reaction time. for rts, there was a significant interaction between distractor type and csi, f(12, 468) = 7.9, p < .001, ηp2 = .17. attack trials were faster than threat and safe trials at csi 200 ms only (p < .001), but were slower that safe trials at csi 600, 700 and 800 ms (ps < .040). the threat versus safe slowing effect was only significant at csi 600 ms (p = .0311). there was a main effect of csi, f(6, 234) = 29.83, p < .001, ηp2 = .43. this was due to the significant decreases in rt from 200 to 600 ms (p < .039). overall accuracy was .97. there were no significant effects on accuracy. thus, as expected, the threat-induced slowing found in study 1 and, more closely, study 2 was replicated. the occurrence of an attack again decreased rts only early in the csi. over later csis, attack trials were slower than safe trials. general discussion the current studies aimed to determine whether cued anticipation of a virtual attack would slow responses on a working memory task. this was confirmed, the data furthermore indicating that this threat-related slowing effect requires some time to develop. differences between threat and safe cues appeared from around 600 csi, when rts decayed to lower levels following safe than threat cues. while the task was optimized to compare threat and safe cues, actual attacks were found to have varying effects on rt, appearing to result in a relatively stable level regardless of csi; importantly, attacks did systematically reduce rts shortly after cue presentation, when rts on both types of non-attack trials were high. the current results demonstrate, for the first time, anticipatory slowing on a working memory task caused by visually neutral cues predicting an attack rather than actual presentation of threatening stimuli. this was predicted based on the broad literature on freezing and on the previous vaest study. of both theoretical and methodological importance, the slowing results contrast with effects of threatening cues in various other tasks, in which responses tend to become faster and more impulsive when threatening cues are presented (de houwer & tibboel, 2010; gladwin, 2017a; hartikainen, siiskonen, & ogawa, 2012; hashemi et al., 2019; nieuwenhuys et al., 2012; van peer, gladwin, & nieuwenhuys, 2019; verbruggen & de houwer, 2007). this apparent contradiction can be resolved by the duality of the freezing response, which involves both strong response preparation as well as inhibition of movement (roelofs, gladwin & vink 39 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2017; roseberry & kreitzer, 2017). one feature of the cvaest that may be essential in inducing inhibition rather than impulsivity is that participants are performing a threat-irrelevant working memory task, unlike tasks in which responding is based on a simple stimulus-response mapping. further, there was no performance-contingent aspect to the threat, as is the case in tasks in which an aversive stimulus occurs when performance is inadequate. that is, the attack could not be avoided, possibly leading to a non-preparatory, passive form of freezing, as opposed to active response preparation under simultaneous inhibitory control (gladwin et al., 2016). this distinction between active versus passive forms of freezing appears to be an important consideration for future research on effects of threat (bracha, 2004; roelofs, 2017). the results partially confirmed the expected “release” effect of the actual occurrence of an attack. at longer csis and with a simple task, rts on non-attack trials became faster than on attack trials, suggesting a disruptive effect of the attack stimulus. however, there was a strong reduction in rt following attacks at a short csi when responses were relatively slow following either cue, possibly reflecting an orienting component of freezing (campbell, wood, & mcbride, 1997). the current results thus confirm that response slowing in the emotional sternberg task is reversible un­ der some conditions. this suggests a possibly important re-interpretation of response slowing by emotional distractors. if it were the case that slowing reflected disruption of working memory by the cues, then this would not be expected to be reversed by an attack. in contrast, the data at short csis fit the freeze-release pattern, in which slowing does not reflect working memory disruption but a transient, possibly inhibitory state affecting response execution. the current study had a number of limitations. first, the tasks involved, by design in study 2 and 3, low or very low working memory load. higher working memory loads may be interesting to explore, although the use of low loads does not appear to affect the current conclusions and it should be noted that higher loads could increase noise and that increasing working memory load could suppress emotional effects (van dillen, heslenfeld, & koole, 2009). second, while more fine-grained exploration of the range of csis allows study of the more precise time course of differences between safe versus threat cues, this reduces the number of trials per condition per participant. future studies could consider using multiple sessions to acquire more trials without making the task duration longer and hence more fatiguing. third, it would be interesting to study associations between threat-induced slowing and psychiatric symptoms in larger and/or clinical samples. one interpretation of the results is that they reflect elements of the freezing response, which is involved in disorders (e.g., hagenaars, stins, & roelofs, 2012). fourth, there are many variations of the task that could be studied in future research, beyond the scope of these first studies. for instance, we make no claim that the event terminating the response inhibition must necessarily involve a threatening attack of the type used in the current studies; perhaps positively valenced events could have similar releasing effects. note that while freezing is evolutionarily related to threat, it consists of more general underlying processes such as response preparation and inhibition that are not logically exclusive to the context of threat. other task variants may be more suited to studying the “release” effect of attacks, in particular those in which non-visual attacks are used such as electric shock or loud noise. such stimuli could also have far shorter time durations than the attack stimulus and allow closer comparability of attack versus non-attack cue types in terms of the timing of the probe stimuli. tasks focusing on attacks could also study the attack-probe interval in a similar manner as the csi in the current tasks: it may be the case that effects of attacks show a similar decay following an initial rt increase. finally, we acknowledge that the interpretation of effects in terms of freezing must be tentative, being based only on behavioural measures. psychophysiological or neuroimaging measures could provide additional evidence to test this interpretation by considering, for example, bradycardia, body sway and activation of freeze-related brain regions (hashemi et al., 2019; hermans, henckens, roelofs, & fernández, 2012; roelofs, hagenaars, & stins, 2010). in conclusion, visually neutral cues signaling the possibility of an attack were found to slow responses on a concurrent working memory task. the current study thus expands and supports prior results on the freeze-release pattern of effects of threat-related distractors on rt in such tasks and complements the literature on different effects of threatening stimuli and predictive cues. the cvaest may be an interesting method to study threat-induced response inhibition. threat-induced response slowing 40 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. data availability: data for this article is freely available (see gladwin & vink, 2021). supplementary materials the following supplementary materials for study 1, study 2, and study 3 are available via the psycharchives repository (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • raw data. • analysis scripts. index of supplementary materials gladwin, t. e., & vink, m. 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(1986). the sternberg memory search task as an index of pilot workload. ergonomics, 29(11), 1371-1383. https://doi.org/10.1080/00140138608967252 about the authors thomas edward gladwin is a guest researcher at the radboud university nijmegen and impact assessment officer at the university of greenwich. he studies the interplay between controlled and automatic processes, emotion regulation, implicit measures, and the translation of research to practice, for example, clinical interventions for addiction. matthijs vink is an assistant professor at the departments of experimental and developmental psychology of the utrecht universi­ ty, in the group of prof chantal kemner (http:///www.uu.nl/staff/ckemner). his research is focused on the fronto-striatal network and its role in schizophrenia and other disorders. he has developed inhibition and reward tasks that are used worldwide. gladwin & vink 43 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 31–43 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.1896 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0206 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610384746 https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0197 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00282 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.153.3736.652 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2012.11.012 https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.133.6.1038 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.01.016 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000533 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930600625081 https://doi.org/10.1080/00140138608967252 http:///www.uu.nl/staff/ckemner https://www.psychopen.eu/ threat-induced response slowing (introduction) study 1 method results and discussion study 2 method results and discussion study 3 method results and discussion general discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors systematic review of the proposed associations between physical exercise and creative thinking literature reviews systematic review of the proposed associations between physical exercise and creative thinking emily frith a, seungho ryu b, minsoo kang b, paul d. loprinzi* a [a] exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, university, ms, usa. [b] health and sports analytics laboratory, department of health, exercise science and recreation management, the university of mississippi, university, ms, usa. abstract the objective of this study was to evaluate the association between physical exercise and creative thinking. a systematic review approach was employed by searching pubmed, google scholar and psychinfo databases. among the evaluated 13 studies, 92% indicated a beneficial relationship. however, 77% were vulnerable to moderate-high risk for methodological bias, suggesting adherence to standardized and controlled research initiatives should be promoted. there appears to be weak to modest support for acute, moderateintensity exercise to benefit creativity. exercise timing relative to creativity assessment protocols should be addressed and further detailed. creativity scoring procedures must be refined, and an increased focus on the motivational components of exercise may help guide researchers in measuring creative thoughts and behavior. broader concluding claims that creativity, in general, is improved or impaired by exercise, is as problematic as sweeping statements that exercise improves or impairs a measure as dynamic as intelligence. scientific inquiries must specify precisely which outcome characteristics are changing in line with research interventions. this review identifies several fallible linkages between physical activity and creativity. too few studies were conducted on strong methodological foundations, perpetuating the risk for undermining or inaccurately inflating the potential association between exercise and creative thinking behavior. keywords: cognition, exercise psychology, health promotion, innovation, mental health, physical activity, research methods europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 received: 2018-09-08. accepted: 2019-03-24. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: natalia wentink martin, university of liverpool, uk *corresponding author at: exercise & memory laboratory, department of health, exercise science, and recreation management, school of applied sciences, the university of mississippi, 229 turner center, university, ms 38677, usa. tel: +662 915 5521. e-mail: pdloprin@olemiss.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. scientific inquiry in any field is difficult when the parameter beneath the lens of empirical scrutiny is difficult to both operationalize and localize. researchers have attempted to define creativity as a broad construct that encompasses “the degree of novelty of which the person is capable, or which he [or she] habitually exhibits” (guilford, 1950). more recently, the intricate processes of creativity have been posited to correspond with “our ability to change existing patterns, break with the present, and build something new” (dietrich & kanso, 2010). the variegated outcomes of such creative processes have also been described as products which “can be tested in terms of the frequency of uncommon, yet acceptable, responses to items” (guilford, 1950). further, a theme of societal relevance, or value, is proposed as a crucial standard for creative production, as “the creative work is a novel work that is accepted as tenable or useful or satisfying by a group in some point in time” (stein, 1953). europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ despite the volume and remarkable adaptability of creative exposition, guilford revolutionized empirical creativity assessment with a push to evaluate creative divergent thinking (guilford, 1950). the examination of divergent thinking, or the creative act of generating multiple solutions from a single stimulus (berkowitz, 2014), continued to serve as a pervasive staple for the best measurement practices in creativity studies for decades, and is still widely investigated in modern research. indeed, it is well established that divergent thinking is a tool for predicting creative potential (runco, 2008). however, it is certainly not the only tool that should be wielded by scientists searching for causal relationships. for example, convergent thinking, or solving a task with one correct solution, is also suggested to play a large role in explaining the nature of creative thought (berkowitz, 2014). by the late 1990’s, creativity research diverted from a narrowed focus on the evaluation of divergent thinking, and began to encompass a broader range of scientific analysis, including neuroscientific correlates, personality, insight, and other systems-based approaches exposing important creativity measurement outcomes (csikszentmihalyi, 1999; mumford, 2003). unfortunately, as creativity research efforts in psychological and neurobiological disciplines appear to be making headway towards the practical conceptualization of such an untenable construct, creativity research in exercise science and health promotion is stunted. the lack of experimental work on this topic is staggering, with only 13 research studies investigating the associations between physical exercise and quantifiable creative products (blanchette, ramocki, o'del, & casey, 2005; colzato et al., 2013; curnow & turner, 1992; gondola, 1986, 1987; gondola & tuckman, 1985; herman-tofler & tuckman, 1998; hinkle, tuckman, & sampson, 1993; oppezzo & schwartz, 2014; ramocki, 2002; steinberg et al., 1997; tuckman & hinkle, 1986; zhou, zhang, hommel, & zhang, 2017). over half of this body of literature was published prior to the millennium, and, as demonstrated herein, the vast majority lack sound rationale and methodological quality. following the systematic review framework detailed elsewhere (murad et al., 2014), this systematic review will provide a detailed synthesis of the exercise and creativity work accomplished thus far. the dearth of unbiased research on exercise and creativity is a critical issue, which must be prevented for future development in this area to continue unencumbered by obstruction, or even absence, of meaningful evidence to answer the pervasive question, “does exercise influence creative potential?” therefore, a secondary aim of this review is to direct future experimentation towards more informed, and applicable, methods of inquiry, and provide direction for identifying prudent questions worth answering in the field. method inclusion criteria research studies were included if they utilized an experimental study design, were published in english, indexed in pubmed, google scholar and psycinfo, and specifically evaluated the influence of acute or habitual physical exercise on creativity in children or adults, of either gender and with no known psychological or physical limitations or preexisting pathology that would prevent them from being classified as healthy at baseline. any exercise intervention (acute or chronic laboratory or free-living physical activities) coupled with either an active or traditional control group (no exercise) was considered. frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 859 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ outcome measure cognitive creativity (analogy, convergent thinking, divergent thinking, insight, metaphors, and problem-solving). exclusion criteria research studies were excluded if no exercise intervention was employed, self-report questionnaires of creative strengths and abilities were not accompanied by an observable laboratory measure of creative potential (mccutcheon, 1982), or if creativity was not the outcome variable (hallihan & shu, 2011). additionally, articles were excluded if the study population was comprised of nonhuman subjects. search strategy the following databases were searched between 1 january 2018 and 10 january 2018: pubmed, psychinfo, and google scholar. mesh keyword terms included exercise, physical exercise, physical activity, creativity, exercise and creativity, physical exercise and creativity, and physical activity and creativity. subordinate terms included convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and insight problem-solving. see figure 1 for a flow diagram of the extracted studies from the computerized search. in total, 13 articles met the study criteria (figure 1). figure 1. flow diagram of the extracted studies. exercise and creativity 860 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ quality evaluation risk of bias/study quality was evaluated for each article using a checklist developed specifically for this study. the following checklist includes seven items with a yes (1) or no (0) response option and was constructed in accordance with the cochrane risk of bias tool (higgins & green, 2008). this risk of bias checklist, as well as this entire systematic review, also adhered to the prisma checklist for reporting systematic reviews (except for item 5, prospective registration of the systematic review). two of the authors independently scored each study based on this checklist. discrepancies were discussed until agreement was made. in situations when consensus did not occur, the two remaining authors were consulted, which facilitated consensus for all risk of bias items. the risk of bias items are as follows: 1. was the physical activity manipulation controlled (e.g., completed in a laboratory setting, standardized by duration and intensity, and for interaction with other participants if administered in a group context)? 2. was there evidence of reliability for the creativity measure(s) utilized? 3. was there evidence of validity for the creativity measure(s) utilized? 4. were creativity scoring and evaluation procedures robust to bias (e.g., blinded scoring completed by multiple researchers, provision of strong interrater reliability, and detailed or referenced? 5. were random group assignment and/or counterbalancing procedures appropriate (e.g., were participants assigned to groups based on course enrollment, rather than random selection and were the order of creativity assessments randomized to ensure resistance to temporal artifacts or learning effects?) for the study design? 6. did the intervention use a non-exercise control group or condition? 7. were statistically appropriate/acceptable methods of data analysis used? 8. were point estimates, standard deviations, confidence intervals, and/or effect sizes reported? items 2 and 3 required each manuscript to include an explicit description of evidence for reliability and validity of the creativity outcome assessments employed. the manuscript earned a ‘no’ (0) score for missing details regarding reliable/valid measures, which may have been utilized in some experiments, but were not adequately detailed per our quality evaluation criteria. a ‘no’ score for item 7 was awarded to manuscripts that failed to use reasonable statistical methods for post-hoc analysis of outcomes. statistically inappropriate decisions included reporting pearson correlation coefficients for interrater reliability, failure to use the appropriate statistical tests and computing unpaired analyses of treatment effects on individual differences as a result of chronic training studies. item 8 identified articles that neglected to report point estimates, confidence intervals, standard deviations, and/or effect sizes. the authors may have computed these values, but if all statistical results were not included in the publication, a ‘no’ score was given for item 8. the 13 included research studies were classified into categories based on cut points reflecting the degree of methodological bias considered for each individual study. studies with a score of 6–8 (three studies) were classified as having low risk of bias. studies with a score of 3–5 (eight studies) were classified as having moderate risk of bias. studies with a score of 0–2 (two studies) were classified as having a high risk of bias (table 1). frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 861 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 risk of bias assessment study risk of bias item total1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 blanchette et al. (2005) x x x x x 5 colzato et al. (2013) x x x x x x x 7 curnow and turner (1992) x x x x x 5 gondola and tuckman (1985) [pilot study] x x x 3 gondola (1986) x x 2 gondola (1987) x x x 3 herman-tofler and tuckman (1998) x x x x 4 hinkle et al. (1993) x x x x x 5 oppezzo and schwartz (2014) x x x x x x x x 8 ramocki (2002) x 1 steinberg et al. (1997) x x x x 4 tuckman and hinkle (1986) x x x 3 zhou et al. (2017) x x x x x x 6 note. item 1: was the physical activity manipulation controlled (e.g., completed in a laboratory setting, standardized by duration and intensity, and for interaction with other participants if administered in a group context)? item 2: was there evidence of reliability for the creativity measure(s) utilized? item 3: was there evidence of validity for the creativity measure(s) utilized? item 4: were creativity scoring and evaluation procedures robust to bias (e.g., blinded scoring completed by multiple researchers, provision of strong interrater reliability, and detailed or referenced? item 5: were random group assignment and/or counterbalancing procedures appropriate (e.g., were participants assigned to groups based on course enrollment, rather than random selection and were the order of creativity assessments randomized to ensure resistance to temporal artifacts or learning effects?) for the study design? item 6: did the intervention use a non-exercise control group or condition? item 7: were statistically appropriate/acceptable methods of data analysis used? item 8: were point estimates, standard deviations, confidence intervals, and/or effect sizes reported? data extraction a data extraction table for the included research studies was created to provide a brief description of author names and publication date, sample characteristics, research design, creativity measures used and length of creativity assessment period, relevant creativity parameters assessed, exercise modality, intensity and duration, methods used for scoring creative products, as well as study outcomes and conclusions (table 2). exercise and creativity 862 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 2 e xt ra ct io n ta bl e of th e e va lu at ed s tu di es st ud y / sa m pl e c ha ra ct er is tic s r es ea rc h d es ig n c re at iv ity m ea su re s (d ur at io n) c re at iv ity p ar am et er s a ss es se d ex er ci se m od al ity (i nt en si ty an d du ra tio n) sc or in g o ut co m es a nd c on cl us io ns b la nc he tte e t a l. (2 00 5) n = 6 0, 3 0 m al es ; 3 0 fe m al es ; a ge : 1 8– 27 (m = 2 0) w ith in su bj ec t 1. t tc t fi gu ra l t es ts a a nd b (1 0 m in ut es ea ch fo rm ) 2. c re at iv e s tre ng th s q ue st io nn ai re a bs tra ct ne ss o f t itl es , f lu en cy , or ig in al ity , e la bo ra tio n, re si st an ce to p re m at ur e cl os ur e pe r t tc t sc or in g gu id e a cu te e xe rc is e pr ot oc ol ; pr im ar ily a er ob ic ; s el f-s el ec te d (m od er at e: 3 0m in ut e) fo ur in de pe nd en t a ut ho rs s co re d al l o f t he se an on ym ou s in st ru m en ts in ra nd om o rd er . in te rr at er re lia bi lit y w as h ig h w ith p ea rs on c or re la tio n m ed ia ns o f . 81 8 (r an ge .7 66 –. 88 6) fo r h 1, .8 50 (r an ge .7 89 –. 87 0) fo r h 2, a nd .8 26 (r an ge .7 81 –. 91 7) fo r h 3. c re at iv e po te nt ia l w as e le va te d im m ed ia te ly p os tex er ci se , r el at iv e to c on tro l ( p < .0 01 ) c re at iv e po te nt ia l w as e le va te d 2hr s po st ex er ci se , r el at iv e to c on tro l ( p < .0 01 ) n o st at is tic al ly s ig ni fic an t t em po ra l d iff er en ce s w er e de te rm in ed b et w ee n th e tw o ex er ci se c on di tio ns (p = .2 51 ) c ol za to e t a l. (2 01 3) n = 9 6 (a ge : m = 2 1) e xp er im en ta l g ro up : 4 8 ha bi tu al ex er ci se rs c on tro l g ro up : 4 8 in ac tiv e in di vi du al s be tw ee nsu bj ec ts cr os sov er de si gn 30 r at tr ia ds r at (1 0 tri ad s pe r c on di tio n) 3 a u t ite m s (1 it em pe r c on di tio n) fl ex ib ili ty , f lu en cy , o rig in al ity , el ab or at io n c yc le e rg om et er (( re st (6 m in ut e) , ( m od er at e (6 -m in ut e) , (a nd in te ns e (6 -m in ut e) ) ex er ci se (1 2m in ut e to ta l c yc lin g tim e) c re at iv ity w as a ss es se d du rin g ex er ci se fo r h al f o f t he pa rti ci pa nt s in e ac h gr ou p (2 4m in ut es to ta l p ro to co l), a nd im m ed ia te ly a fte r f or th e re m ai ni ng h al f ( 36 -m in ut e to ta l pr ot oc ol ) r at s co re d nu m er ic al ly v ia a n in de x of to ta l co rr ec t r es po ns es a u t sc or in g w as c om pl et ed b y tw o in de pe nd en t ra te rs fo r t he d iv er ge nt th in ki ng m ea su re -n o in di ca tio n if pa rti ci pa nt re sp on se s w er e bl in de d to ra te rs c ro nb ac h’ s al ph a sc or es fo r f lu en cy , f le xi bi lit y, or ig in al ity a nd e la bo ra tio n ra ng ed fr om 0 .7 4 to 1. 00 . w e as su m e th e au th or s in te nd ed to re po rt in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y in te ns e ex er ci se w as a ss oc ia te d w ith re du ct io ns in c on ve rg en t t hi nk in g am on g in ac tiv e pa rti ci pa nt s, c om pa re d to e ng ag in g in m od er at e ex er ci se (p = .0 02 ) a nd re st (p = .0 29 ). c re at iv e fle xi bi lit y on th e a u t w as h ig he r a t r es t, th an fo r i nt en se e xe rc is e (p = .0 11 ) f or b ot h gr ou ps . t he re w as n o di ffe re nc e in a u t fle xi bi lit y pe rfo rm an ce d ur in g re st o r m od er at ein te ns ity ex er ci se fo r b ot h gr ou ps (p = .1 50 ). c ur no w a nd t ur ne r ( 19 92 ) n = 4 6, 3 5 fe m al es ; a ge : 1 8– 24 (m = 1 9) a ) m us ic a nd e xe rc is e b ) e xe rc is e o nl y c ) m us ic o nl y d ) c on tro l g ro up (n o ex er ci se -n o m us ic ) (n o sa m pl e si ze re po rte d fo r e ac h se pa ra te g ro up ) be tw ee nsu bj ec ts tt c t fi gu ra l t es ts a (p re ) a nd b (3 -m in ut e po st c on di tio n) fl ue nc y, o rig in al ity a nd el ab or at io n c yc le e rg om et er (2 0m in ut e su bm ax im al w or kl oa d of 1 50 kp m a t a ra te o f 5 5 rp m th e s ch ol as tic t es tin g s er vi ce , e ar th c ity , m o sc or ed th e as se ss m en ts . h ow ev er , n o in te rra te r re lia bi lit y w as re po rte d. th er e w er e no s ta tis tic al ly s ig ni fic an t d iff er en ce s be tw ee n gr ou ps fo r a ny c re at iv ity m ea su re as se ss ed . frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 863 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y / sa m pl e c ha ra ct er is tic s r es ea rc h d es ig n c re at iv ity m ea su re s (d ur at io n) c re at iv ity p ar am et er s a ss es se d ex er ci se m od al ity (i nt en si ty an d du ra tio n) sc or in g o ut co m es a nd c on cl us io ns g on do la a nd t uc km an (1 98 5) c on tro l ( no p a ): n = 23 e xp er im en ta l g ro up : n = 2 6 m ix ed m od el a u t, m at ch s tic ks a nd c on se qu en ce s p re -s tu dy a nd p os t-s tu dy ch ro ni c cr ea tiv ity (b ef or e ex er ci si ng ) m at ch s tic ks , o bv io us c on se qu en ce s, r em ot e c on se qu en ce s an d a u t 8w ee k ch ro ni c tra in in g st ud y (2 0m in ut e ru n fo r 1 6 se ss io ns -2 × pe r w ee k) fo llo w ed s co rin g gu id es fo r c on ve rg en t a nd di ve rg en t t hi nk in g m ea su re s d id n ot d et ai l h ow th e sc or in g w as c om pl et ed , o r if sc or in g w as c on du ct ed b y in te rn al o r e xt er na l ra te rs . n o in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up o ut pe rfo rm ed th e co nt ro l gr ou p on th e a u t (p < .0 1) n o ad di tio na l d iff er en ce s w er e de te rm in ed fo r t he in cl ud ed c re at iv ity a ss es sm en ts g on do la (1 98 6) e xp er im en ta l g ro up 1 : n = 2 3 e xp er im en ta l g ro up 2 : n = 1 9 c oed u nd er gr ad ua te s (n o ot he r de m og ra ph ic s re po rte d) c on tro l: no s am pl e si ze re po rte d m ix ed m od el a u t, m at ch s tic ks a nd c on se qu en ce s g ro up 1 a nd 2 : p re -s tu dy a nd po st -s tu dy c hr on ic c re at iv ity (b ef or e ex er ci si ng ) m at ch s tic ks , o bv io us c on se qu en ce s, r em ot e c on se qu en ce s g ro up 2 : a cu te c re at iv ity (m at ch s tic ks , o bv io us c on se qu en ce s, r em ot e c on se qu en ce s an d a u t) m ea su re d pr ean d po st ex er ci se fo r s es si on 1 g ro up 1 : 8 -w ee k ch ro ni c tra in in g st ud y: 2 0m in ut e ru n fo r 1 6 se ss io ns (2 × pe r w ee k) g ro up 2 : 6 -w ee k ch ro ni c tra in in g st ud y: 2 0m in ut e ru n fo r 1 2 se ss io ns (2 × pe r w ee k) s co rin g w as c om pl et ed b y th e au th or a nd o ne as si st an t. n o in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d b ot h ex pe rim en ta l g ro up s pe rfo rm ed b et te r o n th e a u t re la tiv e to c on tro ls (p < .0 01 ). g ro up 2 s co re d hi gh er o n r em ot e c on se qu en ce s th an th e ot he r t w o gr ou ps (p < .0 1) . p re a nd p os t-a cu te c re at iv ity s co re s fo r r em ot e c on se qu en ce s an d th e a u t w er e st at is tic al ly si gn ifi ca nt ly d iff er en t f or g ro up 2 (p < .0 01 ). g on do la (1 98 7) n = 3 7 fe m al es ; a ge : 1 9– 35 (m = 2 3) e xp er im en ta l g ro up : n = 2 1 c on tro l g ro up (n o pa ): n = 16 m ix ed -m od el a u t an d c on se qu en ce s a cu te c re at iv ity a ss es se d at ba se lin e an d 5m in ut e po st ex er ci se 1 w ee k la te r ( tw o vi si ts ) 20 -m in ut e m od er at eto -v ig or ou s ae ro bi c da nc e n o de sc rip tio n of s co rin g m et ho ds w as p ro vi de d fo r r ep lic at io n. n o in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up s co re d hi gh er o n th e a u t th an th e co nt ro l g ro up (p < .0 00 1) th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up s co re d hi gh er o n th e r em ot e c on se qu en ce s th an th e co nt ro l g ro up (p < .0 1) h er m an -t of le r a nd t uc km an (1 99 8) n = 5 2 th ird g ra de rs ra nd om iz ed in to a n e xp er im en ta l ( ae ro bi c ex er ci se p hy si ca l e du ca tio n) o r c on tro l g ro up (t ra di tio na l p hy si ca l ed uc at io n) n o sa m pl e si ze p er gr ou p w as re po rte d. m ix ed -m od el tt c t fi gu ra l t es tfo rm s a (v er tic al pa ra lle l l in es ) a nd b (c irc le s) ti m e to c om pl et e th e cr ea tiv ity a ss es sm en ts w as n ot re po rte d p ic tu re c on st ru ct io nor ig in al an d de ta ile d st or ie s; m ul tip le as so ci at io ns a nd d iv er ge nt th in ki ng 3 ae ro bi c ex er ci se s es si on s pe r w ee k fo r 8 w ee ks s co rin g pe r t he t tc t m an ua l tt c t te st -r et es t r el ia bi lit y co ef fic ie nt s w er e re po rte d fo r t he fi gu ra l t es t f or m s (0 .7 1– 0. 85 ). n o in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d th e ae ro bi c ex er ci se g ro up a ch ie ve d in cr ea se d fig ur al fl ue nc y sc or es p re -to -p os t-i nt er ve nt io n, co m pa re d to th e co nt ro l g ro up (p = .0 4) a er ob ic p ow er (m ea su re d vi a an 8 00 -m ru n) w as no t s ta tis tic al ly s ig ni fic an tly d iff er en t f ro m p re in te rv en tio n to p os t-i nt er ve nt io n (p = .2 66 ) exercise and creativity 864 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y / sa m pl e c ha ra ct er is tic s r es ea rc h d es ig n c re at iv ity m ea su re s (d ur at io n) c re at iv ity p ar am et er s a ss es se d ex er ci se m od al ity (i nt en si ty an d du ra tio n) sc or in g o ut co m es a nd c on cl us io ns h in kl e et a l. (1 99 3) n = 8 5 e xp er im en ta l g ro up : n = 4 2; 2 0 m al es ; 2 2 fe m al es c on tro l g ro up : n = 4 3; 2 4 m al es ; 19 fe m al es (a ge : m = 1 3) m ix ed -m od el fi gu ra l a nd v er ba l ve rs io ns o f t he t tc t te st ed in a g ro up se tti ng ve rb al : d iv er ge nt th in ki ng , fa nt as y, u ni qu e th in ki ng fi gu ra l: el ab or at io n, fl ue nc y, or ig in al ity , a nd b re ak in g se t fi ve o ut do or ru nn in g se ss io ns pe r w ee k fo r 8 w ee ks (n o du ra tio n pr ov id ed ) n o de sc rip tio n of s co rin g m et ho ds w as p ro vi de d fo r r ep lic at io n a ll cr ea tiv ity a ss es sm en ts w er e sc or ed b y on e in de pe nd en t r at er . t he re fo re , n o in te rra te r re lia bi lit y co ul d be re po rte d p re -to -p os t s co re s fo r f lu en cy , f le xi bi lit y, a nd or ig in al ity w er e m ar gi na lly h ig he r i n th e tre at m en t gr ou p co m pa re d to c on tro ls (p < .0 5) fe m al es , i rr es pe ct iv e of c on di tio n as si gn m en t, ac hi ev ed m ar gi na lly h ig he r i nc re as es in v er ba l fle xi bi lit y, v er ba l o rig in al ity , a nd fi gu ra l e la bo ra tio n (p < .0 5) . o pp ez zo a nd s ch w ar tz (2 01 4) e xp er im en t 1 : n = 4 8 un de rg ra du at e ps yc ho lo gy st ud en ts e xp er im en t 2 : n = 4 8; s itsi t; si ttre ad ; t re ad -s it co nd iti on s e xp er im en t 3 : n = 4 0; s itsi t; si tw al k; w al ksi t; an d w al kw al k e xp er im en t 4 : n = 4 0; s it in si de ; w al k in si de ; s it ou ts id e; w al k ou ts id e 1) w ith in su bj ec t 2) b et w ee nsu bj ec ts 3) b et w ee nsu bj ec ts 4) b et w ee nsu bj ec ts (2 × 2 de si gn ) 1) a u t (4 -m in ut e × 2 ta sk s co ns is tin g of 6 ite m s to ta l) an d r at (4 -m in ut e fo r 1 6 tri ad s) 2) a u t (4 -m in ut e × 2 ta sk s co ns is tin g of 6 ite m s to ta l) × 2 3) a u t (s am e as ab ov e) 4) b s e (5 -m in ut e × 3 ta sk s16 -m in ut e to ta l se ss io n) id ea tio n, n ov el ty , a pp ro pr ia te us es , a pp ro pr ia te n ov el ty , a nd no nre pe tit iv e us es 3 on ly ) a lfr es co c od e (“ ou td oo r” id ea s) 4 on ly ) a na lo gy p ro du ct io n co de d fo r a pp ro pr ia te ne ss , no ve lty , a nd h ig hqu al ity re sp on se s, fu rth er d et er m in ed by d eg re e of d et ai l a nd se m an tic d is ta nc e 1) 1 2m in ut e se at ed fo llo w ed b y 12 -m in ut e tre ad m ill w al ki ng 2) 8 -m in ut e of c on di tio n; 8 m in ut e of c om pl em en ta ry co nd iti on (i .e ., 8m in ut e si t fo llo w ed b y 8m in ut e tre ad ) 3) 1 6m in ut e se at ed in do or s; 8 m in ut es s ea te d in do or s an d 8m in ut e w al ki ng o ut do or s or 8 m in ut e w al ki ng o ut do or s an d 8m in ut e se at ed in do or s; 1 6m in ut e w al ki ng o ut do or s a ll di ve rg en t t hi nk in g pa ra m et er s w er e su bj ec t t o apr io ri de fin ed , r es ea rc he r o pe ra tio na liz at io ns o f cr ea tiv ity a na lo gi es w er e fu rth er s co re d us in g a m ab ile ’s (1 99 6) c on se ns ua l a ss es sm en t t ec hn iq ue . in te rr at er re lia bi lit y fo r t he a u t w as re po rte d as r = .7 3. fo r e xp er im en ts # 1 an d #2 , r = .7 4 fo r e xp er im en t # 3, a nd r = 1. 0 fo r d et ai l l ev el a nd r = .9 8 fo r s em an tic d is ta nc e in e xp er im en t # 4. 1) r at p er fo rm an ce d ec re as ed w he n w al ki ng (p = .0 3) , w hi le a u t pe rfo rm an ce in cr ea se d w he n w al ki ng (p < .0 01 ). 2) t he o rd er o f w al ki ng (b ef or e or a fte r s itt in g) d id no t y ie ld s ta tis tic al ly s ig ni fic an t d iff er en ce s (p = .9 75 ) a t t he e nd o f t he b ou t. d ec re as ed id ea tio n on th e a u t w as d et er m in ed fro m ti m epo in t 1 to ti m epo in t 2 in th e tre ad -s it co nd iti on (p = .0 16 ). w al ki ng w as a ss oc ia te d w ith h ig he r c re at iv ity pe rfo rm an ce o n th e a u t th an s itt in g (p < .0 01 ). 3) w al ki ng o nc e w as n ot s ta tis tic al ly d iff er en t t ha n w al ki ng a t b ot h tim epo in ts o n th e a u t (p = .2 53 ) w al ki ng a t b ot h tim epo in ts re su lte d in a s im ila r le ve l o f m ai nt ai ne d cr ea tiv ity p er fo rm an ce o n th e a u t ac ro ss ti m e (p = .5 07 ) s itt in g af te r w al ki ng m irr or ed th e fin di ng s of ex pe rim en t 2 . s itt in g af te r w al ki ng w as a ss oc ia te d w ith c om pa ra bl e cr ea tiv ity p er fo rm an ce o n th e a u t as th at a ch ie ve d du rin g w al ki ng (p = .3 35 ). 4) w al ki ng w as a ss oc ia te d w ith h ig he rqu al ity , no ve l a na lo gi es re la tiv e to in di vi du al s w ho s at . b ei ng o ut do or s w as in de pe nd en tly re la te d to no ve lty , a lb ei t p er ha ps o f l ow er -q ua lit y re sp on se s r am oc ki (2 00 2) n = 3 1 e xp er im en ta l g ro up : n = 1 5 c on tro l g ro up (n o pa ): n = 16 be tw ee nsu bj ec ts b as el in e: a u t (2 0m in ut e) , g am e c re at iv e flu en cy , f le xi bi lit y, no ve lty (c at eg or ic al ), an d o ne -h ou r o f s el f-s el ec te d vi go ro us -in te ns ity p hy si ca l ac tiv ity fo r e xp er im en ta l g ro up d ou bl ebl in de d sc or in g co m pl et ed b y th re e fa cu lty a nd th re e st ud en t-r at er s (a ls o pa rti ci pa nt s in th e st ud y) . o nl y th e m ea n ch an ge in p re t o po st -fl ue nc y w as st at is tic al ly s ig ni fic an t f or th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up (p < .0 1) . frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 865 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ st ud y / sa m pl e c ha ra ct er is tic s r es ea rc h d es ig n c re at iv ity m ea su re s (d ur at io n) c re at iv ity p ar am et er s a ss es se d ex er ci se m od al ity (i nt en si ty an d du ra tio n) sc or in g o ut co m es a nd c on cl us io ns a ge 2 0– 40 de ve lo pm en t, (4 0m in ut e) p os t: m et ap ho rs (2 0m in ut e) , p la nn in g a pa rty (4 0m in ut e) gl ob al c re at iv ity (r an kor de re d) k en da ll's c oe ffi ci en ts fo r t he p re te st a ss es sm en t w er e w = .6 6 fo r t he s ub je ct ju dg es , w = .6 2 fo r th e fa cu lty ju dg es , a nd w = .5 6 fo r a ll si x ju dg es co m bi ne d. k en da ll's c oe ffi ci en t f or th e po st te st a ss es sm en t w as w = .5 9 fo r t he s ub je ct ju dg es , w = .7 3 fo r th e fa cu lty ju dg es , a nd w = .6 1 fo r a ll si x ju dg es co m bi ne d. st ei nb er g et a l. (1 99 7) n = 6 3 a er ob ic e xe rc is e g ro up : 1 5 m al es ; 16 fe m al es ; a ge ra ng e 19 –5 4; m ed ia n ag e ra ng e 25 –2 9 a er ob ic d an ce g ro up : 4 m al es ; 2 8 fe m al es ; a ge ra ng e 19 –5 9; m ed ia n ag e ra ng e 20 –2 4 fo ur s tu de nt s w er e lo st to a ttr iti on . m ix ed m od el u nu su al u se s te st o f c re at iv e th in ki ng (t in c an s an d c ar db oa rd b ox es -5 -m in ut e pe r ite m ) fl ue nc y, fl ex ib ili ty , a nd or ig in al ity 17 m in ut es o f a er ob ic e xe rc is e de fin ed a s hi gh -im pa ct 21 .7 m in ut es o f a er ob ic d an ce de fin ed a s lo w -im pa ct a c on tro l c on di tio n w as co m pl et ed (c ou nt er ba la nc ed or de r) , c on si st in g of a n eu tra l vi de o m at ch ed to e xe rc is e du ra tio n s co rin g of u nu su al u se s w as b as ed o n ra tin gs su m m ed a cr os s a fo ur -p oi nt s ca le in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d be tw ee n tw o in de pe nd en t r at er s at r = .8 9. fl ex ib ili ty w as m ar gi na lly h ig he r i n th e ex er ci se co nd iti on , c om pa re d to th e vi de o co nd iti on (p < .0 5) a lth ou gh fa vo ra bl e im pr ov em en ts in m oo d oc cu rr ed w ith e xe rc is e (p < .0 01 ), m oo d fa ile d to co nt rib ut e to e ffe ct s on c re at iv ity (> .0 5) tu ck m an a nd h in kl e (1 98 6) n = 1 54 n = 48 4 th g ra de rs (a ge : m = 9 ) n = 53 5 th g ra de rs (a ge : m = 1 0) n = 53 6 th g ra de rs (a ge : m = 1 1) n um be r o f p ar tic ip an ts in e xp er im en ta l a nd c on tro l g ro up s w as n ot s pe ci fie d m ix ed m od el a u t (1 0 ite m sno du ra tio n pr ov id ed ) n o m en tio n of s pe ci fic cr ea tiv ity p ar am et er s w as pr ov id ed th re e ou td oo r r un ni ng s es si on s pe r w ee k (3 0m in ut e ea ch se ss io n) fo r 1 2 w ee ks a ct iv e co nt ro l g ro up p ar tic ip at ed in re gu la r p hy si ca l e du ca tio n cl as s ac tiv iti es n o pr oc ed ur es fo r s co rin g m et ho ds w er e re po rte d. t hu s, n o in te rra te r r el ia bi lit y w as re po rte d th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up o ut pe rfo rm ed th e co nt ro l gr ou p on th e a u t (p < .0 01 ) b oy s in th e ex pe rim en ta l g ro up a ch ie ve d m ar gi na lly h ig he r a u t sc or es th an g irl s fo llo w in g po st te st a na ly se s (p < .0 5) zh ou e t a l. (2 01 7) (s tu dy 2 a an d 2b w er e ex cl ud ed , a s th es e di d no t e va lu at e ex er ci se ) s tu dy 1 a. n = 6 3, 2 1 m al es a nd 4 2 fe m al es , a ge : m = 2 1. 25 [s tu dy 1b . s am e pa rti ci pa nt s] w ith in su bj ec t 1a ) d it d iv er ge nt th in ki ng ta sk 1b ) c it d iv er ge nt th in ki ng ta sk (1 0 tra ils ; 1m in ut e al lo ca te d to ea ch tr ia l) 1a ) s co re d ta sk c om pl et io n an d ta sk n ov el ty 1b ) s co re d flu en cy , f le xi bi lit y, an d no ve lty s tu dy 1 a nd 1 b) s ta nd in g, co ns tra in ed w al ki ng -f ig ur eof -8 w al k te st (f 8w ), an d un co ns tra in ed w al ki ng (r oa m in g) co nd iti on s (n o ex er ci se d ur at io n pr ov id ed -li ke ly a bo ut 1 0m in ut e) 1a ) c re at iv e no ve lty w as ra te d by s ix e xp er ts o n a sc al e of 1 (n ot o rig in al ) t o 5 (v er y or ig in al ) f or b ot h ex pe rim en ts . c ro nb ac h’ s al ph a w as .7 9, a nd .7 0, re sp ec tiv el y fo r t he tw o ex pe rim en ts . 1b ) f lu en cy a nd fl ex ib ili ty w as s co re d by th e pr im ar y in ve st ig at or 1a ) n ov el ty w as h ig he st in th e ro am in g co nd iti on , co m pa re d to c on st ra in ed w al ki ng a nd s ta nd in g (p < .0 01 ). 1b ) f lu en cy , f le xi bi lit y, a nd n ov el ty w er e hi gh es t i n th e ro am in g co nd iti on , c om pa re d to c on st ra in ed w al ki ng a nd s ta nd in g (p < .0 01 ). c on st ra in ed w al ki ng w as a ls o as so ci at ed w ith h ig he r f lu en cy , fle xi bi lit y, a nd n ov el ty th an s ta nd in g (p < .0 01 ) exercise and creativity 866 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results creativity assessments there are many different creativity assessments which may be utilized to experimentally assess acute creative potential in the laboratory. four studies employed the torrance tests of creative thinking (ttct) figural tests a and b (torrance, ball, & safter, 1966), with one utilizing both the figural and verbal forms. eight studies assessed divergent thinking, and two studies employed both divergent and convergent thinking assessments. two studies evaluated analogy generation or production of metaphors. assuming that these measures all demonstrate comparable quality in assessing certain aspects of creativity, caution should be observed when interpreting these results for practical generalizability. study description among the 13 manuscripts selected for this systematic review, all evaluated a hypothesized relationship between exercise manipulation and creativity performance. of the 13 articles, three were published after 2013, two were published from 2002 to 2005, and eight were published from 1985 to 1998. nine studies evaluated exercise and creativity within college-aged individuals, three studies assessed elementary and/or middle school children, and one study utilized a sample of adults at least 18 years of age. nearly one-third of the included studies failed to report sample sizes per experimental or control group assignment. to this end, due to the substantial heterogeneity across study quality and methodology, a meta-analytic approach was not appropriate to include, and a qualitative review of research studies was chosen to avoid further convolution of conclusions suggested in the existing research on exercise and creativity (walker, hernandez, & kattan, 2008). three studies utilized a traditional within-subject design, four used a between-subjects protocol, one used a two-visit between-subjects design (gondola, 1987), and four mixed-method studies implemented aerobic running sessions lasting 6–12 weeks, consisting of both between-and within-subject comparisons. one study was initially designed to employ a between-subjects design, but then collapsed the two experimental groups at the conclusion of the study to accrue a more robust sample size for analysis of treatment effects (steinberg et al., 1997). risk of bias among the 13 experimental studies, 23% (n = 3/13) were determined to contain low risk of bias, 62% (n = 8/13) of the included studies were considered to be of moderate risk of bias, and 15% (n = 2/13) were considered to have been conducted with high risk of bias. main outcome results across exercise intensities among the 13 evaluated studies in this systematic review, 12 demonstrated some evidence of a beneficial effect of exercise on creativity. further details on select studies, along with their limitations, are noted in the discussion section. among the 13 studies, eight evaluated moderate intensity and eight evaluated vigorous intensity exercise (two studies evaluated both moderate and vigorous intensity exercise). regarding the eight studies focused on moderate intensity exercise, three demonstrated a significant effect of exercise on divergent thinking, specifically immediate and delayed improvements in figural creativity (blanchette et al., 2005), increased fluency and novelty (defined as original and contextually appropriate) during and following exercise compared to rest, increases in high-quality analogies during exercise, an increase in novelty when walking outfrith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 867 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ doors (oppezzo & schwartz, 2014), as well as when roaming (free ambulation), or walking unconstrained. notably, constrained walking was also shown to increase novelty compared to rest, but novel responses while walking along a predetermined path were statistically significantly lower than roaming unconstrained. a moderate intensity cycling protocol was shown to have no statistically significant influence on figural creativity measured by fluency, originality, and elaboration (although curnow and turner (1992) suggested weak support for a fluency effect at “the .05 level”). among the seven studies employing vigorous exercise protocols, six demonstrated a significant effect. convergent and divergent thinking was elevated among female dancers (although no scoring information was provided; gondola, 1987). alternatively, convergent thinking performance was reduced among inactive participants during intense cycling exercise, compared to both moderate intensity and rest conditions. rest and moderate intensity cycling did not produce statistically significant outcomes in convergent thinking. additionally, divergent thinking was higher during rest than intense exercise for inactive and active participants, with no statistically significant difference found between moderate cycling and rest (colzato, szapora, pannekoek, & hommel, 2013). ramocki (2002) demonstrated statistical significance for divergent thinking fluency improvements following vigorous intensity exercise. this study was vulnerable to substantial bias, receiving a score of “1” on our quality assessment, so these findings should be cautiously interpreted. steinberg et al. (1997) indicated divergent thinking flexibility was increased among participants; however, individuals completed either “low-impact, rhythmic stretching,” or “high-impact” aerobic dance, and were analyzed as a homogenous experimental group following the conclusion of the study. therefore, those findings cannot be considered meaningful. high intensity, chronic training studies (aerobic running durations of 20–30 minutes with 2–5 sessions per week) were shown to enhance divergent thinking performance (gondola, 1986; gondola & tuckman, 1985; herman-tofler & tuckman, 1998; hinkle et al., 1993; tuckman & hinkle, 1986), with studies evaluating children demonstrating marginal gender-specific differences, specifically positing that girls may be more responsive to training-induced improvements in figural elaboration (hinkle et al., 1993) and verbal flexibility and originality, with boys perhaps more likely to outperform girls on general divergent thinking measures (tuckman & hinkle, 1986). discussion results on exercise and creativity steinberg et al. (1997) evaluated aerobic dance and stretching lasting approximately 17–20 minutes in duration. the exercise protocol consisted of 6 minutes warm-up, 6 minutes of an aerobics class and 6 minutes of cool-down exercises. the aerobic exercise procedure was classified as “high impact,” while the rhythmic dancing was considered low-impact and consisted of a 4–5-minute warm-up, a 14-minute dance period, and 3–4 minutes of cooling down. despite the decision to administer two distinct exercise protocols, the aerobics group and dancing group were combined into an aggregate sample following experimentation. this post-hoc deviation from the initial study design is problematic, as diverse modalities and intensities may uniquely influence the influence of physical exercise on creative cognitions. creativity was also only measured post-exercise for this experiment, as further counterbalancing of creativity tasks would have rendered the procedure “too complicated and time-consuming.” exercise and creativity 868 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ other exercise protocols permitted participants to engage in weight lifting, as well as any accessible form of aerobic indoor or outdoor exercise (e.g., swimming, running, brisk walking, cycling, or stair climbing), continuous or intermittent, with a troubling dismissal of experimental control. even among studies with adequate experimental control, the exercise regimen remained flawed, as one study asked participants to engage in both moderate and intense exercise within the same bout, failing to indicate that measurements of creative potential may be distorted by residual fatigue, particularly for inactive individuals randomized to complete the intense condition prior to the moderate intensity condition. a crucial point must be considered as researchers aim to extend the field creativity and exercise. specifically, the time-point at which creativity is assessed relative to the exercise bout warrants scrupulous empirical attention. if exercise is expected to exert evaluable effects on creative potential, then experiments must be designed to illuminate how, why, when, and for whom these effects may occur. researchers often assess creativity before and after a single exercise bout (curnow & turner, 1992; gondola, 1987; ramocki, 2002) or multi-visit training program (gondola, 1986; gondola & tuckman, 1985; herman-tofler & tuckman, 1998; hinkle et al., 1993). although, some authors report testing creativity following the exercise bout, with no baseline assessment (blanchette et al., 2005; steinberg et al., 1997), while others administer a concurrent task protocol (oppezzo & schwartz, 2014; zhou et al., 2017), to identify the relationship between creative cognitions activated during the transient stimulation of exercise. research has also investigated timing differences between creativity assessed before and after, or during and immediately following acute exercise of moderate versus highintensity (colzato, szapora, pannekoek, & hommel, 2013). there is utility in assessing potential temporal relationships across numerous research projects, or perhaps in a single research endeavor. to that end, it is troubling that no study, to date, has attempted to assess creativity before, during, immediately after, and many hours following exercise to test individual responses in a multi-visit study, in addition to isolating between-group differences contingent upon the timing of exercise. informed methods of inquiry all articles included reported that creativity was either augmented or decreased as a function of exercise manipulation, failing to underscore the reservations inherent in creativity tasks designed to evaluate specific creative correlates (i.e., divergent thinking, convergent thinking, insight, imagination, analogy, metaphor, etc.). therefore, stating that creativity, in general, is improved or impaired by exercise, is as problematic as concluding that exercise improves or impairs a measure as intricate as intelligence, for science must always aim to specify precisely which outcome characteristics are changing in line with research interventions. three studies matched the duration of the creativity task with the duration of exercise. these studies employed between-subject designs, but the practice of time-matching creativity assessments to exercise stimulus in between-subject designs is a compelling direction for researchers to consider, especially when evaluating exercise-induced cognitive resource depletion, and/or residual effects of exercise persisting for a shorter creativity assessment, with a creativity measure requiring sustained mental resource allocation equivalent in length to the exercise bout. scoring of creativity tasks was inadequate for the majority of included manuscripts. perhaps authors adhered to best research practices, such as use of a validated scoring manual, blinded rating, utilization of more than one rater, or using more objective statistical measures to denote the originality facet of creativity, such as identifying frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 869 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cut-point percentages, using the top-three method, or calculating a creativity quotient (plucker, qian, & schmalensee, 2014; plucker, qian, & wang, 2011; silvia, martin, & nusbaum, 2009; snyder, mitchell, bossomaier, & pallier, 2004). it is crucial that participants be prohibited from scoring sample responses, even if these individuals are not scoring their own responses and are blinded to the identities of the other participants. one research study utilized this approach, following a creativity assessment protocol, administered in a group format, making rendering exclusive anonymity impossible. other studies neglected to describe the scoring protocol, or the selection criteria and verification procedures used to identify expert scorers, which effectively obscures paths for subsequent research to follow in replication and refinement of methodological decisions. limitations limitations of this review include the collaborative efforts of only two researchers to search databases and access relevant manuscripts. searching three databases is another potential weakness, as it is possible research experiments fitting our inclusionary criteria may have been overlooked. however, we feel confident the search strategies employed were sufficiently comprehensive. moreover, the full text of the exercise and creativity experiments extracted were read in full, and reference lists were crossed-checked by each of the primary researchers to ensure a parsimonious, yet extensive review of the literature was satisfied. although quality assessment methods were developed in alignment with the prisma checklist for reporting systematic reviews, it is possible some items were overlooked which may have increased or reduced the bias scores for these studies. further, the items developed to indicate risk of bias were formulated by the two researchers involved in this review. additional researchers may have provided supplementary insight to refine the items to reflect higher quality evaluation methods than those achieved herein. nevertheless, we feel the present evaluations are contextually appropriate, fair, and may engender continued discussion and more informed experimental practices. strengths of exercise and creativity research extant empirical investigations of the plausible relationship between exercise and creativity have provided a robust platform for continued exploration. thus far, the field is beginning to depart from a general recognition of conjectural anecdotes suggesting physical movement may liberate mental constraints and encourage creative cognitions and is approaching an evidenced-based understanding. the articles included herein provide modest support for exercise to meaningfully impact creative thinking. beyond the inclusion of various exercise modalities, durations, and environments (detailed in the methods section) by which to assess creativity, there are specific recommendations from well-conducted research that should inform future methods of inquiry in this arena. oppezzo and schwartz (2014) theorized that an observed interplay between comfortable, self-selected ambulatory exercise and creativity may be associated with improvements in positive mood related to the mind-freeing nature of exercise and physical movement, which may also play a role in the activation of associative memory processes conducive to originality at the expense of conventional, ideation. moreover, the authors additionally suggest that convergent thinking may require a higher degree of cognitive control, which would explain decrements in convergent thinking during acute exercise (oppezzo & schwartz, 2014). relatedly, colzato et al. (2013), examined the effects of exercise temporality and intensity on divergent and convergent thinking assessed both during and following acute exercise, demonstrating that sedentary individuals achieved higher convergent thinking during and after both moderate-intensity exercise and rest conditions compared to high-intensity exercise, and that habitual exercisers achieved higher flexibility in divergent thinking during rest compared to exercise and creativity 870 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ intense exercise, proposing that complex cognitions associated with convergent thinking and flexibly overcoming mental fixation may be vulnerable to depletion of cognitive control resources (colzato, 2013). recommendations for future research research has yet to definitively uncover why and how exercise may influence the global construct of cognitive creativity. however, the plausibility for exercise to exert measurable effects is encouraging, as facilitative mindbody connections have been extensively proposed as mechanisms for improvements in memory (frith, sng, & loprinzi, 2017; sng, frith, & loprinzi, 2017) and cognition (chang, labban, gapin, & etnier, 2012; etnier et al., 1997; loprinzi & kane, 2015). in addition, much anecdotal evidence alludes to an influential relationship between physical exercise and cognitive creativity. moreover, the underpinnings of movement and mental resource allocation are suggested to activate shared neural pathways, which further highlights the dynamic complexity of human physiology and cognition. despite considerable efforts to illuminate this association, the results remain inconclusive. future research should extend scientific understanding of such neural mechanisms in the context of exercise and creativity (gonen-yaacovi et al., 2013). functional imaging of prefrontal areas of the human brain at rest, during a creativity assessment following a rest period, and during a creativity following exercise may facilitate a deeper understanding of neural activation subserving creative cognition. additionally, baseline individual differences in complex-cognitions related to creativity (such as inhibition and flexibility), which may be captured using executive functioning assessments (gilbert & burgess, 2008), should be measured to determine whether baseline cognition mediates relationships observed between exercise and creativity thinking. there appears to be weak to modest support for acute, moderate-intensity exercise to benefit creativity. highintensity exercise appears to induce a detrimental effect on convergent creativity when the creativity task and vigorous exercise are administered concurrently in unfit individuals. interestingly, rest, or the absence of exercise may have a similar deleterious influence on convergent creativity among regular exercisers, however subsequent research should attempt to further question these speculations by examining valence-related effects of exercising on creativity scores. specifically, when habituated, and perhaps enjoyable behaviors (e.g., exercise) are withheld, is substitution of a less enjoyable activity (e.g., forced inactivity) in an environment conducive to exercise, capable of inducing negative affect or amotivation, which may act synergistically to reduce creative performance? conversely, moderate-intensity exercise has also been shown to impair convergent thinking performance, suggesting that, perhaps, convergent tests of creativity are susceptible to exercise-driven depletion of mental resources necessary to complete the task, or reductions in attention, motivation, or affectual responses. although, it is possible these speculations are entirely misguided, as one study found exercise may be capable of enhancing creativity, independently of changes in mood state. nevertheless, results from the studies included herein tend to suggest a potential immediate and residual effect of exercise participation on creative performance, specifically divergent fluency and flexibility assessed in the laboratory, with improvements in divergent flexibility more equivocal. oppezzo and schwartz (2014) provided a practical interpretation of their findings, proposing that although walking may make people more talkative, fluency alone cannot equate to creativity. therefore, the authors computed an additional analysis suggesting that appropriate novelty was elevated within individuals who walked, not only because these individuals were more fluent, but because their total ideation volume contained more divergent responses. to this end, it is prudent to consider the totality of the existing exercise and creativity research, fraught with shortcomings, but also promising trajectories for continued, careful investigation. frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 871 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ aerobic training studies lasting at least 6 weeks in duration, and with at least two exercise session per week may have some utility on influencing adult and childhood creativity, however, these findings should be interpreted with caution, as many studies failed to employ a non-exercise control arm, or even standardize the exercise protocol within the experimental group. additionally, one 8-week study showed no statistically significant improvements in 800-meter run performance, suggesting figural fluency was marginally augmented in the absence of fitness improvements. to date, it is unclear whether exercise benefits, undermines, or has no bearing on creative functioning. therefore, research studies should focus on first identifying relationships in controlled laboratory environments, more robust to confounding factors unaccounted for in outdoor environments. further, while it was unclear if creativity assessments were always administered in either an individualized or group setting. for all training studies, the exercise portion was completed in a group format, which may exert unintended effects on motivation, affect, and effort. all training studies included in this review failed to report one or all of the following statistical indices of practically meaningful results, including effect sizes, confidence intervals, or point estimates. reliance on p-values is insufficient, incomplete, and misleading for any research agenda (wilkinson, 2014). moreover, none of the four training studies reviewed were conducted in a laboratory setting, which would be less of a limitation if compliance to the training protocol was detailed, or perhaps, if evidence for habitual exercise to benefit creative thinking was well established in the literature. again, the vast majority of conclusions presented within exercise and creativity research deteriorate in plausibility as fragile study designs and analytic decisions are applied, perhaps for the purposes serving feasibility, but undeniably at the cost of scientific progress. despite the enigmatic challenges that emerge when assessing creativity in acute, laboratory settings, controlled measurement of creative potential is imperative for researchers to accumulate a comprehensive understanding of the various manipulations designed to address proposed associations between exercise and creativity. controlled, empirical work will allow researchers to provide compelling evidence for theoretical mechanisms underlying the proposed exercise-creativity link. we suggest that an exercise-driven approach to measuring creativity is an exciting avenue for continued scientific investigation of the longitudinal effects of exercise on the creative person, including motivation and personality factors (cropley, 2000), as well as acute and chronic effects of exercise on creativity performance across various age groups. future research is warranted to assess the influence of physical activity in early childhood on movement-based creativity outcomes, such as torrance’s thinking creatively in action and movement test (tcam), which was designed on the precedent that young children manipulate and organize their thoughts in expressive, kinesthetic actions, as their proficiency in verbalization, writing, or drawing may be less cultivated at the preschool age (torrance, 1981). regarding the experiments reviewed herein, three provided evidence for chronic physical exercise to confer higher figural and verbal creativity (measured via the ttct and aut) in children between the third and sixth grade (herman-tofler & tuckman, 1998; hinkle & sampson, 1993; tuckman & hinkle, 1986). to our knowledge, no acute exercise studies have been conducted in childhood populations. further, exercise and creativity research extended to younger populations is warranted. notably, however, young children may not provide responses that accurately reflect their creative capacity in words or drawings, but, rather, are perhaps more likely to act out their thoughts using symbolic, representational movement (zachopoulou, makri, & pollatou, 2009). torrance proposed that bodily motion is an indelibly potent strategy for unveiling creativity in early childhood populations (torrance, 1981). thus, it is worthwhile for researchers to consider that physical activity may promote creative, associative thinking, particularly in physical domains, perhaps representing an interface between tactile, sensorimotor representations of developing complex cognitions. exercise and creativity 872 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research investigating the utility for physical activity to influence creative cognitions in older adulthood is also warranted. fifty-nine years is the oldest age reported to have been assessed in the exercise and creativity experiments reviewed herein, with the age range of that experiment ranging from 19 to 59 (steinberg et al., 1997). future work focusing specifically on potential exercise-induced influences on creativity in aging populations is important. previous search suggests that aging individuals with dementia generally exhibit impaired performance on laboratory assessments of divergent thinking (cruz de souza et al., 2010; hart & wade, 2006). perhaps regular exercise may attenuate dementia symptomology and aging-induced frontal-lobe dependent decrements in cognition (colcombe & kramer, 2003), as the prefrontal cortex shares functional neural connections with motor regions in the brain (cole et al., 2013), which may facilitate the maintenance of higher-order mental functions, including creativity, in later life. conclusions weak evidence exists, to date, in support of the proposed relationships between exercise and creative thinking processes. inferences of causality are difficult to accept, given the paucity of well-designed experiments in this domain of scientific investigation. exercise and creativity researchers should first align their methodologies with unbiased measurement and evaluation practices, carefully designed to answer prudent explanatory questions. restructuring the current framework requires a swift dismissal of ideological barriers to discovery, namely the conflation of creativity with divergent thinking, as well as unmitigated advancement into the dense tangle of speculative discourse aiming to contrive tenuous links between creativity and exercise. experiments continue to employ minimal standardization, laboratory control, resistance to confounding, and rigorous, detailed scoring procedures, leaving the same questions unanswered and limiting valid conclusions. the prospects for growth and development in research examining creativity and exercise associations are astronomical, but only if the field commits to consistency and quality when assessing the potential for such relationships. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments we declare no conflicts of interest and no funding was used to prepare this manuscript. references amabile, t. m. 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(2017). the impact of bodily states on divergent thinking: evidence for a control-depletion account. frontiers in psychology, 8, article 1546. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01546 about the authors emily frith, phd, is a recent graduate of the doctoral program in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. seungho ryu, m.s., is a phd student in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. exercise and creativity 876 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1931-3896.2.2.93 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.tsc.2009.06.005 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0890117117749476 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f10400410409534552 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00223980.1953.9712897 https://doi.org/10.1136%2fbjsm.31.3.240 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0278-6133.5.3.197 https://doi.org/10.3949%2fccjm.75.6.431 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs40279-013-0125-y https://doi.org/10.1080%2f03004430601078669 https://doi.org/10.3389%2ffpsyg.2017.01546 https://www.psychopen.eu/ minsoo kang, phd, is professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. paul loprinzi, phd, is an associate professor in the department of health, exercise science and recreation management at the university of mississippi. he is the director of the exercise & memory laboratory. frith, ryu, kang, & loprinzi 877 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 858–877 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1773 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ exercise and creativity (introduction) method inclusion criteria exclusion criteria search strategy quality evaluation data extraction results creativity assessments study description risk of bias main outcome results across exercise intensities discussion results on exercise and creativity informed methods of inquiry limitations strengths of exercise and creativity research recommendations for future research conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors the new age of adolescence and the use of social networks in youths interview the new age of adolescence and the use of social networks in youths massimo ammaniti a, luca cerniglia* b [a] sapienza, university of rome, rome, italy. [b] international telematic university uninettuno, rome, italy. abstract prof. massimo ammaniti is considered one of the most eminent italian psychoanalysts specialized in the area of human development. in addition to carrying out his activity as a university lecturer and carrying out his profession as a psychoanalyst, massimo ammaniti is also the author of more than 200 scientific publications. he is a member of the international psychoanalytical association and he is in the board of the world association of infant mental health. his main interests focus on parents-children interactions, adolescence, neurobiology, and the changes in the family functioning in the modern society. in this interview, he shares his thoughts about the recent transformations in the developmental stage of adolescence and reflects on the use made by youths of today’s social networks. europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 received: 2019-06-10. accepted: 2019-06-13. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. luca cerniglia: professor ammaniti, thank you very much for making time to be interviewed by me for the europe’s journal of psychology. you offered a significant contribution to the field of clinical psychology and psychoanalysis, in terms of empirical research and theoretical insights and it has been an honor to have your mentorship and to work with you over the past 15 years. your expertise in developmental psychopathology is wide and covers several important topics within the area of intersubjectivity, and it is not possible to address all these subjects in a single interview. however, one of your main interests i would like to discuss with you relates to adolescence. in particular, i think that the theme of adolescents and their use of social networks could be interesting and stimulating for many readers. massimo ammaniti: yes, it is certainly one of the most important topics nowadays. you see, adolescence has greatly changed in the last years. in the past, romans and greeks referred to adolescence as a transition period connecting childhood with adulthood. complex and sometimes dangerous initiation and passage rites are described in many of the texts of that period; therefore we know that the entrance into the adult world must have represented a very complex, somewhat difficult passage. today, this perspective has (maybe luckily) changed and the passage from one developmental phase to another is less traumatic. for sure, even if today adolescents still have to pass through passage rites to become adults, these rites are established by their peers, not by their parents. the initiation rites and codes of the past are now elaborated by the group of peers: the way of dressing, wearing one’s hair and so on. this gives them a sense of sharing, of belonging, and helps europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ teenagers face this period of transition, supporting their coping with the sense of emptiness many of them live with. luca cerniglia: so, if i understand well, you are saying that the role of the family in allowing the passage from childhood to adolescence (and then to adulthood) is now played predominantly by peers? massimo ammaniti: yes, that is what i am saying. at the beginning of the last century, the family constituted the central place of socialization, and set the stages of the adolescent passage; and there were precise, predictable moments in this passage that sanctioned the pivotal moments of human life. these moments were much more defined than today. this helped, in some ways, the teenagers in the transition because they knew what the next step was. it also helped the parents because they knew how to behave with their offspring. there were models, and they were respected. luca cerniglia: do you think that changes in adolescence are related to changes in family functioning? massimo ammaniti: absolutely. there is no doubt that there was a change in family functioning and configuration. just as there was a transformation in the concept of adolescence, so there was a transformation in the adolescent’s family. the family must now face a series of new tasks, and parents are no longer considered as the absolute guides; they frequently do not interfere in their children’s lives, but they rather show them their willingness to listen and orient. of course, i am speaking with reference to what happens in industrialized countries, in europe and particularly in italy. the situation can be different in other countries and it is probably culturally oriented. in the past, say until 20 or 30 years ago, adolescents vigorously opposed their parents: that was a classic oedipal conflict between generations. then, the scenario has changed, and adolescents now seem to need more confirmation from their parents. i think this is influenced by the fact that, in recent years, fewer children have been born into families (again, this is something more characteristic of western and industrialized countries). these children (frequently without siblings) are at the center of the universe of their parents. a universe where generational differences are less marked than in the past. when i was a child, there were two subsystems: one including children, another one identifying parents. now the child shares the same world of the parents. as bauman said: the family is liquid (bauman, 2005). luca cerniglia: is this a negative change, in your opinion? massimo ammaniti is medical doctor, child psychiatrist, psychoanalyst of the international psychoanalytical association. he is also honorary professor of developmental psychopathology at the “sapienza” university of rome and previous member of the board of directors of the world association of infant mental health. he published more than 200 articles about parenthood, attachment, neurobiology, infancy and adolescence. he recently published the book “the birth of intersubjectivity” norton publisher. correspondence: sapienza, university of rome, rome, italy ammaniti & cerniglia 879 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 https://www.psychopen.eu/ massimo ammaniti: unfortunately, this change has brought some negative consequences: the private space of adolescents is constantly invaded by omnipresent parents who want to become friends, confidants, accomplices to their children. the process of separation-individuation is hindered because adolescents do not have parents against whom to oppose, so the process of autonomy often translates into behaviors of rebellion or transgression. transgressive behaviors are supported by the group of peers, which have assumed a growing weight in the life of adolescents, providing codes and meanings that are often alternative to those of the family. too frequently parents are afraid of being in conflict with their children and prefer to be loved rather than to maintain their own positions. this does not help adolescents: only in the diversity of points of view does a negotiation open and it is, therefore, possible to develop a solid self. luca cerniglia: what about oedipus, then? massimo ammaniti: that is exactly my point! while classical psychoanalytic theories emphasized the centrality of the oedipal conflict that pushed adolescents against their parents, today we have adolescents-narcissus, seeking reassurances and confirmations from their parents as well as from their peers, to narcissistically feed their fragile self. the lexicon of adolescents has also changed; from keywords like “commitment,” “responsibility,” “work,” we now listen to other words such as “happiness,” “desires” and “personal achievement.” moreover, the psychic world of adolescents has taken on a different configuration in which others are increasingly necessary to offer confirmations and narcissistic mirroring since the identifications with parents are lacking. luca cerniglia: in your work, you often speak of adultescence; can you explain what do you mean by that, and clarify if this concept is related to the above considerations? massimo ammaniti: well, first of all, you must consider that society has changed. the economic crisis has created great difficulties in families, career opportunities have become more difficult, and society does not give much space to adolescents. this creates an abnormal permanence of adolescents and youths in the family. young people remain in their family house, on average, up to the age of 30 (males much more than females, who have greater autonomy and separate earlier). you can think of an adultescent as someone who is no longer an adolescent, and not yet an adult. i am not talking, of course, of physical development, but of psychological maturation. adultescents live an uncertain, perennial present, where passive resignation is mixed with a hedonic attitude towards life. they can have children of their own, a family, and a job; however, they are stacked in an incomplete passage to adulthood. according to the oxford dictionary, an adultescent is “a middle-aged person whose clothes, interests and activities are typically associated with youth culture.” adults who continue to live under the illusion of having frozen time. luca cerniglia: i am under the impression that the digital revolution and the use of social networks would not constitute a positive factor in this already complex scenario. what do you think? luca cerniglia, phd and psychologist, assistant professor in dynamic psychology at the faculty of psychology, international telematic university uninettuno. he got his phd with a research addressing loss and trauma as a pathogenitic variable fostering poor quality of in mothers-infants interactions. he has been a research fellow at sapienza, university of rome in the field of women depression and maternal and paternal post-partum depression. he has a master degree in psycho-sociology of migrations. correspondence: international telematic university uninettuno, corso vittorio emanuele ii, 39, 00186, rome, italy. e-mail: l.cerniglia@uninettunouniversity.net use of social networks in youths 880 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 https://www.psychopen.eu/ massimo ammaniti: well, i am not sure that technology is a problem in itself. of course, the use that adolescents do of this technology can be highly problematic. luca cerniglia: please, tell me more about that. massimo ammaniti: the digital revolution has drastically changed our lives and, in particular, the life of young people: a revolution even deeper than the introduction of printing that has affected the way in which we learn, play and interact. the first, most obvious (and possibly negative) fact associated with the technology is its overuse. the teenagers’ brains themselves become an archive of information accumulated via the internet, tablets, smartphones, google, twitter, facebook, and so on. however, dunbar’s interesting studies (dunbar, 2009) have shown that the human brain can effectively manage a maximum of 150 significant relationships. beyond this limit, our mind is unable to connect with others empathically and emotionally. instead, teenagers use to share everything on social media even with several thousands of their peers. luca cerniglia: yet, current research posits that adolescents feel more alone than the previous generation. what is your position on that? massimo ammaniti: the growing loneliness of young people is a fact. just look at a group of adolescents in a café or in a restaurant. everyone is glued to their smartphone sending text messages. until recently, face-toface relationships were fundamental to create empathy, also because facial expression recognition is crucial to discern others’ intentions and feelings. in general, adolescents’ capacity for recognizing facial expressions is weaker than adults’. so, they should “practice” a lot in face-to-face interactions. instead, social networks and online connection are usually based on text or static images (see instagram, for instance), which do not allow the observation and recognition of the interlocutor’s facial expression. now the new generations use emoticons to communicate their emotions, but these means are superficial and conventional. adolescents seek to have as many contacts and likes possible but the quality of these contacts is completely lost. just to be clear: connection is not a synonym of relationship. a relationship is founded on attachment processes; a connection falls in the realm of communication, which is very different. when we are in a relationship, we experience a contingency of time, space, and emotions. and our relationship lasts in our minds even when we are not together; we do not have to maintain a constant contact to feel a sense of intimacy. if we just connect to each other, this sense of solid closeness is very frail. that is why adolescents feel the urgency to constantly be in touch with their contacts. some researchers say: they fear to miss out (elhai et al., 2018). i add: they fear to miss out from their contacts’ mind. luca cerniglia: but if the ways of being together have changed, what about the functioning of the adolescent’s brain? massimo ammaniti: the brain (i would say “the mind”) is highly affected by this digital revolution both on a functional and structural level. the overuse and the misuse of these technologies shape young people’s brains quite deeply, influencing individual perception and experience. luca cerniglia: how? ammaniti & cerniglia 881 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 https://www.psychopen.eu/ massimo ammaniti: this “always on” generation tends to spend many hours a day online (often even overnight) and this behavior keeps adolescents in a state of emotional, and even physiological, hyper-activation that can have very negative outcomes. these may also include a reduced capacity in attention and learning during daytime, and a general impairment in cognitive abilities. most importantly, it has been demonstrated that the human brain needs a high-intensity functioning at and a low-intensity functioning for its healthy maturation. high intensity is usually associated with social interactions, but the brain requires also low-intensity states when the connection with others is suspended and a connection to our inner world begins. those are the moments when we can talk to ourselves, or just wonder with our thoughts. these moments are crucial for the correct functioning and maturation of the brain, especially in childhood and adolescence. unfortunately, social networks tend to hinder these low-intensity moments because the contact with others can be overwhelmingly constant (with dozens of notifications, text messages, voice messages, and emoticons received in a matter of minutes). youths who are always connected experience a continuous activation that can interfere with their lives and their personal psychobiological rhythms. hyper-activated adolescents may face difficulties in mentalizing and in emotion regulation. thus, adolescents could face a series of problems eventually leading to social maladaptation. and the problems do not stop there. luca cerniglia: do elaborate please. massimo ammaniti: well, research has demonstrated that several neurocognitive processes are highly influenced by the environment because the structuring and the functioning of the areas of the brain underpinning these processes may be affected by context (northoff, 2010). accumulating literature is demonstrating that these modifications can be passed through the next generations, so in the future we could have adolescents (and then adults) less capable of empathy and of establishing and maintaining significant relationships, who would be more impulsive and more oblivious to their keen’s affective states. luca cerniglia: could this scenario change? massimo ammaniti: well, of course it could. the transformations related to digital innovations are so impacting on our life, that they have been compared with the introduction of writing in human history. like today, innovations have been severely criticized by past intellectuals. plato (the famous greek philosopher) posited that writing would have had a very negative influence on the human capacity of retaining information, as people would have relied on written contents instead of strengthening their memory capability. however, history demonstrated that writing brought huge positive consequences for the development of our species and that the foreseen negative outcomes did not occur. we can speculate that something similar could happen for the use of the internet and social networks. luca cerniglia: professor ammaniti, thank you again for this conversation. massimo ammaniti: it has been a pleasure. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. use of social networks in youths 882 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 https://www.psychopen.eu/ acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references bauman, z. (2005). liquid life. cambridge, united kingdom: polity press. dunbar, r. i. (2009). the social brain hypothesis and its implications for social evolution. annals of human biology, 36(5), 562-572. https://doi.org/10.1080/03014460902960289 elhai, j. d., levine, j. c., alghraibeh, a. m., alafnan, a. a., aldraiweesh, a. a., & hall, b. j. (2018). fear of missing out: testingrelationships with negative affectivity, online social engagement, and problematicsmartphone use. computers in human behavior, 89, 289-298. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.08.020 northoff, g. (2010). humans, brains, and their environment: marriage between neuroscience and anthropology? neuron, 65(6), 748-751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.02.024 ammaniti & cerniglia 883 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 878–883 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2016 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f03014460902960289 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.chb.2018.08.020 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.neuron.2010.02.024 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ use of social networks in youths (introduction) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references interventions for reducing suicide risk in cancer patients: a literature review research reports interventions for reducing suicide risk in cancer patients: a literature review giedre bulotiene* a, kamile pociute b [a] department of physical medicine and rehabilitation, national cancer institute, vilnius, lithuania. [b] clinic of psychiatry, institute of clinical medicine, faculty of medicine, vilnius university, vilnius, lithuania. abstract the suicide risk of people diagnosed with cancer is two times higher than the general population. the number of cases of diagnosed cancer is estimated to rise by 70% over the next two decades. evidence-based prevention strategies are necessary to protect this vulnerable group of individuals. the purpose of this review was to find out the risk factors of suicide and which types of interventions can serve as prevention strategies. psychosocial interventions, pharmacotherapy and physical activity can play a preventive role in reducing psychosocial and physical risk factors, such as mental disorders, poor social support, poor performance status and pain. further research is needed to develop effective suicide prevention strategies for cancer patients. keywords: cancer, suicide, prevention, interventions, risk factors, mental health europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 received: 2018-08-06. accepted: 2018-11-20. published (vor): 2019-09-27. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, switzerland this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. cancer is the second most common cause of death globally. the number of cancer cases is predicted to rise by 70% over the next two decades (who, 2017). the suicide rate of oncological patients is approximately two times higher than the general population (misono, weiss, fann, redman, & yueh, 2008; oberaigner, spernerunterweger, fiegl, geiger-gritsch, & haring, 2014). when the disease reaches an advanced stage, the risk rates increase even further (kaceniene, krilaviciute, kazlauskiene, bulotiene, & smailyte, 2017; oberaigner et al., 2014). it has been found that among cancer patients, the increased suicide risk can persist for up to 15 years after the diagnosis (misono et al., 2008). a study found that cancer is one of the very few physical diseases to actually increase the risk of suicide (bolton, walld, chateau, finlayson, & sareen, 2015). there are several known factors that increase the risk of suicide in oncological patients: older age at the time of diagnosis, a lower level of education, non-marital relationship status, a rural area of residence, psychological comorbidity, several specific types of cancer, advanced stages of cancer, atheism, and poor performance status (hultcrantz et al., 2015; oberaigner et al., 2014; shim & park, 2012; smailyte et al., 2013). 41.7% of all cancer patients have psychiatric disorders (gopalan, karunakaran, prabhakaran, & jayakumar, 2016). the most common psychiatric disorder among cancer patients is depression (de la grandmaison, watier, cavard, & charlier, 2014). depression in the oncological population is the leading risk factor for suicide (diaz-frutos, baca-garcia, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ mahillo-fernandez, garcia-foncillas, & lopez-castroman, 2016). therefore, identifying depression and its symptoms is essential for assessing the suicide risk factors and choosing fitting interventions. several psychological tests used for identifying depression are as follows: the beck hopelessness scale; diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fifth edition criteria; patient health questionnaire; endicott criteria using the hamilton depression rating scale; the question: "do you feel depressed?" and others (anguiano, mayer, piven, & rosenstein, 2012; hughes, 2016). 6–25.24% of cancer patients have suicidal thoughts (diaz-frutos et al., 2016; leung et al., 2013; zhong et al., 2017). it was found that 30% of patients with suicidal thoughts or intentions do not actually have depression (leung et al., 2013). several studies found that demoralization was a more significant factor in encouraging suicidal thoughts than depression (fang et al., 2014; vehling et al., 2017). it has also been found that 21% of cancer patients experience a clinically significant form of demoralization syndrome. 14% of cancer patients are only diagnosed with demoralization and no other psychological comorbidities (vehling et al., 2017). demoralization in cancer patients can be evaluated by using the demoralization scale-ii (robinson, kissane, brooker, hempton, et al., 2016; robinson, kissane, brooker, michael, et al., 2016). there are several suicide prevention strategies based on the general population, such as psychological and pharmacological treatment of depression, restriction of lethal tools for suicide, and school-based awareness programs (zalsman et al., 2016). however, there is a severe lack of suicide prevention strategies implemented for cancer patients, despite the fact that both the factors for increased suicide risk and the methods of assessing and preventing them are known. therefore, in order to help reduce suicide rates of oncological patients, we have aimed this paper at understanding and creating adequate methods of suicide prevention by reviewing the known suicide risk factors and the already existing types of interventions implemented. method the databases of pub med and the cochrane library were used to find all the relevant english language studies that were published between january 2007 and december 2017. the key words used were “suicide,” “cancer” and “prevention.” of the 275 studies retrieved from the pubmed database, eight met the necessary criteria (table 1), of which three studies were concentrated on interventions and five studies were focused on suicide risk factors (srf) (table 2). table 1 eligibility criteria criterion eligible values publication date january 2007–december 2017 language english population oncology patients object suicide prevention (risk factors and/or possible interventions) study design randomized-controlled trial, systematic review, meta-analysis suicide risk reduction in cancer patients 638 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 selected articles on suicide prevention meeting the eligibility criteria study author, year srf or intervention 1. suicide rates and risk factors among korean cancer patients, 1993–2005 ahn et al., 2010 srf 2. immediate risk of suicide and cardiovascular death after a prostate cancer diagnosis: cohort study in the united states fang et al., 2010 srf 3. death by suicide and other externally caused injuries following a cancer diagnosis: the japan public health center-based prospective study yamauchi et al., 2014 srf 4. routine screening for suicidal intention in patients with cancer leung et al., 2013 srf 5. suicidality and its associated factors in cancer patients: results of a multi-center study in korea shim & park, 2012 srf 6. a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of citalopram for the prevention of major depression during treatment for head and neck cancer lydiatt et al., 2008 intervention 7. a randomised controlled trial of a mindfulness intervention for men with advanced prostate cancer chambers et al., 2013 intervention 8. behavioral activation and problem-solving therapy for depressed breast cancer patients: preliminary support for decreased suicidal ideation hopko et al., 2013 intervention note. srf = suicide risk factors. studies from the cochrane collaboration database were investigated, three studies met the necessary criteria, all of which were reiterated with articles in the pubmed. we assessed the suicide prevention strategies of the general population (zalsman et al., 2016) and additionally researched the articles by using a variety of keyword combinations, such as: “cancer”, “suicide”, “prevention”, “education”, “social”, “networks”, “television”, “screening”, “screen”, “access”, “means”, “internet”, “depression”, “psychotherapy”, “antidepressants”, “physical”, “activity”. to improve the quality of our literature review, we decided to only include randomized-controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the “interventions” section. a total of 53 articles were included in the literature review. results suicide risk factors we divided the suicide risk factors (srf) into two groups. we included sociodemographic and clinical srf in the first group. the second group consisted of physical and psychosocial srf (table 3). physical and psychosocial risk factors are especially important for suicide prevention, since they are more heavily influenced by interventions, as are the socio-demographic and clinical suicide risk factors. bulotiene & pociute 639 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 suicide risk factors 1. srf group 2. srf group 1.1 sociodemographic srf • atheism (shim & park, 2012) • white race (misono et al., 2008) • male gender (leung et al., 2013; misono et al., 2008) • lower education (ahn et al., 2010; smailyte et al., 2013) • living in rural areas (smailyte et al., 2013) • non-employment status (ahn et al., 2010; smailyte et al., 2013) • non-marital relationship status (ahn et al., 2010; fang et al., 2010; misono et al., 2008; smailyte et al., 2013) • older age at diagnosis (kaceniene et al., 2017; kendal & kendal, 2012; misono et al., 2008) 1.2 clinical srf • first year after diagnosis (johnson et al., 2012; yamauchi et al., 2014 • specific types of cancera (ahn et al., 2010; kaceniene et al., 2017; kendal & kendal, 2012; misono et al., 2008; smailyte et al., 2013) • advanced cancer (akechi et al., 2010; fang et al., 2010; kaceniene et al., 2017; misono et al., 2008) 2.1 physical srf • pain (park et al., 2016) • poor physical functioning (robson et al., 2010; shim & park, 2012) 2.2 psychosocial srf • psychological comorbidity (balci sengul et al., 2014; diaz-frutos et al., 2016; park et al., 2016; shim & park, 2012; spencer et al., 2012): – depression – anxiety – panic disorder – posttraumatic stress disorder • poor social support (balci sengul et al., 2014) note. srf = suicide risk factors. alung and bronchus, stomach, esophageal, pancreatic, colorectal, oral cavity and pharynx, larynx, head and neck, hematopoietic, genital organs, nasal cavity and sinuses, bone and articular cartilages. interventions effects of interventions on srf found in the literature are summarized in table 4. psychotherapy, psychosocial interventions and education meta-analysis showed that psychotherapy (supportive, cognitive, behavioral and problem-solving therapy) is effective in reducing depressive symptoms and psychological distress. among incurable cancer patients, however, there was no evidence that psychotherapy was beneficial in improving the symptoms of anxiety (akechi, okuyama, onishi, morita, & furukawa, 2008). other research revealed the significant positive impact of music therapy and medicinal music interventions for anxiety, depression, pain, fatigue, and quality of life (qol), and a decrease in heart and respiratory rate and blood pressure in adult and pediatric cancer patients. however, music intervention had no significant effect on mood, distress, oxygen saturation levels, spiritual well-being (adolescents or young adults) and physical functioning of people with cancer (bradt, dileo, magill, & teague, 2016). while supportive-expressive group therapy is associated with an improved rate of survival 1-year after the diagnosis and decreased pain scores in women with metastatic breast cancer, unfortunately no 5-year post-diagnosis survival benefits and no improvements on psychological measures were found after the therapy, according to profile of mood states test (poms) (mustafa, carson-stevens, gillespie, & edwards, 2013). another study revealed that behavioral activation and problem-solving therapy for depression among breast cancer patients with major depressive disorder, are helpful in increasing hopefulness and reducing depression and suicidal ideation (hopko et al., 2013). psychosocial interventions (cognitive behavioral, psycho-educational, supportive, counselling) is helpful for improving the physical component of general health-related qol, cancer-related qol and the knowledge of prostate cancer of men with prostate cancer, but the findings for depression, distress, uncertainty, symptom-related qol and self-efficacy did not achieve any statistical significance (parahoo et al., 2013). a randomized controlled trial showed that tele-based group mindfulness-based cognitive therapy did suicide risk reduction in cancer patients 640 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ not improve the quality of life and psychological outcomes of men with advanced prostate cancer when compared with those who received the minimally enhanced usual care (chambers et al., 2013). nursing interventions to manage breathlessness and nursing programs have a positive impact on the symptoms of depression, anxiety and other related types of distress, along with an improvement to performance status and the general satisfaction with care. several studies have shown that telephone-based interventions for caregivers have beneficial effects as well. telephone-based interventions for caretakers were effective at reducing signs of pain and depression, while improving physical well-being, quality of life and self-efficacy among cancer patients (rueda, sola, pascual, & subirana casacuberta, 2011) (table 4). exercises research showed that supervised exercises and self-managed home-based work-outs are more effective at reducing symptoms of depression compared to the usual care of cancer survivors. while both exercise groups demonstrate a decrease in levels of anxiety, the difference was, unfortunately, not statistically significant due to a small sample size (levin, greenwood, singh, & newton, 2017). another study revealed that aerobic exercises improved the quality of life, physical functioning, symptoms of depression and fatigue levels of patients with blood cancer (bergenthal et al., 2014). yoga sessions, in comparison to no therapy, are effective at reducing fatigue and sleep issues, along with increasing health-related quality of life among women with breast cancer, although they have no effect on depression and anxiety. when compared to psychosocial/educational interventions, yoga shows statistically significant results of reduced depression, anxiety and fatigue symptom reduction, but no statistical significance was found on health-related quality of life and sleep disturbances (cramer et al., 2017). aerobic and resistance exercises have a positive impact on fatigue and cognitive function in women undergoing adjuvant therapy for breast cancer, but have little to no effect on depression (furmaniak, menig, & markes, 2016). the evaluation of dance/movement therapy shows that this sort of therapy is not beneficial for improving depression, anxiety and fatigue symptoms or reducing levels of pain in cancer patients. it increases the quality of life, vigor, and has a positive effect on somatization (bradt, shim, & goodill, 2015). various types of exercises are associated with improved physical function, role function, social functioning and fatigue. it has also been noted that medium intensity exercises, compared to low intensity exercises, have a greater positive effect on physical functioning, anxiety, fatigue and sleep disturbances (mishra et al., 2012) (table 4). pharmacotherapy two randomized controlled trials reported that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like escitalopram and citalopram could be effective in preventing major levels of depression in head and neck cancer patients; also, citalopram showed promising results for decreasing levels of suicidality (lydiatt, bessette, schmid, sayles, & burke, 2013; lydiatt et al., 2008). however, one systematic review, including a meta-analysis, failed to find statistically significant favorable effects of antidepressants over placebo (ostuzzi, matcham, dauchy, barbui, & hotopf, 2015) (table 4). bulotiene & pociute 641 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 4 in te rv en tio ns fo r r ed uc in g s ui ci de r is k fa ct or s a ut ho rs , y ea r d es ig n po pu la tio n n in te rv en tio ns ef fe ct o f i nt er ve nt io ns po si tiv e ef fe ct n o ef fe ct ph ar m ac ot he ra py ly di at t e t a l., 2 00 8 r c t p at ie nt s w ith h ea d an d ne ck c an ce r 23 c ita lo pr am h yd ro br om id e • d ep re ss io n • s ui ci da lit y • g lo ba l m oo d st at e • q ol ly di at t e t a l., 2 01 3 r c t p at ie nt s w ith h ea d an d ne ck c an ce r 14 8 e sc ita lo pr am • d ep re ss io n • q ol o st uz zi e t a l., 2 01 5 s /m c an ce r p at ie nt s 86 1 n on -s el ec tiv e m on oa m in e re up ta ke i; s el ec tiv e se ro to ni n re up ta ke i; m on oa m in e ox id as e a i; no nse le ct iv e m on oa m in e ox id as e i; ne w er a nd n on co nv en tio na l a nt id ep re ss iv e ag en ts • d ep re ss io n ps yc ho th er ap y, p sy ch os oc ia l i nt er ve nt io ns a nd e du ca tio n a ke ch i e t a l., 2 00 8 s /m p at ie nt s w ith a dv an ce d ca nc er 78 0 s up po rti ve , c og ni tiv e be ha vi or al an d pr ob le m -s ol vi ng th er ap y • d ep re ss io n • p sy ch ol og ic al d is tre ss • a nx ie ty b ra dt e t a l., 2 01 6 s /m c an ce r p at ie nt s 3, 73 1 m us ic th er ap y an d m us ic m ed ic in e in te rv en tio ns • a nx ie ty • d ep re ss io n • p ai n • f at ig ue • q ol • h ea rt ra te • r es pi ra to ry ra te • b lo od p re ss ur e • m oo d • d is tre ss • o xy ge n sa tu ra tio n le ve l • s pi rit ua l w el l-b ei ng • p hy si ca l f un ct io ni ng m us ta fa e t a l., 2 01 3 s /m w om en w ith m et as ta tic br ea st c an ce r 1, 37 8 s up po rti ve -e xp re ss iv e gr ou p th er ap y • 1 -y ea r s ur vi va l • p ai n • 5 -y ea r s ur vi va l • p o m s h op ko e t a l., 2 01 3 r c t c an ce r p at ie nt s w ith m aj or de pr es si ve d is or de r 80 b eh av io ra l a ct iv at io n an d pr ob le m -s ol vi ng th er ap y • d ep re ss io n • s ui ci da l i de at io n • h op ef ul ne ss p ar ah oo e t a l., 2 01 3 s /m m en w ith p ro st at e ca nc er 3, 20 4 c og ni tiv e be ha vi or al , p sy ch oed uc at io na l, su pp or tiv e, co un se lli ng • p hy si ca l c om po ne nt o f g en er al h ea lth -r el at ed q ol • c an ce rre la te d q ol • k no w le dg e of pr os ta te c an ce r • d ep re ss io n • d is tre ss • u nc er ta in ty • s ym pt om -r el at ed q ol • s el f-e ffi ca cy c ha m be rs e t a l., 2 01 3 r c t m en w ith a dv an ce d pr os ta te c an ce r 18 9 g ro up te le -b as ed m in df ul ne ss b as ed c og ni tiv e th er ap y • m in df ul ne ss s ki ll of o bs er vi ng • d is tre ss • q ol r ue da e t a l., 2 01 1 s p at ie nt s w ith lu ng c an ce r 1, 59 2 n ur si ng in te rv en tio ns to m an ag e br ea th le ss ne ss • p er fo rm an ce s ta tu s • e m ot io na l f un ct io ni ng • s ym pt om s • p an ic e pi so de s co nt ro l • d ep re ss io n • a nx ie ty • s ur vi va l s tru ct ur ed n ur si ng p ro gr am s • s ym pt om d is tre ss • c lin ic al d et er io ra tio n • d ep en de nc y • e m ot io na l f un ct io ni ng • s at is fa ct io n w ith c ar e c ou ns el lin g • d ep re ss io n • l ife s at is fa ct io n • s el f-e st ee m c oa ch in g se ns or y se lfm on ito rin g • i nf or m at io n ab ou t p ai n • p ai n • a nx ie ty • d ep re ss io n • c at as tro ph iz in g suicide risk reduction in cancer patients 642 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a ut ho rs , y ea r d es ig n po pu la tio n n in te rv en tio ns ef fe ct o f i nt er ve nt io ns po si tiv e ef fe ct n o ef fe ct te le ph on eba se d se ss io ns fo r ca re -g iv er s • p ai n • p hy si ca l w el l-b ei ng • d ep re ss io n • q ol • s el f-e ffi ca cy e xe rc is e • q ua dr ic ep s st re ng th • s el f-e m po w er m en t • q ol n ut rit io na l i nt er ve nt io ns • e ne rg y in ta ke • q ol • s ur vi va l • w ei gh t l os s r ef le xo lo gy • a nx ie ty • p ai n ex er ci se s le vi n et a l., 2 01 7 r c t c an ce r p at ie nt s 32 s up er vi se d ex er ci se s; s el fm an ag ed h om eba se d ex er ci se s • d ep re ss io n • q ol (m en ta l h ea lth ) • b od y st re ng th • a nx ie ty • q ol (p hy si ca l h ea lth ) b er ge nt ha l e t a l., 2 01 4 s /m p at ie nt s w ith ha em at ol og ic al m al ig na nc ie s 81 8 a er ob ic p hy si ca l e xe rc is e • q ol • p hy si ca l f un ct io ni ng • d ep re ss io n • f at ig ue • m or ta lit y • a nx ie ty • p hy si ca l p er fo rm an ce c ra m er e t a l., 2 01 7 s /m w om en w ith b re as t c an ce r 2, 16 6 yo ga • h ea lth -r el at ed q ol • fa tig ue • s le ep di st ur ba nc es • d ep re ss io n • a nx ie ty • d ep re ss io n • a nx ie ty • h ea lth -r el at ed q ol • s le ep d is tu rb an ce s fu rm an ia k et a l., 2 01 6 s /m w om en w ith b re as t c an ce r 2, 62 6 a er ob ic o r r es is ta nc e or b ot h ex er ci se s • p hy si ca l f itn es s • f at ig ue • c an ce r s ite sp ec ifi c q ol • c og ni tiv e fu nc tio n • h ea lth -r el at ed q ol • c an ce rsp ec ifi c q ol • d ep re ss io n b ra dt e t a l., 2 01 5 s /m c an ce r p at ie nt s 20 7 d an ce /m ov em en t t he ra py • q ol • s om at iz at io n • v ig or • d ep re ss io n • s tre ss • a nx ie ty • fa tig ue • b od y im ag e • m oo d • p ai n m is hr a et a l., 2 01 2 s /m c an ce r p at ie nt s 4, 82 6 va rio us e xe rc is es • h ea lth -r el at ed q ol • p hy si ca l f un ct io ni ng • r ol e fu nc tio n • s oc ia l f un ct io ni ng • fa tig ue n ot e. i = in hi bi to rs ; r c t = ra nd om iz ed c on tro lle d tri al ; s = s ys te m at ic re vi ew ; s /m = s ys te m at ic re vi ew in cl ud in g m et aan al ys is ; q ol = q ua lit y of li fe . bulotiene & pociute 643 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion we have established that sociodemographic factors such as: male gender, older age, non-marital status, atheism, lower education, non-employment status and white race are the suicide risk factors for cancer patients. the most important factors for clinical suicide risk are the amount of time after the diagnosis (especially the first year after diagnosis), the localization of the cancer (lung and bronchus, stomach, esophageal, pancreatic, colorectal, oral cavity and pharynx, larynx, head and neck, hematopoietic, genital organs, nasal cavity and sinuses, bone and articular cartilages) and the stage the cancer is in (advanced cancer). our research showed that physical and psychosocial suicide risk factors that could be reduced by interventions are pain, poor physical functioning, psychological comorbidity and poor psychosocial support. physical and psychosocial risk factors are particularly important in developing suicide prevention strategies for cancer patients. unfortunately, almost all authors of the above mentioned interventional studies reported that the aforementioned studies should be treated with caution due to a lack of high quality research. only two of our mentioned studies measured the effect on suicidal thoughts and found that pharmacotherapy (citalopram hydrobromide) and behavioral activation and problem-solving therapy are effective in reducing suicidal ideation; also both have a positive effect on depression. it’s important to notice that the citaloprams’ study was small, only 23 from 36 patients completed the study. nevertheless, our experience confirms the review data (li, fitzgerald, & rodin, 2012) that anti-depressant drugs together with psychosocial interventions are very effective for severe cases of depression, whereas for cancer patients with mild depression, psychosocial interventions and psycho-education are most useful and could have a positive effect on srf. our study revealed that most exercises are effective in improving one of the srf – physical functioning. moreover, supervised exercises, home-based exercises and aerobic exercises have a positive impact on depression and quality of life, while dance/movement therapy didn’t show a positive impact on depression and other mental health qualities like stress, mood and anxiety. these results of the study on dance/movement therapy for cancer patients should be interpreted with caution because the evidence is very low due to the small number of studies included; also the sample size was too small, and one of the studies had a high risk of bias. we found evidence that dance could be effective for emotional and social well-being in a cancer patients group (sturm, baak, storek, traore, & thuss-patience, 2014). music therapy, nursing interventions for symptoms control, and yoga are effective in reducing both depression and anxiety so these interventions are very promising at reducing suicide risk. music intervention, supportiveexpressive group therapy, reflexology and telephone-based sessions for care-givers are effective for pain management. interventions for care-givers have a positive effect on patients’ well-being. one research affirms the importance of care-givers and patients relationship; the study shows that severe depression symptoms correlates with negative family interaction (oh, ell, & subica, 2014). telephone-based mindfulness intervention didn’t show significant reduction in psychological distress in men with advanced prostate cancer. however, there are some studies which show that mindfulness-based interventions improve anxiety, depression, stress, sexual difficulties, psychological arousal and immune function in cancer patients (shennan, payne, & fenlon, 2011). for reducing srf in cancer patients, some other therapies could be effective; for example, there is evidence that art therapy can reduce distress (lefevre, ledoux, & filbet, 2016) anxiety, and depression (lee et al., 2017). also there is existing literature that shows hypnotherasuicide risk reduction in cancer patients 644 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 https://www.psychopen.eu/ py in cancer patients can reduce anxiety, improving sleep and the severity of psychological and physical symptoms for cancer patients (plaskota et al., 2012). there are several high quality studies which examine suicide prevention strategies in the general population. in the future, it would be advisable to investigate their effectiveness in the oncological population, for example, investigating the lethal means restriction for cancer patients study (zalsman et al., 2016). it would also be important to study which interventions could be useful in diminishing demoralization as a risk factor for suicide in cancer patients. the limitation of this study is that much of the interventional research investigated patients with a specific site of cancer, so it would be difficult to apply the results to all of the oncological population. another limitation is that there is a lack of research on the direct impact of various interventions on suicidal thoughts and/or behavior. overall, the most promising interventions for suicide risk reduction in cancer patients appear to be psychotherapy (behavioral activation and problem-solving therapy), nursing interventions, exercises, yoga, music therapy, and interventions by care-givers. for more severe cases, psychosocial interventions together with anti-depressant drugs (citalopram or escitalopram) could be the most promising in reducing suicide risk. further high quality research is needed to clarify which interventions should be applied and to develop effective suicide prevention strategies for oncology patients. funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments this research was funded by a grant (no. 09.3.3.-lmt-k-712-03-0022) from the research council of lithuania. this research was performed in cooperation with the national cancer institute, lithuania. references ahn, e., shin, d. w., cho, s. i., park, s., won, y. j., & yun, y. h. 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(2017). suicidal ideation among chinese cancer inpatients of general hospitals: prevalence and correlates. oncotarget, 8(15), 25141-25150. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.15350 about the authors dr. giedrė bulotienė is a psychiatrist psychotherapist at the national cancer institute, lithuania. she is counseling cancer patients and their family members; supervises bachelor and master’s theses and holds lectures for medical students, nurses and doctors on psycho-oncology topics. her research interests include posttraumatic stress, depression and suicide risk in cancer patients and effects of psychosocial interventions. kamilė pociutė is a medicine undergraduate at vilnius university. she is interested in psychiatry, her main research interest currently concerns psychiatric oncology of adults and children. bulotiene & pociute 649 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(3), 637–649 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i3.1741 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1002%2fpon.1819 https://doi.org/10.2190%2fpm.43.4.g https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.canep.2013.05.009 https://doi.org/10.1097%2fjgp.0b013e318233171a https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00520-014-2181-8 https://doi.org/10.1002%2fcncr.30749 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/ https://doi.org/10.1002%2fpon.3529 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fs2215-0366%2816%2930030-x https://doi.org/10.18632%2foncotarget.15350 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ suicide risk reduction in cancer patients (introduction) method results suicide risk factors interventions discussion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors humanitarian aid workers’ mental health and duty of care editorial humanitarian aid workers’ mental health and duty of care liza jachens* a [a] webster university, geneva, switzerland. abstract set in challenging and complex environments, there has been growing concern about the mental health consequences of aid work. along with existing difficulties in reducing well-known occupational risks such as exposure to trauma, there is a lack of awareness of psychosocial risks in the humanitarian sector. this paper is a discussion, drawing on occupational health perspectives, on ways to reflect on mental health policies, research and interventions in this sector. europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 650–655, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2221 received: 2019-10-22. accepted: 2019-10-22. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: vlad glăveanu, webster university geneva, geneva, switzerland *corresponding author at: psychology, sociology and professional counselling, webster university, 1293 geneva, switzerland. e-mail: jachens@webster.ch this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. the context of humanitarian aid work is intrinsically demanding. the term “aid workers” refers to persons who, on a professional or voluntary basis, engage in activities that help people in complex environments (sifakipistolla, chatzea, vlachaki, melidoniotis, & pistolla, 2017). facing ongoing problems associated with civil conflicts, poverty, famine, disease and natural disasters, humanitarian and development aid is designed to save lives, ease suffering and respond to ongoing structural issues, particularly systemic poverty. aid workers may be directly exposed to threats of harm and persecution and indirectly exposed to the trauma of the communities they serve. it is not surprising then, that researchers have begun to consider how the wellbeing of aid workers might be protected and promoted. the existence of foreseeable risks places responsibility on those who can shape and influence occupational mental health policies, research, training and interventions. a review of aid worker health highlights implications of exposure to stressful aspects of the job. a build-up of stressful experiences and/or trauma has been shown to be linked to depression, anxiety, burnout, heavy drinking, secondary traumatic stress, and posttraumatic stress disorder (ager et al., 2012; connorton, perry, hemenway, & miller, 2012; eriksson, kemp, gorsuch, hoke, & foy, 2001; jachens, houdmont, thomas, 2016, 2019; lopes cardozo et al., 2013; jones, müller, & maercker, 2006). priority needs to be given to identify the work-related risk factors that are associated with such outcomes. if the sources of stress are known, this can inform the design and targeting of interventions to eliminate, reduce, or buffer exposure to potentially harmful work characteristics. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ stress research involving emergency services personnel, and by extension humanitarian aid workers, has mostly concentrated on the experience of traumatic stressors as the main predictors of employee wellbeing. the conceptual framework often used to understand complex humanitarian aid work is the paradigm of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) (thomas, 2008). however, while this medical model brings focussed attention to those in crisis, it is limiting the full understanding of workplace risk factors. it can be argued that, by adopting this medical paradigm, humanitarian aid workers’ strengths, such as motivation and resilience, are sometimes overlooked. as an occupational group they demonstrate substantial resilience and may reap rewards from their work such as job satisfaction, personal meaning and improved wellbeing (mcfarlane, 2003). although resilience and protective factors remain a somewhat understudied area in this field, emerging research has suggested new ways to conceptualise resilience. for example, nolty, bosch, an, clements, and buckwalter (2018) have recently developed the headington institute resilience inventory, a psychometrically valid, multifactored self-report measure to identify dimensions of resilience for aid workers. the objective is to identify dimensions that could lead to tailored protective training exercises; a promising approach to inform the sustainability of humanitarian efforts in difficult operating environments. in mccormack & bamforth’s (2019) study on the subjective experience of aid workers deployed to provide support during the ebola epidemic, personal strengths such as moral and professional integrity, and a strong sense of their own altruistic purpose, were found to be protective against psychopathology. aid workers are rewarded by fieldwork – they identify with the powerful and motivating mission of protecting and helping factors that motivate and connect them to the work they do (jachens, houdmont, thomas, 2018). the medical model, focussed on pathology, places importance on the individual (to receive treatment), rather than on the organisation (to prevent and reduce work-related stressors) in the reduction of job strain. organisations may be inclined to pay attention to individual employees and develop their coping skills, rather than address the organisational sources of work-related stress (murta, sanderson, & oldenburg, 2007). however, a multi-faceted approach may be more beneficial. stressors can be divided into two categories: job content and job context stressors. overall, emergency service work includes both operational/occupational stressors arising from “job content” (i.e. the aspects of work inherent in the occupation, e.g. exposure to trauma or working overtime), and organisational stressors arising from “job context” (i.e. aspects of the work environment arising from the structure of the organisation e.g. shift work, workload, unfair work practices, lack of support from superiors, and excess paper work). indeed, there is growing research evidence to suggest that job context (or organisational) stressors are of greater concern in human service professionals and that they have an important and more powerful effect on individual psychological and physical health outcomes than “job content” stressors (brough, 2004; huddleston, stephens, & paton, 2007). surprisingly, not much research to date in the humanitarian sector has focussed on organisational sources of stress. two theoretical models have dominated occupational health research on work-related stress and informed the content of many psychosocial risk assessment instruments: the job demand-control (jdc) model (or the job strain – js – model) (karasek & theorell, 1990), and the effort-reward imbalance (eri) model (siegrist, 1996). these self-report measurement instruments facilitate researchers and practitioners in the assessment of workers’ exposure to potentially harmful combinations of working conditions such as high demands with low control, or high effort with low rewards. given the complexity of work-related psychosocial factors, measurejachens 651 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 650–655 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ment would benefit from being based on a theoretical model, which is a useful tool for dealing with real-life complex phenomena in the workplace. research reliably shows that exposure to these poorly managed psychosocial work characteristics is associated with negative psychological, physical, and behavioural health outcomes (theorell et al., 2015). the humanitarian sector may benefit from a psychosocial risk assessment approach that engages more with current epidemiological psychosocial work environment models (as listed above). the inherent risk with this is that these generic models may not capture all the stressors that may be unique to this occupational sector. future research could develop and explore a hybrid risk assessment tool that draws from generic stress models while also including joband context-specific stressors. in developing a model, qualitative research is particularly valuable, as it can provide a deeper understanding of stressors, strains, and coping behaviours not captured by predefined constructs. what may be helpful is a model that examines both demanding (workload, role ambiguity) and motivational (altruism, engagement, connectedness) facets of humanitarian aid work, and the outcomes that ensue. after psychosocial risk assessment, a further priority concerns the need for organisations to implement a comprehensive approach to stress prevention/reduction by embracing both individual and organisational interventions. organisational interventions could address some common humanitarian job context stressors: a lack of teamwork, poor management and difficult supervisors, as well as the perceived lack of organisational support (young, pakenham, & norwood, 2018). individual support strategies include services such as briefings prior to and after assignment and counselling. a growing literature base suggests the vital importance of management and organisational support for the wellbeing of humanitarian personnel (ehrenreich & elliot, 2004; jachens, houdmont, & thomas, 2018; mccormack & ell, 2017). supportive organisational policies and practices integrate factors such as training, employee engagement, incentives for health promotion and protection, and evaluation and surveillance (sorensen et al., 2013). associated with improved support is the organisation’s psychosocial safety climate (psc) – when psychological health and safety in the workplace is highly valued and prioritized. this psc is determined by the prevailing beliefs, attitudes and behavioural norms within an organisation (hall, dollard, & coward, 2010). in a high psychosocial safety environment, managers show commitment for the prevention of work stress and promote employee psychological health. the content area of psc comprises: (1) senior management support and commitment for stress prevention (2) management priority to psychological health and safety (3) organisational communication – listening to employee contributions and (4) organisational participation and involvement through, for example, employee representatives (hall, dollard, & coward, 2010). organisational values and policies should serve to promote and facilitate protection, compassion and trust. in a recent humanitarian conference organised by the chs (core humanitarian standard) alliance the topic was “building trust in people, in organisations and in the sector” (october 2019, antwerp, belgium). this mirrors similar topics on social media platforms: humanitarian aid organisations would like to develop more empathy, trust, compassion, and respectful ways of working in safer environments. a worthwhile focus is to develop a healthier psc climate across the humanitarian sector. organisations wishing to identify all probable sources of stress affecting their employees need to broaden their understanding of how different sources of stress influence health and wellbeing. practitioners need to consider both harmful and resilience pathways in developing relevant and integrated interventions that can reduce stress in a comprehensive way. humanitarian aid workers’ mental health and duty of care 652 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 650–655 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2221 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author gratefully acknowledges comments provided by jonathan houdmont on an earlier draft of this article. references ager, a., pasha, e., yu, g., duke, t., eriksson, c., & cardozo, b. l. 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(2018). thematic analysis of aid workers’ stressors and coping strategies: work, psychological, lifestyle and social dimensions. journal of international humanitarian action, 3(1), 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41018-018-0046-3 humanitarian aid workers’ mental health and duty of care 654 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 650–655 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2221 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0020764006061248 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0030969 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/trm0000171 https://doi.org/10.1037%2ftrm0000107 https://doi.org/10.4278%2f0890-1171-21.4.248 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fipp0000080 https://doi.org/10.1186%2fs12889-015-1954-4 http://ethos.bl.uk/orderdetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.495676 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f1076-8998.1.1.27 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs00127-016-1302-8 https://doi.org/10.1097%2fjom.0000000000000032 https://doi.org/10.1186%2fs41018-018-0046-3 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mcfarlane, c., & theorell, t. the balance of trauma, stress and resilience by international aid workers: a longitudinal qualitative investigation. paper presented at the 10th annual conference of the australasian society for traumatic stress studies, hobart, australia. about the author liza jachens, phd, is a research associate and lecturer at webster university, geneva. she is an occupational health and research consultant for both public and humanitarian organisations. she has extensive occupational health experience, designing and implementing psychosocial risk assessments and health interventions. she has numerous publications on stress-related working conditions and employee health and wellbeing. jachens 655 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 650–655 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.2221 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ humanitarian aid workers’ mental health and duty of care (article body) (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author the meaning of temporal balance: does meaning in life mediate the relationship between a balanced time perspective and mental health? research reports the meaning of temporal balance: does meaning in life mediate the relationship between a balanced time perspective and mental health? jeffrey dean webster a, jonte vowinckel b, xiaodong ma c † [a] psychology department, langara college, vancouver, british columbia, canada. [b] department of psychology, clinical psychology and psychotherapy section, university of bonn, bonn, germany. [c] department of psychology, university of houston – clear lake, houston, tx, united states. †author deceased prior to publication of this paper. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 119–133, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 received: 2019-12-11 • accepted: 2020-06-12 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy corresponding author: jonte vowinckel, department of psychology, clinical psychology and psychotherapy section, university of bonn, kaiser-karl-ring 9, 53111 bonn, germany. e-mail: jonte.vowinckel@gmail.com abstract the construct of a balanced time perspective (btp) predicts a variety of indices of mental health and well-being. we argue that one possible intermediate link between btp and well-being may be an individual’s sense of presence of meaning in life. participants ranging in age from 19 to 88 years (n = 192) completed two measures of time perspective (zimbardo time perspective inventory [ztpi] and the modified balanced time perspective scale [mbtps]), mental health, personality, and meaning in life. correlational results showed that a btp, mental health, and meaning in life were positively interrelated. hierarchical regression models showed that a btp (as measured with the mbtps) explained additional variance in mental health beyond demographic, personality, and ztpi scores. mediation analyses showed that meaning served as a significant indirect link between btp and well-being. keywords time perspective, balanced time perspective, meaning in life, personality, eudaimonic well-being, hedonic well-being all experiences are filtered through the temporal lenses of past, present, and future: we remember earlier life events, live in the moment, and imagine events yet to come. these different time orientations may provide complementary pieces to both our overall well-being and our sense of meaning in life. retrieving autobiographical memories may reinforce self-esteem, consolidate aspects of personal identity, and help us make sense of the choices and experiences we have lived to date (e.g., westerhof, 2019); living in the moment may allow us to recognize what is meaningful to us, prioritize values, and express gratitude (e.g., przepiorka & sobol-kwapinska, 2020; vowinckel, westerhof, bohlmeijer, & webster, 2017); and imagining the future may be a motivational source of hope, optimism, and the pursuit of purposeful goals (e.g., phillips, 2018). as such, time is “…an integral part of virtually all psychological phenomena” (carstensen, 2006, p. 1913), and “… one of the most powerful influences on virtually all aspects of human behavior” (boniwell & zimbardo, 2004, p. 167). one robust area of time research concerns time perspective (tp), in which individuals demarcate the temporal flow of life into subjectively experienced past, present, and future. to date, the majority of tp studies reflect the current state of theory development, which is emergent, and therefore adopt an inductive approach to theory development. one general assumption from contemporary tp models asserts that although tp is influenced by various forces over the life course and can therefore manifest state-like qualities, adults generally adopt a particular temporal orientation which is this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2415&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ relatively consistent over time (boyd & zimbardo, 2005). this trait-like quality allows for an investigation of individual differences in tp. additionally, recent research has focused on a balanced time perspective (btp), which zajenkowski, stolarski, witowska, maciantowicz, and lowicki (2016) state is a core feature of tp theory. a btp is conceptualized as the ability to adaptively engage past, present, and future time perspectives in response to contextual forces. consistent with this assumption, a btp (as assessed using the zimbardo time perspective inventory: ztpi; zimbardo & boyd, 1999), is associated with several positive psychosocial outcomes such as higher life satisfaction (e.g., zhang & howell, 2011), emotional intelligence (stolarski, bitner, & zimbardo, 2011), psychological need satisfaction and gratitude (zhang, howell, & stolarski, 2013), happiness (e.g., boniwell, osin, linley, & ivanchencko, 2010), and mindfulness (e.g., muro, feliu-soler, castellà, deví, & soler, 2017; rönnlund et al., 2018; stolarski, vowinckel, jankowski, & zajenkowski, 2016). notwithstanding such findings, there are some potential psychometric and conceptual limitations in using the ztpi for the purposes of assessing a btp (e.g., mckay, andretta, magee, & worrell, 2014; mckay et al., 2018; stolarski, wiberg, & osin, 2015). in part as a response to some of these identified limitations, webster (2011) originally developed the balanced time perspective scale (btps) consisting of past and future subscales. subsequently, webster and collea­ gues (vowinckel et al., 2017) developed the modified btps (mbtps) which added a present subscale. a btp is described as a frequent and equal tendency to think about one’s past, present, and future in positive ways. using the initial scale, a btp was positively associated with self-esteem, happiness, attributional complexity, wisdom, and mental health (webster, 2011; webster, bohlmeijer, & westerhof, 2014; webster & ma, 2013), as well as higher delay of gratification and higher ability to imagine future scenarios (gӧllner, ballhausen, kliegel, & forstmeier, 2018). recently, scores on a french version of the scale (barsics, rebetez, rochat, d’argembeau, & van der linden, 2017) positively correlated with emotional regulation and positive affect. using the more recent mbtps, vowinckel et al. (2017) found that a btp was positively correlated with measures of flow, mindfulness, and mental health and webster (in press) found that a btp was also positively associated with adaptive identity styles and flourishing. together, these sets of findings provide compelling evidence for the relationship between various aspects of tp and positive mental health outcomes. unfortunately, many of these earlier studies did not include personality variables. this omission is important as “correlations between tp dimensions and swb might be no more than a by-product of their covariance with traditional personality” (stolarski & matthews, 2016, p. 517). we address this earlier limitation in prior work by including a measure of the big 5 personality traits in the current study. an additional limitation in prior work investigating the association between tp and mental health concerns possible additional variables which might account for some of the observed covariance between these two constructs. we suggest that one plausible, and currently under-examined candidate, is the presence of meaning in life. indeed, meaning has been theoretically predicted to be one possible outcome of psychologically healthy tp (zimbardo & boyd, 1999). accordingly, we next describe research examining the relationship between tp and meaning in life followed by a discussion of the relationship between meaning in life and well-being. time perspective and meaning in life we argue that meaning in life has a strong, perhaps necessary, temporal basis, and that all three temporal dimensions should be associated with meaning-making efforts. consistent with this idea, steger (2012), states that “meaning in life researchers presume they are studying a fundamental orientation of the person to the world, embracing all that is important and vital to someone’s past, present, and future” (p. 382). given the multifaceted and complex nature of meaning (e.g., heine, proulx, & bohs, 2006) it seems reasonable to suggest that the thoughts and emotions inherent in meaning making derive, at least in part, from different temporal frames (vowinckel, capaldi, & passmore, 2016). moreover, the meaning-tp dynamics can be modified by contextual factors such as serious health concerns (e.g., breast cancer; martino & freda, 2016). with respect to a past orientation, meaning-making entails identification and understanding of earlier self-attributes, relationships, and developmental tasks. the task of identity formation and maintenance, for example, explicitly requires adolescents and emerging adults to remember earlier selves in order to see consistencies and differences between earlier and current self-concepts (erikson, 1963). moreover, there is an extensive literature on the benefits of reminiscence and the meaning of temporal balance 120 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ life review (e.g., pierce & elliott, 2018) one of which is the consolidation of meaning (e.g., webster, 2019; westerhof, 2019). autobiographical reflections can enable the emergence of thematic and coherent life narratives which have been related to greater meaning (e.g., graci & fivush, 2016; webster et al., 2018). similarly, staying in the moment, or being present-focused can also contribute to greater meaning-making (e.g., allan, bott, & suh, 2015). rush and grouzet (2012) for example, found that a positive focus on the present supported a mindful orientation. mindfulness is a healthy, non-judging and open way of relating towards the present moment (e.g., bishop et al., 2004), that supports knowledge of one’s true self (carlson, 2013), which can be considered essential for a sense of a fulfilled and meaningful life (c.f. schlegel, hicks, king, & arndt, 2011). indeed, allan et al. (2015) found that increased self-awareness mediated between mindfulness and meaning in life. finally, anticipating events yet to come and projecting oneself into an imagined future are processes related to well-being (e.g., webster, 2011). meaning-making is enhanced when specific future events (waytz, hershfield, & tamir, 2015, study 3) are mentally present. knowing where we are going in life, why these particular pursuits are worthwhile, and confidence regarding their achievement, provides a sense of direction and purpose (emmons, 2003; feldman & snyder, 2005). theoretical discussion papers have suggested that a sense of meaning in life is related to either our past (e.g., routledge, sedikides, wildschut, & juhl, 2013; sommer & baumeister, 1998) or the future (e.g., zaleski & przepiorka, 2015). despite this assumption, empirical studies investigating the relationship between meaning and all three tps in the same study are sparse; consequently, the relationship between a btp and meaning is still poorly documented and understood. in one study, meaning in life was associated with higher temporal extension, friendly attitude towards time and better temporal organization of behavior (przepiorka, 2012). the author concludes that skills in time management and effective goal achievement may play an important role in meaning preservation in potentially difficult life periods such as young adulthood. evidence from limited empirical studies using the ztpi shows that meaning is positively associated with a positive past, and negatively correlated with a negative past, temporal orientation (e.g., shterjovska & achkovska-leshkovska, 2014; steger, kashdan, sullivan, & lorentz, 2008). the preceding empirical findings all lend support to the idea that a btp contributes to a sense of meaning in life. more boldly, leading proponents of tp theory state that important social experiences “are assigned to temporal categories, or time frames, that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to those events” (zimbardo & boyd, 1999, p. 1271; italics added). it is this implied temporal precedence which we examine in the current study. meaning in life and well-being searching for and acquiring meaning is a fundamental motivation for humans (frankl, 1984). without meaning, life experiences are existentially compromised (e.g., costin & vignoles, 2019), and this state can contribute to higher levels of anxiety and depression. one definition of meaning in life is “…the sense made of, and significance felt regarding, the nature of one’s being and existence” (steger, frazier, oishi, & kaler, 2006, p. 81). a large corpus of work is generally supportive of a positive meaning and well-being connection. for instance, the presence of meaning in life has been positively correlated with measures of love, joy, and life satisfaction (steger et al., 2006), wisdom and growth narratives (webster et al., 2018), and mental health (e.g., perugini, de la iglesia, solano, & keyes, 2017) and lower levels of health anxiety (yek, olendzki, kekecs, patterson, & elkins, 2017). meaning in life has also been shown to play a mediating role between variables such as gratitude and life satisfaction (e.g., datu & mateo, 2015), spirituality and mental health (khumalo, wissing, & schutte, 2014), and knowledge of stroke and life satisfaction (chow, 2017). these and other findings support steger’s (2012) conjecture that meaning in life is “widely considered to be a critical ingredient in human well-being and flourishing” (p. 381). besides mindfulness, flow-experiences also likely contribute to a subjective sense of a fulfilled and meaningful life as individuals experiencing flow have a heightened sense of personal competence, satisfaction, and agency. flow experiences can, therefore, lead to meaning making by ideally “transforming the entirety of life into a single flow activity, with unified goals that provide constant purpose” (csikszentmihalyi, 2013, p. 213). the present paper has two interrelated goals. the first goal is to add to the very limited empirical data currently available by investigating the relationship between a btp and mental health and the possible role presence of meaning webster, vowinckel, & ma 121 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ plays in this relationship. first, we examine bivariate associations among main study variables and predict that a btp will be positively correlated with both overall mental health and the presence of meaning in life (h1). we also test mediation models in which we predict that the relationship between a btp and mental health occurs in part indirectly through meaning (h2). it is important to acknowledge at the outset that cross-sectional data does not allow for causal statements. our intention is to examine in a preliminary way one possible set of relationships among these variables. we return to this issue in the discussion section. the second goal, given that the mbtps is a relatively new measure, is to demonstrate its advantage over previously established measures, specifically the ztpi, which we include in its entirety in this study for comparison purposes. we accomplish this goal by assessing the incremental validity of the mbtps in a hierarchical multiple regression predicting that the mbtps will account for unique variance in mental health (h3) after taking account of relevant control and ztpi variables. method participants we recruited 192 participants (142 females, 48 males, 1 person identified as “other,” and 1 person who did not report their gender) ranging in age from 19 to 88 years (m = 40.05, sd = 17.53, 1 person did not report their age). participants were recruited in the united states from the general houston, texas area. the ethnic composition of the sample included 48.4% (white), 25.5% (hispanic), 14.1% (african american), 6.8% (asian), and 5.2% (other) participants in good health (m = 3.01, sd = 0.65 on a 4 point scale where 1 = poor and 4 = excellent health). the average education level was 14.74 years (sd = 4.57) and the project received ethics board approval. measures presence of meaning we assessed the presence of meaning in life by using the 5-item presence of meaning subscale (e.g., i understand my life’s meaning) of the meaning in life questionnaire (mlq; steger et al., 2006). responses were made on a 7-point scale where 1 = absolutely untrue and 7 = absolutely true. cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .88. balanced time perspective (a) the mbtps is a 38-item scale containing two 14-item subscales, one reflecting a positive past orientation and one reflecting a positive future orientation, and one 10-item subscale reflecting a positive present orientation. participants respond to each item on a 6-point likert type scale where 1 = (almost) never and 6 = always. sample items include: past—tapping into my past is a source of comfort to me; present—being in the present helps me appreciate what i have; future—i look forward to my future. subscale scores are averaged (in order to account for the lower number of items in the present subscale) and then combined. higher scores indicate greater btp. cronbach’s alpha for the past, present, future subscales, and total mbtps are, respectively, .94, .91, .96, and .95. balanced time perspective (b) the zimbardo time perspective inventory (ztpi; zimbardo & boyd, 1999) is a 56-item scale which is constituted by the five subscales of past positive, past negative, present hedonistic, present fatalistic, and future. for better comparability of the two btp measures, we operationalized btp with the ztpi as the deviation from balanced time perspective indicator (dbtp; stolarski et al., 2011) multiplied with −1, so that the resulting score indicates the proximity to a btp instead of the distance. individuals rate on a 5-point likert scale how strongly each statement applies to them (very untrue of me to very true of me). examples of items are: it gives me pleasure to think about my past (past positive); painful past experiences keep being replayed in my mind (past negative); it is more important for me to enjoy life’s journey than to focus only on the destination (present hedonistic); my life path is controlled by forces i cannot influence (present fatalistic); and i believe that the meaning of temporal balance 122 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a person’s day should be planned ahead each morning (future). cronbach’s alpha in the present sample are: past negative (.84), present hedonistic (.74), future (.77), past positive (.78), and present fatalistic (.77). mental health we measured mental health with the mental health continuum—short form (mhc-sf; lamers, westerhof, bohlmeijer, ten klooster, & keyes, 2011). the mhc-sf assesses three domains of mental health, which are emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. the rating instruction for the whole scale is: during the last month, how often did you feel [...]. three items measure emotional wellbeing (e.g., happy), five items measure social wellbeing (e.g., that you had something important to contribute to society) and six items measure psychological wellbeing (e.g., that you had experiences that challenged you to grow and become a better person). answer options range from 0 = never to 5 = every day. cronbach’s alpha for emotional, psychological, and social well-being, respectively, was .84, .85, and .78. the total mhc-sf alpha was .90. personality we used the big five index (bfi: john & srivastava, 1999) to assess personality. the bfi is a 44-item questionnaire in which participants respond to the stem, “i see myself as someone who…” on a 5-point likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. the bfi assesses levels of extraversion (“is talkative”), agreeableness (“is helpful and unselfish with others”), conscientiousness (“does a thorough job”), neuroticism (“can be tense”), and openness (“is original, comes up with new ideas”). cronbach’s alphas were, respectively, .82, .70, .72, .80, and .76. statistical analyses we first present basic descriptive statistics and zero-order, bivariate correlations among main study variables. we then present the results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis testing for the incremental validity of a btp as measured by the mbtps for the dependent variable of mental health. finally, we conducted a mediatiton analysis using structural equation modeling (sem) with amos (version 26) software. we used spss (version 23) to test correlational and regression predictions. two persons were eliminated from the final sample due to excessive missing data. as missing data was very low (i.e., < 0.1%) it was considered missing at random and was replaced with mean imputation. data was screened for normality. tests for skewness and kurtosis were both within recommended ranges (i.e., < ± 1), and the variance inflation factor (vif) values were all < 2 indicating lack of multicollinearity. we took an additional step to ensure that our three main variables of interest (i.e., balanced time perspective, meaning in life, and mental health) showed sufficient discriminant validity by conducting the fornell-larcker criterion test. these results indicated that there was good discriminant validity among these variables in the current study. webster, vowinckel, & ma 123 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results as can be seen in table 1, bivariate correlations are consistent with our predictions. supporting h1, both btp measures were positively correlated with mental health and the presence of meaning in life. the mbtps and ztpi correlated positively with each other. interestingly, both btp measures correlate higher with mental health than with each other, suggesting that somewhat different facets of tp are captured by each. we elaborate on this possibility in the discussion section. as personality, demographic, and both btp measures were associated with mental health we conducted two hierarchical multiple regression analyses with mental health as the dependent variable to determine which of these classes of variables provided unique explanatory power. table 1 means, standard deviations and intercorrelations of all variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1. btps pa 2. btps pr .47 3. btps f .38 .49 4. ztpi pn −.16 −.25 −.20 5. ztpi pp .59 .28 .18 −.30 6. ztpi ph .17 .18 .09 .14 .13 7. ztpi pf .01 −.09 −.31 .43 −.08 .34 8. ztpi f .10 .25 .37 −.09 .21 −.18 −.36 9. bfi e .15 .14 .14+ −.19 .13 .15 −.11 .09 10. bfi a .20 .32 .12 −.27 .30 .00 −.19 .16 .08 11. bfi c .25 .34 .31 −.28 .32 −.15 −.35 .55 .19 .39 12. bfi n −.31 −.31 −.11 .52 −.36 .00 .27 −.05 −.29 −.39 −.41 13. bfi o .04 .25 .09 .03 .06 .27 −.12 .09 .26 .17 .20 −.08 14. mhc e .35 .44 .40 −.44 .35 .04 −.28 .15 .18 .25 .36 −.51 .03 15. mhc p .41 .50 .45 −.36 .38 .13 −.29 .32 .33 .22 .38 −.49 .20 .68 16. mhc s .35 .41 .19 −.28 .29 .08 −.11 .09 .15 .10 .19 −.38 .07 .50 .61 17. mhc c .43 .53 .39 −.42 .40 .10 −.26 .21 .25 .21 .35 −.53 .12 .83 .88 .85 18. mlq p .39 .39 .40 −.26 .28 .08 −.23 .27 .36 .21 .37 −.30 .20 .45 .53 .43 .55 19. mbtps .78 .81 .79 −.25+ .45 .18 −.16 .30 .18 .26 .38 −.30 .15 .50 .57 .40 .56 .50 20. ztpi .38 .32 .33 −.76 .67 .02 −.57 .30 .23 .33 .39 −.50 .05 .49 .50 .31 .49 .33 .43 21. age .06 .04 −.34 −.11 .17 −.09 .00 −.17 .14+ .06 .12 −.33 .03 .15 .17 .28 .24 .13 −.11 −.10 m 4.12 4.44 4.92 2.93 3.58 3.29 2.35 3.74 3.40 3.95 3.86 2.91 3.62 3.95 3.92 2.85 3.57 5.35 4.49 −2.18 sd 0.97 0.86 0.96 0.81 0.65 0.53 0.70 0.58 0.76 0.56 0.58 0.79 0.60 0.85 0.90 1.09 0.81 1.20 2.22 0.77 note. btps = balanced time perspective scale; pa = past; pr = present; fu = future; ztpi = zimbardo time perspective inventory; pn = past negative; pp = past positive; ph = present hedonistic; pf = present fatalistic; f = future; bfi = big five index; e = extraversion; a = agreeableness; c = conscientiousness; n = neuroticism; o = openness; mhc = mental health continuum short form; e = emotional; p = psychological; s = social; c = composite score; mlq = meaning in life questionnaire; p = presence of meaning; mbtps = balanced time perspective; ztpi = balanced time perspective. correlations ≥ .15 or .14+ are significant at p < .05; correlations ≥ .19 are significant at p < .01 and correlations ≥ .26 or .25+ are significant at p < .001. we first entered the four demographic variables of gender, age, health, and education level as the initial block (see table 2). overall, model 1 was significant, f(4, 187) = 8.94, p < .001, and accounted for 16.0% of the variance in mental health. the meaning of temporal balance 124 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 hierachical regression on mental health variable model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 β p β p β p β p gender 0.009 .905 0.086 .191 0.087 .169 0.053 .351 age 0.248 .001 0.109 .103 0.125 .054 0.197 .001 health 0.223 .001 0.074 .259 0.057 .370 0.021 .713 education −0.192 .005 −0.155 .013 −0.125 .040 −0.089 .102 extraversion 0.066 .318 0.043 .504 0.026 .655 agreeableness −0.048 .487 −0.081 .234 −0.095 .119 conscientiousness 0.123 .079 0.082 .231 0.007 .914 neuroticism −0.422 .000 −0.327 .000 −0.283 .000 openness 0.064 .313 0.076 .221 0.036 .517 ztpi 0.266 .000 0.152 .021 mbtps 0.420 .000 r 0.401 0.596 0.634 0.724 r 2 0.160 0.355 0.402 0.524 δr 2 0.160 0.194 0.047 0.122 fchange 8.94** 10.96** 14.24** 46.04** note. mbtps = modified balanced time perspective scale; ztpi = zimbardo time perspective inventory. **p < .001. model 2 added the five personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness as a block. model 2 accounted for an additional 19.4% of the variance in mental health and this change was significant, fchange(5, 182) = 10.96, p < .001. model 3 added the ztpi score as a block. model 3 accounted for an additional 4.7% of the variance in mental health and this change was significant, fchange(1, 181) = 14.24, p < .001. in model 4 the mbtps score was entered as a block. model 4 accounted for an additional 12.2% of the variance in mental health and this change was significant, fchange(1, 180) = 46.04, p < .001. in total, the four models accounted for 52.4% of the variance in mental health with age, neuroticism, ztpi, and mbtps as significant predictors. concerning a possible intermediate link between btp and mental health via meaning in life, correlational analyses (table 1) showed that both btp measures, presence of meaning in life and mental health were positively interrelated. we used sem to test whether meaning in life partially mediates the relationship between a btp and overall mental health. given the pattern of results of the hierarchical regression analyses, we also included age, neuroticism, and the ztpi btp score as control variables as these were the only variables to remain as significant predictors of mental health in the final regression model. we used amos (v26) software with maximum likelihood estimation to assess parameter fit. we assessed overall model fit with the following standard statistics: χ2 goodness of fit test, the comparative fit index (cfi), and the root mean square error of approximation (rmsea). estimates of adequate fit vary, but conventionally a non-significant χ2, a cfi ≥ .95, and a rmsea ≤ .06, are considered evidence of good model fit. figure 1 shows the overall mediation model including standardized regression paths. overall, the model explained 66% of the variance in mental health and fit the data well: χ2(13) = 21.60, p = .062; cfi = .985; rmsea = .059. webster, vowinckel, & ma 125 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 meaning in life partially mediates the balanced time perspective to mental health relationship note. btpsbtp = modified balanced time perspective scale balanced time perspective score; mhc = mental health continuum; mlqpres = meaning in life questionnaire presence of meaning subscale; ztpi = zimbardo time perspective inventory balanced time perspective score; ewb = emotional well-being; swb = social well-being; pwb = psychological well-being. italicized numerals are r2 values. we tested for mediation effects using a 95% confidence interval bias-corrected bootstrapping procedure with 5000 iterations. table 3 lists the standardized direct effects. table 3 standardized direct effects for hypothesized model parameter estimate bias corrected 95% ci plci uci btp to mlq 0.521 0.388 0.623 .001 btp to mhc 0.369 0.231 0.502 .001 mlq to mhc 0.277 0.141 0.417 .001 note. lci = lower confidence interval; uci = upper confidence interval; btp = balanced time perspective; mhc = mental health continuum short form; mlq = meaning in life questionnaire. as can be seen, all three direct paths were significant, satisfying the initial criterion for mediation analyses. we then used the myindirecteffects.amosestimandvb application (gaskin, 2016) to test the indirect effect from a btp to mental health via meaning. a significant indirect estimate is evidence for mediation, as is the case here. the indirect effect estimate was significant: estimate = 0.126, p < .001, lci = 0.067, uci = 0.196. as the standardized path from btp to overall mental health remained significant after mediation, we can consider that meaning in life partially, rather than completely, mediates this relationship supporting h2. the meaning of temporal balance 126 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ following best practices (martens, 2005) we also tested an alternate model in which the direction of effect was reversed between a btp and meaning, in which the meaning variable served as the predictor, and a btp served as the mediator variable for the outcome variable of mental health. this alternate model did not fit the data well: χ2(13) = 45.98, p < .001; cfi = .941; rmsea = .115. although a χ2 difference test is inappropriate in the current situation (as the models are not nested; bentler & satorra, 2010) we did examine both the akaike’s information criterion (aic) and the bayesian information criterion (bic) indices whereby lower values are reflective of a better fitting model. these values also provided evidence for the hypothesized model having better fit than the alternate model for both the aic (67.60 vs. 91.98) and bic (142.52 vs. 166.91) indices, respectively. discussion in this study we investigated the relationship between a btp and mental health as mediated by meaning in life. at the bivariate level, results confirm the positive association that a btp has on well-being and engaging in life in a meaningful way. supporting (h1), the mbtps was positively correlated with all three facets of mental health (emotional, social, and psychological). emotional well-being has been equated with hedonic facets of mental health and reflects a pleasurable engagement with life, a sense of satisfaction, and the attainment of at least normal levels of happiness. these results are consistent with prior work showing a positive link between tp and emotional (hedonic) well-being (e.g., cunningham et al. 2015). the findings also extend prior work by including aspects of well-being that go beyond just feeling satisfied or happy. specifically, social and psychological well-being, in combination, have been equated with eudaimonic outcomes, ostensi­ bly reflecting a deeper, more stable sense of well-being. as measured by the mhc-sf, social and psychological health derive from positive social engagement (e.g., contributing to others’ welfare) and the pursuit of growth experiences (e.g., challenging oneself to develop through important life events), respectively. also supporting h1, a btp was positively correlated with meaning in life. meaning-making is an ongoing process in which persons question their goals, priorities, and behaviors in relation to both existential and pragmatic challenges. what is my purpose in life? how do i fit into a larger cosmic order? where have i come from and where do i need to go from here? the answers to these types of questions come, at least in part, from reflecting on prior experiences and imagining both anticipated and unexpected future life events. a btp can serve as an important resource in this quest for purpose and meaning. in concert, these bivariate results suggest that finding a sense of meaning in life as well as attaining good levels of mental health can both be facilitated by a combination of a healthy balance of past, present and future perspectives. in the hierarchical regression, a btp, measured with the mbtps, accounted for an additional 12.2% of the variance in mental health beyond the demographic, personality, and ztpi variables indicating incremental validity for the mbtps. in the final model only age, neuroticism, ztpi, and mbtps remained as significant predictors of mental health. consistent with prior research, age was a positive predictor of mental health. several studies (e.g., thomas et al., 2016) have shown that despite increased levels of chronic illness, reductions in social network size, and possible cognitive decline, older adults show an “aging paradox” in that they maintain relatively high levels of well-being. likewise, the finding that neuroticism is a negative predictor of well-being is consistent with a large and well-established body of earlier work (e.g., sobol-kwapinska, 2016). the incremental validity results are noteworthy given that personality traits can act as confounding variables, often explaining sizeable amounts of the variance in independent and dependent variables. moreover, the mbtps accounted for unique variance even after accounting for an ostensibly similar conceptual measure (i.e., the ztpi). these results are highly similar to vowinckel et al. (2017) who used a dutch sample. for instance, the correlation between the btp and mhc-sf in vowinckel et al. (2017) and the current study was 0.59 and 0.56, respectively constituting an important cross-national replication. in mediation analyses, in line with vowinckel et al. (2016), meaning in life’s indirect effect was significant in the relation between btp and mental health. this effect was found for both btp operationalizations and hence further promotes the hypothesis that btp may positively affect mental health by facilitating an individual's sense of presence webster, vowinckel, & ma 127 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of meaning in life. the results suggest that meaning-making draws heavily upon temporal resources (e.g., positive motivational and affective qualities) which enable persons to engage in purposeful activities and make sense of their lives. drawing upon consistently accessed and thematically organized personal knowledge enables persons to construct a comprehensible explanation for past, present, and anticipated experiences. this interpretation is supported by recent findings in which a btp and a sense of coherence were positively correlated (wiesmann, ballas, & hannich, 2017). in turn, having a clearly articulated sense of purpose and direction in life, contributes to enhanced levels of psychological, social, and emotional health. conclusions according to boniwell and zimbardo (2004), “discovering how to achieve a btp should be a mandate for all of us. we believe it should be a central component in the agenda of positive psychology” (p. 165). the current project has provided modest, preliminary information in this regard; nevertheless, certain limitations need addressing. first, given the correlational nature of our data we cannot make causal claims regarding directionality. given the complexity of the constructs and possible conceptual overlaps, other models may produce similar results as well. it is possible, for instance, that higher levels of mental health cause increases in both meaning and the likelihood of developing a btp, or that a btp acts as a mediator between meaning in life and mental health. from a developmental perspective, however, this later possibility seems less likely as both meaning making and eudaimonic well-being are sophisticated psychosocial outcomes requiring high levels of cognition, self-reflection, and emotional maturity, attributes not typically seen until well into adolescence (e.g., webster et al., 2018). components of a btp, in contrast, are seen much earlier in development. basic reminiscence processes, for instance, are evident even in young children as young as 3 and 4 years old (e.g., salmon & reese, 2016); young children also demonstrate a preliminary understanding of the future (e.g., atance & mahy, 2016). nevertheless, with adult populations, as in the current study, it is probable that some type of reciprocal relationship may exist amongst these three variables and they may co-evolve in complex ways across the lifespan (e.g., durayappah, 2011). unfortunately, testing for such reciprocal relationships in sem (i.e., a nonrecursive model) requires additional, stringent criteria such as equilibrium and stationarity (see kline, 2011) which our current data set does not meet. longitudinal studies are required to identify how these may mutually interact over time. second, although we included participants from diverse age-backgrounds, a limitation of the present study is its relatively small sample size. although kline (2011) notes the typical sample size for sem studies is approximately 200 participants, a larger number of participants would have increased confidence in the findings. however, our sample size to model parameters ratio, while certainly not optimal, is adequate (schreiber, nora, stage, barlow, & king, 2006). finally, as described earlier, our findings replicate previous work suggesting that the current results are not unduly jeopardized by sample size considerations. second, we note certain demographic limitations. first, the homogenous cultural background of our respondents reduces (intercultural) generalizability of the obtained results. we note, however, that our results are highly consistent with both dutch (webster et al., 2014) and french (barsics et al., 2017) studies, both of which used larger samples (n = 512 and n = 622 respectively). second, future studies should try to include a more balanced gender ratio as this study had a high percentage of female participants with higher levels of education. our results suggest many areas of future work. first, as meaning in life did not completely mediate the btp/well-be­ ing link, it is very likely that other mediating variables are also involved in this association. for instance, a btp might increase self-regulation/self-efficacy abilities (e.g., fieulaine & martinez, 2012; lightsey et al., 2014) which may include heightened sense of personal agency, autonomy and competence. inclusion of such variables in future studies will help fill the knowledge gap in this regard. second, future research can employ experimental approaches. for instance, tp might be experimentally manipulated by instructing participants to directly engage in thinking about their past, present, and future lives (e.g., in terms of remembered past accomplishments, valuable current projects, and anticipated future goals) to determine whether, compared to a control group, this manipulation increases the presence of meaning. the meaning of temporal balance 128 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://www.psychopen.eu/ an additional area for future research relates to our secondary goal in the current project, namely the comparison between the ztpi and mbtps. although the general pattern of findings between these two measures is similar, they represent different ways of conceptualizing and operationalizing a btp. this is statistically demonstrated with the 0.43 correlation between them. although this moderately strong correlation provides evidence of convergent validity, there is clearly a substantial amount of unaccounted for variance relative to each other. additionally, several of the correlations between the two btp measures and outcome variables were stronger than the correlation between the ztpi and mbtps. this also likely stems from the fact that the two measures are assessing somewhat different elements of time perspective. for instance, the ztpi future score is often highly correlated with conscientiousness and seems to tap into concerns about obligations to perform future tasks at the expense of positive emotional experiences, as well as sometimes shows weak and/or non-significant correlations with aspects of subjective well-being like happiness (e.g., simons, peeters, janssens, lataster, & jacobs, 2018). future research comparing these two scales head to head could help identify other areas of divergence/convergence with the resulting information helping researchers when choosing a scale most appropriate for their research. despite the above limitations, our results contribute to the growing corpus of work on a btp by replicating and extending earlier work on the relationship between a btp and well-being and by investigating the relatively under-examined issue of how meaning plays an important role in this relationship. when persons frequently examine their positive past, present, and future in a balanced way, these combined temporal components provide a source of knowledge, solace, understanding, and direction to their lives. we argue this is a key, perhaps necessary, step on the road to discovering a meaningful life. when we know what makes life worth living and where we are heading, greater mental health is likely to ensue. funding: the authors have no funding to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: the authors have no support to report. author note: we dedicate this paper to our colleague, xiadong ma, who tragically died before completion of our project. the first and second authors contributed equally to the manuscript and authorship order was decided by consensus. references allan, b. a., bott, e. m., & suh, h. 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(1999). putting time into perspective: a valid, reliable individual-differences metric. journal of personality and social psychology, 77(6), 1271-1288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271 about the authors jeffrey dean webster received his phd from the university of twente, the netherlands and has taught in the psychology department of langara college, vancouver, canada since 1984. his main interests are in reminiscence functions across adulthood, the development and measurement of wisdom, and exploring the mental health consequences of a balanced time perspective. he is the creator of psychometric measures for all three of the preceding constructs (i.e., the reminiscence functions scale; the self-assessed wisdom scale; the balanced time perspective scale). jonte vowinckel received his m.sc. from the university of twente in enschede, netherlands. he works as a research associate at the department of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at the university of bonn, germany and as a licensed cognitive behavioural psychotherapist. besides clinical psychology and time perspective theory, he is interested in environmental psychology, terror management theory and positive psychology. xiaodong ma earned her phd in philosophy from the bowling green state university in ohio in 2010. in the same year she became a professor at the university of houston-clear lake (uhcl) where she taught classes in social science and psychology. webster, vowinckel, & ma 133 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 119–133 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2415 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.02.021 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9322-x https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the meaning of temporal balance (introduction) time perspective and meaning in life meaning in life and well-being method participants measures statistical analyses results discussion conclusions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments author note references about the authors peace-oriented mindset and how to measure it research reports peace-oriented mindset and how to measure it ryszard praszkier 1, agata zabłocka 2, paige munnik 3 [1] institute for social studies, university of warsaw, warsaw, poland. [2] faculty of psychology in warsaw, swps university of social sciences and humanities, warsaw, poland. [3] school of psychology, university of buckingham, buckingham, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 received: 2022-10-10 • accepted: 2023-01-13 • published (vor): 2023-08-31 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: ryszard praszkier, ul. kopernika 11 m. 25, 00-359 warsaw, poland, tel. +48 502 771 406. e-mail: ryszardpr@gmail.com abstract this article presents the concept of a peace-oriented mindset (pom), based on peace psychology and the significance of conflictrelated context. it highlights the role of preventing conflicts through creating an enabling and peace-supportive milieu, facilitated by individuals with specific peace-oriented capabilities. the phenomenon of pom is analyzed, as well as delineated in the context of the current knowledge in this field. next, the method used to construct a questionnaire measuring the pom is presented. the pom scale is verified on an n = 1074 representative sample, documenting high reliability. factor analysis confirms the conjecture that there are three dimensions of the pom: cognitive, performative, and doability conviction. moreover, social norms are documented. a crosssegment comparison delivers several insights, e.g., that women have a higher pom level than men and that those who consider themselves leaders or innovators and those who are involved in social activities have a higher pom level than those who do not. the pom concept and scale are valuable resources for identifying future peacebuilders, especially from conflicted communities, as well as for training future youth leaders in the field of peacebuilding. finally, indications for future studies are discussed, e.g., for verifying the hypothesis that individuals who score high in pom also have higher levels of empathy and compassion. keywords peacebuilding, peace psychology, conflict prevention, milieu-based approach, peacemaking this article explores the essence of a peace-oriented mindset (pom), as well as the ways to measure it. peace-orienta­ tion is an important characteristic in the social and educational contexts (e.g., clarke-habibi, 2005; danesh, 2006). in this vein, it seems critical to analyze the nature and structure of this characteristic, as well as to develop an evaluation method. a pom is especially critical when facing active or dormant conflicts, being a tall order for the individuals, families, groups, and societies involved (praszkier & munnik, 2022). this significance will be presented below, in the context of peacebuilding and prevention. peacebuilding and conflict prevention peacebuilding and conflict prevention,1 especially in the area of intractable conflicts, require a specific psychology, namely, developing trust and cooperation (i.e., social capital; see: coleman, 2000; fukuyama, 1996; putnam, 1993); 1) peacebuilding: action to identify and support structures that tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into conflict. conflict prevention: action to prevent disputes from arising between the parties involved, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts, and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur (reychler, 2017; reychler & langer, 2020). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.10445&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ indeed, some people have the propensity for building social capital (zabłocka et al., 2016). similarly, conflict prevention requires specific sensitivity for detecting lurking conflicts and empathy in order to preclude their outbreak. often, the conflict-related psychological atmosphere is one of mistrust and suspicion; hence, to make resolution at­ tempts more effective, conflict parties need to be psychologically ready to enter a peace process (rifkind & yawanarajah, 2019). sustaining peace, if seen as a durable process, requires a specific psychological context (halperin, 2016; macnair, 2012). along these lines, a process that changes individuals’ and groups’ perceptions about one another, in a way that reconciles them and transforms their relationships, would be desirable. the challenge is to transform the socio-psycho­ logical context so that it becomes a peace-enforcing environment (lederach, 1996, 2003) whilst reaching beyond the actual conflict itself (miall, 2004). this milieu-based approach would likely be more efficient than focusing directly on the history of conflict escalation, which may lead to setbacks and reverse the dynamics (kelman, 1990). peacemakers should have the capability to identify and initiate cooperation in a neutral field, outside of the conflict area. in the dynamical approach, these neutral fields of cooperation are called “alternative attractors,” i.e., a set of factors that solidify the dynamics around a given equilibrium (praszkier et al., 2010; vallacher et al., 2010; vallacher & nowak, 2007). in this vein, peace-orientation should be desired in an individual’s life, as people often face open or potential conflicts on many levels: personal, social, national, etc. (bar-tal, 2015; coleman, 2003, 2006; kriesberg, 1993). it would also be an asset in training future peacebuilding activists, as they should aim at the creation of a safe space, helping to abandon rigid emotional attachments to people’s positions and achieve a state of psychological readiness (paffenholz & spurk, 2006). another critical aptitude for building peace is listening to the individuals or parties involved in the conflict (baglione, 2008; johansson, 2021). moreover, the key is to understand the value of operating in teams, instead of taking singlehanded actions (blum & grangaard, 2018). previous peace-orientation concepts one of the early attempts, in the 1980s, to measure attitudes toward peace was the ironemeter scale (bardis, 1984). though its reliability appears to be good enough, there has been no report on the items’ discrimination power. moreover, all ten statements seem to prompt the same answer, e.g., everybody would say “definitely yes” to “human society does not need an occasional war,” “peace leads to much greater progress than war does,” and “historians should never glorify war.” another concern relates to its all-positive wording, with no reversed (inverted) statements, which could influence respondents through the mechanism of social desirability bias. the more advanced peace attitude scale (pas; 22 statements, n = 499) has been proven to have good psychometric properties (broccoli et al., 2021). factor analysis has shown that five domains appear to be relevant: sociopolitical, personal well-being, ease with diversity, environmental attitude, and caring. the correlations between pas and the big five were analyzed by cavarra et al. (2021) on an n = 121 sample. hierarchical regression analysis revealed that two big five personality traits, namely, conscientiousness and openness to experience, correlate with peace attitudes (cavarra et al., 2021). this indicates, above all, that individuals who are more motivated to seek out new experiences tend to show stronger peace attitudes. method: developing the peace-oriented mindset (pom) concept there seems to be a void and a need to identify the specific mindset that drives individuals to build and prevent peace. the aim of this study, therefore, was to develop the concept of a peace-oriented mindset and a scale for measuring it. a mindset is seen as framing “the running account that’s taking place in people’s heads. they guide the whole interpretation process” (dweck, 2006, p. 215) and has a variety of definitions (see: french, 2016), e.g., delineated as “a predisposition to see the world in a particular way… a filter through which we look at the world” (rhinesmith, 1992, p. 63). herein, mindset is understood as a set of beliefs that shape how one makes sense of the world and oneself, praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 233 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ influencing how one thinks, feels, and behaves in any given situation (cherry, 2021; french, 2016)—which relates specifically, in this article, to conflict prevention and resolution. along these lines, a mindset has both cognitive (how one makes sense) and performative (how one behaves) dimensions. similarly, these two dimensions are visible in gary klein’s definition: a mindset is a belief that orients the way we handle situations—the way we sort out what is going on and what we should do (klein, 2016). considering the tall order of peacebuilding (i.e., addressing often seemingly insurmountable conflicts), there is a need for yet another dimension: belief that difficult challenges are doable, a category defined as possibilitivity (praszkier, 2019, 2021; praszkier & zabłocka, 2022). in line with this framework, it is proposed that the pom be categorized as a three-dimensional construct: • cognitive: seeing the role of the socio-psychological context, being able to listen (at the same time as maintaining one’s own values) and understanding the significance of team working. • performative: proactively preventing dormant or lurking conflicts and building bridges between conflicted parties. • doability conviction (possibilitivity): the capacity to anticipate and contain conflicts, being convinced that peace is possible, even if it seems intractable. along these lines, these three core dimensions were established for constructing the theoretical framework of the pom scale. a proposed breakdown into subcategories is shown in table 1. table 1 the theoretical framework of the peace-oriented mindset (pom) questionnaire subcategory/item cognitive finding neutral common ground opposing groups should find some neutral fields of cooperation. listening to others while maintaining own values debating with others helps me see the world from a different perspective. listening to others’ viewpoints without losing sight of one’s own convictions is important for creating peace. i can maintain my own convictions, even when they differ to the majority. one shouldn’t judge people just by listening to them.a ideas for conflict resolution should be related to understanding the arguments of the parties involved.a i’d rather not adopt another’s point of view after listening to them. teamwork i think that the power of peacemaking lies within teamwork. it is best to join a peacemaking organization instead of acting singlehandedly. group initiative is the most important in peacemaking.a performative preventing conflict i try to keep peaceful any situation in which conflict could arise. i can design an appropriate reconciliation process for a conflict situation. indications that a conflict is looming make me think of how to prevent its outbreak. building trust i often think about how to foster trust between conflicted groups. i can think of innovative ways to build trust between individual parties of a conflict. doability conviction the ability to contain conflicts it’s possible for me to find an appropriate solution to a conflict situation. i feel capable when i see groups in conflict. a sense of being able to anticipate conflicts i think that one can predict a conflict before it breaks out. astatement removed after validation. measuring the peace-oriented mindset 234 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results: statistical analysis of the pom questionnaire the purpose of the following analyses is to describe the psychometric properties of the questionnaire and to analyze the differences between segments of the population. the sample the sample was representative of the polish society (n = 1074): • 560 women (52.1%) and 514 men (47.9%). • 193 subjects (17.9%) in a leadership role, and 882 not (82.1%). • 183 subjects (17.0%) involved in a social project, and 891 not (83.0%). • 218 subjects (20.3%) who perceive themselves as innovators, and 856 who do not (79.7%). for age and education, see tables 2 and 3. table 2 age distribution of study sample age (years) n % 18–24 138 13 25–34 217 20 35–44 174 16 45–54 202 19 over 55 343 32 total 1074 100 table 3 education level of study sample education level n % primary or some high school 129 12 high school or equivalent 472 44 bachelor’s degree or higher 473 44 total 1074 100 psychometric properties of the pom questionnaire the first step was to analyze the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. reliability, measured by the internal consistency method, turned out to be low (cronbach's α = 0.681). analysis of the correlation indicated that four items did not fit the data set. the initial 18-item questionnaire table 4 presents the results for the initial version. praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 235 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 item analysis of the 18-item questionnaire (n = 1074) item scale mean if items deleted scale variance if items deleted item-total correlation cronbach's alpha if item deleted 1. debating with others helps me see the world from a different perspective. 56.97 31.087 0.543 0.638 2. i think that one can predict a conflict before it breaks out. 57.57 34.249 0.132 0.686 3. opposing groups should find some neutral fields of cooperation. 56.80 30.951 0.590 0.634 4. listening to others’ viewpoints without losing sight of one’s own convictions is important for creating peace. 56.82 31.276 0.534 0.640 5. i think that the power of peacemaking lies within teamwork. 56.85 31.350 0.524 0.641 6. i feel capable when i see groups in conflict. 57.83 34.980 0.079 0.691 7. i can think of innovative ways to build trust between individual parties of a conflict. 57.38 32.047 0.421 0.652 8. i try to keep peaceful any situation in which conflict could arise. 56.99 31.466 0.516 0.642 9. indications that a conflict is looming make me think of how to prevent its outbreak. 57.17 31.165 0.531 0.639 10. group initiative is the most important in peacemaking. 57.94 37.057 –0.105 0.710 11. i can design an appropriate reconciliation process for a conflict situation. 57.54 32.349 0.373 0.657 12. i can maintain my own convictions, even when they differ to the majority. 56.88 32.034 0.440 0.650 13. one shouldn’t judge people just by listening to them. 58.14 39.427 –0.324 0.729 14. it’s possible for me to come up with an appropriate solution for a conflict situation. 57.67 33.544 0.244 0.671 15. it is best to join a peacemaking organization instead of acting singlehandedly. 56.95 32.101 0.420 0.652 16. ideas for conflict resolution should be related to understanding the arguments of the parties involved. 57.92 36.509 –0.058 0.706 17. i often think about how to foster trust between conflicted groups. 57.40 31.711 0.430 0.650 18. i’d rather not adopt another’s point of view after listening to them. 57.98 37.081 –0.108 0.711 as a result, items 10, 13, 16, and 18, with the lowest correlations, were removed. the final 14-item questionnaire after removing the above four items, the reliability (as measured by the internal consistency method) increased significantly (cronbach's α = 0.81). this allows the questionnaire to be used not only in scientific research, but also for individual diagnosis. table 5 demonstrates the results for the final version. measuring the peace-oriented mindset 236 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 item analysis of the 18-item questionnaire (n = 1074) item scale mean if items deleted scale variance if items deleted item-total correlation cronbach's alpha if item deleted 1. debating with others helps me see the world from a different perspective. 45.94 33.937 0.572 0.787 2. i think that one can predict a conflict before it breaks out. 46.54 38.000 0.092 0.827 3. opposing groups should find some neutral fields of cooperation. 45.77 33.791 0.620 0.784 4. listening to others’ viewpoints without losing sight of one’s own convictions is important for creating peace. 45.79 34.052 0.573 0.788 5. i think that the power of peacemaking lies within teamwork. 45.82 34.210 0.553 0.789 6. i feel capable when i see groups in conflict. 46.80 38.355 0.073 0.827 7. i can think of innovative ways to build trust between individual parties of a conflict. 46.35 34.634 0.483 0.794 8. i try to keep peaceful any situation in which conflict could arise. 45.96 34.213 0.559 0.789 9. indications that a conflict is looming make me think of how to prevent its outbreak. 46.15 33.791 0.585 0.786 10. i can design an appropriate reconciliation process for a conflict situation. 46.51 34.943 0.433 0.798 11. i can maintain my own convictions, even when they differ to the majority. 45.85 34.394 0.529 0.791 12. it’s possible for me to come up with an appropriate solution for a conflict situation. 46.64 36.856 0.236 0.813 13. it is best to join a peacemaking organization instead of acting singlehandedly. 45.93 35.083 0.439 0.797 14. i often think about how to foster trust between conflicted groups. 46.37 34.310 0.486 0.794 factor analysis in order to verify the validity of the questionnaire, a factor analysis using the principal components method with a varimax rotation was conducted. a factor analysis method was justified since the kaiser–mayer–olkin test on the standardized data showed a kmo of 0.88. additionally, the bartlett’s test of sphericity was found to be statistically significant (χ2(91) = 4661.9, p < 0.001). most of the results turned out to be in line with our expectations. we obtained a three-factor solution explaining 56.83% of the variance. the factors are highly correlated, which is not surprising as they make up the global pom index (see table 6). praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 237 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 6 factor analysis with 14 items and n = 1074 factor item 1 2 3 cognitive opposing groups should find some neutral fields of cooperation. 0.786 listening to others’ viewpoints without losing sight of one’s own convictions is important for creating peace. 0.768 i think that the power of peacemaking lies within teamwork. 0.743 debating with others helps me see the world from a different perspective. 0.660 it is best to join a peacemaking organization instead of acting singlehandedly. 0.637 i can maintain my own convictions, even when they differ to the majority. 0.624 performative i try to keep peaceful any situation in which conflict could arise. 0.584 0.357 i can design an appropriate reconciliation process for a conflict situation. 0.778 i often think about how to foster trust between conflicted groups. 0.753 i can think of innovative ways to build trust between individual parties of a conflict. 0.674 indications that a conflict is looming make me think of how to prevent its outbreak. 0.450 0.609 doability conviction it’s possible for me to find an appropriate solution to a conflict situation. 0.793 i feel capable when i see groups in conflict. 0.784 i think that one can predict a conflict before it breaks out. 0.642 as the sample (n = 1074) was representative, this would indicate a final three-component model: cognitive, performa­ tive, and doability conviction. norming for norming purposes, the collected data qualified for the construction of a pom index, as well as for separate scales. social norms due to the good psychometric properties of the questionnaire, social norms were defined as outlined in table 7 (converting raw results into stens; the results from stens 1 to 3 should be interpreted as low, from 4 to 6 as average, and from 7 to 10 as high). table 7 social norms sten cognitive performative doability conviction total peace-oriented mindset 1 1.00–2.67 1.00–2.39 1.00–1.66 1.00–2.85 2 2.68–2.99 2.40–2.79 1.67–2.32 2.86–2.99 3 3.00–3.16 2.80–2.99 2.33–2.66 3.00–3.06 4 3.17–3.66 3.00–3.19 2.67–2.99 3.07–3.35 5 3.67–3.99 3.20–3.59 3.00–3.32 3.36–3.56 6 4.00–4.16 3.60–3.79 3.33–3.66 3.57–3.78 7 4.17–4.49 3.80–4.19 3.67–3.99 3.79–4.06 8 4.50–4.82 4.20–4.39 4.00–4.32 4.07–4.28 9 4.83–4.99 4.40–4.79 4.33–4.66 4.29–4.65 10 5.00 4.80–5.00 4.67–5.00 4.66–5.00 measuring the peace-oriented mindset 238 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social norms have been established for the entire polish population, without division into normalization groups (klein, 2015). creating a societal index convergence to the normal distribution was analyzed using the kolmogorov–smirnov test. both skewness and kurtosis were documented to be close to zero, which allowed the use of parametric analyses (see table 8). table 8 basic psychometric parameters of the pom scale m sd skewness kurtosis reliability cognitive 3.87 0.59 –0.314 0.17 0.83 performative 3.45 0.61 –0.045 0.47 0.78 doability conviction 3.06 0.69 0.024 0.57 0.61 total peace-oriented mindset 3.55 0.45 0.317 0.22 0.81 as the sample (n = 1074) was representative of the polish society, the assembled data were eligible for constructing a societal index: the average pom level (societal index), measured as a total for all three sub-scales, was pomi = 3.55 (sd = 0.45). cross-segment comparative analysis gender comparative analysis to determine if women and men differ in their level of pom and its three sub-scales, an independent samples student's t-test was performed. the analysis showed a significant difference in the cognitive, performative, and total levels, respectively: t(1042,72) = 4.48, p < 0.001; t(1072) = 3.13, p = 0.002; t(1072) = 3.8, p < 0.001. in other words, women achieved higher pom scores than men (see table 9). there were no significant differences on the doability conviction scale. table 9 gender comparative analysis scale gender n m sd t p cognitive female 560 3.952 0.562 4.48 < 0.001 male 514 3.791 0.611 performative female 560 3.513 0.603 3.13 0.002 male 514 3.397 0.611 doability conviction female 560 3.049 0.706 0.67 0.502 male 514 3.077 0.676 total peace-oriented mindset female 560 3.602 0.447 3.8 < 0.001 male 514 3.497 0.452 leadership comparative analysis to determine if people who are leaders differ from those who are not in terms of their level of pom and its three sub-scales, an independent samples student's t-test was performed. the analysis showed a significant difference in all scales, respectively: t(1072) = 3.52, p < 0.001; t(1072) = 5.98, p < 0.001; t(249.31) = 3.64, p < 0.001; t(258.73) = 5.74, p < 0.001. praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 239 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in other words, people who perceive themselves as leaders achieved higher scores than those who do not (see table 10). table 10 leadership comparative analysis scale self-perception as leadera n m sd t p cognitive yes 192 4.010 0.608 3.52 < 0.001 no 882 3.846 0.584 performative yes 192 3.692 0.613 5.98 < 0.001 no 882 3.406 0.596 doability conviction yes 192 3.248 0.805 3.64 < 0.001 no 882 3.022 0.657 total peace-oriented mindset yes 192 3.733 0.494 5.74 < 0.001 no 882 3.512 0.432 athe question prompt was, "are you currently a leader, that is, a person who, for example, leads or leads in some field or in any project, even in something small?" comparative analysis of involvement in social activities to determine if people who are involved in social activities differ from those who are not in terms of their level of pom and its three sub-scales, an independent samples student's t-test was performed. the analysis showed a significant difference in all scales, respectively: t(1072) = 4.34, p < 0.001; t(249.53) = 6.42, p < 0.001; t(228.34) = 2.28, p = 0.024; t(238.28) = 5.78, p < 0.001. in other words, those people involved in social activities achieved higher pom scores than those not involved (see table 11) table 11 involvement in social activities scale current involvementa n m sd t p cognitive yes 183 4.046 0.597 4.34 < 0.001 no 891 3.840 0.584 performative yes 183 3.716 0.639 6.42 < 0.001 no 891 3.404 0.589 doability conviction yes 183 3.188 0.847 2.28 0.024 no 891 3.037 0.652 total peace-oriented mindset yes 183 3.744 0.508 5.78 < 0.001 no 183 4.046 0.597 athe question prompt was, "are you currently involved in any social activities?" comparative analysis of considering oneself an innovator to determine if people who consider themselves innovators differ from those who do not in terms of their level of pom and its three sub-scales, an independent samples student's t-test was performed. the analysis showed a significant difference in the cognitive, performative, and total levels, respectively: t(314.1) = 4.41, p < 0.001; t(1072) = 7.87, p < 0.001; t(305.45) = 6.53, p < 0.001. in other words, those people who consider themselves an innovator achieved higher scores than those who do not (see table 12). measuring the peace-oriented mindset 240 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 12 considering oneself an innovator scale self-perception as innovatora n m sd t p cognitive yes 218 4.041 0.632 4.41 < 0.001 no 856 3.833 0.573 performative yes 218 3.739 0.617 7.87 < 0.001 no 856 3.386 0.586 doability conviction yes 218 3.147 0.828 1.76 0.08 no 856 3.041 0.651 total peace-oriented mindset yes 218 3.742 0.493 6.53 < 0.001 no 856 3.503 0.428 athe question prompt was, "do you consider yourself an innovator, i.e., someone who, for example, introduces something new or better to some field?" discussion and conclusions peace-orientation seems to be a desired value, both in one’s personal life and in the public sphere. it seems especially important when facing intractable or protracted conflicts. the premise for the peace-oriented mindset concept was presented as embedded in peace psychology and, more specifically, in understanding the significance of the context and milieu. in this vein, the presented study identified three dimensions of peacebuilding and conflict-preventing: cognitive (understanding complexity, understanding others, etc.), performative (e.g., taking actions to build bridges or to prevent the outbreak of potential conflicts), and doability conviction (i.e., the belief that even if highly challenging, peace can be maintained or restored). it was documented that the pom questionnaire (14 items) has good psychometric properties and can be used in further studies. moreover, the research confirmed that the proposed pom questionnaire’s items can be broken down into the discussed three variables. the final questionnaire, with its good reliability, seems a fit for measuring one’s level of pom. interestingly, the cross-segment analysis revealed that women have a higher pom level than men; similarly, people who consider themselves leaders or innovators, as well as those involved in social activities, achieved higher pom scores than those who do not. these findings could be an opening for further research. they may be helpful, for example, when identifying the best peacebuilders among conflicted communities. moreover, the entire pom concept and questionnaire could be helpful for verifying candidates for training in peacebuilding. lastly, the pom questionnaire could be an indicator of the effectiveness of various peace-orientation programs. as for future studies, it may be advantageous to see if the pom correlates with other personality traits. for example, a conjecture worth verifying is that peace-oriented individuals also have higher levels of empathy (e.g., wakabayashi et al., 2006) and compassion (pommier et al., 2020). funding: this research did not receive any specific grant from funding any agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. acknowledgments: this article is assigned to the institute for social studies, university of warsaw. competing interests: there are no conflicts of interest. ethics approval: approved on 5 november 2021 by the research ethics committee of the institute for social studies, university of warsaw. data availability: data available on request from the authors. praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 241 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references baglione, l. a. 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(2010), rethinking intractable conflict: the perspective of dynamical systems. american psychologist, 65(4), 262–278. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019290 wakabayashi, a., baron-cohen, s., wheelwright, s., goldenfeld, n., delaney, j., fine, d., smith, r., & weil, l. (2006). development of short forms of the empathy quotient (eq-short) and the systemizing quotient (sq-short). personality and individual differences, 41(5), 929–940. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.017 zabłocka, a., praszkier, r., petrushak, e., & kacprzyk-murawska, m. (2016). measuring the propensity for building social capital depending on ties-strength. journal of positive management, 7(4), 19–39. https://doi.org/10.12775/jpm.2016.020 about the authors ryszard praszkier, ph.d., hab., assistant professor at the institute of social studies, university of warsaw, emeritus. focused on the dynamics of social change, author and co-author of academic publications in that field. consultant for ‘ashoka: everyone a changemaker’ international association of social entrepreneurs. agata zabłocka, ph.d., psychologist. vice-dean for didactics at the swps university of social sciences and humanities in warsaw. her scientific interests concern social entrepreneurship and the role of social innovators in generating social capital and in initiating positive social change in polish education. paige munnik is a postgraduate student in the school of psychology at the university of buckingham, uk, and has co-authored several articles in the field of social change and peacemaking. praszkier, zabłocka, & munnik 243 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(3), 232–243 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.10445 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_264-2 https://doi.org/10.1080/10781911003691633 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-021-00284-2 https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.274 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40208-2_13 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019290 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.03.017 https://doi.org/10.12775/jpm.2016.020 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring the peace-oriented mindset (introduction) peacebuilding and conflict prevention previous peace-orientation concepts method: developing the peace-oriented mindset (pom) concept results: statistical analysis of the pom questionnaire the sample psychometric properties of the pom questionnaire factor analysis norming cross-segment comparative analysis discussion and conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics approval data availability references about the authors the psychological effects of imprisonment: the role of cognitive, psychopathic and affective traits research reports the psychological effects of imprisonment: the role of cognitive, psychopathic and affective traits tiziana lanciano 1, lidia de leonardis 1, antonietta curci 1 [1] department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari ‘aldo moro’, bari, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 received: 2020-07-07 • accepted: 2021-04-12 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: natalia wentink martin, california university of pennsylvania, california, pa, usa corresponding author: tiziana lanciano, department of education, psychology, communication, university of bari ‘aldo moro’, via crisanzio, 42, 70121 bari, italy. phone: +39 080 5714701, e-mail: tiziana.lanciano@uniba.it abstract the present cross-sectional correlational study aimed to investigate a set of cognitive, affective, and personality traits impacting the psychological effects of imprisonment. ninety-three male inmates filled out a battery including measures of intelligence, working memory, psychopathy, aggressiveness, anxious trait, emotionality, rumination styles, and empathy proneness. inmates' psychological outcomes were conceptualized in terms of mood, anxiety, depression, and general health. results showed that inmates with high cognitive abilities, psychopathic impulsivity, proactive aggression, personal distress and fantasy, anxious and negative emotionality are mainly prone to ill-being psychological outcomes. contrariwise, the fearless dominance trait, positive emotionality and empathic concern ability seem to expose inmates to positive psychological outcomes. reactive aggression and perspective taking seem to impact both positive and negative moods. ruminative style was unrelated to psychological outcomes. these preliminary results provide an insight into which factors intervention programs should be based upon in order to enhance well-being and reduce distress among inmates. keywords psychological effects, imprisonment, inmates, affect, mood, anxiety, depression the present cross-sectional correlational study aimed to investigate a set of cognitive, affective, and personality traits impacting the psychological effects of imprisonment, including positive and negative moods, anxiety, depression, and general health. the study had no intention of focusing on the causes, but instead focused only on portraying the extent to which some traits may account for differential responses to imprisonment in terms of inmates’ well-being and distress. the theoretical frame supporting the current study is the product of reflection on the effectiveness and the usefulness of a prison sentence. the punishment and its implementation in prison must be as close as possible to the personality and characteristics of the offender. this would allow for the detection of risk and protection factors, as well as specific, individualized and personalized resources for each inmate (carillo, 2007). along with the retributive, intimidating, and defense/prevention function, punishment has a resocializing function geared toward the social recovery of the offender. rehabilitation treatment must be individualized: it is therefore important to know some of the inmates’ characteristics (e.g. cognitive, emotional, personality skills and/or deficits) and to implement programs that include activities tailored to suit these features. the current study is the product of an awareness that to maximize the possible positive effects of imprisonment and the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs, it is important to obtain a personalized assessment of inmates' dispositional characteristics, in terms of their skills or shortcomings. the current study placed more emphasis on the cognitive, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3995&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ emotional and personality factors affecting the psychological outcomes of detention than on the various effects of de­ tention, i.e. positive/well-being vs. negative/ill-being. for example, is empowering empathic skills or cognitive abilities always a useful strategy for the improvement of well-being? alternatively, might it be necessary to manage ruminative tendencies in order to reduce distress? research questions such as these guided the present study. without making sophisticated experimental claims, the present study attempts to make a contribution in this direction. the psychological effects of imprisonment there has been a noticeable upsurge in interest regarding the psychological and physical effects of imprisonment on inmates (morgan et al., 2019; picken, 2012). the medical and psychosocial relevance of these issues is constantly increasing in line with the worldwide growth in the number of incarcerated people. investigating the psychological effects of the imprisonment is fundamental in order to reduce inmates’ pain and suffering and to prevent long-lasting consequences beyond the prison sentence itself (van ginneken et al., 2019; ward & stewart, 2003). living in prison is a traumatic and illness-risk experience: some of the main factors related to inmates’ health during their imprisonment are traceable to overcrowding (haney, 2012), family deprivation (hagan & dinovitzer, 1999), fear of the unknown, the emotional climate of distrust (picken, 2012), and the isolation. research into the psychological effects of solitary confinement has yielded consistent results concerning its devastating effects on mental and physical health, generally suffered by inmates in isolation. psychological distress reaches high peaks and results in a wide range of daily adverse psychological outcomes (arrigo & bullock, 2008; haney, 2018). empirical evidence converges in considering the experi­ ence of imprisonment as being commonly characterized by high levels of stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, loneliness, and depression (castellano & soderstrom, 1997; palmer & connelly, 2005; reitzel & harju, 2000). generally speaking, incarcerated people may experience a real existential crisis, by feeling anxiety and distress concerning their past and future life goals (crewe et al., 2017). over the years, various approaches have been taken towards the issue of imprisonment and its effects on inmates' lives. even if the mostly widespread conceptualizations have emphasized a common psychological deterioration follow­ ing imprisonment, empirical evidence has suggested that the long-term effects of imprisonment are not the same for everyone. there are instead a number of individual differences that make some inmates resilient but which put others at greater risk of suffering distress (picken, 2012; tomar, 2013). a recent study regarding how inmates serving long sentences adapt to circumstances revealed that ‘most prisoners demonstrate a shift from a form of agency that is reactive to one that is productive, as they learn to “swim with”, rather than against, the tide of their situation‘ (crewe et al., 2017, p. 517). early main theories on the psychological effects of imprisonment include 'deprivation models' and 'importation models'. the former indicate that maladaptation and distress are ascribable to the ‘pains of imprisonment’ (sykes, 1958), mainly due to the condition of deprivation of liberty, autonomy and security. the later models, however, suggest that mental illness is imported from an inmate's history into the prison environment (carroll, 1974; edwards & potter, 2004). the limit of 'deprivation models' is that they do not sufficiently take into account individual differences in responses to imprisonment, e.g., inmates' resilience, adjustment, and copying styles (bonta & gendreau, 1990; dye, 2010). not all prisoners experience psychological deterioration, and not all with the same intensity and modality (fazel & danesh, 2002). on the contrary, 'importation models' suffer from not having properly considered the devastating psychological effects of prisons. a third approach includes 'combined models' which integrate the psychological risk to which prisons expose inmates, and the effects of the characteristics of the inmates themselves (liebling et al., 2005; slotboom et al., 2011). these combined models acknowledge that the prison enviroment is highly distressing and that some prison conditions increase the likelihood of risk illness. however, these models also recognize individual differences underlying the subjective experience of imprisonment and specific vulnerabilities (dye, 2010; liebling et al., 2005; yang et al., 2009), such as socio-demographic variables, cognitive resources, psychiatric history, personality, socio-emotional competences, etc. both individual pronenesses and contextual dimensions may impact on the well-being of incarcerated individuals, as well as features of the prison environment and prison climate, and individual leanings and predispositions. in this vein, it would therefore be plausible to investigate the psychological effects of imprisonment from a psycho­ logically positive perspective, in terms of 'well-being'. according to wooldredge (1999), psychological well-being is lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 263 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ defined as ‘reflecting inmate perceptions of insecurity, stress, depression, anger, low self-esteem and loneliness felt during incarceration’ (p. 238). well-being has been commonly conceptualized by two broad views: subjective well-being and psychological well-being. the first refers to the hedonic facet of well-being, in terms of happiness seeking, pleasantness, life satisfaction, and a global balancing between positive and negative affectivity (diener, 1984). the second, however, addresses the eudaimonic facet of well-being, in terms of the fulfilment of human potential, pursuing meaningful life goals and significant interpersonal relationships (ryff, 1989; ryff & keyes, 1995). it is well-established that subjective well-being and psychological distress are two distinct facets of the more wide-ranging concept of mental health (veit & ware, 1983). low well-being has been commonly conceptualized in terms such as depression, low self-esteem, stress, and physical symptoms. anxiety and depressive symptoms are among the most suitable indicators of a lack of well-being. the broad-concept of well-being in prison has been traditionally studied in terms of inmates’ ability to adjust and cope with imprisonment (brown & ireland, 2006; wooldredge, 1999), whereas the present study set out to review other factors rarely investigated in the prison context. we deliberately decided to not assess inmates’ life satisfaction, preferring to focus on the particular context in which their freedom, lifestyle choices and socialization are restricted and minimized. several studies have addressed the topic of mental health in prison with the aim of detecting individual and/or contextual factors inhancing prisoners’ well-being (fazel et al., 2016; haney, 2003; van ginneken et al., 2019). on the basis of their review, fazel et al. (2016) suggested several clinical and research recommendations to improve prison wellbeing including screening, monitoring and intervention programs dealing with mental disorders, suicidal risk, substance abuse, trauma-focused, gender-specific issue, and significant daytime activity (education/courses/training). haney (2003) outlined all the psychological challenges that most inmates are forced to face in order to avoid succumbing to the traumatic prison experience, such as emotional distress (over-control, mistrust, suspicion, alienation, ptsd symptoms), interpersonal difficulties (social withdrawal, isolation, a low level of self-esteem), prison cultural co-opting and new rules of conduct. despite this unfortunate portrayal of the incarceration experience, haney (2003) emphasized how the post-prison adjustment process is subject to extreme interindividual variability to the point that not all prisoners (albeit a modest percentage of inmates) are irremediably psychologically damaged by it. in this vein, this study also agrees with the idea that the psychological costs of detention are highly variable and subjective. it would therefore be desirable to focus on individual characteristics to maximize the positive effects of imprisonment and minimize the negative ones. strictly related, van ginneken et al. (2019) sought to investigate the link between the prison climate—in terms of both prison unit-level and individual-level perceptions—and well-being, differentiated into subjective well-being and psychological distress. the authors found that most variance for well-being of incarcerated people is explained by individual—rather than group-level perception; in particular, one’s individual perception of safety, autonomy, and good peer relations were all found to be associated with higher well-being. these results are in line with the idea of the current study to focus on individual characteristics of inmates which could contribute to improving their well-being or exacerbating their illness. another line of research took into account inmates’ well-being by testing the efficacy of expressive arts treatment and its benefits both at the individual-level of the inmate and at the context-level of prison (e.g., curci et al., 2021; de leonardis, 2019; erickson & young, 2010; gussak, 2004, 2006, 2009). to illustrate, me.n.s. s.a.n.a. is a project partially involving the authors of this study which has been carried out by the department of education, psychology, communication of the university of bari 'aldo moro' together with three southern italian penal institutes (de leonardis, 2019). based on the idea of a personalized specialized treatment for inmates in a intramural environment, the project requires: 1. a neuro-psychological assessment on entering the institute (time 0). 2. the development of an intervention program based upon assessment screening (writing workshops; support interviews; psychotherapy; self-help groups; targeted work; sports, recreational, and/or cultural activities). 3. periodic monitoring of intervention programs. 4. effectiveness evaluation of intervention programs (re-test, follow-up). additionally, in another study involving the current sample, the authors (curci et al., 2021) adopted an intervention program based on the writing paradigm (pennebaker, 1997; richards et al., 2000) to evaluate features and benefits of the psychological effects of imprisonment 264 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ disclosure regarding personal experiences in prison in four daily sessions. the same measures of the current study (psychological health, anxiety, depression, and negative affectivity) were collected at the preand postsession; rumina­ tive depression indices were assessed after each of the four sessions. findings supported the benefit of the adoption of writing procedures in supporting inmates’ well-being and adjustment to imprisonment (curci et al., 2021). furthermore, empirical evidence provided by gussak (2004, 2006, 2009) supported the effects of art therapy in improving the mood of prison inmates, whilst erickson and young (2010) found that the group art therapy with incarcerated women is effective for mental health and substance abuse treatment. assessing and monitoring inmates’ levels of well-being and any possible protective and risk factors is fundamental for the development of individualized and personalized treatment plans, to prevent future misconduct and promote social rehabilitation. cognitive abilities the current study considered the role of individual cognitive variables which might potentially impact the psychological effects of imprisonment. among these, working memory (wm) represents a limited capacity system predisposed to select, organize, and integrate current goal-directed intentions and relevant information (baddeley, 2003). due to the crucial role of wm in adaptive daily functioning, many studies have documented that individual differences in wm capacity reflect different levels of vulnerability to stress (klein & boals, 2001), state anxiety, depressive symptoms, ruminative coping (stout & rokke, 2010), and cognitive and affective facets of subjective well-being (pe et al., 2013). in studies on individual variability related to well-being, intelligence has been theoretically and empirically hypothesized as playing a role, albeit modest (di fabio & palazzeschi, 2015; sigelman, 1981; sternberg & grigorenko, 2004; wirthwein & rost, 2011). recent findings reported that people with low qi experienced lowest happiness (ali et al., 2013). psychopathic personality traits considering the well-established psychopathy-crime link, we introduced this factor into our investigation of psycholog­ ical effects among inmates (vaughn & howard, 2005). the term psychopathy refers to a set of traits characterized by impulsiveness, narcissism, impaired emotional competence, heartlessness, manipulativeness, interpersonal appeal, and irresponsibility (hare & neumann, 2008). psychopathy is closely linked to a wide set of antisocial or criminal acts, proactive and/or reactive violence, and recidivism (hare et al., 2000). the dimensional conceptualisation of psychopathy explains why some psychopathic traits may also be traced in normal people and associated with adaptive and successful achievements (‘successful psychopathy’; widom, 1977). this dual soul of psychopathy—maladaptive and adaptive—may account for the changeable pattern of associations with various outcomes, as in the specific case of well-being-related ones. for example, on the one hand, some empirical evidence suggests that people with high levels of psychopathic traits may experience high distress and poor well-being, mainly due to their impulsiveness and poor emotional intelligence and competence (lanciano et al., 2018). love and holder (2014) found that psychopathy was positively related to depression and negative affect, and negatively related to life satisfaction, happiness and positive affect. on the other hand, other findings encourage the idea that some psychopathic traits may be associated with high subjective well-being. people experiencing psychopathy oriented to maximizing their personal interests, underestimating the risk and future consequences of their own decisions on others (foulkes et al., 2014). they are completely absorbed by their own needs and convenience and this may make them happy and satisfied. willemsen et al. (2011) found a negative association between depression levels and the interpersonal, affective and lifestyle facets of psychopathy in a sample of inmates. furthermore, subjective well-being is profiled by high levels of sub-clinical narcissism and low levels of neuroticism (respectively, sedikides et al., 2004; deneve & cooper, 1998), two facets strongly characterizing psychopathy (miller & lynam, 2003; paulhus & williams, 2002). recently, durand (2018) found that whilst the impulsive anti-social trait of psychopathy was negatively correlated with higher happiness-related features, psychopathic fearless dominance was associated positively. aggressiveness inmates have been shown to engage in a broad range of aggressive misconducts: proactive aggression represents a type of premeditated aggression, characterized by predatory conduct with instrumental purposes. this modality of aggression requires a careful and meticulous plan of action. contrariwise, reactive aggression represents a kind of lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 265 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ impulsive aggression, qualified by instinctive responses to provocations or frustrations (anderson & kiehl, 2014; raine et al., 2006). pronounced aggressive tendencies go with poor well-being, negative emotionality (laible et al., 2014), and existential distress (van tilburg et al., 2019). whereas anxiety and depression can be considered along with some internalizing behavior problems, aggression represents the externalizing facet, both indicators of a lack of well-being. externalizing problems and subjective well-being were found to be inversely related in early, mid-, and late adolescence (suldo & huebner, 2004). in a study on the influences of depressed mood, anxiety and aggression on diurnal cortisol rhythm in post-pubertal adolescents, van den bergh et al. (2008) found that depressed mood and anxiety were correlated with aggressive behaviour. ruminative style additionally, we aimed to assess the inmates’ tendency to experience dysphoric rumination: a stable and dispositional maladaptive strategy for coping with negative mood which involves one's emotionand symptom-focused attention (lyubomirsky & nolen-hoeksema, 1993). according to the response styles theory (nolen-hoeksema, 1991) rumination is considered as ‘repetitive and passive thinking about one’s symptoms of depression and the possible causes and consequen­ ces of these symptoms’ (nolen-hoeksema, 2004, p. 107). flourishing literature on this subject has shown that rumination is associated to greater depressive symptomatology (nolen-hoeksema et al., 2008), distress indicators (morrison & o’connor, 2008a), and suicidal risk (morrison & o’connor, 2008b). empathy proneness empathy denotes the reactions people implement when observing someone else’s emotional experience (davis, 1983). traditionally, literature distinguishes between an emotional/affective empathy and cognitive empathy (queirós et al., 2018). the first refers to the individual’s emotional proneness to be sensitive to and vicariously live another's emotional state, while the second refers to the individual’s cognitive ability to correctly understand and identify another's emotional state. previous studies reported that anxiety and depression correlated positively with the empathic affective facet of personal distress, and negatively with the empathic cognitive facet of perspective taking (grynberg et al., 2010). other studies showed that high levels of affective empathy appeared to be associated with increased levels of depressive symptoms, while cognitive empathy was found to be separate from depressive symptoms (gambin & sharp, 2018). aim and hypotheses the current study investigated the role of cognitive, personality, and affective traits in impacting the psychological effects of imprisonment. the study explored individual differences in the effects of imprisonment in order to adjust the imprisonment experience as much as possible to the individual characteristics of the inmate in terms of his/her cognitive, affectivity and personality resources and deficits. a careful and accurate assessment and monitoring of inmates' levels of well-being may prove useful to prevent risk-taking behaviors and to encourage social reintegration where possible. the relevance of the current study, as opposed to those studies mentioned above, lies in considering a range of variables rarely investigated simultaneously within the field of prison research (e.g., cognitive abilities, working memory, ruminative style, and empathy), and provides suggestions to implement specific training based on significant predictors. additionally, inmates’ psychological outcomes were conceptualized in terms of positive and negative mood, state anxiety, depression, and general health. based on the above-cited literature, we hypothesized that high traits of psychopathic impulsiveness, aggressiveness, anxiety, negative emotionality, depressive and brooding rumination would expose inmates to high ill-being psychological outcomes. furthermore, high levels of cognitive abilities, fearless dominance and coldheartedness psychopathic traits, positive emotionality and empathic skills were expected to be associated to high well-being psychological outcomes. the psychological effects of imprisonment 266 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method sample one hundred thirty-three inmates were recruited from three southern italian prisons (lecce, bari, and trani). the local prison authority and the ethical committee of the department of education, psychology, communication of the university of bari ‘aldo moro’ approved the study according to the declaration of helsinki, and all participants provided written informed consent. the three italian prisons were selected on the basis of their willingness to take part in the study. twenty participants were excluded from the current study since they were female, three withdrew, and seventeen had been transferred to another prison, resulting in a final sample of ninety-three adult male inmates (mage = 37, sd = 11.14, age range = 18–70). participants did not report a psychiatric or psychopathological history on the basis of their medical records. all participants were serving sentences for one or more crimes combined (32.3% for sex offences; 20.4% for crimes against property; 18.3% for mafia crimes; 15.1% for drug crimes; 14% for crimes against the person).1 participants did not receive direct compensation or a reward for their participation, except the indirect benefit of spending time with operators in order to be interviewed and to answer the questionnaires. measures and procedure the second author, a prison executive officer and a psychology phd student with great expertise in forensic psychology, conducted or supervised all individual sessions with the help of psychologists, educators and experts from the treatment team. participants were contacted by prison staff and invited to participate in a study concerning the emotional and cognitive processing underlying inmates’ imprisonment. in order to ensure a climate of collaboration rather than suspicion, the prisoners/participants were reassured as to the purposes of the study and the guarantee of their anonymity. research staff provided help and support with completing the questionnaires to anyone who had difficulties with understanding but this assistence did not affect or alter the inmates’ responses in any way. data were collected anonymously in individual sessions typically lasting around 3 hours each in rooms in prison dedicated to teaching and laboratory activities. all inmates provided written informed consent. the order of administration of the instruments making up the battery was randomised across participants. once participants had finished they were fully debriefed and thanked individually. the only difficulty arose with some inmates who had a strong need to converse and chat. this was managed by inviting those in question to first complete the questionnaires and then to spend some time freely conversing. data collection started in october 2017 and ended in december 2017. cognitive abilities intelligence — intelligence was assessed using the italian version of raven’s standard progressive matrices (raven, 1938). working memory — working memory capacity was assessed with the digit span forward test (orsini et al., 1987). personality traits psychopathy — participants answered the italian version of the psychopathic personality inventory-revised (la marca, berto, & rovetto, 2008; lilienfeld & widows, 2005). for the aim of the current study, we considered three factors: self-centered impulsivity, fearless dominance, and coldheartedness. affective traits aggressiveness — the reactive-proactive aggression questionnaire (raine et al., 2006) was administered. the two dimensions of reactive and proactive aggression were considered with higher scores indicating higher levels of aggression. 1) the current sample of participants were also involved in another study about characteristics and benefits of disclosing personal experiences in prison through pennebaker’s writing paradigm (curci et al., 2021). lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 267 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ trait anxiety — the participants’ trait anxiety was assessed with the trait subscale of the state-trait anxiety inventory-y state (spielberger, 1983). this is a self-reported inventory with the highest score indicating the greatest anxiety trait. emotionality — the participants’ emotionality was assessed with the trait subscale of the positive and negative affect schedule (watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988). items were summed into a positive and negative trait affect score. ruminative style — participants’ ruminative style was assessed with the ruminative response scale (treynor et al., 2003). this measures how often people engage in ruminative responses subsequent sad or depressive moods. items were averaged into three indices of brooding, depression, and reflection. empathy proneness — empathy skills were assessed using the interpersonal reactivity index (davis, 1980; 1983) assessing: a) perspective taking (tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological point of view of others), b) fantasy (tendency to transpose one’s self imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, and plays), c) empathic concern (‘other-oriented’ feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others), d) personal distress (‘self-oriented’ feelings of personal anxiety and unease in intense interpersonal settings). psychological outcomes mood — the participants’ mood was assessed with the state subscale of the positive and negative affect schedule (watson et al., 1988). items were summed into a positive and negative affect state score. state anxiety — the participants’ state anxiety was assessed using the state subscale of the state-trait anxiety inventory-y state (spielberger, 1983). this is a self-reported inventory with the highest score indicating the greatest anxiety state. depression — beck depression inventory-ii (beck, steer, & brown, 1996) assesses the severity of depressive symptoms, with the highest score corresponding to the most severe depressive symptomatology. general health — current general health was assessed through the short general health questionnaire (goldberg, 1972; 1978). a low score is equivalent to a good general health during recent weeks. results relationships among variables table 1 shows descriptive analyses for all measures considered in the study: participants exhibited medium-high levels of cognitive abilities, psychopathic traits of impulsiveness, ruminative styles, empathy proneness, state anxiety and general ill-being; higher scores of reactive than proactive aggression (mrpaq-rea = 9.10, mrpaq-pro = 5.87) and higher levels of positive than negative emotionality (mpanas-t po = 25.80, mpanas-t ne = 18.14). pearson’s correlations showed the extent to which cognitive, personality, and affective traits were associated to psychological outcomes (table 2). more specifically, positive mood appeared to be positively associated with reactive aggression, positive emotionality, perspective taking, and empathic concern. instead, negative mood seemed to be positively associated with cognitive abilities, both types of aggression, anxiety and negative emotionality, perspective taking, and personal distress. the anxiety state appeared to be positively associated with working memory capacity, anxious trait, and emphatic fantasy. the depression scores were negatively associated with positive emotionality, and positively correlated to cognitive abilities, self-centered impulsivity, both types of aggression, anxiety and negative affective traits. finally, general health was negatively associated with positive emotionality, and positively correlated to working memory capacity, proactive aggression, anxiety and negative emotional traits. in spite of the numerous and scattered correlations, it clearly emerges that the inmates with high cognitive abilities, psychopathic impulsivity, proactive aggression, personal distress and fantasy, anxious trait, and negative emotionality the psychological effects of imprisonment 268 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ are prone to distress. on the contrary, a positive emotionality and an empathic concern ability are associated with good psychological outcomes. reactive aggression and perspective taking seem to affect both positive and negative mood. prediction of psychological outcomes to investigate the role of cognitive, personality and affective traits in impacting the psychological effects of imprison­ ment, we obtained a global index of psychological outcomes through an exploratory factorial analysis. the five scores of positive mood, negative mood, anxiety state, depression, and general health were entered in the analysis. the kaiser-meyer-olkin’s measure and bartlett’s test were significant (kmo = .62, χ2(10) = 55.85, p < .001). factors with first larger eigenvalues determine the number of factors. the first eigenvalues were 1.92, 1.12, and .76 supporting a one-factor solution. the first factor accounted for almost 38.44% of the total variance (table 3). to run the parallel analysis (pa; horn, 1965; steger, 2006) we used the monte carlo pca software (watkins, 2000). the pa confirmed the one-factor solution. in the current data, only the first eigenvalue (and not the second and the third) is higher than the first eigenvalue obtained through the pa (respectively, 1.27, 1.12, and .99), suggesting that the one-factor solution is to be retained (see table 3). on the basis of the previous results, the five outcome scores were summed up in a composite index of psychological outcome (α = .59, range = 124–223, m = 173.13, sd = 23.62), with high scores indicating a good psychological outcome. table 1 descriptive statistics for all measures measure m sd cognitive abilities intelligence 107.25 14.35 working memory 4.96 1.22 personality traits self-centered impulsivity 151.36 20.93 fearless dominance 111.94 16.18 coldheartedness 34.06 6.96 affective traits reactive aggression 9.10 5.37 proactive aggression 5.87 6.03 trait anxiety 49.65 6.25 positive emotionality 25.80 6.02 negative emotionality 18.14 8.45 brooding ruminative style 24.90 9.60 depressive ruminative style 12.49 5.25 reflection ruminative style 10.42 4.73 perspective taking 22.52 4.76 fantasy 20.22 4.99 empathic concern 21.12 3.96 personal distress 21.42 4.36 psychological outcomes positive mood 25.26 6.16 negative mood 17.70 9.12 state anxiety 50.03 6.66 depression 17.25 8.21 general health 30.15 8.00 lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 269 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to unravel the link between dispositional traits and psychological outcomes, we statistically tested the role of cognitive, personality and affective traits in predicting the psychological effects of imprisonment. to this purpose, we ran a hierarchical multiple regression model (hmr), with the psychological outcome composite index as the dependent variable, and cognitive abilities at step 1, personality traits at step 2, affective traits at step 3. as shown in table 4, at step 1 the model is significant (f = 16.80, p < .001), with the working memory capacity as the significant predictor. at step 2, the model is significant (f = 8.37, p < .001), but not the incremental change (r 2 change = .05, p = .09), with working memory capacity and the psychopathic trait of fearless dominance as the significant table 2 pearson’s correlations psychological outcomes variable positive mood negative mood state anxiety depression general health cognitive abilities intelligence -.07 .26* .18 .21* .13 working memory -.16 .50** .27** .28** .34** personality traits self-centered impulsivity .03 -.09 -.08 .21* .14 fearless dominance .15 -.04 -.09 -.02 .02 coldheartedness .07 .02 -.03 .07 .07 affective traits reactive aggression .27** .51** -.03 .32** .17 proactive aggression .16 .63** .00 .26* .21* trait anxiety -.11 .24* .61** .32** .32** positive emotionality .73** .01 -.12 -.23* -.24* negative emotionality .08 .85** .15 .28** .28** brooding ruminative style .05 .18 -.06 .15 .05 depressive ruminative style .05 .11 -.05 .09 .02 reflection ruminative style .10 .15 -.16 .07 .02 perspective taking .29** .23* .07 .05 -.10 fantasy .10 .06 .25* .17 .20 empathic concern .23* .16 .06 .03 .04 personal distress -.04 .25* .07 .10 .04 *p < .05. **p < .001. table 3 exploratory factor analysis for the psychological outcomes psychological outcome h2 1st factor well-being (pa) positive mood .23 .48 negative mooda .27 .52 state anxietya .45 .67 depressiona .50 .71 general healtha .48 .69 note. h2 = item communalities. pa = factor loadings on the principal axis. athe score was reversed before running efa. the psychological effects of imprisonment 270 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors. when the affective traits scores are introduced at step 3, the model and incremental change are significant (f = 8.63, p < .001; r 2 change = .34, p < .001), with working memory capacity, fearless dominance, anxiety trait and emotionality as the predictors. jointly considered, working memory ability and dispositional traits characterized by anxiety and negative emotionality seem to expose inmates to the risk of ill-being outcomes, whereas the psychopathic trait of fearless dominance and positive emotionality protect them by increasing their general well-being. discussion the research domain of prison experience has a long and controversial history, with behavioral researchers however agreeing that imprisonment has devastating effects on inmates' psycho-physical well-being. the current study aimed to investigate the extent to which a set of cognitive, affective, personality variables may impact the psychological effects of imprisonment. the study investigated individual differences underlying inmates’ responses to imprisonment in order to adjust the experience of imprisonment as much as possible to the individual characteristics of the inmate (e.g., cognitive, affectivity and personality features). the results obtained partly confirmed the envisaged hypotheses, while in other cases they suggested meaningful insights. surprisingly, both correlations and regression analyses returned a strong bond between high cognitive abilities and distress: high intelligence and high working memory capacities appeared to be associated to high anxiety, depression, negative mood and low general health. we may take a moment to consider this unexpected result. a first speculative explanation may lie in a greater availability of cognitive resources employed to recall, think, and re-think significant life events, such as the experience of imprisonment. a greater accessibility of thoughts, memories and/or intrusions might lead one to suffer more. according to network models of emotion (e.g., table 4 hierarchical multiple regression model on the composite psychological outcome index step 1 step 2 step 3 measure β p β p β p intelligence -.06 .56 -.05 .61 .05 .53 working memory -.50** .00 -.55* .00 -.28** .00 step 2 self-centered impulsivity -.15 .13 -.12 .18 fearless dominance .26** .01 .19* .02 coldheartedness -.01 .91 -.04 .56 step 3 reactive aggression -.02 .89 proactive aggression -.03 .81 trait anxiety -.27** .00 positive emotionality .37** .00 negative emotionality -.37** .00 brooding ruminative style -.28 .17 depressive ruminative style .15 .35 reflection ruminative style .11 .52 perspective taking -.09 .50 fantasy -.13 .25 empathic concern .01 .97 personal distress .16 .19 r2 .28 .00 .33 .00 .67 .00 δ r2 .05 .09 .34 .00 *p < .05. **p < .01. lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 271 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bower, 1981), when the memory of an emotional episode—such as living in prison or committing a crime—is accessed, the various components of the emotional reaction (i.e., physiological, sensory, experiential) are also reactivated, and people re-experience the emotional condition (rimé, philippot, boca, & mesquita, 1992). a greater availability of cogni­ tive resources leads to a greater reactivation of the various components of the emotional episode, and this is experienced as aversive or painful. another possible explanation may be due to a higher metacognition and self-reflection capacity to understand and reflect on one’s ‘constrained condition’. intelligence is traditionally related to a good quality of life, above all in terms of successful achievement and attaining social resources such as education, work, and so on. these outcomes are clearly unachievable within the prison system, so it is likely that high cognitive abilities—which are not socially deployable—translate into a greater reflexive capacity about one's own condition, leading to distress. concerning the psychopathic personality, our findings confirmed the ‘double sided’ nature of psychopathy, with the impulsiveness trait associated with depression, and fearless dominance predicting good psychological outcomes. psychopathic impulsive inmates exhibited poor well-being, possibly because of their poor emotional skills to adjust and cope with the adversities of prison. contrariwise, fearless dominance implies a stress immunity in terms of an ability to remain detached from stress or emotional arousal (lilienfeld & widows, 2005), and this would allow inmates to reach wellbeing-related psychological outcomes. proactive aggression seemed to lead to greater long-term distress, while reactive aggression appeared to affect both positive and negative mood. this partially hypothesized result might indicate that a reactive tendency to aggression plays a role on the intensity of the affective state, rather than on the valence, as if this aggressive inclination made inmates more sensitive to emotion, both positively and negatively. to support, in a study on aggression and daily emotions, moore, hubbard, bookhout, and mlawer (2019), concluded that reactive aggression was positively associated with day-to-day anger and angry reactivity to negative events, and it influenced lower levels of everyday happiness but greater happy reactivity to positive events. the authors indicated that reactive aggression is characterized by significant daily emotionality, whilst proactive aggression is characterized by a lack of emotionality. concerning dispositional affectivity, inmates with high negative emotionality were mainly prone to distress: nega­ tive affectivity trait represents an emotional reactivity characterized by a general subjective distress and unpleasant feelings which include anger, dislike, repugnance, guilt, fear, and uneasiness (watson et al., 1988). on the other hand, positive emotionality seemed to guarantee inmates good levels of well-being: a positive emotional reactivity corre­ sponds to the intensity with which people feel enthusiastic, vigorous, and aroused. high levels of positive emotionality reflect high vigour, full attention, and enjoyable engagement (watson et al., 1988). traits characterized by a marked proneness to anxiety and negative emotionality impact inmates’ psychological effects: these traits reflect a facet of unpleasantness that includes a broad range of aversive affects including anxiety, nervousness, fear, guilt, and shame, which—in turn—would prevent inmates from adapting well to prison conditions. according to the tripartite model of anxiety and depression—negative affectivity, physiological hyperarousal, positive affectivity—negative affectivity is the shared component of emotional distress, while the other two components differentiate anxiety from depression: anxiety is defined by high levels of physiological hyperarousal (clark & watson, 1991), whereas depression is defined by low levels of positive affectivity (anhedonia). the high state-trait associations for the indices of anxiety and emotionality are definitely due to them being two subscales of the same instrument. findings suggested that the different facets of affective empathy are differently associated with mood: on one hand, empathic concern is associated with positive mood, while personal distress and fantasy would bring about negative mood. although the ability to experience and share other’s emotions has generally been considered as an adaptive socio-emotional competency (zahn-waxler & radke-yarrow, 1990), researchers introduced the idea of an ‘emotional cost of caring’ (smith & rose, 2011). empathetic distress is an interpersonal construct which refers to emotional engagement in other people’s problems and the associated distressed feelings, to the point of living them as one’s own. literature converges on considering that responding to others’ emotions with extreme levels of empathy within particular con­ texts—such as prison—may result in experiencing overstated responsibility for others’ suffering, also producing clinical complications (tone & tully, 2014). perspective taking seemed to affect both negative and positive mood, proving to be little discriminating in explaining well-being variance, as roughly supported by findings on cognitive empathy unrelated to depressive symptoms (gambin & sharp, 2018). the psychological effects of imprisonment 272 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 262–278 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3995 https://www.psychopen.eu/ contrary to our hypotheses, no ruminative style has been associated with psychological outcomes, probably because the link between ruminative style and well-being is not a linear trend but is instead mediated by other intervening factors (e.g., coping style or emotional intelligence) or different imprisonment conditions (e.g., level of prison security, the type of crime or type of sentence). the strength of the current findings is to have considered variables seldom investigated in prison research, providing suggestions to prevent risk-taking behaviors and to implement specific well-being-based training. it would seem that any training increasing the ability to 'feel other people’s emotions' or increase the metacognitive ability of memory or reflection, could intensify the inmates' emotional experience which, without adequate elaboration, might expose them to greater distress. despite some interesting findings, the current study does, however, have some limits. first, given the correlational nature of this study, conclusions about a causal relationship cannot be drawn, mainly because it is study with data collected at a single point in time. second, it would also be helpful to have a broader conceptualization of psychological well-being, beyond the traditional measures of psychological distress. third, the relatively small sample and self-report instruments prevent the possibility of generalizing the results. it is likely that current results are strictly related to instruments used to assess constructs. further studies may overcome these limitations by adopting larger samples—balanced in gender, age, nationality, crimes committed and other imprisonment-related characteristics—and a multi-traits multi-method assessment approach. additionally, further studies may adopt a test-retest control design to test the effectiveness of intervention programs among inmates. it would be useful to investigate if and how specific dispositional traits of inmates such those here assessed (i.e., cognitive resources or emotional traits) modulate the effectiveness of prison intervention programs for well-being purpose. for example, erickson and young (2010) using group therapy with incarcerated women, found that art therapy is effective for participants who are defensive and have limited education and verbal skills. nevertheless, the results obtained, albeit modest, represent a step forward in investigating the individual differences underlying the psychological effects of imprisonment. first, a steady assessment of the dispositional characteristics considered in the current work might be a useful way to prevent high-risk cases and to identify and promote personal resources such as adaptive personality traits or positive emotionality. each prison should have a mental illness preven­ tion strategy including accurate assessment and monitoring of these characteristics immediately after arrival in prison and periodically throughout the entire period of incarceration. the need to evaluate inmates' abilities and traits over time in order to implement personalised treatment is strictly related to the idea that individual traits, even if relatively stable patterns of characteristics, may gradually change above all through major life events such as imprisonment (bleidorn et al., 2019). moreover, the findings suggested resorting to intervention programs to promote adaptive emotional regulation strategies to best manage peaks of negative emotions (e.g., social sharing opportunities, writing paradigm activities, art workshops, etc.). empirical evidence confirmed the health benefits of emotional disclosure in the prison context (curci et al., 2021; richards et al., 2000). furthermore, one might think to improve inmates' empathic skills, but by carefully monitoring long-term outcomes, preventing possible negative aftermaths due to an excessive empathic distress. even if preliminary, our results head in the direction suggested by the american psychological association guidelines, indicating the efficacy of preventive intervention programs in reducing psychological symptoms and related functioning (hage et al., 2007). preventive and intervention programs focus on reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors which can improve well-being and decrease distress outcomes (kenny & hage, 2009). funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors gratefully acknowledge the help of paolo borino, adriana bottiglieri, francesca davella, angela la fortezza, elisabetta pellegrini, nicola petruzzelli, angela bruna piarulli, rita russo, fabio zacheo, viviana zizza, for their collaboration in collecting data and scoring protocols. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. lanciano, de leonardis, & curci 273 europe's 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(1990). the origins of empathic concern. motivation and emotion, 14(2), 107–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00991639 about the authors tiziana lanciano, phd, associate professor of general psychology. her current research interests are autobiographical memory, cognition and emotion, emotional intelligence, well-being. lidia de leonardis, phd, penitentiary executive of the ministry of justice. her current research interests are prison law, criminal enforcement, legal processes, forensic psychology. antonietta curci, phd, full professor of general psychology. her current research interests are emotion and memory, eyewitness, forensic psychology, cognitive consequences of emotion, emotional intelligence. the psychological effects of imprisonment 278 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080/1068316031000116247 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.45.4.674 https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.812 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2011.01.001 https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854899026002005 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlp.2009.06.003 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00991639 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ the psychological effects of imprisonment (introduction) the psychological effects of imprisonment aim and hypotheses method sample measures and procedure results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors belief bias in individual and collective reasoning research reports belief bias in individual and collective reasoning alba massolo 1,2 , mariel traversi 2, matías alfonso 2 [1] facultad de filosofía y humanidades, universidad nacional de córdoba, córdoba, argentina. [2] facultad de ciencias de la salud, universidad católica de córdoba, córdoba, argentina. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 received: 2023-05-25 • accepted: 2024-09-09 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: johannes karl, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: alba massolo, centro de investigaciones maría saleme de burnichon, pabellón agustín tosco, 1° piso, ciudad universitaria c.p. 5000 córdoba, argentina. e-mail: alba.massolo@unc.edu.ar supplementary materials: code, data, materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract in this paper, we investigate whether collaborative group performance is better than individual performance in solving a syllogism evaluation task. we hypothesise that collaborative group settings will outperform individual settings and that the belief bias effect will be mitigated in a group setting. two empirical studies were conducted with argentinian undergraduate students. study 1 (n = 239) used a between-subjects design with two conditions: individual resolution and interactive group resolution. overall, the group condition performed better than the individual condition, but there were no significant differences in evaluating invalid syllogisms. study 2 (n = 115) used a within-subjects design with three conditions: individual resolution, interactive group resolution, and individual after-interactive group resolution. overall, the group condition performed better than the individual condition, and the individual after-interactive group condition showed an increase in accurate answers compared to individual resolution. however, as observed in study 1, the collaborative group setting did not improve the evaluation of invalid syllogisms. we propose an explanation for the group resolution of invalid believable syllogisms within the framework of the selective processing model of the belief bias. this research provides new data on the effects of collaborative settings in deductive reasoning beyond the western educated industrialised rich democratic (weird) cultures. keywords deductive reasoning, belief bias, collective reasoning, cognitive biases, group problem-solving since the modern age, the prevailing view of human reasoning has maintained that reasoning is a solitary process, i.e., a private mental act consisting in accepting or rejecting a conclusion upon evaluating reasons. according to this individualist tradition, private reasoning is highly superior to other forms of reasoning such as collective thinking or group argumentation. notable figures such as descartes and kant strongly advocated in favour of this individualist approach to reasoning (dutilh-novaes, 2021). in addition, this approach has had a great deal of influence on the psychology of reasoning, since the vast majority of empirical studies in this field were designed to analyse individual or solitary solutions to reasoning problems (mercier, 2018). nevertheless, in the last years, the philosophy and psychology of reasoning have taken a social turn: in both disciplines, a characterisation of reasoning as a social activity is gaining ground (kalis, 2022). this alternative approach claims that reasoning is a social activity that requires and reconstructs a shared world (laden, 2012). specifically, the shared intentionality hypothesis (tomasello, 2014) and the interactive account of reasoning (mercier & sperber, 2017) have emphasised that the aims of reasoning are social in nature. according to this social approach, the internal process this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.12041&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7690-8574 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of solitary reasoning that people carry out daily can be seen as an internalisation of this social process. thus, reasoning can be understood as an originally external practice that subsequently became an internal one (dutilh-novaes, 2021). decades of research in the psychology of reasoning have amply documented that human beings are defective reasoners when solving deductive problems (elqayam & evans, 2011). it is worth noting that nearly all of these studies showing deficient deductive reasoning skills were designed to be worked out individually. however, deductive perform­ ance in group-solving tasks improves significantly (moshman, 2021). since the 1980s, an increasing number of studies have been conducted to analyse the characteristics of group reasoning (laughlin, 2011). a group problem-solving and decision-making continuum with intellective and judgmental tasks as two extreme points has been proposed (laughlin & adamopoulos, 1980). while intellective tasks have a demonstrably correct answer within a mathematical, logical, scientific, or verbal conceptual system, judgmental tasks are evaluative, behavioural, or aesthetic judgments that do not have a generally accepted demonstrably adequate solution (laughlin, 2011). in this continuum, deductive tasks are paradigmatic examples of intellective tasks since determining whether an argument is deductively valid or invalid depends on a well-defined formal system and has a unique correct answer within that system. a series of studies about verbal and mathematical intellective tasks conducted to analyse the difference between individual and collective responses have shown that the performance of groups was considerably better than that of individuals (laughlin & adamopoulos, 1980; laughlin & ellis, 1986). a similar situation can be observed regarding deductive reasoning tasks. for instance, in a problem of disjunctive reasoning resolved first individually and later in groups, the reported results show that groups outperformed individuals (trouche et al., 2014). analogous results were obtained in a japanese sample (boku et al., 2018). furthermore, it was shown that the exchange of arguments during the group resolution process was the main factor explaining the superiority of group performance rather than the subjective confidence of each participant (trouche et al., 2014). in a similar vein, comparisons of individual and group performance in the wason selection task, one of the most replicated tests in the study of deductive reasoning, are in line with these previous results (moshman, 2021). while accurate answers are around 9% in solitary resolutions of this task, correct responses amount to 70% in the interactive group condition (moshman & geil, 1998). although the increase in correct responses was not as dramatic as in this previous study, the strength of group problem-solving was also reported in maciejovsky and budescu (2007), with 9% vs. 50% of correct responses in the individual and group conditions, respectively, and in mercier et al. (2016), with 20% vs. 63% for these two same conditions. conclusions also emphasised that the superiority of group performance was due to collaborative reasoning rather than imitation or pressure among group members (moshman & geil, 1998). furthermore, it should be mentioned that most people, not only layman participants but also experts in the field of the psychology of reasoning, underestimate the beneficial effects of collaborative group problem-solving in the performance of the wason selection task (mercier et al., 2015). these studies have typically been conducted using samples of participants from western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic (weird) cultures. however, this restriction in the sample’s participants limits the generalisability of the results to the broader population. some recent studies have attempted to work with samples not exclusively from the united states or europe, acknowledging that reasoning performance may vary across different cultures (boku et al., 2018; castelain et al., 2016). following this line, it is crucial to continue expanding this research to encompass data from countries and communities where information on reasoning performance is scarce or absent. in this line of research, it is implicitly assumed that group members cooperate and work together to achieve a common goal. nevertheless, there exists empirical evidence suggesting that not only cooperation but also competition among group members improves performance in the resolution of the wason selection task (maciejovsky & budescu, 2007). along with the wason selection task, another deductive task that has also been widely replicated since the 1980s is the syllogism evaluation task (ball & thompson, 2018; evans et al., 1983; thompson & markovits, 2021). this deductive task was designed to analyse the effects of factual content about the world on deductive reasoning. specifically, the task consists of a series of arguments, generally in the form of categoric syllogisms, some valid and some invalid, some with believable conclusions, and some with unbelievable conclusions. and participants are asked to evaluate whether each argument is valid or invalid (caravona et al., 2019; erceg et al., 2019; ghasemi et al., 2022). results have shown that there exists a strong effect of content, in the sense that syllogisms with believable conclusions tend to be evaluated as valid, belief bias in individual and collective reasoning 318 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while syllogisms with unbelievable conclusions tend to be evaluated as invalid, regardless of their real logical validity (evans et al., 1983). this phenomenon is currently known as belief bias and highlights the strong effect of previous beliefs on argument evaluation. besides, this pervasive cognitive bias heavily influences everyday human reasoning (ball & thompson, 2018). nevertheless, as far as we know, the effects of belief bias on reasoning have been tested exclusively in syllogism evaluation tasks solved individually. there does not seem to be previous research on belief bias in collective group reasoning (dutilh-novaes, 2021). this paper aims to analyse whether the individual and the collaborative group settings have similar effects on the resolution of the syllogism evaluation task with factual content about the world. based on the previous research on group problem-solving mentioned above, our hypothesis claims that collaborative group performance will be better than individual performance on the syllogism evaluation task. hence, we also predict that the belief bias effect will be mitigated in the collaborative group setting. to achieve this, we designed and conducted two empirical studies. study 1 employs a between-subjects design with two conditions: individual resolution and interactive group resolution of the syllogism evaluation task. the goal is to analyse the deductive performance of both conditions. study 2 uses a within-subjects design with three conditions: individual resolution, interactive group resolution, and individual after-interactive group resolution of the syllogism evaluation task. the goal of this second study is to analyse the deductive performance of the individual and group conditions using a different methodological design and, at the same time, analyse the effects of group discussion in the after-interactive group resolution condition. moreover, as our sample is composed of argentinian participants, a further contribution of this research is to provide data from a country not belonging to the weird culture. these results may help to obtain more representative samples to generalise findings on human reasoning. study 1 method participants and design the sample size was determined before the start of data collection using the g*power statistical program; the result was 88 participants per group, i.e., a total of 176 participants, f = .5, α = .05. the total non-randomised sample consisted of 239 argentinian undergraduate students aged between 18 and 58, m = 23.32, sd = 6.18. most of them (78.2%) were females, 20.9% were male and two participants indicated belonging to another gender (0.9%). they were enrolled in diverse bachelor's degree programs (psychology 66.9%, biology 19.7%, and criminology 13.4%). all of them were volun­ teers who did not receive any payment for participating in the study. participants were evaluated in their classrooms after signing an informed consent, in which the goals of the research were explained, and confidential treatment of the data provided was guaranteed. a between-subject design was used to perform the experiment. participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions: individual resolution and interactive group resolution. thus, 119 participants performed the task individually and 120 in groups. materials an argument evaluation task was administered in spanish, the native language of the sample. an english version of the task is available in massolo et al. (2024). the task consisted of a total of eight categorical syllogisms that had factual content about the world. of these arguments, four were valid and four were invalid, including four with believable conclusions and four with unbelievable conclusions. in this way, the test was composed of two valid believable (vb), two valid unbelievable (vu), two invalid believable (ib), and two invalid unbelievable (iu) syllogisms. an example of each syllogism type is shown in table 1. participants were asked to evaluate whether each syllogism was a logically valid or invalid argument. massolo, traversi, & alfonso 319 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 examples of types of syllogisms used in the syllogism evaluation task believability valid form invalid form believable no dog is a feline. some mammals are felines. therefore, some mammals are not dogs. no writer is an actress. some famous women are actresses. therefore, some writers are not famous women. unbelievable some wolves have elongated forelimbs. all animals that have elongated forelimbs fly. therefore, some wolves fly. no lion is a domestic animal. some felines are domestic animals. therefore, some lions are not felines. before conducting the study, the mean scores of the believability of the syllogism conclusions were calculated based on the results of a survey answered by a group of 47 participants who did not participate in the present study. each conclusion was rated on a likert scale from 1 (‘i am totally sure that it is false’) to 7 (‘i am totally sure that it is true’). the score difference was noticeable: while believable conclusions scored a mean of 5.97, sd = 1.13, the mean score for the unbelievable conclusions was 1.7, sd = 0.94. procedure participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions. each participant was given a paper copy with an informed consent sheet, a brief explanation of the general objectives of the research, and the argument evaluation task. subsequently, some demographic questions were asked. in the first part, a brief explanation of the syllogism evaluation task was presented along with examples of both valid and invalid arguments. also, the two possible answer options for each of the test questions were made explicit as follows: ‘yes, the conclusion follows logically’ or ‘no, the conclusion does not follow logically’. the arguments were displayed one by one on the page, in random order. in the individual resolution condition (ir), each participant was asked to read the instructions and evaluate the task, indicating the answer they considered more appropriate. instead, in the interactive group resolution condition (gr), the participants read the instructions individually. afterwards, they were randomly assigned to groups consisting of three to five members. each group was instructed to discuss each syllogism and reach a consensus before giving their answer. group size was determined based on previous studies (boku et al., 2018). results and discussion the gathered data were evaluated using the spss v.25.0 software. all processed data is available in massolo et al. (2024). to evaluate the validity of the hypotheses mentioned above, we analysed mean percentages of the accuracy scores of each type of syllogism for both conditions. in the ir condition, the accuracy rates were 68.28 for valid syllogisms; 74.37 for invalid; 72.48 for believable, and 70.17 for unbelievable. for the gr condition, the accuracy rates were 81.46 for valid syllogisms; 70.21 for invalid; 72.08 for believable, and 79.58 for unbelievable. these data can be seen in figure 1 and figure 2. the data are available as supplementary materials. belief bias in individual and collective reasoning 320 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 percentages of global accuracy for each condition figure 2 percentages of accuracy scores for each type of syllogism across the two conditions to statistically analyse the effects of logic and belief, as well as the interaction between them, we calculated the logic, belief, and interaction indexes taken from evans and curtis-holmes (2005), as follows: logic index: (vb + vu – ib – iu) belief index: (vb + ib – vu – iu) interaction index: (vu + ib – vb – iu) massolo, traversi, & alfonso 321 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ t-tests were conducted to determine whether each of the calculated indexes was significantly higher than zero. in the ir group, all three indexes are positive and significantly above zero. in the gr condition, all three indexes were also positive and those for logic and belief were significantly above zero, although the interaction effect was non-significant. we also conducted two-sample t-tests to compare logic and belief indexes between the two groups. the logic index scores were significantly lower in the ir group, t(237) = -2.04, p = .04, d = .361, while there was no significant difference in the belief index. thereafter, we calculated t-tests to compare the overall performance in both conditions concerning accuracy (total number of correct answers), where gr answered more syllogisms correctly than the ir condition, m(gr) = 6.07, m(ir) = 5.70, t(237) = -2.04, p = .04, d = .36. then, we computed t-tests to compare the performance considering each type of syllogism and found significant differences in the case of vb syllogisms, where gr answered more syllogisms correctly than the ir group, m(gr) = 1.89, m(ir) = 1.68, t(237) = -3.72, p < .001, d = .211; in the case of vu syllogisms, where gr answered more syllogisms correctly than the ir condition, m(gr) = 1.37, m(ir) = 1.05, t(237) = -2.87, p = .004, d = .316; and in the case of invalid believable (ib) syllogisms, but this time, ir answered more syllogisms correctly than the gr condition, m(ir) = 1.22, m(gr) = 0.99, t(237) = 2.47, p = .014, d = .227. regarding the iu syllogisms, there were no significant differences between the conditions, t(237) = -1.03, p = .30. as can be seen, the results partially confirm the prediction that the belief bias effect is mitigated in the collaborative group setting. the group resolution condition obtained more correct answers in general, but considering the four types of syllogisms, this is true only for the case of vb and vu syllogisms. as significant differences have been observed between the conditions analysed, in the next study, we carry out a similar analysis with a within-subjects design, where the instrument is applied individually before and after an instance of group interactive resolution to observe the effects of group discussion in relation to the accuracy in the response. this design allows further analysis of the variations between the individual and the group interactive resolutions, as well as whether the group reasoning stage affects the individual after-interactive group resolution of the reasoning task. study 2 method participants and design the goal of this study is to analyse the deductive performance of individuals and groups using a within-subject design with three conditions: (1) individual resolution, (2) interactive group resolution, and (3) individual after-interactive group resolution of the syllogism evaluation task. besides, this design makes it possible to examine the effects of group discussion in the after-interactive group resolution condition. g*power software estimated a sample size of 42 participants, f = 0.25, α = .05. a non-randomized sample of 115 argentinian undergraduate students aged between 18 and 54, m = 19.70, sd = 3.69, was analysed. none of the participants included in this study were part of the sample from study 1. most of them (77.4%) were females, 20.9% were male and two participants indicated belonging to another gender (1.7%). they attended undergraduate programs in psychology and were volunteers who did not receive any payment for participating in the present study. they were evaluated in their classrooms after accepting informed consent, in which the goals of the research were explained, and confidential treatment of the data provided was guaranteed. materials the instrument was the same one used in study 1. procedure prior to beginning the task, participants read a set of general instructions for solving the problems. the study consisted of three stages. in the first stage, participants solved the argument evaluation task individually indicating the answer they considered more appropriate: ‘yes, the conclusion follows logically’ or ‘no, the conclusion does not follow logical­ ly’. this stage corresponds with condition 1. in the second stage, condition 2, participants were randomly assigned belief bias in individual and collective reasoning 322 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to groups of 3 to 5 participants and moved to another classroom to interact in the group setting and solve the task. par­ ticipants were then instructed to reach a single decision for each syllogism response after a group discussion instance finally, in the third stage, condition 3, participants were asked to solve the argument evaluation task individually again. results and discussion the gathered data were evaluated using the spss v.25.0 software. we calculated the indexes for logic, belief, and interaction. t-tests were carried out to determine whether each of the indexes was significantly higher than zero, and the results were positive for all indexes. we also conducted two repeated measures analyses of variance to compare the logic and belief indexes across the three conditions. the three conditions (1, 2, and 3, respectively) were entered as within-group factors levels. there was a main effect, f(1,495) = 4.60, p = .02, η2 = .167, pairwise comparisons indicate that the logic index scores were significantly higher in condition 2, m = 2.25, sd = 1.15, than in condition 1, m = 1.42, sd = 1.25, p = .05, and condition 3, m = 1.83, sd = 1.27, p = .04, while there was no significant difference in the belief index scores. the data is available in massolo et al. (2024). the percentages of global accuracy scores, and for each type of syllogism across the three conditions, are displayed in figures 3 and figure 4, respectively. as can be seen here, the highest number of correct responses for valid syllogisms was observed in condition 2. next, we conducted a within-subject repeated measures anova to compare accuracy scores across different condi­ tions. overall, we found a main effect, f(1,495) = 4.60, p = .02, η2 = .167, with a significantly higher mean accuracy score observed in condition 2, m = 6.25, sd = 0.23, than in condition 1, m = .41, sd = 0.25, p = .05. no statistically significant differences were observed for condition 3, m = 5.83, sd = 0.26. moreover, we computed within-subject repeated measures anovas to compare accuracy scores for each type of syllogism separately, and significant differences were found only in the case of valid syllogisms. specifically, more vb syllogisms were correctly responded to in condition 2, f(1,725) = 7.00, p = .004, η2 = .233, m = 1.96, sd = 0.04, than in condition 1, m = 1.36, sd = 0.15, p = .008; and more vu syllogisms were correctly responded in condition 2, f(1,251) = 7.14, p = .008, η2 = .237, m = 1.75, sd = 0.10, than in either condition 1, m = 1.33, sd = 0.17, or condition 3, m = 1.70, sd = 0.11, p = .04. however, in condition 3 there were significantly more correct responses than in condition 1 for vu syllogisms. regarding performance on ib and iu syllogisms, no differences were found between the mean accuracy scores. f(1.071) = .324, p = .590; f(1,793) = 1.15, p = .369, respectively. it is worth noting that, although the difference was not significant, condition 1, m = 0.96, sd = 0.75, had a higher number of correct responses for ib syllogisms compared to condition 2, m = 0.88, sd = 0.68, as occurred in study 1. massolo, traversi, & alfonso 323 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 percentages of global accuracy for each condition figure 4 percentages of accuracy scores for each type of syllogism across the three conditions the current findings are consistent with those of study 1, as they reaffirm the expectation that belief bias is diminished during group exchange. overall, the results suggest that group resolution yielded superior performance compared to individual resolution; however, no significant differences were observed for invalid syllogisms. notably, a significant enhancement in individual performance was noted after group exchange, but only for vu syllogisms. consequently, it can be concluded that the hypotheses were partially supported. belief bias in individual and collective reasoning 324 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ general discussion the main objective of the present research was to determine whether collaborative group problem-solving would result in better performance in evaluating syllogisms with factual content compared to individual problem-solving. additionally, this research aimed to investigate whether the effect of belief bias could be reduced in the collaborative reasoning setting. overall, the results obtained in the two studies show that the collaborative group resolution of the syllogism evaluation task outperformed the individual resolution. thus, as a corollary, belief bias is slightly mitigated in collaborative group problem-solving. in this way, the results obtained partially confirm our initial hypothesis, as they exhibit distinct characteristics that warrant further examination. firstly, the collaborative resolution of the syllogism evaluation task in study 1 did not show as dramatic an improvement as the group resolution of the wason selection task reported in previous studies such as moshman and geil (1998). similarly, in study 2, while the interactive group condition performed better than the individual resolution condition, the improvement in deductive performance was modest. all in all, these results suggest that the improvement in group resolution observed in the syllogism evaluation task is not as strong as in other deductive and intellective tasks. secondly, a separate analysis of the resolution of the four types of syllogisms reveals that the group resolution demonstrates superior performance only in the case of valid syllogisms. this effect is particularly striking for ib syllogisms, where results show not only that group resolution fails to yield any significant improvement over individual resolution, but also that individual resolution outperforms group resolution, as evidenced by higher accuracy mean rates. these findings were obtained both in study 1 and study 2. in line with these results, it was shown that belief bias occurs more often in the evaluation of invalid syllogisms than in valid syllogisms (evans et al., 1983). and what is more, according to the selective processing model, ib syllogisms exhibit the highest rate of incorrect responses (stupple et al., 2011). the selective processing model is a dual-process model that posits the involvement of two different types of processes in reasoning: a default response driven by previous knowledge and beliefs, and a response based on motivated reasoning driven by the believability or unbelievability of the syllogism conclusions (ball & thompson, 2018). according to this model, the default response is to consider valid syllogisms with believable conclusions and to consider invalid syllogisms with unbelievable conclusions. this explains the belief index (evans et al., 2001). however, this default response can be overridden by the second type of processing. hence, if a motivated reasoning occurs, and there is a believable conclusion, reasoners will try to construct a single model that supports the argument. whereas if there is an unbelievable conclusion, reasoners will try to construct a single model that refutes the argument (ball & thompson, 2018). this explains the interaction between logic and belief. thus, in the case of valid arguments, unbelievable conclusions tend to motivate the search for a countermodel, i.e., a model where the premises are true, but the conclusion is false. however, as the syllogism is valid, this countermodel cannot be found. this limits the influence of belief bias (stupple et al., 2011). in the case of invalid arguments, believable conclusions tend to motivate the search for a model showing the consistency of the premises and the conclusion. nevertheless, for invalid arguments, models can exist where both premises and conclusion are true. hence, if reasoners construct this supportive model, they erroneously answer that the argument is valid. this explains the high levels of inaccurate responses for ib syllogisms. at present, the selective processing model is considered one of the most robust theoretical models for explaining belief bias effects in reasoning, as noted by ball and thompson (2018). although this model was not originally designed to explain deductive reasoning in a collaborative setting, it is possible to hypothesise that if all members of a reasoning group searched for a model that supported the conclusion in the case of ib syllogisms, they would be more likely to find such a model. this could explain why the interactive group condition did not show improvement in resolving ib syllogisms. thirdly, in both studies, the logical index is higher in the group condition. this shows that collaborative group settings give rise to the elaboration of more logically accurate responses compared to solitary reasoning. these findings are in line with theoretical developments that vindicate a dialogical conception of deduction since they reveal that humans become better reasoners when making deductive inferences in collaborative settings (dutilh-novaes, 2021). besides, in the case of study 2, the individual after-group resolution condition, i.e., condition (3), shows a better performance than the individual resolution condition, i.e., condition 1, for some syllogisms. this suggests that reasoners manage to maintain the improvements achieved during the group resolution stage for the evaluation of vu syllogisms. massolo, traversi, & alfonso 325 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://www.psychopen.eu/ this research offers novel insights by analysing the collaborative resolution of a syllogism evaluation task in a sample of argentinian participants. this is particularly noteworthy since deductive reasoning tasks have traditionally been studied in western, developed countries, often belonging to the weird culture. results have shown that individual performance in the syllogism evaluation task is broadly similar in the argentinian sample compared to the weird samples analysed in previous studies. besides, improvements in group reasoning have also been observed in the argen­ tinian sample. however, due to the absence of prior data on group resolutions of the syllogism evaluation task, direct comparisons with our findings are not feasible. all in all, incorporating empirical findings from samples comprising participants across diverse countries and cultures will advance our understanding of human deductive reasoning. regarding the limitations of our studies, firstly, the samples were drawn exclusively from undergraduate students, which may have curtailed the diversity of our samples. for future research, it is desirable to include people of different ages, educational levels, and cultural backgrounds. secondly, as noted by one of the anonymous reviewers, the variability in group sizes, ranging from three to five participants, in both studies might have affected the results. this is because a majority rule may have been used to solve the task in groups with an odd number of participants. however, a rule like this could not have been applied in groups with an even number of participants. attending this observation, further research could be conducted to analyse the impact of group size on collaborative reasoning. even so, the data presented in this study make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the effects of collaborative settings on deductive reasoning. funding: this research was funded by anpyct (argentinian agency for the promotion of scientific research and technological development), pict 2021 n°i-invi-00722 “aspectos normativos del razonamiento humano: un abordaje filosófico y cognitivo”, and by ucc (universidad católica de córdoba). acknowledgments: firstly, we would like to thank our colleagues at the national university of córdoba and the catholic university of córdoba for inviting their students to participate in the two studies that were part of this research. we are also thankful for the voluntary participation of all the students involved. we would also like to extend our thanks to maría de los ángeles montañana for assisting us in improving the english writing style of this paper. an earlier version of this paper was presented at the xix meeting of the asociación argentina de ciencias del comportamiento (aacc) hosted in buenos aires in 2023. our sincere gratitude extends to the participants of this event for their constructive feedback. finally, we would like to thank the two anonymous referees from ejop whose meticulous review and comments played a crucial role in enhancing the final version of this paper. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: for this article, data, codebook and materials are available at massolo et al. 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(2014). arguments, more than confidence, explain the good performance of reasoning groups. journal of experimental psychology. general, 143(5), 1958–1971. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037099 massolo, traversi, & alfonso 327 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 317–327 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.12041 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x1100001x https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i1.1696 https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03196976 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546780542000005 https://doi.org/10.1080/713755983 https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001179 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03796-7 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.38.6.941 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(86)90022-3 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.854 https://osf.io/26km4/ https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2014.1002534 https://doi.org/10.1080/13546783.2014.981582 https://doi.org/10.1080/135467898394148 https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2011.589381 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104866 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037099 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors alba massolo. phd in philosophy. assistant professor in logic at the department of philosophy of the national university of córdoba. associate professor in logic and epistemology at the department of psychology at catholic university of córdoba. research interests: logic and human reasoning. mariel traversi. doctoral researcher at the department of psychology of the national university of córdoba. assistant professor in research methodology at the department of psychology of the catholic university of córdoba. research interests: cognitive biases. matías alfonso. ma student of applied statistics at the national university of córdoba. associate professor of statistics in psychology at the department of education of the catholic university of córdoba. research interests: application of statistics in social sciences. belief bias in individual and collective reasoning 328 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ belief bias in individual and collective reasoning (introduction) study 1 method results and discussion study 2 method results and discussion general discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the montescano effect: being resilient through challenges and changes editorial the montescano effect: being resilient through challenges and changes marina maffoni 1 , paola abelli 2, giuseppe laganga senzio 3, antonia pierobon 1 [1] psychology unit of montescano institute, istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, irccs, montescano (pv), italy. [2] health management of montescano institute, istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, irccs, montescano (pv), italy. [3] hospital management of pavia and montescano institutes, istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, irccs, montescano (pv), italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 1–5, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8119 received: 2022-01-11 • accepted: 2022-01-11 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: vlad glăveanu, department of psychology, webster university, geneva, switzerland corresponding author: marina maffoni, istituti clinici scientifici maugeri, irccs, via s. maugeri, 4 27100 pavia, italy. +39 385 247212. e-mail: marina.maffoni@icsmaugeri.it abstract hospitals are places where you live a piece of your life, no matter you are healthcare professional, patient or caregiver. this editorial describes the humanistic approach to medicine adopted by the montescano institute, an italian research and clinical hospital dedicated to the rehabilitation of neurological and cardiopulmonary diseases according to updated international guidelines. the aim of these “notes from the field” is to provide a sound example of humanistic clinical practice before, during and after the challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic. in this environmental each individual is indeed engaged in relationships, which trigger mutual empowerment and growth. keywords hospital system, interdisciplinary, humanistic approach, resilience, covid-19 “operations. relations. complications”. this is the well-known tagline of a famous american medical drama (quick, 2009) and this description of what happens in a hospital is not so distant from reality. hospitals are places where nobody would stay as a patient and where professionals are requested to find solutions to medical puzzles and critical conditions, sometimes coming in terms with their own best expectations and intimate values. this is even more true in modern times, which is indelibly marked by the covid-19 pandemic (maffoni, torlaschi, & pierobon, 2020; thornton, 2020). hospitals are places where you live a piece of your life, no matter you are there for working or for recovering. there are much more than diseases and clinical investigations; there are human beings who are engaged in complicated relations with each other. for this reason, stories in each hospital are unique and unrepeatable, painful and hopeful at the same time. it is not easy to survive all of this. you must be resilient and ready to start again and again. you must be ready to transform yourself and to renew your body and spirit. if you can do all this, you probably arise refuelled with new perspectives and new opportunities. you can turn your own wounds into meaningful characteristics, taking the example of the old japanese art of kintsukuroi in which broken objects are repaired with gold. thus, scars are considered both unique elements giving sense to life and the starting point for a positive posttraumatic growth (nijdam et al, 2018). in this multifaceted scenario, providing humanistic care may play a crucial role for professionals and patients’ well-being. this approach to care has to be intended as the attempt to provide holistic care, going beyond the management of medical conditions only. in the 21st century, medicine should guarantee the best possible quality of life, allowing professionals and patients to find their own values, self-actualization and self-healing (kogstad, ekeland, & hummelvoll, 2011; shiau & chen, 2008). on the one hand, professionals should be supported to find their own meaning this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.8119&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3360-7293 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4678-781x https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of work and strategies to not be defeated by distress and malaise (hynes et al., 2019; maffoni, argentero, et al., 2020; maffoni, zanatta et al., 2021). on the other hand, patients have to restore their body, but also their mind and spirit through sound relationships, attention to their existential needs and compassionate taking care (kogstad et al., 2011; grönblom-lundström et al., 2019). an example of humanistic care can be found in the north of italy, where there is a little town of about four hundred inhabitants called montescano which is surrounded by vineyards and rural traditions dominating daily life (azzolini, 2021). here, there is a well-known research and clinical hospital dedicated to the rehabilitation of neurological and cardiopulmonary diseases according to updated international guidelines and national health care system (italian ministry of health, 2020). briefly describing its history, this building was initially a mansion of a local noble family. then, it constantly changed its clothes, rethinking its mission and its meaning. in the late 18th century, the hospital hosted and took care of children suffering from poliomyelitis. after second world war until 1968, it was transformed into a sanatorium for children and adolescents developing tuberculosis. moreover, after a brief period where the building was a retirement house, the building finally become one of the first maugeri institutes (imbriani, 2005) which are hospitals providing multidisciplinary rehabilitation and occupational medicine to young and older adults. in 2020, the montescano institute and its inhabitants had to become a covid-19 unit, coping with the unpredictable challenges posed by the pandemic. thus, the hospital changed its mission many times during the centuries. although this part of the story can be like many other hospitals, the atmosphere and characteristics of the montesca­ no institute are something very rare. actually, what makes the difference it is the beneficial effect of nature. previous literature has already pinpointed that the connection with nature can both ignite positive emotions and support attention restoration, as well as stress reduction (capaldi et al., 2015; choe et al., 2020; cleary et al., 2017; martin et al., 2020). to this regard, one thing which goes right into the hearts of people is the country landscape surrounding everything and influencing the people lives. it is not so comfortable to reach the hospital as the street winds amongst fields and vineyards. there are no shops, nor amenities in the surroundings. however, on the summit of the hill, what you perceive is not poverty or deprivation rather unspoiled nature, sense of community and peace. some patients decided to spend here even one or two months each year as a pleasant routine to manage their chronic conditions. it is not easy to describe in words what happens. just think about a place where inpatients and outpatients are first involved in different medical assessments and programs of traditional and robotic multidisciplinary rehabilitation. then, they can take a sunbathe between a coffee and a card game on the sunny terrace of the institute or under the shadows of the magnolia trees of its park. during the weekend have been displayed some dancing afternoon for patients thanks to some professionals’ willingness to spend free time with patients. similarly, at the end of a daily hard physiotherapy session, the therapist can turn on the music and dance with the older adult who was waiting for nothing but feeling young again. it can also happen that patients become friends of local farmers and buy their products and wine on their discharge. furthermore, in the pre-covid era, some hospitalised guests, without food restrictions, had a pizza delivered while watching the football match on tv or just to have a good time with other patients. currently, due to covid-19 restrictions, relatives cannot yet visit their hospitalized lovers within the unit. for this reason, it is a daily experience seeing families outside the hospital who talk and motivate the patients speaking through the window of their room. moreover, during the epidemic peak outbreak, healthcare professionals proposed video calls and a psychological helpline to support patients and caregivers, trying to bridge the distance imposed by sanitary restrictions (maffoni, torlaschi et al., 2021). healthcare professionals working in this hospital are sort of a big family where there is mutual support, but also the time to squabble in case of different opinions. during the years, they challenged themselves by taking part in different research studies (scientific irccs network, 2021), as well as in activities such as mindfulness training experiences within the working place. each day, professionals easily communicate with each other, exchanging patient’s updates or calling for a specialist consultation in front of a vending machine or just informally knocking on the colleague’s door. the montescano atmosphere gradually captures even the most reticent professionals who are not used to this familiar approach. thus, each professional knows the other colleagues and the majority of patients. it is like a big house with shared spaces and experiences, and this allows to put in practice the concept of interdisciplinarity through the biopsychosocial approach (engel, 1980). the montescano effect 2 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 1–5 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ overall, it can be said that montescano provides what can be considered a therapeutic landscape, that is “the physical and built environments, social conditions and human perceptions combine to produce an atmosphere which is conducive to healing” (gesler, 1996, p. 96, as cited in cleary et al., 2017). thus, the easy-going way to communicate and the familiar and human approach between people create a strong and unique alchemical poison improving the mood and, in turn, the clinical and rehabilitative outcomes. professionals and patients are firstly human beings who are interrelated to each other by a common thread. the hospitalization takes place in a meditative place dominated by the nature which promotes the eudaimonic wellbeing of individual (choe et al., 2020; cleary et al., 2017). the entire building and its inhabitants are used to cope with adversities and unstoppable changes in medicine and society. it may be difficult, distressing and even painful, but, maybe, it is a winning way to survive and to improve the effects of therapies and subjective wellbeing (pierobon et al., 2011). in this vein, to address patient’s difficulties to reach the hospitals and increase the number of individuals taking in charge, future challenges for this hospital may be the daily adoption of telemedicine, tele-rehabilitation and high technology rehabilitation. indeed, telemedicine will allow monitoring patients at their home. similarly, tele-rehabilita­ tion will enhance the benefit of rehabilitation, extending interventions from hospitals to home. moreover, neuromotor rehabilitation using high technologies, robotics and virtual reality tools is described as promising. specifically, high technology rehabilitation can actually maximise the benefit of standard rehabilitation programs and guarantee the patient’s social and personal needs (voinescu, sui, & stanton fraser, 2021). besides these future perspectives, the healthcare approach adopted by this institute can provide useful insights in this tough time. unfortunately, the covid-19 pandemic teaches us to see hospitals as places of grief and death. however, it has not to be so. hospitals can be considered new starting points characterised by smiles, hope, new awareness and challenges. the healthcare landscape need not only for medicine but also for humanistic approaches to medicine (ferry-danini, 2018). moreover, promoting and discovering the mechanisms within the connection between nature and subjective wellbeing can be crucial to promote more targeted solutions for patients and to maximise the clinical outcome and psychophysical wellbeing (capaldi et al., 2015; cleary et al., 2017; martin et al., 2020). thus, when a new patient or a professional come here for the first time, they usually say: “it doesn’t seem to be a common hospital, is it?!”. veterans just respond saying “oh yeah, we know, it’s the atmosphere of this hospital which, maybe, will spread all around one day … it is the montescano effect!”. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: heartfelt thanks to all healthcare professionals and patients who have always believed in this hospital and still do it despite various difficulties. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references azzolini, a. 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(2021). virtual reality in neurorehabilitation: an umbrella review of meta-analyses. journal of clinical medicine, 10(7), article 1478. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10071478 the montescano effect 4 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 1–5 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8119 https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.137.5.535 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-018-9433-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joim.2019.06.001 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2018-001731 http://www.quotidianosanita.it/allegati/allegato8527344.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2011.01695.x https://doi.org/10.1097/njh.0000000000000623 https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000661 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101389 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.11.031 https://doi.org/10.1080/08838150802643563 https://moh-it.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/?search=montescano&pagesize=25&showadvanced=false&allconcepts=true&inferconcepts=true&searchby=partofnameortitle https://moh-it.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/?search=montescano&pagesize=25&showadvanced=false&allconcepts=true&inferconcepts=true&searchby=partofnameortitle https://doi.org/10.1016/s1607-551x(08)70134-7 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1279 https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10071478 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors marina maffoni, phd, is a psychologist who is currently employed in the psychological and neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation of patients affected by different pneumological, cardiac or neurological diseases. she also conducts research in health psychology, mainly focusing on patient’s adherence to treatments, risk and protective factors for healthcare professionals. paola abelli is a physician and chief medical officer of the ics maugeri institute of montescano (pv), italy. she is mainly involved in clinical and research activity concerning physical rehabilitation. giuseppe laganga senzio is the hospital manager of pavia and montescano institutes of the ics maugeri, italy. he is mainly involved in the management of health and social service organizations. antonia pierobon is a psychologist and psychotherapist who is currently employed in the psychological and neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation of patients affected by different pneumological, cardiac or neurological diseases. she also conducts research in health psychology, mainly focusing on psycho-cardiological and neuropsychological aspects. maffoni, abelli, laganga senzio, & pierobon 5 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 1–5 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8119 https://www.psychopen.eu/ health, wellbeing, and social interaction: an international and demographic analysis of perceived life changes and the positives and negatives of the covid-19 lockdown research reports health, wellbeing, and social interaction: an international and demographic analysis of perceived life changes and the positives and negatives of the covid-19 lockdown jennifer murray 1, mandeep k. dhami 2, kirstie mcclatchey 3, leonardo weiss-cohen 4, peter ayton 5 [1] school of health and social care, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom. [2] department of psychology, middlesex university, london, united kingdom. [3] usher institute, university of edinburgh, edinburgh, united kingdom. [4] department of psychology, kingston university london, london, united kingdom. [5] leeds university business school, university of leeds, leeds, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 received: 2021-10-29 • accepted: 2022-03-16 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: elisabetta lombardi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: jennifer murray, school of health and social care, edinburgh napier university, sighthill campus, 9 sighthill court, edinburgh, eh11 4bn, united kingdom. e-mail: j.murray2@napier.ac.uk supplementary materials: materials [see index of supplementary materials] abstract research suggests that people’s experiences of covid-19 lockdowns have been detrimental to their lives and wellbeing. the current research compared the experiences and perceptions on health, wellbeing and social interaction of 300 uk adults and 450 adults in california. individuals reported whether aspects of their life had changed for the better, worse, or not at all during lockdown in april 2020, and what the “best” and “worst” things about lockdown were. there were more similarities than differences in the regional comparison of perceptions of changes in specific aspects of ‘health and wellbeing’ and ‘social interaction’. both regions reported the same number and nature of best and worst things about lockdown. overarching themes of ‘health, self and wellbeing’, ‘being with others’, and ‘concerns with daily living’ were identified. although reports of life changes and the positives and negatives of lockdown were similar across different demographic groups, some differences were present by age, sex, relationship, and family-status. incorporating knowledge of unified and positive experiences of lockdown can be useful in informing future lockdown restrictions and supporting the population when restrictions are lifted. keywords covid-19, lockdown, social interaction, wellbeing, perceptions of change the united states of america (us) and the united kingdom (uk) both confirmed their first covid-19 cases at the end of january 2020 (world health organization, 2020a, 2020b) and global efforts to slow the spread of covid-19 have been in place to varying degrees since january 2020. in california, us, a mandatory stay-at-home order was announced on 19th march 2020 (california all, 2020), with the uk announcing a similar approach only days later, on 23rd march (cabinet office, 2020). by april 2020, over a fifth of the world’s population was placed under similar lockdowns (gilbert, 2020). the severity of the restrictions placed on people under these lockdowns have varied, with some governments requiring people to stay indoors at all times with the exception of keyworkers and emergencies, while others requested that citizens restrict movement to only essential journeys and food shopping. enforcement also varied, from police warnings and fines to imprisonment (e.g., executive department state of california, 2020; uk government, 2020). a key feature of lockdowns across countries was the closing of schools, childcare facilities, and play parks, closed workplaces this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.7751&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ with people being requested to work from home where possible, going into furlough, or losing their employment altogether, closure of places of worship, closing of non-essential businesses such as social spaces, restaurants, gyms, and the closure of the majority of retail establishments. the current research presents an international comparison of people’s experiences during this initial period of lock­ down, comparing responses from the us (california) and the uk. the research specifically asked people to self-report what they felt were the best and worst things about lockdown for them, and their perceptions of changes in their life since lockdown. through comparing data across the two regions, we aim to identify whether there are region-specific differences in people’s reported lockdown experiences or whether the experience of lockdown has been relatively similar. this exploration adds important insights on people’s social and psychological experiences of lockdown, which was noted as a gap in the literature by bavel et al. (2020), and from a broader perspective this may further inform us about appropriate policy responses to ongoing social isolation and possible future lockdowns, including supporting people who are isolated both during and possibly outwith times of pandemic restrictions. throughout this paper we discuss health, which is a complex construct. we adopt the constitution of the world health organization (1946) definition of health, which includes physical, mental, and social wellbeing, viewing health in a holistic way: “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” research on covid-19 lockdown experiences within the literature on covid-19 lockdown experiences, important findings around psychological, emotional and social wellbeing have been reported. among these findings, themes of loneliness, isolation, anxiety and other psycho­ logical effects have been reported. we will summarise key findings from the literature on these broad topics first. we will also discuss research which identified issues around perceived and lived experiences of social isolation, lack of freedom and the impact on physical wellbeing. following this section, we will then discuss in more depth research which sought to compare different groups’ experiences of the covid-19 lockdown, with a focus on the relevant themes already mentioned, with a particular focus on mental health and wellbeing. loneliness has been discussed as a growing problem which leads to negative effects on mental health, wellbeing, anxiety (cacioppo & cacioppo, 2018), and on cognitive function (shankar et al., 2013), long before the lockdown measures applied in recent years. unsurprisingly, lockdown has had a significant detrimental impact on wellbeing, with self-report research identifying increased anxiety and poorer mental health in lockdown (e.g., ali et al., 2020; aymerich-franch, 2020; odriozola-gonzález et al., 2020; park et al., 2020; roy et al., 2020; satici et al., 2022; sharma & subramanyam, 2020; stieger et al., 2021; vijayaraghavan & singhal, 2020; white & van der boor, 2020). research by the office for national statistics (ons) in the uk found that between early april and may 2020, around a third of those surveyed reported that their wellbeing had been negatively affected through feelings of loneliness in the past seven days (ons, 2020a). further survey research from the uk exploring the period immediately post-lockdown, found that almost one-third of respondents reported loneliness, with a higher risk of loneliness for younger age groups, and those separated or divorced (groarke et al., 2020). these researchers found that having higher levels of social support or being married or co-habiting acted as protective factors against loneliness. evidence from new zealand also suggested that approximately a third of survey respondents were experiencing moderate to severe psychological distress during lockdown (every-palmer et al., 2020), again with poorer outcomes seen in younger people, which echoes the wider research highlighting that young people experienced higher stress, anxiety and/or negative affect than older people during lockdown (aymerich-franch, 2020; park et al., 2020; vijayaraghavan & singhal, 2020). interestingly, of the respondents in every-palmer et al.’s (2020) study, two-thirds were able to highlight a number of positives of lockdown, which included enjoying working from home, spending more time with family, and having a quieter, less polluted environment. similarly, in the uk, williams et al. (2020) found that participants were able to draw positives from lockdown. this included having more time with children and bringing families together. however, the authors noted that participants who explicitly discussed positives to lockdown were from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and tended to live in more rural areas. despite socioeconomic status being stated by these authors as covid-19 lockdown experiences 144 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ important within interpreting the findings, no specific, objective measurement nor definition of socioeconomic status was actually reported in the study. as socioeconomic status is a complex construct, this finding is somewhat ambiguous in an objective sense. the authors do, however, report on standard occupational classification, which, as defined by the ons (2020b), classifies jobs in terms of their skill content and skill level. in the study the majority of participants were employed in a professional or skilled role or were in full time education. in addition, and despite some positives being highlighted, the main findings of williams et al.’s (2020) study was that participants felt depressed and anxious as a result of lockdown, with some likening the experience to prison (see also dhami et al., 2020). this impact on freedom has been mirrored in other findings, with 58% of a uk sample indicating ‘lack of freedom’ as the most common experience of lockdown (ons, 2020c). this is despite 91% of the sample having left their homes during the same time period, with 49% leaving to visit a park/green space, and 40% still travelling for employment (ons, 2020c). these findings are similar to those in italy, where lack of freedom was also found to be the most common negative experience of lockdown (barari et al., 2020). as well as the impact on mental wellbeing, lockdown has had an impact physical wellbeing. williams et al. (2020) found that participants spoke of a loss of motivation to perform basic everyday tasks. additionally, research has found that physical activity decreased during lockdown, as did consumption of fruit and vegetables (naughton et al., 2021). furthermore, alcohol consumption increased during the pandemic in both uk and us samples (naughton et al., 2021; pollard et al., 2020). finally, lockdowns have also affected day-to-day living. research has highlighted that the inability to go to work, the significant restructuring of work patterns, including balancing home working with home schooling, combined with worry over the virus itself, has left people feeling ‘overwhelmed’ or ‘scared’ (williams et al., 2020). this change in work-life balance has been particularly marked for women, with females being more likely to state that their work-life balance deteriorated during lockdown (ashencaen crabtree et al., 2021). empirical comparisons of lockdown experiences the growing body of research investigating the effects of the pandemic and lockdowns has mainly focused on negative experiences and has been situated within the initial lockdown period in spring 2020. this research is important as it not only mapped people’s initial adverse experiences of lockdown but may also help to inform how people will experience and cope with the ongoing lockdowns and varying degrees of stay-at-home orders within the ongoing pandemic situation. however, little research has explored positive experiences of lockdown and much research to-date has focused on measuring people’s experiences at a single point in time, investigating a narrow range of variables, and have focused on single-country level data. there are some exceptions however, where researchers either investigated people’s perceptions of changes over the initial lockdown period or measured changes in a longitudinal manner, although these studies do not explicitly measure positive experiences. sibley et al. (2020), for instance, compared the mental and physical health and subjective wellbeing of a matched sample of adults in new zealand a few months before the lockdown and during the first 18 days of lockdown in addition to conducting within-subjects analyses using data from the same participants a year earlier. both sets of analyses showed an effect of lockdown (e.g., increased mental distress and sense of community after lockdown, but decreased fatigue), although this was only the case for a minority of the measures. participants were found to be generally resilient either compared to matched others or to themselves. while this research had a robust methodology, it is clear retrospectively that new zealand took a different—more successful—approach to the covid-19 pandemic situation than many other countries in the world, having had a more effective reduction in cases (world health organization, 2020c). the generalisability of the findings of this research to other countries may, therefore, be reduced due to the differing political and public health messaging approaches taken in new zealand in comparison to the majority of other countries during the first lockdown, with proactive measures such as coordinated public health information campaigns and the banning of non-citizen arrivals to some regions of new zealand beginning on february 2nd, 2020; 24 days before the country’s first diagnosed case (baker et al., 2020). looking to longitudinal and comparative research, pierce et al. (2020) investigated changes in people’s pre-lockdown and in-lockdown mental health among over 17,000 uk adults. the study used data collected pre-lockdown in the uk murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 145 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ household longitudinal study (ukhls) and a follow up survey in april 2020, using the general health questionnaire (ghq-12) to assess mental health. deterioration in mental health was most present in women, people aged 18–24 years, and with people living with young children. this decrease in mental health mirrors sibley et al.’s (2020) findings, as do those of niedzwiedz et al. (2021), who conducted a longitudinal (four-wave) survey between 2015 and 2020 in the uk using the same measures as pierce et al. (2020). in addition to young people and women being most affected, this latter study also found that people from an asian background and those who were educated to degree level were at a higher risk of poorer mental health one month into lockdown. niedzwiedz et al. (2021) classified degree level as the highest educational attainment within their coding, though did not expand on the type of degree attained by participants. in contrast, o’connor et al. (2021) carried out a three-wave survey of over 3,000 adults during the first uk lockdown examining mental health and wellbeing. while they found that suicidal ideation increased over the lockdown time period, anxiety, feelings of defeat and entrapment decreased, and symptoms of depression and loneliness remained steady. this study also identified reports of positive changes in wellbeing among some participants. however, women were once again identified to be at higher risk of poorer mental health during lockdown. thus, despite the clearly negative impact on some aspects of mental health and wellbeing, the effect of time during lockdown on changes in people’s experiences of mental health and wellbeing presents a more complex picture, demonstrating the need for ongoing research and research which looks at real and perceived changes in experience. dhami et al. (2020) present one of the few studies comparing people’s experiences of lockdown against non-covid lockdown samples. they compared 750 uk and californian adults’ lockdown experiences with 573 first-time prisoners’ experiences of pre-pandemic imprisonment to determine whether any parallels existed between the two forms of con­ finement. the analyses were conducted per region (with the prison samples from each region). there were surprising differences among the lockdown and prison samples. people in lockdown engaged in a fewer variety of daily (life enriching and coping) activities and felt more hopeless than did first-time prisoners. it is clear that lockdowns in response to the covid-19 pandemic have had a significant impact on people’s lives globally (bavli et al., 2020), and there are some indications that experiences of lockdown may have unified features across countries. therefore, the present study explores whether the responses to lockdown are country-specific, or if there is a more shared experience of lockdown. a comparative analysis of what people feel are the best and worst things about lockdown was carried out across a uk and us (california) sample. in addition, to address the issue of single time-point data being a feature in the majority of research, the current research also investigated people’s perceptions of change over the lockdown and asked whether they perceived aspects of their lives to have gotten better, worse or remained the same. through the current investigation, a clearer picture of people’s self-reported best and worst experiences of lockdown and perceived changes in their lives will be presented, in addition to the international (uk, us) comparison. method design an online survey was conducted in the uk and the us state of california. data were collected in the uk from april 20th to 22nd and in california from april 24th to 28th. the lockdown in both regions began around the same time (i.e., march 23rd and 20th, 2020, respectively). both regions are anglophone but are culturally and politically different, thus allowing a comparison of two regions which shared a similar nature and timing experience of lockdown but which are not identical in their cultures. the current paper reports the qualitative data collected within the survey and data relating to a series of change variables. the qualitative data were collected through two open-ended questions asking the participants’ perceptions of the “best” and “worst” things about lockdown. data were grouped using an inductive thematic analysis approach (braun & clarke, 2006) and coded to allow quantitative comparisons between the different groups. the change variables (see appendix 1 in the supplementary materials) asked people nine questions about their perceived changes in behaviours since the lockdown began compared to beforehand using 7-point ordinal scales for most questions and one nominal list of behaviours which had been stopped during the course of lockdown. specific independent and dependent variables are detailed within the results sections for each statistical test run. a pilot was covid-19 lockdown experiences 146 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ not carried out specifically for this research; however, the study design was based on successful research and survey design employed in past research (i.e., souza & dhami, 2010). the study design allowed a rich collection of qualitative and quantitative data on the topic to be collected in such a way as to allow detailed comparisons, as presented in the 'results' section. participants three hundred adults in lockdown in the uk and 450 in california responded to the survey. participants were recruited via convenience sampling via online advert for the study. due to the lockdown situation, online research was appropri­ ate and sensible given the lack of face to face contact possible and to allow as broad a sample to be collected from the general population as possible. table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of the two samples. table 1 demographic characteristics of uk and californian samples uk (n = 300) california (n = 450) characteristic m (sd) % m (sd) % female 63.8 48.8 ethnicity–bame 13.0 56.9 disability 5.7  0.0 up to high school only 75.3 14.4 unemployed 12.8 15.8 income assistance 11.4 9.1 not in relationship 65.0 60.6 shared household 90.7 84.9 age 33.07 (11.14) 30.62 (11.22) number of children 0.69 (1.01) 0.36 (0.88) days in lockdown 30.17 (7.79) 37.66 (9.63) note. bame = black, asian and minority ethnic. materials the survey, called “life in lockdown,” comprised six sections (i.e., ‘your life in lockdown’, ‘socializing with others’, ‘your health’, ‘rules of lockdown’, ‘your experiences of covid-19’, and ‘you and your life before lockdown’). the current paper reports the qualitative data collected within the survey and quantitative data relating to a series of “change” variables. the full survey can be found in the supplementary materials and analyses of other survey items are reported in dhami et al. (2020). the survey included several quantitative items asking participants to report changes that had occurred during lockdown in comparison to before lockdown. these items can be grouped into those asking about health and wellbeing, and those asking about social interactions, including both contact with family/friends in and outside of participants’ households. the items and response scales are provided in appendix 1 in the supplementary materials. the survey also contained two open-ended items adapted from souza and dhami (2010). these were: “what is the [best/worst] thing about being in lockdown”. participants could choose to answer one, both, or neither question. responses were collected single free-text entry boxes with no character limit for each question. procedure participants in the lockdown samples were recruited online using prolific academic. only individuals who reported being fluent in english and currently residing in the uk or california were allowed to participate. upon completion, each participant was paid £2 (or its usd equivalent). participants could skip questions but could not go back to change murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 147 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ previous answers. ethical approval for the research was granted by the research ethics committee at city university, london. results perceptions of life change since lockdown table 2 presents the means and standard deviations of the change variables by sample. we conducted three sets of analyses to determine if participants’ reports of the changes that occurred to their lives after the first covid-19 lockdown were similar or different across the two samples, taking into account any differences in the demographic characteristics of the samples. table 2 means and standard deviations of dependent variables by sample uk california dependent variable m (sd) % m (sd) % health & wellbeing given up habits .40 (.58) .66 (.73) food quality+ .03 (1.26) -.07 (1.20) general health+ -.11 (.93) -.11 (.98) self-image+ -.04 (1.08) -.07 (1.01) self-improvement 37.0 38.1 social interaction mix with household+ .89 (1.34) .72 (1.75) contact outside+ .04 (1.74) -.10 (1.64) social life+ -1.29 (1.25) -1.07 (1.24) treatment by others+ .20 (.69) .15 (.69) note. +these variables were measured on a –3 to +3 scale with a 0 midpoint. first, a mancova was used to determine the effect of sample (uk or california) on six of the measures of change (i.e., food quality, general health, self-image, social life, contact with family/friends outside household, and treatment by family/friends). the following demographic factors were entered as covariates: age, gender (male or female), ethnicity (bame or white), education level (up to high school only or beyond), employment status (unemployed or employed), income assistance (no or yes), relationship status (alone or in relationship), number of children, shared household (no or yes), and number of days in lockdown. the absolute correlations among the six variables entered in the manova ranged from r = .001 to .37. there was no significant multivariate effect of sample on these variables, f(6, 703) = 1.18, p = .314, ηp2 = .010, and no univariate effects. none of the demographics were significantly associated with the six measures of change. an ancova was then used to examine the effect of sample on change in the mixing with others in the same household. this question was only shown to participants who indicated sharing a household, and therefore covered a smaller subset of participants. the analysis had to exclude the shared household variable, which was equal to ‘yes’ for all participants. it was found that after controlling for significant effects of relationship status (p = .002) and number of children (p = .028), there was no significant effect of sample on amount of mixing with others in household f(1, 622) = 0.58, p = .447, ηp2 = .001. individuals in a relationship demonstrated a significant increase in the amount they mixed with others in their household since lockdown began (m = 1.10, sd = 1.72) than those not in a relationship (m = .59, sd = 1.66), t(646) = -3.77, p < .001. the number of children an individual said they had was significantly positively associated with a change in the amount of mixing with others in their household since lockdown began, r = .14, p = .001. covid-19 lockdown experiences 148 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ finally, logistic regression analysis was used to measure the predictive validity of sample on whether or not participants began a new hobby or self-help, controlling for the demographic factors. this revealed that the only significant predictor of self-improvement was gender, b = .37 (se = .16), wald (df = 1) = 5.26, p = .022. the odds of males beginning self-improvement was 1.45 times more likely than females. best and worst things about lockdown analysis of the two qualitative items occurred in four steps: (1) inductive development of coding categories (braun & clarke, 2006); (2) coding of data into these categories; (3) coder reliability check; and (4) comparative analysis. first, the data corpus was read and re-read by one author (jm) and an initial set of coding categories was developed. following discussions between two authors (jm and mkd) and a process of grouping and re-grouping the data and categories, 18 distinct and meaningful themes for the “best” item and 20 themes for the “worst” item were agreed. these were then grouped into three themes for each question. where a participant’s response aligned to more than one category/theme, it was coded within all applicable categories and themes. then, a reliability analysis was performed using a coder with no involvement in the study design, administration, or analysis (kmcc). the results of the reliability analysis are provided in appendix 2 in the supplementary materials. the coding was discussed (jm and kmcc) until 100% agreement was reached. finally, responses from the uk and californian samples were compared using a combination of independent samples t-tests, chi-square tests of independence and logistic regression analyses. again, these comparative analyses took account of any demographic differences between the two samples. the numbers of best and worst things about lockdown expressed by participants were compared across the two samples using two independent samples t-tests (see table 3). there were no significant differences in the numbers of best and worst things about lockdown across the uk and californian samples (best thing: t[747] = 0.01, p = .995, worst thing: t[688.08] = -1.21, p = .228). table 3 mean (sd) number of best and worst things about lockdown by regional sample uk (n = 300) california (n = 449) value m sd m sd best 1.36 0.66 1.36 0.65 worst 1.33 0.60 1.39 0.67 appendix 3, in the supplementary materials, presents the percentage and number of times that responses regarding the best and worst things about being in lockdown were coded into general themes and specific categories within the whole dataset and also within each sample. when a participant’s response to the question aligned within a particular theme this was then coded as being present for that participant. table 4 presents the participant level data. comparisons for each of the three overall themes for the best (i.e., ‘health, self, and wellbeing’, ‘being with other people’, ‘daily living concerns’) and worst thing responses (i.e., ‘health, self, and wellbeing’, ‘being with other people’, ‘daily living concerns’) were conducted using chi-square tests of independence. there were no significant associations between sample and perceptions that the ‘best’ thing about lockdown were improvements in ‘health, self, and wellbeing’, χ2(1, n = 749) = .26, p = .607, beliefs that ‘being with other people’, χ2(1, n = 749) = .46, p = .497, nor between improvements in ‘daily living concerns’, χ2(1, n = 749) = .03, p = .871. there were also no significant associations between sample and perceptions that the worst thing about lockdown were reductions in ‘health, self, and wellbeing’, χ2(1, n = 749) = 0.86, p = .354, or beliefs around ‘being with other people’, χ2(1, n = 749) = 2.04, p = .153. the association between sample and perceptions of ‘daily living concerns’ as being the worst thing about lockdown was statistically significant, χ2(1, n = 749) = 3.90, p = .048, with participants in california being slightly more likely to report such concerns than those in the uk (see table 4). murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 149 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ further chi-square tests were conducted to interrogate the association between sample and each of the specific categories coded within the best and worst thing themes. for the ‘best’ thing about lockdown, the only significant associations were those between sample and: enjoying the outdoors and environment, χ2(1, n = 749) = 4.28, p = .039, with people in the uk being more likely to express this than people in california; not having to leave home, χ2(1, n = 749) = 6.02, p = .014, with people in california more likely to express this than people in the uk; and life being less hectic, χ2(1, n = 749) = 9.84, p = .002, with the uk sample expressing this more often. for the ‘worst’ thing about lockdown, only the association between sample and loneliness was significant, χ2(1, n = 749) = 4.52, p = .033, with people in california more likely to express this to be the worst thing about lockdown than people in the uk. the remaining non-significant chi-square analyses are available in appendix 4, in the supplementary materials, in the supplementary materials. finally, logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify whether demographic characteristics could predict participants’ expression of the themes (i.e., ‘health, self, and wellbeing’, ‘being with others’, and ‘daily living concerns’) as the best or worst thing about lockdown. within the ‘best’ thing about lockdown responses, significant predictors for ‘health, self, and wellbeing’ were being in a relationship, b = -.49 (se = .20), wald (df = 1) = 6.30, p = .012, and having children, b = -.33 (se = .12), wald (df = 1) = 7.13, p = .01. participants in a relationship and those with more children were more likely to view health, self and wellbeing as the best thing about lockdown. for ‘being with other people’, being in a relationship, b = .41 (se = .20), wald (df = 1) = 4.19, p = .041, and living in shared accommodation, b = -.65 (se = .30), wald (df = 1) = 4.79, p = .029, were significant predictors. those in a relationship were more likely to express this as one of the best things about lockdown, but those living with others in shared accommodation were less likely to state this than people living alone. there were no significant predictors for ‘daily living concerns’ as one of the best things about being in lockdown. within the ‘worst’ thing about lockdown responses, having a disability, b = 1.36 (se = .56), wald (df = 1) = 5.99, p = .014, was a significant predictor for expressing ‘health, self, and wellbeing’. for the ‘being with others’, age, b = -.03 (se = .01), wald (df = 1) = 8.20, p = .004, gender, b = .37 (se = .16), wald (df = 1) = 5.57, p = .018, and ethnicity, b = .40 (se = .18), wald (df = 1) = 4.97, p = .026, were all significant predictors. younger people were less likely to consider this theme to be the worst thing about lockdown, while female and white participants were more likely to express this as one of the worst things about being in lockdown. having children predicted ‘daily living concerns’ as the worst thing about lockdown, b = -.28 (se = .11), wald (df = 1) = 6.59, p = .010, with participants with more children being less likely to express this than those with fewer children. table 4 percentage of participants by regional sample whose responses for best and worst thing about lockdown were coded into broad themes themes all (n = 749) uk (n = 300) californian (n = 449) best thing about lockdown health, self, and wellbeing 38.5 37.3 39.2 being with other people 32.6 34.0 31.6 daily living concerns 37.0 37.3 36.7 worst thing about lockdown health, self, and wellbeing 26.8 25.0 28.1 being with other people 41.5 44.7 39.4 daily living concerns 53.4 49.0 56.3 note. the n and percentages in appendix 3, in the supplementary materials, and table 4 differ due to the different nature of the data being presented. the data presented in this table represent the participant level responses rather than the total number of ‘data extracts’ within the themes across the entire data corpus. covid-19 lockdown experiences 150 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the current research investigated whether there were common experiences of uk and californian adult’s perceptions of life changes since lockdown, as well as their perceptions of the best and worst things about lockdown. overall, we found more similarities than differences between the two regional samples. thus, across these two regions, people appear to have shared experiences of lockdown, and in particular, similar to the findings of o’connor et al. (2021), people do have positives experiences of lockdown; it is not a wholly negative experience. the data collected reflects a snapshot in time, although participants were asked to report whether specific aspects of their lives had gotten better, worse or remained the same while in lockdown. we acknowledge that this does not replace the more robust method of preand post-lockdown data collection, however, the present findings regarding perceptions of life changes since lockdown do echo some of those reported in longitudinal studies. when considering what people felt was the worst thing about lockdown, however, the current findings more clearly mirror those of the past longitudinal studies (niedzwiedz et al., 2021; o’connor et al., 2021; pierce et al., 2020), with young people and females being more likely to express that aspects of being with others/not being with others was the worst thing about lockdown. unlike the findings of niedzwiedz et al. (2021), pierce et al. (2020), and sibley et al. (2020), the current research did not find that females significantly differed from males in terms of their perceptions of life changes but did find that males were more likely to begin self-improvement activities than females. it is unclear if this is due to females already engaging in such activities before lockdown, but if so, then lockdown means that males may benefit equally as females from a new hobby or self-help. alternatively, some research suggests that females may be too burdened by household chores and childcare (czymara et al., 2021; yerkes et al., 2020) and so they may not have the opportunity to begin activities that can enrich them personally. there was also a change in social interaction depending on demographics of the sample, with individuals in a relationship and those with more children showing a significant increase in the amount that they mixed with others in their household since lockdown began. the valence of the experiences of these two groups, however, differed. findings regarding the best/worst thing about lockdown suggest that those in a relationship report aspects of improved health, self and wellbeing as the best thing about lockdown, whereas those with more children report that problems with daily living concerns/routine was the worst thing about lockdown. their counterparts without children stated that improved health, self and wellbeing was the best thing about lockdown, and those not in a relationship and not in shared living situations valuing being with others most. considering the responses to the best and worst things about lockdown in more detail and what this means for people’s experiences of lockdown, spending time with others and being able to engage in routine or ‘normal’ activities are clearly central to a person’s positive or negative experience of lockdown. the most common best thing about being in lockdown was being able to spend more time with others, including family, friends and pets. this included spending time with people living in the same accommodation and spending time with people virtually via online platforms. the next most common response was having time to learn and to do things such as hobbies, education, and catching up on diy projects. in parallel, the most commonly expressed worst thing about lockdown were being physically apart from others and not being able to do routine, everyday things and activities. although similar patterns or themes were observed for the best and worst thing about lockdown there were also observable differences. when considering the best thing about lockdown, individuals expressed a positive change in their perceptions of life, having more time for self, more sleep, rest and relaxation, a less hectic pace of life, less social pressure and appreciating the space and privacy of the lockdown experience. in contrast, with regard to the worst thing about lockdown, individuals expressed concerns over the uncontrollable passing of time, concerns and stress over the uncertainty of the situation, a lack of freedom, space, privacy and peace, the increased home pressures with home childcare and education in addition to home working, and having too much time with the family, in addition to experiences of negative psychological states such as deteriorating mental health, anger, frustration, boredom, anxiety, fear, and loneliness. these patterns, echoed in the analysis of the change variables, indicate that there are two key types of experiences of lockdown. the first appears more positive, with a flexible approach to living, where finances, employment, and engaging (to a greater extent than before) in routine activities such as hobbies and projects are not negatively impacted. murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 151 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ here, individuals appear to have more time for themselves or to have created more time for themselves to engage in activities which they enjoy. the second type of experience, however, appears more negative, with participants experiencing increased home pressures through having to take on multiple roles within the home which were not present or have increased in comparison to pre-lockdown (e.g., working from home, home education, childcare), or they have had their main source of earning removed. individuals here express more negative psychological experiences, too, which align to the increased pressures and uncertainty which they are experiencing. the current research did not examine the effects of caregiver stress and anxiety on those for whom they were caring. however, given the findings indicating that there are two key types of experiences of lockdown, and that much of this appears associated with caring responsibilities, it is sensible to discuss the potential psychological impacts on not only the caregiver but also for those receiving care. during the initial lockdown periods, data collected across international studies indicated, like our findings, that caregivers were experiencing negative affect such as higher levels of stress. for instance, altieri and santangelo (2021) found that carers of people with dementia experienced higher levels of depression as a result of lockdown, and that caregiver burden was negatively correlated with resilience and positively correlated with functional dependence. those who had higher levels of measured resilience were also found to have lower levels of anxiety. these findings present a complex picture of caregiver experiences during lockdown, suggesting that it is not a universal one; similar to our findings, there is nuance in how people cope and experienced living in lockdown, and the extent to which others rely on the caregiver (‘caregiver burden’) and the coping mechanisms (e.g., ‘resilience’) influence the extent of the psychological effects experienced. within the uk, a large-sample study (n = 9737) conducted by whitley et al. (2021) found similar psychological outcomes within unpaid carers. in their study, unpaid carers of children under 18 years of age reported improvements in their mental health, which was recorded via preand in-lockdown comparisons of general health questionnaire (ghq-12) scores. carers of adult children, on the other hand, and those who reported a greater caregiver burden saw decreases in their mental health, and this was worse for those who had previously received formal help pre-lockdown. further to this, in a large sample (n = 2988) exploring parent-child mental health in the first uk lockdown, raw et al. (2021) found that children who experienced elevated symptoms of mental health distress were more likely to also have a parent/caregiver with higher levels of psychological distress. however, the authors highlighted that the picture is not a universal one, and that the experience of lockdown is individual and multi-faceted. this is an important area for further exploration for future research, as care experiences do not exist in a vacuum but are relational in nature. similar to the current study’s findings, and taken together, these findings suggest that lockdown experience and its effect on mental health and psychological wellbeing is related to not simply the presence of a caregiving role, but also to the coping mechanisms employed and the resources available to the caregiver in their environment. it is therefore appropriate to suggest that reinstating formal support and increasing formal support available to caregivers and care recipients will be beneficial to psychological wellbeing post-lockdown. as mentioned at the outset, most research to date has focused on the negatives of lockdown, however, as we find, it might be useful to also explore the potential positives of lockdown. identifying the positives and who may experience these can be as useful as recognizing what makes a person’s experiences of lockdown negative. together, this understanding can be used to inform public health policies. in regard to operationalizing the findings from the current paper within health and social care related policy and practice, we must consider these findings in light of others to gain the best possible or most rounded insight into this complex area. for instance, when considering the impact of lockdown on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people and of those with intellectual or learning disabilities, we see some similarities with the current study’s findings for neurotypical adult populations; although the negative effects of lockdown and the pandemic are heightened in people with intellectual and learning difficulties (berasategi sancho et al., 2022). first considering the effects of the pandemic on children and young people and what this means for schooling practices post-lockdown, research by hornstra et al. (2022) identified that while the experience of students learning from home and having decreased social contact may cause potential learning losses, there are also decreases in motivation and wellbeing. these authors found that these decreases were present regardless of educational level, gender and academic track but were particularly pronounced for across the students with special sensory needs. similar findings were reported by berasategi sancho et al. (2022). children in this study had increased negative emotions, with increases in crying, feeling nervous, angry and sadder than usual during lockdown and, once again, children with covid-19 lockdown experiences 152 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ special needs within the sample had lower general wellbeing and experienced more negative emotions. focus must therefore be given to both emotional wellbeing in addition to the need for academic skill building post-pandemic and particular considerations for the wellbeing of people with special or additional needs being made. focusing now on the health and social care experiences of people with learning disabilities, peacock-brennan et al. (2021) conducted a service evaluation to help guide planning provision in case of future lockdown situations and to plan for exiting lockdown. as with the previous studies, there are parallels between the current study’s findings and those of peacock-brennan et al. (2021). first, these authors reported some positives associated with lockdown experiences, and these highlighted the importance of feeling safe (e.g., messages of safety and consistent guidance), valuing relationships, and keeping busy; which were also key findings of the current research. participants also reported that missing friends and family in meaningful social contact was a negative. these findings and ours indicate that meaningful contact, social support, and meaningful activities added value during the lockdown period. in terms of public health priorities, emerging from the pandemic, particular support and resource ought to be paid to these key areas – connections with people, whether these are formal or informal caregivers, is clearly highly important, as is meaningful connections and activities. similar to the recommendation around education, there must therefore be attention and resource allocated to emotional and psych-social wellbeing for people in and post-lockdown. with ongoing resourcing challenges, this meaningful contact could be facilitated via the use of simple technology (e.g., telephone, video-appointments) and operationalized in a routine manner (peacock-brennan et al., 2021) to help maintain supportive contact and to act as preventative care indicator. consistency of public health messaging and communication around safety was also highlighted in both our and peacock-brennan et al.’s (2021) study as important. based on the balance of our findings and those of others discussed, there ought to be consistent and equitably applied public health messaging and practice which supports not only the physical safety of people’s health, but also considers and supports psychological and social wellbeing. furthermore, given the lack of regional differences observed in the current study (see also dhami et al., 2020), a more unified international approach to public health policies on future lockdown restrictions for regions which are similar may be beneficial. whilst presenting an international comparison across demographic groupings, the current study cannot fully report on the more nuanced cultural differences and contexts across these two groups of participants as nuanced cultural data were not collected. this may be an important area for further exploration and comparison to best inform more nuanced aspects of public health policies. specific comparisons of successful and less successful lockdown approaches taken by governments will no doubt emerge as time progresses and greater access to longitudinal data is available. informing future approaches to lockdown restrictions based on balancing the variables that achieve both effective infection reduction and which reduce the negative and increase the positive experiences of lockdown on mental health and wellbeing is imperative to reducing both the physical harm caused by infection and the psychological harm caused by restrictions on freedom (see also bavel et al., 2020). the findings on shared negative—and positive—experiences of lockdown and the sense of social isolation may also be useful in informing policy and decision making toward provision of support for people who live alone or who are socially isolated outwith pandemic measures due to, for example, mental and physical health issues. the lessons hard-learned by necessity throughout the pandemic restrictions can be used to inform better support for people who are socially isolated and their ongoing health and wellbeing needs. an important consideration is the ethical use and application of findings such as those in the current paper: while we report that lockdown experiences are now wholly negative, stay-at-home restrictive measures such as lockdowns are not normalized aspects of society and, as discussed earlier, there must be balance between the benefits of saving lives through restrictive measures—only applied when absolutely essential—and the emotional, social and psychological wellbeing needs of people and societies. the findings from this paper demonstrate the resilience of people across different regions in response to an unprecedented global phenomenon. that said, the interpretation and discussion of the findings further highlight the need for appropriate planning for physical and mental health support for people inand post-lockdown, particularly those who are living in isolation. murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 153 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the project received ethical approval from city university, london. the project was partly funded by city university, london (ayton) and middlesex university, london (dhami). competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist in regard to the research. the lead author is a senior editor with europe’s journal of psychology and declared this prior to the review process beginning. data availability: the current paper reports on the qualitative data collected within the survey “life in lockdown.” while the data is not available, the full survey and associated information about the research can be found in the supplementary materials. supplementary materials the supplementary materials provided are the full survey, data analysis plan, questionnaire, analysis items, response scales, and tables that support the findings of this study (for access see index of supplementary materials below). index of supplementary materials murray, j., dhami, m. k., mcclatchey, k., weiss-cohen, l., & ayton, p. 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(2020b). novel coronavirus (2019-ncov): situation report 12. world health organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330777 world health organization (2020c). new zealand takes early and hard action to tackle covid-19. world health organization. https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/feature-stories/detail/new-zealand-takes-early-and-hard-action-to-tackle-covid-19 covid-19 lockdown experiences 156 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://doi.org/10.1108/tldr-12-2020-0041 https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366(20)30308-4 https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.22942 https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13490 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00305-0 https://doi.org/10.1097/psy.0b013e31827f09cd https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238761 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000662 https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854810379969 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00337-2 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/police-given-new-powers-and-support-torespond-to-coronavirus https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2020.79 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0033291721002555 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-039334 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330771 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/330777 https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/feature-stories/detail/new-zealand-takes-early-and-hard-action-to-tackle-covid-19 https://www.psychopen.eu/ yerkes, m. a., andré, s. c. h., besamusca, j. w., kruyen, p. m., remery, c. l. h. s., van der zwan, r., beckers, d. g. j., & geurts, s. a. e. (2020). ‘intelligent’ lockdown, intelligent effects? results from a survey on gender (in)equality in paid work, the division of childcare and household work, and quality of life among parents in the netherlands during the covid-19 lockdown. plos one, 15(11), article e0242249. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242249 about the authors dr jennifer murray is an active researcher in the areas of forensic psychology and applied health research, with an overarching theme of decision science pulling these two areas together. her core research interests lie in judgement decision making across risk assessment contexts. professor mandeep dhami examines people’s judgment and decision-making strategies, the factors that influence their risk perceptions, and how they communicate probabilistic information. her research employs primarily quantitative methods (i.e., experiments, surveys and statistical modelling). much of her research is conducted in applied domains such as crime, courts, and intelligence analysis. dr kirstie mcclatchey is a health psychologist and researcher at the usher institute, university of edinburgh. she has published research exploring various public health issues, including alcohol interventions, suicide risk assessment, and the impacts of covid-19 on people with asthma. kirtsie is currently working on a national institute for health research funded study to improve supported asthma self-management in primary care. dr leonardo weiss-cohen’s research focuses on decisions from experience, how individuals integrate descriptions with experience, and how to create more effective descriptions. professor peter ayton studies behavioural decision theory. specifically, his research investigates how people make judgments and decisions under conditions of risk, uncertainty and ambiguity. his investigations use a variety of empirical methods including laboratory experiments, surveys, field studies and the analysis of archival data. his research has appeared in leading journals in psychology and economics with applied multidisciplinary collaborations appearing in a wide range of journals and leading conferences in medicine, law and computer science. murray, dhami, mcclatchey et al. 157 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 143–157 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.7751 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242249 https://www.psychopen.eu/ covid-19 lockdown experiences (introduction) research on covid-19 lockdown experiences empirical comparisons of lockdown experiences method design participants materials procedure results perceptions of life change since lockdown best and worst things about lockdown discussion (additional information) funding competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the authors the prevalence of sexual violence perpetration in sexual minority men: a secondary analysis of systematic review data research reports the prevalence of sexual violence perpetration in sexual minority men: a secondary analysis of systematic review data raeann e. anderson 1 , sara k. kuhn 1 , amanda m. vitale 2,3 , alyssa m. ciampaglia 4 , kristin e. silver 5,6 [1] department of psychology, university of north dakota, grand forks, nd, usa. [2] james j. peters veterans affairs medical center, new york, ny, usa. [3] icahn school of medicine at mount sinai, new york, ny, usa. [4] neuro-oncology department, children’s hospital of philadelphia, philadelphia, pa, usa. [5] department of neurology, duke university, durham, nc, usa. [6] durham veterans affairs medical center, durham, nc, usa. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 received: 2021-02-10 • accepted: 2021-09-07 • published (vor): 2022-11-30 handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: raeann e. anderson, department of psychology, university of north dakota, 501 n columbia road, grand forks, nd 58202-8380, usa. e-mail: raeann.anderson@und.edu abstract prior literature illustrates that sexual minority people (e.g., bisexual, gay, queer) are at increased vulnerability for sexual violence victimization compared to heterosexual peers, including while in college. however, the study of sexual violence perpetration in sexual minority populations, much less specifically sexual minority college men, has been neglected. this article reviews the literature and presents a secondary data analysis of a systematic review on college men’s sexual perpetration rates and associated methodology. we also conducted analyses to summarize available literature regarding publishing dates, authors, and data inclusivity. methods: we downloaded the dataset and associated materials from mendeley.com’s data archive. results: to our surprise, we could not analyze sexual perpetration prevalence rates in sexual minority men using the systematic review data due to absence of reported data across all 77 independent samples including over 5,500 male participants. we found no significant relationship between inclusion of sexual minority men and the use of measurement strategies specialized to assess sexual minority needs. we did find a positive relationship between recency of publication and the inclusion of sexual minority men, r(76) = .24, p = .03, and that most authors/co-authors were women (72%). conclusions: preventing perpetration is central to ending sexual violence; therefore, future research should include sexual minority people and use appropriate methodology in the investigation of sexual perpetration characteristics and patterns. keywords sexual minority men, sexual perpetration, campus sexual assault, measurement, prevalence sexual violence victimization, the experience of sexual contact without consent, is a significant public health problem. sexual victimization increases vulnerability to a broad range of long-term physical and mental health issues including depression, eating disorders, chronic pain, and posttraumatic stress disorder (dworkin et al., 2017), and for men there is a likelihood of: suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and/or self-harm; depression; heavy drinking or drug use and resultant organ failure; somatic symptoms; sexual dysfunction; stis/hiv; and general poor health (sampsel, 2016). sexual minority students (those who identify as gay, queer, bisexual, or any other non-heterosexual sexual identity) are at increased vulnerability compared to their heterosexual peers (eisenberg et al., 2021; martin-storey et al., 2018; rothman et al., 2011). however, the literature predominantly focuses on a heteronormative model of cisgender heterosexual men assaulting cisgender heterosexual women (anderson et al., 2021; turchik et al., 2016). for example, heteromantic preferences can exclude sm people and others who may engage in non-monogamous sexual partnerships (ison, 2019). thus, sexual violence is yet another area in which sexual and gender minority (sgm) groups experience this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6127&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-11-30 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9938-0717 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3368-478x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6321-8504 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8931-2470 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6121-529x https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ disparities in representation and health (wallace & santacruz, 2017; westefeld et al., 2001). additionally, homophobia and heteronormativity perpetuate the myth that sexual violence does not occur in lgbtq+ communities (ison, 2019). further, the study of sexual violence must also include the study of sexual perpetration, although this has been historically neglected (mckay et al., 2019). sexual victimization and sexual perpetration are two halves of the same phenomenon—sexual violence. by neglecting the study of perpetration, we neglect the possibility of discovering key prevention strategies (abbey, 2005). thus, the goal of this study was to review the literature to ascertain what the prevalence rate of sexual perpetration is among sexual minority men (smm) in college and the attendant research methodologies used to determine these prevalence rates. we chose to focus specifically on perpetration behavior, not to demonize or pathologize an already stigmatized and vulnerable group of people who are victims themselves (i.e., smm), but to acknowledge the centrality of perpetration to true sexual violence prevention and address the neglect of this topic thus far in the literature. our sample will be smm in college in the united states and canada as we are reviewing an available dataset comprising existing literature on perpetration behavior in this population. we also wanted to guard against introducing variance due to culture given findings from a recent meta-analysis revealing a wide range of prevalence rates within european countries (krahé et al., 2014). additionally, we will not sample the literature on known adult sex offenders (e.g., prison samples; registered sex offenders) as they are a very small percentage of those who perpetrate. rates of sexual perpetration in college men is around 29% (anderson et al., 2020) while registered sex offenders make up less than half a percent of the united states’ population (ncmec, 2017). furthermore, due to the prevalence of alcohol use and the sexual culture in colleges, students frequent locations and events that are at high risk for sexual violence (fedina et al., 2018). sexual minority people’s vulnerability for sexual victimization a wealth of research has recently emerged which documents that sgm people (e.g., lgbtq+ people, lgb and straight trans men and women, intersex and non-binary people, and gender non-conforming or gender-queer people who utilize “they/them” pronouns) are at increased vulnerability for experiencing sexual violence victimization (hughes et al., 2010; rothman et al., 2011; walters et al., 2013). according to the cdc, cisgender gay and bisexual men are 1.9 and 2.3 times (respectively) more likely to experience rape and sexual violence than heterosexual men (walters et al., 2013); among smm college men, they are 3x more likely to experience rape (anderson et al., 2017). put another way, this suggests that 40.2 to 47.4% of smm experience sexual victimization (walters et al., 2013). consistent with history, not only have sgm people’s experiences been neglected in this research, so have the experiences of other minoritized identities such as people of color (griner et al., 2020). yet, understanding the source of victimization (e.g., the behavior of the perpetrators) is fundamentally limited when solely examining experiences of those who have been victimized. thus, comprehensive prevention for sexual minority groups requires examining the behavior of those who harm sexual minority people. who is harming sexual minority people? it might be useful to look towards related violence research on sgm populations for a clue as to the prevalence of sexual perpetration among sgm people. for example, a recent study on female-assigned-at-birth sgm people (e.g., transgender men, lgbtq+ cisgender women) found only 2.6% reported intimate partner sexual violence perpetration (messinger et al., 2021) while rates of reported victimization were much higher. indeed, research on hate crimes suggest that approximately 20% of sexual minority adults reported experiencing a hate crime directed at their person or property due to their sexual identity (burks et al., 2018; herek, 2009). consistent with minority stress theory and the hate crime data, lifetime discrimination has been associated with intimate partner violence (ipv) perpetration (shorey et al., 2019), suggesting that the strain of stigma leads to internalized (e.g., anxiety, depression) as well as externalized (e.g., substance use, violence) behavior. another ipv focused study of smm found that 44.9% of smm reported lifetime ipv victimization while 19.5% reported lifetime ipv perpetration (miltz et al., 2019), raising the question of where this threat of sexual violence is coming from. within the lgbtq+ community, outside the community, or both, and under what circumstances? an important methodology for answering this question is comparing rates of reported sexual violence perpetration in groups of men who differ by sexual identity. we conducted a thorough review of the literature and located only three sexual minority men and sexual perpetration 438 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ relevant studies which surveyed community or college samples and assessed the history of sexual perpetration behavior and sexual identity. we excluded incarcerated samples as the environmental stressors and vulnerabilities differ greatly from community/college samples. evidence from the literature: comparison of self-reported perpetration rates by sexual identity anderson et al. (2017) found no differences between sexual minority and heterosexual american college men in reported rates of sexual violence perpetration. in contrast, krahé and berger (2013) found that german college men, who were classified behaviorally as bisexual (rather than by self-identification), reported the highest rates of sexual perpetration, followed by behaviorally heterosexual men and behaviorally gay men. walsh et al.’s (2021) results contrasted with those of both anderson et al. (2017) and krahé and berger (2013), finding that heterosexual college men had the highest reported sexual violence perpetration rates. the methodological differences across these studies are one possible source of differences. the anderson et al. (2017) and walsh et al. (2021) studies recruited small samples of smm. krahé and berger (2013) defined sexual orientation behaviorally, rather than by individual identity, as anderson et al. (2017) and walsh et al. (2021) had. all three studies used different measurement strategies to assess sexual violence perpetration; prior research has documented that the wide variation in sexual violence prevalence rates is tied to measurement issues (anderson et al., 2021; fedina et al., 2018; peterson et al., 2011). this small body of research typifies the issues underscored by mckay et al. (2019) in their research on violence against lgbtq people—there is a lack of standardized, comprehensive measures for violence in lgbtq populations and a lack of attention towards perpetration research. further research is needed on sexual perpetration that includes smm and assesses sexual violence in ways that are inclusive of smm’s unique experiences. measurement and methodology issues in sexual violence in general, men’s experiences of sexual violence victimization are under-researched (davies, 2002). until recently—and similar to current united kingdom law (weare, 2021)—most federal definitions of sexual violence in the united states excluded certain experiences that are more common for people with penises, such as being made to penetrate someone (stemple & meyer, 2014). made to penetrate victimization may be particularly relevant to understanding bisexual men’s experiences, as some data suggests this behavior is perpetrated almost exclusively by heterosexual women (anderson et al., 2020; weare, 2018). further, research suggests that currently available questionnaires, such as the iterations of the sexual experiences survey, may be inherently gendered and contain some degree of heterosexist bias because the development of these questionnaires largely excluded sgm populations (anderson & delahanty, 2020; anderson et al., 2021). indeed, research from the ipv literature suggests there may be tactics of violence specific to the experiences of sgm people, such as threatening to “out” someone (i.e., reveal their sexual identity without their consent; balsam & szymanski, 2005; dyar et al., 2021). thus, research on sexual violence and smm must use tools that encompass the range of sexual experience sgm may report, while simultaneously not stigmatizing or judging. the lack of appropriate measurement tools has been an ongoing challenge in decades of research on violence against sgm people (mckay et al., 2019). current study our literature review located three prior studies (not included in the systematic review) on the topic of smm and sexual perpetration. each demonstrated that measurement strategy may be obscuring the relationship between perpetration rates and sexual identity. the purpose of this study is to conduct a secondary data analysis of the most recent systematic review data (anderson et al., 2021) on sexual perpetration in college men in the united states and canada to examine how prevalence rates and associated measurement strategies may differ by sexual identity. because the original systematic review did not focus on smm data, we reanalyzed the data for this purpose consistent with calls in the literature to focus on perpetration and on measurement research, respectively (mckay et al., 2019). anderson, kuhn, vitale et al. 439 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research question (rq) 1. we compared perpetration prevalence rates for smm compared to heterosexual men. we did not make specific hypotheses given the mixed findings in the literature. h1. we hypothesize that studies which included smm (and did not exclude them from analyses) will be more likely to use modifications that would be more inclusive and more sensitive to known vulnerability factors for sexual minority people, given that over half the studies used modified measures. such modifications include gender neutral wording, adding substance use items, and follow-up questions about the context of the assault given prior research on the potentially heterosexist nature of traditional questionnaires (anderson & delahanty, 2020; koss et al., 2007). h2. we will also explore whether studies that included smm were more likely to use specific questionnaires or questionnaire types. we consider these analyses to be exploratory given the lack of existing data. h3. finally, given the paucity of relevant literature, we conducted analyses to characterize available literature. we hypothesize that there will be a relationship between year of publication and inclusion of smm, with more recent publications being more likely to include smm given the relatively recent increase in publications on sexual minority health (coulter et al., 2014). rq2. we also characterized the discipline and gender of authors of relevant literature and whether the literature was inclusive of racial/ethnic minorities to identify potential targets for systematic efforts to increase equity and diversity in this research area. method participants as reported in the original systematic review (anderson et al., 2021), participants were 25,524 college men recruited across 78 independent samples that reported prevalence rates of sexual violence perpetration and were published between 2000–2017. this open access dataset is publicly available via mendeley.com (anderson, 2019, june 21). partici­ pants were all men (100%), mostly white (76.8%) and heterosexual (97.5%). zero studies in both the open access dataset, and the analytic sample in this paper, included gender minorities. measures measurement strategy was coded in detail including the name of the questionnaire, modifications made to the question­ naire, and procedure of administration. in brief, at least 16 different questionnaires were reported across the 77 included studies; the most common questionnaire was the 1982 sexual experiences survey (ses). most studies used a version of the ses (78.2%) and modified the primary questionnaire in some way (61.1%). procedures for the purpose of this secondary data analysis, we focused on a subset of these 77 studies that included sexual minority men (smm), n = 24. see table a1 in the appendix for a list of these 24 studies. these studies were re-analyzed for prevalence rates of perpetration in smm and variation in measurement strategy that are sensitive to sexual and gender minority (sgm) samples. in the case of datasets which resulted in multiple publications, the original study included only the citation with the most relevant data. thus, we reviewed the list of excluded studies for any included smm data. gender of study authors was determined via pronouns appearing on professional or personal websites and/or email communication with the authors. results analytic plan chi square analyses (χ2) were used to examine the relationships between reported prevalence rates and indicators of sexual minority men (smm) inclusion (see table 1). the only exception was in the case of “date of publication” for sexual minority men and sexual perpetration 440 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ which a pearson correlation coefficient (r) was employed (see table 1). next we describe this strategy in relation to each research question (rq) and hypothesis (h). table 1 relationships between sexual minority men participant data inclusion and study variables variable included smm data (n = 24, % or m) excluded smm data (n = 54, % or m) statistics perpetration rates average rate of any sexual violence 26.23% 28.91% χ2(1, n = 78) = .06, p = .81 rape perpetration prevalence rates 6.32% 6.67% χ2(1, n = 43) = .003, p = .95 verbal coercion rates 16.46% 20.88% χ2(1, n = 49) = .20, p = .65 study characteristics used any version of the ses 79.2% 72.2% χ2(1, n = 20) = .42, p = .59 primary questionnaire used for sexual perpetration was standardized 91.7% 92.6% χ2(1, n = 6) = .02, p = 1.00 date of publication 2012 2010 r(76) = .24, p = .03 total percentage of racial minority participants 22.83% 23.35% χ2(1, n = 74) = .002, p = .96 questionnaire modification gender neutral wording 4.2% 7.4% χ2(1, n = 73) = .29, p = 1.00 verbal coercion item addition 8.3% 13.0% χ2(1, n = 69) = .35, p = .71 alcohol and substance use item addition 20.8% 22.2% χ2(1, n = 61) = .02, p = 1.00 altered definition of consent — — — revision of instructions/response scale 29.2% 25.9% χ2(1, n = 57) = .09, p = .79 item removal 8.3% 9.3% χ2(1, n = 71) = .02, p = 1.00 item combination 4.2% 1.9% χ2(1, n = 76) = .36, p = .52 inclusion of follow-up items regarding assault context 8.3% 7.4% χ2(1, n = 72) = .02, p = 1.00 addition of sexual outcome items 12.5% 11.1% χ2(1, n = 69) = .03, p = 1.00 addition of items is unclear 12.5% 7.4% χ2(1, n = 71) = .53, p = .67 rq 1. since we were unable to analyze perpetration prevalence rates by sexual identity due to lack of data, perpetration prevalence rates for studies that included smm compared to studies which did not were examined through chi square analyses comparing the average rate of perpetration. h1. to examine if studies that included and analyzed smm data were more likely than those that did not to use sexual minority inclusive questionnaire modifications, we used chi square analyses to compare the following variables across the two groups (see table 1–questionnaire modification): 1) the use of gender neutral wording (e.g., no male/female pronouns), 2) if an item for verbal coercion was added, 3) if an item for alcohol/substance use was added, 4) if the authors altered the definition of consent for the questionnaire, 5) if the instructions or response scales were revised, 6) if items were removed, 7) if items were combined, 8) if the authors added follow-up items to determine the context of the sexual assault such as setting or perpetrator characteristics, 9) if sexual outcome items (i.e., questions regarding specific sexual behaviors such as oral/anal penetration) were added, and 10) if it was unclear whether items were added or not. h2. we utilized chi square analyses to determine if studies including and analyzing smm data were more likely to use any version of the sexual experiences survey (ses) or any standardized questionnaire (see table 1–study characteristics). h3. a pearson correlation coefficient was employed to determine if there was a relationship between the year/date of study publication and the inclusion and analysis of smm data (see table 1–study characteristics). rq2. chi square analyses were used to determine if the inclusion and analysis of smm data was related to the inclusion of racial/ethnic minority participants (see table 1–study characteristics). author gender and discipline for studies including and analyzing smm data were evaluated through a simple numerical count and related percentages. anderson, kuhn, vitale et al. 441 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research question 1–prevalence rates none of the included articles (n = 24), comprising 5,795 participants who identified as men, reported perpetration rates by sexual identity; therefore, our first research question could not be analyzed. even in examining the exclusion lists for additional analyses of these samples, we were stymied by a lack of data. this lack of reporting may be due to small smm participant sample sizes (less than 15% of total sample). specifically, 21 of the 24 studies reporting smm participant data were at least 90% heterosexual. hypothesis 1 and 2–measurement strategy there was no significant relationship between the inclusion of smm participant data and the use of questionnaire modifications that would increase inclusivity and be more relevant to a sexual minority sample. nor were studies including smm more likely to use a specific questionnaire for perpetration; 20 (83.3%) of the 24 studies that reported collecting smm participant data used a version of the ses. hypothesis 3–date of publication statistical analysis revealed a significant relationship between studies that reported including data from smm partici­ pants and the date of study publication (see table 1). more recent studies (n = 24) reported including smm data, with a mean publication year of 2012 and a modal year of 2017 (n = 6), compared to a mean year of 2010 and modal year of 2016 (n = 9) for all 77 articles analyzed. research question 2–characterizing the literature: author gender and discipline finally, we decided to examine if inclusion of sexual minority people was related to inclusion in other ways. the inclu­ sion of smm participant data was not significantly related to the inclusion of racial and ethnic minority participants. the 54 authors and co-authors of the 24 studies that included smm participant data were largely women (72%): 39 women-identified authors to 15 men-identified authors. one author identified as a transgender man. investigation of the authors’ disciplines revealed that 18 of the first or corresponding authors came from a psychological field while the remaining five were from other disciplines (i.e., sociology; social work; public health; criminology, law, and justice; criminal justice). seven of the studies appear to be from the same research team (i.e., dr. gidycz and colleagues from ohio university’s department of psychology). discussion this literature review and secondary data analysis focused on research exploring sexual violence perpetration by college men in the united states and canada between 2000 and 2017. despite this research team’s knowledge of existing sexual and gender minority (sgm) health disparities and heterosexism in sexual violence research, the lack of available data was still surprising. of the 78 individual u.s college convenience samples representing the data of over 25,000 college men examined, none reported perpetration rates specifically among sexual minority men (smm). the 24 articles that did report any smm participant data were homogenous (e.g., over 90% heterosexual, white, cisgender participants). no significant relationship was found between the inclusion of smm participant data and measurement strategies designed to capture the unique experiences and needs of sgm populations. this is remarkable given that most studies did in fact use modified questionnaires; most researchers seem to have few compunctions with modifying standardized questionnaires like the sexual experiences survey (ses). yet, few made these modifications in the spirit of sgm inclu­ sion. the majority of the studies including smm data used a variation of the ses, consistent with the overall sample. the ses in its various original forms uses gendered language, particularly language equating genitalia to gender. by not using gender-neutral language, such questionnaires have the potential to alienate non-heterosexual and non-cisgender respondents as the reality of their lived experiences is not represented (woodford & kulick, 2015). revising these questionnaires in an empirically-based manner to include gender-neutral language and experiences common among sexual minority men and sexual perpetration 442 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sgm people is important because it will allow researchers to better understand, and ultimately to represent, the reality of sexual violence among sgm individuals. a significant relationship was found between studies reporting data from smm and the date of study publication, with more recent studies (modal year 2017) reporting more comprehensive descriptions of their participants than studies from earlier years. this suggests a recent and rapid change coinciding with the publication of the 2016 apa’s “resolution on data about sexual orientation and gender identity” which strongly recommends that researchers report data regarding participants’ gender and sexual identity (american psychological association, 2016). this suggests the importance and quick impact of such policies. the authors and co-authors of the 24 studies analyzed were mostly women (72%). one explanation for the predomi­ nance of women authors could be that historically, research on rape stemmed from feminist scholars and the feminist psychology movement (rozee & koss, 2001), which has been dominated by women. there is a considerable health disparity among sgm groups; this is even more pronounced when stratifying by race. lesbians of color report higher rates of sexual victimization when compared to other cultural groups (descamps et al., 2000; morris & balsam, 2003). unfortunately, we found that inclusion of smm participant data in our analysis was not significantly associated with the inclusion of racial and ethnic minority data, hampering the ability to understand this complex health problem. the removal of sexual identity minority “outliers” from the overall sample, while this allows for more straightforward data analyses, excludes these vulnerable populations of interest. the current gap in sexual perpetration literature within the lgbtq+ community may also disproportionately exclude members of the same community who are committing acts of sexual violence (potter et al., 2012). robust collaboration and active engagement with sgm people should be a central research focus as we work towards shared goals: understanding the commonalities and differences in perpetration across ethnic, gender, and sexual minority people, decreasing vulnerability for sexual victimization in highly vulnerable groups, and developing new strategies for sexual violence prevention. limitations as documented in the original study (anderson et al., 2021), this analysis examined the perpetration behavior of largely cisgender, college-attending males. we recognize that for a more granular characterization of sexual perpetration in the general college population, it is important to examine perpetration in various populations (e.g., cisgender women of color, trans men and women, and other gender non-conforming or non-binary people). however, even within the cisgender male population on college campuses, there is a significant lack of demographic data on whether these men were attracted solely to cisgender women or aligned with another sexuality that includes attraction to cisgender women (e.g., bisexual, pansexual, etc.). the included studies largely defined sgm people by sexual identity; yet research has shown the sm community would comprise 20% of women and 10% of men, compared to 6.4% and 3.6%, respectively, if same-sex attraction/behavior within the past year is included (mishel, 2019). in addition to limitations in how sgm groups were defined, most of the questionnaires used do not account for perpetration tactics that may be specific to harming sexual minority people, such as threatening to “out'' the victim or other sexual identity-related hate crimes. clinical implications the lack of available data on smm in college samples presents serious clinical problems. seeking mental health care is particularly difficult for sgm people. the dual stresses of being sgm in an often hostile culture and struggling with mental health issues presents a confounding alienation whereby some people feel isolated from groups of people aligned solely with either one of these two identities (veltman & chaimowitz, 2014). this is even more apparent for sgm people of color struggling with their mental health (cyrus, 2017). socioeconomic factors such as homelessness provide another reason for increased health disparities in the sgm community. for example, psychological disorders are particularly high among the homeless population (keuroghlian et al., 2014) of which sgm people make up 20–40% (ecker, 2016; shelton & abramovich 2019). changes in our mental healthcare system are needed to equalize access to care (e.g., providing sgm-specific mental health educational materials). collection and analysis of sexual minority data is paramount to clarifying and making transparent sexual minority-related health disparities and making relevant health anderson, kuhn, vitale et al. 443 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://www.psychopen.eu/ care system changes (wolff et al., 2017) that will specifically address the threat of sexual violence perpetration in sexual minority communities. conclusion our research has illustrated a canyon-sized gap in the sexual perpetration literature regarding sgm people. among samples of college men, smm are under-sampled and left out of analyses if they are sampled at all. we recommend the field focus their efforts on conducting research that recognizes the complex sexual violence dynamics in smm, an understudied and vulnerable group. researchers should also use measures that include tactics specific to vulnerable groups and language that does not further marginalize gender and sexual minority people. such changes are needed to make findings more generalizable, address the needs of marginalized groups of people, and ultimately, maximize our ability to decrease the public health threat of sexual perpetration. funding: dr. anderson’s work was supported by a grant from the national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism under grant 5k01aa026643-02/-03. the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agency. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: this article includes presentation of a secondary data analysis of a systematic review on college men's sexual perpetration rates and associated measurement strategies (anderson et al., 2021). references abbey, a. 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(2001). gay, lesbian, and bisexual college students: the relationship between sexual orientation and depression, loneliness, and suicide. journal of college student psychotherapy, 15(3), 71–82. https://doi.org/10.1300/j035v15n03_06 sexual minority men and sexual perpetration 446 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260519875556 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-6757-6 https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2019-0036 https://doi.org/10.1300/j155v07n04_05 https://web.archive.org/web/20170717203105/http:/www.missingkids.com/en_us/documents/sex_offenders_map.pdf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2010.08.006 https://doi.org/10.3109/10673229.2012.712838 https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838010390707 https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00030 http://hdl.handle.net/1811/76542 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-018-0031-z https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2014.301946 https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838014566721 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc4244881/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518823293 https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_sofindings.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1232-5 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518820815 https://doi.org/10.1300/j035v15n03_06 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wolff, m., wells, b., ventura-dipersia, c., renson, a., & grov, c. (2017). measuring sexual orientation: a review and critique of us data collection efforts and implications for health policy. journal of sex research, 54(4–5), 507–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1255872 woodford, m. r., & kulick, a. (2015). academic and social integration on campus among sexual minority students: the impacts of psychological and experiential campus climate. american journal of community psychology, 55(1–2), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9683-x appendix table a1 subset of studies from the systematic review (anderson et al., 2021) including sexual minority men (n = 24) pub year authors title n publication pub type doi 2016 ambrose, carrie; gross, alan interpreting sexual dating encounters: social information processing differences in men and women 83 women; 94 men journal of family violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1007/ s10896-015-9757-z 2017 anderson, raeann e.; cahill, shawn p.; delahanty, douglas l. initial evidence for the reliability and validity of the sexual experiences surveyshort form perpetration (ses-sfp) in college men 402 men journal of aggression, maltreatment, & trauma journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10926771.20 17.1330296 2012 anthony, elizabeth r.; cook, sarah l. assessing the impact of gender-neutral language on disclosure of sexual violence 258 women; 190 men psychology of violence journal article http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1037/a0028562 2017 barker, analise; galliher, renee v. a mediation model of sexual assault among latter-day saints 131 women; 77 men journal of aggression, maltreatment & trauma journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10926771.20 16.1272657 2016 dardis, christina m.; murphy, megan j.; bill, alexander c.; gidycz, christine a. an investigation of the tenets of social norms theory as they relate to sexually aggressive attitudes and sexual assault perpetration: a comparison of men and their friends 200 men psychology of violence journal article http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1037/a0039443 2016 elias-lambert, nada; black, beverly m. bystander sexual violence prevention program: outcomes for highand low-risk university men 142 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605155 84346 2011 gidycz, christine a.; orchowski, lindsay m.; berkowitz, alan d. preventing sexual aggression among college men: an evaluation of a social norms and bystander intervention program 635 men violence against women journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/10778012114 09727 2007 gidycz, christine a.; warkentin, jennifer b.; orchowski, lindsay m. predictors of perpetration of verbal, physical, and sexual violence: a prospective analysis of college men 425 men psychology of men & masculinity journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1037/1524-9220.8. 2.79 anderson, kuhn, vitale et al. 447 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2016.1255872 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9683-x https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9757-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9757-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9757-z https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2017.1330296 https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2017.1330296 https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2017.1330296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028562 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028562 https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2016.1272657 https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2016.1272657 https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2016.1272657 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039443 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039443 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260515584346 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260515584346 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260515584346 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801211409727 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801211409727 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801211409727 https://doi.org/10.1037/1524-9220.8.2.79 https://doi.org/10.1037/1524-9220.8.2.79 https://doi.org/10.1037/1524-9220.8.2.79 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pub year authors title n publication pub type doi 2017 holmgreen, lucie; oswald, debra l.a men’s sexual coerciveness, perceptions of women’s attachment, and dating preferences 130 men violence and victims journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1891/0886-6708.v v-d-12-00133 2017 johnson, shannon m.; murphy, megan j.; gidycz, christine a. reliability and validity of the sexual experiences survey– short forms victimization and perpetration 433 women; 136 men violence and victims journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1891/0886-6708.v v-d-15-00110 2004 johnson, thomas j; stahl, courtney sexual experiences associated with participation in drinking games 309 women; 181 men the journal of general psychology journal article n/a 2005 loh, catherine; gidycz, christine a.; lobo, tracy r.; luthra, rohini a prospective analysis of sexual assault perpetration: risk factors related to perpetrator characteristics 325 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605052 78528 2002 marmelstein blackwell, lisa sexual aggression among college men: a test of two empirical models 293 men state university of new york at binghamton thesis n/a 2003 ménard, kim s.; hall, gordon c. nagayama; phung, amber h.; ghebrial, marian f. erian; martin, lynette gender differences in sexual harassment and coercion in college students: developmental, individual, and situational determinants 278 women; 148 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605032 56654 2016 murphy austin, megan j.; dardis, christina m.; wilson, milo s.; gidycz, christine a.; berkowitz, alan d. predictors of sexual assault– specific prosocial bystander behavior and intentions: a prospective analysis 273 men violence against women journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/10778012155 97790 2016 pickett, scott m.; parkhill, michele r.; kirwan, mitchell the influence of sexual aggression perpetration history and emotion regulation on men’s aggressive responding following social stress. 135 men psychology of men & masculinity journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1037/men0000032 2009 schewe, paul a.; adam, najma m.; ryan, kathryn m. a qualitative analysis of the temptation to use force in sexual relationships 83 men violence and victims journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1891/0886-6708.2 4.2.219 2009 stephens, kari a.; george, william h. rape prevention with college men: evaluating risk status 146 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605083 19366 2008 thompson, edward h.; cracco, elizabeth j. sexual aggression in bars: what college men can normalize 264 men the journal of men's studies journal article https://doi.org/ 10.3149/jms.1601.82 2017 tuliao, antover p.; mcchargue, dennis e.; klanecky, alicia k. information acquisition in sexual aggression. 167 men psychology of violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1037/vio0000157 2010 voller, emily k.; long, patricia j. sexual assault and rape perpetration by college men: the role of the big five personality traits 521 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605093 34390 sexual minority men and sexual perpetration 448 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-12-00133 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-12-00133 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-12-00133 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-15-00110 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-15-00110 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.vv-d-15-00110 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260505278528 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260505278528 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260505278528 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260503256654 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260503256654 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260503256654 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215597790 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215597790 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801215597790 https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000032 https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000032 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.24.2.219 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.24.2.219 https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.24.2.219 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260508319366 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260508319366 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260508319366 https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.1601.82 https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.1601.82 https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000157 https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000157 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334390 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334390 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260509334390 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pub year authors title n publication pub type doi 2007 warkentin, jennifer b.; gidycz, christine a. the use and acceptance of sexually aggressive tactics in college men 297 men journal of interpersonal violence journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/08862605073 01793 2010 widman, laura; mcnulty, james k. sexual narcissism and the perpetration of sexual aggression 147 women; 152 men archives of sexual behavior journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1007/ s10508-008-9461-7 2017 young, belinda-rose; desmarais, sarah l.; baldwin, julie a.; chandler, rasheeta sexual coercion practices among undergraduate male recreational athletes, intercollegiate athletes, and non-athletes 379 men violence against women journal article https://doi.org/ 10.1177/10778012166 51339 aholmgreen and oswald (2017) included smm data but excluded from analysis any participants that indicated they were "completely homosexual" as ascertained through self-report on a continuum scale for sexual orientation. therefore, smm data was included in their analysis only for participants who reported falling somewhere between "completely heterosexual" and "completely homosexual." about the authors raeann e. anderson (b.a., university of kansas, 2009; ph.d., university of wisconsin-milwaukee, 2015) is currently an assistant professor in clinical psychology at the university of north dakota. she completed her postdoctoral training at kent state university. her research interests are understanding basic behavioral processes in sexual victimization and sexual perpetration in order to inform sexual assault risk reduction and prevention programs, respectively. she also conducts research on measurement issues in the assessment of sexual violence histories. sara k. kuhn (b.f.a., university of utah, 1998; m.l.i.s., university of british columbia, 2008; college teaching certificate, universi­ ty of north dakota, 2018) is a clinical psychology doctoral student at the university of north dakota. her research interests center around sexual violence prevention examining both perpetration of sexual violence and victimization. she is particularly interested in understanding bisexual and pansexual women's preferences for sexual violence prevention intervention programs. amanda m. vitale (ba, university of michigan, 2015) is currently a research manager at icahn school of medicine. her research interests are in traumatic brain injury and sleep, especially among veteran populations. alyssa m. ciampaglia (m.s., saint joseph’s university, 2017) has a master’s degree in experimental psychology. her thesis, testing beck’s specific vulnerability hypothesis with male-type depression, examined the potential for atypical gender-specific depression symptoms based on the way men are socialized to repress sadness and express anger. she is presently a clinical research coordinator at the children's hospital of philadelphia in the neuro-oncology department leading phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials in medications for pediatric patients with various types of gliomas and medulloblastomas. her research interests are in promoting health and wellbeing of lgbtqia+ individuals and advocating for intersectionality as well as diversifying methodology in clinical psychology. kristin e. silver, ph.d., is a post-doctoral fellow in behavioral medicine and primary care-mental health integration at durham va medical center and duke university. her clinical and research interests include behavioral medicine, trauma, and women's health. anderson, kuhn, vitale et al. 449 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(4), 437–449 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6127 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260507301793 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260507301793 https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260507301793 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9461-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9461-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-008-9461-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801216651339 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801216651339 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801216651339 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sexual minority men and sexual perpetration (introduction) sexual minority people’s vulnerability for sexual victimization who is harming sexual minority people? evidence from the literature: comparison of self-reported perpetration rates by sexual identity measurement and methodology issues in sexual violence current study method participants measures procedures results analytic plan research question 1–prevalence rates hypothesis 1 and 2–measurement strategy hypothesis 3–date of publication research question 2–characterizing the literature: author gender and discipline discussion limitations clinical implications conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references appendix about the authors comparing theoretical models for the understanding of health-risk behaviour: towards an integrative model of adolescent alcohol consumption research reports comparing theoretical models for the understanding of health-risk behaviour: towards an integrative model of adolescent alcohol consumption andrea caputo* a [a] department of dynamic and clinical psychology, sapienza university of rome, rome, italy. abstract the aim of the present manuscript is to test and compare the theory of reasoned action (tra), theory of planned behaviour (tpb) and prototype-willingness model (pwm) in predicting risky alcohol consumption among adolescents and to build an integrative model to get a more comprehensive understanding of such risky behaviour. a total sample of 518 adolescents (55% females; 13-19 aged) recruited from italian schools (7th to 12th grade) participated in a cross-sectional research study and completed an online questionnaire. risky alcohol use assessed through the audit-c was the dependent variable; whereas, variables from the tra, tpb, and pwm (i.e. attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, intention, prototype favourability and similarity, and willingness to alcohol use) were used as predictors. data were analysed using structural equation modelling (sem). the findings show that the integrative model had greater explanatory power and provided a better fit to the data, compared to the tra, tpb, and pwm, indicating attitudes and subjective norms as the best predictors. in conclusion, perceived social approval from significant others and the volitional component have a central role in understanding adolescents’ alcohol consumption. keywords: alcohol, adolescence, theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behaviour, prototype-willingness model europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 received: 2019-10-17. accepted: 2020-02-26. published (vor): 2020-08-31. handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland *corresponding author at: department of dynamic and clinical psychology, sapienza university of rome, via degli apuli 1, 00185, rome, italy. e-mail: andrea.caputo@uniroma1.it this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. despite the restrictions of policies and laws regulating alcohol consumption in western countries, alcohol remains one of the most widespread and available drugs used by adolescents (inchley et al., 2018; simonsmorton et al., 2009). along with other risk-taking behaviours, alcohol consumption emerges during early adolescence, often as a means to enhance social relationships with peers when the direct supervision of parents diminishes, then progressing to regular use and increasing the risk of future alcohol dependence (cleveland, feinberg, & jones, 2012; costello, sung, worthman, & angold, 2007). indeed, several shortand long-term effects of alcohol can be highlighted, which negatively affect biological, psychological and normal social development, thus contributing to the global burden of disease, injury and economic cost in healthcare (rehm et al., 2009). given the vulnerability for alterations in brain structure and function during adolescent age, alcohol may cause neurocognitive, learning and mental health problems (feldstein ewing, sakhardande, & blakemore, 2014; marshall, 2014). as well, alcohol consumption may alter social and behavioural functioning, europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ leading to emotional difficulties (tomlinson, brown, & abrantes, 2004), comorbid substance use (luk et al., 2016), violent conduct and risky sexual behaviours (komro, tobler, maldonado-molina, & perry, 2010). besides this, alcohol can be considered as a risk factor for premature mortality among adolescents in europe (inchley et al., 2018) due to its potential harmful and adverse consequences, such as unintentional injuries, road-traffic accidents and suicidal behaviours (maldonado-molina, reingle, tobler, & komro, 2010; swahn, bossarte, ashby, & meyers, 2010). from this perspective, the need for screening and preventive interventions is advocated to contrast hazardous drinking by adolescents (liskola et al., 2018), thus requiring a better and deeper understanding of such risky behaviour. among the existing theoretical models, the theory of reasoned action (tra; fishbein & ajzen, 1975), the theory of planned behaviour (tpb; ajzen, 1991) and the prototype willingness model (pwm; gibbons, gerrard, blanton, & russell, 1998) can be conceived as the most popular and fruitful to this purpose. the tra assumes that actual behaviour is determined by intentions that reflect the individual’s readiness to perform a given behaviour. such intentions are in turn a result of two components: attitudes, in terms of overall favourable or unfavourable evaluation of the behaviour, and subjective norms, in terms of perceived approval or disapproval from significant others when performing the behaviour (fishbein & ajzen, 1975). the tra has been used in several studies about adolescent alcohol consumption in both problem (budd & spencer, 1984) and non-problem users (laflin, moore-hirschl, weis, & hayes, 1994). despite some studies showing that the tra succeeded in predicting about 40% of the variance in self-reported drinking among students, with intention being the best predictor (kuther, 2002; sheppard, hartwick, & warshaw, 1988), other pieces of research found the inadequacy of the tra components to account the behaviour, depending upon the situational context (schlegel, crawford, & sanborn, 1977) or individual differences (conner, rodgers, & murray, 2007), suggesting the addition of new variables to improve its explanatory power (lheureux, auzoult, charlois, hardy-massard, & minary, 2016). more specifically, the attitude component was associated with alcohol use in adolescents to a higher extent compared to the subjective norm component, which did not add significant prediction to the model, especially when estimating drinking problems (wood, nagoshi, & dennis, 1992). besides, attitudes and subjective norms resulted to impact the behaviour independent of intentions (keefe, 1994; liska, 1984). the tpb was developed from the tra (ajzen, 1991), taking non-volitional behaviours into account by adding perceived behavioural control (pbc) in the model, intended as the individual’s beliefs about the relative ease or difficulty of performing the behaviour and the potential access to necessary resources and opportunities to enact it. pbc is deemed as a third predictor of intentions and as also directly affecting the behaviour to the extent that it accurately reflects the actual control over the behaviour. previous research studies applying the tpb to alcohol use in adolescent samples found that pbc was the best predictor of problem drinking behaviours in college students (norman, bennett, & lewis, 1998) and added to the predictive power of the model (rise & wilhelmsen, 1998). besides, attitudes only indirectly influenced problem drinking (wall, hinson, & mckee, 1998), with positive attitudes being a significant predictor for high school students and negative attitudes being a significant predictor for college ones (kuther & higgins-d’alessandro, 2003). overall, attitudes and pbc were significant predictors of intentions to use alcohol, which in turn impacted actual drinking behaviours (mcmillan & conner, 2003). however, the studies comparing the predictive ability of the tra to the predictive ability of the tpb showed conflicting results. some pieces of research concluded that the tpb was more predictive of problem drinking, with pbc directly affecting alcohol consumption only in problem drinkers (schlegel, d’avemas, zanna, decourville, & manske, 1992); whereas, tra was superior to the tpb in caputo 419 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predicting alcohol use (laflin et al., 1994). some studies found that pbc and subjective norms were not useful in predicting college students’ intentions to consume alcohol (trafimow, 1996). instead, other studies concluded that tpb was better in predicting intentions to alcohol consumption and, more specifically, pbc was the most influential factor (marcoux & shope, 1997). as both the tra and tpb were criticised for their assumption that behaviours are mostly rational and planned, without considering the role of unconscious or heuristic processes (sheeran, gollwitzer, & bargh, 2013), the pwm was developed to predict more spontaneous risky behaviours among adolescents (gibbons, gerrard, blanton, & russell, 1998). specifically, the pwm assumes two different pathways (the reasoned and the social reactive path) to explain the behaviour. the reasoned pathway includes attitudes and subjective norms as predictors of intentions, which in turn impact the actual behaviour as in the tra. instead, the social reactive pathway includes prototypes, as images of a typical person engaging in the behaviour in terms of perceived favourability and similarity of the prototype to the individual, and willingness, as the individual’s tendency to perform a behaviour when s/he has an opportunity in situations that are conducive to that behaviour. the prototypes affect the willingness, which in turn affects intentions and directly predicts the behaviour. the pwm has been used to predict health-risk behaviours in adolescents, especially alcohol consumption (andrews, hampson, barckley, gerrard, & gibbons 2008; gerrard et al., 2002; todd, kothe, mullan, & monds, 2016), showing that prototype favourability and similarity were associated with behaviour, intentions and willingness with small-to-medium effect sizes (van lettow, de vries, burdorf, & van empelen, 2016). the prototype perceptions were demonstrated to account for both binge drinking intentions and behaviour, although only prototype similarity emerged as a significant predictor (norman, armitage, & quigley, 2007). overall, research suggested that the pwm variables, especially prototype similarity, can enhance the predictive validity of the tpb in explaining behavioural intentions to risky behaviours (rivis, sheeran, & armitage, 2006). based on the discussed literature, the aim of the present study is to test and compare the tra, tpb, and pwm in predicting risky alcohol consumption among adolescents. as well, in line with more recent studies suggesting the usefulness of blending the elements of such different theories (demir, özkan, & demir, 2019; frater, kuijer, & kingham, 2017; rivis et al., 2006), we aim at building an integrative model (figure 1) including the most significant predictors of alcohol consumption, so to get a more comprehensive and suitable framework for the understanding of such risky behaviour. comparing theoretical models for understanding health-risk behaviour 420 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. the integrative model (adapted from demir, özkan, & demir, 2019). materials and method participants the target population for this cross-sectional research study included students enrolled in lower and secondary schools of rome, participating in a research project about adolescent alcohol use on a voluntary base. the total sample consisted of 518 students from 7th to 12th grade (55% females, 45% males) 13-19 aged (m = 15.39, sd = 1.43), who were italian in 81.5% of cases. for minor participants, informed written consent was given by both parents. all students provided their informed consent to participate in the study before completing an online questionnaire, which included basic demographics, risky alcohol use measures, and variables from the tra, tpb, and pwm. measures risky alcohol use the italian version of audit-c (alcohol use disorders identification test – consumption; struzzo, de faccio, moscatelli, & scafato, 2006) was used as a measure of hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. audit-c caputo 421 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ is based on the first three items of audit developed by the world health organisation and refers to the frequency of alcohol consumption, the number of standard drinks consumed on a typical day when drinking, and the frequency of consuming six or more standard drinks on one occasion. it estimates alcohol consumption in a standard, meaningful and non-judgmental manner and allows the detection of at-risk drinking habits in the adolescent population significantly better than the entire audit (demartini & carey, 2012). audit-c uses a five-point likert scale, with 0 being no problem drinking and 4 being problematic, and has an overall score ranging from 0 to 12. the cronbach’s alpha for the present study was .75. attitudes to measure attitudes toward alcohol consumption, five semantic differential items were adapted from previous studies (gibbons et al., 1998; quigley, 2010; zimmermann & sieverding, 2010). the participants completed the sentence ‘‘for me, consuming alcohol in the next month would be. . .” with responses ranging from 1 to 7 (negative to positive, boring to amusing, unpleasant to pleasant, harmful to beneficial, and unhealthy to healthy) and higher averaged scores indicating more positive attitude. the cronbach’s alpha for the present study was .90. subjective norms to measure subjective norms two items derived from previous studies were used (gibbons et al., 1998; kalebić maglica, 2011; quigley, 2010; zimmermann & sieverding, 2010) regarding social approval about alcohol consumption by parents and friends (“how do you think your parents [friends] would respond if they thought you consume alcohol?”), followed by a 7-point bipolar scale (from 1 = definitely disapprove to 7 = definitely approve). scores were averaged to provide a measure of subjective norms, with higher scores indicating greater perceived approval from significant others. perceived behavioural control perceived behavioural control was assessed with two items derived from previous studies (gibbons et al., 1998; quigley, 2010) assessing the extent to which the respondent feels like s/he has the ability to consume alcohol or not based on personal will (“if i wanted to consume alcohol, i could easily do it” and “if i did not want to consume alcohol, i would be able to control myself”). the items were assessed on a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). the mean from the two items provided a measure of perceived behavioural control, with higher scores indicating greater self-efficacy. intention the participants’ intention to consume alcohol was measured with two items derived from previous studies (gibbons et al., 1998; quigley, 2010; zimmermann & sieverding, 2010) and assessed on a 7-point likert scale as follows: “do you intend to drink to get drunk over the next month?” (definitely do not-definitely do) and “how likely are you to drink to get drunk in the next month?” (very unlikely-very likely). the mean from the two items provided a measure of intention, with higher scores indicating a positive intention to drinking to get drunk in the next month. prototype perceptions prototype favourability was measured by asking “please think about the typical person your age who drinks alcohol. how much do you think the following words describe your image of that person?” (gerrard et al., 2002; litt & stock, 2011). following the stem were 3 different adjectives (smart, popular, attractive), each rated comparing theoretical models for understanding health-risk behaviour 422 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely). whereas, prototype similarity was measured using the same 3-item scale by asking: ‘‘how similar are you in general to this type of person based on such characteristics?”, with each adjective rated on a scale from 1 (not at all similar) to 7 (very similar). the means from the items respectively provided a measure of positive opinion about a peer consuming alcohol and assumed similarity with such a prototype, with higher scores indicating greater favourability/similarity perceptions. the cronbach’s alpha for the present study was .87 and .89, respectively. willingness willingness to consume alcohol was assessed by a scale used in previous studies (gibbons et al., 1998; kalebić maglica, 2011; litt & stock, 2011; quigley, 2010; zimmermann & sieverding, 2010) asking participants to imagine themselves with some friends where one of those friends offered them alcohol. this was followed by three questions respectively asking participants how likely it would be that they would: 1) accept alcohol, 2) say “no thanks” and refuse alcohol, and 3) leave the situation. such possible reactions were measured on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 7 (extremely likely). responses to the negatively worded items were reverse-scored and the items were then averaged, with higher scores indicating greater willingness. the cronbach’s alpha for the present study was .67. statistical analyses the descriptive statistics and pearson’s bivariate correlations among the study variables were analysed. then, path analyses for risky alcohol consumption from the tra, tpb, pwm and the integrative model were conducted through structural equation modelling (maximum likelihood method) using stata (release 14.0). to evaluate the model fits, the following indices were used: the χ2 ratio (χ2 /degrees of freedom, df), rmsea, srmr, cfi, and tli. smaller χ2 value corresponds to better-fitting models (schumacker & lomax, 2010). as hu and bentler (1999) stated, rmsea values up to .06 and srmr values up to .08 are indicative of good fit; whereas cfi and tli values higher than .95 generally indicate good model fit. besides this, the standardised path coefficients and r2 values were taken into account to assess the predictive power and the robustness of the models. when testing the integrative model, the modification indices were calculated to include (or omit) only the suggested paths that were theoretically sensible. results descriptive statistics and correlations among the study variables are presented in table 1, revealing the presence of statistically significant associations among all the examined measures with small-to-medium effect sizes, except for the relationship between prototype similarity and willingness (r = .08, p = .079). caputo 423 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among the study variables (n = 518) measure m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. at-risk alcohol use 2.07 1.94 2. attitudes 3.40 1.63 .34** 3. subjective norms 3.23 1.58 .47** .41** 4. perceived behavioural control 4.85 1.63 .32** .31** .47** 5. intention 3.18 1.97 .46** .37** .41** .35** 6. prototype favourability 2.25 1.52 .26** .21** .24** .14* .29** 7. prototype similarity 2.96 1.70 .21** .19** .22** .19** .18** .43** 8. willingness 4.23 1.62 .38** .34** .37** .26** .43** .11* .08 *p < .01. **p < .001. the path analyses for each examined model (table 2) are presented as follows. table 2 direct and indirect effects in path models of at-risk alcohol use (standardised coefficients, n = 518) path model intention willingness behaviour direct indirect total direct indirect total direct indirect total tra attitudes .30** .30** .14** .14** subjective norms .38** .38** .17** .17** intention .45** .45** tpb attitudes .27** .27** .11** .11** subjective norms .30** .30** .12** .12** pbc .21** .21** .21** .08** .29** intention .39** .39** pwm attitudes .22** .08** .30** .22** .22** .17** .17** subjective norms .28** .10** .38** .29** .29** .22** .22** prototype favourability .01 .01 .02 .02 .01 .01 prototype similarity -.01 -.01 -.04 -.04 -.01 -.01 willingness .35** .35** .26** .12** .38** intention .36** .36** integrative model attitudes .20** .07** .27** .22** .22** .11** .11** subjective norms .21** .10** .31** .29** .29** .38** .13** .51** pbc .19** .19** .05* .05* willingness .33** .33** .17** .09** .26** intention .27** .27** note. tra = theory of reasoned action. tpb = theory of planned behaviour. pbc = perceived behavioural control. pwm = prototype-willingness model. *p < .01. **p < .001. the tra did not provide a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 73.067/2, rmsea = .262, srmr = .087, cfi = .778, tli = .446). the results indicated that intention was significantly predicted by attitudes (β = 0.25, p < .001) and comparing theoretical models for understanding health-risk behaviour 424 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ subjective norms (β = 0.31, p < .001); as well, behaviour was also predicted by intention (β = 0.46, p < .001). the model explained 22% and 21% variance in intentions and behaviours, respectively (figure 2). figure 2. the tra for risky alcohol consumption. **p < .001. the tpb did not provide a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 56.419/2, rmsea = .229, srmr = .059, cfi = .838, tli = .432). the results indicated that intention was significantly predicted by attitudes (β = 0.22, p < .001), subjective norms (β = 0.24, p < .001) and pbc (β = 0.17, p < .001); as well, behaviour was also predicted by intention (β = 0.40, p < .001) and pbc (β = 0.17, p < .001). the model explained 24% variance in both intentions and behaviours, respectively (figure 3). figure 3. the tpb for risky alcohol consumption. **p < .001. caputo 425 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the pwm did not provide a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 86.686/6, rmsea = .161, srmr = .069, cfi = .839, tli = .596). the results indicated that intention was significantly predicted by attitudes (β = 0.19, p < .001), subjective norms (β = 0.23, p < .001) and willingness (β = 0.28, p < .001); as well, behaviour was also predicted by intention (β = 0.37, p < .001) and willingness (β = 0.22, p < .001). the explained variance in intentions, willingness, and behaviours were 29%, 18%, and 25%, respectively (figure 4). figure 4. the pwm for risky alcohol consumption. **p < .001. the integrative model did not provide a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 172.986/9, rmsea = .188, srmr = .108, cfi = .681, tli = .362). thus, the modification indices were evaluated and some suggested theoretically reasonable paths were included in the model, as follows: omitting the paths from prototype favourability and similarity to willingness, including the paths from attitudes and subjective norms to willingness, omitting the path from pbc to behaviour and including the path from subjective norms to behaviour. after the modifications, the model provided a good fit to the data (χ2/df = 7.635/3, rmsea = .055, srmr = .019, cfi = .991, tli = .962), and explained a satisfactory percentage of variance in intentions (30%), willingness (18%), and behaviours (32%) (figure 5). comparing theoretical models for understanding health-risk behaviour 426 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5. the integrative model for risky alcohol consumption. **p < .001. discussion the present study aimed at testing and comparing the tra, tpb, and pwm as the most popular conceptual models able to predict risky alcohol consumption among adolescents, as well as at building an integrative model blending different elements of such theories to get a more comprehensive and suitable framework for the understanding of such risky behaviour. the tra explained 22% of the variance in intentions to alcohol consumption and 21% variance in risky drinking behaviour. among the tra constructs, subjective norms emerged as the most important predictor of the intention in line with meta-analytic findings by cooke, dahdah, norman, and french (2016), thus confirming the relevant role of expectancies of the social environment and significant others in determining health risk behaviours. as well, behavioural intention was found to be the main motivator of behaviour consistently with previous research (cooke et al., 2016; kuther, 2002; sheppard et al., 1988), suggesting the volitional nature of alcohol consumption among adolescents. the tpb, including the pbc component, enhanced the predictive power of the model only to a small extent, adding 2% and 3% for the explanation of alcohol consumption related intentions and behaviours, confirming what found by other studies on drinking behaviour (marcoux & shope, 1997; schlegel et al., 1992). as well, only 27.6% of the effect of pbc on the behaviour was mediated by intentions, deemphasising the central role of the individual’s perceived control over the ability to engage in alcohol consumption, which may lead to unhealthy behaviours. some possible explanations can be provided for the scarce increase of the predictive power of the tpb model including the pbc component. for instance, actual alcohol access and use could be determined (to some extent) by factors beyond adolescents‘ control and thus pbc may not be reasonably realistic (ajzen & madden, 1986). besides, pbc could be most relevant in goal-oriented behaviours that require caputo 427 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ plans of action or implementation intentions (gibbons, houlihan, & gerrard, 2009), as in the case of health-promoting behaviours. this is confirmed by a previous meta-analysis of 206 tpb prospective studies (mceachan, conner, taylor, & lawton, 2011), showing that pbc is overall more effective at predicting health-promoting behaviours (e.g., physical activity, safer sex, and dietary behaviours), rather than health-risk ones (e.g., drinking alcohol, smoking, using drugs, speeding). the results about the pwm testing, which added 7% and 4% to the prediction of intentions and behaviours compared to the tra (considered as a baseline), showed that the social reactive path was substantially less relevant in explaining alcohol consumption, thus suggesting that some use is planned and intentional even for young adolescents (andrews et al., 2008; webb, ashton, kelly, & kamali, 1996). specifically, prototype perceptions in terms of favourability and similarity did not have any effect on willingness, thus revealing that opportunities to engage in risky behaviours are independent of the characteristics that adolescents associate with the prototypical drinker individual. this seems consistent with previous experimental research findings showing that prototype manipulation did not affect alcohol consumption (todd & mullan, 2011). as well, this could depend on the specific measure used in the present study to assess prototype perceptions, because recent research has shown that more “extreme” drinker prototypes (heavy drinker or abstainer prototypes) are most predictive of alcohol consumption among adolescents (teunissen, spijkerman, kuntsche, engels, & scholte, 2017). however, willingness was found to be the best predictor of intentions, despite its direct effect on the behaviour was lower than that of intentions. as none of the examined theoretical frameworks provided a good fit to the data, an integrative model was build and tested from what suggested by previous research studies (demir et al., 2019; frater et al., 2017; rivis et al., 2006). such a model showed good fit indices and succeeded to explain a satisfactory percentage of variance in intentions (30%) and behaviours (32%), respectively adding further 8% and 11% to the prediction of such outcomes compared to the tra. the model included attitudes, subjective norms, pbc and willingness as predictors of intentions to alcohol consumption, with willingness having the strongest effect. willingness was predicted by attitudes and subjective norms; whereas, intentions, subjective norms, and willingness impacted the behaviour, with subjective norms having the strongest total effect on alcohol consumption as found in a research study about safe sexual practice (trafimow, 1994). overall, consistently with previous findings on adolescents’ drinking behaviours (blanton, gibbons, gerrard, conger, & smith, 1997; litt & stock, 2011), the perceived social approval from significant others seems to be a meaningful factor, given its influence on alcohol consumption (also mediated by intentions and willingness), thus suggesting the importance of social environment and influences for alcohol prevention (neighbors, lee, lewis, fossos, & larimer, 2007). as well, the role of positive attitudes towards alcohol in determining greater alcohol consumption through enhancing intentions, and willingness should be considered to reinforce the advantages of the target behaviour and address barriers. an interesting result about the examined integrative model concerns the lack of a direct effect of pbc on risky drinking, despite pbc indirectly influencing it through intentions, which may be probably due to the greater alcohol availability among adolescents and opportunities for consumption in current times thus making alcohol use more volitional (fishbein & ajzen, 2010; glassman, braun, dodd, miller, & miller, 2010; jamison & myers, 2008). this seems to be also confirmed by the relevant role of intentions to perform risky drinking according to a reasoned pathway, although willingness in terms of spontaneous and reactive decision‐making may contribute to enhance intentions to a significant extent. indeed, previous studies found that intentions represent a better predictor (compared to willingness) comparing theoretical models for understanding health-risk behaviour 428 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ for adolescents who are experienced with the behaviour (gerrard, gibbons, houlihan, stock, & pomery, 2008; pomery, gibbons, reis-bergan, & gerrard, 2009). some limitations should be acknowledged regarding the present study, such as the convenience nature of the sample that does not consent any generalisation, the lack of a longitudinal design that could improve the model testing performance and the presence of potential confounders such as age and gender that could have biased the results. in this regard, future research studies could rely on longitudinal designs, incorporating previous alcohol consumption from adolescents as antecedent potentially affecting intentions and behaviours. besides, subgroup analyses by gender and age levels could further disentangle the interrelations among the study variables and provide more accurate conceptual frameworks for the understanding of risky drinking and more specific indications for prevention and treatment. another limitation refers to the lack of social desirability measures, which have been demonstrated to enhance self-reported wellbeing (caputo, 2017). indeed, socially desirable responding (e.g., impression management, self-deception) should be carefully considered, especially when assessing unhealthy behaviours like drug or alcohol use (caputo, 2019a, 2019b). in this regard, alcohol consumption may be under-reported since it is not socially acceptable, because in italy it is illegal to sell alcoholic beverages to minors and any alcohol use among them should be avoided according to the national institute of health (istituto superiore di sanita iss). besides, since the sample was almost entirely composed of italian respondents (81.5%), the role of some contextual factors should be considered to put some of the present findings into perspective. indeed, cultural models (in terms of shared representations about a phenomenon) may orient attitudes, interactions, and practices that are socially accepted within a specific context (caputo, 2013a). for instance, the relevance of perceived social approval found in the current study seems to be consistent with previous cross-cultural research (petrilli, beccaria, prina, & rolando, 2014; rolando & beccaria, 2018), highlighting the role of social values that emphasise family ties and the sharing of informal norms in the italian alcohol socialization process. as well, the strong predictive role of positive attitudes appears in line with the reduced stigmatisation of drinking among italian young people (petrilli et al., 2014; rolando, beccaria, tigerstedt, & törrönen, 2012), that is typical of mediterranean countries where alcohol is used predominantly for nutrition (savic, room, mugavin, pennay, & livingston, 2016). then, the hypothesised volitional nature of actual alcohol use in our sample seems consistent with the negative attitude towards alcohol intoxication found among adolescents in italy, compared to the usa and northern europe (rolando & beccaria, 2018; savic et al., 2016). indeed, italian adolescents are generally more conscious about possible risks of drinking (rolando & beccaria, 2018; savic et al., 2016) and, accordingly, drunkenness may be viewed as the result of a voluntary decision. in conclusion, the current study suggests that the tra, tpb, and pwm seem to be quite similar in terms of predictive power and do not represent completely accurate and robust conceptual models for the understanding of risky drinking among adolescents. specifically, the pwm appears as partially inadequate given the lack of associations between prototype perceptions and willingness. however, the development of an integrative model blending different but complementary elements from the tra, tpb, and pwm may constitute a more comprehensive framework, whose preliminary results indicate the central role of subjective norms and the greater salience of volitional components in understanding adolescents’ alcohol consumption. overall, the presented integrative model sheds light on the prominent role of perceived social approval from significant others, positive attitudes towards alcohol, and intentions to perform risky drinking among adolescaputo 429 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 418–436 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cents. accordingly, some practical implications can be thus derived from the present study, which may have a meaningful role for prevention, and risk mitigation actions and policies. about perceived social approval, this study suggests parent participation in alcohol prevention. indeed, parents are important facilitators for the transmission of alcohol-related attitudes and rules (adolfsen et al., 2017), and the perceived legitimacy of parental authority regarding alcohol use is a relevant factor during early adolescence (jackson, 2002). as well, because of the strong association between peer alcohol use and individual drinking habits in student populations (kuntsche & jordan, 2006), intervention programs should be carried out at the class and school level, thus overall contributing to better organisational health (caputo & rastelli, 2014). specifically, such interventions could promote peer education and group discussion about alcohol-related issues, so that peers may act as positive role models who can reinforce behavioural messages (macarthur, harrison, caldwell, hickman, & campbell, 2016). concerning attitude towards alcohol, drinking-related meanings and motives should be further explored and worked on to better understand their positive connotation. as suggested by previous studies on adolescent alcohol use and other problem behaviours (cooper, 1994; langher et al., 2019), drinking could be triggered by several underlying motives, such as coping with negative experiences (that is considered as the most dysfunctional one). deepening such motives may thus help adolescents understand and reflect on real-life difficulties and challenges that may lead to alcohol use, “as the specific meaning of health risks and benefits is related to the individuals’ processes of adaptation in different life (family, work, social) contexts” (caputo, 2013b, p. 153). then, the volitional nature of risky alcohol use seems to suggest that adolescents are aware of the risks of drinking to some extent. from this perspective, it is important to consider them as competent individuals and avoid taking a paternalistic tone in education and prevention initiatives (rolando & beccaria, 2018). whereas, the beliefs about what they expect to experience as a result of drinking should be taken into account, such as enhancing positive mood, conforming to peer pressure or improving social interactions, providing them alternative and protective behavioural strategies (reid & carey, 2015). funding the author has no funding to report. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the author has no support to report. references adolfsen, f., strøm, h. k., martinussen, m., handegård, b. h., natvig, h., eisemann, m., & koposov, r. 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[2] department of psychology, education & child studies, erasmus university rotterdam, rotterdam, the netherlands. [3] department of educational and family studies, vrije universiteit amsterdam, amersterdam, the netherlands. [4] department of child and adolescent studies, utrecht university, utrecht, the netherlands. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 received: 2019-12-09 • accepted: 2020-05-27 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: jennifer murray, edinburgh napier university, edinburgh, united kingdom corresponding author: nouran almoghrabi, department of psychology, princess nourah bint abdulrahman university, airport road, riyadh 11671, saudi arabia. e-mail: nhalmoghrabi@pnu.edu.sa abstract there is abundant evidence suggesting that attention and interpretation biases are powerful precursors of aggression. however, little is known how these biases may interact with one another in the development and maintenance of aggression. using cognitive bias modification of interpretation (cbm-i), the present study examined whether training more pro-social or hostile intent attributions would affect attention bias, interpretation bias of facial expressions, aggression and mood. university students (17–48 years) were assigned to either a positive training (n = 40), negative training (n = 40), or control training (n = 40). results showed that the positive training successfully changed measures of intent attributions in a pro-social direction compared to the control training. the negative training changed measures of intent attributions in a hostile direction but not more so than the control training. we found no generalization of the training effects to relevant other outcomes. possible explanations underlying these findings are discussed. keywords interpretation bias, attention bias, facial expressions, cognitive bias modification, aggression theoretical models concerning the development of aggressive behavior, such as the social information processing model (sip; crick & dodge, 1994), suggest that aggressive individuals are characterized by biases in information processing, which contribute to the development and maintenance of aggression. in support of the sip model, research has found that aggressive individuals demonstrate biases in attention (for a review, see wilkowski & robinson, 2008) and interpretation (for a review, see de castro, veerman, koops, joop, & monshouwer, 2002) compared to non-aggressive individuals. for instance, aggressive individuals show heightened attention for hostile cues compared to non-hostile cues. this bias in the allocation of attention toward hostile cues is believed to increase the likelihood to infer hostile intent (i.e., hostile attribution bias) even when the social situation is ambiguous, thus increasing the probability of an aggressive response. additionally, deficiencies in encoding social cues and attributing hostile intent to others, does not only increase the likelihood of acting aggressively, but it also contributes to the maintenance of aggression. thus, when others react aggressively in response to the aggressive act, it will play a role in confirming the aggressive individual’s initial hostile perception of the situation (crick & dodge, 1994). these findings have led researchers to explore ways to modify such biases, using paradigms such as cognitive bias modification (cbm), in order to examine the causal status of these biases in relation to aggression, and find targets for interventions (almoghrabi, huijding, & franken, 2018; almoghrabi, huijding, mayer, & franken, 2019; hawkins this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2413&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ & cougle, 2013; vassilopoulos, brouzos, & andreou, 2015). to date, the majority of cbm studies on aggression have focused on modifying interpretation biases (cbm-i; almoghrabi et al., 2018; hawkins & cougle, 2013; vassilopoulos et al., 2015). in aggression studies, cbm-i consists of repeated practice on a specific task that is designed to modify interpretation of others’ intentions in social situations. the task typically comprises of emotionally ambiguous material to train participants to make more pro-social or hostile intent attributions using feedback (e.g., vassilopoulos et al., 2015). most cbm-i studies in aggression thus far used verbal stimuli such as vignettes. typically, the vignettes describe hypothetical social situations in which one person “harms” another, while the intention of the harm-doer (i.e., provocateur) is ambiguous. participants respond to questions about these situations that require them to make assumptions regarding the intention of the harm-doer, on which they subsequently receive feedback. by systematically reinforcing either pro-social or hostile intent attributions, participants’ interpretations are “trained” (or biased) in a certain direction. participants subsequently complete self-report and/or behavioral aggression task, to examine the effect of the training. for example, one study found that compared to non-trained controls, a three-session attribution training program using flashcards was effective in increasing pro-social interpretation bias and decreasing hostile attributions regarding ambiguous social situations, anger and aggression in a sample of children high in aggression (vassilopoulos et al., 2015). although such cbm-i studies have shown that aggression related interpretations can be successfully manipulated and affect aggression, a number of questions regarding cbm-i remain. first of all, the number of cbm-i studies in the context of aggression is limited. this calls up the question how robust the reported effects are and whether they can be replicated. being able to draw more firm conclusions regarding the effects of the training procedure on aggression is important before applying such procedures to clinical samples. second, although the sip model postulates that cognitive biases in attention and interpretation are associated rather than independent, only one previous study examined the extent to which cognitive biases may be related, and jointly contribute to the maintenance of aggression (almoghrabi et al., 2019). it is possible that positive effects caused by cbm-i are not only specific to interpretation biases but can also affect other stages of the information processing, like encoding (i.e., attention). interestingly, several anxiety studies provided evidence suggesting that change in one cognitive bias has significant effect on another cognitive bias (e.g., amir, bomyea, & beard, 2010). almoghrabi and colleagues (2019) found that a cbm training of attention (cbm-a) that successfully increased attention allocation to cues that would help disambiguate the situation (i.e., adaptive cues) did not affect interpretation bias. to date, no aggression studies have focused on the question whether modification of interpretation bias can influence attentional deployment. this knowledge is relevant as this allows us to better understand to what extent these biases interact in the context of aggression, and might have practical implications for aggression reduction interventions targeting multiple cognitive biases. a third question that has received little attention is what aspects of a social situation need to be targeted in cbm-i in order to successfully train intent attributions. most studies to date used vignettes describing ambiguous social situations. even though these vignettes lack much of the contextual information that is available in real life, this approach was used successfully to train more benign interpretations, and reduce anger and aggression (e.g., vassilopoulos et al., 2015). another approach has been to directly target the interpretation of facial expressions, based on the idea that these are particularly salient cues for making inferences about other people’s intentions. as expected, participants that were trained by reinforcing the perception of happiness over anger in ambiguous facial expressions, reported less anger and showed less aggressive behavior (penton-voak et al., 2013). interestingly however, a recent study found that a successful manipulation of the interpretation of facial expressions did not affect interpretations of intent in a different task (hiemstra, de castro, & thomaes, 2018). a final approach that has been used is to modify hostile attribution biases using visual stimuli instead of vignettes (almoghrabi et al., 2018), based on the idea that compared to verbal cues, visual cues (e.g., facial and physical expres­ sions) are more meaningful in social interactions as they carry important information regarding the intentions of others (cadesky, mota, & schachar, 2000). the results indicated that the positive training with visual stimuli led to an increase in pro-social interpretation bias and decrease in anger and verbal aggression. however, it remained unclear whether the training also impacted on participants’ interpretations of facial expressions. this is an important question, as it gives insight into what factors may contribute to the training effects and might provide cues on how the effects of training might be strengthened. interpretation bias modification 14 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to address these outstanding questions we aimed to examine whether: 1) we could replicate our earlier findings that positive training with visual stimuli led to an increase in pro-social interpretation bias and decrease in anger and verbal aggression (almoghrabi et al., 2018); 2) any cbm-i induced changes in interpretation biases affect attention allocation; and 3) any changes in interpretation biases of intent affect interpretation bias of facial expressions. in this study, participants completed one of three training conditions. in the positive training, participants were trained to interpret the intention of the harm-doer as pro-social. in the negative training, participants were trained to interpret the intention of the harm-doer as hostile. in the control condition, participants completed a neutral training. we expected that: 1) the positive training would increase pro-social intent attribution bias from pre-to post treatment relative to a neutral training, and decrease self-reported aggression. while the negative training would increase hostile attribution bias from pre-to post treatment relative to a neutral training, and increase self-reported aggression; 2) the positive training would lead to heightened attention to the facial expression of the harm-doer (i.e., adaptive cue that would help disambiguate the situation in a pro-social way), while the negative training would lead to heightened attention to the negative outcome of the situation (i.e., maladaptive cue that would help disambiguate the situation in a hostile way), and 3) the positive training would increase pro-social interpretation bias of facial expressions from pre-to post treatment relative to the neutral training, whereas the negative training would increase hostile interpretation bias of facial expressions relative to the neutral training. method participants sixty male and 60 female students from erasmus university rotterdam (79 caucasians, seven asian, six middle eastern, six hispanic, three african, and 19 others), aged between 17 and 48 (m = 21.44, sd = 4.27) participated in exchange for course credits. the study was conducted in compliance with the declaration of helsinki (world medical association, 2001). stimulus materials for the baseline and test phases, a set of 12 pictures was used that were originally from the study of wilkowski, robinson, gordon, and troop-gordon (2007; see figure 1) and were previously used in a similar study by almoghrabi et al. (2018). for the training phase, we selected images that were originally developed by horsley, de castro, and van der schoot (2010; see figure 2), supplemented by 19 pictures that were previously used in the study of almoghrabi et al. (2018) and additional 21 pictures collected via stock image websites. all pictures described interactions between two characters. one of the two characters (i.e., harm-doer) initiates a hostile behavior that negatively affects the other character (i.e., victim). most importantly, the facial expression of the character that initiated the harm should be ambiguous or neutral to not give a definite clue that the act of the harm-doer is either intentional or unintentional. almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 15 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 example image from the baseline phase figure 2 example image from the training phase the stimulus materials in the training phase were pilot tested in a previous study (almoghrabi et al., 2018). in this study, students (n = 40) were asked to rate the extent to which the depicted harm was intentional and as well as aggressiveness of the facial expression of the harm-doer. participants rated intentionality on a 100-point visual analogue scale (vas) that was anchored with the labels “accidental” on the left and “intentional” on the right end. additionally, participants rated the facial expressions of the harm-doer on a 100-point vas that was anchored with the labels “friendly” on the left and “aggressive” on the right end. the results of the pilot were as expected, the pictures in the training phase were rated on average as ambiguous for the intent of the harm-doer (m = 50.3, sd = 8.5), and ambiguous, but leaning a bit towards friendly, for the facial expression of the harm-doer (m = 42.6, sd = 5.1). cbm-i training the cbm-i training was presented using e-prime software (version 2.0; psychology software tools, 2002) for windows and consisted of four phases: practice, baseline, training, and test. the practice phase was implemented to introduce interpretation bias modification 16 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants to the experimental procedure and consisted of three trials. in order to examine the effects of the training on interpretation and attention bias, an assessment of interpretation and attention bias was administered during the baseline and test phases. the baseline and test phases were identical and consisted of six trials each. the manipulation of interpretation bias took place during the training phase, which consisted of 40 trials. the whole cbm-i task took approximately 25 minutes to complete. phase 1 (practice) on each trial participants were presented with an image which was not related to the images used in the assessment or training phases. participants were instructed to fix their gaze on a certain area of interest (aoi) and received feedback on their performance. phase 2 (baseline) and 4 (test) on each trial participants were presented with an image of a social situation (see figure 1 for an example). in total there were 12 images for the assessment phases, half of the participants within each condition received images 1–6 at baseline and images 7–12 at test phase, whereas this order was reversed for the other half of the participants. to measure attention bias, participants were asked to look at the picture closely. for each image, aois were defined around a “maladaptive” cue showing the negative outcome of the situation (e.g., water spilling on the victim’s clothes), and an “adaptive” cue (the face of the harm-doer, see figure 1). while looking at the images, participant’s eye movements were recorded automatically using an eye tracking device. as a measure of the attention bias, we used the total dwell time on both aoi (i.e., adaptive and maladaptive cues) that were presented during a trial, which reflects the total time a participant spent looking at a certain aoi. thereafter, in order to measure interpretation bias regarding the intention of the harm-doer (ib-intent), participants were asked to answer the question “did this happen by accident or intentionally?” participants indicated the likelihood that the incident happened by accident or intentionally by dragging an arrow on a 100-point vas that was anchored with the labels “very likely accidental” (−50) on the left and “very likely intentional” (+50) on the right end of the scale. to assess interpretation of facial expressions of the harm-doer, participants answered the question “how friendly or aggressive is the facial expression of the harm-doer?” by dragging an arrow on a 100-point vas that was anchored with the labels “very friendly” (−50) on the left and “very aggressive” (+50) on the right end of the scale. finally, participants rated the question (i.e., perceived anger), “how would you feel if this happened to you” by dragging an arrow on a 100-point vas that was anchored with the labels “very happy” (−50) on the left and “very angry” (+50) on the right end of the scale. during this phase, no feedback was provided. the viewing time was fixed for 5,000 ms for each image. phase 3 (training phase) on each trial participants were presented with an image of a social situation. the images were always preceded with a short description of the situation. for example, the image presented in figure 2, was accompanied by the description “the ball hits her head hard.” following this sentence, another (filler) sentence appeared on the screen that, depending on the condition, disambiguated the situation in a hostile or non-hostile manner. to ensure that participants read this information, one letter was missing from the key word of this filler sentence, and participants were required to fill in the missing letter (adapted from hawkins & cougle, 2013). for instance, in the positive condition one disambiguating sentence read “it was accident_l,” while in the negative condition it read “she attac_ed her.” the image and both sentences (description and filler sentence) were presented together on the screen below the image. after the participant pressed the correct letter on the keyboard to complete the filler sentence, both sentences remained on the screen for another 2,000 ms and then disappeared. next, this interpretation was reinforced by asking participants to answer “yes” or “no” to a comprehension question “was she determined to hit her hard with the ball?” to reduce the expectancy effects across all conditions, the comprehension questions were phrased in such a way that for half of them the correct answer would be “yes” and for the other half “no.” if the participant answered the comprehension question correctly the word “correct” was presented at the top of the screen in bold green font. if the participant’s answer was incorrect the word “incorrect” was presented at the top of the screen in bold red font. the feedback remained on the screen for 1,500 ms, after which the next trial began. almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 17 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants in the control group were presented with the same pictures, read the same descriptive sentences, and were also asked to fill in the missing letter in the sentence and answer the comprehension question. however, the sentences with the missing letter and the comprehension questions were unrelated to the intent of the harm-doer or the incident in the picture. eye tracking assessment eye movements were assessed at practice, baseline and test phase using smi-red 250 device (sensomotoric instruments gmbh, teltow, germany) with a sampling rate of 250 hz. the stimuli were presented on a 22-inch computer screen with the resolution set to 1,680 × 1,050 pixels. the viewing distance was approximately 60 cm. the size of the image was 1,344 × 777 pixels. each aoi was defined as a square area and had a size of either 252 × 210 or 336 × 210 pixels to encompass the entire area of display of the adaptive or maladaptive cue in the picture. to ensure accuracy of the gaze pattern, a nine-point calibration and 4-point validation was performed before starting with the first phase. questionnaires we assessed state aggression using a reworded version of buss and perry’s (1992) trait aggression questionnaire (aq; c.f. farrar & krcmar, 2006). pre-training, the modified questionnaire started with the following instruction: “imagine that you just bought something to drink. when you walk outside, somebody bumps into you, spilling your drink over your favorite clothes. as you look at the mess, you hear this person swearing” post-training the instruction was: “imagine that you are at starbucks working on an assignment. suddenly, someone bumps into your table, spilling coffee all over your notes. you see that the other person looks really annoyed” additionally, the items comprised of items from the aq that were rephrased. for example, the original aq item “if someone hits me, i hit back” was rephrased to “if this person hits me, i'd hit back” to match state aggression. for each of the items, the participants were instructed to indicate their response on the items form 1 = extremely uncharacteristic of me to 7 = extremely characteristic of me. in total, 20-items were modified from the original aq on three subscales: physical aggression, verbal aggression, and anger. total score was used, with higher scores meaning higher state aggression. in the current sample, cronbach’s alpha was .88 pre-training and .90 post-training. the reactive-proactive aggression questionnaire (rpq; raine et al., 2006) was used to assess both reactive (11-items; e.g., “damaged things because you felt mad”) and proactive (12-items; e.g., “taken things from other students”) aggres­ sion. participants provided a rating of 0 = never, 1 = sometimes, and 2 = often for each item. in the current sample, cronbach’s alpha was .67 for reactive and .51 for proactive aggression. anger was measured using part b of the novaco anger scale (nas; novaco, 1994). this questionnaire consists of 25 potentially-provoking situations that are rated on a 5-point scale from 0 = little annoyance to 4 = very angry. in the current sample, cronbach’s alpha was .90. additionally, the hostility aggression trait subscale (8-items) from the aq (buss & perry, 1992) was added post-training. in the current sample, cronbach’s alpha was .81. to assess hostile interpretation bias post-training, the word sentence association paradigm-hostility (wsap-h; dillon, allan, cougle, & fincham, 2016) was used. the wsap-h is a computerized measure that presents participants with 16-ambiguous interpersonal scenarios (e.g., “someone frowns at you”) on a computer screen together with a word. participants are instructed to rate how well the word is related to the scenario by dragging an arrow on a 100-point vas that was labeled “not at all related” and “very related” at the extreme ends of the scale. each scenario was presented twice in a random order, once paired with a benign-related word (e.g., “unhappy”) and once paired with a hostile-related word (e.g., “hostile”). average ratings were calculated separately for both the hostile and benign words; higher scores on these two measures indicated a higher hostile or a higher pro-social interpretation bias, respectively. in the current sample, cronbach’s alpha was .84 for the hostile subscale and .87 for the benign subscale. mood was assessed pre and post training, using a 100-point vas labeled 0 = not at all and 100 = very much at the extremes. participants rated how they felt at the moment (afraid, happy, sad, and angry) by dragging on each mood scale, an arrow to the point on the scale that best reflected their current mood. in addition, the positive affect and negative affect schedule (panas; watson, clark, & tellegen, 1988) was administered post-training to assess the interpretation bias modification 18 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ presence of negative and positive affect. participants had to rate how much they generally feel (1 = slightly, 5 = extremely) about 10-positive emotional states (e.g., inspired), and 10-negative states (e.g., upset). additionally, five items (e.g., snappy) specifically covering anger were added to the original negative affect measure. in the current sample, cronbach's alpha for positive affect was .85, and for negative affect .89. procedure the participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: the positive condition (n = 40), the negative condition (n = 40), or control condition (n = 40). for either condition, participants started by completing the aq, rpq, and mood questionnaires. then they received specific instructions regarding the eye-tracking and the cbm-i training. finally, the participants completed the aq, wsap-h, panas, nas, and mood questionnaires. the entire experiment took approximately 60 minutes to complete. data reduction for each condition, separate mean scores for the vas likelihood ratings of the preand post-training interpretation bias (ib) scores for the preand post-training assessments regarding participants’ interpretation of intent and facial expression of the harm-doer were computed. thus, higher ib-intent and ib-facial expression scores indicate that hostile interpretations were rated as more likely to be true than pro-social interpretations. in a similar way, for each condition, separate mean scores for the vas likelihood ratings of the preand post-training perceived anger score were computed. higher scores on perceived anger indicated that participants are more likely to feel angry than happy in the presented situation. for the self-reported interpretation bias measure, the wsap-h, we first calculated a separate mean score for both the hostile and benign interpretations. next, to create a wsap-h ib score, we subtracted the mean score of the hostility subscale from the mean score of the benign subscale. thus, positive wsap-h (ib) scores indicate that positive interpretations were rated as more likely to be true than the negative interpretations. attention bias scores were calculated using gaze data collected by the eye-tracker. a minimum amount of eye gaze time of 80 ms at a certain aoi was qualified as a gaze fixation (e.g., gerdes, alpers, & pauli, 2008). next, we calculated separate mean total viewing times in ms for the pre-defined aoi for the adaptive and the maladaptive cues at preand post-training. next, preand post-training attention bias (ab) scores were calculated by subtracting the mean total viewing time at the maladaptive cues from the mean total viewing time at the adaptive cues. thus, higher ab scores indicate more attention allocation to adaptive (facial) than to maladaptive (negative outcome) cues. results preliminary analysis in order to ascertain the appropriateness of our ib measure, we correlated the ib-intent scores for the preand post-training assessments with the concurrently assessed aggression and hostility-related measures (i.e., aq, nas, rpq, wasp-h, and vas anger). only ib-intent post-training scores correlated significantly with wsap-h (ib) (r = −.35, p < .001). in addition, ib-facial expression pre-training scores correlated significantly with the aq (r = .20, p = .028) specifically with the physical subscale (pre: r = .30, p = .001, post: r = .178, p = .051). ib-facial expression post-training scores correla­ ted significantly with aq score post-training (r = .183, p = .046), specifically physical (r = .201, p = .027). additionally, the preand post-ib-facial expressions scores correlated significantly with wsap-h (ib) (pre: r = −.28, p = .002, post: r = −.24, p = .008) and nas (pre: r = .19, p = .043, post: r = .24, p = .008). this provides some support for the validity of our approach as it shows that we assessed and trained interpretations that are meaningfully related to aggression. finally, to get an idea of whether the training approach was clear and doable for participants, we explored partici­ pants’ accuracy during training. while participants in the positive (m = 14.12%, sd = 9.40) and control condition (m = 9%, sd = 4.19) made few errors this was not the case in the negative condition, in which significantly more errors almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 19 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ were made (m = 27.12%, sd = 18.12), f(2, 117) = 22.89, p < .001, ηp2 = .28. the high number of errors in the negative training seems to suggest that a number of participants in the current study resisted the negative training by insisting on choosing the prosocial interpretation despite receiving negative feedback. baseline measures descriptive statistics for the baseline measures are presented in table 1. there were no significant differences between the participants in the positive, negative and control conditions in their baseline levels of self-reported aggressive behavior (aq and rpq) and mood ratings (afraid, happy, sad, and angry), for all f(2, 117) < 1.98, p > .272, ηp2 < .013. also, there were no significant differences between the training conditions in their pre-training ib-intent, f(2, 117) = .111, p = .895, ηp2 = .00. however, compared to participants in the negative condition, participants in the control condition reported a higher level of pre-training hostile ib-facial expressions, f(2, 117) = 3.16, p = .038, ηp2 = .05. in addition, they showed a tendency to higher attention bias to adaptive cues (i.e., the face of the harm-doer) pre-training, f(2, 117) = 3.18, p = .059, ηp2 = .05, and scored higher on the pre-training aq anger subscale compared to participants in the negative condition, f(2, 117) = 3.34, p = .035, ηp2 = .05. table 1 descriptive statistics for baseline measures measure positive training negative training controltraining m sd m sd m sd pre-training aggression questionnaire 58.13 14.73 55.68 19.78 62.90 14.46 physical aggression 21.13 8.38 22.18 9.42 24.07 7.99 verbal aggression 16.10 4.65 15.00 6.14 16.90 4.88 anger 20.90 5.32 18.50 7.01 21.93 5.80 reactive aggression 18.20 2.95 18.40 2.69 13.85 1.72 proactive aggression 13.53 1.43 13.38 1.61 18.55 2.86 vas anger 8.65 17.75 8.20 15.82 9.18 15.08 vas fear 4.85 10.32 7.45 14.00 8.00 11.32 vas sadness 11.75 15.53 16.35 20.05 14.05 17.46 vas happiness 65.73 20.95 62.82 19.23 61.35 19.53 note. vas = visual analogue scale. effects of training on interpretation bias a 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (negative, positive and control training) mixed analysis of variance (anova). the analysis showed no significant main effects for both group, f(2, 117) = 1.35, p = .265, ηp2 = .02, and assessment, f(1, 117) = .64, p = .425, ηp2 = .01. however, the crucial interaction between group and assessment was significant, f(2, 117) = 3.15, p = .047, ηp2 = .05 (see figure 3). paired-samples t-tests of change over time showed that change in hostile ib-intent from preto post-training was not significant for the positive t(39) = 1.68, p = .101 and control condition t(39) = −1.12, p = .268. for the negative condition, the increase in hostile ib-intent from preto post-training approached significance, t(39) = −1.84, p = .074. interpretation bias modification 20 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 average sum scores of ib − intent at pre− and post−training for each training condition note. error bars indicate standard error of the mean. higher ib-intent scores indicate that hostile interpretations of intent were rated as more likely to be true than pro-social interpretations of intent. follow-up analysis revealed that the groups differed significantly in ib-intent post-training. the positive condition differed significantly from the negative condition, f(2, 117) = 3.87, p = .024, ηp2 = .06. also, the positive condition differed significantly from the control condition, f(2, 117) = 3.87, p = .044, ηp2 = .06. however, the negative and control condition were not significantly different, f(2, 117) = 3.87, p = .999, ηp2 = .06. to examine the effects of the interpretation bias training on ib-facial expressions, the ib (facial expressions) scores were subjected to a 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (negative, positive and control training) mixed anova. the analysis revealed that the crucial interaction between group and assessment was not significant, f(2, 117) = 2.20, p = .115, ηp2 = .04 (see figure 4). moreover, no significant main effect for assessment emerged, f(1, 117) = 1.41, p = .238, ηp2 = .01. there was, however, a significant main effect of group, f(2, 117) = 4.82, p = .010, ηp2 = .08. figure 4 average sum scores of ib − facial expressions at pre− and post−training for each training condition note. error bars indicate standard error of the mean. higher ib-facial expressions scores indicate that hostile interpretations of facial expressions were rated as more likely to be true than pro-social interpretations of facial expressions. almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 21 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ to examine the training effects on perceived anger in response to potentially provocative social situations, the perceived anger scores were subjected to a 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (negative, positive and control training) mixed anova. the analysis revealed that the crucial interaction between group and assessment was not significant, f(2, 117) = 1.53, p = .220, ηp2 = .03. moreover, no significant effects for group emerged, f(2, 117) = .06, p = .943, ηp2 = .00. however, the main effect of assessment was significant, f(1, 117) = 15.35, p < .001, ηp2 = .12. overall, anger scores decreased from preto post-training. additionally, we examined the effect of the cbm-i training on the wsap-h (ib) as a measure of hostile interpreta­ tion bias. there was no significant difference between the three training conditions, f(2, 117) = 1.10, p = .335, ηp2 = .02. effects of training on attention bias a 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (positive, negative and control training) mixed anova. the analysis revealed that the crucial interaction between group and assessment was not significant, f(2, 117) = 1.53, p = .221, ηp2 = .03. moreover, no significant effects for group emerged, f(2, 117) = 2.72, p = .070, ηp2 = .04. however, the main effect of assessment was significant, f(1, 117) = 39.66, p < .001, ηp2 = .25 (see figure 5). surprisingly, it was found that in all training conditions attention bias became significantly more positive from preto post-training, indicated by relatively longer fixation durations on the adaptive cues after training. figure 5 average attentional bias scores at pre− and post−training for each training condition note. error bars indicate standard error of the mean. higher ab scores indicate that more attention allocation to adaptive (facial) than to maladaptive (negative outcome) cues. effects of training on mood vas state mood ratings (afraid, happy, sad, and angry) were subjected to separate 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (positive, negative and control training) mixed anovas. only a significant main effect of assessment emerged for self-reported sadness, f(1, 117) = 4.19, p = .043, ηp2 = .04 and self-reported fear, f(1, 117) = 10.07, p = .002, ηp2 = .08, indicating that for all training conditions the vas scores decreased from preto post-training. neither the crucial interaction, for all f(2, 117) < .75, p > .477, ηp2 < .01, nor the main effect of group, for all f(2, 117) < .63, p > .534, ηp2 < .01, was found significant. in addition, the training conditions did not differ on the panas scores. the anova results confirmed that the positive, negative and control condition didn’t differ significantly in terms of either their positive, f(2, 117) = .15, p = .860, ηp2 = .00 or negative trait affect scores, f(2, 117) = .81, p = .449, ηp2 = .01. interpretation bias modification 22 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effects of training on aggression participants scores from the aq were subjected to a 2 assessment (prevs. post-treatment) × 3 group (positive, negative and control training) mixed anova. the analysis revealed no significant interaction between group and assessment for the aq and its subscales, for all f(1, 117) < 2.44, p > .091, ηp2 > .02. only a significant main effect of assessment emerged for aq total scores, f(1, 117) = 12.16, p = .001, ηp2 = .09, indicating that over-all self-reported aggression significantly increased from preto post-training. moreover, for the aq subscales the results showed a significant effect for main effects of assessment for anger, f(1, 117) = 6.42, p = .013, ηp2 = .05, and a trend towards significance for group, f(2, 117) = 2.91, p = .058, ηp2 = .05., with higher scores from preto post-training and higher overall scores for the negative and control condition. also, main effects of assessment emerged for physical aggression, f(1, 117) = 12.02, p = .001, ηp2 = .09, indicating that overall self-reported anger and physical aggression significantly increased from preto post-training. next, participants’ scores on the post-training aq hostility subscale were compared between the three conditions. the anova results showed that the groups differed on the hostility subscale, f(2, 117) = 6.22, p = .003, ηp2 = .10. specifically, there was a marginally significant difference between the control and positive condition, f(2, 117) = 6.22, p = .050, ηp2 = .10, and significant difference between the control and negative condition, f(2, 117) = 6.22, p = .002, ηp2 = .10, respectively. this indicates that the participants in the control condition scored higher on the hostility subscale compared to the participants in the positive and negative condition. however, there was no significant difference between the positive and negative condition on the hostility subscale, f(2, 117) = 6.22, p = .534, ηp2 = .10. we performed an additional analysis to test the relation between aq and its subscales with ib-intent and ib-facial expression. first, we calculated ib-intent and ib-facial expression change scores by subtracting the bias score before the training from the bias score after the training. thus, more positive bias change scores indicate that participant’s interpretations of intent and facial expression became more hostile. second, we calculated a change score for the aq total score and its subscales by subtracting the aggression score before the training from the aggression score after the training. thus, more positive scores indicate that participants become more aggressive. next, we correlated the change in bias and perception scores with the change scores of the aq and its subscales. only the change score for ib-facial expression showed a significant positive correlation with the aq total score with the negative condition (r = .39, p = .013). in addition, the change score for ib-facial expression was not significantly related to aq total score within the positive (r = .12, p = .446) and control condition (r = −.00, p = .980). the same was true for the correlations with the aq subscales except for physical aggression, which showed a significant positive correlation with ib-facial expression within the positive (r = .32, p = .042) and negative (r = .37, p = .018), but not within the control condition (r = .06, p = .703). this suggests that the more the facial expressions of the harm-doer were interpreted in a hostile way, the more physical aggression participants reported after the training (see table 2). table 2 correlations between change scores of interpretation bias of intent and facial expressions with change scores of the aggression questionnaire and its subscales measure interpretation bias of intent/facial expressions positive training negative training control training aggression questionnaire .09/.12 .05/.39* .02/−.00 physical aggression .16/.32* .12/.37* .03/.06 verbal aggression −.05/−.13 −.06/.26 −.09/−.14 anger .05/.01 .05/.28 .06/−.00 *p < .05. finally, participant’s anger scores on the nas were compared between the three conditions. the results showed that the groups did not differ in terms of their nas scoring f(2, 117) = 0.74, p = .480, ηp2 = .01. almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 23 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ discussion the current study examined three questions. first, we investigated whether a cognitive bias modification of interpreta­ tion (cbm-i) procedure using pictorial stimulichange interpretations and whether those changes in turn influences attention bias. second, we looked at whether any changes in interpretation bias of intent influences interpretation bias of facial expressions. finally, we examined whether we could replicate our earlier findings that the current cbm-i procedure would lead to a reduction in self-reported anger and aggression, and an increase on positive mood. to start with the first question, the results indicated that our positive cbm-i training successfully changed measures of interpretation bias of intent in a pro-social direction compared to a control training. the negative cbm-i training, changed measures of interpretation bias of intent in a hostile direction but not more so than a control training. these results are well in line with previous findings demonstrating that aggression-related interpretation biases can be trained (almoghrabi et al., 2018; hawkins & cougle, 2013; vassilopoulos et al., 2015). however, the change in interpretation bias of intent did not seem to have influence on attention bias as the results from the eye-tracking data indicate that in all training conditions attention bias became more positive. although there is some evidence suggesting interrelations between interpretation and attention biases and that training one bias can affect the other bias (amir et al., 2010; white et al., 2011), we were not able to replicate this finding in the present study. there are a number of possible explanations for this. first, although the crucial interaction between training condition and assessment (i.e., preand post-training) was significant, and that the change of interpretation bias of intent went in the intended direction, post-hoc analysis showed that participants’ interpretation bias of intent scores did not change much from preto post-training. also, the analysis showed that participants’ interpretation bias of intent in the negative training condition was not significantly different from the control condition. thus, it is possible that the modest effect of the cbm-i on interpretation bias of intent limited the transfer effect of the modified interpretations to attentional processes. a possible explanation for the modest effect of the cbm-i training on interpretation bias of intent may lie in the number of sessions and trials of the training. although experimental cbm training studies varies in the number of trials and sessions, it has been suggested that multiple-session training produce greater bias change (hallion & ruscio, 2011). in the current study participants completed a total number of 40 training trials during a single session. thus, it might be necessary with cbm training paradigms with limited number of trials, to increase the number of training sessions to yield stronger training effect on cognitive biases. second, the lack of interaction between attention and interpretation biases in the current study and in the previous study of ours (almoghrabi et al., 2019), points towards the possibility that one cognitive bias does not influence the other and that each of these cognitive biases function as a distinct process in the context of aggression. this latter explanation is well in line with a study by maoz et al. (2017) who examined the relation between attention and interpretation biases in the context of anger by using emotional facial expressions. the results indicated that attention and interpretation biases did not show an interaction effect suggesting that it is possible that both these biases function in isolation of one another in its contribution to anger. however, the discrepancy in findings suggests further work is needed. it may be the case that in aggressive participants (not represented in the current study) a stronger modification effect on interpretation bias may occur, and in turn these two biases might interact and affect each other. regarding the second question, the results showed that the change in interpretation bias of intent did not lead to a change on rating ambiguous facial expressions from preto post-training for any of the training conditions. this might be due to the fact that changes in interpretation bias of intent in the current study were not as strong as we would have predicted. however, both interpretation bias of intent and interpretation bias of facial expressions were in the same direction for all training conditions, which could suggest that both these biases are closely related. our finding is in contrast with the study of hiemstra et al. (2018), where they successfully modified hostile interpretations of facial expressions in an aggressive sample. however, those changes did not generalize to changes on participants’ interpretation of intent in a game context. these contrasting results might be explained by differences in the stimulus material in both studies. while hiemstra et al. (2018) used morphed faces to modify interpretation bias of facial expressions, our stimulus materials did not only include the face of the characters but also included a full scene of the characters interacting with each other with clear body expressions. this might influence how participants interpret the facial expressions of those characters. at this stage this is only speculation, and the association between interpretation of intent and interpretation of facial expressions should still be tested in future work. it is possible that in real-life interpretation bias modification 24 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social interactions aggressive behavior may emerge not only through hostile interpretation of intent. it could also occur simultaneously with misinterpreting facial expressions, and that both these misinterpretations function as a driving force for aggressive responses. thus, understanding the role of facial expressions when interpreting others’ intentions may improve future cbm-i intervention programs. regarding the third question, based on sip theories, that suggest that cognitive biases are causally related to aggressive behavior by influencing how ambiguous social information is processed (crick & dodge, 1994), we expected that changes in interpretation bias of intent would affect aggression. in contrast, the cbm-i training did not have any effect on mood, anger and aggression measures post-training. additionally, it did not result in the expected effects on perceived anger in response to potentially provocative social situations, since self-reported anger decreased in all training conditions. in a previous study of vassilopoulos et al. (2015), attribution training in a sample of aggressive children not only resulted in a decrease in hostile attributions regarding ambiguous social situations but also led to a decrease in perceived anger in response to hypothetical provocative social situations. thus, although we found some support for the robustness of the training effects on interpretation bias of intent, we failed to replicate the findings of almoghrabi et al. (2018) on aggression-related measures. a possible explanations for this, as mentioned earlier, the changes in interpretation bias were too modest to have an effect on our measures of aggression. further studies would need to replicate this training procedure, determine its potential and key factors influencing its effectiveness on both bias and aggression reduction prior to drawing any firm conclusions related to the efficacy of our cbm-i training paradigm. however, it was interesting to find that the change in interpretation bias of facial expressions from pre to post-training did correlate significantly with self-reported physical aggression and anger. additionally, the change scores of physical aggression correlated significantly with the change scores of interpretation bias of facial expressions in both the positive and negative condition. this result is in line with a previous study that suggested that not only that physical aggression is associated with perceiving anger in facial expressions (wilkowski & robinson, 2012), but also that modifying biases in facial affect recognition can be effective in causing changes in self-reported anger and aggression (e.g., penton-voak et al., 2013). wilkowski and robinson (2012) suggested a possible explanation for the relation between facial perception and physical aggression. they argue that compared to other forms of aggression (e.g., verbal) physical aggression is similar to facial expression perception in the way that they are more present during direct face-to-face communication. this finding builds on similar cbm-i studies targeting facial expressions in aggression (e.g., hiemstra et al., 2018). it is possible that facial expressions may be a promising factor in increasing the effectiveness of cbm-i training procedures in the context of aggression. by accurately interpreting facial expression of others, it may help aggressive individuals to better interpret others’ intentions and in turn respond more adaptively in social situations. the current study has a number of limitations. first, all measurements of mood and aggression consisted of self-report, thus it remains unclear whether the effects of training would generalize to aggressive-related responses if participants had to actually participate in a provocative interpersonal situation or engage in a behavioral aggression task (e.g., almoghrabi et al., 2018; hawkins & cougle, 2013). second, although the training was successful in causing changes in interpretation bias of intent between the positive and negative group these changes were not generalized to a similar, but distinct, interpretation bias measure (i.e., wsap-h). thus, we cannot completely preclude the possibility that the change in interpretation bias of intent is due to some other factors. however, we view the possibility as unlikely since our measures of interpretation bias of intent and facial expressions correlated significantly with the wsap-h, which provides validity for our interpretation bias measures. third, the present sample included healthy university students, and therefore, study findings may not be applicable to a clinical sample. thus, further research is needed to explore the effects of interpretation bias training on reducing aggressive behavior in a clinical sample. to conclude, the present study is one of the first studies that examined the effect of modifying interpretation bias of intent on attention bias and interpretation bias of facial expressions in the context of aggression. the results have shown that cbm-i can indeed modify interpretation bias of intent in a pro-social direction. however, we found no evidence for the effects of cbm-i training on attention bias, interpretation bias of facial expressions, aggressive behavior and mood. upon replication and extension of current findings in clinical aggressive samples, this cbm-i training could provide a better understanding of the relation between interpretation bias of intent and aggressive-related cognitive biases such almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 25 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as attention bias. this all might provide more knowledge for the use of cbm-i training as an intervention option in treating aggression. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. author note: this article was written within the scope of the dissertation of the first author (almoghrabi, 2020). references almoghrabi, n. 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(2001). world medical association declaration of helsinki: ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. bulletin of the world health organization, 79(4), 373-374. retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2566407 about the authors nouran almoghrabi is an associate professor at princess nourah bint abdulrahman university, she recently completed her phd at erasmus university rotterdam. her research interest includes aggression-related biases and its modification using computerized cognitive bias modification training paradigms. ingmar h.a. franken is a full professor at erasmus university rotterdam where he is chair of the clinical psychology group at the department of psychology, education and child studies. his research interest is mainly focused on the neurocognitive aspects of addiction and substance abuse. birgit mayer is an associate professor at erasmus university rotterdam. her research interests include the working mechanisms of mindfulness, cognitive information processing (biases) in anxiety, and perfectionism. menno van der schoot is an associate professor at vrije universiteit amsterdam. the focus of his research is on the role of higher-order cognitive processes and strategies in language and reading comprehension, word problem solving, mathematics, and social cognition. his work involves both fundamental and applied studies, ranging over topics from mental imagery to embodied cognition to abstract reasoning to number sense. the overarching theme underlying these diverse lines of research is the construction of a deep-level, meaning-based mental representation of the content that is studied. jorg huijding is an associate professor at utrecht university. his research focusses on two themes: 1) how the way we process information from our environment influences how we feel and behave, and 2) the (early) development of self-regulation. almoghrabi, franken, mayer et al. 27 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 13–27 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2413 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612459657 https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20115 https://doi.org/10.1017/s1352465814000149 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2011.01.004 https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868307309874 https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211430233 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2006.07.003 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2566407 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interpretation bias modification (introduction) method participants stimulus materials cbm-i training eye tracking assessment questionnaires procedure data reduction results preliminary analysis baseline measures effects of training on interpretation bias effects of training on attention bias effects of training on mood effects of training on aggression discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests author note references about the authors the high five model: associations of the high factors with complete mental well-being and academic adjustment in university students research reports the high five model: associations of the high factors with complete mental well-being and academic adjustment in university students alejandro castro solano* abc, alejandro césar cosentino bc [a] consejo nacional de investigaciones científicas y técnicas (conicet), buenos aires, argentina. [b] facultad de psicología, universidad de buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina. [c] departamento de psicología, facultad de ciencias sociales, universidad de palermo, buenos aires, argentina. abstract traditionally, models of positive personality traits have referred to moral characteristics. the high five model (hfm) is a factor model of individual positive traits based on an inductive psycho-lexical approach. unlike other models, in the hfm the positive characteristics were freely determined by lay people, beyond any moral tones. the hfm comprises the following factors: erudition, peace, cheerfulness, honesty, and tenacity, known as “the high factors.” this model was shown to positively exceed the capacity of normal personality to predict emotional, social, and psychological well-being. additionally, this model is negatively associated with non-transmissible diseases, psychopathological symptoms, and psychopathological personality traits. this study aimed to increase the validation of the hfm, by analyzing the relationships among this model and positive mental health, psychopathological symptoms, academic adjustment, and academic performance in university students. another objective was to study the association between complete mental well-being (i.e., high well-being and low psychopathological symptomatology) and the high factors of the hfm. the sample consisted of 256 university students. correlations were calculated, and the two-step cluster analysis was used to obtain profiles. the results showed that tenacity and erudition high factors are positively associated with academic achievement and academic adjustment. finally, each of the high factors was positively associated with complete mental well-being. the hfm has a broad scope, as it is related not only to psychological variables (e.g., well-being or psychopathological symptomatology) but also to academic performance (e.g., adjustment and achievement) in university students. keywords: academic achievement, well-being, personality traits, high five model, personality test europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 received: 2018-08-23. accepted: 2019-02-24. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: maciej karwowski, university of wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: national scientific and technical research council (conicet), mario bravo 1259 (cp: c1175abw), buenos aires, argentina. tel: 054 11 51994500 (1311). e-mail: alejandro.castrosolano@gmail.com this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. theory-driven or data-driven studies on positive characteristics have focused on one type of positive traits, namely moral traits (e.g., virtues and character strengths), excluding abilities or non-moral features (e.g., dahlsgaard, peterson, & seligman, 2005). from a theory-driven perspective, peterson and seligman (2004) proposed a classification into six virtues, developed from the qualitative analysis of philosophical and religious texts of eastern and western traditions. afterward, a series of academic debates on these virtues led to the proposal of 24 strengths of character that hypothetically correspond to those six virtues. although this classification of positive traits has a strong influence on positive psychology (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2014), many studies have failed to confirm it (e.g., mcgrath, 2014; noftle, schnitker, & robins, 2011). from a dataeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ driven approach, different virtue structures or models have been proposed (e.g., cawley, martin, & johnson, 2000; de raad & van oudenhoven, 2011; morales-vives, de raad, & vigil-colet, 2014). a pioneering study on the topic was conducted by walker and pitts (1998), who asked young, middle-aged, and elderly adults of both genders to identify the attributes of a highly moral person and then requested some students to classify these moral descriptors into groups. finally, the authors analyzed the data, using hierarchical cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling, and obtained six clusters of attributes of moral characteristics. the high five model (hfm) was recently proposed for identifying individual positive traits from lay people’s perspective (cosentino & castro solano, 2017). these traits, known as high factors, are erudition, peace, cheerfulness, honesty, and tenacity. the aim underlying the development of this model was to avoid constraining positive psychological characteristics to moral concepts and allow any human psychological characteristic to be considered if lay people perceived them as positive. the hfm was consistently developed using a psycho-lexical data-driven approach, adopting statistical and syntactic criteria, rather than a semantic selection criterion, in an effort to exclude any theoretical influence from an academic point of view. to develop this model of socially shared positive individual characteristics, 745 participants (399 women, m = 37.7, sd = 15.1, range 18–90 years) generated a list of 854 elements that made up the initial corpus of words (cosentino & castro solano, 2017). the corpus consisted of words that lay people used in their daily lives. no limits had been established on the type of positive features that could be mentioned, and therefore the corpus included moral characteristics (e.g., reliable) as well as characteristics related to abilities (e.g., intelligence) or lacking moral connotations (e.g., serenity). syntactic and statistical procedures were used to reduce the corpus to a manageable list of positive psychological individual characteristics. as a result, 140 items were retained and included in an inventory. the model exploration sample consisted of 516 participants (286 women, m = 35.2, sd = 13.5, range 18–80). the participants were asked to indicate to what extent the items described them (scale ranging from 1 to 7). to determine the number of factors, an exploratory factor analysis was run, using parallel analysis based on minimum rank factor analysis. additionally, the oblique crawford-ferguson (cf) quartimax rotation was used to obtain a cleaner factor structure, which resulted in a set of 57 items, corresponding to five positive factors. the model refinement sample consisted of 484 participants (285 women, m = 35.1, sd = 14.0, range 18–79), who indicated to what extent the positive characteristics described them (range 1–7). a new factor analysis was conducted to reduce the number of items and obtain a factor model with at least four items, omega reliability ≥.80 per factor, and good fit to data. thus, the high five inventory (hfi) was composed of 23 items distributed into five subscales of socially shared positive human characteristics (table 1). the results, analyzed with a robust diagonally weighted least squares estimator, were cfi > 0.95, srmr < 0.05, rmsea < 0.06, and omega reliabilities were >.80 for each factor. next, the analysis of the hfi scores obtained from a sample of 1,118 participants (564 women, m = 40.4, sd = 14.2, range 18–92) confirmed the good fit of the model to data using robust analyses (cfi > 0.96, srmr < 0.05, and rmsea < 0.07), as well as the good reliability of each subscale (omegas > .80). not only did each high factor show positive associations with emotional, psychological, and social well-being from the hedonic and eudemonic traditions (westerhof & keyes, 2010), but the hfm also predicted each of the three dimensions of positive mental health, accounting for the variance above and beyond the amounts accounted for by the big five factors or facets. another study consistently showed that high scores on the high factors are related to mental health indicators (according to the categorical diagnosis of flourishing/languishing; keyes, 2005). conversely, the high factors are negatively associated with disease indicators, such as the risk of medical non-transmissible diseases, psychopathological symptoms, and psychopathological personality traits (castro solano & cosentino, 2017). the term castro solano & cosentino 657 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ "high" for the factors of the hfm was selected, on the one hand, to show that these factors are linked to the individual characteristics that lay people value highly or positively. on the other hand, they are considered positive poles, in relative terms, of the big five model factors. it was found that the high factors of the hfm are positively associated with the big five factors. the high factor erudition is positively associated with the big five personality factor openness, peace with emotional stability, cheerfulness with extraversion, honesty with agreeableness, and tenacity with conscientiousness (cosentino & castro solano, 2017). however, these relations should not be taken as exclusive and biunivocal but, rather, each factor of the hfm is primarily linked to one of the factors of the big five model, but secondarily to other factors. table 1 high factors, definitions, and items of the high five inventory (hfi) high factors description hfi items erudition the positive trait of knowledge, expressed in thinking about solutions, creating things, desires to learn. intelligent, wise, visionary, cultured, genius, ingenious peace the positive trait of balance, expressed in thinking about calm, believing that there is a solution to everything, or that things will happen in due course. patient, tolerant, tranquility, serenity cheerfulness the positive trait of excitement, expressed in desires to make people laugh, have fun and help others to have fun, or to have amusing ideas. humor, pleasant, funny, amusing honesty moral positive trait, expressed in desires to show one´s true self, to tell the truth, or to be a good person. loyal, reliable, values, transparent, truthful tenacity the positive trait of volition, expressed in thinking about goals, achieving goals, or believing that goals require effort. dedicated, persistent, effort, industrious the results of previous studies on moral traits (e.g., virtues or character strengths) resemble the findings of the studies on the hfm, since moral traits are generally predictors of life satisfaction and different types of psychological well-being (e.g., castro solano & cosentino, 2016; cosentino & castro solano, 2015; park, peterson, & seligman, 2004). in addition, moral traits are predictors of positive outcomes, such as good job performance (harzer & ruch, 2014) or good academic achievement (cosentino & castro solano, 2012; lounsbury, fisher, levy, & welsh, 2009). it is necessary to consider why personological variables, in this case positive traits, are expected to correlate with academic performance, given that the personality variables were not designed to predict such an outcome (ackerman & heggestad, 1997). a corollary of the lexical hypothesis is that the more valued a personological characteristic, the more descriptors for this characteristic will be found in the natural language. if the lexical hypothesis is correct, then the dimensions of the hfm should be related to behaviors and outcomes that have been independently recognized as important (poropat, 2009). performance in both the academic and labor fields is determined by the capacity to perform, the opportunity to perform, and the willingness to perform. capacity incorporates knowledge, skills, and intelligence; opportunity to perform is affected by environmental constraints and resources, including socioeconomic resources (traag, van der valk, van der velden, de vries, & wolbers, 2005), while willingness to perform reflects motivation, cultural norms, and personality (blumberg & pringle, 1982). recent meta-analyses have provided evidence that both capacity and opportunity to perform are correlated with academic performance (poropat, 2009). as regards willingness to perform, personality variables may contribute directly but have been indirectly linked through their associations with motivation (judge & ilies, 2002). similarly, chamorro-premuzic and furnham (2006) argued that correlations between academic high five model in students 658 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ performance and personality measures would mirror corresponding correlations of intelligence with personality. therefore, not only do the personality variables predict important socially valued psychological outcomes, such as academic achievement and adjustment, but they are also directly related to the individual's willingness to perform. a validation study of the hfm model was conducted among university students attending different undergraduate courses. the complete optimal functioning, the construct we related to the hfm, was assessed in terms of academic performance (academic adjustment and academic achievement), indicators of positive mental health (i.e., high hedonic and eudemonic well-being), and absence of psychopathological symptoms. it was assumed that the hfm makes it possible to predict positive results. therefore, the objectives of this research were 1) to study the associations of the hfm factors with self-reported academic achievement and self-perceived academic adjustment in university students, and 2) to study the associations of the hfm factors with indicators of positive mental health and absence of psychopathological symptoms in university students. method participants the sample consisted of 256 university students (125 men, 48.8%, and 131 women, 51.2%), with a mean age of 27.55 years (sd = 7.38, range 18–56), mostly residents from buenos aires city (n = 173, 67.6%) and buenos aires suburbs (known as “greater buenos aires,” n = 60, 26.4%). a low percentage (n = 23, 9%) resided in other cities of buenos aires province. almost three-quarters of the participants were working and studying at the time of the study (n = 187, 73%), attending either state-run (n = 111, 43.4%) or private (n = 145, 56.6%) universities. half of the participants were single (n = 139, 54.3%), 22.7% (n = 58) were living with a partner or married, 21% were dating (n = 54), and the remaining 2% (n = 5) were divorced. most participants reported having a middle (n = 173, 67.6%) or lower-middle (n = 30, 11.7%) socioeconomic status (ses), while 20% reported an uppermiddle ses (n = 51, 11.7%). this was a convenience sample of urban argentinean university students who study and work to afford their education. participation was voluntary, consented, and anonymous. no economic incentives were given for participation. the sample was recruited by advanced psychology students doing their research practice at the end of their undergraduate studies. instruments high five inventory the high five inventory (hfi; cosentino & castro solano, 2017) is an instrument to assess the hfm factors, known as high factors: erudition, peace, cheerfulness, honesty, and tenacity. this instrument was developed through an inductive procedure originating from lay people’s point of view about human positive characteristics (moral or non-moral). the scale consists of 23 items. participants are asked to answer each item (e.g., i am patient) on a likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). the higher the score of each hfi subscale, the higher the high factor. the hfi has convergent and divergent validity in relation to peterson and seligman’s castro solano & cosentino 659 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (2004) values in action classification. the hfi also has incremental validity, that is, beyond the factors or facets of the big five, the hfi increased the prediction of the three dimensions of positive mental health model of keyes (2005). additionally, the hfi presented a good fit to the data from both the initial (e.g., cfi = 0.968) and the confirmation (e.g., cfi = 0.963) samples. the alpha and omega reliabilities for each factor were greater than .80. the internal consistency of the high factors in this sample is shown in table 2. table 2 descriptive statistics of the high factors, psychopathological symptoms, well-being dimensions, academic adjustment, and academic achievement variable m sd cronbach’s α hfi honesty 5.98 0.94 .88 hfi tenacity 5.46 1.07 .86 hfi cheerfulness 4.87 1.20 .90 hfi erudition 4.50 1.08 .85 hfi peace 4.46 1.20 .85 scl-27 psychopathological symptoms 0.66 0.53 .92 mhc emotional well-being 3.66 0.90 .81 mhc personal well-being 3.49 0.85 .79 mhc social well-being 2.16 1.06 .80 academic adjustment 3.69 0.79 .78 academic achievement 7.36 1.00 note. hfi = high five inventory; mhc = mental health continuum; sd = standard deviation. symptom checklist 27 the symptom checklist 27 (scl-27, hardt & gerbershagen, 2001) is a shorter version of the scl-90-r (derogatis, 1975), originally developed to assess patients with chronic pain. the scl-27 is a short and multidimensional detection instrument for mental health problems and it consists of six scales of symptoms: (i) depressive symptoms, (ii) dysthymic symptoms, (iii) vegetative symptoms, (iv) agoraphobic symptoms, (v) symptoms of social phobia, and (vi) symptoms of mistrust. in addition, it has a global severity index (gsi) of the person's current discomfort. items are answered on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). in this study, the gsi was used as an indicator of symptomatology. the scl-27 dimensions were strongly positively associated with each other (kuhl et al., 2010). the discrimination capacity between general and clinical population is similar to that of the scl-90-r. this short version is often recommended for screening in clinical and research studies (müller, postert, beyer, furniss, & achtergarde, 2010) because it has demonstrated adequate levels of sensitivity, specificity, discrimination, and internal consistency, compared with other short versions of the scl-90-r. the alpha reliability of the general scale for the sample of this study was .92. mental health continuum—short form the mental health continuum—short form (mhc-sf) (keyes, 2005) is composed of 14 items that evaluate emotional (3 items), psychological (6 items), and social (5 items) well-being. participants answer how they have felt over the previous month, in a likert-format option, ranging from 0 (never) to 5 (every day). the mhc-sf has shown good internal consistency (>.70) and adequate validities (3-factor structure: emotional, social, and psychological well-being) in studies conducted in adult populations in the united states, china, italy, iran, canada, poland, and south africa (gallagher, lopez, & preacher, 2009; gilmour, 2014; joshanloo, wissing, khumalo, & lamers, 2013; karaś, cieciuch, & keyes, 2005, 2014; lamers, westerhof, bohlmeijer, ten klooster, high five model in students 660 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & keyes, 2011; petrillo, capone, caso, & keyes, 2015; robitschek & keyes, 2009; yin, he, & fu, 2013). the argentinean version of the mhc-sf was used in the present study. the psychometric properties of this version, such as adequate reliability, factor structure, and convergent validity, have been confirmed (lupano perugini, de la iglesia, castro solano, & keyes, 2017). in the sample of the present study, the internal consistency was α = .81 for emotional well-being, α = .79 for psychological well-being, and α = .80 for social well-being. academic adjustment scale the academic adjustment scale (anderson, guan, & koc, 2016, adapted by castro solano & cosentino, 2017) was designed to assess international students’ self-perception of adjustment to university life. the argentinean version of this scale includes five out of the nine original items. this inventory is answered on a 5-likert-type scale, ranging from 0 (almost never) to 5 (always). the items of the argentinean adaptation are grouped into a single factor that denotes satisfaction with their adjustment. the internal consistency for this sample was high (omega = .81). academic achievement participants’ self-reports of academic grades (average, range 0–10) were used. a meta-analysis has shown a strong correlation (r = .90) between self-reported academic grades and objective academic achievement as reported by universities (kuncel, credé, & thomas, 2005). therefore, self-reported academic achievement is widely used in contemporary research (e.g., bücker, nuraydin, simonsmeier, schneider, & luhmann, 2018; leyrer-jackson & wilson, 2018), as an adequate indicator of objective grades. sociodemographic data a survey was designed to gather sociodemographic characteristics of the population (e.g., sex, age, type of educational institution). procedure the battery of instruments was administered by advanced psychology students attending a university located in buenos aires city and performing their professional research practice. they were instructed to contact university students residing in buenos aires city and the surrounding area, who responded individually. instruments with missing data were not included (nine protocols were eliminated). the data were analyzed with the statistical package spss version 17. descriptive statistics and correlations among variables were calculated. four clusters of complete mental well-being were obtained and the relationships among these groups and the high factors were established. results descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis among variables firstly, descriptive statistics of the variables included in the study were calculated (table 2). secondly, successive series of stepwise multiple regression analysis were performed, including the five high factors as independent variables and the other variables of the study. the high factors peace, tenacity, cheerfulness, and erudition accounted for between 16 and 25% of the variance in well-being, depending on the type castro solano & cosentino 661 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of well-being (table 3). regarding the psychopathological symptoms, the high factors erudition (β = −.15, p < .003) and peace (β = −.18, p < .01) accounted for 7% of the variance in the global severity index of the scl-27 (f(2, 255) = 10.86, p < .0001). the high factors tenacity (β = .27, p < .0001) and erudition (β = .14, p < .03) accounted for 5% of academic achievement (f(2, 250) = 7.43, p < .0001), and the high factors tenacity (β = .27, p < .0001) and erudition (β = .19, p < .004) 16% of academic adjustment (f(2, 255) = 24.50, p < .0001). table 3 summary of the regression analysis for high factors predicting emotional, personal, and social well-being criterion high factors r2 f (df) p standardized β p emotional well-being 0.184 20.22 (3, 255) .0001 tenacity .25 <.0001 cheerfulness .16 <.006 peace .14 <.02 psychological well-being 0.255 18.08 (5, 255) .0001 peace .16 <.006 erudition .16 <.01 tenacity .16 <.02 cheerfulness .13 <.04 social well-being 0.164 24.92 (2, 255) .0001 peace .35 <.0001 erudition .12 <.04 complete mental well-being: cluster analysis the next step was to obtain clusters of complete mental well-being for the complete optimal functioning, understood as the presence of high levels of both hedonic and eudemonic well-being and a low level of psychopathological symptoms. a two-step cluster analysis was performed. this exploratory analysis identifies the natural structures/grouping within a dataset and gives the optimal number of clusters as well as the quality of the fit of the groups (pérez, 2011; rubio-hurtado & vilà-baños, 2017). the log-likelihood distance measure and the bayesian information criterion (bic) were used. four clusters were identified for complete mental well-being for optimal functioning, with a goodness of fit of ≤.5. these clusters comprised superior, intermediate, and inferior levels of complete mental well-being, and, in turn, the intermediate level was subdivided into upper and lower intermediate. figure 1 displays the clusters obtained. the first cluster was composed of 39.8% of the cases (n = 102), the group with the largest number of participants. the members of this group had moderate hedonic and eudemonic well-being and a low level of psychopathological symptomatology. this cluster was named suboptimal superior level of complete mental well-being (i.e., moderate well-being and low symptomatology). the second cluster was composed of 26.6% of the cases (n = 68). this group consisted of people with low levels of hedonic and eudemonic well-being and with a low level of psychopathological symptoms. this cluster was labeled upper intermediate level of complete mental well-being (i.e., low well-being and low symptomatology). high five model in students 662 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the third cluster grouped 21.5% of the cases (n = 55). this group reported an average level of hedonic and eudemonic well-being and above average level of psychopathological symptomatology. this cluster was in some way similar to the upper-intermediate level mentioned above and was named lower intermediate level of complete mental well-being (i.e., medium well-being and high symptomatology). the fourth cluster consisted of 12.1% of the participants (n = 31). this group had very low levels of hedonic and eudemonic well-being and very high levels of psychopathological symptomatology. this cluster grouped individuals with the worst psychological profile and was labeled inferior level of complete mental well-being (i.e., low well-being and high psychopathological symptomatology). in general, this cluster analysis showed that the participants could be placed along a continuum of complete mental health, from the positive pole of complete mental health to the negative pole of complete mental health. the positive pole is characterized by the presence of high hedonic and eudemonic well-being and low psychopathological symptomatology, while the negative pole is characterized by the presence of low hedonic and eudemonic well-being and the presence of high psychopathological symptoms. relationships among clusters of complete mental well-being and sociodemographic variables, high factors, and academic variables in the clusters of complete mental well-being (cmw), no differences were found by gender (χ2(3, n = 256) = 0.80, ns) and age (f(3, 252) = 0.41, ns). associations between cmw groups and the hfm factors were analyzed. a manova was conducted, comparing the five high factors across the cmw groups. statistically significant differences were observed among the figure 1. complete mental well-being: cluster analysis. castro solano & cosentino 663 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ groups of cmw (wilks’ lambda = .73, f(5, 248) = 5.52, p < .001, η2 = .010). univariate contrasts and post-hoc analyses were performed afterward. significant differences were found among all clusters of cmw and the high factors. in most cases, the high factors of the hfm allowed us to differentiate between all the groups, as follows: for the erudition factor (f(3, 252) = 12.61, p < .001, η2 = .13), post-hoc analyses (tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences between the four groups of cmw. the highest scores on erudition were found in the group with the highest cmw, while the lowest scores on erudition were present in the group with the lowest cmw. for cheerfulness (f(3, 252) = 7.58, p < .001, η2 = .08), post-hoc contrast (tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences between the inferior cmw group and the other three groups. the group with the poorest cmw presented the lowest levels of the cheerfulness factor. for honesty (f(3, 252) = 9.81, p < .001, η2 = .11), post-hoc analyses (tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences between the groups with higher cmw for optimal functioning (superior and upper intermediate cmw) and the groups with lower cmw (lower intermediate and inferior cmw). the highest scores on the honesty factor were reported by individuals with better cmw, while the lowest scores were found among those with poorer cmw. for tenacity (f(3, 252) = 12.50, p < .001, η2 = .13), the post-hoc contrast (tukey-b, p < .05) showed differences among the groups with better cmw (superior and upper intermediate cmw) and those with worse levels of cmw (lower intermediate and inferior cmw). the highest scores on the tenacity factor were reported by individuals with better cmw, while the lowest levels of tenacity were found in those with poorer cmw. for peace (f(3, 252) = 10.99, p < .001, η2 = .12), the post-hoc analyses (tukey-b, p < .05) revealed differences in this high factor among the superior, intermediate, and inferior groups of cmw. the highest scores on the peace factor were reported by individuals with better cmw and the lowest scores by those with poorer cmw. therefore the better the cmw, the higher the high factor. finally, no differences in academic achievement (f(3, 252) = 0.94, ns) but differences in perceived academic adjustment (f(3, 252) = 13.53, p < .01) were found, the greatest differences being among superior, intermediate, and inferior cmw groups (tukey-b, p < .05). while the highest academic adjustment was observed in the superior cmw group, the lowest levels were found in the inferior cmw group. discussion the hfm is a model of positive personality traits with broad potential. previous studies confirmed the replicability of the factor structure in an adult population and the incremental validity for the personality factors and facets of the big five model for predicting different types of well-being (cosentino & castro solano, 2017). moreover, the hfm factors showed the ability to discriminate between people with and without pathological personality traits. they have been considered mental health protective factors and have also been associated with low risks of medical illness (castro solano & cosentino, 2017). particularly, peace (the positive trait of balance) and cheerfulness (the positive trait of excitement) were the most strongly associated with the low risk of both psychological and medical illness. high five model in students 664 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the main contribution of this research was to provide additional validity to the hfm. to investigate whether the high factors, besides being protective of mental health and promoters of well-being, were able to predict academic variables, a sample of university students was studied. as expected, the results of this study showed that the high factors are not only related to well-being in an adult population but are also associated with academic adjustment to university life and academic achievement. tenacity (the positive trait of volition) and erudition (the positive trait of knowledge) are two positive factors of personality strongly related to the perception of adjustment to university life. young adults with high levels of effort, dedication, and persistence, and are intelligent, educated, and resourceful show good academic skills to cope with university life and feel satisfied with their progress in college. similarly, tenacity and erudition are positively associated with university grades. the personality model of the big five posits that human personality is composed of five basic dimensions named neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (costa & mccrae, 1992). among these personality traits, conscientiousness is the predictor most frequently associated with both academic success and organizational success (e.g., zimmerman, 2008). individuals with high scores on conscientious tend to be hardworking, systematic, and dutiful (trautwein, lüdtke, roberts, schnyder, & niggli, 2009), features that contribute to students' success. this trait is also important in student retention. a meta-analysis conducted by trapmann, hell, hirn, and schuler (2007) concluded that conscientiousness is a constant predictor of college grades. trautwein’s et al. (2009) study suggests that conscientiousness is also positively associated with academic achievement. the tenacity factor of the hfm (expressed in positive characteristics such as dedication, persistence, effort, and industriousness) is conceptually and empirically related to the conscientiousness trait (cosentino & castro solano, 2017) and therefore we considered conscientiousness as a proxy variable for the tenacity positive factor. as a result, the findings of this study for the prediction of academic success are consistent with those obtained with the big five model (barrick & mount, 1991; judge, heller, & mount, 2002; tross, harper, osher, & kneidinger, 2000; zimmerman, 2008). along the same line, another positive trait associated with academic adjustment was found to be erudition (expressed in positive characteristics such as intelligent, wise, visionary, cultured, genius, and ingenious). the self-perception that one has positive qualities related to erudition conceptually refers to self-efficacy related to knowledge. the relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance is extensively documented in the literature (bandura, barbaranelli, caprara, & pastorelli, 1996; chemers, hu, & garcia, 2001; greene, miller, crowson, duke, & akey, 2004; pintrich & degroot, 1990; schunk, 1994; sharma & silbereisen, 2007; zimmerman & bandura, 1994). in short, the results of this study provide additional validity to the hfm as a predictor of cmw for the complete optimal functioning (i.e., low presence of psychopathological symptoms and high hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing). the five positive traits adequately identified different gradations in the optimal functioning continuum (from positive complete mental health to negative complete mental health). high scores for the high factors were found in the most adaptive groups while low scores on these factors were found in the least adaptive groups, that is, those with less mental well-being. therefore, the results of this research provide additional evidence to support previous findings that high factors are indicators not only of mental health but also of lower risks of medical illness in the general population (castro solano & cosentino, 2017). in this sense, previous conclusions could be generalized to university students. castro solano & cosentino 665 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 https://www.psychopen.eu/ limitations and future perspectives a possible limitation of our research is that only self-reported academic grades were used for academic achievement. using objective grades obtained directly from educational institutions might serve as a more reliable source of information. in addition, this study was cross-sectional. a longitudinal study could have provided more conclusive evidence of the causal relationships in which the high factors could be considered independent variables. besides, because this study aimed to show the links of the high factors with various positive variables, there was no control for the factors of the big five model. further studies could include the big five factors as control variables to determine the contribution that the high factors make to the variables studied here, beyond the explanation of the big five factors. future studies should also address the relationship between the hfm and academic dropout, as well as the behavior of high factors during a university academic period. additionally, the role of the hfm as a predictor of good job performance could be studied. concluding remarks to summarize, the assessment of positive traits derived from a psycho-lexical approach, evaluated through a brief measurement instrument such as the hfi, can predict both complete mental health for optimal functioning and other positive outcomes such as academic performance (e.g., academic adjustment and achievement). the items of the hfi use descriptors of the hfm model that are easy to understand and rapid to respond, taking no more than 5 minutes to fill out. consequently, the hfi can be considered a reliable, valid, and efficient assessment of positive personality traits and a good alternative to the classic inventories and other personality assessment techniques that consist of a large number of items and/or more complex evaluation. funding this project was conducted with a pip conicet grant, 11220150100381co "hacia una aproximación émica de la psicología positiva. los rasgos positivos como predictores del funcionamiento óptimo" and with ubacyt grant, 20020150100037ba "la evaluación de los rasgos de personalidad positivos. su relación con los rasgos de personalidad patológicos (dsm5) y el bienestar psicológico." competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references ackerman, p. l., & heggestad, e. d. 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(2013). técnicas de segmentación. conceptos, herramientas y aplicaciones. madrid, spain: gaceta grupo editorial. about the authors alejandro castro solano is a researcher professor of the national council for scientific and technical research (conicet, for its initials in spanish); researcher professor at the faculty of psychology, universidad de buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina; and researcher professor at the department of psychology, faculty of social science, universidad de palermo, buenos aires, argentina. alejandro césar cosentino is a researcher adjunct-professor at the faculty of psychology, universidad de buenos aires, buenos aires, argentina; and researcher professor at the department of psychology, faculty of social science, universidad de palermo, buenos aires, argentina. high five model in students 670 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 656–670 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1759 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1080%2f00207590600663299 https://doi.org/10.1027%2f00443409.215.2.132 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fa0017048 https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0012-1649.34.3.403 https://doi.org/10.1007%2fs10804-009-9082-y https://doi.org/10.3102%2f00028312031004845 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.17446570.2008.00115.x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ high five model in students (introduction) method participants instruments procedure results descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis among variables complete mental well-being: cluster analysis relationships among clusters of complete mental well-being and sociodemographic variables, high factors, and academic variables discussion limitations and future perspectives concluding remarks (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors technostress, coping, and anxious and depressive symptomatology in university students during the covid-19 pandemic research reports technostress, coping, and anxious and depressive symptomatology in university students during the covid-19 pandemic john galvin 1, michael scott evans 2, kenisha nelson 3, gareth richards 4, eirini mavritsaki 1, theodoros giovazolias 5, katerina koutra 5, ben mellor 4, maria clelia zurlo 6, andrew paul smith 2, federica vallone 6 [1] birmingham city university, birmingham, united kingdom. [2] cardiff university, cardiff, united kingdom. [3] university of technology, kingston, jamaica. [4] newcastle university, newcastle upon tyne, united kingdom. [5] university of crete, rethymno, 74100, greece. [6] university of naples federico ii, naples, italy. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 received: 2020-11-22 • accepted: 2021-05-16 • published (vor): 2022-08-31 handling editor: michelle e. roley-roberts, creighton university, omaha, ne, usa corresponding author: john galvin, department of psychology, curzon building, cardigan street, birmingham city university, b4 7bd, birmingham, united kingdom. e-mail: john.galvin@bcu.ac.uk abstract the covid-19 pandemic raised many challenges for university staff and students, including the need to work from home, which resulted in a greater reliance on technology. we collected questionnaire data from university students (n = 894) in three european countries: greece, italy, and the united kingdom. data were collected between 7th april 2020 and 19th june 2020, representing a period covering the first lockdown and university closures in these countries and across europe generally. we tested the hypotheses that technology-related stressors (techno-overload, work-home conflict, techno-ease, techno-reliability, techno-sociality, and pace of change) would be associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms, and that coping styles (problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance) would mediate these relationships. results showed significant positive associations between techno-overload, work-home conflict and anxiety and depressive symptoms, and significant negative associations between techno-reliability, techno-ease and anxiety and depressive symptoms. a significant negative association was found between techno-sociality and depressive symptoms but not anxiety symptoms. no evidence was found for an association between pace of change and anxiety or depressive symptoms. multiple mediation analyses revealed significant direct effects of techno-overload, work-home conflict and techno-ease on anxiety symptoms, and of work-home conflict and techno-ease on depressive symptoms. work-home conflict had significant indirect effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms through avoidance coping. techno-overload and techno-ease both had significant indirect effects on anxiety symptoms through problemand emotion-focused coping. techno-ease also had a significant indirect effect on depressive symptoms through problem-focused coping. the findings add to the body of evidence on technostress amongst university students and provide knowledge on how technostress translates through coping strategies into anxious and depressive symptoms during the disruption caused by the outbreak of a pandemic disease. keywords university students, technostress, coping, anxiety, depression, covid-19 in response to the novel coronavirus 2019 (covid-19), the world health organisation declared a global pandemic on 11th march 2020. as of 15th may 2021, the coronavirus resource centre at johns hopkins university and medicine (2021) reported 161,566,026 confirmed cases and 3,353,630 deaths worldwide. government officials and public health experts have taken several steps to control the spread of the virus, including imposing special measures on their this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.4725&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-08-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ populations, such as self-isolation and restriction of movement and assembly, which have led to a high number of individuals having to work from home. the higher education (he) sector has been severely impacted by the covid-19 crisis. the pandemic necessitated a rapid transition from a predominantly face-to-face teaching model to an online only or heavily blended learning model for many academic courses (watermeyer et al., 2021). although online teaching and learning is not new for many universities, a predominantly online model is new to many staff and students. this transition to a purely digital teaching and learning experience has, by its very nature, an intrinsic expectation that staff and students are able to use technology for all intents and purposes, that the technology is reliable, and that they have workspaces at home which would mirror the workplace environment, i.e., without distractions or conflicting home demands (sahu, 2020). technostress was first defined by brod (1984) as the inability to adapt or cope with information and communication technologies (icts) in a healthy manner. this definition is in line with lazarus and folkman’s (1984) suggestion that stress refers to any demand, event or situation that disturbs the adaptive state and threatens to exceed the individual’s resources and skills. if the individual’s adaptive state is altered by an event, this may provoke a coping response (lazarus & folkman, 1991). if people maintain adaptive coping responses, they are less likely to appraise a situation as threatening and have improved mental health outcomes (freire et al., 2016; taylor & stanton, 2007). previous research has shown that technostress in university students is associated with a range of psychopathologi­ cal outcomes including higher anxiety, depression, burnout, and suicidality (kim et al., 2006; wang et al., 2020). several factors have been identified as determinants of technostress (hereinafter referred to as techno-stressors) (ayyagari et al., 2011; delone & mclean, 2003; jiang et al., 2002; kreiner, 2006; moore, 2000; moore & benbasat, 1991; netemeyer et al., 1996; weiss & heide, 1993). techno-overload refers to the situation in which individuals feel forced by icts to work faster and longer. work-home conflict is when work and private life merge due to ict usage. pace of change refers to an individual’s perception of frequent ict-related changes and upgrades. techno-ease refers to whether or not the user feels competent enough to use icts and to achieve the desired results. techno-sociality refers to ict as a social communication tool by which individuals can contact, or be contacted by other people. finally, techno-reliability is the perception of the consistency or dependability of icts. an ability to cope with techno-stressors will depend on individual resources (e.g., coping competencies) as well as environmental factors (e.g., circumstances). coping can be defined as acts of adaptation that an individual performs in response to events that occur in his/her environment (folkman & lazarus, 1988; lazarus & folkman, 1984). coping responses are commonly categorised into three broader themes: problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance coping (lazarus & folkman, 1984; roth & cohen, 1986). problem-focused coping involves handling the stressor by taking action to solve the problem, facing it head-on, and making attempts to resolve the underlying cause. examples of problem-focused coping include planning and taking active steps to address the problem. emotion-focused coping involves the regulation of feelings and emotional responses that arise, as opposed to directly addressing the problem. examples of emotion-focused coping include accessing social support networks and venting about the problem. finally, avoidance coping is characterised by coping efforts aimed at avoiding the stressor, and examples include disengagement, denial, and substance use. while problem-focused coping is often considered the most effective coping strategy and avoidance coping the least effective, research shows that the most effective strategy can depend on the type of stressor encountered and/or other environmental circumstances (bonanno & burton, 2013; lee-baggley et al., 2005). therefore, individuals might not differ only in their choice of coping strategies, but also in the extent and context in which they engage in any single strategy. the digitalisation of society and the labour-market has been on a constant rise over the last decades (vasilescu et al., 2020), and this shift has been exacerbated by the covid-19 crisis. although digitalisation has some advantages, it also results in important challenges, including a rise in the phenomenon of technostress in distance education. it has thus never been more pertinent to investigate techno-stressors and their relationships with mental health outcomes in the student population. in this study, we explored the relationships between techno-stressors, coping strategies and anxious/depressive symptoms in a sample of students from three european countries: greece, italy and uk. it was hypothesised that: galvin, evans, nelson et al. 303 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ h1: techno-overload, work-home conflict and pace of change would be positively associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms. h2: techno-ease, techno-reliability and techno-sociality would be negatively associated with anx­ ious and depressive symptoms. h3: coping style would mediate the association between techno-stressors and anxious/depressive symptoms. method procedure and participants participants were given an information sheet that provided basic details of the study, and were required to complete a consent form before taking part. an online cross-sectional survey (hosted by qualtrics) was distributed to university students in greece, italy and the uk between 7th april 2020 and 19th june 2020. this period covered a timeframe in which the first lockdown was implemented and included full closures of universities in all three countries. participants were studying at undergraduate or masters level, and were recruited from the affiliative institutions of the authors through research participation databases and student learning forums. in greece, a link to the survey was sent by e-mail to faculty members in universities across different cities and regions of the country (crete, athens, thessaloniki, thessaly, epirus, thrace) who then forwarded it to their students using either academic mailing lists or student social media groups. in italy, a link to the survey was sent via academic mailing lists and social media groups for three univer­ sities in the southwestern region of campania (naples and benevento). in the uk, the psychology department research participation schemes (rps) at birmingham city university and newcastle university were used. the questionnaire link was also sent to student social media groups at birmingham city university, newcastle university, northumbria university, and the university of liverpool. students recruited in the uk through rps were awarded participation credits. all other participants did not receive any reward for completing the study. materials after demographic questions (sex, age, relationship status, course status, level of study and employment status), a series of questions on technology usage was presented. this included a question asking the participants to provide detail on the technological device(s) they have in their home, as well as a question on the device(s) that they personally own. participants were also asked how many people (including themselves) live in their household, and whether they have their own personal space to use technological device(s). technostress scale techno-stressors were measured with validated survey items from prior studies. the constructs, items, and internal reliability coefficients for the present study are detailed in table 1. participants responded to 17 items on a seven-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). coping style the 60-item version of the cope inventory (carver et al., 1989) was used to measure coping style. it comprises 15 subscales: positive reinterpretation and growth, mental disengagement, focus on and venting of emotions, use of instrumental social support, active coping, denial, religious coping, suppression of competing activities, humour, behavioural disengagement, restraint, use of emotional social support, substance abuse, acceptance, and planning. although the original scale has 15 subscales, carver et al. (1989) suggest three higher order factors (problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance coping) based on factor analysis. overall internal consistency for the cope factors in the present study were as follows: problem-focused coping α = .908; emotion-focused coping α = .850; avoidance coping α = .702. in greece, problem-focused coping α = .878, emotion-focused coping α = .841, and avoidance coping α = .716. technostress, coping and mental health in students 304 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in italy, problem-focused coping α = .844, emotion-focused coping α = .821, and avoidance coping α = .669. in the uk, problem-focused coping α = .941, emotion-focused coping α = .861, and avoidance coping α = .711. table 1 technostress constructs, items, and cronbach’s alpha scores for the present study technostress factors and items reference(s) overall sample greece italy uk techno-overload • icts create many more requests and problems than i would otherwise experience • i feel busy or rushed due to icts • i feel pressured due to icts moore (2000) α = .82 α = .83 α = .78 α = .84 work-home conflict • using icts blurs boundaries between my work and my home life • using icts for work related responsibilities creates conflicts with my home responsibilities • i do not get everything done at home because i find myself completing work due to icts kreiner (2006) α = .77 α = .74 α = .78 α = .80 techno-ease • learning to use icts is easy for me • icts are easy to use • it is easy to get results that i desire from icts moore and benbasat (1991) α = .85 α = .86 α = .82 α = .85 techno-reliability • the features provided by icts are dependable • the capabilities provided by icts are reliable • icts behave in a highly consistent way delone and mclean (2003) jiang et al. (2002) α = .85 α = .86 α = .82 α = .85 techno-sociality • the use of icts enables others to have access to me • the use of icts enables me to be in touch with others ayyagari et al. (2011) α = .74 α = .59 α = .90 α = .86 pace of change • i feel that there are frequent changes in the features of icts • i feel that the capabilities of icts change often • i feel that the way icts work changes often weiss and heide (1993) α = .84 α = .85 α = .88 α = .83 anxious and depressive symptoms the hospital anxiety and depression scale (zigmond & snaith, 1983) consists of 14 items, with seven measuring anxiety symptoms, and seven measuring depressive symptoms. participants’ responses are coded on a scale of 0–3 for each item. the questionnaire is designed to assess an individual’s mental state over the previous two weeks. overall internal consistency was α = .822 for anxiety symptoms and α = .688 for depressive symptoms. in greece, α = .797 for anxiety symptoms and α = .673 for depressive symptoms. in italy, α = .818 for anxiety symptoms and α = .653 for depressive symptoms. in the uk, α = .843 for anxiety symptoms and α = .697 for depressive symptoms. translation of scales into greek and italian the uk sample completed the questionnaire in english, including the original english versions of the cope (carver et al., 1989) and hads (zigmond & snaith, 1983). for distribution in italy and greece, the information sheet, consent form, debrief form, demographic and technostress items were translated into greek by authors tg, kk, and em, and into italian by author fv. the scales were then back-translated into english by the same authors. we used the italian versions of the cope (sica et al., 2008) and hads (costantini et al., 1999) in italy, and the greek versions of the cope (roussi, 2001) and hads (michopoulos et al., 2008) in greece. data analysis data were analysed using jasp software version 0.14.1 (jasp team, 2020) and statistical significance was set at 5% (two-tailed). differences between countries on demographic and study variables were examined with anova (bonferroni corrected) and with chi-square test for categorical variables. because the utilisation and effectiveness of galvin, evans, nelson et al. 305 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ coping strategies can rely on specific environmental contexts (bonanno & burton, 2013; lee-baggley et al., 2005), and given the uniqueness of the pandemic situation, we identified coping factors with an exploratory factor analysis (efa) using principal components extraction and promax oblique rotation. as the technostress scale has not previously been validated in greek or italian, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) on the scale followed by multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (mgcfa) to examine measurement invariance. measurement invariance comprises configural, metric and scalar invariance. configural invariance examines wheth­ er the measurement scale has a similar factor structure across the different countries. it is tested by imposing the same structure across groups and allowing all model estimated parameters to differ. metric invariance examines whether the rating scales are used similarly in the different countries. it is tested by examining whether the different countries have the same factor loadings for the same item. finally, scalar invariance examines whether the different countries have the same item intercepts. it is achieved by constraining intercepts to be equal across groups. establishing scalar invariance would enable meaningful comparison of the means across the countries (little, 1997). the goodness of fit indices for cfa and mgcfa models include the chi-square (χ2) statistic, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), comparative fit index (cfi), tucker-lews index (tli), and standardised root mean squared residual (srmr). the common guidelines for an acceptable model fit are: χ2, p > .05, rmsea < .08; cfi > .90; tli > .90; srmr < .09. as the chi-square test is strongly influenced by sample size (cheung & rensvold, 2002), we relied on the rmsea, cfi, tli and srmr to assess model fit. the assessment of measurement invariance involved testing the deterioration of the model fit between the configural, metric and scalar model. changes in cfi, tli, and rmsea of < .01 are considered acceptable (rutkowski & svetina, 2014). we examined the associations between all variables using pearson’s correlation. this was followed by four multiple linear regression analyses (enter method). the first two regressions included the technostress factors as predictors and hads anxiety and depression subscale scores as outcomes. the remaining two regressions included cope factors as predictors and anxiety/depression as outcomes. the independent errors assumption was checked with the durbin-watson statistic, and the multicollinearity assumption was tested with variance inflation factor (vif). mediation analysis was then performed (bootstrap 5000 iterations and bias-corrected). the predictor variables included in the analysis were each of the significant techno-stressors from the multiple regression step. mediators were each of the significant cope factors from the multiple regression step. outcome variables were the hads anxiety and depression subscale scores. the maximum likelihood estimation was used to estimate the direct and indirect effects. background confounders included age, sex (female), relationship status (single), level of study (masters), international student (yes) and employment status (employed). the full information maximum likelihood (fiml) estimation was used to deal with the missing values (< 10%) in the final sample. results demographics the questionnaire was accessed by n = 963 participants. forty were removed from the analysis as they did not respond to any of the study variables. a further 17 were removed because they reported that they were not students and 12 were removed as they were doctoral level students. this resulted in a total sample size of n = 894 (greece, n = 343; italy, n = 120; uk, n = 431). participants were studying a range of subjects, including psychology (n = 262), core sciences (biology, chemistry or physics) (n = 142), engineering (n = 88), medicine (n = 83), social studies (n = 45), business (n = 66), languages (n = 42), education (n = 36), history (n = 36), art or media studies (n = 15), geography (n = 15), maths (n = 15), nursing (n = 13), law (n = 11), philosophy (n = 10), architecture (n = 6), and archaeology (n = 6). participants differed significantly across countries on all demographic variables except for sex, ownership of a mobile phone, and having a desktop or mobile phone at home (table 2). technostress, coping and mental health in students 306 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 demographic information for the overall sample and stratified by nation sample characteristic total sample greece italy united kingdom statistic sex n (%) females 686(77) 267(78) 96(80) 323(75) males 206(23) 74(21) 24(20) 108(25) χ2 = 5.178 other 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) p = .270 prefer not to say 2(0) 2(1) 0(0) 0(0) age in years m, sd 21.58, 4.29 22.99, 5. 58 22.47, 4.10 20.20, 2.21 f = 46.371 (range) (18–56) (18–56) (19–38) (18–44) p < .001 relationship n (%) single 747(84) 58(17) 47(39) 42(10) χ2 = 59.229 relationship 147(16) 285(83) 73(61) 389(90) p < .001 course n (%) full-time 824(96) 318(98) 92(80) 414(99) χ2 = 100.917 part-time 33(4) 6(2) 23(20) 4(1) p < .001 study level n (%) bachelors 727(89) 264(93) 101(87) 362(87) χ2 = 7.353 masters 91(11) 20(7) 15(13) 56(13) p = .025 employment n (%) full-time 68(7) 34(11) 8(7) 21(5) part-time 228(27) 27(9) 27(23) 174(40) χ2 = 99.036 not employed 538(63) 229(77) 83(68) 226(53) p < .001 prefer not to say 22(3) 10(3) 2(2) 10(2) technology devices at home n (%) laptop yes 840(94) 302(88) 110(92) 428(99) χ2 = 43.932 no 54(6) 41(12) 10(8) 3(1) p < .001 desktop yes 340(38) 118(34) 53(44) 169(39) χ2 = 4.088 no 554(62) 225(66) >67(56) 262(61) p = .130 tablet yes 472(53) 142(41) 56(47) 274(64) χ2 = 39.771 no 422(47) 201(59) 64(53) 157(36) p < .001 mobile yes 841(99) 295(99) 117(98) 429(99) χ2 = 43.932 no 8(1) 3(1) 3(2) 2(1) p = .123 othera 37(4) 8(2) 7(5) 22(5) — technology devices personally owned n (%) laptop yes 722(86) 268(78) 95(80) 409(95) χ2 = 51.611 no 122(14) 75(22) 25(20) 22(5) p < .001 desktop yes 106(12) 50(15) 18(15) 38(9) χ2 = 7.375/ no 788(88) 293(85) 102(85) 393(91) p = .003 tablet yes 278(31) 97(28) 25(20) 156(36) χ2 = 12.398 no 616(69) 246(72) 95(80) 275(64) p = .002 mobile yes 842(99) 295(99) 119(99) 428(99) χ2 = 0.208 no 7(1) 3(1) 1(1) 3(1) p = .901 othera 20(2) 4(1) 3(2) 13(3) — galvin, evans, nelson et al. 307 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sample characteristic total sample greece italy united kingdom statistic personal space? n (%) yes 698(79) 254(75) 100(85) 344(80) χ2 = 6.929 no 187(21) 87(25) 19(15) 81(20) p = .031 number of people living in household m 3.58(1.51) 2.87(1.58) 3.69(1.11) 3.85(1.58) f = 40.364 (sd) p < .001 a responses to “other” included: game consoles (n = 18), smart tvs (n = 10), home hubs (n =7), and smartwatch (n = 2). efa on the cope scale principal components analysis (pca) was conducted on the cope scale. the pca confirmed three factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, which together explained 62% of the variance (table 3). the factors were aligned closely with the findings of carver et al. (1989) and represented problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidance coping. the first factor represented problem-focused coping, with high loadings from the following cope subscales: positive reinterpretation and growth, active coping, restraint, acceptance, humour, suppression of competing activities, and planning. the second factor represented emotion-focused coping, with high loadings from the subscales: focusing on and venting of emotions, instrumental social support, and use of social support. the third factor represented avoidance coping, with high loadings from the subscales: denial, substance use, behavioural disengagement, and mental disengagement. religious coping did not load highly on any of the three factors. as religion is not a specific focus of our study, the decision was made to exclude this subscale from further analysis. table 3 exploratory factor analysis of the cope subscales efa cope subscales factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 planning .924 positive reinterpretation and growth .859 active coping .849 acceptance .733 suppression of competing activities .720 restraint .626 humour .430 use of emotional support .943 instrumental social support .780 focus on and venting of emotions .749 behavioural disengagement .856 denial .677 substance use .550 mental disengagement .352 religious coping note. factor loadings below 0.3 are excluded. cfa and mgcfa on technostress scale next, we conducted a series of confirmatory factor analyses on the technostress scale (table 4). rmsea, cfi and srmr values indicate acceptable model fit for the greek and the uk samples. tli indicated acceptable fit for the uk sample and was very close to the acceptable threshold for the greek sample (.893). rmsea, cfi, tli and srmr indicated an insufficient fit for the italian sample. to see if the model-data fit could be improved we inspected the modification indices for each country separately. we based a selected model on the uk data, since english is the source language of the scales. further estimations indicated that deleting the third item on the techno-ease scale ‘it is easy to get results that i desire from icts’ increased the fit in technostress, coping and mental health in students 308 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ all countries. the item was not distinctive enough and cross-loaded with items on the techno-reliability scale. rmsea, cfi, tli and srmr values indicated acceptable fit for the overall sample as well as for each country in the revised model (table 5). these results provided a good starting point for the subsequent multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. table 4 fit indices for technostress sample rmsea cfi tli srmr overall .071 [.065-.077] .935 .915 .058 greece .081 [.070-.091] .918 .893 .062 italy .124 [.107-.142] .835 .785 .097 uk .071 [.061-.081] .940 .921 .062 note. sub-scales from the confirmatory factor analyses. table 5 revised cfa sample rmsea cfi tli srmr overall .047 [.040-.055] .972 .963 .038 greece .067 [.055-.079] .944 .925 .053 italy .074 [.051-.096] .941 .921 .064 uk .045 [.032-.058] .977 .968 .041 note. with the removal of item 3 from the techno-ease scale. the mgcfa consisted of three steps. the configural equivalent model was estimated first, in which we imposed the same factor structure on the scores in each country. a sufficiently good fit was found (table 6), suggesting the measurement scale has a similar factor structure across the three countries. next, we imposed the factor loadings to be the same across countries (table 6). we expected a slight decrease in fit, which was confirmed, with a rmsea of .062 and srmr of .057. however, these are both still above the acceptable thresholds. finally, we tested the full scalar invariant model and found this was acceptable with δrmsea, δcfi, and δtli < .01 (rutkowski & svetina, 2014). the comparison of latent means for the techno-stress factors can therefore be justified (table 6). table 6 multi-group confirmatory factor analysis for the techno-stress scale mgcfa rmsea cfi tli srmr model comparison δrmsea δcfi δtli δsrmr m1: configural invariance .061 [.051-.070] .961 .947 .049 m2: metric invariance .062 [.053-.070] .956 .945 .057 m1 .001 .005 .002 .008 m3: scalar invariance .069 [.060-.077] .947 .937 .057 m2 .007 .009 .008 .000 differences between countries on the study variables table 7 details the means, standard deviations, and results of the anova and bonferroni post hoc tests. significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression were found in the uk sample compared to the other countries. work-home galvin, evans, nelson et al. 309 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conflict was significantly higher in the uk compared to italy. techno-ease was lower in the italian sample compared to the other countries, and pace of change was higher in greece in comparison with italy. significantly higher levels of avoidance-focused coping and lower levels of problem-focused coping were found in the uk sample compared to the other countries. the italian sample reported higher emotion-focused coping compared to the uk sample. table 7 group means and anova tests means and differences total sample greece (1) italy (2) uk (3) f statistic post hoc technostress factors techno-overload 10.74 (4.56) 10.89 (4.65) 10.29 (4.41) 10.75 (4.53) 0.718 — work-home conflict 11.97 (4.94) 11.73 (5.05) 10.92 (4.72) 12.55 (4.85) 5.267* 3 > 2 techno-ease 16.22 (3.76) 16.30 (3.76) 15.18 (3.67) 16.50 (3.79) 5.383* 1 > 2 3 > 2 techno-reliability 14.01 (3.70) 13.78 (3.75) 13.52 (3.32) 14.37 (3.76) 3.148* — techno-sociality 12.07 (2.46) 11.82 (2.86) 12.06 (2.10) 12.29 (2.14) 2.909 — pace of change 14.14 (4.30) 14.62 (4.77) 13.19 (3.64) 14.04 (3.97) 4.922* 1 > 2 cope inventory problem-focused coping 56.61 (18.27) 58.32 (17.27) 59.31 (13.53) 54.41 (20.00) 5.726* 1 > 3 2 > 3 avoidance-focused coping 35.93 (11.13) 35.97 (9.54) 32.49 (8.37) 37.77 (12.67) 12.727** 3 > 1 3 > 2 emotion-focused coping 27.64 (10.77) 28.23 (11.49) 29.59 (9.15) 26.57 (10.52) 4.455* 2 > 3 hads anxious symptoms 8.81 (6.96) 7.61 (4.37) 8.73 (4.76) 9.92 (4.69) 21.429** 3 > 1 3 > 2 depressive symptoms 6.99 (3.94) 6.31 (3.69) 6.08 (3.56) 7.76 (4.10) 14.555** 3 > 1 3 > 2 note. from left to right, mean(sd), f statistic and bonferroni post hoc. 1 = greece, 2 = italy, 3 = uk. *p < .05. **p < .001. pearson’s correlations and regression analyses table 8 shows the pearson correlation coefficient matrix for the study variables. in regard to hypotheses 1 and 2, significant associations were found between techno-overload (r = .241, p < .001), work-home conflict (r = .350, p < .001), techno-ease (r = -.214, p < .001), techno-reliability (r = -.196, p < .001), techno-sociality (r = -.123, p = .001) and depressive symptoms, but no significant correlation was found between pace of change (r = -.010, p = .795) and depressive symptoms. significant correlations were found between techno-overload (r = .307, p < .001), work-home conflict (r = .285, p < .001), techno-ease (r = -.199, p < .001), techno-reliability (r = -.160, p < .001) and anxiety symptoms, but not between techno-sociality (r = -.064, p = .087), pace of change (r = .057, p = .122) and anxiety symptoms. four multiple regression analyses (enter method) were then performed. two of these included the six technostress factors and demographic variables as predictors and the hads anxiety and depression subscale as outcomes. the other two included coping factors and demographics as predictors and the hads subscales as outcomes (table 9). model 1 explained 16.9% of the total variance (p < .001) in anxiety symptoms. techno-overload (β = .187, p < .001), work-home conflict (β = .201, p < .001), techno-ease (β = -.116, p = .011) and age (β = -.100, p < .001) were significant predictors of anxiety symptoms. model 2 explained 16.6% of the total variance (p < .001) in depressive symptoms. work-home conflict (β = .290, p < .001), techno-ease (β = -.122, p = .008) and age (β = -.118, p = .004) were significant predictors of depressive symptoms. model 3 explained 17.1% of the total variance in anxiety symptoms (p < .001), and problem-focused coping (β = -.290, p < .001), emotion-focused coping (β = .221, p < .001), avoidance-focused coping (β = .327, p < .001) and sex technostress, coping and mental health in students 310 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ (female) (β = .089, p = .017) were significant predictors of anxiety symptoms. model 4 explained 14.5% of the variance (p < .001) in depressive symptoms. problem-focused coping (β = -.312, p < .001) and avoidance-focused coping (β = .317, p < .001) were significant predictors of depressive symptoms. all regression models met multicollinearity and error independence assumptions (table 9). table 8 pearson’s correlations between study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 1. age — 2. sex (female) -.078* — 3. international student (yes) .060 .029 — 4. level of study (masters) .230** -.090* -.035 — 5. employment status (employed) .225** -.055 -.058 .099* — 6. relationship status (single) -.327** -.028 -.050 -.121** -.062 — 7. techno-overload .013 .101* .016 -.062 .047 .048 — 8. work home conflict .004 .078* .012 .019 .128** .027 .545** — 9. techno-ease .037 -.138** -.008 .106* .026 .001 -.278** -.189** — 10. techno-reliability .085* -.133** -.040 .078* -.004 -.071 -.340** -.273** .554** — 11. techno-sociality .021 .011 -.040 .092* .156** -.026 -.114* -.014 .238** .237** — 12. pace of change -.042 .043 .014 -.029 .155** .038 .138** .092* -.032 -.054 .235** — 13. problem-focused coping .064 .106** .020 .037 -.118** -.036 .014 -.090* .100* .201** -.080* -.005 — 14. avoidance-focused coping -.093* .054 .025 -.009 -.044 .120** .095* .095* -.001 .030 -.070 .027 .494** — 15. emotion-focused coping .011 .247** .026 .013 -.180** -.072* .089* -.086* .023 .121* -.101* -.044 .656** .373** — 16. anxiety symptoms -.132** .146** -.005 -.068 -.019 .037 .307** .285** -.199** -.160** -.064 .057 -.014 .280** .189** — 17. depressive symptoms -.128** .058 -.036 -.060 .022 .080* .241** .350** -.214** -.196** -.123* -.010 -.179** .231** -.045 .620** — *p < .05. **p < .001. coping as a mediator between technostress factors and anxiety symptomatology multiple mediation analysis was used to test hypothesis 3. the first mediation analysis investigated coping as a mediator between techno-stress factors and anxiety symptoms (table 10). the total effect of techno-overload on anxiety symptoms was significant, β = .179, 95% ci [.080, .272]. techno-overload had a significant indirect effect through prob­ lem-focused coping, β = -.034, 95% ci [-.077, -.002], which accounted for 18.99% of the total effect of techno-overload on anxiety symptoms. in addition, techno-overload had a significant indirect effect through emotion-focused coping, β = .031, 95% ci [.011, .060], which accounted for 17.32% of the total effect of techno-overload on anxiety symptoms. no evidence for an indirect effect was found between techno-overload and anxiety symptoms through avoidance coping. the total effect of work-home conflict on anxiety symptoms was significant, β = .207, 95% ci [.116, .307]. workhome conflict had a significant indirect effect through avoidance coping, β = .027, 95% ci [.001, .066] that accounted for 13.04% of the total effect of work-home conflict on anxiety symptoms. no evidence for an indirect effect was found between work-home conflict and anxiety symptoms through problemor emotion-focused coping. the total effect of techno-ease on anxiety symptoms was also significant, β = -.087, 95% ci [-.159, -.010], with indirect effects through problem-, β = -.043, 95% ci [-.079, -.016] and emotion-focused coping, β = .018, 95% ci [.003, .040] accounting for 49.43% and 20.69% of the total effect, respectively. no evidence for an indirect effect was found between techno-ease and anxiety symptoms through avoidance coping. the residual direct effects for techno-overload, β = .163, 95% ci [.069, .254], work-home conflict, β = .179, 95% ci [.089, .268] and techno-ease, β = -.078, 95% ci [-.150, -.007] on anxiety symptoms indicated partial mediation (table 10). galvin, evans, nelson et al. 311 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 9 regression analyses for the hads anxiety and depression subscales anxiety symptoms depressive symptoms predictor statistic p value statistic p value regression model model 1 model 2 r 2 = .169 < .001 r 2 = .166 < .001 d-w = 1.809 d-w = 1.987 vif = 1.1 vif = 1.1 age β = -.100 < .001 β = -.118 .004 sex (female) β = .058 .124 β = -.019 .621 international student (yes) β = .012 .726 β = .000 .001 level of study (masters) β = -.028 .464 β = -.034 .381 employed (yes) β = .030 .427 β =.049 .196 relationship status (single) β = -.028 .460 β =.008 .840 techno-overload β = .187 < .001 β = .030 .517 work-home conflict β = .201 < .001 β = .290 < .001 techno-ease β = -.116 .011 β = -.122 .008 techno-reliability β = .017 .714 β = -.025 .604 techno-sociality β = .038 .346 β = -.043 .287 pace of change β = -.006 .873 β = -.056 .143 regression model model 3 model 4 r 2 = .171 < .001 r 2 = .145 < .001 d-w = 1.829 d-w = 1.956 vif = 1.2 vif = 1.3 age β = -.047 .227 β = -.045 .265 sex (female) β = .089 .017 β = .059 .118 international student (yes) β = .017 .640 β = -.007 .856 level of study (masters) β = -.052 .161 β = -.043 .250 employed (yes) β = .051 .160 β = .037 .324 relationship status (single) β = -.047 .211 β = -.015 .687 problem focused coping β = -.290 < .001 β = -.312 < .001 emotion-focused coping β = .221 < .001 β = .049 .279 avoidance coping β = .327 < .001 β = .317 < .001 note. β: standardised beta. d-w: durbin-watson value. vif: variance inflation factor value. coping as a mediator between technostress factors and depressive symptomatology multiple mediation analysis was performed to investigate coping style as a mediator between technostress factors and depressive symptoms (table 10). the total effect of work-home conflict on depressive symptoms was significant, β = .317, 95% ci [.243, .390]. work-home conflict had a significant indirect effect through avoidance coping, β = .034, 95% ci [.007, .066], which accounted for 10.73% of the total effect of work-home conflict on depressive symptoms. no evidence for an indirect effect was found between work-home conflict and depressive symptoms through problem-focused coping. the total effect of techno-ease on depressive symptoms was significant, β = -.156, 95% ci [-.233, -.081], with an indirect effect through problem-focused coping, β = -.038, 95% ci [-.073, -.011] accounting for 24.36% of the total effect. no evidence for an indirect effect was found between techno-ease and depressive symptoms through avoidance coping. the residual direct effects for work-home conflict, β = .284, 95% ci [.211, .354] and techno-ease, β = -.131, 95% ci [-.204, -.055] on depressive symptoms indicated partial mediation (table 10). technostress, coping and mental health in students 312 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 10 outcomes of multiple mediation analyses (bootstrapped 5000 samples) total effect direct effect effect of iv on m effect of m on dv indirect effect outcome predictor mediator β se ci β se ci β se ci anxiety technooverload .179** .044 .080, .272 .163** .041 .069, .254 problem-focused .111* -.252** -.034* .018 -.077, -.002 avoidance coping .066 .264** .018 .017 -.015, .058 emotion-focused .202** .232** .031* .012 .011, .060 work-home conflict .207** .043 .116, .307 .179** .041 .089, .268 problem-focused -.131* -.244** .015 .017 -.024, .055 avoidance coping .064 .251** .027* .017 .001, .066 emotion-focused -.188** .277** -.014 .001 -.041, .007 techno-ease -.087* .037 -.159, -.010 -.078* .035 -.150, -.007 problem-focused .103* -.246** -.043* .016 -.079, -.016 avoidance coping .026 .280** .016 .014 -.011, .049 emotion-focused .041 .252** .018* .009 .003, .040 depression work-home conflict .317** .036 .243, .390 .284** .035 .211, .354 problem-focused -.074* -.244** -.001 .014 -.032, .028 avoidance coping .097* .266** .034* .014 .007, .066 techno-ease -.156** .037 -.233, -.081 -.131** .035 -.204, -.055 problem-focused .084* -.244** -.038* .015 -.073, -.011 avoidance coping .015 .298** .013 .014 -.013, .043 note. β: standardised beta. se: standard error. ci: bias corrected accelerated 95% confidence intervals. discussion this study investigated the associations between techno-stressors, coping, and anxious and depressive symptoms in university students during an intensive period of technology usage. universities across the globe had to adapt quickly to deliver their courses during the covid-19 pandemic and it is anticipated that reliance on technology in he will last for the foreseeable future (bloomfield, 2020). understanding how technostress translates into psychopathological outcomes in the student population is therefore important to support students in facing the heightened ict challenges introduced by the pandemic. the study found that work-home conflict was associated with greater anxiety and depressive symptoms. this has been found in previous research, which showed that greater work-home conflict exists when university work and personal life are integrated rather than separated (adebayo, 2006; mccutcheon & morrison, 2018). stricter boundaries between technology, work, and personal life may allow students to mentally detach from their work and protect them against anxiety and depression. a substantial body of research has investigated how workers cope with managing the boundaries between their work and home life, and how this relates to psychopathology (e.g., bergs et al., 2018; mcternan et al., 2016). the results of the current study show a direct effect of work-home conflict on anxiety and depressive symptoms as well as an indirect effect through avoidance coping. considering the specific context of the pandemic and lockdown, the use of avoidance coping to manage conflict between work/home life may have resulted in students closing themselves off and/or hiding into their ict activities, which, in turn, increased their anxiety and depressive symptoms. previous research shows that dealing with the complexity of technology and/or the uncertainty that comes with constant changes, developments, and upgrades in ict can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression (dragano & lunau, 2020; thomée, 2012). it is now more essential than ever that students renew their technical skills while dealing with the pressure of more complex systems and virtual learning environments. the findings of the present study galvin, evans, nelson et al. 313 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ reveal a negative association between techno-ease and anxiety and depressive symptoms. techno-ease had a protective direct effect on anxiety and depressive symptoms in addition to an indirect effect through problem-focused coping. techno-ease and problem-focused resolution can be supported by institutions providing their students with accessible ict services, training, and workshops, as well as clear online ict instructions and resources. techno-overload was positively associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms, which is in line with previous research on general population samples (gaudioso et al., 2017). the mediation analysis suggested that when technooverload is high, the indirect effect of problem-focused coping protected against anxiety, whereas the indirect effect of emotion-focused coping increased anxiety symptoms. this latter finding contradicts previous research, which suggests that emotion-focused resolution through social support, including chatting with friends/family online, translates into positive outcomes for wellbeing (liu et al., 2018; zhu et al., 2013). one explanation for our finding could be situational factors since access to support networks during the data collection period would likely have been through icts due to social restriction measures. engaging in emotion-focused coping during this period could therefore have contributed to increased techno-overload, necessitated intensive screen time, and resulted in a bi-directional relationship between these variables that resulted in heightened student anxiety. this is supported by research on facebook addiction disorder (fad), which showed that individuals who received high levels of social support online were at risk for tendencies toward fad and that this negatively influenced mental health (brailovskaia et al., 2019). furthermore, another aspect of ict is that communication can occur via several channels simultaneously (e.g., webchats, mobiles, video calls, etc.), which can be mentally exhausting and potentially stressful since distractions and dual tasking are demanding on working memory (nijboer et al., 2016). with this in mind, access to social support through ict during a period in which reliance on ict was already high may have contributed toward heightened anxiety symptoms in this sample. however, this is somewhat speculative given the cross-sectional nature of the current research, and longitudinal studies will be needed to confirm this hypothesis. an interesting finding in the present study was that significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression were found in the uk sample compared to italy and greece. higher levels of avoidance coping and lower levels of problem-focused coping were also found in the uk sample compared to the other countries, and work-home conflict was significantly higher in the uk compared to italy. techno-ease was significantly lower in the italian sample compared to the other countries, and pace of change was significantly higher in greece in comparison to italy. students in italy reported significantly higher emotion-focused coping compared to the uk. these observed differences could be due to a wide va­ riety of factors, including individual differences in socio-cultural factors, pandemic specific responses within countries, or differences in the academic environment/demands among the participating countries. although these differences between the countries are interesting, they should be interpreted with caution. we did not confirm measurement invariance on the cope and hads, limiting the conclusions that can be made regarding statistical differences on these variables. however, the instruments have previously been validated in the respective countries, which supports their use in a range of populations (anastasiou et al., 2017; coriale et al., 2012; ferrandina et al., 2012) including students (fradelos et al., 2019; sagone & de caroli, 2014). further, more research is needed in order to specify the exact factors and underlying mechanisms that may account for these differences at a country-level. the overall sample for the current study was relatively young (m = 21.58, sd = 4.29). although this is reflective of the broader student population, it is difficult to generalise our findings to mature learners. hauk et al. (2019) found that even though older people are more prone to techno-stressors, ageing is connected to development of coping skills that in turn help reduce negative outcomes of technostress. however, increased home/work conflict is more common for mature learners (markle, 2015; van rhijn et al., 2016), as these students often experience greater social and family responsibilities. future research could therefore extend our paradigm to establish whether these relationships are also present in mature student samples. another limitation is that the primary language of the study participants was not assessed. we worked on the assumption that students had sufficient proficiency in the language of the country in which they were studying. although we did measure the status of international students in our design, which may have accounted for non-native speakers to some extent, this working assumption could have affected the results. finally, it should also be noted that technostress can act as an “enhancer” to one’s productivity (hung et al., 2015), therefore possibly giving some users the perception that while they are working faster and longer with their icts, they are also working more efficiently. it is possible that while technostress may have increased anxiety and technostress, coping and mental health in students 314 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(3), 302–318 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.4725 https://www.psychopen.eu/ depressive symptoms in the students, perceived productivity could also have resulted in the experience of positive feelings, such as accomplishment, which may serve as a protective factor. although we did include some positive effects of technology in our design (techno-sociality, techno-ease, techno-reliability), we did not account for other possible benefits of technology and acknowledge this as a further limitation of the study. conclusions the current study investigated associations between technostress, coping, and anxiety/depressive symptoms in europe­ an university students during disruption to the higher education sector caused by the covid-19 pandemic. further data and psychological interventions are needed to promote psychological health among students in the immediate future and also after the pandemic. the psychological consequences of the covid-19 outbreak will unfortunately last. an understanding of how technostress translates through coping strategies into mental health outcomes can help student counselling centres target maladaptive coping strategies, thus providing appropriate support to students. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: ethical approval was granted by the school of psychology research ethics committee at newcastle university, uk (reference number: 3393/2020). competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adebayo, d. o. 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john galvin, phd, is a senior lecturer in the department of psychology, birmingham city university, uk. his research interests include stress and wellbeing, autism and autistic traits, and general population mental health. michael scott evans, phd, c.psychol, afbpss, frsa, fiirsm, finstlm works within the contracts management team at transport for wales leading the infrastructure contractual delivery of a £5 billion contract on behalf of the welsh government. dr michael scott evans is a chartered psychologist and associate fellow of the british psychological society. he is also a fellow of the institute of leadership & management (finstlm), fellow of the international institute of risk & safety management (fiirsm), and fellow of the royal society of arts (frsa). kenisha nelson, phd, is a full-time lecturer in the faculty of education and liberal studies (fels) at the university of technology, jamaica and a research assistant with the none-in-three research centre, jamaica. her research interests include topics on occupa­ tional health, stress and well-being, gender-based violence, and help seeking behaviours for mental health related problems. gareth richards, phd, is a lecturer in the school of psychology, newcastle university. his research interests include evolutionary approaches to mind and behaviour, autism and autistic traits, testosterone, sex differences, and cerebral lateralisation and handedness. eirini mavritsaki, phd, is a professor and director of research for the school of social sciences at birmingham city university. eirini has been working for 16 years in psychology and published extensively in reputable journals and books in the topics of cogni­ tion, neuropsychology and disorders, and cross-cultural differences. she has contributed to the international research community as associate editor in frontiers in psychology and special issue editor in frontiers in psychology and frontiers in computational neuroscience and a member of the board of directors of the organisation for computational neuroscience (ocns). eirini was awarded by the british psychological society the cognitive section award in 2012. theodoros giovazolias, psychd, is professor of counselling psychology at the department of psychology, university of crete, greece. his research interests focus on parental and intimate acceptance-rejection and its correlates on the psychological adjustment of children and young adults. he also conducts research on students’ mental health. he is honorary editor-in-chief of european journal of counselling psychology and serves as editorial member and ad-hoc reviewer in more than 30 international peer-reviewed journals. katerina koutra, phd, is assistant professor of clinical psychology at the department of psychology, university of crete, greece. her research interests focus on intrafamilial relationships in severe mental disorders, psychosocial determinants of child neuropsychological and behavioural/emotional development from childhood to adolescence, and students’ mental health. ben mellor, bsc, msc, is a higher research assistant within cumbria, northumberland, tyne and wear nhs foundation trust. he is a researcher affiliated with the school of psychology at newcastle university with interests in the efficacy of mental health formulations, participatory research methodologies, assortative mating, autism and autistic traits. maria clelia zurlo, phd, full professor and head of the dynamic psychology laboratory at university of naples federico ii, italy. her research covers the areas of health psychology and focuses on the development and applications of models and tools for the evaluation of stress dimensions and psychological and physical health conditions with reference to a wide range of target populations i.e., students, teachers, immigrant workers, nurses, partners of infertile couples, clinical patients. she is the author of more than 70 scientific publications in these areas of expertise, with several international co-authors. andrew paul smith, bsc, phd, fbpss, c.psychol, frsm is professor of psychology and director, centre for occupational and health psychology, cardiff university. he has been at cardiff since 1999 and has conducted research on: occupational stress and fatigue; seafarers’ fatigue; driver fatigue; nutrition and behaviour; caffeine; chewing gum; well-being at work; and factors influencing children’s well-being and performance. he has published over 500 papers and given over 200 invited talks and conference papers. federica vallone, phd, researcher at the university of naples federico ii. she received her doctorate in human mind and gender studies at university of naples federico ii in collaboration with the centre for occupational and health psychology, cardiff university. her research covers the areas of occupational and health psychology in students, teachers, nurses, and partners of infertile couples. technostress, coping and mental health in students 318 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ technostress, coping and mental health in students (introduction) method procedure and participants materials data analysis results demographics efa on the cope scale cfa and mgcfa on technostress scale differences between countries on the study variables pearson’s correlations and regression analyses coping as a mediator between technostress factors and anxiety symptomatology coping as a mediator between technostress factors and depressive symptomatology discussion conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the association between parental generativity and parent-child attitude-similarity through parentand child-reported authoritative parenting: a replication research reports the association between parental generativity and parent-child attitudesimilarity through parentand child-reported authoritative parenting: a replication holger busch 1 [1] department of psychology, trier university, trier, germany. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 received: 2022-02-16 • accepted: 2022-12-04 • published (vor): 2023-11-30 handling editor: elisabetta lombardi, università cattolica del sacro cuore, milan, italy corresponding author: holger busch, department of psychology, trier university, universitätsring 15, 54296 trier, germany. e-mail: busch@uni-trier.de supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract generativity is the desire to pass something on to the coming generations. through parents’ and children’s reports on authoritative parenting, parents’ generativity is associated with how similar young adults think their attitudes are to those of their parent (peterson et al., 1997; https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.5.1202). the present study represents a direct replication of these results. altogether, a sample of 365 german parent–child dyads participated in the study (parents’ age: m = 52.87, sd = 4.89; children’s age: m = 20.81, sd = 2.26). parents provided information on their generativity (loyola generativity scale) and parenting styles (parental authority questionnaire). their child provided information on perceived parenting styles (parental authority questionnaire) and attitudinal similarity to the parent (psychological separation inventory). a serial mediation was found for authoritative parenting. it was not found, however, for authoritarian and permissive parenting. this pattern replicates peterson et al.’s (1997) results. potential questions for future research on how generative adults transmit their values and attitudes are discussed. keywords generativity, parenting style, authoritative parenting, parent-child similarity, serial mediation, replication in his theory of psychosocial development, erikson (1963) distinguishes eight developmental crises each individual has to cope with across the life-course. middle adulthood is dominated by the crisis of generativity vs. stagnation. that is, adults are concerned with the well-being of younger generations and what they can contribute to younger generations. in other words, generative individuals develop the intention to pass something on to future generations that hopefully these can benefit from. stagnation, on the other hand, means that people increasingly and eventually exclusively care for themselves. that said, generative efforts include two parties: one is the generative actor, the other is the intended recipient. importantly, the term recipient is not meant to imply passivity on the recipient’s side. on the contrary, recent research suggests that the recipient’s personality affects how much an individual benefits from somebody else’s generative efforts (busch & hofer, 2022; thomas et al., 2022). of course, generative individuals can address various recipients in their generative efforts such as their children or junior co-workers. moreover, generative individuals can have more or less specific recipients in mind when behaving generatively (e.g., by giving some piece of advice to their child or by publishing a book to communicate their experien­ this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.8375&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-11-30 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6243-2405 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ces and what to learn from them to a wide readership). albeit little is known about how generative actor–recipient dyads form, this might partly depend on the generative individual’s social motives (peterson & stewart, 1993). most research on generativity focuses exclusively on the generative individual. this line of research has yielded valuable insight into how generativity relates to personality traits and/or well-being of the generative individual (e.g., de st. aubin & mcadams, 1995). for example, regarding traits, generativity is positively associated with extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness, but negatively associated with neuroticism (cox et al., 2010). concerning well-being, generativity is related to various indicators of well-being such as life satisfaction and purpose in life (e.g., busch & hofer, 2012; cox et al., 2010; de st. aubin & mcadams, 1995). the recipient of generativity, however, has only rarely been acknowledged in research. this is unfortunate given that the recipient is likely to have an effect on the generative individual. for example, cheng (2009) investigated how generative individuals’ well-being was affected when they perceived young people, that is, potential recipients of their generative efforts, to be disrespectful. indeed, when they perceived young people as disrespectful, people’s generative efforts decreased over a one-year-interval. this finding has since been corroborated in another longitudinal study (tabuchi et al., 2015). in line with these findings, when passing on experiences from a failure episode in their lives to a younger person, individuals’ generativity scores depended on the recipient’s reaction. specifically, individuals confron­ ted with a neutral recipient reaction showed a decrease in generativity, whereas generativity increased from baseline to post-interaction assessment when the recipient reacted positively (i.e., smiling, nodding) to the generative individual (tabuchi & miura, 2016). taken together, the studies reviewed above highlight the importance of the recipient’s reaction for the effects that their generative efforts have for the generative individual. however, in these studies, again, the focus has been on the effect that generativity has on generative individuals rather than the effects that generativity has on the recipient. focusing on the effects that generativity has on the recipient, kessler and staudinger (2007) found that adolescents demonstrated more willingness to help someone after a generative conversation with an adult than after a non-generative conversation with an adult or a conversation with a peer. that is, the generative action of the adult had an immediate impact on the adolescent’s subsequent behavior. provided that generative interaction between two individuals takes place continuously for a long period of time, one would thus assume that generativity should have a lasting effect on the recipient. for instance, thomas et al. (2022) found that adolescents who participated in an intergenerational exchange program had a stronger increase in self-concept clarity than control group adolescents. jones and mcadams (2013) reported that adults scored higher on generativity if they themselves had benefitted from somebody else’s generative efforts. busch and kranz (2022) found a similar effect of generativity among gay men: gay men had a more positive identity and were more generative if they had been the recipient of somebody else’s generativity. hebblethwaite and norris’s (2011) interview data suggest that generative interactions with their grandparents inspired generative intentions in young adult grandchildren. a good context to test the assumption of a lasting effect of generativity on the recipient is parenting as it provides the generative adult with the on-going opportunity to help a younger person thrive. in two studies, peterson has provided evidence that generative parents indeed tend to be successful in passing on their attitudes to their children: in one study, parents’ generativity was associated with their young adult children’s positive affect across a four-year-interval. moreover, parents’ generativity predicted their transmission of political values to their children, which in turn predicted children’s interest in politics across the four-year-interval (peterson, 2006). in the other study, peterson et al. (1997) showed that parents’ generativity related to their children’s evaluation of how closely their attitudes on political, moral, or social issues resembled those of their parent. their data from 120 dyads of a parent and their young adult child also supported their hypothesis that generative adults tended to report an authoritative parenting style (for further evidence, see pratt et al., 2001). parents’ authoritative parenting was in turn perceived as such by their children, and this perception was associated with higher children’s ratings of attitudinal similarity with their parent (cf. more recent research on the importance of the perceived parenting style on identity development, lehmann et al., 2021). that is, peterson et al. (1997) provided important evidence that generativity can indeed have a lasting impact on the recipient in that children reported to hold attitudes similar to those of their parent, which is mirrored in peterson’s (2006) findings that parents’ generativity correlated with their evaluation of how similar busch 349 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ their child was to them. moreover, for the context of parenting, peterson et al. (1997) specified a mechanism how this impact is achieved. finally, peterson et al. (1997) demonstrated that the effect was restricted to authoritative parenting, but did not occur for authoritarian or permissive parenting. according to baumrind’s (1971) definition, each parenting style is characterized by parental demandingness (i.e., clear maturity standards and monitoring of the child’s behavior) and responsiveness (i.e., the amount of emotional warmth and support they provide the child with). a combination of high demandingness and high responsiveness, that is, authoritative parenting, might be most successful in establishing child-parent similarity because the child may feel free to explore alternative attitudes (unlike with authoritarian parenting: high demandingness and low responsiveness), but still have parental guidelines or suggestions as to which attitude might benefit them (unlike with permissive parenting: low demandingness and high responsiveness). aims of the present research given that the intention to pass something on to future generations is the core of generativity, it seems a regrettable neglect that so few studies have tested the impact an adult’s generative efforts have on the recipient. thus, as its findings are so close to the heart of generativity, the present study is based on the conviction that the results of peterson et al. (1997) deserve a replication attempt (on the importance of replication as a tool to verify empirical results, see, e.g., schmidt, 2009). specifically, the present study is a direct replication (schmidt, 2009) in that it employs the same operationalizations as the original study. there are, nonetheless, some deviations from the original study that are worth mentioning: the present sample comes from a different cultural background, that is, germany instead of the usa, providing information on the generality of peterson et al.’s findings. finally, peterson et al. (1997) yielded their results via a series of simple regressions. the present study uses a more informative approach by applying hayes’s (2022) process to examine the serial mediation. for replication attempts, it is important to aim at a higher power than the original study to account for various uncertainties (anderson & maxwell, 2017). to determine an adequate sample size, schoemann et al.’s (2017) tool for mediation analysis power calculations was employed. peterson et al.’s (1997) original correlation coefficients were used to determine the minimum sample size for a .90 power for the serial mediation. as analyses yielded n = 350, this was the aim for the recruitment of participants. the present research thus is guided by the hypothesis that a serial mediation is found with parents’ generativity as predictor, children’s attitudinal similarity to their parents as outcome, and parents’ and children’s reports on authoritative parenting as two mediators. on the contrary, no such serial mediation is expected for the authoritarian and permissive parenting styles. it ought to be stressed that the present study does not replicate peterson et al.’s (1997) findings in its entirety: the original study also assessed political interest, authoritarianism, and children’s evaluations of frequency of conflict with parents. as, however, the mediating link via parenting was not tested for political interest and parental authoritarianism was not related to attitudinal similarity, these variables are not considered in the present study. finally, as the present study’s focus is on generativity’s contribution to successful intergenerational transmission, the conflict variable is not considered either. thus, the aim of the present study is to replicate peterson et al.’s finding that parental generativity is associated with child-parent attitudinal similarity through authoritative parenting as reported by parents and children. method participants originally, data were collected from 365 parent–child dyads. because of missing data, however, the data of 12 dyads could not be used for analyses. one parent and two children failed to provide any sociodemographic information. with respect to parents, 68% of participants were mothers, 32% fathers. concerning education, most parents (60%) had acquired a university-entrance diploma (abitur) or a university degree. parents’ age ranged from 40 through 73 years (m = 52.87, sd = 4.89). generativity, parenting, & parent-child-similarity 350 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the young adult children were predominantly female (86%). they were between 18 and 31 years old (m = 20.81, sd = 2.26). all young adult children were university students; most of them majored in the humanities (52% psychology, first-term students only; 28% educational sciences; 14% social sciences). other majors were, for example, business administration, economics, engineering, and physics. young adult children had up to seven siblings (m = 1.39, sd = 0.99). most parent–child dyads were same-sex dyads (67%). specifically, there were 214 mother–daughter and 20 father– son dyads as well as 90 father–daughter and 26 mother–son dyads. procedure the young adult children were recruited at two german universities in 2018. they were given one questionnaire for themselves and one for their parent. they returned their parent’s questionnaire in a closed envelope so they could not see their parent’s responses. young adult children received partial course credit for their and their parent’s participation. participants were informed about the purpose of the study. they provided informed consent prior to their participa­ tion. the procedure conformed to the ethical guidelines of the german psychological association (2018). measures generativity the loyola generativity scale (lgs; mcadams & de st. aubin, 1992) was applied to assess parents’ disposition for generativity (german translation: hofer et al., 2008). the lgs consists of 20 items (sample item: “i have made and created things that have had an impact on other people”) which are evaluated on a four-point likert scale from 0 (never) to 3 (very often/nearly always). high scores indicate a pronounced generative concern. cronbach’s alpha was .84. parenting styles: parents’ perspective to assess the authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, the parental authority questionnaire (paq; buri, 1991) was employed. as the paq is originally phrased from the child’s perspective (see below for sample items), items were rewritten to capture the parent’s first-person perspective. moreover, parents were instructed to “think back to when your child was still living with you.” the thirty items are rated on a five-point likert scale from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). each parenting style is covered by ten items. high scores indicate that a given parenting style was highly endorsed by the parent. because to the best of the present author’s knowledge, no previous study has adapted the paq items to capture parents’ reports on their parenting styles, a principal components analysis was run (kaiser-meyer-olkin criterion: .87; anti-image-correlations ≥ .62) with number of factors set at 3. the first factor represented authoritarian parenting. its eigenvalue was 5.56, explaining 19% of variance. factor loadings were ≥ .59 on their designated factor, cross-loading were ≤ |.32|. the second factor represented authoritative parenting with an eigenvalue of 3.89 and 13% of explained variance. two items were problematic in that cross-loadings with the authoritarian factor were equal to or higher (item 8: .57; item 15: .39) than their factor loadings with the designated authoritative parenting factor (item 8: .30; item 15: .39). factor loadings for the remaining 8 items were ≥ .52 on their designated factor with cross-loadings ≤ |.36|. the third factor represented permissive parenting (eigenvalue: 3.13; explained variance: 10%) with factor loadings on their designated factor ≥ .28 and cross-loading ≤ |.28|. cronbach’s alphas were .79 (authoritative), .88 (authoritarian), and .70 (permissive), respectively. the serial mediation analysis for authoritative parenting was rerun with a reduced version of scales, in which the two problematic items were removed in both the parent and the child questionnaire. as results did not differ from those with the full scales, the latter are reported below. the former are documented and can be found in the supplementary materials. there was missing data on the authoritarian parenting scale for five parent participants, and on the permissive parenting scale for six parent participants. parenting styles: children’s perspective to assess the authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles from the children’s point of view, the original paq (buri, 1991; german translation: castello & hubmann, 2014) was used. young adult children were also instructed to “think back to when you were still living with your parents.” moreover, they were instructed to refer only to the busch 351 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parent that also participated in the study. high scores indicate that the child considered a given parenting style highly pronounced in their parent. cronbach’s alphas were .79 (authoritative; sample item: “my parent gave me direction for my behavior and activities as i was growing up and he/she expected me to follow his/her direction, but he/she was always willing to listen to my concerns and discuss that direction with me”), .87 (authoritarian; “as i was growing up, i knew what my parent expected of me in the family and he/she insisted that i conform to those expectations simply out of respect for his/her authority”), and .77 (permissive; “my parent feels that most problems in society would be solved if parents would not restrict their children’s activities, decisions, and desires as they are growing up”), respectively. one child participant produced missing data on the authoritarian parenting scale. attitudinal similarity children’s self-reported attitudinal similarity was measured with the corresponding subscale of the psychological separation inventory (psi; hoffman, 1984). fourteen items concerning, for example, political, moral, and religious attitudes (sample item: “my opinions regarding the role of women are similar to my parent’s”) are rated on a five-point likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all true of me) to 4 (very true of me). again, young adult children were instructed to refer to the parent that also participated in the study. high scores indicate that the child views their attitudes to be similar to that of their parent. the items were translated into german via back-translation procedure. a principal components analysis was run (kaiser-meyer-olkin criterion: .89; anti-image-correlations ≥ .80) with number of factors set at 1. the eigenvalue of this factor was 5.56. the factor explained 40% of variance (factor loadings ≥ .52). cronbach’s alpha was .88. results the results section is organized as follows: first, correlations among the psychological variables are given. then, gender differences are examined. after these preliminary analyses, the serial mediation model is tested for authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles, respectively. descriptive statistics are given in table 1, along with the correlations among measures. concerning sociodemo­ graphic variables, parents’ age was correlated with their authoritarian, r = –.11, p = .041, and permissive parenting, r = .14, p = .011, but not their generativity or authoritative parenting. children’s age was not significantly correlated with any scale. children’s number of siblings was positively correlated only with parents’ generativity, r = .15, p = .004. for parents, a small (cohen, 1988) gender difference effect emerged for authoritative parenting, t(350) = 3.02, p = .003, d = 0.346, with mothers (m = 2.75, sd = 0.52) reporting more authoritative parenting than fathers (m = 2.56, sd = 0.55), but not for generativity, authoritarian, or permissive parenting. in the child sample, gender differences were found neither for perceived authoritative, authoritarian, or permissive parenting, nor for attitudinal similarity to their parent. to account for the imbalance in the gender distribution, a random subsample of 111 mothers was drawn from the sample. thus, gender difference tests were rerun with an equal number of mothers and fathers, all with complete data on all scales. these results confirmed the significant gender effect on authoritative parenting, but yielded no additional gender effect. analogously, a random subsamples of 46 female children was drawn and compared with the same number of male children in the sample. again, this rerun of analyses yielded no additional gender differences in the child sample. in sum, the associations between sociodemographics and the psychological variables under investigation were generally insignificant or small. the hypothesized serial multiple mediator model was tested using hayes’ (2022) process for spss which computes two simple mediation indirect effects in addition to the serial two mediators model (model 6). all indirect effects were tested with 10,000 bootstrap samples. variables were standardized before running the mediation. as figure 1 shows, for authoritative parenting (n = 353), there was no direct effect of parents’ generativity on children’s attitudinal similarity to their parents. furthermore, parents’ generativity had a simple indirect effect on children’s attitudinal similarity to their parents neither through parents’ reports on authoritative parenting, nor through children’s reports on authoritative parenting (see table 2). the serial mediation of parents’ generativity through parents’ and children’s reports on authoritative parenting, however, yielded an indirect effect on attitudinal similarity, for which generativity, parenting, & parent-child-similarity 352 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the confidence interval was entirely above zero. the direct and indirect effects summed up to a total effect of .153, se = .053, p = .004, r2 = .33. for authoritarian parenting (n = 347 because of the missing data), none of the indirect effects yielded a bootstrap confidence interval that did not include zero (see table 2). together with a significant direct effect of .155, se = .052, p = .003, these indirect effects summed up to a total effect of .157, se = .053, p = .003. specifically, standardized regression coefficients were –.006, p = .914, for the path from parents’ generativity to parents’ reports on authoritarian parenting, .485, p < .001, for the path from parents’ to children’s reports on authoritarian parenting, and –.181, p = .002, for the path from children’s reports on authoritarian parenting on attitudinal similarity, respectively. for permissive parenting (n = 347 because of the missing data), again, the significant total effect = .142, p = .008, was due to a significant direct effect = .135, p = .01. in addition, all of the indirect effects yielded a bootstrap confidence interval that included zero (see table 2). in detail, standardized regression coefficients were –.042, p = .436, for the path from parents’ generativity to parents’ reports on permissive parenting, .301, p < .001, for the path from parents’ to children’s reports on permissive parenting, and .225, p < .001, for the path from children’s reports on permissive parenting on attitudinal similarity, respectively. all analyses were rerun with parents’ age, gender, and educational status as well as children’s age, gender, and num­ ber of siblings as covariates. results as described above were not affected by the inclusion of these covariates: whereas table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations for parent (generativity, parenting styles) and child (parenting styles, attitudinal similarity) scales variable m (sd) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 parent measures 1 generativity 1.78 (0.41) — 2 authoritative parenting 2.69 (0.54) . 33*** — 3 authoritarian parenting 1.39 (0.72) –.01 .15** — 4 permissive parenting 1.83 (0.53) –.04 –.07 –.15** — child measures 5 authoritative parenting 2.67 (0.59) .12* .35*** –.23*** –.03 — 6 authoritarian parenting 1.67 (0.72) –.01 –.04 .49*** –.22*** –.23*** — 7 permissive parenting 2.03 (0.57) .02 .04 –.28*** .30*** .14* –.50*** — 8 attitudinal similarity 2.70 (0.68) .15** .24*** –.18** .01 .57*** –.23*** .23*** — note. due to missing data (see methods for details), n ranges from 343 through 353 for correlations. following cohen’s (1988) conventions, correlation coefficients of .10 are considered small, of .30 moderate, and of .50 large, respectively. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. figure 1 standardized regression coefficients for the serial multiple mediators model for authoritative parenting aas reported by parents. bas reported by young adult children. ***p < .001. busch 353 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the serial mediation was confirmed for authoritative parenting, the confidence intervals for all other indirect effect included zero. more detailed information on these additional analyses is presented in the supplementary materials, along with the data the present paper is based upon. discussion the present study was designed to replicate the findings by peterson et al. (1997), which suggested a serial indirect effect of parents’ generativity on their young adult children’s evaluations of how similar their values are to those of their parents through the extent of authoritative parenting as reported by parents and children, with more power than the original study. indeed, the serial mediation was confirmed. in other words, the more generative parents were, the more authoritative parenting they reported (cf. pratt et al., 2001). parents’ reports on authoritative parenting were associated with their children’s perception of authoritative parenting (cf. lehmann et al., 2021). finally, the more authoritative parenting children reported, the more similar they judged their attitudes to be to their parents’. the present study corroborates the mechanism proposed by peterson et al. (1997) in that it fails to find indirect effects for authoritarian and permissive parenting. hence, the serial mediation effect seems to be specific for authoritative parenting. this result lends further evidence to the notion that adults’ generativity has some consequences for the recipient of the generative effort (busch & kranz, 2022; jones & mcadams, 2013; kessler & staudinger, 2007). for example, research has shown that intergenerational contact programs have an effect on the generative individual (gruenewald et al., 2016) as well as on the recipient of generative efforts (thomas et al., 2022). moreover, the results suggest one mechanism that might bring such generativity effects on the recipient about: at least in the context of parent–child dyads, authoritative parenting seems to be the link between generativity and its outcome. thus, programs that aim at fostering parental skills (e.g., joussemet et al., 2014) might help parents steer their generative concern towards the desired outcome of transmitting one’s attitudes and values. it would be interesting to see how the proposed mechanism between adults’ generativity and recipients’ outcome translates to other generative contexts. for example, like parenting, mentor-mentee relationships also provide the generative adult with an on-going opportunity to pass on experiences and attitudes (busch & kranz, 2022; jones & mcadams, 2013). thus, as with parents, mentors who combine emotional support with standards and monitoring might be particularly successful in affecting their mentees’ attitudes. but what about short-lived interactions between a generative individual and the recipient of their generative efforts? here, other mechanisms might be at work (such as, e.g., model learning, cf. kessler & staudinger, 2007), as there is no continuous opportunity for generativity. to note, the present study is based on cross-sectional data and, thus, causality cannot be inferred. naturally, a longitudinal verification of the present results would be desirable. unfortunately, the present sample is restricted to table 2 completely standardized indirect effects for the relation between parents’ generativity and children’s parent-child attitudinal similarity per parenting style simple indirect effects serial indirect effects parenting style generativity → parents’ reports on parenting style → attitudinal similarity generativity → children’s reports on parenting style → attitudinal similarity generativity → parents’ reports on parenting style → children’s reports on parenting style → attitudinal similarity authoritative parenting .005 (.019) [–.032, .042] .001 (.033) [–.061, .068] .063 (.015) [.037, .095] authoritarian parenting .001 (.006) [–.013, .015] .001 (.010) [–.018, .023] .001 (.006) [–.012, .012] permissive parenting .002 (.005) [–.007, .013] .008 (.013) [–.016, .035] –.003 (.005) [–.013, .006] note. the table gives standardized regression coefficients, standard errors in brackets, and 95% confidence intervals in squared brackets. simple/serial indirect effects are considered statistically significant when the 95% confidence interval does not include 0. generativity, parenting, & parent-child-similarity 354 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://www.psychopen.eu/ university students (mostly majoring in the humanities). thus, the present results can hardly be generalized to young adults in general, because those in vocational training or apprenticeships are not represented in the present sample. given that peterson et al. (1997) also used a sample limited to university students, however, this limitation also has the advantage of increasing comparability with the original findings replicated here. furthermore, a more gender-balanced sample would make it possible to test if there are any differences between same-sex parent–child dyads and dyads of opposite sex. with a relatively small number of opposite-sex dyads, such analyses would not yield enough power to be meaningfully interpretable in the present sample. of course, sampling both parents of each child would also further scientific knowledge on the circumstances under which adults’ generativi­ ty is successful in bringing parent-child attitudinal similarity about. with respect to the operationalization of variables, the parent version of the parental authority questionnaire was somewhat problematic in that two items did not load on the authoritative scale as expected. although this has not affected the results of the serial mediation analysis, it seems advisable to test the results reported here again, but with a measure that has equivalent factor structures in its parent and child versions (for an example, see lehmann et al., 2021). the use of the parental authority questionnaire in the present study, however, is due to the present study’s attempt at directly replicating peterson et al. (1997). a further limitation of the present study is that children themselves rated their attitudinal similarity with their parent. thus, in future studies, children and parents could be asked to report on their actual attitudes towards moral, social, cultural, and political issues. a confirmation of the present results for actual parent-child similarity would certainly strengthen the argument that adults’ generativity has an impact on the recipient. again, it would also be highly informative to examine under which circumstances the generativity recipients react more positively to or elicit more generative efforts from their parents or other seniors. the present paper focusses on a unidirectional relationship between parental generativity and children’s perception of attitudinal similarity. however, as parenting styles and child characteristics are associated in a bidirectional way (e.g., pinquart & gerke, 2019), this bi-directionality ought to be represented in future generativity research as well. hopefully, the present study helps bring such open but vital questions for generativity research back to attention. as generativity is all about passing something on to future generations, generativity research should not only focus on the generative actor, but also investigate what the outcomes of generative efforts are. supporting the findings by peterson et al. (1997) with more power, the present study suggests that adults’ generative efforts can indeed influence their recipients’ attitudes. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the author has declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: data from the main and supplemental analyses are freely available, see busch (2022). supplementary materials for this article, the data that the study is based on as well as additional analyses results are available, see busch (2022). index of supplementary materials busch, h. 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(2022). effects of intergenerational exchange on adolescent self-concept clarity: a pilot study. journal of personality, 90(3), 476–489. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12678 about the author holger busch studied psychology at the university of osnabrück, germany, where he also received his doctoral degree. he is a doctoral fellow at trier university, germany. his research interests are generativity and implicit motives. busch 357 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(4), 348–357 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.8375 https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2021.1901048 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.62.6.1003 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00394.x https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.72.5.1202 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.1.186 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01417-5 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00137 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015108 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617715068 https://doi.org/10.1080/03601277.2016.1205392 https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnt135 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12678 https://www.psychopen.eu/ generativity, parenting, & parent-child-similarity (introduction) aims of the present research method participants procedure measures results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability supplementary materials references about the author growth mindset is associated with mastery goals in adulthood research reports growth mindset is associated with mastery goals in adulthood léa tân combette 1,2, jean-yves rotgé 1,3, liane schmidt 1 [1] institut du cerveau (icm) inserm, sorbonne université, paris, france. [2] energie jeunes association, paris, france. [3] service de psychiatrie d’adultes, aphp sorbonne université, site pitié-salpêtrière, paris, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 received: 2023-05-09 • accepted: 2024-01-25 • published (vor): 2024-08-30 handling editor: barbara caci, university of palermo (unipa), palermo, italy corresponding author: léa tân combette, control-interoception-attention team, institut du cerveau (icm) inserm umr 1127, cnrs umr 7225, sorbonne université, paris, france. e-mail: leacombette.phd@gmail.com supplementary materials: code, data, materials, preregistration abstract growth mindsets, the belief that intelligence can grow with effort and training, have been associated with the adoption of mastery goals in children and adolescents. however, it is unknown whether these two factors are also correlated in adults. we conducted two online studies among three hundred participants to challenge this association. results from (1) zero-order correlations, (2) structural equation modeling and (3) out-of-sample predictions converged on the finding that growth mindset was associated with the adoption of mastery goals in mathematics. this association generalized across different ways of measuring mindsets. taken together the results provided new evidence for the idea that mindset and goal achievement are intrinsically related concepts, which remain associated across different life stages and generalize across populations. keywords fixed mindset, growth mindset, mastery goals, performance goals, adulthood implicit theories of intelligence, such as the belief (mindset) that one’s intelligence can grow with effort and training, have been largely studied since 1970. although mindset could be conceptualized as a continuum, two mindsets are usually opposed: a fixed mindset (i.e., thinking that intelligence is an innate immutable characteristic) and a growth mindset (i.e., thinking that intelligence is malleable). adopting a growth mindset has been associated with better academic performance (bettinger et al., 2018; blackwell et al., 2007; claro et al., 2016; paunesku et al., 2015), enthusiasm toward challenges (rege et al., 2021; yeager et al., 2016; yeager et al., 2019), grit (duckworth et al., 2007) and well-being (zeng et al., 2016). importantly, growth and fixed mindsets are closely related to the type of achievement goal a person adopts, which are usually measured in a school or academic context. adopting achievement goals can involve mastery or performance, which further subdivide into four sub-components (i.e., mastery avoidance, mastery approach, performance avoidance and performance approach) according to moller and elliot (2006), or three sub-components (i.e., mastery, performanceapproach and performance-avoidance) following elliot and church (1997). a student might avoid losing knowledge and skills (mastery avoidance), or may strive to improve knowledge (mastery approach). on the contrary, students, who adopt performance goals might either strive to avoid poor performances, such as for example a bad grade (performance avoidance), or they may be motivated by demonstrating knowledge and skills relative to their peers, such as being the best pupil of the class (performance approach) (hulleman et al., 2010). research has shown that adopting rather mastery this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11915&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-08-30 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ goals compared over performance goals is usually associated with better school outcomes including higher levels of grit (akin & arslan, 2014) and better academic achievement (alhadabi & karpinski, 2020). implicit theories of intelligence (mindsets) and achievement goals are historically (dweck & yeager, 2019) and theo­ retically associated. from 1970 to 1980, a series of studies investigated students’ reactions to failure (diener & dweck, 1978; dweck & reppucci, 1973; weiner & kukla, 1970). these studies described, for the first time, two diametrically opposed reactions: hopelessness versus motivation to improve. this difference was initially attributed to differences in achievement goals (elliott & dweck, 1988) before being attributed to differences in mindsets (dweck et al., 1995). eventually, this research converged on the finding that achievement goals and mindsets are correlated (blackwell et al., 2007; cook et al., 2018; de castella & byrne, 2015; robins & pals, 2002; yeager et al., 2016). however, studies from this research stream were conducted almost exclusively in children and adolescents and in the context of school and academia. it is thus completely unknown whether mindset and achievement goals are still correlated in an adult population and for everyday life use of knowledge and skills. the main goals of this study were to test, (1) the correlation between mindset and achievement goal in adults, (2) how mindsets structurally linked to achievement goals in adults, and (3) how mindsets predicted achievement goals when measured by similar, but different mindset questionnaires. to these aims we conducted two online studies in a total of three hundred adult participants. in both studies, mindsets and achievement goals were focused on one domain, math skills. this was done in order to restrict and contex­ tualize the observed variables. moreover, math skills are often associated with talent (leslie et al., 2015). participants will thus feel freer to declare that having a fixed mindset if it was the case. in sum, our approach was to establish the zero order correlations between mindset and achievement goals. then we used structural equation modelling to gain more fine-grained and directional insight into the underlying structural relationships between mindsets (growth vs. fixed) and achievement goals (mastery vs. performance by avoidance vs approach). lastly, we conducted an out-of-sample cross validation to test for how much mindsets predicted achievement goals across different populations (i.e., from participants in study 1 to participants in study 2), who were using different types of questionnaires to indicate their mindset about mathematic skills. study 1 method the study was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki. the study protocol was approved by sorbonne university’s independent ethics committee (cer-2021-006). all participants provided informed, fully-anonymized con­ sent. the methodology and statistical analyses were pre-registered before any data collection (see combette, 2022). we report all manipulations, measures, and exclusions in these studies. all materials, data and codes are accessible online (see combette, 2024). participants one hundred and fifty participants were recruited online. the sample size was determined based on the correlation between mindset and achievement goals of r = .23 reported by yeager et al. (2016). based on this value, the minimal sample size to attain a type i error of .05 and a type ii error of .20 comprised 146 participants. this sample size also fell within a sample size range spanning between 56 and 147 participants for a structural equation model with maximally 6 latent variables and 15 measured variables following sideridis et al. (2014). in adherence to the recommendations provided by the ethical committee, we limited the collection of socio-demographic variables to age and sex. analysis of this data revealed a diverse adult population in our sample, spanning ages from 19 to 72 years (m = 34.86, se = 0.87 years). among the 150 participants, 113 identified as female, 35 as male, 1 as other, and 1 chose not to disclose this infor­ mation. furthermore, as our study was a component of a larger project that required monitoring participants’ familiarity with psychology and their occupation in scientific positions, we also inquired about their professional background. participants were asked to specify whether they held a scientific position, worked in the field of psychology (as a researcher, psychologist, or psychology student), or were engaged in other fields. responses to this question illuminated growth mindset is associated with mastery goals 192 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the diverse composition of our population, encompassing individuals employed across various fields and students (13% after excluding the psychology category). questionnaires maths mindset was assessed by a 4-items mindset questionnaire building on the mindset scales reported by dweck (1999). the scale was modified by contextualizing « intelligence » by « mathematic skills ». two items assessed growth mindset and two items assessed fixed mindset. participants responded on a five-point likert response scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). mindset scores were computed by averaging responses to the two growth mindset items (growth mindset sub-score, r = .66) and responses to the two fixed mindset items (fixed mindset sub-score, r = .77). an intelligence mindset questionnaire was also completed by participants (see combette et al., 2024). achievement goals were assessed by the 2x2 achievement goal questionnaire—revised (elliot & murayama, 2008). the questionnaire built on the four-component model of achievement goals and comprised twelve questions (e.g., each one of the four achievement goal components was measured by three of the twelve questions) to which participants responded by using a five-point likert scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). participants were instructed to focus on their achievement goals concerning mathematics skills in daily life. scores were computed by averaging responses into four achievement goal sub-scores, which reflected the strength of approach (α = .84) and avoidance (α = .73) mastery goals, and approach (α = .89) and avoidance (α = .88) performance goals, respectively. statistical analyses all analyses were conducted in r studio. first, the association between the two mindset scores (i.e., growth and fixed mindset) and the four achievement goals (i.e., mastery approach, avoidance, performance approach, avoidance) was tested by conducting 2 x 4 zero order correlations. correlations were calculated using the cor.test function of the stats package, and corrected for multiple comparisons using bonferroni. we then used structural equation modeling to obtain information about the structural relationship between the observed mindset and achievement goals variables (maccallum & austin, 2000; weston & gore, 2006). these analyses were added to the pre-registered correlational analyses in order to add directional insights. preliminary analyses testing the impact of participants’ sex on mindset showed that sex, f(2) = 1.45, p = .24 for fixed mindset and f(2) = 2.84, p = .06 for growth mindset, did not impact mindset, we thus decided not to include this variable in the following analyses. model specification as shown in the path diagrams in figure 1 the model assumed directional dependencies between mindsets and achievement goals based on prior theorizing of the conceptual links between these two observed variables (blackwell et al., 2007). first, our model specified how factors were built. fixed mindset was the average score across the two first items of the mindset questionnaire. growth mindset was composed by averaging per participant the two last items of the mindset questionnaire. mastery approach was composed of items 1 to 3 of the achievement goal questionnaire. mastery avoidance was composed of items 4 to 6 of the achievement goal questionnaire. performance approach was composed of items 7 to 9 of the achievement goal questionnaire and performance avoidance was composed of items 10 to 12 of this questionnaire. then, we regressed each achievement goals on each of the two mindset scores using single level path regressions. combette, rotgé, & schmidt 193 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 schematic overview of the single-level structural equation models fitted to observed mindset and achievement goal variables note. two analogous models tested the association between mindsets and achievement goals. black arrows indicate directional links between the mindset variables measured by a four (1a, study 1) and a three-item (1b, study 2) questionnaire (dweck, 1999), and each type of achievement goal— mastery avoidance and approach, and performance avoidance and approach. in both studies, each type of achievement goal was scored by averaging the three corresponding items forming a twelve-item achievement goal questionnaire (elliot & murayama, 2008). model estimation single level path regressions and covariances were calculated using the sem function of lavaan package in r. model estimation was based on maximum likelihood. we considered a threshold of p = .05 as significant for linear regressions. the model converged. model fit two criteria were used to assess the fit of the model. the comparative fit index (cfi) following bentler (1990), and the standardized root mean square residual (srmr) following browne and cudeck (1992). the fit of the model was considered as good if the cfi was close to 1 (finney, pieper & barron, 2004) and the srmr was smaller than .08 (hu & bentler, 1999). results zero-order correlations growth mindset about mathematics skills was positively correlated with approach mastery goals, r = .32, 95% ci = [0.171, 0.459], p = 4.62e-04, and avoidance mastery goals, r = .29, 95% ci = [0.137, 0.431], p = 2.0e-03, bonferroni growth mindset is associated with mastery goals 194 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ corrected. in other words, participants with a greater growth mindset were more likely to do mathematics in order to improve their mathematics skills or to avoid forgetting how to do mathematics (see table 1). structural equation modeling the fit of the model was good (cfi = .95 and srmr = .06). as shown in figure 2 the path regressions from growth mindset to mastery approach (β = 1.144, semean = 0.438, p = .009) and to mastery avoidance (β = 1.100, semean = 0.419, p = .009) were significant, which corresponded to the univariate zero order correlations observed for growth mindset and mastery goals. importantly, when simultaneously controlling for these links between growth mindset and mastery goals, growth mindset (β = 0.741, semean = 0.352, p = .035) and fixed mindset (β = 0.762, semean = 0.350, p = .029) predicted the adoption of performance avoidance goals. figure 2 results of sem (standardized estimates for statistically significant paths) for growth mindset and achievement goals note. black arrows indicated unidirectional links between observed variables, reciprocal arrows indicated covariances. study 2 method participants 150 participants were recruited online. similar to study 1, the sample size was determined based on the correlation of r = .23 reported by yeager et al. (2016), leading to a required minimum sample size of 146 participants. similar to study 1, our collection of socio-demographic variables for study 2 was limited to age and sex. the sample for study 2 exhibited diversity, with participants ranging in age from 20 to 70 years (m = 38.26, se = 0.97 years). out table 1 zero-order correlations between mindsets and achievement goals mindset mastery app. mastery av. performance app. performance av. fixed mindset -.18* -.14 -.01 .09 growth mindset .32** .29** .11 .06 note. pearson’s regression coefficients are displayed within each panel. ** indicates significant correlation after bonferroni correction (p < .05). * indicates significant correlation only before bonferroni correction. combette, rotgé, & schmidt 195 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of the 150 participants, 130 identified as female, 19 as male, and 1 as other. furthermore, an analysis of the question regarding professional background revealed a range of positions among participants. this included 9 students (excluding psychology students), 8 individuals in roles related to psychology, 101 with non-scientific positions, 31 with scientific positions, and 1 participant who chose not to disclose this information (see table 2). table 2 description of study 1 and study 2 participants factor study 1 study 2 age m = 34.8, sd = 0.87 m = 38.3, sd = 0.97 sex 113 f / 35 m / 2 other 130 f / 19 m / 1 other education/profession 20 students (non-psychology) 11 in psychology 77 with non-scientific positions 41 with scientific positions 1 other 9 students (non-psychology) 8 in psychology 101 with non-scientific positions 31 with scientific positions 1 other mindset m = 3.91, sd = 1.00 fm: m = 2.06, sd = 0.88 gm: m = 3.89, sd = 0.95 performance avoidance m = 2.78, sd = 0.96 m = 2.57, sd = 0.99 performance approach m = 1.90, sd = 0.81 m = 1.71, sd = 0.71 mastery avoidance m = 3.94, sd = 0.81 m = 3.93, sd = 0.80 mastery approach m = 3.75, sd = 0.88 mm = 3.80, sd = 0.89 questionnaires maths mindset was assessed by the 3-items mindset questionnaire (dweck, 1999). this scale was adapted by replacing “intelligence” by “mathematic skills”. participants responded on a five-points scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). all three items were framed within a fixed mindset position. scores were computed by averaging responses to the three items and reversing it so that a score of 1 meant that participants hold a strong fixed mindset and a score of 5 meant that participants hold a strong growth mindset (α = .88). achievement goals were measured with the exact same questionnaire used in study 1. analysis similar to study 1, we calculated zero-order correlations and computed a structural equation modeling. multiple correlations were also bonferroni corrected leading to a significant threshold of p < 0.005. additionally, we computed an out of sample prediction to test if the link between mindset and mastery goals, found in study 1, generalized to a new group of participants. to this aim individual estimates of the impact of mindset on mastery goals were calculated using the lm function of the stats package in r. a new variable “predicted master goal” was then calculated from study 1 individual betas and study 2 individual mindset scores using the predict function from the car package in r. the predicted mastery goal scores where then correlated with measured mastery goal scores from study 2 using the cor.test function from the stats package in r. this analysis was repeated three times to test three types of out-of-sample generalization: (1) for mastery approach goals, (2) for mastery avoidance goals (3) and for mastery goals, calculated by averaging mastery approach and mastery avoidance goals scores. analyses exploring the impact of participants’ sex on mindset showed that sex, f(2) = 1.45, p = .24 for fixed mindset and f(2) = 2.84, p = .06 for growth mindset, did not impact mindset, we thus decided not to include this variable in the following analyses. growth mindset is associated with mastery goals 196 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results zero-order correlations math mindset (growth) was positively correlated with approach mastery goals, r = .23, 95% ci = [0.074, 0.377], p = 1.76e-02, bonferroni corrected) and tendentially with avoidance mastery goals (r = .18, 95% ci = [0.021, 0.332], p = 10.6e-01, bonferroni corrected. no significant correlation was found between mindset and performance goals (see table 3). table 3 zero-order correlations between mindsets and achievement goals mastery app. mastery av. performance app. performance av. mindset .23** .18* .01 .12 note. pearson’s regression coefficients are displayed within each panel. ** indicates significant correlation after bonferroni correction (p < .05). * indicates significant correlation only before bonferroni correction. structural equation modeling the analysis showed a good fit of the data (cfi = .94, srmr = .07). as shown in figure 3 mindset positively predicted mastery approach (β = 0.268, semean = 0.092, p = .004) and mastery avoidance (β = 0.153, semean = 0.066, p = .019). this finding indicated that participants with a growth mindset were more likely to do mathematics in order to improve their mathematics skills and to avoid forgetting how to do mathematics. figure 3 results of sem (standardized estimates for statistically significant paths) for growth mindset and achievement goals note. black arrows indicated unidirectional links between observed variables, reciprocal arrows indicated covariances. out-of-sample prediction as shown in figure 4, when correlating the predicted and observed mastery approach goals, r = .231, 95% ci = [0.074, 0.459], p = .013, bonferroni corrected and predicted and observed combined mastery goals, r = .229, 95% ci = [0.072, 0.376], p = .377, bonferroni corrected, were significant. predicted and observed mastery avoidance goals, r = .181, 95% ci = [0.021, 0.332], p = .079, bonferroni corrected, were tendentially correlated. these correlations provide evidence for a general role of growth mindsets for the prediction of mastery goals across adult populations and different ways of assessing mindsets. combette, rotgé, & schmidt 197 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 correlation between predicted and observed mastery goals for out-of-sample participants in participants for out-of-sample participants from study 2 when considering the weight of mastery goals in participants in study 1 note. mastery goals is calculated by averaging individuals’ mastery avoidance and mastery approach goals scores. discussion in conclusion, here we provide convergent evidence across two studies and a total population of three hundred adult participants that growth mindsets about math skills predicted everyday math skill mastery goals. these associations were obtained while controlling for all other potential associations among observed mindset and goal achievement variables. importantly, results from an out-of-sample cross-validation procedure showed that the link between mindset and mastery goals generalized across populations. these results show a robust association between mindset and mastery goal across populations and independently of the questionnaire used to assess mindsets. this finding validates the idea that mindset is a good predictor of mastery goals during adulthood. the scope of our study was to extend the current knowledge about the association between mindset and ach­ ievement goals to an adult population. much previous work has focused on the correlation between mindsets and achievement goals in children and adolescents in their school context (blackwell et al., 2007; cook et al., 2018; de castella & byrne, 2015; robins & pals, 2002; yeager et al., 2016). results from our two studies conducted among french adults confirmed that mindset and achievement goals are also associated in an adult population. moreover, this association was found when using two types of mindset questionnaires. a questionnaire measuring both, fixed mindset and growth mindset items, and a mindset questionnaire, which was composed of three items framed around fixed mindset (dweck, 1999). mindset questionnaires with only fixed mindset items are commonly used in the field of social psychology (claro et al., 2016; paunesku et al., 2015; yeager et al., 2016). indeed, using a small number of items related to the same idea could avoid participants’ boredom (dweck et al., 1995). moreover, fixed mindset items are known to be less influenced by the acquiescence bias (claro et al., 2016), which consists in the propensity to agree a statement when actually in doubt. to rule out the possibility that these biases and confounds due to the type of mindset growth mindset is associated with mastery goals 198 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://www.psychopen.eu/ questionnaire influenced the association to achievement goals we conducted two studies measuring mindsets within both a growth and fixed mindset frame, and within a single, fixed mindset frame. significant positive correlations have been previously found between growth mindset and mastery goals (blackwell et al., 2007; cook et al., 2018; robins & pals, 2002) and between fixed mindset and avoidance performance goals (robins & pals, 2002; yeager et al., 2016) and significant negative correlations have been found between fixed mindset and mastery goals (de castella & byrne, 2015). these correlations all convey the same idea that participants with a stronger growth mindset focus more on learning, whereas participants with a stronger fixed mindset focus more on performance and competition. our results confirm that participants with greater growth mindsets are more likely to have mastery goals. new research questions and limitations of our study our study raised new research questions and encouraged researchers to conduct follow-up studies. an important limitation of this study consists in the assessment of socio-demographic information, which was limited to self-reported sex and educational/professional background. our study did not collect other factors such as household income, years of education, legal marital status, place of residence, or ethnic origin. collecting this data and exploring its impact would be interesting to better understand the socioeconomic moderators of adults’ motivation. this is even more important given that studies conducted across secondary school students found that students from underprivileged backgrounds are more likely to adopt a fixed mindset and experience the impact of this mindset on their academic life (oecd, 2019). we, therefore, call for more research that assesses the socioeconomic sources for idiosyncrasies in mindsets and motivation. our correlational work is a prerequisite to identifying links that then can be targeted with interventions to test direc­ tionality or causality. indeed, we do not know enough yet about what comes first achievement goals that lead to the adoption and maintenance of growth mindsets or growth mindsets that lead to preferring mastery over performance. this is important since wise interventions designed for adults might implement the mechanisms that incite for adoption of growth mindsets and translate them into more sustainable day-to-day motivation at home or the workplace. additionally, in our study, mindset, and achievement goals were measured by questionnaires. this approach was a necessary first step to test their association to identify the variables that could potentially be targeted by interventions. future studies should therefore consider to now testing the impact of mindset interventions on achievement goals. such a study would allow us to better understand the causality between mindset and achievement goals development in adults. this is important because adopting mastery goals has a positive impact on work and daily life. for example, mastery goals have been positively associated with strategic approaches to studying and negatively associated with surface learning in adult learners (remedios & richardson, 2013). developing interventions helping participants to adopt both a growth mindset and mastery goals could have a beneficial impact on adults’ work and personal daily life. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: all materials, data and codes are accessible online (see combette, 2024) references akin, a., & arslan, s. 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(2016). effect of growth mindset on school engagement and psychological well-being of chinese primary and middle school students: the mediating role of resilience. frontiers in psychology, 7, article 1873. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01873 about the authors dr. léa combette is a postdoctoral associate in developmental science at the child cognition lab, boston university. previously, she pursued her ph.d. at the paris brain institute. her research delves into how individuals perceive the development of physical and mental traits and its connection to the stability they attribute to these traits. a significant part of her work centers on cognitive traits, exploring the influence of students' interactions with teachers and parents on their beliefs about intelligence. dr. jean-yves rotgé is a professor of psychiatry at sorbonne university. his research focuses on the implications of social and cognitive functions in mental health, more specifically in the production of depressive symptoms. dr. liane schmidt is an inserm scientist in cognitive neuroscience and team leader at the paris brain institute in france. her research aims at understanding how graded subjective beliefs about the future, the self, and the world are encoded and updated in the brain in order to shape human behavior and the judgment of experiences. combette, rotgé, & schmidt 201 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(3), 191–201 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11915 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.51.1.201 https://doi.org/10.1787/b25efab8-en https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615571017 https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000647 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12001 https://doi.org/10.1080/15298860290106805 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164414525397 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0029211 https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000006286345 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000098 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01873 https://www.psychopen.eu/ growth mindset is associated with mastery goals (introduction) study 1 method statistical analyses results study 2 method analysis results discussion new research questions and limitations of our study (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references about the authors materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood editorial materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood nicolás alessandroni 1 , juliene madureira ferreira 2 [1] department of psychology, concordia university, montreal, canada. [2] faculty of education and culture, tampere university, tampere, finland. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 79–83, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14433 published (vor): 2024-05-29 corresponding author: nicolás alessandroni, concordia infant research lab, department of psychology, concordia university (canada), 7141 sherbrooke st. west, py-033, montréal, québec (h4b 1r6), canada. e-mail: nicolas.alessandroni@concordia.ca related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 developmental psychology has a rich legacy of contributions challenging mainstream, cartesian-rooted perspectives of cognition. indeed, pioneering figures within the field championed non-reductionist, anti-dualistic, and anti-representa­ tionalist views of cognitive development closely aligned with contemporary perspectives. gesell, a prominent example, advocated for a monistic, functional perspective focused on studying meaningful behaviour. he famously proposed that the “mind” is the manifestation of characteristic behavioural patterns, emphasizing that research should elucidate how the morphology of behaviour develops over time (gesell, 1935, 1938): behaviour has shape. the shapes which behaviours assume can be investigated in their own scien­ tific right. a morphological approach leads to the description and measurement of specific forms; the systematic study of topographic relations and correlations of such forms, their ontogenetic progression (gesell, 1938, p. 229). in a related vein, the work of e. j. gibson in ecological psychology consistently emphasized the critical role of affor­ dances in understanding behaviour within the dynamic interplay of individual and environment, profoundly shaping cognitive development. in a noteworthy article, gibson articulated a research program for developmental psychology organized around what she identified as the five hallmarks of human behaviour—agency, prospectivity, flexibility, com­ municative creativity, and retrospectivity. importantly, she argued that these hallmarks could all be investigated by describing the behaviour of an organism functioning adaptively in a “world of events and places and people” while analyzing “the development of this activity with insight into the constraints, opportunities, and environmental offerings that underlie the dynamics of change” (e. j. gibson, 1994, p. 71). recent scholarly literature on 5e cognition (i.e., embodied, enactive, extended, embedded, and ecological) has sparked renewed interest in approaches similar to those of gesell and gibson. within this literature, cognition is conceptualized in terms of dynamic interactions between agents and their environments (gallagher, 2020; kiverstein & rietveld, 2021; newen et al., 2018), while cognitive development is viewed as the incremental enaction of practical skills (e.g., nonaka & goldfield, 2018; travieso et al., 2020; yakhlef & rietveld, 2020), habits (e.g., brinck & reddy, 2020; sheets-johnstone, 2014), recurrent forms of material engagement (e.g., alessandroni, 2021, 2023; aston, 2020, 2022; malafouris, 2019, 2020; prezioso & alessandroni, 2023), as well as expectations, anticipations, coordinations, and potentials for behaviour that unfold across various timescales (e.g., adolph, 2019; ossmy & adolph, 2020). in a thought-provoking editorial featured in this journal in 2015, c. moro rightly pointed out that, by and large, psy­ chology has neglected to explore how materiality relates to cognition. despite psychology's increasing acknowledgment this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.14433&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6595-0969 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ of cultural factors, material culture seems to have persisted as “terra incognita” (moro, 2015, p. 172). in underscoring the drawbacks of this neglect, moro contended that “material culture and material objects are at the heart of human developmental processes, conditioning our everyday relationship to the world, and influencing how we live, act, think and develop as human beings from an early age” (moro, 2015, p. 172), and welcomed the increasing stream of interdisciplinary efforts focused on materiality and cognition. the increasing traction gained by 5e perspectives in recent years has significantly advanced our understanding of how materiality shapes human development, fostering new opportunities for (inter)action across multiple timescales and social contexts. this progress is exemplified by contributions stemming or gaining insights from frameworks such as material engagement theory (e.g., alessandroni & malafouris, 2023; barona, 2021; gallagher & ransom, 2016; gubenko & houssemand, 2022; malafouris, 2013; malafouris et al., 2023; march & malafouris, 2023; paolucci, 2021; vietri et al., 2023). further understanding of how materiality catalyzes cognitive development is particularly relevant in early childhood education, where the foundations for several cognitive processes are laid. as the common worlds pedagogy theory posits, children, teachers, and objects are equally active participants in creating the dynamics of the expanded community they form. within this community, objects: (...) beckon and pull us in. they live, speak, gesture, and call to us. materials can evoke memories, narrate stories, invite actions, and communicate ideas (...) thinking with materials transforms early childhood education, provoking educators to notice how materials and young children live entangled lives in classrooms, how they change each other through their mutual encounters (pacini-ketchabaw et al., 2016, pp. 1–2). in line with the ever-growing interest in materiality and cognition within psychology and beyond, this special issue features an assembly of five theoretical and empirical contributions ultimately aimed at unravelling and better under­ standing how interactions between children, adults, and objects shape cognitive development in early childhood and the potential consequences this may have for early childhood education. in “an ecological approach to conceptual thinking in material engagement,” nicolás alessandroni, lambros malafouris, and shaun gallagher explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking through the lens of material engagement theory. building upon the notion of thinking as thinging, the authors offer a fresh perspective that chal­ lenges mainstream representationalist views. specifically, alessandroni et al. contend that conceptual thinking is not an abstract activity involving mental representations of the world but rather a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. in this sense, they propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artifacts within sociomaterial activities. significantly, the authors introduce seven clear principles for defining conceptual thinking within a post-cognitivist, ecological-enactive framework of cognition, thus furthering the field of 5e cognition studies and opening up new avenues for empirical exploration. “babies in the corporeal turn: the cognitive embodiment of early motor development and exploration in the brazilian context of early childhood education” by natalia meireles santos da costa, joana de jesus andrade, and aline patrícia campos tolentino de lima is an empirical study investigating the motor and cognitive development of babies from an embodied perspective, focusing on the everyday material and sociocultural landscapes where infants develop. the authors highlight the importance of experience and perceptual-motor mechanisms in modulating the development of person-environment systems. they also reflect on the mediating role of public policies and pedagogical intentionality in providing meaning and direction to material compositions and engagement with objects and spaces in educational environments. this macro-to-micro view of the relationship between materiality and children’s motor and cognitive development is particularly relevant to practitioners in early childhood education. valentina fantasia, francesca moncalli, and arianna bello authored “shared construction of social pretend play sequences in kindergarten,” which delves into children’s social interactions, engagement with available objects, and the spontaneous creation of pretend play scenarios in kindergarten settings. this study addresses a gap in research regarding the emergence and development of social pretend play in ecological settings before the age of three. through detailed microanalytical observations of pretend play episodes, the authors illuminate how shared pretend play interac­ tions evolve among young children in a kindergarten environment, influenced by the materiality available for children materiality and cognitive development 80 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 79–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14433 https://www.psychopen.eu/ during play. the research demonstrates that children dynamically manage their participation in play by using local embodied and material resources, as well as sequential action turns. this article addresses the interests of educational psychologists and developmental researchers concerned with the role of materiality in shaping specific social abilities, such as symbolic play. relatedly, the study “gestures, objects, and space: exploring teachers’ multimodal communication in nursery schools” by ana moreno-núñez and marta casla examines the relationship between materiality and teachers’ commu­ nicative strategies during group interactions in nursery schools with twoto three-year-old children. of particular interest to this special issue is moreno-núñez and casla’s view that materiality and the classroom layout foster children’s and adults’ possibilities for experimentation and participation in sensorimotor experiences that lead to mean­ ing-construction processes. by investigating the multimodality and materiality involved in adult-child communication in a naturalistic context, this study brings new and important insights into the extent to which the use of objects and space shape the linguistic contexts of young children and the potential opportunities and limitations they pose for classroom interactions. the fourth empirical article—by juliene madureira ferreira and luciana soares muniz—is entitled “material engage­ ment shaping participation of children on the autism spectrum: embodiment and subjectivity in small-group learn­ ing.” this article reports a study investigating how materiality influences possibilities for participation in small-group learning in special education settings, specifically focusing on children on the autism spectrum. the authors introduce a specific pedagogical practice: the idea diary. this practice not only enriches the possibilities for children on the spectrum to share their worlds and learning interests with their typically developing peers—thus expanding children’s engagement with learning situations—but also serves as a window into children’s subjectivity. the idea diary transcends being a channel for children’s expression and communication of their subjective meanings. in fact, by the affordances it facilitates, the materiality of the idea diary fosters a unique form of (inter)subjectivity that would not exist otherwise. this study provides empirical support to the argument that material engagement enables specific forms of interaction and participatory sense-making in group learning situations. in closing, we invite readers to explore the diverse contributions within this special issue. these studies provide both compelling theoretical arguments and empirical data regarding the vital role of material culture in human development. by highlighting its potential to spur cognition and interaction across timescales and social settings, the reported findings contribute to the contemporary understanding of how materiality shapes human experiences and behaviours. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references adolph, k. e. 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(2020). innovative action as skilled affordance‐responsiveness: an embodied‐mind approach. creativity and innovation management, 29(1), 99–111. https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12345 materiality and cognitive development 82 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 79–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14433 https://doi.org/10.1177/1059712320941945 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-019-09629-2 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.81.2088.15.b https://doi.org/10.1126/science.88.2280.225 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1994.tb00633.x https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.893420 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02540-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9606-7 https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419873349 https://doi.org/10.1177/26349795231191023 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v11i2.995 https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2018.1438199 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.073 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315743257 https://doi.org/10.1177/17506980221108475 https://doi.org/10.13128/phe_mi-19553 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01257 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09677-5 https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12345 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors nicolás alessandroni is an frqsc postdoctoral fellow at the concordia infant research laboratory (concordia university, canada). he received his phd in psychology from the universidad autónoma de madrid (spain) with a project investigating the relationship between object use and the early development of conceptual thinking from an ecological-enactive approach to cognition. in 2023, he was honoured with the prestigious doctoral dissertation award by the jean piaget society (usa). his other research interests include the development of intentional understanding and the philosophy of knowledge. juliene madureira ferreira is a assistant professor (tenure track) in the faculty of education and culture at tampere university. her research focuses on investigating sociability in challenging social interactions/contexts such as in special education and virtual learning environments, analysing how material and social affordances in such contexts support diverse ways to establish intersubjec­ tivity and influence/impact learning and development. alessandroni & ferreira 83 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 79–83 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.14433 https://www.psychopen.eu/ an ecological approach to conceptual thinking in material engagement theoretical contributions an ecological approach to conceptual thinking in material engagement nicolás alessandroni 1 , lambros malafouris 2 , shaun gallagher 3,4 [1] concordia infant research laboratory, concordia university, montréal, canada. [2] hertford college/institute of archaeology, university of oxford, oxford, united kingdom. [3] department of philosophy, university of memphis, memphis, tn, usa. [4] school of liberal arts, university of wollongong, wollongong, australia. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 received: 2023-11-09 • accepted: 2024-04-04 • published (vor): 2024-05-29 handling editor: juliene madureira ferreira, tampere university, tampere, finnland corresponding author: nicolás alessandroni, concordia infant research laboratory, department of psychology, concordia university (canada), 7141 sherbrooke st. west, py-033, montréal, québec (h4b 1r6), canada. e-mail: nicolas.alessandroni@concordia.ca related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “materiality and cognitive development: contemporary debates and empirical studies in early childhood”, guest editors: nicolás alessandroni & juliene madureira ferreira, europe’s journal of psychology, 20(2), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v20i2 abstract although post-cognitivist approaches have shaken the status quo by emphasising the dynamic interactions among the brain, the body, and the environment in cognition, mainstream psychological theories continue to view concepts as primarily representational or skull-bound mental phenomena. as a result, the dynamics of action and the possible impact of material culture on conceptual thinking are poorly understood. in this paper, we explore the process and meaning of conceptual thinking from a material engagement perspective. we argue that conceptual thinking is not a matter of forming representations in the head but something we do—a way of engaging with materiality. conceptual thinking is conceptual thinging, namely a kind of unmediated practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage, in a general way, with and through the world. in this sense, we propose that conceptual thinking is instantiated in the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities. to elucidate this perspective, we introduce seven principles defining conceptual thinking within an ecological-enactive framework of cognition. keywords material engagement theory, conceptual thinking, things, material culture, ecological-enactive cognition categorisation and conceptual thinking are pivotal in cognitive research, regarded as the building blocks of cognition by many scholars (e.g., harnad, 2005). without concepts, thinking in general terms would be impossible, potentially leading to experiencing the world as a perpetual series of distinct entities or facts, thus hindering the development of critical skills such as memory, learning, action planning, self-regulation, and communication (oakes & rakison, 2003; shanks, 2015). prevailing theories in philosophy and cognitive science have characterised concepts as representational and brainbound entities.1 although acknowledging possible differences in the ontology, internal structure, and relationship of concepts with the external world, theories have indeed construed conceptual thinking as one of many representa­ 1) for example, margolis and laurence (2007) call this the psychological view of concepts: “concepts are mental representations. they are the constituents of propositional attitudes such as beliefs and desires. the psychological view is the default position in many areas of cognitive science and enjoys a good deal of support in the philosophy of mind. it is at the centre of a rich and powerful model of the mind (…)” (p. 563); see also fodor (1987, 1998). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13227&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-05-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6595-0969 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2140-4998 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3147-9929 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tion-hungry domains of cognition (clark & toribio, 1994). however, in recent years, contemporary post-cognitivist approaches (e.g., embodied, embedded, enactive, extended, and ecological frameworks) have shaken the status quo in this regard. by focusing on the dynamic interactions between the brain, body, and environment rather than on internal infor­ mation processing (gallagher, 2017; newen et al., 2018), contemporary perspectives redefine cognition as adaptive behaviour, which refers to “the sum of all flexible, skillful capacities that an organism possesses for dealing with the environment” (heras-escribano, 2021, p. 338). from such a viewpoint, various scholars have convincingly offered nonrepresentationalist explanations of cognitive phenomena, including motor skills and their development (adolph, 2019; travieso et al., 2020), situated anticipation (van dijk & rietveld, 2021), action planning (keen et al., 2014; ossmy et al., 2020), creativity and innovative action (baber et al., 2019; malafouris, 2014; yakhlef & rietveld, 2020), tool making and tool using (malafouris, 2018, 2021; nonaka & stoffregen, 2020; overmann & wynn, 2019), conversation and linguistic thought (di paolo et al., 2018; gallagher, 2020a; kiverstein & rietveld, 2021), memory (prezioso & alessandroni, 2023; sutton et al., 2010), and social cognition (abramova & slors, 2015; de jaegher et al., 2017; lindblom, 2020). post-cognitivism is rapidly moving towards a sociomaterial practice-based explanation of cognitive phenomena (malafouris, 2018, 2020). for instance, the skilled intentionality framework (rietveld et al., 2018; rietveld & kiverstein, 2014) proposed to analyse cognition in terms of selective engagement with multiple affordances, achieved through participation in sociomaterial normative practices (see also heras-escribano & de pinedo-garcía, 2018, for an analysis based on niche construction theory). likewise, building upon the research of anthropologist charles goodwin (2000, 2002, 2013), gallagher (2020a) argued that within a conversation “meaning emerges at the intersection of a set of semiotic resources that include social, cultural, material structures and their dynamical changes in the environment where action and interaction occur” (p. 59). nonetheless, even with the notable advancements within post-cognitivist paradigms, there remains a need for a comprehensive understanding of conceptual thinking and other psychological processes that have conventionally been viewed as detached from real-world interactions (kiverstein & rietveld, 2018; shapiro 2011). this challenge is commonly referred to as the scaling-up problem (chemero, 2009; petracca, 2023). this paper seeks to reframe the characterisation of conceptual thinking by considering both the enactive contexts and the processes of material engagement that underpin it in everyday life. while not attempting to provide a complete theory of conceptual thinking, we aim to develop a programmatic statement on how conceptual thinking could be re-envisioned through the insights offered by material engagement theory (met) (malafouris, 2013, 2019, 2020). we begin by providing a concise overview of mainstream psychological perspectives on concepts and identifying two major problems with these theories: (i) treating concepts as detached from action dynamics, and (ii) neglecting the constitutive role of material culture in cognition. we then introduce the fundamentals of material engagement theory (met) and propose seven principles to define conceptual thinking, integrating enactive, ecological, extended, distributed, and semiotic elements. we argue that conceptual thinking is not the entertaining of representations in the head but a way of engaging with materiality: a kind of generalised and practical knowledge that individuals put into play when they engage with the world. in this regard, we propose that concepts arise from the dynamic coordination between bodily practices and artefacts in sociomaterial activities and are distributed in the brain-body-world networks from which they emerge. mainstream concept theories and their problems the classical theory of concepts, which can be traced back to the philosophical contributions of aristotle, posits that concepts are abstract definitions of a class that are stored in the mind as representations (cohen & murphy, 1984; lakoff, 1990). this theory also asserts that concepts have two main components: an intensional core and an extensional core. the intensional core refers to the set of sufficient and necessary conditions that an entity must meet to be considered an exemplar of the category the concept represents. the extensional core, on the other hand, refers to the complete set of entities that can be considered instances of the concept (murphy, 2002). because of their allegedly propositional nature, concepts have been traditionally defined as language-like or logical entities. for instance, brown (1956/2009) argued that acquiring a concept is equivalent to matching environmental alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 85 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ groupings with names. similarly, archer (1966) proposed that concepts are linguistic labels attached to the world. from a more radical perspective, vygotsky (1934/2008) asserted that “real concepts are impossible without words, and conceptual thought does not exist beyond verbal thought” (p. 115); lamb (1970) posited that a concept equals the meaning of a word; and whorf believed that language “shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about” (whorf, 1956). similarly, other authors assume the existence of a natural pairing between concepts and formal logical abilities. for instance, piaget maintained that preverbal infants lack even “preconcepts,” and claimed that “true concepts” develop no sooner than the concrete operational stage, typically spanning the ages of 7–11 years (piaget, 1951/1999). in the last 50 years, the “concepts-as-definitions” account has faced challenges from both theoretical and empirical research. critiques primarily concern the internal structure of concepts (i.e., their components and the relations between them) and the organisation of the human conceptual system (i.e., relations between concepts). for instance, the prototype theory proposed that conceptual representations do not encode sufficient and necessary conditions, but rather a statistical analysis of the properties that category members tend to have (mervis & rosch, 1981; rosch, 1975). in this view, concepts are organised around prototypes, which are average category members presenting the most common attribute configurations. these prototypes are summary abstractions that do not necessarily correspond to real objects in the world (rosch, 1998), but are statistical benchmarks that help determine the degree to which a given entity falls within a category and how good an exemplar it is (e.g., a dining-room chair is a better example of the chair concept than a dentist’s chair, and a table is a better example of the furniture concept than a clock). by referring to the problem of categorical membership as a matter of degree, the prototype theory introduced the idea that family resemblance, rather than criterial features, better explains how categories are bounded (rosch & mervis, 1975). in contrast, the exemplar theory denied the existence of unique and unitary descriptions for all class members. instead of seeing concepts as summary representations, this theory regards them as sets of exemplars available in the memory that can be retrieved upon environmental requirements (smith & medin, 1981). in other words, the table concept is equivalent to the set of tables a subject remembers, and to have the table concept is to remember table instances (medin & schaffer, 1978). the prototype and exemplar theories proposed alternative cognitive architectures to explain the internal organisa­ tion of concepts, yet their divergence from traditional theory is not as substantial as it may seem. despite differences in what concepts represent (i.e., definitions, prototypes, or concrete exemplars), all theories agree that conceptual thinking is a representational affair. furthermore, all theories assume a clear ontological distinction between the subject categorising and the categorised world. this suggests that concepts are useful in enabling subjects to map the mind-independent ontological structure of the world for cognitive manipulation (laurence & margolis, 1999). to grasp how concepts, as mental contents, establish a connection with the world, cognitive research has provided the standard explanation that this capacity arises from its roots in perception. indeed, mainstream concept theories inherited the longstanding empiricist view which takes perception to be the “direct, immediate awareness of discriminated existents which results from patterns of energy absorption by groups of receptors” (efron, 1969, p. 147). in this view, subjects get to know the world “as it is” (see le morvan, 2004) thanks to the information they receive through their senses and build concepts through the recognition, correlation, and abstraction of similar perceptual information (e.g., cahen & tacca, 2013; eimas & quinn, 1994; horst et al., 2005; kagan, 1966; prinz, 2002; younger, 2003; zentall et al., 2018).2 as concepts develop from percepts, it is often assumed that they carry in themselves a natural connection with the world (for a critique, see alessandroni & rodríguez, 2019). although widely accepted, the views of conceptual thinking as abstract representations of the external world, and perception as the reception of information are not without their challenges. for example, these views suggest that conceptual meaning is independent of the subject's categorisation activity, with perception serving as a means to extract information and concepts serving as codifications of that information in our minds. at this point, it would be sensible to ask if there is any relationship between concept formation and the actual engagement of the subject with the world 2) note that the idea that concepts are perceptually based has not prevented empiricists from accounting for abstract concepts such as democracy or morality. for a discussion, see prinz (2002, 2005). conceptual thinking in material engagement 86 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in the context of sociomaterial activities. we argue that such a relationship exists and is, in fact, constitutive. in the upcoming paragraphs, we delve into two issues with conventional theories to support this conclusion. perception cannot do without action mainstream theories contend that concepts are formed by integrating similar sensory atoms (see orlandi, 2019). from this perspective, a significant challenge is explaining how individuals select specific stimuli from the virtually infinite array the world offers, as objects themselves lack inherent instructions about their relevance. consequently, it becomes necessary to resort to some external criterion to categorically parse the environment (gelaes & thibaut, 2004). tomasel­ lo sums up this issue very well when he states that: the problem is that any given set of things has innumerably many similarities, and the conceptforming individual encounters these exemplars one at a time over time without any guidance about what to pay attention to (tomasello, 2002, p. 6). certainly, finding an external criterion becomes elusive when perception is considered an act of contemplation and individuals are viewed as passive observers of environmental spectacles (see kelly, 2007). authors in the traditions of pragmatism, phenomenology, and ecological-enactive theories of cognition have pro­ posed ways to overcome this dilemma. recent work in this area has sometimes been called a ‘pragmatic turn’ in cognitive science (engel et al., 2016), a turn that follows a consensus among such thinkers that the general flaw of classical theories is their endorsement of a reductionist view of perception. james (1900), for instance, famously argued that the qualities we consider essential in perceiving a thing are those that are more practically important. this is because, for him, perception is not determined exclusively by the world but is rather a product of the permanent subject-object interplay in an action context. similarly, for phenomenology, merleau-ponty (1942/1963) contended that perception is inextricably tied to human intentions and actions, therefore highlighting its pragmatic, situated and enactive nature. following hegelian insight, he asserts that perception never takes place outside the context of human work (merleau-ponty, 1942/1963, p. 162), the ensemble of activities by which individuals transform the world, bringing about, at the same time, new cycles of behaviour. given that perception and action have a common functional value (i.e., knowledge and modification of reality), they should be considered two sides of the same coin. james gibson (1979/2014), influenced by both pragmatism and merleau-ponty’s phenomenology, gathered these ideas under the title of affordances, proposing that we perceive things in terms of what we can do with them—what they afford. in this connection, any inquiry into perception that neglects its practical value is doomed to be meaningless (babska, 1965). noë (2004) also defends this idea from an enactivist perspective when saying that “perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. it is something we do” (p. 1). similarly, rietveld and kiverstein (2014) proposed that the perception of the environment as resourceful hinges on a situated normativity related to our skills and the specific sociocultural contexts and material settings where we act. if perception is the counterpart of action, then concepts can be seen as instruments to achieve ends (sakharov, 1990). for example, barsalou (1983, 1991) argued that understanding conceptualisation requires an examination of the nexus between categories and the goals these categories allow individuals to attain. introducing a pragmatic turn on the debate, he argued that categorisation could hardly be understood without considering its instrumental value. in ev­ eryday life, categories such as food-i-should-eat-so-as-not-to-break-my-diet or things-i-should-bring-to-the-office are fundamental for activity planning. because of their goal-derived nature, barsalou called these ad hoc categories. an exciting aspect of these categories is that the elements they bring together are not necessarily perceptually similar. a packet of flour, an egg, a butter stick, a glass of milk and a bottle of vanilla essence do not share physical attributes, such as colour, weight, shape, or texture. what brings them together in the ingredients-for-a-cake category is their potential contribution towards baking a delicious vanilla sponge cake. from this standpoint, the potential that exemplars have to serve a common goal—referred to as ideals by barsalou (1985)—emerges as a crucial determinant of the graded structure of a category. alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 87 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ cognition is not just about materiality but also with it so far, following pragmatic approaches, we have suggested that mainstream concept theories have overlooked how fundamental action and its pragmatic contexts are for perception and conceptual thinking. a further issue with these theories—perhaps more severe—lies in their failure to recognize the cognitive relevance of material culture. likely, this disregard stems from descartes’ mind-body dualism, which continues to profoundly influence the cognitive sciences (lowe, 2009; wynn 2017). in general, (neuro)cognitive research assumes, like descartes, that there is a qualitative difference between mental and material phenomena, and that “mind takes place in the brain” (hünefeldt, 2018, p. 111). although not all cognitive theories fully adhere to descartes’ radical rationalist view, those who hold the default position of a representational theory of mind cannot but agree that “a cognitive agent’s mental states are symbols or structures, internal to the agent, representing the agent's world” (maloney, 1986, p. 131). conceptual reasoning is thus confined to the dimension of the res cogitans—the abstract mind. in these perspectives, at best, the material world plays a limited role: things are referential occasions for our conceptual system, only providing the sensory content it needs to develop and operate. for even when concepts refer to the things of the world, they are seen as skull-bound mental phenomena: their formation, manipulation, enrichment, and application occur in the mental realm, inside the head. the reification of mind has also influenced empirical research about conceptual thinking. for example, many studies on conceptual development have employed—for the sake of experimental control—abstract and artificial stimuli whose structure is not analogous to real-world stimuli (alessandroni & rodríguez, 2020; berger, 1997), as if the materiality of the world simply did not matter. most psychological experiments are not carried out in the real contexts of everyday life, but in abstract and oversimplified ones. in these abstract experimental situations, detailed characteristics typical of the real environment—including not just the materiality of things, but also uncertainty, complexity, the instability of phenomena, dynamic and interactive social exchanges, and so on—are often entirely absent (viale, 2024). this research attitude illustrates that the cognitive ecologies in which humans live are not thought to be particularly relevant to the design of experiments. for example, researchers often use drawings, images, computer screens, and replica objects to investigate the existence of concepts of the objects they represent. the conflation of objects with their representations in other semiotic systems adds notable difficulties to the research, as there is evidence that they are not cognitively equivalent entities (e.g., arterberry & bornstein, 2012; deloache, 2000). in other words, things cannot be interchanged for their representations without cognitive consequences. the fact that these problems are rarely discussed in the psychological literature (alessandroni & rodríguez, 2020) ratifies the marginal place that the material world has for cognitive inquiries. to what extent is a sharp division between concepts and materiality reasonable? in experience and nature, dewey (1929) noted that: the notion that the universe is split into two separate and disconnected realms of existence, one psychical and the other physical, and then that these two realms of being, in spite of their total disjunction, specifically and minutely correspond to each other, presents the acme of incredibility (pp. 267–268). for the pragmatist philosopher, dualisms lead to argumentative impasses, because they artificially divide the world and then try to overcome the gaps they create through theoretical contrivances, appealing to haphazard causative powers. contrary to those who exiled materiality from debates about human cognition, other authors have contended that the link between conceptual thinking and materiality is indispensable, and even that “concepts and conceptual change are as much features of artefacts and the external world as they are of thinking” (säljö, 2018, p. 113). this standpoint can be traced to works by galpérine (1966), who argued that concepts derive from the actions subjects undertake with real things, within cultural activities. also, podolsky stated that only by incorporating materiality into discussions about concepts would it be possible to understand their development as a concrete process, that is, as it happens in real life (gulmans et al., 1995). this is because conceptual thinking develops whenever real subjects run into a real need for new general ways of thinking, in real life situations that involve the active engagement with real things. to better understand this pragmatic and situated proposal for the study of conceptual thinking, some concrete examples are in order. conceptual thinking in material engagement 88 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ while discussing how humans developed numerical thinking, malafouris (2010) considers the case of the near eastern system of counting and the influence that the use of three different forms of materiality (i.e., clay tokens, envelopes, and pictographic tablets) might have had. he argues that it was the use of clay tokens for concrete counting that ultimately provided the material scaffolding necessary for the subsequent abstraction and conceptualisation of number. according to him, the use of three-dimensional clay tokens as enactive signs provided the foundations for the posterior use of two-dimensional markings on the envelopes to indexically refer to the tokens contained in them. these markings, in turn, scaffolded the iconic tracing of images of clay tokens on pictographic tablets and, finally, the use of symbolic numerals. in his view, “the clay tokens bring forth the numbers and make visible and tangible the manipulation of their properties” (malafouris, 2010, p. 40). the concept of number is not thought of, thus, as the result of internal processes, but as emerging from instances of material engagement where the brain, the body, and the stable material structure of clay tokens converge (see also overmann, 2017, 2019a). empirical evidence from developmental psychology also supports this explanation. for instance, scheuer and sinclair (2009) reported that the “one-to-one correspondence in spontaneous action or play, such as putting one stick in each cup, precedes correct counting by years” (p. 20). they argue that categories related to number emerge from numerical explorations in which children engage when acting in and responding to their rich environment. in that way, the numerical understanding of the world is grounded in sociomaterial practices such as distributing things, performing pointing gestures, pretend play, and object manipulation. similarly, alessandroni and rodríguez (2017) argued, versus the conceptual metaphor theory (lakoff & johnson, 1999), that the development of the containment concept is not the natural by-product of processes of abstraction from embodied experiences, but is embedded in the actual use of various objects as containers in the context of specific pragmatic challenges. as an illustration, in the 0–1 and 1–2-year-old classrooms of the infant school babies regularly participate in the treasure basket and heuristic play activities where teachers guide them in performing properly the put in/take out, fill/empty, open/close, and cover/uncover actions with different containers. the establishment of the containment function of objects is, in that context, an educative purpose and a developmental achievement. in other words, things are not a priori containers, but become containers by means of practice in material engagement situations (for a long-term archaeological perspective on the issue of containment, see knappett et al., 2010). met: cognition as material engagement in previous sections, we outlined a perspective on conceptual thinking that thoroughly considers (i) the situated and enactive nature of perception and (ii) the cognitive role of material culture in the everyday activity contexts where categorisation takes place.3 research in the cognitive sciences is in great need of this perspective because, until now, action is largely missing from the table, and materiality is usually reduced to the role of the mise en scène of cognition. in the last section of this paper, we propose a novel perspective on conceptual thinking, based on the material engagement theory (met) (malafouris, 2004, 2008a, 2013, 2019, 2020), a cross-disciplinary analytical framework grounded in the anthropological archaeology of mind, aimed at investigating how people and things co-constitute each other. with an eye to providing the right context for our main proposal, we first summarise the three working hypotheses of met. the extended mind hypothesis asserts that cognitive processes cannot be studied without paying attention to the co-constitution relations between brain, body, and world. the hypothesis of enactive signification proposes that material culture has unique semiotic characteristics that give rise to processes of signification that follow an enactive logic of sense-making. the hypothesis of material agency defines agency as the product of situated activities where materiality has an active role. 3) to illustrate, see goodwin’s perspective on colour categorisation within his practice-based theory of knowledge and action (goodwin, 1994). alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 89 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the mind is extended when it comes to determining the whereabouts of cognition, the classic answer is that cognition happens in the head, which delineates the boundaries of a mental space where computations over representations take place. however, myriad non-cartesian theories have called into question the traditional approach, giving rise to 4e perspectives (i.e., embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) (for a recent discussion, see gallagher, 2017, 2023). aligned with these approaches, met posits that human cognition is extended, inasmuch as it cannot be circumscribed in a single place (e.g., the brain). it is an embodied and environmentally embedded phenomenon, with an agent’s mind and cognitive processes incorporating resources and processes from the physical world as integral components (malafouris, 2013, 2018; see clark, 2008). the extended point of view is particularly useful when accounting for real-life situations where perceiving, thinking, doing, and making are co-defined in such a way that they are inseparable from each other (malafouris, 2019). that is why, for met, studying the mind involves examining how, in concrete situations, brain, body, and culture conflate4 (malafouris, 2004), thus configuring the relationships between the mental, social, material, and bodily processes that make up our cognitive ecologies (hutchins, 2010). various empirical studies have shown the usefulness of studying cognition from extended and situated viewpoints. for example, kirsh and maglio (1994) provided evidence that, during a tetris game, certain translations and rotations can work by relieving the cognitive load of problem-solving processes intrinsic to the game, even if they are not inten­ ded to improve board position. the central idea is that these apparently fortuitous epistemic actions are indispensable for controlling behaviour in real-time situations that demand split-second decisions. similarly, there is evidence that the use of manipulatives, gestures, and body movements, more than the use of abstract symbols, supports mathematical thinking (e.g., carbonneau et al., 2013; overmann, 2017, 2019a), and that activities such as drawing, sketching, doodling (e.g., glaser, 2008), and handwriting (e.g., menary, 2007) reorganise our thought processes, making them smoother and more flexible. this resonates well with goodwin’s claim that the articulation of graphic representations (e.g., the production of maps by archaeologists) and the engagement with professional tools (e.g., munsell colour charts5) restructure perception and bring about new ways of organising scientific knowledge (goodwin, 1994, 2002). on a similar note, malafouris and koukouti (2018) argued that individuals’ recall of practical activities (e.g., riding a bicycle) is inherently tied to their (re-)enactment within specific sociomaterial contexts. in this view, memory is an interactive and transactional process, an active entanglement of neural, bodily, and material resources. similar arguments have been advanced in the case of material imagination (koukouti & malafouris, 2020) and creativity (malafouris, 2014; poulsgaard, 2019; poulsgaard & malafouris, 2023, 2017; vallée‐tourangeau, & march, 2020). finally, it is worth noting that extended approaches have consequences for the study of development, since, for instance, it would not be possible to have an abstract concept of weight without first experiencing “the sense of weight that we encounter through the pull on our muscles as we lift objects” (tall, 2008, p. 5; see also renfrew, 2007). materiality is meaningful while endorsing an extended perspective, met differs from other extended approaches that, by relying on the multiple realisability causal model (de jong, 2003), assume that mental states are functional states that can be equally carried out by different material systems (e.g., the well-known example of inga and otto, as discussed in clark & chalmers, 1998). an important difficulty with functionalism is that it neglects the inquiry into the particularities of the objects that “instantiate” the mental states in each case (i.e., objects become contingent) (farkas, 2012). against functionalism, met advocates for the primacy of material engagement. in other words, as we engage with the world, materiality envelops our everyday thinking and experience, thus mediating and constituting our ways of being and developing in the world (malafouris, 2008a). mental states are never independent of their physical realisation—matter matters. 4) for met, "brain", "body" and "culture" are analytical abstractions that can only exist interdependently through processes of material engagement. as a result, establishing conceptual boundaries between these three terms is considered unhelpful. rather, met speaks of these three terms as conflated, that is, fused together. 5) a munsell colour chart is an ordered grid of colour samples featuring circular holes that allow the colour of the samples to be compared with the colour of other materials (e.g., a sample of dirt on a trowel). conceptual thinking in material engagement 90 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ materiality constrains and enables our cognitive processes, so that things become meaningful in regard to what they are and what we do with them. this is a sense-making process that malafouris (2013) deems enactive signification. however, material signs (see iliopoulos & malafouris, 2021) do not work like linguistic signs which, in the languageas-a-code traditional perspective, are seen to refer arbitrarily to a meaning that exists independently of the signs themselves (love, 2004). material signs “can be touched, carried, worn, possessed, exchanged, stored, transfigured, or destroyed” (malafouris, 2013, p. 95). these enactive properties, which comprise the enactive semiotic idiom of things, make the classical priority of the signified over the signifier untenable (malafouris, 2008b). much as in language use where “the how of the saying influences not only the way in which our listeners come to understand us as speakers but also what they hear us saying” (gahrn-andersen, 2019, p. 177), the how of the engaging with things (what merleau-ponty calls an embodied style) shapes how signifier and signified originate from sociomaterial practices. in this way, material signs participate in the meaning that is inscribed in them while conveying it (malafouris, 2015, 2016). agency in material engagement met also claims that materiality contributes to agency in a primary sense. this view is fundamental, as it dissolves another long-standing assumption: the agent-things dualism. classically, agency is seen as a capacity of individuals to act intentionally, and things are means for externalising previously formed intentional mental states. for met, in contrast, the agent is not a priori, but emerges in and thanks to processes of material engagement—an agent is not such before its encounter with materiality. agency is a relational property: a property of material engagement rather than a property of the actor simpliciter or the thing simpliciter (malafouris, 2008a, p. 22). it refers to the continuous product of the transactional push-and-pull relationships between an organism and its world which bring about new modes of acting and thinking (ransom, 2019). in harmony with this idea, met states that thinking is better characterised as thinging, something we do with and through things rather than simply being about them (malafouris, 2020). this take on agency and thinking makes met a much more comprehensive paradigm than many so-called “weak embodied” perspectives (alsmith & de vignemont, 2012) that provide only a “shift from the disembodied computational image of mind to one that is now grounded in neural structures and brain networks” (malafouris, 2016, p. 291; see also booth, 2016; turner, 2011). whereas such weakly embodied views highlight the importance of brain activity and bodily experiences for cognition, they neglect the study of embodied action as it occurs within the situated and dynamic interactions with material culture that brings forth the world and its meaning. the act of embodying (malafouris, 2013, 2016), as met understands it, comprises a series of transactions whereby “our body, as a unit of meaning, participates in the co-construction of cognitive processes in specific material and cultural contexts” (alessandroni, 2018, p. 243), bringing together brains, bodies, and the material culture. plastic changes in the brain cannot be split off from other forms of plasticity occurring in the broader sociocultural context where action takes place. thanks to metaplasticity (malafouris 2010)—the constitutive intertwining between neural and cultural plasticity—“material culture competes equally with any other brain or behavioural region for a place in the non-genetic heritable structure of the human cognitive system” (malafouris, 2015, p. 360, see also bruineberg & rietveld, 2019; kiverstein & miller, 2015). in a related vein, ryan and gallagher (2020) argued that the brain could be better described as a resonant organ rather than a representational one, which has significant consequences for cognitive studies: “since [if] we can actively construct or reorganise an environment to enhance resonance processes, or to make the environment resonate with us, [then] a full account of resonance must explain this part of the process as well” (ryan & gallagher, 2020, p. 10; see also gibson 1966/1968, 1979/2014 and raja, 2018 for related applications of the notion of resonance). neurocognitive research has endorsed these relational perspectives on brain activity. for example, there is now evidence suggesting that the power of an object to trigger an action depends upon the effective possibility that an individual has to interact with it (costantini et al., 2010), that goal-directed interactions with objects can affect action processing in the brain (e.g., object categorisation) (triberti et al., 2016), and that “what people are doing may impact on their perceptual judgments on the surrounding things” (costantini et al., 2019, p. 1805). alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 91 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conceptual thinking as conceptual thinging in the preceding sections, we have provided an overview of the fundamentals of met. however, questions persist about the link between met and conceptual thinking. how do extended mind, enactive signification, and material agency relate to conceptual thinking within met? in what sense would materiality be constitutive of conceptual thinking? according to met, a concept could never be said to inhabit the brain: conceptual thinking—like any other form of cognition—is relational and found within sociomaterial practices where humans carry out meaning-making and sign-construction processes. this clearly contrasts to a weak embodied view. for example, barsalou (2017) proposed that “a concept is a dynamical distributed network in the brain coupled with a category in the environment or experience” (p. 10, emphasis ours), and pexman (2019) defined concepts as knowledge representations that “correspond to patterns of activation across numerous neural areas” (p. 1274, emphasis ours). whereas these and other weakly embodied views highlight, at best, the importance of body-related brain activity for cognition, they neglect the study of embodied action as it occurs within the situated and dynamic interactions with material culture that brings forth the world and its meaning. to define conceptual thinking, we start from the epistemological foundations of met: cognition is a transactional process that occurs in and thanks to our material engagement with the world. brains, bodies, and the world all contribute to the construction of meanings. from this point of view, one can only study people and things “as worldly, not just as in the world, but as incorporated into practices in the world” (costall, 2012, p. 93). consequently, we advance our first principle: p1: conceptual thinking is a specific form of material engagement that individuals become able to sustain with their environment.6 clearly, not every case of material engagement can be called conceptual. to qualify as such, it must result in generalisa­ tion, which entails interacting with multiple category exemplars rather than individual entities. from met’s semiotic approach, the generality of conceptual thinking cannot be reduced to the aggregation of similar sensory impressions “emanating” from things, as is the case in traditional theories. this is because things are much more than sensory collections. given that things are embedded in structured material settings (rietveld & kiverstein, 2014) and networks of culturally evolved social practices and routines (le groupe µ et al., 2013; rączaszek-leonardi et al., 2019), they are endowed with semiotic properties (malafouris, 2016) that transcend inherent properties (e.g., shape or weight). as a result, in the thinging process individuals engage not only with the physical properties of objects but also generate meanings that, upon re-enactment, generalise and, as we will argue, lead to concept formation. an excellent example of a semiotic property of objects concerns knowledge about object functions. conventional object uses (e.g., cups should be used for drinking) are culturally preferred forms of engaging with things. as such, they cannot be reduced to the “physical” properties of objects (knappett, 2010, see also the notion of canonical affordances in costall & richards, 2013). to become skilful tool users, children first need to grasp the cultural norms of object use (rodríguez, 2012). several studies have shown that babies begin to use artifacts according to their cultural function around their first birthday (see rodríguez et al., 2018). and since object functions only become available when demonstrated (horst et al., 2005, p. 616), this cognitive achievement depends upon communication processes that take place through a wide range of semiotic resources (e.g., use demonstrations; ostensive, indexical, and symbolic gestures; language) that adults deploy within situations of triadic interaction (adult-baby-object), specifically in contexts of “natural pedagogy” (alessandroni, 2023; gergely & csibra, 2013; nonaka & goldfield, 2018; nonaka & stoffregen, 2020; rodríguez & moro, 1999). 6) note that we are not arguing that so-called “abstract concepts” (e.g., the love concept) do not exist. as is the case with other “abstract” cognitive phenomena (e.g., imagination or memory), it is very likely that “abstract” concepts are more material than is usually recognised (i.e., that abstract conceptual thinking involves actual material engagement) (malafouris, 2020). it should also be pointed out that abstract conceptual thinking is not the starting point of our cognitive system, but a developmental achievement that supervenes on minimal ways of conceptually engaging with material culture. conceptual thinking in material engagement 92 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ considering the semiotic complexity of the material world, rather than conceptual thinking taking its general character from the gathering of similar things at the physical level, or from the gathering of abstractions in some kind of purely mental realm, we propose that: p2: conceptual thinking (i.e., conceptual material engagement) is general inasmuch as it aggregates common, recurrent enactive meanings. when we speak of meaning, we are not referring to the semantic content of mental representations, but to the “emergent product of the relational process of engagement with the material world” (iliopoulos, 2016, p. 114). in this performative sense, meaning refers to how individuals create, discover, perceive, and act upon affordances, which are the possibilities for interaction that specific material engagement processes bring forth. meaning-making, in turn, is the process of creative enrichment of the transactional resourcefulness of the environment that material engagement situations spur. indeed, every instance of material engagement opens up new opportunities for interaction, scaffolds further semiotic encounters with the world (hoffmeyer, 2014), and sets up action boundaries that constrain subsequent engagement. further, as certain forms of material engagement are more relevant than others within specific socioma­ terial practices, they become recurrent. for example, in specific contexts—usually modern and western based—while eating at the table, the most relevant way of engaging with spoons, forks, and knives is, typically, to perform conven­ tional uses. this recurrence over time gives rise to general enactive (i.e., action-oriented) meanings and fosters the construction of potentials for behaviour that can be transferred “across extended periods of time and across different environments and situations” (adolph, 2019, p. 182). to use the same example, throughout life, individuals become skilled at engaging with various eating artefacts belonging to the same class (e.g., spoons) in similar functional ways. asserting that material engagement can have a general nature acknowledges the fact that individuals come to engage with specific environmental affordances in recurrent meaningful ways.7 wertsch (1998) supports this idea when noting that “once one becomes somewhat proficient at riding one bicycle, one is not limited to riding that bicycle alone” (pp. 31–32, see also oakes, 2008, p. 255). indeed, thanks to the real-time entanglement with materiality, subjects become more and more skilful in knowing how to turn the material world into an active resource (malafouris & koukouti, 2018, pp. 174–175). through material engagement, individuals develop the ability to generalise forms of know-how and apply them in future interactions. we argue that expanding functional behaviours to new exemplars within a category in line with shared socio-cultural norms of object use is tantamount to developing a kind of conceptual thinking (i.e., conceptual material engagement). what unites the various instances of practical thinking within this engagement is not perceptual similarity, but functional resemblances. these functional resemblances minimise uncertainty about how to engage with the environment through skilled agency, provide new foundations for successful interaction, and allow the subject to move from an undifferentiated environment to a situation where some particular affordances are more relevant than others (de carvalho & rolla, 2020). as brinck and reddy (2020) put it, “increasing material engagement results in new ways of organizing actions and groups with new concepts developing that reflect the changes, and interaction with these concepts generates feedback-loops that cause re-organisation of the actions and groups, et cetera” (p. 34). as a result, successful material engagement brings forth new degrees of semiotic freedom (hoffmeyer, 2015), the capacity to derive useful information by help of semiosis. this takes us to our third principle: p3: conceptual thinking brings forth new types of semiotic constraints (i.e., changes in the semiotic landscape of affordances), allowing subjects to perceive and use different types of meanings in increasingly varied contexts. as per met, materiality could not but be active in these processes of signification. things are fundamental because they act as material anchors for conceptual blends88 (hutchins, 2005) and support concept formation by “enhancing and tightening conceptual blends in a memorable and durable manner” (malafouris, 2013, p. 104). in everyday life, “material elements are taken as proxies for relationships among conceptual elements” (hutchins, 2005, p. 1562). in this regard, 7) see bruineberg et al. (2019) for a discussion on general ecological information and attracting affordances (solicitations), and heras-escribano et al. (2024) for a related analysis of embodied concepts as affordance-based states bridging experience and discursive or explicit conceptual content. alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 93 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ concepts are very much material. in recent works, overmann (2019b, 2023) exemplified this showing how the concept number acquired, throughout history, different structural properties as new material forms were incorporated into the cognitive system for numbers (i.e., fingers, tallies, tokens, and notations). in effect, putting such things to use constitutes conceptual formation and reformation; without processes of material engagement, neither cognitive processes nor, therefore, concepts could exist. extending malafouris’ notion of human cognition as a hylonoetic9 field—a mindscape extending into the extra organismic environment (malafouris, 2013, 2019)—we suggest that: p4: conceptual thinking always takes place within a hylonoetic field constituted by bodily practices and artefacts, often in the presence of and in interaction with others. during ontogenesis, action develops “not as an individual act, but as a social one: by exchanging things with the other, by touching things, and looking at them with the other” (werner & kaplan, 1963, pp. 42–43). in other words, most actions that children come to perform with things are, in the beginning, collective projects embedded in a community of practice (lave & wenger, 1991/2008; vygotsky, 1934/2008). there is empirical evidence that triadic interactions involving material culture (adult-object-baby) occur from the beginning of life and have a significant influence on the shaping of cognitive processes (e.g., alessandroni et al., 2020; mendoza-garcía & moreno-núñez, 2023). this is so because “even when the child cannot blend in the same communicative act one object and another person, he is placed by others in meaning-loaded material scenarios” (alessandroni et al., 2020, p. 1556, emphasis ours). caregivers act as ambassadors for their children, dynamically modulating the opportunities for action their infant can access (moreno-núñez et al., 2017; nonaka & goldfield, 2018). simultaneously, caregivers introduce their infants to the culturally relevant action formats that adults already embody during interaction (kärtner, 2018). as gallagher (2020b) nicely puts it, “other people afford a variety of interactions” (p. 10) and, in doing so, they (en)actively shape the ways children interact with things. besides granting greater semiotic freedom, conceptual thinking in material engagement enhances communication among indi­ viduals, thus gaining social relevance throughout life. for gallagher and ransom (2016), for example, across the life span, material culture is fundamental for social coordination: joint action is “materially constrained and materially enabled” (p. 349), and material artefacts allow for the coordination of social forces in unique ways. without doubt, recurrent patterns of activity involve a non-discursive, enactive, and situated normativity: once specific interactive formats become ritualised (rączaszek-leonardi et al., 2019), adults expect children to be increasingly capable of engaging with material culture in a skilful and stable manner. thereby, action becomes “subject to normative assessment as better or worse, as more or less correct given the specific demands of the situation” (kiverstein & rietveld, 2018, p. 154). the points we have made so far bring us closer to a fuller understanding of the complexity of the circumstances of action (gallagher, 2020b), which involve not only elements such as the movements of the agent in her environment, her skills, her intentions, her interactions with others, the objects/artefacts available in the environment, their physical and sociocultural characteristics, and the effects or consequences of the action, but also how other people, as interpreters of the action, operate (see gallagher, 2020b, p. 12). to summarise, the point we are making here is that conceptual thinking in material engagement is intersubjectively enabled and constituted. paraphrasing cole (1985, p. 158), we would say that conceptual thinking is peopled by others. due to these essential linkages between conceptual material engagement and socialisation, we propose that: p5: conceptual thinking always originates in the cognitive context of sociomaterial normative practices. finally, it remains to address the problem of conceptual codification: what could concepts be if not propositional representations? according to met, the effectiveness of material culture does not consist in its potentiality to be 8) according to fauconnier and turner (2002), conceptual blends are integration networks where the projection and elaboration of two input mental spaces lead to the construction of a novel blended space with emergent dynamics. hutchins' studies have convincingly shown that input spaces need not be representational or abstract: material culture can provide direct input to conceptual blending processes. 9) the term hylonoetic comes from the greek hyle (matter) and nous (mind). malafouris (2013, p. 236) advocates a hylonoetic ontology (i.e., centred on the processes of thinking through and with matter) opposed to the orthodox hylomorphic ontology, which assumes thinking to be the imposition of form (greek morphé) on matter. conceptual thinking in material engagement 94 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ represented, but in the fact that it allows us to think and gain new understanding by engaging with it (malafouris 2013, 2016). in other words, thinking as “thinging should not be understood as a psychological process of internalisation or representation” (malafouris, 2019, p. 7), but as an action-oriented engagement. focusing on the actual processes of organism-environment interaction, we are arguing that conceptual thinking should be investigated as a case of skilled performance that takes place in material engagement. our view aligns with contemporary contributions that do not simplify knowledge to the possession of well-suppor­ ted beliefs, nor reduce rationality to the contemplation of rules in the mind (e.g., hetherington, 2011; melser, 2004; schwitzgebel, 2013). according to such critical epistemologies, intelligent action is a practice or custom in which an agent sustains a proficient interaction with the environment, which requires the coordination of cognitive abilities to situational constraints (e.g., rolla, 2021; see also wittgenstein, 1953/2009). therefore, it is plausible to consider concepts as enactive dynamics of a general nature that unfold in and with the world. similar to the term “mind” (malafouris, 2019, p. 5), the term “concept” can be better understood as a verb: p6: we concept every time we proficiently take part in material engagement processes through concept-like behaviours. examples of these behaviours are to engage in a similar way with different members of a category (e.g., to drink from several cups), and to establish differential engagement processes with members of two or more different categories. these kinds of behaviours can be observed from very early ages at the infant school, where children as young as 11 months of age already materially engage in a conceptual way with several things (e.g., pacifiers, cups, and bibs). besides, as children develop, they become more skilled at bringing forth canonical ways of materially engaging with the world to fulfil essential functions such as self-regulation, communication with others, and understanding others’ intentions (see alessandroni, 2021, 2023). it is worth emphasising that we are not just claiming that conceptual thinking develops thanks to our engagement with material culture (i.e., that materiality plays a causal role for conceptual thinking), but also the stronger hypothesis that certain instances of material engagement are actual cases of conceptual thinking (i.e., that materiality plays a constitutive role for conceptual thinking). if concepting is not a matter of forming mental representations but of practically engaging with the material and social world, then conceptual thinking is to be found distributed within the cognitive system in which such engagement develops, and not in a subsystem of one of the system’s participants (i.e., the individual’s cognitive system). malafouris (2013) sums it up by saying that “there is no mind behind the artefact” (p. 34). in other words, concepts inhabit the practical contexts in which they emerge: p7: a concept is practically instantiated in the brain-body-world enactive network from which it emerges thanks to processes of material engagement. the consideration of these principles (p1–p7) leads us to an ecological-enactive, pragmatic, distributed, and semiotic definition of conceptual thinking: conceptual thinking is a case of unmediated practical knowledge individuals put into play every time they engage, in a generalising manner, with and through the world. developmentally, concepts can be described as semiotic bundles of material engagement processes: common meanings built through our history of material engagement. as such, they come down to the dynamic coordination of bodily practices and artefacts that takes place in the arena of sociomaterial activities. in short, to “have a concept” is to be able to think-in-action, with real things, enacting and re-enacting the same pragmatic principles with different exemplars of the same class. in that regard, we propose to understand “concept” as a verb—a way of participating in material engagement through concept-like behaviours. since engaging with things contributes constitutively to conceptual thinking, conceptual thinking is also a kind of material skill, relationally dependent on things: without objects, there would be no concepts. that is why, in our view, concepts belong to subjects as much as they belong to things. once developed, concepts act as potentials for behaviour. they operate as affordances (gallagher, 2017), scaffolding further interactions with the world and allowing individuals to gain access to higher levels of semiotic freedom and to perceive and use different types of meanings in increasingly varied contexts. as concepts exemplify how materiality brings about new modes of acting and thinking, conceptual thinking is, in fact, conceptual thinging. alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 95 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wrapping up in this article, we advocated for a significant shift in our understanding of conceptual thinking, utilising material engagement theory (met). we began by addressing two critical issues within mainstream concept theories. the first one involves the understanding of concepts as perceptual abstractions that gather things that look alike. such a perspective fails to consider the pragmatic contexts that give meaning and structure to perception. the second problem is the oblivion of the cognitive relevance of materiality. in confining concepts to the dimension of the abstract mind, mainstream theories detach conceptual thinking from material culture: conceptual activity occurs in the mind, and things are epiphenomenal. in contrast, empirical research has recently emphasised the superlative importance of material culture for cognition and argued that conceptual thinking cannot be defined without acknowledging our interactions with real things within cultural activities. in this context, we argued that met offers an adequate framework for reconsidering the nature of cognition. for met, cognition happens in the dynamical relations between brains, bodies, and the world, thanks to processes of material engagement that give rise to enactive meanings. cognition is situated within cultural activities where materiality plays an active role. in this respect, we advanced seven principles for redefining conceptual thinking. according to met, conceptual thinking is a form of unmediated practical knowledge enacted whenever individuals engage with materiality in a generalising manner. it originates from recurrent sociomaterial practices and involves the construction of common enactive meanings and action boundaries through thinging (i.e., thought processes with/ through/about things). a concept is not a definition codified in the mind but an act of participation in material engagement processes. in that respect, conceptual thinking is distributed across the brain-body-world enactive network from which it emerges. by focusing on the dynamics of our interaction with the world and the constitutive role of material culture for conceptual thinking, our proposal counters orthodox representational and abstract perspectives, addressing the issues outlined in the first section of the paper. furthermore, our sociomaterial practice-based framework provides a robust foundation for empirical research, facilitating a deeper understanding of the cognitive ecologies where conceptual material engagement takes place.10 this perspective contributes to the much-needed material turn in the sciences of the mind, offering insights into how materiality makes us who we are. funding: nicolás alessandroni received financial support for this research from the ministry of education, culture, and sport (mecd, spain) through the fpu16/05358 grant. his current research is funded by an frqsc postdoctoral fellowship (b3z, #333109). lambros malafouris’ work is supported by the european research council consolidator grant handmade (no. 771997; european union horizon 2020 programme). shaun gallagher’s research is supported by the australian research council (arc) grant “minds in skilled 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(2018). sameness may be a natural concept that does not require learning. psychological science, 29(7), 1185–1189. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618758669 about the authors nicolás alessandroni is an frqsc postdoctoral fellow at the concordia infant research laboratory (concordia university, canada). he received his phd in psychology from the universidad autónoma de madrid (spain) with a project investigating the relationship between object use and the early development of conceptual thinking from an ecological-enactive approach to cognition. in 2023, he was honoured with the prestigious doctoral dissertation award by the jean piaget society (usa). his other research interests include the development of intentional understanding and the philosophy of knowledge. lambros malafouris is professor of cognitive and anthropological archaeology at the institute of archaeology and tutorial fellow in archaeology and anthropology at hertford college, university of oxford. he is author of how things shape the mind: a theory of material engagement (mit press, 2013). he is also pi of handmade: understanding creative gesture in pottery making, funded through a european research council consolidator grant (no. 771997; european union horizon, 2020 programme). shaun gallagher, phd, hon dphil., is the lillian and morrie moss professor of excellence in philosophy at the university of memphis, and professorial fellow at the school of liberal arts, university of wollongong (au). he has held honorary professorships at tromsø university (norway); durham (uk) and copenhagen (dk), as well as visiting positions at cambridge, lyon, paris, berlin, oxford and rome. his areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of mind, embodied cognition, social cognition, and con­ cepts of self. his recent publications include the self and its disorders (oxford 2024); embodied and enactive approaches to cognition (cambridge 2023); action and interaction (oxford 2020); performance/art: the venetian lectures (milan 2021); the phenomenological mind (routledge 2021 – 3rd ed); enactivist interventions: rethinking the mind (oxford 2017); and as co-editor the oxford handbook of 4e cognition. he is editor-in-chief of the journal phenomenology and the cognitive sciences. alessandroni, malafouris, & gallagher 103 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(2), 84–103 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13227 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03217474 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327647jcd0301_2 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01257 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4446-y https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.409 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-02013-8 https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800370685 https://doi.org/10.1111/caim.12345 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618758669 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conceptual thinking in material engagement (introduction) mainstream concept theories and their problems perception cannot do without action cognition is not just about materiality but also with it met: cognition as material engagement the mind is extended materiality is meaningful agency in material engagement conceptual thinking as conceptual thinging wrapping up (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the theory of planned behavior: selected recent advances and applications editorial the theory of planned behavior: selected recent advances and applications michael bosnjak* a, icek ajzen b, peter schmidt cd [a] zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, trier, germany. [b] department of psychological and brain sciences, university of massachusetts amherst, amherst, ma, usa. [c] centre for development and environment (zeu), university of gießen, gießen, germany. [d] department of psychosomatic medicine, university of mainz, mainz, germany. abstract this editorial gives a brief introduction to the articles included in the thematic section of europe's journal of psychology, which is devoted to selected recent advances and applications of the theory of planned behavior (tpb). the five contributions address two thematic streams: (1) adjustments and extensions of the original theory and (2) applications of the tpb in public health and the political sciences. keywords: editorial, theory of planned behavior, theory adjustments, theory extensions, theory applications europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(3), 352–356, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.3107 received: 2020-04-17. accepted: 2020-04-18. published (vor): 2020-08-31. *corresponding author at: zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information, universitätsring 15, 54296 trier, germany. e-mail: mb@leibnizpsychology.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. psychology must be practiced by nonpsychologists. … the secrets of our trade need not be reserved for highly trained specialists. psychological facts should be passed out freely to all who need and can use them. … there simply are not enough psychologists, even including nonprofessionals, to meet every need for psychological services. the people at large will have to be their own psychologists, and make their own applications of the principles that we establish. … our responsibility is less to assume the role of experts and try to apply psychology ourselves than to give it away to the people who really need it. (miller, 1969, pp. 1070-1071) — george miller, “giving psychology away” presidential address to the american psychological association 1969. as of april 2020, the theory of planned behavior (tpb; ajzen, 1991, 2012) has been subject to empirical scrutiny in more than 4,200 papers referenced in the web of science bibliographic database, rendering it one of the most applied theories in the social and behavioral sciences. a thematic treemap analysis (figure 1) reveals that the tpb has received broad attention in areas such as the health sciences, environmental science, business and management, and educational research, fulfilling george miller´s “giving psychology away” request in an ideal sense. europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1. treemap of the behavioral domains in which the theory of planned behavior has been used according to the web of science bibliographic database (as of april 2020). 2952 out of 4230 manuscripts could be assigned to the ten most covered thematic areas. according to the tpb, human behavior is guided by three kinds of considerations: beliefs about the likely consequences of the behavior (behavioral beliefs), beliefs about the normative expectations of others (normative beliefs), and beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate or impede performance of the behavior (control beliefs). in their respective aggregates, behavioral beliefs produce a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the behavior; normative beliefs result in perceived social pressure or subjective norm; and control beliefs give rise to perceived behavioral control or self-efficacy. the effects of attitude toward the behavior and subjective norm on intention are moderated by perception of behavioral control. as a general rule, the more favorable the attitude and subjective norm, and the greater the perceived control, the stronger should be the person’s intention to perform the behavior in question. finally, given a sufficient degree of actual control over the behavior, people are expected to carry out their intentions when the opportunity arises. intention is thus assumed to be the immediate antecedent of behavior. to the extent that perceived behavioral control is veridical, it can serve as a proxy for actual control and contribute to the prediction of the behavior in question (ajzen, 2019a). figure 2 is a schematic representation of the theory. the goal of this editorial is to give a brief overview of the articles in this thematic section of europe's journal of psychology, which is devoted to selected recent advances and applications of the tpb. the five contributions address two thematic streams: (1) adjustments and extensions of the original theory and (2) applications of the tpb in public health and the political sciences. bosnjak, ajzen, & schmidt 353 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 352–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.3107 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2. graphical depiction of the theory of planned behavior (ajzen, 2019b). adjustments and extensions in a contribution entitled “the theory of planned behavior and the social identity approach: a new look at group processes and social norms in the context of student binge drinking”, loren willis, eunro lee, katherine reynolds, and kathleen klik explore whether social identity acts as a driver of existing tpb constructs and may help to explain how abstract group processes impact student binge drinking behavior (willis, lee, reynolds, & klik, 2020). specifically, the interaction between group identification and the importance of drinking to the group’s identity significantly predicted an individual’s attitudes towards binge drinking and perceived social binge drinking norms (descriptive and injunctive), which in turn predicted intentions to binge drink. luigina canova and anna maria manganelli contributed a paper entitled “energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour” (canova & manganelli, 2020). the aim of their study was to explore the determinants of two specific energy-saving behaviors, namely ‘switching off non-essential lights’ and ‘completely switching off electronic devices’. an extended tpb model was employed, considering two components (affective and cognitive) of the attitude towards these behaviours and then adding habit as a new variable. a two-wave prospective study that assessed the presumed antecedents of energy-saving behaviour (wave 1) and the self-reported behavior one month later (wave 2) showed that the inclusion of habit improved the predictive power of the tpb. cognitive attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and habit were significantly related to intentions, and perceived behavioural control was the strongest predictor. in addition, habit moderated some relationships between the tpb constructs and intentions. a different aspect of the tpb is addressed in an article by francesco la barbera and icek ajzen entitled “control interactions in the theory of planned behavior: re-thinking the role of subjective norm” (la barbera & ajzen, 2020a). the authors shed light on perceived behavioral control (pbc) as a moderator of attitude (att) and subjective norm (sn). in three studies dealing with different behaviors (voting, reducing household waste, and energy consumption) the authors show that greater pbc tends to strengthen the relative importance of att in the prediction of intention, whereas strong pbc tends to weaken the relative importance of sn. the theory of planned behavior: advances and applications 354 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 352–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.3107 https://www.psychopen.eu/ latter pattern was observed in relation to injunctive as well as descriptive subjective norms, and it may help explain the relatively weak direct relation between sn and int frequently observed in tpb studies. applications in public health and political science the paper contributed by andrea caputo (“comparing theoretical models for the understanding of health-risk behavior: towards an integrative model of adolescent alcohol consumption”) applied the tpb in combination with the prototype-willingness model (pwm) to predict risky alcohol consumption among adolescents (caputo, 2020). in essence, pwm considers prototype favourability and similarity as an additional behavioral antecedent. the findings show that attitudes and subjective norms served as the best predictors. however, the integrative model combining tpb and pwm had greater explanatory power and provided a better fit to the data compared to any single model. overall, the perceived social approval from significant others and the volitional component seemed to play a central role in understanding adolescents’ alcohol consumption. the fifth paper in this thematic section by francesco la barbera and icek ajzen entitled “understanding support for european integration across generations: a study guided by the theory of planned behavior” explores the antecedents of voting for eu integration in an italian convenience sample (la barbera & ajzen, 2020b). a structural equation model of voting intentions showed an excellent fit to the data, both for the whole sample and for subsamples of young vs. old participants. perceived behavioral control, mainly determined by participants’ beliefs about the difficulties of exerting direct democratic control through citizenship and voting, had a significant effect on intentions to vote in favor of eu integration across age groups. in addition, older people’s intentions were also affected by their attitude towards eu integration, based primarily on their beliefs about losing national identity. concluding remarks the theory of planned behavior continues to offer a useful framework for research in the social and behavioral sciences. the studies reported in this special issue illustrate the ongoing interest in using the tpb to explain and predict behavior in various domains. at the same time, they also show that the theory is a work in progress as investigators continue to explore the intricacies of the structural model like moderating effects of perceived behavioral control and to propose additional factors to account for the complexity of human behavior. references ajzen, i. 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(2020). energy-saving behaviours in workplaces: application of an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour. europe’s journal of psychology, 16(3), 384-400. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1893 caputo, a. (2020). comparing theoretical models for the understanding of health-risk behaviour: towards an integrative model of adolescent alcohol consumption. europe’s journal of psychology, 16(3), 418-436. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2213 la barbera, f., & ajzen, i. (2020a). control interactions in the theory of planned behavior: rethinking the role of subjective norm. europe’s journal of psychology, 16(3), 401-417. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.2056 la barbera, f., & ajzen, i. (2020b). understanding support for european integration across generations: a study guided by the theory of planned behavior. europe’s journal of psychology, 16(3), 437-457. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1844 miller, g. a. (1969). psychology as a means of promoting human welfare. the american psychologist, 24(12), 1063-1075. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0028988 willis, l., lee, e., reynolds, k. j., & klik, k. a. (2020). the theory of planned behavior and the social identity approach: a new look at group processes and social norms in the context of student binge drinking. europe’s journal of psychology, 16(3), 357-383. https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.1900 about the authors michael bosnjak is director of zpid – leibniz institute for psychology information and professor for psychological research methods at the university of trier, germany. he received his doctorate from the university of mannheim, germany, with a thesis on predicting and explaining nonresponse in web surveys based on an extended version of the theory of planned behavior. his research interests include research synthesis methods, consumer/business psychology, and survey methodology. icek ajzen is a social psychologist and professor emeritus at the university of massachusetts amherst. he received his doctorate from the university of illinois at urbana–champaign, and is best known for his work, with martin fishbein, on the theory of planned behavior. peter schmidt is professor emeritus at the university of gießen, germany. he has received his doctorate in sociology and philosophy of science at the university of mannheim, germany, with a thesis on structural equation modeling methods. he has published numerous highly cited research papers on the theory of planned behavior and advanced multivariate methods. theory of planned behavior: advances and applications 356 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(3), 352–356 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i3.3107 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v16i3.1893 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v16i3.2213 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v16i3.2056 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v16i3.1844 https://doi.org/10.1037%2fh0028988 https://doi.org/10.5964%2fejop.v16i3.1900 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ theory of planned behavior: advances and applications adjustments and extensions applications in public health and political science concluding remarks references about the authors couples’ psychological resources and marital satisfaction: the mediating role of marital support research reports couples’ psychological resources and marital satisfaction: the mediating role of marital support keren michael 1 , hasida ben-zur 2 [1] department of social work, department of human services, max stern yezreel valley college, yezreel valley, israel. [2] school of social work, university of haifa, haifa, israel. europe's journal of psychology, 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 received: 2023-04-17 • accepted: 2024-10-08 • published (vor): 2024-11-29 handling editor: james brunton, dublin city university, dublin, ireland corresponding author: keren michael, department of social work, department of human services, max stern yezreel valley college, yezreel valley, 19300, israel. tel: +972 506437530. e-mail: kerenmi@yvc.ac.il abstract the aim of this study was to assess the interdependent relations among psychological resources, marital support, and marital satisfaction in married couples from the perspective of both dyad members, using the actor-partner-interdependence-model (apim) approach. one hundred and fifty-one heterosexual married couples (n = 302) completed questionnaires assessing psychological resources (dispositional optimism and sense of mastery), marital support, marital satisfaction, social desirability, and demographic variables. structural equation modeling (sem) was used to test a proposed mediation model adopting the dyadic approach. it was found that husbands’ and wives’ own psychological resources contributed positively to their own perceptions of marital support and that marital support mediated the effects of these resources on their own (actor–actor effect) and on their spouses’ marital satisfaction (actor–partner effect). the results highlight the important contribution of each dyad member’s own psychological resources, as well as the valuable role of perceived support as a mediator, regardless of gender. hence, clinical practice should encourage individuals to invest in maintaining their personal assets and abilities because of their positive effect on expanding intra and interprocesses of well-being within the marriage. keywords apim, couples/dyads, dispositional optimism, marital satisfaction, marital support, psychological resources, sense of mastery marital satisfaction and marital support married people are subjected daily to interspousal interactions that shape their personal and marital well-being. being married has been shown to be associated with subjective well-being and mental and physical health (schmitt et al., 2007). indeed, married people are found to fare better than divorced or widowed persons in terms of well-being as measured by life satisfaction (e.g., ben-zur, 2012). while life satisfaction refers to the personal aspects of life, marital satisfaction is the extent of contentment with different aspects of the marriage (ostovar et al., 2023). as well as being one of the leading indicators of a good marriage and potentially predicting a long-lasting relationship, it is also a protective factor against adverse outcomes of life events. for example, omani-samani et al. (2018) demonstrated negative correlations between marital satisfaction and hospital anxiety or depression among individuals (113 men and 141 women) suffering from couple infertility. a variety of factors can potentially affect marital satisfaction, including demographics such as the age and gender of each dyad member, personal qualities, and the family’s socioeconomic status (schmitt et al., 2007). however, in a study this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.11769&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2024-11-29 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2662-6362 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ by schmitt et al. (2007), most of the socioeconomic variables and the big five personality traits showed non-significant associations with marital satisfaction. similarly, omani-samani et al. (2018) found no association between marital satisfaction and gender, education, or age. within the family, a variable that can contribute to marital satisfaction is interspousal support. similar to social support, marital support can take various forms, e.g., tangible, informational, and emotional support. in addition, the amount of support that is received and support adequacy may vary (lawrence et al., 2008). marital support may be essential in solving personal and marital problems and in dealing actively with stressful events; marital support can be a buffer between stress and outcomes such as distress, anxiety, and depression. it can be assumed that these functions of interspousal support result in elevated well-being. in this study, we examined marital satisfaction and its contributing factors among heterosexual couples using the actor-partner-interdependence-model (apim) approach (cook & kenny, 2005). the apim approach assesses associa­ tions between variables at the dyad member level by estimating the withinand between-partner effects. in this way, individuals’ variables are associated with their own variables (actor effect) but also with those of the variables of the other member (partner effect). this approach is considered the most appropriate to account for dyadic processes (proyer et al., 2019) because, for example, it perceives husband and wife as a single unit rather than two distinct people and allows the use of paired data (du et al., 2021). using the supplement to apim—the apimem (ledermann et al., 2011)—we tested whether marital support mediates the association between psychological resources considered to be resilience factors and marital satisfaction. resilience and psychological resources resilience in this study context is defined as an attribute characterizing people by the way they overcome stressful circumstances (connor & davidson, 2003). when coping effectively with extreme life events or traumatic experiences, the idea of resilience is interlocked well with the concept of resources: “personal resources are aspects of the self that are generally linked to resiliency” (hobfoll et al., 2003, p. 632). conservation of resources (cor) theory (hobfoll, 2001) describes resources as those things that people value, obtain, and maintain, and guard against their loss. examples of resources are objects (house, car), conditions (family, work, health), energies (money, time), and psychological characteristics (dispositional optimism, sense of mastery). thus, resilience characterizes environments that are rich in personal, material, social, and energy resources; and access to these resources promotes resource growth and prevents resource loss (hobfoll et al., 2015). when husbands and wives possess personal resources, such as dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, self-esteem, self-efficacy, or flexibility, they can cope effectively with marital problems and other stressful events, presumably resulting in higher marital satisfaction. moreover, following hobfoll et al. (2015), personal resources are expected to strengthen other resources such as marital support, which in turn is likely to contribute to marital satisfaction. there­ fore, in this study, we utilized two personal, psychological resources—dispositional optimism and sense of mastery—that play a prominent role in coping effectively with stressors (e.g., hobfoll, 2001; lazarus & folkman, 1984; mcewen et al., 2015). optimism represents “the extent to which people hold generalized favorable expectancies for their future” (carver et al., 2010, p. 879). this characteristic leads to continued efforts to deal with problems (scheier & carver, 1985) and is linked to task-focused tendencies (carver et al., 2010). mastery is one of many concepts that are included in the general category of control and represents the perception of a link between self-performed actions and outcomes (pearlin & schooler, 1978). this characteristic “refers to the extent to which people see themselves as being in control of the forces that importantly affect their lives” (pearlin et al., 1981, p. 340). the psychological characteristics of optimism and mastery promote adjustment to stressful events (gallagher et al., 2019; julian et al., 2021) and prior empirical research supports this contention. for example, a greater gain of mastery was found to be related to lower depression and anger among low-income women (hobfoll et al., 2003), and optimism was negatively associated with ptsd among such women (lillis et al., 2018). psychological resources are assumed to contribute not only to adaptation to stressful life events but also to subjective well-being and positive adjustment in everyday life (e.g., lazarus & folkman, 1984). indeed, it was shown that mastery couple’s resources and marital well-being 304 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and optimism were positively related to life satisfaction, an indicator of well-being, among both adolescents and adults (ben-zur, 2003), among turkish students and academic staff (yetim, 2003), and among israeli jewish and arab students (zeidner & ben-zur, 2013). these resources, together with self-esteem and social support, were also shown to mediate the effects of health on students’ general well-being (ben-zur, 2020). the findings described above, and cor theory (hobfoll, 2001), suggest that optimism and mastery are two personal resources that have the potential to contribute to marital well-being. a tendency to be highly optimistic leads to positive beliefs regarding future occurrences and thus can shape positive views about marital interactions and the ability to solve future intramarital conflicts. similarly, since a high level of mastery entails beliefs about one’s ability to control outcomes, it can also lead to the conviction that marital problems and disputes can be overcome. psychological resources, marital satisfaction, and marital support the present study focused on the contributing role of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery to marital well-being through the mediation of marital support. as for the associations between these psychological resources and marital satisfaction, the results obtained thus far are equivocal. of the two resources, mainly optimism was investigated and was positively related to marital satisfaction in 56 couples in which the woman had breast cancer (rock et al., 2014) and in 80 couples coping with infertility (ostovar et al., 2023). in a longitudinal study with couples using apim approach, for wives but not for their husbands, optimism was found to be related to their own (actor effect) and their husbands’ (partner effect) marital satisfaction (terveer & wood, 2014). in contrast, in a study that examined fathers and mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder, also using apim approach (ekas et al., 2015), optimism was not significantly correlated with marital satisfaction. regarding mastery, to the best of our knowledge, no study to date has investigated its effects on marital satisfaction. as for the associations between psychological resources and marital support, since optimism and mastery are con­ sidered resilience resources, it was assumed that such qualities would be expressed in better interpersonal relationships. they can lead to both dyad members’ enhanced ability to acquire marital support, which helps them deal with everyday problems and marital issues by providing advice, performing valuable actions, and/or giving emotional support and sympathetic encouragement. indeed, some studies that used the apim approach found positive associations between optimism and marital support (segel-karpas & arbel, 2022; smith et al., 2013). numerous studies showed positive associations between marital support and marital satisfaction (e.g., işık & kaya, 2022; perlowski & wright, 2021). for example, among 248 married dyads of israeli male combat commanders and their female spouses (zitronblat, & dekel, 2021), higher levels of perceived support by husbands/wives were associated with higher levels of their own marital satisfaction (actor effect), as well as with their spouses’ marital satisfaction (partner effect). similarly, among 483 young adult married dyads, both husbands and wives reported higher marital satisfaction when wives sensed greater support from their husbands, even if the husbands were drinking heavily (windle & windle, 2019). when analyzing various support types, positive associations were reported between four types of interspousal support (emotional, instrumental/information, appraisal, and social companionship) and marital satisfaction for both men and women among 195 married dyads (yedirir & hamarta, 2015). as for the associations between psychological resources, marital support, and marital satisfaction, in an earlier study that used apim approach, srivastava et al. (2006) showed that optimism among 108 dyads of dating undergraduates contributed to their perception of support from their boyfriend/girlfriend, and this perceived support mediated the effect of optimism on relationship satisfaction. regarding mastery, no previous study examined its associations with either marital satisfaction or support. aims and hypotheses to sum up, few prior studies have assessed the effects of psychological resources on aspects of marital well-being. it was suggested that the legal and interpersonal commitment is stronger among married couples than among cohabiting couples, who have more joint investments and prescribed social roles (blekesaune, 2018), and therefore the focus of this study was on married couples. since it was claimed that marital support leads to marital satisfaction, we tested a sem michael & ben-zur 305 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ model in which psychological resources are associated with marital support, which, in turn, is associated with marital satisfaction among couples. this analysis was examined using apimem (the extension of apim to mediation testing), observing both actor and partner effects. we assumed that one’s own or one’s spouse’s psychological resources of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery affects perceptions of interspousal support, and that this sense of support will lead to one’s own or the spouse’s marital satisfaction. the study hypotheses were as follows: • h1) there will be positive associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction among husbands and among wives: a) individuals’ own psychological resources will be associated with their own marital satisfaction (actor effect). b) individuals’ own psychological resources will be associated with their spouses’ marital satisfaction (partner effect). • h2) there will be positive associations between psychological resources and marital support among husbands and among wives: a) individuals’ own resources will be associated with their own marital support (actor effect). b) individuals’ own resources will be associated with their spouses’ marital support (partner effect). • h3) there will be positive associations between marital support and marital satisfaction among husbands and among wives: a) individuals’ own marital support will be associated with their own marital satisfaction (actor effect). b) individuals’ own marital support will be associated with their spouses’ marital satisfaction (partner effect). • h4) marital support will mediate the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction among husbands and among wives: a) one’s own marital support will mediate the association of individuals’ own resources with their own marital satisfaction (actor–actor effect). b) one’s own marital support will mediate the association of individuals’ own resources with their spouses’ marital satisfaction (actor–partner effect). c) one’s own marital support will mediate the association of spouses’ resources with individuals’ own marital satisfaction (partner–actor effect). d) one’s own marital support will mediate the association of spouses’ resources with spouses’ marital satisfaction (partner–partner effect). method sample and procedure the sample included 151 heterosexual couples (n = 302). this sample size is appropriate according to the monte carlo simulation determination for sample size for mediation analysis (apimem) within the apim approach. the calculation revealed that the recommended sample size for the direct effects was between 61 to 111 couples, and for the indirect effects was between 65 to 144 couples (ledermann et al., 2022). the couples had been married for an average of 13.59 (sd = 11.27) years. the husbands’ mean age was 41.26 (sd = 10.14), and they reported an average of 15.09 (sd = 2.87) years of education. the wives’ mean age was 38.21 (sd = 9.63), and they reported an average of 15.41 (sd = 2.38) years of education. most of the participants were born in israel (86% of the husbands and 90% of the wives), were jewish (78% and 79% of husbands and wives, respectively), and about 80% reported having children (1–5). graduate students approached married couples in the community within the age range of 30–65 years and who spoke hebrew fluently. the couples participated in the study voluntarily. each couple received two assessment packets, and each dyad member completed the questionnaires independently. the respondents were informed that the question­ naires included items related to individual differences in attitudes, feelings, and cognitions, and were assured that their responses would be coded anonymously. the study was approved by the institution’s human subject committee. inventories background information included gender, age, number of years of formal education, country of origin, number of years of marriage, and number of children. the correlations between the husbands and the wives’ reports of years of marriage and the number of children were 0.97 and 0.98, respectively, suggesting that their reports in terms of these demographics were accurate. the following questionnaires were used: couple’s resources and marital well-being 306 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dispositional optimism evaluated by a hebrew version (ben-zur, 2012) of the life orientation test (lot), first introduced by scheier and carver (1985). the lot is composed of eight items (e.g., “in uncertain times, i usually expect the best”), rated on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). an optimism score is created by computing the mean of all items (after reversing four items) with a high mean score indicating an optimistic tendency. the internal reliability and test-retest of the lot were satisfactory (α = 0.76, rtt = 0.79; scheier & carver, 1985). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha was 0.79 for husbands and 0.74 for wives. sense of mastery assessed using the hebrew version (hobfoll & walfisch, 1984) of a scale developed by pearlin and schooler (1978). the scale is composed of seven items (e.g., “i have little control over the things that happen to me”) rated on a 7-point likert scale (1 = not at all characteristic of me; 7 = very characteristic of me). a mean score is computed (after reversing five of the items), with a high score indicating a high level of mastery. hobfoll and walfisch (1984) reported test-retest reliability of rtt = 0.85, with reasonable internal reliability (α = 0.75). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha was 0.75 both for husbands and for wives. marital support each one of the dyad members’ perception of his/her spouse’s support was measured by a 6-item hebrew scale developed by altus (2004). each item refers to the ability to turn to the spouse regarding issues such as getting advice, help, or emotional support (e.g., “i feel i can turn to my spouse when i am hurt by someone”). the items are rated on a 1–4 likert scale (1 = not at all; 4 = very easily), with a high score indicating a high level of marital support. altus (2004) reported internal reliability of α = 0.83 for men. in the present study, cronbach’s alpha was 0.89 for husbands and 0.86 for wives. marital satisfaction the hebrew version (tal-katz, 2003) of the kansas marital satisfaction scale (kmss; schumm et al., 1985) was used to measure husbands and wives’ marital satisfaction. the scale consists of three items referring to marital satisfaction (e.g., “how satisfied are you with your husband/wife as a spouse?”) and is rated on a 1–7 rating scale (1 = not satisfied at all; 7 = very satisfied). the scale’s reliability and validity were recently reconfirmed (omani-samani et al., 2018) with high reliability values for both men and women (α = 0.91 and .89, respectively). in the present study, cronbach’s alpha was 0.95 for husbands and 0.96 for wives. social desirability a hebrew adaptation (ben-zur & michael, 2020) of the 8-item social desirability questionnaire (crowne & marlowe, 1964) was employed to control for potential social desirability in responding to the self-report measures. each item is marked as true or untrue, and the scale score is the total count of answers denoting high social desirability (α = 0.67; ben-zur & michael, 2020). in the present study, the kuder-richardson (kr-20) coefficient was 0.70 for husbands and 0.64 for wives. data analysis data analyses were conducted by the spss program (version 25). r software via monte carlo simulation [packages: “lavaan” (rosseel, 2012), “paramtest” (hughes, 2022), “simsen” (pornprasertmanit et al., 2022)] was used for the determi­ nation of the sample size (ledermann et al., 2022). means and standard deviations were carried out, and paired samples t-tests were performed to examine the differences between the husbands’ and wives’ variables. pearson correlations among dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, marital support, marital satisfaction, and social desirability were tested separately for husbands and wives (actor-level correlations) and between the spouses’ variables (partner-level correlations). r software via “lavaan” package (rosseel, 2012) was used for cfa and apimem. cfa via the ml estimation method was performed on the item scores of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery to examine the michael & ben-zur 307 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ distribution to two factors. apimem using sem via the mlr estimation method was used to test the proposed research model, in which, initially, psychological resources were tested as associated with marital satisfaction (h1; path c). then, psychological resources were tested as associated with marital support (h2; path a); which, in turn, was tested as associated with marital satisfaction (h3; path b), and finally, marital support was tested as a mediator of the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction (h4; path ab). within the proposed research model, according to ackermann et al. (2011), the distensibility of parameter estimates between husbands and wife was tested through three steps: initially, examining similarities of the associations among husbands and wives (b scores); then, examining similarities of the means in the variables psychological resources, marital support, and marital satisfaction; finally, examining similarities of the variance in theses variables among husbands and wives. hence, the proposed research model included some restrictions: the association between the same variable for the different actors (husbands and wives) was equal (for example, the association between husbands’ marital support and husbands’ marital satisfaction was equal to the association between wives’ marital support and wives’ marital satisfaction). additionally, all the associations between same variable for different partners were equal (for example, the association between husbands’ marital support and wives’ marital satisfaction was equal to the association between wives’ marital support and husbands’ marital satisfaction). lastly, all the variances of the same variables for different partners were equal (for example, the variance of marital satisfaction for husbands were equal to the variance of marital satisfaction for wives). however, the means of the same variables for different partners were not equal. in the model tested, all combinations of actor/partner effects were tested: actor, partner, actor–actor, actor–partner, partner–actor, and partner–partner. apimem using sem was also performed to test an alternative option: the above model but with no restrictions. another alternative option included controlling demographic variables in the model. for this examination, correlations were initially calculated between marital support/marital satisfaction and the demographic variables. another alterna­ tive option included performing apim using sem to test a model, in which dispositional optimism, mastery, and marital support were three indicators of the latent variable of psychological resources, which was tested as associated with marital satisfaction. when comparing between the proposed research model and alternative models, chi-square tests for goodness of fit were calculated. additionally, all models’ fit indices were evaluated based on hair et al. (2010) and on hu and bentler’s (1999) recommendations for acceptable threshold value levels: ratio of chi-square to degrees of freedom (χ2/df) less than 5.00; tucker-lewis index (tli) and comparative fit index (cfi) greater than 0.90; root mean square error of approximation (rmsea) and standardized root mean square residual (srmr) less than 0.08. bootstrapping procedure (n = 5,000) and 95% (cis) was used for testing the indirect effects. in general, the defined significance level was set to 5% (p < .05). results preliminary analysis a preliminary analysis was conducted to examine differences between husbands and wives regarding the study vari­ ables, as well as correlations among the variables. table 1 presents participants’ means and standard deviations as observed in the study and the differences between husbands and wives in the variables, using paired samples t-tests. as seen in table 1, husbands and wives did not differ regarding levels of dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, marital satisfaction, or social desirability, except for wives’ perceived marital support, which was higher than that of their husbands. table 2 presents the pearson correlations within the husbands’ and the wives’ variables separately and between the dyad members’ variables. as seen in table 2, in each gender, dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, marital support, and marital satisfaction were positively inter-correlated. additionally, husbands’ dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, marital support, and marital satisfaction were positively inter-correlated with their wives’ variables. as for social desirability, only among couple’s resources and marital well-being 308 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ wives, was it positively correlated with dispositional optimism, sense of mastery, and marital satisfaction. finally, husbands’ social desirability was positively correlated with wives’ social desirability. to sum up table 2 according to cohen’s (1988) interpretation of the strength in pearson’s bivariate correlations, we can see that the correlations between dispositional optimism and sense of mastery, as well as the correlations between marital support and marital satisfaction for each gender were strong (i.e., large effect size occurs when r value is more than .5). similarly, the correlation between husbands’ marital satisfaction and wives’ marital satisfaction was also strong. apimem model testing whether marital support mediates the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction initially, cfa was run on the item scores of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery among husbands and among wives, to test whether the questionnaires are divided into two separated scales. the model, presented in table 3 as model 1, yielded worse fit indices: χ2 = 908.870, df = 399, p < .001; χ2/df = 2.28; tli = 0.660; cfi = .688; rmsea [90% ci] = .092 [0.084, 0.100]; srmr = 0.120. to improve the model, we used parcel method (little at al., 2013) by aggregating two or three items. as seen in table 3, model 2 had good model fit: χ2 = 93.953, df = 71, p = .036; χ2/df = 1.32; tli = 0.964; cfi = .972; rmsea [90% ci] = .046 [0.013, 0.070]; srmr = 0.054. this model revealed the two expected separated scales: dispositional optimism and sense of mastery for each population. table 1 differences in the study variables between husbands and wives husbands wives variable mean sd mean sd t(df) dispositional optimism 3.70 0.70 3.70 0.64 -0.18(150) sense of mastery 5.13 1.04 5.03 0.99 1.07(150) marital support 3.43 0.60 3.57 0.49 -2.62(150)** marital satisfaction 6.14 1.09 6.03 1.09 1.47(150) social desirability 1.55 0.28 1.60 0.26 -0.45(150) *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 2 pearson correlations among the study variables variable 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1.dispositional optimism h 0.49*** 0.33*** 0.25** 0.15 0.26*** 0.21* 0.20* 0.24** 0.08 2.sense of mastery h 0.26*** 0.23** 0.15 0.18* 0.37*** 0.28*** 0.28*** -0.00 3.marital support h 0.68*** 0.11 0.21** 0.32*** 0.34*** 0.40*** 0.09 4.marital satisfaction h 0.07 0.27*** 0.25** 0.42*** 0.63*** 0.07 5.social desirability h -0.05 0.03 -0.04 0.00 0.30*** 6.dispositional optimism w 0.55*** 0.35*** 0.25** 0.30*** 7.sense of mastery w 0.27*** 0.19* 0.17* 8.marital support w 0.62*** 0.05 9.marital satisfaction w 0.16* 10.social desirability w – note. h = husbands; w = wives. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. michael & ben-zur 309 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ based on the cfa analysis and the positive correlations between the optimism and mastery factors (for both husbands and wives: r = .57 and .67, respectively), these two variables were used as indicators of the latent variables of psychological resources within the proposed research model. hence, in the proposed research model, the latent psychological resources variables were the predictors, marital sup­ port variables were the mediators, and marital satisfaction variables were the predicted. the model includes the various combinations of actor/partner effects: actor, partner, actor–actor, actor–partner, partner–actor, and partner–partner. a preliminary analysis that compared two models, with and without restrictions, in order to choose the most parsimoni­ ous model, showed that the difference between the models were not significant (χ2 = 9.62, df = 12, p = .650). thus, we preferred the one with the restrictions. the model generated very good fit indices: χ2 = 34.407, df = 21, p = .033; χ2/df = 1.64; tli = 0.955; cfi = .966; rmsea [90% ci] = .066 [0.019, 0.104]; srmr = 0.056. as seen in table 4 (expressed in b scores) and figure 1 (expressed in beta scores), husbands’ and wives’ psychological resources were associated with their own and their spouses’ marital support, supporting h1a (actor effect) and h1b (partner effect) for the total effect (i.e., path c). however, the direct effect (i.e., path c’) of these associations was not significant. additionally, the resources of both husbands and wives were associated with their own marital support, supporting h2a (actor effect), but not with their spouses’ support, contradicting h2b (partner effect). additionally, husbands’ and wives’ own marital support was highly associated with their own marital satisfaction, supporting h3a (actor effect), and to a lesser degree, but still significant, with their spouses’ marital satisfaction, supporting h3b (partner effect). finally, regarding the indirect effects, husbands’ and wives’ own marital support mediated the associations between their own resources and their own marital satisfaction, supporting h4a (actor–actor effect). similarly, husbands’ and wives’ own marital support mediated the associations between their own resources and their spouses’ marital satisfac­ tion, supporting h4b (actor–partner effect). however, husbands’ and wives’ own marital support did not mediate the table 3 factor loadings for each item of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery for husbands and wives, for model 1 and model 2 standardized factor loadings husbands wives items description model 1 model 2 model 1 model 2 dispositional optimism i always look on the bright side of things 0.90 0.74 0.90 0.69 if something can go wrong for me, it will 0.23 0.06 i’m always optimistic about my future 0.87 0.75 0.95 0.72 i hardly ever expect things to go my way 0.26 0.12 in uncertain times, i usually expect the best 0.70 0.84 0.65 0.74 things never work out the way i want them to 0.31 0.20 i’m a believer in the idea that “every cloud has a silver lining” 0.54 0.67 0.55 0.76 i rarely count on good things happening to me 0.37 0.38 sense of mastery there is really no way i can solve some of the problems i have 0.73 0.79 0.75 0.73 i often feel helpless in dealing with the problems of life 0.41 0.41 there is little i can do to change many of the important things in my life 0.72 0.88 0.79 0.74 i can do just about anything i really set my mind to do 0.48 0.41 sometimes i feel that i’m being pushed around in life 0.59 0.62 0.52 0.67 i have little control over the things happen to me 0.48 0.66 what happens to me in the future mostly depends on me 0.56 0.30 couple’s resources and marital well-being 310 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ associations between their spouses’ resources and their own marital satisfaction, contradicting h4c (partner–actor effect). similarly, husbands’ and wives’ own marital support did not mediate the associations between their spouses’ resources and their spouses’ marital satisfaction, contradicting h4d (partner–partner effect). we also examined alternative models, besides the proposed research model, to verify the best model for analyzing the data. one possible model, not including mediation, is one in which dispositional optimism, mastery, and marital sup­ port are three indicators of the latent variable of resources. this alternative model leans on the theoretical assumption of hobfoll et al. (2003) that marital support is correlated with psychological resources and can be considered an intimate resource. results showed that the fit indices of this alternative model were not acceptable: χ2 = 184.62, df = 25, p < .001; χ2/df = 7.38; tli = 0.553; cfi = .601; rmsea = .208 (ci = 0.180, 0.236); srmr = 0.177. in the alternative model, the chi-square and the aic values were higher than in the proposed research model. hence, this alternative model is a worse one. additionally, in order to examine the need for controlling demographic variables in the model, the correlation between age, years of education, ses, level of religiously, and the mediator (marital support) were performed among each gender, as well as between these demographic variables and the outcome variable (marital satisfaction). the results of most of these correlations were insignificant, and those who were significant had a weak effect size (cohen, 1988). hence, trying various models with the participants’ background data was unnecessary. discussion the aim of the present study was to assess the contribution of the psychological resources of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery, which are considered resilience factors, to marital satisfaction, through the mediation of marital support. the study results showed that the psychological resources of both husbands and wives were associated with their own and their spouses’ marital satisfaction, supporting h1 for both actor and partner effects. additionally, the psychological resources of both husbands and wives were associated with their own marital support, supporting h2 for the actor effect. furthermore, marital support of both dyad members was associated with their own and their spouses’ marital satisfaction, supporting h3 for both actor and partner effects. finally, marital support mediated the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction of both husbands and wives, when the resources were their own. in that way, the actor–actor effect and the actor–partner effect were supported (h4a, h4b, respectively). however, when the resources were their spouses’, marital support did not serve as a mediator. table 4 total, direct, and indirect effects of psychological resources on marital satisfaction through marital support paths description b se 90% ci [ll,ul] psychological resources-> marital satisfaction (a)—path c 0.18 0.08 0.015, 0.337 psychological resources-> marital satisfaction (p)—path c 0.27 0.07 0.132, 0.416 psychological resources-> marital satisfaction (a)—path c’ -0.05 0.06 -0.163, 0.073 psychological resources-> marital satisfaction (p)—path c’ 0.08 0.07 -0.049, 0.215 psychological resources-> marital support (a)—path a 0.16 0.07 0.031, 0.289 psychological resources-> marital support (p)—path a 0.11 0.06 -0.002, 0.227 marital support-> marital satisfaction (a)—path b 1.07 0.11 0.849, 1.297 marital support-> marital satisfaction (p)—path b 0.44 0.10 0.252, 0.625 psychological resources-> marital support-> marital satisfaction (a–a)—path ab 0.17 0.08 0.024, 0.320 psychological resources-> marital support-> marital satisfaction (a–p)—path ab 0.07 0.03 0.013, 0.127 psychological resources-> marital support-> marital satisfaction (p–a)—path ab 0.12 0.06 -0.003, 0.244 psychological resources-> marital support-> marital satisfaction (p–p)—path ab 0.05 0.03 -0.010, 0.109 note. a = actor; p = partner. michael & ben-zur 311 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the most prominent general meaning of the findings relates to the contribution of psychological resources to marital well-being, as assessed by marital support and marital satisfaction. previous research assessed the ameliorating effects of these resources mainly in the context of stress and trauma (e.g., ben-zur & michael, 2012; hobfoll et al., 2003; lillis et al., 2018), and some studies also showed their effects on personal well-being. for example, optimism was found to be positively related to various positive outcomes in life (terveer & wood, 2014), such as subjective well-being, health, and success (forgeard & seligman, 2012). mastery was found to be associated with better mental and physical quality of life among people with multiple sclerosis (o’kearney et al., 2020). however, only one study with very young dating undergraduates showed significant optimism effects on perceived boyfriend/girlfriend support and relationship satisfaction (srivastava et al., 2006), while ekas et al. (2015) found no optimism effects on marital processes. several other studies reported effects of optimism on marital satisfaction (e.g., ostovar et al., 2023; rock et al., 2014), and no study, to our knowledge, showed the effects of mastery on marital processes. the present study, conducted among couples with a wide range of years of marriage, showed that the personal resilience factors of dispositional optimism and sense of mastery can be related to perceiving one’s spouse as supportive figure 1 empirical sem apimem model for marital support mediating the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction of husbands and wives note. solid-line arrow represents significant results. dashed-line arrow represents insignificant results. in the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction, the figure presents c’ (rather than the initial state of c). couple’s resources and marital well-being 312 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in a variety of areas such as giving advice, actual help, and emotional support, and that support was associated with marital satisfaction. this finding means that people with high optimism and mastery may possess an enhanced ability to gain more support from their spouses. additionally, when individuals expect good things to happen in the future and are in control of their present, they can also see others—especially their loved ones—in a positive manner. these perceptions may assist them to perceive their spouses as supportive and helpful. in contrast, a lack of personal resources may create situations where, despite the spouses’ attempts to be there for them or to provide them with actual help, these efforts may not be interpreted as support. furthermore, it should be noted that marital support, as discussed above, is also considered a resource (intimate resource; hobfoll et al., 2003), and family support is measured as one of the components of the resource of social support (zimet et al., 1988). the findings showing that optimism and mastery are associated with marital support are also in line with the cor theory regarding resource gains and losses (hobfoll et al., 2015), which suggests that individuals will be endowed with an array of resources. in other words, rather than replacing each other, resources either accumulate or are reduced as an array. one’s own marital support mediated the effects of individuals’ own resources on their own marital satisfaction (actor–actor effect), but more interestingly, also on their spouses’ marital satisfaction (actor–partner effect). these findings were significant for both dyad members, suggesting that resilience, as exemplified by individuals’ personal psychological resources, and the perception of support are essential for the marital satisfaction of both members of the couple. in that sense, clinical practice should encourage individuals to invest more in maintaining their personal assets and abilities because of their positive effect on expanding intraand inter-processes of well-being within the marriage. these personal resilience qualities cannot be efficiently utilized without people’s valuable belief that they are receiving emotional, instrumental, cognitive, or other feedback from their mates, as seen in the mediating role of marital support. additionally, the results emphasized that leaning on the spouses’ abilities and resources is not enough. in that way, the actor effect in the association between the resources and the marital support was significant, but not the partner effect. these findings led to the different mediation paths, demonstrating that one’s own resources are the more robust anchor in marital support. thus, individuals’ own resources contribute to the well-being of both dyad members through their own perceived support. it should be noted that the qualities and processes found in this study are important for both men and women, since no different paths were observed among husbands and among wives. hence, we can see that, regardless of gender, psychological resources are very dominant in coping and well-being. such reciprocal relationships that include both resources and perceived support can contribute to a long-lasting, happy marriage and have implications for family treatments that deal with dissatisfaction and conflicts in interspousal relationships. strengths and limitations the main advantage of the study was the use of a sample of dyads, which provided two sources of reports from both dyad members, allowing the use of interspousal correlations and the apim approach. additionally, social desirability was measured for both members of the couple; it did not affect the personal and interspousal correlations, thus lending some validity to this mode of measurement. the main disadvantage was the cross-sectional nature of the study, which does not allow a firm establishment of cause-and-effect directions. we tested a research model according to which marital support mediated the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction, and this was confirmed by sem analysis that provided very good fit indices for this model, and better indices than those provided for alternative models. future studies may continue the investigation using longitudinal designs and intervention studies that can shed more light on the complex relations between psychological resources and marital processes. studies such as these can contribute to the clinical treatment of marital problems and bolster couples’ well-being. michael & ben-zur 313 europe's journal of psychology 2024, vol. 20(4), 303–316 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.11769 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors wish to acknowledge dr. or catz for his valuable assistance and insights during the manuscript preparation. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references ackermann, r. a., donnellan, m. b., & kashy, d. a. 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(2021). contribution of mutual perceived support to the marital satisfaction of combat commander couples. journal of military, veteran and family health, 7(s1), 102–110. https://doi.org/10.3138/jmvfh-2021-0034 about the authors keren michael, ph.d., is a senior lecturer in the department of social work and the department of human services at the max stern yezreel valley college in israel. her research interests include coping with stressful events and crises during the life course and reducing the harmful effects of work-related stress in human services organizations. hasida ben-zur, ph.d., is an associate professor (emeritus) in the school of social work at the university of haifa in israel. her research areas include stress theories, coping resources and processes, and coping and health, as well as adjustment and well-being, decision-making, and risk-taking. couple’s resources and marital well-being 316 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2019.02.001 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-014-2209-0 https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02 https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.4.3.219 https://doi.org/10.2190/ag.65.4.a https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1985.56.3.719 https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12688 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.04.006 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.143 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-013-9292-0 https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.13977 https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2015.6.2822 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1021911504113 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.08.033 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 https://doi.org/10.3138/jmvfh-2021-0034 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ couple’s resources and marital well-being (introduction) marital satisfaction and marital support resilience and psychological resources psychological resources, marital satisfaction, and marital support aims and hypotheses method sample and procedure inventories data analysis results preliminary analysis apimem model testing whether marital support mediates the associations between psychological resources and marital satisfaction discussion strengths and limitations (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors unchartered territory: understanding public compliance during the covid-19 pandemic and the effectiveness of uk government communications research reports unchartered territory: understanding public compliance during the covid-19 pandemic and the effectiveness of uk government communications ashley cartwright 1, jason roach 1, liam scott curran 1 [1] crime and policing research centre, university of huddersfield, huddersfield, united kingdom. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 received: 2024-02-13 • accepted: 2025-04-17 • published (vor): 2025-08-29 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, cardiff, united kingdom corresponding author: ashley cartwright, crime and policing research centre, university of huddersfield, hd1 3dh, united kingdom. e-mail: a.cartwright@hud.ac.uk abstract the covid-19 pandemic presented unpresented challenges to societies and the way in which we live, everyday behaviours became prohibited and various parts of the economy were completely shut down in the united kingdom. such draconian and radical changes to everyday life are indeed important to study and the present paper captures a representative response of the compliance to social distancing measures implemented in the united kingdom. this paper explores the effectiveness of the uk government’s messaging aimed at inducing conformity, whilst considering alternative experimental messages designed to influence conformity by targeting demographics using the principles of nudge theory (thaler & sunstein, 2008). an online cross-sectional survey was administered in may/june 2020 to 1028 residents of the uk. a cluster analysis was performed to identify different demographic profiles associated with rule breaking. the findings of the present paper outlined clearly that the uk public struggled to adhere to the social distancing rules implemented with relatively low rates of complete compliance and identified two groups of individuals who although only represent a small percentage of the sample (< 20%) were accountable for the majority of rule breaking behaviour. the findings provide an indication of which measures were viewed as more serious and as such less likely to broken, alongside which demographic groups were the least compliant. regarding the government’s messaging used during the pandemic, this was demonstrated to be more effective than the hypothetical communications used in the present study. the present paper offers, important insights into specific aspects of non-conformity, including contact with the police during this time. the present paper offers important learning lessons to improve adherence to social distancing in the future by providing a breakdown of the areas where social distancing is most likely to breached and an indication of who is likely to do this. keywords compliance, social distancing, covid 19, behavioural change the impact of the covid-19 pandemic was felt, albeit to differing degrees, the world-over. in the uk the pandemic led to a significant disruption to health, wellbeing, and the economy, on a scale and in ways not experienced by society for centuries. throughout the duration of the pandemic, in the uk it was consistently stated by many scientists and members of the government, that the best defence against being totally overwhelmed by covid-19, particularly the national health service (nhs), necessitated a significant behaviour change by the uk population, to slow the transmission of the virus. understanding public compliance with rules that prohibit previously natural behaviours, such as visiting public spaces and socialising with friends and family from different households, is an opportunity to be this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.13965&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-08-29 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ seized. this will allow us to learn important lessons for dealing with future pandemics or other events requiring rapid and unnatural behaviour changes by large populations. to date, there have been few published research studies which have explored conformity or public compliance with rules of social distancing, but these have come to broadly similar conclusions as will be outlined within our literature review. so how did the uk government attempt to achieve a high-level of public compliance with the covid-19 guidance and rules during the pandemic? to encourage the necessary high-level of public compliance with covid-19 rules (e.g., social distancing), the uk government took advice recommended by the uk behavioural insights team (yates, 2020) known colloquially at least as the ‘nudge unit’ as they utilised heavily the ‘nudge’ approach to behavioural change, pioneered by thaler and sunstein (2008). to date, there have been very few studies examining nudging compliance with lockdown measures or evaluating communications for influencing compliance. the present paper is not an endorsement of nudge theory but more an evaluation of the approach taken to influence compliance during the covid 19 pandemic in the united kingdom. indeed, even if one accepts the theoretical basis for nudges, the way in which messages were delivered by the uk government is argued here to be problematic. the reason for this is that the messaging delivered by the uk government were addressed to the nation without knowing the discernible demographic differences aimed at influencing conformity. the present paper takes an exploratory approach to look back at the covid-19 pandemic in the uk and learn lessons for future pandemics about what may work in influencing compliance. to do this, it is argued here, that first we need to understand the uk public’s compliance with covid-19 social distancing rules to a greater extent than is currently known and determine ‘who’ needs to be influenced and ‘what’ behaviours need to be influenced. secondly, an evaluation of the government’s messaging for compliance needs to be retrospectively evaluated alongside alternative communications that were not utilised during the pandemic. to our knowledge, this has not been done before and the present paper, therefore, breaks new exploratory ground. literature review to set the appropriate context, we begin with a short review of what ‘is already known’, about degree of compliance by the uk population to the social distancing rules introduced by the uk government in response to the covid-19 pandemic. smith et al. (2020) used data collected from a representative sample of the uk population, to produce a cross-sectional survey of uk public compliance with social distancing rules. they found that although only 9.7% of the sample reported as having covid-19 symptomology within their household 75.1% of these reported that they had still left their homes within the previous 24 hours, therefore breaching arguably the most important self-isolation (self-quarantine) rule thereby increasing the chances of the virus being transmitted to others (smith et al., 2020). in terms of the demographics of the rule breachers, rather unsurprisingly, the males in this group were found to be more likely to be ‘non-compliant’ with the rules than their female counterparts. unsurprising in the sense that centuries of criminological study highlight young males to be less-risk adverse and more likely to break rules and engage in antisocial behaviour (roach & pease, 2013). in terms of identifying those factors most associated with non-compliance, the authors found that those reported as being most prominent included, not believing that social distancing measures were effective, low estimations of the severity of the virus (i.e., that they will be okay should they contract covid-19), and a low estimate of the extent to which others were complying the rules (smith et al., 2020). hills and eraso (2021) demonstrated further evidence in their study comprising self-report data for 681 residents of north london (uk); again, participants reported that they did not comply strictly with the social distancing rules. indeed, almost half of them reported that they had ignored uk government rules and guidance intentionally. influential factors identified for such participant ‘non-compliance’ included: a perceived lower vulnerability to the virus, having high education attainment levels, and their individual political beliefs. moreover, only a maximum of 8% of participants in this study self-reported that they had recently complied with all the current social distancing rules during a recent (to the conducting of the research) two-week period. in a study of public behaviour involving participants from the republic of ireland and northern ireland, darker et al. (2021) found that those who reported breaking the current social distancing rules, were more likely to be; male, be members of lower socioeconomic groups, be young, be healthcare workers, reported being low in affect (e.g., low cartwright, roach, & curran 161 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mood), and were less likely to live in households with children. one of the more illuminating insights into the level of compliance by the uk public is documented in the ganslmeier et al. (2022) study, which involved 105,000 uk participants. the study revealed a clear relationship between warmer weather conditions and a lack of compliance with regulations. it indicated that, while compliance was generally high, it waned as the months became warmer. non-compliance was particularly associated with young males aged 20 – 30, part-time employees, divorced individuals, and parents of more than two children. further uk based research focused on public behaviour during the covid-19 pandemic by wu et al. (2022) found that compliance with social distancing tended to decay (i.e., decrease) over time. measured at three different points in time during the pandemic, they identified that public compliance significantly reduced as reported by participants in a representative uk sample. this is a consistent with other studies in other european countries, (reinders folmer et al., 2021; rosman et al., 2021) and strongly suggests that if public compliance is greatest at the beginning of a pandemic (e.g., during the first lockdown periods) then this is the optimum time for introducing those proven to be the most effective measures to encourage the public to adopt and sustain behavioural changes for longer periods of time. put simply, although initial compliance is likely to be high, to prevent ‘compliance decay’, then effective messages need to be incorporated if the desired behavioural changes, in terms of social distancing, are to be achieved for longer. this presupposes that we know what the most effective these messages are of course. this is the second purpose of this paper and an area that has not been well explored. theoretical background we only offer a brief introduction to the theoretical foundations of the ‘nudge’ approach and the work of the behavioural insights team to provide the reader with an insight into the theoretical strategy that is reported to have been used by the policy makers. thaler and sunstein’s (2008) ‘nudge approach’ rests on the premise that human behaviour is impressionable through the arrangement and availability of different choices which can and do affect human decision-making. not an entirely new approach to human decision-making, the foundations for nudge rest firmly with behavioural psychologists such as james gibson and the pioneering work of daniel kahneman and amos tversky identifying common cognitive short-cuts and bias in human decision-making, in particular, how the order of presentation of options can influence the choices and decisions that we make. for example, if asked to recall a list of words, we are most likely to remember those at the beginning and those at the end of the list (roach, 2023). thaler and sunstein (2008) state that ‘nudging’ can be used to encourage the adoption of prosocial behaviour, such as increasing the number of willing human organ donors, or compliance with tax demands. in a crime and policing context, more recent explorations of the power of nudge have seen it used to reduce crime, for example by ‘nudging’ potential victims of theft to be a little more safety conscious when leaving their vehicles (e.g., to encourage them to remember lock them’ (roach et al., 2017). it is therefore no surprise that the nudge approach has become an attractive means by which policy makers and politicians can influence the decision-making and consequently the behaviour of members of the public. it is generally accepted that to stand a chance of being effective, ‘nudges’ must be bespoke to those who you wish to influence (roach, 2023). this means that to influence someone then, you need to know as much about them as possible to resonate and relate to them (roach, 2023). nudging therefore works with individuals and groups, not with entire populations made up of many different demographics (e.g., as with the uk) as there are no ‘one-size fits all’ messages which will resonate with all. likewise, the distributor of the message (i.e., the messenger) needs to resonate with the recipient, or the message will have little impact. as any parent will tell you, if you want to influence your teenage child, then you need a teenage child to deliver the message (roach, 2023). nudge approaches are not without their limitations and have come under criticism in psychology (maier et al., 2022) due to the issues associated with evaluating nudges, a lack of clear criteria on the development of nudges and the theoretical framework for developing nudges. additionally, the effectiveness of nudge interventions in research has been demonstrated to be a concerning issue with some arguing that when biases are corrected for there is very little evidence to support the use of nudges (maier et al., 2022). the crux of the issue comes down to the fact that there are too many possible behavioural ‘nudges’, too many ways to influence individuals, and too many behaviours that are targeted uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 162 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ by nudge interventions. therefore, what might be classed as a nudge in one paper can be extremely different to the next. these limitations are not taken lightly in this paper and although the paper is situated within a nudge framework, the reason for doing this is simply due to this being the approach reported to have been used by the uk government to influence conformity. indeed, there are more established theories of compliance and influence that could be adopted in place of nudges. for example, cialdini’s (2021) universal principles of compliance, which have been well-documented for effectively influencing behaviour. cialdini’s principles suggest the following: • reciprocity — we feel compelled to return favours. • commitment and consistency — we prefer to act in accordance with our past behaviour. • social proof — we look to others to determine how to act. • authority — we are more likely to comply with those we perceive as credible or knowledgeable. • liking — we are more likely to comply with those we like. • scarcity — we act urgently when things are available in limited quantities. returning to a covid-19 uk context, there are many theoretical frameworks that could have been utilised during the covid 19 pandemic to improve compliance. however, nudge theory is simply used here as it is what the uk government were utilising at the time of the pandemic. to our knowledge the only attempt to evaluate this theory in the context of pandemic compliance comes from a french study by blayac et al. (2022). this study tested social compliance nudges to determine if they could improve compliance with social distancing interventions. the social compliance nudge involved informing participants about other people’s behaviour and then asking them about their hypothetical future behaviour. although the study did not demonstrate any significant findings overall, it concluded that the nudge was not effective in a general context. however, the location of the individuals on which the social compliance nudge was based was crucial. as such, to date there is very little evidence to support future pandemics about effective communications strategies for influencing conformity. the present study the present study poses two important questions based upon the review of the current literature to provide a better understanding of the uk experience of dealing with the covid-19 pandemic. firstly, to what extent did the uk public comply with the rules of social distancing and which rules were adhered to or ignored the most? secondly, how effective was the uk government’s use of messages utilising nudge theory in encouraging compliance with those social rules? method design a cross-sectional online survey was developed and administered via qualtrics. the survey began collecting participant demographics the second section of the survey was developed to explore what behaviours participants engaged in which were indicative of non-compliance during the covid pandemic and these items are documented in table 1. the third section of the survey presented participants with several real uk government messages used, mixed with six ‘made-up messages’ developed specifically to influence different demographics of the uk public, such as young people, people with children, and older people. these are displayed in table 2. participants were asked to rate on a ten-point scale (0 = not influential and 10 = very influential) their perceived effectiveness of these communication regarding their future behaviour. alongside asking participants to judge the effectiveness of these communications participants were also asked to outline the most influential strategy for deploying these communications by indicating who they would listen to the most. cartwright, roach, & curran 163 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 uk government messages and alternative demographic specific communications to encourage compliance with covid-19 rules during the pandemic nudge communication text aim of message and target audience government advert if you can go out, you can spread it. people will die. stay home. protect the nhs. save lives. government ‘general’ message — aimed at all of uk public. unequivocal — ‘stay home’ message used at the beginning of the pandemic 9 march to may 2020). government text new rules in force now: you must stay at home. more info & exemptions at gov.uk/coronavirus. stay at home. protect the nhs. save lives. continuance of government ‘general’ message aimed at all of uk public. unequivocal — ‘stay home’ message used in the second period of the pandemic (october to december 2020). communication 1 (c1) you are not just doing it for you. do it for the ones you love. do it for those you care about. do it for everybody. aimed at those members of the public with children and extended families. communication 2 (c2) some will ignore the rules. some will think that they do not apply to them. some won’t care about your family and friends. don’t belong to the some. belong to the many. aimed at young males to encourage them to think about compliance for other’s sake. communication 3 (c3) this is our generation’s war and we will win. but only if we fight it together. aimed at older people, trying to tap into a ‘war’ and ‘us and them’ spirit. communication 4 (c4) what’s a few weeks in if it protects the rest of your life? targeted at young people and the need to look at the bigger future i.e., their future and whole lives. communication 5 (c5) remind mummy and daddy that to keep you safe, they need to stick to the rules. aimed at parents with young children. communication 6 (c6) although it is tough not seeing your family, it is you they are protecting. they love you. stay strong for them. you will be together again soon. aimed at those members of the public who are isolated or who are potentially vulnerable. sample to achieve a nationally representative uk population sample, a quota-controlled sampling technique was used, based on age, sex, ethnicity and locality (region). quotas were calculated using the latest available uk census data (at the time of study) and 1040 participants’ from across the united kingdom were recruited using an online panel, hosted by panelbase. panelbase recruited participants offering cash incentives for survey completion. to join panelbase table 1 questions exploring participant breaches of the uk government’s covid-19 / guidance question response options allowed children to socialise with their friends. yes no na/prefer not to say. visited the shop not for essentials. yes no na/prefer not to say. met with friends or family not in household. yes no na/prefer not to say. stockpiled items. yes no na/prefer not to say. went out in public whilst suffering minor symptoms (did not self-isolate). yes no na/prefer not to say. drove unnecessarily. yes no na/prefer not to say. did not ensure i kept 2 meters apart from others. yes no na/prefer not to say. did not wash hands regularly. yes no na/prefer not to say. socialised inside a family or friend’s house. yes no na/prefer not to say. exercised with someone not in household. yes no na/prefer not to say. used public space not in accordance with rules. yes no na/prefer not to say. hosted visitors inside own house. yes no na/prefer not to say. uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 164 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ participants went through a double opt-in process to verify their email addresses. new members provide demographic and lifestyle information to allow researchers to target survey opportunities more effectively. qualified participants were notified via the membership page and emailed with details of this survey. participants could choose to complete the survey, and successful completion resulted in a reward deposited into their panelbase account (the exact amount was not shared with the research team). data was collected from 28th may 2020 to 18th june 2020. the findings are therefore considered representative of the uk population that use the internet and are representative at a 99% confidence level, with a 4% margin of error based upon the population estimate at the time of data collection (52,673,433) of adults aged 18 years or over living in the united kingdom. as can be seen in table 3, 1040 participants took part in the present study and the demographic make-up of our participants matched that of the uk public at the time. table 3 participant demographics demographic n % age variable (m = 56.3) (sd = 17.6) 18 – 24 140 13.5% 25 – 34 175 16.8% 35 – 44 163 15.7% 45 – 54 179 17.2% 55 – 64 156 15.0% 65+ 227 21.8% gender male 508 48.8% female 530 51.0% other 2 0.2% ethnic group white or white british 837 80.5% bame 203 19.5% region scotland 85 8.2% northern ireland 29 2.8% wales 49 4.7% north east 41 3.9% north west 114 11.0% yorkshire and the humber 88 8.5% west midlands 92 8.8% east midlands 75 7.2% south west 88 8.5% south east 143 13.8% east anglia 97 9.3% greater london 139 13.4% monthly household income after tax £0 – £999 128 12.3% £1000 – £1999 298 28.7% £2000 – £3999 393 37.8% £4000 – £5999 129 12.4% £6000 – £7999 28 2.7% £8000 – £9999 10 1.0% £10,000+ 54 5.2% type of residential location urban 358 34.4 rural 209 20.1 suburban 473 45.5 cartwright, roach, & curran 165 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ demographic n % living circumstances live alone 176 16.9% live with one friend or more 25 2.4% live with partner 326 31.3% live with partner and children 314 30.2% live with children 57 5.5% live with parents and/or elderly relatives 130 12.5% live with partner, children and elderly relatives 12 1.2% employment status full time employment 476 45.8% part time employment 191 18.4% student 63 6.1% unemployed and looking for work 171 16.4% full time carer/parent 139 13.4% note. n = 1040 analysis the present study takes an exploratory approach and as such hypothesis testing using inferential statistics were not undertaken. descriptive statistics were utilised to explore the data alongside a two-step cluster analysis. the two step cluster analysis was undertaken as it has been demonstrated to be useful in exploratory research to reveal natural but not obvious groupings in data (walsh & rísquez, 2020). using the log likelihood method, the distance between continuous and categorical variables can be determined to reveal naturally occurring clusters (walsh & rísquez, 2020), in our case we were interested in naturally occurring demographic factors associated with covid compliance. a four-group model with a silhouette score of 0.8 was identified as the most optimal, with a schwartz’s bayesian criterion (bic) of 134.04. k-fold cross validation analyses were then utilised to assess the stability and generalisability of the clusters identified. results descriptive statistics for non-compliance table 4 presents the overall participant responses to whether they broke uk government social distancing laws by committing certain behaviours. the percentage column for each presents the overall percentage of respondents that said they committed each individual non-compliant behaviour. to establish the degree to which participants did not comply with uk government covid-19 rules, a total ‘non-com­ pliance’ score was calculated for each participant across the 12 behaviours shown in table 4. the average (mean) score for all participants was m = 1.42, sd = 1.83 suggesting that members of the public committed less than two behaviours which did not comply with covid rules. however, the distribution is highly skewed. further analyses highlighted that 39.6% of participants reported fully complying with covid rules (i.e., did not engage in any of the 12 listed behaviours), 23.2% engaged in one behaviour, 17.5% engaged in two behaviours, 8.9% in three behaviours, 4.7% in four behaviours, 2.1% in five behaviours, 1.2% in six behaviours, 0.2% in seven behaviours, 0.5% in eight behaviours, 0.6% in nine behaviours, 0.8% in ten behaviours, 0.1% in eleven behaviours, and 0.1% in all twelve behaviours. to examine the extent to which participants reported complying with covid rules over time, all were asked to rate on a scale from zero to ten the adherence to the rules for the first eight weeks of lockdown. as can be seen in figure 1, self-report adherence to guidelines and rules specified by the government did not appear massively fluctuate over the initial eight weeks, however, it is the case that adherence is reported to gradually decrease from week two onwards. if taken over a longer period of say 12 months, then it is likely that this trend accelerated as compliance decayed. uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 166 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 self-report adherence to rules two-step cluster analysis to understand the relationships between demographic variables, and the level of compliance a two-step cluster analysis was performed. total violations were inputted as count data, and log-likelihood distance was utilised. the cluster analysis outlined six potential clusters with negative bic values, however, the four-cluster model was optimal, as the ratio of bic changes dropped from .232 to .040 at five clusters. the four-cluster silhouette measure of cohesion and separation score was .75 indicating good cluster quality. the four groups are displayed in table 5 and demonstrate four clusters of the public. interestingly cluster 3 and 4 which represent 19% of the sample are responsible for nearly 60% of the total violations, with cluster 4 being responsible for 14% of self-report violations when they only represent 2% of the sample. table 5 outlines the demographic make-up of the four clusters. table 4 self-reported public compliance and non-compliance with government social distancing rules non-compliant behaviours with uk government social distancing rules and guidance n % visited the shop not for essentials 281 27.02% met with friends or family not in household 202 19.42% stockpiled items 193 18.56% did not wash hands regularly 147 14.13% did not ensure i kept 2 meters apart from others 121 11.63% socialised inside a family or friend’s house 116 11.15% drove unnecessarily 113 10.87% exercised with someone not in household 92 8.85% hosted visitors inside own house 84 8.08% used public space not in accordance with rules 71 6.83% went out in public whilst suffering minor symptoms (did not self-isolate) 41 3.94% allowed children to socialise with their friends 31 2.98%a a only those who had children answered question, valid % (n = 703). cartwright, roach, & curran 167 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ ta bl e 5 c lu st er a na ly si s of t ot al v io la tio ns pr op or ti on s/ m ea ns c lu st er 1 (z er o of fe nd in g) c lu st er 2 (l ow -l ev el b re ac he s) c lu st er 3 (m od er at e br ea ch es ) c lu st er 4 (h ig h le ve l o f b re ac he s) % o f s am pl e 39 .6 % 40 .7 % 16 .9 % 2. 2% % o f b re ac he s 0. 00 % 41 .0 7% 44 .6 0% 14 .3 2% m ea n br ea ch es 0. 0 1. 43 3. 73 9. 17 m ea n ag e 48 .6 7 47 .7 5 43 .1 4 33 .5 0 m ea n se lfre po rt ed c om pl ia nc e 9. 54 8. 78 7. 22 6. 35 la rg es t g en de r pr op or tio n % fe m al e (5 4. 9% ) fe m al e (5 1. 5% ) m al e (5 4. 5% ) m al e (7 3. 9% ) pa re nt 59 .7 % 57 .0 % 55 .1 % 78 .3 % la rg es t e th ni c gr ou p pr op or tio n w hi te o r w hi te b ri tis h (8 2. 3% ) w hi te o r w hi te b ri tis h (8 0. 1% ) w hi te o r w hi te b ri tis h (7 9. 0% ) w hi te o r w hi te b ri tis h (6 0. 9% ) se co nd e th ni c gr ou p a si an o r a si an b ri tis h (9 .2 % ) a si an o r a si an b ri tis h 10 .9 % ) a si an o r a si an b ri tis h (1 0. 2% ) a si an o r a si an b ri tis h (3 0. 4% ) re lig io us n o (7 2. 8% ) n o (6 8. 1% ) n o (7 4. 4% ) ye s (7 3. 9% ) m on th ly in co m e £2 ,0 00 – £ 3, 99 9 (3 9. 1% ) £2 ,0 00 – £ 3, 99 9 (3 6. 4% ) £2 ,0 00 – £ 3, 99 9 (3 9. 2% ) £2 ,0 00 – £ 3, 99 9 (3 4. 8% ) em pl oy m en t s ta tu s fu ll tim e em pl oy m en t ( 39 .8 % ) fu ll tim e em pl oy m en t ( 46 .3 % ) fu ll tim e em pl oy m en t ( 55 .1 % ) fu ll tim e em pl oy m en t ( 73 .9 % ) fu rl ou gh ed 19 .2 % 18 .4 % 26 .1 % 52 .2 % k ey -w or ke r 15 .0 % 20 .6 % 28 .4 % 47 .8 % lo ca tio n ty pe su bu rb an (4 6. 6% ) su bu rb an (4 7. 3% ) su bu rb an (4 3. 2% ) u rb an (6 9. 6% ) la rg es t r eg io n so ut hea st (1 5. 8% ) g re at er l on do n (1 5. 1% ) g re at er l on do n (1 3. 6% ) w es t m id la nd s (2 1. 7% ) li vi ng w ith li ve w ith p ar tn er (3 5. 4% ) li ve w ith p ar tn er (3 0. 5% ) li ve w ith p ar tn er a nd c hi ld re n (3 0. 7% ) li ve w ith p ar tn er a nd c hi ld re n (6 0. 9% ) fa m ily /f ri en ds s uf fe re d w ith c ov id 12 .9 % 18 .0 % 15 .3 % 43 .5 % le ve ls o f t ru st in g ov er nm en t 49 .5 % 40 .0 % 38 .1 % 43 .7 % la rg es t s ou rc e of in fo rm at io n t v n ew s pr og ra m m es (6 0. 7% ) t v n ew s pr og ra m m es (5 5. 1% ) t v n ew s pr og ra m m es (5 1. 7% ) t v n ew s pr og ra m m es (4 7. 8% ) uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 168 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as can been seen in table 5, the demographic profile of the cluster of individuals who did not breach the rules represent 39.6% of the sample. this group was older (mage = 48.67), and predominantly female (54.9%) with most being white or white british (82.3%) and not religious (72.8%). cluster 2 can be identified as the average rule breaker which accounted for 40.7% of the sample and accounted for 41.07% of breaches, with a mean of 1.43 breaches. this group tended to be older (mage = 47.75), predominantly female (51.5%), or white british (80.1%) and not religious (68.1%). cluster 3 are the above average rule breakers who represent 16.9% of the sample but are responsible for a disproportional number of breaches (44.60%). this group was younger (mage = 43.14), predominantly male (54.5%), were white or white british (79.0%) and not religious (74.4%). finally, as can be seen in table 5 the prolific rule breakers were identified in cluster 4 and accounted for 14.32% of breaches. this group was the youngest (mage = 33.50), predominantly male (73.9%). it had a higher proportion of asian or asian british individuals (30.4%), had the highest percentage of key workers (47.8%) and the highest percentage of individuals who has been furloughed (58.2%) and was mostly religious (73.9%). additionally, this group were far more likely to have had a friend or family member to have had covid and was mostly comprised of individuals in families with young children. this group clearly stands out due to its high level of breaches and unique demographic profile. to explore the specific breaches by cluster group, these are displayed in table 6. table 6 self-report specific rule breaking by cluster group cluster 1 cluster 2 cluster 3 cluster 4 rules n % n % n % n % met with friends or family not in household 0 0.0% 74 17.5% 105 61% 23 100% exercised with someone not in household 0 0.0% 23 5.5% 49 28.5% 20 87.0% used public space not in accordance with rules 0 0.0% 19 4.6% 32 18.4% 20 87.0% visited a shop unnecessarily 0 0.0% 140 33.1% 120 68.2% 21 91.3% drove unnecessarily 0 0.0% 48 9.5% 57 35.6% 18 78.3% socialised inside a family or friend’s house 0 0.0% 35 8.3% 59 33.7% 22 95.7% hosted visitors inside my own house 0 0.0% 5 1.2% 40 23.0% 20 87.0% allowed children to socialise with their friends 0 0.0% 3 1.0% 12 11.3% 16 76.2% stockpiled 0 0.0% 108 25.8% 68 39.3% 17 73.9% went out in public whilst suffering minor symptoms (did not self-isolate) 0 0.0% 6 1.6% 18 12.5% 17 73.9% did not keep 2 metres from others in public 0 0.0% 69 16.7% 43 24.6% 9 39.1% i didn’t wash my hands regularly for 20 seconds using soap 0 0.0% 85 20.2% 54 31.0% 8 34.8% to understand the robustness of the four-model solution outlined in the cluster analysis, k-fold cross validation was undertaken (de rooij & weeda, 2020) to determine the impact of the clusters on whether the participants had been warned by the police for breaching covid rules. alongside the four-cluster model, specific demographic variables, which have been associated with higher number of covid violations in existing literature were input as alternative models. displayed in figure 2 are the results for the k-fold cross validation. as can be seen the four-cluster model outperforms both the intercept and specific demographic variables with a root mean square error of prediction (rmse-p) of .169 versus .174, a difference of .005, suggesting that the specific cluster group that the participants belong to is the most important predictor of being spoken to by the police due to breaching covid rules. of cluster 1, 0.7% were warned by police; cluster 2, 2.1%; cluster 3, 6.3%; and cluster 4, 52.2%. cartwright, roach, & curran 169 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 2 k-fold cross validation testing cluster group performance for whether participants were warned by the police for breaching covid rules note. models: 1 = intercept, 2 = ethnicity and religion, 3 = age grouping and gender (interaction), 4 = parents, 5 = residential status and cohabitants, 6 = occupation and income, 7 = key worker, 8 = furloughed, 9 = previously had covid, 10 = trust government and news source, 11 = 4 group cluster. a second k-fold cross validation (de rooij & weeda, 2020) was undertaken to assess the cluster performance in order to predict who was arrested for breaching covd rules against the same demographic variables used in the previous validation. again, the four-cluster model was superior as outlined in figure 3 in predicting who was arrested with a root mean square error of prediction (rmse-p) of .145 versus .140, a difference of .005, suggesting that the specific cluster group that the participants belong to is the most important predictor of being arrested by the police due to breaching covid rules. of cluster 1, 0.0% were arrested or fined; cluster 2, 1.7%; cluster 3, 2.3%; and cluster 4, 56.5%. figure 3 k-fold cross validation testing cluster group performance for whether participants were arrested for breaching covid rules uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 170 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ note. models: 1 = intercept, 2 = ethnicity and religion, 3 = age grouping and gender (interaction), 4 = parents, 5 = residential status and cohabitants, 6 = occupation and income, 7 = key worker, 8 = furloughed, 9 = previously had covid, 10 = trust government and news source, 11 = 4 group cluster. a third k-fold cross validation (de rooij & weeda, 2020) was undertaken to determine the cluster performance for predicating total number of violations. as would be expected, the four-cluster model was again far superior as outlined in figure 4 with a root mean square error of prediction (rmse-p) of .773 versus 1.817, a difference of 1.044. the k-cross validations, provide support that the four-cluster model identified in the two-step cluster analysis is a robust predictor for those who breach covid rules. figure 4 k-fold cross validation testing cluster group performance for whether participants were arrested for total violations note. models: 1 = intercept, 2 = ethnicity and religion, 3 = age grouping and gender, 4 = parents, 5 = residential status and cohabitants, 6 = occupation and income, 7 = key worker, 8 = furloughed, 9 = previously had covid, 10 = trust government and news source, 11 = 4 group cluster. evaluating the effectiveness of messaging to increase compliance the second exploratory objective of the present paper was to explore the effectiveness of the uk government’s public messaging during the early stages of the pandemic, and to compare the degree to which participants felt these affected their compliance/non-compliance with some alternative messages that we developed, based upon focusing upon specific demographics. figure 5 presents a comparison of the perceived effectiveness reported by participants for two messages used by the uk government (in communications an advert and text message that were communicated at the start of the lockdown restriction) with six alternative communications. as can be seen in figure 5, the initial government advert was considered as the most influential by the participants, closely followed by communication 1. cartwright, roach, & curran 171 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5 participant ratings of messaging effectiveness to examine whether the different messages were perceived to be influential according to the cluster in which partici­ pants were identified, the mean effectiveness scores based upon a 10-point scale of how effective participants considered the communications to be were analysed. as can be seen in table 7, differences can be observed with regards to the effectiveness of each cluster groups rating. generally, cluster groups 3 and 4 rated all communications as less effective than the other cluster groups, with cluster group 1 rating all communications as the most influential. this demonstrates that the communications were not necessarily ineffective as the government advert was very effective for cluster group 1 who committed no violations. the communications were simply not as effective for the small sample of people in cluster group 3 and 4 who committed the most violations. table 7 mean effectiveness of communications for influencing compliance per cluster group cluster 1 cluster 2 cluster 3 cluster 4 communication m sd m sd m sd m sd government advert 8.9 1.7 8.3 2.0 7.0 2.5 6.7 3.5 government text 7.9 2.3 7.3 2.3 6.2 2.7 6.3 3.4 c1 8.4 2.0 7.9 2.2 6.8 2.7 7.2 3.2 c2 7.1 2.7 6.9 2.7 5.9 2.8 6.5 3.1 c3 7.2 2.9 6.5 3.0 5.5 3.2 6.4 3.0 c4 7.8 2.6 7.1 2.7 6.2 3.1 7.1 3.1 c5 6.4 3.3 5.7 3.2 4.7 3.3 6.6 3.4 c6 7.8 2.5 7.2 2.5 5.9 3.0 6.7 3.1 mean effectiveness 7.7 1.9 7.1 2.0 6.0 2.5 6.7 3.0 k-fold cross validation was performed to determine the impact of the cluster groupings and alternative demographic variables on the mean effectiveness of all nudge interventions. the four cluster model was superior as outlined in figure 6 to other models in the k-cross validation with a rmse of 2.145, a mean difference of 0.035. uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 172 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 6 k-cross validation analysis effectiveness of nudges note. models: 1 = intercept, 2 = ethnicity and religion, 3 = age grouping and gender, 4 = parents, 5 = residential status and cohabitants, 6 = occupation and income, 7 = key worker, 8 = furloughed, 9 = previously had covid, 10 = trust government and news source, 11 = 4 group cluster. finally, table 8 demonstrated how best to influence the different cluster groups in terms the method of communication that was rated as the most effective and the messenger (e.g., who has sent it) that was rated as the most effective. for all groups the method of communications that was rated as the most influential was via tv advertisement sent by the nhs. table 8 cluster group messenger and mode of communication preferences communication preferences cluster 1 cluster 2 cluster 3 cluster 4 total % method – text 41.0% 43.1% 42.6% 43.5% 42.2% method – written letter 37.9% 35.1% 33.0% 13.0% 35.3% method – facebook 13.1% 12.1% 17.0% 30.4% 13.7% method – radio 19.2% 21.6% 20.5% 21.7% 20.4% method – tv advertisement 76.7% 71.6% 61.4% 52.2% 71.4% method – games platform advertisement 1.0% 0.9% 3.4% 13.0% 1.6% method – billboard 11.2% 15.6% 22.2% 26.1% 15.2% messenger – nhs 70.1% 71.6% 62.5% 60.9% 69.2% messenger – the police 15.3% 17.0% 13.6% 26.1% 16.0% messenger – the government 42.5% 37.8% 33.5% 21.7% 38.6% messenger – local council 3.4% 5.0% 7.4% 21.7% 5.1% messenger – friends and family 8.0% 11.6% 25.0% 43.5% 13.2% messenger – scientific opinion 60.7% 56.5% 58.0% 26.1% 57.7% discussion the present paper has endeavoured to shed-light on reasons for public compliance/non-compliance with social distanc­ ing rules introduced by the uk government during the early period of the covid-19 pandemic. the present study cartwright, roach, & curran 173 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ focused on self-reported non-compliance with uk government rules and guidance’ by asking a representative group of uk participants about their partaking in specific social-distancing breaching behaviours. analyses revealed four clusters of uk residents emerged in regard to their covid breaching behaviour. the first clus­ ter represented those in society who did not breach any rules, who represented 39.6%. the second cluster represented the ‘average’ rule breaker who committed very few violations but non the less violated some of the covid rules, but this was in line with the average individual, and they represented 40.7% of the sample. the third cluster represented those who engaged in several violations around two behaviours more than the average individual and this group represented 16.9% of the sample. the final cluster who only represented 2.2% of the sample habitually broke almost all rules and were responsible for 20% of the total violations. combined, those identified in cluster 4 and 3 represented only 19.1% of our sample but were responsible for 58.92% of total self-report violations. indeed, this is interesting and provides crucial information as to who to target in future situations akin to the covid 19 lock down. generally, our results demonstrate that the governments messaging of “if you can go out, you can spread it. people will die. stay home. protect the nhs. save lives” was very effective in influencing compliance in those in cluster 1 and 2 but was far less effective in cluster group 3 and 4. this suggests that such generic messaging was successful in eliciting a degree of conformity in these individuals, however for the prolific rule breakers identified in cluster 4 and those committing more than the average in cluster 3 these communications were not effective and suggests a more bespoke targeted approach is needed. that said our experimental communications did not perform better but these were created prior to revealing the clusters and future communications using the demographic data associated with our clusters may produce more effective communications that influence compliance in those who were identified in this study as responsible for many violations, whilst representing a small number of people. relatively few individuals reported adhering completely to all social distancing rules (< 40%) and that indeed, most reported regularly breaching the rules, with most reporting breaching at least at one rule during the first lockdown period. this extent of breaching the social distancing rules suggests that that there may have been issues with the communication of such rules. this is something that needs to be explored further, as alternative means and ways of conveying important ‘health-related messages’ may need to be found, and which are bespoke to different population demographics, if population behaviour change is to be increased for future pandemic scenarios. it could be argued of course that the lockdown rules were simply too novel and too restrictive as a package, for whole-scale public compliance to be a realistic prospect. interestingly, scientists and health-care leaders stated early in the pandemic that younger people were less likely to experience ‘severe symptoms’, so not great leap of the imagination is necessary to explain why the younger participants reported being least compliant with the social distancing rules. based on our findings, a more effective communication strategy might have been to focus messaging more specif­ ically: (1) upon the behaviours that would have the most success in reducing transmission such as self-isolation, and (2) using different messages and messengers for different population demographics. different, for example, for communicating with young males as opposed to the whole population. however, this is an area for health scholars and policy makers. furthermore, our prolific rule breakers represented a rather specific demographic background, and this should be noted for future pandemics. in particular, the fact that this group consisted of mostly religious individuals and a high proportion were either key workers or had been furloughed from their job. arguably, the least surprising finding of present paper as with previous research (e.g., smith et al., 2020) was that it was young male participants that reported most non-compliance with social-distancing rules. as alluded to, this presents opportunities for targeting this demographic in the future, that said the results of the latter part of this study indicate that males in general may be more difficult to influence to influence using communications. other influential factors included ‘identifying as a key worker’ and the perception of neighbours breaching the rules. again, this is like (smith et al., 2020) and provides the suggestion for the future that effective communications may seek to reduce cognitive biases and dissonance in this area. for example, ‘everyone else is doing it so it is ok if i do’,’ it is okay because i am a key worker’. seeking to target and ‘neutralise’/reduce such justifications in decision-making may be an important way to influence the behaviour of these groups. this may also be true for other over reported demographics in the fourth cluster group, for example young families with young children and those members of the public who had friends who had suffered with covid. uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 174 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ research has consistently found that behavioural change weans (or decays) over time (e.g., wu et al., 2022) and our findings here are no different with more frequent breaches of the rules being reported over time. this is perhaps best explained in terms of: (1) growing public intolerance with kerbs on freedoms, (2) the roll-out of the covid-19 vaccination programme, and (3) a large percentage of the population having had the virus: (a) only experienced ‘mild’ symptoms, and (b) scientific knowledge that having had the virus is the best form of protection against severe symptoms in the future. additionally, the four distinct clusters represent those at the start of the pandemic and not as it went on, it is likely that as the pandemic progressed the distinct groups of rule breakers would look very different. the present paper provides an estimation of whether official warnings and contact with the police (due to breaches in social distancing) positively affect future behaviour. to the authors’ knowledge this has not been studied, and the paper demonstrates an estimation that only 2% of the population were issued with fines and 3% of the population issued with warnings. as such despite rather high levels of self-report breaches in the rules only a fraction of individuals interacted with the police due to their behaviour. those who were, tended to be those identified as the prolific rule breakers. this study contributes to furthering our understanding about human behaviour during the pandemic and provides some specific detail as to the types of behaviour that were undertake in contradiction to the rules and those likely to breach rules more than others. the paper also provides some understanding about the effectiveness of communications during the pandemic and as discussed throughout the governmental communication that read “if you can go out, you can spread it. people will die. stay home. protect the nhs. save lives” was more effective than any of the communications designed in this study for targeting specific demographics. in the absence of the knowledge of who was breaching the rules and focusing on the whole population this demonstrates that the governmental communication was effective on a population level. had the government had the insights of the present data to design the communication further, greater levels of behavioural change may have been achieved. this research also demonstrates that the most influential messenger would be the nhs and the platform for communicating that would be the most effective according to the present sample is tv advertisements. theoretical contribution the present paper did not aim to be an in-depth evaluation of the application of nudges. however, there are important theoretical contributions to consider. the findings support the idea that nudge approaches are only effective when the demographic is known; none of the bespoke nudges developed in this study performed better than the generic nudges created by the uk government. furthermore, the concepts of messenger and mode of communication, which are purported to be essential in nudge design, have demonstrated their importance. the findings reported here highlight differences in participants' perceptions of influence regarding who and how compliance can be elicited. policy implications the findings reported here provide important insights regarding the behaviour of the uk public during the pandemic and potential approaches to achieving greater levels of behavioural change in future situations where we may need to adjust the behaviour of the population. the lessons learned from the pandemic based upon the present data, which may be of interest to policy makers are as follows: • we are human and not social distancers — the public struggle to implement such mass change to their behaviour for prolonged periods. • focusing communications surrounding specific behaviours that may have the most effect at reducing transmission may prove to be more effective. • addressing cognitive biases which allow neutralisations for offending to take place may prove fruitful in reducing breaches in rules. • utilising nhs (medical) employees via tv advertisements may have the most powerful effect in accomplishing behavioural change. • a small proportion of individuals are responsible for undertaking most behaviours against the rules, influencing these demographics would have the greatest overall effect. cartwright, roach, & curran 175 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://www.psychopen.eu/ our take home suggestion for government officials is not so much to challenge the initial use of message, but with the lack of understanding that it’s efficacy in terms of behaviour change was always likely to reduce/decay, with time. based on the findings of the present research, in our opinion, to better sustain public compliance then subsequent/ follow-up messages need to: (1) target different population demographics, and (2) target specific behaviours for compliance, such as ‘do not mix with other households’ rather than continuing to refer to social distancing rules as one homogenous package. limitations of the study the present study was undertaken at a time when the uk was facing an unprecedented public emergency, and the uk public was entering an unknown period of change and uncertainty. the findings provide important insights and information to policy makers and those tasked at implementing behavioural change if it is needed in the future. however, it does have several limitations that must be acknowledged. the study utilised a self-report sample which may not represent the true extent of breaches in social distancing due to socially desirable responding and is only representative to those who use the internet. additionally, the paper cannot provide a full understanding of how the government’s communications were designed and by no means includes all the messages that were communicated but simply two examples. that said, the evidence provided here demonstrates the communications were more effective than alternatives developed in the present study. this might of course simply have been due to a ‘primacy effect’ with ‘stay home. protect the nhs. save lives’, being a clear and unequivocal first message for a surprised and disorientated uk public. directions for future research the present paper provided exploratory insights, highlighting numerous areas for future exploration. due to the cross-sectional nature of this research, future studies should adopt a longitudinal design to better understand how behaviour changes over time and whether different clusters of individuals engage in rule-breaking at various time points. additionally, the paper did not address why certain demographics may engage in rule-breaking, so future research directly addressing this issue would be valuable. the paper also tested nudges prior to understanding the demographics of rule-breakers; thus, future research should explore whether the data outlined here can be effectively harnessed to design influential nudges to improve compliance. finally, future research should aim to corroborate or refute our findings using alternative data sources, rather than relying solely on self-report data. studies utilising police data or data collected by local councils regarding rule-breakers would provide alternative insights that may not suffer from the biases inherent in self-reporting. we acknowledge that, as hindsight is the only exact science, the pandemic provided a unique opportunity to examine public compliance and behavioural change. the insights gained from the four clusters of pandemic rule breakers identified in this study provide valuable knowledge that can better prepare us for future pandemic scenarios. furthermore, the present study provided a 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(2020). using cluster analysis to explore the engagement with a flipped classroom of native and non-native english-speaking management students. international journal of management education, 18(2), article 100381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2020.100381 wu, j. s., font, x., & mccamley, c. (2022). covid-19 social distancing compliance mechanisms: uk evidence. environmental research, 205, article 112528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112528 yates, s. (2020). why is the government relying on nudge theory to fight coronavirus? the guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/why-is-the-government-relying-on-nudge-theory-to-tacklecoronavirus about the authors dr. ashley cartwright is the subject lead in crime and policing at the university of huddersfield and deputy director of the crime and policing research centre. ashley has published extensively on wellbeing in policing. dr cartwright is currently working with researchers at the university of huddersfield to develop evidence-based interventions to support police officer wellbeing. professor jason roach, phd, currently leads the crime and policing research centre at the university of huddersfield. he is also editor-in-chief for the police journal, visiting professor at the centre for police research and learning (at the open university), and a member for numerous uk home office and uk college of policing advisory groups relating to problem solving, crime cartwright, roach, & curran 177 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(3), 160–178 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.13965 https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000483 https://doi.org/10.12688/hrbopenres.13105.2 https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245919898466 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07857-2 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10379-7 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2200300119 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257945 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461355716677876 https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12753 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113138 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2020.100381 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.112528 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/why-is-the-government-relying-on-nudge-theory-to-tackle-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/why-is-the-government-relying-on-nudge-theory-to-tackle-coronavirus https://www.psychopen.eu/ prevention, and criminal, police, and investigative decision making. to date, jason has co-written five books, including ‘self-selection policing’, with professor ken pease obe, and has published over forty research papers and edited book chapters on a range of different crime and policing related topics including; child homicide, criminal investigation, using psychological research to influence decision-making to prevent and reduce crime, understanding police and criminal decision making, cold case investigations, and improving the wellbeing of police officers and police staff. his latest book ‘practical psychology for policing’ was published in january2023 and focuses on how psychology can be used more practically in problem solving, police work, and in preventing and reducing crime. dr. liam scott curran is a lecturer in policing at the university of huddersfield, and member of the crime and policing research centre. dr curran completed his phd in 2023, exploring the organisational and operational stressors and their impacts on the wellbeing of senior investigating officers. liam’s previously published works include understanding stress and wellbeing in undercover police officers, and the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on police officer and staff wellbeing. dr curran is currently researching the impact of a police education framework for personal, social, health and economic (pshe) education sessions in england. uncharted territory: understanding public compliance 178 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ uncharted territory: understanding public compliance (introduction) literature review theoretical background the present study method design sample analysis results descriptive statistics for non-compliance two-step cluster analysis evaluating the effectiveness of messaging to increase compliance discussion theoretical contribution policy implications limitations of the study directions for future research (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests ethics statement references about the authors the upsides and downsides of high self-control: evidence for effects of similarity and situation dependency research reports the upsides and downsides of high self-control: evidence for effects of similarity and situation dependency lukas röseler ab , jacqueline ebert a, astrid schütz a , roy f. baumeister c [a] department of personality psychology and psychological assessment, university of bamberg, bamberg, germany. [b] department of economics, harz university of applied sciences, wernigerode, germany. [c] school of psychology, university of queensland, brisbane, australia. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(1), 1–16, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 received: 2020-01-03 • accepted: 2020-03-31 • published (vor): 2021-02-26 handling editor: barbara caci, university of palermo, palermo, italy corresponding author: lukas röseler, department of personality psychology and psychological assessment, markusplatz 3, 96047 bamberg, germany. email: lukas.roeseler@uni-bamberg.de supplementary materials: data [see index of supplementary materials] abstract high trait self-control is generally depicted as favorable. we investigated whether this holds for social perception. using vignettes, we tested whether a person with high self-control is 1) preferred as a partner for all or only certain social situations, 2) perceived as less likeable than a person with low self-control, 3) liked more if the person is female and the behavior thus fits the sex-stereotype, and 4) perceived differently from a person with low self-control with respect to a wide range of adjectives used to describe personality. competing theories are presented for each area. results indicate that although high self-control is associated with a wide range of socially desirable traits, choice of partners 1) depends on the type of situation in which the interaction will occur, 2) depends on the similarity between the respondent and the partner, 3) does not depend on a stereotype match, and 4) does not depend or depends only to a small degree on the partner's high self-control. the perception of individuals with high self-control is thus variable and situationally contingent, and more than a single theory is needed to explain it. keywords self-control, social perception, attraction self-control, which is defined as people's capacity to alter their own responses and bring them in line with things such as social expectations, is generally considered a socially desirable characteristic (e.g., baumeister, vohs, & tice, 2007). indeed, even the measurement of self-control invokes the assumption of benefits. one self-control item is “i do certain things that are bad for me...” (reverse scored; tangney, baumeister, & boone, 2004). in fact, it has been shown that self-control is advantageous in many areas of life, such as subjective well-being, binge-eating, alcohol use, grades in school, commitment in a relationship (de ridder, lensvelt-mulders, finkenauer, stok, & baumeister, 2012), malevolent and fractious intentions, outward directed aggression (tangney et al., 2004), or selfishness and helpfulness (dewall, baumeister, gailliot, & maner, 2008). in a way, self-control implies restraining bodily urges that include short-term pleasure. thus, there is an assumption that people will act in selfish and rewardor lust-oriented ways (e.g., the selfish­ ness hypothesis of ego depletion; banker, ainsworth, baumeister, ariely, & vohs, 2017) when no superordinate entity is present to exert control over them (e.g., hobbes & brooke, 1651/2017). self-control would thus be fundamentally and pervasively beneficial. we refer to this as the positivity hypothesis, that is, the idea that high self-control is either this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2639&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-02-26 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6446-1901 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6358-167x https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ beneficial or irrelevant. like intelligence, self-control can be compared to a tool. tools are good to have. to be sure, tools can be used for bad ends, but that does not reflect any fault of the tools themselves. past research has occasionally looked for disadvantages of high self-control but without much success. for example, no support was found for the hypothesis that too much self-control (i.e., a curvilinear relationship between self-control and other variables, so that intermediate levels of self-control produce the best results) could contribute to compulsions and eating disorders. instead, tangney et al. (2004) found a linear negative relationship between self-control and the occurrence of impulse control problems (e.g., binge eating) and self-reports of psychopathological symptoms (e.g., obsessive-compulsive patterns, anxiety). about the worst that can be said about high self-control is that individuals with high self-control tend to be confronted with higher expectations and are therefore more likely to suffer from exhaustion (koval, vandellen, fitzsimons, & ranby, 2015) and that high functional impulsivity (a variation of low self-control) can be advantageous when there is a need to process information quickly (dickman & meyer, 1988). even less attention has been devoted to whether interpersonal problems are related to high self-control, even though striving and conformity are not necessarily reflected in positive relationships. for example, students who get good grades in school are more likely to be labeled nerds, which is a slang term that disparages scholarly achievement (pelkner & boehnke, 2003; rentzsch, schütz, & schröder-abé, 2011). even so, such stigmatizing seems to reflect anti-intellectual resentment more than a genuine social disadvantage of high self-control. much work has confirmed that people with high self-control are more popular and have better relationships than other people (e.g., maszk, eisenberg, & guthrie, 1999; vohs, finkenauer, & baumeister, 2011). derivation of hypotheses in the present study, we took a social perception perspective to investigate whether there may be interpersonal downsides of high trait self-control. to cover a broad area, we included 1) preferences for partners with high versus low self-control in various social situations, 2) liking and stereotypes of people with high versus low self-control, and 3) perceivers' personality traits. downsides of high self-control in social interactions assuming that a person with low self-control agrees with the statement “i do certain things that are bad for me, if they are fun” (tangney et al., 2004), that person might be considered good company if there is a lively party with lots of food and drink. such activities are common: among germans between 18 and 25 years of age, 33.4% report engaging in the regular consumption of alcohol (bzga, 2019). thus, being self-controlled may interfere with being perceived as good company during leisure time and at parties. of course, everyday situations differ with regard to the kinds of behavior that are expected. taxonomies such as the one by rauthmann et al. (2014) have distinguished types of situations such as sociality and duty. duty situations typically feature aspects that are not fun but need to be done (e.g., doing homework or cleaning the house). socializing situations are often hedonic (e.g., going to a party or cooking a meal together). we hypothesized that whether people would prefer the company of a person with high or low self-control would depend on the situation they are in. note that lösch and rentzsch (2018) found that students like to work with partners with high conscientiousness (which overlaps with self-control), but during leisure time, people with high conscientiousness are not chosen over people with low conscientiousness. we propose three competing hypotheses with regard to the interaction of self-control and situations. our thinking invoked mischel's (1968) distinction between strong and weak situations (see also cooper & withey, 2009). in this understanding, strong situations leave little or no room for different behaviors (e.g., everyone stops at a red light when driving a car) whereas weak situations leave much room (e.g., people behave differently during a private party). the hypotheses thus differ with respect to how strongly the situation (duty vs. socializing) impacts preferences for an interaction partner with high versus low self-control. 1. strong situation hypothesis: in situations that call for duty, people prefer to be with a person with high self-control rather than a person with low self-control. in socializing situations, people prefer to be with a person with low selfcontrol rather than a person with high self-control (high situational strength for duty and socializing). upsides and downsides of high self-control 2 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2. weak situation hypothesis: in duty situations, people prefer to be with a person with high self-control rather than a person with low self-control. in socializing situations, people have no preference (high situational strength for duty and low situational strength for socializing). 3. positivity hypothesis: in any type of situation, people prefer to be with a person with high self-control rather than a person with low self-control (no situational strength). perceivers' traits in relation to targets' traits one of the main predictors of whether a person likes another person is similarity (byrne & nelson, 1965). the so-called similarity hypothesis has received a lot of support with regard to personality traits such as optimism in romantic relationships (böhm, schütz, rentzsch, körner, & funke, 2010), personality and physical attractiveness in roommate relationships (carli, ganley, & pierce-otay, 1991), humor style in married couples (hahn & campbell, 2016), gender-role self-concept and selection of dating partners (morell, twillman, & sullaway, 1989), socially undesirable traits such as machiavellianism (ináncsi, láng, & bereczkei, 2016), and same-sex friendships regardless of duration or closeness (morry, 2005). the meta-analytic effect of interpersonal attraction and perceived similarity was estimated to be r = .39 (montoya, horton, & kirchner, 2008). however, hypotheses that propose effects that go in the opposite direction have also been formulated: according to the complementarity hypothesis, which is based on the circumplex theory (kiesler, 1983), relationships work best when the two partners have different scores with regard to dominance but not with regard to affiliation. this finding was supported with respect to dependent variables such as liking in the context of dominant and submissive nonverbal behaviors (dryer & horowitz, 1997; tiedens & fragale, 2003) or relationship quality and facial attractiveness (asendorpf, penke, & back, 2011, p. 25, hypothesis 3b), but it was also challenged by null findings (asendorpf et al., 2011, p. 25). boman (2016) found that friends' levels of self-control are largely unrelated in both attitudinal and behavioral measures. with regard to self-control, vohs et al. (2011) found that romantic couples seemed to pair up in a complementary fashion, such as that dating partners were less similar to each other than they would be by chance (p. 143). the effect was weaker (but still significant) among married couples and absent among same-sex friends, suggesting that the attraction was primarily sexual. neither similarity nor complementarity predicted relationship satisfaction, which was simply (and positively) correlated with the total of both partners' self-control, consistent with the positivity hypothesis. third, there is the compensation hypothesis, according to which qualities of one partner contribute to the other's satisfaction and may even partially compensate for the partner's lack of these traits (schröder-abé & schütz, 2011). thus, individuals with low self-control may prefer individuals with high self-control to compensate for their own lack of self-control. shea, davisson, and fitzsimons (2013) provided evidence for such effects with respect to self-control and confirmed the compensation hypothesis when they tested it against the other theories for both trait and state self­ control. however, compensation worked for low self-controlled individuals only. that is, low self-controlled individuals preferred high self-controlled partners but high self-controlled partners had no preference. on the basis of these models, we hypothesized that liking would be a function of people's own trait self-control and the trait self-control described in the vignettes, a tendency that has been observed for optimism (böhm et al., 2010). specifically, we derived the following competing hypotheses: 1. similarity hypothesis: people with high self-control will express greater liking for other people with high selfcontrol than for people with low self-control. people with low self-control will express greater liking for other people with low self-control than for people with high self-control. 2. complementarity hypothesis: people with high self-control will express lower liking for other people with high self-control than for people with low self-control. people with low self-control will express lower liking for other people with low self-control than for people with high self-control. 3. compensation hypothesis: people with low self-control will express greater liking for people with high self-control than for other people with low self-control. however, people with high self-control will express equally high levels of liking for people with high or low self-control. 4. positivity hypothesis of self-control: everyone will express greater liking for people with high self-control than for people with low self-control. röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 3 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ moreover, liking has been found to depend on how well a person fits a stereotype: probably the most salient category regarding stereotypes is the target person's sex (e.g., hertel, schütz, depaulo, morris, & stucke, 2007). for example, anger is perceived more strongly in men than in women, whereas the opposite pattern has been found for sadness (plant, kling, & smith, 2004). as men are stereotypically viewed as more aggressive than women and aggression is linked to losing one's temper, high aggressiveness may correspond with low self-control (tangney et al., 2004). in line with this argument, men were found to display more explosive than defusing behavior (campbell & muncer, 2008). according to the german federal statistics office, the perpetrators of accidents that involve injuries to people caused by people who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs are comprised of 87% men and 13% women. the same has been found for speeding (78% men; statistisches bundesamt, 2019). thus, compared with women, men should be perceived as having less self-control. we hypothesized that conforming to this stereotype would boost liking. accordingly, we propose the following sex-stereotype hypothesis. sex-stereotype hypothesis: women with high self-control will be liked more than men with high self-control. halo effects of high self-control how much people like a person or how much they would like to be with him or her in a specific situation might not only depend on the person's apparent self-control. halo effects (e.g., nisbett & wilson, 1977) suggest that high trait self-control, a trait that is generally evaluated in a positive manner, could lead people to assume that the person possesses other desirable traits, which in turn may influence how much they like the person. we used the continuum model (fiske & neuberg, 1990) to explore which traits may be seen as related to a person's trait self-control. the model is broad as it consists of eight scales comprised of adjectives that describe people and that can be arranged in terms of how much control a person exerts over others (i.e., assured-dominant vs. unassured-submissive) and how strongly a person strives for affiliation (i.e., cold-hearted vs. warm-agreeable). as yet, only a few social perception studies investigated burdens of high self-control. for example, high self-control people are burdened by others' reliance (koval et al., 2015). fairness in supervisors (cox, 2000; as cited by tangney et al., 2004) and trust (righetti & finkenauer, 2011) are affected positively by high self-control. there was no evidence of negative effects of self-control in either of the studies; instead, high self-control was positively associated with perceived fairness (as found in the study by cox) and trust (as found in both studies). there have been similar findings involving school relationships: high-achieving students who probably have high self-control were also regarded as being highly conscientious (rentzsch, schröder-abé, & schütz, 2013). in view of the potential importance of halo effects and other imputed traits, we added an exploratory measure of what other traits people with high or low self-control were assumed to have. method we investigated how hypothetical individuals with high versus low self-control are perceived by others with respect to 1) how much people would like to be with these individuals in different situations and 2) how much people like these individuals, and 3) how people rate these individuals on a list of traits. we used vignettes in which several aspects were systematically manipulated. as suggested by simmons, nelson, and simonsohn (2012), we report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures used in the study. participants to achieve the planned sample size, we shared the online study's link via e-mail messages and social networks. we incentivized people with the chance to win a 50 eur amazon coupon. participants who studied at the university at which the study was conducted could alternatively receive course credit. for participants to be eligible for data analysis, they had to be at least 18 years old and have completed the full study. after we excluded participants who did not complete the questionnaire and participants whose answers showed patterns such as simply checking the same number across all items, the remaining sample size was n = 285 (71.9% women, mean age = 28.99 years). this far exceeded our planned sample size of approximately 200 participants. thus, we upsides and downsides of high self-control 4 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conducted a sensitivity analysis for the term for which the study design was the least powerful, that is, within-between interactions (e.g., sex-stereotype hypothesis). using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (anova) with two groups and two measurements, the minimum effect size needed to be f = 0.107 (α = β = .05, n = 285, correlation among repeated measures = .5, e = 1), which is close to a small (f = 0.100) effect. the sensitivity of the analysis given our sample size was thus good. the power analyses were conducted with g*power (faul, erdfelder, lang, & buchner, 2007). materials participants were presented with a vignette, which was based loosely on past work (hertel et al., 2007). the vignette contained the person's name, age, sex, place of residence, hobbies, and a description of the person's level of self-control. we varied the vignette's characteristics in a 2 (self-control: high vs. low) × 2 (sex: male vs. female) × 2 (method factor: items used to describe the person) × 2 (order: high-low vs. low-high) design. the first factor was administered within-subjects. the manipulation of the stimulus person's self-control used items from the german version of the brief self-control scale (bertrams & dickhäuser, 2009; tangney et al., 2004). we adopted this procedure from shea et al. (2013). we excluded one item due to a low item-total correlation (r < .3; see also bertrams & dickhäuser, 2009), another because it referred to the respondent's self-perception, and a third because it invoked the respondent's perception of others. we then divided the remaining 10 items into two groups. to do so, we ordered them by their item-total correlations and assigned them to two groups using an abba scheme. the a-group items were thus very similar to the b-group items with respect to their mean item-total correlations (ra = .428, rb = .414). finally, to indicate whether the vignettes had high or low self-control, we negated the items. for example, “sometimes i can't stop myself from doing something, even if i know it is wrong” was modified to be “sarah can usually stop herself from doing something she knows is wrong” (high self-control) or “sarah usually can't stop herself from doing something even when she knows it is wrong.” the person was either called jan (male) or sarah (female), which are the most common names for german people born in 1992. their age was 25 in both versions (the study was conducted in early 2018). in order to reduce demand characteristics, we also varied their places of residence, occupation, and hobbies, for example, jan lived in duisburg, germany, was an it specialist, and liked playing football and guitar, and sarah lived in bochum, germany, was a laboratory assistant, and liked aerobics and playing the keyboard. thereby, we chose similar options: for example, the place of residence was chosen to have a similar number of inhabitants, the occupation was chosen to have a similar level of income, and the hobbies were chosen to be similar with respect to one of them referring to playing an instrument and the other a team sport. to assess whether the manipulation of self-control was successful, participants were asked to indicate the presented person's level of self-control after each vignette (manipulation check). as dependent variables, we measured how likea­ ble the people in the vignettes were. we asked the participants how much they would like to be in certain situations with the people described in the vignettes. situations were either duty situations or socializing situations based on the taxonomy by rauthmann et al. (2014). which 5 × 2 situations were presented in which category was determined by a pretest for which we developed 7 × 2 situations. the duty situations featured 1) being in a study group or team, 2) proofreading an application, 3) transcribing a presentation, 4) asking about a presentation, 5) doing the final cleaning of an apartment, 6) getting advice for a decision, and 7) telling about a personal problem. the socializing situations were 1) spending the holidays, 2) having a conversation at a party, 3) partying, 4) going for a walk and having a nice conversation, 5) eating away from home, 6) spending an evening playing games, 7) cooking. after pretesting, situations 1 to 5 were selected for the main study, respectively. the socializing situations thus all involved having fun and pleasant, short-term interactions, as opposed to having a long-term relationship in which one might have to depend on the other person. to assess possible halo effects, participants completed the adjective scales by jacobs and scholl (2005), which are based on the interpersonal theory of psychiatry by sullivan (1953/2013). information about the adequacy of the reliability and validity for the interpersonal adjective list can be found in jacobs and scholl (2005, pp. 152-153). there are a total of eight categories (in pairs of opposites) with eight adjectives each. the categories were assured-dominant versus unassured-submissive, gregarious-extraverted versus aloof-introverted, warm-agreeable versus cold-hearted, and unassuming-ingenuous versus arrogant-calculating. finally, participants completed the german translation of the brief röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 5 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ self-control scale (bertrams & dickhäuser, 2009; tangney et al., 2004). information about the adequacy of the reliability and validity (e.g., strong correlation with students' grade point average) for the brief self-control scale can be found in tangney et al. (2004, p. 287). for all scales, we used equidistant anchors ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree) as proposed by rohrmann (1978). procedure first, participants provided information about their age, sex, and educational status. then they were presented with the vignette, the manipulation check, the interpersonal adjectives list, and the situations. they were asked how much they would like to be in each of the situations with the person described in the vignette. the procedure was the same for both vignettes. at the end of the study, participants completed the brief self-control scale (tangney et al., 2004), described what they thought the purpose of the study was, and provided further demographic data to check for similarity with the descriptions in the vignette (place of residence, occupation, hobbies, field of study, semester). results the data were analyzed with ibm spss statistics (version 25.0). the analysis script and data can be found in supplementary materials. a summary of the hypotheses and findings is provided in table 1. table 1 summary of the hypotheses and results partner in a situation depends liking of a person depends a sex stereotype-self-control fit h1: strongly on the situation h1: on the similarity between respondent and target h1: boosts liking h2: weakly on the situation h2: on complementarity between the respondent and target h3: positivity: on the partner's self-control h3: compensation: on the total self-control of respondent and target has no effect on the similarity between respondent and partner h4: positivity: on the target's self-control being high negativity: on the target's self-control being low note. hypotheses that are supported by theories are marked with “h” and the respective number. hypotheses that were supported by the data are written in italics. data quality checks manipulation check for the item “self-controlled,” which we had inserted into the interpersonal adjectives list, the high self-control vignette (m = 4.45, sd = 0.84) received substantially higher ratings than the low self-control vignette (m = 1.59, sd = 0.79), t(284) = 40.16, p < .001, dz = 2.379. the manipulation was thus quite powerful and successful at creating impressions of the stimulus individuals as high or low in self-control. we further tested whether the different items we used to describe the high and low self-control vignettes and the order of the two vignettes (high-low vs. low-high self-control) had an effect on the ratings. as ratings, we used the duty situation liking because it was most affected by the other variables and thus seemed to be the most sensitive. there were no order or method effects: whether participants rated the high self-control vignette or the low self-control vignette first did not have an effect (i.e., no order effects), f(1, 283) = 1.47, p = .226, ηp2 = .005. the specific items, that is, the items from the brief self-control scale that were used to describe self-control, did not have an effect either, f(1, 283) = 0.02, p = .892, ηp2 < .001. there was also no effect of the interaction between the level of self-control in the vignette and the items, f(1, 283) = 0.61, p = .434, ηp2 = .002. upsides and downsides of high self-control 6 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ we checked the internal consistencies of all scales to make sure participants had completed the survey conscien­ tiously. cronbach's alpha for the brief self-control scale (13 items, nine reversed ones) was good, α = .842, and very close to the values reported by tangney et al. (2004, p. 287; α = .83 and .85). internal consistencies for the duty situations scale were excellent (five items, α = .930 for the sarah vignette and α = .938 for the jan vignette). the internal consistency of the socializing scale was slightly lower but still good (five items), α = .889 and α = .870, for the two vignettes, respectively. the interpersonal adjective scales all had acceptable or good internal consistencies with the lowest value for unassuming-ingenuous (sarah vignette), α = .754. hypothesis tests situation hypothesis to test the situation hypothesis, which, in its strongest formulation claims that people prefer a partner with high self-control in duty situations and a partner with low self-control in socializing situations, we computed a 2 (situation type: duty vs. socializing) × (vignette self-control: high vs. low) repeated-measures anova. there was no main effect of the type of situation, f(1, 284) = 0.02, p = .897, ηp2 < .001. overall, partners with high self-control were preferred regardless of the type of situation, f(1, 284) = 198.16, p < .001, ηp2 = .411. however, there was a significant interaction between type of situation and vignette self-control: consistent with the strong formulation of the situation hypothesis, people with high self-control were preferred as partners in duty situations but not in socializing situations, f(1, 284) = 757.03, p < .001, ηp2 = .727. the self-control (dis)advantage was dz = 1.706 for duty situations and dz = -0.394 for socializing situations. thus, there was a significant preference for the person with high self-control in the duty situation but also a significant preference for the person with low self-control in the socializing situation (both pairwise comparisons p < .001). the results are depicted in figure 1. figure 1 test of the situation hypothesis note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. besides determining the influence of the type of situation and the vignette self-control, we included participants' self-control in the model for exploratory purposes. the results of the situation hypothesis test did not change. the only additional significant effect was a vignette self-control (duty vs. socializing) × participant self-control interaction effect, f(1, 283) = 26.00, p < .001, ηp2 = .084, such that participant self-control was positively correlated with the mean of all situation ratings for the high self-control vignettes, r = .155, and negatively correlated for the low self-control vignettes, röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 7 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ r = -.223 (see figure 2). to sum up, both vignette self-control and participant self-control interacted with the type of situation. figure 2 interaction of participant self-control and vignette self-control on how likely participants were to choose the person described in the vignette as a partner in a variety of situations note. the solid lines represent regression lines for the respective conditions of vignette self-control (blue: high, red: low). liking hypothesis we tested whether people with high self-control are liked more than people with low self-control and how this interac­ ted with participants' own self-control using an anova with vignette self-control (high vs. low) as a within-subjects factor and participant self-control as a metric factor. there was a main effect of vignette self-control, f(1, 283) = 10.43, p = .001, ηp2 = .036, such that people with high self-control were liked less than people with low self-control, a finding that was visible only when participants' self-control was controlled for (mliking vignette high self-control = 3.34, sd = 0.13, mliking vignette low self-control = 3.38, sd = 0.12, dz = 0.155) and not significant when no other variables were controlled for, t(284) = 0.49, p = .625, dz = 0.041. participants' self-control had no main effect on the ratings, f(1, 283) = 0.03, p = .863, ηp2 < .001. in line with the similarity hypothesis, participants' self-control moderated the effect of vignette self-control, f(1, 283) = 10.20, p = .002, ηp2 = .035. the results are depicted in figure 3. people expressed the highest liking for people most similar to themselves on self-control. upsides and downsides of high self-control 8 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3 test of the liking hypothesis note. liking values are jittered for readability (i.e., random noise has been added to the scores to prevent overlap and enhance readability). the solid lines represent regression lines for the respective conditions of vignette self-control (blue: high, red: low). sex-stereotype hypothesis we tested whether a stereotype match (e.g., a man with low self-control or a woman with high self-control) had a positive effect on the extent to which participants liked that person. we computed a 2 (vignette sex: male vs. female) × 2 (stereotype match: yes vs. no) anova. there was no main effect of vignette self-control when we did not control for respondents' self-control, f(1, 283) = 0.24, p = .622, ηp2 < .001. there was also no main effect of stereotype match, f(1, 283) = 0.61, p = .435, ηp2 = .002. finally, there was no interaction between vignette self-control and whether the vignettes matched the stereotypes, f(1, 283) = 0.10, p = .750, ηp2 < .001. the results did not support the sex-stereotype hypothesis (see also figure 4). röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 9 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 4 sex-stereotype hypothesis test note. error bars represent 95% confidence intervals. exploratory analyses as we had not proposed specific hypotheses regarding halo effects of self-control on other traits, we investigated this aspect in an exploratory fashion. we ran eight t tests (one for each dimension) to determine the effect of vignette self-control. we controlled for an inflation of the alpha level by adjusting the significance level to α = .05/8 = .00625 (bonferroni correction). results are depicted in figure 5 and table 2. to summarize, almost all facets were sensitive to the manipulations of vignette self-control. people with high self-control were perceived as dominant, unassuming, and introverted, whereas people with low self-control were perceived as arrogant, cold-hearted, and extraverted.1 table 2 differences in vignettes (high vs. low self-control) on the dimensions of the interpersonal adjective list (ial) dimension mhigh vs. low sd dz p assured-dominant (pa) 0.66 1.06 0.619 < .001 arrogant-calculating (bc) -0.20 0.96 -0.206 .001 cold-hearted (de) -0.24 0.80 -0.298 < .000 aloof-introverted (fg) 0.51 1.11 0.464 < .001 unassured-submissive (hi) -0.07 1.16 -0.058 .325 unassuming-ingenuous (jk) 0.36 1.00 0.360 < .001 warm-agreeable (lm) 0.12 1.01 0.118 .047 gregarious-extraverted (no) -0.20 0.99 -0.201 < .001 1) this is surprising given that dominance and introversion are negatively correlated according to the circumplex model. we tested the circumplex model's proposed negative relationships between the respective factors pa-hi, bc-jk, de-lm, and fg-no and found the correlations to be much smaller than those reported by jacobs and scholl (2005, p. 146). the strongest correlations were between assured-dominant (pa) and unassured-submissive (hi), r(283) = -.483, p < .001 for the jan vignettes and r(283) = -.514, p < .001 for the sarah vignettes (jacobs & scholl, 2005, p. 146 reported r[332] = -.84 for self-reports). however, correlations between arrogant-calculating (bc) and unassuming-ingenuous (jk) were very small, r(283) = -.099, p = .094, for the jan vignettes and r(283) = -.008, p = .897 for the sarah vignettes (jacobs & scholl, 2005, p. 146 reported r[332] = -.66 for self-reports). upsides and downsides of high self-control 10 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 5 summary of ial ratings for the high and low self-controlled hypothesis note. opposite dimensions (e.g., pa vs. hi) have been juxtaposed. error bars represent 99.375% confidence intervals (bonferroni corrected). discussion a broad and high-powered vignette study provided detailed evidence for a wide range of effects of a person's self-con­ trol on social perception. contrary to the view that high self-control is always better than low self-control (positivity hypothesis of self-control), we found that the type of person that is preferred 1) depends on the type of situation one is confronted with, 2) depends on similarity, and 3) does not depend on gender stereotypes. in terms of duty situations (e.g., getting advice for a decision), people with high self-control were the preferred partners, whereas in socializing situations (e.g., going for a walk, attending a party, having a nice conversation), people with low self-control were the preferred partners. also contradicting the positivity hypothesis of self-control, we found that how much people liked people with low or high self-control depended on their own self-control. more specifically, people with high self-control preferred other people with high self-control, and people with low self-control preferred other people with low self-control, a trend that is consistent with similarity being a major factor for determining attraction in nonromantic contexts. there was an apparent contradiction of the main effect of self-control: when the task was to choose a partner for socializing and duty situations, participants preferred partners with high self-control overall (high vignette self-control). however, when we asked for how much participants liked the vignettes and participants' self-control was controlled for, low vignette self-control received higher liking scores overall. note that choosing somebody in a situation differs from liking somebody and that the overall mean effect across all 10 situations depended on these situations and could easily be different for other situations. for example, the duty situations might have been more diagnostic than the sociality situations, but at the same time, they might occur less often and thus weigh less. although there is evidence for stereotypical male behavior being less self-controlled than female behavior, and there are theoretical grounds for predicting that a stereotype match would be positively associated with how much a person likes another person, we found no such effect: whether men or women were presented as high or low in self-control had no differential effect on liking. we found that the similarity effect and the situation effect occurred simultaneously and independently and domina­ ted the main effect of vignette self-control (positivity hypothesis) by far. that is, the choice of a partner depends on röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 11 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the situation that the partner is needed for (situation hypothesis), the resemblance between the partner and the person who is choosing the partner (complementarity hypothesis), but not or only to a very small degree on the self-control of the partner being high (positivity hypothesis). future research should consider these aspects of social perception in relation to self-control. we did find an advantage of people with high self-control over people with low self-control when people look for partners in duty situations. despite this corroboration of the positivity hypothesis, other factors such as similarity and the situation seem more important. this is surprising given that the definition of self-control includes aspects of social desirability. in other words, whether one likes somebody who is socially desirable (i.e., has high self-control) also depends on the perceiver's self-control. and whether one wants to work with somebody who is socially desirable depends on the situation. ironically, in what we termed socializing situations (e.g., going on vacation together or partying), vignette characters with low self-control (i.e., a socially undesirable trait) were preferred over vignette characters with high self-control. finally, and more in line with the positivity hypothesis of self-control, an exploratory approach revealed that people with high self-control are associated with a wide range of other socially desirable traits, such as being assured, unassuming, and agreeable. some of the results are seemingly contradictory: although some factors theoretically corre­ late negatively (e.g., assured-dominant and gregarious-extraverted), differences between high and low self-controlled vignettes are not in the same direction with these factors. this could be due to patterns that are different in that population, possibly due to trans situational variability, than in a standard population. that is, people very high and low in self-control or the perceptions about these people could show other patterns of correlations between the dimensions that differ from those in a standard population. limitations in our outline of the social perception of people with high self-control, we considered different kinds of situations, individual differences in the participants, sex stereotypes, and a wide range of traits. however, several factors merit further investigation. first, we used vignettes only. our setting was thus highly artificial, and the large effect sizes were probably due to the extreme manipulations. if actual people with less extreme differences were used, we would expect smaller effects. second, our study may have been affected by demand characteristics. it was evident that we were interested in per­ ceptions that were based on the vignettes and on stereotypes. even though people are not defenseless against demand characteristics (hofmann, gschwendner, friese, wiers, & schmitt, 2008) judgments in everyday life may differ from findings in an experiment. the ratings of the vignettes might be subject to demand characteristics whereas spontaneous responses might not. although tasks such as the implicit association test (greenwald, mcghee, & schwartz, 1998) have been criticized heavily (e.g., schimmack, 2019), they allow for an assessment of such spontaneous reports (hofmann, gawronski, gschwendner, le, & schmitt, 2005) and can thus be helpful to avoid the problem of demand characteristics. third, our sample and vignettes targeted 20to 30-year-old german people. academic and social goals may vary across the lifespan and cultures, moderate the importance of duty and socializing situations, and thus affect their weight in choosing interaction partners and evaluating others. even what is socially desirable might depend on these factors. for example, an interesting approach could be the longitudinal perspective on romantic relationships with respect to self-control. at the beginning of a romantic relationship, partners might exercise much more self-control in order to convince their partner of sustaining the rather fragile relationship than after a few months or years. although we identified situation type, similarity, and self-control as three parallel effects, with the last one being the weakest in our study, we cannot generalize their significance to contexts outside the laboratory. generalization to other cultures where different traits are considered socially desirable may not be possible either. replications, especially in non-western cultures, are needed. due to the artificial setting and different manipulations and measures (i.e., manipulation of vignette self-control but no manipulation of respondent self-control), the effect sizes might be skewed. upsides and downsides of high self-control 12 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://www.psychopen.eu/ conclusion although self-control is usually understood as a socially desirable trait that is associated with functional behavior, we provided evidence against the simple assumption that more self-control is always better. although there was a slight overall preference for people with high self-control, these preferences changed significantly (and even occasionally reversed) on the basis of similarity and type of situation. our findings may be reassuring for people who have low self-control because they show that such people will sometimes be liked and chosen ahead of others. sometimes, at least, it is advantageous to lack self-discipline. funding: this research was partly funded by a graduate scholarship granted by the state of saxony-anhalt, germany to lukas röseler and by a humboldt research award to roy f. baumeister. the funding sources had no involvement in the study design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of data, writing, or decision to submit. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments: we want to thank jane zagorski for language editing and barbara caci for helpful comments on how our manuscript could be improved. data availability: data for this article is freely available (see röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister, 2021). supplementary materials for this article the following supplementary materials are available via the psycharchives repository (for access see index of supplementary materials below): • data analysis. • materials from the experiment. index of supplementary materials röseler, l., ebert, j., schütz, a., & baumeister, r. f. 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(2011). the sum of friends' and lovers' self-control scores predicts relationship quality. social psychological and personality science, 2(2), 138-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610385710 röseler, ebert, schütz, & baumeister 15 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol.17(1), 1–16 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2639 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.06.003 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23092582 https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407508096700 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.1989.tb01229.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407505054524 https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.35.4.250 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-003-0007-4 https://doi.org/10.1023/b:sers.0000037762.10349.13 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037250 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.1884 https://doi.org/10.1080/00220970903292900 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021827 http://www.f3.htw-berlin.de/professoren/pruemper/pdf/antwortskalen.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619863798 https://doi.org/10.1002/per.818 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612464890 https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2160588 https://www.destatis.de/de/themen/gesellschaft-umwelt/verkehrsunfaelle/publikationen/downloads-verkehrsunfaelle/unfaelle-alkohol-5462404187004.pdf https://www.destatis.de/de/themen/gesellschaft-umwelt/verkehrsunfaelle/publikationen/downloads-verkehrsunfaelle/unfaelle-alkohol-5462404187004.pdf https://www.destatis.de/de/themen/gesellschaft-umwelt/verkehrsunfaelle/publikationen/downloads-verkehrsunfaelle/unfaelle-alkohol-5462404187004.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00263.x https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.84.3.558 https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550610385710 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors lukas röseler is a phd student at the university of bamberg and the harz university of applied sciences. his research focuses on anchoring effects, assimilation versus contrast, and self-control. jacqueline ebert studied psychology at the university of bamberg. this project is rooted in her bachelor's thesis. she is currently working as a psychologist in an educational institution in leipzig, germany. astrid schütz is a personality psychologist based at the university of bamberg. her research focuses on personality in social relationships. she studies self-esteem, narcissism and emotional intelligence in social interactions and devices tools for training and assessment. roy f. baumeister is a social psychologist based at the university of queensland. he explores how we think about the self, and why we feel and act the way we do. he is especially known for his work on the subjects of willpower, self-control, and self-esteem, and how they relate to human morality and success. upsides and downsides of high self-control 16 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ upsides and downsides of high self-control (introduction) derivation of hypotheses downsides of high self-control in social interactions perceivers' traits in relation to targets' traits halo effects of high self-control method participants materials procedure results data quality checks hypothesis tests exploratory analyses discussion limitations conclusion (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments data availability supplementary materials references about the authors parenting sense of competence in parents of children with and without intellectual disability research reports parenting sense of competence in parents of children with and without intellectual disability sanja jandrić 1,2, ana kurtović 3 [1] unit for child and adolescent psychiatry, clinical hospital center, osijek, croatia. [2] faculty of medicine, j. j. strossmayer university of osijek, osijek, croatia. [3] department of psychology, faculty of humanties and social sciences, osijek, croatia. europe's journal of psychology, 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 received: 2020-05-27 • accepted: 2020-09-02 • published (vor): 2021-05-31 handling editor: aleksandra gajda, the maria grzegorzewska university, warsaw, poland corresponding author: ana kurtović, department of psychology, faculty of humanties and social sciences, l. jagera 9, 31 000 osijek, croatia. e-mail: akurtovi@ffos.hr abstract our study aims to examine the relationship of child’s intellectual disability, parental education, employment and perceived stress with parenting sense of competence (satisfaction and self-efficacy). three groups of parents (children without intellectual disability, children with mild intellectual disabilities, and children with moderate/severe intellectual disability) completed measures of perceived stress, parenting sense of competence and socio-demographic questions. results show that child’s intellectual disability affects parenting satisfaction but not parenting self-efficacy. parental employment predicted parenting satisfaction, but not parenting selfefficacy, while perceived stress predicted parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy. results further suggest that parental employment moderates the relationship of child's disability with parenting satisfaction and perceived stress. result suggest a need for interventions aimed at supporting parents in dealing with emotional consequences of their child’s disability. keywords parenting sense of competence, perceived stress, intellectual disability children’s well-being is closely related to parents’ well-being, and most studies demonstrate that the quality of parental care, which greatly determines the child’s adjustment, is influenced by parents’ sense of competence in their role as parents (coleman & karraker, 1997; elek, hudson & bouffard, 2003; greenspan & wieder 2003; hudson, elek, & fleck, 2001; johnston & mash, 1989; landry, smith, & swank, 2003; priel & besser, 2000; sanders & woolley, 2005). parenting sense of competence is a construct derived from social—cognitive perspective (bandura, 1982; bandura & cervone, 1983), which emphasizes cognitive processes in the development of personality. however, in research and measurement of parenting cognitions about their parenting, there has been quite a lot of differences and overlap between constructs of parenting competence, self-efficacy, and parenting self-esteem. authors sometimes use these terms interchangeably and, even when they do not, the definitions of parenting self-efficacy and competence are very similar (vance & brandon, 2017). one of the reasons for this lack of conceptual clarity might stem from using different measurements and their theoretical backgrounds. while some studies focus on self-efficacy as one’s perception of one’s competency at performing different tasks, either in a task-specific (relating to specific tasks of parenting), domain-specific (relating to different tasks in a broader domain of parenting) or domain-general (a global competency expectation as a parent) (boruszak-kiziukiewicz & kmita, 2020; coleman & hildebrandt karraker, 2000; wittkowski, garrett, calam, & weisberg, 2017), others take a broader approach to conceptualizing parenting competence (miklósi, szabó, & simon, 2017; ohan, leung, & johnston, 2000; rybski & israel, 2017; teti & gelfand, 1991). this approach this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3771&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2021-05-31 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ defines parental sense of competence in terms of parental self-esteem in accordance with multidimensional models of self-esteem (harter, 1985; tafarodi & swann, 1995). this approach defines parenting competence as having two correlated but independent components—one referring to a sense of personal efficacy and one referring to a sense of one’s value and satisfaction as a parent. therefore, parents, who feel competent in their parenting role, consider themselves in control of their parenting behavior, efficient in their ability as a parent, and they are satisfied with themselves as a parent (grusec, hastings, & mammone, 1994; miklósi et al., 2017; ohan et al., 2000; rybski & israel, 2017; sanders & wooley, 2005; sevigny & loutzenhiser, 2010). parenting sense of competence is an important focus of both research and interventions aimed at preventing or alleviating problems behaviors in children (holden, 2010; kapetanovic, skoog, bohlin, & gerdner, 2019; latham, mark, & oliver, 2018). this seems to be especially important if a child is at risk or has special needs, due to greater demands and pressures that parents are faced with (baxter, cummins, & yiolitis, 2000; challela, 1981). developmental disability in the family often affects the entire family system, usually because the mother has to provide extra care and time for the disabled child, leaving fewer resources for other responsibilities and relationships, within or outside the family (lundy, 2011; vanderkerken, heyvaert, onghena, & maes, 2019). children with intellectual disability process information more slowly than children without intellectual disability. they have difficulties communicating, managing life skills, and understanding abstract concepts (minnes, 1998; shaffer et al., 1985). according to the fifth edition of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm-5; american psychiatric association [apa], 2013) diagnosis of intellectual disability is warranted when a child has a deficit in intellectual functioning (e.g., reasoning, problem solving, abstract thinking etc.), and significant impairment in adaptive functioning. as opposed to older classifications, namely interna­ tional statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (icd-10; world health organization, 2009) and dsm-iv (apa, 1994), the severity of the disability is determined on the basis of deficits in adaptive functioning in three domains (conceptual, social and practical), and not on the basis of intellectual impairment or iq score. children with mild intellectual disability have difficulties in acquiring academic skills (such as reading, writing, calculus) and abstract thinking as they get older (apa, 2013, 2019). their level of social and practical functioning is below what is expected for their age group. they are usually able to develop satisfactory relationships and basic self-care, but they require support in certain areas (such as social reasoning or self-protection) (alexander & reynolds, 2020; platt, keyes, mclaughlin, & kaufman, 2019). children with moderate intellectual disability display significant delay in acquisition of academic skills and require constant support (apa, 2013, 2019; sermier dessemontet, de chambrier, martinet, moser, & bayer, 2017). similarly, their social functioning is characterized with significant deficits reading social cues and understanding relationships (apa, 2013, 2019; platt et al., 2019), while in practical domain usually their competence is limited to basic self-care and requires a prolonged learning period (apa, 2013, 2019). children with severe intellectual disability have very limited acquisition of academic skills, and limited understanding of written word. their social functioning is severely limited in terms of vocabulary and syntax, and they require support and supervision in practically all everyday activities (apa, 2013, 2019). raising a child with intellectual disability brings a set of challenges for parents in terms of managing a growing need for care, availability of support and dealing with the child’s limitations (challela, 1981; hastings & brown, 2002; krauss, 1993; salonen et al., 2009). studies show that parents often feel fear, frustration, helplessness and guilt for not being able to help their child more (baxter et al., 2000; challela, 1981; moos & holahan, 2003), all of which can result in them feeling incompetent as parents and consequently affect parenting practices and child’s well-being. parents who feel competent in their parenting tasks, on the other hand, are less likely to perceive their child as problematic, and more likely to be satisfied (coleman & hildebrant karraker, 2000). even though parents of children with intellectual disability report being satisfied with their children and that having a child with intellectual disability has had a positive impact on their self-efficacy and satisfaction (bunga, manchala, tondehal, & shankar, 2020; gilmore & cuskelly, 2012; macinnes & fraser, 2009), as well as personal growth, maturity and family life in general (hastings, allen, mcdermott, & still, 2002), there are also studies demonstrating differences in comparison to parents of children without disability. for example, al-kandari and al-qashan (2010) found that mothers of children with intellectual disability had exhibited lower levels of self-efficacy and had negative beliefs about their parental abilities, while gilmore and cuskelly (2012) found that parents adapt to their child’s needs over time, and their sense of competence, while lower at first, does increase as the child parenting and child's disability 76 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ develops. moreover, the effects on parental self-esteem do not necessarily come from the child’s disability per se, but rather from associated behavioral and emotional problems (ohan et al., 2000). therefore, the link between characteristics of the child with intellectual disability and parenting sense of competence is not yet clear, given that studies show different results. this suggest that there are other factors, which might determine parental adjustment to their child’s disability and their sense of competence as a parent, apart from the disability itself. indeed, studies suggest that there are socio-economic factors which might have a significant role (delongis & holtzman, 2005; jones & prinz, 2005). flynt and wood (1989) demonstrated the effects of age, marital and socio-economic status on coping and adjustment of mothers of children with moderate intellectual disability. employment status is related to better socio-economic status and thus has positive effects in terms of stress reduction (cidav, marcus, & mandell, 2012; saltzstein et al., 2001). however, in parents of children with intellectual disability, one parent is often unemployed due to increased need for care (either by choice or due to getting fired which is often the case in croatia), which can put an extra strain on families’ resources, increase stress and affect adjustment. studies in both eastern and western countries have shown that mothers of children with disabilities are unemployed more often than mothers of children without disabilities (brown & clark, 2017; ejiri & matsuzawa, 2019; olsson & hwang, 2006). although a variety of factors affect employment status of parents of children with or without disability (brown & clark, 2017), data consistently shows that child’s disability is one of the factors associated with it. also, ouyang et al. (2014) found that parent of children with fragile x syndrome and parents of children with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disability have more often quit their job or worked less in order to take care of the child, than parents of children with either autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability. similar differences were found by saunders et al. (2015). these results suggest that a more severe disability is related to more unemployment and financial burden. education, on the other hand, was shown to be an important factor in parental adjustment to their child’s disability, mostly due to more knowledge, better understanding of the disability and more proactive attitudes and self-advocacy (landry, smith, & swank, 2006; miller, gordon, daniele, & diller, 1992). number of children in the family could affect parenting sense of competence in different ways. on one hand, previous experience in raising children has shown positive effects on parenting and family adjustment (glidden, flaherty, & mcglone, 2000). on the other hand, having more children, especially young ones close in age, can put an extra strain on parents, both financially and emotionally, as some studies suggest (kwai-sang yau & li-tsang, 1999; skreden et al., 2012). finally, perceived stress was shown to be a major factor in explaining parenting sense of competence, parental behavior as well as overall adjustment in both parents of children with disabilities and in parents of typical children (johnston & mash, 1989; panneton & deater deckard, 2017). the relationship between stress and parenthood has long since been a subject of research in developmental psychology (crnic, greenberg, ragozin, robinson, & basham, 1983; deater deckard & scarr, 1996; hastings & brown, 2002; salonen et al., 2009). research has mostly, focused on general sources of parenting stress, such as various social and economic factors (low income or unemployment), or child’s intellectual disability (conger & elder, 1994; crnic et al., 1983; demerouti et al., 2005; whippl & webster-stratton, 1991), which, when accumulated, can decrease parents’ sense of efficacy and affect the quality of parent-child interactions (crnic & low, 2002; deater deckard, 1998; gutermuth et al., 2005; reece & harkless, 1998). indeed, studies show that daily stress is related to parenting behavior (deater deckard, 2005) and parenting competence (deater deckard, 1998). studies also consistently show elevated levels of stress in parents of children with intellectual disability (arakkathara & bance, 2019; macinnes & fraser, 2009; masulani-mwale, kauye, gladstone, & mathanga, 2018; phillips, conners, & curtner-smith, 2017; tsermentseli & kouklari, 2019), both mothers (leung, 2019) and fathers (marsh, brown, & mccann, 2020), although those levels are related solely to the child’s disability but also other factors, both internal (such as parents’ coping) end external (such as social support), as well as the child’s internalizing and externalizing problems (barak-levy & atzaba-poria, 2020; hassall, rose, & mcdonald, 2005; leung, 2019). higher levels of stress in parents of children with intellectual disability put a significant strain on parents, increase the risk of mental health problems, marital problems and can impair parents’ ability to positively affect the child’s behavior, as well as decrease wellbeing and overall quality of family life (arakkathara & bance, 2019; azeem et al., 2013; barak-levy & atzaba-poria, 2020; langley, totsika, & hastings, 2020). the focus of our study was to examine the effects of child’s intellectual disability, socio-demographic variables, and perceived stress on parenting sense of competence (satisfaction and self-efficacy) in a sample of parents in croatia. jandrić & kurtović 77 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants and procedure participants were 107 parents of primary school children (79 mothers and 28 fathers), aged 28 to 57 years old (m = 41.86, sd = 5.652). the unequal number of mothers and fathers is not unexpected given the fact that involvement in child’s education as well as other childcare activities has been in favor of mothers, especially more traditional societies (craig & mullan, 2011). croatia is still quite traditional in its understanding of gender roles, with mothers assuming more responsibility in childcare (bartolac & kamenov, 2013). the majority of participants were married or in a civil union (89.7%), while 10.3% were divorced or widowed. the majority of parent had two or three children (77.5%), 13.1% had only one child, and 9.3% had more than three children. more than half of the participants (54.7%) have a high-school degree, 8.4% had primary school education, while 36.8% of the participants had a higher education degree (university or postgraduate studies). with regard to the employment, 67.9% of the participants were employed and 32.1% of them were unemployed or retired (there were no parents with part time employment). there were three groups of parents; parents of children without intellectual disability (n = 35, 32.7%), parents of children with mild intellectual disability (n = 33, 30.85%), and parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability (n = 39, 36.4%). in all three groups, children were 7 to 14 years of age, with equally distributed genders, 15 to 17 girls, and 16 to 22 boys respectively. the diagnosis of intellectual disability was made independent of the study by an interdisciplinary team comprised of a psychiatrist a psychologist, an educational rehabilitator, a speech therapist, a pedagogist, a teacher and a school medicine specialists. inclusion criteria for mild intellectual disability group were: having children with diagnosed mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual disability with comorbid specific developmental disorders (including but not limited to communication disorders, learning disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or autism spectrum disorder— severity level 1) whose level of adaptive functioning is congruent with mild intellectual disability and require support in different domains of functioning. inclusion criteria for moderate/severe group were: having children with diagnosed moderate or severe intellectual disability with or without comorbid severe developmental disorders (including but not limited to autism spectrum disorder—severity level 2 and 3, rett syndrome, cerebral palsy). there were only five parents of children with diagnosed severe intellectual disability, and for that reason, the decision was made to merge parents of children with diagnosed mild and severe intellectual disability. inclusion criteria for parents of children without intellectual disability was having a child without developmental disabilities. additional inclusion criteria for all three groups of parents was giving informed, written consent for participation in the study. exclusion criteria was having a child with serious psychiatric comorbidity (e.g., psychosis) and not providing informed, written consent. inclusion and exclusion were made based on children’ medical record documentation. the study was approved by institutional ethics committee, and conducted in one elementary school and one special education institution in croatia. subsamples of parents of children without intellectual disability and parents of children with mild intellectual disability were examined in the elementary school where their children were enrolled, while subsample of parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability was examined in the special education institution were their children were enrolled. parents completed measures of parenting sense of competence, perceived stress and socio-demographic questions during group parent—teacher meetings. participation was voluntary, written consent was obtained and participant were informed of the anonymity and the confidentiality of obtained data, as well as that they can terminate their involvement in the study at any time. measures socio-demographic data were collected on age, gender, number of children, marital status, educational level and parental employment. parenting and child's disability 78 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ parenting sense of competence scale parenting sense of competence was measured using parenting sense of competence scale (psoc; gibaud-wallston & wandersman, 1978), translation by gustović-ercegovac (1992). it is a 17 item self-report measure of parenting satisfaction (9 items, e.g., “my talents and interests are in other areas, not in being a parent”) and self-efficacy (8 items, e.g., “i honestly believe i have the skills necessary to be a good mother/father to my child”). participant are expected to judge their agreement with items regarding their experience as a parent on a 6-point scale (ranging from 1—strongly disagree to 6—strongly agree). higher scores indicate higher satisfaction and self-efficacy. the scale has good internal consistency with coefficients ranging from .77 to .80 (ohan et al., 2000). cronbach alpha coefficients in our study were .71 for parenting satisfaction and .70 for self-efficacy for the entire sample. reliability coefficients for parents of children without intellectual disability were .77 for parenting satisfaction and .83 for self-efficacy. reliability coefficients for parents of children with mild intellectual disability were .79 for parenting satisfaction and .85 for self-efficacy. reliability coefficients for parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability were .82 for parenting satisfaction and .91 for self-efficacy. perceived stress perceived stress was measured using the perceived stress scale-10 (pss; cohen, kamarck, & mermelstein, 1983), translation by hudek-knežević, kardum, and lesić (1999). pss-10 is a 10 item self-report scale measuring the level of experienced stress during the previous month. participants are expected to answer how often they experienced each sensation on a 5—point scale (ranging from 0—never to 4—very often). higher scores indicate higher levels of perceived stress. the scale has shown good reliability both in english and croatian with reliability coefficients ranging from .78 (cohen et al., 1983) to .88 (hudek-knežević et al., 1999). cronbach alpha in our study was .88 for the entire sample, .84 for parents of children without intellectual disability, .87 for parents of children with mild intellectual disability, and .83 for parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability. results table 1 shows descriptive data for parenting satisfaction, self-efficacy, and perceived stress for the entire sample, while table 2 shows descriptive data for parenting satisfaction, self-efficacy, and perceived stress across three groups of parents. table 1 descriptive data for parenting satisfaction, parenting self-efficacy and perceived stress variable m sd observed range possible range parenting satisfaction 40.39 9.008 9–54 9–54 parenting self-efficacy 35.10 6.920 14–48 8–48 perceived stress 17.09 5.997 3–31 0–40 table 2 descriptive data for parenting competence and perceived stress across three groups of parents variable parents of children without intellectual impairment (n = 35) parents of children with mild intellectual impairment (n = 33) parents of children with severe intellectual impairment (n = 39) m sd min-max m sd min-max m sd min-max parenting satisfaction 44.00 6.22 32–52 39.52 8.40 22–54 37.60 10.77 9–54 parenting self-efficacy 35.60 6.09 22–47 34.72 7.07 23–48 34.97 7.67 14–48 perceived stress 15.06 5.06 4–27 18.30 7.07 3–31 17.92 5.48 3–26 jandrić & kurtović 79 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ as can be seen in both table 1, descriptive data point to parents exhibiting moderate to high sense of parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, and moderate levels of perceived stress. however, standard deviations and observed range suggest that parents differ in their perception of parenting competence and stress almost across the entire theoretical range (especially for parenting competence). similarly to the results for the entire sample, parents exhibiting moderate to high sense of parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, and moderate levels of perceived stress, but measures of dispersion suggest that parents differ in their perception of parenting competence and stress. in order to examine the relationship between child’s intellectual disability socio-demographic variables, perceived stress and parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy correlation analysis was performed. socio-demographic variables were coded as follows; gender: 1—male, 2—female; marital status: 1—marriage/civil union, 2—widowed/divorced (there were no single parents); parents’ education level: 1—primary school, 2—high school, 3—university/postgraduate, and parental employment: 1—yes, 2—no (there were no parents with part-time employment nor retired parents). according to child’s intellectual disability, groups of parents were coded as follows: 1—parents of children without intellectual disability, 2—parents of children with mild intellectual disability, and 3—parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability. in accordance with requirements for correlations between variables, we used point-biserial coefficient to test correlation of gender, parental employment and marital status with criterion variables (parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy), spearman’s coefficient to test correlation of parents’ age, education level and child’s disability with criterion variables, and pearson’s coefficient to test the correlation between perceived stress and criterion variables. the results are presented in table 3. table 3 correlation coefficients between observed variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. parents’ gender 2. parents’ age −.20* 3. number of children −.11 .32** 4. marital status .13 −.11 .02 5. parents’ education level −.16 .11 −.35** −.15 6. parental employment .05 .04 −.08 .10 −.24* 7. child's disability .06 −.14 .00 .05* −.21*** −.28** 8. perceived stress −.07 .07 .04 .16 −.00 .12 .19* 9. parenting self-efficacy −.13 −.16 .13 −.02 −.24* .13 −.12 −.29** 10. parenting satisfaction .06 −.14 .00 −.05 .21* −.28** −.37** −.53** .15 *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as shown in table 2, parenting satisfaction is negatively correlated with perceived stress, r(107) = −.53, p < .01, and parental employment, r(107) = −.28, p < .01, and positively correlated with parents’ education level, r(107) = .21, p < .05. therefore, parents who perceive more stress, who are employed, and parents with higher education level, are also more satisfied with their parenting role. parenting satisfaction is also negatively correlated with child’s disability, r(107) = −.37, p < .01. parenting self-efficacy correlated significantly (negatively) with perceived stress, r(107) = −.29, p < .01, and parents’ educational level, r(107) = −.24, p < .05, but was not significantly correlated with child’s disability. in other words, parents who perceive more stress and have a higher educational level, feel less efficient in their parenting role. other socio-demographic variables did not correlate significantly with parenting satisfaction nor self-efficacy. it is important to point to the fact that parents’ gender did not have significant correlations with either variable except parents’ age, which suggest that the unequal number of mothers and fathers in the sample most likely would not affect the results. parenting and child's disability 80 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ in order to examine the effects of child’s disability, socio-demographic variables and perceived stress on parenting satisfaction and efficacy, hierarchical regression analyses were performed. child’s disability was entered in the first step, parent’s educational level and parental employment in the second, and perceived stress in the third step. results are presented in table 4 and table 5. table 4 results of hierarchical regression analyses for parenting satisfaction predictor β summary step 1 r² = .08**, f = 10.25** child’s disability −0.30** step 2 r² = .11 (p = .05), ∆r² = .03 (p = .05), f = 5.08** child’s disability −0.10 parents’ education level 0.12 parental employment −0.21* step 3 r² = .33***, ∆r² = .22***, f = 13.63*** child’s disability 0.49*** parents’ education level 0.12 parental employment −0.16 perceived stress −0.49*** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. table 5 results of hierarchical regression analyses for parenting self-efficacy predictor β summary step 1 r² = .01, f = 0.02 child’s disability 0.01 step 2 r² = .06*, ∆r² = 05*, f = 3.07* child’s disability 0.30* parents’ education level −0.31** parental employment −0.11 step 3 r² = .17**, ∆r² = .11**, f = 5.73*** child’s disability 0.06 parents’ education level −0.31 parental employment −0.15 perceived stress −0.34** *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. as can be seen in table 4, child’s disability predicted parenting satisfaction in a sense that higher disability severity predicted lower satisfaction. parents’ education level did not have significant effects, but parental employment predicted higher satisfaction. however, once parents’ education level and parental employment were entered in the equation, child’s disability was no longer significant, suggesting that child’s disability predicts lower parenting satisfaction be­ cause it predicts unemployment, which is further supported by positive, significant correlation between child’s disability and parental employment (see table 2). finally, perceived stress, in the third step, predicted lower parenting satisfaction. however, once perceived stress was entered in the equation, the effect of child’s disability became significant again, higher and of an opposite direction, while the effect of unemployment was no longer significant. given the fact that perceived stress and employment were not significantly related, this suggest that there might be an interaction between jandrić & kurtović 81 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ child’s disability and parental employment affecting perceived stress, as well as parenting satisfaction. the model explained 33% of total variance of parenting satisfaction. as shown in table 5, child’s disability was not a significant predictor. however, once parental employment and pa­ rents’ education level were entered the hierarchical regression analysis (hra), child’s intellectual disability (positively) and parents’ education level (negatively) were both significant predictors, which was not in accordance with correla­ tional analysis. correlations between child’s disability, parents’ education level and parental employment most likely led to the inflation of variance in the second step (suppression effect). perceived stress, in the final step, contributed significantly to parenting self-efficacy in a negative direction. the model explained 17% of total variance of parenting satisfaction. due to changes in beta coefficients depending on variables entered in individual step of the hra, which suggested interactions between child’s disability and parental employment we performed moderation analyses using hayes’ (2009) process macro for parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, as well as perceived stress. the results of the analyses are shown in table 6. table 6 results of hayes’ process for simple moderation analyses predictor coefficient t p 95% ci parenting satisfaction child's disability −5.6623 −2.5010 .0140 [−10.1550, −1.1695] parental employment 3.4467 1.7056 .0912 [−0.5635, 7.4570] interaction 4.9158 2.2646 .0264 [0.5482, 7.3589] parenting self-efficacy child's disability −0.9330 −0.5351 .5938 [−4.3942, 2.5282] parental employment −2.2802 −1.4029 .1639 [−5.5066, 0.9461] interaction 0.4922 0.2474 .8051 [−3.4567, 4.4411] perceived stress child's disability 3.0139 3.0326 .0031 [1.0417, 4.9861] parental employment −0.4985 −0.4066 .6852 [−2.9310, 1.9340] interaction −2.5101 −1.9999 .0252 [−5.0008, −0.0194] as can be seen in table 6, the interaction effects of child’s disability and parental employment on parenting satisfaction and perceived stress were significant, while no significant effect was found regarding parenting self-efficacy. analyses of conditional effects showed that the interactions were significant only in unemployed parents. in order to better understand the interactions, they are presented in figures 1 and 2. parenting and child's disability 82 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 1 effect of interaction between child's disability and parental employment on parenting satisfaction figure 2 effect of interaction between child's disability and parental employment on perceived stress as can be seen in figure 1, parents of children without intellectual disability do not differ in their satisfaction with respect to employment, while parents of children with intellectual disability do. the most pronounced difference is between employed and unemployed parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability. the unemployed parents are significantly less satisfied than the employed ones. therefore, the differences are significant only in unem­ ployed parents, suggesting a cumulative negative effect of unemployment and child’s disability on parental satisfaction. as can be seen in figure 2, unemployed parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability experience more stress that the employed ones, while the opposite is the case in parent of children with mild intellectual disability. jandrić & kurtović 83 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the differences are also significant only in unemployed parents, suggesting that unemployment significantly increases stress in parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability. discussion given the fact that, for most parents, satisfaction that they feel in their role as a parent greatly determines their satisfaction with life, the perception of competence as a parent is of vital importance for personal adjustment of the parents and their children (arakkathara & bance, 2019; bunga et al., 2020; langley et al., 2020), especially in parents of children with intellectual disability (azeem et al., 2013; lundy, 2011; masulani-mwale et al., 2018). with that in mind, our study has focused on examining the effects of the child’s intellectual disability on parenting sense of competence, as well as factors that might explain those effects. descriptive analysis has shown that, on average, parents feel satisfied and efficient in their parenting role. although there were differences in parenting satisfaction between parents, as demonstrated by the range of the results, most pa­ rents feel confident about their knowledge, skills and abilities and find parenthood enjoyable and fulfilling. descriptive data for perceived stress suggests that the majority of parents experience moderate levels of stress, although the range of results suggest that parent differ in their experience of stress. certain degree of concern about child behavior and development is an inevitable part of parenting (hastings & brown, 2002; salonen et al., 2009). while those concerns may stem from parents’ sensitivity to their child's needs and motivate parents to meet those needs, they may also significantly increase stress if parents perceive that they cannot meet them (deater deckard, 2005). results of correlational analysis have shown correlations of child’s intellectual disability with parenting satisfaction, while it had no significant relations with parenting self-efficacy. parents whose children have intellectual disability often encounter situations in which they feel helpless, frustrated and incompetent (barak-levy & atzaba-poria, 2020; challela, 1981; walden, pistrang, & joyce, 2000). in terms of developmental milestones, parents expect a child to be able to acquire new skills and competencies. unfortunately, those expectations usually need to be changed and adapted, especially when it comes to children with intellectual disability whose parents often have trouble accepting their child’s limitations (marsh et al., 2020). continuous feelings of frustration and disappointment can lead parents to feel less satisfied with themselves as parents. parenting self-efficacy, on the other hand, is more related to parents’ skills than child’s characteristics. parents who feel efficient feel that they can solve problems related to their child and influence their behavior. it is less correlated with expectations from the child and more correlated with expectations from oneself, therefore understandably not correlated with the child’s disability (jones & prinz, 2005; vance & brandon, 2017). regarding socio-demographic factors, our results did not show significant relations between parents’ education level or parental employment, and perceived stress or parenting self-efficacy, but they did show that unemployed parents and less educated parents are less satisfied in their parenting role. this is in line with studies demonstrating positive effects of education on satisfaction with oneself, one’s life as well as parenting (craig, 2006; melin, fugl-meyer, & fugl-meyer, 2003; orth, trzesniewski, & robins, 2010), and can also be indicative of economic pressures and parents feeling unable to sufficiently fulfil their child’s needs. finally, parenting sense of self-efficacy has shown a negative correlation with perceived stress, which is consistent with earlier findings (hanson, mclanahan, & thomson, 1997; masulani-mwale et al., 2018; tsermentseli & kouklari, 2019) where parents with higher levels of stress estimated themselves to be less efficient parents. results of hierarchical regression analyses were in line with correlational analysis, for the most part. the only significant predictor of parenting self-efficacy was perceived stress, while, child’s disability, parental employment and perceives stress predicted satisfaction. the results are in line with previous studies demonstrating a negative relation of stress with parenting competence (crnic & low, 2002). furthermore, they are in line with studies showing that long-lasting low-intensity stress (i. e. chronic daily stress) has a stronger effect on adjustment than major life stressors (asselmann, wittchen, lieb, & beesdo-baum, 2017; reece & harkless, 1998), because perceived stress scale used in our study is saturated more with day-to-day stress rather than with effects of major life events. research has demonstrated that stress affects self-confidence, self-competence and self-esteem (hudd et al., 2000; johnston & mash, 1989; lazarus, parenting and child's disability 84 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 2000; lazarus & folkman, 1987, 2004; reece & harkless, 1998). similarly, parents, who feel overwhelmed or not in control of their lives, are likely not to feel very satisfied with themselves as parent as well as in other areas of life (abidin, 1992), and are likely to be less responsive to their child’s needs, which decreases their parenting sense of competence (chavira, wittchen, lieb, & beesdo-baum, 2000; miller et al., 1992; rybski & israel, 2017; zukosky, 2009). furthermore, our results suggest that stress has a weaker effect on parenting self-efficacy than it does on satisfaction. it is possible that even if a parent feels under stress, he or she still has to deal with obstacles and challenges of daily life, therefore may have the experience of successful coping and preserve a sense of self-efficacy. however, our result do suggest that the effects of stress on parenting competence are more emotional in nature, given the fact that parenting satisfaction reflects emotional experience of parenting, rather than a cognitive interpretation of ones skills and competence. finally, moderation analyses revealed effects of interaction between child’s intellectual disability and parental employment on parenting satisfaction and perceived stress. with regard to parenting satisfaction, parents of children without intellectual disability were the most satisfied with their parental role, regardless of their employment, while parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability who were unemployed were less satisfied than employed ones. apart from the added economic burden of unemployment, which could explain the difference, it is also possible that unemployed parents are too immersed in their child’s life and lack balance in their own lives in terms of other sources of pleasure and satisfaction. also, employed parents, due to better resources, could provide their child with extra help, as well as hire someone to help with everyday responsibilities, which can reduce stress and caregiver strain, as well as enable a parent to dedicate more quality time to their child, thus improving satisfaction. in support of that assumption, interaction of child’s intellectual disability and parental employment showed significant effect on perceived stress as well. unemployed parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability experience significantly more stress than employed parents, while the opposite was true in parents of children without intellectual disability. taken together, these results suggest a protective role of employment, at least in parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability. similar results were found by brown and clark (2017), and morris (2012) who’s results suggest that working mothers of school-aged children with disabilities have better work-family balance and mental health, as well as lower stress experience than unemployed mothers. our study offers some useful insights into the effects of child’s intellectual disability on parenting satisfaction and perceived stress in parents. first, they suggest that parents of children with intellectual disability could benefit from interventions aimed at promoting their sense of satisfaction in their parental role. given the fact that satisfaction is a very subjective outcome, interventions should focus on providing support in dealing with emotional consequences of their child having an intellectual disability, accepting the reality of the disability while not overprotecting the child and trying to compensate for things that are not under their control. in dealing with emotional consequences, parents could also benefit from re-examining their expectations from themselves and others in order to have a more realistic view of whether they are actually providing their child with everything that is in their power to provide, as well as differentiating between what is under their control and what is not. given the fact that our results suggest that greater perceived stress negatively affects parenting satisfaction and self-efficacy, interventions aimed at managing stress, such as coping skills training, relaxation techniques as well as support groups could, also, prove to be useful. improving availability of information about intellectual disability per se, as well as about different options and adaptations (through workshops, informal education etc.) could reduce stress and make parent feel more in control of what happens to their child. unfortunately, in croatia, in the region where the study was conducted, there are few services available to children with disabilities, especially in rural areas, and virtually none, which provide support to parents. furthermore, our results have implications for policy makers, primarily regarding employment. our result show that unemployed parents of children with moderate/severe intellectual disability are under greater stress and less satisfied with themselves as parents. measures that encourage employment of parents with children with developmental disabili­ ties and discourage illegal, but nevertheless present, practice of discriminating against parents (especially mothers) who have children with disabilities should be taken, as well as promoting more flexibility in the work place which might improve work-family balance, even when their child requires more support. jandrić & kurtović 85 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://www.psychopen.eu/ some limitations of our study should be mentioned. first, correlational and cross-sectional nature of the design prevents us from making causal conclusions as well as conclusions about whether the child’s intellectual disability, parental employment or perceived stress temporally precede changes in parenting competence. parenting competence and perceived stress were measured using self-report measures, which can be confounded by socially desirable respon­ ses, especially when it comes to parental satisfaction, which is a sensitive subject for most parents and it is likely that parents would be less likely to report being dissatisfied in their parental role. small sample size could also be an issue in limiting the possibility of generalization of result. even though disproportion of mothers and fathers in the sample most likely did not affect the results, future studies should include more fathers in order to examine the role of parents’ gender. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references abidin, r. r. 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(2009). self-efficacy: a concept analysis. nursing forum, 44(2), 93-102. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6198.2009.00132.x about the authors sanja jandric works as a psychologist at the unit for child and adolescent psychiatry, clinical hospital center in osijek, croatia. she is a phd candidate at biomedicine and health sciences program at faculty of medicine in osijek with a thesis in child and adolescent psychiatry. she has previously work at a psychologist in two schools and center for neglected and abused children. apart from her masters in psychology, she has attained additional training in neurofeedback/biofeedback and tomatis. she is also a founder of an ngo an association for early intervention in osjecko-baranjska county, where she works with children with developmental disabilities, emotional and social problems. ana kurtovic, phd is an associate professor at the department of psychology at faculty of humanties and social sciences, university of j. j. strossmayer in osijek, croatia, where she teaches courses in clinical psychology and developmental disabilities. she is the head of the psychological counseling center for students at the university of j. j. strossmayer, where she works as a counselor. apart from her masters and phd education, she has training in cognitive—behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, compassion focused therapy, shema therapy as well as child assault prevention (cap) and safetalk—suicide alertness for everyone. jandrić & kurtović 91 europe's journal of psychology 2021, vol. 17(2), 75–91 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3771 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1468-3148.2000.00002.x https://doi.org/10.1016/0145-2134(91)90072-l https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0830-5 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6198.2009.00132.x https://www.psychopen.eu/ parenting and child's disability (introduction) method participants and procedure measures results discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors the relationship between problematic internet use, whatsapp and personality research reports the relationship between problematic internet use, whatsapp and personality cristina bernal-ruiz 1, ana isabel rosa-alcázar 1 [1] department of personality, assessment and psychological treatment, university of murcia, murcia, spain. europe's journal of psychology, 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 received: 2019-07-10 • accepted: 2020-10-21 • published (vor): 2022-02-25 handling editor: rhian worth, university of south wales, treforest, wales, united kingdom corresponding author: cristina bernal-ruiz, department of personality, assessment and psychological treatment, campus de espinardo, university of murcia, 30100, murcia, spain. tel: +34868883444. e-mail: cristina.bernal@um.es abstract the manner and frequency of internet use may reflect the needs, preferences, values, personal motivations and personality characteristics of users. the aim of this research was to analyse the relationship between the big five personality factors and impulsivity with problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. the sample consisted of 630 university students (75.7% female) aged between 18 and 62 years (m = 21.23). the results indicated that the big five personality factors and impulsivity correlated significantly with problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. impulsivity proved to be the most important predictor of problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. it can be concluded, cautiously, that impulsive people have a greater predisposition to develop problematic internet use and, also to experience a greater negative impact due to the use of whatsapp. keywords problematic internet use, whatsapp, instant messaging, impulsivity, personality internet access via mobile phone has increased considerably in recent years (kim, nam, oh, & kang, 2016). despite the advantages that the use of smartphones and internet access can afford, excessive use can lead to problematic use with difficulties similar to behavioural addictions (lópez-fernandez, 2015). problematic internet use and whatsapp problematic internet use is growing phenomenon in our society. despite increasing research in this field, there is no agreement today on a unified definition or criteria for its diagnosis (acier & kern, 2011; billieux, 2012; melchers, li, chen, zhang, & montag, 2015; spada, 2014), which makes scientific understanding of this phenomenon difficult (aboujaoude, 2010). among various online activities, it has been found that text messaging and instant messaging have been linked to problematic internet use and mobile phone abuse (buckner, castille, & sheets, 2012; carbonell et al., 2012; koo, 2010). instant messaging has several different features compared to other internet applications that make this one more attractive to users. features such as providing information about users' connection status, pop-ups when users receive a message, the immediacy of responses or the ability to have multiple simultaneous conversations -individually or in groups(mesch, talmud, & quan-haase, 2012; wang, ngai, & wei, 2012). whatsapp is one of the most popular and widely used instant messaging applications for smartphones (aharony & gazit, 2016; faye, gawande, tadke, kirpekar, this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.2051&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2022-02-25 https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ & bhave, 2016; montag et al., 2015). with total of 1,200 million active users in january 2017 (statista, 2017), it is the leading instant messaging service in 109 countries, including brazil, india, mexico, argentina, russia, germany, spain and the united kingdom (schwartz, 2016). whatsapp is a multi-platform instant messaging application for smartphones that allows: message your friends and family for free (using your phone's internet connection); share messages, photos, and videos; keep in touch with the groups of people that matter the most, like your family or coworkers; talk to your friends or family for free (voice calls) or have face-to-face conversations through video calls (whatsapp, 2019). not all internet and/or whatsapp users develop problematic use of the internet/whatsapp, there are certain variables that increase the vulnerability of individuals when experiencing such problematic use. problematic internet use, whatsapp and personality the way and frequency of internet use may reflect the needs, preferences, values, personal motivations and personality characteristics of users (zamani, abedini, & kheradmand, 2011). according to the model for the initiation and mainte­ nance of psychological addiction (echeburúa, 2000), there are personality traits that make some users more vulnerable to addiction than others. specifically, a direct link has been found between neuroticism and problematic internet use (mark & ganzach, 2014; wang, ho, chan, & tse, 2015). people with high neuroticism may use the internet to seek information, express their emotions and experiences, or read others’ stories (mark & ganzach, 2014; tan & yang, 2014). other studies associate low extraversion scores with problematic internet use (floros & siomos, 2014; servidio, 2014). according to marriott and buchanan (2014), introverts tended to be shyer in social situations and may be more comfortable interacting online rather than face-to-face. similarly, some research has found that conscientiousness, openness to experience and agreeableness are negatively related to problematic internet use (haddadain, abedin, & monirpoor, 2010; kayiş et al., 2016; müller et al., 2013; puerta-cortés, 2014; samarein et al., 2013). impulsivity is another characteristic that has been associated with problematic internet and smartphone use, increas­ ing psychological vulnerability to addictions and being a risk factor for the development of internet addiction (beard, 2011; cía, 2013; koo & kwon, 2014) and problematic use of mobile phones (hwang & park, 2015). people can use instant messaging to find immediate gratification when they are unable to find it in their social context (roberts & pirog, 2013). this may be one of the reasons why text messaging and instant messaging have been linked to problematic internet use and mobile phone abuse (buckner et al., 2012; carbonell et al., 2012; koo, 2010). some authors report that the use of instant messaging is also positively related to openness to experience (correa, hinsley, & gil de zúñiga, 2010) and impulsiveness (roberts & pirog, 2013), and negatively to conscientiousness (buckner et al., 2012) and neuroticism (amiel & sargent, 2004). elsewhere, it has been reported that the need to control information leads neurotic people to a greater use of instant messaging (ehrenberg, juckes, white, & walsh, 2008). the present study aimed to analyse the relationship between the big five personality factors and impulsivity with problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. the main novelties of the study are twofold: to jointly analyse problematic internet use and whatsapp and to evaluate the negative impact experienced by whatsapp users through an innovative scale that has proven to have good psychometric properties and to be very useful (bernal-ruiz, rosa-alcázar, & gonzález-calatayud, 2019). as a hypothesis we hope to contrast: 1) problematic internet use will be directly related to openness to experience and neuroticism and inversely to agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness. 2) whatsapp's negative impact will be directly related to openness to experience and neuroticism and inversely to agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness. 3) impulsivity will be directly related to problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. 4) low levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion, and impulsivity will predict problematic internet use. 5) low levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion, and impulsivity will predict the negative impact of whatsapp. bernal-ruiz & rosa-alcázar 7 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method participants the sampling method used was for convenience. the sample consisted of 630 spanish university students (75.7% women), aged between 18 and 62 years (m = 21.23 and sd = 4.32). all participants (100%) reported connecting to the internet. instant messaging was used by 100% of students. in addition, 100% used whatsapp and 98.5% reported that whatsapp was the most widely used of all instant messaging applications. procedure teachers who taught at the university of murcia and the catholic university of murcia were contacted by email or telephone to request their participation in the study. a briefing meeting was held with each of the teachers who showed interest in collaborating. the university students, who agreed to participate and signed the consent form, completed an anonymous question­ naire in a 1-hour session in the presence of a professor and a member of the research team (clinical evaluation expert). the students received no incentives whatsoever for participating in the study. the research was evaluated and accepted by the ethics commission of the university of murcia (spain), so guaranteeing it respected the ethical principles of research with human beings. instruments generalized problematic internet use scale the generalized problematic internet use scale (gpius2, caplan, 2010; gámez-guadix, orue, & calvete, 2013) evaluates widespread problematic internet use. it consists of 15 likert-type formatted items with values ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). the scale measures five dimensions: 1) preference for online social interactions, α = 0.90, 2) mood regulation, α = 0.78, 3) cognitive preoccupations, α = 0.76, 4) compulsive internet use, α = 0.84, and 5) negative outcomes, α = 0.79. all reliability coefficients were calculated in the sample used in this study. for full scale, the alpha coefficient was 0.91. whatsapp negative impact scale the whatsapp negative impact scale (wanis; bernal-ruiz et al., 2019) evaluates the main problems that can arise from the excessive use of this application. it comprises 37 likert-type format items with values ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 3 (strongly agree). it presents a trifactorial structure: 1) negative consequences of whatsapp use, α = 0.93, 2) controlling intimate relationships through whatsapp, α = 0.85, and 3) problematic use of whatsapp, α = 0.87. for the full scale, the alpha coefficient was 0.95. reduced neo five-factor inventory the reduced neo five-factor inventory (neo-ffi; costa & mccrae, 1992) is a reduced version of the neo-revised personality inventory, which allows a quick and general measurement of the five personality factors. it is composed of 60 likert-type items with 5 answer choices ranging from 0 (total disagreement) to 4 (total agreement). the items are grouped in 5 dimensions: 1) neuroticism, α = 0.82, 2) extraversion, α = 0.84, 3) openness to experience, α = 0.77, 4) agreeableness, α = 0.71 and 5) conscientiousness, α = 0.82. for the full scale the alpha coefficient was 0.78. state impulsivity scale the state impulsivity scale (sis; iribarren, jimenez-gimenez, garcia-de cecilia, & rubio-valladolid, 2011) evaluates impulsivity as short-term variable behaviour. it consists of 20 likert-type format items with values ranging from 0 (almost never) to 3 (almost always/always). the items are distributed in three dimensions: 1) reward α = 0.85, 2) automatism, α = 0.82, and 3) attentional, α = 0.86. for the full scale, the alpha coefficient was 0.93. internet, whatsapp and personality 8 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ data analysis data analysis was performed using the spss statistical package (v. 22.0). t-tests were calculated for independent samples. pearson correlations and stepwise linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive ability of the big five personality factors and impulsivity in problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp. results influence of sex and age on problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp in relation to sex, statistically significant differences were found in the problematic use of whatsapp, t(627) = 2.722, p = .007, and in the total whatsapp negative impact scale score, t(627) = 2.184, p = .029, with women obtaining the highest scores (table 1). table 1 comparison of means on the generalized problematic internet use scale (gpius) and the whatsapp negative impact scale (wanis) based on sex (n = 630) variable/sex n m sd t (gl) p posi female 476 5.61 3.19 −0.147 (627) .142 male 153 6.04 3.08 mr female 476 9.77 3.84 0.463 (284,188) .644 male 153 9.62 3.43 cp female 476 7.72 3.43 −0.032 (290,356) .974 male 153 7.73 3.00 ciu female 476 8.09 3.83 −0.214 (305,939) .831 male 153 8.16 3.18 no female 476 5.93 3.28 −1.258 (627) .209 male 153 6.31 3.01 gpius (g) female 476 37.12 13.69 −0.591 (627) .554 male 153 37.86 12.12 ncwu female 476 12.29 9.07 1.388 (627) .166 male 153 11.12 9.06 cirw female 476 11.75 6.38 1.706 (627) .088 male 153 10.74 6.31 wpu female 476 17.95 7.04 2.722 (627) .007 male 153 16.14 7.38 wanis female 476 41.99 19.50 2.184 (627) .029 male 153 38.01 19.94 bernal-ruiz & rosa-alcázar 9 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ note. sd = standard deviation; posi = preference for online social interaction; mr = mood regulation; cp = cognitive preoccupation; ciu = compulsive internet use; no = negative outcomes; gpius (g) = overall score on the generalized problematic internet use scale; ncwu = negative consequences of whatsapp use; cirw = controlling intimate relationships through whatsapp; wpu = whatsapp's problematic use; wanis = whatsapp's negative impact scale total score; bold = statistical significance. age had very low correlations with both the problematic internet use r = −.12, p < .01, and the negative impact of whatsapp, r = −.13, p < .01. the big five personality factors and problematic internet use the highest correlation was observed between extraversion and preference for online social interaction, r = −.47, p < .01. the gpius total score correlated significantly with all personality dimensions (table 2), as well as with the total score in the reduced neo five-factor inventory, returning the highest correlations with agreeableness r = −.35, p < .01 and conscientiousness, r = −.34, p < .01. table 2 pearson’s correlations between the generalized problematic internet use scale (gpius) and the neo five-factor inventory (neo-ffi) (n = 630) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. posi 5.71 3.16 2. mr 9.74 3.74 .36** 3. cp 7.74 3.34 .43** .49** 4. ciu 8.12 3.69 .38** .41** .78** 5. no 6.02 3.22 .57** .35** .63** .65** 6. gpius (g) 37.34 13.33 .69** .69** .86** .83** .81** 7. neu 23.20 7.84 .19** .23** .20** .23** .24** .28** 8. ext 30.77 7.40 −.47** ns ns −.10* −.21** −.22** −.27** 9. ope 29.18 7.53 −.21** ns −.21** −.18** −.17** −.19** ns .25** 10. agr 28.53 6.21 −.33** −.17** −.26** −.24** −.36** −.35** −.26** .20** .17** 11. con 29.62 6.94 −.29** −.14** −.22** −.31** −.37** −.34** −.25** .26** .16** .36** 12. neo-ffi 141.31 17.88 −.43** ns −.20** −.22** −.33** −.30** .17** .57** .67** .53** .58** note. sd = standard deviation; posi = preference for online social interaction; mr = mood regulation; cp = cognitive preoccupation; ciu = compul­ sive internet use; no = negative outcomes; gpius (g) = overall score on the generalized problematic internet use scale; neu = neuroticism; ext = extraversion; ope = openness to experience; agr = agreeableness; con = conscientiousness; neo-ffi = neo five-factor inventory; ns = no significant correlation. *p < .05. **p < .01. the big five personality factors and the negative impact of whatsapp all the correlations between the big five and the wanis scale factors were significant except for the correlation between extraversion and problematic use of whatsapp (table 3). most of the significant correlations were negative except in the case of neuroticism where, as with problematic internet use, the correlations were positive. the highest correlations were observed between negative consequences of whatsapp use and conscientiousness, r = −.41, p < .01 and negative consequences and agreeableness, r = −.37, p < .01. as for the total wanis score, it correlated significantly with all personality dimensions, as well as with the total score in the reduced neo five-factor inventory, achieving the highest correlations with conscientiousness, r = −.37, p < .01 and agreeableness, r = −.36, p < .01. internet, whatsapp and personality 10 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 pearson’s correlations between the whatsapp negative impact scale (wanis) and the neo five-factor inventory (neo-ffi) (n = 630) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. ncwu 12.01 9.07 2. cirw 11.52 6.38 .67** 3. wpu 17.53 7.17 .64** .57** 4. wanis 41.06 19.68 .91** .84** .84** 5. neu 23.20 7.84 .24** .25** .28** .29** 6. ext 30.77 7.40 −.22** −.12** ns −.15** −.27** 7. ope 29.18 7.53 −.26** −.24** −.21** −.27** ns .25** 8. agr 28.53 6.21 −.37** −.25** −.28** −.36** −.26** .20** .17** 9. con 29.62 6.94 −.41** −.24** −.28** −.37** −.25** .26** .16** .36** 10. neo-ffi 141.31 17.88 −.38** −.22** −.18** −.31** .17** .57** .67** .53** .58** note. sd = standard deviation; ncwu = negative consequences of whatsapp use; cirw = controlling intimate relationships through whatsapp; wpu = whatsapp's problematic use; wanis = whatsapp’s negative impact scale total score; neu = neuroticism; ext = extraversion; ope = openness to experience; agr = agreeableness; con = conscientiousness; neo-ffi = neo five-factor inventory; ns = no significant correlation. **p < .01. impulsivity and problematic internet use all the components of the state impulsivity scale (sis)—reward, automatism and attentional—correlated significantly and directly with the variables of problematic internet use (table 4). the correlations between reward and each of the gpius factors stood out, with the highest being with negative outcomes, r = .58, p < .01. negative outcomes was the dimension of the gpius that obtained higher correlations with all the components of impulsivity. the gpius total score correlated with the total sis score and with all dimensions of impulsivity, and the highest correlation was with reward, r = .58, p < .01. table 4 pearson’s correlations between the generalized problematic internet use scale (gpius) and the state impulsivity scale (sis) (n = 630) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. posi 5.71 3.16 2. mr 9.74 3.74 .36** 3. cp 7.74 3.34 .43** .49** 4. ciu 8.12 3.69 .38** .41** .78** 5. no 6.02 3.22 .57** .35** .63** .65** 6. gpius (g) 37.34 13.33 .69** .69** .86** .83** .81** 7. rew 6.14 4.20 .45** .30** .47** .47** .58** .58** 8. aut 5.13 3.65 .41** .24** .40** .41** .48** .50** .68** 9. att 7.01 4.42 .35** .20** .40** .42** .48** .47** .65** .74** 10. sis 18.29 10.94 .45** .28** .47** .49** .57** .58** .88** .90** .90** note. sd = standard deviation; posi = preference for online social interaction; mr = mood regulation; cp = cognitive preoccupation; ciu = compulsive internet use; no = negative outcomes; gpius (g) = overall score on the generalized problematic internet use scale; rew = reward; aut = automatism; att = attentional; sis = state impulsivity scale. **p < .01. impulsivity and negative impact of whatsapp the correlations of impulsivity with the negative impact of whatsapp were significant and direct (table 5). reward was the dimension that had the highest significant correlations with each of the factors on the wanis scale. as for the negative impact of whatsapp, negative consequences was the factor that reached the highest significant correlations with the components of impulsivity. the wanis total score correlated significantly with all dimensions of the sis as well as with the total score on this scale, r = .58, p < .01. bernal-ruiz & rosa-alcázar 11 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 5 pearson’s correlations between the whatsapp negative impact scale (wanis) and the state impulsivity scale (sis) (n = 630) variable m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. ncwu 12.01 9.07 2. cirw 11.52 6.38 .67** 3. wpu 17.53 7.17 .64** .57** 4. wanis 41.06 19.68 .91** .84** .84** 5. rew 6.14 4.20 .55** .41** .44** .55** 6. aut 5.13 3.65 .48** .38** .43** .51** .68** 7. att 7.01 4.42 .50** .37** .43** .51** .65** .74** 8. sis 18.29 10.94 .58** .43** .49** .58** .88** .90** .90** note. sd = standard deviation; ncwu = negative consequences of whatsapp use; cirw = controlling intimate relationships through whatsapp; wpu = whatsapp's problematic use; wanis = whatsapp’s negative impact scale total score; rew = reward, aut = automatism; att = attentional; sis = state impulsivity scale. **p < .01. predictive variables of problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp to examine the predictive power of the big five personality factors and impulsivity on problematic internet use, a multiple linear stepwise regression analysis was performed (table 6). table 6 stepwise regression results for generalized problematic internet use scale (gpius) gpius variable / predictor ß t adjusted r 2 posi extraversion −0.427 −13.001*** .384 impulsivity 0.385 10.202*** neuroticism −0.082 −2.361* agreeableness −0.077 −2.100* mr impulsivity 0.225 5.535*** .094 neuroticism 0.149 3.665*** cp impulsivity 0.449 12.480*** .231 openness to experience −0.100 −2.775** ciu impulsivity 0.443 11.185*** .246 conscientiousness −0.098 −2.460* no impulsivity 0.514 13.953*** .350 extraversion −0.119 −3.577*** conscientiousness −0.089 −2.357* gpius (g) impulsivity 0.560 17.265*** .352 extraversion −0.136 −4.203*** note. posi = preference for online social interaction; mr = mood regulation; cp = cognitive preoccupation; ciu = compulsive internet use; no = negative outcomes; gpius (g) = overall score on the generalized problematic internet use scale. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. internet, whatsapp and personality 12 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ problematic internet use was explained by impulsivity and extraversion (35.2%). the most widely explained variable of the pathological use of the internet was preference for online social interaction (38.4%), with four predictors: extraversion, impulsivity, neuroticism and agreeableness. impulsivity was the greatest predictor in all cases except in the preference for online social interaction, where it was extraversion (β = −0.427). the negative impact of whatsapp was explained by impulsivity, openness to experience, neuroticism and consci­ entiousness (37.6%). the most explained variable of the negative impact of whatsapp was negative consequences of whatsapp use (37.3%), with four predictors: impulsivity, conscientiousness, openness to experience and extraversion (table 7). table 7 stepwise regression results for whatsapp negative impact scale (wanis) wanis variable / predictor ß t adjusted r 2 ncwu impulsivity 0.470 12.774*** .373 conscientiousness −0.142 −3.839*** openness to experience −0.101 −3.015** extraversion −0.094 −2.818** cirw impulsivity 0.348 8.847*** .221 openness to experience −0.166 −4.516*** neuroticism 0.132 3.464** wpu impulsivity 0.402 10.576*** .271 neuroticism 0.177 4.595*** openness to experience −0.155 −4.191*** extraversion 0.119 3.236** wanis impulsivity 0.461 11.941*** .376 openness to experience −0.156 −4.754*** neuroticism 0.114 3.334** conscientiousness −0.090 −2.492* note. ncwu = negative consequences of whatsapp use; cirw = controlling intimate relationships through whatsapp; wpu = whatsapp's problematic use; wanis = whatsapp’s negative impact scale total score;1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. impulsivity was a variable predictor of the negative impact of whatsapp and each of its component dimensions. it was also the strongest predictor in all cases. openness to experience was another personality trait that predicted both the negative impact of whatsapp and all its dimensions. discussion and conclusion the first objective was to examine the influence of sociodemographic variables on problematic internet use and on the negative impact of whatsapp. no statistically significant differences were observed in problematic internet use by sex (sebena, orosova, & benka, 2013; wang et al., 2011). in relation to whatsapp, statistically significant differences were observed in the problematic use of whatsapp and in the total score of the wanis, with the highest average scores corresponding to women in both cases (montag et al., 2015). women use whatsapp for longer periods of time (faye et al., 2016). bernal-ruiz & rosa-alcázar 13 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ regarding age, our results support previous studies that considered adolescents and young people to be the most vulnerable users for the development of problematic internet use (lam, 2014; wu, lee, liao, & chang, 2015). compared to older students, younger university students may experience more emotional instability and crisis, and may use the internet as a means of helping to alleviate problems experienced (koo & kwon, 2014). age correlated significantly and negatively with the negative impact of whatsapp and all factors of the wanis scale. therefore, the younger the age of the university students, the more negative consequences that were derived from its use, the greater control of intimate relationships made through whatsapp and the more problematic the use that was experienced. this may be because young people are more vulnerable to addiction in general and to problematic internet use in particular (lam, 2014; wu et al., 2015), possibly because they have less self-control, less self-regulation and are more exposed to the internet and new technologies. in addition, young people are less aware of the negative consequences of their actions, which would lead them to continue with addictive behaviours and experience an increasing negative impact. finally, relationships between young couples are often less stable and shorter-lasting. this, combined with the insecurity that characterises the younger, would lead to the need for greater control of the partner, with whatsapp being a tool that could be used for this purpose. the second objective was to analyse the relationship between problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp on the big five personality factors. problematic internet use correlated significantly and negatively with agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience and extraversion and directly with neuroticism. our results are consistent with studies that found a negative relationship between problematic internet use and agreeableness (floros & siomos, 2014; kayiş et al., 2016), conscientiousness (samarein et al., 2013; wang et al., 2015), openness to experience (haddadain et al., 2010; kayiş et al., 2016) and extraversion (floros & siomos, 2014). it is also in line with studies that found a direct link between problematic internet use and neuroticism (mark & ganzach, 2014; wang et al., 2015). these results only partially confirm hypothesis 1, which stated that problematic internet use would be directly related to openness to experience, neuroticism and impulsivity and inversely to agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness. problematic internet use had the highest correlations with agreeableness and conscientiousness. people with low agreeableness are seen by others as less pleasant, have difficulty establishing peer networks, and participate less frequently in group activities. these people may be rejected by others, leading them to turn to the internet as a means of fulfilling their personal needs (samarein et al., 2013). individuals with low conscientiousness may be at greater risk of being distracted by all the possibilities offered by the internet and of getting lost in virtual worlds (müller et al., 2013). due to the difficulties in organization, self-discipline, compliance with rules and commitments that characterize them (puerta-cortés, 2014), they may prefer to connect to the internet instead of engaging in other less pleasant activities, with the consequent risk of developing problematic internet use. negative impact of whatsapp correlated significantly and negatively with agreeableness, conscientiousness, open­ ness to experience and extraversion, and directly with neuroticism. these results partially confirm hypothesis 2 which formulated that the negative impact of whatsapp will be directly related to openness to experience and neuroticism and inversely to agreeableness, extraversion and conscientiousness. these results are consistent with previous studies linking instant messaging to conscientiousness (buckner et al., 2012) and neuroticism (ehrenberg et al., 2008). decreased conscientiousness was the personality trait that was most strongly related to the increased negative consequences experienced by using whatsapp. thus, people with low conscientiousness may find in whatsapp an application to spend time, talk to others and entertain themselves, leaving aside or postponing their daily activities, which could lead to long-term problems in their daily functioning, academic performance, family and social relationships. the third objective was to analyse the relationship between the problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp with impulsivity. the results indicated that impulsivity was directly associated with problematic internet use and the negative impact of whatsapp, hypothesis 3 being confirmed. this is congruent with previous research (beard, 2011; cía, 2013; echeburúa & requesens, 2012; koo & kwon, 2014). impulsivity has not only been considered a risk factor for the development of problematic internet use (echeburúa & requesens, 2012), but it has also been proven that internet, whatsapp and personality 14 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ like behavioural addiction progresses, behaviours become automatic and are activated by impulses and emotions over which one has poor cognitive and self-critical control (cía, 2013). reward was the dimension of impulsivity that obtained the highest significant correlations with each of the factors of problematic internet use scale and the wanis. we would highlight that reward correlations with negative outcomes and with negative consequences of whatsapp use. people with problematic internet use may turn to the internet to satisfy the need for immediate gratification with no regard to the possible negative consequences of this behaviour (cía, 2013). similarly, users of whatsapp would seek immediate rewards through this application without taking into consideration the negative consequences that may result from their behaviour (cía, 2013). the final objective was to examine the predictive power of the big five personality factors and impulsivity on problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp. according to our results, the variables that predict problematic internet use were impulsivity and extraversion. these results only partially confirm hypothesis 4 which postulated that low levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extraversion and impulsivity would predict problematic internet use. from these results, we would indicate, although with caution, that impulsive and not very extrovert people could have a greater predisposition to develop problematic internet use. impulsive and introverted people may have an immediate need to interact with others but may not be able to relate to them because of their shyness. these people may impulsively turn to the internet to interact with others in a more comfortable and secure way and thus immediately achieve the social gratification they cannot gain from face-to-face interactions (marriott & buchanan, 2014). the variables that predicted the negative impact of whatsapp were impulsivity, openness to experience, neuroti­ cism and conscientiousness, therefore hypothesis 5 is only partially confirmed. we can say, albeit cautiously, that people who are impulsive, neurotic, less inclined toward change or novelty, and less conscientious may be more likely to experience a negative impact because of their use of whatsapp. these people could find in whatsapp a way of keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances in a comfortable, safe and familiar way. our results seem to indicate that impulsivity plays a relevant role in the appearance and maintenance of both problems. at first, impulsive people might turn to the internet or whatsapp to immediately satisfy a particular need or desire. over time, it may be that these people will cease to use whatsapp or the internet in a controlled and voluntary way and move towards compulsive or recurrent use, because they are unable to suppress their impulses. this could encourage the development of problematic internet and/or whatsapp use and lead them to experience a series of negative consequences similar to those of behavioural addictions (lópez-fernandez, 2015). this study has afforded a deeper understanding of problematic internet and whatsapp use, two phenomena that, although recent, are increasingly present in our society. this research provides evidence about the relationship of these two issues to the big five personality factors and impulsivity. specifically, the importance of impulsivity in problematic internet and whatsapp use is clear because, according to the results, impulsive people may have a greater predisposition to develop both problems. this finding is essential for both the prevention and treatment of problematic internet and whatsapp use. hence, programs or workshops that teach how to control and manage impulsivity, train skills to resist the temptation of an immediate reward, learn to expect a later reward, etc. could be an effective way to reduce the risk of the emergence of problematic internet use and decrease the negative impact experienced by using whatsapp. as limitations of the study we can highlight the use of a sample for convenience, which influences the generalization of the results. on the other hand, it is a transversal study, so preventing the establishment of causal relationships that would better explain the direction of the variables used. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. bernal-ruiz & rosa-alcázar 15 europe's journal of psychology 2022, vol. 18(1), 6–18 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.2051 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references aboujaoude, e. 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(2015). risk factors of internet addiction among internet users: an online questionnaire survey. plos one, 10(10), article e0137506. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137506 zamani, b. e., abedini, y., & kheradmand, a. (2011). internet addiction based on personality characteristics of high school students in kerman, iran. addict health, 3(3–4), 85-91. about the authors cristina bernal-ruiz holds a phd in psychology from the university of murcia, a master's degree in clinical and health psychology and a master's degree in general health psychology. she has won the 1st research prize for the work “internet use: impact on people with social anxiety.” her research is focused onproblematic internet use, problematic mobile use, instant messaging and their relationship to psychological variables. she is co-author of several books and articles published in high impact journals. ana isabel rosa-alcázar is a full professor of psychologist evaluation and treatments at the university of murcia (spain). she is specialized in problems of children and adolescents, especially in obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd), anxiety disorder and addiction problems. she is co-author of several books and articles published in high-impact journals. internet, whatsapp and personality 18 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.whatsapp.com/features/ https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0137506 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ internet, whatsapp and personality (introduction) problematic internet use and whatsapp problematic internet use, whatsapp and personality method participants procedure instruments data analysis results influence of sex and age on problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp the big five personality factors and problematic internet use the big five personality factors and the negative impact of whatsapp impulsivity and problematic internet use impulsivity and negative impact of whatsapp predictive variables of problematic internet use and negative impact of whatsapp discussion and conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors effects of social media social comparisons and identity processes on body image satisfaction in late adolescence reearch reports effects of social media social comparisons and identity processes on body image satisfaction in late adolescence tamara martinac dorčić 1, sanja smojver-ažić 1, ivana božić 2, izabela malkoč 3 [1] department of psychology, faculty of humanities and social sciences, university of rijeka, rijeka, croatia. [2] general and vocational high school jurja dobrile, pazin, croatia. [3] vocational-technical high school, split, croatia. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 received: 2022-07-11 • accepted: 2022-10-13 • published (vor): 2023-05-31 handling editor: andrew p. allen, trinity college dublin, dublin, ireland corresponding author: tamara martinac dorčić, faculty of humanities and social sciences, sveučilišna avenija 4, 51000 rijeka, croatia. e-mail: tamaramd@ffri.uniri.hr abstract one of the important developmental tasks in adolescence and emerging adulthood is the questioning of identity issues, with body image being a prominent concern. in the age of modern technology, many processes of social comparison take place on social media, which serve as an ideal platform for comparison with others. the aim of this study was to examine the effects of identity dimensions, social media use, and social media social comparison, on different domains of body image satisfaction (i.e., appearance, weight, and attribution). an online survey was conducted with 354 young people in croatia (mean age = 18.49, sd = 1.44; women/girls = 78.9%). the results revealed that each of the body image domains had a different pattern of association with identity dimensions and social media social comparison. the contribution of identity dimensions was more important for evaluation attributed to others about one’s body appearance, whereas social media use and social comparison were more crucial for thoughts and feelings about appearance and weight satisfaction. higher identity commitment and exploration were related to more positive thoughts about how others evaluate one’s appearance, regardless of social comparison. on the other hand, social media use and social media social comparison were associated with lower satisfaction with appearance and weight. keywords late adolescence, body image, social comparison, identity, social media identity development and body image during adolescence identity formation is considered one of the key developmental tasks during adolescence, whereby individuals are required to question who they are, what role they play, and what they want to become (crocetti, 2017; erikson, 1968). given the multitude of stresses and conflicts that modern society brings, difficulties in identity development seem to be a common problem among today’s youth (yang et al., 2018). compared to previous generations, individuals today face an increasing number of choices about what to value in life and how to live, in part because society has become much more complex, diverse, and interconnected (berman et al., 2004). therefore, the questioning of identity has extended beyond adolescence (ages 13–18) and into emerging adulthood (ages 18–29) (arnett, 2007). in explaining the process of identity development, several theoretical models (e.g., balistreri et al, 1995; crocetti, 2017) have extended the work of erikson (1968) and marcia (1966). marcia (1966) proposed identity statuses based on two dimensions: exploration (i.e., actively questioning and weighing various alternatives before making a final decision) and commitment, (i.e., making identity decisions and engaging in activities to implement them). these identity this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.9885&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-05-31 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ dimensions are important for psychosocial functioning and adjustment. as commitment provides a sense of security and stability, it is linked to psychosocial resources and healthy adjustment such as extraversion, emotional stability, self-esteem, and well-being (e.g., crocetti, 2017; karaś et al., 2015). on the other hand, exploration has both beneficial and detrimental effects. it is associated with adaptive personality traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience (luyckx et al., 2012), active social cognitive strategies for evaluating self-relevant information (crocetti et al., 2009) and well-being (karaś et al., 2015). it is also associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety (crocetti, 2017). this double-edged nature of exploration may be the result of coping strategies, with proactive strategies helping to build psychological resources, while avoidant coping (worrying and rumination) leads to negative outcomes (luyckx et al., 2012). body image is an integral part of identity (dittmar, 2009), and one of the most important developmental tasks during adolescence is to integrate the changing body into the person’s overall sense of self (erikson, 1968). the identity confusion that accompanies puberty may be related to identity exploration, of which the ultimate developmental goal is the integration of personal identity (schwartz et al., 2009). body image is a multidimensional construct that encompasses evaluative self-perceptions, beliefs, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals regarding their bodies (cash & pruzinsky, 2002). according to mendelson et al. (2001), feelings about appearance can be distinguished from specific feelings about weight and attributional esteem. the appearance aspect of body esteem encompasses one’s general feelings about one’s appearance, whereas weight esteem specifically realtes to satisfaction with one’s weight. at the same time, attribution esteem refers to the evaluations that others make about one’s appearance and body. this distinction has also been confirmed by findings that appearance esteem, weight esteem, and attribution esteem are differently connected to different aspects of identity development (wängqvist & frisén, 2013). adolescents attach more importance to their appearance than adults and report higher levels of dissatisfaction, suggesting that appearance is a very important aspect of adolescent identity (dittmar et al., 2000). dissatisfaction with one’s body is associated with several consequences, including physical and mental health and low self-esteem (davison & mccabe, 2006; dittmar, 2009; holland & tiggemann, 2016). girls and women are less satisfied with their bodies than men and worry more than men (frederick et al., 2006; holland & tiggemann, 2016), which can be attributed to incorporated unattainable stereotypes about ideal appearance and weight (mendelson et al., 2001). pubertal changes in girls are accompanied by weight gain and accumulation of fat tissue, which distances them from the female body ideal. on the other hand, the maturation of a young man is in accordance with the male ideal based on muscularity (davison & mccabe, 2006). there are few studies analyzing the relationship between body image and identity (daniels & gillen, 2015; nelson et al., 2018; wängqvist & frisén, 2013). negative body image is usually associated with identity confusion during adolescence and emerging adulthood (claes et al., 2014). the results confirmed the association between negative body image and greater identity distress and the positive association between greater identity commitment and more positive body esteem (kamps & berman, 2011; wängqvist & frisén, 2013). in addition, the findings suggest a possible gendered relationship between body image and identity. using a sample of swedish late adolescents, wängqvist and frisén (2013) found that young women explored identity and internalized societal body ideals more than young men, and that they had lower body esteem, while for young girls, both identity commitment and exploration were related to more positive perceptions of others’ evaluation of their appearance, for young men, stronger interpersonal identity commitment was related to more positive self-appraisals of their appearance. social media, social comparison, and body image because adolescents are in a sensitive phase in which they experience many drastic changes and become increasingly aware of their own physical appearance (davison & mccabe, 2006), they are particularly sensitive to the influence of the media, which is a powerful source of sociocultural beauty ideals (holland & tiggemann, 2016). for young people and emerging adults living in developed societies, digital technology and online communication have become an integral part of life in general. about 94% of 15–16 year-old students from 35 european countries reported using social media at least once per week (espad, 2019). the most commonly reported time spent on social martinac dorčić, smojver-ažić, božić, & malkoč 221 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ media on a typical school day averaged 2–3 hours per day, and on a typical non-school day, the average was six or more hours. adolescents tend to have accounts on a variety of social networks. the most commonly used social networks include whatsapp, instagram, facebook and wechat (datareportal, 2022). modern technologies have shifted many social relationships from private forms of interaction to public spaces, and self-presentation and self-dislosure are increasingly taking place online (nesi et al., 2018). the internet and social media provide adolescents with new opportunities and challenges to experiment with their own identities and explore how they fit into the world around them (noon, 2018; spies shapiro & margolin, 2014; yang et al., 2018). peer response to online identities can play an important role in validating and strengthening self-esteem (e.g., bergagna & tartaglia, 2018; meeus et al., 2019) and creating a sense of belonging and affiliation (tobin et al., 2015). adolescents very often share a variety of information and photos on social media platforms, and this, combined with the power of social media for rapid and widespread communication, can have a significant impact on adolescents’ pri­ vate and interpersonal worlds (spies shapiro & margolin, 2014). social media provide their users with the opportunity, and sometimes the need, to self-disclose (spies shapiro & margolin, 2014). accordingly, they provide numerous opportu­ nities for social comparison (cramer et al., 2016) by viewing other people's posts, photos, and personal information. social comparison (festinger, 1954) is the process by which an individual evaluates their thoughts, feelings, behavior, and abilities in relation to others. it is one of many processes by which individuals gather information about their own level of physical attractiveness. a meta-analytic review (myers & crowther, 2009) showed that social comparison is associated with higher levels of body dissatisfaction. specifically, unfavorable comparison leads to body dissatisfaction (tantleff-dunn & gokee, 2002) and negative psycho-emotional outcomes such as depression and lower self-esteem (noon, 2020). a systematic review of the effects of social media use on body image (holland & tiggemann, 2016) showed that the total time spent on social media was related to indices of body image (e.g., increased body surveillance, greater endorsement of the slimness ideal, more frequent comparison of appearance, decreased weight satisfaction, greater body dissatisfaction). furthermore, holland and tiggemann (2016) detected appearance-based social comparison as one of the important underlying processes in the relationship between social media use and body image. why do comparisons on social media tend to have negative effects? sociocultural theory (thompson et al., 1999) suggests that adolescents internalize the portrayal of unrealistic beauty ideals presented in media and engage in upward social comparison. objectification theory (fredrickson & roberts, 1997) additionally highlights the vulnerability of women, as the female body in western societies is viewed as an object that is primarily considered and valued based on appearance. because this attitude is pervasive and persistent, women and girls tend to internalize it. aim of the study research suggests that social media are a common platform on which social comparisons occur (e.g., spies shapiro & margolin, 2014), and that social comparisons are important for identity issues (e.g., yang et al., 2018) and body image satisfaction (e.g., jung et al., 2022; krayer et al., 2008; myers & crowther, 2009; tiggemann & anderberg, 2020). further­ more, distinct domains of body image (mendelson et al., 2001) are differently connected with different aspects of identity development (wängqvist & frisén, 2013). because culture can affect numerous factors that contribute to body image, further studies are needed to determine patterns of associations across national contexts (e.g., karaś et al., 2015; noon et al., 2021). in this study we focused on youth in croatia, a country geographically part of europe but characterised by transitional economies, patriarchal traditions, with gradual shift toward more individualistic values (stojcic et al., 2020). regarding body image, croatian adolescent girls follow the imposed ideals of beauty widely represented by the western media, which is also reflected in the growing desire for thinness (rukavina & pokrajac-bulian, 2006; stojcic et al., 2020). as for social media, croatian youth use it as much as their peers aged 15–16 in other european countries (espad, 2019), and this percentage is even higher in the sample consisting of 16–24 year olds (eu 97%, croatia 100%; eurostat, 2022). therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of identity dimensions, social media use, and social media comparison, on different domains of body image satisfaction (appearance esteem, weight esteem, and attribution esteem) among croatian late-adolescents and emerging adults, accounting for age and gender differences. social media, identity and body image 222 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ first, we examined gender differences in social media use, social comparison, identity dimensions, and body image satisfaction. consistent with previous literature (bergagna & tartaglia, 2018; crocetti et al., 2012; frederick et al., 2006; holland & tiggemann, 2016; klimstra et al., 2010; mendelson et al., 2001; nesi & prinstein, 2015; wängqvist & frisén, 2013), we expected to find gender differences in social media use, social comparison on social media, identity dimensions, and body image satisfaction (appearance esteem and weight esteem). regarding attribution, we did not expect gender differences, as suggested in previous studies (frisén et al., 2015; nelson et al., 2018). second, we aimed to investigate whether identity dimensions, social media use, and social comparison, similarly predict different domains of body image satisfaction. consistent with available evidence (crocetti, 2017; kamps & berman, 2011; nelson et al., 2018; wängqvist & frisén, 2013), we expected the identity dimension of commitment to be positively associated with body image satisfaction domains, whereas the identity dimension of exploration would be negatively associated with these domains. in line with previous work (holland & tiggemann, 2016; myers & crowther, 2009; tantleff-dunn & gokee, 2002), social media use and social comparison on social media were expected to be negatively associated with domains of body image satisfaction. method participants and procedure the study was conducted with 354 croatian adolescents and emerging adults aged 16 to 26 years (mage = 18.49, sd = 1.44; women/girls = 78.9%). the only inclusion requirement was for the participants to be thirdand fourth-grade high school students or first-year university students. approval for study was obtained from the faculty ethics committee. given the unfavorable epidemiological situa­ tion caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the research was conducted online. prior to the survey, an invitation letter was sent to school principals. after the school principals gave consent in loco parentis, school psychologists received a link for the survey, which they forwarded to the students. for university students, the link was sent via internet groups and emails. before completing the questionnaires, the participants gave their consent to participate in the study. they were informed that participation in the study was voluntary, that they had the right to opt out at any time, and that the researchers were required to keep the data confidential. it took an average of 10 minutes to complete the questionnaires. data collection lasted from march to may 2021. measures the demographic data questionnaire the demographic data questionnaire included information on age (16–26 years), gender (0 = women/girls, 1 = men/ boys), and whether the students attend high school or college (1 = high school, 2 = college). the social media use questionnaire participants were asked if they use social media (facebook, instagram, snapchat) either for posting or searching (yes, no). if they gave an affirmative response, they were also asked to indicate how much time they spend on social media each day by choosing a response option from 1 to 6 (1 = less than 1 hour per day, 2 = 1 hour per day, 3 = 2 hours per day, 4 = 3–4 hours per day, 5 = 5–6 hours per day, 6 = 7 or more hours per day). these questions are formulated according to the measure of use of social networking sites (sampasa-kanyinga & lewis, 2015). participants who indicated that they did not use social media (n = 3) were excluded from further analysis. the social comparison scale to measure social comparison, the social comparison and feedback-seeking scale (meis-scfs), which is part of the motivations for electronic interaction scale (meis; nesi & prinstein, 2015), was used. the scale included 10 items (e.g., i use electronic interaction to compare the way i look with other people’s looks). response options ranged from 1 (does not apply to me at all) to 5 (fully applies to me). to distinguish between social comparison and feedback-seeking, a principal martinac dorčić, smojver-ažić, božić, & malkoč 223 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ component analysis (pca) with oblimin rotation was conducted. the cattell scree test and the kaisser-guttman criterion suggested two-factor solution (factor 1–feedback-seeking, factor 2–social comparison) that explained 72.46% of the variance. for our study, we applied only the social comparison subscale (with four items). the item score was summed to obtain the total score, with a higher number indicating a higher level of social comparison on social media. in the present sample, internal reliability was high (α = .88). the ego identity process questionnaire the ego identity process questionnaire (eipq; balistreri et.al., 1995) is a 32-item questionnaire that assess identity exploration and identity commitment in the ideological (occupation, religion, politics, values) and personal (family, friendship, dating, and gender roles) domains. two statements on the commitment dimension (e.g., i have definitely decided on the occupation i want to pursue) and two statements on the exploration dimension (e.g., i have questioned what kind of date is right for me) represent each domain. respondents indicate their level of agreement with each statement on a 6-point likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). scoring is reversed for negatively stated items. item scores are summed for the total score on each dimension, with higher scores indicating higher commitment and exploration. similar to the results of zimmermann et al. (2010), we obtained problematic model fits for the two-factor eipq (χ2(463) = 1964.538, p < .001, cfi = 0.411, tli = 0.369, rmsea = 0.095, srmr = 0.121), so we conducted a principal component analysis limiting oblimin rotation to two factors. in this pca, 12 of 16 commitment items loaded on factor 1 (with factor loadings ranging from .36 to .63), and 10 of 16 exploration items loaded on factor 2 (with factor loadings ranging from .33 to .69). of the remaining 10 items (1, 2, 4, 6, 11, 13, 15, 23, 26, 30), seven items did not load on the expected factors and three showed either loading on both factors or very weak loading. these items were omitted from further analysis. the alpha coefficients for the shortened scales were .73 for commitment and .75 for exploration. body-esteem scale for adolescents and adults the body-esteem scale for adolescents and adults (besaa; mendelson et al., 2001) was used to examine body image satisfaction. the questionnaire consists of 23 items and 3 subscales. be-appearance (10 items) refers to general thoughts and feelings about appearance (e.g., my appearance upsets me). be-weight (8 items) examines how satisfied a person is with their weight (e.g., my weight makes me unhappy). be-attribution (5 items) refers to the person's beliefs about how the environment evaluates their body and appearance (e.g., other people consider me handsome). respondents indicate their level of agreement on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (always). negative items are scored inversely. the scales can be used together or separately and have been shown to be valid and reliable with participants over age 12. higher total scores indicate more positive be for a particular dimension. we tested the three-factor model proposed by authors of the original besaa. in the croatian sample the model had a poor fit: χ2(206) = 1757.581, p < .001, cfi = 0.719, tli = 0.685, rmsea = 0.145, srmr = 0.120). therefore, the factor structure of the scale was examined by principal component analysis with oblimin rotation. the kaiser-guttman criterion and the catell scree test suggested the extraction of three factors which explained a total of 64.13% of the variance. in the present sample, 6 of 10 appearance items loaded on factor 1 (with factor loadings ranging from .64 to .81), 6 of 8 weight items loaded on factor 2 (with factor loadings ranging from .62 to .92), and all 5 attribution items loaded on factor 3 (with factor loadings ranging from .52 to.78). in addition, four appearance items (1, 6, 15, 23) and two weight items (3, 22) showed loading on more than one factor. these items were omitted from further analysis. internal reliability for the 3 final subscales was satisfactory (be-attribution α = .73; be-appearance α = .87; be-weight α = .90). results the descriptives for all variables used in the study and their correlations are shown in table 1. social media, identity and body image 224 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ experiences with social media data on daily social media use among the surveyed adolescents and young adults showed that 99.2% of respondents used social media on a daily basis for posting or searching. the most commonly reported (40.4%) length of time spent on social media per day within the sample was 3–4 hours. gender differences in observed variables to test for gender differences in social media use, social media comparison, identity dimensions, and body image satisfaction, a series of independent samples t-test were conducted. results showed that women/girls (m = 3.87) used social media more frequently than men/boys (m = 3.32), t(348) = 3.54, p = .001, cohen’s d = 0.53. women (m = 38.99) participated more in identity exploration than men (m = 35.90), t(351) = 2.84, p = .005, cohen’s d = 0.38. in addition, women (m = 14.51) are less satisfied with their weight than men (m = 17.55), t(351) = 4.18, p < .001, cohen’s d = 0.45. there were no significant gender differences regarding social comparison, t(351) = 1.48, p = .14, identity commitment, t(351) = .39, p = .70, be-appearance, t(351) = 1.39, p = .17, and be-attribution, t(351) = .04, p = .97. predictors of body image satisfaction to determine whether identity dimensions, social media use, and social comparison predict different domains of body image satisfaction after controlling for age and gender, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted. we subjected each be subscale to a separate hierarchical multiple regression analysis. gender and age were entered in step 1, identity dimensions in step 2, social media use in step 3 and social comparison in step 4 (table 2). the results showed that identity dimensions, social media use, and social comparison explained a significant proportion of the variance in body image satisfaction. the observed set of predictor variables accounted for 28% of the variance in be-appearance, 12% of the variance in be-weight and 10% of the variance in be-attribution. in the final step of the hierarchical regression analyses, age did not account for variance in any of the be measures. gender was a significant predictor only for be-weight (β = .15, p = .006). identity commitment (β = .10, p = .049) and exploration (β = .25, p < .001) significantly predicted only be-attribution. identity commitment and exploration were significant table 1 descriptive statistics and correlations of the study variables variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (1) gendera (2) age -.08 (3) social media use -.21*** -.17** (4) social comparison -.08 -.06 .29*** (5) besaa-appearance .07 .02 -.25*** -.52*** (6) besaa-weight .18** -.04 -.15** -.30*** .62*** (7) besaa-atribution .00 .12* -.06 .08 .21*** .25*** (8) commitment -.02 .04 -.09 -.16** .17** .09 .09 (9) exploration -.15** .04 .09 .17** -.15** -.10 .25*** -.03 m 18.49 3.76 2.28 2.50 2.52 2.01 3.79 3.84 sd 1.44 1.06 1.10 0.99 1.14 0.83 0.73 0.83 skewness 1.03 -0.36 0.74 -0.48 -0.52 0.10 0.25 -0.14 kurtosis 3.84 0.25 -0.36 -0.51 -0.78 -0.24 -0.28 -0.40 a 0 = women/girls, 1 = men/boys. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. martinac dorčić, smojver-ažić, božić, & malkoč 225 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictors of be-appearance in the previous steps, but they lost their significance when social comparison was entered. social media use was a significant predictor only for be-appearance (β = -.10, p = .039). after controlling for age, gender, and identity dimensions, social comparison negatively predicted be-appearance (β = -.46, p < .001) and be-weight (β = -.26, p < .001). discussion the present study aimed at investigating gender differences in social media use, social comparison, identity dimensions, and body image satisfaction. moreover, we aimed to investigate whether identity dimensions, social media use, and social comparison, similarly predict different domains of body image satisfaction. we found that women use social media more than men. previous research has already found gender differences in technology use—women spend more time each day engaged in in-person communication, voice communication, table 2 standardized coefficients of predictors of body image satisfaction: be-appearance, be-weight, and be-attribution predictors be-appearance be-weight be-attribution step 1 age .04 -.02 .11* gendera .08 .18** .01 r2 .01 .03** .01 step 2 age .04 -.03 .10 gendera .07 .18** .05 commitment .17** .09 .10 exploration -.13* -.06 .26*** r2 .05*** .05** .09*** δr2 .04*** .01 .07*** step 3 age -.01 -.05 .09 gendera .02 .15** .04 commitment .15** .08 .09 exploration -.11* -.05 .27*** sm use -.22*** -.12* -.06 r2 .10*** .06** .09*** δr2 .05*** .01* .00 step 4 age -.02 -.05 .09 gendera .01 .15** .04 commitment .09 .05 .10* exploration -.05 -.02 .25*** sm use -.10* -.05 -.08 soc. comp -.46*** -.26*** .09 r2 .28*** .12*** .10*** δr2 .19*** .06*** .01 note. sm use = social media use, soc. comp. = social comparison. a 0 = women/girls, 1 = men/boys. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. social media, identity and body image 226 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ non-voice phone use, facebook and instagram (e.g., nesi & prinstein, 2015). consistent with previous research, we expected women/girls to show higher levels of social comparison on social media than men/boys (e.g., nesi & prinstein, 2015). however, we did not find gender differences in social comparison on social media. it is possible that the specific context of the pandemic led to greater social media orientation among young people, regardless of gender. similar to the results of previous research (klimstra et al., 2010), we found that women explore their identity more than men, but the level of commitment is similar. it seems plausible that girls’ earlier physical maturation is also reflected in their earlier psychological maturation (crocetti et al., 2012). contrary to our expectations, gender differences in body image satisfaction were found only for be-weight and not for be-appearance: women are less satisfied with their weight than men. this gender difference is consistent with previous findings (e.g., holland & tiggemann, 2016; mendelson et al., 2001). body image concerns and problematic weight control behaviors are common among adolescents and these concerns are gendered in nature, with beauty ideals differing between men and women. thinness has been a key component of female beauty (daniels & gillen, 2015), whereas for men, a key component is muscularity. that may be a reason for the lack of gender difference in appearance esteem. specifically, it seems possible that appearance is becoming increasingly important to men today as well, with a focus on a different issue—the desire to develop muscularity (daniels & gillen, 2015). also, the results of previous studies have not confirmed the existence of gender differences in attribution (frisén et al., 2015; nelson et al, 2018). our results showed that identity dimensions, social media use, and social comparison were important determinants of body image satisfaction, but contrary to our expectations differently contributed to each domain of body esteem. the identity dimensions were found to be significant for two domains of body satisfaction—appearance and attribu­ tion, but not for weight. it seems that be-weight is a specific component of body esteem and is more related to objective parameters: mendelson et al. (2001) found that be-weight was the only subscale that was uniquely related to weight, with overweight individuals tending to be dissatisfied with their weight. as such, it may be less sensitive to identity processes. consistent with available evidence (crocetti, 2017; kamps & berman, 2011; nelson et al., 2018), we found a positive association between commitment and be-appearance. the more committed a person is to decisions related to their own identity, the more satisfied they are with their appearance. our hypothesis about the role of exploration was only partially confirmed: exploration was negatively associated with be-appearance but positively associated with be-attribution. adolescents who explore more developmental alternatives in several important identity-determining domains are less satisfied with their appearance but attribute more positive opinions about their bodies and appearance to others. this finding illustrates the double-edged nature of exploration (luyckx et al., 2012). the positive association with attribution could be the result of exploration as a proactive strategy aimed towards building psychological resources, while the negative association with appearance could be related to worrying and rumination (luyckx et al., 2012). in accordance with previous work (holland & tiggemann, 2016; myers & crowther, 2009; tantleff-dunn & gokee, 2002), we expected social media use and social comparison on social media to be negatively associated with different do­ mains of body image satisfaction. our hypothesis was only partially confirmed—social media use and social comparison are only relevant for appearance and weight satisfaction. in terms of social media use, adolescents and emerging adults who used social media more often were less satisfied with their appearance and weight. interestingly, in combination with social comparison, we found that social media use remained a significant predictor for be-appearance, but not for be-weight. appearance seems to be the most sensitive of all the domains of body image satisfaction when using social media. conversely, social media use and social comparison are unrelated to attribution. social media is known to be heavily focused on appearance, with content and messaging promoting idealized beauty standards (jung et al., 2022). a substantial number of studies have found that greater use of social media is associated with greater body image concerns among young adults (grabe et al., 2008), while kim and chock (2015) found that targeting peers’ profiles for comparison and commenting on them was related to greater body image concerns. one of the presumed processes underlying the association between social media use and body disatisfaction is appearance-based social comparison (holland & tiggemann, 2016). studies show that users compare their appearance to the idealized images they see on social media (grabe et al., 2008). whereas traditional media display images of celebrities and models, social media targets for social comparison of young people are largely their peers (tiggemann martinac dorčić, smojver-ažić, božić, & malkoč 227 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ & anderberg, 2020). social media users (e.g., instagram users) tend to share only their best photos, carefully selected and edited (tiggemann & anderberg, 2020), promoting a culture of idealization. such artificial standards for appearance represent unattainable goals for most adolescents. this process of social comparison contributes to body dissatisfaction directly or indirectly as a mediator between social media use and body image outcomes (jung et al., 2022; kim & chock, 2015; myers & crowther, 2009). our results support this finding: those who made more social comparisons on social media, had lower appearance and weight satisfaction. although we may conclude that most of the impact of social media use occurs through increased use of social comparison (which in this study refers to the use of electronic interaction with the goal of comparison), part of this relationship remains unexplained. it is possible that comparison processes are activated even if we have no such intention. implications in this study, we analyzed the still insufficiently explored relationship between identity processes (e.g., exploration, commitment) and three domains of body image satisfaction, including important factors such as social media use and social media social comparison, controlling for gender and age. the study was conducted with late adolescents and emerging adults in croatia, where this phenomenon has not yet been sufficiently researched. in addition to the theoretical implications in relation to differentiation between body esteem domains, this study has some practical implications. for young people building their identity, social media is an important source of information that cannot be ignored. social media offers a number of opportunities, including the possibility of social comparison, often with unattainable body ideals, which can lead to problems with body image satisfaction and identity development. if not addressed appropriately, these problems can lead to eating disorders, low self-esteem, self-confidence, etc. therefore, more social media literacy programs are needed to encourage critique of online content—young people should be made aware that social media users usually upload their selected and edited photos, which are likely to be far from reality. it is important to promote healthy behaviors on social media that show the real everyday life of young people, rather than unattainable ideals of beauty and lifestyle. limitations and suggestions for future research the results should be interpreted with caution, keeping in mind some limitations. the relations identified in this study are correlational and it is not known, for example, whether identity dimensions cause body image satisfaction or vice versa. the sample could be more gender balanced. only self-report measures were used, and there are some concerns which are inherent to conducting online surveys. data for this study were collected during the covid 19 pandemic, when most social activity occured via social media, which could affect the generalizability of the results. it is also important to consider that the adapted versions of the eipq and besaa scales were used. future studies could analyze other variables as possible predictors of body image satisfaction (e.g., type of social media, specific reasons for social media use, active or passive type of social media use, type of social comparison, social comparison target) and use longitudinal data to examine causal relationships in more detail. a cross-cultural research into this phenomenon is needed to gain insight into possible cultural characteristics. in addition, further validation of the questionnaire measuring identity development and body satisfaction in croatian samples is recommended. conclusion our results suggest that each of the body image domains has a different pattern of association with identity dimensions and social media social comparison, suggesting that distinguishing between different body image domains is justified. the contribution of identity dimensions was more important for evaluation attributed to others about one’s body appearance, whereas social media use and social comparison were more crucial for thoughts and feelings about appearance and weight satisfaction. social media use and social media social comparison were associated with lower satisfaction with appearance and weight. social media, identity and body image 228 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://www.psychopen.eu/ funding: this work has been fully supported by the university of rijeka under the project number uniri-drustv-18-147. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references arnett, j. j. 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(2010). ego identity in adolescence: preliminary validation of a french short-form of the eipq. european review of applied psychology, 60(3), 173–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2010.01.001 about the authors tamara martinac dorčić is an associate professor at the department of psychology. her teaching focuses mainly on developmental psychology and education of students with special needs in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate psychology programs. her primary research interest is in the academic and emotional adjustment of college students and adolescents. she is the author of several publications in national and international journals. sanja smojver-ažić is a full professor at the department of psychology. her teaching activities relate to developmental psychology and the psychology of parenting in undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate psychology courses. her major research interests include psychological adjustment of college students, attachment, relationship with parents, and determinants of emotional and behavioral adjustment in children and adolescents. she has published about 30 papers and participated in various international scientific conferences. ivana božić is a school psychologist at the general and vocational high school in pazin. her main interest is adolescent develop­ ment. izabela malkoč is a school psychologist at the vocational-technical high school in split, and as an external collaborator of the center for social welfare, split. martinac dorčić, smojver-ažić, božić, & malkoč 231 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(2), 220–231 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.9885 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03327741 https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2015.0055 https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890802634266 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-013-0135-1 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00731 https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819888720 https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2014.893924 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2013.02.002 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2018.09.007 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2010.01.001 https://www.psychopen.eu/ social media, identity and body image (introduction) identity development and body image during adolescence social media, social comparison, and body image aim of the study method participants and procedure measures results experiences with social media gender differences in observed variables predictors of body image satisfaction discussion implications limitations and suggestions for future research conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the life span. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life editorial existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the life span. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life claude-hélène mayer 1 , paul j. p. fouché 2 [1] department of industrial psychology and people management, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa. [2] department of psychology, university of the free state, bloemfontein, south africa. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: johannes karl, stanford university, stanford, usa corresponding author: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, kingsway campus auckland park, kingsway avenue, johannesburg 2005, south africa. e-mail: cmayer@uj.ac.za related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si for what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? and when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. – kahlil gibran what is death? the question of how to define death and dying has become very complex during the past century based on new methodologies, new technologies and the discourses around what it means to be dead and to die (veatch & ross, 2016; walter, 1994). it is an existential question (belfrage, 1975). while there are various ways to explore this topic, death and dying are most commonly explored by focusing on physiological, social and psychological forms of death which can occur independently from each other and at different times during the lifespan (butow, 2017). according to veatch and ross (2016), there are mainly three discourses on concepts of physiological death. the first discourse views death as an irreversible loss of all brain functions; the second is based on the irreversible loss of circula­ tory function, and the third is associated with the loss of what came ambiguously to be called “higher-brain function”, and which is equated with consciousness. based on these conceptualisations of death around physical functions of the human body, many of the discourses are anchored in the medical fields of study and biologistic definitions and terms. however, researchers from different disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, psychology and sociology argue that death concerns not only “the irreversible loss of the integration of the organism as a whole” (lizza, 2018) but also includes far-reaching discourses which go beyond physiological death and the biological functions of the body. for example, woodthorpe (2011, p. 100) does not refer to physiological death alone, declaring that “death is more than a sensitive subject – everyone is an ‘insider’ when it comes to death” owing to its “universal reach”. social death and psychological death are two concepts that also play a role in death studies (bryant, 2003; hayslip & hansson, 2003). social death occurs when individuals withdraw from social interactions, while psychological death begins when the dy­ ing person accepts death and starts to withdraw psychologically from others and regresses into the self (lazzara, 2020). this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.19961&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-7591 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ furthermore, research highlights that there is also spiritual death in addition to physiological, social and psychological death (canadian nurses association, 2017). death, in any case, is an existential topic (belfrage, 1975). the development of death studies death studies have over the past decades seen different periods with various foci of academic research, reflection and practice (borgstrom & ellis, 2017; howarth, 1996; patra et al., 2025; weenolsen, 1991). during the middle of the 20th century, death studies became relatively popular when several researchers such as glaser and strauss (1965) and kübler-ross (1969) created foundational works in the area of death and dying. this period of foundational death study research was followed in the 1990s by an increase in theoretical contributions and empirical research work by researchers including mellor and shilling (1993) and young and cullen (1996), in addition to subsequent edited death study collections such as that of cann (2014). death studies were taken from various disciplinary perspectives including sociology and psychology (borgstrom & ellis, 2017) and is part of existential psychology (belfrage, 1975). the 2010s witnessed several further assorted and innovative contributions to the field (e.g., cann, 2014; foster & woodthorpe, 2016; kellehear, 2014). an authoritative text titled handbook of thanatology: the essential body of knowledge for the study of death, dying, and bereavement provides a professional and practical research guide on dealing with human mortality and loss (meagher & balk, 2013). during the past decade, some prominent research which has come to fruition includes the work of cano molano (2024) titled death and grief: a complex thought point of view and the applied research work undertaken by canzona et al. (2023) titled piloting an interprofessional narrative-based interactive workshop for end-of-life conversations: implications for learning and practice. in previous research, theories have been developed and applied to the study of death and dying through psychobio­ graphical analysis (mayer et al., 2021). these include developmental theories such as piaget’s (1971) or erikson’s (1980) theory, terror management theory (becker, 1971, 1973; greenberg et al., 1986), loss, bereavement and grief theories (klass et al. 1996; kübler-ross & kessler, 2014; neimeyer, 2005; neimeyer, 2016a, 2016b), care, spirituality, meaning and dying theories (e.g., bonavita et al., 2018), euthanasia in different cultural and individual contexts (gruman, 1973; sabriseilabi, 2025), and memento mori (pennington, 2001) or mortality awareness (kuylen et al., 2024). recent studies reveal complex emotional, perceptual, spiritual, ethical, medical, social and cultural death journeys which have increasingly technological and legal implications (cano molano, 2024). however, individuals’ experiences of death and dying also need to be explored in more depth and from different methodological perspectives (coenen & meitzler, 2025; woodthorpe, 2009) while taking various experiences and individual, sociocultural, economic, organi­ sational, societal and global perspectives into consideration (borgstrom & ellis, 2017). furthermore, different theories can be applied to describe, explore, analyse and better understand the perspectives on death and dying from within particular contexts, sociocultural environments and system dynamics (ng et al., 2025; pandey, 2025). if the social relationships are meaningful and constructive in the context of death and dying and across systemic networks, the dynamics and structures of individuals and groups can support a “good death” which is often presented as the ideal in death studies (zarei et al., 2025). unpacking death and dying requires additional interdisciplinary understanding and a focus on three aspects. these are: 1. its social psychological, socio-psychological and socio-physiological processes. 2. its interactional dynamics and systems psychodynamics to understand the constructed relationship and structural processes around death and dying and resilience while experiencing loss, grief and bereavement. 3. a deeper understanding of agency and subjectivity regarding death and dying. kirmayer (2025, p. 771) emphasises that the interactional processes and the “cultural-ecosocial view on a subject matter constitute material and symbolic structures that provide cultural affordances, constraints, and challenges as well as resources for healing, recovery, and adaptation”. therefore, it seems to be important to understand the person, death and dying from the perspective of their sociocultural, political and historical contexts. on death and dying across the life span 264 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ death is a natural process that is unavoidable. while death and dying are universal human experiences, they are deeply interwoven with sociocultural beliefs, values and practices which inform the ways in which individuals and societies deal with these experiences (gutiérrez et al., 2020; selman, 2024). death and dying connect and affect individuals all over the world (fenwick & brayne, 2011; kastenbaum & moreman, 2018) and research on death, dying and bereavement is growing (borgstrom & ellis, 2017; rolbiecki et al., 2025) while attitudes towards death and dying are shifting (selman, 2024). ideas about death and dying have an impact on how individuals conduct their lives and transition through the stages of life, particularly the final stages (kastenbaum, 2004). according to research, individuals across the lifespan develop in the ways that they think about death, deal with it and approach it (sala, 2025). previous research has pointed out that death in an individual’s world often challenges their existing worldviews, especially when death is experienced as atypical, such as when it occurs due to suicide or the death of a child (rolbiecki et al., 2025). rolbiecki et al. (2025, p. 51) explain that even so-called “normal death” — which is defined as death in old age or death following prolonged illness — has often been under-researched in terms of sense-making and narratives around death and dying. their study indicates that individuals aiming to make sense of a normal death in the family usually associate the death with “memorializing the whole person, reflecting on the caregiving experience, and emotional sense making” (rolbiecki et al., 2025, p. 51). despite the accomplished and continually expanding collection of research, the study of death and dying is often still questioned. previous research highlights that researchers in the field of death studies must frequently justify their research interest (hockey, 2007). there are few significant publications devoted to in-depth, interpretative case studies of death and dying of historically eminent personalities. the field of psychobiography as a psycho-historical–in­ terpretivist design and methodology (fouché, 2025) could therefore be seen as a unique approach to the study of death and dying from a psychological perspective. death studies might include the study of individuals’ cognitive approaches, emotions, rituals and religious practices in dealing with death and dying (cano molano, 2024), also from a psychobiographical viewpoint. some studies do explore death and dying across the lifespan (sala, 2025) and others explore grief, bereavement, mourning and death in extraordinary individuals (stroebe & schut, 1999, 2010, 2015) and how they manage to deal with death, dying and bereavement. there is clearly a void in research on death and dying from a narrative and a lifespan research perspective (bluck & mroz, 2018). having explored narrations of death, bluck and mroz (2018) argue that death is a part of life, a part of the life story of individuals and an act of solidarity between humans, since all humans have to die. based on their literature review on death, there are two ways in which death can be considered as part of an individual’s life story. on the one hand, while individuals live, they experience endings of other lives. how people deal with loss, grief and bereavement contributes to their meaning-making in life and vice versa and is strongly connected to remembering the ones who have passed on and the memories about them (bluck et al., 2010). on the other hand, each individual will die and every person will experience their own death. while individuals are aware of the fact that life will one day end, the way in which they make sense of death, how they understand it and how they feel about it, influences how they conduct their lives (bluck & mroz, 2018). this special issue deals with death and dying in the lives of extraordinary individuals. in the following, the editors define the purpose, aim and contribution of this special issue. they explore definitions of death and dying, discuss death studies across the lifespan and in psychobiography, provide a perspective on suicide and briefly present the contributions to this edited volume. death studies across the lifespan and in psychobiography psychobiography is on the rise in the 21st century (anderson, 2025; elms, 1994; mayer & kovary, 2019; ponterotto, 2025; schultz, 2005). in psychobiography, researchers primarily use psychological theories, psychobiographical and psychohistorical approaches to explore, describe, analyse, discuss and interpret the lives of extraordinary individuals (mayer et al., 2023). recently, psychobiography researchers have called for the increased use of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and new theoretical foci in psychobiography and lifespan narratives (mayer et al., 2021, 2023). mayer & fouché 265 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ prior research has investigated how individuals experience death and dying from a lifetime perspective (clark, 1993; de vries et al., 1993; hockey, 1990, 2007; howarth, 1993; kendall, 2007; kendall et al., 2007; mcintosh, 1998; murray et al., 2007; visser, 2017; webb et al., 2007). de vries et al. (1993), for example, have researched how individuals write about and discuss death and dying during a lifetime. on the one hand, their research reveals that individuals were more concerned with and focused on death than they were on dying. on the other hand, middle-aged writers were more concerned with dying than were any of the other age groups. further, individuals spoke more about the death and dying of others than of their own death and dying. however, when they did speak about themselves, they did so in more detailed ways than when talking about others. this research study suggests that it might be easier to discuss death and dying when exploring the topics on behalf of others rather than for oneself. psychobiography explores the life of and specific events during the lifespan of extraordinary individuals (elms, 1994). aspects of death and dying, as part of every individual’s life, are therefore often part of psychobiography. howev­ er, psychobiographers have seldom focused on death and dying in the lives of extraordinary individuals. this could be due to the possibility that researchers investigating a certain topic might experience the blurring of boundaries between the researcher and the self (woodthorpe, 2011) and might through resonance with own experiences of death, dying, loss or grief be stimulated to reflect upon their own thoughts, emotions and feelings more than usual throughout their lives. researchers have pointed out that those researching death and end-of-life issues could experience higher levels of general anxiety about mortality, but also about the uncertainty and fragility of life, about illness and possibilities of terminal illness (mckenzie et al., 2017). psychobiography, as a specific research methodology, often explores life developments in extraordinary individuals across the lifetime or specific outstanding life events (mayer & kovary, 2019; wegner, 2020). accordingly, psychobiogra­ phers deal in particular with biographical and narrative accounts (mayer, 2023). personal narratives in the study of death and dying have often been assumed to provide primary sources of essential meaning (kavas, 2018) and different forms of narrative can support individuals to manage dying and death experiences by processing emotions, sharing experiences and reflecting upon the experiences of others (canzona et al., 2023). ellis (2003), for example, has written about death experiences from autoethnographical perspectives, examining family rituals around death, feeling, connections to the loss and respect for the passed-on family members, thereby starting to explore the researcher’s own ideas with regard to her own death. ellis (1993) highlights that the reading of personal narratives and stories of death can help to reposition the reader vis-à-vis the author of the text with regard to experiencing the feelings and thoughts of the writer through the reader. the author highlights that by reading about the lived experience, the reader can “acknowledge and give a voice to their own emotional experiences” (ellis, 1993, p. 711). psychobiography and the in-depth analysis of individuals’ lives — to a certain extent as autobiographies — can provide rigorous knowledge and emotional understanding of how individuals deal with death and dying throughout their lifetime, at the end of their lives and how they create meaning in their sociocultural contexts (mayer, 2021; mayer et al., 2021). at the same time, they can further lead to reliving and recreating the described emotions of the subject in the mind of the writer and reader. death study researchers observe that cultural and diverse dying and death experiences are often absent from or seldom reflected in research on death and dying (kellehear, 2009). psychobiographies may open the door to exploring death and dying from increasingly diverse sociocultural, gendered and age-related perspectives and contribute to inno­ vative and original knowledge on death and dying across the lifespan in specific sociocultural and historical contexts. this form of study can also open the doors to an emotional experience of mortality through reflection and experience of death-related life events. psychobiography thereby becomes a tool of reflection and might even, in selected instances, provide new and original insights into how to overcome grief regarding death and dying, how to create increasing meaning in life in the face of human mortality, or how to become aware of risk factors regarding specific forms of death such as suicide. many psychobiographies explore the lives of extraordinary individuals holistically, across the lifespan and in chro­ nological order (ponterotto, 2015); however, they seldom focus on the life sequence of death and dying. so far, only very few psychobiographies exist that focus on death and dying, such as yeh and trang’s (2022) psychobiographical work on the swedish artist avicii which explores suicide and suicidal ideation in the context of emotional and mental distress, dislocations of emotions, and complex interpersonal relationships. elovitz’s (2017) work also researches the on death and dying across the life span 266 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ death drive of selected individuals through psychobiography. recently, misra and srivastava (2021) explored suicide among extraordinary individuals and related it to happiness and well-being, while investigating reasons for the high suicide numbers. it seems that suicide, as an extraordinary way of dying (misra & srivastava, 2021; yeh & trang, 2022), has caught the attention of selected psychobiographers, although the process of death and dying in general has been rather neglected in psychobiographical research. to summarise, it is argued here that psychobiography as a narration of the life and death of extraordinary individuals, based on psychological theories, can increase reflection, discourses and new perspectives for psychobiog­ raphers, interdisciplinary scientists and readers of the psychobiographical accounts. this is especially the case since psychobiographers have recently called for the practical applications of the “lessons learned” from psychobiography of extraordinary individuals to contemporary life situations (mayer & fouché, 2021). suicide as a specific form of death and dying in this special issue, three of the six articles deal with a specific form of death and dying, namely suicide. according to the national institute of mental health (2025), suicide is defined as “death caused by self-directed injurious behavior with intent to die as a result of the behavior”. suicide occurs worldwide and is one of the leading causes of death in the united states of america (national institute of mental health, 2025). the world health organization (who, 2025) points out that the reasons for suicide are multi-faceted, being influenced by social, cultural biological, psychological and environmental factors which can occur at any point across the lifetime. suicides can be connected to the political and sociocultural context and the experience of social justice or social injustice (button, 2016). furthermore, suicide always needs to be understood in the context of the individuals and their sociocultural, historical and political background (staples & widger, 2012). suicide is often associated with psychological pain (baryshnikov & isometsä, 2022) or mental pain (meerwijk & weiss, 2014) and psychache (shneidman, 1993, 1998). there is a strong link between suicide and mental disorders (who, 2025). often there are very complex factors associated with suicide. risk factors for suicidal behaviour include, for example, anxiety, depression, hopelessness and psychological pain, and the differentiation of these emotional and cognitive concepts is not always easy to ascertain (baryshnikov & isometsä, 2022). in their edited work, weaver and wright (2009) provide a helpful insight into suicide in different sociocultural contexts, countries, at different historical times and in connection with different risk factors. they also offer different perspectives on and interpretations of suicide and how it can be understood in the context of war, homicide, medico-legal disputes, and racialised and gendered contexts. previous work shows that the complexity of suicide requires in-depth research and interpretations. researchers may use multiple methodological approaches and theories to increasingly understand suicide in its depth. suicide has been researched in prior psychobiographical studies (citlak, 2024; hamilton, 2016; kitching, 2017; kramer, 2002; smith, 2014; zanalda, 1968), creating suicide awareness towards a comprehensive and holistic approach to suicide prevention and defining protective factors to influence suicidal behaviours. similarly, another psychobiography deals with the life of james baldwin, an african american author who did not die from suicide, but who carried out several suicide attempts and was consumed by suicide ideation and thoughts of committing suicide throughout his life (reynolds et al., 2023). it has been noted in previous research on artistic creativity that writers and poets tend to commit suicide more often than artists do, while musicians have the lowest suicide rates (preti et al., 2001; preti & miotto, 1999). hamilton (2016) published an article about the suicides of four famous individuals — socrates, cleopatra, kurt cobain, and hemingway — and highlighted that often suicide is highly complex and needs to be understood in the context of mental health, various environmental risk factors, goal-setting and achievement, as well as in terms of heroism and martyrdom, fear of old age and the experience of a potential loss of success and fame when the level of fame and success are significant. the following six articles address the topic of death and dying. three of them explore death and dying when manifested in suicide. all articles use different theoretical perspectives. however, they all use psychobiography as their research methodology to describe, explore, analyse and interpret the topic. the next section briefly introduces each of the articles in this special issue. mayer & fouché 267 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the purpose, aim and contribution of this special issue the purpose of this special issue is to bring death studies and psychobiography together to explore the lives of extraordinary individuals with regard to the topic of death. the idea of compiling a special issue on death and dying in psychobiography arose for the first editor while dealing with loss, grief and bereavement due to the experience of terminal illness, suffering and loss of close family members and friends. the following questions arose during the time of suffering: “how do individuals die?” and “how do the individuals who remain carry on with their lives and deal with death and dying and endings of life around them?”. further questions that came to mind were: “which narrations do individuals construct around their own death, and which around the death of others?”, “which stories and narrations do individuals actually create during their lifetime around their approaching, future death?” and “when do individuals commit suicide and if they do, how do the circumstances during their lifetime lead to the suicide?”. based on these reflective questions, i invited my co-editor professor paul j. p. fouché to create a special issue on death and dying together with me, particularly focusing on death and dying in extraordinary individuals through psychobiography (fouché & van niekerk, 2010; mayer & kovary, 2019; schultz, 2005). the editors aim with this special issue to explore death and dying in extraordinary individuals based on the perspective that extraordinary individuals often leave a meaningful legacy behind them. this legacy might assist in creating a sense of meaning and a sense of purpose in life, thereby helping when being confronted with one’s own mortality (holloway, 2017). readers of psychobiographies on death and dying might be stimulated to reflect upon their own finitude, their own sense of purpose and their own sense of meaning and might develop a greater acceptance of the process of the death and dying of their own life story. death is viewed here as a complex and holistic process focusing not only on physical functions, but rather on the causes of death and dying, the experiences of it in selected extraordinary individuals, and the effects of their death and dying within their living environments. in this way, death is not understood as a single life event but is rather viewed as a continuous development process across the lifespan (weenolsen, 1991). it is further assumed that death and dying are transcendental aspects and dynamics of life which affect life narrations but also influence the identity and self-constructions of individuals, thereby creating and recreating their lives in the face of death. summarising, the contributions of this special issue are multifold: • it integrates death and dying theories and death studies with psychobiography. • it explores and expands on theories of death and dying based on description, analysis and reflection on death and dying within the life and times of selected extraordinary individuals. • it aims to encourage reflection in the reader on death and dying of individuals within their systemic contexts. • it aims to construct a deeper understanding of the interconnection of life and death, with death as a part of life and within the environment of extraordinary individuals from a perspective of death and dying. • it uses different research methodologies in the psychobiographical paradigm to explore death and dying at specific points across the lifespan of individuals. the special issue was stimulated by the questions presented above. the articles in this special issue touch, in part, on the questions and respond to them. this issue could be viewed as a beginning point to explore death and dying in a psychobiographical context and might be viewed as pioneering work in creating interdisciplinary and intercultural psychobiographies and psycho-historical work in the context of the finite life. a brief description of the articles in this special issue this special issue on “death and dying in psychobiography” aims at connecting psychobiography, interdisciplinary theories and practical applications for managing in-depth personal views regarding, and experiences of, death and dying. contributions in this issue connect to articles that were previously published in the journal which relate to psychobiography (dearmond, 2013). the articles explore, describe, analyse and interpret final life stages, dying and death in extraordinary individuals, including specific incidents such as terminal illness, fatal accidents, catastrophe, suicide and bereavement. further on, they contribute to investigating how sociocultural and personal beliefs, emotions on death and dying across the life span 268 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ and behaviours influence how extraordinary individuals deal with death and dying and how their death and dying relates to the relationships in their lives, their loneliness and isolation. the special issue begins with an article by paul j. p. fouché on “heroic death: a melancholic existentialist psychobi­ ography of jacques de molay”. in this psychobiography, the author aims to reconstruct the life and death of jacques de molay (1243–1314), who was the grand master of the knights templar. the author focuses on de molay’s heroic struggle as a mitigating psychological mechanism against the terror of mortality. de molay was part of an order of knighthood founded during the crusades in the late 11th century and dedicated his life to the mission of protecting christian pilgrims and defending the holy land. he was confronted by betrayal, arrest, torture, confessions of heresy under duress and public execution. according to the researcher, de molay’s life offers an impactful illustration of the melancholic existentialist theory of ernest becker, who posited that mortality creates profound existential anxiety. salient themes and events were interpreted via becker’s melancholic existential theory, with particular emphasis on heroism. the torture he endured and his refusal to betray the templars’ ideals exemplify the theory of becker’s heroic struggle against mortality. instead of capitulating to terror and falsehood, de molay faced his death maturely, thereby achieving existential authenticity and symbolic immortality. the second article in this special issue is titled “death and dying in the life and creative works of camille rosalie claudel”, written by claude-hélène mayer. this article explores the themes of death and dying in the life and creative work of the french sculptress camille rosalie claudel (1864–1943). claudel was a talented artist and sculptress who learned from and worked with alfred boucher and auguste rodin. in her psychobiography, the author uses four theoretical approaches to explore death and dying in claudel’s life and work: existential psychology theories on death and dying, symbolic death theory, lacanian death theory and jung’s perspectives on death, dying and ars moriendi. findings show that through her art, claudel expressed her inner life and many important aspects of her life’s journey, her search for meaning, her artistic talent and in-depth philosophical interest, but also her views on life and death. throughout her lifetime, she experienced different forms of death and dying which the author discusses in this psychobiographical work on claudel. the third article, contributed by carla nel, is “psychobiographical reflections on marilyn yalom’s experience of death and dying”. marilyn yalom (1938–2019) was a distinguished feminist scholar and cultural historian. she documented her intimate reflections on dying in several written accounts, partly co-authored with her husband irvin yalom who is a highly renowned existential psychotherapist and author. nel seeks to examine marilyn yalom’s thoughts and experiences concerning dying by focusing primarily on one written source, her diary entries, while living with and dying from a terminal illness. the author focuses on describing yalom’s reflections through an existential psychology lens to construct a theoretically informed overview of her experiences. in the focus are her reflections on facing death, the process of dying and her insights regarding her transition into death. discourses are centred on how to fight against despair and how to live meaningfully until the very end. this study primarily provides an in-depth existentially informed analysis of yalom’s final reflections on her death and uncover additional themes of her experiences of dying to fully explore her insights on aspects such as physical impairment, relationships and separations, and physician-assisted suicide. the following article on “lawrence kohlberg’s suicide: an analysis of his final life stage”, written by vikki botes and roelf van niekerk, also deals with the topic of suicide. lawrence kohlberg (1927–1987) was a pioneer in moral development studies. he fought in the second world war and helped smuggle refugees from europe into palestine, dedicating his life to preventing similar horrors from occurring in future. kohlberg became famous in 1958 after he published pioneering research on moral development. however, he died tragically when he committed suicide in 1987. the authors use the theoretical framework of bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development to explore his life. they further incorporate bronfenbrenner’s proximal-person-context-time model to understand the life dynamics within systemic contexts. the article focuses on specific events during the last stages of kohlberg’s life from 1968 to 1987 and provides a deep insight into this phase of the end of his life. the next article, written by amadeusz citlak, is called “socrates’ voluntary death – an essential voice against the pathologisation of suicide”. the article deals with the death of socrates, a prominent philosopher living in the 5th century bce, and uses it as a starting point for a discourse on suicide. the author uses a single-case analysis with an interpretive-descriptive approach as a theoretical starting point to highlight how an individual and their environment mayer & fouché 269 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ interact when dealing with the problem of death. on analysis, the concept of honour shame is identified as an important dimension both in ancient greek culture and in the context of the universal concept of social status. the article provides a perspective on socrates and thereby allows the reader to receive an alternate perspective on suicide and the right to suicide. in the final article, virag rab writes about “death and melody: a psychobiography of rezső seress, composer of gloomy sunday”. rezső seress (1899–1968) was a hungarian composer and pianist who composed the song “gloomy sunday”. the song became an international success and, in the collective memory, a symbol of death and suicide. the life of seress, however, ended tragically: he made two suicide attempts, the second of which caused his death. the author responds to the research question of how one can interpret seress’s act and places it in a cultural, linguistic, social and historical context. at the same time, this psychobiography uses an integrated theoretical framework by applying kézdi’s theory of the negative code, wallerstein’s world systems theory, and mcadams’s theory of narrative identity (mcadams, 1993). this study proposes a narrative type derived from historical, cultural, and semiperipheral contexts, called the tragic semiperipheral self. furthermore, kézdi shows how seress’s suicide can be read culturally. wallerstein’s theory reveals how hungary’s semiperipheral structural position and instability influence meaning-mak­ ing. the concept of the tragic semiperipheral self helps the reader to understand how seress constructed his personal narrative. conclusions unpacking death and dying in psychobiography is the core theme of this special issue, which aims to fulfil the purpose of bringing death studies and psychobiography together. in focus are the lives and deaths of selected extraordinary individuals. the authors examine predominantly historical subjects whose lives present excellent examples to describe, explore, analyse, and interpret death and dying in more depth. the authors respond to a variety of research questions, thereby aiming to contribute to the existing literature and theories concerning death and dying, with particular focus on suicide. this special issue is a vivid account of explorations of experienced life and death, lived life and death, and narrated life and death. it showcases the stories that are created from etic perspectives, and the authors’ minds, to understand the life and death of extraordinary individuals in their sociocultural environments and historic and contemporary contexts. it can be concluded that death and dying, like life, are very much connected to the creating of meaning, sense-mak­ ing and purpose in life. every life, one day, comes to an end. this special issue is intended to create awareness, interest and deep reflection and support individuals to engage with the finitude of life. in the end, it aims to ask the questions: how would you, the reader, live your life differently, if you were aware in every second of your life, that it will end? how would you care, in every second, about others? which values would you follow; which actions would you take? this special issue not only integrates death studies and psychobiography. it also aims to create reflections on the life and death of the individuals in their systemic environments and construct a deeper understanding of the interconnections and systemic dynamics in our lives when it comes to how we live, which meanings we apply to our lives and how we die. the articles presented in this special issue might increase awareness of the finitude of life and make a difference in the choices readers make after reading the articles. through the application of the research methodology of psychobiographical work, this issue provides examples of death and shows that dying can happen in many different ways and that it is very much connected to us as individuals and to the ways in which we lead our lives within our created contexts. the way forward: existential psychobiography the future of the integration of death studies and psychobiography is bright. future research can further explore the individual perceptions of death and dying in individual extraordinary lives, thereby responding to questions such as: how can death studies be developed through in-depth psychobiographical research? how do individuals die, and which on death and dying across the life span 270 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://www.psychopen.eu/ influences in their environments influence their death? what leads to suicide in the lives of extraordinary individuals? how do individuals deal with the suicide of others when experienced during a lifetime? various theories have already been used in the sciences to explore death and dying, such as freud’s thanatology, erikson’s psychosocial stages, kubler-ross’s five stages of grief and even attachment theory. however, several of these theories have not yet been applied in psychobiographical accounts across times and contexts. these theories can further be explored in more depth and refined through psychobiography. psychobiographical discourses will also need to explore the ethical considerations when dealing with sensitive issues such as confidentiality and sensitivity of the topics of death and dying and suicide. because death, trauma, grief and bereavement might be activated in doing and reading research on death and dying, the topic needs to be treated with care, ethical consideration and respectful and benevolent approaches. potential future areas for psychobiographical death studies may involve existential reflection and the awareness of death and dying in the lives of extraordinary individuals, as well as their near-death experiences or the experience of terminal illness. how do these themes affect the mind at in-depth intra-individual levels? more research will probably be undertaken in psychobiography and death anxiety, exploring how the fear of death influences decision-making in life, major life choices and the mindset throughout life. it is also likely that positive psychology approaches may be combined with death studies while using psychobiographical methods. this could lead other authors to explore positive psychology theories to be applied to the lives of extraordinary individuals to further examine ways to overcome grief, bereavement, death anxiety and create post-traumatic growth and transformational spaces in life. another interesting future research direction would be to focus psychobiographical studies on the review of life, on the meaning of life and its purpose, and on the differences between death, dying and suicide in extraordinary individuals in comparison to less extraordinary individuals. do extraordinary individuals die differently to others? in terms of the future design of psychobiographies, psychobiographers might combine the design of exploring an en­ tire life with focusing only on specific life events. psychobiographies might become more integrated with other theories and subdisciplines such as neuropsychology and death studies, or even epigenetics, to investigate, for example, brain processes, death-related thoughts, grief and trauma and their consequences in the life histories of specific individuals. this will further require new combinations of psychobiographical research with thanatological theories which might include the exploration of death rituals in selected lives, the impact of sociocultural norms and family influences on grief, as well as the psycho-philosophical reflections on afterlife from the perspective of extraordinary individuals. finally, new research will need to explore how reading psychobiographies on death and dying affect the readers of those psychobiographies. thereby, the writers and readers of psychobiographies on death and dying might ask themselves questions, such as: how does the psychobiographical account create a connection to the reader and what does the reader gain from it? how are psychobiographical and autoethnographic narrations intertwined, especially when it comes to meaning-making, death and dying? this special issue creates a new level of psychobiography, here referred to as “existential psychobiography” since it aims to understand not only the lives of extraordinary individuals, but also the existential core of life: its finitude and end and therefore the existential essence of human existence. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the editorial was predominantly written by the first editor. we would like to thank the authors of this special issue for their valuable contributions. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. references anderson, j. w. 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(2025). the relationship between perception of good death with clinical competence of end-of-life care in critical care nurses. omega, 91(1), 401–417. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228221134721 mayer & fouché 275 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 263–276 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19961 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2023.2258509 https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228221135292 https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/otd_capstone2025/17/ https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q2815 https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2014.924279 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-012-9255-1 https://doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046 https://doi.org/10.2190/om.61.4.b https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598517 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2016.1257877 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203220306 https://doi.org/10.1080/07481189108252409 https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.64.3.345 https://www.proquest.com/openview/c7bfe1b164c2597d7cc5fed5109f7dc1/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide https://doi.org/10.1080/13576270802591228 https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2010.496576 https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2022-0010 https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228221134721 https://www.psychopen.eu/ about the authors claude-hélène mayer is a professor in industrial and organisational psychology at the department of industrial psychology and people management at the university of johannesburg, south africa. she holds doctoral degrees in psychology, management and cultural anthropology. her venia legendi is in psychology with focus on work, organisational and cultural psychology (europa universität viadrina, frankfurt/oder), germany). claude`s research areas include transcultural mental health, salutogenesis, transcultural conflict management and mediation, women in leadership, emotions across cultures, the fourth industrial revolution (4ir), and psychobiography. claude won several book, article and research prices and is ranked a top 2% researcher in 2025. she is a trained psychologist, systemic family therapist, hypnotherapist, trauma therapist, constellation facilitator and intercultural mediator. since 2005, she works as an international leadership consultant and conflict mediator. paul j. p. fouché (dphil) is a full-professor in counselling psychology in the department of psychology at the university of the free state (ufs), in south africa. paul has various psychobiographical publications in national and international journals and has acted as co-guest editor to special editions on psychobiography in international journals and books. he acts aa post-graduate research supervisor to honors, master’s and doctoral scholars undertaking life history research. paul serves on the research committee of the faculty of the humanities and is a member of the ufs senate. paul lectures at bpsych honours level, as well as supervises and lectures the master’s students in the applied clinical and counselling psychology programmes. on death and dying across the life span 276 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ on death and dying across the life span what is death? the development of death studies death studies across the lifespan and in psychobiography suicide as a specific form of death and dying the purpose, aim and contribution of this special issue a brief description of the articles in this special issue conclusions the way forward: existential psychobiography (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors exercise behaviour and body esteem of gym-goers in india research reports exercise behaviour and body esteem of gym-goers in india ruhee contractor 1, deepa rasquinha 1 [1] department of clinical psychology, manipal college of health professions, manipal, india. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 received: 2020-05-08 • accepted: 2021-11-13 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland corresponding author: deepa rasquinha, department of clinical psychology, manipal college of health professions, madhav nagar, eshwar nagar, manipal, karnataka 576104, india. e-mail: deepa.rashquinha@manipal.edu abstract exercise dependence is described as exercise which is harmful if engaged compulsively and excessively. the present study aims to investigate differences in categories of exercise behaviours and areas of body esteem in gym-goers in india across genders. the study used a cross-sectional design, and the sample consisted of 291 gym-goers (females = 146; males = 145) the exercise dependence scale21 (eds-21) and body esteem scale-revised (bes-r) was administered to the gym-goers in india after seeking informed consent. the obtained data were statistically analysed using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance. the results of the study indicated that there was a significant difference in the three categories of exercise behaviours and three areas of body esteem in male gym-goers. however, such similar differences were not found in female gym-goers. the differences found in body esteem for the male gym-goers in certain areas suggest how exercise has an impact on body image. for female gym-goers, we can see that irrespective of the category they belong to, there is no difference in the areas of body esteem. we can understand such findings with the sociocultural model of excessive exercise given by white and halliwell (doi: 10.1016/j.bodyim.2010.02.002) where perceived sociocultural pressure predicts excessive exercise, which is mediated by body image. strengths and limitations of the study are discussed. future research in india based on qualitative and longitudinal designs are warranted. keywords exercise dependence, body esteem, gym-goers, indian study, sociocultural model exercise is seen as a healthy coping strategy and is associated with various benefits which can range from physical to psychological aspects of one’s life. there has been a plethora of studies that have proven the benefits (short and long-term) of regular physical exercise (edwards, 2006; penedo & dahn, 2005; salmon, 2001). however, another set of studies shows the adverse effects of exercise on our mental health and functioning. these studies usually look at the intensity of exercise and study exercise as a form of dependence in people’s lives (allegre et al., 2006; bamber et al., 2003; cox & orford, 2004). exercise as a negative behaviour/ exercise dependence according to morgan (1968), excessive exercise can lead to several adverse outcomes. these outcomes can range from various physical injuries to problems in social and occupational functioning. an individual/individuals can also experience withdrawal symptoms during a break from exercise. exercise behaviour is negative when a person starts experiencing significant dysfunction in at least two of the four primary areas of an individual’s life (bamber et al., 2000) these areas are psychological, social and occupational, physical and behavioural. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.3687&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ exercise dependence can lead to a series of potential pathological behaviours. these behaviours can lead individuals to experience events that alter their mood through which they achieve pleasure and then become dependent (griffiths, 2005). excessive exercise can lead to psychological burnout, along with disturbances in mood (rejeski, 1994). individuals with exercise dependence spend most of their time in exercise and related activities with increasing neglect in other areas of their lives. they may sometimes engage in multiple physical activities daily. there is also a decrease in other activities, and social interaction as exercise becomes a priority. excessive exercise can lead to fatigue, injury, or illness. even when there are multiple and repeated injuries individuals who have exercise dependence are unable to stop the exercise. they also engage in stereotypical and inflexible behaviour patterns while performing exercise and have rigid exercise schedules (bamber et al., 2003). according to hausenblas and downs (2002a) exercise dependence is when “physical activity is extreme in frequency and duration, relatively resistant to change, and is often associated with an irresistible impulse to continue exercising despite personal demands, fatigue, injury, or illness.” exercise as an addiction can become a craving where an individual, for example, goes to the gym and exercises with high intensity for an extended period and neglects occupational, educational, and social areas of his/her life. diagnostic category for exercise dependence using the diagnostic criteria for substance abuse provided in dsm-iv, hausenblas and downs (2002b) have formulated the diagnosis for exercise dependence. out of the seven dimensions, any three of them should meet the cut-off to diagnose a person as exercise dependent. exercise dependence can be classified under behavioural addiction where an individual becomes obsessive and compulsive, and exercise causes dysfunction in a person’s life. a score of 15 and above obtained on the exercise dependence scale-21 (eds-21) is the cut-off for each of the dimensions (hausenblas & downs, 2002b). the seven dimensions are tolerance, withdrawal, intention effects, lack of control, time, reduction in other activity, and continuance. exercise and body esteem previous research suggests that regular physical activity leads to body image satisfaction and increased confidence in one's physical appearance (cox & orford, 2004). these people do not see exercise as enjoyment or a challenge but see it as a way to improve their looks and body. several studies have shown that the rewards of looking attractive and appearing healthy have led people to alter their body shape. there is a rise in body image disturbance when such ideal forms cannot be achieved (hausenblas & fallon, 2002); garner, 1997). there is a widespread notion that across genders, females experience greater body dissatisfaction (lox et al, 2010). however, a similar trend of negative evaluation has also been seen in men (watkins et al., 2008). it is interesting to note that the pressure to conform is not only felt by women, even males feel a similar strain, and there has been a tremendous rise in the male population ‘hitting’ the gym. there is a stark contrast in how women and men view body parts and shapes. for women, the ideal shape is an ‘ultra-thin, hourglass figure’ with a primary focus on hips, buttocks, thighs, or abdominal areas (proshutina, 2012). the ideal male standard is increasing muscle mass and decreasing body fat to achieve a ‘toned and v-shaped physique’ where the focus is on the whole body looking broad and toned with muscles and abs. males perceive their bodies as being smaller than what it is, and females perceive their bodies as being larger than what it is. the concern for men is both being too thin or fat, but for women, the primary concern is being fat (lox et al., 2010). body esteem dissatisfaction, according to johnson and wardle (2005) can lead to various problems such as poor psychological adjustment, leads to excessive dieting, and symptoms of eating disorders. people with exercise depend­ ence experience an increase in body satisfaction. the reasons for such a relationship could be due to the increase in one's attractiveness, muscle builds, weight loss/gain, feeling healthier and change in one’s physique, which can lead to such positive feelings. understanding whether the areas of body esteem differ in different exercise behaviour groups especially that of individuals who are exercise dependent can be crucial in explaining body esteem as a contributing factor to excessive exercising. this information can further help prevent, modify, and remove these contributing factors from occurring. gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 2 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ sociocultural model of excessive exercise according to seigel and hetta (2001), there is an association between disturbances in body image and excessive exercise. the sociocultural model of excessive exercise given by white and halliwell (2010) states that perceived sociocultural pressure has a direct relationship with a compulsive need for exercise, which is mediated by body image. in this model, perceived sociocultural pressure consists of pressure to lose weight, and build muscle, and the modelling of behaviour techniques to change the appearance. body image consists of factors such as body dissatisfaction, body anxiety, and negative body affect. thus, this model predicts pathological exercise behaviours rather than healthy ones. the model found specific gender differences. boys had a greater need to engage in compulsive exercise than girls and reported engaging in higher frequency and duration of exercise than girls. this finding helps us understand “gendered choices of body shaping behaviours” (white & halliwell, 2010, p. 232). it was also seen that body image disturbance in girls was higher than in boys. body image disturbances were a more influential mediator of sociocultural pressure in girls than in boys. thus, the above model can be used to explain the study. the model will guide in understanding how body esteem can vary in different groups of exercise behaviours (at-risk for exercise dependence; nondependent-symptomatic, and nondependent-asymptomatic gym-goers). that is the difference between three categories of exercise and three areas of body esteem in male (sexual attractiveness, upper body strength and physical condition) and female (sexual attractiveness, weight concern and physical condition) gym-goers. body image ideals: indian standards for ideal body for men and women the current study focuses on the body esteem of young adults going to the gym in india. tracing back to some of the studies that help us understand what the ideal standard of beauty is and how they are similar/different from that of the western culture. the ideal beauty image for females typically includes a standard comparison with the “size-0 white” model. (nagar & virk, 2017). according to their study (2017), biological differences between indian and western ethnicities in terms of body shape, size and skin colour make these western standards of beauty highly challenging for indian women. the comparison of indian with western standards of beauty is due to the advent of globalization and the popularisation of western beauty standards by social media (unnikrishnan & prasad, 2016). according to researcher rebecca gelles (2011) the beauty standards of india are “narrowing and conforming to more international standards” and therefore these comparisons cause new physical and psychological challenges to the people, especially the youth in india. rekha and maran (2012) in their study on south indian women found that people born during the globalization period are heavily influenced by the western dominated beauty standards. a study conducted by soohinda et al. (2020) found that males undergo sociocultural pressure and found that there is the internalization of both thinness and muscularity in indian men. they found that exposure to media images of men displayed on magazine covers, movie posters, and social media propagating an idealized mesomorphic body has been shown to increase insecurity and body image concerns among men. singh and gadiraju (2020) also found that models that appear in popular media are approximately 20% lower than the normal body weight and there has been a significant increase in the portrayal of an athletic body for men in indian advertisements. thus, the sociocultural model of excessive exercise can be understood within these parameters of body image dissatisfaction in india. exercise dependence and body image studies understanding the prevalence of exercise dependence in india gives us an overall understanding of the behaviour in the sociocultural context. previous studies have found a prevalence of 5.85% and it was found that exercise addiction was more prevalent in males than in females (sharma et al., 2019). a study aimed to understand whether exercise dependence would be predicted by physical self-concept (which is similar to body esteem in most aspects) among regular exercisers. the authors found significant correlations between exercise dependence symptoms and the domains of physical self-concept. physical self-concept was also a strong contractor & rasquinha 3 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ predictor for exercise dependence in males and females (oliva et al., 2013). thus, this study helps us understand the relationship between gender, exercise dependence and body esteem. a study conducted by cook et al. (2013) examined the effect of gender as a moderating variable for exercise dependence. a gender difference was also found in exercise dependence symptoms where it was found that males scored higher on the total exercise dependence symptoms. it was also found that gender played a role in understanding the intensity of exercise and a gender difference was found in moderate and strenuous intensity exercise. the study, therefore, helps us understand gender differences in exercise dependence between genders. a study was conducted by ola and singh (2016) on gym goers to find the relationship of gymming with mental health, body image satisfaction, aggression, and happiness where participants were compared on these variables. the results of the research found significant differences in the body satisfaction of gym goers as being more positive than that of controls. it was also found that gymming had a low positive correlation with body satisfaction. thus, this research contributes to the existing literature which supports an increase in body esteem in gym goers. a qualitative study conducted by griffiths (2005) aimed to explore the positive and negative experiences of exercise. it was found that participants who were committed exercisers had functional reasons for their exercise behaviour as compared to at risk for exercise addiction group who gave negative reasons or causes for their negative exercise behaviour pattern. the above literature gives a comprehensive look at all the variables related to the current study and the author has tried to build on this existing literature to understand exercise dependence and body esteem in gym goers across genders in the indian context. there is also a gap in the literature regarding exercise dependence and gender differences in the body image of gym-goers in india. thus, this study tries to reduce this existing gap in the literature to extend our sociocultural understanding of the relationships between exercise addiction and body esteem in gym goers. objectives of the study as seen above, the prevailing emphasis on health and fitness in the youth has significantly led to the promotion of physical activity (davis & fox, 1993). there has been an increase in the number of people visiting gyms as it is one of the most convenient ways to promote physical exercise/activity. therefore, the current study focuses on gym-goers. the objective of the study is to investigate differences in body esteem among (a) at-risk for exercise dependence, (b) nondependent-symptomatic, and (c) nondependent-asymptomatic gym-goers. body esteem is a multidimensional construct and is measured separately for both males and females. therefore, the study contains two hypotheses: 1. h0: there will be no significant differences in body esteem among at-risk for exercise dependence, nondependentsymptomatic, and nondependent-asymptomatic male gym-goers. 2. h0: there will be no significant differences in body esteem among at-risk for exercise dependence, nondependentsymptomatic, and nondependent-asymptomatic female gym-goers. method participants male and female gym-goers in karnataka, india who were between the ages of 18 to 40 years, did not have any physical disability, did not take part in any sort of fitness competitions and had joined the gym at least for the past three months were selected for the study. a total of 291 participants, 145 males and 146 females were the final sample. the mean age for males was 21 years (sd = 4.55) and the mean age for females was 22 years (sd = 3.60). the participants were divided into three groups of exercise behaviours: asymptomatic (females = 57, males = 45), symptomatic (females = 63, males = 75) and at-risk exercise dependent (females = 26, males = 30). gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 4 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures socio-demographic details the socio-demographic datasheet constructed by the researcher assessed information regarding the participant’s age, occupation, education, gender, marital status, frequency of visit to fitness centres, use of substances, use of supplements, whether exercise prescribed by doctors due to a medical condition, number of hours spent exercising and time since they have joined the gym. exercise dependence the eds-21 (hausenblas & downs, 2002b; hausenblas & fallon, 2002) was used to divide the participants into different categories of exercise behaviours. eds-21 is a self-reported measure based on the dsm-iv criteria for substance depend­ ence american psychiatric association (1994). a 6-point likert-type scale was used to score eds-21 where the scores ranged from 1 = never to 6 = always. the scores that fell in the dependent range were the higher scores of 5–6; scores of 3–4 were classified as symptomatic, and scores of 1–2 fell under the asymptomatic range. the scale differentiates between, a) individuals at-risk for exercise dependence, b) individuals that are nondependent-symptomatic, and c) individuals that are nondependent-asymptomatic. the internal consistency of the scale was high, demonstrated by α being 0.86. the range of coefficient alphas was from 0.78 to 0.92 (hausenblas & downs, 2002b). body esteem body esteem was measured using the body esteem scale-revised (bes-r) (frost et al., 2018). it is a self-report scale where participants report their feelings regarding 28 body parts. the scale indicates that body esteem is multidimen­ sional and gender-specific. the dimensions are represented by the subscale scores, which are the summed-up responses for the items corresponding to each subscale. there are three subscales for women: sexual attractiveness, weight concern and physical condition, and three subscales for men: sexual attractiveness, upper body strength, and physical condition. it is a 5-point likert scale where participants can rate their feelings ranging from 1 (strong negative feelings) to 5 (strong positive feelings about their different body parts. the internal consistency of the scale is high with values ranging from 0.82 to 0.94 for gender-specific subscales (frost et al., 2018). procedure the researcher obtained permission letters from the respective gyms and collected data from the participants. to collect data, the researcher went to each gym for approximately ten days, preferably in the evenings for 3 hours. the researcher gave the participants information regarding the study and reassured them regarding the confidentiality of the data and study. the conditions were standardized for all participants and both questionnaires were administered at one time. the consenting participants were administered the eds-21 (hausenblas & downs, 2002b) and the bes-r (frost et al., 2018). after the administration of the scales, the participants were divided into three groups of nondependent asymptomatic, non-dependent symptomatic, and exercise dependent for further statistical analysis. the study was approved by the institution ethics committee (approval no. iec-443-2019). statistical analysis the resulting data were analysed using ibm statistical package for social sciences (spss version 16.0). a multivariate analysis of variance (manova) for males and females separately was conducted where the dependent variables were the three areas of body esteem, and the three categorical variables were exercise dependence, nondependent-sympto­ matic, and nondependent-asymptomatic. contractor & rasquinha 5 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results sociodemographic details the socio-demographic details of the participants (see table 1). the majority of the sample consisted of students (77.7%) with an undergraduate level of education (80.4%). substance (12%) and supplement (26%) use was reported to be higher in the male participants. medical reasons for exercise in male participants were primarily due to lower back pain and injury and female participants were prescribed to exercise due to polycystic ovary syndrome (pcos). on average, participants spent around six to eight hours (23.3%) at the gym per week. table 1 socio-demographic characteristics of the sample characteristic males (n = 145) females (n = 146) all (n = 291) age m 21.35 22.46 21.91 sd 3.60 4.55 4.14 education (%) undergraduate 89.0 71.2 80.4 postgraduate 8.9 27.4 18.2 occupation (%) student 79.5 75.3 77.7 currently working 19.5 21.9 21.0 marital status (%) married 93.8 8.9 7.2 unmarried 6.2 91.1 92.8 substance use (%) 12.3 8.2 10.3 supplement use (%) 26.7 7.5 17.2 prescribed exercise due to medical condition (%) 3.4 10.3 7.2 number of hours spent in a week exercising 0 to 2 5.5 10.3 7.9 2 to 4 4.8 12.3 8.6 4 to 6 19.2 23.3 21.3 6 to 8 22.6 24 23.3 8 to 10 13.7 11.6 12.7 10 to 12 17.8 9.6 13.7 12 to 14 9.6 6.2 7.9 14 to 16 3.4 1.4 2.4 above 16 2.7 1.4 2.4 number of months since the participants joined the gym 3 to 11 55.9 77.4 66.6 12 to 48 37.2 18.5 27.8 49 to 120 6.9 4.1 5.5 exercise behaviours and body esteem in female gym-goers a manova was conducted to investigate differences in three areas of body esteem (sexual attractiveness, weight concern, and physical condition) and categories of exercise behaviours (non-dependent asymptomatic, non-dependent symptomatic, and at-risk exercise dependent) for female gym-goers. table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of each area of body esteem with the three categories. gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 6 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 2 mean scores, standard deviations and sample size for female gym-goers between categories of exercise dependence and areas of body esteem area of bes-r category of eds-21 m (sd) n sexual attractiveness asymptomatic 33.28 (5.3) 57 at-risk exercise dependent 34.11 (5) 26 symptomatic 31.91 (5.8) 63 total 32.84 (5.5) 146 weight concern asymptomatic 26.97 (7) 57 at-risk exercise dependent 25.96 (8.1) 26 symptomatic 25.32 (7.8) 63 total 26.08 (7.5) 146 physical condition asymptomatic 22.46 (4.6) 57 at-risk exercise dependent 22.54 (6) 26 symptomatic 21.06 (4.9) 63 total 21.87 (5) 146 the box’s test of equality of covariance matrices test was conducted, and, in this study, the data set met the assump­ tion (box’s m = 7.539, p = .840). bartlett’s test of sphericity was conducted, and a statistically significant outcome was obtained (approximate χ2 = 165.56, p < .001). after meeting the following assumptions, a manova was calculated (see table 3) and was found to be not statistically significant (p = .396) based on pillai’s trace test. a pillai’s trace test was chosen as it is one of the best options to deal with an uneven sample size (diaz-garcia & caro-lopera, 2008). thus, the hypothesis of the study that there will be no significant differences in body esteem among at-risk for exercise dependence, nondependent-symptomatic, and nondependent-asymptomatic female gym-goers was retained. table 3 multivariate analysis of variance (manova) between categories of exercise dependence and areas of body esteem for female gym-goers variable value f p observed power categories pillai’s trace 0.43 1.046 .396 .412 exercise behaviours and body esteem in male gym-goers a manova was conducted to find out the difference in three areas of body esteem (sexual attractiveness, upper body strength, and physical condition) and categories of exercise behaviours (non-dependent asymptomatic, non-dependent symptomatic, and at-risk exercise dependent) for male gym-goers. table 4 shows the means and standard deviations of each area of body esteem with the three categories. the box’s test of equality of covariance matrices test was conducted, and, in this study, the data set met the as­ sumption (box’s m = 7.539, p = .840). another test, bartlett’s test of sphericity, was conducted. a statistically significant outcome was obtained (approximate χ2 = 171.852, p < .001). after meeting the following assumptions, the manova was calculated and was found to be significant (see table 5). the hypothesis stated that there would be no significant differences in body esteem among exercise dependent, non-dependent-symptomatic, and non-dependent-asymptomatic male gym-goers, was rejected. contractor & rasquinha 7 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 4 mean, standard deviations and sample size for male gym-goers between categories of exercise dependence and areas of body esteem area of bes-r category of eds-21 m (sd) n sexual attractiveness asymptomatic 29.400 (4.9) 45 symptomatic 30.171 (4.9) 70 at-risk exercise dependent 31.67 (6.2) 30 total 30.24 (5.3) 145 upper body strength asymptomatic 18 (4.5) 45 symptomatic 20.03 (3.6) 70 at-risk exercise dependent 19.73 (3.5) 30 total 19.34 (4) 145 physical condition asymptomatic 35.62 (8.2) 45 symptomatic 39.5 (6) 70 at-risk exercise dependent 38.4 (8.6) 30 total 38.07 (7.5) 145 table 5 multivariate analysis of variance (manova) between categories of exercise dependence and areas of body esteem for male gym-goers variable value f p observed power categories pillai’s trace 0.90 2.221 .041 0.779 there were three areas of body esteem, measured from the bes-r scale (sexual attractiveness, upper body strength, and physical condition). table 6 shows the univariate test results. the test showed significant differences across categories (non-dependent asymptomatic, non-dependent symptomatic and exercise dependent) on upper body strength (ubs) (f = 3.83, p < .05) and physical condition (pc) (f = 3.88, p < .05). table 6 one-way anova for male gym-goers between categories of eds-21 and areas of bes-r source dependent variable ss df ms f p observed power categories of eds-21 sa 93.14 2 46.57 1.70 .19 0.35 ubs 118.63 2 59.32 3.83 .02 0.69 pc 416.03 2 208.01 3.88 .02 0.69 error sa 3885.41 142 ubs 2191.81 142 pc 7613.28 142 total sa 136587.0 145 ubs 56534.0 145 pc 218170.0 145 note. sa = sexual attractiveness, ubs = upper body strength, pc = physical condition. gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 8 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 7 shows duncan’s homogenous subtests. the post hoc test results suggested that upper body strength differed significantly between non-dependent asymptomatic (m = 18.00, sd = 4.54) and exercise dependent (m = 19.73, sd = 3.48) groups and between non-dependent asymptomatic (m = 18.00, sd = 4.54) and non-dependent symptomatic groups (m = 20.29, sd = 3.6). there was no significant difference seen between exercise dependent (m = 19.73, sd = 3.48) and non-dependent symptomatic groups (m = 20.29, sd = 3.6). the post hoc test results suggested that physical condition in males differed significantly between non-dependent symptomatic (m = 39.50, sd = 6) and non-dependent asymptomatic (m = 35.62, sd = 8.24). there was no significant difference seen between exercise dependent (m = 38.40, sd = 8.56) groups, and between non-dependent asymptomatic (m = 35.62, sd = 8.24), and exercise dependent (m = 38.40, sd = 8.56) groups and non-dependent symptomatic groups (m = 39.50, behaviours sd = 6). table 7 post-hoc duncan’s homogenous subtests for upper body strength and physical condition for male gym-goers upper body strength subset physical condition subset category of exercise behaviour n 1 2 1 2 asymptomatic 45 18.00 35.62 exercise dependent 30 19.73 38.40 38.40 symptomatic 70 20.03 39.50 p 1.00 .73 .081 .49 discussion the researchers used a cross-sectional design in the study. the study aimed at investigating the differences between the three areas of body esteem and three categories of exercise behaviours in male and female gym-goers in india. the categories were formed by dividing the sample into three groups based on the scores obtained in the eds-21 scale. the socio-demographic findings of the study are summarized. substance use was higher in males than in females. however, there could be an under-reporting of substance use due to social desirability. the participants were selected on convenience and availability, influencing the demographic characteristics of the study. therefore, the mean age of the participants was found to be 22 years across genders. past studies also reveal that exercise dependence may be more prevalent in younger, particularly college-age students (garman et al., 2004). exercise behaviours and body esteem of female gym-goers it was found that the differences between the areas of body esteem among different exercise behaviours of women were not different. therefore, we accept the hypothesis stating “there will be no significant differences in body esteem among at-risk for exercise dependence, non-dependent-symptomatic, and non-dependent-asymptomatic female gym-goers”. the findings can be compared to the past studies conducted on exercise dependence in females. as seen in the studies by (nagar & virk, 2017; rekha & maran, 2012; unnikrishnan & prasad, 2016) indian women post globalization are now moving towards comparing their bodies with that of western beauty ideals for women. therefore, the present study will be comparing it to studies in the western culture studying exercise behaviours and body image in females. in a study conducted by hausenblas and downs (2002c), they found that primary exercise dependence symptoms marginally predicted body satisfaction in university students (mean age = 20.26). loland (2000) found that exercise behaviour did not predict body satisfaction in young females. as the mean age for the population was 22 years, the findings can be compared. in a study conducted on nutrition students, the authors suggested that students with a normal bmi would choose a lower ideal body weight and desire to weigh less due to social pressure or the desire to keep a fit image (arroyo et al., 2010). other studies have also shown that the stigma, discrimination, disapproval, and societal pressure faced by overweight girls and women creates a pressure to comply with the demands of fitting in the ideal contractor & rasquinha 9 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ body image (weinberger et al., 2016). thus, irrespective of the category of exercise behaviour they fall into, the body esteem is not significantly different for any of the groups. these findings could also be explained from the sociocultural point of view by looking at body image ideals for women. as stated in the model (white & halliwell, 2010) body image disturbances were a more influential mediator of sociocultural pressure in girls than in boys but that boys had more compulsive need to exercise than girls, and they reported engaging in more exercise than girls. this finding helps us understand gendered choices of body shaping behaviours. therefore, we see that sociocultural conditions play a central role in the development of body esteem. exercise behaviours and body esteem of male gym-goers the hypothesis for male gym-goers which states, “there will be no significant differences in body esteem among at-risk for exercise dependence, nondependent-symptomatic, and nondependent-asymptomatic male gym-goers” was rejected (see table 5). hausenblas and downs (2002c) found similar results where male participants reported greater body satisfaction when they had reported harmful and excessive exercise behaviours. exercise behaviour was the strongest predictor for body satisfaction in their study. past research conducted by watkins et al., (2008) has also found strong associations of body image and physical activity as exercise improves physical appearance and, therefore, a person’s body image. the “affect regulation hypothesis” of exercise dependence given by hamer and karageorghis (2007) can explain the above findings. the hypothesis states that exercise acts as a “positive effect enhancer,” which can help a person to develop and sustain positive feelings towards oneself. there is an increase in body satisfaction among people with exercise addiction. this increase could be due to the increase in one’s attractiveness; muscle builds, weight loss/gain, feeling healthier, greater stamina, change in one's physique, which can lead to such positive feelings (cusumano & thompson, 1997). thus, male gym-goers may use exercise to improve their body image. muscle building is now the societal ideal for a perfect male body, and it also becomes a factor to where they can show their strength and masculinity (proshutina, 2012). this desire to fit into the societal ideal would place individuals at a higher risk for exercise dependence. these findings corroborate with the sociocultural model given above (white & halliwell, 2010) and the societal ideal beauty standards for men in india (singh & gadiraju, 2020; soohinda et al., 2020). comparing the results of the post hoc (see table 7) it was found that sexual attractiveness was not significantly different among the three groups (at-risk for exercise dependence, nondependent-symptomatic, and nondependentasymptomatic male gym-goers). this finding could be because most of the items on bes-r for sexual attractiveness are not majorly altered due to exercise (frost et al., 2018). thus, the role of sexual attractiveness is seen as independent when linked to exercise dependence. meanwhile, the other two areas (upper body strength, and physical condition) were linked to exercise dependence. upper body strength was significantly higher in non-dependent symptomatic gym-goers and at-risk exercise de­ pendent gym-goers (see table 7). they were significantly different from nondependent asymptomatic gym-goers, whose mean was lower than theirs. the results of higher body satisfaction could be because the ideal body for males is lean and muscular which is partly determined by upper body strength and is difficult to achieve with just regular exercise (hausenblas & downs, 2002c). upper body strength is improved by making the muscles bigger and broader. muscle building is now the societal ideal for a perfect male body, and it also becomes a factor to show one's strength and masculinity. thus, the means were higher for the at-risk exercise dependent and non-dependent symptomatic male gym-goers as a way of improving one's body esteem. the mean of the scores on the physical condition subscale was significantly higher in the nondependent sympto­ matic group while comparing it with the other two groups who had no significant differences between them (see table 7). this result could be explained by looking at the qualitative aspects of excessive exercise where warner and griffiths (2006) found that participants who reported health and fitness as a positive experience of exercise did not meet the criteria for exercise dependence (which is a score below 24 on the exercise addiction inventory). excessive exercise can have adverse effects such as fatigue, injury, pain, which could also affect one's physical condition. thus, the perception of one's physical condition could be affected due to excessive/harmful exercise. thus, it can be seen that the areas of body esteem such as upper body strength and physical condition which can be mediated by exercise have shown a significant difference in the three exercise behaviour groups of male gym-goers. gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 10 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://www.psychopen.eu/ strengths of the study the study adds to the existing literature on exercise behaviours, exercise dependence and body esteem in india. few studies have looked at exercise dependence, and body esteem in gym-goers and this study gives insight into how the general population and not athletes or bodybuilders differ in body esteem and exercise dependence (ganesan et al., 2018; rajagopalan & shejwal, 2014; sharma et al., 2019; soohinda et al., 2020) exploration of the exercise behaviours in gym-goers in india with a sociocultural understanding of the findings is a notable contribution of the study. the study has also assessed different areas of body esteem which helps widen the scope of understanding of how exercise is related to the different areas. understanding body esteem with exercise dependence is crucial in discerning the underly­ ing causes of exercise behaviours, and this information can help prevent, modify, and remove these contributing factors from occurring. the differences found in body esteem for male gym-goers in certain areas suggest how exercise has an impact on body image and how there could be a rise in exercise behaviour due to decrease in body dissatisfaction. for prevention as well as treatment, it is essential to understand who will be at risk of developing harmful exercise behaviours because of alteration of their body esteem. the findings of the study will help in understanding the same. limitations of the study even though the findings of the study provide a better understanding of differences in body esteem in different categories of exercise behaviour, it is essential to mention the notable limitations of the study. first, the time when the data was collected was in the evening for three hours on weekdays at various gyms according to permissions granted for access from the gyms. due to this, there was a loss of a significant number of participants in the morning and afternoons, as regular exercisers are likely to start exercising early in the mornings, which could be a possible limitation. second, the number of participants in all three categories of exercise behaviour was not the same, and this could have affected the statistical analysis. third, the demographics of the sample indicated that the group consisted of primarily young university students, which makes the generalizability of the results limited. one more limitation was the design of the study. it was a cross sectional design which does not help us understand the cause-and-effect relationship of variables. conclusion the findings of the study show that there is a significant difference in the three categories and three areas of body esteem in the male gym-goers. the current research showed that at-risk exercise dependent male gym-goers had a bet­ ter perception of their upper body strength compared to nondependent asymptomatic male gym-goers. nondependent symptomatic male gym-goers had a better impression of their upper body strength and physical condition compared to nondependent asymptomatic male gym-goers. future research could use longitudinal, qualitative designs to objectively assess body esteem and exercise behaviours. further studies could also look at the role of such a diverse 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(2016). body dissatisfaction in individuals with obesity compared to normal-weight individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. obesity facts, 9(6), 424–441. https://doi.org/10.1159/000454837 white, j., & halliwell, e. (2010). examination of a sociocultural model of excessive exercise among male and female adolescents. body image, 7(3), 227–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2010.02.002 about the authors ruhee contractor is currently working as a visiting faculty teaching multiculturalism and evolutionary psychology at kc college, india. she has completed her masters in clinical psychology from manipal university. her work reflects a dynamic profile of working as a researcher, a teacher and a counselling psychologist. she has started her mental health venture called magicshop.psych aimed at the holistic development of an individual and society. her previous works include areas of personality studies, body image, exercise dependence, social anxiety, online mental health and fear of covid-19. her current research interests include areas of interpersonal relationships, social cognition and motivation, body image, and psychological well-being. contractor & rasquinha 13 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 1–14 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.3687 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017691327 https://doi.org/10.1097/00001504-200503000-00013 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-014-0245-y https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-7358(99)00032-x https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03339749 https://doi.org/10.15761/mhar.1000177 https://doi.org/10.4103/psychiatry.indianjpsychiatry_737_19 https://doi.org/10.4103/ijsp.ijsp_28_19 https://doi.org/10.1109/icacci.2016.7732258 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-006-9000-5 https://doi.org/10.3200/jach.57.1.95-100 https://doi.org/10.1159/000454837 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2010.02.002 https://www.psychopen.eu/ deepa rasquinha is currently employed as an assistant professor in the department of clinical psychology, manipal college of health professions, manipal. she holds a doctoral degree in psychology with a specialisation in gerontology. with 17 years of experience in the field of psychology, she has been into teaching, counselling, guiding master’s degree dissertations and conducting various training programs through seminars and workshops. she has in her credit research publications in indexed and non-indexed journals. as an avid writer, she is writing articles both in print and e-media to create awareness about mental health through various topics. her areas of interest in research include stress, anxiety, eating behaviours, body image and well-being. gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem 14 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gymming, exercise behaviour and body esteem (introduction) exercise as a negative behaviour/ exercise dependence diagnostic category for exercise dependence exercise and body esteem sociocultural model of excessive exercise body image ideals: indian standards for ideal body for men and women exercise dependence and body image studies objectives of the study method participants measures procedure statistical analysis results sociodemographic details exercise behaviours and body esteem in female gym-goers exercise behaviours and body esteem in male gym-goers discussion exercise behaviours and body esteem of female gym-goers exercise behaviours and body esteem of male gym-goers strengths of the study limitations of the study conclusion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors is shame managed through mind-wandering? research reports is shame managed through mind-wandering? neda sedighimornani* a [a] department of psychology, university of bath, bath, uk. abstract shame is a notoriously unpleasant emotion, and although claims about the mechanisms through which we might manage it are none too scarce, relatively little empirical evidence is available concerning how people tend to cope with it. as such, the present study sought to investigate the effects of shame on mind-wandering. to do this, 120 participants were recruited and systematically assigned to one of the three groups, namely shame, pride, or control condition, and traits shame and self-compassion were measured for each participant. in order to assess the frequency of the incidents of mind-wandering, the participants were asked to recall a personal experience of shame or pride and then a reading task of few pages of geography followed. the duration participants spent on the reading task, their scores on a reading comprehension test, their self-reported frequency of mind-wandering, and their reported number of unrelated thoughts during the recall were used as a measure of mind-wandering. the results demonstrated that participants in the shame condition did not differ from those in the pride and control conditions in terms of mind-wandering. in spite of that, participants who had initially scored higher on trait shame (i.e., suffered from chronic shame) reported a significantly higher frequency of mind-wandering. this being the result, the underlying reasons for, and implications of, the findings were discussed. keywords: shame, mind-wandering, pride, shame management, emotion europe's journal of psychology, 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 received: 2018-09-26. accepted: 2019-03-11. published (vor): 2019-12-19. handling editor: tiziana lanciano, university of bari aldo moro, bari, italy *corresponding author at: university of bath, claverton down, bath, ba2 7ay, uk. e-mail: neda.sedighimornani@bath.edu this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. as a human emotion, shame can be an unbearably painful and devastating experience. put in an individual’s natural response to shame could range from aversion, to removal, to suppression, or even denial of the feeling of shame. the issue has attracted so much attention insomuch that the literature abounds with theories on how individuals cope with this natural, yet negative human emotion. one such theory was carried out by nathanson (1992) where he presented a shame management model. according to his model, individuals engage in four maladaptive strategies—i.e., avoidance, withdrawal, self-attack, and attacking other—in order to deal with their sense of shame. in another theory, kaufman (1996) proposed that individuals resort to defensive strategies such as rage, contempt, humour, withdrawal, denial and blame of others as well as striving for perfection or power in order to cope with shame. goss and allan (2009) explored responses to shame in individuals with eating disorders and concluded that individuals adopt various coping strategies, such as aggression, submission, concealment, avoidance and withdrawal, destruction of the object of shame (e.g., self-harm), compensation (reparation), or help-seeking. more recently, schoenleber and berenbaum (2012) identified three classes of dysfunctional shame-regulation strategies: 1) prevention (e.g., europe's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ perfectionism, fantasy); 2) escape (e.g., social withdrawal and the diversion of attention from self); and 3) aggression (either self-directed or other-directed). to recapitulate briefly, theories, studies, and academic claims suggest that shame-based responses can range from avoidance and withdrawal, to attacking others, to striving for power and perfection. however, in support of these claims, there is a paucity of empirical evidence. one exception, however, is a study by de hooge, zeelenberg, and breugelman (2010, 2011). they showed that shame motivates individuals to seek self-enhancement strategies for the purpose of restoring their devalued self. their findings showed that after experiences of shame, individuals engage in different hypothetical compensatory actions to improve their self-image. for example, to enhance their self-image, shamed individuals were more likely to undertake a difficult and challenging task than a simple or easy one which did not affect their self-image. along similar lines, chao, cheng, and chiou (2011) demonstrated that shamed participants spent more time on an unknowingly unsolvable problem than did the control group. the authors, thus, suggested that shamed participants were more determined to untie the problem and display their competence, which would in turn help them affirm a positive view of self. rather contrarily to the studies above, some studies suggest that individuals vulnerable to the experience of shame are inclined to use withdrawal or avoidance-based strategies (sheikh & jenoff-bulman, 2010; yi & baumgartner, 2011). reid, harper, and anderson (2009), for example, found that hypersexual patients react to the experience of shame with withdrawal or self-attack tendencies. proneness to shame has also been associated with escapist responses (e.g., tangney, 1995; tangney, miller, flicker, & barlow, 1996), anger or blameshifting (stuewig, tangney, heigel, harty, & mccloskey, 2010; thomaes, stegge, olthof, bushman, & nezlek, 2011), self-focused attention (joireman, 2004), chronic rumination over the shameful incident (orth, berking, & burkhardt, 2006), and alcohol and drug abuse (dearing, stuewig, & tangney, 2005). it is generally very difficult to talk about shameful experiences (keltner & buswell, 1996). moreover, people’s descriptions of shame are very abstract and vague (tangney, 1992). this perhaps shows that shamed individuals try to physically or emotionally distance themselves from shame-inducing experiences (tangney & dearing, 2002). they may avoid thinking about the incident, and, if reminded, they may distract themselves by thinking about something less intense and unpleasant, or they may change the focus of their attention from the shameful incident to something more neutral or positive. schoenleber and berenbaum (2012) hypothesize that individuals attempt to disengage themselves mentally from their shameful experiences by engaging in daydreaming or mind-wandering. although the relationship between daydreaming/mind-wandering and shame has not yet been empirically investigated, it is a common belief that daydreaming increases at times of stress (e.g., greenwald & harder, 1997) or that daydreaming may help those who have experienced failure (lynn & rhue, 1998). smallwood, o’connor, sudbery, and obonsawin (2007) have defined mind-wandering as “a shift in the focus of attention away from the here and now towards one’s private thoughts and feelings” (p. 818). when the mind wanders, attention is diverted away or decoupled from the task at hand and is instead directed towards private thoughts or concerns. the occurrence of mind-wandering, therefore, impairs task performance (smallwood, mcspadden, & schooler, 2008). studies have shown that when the mind wanders, reading comprehension, shame and mind-wandering 718 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ memory retrieval, information encoding, and signal detection are negatively affected (smallwood et al., 2008; smallwood & schooler, 2006). not surprisingly, mind-wandering and emotions also seem to be interrelated. this relationship, however, is relatively complex. past research indicates that negative emotions lead to mind-wandering (smallwood, fitzgerald, miles, & phillips, 2009; smallwood, o’connor, & heim, 2005). for example, dysphoric individuals seem to be more concerned with self-relevant information and thus report a higher level of off-topic thoughts compared to the general population (smallwood et al., 2007); or dysphoric students’ ability to concentrate on different cognitive tasks, such as reading, proofreading, or listening to a lecture seems to be limited (lyubomirsky, karsi, & zehm, 2003). while investigating the association between mood and mind-wandering, smallwood et al. (2009) found that participants who were induced with negative emotions reported a higher frequency of unrelated thoughts than those put in a positive mood. the researchers also reported that the participants in the negative mood group made more errors on a sustained attention to response task (sart). occasionally used to indirectly measure mind-wandering, sart is a go/no-go task in which participants are asked to respond as quickly as possible to a non-target and to inhibit their responses to the target. studies also suggest that negative emotions are antecedent to mind-wandering. mrazek, smallwood, and schooler (2012), for instance, demonstrated that when participants are exposed to a stereotypical threat that induces negative emotions (e.g., asking female participants to do a mathematics test in front of male participants), the frequency of recourse to mind-wandering rises. that said, it is equally possible that mind-wandering precedes negative emotions. kilingsworth and gilbert (2010) found that after experiencing mind-wandering, participants reported more negative emotions. it can thus be concluded that mind-wandering and the inability to curb it distressed the participants. the results obtained from studies on mind-wandering and emotions have thus far been encouraging. it is assumed that this research area can be further explored through studies that address specific negative emotions, such as shame, or still by using different methods of measuring mind-wandering. similar to shame, pride is a self-conscious emotion. however, unlike to shame, pride is positively valenced (tangney, 1995). according to tracy and robins (2007), authentic pride is elicited when individuals make internal, stable, and uncontrollable attributions. after feelings of pride, the self is elevated, strong, and accepted (stanculescu, 2012). as pride is a positive emotion, the way it is managed has stimulated scant interests of researchers. since shame is the main focus of this study, the researcher decided to bring in pride as, this time, a positive self-conscious emotion whose characteristics contradict those of shame. this would allow the researcher to control the effects of emotional conditions and to examine whether a negative self-conscious emotion such as shame would affect mind-wandering differently from a positive self-conscious emotion such as pride. further to that, research on mind-wandering and pride can also—however indirectly—contribute to the literature on pride. on the basis of this brief overview, the current study was set to investigate the relationship between mind-wandering and shame and hypothesised that shame had a significant effect on mind-wandering. more specifically, it was hypothesised that: sedighimornani 719 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1. negative moods increase the likelihood of mind-wandering about a past event and ruminating on it (smallwood & o’connor, 2011). therefore, feelings of shame may lead individuals to ruminate over the shameful incident and the past; 2. individuals may engage in mind-wandering in order to improve their mood (mason, brown, mar, & smallwood, 2013); 3. shamed individuals are likely to use different strategies to avoid thinking about or feeling shame. they may thus engage in mind-wandering/daydreaming in order to escape painful feelings of shame; and given the experimental nature of the present study and the induction of a state of shame (v. pride), it was thought it would be necessary to measure, in relation to mind-wandering, both trait shame and trait self-compassion. this would allow to explore how high-scoring individuals in these measures differed from those who obtained lower scores. method participants for the purposes of this study, a total of 120 (n = 120) participants (82 females and 38 males, mage = 24.28, sd = 8.12) were recruited using convenient sampling. next, each participant was, on the premise of systematic sampling, assigned to one of the three groups of shame (n = 40, 13 males and 27 females, mage = 25, sd = 7.37), pride (n = 40,12 males and 28 females, mage = 24.47, sd = 9.03), or control (n = 40, 13 males and 27 females, mage = 23.35, sd = 8.27) in that the first participant was assigned to group shame, the second to pride, the third to control, and so forth, putting an equal number of 40 participants in each group to test. the sample included students from the university of bath (60%), the university staff, and visitors to the campus at the time of the study. the majority of the participants (93.3%) were native english speakers and the remainder were adequately proficient in english for the purpose of this study. procedure the study was first piloted with a group of approximately 20–30 volunteers. the preliminary results and the comprehensive feedback from theses participants were then used in order to improve on the procedure. in order to recruit participants for the main study, it was advertised at the author’s university of affiliation. volunteers were given the choice to choose between a remuneration of either £5 or course credits to be awarded if they took part. the study was conducted at the laboratory of social psychology at the university of bath and was approved by the department of psychology research ethics committee (reference number: 12–105). in order to respect privacy and preserve anonymity and confidentiality, only one participant at a time was invited to the laboratory. all the materials were presented on a computer screen. the responses of the participants on the computer were then recorded using a piece of experimental psychology software called media lab which would allow to measure response time and word count of the writing tasks. at the end of the experiment, the participants were fully debriefed and thanked. shame and mind-wandering 720 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measures recall and writing task for inducing shame and pride emotions were evoked using an autobiographical recall procedure (yang, yang, & chiou, 2010). the participants in the shame and pride groups were first asked to take a few seconds and think about shame or pride in general. they were then asked to recall and write, as vividly as possible, about a personal experience when they had felt a spurt of shame or pride. next, by eliciting the responses to the following questions, they were invited to think about the incident in more detail: 1) what was the emotional event? 2) why did it happen? 3) how did you feel then? and 4) what was the consequence of that event? (yang et al., 2010). most importantly, they were asked to recall how they felt, re-evoking the feelings they had at the time. with the aim replicating, as much as practicable, the experimental conditions, the participants in the control group were first asked to recall and write about what they had eaten for dinner the night before. more specifically, they were asked to think and write about the following questions: 1) what did you have last night for dinner? 2) why did you have that? 3) how did you prepare that (or where did you buy that)? and 4) how long did it take to prepare (or buy) that meal? manipulation check to see whether variation in the manipulated variables cause any differences, all participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they felt shame, pride, sadness, or happiness after writing about their experiences. they would then rate each of these feelings on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is did not have such a feeling at all and 5 is extremely felt it. frequency of mind-wandering in order to measure mind-wandering, all participants were instructed to read a none-too-engaging three-page long text about the geography of rivers. they then answered the 10-point scale question of “to what extent did your mind wander during the reading?” this would be an indication of the frequency at which a given participant’s mind wandered. comprehension test since mind-wandering is thought to affect text comprehension as well as reading speed (sayette, reichle, & schooler, 2009), participants were also asked to answer six “surprise” comprehension questions about the text. higher scores in the comprehension test indicated better comprehension and thus less mind-wandering. retrospection of unrelated thoughts retrospection was also used as a measure of mind-wandering. having read the text used in the comprehension test, participants were asked to report on their unrelated thoughts while reading. time spent on each task time spent on each task, including among others recalling, writing and reading, was measured up to the millisecond using the specialised psychology software, media lab. wordcount the number of words on all writing tasks was calculated by media lab. sedighimornani 721 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ frequency of emotionally-related thoughts, intensity of emotional experience, and level of avoidance after the reading task, the participants in the pride and shame conditions were given a 5-point likert-scale (1 = least; 5 = most) with three questions which measured 1) frequency of emotionally-related thoughts, 2) intensity of their emotional experience, and 3) their level of avoidance. the three questions were: 1) “during the reading task, to what extent did you have thoughts or feelings related to the memory (shame or pride) we asked you to think/write about?” 2) “to what extent did you feel shame (or pride for those assigned to the pride condition) when you were thinking and writing about your personal experience of shame (or pride)?” and 3) “sometimes strong emotions can be uncomfortable for us. our minds are reluctant to stay with them. to what extent did you find that, during the recalling and writing stages, your mind would drift off to different things so as not to feel a strong emotion?” trait shame and self-compassion at the end of the experiment, the participants were asked to complete the trait shame and self-compassion scales. trait shame was measured using the experience of shame scale (ess) (andrews, qian, & valentine, 2002). this scale consists of 25 items that ask direct questions about three specific characteristics (i.e., personal traits, behaviour, and physical appearance) about which individuals may feel shame. each respondent should rate each of the items on the basis of a 4-point scale (1 =not at all, 4 = very much), where a higher score indicates a higher level of shame. the internal consistency for this scale has been reported as .92 (robins, noftle, & tracy, 2007). self-compassion was assessed with the short form of the self-compassion scale (scf-sf) (raes, pommier, neff, & van gucht, 2010). this scale consists of 12 items rated on a 5-point scale (1= almost never, 5= almost always), where a higher score indicates a higher level of self-compassion. an estimated cronbach’s alpha for this scale is above .86 (raes et al., 2010). data analysis a one-way analysis of variance (anova) was used to determine whether the differences between the means for conditions were significant. more specifically, anova was carried out to determine how independent variables, that is, the experimental conditions of shame, pride, and control, affected the dependent variables of manipulation check, frequency of mind-wandering, comprehension test score, number of unrelated thoughts and words, time spent on each of the tasks, and wordcount. in addition, to further predict the effect of the traits selfcompassion and shame on the frequency of mind-wandering, two linear regression analyses were conducted. results the experience of shame scale (ess) and the self-compassion scale (scf-sf) the internal reliabilities for the self-compassion scale (α = .84) and the ess (α = .92) were relatively high. the mean self-compassion score was 34.12 (sd = 7.31), and the mean for the ess was 57.45 (sd = 13.59). the correlation between self-compassion and shame was −.55 (p < .001). shame and mind-wandering 722 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ emotion manipulation check the shame induction protocol was successful, with participants assigned to the shame condition feeling significantly more shame (m = 2.88, sd = 1.02) than those assigned to the pride (m = 1.43, sd = 0.78) and control condition (m = 1.50, sd = 1.50) (f (2, 117) = 34.60, p < .001). the participants in the shame group also felt significantly more sadness (m = 2.38, sd = 1.25) than the participants assigned to either the pride condition (m = 1.68, sd = 1.07) or the control condition (m = 1.55, sd = 0.85) (f (2, 117) = 6.90, p < .001). participants in the shame condition reported a significant level of shame after controlling for sadness (f (2, 116) = 25.13, p < .001). the pride induction protocol was also successful. participants assigned to the pride condition felt significantly more pride (m = 3.60, sd = 1.06) than those assigned to either the shame (m = 1.73, sd = 1.06) or the control condition (m = 2, sd = 0.96) (f (2, 117) = 38.83, p < .001). in addition, participants assigned to the pride condition reported a significantly higher level of happiness (m = 3.40, sd = 0.90) than those assigned to either shame (m = 1.85, sd = 0.97) or control (m = 2.65, sd = 0.74) conditions (f (2, 117) = 24.03, p < .001). along similar lines with the shame group, the participants in the pride condition reported a significant level of pride after controlling for happiness (f (2, 116) = 15.71, p < .001). wordcount of written tasks participants assigned to the shame condition generally wrote longer descriptions of their personal experiences. that said, a one-way anova procedure on the hard data (see table 1) yielded no significant intergroup differences with respect to the length of the written tasks. recall and describe time a one-way anova on the recall and describe time values demonstrated that participants assigned to the shame condition spent significantly more time recalling and describing their personal experiences of shame than the participants assigned to either pride or control condition (table 1). however, participants in the three conditions did not differ significantly in terms of the frequency of mind-wandering, performance on the comprehension test, or number of unrelated thoughts. sedighimornani 723 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 1 mean, standard deviation, and anova results for variables in shame, pride, and control conditions variable shame pride control anova m sd m sd m sd f p wordcount 157.05 84.60 139.87 80.45 131.30 71.70 1.10 .34 recall time 679,393 41,066 50,333 24,109 39,335 13,318 10.48 <.01 describe time 432,563 226,189 374,543 215,321 290,362 170,181 4.98 <.05 mind-wandering 5.75 2.35 5.90 2.42 5.85 2.51 0.04 .96 comprehension test 3.55 1.39 3.07 1.56 3.57 1.55 1.40 .25 unrelated thoughts 2.60 2.28 2.90 2.15 3.12 2.06 0.57 .57 unrelated words 48.22 51.86 49.42 45.63 46.30 36.48 0.05 .95 reading time 100,407 40,730 92,446 44,454 91,074 29,348 0.66 .52 note. mind-wandering = frequency of occurrences of mind-wandering; comprehension test = scores in the reading test; unrelated thoughts = numbers of unrelated thoughts that participants had while they were reading the text; unrelated words = number of words written in response to the unrelated thought question; reading time = time participants spent on the reading task; anova = analysis of variance; time values were recorded in milliseconds. trait shame, self-compassion and mind-wandering two regression analyses were conducted to examine the influence of trait self-compassion and shame on mind-wandering. it was found that trait self-compassion did not significantly predict the frequency of mind-wandering (β = −.16, p = .06). nevertheless, regardless of the experimental condition, trait shame significantly predicted the frequency of mind-wandering (β = .21, r 2 = 0.04, p < .05). frequency of emotional thoughts, intensity of emotion, and level of avoidance with respect to intensity of emotional experience, participants assigned to pride condition felt significantly more pride and were more able to evoke feelings of pride when they were thinking and writing about their personal experiences of pride than participants who were assigned to the shame condition and who were asked to recall a personal experience of shame (table 2). table 2 mean and standard deviation for emotional thoughts, intensity, and avoidance in shame and pride conditions variable shame pride t-test m sd m sd t p emotional thoughts 3.80 2.45 3.43 2.77 0.64 .52 intensity 6.85 2.71 8.13 2.32 −2.28 <.05 avoidance 4.08 2.45 4.03 2.68 0.08 .93 note. sd = standard deviation; emotional thoughts = extent to which participants had thoughts and feelings related to the memory during the reading task (q1); intensity = extent to which participants felt shame/pride when they were recalling their experience (q2); avoidance = extent to which participants’ mind wandered so as to avoid feeling a strong emotion (q3). shame and mind-wandering 724 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ effects of trait shame and self-compassion on emotional thoughts, intensity of emotional experience, and avoidance it was decided to next consider the effects of trait shame and self-compassion on the frequency of emotional thoughts, the intensity of emotional experience, and avoidance after manipulating shame and pride. trait shame did not significantly predict the level of emotionally related thoughts during the reading task (question 1), the intensity of emotional experience (question 2), or the level of avoidance (question 3) for either condition (table 3). table 3 regression analyses predicting emotional thoughts, intensity, and avoidance from trait shame and self-compassion in shame and pride conditions variable shame condition pride condition emotional thoughts intensity avoidance emotional thoughts intensity avoidance β p β p β p β p β p β p trait shame .08 .60 .16 .30 −.04 .78 −.01 .97 .09 .57 .23 .14 self-compassion −.20 .19 −.17 .27 −.12 .46 −.02 .89 .09 .56 −.44 .004 note. β = standardised coefficients; emotional thoughts = extent to which participants had thoughts and feelings related to the memory during the reading task (q1); intensity = extent to which participants felt shame/pride when they were recalling their experience (q2); avoidance = extent to which participants mind wandered in order to avoid feeling a strong emotion (q3). trait self-compassion did not significantly predict the level of emotionally related thoughts or the intensity of emotional experience in shame and pride conditions, either. for the shame condition, trait self-compassion did not explain a significant proportion of the variance in the level of avoidance. however, for the pride condition, trait self-compassion significantly predicted the extent of avoidance (table 3). the findings indicated that participants in the pride condition who had a higher score for self-compassion were less likely to avoid their evoked emotions, while those who had obtained a lower score on self-compassion were reluctant to stay with their feelings of pride and were rather inclined to avoid these feelings. discussion the study was novel by considering mind-wandering as a method of shame management. throughout the literature, there are many theories about how shame might be dealt with; however, relatively little empirical evidence is available. the main aim of this study was to examine whether after the experience of shame individuals engage in mind-wandering. this adds to the literature by opening a discussion regarding this issue. further, it examines one of the long standing claims in the literature. this study showed that participants in the shame condition spent significantly more time recalling and writing about their shameful experiences than participants in either the pride or control condition. these results are consistent with previous studies (cf. tangney, 1992) indicating that retrieval of shame-related memories can be sedighimornani 725 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ a taxing task. in fact, this study demonstrates that participants in the pride condition were more able to evoke feelings of pride in comparison to those who were in the shame condition. it seems that evoking feelings of pride is considerably less demanding than evoking feelings of shame. as for mind-wandering, the results indicated that across all experimental groups, individuals high in trait shame reported a significantly higher frequency of mind-wandering than participants low in trait shame. this finding implies that individuals suffering from significant levels of shame engage in more mind-wandering than those who do not experience shame often which is consistent with the idea of managing trait shame through mentally disengagement (schoenleber & berenbaum, 2012). excluding the association between trait shame and the frequency of mind-wandering, the findings of this study indicate that shame does not have a significant effect on mind-wandering. moreover, participants in the shame condition did not have a significantly lower (or higher) score in the comprehension test; they did not spend significantly more time on the reading task; nor did they report a higher number of unrelated thoughts during the reading task than participants in the pride or control conditions. these results, therefore, translate into the rejection of the main hypothesis of the present study. in the pride condition, however, self-compassion was inversely associated with level of avoidance; it significantly predicted avoidance of emotional thoughts and feelings during the reading task. such association and prediction, notwithstanding, were not observed in the shame condition. in addition, self-compassion did not influence the frequency and intensity of emotional thoughts and feelings in the shame condition, a result which is inconsistent with the findings previously reached in the literature. for example, in the literature on self-compassion, leary, tate, adams, allen, and hancock (2007) reported that self-compassion functions as a buffer against negative emotions and life events and that self-compassionate individuals seemed to be less affected by failures and negative outcomes (leary et al., 2007). this relationship is yet to be further probed into in future studies. in terms of the lack of a clear causal relationship between shame and mind-wandering, several factors need be considered: first, it is debatable whether the methods used to assess mind-wandering can detect the associations between negative emotions and mind-wandering. for example, mrazek et al. (2012) found that negative emotion was correlated with errors on the sustained attention to response task (sart), but not with a self-reported measure of daydreaming. they then concluded that “[t]he association between mind-wandering and negative effect may emerge only during pronounced task-disengagement” (mrazek et al., 2012, p. 5). second, and more importantly, shame can be a transitory emotional state (state shame) or chronic emotional disorder (trait shame). shame as state emotion is likely to last for only a fleeting period. it may also be substituted by a less painful emotional state, such as anger or regret (hahn, 2000). individuals also cope with state shame or trait shame differently (behrendt & ben-ari, 2012; lickel, kushlev, savalei, matta, & schmader, 2014). for instance, de hooge et al. (2010, 2011) challenged the link between state shame and withdrawal tendencies, arguing that individuals who experience state shame attempt to repair a devalued self rather than withdraw from the situation. according to this argument, shame-participants were expected to have outperformed the control group in the reading and memory tasks in this study; nonetheless, the inter-condition differences were non-significant. shame and mind-wandering 726 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ lickel et al. (2014) also demonstrated that after recalling a personal experience of shame, participants reported a higher degree of motivation to change the self, describing an “urge to become a better person” or a strong desire to “change aspects of my personality” (p. 1052), in comparison to the participants who recalled a personal experience of embarrassment. however, according to lickel et al. (2014), a strong determination to suppress painful feelings of shame and avoid shame inducing situations might counteract that desire for change. in contrast, when the experience of shame looms frequently (i.e., chronic shame), and when individuals do not have access to resources or options to seek self-enhancement, they are likely to use avoidance-oriented strategies (de hooge et al., 2010, 2011). for example, if one feels ashamed of being poor or unattractive, and does not have any option to change the situation, he or she may attempt to use escapism strategies (e.g., daydreaming/mind-wandering) in order to alleviate his or her mood or, in extreme situations, make life more bearable. this compares well with watching television or reading fiction, activities that act like solace, helping an individual forget the harsh reality of life. it is, therefore, possible that highly ashamed individuals (trait shame) engage in mind-wandering or daydreaming frequently and compulsively. the use of strategies like mind-wandering, however, may temper a negative mood and depression (schoenleber & berenbaum, 2012). nonetheless, it should be noted that using qualitative methods, van vliet (2008) concluded that individuals try to rebuild the self through five processes after experiencing shame: 1) connection: trying to socialise with others, talk about their shame experiences, or connect with a higher power; 2) refocusing: focusing on positive things, self-enhancement, and taking some action; 3) acceptance: accepting the shaming situation and expressing one’s feelings; 4) understanding external factors: separating the self from shame, developing selfawareness, and trying to evolve; and 5) resisting: rejecting negative judgements and challenging others’ beliefs about the self. chen, hewitt, and flett (2015) similarly found a significant association between need to belong and shame; leeming and boyle (2013) found that connections with others and social validation were essential for rehabilitating feelings of shame. the above research seems to imply that social relationships, social support, and a sense of belonging are essential for overcoming feelings of shame. however, a tendency to avoid or withdraw, which is often observed in individuals vulnerable to the experience of shame (tangney, 1995), becomes a significant barrier to building social connections and relationships (black, curran, & dyer, 2013). limitations the extent to which participants were able to evoke feelings of shame in the laboratory remains questionable. participants might remember the shameful incident rather than the actual experience of shame; they may have come to terms with previous feelings or the situation may have been resolved, but it was still in their memory. in addition, writing about positive (burton & king, 2004), negative, or stressful experiences and emotions (baikie & wilhelm, 2005) can have therapeutic effects; it may assist individuals to rectify their unresolved feelings. therefore, recalling and describing a negative emotion may have contradictory effects. on the one hand, it may induce negative emotions, and on the other, it might resolve the negative emotions that had been evoked. this paradoxical effect of the autobiographical procedure, therefore, should well be acknowledged. in addition, since the study relied on autobiographical recall to elicit shame, there was a great range of variations in shame memories and descriptions. some participants recalled a situation where they had cheated on their partner, others described their academic failures, and still others recalled situations where they had done sedighimornani 727 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 https://www.psychopen.eu/ something wrong, such as lying, stealing or upsetting someone. though autobiographical recall is a well-established methodology, it cannot ensure that only feelings of shame be evoked during the recall of the majority of these situations. the research on state shame indicates that individuals may behave less consistently after experiencing state shame (induced shame). many factors can interfere with how people react to the experience of shame. sometimes, it seems impossible to identify a distinct pattern. for example, factors such as situational context (silfver, 2007), personality traits (carver & conner-smith, 2010), and cultural factors (bagozzi, verbeke, & gavino, 2003) may affect how individuals non-prone to shame cope/deal with it. future directions apparently, inducing shame in the laboratory is a very challenging task. it is still unclear whether shame can be studied in laboratory settings or to what extent it can be credible. furthermore, there is a disparity between experiencing shame (state shame) and having a shame-prone identity (harper, 2011). it is reasonable to believe that shame-prone individuals tend to use avoidance-oriented coping strategies (e.g., denial, mental disengagement, self-distraction, etc.) and that dealing with the experience of shame (state shame) depends more on the nature of the shameful event or the individuals’ disposition. although continuing this line of research is laborious, it is likely that it can make a considerable contribution to our understanding of shame and coping strategies. clearly enough, some coping strategies are more efficacious in promoting well-being than others. as for future studies, it is important to understand the short-term benefits and long-term costs of the shame management methods. (negative) mind-wandering might cause unhappiness and worry and may lead to rumination. moreover, the empirical evidence also suggests that even those who gain pleasure from mind-wandering still feel distress when they notice that their mind has drifted and, thus, respond negatively (mason et al., 2013). since compulsive mind-wandering may occur automatically, unintentionally, or extemporaneously, it might be difficult to regulate. that is perhaps why mindfulness and the ability to train the mind to be presentoriented can be highly effective in regulating emotions and thoughts. hence, for the future, it is necessary to direct the focus towards mind-wandering as a way of emotion management. funding the author has declared no funding or competing interests. competing interests the author has declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments i would like to thank my phd's supervisors prof. bas verplanken and dr. katharine rimes for their support and contribution to this research. references andrews, b., qian, m., & valentine, j. d. 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(2011). coping with guilt and shame in the impulse buying context. journal of economic psychology, 32, 458-467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.03.011 about the author neda sedighimornani has earned her phd in psychology from the university of bath, uk. the scope of her research encompasses emotion regulation, specifically shame as one of the self-conscious emotion. shame and mind-wandering 732 europe's journal of psychology 2019, vol. 15(4), 717–732 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v15i4.1787 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology information (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1037%2f0022-0167.55.2.233. https://doi.org/10.2224%2fsbp.2010.38.5.605 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.joep.2011.03.011 https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ shame and mind-wandering (introduction) method participants procedure measures data analysis results the experience of shame scale (ess) and the self-compassion scale (scf-sf) emotion manipulation check wordcount of written tasks recall and describe time trait shame, self-compassion and mind-wandering frequency of emotional thoughts, intensity of emotion, and level of avoidance effects of trait shame and self-compassion on emotional thoughts, intensity of emotional experience, and avoidance discussion limitations future directions (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the author socrates’ voluntary death — an essential voice against the pathologisation of suicide research reports socrates’ voluntary death — an essential voice against the pathologisation of suicide amadeusz citlak 1 [1] institute of psychology, polish academy of sciences, warsaw, poland. europe's journal of psychology, 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 received: 2025-07-29 • accepted: 2025-09-15 • published (vor): 2025-11-28 handling editor: claude-hélène mayer, university of johannesburg, johannesburg, south africa corresponding author: amadeusz citlak, institute of psychology, polish academy of sciences, jaracza 1, 00-371 warsaw, poland. e-mail: acitlak@wp.pl related: this article is part of the ejop special issue “existential psychobiography: on death and dying across the lifespan. or how extraordinary individuals and their environments deal with the end of life”, editors: claude-hélène mayer & paul j. p. fouché, europe’s journal of psychology, 21(special issue), https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v21.si abstract objectives: the article focuses on the death of the greek philosopher socrates from the 5th century bce as a significant inspiration for contemporary discourse on suicide (an essential voice against the pathologisation of suicide). it aims to highlight how an individual and their socio-cultural environment interact when dealing with the problem of death. methods: the psychobiographical approach used a single-case analysis as the starting point for theoretical discussion on suicide. the essential feature of the presented study is an interpretive-descriptive approach. results: an analysis reveals socrates’ motivations in the context of ancient greek culture, particularly regarding the concept of honour-shame, which played an important role in the organisation of social and mental life in the mediterranean world. however, the honour-shame dimension is not limited to ancient greek culture; it is closely related to the universal concept of ‘social status’. honour-shame and social status can identify and explain the motivational processes behind the suicidal decision. conclusions: the example of socrates (who chooses death to avoid shame and preserve his honour) allows us to receive an alternative perspective on suicide, especially concerning the right to suicide and the problem of its medicalisation and pathologisation. in this light, we should also ask for an alternative design of preventive programs and legal assessments of suicide. keywords medicalisation and pathologisation of suicide, biography and suicide, psychobiography of socrates, social status, structural violence, critical suicide research the work and death of socrates socrates (469–399 bce) is one of the most famous individuals of the ancient world, a renowned greek philosopher, and a unique, vibrant personality. his motto, “i know that i know nothing”, his maieutic method of the extracting truth hidden deep within the human soul (an inspiration for contemporary therapy; brickhouse & smith, 2010; pietikainen & ihanus, 2003), and his critical attitude towards authority earned him popularity and a lasting place in history. socrates’ life coincided with the heyday of athens; it was a time of significant transformation, a restructuring of power relations, including the weakening of the political dominance of the areopagus (and thus the aristocracy), which was largely transferred to the assembly of citizens — ekklēsía, represented by free athenians. social status was determined not so much by origin as by knowledge, social skills, and the ability to convince others of one’s views. rhetoric played a crucial role in political and public life as one of the most effective tools for gaining influence. this new cultural model this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.19085&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2025-11-28 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6550-1891 https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ simultaneously challenged the existing system of values based on religion and tradition (brickhouse & smith, 2004; ehrenberg, 2010; johnson, 2011). socrates’s philosophical and educational work in such an environment automatically placed him high in the social hierarchy as an unquestionable authority, enhanced with extraordinary intellectual abilities and knowledge. his activity also had an ethical dimension, partly because he equated knowledge (episteme) with virtue (arete). socrates was a staunch opponent of the ethical relativism typical of the sophists of his time. however, he did not teach or enlighten others; instead, he helped to rid them of erroneous beliefs and discover the truth hidden within their souls. the pursuit of episteme is the highest human goal, regardless of the consequences (including social rejection or even death; johnson, 2011; moore, 2015; smith, 2021). socrates’s uncompromising stance in the pursuit of truth and virtue, which he valued more than tradition or even religious beliefs, earned him numerous enemies. socrates often overtly pointed out the flaws of democracy and state institutions, which functioned based on the voice of the majority and were susceptible to manipulation and public pressure. as he argued, “for it is not quantity but quality that should decide about the state” (apology). growing antagonism developed into resentment and conflict, culminating in the athenian philosopher being accused of atheism and immorality, including corrupting the youth. both accusations were ridiculous as socrates was not an atheist, and the alleged demoralisation contradicted the very essence of his philosophical work — his ethical intellectualism (nails, 2018). in the first vote, the athenian court found socrates guilty by 281 voting against and 220 in favour of acquittal. the accused now had the opportunity to present a defence. socrates could then have proposed an alternative punishment, such as exile or a fine (these would likely have been accepted by the court, which sought to eliminate the threat to athens rather than to kill him). unfortunately, socrates just criticised the court’s decision and filed a lawsuit against it. he felt no guilt and regarded his philosophical work as a divine vocation. he therefore proposed as the “punishment” either lifelong support from the state, a privilege reserved for only the most distinguished heroes, or a fine of one mina, a blatant disregard for the court’s authority and its verdict. consequently, the second vote condemned socrates, with 361 favouring the death penalty and 140 voting for his acquittal. thirty days passed between the trial and his execution. during this time, his students prepared an escape from prison, encouraging their master to save his own life. however, socrates refused to escape, drank poison, and died. his death was therefore voluntary and, in a sense, suicidal (kronska, 2001; see also duff, 1983; warren, 2001). the question of motivation first and foremost, it must be emphasised that socrates influenced the course of the trial in such a way that it could have ended in nothing but a death sentence, stemming from his conviction that flight and exile would condemn him to a life of shame, failure, and a denial of his divine mission as a philosopher-teacher (brickhouse & smith, 2004)1. the court’s guilty verdict branded him a criminal whose future work was questionable and rendered it meaningless. socrates refused to live with the stigma of being a fraud, an atheist, and a demoralised man, especially since the trial was designed to strip him of social respect and expel him from athens. despite differences among historical sources that have survived to this day (nails, 2018), the essence of the entire case was clearly socrates’ dignity and credibility. in fact, the legal system and public authorities gave him the choice between shame and death, allowing him to preserve his honour and avoid disgrace. besides the above objective reasons (facts), at least two additional subjective reasons also significantly influenced socrates’s choice. first, his personality (traits, manner of behaviour), visible, for example, in plato’s dialogues, indicates that he was a man with a high sense of personal dignity and authority. he was a proud man, “holding his head high”. the same image of socrates is also presented in the first psychobiography of this philosopher, dating back to 1909 (and also the first psychobiography in the world)2, written within the polish school of psychology, the lvov-warsaw 1) in his defense (plato's dialogue — apology), socrates also lists other reasons for his decision not to escape, such as his advanced age and the lack of means; however, these seem of secondary importance (see brickhouse & smith, 2004; fagan & russon, 2009). 2) the first psychobiography is considered to be sigmund freud’s work on leonardo da vinci, published in 1910 (see freud, 2019). in contrast, the psychobiography of socrates was written in stages, with its first and crucial presentation appearing as early as 1909. against the pathologisation of suicide 332 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ school. this school, which derives from the psychology-philosophy of franz brentano (brożek et al., 2017; woleński, 2019), alongside the würzburg, gestalt, and phenomenological schools, formed an important, albeit forgotten, part of the psychological milieu of the time in eastern europe (citlak, 2023b). a detailed presentation of this psychobiography is available in the literature (citlak, 2016, 2021); there is no need to repeat it here. it is consistent with what is said above and its creator, władysław witwicki3, who analysed socrates’s personality in the light of the social world of ancient greece, attributes ambition and the pursuit of a sense of power/strength as the primary motivating force. in this analysis, socrates was a fully healthy, autonomous subject who was also guided by ethical values. however, the chronologically second psychological analysis of socrates’s personality sees him as exhibiting various disorders and dysfunctions (hallucinations, masochism, etc.; karpas, 1915). ambition in socrates, as in plato and aristotle, had a positive meaning; it was a noble feeling that pushed a person upward, towards personal development, achievement, and competence. ambition also fostered competition and helped individuals climb the social or political hierarchy. this mo­ tivation played a dominant role in the life of the athenian philosopher, preventing him from cowardly escaping prison or accepting the stigma of shame. faced with the circumstances arranged by the athenian court, any self-respecting philosopher would have found himself in a moral and social shackle, and a personality type motivated by ambition and the pursuit of power must have found the impending humiliation and moral degeneration particularly painful. the second subjective factor, also influencing socrates’s behaviour, was the specificity of greek culture, which was firmly rooted in the honour-shame dimension. honour and shame deeply permeated not only greek society but also roman society (barton, 2001; lendon, 1997) and much of the mediterranean basin, including the semitic world, i.e., the jews and arabs (peristiany, 1966; peristiany & pitt-rivers, 1992; pitt-rivers, 1977). in anthropological studies of mediter­ ranean culture, shame had primarily social significance, referring to the relationship of an individual with a group, and to a slightly different conceptualisation of the ‘self’, namely the ‘relational self’, embedded in a network of interactions with others (sheikh, 2014; wong & tsai, 2007). shame is not identical to the individual voice of private conscience (tangney et al., 2007). shame means something more: disgrace, social condemnation, rejection. severe punishments for blasphemers, such as stoning or whipping, were treated as an act of protest against the shame brought upon the community (cross et al., 2013). such violent public reactions resulted from shame’s primarily social, as opposed to individual, meaning (olyan, 1996). as the opposite of honour, shame is at the other end of one dimension and is associated with losing status and recognition. disgraced people lose respect and social position and are symbolically deprived of power. in a typical honour-shame culture, both women who were raped and men who were defeated in battle find themselves in a space of shame, and both — as numerous biographies show — may seek ways to overcome it through suicide (canetto, 2015). it is not only socrates who, when pushed into the space of shame and deprived of honour, decides to commit suicide. the carthaginian leader, hannibal, defeated by the romans, drank poison to avoid shame at the hands of his enemies. queen cleopatra let herself be fatally bitten by a snake after her husband, antony, lost to octavian. mithridates eupator, defeated by roman armies and betrayed by his son, committed suicide (hamilton, 2016). acts of suicide by servants immediately after the death of their masters (as a form of honourable death) are also widely known. this also applies to suicides committed by the wives of kings, warriors, and princes (blidstein, 2022; lester, 1997), and was the meaning behind the sati suicide ritual in india, during which wives died with their husbands (hawley, 1994). there are numerous examples of suicide after losing lovers, property, reputation, etc. historical sources show that cases of suicide due to illness or old age were quite natural, so as not to be a burden to the community or the family. in the “age of hellenism and the roman empire, a death in luxury or without suffering could be styled euthanasia. the doctor had neither a place in those acts of dying nor in cases of natural death (...) sometimes, a doctor was called in to assist in voluntary death, a role that was not forbidden by the hippocratic oath” (van hooff, 2004, p. 975). in the semitic culture, on the other hand, a person who died in peace, after a long life and in connection with loved ones, died a so-called good death. a bad death was when one died prematurely, without burial and in violence or shame (spronk, 2004). 3) władysław witwicki (1878–1948) is one of the most important figures in the history of polish psychology, a professor of psychology at the university of warsaw (1919–1948), author of the first polish, two-volume psychology textbook (1926 and 1927), author of the theory of striving for a sense of power, similar to alfred adler’s theory, also the author of two psychobiographies: socrates and jesus of nazareth (citlak, 2021, 2025). citlak 333 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ therefore, it seems that socrates’s voluntary death was in protest of the oppressive socio-legal system, which condemned him to a life of shame and disgrace. his attitude was a dramatic, yet effective, form of defence. shame was all the more painful and unbearable because socrates enjoyed social and ethical recognition and was most likely a very ambitious man. however, such a case allows valuable conclusions for the contemporary conceptualisation of suicide, especially in the context of the pathologisation of suicide, directing our attention to the free and fully conscious, autonomous subject. the problem of motivation in a biographical perspective social history and literature provide many individual cases with a similar motivational context. there is an undoubted connection between suicide and mental disorders as studied in psychiatry and psychology. nevertheless, this is only a fragment of possible explanations. biographical studies provide important information on figures close to death or who took their own lives (mayer et al., 2021; misra & srivastava, 2021; preti & miotto, 1999). they highlight the importance of non-medical factors, such as loss of control over life, lack of meaning in life, trauma, guilt and loss of credibility and diversity in non-medical explanations. this was shown, for example, by the research of d. lester and j. ill, who analysed 72 biographies of suicides in the light of the interpersonal theory of suicide by t. joiner (joiner, 2005), one of the most popular theories of suicide, supported by the evolutionary-biological paradigm. joiner abstracts from the medicalisation of suicide and identifies burdensomeness (along with thwarted belonging) as a fundamental factor motivating suicides. the author refers to, among other factors, evolutionary processes and similarities between suicidal behaviour in humans and particular species of animals that withdraw from the herd when they are, for example, infected/sick, so as not to burden the other members of the group (cf. chiurliza et al., 2018). however, lester and ill found that “perceived burdensomeness as a general belief that one is a burden and is characterized by a sense that others would be better off without them” (p. 1801) occurred in only 15% of study participants. an even lower result (10%) was observed by j. gunn et al. when examining 261 suicides from australia (gunn et al., 2012). these results force us to consider the motivation for suicide beyond pathology and to also revise the power of explanations that accept the evolutionary paradigm as the dominant conceptual framework. the suicides discussed above indicate the dominance of slightly different processes, especially those related to the perception of one’s actions and the assigning of meaning to them. other biographical studies have shown that artists commit suicide less often than writers and poets (preti & miotto, 1999), which suggests that the sphere of artistic experience and expression may constitute a better buffer than intellectual reflection (smit et al., 2025). among artists (musicians, painters, sculptors), the lowest suicide rate was observed among musicians (preti et al., 2001). in the case of most celebrities, key factors are strains in aspirations, deprivation and values (zhang et al., 2013). the above results seem to correspond to the main claim of the psychache theory of suicide (shneidman, 1993, 1998), in light of which the primary motivator of suicide is psychological pain resulting from the deprivation of basic human needs. pain means “mental suffering, mental torment ... hurt, anguish, soreness, aching, misery — in the mind. it is the pain of excessively felt shame, or guilt, or humiliation [italics added – a.c.] or loneliness, or loss, or sadness, or fear of growing old or of dying badly, or the like” (howard et al., 2022, p. 263). regardless of the possible identification of behavioural patterns or accepted theories of suicide, one of the most important motivating factors is the subjectively stated lack of possibility of a dignified, valuable life. this becomes an essential source of psychological pain, motivating people to end their lives, regardless of whether we are talking about inhabitants of the eastern or western world (snowdon, 2018). and this problem is becoming increasingly felt today due to technological and medical achievements, which, while allowing us to improve the quality of life, force us to question its value and necessity in extreme circumstances, such as suffering, pain, loneliness, lack of a sense of meaningful life, etc. it is precisely the connection between suicide and voluntary death with the concept of dignity that is a kind of constant, as evidenced by literature, history, mythology, religion and anthropology (lu, 2017). one of the more misleading conclusions in the assessment of suicide and its pathologisation is the reliance on correlations between it and the concept of dysfunction (e.g., depression, anxiety). by its very nature, this correlation only suggests but does not determine causal relationships. it is evident that the lack of a sense of meaningful life and dignity is key to against the pathologisation of suicide 334 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ mood disorders (anxiety, depression), and they are the most significant challenge for both people planning suicide and survivors (aviad-wilchek & ne’eman-haviv, 2018; zhang et al., 2023). it has also been repeatedly emphasised in the literature that a particularly important factor in suicidal acts is the experience of aggression (usually aggression experienced by young people and traumas related to aggression in older people), which may contribute to problems with depression or anxiety (mccloskey & ammerman, 2018). however, the issue of suicide gains new meaning when we consider that aggression can take various forms, from incidental behavioural and psychological acts to systemic oppression and institutional violence. suicide as a result of institutional, systemic aggression becomes an act of protest, an attempt to regain control, strength, and above all, dignity. it becomes a rallying cry for a dignified life and death (citlak, 2023a, 2024). this applies to both cases set in individual contexts (personal drama) and group, social or political contexts (abdeen et al., 2018; nugent & lee, 2025), with self-immolation in protest against oppression, rape, violence, suicidal acts of samurai as the only way to avoid shame, kamikaze as a form of struggle to maintain the honour of the group, and suicides among women raped during war being notable examples (lamb, 2020). even terrorist suicide attacks can be (and unfortunately are) inscribed in the perspective of the struggle to maintain honour and defence against shame (beller & kröger, 2021; greenland et al., 2020). between honour-shame and social status the concepts of honour and shame play a key role — often underestimated in contemporary weird cultures — in the motivation for suicidal acts and the desire for a good death (cameron et al., 2020). historical sources, philosophical and literary texts clearly show that loss of dignity usually became one of the leading causes of suicide, as is also the case with the desire to avoid shame. more recently, anthropological studies of mediterranean culture conducted in the 1960s and 1970s showed the importance of the honour-shame dimension first among the inhabitants of the iberian peninsula and then in italy, greece, egypt, turkey and north african countries (peristiany, 1966; pitt-rivers, 1977). this dimension regulates the lives of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the mediterranean basin (peristiany & pitt-rivers, 1992). it concerns jewish and muslim cultures, as well as the countries of southern europe. nowadays, the great significance of honour-shame is found in the culture of the middle east and many countries in africa, asia and north and south america (miedema et al., 2020). this fact is not a weakness of the proposed model but a confirmation that honour-shame is a constitutive feature of societies with a relatively high intensity of collectivism and collectivist ethics (guerra et al., 2013). however, historical and cultural changes have systematically led to an increase in the distance between the individual and the community, favouring the process of individualisation of the subject, and as a further consequence, ethical changes and the development of new social relations (tomasello, 2009). this process began in ancient greece, but the individualisation of the subject, as we know it from western culture, accelerated after the collapse of the dominance of the church in europe, the influence of the enlightenment, and then, as a result of industrial development and democracy (ferngren, 1989). individualisation does not negate the value of the honour-shame dimension. it still plays a vital role in social relations, although not as dominant as before. in other words, honour-shame cannot be treated as belonging to the past or exclusively to collectivist countries. as an immanent component of interpersonal relations, it has moved over time from the central field of key values or been replaced by concepts/values with a similar function (guerra et al., 2013; helkama et al., 2013). from a historical, evolutionary perspective, shame is still present and plays a similar role, although it entails a more personal sense of shame in the weird (individualistic) culture, as a result of negative evaluation in one’s own eyes and less in someone else’s (lester, 2008). similarly, honour meant not only dignity and social recognition but also provided a higher position in the community hierarchy, and thus the possibility of exerting influence and a sense of power. in the weird culture, however, the honour experience’s connection with social evaluation has weakened, leaving a stronger connection with a personal sense of pride, ambition and self-esteem. i draw attention to this because the honour-shame dimension seems to be constantly present as a fairly broad category, adopting a slightly different expression or linguistic grid (landers et al., 2024; sznycer et al., 2018). perhaps we should even speak of a single universal motivational factor instead of a bipolar dimension. for example, instead of honour-shame, we could refer to the concept of psychological strength-power, which emerged in the history citlak 335 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of psychological research at the beginning of the 20th century. it would be about a sense of strength, agency, and status, the relatively high intensity of which is expressed by honour and low by shame. as an example of this, a. adler’s individualpsychologie offered a coherent conceptual framework, with machtegefühl and machstreben as the essential human motivational factor (adler, 2000, 2011; similarly, the first european power-strength motivation theory — citlak, 2025). at the social level, some suggestions are provided by the social dominance orientation theory of j. sidanius and f. pratto (sidanius et al., 2004), in the light of which, the orientation towards dominance is a universal feature (pratto et al., 1994). i believe the extent to which such or similar strivings may correlate with positive (compassion, altruism) or negative (discrimination, violence) behaviour is not so important. particular theories emphasise different aspects of possible correlations. the above and similar theories must refer to a similar factor regulating social life. comparing the importance of honour-shame in the ancient and contemporary worlds, c. patterson argues that honour can be treated as an expression of a universal variable, i.e. social status (patterson, 2019). in both cases — honour and social status — we are motivated by social comparisons. in fact, ancient and modern honour would mean nothing more than a form of striving to maintain or increase status (van osch et al., 2020). in the context of suicide and good death, this means that the problem of evaluation and self-image, both in the eyes of the environment and oneself, was and remains a fundamental issue. moral valuation (evil), religion (sin) or pathologi­ sation (disease, disorder) should be seen as secondary phenomena imposed externally in an attempt to universalise the subjective experience originally embedded in sociocultural canons and local contexts. even if we take into account the indigenously diverse, local conceptualisations of suicide and good death, it seems that they are connected by similar motivational factors embedded in the experience of shame, guilt, loss of dignity or the status of a subject who no longer fits in the public space or the system of personal beliefs and values. although this applies primarily to those suicides that do not result from diseases or disorders, in fact, many of the latter also fit this perspective. noteworthy in this respect are the experiences of v. frankl working with people who had experienced trauma and lost the meaning of life; he helped them abandon suicidal intention by finding a sense of meaning and personal dignity (frankl, 1959; kleiman & beaver, 2013). beyond medicalisation and pathologisation of suicide medicine has treated suicide as a manifestation of mental dysfunction or disorder since at least the 17th century. pathologisation replaced former categories of evil, sin or possession. the secularisation of suicide assessment (weaver & wright, 2009) was often expressed in the latin non compos mentis (not of sound mind). in the 19th century, suicide was usually seen as an illness or a form of madness (houston, 2009). today, we estimate that at least 50% of suicides are committed by people diagnosed with personality disorders, depression, deep anxiety or schizophrenia (marsh, 2010). medicine indicates a neurobiological basis for suicides: “serotonergic, noradrenergic, glutamatergic and gabaergic systems, as well as the hpa axis, are the main neural networks involved in the pathophysiology of suicide. disorders of opioid and endocannabinoid systems can also be found in suicide victims. pathogenesis of suicidal behaviour also contains abnormalities of cell signalling and pathology of glial cells” (jaeschke et al., 2011, p. 573). from a medical perspective, however, it remains difficult to answer the question of whether the specific constellation of neurobiological processes in suicides should be treated as a separate entity of disorders or rather as their integral part (hannon et al., 2025). perhaps these constellations are also, to some extent, the result of the impact of situational life factors. regardless of this, psychiatry treats suicide unequivocally as a dysfunction, as a suicidal behaviour disorder (dsm-5, 2013), and plays a decisive role in its pathologisation. in many works, the authors directly state that mental disorders and psycho­ pathology are the main conditions for suicide. psychology, especially clinical psychology, also actively participates in the pathologisation of suicide, indicating numerous connections not only with disorders such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia, but also with selected personality traits (lu, 2017). this point of view is of decisive importance in the approach to people affected by the problem of suicide. if a threat to the patient's life is determined, there is an obligation to treat, including hospitalisation. as a consequence, this triggers a complex process of coercive influence, legal procedures, and often secondary medical and social stigmatisation (rimkeviciene et al., 2019). against the pathologisation of suicide 336 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ münster and broz (2015), in their anthropological analysis of suicide, point out that while “most human societies tend to treat suicides not as idiosyncratic and exceptional ways of dying but as a kind of death indicative of larger, more significant issues, such as ruptures in social, economic, and moral life” (p. 5), unfortunately, medicine and psychology do not sufficiently take this fact into account (cf. staples & widger 2012). these disciplines are additionally aided by statistical studies of the dependencies or correlations related to suicide, by analysing and aggregating huge amounts of quantitative data (e.g., demography, sociology, public health). their constitutive feature is the transition from the qualitative level, related to the subject’s experience, to the level of average, general dependencies between variables (serotonin levels, gender, genetics, depression, financial crises). this separates the experience of suicide from the subjec­ tively and socially created meaning/sense of the act itself and weaves it into identifiable statistical relations, resulting in reductionism and the support for the aforementioned pathologisation of suicide. medicalisation thus rationalises the pathology of suicide, while quantification indicates correlations between it and health indicators. münster and broz call these (medicalisation and quantification) ‘expert knowledge regimes’ and rightly point out how the lack of an adequate definition of personhood in western science (i.e., weird) results in the inadequacy of defining suicide, as individualism does not sufficiently take into account the social, cultural and local networking of the self (staples, 2015). ultimately, “suicidology (…) assumes that the persons inhabiting the suicide field exist prior to the act of suicide” (p. 16). this is classic ‘psycho-centrism’, locating problems and their solution within the psyche (jaworski, 2014) and overemphasising the subject’s agency. other researchers draw attention to the rich semantic background of suicide and voluntary death, which is interwoven with religious and ethical systems, local philosophy and rituals — unique systems of culturally constructed meanings (marsh, 2010). this is evidenced by numerous examples, including the populations of india, palestine, siberia, indigenous groups of australia, africa and north america (brooke et al., 2025; lester, 1997; reyes-foster, 2015; sharp & linos, 2015). the concept of disease or disorder is only a marginal part of the phenomenon in question and does not consider the extensive connections between the subject and environmental dynamics. an indigenous approach to suicide and voluntary death, i.e., studying them in a local context, taking into account the interpretative canons of a given community at a given time, forces us to go beyond narrow medicalisation to broaden the field of possible explanations, such as political rebellion, moral opposition, religious obligation, dynamics of power relations, etc. this point of view is also present in critical suicide research. it is worth adding a few words about the religious stigma of suicide. western ethical thought has been shaped largely by monotheistic religions, where life is a gift from god, so the human in question cannot decide when to end it. suicide or euthanasia as a voluntary act of taking life is considered a sin, an offence against the will of god; in judaism and christianity, it is an offence against the commandment “thou shalt not kill”. the jewish talmud allows for refraining from medical practices in a situation of imminent death and artificially sustaining life. suicide rates among followers of judaism are one of the lowest in the world (gearing & alonzo, 2018; saiz et al., 2021; wilchek-aviad & malka, 2016). augustine played an essential role in the christian view of suicide, as he considered it a sin worse than murder, because the criminal no longer has a chance to repent (de civitate dei). the prohibition and condemnation of suicide also occur in islam (“do not kill one another”, “do not kill” — surah iv) as a crime equal to murder, and which cannot be forgiven. according to the quran, life is a gift from god, and only he decides to end it. muslim countries have the lowest suicide rates in the world (arafat et al., 2022; lew et al., 2022; shoib et al., 2022). however, i would like to emphasise an important yet commonly marginalised fact that monotheistic religions additionally created an evident space for the acceptance of suicide under extreme conditions. this primarily applies to the early period of judaism and christianity. in the context of suicide and dignified death, it is particularly important that the semitic culture, where monotheistic religions were born, was dominated by the dimension of honour vs. shame (citlak, 2023a). the prohibition or acceptance of suicide in monotheistic religions has always been part of a broader religious and ethical context. moral norms had a strong historical and cultural background; for example, the prohibition of killing did not include enemies who destroyed the sacredness of israel or muslims, because the sacred was a superior value to the specific commandments (loewenthal et al., 2003). the dimension of honour vs. shame had a decisive impact on the moral assessment of suicide and dignified death in monotheistic religions. both phenomena were closely connected. all suicides described in the old testament are related to the desire to maintain honour or avoid shame (koch, 2005). king saul asks for a dignified death from his servant to avoid humiliation and shame at the hands of the infidels; when the servant refuses, saul kills himself. the citlak 337 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ biblical samson commits suicide to avoid shame at the hands of the pagans. none of them were condemned in the bible (shemesh, 2009). suicide committed to avoid shame and preserve honour was simply accepted, and it has such a moral status in the holy books of judaism and christianity. moreover, people already dishonoured due to unworthy acts were also not condemned when they committed suicide, which was a natural consequence of their shame, as if expected by the community (e.g., king zimri, ahithophel). judas’s suicide is similarly presented in the new testament as a ‘natural’ decision resulting from a shameful betrayal. the later rabbinic tradition accepts (or at least does not condemn) voluntary death and suicide in exceptional situations, for example, if it were to protect the believer from denying god or from blasphemous acts during persecution or torture (witztum & stein, 2012). during the persecution of christians in the 2nd–4th centuries, many people, including bishops, chose voluntary death and public execution at the hands of the executioners rather than a shameful escape (moss, 2012). a similar meaning in radical islam is found when suicide attempts to preserve the honour of the family or community. then, such an act is understood as “a form of resistance” as an opposition to “humiliation and defeat” (abdel-khalek, 2004, p. 109). unfortunately, such an interpretation is cynically exploited by terrorist groups (slavicek, 2008). in other words, suicide and dignified death in circumstances defined by honour or shame had a place in these religions as part of a wider system of social interactions. despite the prohibition “thou shalt not kill,” not all suicides were subject to condemnation; they could be accepted and sometimes even expected. critical suicide research the above reflections allow us to look at suicide and the dignified death of socrates (and many other people today) in a much broader perspective than traditional suicidology offers. in many respects, similar proposals for a wider view are presented by the critical suicide research: “critical suicide studies developed across the 2010s as a means to theorize and intervene in suicide from perspectives alternative to the ‘mainstream’ of suicidology (...) ‘mainstream’ or ‘traditional’ suicidology can be characterized as originating in two key ways: a north american ego-psychological framework that posed suicide as an individual act resulting from poor mental health, and a european model that approached suicide as social, the trends and causes of which are primarily apprehended through statistics” (chandler et al., 2022, p. 3). this goes beyond the limitations of the biomedical and individualistic framing of suicide. representatives of this approach draw attention to the basic problem of the often unjustified shift of attention from the context to the autonomous intentional subject, with preventive programs accordingly underestimating external or structural factors as they focus mainly on repairing the individual psyche. in order to go beyond these limitations, they propose to revise such beliefs as: a. inadequate understanding of the self as an autonomous, individualistic entity. b. psychocentric understanding of distress (cf. marsh, 2020). c. scientific knowledge production, which is never independent and objective but is always part of cultural, political, discursive assumptions — this applies to both qualitative and quantitative, experimental research (bantjes & swartz, 2017). d. the specificity of prevention as dependent on scientific knowledge (white, 2017). the lack of such awareness means that “social problems are individualised and privatised and [social, political, cultural — a.c.] inequalities are converted into forms of pathology (...). meanwhile, structural forms of violence, racism, or heteronormativity are obscured from view” (white, 2017, pp. 475–476). the author also cites the telling example of suicide among the indigenous population of canada in the context of inadequate traditional prevention programs that do not take into account political oppression, cultural genocide, etc. (kral, 2012)4. a more adequate approach to suicide (and dignified death) must consider collective ethics and political responsibility, in the light of which suicide is also a social act. the ethical aspect is formulated in a new way, referring to a problem with a particular repressed ethical 4) critical suicide studies, therefore, take into account the broad context of suicide, such as “social exclusion, colonial violence, racism, patriarchy, the role of consumerist and transactional health practices and other injustices.” (chandler et al., 2022, p. 3). against the pathologisation of suicide 338 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://www.psychopen.eu/ dimension in the traditional discourse: “it means raising questions about whether some suicides might be justifiable in a societal context” (p. 473). this radically changes the way of thinking and talking about suicide, “no longer understood as a giving up on life or the opposite of life (and thus something to be forbidden)”, but in some circumstances “as particular forms of life or life-activating practices that provoked vital critique, freedom, rebellion, solidarity, and transformation” (p. 478). essential conclusions are also formulated by j. ansloos and j. white (ansloos & white, 2025), presenting various forms of alternative therapy for people affected by suicide (including their families) as counter-institutional models of care. by way of example, translife, dischargd (deserving of inclusion, support, community, hope, authenticity, respect, growth, empathy, and determination), the big anxiety research centre, and slice/silence, create counter-in­ stitutional spaces in which people affected by suicide can experience suicidal distress outside of the traditional clinical scheme and ethical or legal assessment5. survivors have “the chance to engage directly with their experiences and reclaim narratives that are often suppressed or medicalized in traditional settings” (ansloos & white, 2025, p. 19). some proposals for support “advocate for an abolitionist counter-space for psychotherapy for suicidal individuals, shifting safety planning away from police involvement (...). these initiatives reimagine suicide response as an act of solidarity rather than containment, focusing on collective care rather than coercive intervention” (p. 20)6. this approach expresses a unique scientific and therapeutic ethos described in the statement of ethics by the critical suicide studies working group (cssnwg, 2019). it includes the principles and beliefs that structural violence creates “vulnerability to suicide”, and this particularly applies to racialised, minoritised, and indigenous people7; that critical research must “respect the agency of people who choose suicide, and will not live”; furthermore, “to acknowledge the complexity of suicide prevention and does not take it for granted as an unqualified good.8” suicide prevention should be dependent on the local, indigenous context. it is not necessary to explain that the perspective of critical suicide research is a complementary proposal to understand socrates’s death. one of the main postulates of this trend is the analysis of suicide in the context of systemic oppression, which, by depriving an individual of a sense of dignity, pushes them into the space of shame. preventive programs are supposed to restore dignity to people or groups affected by the problem of suicide, not only on the individual level but also on the social and cultural, political level. conclusions the story of socrates, like many biographies from the ancient world, transcends the concept of pathology due to the close connection between suicide and the sense of honour-shame. in many cases, it is only then that they become understandable and escape negative moral judgment. honour and shame, closely related to the concept of social status, continue to play a significant role in social life and should not be overlooked in the analysis of such critical decisions as the desire to end of life, even in the 21st century. the example of socrates also clearly opposes the uncritical and not always necessary medicalisation of suicide in psychiatry and psychology (botes & van niekerk, 2025). medicine typically categorises it as a disorder requiring treatment (also obligatory) and stigmatises the suffering people. medical discourse (alongside religious discourse) not only overemphasises the agentic nature of the subject and underestimates the local indigenous context, but at the same time, is the most important source of the pathologisation of suicidal acts, directly influencing the design of preventive programs and legal assessments. 5) it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of these models at this stage; however, they offer an alternative form of support that is close to the essence of suicide, taking into account its social and political roots. more information, see e.g., cesar riani costa & white, 2024; https://translifeline.org. 6) the authors define counter-institutions as an “alternative spaces operating outside mainstream systems that foster autonomy, collective care, and self-deter­ mination. grounded in prefigurative politics, these counter-institutions enact an “ethics of listening” (…), prioritizing dignity, agency, and relationality over control and coercion” (ansloos & white, 2025, p. 18). 7) similarly h. hightower (2024): “black suicides result from interactions between macrosystemic systemic forces and individual-level meaning-making processes” author identified “six thematic characters for critically understanding suicide in black communities: shame, hopelessness, trauma, racism, systemic problems, and fear” (p. 151). 8) https://criticalsuicidestudies.com/what-is-the-critical-suicide-studies-network (retrieved 10.06.2025). citlak 339 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://translifeline.org https://criticalsuicidestudies.com/what-is-the-critical-suicide-studies-network https://www.psychopen.eu/ an analysis of the biographies of socrates and many other individuals affected by suicide — aside from cases of disorders and illnesses — demonstrates that, despite the passage of time, one of the fundamental problems associated with suicide remains the loss of dignified life, in addition to positive self-esteem and social esteem. i have attempted to demonstrate that these can be treated as a kind of expression of the traditional honour-shame dimension, as well as the more geographically and historically universal concept of status. such an interpretation is, of course, a theoretical proposition and would require more detailed conceptual analysis or empirical verification. however, biographical examples, the need to transcend the medicalisation and pathologisation of suicide, and the rich empirical evidence in suicidology, allow us to adopt a broader perspective and seem to support this proposition. the presented analysis leads to the conclusion that suicide can be understood as the result of oppressive power dynamics and circumstances that deprive individuals of their sense of dignity and status, forcing them into a space of shame. the same oppressive processes we see in the case of repressed ethnic, social or sexual minorities appear to play a key role in suicides without mental disorders (the very disorders may be only a consequence of repression). our perspective radically changes, firstly, the moral assessment of suicide, escaping the category of evil, sin, or crime. secondly, it also requires a new design of preventive action, focused on the broadly understood empowerment of those affected by suicide, without penalisation, stigmatisation, or coercion, which are often merely an expression of oppressive (pathogenic) power dynamics. funding: the author has no funding to report. acknowledgments: the author has no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. data availability: the analysed historical/cultural sources are available in the public domain. references abdeen, z., brunstein-klomek, a., nakash, o., shibli, n., nagar, m., agha, h., hallaq, s., kanat-maymon, y., juerges, h., & levav, i. 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(2023). moderating effects of suicide resilience and meaning in life on the association between entrapment and suicidal ideation in chinese patients with ovarian cancer: a cross-sectional study. bmc psychiatry, 23, article 585. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-05057-4 about the author amadeusz citlak is an assistant professor at the institute of psychology (polish academy of sciences). his research interests are cultural-historical psychology, discourse analysis, psychobiography, the desire for power, and early european psychology. he has been involved in national and international scientific projects focused on the analysis of historical and religious discourse, as well as psychobiographical research; he is the author of numerous international articles. citlak 345 europe's journal of psychology 2025, vol. 21(4), 331–345 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.19085 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-05057-4 https://www.psychopen.eu/ against the pathologisation of suicide (introduction) the work and death of socrates the question of motivation the problem of motivation in a biographical perspective between honour-shame and social status beyond medicalisation and pathologisation of suicide critical suicide research conclusions (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests data availability references about the author developing children’s socio-emotional competencies through drama pedagogy training: an experimental study on theory of mind and collaborative behavior research reports developing children’s socio-emotional competencies through drama pedagogy training: an experimental study on theory of mind and collaborative behavior macarena-paz celume* ab, thalia goldstein c, maud besançon d, franck zenasni a [a] laboratoire de psychologie et d’ergonomie appliquées (lapea), université de paris, paris, france. [b] center for research and interdisciplinarity, paris, france. [c] social skills, imagination and theatre lab, department of psychology, george mason university, fairfax, va, usa. [d] laboratoire de psychologie: cognition, comportement, communication (lp3c), université de rennes 2, rennes, france. abstract drama pedagogy training (dpt) is a drama-based-pedagogy focused on socio-emotional-learning (sel) development, over academic or artistic. this study aims to see if dpt promotes theory of mind (tom) and collaborative behavior in 126 french children aged 9-10 years old, randomly assigned to an experimental group (dpt), either a control group for 6 weeks. post-tests showed large effects of training on tom, f(1, 124) = 24.36, p < .001, η² =.16, and collaborative behavior, f(1, 124) = 29.8, p < .001, η² = .19. t-test showed significant differences on tom (t = -4.94, p < .001) and collaborative behavior (t = -5.46, p < .001), higher for dpt. effects of type of school and grade are discussed. results confirm the hypotheses. keywords: socio-emotional competencies, theory of mind, collaborative behavior, drama pedagogy, children europe's journal of psychology, 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 received: 2019-07-15. accepted: 2019-12-15. published (vor): 2020-11-27. handling editor: izabela lebuda, university of wroclaw, wroclaw, poland *corresponding author at: centre de recherches interdisciplinaires cri paris, outreach and pedagogy department, 8 bis rue charles v, 75004, paris, france. e-mail: mp.celume@cri-paris.org this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. drama pedagogy training (dpt; celume, besançon, & zenasni, 2019a) can be defined as any drama-based training or workshop, created through drama activities and techniques (such as pretend play, improvisation, role-play, etc.) that follows the characteristics of the liberal progressivism tendency from drama pedagogy (garcía-huidobro, 1996). this approach focuses on the work of internal world of the participant through drama games instead of searching an academic or artistic achievement. moreno’s (1943, 1947) socio-drama, boal’s (1978, 1989) theatre of the oppressed and slade’s (1967, 1998) drama education were some of the first approaches using representational games in the work with people focusing on competencies development instead of an artistic training, setting the beginnings of dpt as a methodology. those ideas were also outlined by karakelle (2009), libman (2001) and woodson (1999) who defended the idea of focusing on the process and experience of learning competencies without any intention of showing off. in current literature, this methodology turned into several different names, such as creative drama (rosenberg, 1981), process drama, drama pedaeurope's journal of psychology ejop.psychopen.eu | 1841-0413 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ gogy (garcía-huidobro, 2004), applied theatre (holland, 2009) or even child drama, play making, child play, or educational drama. what they all have in common, is that their focus is non academic, nor artistic, even if some of these concepts describe drama practices used in education for educational objectives (freeman, sullivan, & fulton, 2003). dpt could be also considered as a specific kind of training within drama based pedagogy (for a review see lee, patall, cawthon, & steingut, 2015), based on drama pedagogy theory (garcía-huidobro; 2004) and which is focused only on participant’s socio-emotional and creative development, and thus, not created to enhance any academic field, or to contribute to any subject in school, neither to train participants in any artistic way. according to celume et al. (2019a) dpt is a methodology that encompasses drama activities and techniques through the use of embodiment and narratives, under a particular psycho-pedagogical framework that works with the use of narrative and the construction of a dialogic space (celume, besançon, & zenasni, 2019b). dpt can be considered as an active methodology, that works with the cognitive and affective dimensions of the participants emphasizing the importance of playfulness and positive emotions, promoting a safe and caring environment and a positive student-pedagogue relationship (garaigordobil & berrueco, 2011; garcía-huidobro, 2004; hammond, 2015; rosen, 1974) that would develop social and emotional competencies and skills. an important part of successful socio-emotional competencies programs are based on dpt elements such as role playing, improvisation, pretend play, storytelling and others. these conclusions can be consulted in recent meta-analyses (durlak, weissberg, dymnicki, taylor, & schellinger, 2011; lee et al., 2015) that showed strong relationships between the trainings they reviewed and the socio-emotional outcomes measured. nevertheless, the meta-analysis conducted by durlak et al. (2011), is identified as a socio-emotional learning programs review, and thus is not focused on drama pedagogy trainings, but on different socio-emotional school-based interventions, even though several of the successful interventions reviewed used drama pedagogy elements within their trainings. durlak et al. (2011) showed that in general, the programs reviewed had positive effects on the socio-emotional competencies willing to develop, and that these interventions worked better on children than adolescents. they also observed that the use of a specific protocol (ref. safe protocol) moderated positive students’ outcomes, which corresponds with the description of the psycho-pedagogical framework of dpt (celume et al., 2019a). in the same line, interventions that were identified as more interactive and that, for example, used several dpt elements, such as role playing, were the most successful among young students. similarly, garaigordobil et al. (1996), compared 6 experimental groups versus 2 control groups, in order to see the effect of a game-based intervention (that included drama-based games) on collaborative behavior. results showed significant differences between the experimental and the control groups, t(34) = 5.65, p < .001, meaning that an intervention of this kind was able to develop competencies in the field of reciprocal help behaviors. regarding the development of other socio-emotional competencies such as empathy or theory of mind (tom) through drama-based pedagogies, goldstein and winner (2012) conducted two studies in children and adolescents looking for relationships between drama, empathy and tom, and finding that these skills could be enhanced through drama. results for the elementary school children sample showed a higher impact of acting training on empathy over controls, f(1, 64) = 4.26, p = .043, d = 0.53, but no significant scores were found for tom, probably due to a possible issue related to the measurement tool chosen for assessing tom. in the same line, celume and zenasni (in press) conducted an observational study where they observed and analyzed dpt sessions, outlining perspective taking as un underlying mechanism that permitted the development of theory of mind and creativity in elementary school children. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 708 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ nevertheless, a review on pretend play and its effects on child development (lillard et al., 2013), found that correlations between pretend play and social skills, and pretend play and tom were inconsistent, although most of the studies reviewed showed “important failures to replicate” (p. 16), which could be an explanation to the lack of positive results. in a similar way, the meta-analysis of lee et al. (2015) studied the effect of drama based pedagogies (dbp) on children from preschool to adolescence, finding that dbp had a significant impact on educational achievement outcomes but that the impact on social skills was not significant, concluding that the belief that dbp might promote prosocial behaviors was unfounded. on the contrary, it was supported that dbp had a significant positive effect on other children’s social skills, like attitudes toward achievement and the so-called 21st century skills (which includes collaborative behavior). moreover, several drama-based trainings were considered to be out of the scope and thus weren’t examined in the meta-analysis, we missed, for example, some well-known drama-based methodologies, such as the speech bubbles project or the drama for learning and creativity (d4lc), which we believe could have influenced some of the negative results regarding dbp and its impact on social competencies. in the same line, the meta-analysis of lee et al. (2015) explains that they had to exclude several studies from their analysis due to a lack of reporting information, demanding that researchers must better report their methods, as it is fundamental for replicability. they found that most of the studies analyzed presented important bias as they were mostly quasi-experimental studies that rarely presented matching control groups, being difficult to assure that dbp was or was not the cause of social outcomes enhancement, concluding that there is a need of better reporting the trainings and strategies used in order to be able to have consistent material to analyze and thus have consistent results. to our knowledge, and based on these meta-analyses, except for the recent work from goldstein and lerner (2018) and a study on fantasy play (e.g. thibodeau, gilpin, brown, & meyer, 2016), studies that have been done in order to examine the impact of dpt methods and elements on socio-emotional competencies relies on studies a) without an active control group well matching the experimental one, b) where children volunteer to participate in the experimental group and so there’s no randomised assignment, and c) where the researchers are involved in the training. in this line, several interventions and trainings are excluded from scientific analyses and thus, it remains difficult to provide consistent evidence of the impact of dpt for the development of socio-emotional competencies. the study of goldstein and lerner (2018) conducted on 97 pre-school children, aimed to provide evidence on this and thus controlled the variables shown before, seeking the impact of a pretend play group (ppg) on tom, altruism, distress towards others and helping behavior, emotion matching and social behavior. the results showed that children in ppg group had lower levels of neutral social behaviors and higher levels of positive social behaviors than block play or reading groups. they also concluded that as children had lower levels of emotional control than the average, the pretend play training did not help with tom and compassion, but it did help them with emotional regulation and social behaviors. the importance of developing socio-emotional competencies through drama can be found in the origins of the emotional intelligence concept and in the fundamental role that socio-emotional competencies play in nowadays’ education. today, there are still several approaches when defining socio-emotional competencies, although they are all coming from the concept of emotional intelligence (ei; salovey & mayer, 1990; mayer & salovey, 1997). according to mikolajczak, quoidbach, kotsou, and nelis (2014), the definition of ei still presents some issues within the scientific community, as there is still no consensus among the researchers to identify what means to be emotionally intelligent. consequently, they proposed to gather these capacities under celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 709 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ the concept of emotional competencies instead of talking about an intelligence (emotional intelligence). in this line, they defined emotional competencies as “the practical capacity of identifying, understanding, expressing, regulating and using personal and other’s emotions”i (mikolajczak et al., 2014, p. 3) according to a particular context. thus, regarding children’s development and its implication in educational settings, emotional competencies would be the skills that children should have in order to identify, understand, express, regulate and use their own emotions (intrapersonal level) and those of their classmates, teachers, friends and people who they interact with (interpersonal level), within the school setting. according to mikolajczak et al. (2014), the interpersonal variant of the “understanding” level of emotional competencies, can be described as the practical capacity of understanding the causes and consequences of others’ perceived emotions. in this line, this capacity would be directly related to the ability of understanding and reacting, in a cognitive, social or affective level, the emotion expressed by another, which is known in academic and popular literature as empathy. according to davis (1980, 1983) empathy is a complex construct that may be divided into (a) emotional empathy, and (b) cognitive empathy. the emotional branch or side, is related to the emotional process and response of an individual facing another’s emotional reaction (e.g. eisenberg & miller, 1987), while the cognitive branch answers to the ability of understanding others’ mental states (e.g. baron-cohen & wheelwright, 2004). the former, is considered by some authors as emotional empathy or just empathy (de vignemont & singer, 2006), while the latter, considered as a social cognitive ability to adscribe mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs and emotions to another person is known in literature as tom (premack & woodruff, 1978). in this line, the development of socio-cognitive skills, such as tom, and socio-emotional competencies, is intrinsically related to social functioning behaviors and competencies, such as teamwork/collaboration. the latter is considered to be part of the main 21st century skills to develop in education (e.g. trilling & fadel, 2009) altogether with creativity and other socio-emotional competencies. in fact, already in 1996, garaigordobil, maganto, and etxeberría (1996) presented evidence on how the experiences lived by children at school had an important impact on children’s prosocial behavior. social competencies, are detrimental for children development and school is an important modulator of them. according to burrus and brenneman (2016), most teachers agree that teamwork/collaboration is a fundamental skill to be learned in the classroom; nevertheless, they are not always sure how to define it, and thus, it gets difficult to find useful tools in order to develop it. in summary, dpt in schools is an active pedagogy focused on the social and emotional world of children. studies have presented evidence of the efficacy of dpt related tools and elements in the development of socio-emotional competencies such as tom and collaborative behavior in elementary school children, although the presented literature regarding the different studies analyzed, concerning drama-based trainings and their impact on socio-cognitive and socio-emotional competencies, do not always present complete reporting, didn’t provide a substantial randomised control, and the only one that did, was focused on preschool children (goldstein & lerner, 2018). teachers agree with the fact of the importance to develop socio-emotional competencies and a collaborative behavior in children, although they are not wide aware of the kind of training that could help them reach this objective. thus, the main objective of the current study is to conduct a randomised pre-post test study with matching control group in order to present evidence of the efficacy of dpt in promoting socio-emotional competencies, such as tom skills and a collaborative behavior in elementary school children. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 710 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ method design of study we conducted a randomised study including pretest intervention posttest design with a matching active control group. participants french educational system provides mandatory education for all children (foreign and french) from age 3 to age 16. elementary school comprises 5 levels going from 1st grade (cp) to 5th grade (cm2). within the french educational system exists two main types of schools: private and public. within public schools, there is a special type of schools called priority network schools (rep), which are public schools that belong to neighbourhoods with particular social needs. rep schools belong to neighbourhoods with a higher foreign population. the sample consisted of 126 children: 55 were in 4th grade (cm1; m = 9.9, sd = 0.35) and 71 in 5th grade (cm2; m = 10.8, sd = 0.38); 48 assisted a private school (pr), 43 a public school (pu) and 35 a priority school (rep). children were randomly assigned either to an experimental group participating in a drama pedagogy training (dpt, n = 61, m = 10.3, sd = 0.56) or an active control group participating in collective sportive games (csg, n = 65, m = 10.4, sd = 0.56). for final analysis, three children were excluded because they were not available for posttests evaluation. materials independent variables trainings — dpt was created by selecting and adapting some drama pedagogy training activities proposed in the spanish program “programa juego” (garaigordobil, 2003) considering that all the activities on the program were already validated. some other drama pedagogy training activities were taken from the books of garcía-huidobro (2004) and boal (1989). the training consisted of 6 sessions, adjusted to french school time in order to avoid holidays that could interfere with the sessions. at the beginning of each session there was a transition/warming up activity where children expressed how they felt, leaving the standard activities of school and getting prepared for the training. then, there was the main drama pedagogy training activity(ies), and finally a feedback time in where children expressed their opinions and feelings about the session. each of the six sessions lasted between 60 to 70 minutes. the differences in the time of each session was due to respect their feedback time. sessions 2 and 6 had a collective activity, same for both groups. in order to have a clearer idea of the activities within dpt, we will explain a game played in session three: here, children were asked to create and play a scene with their faces and bodies while the other half of the class had to guess what was going on in the scene, giving details and explanations of their guessing (why they think this or that was going on in the scene). the idea is for children to be able to express something without using words. csg was created by selecting popular collective games, taken from boulo and olivier (2005) collective games and orlick’s (1986) cooperative games and adapting this last for french children. it consisted of 6 sessions, adjusted to french school time in order to avoid holidays that could interfere with the sessions. each of the six sessions lasted 60-70 minutes. sessions 2 and 6 had a collective activity, same for both groups. as an example celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 711 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ of a game played in session three for this group, we will explain the collective game called messengers and combatants: here, children are divided into two groups, one half has to deliver a message (scarf) and combatants have to avoid the message to be delivered by stealing the message. the idea is for children to work together into a strategy to arrive at the other side of the room and get the message delivered. dependent variables theory of mind — we developed a french version of the reading the mind in the eyes test, child version (rmet-g; baron-cohen, jolliffe, mortimore, & robertson, 1997, baron-cohen, wheelwright, hill, raste, & plumb, 2001). accordingly to the original version, in this task, children are presented a series of 28 pictures of a pair of eyes from different people expressing an emotion or a mental state. we projected this images on the board. children were asked to look at the picture in each item and to circle the emotion or mental state that better described the look of the person, choosing it among four words displayed. three of these words were distractor words while only one was the correct word that matched the emotion or mental state of the person in the picture. the task was scored by adding up the number of items correctly answered. for each image they had around 15 seconds, so between 7 to 10 minutes in total. reliability score for our sample was acceptable considering our design (α = .64) although a higher reliability score is preferable. collaborative behaviour — in order to measure collaborative behavior, we used the prisoner’s dilemma (pd) task from of garaigordobil (1995). for pd, each child has to be sit in two rows back to back with another. they are given two different cards, a red one and a blue one to answer the dilemma. each couple of children are partners in a robbery and have to decide if betray his/her partner to save him/herself or not. the objective of the game is to stay in prison the less time that is possible. the police gives them a treat. they have one minute to decide, and then pick the decision by raising the corresponding card. they can’t look or talk to their classmates or they are out of the game and lose. decisions are marked down. the results are said out loud. they cannot comment, and that they are making their decision again, and they can change their decision if they like. say out loud the results. explain again: “now you have 30 second to decide if you keep the same answer or if you change your answer. 30 seconds starts now… time is over raise you answer” write down their answers and say it out loud. procedure preparation of the intervention and cover story authorization letters were sent to parents in order to have their approval for their child participation in the study. in this letter parents were informed of the study, but partially informed of the purpose of it. they were told that children would participate in one of two workshops that might enhance academic achievement through the development of soft-skills, without revealing the expected differences in outcomes for each group/workshop. teachers were informed about the real purposes of the study, as school directors demanded it in order to agree to participate. they were asked not to tell children about the real purposes of the study in order to avoid emotional predisposition. as a cover story, children were told they would all participate in different collective workshops, explaining them that they will be randomly assigned to one of the two workshops. random assignment after parent’s agreement, each child was given a code. we randomly assigned the codes into a collective sportive games (csg) group or a dpt group. the randomisation was made by an online free software. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 712 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ measuring times and characteristics children in both groups were asked to answer the same different tasks before and after the trainings. there were two pre-tests: one for each variable (tom and collaborative behavior); and two post-tests: one for each variable aswell. a week before starting the trainings (t0), children answered the french version of rmet-g in order to measure tom. in this task they were asked to look at the pair of eyes in each picture and to circle the word that better matched the emotion or mental state of the look of the person among four words displayed with each picture. the week after the task completion, we started with the trainings. in the 2nd session, they were tested by the prisoner’s collaborative task (t1). in the 6th session children were re-tested by the prisoner’s collaborative task (t2). one week after the trainings were finished, children were re-measured on tom through the rmet-g (t3). all classes, whether they participated in experimental or control groups, were conducted in the exact same manner: each class was randomized in order to divide them by group, but times of measurement for tom were carried on, each time with the whole class. for collaborative behavior, a booklet was followed in order to avoid bias, and thus instructions were given in the exact same way for all classes, groups, and schools. one researcher of the team conducted both the workshops and assessments following a rigorous booklet in order to avoid bias as much as possible. other researchers of the team who didn’t have direct contact with children were implicated in data analysis. results preliminary analyses pre-test analyses showed that there were no significant differences in the randomisation, regarding age and sex of the participants, implying an equitative distribution of the groups. pre-test correlational analysis in order to see any previous relationship between the expected outcomes, we run a correlational analyses. results showed no significant correlations. pre-test tom analyses also showed no significant differences between the randomised groups in the variable tom, measured through rmet-g in time t0. when searching for possible previous tom differences by class, analyses showed a significant difference on tom (t = -2.87, p < .005), with 5th graders scoring higher (m = 18.20, sd = 3.69) than fourth graders (m = 16.24, sd = 3.94). these results, are something we expected as tom is argued to be increased with age (calero, salles, semelman, & sigman, 2013). when comparing the effect of the same variable by type of school, results also showed significant differences. anova analyses presented a significant effect of the type of school and a medium effect size on tom, f(2, 123) = 4.17, p < .02, η2 = 0.06, with the highest mean for the pu school (m = 18.6, sd = 3.9), then the pr school (m = 17.1, sd = 3.7), and finally the rep school (m = 16.1, sd = 3.9). celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 713 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ pre-test collaborative behavior after the trainings were started, in week 2 (t1), children were measured in collaborative behavior through the prisoner’s dilemma game. results presented a significant difference between the randomised groups (t = 2.79, p < .006); with the csg group (m = 3.12, sd = 0.13) presenting significant higher mean scores than the dpt group (m = 2.62, sd = 0.13), after one week of started the trainings. nevertheless, median and mode scores present no differences between the groups (mdn = 3). when searching for possible previous collaborative behavior differences by class, results showed no significant differences. when analysing the effect of school on the collaborative behavior variable, measured through prisoner’s dilemma, results showed significant effects, f(2, 123) = 7.6, p < .001, presenting a medium to large effect size (η2 = .11), with pr school scoring higher (m = 3.27, sd = 0.96) and rep school scoring lower (m = 2.43, sd = 0.95), both compared to the pu school (m = 2.81, sd = 1.03). hypothesis testing post-test correlational analysis pearson’s correlation analyses showed significant weak correlations between tom and collaborative behavior (measured through pd; r = .35; p < .001). post-test tom as plotted in figure 1, an anova 2x2 model was run to see the effect of the type of training (dpt, csg) on the variable tom regarding the two times of measurement (t0, t3). results showed significant large effects, f(1, 124) = 28.79, p < .001, η2 = .19, with more important increases on dpt. figure 1. differences on tom pre-post test mean scores by group. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 714 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ post-test collaborative behavior as figure 2 plots, a two way repeated measures anova analysis was conducted in order to compare the effect of the training (csg, dpt) on the variable collaborative behavior measured through prisoner’s dilemma, considering the two times of measurement (pre-test and post-test). results showed significant differences as well as large effect sizes, f(1, 124) = 74.83, p < .001, η2 = .38, higher for dpt. figure 2. differences on collaborative behavior pre-post test mean scores by group. further post-test analyses were carried on, comparing means on both tom and collaborative behavior, in order to confirm the 2x2 anova results. one way anova for post-test scores showed significant large effects of the training on tom, f(1, 124) = 24.36, p < .001, η2 = .16, and on collaborative behavior, f(1, 124) = 29.8, p < .001, η2 = .19. moreover, t-test analyses showed significant results in tom (t = -4.94, p < .001) with higher mean scores for dpt (m = 20.98) than csg (m = 17.80), and in collaborative behavior (t = -5.46, p < .001) measured through prisoner’s dilemma (pd), also with higher scores for dpt (m = 4.52) than csg (m = 3.54). interaction effects type of training by class — as shown in figure 3, anova analysis presented a significant effect of the type of training on class, with a small to medium effect size on variable tom, f(1, 122) = 6.32, p < .013, η2 = .05, with higher means for dpt in both classes. celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 715 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ figure 3. effects of type of training by class on tom. no significant effect and a small effect size on collaborative behavior-pd (η2 = .03) was found by class. type of training by school — figure 4 plots the significant effect and large effect size of the type of training on the type of school on tom post-test scores, f(2, 120) = 6.83, p < .002, η2 = .102, with higher mean scores for dpt on the three schools. figure 4. effect of type of training by type of school on tom post-test scores. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 716 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ further analyses showed no effect of training by type of school on collaborative behavior pd post test scores, nevertheless small effect size was found, presenting scores of η2 = .030 with higher means for dpt for three schools. dpt training on tom by school — considering the significant effects of the type of training on tom scores by school type, further anova analyses were made. looking for interaction between the times of measurement and the type of school in variable tom, results showed a significant interaction effect, f(2, 58) = 5.28, p < .008, with large effect size (η2 = .15). highest differences in pre-post scores were found for public (m = 18.54, sd = 3.9) and rep (m = 16.11, sd = 3.9) schools. dpt training on tom and collaborative behavior by class — analysis showed no significant effect of dpt training on tom by class, reporting a small effect size (η2 = 0.02). no significant effect of dpt training on collaborative behavior by class was found, no effect sizes were reported. discussion and conclusion studies have shown that socio-emotional learning competencies can be taught and learnt at school (durlak et al., 2011; ebert, hoffmann, ivcevic, phan, & brackett, 2015) and at the same time, some researchers insist on the importance to train children as well as teachers on socio-emotional learning competencies, so the benefits can be positive in a personal way but also in a collective way (fernández-berrocal, cabello, & gutiérrez-cobo, 2017). more specifically, some authors sustain that tom and prosocial behavior are two main domains in the field of socio-emotional learning that are important to be developed among children and youngsters (beauchamp & anderson, 2010; rose-krasnor, 1997). as a recent meta-analysis showed, dramatic play seems to have a positive impact on both of these competencies, even though no rigorous studies have been conducted yet in order to corroborate these effects (lillard et al., 2013). in the present study, we carried out a randomised protocol in which specific measures for both tom and collaborative behavior were applied. tom can be defined as the ability to read and understand another's mental states through body, face and vocal expression as well as previous knowledge of the other (goldstein, 2009). in our study, this ability was measured through the rmet-g in which children had to infer mental states through the observation of eyes zones pictures. results before the intervention, showed significant differences among schools for tom for the general sample, implying that depending on the school the children come from, their competencies in this ability were already different regardless the experimental group they belonged to (dpt or csg). when comparing means, the greater differences were found between the public school and the priority school, with higher scores for the public school. this results could be in part explained by the socio-cultural background of children. in this line, the public school, located in the center of paris, receives mostly french children with parents that were born in france, and from middle and upper-middle class families, while the priority school, located outside downtown, receives children from different nationalities and/or with parents that were born outside france, some of them from a lower socioeconomic level. consequently, even if some specific vocabulary is taught at school, an important number of language is learnt at home through parent-child interaction (hart & risley, 1992), thus, foreign-parent(s) children would have more difficulties in “foreign” vocabulary acquisition (mingat, celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 717 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ 1991). a more homogeneous french socio-cultural background was present in the public school, with a more foreign socio-cultural background one in the priority school, thus, suggesting that public school children have a more direct access to french vocabulary because they speak the same language at home in contrast to priority school children whose parents (mother or/and father) do not speak french as a first language. we also support this idea based on the fact that private school, where children’s socio-cultural background was very heterogeneous, did not exhibit significant differences with neither of the two other schools. it was also found a significant difference between both grades’ scores being higher for 5th grade than 4th grade. nevertheless, this was kind of expected, and can be simply explained by the fact that as children grow up, they acquire more language skills, thus having 5th grade children a larger vocabulary than 4th graders. post-test analyses presented encouraging results regarding our hypotheses. first, correlation analyses showed that there was a significant but weak correlation between tom and collaborative behavior. this results suggest that it seems to be an important relationship between tom and collaborative behavior competencies in children that occurs inside a dpt setting. nevertheless, this relationship is not strong enough to ensure a clear correspondence of tom with collaborative behavior, thus suggesting more investigation and precisions in this area that should be considered for further research addressing the links between the social competencies that might be enhanced in dpt. further on, when comparing the type of training, in order to see the impact of dpt on tom, both anova analyses and t-tests showed effects and significant differences of the type of training on tom. these significant differences, were statistically higher for dpt group, suggesting that dpt enhanced tom in both 4th and 5th grade children from all three schools. these results are consistent with previous studies that established a relationship between drama-related games and the development of tom skills (e.g. goldstein & winner, 2012) even though, their results were achieved on a high-school sample. type of training also showed an effect between pre-test and post-test, confirming post-test analyses. dpt group showed higher differences in scores than csg, the latter presented a difference of pre-test and post-test scores that was almost invariable. these results are inside the scope of what we predicted, as children who participated in the dpt were trained in emotion and mental states identification through the different dpt methods and activities played. sessions 1, 3, 4 and 5 were dedicated to emotional identification, expression and communication through play and mini-pretend-plays in where children had to choose an emotion or emotional state and to represent it in an invented collective scene. in this way, children were “obliged” to identify the different characteristics of emotions and the mental states they were to represent, and so learning was acquired through playing, using their minds and bodies to recreate, permitting embodiment, which helped with the understanding of the emotions and mental states. this idea, which defends the theory that embodiment is a direct contributor of the development of the cognitive process of empathy, in which tom is a fundamental part, is supported by the work of several authors (e.g. gieser, 2008; sofia, 2016). moreover, for some authors, mind cannot be separated from body, as the body is evidence of the mind (bateson, 2000; butterworth, 1994). in this means, body and mind cannot be divided because the body is the support of mind expressions. regarding the class level, the highest difference in tom post-test is presented in 5th grade. while dpt group in 4th grade is slightly higher than csg in 4th grade, scores get clearly higher for dpt in 5th grade. these results suggest that dpt would work better for 5th graders. in both cases, these results only reflect our specific sample and results should be taken carefully as they do not represent the whole french population. besides, the fact child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 718 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ that dpt worked better in 5th grade for developing tom can be only due to the fact that understanding mental functioning and ascribing mental states to others is in part, a cognitive ability, thus, it should naturally evolve along with children’s cognitive development. in this means, 10-year-old children, that were already turning 11 by the time of the post-tests, have these cognitive abilities more developed. in fact, the theory of stages (piaget, 1929) describes an evolutionary process of the intellectual capacities which establishes a transformation from concrete operational stage to formal operational stage at the age of 11. moreover, regarding tom, perner and wimmer (1985), confirm a natural evolution in the attribution of second-order beliefs in their work with children aged 5 to 10-year-olds. regarding the difference between pre-test and post-test repeated measures anova found that dpt on tom task had differences considering the type of school. as shown in results, pu school showed almost no increase between pre and post tom tasks in comparison with rep and pr schools which post scores were between 2 and 3 points of difference. on the other hand, collaborative behavior may benefit children’s social relationships (schellenberg, corrigall, dys, & malti, 2015) as is encompassed in prosocial behavior which appears to be one of the key elements that benefits social interaction (eisenberg, spinrad, & knafo-noam, 2015). moreover, in 2006, barry & wentzel (2006) established that collaborative behaviors develop a sense of security among friends and peers. in our study, we analysed collaborative behavior from two perspectives; an objective one through task performance and a more subjective one, through the observation of children’s behaviors. the state of the art showed that there were already differences among children from different schools, being always pr school children who had the more higher scores in collaborative behavior. after questioning teachers and directors from the three schools involved, there’s still no clear answer that could explain this higher collaborative behavior in comparison to the other schools. no specific program was held before our intervention, and all three schools offered the same kind of extracurricular activities. girls showed to be more collaborative than boys. observations in both pre-test and post-test showed that they tended to be more encouraging than boys in their groups, but also dynamics observed among groups constituted mostly of girls presented less anti-collaborative behaviors and showed a more federated way of work. this is consistent with garaigordobil (2009) findings who established that girls are more collaborative than boys. even though group randomisation was made completely blinded and through an online free software, t-test results showed a significant difference between intervention groups. this means that there were already differences in collaborative behavior scores between the experimental (dpt) and the active control group (csg). csg started the interventions presenting an advantage over the dpt group. when teachers were asked about differences they could perceive between both groups of their class after they were constituted, some of them agreed that dpt group was composed by “more difficult students than the other group” and that they felt the difference of working in the class with the other half (csg) while the dpt session was being carried out. they reported they were able to “work better without that part of the class”. nevertheless, this wouldn’t be sufficient to explain these differences, so we rely on the fact that the evaluation of collaborative behavior was carried on one week after the groups were constituted. with this timing in mind, we might infer that after a week of intervention, children already had created some particular relationships, group identification or bonding links celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 719 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ with their classmates in their corresponding groups (dpt and csg), which would had interfered on the second week, when the evaluation of collaborative behavior was carried on. finally, when testing our hypothesis, for collaborative behavior we found significant differences between the two groups, being higher for dpt. both t-test analysis and anova confirmed the hypothesis. this means that children in the dpt group increased their collaborative behavior during the intervention showing important differences when compared to their csg classmates. pd task measure how the children respond and solve a situation in which they have to decide whether to collaborate to their partner or no. children are offered the possibility to escape from prison, even though this means that their partner will stay in prison for some years. at the beginning, dpt group presented less collaboration, showing answers that in great majority chose not to collaborate and so escape from prison. after dpt was conducted, children appeared to develop more consciousness on the need to collaborate with others, and they decided to collaborate in the pd task, staying a few years in prison in order to not let their partner alone in prison for even more years. this behavioral change confirms that a dpt enhances collaborative behavior, and that a training based on expressive art such as drama can facilitate some socio-emotional learning competencies. regarding this, the international school for interdisciplinary studies, in canada establishes that expressive arts might improve social learning by giving children the opportunity to work in group, collaborate, and create a social support network (isis, 2004). our results are consistent with several studies that confirm the positive effect of drama and drama based trainings over collaborative behavior and social skills development (e.g. garaigordobil, 2003; joronen, konu, rankin, & astedt-kurki, 2012; wright, john, ellenbogen, offord, duku, & rowe, 2006). nevertheless, they are not consistent with lee et al. (2015) who explained that even though drama-based pedagogies have been supported as being an effective way to foster prosocial behaviors studies analysed in their meta-analyses were not consistent. limitations and future perspectives one of the main concerns we find in this study is related to the way instruments were used. the fact that the preand post-tests were identical could imply that there were learning effects on children for the post-tests and that increased scores were in part due to this fact. nevertheless, we consider that if this was the case, this learning effect would have affected both groups equally as both groups answered the exact same tasks at the same time, so it shouldn’t have a direct impact on the significant differences between the groups. another limitation we appreciate is that the rmet-g task only measures one dimension of tom, and moreover, its reliability can be discussed. unfortunately there are not many tasks for measuring tom in the range of age we worked with, as most reliable tasks are constructed for younger children and only few are translated and validated in france. it could also be argued that as dpt is a methodology focused on the work with the internal world of participants it might have a direct impact in socio-cognitive tasks such as the rmet-g. we propose, for future studies, an intervention considering different forms of the same task in order to discard the issue of learning effect, and the construction of a different scale that can measure better what was intended in the beginning of the study, or even the use of additional tests for measuring tom in order to address the issue of reliability and measured dimensions of tom. this also opens a possibility for further research considering the different approaches to emotional vocabulary and content that might be involved depending on the different socio-cultural backgrounds. on the other hand, the significant differences found in the pre-test scores for collaborative behavior should also be considered carefully. we propose a future intervention that considers child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 720 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://www.psychopen.eu/ carrying on all variable testing tasks before any session had already started in order to avoid the bias of bonding in the different groups. another limitation we observed is related to the analyses chosen. considering that differences among children were significant among the type of schools, it could have been interesting to run further analyses in order to control results regarding this issue. a future study should consider a multi-level analysis. finally, no follow-up study was conducted in order to measure both of the developed competencies. in this line, we propose to conduct a new study, probably using a longer intervention of dpt in order to see the possible follow-up impact on tom and collaborative behavior scores, and why not, on other sel competencies, as previous studies suggest. in summary, dpt showed to be an effective method to develop tom and collaborative behavior in 9 to 10-year-old children engaged in three different french school contexts, although further work is needed in order to see the long term impact of this pedagogy. notes i) translated from original: “la capacité mise en pratique à identifier, à comprendre, à exprimer, à gérer et à utiliser ses émotions et celles d’autrui.” funding the authors have no funding to report. competing interests the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. acknowledgments the authors have no support to report. references baron-cohen, s., jolliffe, t., mortimore, c., & robertson, m. 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(2016). the effects of fantastical pretend-play on the development of executive functions: an intervention study. journal of experimental child psychology, 145, 120-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.01.001 trilling, b., & fadel, c. (2009). 21st century skills: learning for life in our times. san francisco, ca, usa: jossey-bass a wiley imprint. woodson, s. (1999). (re) conceiving ‘creative drama’: an exploration and expansion of american metaphorical paradigms. research in drama education, 4(2), 201-214. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356978990040204 wright, r., john, l., ellenbogen, s., offord, d. r., duku, e. k., & rowe, w. (2006). effect of a structured arts program on the psychosocial functioning of youth from low-income communities. the journal of early adolescence, 26(2), 186-205. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431605285717 about the authors macarena-paz celume is doctor of psychology. researcher with expertise in education, specially the evaluation and development of creative, socio-cognitive and emotional skills, as well as their relation to active and innovative pedagogies, theatre and drama pedagogy. she is affiliated researcher at the laboratoire de psychologie et d'ergonomie appliquées (lapea) and at the centre de recherches interdisciplinaires de paris (cri). she teaches at université de paris, for the celume, goldstein, besançon, & zenasni 725 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs0140525x00076512 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fj.1467-9507.1997.tb00097.x https://doi.org/10.2307%2f1128077 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f002248718103200112 https://doi.org/10.2190%2fdugg-p24e-52wk-6cdg https://doi.org/10.1371%2fjournal.pone.0141449 https://doi.org/10.1017%2fs1360641798001592 https://doi.org/10.1016%2fj.jecp.2016.01.001 https://doi.org/10.1080%2f1356978990040204 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0272431605285717 https://www.psychopen.eu/ bachelor's degree in psychology, the master's degree in learning sciences, and the master's degree in artistic creation. she mentors and supervises master's research dissertations on topics related to pedagogy and curriculum, innovation in education, the arts, and skills development in the context of training programs. she is also the founder of the emoted france association, which offers consulting in creativity and emotional skills, psycho-social support to parents, teachers and children, as well as outreach conferences on the subject of socio-emotional skills and the education of children and adolescents for the 21st century. thalia goldstein is assistant professor of applied developmental psychology at george mason university in the usa. her work focuses on children's developing social and emotional skills, particularly theory of mind, empathy, and emotional control and regulation, and how such skills intersect with children's engagement in pretend play, theatre, drama, and other imaginative activities. she directs the ssit lab (the social skills, imagination, and theatre lab). maud besançon is full professor of differential psychology at université de rennes 2 in france. co-responsible for the master of education apprenticeship school and professional orientation. her fields of study are related to the cognitive and/or conative factors on the expression of creative potential: differential and developmental approaches; educational practices on children's creativity; and the distinction between high intellectual potential and high creative potential in children. franck zenasni is full professor of differential psychology at université de paris in france. co-director, of the aire master program: learning science track. after his dissertation about emotion and creativity, he received funding from the fondation de france to study specific emotional and creative abilities of gifted individuals. he is currently conducting national and international researches focusing on (1) creativity and imagination (2) emotional intelligence / empathy, (3) and skills development. child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy 726 europe's journal of psychology 2020, vol. 16(4), 707–726 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.v16i4.2054 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), trier, germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ child theory-of-mind collaboration drama-pedagogy (introduction) method design of study participants materials procedure results preliminary analyses hypothesis testing discussion and conclusion limitations and future perspectives notes (additional information) funding competing interests acknowledgments references about the authors relationship between sociosexuality and condom use frequency among young french college students research reports relationship between sociosexuality and condom use frequency among young french college students kamel gana 1, diana arshakyan 1 [1] department of psychology, university of bordeaux, bordeaux, france. europe's journal of psychology, 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78, https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 received: 2021-05-23 • accepted: 2021-12-20 • published (vor): 2023-02-28 handling editor: joanna l. mcparland, glasgow caledonian university, glasgow, united kingdom corresponding author: kamel gana, department of psychology, university of bordeaux, 3ter place de la victoire, 33076 bordeaux, france. e-mail: kamel.gana@u-bordeaux.fr abstract sociosexuality, conceptualized as individual differences in attitudes, behaviors, and desires for casual sex, is reflected in “hookup culture” where risky sexual behaviors should not be overlooked. the main objectives of this study were (a) to provide a first french adaptation of the soi-r and to evaluate its psychometric properties, and (b) to examine the relationship between sociosexuality and condom use among young college students (n = 1037, mean age = 18.7 years, sd = 1 year). a path model hypothesizing links between dispositional optimism, boredom proneness, sexual orientation, age, gender (as correlated exogenous/independent variables), sociosexuality (as mediation variable), and condom use (as output variable), was specified and tested. findings showed gender and sexual orientation differences in sociosexuality. as expected, males as well as non-heterosexual individuals endorsed more sociosexuality than the others. optimism, but not boredom, predicted a higher level of sociosexuality. sociosexuality positively predicted safer sex. sociosexual orientation was not associated with condomless sex. it would seem that sexual freedom does not necessarily mean irresponsible sexual adventures for the young college students in our study. keywords sociosexuality, condom use, college students, validation, soi-r, french adolescents and young adults are particulary at risk for sexually transmitted infections (stis; olmstead et al., 2015). emerging adulthood is a period of experimentations and possibilities (arnett, 2016; morgan & van dulmen, 2021). sexual experiences are inherent to the socialization process celebrating autonomy and independence, so much desired by these emerging adults (arnett, 2016). the increased sexual permissiveness in the western culture gives young people freedom and autonomy to explore and experiment with dating and sexual relationships (claxton & van dulmen, 2013). today, emerging adults in the western culture believe it is necessary to explore the different possibilities available to them (arnett, 2016). online dating applications (i.e., “hookup apps”, such as tinder; see lefebvre, 2018; sevi, 2019a) seem to facilitate or even incite and encourage these experiences and possibilities (sumter et al., 2017). in such a context, condom use is one of the most effective ways to prevent stis. despite multiple prevention campaigns implemented by public health authorities (e.g., prevention website www.onsexprime.fr), developed for teens by public health france, a significant number of adolescents and young college students admit to engaging in risky sexual behaviors (e.g., unprotected sex). for instance, according to 2014 world health organization statistics (who, 2014), in france, the percentage of young people (15 years old) who used a condom in intercourse was 65% in women and 79% in men. according to régnier-loilier (2020), 24% of french students aged 17 or older did not use a condom at first intercourse. these observations are all the more serious as this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution 4.0 international license, cc by 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited. https://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.5964/ejop.6793&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2023-02-28 http://www.onsexprime.fr) https://www.psychopen.eu/ https://ejop.psychopen.eu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ young people are currently immersed in “hookup culture” which is facilitated by online applications (aubrey & smith, 2016). although the precise definition varies between studies (lewis et al., 2013), hooking up is broadly defined as an uncommitted sexual encounter, resulting in sexual activities, which can range from kissing to oral sex or vaginal and/or anal intercourse that occurs between individuals who are not in a current dating relationship (garcia et al., 2019). hookups occur at high rates on university and college campuses (dai et al., 2018), ranging from 58% (kalish & kimmel, 2011; kuperberg & padgett, 2015) to 85% (lambert et al., 2003). various factors could explain hooking up behaviors (fielder et al., 2013; owen et al., 2010). sociosexuality is one of them (botnen et al., 2018; sevi et al., 2018). according to gangestad and simpson (1990), sociosexuality refers to differences in individuals’ implicit prerequisites to entering a sexual relationship. according to penke and asendorpf (2008), it refers to individual differences in attitudes, behaviors, and desires for casual sex. these individual differences represent a continuum that ranges from the unrestricted sociosexual orientation to the restricted sociosexual orienta­ tion. the former orientation is characterized by the predisposition and willingness to engage more easily and more often in uncommitted sexual relationships. the latter orientation is characterized by the need to have more time, stronger attachment, commitment, and closeness with romantic partners before willing to engage in sexual intercourse with them. sevi (2019b) found that tinder use for short-term mating, but not for long-term mating, was correlated to sociosexuality. in addition, tinder users with higher scores on sociosexuality significantly showed greater motivation to use tinder for short-term mating. moran et al. (2018) found that sociosexuality was related to hook up behavior in the use of the snapchat dating app. indeed, their results showed that unrestricted individuals more frequently use snapchat to gain sexual access, ask for a hookup, and to continue sending naked snapchats. in the same vein, botnen et al. (2018) found that independent of gender, unrestricted sociosexuality predicted the use of dating apps. to evaluate sociosexuality, simpson and gangestad (1991) developed and validated the sociosexual orientation inventory (soi) comprising 7 items. penke and asendorpf (2008) developed and validated the revised sociosexual orientation inventory (soi-r). it is a 9-item self-report questionnaire rated on a 9-point likert scale. it assesses overall sociosexual orientation including three dimensions: (1) sociosexual behavior, (2) attitudes toward sex without commitment, and (3) sociosexual desire. scores range from 9 to 81 with higher scores indicating more unrestricted sociosexuality. the soi-r has been used in many languages such as hungarian (meskó et al., 2014), japanese (nakamine & komura, 2016), portuguese (neto, 2016), and spanish (barrada et al., 2018). research on determinants of condom use remains more necessary than ever within a “hookup culture”. for instance, ballester-arnal et al. (2017) found that negative affectivity (e.g., depressed mood, boredom) acted as risk factors leading to condomless sex, while self-efficacy acted as a protective factor against unsafe sex. also, sexual sensation seeking was found to be associated with more inconsistent condom use as well as a higher number of sexual partners (davis et al., 2014). carvajal et al. (1998) found that dispositional optimism (i.e., high expectancies for positive outcomes in the future and low expectancies for negative events in the future) was a protective factor regarding adolescents’ intentions to avoid engaging in condomless sex. contrary to negative affectivity, positive psychological resources (e.g., hope, optimism, self-esteem) seem to promote, directly or indirectly, safer sex (broaddus & bryan, 2008). however, to our knowledge, the link between condom use and sociosexual orientation have not been published so far. the present study aimed to fill this gap. objectives of the study the aim of this study was twofold: first, the study was designed to investigate the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, gender measurement invariance, reliability) of the first french adaptation of the revised sociosexual orientation inventory (soi-r). there is no measure of sociosexuality in french, and the soi-r has never been adapted to the french population. second, the study was designed to explore and investigate relationships between sociosexuality, dispositional opti­ mism, boredom proneness, and safer sex (i.e., condom use frequency). specifically, we translated these relationships into a path model. a diagrammatic representation of this model is depicted in figure 1, which provides the hypothesized relationships among our variables. this model expressed the following a priori specifications: dispositional optimism and boredom proneness (as personality traits), as well as sexual orientation, should act as predictors of sociosexuality, sociosexuality and condom use 68 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ which, in turn, should impact condom use (as a behavior). thus, sociosexuality should act as a mediator variable between personality traits and ultimate behavior (i.e., condom use). more precisely: (1) optimism and boredom should positively predict sociosexuality, meaning the higher the optimism or boredom the more sociosexuality is unrestricted. our rationale for these predictions was that bored people may be disinterested in long-term relationships given the potential lack of stimulation and monotony that may exist in stable relationships, and that optimism may bias people toward favoring hookup lifestyle (carvajal et al., 1998); indeed, optimism is a positive psychological resource related to self-esteem (andersson, 2012a; caprara et al., 2013), hope, self-efficacy (carver & scheier, 2014), extraversion (furnham & cheng, 2018), goal engagement and perceived success (heckhausen & wrosch, 2016), and greater social network size and social resources (andersson, 2012b). paraphrasing carver and scheier (2014), we can say that someone can be optimistic because he/she has great confidence in his/her abilities or because he/she believes other people like and look out for him/her; (2) unrestricted sociosexual orientation should positively predict safer sex, which is the sine qua non condition to preserve the sexual lifestyle; for instance, cooper and orcutt (2000) showed that youth engaging in casual sex tend to use condoms more often; and (3) because there are gender differences as well as sexual orientation differences in sociosexuality, these variables should have indirect effects on condom use, via sociosexuality. gender differences in sociosexuality demonstrated cross-cultural universality (schmitt, 2005). for instance, using data from 53 nations and from over 200,000 participants, lippa (2009) found that sociosexuality showed consistent sex differences across nations. age was found to be related to the frequency of sexual activity among adolescents and young adults (herbenick et al., 2010). even if the age range at colleges is rather low, a signle additional year at the college can mean a lot of cumulated experience and cultivation. figure 1 path diagram of the hypothesized model illustrating direct and indirect effects of optimism, boredom, sexual orientation, gender, age (correlated exogenous variables), and sociosexuality (mediation variable) on condom use (output variable) notes. the direct path from age to condom use was added as suggested by the modification indices. standardized coefficients from the path analysis are displayed. only values .063 and .025 are not statistically significant. gender coded as f = 1, m = 2; sexual orientation coded as heterosexual = 1, non-heterosexual = 2. method participants and procedure a total of 1037 college students, recruited in 2019 via social media platforms, participated in this study. there were 802 women, 231 men, and 4 did not specify their gender and were then deleted in some statistical analyses (e.g., gender differences). they were between 17 and 20 years old (m = 18.7 years, sd =1 year). because the median age of first sexual intercourse is estimated to be around 17 and a half years for young people in france (maillochon et al., 2016), we set the minimum age for participation in our study at 17 years old. seventy-seven percent (77%) self-identify as heterosexual, 15% as bisexual, 2.5% as homosexual, 4.5% as pansexual, and 0.5% responded “other”.1 they filled out individually the questionnaire online via google form. all participants were invited to sign an informed consent. also, they were gana & arshakyan 69 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ informed of the voluntary and anonymous nature of the study, of their right to not answer any question that made them uncomfortable as well as their right to withdraw from the study at any time. minor participants were asked to inform their parents before filling out the questionnaire. the institutional academic team approved our research protocol. measures the soi-r (penke & asendorpf, 2008) is a 9-item self-report questionnaire rated on a 9-point likert scale (e.g., ‘‘with how many different partners have you had sex within the past 12 months?’’, ‘‘sex without love is ok’’). following the itc guidelines for translating and adapting tests (international test commission, 2017), we convened a committee of psychologists to examine, discuss, review, and adapt three french translations of the soi-r in order to propose a single consensual version. a pilot study with a small sample (n = 30) was carried out to evaluate the clarity of the items of the french adapted version. no difficulty in understanding the items or the scale instruction was noted. the life orientation test-revised (lot-r) is a self-report measure of optimism developed by scheier et al. (1994), and adapted and validated for french by trottier et al. (2008). the lot-r is a 6-item scale (with four filler items) that evaluates respondents’ generalized expectations of positive and negative outcomes (e.g., “overall, i expect more good things to happen to me than bad”). higher scores indicate higher levels of optimism. cronbach’s α was .79. the boredom proneness scale (bps) is a self-report measure of boredom proneness, developed by farmer and sundberg (1986). a short version validated by gana et al. (2019) was used. it comprises 8 true-false items in which participants are asked to respond by answering yes or no about how they felt in general (e.g., “many things i have to do are repetitive and monotonous”). higher scores indicate higher levels of boredom. cronbach’s α was .67. condom use frequency was assessed by a single item asking the respondents to indicate how often they use a (male or female) condom when they have sex on a 6-point frequency scale ranging from 0 “not concerned”, 1 “never” to 5 “every time”. because our study focused on young people, some of whom are sexually inactive (never engaging in sexual activity), the response option "not concerned" was accompanied by clarifications (“abstinence, sexless relationship”). according to fonner et al. (2014), to control for abstinence, those who answered “not concerned” (n = 209) were excluded in some statistical analyses. sexual orientation was assessed with one item that asked youths to self-identify, using five options: 1 = exclusively heterosexual, 2 = bisexual, 3 = exclusively homosexual, 4 = pansexual, and 5 = other. data analyses data analyses proceeded in three steps. first, we performed confirmatory factor analyses to test the structural validity of the soi-r. three models were specified and tested: (a) a single-factor model that assumes that sociosexuality is unidimensional, (b) a three-factor oblique model (i.e., behavior, attitude, and desire), and (c) a bifactor model that includes a general factor “g”, in which all the items load, as well as the three specific factors underlying the soi-r (i.e., behavior, attitude, and desire) on which respective items load (gana & broc, 2019). second, we tested gender invariance of the soi-r. third, we examined descriptive statistics for scale sum scores (e.g., correlations, gender differences). finally, a path analysis was performed to test our specified model (figure 1). all our statistical analyses were performed using using lavaan and semtools packages within r software (r project for statistical computing). 1) because only seven participants answered “other”, they were dropped from the analyses dealing with sexual orientation. sociosexuality and condom use 70 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ results analysis of the french version of the soi-r factor structure of the french version of the soi-r the competing measurement models underlying the soi-r were fitted by using the maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (mlr) because the multivariate normality was affected (mardia’s coefficient = 32.29, p < .001). table 1 summarizes the results for the three competing measurement models of the soi-r. the χ2 test does not support the fit of any of these models. however, because this statistic is sensitive to sample size (gana & broc, 2019), alternative fit indices are used. the worst model is the single-factor model. the three-factor oblique model of the soi-r fitted slightly better our data than the bifactor model. thus, the three-factor model provided a good conceptualization of soi-r items’ structure. and because the 3-factor model is consistent with the extant soi-r literature, the present results would help extend the literature. examination of factor loadings from the three-factor model shows that all the items loaded significantly on their respective factors, and they yielded coefficients of .70 or higher, min-max = .718 [item9] to .978 [item3]. the correlations between the three factors were moderate, ranged from .339 (behavior with desire) to .546 (attitude with desire). gender measurement invariance prior to performing mg-cfa, we tested the three-factor model separetly in each gender group. table 2 shows the goodness-of-fit indices indicating that both models fit very well the data. thus, the equivalence of this model was tested across gender by imposing a series of increasingly stringent constraints between groups, i.e., configural [no equality], weak [equal loadings], strong [equal loadings and intercepts] and strict invariance [equal loadings, intercepts, and error variances]. as shown in table 2, model comparisons indicated that the factor loadings can be assumed to be equal across gender (i.e., weak invariance), since δcfi and δrmsea are below the proposed cut-point of 0.01 (chen, 2007). also, strict and strong invariance models were tenable, allowing gender comparisons of the the soi-r scores. reliability of the soi-r scores the coefficients α (cronbach, 1951) and ω (raykov, 2001) values were .91, 95% ci [.90, .92] and .92, 95% ci [.91, .93] respectively for the behavior subscale, .85, 95% ci [.83, .86] and .85, 95% ci [.84, .86] respectively for the attitude subscale, .84, 95% ci [.82, .86] and .85, 95% ci [.84, .87] respectively for the desire subscale, and .86, 95% ci [.85, .87] and .93, 95% ci [.92, .94] respectively for the total score. the deletion of any item was not likely to improve the reliability of the scale. descriptive statistics zero-order correlations among study variables are shown in table 3. sociosexual orientation is significantly and positively correlated with dispositional optimism, but not with boredom proneness. table 1 goodness-of-fit indices of the competing measurement models of the soi-r, using mlr estimation method (n = 1037) models χ2 df p-value (χ2) cfi tli rmsea 1-factor model 2054.52 27 .000 .576 .435 .269 3-factor model 130.12 24 .000 .980 .970 .065 bifactor model 112.30 18 .000 .983 .966 .071 note. df = degrees of freedom; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation. gana & arshakyan 71 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ table 3 intercorrelations of the variables used in this study (n = 1033, except correlations with condom use n = 826) variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. optimism 1.00 2. boredom -.340a 1.00 3. sexual orientationb -.107a .082a 1.00 4. gender (f = 1, m = 2) .006 .044 -.010 1.00 5. age .045 -.097a .044 -.093a 1.00 6. sociosexuality .083a -.001 .226a .218a .043 1.00 7. condom use .031 -.025 .008 .051 -.148a .143a 1.00 a significant at at least p < .05. b sexual orientation was coded as heterosexual = 1 and non-heterosexual = 2. gender differences in sociosexuality revealed that males (m = 36.23, sd = 13.92) endorsed more unrestricted sociosexual­ ity than females (m = 28.78, sd = 12.31), t(1031) = 7.89, p < .001, d = .57. anova yielded significant sexual orientation differences in sociosexuality: f(3,1026) = 18.94, p = .000, η2 = .052. post-hoc comparaisons revealed that, (a) bisexuals (m = 36.20, sd = 13.34), homosexuals (m = 37.23, sd = 18.71) and pansexuals (m = 34.04, sd = 11.11) were not statistically different from one another, and (b) they endorsed more unrestricted sociosexuality than heterosexuals (m = 28.80, sd = 12.46). thus, for subsequent analyses, we created two groups: heterosexual participants (n = 799) and non-heterosexual participants (i.e., homosexuals, bisexuals, pansexuals; n = 238). heterosexual participants displayed less unrestricted sociosexual orientation (m = 28.80, sd = 12.46) than non-heterosexual participants (m = 35.80, sd = 13.53), t(1035) = 7.45, p < .001, d = .53. among females, heterosexuals (m = 26.96, sd = 11.86) and non-heterosexuals (m = 34.67, sd = 11.88) differed in sociosexuality, t(800) = 7.81, p < .001, d = .59. the same is true for males (heterosexuals: m = 34.87, sd = 12.52; non-heterosexuals: m = 41.84, sd = 17.37), t(229) = 3.07, p < .005, d = .53. path analysis to evaluate the plausibility of the hypothetical model presented in figure 1, a path analysis was performed using the maximum likelihood method of estimation. because the ultimate endogenous variable in this model was condom use frequency, participants who answered that they were not concerned by this issue (n = 209) were excluded, leaving 826 cases for this analysis. the goodness-of-fit results indicated a poor model fit (cfi = .882, tli = .740, and rmsea = .065). using the modification indices, the model was modified to include a direct effect (path) of age on condom use. table 2 goodness-of-fit indices of gender measurement invariance models of the soi-r, using mlr estimation method models χ2 df p (χ2) cfi ∆cfi tli rmsea ∆rmsea cfa female 95.62 24 < .001 .982 .973 .063 male 53.68 24 < .001 .976 .963 .074 mg-cfa configural 150.38 48 < .001 .981 .971 .066 weak 183.63 54 < .001 .975 .006 .967 .070 .004 strong 216.57 60 < .001 .970 .005 .964 .073 .003 strict 252.89 69 < .001 .960 .010 .959 .078 .005 note. df = degrees of freedom; cfi = comparative fit index; tli = tucker-lewis index; rmsea = root mean square error of approximation. sociosexuality and condom use 72 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ thus, the respecified model provided an excellent fit to the sample data (χ2 = 1.79, df = 4, ns; cfi = 1.00, tli = 1.00, rmsea = .000). dispositional optimism (β = 122, p < .001) but not boredom proneness (β = .025, ns) proved to have a significantly positive effect on sociosexual orientation. gender and sexual orientation showed significant positive effects on sociosexuality (β = .243 and β = .262 respectively). age showed a negative direct effect on condom use (β = -156, p < .001). sociosexuality (β = .150, p < .001) showed a significant positive effect on condom use. indirect effect analyses revealed that the indirect positive effects of optimism and sexual orientation on condom use were statistically significant (p < .05). these effects were completely mediated by sociosexuality (because they had no significant direct effects on condom use). discussion the current study is the first to evaluate the psychometric properties of the french version of the soi-r. overall, the results support the psychometric properties of this scale in a french sample. our measures of reliability indicated an adequate level of internal reliability for the soi-r scores. these results are comparable with those obtained by penke and asendorpf (2008). concerning structural validity, our findings add further evidence to the body of studies confirming the three-factorial structure of the soi-r. indeed, nascimento et al. (2018) confirmed the existence of these three related factors in a brazilian sample. barrada et al. (2018) evaluated the psychometric properties of the soi-r in a spanish sample. their results support the tridimensional structure in this population. the portuguese version of the soi-r validated by neto (2016) yielded the three-factor structure. in addition, our findings suggest that the strict invariant three-factor model of the soi-r fit the data fairly well for women and men. this means that, (a) all important parameters of the measurement model were found to be equivalent across gender, (b) the items in the french version of the soi-r were not prone to any gender bias, and (c) gender differences in the means, variances, and covariances of the items are entirely attributable to gender differences in the latent common factors (millsap & cham, 2012). thus, one can conclude that any differences between gender can be interpreted as reflecting actual differences in sociosexual orientation rather than differences arising from measurement bias. thus, as for the spanish version (barrada et al., 2018), scores in the french version of the soi-r are gender-free. concerning the relationships between dispositional optimism, boredom proneness, sociosexuality, gender, sexual orientation, and condom use, our main findings are as follows: first, as expected males reported more unrestricted sociosexuality than females. this finding is in line with those observed in various western and non-western societies (lippa, 2009; nascimento et al., 2018; neto, 2016; schmitt, 2005, 2007; zheng et al., 2014). few theroretical models can help understanding gender differences in sociosexuality: parental investment theory, sexual strategies theory, and social learning theory. according to parental investment theory (trivers, 1972) and sexual strategies theory (buss & schmitt, 1993), men should possess more unrestricted sociosexual orientation than women across human cultures (lippa, 2009; schmitt, 2005; sevi et al., 2018). schmitt (2005) pointed out that gender differences in sociosexuality are culturally universal. indeed, parental investment theory argues that there are, in general, gender differences in parental care, meaning the investment of time, energy, and resources that each parent devotes to the survival of their offspring. females are known to provide a considerably higher investment in their offspring than males. this asymmetry governs sexual selection and mating strategies. thus, since the less invested gender, i.e. males, can abandon parental care to improve reproductive success at a low cost, these individuals will be more disposed to desert their partners for sexual opportunities (mogilski, 2021). that is, as males, in general, are more invested in mating than parenting, they likely endorse more unrestricted sociosexuality than females do (schmitt, 2005). according to social learning theory, women's sexuality is shaped to a greater degree by sociocultural variables such as educational background and religion than is men's (baumeister, 2000). it is now recognized that women's sexuality is more affected by cultural reproduction and social reproduction than that of men (agocha et al., 2014). indeed, the sexual double standard—meaning that adolescent boys are seen to possess an independent, active and irrepressible sex drive, while adolescent girls are believed to be passive receptacles of male sexual interest, having little or no one’s own sexual desire (caron et al., 2020; fjær et al., 2015)—is still tirelessly reproduced culturally in each male-dominated gana & arshakyan 73 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ society. koomson and teye-kwadjo (2021) found that ghanaian men seem to view uncommitted sex as an appropriate sexual behavior, conforming to prevailing masculine sexual norms. consequently, women are more likely to experience negative social, physical, and emotional consequences associated with hooking-up compared to their male counterparts. for instance, results from the prospective study among high school students performed by dubé et al. (2017) showed that one-night stand relationships increased only girls’ psychological distress and both their alcohol and drug use. according to these authors, regret may increase psychological distress. thus, in order to avoid these consequences, young girls seem more reluctant than men to engage in hookups. second, for both males and females, heterosexual participants reported more restricted sociosexuality than non-het­ erosexual participants. this finding is also in line with those observed in the literature (lippa, 2020; semenyna et al., 2018). for instance, waldis et al. (2021) found that homosexual men reported more unrestricted sociosexuality than heterosexual men. the same authors (waldis et al., 2020) found the same result among heterosexual and homosexual women. third, of the two personality traits included in our study, only dispositional optimism, but not boredom proneness, showed a positive significant effect on sociosexual orientation. higher levels of optimism predicted more unrestricted sociosexuality. optimism is a positive psychological resource related to self-esteem, hope, and self-efficacy (carver & scheier, 2014) shaping an individual’s response to challenging situations and negative outcomes, such as failure with online/offline dating. indeed, optimistic individuals view failure as a temporary disappointment that they can resolve. however, our hypothesis that boredom could lead to sensation-seeking by multiplying dating opportunities had not been confirmed. for instance, jonason et al. (2019) found that negative affectivity was positively associated with short-term mating orientation. it is worth noting that the internal consistency reliability of the 8-item self-report measure of boredom (.67) was below the desirable value (greater than .70). although cronbach’s alpha is sensitive to the number of items in the scale (mcneish, 2018), using low reliable scale scores could lead to poor statistical results (hair et al., 2014). thus, further research, using more reliable tools, is needed here to explore the links between negative affectivity and sociosexuality. fourth, unrestricted sociosexual orientation does not seem to be a risk factor for safer sex among our young college students. on the contrary, unrestricted sociosexual orientation predicts condom use and thus may act as a protective factor for risky sexual behaviors. within the socialization process and dynamic of these young college students, unrestricted sociosexual orientation may be an assumed and responsible choice. sexual freedom does not necessarily mean risky sexual behaviors. although this result is gratifying, efforts regarding prevention campaigns against stis must not be slackened. do the initial fear and vigilance dissipate with time and sexual experiences among these young college students? finally, optimism indirectly predicted safer sex. this result may sound contreintuitive. however, one can prudently assume that optimism as a disposition promotes sociosexuality, but higher sociosexual orientation comes along with higher cautiousness. nevertheless, there is a lack of research that has investigated the links between positive affectivity and condom use. the current study is not without limitations. first of all, its cross-sectional design precludes us from making any causal inferences (e.g., maybe from students high in sociosexuality only optimistic people fully participated). also, given the complexity of psychological functioning and the range of potential indicators that could have been used, our path model is certainly incomplete. indeed, condom use attitudes, gender role orientation, masculinity ideology (noar & morokoff, 2002; shearer et al., 2005) could have been integrated into our model. replication and extension of our study would be an interesting approach. funding: the authors have no funding to report. acknowledgments: the authors have no additional (i.e., non-financial) support to report. competing interests: the authors have declared that no competing interests exist. sociosexuality and condom use 74 europe's journal of psychology 2023, vol. 19(1), 67–78 https://doi.org/10.5964/ejop.6793 https://www.psychopen.eu/ references agocha, v. b., asencio, m., & decena, c. u. 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(2014). sociosexuality in mainland china. archives of sexual behavior, 43(3), 621– 629. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-013-0097-x about the authors kamel gana is professor of health psychology at the university of bordeaux (france). he holds two doctorates (ph.d): one in social sciences and the other in psychology. his research interests include psychosomatics, health behavior change, violence in intimates relationships, psychometrics and advanced multivariate methods (e.g. structural equation modeling). diana arshakyan is a clinical health psychologist. she obtained her qualification of psychologist and her master degree in clinical health psychology at the university of bordeaux. she is a lifespan integration practitioner. sociosexuality and condom use 78 psychopen gold is a publishing service by leibniz institute for psychology (zpid), germany. www.leibniz-psychology.org https://doi.org/10.1300/j056v18n02_06 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-017-0111-y https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-018-0170-8 https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000297 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.053 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-2675-4 https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.6.870 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2016.04.009 https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013244 https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2020.1717413 https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2020.1717837 https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/cah_27-condom-use-at-last-intercourse-15-years-old/visualizations/#id=27506&tab=graph https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/cah_27-condom-use-at-last-intercourse-15-years-old/visualizations/#id=27506&tab=graph https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-013-0097-x https://www.leibniz-psychology.org/ https://www.psychopen.eu/ sociosexuality and condom use (introduction) objectives of the study method participants and procedure measures data analyses results analysis of the french version of the soi-r descriptive statistics path analysis discussion (additional information) funding acknowledgments competing interests references about the authors